CC Minutes 03-09-2015
Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
consent and go to the county which the county may say sure. Sounds good to us but it sure isn’t
good to you and it takes away your municipal consent authority and Senator Wiger wasn’t really
thinking when he went through that one but as we were going through it and reading the Bill and
I had to read it 3 times and I went, it sure looks like you’re taking away municipal consent. Well
I didn’t mean to. Well but you did though is what matters and that has been tabled so you’ve just
go to keep an eye on things and you never know that there are unintended consequences behind
some Bills so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well Senator thank you for coming out on a beautiful weather evening
and don’t wait for good weather. You’re welcomed here anytime.
Sen. David Osmek: Great, and you know where to find me if you have any questions or
concerns I’m always willing to come down to any council meeting anytime.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Senator.
Sen. David Osmek: Thank you.
REGIONAL LIFESTYLE CENTER: REQUEST FOR A CONCEPT PLANNED UNIT
DEVELOPMENT (PUD) TO INCLUDE RESIDENTIAL, COMMERCIAL AND OFFICE
USES ON FIVE PARCELS TOTALING 78 ACRES ZONED AGRICULTURAL ESTATE
DISTRICT (A2) WITH A LAND USE DESIGNATION OF REGIONAL COMMERCIAL
OR OFFICE USE, LOCATED AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF LYMAN AND
POWERS BOULEVARDS, APPLICANT: CARLSTON DEVELOPMENTS.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. As you indicated this is a
concept PUD. A use for retail development. Level 7 Development LLC. This item did appear
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before the Planning Commission on February 17. Attached with your council packet is the
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Minutes from the 17 and those are verbatim Minutes so all of the information that was part of
that meeting is also then part of your information tonight.
Mayor Laufenburger: Actually Kate, let me interrupt you just for a second. Just for those who
are present in the chamber, if anybody has come after the beginning of the meeting and you
would like to have your presence known, we would like to have your presence known so would
you please sign the welcome list over there if you haven’t done so already. And also let me just
say up front that we expect this dialogue over the next few minutes to be engaging and though a
public hearing is not called for, I will give specific instructions on means by which those who are
present this evening may be able to speak so let me just assure you that if you are here, not only
to listen but perhaps to speak you’ll have an opportunity to do so. Thank you very much. Kate,
you can continue.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. I also wanted to state that the applicant did have two open houses
and attached in your packet too is a summary of those. So for everybody’s edification here I just
want to go through the PUD process. I know for some people this is a new and terminology and
reviewing site plans and we haven’t probably done one this size for a while. The last one that
we’ve done that was retail like this was Villages on the Pond so when we did Villages on the
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Pond we put together the list of uses. Working with the developer and then put together those
standards. So the process here tonight then is we’re in the concept review. So I’ll go through a
little bit more detail what’s involved in that. And the second process if you’re going through the
PUD would be the development stage so that would be the preliminary plat. This project PUD
would require that we update the Alternative Area, Urban Areawide Review and that’s the
environmental document for the entire area that this is located in. And then the fourth stage
would be the final stage for final plat and it would include the rezoning and the land use
designation. And then ultimately you still have another level of review because you’re going to
put forward the prescriptive standards that they would have to meet under the PUD but then they
would also have to come, before they could get a building permit come back for site plan review
on any individual building that would in. So there’s, this is the process that we’re following.
Any questions on that?
Mayor Laufenburger: So clearly this is, tonight is step one. By no means does the result of what
happens tonight does not turn into doors are open for business in another week or something like
that.
Kate Aanenson: Right. Right. That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright.
Kate Aanenson: So to further on that, I’m sorry you can’t read this. This isn’t full screen here.
Approval of the concept, I just want to be clear on this. So this is the concept review, Section
20-517 of the City Code so again the approval of the concept does not obligate the City to
approve the final plat or to rezone anything to a PUD district. So really what the purpose of this
is, is to go through and understand what the developer wants and then for the City to state what
they want. So a part of this, in order to do that under the concept you show approximate building
areas. The height. Bulk. Intensity of land uses. Dwelling units. So that’s a big part so you
understand the intensity of development. And then in addition to that there’s the process that
we’re following right now. They met with staff. They had the Planning Commission hearing
and again where you’re going to give them some, the council’s going to give them some
direction. The staff put in the staff report and then you’ll comment on whether you concur or
want to add to or subtract from that so that’s the process that we’re following.
Mayor Laufenburger: And one more thing, none of that which we do tonight obligates the
developer to proceed on this. This is a dialogue, an interchange that by no means says you must
build this, correct.
Kate Aanenson: That’s right. It does not obligate either party.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, thank you.
Kate Aanenson: So the property included in this is the 76.69 acres and that’s area shown in the
area right here. And Area 1 here is the property coming in. Property number 3 is also part of
this request and that is the 1.66 acres that’s guided medium density. I’ll talk a little bit more
about that in a minute. And then there’s 40 acres here that is not a part of this application. So
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
they’re not included in this concept plan. Little bit of history on the property itself. Back in
2008 when we were updating the Comprehensive Plan there was a developer that was interested
in doing a regional mall on this property so the City had never contemplated doing something of
that scale so we spent a lot of time during the Comprehensive Plan process and even then the
applicant that was interested that was actually a lot of the open houses to explain what they
intended to do so the City was very careful about how they wanted to go about putting potential
commercial use on the property. And actually put a question out in the community survey to ask
residents how they felt about that potential, and that’s also included in your packet. But as a part
of that the council also decided that you know they would dual guide it so it actually has office
use and a regional commercial use. And putting those together we created the PUD districts so
the applicant would come through the PUD process and then you would put together the list of
uses based on the intent of the Comprehensive Plan. Following through on that. So the zoning
map right now is zoned agricultural. It’s being farmed. The road would need to be completed
through that property. The AUAR would need to be updated so the development really can’t go
forward until there is those processes in place. So in addition to that you have two options
tonight. You have an application right now for concept review of commercial but certainly the
office zoning is also a use that you could consider.
Mayor Laufenburger: We could consider that though tonight’s concept we know from the
material that’s been presented that tonight’s concept is for regional commercial.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So this is the one piece, the 1.66 acres. It is guided medium density. The
applicant does show it as part of the commercial project. In order to change the land use
designation the applicant would have to apply for a Comprehensive Plan amendment. They have
not applied for that and the staff would not support it. As stated in the staff report the property
around that parcel was bought out by MnDOT for an access. Limited access. It has potential use
for other things which we had talked to the previous owner on and that would be maybe wetland
banking or something like that. Some other green space so at this time we wouldn’t support that
being included in the commercial. So the, again the intent of this PUD application, we talked
about concept, is to receive clear direction from the Planning Commission. They heard public
comment. The Planning Commission and the City Council, as well as the residents and the
City’s expectation in the PUD is that the development be of higher quality and a sense of place
and identity for the community. The development provide a regional community scale including
retail, office and services that compliment existing commercial uses in the downtown and
provide shopping opportunities not currently located in the community. Again this from the
ordinance. So the development be sensitive to environmental features including some of the site
topography, vegetation, wetlands, scenic views. And finally looking at those transitions between
uses and I know that’s what some of the neighbors were concerned about at the Planning
Commission, those transitional uses. How those are to be addressed and some of that’s
challenging because it’s not part of this application. Some of it’s actually the 40 acres that are
not included in the application. So I took in here the vision. This is the Comprehensive Plan so
we’re tying the PUD ordinance back to the Comprehensive Plan. What we said was our intent.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Again this came out of when we had the Comprehensive Plan process. A number of
neighborhood meetings where residents weighed in on what they felt was important if they did, if
we did a regional mall or regional lifestyle center was to come in and what we put in the
Comprehensive Plan was that the center of this type have at least two major retail anchors and
characterized by diversity of mix of retail and services within their boundaries and uses within
this district should compliment existing retailers in other commercial districts. So what we’re
saying is you know what we’ve always stated is the downtown is kind of our daily needs and this
area would be more, yes a regional draw but more comparison shopping of things we don’t have
in town and goods and service examples were given in there. That would be the entertainment
department. Comparison shopping. Restaurants. Hotel. Specialty boutique and residential. So
those are, I know the residents were asking about where some of those came from but that was
directly from the Comprehensive Plan. So the regional commercial zoning district, we put in an
ordinance again that, that this application would have to go through. What we don’t have put in
place and what we’re suggesting in this report before you tonight is, more prescriptive on the list
of uses that could be put in there. That the Planning Commission, we lacked some of the
transparency trying to understand exactly what those uses might be so we thought it would be
helpful to better understand, limit those so, and I’ll talk a little bit more about those. So this is
the standards again as I stated before. The two major retail anchors. This is the intent of the
PUD and that follows the Comprehensive Plan.
Mayor Laufenburger: Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Just, is there any property or any parcel in Chanhassen today that is
currently RC zoned?
Kate Aanenson: No.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Not even this property?
Kate Aanenson: No.
Mayor Laufenburger: This is zoned agricultural.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: But as a result of this work it could become RC zoned or would it, instead
of RC zoned it would be zoned PUD.
Kate Aanenson: PUD, that’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: We don’t have a RC except embedded in the PUD.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. So again the challenge with the PUD district is, we do have
some prescriptive things that talk about height and setbacks and that sort of thing but what we’re
trying to create then is the list of uses that would be permitted in the district and I think that’s,
that’s where some of the angst comes in from the emails and comments that we received at the
Planning Commission and the staff has received. So I’ll just briefly go through their plan. I
know the applicant has a report for you too and that’s showing the layout on the site itself. So if
you look at the office to the north. Some commercial immediately south of that. When I say
north, against Lyman Boulevard and Powers Boulevard. Commercial then against Powers just
south of the continuation of Bluff Creek Boulevard and preservation of the wooded tree area and
then some high density. So it’s about 40 acres of regional commercial. About 4.7 acres of
office. 5.6 of high density which is about 109 units so we commented on that in the staff report.
That does exceed our density if you did the math on that. Our highest density or units per acre is
16 so you could do a density transfer but you’d have to preserve something else and none of
those details are here. Again that’s some of the, we put in our list of uses. We would want more
information on what the number of units would be because we haven’t had any comment on that
from, in the public hearings so far.
Mayor Laufenburger: Kate could you just say that again. The developer has proposed what
density in that high density area?
Kate Aanenson: Well it’s about 30, over 30 units an acre and our highest goes up to 16.
Mayor Laufenburger: Highest allowed is 16.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, but you could transfer density.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right, I understand.
Kate Aanenson: You could go higher but we want to see more detail on that. What it does to the
height and what else are you preserving. What are you transferring to get that? It may make
sense.
Mayor Laufenburger: And that’s part of the exchange between the developer and the City which
is part of the PUD process. Isn’t that true?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Yep. Maybe it’s preservation of some natural features. You
know less grading somewhere. Something like that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So within this we put in the developer’s gross leasable area and on this I guess
the concern that we would have is that based on the intent here, and we attached the more
detailed in the staff report as one of the attachments is specifically, it really leaves the RC district
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
pretty much wide open to anything that’s in the market study. We don’t have any other zoning
district that says I can do a market study and put whatever I want in there.
Mayor Laufenburger: Kate I want to stop you just for a second. What we’re looking at here is
what?
Kate Aanenson: It’s the gross leasable area that their market study said that they could handle as
far as uses on the property. This is kind of a generic overview. Attached in the staff report
would break it down by specific uses.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so this is what the market study has told a developer the, I’m going
to introduce a couple terms here. The market area could support, according to the market study,
could support this kind of shopping experience.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Their trade area.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. The trade area, excuse me.
Kate Aanenson: Right. Right so then if you look in the attachments you can see the breakdown
of those, some of those convenience goods. Grocery store. Some other sort of things so it’s
pretty wide open and again we don’t, we spent a lot of time on the Villages on the Pond PUD
working through what uses would be compatible or work within that PUD.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So again I think these are the issues that the Planning Commission heard at the
public hearing there was big box. Large parking lots. The type of uses mattered to them in the
fact that they felt like sometimes a wholesaler or a club store might be something that comes in
and goes out as opposed to someone that would do more comparison shopping. Kind of more a
sense of place so this is the Shadow Lake Towne Center in Nebraska. That applicant had stated
that something that they had seen that may be of interest. We went back to look at some other
types, going back to what we originally worked with when that was for a city when they were
interested in the project. Again looking at some of these uses. And then we added some that
would be more local shops at Arbor Lakes. Woodbury Lakes in Woodbury and then the
Premium Outlets of Eagan. Kind of looking at those types of comparison shopping and what
would be involved there. So this is a different type of a concept in looking at how the building
footprints are broke down. I think one of the challenges we had is that you know when they
were blobs it’s hard to distill exactly what uses they were intending to go with so it’s hard to
understand and for transparency for the residents to understand what does this mean.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay what are we looking at Kate? Can you tell us what we’re looking
at?
Kate Aanenson: Yep. This was when we actually worked with the underlying property owners
to try to put together, try to move forward, they were trying to advance their plan so we actually,
this does not have any review by the Planning Commission or City Council. I’m just trying to
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
show you illustratively kind of a footprint that we looked at for the commercial and this actually
showed more office up on the north end. Again this was never vetted by the Planning
Commission or City Council but I was just trying to show you illustratively one way to show a
concept plan.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So the challenge again looking at the other plan is trying to figure out how
those buildings all sit on there. Again the concept is intended to be general but it could have had
some additional information on there.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So with that I’ll turn it over to the City Engineer just to briefly talk about water
resources.
Paul Oehme: Sure, thanks Kate. Mayor, City Council. So…this parcel of land.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is your microphone on Paul?
Paul Oehme: It is not. Thank you very much. So wetlands are present on the development site.
Proposed development site. They’re kind of shown here in blue. Some of the wetlands have
been delineated. Some of them haven’t. The goal of any development though is to achieve no
loss wetland functions and value. The developer must follow the Minnesota Wetland
Conservation Act and the Federal Clean Water Act. There’s some wetlands here that may have
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction as well so the developer would have to work through
them for any wetland issues so sequencing of the wetland, potential impacts would have to be
approved and wetland reports would have to be stated. Submitted as well to show that we’re
avoiding wetlands as much as we can throughout the development. So that’s briefly on the
wetlands.
Mayor Laufenburger: But those, excuse me Mr. Oehme. There’s nothing that would suggest
that the developer or any developer coming forward could skirt these. These are, this is part of
the process that they use to do developing right?
Paul Oehme: Yep. For every development they’ll have to go through the same process as any
other development.
Mayor Laufenburger: You’re just highlighting that for some people who may not know there’s a
lot of areas on this property, on this parcel that need to be addressed.
Paul Oehme: Exactly.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, thank you. Kate.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Kate Aanenson: Okay so what you’re looking at next is actually the staff’s recommendation to
again be, to kind of be transparent in what the residents want to say may be nice but what does
that mean. What I heard at the meeting is we’re trusting you to make sure that that happens.
Well I want to make sure that everybody understands what could happen so we’re trying to be
more prescriptive again in saying this is the square footage, and this is very similar to what we
did on Villages on the Pond. Again we did that project in 1996. Was the first PUD and it’s, it’s
had only 4 amendments to that PUD but we think this is a point of beginning to say this is what
we think some of those uses would be in there so again just trying to clarify those. If you have
questions on that I’d be happy to answer but I just wanted to show you how we broke those
down into the services and then into convenience goods and shopping goods and broke those
down into square footages.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright Kate just to, for those that are observing this that may have not
seen a packet, at least I’m thinking people in the chamber here as well as at home, what you’re
identifying is, can you go back one page? Okay so what you’re identifying is the use, which is
an understandable concept. Then the category that would fall under those uses, right?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: And then what’s that SIC code?
Kate Aanenson: Standard Industrial Classification. That’s a universal code that everyone would
use, that understands what that use is.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so regardless of what words we may use over in the category, the
SIC code eliminates any confusion as to what qualifies as a confectionary or a dairy or a bakery
or specialty or something else?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And then what’s the square footage minimum and the maximum?
What’s that?
Kate Aanenson: Right so the minimum would be what we saw would be, it should at least the
square footage and the maximum would be what would be the ultimate tenant finish.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Now again let me repeat. This is staff’s recommendation, is that
correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. So if council thinks nah, we think that maybe fruits and vegetables
to go should go up to 2,000, that’s okay.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And also now can you go to the second page. You have a total
number there. As I read through the packet the total number seems like it may not be applicable
because.
Kate Aanenson: It’s not.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Because the developer may choose to have 4 or 5 specialty.
