PC Minutes 2016 03 15Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
1. A building permit is required. If the proposed construction is to be of a “pole-type”
building a signed structural engineer’s design is required.
2. The applicant shall submit a tree removal plan in conjunction with the building permit
application.
3. The applicant shall preserve any significant, healthy trees within the rear yard.
4. The applicant shall meet the requirements of City Code Article III, Section 5, Horses.
5. The interim use permit shall end with any of the following occurrences: 1) sale of the
property, 2) subdivision of the property or alteration of the property lines or, 3) widening
of Pleasant View Road which takes additional right-of-way from the parcel.
All voted in favor, except Commissioner Tietz who opposed and the motion carried with a
vote of 5 to 1.
Aanenson: Then just for clarification for the neighbors this item is scheduled to appear on the
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28, the City Council meeting on the 28.
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Aller: On March 28.
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Aanenson: March 28, right. Right. Again our staff report was saying did it meet those merits.
We’re not judging whether or not it’s a good neighbor or not. We’re just saying did it meet the
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intent of the ordinance so that will be scheduled then for the March 28 and all the information
that was presented as well as the verbatim Minutes will be attached to this item going forward to
the City Council.
Aller: Correct and those of you at home or present who want to follow that also can receive
these reports and see these reports on the City’s website under the Minutes of the Planning
Commission and also on the, the different City Council Minutes section so as it comes forward
and it moves forward as a package you’ll be able to click on that link and look at the PDF’s
including any reports, letters, information and the verbatim information and documentation that
was received tonight. Okay moving forward to item number 2.
PUBLIC HEARING: 9001 LAKE RILEY BOULEVARD, PLANNING CASE 2016-06:
REQUEST FOR A VARIANCE TO FENCE HEIGHT ON .98 ACRES OF PROPERTY
ZONED SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF) AND LOCATED AT 9001 LAKE
RILEY BOULEVARD. OWNER: RYAN AND CAROLYN MAJKRZAK.
Ingvalson: Thank you Chairman. Correct so this planning case is for a height variance for a
fence that is in the shoreland setback. Here is an image of the, an aerial image of the property.
On the left you can see that the property is adjacent to Lake Riley. It is also on Lyman
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Boulevard and Lake Riley Boulevard at the intersection. The lot is a bit irregular shape as a very
long portion that is along Lyman Boulevard. There is also a tributary that comes into the
property. You can see is a bit irregular shaped due to the tributary coming in. At this point I’d
also like to note that there was a email sent to the City. It was left in front of you. It is from a
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Rosemary Kelly dated March 13. This was submitted to the City after the staff report was
completed so it essentially says that it objects to the height and solid material construction of the
fence. Are requesting that it is a shorter fence specifically stating that it negatively impacts the
aesthetic view along the lake. Can I verify that everyone received that?
Aller: And again for the record we’ve received that document. It will be attached to the record
and proceed if necessary to the City Council for further action as well.
Ingvalson: Great, thank you. One of the definitions that we’ll have during this presentation is
the difference between lake proper and shoreline. Lake proper, if you’re looking at the image to
the right will consist of the shoreland as you would see is where the lake continues along
whereas shoreline will actually be where the ordinary high water mark is for the lake. That
ordinary high water mark cuts into this property so the property line actually cuts in this way.
It’s not a straight line across here but it cuts inbetween. A little bit of history about this property.
The parcel originally looked something like the image on the left and if you look on the county
website this is what the parcel comes up as. However in 2011 the City vacated a portion of the
right-of-way. The portion that was vacated you can see in yellow and actually gave this, moved
the property line to the west giving it more area and allowed it to build a home on this property.
In 2013 the property owner came forward and built a house on the property. As you can see on
the right, this is a survey that was submitted by the property owner and this is what the actual
property lines are. There is a property line that cuts in on this portion of the parcel and that is
where the ordinary high water mark is. Here’s an image of the property looking southeast. You
can see it’s at the intersection of Lake Riley Boulevard and Lyman. Moving forward with the
request. The property owner is requesting a 3 foot fence height variance to construct a 6 foot, 6
inch tall, 175 foot long privacy fence that is located within the 75 foot shoreland setback. The
property owner is requesting a variance for a couple different reasons. The first two are really
related to the traffic that is going on along Lyman Boulevard, as you probably know. It’s a very
busy street. These images are taken on the right from Lyman. This is along the sidewalk. The
other one is across the street. The first…area is about traffic. So the applicant is looking to
decrease car traffic noise and also vehicle headlight glare. After going out to the property it’s
apparent this could be a potential issue for the property owner. If you’re looking at here from the
bottom picture, it’s very easily could be headlights that are flashing into this area even though
the backyard or onto the deck that is on the rear part of the property as you can see here. There’s
also issues of noise. It’s a very busy street. It’s very possible that there is a noise issue for the
property owner so that’s the first part. The property owner’s also looking to prevent a couple
other issues that they’ve had since purchasing the property. One of those is to prevent
trespassing across private property to access Lake Riley. The applicant stated that people have
been accessing the lake through this wooded area probably with the assumption that that’s public
property. However it is private property if you’re looking on this image. They’d be cutting
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
across through here which is their private property. The applicant has come up with a couple
different ways to reduce this from happening. They have put up signs which I saw when I was
on site stating no trespassing. They said this deterrent has not really stopped people from
trespassing across their property. The other issue that they have is that they’re looking to
provide a little more privacy in their back yard. If you look from the sidewalk there is very
limited privacy in the back yard. You can see right back there. The deck and everything in the
rear yard so those are the big points they’ve had for why they are requesting this variance. Here
is the proposed plan that the applicant has submitted. If you look onto the right the blue line is
the location for the fence. Like I said before it’s going to be 6 foot, 6 inches tall and 175 feet
long which doesn’t cover the entire property. It actually only covers probably closer to half the
property line along Lyman. It will be outside the sight triangle so I know one concern that I’ve
heard from a resident was not being able to see as they drive up from Lake Riley Boulevard onto
Lyman. The City does require that fences are not within the sight triangle which is 30 feet from
ways from this corner of the property so when a car comes up they will be able to see both ways
on Lyman. The fence is also going to be located one inch off of the property line per city code
and will be approximately 5 feet off of the public sidewalk that’s located on Lyman Boulevard.
And if you look here, this is probably our best illustration of where the property line is. This
green line is the ordinary high water mark which will be where the property line is and also down
here is where the lakeshore continues so from the lakeshore the fence is definitely outside of the
lakeshore proper area. 75 feet however because our definition of where the lake is with this inlet
includes the lake so it’d be a part of that setback requirement of 75 feet which the fence is
definitely within so the request for the variance is due to this 75 foot setback. Also something to
note is that if this continuation of the lake went through this way the fence would be permitted by
the height. The height is 6 feet, 6 inches tall. This is the maximum height allowed within the
City so they would not be exceeding the maximum height allowed per city code. They’d be at
the maximum height. However because it’s within the shoreland there are restrictions to protect
the aesthetic view from other properties, from both the lake side and from the public side. And
oh one more thing to note, on this next slide. So here is the, the reason that this inlet exists is
because there’s drainage coming from a property across the street at Riley Ridge Park. There’s a
wetland here. The City actually has a culvert that cuts across Lyman Boulevard and deposits
into this inlet from the lake which creates this location. One condition that the City has added
for this variance is that there will be a gate located here, at least 14 feet side to allow access to
the City in case there was some sort of concern with the culvert there so we could have
maintenance. Here’s an image from across the street. What the fence will approximately look
like. The fence will approximately go to this point. It will be about 6 ½ feet fall. Will block this
portion of the property. This is looking east from across the street Lyman Boulevard. Here is
what it will look like a little bit with in the spring. I know the image before shows what it will
look like in the winter. As you can see in the spring or summer time, I took this off of Google
Maps street view. It’s a very vegetated area. There will be a loss of view obviously with
anything that’s put up with that is a privacy fence. However that view will be minimal due to the
amount of vegetation that’s already in the area. Here’s another view along the sidewalk. As you
can see here is where the fence will stop. It will be about 5 feet off of the public sidewalk and it
will be 6 ½ feet high and there may be some trees that will need to be removed. The applicant
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
hasn’t said any trees that they’ll be removing but with putting in a fence where these trees are
located something that they’ll consider going forward. Here are some trees that will be removed
the applicant has stated. They’ve said that they are diseased and they’ll be removed for that
fence. They originally put in as a barrier from Lyman hoping that it would stop some of the
noise from the traffic. However they said that it has not been adequate. A little bit about the
character of the neighborhood. There are some variances that have gone forward within this
area, specifically 3 requests. Or 4 requests, 3 of which were approved. One of which was
withdrawn. For those 2 of them were for shoreland setbacks. Another one had been for a fence
on a property. So after reviewing this case it’s definitely obvious that there’s some unique
circumstances with the property and the orientation of it and then also with that inlet that makes
it unique. Due to the unique nature of the property staff is recommending that the Chanhassen
Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves a 3 foot fence height variance for a 6 foot, 6 inch
tall, 175 foot long fence in the shoreland setback as shown in Attachment 6 of the staff report
subject to conditions of approval and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision. Here are the
conditions. If you have any questions I am open to any of them at this point.
