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2 Roundhouse UpdateCITYOF CHANHASSEN 690 Gry Center Drive PO Box' 147 Ch~hassen, 3~innesota 55317 Phone 952. 93 7.19O0 General [:ax 952. 937. 5739 Engineeri~g Department Fax 952.937.9152 Buildi~g Department b~x 952.934.2524 Site wzcu, ci c]a~:hmse~.m~.us MEMORANDUM TO: Park & Recreation Commission FROM: Todd Hoffman, Park and Recreation Director DATE: October 16, 2001 SUB J: Roundhouse Renovation Update On Monday, October 8, Ms. Deanna Bunkelman attended the City Council meeting to update them on the neighborhood effort to renovate the Roundhouse. The minutes from that discussion are attached for your review. Ms. Bunkelman will be providing a follow-up report to the Council on Tuesday, November 13. Attachment: 10-18-01 City Council Minutes g:\park\th~roundhouseupdate The Gty of Chanhassen. A City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 Receive Commission Minutes: - Planning Commission Minutes dated September 18, 2001 j. Approval of Designating Southern LRT Trail as a Snowmobile Trail. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 3 to 0. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: UPDATE ON ROUNDHOUSE RENOVATION PROJECT, DEANNA BUNKLEMAN. Public Present: Name Address Michael Howe Ed Kling Deanna Bunkelman 2169 Stone Creek Trail 4169 Red Oak Lane 4191 Red Oak Lane Deanna Bunkelman: Hi. Deanna Bunkelman, 4191 Red Oak Lane. Mayor Jansen: Thanks for joining us. Deanna Bunkelman: Thank you. Here to give an update on the round house restoration project. And I have too prepared comments because I have a lot to say so I just want to make sure I say it all. Although I'd rather not talk about this, I feel I need to state it for the record. When I was here in late April my mother-in-law was on the upswing once again with her ongoing 7 year battle with cancer. She had just been released from the hospital after a one month stay, and this time was worst than others. They actually had read her her last words and had started to prepare her for her last days but once again she pulled through. She's been battling it for 7 years so. However, in early May she went downhill again and was put in hospice care until her death in July. Mayor Jansen: We're sorry to hear that. Deanna Bunkelman: Thank you. And then closer to home my 4 year old son was battling an illness that started with whooping cough symptoms to double ear infections, a sinus infection and an awful cough that made us afraid to go to bed at night not knowing if we'd make it through the night. And this lasted for the month of July and August until he was actually diagnosed with serious allergies and asthma that we now have under control. So as you can see I did not have the opportunity to devote a lot of time to the round house this past summer as I had hoped, although it was on my mind a lot. Mayor Jansen: You've had a rough summer. Deanna Bunkelman: Yes. So I just want it for the record to let you guys know. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Deanna Bunkelman: I had definitely intended when I left the meeting in April to devote time to it but unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity. But I do want to let you know what we have done, because City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 we have done some stuff. We've had a rendering drawing done according to the original restoration plans from the architect. And I don't know if other than putting it right here for you to see. This is actually what the round house currently looks like. Mayor Jansen: We actually have our monitors so you would be able to set it down, although the big screen isn't working. Deanna Bunkelman: Can you get it in? Oh, in your monitors. Mayor Jansen: Yes, and it would be broadcast also, though the audience can't see it. Deanna Bunkelman: Okay. This is what the round house looks like today, as I'm sure you're well aware. And everybody can see that? Mayor Jansen: Yes. Deanna Bunkelman: Okay. Mayor Jansen: And you're certainly welcome to pass those around if you'd like for the audience. Deanna Bunkelman: I apologize for getting them more smaller. I thought it would be. Mayor Jansen: No, no, that's okay. Deanna Bunkelman: And can you guys see this one okay? Mayor Jansen: Certainly, yep. Deanna Bunkelman: This is actually according to the plans that were drawn by the architect. This is a rendering drawing that is showing what the round house would look like according to those plans and what we would like to carry forward and have the opportunity to restore it to. If you have any questions about that, by all means you can let me know. Todd Hoffman: Someone in your group prepared these for you? Deanna Bunkelman: Actually someone in our neighborhood does this for a living and so he has done this for us free of charge. Councilman Ayotte: And did it free? Deanna Bunkelman: And did it free of charge. Yes. And actually I have two copies of this, just to kind of give you a feel. There's actually going to be cedar shakes on the roof and so this would show what the cedar shakes would look like at probably after a year or two because as you know cedar shakes, they do change color. This is more what the roof would look like. It has the cedar shakes on and what the original plan was to actually restore the siding to just do a natural finish. It is I think Douglas Fir