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PC 2005 01 04 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 4, 2005 Chairman Sacchet called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. and gave an introduction on the role and procedures for the Planning Commission meeting. MEMBERS PRESENT: Uli Sacchet, Steve Lillehaug, Dan Keefe, Kurt Papke, and Rich Slagle MEMBERS ABSENT: Craig Claybaugh STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director, Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; and Matt Saam, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Janet Paulsen 7305 Laredo Drive Deb Lloyd 7302 Laredo Drive Deborah Zorn 7574 Ridgeview Point Curt Kobilarcsik 9149 Springfield Drive Melissa Gilman Chanhassen Villager PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR REZONING OF PROPERTY FROM RURAL RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT TO RESIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY DISTRICT AND SUBDIVISION WITH VARIANCES ON PROPERTY LOCATED EAST OF HIGHWAY 41, SOUTH OF HIGHWAY OVER DRIVE AND NORTH OF GUNFLINT TRAIL, YOBERRY FARMS, LLC, DAVID HURREL, AND KAREN WEATHERS, PLANNING CASE NO. 04-43. Public Present: Name Address Bill Borrell 2300 Longacres Drive Rodd Wagner 6915 Highover Drive Karen Weathers 7235 Hazeltine Boulevard Tom Stokes 2200 Shadywood Road Steve Johnston 510 1st Avenue No, Minneapolis 55403 Chuck Alcon 6138 76th Lane, Greenfield, MN th Bill Coffman 600 West 78 Street Dean & Jackie Simpson 7185 Hazeltine Boulevard Stuart Henderson 7240 Gunflint Trail Larry Lovik 2475 Gunflint Court Rick Pinamonti 2527 Longacres Drive Stacey Riecks 7256 Gunflint Trail Mark Brown 7210 Gunflint Trail Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Tom Kirsch 2290 Longacres Drive Scott Wosje 7125 Northwood Court Jennifer & Michael Rysso 7108 Harrison Hill Trail Rachel Wexler 7200 Madison Avenue W, Golden Valley Lisa Hokkanen 2456 Hunter Drive Kim Keyes 2448 Longacres Drive Abby DuMoulin 6966 Highover Drive Sacchet: Now before I ask staff to give their staff reports, I want to recluse myself from leading this discussion since I do have a personal interest in this development. I’m one of the immediately adjacent neighbors and so therefore I will participate as a resident from the audience side. So I will join you in the audience for this one item and then I will resume leading the meeting after that and pass leading the meeting to our Vice Chair Rich Slagle. Slagle: Alright, staff report please. Sharmeen Al-Jaff and Matt Saam presented the staff report on this item. Slagle: Okay, any questions for staff? Steve, you want to start? Lillehaug: Sure, I have a couple and this would be probably more towards Sharmeen. Looking at this e-mail that was sitting in front of us here, it really just raised the pretty important question to me and that is, regarding the proposed roadway on the very east side. How it impacts the 4, 5, 6 parcels so they have a road on basically each side of them, the way this is laid out. And the way these plans were showing it, I guess I really didn’t see that until reading this e-mail here. What is your thoughts and opinions on that I guess? Al-Jaff: We do have situations such as this one in the city. In this case it meets the requirements of the ordinance. Lillehaug: What exactly would meet the requirements? Al-Jaff: The fact that you have a city street with homes off of that city street. There is a separation between the street and the neighboring property. The back yards of the neighboring property. Maybe what we should point out to the uniqueness about the situation is the fact that you have an electric easement and that’s really what this e-mail is focusing on. The fact that. Lillehaug: Do you have a layout that actually shows this? Shows the, I mean it’s good on the rest of the layout. I mean it shows the adjacent parcels and the roadway systems, yet on the very east side, even the layout that you have on the desk there really doesn’t show the adjacent road. The next one over to the east and I don’t have that name off the top of my head. Slagle: Harrison Hill. Lillehaug: Harrison Hill Trail. Is there a layout there that really shows that? But then this one doesn’t show the proposed roadway. 2 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Al-Jaff: No, well. If you look at the e-mail came from the occupant of parcel number 5. And this is where the right-of-way sits in relationship to their parcel. The house sits further back on the property or more towards the front of the property. There is definitely a separation. There is a conservation easement first and then after the conservation easement there is the electric easement. And of course no vegetation can grow within an electric easement, and I think that’s the uniqueness of this situation. That’s what the applicant is trying to get across. Lillehaug: Okay. What are the, what would your comments be on, you know this whole meeting the minimum or maximum standards once again in reference to, you know they’re impacting a wetland exactly equal to 2,000 square feet which is the absolute minimum before they have to mitigate for wetland impacts. Also on basically laying out the lots on many of these parcels they’re meeting the absolute minimum to get a house on these pads. I mean just in general what would your comment be on, I mean are they trying to fit too much into this spot? Looking at the contour and grading issues. Changing the grading drastically. Al-Jaff: Sure. Bear in mind that this application has gone through numerous revisions. We’ve been working with the applicant for several months and the number, the total number overall lots on the site has changed. Over the course of time. Lillehaug: Increased? Al-Jaff: Decreased. Another thing is the grading. The size of retaining walls. The number of retaining walls on this site. There has been numerous changes that have taken place before this appeared before you, and I think Matt touched upon some of these issues. He also mentioned the limitations as far as there are touch points on this site that include Gunflint Trail, we’ve got Highover. There are existing homes that need to have access so there are certain challenges and limitations within the site and the applicant has done their best to work within these limitations. As far as average lot size, for instance it is over 19,000 and the minimum is 15,000. Lillehaug: So it’s fairly larger then. Al-Jaff: Correct. Lillehaug: It’s not meeting the minimum like I’m alluding to. Al-Jaff: Correct. Lillehaug: So it’s above that. One other question would be the specific question and maybe engineering can help out a little bit would be the, looking at the pads where the houses go on some of these lots, it doesn’t look like there’s going to be even a minimal back yard with even a manageable like a 10 percent slope. I mean on some of these pads it looks like right out the walkout it’s going to be a 1 to 3 slope. Is that fair to say or am I not quite seeing it on some of these pads? 3 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: Yeah, the hand full of pads that I mentioned, there may need to be some smaller type retaining walls shown in order to accomplish the quote useable, or the 10 percent gentler slope area. And that’s what I was getting at. That I’ll have to take a look at that indeed if retaining walls are needed, those should be shown on here so we know about them. Lillehaug: So we need, they need to revise these with retaining walls even to get a manageable or a legitimate back yard. Saam: Well, that’s one option. You know the other one would be to lower, if it’s possible, lower the street. And by that you’d lower the whole house pad so you wouldn’t need then a retaining wall. Lillehaug: Okay, thanks. Slagle: Dan, you go next. Keefe: Can you speak to the, one of the questions that we had which I didn’t hear any resolution to is the radius of the northeast cul-de-sac and whether that required a variance or not and kind of, apparently it doesn’t or does or? Saam: I guess technically we could say yeah, it would require a variance. I know, no? It doesn’t? Al-Jaff: No. Saam: Okay. Keefe: So it’s not less than. Al-Jaff: No, because it’s not an ordinance that requires that, and I did go through the ordinance and checked because that was an issue that was raised by actually Commissioner Sacchet. Do they requires a variance or not and I went through the ordinance again. Their requirement, the radius is not spelled out so it’s more of a policy. Keefe: Alright. Can you speak to the removal of trees. You know there’s a grading, you know there’s a lot of grading which is done on this site. Some of them are custom graded lots which I’m assuming they’ll be able to save some of the trees but I think the canopy is down to what, 11 percent or something like that. I think final analysis is in, and we’re proposing that they would come in and plant more but there’s still a lot of trees to be removed. Can you just speak to kind of how they balance the grading with the. Al-Jaff: Sure. We worked very hard with the applicant. There were some significant trees that both the applicant as well as staff wanted to see saved. Some of the trees that were questionable, whether they would be removed or not, they chose to show them as removed. The majority of the trees that the applicant had chosen to save are significant trees. There are some trees that again that are significant but stand no chance of remaining even with retaining walls. One of 4 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 them is a substantially large oak on the site, and we looked at every possible solution. And we didn’t see any that would allow it to stay. Keefe: Is it your opinion that they’ve done a pretty good job in trying to save the ones that they can given the limitations of the site? Al-Jaff: Yes. We believe they have done a very good job. Keefe: Okay. One last question in regards to, in regards to gaining access off of 41. In terms of just construction traffic. One of the questions that came up previously that I saw was you know construction traffic either coming up Gunflint Trail or down from Highover. I mean is there a way to route construction traffic off 41 for this project or not? Saam: Yeah, that’s a good point. The applicant is proposing, it’s shown on the grading plan a rock entrance off of 41. They’re going to utilize one of the existing driveways to one of the homes that I believe is being demolished. As the construction access point for the site grading, utilities, that sort of thing. Until the streets are in and paved. Keefe: And then at that point to build the homes they might use interior roads from Gunflint Trail? Saam: Yes. Yep, to build the homes I would foresee them using the existing roads. One of the MnDot requirements is to, actually city requirement also before we finalize the project, these existing driveways off of 41 have to be closed off, except for the houses that are outside of this plat but. Keefe: Okay. Slagle: Kurt. Papke. Did any of the existing or previous permutations or plans for this examine the possibility of eliminating the 3 existing homes that are on the site? You mentioned that we have a couple touch points here. One of them are the two existing roads coming down from Highover and then up from Longacres. Those are there. That’s incontrovertible. But is there any possibility that we could minimize or decrease the impact here if those 3 homes were scrubbed out of the plan? Saam: Well I think your first question was whether the previous plans showed them being gone? No. They’ve always been proposed to remain. Papke: So that was never considered? Saam: Well that’s a question for the developer I think, but to answer your second question, if they weren’t touch down points, yeah I think it could help him. You know it’s a restriction basically having those lots there. They have to match into those grades. But that doesn’t take, I mean saying that if those houses were gone it might limit the amount of grading, or change the 5 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 amount of grading doesn’t take into account that there’s people living there that wish to remain there and want to keep their houses so. Papke: Okay. Second question. My second and third questions both relate to the large hill in the center of Block 1 there that’s going to be shaved down. Do we know how close this comes to a bluff? I mean I went out and climbed the hill yesterday and I was out of breath by the time I got to the top. We’re saving a couple bluffs there. Do we know how close that hill is to the definition of a bluff? Al-Jaff: We know it doesn’t meet the definition of a bluff. Papke: But we don’t know. Al-Jaff: But I don’t know how close, no. I haven’t run those calculations. Papke: Okay. Is there anything in the city code, the comprehensive plan or any other guidance that the Planning Commission should be looking at that would give us any indication about the extent of the grading here? We’re eliminating about 44 feet, if my memory serves me correctly off the top of that hill. Is there anything that would give us any indication that this is outside of what the city desires to do, either in letter or in spirit. Aanenson: Maybe I’ll just address that. We have had similar circumstances where we’ve had extensive amount of grading. Again we’ve indicated we’re trying to match a couple of points, for one. And actually as the city has done more development we’ve evolved and been stricter on grading. For example in Longacres, and the Woods and the Meadows, there wasn’t a grading ordinance. There were substantial cuts that probably wouldn’t have been made if, you know we changed our bluff regulations to date. But we have done significant, for example Ashling Meadows. Significant amount of grading. Again when you’re trying to blend some topography with certain touch down points, you get grades to meet collector roads. That’s what drive some of those. There’s certain parameters that drive the design so I think in this circumstance we’ve worked our best to try to blend those. And the high point that we went around actually makes an interesting project because instead of going through the middle of the road to connect, it actually takes a bend in the road which reduces some of the speed and coming down the hill which makes it a more interesting project in our mind. Papke: That’s all. Slagle: I’ve got a couple. Let me go back to the point that was mentioned Sharmeen earlier that the number of homes have decreased as this has gone on. What have they decreased from, just curious. Al-Jaff: I believe they’ve reduced the number by 3 or 4 homes. Slagle: 3 or 4. Okay. A Matt question. I’m assuming Matt condition 21 is the one you’re referring to about lowering the street. I think on page 17. 6 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: Yes, that’s correct. Slagle: How much are you thinking? You would be happy with. Saam: I’d like to get rid of that wall along the east side so that would be about 3 to 5 feet. Slagle: Okay. And if I can ask, was there a response from the applicant on that discussion? Saam: Not since this report’s gone out but as I alluded to earlier, in the previous permutations of the plan, I mentioned that and they have reduced that wall significantly. Before it was in the 11 foot range. Now they have it down to 4. I’m just asking them to go a little more. Slagle: Okay. With respect to traffic, I know this is three stages. Will both the north and the south connecting roads open up at the same time? Basically. Saam: I think the developer can add something but it’s my understanding, while it is three additions… Slagle: Okay. I don’t know who this is for but I noticed on condition 44. The applicant shall remove the sidewalk on the west side of Gunflint Trail. Can you tell me a little bit about that. Saam: It’s been done. I believe, Sharmeen. It’s on the east side now. Al-Jaff: Correct. If you look at, Nann can you zoom in please? The sidewalk is shown on both sides of the street and staff is recommending that the extension takes place on one side only rather than both sides. Slagle: Okay. Al-Jaff: So it’s just this portion right here that is a piece of Lot 3. Slagle: Gotch ya. And so we will continue down Gunflint on the east side of Gunflint only affecting 2 lots versus 3 or 4 which would be on the west side. Al-Jaff: That’s correct. Aanenson: There is no sidewalk there currently. Slagle: Correct, I understand. But there will be. Aanenson: Someone will have to pursue that, correct. Slagle: Okay. Well I’m only thinking though that in the last discussions from, I thought I saw it in writing from the Park and Rec Director that it would continue on the west side. Aanenson: That would be his desire to pursue that, correct. 7 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Slagle: Okay. Alright. And then one last question. Sharmeen, not to put you on the spot but the calculations of the bluff or not a bluff, getting back to Kurt’s question of the hill in the center. We know it’s not a bluff but we don’t know the, I mean how close is it? And maybe that’s a Matt question. Saam: Yeah, I’m just looking at quick, if I can add something. The bluff requires a 3 to 1, I think 30 percent. I just threw my scale on here. Many of the contours are in the 5 to 1 or greater range so that shoots it right there. Slagle: Okay. Alright, anything else for staff folks? Okay, I’m going to ask the applicant to come up. State your name and address and we’d love to hear what you have. Chuck Alcon: Good evening Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. My name is th Chuck Alcon. I reside at 6138 76 Lane in Greenfield, Minnesota. With me this evening, I’d like to introduce Bill Coffman and Tom Stokes, also of the development team and from Landform who’s doing the surveying and engineering, the President Steve Johnston and his assistant Jesse Larson. Also in attendance this evening are Dean and Jackie Simpson, property owners and Karen Weathers, property owner involved in the plat. Slagle: Welcome. Chuck Alcon: I think what we’d like to do first is respond to a couple of the comments, if you’d allow us, and then we’ll stand by for questions. Just a clarification of the staff report. Item 22 which deals with lift station 27. In talking with staff beforehand we believe the intent of that comment is to pro-rate that upgrade for the 11 lots that are being added, and I just want to make sure we understood that as clarification. I’m going to ask Steve Johnston to address 3 items under item 11(b), (c) and (h) but prior to that, there’s a comment made on the back yards. As was mentioned, this is as difficult site and there will be some custom homes for these lots. A couple things that can be done and will be done in order to make these back yards usable, we took a couple of shots over at Ashling Meadows, if I can just put these up here. Not quite as difficult as our site but clearly in order to have a useable back yard, the use of boulder walls less than 4 feet high can be extensively employed and that can help that problem out. And we intend to do that. We talked about the pre-existing homes. The homeowners do plan to stay and the touch down points we touched on also. I want to ask Steve to, as I said, comment on items 11(b), (c) and (h) and also on item 21. Steve will have the technical details but I should point out that in that area our sewer is already 30 feet deep so the more that we lower the road to get rid of the retaining walls, the deeper the sewer goes and Steve will have some specifics on that. So with that I’d like to ask Steve Johnston to step forward. Steve Johnston: I’ll just put that up there for reference as well. Good evening. My name is Steve Johnston, Landform Engineering Company in Minneapolis. First of all to address the issue of the street grades in this general area. What’s driving that is our sanitary sewer connects at this location. We brought back the sanitary sewer at basically minimum grade up into this point. We lowered the street down until we were about 9 feet deep at this location. We can go another foot and a half or so and still have cover on that sanitary sewer, but beyond that it’s going to be very 8 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 difficult to lower it. Be happy to look at it again when we get into final design and look at the street grades and try to minimize it as much as possible in here, but I really am being pushed by that sewer depth issue. What Chuck was mentioning, the sewer as it comes through, this comes up in a hill in this area. The sewer at this point is 30 feet deep, so we’re that much higher here than here, and to get, keep, maintain the cover on the pipe is the main driving fact and not pushing that road down, but I’d be happy to try to minimize that as much as we can and work with your staff to do that. The items in the staff report that I just wanted to clarify from our standpoint. This is items 11(b) talks about maintaining 10 foot horizontal separation between all sanitary, water and storm sewer mains. We have one location on the project and that is on the Weathers property in this location. Where the sanitary sewer and water will come down this lot line through these back yards and through an easement that’s in this location to connect into the existing system. It was too, much, much too deep to try to run the sewer around it, the street. As we’re coming down these lot lines we’re proposing to keep those two mains 5 feet apart as opposed to 10 feet apart to minimize the easement area in there. We’re also proposing then to use watermain quality pipe for the sanitary sewer which ten state standards allows us then to move those closer than 10 feet so hopefully the city can accept that. That condition. If they will, we’d be happy to work with them on it. Item (c), revise the storm sewer pipe size to maintain a minimum 15 inch. We have a storm sewer that’s stubbed into our site at this location. It’s only a 12 inch pipe. I can’t connect a 15 into a 12 inch pipe without having potential problems so I should, anything that goes upstream of that should be the 12 inch pipe and not a 15 inch pipe. But again I’d look to your city engineer to help make that decision. And finally, item (h). Re- route the proposed watermain in the southwest corner of the parcel to be between Lots 5 and 6 and 10 feet off the proposed sanitary sewer within the 30 foot utility easement. I already talked about that. We did relocate it as requested but we’re requesting to keep those pipes 5 feet apart and use watermain quality on the sanitary sewer. Other than that we did not have any issues with what was being requested in the staff report. Slagle: Okay. Chuck Alcon: That would complete our comments. We’ll be happy to answer any questions. Slagle: Okay. Keefe: I’ve got a question in regards to, can you talk about your landscaping. I mean since you’re doing, you know this is kind of an infill location with a lot of lots adjacent to these properties. You know, if I lived in one of the homes on, adjoining this, I’d be interested in having as much buffering as I possibly could. Can you just speak to how you went about your landscaping plan? Chuck Alcon: Well we have a landscaping plan and that was done by Steve’s group and the developer will be responsible for that landscaping plan throughout the development and it was intended to match existing neighborhoods around it, exempt those areas as mentioned where the utility easements are in place. So that was the fundamentals behind it. Slagle: Steve. 9 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Lillehaug: Yeah, I have a few questions and it’d be on some of the comments here. You’re indicating that the sanitary is one of the driving forces of the grading, which is legitimate. Could you tell me, what is the depth of the sanitary sewer where you’re proposing to tie into on Gunflint? I mean I want to understand, since it’s a driving force, I really want to understand how and why it’s a driving force. Steve Johnston: Okay, the depth of the sewer where we’re connecting to at this location is of an adequate depth to serve the property. The issue is keeping enough coverage over the pipe. When we first came in with the plan prior to the December meeting, we had immediately came out of that main and came up about 5 or 6 feet. Because it was deeper actually than what we needed. We received the staff comments then that they wanted us to try to lower the grade on this end of the project and as we did that, in the last month, we tried to respond to all the staff comments, we lowered that to the point where the sanitary sewer now on Gunflint Trail is at minimum grade to the low point in the road which is here adjacent to the wetland. That is essentially all the further we can push that point down and maintain adequate coverage in this location. By pushing that down though we ended up with a grade in this location. The street grade in this location stayed the same and then now that’s gone from 24 feet of coverage to about 30 feet of cover on that sanitary sewer line. And that was all done in an attempt to minimize the height of this wall which we have done. Originally that wall was about 8 to 10 feet tall and now it’s in the area generally of 4 feet tall. There’s one spot that’s 6 feet tall. Lillehaug: I guess I’m not seeing the whole picture but you’re saying where you tie into Gunflint Trail, you’re stepping up 5 feet. A 5 foot drop and then. Chuck Alcon: Originally we were. Lillehaug: Originally. Chuck Alcon: But now we’re keeping the sewer as deep as we possibly can to have the minimum impact in this general location. Lillehaug: Okay, so from where you’re tying in back to that other, back to the cul-de-sac, you’re at a minimum grade the entire length. Chuck Alcon: Correct. Lillehaug: And does staff concur with that then? Saam: Yes. Lillehaug: Okay. Another question would be, storm sewer. You’re indicating you’re not, you point out one of the conditions where the city would like to maintain a minimum of 15 inch diameter storm sewer. Is that, are you talking just for that one small segment where you’re tying in or are you alluding further upstream. 