Kate Aanenson: Absolutely.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Absolutely. I mean it could be a lot of one category and very few another so
it’s all arbitrary. It would ultimately be capped by, when we look at the AUAR and the zoning
that you give, how much acreage of commercial.
Mayor Laufenburger: And then ultimately the buildings.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: If they’re identifying X buildings at 2,000 square foot each or whatever
then we would have review on that too.
Kate Aanenson: Right and to be clear sometimes these are located in multi-tenant buildings so
individual tenants would be a certain size and as we know sometimes those expand or contract
so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright.
Kate Aanenson: And then, go ahead.
Mayor Laufenburger: Just for council, we’ll have an opportunity after, perhaps after the
applicant, we’ll have an opportunity to talk further about this so that the council has an
opportunity to weigh in on what uses would be acceptable and not acceptable. Alright, thank
you Kate.
Kate Aanenson: And then just to be clear too, then we put together a list of uses that we thought
would be prohibited and again this is the same process that we did with Villages on the Pond
because sometimes when you don’t say prohibited, sometimes there’s ambiguity so we put those
in place too.
Mayor Laufenburger: So again you’re providing this so that we can give the developer a clear
picture of what the City’s vision is for how this will be used and what kind of stores will be
there, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So with that, we put conditions in the staff report. There’s a lot of comments
from the Planning Commission. Excuse me, from the planning staff, engineering, all the
different departments. Water resources. City Forester. The County. Some of the adjacent cities
so we included those as some of the comments that would give direction for the developer to go.
So we’re saying if the City does choose to advance this, again it’s concept. There’s a lot of
information to kind of absorb in this one meeting to direct the applicant to proceed through the
PUD development stage. So the development stage would have them put together more specifics
on the preliminary plat. Showing how the buildings would be laid out. How those transitionary
works and then after review of the development stage, the condition would be to move, to
complete the AUAR.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: That would be done with the preliminary stage.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So with that I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Council, are there any questions that you’d like to ask staff at this
time?
Councilman Campion: I have one question.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilman Campion.
Councilman Campion: In the recommended usage table with the min/max square footage, is that
consistent with min/max square footage that was used for Villages on the Ponds?
Kate Aanenson: No, the maximum building square footage in Villages on the Pond is 20,000
square feet. The buildings were a lot smaller.
Councilman Campion: Across the board?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, there was no commercial use bigger than 20,000 square feet.
Mayor Laufenburger: But there are some smaller.
Councilman Campion: Yeah, there are some there like 1,800.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah that would be the restaurants. If you look at the ones we just approved,
they all, I’ve got the PUD ordinance here. I can look that up if you want to.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: How about some of the retail which is located in the Summerwood
buildings?
Kate Aanenson: That’s what I’m saying, those are all typically like 1,500 to 2,000. Somewhere
in there.
Mayor Laufenburger: So they would be similar to some of these specialty food square footages.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. That makes sense.
Kate Aanenson: And the restaurants would be similar too, if you had a free standing restaurant
so that one also had no drive thru’s and the only one that the council did amend was the Culver’s
one. That was the only one. That’s the only drive thru up there.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Does that answer your question Mr. Campion.
Councilman Campion: It does. So it’s not necessarily consistent with a master table or anything
like that?
Mayor Laufenburger: Well there is similarities.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: But the extent that Villages on the Pond doesn’t have anything. What’s
the largest in Villages on the Pond?
Kate Aanenson: The largest allowed is 20,000.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so in this case we think that it’s appropriate that this parcel could
support at least two that would be considered in the 90,000 to 150,000 range. Those would be
called the, what’s the word you used Kate? The anchors?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah those would be the, if we got a general department store and that means
that it could be stacked. You could have you know two stories or something like that so yes.
They’re significantly larger. Again looking at the regional draw that we have on Villages on the
Pond.
Mayor Laufenburger: Also and then if you look further down you see that one of the accepted
uses would be a hotel, and there’s no accepted use for, well let’s see there is a hotel.
Kate Aanenson: There is a hotel. There is.
Mayor Laufenburger: But that was part of the accepted use, isn’t it correct, for Villages on the
Pond?
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Kate Aanenson: Yep.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is that, what’s the square footage of the AmericInn, do you know Kate?
Kate Aanenson: I do not know off the top of my head.
Mayor Laufenburger: Similar. Similar to what would…
Kate Aanenson: I just want to clarify too how we worked that. So similar to what we do on an
industrial park where we do how much square footage can go in there. So we put together a
compliance table and so when any time a project comes in we look at the square footage and see,
because there’s so much commercial that can go in there. You have the institutional uses which
would be the church and the school. Residential uses we didn’t talk about here but we have to
define what we think is an appropriate mix of residential. That’s one of the challenges that’s not
on here that we should give some direction on. Again talk about whether it could be high
density. Medium density. We’ve always thought that it would be a good transition. Some of
that lower density as we move towards the single family smaller lots but.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Any other questions of staff at this time? You’ll have another
chance to ask those questions later too. Okay. I think we have an applicant with us tonight. Is
there an applicant here? Just step to the podium. State your name and your address if you
wouldn’t mind.
Darren Lazan: Certainly. Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Darren Lazan. I’m
th
with Landform Professional Services. We’re at 105 5 Avenue South, Minneapolis. Appreciate
the opportunity to be in front of you tonight. I want to take a moment to thank both the Planning
Commission and staff as well. It’s always a pleasure to work in Chanhassen. You have a great
group of people and we got an opportunity to work with the engineering group on the wetlands
and of course planning on this entire process so we appreciate their effort and your time tonight
and their time leading up to this as well. We know this is an important project for the city and
we want to take the opportunity to get this early feedback to help us guide development as well.
I’ll give you the nod? Alright. Have at it. I want to take a moment to introduce the
development team. We have a very strong team. Fair amount of experience in this type of work.
Level 7 Development is located regionally in the southwest metro. Scott Carlston has a fair
amount of experience in this area. Tom Palmquist with Welsh Colliers is our real estate
specialist. Tom has 20 year career of over 5 million square feet of retail with CSM and now with
Welsh Colliers. RSP Architects is our architect of record on the project. Experienced
throughout the United States. Most notably locally are West End, Calhoun Square, Woodbury
Lakes and their current work on the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant as well and some of
the retail coming together over there. And Landform Professional Services is also with a fair
amount of national experience in retail mixed use projects. From 1 acre to 250 acres throughout
the United States actually. So I want to take a quick minute to go through the site. Kate did an
excellent job so I won’t get bogged down in here but as she said it’s roughly 75 acres in this RC
district. Zoning, she went through those where it’s zoned today and the land use dual guiding.
It’s bound by Powers, Lyman. Get the next one Kate, sorry about that. Bound by Powers.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Lyman. Some DOT wetlands on the south. The wooded bluff on the south and residential to the
immediate east. Fair amount of challenges with this site. Considerable relief from Powers down
to the wetlands. Back up to the mid portion of the southern half of the site and then back down
again to the DOT wetlands. Also again those wetlands themselves the staff went over are going
to be a challenge for us moving forward through that. And of course traffic. We heard a lot
through the neighborhood meeting process as well on the traffic components. We completed a
fair amount of work on this site. We did a boundary and topographic survey so we knew what
we were working with. We did a wetland delineation and inventory and did get that somewhat
finalized. We have a couple items to clear up in the spring on the far eastern portion of the site.
We did a full existing tree inventory identifying all species. Conditions. Size of all trees that are
required by code to be done prior to making an application. Did a little bit of grading and
drainage analysis to help us get our arms around where the stormwater may go and how that can
be handled. We did establish some social media for feedback of kind of the broader residents.
You can hit the next page, and actually as of this afternoon there’s over 1,000 followers to the
Quadrant in Chanhassen on Facebook which is absolutely phenomenal for a project of this size.
That’s in less than a month. Or roughly a month since we started it. This weekend’s post
reached over 2,500 followers looking for attendance tonight or reminding folks of the meeting
tonight so tremendous amount of broader resident support and following through that Facebook
page. We had two neighborhood meetings as Kate had mentioned. It should be noted,
neighborhood meetings are always a little bit different challenge. Those meetings are, were
made up of folks that were mailed invitations within an immediate approximate distance from
the site so their interests are usually much more pointed. Much more specific and we certainly
heard that that night. Those, a lot of those issues came in the form of concerns about traffic.
Some concerns about uses. Sight lines. We kind of took all those in and charted those so we
have those and those are in our database for reference going forward. We also had an exercise
we called dotmacracy where we walked through and put visual preference boards up and folks
put dots on components that they felt desirable or not and we had some feedback from that. I
think Kate put those all in the packet as well but a fairly good, even from immediate residents,
pretty strong feedback on the types of I guess visual preferences they have on the project. And
of course the Planning Commission meeting was helpful as well. We worked through listening
to those folks. We heard probably an equal mix of folks, and I’m sure you saw the broadcast of
folks supportive and folks concerned. Again a lot of those neighborhood concerns raised and I
want to take an opportunity now to just mention. We support those neighbors concerns. The
traffic concerns. Those are ones that we’ll need to deal with as we move forward through the
development and we look forward to working with staff to resolve and address some of those.
Probably the most important piece of prep work we’ve done so far is our market study and Kate
touched briefly on that but it was completed by Jim McCombs who is a preeminent retail
demographer or market study specialist in the area. Over 40 years of history. Long history with
the City. They completed a fair amount of work in this area for the City directly. For this parcel.
For this region so he’s very familiar with that, this area. We engaged Jim in August of last year
to update the trade area and demographics for this site and I want to give you a quick overview.
So this is an area that he identifies for the purposes of moving forward as the Chan 212 trade
area. So you can see it’s kind of egg shaped. Pear shaped. Predominantly west of the proposed
site which is the red dot and which kind of makes sense. If you look at from the site moving east
you’re going to run into some pretty strong competition from Eden Prairie and the south metro.
You go too far north you’re going to run into some of those trade areas up there but there really
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
isn’t much to the west so his study focuses on this trade area. Both travel distance
demographics. Competition. Everything is kind of focused on that area. Turn one more. That’s
alright. One of the concepts that is worked through in that study is the idea that this is both a
regional draw and a local draw. That there are certainly regional users that will come into this
area. On the left side on the blue. Major traffic coming in from the corridor along 212 which
was the intent of the regional commercial district on the interchange there I image, but also it
does serve the south half of the metro for more of those convenience uses and he identifies some
of those convenience uses in the report and includes those as well. And then on the right side of
the screen, this is a concept that we’ll talk about a little bit. In his report, sometimes called
leakage or egress but these are folks that are currently leaving the market. Folks are
predominantly leaving up and down the corridor from the south side of town. Some make the
trip into Chanhassen there for specialty goods for some day to day services but the predominant
number of folks in the south half in his study shows they’re leaving the district. Quite a bit of
money. Quite a bit of shopping trips leave the market on a regular basis. But overall the
demographics in the area are very strong. Trade population is about 407,014 and growing at 2
percent annually which is well ahead of the metro area. One of the fastest growing trade areas.
Average household income is at $103,000 which is 20 percent above the average in the metro of
$72,000. Very, very strong household incomes. Families comprise 70 percent households which
makes a very unique mix for folks doing retail work. To make sure they address those families
needs as well as the overall retail needs. And the purchasing power in this trade area is estimated
to be over $2 billion dollars annually. Obviously not all going to be spent at this center but
overall that’s a large group. A large demographic. A lot of shoppers with very high incomes and
trying to fill a gap. Let’s get the next slide for me please. One of the very important concepts, if
not the most important concept in the market study is the discussion of this market opportunity
and Jim went after itemizing those dollars or square footages that are available or that the market
could support after downtown. So in addition to downtown this is the market that he feels can be
supported both locally and regionally. Shopping. Convenience. Convenience is almost half of
what the shopping market is. Other retail and other services which are generally more local so
it’s a mix of local and regional draw. Predominantly regional in that shopping goods category
but the retail opportunity here is $705 million dollars annually or almost, or a little over 1.1
million square feet of retail.
Mayor Laufenburger: Darren, can I just stop you.
Darren Lazan: Sure.
Mayor Laufenburger: I think you touched on something here that I want to just clarify. So you
use the term $2 billion dollars that this market has an opportunity to buy so where are you
contrasting the 2 billion versus this 705,000? Can you just give us a further explanation on that?
Darren Lazan: Sure.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is that possible?
Darren Lazan: It is. I’m not a demographer but I can give it my best here. 2 billion would be
the total spending power of the trade area. So those folks are going on Amazon.com and buying
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
stuff. They’re buying at their local restaurants and others in the trade area so that’s the aggregate
of the spending dollars. 705 million is what Jim felt the market at this location could support.
So a sub-set of the 2 billion, 705,000 million.
Mayor Laufenburger: So he’s suggesting or his market study is suggesting that one, roughly
one-third of the dollars that are being spent by those 407,000 people.
Darren Lazan: Could be spent.
Mayor Laufenburger: Could be spent at Chanhassen. Am I saying that correctly?
Darren Lazan: Again I’m not a demographer but that’s my understanding as well. And it says in
excess of 2 billion so I don’t know if that means 3 billion or that means 2.1 billion. Again these
are numbers I’ve pulled out his report just for order of magnitude.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Darren Lazan: Over $2 billion dollars available…
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, good job.
Darren Lazan: That was the toughest part of whole the presentation right there. Next one yeah.
So we take that 705 million or 1.1 million square feet. So we’ve converted it from dollars to
square footage there. I want, this is also probably the second most important point. On our
current proposal, we actually have less than, but even if we took the greatest density on this site
we would have roughly 500,000 square feet. This is less than half of what the market study
identified and this is important because if we were asking you to approve and let us build 1.2
million square feet and assuring you that don’t worry, we’ll grow into it. If I was in your chair I
would be concerned but we are at less than half of what the market study identifies today and I
think that’s important not only from a viability standpoint of this center but also of downtown.
So we’re not looking at something that’s a regional dominant in here. We’re looking at
something that’s probably right sized for the marketplace and again if you look at the sum of the
dollars being what’s available after downtown has served those residents and you take that sum
and say I’m only going to build, I’m building less than half of what that sum is. That’s a very
conservative or very cautious approach I think from a market study perspective. And this creates
a condition as well from a development perspective that I wanted to include. I read it last time at
the hearing but nobody likes to hear me read so I made a slide. The Chan 212 convenience
goods and shopping goods trade area, again that local and regional, have the potential to support
more gross leasable area. More GLA than can be accommodated on the proposed development
and this study was done on the 117 acres. Not just the 75 acres. This creates an enviable
situation where the developer can focus.
Mayor Laufenburger: Wait a minute.
Darren Lazan: Okay, back up.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: You said this was done on the full 117 acres.
Darren Lazan: Right.
Mayor Laufenburger: But you’re coming forward to speaking only to 78 acres.
Darren Lazan: Correct. By way of background and if I didn’t make clear in the beginning an
intro which I don’t think I did. Our original application included the 40 acres in the northwest
corner. After, and those owners signed the application and we were moving forward. We did a
lot of the background work. The topography, the wetlands, the market study, the tree survey, we
did a lot of that work on the full site and this is one of those that we did on the full site.
Subsequent to that the owners asked to be removed from that application. They’re considering
their own development options and timeline. We don’t represent them but for this statement it’s
important to understand that even if we were proposing to develop the entire 117 acres, what we
can propose cannot even cover that demand and that puts us, us being the City. The developer,
Everybody in the very enviable situation where we can focus on the center’s retail stores. Focus
those stores on it’s core customer. So we’re not forced to take any and all folks that are
interested because we’ve got to fill 1.1 million, and got to get everybody in there to do it. We’re
taking less than half of that 1.1 million so we are in an enviable position of being able to say let’s
pick the highest and best and move forward with a quality project.
Mayor Laufenburger: So really that relates, Darren that relates to the marketing activity that you
and your organization would undertake in attracting retailers.
Darren Lazan: Exactly.
Mayor Laufenburger: So clearly they, the trade area could support much more than the square
footage of retail shopping space that you’re preparing to use.