or Norway Fir so we weren't sure exactly what it would look like. So this is just showing you again exact same building structure, just different color. City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Well it's wonderful someone was able to prepare those for you. Thank you for sharing those. Deanna Bunkelman: Yep. We've started to also make contact with the local universities, technical colleges, contractors, architects and carpenters to check into their volunteer programs and at this point there have been no cost to the city. Everything we've done has been free of charge. I feel that I left the City Council meeting a bit naive last time, but optimistic and I'm hoping to leave this meeting still optimistic but not quite so naive. I feel that Chanhassen should feel blessed that Ben Lane brought this wonderful and interesting piece of... The City has sat on this for the past 6 years but now expects a group of volunteers to turn it around within less than a year. If given ample time and the opportunity we're looking for minimal money from the city in hopes for donations from local businesses and people, but this takes time. Over the summer I had 3 colleagues visit me from the Maple Grove, Plymouth and Buffalo area. They're all similar in age to myself. Without any prompting or discussion about the round house, they all wanted to know the history and background of the building. They were very enthusiastic and curious about the structure, only for me to tell them the little that I know so that's just showing you how people, they come to the area and they're just curious about what the building is all about. Everyone looks at the round house through different eyes. Some see the dollars signs and what it's going to cost to make it presentable. Others just see what they call an eyesore, and others like myself see an opportunity to restore history. I'm very curious about it's origin. What railroad did it serve because it actually was a water tower on a railroad? Was it here in Minnesota, the Midwest? Where actually was it? This thing was put up in the late 1940's here in Chanhassen. At this point we don't know where it originally came from and I think given the opportunity it would be fascinating to find that out. I personally really have no ties to the round house. I've only lived in the Chanhassen area for the last 3 V2 years so I'm not doing this because I've lived in the area and grew up. I'm just doing it because I just find it fascinating and just the history behind it and I think it would just be a big asset for Chanhassen to have. To recap, all we would like is ample time and the opportunity to restore the round house. We see it as an opportunity to not only make the building functional for our city but also as a way to restore history. We would also like an explanation of the perceived urgency we feel in doing so since we do not see any financial burden to the city in it's current state. Thanks for the opportunity to once again address you with this effort. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. Appreciate that. Any questions for Deanna while we have her at the podium council? Councilman Ayotte: With respect to, the only thing that I think is of immediate concern. We had lead based paint. It's chipping. I understand that the internal degradation has been stopped. We got a cover on the roof and so forth so is it true that the only thing that we have a concern about is the continued chipping of lead based paint on the exterior? Mayor Jansen: I think that's probably more a staff question versus. Councilman Ayotte: Whoever. Deanna Bunkelman: I believe so but... Mayor Jansen: Well, you're looking for a technical versus the volunteer aspect. Todd Hoffman: The report we had talked about the lead in paint on the exterior of the building...I believe we talked about the possibility of putting a fence around it to guard against any ingestion. It's a long shot to think that we would have that occurring, but it is a park and a playground so you know in the 4 City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 short term here to put a fence up around it I think would be something that the council should consider. The inside has been dried out. We put a tarp on the top of it and it's really not hurting anything. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Answer to your question councilman? Councilman Ayotte: Not really but I'll deal with staff after the fact. With respect to actually starting to get some activities going, our manager has made some comments. Work plan. Project Schedule. So on and so forth. Can you talk towards that on what's going to happen when and obviously with the winter coming upon us, I suspect you won't see any actual activity on the round house until the spring? Deanna Bunkelman: Yeah, our number one goal at this point, especially over the winter months would be contacting the businesses to get donations. What our goal is to try to do this with minimal dollars from the city. You know whatever donations we can get, we're going to try to get. I know in April I had talked about the park that was built in Excelsior. In the Excelsior Commons area. We do have the contact of the person that actually led that effort. That was completely by donations and volunteer so we're going to try to get that individual on board. We also have names of other