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PC Minutes 04-21-2015 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING APRIL 21, 2015 Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, Mark Undestad, Lisa Hokkanen, Steve Weick, Maryam Yusuf, John Tietz, and Nancy Madsen STAFF PRESENT: Bob Generous, Senior Planner; and Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer PUBLIC PRESENT: Lance & Dianne Erickson 7735 Vasserman Trail Steve Sheldon 7711 Ridgeview Way Larry Martin 7725 Vasserman Trail Art Roberts 7762 Vasserman Place OATHS OF OFFICE: Chairman Aller administered the Oaths of Office to Lisa Hokkanen and Maryam Yusuf. Aller: I know I speak for everyone when we are very pleased to have you back on the commission. PUBLIC HEARING: CHILDREN’S LEARNING ADVENTURE: REQUEST FOR REZONING APPROXIMATELY 14 ACRES FROM AGRICULTURAL ESTATE (A2) TO PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD), AND SITE PLAN REVIEW FOR A 33,000 SQUARE FOOT CHILDCARE CENTER ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 7750 GALPIN BOULEVARD. APPLICANT: CLA CHANHASSEN, LLC. OWNER: AMERICANA COMMUNITY BANK, PLANNING CASE 2015-09. Generous: Thank you Chairman Aller, commissioners. As you stated this is a two part review. The first is a rezoning of the property to Planned Unit Development and the second part is a site plan review for a 33,000 square foot, one story building with outdoor play areas and equipment. This property is located on the northwest corner of Highway 5 and Galpin Boulevard. Galpin th Boulevard is a county road. Highway 5 is a state highway and West 78 Street is a local street th so primary access into the property will be via West 78 Street. There will be a right-in/right-out access along Galpin Boulevard. The property is currently zoned Agricultural Estate District, which is A2 and it was really a holding category in our community. The Planned Unit Development is to provide an office institutional type district. It’s been modified from the specific OI district in the City Code. The total of the two properties is approximately 14 acres. th There’s 6 on the north side and 8 on the south side of West 78 Street. Again the rezoning’s from Agricultural Estate to Planned Unit Development with the underlying of Office Institutional District so anything that’s specified within the PUD district regulations will be covered under Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 City Code for everything that applies in the OI district. Site plan approval is for a one story, 33,032 square foot building with the outdoor play areas and equipment. Okay let’s get to the Planned Unit Development ordinance includes the following elements. Intent, uses, setbacks, building height, materials, design and alternate access. Basically under the intent, the PUD ordinance allows flexibility from our normal standards and in this case we developed some different setback requirements as well as different uses than would typically be permitted in our OI district. On page 5 of the staff report we specified the specific uses in this and the one addition to it would be the daycare. This is a hybrid between a daycare facility and a school facility and under current ordinance we don’t have anything that covers that and so we’re classifying it as the two of those to allow it to go into this district. We also have developed some ancillary uses which are typical in commercial areas. The intent is there’s a portion of the site th south of West 78 Street that’s not being developed right now. In the future the applicant property owner could develop, subdivide that site and develop it with the uses that are permitted in the PUD district regulations. There are no conditional use permits. Under normal OI district we would permit communication towers and in this instance we would not. We’re not recommending that those be adopted. The setbacks are established. We’ve used a 20 foot parking setback as the minimum so that we can get a little separation from the, all the roads around it are either collector or arterial roadways so we’d like to see some separation in there. Interior lot line setbacks would be zero if they further subdivide this property and build the property to the north. Building height, and this is the one point of disagreement between the staff and the applicant is as part of their plan they propose a 50 foot rotunda height in their building elevation. We’re recommending that a maximum height of 37 feet be permitted in this PUD district. We believe the 37 foot is above the 35 feet that’s permitted with, if we had just gone across the road in the shoreland district. Our concern with the 50 foot building height was that 50 feet would be intrusive into the residential character of the neighborhood that’s developing just to the north and that’s already existing to the west. It’s also bigger, taller than the commercial development to the east. While this area provides a transition from Highway 5 into the residential neighborhoods that are developing into the north so we do like, we like the articulation that the applicant was providing through the varying parapet heights within the development but again staff was concerned that the 50 feet was too much and so again we’re recommending a 37 foot maximum. The PUD standards say that we’re supposed to do development that’s in harmony with surrounding areas and we believe that height would not be in harmony with that so staff, and then finally alternate access. We’re requiring that each of the lots when they develop provide pedestrian access out into the city’s trail or sidewalk system, which in this case is on Galpin Boulevard. And finally that they provide bicycle parking opportunities on the site so with that, that’s the PUD portion of the review that we have for this. Site plan, I’ve used this one because it shows an overall aerial view of it. How circulation would work on the development. You can also see the play areas that they’ve established to the north and the west of the building and in the northeast corner. This is one that they provided later that’s a little more accurately reflects the internal landscaping and the landscaping along Highway 5 corridor. As you’ll note as part of the site plan review we did specify that some of the trees within the Highway 5 corridor be revised because they’re within, underneath the power line and so there’s a limitation on the size of trees that can be planted in that. The proposed building is 33,032 square feet. It’s one story. The rotunda parapet height is proposed at 50 feet. The cornice parapet height is at 40 feet 8 inches. Plaster parapet height was 36 feet 9 inches and this is the height that we’re saying that they should use as their maximum as part of this specific 2 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 building. And then the normal parapet height around the actual use area of the building is at 28 feet 6 inches. So they have over 24 feet of parapet on top of the building and that’s the part that we’re opposed to allowing them to go forward with. Architecturally the building is very articulated. It goes in and out. Up and down. Changes in material. We think it will be an attractive addition to the Highway 5 corridor. Will provide some visual interest as people are driving both east and west on Highway 5. I had earlier in the process tried to get them to put that rotunda in the corner of the building and have two wings come out of it but that didn’t go very far. Building materials and colors. A lot of earth tones in that. I won’t go through the specific details but some of the, they have brick veneer on their column areas and then they have that stone face along the base of the building which gives it that old style design and a little bit of permanence in that. We think it’s a very attractive building façade. Again the site plan. Primary th access or full access to the site will be off of West 78 Street. A secondary access and access will be on Galpin Boulevard. They’ll have two way traffic operation around the building but you notice I think the parents or people who are dropping off will be limited on one side parking so the kids don’t have to cross the parking lot areas. And then again approximately 33,000 square foot one story building. Streets and access. Again it’s adjacent to Highway 5, Galpin Boulevard thth and West 78 Street. All of them are collectors or higher. West 78 Street is a full access. They did as part of their submittals provide us with the traffic impact analysis. The study determined that the existing road infrastructure would be adequate and sufficient for the additional traffic that’s generated by the development. The major concern on that was the U turns on Galpin Boulevard coming back into the site so if you have additional questions on that Alyson is a little more conversant on the specifics. The grading plan, they are providing stormwater ponding on the west side of the property. It’s like a multi-cell system. I’m showing the southerly one is actually the stormwater pond. The northerly basin is an existing wetlands that’s out there. At the time I was trying to put these blue areas at their normal water levels based on the contours so it won’t be exactly like that but it gives you an idea of how the water will be treated on site. And th then it discharges under West 78 Street into the wetland complex on the property that’s there and then eventually into Bluff Creek. Sewer and water service will be coming off of Galpin Boulevard. Internally they’re providing stormwater piping to convey all the water into their stormwater system. There’s a long retention, detention area that goes around the outside of the parking lot and wraps around the property into the stormwater pond. Landscaping, they meet the requirements under city ordinance. There are some specifications in the staff report for changing species within that but they do meet the quantity requirements. Additionally they’re providing th landscaping on the north side of West 78 Street, adjacent to the permanent open space that will be there and that again I should go back. As part of the PUD ordinance that we’re proposing the th property north of West 78 would be limited to permanent open space. Park uses or there’s existing utilities in there and so we would keep that. The applicant may retain ownership of that or they could donate it to the City if it’s up to them to determine what’s the best for them. The th 13 trees that are being planted north of West 78 Street, we want them to vary the species. Currently they’re monoculture and so we’d like to get a variety in there. With that staff is recommending approval of the rezoning to Planned Unit Development and approval of the Site Plan for the 33,000 square foot Children’s Learning Adventure subject to the reduction in the building height and with that, and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Recommendations. With that I’d be happy to answer any questions. Aller: Anyone have questions at this point? 