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PC 2004 12 07 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 7, 2004 Chairman Sacchet called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Uli Sacchet, Craig Claybaugh, Dan Keefe, Rich Slagle, Kurt Papke, Bethany Tjornhom, and Steve Lillehaug STAFF PRESENT: Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner; and Matt Saam, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Janet & Jerry Paulsen 7302 Laredo Drive Chairman Sacchet outlined the rules of procedure for the Planning Commission meeting and which items were on the agenda. PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR REZONING FROM RURAL RESIDENTIAL (RR) TO SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF) AND PRELIMINARY PLAT APPROVAL FOR A 43 LOT SUBDIVISION WITH VARIANCES FOR PRIVATE STREETS LOCATED ON LOTS 1 AND 2, OLD SLOCUM TREE FARM (6620 & 6640 GALPIN BOULEVARD), PINEHURST, PLOWSHARES DEVELOPMENT, LLC, PLANNING CASE NO. 04-36. Public Present: Name Address Nathan Franzen Plowshares Development Chris Morrill Westwood Professional Services Darrin Labara Westwood Professional Services Alan Nikolai 6282 Cartway Lane, Excelsior Doris Nikolai 6570 Galpin Boulevard Lester Coyer 6719 Brenden Court Tom Kuhn 6693 Brenden Court Larry Marty 2117 Lake Lucy Road Richard Herrboldt 6464 Murray Hill Road Charlie Hicks 1941 Crestview Circle Steve Buresh 6651 Galpin Boulevard John Moberg 6738 Manchester Drive Troy Bader & Gina Sauer 2244 Lake Lucy Road Kim Goers 6673 Brenden Court Paul Tungseth 2051 Crestview Drive Lori Abblett 2081 Crestview Drive Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Beverly Jackson 2110 Crestview Drive Michael Stachowski 2050 Crestview Drive Jianping Mei & Ruopei Cao 2135 Lake Lucy Road Allen Taylor 2340 Lake Lucy Road Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Thanks Bob. Questions from staff. Want to go Craig? Claybaugh: Let’s see here. One thing that I was a little bit uncomfortable with was the sheer quantity of private streets. Could you comment on that a little bit. Typically it’s smaller developments that would put private streets in. There’s quite a bit of pavement in this, and the question was, I didn’t catch it in the staff report I’m sure identified who was going to maintain those but could you comment on that. Generous: Maintenance of private streets are for the benefiting property owners. The southerly private street provides access to 3 properties. They would have a cross access easement that would be recorded as part of the subdivision and it would have a maintenance agreement as a part of that. The northerly one provides access for 2 properties and they would both be in the same situation. Claybaugh: Does the City have input with respect to the drafting of the maintenance agreement for that private street? Or is that something pretty much… Generous: Yeah, I believe we have a standard. Saam: Yeah, we have a standard agreement and we review it also. Claybaugh: It may be in there Matt, I didn’t catch it. Is there any provision for independent testing or reporting to the city per the construction specifications of that private street? Saam: Give me one minute, I’ll check. It should be in there though. Claybaugh: Okay. Another question I had, give Matt a chance to find that. On page number 9, for my benefit could you just clarify the footnotes with respect to the lot frontage. Down at the bottom just above recommendation identifies, meets 100 foot width. Meets a 90 foot width. Generous: Yeah, for lots that are on the outside edges of curves, the ordinance says you don’t have to meet the 90 foot frontage at the public right-of-way, as long as you can meet it at the building setback line which is. Claybaugh: The 30 foot setback? Generous: Right. So at those points actually they exceed. Claybaugh: That satisfies that code requirement. 2 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Generous: Yes. And then for private streets you have to have 100 feet of width and so in that instance they met it in that case. Claybaugh: Okay. With, you commented in your opening statements on the elevation of private drive D. In your correspondence with the applicant, was any dialogue specifically why the elevation they selected is what they went forth with. Is it a cut and fill issue or is it something else that the City’s aware of? Saam: I believe it is a balance issue. That’s a good question for the applicant though. One of the issues they did point out is to achieve, to drain that site, storm sewer wise, drainage back to this pond, they need by gravity flow to be so high. So I believe that. Claybaugh: I believe in your review of that was there an alternative way to drain the area to the west? I’m assuming they’re looking at draining with that. Saam: Well we want to get that water to a pond to treat it. Claybaugh: Right, but one of the comments bothered me in his opening statements was possibly dropping the elevation on that street. With that recommendation do you have a Plan B to drain that westerly portion of the development? Saam: Sure. One of the options is to increase pipe size. That gives you, you can flatten out the pipe that way to catch, to drain more water versus a smaller pipe size. The course from the other side is more cost, it’s a higher cost for the bigger pipes so. Claybaugh: Okay, but there is a Plan B that would assist the development? Saam: Yes. Yep, we believe the 2 to 5 feet can work. Claybaugh: That’s all the questions I have right now. Sacchet: Thanks Craig. Any other questions? Saam: Commissioner Chair? Sacchet: Yes, go ahead. Saam: I just wanted to answer Commissioner Claybaugh’s question on the private street. I believe we are missing the easement and the testing requirements so you could add that at the end of your comments. Sacchet: Okay. For is that one or both? Saam: It’d be both private streets. 3 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Alright. Easement. Okay. Any other questions from staff? Slagle: I’ve got a few. Bob if we may, do you happen to have an overhead that will show the properties to the north. Thank you. And what I’m trying to understand and my first question is the Street B, which looks like it hits. Show me where it hits. Generous: It will come to right at this corner of the property. And connect up to the Crestview. Slagle: So it’s on a border of two properties, correct? Basically. Generous: Yeah, it would be on the left side of the one and in the middle of the other. Slagle: Okay. And that’s the one you referred to that we received an application? Generous: Yes. We received last Friday. Slagle: Okay. Just one other question. On the western side of this property, I mean just give me your input. Is it a lot of fill? I mean are we, give me a comparison from something we’ve seen recently. Would this be similar to Ashling Meadows? The Noecker development. Saam: Yeah. I’m not sure Ashling Meadows but Noecker had some significant grading as I remember, and we worked very hard on that one to try to minimize it. There it was I believe more cutting along the west side, and then they did fill the east side adjacent to wetlands so this one appears to be about 10 feet at the north side of this private street cul-de-sac so. Slagle: I guess I just thought of one more. I happen to run along Lake Lucy and often times just to the south of this property, literally the water coming off this property will freeze up, during the winter and during the summer obviously be wet. Is it your belief that with this development and channeling into that storm water pond we will avoid a fair amount of that runoff to the properties in the Crestview division? What is it Bob? Generous: Woodridge Heights. Slagle: Woodridge Heights, yeah. Saam: Yeah, Woodridge Heights to the south. Yes, they are taking a lot of the drainage that would have been going down the hill so to speak to Lake Lucy and routing it to their pond. The pond then discharges or drains out into an existing storm sewer system. And again they’re required to meet the runoff rate leaving the site, and they are doing that. Slagle: Okay. That’s it. Sacchet: You have any questions Steve? Bethany? 4 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Tjornhom: I have one question regarding the island, I think it’s Street C. And staff is recommending that it just go back to a normal cul-de-sac because of maintenance. Explain that to me a little bit. I kind of liked the island so I want to be convinced. Saam: Yeah, let me add to that. Maintenance is one issue. Of course in meeting with the developer they’ve brought up the subject that they would sign an encroachment agreement to basically take over maintenance of the island portion of it. The other issue is that the streets in that area actually are less than our 31. They’re 24 feet along each side of that big island so that brings up issues with parking. These are public streets so that tends to get rather tight when it’s 24 feet and if you have parking on both sides, that sort of thing. If there’s parties, whatever. That’s another issue. And frankly we don’t have one of these in the city and in reviewing it with the City Engineer we really didn’t want to have this be a guinea pig so to speak. Plowing issues at the end of this. We’d rather see a normal cul-de-sac. Tjornhom: Okay. Papke: She beat me to the punch on that one. Just one further clarification on that, just to make sure I understand that street configuration. Is it proposed, and this gets to the width issue. Is this proposed to be a one way circular drive or is this? Saam: No. In meeting with the developer, they’re not proposing it to be a one way. However it almost looks and acts like that. Papke: It looks like it would act like a one way circular drive. Saam: That’s another concern of our’s. It’s kind of a cross between a round about and a cul-de- sac and we’d like it to go the cul-de-sac route. Papke: Okay, thanks. That’s all I had. Sacchet: Steve. Lillehaug: Good evening. Sacchet: Do you have any questions? Lillehaug: I do. Sanitary sewer. Staff supports re-routing it a different route but my measurements looks to be a 40 foot deep sanitary, and we may have some in other locations of the city but that’s awfully deep and there has to be a different solution rather than putting a 40 foot deep sanitary in there. Are there other solutions that are feasible? Saam: Well they’re proposing another solution that we don’t feel is very feasible due to the steep slopes that it goes down for maintenance purposes. If you can imagine manholes there. Half of them will be exposed or you’re filling around it. And a sheer wall of dirt. Issues like that, we don’t want to get into for access purposes. It makes it very difficult. We did review this as a staff. Myself, City Engineer, our Utility Superintendent who maintains the sewer. He was 5 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 fine with the depth of this. Keep in mind we are recommending that the site be lowered so it may not be the 40 feet. You may be in the 35 foot range so. It’s still rather deep but it’s not as deep. Lillehaug: That’s all I have for now, thanks. Sacchet: I got a couple of questions real quick. Bob, did you say that Outlot A would be taken over by the City or by a neighborhood? Generous: Yes. Sacchet: By the City. Generous: By the City. Sacchet: It will go over to City. And, okay. And that Shivley Addition that’s mentioned in the staff report, is that, that is actually going to come in? Generous: Yes. It came in on Friday. Sacchet: It’s 5 lots as expected or? Generous: Yes. Sacchet: The retaining walls. We don’t see how tall they are. Is that something you can enlighten us please? Saam: Yeah. The tallest ones are along the south, in the southwest. That rather long one. That appears to be 14 feet at it’s most high, then also on the southeast corner, that one gets to about 14 feet also. Those are the most severe. The others are in the 5 to 6 foot. The one in the rear yard of Lot 13, which is just north of Street D is about 10 feet at it’s highest. And then the one adjacent to the pond is about 11 feet also at it’s highest. Sacchet: Okay. So what’s staff’s impression is that they’re balanced or is that excessive or is that desirable or not desirable? Saam: I mean whenever we can do without them we try to, and I’m sure the developer would concur because they’re costly. Costly to build. That’s one of the reasons when we looked at this we thought well, these walls are holding up this dirt all over the place in the south end of the property. Why don’t we try to lower this, realizing we would need the one along the northeast corner of the site. That may even get a little taller, but if we could, in exchange for that getting taller, eliminate or shorten up all these along the south. We thought that was a good trade-off. What’s the fill balance? Are they actually importing the earth or they can pretty much push it around on the site? 6 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: I believe they’re balancing but I think that’s a question we should ask the applicant for their latest numbers. Sacchet: The applicant. Okay. Lillehaug: Mr. Chair, can I ask another question regarding the wall? Sacchet: Sure. Lillehaug: Do we have any other neighborhoods that have 14 foot boulder walls without any protection on the top of the wall in a residential neighborhood as this? Saam: The Noecker development along the west side of that site I believe has a wall. I’m not sure if there’s a fence there. Claybaugh: I thought we made provisions to put fencing in there. Saam: Yeah, we can certainly add one here. Sacchet: When we say we want lower the private drives on the western side, both the northern and the southern one, I don’t see anywhere, any quantative information by how much. Saam: In Bob’s presentation we talked about 2 to 5 feet. Sacchet: 2 to 5 feet. Saam: Yes. And that’s based on just looking at street grades and taking them to their maximum. Slagle: Mr. Chair, if I could ask one thing. Sacchet: Go ahead. Slagle: Matt, was in your professional opinion be the reason that they would not want to lower that grade. Saam: One of the reasons the developer brought up was they would have to look at if again they could drain this western end back to the pond, keeping in mind that that all drains by gravity. So if you set the pond at one elevation, you have a target elevation at the other end. And that’s where I previously referred to, you can go to a slightly larger pipe size to minimize the slope. It won’t have to be as steep then. Slagle: Any other reasons? Saam: Trees I believe was brought up, and that leads also to the walls and there might be a cost factor. If they’re balanced now, and they lower the site, they might have extra dirt then to 7 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 export. However, we think you can balance that with maybe losing some of the southern retaining walls. Sacchet: You touched on the pond being enlarged and that 27 lot, Lot number 27 being given up for that. Is that, that is in the context of enlarging the pond to accommodate the runoff from the Shivley Addition to the north, is that correct? Saam: It’s one of the reasons. Sacchet: Partially. Generous: Partially. The other was the concern about the utility of that lot with those houses draining down into. Sacchet: Right, but the pond part is tied in with accommodating runoff from the property to the north? Generous: Definitely. 10 acres to the north. Sacchet: Okay. There is a connection, what is it, a water connection or a sewer connection. No, it’s a water connection over to Brenden Pond, correct? Generous: Correct. Sacchet: And that’s supposed to be directionally bored. I assume that means we don’t have to dig a whole trench. We just shoot it under the ground, is that the idea? Saam: That was our idea. Staff’s idea. Again it goes back to cost. In meeting with the developer they would like to go with a trench box, so doing an open cutting operation with the backhoe and keeping. Sacchet: It’s less expensive? Saam; Yes, it’s less expensive than boring. Sacchet: And then that stub of the private road…that would remain even though it’s not being used? Saam: Yes, at this point it would. Sacchet: At this point. Yeah. And you already answered that it would be able to do this gravity wise without the sewer line to the south. Except it would be deep in the ground. It wouldn’t need a lift station. The additional right-of-way that’s required along Galpin Boulevard, is an extra 10 feet I understand additional required. Does that have an impact at all? 8 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: Just let me clarify that. In meeting with the developer, we met with them Monday, they are saying that they do show it at 50 feet. Sacchet: They actually show it at 50 feet? Saam; Yeah. Sacchet: And that would accommodate also the right turn lane without taking, needing an extra lane? Saam: I believe so. That I’m not sure of. Sacchet: The trees. Do you feel that sufficient effort was made to try to save as many trees as possible? I mean there’s a ton of trees, some of them really nice trees. What’s staff’s position on that I guess? Saam: I’ll let Bob. Sacchet: It’s kind of a hot potato question but I’d like to hear what you have to say. Generous: They did work hard to do it. The previous plan saved an additional 1.7 acres of trees, but then they were reducing the right-of-way width and having a greater than 10 percent slope on their streets. Yeah, part of the reason they have the retaining walls in this development is to save trees, so that’s one of the issues that they have. We were, we wanted to get a contiguous piece of trees that are preserved within this development to create a more natural corridor, so our concentration was on the western end. They did even go to some, instead of having walkouts and rambler style housing units, to reduce the amount of grading, but yeah. With the 60 foot elevation change you’re going to have a lot of grading that has to be done for the development so. Sacchet: Isn’t there, wouldn’t there be a possibility with having more custom grade lots to be able to. Saam: I’m not sure about that. I mean when we talk custom grade initially, yeah the trees won’t be taken out but we had to keep it in a context of once a builder comes in, really how much are they going to take out and Bob made a good point. Along the south side here, west of the pond they have ramblers there versus forcing walkouts. And that enabled them to minimize the grading. Keep it off the back property line so they are doing things like that to save… Sacchet: So they made a distinct effort. Saam: Yes. Sacchet: To save trees and minimize grading. Okay. Well, I think that’s the main questions I have for right now. Unless anybody else has questions. Yes, go ahead Rich. 9 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Slagle: I’ve just got one more. And it ties in, if I can add, it ties into one of our discussions at our last meeting. And if the fellow commissioners remember, there was discussion about the building sites and where the house would be relative to the frontage, and whether there would be back yard that would be usable. And I’m just wondering, from staff’s opinion, if some of these that technically meet Bob the frontage requirements but I mean are they going to have with some of these grades any type of usable back yard? Generous: Well I believe so. Maybe Matt would be better. That’s one of the reasons I drew the brown boxes on this. The actual building sites goes beyond this but these are, these are big house pads if you will so the developer would like to have at least a 20 foot area behind the house that they can, the future owner would have area that they can do it. Most of these have more than that. The only issue is the corner of these lots on the western side but then in other spots they do have more area, so they’re bigger. They’re wider. Claybaugh: Mr. Chair, can I pose one more question? Sacchet: Go ahead Craig. Claybaugh: Item, or recommendation (q) on page 13. I believe it’s delete the western sanitary line. During your introduction you identified that they proposed that and the city was re- directing that with a little more information that was provided after the fact by engineering. Could you come back and possibly fill in some of the blanks of why you feel that isn’t the best solution or a possible solution? Generous: I think I’ll leave it up to Matt. Saam: You’re referring to the sanitary sewer that they’re proposing through the city’s outlot? Claybaugh: Right. In the opening statements Bob had identified that they were proposing to bring it down the westerly sanitary sewer line, and that you were recommending that they redirect it to Manchester Drive. You didn’t expound on your reasoning why. We’ve heard a bit of discussion of why not or some of the other stuff, but none with respect to item (q) so from the city standpoint, why do you think that isn’t a reasonable proposal? Saam: Strictly maintenance and access of the sewer line. It would go down a 3 to 1 slope down to Lake Lucy. Claybaugh: Is this part of what you were discussing with respect to access to manholes, so on and so forth? Saam: Correct. Correct. Claybaugh: Okay. Alright. Alright, thank you. Sacchet: One more area question. It’s condition (g)(3) says the maximum allowable slope is 3 to 1 and that some of the rear yards have to be revised. Lot 14 and 15, Block 1 and Lot 3, Block 10 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 2. How big an impact would that have? Is that going to, expected to have? Is that relatively easy to accommodate? Saam: Yes. Just looking at the areas on the plan here, yes it can be accommodated. In the southwest what it may mean is increased retaining wall by a foot or two. And then in the rear of Lot 3, Block 2, mainly extending that retaining wall down, or to the west. It can be accomplished. We don’t see it as a deal breaker. Sacchet: Okay. I think that’s all the questions. With that, yeah Steve go ahead. Lillehaug: Condition 3(c). The building pad on Lot 9, Block 1 shall be revised to reflect the wetland setback requirements. With that revision, will there be enough of a building pad for Lot 9? Generous: They actually show that on the plan. The City revised it’s wetland ordinance and so now we have a 16 ½ foot buffer requirement. It used to be 10 foot minimum so, and they showed it cuts into the corner but as I showed on those pads that…the ground pad, it is a wider lot. They can probably put the 72 foot wide houses in there. Lillehaug: So then do we even need condition 3(c) if they’re showing it? Generous: Well that will continue with the subdivision. So it goes with the land so that they always have to, that lot will have to, when they come in for building, they’ll have to show us that they’re meeting the wetland setback. Lillehaug: Alright. Sacchet: Alright. Keefe: I have one question. Sacchet: Go ahead Dan. Keefe: Construction site access. Where do we think they would come in off of? Galpin or up Manchester or? Saam: They’re proposing or they’re showing a construction site rock entrance off of Galpin. They’ll utilize existing driveway until the streets are. Sacchet: Alright. With that I’d like to invite the applicant to come forward and give us your part of the story. And you may want to state your name and address for the record please. Nathan Franzen: Good evening commissioners. My name is Nathan Franzen. I’m with Plowshares Development at 1851 Lake Drive West in Chanhassen. We at Plowshares are very pleased to be back in Chanhassen introducing another quality neighborhood. Our most recent project in Chanhassen is the Highlands at Bluff Creek, and that was a great success and I hope 11 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 you have the opportunity to drive by that and take a look at how it turned out. Our goal with Highlands was to create a high quality neighborhood and I think we accomplished that. In fact just recently we were forwarded a letter from Bob that we received from some neighbors at the Arboretum Village neighborhood complimenting Plowshares on how well the landscaping and trees turned out, and that Plowshares had been a very neighbor friendly developer to work with. It’s always nice to receive a little unsolicited praise from the neighbors and I wanted to share that with you to remind you that we are committed to providing quality neighborhoods in the cities we work in. Likewise with the introduction of Pinehurst tonight we hope to achieve that same thing and create a very high quality neighborhood. And to that end we put together a very extensive submission packet and our goal with that is to really help you understand the complex nature of this site. It’s got a lot of issues with it and we wanted you to understand why we’re proposing what we’re proposing. The other thing I would like to bring up is that we’ve really tried to be proactive with this development. We tried to eliminate as many issues as possible before coming here tonight. Bob and Matt have alluded to the fact that we met yesterday with staff and went over the 50 or so remaining items that are in front of you tonight as conditions for approval and we got down to all but 3 issues that we didn’t get a consensus on. And to explain the 3 items remaining for discussion tonight I brought with our site designer from Westwood Professional Services, Darrin Labara and our engineer Chris Morrell. But before I invite them up to go over those 3 remaining issues, I’d just like to ask the commission to please take into account of proactive approach on this project and that eliminating the 3 lots on the western side of the property that we talked about briefly off of Brenden Court and the private drive, we think really shows our willingness to be proactive and do the right thing and those lots felt forced and we traded a win/win situation with the development in front of you. I just hope that you can appreciate the balancing of the needs of the city, ourselves, the surrounding neighborhoods and the future residents of this community. So with that I would like to have Darrin come up and just briefly discuss the site design and then have Christ come and talk about some engineering issues that remain. Thanks. Sacchet: Thank you. Darrin Labara: Thank you Nathan. As Nathan stated, my name is Darrin Labara. I work with Westwood Professional Services. I’m a landscape architect and site planner for the site. I was going to do kind of a small speech on the whole overview of the project but I think Bob did a really great job of it so I think I’ll just get down to the nuts and bolts and go over the 3 issues and start off with that right away. Sacchet: Great. Darrin Labara: The one issue I’m going to address is the cul-de-sac, Street C. Sacchet: The wide one? Generous: Yes. Darrin Labara: Yes, the wide one. 12 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: We want to hear about that. I’m curious. Darrin Labara: And then I’ll have Chris Morrill come up and address the other two issues since they’re more engineering based. Is there any way you can zoom in around? After our meeting yesterday, Matt Saam, when we were talking it over in the meeting he was worried about the 24 foot wide drive aisles and he asked me during the meeting, is this a one way circumstance? Is this a one way around, and I kind of waffled on it and I said, no. And really it’s designed to be, but the caveat about that is, is that if someone didn’t see it as a one way and came in the wrong way, it’s not going to kill