PC Minutes 4-19-05
Planning Commission Meeting - April 19, 2005
13. The applicant shall apply for and obtain pennits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g.,
Riley-Purgatory-BluffCreek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES
Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering))
and comply with their conditions of approval.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to O.
Sacchet: Well we wish you luck with this and I got to be very honest. If it was a different
developer I would have had a very hard time going along with this. So we'll take a 5 minute
recess and we'll try to briefly address the remaining items.
PUBLIC HEARING:
REQUEST FOR REZONING OF PROPERTY FROM A2 TO PUD-R: SUBDIVISION
WITH VARIANCES OF APPROXIMATELY 91 ACRES INTO 84 LOTS. 3 OUTLOTS
AND PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY: SITE PLAN APPROVAL FOR 459 TOWNHOUSE
UNITS: WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT: CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR
ALTERATION OF THE FLOOD PLAIN: AND CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR
DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE BLUFF CREEK OVERLAY DISTRICT. THE
PROPERTY IS LOCATED EAST OF AUDUBON ROAD. SOUTH OF LYMAN
BOULEVARD. AND NORTH OF PIONEER TRAIL. LIBERTY ON BLUFF CREEK.
APPLICANT. TOWN AND COUNTRY HOMES. PLANNING CASE NO. 05-11.
Public Present:
Name
Address
Jeff & Jenny Silus
Rick Dorsey
Keith Wyman
Dave Zelinsky
2662 Shadow Lane, Chaska
14215 Green View Court, Eden Prairie
2674 Shadow Wood Court, Chaska
2886 Ironwood Blvd.
Kate Aanenson presented the staff report on this item.
Sacchet: Thank you Kate. Questions. Go ahead Kurt.
Papke: Yeah we're, if my math is correct we're losing about 3% of our office industrial space.
Aanenson: Correct.
Papke: What's our feeling in terms of tax base? In terms of the market for office industrial right
now? You know is this lost?
Aanenson: Well that's the question that the council has. When, in the process oflooking at the
AUAR they spent some time saying that maybe this should be predominantly industrial, this area
down here. What you have to remember is when we updated the comprehensive plan in 1998,
we put this land use together. Projections were made. People made other economic decisions
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Planning Commission Meeting - April 19, 2005
based on ultimate population of significant developments that we've had recently. So those, all
those things had to be played into balance. Right now, I guess I would ask maybe Commissioner
Undestad ifhe would have any additional comments on the office industrial market right now,
but you know we don't always make decisions for today. You have to think long term in
holding it but that was one of the questions that the council said too. We can zone it office
industrial. It may sit there for quite a while, you know as opposed to getting taxes today so the
council did discuss that.
Undestad: I don't know. I mean again you're looking farther down the road. I think as the
city's probably seen too in the last few years, the industrial's probably slowed down a little bit
around here. We've got some large projects out here. Lifetime, things like that but the office
warehouse or industrial stuff has been a little slow at catch up again. It's, we're starting to see
more activity now but long term, 3% and stuff.
Papke: Is that a consideration though. I mean if you look at where this property is, it's all farm
land right now. So there's really nothing to compare it to in Chanhassen. There is adjacent,
Autumn Woods in Chaska. There's a Chaska single family housing development to the south. I
mean you know, it's not exactly an office warehouse area right now so I have kind of mixed
feelings about it. On one hand I hate to lose what it's next to, it's next to homes.
Aanenson: And that was a lot of the rationale when we put the recommendations for land use.
There's industrial across here in Chaska is why we gave that. Could it be, could more of this
that's closer to Powers possibly be industrial? Yeah. We looked at this as industrial, kind of in
the convergence of that triangle there. You know what this eventually is the frontage road
making it's way down through here, so you're right.
Sacchet: In terms of designation, I'd like just to clarify one thing. Since it's designated office
industrial or medium density, that doesn't mean if somebody comes and uses it for one use that
then we have to make up for the other use somewhere else in the city because we'd be basically
say anybody coming with one of those two uses has to, if it's the right thing for this, right?
Aanenson: Well that's how I would say it. I think the council kind of wants to do a check and
balance. If we take it here, you have to give it somewhere else but I'm not sure you can always
do that, but that's the challenge and certainly everybody in this area, if they could do multi
family high density or medium density.. .because they can make that happen today. But again
we'd be responsible for that mix of different land use choices. Housing types. And I glossed
over that which I do want to go back to really quickly. And I apologize. That's one of the things
too that's impOliant is the different, you know we just approved a lot of subdivisions in the
600,000 plus. Over the last 150 that we've gone lots, single family lots. So in this project it's
proposing some price point under the 200,000. As I indicated in the staff report, we are. .. and by
today's dollar anything under $193,700 would qualify for affordable owner occupied housing, so
and they do have that proposed in this project so again that will meet some of our housing goals.