Aller: The variances that were either approved or denied, those were requests for additional hard
cover?
Ingvalson: Yes. They were, so looking at this. They were for a 5 foot front yard and 1 percent
hard cover and then also for a 32 foot shoreland setback. The other variance is for a little bit
over a 10 foot shoreland setback. Here’s another approval that was for hard cover and then there
was a denial for a shoreland setback variance.
Aller: Do we see any impact of the fence on the water flow for purposes of drainage one way or
the other?
Ingvalson: No. The culvert.
Fauske: Thank you Drew. The slide here shows in the green the storm water pipe and that’s the
conveyance system that staff raised the concern about so the challenge is. There we go.
Maintaining the outlet here to the lake so that that removable panel would allow access to that.
As far as surface flow goes there was no concerns with the fence being constructed at it’s
proposed location.
Aller: And for purposes of storm water collection and runoff or water control the City would
have an interest in keeping that open then?
Fauske: That’s correct.
Tietz: Drew I have a question regarding the.
Aller: Commissioner Tietz.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Tietz: Regarding the height of the fence. Why was 6 foot 6? Is that just because it’s a max in
the city or were any view studies done? You know if there’s concern about walkers on the
sidewalk, certainly a 6 foot fence would satisfy the privacy of the homeowner walking on the
sidewalk. Were view studies conducted by the applicant?
Ingvalson: I don’t believe they completed any view studies per se. I think a lot of it was that
that is the maximum allowed within the city so that was the number that they went with for their
property. I know looking at it, it does drop a bit in this location. However I know that I believe
that the site also raises up in elevation near the home but I think they went with that number
because it was the maximum amount that is allowed in a residential neighborhood within the
city.
Tietz: Okay and do we, does the City have any review authority or ability to look at the
aesthetics of the proposed fence so that we, you know that’s a pretty highly traveled road and
it’s, there’s some very nice homes along there and access and view to the lake.
Ingvalson: We’ve not added anything to it regarding the aesthetics of the fence. We did, the
applicant did state it would be a privacy fence.
Tietz: Well there’s a lot of privacy fences.
Ingvalson: Sure.
Aanenson: It is a variance request. You can ask for reasonable conditions. If you wanted to
make that a condition of the specs or get some more information on that as part of your
conditions for a variance you’re certainly within your discretion.
Tietz: Okay, thank you.
Aller: Any additional questions of staff at this point? Hearing none if the applicant would like
to come forward and maybe you can address some issues with the fence that was raised and any
issues that you’ve heard neighbors discuss with you before would be great.
Ryan Majkrzak: Absolutely. So my name is Ryan Majkrzak. I live at 9001 Lake Riley
Boulevard. The site that was the subject of the application.
Aller: Welcome.
Ryan Majkrzak: So I think the first thing I want to do is just say thank you to the Planning
Commission. My dad actually served on a planning commission for about 8 years when I was
growing up. I know it’s many times a tedious job. Long hours and probably not one that you
always get a tremendous amount of positive feedback for so thank you for doing it. I guess the
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
other comment I’d like to make is I’ve been very impressed by the process. I had the
opportunity to meet with Mr. Generous and another member of staff before the holidays. I was
actually very impressed. It was a very kind of collaborative, you know kind of helpful meeting.
The spirit of it was kind of how do we work together to solve the issue and I guess I appreciate
that approach and I’d say the report that was published and the presentation from Mr. Ingvalson
also I’ve got to say he did a great job of summarizing it so I’m not going to repeat because I
think he hit most of the key points but I do want to kind of emphasize a couple of things. You
know one is just trying to do something reasonable here which is you know for any of us with
our houses and our, you know place of residence you want a little bit of privacy so you know
what we didn’t realize moving into the house because you move into a brand new house and you
don’t understand the lot is. When you sit in our dining room and you have the shades open the
car lights just come straight in to where you’re trying to have dinner. If you want to sit out on
the patio same thing. And then you know we moved from out of town. We didn’t realize how
busy Lyman was. It’s a busy road. It’s a noisy road and so the first thing we tried to do was to
put trees in to kind of do the minimal thing so we spent a lot of money. Put a lot of big trees in.
Found out that they’re diseased and they don’t really solve the problem anyway. They only
partially block the view and they don’t block the noise. I mean trees you’d have to put in a heck
of a lot of trees to kind of get good noise protection so I guess my point in all that is, you know
we’re not going to come in with the sledge hammer first. The approach we tried to take was to
do kind of the minimal thing. I guess the second thing I’d emphasize is this is a pretty unusual
lot right. It’s not your typical kind of front yard, back yard. You know the back and side yard
kind of extend along Lyman Boulevard. It’s I think 400 or 500 feet in total and typically the
house does a good job of kind of blocking noise from the road. Not here. It’s an unusual lot.
It’s also unusual from the lake side. I think Mr. Ingvalson covered it well. You know we’re not
asking to put a fence in within 75 feet of what you or I would consider the lake. What we’re
talking about is being within 75 feet of effectively a drainage path that runs across our lot. You
know if that kind of drainage path didn’t run across the lot we wouldn’t need to do the variance
because it’s not within 75 feet of the lake. Of what any of us would kind of look at and say hey
that’s the lake. That’s the pristine area that we want to look at and to me the purpose of a rule
like that, I get a rule like that. It’s because if you’ve got neighbors next to you, you don’t want to
block their view. Well there’s no neighbors across Lyman Boulevard for 500 feet and they’re
perched up 200 feet on a hill. I put in my application, I drew a blue rectangle where the fence is.
I’m not even sure you can see it on the map. So you put it in to try and kind of not impede that
view. There is this public walking path and so we kind of, we understand that that’s a
consideration that people want to use this public walking path and I guess my thought process
there is very similar to Mr. Ingvalson where I mean there are little like 4 or 5 foot openings
between the big spruce trees that we put in already and so I’m not really sure that provides much
of a view to the lake for anybody going by, and we didn’t kind of say hey let’s build a fence
along the 400 feet along the entire property line. In fact there’s over 900 feet of total property
around the 3 sides. We just said hey for the 175 feet where car lights shine into our back yard
and where the noise carries into our back yard, let’s just do the minimal necessary to try and, to
try and block that out. So I think specific questions then, one of the questions was kind of hey
can we do something less than 6 ½ feet and I think this picture does a pretty good job of showing
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it. Unfortunately the way the road sets up the direct line of sight into our back yard is kind of
back a little bit right. It’s actually pretty well represented by this second picture below so that’s
kind of where the line of sight is most direct. Unfortunately the ground slopes away from the
walking path there. In fact it’s almost like, it’s like a 30 or 40 degree angle so I mean it’s funny
you mentioned sight studies. Well me as 6 feet 4 feet tall standing away from the path and my
wife looking then I guess we did a sight study. And the point is you know our house is elevated
right so the ground slopes away. The house is elevated. If I could build an 8 or a 10 foot tall
fence there frankly I would try to because that’s what I would need to actually block it block it
that far away. The 6 ½ was just kind of the most I can do and because it slopes away you know
frankly the sight line, I think to your question Commissioner Tietz the sight line is not blocked in
kind of the further away you get from our house. It’s actually blocked more so as you’re close to
our house because there the slope is up but as you get further away it actually drops off so I want
to kind of get as much as I can get for protection in that area. So I’ll stop there. I’m happy to
answer any other questions that I didn’t address. I’m sorry.
Aller: Any additional questions? Not at this point.
Ryan Majkrzak: Okay great, thank you.
Aller: Thank you sir.
Hokkanen: Can you talk about the type of fencing?
Ryan Majkrzak: Oh yeah. So you know again one thing I’ve been very happy with in this
process is the kind of collaborative nature. I’m happy to, I mean we live there. We have a nice
house there. It’s a brand new construction. We don’t want an ugly fence either so I mean our
idea was to do a PVC or a vinyl because it’s very robust. It will last a long time. I think they
look nice. We would pick a color that would blend in with the surroundings. I mean we don’t
want a neon orange fence. We want something that’s kind of brown or tan or just blends in.
Frankly I think we would put some shrubs around it to try and blend it in. I mean it’s a nice
vegetated area and it’s our land. I don’t want an eyesore either.
Hokkanen: Thank you.
Aanenson: If I could just comment.
Tietz: Just one other question. If you’re going to put shrubs around it how do you, if you’re an
inch off the property line and the fence is within 5 feet of the public walkway, where would the
shrubs go?
Ryan Majkrzak: Well so, and if that, if we can’t do that then we won’t. I guess my thought was
maybe we could back it up a foot.
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Tietz: Well it’s a reasonable idea you know to do some screening especially when you have a 6
½ foot fence.
Ryan Majkrzak: Sure. Yeah I’m, I guess I didn’t understand that I needed to like specify it
off…
Tietz: It looked like from the information that you can get as close or they require that you only
be as close as an inch.
Ryan Majkrzak: Exactly.
Tietz: I’d like to see someone install that.
Ryan Majkrzak: Me too.
Tietz: But that doesn’t give you any area to do any planting which obviously would soften the
street side.