anybody. The route doesn’t really affect it. We have used this standard in other neighborhoods, the 24 foot wide. We take off of what most cities have requested of us for maintenance issues. Plow trucks to get in, make their radius turn, plow over it and be able to get out. And the 24 foot is wide enough to do that and that’s kind of the minimum that we used. From Matt’s perspective he thought wider would be better, and we have done wider ones in other communities. I did bring some examples of some communities that we have proposed these and they have built them and have been approved. As you can see we used two of them, this is in Chaska, Minnesota. Town Course Heights. We used two eyebrow, we call these eyebrow type cul-de-sacs where we have the things because they look like eyebrows. But the driveways in this site are actually 22 foot wide, and this is the narrowest example that we have used in the past. And they work fine. We have had no complaints with them. To go onto some other projects, some people may be aware of Stone Mill Farms out in Woodbury. They use these a lot. And the benefits that come with these is that they just create a lot more aesthetically pleasing, more neighborhood like feel to this whole thing and everybody seems to like them, and we haven’t had one complaint about them. I can see where Matt not had them before and been using them before might be a little bit hesitant. It’s something new. Something Chanhassen hasn’t done. What we have done in the past, we have been very successful. Here’s one of the wider ones, and this is where I’ve have to give Matt some credit where the city did force us to go wider than 24. This actually at a 28 foot wide driveway and their concerns were the same thing as Matt’s. Parking. What happens if people try to park in here? It’s only 5 lots. The amount of parking we’re predicting on this cul-de-sac is very minimal and the amount, the benefit we can get from this planted green space, especially if you look at the way that the plan is laid out. If Lot 1 here is kind of a double fronted lot. It’s allowed by city code on corner lots like that. One thing we wanted to do, why we want to put that green in there is that it’s going to really help out with the buffering between someone looking out their back yard on Lot 1. You don’t have to look right across a street to the front yard of a neighbors and vice versa. People aren’t looking right into the windows of somebody else’s basement. It provides that screen. Provides that green and it’s just an amenity that we feel the pro’s far outweigh the con’s and we’ve really, I am willing to work with Matt. Hopefully we can come to a, if he’s not comfortable with the 24 foot wide drive aisles, we can hopefully come to an agreement of how wide those can be. Maintain a good, solid green and come to a happy medium. We just want further review of this issue. Sacchet: Thank you. Chris Morrill: Commissioners, Chair, my name is Chris Morrill with Westwood. I’m the project engineer on the job. What I’m going to do is just go through some of the issues that were raised and some of the issues in the staff report that we wanted to address. One of the things that I heard was the issue of trying to lower the site on the west end. And I should start this out by 13 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 saying we’ve done a number of different generations of grading plans on this project and as we got into this job we knew the number one concern was trees so every effort we’ve made and we’ve done quite a few iterations. It’s really all for trees and you can look at the retaining walls around the site. Those aren’t in there so that we can keep out grading on the project. I’d say 90 percent of those walls are in there to save trees. We did meet with staff on Monday and discussed lowering that west end and in the 2 to 4 foot range I’m confident that we can do that with construction plans. We have looked at that a little bit. One thing that Matt did say with the private drive that we can steepen that up just a little bit more and that would still be in conformance with the city code. So with that flexibility we can do that to some extent. I don’t want to say we can lower it more than that because this really is a balance on saving trees. If we lower this road here it creates problems on the north end on saving trees. I know Matt had talked about the rambler lots on the south end, and without getting too, into too much detail, if we do lower the public street there, that’s going to drive that rambler lower and you can see that there are quite a few trees on the back side of that lot that would start to push that grading limit that much closer to those trees and potentially jeopardize them being saved. But I am confident that we can tweak the plan a little bit and get it in that 2 to 4 foot range. I think we can work with staff and work that out. The other issue that’s come up quite a few times is the sanitary sewer. We’d like to continue to work with staff but I think we can come up with a could of different options. My understanding is the biggest concern with the connection on the west side is the existing 3 to 1 slopes. We can show some different options. One option might be, instead of having this manhole on that slope, we could push it further to the south. There is an existing bituminous trail along Lake Lucy Road and somewhat of a flat area that I think we can set those manholes close to that trail to facilitate access. And if it weren’t something that I think is somewhat important, or at least to look at, I wouldn’t be talking about it and it does have to do with the sewer depths of the project. If you go through and look at the site and you look at the grades, basically there’s a big hill in the middle of the site, and we need to get sewer service to the lots on the west end. Now I’m not going to tell you that we can’t serve all the way to just Manchester. We can do that but we are going to end up with somewhere in the 40 to 45 foot deep sewer range. And it’s not something, you know it could go either way. I’d just like to keep working with Matt and I think we can kick around some different options and see what we can come up with on that issue. And then Lot 27. This is a blow-up of the grading plan in that area. It’s a little bit hard to see but Lot 27 is right here. And one of the concerns that staff had raised was drainage going to the lot and you can see there are about 3 lots to the north of Lot 27. There is a steep slope there, and there would be back yard drainage coming down towards the lot line of Lot 27. Now in order to design a lot properly you want to make sure that the water’s draining away from the pad. In order to facilitate that you normally would see a swale on the side lot line which is what we’re proposing, and I understand staff’s concern because it is somewhat of a tight area but we feel that that will be a nice lot and we can make that work from an engineering standpoint. We did take a look, I know in the staff report too it also mentioned if that lot comes out we might be able to reduce some retaining wall and shift the pond to the northeast. And this graphic again, it basically shows in the blue is what our current water level area is. In the pink is the additional water level area that we would be able to obtain if we removed the lot. And you can see it’s not a real significant portion, and I can’t say that it won’t lower the wall. It probably would lower the wall maybe in the 1 foot, 1 ½ foot range. But we feel that the lot that we have there right now and how we have it designed does work. Another thing that came up in staff discussions on Lot 27 is the ability to control the construction and to make sure that this lot 14 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 would get built as designed. And I understand with some of these tight lots, you know I’m not going to tell you that a house goes in and maybe a swale doesn’t get graded properly. It happens. That’s life, but what we would like to propose to ensure that that doesn’t happen, certainly we can add this as a condition that when the house is constructed, the builder would be required to submit the record drawing to certify that everything is graded and in place before they place the sod on that lot to address that issue. There are other things too that I think we can help improve the situation. Some other options might be pulling another catch basin up on that swale to accept some more of that drainage. But again, we have designed it in conformance with code and I know someone else brought up the concern of the pond. That it’s close to the pond. We are holding the basement elevation or the walkout elevation 3 feet above the 100 year high water level. The pond. And also 2 feet above the emergency overflow which means if the entire storm sewer system failed, the water would still have a place to get out before flooding any houses. So I guess it’s our view, we would like to keep that lot and that is a significant issue for us and I think we too can continue to work with staff and see if there’s some other things that we can make them, or help them to feel more comfortable about this lot and the design. Sacchet: Thank you. Do we have questions for the applicant? Keefe: I’ve got a question in regards to the west end grading. I wasn’t clear to me exactly where you guys would start grading. I was looking at the private drive B and it looks like, at least as it’s designed right now, it’s got what, about a 7 percent incline on it and I mean are you just talking that street or are you talking further to the east in grading? Chris Morrill: I think mainly that street and increasing the grades of that private drive. City code will allow up to 10 percent on a private drive. On a public street you’re 7 percent is your maximum grade. There might be somewhat of a flexibility to, it’s a street that connects to the north. Right now we have about a 5 percent grade on that street. We might be able to increase that a little bit to raise grades to some extent, but the problem is, I mean you start raising grades on one end of the site and it starts creating problems. You can see right now these lots up here match in quite nicely with the trees up here so if we start pulling things up here, you know it just kind of reverberates throughout the project and can potentially create some problems in these trees and we don’t have a lot of area back here and we were kind of trying to keep this wall more to a minimum. I think we’re somewhere in the range of, it varies but I’d say 4 to 7, 8 feet on that wall right now. So again, in grading the site out it’s really a balance between saving trees on this end and this end. And maybe we can raise the road 4 feet and we save 2 trees on the north end but we lose 4 on the south so it’s really an intricate process and I would say you know in the 2 to 4 foot range again I think we can tweak the plan a little bit and work with staff. I’m confident about that. Claybaugh: Yeah. You touched a little bit with respect to the question you just responded to about touch down points but you said there was a number of generations of plans that you ran through. Could you just briefly discuss the priority of touch down points and what they are. Chris Morrill: Right now essentially we’ve got grades controlling the site. We’ve got a connection on Galpin so that’s one control. We have a connection on Manchester Drive. We have the future connection to the north. Those are some of the main touch down points and then 15 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 we’ve got all these perimeter trees around the entire site, so we’re trying to work with those touch down points, and I think if you look at some of the previous concepts that we’ve pushed around, we actually had less distance from this connection to the connection on Manchester, which actually was driving the grades steeper than what we’d like to be and I think staff had referenced that too in their presentation. We did propose 10 percent grades on a public streets in order to try and facilitate some tree savings, but I think with this plan what we’ve done is create a little more distance in there so it’s giving us a little bit more flexibility and we’ve been able to stay at those 7 percent grades. When you’re looking at this we not only have the street touch down points but then again we’ve got the perimeter trees up here that we’re trying to save. Perimeter trees on the south end. There was also a stand of hemlocks identified early on in the project by the pond. So those were set as a priority. We’re also saving some internal trees in the back yard areas here, and then again the west side was of high importance to set aside that areas, existing treed area. And again I think that’s why you see the retaining walls on the site is to save trees. Claybaugh: As part of that process of generating plans, were any alternative areas for the NURP pond explored? Chris Morrill: Really if you look, areas for the NURP pond are really driven on the existing topography of the site. If you try to put a pond on a hill it just doesn’t work. You can’t get the storm sewer there, so we did in the site investigation look at that and if you look at the existing slopes there are basically two low points on the site. One of them is right here. And the other one would be on the west side of the ravine. Another ponding option, and I don’t think it’s a good option but you could potentially put a pond down in this ravine, but the destruction of trees would just be phenomenal and the clearing of it would be. Claybaugh: Lot 27. Is there a pad elevation available? Chris Morrill: Yes. Lot 27, the garage elevation is at 1040, and the walkout grade is at 1031.0. Claybaugh: Okay. And I’m assuming that was discussed with staff and you still recommended the elimination of Lot 27? With respect to resolving that issue with staff, beyond the discussions you had the other day, do you have anything new to add to that? Darrin Labara: I think again you know if we can show you more detail. If there’s anything we can do to keep that lot to make you guys feel more comfortable. Another thing I was thinking, we could also lower the swale that is on the north lot line of 27, which would adjoin the lots to the north that we are, would be getting drainage from. Keefe: So the swale that you’re proposing, …can you kind of draw a line on where on the lot you’d put the swale? Chris Morrill: It’s a little bit hard to see here but, here’s the side lot line of 27. Basically we’d have a high point here and that swale line would break to the left and break to the right. Water that breaks to the right would go into this catch basin. The water that breaks to the left would go around the lot and then into the pond. As a possible alternative, we could look at maybe adding 16 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 another catch basin in here to increase the comfort level for the drainage control. We could also lower this high point. Right now it’s about a foot below the pad of the house. We could lower that another foot. We could also submit more detailed calculations to show that the swale we’re proposing will handle the water that’s coming from the north lots and we could be conservative in those calculations. Claybaugh: Alright, thank you. That’s all the questions I had. Slagle: I just have a couple of ones I just thought of. Touching upon that Lot 27. Was there any consideration given to a neighborhood park? Community park. Nathan Franzen: When we talked to, can you hear me? We were not considering any park for this development. We approached city staff and that just hasn’t been planned in this area so we didn’t include it. Slagle: Okay. Second question then, if I’m a potential homeowner and I buy a lot here, any idea where I would send my kids to a park? Nathan Franzen: I guess the Minnetonka West School is directly adjacent to this site in the northwest corner and that has park on it. Slagle: Has playground equipment and such? Nathan Franzen: It does not have playground equipment. It does have ballfields, tennis courts. Stuff like that. Slagle: Okay. And this is, would be the Minnetonka school district, correct? Nathan Franzen: Correct. Slagle: Was there any thought as, any connection between your private street on the northwest corner and the ballfields, similar to the development to the west? Nathan Franzen: I guess I’m not following you. Having a trail connection? Slagle: Yeah. Nathan Franzen: We didn’t propose anything through that. Through the ravine area because it is a pretty sensitive area. Slagle: Okay. Okay, that’s it. Sacchet: Questions from the applicant? Tjornhom: No. 17 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Steve? Lillehaug: I have a couple detailed ones. Looking at the profiles I have a couple safety issues with the profiles. Do you have your vertical curves designed for a 30 miles an hour street here? And do you have any safety issues with the shortness of the vertical curves? Chris Morrill: What the city requires is a K value of 20 on all the curves. And then you also require 20 foot landing for 30 feet which we are proposing in this development. Lillehaug: At 3 percent grade? Minimum 20 feet? Chris Morrill: Yep. 30 foot minimum landing at 3 percent, yeah. With a K value of 20, is that right Matt? Saam: Yeah, that’s correct. Lillehaug: And you’re telling me that’s a speed limit designed for 30 miles an hour? Chris Morrill: That is a design probably closer to 25. If you look at MnDot standards. Lillehaug: Yeah, that’s all I have. Sacchet: That’s it? I have a quick question. First of all the question I posed to staff. In terms of the dirt, does it pretty much balance on the site or do you need to import? Nathan Franzen: We’re pretty close to a balance. If anything I would anticipate exporting some. Sacchet: You’d rather have a little extra than not enough. The trees and the amount of grading. That’s certainly the two most delicate things in this development. I hear that, and I can see in the proposal you obviously have made efforts to minimize the grading and maximize the tree preservation. Do you think you’ve exhausted? Nathan Franzen: I think we have. I think when we talk about moving streets up and down a couple feet, I think there are always some tweaks that we can make going to final plans. But I think we put enormous amounts of efforts into this project, above and beyond any other project that I’ve worked on as far as how many iterations, how many different concept plans we’ve looked at. I think we’ve probably made the best effort that I can think of on this project than any other one I can think of. Sacchet: I mean I am curious. Because I looked at some examples of do I see something, do I see a tree that could possibly be additionally saved. And I’m just curious to ask you two specific ones. Just as examples kind of probe you. There is on Lot 18, bordering to what, 19? There are a couple of trees on the south side, specifically I guess it’s 8517. Do you see that? It’s 8517. It’s just, it’s probably a couple of feet off where the grading line would be. Something like that, I wonder if it is close to the lot line, what would prevent in a case like that to extend a little bit 18 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 the protection to add a couple trees more? Do you see what I’m talking about? Between, that’s south of Street A. Lot 18, 19. And if you want the number, it’s like 8517. 8518. Nathan Franzen: 8519? Sacchet: 17. 17 and 18. Yeah, 19 could be lumped in there too. It’s right next to it. Nathan Franzen: Outside of the clearing limits there? Sacchet: Right. I mean it’s a type of thing like that that I wonder whether you couldn’t have done a little more, and I’m not the expert so I don’t want to double guess you guys but. Nathan Franzen: I’m looking at, I’m seeing specifically on Lot 18 there are some trees just on the back of the pad. Based on the pad size there, I think anything that’s within 10 feet of the building is really. Sacchet: Is not very likely, yeah. Nathan Franzen: Yes. And I wouldn’t want to say that we can save this tree and then we go to build the house and it ends up dying because of construction traffic or the branches of the trees extend into the building, you know 20 feet and it needs to be turned and then the tree dies 2 or 3 years later and then it becomes more of a problem then. Sacchet: So you’d rather cut them up front and cut a little more? Nathan Franzen: Yes. I mean generally if they’re within 10 feet of that building pad there’s not a chance of it being saved. Some of those too, I’m just seeing another one. That is, and I’m not sure if it’s the one that you had looked at between 18 and 19, kind of on the side lot line. Right on the edge of the grading limit there. That one you can see it’s right on the side line and to facilitate drainage we’re always grading swales in on the side lines of the buildings. We also have a swale along the back there to get drainage to go to the east. And that tree happens to be right in the middle of it. And again that one’s relatively close to the pad. It’s not as close as some of the others but it is, that one’s probably more like 20 or 30 feet. But that one there is caused more by a drainage design. Sacchet: I did have another couple of examples but in the interest of time I’ll spare you that. I think we want to move onto the public hearing. We’ve got a lot of people here. I want to give them a chance to speak. Did you want to add anything else from your end? Nathan Franzen: There are, I mean I could assure you too as we go to final plans that again we’ll be working with staff and looking for those individual trees, if we think we can save a couple more we’ll make efforts to do that. Sacchet: Okay. So yeah, we could put something in like work with staff and I think that’s commonly what staff does when you do the final walk through before you do grading and put the limits and tree protection in. That you would look at it in the detail at that point. That sounds 19 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 good. Alright. Thank you very much. Got anything else for the applicant? No? Okay. Thank you. With that I’d like to open the public hearing. Anybody who’d like to address this item, please come forward at this time. State your name and address and let us hear what you have to say. Jianping Mei: My name is Jianping Mei. I live in Lake Lucy. 2135 Lake Lucy Road. There’s a small pond on the wetland area. One concern is, I know there’s a lot of tree cut. I don’t know how many tree cut, but they left some trees… We know the north side of Lake Lucy there’s a two neighbor. We know that. They’re crying every summer. They get flood in their basement and…has a year so we are worried about is construction. We are interest not only for them, only for us so any concern or study for this? Sacchet: You’re concerned about the drainage? Jianping Mei: Yes. Sacchet: Drainage coming down towards Lake Lucy for the houses that are on the north side of it? Jianping Mei: Yes, that’s true. But even south side. Sacchet: Even on the south side too. Is that something you can address briefly Matt? Saam: Sure. Slagle: Matt, where is he by the way? 2130. Saam: I believe he said the south side of Lake Lucy Road? Jianping Mei: South side, yeah. Saam: South side of Lake Lucy so maybe in Manchester south of Lake Lucy I’m guessing. Okay. Sacchet: Sharmeen can point out where he is at. Thank you Sharmeen. Saam: Okay. I think what he’s referring to is, and I think somebody on the commission alluded to it earlier, the amount of water that comes off this site and comes over the trail. I think you mentioned it. Again every new development is required to meet the existing runoff rates so whatever water is leaving this site now, it can’t be increased based on this development. And in fact most of the time it’s decreased because they put in a pond which holds back the water and can store a lot of water. That’s basically what they’re doing here, so in essence they’ll be decreasing the runoff rate for the water during a storm going off the site. Jianping Mei: Yes, naturally treed we have buffer…so we make it…but without trees the water’s pouring down in big rain days. That’s concern. 20 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: Okay. That’s true with developments. The runoff curb number. The amount of water that can runoff the site typically goes up, and again that’s one of the reasons that through storm sewer they capture that water and route it to a pond which then stores it so it releases it slower off of the site. Sacchet: So it should improve basically. The drainage issues should improve? Saam: Correct, yep. Sacchet: Through the development. That’s the aim. Keefe: Matt, is there a pond up there right now or is this going to be a new one? Saam: This will be a new one. Keefe: So they’re actually creating a pond for that purpose to capture the runoff. Saam: Correct. They’re installing a new pond. Keefe: So there isn’t a pond up there right now so this would help that issue. Sacchet: Okay. We have some other people that want to speak up. Beverly Jackson: Hi. I’m Beverly Jackson. Part of the Crestview Drive neighborhood. I know someone on the City Council has received a couple of letters of concern from our entire neighborhood. Sacchet: Actually we all have received those. Beverly Jackson: Okay. And I know tonight it’s been referred to as this street here. Sacchet: Can you point out again. Beverly Jackson: Street B. Sacchet: Okay. Beverly Jackson: Would be a future hook-up, and I’m interested, I think we all are in knowing what future means because right now we have a wonderfully private street. We don’t worry about safety because everybody on our street knows each other’s vehicles so we all watch out for one another. And the idea of connecting up to a neighborhood that’s 43 homes, which means in all likelihood at least 86 drivers, is a lot to add to a street that right now has a couple dozen maximum. So that’s one concern, and one question as far as what is future. Sacchet: Well we hear future was January. 21 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Generous: Well they’re submitting, yes so the public hearing will be in January. Construction I would imagine would begin in the spring. Sacchet: And that’s really out of our control. I mean that’s the landowners there that made those decisions. Now do we know whether they would connect to that road at that time? I would expect so since they’re developing. Generous: Yes, we’d make them do that as part of their design. Sacchet: Yeah, since they’re developing, yeah. And have the extra houses, there would be a justification to connect it so future could mean like a year or less. Beverly Jackson: Okay, and how does that affect Crestview Drive? I heard something about this development having a 31 foot street requirement. Street width, if I understood correctly, except for the one that was discussed with the 24. Sacchet: Would that affect, let me make sure we understand your question. So is your question is something going to happen to Crestview itself? Is that what you’re asking, right? Beverly Jackson: Yes. Does that one get widen to the 31 feet as well? Sacchet: Okay, could you address that please Matt. Saam: Sure. At this time the City has no plans to increase the width of Crestview Drive. What I could see happening in the future, and future 10 to 15 years, whenever Crestview Drive, that pavement deteriorates to a point where the city would need to do a project in there to upgrade it, maybe at that time it would be looked at to upgrade it to a current city standard or something more in line with the current city standard but again at this time we don’t have any plans to do anything in Crestview Drive other than, if the development to the north would go, that cul-de-sac would basically be moved into that property. Beverly Jackson: I’m sorry, into what property? Sacchet: The new one that’s being developed. Saam: Yes. Sacchet: From Crestview. Beverly Jackson: Okay. And as far as it is right now, it would pretty much have to do a 90 degree angle to come onto Crestview Drive. Or does that mean eliminating part of some property? I happen to live on the property right here on this side, so that would mean that anyone coming up that street has headlights coming right into my house. 