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PC 2004 10 05 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 5, 2004 Chairman Sacchet called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Dan Keefe, Bethany Tjornhom, Kurt Papke, Steve Lillehaug, and Uli Sacchet. Rich Slagle arrived during item 3. MEMBERS ABSENT: Craig Claybaugh STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Matt Saam, Paul Oehme, and Justin Miller 2005 MUSA AREA UPDATE ON FEASIBILITY STUDY, CITY ENGINEER. Oehme: Thank you commission members. We thought we’d give a brief update on where we’re at with the MUSA, currently called the lower bluffs neighborhood. Now we had a public hearing with the council, 3 weeks ago now, and obtained input from property owners again and residents in general about the report. The report itself was based upon property owners input and engineering standards, ordinances and all the city standards that we have here in the city of Chanhassen so I can just briefly go through some of the infrastructure and some of the design criteria that we have come up with. And again these are preliminary in nature. We are still working with the property owners on a weekly basis to try to fine tune this design and eventual implementation of the infrastructure and the projects that will eventually take place so. The lower bluffs neighborhood is basically bordered by, south of Lyman Boulevard, east of Audubon, Audubon Road, and then west of the new Powers Boulevard that will be constructed in conjunction with the new 212 and then north of Pioneer Trail. The main, some of the main infrastructure improvements in terms of the roadway is the proposed east/west collector roadway that was identified in the AUAR document that was completed last year and earlier this year. Some of the major other improvements are improvements to Audubon and Lyman Boulevard intersections. New turn lanes there and intersection of Audubon, Butternut and the new east/west collector roadway. Looking at new turn lanes there and eventually a new signal. In conjunction with 212 too, we identified signals at east/west collector roadway, Powers Boulevard. With turn lanes there. New turn lane at Pioneer Trail and south collector roadway as well. This is a cross section of the east/west collector roadway. The roadway itself is 2 lane divided with a 16 foot median proposed at this time. 40 foot wide, 40 foot wide roadway section. About 90 foot of right-of-way. Two bituminous trail sections on each side of the roadway and then a landscape median in the center. The cross section below shows an area identified where a turn lane would be constructed. This is a drawing showing our proposed storm water ponding areas in the AUAR, in the lowland Bluff Creek area. In conjunction with the 212 project we’re trying to do as much regional ponding in the area as we can, and we’ve been trying to coordinate that effort with MnDot. The darker blue areas show the existing proposed storm water treatment pond in the MnDot right-of-way currently and the hatched areas, Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 those three locations are the proposed expansion of the MnDot ponds to facilitate the regional ponding in the area. We’re still working with MnDot on those issues and hope to have some answers here soon. If we can construct those ponds to the size that we like. Alright this drawing shows the proposed watermain improvements in the area. Again, the Lyman Boulevard would need to facilitate trunk water main. We’re looking at water main along Lyman. Audubon Avenue. Bringing water main along Powers Boulevard, Pioneer Trail in conjunction with the 212 project again and then water main along the east/west collector roadway to facilitate looping and distribution mains in the area. That’s, those are the trunk facilities obviously in conjunction with the developments there’s going to be additional probably 8 inch water mains that will be brought in to service all that area. The sewer extensions are proposed basically off of Lyman Boulevard. There’s an existing lift station. They’re sized properly to handle the flow and the sewer system in this area, so the two, basically two new trunk mains that are proposed. One on the east side of the creek and one more on the west side of the Bluff Creek. The sewer pipe that runs north along Lyman Boulevard, that’s just conceptual at this time as well to obviously, these sewer mains and extensions will be put in conjunction with the proposed developments as they are needed. We’re not going to be putting in sewer mains, it’s set for 10 years until development happens here. It’s going to be on an as needed basis so, that’s kind of a brief overview of the infrastructure that’s identified in the feasibility study and again we’re still working with the property owners. We have another meeting set up for this week to see what is new out there. Try to identify the capacity that’s needed. The distribution system that’s going to be required for this area so. At this time I guess I stand for questions, if anybody has any. Sacchet: Questions? Steve, go ahead. Lillehaug: I have a couple. One with sewer extensions. The Planning Commission had an open discussion with one of the land developers and they are somewhat at the extreme southwest corner of the whole area for the most part. Are we, what is the feasibility of providing them a sewer extension and then jumping all of the other parcels that, I don’t know if the city has or not but developers in line for, or you know what’s the feasibility of jumping all that empty space just to serve the one parcel at the southwest corner. Oehme: Right, and that’s something that’s been, we’ve been working with in conjunction with the property owners out here. You know we went into this process saying that the city’s not going to be pushing for these utilities. We’ve always tried to identify this as a development driven area, so you know if the sewer extension is put in, we’re going to try to work with the property owners to, that aren’t building to try to identify those corridors as best as we can to put those trunk mains in. The trunk facilities again are benefiting not just the development, or the property owners that sewer’s going through. It benefits basically the whole area that potentially would be serviced by that area. By that sewer extension so it’s not going to be just driven by the cost, of the cost of the sewer extension is not going to be driven by that one particular property owner. It would be the whole benefiting property owners in this area so we’re just, what we’re looking for is more or less buy in from the property owners. We know that there are several property owners out here that are ready to go. Some are kind of not there yet but 2 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 we’re trying to work with them as best as we can to try to come up with a workable solution that everybody can live with. Lillehaug: So is it your opinion that the owners that aren’t ready to develop, will be assessed the sewer extension when it’s put in? For all of the bordering properties out there? Oehme: That’s our intent, yeah. Lillehaug: Okay. One other question, and this would be with the main east/west road. Does the city know what they’re going to classify that road as yet? Oehme: Well it will be a collector roadway. Lillehaug: It will be a collector. Oehme: Yeah. Lillehaug: What is your opinion on, with that southwest, that development from Town and Country Homes that they are proposing, having that collector go right through the middle of their development. And maybe that’s not an engineering question. Maybe planning wants to comment on that also. Aanenson: We have collectors that divide throughout the city. I think the challenge that we always have is try to connect neighborhoods, whether it’s Highway 5 that segments the community or Powers Boulevard. I think that’s always a challenge and I think even on 101, the new gap project, we’re looking at the underpass so we’re trying to make those connections where we can to connect neighborhoods. Again the touch down point at Audubon was fixed by the County so unfortunately it did segment that so we’re working with I believe, you know Town and Country’s aware of that too to try to make that connection and we’re looking at that. It was pointed out to engineering to try to think of some ways that we could connect that. Lillehaug: That’s all the questions I have, thanks. Sacchet: Okay. Any other questions? One question, just to be clear at what stage we’re exactly in with this project. Are we pretty specific now with the alignment of that roadway? Of the utilities or is it just more conceptual that somewhere and it’s still shifting around? I mean where are we with that? Oehme: Yes. Well, as Kate alluded to, some of the touch down points are fixed already. We know that along Butternut, or along Audubon… Sacchet: The access points are… 3 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Oehme: …Powers Boulevard, we’ve got a connection point there. And we’re identified the crossing. Sacchet: How about internally? Oehme: Internally we’re flexible in terms of where that alignment can go. Sacchet: So that’s still somewhat fluid. Oehme: Yeah. I mean what we based our information off was our 4 foot contours. You know our GIS wetland inventory and tree lines and things like that so we haven’t physically gone out and surveyed the property yet so, or the developers haven’t so we’re still, we still need a work… Sacchet: So it’s still conceptual in that sense? Oehme: …at the feasibility level it’s always conceptual. Sacchet: Okay. Alright. Aanenson: Can I just add one more thing to that too? I think that’s part of the reason why Paul and I are trying to meet with some of the property owners. It’s kind of a chicken or an egg thing. We want some of the development to meet with us so we can work through some of the design of the road and the tweaking, as Paul indicated. There’s some room for movement and I believe what you said probably a few months of design drawing to get the final curvature, geometrics of the road, but we also want to work with the property owners to work, just as you indicated, where those, you know where we can have some room for movement to make the design, or reduce cuts and fills on the slopes so we want to see some preliminary plans. We’re trying to all work together so everything kind of ties in. So we are meeting with the property owners trying to see, and we just walked the Fox property today with them, so there are development proposals being put together on that so we’re hoping that we can get some of this to all gel to make a good. Sacchet: So now is the time where it’s actually going from the feasibility into something more firmed up? Oehme: Right. Yeah, the council hasn’t authorized putting plans and specs together yet because we, none of the developers, property owners have really petitioned us to take that next step yet so. What it’s based upon. Sacchet: It’s getting there. Oehme: Yeah, we’re getting there. Sacchet: Alright, thank you. Appreciate. 4 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Lillehaug: I have one other quick question. Sacchet: Yeah, go ahead Steve. Lillehaug: Is the City comfortable with that touch down point at Butternut there? I mean as planning and engineering, are we, are you guys pleased with where that is because I mean even though the County’s telling us that’s where they want it, I mean are we, is that where we want it? Oehme: Yeah, the AUAR and the traffic analysis that went along with that, we need that east/west connection point to facilitate development in this area. We feel on the, it’s really limited in terms of where we can put that along Audubon and the grades are restricting us, the connection points to roadways. We always want to try to make T intersections instead of off sets so. So those are the things that are really hampering us in terms of where we can locate that connection. Sacchet: Alright, thank you very much. Very, appreciate to get an update on that. It’s a big project for the city. With that let’s move to our first public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING: SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN 8,068 SQUARE FOOT BUILDING ON PROPERTY ZONED CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT WITH AN AREA OF 1.24 ACRES LOCATED AT THE SOUTHEAST TH INTERSECTION OF WEST 78 STREET AND GREAT PLAINS BOULEVARD, THE GODDARD SCHOOL, FRED RIESE. Public Present: Name Address John Bertelsen 201 West Travelers Trail, BV Joel Hussong 2428 Minneapolis Andy Martin 1016 W. Ninth Avenue, King of Prussia Brandy Geiger 1016 W. Ninth Avenue, King of Prussia Fred & Valaire Riese 9154 Sunnyvale Drive Chris Thompson Remax Action West Rick & Kathie Engelhardt 403 Santa Fe Trail th Judy Schmieg 200 West 77Street th Joanne Meuwissen 201 West 77 Street Fred Prinz 408 Santa Fe Circle Dick Mingo 7601 Great Plains Boulevard th Jack Atkins 220 West 78 Street Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report and Kate Aanenson clarified the role of the Planning Commission in reviewing this item. 5 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Sacchet: Questions of staff. Kurt, go ahead. Papke: Throughout the proposal here in the report, this is referred to as a school. If everywhere in the report we replace school with daycare center, would that change any planning and zoning regulations, city code, treatment of any way, shape or form? Al-Jaff: In fact what we did for instance for school standards and parking, there isn’t as much parking spaces required if you use that standard. What we did is we used for instance daycare standards for the parking which is substantially higher. So we tried to be more restrictive with our requirements of the applicant. Papke: Okay. The only other question I had was, you mentioned from a traffic perspective this compliments the use of the church parking lot and so on and that makes great sense. The only concern I have from a traffic perspective is the Dinner Theater is right across the street and during the week you do have some matinee performances I believe. Aanenson: Wednesday’s. Papke: Wednesday’s. At what time? Do people start streaming in? Al-Jaff: Do you know Justin? Aanenson: I believe it’s afternoon. Miller: Late morning. Sacchet: Late morning. Papke: Late morning so there shouldn’t be any interference because that was my only concern when I looked at this where the entrance was. You know the people that come in and look for where to park in the Dinner Theater. They’re not always paying attention and that would be my only concern from a traffic perspective would the traffic going in and out at the appropriate pick-up and drop off. Obviously the drop off times in the morning is going to be a non-issue, but at the pick-up time is there going to be any traffic conflict with the Dinner Theater? Al-Jaff: We’ll be more than happy to double check on that tomorrow. The one thing that we did do today for instance was to go out to the site during rush hour. See whether we can get in and out of the parking lot easily and that wasn’t an issue at all. But we’ll be more than happy to check that tomorrow. Sacchet: Okay. Bethany, go ahead. Tjornhom: I have a couple questions Sharmeen. There’s a school located across the street from this school. 