10 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Steve Johnston: We have no problem with the rest of the project being all 15 inch pipe, if that’s your preference. My point only is that right now we’re showing, we’re showing this intersection draining into an existing pipe that was stubbed at this part of the project. That stub is only a 12 inch pipe. So if you connect a 15 inch into a 12 inch, it isn’t a very good condition. Lillehaug: Okay. And then the 10 foot grade separation that you indicated down on Street B. Is there, what are the grade differences between, is it the watermain and sanitary? Steve Johnston: They’re both within a foot or two of the same elevation. The desire there was just not spreading them out. 10 feet apart. Trying to keep them at 5 was only to keep the buildable width of those lots intact. If we were to add, separate the pipe, we need more easement. That reduces the size of those lots. The effective size of those lots. Lillehaug: Does staff, is there another option that you were looking at that they could easily get 10 foot separation to work? Or is that a condition that I guess that we would, that you would like to maintain there? Saam: When we had previously talked with the applicant, we were under the assumption that the pipes would stay at 10 feet and then their concern was the amount of easement area. We told them we wanted a 30 foot, basically 10 feet between all the pipes. Their concern was how that would restrict the house pad size, as I understand it. So we said we could go down to a 25 foot easement. But still keeping the 10 foot separation in the pipes, so at this point that’s something we’d still like to do. I think we can work with them on that but, yeah. Steve Johnston: I think we’re getting real technical here and we can work this out. Lillehaug: So let’s not get technical and let’s go the other direction. Your cul-de-sac and road that goes up to Outlot D, what have you done for the residents to the east of your development to help this development work in with their development and make this you know more, really fit in with their back yards rather than putting a road right up against their lot line? Steve Johnston: With the, and I think Chuck mentioned this as well. We, our original landscape plan showed re-vegetating this area that you can see where there are no trees planted now, and then we became aware of that Xcel was not going to let us do any of those plantings underneath the power line. So those have now been pulled out of there. It’s very limited as far as what we can do. We can’t have anything that’s going to grow up and interfere with those lines. Lillehaug: As far as possibly pulling that road away and losing a lot or two, is that an option? And creating a bigger buffer between their back lot line and the actual right-of-way for the roadway. I mean I can, I’m sure you understand my concerns here. You’re living there. Can you anticipate a roadway being on your back property line? I certainly would not anticipate that. Steve Johnston: There basically is enough room to put lots on one side of that street. We put the road, we kept it 10 feet off the property line with the right-of-way so the road itself was going to be about 25 feet off the property line. To put the road on the other side, on the west side of those lots would mean that all of those lots were above the, above the street. Instead of walking out 11 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 they would become tuckunders which is not a very desirable house type. When we first came in we looked at that area with a private drive and for a lot size we were directed by staff that this was a preferable option to placing a cul-de-sac in this location and doing this with a private drive, so we have looked at other alternatives and this one was the best alternative to gain access to that part of the property owner/developer’s property. Lillehaug: Okay. That’s all I have for now. Slagle: Kurt. Papke: I’d like to get to resident questions as quickly as possible so I’ll limit my questions at this time. Slagle: We might call you back if you wouldn’t mind. Steve Johnston: Thank you. Slagle: I am going to open it up now to the public and what I would ask is that you limit your questions and discussion to let’s say 5 minutes or less. Obviously some will carry over if they need to. If some of you are from a neighborhood where there’s many folks, all we would ask as courtesy is not to repeat the same comments or concerns. We’ll certainly get the feel for that as we go forward so what I’d like to do is just invite you up one at a time. State your name, your address and we’d love to hear from you. So whoever wants to go first, you’re welcome. Tom Hirsch: Hi. My name’s Tom Hirsch. I live at 2290 Longacres Drive in the Longacres subdivision. I was recently elected President of the Board of the Longacres Homeowners Associations and I represent the 222 lots and homes that make up the Longacres subdivision. If we could scan on a picture of the Longacres, I’d like to give just a brief overview of our subdivision. The connection into the proposed property is here on the picture. The road that connects across from here is Longacres Drive. We have monuments and landscaping on a cul- de-sac type arrangement or a center median arrangement that already comes off of Highway 41. And off of Galpin, and we have a connector down through our subdivision that also has a monument and landscaped entrance into our subdivision off of Galpin Road to the south. We maintain two parks, both of which are on the north side of Longacres Drive. Here on the picture and here on the picture. Both of these parks have kiddie playgrounds. A tennis court is in the west one that’s adjacent to the proposed development. We spend approximately $71,000 a year maintaining our entrances and our parks for the 222 lots that are contained within our subdivision. 76 percent of our residents must cross Longacres Drive to gain access to these parks. The new subdivision is in the Chaska School District, as I understand. Chaska School District to get to the middle schools and the high school is a straight shot down Highway 41 and Bluff Creek Elementary would be at the corner of Galpin and Highway 5. I would estimate approximately 90 percent of the traffic coming out of this proposed subdivision would be cutting through the Longacres subdivision to gain access to the schools, Highway 41. To go south, or across to Galpin to get to the middle school for school activities. And it’s a retail corridor as you’re well aware throughout Highway 5. That’s the main growth area of retail in your master plan. I have two issues I’d like to bring to the table. Number one is, I didn’t see in the staff 12 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 report any traffic studies, environmental impact studies or any application or a rule as to the feasibility from the State on access into Highway 41 that could potentially disperse traffic out away from Longacres to provide that access to go southbound to the middle schools and the high schools. And into Chaska. I think we must conduct due diligence of assessing the risk to our children associated with the increased traffic into our neighborhood. We owe it to the children to conduct these studies and implement any mitigations to this risk. A couple traffic solutions that came to my mind again would be open, direct access to Highway 41 to disperse some of that traffic for the southbound traffic to the middle schools and the high schools. There’s, I don’t think the State is going to say absolutely no. We are shutting down with this development some of the access that’s currently coming off of Highway 41, and there are other accesses that have been granted with the proper left turns and the right turns coming in and out of that access. It would provide a safe access in and out of these 57 lots. A couple other ideas that I had that would, that might come up through an assessment and mitigation techniques would be installing stop signs on Longacres Drive. There are no stop signs on Longacres Drive currently. And perhaps reduce speed on Longacres Drive. My second issue I’ll move to now is, I’ll reference page 9 in the staff report. In there it’s documented that there are no parks planned in the development. There are no trails in the development and the only nearest public park is Lake Minnewashta Regional Park and it’s recommended by staff that the neighborhood not gain access to that by walking to it. Therefore the nearest park is our kiddie park, which is right down their street. Park access, it’s a private park. We, as I stated earlier, maintain it. It’s a beautiful park and has very expensive equipment in it. We do have capital reserve studies that we’ve done and we maintain a capital reserve to provide maintenance to that equipment based upon it’s useful life. I estimate, our first point is park access is easy and direct for these new residents and it’s really an unenforceable thing for us to enforce no trespassing into our park. These residents have nowhere to walk to take their children to play. They will come to our’s. It creates a maintenance and a cost and a risk and a liability risk to all of the homeowners of Longacres. I estimate about 22, 26 percent increase usage based upon the 57 lots and some calculations of average children per household that would reduce the useful life of our equipment by 26 percent, which would cause us to increase our reserves to maintain that. This really is not an expense or a liability that I think we should be expected to absorb. Possibly mitigations would be to require a kiddie park in the new subdivision. Provide Longacres homeowners with a barrier fence and no trespassing signs to limit our liability and reimburse us for our increased insurance rates. Or possibly join the Longacres Homeowners Association. In conclusion, as a board member I’m obligated to bring these risks to the table. I request your time, cooperation, assistance and guidance to resolve them. If we ever are asked at any point in the future whether we did due diligence on this traffic due to some sort of accident and have we implemented mitigations, I think we all must be able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that we did. The safety of our children is the highest priority. Development’s a great addition to our city. I’m happy to see this type of development showing in this rural area. We must be responsible, prudent in our decisions and to protect the safety of our children. I thank you for your time and your consideration. Slagle: You’re welcome. Any questions? Of this gentleman. Okay, thank you. 13 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Papke: I have a quick one. Have there been any conversations with the developer about having this development join your homeowners association? That sounds to me like a very proactive, positive way of going after this problem. Tom Hirsch: I have gotten engaged in this process rather late. I saw the sign that went up on nd December 22 at the stub within our neighborhood. I do not live within 500 feet of the neighborhood so I was, I live up Longacres towards the Galpin side and did not see any activity going on so we had about 2 weeks. There were some phone calls made today with my management company and the developer and we’ve started those conversations. Slagle: Thank you. I want to ask a question of staff if I may. How do we address, and I know you’re not the park director Kate or Sharmeen but how do we address this, what I think is a pretty common question and I think a sensible one that here you’re putting 57 homes into an area that really there are no parks, at least that we’re aware of. Are there others that you’re aware that are potentially planned? Aanenson: Well this isn’t the first situation where this has occurred. We recently had the same issue come up on Settlers. Settlers West where you had a long cul-de-sac adjacent to an existing subdivision that had a swimming pool and a totlot and there was the same concern of the new people are going to feel like they can come over and use it. We have the same situation on Lake Lucy Ridge adjacent to Ashling Meadows, which also has a private. You know, I guess from our perspective is, if it’s tots more than likely they’re going to be with parents so it’s an education issue of where you can and can’t go. If it’s children are within that, going to that. Slagle: Let me ask it a different way. I’ll use the two examples you brought up. Settlers Ridge, we got the applicant to create their own totlot inside the development, if we’re talking about Pemtom. Aanenson: No, they just put a trail to connect back and forth. Slagle: But the last I remember is they were going to add their own totlot on the west side. Aanenson: Their own totlot? Okay. Slagle: So they created their own and as far as the one off Ashling Meadows, if I’m not mistaken, if you go up Lake Lucy a quarter of a mile you’re at Pheasant Hill Park. And all I’m trying to say is, is I look where this is geographically situated and unless there’s plans to go up the trail, or the power line and connect to potentially the Jerome Carlson land, if there’s a park planned for that, I could see that. But if something didn’t happen there and it really is Minnewashta or nothing. Aanenson: Right, or walking towards the junior. Slagle: Or going to Longacres. Aanenson: Or to the junior high to the north. 14 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Slagle: To the junior high to the north. Aanenson: Up to West. Slagle: That’s a pretty far walk though. And I’m not trying to put you in a difficult spot but I’m just trying to say these are fair questions. Aanenson: Well first of all the Park Commission went one, you cannot do an extraction to say you have to put in a private park. You can’t ask for that. That’s something that this development chose not to do as a part of... That would be an independent decision. The Park Commission looks and makes a decision whether or not they want to take an extraction or take park and trail fees, and they chose to do the park and trail fees. Slagle: And what is that because on page 9 it says the City is not seeking parkland dedication as a condition of this platting. Paying of park fees at the rate in force at the time of platting shall be required as a condition of approval. Typically we see what they’re going to pay. Aanenson: The City Council at it’s last meeting in December just increased those rates based on cost of living so I’m sorry, I don’t have those in front of me but they will be. Slagle: Fully. Aanenson: Yep, in force, yes. Slagle: Okay. It’s a touch one. Aanenson: It’s their decision, right so. Can we usurp that? Um. Slagle: Okay. Fair enough. Lillehaug: Rich, can I ask a question before we leave the traffic here since questions were raised. Slagle: Sure. Lillehaug: Gunflint Trail stub, I mean to me it looks like there was a proposed road. I mean it looks like it was going to continue on, as well as coming out of Highover. Aanenson: Correct. Lillehaug: How did Longacres, going through that process and Highover plan review process, how did they anticipate, I mean did city staff and those developments anticipate connecting into this property to serve that? Aanenson: Yes. 15 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: Yeah, I’ll take that. Both of the development contracts for both Longacres, I’m not sure which addition it was and then Highover. I researched them both. They both have conditions where it said that the street, these streets will be extended in the future so it was all laid out. It’s always been planned. Lillehaug: Thanks. Aanenson: And actually let me just add to that. When Longacres came in, there was a request from the developer at that time to actually narrow the road because that was always shown as a minor collector which typically you make a little bit wider. At that time the developer wanted a request so it had a more neighborhood appearance so actually the city gave relief to that to actually kind of narrow that cross section as opposed to a typical cross section for a minor collector. Slagle: Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Whoever’s next. Rodd Wagner: Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Rodd Wagner. I live at 6915 Highover Drive. I took the liberty of superimposing two documents from the city. This from the back of the pink copy showing these, I believe it’s just grade in on the inside front cover of the report that you have. And then I took a copy of the development plan and reduced it down. My concern is primarily around traffic, particularly the number of homes that are being picked up by Highover Drive specifically. As was referenced earlier, there are various levels of road. Arterial, collector, and local but I think as a practical matter sometimes there are short cuts and maybe something that’s kind of between a collector and a local road and my concern, a number of my neighbors concern is that Highover Drive in this delineation, based on it’s relative straightness compared to the other roads and it’s length will be picking up a tremendous amount of traffic in a neighborhood that now, you know 7 years in has an awful lot of kids on it where we already see quite high speeds. We’ve had to call the sheriff a couple times to bring the sign up there to show people their speeds and try to get them to slow down. And I don’t see provision in here for slowing down the traffic or quite frankly just the pure traffic counts. I don’t know which way the traffic would split. How much of it would go south, how much of it would go north but I suspect we might have as much as 37 additional homes that might be served by Highover Drive as they go north to get onto Lake Lucy and to get onto Highway 41 and go from there. While there was a sign, has been a sign as long as I’ve lived there. I’ve lived there 6 years or so, that said the road would go through, I think it was a reasonable assumption by the residents that it would either be a cul-de-sac. That there would be access to 41 or if it did go through that we’d be picking up a smaller number of homes consistent with our neighborhood. Our neighborhood like Longacres is, has a homeowners association. We pay dues to the homeowners association to maintain the properties and the common areas and I do have the same concern as my distant neighbor from Longacres that this development will be taking advantage of the fact that they have people both on the north and the south that are paying dues into a neighborhood association to maintain those properties and this is a property that’s kind of jumping in, taking advantage of, or enjoying the benefit if you will of those properties north and south and the way they’re maintained without being a party to either one of those homeowner associations. My overall impression is that this plan tries to squeeze too much 16 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 into too small of a space. The applicant himself said this is a difficult site. I think it’s a difficult site only if you try to put too much in too small of a space. That creates a difficulty. If you spread it out, put fewer home sites in it, make accommodations either for cul-de-sacs that come into each other or access to 41 or somehow limit the number of homes, then it doesn’t have the difficulty. Nature imposes the difficulty. Maybe they’re just trying to put too much into one place. And as may be evidenced by the concern that was mentioned earlier about these homes to the east where you do have a road running right up against someone’s back yard, it doesn’t affect me but I feel for the people that are in that situation. I think that covers my concerns. Keefe: I have a quick question for you. Your homeowner’s association dues, do you know what that goes toward in the Highover neighborhood? Rodd Wagner: Sure. It goes for insurance on the common properties. It goes for maintaining the mailboxes. The mailboxes all have a consistent look to them. That kind of, there’s a rock wall I believe, I’m not exactly sure what the situation is there. I believe the city technically owns it but we have to maintain the liability insurance there. There’s some pools and things, you know standing water and such that we have to take care of. Keefe: Okay. And then you guys don’t have a totlot? Rodd Wagner: No, we don’t have any kind of common properties or things like that but that’s not to say we wouldn’t like to build some at some point and this could have an adverse affect on something like that. But my main concern is just the traffic. I don’t think Longacres was ever, I think this creates a situation where the road is taking on traffic that it wasn’t anticipated to do so when it was designated a local road. That it’s becoming too close to a collector and there’s going to be people learn short cuts and they’ll be going through to move from one collector to another. From Lake Lucy to get to Longacres, or excuse me. Yeah, Longacres to Lake Lucy and I don’t think that was ever anticipated. Certainly wasn’t by the residents in that neighborhood. I appreciate your time. Slagle: Thank you. Larry Lovik: Good evening. My name’s Larry Lovik and I live at 2475 Gunflint Court. It’d be this right here. Slagle: Can we do that again Nann? Zoom up just a. Okay. Larry Lovik: This corner lot. Slagle: You have the fence behind your house. Larry Lovik: Yes. And the two big dogs. I wanted to raise three points if I may. Elaborate really on two, so I’ll try not to repeat what’s been stated before. But Matt, the engineer spoke earlier about the three types of roads and the two we’re concerned with would be I believe the feeder and then local roads. As you see the map here, there’s a problem with the way Longacres was originally built. It trends northerly as it heads east. And see where I live and for any 17 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 individuals coming out of the new development, if they need to go to 5 to head east for any direction, 494, what have you, they’ll come down past my house but they’ll end up coming across the Hunter, and Hunter is a local road. It’s a very, very narrow, windy road and our association already has many complaints about traffic going too fast. Too much traffic. There’s often times parked cars with kids playing in the road there. I would anticipate that if you look at the total map here that all these homes, including possibly homes from here would travel south and end up going through Hunter to get on Galpin to hit 5. If you look at the map the connection of Longacres to Galpin is so far away it’s not even on the map. Now some of the problems with the connection to 41, in discussing this with the staff and engineers is there’s a bluff on the west side along 41. And I guess my comments about the bluff is, does the origin of the bluff come into play when you’re trying to protect the bluff. If you look at how 41 was cut in, that was it seems to me the creation of the bluff in the first place, and if you walk along 41 there, you’ll see where there’s already a cut in for a bike trail. It was just never developed so it became overgrown with trees and things. Along the westerly side of the development there’s three spots, and correct me if I’m wrong, that are not designated as a bluff. Two of them are the already existing driveways that I think should be explored to expand access into the development. The third one is the dead center middle. Other recent driveways along 41 would include the Wooddale Church which is about half a mile to the south. It seems to me they cut through a very similar looking area as what we’d be requesting occur here. Similar situation where I believe it th was a driveway that was expanded to become a regular street, West 78. If that’s not feasible then I’d strongly urge the council to find ways of lowering the density, installing stop signs, possibly even at my corner and especially along Longacres and Hunter. Two other points. The park. I think that’s very important. If you look at the map again, this is the park here. It actually is adjoining to the development. So it’s a very hard case to make that we are not going to allow a resident who’s back yards back up to a park, not to use the park. If it was just a few incidental extra kids playing in the park I don’t think our association members would have too much of a problem if the rest of the association had their, or the rest of the development had their park to go to too. And finally I noticed in the recommendations about street cleaning. Street cleaning daily as needed. I’d like to suggest that you drop the as needed and just include it as street cleaning daily. If that’s not dropped, who gets to decide what as needed means? I’m sure that the existing owners would probably have a little bit different opinion about as needed as a developer. And that concludes my remarks. Any questions? Slagle: Thank you very much. Stuart Henderson: I don’t have a map. I feel bad. So maybe I’ll just use one of these. Stuart Henderson. I live at 7240 Gunflint Trail. I back up on what I now know is a bluff. I live right out here, which actually raised another question because I had, I do have a question at some point on what happens with the whole bluff