22 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: We, at least I haven’t done an in-depth review of the plans for that development to the north. But it would be, like a T intersection is what they’re showing. So yeah, there would have to be a turn, a right hand turn to Crestview Drive. Sacchet: I mean to mitigate your concerns a little bit, in a situation like that certainly would be a reasonable request that you ask for some evergreens or some buffering. Possibly even berming. Beverly Jackson: We have those right now but I’m afraid that all of our beautiful Norway pines are going to be eliminated if this comes through and those are something that can’t be replaced because I probably won’t be in the house in 40 or 50 years to see them look like they look now. Saam: Mr. Chair? Sacchet: Go ahead. Saam: If I can just address that, and maybe we’re getting into the next development but at this time they’re not proposing to take any land or anything like that. They’re doing all their work either on their property or within existing city right-of-way. Sacchet: Is your concern that partially it would impact your land actually? Beverly Jackson: Absolutely. Sacchet: I mean the development would have to take place on the land where it takes place. I mean they can’t put a claim on your land per se. Beverly Jackson: Alright, but also the traffic is a very large concern. Like I said with as few of us that live on this street, if a car goes down our street and turns around in the turn around, especially at night, I’m sure everyone else, as well as my husband and I are looking out the window to see how it is. Trying to identify if it’s a police officer coming to check on our street, which is always wonderful, and if it’s anyone else within a few minutes if they haven’t moved, one of us is out there checking out to see who it is, so it’s very safe. And so the idea of safety being attaching neighborhoods, I can’t see how 40 to 60 more cars makes it safer than the little street that we have right now. Sacchet: Well let’s do one more now on this. Crestview is not going to be a thru street. I mean the idea is not to have that as a traffic lane. Maybe you can say something about that Matt. Saam: Sure. On the submitted plans it still keeps a cul-de-sac. It just has, as I said, a T intersection, basically a street going to the south to connect with this. And if we think about it for a moment, the traffic or the residents in this area I doubt, at least if I lived on there, if I wanted to go north, unless a road was closed, I would go through Crestview Drive to get to Galpin versus just going out to Galpin. Sacchet: It’s hard to imagine why they would want to make a detour through a road that has all kinds of quirky turns. It’s not a straight road by any stretch of the imagination. 23 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: Right. That’s why I’m trying to understand why the connection would be there. Slagle: If I can ask Mr. Chair, can we hear from staff and maybe apologies for not asking this prior, but why are we extending the road? I mean if we’re not, if the anticipation is not going to be used as a thru street. We have the access onto Galpin. We have the access south on Manchester. I’m just curious, is that not enough? Saam: Again I think Bob read one of the biggest reasons. It’s been adopted in the city comp plan in the transportation planning. He listed off I think 3 reasons. Safety being one of the biggest ones with emergency access. If Crestview Drive was closed or if there was a fire or some sort of thing, there’s only one way in and out. It really limits the access to that whole street. Sacchet: So it’s access to that neighborhood for like emergency vehicles. Slagle: Mostly Crestview. Sacchet: Crestview, yeah. Generous: Right. Saam: Correct. Sacchet: Not for the other neighborhood. Saam: This development that we’re reviewing tonight already has the two accesses set up. One proposed off Galpin and another off Manchester. We, as a city want an additional access off of Crestview for future. Sacchet: So from a city planning viewpoint it’s for the benefit of that Crestview neighborhood. We could say to a large extent. Saam: Well, yes. Beverly Jackson: May I make one comment about that? The only time there has ever been a problem with any of us as residents on the street being able to access our own homes on that street is when the lot across from Crestview Drive was being developed. Still for sale but they were putting in, they were raising the grade and all of that, and the people working on it parked on both sides of Crestview so us in the large pick-ups couldn’t get through and that was one of my husband and my comment that day was, you know what if an ambulance or a fire truck had to get up here, they wouldn’t be able to. Us as residents don’t park on the streets because we know that we need to have that access, but when the dump trucks on either side of Crestview, it made it very difficult for us to be able to get in or out without possible damage to our vehicle or taking off one of their mirrors. 24 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Yeah, it’s not necessarily in view of the current amount of people that live there, but it’s more in view of the development that is obviously already starting to take place. Alright, you may want to put that into the equation as well. But I think we hear where you’re at with that. Appreciate your comments. Beverly Jackson: Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much. We have somebody else. Do you want to state your name and address please for the record. Paul Tungseth: Paul Tungseth, 2051 Crestview Drive. Mr. Commissioner. Mr. Chair rather. You all talk about the fact that Crestview is not at this point affected. That is incorrect. The entire neighborhood has asked that we not be connected because we do not see any safety concerns. We do not anticipate school buses up our road. We like our cul-de-sac. We would prefer to be a private neighborhood. As long as our neighborhood is using the road, we don’t have problems. As Bev pointed out, we have problems when other people decide to use the road, and we don’t, it’s not as if one or two people are parking as you’ve seen, you know there’s a developer or what have you. We just respectfully decline your invitation to participate in the new neighborhood. Respectfully we decline. We would also like to point out the number of trees that you’re counting and tagging aren’t necessarily even part of that property. You guys really need to review that part as well. Sacchet: Can you be more specific about that? That’s important. Paul Tungseth: I’ll let the property owner discuss that. Sacchet: Okay. Okay, yeah. Paul Tungseth: So that’s what I have to say for right now. But I find it interesting that you’re willing to talk about all the different pieces except for what the existing neighborhood is concerned about. That you need to think about because that is sense of neighborhood. That is sense of community. Lillehaug: Sir, can I ask you a question? Paul Tungseth: Yes. Lillehaug: What is your opinion when the Shivley property’s developed and there’s dump trucks parked all up and down your road and you can’t get emergency access to your homes up there. Paul Tungseth: They have 3 acres up there. We have a cul-de-sac which is mammoth. We have a cul-de-sac 3 times the size of a normal cul-de-sac which we do like. Lillehaug: You don’t have any concerns with any access problems? 25 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Paul Tungseth: No. In fact if you look very carefully at the later, it plainly states that if you added up to 5 houses, maybe even 7 houses up there, you still meet the same requirements that have been laid out in these drawings. Amazingly. I guess those cul-de-sacs in the existing drawings ought to change as well. There’s as many houses on any one given cul-de-sac as there is on all of the entire Crestview Drive. If not more. So the density of houses is plainly more here in the new development than it is in Crestview. We don’t have a problem. We don’t have a problem. Even with additional houses we still don’t have a problem. Sacchet: Thank you. Appreciate your comment. We have some other people. Please come forward. State your name and address for the record. Steve Buresh: Hi. I’m Steve Buresh. I live directly across Galpin Boulevard from this proposed development at 6651 Galpin Boulevard. I do have some concerns about the fact that we’re going to maintain this access on Galpin Boulevard. For several years now with the developments out there at, to the south. The amount of volume of traffic that is coming through there is basically making my property, devaluating my property because of the amount of traffic that is going through there. By adding 43 more houses, and up to you know an average from let’s say 50 to 60 cars coming out of that neighborhood, which is going to be nearly directly across from my property and my neighbors, it’s going to make it very difficult for me to access Galpin Boulevard. It’s also, I’m a little concerned that that’s going to be the construction entrance. I’ll be competing with all of the traffic going in and out of there during this building process, and our property and Lake Lucy Highlands is zoned large lot residential. The people that live out there on Lake Lucy chose that type of property to have. The large lots and that and you know all of this development is basically destroying what we moved out there to do, and have a you know large lot and open spaces. I do appreciate the fact that they’re maintaining the trees on the easterly side. That’s appreciated. I understand that the, it’s going to go forward and that because everybody agrees that it’s to the betterment of the community, although I do have grave concerns with the amount of access, amount of traffic that’s going to be coming out of that, the Galpin access. And I’ll be competing with that traffic trying to get out of my driveway. Sacchet: Can you say something to that Matt from an engineering viewpoint? Traffic viewpoint. Saam: Sure. First of all I’ll mention Galpin Road as I’m sure Mr. Buresh is aware is a county road so this development is required to get a access permit from the County. Again they have an existing driveway off of that road so they already have some argument or right I’ll call it to access their property onto Galpin, just like Mr. Buresh does. We did look at it from a safety standpoint. That is the location of the access. It is proposed in roughly the same location as existing driveway and that’s actually at the high point of a crest or a small hill, so there’s good sight distance to each side, both the north and south. So from that viewpoint, in addition to the right turn lane that the County will be requiring, we feel it will operate effectively. Sacchet: So within reason this should work well? Saam: Correct. 26 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: As far as city standards are concerned. Now obviously it will have an impact on the neighbor across the street. Steve Buresh: Yeah, I mean I’m going to have 40 to 60 cars that are going to be going in and out of there in a, you know multiple times in a day possibly and that, and my driveway is directly across from this driveway and so that’s going to make it very difficult. The other issue, which I don’t know if that’s part of this meeting, I would think that, I would hope that and the recommendations we take into account at some point, either here or at the next level, is with the additional 43 homes and the additional traffic. We nearly have zero enforcement of speed limits and stuff out there at this point. We’ve had a long standing problems with speeding in that area. I have kids. My neighbor has kids and that. You know so with adding another 40 to 60 cars in that neighborhood, there’s concerns about that. I don’t know if that’s beyond the scope… Sacchet: Yeah, you’re right. I mean that’s certainly related but it’s not really part of this development. On the other hand I also want to point out, I mean there is the access to the south, so you wouldn’t necessarily have everybody going out onto Galpin. Steve Buresh: Right. Sacchet: And I also wouldn’t compare it to Lake Lucy. I mean Lake Lucy is a thru road, while here we’re looking at plain neighborhood access so, that makes it a little more bearable I would expect. But you’re right. I mean once it comes through to speed considerations, that’s obviously something that will have to be addressed with the sheriff. And they do pay attention to that and they’re sensitive to requests, complains from residents so that would be the route to go with that. Steve Buresh: Okay. Alright, thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much for your comment. Gina Sauer: Hi, my name is Gina Sauer. I live at 2244 Lake Lucy Road, and my question for the council is more of a procedural question in terms of how certain guidelines are set and on what criteria you base a decision when you go below your own set guidelines, specifically with respect to the trees that are being lost. And please correct me if I have these numbers wrong but from looking at the report it’s my understanding that currently there’s about 18 acres approximately of canopy that under the normal guidelines and percentages that the city would follow, this development would be expected to maintain or to continue to have about 12 acres and that what will be left now when it’s all said and done will be approximately 7. Sacchet: That’s correct. Gina Sauer: So from a procedural standpoint could you explain on what the guidelines are based that 12 out of 18, how that was originally set and under what criteria the city decided to allow the developer to go considerably below that in this case to 7. And I understand the penaltation that they’ll be having to replacing trees but I think most people would agree that replacing a neighborhood with new trees is not the same as leaving a stand of continuous mature trees. 27 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Do you want to try that one Bob? Generous: I was here when we first adopted the ordinance. It was one of my first projects was to get that through. The guideline, the City in developing our tree preservation ordinance tried to determine, look at what a potential development would take out as part of their development based on the existing tree coverage. We know that any development that goes is going to remove some trees and so we provided a nature to sliding scale of targets for tree preservation. These are numbers that if the developer meets that, then they don’t have to replace them. They don’t have, they just have a normal 1 tree per front yard. Now if they go below that, then we penalize them. We say yes, it’s true that preserving trees is better than…existing tree is a lot better than planting a new one but you have to permit people to, the opportunity to develop their land and so we use these targets that we encourage them through use of retaining walls, the use of private streets. They came in originally with a steeper grade on the street than the city code permitted to meet these targets, but development by definition will remove trees and those targets, if they can’t be met then the ordinance says then you have to replace them. It doesn’t say you can’t take them out. Sacchet: Yeah, to answer your question I think it’s important to distinguish that we do have what we call the required canopy coverage, but that doesn’t mean they can’t go below it. That means if they go below it, they have to do replacement plantings in addition to the standard amount of planting. Plus that would then be multiplied by 1.2 factor so they have to replace a little more but I mean, it’s obvious. If you cut a big tree and then you put a little tree, it’s something quite different. Gina Sauer: Right. I have a follow-up question that I do appreciate the modifications that have been made to the plan to, as I understand it dedicate the very western edge which is the water preservation area or the ravine in the western area to the city. I’m just wondering again from a procedural standpoint, for those of us who are new to this whole kind of thing, what kind of protection and assurances is the city willing and able to provide with respect to the preservation of those few remaining acres of mature trees? That there won’t be further development. That the city’s not going to put some kind of building on there or put a park on there. That the vegetation and the wildlife habitat will remain in perpetuity in it’s natural state. Sacchet: Do you want to address that? Generous: Well that’s ultimately it’s up to council but if it’s donated to the city as open space, then the city will have to preserve it as open space. Initially we were looking at one potential city use of the property as a well site, but we’re not sure that that’s going to work out because of the piping issue. We don’t have a watermain in this area so we would just preserve it. It’s like other areas in the community that are dedicated. Yeah, we’d like to, the city isn’t, tries to create these corridors of green space so that we have habitat area and also because of the benefits that as a community we receive for the preservation of trees. There’s value in that so, while we can’t, council will accept it as a donation for open space, ultimately for council to do anything else they’d have to go through a public hearing process to change that. 28 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Can it not be changed? Of course it can be changed but it would have to be changed in a very public forum. It would have to be announced to the neighborhood. There would be a hearing. There would be discussion about it. And there would be an easement on it. Preservation easement so it’s not something that’s just on a whim of somebody could be changed so there is some solidity to that framework. Gina Sauer: Okay, thank you for the information. Sacchet: You’re very welcome. Anybody else want to address this one? Yes, please come forward. Mike Stachowski: Council, my name’s Mike Stachowski, 2050 Crestview Drive. Quick question. Talking about joining onto our street was for a safety reason. What about all the other cul-de-sacs in the city? There’s only one access. I think it’s more convenience for the new development more than safety for us. Sacchet: Got any comment? Saam: Sure. Yeah, we do have many cul-de-sacs in the city, but whenever we can through developments or improvements we look to, especially the longer ones. When I say longer maybe over 500 feet. Many cities limit the length of cul-de-sacs. We don’t do that here. But we do look for alternate access on the longer cul-de-sacs. Generous: Mr. Chairman, if I may. Sacchet: Yes, go ahead Bob. Generous: When the developer originally came in, they proposed a cul-de-sac in this location instead of connecting. It was the city staff that told them to make the street connection. Ultimately it will be up to council to see if they’re going to do that. That’s part of our job. We want to make those inter-connections. We think that community is more than one neighborhood. It’s a little bigger. Mike Stachowski: How would you feel if you lived there, you bought your house purposely for that reason and someone from the outside tells you, we’re going to do this because we think it’s good for you? Generous: That’s rhetorical. Sacchet: Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to try to answer that one. Mike Stachowski: No, I understand that but you see what I’m saying? Sacchet: Yeah, I understand your point. Mike Stachowski: You know I purposely bought that house a year ago for this reason. 29 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Let me ask you a question back though. Mike Stachowski: Yeah. Sacchet: How about that development that’s coming in within a month’s time for us to look at? At the very end of your cul-de-sac there’s going to be 5 or what additional houses. What does that do to this whole thing? Does that have any bearing? Mike Stachowski: Well I don’t want any more travel on that road than anybody else in that neighborhood, to be perfectly honest. I mean people buy houses for certain reasons. You know you bought your’s for certain reasons, and then they start to develop something which they have enough access in and out, and we’re being told it’s for safety reasons. it’s for this reason, and I think that’s why basically the whole neighborhood’s here saying, we don’t have these issues. Everybody else does. Sacchet: In terms of the new development that goes in, we really don’t want to belabor this here but maybe there is a way that you can make it a win/win. That the new development is more connecting into that and then you have your little windy huge cul-de-sac, windy road. Mike Stachowski: You know it might be. Sacchet: There are ways. Mike Stachowski: It might be a win/win but from what I see everybody’s talking about what’s best for the new development and once this gets developed and they’re saying well we really haven’t looked at that. Well once it’s developed there’s really no choice if you’re going to start changing that road, you’re going to have to do it because there’s no other option. I think this is the time to look at it. Sacchet: Right, this is definitely the time to look at it, and from a city planning viewpoint, I mean as a general rule we try to connect neighborhoods which in general is a good thing. Now you’re telling us you don’t want it. We hear that and it’s certainly going to be considered. Mike Stachowski: Okay. Sacchet: Thank you. Anybody else wants to come forward? Yes, we got a couple more takers here. One at a time will be just fine. Lori Abblett: Hi. My name is Lori Abblett and I live on Crestview Drive also and my concern is the trees. I’m actually, the Shivley Addition, there’s two rows of pine trees and mine on the north side and their’s on the south side. So I’m concerned what’s going to happen to my side of the pine trees. Slagle: Help us out with that Bob. 30 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Can you point it out on the drawing maybe, so we know exactly what you’re referring to. Lori Abblett: I’m right here. I butt up to. Sacchet: Over there, okay. Lori Abblett: Yeah, right here so there’s two rows of pines. So I guess my concern is what’s going to happen to these trees with these homes going in here and a road. I’m actually going to lose, well I’ve got, you know my side of my yard, the back side of my yard. Sacchet: Do you see the green color part? Slagle: Is she east of the road or? Keefe: She’s east of the road isn’t she? Lori Abblett: Okay, sorry. I’m sorry, I’m in the wrong spot. Generous: Here’s the Shivley property… Lori Abblett: So I might be on the corner. Generous: Yeah, they’re proposing to preserve all that. Lori Abblett: All these trees back here? Sacchet: Yep, all that was colored green, and actually on the other side of the street not everything is colored green that they’re trying to preserve. Lori Abblett: Okay. So nothing will happen? All those trees are tagged back there. Sacchet: They have to be tagged because they’re inventory. That doesn’t mean they’re slated for cutting. Unfortunately a lot of them are but the tag is just an inventory. Generous: …the trees as part of this process. Lori Abblett: My trees are tagged too. What is that? Why are my trees part of this? Generous: They must have just went over the line on that. Lori Abblett: But there are several of my trees that have a tag you know. Sacchet: Yeah, that was just inventory. So they were put on a map and I mean if the inventory is accurate, we should actually see those, either not on the inventory or across the lot line. As far 31 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 as I see, the ones that we see on our drawing are all, actually no, they do go across. There are clearly trees tagged on the other side. So that’s nothing to be concerned about. Lori Abblett: Okay. Don’t they typically contact the homeowner though and let them know they’re going to take their trees? Sacchet: Actually I would take it as a positive that they’re really trying to do a thorough job to inventory them to know what’s there. Yeah. Lori Abblett: And then if that road goes through that we’re talking about here, how will that affect all the trees through there? That’s all woods. Sacchet: Well there where the road is, obviously trees are going to go. Lori Abblett: And then what will happen to like my property? We’ve got a pool and swing set and stuff back there. Generous: They shouldn’t come onto your property for any of that. Sacchet: Your property should not be touched. Lori Abblett: But how will they be able to get through there? Claybaugh: Has the site been staked at this point, do you know? The boundaries have been staked? Okay. Lori Abblett: Okay. Thank you. Claybaugh: Is there anything as you look at the boundary stakes that you see out there that causes you alarm? Lori Abblett: Well, there aren’t really. Some of the monuments have actually been removed out of the ground so we’ve had it surveyed but we need to have it re-done because one of the corner pins are missing, so that is a big concern because where are the developers going to go from without that, my corner pin? Saam: I can address that Mr. Chair. Each new development is required to certify the city that if there’s any pins missing, that they replace them. Of course that’s at the end of a development but just. Lori Abblett: At the end of, well how will they know what to go off of? Saam: Well when they put the new lots in, is what I’m saying you know. So when they establish that north property line with all these new lot lines, they have to certify to the city that all about the pins are in for the new lots. 32 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Lori Abblett: But they’ll do that before they start? Sacchet: Yeah, when you say. Saam: They’ll verify the boundary, yeah. Sacchet: When you say at the end, you mean at the end of the lines? Not at the end of when everything is done so we can distinguish that one. Lori Abblett: Okay. Alright, thank you. Sacchet: You’re welcome. Lillehaug: Matt, could you clarify as far as the impacts to her property? Maybe not directly but if that road were extended up to Crestview Lane, there would be indirect because that road would be directly adjacent to her property line, correct? So in essence, her indirect result is going to be she’s going to have a road running on the west side of her property line. Saam: Yes, if both of these plats get approved as they’re currently being proposed, yeah. Yes, there’d be a proper, she’d be a corner lot then. Sacchet: Actually that raises an interesting question. That proposed development, have we seen a plan and does it have a connection? Generous: Yes. Sacchet: It does have a connection planned for that? Okay, that’s important. Alright, we had a couple of other people I think over there. Ann Taylor: Hi. I’m Ann Taylor. I’m from 2340 Lake Lucy Road on the Brenden Pond and my question concern the pond. I wasn’t sure if I understood that there’s going to be runoff into Brenden Pond, is that correct? Sacchet: There’s a different, what we call a NURP pond. A storm water pond on this property. Ann Taylor: Okay, but I thought there was some that was going to the Brenden Pond and some to that pond. Sacchet: There’s no drainage into Brenden Pond is there? Saam: I’m sorry, is Brenden Pond… Sacchet: That’s the little lake. That’s the little lake over towards 41. No, Brenden Pond is to the west. Saam: …subdivision yes, but where’s the actual pond? 33 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: The pond is to the west. You’re talking about that little lake. To the west. Next to 41. Saam: The only thing that will drain to the west are the rear yard areas along the western side and that will go to this ravine and follow the natural drainage. It won’t go towards that… Sacchet: It will drain south. It will drain south. Never gets into Brenden Pond. Nothing goes into Brenden Pond. Ann Taylor: Oh, okay. Well, that’s good. That’s what I was… Sacchet: That’s all you needed to know? Ann Taylor: Yes. Sacchet: I wish all the questions. Ann Taylor: I’m a little concerned about the traffic but I’m sure that it doesn’t matter so. Sacchet: I wish all the questions were this easy. I think we have some other people. Yes, there are a couple more. Alan Nikolai: I’m Alan Nikolai, 6282 Cartway Lane, Chanhassen. I’m here for my mother. She’s on 6570 Galpin which is the northeast corner of this development. Where exactly is this northeast retaining wall in relation to the property line? Could somebody address that please. Sacchet: On the northeast. Okay, that long, straight one? The one up there. Alan Nikolai: Exactly how far is it off the property line is that one? Sacchet: Can you measure that for us Matt? What is it, about 10-20 feet? Saam: Approximately 15 to 20 feet south of the property line. Alan Nikolai: How close to the southerly row of pine trees is that? Sacchet: 10, more or less. Saam: Yeah, about 10 feet. Alan Nikolai: Have you been out to the site and actually looked at that? Saam: Yeah, I’ve walked this site before. 