6 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Al-Jaff: Correct. Tjornhom: Now what are the hours of dropping off kids for this, the new school? Do you know? Al-Jaff: That’s something that the applicant can answer. Sacchet: The applicant will be able to address it. Okay. Tjornhom: Okay, because my only concern is that you know you’ve got one school dropping kids off in the morning and then the other school across the street dropping kids off and everyone trying to merge into the same traffic area together, so you know I’d assume they’d both have kind of the same hours of the day, morning and you know mid- afternoon for that. Maybe not. Aanenson: I’m just assuming, Chapel Hills starts a little after 8:00. Most people have to be work by 8:00 so I’m assuming that the daycare would probably be loaded by the time. Tjornhom: Before then. Aanenson: That’s just my. Tjornhom: So then this is a school like, not a daycare but for younger ages? Aanenson: Well yeah, but you’re going to take them to school on your way to work more than likely, yeah. Tjornhom: So then okay, that was my question was what are the real ages of the kids? Aanenson: They can address it more specifically. Tjornhom: Is it more like a preschool or is it? Sacchet: It’s babies up to 6 years old, that’s clearly what I read. Papke: The drawings show the ages of the different groups. Sacchet: It’s 2 or 4 months starting. I mean really little. Tjornhom: Little, okay. And then where is the location of the playground equipment? Sacchet: Both sides. Tjornhom: Both sides? 7 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Al-Jaff: Both sides of the building. Jack Atkins: On both sides? Tjornhom: Okay. And that’s it for now I think. Sacchet: Thanks Bethany. Dan, any questions? Keefe: Just a quick question. Can you speak at all to kind of the safety and security for that particular location? Just given there’s a high volume of traffic which goes along th West 78 and I drive it you know morning and afternoon and I know there’s a lot of traffic and there’s a fence and I saw they got playground equipment on both sides. Any consideration in terms of you know security or safety concerns? Particularly in light of the. Al-Jaff: Not really. One of the things that we thought of was, before Chapel Hills, St. Hubert’s used to be there and to my knowledge there’s never been an issue with, from a safety standpoint with the school. Sacchet: Yeah, we’ll get to the hearing in a minute. Anything else Dan? Keefe: Well, just in terms of where it’s mostly a drop off I’m assuming and no bus service and. Aanenson: No, it’s not like across the street where they’d be walking or something like that. Keefe: Yeah right so it’s drop off at the door. Okay. That’s it. Sacchet: Steve, any questions? Lillehaug: Just a couple. Looking at the compliance table on page 8, and the building setbacks, it looks like only 12 foot…12 feet is pretty close. Does engineering or planning have any concerns with the building being that close to the property line? Al-Jaff: Not really, no. And it is. Lillehaug: Is that standard along? Al-Jaff: 5 feet from. Aanenson: If you look at Medical Arts is probably pretty close to. Lillehaug: Look at what? Aanenson: Medical Arts, which is just across the street. 8 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Lillehaug: To the north. Sacchet: The north side, yeah. Lillehaug: So it kind of matches what goes through that corridor? Al-Jaff: Axel’s is right up to the property also. Lillehaug: Is it that close? Al-Jaff: Yeah. Lillehaug: Okay. Looking at the model here, it looks like there’s adequate landscaping but in the landscaping table, how can we be off so much on the required and the proposed? Does the proposed not take into account the fact, or the existing landscaping out there? Is that why the table is kind of skewed? Al-Jaff: Yeah. Lillehaug: So if you were to put. Al-Jaff: The majority of the landscaping is actually existing and what we’re trying to do is maintain the existing landscaping. That has been a goal for our City Forester in this case, and if you look at the conditions of approval, the penalties are for trees. Existing trees lost. Lillehaug: So are you saying if you added the proposed trees up and the existing trees which we don’t have a count on, that it would be pretty close to what’s required for that site? That’s all I have, thanks. Sacchet: Thanks Steve. Do you have another question Bethany? Tjornhom: I have one more question Sharmeen, and I think that the school is a good mix or it is a good blend for that area of town. What happens if the school leaves and the building is there one day? Al-Jaff: They will be able to address this issue as well. Tjornhom: Okay. Because it is a historical part of town. Al-Jaff: Correct. And that is true with any development that comes to town. What happens if they left. We always make sure that from a parking standpoint they have to meet requirements. The use has to be permitted within that zoning district. So there are a number of things that we still have to address and make sure that they meet ordinance requirement. 9 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Tjornhom: So they couldn’t turn into like a fast food place in 10 years? Aanenson: Well again, it would have to meet the performance standards. So they’d have to modify the building which would require coming back. And then, as Sharmeen indicated, they would have to meet the parking standards. So there is some trigger points that will, and based on that square footage of building, I doubt that that would happen, yeah. Miller: Justin Miller, Assistant to the City Manager. As one of the requirements in the purchase agreement, we did put additional restrictions on the property that run with the property and those restrictions are no automotive uses, no fast food, no convenience, so even if this property does sell there’s limits on what it can be. Tjornhom: Okay. Sacchet: Thanks for clarify that Justin. I have two questions still too. My main question is that the retaining wall, and it’s probably more an engineering type of question. First when I looked at the plans, I was trying to figure out is this retaining wall up or down, and I finally realized that it’s down, so you basically have the road level, and it goes down quite significantly, like about 4 feet or so. So there’s quite a drop. We have that fence, that wrought iron fence with the nice brick pillars but then it goes down 4 feet and there’s a retaining wall. And then it’s basically level with the parking area, for more or less right? And I wonder, on one hand it seemed a little abrupt. A little much to me. It’s just kind of make it flat and then have a retaining wall. Are there reasons from engineering viewpoint why it couldn’t be maybe terraced or why it has to be like that? Are there concerns like, one of the commissioners already brought up the concern about safety. I mean is there a safety concern? I mean if a car bumps into that fence, goes through the fence, bumps right down? Stuff like that. Has that been looked at? Saam: Sure, yeah. But I spoke with the applicant’s engineer prior to the meeting and I think they’re going to address a little bit on this. Sacchet: Okay, so we’ll hear from the applicant. Saam: Yeah. Basically the building elevation was set to standards such as there’s accessible, there’s slope standards for accessible, what people used to call handicap routes. You can’t go over a certain slope for wheelchairs that expects accessibility. They’re keeping a lot of the existing parking so that elevation’s kind of set. Then you th have West 78 Street and that sidewalk so that elevation’s set so maybe the applicant’s engineer can talk to this a little better than me but basically with those two, the bottom, the top being set and then the maximum slope requirements, that sets your building elevation. So, and again maybe the applicant will add to that but that’s. Sacchet: Can you just clarify the height of the retaining wall on the north side where it’s probably the highest? It’s about what? 10 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Saam: Yeah, it is. 4 1/2 , I see 4 ½ at the highest point. If I’m reading it right. Yeah, 4 ½ appears to be the highest so. Sacchet: 4 1/2 , and that kind of leads to my second question where we have this building that’s kind of recessed 4 feet roughly into the ground and so that takes away from the height of the floor, for this is one story building. Then we have, it seems, what seems to me a pretty massive roof structure on top of it. Now Sharmeen, you mentioned that you already worked with the applicant to try to reduce that as much as possible. Al-Jaff: What we did was, they changed the angle of the roof system. Sacchet: Okay. Al-Jaff: And that resulted in 4.3 feet less than what they initially put, so the roof that you see today is essentially lower than where we started. Sacchet: So from staff’s perspective that is a balance thing, because my concern is since the building’s kind of recessed down, which makes it first look smaller, it’s going to make that roof structure even appear more massive. And it seemed like there was really a massive amount of space in that roof structure, which is really just decorative the way I understand it. I don’t think it’s being used. Al-Jaff: They will be able to address this issue in more detail but it is intended to house their roof top equipment basically and hide it from views. They have introduced 4 dormers, different sizes to just break up the, rather than looking at one large roof. But they will be able to address that. Sacchet: That’s probably what we’ll hear from the applicant on that part, okay. Alright, I think that’s all the questions. With that I’d like to invite the applicant to come forward and tell us your story please. See what you can add to what staff presented and if you would please state your name and address for the record. Fred Riese: Absolutely. My name is Fred Riese and my wife’s name is Valaire Riese. We live at 9154 Sunnyvale Drive here in Chanhassen and it’s been a pleasure working with the city staff on this project. There’s been a lot of cooperation and it’s been our goal from the beginning to work with maintaining the historic site for those working now in the architecture of the school. And we are very proud to actually bring the Goddard School to Chanhassen because we know it’s going to give parents an alternative to a regular child care facility for bringing their children to a preschool type business. My staff here is John Bertelsen from John Oliver and Associates. And also Joel Hussong from John Oliver and Associates as civil engineers. Brandy Geiger from Goddard Systems, and Andy Martin from Goddard Systems and they are here to help me in answering any of your questions. So please feel free to do so. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Questions from the applicant. 11 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Keefe: Yeah, I’m interested just to hear a little bit more about the Goddard School and what it is and if you could just describe the business a little bit in terms of what it is. Sacchet: How you distinguish yourself from other schools. Papke: As you speak to that, it sounds like this a franchise of some sort. Fred Riese: That is correct. Yeah, we are. Papke: That’s where, you know how many others there are and how does this compare with the others, etc, etc. Fred Riese: Sure. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to ask Brandy Geiger from Goddard Systems to step up and she’ll be able to fill you in on all those details. Brandy Geiger: Good evening. First let’s start off by yes, Goddard School is a franchise business. They are not corporately run schools. They are owned and operated by local residents. Fred and Valaire Riese are purchasing a license to operate our program and they will be on site and operating it. They will be under our auspices and we will be helping them develop curriculum and that sort of thing. We have a 170 schools open right now in 23 states. This will be the first one in the State of Minnesota so we’re real excited not only for it to be the first one but to be in this community because of the support we’ve gotten from the city has been incredible. A little bit about what the Goddard School is and how it’s a little different, or very different from a lot of the other centers that you look at. If daycare or child care centers. This is a preschool. What we do offer full educational curriculums to infants up through 6 years of age. It is 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. We really see ourselves more as the home away from home for our children because of the interaction with the staff and the children. It’s very low ratios of staff to the children in the classrooms. There’s a lot of interaction with the parents with the on site owners because they’re probably there with their neighbors, co-workers and that sort of thing. We pride ourselves in our quality assurance. In our health and safety and our commitment to making sure that the school is the highest quality it can possibly be and that’s evidenced by the interest that we have in people from across the country who want to invest in this and want to open schools, either in states that are already established, or in newer states like this. Like Minnesota. We just recently, you know we’re just about to move into Arizona and that sort of thing. We’re really spreading out over the country. We have been ranked over the last 3 years by Entrepreneur Magazine as a solid business for the entrepreneurial type people that the Riese’s are, so we’re very proud of that and we are leaders in our industry in just about every aspect of what we do from playgrounds all the way up to curriculum. You mentioned a couple things about our hours, which I just addressed, 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.. Little bit about drop off and pick up and how the traffic flows within our parking lot, if you’d like me to address that, I can do that. We do have a staggered drop off between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. in the morning. We do that because we don’t want to have the problem that a lot of schools run into where they have a drop off time where you 12 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 have you know the cars cueing in all morning and standing there and blocking traffic. Everybody has different times that they need to get to work in the morning so the staff will work with the parents to organize a drop off that’s as streamline as possible. We do the same thing in the afternoon. Our pick up is between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. I do want to add that a lot of our students are part time. It means that they either come half days or they only come 2 or 3 days a week. In that case about 30 percent of our student population leaves midday every day. So the amount of traffic that you have in the morning or the parents are coming in and dropping off, they will be coming back 30 percent of them come back in the afternoon and then you have less in the evening that they are coming to pick up. I also want to mention that we do have a drop off procedure that they do pull into the parking lot. They park. They stop their car. They take the child into the building. And we do that for the safety of the children obviously, and it’s also an easy transition between the child and the staff member that they’re getting turned over to. I think you mentioned, I think it was, I think maybe I did cover the primary things. If there’s anything else that I can answer please. Papke: From an architectural perspective, how does this particular unit compare? Is there a look to all the Goddard Schools that this one adheres to or are all these unique? Brandy Geiger: We have, we’ve been around for 15 years so we have a lot of schools and Andy can come up and speak to that. He’s one of our construction managers. We have a lot of schools that have very different styles. Over the last couple of years we’re trying to really focus in on having that high quality look to the schools to reflect what’s going on inside the school. This is close to what our prototype is currently, but we have adjusted it quite a bit to fit in with the site, with the desires of the city and with the needs. Based on what this State of Minnesota tells us that we have to have within the building. And anything else you’d like to add to that. Andy Martin: Good evening. My name is Andy Martin. I also represent the Goddard School. To give you a little history on the layout to start before I get into the architectural aspects of the building. In fact, do we have the layout? First I’d like to point out that our standard building of course, 8,000 square feet in size. Measures 80 by 100 foot. Due to the site constraints with this, I’m going to call it a pie shaped parcel, and with what was existing parking there, obviously we chose to plot the building at the northern portion of the lot. We discussed with the tenant and we looked at it from two angles as far as how to place the building. Generally our entrance is from the 80 foot side of the building, and we did inquire with the State of Minnesota to see if it was feasible to modify our floorplan to accommodate an entrance off of the 100 foot side. But in this location it did make more sense, it gave us a wider playground to the east and west side of the building, which was much more appealing for the operation of the center. Then, once we have, we’re set in working with the city here and the plotting of the building, we moved onto the roof and the architectural aspects of the building. Generally our building has a 6:12 pitch. Unfortunately that didn’t sit so well with the church as the back drop so we were able to redesign the roof structure as minimum as we could, because currently we do have all our mechanical equipment in the mezzanine of this building. This one story building. All the furnace units, everything is located in that area. So though it’s 13 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 usable space and the large mass of the roof structure, it is used for the mechanical equipment. So I believe we did our best to make the roof line work within these characteristics of the surrounding buildings in this area. Second, I know Fred Riese did of course do research with some local vendors on the brick color and what not trying to accommodate a suitable shade of brick to work within the church. The characteristics and colors of the church. I’d like to touch base on the safety concerns as well, if that was satisfactory to you. I know, I believe we are 12 foot from the right-of-way with the setback of the building. And unfortunately, well I’ll let the engineer, John Bertelsen, or Joel discuss the grading and the reason we recessed the building for the accessibility th reasons but as far as for the location and such close proximity to 78 Street and of course Great Plains Boulevard, we still feel very confident that with the local speed limits on these two roads being 35 miles per hour, we are within adequate distance from that in the event something were to happen there. We do, we did beef up the fence with the brick columns inbetween the spans of the wrought iron type fence. Sacchet: Alright, questions? Keefe: Well I still have just a business question. Who do you guys compare yourselves to in the market locally in Minnesota? I mean what sort of, who’s kind of a comparable operation? Yeah because obviously you fit in somewhere. Where do you… Brandy Geiger: As far as part of the industry and who? Keefe: Yeah. Brandy Geiger: Our chief, if you want to call it a competitor I guess the one program that’s probably the closest to our’s, I actually think, I don’t even think they’re in Minnesota yet either. It’s call Primrose Academy which is another preschool educational facility. There are a couple in locally that I’ve seen. I think you have maybe a Kindercare or something like that. They’re probably in the same industry. Their program is different. They’re considered more of a daycare/child care. We do with our educational standards, but they are in our industry. There’s Children’s World, New Horizons, if that rings any bells. Sacchet: Maybe you could give us a little bit of a nutshell insight of what your philosophy is. How you deal with little kids. I mean you’re calling a baby a student so you must be trying to teach him something. There must be some sort of a basic principle that you’re following I would suspect. Brandy Geiger: Right. Our entire curriculum is a Peoget based curriculum which basically says that children learn through play. They learn through interaction. They learn through integration with what’s going on. It’s not just static learning. It’s not that they’re sitting in a corner playing by themselves. You could have an infant that’s having interaction with a staff member. They’re on the floor playing with that staff member. With maybe the other children. They’re not in a swing or a crib all day long. There’s interaction. They get that contact that children need at that young age. I did get a lot of 14 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 strange looks when I say we had educational curriculum for an infant. Anyone would have said the same thing. What do you teach them? But you teach them there’s interactive skills and you really include them in group and that has been shown to help tremendously. Then you move into pre-toddlers and toddlers and pre-kindergarten and of course you just get into a huge range of things. Anything from sign language to foreign language. We do have a lot of Spanish programs in some of our schools. Into dramatic play. Of course there’s the arts and there’s the science and there’s language and there’s all kinds of things that we try to involve them in that are activity based that they can interact with and they get status reports. They go home with them every day. That the teacher hand writes notes on each student every day that gets home with the parents so they know what they did. They know what they experienced and I have several parents who say you know they, sitting at the dinner table and all of a sudden the child starts counting in Spanish. And of course that doesn’t mean they speak Spanish but it means you know they’re listening and they’re retaining something and they enjoy it. Sacchet: You say it’s based on Peoget? Brandy Geiger: I’m sorry? Sacchet: Who was it based on? Brandy Geiger: Peoget. Ah yes. We also have a very well known child psychologist that I believe is with Harvard University, if I’m not mistaken. Dr. Kyle Pruitt who is one of our, who is our main consultant. Who is renown in his field as very knowledgeable of the development of children. He writes books on our behalf. He, we just finished a series of parent discussions with him that we do a lending library with our parents on everything from biting to moving to divorce to all these sorts of things. Sacchet: Well I appreciate you sharing a little bit about that. That’s not necessarily what we’re judging here but it’s good to have the framework. Go ahead Steve. Lillehaug: Back to planning. I have a question for Mr. Riese. If you can comment on the parking agreement with the city or with the church and the adequacy of the parking in your mind and possibly, you know I don’t know if, I don’t know what that church operates as far as weekday events, but my church has some events during the day that may overlap with the parking in your school there. Fred Riese: The church has indicated to us, Justin Miller and I had a meeting with the church, and also with Remax and the church had indicated to us that during the day hours, the regular work day hours, that they would only require around 3 spots maximum during the day hours, except on the weekends of course, for services. Which doesn’t interfere with the Goddard School because we are closed on the weekends. The church is, in easements that are being currently re-written as we speak, the church is going to get 3 designated spaces on the east side of the parking lot which will be their’s and their’s alone for the daytime hours. And so, and city hall will get 4 designated spaces which will be their’s and their’s alone during the daytime hours also. The easement with Remax is 15 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 going to be maintained almost exactly the way it is, except that they’re going to be allowed through mutual agreements with the new owner, myself and my wife, that they will be allowed to have overflow parking for special events and things like that. The church will be using the parking obviously to a greater extent on the weekends. I believe they have a congregation of about 50 right now and the parking lot holds 51 currently. That’s how the new design will be, about 51. So there should be adequate parking for them on the site. Lillehaug: Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Any more questions? Keefe: Yeah, just planning related which will be related to dropping off the kids and the adequacy of sort of the staging area for dropping them off. It just seems, I was just taking a look at it. It doesn’t seem like there’s a ton of space between where the entrance to the door is and the curb cut to go out to Great Plains Boulevard. I mean in terms of just the volume of traffic that you expect to go in in the morning and sort of the circulation in that parking lot, can you just speak to that a little bit in terms of… Fred Riese: Yeah, the circulation in the parking is two way. It goes both ways. The parking that’s going to be right in the front of the school, okay which you can probably see in the model there a little bit. Actually that’s right here. That is going to be designated as drop off and pick up and then the hatched area here, you can see this is an area that’s left open for parents and the children to have access to the front of the building without having to go between cars. Keefe: That’s it. Sacchet: Kurt. Papke: Another design question. Sharmeen, when you showed the layout of the colors of the brick and so on, given the 4 foot elevation change and the design of the building, th about 60-70 percent of what we’re going to see is shingles as we drive down 78 Street. What, I hope that the color, the shingles aren’t going to be white as they’re shown on the scale model over there. I suspect there’s been some thought about the color and texture of the shingles. They are on there, okay. Okay. Fred Riese: Yeah, the shingles are a weather wood. I matched it to the church’s cedar shingles the best I could. The church shingles are obviously you know extremely old and actually moldy and green in a lot of areas. So weathered wood was the closest I could come. It’s going to be an architectural shingled roof. Papke: Okay. Sacchet: You already touched on the height of the roof and that it’s being used for roof top equipment like heating and cooling and all that sort of stuff I presume. 