Darren Lazan: Correct, and I think it applies to the community from a planning perspective as
well when you look at creating viable developments and things that will be around and won’t
turn off and I think the ability to pick those and I hate the term cherry pick but pick the best and
most viable users and focus your energy on those puts everybody in a pretty good position of
moving forward with quality users.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Darren Lazan: And this course is backed by substantial interest in the marketplace that we’ve
had a lot of discussions with folks about being involved, both on a user basis but also on
partnerships moving forward and that suggests that the time is right for this development and we
move forward with that confident. There was a comment at the Planning Commission, just to
back up to your comment before that you know a planning commissioner, I think it was the Chair
actually said that you know just because the market study says we can support that doesn’t mean
we should build to that and I, you know as a team we can’t agree more which is why we’re at
that 40 to 50 percent mark. Just because the market study says 1.1 million can be supported
doesn’t mean we need to build 1.1 million and that goes to that selective approach in picking
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those retailers that are most viable and most desired. Okay. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t take
the quick opportunity to talk about revenues from a project of this size only from an order of
magnitude perspective. We don’t have final plans. We don’t have final appraised values. We
don’t have any of that but I know today that your current 2015 budget calls for roughly $7.7
million dollars from property taxes. If I just take the 360 square feet of retail, 40,000 even of
square foot of office which I think this site could support. More than 40,000 and 200 market rate
residential units, plus all the site work associated, we have well over $100 million in assessed
value. That’s conservatively and at, according to the assessor at that rate you’re talking about
$4.5 million in property tax revenue so I’m not here to tell you that you’ve got $4.5 million
dollars to spend but just from an order of magnitude, 4.5 is a big chunk compared to the 7.7 right
now. It’s a big revenue generator and I mention that only because it would have a substantial
offset to any service demands that’s put on the city. Any additional police. Fire. Any of those
components. That’s a substantial increase in the tax revenue to the City on that piece.
Todd Gerhardt: Darren, did you calculate just city portion or county and schools?
Darren Lazan: That’s the 4 ½ percent so is that all three?
Todd Gerhardt: We get about 20 percent.
Darren Lazan: 20 percent of the.
Todd Gerhardt: Of total.
Darren Lazan: 20 percent of the 4 ½ percent.
Todd Gerhardt: Right.
Darren Lazan: Good call, yeah. So that’s the school’s money, the city’s money and the county’s
money. Good call.
Todd Gerhardt: And state.
Mayor Laufenburger: And watershed.
Darren Lazan: Alright, next one. So there was a fair amount of discussion at Planning
Commission and I wanted to bolster that a little bit for this discussion about what is a regional
center so I kind of, and some of these are my terms. They’re fairly broadly used but clearly
there’s no prescriptive definition of these so I’m going to give my best shot just again so we can
have some language in common to refer to these things. And I categorized them in really three
sections and the top and bottom are the only ones that really need to spend any time on. The top
is a power center. It has category dominant anchors. The big dogs. It has discount department
stores. Wholesale clubs and very few small tenants. They generally are 25 to 80 acres. Average
about 420,000 square feet of retail and usually have 3 or more anchors. Down at the bottom is a
lifestyle center which is generally categorized as an upscale national chains. Specialty stores.
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Dining and entertainment and generally in an outdoor setting. They’re between 10 and 40 acres.
Average about 324,000 square feet and usually have zero to 2 anchors.
Mayor Laufenburger: Are you going to give us examples of those two?
Darren Lazan: Yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: It was a set up. I wanted to throw you a softball Darren.
Darren Lazan: Thanks. I’m glad you asked. And the hybrid I guess, that’s alright. The hybrid
is exactly what it says. A combination of the two and I have an example of that as well so if you
go to that next one. So this is a power center. This is Coon Rapids Riverdale Mall. One I’m
very familiar with. You can see around the perimeter of that you have all the big dogs. You
have the Kohl’s, Sears. A very large Sears. I was just in this weekend. Best Buy. Dick’s. A
Costco is your discount store there. A JC Penny’s. The usual suspect. You know fabrics and
other retailers around that outside and a pretty substantial sea of parking in front of those. Then
you have what we call the juniors around the, in this case on the south side. Those are the pet
stores and Scrubs Are Us and the whole host of usual suspects that go in there and there’s a few
pads out there. There’s a Buffalo Wild Wings and a Chili’s and so forth but predominantly as a
description from before suggested, predominantly big boxes. Category killers. The guys that are
in there that the usual suspects. And the next one. The hybrid center, and this is Kate’s example
as well of a project in Nebraska. This was one the development team visited as well. It’s a
hybrid of those. Of the two. It has some of the power around the outside. One, two, three, four
anchors. A lot of the usual suspects inbetween those or what we call the junior stores between
those. But it has a village component in the middle which is that walkable scale. That small
store. The specialty store. The high amenity. The high landscape component in the center. The
anchors draw the folks in. They go through the center. Help the stores in the middle survive.
This one has a handful of pad sites around the outside. Generally restaurants as well. Next slide.
This one is Woodbury Lakes. It is a, what I would define as a pure lifestyle center. It’s just that
component in the middle with a couple much smaller anchors. You can see on the far west side
the end cap anchor hasn’t even been constructed yet but it has three blocks of small scale shops.
Kind of the high amenity landscape areas. It has some anchors. There’s one missing but there’s
a small grocer on the south side. There’s another, can’t remember what the anchor is on the east
side but that bigger box is an anchor as well so it has appropriately scaled anchors supporting it
to drive the traffic and this is what, for the purposes of our application we’ll call a lifestyle center
and this most closely resembles what we’re seem to be landing on for this proposal. A pure
lifestyle center so there’s a lot of concern in the neighborhood meetings about big boxes. Big
boxes. A lot of them. We’re really not A, we don’t really have the room for it and B, we’re not
proposing either a power center or a power hybrid on this site because we don’t think it’s
conducive for the type of development you’re looking for based on your guiding and the space
available. Next one. So a little bit of discussion on anchors. Again we got stuck on that at
Planning Commission. I gave my best answer. I’m not sure it was good enough but I went and
backed it up again. An anchor is, I brought two definitions today. A major retail store used to
drive business to the smaller retails. These larger development stores or grocery stores are
generally part of a retail chain and are the predominant that should say. Sorry about that.
Predominant business in the shopping mall. Without it’s anchor store customers would no
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longer have a reason to go shop at the local mall. I think that’s an important piece. We need
anchors to drive traffic. Anchors ensure that the small shops that we all love and want and the
amenities around those are viable. The second is a definition from ICSC, International Council
of Shopping Centers. Most consider the foremost group in shopping retail. It makes the
presence of anchors one of the main defining characteristics of the regional center. The regional
centers typically has two or more anchors and account for 50 to 70 percent of the mall’s leasable
area. So you’re talking about something, that’s more on the regional or on the hybrid side but
roughly two anchors. Roughly half of the leasable area. Critical driver of traffic to ensure that
the rest of those tenants that we all love are successful so we have this discussion as we move
forward about anchors. That’s my best definition today to help with that. Okay. So we did a
little bit of work last fall. The development team visited a handful of projects. We did a fair
amount of work on precedent design that we didn’t, we haven’t really shared. We did in the
neighborhood meetings a little bit but we haven’t really shared at Planning Commission. I
wanted to bring those tonight because I think there’s a fair amount of concern about quality.
Mayor Laufenburger: Why wouldn’t you share that with the Planning Commission?
Darren Lazan: You know it wasn’t by design. We had one board that had 4 images. I think
there’s been more feedback at the Planning Commission and since then about that so I added
more slides I should say. I didn’t not share it. I just didn’t have as much as we have today so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Darren Lazan: We’re going to expand on that a little bit.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Darren Lazan: So these are a handful of projects around the area that most closely resemble
what the development team and it’s development partners that are engaged in this process seem
to be landing on. In the upper left is some retail components with high amenity landscape
architecture. Lower left is some pedestrian scale demonstration there. The small scale walkable
area. Walkable’s been the term Chanhassen residents have used most often. Upper right are
some office uses that struck the development team’s eye as the kind of architecture, the kind of
quality that they were looking for. Next slide. These are the ones that were at Planning
Commission so again quality materials. Quality landscapes and pedestrian scale in the lower
left. Parking near. Certainly not all the parking but some parking near the front door so folks
can drive that retail area and get quicker access to it. They’re not parking and walking for 10
minutes to get to a small shop. Water features are in the lower right. Next one. Amenities. A
splash pad was very high on the development team’s list for kids and families to engage. High
family counts in this demographic. Quality theater. Quality, there’s a fireplace in that corner
that has been stuck on the board in the design labs for a while. Quality open space. Creative
stormwater management. I think there was some discussion about a hotel. Certainly the
development team has been chasing higher quality product. Certainly not looking at just
dropping a hotel on there to drop a hotel. It would have to be one that lives up to the standards
of the overall center as well. So we started with some bubble diagrams, and again in this case,
this is some work done in I believe 2012 by the City. Hoisington-Koegler came up with in
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
advance of an AUAR I believe update a range of development and from Concept 1 upper left,
which is a blend of some of these uses. Concept 2 was predominantly office with a little bit of
regional commercial. Less than we’re showing today. And Concept 3 was predominantly
regional commercial so that was kind of the range that we took as design cues of laying out uses
and massing those uses. We took the cues on connecting the parkway from east to west and
bringing a north/south connector down. That’s where that kind of came from so if you go to the
next page you can kind of see, we took Concept 1. Juxtaposed with our current application and
you can see it’s quite similar. We have the conservation area in the southwest. High density
component in the west. Regional commercial on the south side of the east/west connector and
spanning across to the north side of the road, and then office on the far north side. It looks like
they have a little bit more office I think depending on interest we could push some of that office
down as well. I don’t think anybody’s suggesting we’re locked into those acreage. But that’s
where that bubble diagram came from. We really looked at the work the City had done. The
planning work that’s been done. The definition in the Comp Plan of what we felt the City was
looking for and we brought that forward. At least from a massing access roadway and just
general locations of uses, we carried that forward. Next, yep. Sorry. So that’s that plan on it’s
own. I don’t know, I mean that’s where if you look on the right. The 360,000 regional
commercial. 40,000 of office. 190 units of high density at three stories and the conservation and
right-of-way. That’s where those numbers come in. Next. So this one’s new since Planning
Commission. Again we hear the comments. We want to be responsive. We don’t want to get
the cart before the horse. One of the things I shared at Planning Commission too is that
sometimes we show too much and folks get very frustrated that they’ve lost their opportunity to
provide input and sometimes we show too little and they express frustration that they don’t have
enough to react to so what I wanted to do is maybe that this, that next level and provide a little
bit more detail. On the left is the site plan Kate shared that staff engaged in in 2012 and had
prepared and shows approximately what our bubble diagrams could translate to as far as massing
in some of these buildings and moving forward. I think this is important from just a sense of
scale to understand that what does 360,000 square feet of retail look like. Does it fit on the south
side of the road? What’s on the end? What’s out by the street? It really just gives us that first
look at it. This is by no means a proposed site plan. I just wanted to take bubbles and go one
step further so that folks that need boxes have boxes and can kind of convey the intent there.
Next slide real quick. So this is that on it’s own and I think there’s a handful of things that
would be worth pointing out. We keep office to the north. Little bit of retail on the north side of
the east/west Bluff Creek Parkway. We have that downtown. Downtown. We have that
walkable lifestyle component down the center. In this case we looked at this high density
product and I think it’s worth mentioning. This is a pure market or above market proposed
product. This is not.
Mayor Laufenburger: You’re talking now on the west side or the left side.
Darren Lazan: Far west side. The brown.
Mayor Laufenburger: Call it the brown, right?
Darren Lazan: Yep, the brown box. So there’s been concern at the neighborhood that maybe
there’s an affordability component. We have absolutely no intention of seeking an affordable
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
component in there. That is something that we plug in as market or above market. High
amenity. Very high end architecture. Resort style pool area and courtyard in the middle. High
amenities. You know it’s a very engaging product. In this instance we plugged it into the end of
the lifestyle center. We thought, we looked at several examples of this. Thought you know
what, what better way to engage a lifestyle center than put 200-300 residents down in that street
front in the mornings or at night or otherwise so it’s a means by which we could create some
synergy, which we’ll talk about in a little bit here as well.
Mayor Laufenburger: Can you talk about the density of that?
Darren Lazan: I can. So we would be interested moving forward with transferring some density
and getting above that 200 mark and here’s the reason. There’s a lot of this product being
proposed and being built. I have four of these active being developed right now. They range
from 230 to 460 units and the reason that every client I have wants to be over that 200 unit mark
is because that’s where the economics of high amenities come in. So when you’re talking about
very nice outside grill stations with big screen TV’s. Club rooms. Resort style swimming pools.
Fire pits. Other spaces that make that really a high amenity product you really need to get over
that 200 unit mark to make that mix work. So you know if we’re obligated and ultimately we’re
not able to get the density that makes that work, certainly we can look to adjust that but we
would be interested in exploring with staff the ability to get to that density just because that’s the
product in the market. It’s proven. It’s what can be financed. It’s what leases up quickly. I
have one in another community that nobody thought would ever lease up but it leased up in less
than year to 95 percent at above projected rents so folks are finding a recipe for this product and
it’s very desirable and very complimentary to the project we’re trying to propose. In the green
area there, and verbally it was conveyed at the neighborhood meetings and at the Planning
Commission. I just added it here. We’re looking at engaging this Bluff Creek area with some
interpretative trails and connections to the neighborhood. We heard clearly at the Planning
Commission that the neighbors were concerned about traffic. Concerned about some of the uses
and sight lines predominantly but also expressed a desire to be able to walk to some of these
services and again this is that engagement. This is the connection to the neighborhoods. You
can work through that. Amazing outdoor space. It really is beautiful if you haven’t been down
there. Walk through there. I’m sure most of the residents have but we really anticipate that
being maybe a combination of woodchip trails. Paved trails for bikes and shorter trails for
seniors with some stations along the way that would engage and connect to that plaza in the
lifestyle component so that it’s both, there’s an amenity and an egress/ingress means for the
residents who are walking. I think we can leave that one up there for a little bit. So I want to talk
a little bit about the chronology and I know Kate walked through a couple of these earlier in the
report and I wanted to visit about those just briefly and then I’ll move on. It’s important to
understand that you can’t plan 300,000 or 500,000 square feet in one shot. I can’t draw
something and say this is what we’ll build, what do you think? It really is a very fluid and
dynamic process. We need to find the right users. The users that compliment each other. The
users that get, that fit. The users that can be supported by all these city services and so forth and
we need to keep moving those in and out throughout the process so it is a very fluid process. We
look for input from yourselves as in tonight. The neighbors and residents that we’ve done over
the last couple months and the marketplace as we’ve done but it’s very important that this AUAR
comes next. We need that piece to finish the studies that are done. Wrap them all up. Make
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
sure they’re coordinated so that we can move forward with our planning. And our proposed
schedule we would get that work done. We’d go back after that’s completed and work with
partners and users. We would develop a detailed plan and come back with a PUD submittal
that’s based on that outcome. I think that’s critical to put a plan together with that AUAR
updated so that we hit all those marks and we’re not starting over 6 months later with results
from the AUAR that contradict what we guessed. Then ultimately establish the final mix of uses
and move forward with final design and as Kate laid out we would be back in front of you for
final PUD and final site plan approvals. So we are asking for your consideration of updating the
AUAR today. I think it’s the next slide. See I had that on, and popping up there. Sorry. One
more. So we are asking for the update of the AUAR today and we’ll get into that in a little bit
detail later. The AUAR was completed in 2003 using 2005 data. AUAR’s are typically,
generally required to be updated every 5 years so really had development been occurring through
that period of time it would have been due for an update in 2008 and then again in ’13 so it’s
substantially past it’s scheduled updates. There’s been some studies by staff.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well Mr., just a second. We had a little bit of hiccup there back in 2008
so.
Darren Lazan: Yeah. Yeah. I heard.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah, it was all over the headlines.
Darren Lazan: Yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: So that, while I appreciate that it would make sense that if development
was occurring an AUAR update would have occurred but.
Darren Lazan: Yep.
Mayor Laufenburger: But to suggest that it’s substantially late, I’m not sure that’s correct. So
use different language just in deference to mean if you wouldn’t mind, okay.
Darren Lazan: I apologize and I opened with you know I understand that there was a slow down
in the economy but it’s been a while and in the normal course there would have been a couple
updates. My next item was that I want to acknowledge that there’s been a fair amount of studies
done by staff on traffic and other things that we have gotten copies of but again they’re not rolled
into a full AUAR update. They’re not vetting each other out in one cohesive set of
environmental review which is what really is necessary. There are a number of uses constructed
that are substantially out of phase with the original study. If you look in the upper left hand
corner, pink is office or medium density. That’s predominantly single family and medium
density. Orange is single.
Mayor Laufenburger: Wait a second.
Darren Lazan: Oops.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Let’s make sure we’re looking at.