Aller: But in doing that Commissioner Tietz we’d be reducing the setback again.
Tietz: Oh I know. I’m just commenting on the proposal to put shrubs in front of it. That doesn’t
seem to be.
Ryan Majkrzak: So it’s a great point. We wouldn’t plant shrubs on the City’s property. We
understand the idea of where our property line ends. Frankly you know I’m happy to go either
way. I’m happy to put it right next to the property line. I’m happy to back it off 2 feet and put in
shrubs. I’m happy to pay for shrubs to put on the City’s property with the fence right there. I
mean I’m just trying to kind of solve a problem in a way that is amenable to the City.
Aanenson: Mr. Chair. If you go further down on, well right immediately going east is city park.
After that you have 2 beachlot associations so one of them is Lakeside beachlot association and
they have a vinyl fence and they have a hedge behind it. I’ve been to both of those associations
for National Night Out so just looking at that, those are a little bit lower fences but they also have
the shrubs right behind on their own property. They maintain it because they do have a beachlot
there so they keep those locked so there is a fence along that side but it’s, it looks like it’s quite a
bit lower. Maybe 4 feet but they do have a hedge behind it so that would still be an option to put
the hedge on their property. And that would be consistent with what’s kind of around the rest of
that.
Undestad: So just to be clear there you’re keeping the fence up within the 1 inch of the property
line and then do whatever the owner wants to do behind it.
Aanenson: Some sort of landscaping, yeah.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Aller: But behind it doesn’t help the view of the quick passing through.
Undestad: No. No but, yeah. I mean I’m kind of looking at the elevations too where you know
if he starts moving it away from the property line the thing keeps dropping down the hill.
Ryan Majkrzak: Yeah.
Undestad: You’re not going to have a fence.
Ryan Majkrzak: And that’s I mean again that’s one of the reasons we looked at a fence you’re
right because the drainage outlet is so close to the path, there just isn’t room to put in 50 feet of
trees to create a buffer. The fence is kind of the most practical alternative.
Undestad: And is that the beachlot, they have the vinyl down there too?
Aanenson: Yeah but their’s is chainlink vinyl yeah so you’re right, if you’re doing a board vinyl
you’re not going to get effectively any landscaping on the inside.
Aller: So the chainlink would be filled in with the shrubbery?
Aanenson: Correct, that’s how it is on the beachlot side. You’ve got the, the fence creates the
physical barrier and the gate keeping people out but then the shrubbery also creates that aesthetic
look.
Aller: So it becomes a living fence almost coming up.
Aanenson: Correct.
Aller: Had you thought about doing something like that? Have you gone down and looked at it
and talked to your people about?
Ryan Majkrzak: We have. I mean again I think there’s a couple of things right height and then
noise so that’s a beachlot for like a common area. No one lives there right so it’s kind of a
partial obstruction at, you know however high I think it’s a shrub line of maybe 4 or 5 feet so not
as high. Open in the middle. Doesn’t block sight. Doesn’t block noise.
Aller: Okay. Any additional questions at this point? Thank you sir.
Ryan Majkrzak: Thank you.
Aller: Anyone in the audience wishing to come forward and speak either for or against the item
before us tonight can do so at this time. Seeing no one come forward we’ll go ahead and close
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the public hearing. Open it up for discussion or comment. Or a motion. Commissioner
Undestad.
Undestad: I’ll get a motion here. That the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments
approves a 3 foot fence height variance for a 6 foot 6 inch tall, 175 foot long fence in the
shoreland setback as shown in Attachment 6 of the staff report, subject to the conditions of
approval and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision.
Aller: I have a motion. Do I have a second?
Yusuf: Second.
Aller: I have a motion by Commissioner Undestad, a second by Commissioner Yusuf. Any
discussion? I would just state in review of the report and looking at the property and seeing
what’s there it clearly is what we would define as something, a property that’s unique in nature.
That needs a variance that the conditions are at no fault of the owner. That in fact the City has an
interest in keeping that waterway open and clear and that waterway is partly what causes the
problem. The fence appears to be minimum intrusion compared to going and requesting a
variance which would cover the entire length of the property and the safety issues are addressed
with the sight lines so I would be in favor.
Tietz: Chairman?
Aller: Yes Commissioner Tietz.
Tietz: I would just like to add, I would like the City to review the proposed design of the fence.
The materials that are going to be used and any detailing. I think that’s only appropriate since
it’s such a highly visible corridor. Your explanation was great but I think it’s advisable that we
take a look at that. Thanks.
Aller: And my only question with that Commissioner Tietz is if in fact the City and the applicant
want to move the fence, will he need to come back for another variance?
Ingvalson: Sorry could you repeat that?
Aanenson: If they move the fence one foot or the other would it require it to come back.
Ingvalson: Yes it would so what we will be approving is the location of what has been shown
submitted. They could have it shorter than what they’ve shown but any movement of it towards
the lakeshore, that would require another, a different variance be required so we’ll be approving
exactly what’s in Attachment 6.
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Tietz: And isn’t it just that link at the drainage way that is within the 75 feet? That there could
be some latitude if the property owner wanted to vary that and maybe do something a little
different along the road?
Aanenson: There are some areas where you could do some plantings.
Tietz: Well yeah if he chose to because as I recall on your plan it’s only that segment where the
14 foot gate would have to be installed that’s within the 75. Am I wrong?
Ingvalson: You are correct. So the 75 foot setback would be from this point. That would be
continued also from here over to approximately this location. This location could be moved
without any additional variance but anything that is, any portion of the fence that is within 75
feet that’s what this variance is being granted for.
Tietz: Okay.
Ingvalson: So it covers a very large portion of the fence because this inlet comes to close to the
property line.
Tietz: So your arrow is not a 75 foot mark? It’s indicating, what is your arrow that says 75 feet
from?
Ingvalson: This arrow is showing how far 75 feet is.
Tietz: Yeah but the other one from the shoreline.
Ingvalson: Yep and that’s just showing an example of how.
Aller: That would be if it was from the lake.
Ingvalson: Yep, correct. Which is typically what you’re looking to protect with this ordinance.
Aller: So if you want.
Tietz: I think the design, I’d like to add that as a condition.
Aanenson: So Mark made the motion. Would you, Mark needs to accept the friendly
amendment.
Aller: Mark needs to accept it as a friendly amendment. If there’s going to be an amendment
and what would it be?
Tietz: The applicant submit design details for the proposed fence.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Aanenson: Would you say based on comments that were given at the meeting tonight.
Tietz: That’s fine, yeah. That wording would be fine to be that way. I think it’s just valuable in
this situation.
Aanenson: It was the aesthetic. That’s what we understand.
Tietz: It’s an aesthetic issue. It’s not a technical issue where it should be located.
Aanenson: Yes.
Aller: Okay great. So having a motion as amended.
Undestad: Yes.
Aller: Commissioner Undestad accepts the amendment. What about the second Commissioner
Yusuf, do you also accept the amendment?
Yusuf: Also accepted.
Aller: So we have a motion as amended and seconded. Any further discussion?
Undestad moved, Yusuf seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments
approves a three foot fence height variance for a six foot, six inch tall, 175 foot long fence in
the shoreland setback as shown in Attachment 6 of the staff report, subject to the following
conditions and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision:
1. A gate, at least 14 feet in width, is included with the fence and placed so that the City will
have convenient access to the outfall should maintenance be required.
2. The applicant applies for and receives a zoning permit.
3. The applicant applies for and receives an encroachment agreement from the City.
4. The applicant submit design details for the proposed fence for staff to review the
aesthetics of the fence.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING:
9641 MEADOWLARK LANE, PLANNING CASE 2016-07: REQUEST FOR
SHORELAND AND WETLAND SETBACK VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
OF A SINGLE FAMILY HOME AND ACCESSORY STRUCTURES ON 2.40 ACRES OF
PROPERTY ZONED RURAL RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT (RR). APPLICANT:
WAUSAU HOMES. OWNER: DAVID VOGEL.
Ingvalson: Okay here is our last item for the night. There was another document that was
submitted actually after the staff report was completed. I’ll talk about it a little bit more in our,
in my presentation but I’d like to just note that everyone received this. If we could you can also
take a moment right now to look through it.
Aller: Yes we have received the document which was dated March 15, 2016 regarding this
matter. It will be attached and reviewed for purposes of this hearing and further action is
th
necessary by the City Council on March 28.
Ingvalson: Alright so with that I’ll start with the presentation. The case before us is for a
shoreland setback variance from a tributary. Here is the location of the subject property. It is
located north of Pioneer Trail on Meadowlark Lane and it is also south of Lake Riley. Here
you’re looking over to the right hand image. Oh I’m sorry, should have started looking at the left
hand image. This is also on the far eastern portion of the city. This sort of shaded in area is
Eden Prairie for those of you looking for where this is located. Looking over to the image on the
right, you can see there is a tributary that comes across the property and empties into Lake Riley.
There is also an existing path on the property. This is not an improved path. It’s currently just a
dirt path that goes on the property. Actually gets access on the neighbor’s property and then
comes in from the west and continues north. The lot is currently used as a recreational lot.
