Loading...
PC Minutes 08-19-2014Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 City Forester 1.The applicant shall revise the landscape plan to replace the majority of the deciduous shrubs with evergreen varieties. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: 3880 LONE CEDAR LANE: REQUEST FOR VARIANCE TO THE BLUFF SETBACK TO CONSTRUCT A WATER-ORIENTED STRUCTURE ON PROPERTY ZONED SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF) AND LOCATED AT 3880 LONE CEDAR LANE. APPLICANT/OWNER: SCOTT MURPHY, PLANNING CASE 2014-20. Aller: And for the record we’ve received an additional letter to add to our packets dated August 12, 2014 from Mr. William Humphries and that has been read by all the commissioners and will become part of the packet. Ingvalson: Good evening Chairman Aller and Planning Commission. My name is Drew Ingvalson, since I don’t have a name tag I’ll introduce myself. My name is Drew Ingvalson. I’m interning here at the City of Chanhassen. The item before you, Planning Case 2014-20 is a bluff setback variance request. The location is at 3880 Lone Cedar Lane. This is north of State Highway 5, on the southwest side of Lake Minnewashta. The applicant is requesting a 13 foot bluff setback variance from the required 30 foot bluff setback to locate a water oriented structure 17 feet from the toe or the low side of the bluff. So if you look at the survey up there, there currently is a shed existing on the property that will be removed with the, with locating a new water oriented structure on the property. In green you can see a 20 foot sanitary sewer easement. Permanent structures are not allowed within that easement. Also there is a red line on the left side of that green 20 foot sanitary sewer easement. That shows the 30 foot bluff setback and then in yellow is the yellow rectangle is the proposed water oriented structure location. The left side would be within that bluff setback. The property owner is requesting a variance for this location so that the water oriented structure can be permanent and is not in danger of being removed in the future by the City. Within 500 feet of this property there have been three variance requests. One of those requests was approved for a 10 foot bluff setback variance for a retaining wall. So while it is reasonable to request a water oriented structure, it is possible for this property to have one and also meet city code. Staff’s recommendation is to locate a temporary water oriented structure within the buildable area. You can see the location for that would be the rectangle in blue and then the buildable area is the black diagonal lines within the sanitary sewer easement. To locate something within that sanitary sewer easement it would require an encroachment agreement with the City. This would City ordinance but would not allow for the permanent structure and would possibly need to be removed by the City in the future. So staff is recommending that the Board of Appeals and Adjustment denies the bluff setback variance request and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision. However should the Planning Commission decide to approve the variance request, staff has provided an alternative Findings of Fact and Decision. That is the end of the presentation and I’m open to any questions that the Planning Commission has. 15 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 Aller: Thank you. Any questions at this point? Not yet? Okay. I guess I’ll ask about the previous variance for the retaining wall. What was the purpose of the retaining wall? Was it for erosion or protection of water or? Ingvalson: I don’t have that written here. Apologize. Aller: Okay. And then what do we envision a temporary structure looking like? Ingvalson: It’s going to be on 18 by 12 foot structure just to hold in different kayaks, canoes, different water. Aller: Would it be on wheels? Would it be on blocks? Ingvalson: So if it is outside it will be a permanent structure. The proposed one will be outside of that so it will be with a permanent structure there with footings. If it’s located within the sanitary sewer area it will be on skids. Aller: So it would be on skids. And then what is the likelihood that we, if we have in the past, that we’ve come in and actually asked someone to remove something or done work inside our easement area for the sewer? Is that something, do we have planned maintenance coming up in the next couple years? Did we look, I mean is it something we should be looking at? Fauske: That’s an excellent question. Every year the City does do televising of the sanitary sewer system within the city. Since we have an extensive network we only cover a fraction of the percentage of the sewer within the city. Typically we go and televise the sanitary sewer within an area that we will be doing a street project. Those take priority to make sure that we’re maintaining the pipe underneath the streets that we are going to do some improvements on. So we don’t have, to my knowledge we don’t have this one on the docket as far as getting any sewer televising done in there. That being said in an emergency situation, which has happened in the past where crews have had to go out and do an emergency fix, they do have equipment out there that we would be able to move a structure within the easement and that’s what the easement allows us to do. Aller: Additional questions at this time? Okay. We’ll ask the applicant to step forward and perhaps give us some insight as well. If you could state your name and address for the record that would be great. Scott Murphy: Good evening. My name is Scott Murphy. I live at 3880 Lone Cedar Lane. It’s Chaska, although I am actually a Chanhassen resident. It’s in city limits there. Don’t hold that against me. I appreciate you hearing me tonight. I’m impressed with all this discussion for a little back yard shed so I’m requesting a shed here. I’m just going to read off my notes real quickly. To put a boathouse in the back yard here. I’m recognizing that we are going to incringe on, or impinge upon the setback requirements of 15 feet from the lake and 30 feet from the bluff. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with meeting that if it wasn’t the fact that it was really setting up in the sewer easement. For me that’s really not an ideal scenario. If I’m going to build a shed and 12 by 18 feet is a decent size, I’d prefer not to put that on skids. The fact is you may or may not have seen some of the pictures that we sent but that’s not a flat or level area where you’re putting it on. There’s about a 2 or 3 foot drop over that, that 12 to 18 foot section 16 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 you’re putting it on so to put skids on that area and to probably expect it to maintain level access, or a level base to it is I think probably unlikely with the way our weather and our conditions go seasonally. My other concern here is also access into the shed. Now you’ve got to be able to get in and out of this shed and presuming we put some sort of a garage door in, I’m entering in, if I place it on that sloped area, in an unlevel surface so I’ve got to find some way to make that work and also if I’m going to put it on wooden skids there I’m also going to probably have a much shorter lifespan for a shed as far as versus putting it on a permanent concrete foundation and for me the feasibility of putting the money and the time and the effort into making a shed that you know 5 or 10 years from now I’m going to have to replace the floor or the lower areas, it’s not ideal. I certainly you as well as I can find better ways to spend your money than to replace your shed every 10 or 12 years. Now the setback that I’m proposing here still doesn’t impinge directly upon, on the base. We’re well, we’re 17 feet away from the base. As the picture shows I’m also not really removing any significant vegetation. It’s already a mowed and grassy area where I would be moving it to so we shouldn’t have any further concerns regarding erosion or a breakdown of the surface area as well. It’s not really intrusive upon the environment. I shouldn’t be affecting local drainage. We also I know have hard cover concerns and we’re well below the total percentage of hard cover within the property as well including the shed area. We’re allowed a 250 square foot shed. This shed is only 216 square feet. Total hard cover limitation for the property is 25%. Even with the addition of this shed we’re only at 19.4% of total coverage so we’re well below the maximal area there. Any construction that we’re going to have occurring along the area should have minimal impingement because we already have a paver pathway. You can kind of see from the picture that we have up there, all the way down there so there shouldn’t be any damage to the local environment for bringing of construction materials down as well so I don’t see any significant issues with that. In fact in speaking with the builder he thinks that most of the shed will be pre-built and just hauled down in sections and constructed pretty quickly. As far as the concrete base or foundation, we think we can get a pumper truck in and run the tube right down and place the floating foundation so that should have minimal impingement on the environment as far as the construction as well. Construction of the shed obviously we’re allowed a water oriented structure and that does follow precedent for what goes on with the lake. I have brought examples if you’re interested of other sheds that are both closer to the lake and built within the, in the base of the slope in multiple areas even right next to our home and are shortly or a short distance away from it so there is precedent where this sort of thing has been done in the past and I don’t know if permits or variances were required or permitted or if they were just built without previous notification but needless to say I guess I don’t think my request here is an unreasonable one and we wouldn’t even be having this discussion if it weren’t for the sewer easement issue. We would have just put the shed up and moved on our way but I’m hoping you can see if that’s possible to, we can work around that. Aller: So when you say, I’d love to take a look at the pictures. If you want to put them up, that’s fine. And then while you’re doing that, did you have the opportunity to talk to the owners of the properties where you took the pictures or got the pictures so we know, are these sheds in a sewer easement or is it different? Scott Murphy: These sheds are not in a sewer easement. I have pictures of them on each side. This is the, show it here? Aanenson: Yep. 17 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 Scott Murphy: So here’s the proposed build site that we’re looking at here. So if you look closely you can see it’s already a grassy area. Now if you were to slide about 12 to 13 feet further down we’d be in that sloped area that’s working it’s way down to the lake. You’re obviously closer to the lake but we’re on that sloped area and the sewer easement tends to run right across this area right here. There’s a manhole cover actually on the property over there and then another manhole cover there and the sewer runs right parallel to that right underneath that so I know exactly where they’re talking about. I’m