16 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Fred Riese: There’s going to be that type of equipment inside. Sacchet: It does need that much height and space in there? It seemed quite bulky to me, but on the other hand you comment on how you already reduced it so it looks like you already did something in that direction, but I’d still like you to comment a little more on that. Fred Riese: Yeah, I had many discussions with Sharmeen, the architect and Andy Martin on this subject. To bring it down to the 5:12 roof line and we’re doing that. As it is they tell me that the space for let’s say any maintenance done on the mechanicals up in the attic area is they said is going to be extremely tight. Even with you know, and then the mechanicals will fit but for someone to go up there and do maintenance after the project is complete, will be more difficult they said because of the limited roof. The limited area that will be available. Sacchet: So in other words you think you went about as far as you reasonably can go with that? Fred Riese: That is correct. Sacchet: Because my concern as I voiced before is that since the building is recessed and that will make the roof look even more substantial because what’s underneath is going to be visually shrunk since it’s recessed into the ground. Fred Riese: I understand what you’re saying, yes. If you look at it from a certain angle th like, let’s say you’re looking from west to east down 78 Street. Sacchet: Right, you see mostly roof. Fred Riese: You’re going to see a lot of roof, but if you look at the 3D model, you’re going to see a lot of trees which actually will help block that roof. And those trees are going to, they’re existing and they’re going to be staying so. Sacchet: Good. And then my other question was the recessed aspect. The retaining walls. It was mentioned in terms of accessibility and all that. Staff mentioned that was a concern. I would assume you probably explored possibilities that you wouldn’t have to dig into the ground and put the building that far down. Fred Riese: Yeah, I mean I would love to just keep it right on the flat surface where it is now but for safety reasons, and actually I should probably let John Bertelsen, or Joel go into this. For safety concerns we needed to bring it down, the grading down so that the parking lot and the area in front of the building, that it would be safe for pedestrians. Otherwise it was going to be like a ski slope, and would have been very dangerous. 17 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Sacchet: Okay. Now in terms of where actually the playgrounds are, that’s just small area of the area on both sides. Fred Riese: On both sides, yeah. Sacchet: So what’s the rest of the space being used around the playgrounds themselves because it seems like the playgrounds are those small fenced areas with the play equipment. Or is it the whole area? Fred Riese: The whole area. The whole area is the playgrounds. Where this area here and here is just where the playground equipment is. Sacchet: Okay, but the whole area would be used for playground, okay. I want to be clear about that. Okay. Yeah, so I’d like to hear a little bit more about this. Fred Riese: Playground? Sacchet: Elevation stuff and playground. Andy Martin: In looking at the elevations I would just like to touch base on the requirements of our playgrounds for the Goddard School. With finished side yard. With finished side yard. We do have I believe approximately 3,500 square feet to either side, which does meet Minnesota standards for playground…these rectangular boxes underneath these piece of equipment is for, what’s called a rubberized poured in place surface. It’s a resilient rubber surface. It’s much better nowadays than sand or mulch. So, but that is the use that is required under those equipment pieces. Otherwise the rest of it, the yard is sod. Sacchet: Okay. Yeah, that’s good to be clear about that. Thank you. Do we want to hear about the elevation aspect from the engineering people? John Bertelsen: I’m John Bertelsen with John Oliver and Associates in the Burnsville office. The building and the elements around the building are very tightly related to one another. The main components here are the building, the sidewalk to the north, the sidewalk to the south, both of which are just about immediately adjacent to the building. You have the head in parking that’s directly south of the sidewalk on the south, and then you have the drive aisle that’s just south of that. The existing parking lot right now ends approximately here, and if you obviously are aware of the site. The upper portion is fairly flat and then you have a parking lot which slopes fairly consistently from the north to the south at about a 6 percent grade, which is really more than what you’d like to see in a parking lot because of the stop and starting that comes, that happens in parking lots. Joel has actually attended a wedding at the church here in the winter and has had slidden all the way down this entrance here unable to stop so it’s really too steep for stopping and starting movements. So when I looked at the site, and I looked at the grades in that parking lot, I said unacceptable. However we really don’t have the flexibility to redo all the grades in the parking lot so we’ve got to work somewhat with what we have. We’ve 18 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 got to take into consideration the use that we’re proposing. So what I did was, just relating to itself, you’ve got a building that’s flat. Flat elevation. Obviously it’s one level. You have a sidewalk to the north and the south which slopes at 2 percent which is the typical slope for sidewalks. We have handicap parking here, ADA parking which can be a maximum of 2 percent, and then we have the drive aisle which I set at what’s kind of my maximum of 3 percent. I’ll go to 4 but really in 24 feet, 3 to 4 percent is only about that much, so it really isn’t that good but it’s way better than the 6 percent that’s out there. So when you take that in relation to itself, you have to drop it down or raise it up until that southerly edge matches the existing parking lot. When you do that the rest of it bam, is set. So you just take that elevation of the existing parking lot. Run those percentage to grades, which is 0 in the building, 2 percent base because you’re parking and sidewalk, all the way through to the north to the south. South to the north excuse me, and you get an elevation. There’s really no way to change that other than adjusting the floor in the building, or putting some more space between the building and the sidewalks, it just isn’t available on this particular facility. So it just happens that we ended up with 4 feet at the north end. 4 feet is a pretty nice dimension when you have these segmental retaining walls that you see being put up all over the place. The standard block units. 4 feet is a maximum height that you can go before you have to start putting some geo grid fabric back behind the wall to keep the wall stable. So in this instance it just happened to be 4 feet. We didn’t really choose 4 feet. We didn’t choose to put a retaining wall there really either. It just happened to come out that way. And we would like to reduce that because the retaining wall obviously costs money. We’d like to reduce the amount of fill coming off the site, but it just isn’t there because of the existing parking lot grades, and the relationship with sidewalks to the building and ADA requirements. Sacchet: So for this type of use, terracing or anything like that wouldn’t really work? Okay. John Bertelsen: No, it just doesn’t work. As Andy had mentioned, if we could have turned the building 90 degrees, that would have helped but you would have lost significant playground and really it wouldn’t have been nearly as functional as it is today. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Well I appreciate your presentation. You want to add something more from your end? Fred Riese: Not unless you have some more questions for us. Sacchet: I think we about exhausted our questions so thank you very much for excellent presentation from all of you. Excellent team here. With that, this is a public hearing. I’d like to invite any of the residents that are here to come forward. If you have something to comment about this proposal. This is your time to come forward and please state your name and address for the record and let us know what you have to say please. Please get the microphone somewhat targeting your mouth. Yeah, you just pull it right over. It’s a flexible arm. There you go. 19 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Fred Prinz: I don’t want to talk too loud into it. My name is Fred Prinz. I live at 408 th Santa Fe Circle, which is a couple of streets away from 78 Street. I just found out today that basically all I can do is comment on my presentation and that what I’m saying is not bonafide as far as the building itself. But I ran a survey with a bunch of members of our city and basically I’ve accumulated about 160 signatures here which I’d like to give to the Planning Commission to submit along with whatever else you do. But basically the 160 people are requesting that the property remain vacant. I know this is probably not in your purvey at this point to make. Sacchet: But are they willing to buy it? Fred Prinz: Huh? Sacchet: Are they willing to buy it? Fred Prinz: No, the city already bought it. We paid for it already. And so I don’t see that we have to buy it again. Sacchet: Okay. That was semi joke so. Fred Prinz: I understand…so I’d like to submit this and give it to wherever this organization that we have, who is composed of that organization? That EDA. Sacchet: The EDA that is? Fred Prinz: Yes. Who are they? Aanenson: Justin, want to address that? Sacchet: Justin, do you want to speak up to that please. Fred Prinz: Because if I have to address them, I’d like to be able to know who I’m talking to. Sacchet: Well here’s one of them, right? Miller: No. I don’t get a vote. The EDA is the Economic Development Authority and it’s made up of the 5 members of the City Council. Fred Prinz: Currently. Miller: Currently. Sacchet: It is the City Council. Fred Prinz: With the mayor and all that? 20 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Miller: The mayor and the 4 council members make up the EDA. Fred Prinz: So then in this case I would, just for elaboration on my part, whatever my next step is, would have to deal with the City Council, is that correct? Okay, thank you. That’s all I had. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Anybody else wants to come forward? Jack, please. State your name and address. th Jack Atkins: My name’s Jack Atkins. I live at 220 West 78 Street. About 2 blocks east of the property. I guess in lieu of not being able to bring Pauly’s back, it seems to me there was some reference made to the open space and usage on it. It looks to me like the entire property, right up to the right-of-way is being fenced in with a wrought iron gates and there’s no public access to any of that. It’s basically being locked off. I think you have to go through the building to get out into the play areas? Sacchet: I would definitely think so considering the use of it. Jack Atkins: So I mean from a public use standpoint we’ll get to enjoy it by looking at it through the wrought iron fence. th Sacchet: And you can look down too from 78 Street. Jack Atkins: Yeah, and look down. I guess from my standpoint, I mean certainly the EDA has to make economic as well as whatever type of decisions but I mean this would seem something at least should be sited along the frontage road on Highway 5. To me there’s plenty of space there to accommodate that, and I understand that going from a 6:12 to 5:12 was an accommodation but 5:12 over a distance of probably what, that’s 40 feet there. It’s 17 feet of pitch to the top of the roof from the top of the first floor, which is pretty significant like you said. It’s a lot of roof, but I mean it’s better than a Chill and Grill but anyway that’s my comment. Sacchet: Thanks Jack. Dick Mingo: Good evening. We’re missing a good ball game here. My name is Dick Mingo. I live at 7601 Great Plains Boulevard which is about 3 short blocks straight north of the site we’re discussing. I’m a 47 year resident of this community. I’ve lived here since the population was about 110 when I married my wife and moved in here. It’s changed quite a bit. My very quick comment is, a number of comments I want to make about this site. First off I’m not against a school but I think it’s in the wrong site. It definitely does not belong on that site. We’ve got two historical things left in this whole community that kind of are our original items, and one of them we moved in there. Of course the old city hall. And St. Hubert’s original church of course goes way back. Dates to old times. We have got a park there, and I know we’ve paid for it. You also paid for Bandimere Park. You paid for some other parks. You just have to write it off 21 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 that this is a park. I think that should remain as a park. You’ve got a beautiful unhindered view of those historic sites as you come down from the west, real neat looking area. In the next few weeks we’re going to see beautiful trees along there. One of the prettiest sites in all of Chanhassen. In fact I would like to see at some point in the future if we could keep it a park, which it should be. That that would be a site for a Veteran’s Memorial or a Pioneer Memorial honoring the pioneers of this community. I think it’s a great gateway to Chanhassen. As the people come into town. We’ve got literally thousands and thousands of visitors visiting our Dinner Theater right across the street and I would think it would be very nice to maintain that park and that historic site for our visitors as they come in. A couple things about what I’m seeing here. The playground. That was one of the thoughts I had. Where are they going to play? In the cemetery? But I see you’ve got that and you’ve got one playground that’s going to be sitting right outside the front doors of the two historical sites. The other one will be in th the west side that you’ll see as you come down 78 Street toward it. I love playgrounds. I’m a retired school teacher. Taught school for 30 years but playgrounds are not very pretty. They’re there for fun and again I just think this is the wrong thing in the wrong spot here in Chanhassen and I would just plead that we keep this as a city park and maintain it for future reference. Again it’s the only green area left in all of old town Chanhassen. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. There are no other green areas that I can think of in old town Chanhassen. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Anybody else? Please come forward. Judy Schmieg: How long do I get? Sacchet: Until you’re done. Judy Schmieg: Thank you. First I have a couple questions. Sacchet: Name and address please. th Judy Schmieg: Judy Schmieg, 200 West 77 Street. And then I would like to ask some questions of the people that are here that have come up in the procedure, and then I’d like to comment on some of the school issues. Sacchet: Okay, let’s get going. Judy Schmieg: Okay. Is this the first public hearing on this? Sacchet: I would think so. Al-Jaff: On this plan. Aanenson: On the site plan. Judy Schmieg: Yes or no? 22 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Sacchet: For the site plan, yes. I mean the public hearing is about the site plan. I’m sure there have been discussions about this parcels before that I’m aware of. Judy Schmieg: Is this the first public hearing on this site? Sacchet: On the site plan, yes. This is a new site plan. Judy Schmieg: Thank you. Okay. Does the city, let me clarify that. The residents of Chanhassen still own the property that’s described as Lot 1, Block 1, Old Village Hall. Miller: Yes. Judy Schmieg: Okay. So this is the time and the place for those citizens, if they’re going to sell a piece of property, to come and have an opinion about their piece of property. Is that correct? Aanenson: That’s not correct. Sacchet: No it’s not. Judy Schmieg: Okay. …just one more. Can we just back up then? That’s not correct. Aanenson: No. This is the Planning Commission is here to decide whether or not this site plan meets the zoning code. That’s what this hearing’s about. Not to decide, this body does not have the jurisdiction to decide whether or not this piece of property should be sold. Judy Schmieg: Okay. So can you just tell us citizens that keep waiting for communication for all of this, how we do this? We wait for a public hearing. We have 160 signatures. We wait until it’s told and then it is our property. We should at least have a voice in it. You people are representatives of us. If there’s 160 people that don’t want to sell this, like how do we do this then? Lillehaug: You need to contact your, the EDA which is our City Council. We don’t represent the ownership of the land period. We up here don’t other than. Judy Schmieg: Is your recommendation then that the, that we need to do it at the City Council level? So wait til all of this is done and then come back from the neighborhoods and say to the City Council, we don’t want to sell this piece of property. It’s very small. It’s 1 acre. We don’t want to sell it. And the city hopefully, council would listen to the people because that’s what they’re there for. Lillehaug: I would hope so. 23 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Sacchet: There is no reason why you can’t contact the mayor or City Council at this point. About this, since you have that concern. Because I understand where you’re at. Judy Schmieg: I’m a single citizen. There’s a public hearing. We, you tell us right away when we come they can’t decide anything. Aanenson: No, that’s not what I said. Let me just clarify again what the Planning Commission’s role is. The Planning Commission by law has to process an application within so many days and make a recommended. Judy Schmieg: I read that. Aanenson: Right, so that’s what their role is. Judy Schmieg: I know that. So you tell us right away that that’s all their role is. To approve it. Okay, if everything is done and the city planner approved it, and they’ve done everything, there’s nothing for them to approve. They’re abided by the laws. They did everything right so they’re not, and they can’t make any choices whether we think it should be a Dairy Queen or a school. So that means you’re saying they can’t tell us, the citizens that. Aanenson: Well just to back up. Again, within that zoning district that’s probably the most, the largest number of uses can go in that district. So if it wasn’t a daycare, could it be a liquor store? Yes. Could it be a bar? Yes. Judy Schmieg: Let me comment to that. In answer to Justin’s question. Bethany I think you asked Justin, what happens if they move out in 10 years? Justin nicely said they can’t because we put in there that they can’t open up a Quick and Easy and a liquor store. And they can’t do that, right? Miller: That’s right. Judy Schmieg: No Justin, they did that to us. Exactly that. They said nothing will go in there. Now it’s a park. That’s exactly what they told us. Just like you’re telling Bethany that we won’t let it. We put that in there they can’t sell it to a liquor store or… so that’s a frustration that the city is meeting right now. The other thing is, if it’s a school, if it’s a school, is it charter? It’s in a daycare. It’s a daycare. It’s 6 weeks to 6 years. They go to school at 6 years old. This is a daycare. And it should, is it licensed by Minnesota, here in Chanhassen that this is a daycare. It’s a New Horizon. It has all the same issues New Horizon, everybody else has. Another thing, if you do take wrought iron gates for children, have you ever seen a head hit against a wrought iron railing? With 134 kids, you want them to climb up 4 feet so they can hang on the railing and smash their head. 134 kids. That doesn’t make sense. Why would you even care? Then when you stick them right on traffic, I went by there at 5:00 today too, and unless you put a semaphore light across from Frontier Dinner Theaters to let those people out, people will never get out and you’ll back up traffic to 101 because I stopped my car to see how long it took. I 24 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 just pretended and killed the engine. And how quickly I could back up traffic coming off of 5. This is not the place for this particular thing and I agree with you. There is nothing wrong with a daycare. St. Hubert’s, new St. Hubert’s has a front parcel and a back parcel. They have playgrounds. They have traffic control. They have parking spaces. You have 31 spots. That doesn’t even include staff parking. Sacchet: Okay, that was the comment part? Judy Schmieg: But I’ll let someone else, so that everyone can get a chance. Sacchet: Alright, thanks Judy. Appreciate your speaking up. We have somebody else. Chris Thompson: My name is Chris Thompson. I don’t live in Chanhassen but I represent Remax Action West, which is an adjoining parcel. And I have two issues that I just want to bring to your attention. One has to do with the traffic, and I guess if we can have a camera on here. This is the entrance to Remax right here. We have a perpetual easement to get into Remax. I’ll illustrate which lines in that direction. And my comment is that what we would like to see is in the re-writing of this easement which is occurring, to lose one of the spots in the parking lot and to cut back on this existing island here. To make the entrance into Remax a more reasonable entrance as opposed to kind of being in the back of this parking lot as it exists today. The reason that that ended up being like it is is because of the existing island that’s in that parking lot. I was not involved, my father-in-law Darrell Berger who is the owner of Remax and I wasn’t involved in the writing of this easement but I believe, from what I understand, the idea was not to disturb that island at that time and that’s how we ended up with an easement as we did. Sacchet: So you’re proposing that that would change that island. Chris Thompson: What I’m proposing is to change this island, and if one looks at, the easement is supposed to be 26 feet wide and it actually requires, if you ever use this parking lot, and I have a few times, to turn in, in this direction, many times you’re going to run over the curb here. The turning radius is too sharp and it would not be something that I think the architect would plan on in the absence of this island being here to begin with. And the way I’ve laid it out, it would just require one parking spot to be lost, which based on the parking count that I see is, as it was laid out in the site plan, and I could have an older site plan but my copy suggests that the school needs 28 spaces. And if the church is shown with 7, although I think it’s the church and the city hall, if you lose one space, on my count you get 33 spaces. And you had mentioned 51 just a few minutes ago, I’m not sure where that came from so I just thought I’d point that out. So anyway, my main point is, has to do with the easement as it exists with the city right now. There is a written easement that’s described. I’d like to see, I don’t have a problem or we don’t have a problem with this development and contrary to some of the other comments, you know I can take it or leave it. But if there’s going to be a change. Sacchet: Like to improve that. 25 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Chris Thompson: I’d like to see a more reasonable entrance to Remax. It wasn’t really the entrance that we had hoped for, my father-in-law had hoped for to begin with. I know that. And so there were some accommodations made at that time. The other thing has to do with signage and we would propose that there be some common signage associated with Remax with the proposed school and the church and/or city hall in this general area to help guide people as to where they’re going. So we would propose that if there is to be some kind of stand alone monument sign or something, that it be a common sign. Sacchet: Okay, good point. Chris Thompson: And that’s my comment. Sacchet: Appreciate it very much, thank you. Lillehaug: Can I ask. Sacchet: Yeah, go ahead Steve. Lillehaug: It doesn’t look like they’re touching that portion of the parking lot. I don’t know, are you willing to pay them money to redo their parking lot in that area? Just a question. Chris Thompson: The removal of that small amount of island is not going to cost very much, and we would be willing to share in that cost of just that. Lillehaug: Okay. Sacchet: That’s fair, thank you. Anybody else wants to address this item. Public hearing is still open. If nobody else wants to speak up, yes. We’ve got a retake here from our friend Judy. You going to ask me how long you have this time again? Alright, go ahead. Judy Schmieg: You are the Planning Commission. Sacchet: Yes, we are the Planning Commission. Judy Schmieg: And that is important for the planning of how things work together in this city. And to have no say other than to meet the regulations doesn’t seem right either. That there should be a lot of thought put into planning and I think I was commenting to you Sharmeen, when you take a senior citizen high rise with the age of 73, average age 73 and you put a bicycle shop next to it, how great you know that is for those senior citizens to go to the bike shop. When you put a Houlihan’s where they love to eat because they can’t hear anybody is like that whole planning is an issue in this town. We have become a strip mall. There are 15 strip malls in this town and what, 19 banks are we up to or something. 