CC Minutes 05-27-2014Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
Planning Conditions
1.Approval of the subdivision is contingent upon the applicant dedicating a conservation
easement and restriction over the vacant parcel located in the City of Shorewood to remain as
open space.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you everybody. Appreciate your good work and welcome. Let’s move on.
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3010 WEST 78 STREET REZONING, NORTHWEST CORNER OF WEST 78 STREET AND
HIGHWAY 41, WESTWOOD COMMUNITY CHURCH: REQUEST FOR REZONING FROM
RURAL RESIDENTIAL (RR) TO OFFICE/INSTITUTIONAL (OI) OF 1.25 ACRES.
Mayor Furlong: Councilman Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. Mayor, I think it’s appropriate that I recuse myself for this particular
item.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Let’s start with a staff report then on this rezoning request of the property
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located at 3010 West 78 Street.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. This item did appear before the
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Planning Commission at their May 6 meeting and they did recommend approval of the rezoning and
land use amendment. So again there’s two actions for you. This property is located off of Highway 41
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and West 78 Street. The corner of the property. The church bought this property and another property
and combined them and I’ll go through that in a minute but the land use for this area is actually guided for
public/semi-public. The one house that we’re speaking of is actually low density residential and the
zoning for this is office institutional. The church actually when they bought the properties, they have one
PID which is kind of anomaly but since they’re owned and we were going through the comp plan
amendment which we just found out last week for the Cove was approved. This missed that application
but we are going to go forward with a land use amendment on that since it’s owned by the church and it
makes sense as we’re cleaning up the areas and replatting in the area. So I just wanted to go through the
history of the property so this illustration shows when the church bought the property there was two
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homes on West 78 and when we did the sewer project back through there and then the Arbors came
through, the church bought both those homes and removed one to get that through. We actually put a
public street through there to give them additional access to their parking lot so they, in their due
diligence to expedite that construction bought that house and then so now they own this whole property
which is called the Hope House. Again it’s under the same PID so really what the intent here is to, to
kind of clean up the situation as it exists out there today and reflect what’s really happening and that’s
owned by the church. Again this does require a land use amendment. Normally you don’t re-guide
something that’s inconsistent but it’s our intention as is stated in the Comprehensive Plan, if you’re
showing that it’s your intention to go through with that, then that would be fine and it is our intention to
clean that up. The plat that’s coming through on the Cove will also clean up some of the right-of-way
here because they just put it through the church property where.
Mayor Furlong: I’m sorry, could you, we’re still looking at the.
Kate Aanenson: I’m sorry.
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Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
Mayor Furlong: When you say here it’s, yeah.
Kate Aanenson: Here you can see me go like this.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, and then over here there’s, yeah.
Kate Aanenson: I get in my zone. Over here.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So this is, I’m sorry. Here’s the two properties right here. Does that help you?
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Yeah, that’s helpful.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I’m sorry about that.
Mayor Furlong: We were still following it. It’s just.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. It’s always better with a picture. So these two homes were the ones that
were bought by the church. This one was removed but it was just a description of property. It wasn’t a
clean title on that so with that home being removed and this going forward now with the plat and the
Cove, we’re cleaning up all of this. There’ll be separate. The Cove will plat up to a certain point and
then the church will come back and clean up this plat and get that resolved so it will all, really it’s the
opportunity to clean up all this area. So.
Mayor Furlong: So by clean up are they going to, right now.
Kate Aanenson: To plat it.
Mayor Furlong: It’s a separate parcel.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah it’s all metes and bounds.
Mayor Furlong: To plat it.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, it’s all metes and bounds.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Fair enough.
Kate Aanenson: And so the descriptions overlap so we’ll get that cleaned up with this plat and then the
church will come back through and plat their property on this house so it’s got the same PID which is
unusual that the County would do that because of the descriptions but.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So that’s the intent is really to clean up what we have down there. Let me see if there’s
anything else. Zoning, you didn’t need to look at that. Here’s the location map in case you wanted to see
that. So really it’s pretty straight forward. So the staff is recommending that we rezoning the 1.25 acres
located at the corner from Rural Residential to Office/Institutional and we adopt the attached Findings of
Fact so.
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Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Questions for staff. Ms. Aanenson. The land use for the main church
property and what is being proposed for this one to change to is public/semi-public. From a land use
Comprehensive Plan standpoint but the zoning is the Office/Institutional. Why the difference?
Kate Aanenson: Well.
Mayor Furlong: And I’m maybe.
Kate Aanenson: The church is using it as part of their institutional.
Mayor Furlong: No I guess I’m trying to understand if the Comprehensive Plan is guiding the use as
Public/Semi-Public, why aren’t we zoning it Public/Semi-Public instead of Office Institutional?
Kate Aanenson: That’s a good question.
Mayor Furlong: And I think that’s, that’s how they’re currently, the main site is also guided.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: As Public/Semi-Public but it’s zoned Office/Institutional and I don’t have any problem
with matching up the zoning but I guess I’m just curious from a.