thing. Slagle: Show me where you live again sir? Stuart Henderson: Here. Yeah, similarly I saw the sign, I’ve been there 3 years. Sign at the end of the road. Figured it was going to extend at some point. I don’t have a problem with development, etc. My issues do so I’m not going to beat on a, other than a couple different points. Whether it’s the traffic. I figure if something went in it would probably hook to 41. I 18 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 also didn’t necessarily figure we’d be talking you know 57 homes. I don’t know about collectors and things of that nature. All I, I just drive and I can tell you that I go down Hunter, which is like this wide. If anyone doesn’t park in their driveway, you can’t get by. It’s only 2 cars wide. No sidewalks, etc. So I’d say perhaps well, and by the way, thanks Matt. Spent some time on the phone with me today. It may have been when the thing’s designed that people said oh yeah, this is going to be the road. We always anticipated it. But of course there was no one living there when it was designed. On either end so it’s fairly easy to design something when nobody’s there. I was a little surprised to hear in terms of the hook-up at 41, that no one has asked. That I guess I thought that maybe it’s been checked and you can’t so I would suggest that that’s a good way to route traffic, maybe somebody should ask. Last thing is on that one little corner, in that circle you see there, there’s like 20 kids. With the exception of mine, all under 12 which is good because they’re babysitting material for my kids but, and I think there’s been a couple more born recently. Yeah okay, 22. So it is, you know it may well have changed in character from what the engineers envisioned when designing this in terms of the whole traffic flow so I’m quite concerned about the traffic piece and appreciate whatever you can do to address it. Slagle: Thank you very much. Dr. Jennifer Rysso: Thank you first for your time and attention in this matter. My name is Dr. Jennifer Rysso. I am a full time internal medicine physician at Park Nicollet Clinic. I live at 7108 Harrison Hill Trail in Longacres which has been talked a lot about tonight. Which is at the bend of this road. This property right adjacent where everybody is saying they are sorry if they were me. That’s me. I am also the mother of a 4 year old and an 8 year old daughter and I’m going to talk to you as a mother actually. I enjoy neighbors to the north and south of me also adjacent to the proposed development with children numbering 13 on that side alone, including those of ages less than a year to 9 years of age. My concerns regarding the current plan are multiple. The first and foremost involves safety. I lived in South Minneapolis prior to building in Longacres in Chanhassen. My property bordered an alley way along the back of my house. A very common feature of homes in South Minneapolis but not in Chanhassen. One of my neighbors watched as her young son was hit by a car coming down that alley way. I used to sit at the edge of the alley way while my children were younger, while they were playing in the back yard to keep them safe so they didn’t go into that alley way. I moved to Chanhassen in part to allow my children and vision of being allowed to play freely outside without being monitored continuously by a fearful parent waiting for the next flying car to come down the alley way or around the curve. I built on our property understanding up front that a development would follow to border our back yard. My husband and I understood that ultimately another back yard would join our back yard and we were quite content with that thought with a sense of community and neighbors in mind. With the current plan in front of you I am being robbed of my vision. I am not alone. My neighbors had the same vision and built in Longacres for the same reason. The current plan involves a street that provides access to driveways of approximately 5 homes. That street directly borders my back yard and in essence becomes my new alley way. Not only is it an alley way, but it is a street that can be accessed by young children by jumping off a retaining wall an act the children in my neighborhood do over and over every single day I’m watching them play in my back yard. This cannot be prevented, believe me as parents we have tried. The higher the wall along the street, the more challenging it is for the children to jump from. This street makes a curve that appears to be blind to those that might be standing on a wall 19 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 waiting to jump. I don’t see the children seeing the car or the driver seeing the children in this current plan. I see the danger of children jumping and stumbling in front of a moving car and then being hit, perhaps mortally to be too much of a risk. Fences and trees, which of course in this area won’t be allowed with the electric easement anyway, will not prevent the challenge of the jump but will make it all the more challenging. The only answer in my view to the safety is that the road not be there. If the current plan is developed it will place the safety of the 15 children on the west side of Harrison Hill Trail and the safety of the 23 children on the east side of Harrison Hill Trail who tend to focus most of their play on our side because there’s really not a lot of back yards on their side, will put them at risk. 38 children. That doesn’t include the unborn children due in a few months on our road, or the friends and relatives of the children on the street. We are a young community. That number of children is only going to get larger. I am not a builder, nor can I claim to be experienced in looking at plans. However it does appear that this street that will access 5 houses at most, will compromise the safety of over 38 children and drivers using the road. Perhaps one could re-route the road to the west side of the house adjacent to the wetlands which I’ve heard developers talk about. If not, perhaps the road shouldn’t exist and perhaps as mentioned several times tonight a proper use for that area would be a park for the people in that area. Understandably the goal of the developers was to allow these new properties to have their back yards against the wetlands. Perhaps even the property will be able to be sold for more if they are marketed as back yards adjacent to wetland, but at what cost to the community. Compromising the safety of every house hold, at least 19 homes along Longacres/Harrison Hill to place a road to access only 5 homes does not reasonably a constitute a community decision. Others will discuss with you the financial impact that this road has on my property value and on those of my neighbors. Others will discuss with you the destroyed aesthetic appearance of my property and that of my neighbors should this road be built. Others will discuss with you the fact that this new planned neighborhood offers no access to major thoroughfares, I think which has been mentioned quite a lot. I however will emphasize to you the issues of safety and community. Is it a community decision to allow the current road to be built as on your blueprint when it serves only to allow an appealing location of a back yard adjacent to a wetland when they could have an appealing location to my back yard. Is it a community action to approve a road that serves only to access 5 houses when it compromises the 19 homes along the Harrison Hill neighborhood and the over 38 children that live in those homes. My answer to you is that approval of that road will be solely a financial decision and not one that city commissioners should make when their ultimate goal is to serve the community. Thank you. Sorry, it was a prepared statement. Slagle: Thank you. Anybody else? Uli Sacchet: Well good evening from this side of the crowd. My name is Uli Sacchet. I live at 7053 Highover Court South, which is the property right here. I also represent my neighbor which is the property right here. As a matter of fact I want to address first a point or two from my neighbors that hasn’t been raised yet. Before I do that I want to make it clear that I address you as a resident, local resident and not as a member of the Planning Commission. The neighbor over here on Lot 22 of Highover, that’s Ruth and Tom Rolfs. They’ve written a letter I think that was handed out to you this evening, and I wanted to summarize some of their points and focus on two points that have not been brought up yet that they bring up here. Their letter is basically an outcry against urban sprawl. Against the destruction of the existing wildlife corridor. The 20 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 beautiful wooded area on the rolling topography against the extreme grading and the effort to pack in as many lots, as many buildings as possible. In addition their’s is a concern about drainage that they’re bringing up. But first of all I’d like to point out that there is a major wildlife corridor on, between basically the two developments. On the south edge of Highover, that northern edge of this development in that corner of it is a major wildlife corridor and there is really no reason to believe that that corridor will totally go away. Even with all this development because there will be still significant woodland left, even when the Carlson property will be developed and as we saw at our last meeting also the property north, the Mancino property, there is a significant piece of woods preserved on the west side which will still attract wildlife, so this will remain to some extent a wildlife corridor, which deserves to be noted. Which by squeezing as many houses as close into that, it’s going to have an impact. Obviously this neighbor shares the concerns I have about that wildlife corridor. He’s concerned about the extent of the tree cutting. The extent of the grading, and then another specific concern that is raised that I share very much is that Lot 1, Block 4 of the Yoberry development is not just a wildlife corridor. It’s also drainage path. Basically the whole area of Highover, this southeastern part of Highover drains into that lot and it’s not a minimal drain. I mean when there is a heavy rain or snow melt, it’s enough to have a little creek. I mean it’s enough to wash away a little twigs and little leafs and all that, so what Ruth and Tom Rolfs want to bring to your attention is that, is that good planning? To put in a questionable lot. They point out that it’s an irregular shape, which I don’t know whether that is necessarily something that can be held against it, if it fulfills the requirements. But is that consistent with good development planning? And just to quote their closing, their interest. They say our interest as adjacent homeowners that are, that the property is not developed in a typical urban sprawl manner but developed responsibly in a manner consistent with maintaining the character of the area. We believe and hope you will agree that this plan should be modified to better fit into the existing landscape. We believe that extreme destruction of wooded areas and extreme grading require it to change the elevations is not responsible development. So that’s my word of my neighbors since there were unable to be here tonight. Now speaking for myself, we’ve heard of several neighbors that are being impacted. Now personally I’m ending up with a cul-de-sac next to my back yard. I’m ending up with a side yard next to my back yard so I get a double hit here. Not necessarily what I was hoping for. I do believe the developer’s within their rights. What can be done to mitigate that? It’s, there’s some things. I’ve had some discussions with the developer and they actually are open, actually it’s scary I start trusting them after a while even. One aspect also that is mentioned, it has not come up so far that’s mentioned in the report is that with this development being considered a strip of no man’s land was discovered between Highover to the north and the owners to the south. It’s still kind of fuzzy a little bit how big that no man’s land is, and when I go out there with my measurement, it seems to be like 28 feet or something like that, but the agreement the way I understand it is that it’s going to be split evenly between the two sides, so that is not something that the city gets involved with but I do want to mention this here for the record. In terms of the points that I have personally with this as a resident. You know after looking at this proposal, I have to admit that except for the impact it has on this corner, this development is actually pretty solid. It has a lot of qualities. I think it’s pretty well cooked. I actually have to commend the developer for their efforts. As you know, those of you that are here that know me, I usually look in some detail at the large trees because I love trees, and I do want to share that with you. Because I think this developer does better in terms of preserving large trees than just about any other development this size that I’ve seen come before this Planning Commission in quite a 21 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 while. To give you the specifics, I looked at the trees on the tree inventory are 24 inches or bigger. Initially with initial grading they save 29 of them. They cut 13. And 3 are questionable, so even if you include the ones that are questionable, and the ones they cut, they’re saving 2/3 of them. They are a couple of custom graded lots, which is going to be roughly about 6 more of those significant trees that are going to be cut. Even with that they’re still saving half of the really large trees, which is really commendable. Which is really quite remarkable because I don’t remember another development that scored that well with that, and I reluctantly make this admission because I’d rather have this held up a little bit and improved a little bit in my corner. But in all fairness I have to point this out to you. My favorite tree, 216 apparently, unfortunately cannot be saved. Which is probably the most spectacular specimen of an oak that I’ve seen anywhere. I mean this thing is just a beauty so, I’m still waiting for a miracle. Find out how you can save 213. Ah, 216 it is. However, to be specific to my corner of the concern here, there is one tree, 192 which is about right here. Just directly north of the cul-de-sac. At this point, according to the plan it appears about 10-15 feet away from the nearest grading line. I’m not sure it’s exactly placed accurately on the plat. I think it’s actually slightly further to the south by probably about 2-3 feet. It’s not in that Outlot G strip by my estimation that will be transferred to the north neighbors. It’s probably about a foot or two beyond that. And it’s a really nice tree. I think considering that this whole strip to the north is a tree preservation zone, considering that we get stuck with a cul-de-sac in our back yard, and side yard rammed in next to our back yard, it still hurts that my… You know we get spoiled. You’re out there. I may even have to get curtains in my bathroom but. But that aside, I really want to put a plea in for this tree 192. I mentioned that to you before. I do believe it can be saved but according to the staff report it’s put into the category of questionable trees. There’s a bunch of other trees that I have interest in, in the other parts of the development and I’m not going to go into this in the interest of time. I did mention it to staff so you’re aware of it. I also would like to ask for whatever possible to minimize the grading and tree cutting in the area adjacent to this back yard. And also potentially, right now the landscaping plan foresees a number of evergreens on top of the retaining wall, but then birches on the side. Maybe at least one of these birches could be exchanged to an evergreen or two to increase the maximum buffer, because frankly what I’m concerned about is cars coming up this hill. This is steep. They’re going to shine right into my bedroom. They’re going to shine right into the back of the house so whatever can be done through buffering with evergreens. I mean there’s some buffering in place through the retaining wall, which is really good, and to make every possible effort to preserve as much of the trees that are savable there. Now I do have another concern, I used to be a member of the Board of the Highover neighborhood association. I’m not part of that now so I’m not speaking in any official capacity for the Highover neighborhood. However there are three aspects in this that touch on the Highover neighborhood as a whole. The first one is a very good one. Is that pond here actually stays and I don’t even want to express the gratitude for the Highover that that stays because it was considered a temporary pond that would be moving south at some point. It’s not doing that, that’s great. The other thing is the lift station that is currently up here. That is being eliminated. It’s important to, and I believe that’s being settled that that is not, that that’s going to be moved and there is not going to be another lift station. Is that accurate? Saam: Correct. 22 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Uli Sacchet: Okay. And then the other aspect I also want to point out is that we actually do get a trail connection to the neighborhood. The Highover neighborhood trail there which is very commendable. I want to make sure that stays there. So in closing, one key point. The findings in the staff report say that this development will not cause environmental damage. That just simply is not true. That will have to be modified to state something like, will not cause excessive environmental damage or efforts are being made to minimize it. Since that will ultimately effect me when I’m sitting back up there again, I want to point that out too. And I believe that’s all that I want to share with you. Thank you for the attention and again, I address to you as a resident… Thank you. Slagle: Thank you. John Graham: My name is John Graham. I’m from 6935 Highover and I’ll use Rodd’s map here again. Currently, and it’s just with traffic. On Highover there’s currently a bus stop there. There is no stop sign. That’s pretty much at the top of the hill. I’m not sure how familiar you are with Highover Drive but it’s a very steep grade from there on down. With the amount of traffic going down there I think there’s got to be at least 80 percent of the kids under 10 years old and I’d like at least a stop sign along that way. The next one down, Highover Trail might be tough because that grade coming up in the winter time might be tough to get going again but again, to reiterate a lot of concerns with the traffic coming through there. The amount of kids for both the north and the south of these. Just want to reiterate that, if there’s any way to outlet that traffic to 41 would be preferable. Slagle: Thank you. Stacy Riecks: Thank you again for taking the time. I’m Stacy Riecks and I live at 7256 Gunflint Trail which is right here on the corner of Gunflint Trail and Longacres. We would be adjacent to what is called Lot 5 on the current plat. Like the folks that spoke before me, I am concerned about the traffic that would be traveling, and like my brother and I also travel down Hunter to get out to work and to Highway 5. One of the concerns that has not been brought up, which the gentleman before me just did was the bus stop and currently there are 4 bus stops for various ages of children that do stop right there on Gunflint Trail and Longacres so obviously during our high traffic times of the morning, that’s when the bus stops are being used. They start at 6:30, 7:00, continue to 8:00 and 8:30. So that’s right there during the prime traffic time. Another concern that was not brought up, which I did learn more about today was the drainage issue that is potentially taking place back there. Currently during any type of rain storm my back yard is already flooded as it already is. Currently the water flows like a river, through the back yard. Goes over the sidewalk and out into the street so considering all the movement that is going to be taking place, I have more concerns about what the drainage issues would be with some of the rigging that appears to be going on back there as well. And then also obviously I would not necessarily be in favor of having a sidewalk in my front yard but I am concerned about the safety on our street so would love to obviously understand how we’re going to reorganize those roads to make them safe for our children, which we did mention are 22 just in our little 9 home area so, that’s really all I have to say. Slagle: Thank you. 23 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Paul Addiston: Paul Addiston, 7080 Harrison Hill Trail. I’ll be very brief. I live here. And I know this issue’s been brought up and skirted briefly a couple times but I can’t tell you the personal investment and what we’ve gone through as a family to try to get to a place like we are now, and I have literally looked at over 100 houses before buying this one and I have never seen another house that has a road on the back side of my property and the front side of my property. I’ve got two kids, 9 and 7. There’s got to be something else they can do besides that. Thank you. Rich Bray: My name’s Rich Bray. I live at 6983 Highover Drive. To show you where I’m at. I’m right on the corner of Highover Drive and Highover Way and I want to just give a real brief history if I could of the acquisition of my lot and the building of the home and what I was told by Jerome Carlson and our realtors, which may not have any legal precedence any longer but just want to give you some history. We knew the road was going through. We were told there was a cul-de-sac that was going to be developed on the end of that, which I think is becoming a common known twist on where it was. Worst case scenario we certainly thought there’d be access from 41, other than through Lake Lucy coming down our road. If you look at this part of the development that runs along the western side, it’s important to keep in mind that those people deal with an extremely busy highway, which is 41 right now. That’s very noisy and unfortunately traffic on Highover Drive runs close to 30 miles per hour up that hill, and that’s why we’ve got a lot of issues with regard to the traffic and speed and trying to control it in a dead end community. So we can only understand or guess at this point what the traffic’s going to be like to try and feed another 150 to 100 automobiles developing or trying to find a shortcut, not to get onto the traffic. Not to try and go down Hunter but to exit out through Lake Lucy, and that’s our concern. A majority of the children in that area are under 10 years of age. Multiple families. Now the history on my lot, the city actually made me move my trees after I planted them on the corner back 2 feet. I planted 3 evergreen trees on the corner and they made me remove the trees, move them 3 feet back for the purpose that at some point there’s going to be a stop sign at that intersection and they didn’t want a blind intersection. Slagle: If I could ask, would that be on the northwest corner of your property? Rich Bray: That would be, yes. The northwest corner. And so I guess I have a question, is there any intention of putting a 3 way stop at that corner? Slagle: Mr. Saam. Saam: Not that I’m aware of. Rich Bray: Yeah, and that would make a blind hill that they would over the top with traffic and that would be a real concern I think for our community and our neighborhood about 25-30 miles per hour speeds going over the top of a blind hill with kids playing out. Right now a number of the neighbors put the little Child Playing out in the driveway. We’re a pretty close community and we’re concerned that the speed and the development on that road is going to split up the community from that and make people just stay to their back yards solely. So I wanted to bring up the fact that I personally spent a considerable amount of money because the trees died after 24 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 we moved them and I had to put them in again. And I can’t remember who’s the lady’s name was but the developer’s called her the tree lady. Slagle: Jill Sinclair. Rich Bray: Could have been. I don’t know. I don’t know but I was told that one, don’t cut one of my 30 foot evergreens down, which we didn’t do, and the other one was, move those trees back 2 feet. But at any rate that’s, I’m very disappointed I guess to find out that we haven’t considered some type of traffic control on that road, and that we haven’t looked at Highway 41 another potential entrance. With 50 something homes going in there, to only have 2 routes in and out to me is also a fire hazard in a community issue but you guys know technically whether that meets the exact number of footage or feet between one home to the next and what it requires but would like you to reconsider and possibly at a minimum put a stop sign in on that corner. Slagle: Thank you. I’m going to ask Matt a question if I may before we have the next person come up. Matt, would it be safe in saying that if you use Settlers West as an example where we actually put in two entrances on Pioneer, all within what would you say, a fifth of a mile. Saam: Yes. Slagle: And I mean I remember the discussion of trying to connect it to one because of the desire to not have two entrance/exits into that community. Is it a fair request by folks and I’ll say myself to ask that we at least explore that with MnDot? And maybe they say no but maybe they’ll come back and surprise us and say, yeah that will work. I mean I’m just throwing that out. Saam: Yeah, sure it is. Slagle: Hold on. Sir, if you could just have a seat for a sec, if you wouldn’t mind. Saam: Yeah MnDot has, we received written comments back from MnDot and those comments do say they want access control along 41. What that basically means is they want to have rights to limit no access along 41. With that said and what I said earlier with the existing street system being in place, I don’t foresee MnDot saying that a public street can go through there. But I could be wrong. Slagle: Okay. Fair enough. Saam: But we can definitely yes, check into that. Slagle: Sure Steve. Lillehaug: Further on this. Do you know the spacing because what MnDot will judge us on is the spacing between Lake Lucy and Longacres. Do you know the actual distance between those streets? And then also comment on actual city policy with spacing of collectors and arterials. 