just talking about pushing it a little further up here in an area that’s already mowed. There is, I’m sure you’ve seen the picture, the foundation of the shed is a very simple 12 by 18 structure. Aller: Did you talk about materials? Is it going to be a metal shed? Wood shed? Scott Murphy: No, okay. There’s pictures of it in there. It’s going to, similar to the architecture of the home. It’s a shingled shed. Asphalt shingles and cedar shingle siding. I’ve got one more picture. That would be the view from the lake side. What you would see. So there’d be a door, window and a side door garage entrance. As far as similar sheds, this is a similar shed that’s 2 houses to the south of us that’s built into the base or bluff of the hill. This is a similar shed just north of us. Our next door neighbor. Again built right into the bluff or the base of the hill as well and if you go further north about a half a dozen houses this is another boat house that’s about 5 houses up built closer to the lakeshore as well so there is precedence for sheds being built closer to the lake as well as into the bluff base so what I’m asking is actually neither of those. Not closer to the lake or actually into the bluff but into a buildable area that’s out of the sewer easement. Any questions? Aller: Anything else? Additional questions? Thank you sir. Scott Murphy: You’re welcome. Thank you for hearing me tonight. Aller: Okay we’re going to open the public hearing portion of the meeting. Anyone wishing to speak for or against this item can do so at this time. Seeing no one come forward, again I’ll close the public hearing and open it for comments. Discussion. Campion: I’m curious if there’s any more detail on what the detrimental effects on the natural resources of it being in the proposed area. I saw a statement to that effect in the Findings of Fact but not. Not any further explanation on what is that detrimental effect they’re trying to avoid. Aller: Do we have any information on that? Detrimental impacts on the water. Fauske: Chairman Aller? Aller: Yes. Fauske: If I might provide some clarification for the Planning Commission. On page 3 of the staff report it indicates on the front, the top paragraph that the reason for the bluff setback is to protect the bluff from erosion due to removal of the tree canopy and vegetation, redirection of surface drainage and increase of flow rates and volumes on the bluff. Campion: But this shed would not remove any trees or canopy right? 18 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 Fauske: Yes, that’s also noted in the second part of that paragraph. Regarding minimal vegetation removal with regards to this proposal. Campion: Okay. Aller: Additional thoughts? I think it’s. Yusuf: Can I ask one question? Aller: Absolutely. Yusuf: A question for city staff. Are there any other options or any other variances that could allow the applicant to build the shed that he’s requesting given the precedent set by the neighboring houses? Ingvalson: No, if he was to have a permanent shed like he’s proposing this is, there isn’t any other locations that would be any better than this one. Yusuf: Okay. Aanenson: Let me answer that a little bit differently. I think one of the questions that, because it’s not impacting the bluff itself but there’s still the setback from the bluff and then you could look at, what are the unique characteristics of this property and the sewer line becomes a unique characteristic so if you look at is there any unusual circumstances or hardship. We can’t address the other issues that were put on with the other boat houses. We don’t have information that those were, how those were permitted at the time that they were constructed but you can see there’s a lot of different iterations. That’s why you know our first choice is try to preserve the bluff but that’s why we did give the additional Findings of Fact because there is some of the unique characteristics of this property and that is implication of the, you don’t want to build the structure over the sewer line. Aller: And there’s no guarantee that next winter we don’t have a major freeze and a break and you have to tear out what’s been put in. Undestad: Kate how many, how wide is that sewer easement? I mean if he’s got his house right down to the edge of the sewer easement. Aanenson: I’ll let Alyson address that. Typically they like setbacks from the easement. Fauske: I believe the sewer easement is 20 feet wide which is a standard sewer easement given a standard depth of sewer to allow the crew adequate space to both get a safe trench, boxing it and then area also for the equipment and the soil piles as well. Undestad: So there’s 20 feet of grass from where he wants to put his boat house? 19 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 Fauske: As shown in the plan it looks like if he went right up to the proposed edge of the easement, the sanitary sewer would be 10 feet from the edge of that. Of the proposed location to where the actual sewer line is. Aller: And that 10 feet would be from the buildable area as marked here with? Fauske: Correct. It would be from the edge of the building to the sewer would be approximately 10 feet based on what I’m seeing in the staff report. Undestad: And the bluff, setting back into the bluff and we want to control erosion from the bluff. I mean where he’s at right there down as low as he can get to the lake without being in the easement area, I guess, I mean to me I’m kind of looking at you know and the way he’s proposed it, I mean he wants to do everything right to preserve everything down there but I don’t know. I’m kind of thinking it should go there rather