individuals that they go out and get a lot of donations so we're hoping that that's what we're going to do over the summer months. So as far as a budget, I don't know if we'd be able to come with a budget by November 12th. We can definitely come with a project plan with deadlines and things that we're going to try to hit as far as the different contacts we're going to make and have a target date for all the different contacts and donations. But again budget wise I'm not sure if we'll have that by November 12t~. Mayor Jansen: So as far as the different items that the city manager listed, do you feel that you could sit down with staff and work through this as far as giving them a better idea, realizing that you lost your summer as far as doing some of this preparation. It's really just the minimal planning, I would say that they're looking for to see what kind of an effort you can actually bring together. Obviously you're going to need a tremendous amount of labor and whether or not you'll be able to mount that effort from out of the neighborhood. Do you feel that at this point you would have the time to be able to dedicate to that to provide that information by the 12th? Deanna Bunkelman: So just come up with a work plan or what are you referring to? Mayor Jansen: Do you have the staff report by any chance? Okay. Deanna Bunkelman: I forgot to bring it up. Mayor Jansen: That's okay. Deanna Bunkelman: Yeah, the work plan with the details of the scope from the start to completion. Part of the work plan I believe we can do. As far as the budget, I'm not sure, or the subcontractor list because again we're trying to contact people to find out how many people we can get as a volunteer. Mayor Jansen: Sure. Do you have a...of the materials that, do you have a feel for the materials that you need yet? Deanna Bunkelman: As far as the materials we need, yes. But as far as whether they're going to be completely donated, no. Mayor Jansen: Okay. City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 Deanna Bunkelman: We do have contacts at some of the window manufacturers and we do plan to try to get donations for the windows. And we do have contacts with some of the local lumber companies. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Deanna Bunkelman: So if anything we could probably contact them and maybe get a rough estimate. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Deanna Bunkelman: The project schedule, we could probably do something with that. The commitment, we can definitely list out a bunch of project team volunteers because we do have quite a few volunteers already. And then the deadline, we can work towards some of this but I can't promise that we'd have it all done because again I don't feel like I could give you a good budget at this point without knowing how many donations we're going to raise and who's going to do what. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Because I think largely the concern is that as you stated in your opening, the project has really been under consideration by the city back and forth for 6 years. And our wanting to just at least bring it to some sort of, if not conclusion, more definite planning so that as you've got your schedule put together and people, and we can see the commitment coming together, then at least we can see that there's some progress that's being made. We hear looking for another year extension and is it feasible? I don't think we're convinced yet that it's feasible and that's what you'll initially be getting your arms around and we had hoped to maybe be able to take a look at by now is whether or not it is. And I'm sure we all understand the difficulties that you had as far as this obviously not being a priority. It couldn't be but we certainly recognize that you care about it enough and you're coming back to it and wanting to put that commitment in. I'm curious, when you were here previously you had a co- coordinator. Do you still have the co-coordinator? Deanna Bunkelman: Yes. He's here tonight. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Okay, great. That's Ed Kling correct? Ed Kling: Yes. Mayor Jansen: Okay, great. So just looking to see that you can actually maybe pull some of this information together I think would be a positive to all of us. At this point we don't have anything to take a look at as far as whether or not the project is feasible to continue to move it forward, let alone give it a year extension. Deanna Bunkelman: Okay. Now what is the, do you have budget planning in November and December that is that why the November 12th date is there? I guess I'm not sure the November 12th date. Mayor Jansen: Mr. Gerhardt. Todd Gerhardt: Picked out of the air. Deanna Bunkelman: Oh, I don't like those air things. City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 Todd Gerhardt: I just wanted to try to get some closure on it before winter came is why I picked the November first. DeannaBunkelman: And why? Todd Gerhardt: Why? I just wanted to make sure that we had some direction on this before winter came. Deanna Bunkelman: But I guess I'm trying to understand why before winter. What's magical about winter? Mayor Jansen: I would venture to say that if anything it' s more in response to the council wanting to have a better feel for whether or not this is feasible. I'm hearing that there's flexibility in