25 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: I don’t know the spacing off the top of my head. It must be something, a half mile. I’m not sure Commissioner Lillehaug. As far as our spacing requirements, yeah. We have certain requirements. In this case 41’s an arterial, like I said, so that spacing is a much greater distance than local street spacing is. Slagle: It’s got to be at least half a mile I would think. Saam: Yeah, something in that. Slagle: Okay. Anything else Steve? Did you want to say? Rich Bray: Yeah, I actually forgot to mention one item and that’s that I was also informed that there were negotiations at the time, this is about 4 years ago in putting some type of a connection between the east side of 41 to the west side of 41 for access to Minnewashta, and that the City turned that down. That MnDot was in support of some type of a, what do you want to call it? It went underneath the road. Yeah, an underpass type concept. Secondly I know I’ve worked on a process in another community and understand that MnDot really doesn’t control that. They give recommendation. If the City wants to put an intersection there with a stop light on 41, they can do that. I don’t know what the repercussions from the State are in doing that but ideally at some point it would be nice from a community standpoint to have a stop sign on 41 that allows access to Minnewashta, and from this community which quite frankly once this new development is in, the two developments from last week also will end up being a substantial revenue base for this county and for the city, which it already is I’m sure from a tax base perspective. Slagle: Thank you. Mark Brown: My name is Mark Brown. I live at 7210 Gunflint Trail. It is the lot right next that goes up to 2 on this side and back. And besides the same concerns I have as my neighbors, I also have young children. In addition to those same concerns about the traffic and the lack of access to 41, from just by house alone, maybe it shows up better on this picture right here. It appears I’m going to have, right as people come out of the new subdivision, there’s no driveways right here so I’m a little concerned about line of sight. Since my driveway is right at, right where that street cuts over. That’s one of the concerns that I have. The other concern that I have that I deal with right now is because of this large hill, there’s a drainage situation. A lot of water runs up that particular during the spring thaw when the ground’s still frozen. So I’m a little concerned about what that’s going to be like after it’s developed so, and that all flows down to all the neighbors and everything so, we’re all part of that but those are two major concerns that I have along with all the other ones. On a real positive standpoint, the barn’s going right? Karen Weathers: Hey. Yeah. Deb Lloyd: Good evening. Deb Lloyd, 7302 Laredo Drive. I just had some questions about the report itself. The format’s a little bit different and in the compliance table, in the RSF district, there are 15 lots that don’t meet the 90 foot requirement for width, and I’m wondering, there was no plat in here that showed where the setback line is. In looking at the beautiful drawing, you know the development, I think it might be a little deceptive because it looks like all the homes 26 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 are set back pretty evenly. I’m wondering if the building setback line could be delineated for these 15 lots and shown, so people realize how far back some of those houses may be. I didn’t have a chance to look at the plat beforehand but I think that’s a real important point because it looks like it’s 30 feet back and I think some of them are going to be quite substantially back. An issue related to that, for those of you that have measurements, I’d like to just out of curiosity to know if any of those run short of meeting a 60 by 60. Curiosity and you know why the question’s raised. And then the other issue on that same compliance table is, there are 4 lots that show a rear lot setback as NA rather than not having the 30 feet. I’d like to understand why those 4 lots have NA. And their Lot 7, Block 1; Lot 2, Block 2; Lot 4, Block 4; Lot 1, Block 5. I just didn’t understand that. That seems unusual. Aanenson: They’re all corner lots so they have two fronts. Deb Lloyd: Okay. Without again the plat being in here, it’s hard to recognize what’s going on. So I would like to know though where the lot setback line is for all the lots that do not meet the 90 foot requirement. So how far back is that building setback line. Thank you. Slagle: Thank you. Matt, do you want to just touch upon that a little bit, just take a couple as an example. Or Sharmeen. Al-Jaff: All the lots meet the 90 foot requirement. They are all on a curve and. Lillehaug: Is it 30 feet or 25 feet? Al-Jaff: It’s 30 feet. So basically you take the setback parallel to the radius and they all meet, all 15 parcels meet the 90 foot. If they don’t exceed it. Lillehaug: Can you comment on the 60 by 60 pad then also? Al-Jaff: They all have a buildable area that exceeds 60 by 60. Slagle: I’m going to think about that one but anybody else like to speak? Scott Wosje: Just a quick note. Scott Wosje. I live in the Longacres neighborhood so I can st speak to that neighborhood only. Lived there 6 years. A board member up until the 31 of December and did not get reappointed. Tom fortunately stepped up to the table with some new energy. We already have an existing traffic problem on Longacres that I’ve been trying to work with Beth Hoiseth, community representative. Safety and also the Sergeant as well to try and figure out what we can do to slow down traffic. There’s so many kids in the neighborhood. What we can do to slow down traffic on that road so it should be noted to the commission that we already know we have an existing traffic issue that’s on record with the City. We’re only going to add to it with this potential development. The other thing that should be noted for clarification purposes is that the Longacres Association does pay dues that maintain the sidewalks along Longacres as well and we pay to have those sidewalks cleared. Again, is it fair? Is it right? You know no, but life isn’t fair but it should be noted that we’re paying to maintain 27 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 those sidewalks in addition to the parks. That is going to come into play so, thank you. Any questions? Lillehaug: I have a question of Matt quickly. Slagle: Okay. Lillehaug: Is there a problem on Longacres? Has it been measured? Has there been traffic surveys done? I mean do we have a speeding problem, because it’s a collector road and I, if it’s a collector road I would anticipate higher levels of traffic but what about speed? Saam: Yeah, I think that’s what Mr. Wosje’s referring to is the speed issue. That’s what both Jim, the Sergeant and Beth Hoiseth work with, with Project Leadfoot and that. The new speed indicator that we purchased. I forget the name of it but I believe that’s the issue and yes, we do take counts since it’s not only a collector road. It’s a state aid road. Longacres Drive is so we’re required every other year to get counts out there which we do. Lillehaug: Do you know of the speeds on that road? Saam: Um no. Not off the top of my head. We would have that info though. Slagle: You know if I can add something. When it comes to that development, Hunter would probably fall into a different category and a sense of speed, the narrowness of the road and the fact that there’s no sidewalks. And I certainly think that people who have presented here tonight are correct that people will cut through as they work their way to Galpin because it is a shorter drive down Hunter than it is to go Longacres to Galpin, so I don’t know if there’s a solution but it’s certainly a valid concern. There you go. Bill Borrell: Hi. My name’s Bill Borrell and I live at 2300 Longacres Drive. Been there about 7 years and was surprised to hear that I live on a collector road on Longacres. I guess how much narrower is Longacres than Lake Lucy or Galpin? You allowed the developer to make it more. Aanenson: Would have been 80. Saam: Oh in terms of right-of-way, yeah. Aanenson: Yeah, correct. Bill Borrell: So is narrower. I guess if we look at the map you see it’s very windy between the two roads and I would not even compare it to, I walk along Lake Lucy, which is a very straight, wide open road and I guess if you guys are talking about Longacres as being a collector road in the same sense that Lake Lucy or Galpin, I don’t know how you can. Aanenson: My point is Lundgren, when they developed that specifically for marketing purposes asked to have it narrow to give the appearance that it didn’t function as a collector. Bill Borrell: But the problem is that now it does have the appearance and because of the density of the homes, it is different than a standard collector road I’m saying and that, like everybody 28 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 speaking about these kids playing out on the street. It’s a little bit different than Lake Lucy or, especially Galpin, the way it is right now so I just want to. Aanenson: Right, and I would agree and there is, actually the City is considering changing the profile on Lake Lucy and actually narrowing that and putting the sidewalk, raising the sidewalk. That issue is going to the City Council next, raising the sidewalk so right now when you’re on Lake Lucy. Slagle: You walk on the road. Aanenson: You walk on grade so narrowing that and raising the sidewalk for that specific reason. Give a different cross section. Different feel for safety reasons. Slagle: Any other comments? One more. Stuart Henderson: …I forgot. Does this mean this is a bluff? Aanenson: No. Stuart Henderson: The green, no it doesn’t? Aanenson: No it does not. Stuart Henderson: Okay. Then my question is simply, Stuart Henderson. I live right over here. This is a very steep hill. Very steep. I’m not sure what a bluff is, but I’m kind of concerned about the drainage here and our ground stuff comes up and runs through my back yard, which I think…Stacy’s yard. It’s not a big deal for me but it is quite a drainage problem. I know, when I called Matt said there is a drainage map somewhere so maybe there’s some provision made for it. I didn’t get a chance to look at that but I just raise the concern. Slagle: Any other comments? Okay, I’m going to. Oh, Deb you got one more? Deb Lloyd: Yeah I’m not just sure if I made my point so. My point being is lots where frontage is measured at the setback, it’s not the street frontage. You’ve got to measure it at the setback line. Correct? And I just want the residents to see, would you mind pointing out how far back some of these houses could be. You know I just think you owe it to them to know that they’re not at the street. Slagle: Sharmeen, just take a couple. And I guess Sharmeen. Al-Jaff: I’ll use this as an example. If you look at the frontage, this is Lot 5, Block 1. Yoberry Farm Third Addition. The frontage along this cul-de-sac is 55 feet. At the setback line it is 95 feet. And that’s permitted by ordinance. AT the setback line you need to maintain a minimum of 90 feet. This exceeds it. The buildable area on this site is basically, so the home can maintain a 30 foot setback. Does that answer the question? Thank you. 29 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Slagle: Okay. I am going to close the public hearing now. At this point I’ll bring it back to the commission for discussion. Anyone want to start? Lillehaug: Sure, I have a few questions before we go to discussion. Slagle: Okay, fair enough. Lillehaug: Wow. The, what are my questions now? Parks. Does staff have any further comment on parks? I mean are we doing a dis-service to Longacres because we’re not adding a park in this area? Are we, I mean Longacres and Highover, they’re not gated communities but I think we need to respect the homeowners association so does planning have any comments or suggestions regarding specifically parks. Aanenson: Not at this time. Lillehaug: No? Okay. Slagle: If I may, I do have to ask Kate…with the Park and Rec Department, with respect to parks in this area. Any? Aanenson: Well yeah. Slagle: What I’m going to call the general area. Aanenson: Yeah. They’ve got a map of the areas where the parks are and it was the Park and Rec Director and the commission that made a recommendation not to take that so, if you want to add additional comments, just of your, for the council to consider. Slagle: Well I guess what I’m asking is, is there any, has there been discussion about a park in another location that’s adjacent or in the near vicinity of these developments that we’ve looked at the last 2 meetings? Aanenson: Not an active park, no. I think there may be, when the Carlson property comes in adjacent to the large Lake Harrison, maybe some open space. Some scenic overlooks but probably not another active park. Slagle: Okay. I’m sorry Steve. Lillehaug: No, that’s fine. We heard a couple residents from Highover concerned with the blind hill at the very top, so that kind of alludes me, does engineering get actual profiles? This happened in our 2 weeks ago when we reviewed the other larger development. I had problems with the profiles of the road because they were meeting the absolute minimums for the profile grades. Does the developer give engineering profiles of these roads so we don’t have these problem high spots with very limited sight lines, because this is what I saw in that other development, exactly what our residents are complaining about. 30 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: Yes, at the time of final plat, final construction plans. Lillehaug: They give you profiles. Saam: Yep. Lillehaug: Okay. That’s all the questions. Well one more question. At the very south end of Street B, the very south end of the D development, Lots 3, 4 and 5. It appears that those contours are a lot closer together. Has that been evaluated to ensure that that’s not a bluff on that very south end? You know at the very high point you’re saying they’re about 5 foot apart so that’d be a 1 to 5, but looking at this, they look about 3 feet plus or minus. I mean are we looking at a bluff for that whole entire south end of that section? Is that something staff can verify and, or has it been. Maybe the applicant knows. What the steepness of the grades are. 30 percent, plus or minus. If it’s a bluff, it’s a bluff. If it’s not, it’s not. Steve Johnston: At the very beginning of this process the first thing we did was identify where the bluffs were. The only bluffs that are there are along Highway 41. Those bluffs are about 30 feet high and just while I’m up here, to add to it, besides the access control that MnDot would be looking for, a 30 foot grade change in approximately 50 feet there is going to make it very difficult to try to get a roadway off of 41 anywhere along the west property. Just from an engineering standpoint would be very, very difficult. That bluff being 30 feet, we’d have to come into the site about 400 feet before that grade at maximum street grades would match existing grades so it would be very, very difficult to do. Lillehaug: So you’re saying that is not a bluff on Lots 3, 4 and 5? Steve Johnston: No it is not. Lillehaug: Okay. That’s all for the questions I have I guess. Slagle: Okay. Dan. Keefe: With comments? Is it comments or are we. Lillehaug: I’m not done with comments. Somebody else want to go first? Another question I guess is that, that cul-de-sac, we saw that in our previous plan. What do you call it, an eyebrow cul-de-sac. Is that our new trend here? We’re going to have one in every development now? Saam: They were at the last meeting and they heard you all recommend approval to it. Lillehaug: Okay. Who wants to comment first then? Keefe: I’ll start on comments. Slagle: Dan, you want to talk into your mic more. 31 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Keefe: Yeah, sure. Wow, there’s a lot of stuff here. Let me start on the northeast corner. I don’t know if I’m real comfortable with the layout, and I know they’ve just been, you guys have hammered this out probably 10 different ways but the way that that street backs up to the neighbors on the right, I just, I’m having a hard time getting comfortable with that. And I don’t know, I almost want to see a plan where the street goes on the west side of that, of those lots and see how, because I heard that that was a possibility, or had been looked at. And anyway I’ll just leave it, I’m just uncomfortable with that northeast corner. In terms of like the Longacres development and the Highover development, they both have association dues. Do we have, in terms of like neighborhoods stacking up next to each other. One pays. One doesn’t pay. One has a park. One doesn’t have a park. You know utilization from one neighborhood to the next. Is there any sort of policy or can you comment at all in regards to, it’s really just individual developments and how they occur? Okay. Huh. I’d really like to see, you know definitely we need to look at Highway 41 and access to 41. I guess I made the assumption of looking at it but that really wasn’t an option. I know that was discussed at length in this but I mean, I think it should definitely be considered and maybe pushed out a little bit more to the State in regards, or the State. What else? In regards to internal traffic Matt, I mean you know, you guys have done studies. Or maybe you haven’t done a study on this but in terms of the sort of traffic count coming out of here. If we find that there’s more traffic, I mean how do you typically go forward. I mean after it’s been built, you do traffic counts at that point and then establish whether you need to put stop signs in in the other neighborhoods or how does that work? Saam: Yeah, if you’re talking about stop signs, there’s certain warrants that need to be met. Amount of traffic approaching the different legs of the intersection is one of the main issues. So yeah, we’d have to do traffic counts and see if it would warrant a stop sign. Keefe: But your study of this says that you think right now the road as laid out would accommodate it and without putting undue pressure on the extra, or on the roads into Highover and/or Longacres. Saam: We do think Lake Lucy and Longacres Drive can accommodate the traffic coming from this development. Yes. Keefe: Okay. Papke: Okay, there’s been a lot of discussion about the parks tonight and the homeowners situation. I think the best solution here and the one I would support would be to only move forward if the developer was willing to work with Longacres to the south, and make this development part of that homeowners association. I think there’s plenty of parks here, as was amply pointed out. One of the parks backs right up to this development and it seems kind of silly to force another park in here or, where you have one sitting right there. I think that would be the real win/win scenario here is to have this developer perhaps work with Longacres to see if we can’t solve the problem in that fashion. Would you like to comment? Chuck Alcon: Yes. We very much intend to pursue that offer from Longacres. We think it makes a lot of sense. I would comment though that there’s going to have to be two organizational entities. 32 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Papke: Sure. Chuck Alcon: The existing Longacres HOA has it’s covenants. We plan to have our’s. Papke: You bet. Chuck Alcon: Not to say that an agreement between the associations can’t be reached. We think it makes a lot of sense for the park and I understand there’s a plan for a pool on the eastern side I believe and we fully support that and would move forward and try to make that happen. Papke: And that would give the Longacres development 57 new homes, revenue opportunities. Chuck Alcon: And obviously we’ll have to work out a dues arrangement and capitalization and all those things but… Papke: How you work it organizationally is up to you. Chuck Alcon: And we would commit to do that. Papke: Great. Super. I think there’s been ample evidence tonight that moving the northeast cul- de-sac to the west over by the wetland I think is the best scenario for all involved. I think the way it lays out right now, the developer can charge a little bit more for the homes along the wetland but I think it really negatively impacts the people to the east to have an alley in their back yard, or however you want to put it. And I think that’s too much negative impact to the people who are already there so, unless there’s some structural reason or civil engineering reason why that cul-de-sac and road can’t be moved so that the wetland would be on the other side of the street, that would be necessary for me to approve this. As to the 41, there’s been a lot of issues around traffic tonight. The 41 access. There seems to be a fair amount of evidence that that’s a long pull to try to get access out to 41 here. So I think if we look at ways of mitigating some of the traffic concerns. Now we’ve heard from interestingly enough we’ve heard from both communities, both the Longacres to the south and Highover to the north are both concerned that they’re going to get the bulk of the traffic, and you know obviously they’re both not going to get 75 percent of the traffic from this subdivision. There’s going to be some kind of natural split here so, you know I don’t think there’s, we really know which way the traffic’s going to flow. But I don’t see an easy way to solve the access to 41 problem, looking at the drawings and the elevation changes. So that’s all the comments. Slagle: I just have a couple. On the 41 connection, as far as an entrance/exit. With that grade I just don’t think that’s going to be workable but it might be Matt worth at least the actual discussion or actual request, depending on how you see it, just so we have a record that they say either no or not such a good idea. I like the park idea with Longacres. My only concern with all respect is that if something doesn’t get worked out, and we all know contracts and those things sometimes can be difficult to have happen, we are now looking at a major development with literally no parks anywhere within walking distance. And if it’s quote unquote bike distance, it’s across some fairly significant roads. And, if I can add, without even a commitment yet that a 33 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 sidewalk will be extended either on the east side or the west side of Gunflint Trail. I certainly hope that is going to happen and I would love to put a condition in there. I just don’t know if we can put a condition on this case applying to another development. But it certainly would make sense to have a sidewalk going down the side the road and then stopping along an area that has an easement already. The grading area to the north, I think that is a real issue. We’ve seen too many developments come in that are squeezing parcels and you just wonder how it works with the grade. Lastly, I along with my other commissions have a real issue with that east side and that road. And as a citizen more than a commissioner I think that what’s the give and take? Is the give that you move the road to the west and you now have 2 or 3 parcels with back yards facing an electrical easement. Is it the most appealing? Probably not. But certainly is a win/win in the overall what I’m going to call community sense. So I would tend to say that that’s something that needs to happen, at least from my perspective. So with that, that’s my comments. I will open it up for a motion. Lillehaug: I’ve got a couple, I have some comments. Slagle: Oh, did I forget you? Alright, go ahead. Lillehaug: I reiterate basically what everyone said. Also on the northeast side there, I think in my opinion that the cul-de-sac is too close to Uli’s property on the north there, so likewise on the east and on the north I think it needs to be pulled away and a reasonable buffer or back yards in that whole area needs to be in place before I would recommend this to the council for approval. Parks, just to reiterate on that. Am I under the understanding that Longacres does want this development to be part of maintaining the parks? Is it, you live in Longacres. Slagle: Well, not really. I’m the one lot next to Longacres, but the point of it I think is that we have to be careful in this in that we’ve had a representative of the Board speak, but I don’t know if that person can speak for the whole Board. There’s legal issues and so that’s where I’m just saying to all of us, I’m concerned that if we say hey, we’ll hopefully the applicant and Longacres can reach an agreement. Not to mention what will happen to Highover. You know, I mean so it’s sort of a wishful thinking and hopeful and again, with