Darren Lazan: Upper left hand corner.
Mayor Laufenburger: What are the, okay. So you’ve got boundaries. Audubon there.
Darren Lazan: Yep.
Mayor Laufenburger: You’ve got 212. You’ve got Pioneer. Okay.
Darren Lazan: Yep, let me back up. So this is the AUAR boundary. I think it’s 600 and some
odd acres. There you go. And the red in there is our project area within that so this, the AUAR
covers this area. It is the environmental review document and process for this area. So it was,
the subject property of our application was pulled into that boundary and included in that back in
2003. It is our governing document for environmental review. So on the upper left hand corner
are some of the contemplated uses when the AUAR was done prior to any development in that
entire area. It was pretty much development free. And a lot of the development, especially all
the residential components in there have been done since your AUAR was done and those may
not be in perfect sync with what was contemplated in 2003 so I think it’s important when we
have a substantial amount of development in a AUAR district that progresses, that we go back
and recheck that. So not only for our site but for the overall 600 acres. The AUAR will provide
that traffic, air, noise, quality, wetlands, stormwater, sanitary sewer, all those pieces
comprehensively wrapped up. It will provide a review and update based on how development
actually occurred. So this document provides us critical information to proceed with our plans
on the traffic, utilities, environmental, public services and I wanted to, I’m not an attorney. We
have one here but.
Mayor Laufenburger: So do we.
Darren Lazan: But I just wanted to drop, we brought our own.
Mayor Laufenburger: Let’s not get at that okay.
Darren Lazan: No, let’s leave them but I did want to point out that Minnesota law contemplates
the environment review to be done prior to final entitlement. That’s by design. That
environmental work should occur before a property is entitled. In fact asking an applicant to
define the uses by way of a PUD defeats the purpose of the AUAR which is intended to evaluate
scenarios that might work on the site. The AUAR process is specifically designed to allow
consideration of multiple development scenarios that may work over a larger real estate footprint
so we think, with all due respect, that it’s out of sequence to come in with a PUD application not
only because we’ll put considerable time and money into putting this plan together, but we’ll do
so absent the very foundation of what we need to move forward. Where are the roadway
alignments? How many lanes are there? What’s our current trip counts? Where do the right-
in/right-out’s, where can they be supported? Where’s the full intersection supported? You know
what are the sewer and water demands now that the district has shifted? All those things really
need to be ironed out so that we can move forward with a comprehensive plan that’s thoughtful
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of all those components. The information we have today is not only adequate but it’s better than
we had in 2003. When this property came in there was no information on this parcel. In fact
that’s why it was dropped into single family residential. It’s better than 2007 or 2012 when there
was a similar application considered but no application made. And I think most importantly, the
City really has nothing to lose in ordering this AUAR update. It’s past it’s update requirements
so it’d be good to have it current. It’s paid for entirely by the developer. It compiles a number
of developments that have taken place and the studies that have been completed into one
cohesive source and it serves to guide the development on the entire district, either now or in the
future. So we do respectfully ask and we’ll get to that in a second, that the PUD update be
ordered prior to making the next application. Next slide. So this is a placeholder just to have
something on the screen while we’re working through this. So we are asking for your comments
as it relates to the regional commercial use on the site. We believe what we’ve proposed is
appropriate scale. The lifestyle component. It is the number one resident concern. I think it
addresses the quality. A quality product. I know there were other concerns. I don’t want to
diminish those but clearly on a broader resident and public basis what we’ve heard is we have to
make sure this is a quality project. With respect to the uses we feel pretty strongly that to limit
the uses at this point in the process, ahead of the environmental planning, ahead of concept
planning, beyond the boxes we pulled together for discussion is premature. We need to be able
to evaluate the synergy of the uses. We need to be able to determine whether they’re compatible
or supportive of downtown or if they’re supportable of other users on the site. We need to
evaluate the anchors and what anchors can be effective to support the very product that the
residents and the developer want to see happen on this site so we need to evaluate those. We
support and are anxious to support the Comprehensive Plan, the work that’s been done relative to
entertainment, housing, dining, etc. and really limited those uses would give us half the tools in
the toolbox to make a successful project. We need to balance those amenities with the uses and
make sure all the things we want and we’ve been, everybody’s been clear about demanding from
this project, are viable and the uses are there to support that. We have development partners that
would express concern over use restriction. If you can image a senior housing or an independent
living facility that we said we’d like you to come on board and be a part of this great project but
we can’t have any pharmacy anywhere near convenient to you. You need to go you know a mile
and a half up north to get to your pharmacy. Or an upscale residential project where we said you
know what, we can’t have any drive thru with our coffee so you can’t stop on your into work
before you leave. You have to get that elsewhere. Or first class office space or medical office
space where we said you know what, we can’t have any convenient daycare for you because
that’s a restricted use in this district. Or even more importantly the most sought user, the one
that received the most attention in some of our preliminary meetings was a higher end
restaurants. To tell the higher end restaurant that this is an entertainment venue but we can’t
have any theater here. It’s going to be very difficult if not impossible to move forward with a
quality mix of uses that support each other and become viable if we have these uses placed at this
point. Probably the most, well one of the bigger concerns I think expressed by the public was
they didn’t want to see this turn into a strip mall and I would suggest for your consideration
today that limiting those uses that support quality development all but ensure that that’s what
we’ll have is a strip mall because if we can’t create that synergy of use, pull those draws in,
create the complimentary uses, we can’t get the quality users that everybody wants and loves. So
we want to build on the tremendous success the City of Chanhassen has seen in bringing
residents to the community. Growth numbers prove it. Want to do so by fulfilling the vision of
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the comp plan and developing a regional commercial center of first class and to provide these
residents the goods and services they’re currently leaving the city for. We think the market study
supports that regional commercial. The comp plan outlines goods and services beyond those
offered downtown. Not necessarily exclusive of those but in addition beyond those. And
convenience uses for the south half of the community that now leaves the city. We’re very
anxious to get back to work on this exciting project and again to be clear, next slide. Thanks.
The applicant respectfully requests the City Council provide feedback and direction as it deems
necessary to guide the proposed development in accordance with adopted land use plan and to
postpone the discussion of uses until studies are complete and a detailed plan can be presented.
The applicant further requests the City Council direct staff to commence the update to the AUAR
for the subject development area in accordance with the state law governing environmental
review. So at the end of the day we really are not too far off from staff’s concerns here. We
both want comments back from you folks on what makes a quality development and what your
thoughts are. We would like to avoid or defer at a minimum the discussion on use restrictions
because we think it’s premature until we can pull those users together. And we would like to
order the AUAR because I think it’s critical to moving forward with the PUD. To do so absent
that foundation really is in our opinion out of sequence. We appreciate your time and effort.
Look forward to the comments and questions and with that I’ll stand for any questions.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you. Say your last name for me.
Darren Lazan: Lazan. L-a-z-a-n.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay thank you Mr. Lazan. You’ve obviously done your homework.
You’ve done a lot of work in preparation. I congratulate you and your team on the work that
you’ve done up to this point and presenting a concept. Let’s see, I think that, well let’s open it
up to questions from council. This may be an interactive and you’re certainly welcome to call on
other members of your team Darren if you want to answer any questions but would anyone like
to start with some questions? And by the way after these questions I’ll invite some public
comment so hang with me if you don’t mind.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ll start.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I’ve been taking notes tonight and jotting down phrases that I’ve
heard and most of those phrases came from Kate’s report and some concerns I have is, if we
could start at the way beginning of your report. We discussed that 40 acres that’s now excluded
from this development. Kate, what do you think the implications of that are?
Kate Aanenson: That applicant’s going to come in and have to apply for either regional
commercial or the office zoning district. Those are the two land use designations so we would
go through the exact same process we’re doing here tonight with them.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay, so then they would have to do another AUAR also?
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Kate Aanenson: It’s my understanding that they’re doing it to the entire property. Otherwise
they would have to update their own, that’s correct.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. And you had some concerns about it being dual guided.
Kate Aanenson: No I said you have direction to either give it the commercial, regional
commercial land use if it meets the intent of the Comprehensive Plan or you can say it doesn’t.
I’m just going to say it because it’s the elephant in the room. By not commenting on the use
restrictions you’re just kicking that can down the road. So now you’re getting, and part of the
thing is, is to say whether we feel comfortable with the direction we’re going or not and so this
next developer with the 40 acres is going to come in and do the same thing. Come in with the
same, got the marketing study. The whole thing and pick up the rest of that piece and convince
you that these uses fit within that market study.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Well and something that bothers me a little bit is at the request of the
applicant he has written down here that they want to postpone the discussion of uses until studies
are complete. Well so the studies if they’re completed then does that tie our hands as to what
uses we can?
Kate Aanenson: No it doesn’t but I’m just saying you’re starting that discussion up for you
know, they’ve invested more into it to gather their position so what I’m trying to come back to is
what the original vision was. What did we say in the Comprehensive Plan? What was that
vision? So we understand there has to be some draw in there but what’s the right type of draw so
I think that’s why we put some uses in there to, and obviously they responded to that. To say
what should be that direction and I think it’s important that the council consider that in
strategizing where you want to go with your next step as we talked about in the beginning.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: So what are we obligated to as a city once this study is done? Or
how are we obligated?
Kate Aanenson: Well you’re not, you’re just looking, it gives you the traffic. They still have to
come in and convince you to get the PUD. You can still deny the PUD. The preliminary PUD
but I just think there’s more vested in at that point to try to come back and make some
compelling arguments of, just like they’re doing now so you don’t have to approve it. You still
have the choice to say we’d rather see it office or it doesn’t meet the vision of the plan. Of the
lifestyle center here.
Mayor Laufenburger: Keep going Councilwoman Tjornhom if you have more. I mean if you
have more, ask more. Or otherwise I’ll just defer down to somebody else.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Well you know I guess I’ll just, you know blurt out too I guess like I
do sometimes when I shouldn’t but.
Mayor Laufenburger: But you do that very effectively. I’m going to encourage you Bethany.
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Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you. I know I’m just going to throw it out there. Do you
think that we need more time?
Kate Aanenson: Well that’s the first time we saw kind of that rendering of how that would lay
out and I think that’s kind of what we were looking for. A little bit more detail on that. I mean
obviously there’s still some elements in there that we need to understand. Clearly not disclosed
or whatever. We’re not, you know I think it would have been helpful in the beginning to give
some better indication except that what we knew that they were looking at for the Shadow Lake
Towne Center. Some of the uses in there. We really haven’t had a lot of detail so this was the
first time tonight that we’ve seen that level of detail and we put that, our’s in the Planning
Commission one to kind of drive that conversation.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And so do you think you’d like to have more conversations?
Kate Aanenson: Well I would just say typically how we’ve done a PUD and everything’s
different but you know there’s a lot of different tracks but when we did the PUD for Villages on
the Pond there was a lot of meeting back and forth. The developer trying to come to that. There
hasn’t been that so I just feel like if we’re going to do the AUAR and they’re going to say well
this traffic, here’s what we’re coming in with. Now we’re, we haven’t had that dialogue. Now
we’re put in that position of just either rejecting it instead of saying well what can we do to work
through those issues. I think again we want to be more transparent in how we’re coming to that
list of uses. So yeah, our list may have been narrow but we wanted to make sure that we have an
understanding of where we’re going with that.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And looking at this list of uses, going back to you know specialty
food stores. All that stuff. This is what everybody is going to be working with?
Kate Aanenson: Well that was our suggestion for a starting point. Again talking about maybe
the timing issue would be to have that dialogue so we can understand where the rough points are
and what they need and what the City’s goal was to under the original vision to get those uses
put together.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. Alright.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well I, if I may piggyback on your question Councilwoman Tjornhom.
I’m looking at what Mr. Lazan has asked for and that is use restrictions premature so maybe you
could step up to the mic. You are asking that the City Council at this time put no use restrictions
on how you develop that 79 acres, is that correct?
Darren Lazan: Partially. So with respect to Kate’s comment, with all due respect to Kate’s
comment, this is the first time she’s seen the plan with the boxes on there.
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s a little disappointing to me by the way so. I just want to share that.
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Darren Lazan: Understood. I try to infill between Planning Commission and council to get
everybody a little bit more information but in all fairness Friday was the first day we saw this list
of uses and restrictions and we’ve developed pretty complex proformas with potential uses.
They have tremendous financial impact. And to be able to digest those Friday and Monday is a
little difficult so we would like the plan to progress further before we have that discussion.
We’re certain that the concern about downtown, viability of downtown. Whether this supports
downtown or not, it’s on the table. We’re going to have to have it and we recognize that. We
just think at this point prior to the AUAR and the studies being completed it’s tough to have that
discussion. I think Kate’s comment about while the AUAR is going to set up more traffic and
then we’re going to come in and say see, the traffic drives that is a little misleading because
otherwise we come in with a quarter million dollars worth of work. Then we do a study and say,
guess what traffic doesn’t support it anymore. I think I’d rather be in the first position than the
later. I’d rather have a study that says well like our market study, you can build 1.1. Let’s dial
that back. I’d like to have that discussion about the traffic when the traffic study gets updated
just to show where that’s at. I think it’s completely reasonable to say let’s get this background
work. Let’s get the foundation done. Let’s advance that plan to the point and then let’s sit down
and have those discussions and as far as actions tonight, my understanding is other than ordering
the AUAR there really is no action with the PUD concept.
Mayor Laufenburger: Correct.
Darren Lazan: I’m looking for your feedback and maybe direction so I’m not asking that you
make any action on the concept plan. I’m simply asking that you not add an action to limit uses
that I think that discussion is ahead of it’s time.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, let me respond. First of all I acknowledge that we, you having seen
the agreeable uses and the prohibited uses last Friday. I can see where that would put you in a
little bit of an issue so I’m going to ask Todd to help me with this as we get to approaching the
conclusion of our discussion. One option for us tonight could be, let’s just stop. Give you the
developer an opportunity to review those uses and see if you still want to come forward with a
concept plan that agrees with those uses. And if you don’t agree with them, maybe you want to
come back working with city staff to say here’s some things we think that maybe there’s some
room for improvement so, so I acknowledge the time and we’ll continue with the dialogue here
but that could be one of the outcomes that we have tonight, okay.
Darren Lazan: Sure, and Mr. Mayor I appreciate that and I guess I’d offer as well. Again I think
the AUAR stands on it’s own. I’d like that to move forward but also maybe a work session’s a
better venue for the use discussion where we can put the plans on the table. Have some more
casual discussions about what fits where and then come back in front of.
Mayor Laufenburger: You see I think most importantly, I know you know this but let me say
this so that this is on the table. The vision for the city of Chanhassen, that’s part of the
stewardship that we at the council level have and I’ve read it perhaps even in some of your own
material or reference to your materials that the anchors of a lifestyle center really have a big
impact on what the city becomes. Or what this portion of the city becomes and I’m going to, I’m
going to quote from a couple of the citizens that spoke at the Planning Commission. I won’t
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
identify them by name but they know who they are. More thinking is needed. We rely on your
guys to get it right. Be thoughtful. So in other words this is not a, by no means is this a knee
jerk. We have one opportunity to do this right Mr. Lazan as you know, and we want to make
sure that we do it right. Now we have not had a dialogue here at the council level that we all
agree with these uses. This is a recommendation from staff and that’s part of what we’re going
to do before we conclude tonight perhaps, and that is what does the council feel about these
uses? Are there some uses that we would like to add to that and what about the prohibited uses?
Maybe we want to move some of those from prohibited over here so this is a, this is a, what’s
most important about this is that this dialogue reflects a cooperative spirit between our two
organizations.
Darren Lazan: It does.
Mayor Laufenburger: And that’s hopefully what will come out of this and it’s not just a
cooperation between you, your organization and the City Council and city staff. We’ve got some
citizens ideas that are important that we listen to as well.
Darren Lazan: Yep, agreed.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. So that’s a potential outcome. Any other questions or comments
for the applicant or staff?
Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilman McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah I just have one question right now and then I’ll have more later
but can someone explain to me what the AUAR is and why it’s important? And I guess I’d like
to hear from Kate and then if Mr. Lazar.
Mayor Laufenburger: Lazan.
Councilman McDonald: Lazan wants to add or subtract anything, I would appreciate that but
that seems to be one of the key elements here and I thought it was something else and then I’m
hearing comments that now it sounds like it’s more it’s just a traffic study so I’m trying to figure
out what does it really add to all of this?