34 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Alan Nikolai: That is, the southerly row of pine trees is over 15, or approximately 15 feet from the property line and you’re putting the wall right on the trees then. My concern is the root system. If you’re going to put a retaining wall right up to the trunk of those trees, they’re dead. Sacchet: Right. Alan Nikolai: Somebody else mentioned about, you know like if it’s within 10 feet of a house, it will just because of all the excavation will kill a tree. If they’re within 10 feet of those trees, it will most likely kill them, if not even you know. My point is, from a point of, from an arborist point of view, what would be the recommended distance from those tree trunks for that wall to be? Sacchet: Probably the drip line. Generous: Yes. Alan Nikolai: Pardon? Sacchet: The drip line of the tree would be the site. Alan Nikolai: No, well that’s not accurate according to arborists though. Arborists say 3 times the drip line is the root system, and did you consult the city arborist at all? Sacchet: It has been reviewed by the forester, right. Generous: She reviewed this plan. Sacchet: But we can certainly make a note that we want that… Alan Nikolai: I’m very concerned about it because you said well 15 to 20 feet from that property line. That’s within 5 feet of those southerly trunks of those trees. Sacchet: Well looking at where they’re on the plat, the trees are considerably closer to the lot line than to the retaining wall, if that’s any consolation. It’s something I think, it’s a very valid point that we would want to bring to the forester’s attention to do a double check on it. Alan Nikolai: Somebody mentioned that basically this wall here…but based on that northeast side, it said 4 to 7 feet high. Which side is 4 feet, which side is 7 feet? Saam: The taller end, it’s tall down at the west and then it starts to go down as you go to the east, but then it does raise up again and that’s just based on the elevation change in that area. Nathan Franzen: I think you’re asking whether the lots are lower. The lots are lower than the trees. 35 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: The lots are lower than the trees. That’s why he’s concerned. You’re going to cut potentially roots off. Alan Nikolai: Approximately how much are the site pads lower than the trees? Are we talking 2 feet? Are we talking 10 feet? You were talking a lot of grade differences here earlier. Saam: I mean it varies. Again it drops as it goes to the east generally speaking. 8 feet. Some of these are different. I mean generally if the wall is 4 to 6 feet, the trees might be a little taller so you’re in that 5 to 7 foot elevation difference. Generally speaking. Alan Nikolai: Okay, thank you. I’d like to explore a little bit about this turn lane which also, there’s the trail. Sacchet: Do you want to point it out on the drawing so we know where you’re at. Okay. Alan Nikolai: Right here… How is that, there’s an existing trail there right now with a curb. How are you going to add the trail and a turn lane without impacting the arborvitae trees? Sacchet: Has that been looked at? Saam: I would pass that onto the applicant. I don’t know if they looked at that yet. I don’t believe it’s on these plans yet so maybe they’ve looked at it. Alan Nikolai: Well, have any of the people been out to the site and looked at the site? Sacchet: Oh yeah. Alan Nikolai: Okay. If you understand, you have the trail and it’s approximately 8 feet from the trail’s edge. You have the edge of the arborvitae trees along, all along Galpin Boulevard there. Now how are you going to put a turn lane in and have a trail there without impacting those arborvitaes? Lillehaug: I think there’s probably going to be some impact. Alan Nikolai: Is this right here…trying to be saved or not? Or is it this right here? This is where all the arborvitaes are. Sacchet: Yeah please. Nathan Franzen: This current plan does not show a turn. We just received that request last week and we’ve just started looking at where that turn lane will be and there will be some impacts in this northern section of the arborvitaes. We don’t know how extensive that it but there will be some significant effects. Keefe: And what would happen to the trail then? 36 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Nathan Franzen: The trail, it’s all going to be moved. Keefe: It’s all going to have to be pushed, yeah. Alan Nikolai: May I ask who asked you to look at that for a turn lane. Nathan Franzen: The County. Alan Nikolai: Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Thank you. Alan Nikolai: I guess, one of the things about the arborvitaes there on that east side, it is a major buffer year round. They’re well established. Been there well over 50 years and now you’re removing some of the other neighbors across the street, you’re removing the buffer strips. You’re talking about how much you’re conserving the trees and yet you’re taking out many of these arborvitaes along the Galpin Boulevard there. I don’t consider that conservation ladies and gentlemen. Not nearly. Sacchet: Well unfortunately this is development more than conservation. I think that’s the… Alan Nikolai: Well you’re conserving on the west end and yet you’re not doing anything on this site where there’s a fairly high traffic road and you’re going to have traffic noise, which is going to affect these landowners. These landowners, they’re going to have to be looking out their door and they’re going to have all this traffic, and here you have already a natural buffer of trees that you’re going to be removing. That does not make sense. Sacchet: I’m with you. I’m with you on that one. Alan Nikolai: One of the things I’d like to see there, how about a conservation easement protecting those arborvitae. I understand you have to have the road coming in, but protect those trees on that easterly side of the new, of that development and also the Norway pines on the north side. What’s going to prevent the future homeowner from cutting them down? I’d like to see, if you want try managed development, have a conservation easement that basically it’s to be kept in trees, not to be touched by the landowners. Including the Norway’s and the arborvitae there. That is a doable thing at this point in time. I think that is something that really needs to be looked at in this development. One of the things was brought up earlier a little bit about is Lot 27 concern and lack of parkland and I’m not so concerned about the kids that they can hop on their bicycles and run up to the school property and play ball. I’m a little bit more concerned, how about the kids that are 6 years old and the mom wants to go, have the kids go play somewhere. You know go down to the swing set and on a slide. There’s no area for that. More of that type of park development, not the big you know open areas but a little area that you know the kids can play. The little kids, the tykes in the neighborhood can play. I think Lot 27 would be much better served in that capacity. And as far as the development, as far as this road going up through, up here. Up here, potentially connecting to Crestview, put back into the cul-de-sac. The plan that was originally requested by the developer. There’s no need for that road to go up 37 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 there. I don’t know if any of you’ve actually went up Crestview or have driven it, there’s an extremely sharp curve. Very limited sight. Visibility right about here. And it’s very tight. I mean if you go through there more than 15 miles an hour you risk a head on with another vehicle. And now you’re going to add 40-60 other people. Crestview’s an extremely steep hill. It’s very icy this time of year, and what happened the other day with, yesterday morning with the ice, you’re going to add all this additional traffic going down that hill and extremely, that’s an accident waiting to happen with a head on, to add all this additional traffic. I talked to my mother about it and she’s very much opposed to adding additional traffic on that road for safety considerations. Someone’s going to get hurt there. If you add that extra traffic up there, so I would request that you reconsider adding that connection to Crestview. Go back to a cul-de-sac. Maybe the developer can add an extra lot up in that area to replace Lot 27 being used as a park area. That type of thing. I think that’s all that I have. I respectfully ask that you, especially reconsider the conservation easements for the existing trees on that east and north side. That is something that would have the, lessen the impact upon the existing neighborhood. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Larry Marty: Good evening. Larry Marty, 2117 Lake Lucy Road. I’m also a member of the Woodridge Heights Association representing that neighborhood. Couple of concerns that I have. The two revolve around a big part of what we’ve already heard tonight. The drainage and the trees. The drainage element, I’m hearing that this is going to improve drainage but I guess I’m not seeing enough information to give me confidence in that. I live just directly south of this development. Directly down the hill on the south side of Lake Lucy. The, we are dealing with a lot of runoff already. If anybody has walked or run the path, they’ve seen the year round, the drainage that comes across that path now. You will be removing a lot of trees that are directly going to impact that, even though you may put in some swales and try to drain it away from the northern side, the reality is there’s still a very steep slope there. Water is going to come down that and with reduced canopy you’re going to have greater amounts of water there. I know the one homeowner specifically has had severe problems. They’ve had, they run two sump pumps. One of them, they’re both on battery back-up. They’ve already burned one out because it was running nonstop. So I’m sure they would have direct concerns with that. To the tree element, I see all of the properties on the north side of the Woodridge Heights development that abut this development have a significant amount of tree cover that will be reduced significantly. When our development in Woodridge Heights was put in, even though there was all of that tree cover there, there were trees that were planted on the north side of our property. On the specific, on the top side along this outlot here. All along here there were evergreens that were planted along the top of that property. Some of them have been cut down, but we’d like to see it, some of them have died but we’d like to see if there is any development that proceeds, we’d like to see additional trees put in there to provide that buffer that was put in, even when our development went in and it wasn’t even impacting that particular area so I think it’s only fair for any development also to continue to add to that. And I guess lastly, the concern I have is just with regards to the access roads. The concern about the road coming out onto Manchester. That’s going to create additional traffic. We do have a bus stop there. There’s not a four way stop at that point which has already been raised and we would have concerns about that would increase traffic on that site. And I guess the last piece to our Crestview friends, I think the comments that have been made about the security that’s being created by creating the access to Crestview 38 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 through this development is somewhat of an oxymoron in the sense that we’re creating a cul-de- sac that I would imagine is very close to 500 feet in length and has a lot of homes that would be in a similar setting that Crestview is currently in now without having to have any additional access so if security is the reason we’re putting, granting that access, then why are we building a cul-de-sac that’s creating that same situation. To me, as I look at this plan, I think the access road probably adds for another lot and just another opportunity for the developer and not necessarily the, what’s best for the neighborhood and the best for Chanhassen. Sacchet: Thank you sir. Anybody else? Yes. Please come forward. Ruopei Cao: My name is Ruopei Cao. I live at 2135 Lake Lucy Road. My question is regarding the privacy. We live down the south of the Lake Lucy Road and our house is, we’re up the field back here and we’re, I’m consider of, is it possible that this new houses you there will oversee our house or that you invade our privacy. Sacchet: Well they’re going to be up on the hill there, and I don’t know to what extent it would have a view down onto Lake Lucy. When I walked the property I, you’re definitely going to get to the edge. You can even see down to Lake Lucy. You can see the road so I would assume, from the house, further up you may see the house below but it’s considerable distance. Ruopei Cao: Okay. So I mean the house will be like here? This side of. Sacchet: Right, there should be a little bit of a hill but I don’t know whether we can be more specific than that. Saam: Yes Mr. Chair, just looking at the grading plan. The houses will be approximately 45 plus feet higher. They’re proposing ramblers so their base. Sacchet: So they’re not tall. Saam: When they look out their windows it will be even a bit higher than that. 4 feet upwards or what have you so they’re going to be considerably higher than the street level down on Lake Lucy is. I would think it would be hard to peer into windows, that sort of thing. Ruopei Cao: But do you have a plan that has like trees block the view so if you watch. Sacchet: Well some trees are being preserved. I mean there is this strip of trees that is being preserved. It’s not, we’re trying to preserve as many trees as possible. Personally I’d like to preserve more but they definitely made a valiant effort to preserve a good amount. So there will be a buffer from where I understand you’re referring to, there’d be a buffer of evergreens actually that’s being preserved. Ruopei Cao: And my other comments will be, I, we bought the house, we moved into this neighborhood 5 years ago…the low density of the residence, this residential area and I like this area with all kinds of animals and deers and with those are cut off, my more concern is we’re kind of losing the environment. 39 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Well hopefully you won’t lose all of it. Ruopei Cao: And with this 43 houses you build there, I’m not sure how, what is the average of the lot size for this? Sacchet: What are we looking, about 18-19,000? Generous: 19.5. Sacchet: 19,500 square feet per lot is the average. Generous: Almost a half acre. Ruopei Cao: Half acre. Sacchet: Half an acre, yeah. Ruopei Cao: Okay. Alright. Sacchet: Okay, thank you for your questions. We got somebody else? Troy Bader: Hello. Troy Bader, 2244 Lake Lucy Road. One question I have really relates to the ravine that would run on the west side of the development. We are, the ravine will actually come out of the woods, out of the nature area. It will run down and actually discharges just on the east side of our property. No problems with it right now. My concern though relates to the construction, the clearing, the grading period and construction period. I know there are some standard protections that have been established to keep the ravine in it’s natural state. Keep the debris out of it. I’m concerned though, is that actually sufficient? There’s going to be a lot of dirt that’s going to be moved. There’s going to be a lot of retaining walls going to be in there, and if that silt and dirt and ground comes down into that ravine, that ravine will be changed from it’s natural state on a permanent basis. I’m also concerned what it could obviously do from the total drainage going through that area. Who’s going to maintain that and who’s going to watch for that during the construction period? Sacchet: Do you want to touch on the silt fencing and that sort of stuff Matt? Saam: Sure. Yeah, silt fence is some of the standard types of methods that are used to hold the construction dirt on the site during rain events. We also require temporary sediment ponds basically so if drainage, the drainage that does flow off the site, if it has the dirt in it, it can settle out in a dirt type basin. And then it will be both the City’s responsibility but with the new PCA requirements, the contractor is responsible to maintain the site. The City contracts with Carver Soil and Water District to inspect sites around town, so we’ll be checking on them but the contractor is responsible. He signs a permit. He’s a liable for fines with the PCA if he’s not up to snuff. 40 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Troy Bader: Okay, have those methods proven to be successful, because I’m looking at this grade. You know when I’m looking at a standard building lot where there may be a slight grade, we’ve got a big grade with a lot of dirt that’s going to be moved, and I just want to make sure that we’re okay. Saam: Yes, again if it’s maintained correctly, the silt fence should hold up. We have a pretty sturdy silt fence. It’s not just wood stakes. It’s metal posts so. Troy Bader: Okay, and is that the maximum level? Is there anything else that can be done or is this, you know as you look at the levels of protection that can be taken, is this the maximum that can be taken that’s reasonable for this type of a development? Saam: Some additional items that we’re going to require them to do once they grade a slope is put a blanket on the steep slope to keep the dirt from leaving the site and there will be seed under that. The blanket helps both keep the dirt on there and then the moisture and so the seed can take, so that in addition to silt fencing, temporary sediment basins. Those are the 3 that we typically use. Troy Bader: Alright, because the concern is obviously we’re losing a lot of trees in that area. A lot of dirt’s going to be moved in that area and I’m very concerned, we talk here about trying to maintain the natural integrity of that area, but I think it’s going to be very difficult to actually carry that through. Sacchet: Well if it’s any reassurance, I mean the city does inspect those silt fences and all periodically. It’s not like they get put in and forgotten and washed out. From my experience usually the issue we sometimes run into is that they don’t get removed afterwards so, but while they’re there, they tend to get checked and as Matt pointed out, I think it’s very significant that once grading is complete, it has to be reseeded. If it’s steeper, it has to be done right away. I think there’s, if it’s steeper slope it’s within 7 days or something like that, that it needs to have an erosion protection blanket on it with the seed. I mean I think that concern, we are certainly doing what we can to mitigate. Troy Bader: Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Claybaugh: Mr. Chair? Sacchet: Yes. Claybaugh: Staff may want to get together with them later and they can look at details on Sheet 10 of 11. Sacchet: It actually specifies. Claybaugh: Slope blankets, stabilization as well as silt fencing. 41 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Good point. Thanks Craig. Do we have anybody else that wants to address this development? Yes we do. Charlie Hicks: I’m Charlie Hicks at 19, excuse me, 1941 Crestview Circle. I’m not part of the Drive consortium here. I’m part of the circle, but I have a quick comment and a question. The comment is, I don’t live at Crestview Circle but I thought everybody here that does was really far more eloquent than what I would have said had I lived there. This reminds me of kind of a twisted suburban renewal, if you think about it. My comment would be, if it has to happen, I mean development has to happen. We can’t stop that but I would like to have you think about messing up their cul-de-sac because it is beautiful. I live on the east side of it and I get to walk my dog up it every once in a while. It’s great. My other question would be traffic on Galpin. Galpin’s like the Indy 500. If you live there it’s like walking down by Daytona. And if we’re going to have another 80 some odd cars, how are we going to manage it? Sacchet: Well, I don’t want to minimize that but 80 cars on that type of road, does that really have an impact? Saam: Galpin is classified as a major thoroughfare in town. A collector. Arterial type road that’s meant to handle the traffic. That’s meant to take cars on it. To take traffic. We’re not talking a residential street. With that said, I mean we do believe the traffic’s going to work. It is a county road. They’re putting in the turn lane to help get traffic that’s coming into the site off of the main drag so to speak. We think it’s going to work. Charlie Hicks: Thanks. Sacchet: You’re welcome. Thank you. Now I think there was somebody else. Yes there. Kim Goers: I just have a quick question. My name is Kim Goers and I live on Brenden Court. I live at 6709 Brenden. I also own a property at 6673 Brenden Court which is currently for sale. 6673 Brenden Court is right next to the road. There’s a road running between. Sacchet: That private drive there. Kim Goers: What will happen to that road? Is that going to be. Sacchet: Well I think we touched on that before that at this point nothing would happen with it. Kim Goers: It will just stay there? Sacchet: It will just sit there for now. That’s what I understood what he said Matt. Saam: Yes. We actually haven’t put much thought into, you know if we’re going to remove… Sacchet: I mean realistically it could go away because it’s not being used. 42 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: However there is a sewer line in there and the water line… Sacchet: There would definitely be an easement, a utility easement right? Saam: We may want to keep that for access purposes. The pavement but frankly we haven’t really given it much thought as to you know, do we want to keep that or do we want to remove the pavement. Kim Goers: Okay, so as of right now. Sacchet: So definitely it’s an easement for the sewer and water line. Saam: Definitely the easement will stay. Sacchet: That is firm, that part. Kim Goers: Okay, so it will still be City owned property. Sacchet: The City would have, at a minimum have access. Kim Goers: Okay. So when you say access, does that mean you would continue the road into the property? Saam: No, it’s just for maintenance access. If the City would need to get in, if there’s a watermain break or that sort of thing. We’re not talking trip, multiple trips per day access. Anything like that. Kim Goers: Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Okay? Alright, anybody else? I’m not seeing anybody, last chance. I’m closing this public hearing. Thank you all for your comments. Appreciate it. Bring it back to commissioners. Discussion. Comments… Claybaugh: Out of the public comments something came up and I was wondering if I could pose a question to the developer? Sacchet: Certainly. Claybaugh: With respect to the right turn lane. Do you have any input with respect to how that may impact your Lot number 8? Nathan Franzen: There is enough room within the right-of-way to accommodate the turn lane. We know that at this point. As far as effects on the trees, is that what you’re alluding to? Claybaugh: Both. 43 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Nathan Franzen: Both. As far as what’s going to be left remaining of that stand, it’s probably not going to be the best looking, if there is any that we can save. It is our belief to replant that area with another hedge. Claybaugh: Okay, and that’s what I want to get out there. Nathan Franzen: And to get to that comment about the conserve, conservation easement as well that was brought up. Sacchet: Sure, go ahead. Nathan Franzen: I did ask Jill about that when we first started this whole process. Sacchet: Jill being the City Forester? Nathan Franzen: Yes, that’s right. And it wasn’t really looked highly upon because there are some issues, particularly even surrounding this property where people aren’t following and there’s no enforcement of it, and it just seems like it’s another layer of government. We’re certainly open to doing that, if that’s something you wish to do, but it wasn’t approved by Jill. Sacchet: Yeah, unfortunately our experience with conservation easements is not very encouraging. It doesn’t get enough respect and it’s hard to enforce, so that might be an important… Claybaugh: Certainly we can’t get any worst for trying? Sacchet: It certainly well worth trying. Now in that context, I mean there’s also the question is Galpin being, did you say collector road? Or. Saam: Yeah, I believe arterial. Sacchet: So I mean at some point chances are it’s going to be widen. Is that realistic statement? I mean not to scare everybody out of their wits but in terms of how the city develops, Galpin is considered a road that could potentially get bigger. Saam: Right. Sacchet: Not as a thru road but as an access road for the