all integrity assumed that something works out. So I don’t know if we can really bank on it at this point. Lillehaug: Okay. I guess I’m okay with most of the development except for the northeast. I think it’s too much crammed in there. Too restrictive. But are you guys willing to make a recommendation I guess just to get a feel for it, without seeing an alternate plan of what we’re doing up here? I’m not ready to make a recommendation I guess without seeing that. My opinion. Slagle: I would, as guidance just suggest to the 4 of us that someone make a motion, whatever way they feel is appropriate and then we let the vote decide that. Lillehaug: Sure. Okay. One other, two other questions I guess before we make a motion and it’s regarding the conditions. Condition number 20 and it’s regarding all lots must have a minimal, minimum useable area off the back of the house pad. But it’s not defined what that minimum useable area is. Does staff have a recommendation for a minimum useable area such 34 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 as a square footage or a depth as in like 20 feet from the back of the house? Is that something staff wants to make a recommendation on? Because it says minimum. Aanenson: Yeah, I guess a lot of it has to do with the life style choice. Some people like that and we looked at, they showed examples of Ashling Meadows, which coincidentally was the one I was saying because they have different, some people like the choice of not having a back yard. What we want to make sure is that it’s done in a way that’s not creating drainage problems or long term maintenance problems for those down below but no, so you at least have a patio or deck area. Some flat area that you can walk right out on, so maybe it’s 10 feet or…like that. Lillehaug: Okay, no further comments I guess. Slagle: Okay. I’ll entertain a motion. Lillehaug: I make a motion we table this until we see a revision in the northeast corner per our comments that we’ve discussed. Papke: Second. Slagle: Okay. I have a motion and a second. To table this. Do we need to be more specific Kate? Aanenson: I think we have clear direction that the issue we’re trying to resolve is the cul-de-sac on the northwest side. Slagle: And can I also add to that, some, well friendly amendment to your motion. If I may. Can that motion address what I will call the lack of a clear direction of a park. And I use park in a parenthesis. And Kate you know, it’s not. Aanenson: You’re asking me to usurp the power of the park commission which I’m very reluctant to do. I think at this point, you know if you want to put something in as part of your, what you typically do kind of a summary point, I think if you want to add that you’re concerned under summary point, that you want the council to consider that. Because they take your input plus the park commission’s going forward. Slagle: How about this? How about if we table this and we ask either the Park Director or someone from the park to come and present to us as to what the thoughts are. Aanenson: You can ask, sure. Slagle: Okay. To me that, because sometimes we’re trying to find an answer and the person who has the answer isn’t here so. Is that a friendly amendment accepted? Lillehaug: Certainly. Keefe: I was going to add. Just as. 35 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Slagle: Okay, friendly amendment to the table. Keefe: Friendly amendment to, at least have a discussion with the State in regards to access to Highway 41. Lillehaug: Well, I guess stating my opinion. I’m looking at the grade difference and I agree with the developer. It’s a very limited factor. And my history with MnDot is, is they’re not going to grant that. They’ll look at it but I think staff would concur that they will not grant another access point. Especially if it’s only a half mile between Lake Lucy and… Aanenson: Just to be clear what their letter said to us, is they want to restrict the access. You know just to be clear, we did look at that. You know this actually has a lot of revisions so obviously it’s something that we considered but it was eliminated based on, as the engineer said, the length going back and the steepness. To get the grades to work. The touch down points so you’re not coming at a steep angle down to. Slagle: But I think just to be clear to the audience though, it was in essence you’re saying dismissed or rejected by the. Aanenson: Right, and a letter from MnDot said that they want to control the access. Slagle: Fair enough. I don’t think that was clear. Keefe: It wasn’t clear to me. Aanenson: I was waiting for the Assistant to say something so. Slagle: Okay. Keefe: Okay, so in a sense they’ve already said no. Saam: Yeah, I previously said we have a memo where MnDot wants to gain access control along 41 which means they’re not going to allow any access along that stretch of 41. Slagle: Okay, fair enough. Saam: They don’t want access on 41. Keefe: I withdraw my amendment. Slagle: Okay. And then I just one last one, and that would be Commissioner Lillehaug, if you wouldn’t mind, something to the effect of where we can get some traffic numbers, Matt, if I can ask you. You mentioned that Longacres is some type of a classification where you have to get numbers. Traffic numbers every so often. Would be interested to see what that is. 36 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Lillehaug: We know what this is going to generate. I mean there’s 54 residences there. It’s going to generate between 10-14 trips per day so we’re looking at 600 to 700 trips a day from this development, either going north or south so split down the middle. You’re looking at 350 going north and 350 south. I mean it’s a reasonable number on a local street in my opinion. And so I don’t think, in my opinion, I don’t want to give staff direction to do that because in my opinion it’s reasonable on the local street. On Gunflint Trail to the south as well as Highover to the north. I think the traffic levels that would be distributed on those streets are still going to be within the local 750 to 1,000 maximum. I know that’s high but that’s city, what’s in the city comprehensive plan. Slagle: Well you’re within your rights to reject the friendly amendment. Lillehaug: And I reject it. Slagle: Fair enough. So we have a motion on the floor to table this with direction to staff to re- work, if at all possible, the northeast quadrant. Invite the Park and Rec Director to speak to us at our next meeting. Anything else I’m missing? Okay. Lillehaug moved, Papke seconded that the Planning Commission table the rezoning and subdivision request for Yoberry Farms with direction to staff to re-work the northeast quadrant and to invite the Park and Rec Director to speak or provide written comment regarding the Park and Recreation Commission recommendation. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. Slagle: We’re going to take a 5 minute break. Chuck Alcon: Question. Tabled until? Slagle: Well. Aanenson: We can turn it around. Slagle; Sounds good. Thank you. PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR CONCEPT PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT FOR COMMERCIAL, OFFICE AND MULTI-FAMILY DEVELOPMENT ON APPROXIMATELY 22 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF LYMAN BLVD AND THE FUTURE REALIGNED HIGHWAY 101, SAND COMPANIES, INC., PLANNING CASE No. 05-01. Public Present: Name Address th Jamie Thelen 366 South 10 Avenue, Waite Park, MN 37 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 th Jim Sand 366 South 10 Avenue, Waite Park, MN Al Klingelhutz 8600 Great Plains Boulevard th Richard A. Hennings 366 South 10 Avenue, Waite Park, MN Christopher Hol 8687 Chanhassen Hills Drive North Keith Collins 7420 Coventry Way, Edina Patty & Craig Mullen 611 Summerfield Drive April Halbe 9151 Great Plains Boulevard Kate Aanenson presented the staff report on this item. Lillehaug: …and then can you comment on the very northerly parcel, parcel number 5. I think I missed it. Why is that odd shaped right-of-way skewing down? What’s the deal with that? Aanenson: Yeah. That’s Qwest has a building there. Qwest, a switch station. Lillehaug: So the City’s going to maintain permanent right-of-way over that whole entire area? Aanenson: That’s not our’s. It was sold to Qwest so yeah. See you’ve got this whole triangle piece here. What it does is. Lillehaug: Can you show that in outline, just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. Aanenson: Can you zoom in? You’re talking about this piece right here. Lillehaug: Right. I mean it’s approximately 60 feet plus or minus wide for you know that entire stretch and is that, so you’re saying that’s not going to be city right-of-way? Aanenson: There will be right-of-way in front of it, but what I’m saying is that, if you look at this is a picture superimposed over. There’s a restricted median right here. So you can come in right but how do you get out? There’s a median. Lillehaug: I don’t think we’re on the same page. Looking at this, it’s this whole area right here. Aanenson: Yeah, I don’t… Saam: It’s not right-of-way Steve. I think you think it’s right-of-way. It’s not right-of-way. Lillehaug: That’s the question. Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Any other questions of staff? No? With that I’d like to invite the applicant to come forward to give us your presentation. The short version if I may ask for it. Jim Sand: Agreed. Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, city staff. My name is Jim Sand and I’m the Vice President of Sand Companies. Vice President of Development and I have with us tonight part of our team. Our senior architect, Richard Hennings is here with us and our company President Jamie Thelen. And I don’t have a lot to add to Kate’s comments 38 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 th other than we did hold a neighborhood meeting on December 16. We had approximately 30 neighbors and one of the commission members attend. We had a lot of good feedback. A lot of good questions and felt that it was a real good chance to meet our neighbors. With that I’ll turn it over to Richard who has larger renditions of what we’re proposing and go through that. Sacchet: Thank you. Richard Hennings: I think in the interest of time I would just cover, I think Kate did an admirable job of explaining our project to us so I’ll just cover a few of the things that I think are pertinent. The issue of the. Sacchet: Excuse me. Do you mind directing the microphone towards you a little bit? Richard Hennings: Close enough? Sacchet: Yeah, thank you. Richard Hennings: Speaking to the issue of the median on Lake Susan Drive, and you may have more current information than I did. When we first started the project we were told that that meeting was going to be there. I contacted, and I don’t remember the name but I contacted the engineer and he told me at that time, he thought 115 feet, and so he was encouraging me to say it’s okay to put driveways off. I understand though on the other hand you had a conversation as recently as yesterday so. Aanenson: No. All plans, just to be clear, as in the previous one, all plans go to affected jurisdictions so obviously this plan went up to MnDot. We met with Jon Chiglo who is in charge of this whole project for 212 and he was aware that they’re trying to draft or look at how we solve the problem because he’s aware of the conflict so. Richard Hennings: I think the other thing I just want to bring up, we had talked earlier about the roadway through the southern parcel and right now the drawing that we had prepared is, I’m not a traffic engineer but I try to reflect what I thought would be kind of a traffic calming road here and so I portrayed the road as not terribly wide and with intentional fairly sharp corners. As ways of slowing the traffic and not encouraging it as a cut through. So kind of a fine line between a convenient to get here but not so convenient that it’s a better way than going through the intersection at Lyman and I guess that’s the direction we would give to civil engineers when we’re talking to them and see if they can translate that into real engineering, but so right now it is intentionally drawn with 90 degree corners that would have a fairly tight radius I guess I’d describe it, so that that’s one of the points you’d have to slow down, and that the roadway would not be very wide and so that we wouldn’t have passing lanes and all those kinds of things. And the one other piece of information I thought we should share. The local watershed district is developing a wide area, an area wide project for purposes of water clarity on Lake Riley and some other things. And they have contacted us in regard to utilizing part of the wetland here as part of that project and what they’re suggesting that they may excavate part of that wetland and create more open water as a holding pond, a fairly deep holding pond so they get quality control. That’s what they’re looking for. Not quantity control but quality control, and we would cooperate with them in that our other ponds would have to do with quantity control and their’s 39 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 would do with quality control so I would think as our project moves along we’ll probably see some more information on that develop there. And then the last thing about affordable housing. Sand Companies is an active developer of tax credit housing. We have done a dozen projects over the last 8-10 years. Currently we’ll have one more townhouse project in St. Joseph, Minnesota that will be constructed this year, so we are interested in that. Obviously you know it’s a competitive process and just because we can all say we’re interested doesn’t mean that the Minnesota Housing Finance Corporation will see fit to do that. But it would be of interest to us to explore using tax credit financing for one of the buildings on the north side, and particularly the apartment building. So while we have designated a 3 story apartment building, we have to admit that we don’t have a clear market for that. We have also given consideration to developing a senior cooperative on that site the same way because we think that’s an interesting market here, so the usage we really haven’t clarified there yet but I think you can safely assume that we will explore the tax credit housing automatically and to the extent that it is possible so. With that I guess I would just turn it over to see if there are any other questions. Sacchet: Excellent. Any questions from the applicant? No? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. With that, this is a public hearing. I’d like to open this for comments from anybody here who’d like to address this item. Please come forward at this time, if you want to address this item. And state your name and address for the record please. Let us know what you have to say. Patty Mullen: My name is Patty Mullen. I live at 611 Summerfield Drive. I’d like to start by saying unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the neighborhood meetings and I wonder if there’s another opportunity to get a little more input before I maybe start addressing concerns that might not be. And my biggest concerns would be that the development stay consistent with the things that are already developed in the area so as not to jeopardize the integrity of those. And I need a better understanding of buffering. Aanenson: We can certainly facilitate a meeting where we can come in and go through that specifically what the PUD buffering is and all that. We’d be happy to do that. Patty Mullen: Okay, thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Are there any other residents? Yes, if you want to please come forward and state your name and address and what you have to share with us. Chris Hol: My name’s Chris Hol. I live at 8687 Chanhassen Hills Drive North so I’m on the very north end of this project. Now my concern is first of all apartment buildings. I mean you know if it’s a two level building, that’s fine. But I think 3, you know we moved out this way for the beauty of it and now I don’t want to be looking out my back window at apartment buildings. Thankfully I’m not as affected as some of my neighbors are, but the other concern I would say is now, 101, is that going to be cul-de-saced? Saam: Yeah. Chris Hol: So that will be down there. There won’t be any way to cut through? 40 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Aanenson: Yeah, at the end of this, the old 101 will be cul-de-saced…also towards the end where the creek is. Chris Hol: Right. Okay. Aanenson: It would not be for cut through traffic either. Chris Hol: Yeah, because the only other thing I would, my concern is, and I know it’s been brought up is the Lake Susan Drive. You know people that don’t want to come all the way up here are now going to maybe cut through and it’s going to cause a lot more traffic for us. Aanenson: Yeah, that was one of the things we talked about with the traffic study. Chris Hol: Good, okay. That’s all I want to say. Thank you. Sacchet: Anybody else want to address this item? Yes, Al. Please. Al Klingelhutz: Chairman, Planning Commission members. I’m Al Klingelhutz and in 8600 Great Plains Boulevard and most of the land we’re talking about here tonight was land that I farmed for 60 some years. Was in my family since 1862 and I guess the one concern I have is this piece here. Aanenson: It’s a connection, as I mentioned before. This is Mr. Klingelhutz’ property. The original farmstead. Is how do you get access to these pieces. Al Klingelhutz: Through this property right here. And the median on Lake Susan Drive which we talked about. Kind of eliminates pretty much of the access to this 7 or 8 acre piece here. And I have a concern about that. And Kate and I have, and my two sons who plan on developing this property. It’s going to be a family development. It’s been a family farm. It’s going to be a family development. Neal has been in construction for many years now. Our house on Lake Susan was the first house he built on his own. Before that he was working for some other developers. But that was the first house he built on his own and he’s been building homes ever since that time and that’s 21-22 years ago that he built our house. So anyway, I’m just saying this so you don’t have to worry that he’s. Sacchet: He knows what he’s doing. Al Klingelhutz: He knows what he’s doing, let’s put it that way. But I do feel that there should be an access to this property somewhere on Lake Susan Drive. It could be up on this end. I know they don’t want to go any closer than 600 feet from a major intersection so it’d have to be up here quite a ways, and I think there wouldn’t be any problem with that…family development because they would like to have access to that same Lake Susan Drive at some point because they’re going to have a small development on the north side of that, on Lake Susan Drive. That’s what I was complaining about…we’ve known this is going to happen for a long time. As the zoning’s been there for this property and for the rest of my property plus the piece on the east side of the road. It’s been pretty well publicized that some of these things are going to actually 41 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 happen in this area. So that is my, our main concern is the fact that we sure would like an access to Lake Susan Drive. Sacchet: Thank you. Al Klingelhutz: That isn’t to say we’re going to go out through Chan Hills but we thought this way we could get onto 101, in and out. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Slagle: Quick question if I may to staff. Al Klingelhutz: Any questions? Sacchet: For staff. Slagle; I’m just curious is, Kate why wouldn’t we, to Mr. Klingelhutz’ property, access it off the cul-de-sac to 101? Aanenson: We could come off this way, but you know again when you’re putting additional trips on the backs of these homes, it’d be nice if we didn’t have to do that. Because then you could actually build a buffer along here. If you follow what I’m saying there. That’d be the best. But that may not happen. You know certainly, when this is a private development, a PUD. A private street. Typically we don’t connect two specific, so you know, can we force it to be a public street, so we’re really trying to work with both properties together to make it work the best for the layout, but again then you’re just forcing more trips around. Could it happen that way? Yeah, but. Slagle: Do you have a preference Mr. Klingelhutz? Al Klingelhutz: Do we have apartments? Slagle: No a preference as to, could you access? Al Klingelhutz: I would prefer if we could get right onto Lake Susan Drive and circle up to Lake Susan Drive here and then come out to get over to the new 101. Slagle: Alright. Sacchet: And that’s somewhat in line with what you presented in the beginning, isn’t it? Aanenson: Yep. That’s what we’re working on. Sacchet: Okay. Al Klingelhutz: Keep that in mind because it really is a big preference. 42 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: And it looks like staff is already pursuing that from their angle as well. Thank you. Anybody else wants to speak up to this item. Seeing nobody, I’m going to close the public hearing. Bring it back to the commission for comments, discussion. Want to start this item? Lillehaug: Sure. I’ll rattle mine off. It’s a concept PUD. I do want to make a note that in the developer’s letter to us they indicate heights of buildings and some of the parameters that at this point I don’t plan on reviewing and I expect them not to hold us to those elevations. Work with staff on developing the PUD to make sure it fits. So I just want to make sure that you have those parameters in there but we shouldn’t be adhering to them at this point. Number one comment, and this is my major comment is, the two north parcels there and the Lake Susan Hills Drive. I’ve expressed my concerns previously regarding the cut through traffic and I know staff’s aware of that but we really need to get a handle on. Not the traffic that’s being generated from these two north parcels but the potential for all the cut through traffic that can go through on Lake Susan Drive because I see that as a very large potential, and if I live on Lake Susan Hills Drive, it’s a very direct connect without having to go through the numerous signals and I would use that, so it’s, I have great concerns there so we really need to take a look at doing something there and making sure that we’re not introducing cut through traffic so extreme that everyone of them residents are going to be very upset with what happened here. The parcel 5 to the north, somehow you know it split off from the parcel across from Lake Susan Drive to the south. It really needs to be worked in with something to the north, and I’m assuming that they have similar zoning or guidances. Okay, good. Berming. We talked, staff talks about landscaping and screening but I want to make sure that we’re including berming in addition to landscaping as screening. Traffic study, reiterate that. Be very clear that I would like to see a traffic study for the Lake Susan Drive connection as well the other road through the southerly site. And then definitely it needs, this site needs to work with the developer on the Klingelhutz property and access to the property to the north there and I think I have all my comments. Sacchet: Good comments. Thanks Steve. Dan, anything to add? Keefe: My only comment would be, at least from where I sit, it seems like the developer’s really doing a nice job of kind of engaging with the city and everybody else and I commend them on that and that’s it. Sacchet: Thank you. Kurt. Papke: Nothing to add. Sacchet: Rich. Yeah, I think everybody’s expressed very clearly. I mean it looks like, it’s very encouraging that the direction that staff is exploring matches what the concern is from the Klingelhutz property to the north. To line up that access and I support it. I think we’re on a good track with it. With that I’d like to have a motion. Papke: I’ll make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends, approves the concept PUD with the recommendations as outlined in the staff report. 43 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: We have a motion. Is there a second? Lillehaug: Second. Sacchet: Are there any friendly amendments? Lillehaug: The amendments as I indicated in my comments. Sacchet: Okay. Is that acceptable? Papke: Acceptable. Papke moved, Lillehaug seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the concept PUD Planning Case No. 05-01, Sand Companies, Inc., with the recommendations as outlined in the staff report and Commissioner Lillehaug’s comments. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Sacchet: Now it is 10:00 at night. I do want to just pose the question to the commissioners. We will go beyond curfew but I think we can get through them all. Are you willing to stay beyond curfew a little bit tonight? Alright. PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY PLAT REVIEW FOR FIVE LOT SUBDIVISION WITH VARIANCES ON 3.36 ACRES OF PROPERTY ZONED SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF), LOCATED AT THE END OF CRESTVIEW DRIVE, (SHIVLEY ADDITION), CRESTVIEW. APPLICANT LECY BROS HOMES, PLANNING CASE NO. 05-02. Public Present: Name Address Pam Johnson 2050 Crestview Drive Paul & Rachelle Tungseth 2051 Crestview Drive Andrew Johnsrud Lecy Bros Homes Alan Nikolai 6282 Cartway Lane, Excelsior Dick Herrboldt 6464 Murray Hill Road Tim Larkin Peter Knibble Terra Engineering Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Thank you Bob. Rich, questions? Slagle: I just have two. Bob, you refer to the, and if we can put the plat up of the, and then the southern connection. Yeah, there we go. So I am to assume that in hearing you the City Council 44 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 will be voting on Monday probably on this southern development. What was staff’s recommendation to the City Council regarding that road? Generous: We’re still recommending the connection. However we did revise the staff report to incorporate the parks commission’s recommendation that that be a permanent cul-de-sac on the south side. And then the applicant has addressed that also. They would like, if that’s the case, they would like to go to a private street here and continue the trail up there because they do have to extend the sewer up in this area to serve this property, and so it would follow that same easement and alignment. So that’s what they’re looking at. Slagle: Okay. And if I go back to the development that we saw last time, there were comments made by the citizens of Crestview about the windiness of the road. The narrowness of the road. Is it staff’s opinion, now that we are talking about this development, that that poses any concerns you know with an additional 4 or 5 homes, or 6. However many they end up with? Okay. That’s all. Sacchet: Questions this side. Kurt. Papke: Yeah. The existing square cul-de-sac here, we show a new curb going here. What, and a removal of the bituminous. What happens to this property here? Does this get, does the city retain ownership of this? Does this get deeded over to the adjacent homeowners? What happens to that land? Generous: It would, the City would retain ownership of it. The abutting property owner could request a vacation of that right-of-way. And then through the public hearing process council would determine whether or not they want to vacate that. And if that was the case, then they would get that land. Sacchet: Dan, Steve, any questions from staff? Keefe: I have two questions. One is in regards to the street going south. That connects to Street B in terms of buffering next to the existing house over there. Is there I didn’t see a landscaping plan or anything or berming or anything along that street on the east side of that street. Is there. Generous: Well they did show some deciduous trees along that corridor but no berming. Keefe: Okay. Alright, and then one other question. There was a lot of discussion in the last meeting in the Pinehurst development about parks and I just had a question in regards to the school. Is that, and we were talking well could we just use the school equipment or whatever and utilize that as a park. I mean do we consider that as an option in our park planning? Generous: The Parks Director did give that direction. That that is a facility that’s available to the public. Keefe: So it’d be considered as a park. 45 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Generous: Yeah. But it doesn’t have the play facilities but this is also within the service area of Pheasant Hills which is to the east. Keefe: Right, so presumably if the street goes through and you have the sidewalk going through here, even people from Pinehurst development could walk over and utilize the Minnetonka Middle School West. Generous: Yes. Keefe: Thank you. Sacchet: Steve, any questions? I’m a little disoriented and I don’t know exactly how to pin this into a question but with dealing with the proposed Pinehurst development, Planning Commission made their recommendation that Street B become a cul-de-sac. Generous: Correct. Sacchet: And now we’re looking at this one and this one has a street in it to where we recommended there wouldn’t be one, and I’m not quite, how do we reconcile that? Generous: Well your recommendation, that that street connection be eliminated and that becomes part of one of the lots. Sacchet: So it becomes part of the lot so that means the lots all would shift. Generous; Conceivably, or Lot 5 would just get bigger. Because we would have at a minimum a drainage and utility easement and a trail easement over a portion of that. Sacchet: So they could save a few more trees that way right? Generous: Yes. Sacchet: Okay. Yeah, alright. Lillehaug: Would that negate the need for a variance then if that were to happen? The 5 foot front yard variance I guess is… Generous: No, because that’s based on the extension of Crestview. Lillehaug: Okay, thanks. Sacchet: Alright. With that I’d like to invite the applicant to come forward and give us your short version of this proposal. Please, if you want to state your name for the record. Peter Knibble: Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Peter Knibble with Terra Engineering. We’re the civil engineers responsible for the development and 46 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 we’ve been working for a number of months with city staff on trying to get this site figured out. And that’s the basically the project that we presented tonight is the final version of those meetings that we’ve come to. With me tonight is Lecy Bros Construction…on the 4 new lots that will be developed as part of this project. Andy Johnsrud is here representing Lecy Brothers so if there’s any questions in regards to the building or the ownership or those kind of questions, he’s certainly able to answer those. Just a couple of comments. We’ve reviewed the staff report and obviously we reviewed the project. I’ve got a colored up board we can show you. It’s basically the same information that Bob’s presented. The couple issues we’re concerned with, and again we were not at the last Planning Commission meeting when Pinehurst was up for approval and we would certainly concur with the Planning Commission’s recommendation not to extend that street to the south, and obviously we would just either shift the lots or make that Lot 5 bigger. We support that recommendation wholeheartedly. When we started out we were directed as part of the staff review to provide that connection and we made that accommodation of our plan but again we would certainly support your recommendation not to make that and we understand the neighbors also concur with that. The second item is the connection of the trail to the school to the west and that just came up in the staff report recently as part of our review. It wasn’t part of our conversations early on. I think it was just based on a meeting that the staff had with the school. One of the issues we have, I guess the main issue we have is that we see that as a large collector for the 43 homes that were, or we assume are going to be approved by the Pinehurst development. We think it’d be more appropriate to have that trail connection come out of Pinehurst directly onto the middle school property and they have direct access to do that. We understand there’s some topography that may limit that or restrict it but our review, it’s only a 6 to an 8 foot height of that berm and based on the amount of grading that’s going to happen as part of the Pinehurst, it’s certainly not an insurmountable problem to have them provide that connection. We certainly think it’s more fair and more equitable to have that connection made there as opposed to funneling that traffic through our property and over to the school. So that’s the main issue, two issues that we have. Again that trail connection. We would again encourage you to make that recommendation that it be connected through Pinehurst and not through this small 5 lot development, and the second is we support your recommendation on that eliminating that street connection. And with that, either Andy or I are here to make any comments. Or answer any questions. Sacchet: Thank you. Questions from the applicant. Questions from the applicant. I do have a question. Would you still, you would still make a trail connection to the south over the easement. Peter Knibble: Absolutely, yes. Sacchet: You’re not debating that part. You’re just rather not have the connection to the school. Peter Knibble: Correct. Sacchet: Now I do want to clarify with staff because my understanding that the school specifically requested access in that particular location, is that accurate or? Generous: That’s what, based on their review of this plan, yes. 47 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: So they specifically asked to be the connection off. Generous: To Crestview. Sacchet: Further there to the north. Not on that south side. Generous: Correct. We sent them both plats. Slagle: So you, if I may Mr. Chair. Sacchet: Go ahead. Slagle: So you sent them the plat that showed the connection from Pinehurst at the end of that cul-de-sac? Generous: Not with a connection, but with the plat adjacent to the property with all the development potential. Slagle: I’m only asking. Generous: They didn’t have a connection shown on this one either. Slagle: Sure, I’m with you. I’m with you. Generous: Their comment back to us is they’d like to see the connection there. Slagle: I’m only saying that if you were the school and you saw a plat that had two cul-de-sacs with you know no connection and a road running north to this road, Crestview, you would just naturally say well that’s where the trail should go since you have a road going up there, but if you said to them, there’s no road going up there. Where would you want the trail connection from those 50 some odd homes to the south? I think they might say it should go off the cul-de- sac to the south. I don’t know. Sacchet: That actually poses a question for you, and I’ll ask the applicant. Would you be opposed, from your end, to make a connection to the school if there is a direct connection also from the Pinehurst, or are you generally opposed to a connection in every case? Andy Johnsrud: We’d love to see, if the road was to go away, we’d be certainly willing to put a connection from Lots 2 and 3. It’s a straight shot right here right to the school. Sacchet: Straight across. Not necessarily up to the north. Andy Johnsrud: …that makes the most sense. Sacchet: It’s the shortest, yeah. 48 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Andy Johnsrud: Than shooting all the way up here and across. Because if there is a connection with the road and a trail this way…parents are going to drive up here and drop their kids off. We know it’s going to happen so, we’d love to just see no access there and a trail here along Crestview. That could be… Sacchet: Yeah, the Planning Commission made a very strong recommendation based on the neighbor’s input. This was definitely more the neighbors driving that. And so at this point to be consistent with the consideration that the Planning Commission did in the recommendation, I’m assuming it’s going to be cul-de-saced. Andy Johnsrud: Correct Absolutely…. Slagle: One last point of clarification. We’re there also assuming, if I hear you right, that you would do a trail to the school for Crestview, quote unquote, and those who walk up the sidewalk or the trail and then we would have potentially Pinehurst for their, okay. Peter Knibble: That’s what we would prefer. Slagle: Okay. Andy Johnsrud: Right, and even to have a sidewalk along this property, we don’t think is necessary you know for these 4 homes or 5 homes. You know the trail access here would be plenty fine for that. I don’t think that a 4 or 5 foot sidewalk along here is really necessary by any means. Sacchet: Alright. Appreciate your input. This is a public hearing so I’d like to invite anybody who wants to address this item to come forward at this time. State your name and address for the record and let us know what you have to say. Thank you. Dick Herrboldt: Good evening council. My name’s Dick Herrboldt and I live at 6464 Murray Hill Road, which is, if you can. Yeah, I’m right, my property is right here. Sacchet: Just north of it. Dick Herrboldt: So I’m adjacent, just adjacent to this development and I’m totally opposed to the proposal for the sidewalk running through here and up this property line. That’s going to go right next to my property and there’s a tremendous amount of trees in there that are going to wind up getting cut down in order to access a sidewalk, which is in my opinion not needed. I’m opposed to the road, the attachment to the south development primarily because I don’t think that the road is wide enough to accommodate the kind of traffic that’s going to be going through there. If the sidewalk does go in, that’s going to become a point where the builder just stated the people in the development south are going to be dropping their children off to access the school, which is going to cause a major traffic problem in that area. So I am opposed to both the sidewalk and the access. It makes a lot more sense to put the access through here. In my property there is an access to the school currently. One of my neighbors several years ago 49 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 bought a large parcel of property, an access to deed to the city by the water tower for access to the school. That’s about a 12-14 foot wide path. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. Sacchet: Yes we are. Dick Herrboldt: So if you’re going to put an access on the bottom of my property line, it’s going to be about 25 feet from an access that’s already there, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Thank you. Sacchet: Appreciate your comments. Anybody else wants to address this item? This is your chance. Seeing somebody, alright. Tim Larkin: Mr. Commissioner and members, I’m Tim Larkin. I live at 2150 Crestview Drive which is the existing home. The only existing home in that proposed cul-de-sac. I guess I’d like to make just a couple of points. Just of note. I received no notice on the last public hearing when the development to the south was considered. I think it’s a clerical error that my property is still listed apparently in the computer as Lecy Bros so I received no notice and could make no comment on the last week’s hearing. I would just like to concur that if City Council doesn’t take the recommendation of the commission and puts that road back in, it will literally be at the end of my driveway. I think it’s obvious to all and it’s been amply stated by Lecy Brothers that that literally becomes a driveway for the school. 43 homes to the south. 4 homes here. That doesn’t seem equitable at all. I believe in the staff report that I received on last week’s hearing that there is in fact a recommendation from the commission that there be access from the south. Sacchet: Right, that’s correct. Tim Larkin: So it seems to be, as my neighbor has stated, it seems to be redundant to put any access to the school from the east through this cul-de-sac at all, although if the commission deems that essential, I would agree with Lecy that it should go between Lots 2 and 3. I’m being affected on Lot 1 already by the cul-de-sac, which we were aware of when we purchased the property. We were not aware that there was any consideration of a trail going down the western edge of my property. In addition the sidewalk affects us the same way. There’s been discussion of having the sidewalk on the north, as well as on the south. Again I don’t see that the sidewalk is necessary without that road to the south. Again if the commission deems that a sidewalk is essential, it would seem more equitable to put it on the south edge of that cul-de-sac where it would affect no existing homeowners than my existing property. I would just note very quickly, I believe the commission may be aware of this. You may not be able to see that. Orient this properly. The access that my neighbors have spoke up there’s an existing access to the south. There would be an additional access to the south. You’ll have two accesses to the south to the junior high. There are two existing to the north. I’ve only noted one but there are two existing to the north and there is one existing to the east. So again it seems to put an additional access to the junior high is redundant at best. There’s ample access already there. Slagle: If I may though. Can I ask you? Tim Larkin: Sure. 50 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Slagle: If you were a family member on Crestview, how would your kids, say you lived closer to Galpin. How would they get to the middle school? Tim Larkin: They’d walk over one block to I believe it’s, and forgive me, I’ve only been there only 3 months. I believe it’s Murray Hill is where the access is. They’d go over one block. Slagle: Or would they cut through? Would they have to go to Galpin and then. Tim Larkin: I’d go down Galpin where there’s an existing sidewalk, or trailway along Galpin. They’d take the sidewalk over one block and up to where the existing. Slagle: So go east northwest. Tim Larkin: They would go east to Galpin. Over Galpin and then up. And there’s an existing, as I said, there’s an existing trailway along Galpin there. Sacchet: Alright. Anything else? Tim Larkin: I believe that’s it. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you sir. I think there was somebody else starting to get up before. Alan Nikolai: My name is Alan Nikolai, 6282 Cartway Lane, Chanhassen. Good evening everybody. I’ve talked with my mom. She lives at 6570 Galpin Boulevard which is just right down the hill. Corner of Crestview and Galpin. She indicated to me, she’s not feeling well tonight so she asked me to speak on her behalf and her name is Doris Nikolai. She does not want to see an extension to Pinehurst to the south at all because of the additional traffic concern on Crestview. Also she supports the bigger lot sizes in this development and, but would not support an additional lot with the vacation of that road. That south road. Sacchet: I don’t think that’s a concern. Alan Nikolai: She wants to be careful that it does so it doesn’t becomes an additional lot gets factored in there. Sacchet: Okay. Alan Nikolai: As far as, and she also does not like the idea of the walkway extension from Pinehurst up to Crestview there. Sacchet: Why? Alan Nikolai: There’s some talk about maybe there’s, where that road is. That have maybe a walking path there. 51 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: Yes, there is definitely concern. Alan Nikolai: It’s maybe not to have, not to have that have the Pinehurst have their own access to the school property. In other words, to traffic it back up to Crestview and that type of thing. She said that they should, Pinehurst, that’s their development, they should have the access to… Sacchet: That what match what we just touched on. Would you also oppose a connection between the Pinehurst and Crestview, not for the school part but for just the trail? Alan Nikolai: Well that’s what that trail would probably be used for though. Would be the primary access would be to the school property. Unless there’s another access… Sacchet: Right, that’s what we just touched on. Alan Nikolai: I didn’t bring that up with her. I can’t really comment on that but more common sense I guess on that. At the same time I brought it up to her because I actually used to walk to that school from my mom’s house and cut through the yards there you know over 30 years ago. And what I saw here tonight, you know between I think it’s Lot 1 and 2, basically you’re going straight west out that cul-de-sac would be the logical access you know. It’s the most logical without going to the gentleman’s property up to the, further to the north, that type of thing and that would be a very logical. Sacchet: Let me just be real clear. You mean the one on the cul-de-sac going straight across or the one going north? Straight across, okay. Just want to be real clear. Alan Nikolai: Right here. That doesn’t make sense. This would, you know just to have a…but have the access available for those residents and also the residents of Crestview to access the property there. Then one other consideration, a vacation of the existing cul-de-sac right here. You know whether or not that goes over to the Paul Wolff, or that used to be Paul Wolff’s, consideration may be possibly as a totlot too. Down the road. Being the City does own that property, that might be a consideration just for the Crestview residents. That might have a swing set, sand box type area for the kids. That might be you know that type of thing for a consideration. Also somewhere down the road, I don’t know if you can make a recommendation on it because it’s not directly tied but at the same time some fore thought there I think would be wise. And that’s it. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you very much sire. Alan Nikolai: Any questions or? Sacchet: I think we’re clear. Thank you for your comments. We got another person. Janet, welcome. Janet Paulsen: My name is Janet Paulsen. I live at 7305 Laredo Drive. I just have a comment to make about the 25 foot setback from the street. I know we have private streets to preserve trees. I didn’t know we had public street set backs to preserve trees. I think it’s a bad precedent to set. 52 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 5 feet isn’t going to save that many trees. I think the question is, they’re cramming more of a home into a lot. Especially on Lots 2 and 3. Lot 3 has a 54 foot frontage. How far back is that house going to have to be? The statement says, while that may not seem a significant savings now, in the future when homeowners are adding porches, patios, decks or additions, the extra distance from the trees may be enough room so the trees aren’t removed. That’s a question in the future for the homeowners to face. I don’t think we should change our standards for something like that. And therefore I don’t think it meets the variance conditions. That can be applied anywhere in Chanhassen and that is a really bad precedence to set. Thank you. Sacchet: Question for staff based on this comment. Does that variance enable an additional lot? Because that seems to be the implication somewhat here. Generous: It’s not the lot. They can meet the 30 foot setback. Sacchet: And then follow-up question with, I’m assuming that south road connection goes away because that’s what position we took as a commission when we dealt with Plowhurst to the south. Wouldn’t that enable to pull back the cul-de-sac a little bit easterly? Just an idea. Alright. Let’s keep going. Public hearing is still open. Yes we have some takers. Dick Herrboldt: I wanted to address one other subject and that is the drainage problem that we have. There is a drain on our cul-de-sac that runs into my, right next to my driveway. Sacchet: Now you’re talking to the north. Dick Herrboldt: I’m talking to the north. I’m talking about this property here. There is a drain in the street located about here. It empties into my property about right here. All the water from the 5 houses in the cul-de-sac up here, the water runs down into the woods and follows this line approximately and runs down into here and that’s going to be a substantial amount of water in the spring or after a large rainfall. That was designed originally when our property was built, Curt Ostrom was the builder and that was the design that the watershed district gave him. But now that these houses are being developed back here, there’s going to be a substantial amount of water that’s going to be running into those lots. Now I talked to the builder before the meeting and he has a drain located here and my suggestion would be that somehow that pipe be lined up up here into my back yard so that water doesn’t run over those existing lots. Sacchet: Matt, from your viewpoint, what’s the drainage thing here? Saam: It looks like they have it graded to go, it would go around the west side or the rear of Lots 2 and 3. The drainage that this gentleman is speaking of. Sacchet: Would be shifted to the west? Saam: That’s the way that it’s designed, yeah. To go around the back of the house. Lillehaug: Existing or proposed? 53 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: No, on their proposed. Under existing I’m assuming it goes just, it goes right through into Pinehurst. Dick Herrboldt: Yeah it runs right about this direction. Saam: Down to that ravine… Dick Herrboldt: Down the ravine and ultimately, I think there’s a drain down there now but it used to go into the lake on 41. So it’s going to be a major problem for those houses. Saam: I think we can deal with it with swales and that sort of thing. And in working with the development. Sacchet: So it’s something that still would need to be refined at this point. Saam: Minor grading. Sacchet: Okay. Something extra. Slagle: But I think also, if I can interject, the comment that the developer would be open to talking to this gentleman might even add more value. Right Matt? Sacchet: Certainly. Dick Herrboldt: Yeah, that could be hooked up into a drainage pipe in this area to flow into that would make a lot more sense than having that water run over the surface of the land. Sacchet: Yeah if you want to address that, please do. Peter Knibble: Just a quick comment. Actually we weren’t aware where the storms were coming in. That’s one of the reasons we’re here to get this kind of input. We would prefer to put a pipe through here and pick that up as opposed to redirecting with swales… Sacchet: Makes more sense. Thank you. There was somebody else standing up I believe. Deb Lloyd: Deb Lloyd, 7302 Laredo Drive. Further comments to what Jan’s remarks were. When you grant a variance you know the conditions for which you cannot, or which you can grant it. I don’t believe you really meet the variance requirements here. Have you proven how many trees would be saved? Is there a calculation for that? Sacchet: Is that something staff can say something to or? Generous: Only to the extent that the grading limits are reduced through the granting of the variance. 