Kate Aanenson: I think it was explained pretty well in your presentation but obviously it’s a
traffic study but it’s also the wetland. The topography and natural features on the site. Sewer
and water. Where the road’s going to go. Some of those sort of things so that would drive the
development capacity of the site is what it’s going to tell you.
Mayor Laufenburger: So it answers the question.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Kate Aanenson: That’s one of the things that it will answer, yep. And what are the challenges
on the site. I mean you’ve got a lot of dirt to move and how do you balance it on the site. If it
gets exported, what are the implications of that. Grading. Those sort of things.
Todd Gerhardt: And council if I could add, we did the original AUAR in 2003. And a lot of
development hasn’t occurred. Or has occurred since 2003 and so what updating the AUAR is
going to take into account what’s occurred since 2003 and then to where we’re at today and then
also try to speculate on this development. What hasn’t finished out and what those impacts
would be for the next 3 years. So it’s like a traffic study but it takes into account noise, wetland,
environmental things as a part of that also. So before you know where staff was coming from,
before the AUAR we need to develop a vision here. Is this really something we want to do? We
have it dual guided and before you jump into the AUAR, is this meeting our expectations? Is it
meeting the expectations of what the neighborhood, who’s there now then what we did when the
Comp Plan was developed, and also what the developer needs to be successful. The last thing
we want to see is an unsuccessful development there and so, but we also want to make sure it
doesn’t impact the neighborhood. We want everybody happy and.
Mayor Laufenburger: Good luck with that Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah. Before you jump into that we, staff wants to make sure that everybody
has some say on what the vision for this area is going to be.
Councilman McDonald: Okay so it sounds like you’re making the argument for the developer. I
mean you’re going to lay out the boundaries of development. You know we’re going to look at
where roads could be. Traffic and those things. I’m tending to agree with him that why would I
want to spend a half million dollars on a PUD and then I get the AUAR and it shows that, well
I’ve got to move things. That’s very expensive and I’m not sure that’s the best way to do this. I
think the AUAR begins to tell us, and again you talk about what do we want for this site. That’s
where that gets fed in is how do you want to do this? Where are the roads going to be? What’s
going to be the impacts? What’s the problems? Where are the noise zone? All of those kind of
things. The AUAR is going to begin to tell us that so I think the argument for doing that before
the PUD is very strong only from an economic standpoint. And then at that point he can begin to
fit something into the AUAR instead of doing it the other way around.
Kate Aanenson: Can I just comment back on that?
Councilman McDonald: Yeah.
Kate Aanenson: It is dual guided so the question is, before you go do the AUAR the question is
just do you feel good about a commercial use when you’re not sure what you’re going to get?
Do you feel comfortable moving forward with that? Because it is dual guided. You could say
this isn’t meeting our vision and maybe you don’t want to go down that path.
Councilman McDonald: Well then that’s a totally different discussion and that would lead us to
where yeah, we ought to all just take a step back from the table and.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Kate Aanenson: Right and that’s what Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilman McDonald: We need to have a discussion of what is the vision for this area down
there so that’s another option going forward I think is to, if we don’t feel comfortable with this as
proposed from the, again from the preliminary of what you put together. If that’s not what we’re
looking for, then we do need to have discussions and that is not something that we can settle at
council tonight because those are issues of how that should be developed down there. I mean
that’s what I’m hung up on is, and I think Kate you’ve said it. You know we need to make a
decision of what do we want for that area.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Lazan, you had a question or a comment.
Darren Lazan: Mr. Mayor, very eloquently presented. I would just have two small comments on
that. The AUAR cannot be updated for just our parcel. When we go through an update it will be
the entire 600 acres that we’re paying for so you’ll go back and evaluate what’s been built. The
adjacent 40 acre piece. The piece on the north side of the single family. The piece across the
highway. The entire study will be updated on our dime so you’ll have a current 600 acre
environmental review, up to date. Won’t need to be updated for 5 more years. Pete Coyle’s
going to throw things at me if I get out of bounds but prior to the AUAR process we really had
an EAW. The worksheet process or the EIS process and that was a very linear process where
you brought a project forward. You did a EAW. Tested it and you came back out with your
environmental review, which is required for all developments over a certain size. This is one.
The one thing that the AUAR built in that the others didn’t is the evaluation of scenarios. So you
can, just as was done in 2003 say what if this was all office? What if it was a regional
commercial with some office? What if it was more regional commercial. You can dial that in
with a handful of scenarios. Do the environment review based on those components and we can
start to get those answers back again. That’s 15 years ago AUAR’s were adopted. That’s one of
the best tools for the environmental review of this type is it gives you that ability to evaluate
scenarios. Again it’s done on our dime. Your whole 600 acre district is up to date and you have
those scenarios and that foundation that we can then put a plan together and come forward.
Councilman McDonald: Well if I could just add to that. I mean getting back to the argument of
stepping back from the table. I’m in favor of looking at that area with no restrictions but what
I’m not in favor of is kind of giving that to you tonight to say fine, do whatever you want. I
think we need to have a discussion internally with no restrictions and begin to look at the use of
that land and begin to understand what restrictions can and cannot do toward that vision and it’s
just what you put together. While I think it’s a great concept and you know it’s really worth
considering and I like what you put together. As you’ve heard I don’t think we’ve come to grips
yet with what should happen down there. I’ve been involved with that for over 10 years. 12
years. Going back to the Planning Commission before any houses were down there and the
original concept of that was, that was all going to be retail. Big mall. Business. I mean you had
the whole thing to work from and you have no impact on single family houses. Traffic was all
internal to the development. It was a different animal at that point. Now what we’re looking at
is kind of a hybrid and the thing we have to really get our arms around is how is that going to fit
with what’s already there and that’s something that we as a council and a city need to come to
grips with before I think anyone should go forward. We just haven’t had those discussions yet.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Lazan do you think that the, would you agree that the uses,
specifically the types of stores. The size of the stores. The footprint of the stores, is that going
to be, is that going to have an impact on the culture and the character of Chanhassen?
Darren Lazan: Certainly. Certainly the development that you’ve contemplated in this going
through the Comp Plan will have an impact in the character of Chanhassen. Through our
community feedback we’ve heard both positive and negative on that. Folks have said finally,
can’t wait to get this developed. We want, and they’ve rattled off the list of uses that are already
on your excluded list. We’ve had folks that say I don’t want anything there that’s downtown
because it’s going to hurt downtown so we understand there’s a gamut. We understand that it
will have an impact. Our goal and our hope is that we can work with you to come up with
something that compliments, supports. You bring in 700 and, well half of that. $350 million
dollars, there’s going to be some spillover. Folks are going to go to the dinner theater. Folks are
going to go to other restaurants. Folks are going to check out events downtown so really we’ve
had a fair amount of work internally on the development team talking about what compliments
downtown, and it hasn’t been a one to one discussion. Well there’s a theater downtown. There
can’t be one here. But it has been a discussion on well, what do we do to help support. Bring
more dollars into the community. Basically rising tide. Lifts all the boats so what we would
welcome is an opportunity to work with you on those users. We think we have a maybe more
current perspective on the marketplace. What uses work well together. We’d like to be in on
that discussion. It’s a sizeable project and I think we have a lot to offer on that front.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well as I said perhaps the discussion that is had next is a discussion that
refines these uses because like you have agreed, I believe that the character, the quality, the
presence of this as a commercial area in the community of Chanhassen is vitally linked to the
stores and the types of uses that you put in there so to say, for us to comply with your request of
no use restrictions, I’ve got to tell you. That just doesn’t, that doesn’t resonate well with me.
Darren Lazan: Yeah, no Mr. Mayor I understand and I’m certainly not, not suggesting that there
never be any use restrictions on this, on this property. All I said was today it’s premature. We
don’t even know what fits on this property yet until we get this environmental work done.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so how does an AUAR, I’ll address this first to you Kate. How can
an AUAR, which includes environment. And we’re not thinking environment just the green
space. We’re talking about the environment which is infrastructure, water, sewer, traffic, all of
that stuff.
Darren Lazan: Police, fire.
Mayor Laufenburger: Police, fire, all of those things. How can an AUAR be produced if the
people conducting the AUAR don’t have an idea on, is there a hotel there? Is there not? Is there
going to be office there? Is there not? How can they do that? Kate, is that possible?
Kate Aanenson: Just like they’re saying they’ll do some scenarios. They’ll make some
assumptions.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: So some of those scenarios could include the uses that we’ve identified as
agreeable and some uses are prohibited, correct?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Would you agree with that Mr. Lazan?
Darren Lazan: To an extent. I think it’s important to understand that the AUAR’s been done.
This was done 10 years ago so what, an AUAR is an intertive process. You take one snapshot
look. You take your best guess. You give some guidance. You see how it’s developed. That’s
why it’s updated every 5 years. You re-measure with new scenarios and you set the bar again
and that’s how that works so I would suggest that the AUAR’s been already done with some
assumptions. We’re able to further refine those and provide more detail than was done last time
so I think it’s possible.
Mayor Laufenburger: So what, what guidance would you put, give to the people developing the
AUAR? Would it be your document which is Table 28, Chan 212 potential gross leasable area?
Is that what guidance that you would provide?
Darren Lazan: That’s a starting point. I would fully expect the folks engaged to do the AUAR
to have a dialogue with our team to say well, let’s talk about uses. What possible users are in the
mix and some of those may come in in a scenario and they could provide those.
Mayor Laufenburger: So then you could potentially show them a list of acceptable uses
according to the City of Chanhassen vision?
Darren Lazan: I think we would, you know predominantly users tend to, in the AUAR be
centered on the traffic concerns so you can kind of cluster those and say well high density
residential is a certain class of traffic user. Office is another class of traffic user. That’s usually
where uses get drilled out so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright I’m going to take a pause here just for a second and say
we’re not going to talk about uses anymore. We may come back to that.
Darren Lazan: Okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: But let’s, does anybody else have any other questions regarding either
with staff or the applicant on any other element that’s been presented tonight?
Councilwoman Ryan: Mayor I have a question.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yes, Councilwoman Ryan.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Councilwoman Ryan: Speaking to the AUAR, is the City or anyone from the City ever involved
in that conversation that you’re having with the person that’s performing it or is it just the
developer?
Darren Lazan: So the City is updating the AUAR. They are hiring the consultant. They are
providing the direction. I would suggest that we have that dialogue with those folks and if we, if
Kate is in the room, wants to be in the room when we have those and facilitate those, we’re
certainly fine with that. If she wants to defer them to work out the details with us, we’ll work
that way as well. Whichever is the City’s preference.
Councilwoman Ryan: So she could present the documents. The uses documents. I know we’re
trying to avoid the conversation right now but you could present those as this is what the staff
report was. You know no vote has been taken but these are some potential land uses or
restrictions.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Knutson, did you want to add anything to that?
Roger Knutson: The question’s been answered. You hire the consultant to do it. You give the
consultant instructions. You would also obviously have the, your consultant work with the
developer but the final word comes from the City on what that consultant does.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright. Anything more Councilwoman Ryan?
Councilwoman Ryan: No, thank you.
Councilman Campion: I have a couple questions.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Campion. Speak loud, it’s a long way over here.
Councilman Campion: I will speak loud. One question goes back to the high density housing.
Is there, are there any comparisons you could draw to the density that you’re referencing in or
around a similar lifestyle center?
Darren Lazan: Sure. Maple Grove has a couple products by a developer that is very similar.
High amenity in Arbor Lakes. I think it’s Skye is the name of the, S-k-y-e. We worked on a
project, it’s debatable whether that’s going to be a lifestyle center but we put a 230 unit project
on the rail station in Ramsey, which is high amenity, 230 units. That’s the one that leased up
quickly. They certainly have a vision that that’s a lifestyle component or their downtown
actually and that very welcomed catalyst project that kicked off 300 new residents in that project.
I can get and provide that. I know we, right off the top of my head I can’t remember the
locations but when we talked about connecting it into the lifestyle center we looked at 2 or 3
examples and I can get those and supply them to staff if you’re looking for that as well.
Councilman Campion: And again where you’re showing that right now on the west side of the
development, that’s obviously just a notional drawing or I mean it could go anywhere or?
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Darren Lazan: Well I think two parts. One, we like as a development team the idea of engaging
those 300 bodies into the center. We think it adds some lively engagement there. Folks will go
down and eat at the sandwich shop more often if it’s right here. You just go downstairs. In fact
one of the projects in Indianapolis is, it’s in downtown Indianapolis but the retail on the ground
floor provides room service to the 200 and some units so you could have a similar scenario here
where sandwich shops could provide room service to the different units.
Councilman Campion: Right.
Darren Lazan: But the second half of that is, is that we clearly hear the need and desire of the
residents, the neighbors for transition. So that they don’t have a 3 story building right over their
deck so we pushed it to the far east side. Did some buffering and landscaping and parking to get
that further away from the residents.
Councilman Campion: Yeah I would just, I would imagine that placement’s going to be pretty
sensitive like you stated. Yeah I guess, I don’t mean to touch on the uses again.
Mayor Laufenburger: Be careful.
Councilman Campion: I do think that you know a real prescriptive list takes a lot more
discussion. I’m not exactly clear on some of the uses seem to be duplicate of, that are
recommended to downtown. Others are not and just exactly how one business essentially gets
protected and another does not. I think it requires a lot more discussion.
Mayor Laufenburger: Any other questions or comments? Mr. Lazan, not done. We’ve got a
few more things here. Is grocery in or out in your plan?
Darren Lazan: Nothing’s in or out in our plan. We would like the ability to pursue grocers as an
anchor. We do so respectfully understanding the market downtown and we want to have that
discussion going forward.
Mayor Laufenburger: And what would your development team say if this council said we don’t
want a 90,000. We will not approve a 90,000 square foot grocer in your development.
Darren Lazan: It would certainly take one of the tools out of the toolboxes. Limit our anchors
and we go back and relook at that but every one of those prohibitive uses takes tools out of the
toolbox to a successful project.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well what’s a measure of success you know?
Darren Lazan: Well I.
Mayor Laufenburger: I mean if we want a lot of people to come to town, we could do, we could
do what’s done elsewhere. We don’t want that.
Darren Lazan: No, understood.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Darren Lazan: And I want to be clear that we have heard loud and clear. We’ve heard from
staff. From residents and from you folks that downtown is what Chanhassen’s about. You’re on
the list of communities for a reason. That that’s critical and we want to be supportive of that.
Mayor Laufenburger: So do I understand you correctly that if the decision out of this council
were to say grocery store, 90,000. In other words a, pick one, is not an acceptable use you would
still move forward with the plan?
Darren Lazan: Well that leaves a lot of grocers down the road but to be honest I just don’t know
at this point how we can possibly have the discussion and say yes, it works without the 90K
grocer or no it doesn’t. We simply have to have the background to be able to start that process.
We’ve had interest from folks in that ballpark. We’ve had interest from smaller, boutique
grocers but we just simply aren’t, because we don’t know what can be supported on the site
we’re not prepared to say Mr. Mayor I can go forward without that or I can’t go forward without
that. We’re just not there.
Councilman Campion: What is the range of grocery store sizes? I mean is 90,000 square feet a?
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah, what would be the sizes? Look at your facility. What’s the anchor
up by the office building or what do you?
Darren Lazan: It’s a box.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, it’s a box.
Darren Lazan: It’s a 70,000 box.
Mayor Laufenburger: So what would be an example of a grocer, how big would be an anchor
grocer?
Darren Lazan: Certainly on that 70,000 to 90,000 is an anchor grocer. There’s no doubt about it.
Are there smaller grocers that could provide that? Yes. But I, like I said typically at the next
stage of development when we’ve drawn, when we know what the traffic and all the
environmental components can support we’ll sit down with those users and say you know what
fits here. Maybe a 90K grocer is off the table. Maybe they don’t want to be here but we don’t
know yet.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right. And after you invest $70,000 to $90,000 in an AUAR and it says
looks like this would support 90,000. You know a couple of 90,000 square foot anchors and you
come back to the City and we say to you looks like you’ve got a great plan but you can’t put a
grocery there.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Darren Lazan: Yeah I’d much rather spend $70,000 on an AUAR than $120,000 to come back
and start the AUAR.
Mayor Laufenburger: I guess that’s a choice that you would have.
Darren Lazan: Yeah, yeah. And then again I, I stick by our previous statement that I think the
discussion on uses is critical important to the community but it’s premature because we do not
have the basis to put a plan together to come in and say this is what I think works well and this is
why we need a grocer or why we need a theater or why we need daycare.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Let’s see, any other questions for council for staff or the
developer? Okay, Mr. Lazan. Let’s talk about your connection on, from Lyman. There is a
connection on Lyman right now that’s been approved by the County. Lyman was developed,
just completed last year Mr. Oehme, is that correct?