3 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Yusuf: I probably have the same question as Lisa. We like to talk about the traffic. Could you please be kind enough to go over how the traffic flow will be in the area. Fauske: Certainly. That’s an excellent question. Members of the Planning Commission you may recall the last development proposal for this site we had a good turnout for that public hearing and there was some concern with some of the pedestrian crossing movements. In th particular crossing Galpin Boulevard on the north side of West 78 Street. With it being a wide road and then also the U turn movements. As this graphic shows, the U turn movement that occurs when travelers are leaving, what we’re observing right now is travelers leaving the commercial site on the northeast corner of Highway 5 and Galpin. They only have a right- in/right-out on Galpin Boulevard and so we’re currently seeing vehicles turning out of that site th and making a U turn at West 78 Street so that the travelers can go and continue either south on Galpin or most of them getting onto Highway 5. When the development proposal came in for Children’s Learning Adventure we reiterated that concern that staff had with the U turn movement and the analysis did show an increase in that U turn movement but as we took a step back and taking a look at the sight lines as the traffic impact analysis had indicated. The sight lines in this vicinity are good to allow the users that are making that U turn movement an adequate site distance. That being said we’re still looking at that U turn movement. We’ve had conversations with Carver County with regards to the current and anticipated U turn movement and we’ve identified that it would be more of a system improvement versus something that’s related to a development as we’re currently seeing that U turn movement at the intersection so we will continue to monitor the situation. The public works director has spoken to the companies that are currently in the northeast corner of Galpin and Highway 5 to have discussions on whether or not they would consider just having a right in on Galpin to eliminate that right out of the site and, which then brings the U turn movement and the owners at this time have not expressed an interest to do so. So we’ll continue to monitor it. The other concern that came out th of the previous proposal was pedestrian crossings for pedestrian traffic going along West 78 Street on the north side there with Galpin being a wider street. The City did respond to that and put in a concrete landing area so that users had what we would call an island. That they could cross the northbound Galpin traffic. Well depending on which direction you’re going but cross half of the road at first. Have a curbed, curb and gutter area. Concrete island to rest and make sure they were safe to go and cross the other half of the road. Yusuf: Thank you. Fauske: You’re welcome. Hokkanen: You know I just want to know because I do have concerns about the U turn because with this development coming in they’re going to have a right-in/right-out on their side as well so the increased U turn traffic will be there. Fauske: Correct. Hokkanen: Like you’ve noted. Again with the development of Bentz Farms up on Galpin with more traffic we really need to address that intersection aside from this going forward because it’s 4 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 a dangerous intersection. Whether the island helped with the pedestrian traffic, no doubt but just the speed and people making those U turns. It’s you know, accidents happen. Fauske: Yes, and as we noted in the staff report the access to Galpin Boulevard is ultimately Carver County’s jurisdiction with Galpin Boulevard being their, their roadway so the right- in/right-out was granted through Carver County and the City’s had that conversation with Carver County regarding our concerns with that U turn movement and we’ve agreed that we want to continue to monitor the situation and see if there’s something that can be done as you mentioned when Bentz Farms builds out and we do see a slight increase in traffic from that development. What can be done in that area to try to limit the U turn movement. Hokkanen: Is there any option of not having it be a right in? Fauske: That’s ultimately Carver County’s jurisdiction. The City doesn’t have the authority to go and restrict that access. We’ve had that conversation with Carver County and they’ve indicated that the applicant would be allowed to have that right-in/right-out so. I appreciate the good questions and comments regarding that U turn movement. Aller: How about number of cars as far as the actual traffic itself? How does it fare with the prior? Fauske: It’s an increase over the previous because you’re seeing, with this particular use you’re seeing a peak a.m. and p.m. associated with drop off and pick up of the children of the facility. That being said we did work with the applicant’s traffic engineer from the beginning to come up with a reasonable trip generation for this use because it’s not a strict daycare. It’s not a school. It’s a hybrid so when we looked at, and they worked very closely with staff to make sure we were comfortable with their trip generation and basically they, they kind of melded the two together for trip generation between a daycare and a school so we do see an increase over the previous proposal. Traffic but as I mentioned in the analysis they did take a look at the overall th intersection and didn’t identify any issues with the West 78 Street, Galpin intersection and they also look at the queuing length for the, if you’re going southbound on Galpin, to make the left turn onto Highway 5. We did ask them to take a look at that. They had their observations based on the current traffic and with the additional traffic from this use they didn’t anticipate that that would be an issue. Aller: And then water flow. It looks like there’ll be a lot more water directed to the storm sewer than there is now because of the additional hard cover. Is there sufficient length for that water to travel? Fauske: Excellent question. The developer has proposed several components for their stormwater management. Thank you Bob. As this graphic shows the area in blue provides some stormwater ponding which will throttle back that peak discharge and they’ve also provided an infiltration area along the corridor with Highway 5 there to help mitigate the additional peak runoff rates from the site under it’s developed condition. Aller: Okay. Any additional questions at this point? 5 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Tietz: The question about the queuing up. It looks like you know the primary entry is off of th West 78 supposedly as opposed to Galpin and then when you queue up it appears that you have to sign in and sign out when you bring your child to the facility so does that imply that there’s no queuing up and waiting out in front of the door because it looks like a lot of those parking areas would be encumbered or hindered by a long. If you look at our elementary schools in the neighborhood, and I think there’s more kids that get picked up than take the bus and you’re th going to have lines all the way out to West 78 if it’s a drop off but how, can you explain the security? And do the parents have to go into the building to get their child and sign them out and come out? Aller: I’m wondering whether that’s a question better asked of the developer. Tietz: Okay, I didn’t know if Bob had run across that. Generous: It was an issue that we asked initially whether there would be a drop off point and they’re not proposing that so. People have to go in and out as I understand it. Tietz: Okay. And I couldn’t tell from the plans or the scale that we were looking at, the size or the height, it appeared as though possibly, there was no detail but it appears the perimeter and fence in the play area was 6 feet. Is that correct? Generous: I didn’t look at that detail myself. Tietz: I could hardly read it but there was a detail A07 or something like that. It was just in the schedule and it looked like it was only a 6 foot fence and there was no detail to determine what that fence looks like and if it’s screened. Generous: The applicant would be a good source for that one. Tietz: Okay. Okay. Generous: Ms. Hokkanen. Hokkanen: Do you happen to know the height of CVS? Generous: Not off the. Hokkanen: No? Generous: It’s been a while since I worked on that one. Hokkanen: But it’s less than 50 feet. Generous: Oh yes. 6 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Hokkanen: It’s 30 feet? Generous: Maybe. 30-35. Hokkanen: So 37 is. Aller: Would be higher. Generous: Would be 2 feet. Hokkanen: Would be 2 feet higher than CVS. And then another question. Random, I don’t th know. The trees that you’re asking them to change the species on the north side of 78 Street, is there some reason for that? Is there somewhere that we state they can’t all be the same species? Generous: Well yes in our landscaping requirements we want diversity so if we have an infestation of one species they don’t all die. Hokkanen: Okay, that’s why. I figured there was something. I was just curious on that one. Generous: It’s like we’re getting rid of ash. We don’t allow them to plant those anymore because we anticipate Emerald Ash Borers getting here eventually. th Hokkanen: Because are all the trees along 78 Street by Lake Ann all the same? Generous: No. Hokkanen: They’re all different. Generous: There’s a variety, yes. Hokkanen: I just wanted to double check. That’s it. Aller: Great. Any additional questions from commissioners at this point. We’ll hear from the developer then. Peter Coyle: Good evening Mr. Chair, members of the Planning Commission. Staff. My name is Peter Coyle. I’m a Land Use Lawyer with Larkin-Hoffman and I’m Land Use Counsel for Children’s Learning Adventure. The applicant this evening. I’m joined by Mike Clemmons who is the project director if you will for this project here in the city and this would be the maiden voyage of this company in the state of Minnesota so they’ve targeted Chanhassen as a very desirable opportunity for their business to expand their footprint into Minnesota. We’re also joined by Alan Catchpool who is the project engineer and who can respond to any specific questions you may have about drainage or any other site design constraints. I’ll just touch on a couple of points before I turn it over to Mike to kind of walk you through the project itself. As Mr. Generous indicated we’re operating under the construct of your PUD ordinance which is the City’s zoning device. The device many cities have that allows somewhat more flexibility in the 7 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 application of your zoning ordinances in exchange for creativity of design. Other concessions that are kind of a trade off if you will in trying to make sure that you get strong architecture. Strong use. Strong amenities. Whatever are in play in exchange for some deviations if you will from the code. Because we’re in a PUD there isn’t a strict standard that regulates height for example and as Mr. Clemmons is going to indicate in a couple of minutes we feel like we’ve proposed a very strong architectural