Sacchet: Okay, and that's always something that the Met Council is pushing us to do right? And
we're kind of behind with that aren't we as a city?
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Planning Commission Meeting - April 19, 2005
Aanenson: Yeah, we have, the biggest challenge we have is the rental. That's the toughest to do
and this again is market rates. There's no incentive. It's being all, it's market rate driven.
There's no assistance from the city or any other agency. Again we've had Carver County HRA
buy some units and work with the developer and rent those out and then move people in a
different, more permanent housing.
Sacchet: I didn't mean to derail your questioning Kurt. Okay. Anybodyelse? Okay. Now you
did mention that staff is recommending tabling and there's a considerable collection oflists I
should say from the different departments of what could be done. However this is advertised as
a public hearing for tonight so I'd like to follow through the steps with the understanding that if
we, as the Planning Commission go with the recommendation from staff and do table this, that
this will come back. That we will address this at a later meeting again and I want to just make
clear that I would also extend the public hearing to that meeting as well, but with that, if the
applicant wants to summarize this under that aspect, without maybe going into real excessive
detail. If you want to make some statements, that would be appreciated please.
Krista Novack: Good evening. My name is Krista Novack. I'm the Community Planning
Manager for Town and Country Homes and I have with me tonight Kevin Clark, who is our
Director of Development. Ron Fuchs is our Entitlements Manager and Rick Jansen is our V.P.
of Land Acquisition. We also have Ed Hasek and Chris Moerhl from Westwood Professional,
planners and engineers ofthe site here to answer questions but first we'd like to thank staff and
they've worked very hard on our property and also to thank Planning Commission for the
opportunities to present our proposal and get feedback from you. Kate was very thorough in the
presentation and I guess what I wanted to address is just the biggest impact was the re-
delineation of the primary overlay district and how that's going to affect our plan and Kate kind
of alluded to that. We can go to the site plan. It's hard for me not to be able to point to it but if
you can go to the northern portion by the primary and then include the pocket park area and the
two connections to the eastern. As Kate mentioned, first of all with the Majestic architecture,
which is our rear loading garage, we are increasing the size of the driveways from 10 feet to 20
feet so that area, where you see that, those buildings is going to be shifted along with the areas to
the north with the premiere walkout units along the primary zone. That's going to squeeze that
pocket park area and so that pocket park area that originally was planned is going to get smaller
and shrink up and then also we wanted to do is connect those two streets so we have more of a
loop and the buildings on the east side of that loop would be connected by a private drive, so
there's more going to be of a loop, a circulation with that road. That's one of the changes that is
going to happen that is significant but it's nót going to compromise the intent of our plan.
Another thing too on the south portion of the site with the primary overlay district and the
shifting of that, the southeast comer with the retaining walls, we understand that is an area that
we need to address and we are working towards the best possible solution for the retaining walls
and the grades. Maybe it's re-adjusting the product or how they layout but we understand that's
a hurdle we have to jump and we're looking into that. As well as parking, and overall, generally
parking. I think we hit the numbers but we are focusing more on the proximity of the parking
area.
Sacchet: Do we have any questions for the applicant? Not at this point? Alright, thank you.
That was definitely key points you addressed, I appreciate that. Getting right to the point. Now
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Planning Commission Meeting - April 19, 2005
this is a public hearing so if anybody wants to come up and address this item at this point, this is
your opportunity. Please state your name and address for the record.
Rick Dorsey: My name's Rick Dorsey. I have propeliy on Lyman Boulevard and I just, I guess
at this point in the evening, this is a pretty detailed or big plan. I just would like to say I do have
comments and to get into them in detail would not be timely here this evening. I just want to
make sure that there is in fact an extension of the public hearing to let you know that there is.
Sacchet: Yes, I already mentioned that we would do it that way. And I mean, I would think we
need a more finalized proposal in fl:ont of us to get into the detailed discussion of it so we
definitely will extend the public hearing to that point.
Rick Dorsey: Even to the point of some ofthe other issues that you're looking at, besides just
the detail of this plan. Change of land use, that type of thing.
Sacchet: Okay, thank you. Anybody else?
John Chadwick: My name is John Chadwick. I live at 11430 Ryan Circle. I'm here
representing the Peterson family. I'm glad to say good evening instead of good morning. It's
getting a little bit late.
Sacchet: We're not going to be here that long.
John Chadwick: Sounds fine. But thank you for the chance to get together here. We have
worked quite a bit with staff and have enjoyed that. The Peterson property shares a number of
similarities with the Town and Country or slash Bernardi property and that is definitely we
would, we share the exact same zoning. We share a couple thousand feet of contiguous
boundary. Their east boundary, our west boundary. We share a great desire to have residential
on this, on the Peterson property as well, being that we share all of these commonalities. The
question before you this evening. . .how does this plan fit in with your overall community goals?
