CC Minutes 05-28-2013Chanhassen City Council – May 28, 2013
th
May 10. Was recognized right in this room with a bunch of city employees. We had at our banquet the
week before had also recognized Mark so he’s 25 years as a full time fire marshal here in the city which is
also a milestone this year and a 40 year member, and he still gets up at 3:00 a.m. for those midnight or
late night calls so we really appreciate Mark’s service. As you know Dale retired and he was our
Battalion Chief and we replaced Dale with John Murphy who was a Captain. 21 year member and John,
we’re excited to have John in that role. He was recently promoted to that position. We’ve got 4
probationary fire fighters that will finish their one year probation at the beginning of next month on July
thth
8 at the annual Black Hat Ceremony. It’s Monday, July 8 at 7:00 at our main station. All are invited.
Year to date on calls. We’re up about 40% from last year but last year we were really down so we’re
probably a little over the average. Maybe single digit. Low single digit percentage so kind of on pace,
and I think a month ago I was talking about fire danger, with all, it was so dry and I think we caught up
really, really quickly. I wished we’d stop catching up at this point though. I’m ready for summer so,
we’ve got a great recruit class in. Probably the best one we’ve ever had and so we’re excited about
bringing on some new folks too so take any questions if you have any.
Mayor Furlong: Great, any questions for Chief Wolff? No? Thank you again for the service the fire
fighters do and the department does with the American Legion for Memorial Day, we appreciate that.
Chief John Wolff: You bet, thank you.
BLUFF CREEK GARDENS: REQUEST FOR AN AMENDMENT TO INTERIM USE PERMIT
96-2 TO ALLOW FOR A LOT LINE ADJUSTMENT PER SECTION 20-233(C) OF THE
CHANHASSEN CITY CODE ON PROPERTY ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE (A-2);
LOCATED AT 850 FLYING CLOUD DRIVE; APPLICANT: SKIP COOK.
Mayor Furlong: Let’s start with a staff report please.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. This item appeared before the
st
Planning Commission on May 21 and they did recommend approval of the request. Again the applicant
is requesting an Interim Use, amendment to the Interim Use Permit to allow for a lot line adjustment.
Typically a lot line amendment, when it’s not a subdivision can be done administratively but we altered or
made amendments to the City Code a few years ago when we found it was problematic when we had a
conditional use and someone was allowed to alter their lines and it may impact the standards of that
conditional use or the interim use so for that reason, for the lot line adjustment to go forward we need to
amend the Interim Use so it remains consistent with the parcel. So the subject site is at the bottom of the
Y. Flying Cloud Drive, County Road 61 and 101. There’s a garden center there currently and the
property owner also owns the house behind in this area here. So the entire parcel is 10 acres. The
resulting parcel with this split would then be 8.3 acres and I’ll go through that in just a minute here. Just
wanted again to kind of frame up where this property is. This property is all agricultural right now so
again we do provide conditional uses and interim uses in this area where we have no municipal services to
allow some reasonable use of the property. For example across the street we had the driving range and in
this particular instance we do allow the agricultural landscaping businesses on the conditional use. In
looking at the future of this area, the property again is in the black circle there is guided for office park
and office also to, along County Road 61 as we look at the new river crossing, the upgraded 61. We also
have office then to the east of 101 and then further to the west along the city limits it would be high
density residential. As you know with the County upgrade the City Engineer and myself are also looking
at kind of how, and the Planning Commission and also the Council, how these properties would be
developed in the future and providing additional access so in reviewing this application we wanted to
make sure that we weren’t jeopardizing any of those future access points to allow for development. I just
want to point out too that we did put a stall on their potential commercial. We didn’t specifically a site
but we’d evaluate that in the future as we move forward as we talk about maybe some support
6
Chanhassen City Council – May 28, 2013
commercial somewhere down in that area depending upon how it all aligns up. I think this is kind of
serendipity. It looks like it’s right where the round about may be. So this is how the property currently is
being used and the Interim Use there were specific identifying how this property would be used so Area 4
is actually the area that’s going to be split and joined from the Interim Use Permit. So they identified
Areas 1 and 2 again with the Interim Use, how they’d be used. 3 would just be for the storage and then 4
would be kind of the, was really to be added to planting. To provide screening to that house to the north.