styled building. Understand there’s the concern raised about height. Respectfully we feel like the height is proportionate to the kind of building that we’re trying to position along Highway 5 and I would note to that point that the elevation concern that’s been raised is oriented to Highway 5. It’s not oriented to the residential neighborhood and in fact will not be lit to the back side such that it would pose a light intrusion to the residential neighborhood. Notwithstanding that we understand staff’s concern and we’re happy to talk with you about that but I just wanted to make that point to you and we think under the PUD ordinance it’s a proper area for flexibility because we think in totality, based on some other data that Mr. Clemmons will share with you in a minute, we feel like it’s a fair compromise and I’ll just tell you it’s a very important architectural element for the company. It’s part of their signature look and we respect that there’s some anxiety about what that look might be like but hopefully we can address your concerns this evening such that you’ll be able to support the project in total. With that I’ll turn it over to Mr. Clemmons and let him review the project in more detail with you. Thank you very much. Aller: Thank you. Mike Clemmons: Commission members, how are you? This is, I brought with me. It’s the only one I have because I’m out of them and I’m happy to leave it with you except I have to take it to Chicago tomorrow. It is the only one. I will mail you as soon as I get off the printer the 2015 version. This is what we take. This is what I show people from a real estate standpoint and can you all see that? We’re a child care provider. We’re a daycare provider and one of the things that we do, we were a two time franchisee for a number of years. It’s a brother and sister owned company and our brand kept expanding and getting a little nicer and a little nicer and a little nicer. We were approached by the franchisor company to buy back all of our Teeter Times in 2007 and allowed us to go a different direction. A little nicer direction quite honestly. When you say daycare to some people they shutter. It’s not what they want to hear in their neighborhood and I’m going to walk you through some photos. These are actual photographs. There’s nothing retouched. If I show you this, it’s an artist’s conception and it’s what might be and so what I wanted to walk you through a little bit and I don’t know if that’s upside down for you or not or if you can see that. Aller: No it’s fine. Mike Clemmons: This is the entry feature for our Fall Creek, Texas and I’m going to come back to the 50 foot height. I’m not going to shy from that or avoid that or try to play games with anybody. I want to answer that and be up front. 50 feet scares people. It’s 8 percent of our total elevations. It’s 17 percent of the total front elevation so when you start thinking in terms of 50 feet, if we wanted to put 50 feet in here and it was a 50 foot perimeter, I’d share your concerns but I want to walk you through how from an architectural standpoint I think that that is something that is a little less intimidating. So let me, I’m going to show you a couple of pictures. 8 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 These are the same pictures that 6 or 9 months ago I met with the homeowners and had an informal meeting. This is the opening in Cinco Ranch. As you can see these were people lined clear up around the building and I’m telling you when we open in Chanhassen there will be people there that think they’re coming to a Pink Floyd concert. They will be camped out all night for a place in this daycare. It happens everywhere we go and I have picture after picture after picture to show you this and here’s why. To mitigate your concerns about parking we do not allow queuing like a grade school. You cannot do a drive by and tell your kid to tuck and roll and throw him out the door as you go by. You physically have to park your car. Hold Johnny by the hand and bring him into the building, and we do that for security reasons and a lot of what we do, which we won’t touch on here tonight from an operational standpoint is security, security, security and the fences are 6 feet and when we get there I’ll show you those and I’ll show you what they look like. So you walk in. You check in. You can’t see it here tonight but see where my thumb is? These, and I’m going to use a 10 maybe. These are television monitors like you’d have in a Las Vegas casino so the director who’s sitting here can look up, and there’s actually these are, there’s actually 12. There’s 12 more on the other side of the room over here and so that the person who’s sitting at the front of this building can be looking at every single aspect of that… There was technical difficulty with the audio equipment at this point in the applicant’s presentation. Mike Clemmons: …schools private or public and then they go onto University, they’re prepared to public speak, math, etcetera. This is the, and I’m going to go kind of quickly. You can stop me and we’ll come back. This is the after school homework area and if you’ll notice there’s what’s called a hash tablet which has our proprietary software used by the little kids where we can plug them right into the Chanhassen School District where they can turn in their homework, etcetera. We want to play video games, me personally I’m a little too old for that. I wouldn’t let them do it but that’s what kids do. We have a basketball court on the inside. Weather isn’t always nice in all the parts of the world that we’re in. This is the television studio. Again it’s geared towards public speaking. This part of the curriculum I’m a little fuzzy on but that’s not what I’m here for. This is the math and science room. As you can see on the interior, this is the solar system. It’s internally illuminated. The plants are in there. This is where the math and science, this is the math and science room. Now what we’re going to do is we’re going to walk through a succession of classrooms just so you get a flavor. This is the art studio. We enroll our kids in a room and then we rotate them. In a home room and then we rotate them through math and science and art and all of these others throughout the day. As you can well imagine if you parked a 3 year old in one room all day you’d have trouble. This way we, it helps them interact with others. It helps them feel less bored. This is the library. Has a 1,500 gallon aquarium tank. Salt water tank right there. This is designed for quiet time. Let the kids come in after school, get their homework done. This is for the really little guys. This is for the kids that are, let’s call them one year olds. The ones that get run over by everybody else. This is their indoor play room called Imagination Island and it’s a police station, a fire station, a bakery and it’s just basically a good safe place for these kids to come and play where the 5 year olds aren’t running them over. This is in here for real estate purposes but our site at Chanhassen’s really nice because it’s a nice big rectangle. Allows us to do a rectangular shape. This is a Z shaped piece of property in Phoenix. It’s in Scottsdale and it’s in here to show people that we can change up 9 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 the playground locations a little bit here and there if we have unique real estate. These are the play structures that are in the back. These are in that same location that I just showed you. All of the surface area outside you’ll notice is not grass. It’s the playground material like you put in your public parks. The whole idea is when your kids come in from, when they go home to see you at night after they’ve been with us all day the last thing you want to do is have mud and grass stains everywhere and the last thing we want to do is be cleaning that out of the store or the center every single night. So you have these centers. We do have tennis courts. We have basketball courts. This is Cinco again. This is trying to show you a little bit of what the buildings and the architectural components. The elevations. The fences and crash gates. We have to be able to get the fire department into the back of the building. You asked about signing people in. They have to come in and sign in with this so you don’t have the queuing in our center like you have in a lot of our competitors where they pull in and drop kids off. You have to bring your child in. Check them in. You have to come in, pick them up at night and take them out. Again that’s for security. That’s another picture of the library. This is the infant rooms. th We take children from 6 weeks through 6 grade so that’s 12. Could be 13 but they’re in our after school program. Two year olds or 1 ½ year olds. These we’re working our way up to the preschoolers and that’s, that’s who we are and so I wanted to give that quick tour just to show you some of the architectural features. What the classrooms look like. What the quality of construction is and it is not a cheap. It is probably the nicest daycare you’re going to find in the United States. It is, there’s already somebody else that calls their company crème de la crème but really we are the cream of the crop and we’re proud of it and so I’m happy to answer any questions that you have. Aller: Great. How many states are you in now? Mike Clemmons: We are open in 6. We are probably have property tied up in 15 or 20. Aller: And the 6 that you’re open in, and including the ones that we’ve seen in the photographs, are they at 50 feet or are they different? Mike Clemmons: Some are. Aller: Some aren’t? Mike Clemmons: Some are. I said some are. 45 is our typical elevation. When we looked at this Highway 5 location because it’s out on the freeway, we have some that are out on these types of locations. Because of the setbacks from the roads we try to go 50. And let me address that with you real fast. Again I know that the 50 sounds. If I thought 50 feet in a cube were landing there I would be scared to death but here’s, here are a couple of thoughts. When we looked at the 50 feet we went back and looked at the prior zoning case for this particular property and that was Planning Case 2013, so it was in 2013-07. It received unanimous approval. It had a 155 unit multi-family apartment complex on it. It was one structure. One physical structure. It th was a big C shaped structure that followed 5, Galpin and 78 around and it had a 46 foot peak height. There was one part of the building that was a little bit lower but when you look at the old photos that building was 46 feet from one start of the big capital letter C all the way to, it was kind of an inverse. All the way to the other side. Our height is 50 feet in 17 percent of our area. 10 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Not 46 feet in 100 percent of our area. Our average peak, when you look at our average we’re 29 feet. We’re 17 feet lower than the building that was approved once before so we didn’t ignore the City. We didn’t ignore what had happened before. We actually tried to think about how to make it fit within that. So