than on the easement. Yusuf: I agree. Undestad: And move things around all the time. Aller: So when we look at, when we look at variances though, if you can accomplish the task without the need for a variance and you can put it on skids. Undestad: Yeah. I don’t think you’d get. Aller: It’s not a perfect resolution but it works. Undestad: Right. Hokkanen: The easement kind of creates as a hardship itself though because if you build it on the, you know you could have to move it. I don’t know. Undestad: And it’s not going to last. Hokkanen: Right so I, this one’s unique. Tennyson: Very. Hokkanen: Because I think the applicant is proposing a good solution for the easement. For him it’s not really impacting the bluff. I mean its flat land. I guess I need a little clarification if he was to put it where it’s proposing what is the detrimental impact of the, to the bluff. To the setback. I mean is there any findings? I didn’t see anything in here that really. Weick: Well it doesn’t appear that it would. Hokkanen: Right. Weick: I mean if I read this it says it can be completed without increasing erosive conditions. 20 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 Hokkanen: Right. Weick: I interrupt that to mean if it’s built on the proposed site as a permanent structure there would be very little. Hokkanen: Impact. Weick: Impact to the bluff. If I’m reading that incorrectly I’d like to be corrected but I, to me it would be preferred to have a permanent structure on that graded, that grade of land right? That flat land as opposed to a temporary structure on a hill. Just from, I just think it’s a better option. That would be my opinion. With little to no impact to the bluff which is our major concern. Tennyson: Is that the concern though? I mean it meets practical difficulties. Aanenson: Someone could just float a motion and you can see. Tennyson: One direction or the other. Aller: Any further discussion on it? Does anybody have any questions or? Everybody has a vote in mind so I’ll entertain a motion. Undestad: Well I think they kind of gave us a just in case anyway. Hokkanen: It’s definitely unique. Weick: I’ll propose a motion. Aller: Go ahead. Yusuf: Which one? Weick: Motion to approve. The Chanhassen Planning Commission acting as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves Planning Case #2014-20 for a 13 foot setback variance to allow a water oriented structure on property zoned Single Family Residential District. Aller: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Aanenson: Can I just get clarification on the motion Chairman? I’m assuming you also wanted to add with conditions of Findings of Fact and Recommendation. Weick: With the conditions of the Findings of Fact and Recommendation. Aanenson: Thank you. Undestad: I’ll second. Aller: I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? I guess one of my questions would be to discuss this a little bit further is, is there a way to reduce the setback and make sure 21 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 19, 2014 that we’re really minimalizing it. If we’re going to have a motion like this that we minimalize the impact. Weick: You mean with a smaller structure? Aller: It could be a smaller structure. It could be the setback that goes to the very edge of the bluff setback so it’s only the minimal amount that is needed or is required to allow them to move forward. And where would that line be? Aanenson: Chairman I think we’re pretty confident that’s where we located it. I think if your condition is going to, are there other things we can do to mitigate, drainage coming off the bluff. I think that’s something we can look at and make that, if that’s one of your conditions that we can work to see if we need to provide something there to, if there’s runoff in that area. If it’s concentrated or something that we could look at something there. But we believe that that’s the spot. Aller: That’s the spot. Aanenson: With least amount of impact, correct. Aller: And our hardship is in reality this, the easement. Does anybody have any thoughts on runoff or erosion created by the building or an accessory structure? Okay. Tennyson: If you look at it it’s meeting all of the requirements in the findings for the variance then I’m not sure you have to look beyond that. Aller: Alright, I have a motion and a second. All those in favor. Weick moved, Undestad seconded the Chanhassen Planning Commission acting as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves a variance from the bluff setback requirements to allow a 18 foot by 12 foot water oriented structure 17 feet from the toe of a bluff on property zoned Single Family Residential District (RSF), Planning Case 2014-20 and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Recommendation. All voted in favor, except Chairman Aller who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 6 to 1. PUBLIC HEARING: 960 CARVER BEACH ROAD: REQUEST FOR A VARIANCE TO EXCEED THE IMPERVIOUS SURFACE LIMITATION TO CONSTRUCT A DRIVEWAY ON PROPERTY ZONED SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF) AND LOCATED AT 960 CARVER BEACH ROAD. APPLICANT/OWNER: CHRISTOPHER & BARBARA KING, PLANNING CASE 2014-21. Aanenson: Thank you Chairman Aller, members of the Planning Commission. This item, 960 Carver Beach Road, Planning Case 2014-21. The applicants are Christopher and Barbara King. The location is Carver Beach and as I mentioned 960 off of Carver Beach Road. This item did appear before the Planning Commission in, excuse me was approved in August 12, 2013. The City Council approved a variance for hard cover of 5.8 percent to allow for a total hard cover of 22