So this is approximately where that lot line would go. Kind of creating that new lot so the interim use
then would just be the rest of the 8.3 acre parcel. Again this could have gone forward without any
approvals but for the fact of the Interim Use so this property now is not part of that landscaping business
so it changes that from the 10 acre parcel then to the 8.3. So with that the Planning Commission did
recommend approval. We did have some conditions of approval. There are 3 on there but we are
supporting this, as did the Planning Commission so we’re recommending that you approve it and I’d be
happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, is there any comments or thoughts
from council members? Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: No, I have none.
Mayor Furlong: Oh I’m looking at Mr. Laufenburger hitting his button and I said your name. I
apologize. Mr. Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: See how much sway you have on this council Mr. McDonald. It seems very
appropriate. I congratulate the staff for doing the work to make this happen. I have no questions and I
would support it.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other thoughts? Obviously there are, as Ms. Aanenson mentioned, the
work that the County and MnDOT are doing with the upgrade of the river crossing and County Road 61
goes right by this property so it’s nice that we, while this is coming forward now, obviously to my
knowledge it doesn’t effect any of the street improvement projects or any of the design work that’s taken
place there.
Kate Aanenson: No, and we want to make sure that both parcels had continued access so we don’t have
to buy somebody out for taking an access point and typically we don’t like, while it’s agricultural, one is a
conditional use. The home to the back, although it looks like there’s some quasi type of uses on there so
ultimately when we come down with urban services we’d certainly see this area being developed.
Mayor Furlong: Redeveloped.
Kate Aanenson: To a higher and better use.
Mayor Furlong: Yep, understand. Okay. If there are no other comments, would somebody like to make
a motion?
Councilwoman Ernst: Sure I’ll move.
Mayor Furlong: Could you bring the motion back up on the screen?
Kate Aanenson: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Ernst.
7
Chanhassen City Council – May 28, 2013
Councilwoman Ernst: I make a motion that City Council approve amendment to the Interim Use Permit
subject to the existing restated and amended Interim Use Permit with conditions and adoption of the
attached Findings of Fact.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Laufenburger: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion’s been made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none we’ll
proceed with the vote.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Laufenburger seconded that the City Council approve
the amendment to Interim Use Permit 96-2 to allow for a lot line adjustment subject to the
amended and restated Interim Use Permit and adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and
conditions:
1. The area of the new lot lines shall have the through driveway blocked from direct access to the
garden center to prohibit continued access to the garden center from this driveway.
2. Any stored landscape material or plants must be relocated from Area 4 to the Areas 1-3.
3. Permits must be obtained for the construction of, alteration of, or occupancy use changes to any
buildings on the site.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
Mayor Furlong: I’d like to start, oh I’m sorry. Councilwoman Ernst, do you have something?
Councilwoman Ernst: No, I was just going to talk about Memorial Day and the event that we had.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you.
Councilwoman Ernst: You know every year I go to this event. I keep thinking it can’t get any better but
this year it was just phenomenal and I applaud Todd Hoffman and his team and the Legion and everyone
that was involved because it was just a phenomenal event.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any other council presentations? It was a good event. Well attended. We
went through about 2 or 3 seasons during the event with the weather but it was well attended. It was great
to, as Chief Wolff said, great to see many of the veterans who have been in these events for a long, long
time but they’re still there and they’re still participating and it’s good to see so.
Councilwoman Ernst: And weather even held out.
Mayor Furlong: The weather held out. I think we had the best hour and a half of the day yesterday from
about 1l:30 to 1:00 so it worked out great.
Todd Gerhardt: The mayor was in charge of weather on Memorial Day and I was in charge of it on Arbor
Day.
8