the other thing that we agreed to, when we met with, and some of the residents are here that were here the first time we met, we had said the parcel to the north. The 6 acres to the north, that we would honor Oppidan, which was the prior developer, that we would honor their commitment to the neighbors to not develop that property in perpetuity. We will th never ask you. We’ll never come back here and ask to do anything north of 78 Street. Aller: So just for clarification. That’s Lot A? Outlot A. Generous: Yeah, Parcel A. Mike Clemmons: A was yeah, to the north. So what we tried to do is say look, we’ll honor that. We’ll keep this moved as far to the south as possible. We did one row of parking in the front which is part of moving that, and I can’t get any farther. That’s just we’re out so we looked at the height of the project before we had talked to the neighbors. We had made the commitment to keep the park there. We’re planting some additional trees to buffer and the distance of our building is approximately the same as the Oppidan building. I have to think about my directions here to the, it’s the west and we’re considerably farther south than they would have been in their original C shaped, the multi-family configuration. So here’s what I did. I did this on, I sent this to our architect and they did it quickly so there’s going to be an error or two in my math but conceptually it’s correct. So there are the elevations and without my magnifying glass I can’t read these but I know what they are. But anyway they have call out’s for the building heights everywhere that the articulation changes and I thought that was great. That was part of the answer. So I asked them to take the same plans and I’m happy to leave these with you and then what they did was they gave me a lineal dimension for each. So I’m a terrible scribbler so let me do this. From here to here, and I have a height okay. I did that for the whole building for all elevations. And I did this yesterday in a little bit of a hurry. So then what I did, and I don’t know if you can zoom in on this. But I’ll tell you what, and I’ll leave this with you. I can, well there you go. I’ll show you what it says. So what I did is I took the front elevation and I had a lineal footage because the building’s 250 feet wide and then I went with the height for each component and so we have something that’s 56 feet and it’s 40 feet tall. 19 feet and it’s 26 and as you can see it totals 2,248 feet. That’s 100 percent and average across the front elevation is 36. You can’t read that but it’s 36.8 feet. It’s 36 and 10 is what that is. So we meet the spirit of the 37 feet 7 that’s in the staff report. I just don’t meet it by having one flat plane. Does that make sense? Then the next, I’m just going to move this. You can’t read it because it’s a little fuzzy but this is the right elevation. It’s 139 feet. It’s 29 feet in average elevation height. It has a peak height, meaning the maximum height on that elevation is 36 feet. 36 and three-quarters. Same exercise on the left elevation. Highest is 40 feet. It’s 41 percent of that. The average is 32 feet let’s call it. I’m rounding. And in the rear elevation, for some reason I built a trapezoid here because I’m only 248. 245 feet on the south but I’m only 26 feet. The punch line to this whole thing is probably not readable but I’ll tell you what it is. If I have a 50 foot rotunda height that’s 17 percent of the front elevation’s width. It’s 8 percent of the total elevation. As you can see in our entry feature is, now it’s zoomed a little much but it’s key to the focal point of where we bring the parents in and out of the building. It really is key to our architecture. If you look 11 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 across all elevations at 33 feet average height. So and the other which you won’t be able to see on, and I’ll pass it around and you really won’t be able to see it and I don’t think the audience will be able to see it very well but the, while the front elevation here is, this is the front on top. The rear elevation, it’s like a wedge. It’s small towards the homeowners and it gets larger towards the street and that was intended to try to put the mass of the building again as far away from the homes as we could. So what we’re respectfully requesting is that we, the elevations as presented, we’d like to build those. And if that height causes you terrible heartburn. There’s just consternation over that 50 foot number, we can lower that 45 and it won’t be an exact 5 foot slice out of the middle of the building because there’s some internal features that you know the basketball courts in there and some other, screening of the mechanical because we screen all the mechanical and that’s part of what those parapets are doing. It won’t be an exact foot for foot reduction but what it does, if my math is correct and I believe it is, you don’t need to zoom in. What I’ll just tell you is, and I’ll leave this it you. This is 45 feet here and the average drops to about 29 feet. It’s not an exact 5 for 5 reduction but that is something we could with, it allows us to keep our architectural, the integrity. It keeps the building looking the way and it’s a good looking building. We like to keep it that way and that’s what we’re requesting. Is that if you can’t wrap your arms around the 50 feet. If it’s just uncomfortable, then the 45. Again it’s an average height of 29 feet. It’s a 45 foot rotunda and we can keep the architecture looking essentially what we presented in, it’s shown in the staff report and the drawings I have here. That was the height issue. There were 4 items. One was you wanted glass. There were a couple that were real easy. The glass is a little more problematic for us. On the side elevations. This elevation right here, which is the east elevation is the bowling alley. And so we could put some glass in here but it’s glass to the detention pond so I don’t know that you gain what you would hope to gain. This side is classrooms where the design of the classrooms doesn’t easily accommodate glass, and quite frankly we don’t want people looking in on babies, one year olds and two year olds. That’s the classrooms that are on that side of the building. We could put some spanrow glass in here to give it a faux glass look to mirror what’s on the Walgreen’s side. Or CVS. Is it Walgreen’s or CVS? Generous: CVS. Mike Clemmons: So I went and drove by there. They have clear story windows that are about 10 feet off the ground and they’re about 3 feet tall and they kind of wrap the building so they don’t look, you’re not looking in but I think it provides some light. We could do something along this elevation here to break it up. We could put some spanrow here and then we obviously have all these exiting doors for the classrooms. So there’s something we could do. I don’t think it’s as much as if we could put a faux storefront on the side of the building. And I truly don’t know how to address that other than maybe between now and the council, ask our architects to take a stab at it. Because sure as shoot I’ll commit to something and I’ll be wrong because I want to put, I suggested we put glass here and they laughed at me because they said well you’re going to be looking into where the bowling lanes, where the bowling pins reset so that’s a bad idea so. Tietz: Is this plan that we have in our packet, the sheet A-1 not accurate then because the bowling alley is on the west side. 12 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Mike Clemmons: The bowling alley in this building would be. Alan Catchpool: That is correct. You are correct. Tietz: Okay. So we’re talking about windows not in the bowling alley. We’re talking on the east side. Generous: It’s just on the eastern elevation. Alan Catchpool: On Galpin. Mike Clemmons: East, right. Didn’t you say, you said west correct? Generous: No, east. Mike Clemmons: The bowling alley… Tietz: Is on the west side in this plan. Mike Clemmons: And that’s correct. Tietz: Okay. Mike Clemmons: And I’m sorry, they wrote this as elevation left and right so I’m having to think through my left and right here while I’m standing here. This is the west elevation with the bowling alley right here. And we could put some windows in the bowling alley here. You can’t see what I’m writing on. Tietz: I think the question was for windows on the east side wasn’t it? On Galpin. Mike Clemmons: What I’m saying is. Tietz: Why would you put them on the bowling alley if the question’s about the east side? Mike Clemmons: Because it’s easy. What I’m saying is it’s easy to do it on the wrong side of the building. I don’t think it adds any value. On the side you want it on, which is the east side, it’s much more problematic and I need to turn to my architect to tell you what I can’t actually do. And if we do it, it would be spanrow glass because that’s I think the bigger point. If I can do it in spanrow and if I can do it they have to show me where it fits. I’m not trying to evasive. In other words I’m not trying to avoid that issue tonight. I’m saying I can’t answer it. So that’s what we have and I’m happy to answer any questions. I just wanted to cover. Aller: No and we appreciate the fact that you’re answering obviously with candor and it’s okay not to know and this is a process so anything we do today is going to go to City Council and City Council can change it and go 180 degrees on what we recommend so we appreciate the comments and the conversation which leads me to the parking and the queuing. If you’re, have 13 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 you run into the fact that if you’ve only got a limited number of parking spaces and you have a large number of students coming in and the parking spaces are full and a queue develops? Mike Clemmons: Let me answer that. Again this is a, this is actually, you have to take a step back from what you think, when you think about grade schools. It’s spelled out in the traffic report, and I don’t, I did not bring a copy of that. I’m probably not the perfect person to explain that but this is going to be so much better if we were sitting around a round table and I had a pitcher of beer because I like to draw pictures, okay. Your average grade school, if this is 8:00 in the morning and 2:00 in the afternoon, and I’m going to be off a little but you know it’s going to be 8:30 and 2:15 or whatever. They have nothing, nothing, nothing until the traffic spikes and then nothing, nothing and traffic spikes. They’ll have a little blip in the middle when Johnny or Betty gets sick but they get inundated for 30 minutes. The tide comes in. The tide goes out. The tide comes in. The tide goes out. We open at 6:30 in the morning. We’re not open on nights or weekends and we do not rent our facilities out. It is just a school. It is just a daycare 5 days a week. But remember their peak starts here. We start having people trickle in. We might have the same volume of traffic over the course of a day but it hits, it doesn’t hit in these two tidal waves. So what will happen is, our traffic starts coming in. It blips up. And I’m drawing this too flat