that date, but we would like to put some sort of an end date or an expectation date on there for you. Deanna Bunkelman: And exactly, I'm fine with the target date. I just wondered, you know it's a month out and you know depending on what your expectations are, I can give you something by November 12th but I'm not sure it's going to be to the extent of what you want. So we can leave that November 12t~ there and I can give you what I have by that point. It's just that, it might not be quite as extensive as you might be looking for. Especially around the budget. That's the bigger piece. Councilman Ayotte: Well what would be an appropriate date where you would have a rougher manager budget? Deanna Bunkelman: ...going to be interesting because the budget to me, I said the budget is going to be interesting because the whole budget, I suppose we can scope it out and figure out how much it's going to cost but for how much we are expecting the city to pay it really going to be based on the donations that we receive so. Councilman Ayotte: That's fine. If based on your, I personally would like to see, based on the approach that you would like to see, what you believe it would cost and what are the assumptions that you go into the project with. DeannaBunkelman: Okay, that's fair. Councilman Ayotte: If we can see numbers and then from that standpoint if you could put some reference as to what you think is realistically attainable by the community, at least it gives us an idea of what we have to go towards for at least a budgetary. I mean we've got to have something. What would be a date then? Deanna Bunkelman: Okay. If we work this, and I do this at work all the time so I'm assuming that I'm just coming up with a high level estimate. It's somewhat, some of it's going to be pulling out of the air because that's what we do. Then that's fair. Mayor Jansen: But as far as the budget goes, and as far as the city's concerned, we've already designated the dollar amount that the city will contribute to and that total was $40,000 and we've spent 15 so we're at the 25. As far as the budget number, I think more the concern is that you have a handle on exactly what this project is really going to amount to and again coming back to you really need to see if it's feasible. City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 Deanna Bunkelman: Oh exactly. Mayor Jansen: And if anything, what Mr. Gerhardt has outlined here is the same information that we would move forward with on any project and it would help you then in analyzing whether this is the type of project that can actually be achieved in a volunteer effort. Deanna Bunkelman: Right, that's fair. Todd Gerhardt: I guess I was using that this work was supposed to be done this summer so I would have assumed that you had estimates and everything else completed. I mean you should be able to compile this information fairly quickly. And if you haven't, that would give you a good indication if this is a project that you still want to try to tackle. With the constraints that the council's put on your financially, have you looked at seeing can you raise that money in the neighborhood or through donations or through brick sales or whatever or however you're trying to decide how you're going to fund this thing. I mean to think that you're just going to start thinking about that now is really kind of late in the game I would say. Deanna Bunkelman: And we've been thinking about it all along. Todd Gerhardt: Okay. Deanna Bunkelman: That's why we've been contacting the universities and the colleges and just all the resources that are out there as far as the different programs that they have. Mayor Jansen: I think maybe summarizing some of that effort would be helpful for staff to be able to see exactly the progress that you are making. And maybe be able to give some input to that but then as you're pulling together your materials and being able to see if you can get some of that donated, I think is also an important step. Councilman Peterson, did you have any questions or comments for Deanna? Councilman Peterson: No. I think the real issue is already summarized. You have to really look inside yourself and your group, can you raise enough money because we're already formally said we're only going to spend this much money so if you can tell us that chances are we can't raise that money, then it's better for the community to take it down. So I mean that's why part of the reason why we're pushing you a little bit harder because it is better that if there's a 2% chance that you can get the money then we should take it down and move ahead with other alternatives for that site. So again we're optimistic we want to make it happen, but within those parameters. Deanna Bunkelman: Yep. Mayor Jansen: And we don't want to send you away discouraged. We certainly understand that you need time to pull these things together and it will take you time, but I think just maybe being able to come in and share with the city manager, Mr. Gerhardt what progress you have made and what the plans are and again it can be more of a joint effort to see if everybody is on track as to where we're going and what we can accomplish. Deanna Bunkelman: Okay. Mayor Jansen: Any other questions for us? Deanna Bunkelman: I don't think so. Do you have Ed? No. City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councilman Ayotte: Thanks a lot. Councilman Peterson: Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Appreciate that. Is there anyone else, while we're talking about this that would like to make any comments? I would just ask that we maybe hold those to 5 minutes or less. I would certainly be willing to open up the microphone. Okay. Otherwise I'll bring this back to council. Comments and direction on this project. Councilman Peterson: I think the city manager's recommendation is succinct. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Councilman Ayotte? Councilman Ayotte: No other comments Mayor. Mayor Jansen: Okay. I too would support the manager's recommendation on this and just ask that the community volunteers pull together that information. Again Deanna we certainly appreciate the effort that you're putting in and thank you for bringing in those renditions. It's encouraging to see what that building could potentially look like were the project to be able to go ahead as you would like to see this happen, so thank you. With that, Mr. Gerhardt do you need a motion on this or do you have clear direction? Todd Gerhardt: No. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Thank you. So moving on on the agenda. Under public hearings we have vacation of a driveway easement. Conrad Fiskness: Could I make visitor presentation? Mayor Jansen: Oh, I'm sorry. Certainly. Conrad Fiskness: Mayor Jansen, Council members. I'm Conrad Fiskness representing the Riley- Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District here tonight of which I'm president and also the representative for Carver County. Mayor Jansen: Welcome. Conrad Fiskness: Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Sorry I moved ahead so quickly. Conrad Fiskness: You've got work to do. Following up with the discussion I had with Mr. Gerhardt and Ms. Haak at the tour last month I promised him that ! would do what it took to start getting the petition that the city submitted to us for the basic water management project that came out of the Bluff Creek Task Force. And just to recap for I think some of the people here, or probably any of you weren't even around when that all transpired. That corridor study took place in the mid 90's and there was a petition 9 City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 received from the city on June 4th of '97, which at that time the city signed it, requesting us to go ahead and prepare the feasibility study for this project. Turned out to be a fair amount of work. The work that was done for the city in preparation for that task force covered a lot of land use and that type of decision but there was a lot of hydrology work that had to be done for us to be able to address the water resource related issues, and that took some time. So we did not get that submitted until January of 2000 for comment by the city. Now to date there have been no comments received. At the time, and I have to apologize here. I was under the erroneous perception that we couldn't do anything further until the city's comments had been received. I have been since informed that that is not the case. We can move onto the next step which is submitting the feasibility study to the Board of Water and Soil Resources and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for review and comment. We can begin that process then without receiving comments from the city. Now the comments that were received from BWSR as it's called, and MDNR within 30 days after receiving the report, we would then schedule a public hearing for the project and we can do that no sooner than 35 days after the comment period of expired. Then we would give notice of the hearing in official publication district and each property owner that could be affected. At that public hearing a description of the project would be presented. Comments would be received from BWSR and MDNR, or they're made part of the record. The city would make a presentation of their support or non-support of the project and then comments from the public also would be received. At any time the city can withdraw the petition request and withdraw their support of the project. However that's a very big if that comes along with that. If the city should do that, then by virtue of how these basic water management projects work, and the contract that was signed by the city, the city becomes responsible for all costs incurred to date. That cost at this point in time is $194,000. But assuming that the city would continue to support the project, the hearing would be closed and different comments would be allowed for an additional 10 or 15 days. Then typically at a regular meeting with the board would discuss the, consider the information. Discuss the comments submitted and determine if the project is of district wide significance. If so, then the board would authorize the preparation of whatever construction documents that are necessary to get started and we would start moving, obviously we'd do this all in concert with the city. And any costs that have been incurred to date would become part of that basic water management project. The amount of money and the little bit of time had transpired but I'm checking today with our staff. The project in total would be about $2.8 million of which the district's funding capability would cover 1.7. And then the city portion, and this