Darren Lazan: Yes sir.
Mayor Laufenburger: And the entrance that they put onto this parcel, and I’m talking about the.
Darren Lazan: Full parcel.
Mayor Laufenburger: The full parcel, that entrance lies in the property which is not a part of
your plan.
Darren Lazan: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: So, I’m not an AUAR guy but I think I know the County and I don’t think
the County’s going to allow any entrance from the north other than the entrance that’s there.
Now Mr. Oehme, would you agree or disagree with that?
Paul Oehme: Mr. Mayor, that’s up to the County but I don’t believe that their guideline for
access spacing would work at this location. Just seems like the accesses are too close together.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, something to keep in mind.
Darren Lazan: No understood and Mr. Mayor I appreciate that input. We showed a right-
in/right-out only, which I think is different than a full intersection understanding that there are
spacing guidelines. Understanding that the traffic is going to get updated with the AUAR and
we’ll get that feedback but we can fully support that office and retail from the south in the event
that that doesn’t come on line until the 40 acres develops.
Mayor Laufenburger: Good to know. Let’s see, 200 plus density. Just give me a sense on this,
this would not be a hotel. This would be a housing, correct?
Darren Lazan: Correct.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Housing. And in your view is there density transfer that can move from
other areas that would allow that because that 200 density would certainly surpass what is our
currently most acceptable?
Darren Lazan: Yeah that’s a double edge sword.
Mayor Laufenburger: How so?
Darren Lazan: Yes it more than what is prescribed by code but it probably also fulfills some
density requirements that you have absorbed in single family. I think there is more single family
in this plan that was in the original AUAR so maybe we make up some of that density along the
way. I don’t know until we go through and re-quantify what’s been built.
Mayor Laufenburger: Kate, any counsel for the, or any advice for the council on that?
Kate Aanenson: No. I guess some of that property that was developed residentially was also
looked at a different, for a different land use too so I’m not sure how much extra would be but
we’d have to look into that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. This wasn’t a question but I want to say this regarding the, some of
the comments that came from the citizens so I’m really speaking to the citizens here that are
watching that traffic study. Sewer and water. Stormwater management. Public safety. Parking.
Landscaping. Tree conservation areas. Those are all elements of this that we protect. I mean we
as a city work closely with the developer to ensure that all of those things are protected so the
concerns, even the concerns regarding traffic moving into and out of, we as a council are very,
very in tune with that and I know that you share our concern and we would come to an
appropriate resolution on that okay.
Darren Lazan: Yes sir.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, I’m going to give you a break Mr. Lazan okay. Thank you. Now
as I said there was a public hearing at the Planning Commission. We also saw the results of the
neighborhood meetings that you conducted. Thank you for doing those Mr. Lazan and team so I
would say, just a reminder to the public that the City Council has received the proceedings from
the Planning Commission which included comments from many citizens. We received
comments from the emails and citizens, many of which are in the packet. Some attended the
public meetings conducted by the developer. We’ve seen the feedback as provided so this is not
really a public hearing. However if there are some of you that are here tonight that were unable
to speak or to attend at the previous meetings I would welcome your comments, especially if
these comments represent thoughts, concerns and ideas that have not been expressed to your
satisfaction previously so, I didn’t mean to scare anybody. If you’d like to make a comment we
certainly would like to hear from you. This is a great opportunity for the citizens to speak
directly to your council. Your representatives here so is there anybody in the community that
would like to say anything at this time. There we go. We always need somebody to break the
ice. Congratulations. Just state your name and your address if you wouldn’t mind please.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Todd Cushman: Yeah, my name’s Todd Cushman at 15525 Canyon Ridge, Eden Prairie.
Mayor Laufenburger: And where is that in respect to the property?
Todd Cushman: That’s in Eden Prairie.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Todd Cushman: Off of Highway 5 and Mitchell area. There’s been some discussion at planning
and zoning and tonight here about the 40 acre parcel and I’m here as a representative for the 40
acre parcel. Just to give you a little kind of background on where we stand and kind of why
we’re not a part of this at this time. It was our intent when we purchased the parcel to be part of
a master plan to, in regards to this for what the applicant is looking for. Some things changed
with the relationship and the partnership on how things were going to proceed forward with that
so when that happened at that time we chose to take a step back and say hold on a second here.
We need to decide where to go from here. How we’re going to proceed forward with a new
relationship. With a new partnership. This is a very, very large project and we just wanted to
make sure that as we moved forward and we discussed our different opportunities with
development partners and stuff that we were all together working together and at that time, that’s
why we chose to step back. The applicant chose to move forward. There’s some time lines to
kind of get forward at this process to get to today’s meeting and we didn’t feel comfortable at
that time that we were going to have the information and the knowledge of where the
relationship and partnership was going to be at that time. The applicant chose to move forward.
We just chose to take a step back and say let’s just wait a little bit and that’s kind of where we
stand in regards to the 40 acre parcel.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, can I ask you a question Mr. Cushman?
Todd Cushman: Sure.
Mayor Laufenburger: So you understand how the discussion has gone tonight and how you
know things could move forward. Do you potentially see yourself in arrangement with Level 7
in the future based on what they’re doing or do you see your property being separate and
reviewed separately?
Todd Cushman: At this time it could still go either way. I mean there’s different opportunities
that are out there. Whether it’s our parcel alone or still working together with Level 7 or other
relationships to bring it all together. We do feel like where the roads are talking about coming
through and some of that information that has been discussed was very important in regards to
the whole discussion and that’s again why we chose to step back because there were some
unanswered questions at that point. But we are very interested in how things come together with
this because it definitely is going to impact the way everything moves forward together or apart.
Mayor Laufenburger: So you’re, at least right now you and your, the people that you represent,
your future with this property is to develop it in some manner is that correct?
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Todd Cushman: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Okay. Anybody have a question of Mr. Cushman?
Todd Cushman: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you very much Mr. Cushman. We have room for more. Your
name and address please.
Mike Harrer: Name is Mike Harrer. Address is 551 Summerfield, Chanhassen.
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s the Springfield area right?
Mike Harrer: Yes, correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Say your name again?
Mike Harrer: Mike Harrer.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, welcome.
Mike Harrer: I didn’t have a chance to be at the last meeting so I decided to come up and give a
bigger picture, opinion of the project. And I guess from the marketing study I’m a leakage guy
so I’ve been called a lot worst but.
Mayor Laufenburger: It’s not derogatory. It’s just a fact right.
Mike Harrer: Yeah. So my wife and I when we go out we’ll go to Eden Prairie to the nicer
restaurants over there and we also take the opportunity to be able to walk the mall to the
bookstores and wherever. My daughter does the same thing when I drop her at the movie
theaters. Her and her little buddies go to the movie and then they walk around at some of the
various stores so when I look at the concept plan and everything I’ve heard tonight, I think it’s a
great opportunity for Chanhassen, and in particular the neighborhood where we live so just
wanted to voice my opinion on that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Good, thank you Mr. Harrer. Appreciate your stepping forward.
Brock Fluegge: Good evening.
Mayor Laufenburger: Good evening.
Brock Fluegge: My name’s Brock Fluegge. I’m at 1671 Mayapple Pass.
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s Pioneer Pass, is that correct Mr. Fluegge?
Brock Fluegge: Pioneer Pass just down Bluff Creek.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Near that new park that’s in, right?
Brock Fluegge: Exactly.
Mayor Laufenburger: Brock.
Brock Fluegge: Yep. Well I moved to Chanhassen with my wife 3 years ago to be part of a
growing community and personally I love the concept here that’s taking place and I’m kind of
like the gentleman over here with the little bit of leakage going on. We go to down the road
Chaska for some everyday things and then go to Eden Prairie for other things and if we can get a
mix of stores and shops that we can do everything right here very close to our home. Keep the
money in Chanhassen. Keep the tax revenue in Chanhassen, I think it’s a win/win for everybody
and from what I hear tonight it’s like the developer’s asking for the AUAR to move forward and
I really don’t hear much of a, you know if they’re paying for it, it seems like they should be able
to move ahead with that and in your conversations you know to make sure this fits into the vision
of Chanhassen it sounds like the AUAR can help you guys figure that out so I just hope that
thoughtfulness goes into this to move it forward.
Mayor Laufenburger: Good. How long did you say you’ve lived in Chanhassen Brock?
Brock Fluegge: 3 years. Just a little over 3 years.
Mayor Laufenburger: Nice to have you here. Thank you very much. Good evening.
Jackie Duea: Good evening. My name is Jackie Duea. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
I live at 7695 Vasserman Trail.
Mayor Laufenburger: Wait a minute. Are you Blake’s mom?
Jackie Duea: I’m Blake’s mom yes. Thank you for allowing him to interview him last week.
Mayor Laufenburger: Jackie Duea right?
Jackie Duea: Duea, it’s D-u-e-a. I’ve lived in Chanhassen for almost 15 years. My husband and
I have owned 3 homes here so it’s safe to say we’re very loyal to Chanhassen so we want what’s
best for this community and it’s residents. That said I’m here tonight to lend our complete
support to the Quadrant development. As people before me have mentioned we definitely fall
into the leakage category. I know I speak for many people when I say we’d rather spend our
money in our own city but we need help to do so. We need more options. While we certainly
appreciate the new counter service, fast food type dining places that are currently being built in
Chanhassen, we’d love to see more sit down, full service restaurants as well and we feel
Quadrant can provide that. I think eventually this land will get developed in some capacity. I’d
rather see it as something Chan residents can enjoy rather than a collection of warehouses, a
distribution center or some other facility that doesn’t promote a sense of community. I think the
Quadrant has the potential to make our city even better and stronger than it is now by providing a
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
place for residents of all ages. A common place to shop, eat, gather or even just stroll around so
I hope you will take that into consideration and move forward with the AUAR. Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you for being prepared and thank you for speaking. Thanks. And
greet Blake for me. Anybody else?
Ryan Ambrose: Ryan Ambrose, 1515 Hemlock. So we’re.
Mayor Laufenburger: You’re down in Pioneer Pass, is that right?
Ryan Ambrose: …yeah, kind of back there. Moved here about a year and a half ago. 12 years
in the Air Force. We, my wife and I decided that it was time to get out. Settle down a little bit
so we took a few months and settled on Chanhassen. Love the neighborhood. Love the city so
we have great neighbors and I really appreciate what you guys are doing tonight. Keeping an
open mind. Keeping the discussion going. I think the use case is what’s really important for me
and the traffic. So what sold me on the neighborhood is we drove through in the summertime
and there were about a thousand kids out and I hate to see it turn into just, I see one entrance
that’s not our neighborhood so that’s kind of, that’s my big concern so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Good. Well Mr. Ambrose first of all, thank you for your service in the
Air Force and thank you for settling on Chanhassen. Appreciate it.
Ryan Ambrose: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Good evening.
Toby Collodor: Good evening. My name is Toby Collodor. I’m at 1833 Cottongrass Court.
Mayor Laufenburger: Could I ask you to repeat your last name?
Toby Collodor: Collodor.
Mayor Laufenburger: May I call you Toby?
Toby Collodor: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Toby.
Toby Collodor: We also do a lot of the leakage. I work in downtown St. Paul and I live here in
Chanhassen obviously so I spend a lot of money between Chanhassen and St. Paul. The vast
majority of it being in Hennepin County. I’d love to be able to spend that money right here in
Chanhassen. Support the community that we chose to live in. One of the reasons why we chose
to live in Chanhassen is because of the value the city has placed on the parks and the trails and
the recreation in the area. In fact for my daughter’s bedroom she looks outside. She looks right
across Bluff Creek Drive and can see the park from her bedroom and I want to make sure that
Kia is going to be able to safely get to that park from our house. We’re very concerned about
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
traffic in the neighborhood and we want to make sure that there’s a safe way that the
neighborhood can continue to utilize that park. We don’t just want it to be something pretty that
we can see from our second story. We want to be able to use it as well and I urge the City to go
ahead and move forward with the AUAR so that we can understand what the traffic implications
are going to be in that area and what that might look like so we can all make more educated,
more educated responsibility that we have to look at all of that. Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, thank you very much. Mr. Oehme, I’m going to put you on the
spot. Somebody else may want to speak in just a second. Can you talk about what does the City
do to evaluate traffic and this is, this came up more than once regarding the Pioneer Pass area
and the traffic on Bluff Creek. What do we do to evaluate and determine the need for traffic
impediments or traffic calming devices. Can you speak to that a little bit please?
Paul Oehme: Sure. So I’ll just maybe just take a step back a little bit. When we went through
the first AUAR and how this whole 640 acres would develop we looked at needing roadway
connections that service these larger developments but yet can support you know crossings for
pedestrians and limiting the amount of access onto those roads because that’s a big component
on safety for larger volume roads that support these developments is you know try to get those
connections limited to the collector roads as much as we can. We do look at you know speeds
are big important in terms of safety and geometrics of the road. Bluff Creek Drive or Boulevard
too is designed to MSA standards, state aid standards you know for sight and visibility
considerations versus the traffic that’s on the road. You know we looked at the pedestrian
movements along the area as well. Putting the trails on the side of the collector roadways but we
do get calls on occasion about you know traffic concerns. Speeding in the areas and pedestrian
movements, specifically Pioneer Pass Park and those type of things so those are the things that
we like to, we need to look at a little bit closer I think in the future in terms of you know do we
need a pedestrian crossing. Enhanced pedestrian crossing there. Is there some other geometric
consideration that we can institute in those type of areas that are warranted that are going to help
the situation and make the area safer so it’s kind of a iterative process I think. You know
depends upon how, what the traffic plays out at. The AUAR kind of looks at traffic in terms of
max and minimums. Kind of gives a range but when it comes down to you know everyday
traffic, the numbers, we need to look at what is actually out there. How is the road supporting
the traffic and how are the connections being made.
Mayor Laufenburger: But clearly if citizens experience a situation that they feel needs attention,
we would ask that they would communicate with us and share that with us, especially if it’s a
localized speed issue or a localized pedestrian issue or something like that.
Paul Oehme: Right.
Mayor Laufenburger: And we can do something about that. Or we certainly can evaluate that
right?
Paul Oehme: Absolutely. Absolutely and we’ve done that in the past and we have a Leadfoot
program that we have here at the City and we look at all those considerations. If it’s a
pedestrian issue, we look at you know what can we do to make it a safer area. If it’s a speeding
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concern, you know traffic enforcement is a big component of it or just education as well too. A
lot of the traffic that we see is from residents inside the neighborhoods that you know should be
maybe educated a little bit more on those type of issues so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, thank you Mr. Oehme. Is there anybody else who would like to
speak at this time? Your name and address please.
Eric Benson: My name is Eric Benson. Address is 242 Lakeview Road. It’s the Reflections at
Lake Riley development on 212 and 101. Southwest bus station.
Mayor Laufenburger: Perfect.
Eric Benson: So my wife and I moved here in April of 2013. We have 5 year old twins and like
many of the other residents in our neighborhood it’s, the reason we moved here was the schools
and the young growing community and we moved here from Cottage Grove. When we lived in
Cottage Grove, Woodbury was the spot where we spent most of our discretionary income at the
Woodbury Village. Whether it was dining out, entertainment, what have you and last night my
wife and I actually had a rare date night which those of you with young families can appreciate.
And it was in Eden Prairie completely. It was at the mall. It was at the theater and it was at
Kona Grill restaurant and so I just love the idea of having a compliment to downtown
Chanhassen. I think I don’t want, I just think having that, an anchor and some restaurants and
some entertainment, some dining options for all those young families like our’s that are within a
mile or so of that Lyman road would be a great development for the city and I just encourage the
AUAR to move forward.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Benson can you think of what kind of anchor store might you really
enjoy?
Eric Benson: Well to speak from my wife’s perspective, Trader Joe’s would be, and I don’t
know, I’m not a developer. I’m just…
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s okay.
Eric Benson: But I don’t know what square footage and know what fits but I know the Whole
Foods or Trader Joe’s and those types of developments are, maybe Cub Foods and Byerly’s
would view it as a competitor but we would view it as a compliment and I know a lot of the
young families would appreciate those type of stores.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Thank you Mr. Benson.
Eric Benson: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Somebody else?
Erin Wong: Hi, my name’s Erin Wong. I live at 1674 Hemlock Way.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Nice to meet you Erin.