There isn’t a primary structure on the property. So here is an image of that path that I spoke
about earlier. This is taken from the south side of the property looking north. As you can see it’s
fairly wooded on both sides and then this path is definitely not improved. It’s definitely made of
dirt. And the request the applicant is making today is they’re requesting a variance from the 100
foot shoreland setback from a tributary to construct a single family home, accessory structures
and driveway. Here is another location, image of the property. In blue is the tributary location.
Like I said it flows north taking water from across the property. There’s drainage that comes
across the property and flows into the tributary. Continues north. Dumps into Lake Riley as it
picks up water from both the subject property and the property to the west. To the right is an
image of that tributary and a little bit of the neighboring property. Neighboring structure. Little
background about the property. In January, 2016 the property owner applied for a wetland
alteration permit and a shoreland setback variance for a driveway. At this time the applicant did
not have any, submit any plans for any structures or accessory structures. It was only for the
driveway. February, 2016 the Planning Commission approved a shoreland setback variance for a
portion of the driveway with conditions. The image to the right was a document submitted. The
portion that was approved is that green area of this driveway. The black area was not approved
as a part of this variance request. After that City Council approved the wetland alteration permit
with conditions. Just last month February, 2016 the applicant applied for a shoreland setback
variance for the rest of the driveway. So the black area seen here and then also for a single
family home and accessory structures. Some things to note on this property. First we did, we
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
just take a look and see what is the buildable area for the property. Something to note is this
property is not sewered which means it has different, which gives it different setback
requirements from tributaries and from the lakeshore. If this was a sewered property it would
have a 75 foot setback requirement. Because it is not sewered it has a 100 foot setback
requirement from tributaries and Lake Riley to the north. Looking at this, the widest portion of
the buildable area is 45 feet. Or 44 feet and at the, closest to the lakeshore which is 100 feet
from Lake Riley it is 39 feet. Another exercise that we completed, that the applicant actually
completed for this one was to show what this property would look like if it met all setback
requirements. The image to the right shows what was completed. There is a S curve driveway.
So there’s a pretty sharp curve right here and then the driveway would go to a garage which
would load from the south. The house would be very long. Elongated being the long side being
north to south. Would have limited access to views of the Lake Riley being this is the shorter
portion of the home and a lot of the home would be facing directly to the neighbor’s property and
to the tributary to the west. They also would have the primary and alternative septic locations
located closer to the tributary as the septic per building code is required to be setback 75 feet
from tributaries and from the lakeshore. While structures for this property, since it is not
sewered are required to have 100 foot setback. The applicant completed a proposal for the
property. This is the proposal as you see to the right. It has a driveway that follows the same
path as the existing dirt path. It comes up to the north. It has a side loading to the garage so
loading from the west. The septic as you can see here are outside of the dotted line which
represents the 100 foot setback. However they will be meeting the 75 foot setback from the
tributary. The home is oriented with the long side to Lake Riley to take advantage of the views
which a lot of properties do in this area and there also will be a deck with concrete patio directly
underneath it. So a large portion of the home is outside of the, what would be the buildable
envelope due to it being the, so narrow in nature. There’s also an existing shed on the northwest
corner of the property. That is by city code they are allowed to have one water oriented structure
which this structure meets. If they were to have any additional structures this one would need to
be removed as they are only permitted one water oriented structure. A little bit of character
about the neighborhood. The structure really in the proposal as done by the applicant really is
fairly consistent with the rest of the neighborhood. Looking here the red is the subject site. A lot
of these properties are oriented facing towards the lake. A lot of them have very long driveways.
Large front yard setbacks which is similar to the proposal by the applicant. The size of the, we
also looked at the size of, the footprint of the proposed structure. House and garage and it is just
under 3,000 square feet. Fairly consistent with the rest of the neighborhood. A little bit even
maybe on the small side. 2,500 is the smallest one in the area with the largest being over 6,000
square feet for a footprint. Also the setbacks from the lake is today 100 feet. Some of these are
less than 100 feet which I believe the assumption that these were pre-dated ordinance. One of
the structures also, the direct neighbor is within 100 feet of the tributary which I will talk about
later in the report. So when staff looked over this there was a few questions that came up
specifically about the plan that was submitted. Some of these questions, first of all related with
the driveway and the location of the driveway and things that can be done to reduce the setback
from the tributary. One of them was rotating or relocating the primary and secondary septic
systems. Rotating the garage so maybe there wasn’t such a need for a wide turn. Loading the
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
garage from the south and altering the driveway without moving the septic systems. Also looked
at the structure to see how that could be reduced. Moving the house to the east was one of those
things and where the house can be located was something staff brought up as potential ways to
reduce the variance request. Then also narrowing the driveway. The applicant has proposed a
12 foot wide driveway which was approved with the previous driveway for the entrance which is
what the City require would be a 10 foot wide driveway. But 12 foot wide would be keeping
consistent with what was approved with the previous variance and with the previous variance.
So the staff after receiving all this information and looking over it we sent all of it to the
applicant to let them know ahead of time what we were, what the issues were. After sending
those there was no changes made by the applicant. They believe in the plan that they submitted.
Kept with that plan. After that staff took it upon ourselves to make a couple alterations to show
some different options for this proposed variance. First one that you see here is what was within
the staff report. This one shows moving the house to the east so keeping the same footprint but
just shifting it to the east. And then also rotating the garage so it’d be loading from the south.
Here another change that would be, the driveway instead of continuing up and loading to the
garage this way it would be loading from the south. Another alternative we had was then
creating a sidewalk so you’d have access to the house from outside and also moving the septic
systems south. Due to weather conditions staff was not able to look at the septic site locations
due to weather conditions. Frozen ground. When spring conditions occurred a little bit earlier
this year we were able to go out and look at them this last week. Upon looking at them our staff
found that the site could not accommodate sites further south than where they are proposed on
this image and originally proposed by the applicant. That took away the option to have these two
green septic sites and also this driveway rotating over the top of this primary septic location.
After that staff came up with new alternatives for you. Those were the alternatives that were
provided in the memo that was left in front of you. There’s really 4 options that we’ll have that
I’m going to talk about just now. The first one was an option to have the structure located south
of the primary septic so here are the two septics in the original location. This is just the bottom
of the garage so having the house be located away from the lake which would reduce the long
driveway, reducing the setback and reducing the variance that would be required. Looking at
this there are two primary issues with this. Number one, there’s a 20 foot setback from septic
locations so there’d be a 20 foot setback from the septic site and then also a 50 foot setback from
the wetland. That left a distance from north to south of about 86 feet. However the structure that
was submitted by the applicant is closer to 96 feet in length approximately so it would not fit in
that area. To accommodate this sort of plan the applicant would either need to alter the structure
and either reducing the deck or the garage or altering it in some way. Or would need to move the
septic sites further to the north which may be possible but have not been inspected by city staff
as we just were able to inspect these two locations. So those would be the two options for
Option 1. So as it is would not be able to approve the building plan that was submitted with this
one. However staff does believe this would be the smallest variance. Would minimize it to the
greatest extent possible. However there are negatives that go along with that specifically losing
the views of the lake as you’d be much farther away from the lakeshore than what it was
proposed by the applicant. Option 2 is a lot less of a variation from what was submitted by the
applicant. The septic sites would stay in the same location and then also the driveway would
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
stay in the same location as proposed by the applicant and also the garage would be in the same
location. The only change with option 2 would be moving the building over to the east so the
east wall of the house would line up with the east wall of the garage. This move is about 9 feet
from this location to this location on here. There were a few concerns that were stated by the
applicant specifically with windows on the property. There are 2 windows that would be
covered if you move the garage. The bottom one completely covered and then the top one would
be partially covered at least because the roof pitches up where the window would be. The
bottom room is as I believe it was either an office or a den area which does not require an egress
window as I spoke with our building department. The upper window however is for a bedroom
which by building code requires an egress window. The image to the left shows that the
window, the X is the approximate location of the window that will be lost. Also a garage door
out the back of the garage would be lost also if the house was moved over to the east. However
there will be an opportunity to put an egress window out of the side location or there are also
other architectural designs that can be changed in the house to accommodate an egress window.
How that’s done staff does not really have any comments on. Just that there are opportunities
that could be completed. Option 3 would be the option that was submitted by the applicant so
this is it again zoomed up closer. This is exactly how it looks as they were submitted. There is
this jog from the garage and here’s the septic locations but this would be our third option that we
have tonight and the final option, option 4 which I don’t have a slide for would be denial of the
application and completion which is the last option you’d have. There was a couple concerns in
the narrative, or not concerns. A couple comments regarding other properties that are sort of
similar in nature that the applicant saw. I’d like to address a couple of those right now. The first
one was the variance we just had here at 9001 Lake Riley Boulevard stating the setback from the
house to the shoreland. Their setback is less than 100 feet. However it is allowed to have a
setback less than 100 feet. It is a 75 foot setback because it is a sewered property. It has city
sewer so it is in compliance with city code. 9441 Great Plains Boulevard was another property.