54 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Deb Lloyd: I think we need to quantify how many trees would be lost. I mean this is valuable property giving up 5 feet on each lot times the width. You do the calculations. Or put in a requirement for a tree conservation type easement. Because I mean the staff report clearly states in the future they can build on the back. They could put in, I mean it’s like so wide open. In the future when the homeowners are adding porches, patios, decks or additions, the extra distance from the trees may be enough room so that the trees aren’t removed for the new construction? I mean they’re suggesting trees might need to be removed for the new construction. It’s like planning for that future inevitability. You’re giving them 5 feet for that. I think you need to look long and hard at this. I was thinking about Yoberry Farms. Who, or whatever that development was. Was it farms or? Sacchet: Yoberry Farms. Deb Lloyd: Who would need that 5 feet more than those people who have no back yard? I mean we have codes for a purpose and that is to standardize the lots. There is, I haven’t seen a quantification of what this is going to do for the City, and as a resident I feel compelled to bring that to your attention. Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you. Appreciate it. Anybody else wants to speak up to this item? This is your chance. Seeing nobody, I’m going to close the public hearing. Bring it back to the commission for comments and discussion. Who wants to start? Keefe: I’ve got a question. What’s driving the variance? Is it the house size? I don’t understand what’s driving it. Generous: It’s reduction in the grading limits. To save trees. As part of the subdivision ordinance we anticipate that they will grade, at least the 105 feet into the development. With this variance their plan is showing that they’re moving that back. Keefe: Okay. And I think it goes to Uli’s point which is, you know if we take this southerly road out, can we move the cul-de-sac to the right 5 feet? Saam: I guess we were just looking at that. I don’t see what the north/south street has to do with the location. I mean they can move the cul-de-sac to the east right now. That doesn’t affect, at least that I can see. Keefe: So could we move it 5 feet to the right and not have a variance? Generous: Well you could deny the variance and they could still comply. They just have a 30 foot front setback. They may take, their grading limits may shift a little bit but. Keefe: But in terms of the location of the cul-de-sac, there isn’t sort of a driver behind that? Generous: No. If they go 5 feet farther back for their setback, the house pad gets even wider. Because they’re exceeding the 90 at the 25 feet so. 55 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Lillehaug: Are we at comments right now? Sacchet: Yes. Comments and discussion. Lillehaug: Okay I’ll go ahead since no one’s talking. I do not support providing a variance for Lots 2, 3, 4 and 5. I’m looking at the existing, or the proposed grading limits on Sheet 4. I do not see a significant savings in trees by granting that and I guess I don’t support it, but I do see where it is needed for Lot 1. Because the existing house is it looks like exactly 25 feet right off the property line. And I guess I would support a variance of 25 feet. Or a variance of 5 feet. Putting the setback at 25 feet for only Lot 1. Other than that everything looks fine to me. I do want to comment, you know I read in this report, I’m kind of miffed that there’s not a single mention of what we recommended the other week’s with regarding not making that connection. I mean not a word in here and it’s kind of upsetting to me I guess. I mean it puts things into perspective of what our recommendations do I guess, but I certainly want to make sure that the council understands that our recommendation is to not make that connection. I understand what staff is saying here. Yes, it’s a good land use policy. Yes, it’s a good transportation policy to make this connection but, and it’s good planning to do so. It’s good on safety, etc. but if you live on Crestview, yeah you talk about doing it 10 years ago but previous to that was it planned? Was there a sign up? Can those residents actually anticipate that connection being made? Absolutely not so it’s my opinion that I definitely do not support shoe horn some planning in here to do that as you’re suggesting, so that’s where I stood the previous weeks on making that connection and I still stand in that sense, so yes. I agree that we should not make that connection. Shift the easement over. Shift the sanitary and watermain over if we need to, and trail wise, I’m not too sure where I stand on that. It’d be good to make that connection from Pinehurst up. A little more community I guess by making that connection but I do see possibly some few residents making that trek to the school. Or do they actually even use that school. Do those residents use that school? Aanenson: Minnetonka district. Lillehaug: I don’t know. I don’t have a feel for how many pedestrians that would be but I think it’s legitimate to make that connection a sidewalk and I would support that. Sacchet: Okay. Dan any comments? Keefe: Sure. I mean I support vacating that southerly road. I think, I don’t know, I don’t understand why we need the variance based on the count. I mean I understand why it’s there but I don’t, that I support that. The sidewalk, I’m not clear why we would have a sidewalk coming up at that point from Pinehurst. Why we wouldn’t just move, try to get a sidewalk from the other cul-de-sac and Pinehurst up to the school. I do think that having an easement in there between 2 and 3 makes some sense. For future if we don’t even pave it today but at least have an easement in there. Saam: Commissioner Sacchet, could I add one thing about the trail between 2 and 3 because we never said anything. 56 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: Please. Saam: One of the reasons we recommended that it go between 2 and 1 is because of the proposed grades. We’ve got walkouts between 2 and 3 so you’re dropping 10 feet. I mean we don’t want a stairs, that sort of thing in there. We want to have it as accessible as we can, so if you go up Lot 2 as we had proposed, the grades there work better so that was the main reasoning. Sacchet: Okay. Kurt. Papke: Yeah, I don’t support the variance. I think when I walked the lots yesterday, the trees in here, there’s a fair number of trees but there’s no 4 foot oaks or anything like that. I mean they’re fairly small diameter. And just the prospect of hopefully you know not mowing them down in the future I don’t think justifies the variance at this point so, that’s all I have. Sacchet: Rich. Slagle: I’m a no go on the variance. I certainly think with the reputation of this builder, I mean which everybody hopefully has heard of, I trust you to do a nice job with those trees. I almost wonder, if I can throw out for consideration, if this is not premature. Only because of the upcoming council vote. I mean we get back to the thing of wondering if Pinehurst was premature because we knew this was coming on. I don’t know if I’m prepared to suggest that we table it but just as an FYI. We have a proposal in front of us that shows a road connecting and we’re voting yes or no, and most of us, if not all of us are saying no, we don’t want the road and that’s what we said earlier but yet we have a plan that has a road. So I don’t know. Sacchet: Well I would take it actually a step further. I mean there are several points here that I really would like to see how it works out. I’d like to see how this looks like without the road. I’d like to see where the trail can be worked out. I’d like to see if that cul-de-sac can be pushed back a little bit and if this can be done variance free and what, how feasible that is. I mean to me adding all these things up, none of these single things would be reason to table but you add them all together, I’d like to see it. It seems reasonable to propose a variance of setback for the existing house on Lot 1. But for the other ones, it’s fluffy. This thing with the trails, we don’t know yet even the major road connection. With that I guess we would also get clarity where, whether that Pinehurst connection is something that council supports, which is a major variable in this. To have a trail connection makes a lot of sense between the neighborhoods to me, but we don’t have all the variables around it to really make the context. Does it need a sidewalk? Well, if there is just a trail connection between the neighborhoods, it doesn’t really need a sidewalk. If there’s a road, it probably does. So I mean there’s a lot of variables that are intertwined that actually I would go as far as thinking this should be tabled. Lillehaug: Can I further comment on it? Sacchet: Go ahead. Lillehaug: I can see your concerns Commissioner Sacchet, but I mean we approved Pinehurst based on the fact that that road’s going to be, Street B is going to be cul-de-saced, so I’m very 57 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 comfortable in moving forward and making a recommendation for approval with certain conditions again that this road will not be connected and if the council chooses to connect this road, so be it. Then they will have the revisions for both sets of plans, but I mean I can foresee minor changes in this plan so there isn’t a variance needed on that setback. Right-of-way width, I support the 50 foot right-of-way width. I mean I don’t see a major problem with that. But other than that, I mean I think that they can work with staff and shift those lots ever so slightly and make it work. Sacchet: And I would think the reputation of the builder certainly would support that notion. I certainly would give you that. Papke: Where do we actually end up with the trail? Is it, okay. It’d be nice to have it between 2 and 3, but then. Sacchet: Well that’s part of the confusion. Papke: Yeah I mean you came back and said well, due to grading maybe it, you know that was why we put it between. Slagle: Point of clarification if I can on the change in topography. I mean I only look to Vasserman Ridge. The one that comes down and connects into the wetlands. I mean that’s between two walkout homes and it’s a little steep. You know you’ve got to huff and puff when you run so I mean it’s doable. Saam: Yeah it’s doable. It’s just do we have another alternate that is better in our mind. Slagle: I’m with you. Yeah and I’m just saying I don’t think it’s stairs though. I guess is what I’m trying, I don’t think it’s stairs. Papke: It’s a pretty flat lot. Keefe: It’s 4 feet over 150 feet or something. Papke: Yeah, it’s not much of a grade. Saam: No, these are walkouts. That’s 8 or 10 feet. Sacchet: Yeah, it’s 8 feet. Keefe: It’s 8 feet okay. I’m looking at the wrong one. Okay. Sacchet: It goes from 56 to 64. Keefe: I’m looking at the wrong sheet. 58 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: Well the part that is really steep is 8. Then it flattens out. So where do we go with this guys? Somebody want to make a motion? Slagle: I’m going to make a motion. Sacchet: You make a motion. Go ahead. Slagle: I’m going to move that the Planning Commission table the preliminary plat review for this 5 lot subdivision with variances. Sacchet: Do we have a second? I can second right? Aanenson: Yes. Sacchet: I second. Lillehaug: Do you want to? Slagle moved, Sacchet seconded that the Planning Commission table Planning Case #05-02, the preliminary plat for a 5 lot subdivision with variances. Slagle and Sacchet voted in favor. Keefe, Papke and Lillehaug voted against the motion. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 3. Sacchet: So we have 3 to 2. So the motion was denied. Now does that mean we need to make a second motion, right? Do we have an alternate motion? Keefe: I’ll make a motion that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommend approval of Planning Case #05-02 for a 5 lot subdivision with variances for a reduced right-of-way. Sacchet: Keep going. Keefe: I don’t know that I want to. And reduced front yard setbacks, I don’t want that. Sacchet: So you stop after reduced right-of-way of 50 feet. And you do not want the rest of it. Keefe: Right-of-way with plans prepared by Terra Engineering 11/22 based on findings of fact attached to this report and subject to the following conditions, and we need to amend some of these. Sacchet: State which, we have 1 through 24. Keefe: Numbers 1 through 24 with, but amendment to number 1. Change to between Lots 1 and 2 to Lots 2 and 3. And the same thing on the second one. And something, I don’t know, something about vacating the road to the south. Slagle: I wouldn’t say vacating it. 59 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Keefe: How would you say that? Sacchet: Delete. Keefe: Delete the road to the south. Sacchet: However have a trail or? Keefe: You can add that if you like. I’ll take amendment. And then the last would be, I think there was something about sidewalks in here too isn’t there? Sacchet: Where’s the sidewalk one? Keefe: Oh, it’s actually in number 1. Yeah, so really we would just want to re-word number 1 to say, the developer shall include an easement for walkway or trail between Lots 2 and 3 to the school property located west of the site. Slagle: So point of clarification. You’re not requesting a sidewalk. Keefe: Along the entire road, which is what I thought that was, I’m just requesting it, between 2 and 3. Sacchet: Okay? Papke: Second. Sacchet: Alright, friendly amendment. The trail connection. North/south from Street B cul-de- sac to Crestview. Keefe: That’s fine. Sacchet: Because there’s an easement. Okay. Thank you. Lillehaug: Point of clarification. So you added a condition deleting the roadway connection to the Pinehurst? Sacchet: Correct. Lillehaug: And then adding to that a friendly amendment? And then adding to that further, shifting the lots appropriately and working with staff to. Sacchet: Yes. And can we say, pulling the cul-de-sac back east a little bit because since we don’t do the variance, we could even be specific and say pull it back 5 feet. Slagle: I’d rather leave it… 60 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: Work with staff to consider pulling back the cul-de-sac easterly, considering we don’t have the variance. Keefe: Right. Sacchet: Okay, is that acceptable? Keefe: Acceptable. Lillehaug: Another point of clarification. On the existing house there it’s 25 feet from the proposed right-of-way, so we need to, so the roadway would need to be revised to shift that back. Am I understanding that correctly? Generous: Correct. Sacchet: From the existing house. Lillehaug: So condition necessary I guess. Just to work with staff to make it 30 feet, yep. Sacchet: Actually point of clarification. So we would not have a variance for the existing house, so the road would have to be pulled south. Generous: That would be a 5 foot shift. Lillehaug: Which I think can easily be done, looking at it. Sacchet: Okay, and it’s variance free. That’s good. Alright. Keefe moved, Papke seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Planning Case #05-02 for a five lot subdivision with a variance for a reduced right-of-way (50 feet), plans prepared by Terra Engineering, Inc. dated 11/22/04, based upon the findings of fact in the staff report and subject to the following conditions: an easement for 1.The developer shall include a sidewalk in the extension of Crestview Drive 2 and 3 and from the end of the cul-de-sac between Lots and then along the north lot line of Lot 2 to the school property located west of the site. 2.The developer shall dedicate a trail easement from Crestview Drive to the west property line between Lots 2 and 3, Block 1 to accommodate the pedestrian access to the Middle School site. 3.A final grading plan and soils report must be submitted to the Inspections Division before building permits will be issued. 4.Separate water and sewer services must be provided for each lot. 61 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 5.No burning permits will be issued for trees to be removed. Trees and shrubs must either be removed from site or chipped. 6.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 that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1. 7.Fire apparatus access roads and water supply for fire protection is required to be installed. Such protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to and during the time of construction except when approved alternate methods of protection are provided. Temporary street signs shall be installed on each street intersection when construction of the new roadway allows passage by vehicles. Pursuant to 2002 Minnesota Fire Code Section 501.4. 8.A minimum of two overstory trees shall be required in the front yard of each lot. 9.The developer shall be responsible for installing all landscape materials proposed in rear and side yard areas. 10.Tree preservation fence shall be installed at the edge of the grading limits prior to any construction. 11.All trees shown as preserved and outside of the grading limits as shown on plans dated 11/22/04 shall be saved. Any trees removed in excess of proposed tree preservation plans will be replaced at a ratio of 2:1 diameter inches. 12.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 made systems that discharge to a surface water. 62 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 13.Daily scraping and sweeping of public streets shall be completed anytime 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. 14.Construction site access points shall be minimized to controlled access points with rock entrance and exit pads installed and maintained throughout construction. 15.Based on the proposed developed area of 3.36 acres, the estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of final plat recording is $12,761. 16.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Riley-Purgatory-Bluff-Creek Watershed District, Metropolitan Council Environmental Services, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering), and Minnesota Department of Health) and comply with their conditions of approval. 17.The storm sewer must be designed for a 10-year, 24-hour storm event. Submit storm sewer sizing calcs and drainage map for staff review and approval at time of final plat. 18.On the grading plan: a.Add a note to remove the existing driveway access of Lot 1. b.Show the benchmark used for the site survey. c.Show a minimum 75-foot rock construction entrance. d.Add a legend. 19.On the utility plan: a.Any connection to existing manholes or catch basins must be core drilled. b.All sanitary services must be 6”PVC-SDR26 and water services 1”copper. c.Show watermain pipe class as C-900. d.Show sanitary sewer pipe type and class. e.Show storm sewer pipe type and size (minimum 15-in.) f.Add a hydrant on the eastern property line of Lot 1. 20.If importing or exporting material for development of the site is necessary, the applicant will be required to supply the City with a detailed haul route and traffic control plan. 21.The sanitary sewer and water hookup charges will be applicable for each of the new lots. The 2005 trunk hookup charge is $1,458 for sanitary sewer and $2,955 for watermain. Sanitary sewer and watermain hookup fees may be specially assessed against the parcel at the time of building permit issuance. All of these charges are based on the number of SAC units assigned by the Met Council. 22.Public utility improvements are required to be constructed in accordance with the City's latest edition of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. Detailed construction plans and specifications must be submitted at time of final plat for review. The applicant is also required to enter into a development contract with the City and supply the necessary financial security in 63 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 the form of a letter of credit or cash escrow to guarantee installation of the improvements and the conditions of final plat approval. 23.In conjunction with the final plat approval, the developer shall vacate the existing Crestview Drive right-of-way dedicated as part of the Shively Addition. 24.Full park fees shall be collected at the rate in force at the time of final plat.” 25. Delete the road connection to the Pinehurst development but keep the trail connection to the end of Street B. 26. The applicant will work with staff to shift the cul-de-sac to the east. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. 64 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR SITE PLAN APPROVAL WITH VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A RETAIL BUILDING AND A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR AN LED MONUMENT SIGN ON 1.61 ACRES OF PROPERTY ZONED HIGHWAY AND BUSINESS DISTRICT, LOCATED AT THE NORTHEAST CORNER TH OF MARKET BOULEVARD AND WEST 79 STREET (AMERICANA BANK BUILDING), WALGREENS. APPLICANT, SEMPER DEVELOPMENT, LTD AND ROBERT DITTRICH, PLANNING CASE 05-03. Public Present: Name Address Cindy MacDonald 4210 W. Old Shakopee Road, Bloomington Allen W. Obernolte 106 Tanager Road, Mankato Neil Tessler GEI Engineering John Kohler Semper Development 821 Marquette Avenue, Minneapolis Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Keefe: Could you put a picture of the sign up? Do we have that? Al-Jaff: Sure. Keefe: The LED portion. Oh, it’s down there. A cross parking agreement. How do those get enforced? I mean I was reading through that and I was like okay, well at 5:01 you know all of a nd sudden we’ve got the 42 car coming in to park at Walgreen’s and they presumably don’t have that. Okay. Sacchet: Do we want to wait for the applicant? Keefe: Yeah, maybe… Sacchet: Let’s let staff finish their part and then… Keefe: Can you speak to the circulation on the north side and maybe as a part of that, do we know how sort of frequent the trucks unload? When do they unload? Maybe that’s another applicant, okay. Sacchet: Applicant will be addressing that, yep. Keefe: Maybe you can just address. Aanenson: I think we should address the circulation. 