can be spread out over a long period of time. The guidelines for the funding capabilities are anything that's water resource related, 100% of it will be paid out of the levy that we can put through. Anything that's an amenity, for example trails, that type of thing, 50% of it is covered by our capability and then land purchased is 25% is covered. Now the district in the early 90's purchased the piece of land down at the mouth of the Bluff Creek. Right where it comes under that big railroad crossing there, and we're holding that with the idea that that's going to be transferred to the city. That probably should be done soon because, before something, the right person gets the clever idea that they should build a home for wayward and worn out watershed managers on the site. So we want to get that transferred to the city. I think that that's really probably all that you need to know tonight other than we'd like to get the process going. If the city wishes to make comments, we'd encourage you to do that. If you'd like to have us come in and do a work session with the staff, with the council, we have done that once but I think the council is just about 100% new since we did that. So we'd be more than happy to do that to bring everybody up to speed and it's, the opportunity because it is really a pretty good time. We've had 3 or 4 of these basic water management projects thus far. Minnetonka. Eden Prairie's had two. The last one at Eden Prairie was the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area. That's behind the Flagstaff. There's a lot of work to be done but that project has been ordered for a long time. The money has been accumulating and that is basically funded and so we could slide into the next basic water management project and there would be absolutely no impact visible really to the voters at all. And you need to be aware that the levy that we can put on is 10 City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 not just for Chanhassen .... entire watershed district and that's about a 9 billion dollar tax base. So it becomes rather minimal for an individual parcel. Mayor Jansen: Sure. Conrad Fiskness: So if you've got any questions, I'd be happy to answer them but we are putting this on the front burner now to move ahead. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Thank you for bringing it to our attention this evening. Mr. Gerhardt, should we be scheduling maybe a conversation between yourself and the watershed district as far as getting on the same page with the project and comments? Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. I would schedule a meeting with Lori Haak, myself, and our Community Development Director and get this as a part of our capital improvement plan so we can include funding for this year. Mayor Jansen: Okay, and then bring it back to council for a presentation when you feel appropriate. Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, as part of the capital improvement plan you'll see it this year and it's a project that has been on our books for a while and we want to get going on it. ! know the council's talked about it in the past so, and when Conrad mentioned it to me that he thought that he could get it going for this coming year I was really excited to see what we could work together. Conrad Fiskness: We're ready to go. Mayor Jansen: Very good. Thank you. We appreciate that. ConradFiskness: Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Thank you. David Sebold: ls this also for citizen input? Mayor Jansen: Yes. Anyone else who would like to address the council on city business is welcome to approach the podium and state your name and address for the record. If we could maybe just keep it to 5 minutes we would appreciate it. Thank you. David Sebold: Sure. My name's Dave Sebold. I live at 7470 Tulip Court and I have 4 other neighbors here with me. We're from the Windmill Run neighborhood which is across from the Sugarbush Park and a little over a week ago we had a traffic accident that involved a fatality at the crosswalk at Sugarbush and right across from our development. Mayor Jansen: I know you've had numerous communications with the city on this and we certainly appreciate your involvement with us on this. David Sebold: Yeah, Paul actually, we're communicating with him through e-mail and through staff and yourself have been very responsive but we felt it would be good to come here in person and just state that we are a little, we are concerned about that accident. It was right at the crosswalk. It did involve excessive speed probably by the driver. At least we, what it says in the paper about it. And we'd 11 City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 appreciate the city's help in looking at maybe providing some sort of flashing light on the pedestrian walkway. Consider reducing the, having the County reduce the speed on Galpin. It's 50 miles an hour through there. This particular accident was a car coming southbound over some hills and there is kind of a blind spot going that fast at a pedestrian area, where a lot of people don't, I think by state law they're supposed to stop. Very few people do other than neighborhood people stop at that crosswalk. A lot of kids go back and forth to that park and then I'm sure that Galpin probably had some sort of improvement plan over the next few years and