There’s a tributary that goes across this property and the property adjacent and then empties into
Lake Riley. This property is also is very close to a tributary. Definitely within 100 feet within
probably 70 feet and this property however was built in 1960. The structure was built and at that
time there was no ordinance restricting how close it was for the tributary as I was informed by
our Water Resources Coordinator. And then another property we had was 9611 Meadowlark
Lane which is the property directly adjacent to the subject site and that property is within 100
feet of the tributary on the adjacent property. That was by looking through our building files for
that property that was approved by an error by staff. The assumption by looking at it was that
the, when they sent in their application on the survey it did not show that structure on the
adjacent property so it was probably not noticed and then was approved where, in the location
that the current structure is in. The last one was a property that the applicant brought up, 9536
Lakeland Terrace. This property is in Eden Prairie and staff does not have any comments
regarding that property. So after going through all this staff noted that the first option 1 that I
showed you that would be the most minimal variance. However with what we have for where
the structure is located, how it’s oriented and everything with the applicant what they submitted
for the structure wouldn’t fit for option 1. However that would be the minimal variance allowed.
The motion that staff has put forward, the recommended motion would be that option 2 would be
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
the option to go with so the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves a variance
from the 100 foot shoreland setback from a tributary to construction a single family home,
accessory structures and driveway as shown in Attachment 2 in the memorandum dated March
15, 2015 which should be 2016. Subject to the conditions of approval and adopts the Findings of
Fact and Decision. There are also multiple conditions that went with this report. Something you
can see them in the staff report, specifically some from building and planning conditions. Also
Water Resources Coordinator added multiple conditions to protect the shoreland and then also
our forestry specialist added conditions and our fire marshal. At this point I’m open for any
questions that you might have regarding the variance application.
Aller: Thank you Drew. It’s a lot to take in when you have so many choices.
Ingvalson: Yes. Yes, there are multiple.
Aller: Any questions of staff at this point?
Madsen: I have a question.
Aller: Commissioner Madsen.
Madsen: Are there specific measurements of the size of an egress window and by proposing to
move the window to this new spot is there enough space for the size that might be required?
Ingvalson: Yes. There are specific size requirements. However they do give flexibility on what
the size would be. I don’t have those numbers in front of me. I did bring this to our building
department. They said there’s a lot of flexibility. There are minimum requirements. I know it
needs to be 24, I believe 24 inches wide. Go to our building department to talk more about that
but they are very flexible. There are minimums but they can vary from how tall they are. How
wide they are but they would be able to be accommodated on that location.
Madsen: Okay thank you.
Tietz: Mr. Chairman.
Aller: Commissioner Tietz.
Tietz: Drew it looks like it would take some pretty dramatic design direction changes on the city
staff’s part and it looks like the functionality of the proposed plan would be affected significantly
and I’m not sure that the 9 feet of moving it to the east property line is going to benefit the
neighbor. What really went into your thinking? Is it all just trying to squeeze down into
conformity with minimizing the impact on the setbacks?
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Ingvalson: Absolutely our charge is to when we are bringing a variance forward is to have the
minimum variance required to have a reasonable use of the property so.
Tietz: But yet we haven’t taken into consideration, we’re not architects. This is a pretty
dramatic proposal.
Ingvalson: Absolutely and like I said we are, I’m not an architect as you know. What I am
charged with is to minimize that variance. We looked at what that would be to keeping within
city code. City code states the closest it could be from that property line to the east is 10 feet so I
stayed within our city code.
Aanenson: I’d just like to point out one other thing. I think from the beginning there’s been one
plan and that plan’s in for building permit review. There’s never been any drawings from the
applicant which we would have preferred rather than having staff try to draw something to give
you some alternatives but that plan has never varied from the applicant so we just tried to give
you some other options of what…
Tietz: I understand.
Aanenson: Yep.
Aller: And this property that’s being requested, the actual physical home is not the smallest in
the area.
Ingvalson: No the smallest one was I believe slightly over 2,500 square feet and that is only
showing the footprint of the home. These are not livable space. These are just the footprints of
the home using aerial image and approximately…
Hokkanen: I have a question. So if we went with option 3 which the applicant submitted, that’s
the 100, how much of a variance is that one? I’m confused.
Ingvalson: Sure absolutely.
Hokkanen: Sorry.
Ingvalson: The setback for the driveway really varies. We didn’t put a solid number for that.
We did say the closest location for the driveway if I’m not mistaken I believe it was 32 feet is the
closest or yep, this is not the option but the closest that the driveway would be is 32 feet. It
meanders as does the tributary so the distance varies. It’s 45 feet at this location. However the
home is 70 feet from the tributary at it’s closest location. The option 2 which would push it to
the east would make it a 79 foot setback which would be hypothetically if this was a sewered
property would meet that requirement because it’s 75 feet. As it is right now with the option 3
which was submitted by the applicant is a 70 foot setback from the tributary.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Tietz: It appears that the deck could be shifted to the east somewhat to eliminate some of that
non-compliance of the edge of the hard surfaces. Is that something that was discussed with the
applicant?
Ingvalson: There are multiple different ways that this variance could be minimized.
Tietz: Okay.
Ingvalson: We didn’t want to come here with 20 different variations. That’s as you said before
I’m not an architect so that’s not within my realm of even close to understanding in what I do but
we did want to come here with a couple different options that we would allow or be open to any
different sort of discussions we’d have with how this could be minimized.
Aller: The conditions that were placed on it by Mr. Jeffery or by our building those would apply
to each and every one of these across the board?
Ingvalson: Correct. Correct.
Aller: Any additional questions of staff?
Hokkanen: Do we have adequate information from the applicant or are we missing something?
Ingvalson: For their option which they have requested we have adequate information. They
have provided everything for one option.
Hokkanen: For that one option.
Ingvalson: Everything else was just to have a discussion here of what would be possible to
minimize this variance. We’ve never given any other alternatives and we haven’t, since we
haven’t been given any of those we can’t fully view a lot of the other locations.
Aanenson: I would just add too what’s different now than when the packet went out is we were
able to determine where the septic sites could be because that’s really the driver so within that,
once we know where the septic was acceptable and where it could and couldn’t be moved.
Could it potentially move to the north? That has major impacts for the visibility of the lot on the
lake so then at that point we still said well is there another way to minimize and that’s where
Drew spent some time trying to see if there’s, can we get more conformance adheres to the city
code or less variance request. Yeah.
Tietz: Mr. Chairman?
Aller: Yes Commissioner Tietz.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Tietz: One more question for Drew. We don’t have, obviously we don’t have a grading plan for
the entry drive but would we consider trying to sheet drain that to the east so that it doesn’t fall
off the slope to the tributary? Maybe I missed that in the comments from the water folks and
then drain it down towards that, I’ll call it a holding pond but it’s a wetland right adjacent to
Meadowlark. Is that, I mean obviously that’s, I have a greater, well a very, a concern for what
drains into the tributary because it eventually gets into the lake. Is there a detailed, probably
that’s the next step from the applicant.
Aanenson: There is something in there. A grading plan for that but I think that certainly can be
a condition.
Tietz: Because I think you could, you could drain that and without a curb to sheet drain it to the
east side so that it always runs off as opposed to down.
Ingvalson: So the grading plan that they have submitted is…numbers on it but is of the longer
sheets. 11 by 17. It is on the back side of that first sheet.
Tietz: Oh sorry. I didn’t notice that. I apologize. So it appears to, you know it looks like it
could take the majority to the east but it also is dumping some to the tributary.
Aanenson: So that could be modified.
Tietz: Well I think it’s just the way you install the driveway. Okay sorry, thanks.
Aller: Based on those questions any additional? Alright we’ll hear from the applicant, if they’d
like to come forward. State your name and address for the record please sir and let us know
about your property.
Dan Hanson: Hi. My name is Dan Hanson. I’m with Wausau Homes. I’m the custom builder
for this project working with the Vogel family. I’d like to start off by thanking the Planning
Commission and the planning staff for all the work they’ve done. It’s been a long road. We’ve
been going through a lot of revisions. Lot of information passed back and forth to try to get to a
viable answer, solution. I wanted to start by just saying that this is a bit of a challenging piece of
land. This was part of a subdivision that was set up in 1988 and it is a, was a buildable lot back
then. A lot has changed since then so as we started looking at it had no idea that we were dealing
with this much restriction if you will. When we did our math on it this lot has about 5 percent
that is not restricted when you take in all the variances so and it means it’s not buildable as well
because we can’t get to the land that is buildable. So it did set off kind of the stage of coming to
you for a variance to get first of all onto the land which we did and we thank you for that. At this
point we have gone through all the different scenarios. I just wanted to address each of them if I
could. If we can look at the, kind of one at a time. First. We did spend a fair amount of time
with our engineers for the septic system to determine placement because of how tricky it was on
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
the lot. Where the house is and where the septic system is on our proposal is the high point of
that lot so that drives a lot of that with regards to the quality of the soil for both the foundation of
the home and the drainage system for the septic. So as we looked at the different options we
kept coming back to that knowing that we had very little movement as far as, as those septic
drainfields went. We actually started when we first had a meeting 3 months ago trying to
understand the restrictions on the land that we were dealing with a 75 foot setback. We actually
designed the home around that and the septic systems were designed around that as well. We
quickly found that that was 100 setback and that we were dealing with 100 foot setback from the
tributary as well. Originally we were thinking it was a 75 foot setback and a lot of that evolved
over quite a bit of time with discussions and meetings and things like that so you know the
comment about us not coming to the table with some changes to the home plan, we felt that we
have. Not only did we completely rotate the house from the original plan. It was actually the
garage on the left which put the garage more almost 100 percent if not 100 percent within the
100 foot setback. That was our first change that we made to the plan. Since that time we haven’t
really changed the layout of the structure itself just because there were so many restrictions that
we were dealing with and they didn’t come to us all at once. It was a step by step thing. Each
time we looked at them we addressed them. We were sent information that we had to respond to
in writing with regards to different restrictions and we were trying to kind of wrestle all those
issues at once. A lot of it had to do to start with the driveway and the driveway location. We felt
all along that that driveway should be placed right on top of that existing dirt road if you will and
a lot of that was driven by the fact that we didn’t have to disturb any other part of the lot. We
could still get all the other things on the lot in the location that we needed them so that kind of
set the stage for that and it seems like as we’ve evolved some of the initial ideas and thoughts
about road place, driveway placement, house placement have supported that position just
because of the septic systems. We knew all along that it was going to be tricky to move them.