neighbors, okay. And that’s another element to balance. I mean it’s delicate to balance all these things. Craig, do you have more stuff? Claybaugh: If we’re going to move onto comments? Sacchet: Yes, we are comments and discussion. That’s where we’re at. 44 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Claybaugh: Okay. I appreciate all the public comments. We hear a lot of them on projects like this, and some of them are certainly gut wrenching. Other ones are just a function of a definition. When I moved in on Lake Lucy Road it was a dirt road. There were 100 horses down at the end. If you’ve driven on Lake Lucy Road recently, you’ll know that’s not what I have any more. But when we come back to it from a city government standpoint and the engineer’s job, city staff’s job, they rely upon their engineering. They rely on the city’s best management practices. So we kind of get lost in the definition. Your’s is very subjective standpoint of what your personal experience is. They function from a different level and I’d like to make that point. I think that having seen Plowshares bring a number of developments in front of this body previously, I hold them in reasonably high regard with respect to the effort they set forth in bringing the development forward. There is always going to be issues that seem that they’re not fully baked. Sometimes it turns out that they are and we’re just pushing it from the left side to the right side. Other times we do make strides with respect to the public comments and the discussions that take place here and I think some of that is what’s going to take place here tonight so. I am in favor, I am concerned with the number of outstanding issues we have regarding this or surrounding this here yet tonight. The least of which isn’t Lot 27 drainage, the street elevation. We’ve got a dialogue present but we don’t have any concrete solutions. Sanitary sewer. Street C eyebrow, as well as some of the things that came out from the neighborhoods with respect to tying in Street C. Conservation easements. So on and so forth so I guess I’d sit back and listen to the commissioners, my fellow commissioners comments and see if I can reach some conclusion myself here yet tonight. Sacchet: Thanks Craig. Who wants to go next? Any other comments? Lillehaug: I will. Sacchet: Jump over there. Alright, go ahead Steve. Lillehaug: Well the eyebrow cul-de-sac, I don’t support that. It’s not a very standard cul-de-sac. Who maintains the middle portion of it, of the cul-de-sac. I mean there are ways to do that but I don’t support it. If it does go through though, it should have I think like staff would support is a wider street undoubtedly. There are issues with narrower streets. I don’t support conservation easements, for the reasons that Commissioner Sacchet indicated. Lot 27, I think that should be turned into a park or. Sacchet: Totlot? Lillehaug: Or an outlot or increase the pond size. My opinion. The right turn lane versus saving the trees. I weigh the safety of the traffic on Galpin more than I weigh those trees, so definitely if it’s a right turn lane versus taking those trees, in my mind it’s definitely putting a right turn lane in. And a couple issues I have here. Is it the best for the City of Chanhassen? I don’t believe so but it’s the people who own those properties have a right to develop it so we’re here to get the best development as possible, so that’s what I’m trying to do here. A couple issues I have. Minimum versus maximum standards. It seems like every time we get a development we’re always right on the edge of meeting the minimum standards and it’s one of my pet peeves. As far as you know maximizing the maximum amount of lots we can get out here by forcing a 45 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 swale. Trying to get the drainage to work. I just don’t think we need to go that route. If we lose a lot, that’s what happens. And I know that’s not advantageous to the pockets of the landowners but I think that’s something we should weigh in on. As far as the profile of the road, again every single one of them curves is meeting the absolute minimum standard that the City would allow, and actually MnDot wouldn’t allow that on their roads because like the designer said, it meets 25 miles an hour. Well this is a 30 mile an hour road so with, I would ask staff when they go back and look at that, when they’re lowering the road, don’t let them meet the minimum on every single, every single vertical curve. Let’s try to get a better fit out there. Not a better fit but a safer fit. As far as the minimum landing area before we get onto Galpin, another one of my pet peeves. We’re going from a 7 percent down to a 3 percent. Icy Minnesota winters. It’s not the best situation. Yes, it meets the minimum but I think that’s another area where I’d like to see staff work a little bit with the consultant and increase that. And I think I’ve talked enough. Generally I support it. Next. Sacchet: Kurt. Papke: Okay. In the budding tradition of the Chanhassen Planning Commission I respectfully disagree with Commissioner Lillehaug on the eyebrow. I think it’s very creative and I commend the landscape designer for trying to do something different. I understand from the city engineer’s perspective this might create some challenges to, with the plowing crews and so on, but they might have to learn how to plow that particular configuration but I think one of the concerns that was raised by the Crestview residents was another McMansion development I believe was the term used that I think this helps mitigate the cookie cutter look that some of our developments engender after a while so I actually support the eyebrow. Regards to Lot 27, I think this is just a disaster waiting to happen here. There’s what, a 24 foot grade difference from Lots 23, 24 and 25 immediately behind this and the amount of snow pack, if we ever get snow this year. You know in the spring when that melts, I just think you’re going to have horrendous problems trying to keep that basement dry if you build a house there. So I think that one’s going to be problematic. In regards to the connection to Crestview, Street B. I think there’s real value in looking at this holistically. Obviously many of the residents here tonight are concerned about the connection to Crestview, and to be honest that’s what, that’s not what we’re here tonight to, you know to decide on. All we are going to decide on here tonight is taking it to the border of this particular development, but I think there is value in looking at this together with the Shivley proposal and say let’s look at these two at the same time. Let’s look at them as one big holistic plan and understand the total impact to the neighborhood so that we don’t stall out here. I would also like to point out to residents, or encourage you, one of the reasons we have this conflict here tonight is the city’s comprehensive plan is driving city staff to make these connections so the city has a policy that encourages developers to develop this way, so I would strongly encourage the residents of Chanhassen to get involved in the review of the comprehensive plan so that the next time it gets revised, it reflects the desires of the residents of the city. You know you’re very vocal in what you’re speaking out on and I respect that, but your feelings are in direct contradiction to the city’s comprehensive plan and I think the best way to deal with that issue, in the long run, is for the residents of the city to get involved in that comprehensive plan. So with that, I’ve said enough. Thank you. Sacchet: Thanks Kurt. Bethany. Want to go? 46 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Tjornhom: Yeah, I’ve got some things to say. I just want, first of all to say that I really, I think I have good feelings about this developer. I think that he really will try to work with the city and with the staff in making the right decisions for this development. I think a developer is only as good as his developments are, and so it’s in his best interest also to make sure that all these issues we discussed tonight are taken care of and that he has a quality product in the end. Even though tonight we’re not deciding access to Crestview or not, I think the neighbors have spoken and I think we have to respect what they’ve said. It is the city’s goal to promote access to neighborhoods, but it’s promote. That’s what it says. It doesn’t say demand. It doesn’t say acquire. It says promote and so I think when a neighborhood obviously gets together like you have tonight and you rallied and you spoke your mind, I think we have to listen to that and respect that. Getting on to my favorite thing now is Street C, the island, and I think I’m willing to be brave and throw caution to the wind and say let’s go for it. I think that the developer said he would work with Matt to make the streets perhaps a little wider, and to accommodate him any way he can and I think it would just be a new, wonderful addition to our city. So I’m in favor for the island. And Lot 27. Once again, well not once again. No one else has said that but I’m going to say that I’m going to put my trust in the developer that he would work with engineering and he would try to make a building pad and put swales around it to protect water damage or any problems with drainage. I don’t think it would be a good park or a totlot, especially because there’s a pond right next to it. In my mind that would be a hazard for children. So I think that’s all I have to say but I am in support of it. Sacchet: Thanks Bethany. We haven’t heard from you Dan. Keefe: Sure. Further study obviously needs to occur in regards to the right turn lane off of Galpin and I don’t think I’m in favor of a conservation easement, just due to the difficulty in trying to maintain it. It also sounds like, even if we’re required to put in a right turn lane which it sounds like we are, I don’t know how those reconcile themselves concerning those arborvitaes along with putting in a right turn lane. It doesn’t sound like there’s room for that anyway, so I don’t know if that isn’t kind of a moot thought. Lot 27, I actually agree with Bethany on that. I think that they can work on that lot and I think they can work with the city and make the appropriate swales to make that a viable lot. I like the eyebrow lot, or eyebrow street. I think it is a creative solution. I think a lot of thought has gone into looking at that. I think they’ve worked with the city in terms of the width. I think that can be reconciled. I would like the runoff calc’s to be looked at really closely in regards to this, in regards to the properties to the south. We’ve heard a lot of comments in regards to water, already existing water problems. We don’t want to add to the problem. Problems that are already occurring. And is it true that Street B, I think I saw in the staff report that we’re going to have a temporary cul-de-sac on that right now, is that correct? Generous: If the two projects don’t go concurrently, then yes we’d have to have a turn around. Keefe: Right, so we really won’t know the answer to that until we get the proposal in for the other two when we’re considering the next one, right? Generous: When they come in for final plat. 47 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Keefe: You know we definitely need to consider what the residents have brought forth and, but I don’t think that’s going to be resolved probably until the next, until we see the next development come in. That’s all I have. Sacchet: Thank you Dan. Rich, your turn. Slagle: Just a few. I guess I’ll state a couple of reasons I support the proposal and then I’ll suggest a couple reasons that cause me concern. One is, has been stated and I’ll make it quick. The developer is solid. To all the folks who are here, if this does go forward I think you’ll find they do more often than not than what I’ve seen, keep people’s interest in mind. I support the landscape island, although I would encourage 28 feet or some compromise between 24 and 28. Support the private drive we’re asked to consider. I also support a right hand turn, although those arborvitaes are just unbelievable but in safety needs, but I will start to share my concerns and needs I think that our lacking in this development. One is a park. I’m amazed that we now have a development with this many units at this place in the city that I, seriously I can’t think of the nearest park. Keefe: Pheasant Hills. Slagle: You would have to go down Lake Lucy. Up Lake Lucy hill, which is a good mile and along a pretty busy road if you’re a lady pushing a stroller, so I sit here and say, if you look at the southern part of our city, the central along Highway 5, we’ve had recent developments that have been in front of this commission that we have requested and almost required neighborhood totlots, and here we have one that doesn’t have one. And then I think well okay we’ll go with the developer’s idea that they’ll go to the middle school. Well, there’s no really connection to the middle school. Someone would have to go out to Galpin, up the hill. Take a left on whatever, Melody Hill and then work your way back, or go all the way down to Lake Lucy and then over to Brenden and up Brenden. Not 41 but up that little path. So again in the essence of community I think we’re missing that. And I would really ask, and for those who are here, the difficulty of this commission is we don’t see this until Thursday of last week. So we get a little frustrated in this position as to why this wasn’t done before it got to us. So I just want to know if it’s something to consider. I am against, even though it’s with city policy, the extension of Street B. Only because I really don’t sense in the common sense of things, other than safety and fire, emergency, what that really does for us. If Crestview extended to the north, I can work it’s way down toward 7 or something to that effect, I could understand it. But to just add this to a cul-de- sac and we have lots of cul-de-sacs that are as long that have one access so I would be against that. And I do think it’s appropriate to talk about it now because it’d be silly to approve this and then have the next development come to us at that point, it’s already done. And that leads to two more points. Is should this development that we’re talking about today, in light of the new development, should they be tied in some sort together because we have had that happen before where we have actually told a developer, hold on. There’s other developers who want to develop nearby and we really want to address this all together so I just throw that out as a concern. And then the last one is, with respect to the landowners to the south and the runoff. If we remember the development that we just approved 3-4 months ago on the south side of Pioneer, Pemtom I believe it was, we actually required, or the city did, different mitigation on those lots on the bluff 48 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 to avoid additional erosion and mitigating the water runoff. I’m just curious as to why we didn’t see that here. Maybe it’s not needed, but at least it raised a concern that maybe it is. That’s it. Sacchet: Alright, I’ve got a few comments too. First points that the developer brought up. I do like the idea of the wide cul-de-sac personally. I think it’s good to try something new. That’s just the way I am. Yeah, I think if it gets mitigated with the width of the street, that we can accommodate, we should be able to accommodate something new. The private roads, I think they make a lot of sense. They allow us to preserve more of the natural features. I’m comfortable with the developer wanting to further explore the possibility of the sewer connection to the south. Whether the concerns of staff can be mitigated. I don’t think that’s a reason to hold it up. Lot 27. You know it’s relatively infrequent that staff actually recommends a deletion of a lot. Usually it’s us from the Planning Commission that does that and when staff does it I believe there’s quite significant reason to it so I definitely support staff in that notion. In terms of the drainage, I think it needs to be further considered. You know it’s interesting. I came, when I looked at this I kind of felt like this should be tabled because more effort should be done to preserve more trees and lessen the amount of grading. Because I mean there are no two ways about it. The tree loss is horrendous. There’s no two ways about that. I usually spend some time looking at the tree inventory and I want to thank the applicant of submitting a very detailed tree inventory, and I usually look at the very significant trees. The biggest ones. And we’re losing 25, or even 27 of the biggest trees. We only saved 4. That trees 28 inch and bigger. I went out there looking at a couple of trees like I hit you with one of them that I felt well if it can be tweaked a little bit, it could be saved. There were a couple of other ones that I noticed. In some places the grade change is just way too big to even start thinking about saving more trees, but having worked with this developer before I feel comfortable that if they work with staff that they will do their best to adjust some of these lines like the example that I gave you where maybe a tree…but looking at it, I mean if that’s an indication out of 25, actually out of what 30 trees, 25 get cut if you look at the most significant ones. Personally I’d like to definitely see more effort there to the point that when I walked in here I was thinking I’d rather send you back to the drawing board and do that effort and want to see it again. Considering the good will that’s been displayed, I’m torn. It seems like there’s so much we can enforce that, so I’d rather foster the good will. In terms of the Crestview connection, it’s definitely clearly a city policy that we want to connect neighborhoods. I mean that’s not a staff idea. That’s a comprehensive city plan issue as Kurt pointed out very aptly. On the other hand I also want to point out that in the past we definitely have been sensitive to neighborhoods that express a concern. Was it the Melody Hill Lane or what’s that called, that was supposed to go through. The neighborhood very clearly expressed they didn’t want that and we didn’t do it so if the neighborhood really doesn’t want it and it seems like it’s pretty unanimous, all the power to them. It has to be looked at in conjunction though with this development that’s coming in. Because all of a sudden we have, you say what is it, 5 families and we add another 5 so we’re only doubling there. It only takes an outlot or two to develop and all of a sudden you have 3 times the people in one cul-de-sac. A cul-de-sac that goes a couple of turns, it’s very narrow, become an issue. But that’s for the residents first to give their input too. Tree preservation, we already touched on preservation easements. They just don’t have much teeth. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. But then on the other hand trying to preserve these trees along Galpin might be a moot point with the street. With some likeliness extending at some point in the future, we might be better off starting to plant a new hedge where it’s going to stay where it has a chance to stay in the long run than 49 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 trying to preserve something that is very questionable and to what extent it can stay. Playground I think would be really important. I think that Lot 27 is forced. Whether it’s the right place for a totlot, I have to admit it may not be but not having anyplace for little kids to play in any proximity is a concern that I would like to see addressed. That’s probably one of, between that and the tree savings, that’s the two most significant points I have. Let me see, do I have anything else? I think I probably talked long enough and we do want to move on. So with that, anybody want to shoot for a motion? Lillehaug: I’ll make a motion the Planning Commission adopts the following two motions. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of the Rezoningof the 27.62 acres located within the Pinehurst subdivision from Rural Residential to Single-Family Residential based on consistency with the City of Chanhassen Comprehensive Plan and compatibility with surrounding development and recommendation and motion B. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of preliminary plat for Pinehurst Addition with a variance for the use of private streets, plans prepared by Westwood Professional Services, Incorporated dated 9/17/04, revised 9/22/04 and 11/05/04, based on the findings of fact attached to this report and subject to the following conditions 1 through, you know I really like the other way of numbering. Sacchet: 1 through 5 with all the letters. Lillehaug: 1 through 5 with all the letters. With an exception of, jeepers. Give me a little bit here. Revising, please change back to how we used to do it. I don’t even have a clue of how to look at this. Page 13, (p). Sacchet: 5(p). Lillehaug: 5(p). Claybaugh: 6(p). Sacchet: Is there a 6 somewhere? Claybaugh: Yes. No. Yeah, he’s right. We’ve got to go back to the old way. Sacchet: We’ve got double number layers. Lillehaug: Page 13, (p). I want to stress that I agree with staff’s position on that. Page 13 (o). I want to revise that to say a standard cul-de-sac turn around for emergency vehicles will be required at the north end of Street B and then delete the rest of it so in essence they’re not connecting up. Generous: No connection. Lillehaug: No connection to the north. Page 13 (r), I would like it to revise to say, revise Street C to be a standard 28 feet width. And then I want to add a condition. Geotechnical testing report and recommendation will be required and needs to be provided to the city. Someone help me out 50 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 with that easement requirement. I cannot remember. Craig, was there something with an easement requirement? Claybaugh: Yeah, it was in tandem with the independent testing or Matt, go ahead. Saam: Yeah, a 30 foot wide private easement, cross access and maintenance agreement must also be submitted for the private street. Lillehaug: For the private streets? Saam: Yes. Lillehaug: Okay. And there’s going to be others here but I’m going to just stop right there. And maybe amend myself in a bit here. Sacchet: Alright, we have a motion. We need a second first before we do amendments. Claybaugh: I’ll second. Sacchet: We have a second. Friendly amendments. Well first point of clarification Steve if I may. Your revision to point (r) on page 13. Lillehaug: Yes. Sacchet: You said to a 28 width, but you deleted standard. So you’re supporting the eyebrow or do you want it standard? Lillehaug: I deleted cul-de-sac is what I meant to say, so it should read, revise Street C to be a standard 28 foot width. So I deleted the words cul-de-sac so it is just like shown there but widen it to 28 feet. Keeping the eyebrow. See I gave a little bit. Sacchet: That’s I just want to make sure what you gave. Thank you. Claybaugh: It’s all that time he spent in Edina, he’s grown to appreciate the finer things. Slagle: Mr. Chair, just a point of clarification. Should we be voting first on A and then we vote on B? Since there’s two motions it says adopt the following two motions. Sacchet: I think we can do it in one here. Generous: You can do them in one. Slagle: Do we want to do it in one hit? I guess I’m just throwing that out. Sacchet: Is there any reason why we shouldn’t? 51 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Lillehaug: I’m okay with doing it in one. Slagle: Okay, fair enough. Lillehaug: I have an amendment to myself here. And I think this would be page 13 (q). I don’t want to just say delete the western sanitary sewer line because I do have concerns with the 40 plus or minus foot deep sanitary line and I want to, I’d like staff to revisit that and I’m not saying that it won’t go as staff is saying but just please revisit that and work with staff and come up with a better plan. Sacchet: Work with staff to in further investigate the feasibility of that sewer connection? Something like that? Lillehaug: Yep. Sacchet: Alright, yeah that’s good. So you accept that? Lillehaug: I do. And another amendment is, or another condition would be to work with staff to incorporate a tot or similar type playground on this site, and if that’s eliminating another lot, so be it. But it’s not necessarily putting that playground on Lot 7, or 27. It’s putting it somewhere else within the development because I concur with the concerns that Bethany indicated about having a playground right next to the water, but usually there’s safety benches there but. Sacchet: You did leave the deletion of Lot 27 though. Lillehaug: I left page 13 (p) in there, yes. Sacchet: Okay, just to be clear. Lillehaug: Deletion of that Lot 27. Sacchet: Okay. That’s clear. Slagle: Point of clarification Commissioner Lillehaug. Would any verbiage that would state sufficient barriers from the pond be adequate? For Lot 27. Lillehaug: Rather than eliminating another lot, I think it would be because another just... Claybaugh: …in conjunction with a 4 foot fence. Lillehaug: And usually there’s a safety bench in the pond, correct? Safety bench meaning shallow area. Claybaugh: Some kind of retainage wall to kind of level off that lot a little bit. 52 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Lillehaug: So revising my last condition it would be, work with staff to incorporate a playground within the site somewhere. Sacchet: Friendly amendment. Could we add to that, some tree preservation. Put it in a place where more trees can be preserved. Because a totlot doesn’t need the same amount of grading as a house pad. Just something to work with staff in that context. Nathan Franzen: Some provision perhaps to where we work with Jill. Sacchet: Right. Right, nothing specific at this point. Work with the city to determine, to leverage out some more tree preservation at the same time. Lillehaug: I accept that. Sacchet: Okay. I would actually I’d like to add a general clause on that. Work with city to make every effort to save more trees and minimize grading as much as possible through a detailed look. Detailed walk through when the tree preservation fencing gets determined. Where to fine tune things like the example that I pointed out. Lillehaug: So then maybe we should revise page 11, condition 4(d). Sacchet: 4(d). Preservation…, yes. Shall be, applicant shall work with city to make every effort possible to preserve further trees beyond what’s in the tree preservation plan. Something to that point. I think I’m fine to leave it open ended. I would like to specifically however say something about. Lillehaug: I accept that. Sacchet: Thank you Steve. Something about the concern from the neighbor to the north. About this evergreen hedge and the proximity of that retaining wall. I think that’s another element that needs to be looked at or with the city. With the City Forester to ensure that these evergreens have a realistic prospect of survival. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense at all. Can we do something to that effect in there? Lillehaug: I accept. Sacchet: That’s accepted? Lillehaug: Yeah. Sacchet: Alright. Anything else? Slagle: I’ve got one more. Sacchet: Go ahead Rich. 53 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Slagle: Steve, if we could add a condition maybe (v). If we’re to (v) or if we’re past (v). But it would be requiring an access trail on private road E that connects to the Middle School West property, and I want to just state, the reason I’m asking for that is if you think about this school district, these homes will go to that school, and every neighborhood that I’m aware of that surrounds that school has a connection. You’ve got the water tower. You’ve got Brenden Court. I believe to the north, whatever those homes are. There’s a connection by the soccer fields and so forth, and yet this neighborhood would literally would have to go completely out of it’s way for those kids to get to school and I’m sure they’ll be walking to school. Lillehaug: I accept that. Slagle: Okay. Sacchet: Alright. Is that it? Dan. Keefe: In regards to the buffer on the northeast, very northeast corner where they’re going to put in the right turn lane, can we require replacement of the trees that are going to come out? And I don’t know where that would go. Generous: Under 4. Keefe: Under 4. Sacchet: Under 4. I think that’s a reasonable request. On the other hand we do have a buffer planting requirement from the city, but since there isn’t really explicit offer right now, I think it would make sense. Slagle: Well and the way that this developer, I mean in our past experiences, as good as they are, they might be open to larger arborvitaes to plant than what we’re calling for. Nathan Franzen: Is it the desire of the council to replant with arborvitae? I guess that’s our first question. Sacchet: Evergreen I think is the idea, the way I understand it. Nathan Franzen: I’m sure we can, I know we can accommodate that and we will so. Sacchet: Thank you. Nathan Franzen: Yep. Sacchet: Alright. Lillehaug: That’s an acceptable condition to page 11, put it in 4 somewhere. 4(e) or whatever it would be so yes. I accept that. 54 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: So that’s accepted, okay. Any other ones? Lillehaug moved, Claybaugh seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the Rezoning of the 27.62 acres located within the Pinehurst subdivision from Rural Residential (RR) to Single-Family Residential (RSF) based on consistency with the City of Chanhassen Comprehensive Plan and compatibility with surrounding development. And, Lillehaug moved, Claybaugh seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the preliminary plat for Pinehurst Addition with a variance for the use of private streets, plans prepared by Westwood Professional Services, Inc., dated 9/17/04, revised 9/22/04 and 11/05/04, based on the findings of fact attached to this report and subject to the following conditions: 1.Setbacks shall be a minimum of 20 feet from the back of the private street. 2.Outlots A and B shall be dedicated to the city. 3.Water Resources Coordinator Conditions: a.Wetland buffer widths of 16.5 feet to 20.0 feet shall be maintained around all wetlands on-site. b.All structures shall maintain a 40-foot setback from wetland buffer edges. c.The building pad on Lot 9, Block 1 shall be revised to reflect the wetland setback requirements. d.Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City’s wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of City staff, before construction begins and shall pay the City $20 per sign. e.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Time (maximum time an area can remain unvegetated Type of Slope when area is not actively being worked) Steeper than 3:1 7 Days 10:1 to 3:1 14 Days Flatter than 10:1 21 Days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other man 55 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 made systems that discharge to a surface water. f.Daily scraping and sweeping of public streets shall be completed any time construction site soil, mud, silt or rock is tracked or washed onto paved surface or street that would allow tracked materials or residuals of that material to enter the storm water conveyance system. g.Construction site access points shall be minimized to controlled access points with rock entrance and exit pads installed and maintained throughout construction. h.Based on the proposed developed area of 23.36 acres, the estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of final plat recording is $83,465. i.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Riley-Purgatory-Bluff-Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering)) and comply with their conditions of approval. 4.Natural Resources Coordinator Conditions: a.A minimum of two overstory trees shall be required in the front yard of each lot. b.The developer shall be responsible for installing all landscape materials proposed in rear and side yard areas. c.Tree preservation fence shall be installed at the edge of the grading limits prior to any construction. d.Tree preservation on site shall be according to tree preservation plans dated 09/17/04. Any trees removed in excess of proposed tree preservation plans will be replaced at a The applicant will work with staff to make every effort ratio of 2:1 diameter inches. possible to preserve trees beyond what’s in the tree preservation plan. e. Work with City Forester to ensure that the evergreen hedge in the proximity of the retaining wall survive. f. The applicant will replace the arborvitae hedge along Galpin Boulevard if it is lost due to installation of the right turn lane. 5.Engineer’s Conditions: a.The applicant will be required to meet the existing site runoff rates for 10-year and 100- year, 24-hour storm events. The proposed ponds must be designed to National Urban Runoff Program (NURP) standards. In addition, the proposed ponding must be sized to accommodate the drainage generated from the property to the north, as shown in the 56 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 City's Surface Water Management Plan (SWMP). b.The storm sewer must be designed for a 10-year, 24-hour storm event. Submit storm sewer sizing calcs and drainage map prior to final plat for staff review and approval. c.Drainage and utility easements must be dedicated on the final plat over the public storm drainage system including ponds, drainage swales, and wetlands up to the 100-year flood level. d.Staff recommends that Type II silt fence, which is a heavy duty fence, be used adjacent to the existing wetland, existing creek area, and around the proposed pond. In addition, tree preservation fencing must be installed at the limits of tree removal. Erosion control blankets are recommended for all of the steep 3:1 slopes with an elevation change of eight feet or more. e.All plans must be signed by a registered Civil Engineer in the State of Minnesota. f.On the utility plan: 1.Show all existing and proposed utility and pond easements. 2.Maintain 10-foot horizontal separation between all sanitary/water/storm sewer mains. 3.Increase the watermain pipe size in Street D to 8-inches in diameter. 4.Add a storm sewer line between Lots 7 and 8, Block 1 with a catch basin at the north property line for future connection by the property to the north. 5.Extend sanitary manhole #12 to the north property line with an invert elevation of 1049.0. g.On the grading plan: 1.Show all existing and proposed easements. 2.Show the benchmark used for the site survey. 3.Maximum allowable side slope is 3:1; revise in the rearyard of Lots 14 and 15, Block 1 and the rearyard of Lot 3, Block 2. 4.Show the location and elevation of all emergency overflows; the elevation must be 1.5' lower than any adjacent house pad elevations. 5.Show the retaining wall top and bottom elevations. 57 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 6.Use storm sewer class 5 in roadway; revise note under general grading and drainage notes accordingly. h.Any retaining wall over four feet in height must be designed by a registered civil engineer and a permit from the city building department must be obtained. In addition, encroachment agreements will be required for any retaining wall within a public easement. i.The sanitary sewer and water hookup charges along with the Lake Ann Interceptor charge will be applicable for each of the new lots. The 2004 trunk hookup charge is $1,458.00 per unit for sanitary sewer and $2,814.00 per unit for watermain. The total 2004 Lake Ann Interceptor charge is $2,102 per unit and the SAC fee is $1,425.00 per unit. All of these charges are based on the number of SAC units assigned by the Metropolitan Council. Sanitary sewer and water-main hookup fees may be specially assessed against the parcel at the time of building permit issuance. j.All disturbed areas, as a result of construction, must be seeded and mulched or sodded immediately after grading to minimize erosion. k.The applicant should be aware that any off-site grading will require an easement from the appropriate property owner. l.If importing or exporting material for development of the site is necessary, the applicant will be required to supply the City with detailed haul routes. m.Due to the depth of the proposed sanitary sewer from MH-20 to MH-17, the required easement width will be increased to 50 feet. n.All of the utility improvements are required to be constructed in accordance with the City’s latest edition of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. The applicant is also required to enter into a development contract with the City and supply the necessary financial security in the form of a letter of credit or cash escrow to guarantee installation of the improvements and the conditions of final plat approval. standard o.A cul-de-sac turnaround for emergency vehicles will be required at the north end of Street B. p.Eliminate Lot 27 and shift the proposed pond to the north to eliminate some of the retaining wall. The applicant shall work with staff to further investigate the feasibility of a sewer q. connection before action is taken to delete the western sanitary sewer line; all sanitary sewer must drain to Manchester Drive. 28 foot width r.Revise Street C to be a standard . 58 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 s.Lower the western end of the site in the area of the two private drives. t.This development is required to provide enough additional platted right-of-way which results in 50 feet of right-of-way on the western side of the Galpin Boulevard centerline. u.A right-turn lane into the site off of Galpin Boulevard will be required to be constructed. The turn-lane must meet Carver County design requirements. 6. Geotechnical testing report and recommendation will be required and needs to be provided to the city. 7. A 30 foot wide private easement, cross access and maintenance agreement must also be submitted for the private street. 8. The applicant will work with staff to incorporate a totlot or similar playground facility within this development which will help preserve trees. 9. Provide an access trail from this neighborhood to Minnetonka Middle School West. All voted in favor except Papke who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 6 to 1. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Good luck with it. Now, in summary for council. In summary for council. Can we just say as discussed in the interest of time? As discussed. Before we take a brief recess I want to ask the councilors, the commissioners are we willing to extend our curfew of 10:30? Are we willing to go later than 10:30? Otherwise we should inform the Yoberry Farms proposal that we’re not getting to them today. Claybaugh: Preferably not from my personal standpoint. Sacchet: One nay. Tjornhom: I agree. I think there’s no quality. Sacchet: One nay. I mean I’m still on Europe time. You’re going to get glazed eyes. Keefe: When is it going to come back? Sacchet: The trouble is, what’s the time line on Yoberry? Lillehaug: Is there a point where we might have to have another meeting? I mean with all this development I mean because the way I’m looking at it. Sacchet: I asked Kate about that today. She didn’t want to think that was a good idea. Keefe: So we’re going to run into the same problem in January aren’t we? We’re just going to keep backing stuff up. 59 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Al-Jaff: The January meeting is pretty full. Sacchet: Not as full as this one but yes. What’s the time line Sharmeen on Yoberry? Al-Jaff: We did receive an extension of the 60 days on that one. Sacchet: Which would. th Al-Jaff: It would be February 15. Generous: So you’d have time. Sacchet: He doesn’t like it, the developer. Yeah, I understand. Lillehaug: Well we’ve got two more items before we even get to that one. Claybaugh: The day started at 4:00. Sacchet: Okay, I want to make a motion that, I would like a motion that we do have our curfew or not. And then we take a vote. Claybaugh: Alright. I make a motion that we enforce the 10:30 curfew as published. Papke: Second. Claybaugh moved, Papke seconded that the Planning Commission enforce the 10:30 p.m. curfew as published. All voted in favor except Slagle and Sacchet who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 5 to 2. Sacchet: Yeah, we’re going to have a curfew. That means unfortunately we won’t get to Yoberry. We have two more items to look at. There’s no way we’re going to get to Yoberry. Claybaugh: It’d be different if it wasn’t… Sacchet: Sorry for that. We do want to do you justice. I mean it needs attention so we take a 5 minute recess. The Planning Commission took a short recess at this point in the meeting. Sacchet: Anybody didn’t catch it, we did decide to push the Yoberry Farms hearing out to the January event, which I think will be the first Tuesday in January. Is that correct? We do have a curfew of 10:30 and we did take a vote that we want to live by it. I think it’s ultimately in the interest of the quality of attention we can give to the proposals. I also want to, I missed out to give Commissioner Papke a chance to state why he was opposing the approval motion for the Plowshares. 60 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Papke: Okay, the reason I opposed it, and I mentioned this during my comments is that I really think that this development and the Shivley needs to be looked at as one project. We have the private Street B with the north connection. Do we have it in the right place? Is it, you know all things considered I think you need to look at these two together. Yes, it’s only 5 houses or so today but I think given that they’re not going to break ground on this until April, I think we could have taken the opportunity to look at this as one big project. That was my main opposition. Sacchet: Really in conjunction basically. Papke: Yes. Sacchet: A very valid point. And council hopefully will have more chance to look at it together. Alright, with that we get to our second item for tonight. PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY PLAT AND SITE PLAN APPROVAL WITH VARIANCES FOR A 4,080 SQUARE FOOT ONE-STORY WAREHOUSE BUILDING LOCATED AT THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF AUDUBON ROAD AND COULTER BOULEVARD ON 2.4 ACRES OF LAND ZONED INDUSTRIAL OFFICE PARK, IOPM, PAISLEY PARK STUDIO STORAGE, RON SCOFIELD. PLANNING CASE NO. 04-41. Public Present: Name Address Ron Scofield 7041 Chaparral Lane Bruce Bissonette 17815 Hutchins Drive, Minnetonka Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Thank you Bob. Questions from staff. Kurt, go ahead. Papke: Ah yeah. I’m a little bit puzzled on the north access to McGlynn versus Coulter. Now I understand I’ll have to ask the applicant about their justification for why they want that but from the city planning perspective, is, what would be the advantages, if any, to having the parking lot accessed from Coulter versus the long private drive coming off of McGlynn? Are there any engineering or planning issues from the city’s perspective where we would want to have the access from Coulter? Saam: Coulter Boulevard is a collector road. Classified as a collector in the city code book and comp plan. One of the things we try to do is limit direct access onto collector roads. We want them to carry traffic but not have driveways every 50 feet or 100 feet, so we’re actually in favor of them coming off their local, I’ll call it cul-de-sac of McGlynn Road. But as far as why they chose it, other than that, that’s something for the applicant. 61 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Any other questions? Ladies first. Tjornhom: No, just a quick question and now that I see, when I was reading this, you know it was saying a slate blue metal roof with the red accents and teal green and almond and I just was thinking, is this a lot of colors going on, but if you could hold. Yeah, the picture tones it down a little bit. Yeah, that was my only, and like I said, I can kind of see the colors. Generous: And then the almond roof is a little softer and then the slate roof, blue roof is just over the entrance canopy so. Sacchet: Can you pass the materials around because colors always look a little different in reality. If you don’t mind. Tjornhom: That was I guess my only issue was, when I read it and I saw you know there’s like 4 different colors going on and so, I think that was it though. Sacchet: Steve, you got a question? Lillehaug: Page 6. You make a statement parking setback may be reduced to 10 feet if 100 percent screening provided to adjacent parking lot. I guess I’ve never seen that before. What are we saying here? Generous: Well that was in conjunction with, with the dedication of the right-of-way, if they couldn’t meet the setback requirement, then they could still put the parking where it is if they could screen it to 100 percent at 5 feet of height, so that was more informative for them but they’ve shown a plan where they can still meet the setback. Lillehaug: So didn’t you talk about screening and berming along Audubon and Coulter. Are they doing proper berming and screening? Are we satisfied with that? Generous: I know from Coulter it’s up. Saam: Yeah, as far as the berming goes, I mean the site is, they’re not really berming. The site is raised up. There’s not really berming going on there but as far as the landscaping, I don’t know Bob, I don’t know if you. Generous: See that under the requirements they need additional shrubs in their buffer yard plantings and so that’s one of the conditions of approval that they do provide that. Lillehaug: Okay. Can you comment on parking on every side of the building compared to the strategies we used before to remove the parking and put them behind the building if you’re on the road. Generous: Well what you try to do on Coulter and Highway 5, the ordinance says that you don’t want them in the front. They have one, the ordinance permits one row of parking. They have 62 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 that between the building and the structure. The rest of the parking is to the west. You know they don’t have a building to hide it behind. It’s a small building on a big lot. Lillehaug: Okay. And then one more thing. Can you comment on the trees along the access drive? Would we, should we require trees along there? Sacchet: Private boulevard? Lillehaug: Would that be a no? Sacchet: I love trees. Generous: …they’ll be replaced so they exceed any requirements our ordinance has as part of the subdivision. We anticipate that that north access will actually be used to access another lot there too so it would be a joint access. Sacchet: So it would become a real private street eventually. Generous: Yes. But I don’t know if we want to have on the east side with the sidewalk to put in trees. That might be something that you can add. But wait on the west side of that private street until that site develops to see where the connections are. Lillehaug: One more question and it would be regarding the materials of the siding on the building. It seems like for the past few years here we’ve been looking at, it seems like everything has some sort of brick on it. Are we okay with just the fiber cement siding? Generous: It’s permissible under the code, yes. And this is a small building. As the architect told me, it’s a cute building and it sort of is for what it’s purpose is. Sacchet: Is that it? Slagle: I’ve got a couple. Sacchet: Go ahead. Slagle: The daycare to the north. I’m not really remembering what is on the south side of their parcel. Is the play area on the south side? Okay, so with that in mind, was there any discussion with the applicant in trying to keep some additional you know shrubs, what not giving a little bit of space between the parking stalls and what I will consider the play area of the daycare. Generous: None that I was aware of. Slagle: Okay. Second question is, we have the sidewalk going on the east side of the access drive up to McGlynn, which I think is great but have we considered simply putting also a sidewalk from the eastern parking lot to connect to the sidewalk on Audubon? 63 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Generous: I did talk to Matt about that. Slagle: Why wouldn’t we do that Matt? Because if you’ve got overflow parking, and people are parking here, it’d be easy, they’ll be crossing the grass to get to Audubon. Generous: No, it will be fenced. Slagle: Well they’ll climb the fence. Saam: There’s my reason. That in addition to the grade, the elevation rises fairly dramatic coming up from the sidewalk, if you’ve been out there. Sacchet: So you have to be a pretty good climber. Slagle: Did we consider just a gate and a couple of steps? I’m just trying, I mean the sidewalk’s there. I mean it’s 10 feet from the property line. Why not connect it? Sacchet: Maybe you should ask the applicant whether they’re open to that as an option. Slagle: I wanted to ask staff first. Sacchet: Okay. Slagle: Okay, that’s it. Keefe: A couple of quick ones, and continuing on Rich’s question in regards to, you know part of the use of this is for the overflow parking for events over at Paisley Park. Do we, would we want to have some sort of crossway across the street at all? As a way for the pedestrians to get across. Saam: I’ll answer that. Currently we don’t have any crossways...and in a situation where we’re encouraging them to maybe cross down here at Coulter. It’s better. They’ll cross up at McGlynn. It’s closer to the existing entrances. That sort of thing. Keefe: Okay, and there’s no sort of, I mean they’re just going to be going across. There’s no crosswalk. There’s no, anything at Coulter is there? Saam: No, not at Coulter. There’s no crosswalk. Keefe: Because anything, we think the use is going to be heavy enough that we’d want to require that or do we know? Generous: Well generally when they have those events they get a temporary event permit and the sheriff office gets involved and they usually have police officers there. 64 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Keefe: And then it’s like what, 2 acres of parking lot, something along those lines. In terms, in regards to lighting. I mean it’s not going to be, you know do they control lighting for that parking lot or is it sort of an always on type of thing or. Saam: I’m not sure what’s proposed. Generous: Yeah, I don’t know. Sacchet: Rich, you had something? Slagle: Just a quick add on. If we’re going to, if this is the intent, part of it is to have the overflow parking. People are going to go up the sidewalk to McGlynn where their access road or cut over, and then they’ll cut over Audubon and we’ve all seen the festivities that occur. People are parking on the east side of Audubon, at least from what I remember. So my comment to Dan’s is, should we consider, since it’s the same applicant, having them put a sidewalk on at least part of the east side of Audubon? Because otherwise people are going to walk on the grass or sort of walk along the car to get up to their place. Saam: And the only thing I’ll point out is, in the past when they’ve had events there, they’ve gotten a temporary lifting of the no parking on Audubon, because Audubon is no parking. But I think that’s one of the reasons they’re putting this site in and maybe the applicant can add something but in the future during events, they’re now going to have their own parking right across the street so the city might take another look at well do we need to lift this no parking on Audubon. If it’s such a big event that they can’t handle it, I would think we’d accommodate them but it’s just something to keep in mind. Dan, did you have anymore? Keefe: No. Sacchet: Anything Craig? Claybaugh: Nothing new to add, no. Sacchet: I have a question and a half. The thing about the canopy. It looks like we’re, staff report the way I read it on page 4 asks that the canopy on the, that would be the east side would be smaller and that we add one on the west side. Did I understand that correctly? Generous: No, they add a small on the west side similar to the. Sacchet: And we leave the other one the way it is? Generous: Yes. Sacchet: I was just curious because I wasn’t sure I understood that right so I didn’t, so that’s clear. And then we have, there’s some grading comment on page 6 on the bottom that some proposed slopes are graded 3 to 1. Where would that be and what impact does it have? 65 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: Again I think it’s not a big impact. Sacchet: It can easily be mitigated? Saam: Yeah. There’s just some… Sacchet: Along the drive? Saam: …due to the grading plan. Sacchet: Along the drive? Saam: Yep, there’s some along the drive. Along the northeast corner of the parking lot as it goes down to the walkway and then just along the southeast corner. Sacchet: Okay, that’s fine. That’s all my questions. With that I’d like to invite the applicant to tell us your story please. The brief version if you can. Ron Scofield: I’m Ron Scofield representing Paisley Park Studios. Sacchet: Welcome. Ron Scofield: And we just appreciate your concern to this this evening. We have no problems abiding by anything that staff has recommended in the proposal. That’s all I have to say. Sacchet: That’s a very brief version. Thank you. Do we have any brief questions for the applicant? Lillehaug: I do. I’m looking at your parking lot layout and I’m not sure if you’re the one that would want to answer this but I’m looking specifically at the, if you come in the access drive and you’re driving south, you don’t turn at your first left but your second left. That row of parking, there’s about 6 stalls there within that little bay area. Where if you pull in there your nose of the car’s going to be hanging over into the drive aisle. Is that somewhere you could maybe increase the median width there? And then also in that same regard, it looks like you have painted medians there. Sacchet: Can you say again where you were there? I’m not sure I’m looking at the right spot. Lillehaug: You know where I’m talking about Bob? Generous: Yes, I think you mean. Lillehaug: Exactly. Sacchet: That one, okay. Yep. 66 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Lillehaug: And then also comment on the painted medians and why we’re looking at them rather than a raised with grass or trees or. Ron Scofield: In the medians, are we talking about over those areas? No specific reason either way. Bruce Bissonette: I’m Bruce Bissonette with Truman Howell Architects. The reason we did that is, we’ve got semi traffic coming in and we needed to get the semi’s to be able to make the corners. Sacchet: So they can pull up and then back out. Bruce Bissonette: Right. Slagle: Assuming there’s no cars there in the parking spot. Bruce Bissonette: It’s probably empty most of the time. All we needed was one parking stall. Lillehaug: And then can you comment on the other area indicated about. Bruce Bissonette: We can, yeah. We can move some stuff around to nose this back, yeah. Lillehaug: Okay. That’s all I have. Sacchet: Any other questions? Craig. Claybaugh: Could you comment on the lighting. Bruce Bissonette: The light? Claybaugh: On lighting the lot. Bruce Bissonette: I think that’s. Ron Scofield: We’ll just have that come on as needed. It will come on automatically. We hadn’t really… Sacchet: So you wouldn’t light it if it’s not used? You would light it up when you use it. Ron Scofield: When we need it, yes. That is mostly going to be for, since it’s a storage unit, it will be mostly for truck traffic bringing in props and things like that off the road. Or picking something up to take on the road, so it would only be turned on when needed. Sacchet: Okay. Does that answer your question? Claybaugh: Yes sir it did, thank you. 67 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: Any other questions? If not, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Now this is a public hearing. Anybody want to address this item, please come forward now. Seeing nobody jumping up, I’ll close the public hearing. Bring it back to commissioners, comments, discussion and eventually a motion. Keefe: One comment in regards to the daycare and the buffering along the daycare. If it is a playground on that side, do they have a fence? Generous: Yes. Keefe: That is fenced in? So maybe there’s some… That’s it. Slagle: The only thing I would add is, for the commission to consider just adding a connection to the east. Sacchet: To the sidewalk. Could we ask the applicant what they think about that? We didn’t ask about that and I think in all fairness we should hear what you have to say about that. Maybe you want it fenced in, I don’t know. Ron Scofield: Well the only reason we didn’t, because we tossed that around a little bit but that is such a grade down to the, such a steep grade down to the road we thought that it probably wouldn’t even be. Sacchet: So you’d prefer not to for safety reasons? Ron Scofield: Yes. And we’re planning on putting a fence at the same height as what is around Paisley Park now. All around this area too. Sacchet: So it’s not a fence you climb? Ron Scofield: It would be, yeah. It wouldn’t be something you could climb. Scale pretty easy. Keefe: How about a crossing of Audubon in regards to you know…striping or designated crossing. Ron Scofield: We’d be open to that. I think that would be good. That would make our valet or whoever is going to be using the parking lot mostly during events, that would make them feel safer too so we’d be open to that. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Lillehaug: I have a further comment. Sacchet: Go ahead Steve. 68 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Lillehaug: I don’t support any crosswalk and the reason being is this, what we’re looking at here, using that crosswalk as a very, very seldom, couple times a year maybe and when you look at that area as a whole, you don’t want people coming down from Highway 5 on the east side of the road and then having a mid-block crossing there. It’s not the safer situation and I wouldn’t support a crossing. So I would like to leave it as it is. One time event, I don’t think we need a sidewalk on that side and I don’t think we need an additional crosswalk. Sacchet: It can be done on a temporary basis. Okay. Any other comments? Claybaugh: I have a question of staff was, were they contacted by anyone that’s affiliated with the daycare by any chance? Any comments from the daycare? Generous: No comments on this. Sacchet: No comments there at all. Okay. Alright, are we ready for a motion? I think we are. Who does it? Tjornhom: I’ll make a motion. The Planning Commission recommends Preliminary Plat rd approval for McGlynn Park 3 Addition creating one lot and one outlot, plans prepared by Ryan Engineering, dated 10/15/04, subject to the following conditions 1 through 11. Sacchet: 11. With letters. Tjornhom: With letters. Lillehaug: Second with a friendly amendment. Sacchet: Second and a friendly amendment which is? Lillehaug: One would be to add trees, more landscaping between the daycare and the parking lot. Sacchet: Landscape buffer between the daycare. Lillehaug: Yeah. Sacchet: Is that acceptable? Slagle: Point of clarification now. Isn’t on page 9, the second recommendation in the middle. There’s two motions. Sacchet: Oh, so we’re doing just the first one right now? Slagle: 1 through 10. Sacchet: We’re doing conditions 1 through 10. 69 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Lillehaug: So where do we add our conditions at? Which goes with what? Generous: This one’s just for the platting of the property. And the second one is for site plan conditions. Sacchet: So where should we put our conditions, with the second one then? Generous: I think if you want additional landscaping, put it with the second one. Sacchet: Goes with the second one. So we hold that one. Okay. Generous: This is you want a public improvement. Lillehaug: Okay, so I still second it and I have a friendly amendment. Sacchet: Go ahead. Lillehaug: Number 9. I agree with that condition but should we add that to include an additional, it says additional 10 foot of right-of-way but do we also need additional 10 foot of drainage and utility easement? Sacchet: Matt? Saam: Yes, those will be standard once the property line moves. The 10 foot easement then moves accordingly. And as Bob showed you earlier, they’ve already made that change for us so. Lillehaug: Okay. So it’s proper to add that condition then because it’s already done. Sacchet: Okay. Is that it? We have a motion. We have a second. Tjornhom moved, Lillehaug seconded that the Planning Commission recommends rd Preliminary Plat approval for McGlynn Park 3 Addition creating one lot and one outlot, plans prepared by Ryan Engineering, dated 10/15/04, subject to the following conditions: 1.Full park fees shall be collected at the rate in force at the time of final plat approval. 2.Based on the proposed developed area of approximately 2.4 acres, the water quality fees associated with this project are $14,292; the water quantity fees are approximately $13,450. At this time, the estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of final plat recording, is $27,742. 3.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering) and comply with their conditions of approval. 70 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 4.A revised landscape plan showing the required number of plantings shall be submitted to the city prior to final plat approval. 5.Prior to final plat approval, a professional civil engineer registered in the State of Minnesota must sign all plans. 6.A 40-foot cross-access easement for the shared driveway access must be obtained and recorded against the lots and the driveway must be built to a 9-ton design. 7.Sanitary sewer and water hookup charges will be applicable for the new lot. The 2004 trunk hook up charge is $1,458 per unit for sanitary sewer and $2,814 per unit for water. Each of these charges is based on the number of SAC units assigned by the Met Council for the new lots. Sanitary sewer and water hookup fees may be specially assessed against the parcel at the time of building permit issuance. 8.The applicant will be required to submit storm sewer sizing design data for a 10-year, 24- hour storm event with a drainage area map at the time of final plat. 9.This development is required to provide ten additional feet of platted right-of-way along Coulter Boulevard. 10.The existing 30-foot curb radius along the north side of Coulter Boulevard must be removed and replaced with a 45-foot curb radius.” All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Sacchet: And we need a second motion. Lillehaug: Before we make that second motion, because this, we didn’t talk about that radius on Coulter and Audubon. Is this really the responsibility of this person to fix our roadway system? Sacchet: I guess that’s a Matt question. Lillehaug: Who’s paying for that because who’s trucks are driving over there? It’s certainly not these guy’s. It’s Pillsbury. Saam: No, not yet anyways. Yeah, that’s a good point but as Bob said, when properties develop, that’s the City’s time or opportunity to take easements, whatever we need. In this case it’s an improvement to the existing street system that immediately surrounds or is adjacent to this property, and our city attorney has backed us on these type of things before. It’s similar to if we needed a watermain over sized or extended to an area of the plat where maybe they weren’t proposing it. We can require that as a part of the development. Claybaugh: But in oversizing a watermain we pay the up charge on it. 71 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Saam: Yeah, on an oversizing but I, maybe on an extension to an area of the plat. For example to the property limits. A lot of times developers don’t, you know it goes outside their street system, whatever so I’m just tossing that out as another example. In addition to easements, taking of right-of-way. It’s part of development. Sacchet: Okay, that answers it? Bethany, you have something? Tjornhom: Nothing. Saam: If I can throw out one more thing. Sacchet: Go ahead. Saam: The city will be working with General Mills to do the same thing at the south intersection adjacent to their building. Sacchet: Anything else before we go into a second motion? Second motion please. That’s the one on page 9. Slagle: I’ll do it. The Planning Commission recommends Site Plan approval of Planning Case # 04-41 for a 4,080 square-foot, one-story warehouse building, plans prepared by Ryan Engineering, dated 10/15/04, subject to the following conditions 1 through 11(h). On page 11. Sacchet: We have a motion. Do we have a second? Tjornhom: Second. Sacchet: Do we have friendly amendments? Buffer? Lillehaug: As previously indicated. Sacchet: Buffer as previously indicated. Accepted? Any others? None? Lillehaug: Another one would be to revise the parking lot to accommodate a little better median where I indicated previous. Sacchet: Better median where indicated. Lillehaug: So the noses of the cars aren’t hanging over into the drive aisle. Sacchet: Alright. Slagle: Accepted. Sacchet: Accepted. 72 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Slagle moved, Tjornhom seconded that the Planning Commission recommends Site Plan approval of Planning Case # 04-41 for a 4,080 square-foot, one-story warehouse building, plans prepared by Ryan Engineering, dated 10/15/04, subject to the following conditions: 1.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the City and provide the necessary security to guarantee erosion control, site restoration and landscaping. nd 2.Outlot A, McGlynn Park 2 Addition must be final platted in to a Lot and Block configuration prior to issuance of a building permit. 3.A sidewalk shall be extended from the parking lot north to McGlynn Drive. A pedestrian ramp shall be provided at the parking lot curb. 4.A canopy shall be provided over the door on the western elevation of the building. 5.Additional foundation plantings shall be provided for the southerly 37 feet of the eastern building elevation. In addition, landscaping shall be provided on the west side of the building north of the overhead doors between the parking lot and the building. 6.Wall mounted lighting must be shielded from off-site views. 7.The metal halide lighting shall be replaced with high pressure sodium lights. 8.Natural Resources Coordinator Conditions: a)Applicant is required to plant 21 overstory trees in the parking lot area. b)Applicant is required to meet minimum bufferyard landscaping requirements along the north property line, Audubon Road and Coulter Boulevard. c)A revised landscape plan showing the required number of plantings shall be submitted to the city prior to final plat approval. 9.Building Official’s Conditions: a)The building must be protected with an automatic fire sprinkler system. b)The building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. c)Six accessible parking spaces must be provided as near as possible to the building main entrance. d)The water service must be brought up into the building directly inside the exterior wall. e)The plans were reviewed for general building code compliance only. Complete plans must be provided before a detailed plan review can be done. f)The developer shall meet with the Inspections Division as soon as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. 10.Fire Marshal’s Conditions: 73 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 a)A 10-foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e., street lamps, trees, shrubs, bushes, Xcel Energy, Qwest, Cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by fire fighters. Pursuant to Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1. b)Builder must comply with The Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention Division Policy #29-1992 regarding premise identification. If structures are not visible from street, additional numbers will be required at driveway entrance. Size of numbers and location must be approved by Chanhassen Fire Marshal. c)The proposed hydrant shown on plan must be relocated 100 feet north to the parking lot island. 11.Engineer’s Conditions: a)A 40-foot cross-access easement for the shared driveway access must be obtained and recorded against the lots and the driveway must be built to a 9-ton design. b)The applicant should be aware that any off-site grading will require an easement from the appropriate property owner. In addition, if importing or exporting of grading material will occur to/from the site, a detailed haul route must be provided for staff review. c)Add City Detail Plate Nos. 1002, 1004, 1006, 3101, 3102, 5201, 5203, 5207, 5300 and5301. d)On all plans: 1.Revise the drive way aisle width to 26-foot minimum. 2.Include a north arrow and bar scale. 3.Provide a plat name. 4.Show the location of proposed handicap parking stalls. 5.Show the location of the vacated right-of-way for McGlynn Road. e)On the site and utility plan: 1.Add note “Any connection to existing manholes must be core drilled.” 2.Show the sanitary service pipe class as SDR26. 3.Show the water-main pipe type and class. 4.Show the proposed and existing storm sewer pipe size, type, class and slope. 5.Show the existing and proposed manhole rim and invert elevations. 6.Show the dimension of the curb radii for the access drive at McGlynn Road. f)On the grading plan: 1.Add Type I silt fence around the grading limits. 2.Show the benchmark used for the site survey. 3.Show a 75-foot minimum rock construction entrance. 4.Correct the proposed elevation contours off the northeast corner of the parking lot. 5.Label the FFE of the proposed building as 979.6, not 879.6. 6.Revise all slopes to maintain a 3:1 maximum. 74 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 7.Show the location of the existing boulevard trees along Audubon Road and Coulter Boulevard. g)Any retaining wall over 4-foot in height must be designed by a registered structural engineer in the State of Minnesota and require a building permit from the City of Chanhassen Building Department. h)A concrete driveway apron and pedestrian ramps will be required at the access location. 12. Add a landscape buffer between the parking lot and daycare center. 13. Revise the parking lot plan to better accommodate the cars around the medians. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR AFTER THE FACT VARIANCE FOR ENCROACHMENT INTO LAKESHORE SETBACK LOCATED AT 6900 MINNEWASHTA PARKWAY, RICHARD & JUDY BERLAND, PLANNING CASE 04-42. Public Present: Name Address Rich & Judy Berland 6900 Minnewashta Parkway Garry Jones 6738 County Road 72 Sharon Morgan 3920 White Oak Lane Dave Headla 6870 Minnewashta Parkway Chris Knox Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Questions from staff. Claybaugh: Yes. Could you put that photo back up on the screen please. Sacchet: That one? Claybaugh: Yes ma’am, that’s correct. Staff report indicates they’re looking for a variance for a foot and a half or a 10 foot setback from the ordinary high water mark. Either that photo is terribly deceiving or. Al-Jaff: Here is another one. Claybaugh: Okay, that looks a little better. Okay. 75 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: There’s a bunch of rocks. You see it’s not the water. There’s actually quite a bit of boulders put in there. Claybaugh: Okay. Typically when they call in and ask is a permit required. No it isn’t. Is there any indication to the person calling in or the resident that there is other outstanding requirements for the shoreline setback or shoreline impact regulations, so on and so forth? Al-Jaff: Typically if we received a call, one of the first things we ask is, where is this. Give us a location. We can assist you better and that’s how we answer questions. If this was on a flat piece of property that wasn’t adjacent to a lake, it’s a different answer than they would get. Claybaugh: I’m assuming that there isn’t, but maybe there should be some kind of process for as people call in, at least something gets logged in that acknowledges that that person called in and what dialogue took place. Is there anything like that or has the city ever considered that? It seems like we get quite a few of these. I don’t want to say deal with them frequently but it certainly seems that way sometimes. And it ends up being a bad situation all the way around. People feel like they’ve done due diligence and on the other hand, the land is out there continually taking you know small hit after small hit so. You don’t have to answer. Al-Jaff: We get a lot of calls every day. Generous: Mr. Chairman, if I may. Since the city amended the zoning ordinance we do have that zoning compliance review and we have been telling people, since that adoption that no, you don’t need a permit but there is a zoning compliance review. So we’ll look at. Claybaugh: So there is a paper trail at least? Generous: Well there should be if they come in for it but. Sacchet: Okay. Rich, questions? Slagle: I would just like to know how we define and the difference between a water orientated accessory structure. Call it a deck. I mean. Al-Jaff: There is a definition. Slagle: Okay. I just don’t know it. I apologize. Al-Jaff: I believe it says an attached deck and we want to work with the applicant. We want them to enjoy the patio along the lake and we figure detached deck or gazebo or a patio, they fall under the same category and that’s how we determined that this is a water oriented structure. It kind of falls under that. Slagle: So if I can, based upon your answer there are a lot of things that, if that picture was to be put up again, that we could view that would be that close to the lake, or call it another foot and a half, that we would consider okay. 76 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Claybaugh: And have walls and a ceiling. Slagle: And have almost yeah. I mean I’m just telling you, that seems really close from, and I’m a lakeshore owner as well. That seems really close. Just telling you folks. Anyway. Al-Jaff: Commissioner Slagle, if you turn to page 2 of the staff report, under water oriented accessory structure or facility, the last permitted use in that paragraph is detached decks. Slagle: Well and I’ve even seen screened houses and gazebos. Generous: And sheds. Sacchet: Fish house. Pump house. Boat house. Alright, any other questions? Steve. Lillehaug: Page 4. There’s one word that really gets me on that page and it’s under lakes and it’s the second paragraph and it says appears. It appears to be set back 8.5 feet, so really it might be 10 feet. Sacchet: Is it or isn’t it? Al-Jaff: It might be. Lillehaug: So we don’t even, I mean to me we can’t even look at this because we don’t know where the OHWL is and how are we supposed to make a fair judgment here, because we don’t know where that’s at right now. Appears is not a word that I’m going to make a judgment on. Sacchet: Good statement. Alright, that’s not a question. That’s a statement. We heard it. Any others? Questions. Slagle: You heard it? Sacchet: We heard it. I have a question. On page 5 on the bottom, it says the retaining wall was built within the right-of-way of Minnewashta Parkway. This retaining wall was required to be moved out of the right-of-way because it was a liability to the city and potential threat to public health and safety. Does that mean they actually have to move the retaining wall already? Generous: Yes. Sacchet: So they already accommodated that? Al-Jaff: Yes. Sacchet: By about how much? How much of it? Al-Jaff: They took the entire retaining wall out of the right-of-way. 77 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sacchet: So it wasn’t just moving a couple rocks. This was major, significant. Okay. Thank you. I think that’s the only question I have. I have a question for the applicant eventually but I think for staff, that’s all I got. Papke: Can I ask one more? Sacchet: Absolutely. Papke: Following up on Commissioner Lillehaug’s question, when we state appears in here, how was the calculation of the 8 ½ foot setback determined? How did we come up with that number? Al-Jaff: Lori Haak who is our Water Resource Coordinator looked at the elevation, the OHW for Lake Minnewashta which is 944.5. There are a few elevations that are noted on the survey, but we don’t, and we have the location of the shoreline but that does not mean this is where the OHW is. So based upon that, if this is 944.1, we figured within half a foot or so. It could be. It appears that it is about 8 ½ feet from the OHW. We are not surveyors. We’re not qualified, just so you know that. Keefe: I’ve just got one more quick question. In regards to, in order to meet the 10 foot setback what would have to happen? Would they have to elevate it higher or would they have to push it back further? Decrease the size of it. Al-Jaff: They would need to locate the OHW on this parcel and then from that point on no structure can be located within that 10 foot setback. Keefe: So it’s the distance from where that shoreline back goes? Not any elevation at all. Al-Jaff: No. Keefe: Okay, alright. Slagle: So, I’m sorry, if I can ask this. If I heard you right Sharmeen, you said they would have to locate the OHW. Al-Jaff: Correct. They need to add that on the survey. Sacchet: They would have to actually do the survey. Slagle: So wouldn’t it be that we’re here to suggest that they get a survey, and that might prove that they are okay. Claybaugh: Except the 350 square feet. 78 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Al-Jaff: Well if you look at the variance, one of the things that they are requesting is that we waive that requirement as well. Slagle: I understand but I mean if that’s done then it would almost be like the house that was on th West 78. Have a survey done, it tells us whether we should be here or not. Okay. Sacchet: Any other questions? Thank you. How about the applicant? Do you want to come tell us your story please? Rick Berland: Yes. Good evening. Sacchet: Do you mind pulling the microphone over? Little more. There you go. Rick Berland: Okay, good evening. I’m Rick Berland. I live at 6900 Minnewashta Parkway and the other parcel of our property has been alluded to, but we want to thank the members of the Planning Commission for hearing our case and for staying late to do so. We also want to thank several of our neighbors who’ve come to support our request. For their patience and for their support and our contractor, our landscape contractor, Garry Jones of Design Acres who is also here. I apologize I can’t be as brief as the previous speaker because I have a lot to say. And the first thing I want you to know my fellow citizens is why are we here, as you say after the fact? We did not do this intentionally. We didn’t wish to do this. Our landscape contractor did not call the city and ask these questions. He came to the city with a plan showing what we intended to do and asked not only was a permit required, but also were there any restrictions. And we’re told no. And so we proceeded then to look in the neighborhood to see what others have done and had done, together with what we wished to do and since the issue of the well is not an issue tonight but it did come up, I’d like you to know that the city itself or within the city there are several walls, retaining walls along Minnewashta Parkway that were built before my time but I understand that they were built when the road was improved, that are closer to the curb than our wall was. But we have attempted throughout to cooperate and to compromise. I’m pleased to hear several of the commissioners use the word compromise throughout this process. We’ve been unable to do so. We agreed with the forbearance and the help of our contractor to move the wall and change that design, but we have several reasons why we don’t think that you should ask us to move our patio and I would like to go into those now. There are several points that we wish to make. First, the citizens of Chanhassen should be able to rely on the consistent interpretation of our ordinances and regulations. There are many issues I could raise there but let me raise specifically the issue of trees. May I ask Sharleen what the date of her aerial survey is? Al-Jaff: I believe it’s 2002. Rick Berland: Okay. We purchased this property in September of 2003. I like trees as much as many of the commissioners. If you visited our property and walked through as you did the subdevelopment that it was, you will see that there are many mature trees, both down by the lake on our site and up in our yard where our home is. We preserved all the trees we could. But staff, until this written report came to us in the mail, never brought up the issue of trees. And so there were several others like that, that’s one example. I understand that the commission has the right to give variances on the basis of hardship. My wife Judy is here. Our mothers are both living. 