26 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Sacchet: They’re definitely sprouting. Judy Schmieg: …you are the Planning Commission. It is important. It’s very important that you have, and we’ve worked hard to keep that little bit of green space and if that takes planning to do it, then it should be done. Coffee shop, we haven’t started there. Sacchet: Yeah, well you want a Dairy Queen there? Judy Schmieg: It should be stayed with a park. Sacchet: Alright, thank you very much. So do we have any last takers here for the public hearing? Seeing nobody, I’m going to close the public hearing. Bring it back to the commission for discussion. Comments. Steve, you want to start? Lillehaug: I have a couple questions first. Is this land zoned for the use of the, what they’re? Aanenson: Yes. Lillehaug: Okay. And then maybe a question to Justin. Were there previous, was there previous verbiage attached to this property when the city bought it that precludes this use? Putting a school or a daycare on this property or that said it was going to be a park from here on out. Miller: No. As far as I understand, this land that used to be Pony Express, Pauly’s Bottle Shop, I think John Pryzmus had an office there. So they call it the Pony/Pauly/Pryzmus property. As I understand there were no restrictions on the land when we bought it. Lillehaug: When the city bought it there was no restrictions? Miller: There were no restrictions. Sacchet: Where’s the notion that this would be park come from? Miller: I do not know if it’s, I don’t know that it’s ever been decided by the city that it will be a park. If that’s the case, I would stand corrected if somebody can produce those records but. Sacchet: It’s something I think should be researched. Miller: There might have been a recommendation from the park commission. Aanenson: There was a recommendation. The City Council never acted on that recommendation. Sacchet: So there was a notion but it wasn’t implemented. 27 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Aanenson: The park commission discussed it… Sacchet: Okay, as a possibility. Aanenson: …but the City Council never said we’re going to re-guide it open space as a park. It was never rezoned or anything like that. Sacchet: So in terms of the comprehensive plan, in terms of the zoning, it was always considered full commercial. Miller: It is not denoted as a park in our park system. It doesn’t have a name as a park. Judy Schmieg: Heritage Square. Aanenson: And it’s commercially zoned. All our other parks are zoned parks/open space. So this still has a commercial zoning to it. Sacchet: Okay. Okay, did you have some wisdom since you’ve seen this all unroll in front of your eyes? Dick Mingo: Could I add one other thing? Sacchet: Real quick, yeah. Dick Mingo: Originally the business places that were located were, the spot we’re talking about of course, were I think picked up through condemnation, am I not correct on that? Aanenson: That’s correct. Dick Mingo: And it was my understanding when that occurred we would not replace, you eliminate a business place that had been there since 1933 and now replace it with another business place. I think that’s dirty pool when we do stuff like that and I know time has changed things but still, as I recall going back historically, the only thing that was ever proposed for that property, other than a park possibly, was a library and they decided it’s not big enough for a library to go in there. Sacchet: Too small for a library, yeah. Especially the size of library we got. Alright. This turned out more lively. I think we can compete with Chaney and Edwards here tonight. Alright, we have comments and discussion here. Kurt, you want to. Papke: In general I support this. This seems to satisfy all the zoning regulations, requirements, comprehensive plan. I understand the issues the citizens have had with a perception, or an expectation that this would be a park but that’s really up to the City Council to decide. I think the request brought forth by the Remax representative were 28 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 very reasonable. I think the suggestion of, for sharing of the costs of the island certainly makes sense. I can see where that could be a real issue, particularly with all the slopes and so forth, and I liked kind of the idea of the common signage too. Has that been considered? Is that? Aanenson: Yes. We’ve talked to him about that. Papke: Okay. Okay, so other than that I have no real issues. I have some concerns about the aesthetics of this, given that we’re going to see a lot of roof here as you come down th 78 Street but I think the EDA has decided that this is how they want to develop that property and I think that’s how it goes. Lillehaug: Well said. Sacchet: Anything more to add Dan? Keefe: Yeah, I generally, you know I don’t think we have jurisdiction over getting into whether it’s a park or not and I think they seemed to have worked with you guys really well and seem to have a pretty well designed building and I don’t know that we really have anything but really to support it because I think they’ve done a pretty good job in regards to the planning issues. I did have just a couple of questions, just so I can clarify. The area outside of the play areas that’s within the fence on either side of the building, what is the surface? Aanenson: Grass. Keefe: Is it grass? Aanenson: Grass, except for the area underneath the play structures… Keefe: Okay, so it is grass. Aanenson: Correct. Keefe: I guess in terms of lighting of the building, any sort of after hours. Is it going to be a well lit area or what was your? Al-Jaff: Well there is existing light fixtures out there today. They are adding a few light fixtures on the building itself and that is denoted on the light plan that you have. They th are not adding any new fixtures to the overall site. You’ve got lights on West 78 as well as Great Plains Boulevard and I think there are five fixtures between the plaza and between Village Hall and this site. Keefe: Yeah, even one of my thoughts is just you know as you’re driving down, it may be after dark and you know, how’s it going to change. I mean we’ve done a lot of work with the roof, but you know are we now going to have lighting in places which is going 29 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 to kind of detract from some of the changes that we made in terms of that? And they have to come back with more specifics on lighting but I just kind of want to bring it up as maybe a concern that we just want to make sure that we. Aanenson: Follow through. Keefe: So, that’s it. Tjornhom: My comments, well the first was going to be directed to some of the people that were here but they left so I can’t. I was going to say that I am sympathetic to how they feel. I drive by there all the time and I like the open space in a perfect world. It would be nice to have a gazebo or like he said, a memorial to the pioneers or something, but that’s not my job here tonight. My job is to review this site plan and see if it meets the standards of the city and I think it’s a good use for that area. We have a school across the street and I think it fits in well, and so I also, I see nothing wrong with this. So that’s it. Sacchet: Alright. I don’t really have much to add. We have to be clear what our scope is of what we’re dealing with and it’s a good proposal. I think it’s compatible with the surrounding. It fits with the comprehensive plan. With the zoning. Seems like an extensive effort went into working with staff and making it as much suitable as possible in every which way. The concern of the residents about trying to make this a park is really not our decision here. I mean it’s something that City Council’s going to have to look at. So with that I’m willing to take a motion. Lillehaug: I’ll make a motion the Planning Commission recommends approval of Site Plan 04-32 for an 8,068 square foot building to house a school as shown on the plans dated received September 3, 2004, subject to the following conditions 1 through 18. Sacchet: We have a motion. Is there a second? Papke: Second. Lillehaug moved, Papke seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Site Plan 04-32 for an 8,068 square foot building to house a school as shown on the plans dated received September 3, 2004, subject to the following conditions: 1.Applicant shall preserve all existing trees south of the grading limits and outside of the property lines. Any trees removed will be replaced at a rate of 2:1 diameter inches. 2.Applicant shall move the red maple shown in the southeastern corner of the site to a location within the grading limits. A revised landscape plan shall be submitted to the city. 30 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 3.Permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies will have to be obtained including but not limited to the MPCA and Watershed District. 4.Add detail sheet showing City Detail Plate Nos. 1002, 1006, 2001, 3101, 3102, 5201, 5203, 5214 and 5300. 5.Sanitary sewer and water hookup charges are applicable for the new building. The 2004 trunk hookup charge is $1,458 for sanitary sewer and $2,814 for watermain. Sanitary sewer and watermain hookup fees may be specially assessed against the parcel at the time of building permit issuance. All of these charges are based on the number of SAC units assigned by the Met Council. 6.Prior to building permit issuance, all plans must be signed by a professional civil engineer registered in the state of Minnesota. 7.Any retaining wall over 4 feet in height must be designed by a Structural Engineer registered in the State of Minnesota and require a permit from the Building Department. A 4-foot safety fence must be included on top of the wall where adjacent to a pedestrian walkway. 8.On the site plan, revise the handicap parking stall from 9-inch to 9-feet. 9.On the utility plan: - Revise the sanitary sewer pipe class from SDR35 to SDR26. - Revise the watermain pipe from CL55 to CL52. 10.Show all existing easements on the plans. 11.Revise the plans to provide a minimum of 1.5 feet of elevation difference between the FFE of the building and the emergency overflow elevations of the side yard areas. 12.Storm sewer sizing calculations for a 10-year storm event must be submitted prior to building permit approval 13.Tree protection fencing must be installed around all trees in the construction zone that will remain. 14.All roof top equipment shall be screened. 15.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the city and provide the necessary financial securities. 16.Fire Marshal Conditions: a.The building will be built to the 2000 International Fire Code as adopted by the State of Minnesota not the NFPA 101 2000 Life Safety Code. 31 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 b.Builder must comply with the following Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention policies (copies enclosed): ? 01-1990 regarding fire alarm systems ? 04-1991 regarding notes to be included on all site plans ? 07-1991 regarding pre-fire plan drawings. ? 29-1992 regarding premise identification ? 36-1994 regarding proper water line sizing ? 40-1995 regarding fire protection systems ? 34-1993 regarding water service installation c. The 4-inch ductal iron pipe as shown on page C4-1 should be no smaller than 6- inch per NFPA 13 Sect. 9-1.3. 17. Building Official conditions: a.The building is required to be protected by automatic fire extinguishing systems. b.The plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. c.The accessible parking spaces must be located on the shortest possible route to the buildings served. d.Roof drain piping must be air tested within 10 feet of the building. e.Detailed occupancy related requirements will not be reviewed until complete plans are submitted for a building permit. f.The owner and or their representative shall meet with the Inspections Division as soon as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. 