In fact by coming from 75 feet to 100 feet from that lakeshore with the house it pushed the
septics to the very max of where our engineer would accept them to be placed so that was
another change as well and again maybe we didn’t come to the table with ideas on how to rebuild
that house or redesign that house but the reality was is it was a complete package for us. How
we were looking at it to get all those moving pieces and parts in there and for us to start doing a
major redesign on the house didn’t seem logical because we hadn’t even worked out where’s the
house going to go. Where’s the driveway going to go? Where are the septic systems can go and
obviously we didn’t want to change the house. We designed it for the family. They wanted a
main floor master bedroom. That was a big thing because they want to live in the house for their
entire life. They want to retire in the house and they want to be on the main level so we chose
not to go with a rambler which would have been a bigger footprint. We are two story which is a
smaller footprint. I think somebody alluded to the question of how big this footprint is. Well
this footprint, all hard surfaces all in is 9.6 percent of that lot. We are allowed to go up to 20
percent so we are less than half than what we’re allowed to do. We understand we need it to be
smaller because of all the restrictions but I think we’ve done a good job of selecting the right
plan that fits the lot with all the pieces that we had to deal with. As far as the other issues with
regards to the different plans. If I could have you pull up kind of each option. I’d just like to
make a couple of quick notes. The first option I think we’ve all talked a little bit about it.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Maybe the least disruptive if you will to at least the one that doesn’t impede on the restrictions as
much. I haven’t seen this one until this week so we had no chance to really look into it but I can
tell you they’ve got issues with that septic system going down farther away closer to that
wetland. Closer to the front. I’m going to have the same issues with the soil quality for a
foundation setting on it so I don’t think that’s a viable option. We hope that we can kind of
dismiss that one and move onto some others. Number 2.
Aller: If just a quick question. If you were to do that what would be required to engineer it
properly?
Dan Hanson: To actually do that?
Aller: Yeah. Not holding you to any plans.
Dan Hanson: Well not knowing because we did soil bores but it was up high for the septics. We
haven’t done anything there because we typically wouldn’t unless we were looking into it
because that’s expensive and it’s time consuming.
Aller: Sure.
Dan Hanson: But it depends on what we find. If it’s low laying ground and if it’s got water in it,
it might not even be an option at all. If it’s just bad soil that’s not compacted properly then it
would be removable and there’s many options you can go to but they’re all pretty expensive.
And depending on how bad that soil is you could be digging down, I’ve got a project I’m
working now, they’re going down 16 feet and removing all the soil and having to come back into
good soil. That project was a house smaller than this and it was $80,000 worth of dirt work so it
would be a major thing.
Aanenson: I just want to clarify again. We kind of ruled it out too because it doesn’t meet the
setbacks from the wetland. I agree with you there’s probably marginal soils there. We didn’t
have all that information when this packet went out so we too would probably say this probably
is less than desirable.
Aller: Sure, thank you.
Dan Hanson: This second option, as staff had stated this one is pretty close to what we’ve been
talking about from the very beginning and we were pleased that we came to I would say similar
conclusions on a lot of the items we were dealing with. Septic system placement. The driveway
location. All that. The setback from the lake has not been an issue. We agreed to that from day
one and we’ve got the setback from the property line so the real issue here, we were asked to
comment on this several weeks ago has to do with the placement of the house in relation to the
garage and really our plan, the only difference is that we’re taking the house and sliding it out 9
feet from the garage so there’s a setback. The house is further away from the property line than
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
the garage. In doing so there’s 3 things that change as you’ve heard a little bit about. We lost a
service door that would allow you to go out the back of the garage down to the lake for servicing.
And then the other piece was, as we discussed the windows that we get taken away and I haven’t
had a chance to see the real impact to that as far as the egress window and we talked about there
are options but there are also very restrictive language around the size of that window. The
height of that window off the floor and the operation of that window. Obviously it has to
function a certain way so I have not had an opportunity to even look at how we would redesign
to do that but I’m sure there would be some issues just because now we’ve got a bedroom with a
teeny little 2 foot window and it’s not going to be desirable and there’s going to be no windows
in that office on the lower level. Or the main level so I guess my question would be what is the
9 feet represent? I mean what is the importance? We’re in a variance situation regardless with
their plan or the plan that the staff had recommended or our’s. Either one is a variance for the
house placement. The road placement is also so we’re trying to understand why we should have
to give up some really cool design things and functionality things for the house when we have
not had any discussion around what’s the real reason for doing it. Certainly we’re trying to get
closer to meeting setback but we’re already in a variance as well and really when you talk about
wetlands everything I’ve read on the code and requirement for wetland protection has to do with
the entire piece of land that’s being impacted and all of the wetland that’s on that and how the
hard surface interacts, it effects that wetland. We’re not actually in the wetland. We’re in the
buffer for the wetland so we’re not even impacting the wetlands so I heard a few comments
about water and how water would move on the property. We think that we’ve got a nice balance
to that as far as placement with regards to separation of the structure and the hard surface with
the undisturbed pieces of the lot and the tributary for runoff. We are working with the watershed
district to go through some of the same issues and they have their own set of rules and
restrictions. Buffer zones are a big part of what they do which means all of the areas within,
what they would call the wetland buffers will be unusable for the homeowner which means
everything to the left of that driveway will be unusable. Untouchable. They can’t touch it.
Manicure it. Mow it. Anything and there’ll be signs all along that driveway that state that so
that if he ever sells somebody else can’t come in and start mowing there and things like that so
those signs will be up and down that driveway. They’ll circle that entire wetland in the front of
the property including the ditch area that we’re going over so there’s a lot of area on this piece of
land for handling the water runoff from this. The engineers that we hired to do the surveys and
thth
you saw a copy of that survey. It’s very detailed. That is probably the 8 or 9 generation of
that survey that we’ve had to go back with changes, additions and that came from some of the
stuff that was happening here with the staff but also with the water district and also with the
movement of the home and things like that. We had a discussion with our engineer. They spoke
with the Barr Engineer person from the district that is hired for them by them and they had a
discussion about retention pond. It was one of those things that we were right on the border that
they were looking at thinking about and they thought that we did a really nice job of how we
placed the hard surface material on the lot to allow the lot to handle and the wetlands to handle
the water coming off the hard surface so not only did we I think because of how we designed
things I think minimize the damage or if you will the effect on the wetlands. We actually kept it
so that we didn’t have to have a retention pond which in my mind is further kind of changes from
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
the natural habitat and the wetlands. I don’t think that with what we’re dealing with the size of
this lot the idea that we had a tributary to help with the runoff. We have wetlands all over. It
shouldn’t have been necessary for a retention pond. We’re glad to hear that it wasn’t a
requirement. Any questions from the council?
Aller: Commissioner Tietz.
Tietz: I have one. Just responding to Drew’s presentation of option 2, did you explore
separating the 3 car garage from the house and either having it free standing and kind of look at
option 2 or create a breezeway connection between the house and the garage thus not impacting
the windows. So now I’m playing designer okay. I just said Drew shouldn’t do that but now I’m
doing it because I, there’s appears to be maybe some middle ground. Did you explore those 2
options?
Dan Hanson: Well the trick is the amount of room we have to work with up there on that high
ground. We can’t move the septic system. We decided that so how do I get that garage you
know manipulated?
Tietz: Well I’m just saying slide the garage south and create the gap between and with either a
breezeway. Now I should not be saying this or commenting but when the option is presented and
I trust that you thoroughly explored that as an option and then how could you make something
similar to option 2 work for the owners without disrupting the design character that your
company has prepared.