would ask that the city look at that improvement as to how it could, we get a lot of through traffic there that maybe shouldn't be there right now and again maybe make it not so attractive for that through traffic to come through Galpin. Reduce speed. Maybe a few curves in it. In addition there is a trail that goes along Galpin that is really, I mean it's a great trail. It's used by a lot of people in the area. That speed, with the shoulders on that road, if a car would get onto that shoulder they would go off into that trail. A lot of potential problems there and again we'd appreciate the city's help in looking at those issues. Thank you. Mayor Jansen: Okay, thank you. Actually we had scheduled to get an administrative update under Administrative Presentations but maybe since we do have residents here and it's been brought up as an issue, if you wouldn't mind maybe going ahead and giving us that update as to the progress that has been made on this. Teresa Burgess: Certainly. I've had conversations with Carver County Deputies and also with Carver County, the County Engineer's office. We have received a copy of the report from the deputies from the accident. We have not received all of the information as it is still partially under investigation. However the estimates of speed are 90 miles or greater. Obviously since the driver did not survive there is no one to confirm that, but judging from the skid marks and information from the neighborhood they are estimating approximately 90 miles per hour. It is a 50 miles per hour speed limit. We put out traffic counters last week after the accident to evaluate what would happen if we were to go to MnDot and request a speed study. Speed limits are set by MnDot. They are not set by the County or the City and what they do is they do a speed study to determine how to set that limit and council members, if you've picked up your mail you'll find in there a brochure. We have those available for the public as well. We are out of the brochure that the council members received but we have another one that has the same information. It's available in the engineering department. It's also available on the internet and if someone is interested, I don't have the web site in front of me but I would be happy to supply that to anyone. You can e-mail me directly or you can call me and I'd be happy to supply that if you'd like to look at it on the internet. We also have them in the office. You can stop in and pick up a paper copy. My e-mail is on the city web page. If you want to go to the city web page, you can click directly to it and ! will send you back that link. The way that MnDot sets those speed limits is they go out and check to see how fast people are actually driving. The philosophy that MnDot uses is that 85% of drivers are driving at a reasonable speed. They know how fast they should go based on not the speed limit but based on the geometrics of the road, what's on the side of the road. So they go out and they do a traffic count and a speed study and look to see how fast 85% of the drivers are going and based on that, that's the speed limit. Now there's a lot of discussion in engineering circles on whether that's a good idea or not, but that is the way MnDot does it right now. We did that traffic study and what we found is that we're having approximately 12% of the drivers above 50 miles per hour so we're right in that 85% percentile are driving 50 miles per hour or less. So that's about what MnDot would set that speed limit at if they were to follow that normal operating procedure. The Carver County Engineer has already requested prior to this accident a speed study of Galpin and several other streets within the county that are controlled by them and the two that are in Chanhassen, Audubon and Galpin, are still waiting to be studied. Obviously with the state workers strike, that has been delayed. However they will be looking at those two streets and evaluating speed limits. Carver County Engineer and I discussed at length how he believes that 12 City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 speed limit should be set and it is not in keeping with the MnDot standard. He would like to also see it lowered. However he cannot force that issue. It is a MnDot determination. He is continuing in discussions and pressuring for a lower speed limit. He will continue with that. Trying to get that speed limit down to what he feels is reasonable. Chanhassen, I have expressed to him Chanhassen support for his efforts and we have already, at this point, done a resolution when he initiating that study stating that support. It was a previous council. However, this council has stood behind those discussions and I've informed him that this council would continue to support the resolution and I would be happy to bring another resolution forward if he wants one. He feels comfortable with the original one. At this point we've also talked about the possibility, what happens if MnDot continues with the $0 miles per hour zone? We have some options. The first one is obviously enforcement. The sheriff's department would continue to ticket speeders and would try to get additional enforcement effort out in that area. We are limited on the amount of enforcement that we have in town so we would have to work with them and make prioritization. The next issue would be if we have