but you’ll understand my, it’s a little more evenly spread out over the course of the day. This probably needs to be up a little higher. This one a little higher but then we have a little peak in the middle from the kids that go half day because part of our program is half day. So it may have the same volume of traffic. It is spread out much more evenly over the course of the day and that’s why we, and number one we don’t, like a lot of grade schools, allow people to, the parents will literally pull in and they don’t have to get out of the car. We don’t allow that. So from a queuing, and remember when you’re dropping your kids off or picking them up, you’re not there to look at their art project. You’re not, they’re not doing any of that. They’re there 5 or 10 minutes tops and they’re gone. Aller: Okay but my question goes to the experience with the school and the queuing on the th property and out to what would be 78 and Galpin. Is, are those spots that are allotted ever filled where it’s 100 percent filled and there are people still waiting? In your experience. And I understand that over the course of the day it may be less but there are still going to be time periods when you’re inundated with parents that are coming in to pick up or drop off. Mike Clemmons: Sure. I’m sure the answer’s absolutely. There’s got to be a point in the day at one of our centers where those are absolutely full. As a general statement, because I don’t have any good factual data for you and if I had known I would have brought it but I sat down the other day to ask myself that question as we look at properties around the US and what our needs are. So I put together a spread sheet of 15 or 20 of our similar stores. 33,000 square feet and I looked at what’s the parking requirement because in Alfreda, Georgia they’ll take 62 parking spaces which is not enough for us. In one location on Long Island they wanted 214 so I kind of ignore that and I say how many did we end up building and how many are on site and what did we provide and across 13 centers we provide something like 102 parking spaces on average in those centers and we don’t have parking issues and that’s the hardest thing to articulate because if I come into your city and I say wink, wink. I only need 100 spaces. You turn to the code and the code says well you need 140 because it says you need this and you need this but I can tell you from real experience we, across 13 centers that 100 spaces is adequate and there sure, there may 14 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 be a time during the day but we don’t do special events so when your kids are in grade school and they have their holiday play everybody shows up for 2 hours for the holiday play, right? We don’t have those type of events scheduled basically other than the grand opening and it will be packed at the grand opening but that’s a day of just pandemonium and it dies down. And then the other thing about is we have our own school buses that go out and they’ll literally drive right across the street and pick up 8 kids and bring them back in so that cuts down on the need for more cars in the parking lot. Aller: Okay. Commissioner Hokkanen. Hokkanen: Did I miss somewhere in here? Is there a capacity on the number of kids per this? Mike Clemmons: There is and that’s, and I’ll be straight up, it’s really deceiving. We had this conversation with the City. When you license a daycare you’re subject not only to fire, local fire regs. You are subject to State licensing regs and daycare is very, can be very granular across the United States. In Minnesota you have one State licensing group at the State level and you may have something at the County. I won’t deal with that so again I’m not being evasive but generally in some states you license at the State, the County, the City, the local. Hokkanen: Right. Mike Clemmons: Minnesota’s a lot cleaner in that regard. I believe that in Minnesota what’s going to happen is, they’re going to look at the Fire Marshal’s plans and so if for example you could put a kid, whatever’s behind door number 3 here, you’re going to license for it according to the regs. So the fire department will give you a maximum capacity. Do you know? Do you remember? I know I’m putting you on the spot. It’s going to be 550. Alan Catchpool: The initial word was I think 550. Somewhere in there. Mike Clemmons: And that’s because if you can put a kid in there you’re going to have a fire department member that says you can have a maximum of 3 kids in the bathroom or 1 or whatever. The way that we in our schools, and it’s a terrible drawing but I’ll do it anyway because that’s who I am. If we had a school, we had a rotunda and we had a school and we have a courtyard in the back. You’ll notice the courtyard in the back and that’s so that these kids in these classrooms can exit, okay. That’s why that’s architecture’s like that but generally speaking and I’m going to say these are the, the west side of the building is the older kids because the bowling alley is here. And so the east side is the younger kids so I’m going to put a Y in and I just like to keep my facts straight. All of the classrooms that are located in about this area on your, well you know you have a floor plan don’t you in the packet. Little more, okay thank you. Now I’m going to write on Alan’s floor plan. Okay. I’m just going to put a couple, does anyone have a Sharpie? Something a little fatter by chance. You don’t, okay. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Classroom. Can you guys see that? Thank you very much. Okay so these are all classrooms where we will enroll a child. They all have a license capacity that goes with them from a State licensing standpoint and from the Fire Marshal standpoint. 15 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Hokkanen: Right. Mike Clemmons: This is, and I’m going to do, this is a specialty room. Specialty room. Specialty room. Specialty room. Specialty, specialty. Modern dance is probably specialty but I’m going to, I’m not going to circle that and I’ll explain it why I’m in it. This area of the house if you will is all after school so when they show up, they show up right. So that’s going to be full and that’s just what’s going to happen. So, oh I’m sorry. This art room is a specialty. So when we sign children up for this daycare, when we enroll children we will, age appropriate obviously, these are 6 weeks to a year. And then these are all the little guys. The one’s and twosies and they get older til they’re about 4 here. These rooms are licenses and have a maximum capacity. They have to be. But they don’t necessarily have children in them during the course of the day so this group of children, these explorers will then go, will go spend. I say play but I get in trouble for that. These kids will rotate into this room and then they’ll rotate to math and science. They may go bake a cookie. They may, you know the wind’s blowing and they’re not playing outside, they may rotate here. So my point is these rooms will have less, are there. The slashes are all home rooms and then we rotate them through these so your 550 kids, normally we have 62 percent of licensed capacity is enrolled and normally 51 percent is physically in the building. That’s what we found across our centers. Right. And you have to think of this like a movie theater. I can’t go to the movies and have you sit in my lap. The Fire Marshal frowns on that so that’s, we have to make sure that unlike a gym that if they have 100, let’s say the Fire Department allows you to have 100 people in the building. They may sell 1,000 memberships. Hokkanen: Okay. Well I guess what, we got a little off track. I was, do you have any statistics on how many of those 550 per family, is it 2 kids per family? Mike Clemmons: Oh it’s usually about, we get about 1.3, 1.2, 1.3. Some areas of the country more. Some less. Hokkanen: Okay. I guess I was trying to get to your question about the queuing is that when you go drop off your kids at school they start at 8:00 so everybody’s got to be there at 8:00. Where this I see your point where people are going to work so they drop off at 7:00. They drop off at 7:30. Not everybody’s going there at the same time. Mike Clemmons: We also have a lot of people who are, another misconception is that mom and dad both work and that’s why kids are in our daycare. A lot of the kids that enroll, mom doesn’t work. Mom, we are, and as you skew towards more affluent areas we actually have more kids that sign up full time go one day a week. And the reason is if you sign up part time you have to pick specifically what on Monday, Wednesday, Friday at these times. If you sign up full time, we’re your babysitter because they come and go whenever they please and the volume, the more it skews towards affluent the fewer kids are actually in the building. So it’s a hard from a traffic standpoint. In fact we had gone out and engaged a traffic company called Wink which unbeknownst to us is who Kate said the City would use to review it except we already hired them so they’re a good engineer. They knew what they were doing and I think the guy’s name was Todd. I have to go look at the report but he and I sat down and I walked him through. Here’s 16 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 how it works. Here’s the information. Here’s factual data that we gave him that is not public information because it was out of 3 or 4 of our Texas centers. By week. And then you know Christmas you can just see the volume go to nothing so we said look ignore that but here’s 4 weeks of factual data of, here’s the enrollment numbers. Here’s the kids in the building, etcetera so we’re very comfortable that we don’t have that queuing problem. Some daycares, it’s just hard to explain. It’s one of those that we deal with a lot. Hokkanen: One more question. Sorry. Aller: Commissioner Hokkanen. Hokkanen: Maybe for Bob. On the plat here there is one of the, for the power lines there is a tower somewhere on this property, isn’t there? Alan Catchpool: It’s on the west. Southwest corner. Generous: Yes. Hokkanen: How tall is that? Does anybody know how tall that is? Alan Catchpool: There’s a power line tower. Hokkanen: Like is it 100 feet? Generous: Transmission tower. Hokkanen: Just trying to get a you know. Aller: Alyson, do we know? Mike Clemmons: They’re like 69kv lines. Those are big lines. Hokkanen: They are, alright. I mean I live in this area so I’m very familiar. That’s why I have some questions. I mean I don’t really have a problem with the 45 foot but I’m trying to get a little bit of, I mean if we’ve got two huge towers and they’ve got 45 feet in there and it looks and it’s on the Highway 5 side and there’s not a, any lights for the neighbors. Have any neighbors raised any concerns about the height? Generous: I didn’t receive one call. Hokkanen: So I’m just curious. Aller: Well and that’s why it’s important that we ask the questions now. Hokkanen: Right. 