Kate Aanenson: It should be consistent with what the church has which is the.
Mayor Furlong: Office/Institutional.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Do we need to amend the Comprehensive Plan then?
Kate Aanenson: Yes we do and that’s why I stated.
Mayor Furlong: Should the.
Kate Aanenson: The comprehensive, yeah. Go ahead.
Mayor Furlong: But should the Comprehensive Plan be from low density to Office/Institutional as
opposed to Public/Semi-Public?
Kate Aanenson: No.
Mayor Furlong: What’s the difference in the?
Kate Aanenson: All the churches and schools we have in the city, including the regional park, Camp
Tanadoona, Landscape Arboretum are all guided for Public/Semi-Public.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So is Eckankar. Those are what they’re all guided.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
Kate Aanenson: What I stated is that because this is inconsistent with that, with what our comp plan says
is it’s your intention. The City Council. So you’re stating your intention to make this consistent with this
action and we’ll be coming back with a Land Use Amendment for consistency.
Mayor Furlong: Okay and I guess I’m, I’m just, typically if we have something guided for low density
residential and we change the zoning to match the guiding is there, I guess my question would be, why do
we use Public/Semi-Public as a guiding but use an Office/Institutional as the land. As the zoning.
Kate Aanenson: Because that’s how our Zoning Ordinance is within that zoning district. That’s all.
Mayor Furlong: And is that consistent across the rest of the city too?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes.
Mayor Furlong: So do we have any land that’s zoned Public/Semi-Public? I don’t know Mr. Knutson.
It’s just, it’s an inconsistency that I generally don’t see in the staff reports.
Kate Aanenson: No. No. I can.
Mayor Furlong: And again I’m fine going forward with what’s being asked.
Kate Aanenson: No that’s how we have, all the schools are, would be Office/Institutional.
Mayor Furlong: So Chanhassen High School is Public/Semi-Public with an Office/Institutional zoning or
use?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. I’m going to just verify this.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, Council members, the property is currently guided Residential low density and
that’s not what the property’s being used for. It’s not the long range plans for the use of that facility and
so what we’re doing is two things. We’re going to rezone and then re-guide.
Mayor Furlong: And I guess my only question is, and maybe it’s a technical question with no difference
but typically if something is guided for a particular land use, that’s what the zoning gets changed to.
Todd Gerhardt: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Here’s we’re changing, we’re guiding it to a Public/Semi-Public use.
Todd Gerhardt: Right.
Mayor Furlong: But we’re being asked to zone it to an Office/Institutional.
Kate Aanenson: Can I give you another example of that?
Mayor Furlong: Why don’t we just do it to the Public/Semi-Public?
Kate Aanenson: Because in our Zoning Ordinance we have high density zoning but we don’t say what
that’s going to be. So within that high density we say this could be up to 16 units an acre but when it
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Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
comes in for a specific application, it may be a PUD zoning. It may be you know some other type of, so
there’s different iterations within that.
Mayor Furlong: Let me ask this question then. What type of uses are allowed in a Public/Semi-Public?
Kate Aanenson: I’ll go to the City Attorney. Yeah so churches, fire stations, public health, hospitals,
nursing home, post office, public open space, schools. All the schools in the city. Churches are all
Office/Institutional.
Mayor Furlong: Office/Institutional? Would they also be Public/Semi-Public?
Kate Aanenson: Correct, for the land use. Right.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And maybe I’m, maybe I’m the only one confused but okay. Let me ask this
question. If the property, you just read off the Office/Institutional?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Group. Is Public/Semi-Public a different list or are they the same?
Kate Aanenson: Public/Semi-Public is a land use designation that doesn’t have the same specific uses in
it per se. If we were to look at the Comprehensive Plan I could, if you give me one second I’d look at that
too.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Let me ask you this question.
Kate Aanenson: Sure.
Mayor Furlong: If the use and, well. Public/Semi-Public provides for, and the Office/Institutional is an
acceptable zoning within Public/Semi-Public?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Is that a fair statement?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: Then we’re good.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you.
Kate Aanenson: So it could be Eckankar. Again recognizing that it’s not consistent today with the zone
change.
Mayor Furlong: Yep.
Kate Aanenson: Our Comprehensive Plan says if the City Council states it’s our intent so I didn’t want to
come back with that 1 1/2 acre land use amendment. We have another land use amendment going
forward that will come with this that that’s your intent.
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Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
Mayor Furlong: So we’re going to do them at the same time. The amendment. The land use
amendments?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah with another one that’s coming forward.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And that’s for efficiency that.
Kate Aanenson: Right.
Mayor Furlong: And consistency.
Kate Aanenson: Right and that’s what our comp plan, if you state that that’s your intention, that’s how I
read it.
Mayor Furlong: Yep, okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Is a representative from Westwood
Church here?