65 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: The circulation aspect, alright. That’s a Matt item right? Saam: Yeah, I can show you how it’s going to work. Sacchet: Please. Since that was a concern here. Saam: The applicant had a traffic study done to look at the internal circulation. The two conflict points that came out of the traffic study were for the entrance into this drive thru and then the exiting because this drive aisle does work as a two way directional drive aisle. So there would be conflicting traffic where people going into the drive thru would have to cross with other people going to the east. Keefe: Where’s the loading? Saam: Excuse me? Keefe: Where’s the loading and unloading? Aanenson: In the back. Keefe: Is it over there? Okay, so it’s at that point. Saam: And so basically the recommendation of the traffic study, while it was true either you can make this existing drive thru aisle now, it exists as a two way drive aisle with I believe 3 drive up windows for the bank tellers. You could make that into a one way where only exiting traffic would come out, or we could let it go as is because the existing site, as the report says, generates about the same amount of traffic. In fact I would say a bank drive thru is going to have a heavier load, heavier concentrated load at certain times. Your Friday evenings, that sort of thing versus a pharmacy. So what we’re recommending, to make a long story short, is that we do let it go as is now. As is being proposed. We monitor. If there are issues then we can always make that a one way, an exit only out. Sacchet: Kurt. Papke: Yeah, with the bank it’s pretty obvious that there, that those are drive thru’s there so people coming in from Market Boulevard, it’s quite clear that they’ve got to watch out for people coming out of the drive thru’s. Do you have any concerns from a safety perspective for people making a right turn on Market and coming in? You know it doesn’t look as obvious, like it’s a drive up and people could. Saam: Yeah we talked about that a little bit with the applicant and with raising this, or making it a curb, the island inbetween. In addition to signage here. They’re going to have pavement markings also on the ground. Again maybe the applicant can add something to this. Sacchet: He definitely will. You’ll get your turn. 66 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: But I think through signage and making it an island. Aanenson: And striping. Saam: Yes, and striping, that it’s going to work. And it’s not really a different set up than what’s happening now, so people, the people who are using it now, going to Applebee’s, really shouldn’t experience. Sacchet: In terms of consistency Commissioner Slagle has a good question that I’m asking. What did we do with CVS? Is that a one way by the drive thru? Saam: Yeah. Yes, that’s a one way. They have a. Generous: They have a separate. Aanenson: They don’t have the shared parking. Saam: Yeah, they have a separate, yeah. And there’s a number of other issues but. Sacchet: But they have a different access situation. You actually drive around the building. Slagle: Well if I can add? Sacchet: Please. We’re still at the question part though. We’re not at comments yet. Slagle: No. I want to ask the question, because if I’m not mistaken, the flow, if you will of the drive thru and the position of the drive thru is approximately the same area, right? I mean it’s in that upper northeast corner and you have in the case of CVS folks going to, once they pick up their item, going to the west and having to take a quick right and then a left to get to Galpin. I mean folks I’ve got to tell you, I don’t see much difference here, do you? That’s my question. Saam: Oh yeah. Yeah, I don’t see people when they leave here saying well let’s now whip around and come back here. I mean yeah, it’s possible but on CVS they have to do that in order to get out to Galpin to get out to 5 because we don’t want them making a U turn at Galpin. So here they can go right out this ramp and go to the north. Slagle: You know Matt, I should have asked it differently. What I’m saying is that once they’ve picked up, even in this situation, this case they just go straight out to Market and take a right or take a left, and CVS, or yes, CVS, they go a little bit west and they take a quick right to get to that little service road and then they take a left and then they take a right to go on Galpin. All I’m saying is that the traffic is flowing with the direction of the, whatever you call it. The drop off, pick up. So I’m saying, why wouldn’t we make this a one way? Why would you let people come in, going against traffic and actually going, and possibly going against traffic in a different lane that people are used to driving on. Keefe: Is this just two lanes wide? Is that how wide this is? 67 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Saam: As it is now. Two lanes wide. Keefe: So if people are picking up and they’re driving in the left hand lane, does that put people into something, you’re going to be in the right hand lane, are you going to have a conflict with somebody coming in the right hand lane with somebody coming out? Sacchet: There is a third lane for the trucks. Saam: Well yeah, there’s a third but the drive aisle is two lanes wide as it is now. Sacchet: Drive aisle is two lanes and then is the drive thru lane also. Saam: Yes, then there’s a drive thru lane which is a third lane but there’s going to be a barrier inbetween the two. Slagle: I guess I’m just asking, why wouldn’t we want it as a one way? Saam: Well we don’t see, I guess maybe planning can add something to this but the way I’ve been told is that to facilitate the neighborhood type trips that go on with the other properties. th Aanenson: We’re always looking at trying to, similar on West 78. If you’re at the bank, TCF th Bank, do you have to get back onto West 78 to go to the next business? No. You try to have internal movements within there so if you’re in internally within there, so. Well do you have to th put all the traffic on that corner of West 79, so could you cut through as an alternative? Keefe: Well like you say, we could address it later. Monitor it. Papke: But I don’t understand Kate, how would making that a one way prevent you. Aanenson: Because making all the turn movements that want to go to the interior uses have to come to that corner and go down. Lillehaug: It’s loading it up. Aanenson: It’s loading up the corner, right. We always try to provide options so you’re not loading all those. Sacchet: There’s only one out if you do that. That’s your point, right? Aanenson: Correct. And it’s, you know it’s how we set it up with the other businesses there. They would like to see it remain. That was always their goal to try to maintain those cross. Not just between the two businesses, but to get out to another collector out to Market. Sacchet: So it’s in view of the context, not just this one property here? 68 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Aanenson: Right, and we’re saying you know, maybe there might be some conflicts but we’d like to evaluate that over time. The bank functioned that way with more than one window. People function. It’s a cueing where you have to slow down. Pay attention. If you’re going to cut through any parking lot. We would like to monitor that. Sacchet: Okay. Pretty convincing. Alright, we’re at the questions of staff stage, if I remember right. Do we have more questions of staff? Lillehaug: I do. I want to hurry through these, sorry. Page number 15. Condition 23. I’ve never seen a condition like this before regarding, recommend an approval withdrawing of previous site plan. I don’t understand that. Sacchet: Where are you? Aanenson: The bank is already on the site. Lillehaug: Page 15, condition number 23. Al-Jaff: Because we have an existing site plan approval, and that’s been recorded with the County. Lillehaug: I guess if that’s what we want to do, it doesn’t matter I guess. If it sounds good. Papke: We’re demolishing the old building so that old site plan no longer applies? Al-Jaff: Correct. Lillehaug: But do we need to disapprove previous site plans though? I mean how do we go forward. Sacchet: Withdrawing. Lillehaug: Withdrawing? Sacchet: Withdrawing. They have to pull it back so it’s not registered anymore, isn’t that? Lillehaug: Do we do that for the theater and anywhere else that’s redeveloped? Now I’m wasting time. It doesn’t matter that it’s in there but do we want to do that going forward from here on? Aanenson: Legal counsel advised that. Lillehaug: Okay. Sacchet: Legal counsel advised, alright. 69 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Lillehaug: Page 13. Page 13. Looking at the actual recommendation, it says with a variance specifically. Reduction in parking. What are we approving for a variance? You’re just saying a reduction in parking. I mean I’m not comfortable, I’m not sure what that variance is really stating there. A variance for the reduction of parking but do we need to quantify that? Al-Jaff: Technically. Lillehaug: How do we quantify it I guess. Al-Jaff: Sure. The building is shown as 15,000 square feet, which translates to 73, 70 parking spaces. However, this is taking the trash enclosure into consideration. All of the area that will be used for storage. Lillehaug: So are you saying a reduction of parking as quantified in the report. Sacchet: And the plans. As shown in the plans. Lillehaug: Okay. Moving on. Sacchet: So it is specific Steve. Lillehaug: Okay. Page 12. Ah, that’s a… The rest of mine are, oh. Can you comment on, no. You already did. That’s all I have, thanks. Sacchet: Okay. Kurt. Papke: How far away is this LED sign from the one on the Legion? In front of the Legion. Can you see one from the other? Al-Jaff: No. Papke: You cannot see one from the other? Al-Jaff: No. Papke: Okay. Sacchet: One question here. Is there a variance for surface coverage? Al-Jaff: Yes. Sacchet: And that’s in the. Okay. Done with questions? Applicant please. Your turn. Thanks for your patience. John Kohler: Oh thank you very much for allowing us to be heard this evening. I really appreciate that. My name is John Kohler. I’m an architect with Semper Development, 821 70 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Marquette Avenue, Minneapolis. I’ll make this as quick as possible. We worked very closely with Sharmeen and staff throughout the project and just to give you an idea of design, she had mentioned that we are using the different brick tones. This is a view of, this is the service area of the building. This is the trash enclosure and all so it is quite different. And also in working with staff on the drive thru issue which you separated, we used to have a very small island like this over that they recommended that we put a full awning with the columns and the island which will even further separate them. We are requesting a variance on that hard surface coverage. We’ve gone into a bit of that. That has to do with a great deal of shared parking. Shared surface for drive aisles and things, and I’d be happy to answer any questions. Sacchet: That was fast. Thank you so much. That’s appreciated. Certainly at this hour. Questions from the applicant. Papke: Yes. Sacchet: Go ahead Kurt. Papke: There was a statement in the report that, or perhaps it was in your letter that this Walgreen’s is designed substantially different from the other Walgreen’s. John Kohler: Very much so. Papke: Could you succinctly describe how this one differs from the one just a mile or two down the road in Eden Prairie. John Kohler: Yeah that, as you recall has a fair amount, are you talking about the one at 4 and 5? Papke: Yes. John Kohler: Okay. It’s brick. It’s all one tone of brick. It has some stucco. It’s got the fake mansard roofs. It has glass on just the two front sides where we’re, we have glass all the way around this building. All four sides which I believe is a requirement of the city. We have the awnings on all four sides. This is really four sided architecture. And that’s what we really tried to. Aanenson: And the glass goes all the way down too. John Kohler: And the glass goes all the way down, yeah. I mean there’s vision glass at the top. There’s span row glass. There’s a number of different things, and that’s also what we’ve tried to show in this photo that we’ve actually laid the building right into an actual photo of the site so you can really see how it addresses the site. And this is a site, this is an entrance to Chanhassen and that was something that Sharmeen really drilled into me as we were designing this building, that this has to be a significant building on this corner. So that definitely is different. Sacchet: Rich. 71 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Slagle: Just a quick question. Would you be open to placing, if you have the space, a couple of benches with some landscaping? John Kohler: Actually we are. Slagle: Good. John Kohler: At the entry and we would be happy to go further in that and Sharmeen had addressed this also. It has to do with our hard surface coverage. Initially we would liked to have th put additional benches out at the intersection of Market and 79, but, which we could do. We would require some additional hard surface coverage so that we could incorporate that off the sidewalk, but we would be happy to do that. In essence we had already looked at that with our earlier scheme but we were trying to minimize the variance as much as possible. Slagle: And the reason I ask is, you can see people walking from the restaurants to the movie theater and sitting with lamp posts or whatever. John Kohler: Yep. Sacchet: Steve? Lillehaug: A couple quick ones. We got a Walgreen’s 4-5 miles to the east and new CVS 2 miles to the west. John Kohler: I’m so aware of that. Actually what I can tell you about stores like these, this store serves an area that’s about, well a mile to a mile and a half radius is what a store like this, the area. The contributory area to a store like this. With all the copays everybody has on their pharmacy items, things like that, people don’t drive very far to get a prescription. It’s very close. Lillehaug: Okay. You’re asking for a variance of about 5 percent. You tripled the size of the building there. What’s the, compare their size of Walgreen’s in Eden Prairie to this size here in Chanhassen. Square footage wise. John Kohler: Actually, square footage wise it’s probably very similar. On this one we’ve actually enclosed that whole trash and delivery area…so that’s all under roof which in that case it is not. You can see that along the east side of that building. As you come around the corner of the drive thru. That whole east side is to service the trucks and all that so, in this case square footage is about the same as that one. We looked at going up and down. We’ve looked at trying to pack this thing in quite a few ways. Lillehaug: But maybe a point of clarification with staff. I mean regardless if that trash enclosure’s inside versus outside, you’re not going to reduce your impervious area by taking it from outside to in. John Kohler: But it would have been a lot smaller. 72 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Lillehaug: It would have been smaller? John Kohler: Right, because now. Lillehaug: 5 percent smaller? I mean I know it’s one argument. John Kohler: Right, no. We would have had that, right now it would have been much further back in the building. We would have had all sorts of driveways to get to it. We were also trying to eliminate any driveways, any parking. Or not pavement type surfaces between the building and the street, which is why we also enclosed that whole area. So we’ve enclosed even the service area in behind those items. Keefe: Just one quick comment and question. I think it’s a great looking Walgreen’s. I mean it’s awesome looking. I think it’s going to be terrific. The question regards to the circulation on the north side and the loading area and kind of how that, and your thoughts on the two way traffic. Can you just speak to that? John Kohler: Yeah. We’ve dealt with that in numerous Walgreen’s locations. Just to give you an idea on the pharmacy, about 50 percent of their business is pharmacy business and of that maybe 10 percent goes through the drive thru. They don’t want a lot of people going through the drive thru. There’s a reason that pharmacy’s way in the back of the store. You know they want people walking through, so there aren’t a lot of cars cued up there and I think that’s what Jim Benshoof and his study, and we asked him to look at that very issue. But then as a back-up, so that we were not, you know if a problem did arise, and I think we have a very good way of handling that problem. The space is there. We can simply make that a one way drive and if it’s an issue, it goes away. Keefe: In terms of trucks. John Kohler: Trucks. The Walgreen service truck comes once a week and it’s there for about 4 hours. Sacchet: Alright, thank you very much. Appreciate it. This is a public hearing so this is the time for any resident to come up and address this item, if you so choose. Is there any takers? Seeing nobody, I’ll close the public hearing. Bring it back to commissioners for discussion and comments. Who wants to start? No comments? No discussion? Lillehaug: I have some comments but I don’t want to start. Slagle: I’ll start quickly. I support the proposal. I would like to ask consideration on my fellow commissioners that we increase the variance of the impervious, if that will allow a couple of benches, and I’m throwing out a light post, a lamp post, something like that. And then secondly, and I think just as important as this first one is, we really stick with this developer on the one way option, if it gets to that point. 73 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Aanenson: Certainly. We don’t want to do anything to jeopardize their business, certainly. But there is a good reason for…but we want to monitor it, certainly. Slagle: Okay. Sacchet: Alright, any other comments? Lillehaug: I have some. I agree with Commissioner Slagle about the drive thru. It is different from existing. If you go into that existing driveway there right now, you are 3 lanes, it’s separated from the two way. You have a certain distance as you’re exiting that driveway before you have to merge back into the two way lane. I mean that’s one. When you come out of a drive thru, you don’t want to instantly have to be merging and thinking of conflicts with traffic coming at you, trying to merge out into a drop off area. My opinion is, it needs to be a one way. There’s no other situation in the city where you have a, even in drive thru’s in general. Most driveways, you have a certain distance of a one way coming out of that drive thru. It really needs to be a one way in there. I know it’s going to load up the intersection to the south of the building a little more but, so that’s my comment on that. The 5 percent variance for hard surface coverage, we’re tripling the size of the building in there. Wow. I mean that’s quite a bit. I mean it’s a great looking plan but I mean where do we draw the line? Is this where we draw the line? We give them 5 percent to have a triple the size building in there? I am not sold on that. Look at the findings of the variance, you know they’re tripling the size of the building for one. I’m talking about the trash enclosure, in my mind, having it inside versus outside, I just don’t see where they’re increasing the hard surface by 5 percent. Even maybe 1 percent by having that inside. It’s possible I guess. The City’s not asking to install too much more sidewalk. You know that was one of the arguments. One of the difficulty or hardship that’s saying that it’s a result of the cross parking agreement to provide 22 parking spaces. That was known buying the property. I mean I can’t buy off on that either, so I guess my opinion is, do we require a reduction in the size of the building? And maybe if possible, could we ask the applicant if that’s a possibility? Sacchet: We have a question possibly for the applicant. John Kohler: Personally I don’t think Walgreen’s would do it. We looked at trying to go down. We looked at, and when you say 3 times the size of the building. The bank’s two stories so. Lillehaug: Right. Right. John Kohler: We’re one. Lillehaug: Okay. John Kohler: So. Lillehaug: Same height. John Kohler: Quite that but, we looked at it. We do have a water table issue there. Bob got into that with the basement on the bank. So we were looking at doing some issues there. The 74 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 problem is, if we take the storage and put in another level, we really don’t make the footprint that much smaller because of the elevators and the stairs you end up needing. As you can see on that plan, the storage is simply that area along the west side. The rest is bathrooms, things like that. So it doesn’t save us a whole lot of room. Lillehaug: Okay. Then let me ask staff a question. Are we going to over load our storm water ponds by this extra 5 percent? Saam: Well we looked at that and for the commercial business district, the TR 55 storm water runoff, assumes 85 percent impervious so we should be okay there. Papke: There’s a big pond across the street. Sacchet: Follow-up question for staff based on comments from Commissioner Lillehaug. On page 12 in the middle of the staff report there’s a statement, the majority, not just some but the majority of buildings within the surrounding areas have received hard surface coverage variances. Do we have any quantative information how big those are? I mean 5 percent? 10 percent? 20 percent? I mean do we have any idea? I guess at 11:30 at night that’s a tough question but. Al-Jaff: I don’t recall the exact numbers, however Tires Plus, Applebee’s, Buffalo Wild Wings and Chipotle. Sacchet: They all have variances? Al-Jaff: Each and every single one of them… Sacchet: Because it’s kind of hard to not, to push for not having a variance here if 4 properties immediately next to it have it you know. Lillehaug: I’d buy that. Sacchet: Alright. Any more discussion? Comments. Motion. Papke: I’ll make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Site Plan 05- 3 for a 15,000 square foot building to house a retail building and pharmacy with a variance to allow a 70.4% hard surface coverage and reduction in parking based on the findings of the staff report, and as shown on the plans dated received December 3, 2004, subject to conditions 1 through 23. Plus I’d like to add two additional conditions. Condition number 24. Alter the drive up on the north side to one way. Condition number 25. Allow additional hard surface variance coverage for an additional bench on the southwest corner. Sacchet: Do we have a second? Or, yeah first a second. Any second? Slagle: I’ll second it. 75 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Sacchet: We have a second. Any friendly amendments? Papke moved, Slagle seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Site Plan 05-3 for a 15,000 square foot building to house a retail building and pharmacy, with a variance to allow a 70.4% hard surface coverage and reduction in parking, based on the findings of the staff report, and as shown on the plans dated received December 3, 2004, subject to the following conditions: 1. Applicant shall increase landscape plantings to meet minimum requirements. A revised landscape plan shall be submitted to the City prior to final approval. 2. Landscape islands shall have a minimum inside width of 10 feet. 3. Add the latest City standard detail plate Nos. 5207, 5300, and 5301. 4. On the utility plan: a. Revise the proposed inverts for catch basin No. 1 to 949.25 and 949.19, respectively. b. Label the existing water stub to the site off Market Boulevard as 8" DIP. 5. On the grading plan: a. Add a benchmark. b. Show the proposed storm sewer. c. Increase the rock construction entrances to a minimum of 75-feet in length. d. Show the parking lot stall locations and striping. e. Show the missing 954 contour elevation along the north side of the property. 6. Installation of the private utilities for the site will require permits and inspections through the City’s Building Department. 7. The applicant must show the location/elevation of an emergency overflow point for catch basin No. 2 that is 1.5-feet lower than the proposed building elevation. 8. Storm sewer sizing calculations will be required at the time of building permit application. The proposed storm sewer must be sized for a 10-year storm event. 9. Sanitary sewer and water hookup charges will be applicable for the new building. The 2005 trunk hookup charge is $1,458 per unit for sanitary sewer and $2,955 per unit for watermain. The 2005 SAC charge is $1,525 per unit. All of these charges are based on the number of SAC units calculated by the Met Council. Since there is an existing building, only hook-up charges for the additional SAC units will be charged. These charges will be collected at the time of building permit issuance. Sanitary sewer and watermain hookup fees may be specially assessed against the parcel. 10. 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. 76 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 11. Permits from the MPCA, Watershed District and Railroad will be required for the site grading. 12. All drive aisle widths within the parking lot must be 26-feet wide per City Code and the existing driveway aprons must be upgraded to current City standards per Detail Plate No. 5207. 13. The existing assessment for the recent 2004 Street Overlay Project, totaling $11,436.83 plus interest, must be paid prior to building permit issuance. 14. The proposed development shall maintain existing runoff rates and meet NURP water quality standards. 15. 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: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and 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 natural or manmade systems that discharge to a surface water. 16. Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as-needed. 17. 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), Army Corps of Engineers) and comply with their conditions of approval. 18. Fire Marshal Conditions a. A 10-foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e., streetlamps, trees, shrubs, bushes, Xcel Energy, Qwest, cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters (pursuant to Chanhassen City Ordinance 9-1). b. Indicate on utility plans the location of PIV (post indicator valve). Fire Marshal must review and approve. 19. Building Official Conditions: a. The building is required to be protected by automatic fire extinguishing systems. 77 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 b. The plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. c. A demolition permit must be obtained prior to beginning demolition activities on the site. d. The site must be protected with an 8 foot high fence during demolition and construction activities. e. Detailed occupancy related requirements cannot be reviewed until complete plans are submitted. f. The owner and/or their representative shall meet with the Inspections Division as soon as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. 20. All rooftop equipment shall be screened. 21. The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement with the city and provide the necessary financial securities. 22. The applicant must obtain a sign permit prior to erecting the signs on site. A detailed sign plan incorporating the method of lighting, acceptable to staff, should be provided prior to requesting a sign permit. 23. The Planning Commission recommends the withdrawal of approval of Site Plan 92-1 for the Americana Community Bank building, concurrently with the approval of Planning Case 05- 3. The applicant shall file the notice of withdrawal against the property at Carver County." 24. Alter the drive up on the north side to one way. 25. Allow additional hard surface variance coverage for an additional bench on the southwest corner. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Sacchet: I would like to make a comment to encourage council to consider staff’s reasoning about doing the two way and monitor it. Personally at first I thought it was a bad idea but when I heard staff’s reasoning I had to admit there was some merit in it so that’s just a comment in addition to this. Aanenson: Can we get a motion on the conditional use too. Sacchet: And we need a motion, alright we need a last motion guys. It’s on page 16. Papke: Okay, okay, okay. I’ll make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends approval for Conditional Use Permit 05-03 for the LED display within a monument ground low profile sign. Sacchet: Second. 78 Planning Commission Meeting – January 4, 2005 Papke moved, Sacchet seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval for Conditional Use Permit 05-03 for the LED display within a monument ground low profile sign. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Slagle noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated December 7, 2004 as presented. Chairman Sacchet adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 11:30 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 79