17 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Aller: And why it’s important that you’re candid now because people are watching at home. People are going to review the Minutes on this and they’re going to prepare for City Council and you may end up with a hundred neighbors that show up and have a view point on what’s been presented tonight so it’s always good, and that’s what this committee does is we flush out those issues and we try to make the best recommendations we can so. Mike Clemmons: We’ve actually met with the neighbors about 6 or 9 months ago and it started out, and if I was in the neighborhood, look. I live in a nice community like Chanhassen as well so, and the neighbors asked a lot of questions and I think at the end of the night they were pleased. It was, with what we were doing and in fact I don’t think Kate had said afterwards quite the opposite. I don’t think that there were any negative comments received. I think that there were some positive comments received. And we actually even tried to get the No U Turn sign put up. One of the ladies had asked me at the public meeting and we tried and we were basically said, not that Chanhassen didn’t. The other people said it’s not for you to tell us what to do. Tietz: Bob do you have any, I’m looking in my mind at Lifetime Fitness and that’s not a parapet but it’s a high element in the center which is the you know the primary focus of the front door. Now that’s a two story building but it’s all athletics so I’m sure that those floor heights are different but that, have any sense of what that height might be? Generous: I believe that’s close to the 50 foot height. Tietz: Okay so that. Generous: Which the City does permit in our industrial districts. Tietz: In the industrial because that’s in industrial. And then as I drove up tonight, now it’s a different massing. Different scale but Byerly’s is of a similar prominent front entry that has a higher center portion. Now it’s an all brick structure and it’s a, you know it’s a grocery story but it has prominence and I know in looking at your website for both the architect and for CLA, I mean this is the signature piece. It’s the rotunda is it for 19 of them in Texas. Mike Clemmons: Right. Tietz: So has the architect ever worked in Minnesota before? Mike Clemmons: No. You’re our, this is our, or has the architectural firm? Tietz: The architect. Mike Clemmons: Oh I’m sure they have. Casco’s big and although I can’t speak for them but I’m sure they have. Tietz: Okay. I’m also curious about the use, it says stucco and then scored EIFS. Is it all EIFS and it’s just called stucco in one case and scored because it’s put up in modules and then covered with plaster and the EIFS? 18 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Mike Clemmons: I can’t, I started to turn to Alan but I need to turn to my architect. I can’t answer that but I will by council. Tietz: Okay. Just curious. Mike Clemmons: Yeah. I think if you look at the finishes we have in different locales it’s a little of everything and that’s, again I’m not being evasive but I would have to find out what we’re talking about for… Tietz: One of your images looked like it was an all brick building. Mike Clemmons: Well I’m sure one of them was. Probably in Georgia I suspect or Texas. Tietz: Oh and what’s the, what’s the file storage room? Is that a free standing unit? Mike Clemmons: Yeah there’s a file storage room in our, it’s out in the back in the play area. Is that the one you’re talking about? Tietz: I don’t know. Mike Clemmons: And it’s just because there’s no room on the inside of the building for it. They build a separate little building out there where they do record retention and then get rid of it after X number of time. Tietz: Okay. I wasn’t sure if that was play equipment storage but that is the file storage. Mike Clemmons: It is. At some point we had some playground equipment that would go in there because we didn’t, we put the trikes in there but we move those in a lot. They’re, that building’s too small to hold all the playground equipment. Aller: Commissioner Madsen, did you have a question? Madsen: Yes. You had mentioned that there would be school buses for drop off. Will those be queuing or will there be parking spots for that? Mike Clemmons: No they’re our buses. Not a public school bus but our own small school buses and they will park and take the kids in. Madsen: Okay, thank you. Undestad: I’ve got a quick question for you too. How many total schools do you have now? Across the whole U.S. Mike Clemmons: I have to do the math. We sold 28. We, it’s a brother and a sister that own this. We have probably 30 that are open. We have another 30 in development at some stage. 19 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 We’ll probably by the end of this year have 65 or, well when I say have. In development. Open. Under construction we’re probably 65-70. Undestad: And is this kind of the common footprint of all the facilities? Mike Clemmons: It is. It is. It’s the 33,000 square foot building. If you get into areas where the land is really expensive, Long Island, Chicago, we actually build a bigger building. It’s kind of counter intuitive but because we’ve already have such a sunk cost in the land we have to go a little bigger. Everywhere else 33 is pretty much. Undestad: So you’re not really trying anything different here than you’ve already tried elsewhere? Mike Clemmons: Correct. Undestad: Okay. Mike Clemmons: Yeah some of the buildings you’ll see on our web page are old legacy real estate where we actually owned the real estate when we sold the company and as our brand evolved and as we were kind of figuring out what we wanted to be when we grew up so to speak, you’ll see a progression of more traditional to this. Undestad: Can you pop up the interior of your entrance one more time for me? Mike Clemmons: Sure. It’s colorful. Undestad: There you go. Mike Clemmons: It’s hard to see and I’m happy to pass the book around. Undestad: Is this one of your 50 foot interior buildings do you know? Mike Clemmons: I don’t know. It’s 45 or 50. 45’s the lowest we build. But when you walk in it has a. Undestad: It looks impressive. Mike Clemmons: Oh it is. It’s, all of these murals that are in here we used to paint by hand. We had a truly unique artist type guy that would travel the country and paint them and then one day he just didn’t show up so we actually had to go get somebody to paint them and then get them made from a vendor so that they would be the same around the country but. Undestad: So again yeah your comment, same around the country. So the interior, the finishes, everything you just duplicate. 20 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Mike Clemmons: Right but he would literally paint the same dolphins in the same location until one day he just quit showing up. He was an artist. He was pretty unique. Undestad: Alright, thank you. Aller: This is a true franchise is what we’re hearing? Mike Clemmons: No, no, we’re not a franchise. Aller: Okay so it’s, it’s just. Mike Clemmons: We are owned by a brother and a sister. We are not a franchise. Aller: Store owned. So it’s a brand. Mike Clemmons: It’s a brand correct. Aller: And they’re making sure that it’s consistent throughout. Mike Clemmons: Very consistent, yes. Hokkanen: Lifetime… Mike Clemmons: We’re actually, know the Lifetime people very well. We’re buying a couple of properties from them and developing with them. Same thing. Brand is very important. Aller: Okay. Any additional questions at this time? Yusuf: I just have one. Aller: Commissioner Yusuf. Yusuf: Is it appropriate to ask about snow removal plans with respect to the way the site is laid out? Aller: Absolutely. Mike Clemmons: I’m a guy from Phoenix, Arizona. It was 90 degrees today and I left my coat in the car. Luckily I have a raincoat with me. I’ll answer any question you want about snow removal. It will be so wrong but Alan who lives in Minneapolis. He’s a native. He can answer that but I’m the wrong guy. Alan Catchpool: Like he said, yeah we have, my name’s Alan Catchpool with CEI Engineering. We’re the civil and yeah I mean we have, the only place we really have double row parking is over on the east side. Otherwise I mean we can put snow anywhere you know. We’ve got the stormwater pond here. They won’t be really dumping it into the wetland. Again we’ve got a 21 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 large open area to the north that can be blown in there and stockpiled and so considering that most site, this actually has quite a bit of green space to be piling snow. Aller: And while we’ve got you up there Mr. Catchpool. Alan Catchpool: Yeah. Aller: The style and brand of the building, I guess the question is, is it truly functional or is it the character? The aesthetic of having the atrium and. Alan Catchpool: Well I probably shouldn’t be. I’m the civil engineer so I’m not the architect so I shouldn’t be answering with that one. Aller: But a civil engineer it’s structurally it would be sound if it was proportionately lower or higher? Alan Catchpool: Absolutely. Yes. Aller: Okay. Alan Catchpool: I mean like I said, you know the typical that they have is 50. They’ve done 45 but yes, that is their, that is the wow factor. That is what they’re looking at. And we are, go ahead. Weick: It’s going to be signed all the way around right? It’s just lit I thought I heard. Right, it’s lit in the front. Mike Clemmons: It is. We told the neighbors that we would make sure that there was no, I mean when we met with the City and when we met with the neighbors we had to use down lighting appropriately. We tried to keep the, there are no signs on the back of the building. They’re on the east, west, south. I’ll say front, left, right because I’ve got my map turned around. Aller: And Bob that’s consistent with our code? Typically it’s frontage close to 5. Generous: Yes, it’s street frontage. Aller: From the collectors. Generous: Technically they could have it on the north side also. Aller: But it’s a PUD so you’ve got… th Mike Clemmons: Well the code allowed, because it’s 78 but we’ve elected not to do it because we’ve already told the homeowners we wouldn’t kill them with light over. 22 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Aller: And they’ll be a lot harder on you than us. Mike Clemmons: Oh I know. As well as they should be right? Aller: Any additional questions at this point? Tietz: Andrew just one more question. Aller: Mr. Tietz. Tietz: Is that Parcel A, is that dedicated or held as open space? Will it be dedicated to the City? Mike Clemmons: We need to work that out with the City. Probably be dedicated to the City. The prior developer had made an agreement is my understanding that they would dedicate it. Tietz: Okay, I wasn’t aware of that. Mike Clemmons: Yeah. Well that was kind of. Aller: That was just part of the density shift. Mike Clemmons: What’s that? Aller: That was part of the density shift there. But that’s neither here nor there. You’re agreeing to keep it open. Mike Clemmons: We’re agreeing to keep it open. Aller: It will either be maintained by you the developer or it will be kept to the City. Transferred over. Mike Clemmons: I have a commitment that I have to honor which is evidently there’s still a sign over there from the golf putt putt and one of the neighbors asked if I could take down and the other neighbor said I could only take it down if I put it in that lady’s back yard. I’m going to let them work that out. Oh I’m going to take the sign down so. But we’re excited about it. We really, we really are. We think that this is a great location. I keep threatening to move here and they won’t let me but then I come here and it snows and it’s 90, I left my coat at home. I’m not so sure I’m going to move here yet but it’s a nice place. We’re happy to be part of it. Aller: Okay, thank you very much. Mike Clemmons: Do you want me to leave with you, I think any of these on the heights and how I arrived at my math? Generous: Yeah, you can have it for the next time. The math stuff maybe. 