Dan Hanson: We did to a certain degree. We didn’t go to the effective drawings and things like
that but we did talk in terms of what would that do and could it even be done. To be honest we
didn’t know where this process was going to go. We were dealing to be honest with you with
some of the previous, the previous options and they were so drastic from our plan that we spent a
lot of time just addressing the issues related to those because without the septics where they were
without the road. Where they were in our minds we were dead in the water so for us to go in and
start coming up with 10 to 15 options on how to redesign the house to meet the restriction we
spent more time trying to understand it and come up with our rationale, our argument for keeping
the plan the way it was. Could we redesign it? Probably but I can tell you it’s very difficult
where that garage is to pull it away from the house because it’s going to impede on the septic
system location and that can’t move.
Tietz: Well from where the green splotches are it doesn’t appear that that would have an impact
so.
Dan Hanson: What’s that?
Tietz: Where the green patches are indicated doesn’t look as though that would be an issue to
pull it, pull it 10 feet off of the house.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Dan Hanson: It’s possible. I’ve got to have septic tanks. There are just the drainfields so I’ve
got to have tanks. The tanks can’t be covered by the garage. It doesn’t look like we…
Aller: Can’t we reduce the size of the garage to a 2 car garage?
Dan Hanson: Pardon me?
Aller: Can’t we change it to a 2 car garage? Or reduce the footprint of the house.
Dan Hanson: Well I would say no just because you know you’ve got an acreage property.
You’ve got a home that’s a 3 stall. You know 3 plus that new home. We’ve got no place for any
sort of a storage facility. You have no place to put a boat. The things that they need for the lake
so that third stall becomes extremely important.
Aller: Okay. Additional questions? Commissioner Undestad.
Undestad: When you went through with Barr Engineering and the watershed and the wetland
and stuff were there any concerns or comments from anybody in there about your footprint
design and the location within the tributary wetland?
Dan Hanson: From the neighbors?
Undestad: No. When you went through with Barr Engineering.
Dan Hanson: Oh you know we’re still working through that with them. We have just now got
the thumbs up that we’ve got everything to them to meet their next meeting. If we can get into
that meeting which we were working very hard to do because the timing of everything. We
weren’t getting what they needed. The complexity of the information they needed. If you look
at our survey, that 2 pages it is layer upon layer of detail of how they needed us, what they
needed us to prepare to get ready for that meeting so all we know is that we have got everything
that they need. We are now just providing some additional information and answering questions
that they have. To be honest their focus right now is unrelated to the house or the septic system.
It has to do with the driveway that we’ve already approved here. They don’t think that we’ve
met the requirement on the drainage component of that and the issue was their requirements
would have us put two 15 inch culverts in that drive and there’s not enough material to even
cover two 15 so what we are arguing is that the 12 would be, or one 15 would be sufficient and
that it would have no impact on the neighbors on the area. We can only move so much water
from that ditch area because it goes into that tributary and if it doesn’t move off, away from that
area, through the tributary it’s going to back up anyway. It doesn’t matter if you have 1 or 10
culverts there so we’re going through that issue.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Aller: So I guess the question I have then is, is the application a little bit premature because if
what I’m hearing is if Barr says you don’t meet those requirements, that the project is dead?
Dan Hanson: They’re not saying that at all. They’re basically saying that we need to address
them and that we need to put in the application for a variance is what we have done for that
particular area and it really just has to do with providing enough information for them just like
we have for you so that they can basically speak…as a variance.
Undestad: So the culverts.
Dan Hanson: There is no, we don’t see any way that they cannot approve it. It’s a ditch. It’s not
even a wetland to be honest. It’s been designated a wetland but that material came from the
wetland across the street. I mean we understand why we are where we are but it’s still difficult
and we’re trying to get through it all with all the different parties and we understand that they’re
just going through the steps that they have to go through and we think with the two engineers
talking it will get the verbiage that they need to get that. That’s the only thing that we’ve heard
that’s even an issue with regards, that would stop or slow the project down.
Undestad: So what, just to clarify that. What you’re talking about with Barr Engineering is the
culverts that we’ve, just to get through that ditch. Initial ditch right from Meadowlark Lane.
Aller: Right.
Dan Hanson: They’ve seen the same design that you guys have seen with regards to width. The
material that’s being used. The volume of material being used. They just, there’s a requirement
and that requirement is under what we can produce or prepare for them based on the material
we’re using and the volume of material. I mean some of it had to do with the width of the road
or the driveway and we’re, you know we squeeze it down and now we can’t get…
Hokkanen: Does that approval need to be a condition of our approval?
Aller: I think it’s in the original variance.
Hokkanen: Okay. Oh it is?
Aller: That’s why I’m saying it seems as though it’s been presented as a two part process and
the first part hasn’t fully been approved yet so.
Aanenson: But for the house meets all the requirements. It’s kind of more technicality of what
size piping he can use so. This is the conundrum we don’t like to have is bouncing back between
two jurisdictions so we’re trying to work together on this. It is complicated when we did the first
application because we didn’t, we weren’t able to see the whole application and so here we are
today because we didn’t have that in the first place. We didn’t see the whole house and
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everything so now we’re trying to get to that point. Have we done our best to try to minimize
that.
Aller: So with the septic are we using force field? Are we pumping it up and out? What do we?
Dan Hanson: For what?
Aller: For your septic.
Dan Hanson: Septic is a drainfields but it’d be pumped like any other every 2 years required by
that.
Aller: Okay. Any additional questions at this point? Okay thank you.
Dan Hanson: Thank you very much.
Aller: I’ll open up the public hearing portion for any individual wishing to speak either for or
against the project as presented. Welcome sir. If you could come state your name and address
for the record that’d be great.
Michael Wistrand: Hello. Michael Wistrand, 9670 Meadowlark.
Aller: Welcome.
Michael Wistrand: We’re the neighbors. We’ve been there going on 26 years. This land that we
bought and that David is planning on building on, the Vogel’s have been there. They’re
founding members of the city. They’ve been there forever. When we bought the lot in ’87,
before that it was a farm field. This creek goes through my yard. It’s this wide. I can step
across it. It’s not this, I mean it looks huge on that but it’s really just a little creek. In the 26
years I’ve been there I haven’t seen this thing more than a couple feet wide at any point. When
the culvert gets flooded on Meadowlark it flows across and it rolls right out to the lake. It’s very
little flowage out there but there is flowage always. There are several springs on my property
that feed that and also up along Pioneer Trail. As far as the neighbors go I’ve talked to just about
all the neighbors, nobody has a problem with this. We want a nice house. Putting a 2 car garage
is ridiculous on a lake lot. I mean that’s kind of like defeating the purpose. He’s got a nice plan.
It works well. I think if the vegetation is correct it’s going to take care of any problem you’re
going to have. You can easily you know, if you look at the plot it really is fairly flat. It doesn’t,
there’s not a lot of runoff there so I think if you put the right vegetation in. You treat it correctly
it’s going to handle any runoff. Even the driveway, if you look at the driveway. The way they
have this laid out there’s very little side end to it. I mean it’s not dropping towards the creek.
It’s pretty flat and I think it will be easily, you could keep that running that way. You had
mentioned running it off to the right or something. I suppose there’s the possibility of doing
something like that if you could put a little holding pond or run it down to the gutter, or to the
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
gully down below and run it all the way across the property but you know I think it’s, you’ve got
to have the right house. You’ve got to have a house that looks going to look right. You’ve got
to have a house that’s going to work with the neighborhood and work with the lake. You want it
to look good on the lake and this plan number 1 is kind of, that’s ridiculous. There’s no reason
for that. Keeping the septics, you know I’ve got septic myself. It’s very critical you’ve got to do
it right. Pushing them towards the lake makes no sense at all. I think you want to get as much
area to, for runoff as possible. Number one if you do it correctly there should be no runoff of
bad things coming out of a septic and that’s supposed to go into the system. I just wanted to let
you know that of all the neighbors I’ve talked to, I think I’ve talked to all but 2 of them so far.
Everybody’s for it. Nobody has a problem with the plot. Anything else. They want it done right
and I think everybody’s pretty comfortable with, if it’s done properly and you go through the
water district and everything else it can easily be done so that’s all I have.
Aller: Thank you. Any additional comments? Here comes someone. If you could state your
name and address for the record that would be great. Thank you.
Gayle Vogel: Gayle Vogel, 105 Pioneer Trail and partly that property, I was married to Dick
Vogel and that property has been in the Vogel family for over 100 years and as they said we
developed it in 1988 and Dick and I talked about building down there but he was in love with his
cows and didn’t want to move across the road to that darn lake and so I kind of gave in to him so
we stayed where we were but our dream was always to have our kids build so here we are and
I’m looking at the on the plan number 3. I’m thinking if it was your 8 year old daughter and you
were knocking off 9 foot off of her bedroom and no window for I think the question was, what
does that 9 feet gain so I’d really put a strong vote in for option 3. And David and Amy have
really worked hard to, that is a beautiful lot for those of you that have seen it and the trees and it
isn’t a trail that goes. It’s a farm road that’s been there for over 100 years so that road has been
used and well compacted and you know pretty much stuck where it is so we’d love to have you
and I think we started in September looking at all of this and I know there’s been all sorts of
contingencies and getting the right things together but we’d really like to get started so they
could move in in the fall so thank you.