79 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 They’re both 82. They like to visit us at the lake. They need a safe and stable place to sit. Many of our other relatives are in their 70’s and 80’s. I myself am 60. And so that’s one of our hardships. There are others that I’ll elaborate later. I can tell, I’ve never been to something like this before but just listening to the previous two cases, the commissioners are very thorough in preparing for this meeting so I want to tell you, and I will elaborate in a moment that the date of the city’s receipt of our survey, which Sharleen showed you in this report, is very wrong. And it will also state, and I will tell you why in a moment that we believe we’re already in compliance with the 10 foot setback requirement and we do however respectfully request a variance from the 250 square foot maximum size. On the subject of consistency, date and trees, the city requested the survey that you saw there. Garry Jones of Design Acres paid for it. He came to the city and asked the staff what was required on that survey. We complied with the city’s request to my understanding. If we had been asked to put the ordinary high water level on it, we certainly would have done so. When the surveyor was already there on site, I’m sure it would not have cost us very much to have that added. If we need to pay for him to come back and make a special trip, I’m sure it costs a great deal more. So it’s difficult for us as citizens to comply with ordinances and regulations and seemingly reasonable requests when the requests aren’t made. I believe it was the responsibility of city staff, and in fairness Sharleen, to my knowledge has never been involved in this so I’m not speaking of her, but we can’t know, or at least we should be able to rely on what the city tells us is needed and if we comply, and we did so. That city was hand delivered by my wife Judy to the city shortly after receiving it. The city, the survey is th dated August 25. Garry brought it to us. She hand delivered it to the city. This would have been in early September. On page 7 of the staff report it states that the survey is received on th October 29. If I were sitting in your chair and I were reading that, I would think that I dragged my feet and didn’t cooperate, but that’s far from the truth and I can prove it. We have a voicemail from Ms. Haak. We can play it for you if you wish. It’s recorded by the telephone th company answering service so it’s their date. It’s dated September 16. In that voicemail she stated that our survey had been reviewed. She brought up an irrelevant issue regarding the amount of hard surface, hard pack cover on our primary lot which was already permitted, approved, final inspections, everything done. She stated that the patio is the only remaining issue. She said nothing about trees. And she did not request any additional information, including that we amend our survey with the ordinary high water mark. We still have that voicemail. The date, as I said is supplied by the telephone company, not by us. We can play it for you if you wish. And I will state to you categorically that we removed no trees down by the beach, with the exception of one dead elm. And it had nothing to do with views. It was only to do with, I don’t know how to do this. It had to do with the fact that, I remember, and I’m sure most of you do when one was required to remove dead elms and promptly. This was a long dead elm. It’s the only tree we took out of there. This is the view that was used in the advertising brochure by Edina Realty, as you can see if you back up a little bit. From our home site down to the lake. We have a terrific view. We didn’t need to take out any trees to, trees of our view and we did not take out any trees. So we believe that trees should not even be an issue in this discussion. As I said, we like trees too. On the other hand we spent substantial money doing the improvements we’ve also done. I don’t believe that the city requires us to add trees if we took out none. I assume, I don’t know but I assume that 2 ½ inch diameter trees are fairly expensive. We really don’t wish to spend additional money at this time. In fact we had to spend additional money but for moving the wall because then we had to do plantings to stabilize the hillside. Before we would have had to done so, otherwise so we request that you remove that because we 80 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 don’t think there’s any basis for it at all. With regards to the setback, as I said, if the OHW had been requested, we’d have just done it but we do believe that we comply and I’ll tell you the basis. Like the city staff, I’m not a surveyor. I can only give you antidotal basis, but Judy and I are both avid swimmers. We were in that lake virtually every day this summer, and by the way we enjoy the clear, clean water. That’s why we’re there. We’re not, we have no interest in harming Lake Minnewashta. When you’re swimming at the end of your swim, because we do as I think you, I don’t know if you can see it on the picture but on the survey you can see, we have young grandchildren and we do have a sand beach for entrance and exit from the water for them to play on. But when you’re coming out the last time of the day there’s some tendency to walk out on the boulders so your feet stay clean, and I would regularly do that. Now when I received this, and with the help and he was very helpful of one of your staff people, Josh, I walked down to the lake and I measured where the actual water level is to the patio right now. This was 2 or 3 days ago. I come up with 13 feet 8 inches. I don’t know if we have anything here where you can tell it but there’s a fairly dramatic, the boulders are big. So that there’s quite an elevation change for the water to actually come up high onto that first row of boulders. I don’t recall that it ever did so this summer and I don’t believe it did, and I have some information here for you that I have to find. This report is printed from the internet and it shows that the ordinary high water mark on Lake Minnewashta is 944.5 as was reported earlier. Here is just a blow-up of this chart which shows the actual water level over a several year period, including this year and perhaps it’d be best if I pass this around. Sacchet: Sure. Rick Berland: You will see that this year, in 2004 summer, that the actual water level exceeded fairly dramatically the ordinary high water level. And yet as a swimmer who walked out of that lake, I will testify that the water never, to my best recollection, got anywhere near high enough to be within 10 feet of our patio. Mr. Jones will tell you later the results of a survey that he did, and where his measurement placed the ordinary high water level, and how far he believes we are from it. We are in violation of the area. Again, we didn’t know there was any area requirement. It’s pretty small violation from my perspective at least. I measure the diameter at 19 foot 9, which is just over 306 square feet in area. I think that’s pretty close to what Sharleen said tonight, although I think it’s a bit different by about, I don’t remember how many feet from what’s in the report that you received. We again request that that variance be granted so that we can leave our patio as it is. As you can see from both the photo, there’s not a lot of room there for us to go back. That well was built to preserve that beautiful ash tree that you see there. So it takes away our room, and before we had this patio, we really, there was really no place down there where there was a level, stable place to put any furniture for the older visitors who come and for the rest of us who enjoy using the patio too. You’ll notice the fire pit, just as while we’re on it. I mean I think we did everything in very high quality. Those are pavers. They’re designed to be permeable and stable. There was a report on TV that Judy happened to see this summer where someone from the Arboretum was recommending that people use pavers because they do allow percolation and prevent runoff over say concrete for example. Hardships, I mean the staff report seems to indicate that hardships are of our own making. We’re very grateful that our mothers are healthy and able at the age of 82, but we take no credit for it. We need a safe and stable place for them and others to sit. Also I believe from listening to you tonight that you do have sensitivity to the issue of cost. We spent a lot of money to do this. Our landscaper is, in 81 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 my experience a very good person. He spent a lot of his own money to change that wall, and it’s expensive to do these things. And it may be that tearing up some of it and exposing the ground again and waiting for sod to take is more harmful to the lake than leaving things as they already are. In summary we believe we have the hardships necessary for a variance to be granted. Again we’re sorry that we’re here after the fact. If the commission is able to take context into consideration, we believe that if you have seen the property both before and after we did our work that you would be pleased with what you see. In our application we detailed some of the improvements we made and much of the various trash and hazardous materials that we hauled out of there, cleaning up that area. We thank you for your kind attention. Many of our neighbors have complimented us for our work. Passing by on the water or on the land. Our immediate neighbors have all written letters of support and again I thank you. Thank you for staying and thank you for your attention and we’d be pleased to answer any questions. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Do we have questions? Yes Kurt. Papke: You’ve made several mentions to some boulders along the shoreline from which you’ve measured the setback. Were those boulders put in as part of this landscaping project or were they pre-existing? Rich Berland: Yes sir. We did improve the rip rap. The rip rap was eroding and there were frost heaves in it. There were boulders falling out. We took out the old rip rap and we put in all of the boulders along the shore. Papke: So is it possible that as a result of putting these boulders in the water line moved out as a result? Without the boulders there, you’re going to measure the shoreline at a slightly different spot, yes or no? Garry Jones: No, because actually when, on your high water mark, when you measure that you’ve got to follow that all the way back to the actual, to where it’s going to be, so no matter where the boulders are. Papke: Okay, so the boulders are inconsequential to the calculation. Garry Jones: Right, correct. Papke: Okay. Sacchet: Any other questions? I do have a question for you. You are Garry Jones right? Garry Jones: Correct. Sacchet: And you brought these plans to the city. Garry Jones: Correct. Sacchet: And that was somewhere in August I presume. Or summer. 82 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Rick Berland: May or June. Garry Jones: Yeah, it was earlier in the summer. Sacchet: Okay. Do you remember who looked at it? Garry Jones: No I don’t. I brought them in and just laid them out in front of, on the table there and I said is there any permits or any requirements that I need. And you know, just to take a look at that and see if there’s anything that I need to follow. Sacchet: You routinely do that or? Garry Jones: Pardon me? Sacchet: You routinely do that? Garry Jones: Yes. Sacchet: Just to make sure everything is cool. Garry Jones: Yep, and then like she said, or actually it was a man. He had said no, there’s no problems with this and so, and being that we’re not licensed, there’s no stamp or approval or anything. Sacchet: There’s nothing official to it. Garry Jones: Right, so it’s just kind of, so then we just kind of go with it from that point. Sacchet: Okay. Okay, that’s all the questions I have. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Did you want to add anything sir? Rick Berland: Thank you again. Sacchet: Thank you. This is a public hearing so anybody who wants to come up and speak up to this issue, please do so now. Dave Headla: Okay. I’m Dave Headla. I live at 6870, I’m sorry. Chairman, commissioners and planning group. I’m Dave Headla. I live at 6870 Minnewashta Parkway, just two houses north of the, Rick’s. Sacchet: And Dave by the way has been a member of the Planning Commission in the past. Dave Headla: Pardon? Sacchet: You’ve been part of the Planning Commission in the past haven’t you? 83 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Dave Headla: Yes, and it’s interesting to. Sacchet: Want everybody to know that. Dave Headla: Hear you talk. I appreciate the way, the questions that you’ve asked. They’ve been good. Sacchet: Thank you. Dave Headla; I, well first of all, I don’t know Rick. You know people in their 70’s aren’t all, need a lot of help. Rick Berland: But notice I didn’t use you. Dave Headla: I strongly disagree that any trees were removed. I’ve lived out there just about 45 years now and if you look at the picture that was shown, I think that can be explained. That’s a plan view. You’re looking down. There’s a lot of foliage on the trees that were lost. One was a huge limb that came off the willow tree and then any trimming would make it look like trees were removed, but they were not removed. I know the trees along the parkway. Maybe some brush was. I wish that you people could see what that property looked like before the Berland’s came in. The ice tend to raise havoc with the shore and it raised havoc with my shore, and when they came in, they put in this rip rap. They greatly improved the lakeshore. The ice cannot tear away at the shore any more. The big boulders they put in, and the angle they put them in, I think that’s really significant. It also helped for the power boats. Our shore takes a terrible beating from the power boats. Our place, we’re on the west side of the lake and with prevailing westerlies, our lakeshore is, and the lake, it’s pretty calm most the time. Particularly bare footers. They like to come roaring through there, and there’s a lot of wave action. What they’ve done with that rip rap is going to minimize the wearing away of the lakeshore. As far as the actual location of where they had the fire pit, I walked down this morning to, so I could better understand what they were dealing with. I think, well between the rip rap and that stone wall behind them, it’s, I don’t know, 16-20 feet. Something like that. And it’s strictly an estimate. I think they tucked that fire pit back in against the wall as far as practical. I think they used good judgment and so I don’t see where they had an option there. Yeah, maybe they could remove a full paver. A few pavers to comply but that would be… And then another point, I don’t know how valid that high water mark is. I’ve lived here a long time. Living on Minnewashta 45 years. I’ve never seen the lake come up anywhere close to that high water mark, and you can judge how high the water is by looking at Minnewashta Creek and the flowage that you have. And this year, when we had the rains there in ’87 I think it is when we had that one foot rise in Minnetonka. The lake didn’t come up that far, and by the time the drainage area started to come into the lake, the Minnewashta Creek had dumped that water, so I, I don’t think that’s really a valid thing to reject the permit. And finally both my wife and I really feel they’ve been a good steward of the land there and we’d recommend approval of the variance. Sacchet: Thanks Dave. Appreciate it. Anybody else want to address this? Please do so now. 84 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Sharon Morgan: Good evening. My name is Sharon Morgan and I actually, I live inbetween the two of them. My house faces the other way. I have 3920 White Oak Lane and I own Outlot A right next to Rick and Judy. We’ve been there for the last 3 years. Not as long as Dave has, but we watched the whole progress of the work being done at the beach and you know I can vouch for them. No trees were ever taken. I have 3 kids. We’re down there watching all the construction going on and no trees were ever taken. Maybe some brush was cleared out but no trees were taken out of there. They did lose a big limb off the willow but that was due to a storm and they got that cleaned up so maybe that’s why the aerial picture looks a little bit different. Also, before they moved in there were tires in the water. There were iron rods in the water. There were old bar-be-ques over in the brush area, and it was completely dirty down there. There was old cans, garbage, and they did a tremendous job in cleaning all that up, so I think what they did really improved you know whatever, what runoff was going into the water there with all the debris and everything that was laying around there. And they have, they have done nothing but try to follow the city’s guidelines after they found out about this moving that wall and I think they’ve done nothing but good down there and I really think the shoreline down there looks really good and that they’ve done a great job. And so I’d recommend that they have this variance approved. Sacchet: Thank you. Anybody else? Yes sir. Chris Knox: Hi, my name’s Chris Knox. These guys don’t even know who I am. I actually live on Minnewashta Parkway just up the street and I just was here tonight for another reason, just to observe but I happened to see them on my list and I can vouch for the fact that actually they have a very beautiful home. They replaced a real eyesore next to the park there, and they’ve done a beautiful job on the, and so has the landscape person, on the shoreline. We have a shared beach where I am and I think what they’ve done is a beautiful thing. I, as a Lake Minnewashta resident and their neighbor have no problem. I think the wisdom behind the table there which say that the circumstances here, I would just say again as an ad hoc comment here is that I would think that you would want to make a, approve their variance and let them have their beautiful spot. It adds to the neighborhood and I as a neighbor am glad they’re there. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you sir. Anybody else? Please come forward. Jerry Paulsen: I’m Jerry Paulsen, 7305 Laredo Drive. Sacchet: Hi Jerry. Jerry Paulsen: I just picked up this report today so I’m basing my comments on general feeling. Not to minimize the, apparently you’ve made improvements to this property that are good. The fact is the city, the staff report recommends that you do not approve this because the findings show that they fail on 5 out of 6 of the findings to qualify for the variance as listed on page 6. They only qualify on the sixth one. I can see where, I think the burden of proof is still on the applicant to prove that they’re complying with city ordinance and the old cliché of ignorance of law is no excuse. They didn’t perhaps explore in enough detail to find out explicitly what was required in line with the, before they went ahead with this improvement before realizing they were not in compliance. The current water line is really irrelevant to the ordinary high water 85 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 line. That’s fixed by the DNR and doesn’t change over many years obviously. I assume they got approval from the DNR to put rip rap on the lakeshore because the DNR would probably require that. So I don’t think it’d be a hardship for them to modify their size of the deck slightly and not having old people fall off the edge there I don’t think, but I think the burden of proof is to show that they do meet this setback from the ordinary high water line. Thank you. Sacchet: Thanks Jerry. Anybody else wants to address this? Seeing nobody. Oops, there is somebody. Janet Paulsen: Janet Paulsen, 7305 Laredo Drive. As a person who can see a lake but doesn’t live on a lake I know that everybody who lives on a lake would like to have a fire pit and a patio down by the lake. It’s just natural. However the ordinary high water line is crucial. This is what we base our code on. We have to know the ordinary water line and we have to obey that. The state requires that. Our city requires that and adding anything to the water requires a permit from the DNR. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you Janet. Alright, anybody jumping up? No. Yes, go ahead. You can certainly add something to this Garry. Garry Jones: Yes. Again, Garry Jones with Design Acres and on the issue with adding stuff to the shoreline. There was a permit that was pulled. Sacchet: So you did have that permit. Garry Jones: Yeah. For the DNR for everything with the watershed. That was. Sacchet: So you’re all clear on that one. Garry Jones: Yes. Sacchet: That’s good to know. Excellent comment. Thank you. Appreciate it. Rick Berland: Could you tell them about your survey that you did? Garry Jones: Oh yeah. Sacchet: One more thing? Go ahead. Garry Jones: In regards to the high water mark, I shot it off the manhole cover which was, which is the hub to find the high water mark. And right now where I shot it, it’s 10 feet 9 inches from the overhead. The high water mark, the OHW. So from the edge of the patio to the OHW is 10 feet 9 inches is what I’ve got. So which does comply with the net 10 feet. Sacchet: Okay, so we have a pretty good likeliness that we are in compliance with that. Okay. Alright, with that I do close the public hearing. Assume everybody’s done their piece and bring it back to commissioners. Are we still awake? Rich, wake up. 86 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 Slagle: I’m awake. Sacchet: Alright. Comments, discussion. What are we going to do with this? Papke: I’ll start. When I read through this, this variance tonight, if you remember a week ago I made a comment to another after the fact variance request that we’d seen too many of these and we’re establishing a bad precedent. And in preparation for tonight I steel myself to come in and make a firm stance and say, this is it. You know I’m going to vote on, and vote down every single one of these until we you know, until we deny one of these permits. But I think there’s, what the applicant has done is in very, has been very respectful of the lake and the water quality and I think at the end of the day that’s what all these ordinances are all about. I think there’s been good testimonial here from the neighbors that this project is very desired by the local residents and I think we should just let it go. Sacchet: Alright, one comment. Any other ones? Tjornhom: I have a comment about this, last week’s also. There’s kind of a pattern developing where people, and this has nothing to do with Sharmeen or any of, this is just the city offices in general I’m starting to wonder about because we see this time and time again where people have tried to come in and do the right thing and they’ve complied with what their stamp says they can do, and then all of a sudden the rules have all changed on them or you know there’s something wrong, and my whole thing is if I’m a citizen coming in and I’m wanting to pull a permit for something, I don’t know all those questions to ask. I can’t read minds and I don’t know, I’m just an ordinary citizen wanting to put in a patio you know, and I just have to trust that the person I’m talking to is knowledgeable and is giving me all the information I need to, so I can invest in my property and do something nice. And so I think the applicant tried to do that again and somehow it fell through the cracks or something, and so I am, I approve their variance. I just, I think, I don’t believe they cut trees down and I think they tried to be good citizens and… Sacchet: Thanks Bethany. Anyone else? Claybaugh: I think with respect to issues like this, we have an internal problem within the city. We’ve discussed this before. I know you don’t want to hear it but there is, anyway. With respect to the zoning compliance that you now put in place, that was our reaction to it. We’ve discussed that in depth. I sincerely think that that will have a profound effect in the future so we’re not put in this situation hopefully once that…to ever again. One thing I haven’t understood about the City of Chanhassen, a lot of the other cities that I go to, to pull permits for zoning, so on and so forth, they have handouts there. They’re standard handouts. Come in. You say this is what I’m doing. They say hey, here’s the handout for it. Explains the things that people need to be put on notice about. It’s very simple to do and people, you’re going to get much better compliance doing it. Hoping it’s something that they do in conjunction with this zoning compliance review. That’s a very simple process. In the absence of some evidence that these people have been in before had been put on notice and then decided to disregard what information was told to them, and we’ve come down on the side of the resident. And certainly it sounds like this resident did their due diligence and I agree with fellow commissioners that 87 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 people that don’t operate and function in that area, they don’t know what they don’t know. And when you come to the city and rely upon it, they rely upon that information. And I myself have been in situations coming into cities to pull information and a person’s busy on a particular day and you’re requesting something fairly benign compared to the other things that they have in front of them, and it’s no problem. And this could have certainly fallen into that category. Your staff is certainly over worked and I guess with that, bottom line is I’m prepared to support the variance based on the testimony here tonight and nothing to add. Sacchet: Thanks Craig. Anybody else? Dan? Rich? Steve? Lillehaug: It’s reasonable. Sacchet: It’s reasonable. You know, an after the fact variance is bad news but an after the fact requirement is even worst. Now if we go by like we’ve heard by some of the residents, if we go by the rules that are given to us. The hardship, the self created precedent. All these things. It doesn’t look good if you look at what staff put together. But I think there’s an over riding factor. What the fork in the road is, we have the applicant here. We have the person that came to the city here that, and we see the applicant did quite a bit in terms of moving a whole boulder wall to accommodate requirements. Now they’re here for an after the fact requirement, are we going to hit them with an after the fact requirement to the after the fact? I mean it’s kind of ludicrous doesn’t it, so I think that over rides the rationale of, I mean it doesn’t enter into the framework that the variance procedure is set up with. Because they did come to the city. It’s tricky. I mean we literally get one of these about every meeting at this point. We’ve probably got about 3. You’re about the third or the fourth one in the row that comes in like that, and each time we struggle with this and say, well. At some point we’re going to have to put our foot down. I mean anybody can come in here and say well we talked to the city. But as long as it’s realistic, I mean we should not punish the owners. I mean it’s…as I think it is so, plus in addition to unanimous support of the neighbors, that weighs in tremendously when it comes to variances so I’m prepared to let this go through. Not only that, with the testament we heard about the trees, I think it’s not reasonable to have the tree requirement attached to it because we have very well corroborated evidence that there was no tree cutting except a dead one. That’s my comments, so I’d like to ask for a motion. Papke: I make a motion that we approve Variance number 04-42 for a 1.5 foot variance from the 10 foot ordinary high water level setback for a water oriented accessory structure, a 60 foot square foot variance from the 250 square foot maximum area of a water oriented access structure and relief from the requirement of the OHW on the survey for a water oriented accessory structure. It’s getting late at night to be saying this. Patio that has been constructed with no conditions. Lillehaug: Second. Papke moved, Lillehaug seconded that the Planning Commission approve Variance #04-42 for a 1.5 foot variance from the 10 foot Ordinary Highway Water Level (OHW) setback for a water oriented accessory structure, a 64 square foot variance from the 250 square foot maximum area of a water oriented accessory structure and relief from the requirement of 88 Planning Commission Meeting – December 7, 2004 the OHW on the survey for a water oriented accessory structure (patio) that has been constructed. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Tjornhom noted the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated November 16, 2004 as presented. Chairman Sacchet adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 11:10 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 89