23 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Aller: We just want to make sure that it gets to the council and is attached to the packet. Generous: Yes, they’d like to look at the book though. Mike Clemmons: Oh absolutely. Aller: Thank you. At this point in time we’ll find out how the neighbors feel about it. We’ll open up the public hearing. And individuals wishing to speak either for or against can do so at this time. If you could come forward and state your name and address for the record. That would be great. Larry Martin: Good, my name is Larry Martin. I live in Vasserman Ridge. I’m on the directors there. Aller: Welcome Mr. Martin. Larry Martin: Pardon? Aller: Welcome Mr. Martin. Larry Martin: Oh, thank you. We were blessed to be able to attend their presentation the 6 to 9 months ago and since then I’ve followed them on their web sites and stuff and what they’re doing and this is really a special type of a thing. I think if we, these columns that they want. The front. The parapets and everything is part of their nation branding and I think if they can continue that branding on the front there, I think it will be almost like a destination place in Chanhassen because when this school opens I’m convinced it will be one of the finest in the Twin Cities until they put up 4 or 5 more that they’re looking at there. The Galpin thing is not going to be solved. One of the biggest things on Galpin that the County won’t deal with, it’s a 45 miles an hour thing all the way to the stop sign. One of the things that was attractive to the neighbors is the hours of this will be from 6:30 or 7:00 as they said to 7:00 at night. One of the things in your packet has the photometrics in the lot there. There’s not going to be a problem there with that. This is 5 days a week too. Not 6 days. Not 7 so really I can’t think of a more ideal use for that land than has been proposed here. Let’s see what other notes I’ve got here. It has the potential to really fit in this area too. The economics of this area and the economics of these things just fit like a glove together so. The questions I would have, have to do with these th outlots. The land on the north side of 78 Street has never been graded. It’s a mess and the trees have come in there so with the creek going right behind that it would be just super to turn that th into a little park and to have a view of that park from 78 Street as you go into the Vasserman area here. Is there a potential for someone else to build on that other pad? Ask that to Bob. Generous: Chairman, there would be as part of the PUD standards we said they would, they could subdivide the property and meet those standards and then someone could build on that yes. Larry Martin: Okay. How about the other part, that other parcel there which is a high percentage wetland? 24 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Generous: Yeah Parcel A is designated as permanent open space and that’s the zoning would continue that. Larry Martin: Okay but that could be changed. Generous: Well yes. Zoning could be changed. Larry Martin: Yes. The guide plan says it should be that way but with our Met Council the way it is it could be changed so. Generous: The City would have to agree to any rezoning of the property. It’s local control. Larry Martin: Okay. Aller: It would come back before us if somebody wanted to do something and go up to the City Council. You’d have an opportunity to come in and quite frankly one of the reasons why the density, if you recall those hearings back in 2013, this commission was upset with the density on that transfer and we wanted to make sure that it fit appropriately with the wetlands so we’ll be watching those wetland areas. Larry Martin: Good. Well I think the good lord was watching over us when we didn’t do that and when we’re doing this. It’s a great direction that we’re going in now. Thank you. Aller: Thank you. Any additional comments? Seeing no one come forward at this point in time we’ll close the public hearing and open it up for commissioner comments and discussion. Undestad: I think it’s a nice project. Plenty of information on there. A lot of things they’ve got to take care of on their laundry list there but, and you know I think if they’re looking at, in my opinion you know this is a brand. It’s something they’re looking at. You know 45 feet, 50 feet. I mean I think it’s, if the 50 feet is what they’ve been doing you know I’m up for 50 feet but if 45 feet is a number that they know they can do it with that but again when you look at the whole size, and I’m looking at the massing of the building on there too. 5 feet at that rotunda I don’t think is going to change so I’d say leave it at 50 feet but. Aller: Anyone else? Comments. Hokkanen: I agree with Mark. I think it’s a nice project for this site. For the open space it’s going to have for the way the traffic flows onto the east side. I just think overall it’s, I mean I’m th really concerned with Galpin and 78 Street and we need to address that as a City regardless of this and I’ll keep on that but, and I’m okay with the 50 feet. I think this is going to be like a centerpiece. I think it’s going to be a nice flagship center to start in Minnesota. It will be here in Minnesota and Chanhassen and I think it kind of looks like a Lifetime for kids kind of a concept and I think it’s, I wish my kids could have gone to a daycare like this so that’s my only word. Aller: Well I’m going to be the naysayer. They’ve done it at 45 and I think that as long as it’s proportional and it’s not structural. We’ve had that for a reason. I went up the other day and I 25 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 sat off of Vasserman and I was driving around and trying to look at the views because I knew the last time we were here on a project for that, that was one of the problems. People did not want to have a 3 story or a 2 story and with this PUD, even though it’s a one story, the height is higher because of the elements so I don’t want to create a situation where the brand isn’t there. I think it should be proportional so it will look the same. It will be something that people look at and say yes, this is the same structure that we would have seen in Texas or in Arizona and have it be that recognizable but I do want to give the opportunity to the neighborhood to have their sight line maintained and I appreciate the fact that it’s sloping and sound wise, it makes common sense to me that it will be a buffer on 5 and Galpin to have the higher portion of the building there but the sight restriction will be the same even though it’s a little farther away, those individuals that are looking out that direction, I would like to see them have a horizon. It will still be distinguished and they can still look out towards 5 and say I know what that structure is. That’s there so I would like to see it proportionally scaled back to what they’ve done in the past. I’m not sure I would restrict them to the 35 based on the amount of square footage but I would like to see it go, or at least reviewed and the City Council have the opportunity to look at a plan to see how it would look scaled back. Any additional comments? Questions. Discussion. Weick: Well yeah, I would comment on the, I guess I take an opposite look at the proportion. When I look at the size of the building and the features on the building I actually get concerned to make it shorter, this is going to sound, I’ll have as much difficulty as you did trying to explain myself but to me that extra height is actually needed as a proportion to the size of that building. My concern would be bringing it down diminishes that feature and really just then makes it look like a, you know like a flat warehousey type structure. I like, I like the idea of going up as high as possible on that tower and by highest possible I do mean 50 feet because I think it actually makes the feature and it distinguishes the building. Not just so that it’s noticeable but it distinguishes the architecture of that building as something different as opposed to, you might drive by otherwise and say well there’s probably a bunch of, you know there’s a Smashburger and a Potbelly and a chiropractor in there you know. I think with a really dominant structure like that in proportion to the overall size of the building itself I think is very important to that site so I would, I would be in favor of the full 50 feet myself for those reasons. Aller: And I would just, just ask consideration of the proportionality. I don’t think that we’re going to diminish it that much when we’re talking 5 feet but we are talking about a PUD and the possibility that some other individual can come in at some point of time and do some additional building. Subdivision and building which would fall under the same PUD which would then allow them to do 50 feet. Weick: I guess I would say like a 3 story apartment building that we approved. You know, that’d be my. Aller: So that’s my consideration. My comment on it. Tietz: I too would support the notion of a 45 foot. I think we need to see the, or someone needs to look at the architectural implications because I don’t believe all of that space internally is functional space. That there’s a lot of air space up there that creates the architecture of the exterior and by dropping 4 or 5 feet on the main structure, if the other massing elements on the 26 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 ends are proportionally dropped you still will have the heights you need in the center and it’s just a matter of how it’s dealt with architecturally and I think it’s worth looking into. Aller: Any further discussion or comments? Otherwise I’ll entertain a motion on how you want to deal with this. Undestad: I’ll make a motion. Aller: Commissioner Undestad. Undestad: I need to find where I’m, alright. I’ll make a motion that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends City Council approve the Planned Unit Development, Rezoning and Site Plan review subject to conditions in the staff report and adopts the Findings of Fact and Recommendation with an adjustment of the planning item number 4 for the rotunda height to go to 50 feet. Hokkanen: I second it. Aller: Having a motion and a second, any further discussion? I would like to offer a friendly amendment that we would change that, modify that to not to exceed 50 feet to allow for the City Council then to make a decision without modifying greatly so that it gives them an opportunity and the recommendation that they supply a plan with the features so they can compare the two. Undestad: I’ll accept that. Hokkanen: I’ll second that again. Aller: So first on the amendment, all those in favor of the amendment would signify by saying aye. Undestad moved, Hokkanen seconded an amendment to the motion that condition 4 under Planning be amended to read, the height of the architectural features including cornices and rotunda shall not exceed 50 feet and that plans be submitted to the City Council showing a comparison between 45 foot and 50 foot features. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Aller: So now we vote on the motion as amended. Undestad: Of the not to exceed 50 feet. Aller: Which would be not to exceed 50 feet and the additional recommendation that the scaled drawing or representation be shown to the City Council for further review. Undestad moved, Hokkanen seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends City Council approve the Planned Unit Development rezoning and site plan 27 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 review for Planning Case 2015-09, Chanhassen Learning Adventure, subject to the following conditions and adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation: Planned Unit Development, PUD Approve the ordinance for the Children’s Learning Adventure Planned Unit Development. Site Plan Review The following conditions shall be incorporated as part of the site plan approval: Building Official 1.A building permit is required prior to construction. 2.The building is required to have an automatic fire-extinguishing system. 3.Building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of Minnesota. 4.Retaining walls over four feet high must be designed by a professional engineer and a permit must be obtained prior to construction. 5.Fenced “playground” areas must be provided with approved, code-compliant exiting systems. Engineering 1.The proposed access and turn lane on Galpin Boulevard are subject to Carver County’s review, approval and permitting. 2.An escrow for the trail work and water service connection shall be collected with the site plan to ensure that the area is restored and functioning properly after one freeze-thaw cycle. 3.A barricade must be installed at the end of the stub located north of the Galpin Boulevard access. 4.The developer must contact the city’s construction manager at 952-227-1166 a minimum of 48 hours prior to the wet tap. 5.The developer must obtain any necessary approvals to grade and install improvements within the Xcel Energy easements on the western and southern portions of the property. 6.The developer shall meet the requirements of the April 9, 2015 review letter from MnDOT. Environmental Resources Specialist 28 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 1.The applicant shall change Chinese elm to Princeton elm and Golden ash to an overstory, deciduous species selected from the city’s Approved Tree List. 2.The applicant shall revise the plans so that no more than five trees of one species are planted th in a row along West 78 Street. 3.The applicant shall change the two proposed swamp white oaks along Highway 5 to an understory species. The proposed Golden ash to be planted at the southeast corner of the property shall be moved slightly north to further avoid the OHE line. Fire Marshal 1.A three-foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants. 2.No burning permits will be issued for tree/brush removal. 3.“No Parking Fire Lane” signs and yellow-painted curbing will be required. Contact the Fire Marshal for specifics. 4.Twelve-inch address numbers of contrasting color shall be installed on the building side facing Galpin Boulevard and also on the monument sign at the driveway entrance. The Fire Marshal must review and approve prior to installation. Planning 1. The eastern elevation must provide additional windows to meet the 50 percent transparency requirement or other architectural detailing as outlined in the staff report. 2. The applicant shall provide bicycle parking and storage facilities. 3. Parcel A may be dedicated to the City. Pervious surface credit will be apportioned to Parcel B. 4. The height of the height of the architectural features including cornices and rotunda shall not 50 feet and that plans be submitted to the City Council showing a comparison exceed between 45 foot and 50 foot features. Water Resources Specialist 1.The pond which discharges directly to the wetland shall be used as a temporary basin throughout the project. A temporary outlet and inlet shall be designed and constructed. This basin shall be graded to the approved design upon substantial stabilization of the remaining site. The plans must indicate this requirement. 2.The bioretention area shall be graded last and perimeter control in the form of silt fence with metal tee posts shall be installed to protect the area from construction traffic and material storage. A note shall be added to the plan set to this effect. 29 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 3.City code requires that six (6”) inches of topsoil be placed on all disturbed areas to be vegetated unless other engineered soil is to be used such as in bioretention areas. Topsoil shall be stripped on the site and stockpiled with adequate erosion prevention and sediment control practices. The plan shall indicate this requirement and demonstrate how this will be accommodated. 4.Slopes immediately tributary to wetland shall be stabilized within 48 hours of cessation of earthwork activities. The slope must be stabilized with a hydraulic erosion control product or net-free biodegradable erosion control blanket. 5.Inlets with the potential to have sediment introduced as a result of import/export of materials shall have inlet protection installed. Dandy bags are not an acceptable inlet protection device. See City Detail 5302A. 6.Item B2 on Sheet C6 shall be changed to delete the 21-day requirement. 7.A note shall be included on Sheet C6 indicating that the bioretention areas must not be graded to their final condition until the contributing watershed is stabilized. 8.Item E10 on Sheet C6 shall be changed to read “…due to construction equipment driving or materials being stockpiled in across the infiltration area.” 9.Quantities of BMP measures must be included. This shall include the volume of topsoil and the quantity of seed required. 10.Because this site is tributary to an impaired water, the stabilization of all disturbed areas draining to Bluff Creek must be initiated immediately but in no case later than 7 days. The exception being those areas to be stabilized within 24 hours. 11.A note shall be included on Sheet C6 indicating that topsoil is to be stripped and stockpiled onsite such that an adequate quantity exists to place six (6”) inches over all disturbed areas to be vegetated. 12.Include discussion of receiving water being Bluff Creek which is on the 303D list as impaired for turbidity and fish indices of biological integrity. 13.Chanhassen requires that metal tee posts are used with erosion control fence. Wooden posts are not allowed unless explicitly stated by the city. The plans shall use City Detail #5300. 14.City Detail #5301 shall be used for the rock construction entrance. 15.Final stabilization methodologies shall be included as part of the overall SWPPP. 16.Design of stormwater best management practices shall follow the guidelines of the Minnesota Stormwater Manual. 30 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 17.The applicant shall meet the volume reduction requirement set forth in the NPDES permit of one inch from all impervious surface or demonstrate to the City’s satisfaction that the site meets one or more of the limitations described in the permit. 18.In the event that a limitation does exist, the applicant shall provide volume reduction to the maximum extent practicable and shall evaluate the potential of practices beyond infiltration such as stormwater capture and reuse. 19.The final basin prior to discharge into the wetland shall be designed as a wet detention pond and must meet NURP recommendations and city design standards. 20.Curb cuts shall be no less than five (5) feet wide and shall have adequate pretreatment prior to discharge into the bioretention features. 21.The outlet structure from the pond into the wetland shall not be submerged. 22.A drainage and utility easement shall be recorded over the stormwater management features and the wetland. 23.The city will maintain the NURP basin upon acceptance of the final product. 24.The property owner shall be responsible for the long-term maintenance of the bioretention features. 25.A maintenance agreement for the bioretention features shall be entered into by the land owner as required under the MS4 permit. This agreement shall be recorded against the property. 26.An operations and maintenance manual shall be prepared by the applicant for the bioretention features. This shall address the planting schedule, establishment period as well as presumed long-term annual and semi-annual maintenance requirements. 27.The applicant shall procure all necessary permits from agencies with jurisdiction over the project area. 28.The site must meet the requirements of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Shoreland rules. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 7 to 0. Aller: That motion carries. Generous: And Chairman just for clarification so the ordinance would be amended to say building height shall not exceed two stories and 50 feet. Aller: Correct. Mike Clemmons: Thank you very much. 31 Chanhassen Planning Commission – April 21, 2015 Aller: Thank you. We look forward to working with you further. It looks like a great plan. Mike Clemmons: Well thank you. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Yusuf noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated April 7, 2015 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. Aller: Oh we’ve got to make sure that we let everyone know that we have to amend our population numbers to welcome Malik Yusuf so congratulations Commissioner Yusuf. Yusuf: Yeah, thank you. Aller: So that’s my presentation. And we all wish you and your family the best. Yusuf: Thank you. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Aller: And we will move onto Administrative Presentations. So we will deal with the City Council action update. Generous: Do I even have that? Aller: Okay there is none so. Generous: No planning items. That’s probably why I didn’t have it. Aller: That’s right and so we’ll go to future planning commission items. th Generous: And we don’t have a meeting on May 5 and you will have a joint meeting with City th Council on May 11. Aller: Will that start at 6:00 Bob? Generous: I believe so but they’ll send you out a notice. Aller: Okay. And then it looks like we’ve got the Beehive expansion rezoning potentially on the th 19. Generous: Yeah I don’t believe that got in though. Fauske: If I may, yes it did. 32