Aller: Thank you. Any additional comments?
Dave Vogel: Hello, Dave Vogel. One of two owners. My wife is here as well. I’d like to thank
you again for meeting with us. I know this is the second time. I’m not going to rehash why it’s
the second time but just want to emphasize you know with this option number 3 it minimizes the
trees that we cut down. We keep the driveway you know the other additional thing is when
we’re talking about house design and what’s reasonable and reasonable can be a two way street.
I mean there’s give and the take and there’s been so much give and take with all this so when we
were asked to move you know the 9 feet farther the initial concern was well you know we’ve got
to redesign the house again and again at that point why wouldn’t we have to do it again. I mean
you could take a foot. You could take 2 feet. It ended up at 9. I mean we just felt like we
worked. We flipped the orientation of the house. We have a two story so that we went up
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
instead of out with a rambler. Allows us to expand into the basement if needed and also I know
it was just mentioned but I did talk to all of the neighbors. I’ve met with them. I walked the
whole neighborhood. Handed out our design. I had more concern that the, I forget if it’s option
2 or whatever it was on here that they don’t want a narrow house built. They want it to conform
with the neighborhood so that the property values aren’t affected and that was the biggest
concern. And you know I talked to Mike Monk again today. The neighbor to the east. You
know when we had option number, the latest option to show up at 3:00 today he didn’t agree
with that as well and I talked to Tim Erhart immediately to the west and we’ve got the
neighborhood on board so I can’t possibly believe you’d hear from any of the 12 people in this
neighborhood so we feel that was part of our being reasonable and making sure that we got
everyone on board with that so any additional questions for me I’d be happy to take. And again
thank you for your time and consideration.
Aller: Thank you. Any questions? Okay thank you. And we have another individual coming
forward.
Amy Vogel: I’ll be fast. My name is Amy Vogel. I am the other owner of the property that
we’re trying to build. I just wanted to give you some perspective because it is kind of a
conversation between option number 2 and option number 3. Our’s being option number 3. We
have 3 young children. We have a 3 year old, a 5 year old and an 8 year old so when we were
choosing to want the master on the main so that we could live our lives out on this property it
was, we did have to put some thought into thinking of putting our children all up when we were
down but we did decide it was worth it to minimize some of the impact that this house could
have on this property given the restrictions. So when you look at something as little as that 9
feet, which doesn’t seem like a lot to push that house over to the property line those 9 feet, like
my mother-in-law Gayle said it does impact that bedroom on that second floor and that bedroom
was going to be my 8 year old daughter’s and it’s a nice big bedroom and to think of this tiny
little window somewhere in that space on a side wall when it’s a bedroom that won’t get a lot of
light in if you’re really minimizing things to just take that nice double window because you’re
sliding the house over 9 feet and lose that and I do question the ability of a fireman to gain access
to that room when those 9 feet are lost on that wall. I can’t say for sure if they, if that would be
an issue or not but just thinking of the aesthetic quality of a bedroom that a 8 year old girl is
going to be hanging out in for quite a few years and how much light would actually also get into
that space for 9 feet is a question that concerns me as well since a bedroom is a very important
place for a child so thank you.
Aller: Thank you. I think we’ve run out of audience members so at this point I’ll close the
public hearing portion and open it up for commissioner comments and discussion.
Tietz: Chairman?
Aller: Commissioner Tietz.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Tietz: First of all I want to compliment the staff on really a great job on this and all of our
projects I think that come. I know this one’s been really challenging and I think had we all been
here 30 or 40 years ago we probably wouldn’t be discussing the same topics that we’re
discussing today and that’s, you know the land is encumbered by our current regulations and we
have to try our best to work within them at all times and we’ve certainly gone through a number
of iterations of plans and discussions over setback and how this is going to impact but personally
I feel that option number 3 is within the design constraints that they’ve established and the
floorplan and the work that’s been done. I’d have to say that that, you know to go back and
continue to redesign and look at options that are going to conform to a minimal extent beyond
what they have done with a very, very difficult site. I think the comment by the contractor
saying that we had essentially 5 percent of a site that’s actually buildable. That places really
severe restrictions on anything that’s been done but I think given the design that you’ve selected
and the approach that you’ve taken that option 3 in this instance is very appropriate.
Aller: Any additional comments.
Undestad: I would have to agree.
Hokkanen: I agree as well.
Aller: So when we look at this there’s no question that this is the type of property that requires a
variance if you want to have reasonable structure at all because of the complexity of the setbacks
and the water structures that surround the property and we visited this the first time. We do want
to minimize any impact and so I really appreciate staff coming forward and making the effort to
try to look at options and I would also commend staff. This is the third hearing tonight and we
always hear that the process has been a great process for people to work with staff and going
through and that you are accommodating and that you do look at options so I think that the staff
did a great job in making presentation that includes all the options and number 1 didn’t pass
mustard because of the property structure conditions but I appreciate the fact that you looked at it
because it is another option that would minimize those, the impacts on the restrictions and that’s
one of our jobs in granting a variance is to make sure that it’s minimized. Just as I asked the
question about reduction of the property I wanted to see whether or not individuals had thought
about to a degree the type of structure and the amount of the hard cover and the footprint that’s
being used by the property and I was pleased to hear that obviously it had been thought about in
great detail including the safety factors and issues with regard to the bedroom and the windows
and although we have requirements and laws and legal scenarios where we require an ingress
and egress window to be a certain size it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to put our
structures in such a position that we have to use them so I agree with the other comments that the
presentation by staff was excellent. I think that option 3 in my mind is probably the best for the
use of this property to make it a reasonable use under the circumstances which is what I think
we’re charged with so I would be voting to approve a motion for 3 and I would ask for someone
to make that motion.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
Tietz: Mark? Yeah I’ll make that motion.
Aller: Commissioner Tietz.
Tietz: First do we change?
Undestad: Just go to 3.
Tietz: The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves a variance from the 100
foot shoreland setback from a tributary to construction a single family, boy you made it a lot
easier for me to read it. Home, accessory structures and driveway as shown in Attachment 3.
Oh you changed it.
Ingvalson: Correct.
Hokkanen: Magic.
Tietz: In the memorandum dated March 15, 2016 subject to the conditions of approval and
adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision.
Aller: I have a motion. Do I have a second?
Madsen: Second.
Aller: So I have a motion by Commissioner Tietz, a second by Commissioner Madsen. Any
further discussion? Just again would applaud staff in being prepared for the motion. Obviously
thinking of all the options presented so I’m happy to have staff present them all so a decision that
is an informed one can be made and with that I’ll entertain the vote. All those in favor.
Tietz moved, Madsen seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and
Adjustments, approve a shoreland setback variance from a tributary for the
construction of a single-family home, accessory structures, and driveway, as shown in
Attachment #15 of the staff report, subject to the following conditions:
Planning and Building Department
1.The applicant shall apply for and receive a building permit and/or zoning permit for
all structures.
2.The applicant shall erect temporary fencing around the proposed septic locations prior
to any operation of equipment on the site.
Water Resources Coordinator
3.The plan must clearly indicate the shoreland impact zone and encroachment therein.
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Chanhassen Planning Commission – March 15, 2016
4.The applicant is responsible for any other agency approvals that may be required.
5.No site disturbance may occur until the city has received confirmation from the Board
of Soil and Water Resources that the wetland bank account has been debited thereby
satisfying the approved wetland replacement plan.
6.All erosion prevention and sediment control practices must be properly installed prior
to any earth disturbing activities.
7.Type II sediment control best management practices are required for all areas up
gradient of the wetland, the stream and the lake. This shall be machine sliced silt
fence with metal tee posts or other as approved by the City Engineer.
8.All other pertinent aspects of City Code Section 19-145 must be included with the site
plan including, but not limited to the placement of six (6) inches of topsoil to all
disturbed areas.
9.The city or their representative shall inspect the erosion prevention and sediment
control best management practices prior to any earth disturbing activities.
Forestry Official
10.Clearing and construction limits shall be located outside of shore impact zone and will be
no closer than 100 feet to the Ordinary High Water Level (OHWL).
11.Clearing of vegetation along the shore shall be limited to a strip of 30 feet, parallel to the
shoreline and extending inward within the shore impact zone. The applicant shall use
this clearing for views and access to the lake. No additional clearing is allowed by
ordinance.
12.Per city ordinance, all trees 10 inches and larger within the construction limits shall be
shown on the building permit survey.
Fire Marshall
13.Address numbers shall be posted at the driveway entrance prior to any building
construction. Numbers shall be minimum 12 inches in height, located at the driveway
entrance, contrasting color to the surface they are applied to. Builder shall contact Fire
Marshal for review and approval of numbers.
14.No burning permits will be issued for tree or brush removal.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Yusuf noted the verbatim and summary
Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated February 16, 2016 as presented.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
Aanenson: Before we get to the year end report if you don’t mind adjusting the schedule there
we’ll take the, sorry. We’ll just go through upcoming meetings real quick why we get set up. So
th
we will not have a meeting April 5. We did not have any additional applications. We have
quite a few that are in process that we’re working on. I also want to announce at the City
45