Erin Wong: Thank you. I’d just like to echo some of Toby’s concerns with traffic too just
because I also live in the Pioneer Pass neighborhood. I’m a runner so, and I have two little girls.
A 5 and a 2 ½ year old and many times we’ve almost gotten hit seriously walking across the
street to get to that park or if I’m going around the roundabout, you know to cross the street to
get over there, it’s just really busy and one of my concerns with this is the increased traffic, just
like everybody else. Just making sure that it’s safe for everybody. Another one of my concerns
is, I think I, I also emailed the council about these is I go to Edina you know to do some
shopping too right and it’s very busy there. I mean it can take half an hour to get down that road
so lanes of traffic. Is there space to even handle more lanes on Powers and things like that. Just
other things to take into consideration and then also the high school down the road. It’s, you
know there’s kids coming in and out of there too and yes, they may be able to frequent this area
but just, there’s kids coming in and out. Kids have to walk to the neighborhood because the
busing system actually doesn’t bus them to our neighborhood I found. They have to walk to
school so either they’re getting dropped off or they’re walking so just another thing to keep in
consideration because it is very close to where they’re proposing to develop this. That’s all I
have.
Mayor Laufenburger: When you go to Edina to shop, where do you, what kind of stores?
Erin Wong: Where do I go?
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah, what kind of stores do you shop in?
Erin Wong: We like the Good Earth. I mean we go to dinner there. Pottery Barn Kids and
we’ve done some shopping there for that and let’s see. West Elm…
Mayor Laufenburger: You might meet the Benson’s at Pottery Barn Kids.
Erin Wong: Nice.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you very much Ms. Wong.
Erin Wong: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Anybody else?
PJ Dehghani: Hi, my name is PJ Dehghani. D-e-h-g-h-a-n-i. Pretty sure you’re going to want to
call me PJ though Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Laufenburger: PJ it is. Where do you live?
PJ Dehghani: 8940 Reflections Road so the new.
Mayor Laufenburger: You’re in the north.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
PJ Dehghani: Lennar development, yep. First of all Pottery Barn and Whole Foods would be
welcomed but I’m on two sides of that. That’s going to make me broke and I’ll be moving out
so, my wife would love those. I did speak last time so I’ll keep my comments different. One
thing that I would like to bring forward is that you know we all live in neighborhoods that were
zoned something different 3, 5, 8 years ago. It was either agricultural or I just heard that along
212 was all supposed to be retail and commercial. They’re being rezoned. They’re being
changed. That’s the nature, I mean my house was a farm 3 years ago but that’s what I do know.
On a farm. You see a lot of these new restaurants that have been approved. The Noodles and
Company. The Smashburger. Those are oddly enough that kind of stuff excites me because I
don’t got to drive 8 minutes or 8 miles. 5 miles. It might sound like not a big deal but with 2
screaming kids in the back, if I can shave 20 minutes off my dinner run that would be awesome.
You know taxes. We looked at the 4 ½ million dollar number. That smaller percentage coming
to Chanhassen. That’s a million bucks. It’s a lot of money out of 7 million. We moved here for
the schools. If some of that portion goes to the schools that’s awesome. If that keeps our
property taxes down, that’s phenomenal. Talked about the grocers already. One thing I would
like to make a personal request for. As a resident of Chan, been here only 3 years so not as long
as a lot of people that have lived here. There are people who are concerned in the residential
neighborhood adjacent and I think there can be traffic calming measures. There are ways around
that and obviously the council is going to focus on that. There are people that are in love with
downtown and the council and planning have, are obviously going to try and make that a
compliment but I’m hearing a lot of quotes from the people who have said no or who are hesitate
on this development. I’m not hearing a lot of representation of those folks. Those of us who
love the development. Love the concept of it. Full trust in the mayor and council that you guys
will make sure it’s a long lasting, good development but there are a lot of residents who are
excited about this kind of thing. The restaurants. The dinner. Whatever may end up there and I
just hope that those views are also considered moving forward. Regarding the traffic question,
our neighborhood has a traffic problem. I live by the park and people come flying through and
that was something that may have been overlooked when we were developed. I called the City.
They put me in charge with a whole different bunch of people. There were cop cars sitting out
there with their little speed readers. City got out and did what they needed to help calm the
traffic down on one phone call. You know the neighbors were all making fun of me for making
that call and that people, you know people came out but they were out there in force to deal with
what we perceived as a traffic issue and cars speeding. I know there’s a visible difference so
that’s, to answer that question a little bit, that’s a thank you but to say hey, when things don’t
work out perfectly as planned, the City does come and take care of our needs. Thank you for
your time.
Mayor Laufenburger: You’re a powerful person PJ.
PJ Dehghani: Not at all. Not at all.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you for your comments. Anybody else? We have time for a
couple more.
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Charles Gust: I think I don’t feel so bad. I’ve seen two people that spoke at the planning
meeting.
Mayor Laufenburger: Just state your name and address please if you wouldn’t mind.
Charles Gust: Yes sir I will Mr. Mayor, council members. Name is Charles Gust. G-u-s-t.
1941 Commonwealth Boulevard, number 3.
Mayor Laufenburger: So you’re in that area that would be right.
Charles Gust: Basically a new resident as well.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah, okay. Well welcome to Chanhassen Mr. Gust.
Charles Gust: I appreciate it. I’ve listened to everything here. It was dominated clearly by the
developer but the time but everybody’s ideas the greatest idea. Mine included, okay. I’m not
going to leave myself out of this deal but every single card in this deal has to fall exactly
perfectly. I look at bubbles and I look at figures like $700 million dollars. Those are estimates I
would assume.
Mayor Laufenburger: They’re not a blank check. I mean they’re not a check that somebody’s
writing.
Charles Gust: They are an estimate and if something, if one of those cards falls out, are you
down to 200 million? Are you in the hole? You look at the Mall of America. You look at rental
properties in different shopping centers that are in the area. There are, plenty of them are empty.
You drive by 212 and 101 for rental housing. Big sign and now leasing. I guess I don’t see the
need for some of the things that you’re throwing into this development. I also don’t know that
we’re really out of the, this great recession. I’ve had my challenges during that period of time. I
know you had your’s as a council. I know you had your’s as a developer. Like I say no
guarantees here as far as I can see. Are the hotels and motels in this area 100 percent full 365
days a year? I don’t believe they are. Taxes, $4.5 million. What if you have those vacancies?
Are you taxing people or are you not taxing people? Are you going to have to raise it on others
to make up for what you initially may have gotten and would not get in the future from those
deals? The last thing, two things actually. One, I’d like to straighten the record out. I made a
comment at the last meeting and it was misquoted. Said it was verbatim. It was not. I do not
have a dog in this fight. I don’t. Okay? It said, I may have read, I do have a dog. I do not. I
don’t.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Charles Gust: You would be to me destroying some of the charm of this neighborhood. It’s why
we moved in this area. The last thing I would say as a sequence of use permits, please, please
leave them in order. That’s the cost of doing business. I might be the next one coming here and
asking for a favor and you might feel obligated to give it to me if you start handing them out.
Thank you.
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Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Gust. Anyone else? Unless there’s major objection I
would ask that this be the last public comment so your name and address.
Stefan Silverman: Stefan Silverman. I’m at 18519 Pathfinder Drive. Right across the border in
Eden Prairie.
Mayor Laufenburger: Welcome to Chanhassen. Spend more time here.
Stefan Silverman: Well thank you very much. I would like to. And actually I also spoke at the
planning council but I think, I wanted to emphasize a couple of points. You know there are a lot
of people here tonight talk about their young families and their kids and all of that’s wonderful. I
want to speak from the other end where I’ve been here 15 years now. My family is pretty much
grown up. In the next couple years we want to sell the big house that we built 15 years ago and
we’ve already looked downtown. We’ve looked in other parts of the city and say where are we
going to go? And we went downtown about a year ago. Toured some apartments and some
condos and said that the street scene really doesn’t excite us. We’ve been in the suburbs for a
long time but we also want convenience. We want entertainment. We want the ability to walk to
our social events. To get our food, whether it’s carry out or restaurants so when I saw this
development I guess a little over a month ago in the news and I said that’s it. That’s what we’re
looking for. We’re looking for something that may be more like you know the Excelsior and
Grand buildings in St. Louis Park or Summit at Woodbury Lakes but we want to stay in the
southwest. You know we’re not candidates for the, you know sort of the strips of condos.
Single story buildings. We’ve looked at some of the multi-story isolated buildings and said
that’s not what we want. This is what we want and as I’ve talked with my neighbors, and I’m in
the Settlers Ridge development, a lot of people are in the same place. They’re saying well gee,
we don’t really want to leave the southwest but there’s no place that really fits our lifestyle.
What we’d like to be doing so I very much support the higher density version of the plan to
provide apartments and condos for people who want to stay in the area. Who love the area and
want to be part of it’s continued enrichment so very much in favor of this plan. Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Silverman. Come to Chanhassen more often. Alright. It
wasn’t really a public hearing but I’m going to ask that we bring this back to the council now for
comments or questions. Mr. Campion.
Councilman Campion: Yeah after hearing all the commentary and more sides play out back and
forth, I don’t see the negative to completing the AUAR before we have more detailed discussions
on the various uses. I think that would give us more information to you know play one use
against another and make sure we’re just dealing with all the facts so that’s what I’m inclined to
favor.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. I want to go back to the uses. I don’t want to preempt your
comments but are there any uses or in reviewing the uses that were recommended by city staff,
the acceptable and the prohibited, does council have any comment on some that they would like
to see added or removed from either list? Let’s speak to that initially. Mr. Campion.
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Councilman Campion: Since my mic’s still on I’ll comment.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah.
Councilman Campion: One that’s glaring to me is the Trader Joe’s or the Whole Foods that to
me doesn’t, at least not that I’ve seen, they don’t look like a 90,000 square foot grocery store. I
think they’re something smaller yet it seems like they’re on the prohibited use list from what I
can tell more because on the recommended use list all I see is the specialty food store that’s
maximum of 1,800 square feet which is pretty small and so that’s one thing that I think should be
on the recommended list.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Anything else that you’d like to add or delete?
Councilman Campion: Just more consideration over things like the theater or, not that a dry
cleaner necessarily should be there but just for it to be on the prohibited list, I would just want to
hear more before ruling it out.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Thank you Mr. Campion. Anybody, any other council
member want to make comment about uses that they envision, and I use that word appropriately.
That they envision to be part of or not part of this development?
Councilwoman Ryan: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Laufenburger: Sure, Councilwoman Ryan.
Councilwoman Ryan: I will support what Councilman Campion said in terms of the Trader
Joe’s or a Whole Foods. I think that that’s something that could be considered. Another piece
there is a liquor store. Now I don’t know how that’s defined but I know there’s a lot of like
specialty wine stores that, I don’t know if that falls under a liquor store category but that might
be something that in a high end area when they do wine tastings and what not, that’s something
that I’ve heard comments of interest and I would like to keep a theater on the discussion table as
well please.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Good comment. Anybody else? Councilwoman
Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: You know my perspective is that I think we could talk about uses,
that could be just one whole meeting and so just for me throwing out uses now, yes or yeah or
naying them, I can’t do that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I think it’s better if we sit down with the developer or we sit down
with staff and really have that honest discussion.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, I accept that. Mr. McDonald, did you want to make any comment
about that?
Councilman McDonald: Yeah. You know I asked the question about the AUAR, trying to
understand where all that fits and I do understand that we have a little bit of a disconnect. One of
the first things I think we really need to discuss is what do we see for that area. Whether the
developer can help us or not that’s, I’ll leave that to staff but I mean if we wanted to we could
buy all the property. Take it and turn it into a park. That’s an option. There would be a lot of
people who would support that. That’s not a good, viable economic choice but I mean that’s
why we have to decide, what are we going to do with this? What are we going to zone it?
We’ve been dodging this issue for a number of years because we never could get a good handle
on what do you want to put in there. This is the clearest description of a concept I’ve seen and it
is you know pretty acceptable and as I said what I would support is no restrictions. I think you
make some really good points about restaurants. People want high end restaurants. You’ve got
to have something to pull them there. Theater does that. A high end department store would do
that. You need to make these businesses successful or now we have the problem the other
gentleman brought up, suddenly we’re dealing with vacant space and I don’t want to deal with
vacant space so I think that’s why we need to decide what’s our vision for this area and then I
think we have to go out and our vision could be as simple as we would like to see it turned into
retail with business. You know something similar to this area. Something similar to that. That’s
what we’re kind of looking for, for development down here and we come up with that in
conjunction with again the residents have given us a lot of input. I think some very good input
that we have an idea of what would be acceptable down there. As the residents of the Pioneer
Pass and the other developments, I don’t think getting across to the park is as big a problem as
what you bring up. We’ll make sure that as part of any development that problem is solved
because I think there’s a number of ways to do it. We’ll build a bridge across the way. A
pedestrian bridge. We’ll build another tunnel. We’ll do something to make sure everything’s
connected so we can address those problems. We’ve done it before. We know how to deal with
that stuff but again what’s missing is, what are we going to build? What are we going to put
down there because it does us no good to put a bridge or a tunnel or say we’re going to access
this park without knowing what’s there. The fact that the other 40 acres is missing, I do see that
as somewhat of a problem but you know I thank the gentleman for coming up. It may not be that
big of a problem. I think he also is hoping for a little bit of guidance because again developer’s
have got to come up with the money to build whatever they’re going to build and to have them,
to have too many uncertainties will create failure so we do need to get this stuff nailed down but
I still think the first step is we need to agree, not only as a council but as a community, what do
we see for that site because you’ve already brought up theaters. That competes with downtown.
We have a lot of choices and decisions that we have to make as to what we’re going to do here
and I think from that comes your restricted list. If we really decide that it is really, really
important that we protect everything in downtown, now you’ve got a list of restricted businesses
to deal with. Right now I don’t think we have anything and to say we do is premature so that’s
kind of where I stand on all of this is that I think that the first thing we need to do is decide what
do we want to see down there and then maybe the next step is the AUAR to begin to develop that
and then come back with some concepts in there so I mean that’s where I’m at. It’s, I want to
see whatever goes in down there, it needs to be successful. It needs to have the tenants it needs
to be successful. It needs to fit into the community and part of that is again traffic. Pedestrian
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
traffic. All of these things need to be considered with any development so that’s kind of where
I’m at on all of this but I need more detail. You know like I say I’m not ready to give you a
blank check and just say go off and develop. I appreciate what you’ve given us. You’ve given
us enough food for thought to look at things and really begin to get an idea of what could be so
for that I’m very appreciative but you know we need to follow up and we need to make that
decision as to where this is going.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. McDonald, I appreciate your comments. Do you feel that what the
developer has presented in a concept plan, does that answer the question for you? This is what’s
going to be built down there?
Councilman McDonald: No. It doesn’t even come close. It’s strictly a concept. I mean I’m not
willing today to say yes, I’m in favor of the high density apartments or I’m in favor of a Trader
Joe’s or a movie theater or any of those things. Those are possible uses for this property and
depending upon the package you put them into is going to determine how successful this
property is. And that’s not only successful for the developer but successful for the communities
that have to live around it so what I’ve said is again, we’ve always been asking give us a vision
of what this property could be and we’ve never gotten it. We created the visions you saw before
and that’s just the city playing around thinking well we could do this. We’ll put a box here.
We’ve always needed someone to say this is the vision for fulfilling what your vision is of this so
that’s where I believe we’ve at.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. McDonald. Let me make some comments and then these
comments may precipitate further discussion. Did you want to say something Councilwoman
Ryan?
Councilwoman Ryan: Yeah if I could just make a couple more comments. I thought we were
just going to go down the list of uses.
Mayor Laufenburger: Uses. You’re welcome to use this time if you’d like.
Councilwoman Ryan: So it got, the conversation got changed a little bit and I think Councilman
Campion and I answered the question that you had asked us. We’re not proponents of you know
it has to be a Trader Joe’s or a you know a Whole Foods or whatever but it was just expressing
some of our opinions for that, number one. Number two in terms of the AUAR I think that, I
think that they’re separate issues. I mean we’re asking for specifics and we’re asking for a
vision, which is true but I still believe that that’s separate than requesting an AUAR. When I
was going through all of the packet and I have 3 pages of notes and the things that come up to
me are you know green space. What is that going to be look like? What is the landscaping
going to look like? How are you going to preserve the wetlands? What are you going to do with
that area? Do you have a park plan? Have you looked at Chanhassen’s comprehensive park plan
and put in features that compliment residential because if you put in residential you need to have
a component of park. Is that in there? You know the traffic is an issue and I do believe that
there is a huge concern from the residents in Pioneer Pass that accessing that park is an issue and
a concern for them and.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: But that’s an issue today.