enough support to look at it as a potential traffic calming issue. If we want to pursue those type of things. And then finally, Carver County has brought up the issue, this road is designated for future turnback to the city from the county. Then become a city road. We still can't change the speed limit but we can do some different things that make that road calmer for driving. There's some traffic calming measures that Carver County cannot do that we can. We can make it an urban section with curb and gutter that causes people to slow down. We can do some landscaping issues that calm it down. At this time what I've informed Carver County is that until we get Highway 101 addressed we really don't have staff time to be addressing a turnback on Galpin so we might as well let the MnDot speed study run it's course. See what they come back with. Continue to pressure MnDot to lower that speed limit. I do want to caution both council and the public, studies have shown and that MnDot brochure reiterates it, adjusting speed limits does not adjust driver behavior. Drivers, they've taken and increased speed limits as much as 20 miles per hour and lowered them as much as 20 miles per hour, and the maximum they saw for average drivers was a 1.5 mile per hour adjustment in speed. So drivers drive what is comfortable and in their perception appropriate for a roadway. They don't drive necessarily the speed limit. You do have a few people that do just drive because that's what it says. But most of us drive what's appropriate. We drive what feels comfortable and what feels appropriate. So I want to caution people, lust changing the speed limit does not change driver behavior. There's a major re-education process trying to get people to slow down to those proper speeds. Using enforcement. Using information out to the public. But Carver County has already initiated that and we have expressed our support. Mayor Jansen: Okay. I'm going to run into a little bit of a time crunch this evening. We are going to unfortunately lose Councilman Peterson at 8:00, at which point we will have to close the meeting because we will not have a quorum at that time. So I would like for everyone who is here on this issue to be able to maybe get some more information from staff. The meeting one way or the other is going to close at 8:00 and I'm sure if you've got questions for Teresa, those can certainly be posed and I'll make myself available once we close the meeting, and I won't volunteer Councilman Ayotte but I'm sure he would stick around too to have those conversations. So if you don't mind, we do have one public hearing that was actually published. Is there anyone here who is actually here for agenda item number 4 specifically'?. Which is that vacation of the driveway easement. Okay. Is staff going to be okay if that ends up pushed off or do you need that accomplished this evening? Teresa Burgess: I would like to get that accomplished. Even though no one's here to speak on it, we still need to hold the public hearing or else we'll have to re-notice. That's expensive for us to do that. Mayor Jansen: Okay. 13 City Council Meeting - October 8, 2001 Roger Knutson: Mayor? What you can do, if you choose to, is open the public hearing and then continue it to your next meeting. That satisfies the requirement. If you open it and then continue it. Todd Gerhardt: We need 4/5 on this? Roger Knutson: Yeah. Mayor Jansen: Oh, you do need a 4/5 anyway. Okay. Roger Knutson: You can just take your 30 seconds to open it, continue it. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Teresa Burgess: I'm sorry Madam Mayor, I didn't see. Was there anyone here to speak? Mayor Jansen: No. On the vacation of the driveway easement? Audience: No but... Mayor Jansen: If you'll let us take care of this one I would appreciate it. Thank you. Teresa Burgess: If we could hold the public hearing and then table the council motion, then our public hearing is taken care of and we don't have to m-notice the public hearing. Mayor Jansen: Okay. Is that acceptable? Roger Knutson: Sure. You can even hold the public hearing or open it and continue it. Both of them, either way you don't have to re-advertise it. Mayor Jansen: Okay. If everyone will just bear with us so we can take care of this one technicality, I would appreciate it. PUBLIC HEARING: VACATION OF A DRIVEWAY EASEMENT~ 8175 HAZELTINE BOULEVARD, CITY OF CHANHASSEN. Mayor Jansen: If I could, I'm going to open the public hearing on agenda item number 4. Vacation of the driveway easement, 8175 Hazeltine Boulevard. If there's anyone here to address that issue, if you would step forward to the podium, now would be the time. Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing. As far as the council motion on this item, we need a 4/5 vote so if I could have a motion to table please. Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Ayotte seconded to table the vacation of a driveway easement at 8175 Hazeltine Boulevard. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously 3 to 0. Mayor Jansen: The others I think can probably wait. So I apologize for jumping off of the visitor presentations. I believe there was someone else who had something they wanted to discuss under visitor presentations and we're certainly still open for that. But we will be closing the meeting at 8:00. And I apologize for that. 14