How does it fit in with the land use and the whole 640 acres? How does it fit in on this particular
parcel, and I guess by definition how does it fit in with the neighbor? So we would ask you to
consider that as you move along. I don't know if this is, if there's still room for possibilities on
this.
Aanenson: It's not going to show up on this but you can see it on your monitor.
John Chadwick: Again the same, the same considerations. There's 120 acres sitting there, of
which 29 acres is going to be in the primary Bluff Creek. Another 49, almost 50 acres going to
be in the secondary Bluff Creek Overlay. Just so, there's an awful lot of detail but it's part of
this overall global community AUAR neighborhood area. We would also support staff
recommendation. There's a lot of things that have gone into this and careful deliberation and
Kate's words are well taken in tenns ofland use as it applies to the entire area so in brief that's it
and thank you for the opportunity.
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Planning Commission Meeting - April 19, 2005
Sacchet: Thank you. Anybody else? Anybody else would like to address this? Seeing nobody
else getting up, I will close the public hearing. Bring it back to the commission for brief
discussion and comments.
Audience: I just want to know when the next public hearing will be?
Sacchet: When will the next public hearing be? It will be published. It will be in the Villager
and I don't know, do we send a notice out if we have a continued public hearing? So it's not
really a different public hearing. I should make this very clear. I did not close the public
hearing. I leave this public hearing open. Okay, correction. This public hearing remains open
til this item comes back and then we continue the public hearing.
Aanenson: I just want to make for the record, if you want to track an item you can go to the
city's web page and then check the agenda. They're tentatively posted and then you can also
download the staff report by going to the date of agenda. If you're still not sure then you're
welcome to call the city staff where we can help you on when this is.
Sacchet: Okay, comments. Discussion.
Papke: Lots of houses. Lots of impact on the schools. It is, is the school planning taking, are
they aware of this? Are they taking this into their account?
Aanenson: Yep. Bob just met with the School District 112 as they updated their, yes. Their
population projections. Yep. Again it's under the, if you look at where they're at for density,
which we pointed out there too, it's come down from what the original was. The 459 and the
overall density which I think they're going to at 5.81. For net. As opposed to the 8. So it may
go down a little bit more.
Sacchet: It's an interesting comment that came up in terms oflooking at the whole area as much
as possible as a whole. I mean which is somewhat difficult because I mean the proposal they
brought in front of us are market driven and we don't have the liberty to say well, we want this
proposal and don't want the other. But nevertheless it creates a context. I mean if we have one
use going in, it certainly has an influence of what is going to be an appropriate mix to it and so
forth, so I think that's definitely something to look at. I think all the critical aspects have been
touched on. I think you were here, as we went through our earlier deliberation here and I want to
point out we do take our bluff setbacks and preservations quite serious so with wetlands and as
such, primary zone, I think that's been pretty clear of what staff already said so I'm going to
reiterate that to be really clear about it. The concern about parking, bringing it closer to the
residents, we had that in our discussion session already. The aspect ofthe retaining walls. I
mean they're all pretty clearly defined and then you have tons of specifics from staff to work on.
I don't know whether we need to belabor this or if not let's make a motion.
Keefe: Just make a motion to table.
Sacchet: We have a motion. Do we have a second?
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Planning Commission Meeting - April 19, 2005
Zorn: Second.
Sacchet: We have a motion, we have a second.
Keefe moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission table action on Liberty on
Bluff Creek, Planning Case No. 05-11. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously with a vote of 6 to O.
Sacchet: We look forward to see this moving forward and appreciate all your efforts with this.
Papke: Which of these materials should we preserve for the future?
Aanenson: I don't think you need any of that.
Sacchet: We'll get a whole new set. We don't need to keep the blueprints either.
Aanenson: Hold on to these.
Sacchet: Just the glossy, okay.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Papke noted the verbatim and summary
minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated April 5, 2005 as presented.
Aanenson: Before you adjourn, you do have a work session with the City Council. I meant to
get you out, what we're going to talk about is the goals that we did last year and the one we did
for this year. I was going to remind you of those and send that to you tomorrow via e-mail. I
believe it's 5:30 next Monday, but I'll e-mail you on that.
Sacchet: Yeah, that'd be a good reminder.
Papke: Of course I won't be there. This will be the last semester. I might be giving it up.
Sacchet: I hope we'll talk about cul-de-sacs versus dead end streets.
Chairman Sacchet adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 10:50 p.m.
Submitted by Kate Aanenson
Community Development Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
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