Councilwoman Ryan: That’s an issue today which we can get a better understanding if we have
this AUAR. I mean I hear from residents about that specific issue. And then I do have concerns
about the traffic coming up on Powers and backing up into the neighborhoods and I mean the list
goes on and on and so for some of those questions that I have, those need to be answered and
Councilman McDonald had pointed it out earlier in the meeting that to get those answers we
need to have this study and that’s where I’m at. I mean vision and specifics I wish you know
you would have presented some of those pictures and even this drawing at the Planning
Commission and that is what is missing and that’s the frustration. The concern. The
tentativeness for people to want to move forward is because the lack of specifics and if the
AUAR helps get that there, you know I support that and going down the list of uses, I’m not
ready to. I still think when the time comes we absolutely need to have uses that are not allowed
on there. I mean I think that is our responsibility as councilmembers is to limit some of those
uses and I’d like to have that discussion but I do believe that those are, that’s a separate
conversation than moving forward with the AUAR.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Councilwoman Ryan: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well spoken. As I think about this area of commerce, this parcel and I
have to, as has been said before, I’m uncomfortable with not including the 40 acres but I
understand that that, property owners have rights to be part of or not be part of so I just have to
respect that but it would be easier for me to get a better vision of the whole 118 acres if that was
included but that’s not the case. Today we’re dealing with you know 79 acres approximately.
The best way that I can describe this area is I would like this area of commerce to be an area that
does not move dollars from downtown to here but it moves dollars that are being spent, and by
the way. Leakage, it’s a term. It’s not a derogatory term. I leak into Eden Prairie. Excuse me, I
spend dollars in Eden Prairie okay because I think that Eden Prairie, specifically Costco has
some options that are attractive for me. I do spend a lot of money at Cub and I spend a lot of
money at Byerly’s and other restaurants so I’m not, I’m not an exclusive Chanhassen shopper.
But I would like to be more or closer to exclusive Chanhassen shopper so this area should move
spending dollars not from downtown to the Quadrant but rather from the outside trade area so
that’s why the regional draw is so important to me. And yes I would agree with Mr. Lazan, we
bring regional shoppers in to this area they will spend time and money there and they will be
more inclined to make that trip a part of a trip to the Dinner Theater or to an event at the high
school or Lake Ann or whatever it might be so it’s yes. There will be a rising ship tide that
would come into place. Let’s see. Often when I’m not sure of what to do I look at the rules that
we are asked to follow so I looked at the code. The Section 20-517 code concept PUD and I
realized that you were encouraged to come forward with a concept PUD and I thank you for
doing that but I was looking for more. I was looking for example, 6 elements is discussed in the
code. Approximate building area, pedestrian ways and road locations. Now yes you gave us a
little bit of those, of what it could be but I was looking something as Councilwoman Ryan said,
something with a little more specificity. It says item two, height, bulk and square footage of
buildings. None of that was provided. None of that was provided. Type, number and square
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
footage of intensities of land use suggestions. Now you gave some suggestions on that chart
from Chan 212 market study but it’s not clear the direction that you would move in and I’m
looking for more specifics on those intensities. Number 4, number of dwelling units. You’ve
clarified that. I originally heard something like 300 plus. I think that’s what was discussed at
some of the public meetings and now I’m hearing 200 plus. You make a good argument as to
why 200 plus is important. That density is important to me. Also important is how do you
transition the density from the residential into that high density. Five, a generalized development
plan showing areas to be developed or preserved. Kind of what Councilwoman Ryan said.
Where’s the green space? I see a lot of parking but I don’t see any green space. Help me with
that. And then 6, staging and the timing of development and I saw nothing on this. So without a
more defined picture it’s hard for me to represent the citizens of Chanhassen as an eager and
enthusiastic supporter of the concept. Make no mistake folks, those of you who are questioning
whether or not I’m interested in seeing this concept happen. I’m very interested in seeing the
concept happen consistent with the vision that I believe the citizens have for, and the City
Council has for the future of Chanhassen. Now the concern I have, and I voiced it to you Mr.
Lazan, and I’m approaching this notion that we can do two things simultaneously. Meaning
approve the development or the, initiate the AUAR and at the same time dialogue regarding uses
because as important as the AUAR is to you, the uses are equally or more so important to us. So
in my view, I guess I’m looking for some way that we both can gain out of this meeting and
maybe I’m looking for some feedback from you Mr. Lazan.
Darren Lazan: Mayor, I appreciate your direction. I just wanted to comment and then what’s
proposed from there I guess. My understanding is this concept level PUD is an optional step.
Mayor Laufenburger: It is.
Darren Lazan: So we came in, and I appreciate that you’d like more detail. We’re planners.
We’d love to give you more detail. That’s what we do so we’re excited to do so but we run into
roadblocks every step of the way. Well where’s this drive connection going to be? Not sure.
What’s the speed limits going to be? Where are we going with the stormwater? All these pieces
come and go well, it’s tough to work that out so what we wanted to do is present enough bubbles
that the entire lower left area is green with trails through there. These are the uses. This is the
bulk. I know it’s not ideal but it gives you some direction and by the way can we update the
AUAR at our cost so we can get those answers? That was the purpose here tonight. No one’s
asking for a blank check. No one’s asking for approval of the project to run forward with.
We’re tossing on the table where we’re at today and we’d like to pay and initiate the AUAR so
we can get those answers. So on the dual track notion, it fits exactly with what we’d like to do.
If we could initiate the AUAR and get that started, that’s a 3-4 month process. That can run
simultaneous. We’d be very excited to sit down and have further discussions in work session or
otherwise staff directly with how we help balance the viability of this project and downtown.
What works well. What doesn’t. We think we know but obviously you know the best of
downtown so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Do you feel that’s something, that use discussion is that something you
can do while the AUAR is underway?
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Darren Lazan: Yes sir. Yes sir. I mean the only thing that will change is scale. If we have a use
discussion about a number of uses. We put those in the tally and the AUAR comes back and you
know only supports two-thirds of that, well it’s scale then so, but there’s no definitive linear
process as I said at the very first comment. This is very dynamic. We’re more than happy to
spend the time to sit down while, knowing the AUAR is underway and we’re going to have those
answers. Having these use discussions. Take a snapshot. See where it fits when the AUAR data
comes back. Size that. We’ll just keep moving back and forth.
Mayor Laufenburger: Here’s a fear that I have Mr. Lazan. Let me speak reality.
Darren Lazan: Sure.
Mayor Laufenburger: And the fear is that the investment that you make in an AUAR on a 640
acre parcel, whatever that number might be. I’m hearing 60, 70, 80, whatever that number is.
That’s a significant investment that you’re undertaking and you know normally developers do
that kind of investment with the intent that there’s going to be some payback down the road you
know. Are you prepared to go into this AUAR and simultaneously a use discussion that results
in some uses absolutely being prohibited after, you know as a result of that discussion. Are you
prepared for that?
Darren Lazan: Sure, those are shades of gray.
Mayor Laufenburger: Could you use some other analogy.
Darren Lazan: If the use discussion is we’d like it to be a park, no we’re not interested in doing
an AUAR to find out that a park is the highest and best use for this property but if development
of a regional center. If we can arrive at what that means and what that looks like is your desire,
we’re more than happy to go into it kicking off that AUAR and starting those discussions with
you to see what that looks like.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah I’d like to speak in defense of the developer here. You’ve been
beaten up because of the lack of detail. I was involved in this when we first did it and that was
the Walmart.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah.
Councilman McDonald: And at that.
Mayor Laufenburger: No, Walmart down there?
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Councilman McDonald: Walmart was the first one where we did a concept and the whole thing
there was, that thing just kept going and going and got more and more detail and pretty soon it
was going to be a full blown PUD. The things we were asking for. We had meetings afterwards
where we went back and we said look, you need to encourage developers to come in here. Give
us an idea. This goes back to Kate’s point of what is our vision for a particular piece of property.
Do you meet our vision? That’s all this is supposed to be and I don’t think it’s right that we
continue to beat up developers to say aw I need to know how high the building is. I need to
know where green space is. That’s a detail of the plan. First thing is you’ve got to tell him okay,
the concept looks okay. It will probably fit what we want. What’s the details and that’s what we
end up voting on because it’s the PUD that gets voted on by this council and that’s our position
to make input in and out of it and say this is in. That’s out or do a better job here so I think
we’ve got to be real careful about this or we’re going to have developers that are going to be
very gun shy to come into this community because it’s like what do I give them? How much
money do I spend on this? And we have put the word out that okay you need to come in.
Understand the area. We need to see a good enough concept that we can make sure this fits
within our vision and I think again as I said this is the first time I’ve seen anything even close to
this and it’s not bad and as I said it’s not enough for me to vote on a PUD but it is good enough
to get an idea of what they’re talking about. Whether we tell them yeah, it’s worth to continue to
talk to us or you guys need to move on down the road. I think it accomplishes that and that’s all
it accomplishes so I just wanted to say something there because it just, I don’t think it’s fair to
beat up on him when what they’re trying to do is meet what we’ve been saying. We need a
concept. We need a vision and as I said earlier I’m not sure we’ve even got a vision for this
piece of property. That’s all.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well Mr. Lazan I appreciate your acceptance of a dual approach here and
I think it’s important that, well first of all it’s wonderful that you’re willing to pay for an AUAR
on this site that will answer questions for you and it also may answer questions for somebody
that may come after you if you choose not to move forward with your conceptual plans. But the
vision, the vision that I believe that the City of Chanhassen, the citizens and the staff and the
council, that vision includes some very clear picture of exactly what those shops are and that’s
important. It’s important to me. I know it’s important to the citizens of Chanhassen so. So with
that I thank you Mr. Lazan. Kate do you have any comments that you’d like to share with the
council at this time?
Kate Aanenson: Well I think we have a vision for the downtown. It’s just how we articular that
vision. We identified the uses that we want down there and I’d be happy to go through that again
but we do have a vision and this is different than Walmart. Walmart was, this has been dual
guided. This a lot different type of a project. I would compare this more to Villages on the Pond
where we actually negotiated with the developer to work through that vision. They had certain
goals to redevelop down there. To move St. Hubert’s across the street. That was the impetus for
that to happen. They also wanted more commercial development and so we worked through all
those issues so I think this is a lot different than Walmart. A single user coming in and
negotiating a vision for a piece of property. Much bigger. This is the biggest thing that’s
happened in the city and I think we just need to be very careful as we move forward of
everybody understanding expectations and I think Mayor you put it very succinctly in stating that
they have the desire to move forward with the AUAR and we also have a desire to understand
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what the uses are going to be and the residents understand what that’s going to be because as
you’ve heard again tonight they’re asking us to make sure that we understand that. That’s a lofty
responsibility.
Mayor Laufenburger: But it’s what we all signed up for I guess. At least that’s what I signed up
for you know being part of the decision process that does hold the responsibility. I don’t think
we have a do over on this. I think we’ve got to make sure that we do this right. As many of the
residents said, careful thinking. Careful planning. Careful thought process needs to be put into
this. Let’s see. Normally this is a time where I would ask for a council motion or
recommendation. Would anyone like to speak to that?
Councilman Campion: I’ll make a motion.
Kate Aanenson: We just put it in the form an action statement.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, you want to bring that up to the screen.
Kate Aanenson: If I can.
Roger Knutson: Mayor can I just a quick comment?
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay Mr. Knutson.
Roger Knutson: As far as the PUD itself there’s no motion. You just make comments. If you
want to, and I don’t want to pre-judge what you want to do but if you wanted to go with an
AUAR then what you need to do is we need a contract and I would suggest the motion be that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Direct staff.
Roger Knutson: Direct staff to bring back and contract with your consultant.
Councilman Campion: A contract allowing…
Roger Knutson: To prepare the AUAR.
Mayor Laufenburger: Preparation of the AUAR. So the action that we would take is simply
directing staff to initiate an AUAR.
Roger Knutson: Directing staff to prepare a contract with your consultant to do an AUAR
because that contract has to be approved by you.
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s right, contract. Okay.
Kate Aanenson: We also had in there too that you take in consideration the comments that were
offered tonight. The comments that were offered at the Planning Commission and the comments
that were offered in the staff report too as we move forward. That was just an action.
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
Mayor Laufenburger: So the action is that we direct, we ask the developer to take those
comments into consider, is that what you’re saying Kate?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. That’s correct because that was the purpose of this review is to
give them our input so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: And so that record that we created tonight and at the Planning Commission and
the staff report would be part of that direction.
Mayor Laufenburger: And that would be in compliance with the concept PUD. Giving to the
developer.
Kate Aanenson: Not in compliance but giving them direction.
Roger Knutson: Giving them comments.
Kate Aanenson: Comments correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Roger Knutson: Because they can ignore your comments or not as they choose.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Do you still want to make a recommendation?
Councilman Campion: I’ll try. Alright I propose that the City Council directs staff to have the
consultant prepare an AUAR in partnership with the developer in parallel while we, the City
Council conduct a dialogue with staff and the developer on uses of the property. And I
recommend that the developer take the comments from the Planning Commission and the City
Council tonight into consideration.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. I don’t know that that’s, it sounds like included in there is an
action which is directing staff and Mr. Knutson we’d likely need a vote on that, is that correct?
Todd Gerhardt: To bring a contract back to have a consultant develop an AUAR.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so I essentially heard 3 things in your recommendation. One is to
initiate an AUAR process. Direct staff to initiate an AUAR process.
Councilman Campion: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Two, to initiate dialogue on uses. And you identified developer, staff and
council. How would you feel about eliminating council from that dialogue? That way the staff
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Chanhassen City Council – March 9, 2015
and the developer can, they can be in dialogue. Staff can come back to us with comments and
updates.
Councilman Campion: Yeah that makes sense.
Mayor Laufenburger: You okay with that?
Councilman Campion: Yep.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay and then third is that we just simply direct the developer to listen to
or at least hear the comments that were made during the concept PUD review process.
Councilman Campion: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright. Is there a second to that?
Councilwoman Ryan: Second.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. We have a recommendation and a second.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have a question.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I just want to ask once again. By giving the go ahead for this study
to be done it still does not in any way obligate us to have to agree to uses or anything else, is that
correct?
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah I would say that Mr. Knutson.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Because that’s what I want to make sure that we’re just, we don’t.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah. This would obligate neither the City nor the developer.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: So the developer is not obligated to move forward on this either if the
results of the AUAR are not satisfactory.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I just want to make sure we’re not doing anything that’s going to
block us…
Mayor Laufenburger: Does that make sense Mr. Knutson?
Roger Knutson: Absolutely.
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Kate Aanenson: Can I just clarify? Whether or not the AUAR meets it you still have the
discretion to say you don’t recommend the project.
Roger Knutson: And you are not approving the PUD. You’re just giving concepts.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right.
Roger Knutson: You’re giving comments.
Mayor Laufenburger: Comments.
Roger Knutson: You’re not bound by those comments and the developer’s not bound by the
statements they’ve made but they’ll listen and that’s what you encourage them to do.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yep.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Did I hear a second?
Councilwoman Ryan: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilwoman Ryan. Any further discussion?
Councilman Campion moved, Councilwoman Ryan seconded that the City Council directs
staff to prepare a contract with a consultant to prepare an AUAR in partnership with the
developer; direct staff and the developer to engage in dialogue regarding uses; and ask that
the developer take into consideration the comments from the Planning Commission, City
Council and staff report. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a
vote of 5 to 0.
The City Council took a short recess at this point in the meeting.
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING TRANSFER OF FUNDS
AND ESTABLISHING A LOAN TO THE CITY’S WATER FUND FOR
CONSTRUCTION OF WELL NO. 15.
Greg Sticha: Good evening Mayor and councilmembers. As part of the 2015 CIP process Well
th
number 15 was included for planning purposes. On February 4 the City received bids for
th
construction of the well. On February 9 I believe City Council awarded bid on that contract.
rd
On February 23 City Council had in a work session format discussion with staff on a few
myriads or opportunities to finance the well going forward. City Council asked staff to come to
this meeting to present those alternative financing opportunities to kind of show each of the
rd
items that we presented that evening on the 23. So I’m going to go through what City Council
saw that evening and then ask for, we provided a recommendation for council to approve here at
the end.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
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