Scott Sturm: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Anything you’d like to address the council on sir? Welcome.
Scott Sturm: Thank you Mr. Mayor, City Council. Scott Sturm, 1051 Anthony Way, Victoria. Really as
the summary report indicated this is an administrative clean up in terms of the legal description. Just with
the opportunity, with the Arbor Cove sale that was approved last month we just thought we would bring
consistency to the entire plat and this is just part of that. Part of that clean up process.
Mayor Furlong: Fair enough.
Kate Aanenson: And again that notification went in to the Met Council. It had already been in for a
number of days and so we couldn’t go back and amend that one so that got approved so we don’t
anticipate any problems bringing this one forward for the same reason but we’re waiting for another
application that’s coming in to go with it.
Mayor Furlong: Got it. Okay, good. Thank you. Any questions?
Councilman McDonald: I’ve got one.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: The current house that’s on there, what do you all use that for?
Scott Sturm: Has varied use. Right now we have some missions who have been sent by Westwood.
They’re living there right now and we’ve had mission families come in and out of there, pardon me, based
on their schedules and it’s available for church members or members of the community who are in
distress. Through home fires, what have you. Any sort of other personal situations so it’s available
housing for really the membership or the community at large.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you.
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Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
Mayor Furlong: Good, thank you. Any other information or any comments by members of the council?
Mr. Gerhardt?
Todd Gerhardt: To follow State Statute the first state should be a re-guiding and then the rezoning. So I
think our comp plan says something different but State Statute kind of trumps our comp plan so tonight
staff is asking council not to take action on this item and do the re-guiding first and then the rezoning. So
that there’s a.
Mayor Furlong: Do we need to take any action on the re-guiding tonight and hold off on the rezoning?
Todd Gerhardt: No.
Mayor Furlong: Or is there no action required for the re-guiding?
Roger Knutson: The re-guiding will be coming back to you.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Roger Knutson: It will be coming to you.
Mayor Furlong: At which Ms. Aanenson just said.
Roger Knutson: Yes. So for tonight you could just table action on this until that comes back.
Mayor Furlong: And then when that comes back.
Roger Knutson: Deal with them both at the same time.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah we have to send notice. Get approval from Met Council before it comes back to
you so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Prior to tabling it then, action tonight, any thoughts or concerns or any
information, additional information that anyone from the council would like to receive so when it does
come back we can deal with it as efficiently as possible? Will be comfortable with going forward once
we go through the steps in the right order? Yes? I’m seeing heads going up and down so.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: So for anybody reading the Minutes of this meeting they will know that there heads
nodding and not going back and forth.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yes.
Councilwoman Ernst: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Alright. With that then I guess at this point it would be appropriate to move
to table this item to bring it back to a future council meeting. Would somebody like to make such a
motion?
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Chanhassen City Council – May 27, 2014
Councilwoman Ernst: Mr. Mayor? I make a motion that we table this action at this time.
Mayor Furlong: To a future meeting, thank you. And is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: I’ll second it.
Mayor Furlong: Motions to table are no debatable so we’ll proceed with the vote.
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council table action on
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the rezoning of 1.25 acres of property located in the northwest corner of Highway 41 and West 78
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Street (3010 West 78 Street). All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of
4 to 0.
DISCUSS FEES FOR GRAVES AT THE CHANHASSEN PIONEER CEMETERY.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. Back in November of 2013 council directed staff to complete
a survey on grave fees paid by local municipalities that have cemeteries and churches. Attached in your
report is a comprehensive survey showing that. In summary the municipal cemeteries grave fee, some of
them broke them out as resident/non-resident. We had a high of $1,000 for a resident and $1,000 for non-
resident. As a low, which was us, the $200 for resident/non-resident and the average of $554 as an
average for resident and then $713 dollars average for non-resident. We also did survey some of the local
churches with cemeteries. On the high for a member of the church was $1,000. For non-members it was
$1,500. On a low, member of the church paid $350 and a non-member paid $500. Again on the average
for the churches, $648 for a member. $909 for a non-member. Back in November staff did a, kind of a
cost benefit of expanding on the cemetery and the numbers that we used to look at plot prices or grave
fees, we used $200 as a resident and $500 for a non-resident and if you wanted to go with one flat fee it
was roughly $300 on an average grave site for a fee so. To hit our revenues to make everything cost
neutral staff would recommend not going below $300 for a grave site.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Questions for Mr. Gerhardt.
Councilwoman Ernst: I have two questions.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, start with Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: So Todd can you, as I’m looking at the analysis that was done, and I’m looking at
the total, the total annual revenue.
Mayor Furlong: This is the one that was distributed with our November packet correct?
Councilwoman Ernst: Yeah. Well it was the one that was sent today.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. And it was in the November packet but that’s fine. Go ahead.
Councilwoman Ernst: So the total net revenue per year is $1,295.52 and that’s based on a $200
residential and a $500 non-residential, right?
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
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