18. The applicant must obtain a sign permit prior to erecting the signs on site. A detailed sign plan incorporating the method of lighting, acceptable to staff should be provided prior to requesting a sign permit.” All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Sacchet: We wish you luck with this. Excellent project. Lillehaug: Could I add a comment to this? Sacchet: Yes. This is going to council. We do want to summarize. Lillehaug: I just want to make a note that, at least in my opinion, my support wasn’t for the actual use of this land for this building versus leaving it open space. It was strictly looking at the site plan because I’m not sure if I support it or not leaving it open space or not so it was strictly looking at the site plan and if it adhered to the city comp plan and ordinances. Sacchet: Yeah, in summary for our council I think we have to be very clear that we look at this as a site plan. How it fits with the ordinances. The comprehensive plan. With the uses in the surrounding, which in those context it seems a very good fit. However the 32 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 concern that’s been brought up very strongly from the local residents that they would prefer this to be an open area, a park, possibly a memorial or something like that. I think that’s a consideration that has merit but that’s not our scope to decide upon so that’s going to be up to the City Council to look at, which I would hope has been looked at to some extent when they made the decision to consider this. So to some extent I would expect that this is a little bit of a done deal as such, which then poses another difficulty which was brought up by the residents that felt they had not any opportunity to input into that process. I mean the fact that they have a list of signatures of 150 or 60 long certainly shows that there would have been a voice from the citizen side that should be heard, and maybe there should be an effort made in retrospect to put that into the picture and see how that can be duly considered in the process. So I would very much want to encourage the City Council to consider that but that’s not our job here as Planning Commission. Anything more we want to add to the summary for council? Alright, that’s it for this one. Thank you very much. PUBLIC HEARING: AMENDMENT TO CHAPTER 20 OF THE CITY CODE REGARDING DESIGN STANDARDS FOR MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING. Public Present: Name Address Rick Dorsey 1551 Lyman Boulevard Krista Novack Town & Country Homes, Eden Prairie Kate Aanenson presented the staff report on this item. Papke: Along those lines Kate, unfortunately I wasn’t here last week for the Town and Country materials but if you look at what you have here in place and you look at the very first one we’re going to see here, how does it line up? How close are they coming? You know are we kind of. Aanenson: Yeah, well they presented an excellent presentation to the Planning Commission at the work session the last time and actually we asked them to hold off until we came in with the design standards, and actually I think the Planning Commission at that first review, I’ll let Dan and Steve comment if they want to say something different but I think we were pretty pleased as introducing a different product. Looking at the mix. The pitch of the roof. Open space. That project now proposes actually public open space. Looking at some of the natural features. Orientation of buildings. Some of those things that the current ordinance doesn’t address orientation so I believe that that is moving in the direction that we want to see on the rest of the project. So very pleased. Papke: …effect on some of the developers. Aanenson: Correct. 33 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Papke: Have you seen anything from them you know in regards to the design standards where it’s in conflict with what you’re proposing for instance. Aanenson: No, not yet. No. Papke: Okay. Sacchet: Any other questions Bethany? Tjornhom: My question was just about that. Also I wasn’t here when you met with them so I didn’t know if what we’re talking about today is already implemented in what I got in my packet. Aanenson: No, I think the goal of that, just to show you, the Planning Commission just we’re talking about the Town and Country piece, to show you where they’re moving with that. You know they’ve studied their market. Now they’ve come back with 3 or 4 different products. They want to show you how they’ve looked at grading, orientation. Again we asked them to wait until we had this on board and they’ve, you know really have been respectful of that and are trying to follow and be respectful of what direction we’re trying to go so I think that’s great. Sacchet: Dan, Steve, any questions? Lillehaug: No questions. I think it’s, I think it looks real good though. Sacchet: Yeah, I actually have one picky one. On page 2, point 9. In about the middle of the page. The last part of the sentence, I don’t know whether it’s because I’m not a native English speaker but somehow the words don’t jive. And other regulations but are found to have significant effects. Is that? Aanenson: That should have been, that are found. Sacchet: That are found, okay. Alright, so that indeed was not total English. Thanks. That was my only point. We’ve discussed this before. I think we reviewed it a couple of times so I think this is going a real good direction. Now this is a public hearing. So I would like to open this up as a public hearing for any residents that are here that may want to comment on this. This is your chance to speak up so if you want to please come forward and address what you want to tell us, please go ahead. State your name and address for the record please. Rick Dorsey: I’m Rick Dorsey. Have property at 1551 Lyman Boulevard. First of all I applaud the concept here. I may think that it’s not strong enough. There’s, in some senses it’s still very open to what is meant by descriptions. I mean if you just read, I could have a different visual than someone else. I’m not sure what you as a planning commission can do. I mean it’s a good background starting point. I know that some 34 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 other communities have, they take areas that are left that are not developed yet and they create covenants and restrictions and building standards specifically for that area to the point of even saying the colors going to be used. How much brick is going to be there. No vinyl going to be there. Those kinds of items. My personal feeling, I have property in an area that is being looked at for future development and every community starts out just trying to bring development to their community and they’re willing to accept whatever comes. As the community continues to develop there becomes some competition in that the developers have to at least provide a product people accept. As the community continues to develop and gets to the point where land starts to become scarce, the limitations are there that you don’t have that factor. It’s who has the money and comes in with what they want to do. And so the city I believe in order to protect the investment of everybody else that has made an investment into the community, has to step forward and create some restrictions. And keep the standards at a level that they find acceptable. As land gets more expensive, there’s two things you can do. You can either pack it full of units and keep a low price on them, and cover the entire site with buildings and roads. Or you can continue to, you can still do different things with different products. Maybe you go more vertical to create more green space. I’ve looked at many other areas in other communities surrounding the area and the type of development that they’re going into with their multi family product and one thing that I found is the setbacks from the streets, they’re so close. You know 20 years from now as they start to deteriorate a little bit, they’re going to be undesirable that I can see. There’s not room to plant trees that will grow to any significant size. There’s even some to the point, I don’t want to say specific developments but there are some that they’ve packed them in so close together that you can’t, there’s not even a parking spot coming out of the driveway to park a car. It has to be either in the driveway or somewhere else because there’s no parking on the street either. So you know the setbacks are important. It has a look and a feel to it. And some of these areas that we’re investigating right now that I’m involved with, you know we can build and transfer density and I think that’s appropriate for the right product. But to take and transfer densities and keep building the same old product that is just going to cover it to a greater degree and compress it is not what I think that we should be after as a community. Taking and having a setting that’s very compact maybe works in the true urban area. Being maybe the downtown area where there’s a little more room. Maybe it doesn’t. Then again it depends on how much there is being looked at you know as a whole and how it fits in. But the codes or standards, I mean I think they even need to be more detailed. You know such things as saying you have to have a certain overhang on the roof so that we don’t have this flat, two dimensional look. That we get a 3 dimensional look on a property. Having the ends of the properties have windows on them so they’re not just ends of something you look at that’s a big wall. Having limitations. Perhaps if there’s going to be vinyl allowed, having limitations of a span no wider than 12 feet perhaps or 14 feet. The length of a span where you don’t have seams all the way up. And then as well vertically, how much vertical are we willing to accept and look at this massive piece of plastic out there. It’s necessary to build product but at the same time it’s the right place at the right time and the right product and to take and build, you know it’s not appropriate to be looking at starter home type products and trying to keep the cost down so far when the land is so expensive. It doesn’t make sense. Going back to what some of the other people here tonight said, as far as the Planning 35 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 Commission and what we feel your obligation is is representing us, is to take and create a feeling of, that we all would love to live in. If we were in that market. And to put it so tight together is not necessarily the right thing. If it went more vertical and had green space around it, you wouldn’t feel that tightness and then it’s probably more appropriate. The area that we’re dealing with right now is, I’ve mentioned before is in my view a very prime piece of property for the community. It could be signature property for the community. There’s nothing else size wise as this piece of land this close in to the metro area that’s available. We have now access to 312 will be coming right outside this area and it’s going to be 5 minutes from 494. It’s going to be very close, the type of product that can go in there is up to the city to decide to some degree by any restrictions you may put on. From the standpoint of a city, you also want to look at taxation and protecting the assets of the community. It can be a 300 million dollar development in that area or it could be a billion dollar development in that area, depending on what kind of standards the city decides to set for it. And that’s not to say that it all has to be expensive million dollar homes, but certainly when you have three golf courses and two lakes surrounding it, you’d expect it to be the prime property of the community and you do need a prime property in a community somewhere or you should have one, just to set it, establish a sense of community and then for the community. If anybody has any questions, I certainly can answer them to the best of my ability but to just quick summary, I think there could be more detail in this and if you’re interested in the more detail that I view, I’d certainly like to present it to you. Sacchet: Yeah, maybe you can pass that onto staff but I really appreciate your comments. Thank you very much. Excellent points. Very much appreciate it. Rick Dorsey: Thank you. Aanenson: Just to be clear, I have met with Mr. Dorsey several times. I think we have a little bit difference of opinion in the fact that there are communities that specifically say what’s going to go on this piece of property. Papke: Like a PUD? Aanenson: No, even go beyond that. Maple Grove is doing a place and some of, they’re working through. Chaska has some specifics and I think what we’re trying to do here is you know again raise the bar but leave that flexibility. It’s a very fluid market and we’re not just talking about the 2005. This goes to, you know the gentlemen who’s going to be speaking here next, talking about the intersection at 101 and Lyman. We’re talking about the redevelopment of Lakeview Hills. It’s not just this specific property, so you have to build in some flexibility. Market forces are changing. We have put material requirements. Again, that’s something we haven’t had before. I believe Mr. Dorsey would like to see a little bit more vertical product and I think we need to take each piece as they come in, and we’ve talked about some overall continuity but to take each piece and there’s flexibility that the market forces you know, that’s what we respond to. We don’t drive the market. We respond to that but to just do zoning in some of these performance things, so I think we’ve got to build in some flexibility. And I think we’ve 36 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 had pretty good success you know in talking to developers, for example what we see now with Town and Country as they’re moving towards, trying to meet our mark and it’s that open dialogue that we want to create. Not being too restrictive because the concern I have is, is that when we load it up with variances, now there’s some control of killing a project and so certain expectations and I think we want to build in that dialogue. And we may find as we move through these where we need to tighten something, but in reviewing them with the other developers that I’ve gotten comments on, they feel good about that not saying it’s got to be you know the certain pitch roof and I’m not sure we want all the same. You know I think we want to respond to see what they have to say and comment back on that, you know. And that’s kind of how we’ve had it as we come forward to this group and presented that in an open discussion. What are you thinking? Here’s what we’re thinking and have that open dialogue. Sacchet: Before we get into discussions let’s wrap up the public hearing, if you don’t mind. If you agree with me on that. You certainly are free to comment after this. Rick Dorsey: I’m not, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting to say it should be specific this or this but maybe minimums. Sacchet: And you made your message very clear. You’d like to be more specific. I understand what you’re saying. Rick Dorsey: You know why is the developer like the way maybe it’s there, if I was coming in to you right now, I could make a case for a lot of different things that are not what you’re thinking about as far as what level of standard. There’s still no minimum there and there’s no way for you, at least my understanding in reading it, I’m just asking the question, is there room for you to rule against something? There’s nothing there for you to grab onto, unless you have the flexibility, which you do to some degree I guess, to say we don’t like it for one reason or another. Sacchet: Yeah, and I think we’ll touch on that in our comments. Rick Dorsey: Yeah, I mean I think it’s great to have the guidelines and I’m just saying that there’s certain materials that are used out there today in the marketplace that are not going to be good materials long term. As an example, vinyl. I’ll say that. If you have vinyl siding, if it’s too think of a vinyl siding, we’ve seen in the past 5 years where hail storms go right through and you could go down to Burnsville and those areas and it looks like Swiss cheese. You can see how the heat, if it’s in the sun and you have a full wall, it warps and curves, and it’s just a think to protect the property surrounding it, and that’s what the intent is here, but I’m not sure if it is strong enough was what my point was. You know there are certain things that are there, and all one has to do is drive and you can see many of the newer developments, and not just in Chanhassen. I’m saying all over the place, that perhaps there needs to be some guidance by the cities to protect the value of the city and the tax base of the city. It doesn’t help in the long run that in 5 years it has to be replaced. You know that doesn’t do anybody any good, and it doesn’t help if no one wants to live next to a community because it looks ratty. So it’s a think of protecting 37 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 the value and I guess maybe putting as a minimum versus being specific. I’m not in favor of saying, you know I want the flexibility. I think that should be there. It’s just interpretation, when I read this you know, is it too vague to let anybody come through and you not to have anything to say about it, and I don’t know the answer to that. That’s up to you guys and legal… Sacchet: It’s a point well taken, and I understand it. Thank you. Anybody else would like to address this item. This is your chance. If you please state your name and address for the record. Let us hear what you have to say. Krista Novack: Hi. Krista Novack. Krista Novack with Town and Country Homes and I don’t really have any comments or anything. I just want to thank you for your time and consideration and letting us have the opportunity to present our idea for the community and just the architecture and the aesthetics of our community, and I think it’s a really good idea that the city’s taking this step and creating these standards and I, and Mr. Dorsey’s comments about this area being a prime area, I really do agree with that. I guess I just wanted to say thank you and then also we really want to keep that open dialogue and create something really special for Chanhassen and if you have any suggestions or if you see us heading in a direction that can be prevented, then let us know that. Sacchet: So you’re basically fine with these proposals? Krista Novack: Yeah, I mean there are some things where we have, like for instance there’s the 20 percent…material and you know with just hearing the comments on being flexible and that sort of thing, our questions would be, like does that mean on all sides? Does that mean 20 percent of the total area but in hearing the comments tonight I feel maybe there’s just, depending on what we bring in and the product, what best suits the product and the site and that sort of thing. So other than that I don’t see anything with that. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Public hearing is still open. Any other takers to make comments? I don’t see anybody getting up so I will close the public hearing. Bring it back to commissioners for discussion. Comments. Keefe: How does this work? Is it just a one time thing? I mean will we have a chance to get back and… Aanenson: Correct. You can always, at any point, at any time you can direct the staff to amend it. I’m just going to add one other point to you know, most of the projects that we’ve done, especially when we want to do a density transfer, we do that through a PUD. That’s the only tool we have to do that. And when we do a PUD, we do do specific architectural design standards and that becomes part of the approval process. So with the architectural design standards, we call out the shingle types. We call out the siding. We also have a color pallet so when each building permit comes in, they have to checked up against that so that’s kind of our extra layer that we, besides the orientation that we’re 38 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 talking about and what that dialogue to go on, that we also put those design standards, and you approved those architectural standards as a part of any PUD. You’ll see that. That’s actually the biggest part of any PUD, we spend the most time on, and there’s a lot of work site plan wise that through engineering and those kinds of things that the architectural part, the PUD is really, the expectation is. Are we going to get what our expectation is, and that’s where we really talk about those fine details. And just as the person that just spoke talked about, you know we want some of that flexibility. If we’re pushing a product up against a wooded area, maybe we want to put more brick on the front, you know so we want to build in some of that flexibility. I again spent some time talking to the city attorney about that, and how do you put something in there with not over burdening everybody, ourselves included because we get caught up in that too where we have to do it because it’s in the code, so I think this is our first attempt. We maybe have to tweak some of these come forward. That’s a possibility but this is our first blush to kind of get us in that direction. Sacchet: Alright, Kurt. Papke: Yeah, one quick question I have, or comment. When Mr. Dorsey was speaking, one thing that struck a cord when he was talking about setbacks and opportunities for trees. It clicked in my brain what Steve was pushing for when we were in the early design stages of this with some of the neighborhoods in Edina where sidewalks were in place and that the setbacks and that promoted tree lined streets you know which led a real nice atmosphere. Do you feel Steve that what you were pushing for there, and what Mr. Dorsey has reinforced has been accommodated in what we have here? Lillehaug: You know I do. I mean this doesn’t stand alone like Kate is saying. This is adding to what we already have as well as we can set things in a PUD, so I think, in my opinion this is specific enough. You know Mr. Dorsey mentioned setbacks, densities. We already addressed them. There’s a few other items that he did indicate but I think it’s adequate, yeah. Sacchet: I really want to thank you for your comments. And I think it’s already been touched on from different angles that it has to be seen in context. This is not a stand alone thing. On one hand we have the whole foundation of the ordinances, the regulations, the comprehensive plan. And we specifically wanted to put another step in place that puts more of a guidance rather than limitation on the multi-family development that we see are going to go in in a number of places in the city. Now then there’s more steps, I mean you mentioned covenants. Now covenants is usually just done by a neighborhood association. It’s not something that the city gets involved at all. Then there’s the PUD aspect which comes inbetween that was just mentioned which goes very specific potentially as needed into the details so can this become more stringent, more specific? It certainly can. However I think as a first step we have a very good, I would think well fine tuned set of guidelines and really purposely it’s meant to be guidelines and not specific frameworks because you could argue how far should the city government get involved in the details of a development. We can only go so far and have a reasonable balance. I mean it’s, the people that make the investments are the people that 39 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 are going to want to live there. The people are going to buy there, they make the decision on what they want to do. The city’s involvement, certainly my opinion should not be to tell the specifics in that case but set a framework that makes it compatible. Is it flexible? Is it not very specific? That’s on purpose. I mean there is a balance there that we have the flexibility to adjust it to particular circumstance, and at the same time the intent is also that it gives us a foundation that from the Planning Commission, from City Council side, we can actually come in and make a statement. Saying well listen, here is something that really doesn’t fit very well. Within the flexible framework. Now it could be fought over. Of course it could but we are trusting on the reasonableness of the people we work with because that’s the only way to go to get anywhere. So I just want to give you a little bit of that framework. It’s very possible that moving forward we might discover that we want to become more specific and we can always do that. But for the time being I think we’re pretty much where we actually want to be to see how this works. That’s my comment about that. Anything else you want to add? Otherwise I’m going to take a motion. Papke: I make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the code amendment to Chapter 20, Article XXIII, General Supplemental Regulations Design Standards for Multi-Family Developments. Sacchet: We have a motion. Do we have a second? Lillehaug: Second. Papke moved, Lillehaug seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the code amendment to Chapter 20, Article XXIII, General Supplemental Regulations Design Standards for Multi-Family Developments. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. Sacchet: Thank you very much. I really want to thank staff for, I mean this has been a pretty extensive effort over a significant amount of time. This has been fine tuned and it has much discussion at work sessions and field trips, you name it went into this. I think this has been very well cooked and I really want to thank you for your efforts with this. Now this goes to City Council? Aanenson: Correct. Sacchet: And so I guess in summary for City Council I just do want to emphasize the amount of effort that went in from everybody into this and that I believe this is very well fine tuned for where we think we wanted it to be. On one hand flexible so we can accommodate specific needs. Specific situations. And on the other hand, also to have some foundation to actually make a point to be able to guide a development should something come up that is really not what we think we’d like to have. Anything more anybody want to add to summary for council with this? Alright, with that I’d like somebody to note the minutes. 40 Planning Commission Meeting – October 5, 2004 APPROVAL OF MINUTES: st Lillehaug: Before noted, I want to make a comment on the September 21 minutes. Sacchet: Okay, please. Yeah, that’s part of noting the minutes. th Lillehaug: But I note the September 27 minutes. th Sacchet: The 27? th Lillehaug: September 7, sorry. th Sacchet: September 7, yeah. st Lillehaug: And then on September 21 I just want to make it clear in the record that for the first public presentation from Mr. Rossavik, that when it summarized that they directed staff to pursue a study. We did semi vote on that. There were 3 of us present and I did not support. Sacchet: You were opposed to that. Lillehaug: Right. So I want that noted. Sacchet: It wasn’t really a real vote and it was 2 to 1. Okay, thanks for clarifying that. So with that, are the minutes noted? Does somebody need to say minutes noted? Tjornhom: Noted. Commissioner Lillehaug noted the summary and verbatim Planning Commission minutes of September 7, 2004 as presented. Commissioner Tjornhom noted the summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated September 21, 2004 with an amendment on page 1 to reflect that Commissioner Lillehaug was opposed to directing staff to pursue a study of the land use recommendation of the Hillside Oaks neighborhood. Chairman Sacchet adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 9:00 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 41