C-1. Approval of Planning Commission Minutes dated Septmber 20, 2016 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
SUMMARY MINUTES
SEPTEMBER 20,2016
Chairman Alter called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, John Tietz, Maryam Yusuf,Nancy Madsen, Steve
Weick, and Mark Randall
MEMBERS ABSENT: Mark Undestad
STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Alyson Fauske,
Assistant City Engineer; MacKenzie Walters, Planner; and Roger Knutson, City Attorney
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Lynne Etling 7681 Century Boulevard
Elizabeth Kressler 1750 Valley Ridge Trail North
Jenn Singer 8470 Pelican Court
Shirley McGee 1950 Andrew Court
Terry O'Toole 8418 Burlwood •
Wendy& Craig O'Connor 1702 Valley Ridge Trail North
Kim&Dan Obermeyer 1540 Heron Drive
Melanie Mertes 8671 Flamingo Drive
Tim & Shamus McNeill 1824 Valley Ridge Trail South
Jim Wagle 8411 Egret Court
Jeff&Kristi Strang 1701 Valley Ridge Trail South
Denise Choiniere 8481 Bittern Court
Pat Mazural, Bremer Trust 9501 Virginia Avenue South, Bloomington
PUBLIC HEARING:
6845 LAKE HARRISON CIRCLE: VARIANCE REQUEST TO BUILD A PAVER
PATIO AROUND A POOL AT PROPERTY LOCATED AT 6845 LAKE HARRISON
CIRCLE.
MacKenzie Walters presented the staff report on this item. The applicant Barb Hegenes
discussed the work that's been done since May before introducing Mark Hauri with Outdoor
Escapes who is the landscape designer for this project. Chairman Aller asked for clarification on
runoff calculations, if the pool can be built without the permeable pavers, reducing the size of the
pool, and rain garden capacity without pavers. Commissioner Tietz asked about soil borings.
Chairman Aller opened the public hearing. No one spoke and the public hearing was closed.
After comments from commissioners the following motion was made.
Planning Commission Summary— September 20, 2016
Yusuf moved, Madsen seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments
denies the variance request to allow hard cover to exceed 25 percent by 8.14 percent, allow
a detached accessory structure to exceed the rear lot coverage in the amount of 30 percent
by 4.5 percent and allow a 15-foot reduction in the wetland setback and adopts the
Findings of Fact and Decision. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with
a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING:
PAISLEY PARK MUSEUM—REQUEST TO REZONE PROPERTY LOCATED AT
7801 AUDUBON ROAD FROM INDUSTRIAL OFFICE PARK(IOP) TO PLANNED
UNIT DEVELOPMENT IOP TO FACILITATE THE USE OF THE BUILDING AS A
MUSEUM.
Kate Aanenson and Alyson Fauske presented the staff report on this item. Commissioner
Randall asked if staff had considered directional signage on Highway 212. Commissioner
Madsen asked for clarification of parking and pedestrian movement in and around McGlynn
Road and ordinances regulating maintenance of fences. Commissioner Tietz commented that he
felt the commission should wait and see official plans from the applicant prior to approving
anything, asked why a hotel is included in the PUD, and tents being allowed in the northwest
corner of the site. Pat Mazural, 9501 Virginia Avenue South, Bloomington with Bremer Trust
and the Special Administrator for the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson explained that the purpose
of a museum at Paisley Park is to preserve the legacy of an international celebrity before
introducing the following members of the team: Todd Phelps, an attorney with Stinson Leonard
Street in Minneapolis who is engaged in real estate and land use practice; Jill Radloff, an
attorney with Stinson Leonard Street who has been engaged in the contract negotiations with
Graceland Holdings; Craig Ordall, President of Bremer Trust; Joel Weinshanker,majority owner
of Graceland Holdings LLC that is the organization which will wholly own PPark Management
LLC; and Regina Gamble, Vice President of Operations and General Manager for Elvis Presley
Enterprises who works closely with Joel Weinshanker and Graceland Holdings in the operation
of Graceland. Chairman Aller opened the public hearing. Shirley McGee, 1950 Andrew Court
asked how car inspections will affect traffic and why a museum needs rezoning because if it
includes a hotel like the one at Graceland she is not in favor of the project. Lynne Etling, 7681
Century Boulevard noted her major concerns were traffic and pedestrian safety. Wendy
O'Connor, 1702 Valley Ridge Trail North asked for clarification on management of the museum,
and pedestrian safety associated with crossing Audubon Road at McGlynn Road. She
recommended that a High Intensity Activated Crosswalk(HAWK)beacon be installed and the
hours of operation be reduced to 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., similar to Graceland noting that she
thinks it's irresponsible to let the museum open right now without having everything done. Ann
Miller, 6561 Fox Path asked that a fence not be built around Paisley Park mentioning other
museums in the area that don't have fences. Gary O'Toole, 8418 Burlwood Drive complimented
staff on their report but did express concerns with queuing citing issues at the Arboretum. Tim
and Shamus McNeill who live just south of Paisley Park at Valley Ridge Trail and Audubon
2
Planning Commission Summary— September 20, 2016
Road expressed concerns with the current speeds and sight lines on Audubon Road and what will
happen with increased traffic. Joy Gorra, 1680 West 78`I' Street expressed concern with future
expansion of a possible Purple Rain Amusement Park and asked to take into account traffic at the
Motorplex event each first Saturday of the month. Elizabeth Kressler, 1750 Valley Ridge Trail
North expressed concerns with the tent, traffic on Audubon Road, would not favor installation of
an opaque fence, and parking on McGlynn Road. Melanie Mertes, 8671 Flamingo Drive
discussed concerns with the traffic analysis, people using Google maps to find Paisley Park and
limiting the hours of operation. Denise Choiniere, 8481 Bittern Court expressed concerns that
the traffic study was done before school started, and limiting the hours of operation. Chairman
Aller closed the public hearing before asking Matt Pacyna with SRF Consulting to comment on
questions regarding the traffic analysis. Joel Weinshanker with Graceland Holdings, LLC
addressed issues concerning management and operation of the site. Jim Wagle, 8411 Egret
Court asked how having a hotel on site would impact traffic. Lynne Etling asked for
clarification on how the ticket website will be managed. Chairman Aller again closed the public
hearing and asked for a motion.
Weick moved, Randall seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends
that the City Council approve the rezoning of Lot 11, Block 1, Chanhassen Lakes Business
Park from IOP to PUD and adoption of the attached PUD ordinance and Findings of Fact
with the following recommendations for City Council to consider:
1. Review the transportation plan.
2. Consider a bus only route on Highway 5.
3. Have a pedestrian safety plan.
4. Have a time frame for completion of improvements.
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 September 6, 2016 as presented.
COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Kate Aanenson discussed action taken by the City
Council at their September 12, 2016 meeting and future Planning Commission agenda items.
Commissioner Yusuf moved to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was
adjourned at 9:45 p.m.
Submitted by Kate Aanenson
Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim
3
CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 20,2016
Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, John Tietz, Maryam Yusuf,Nancy Madsen, Steve
Weick, and Mark Randall
MEMBERS ABSENT: Mark Undestad
STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Alyson Fauske,
Assistant City Engineer; MacKenzie Walters, Planner; and Roger Knutson, City Attorney
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Lynne Etling 7681 Century Boulevard
Elizabeth Kressler 1750 Valley Ridge Trail North
Jenn Singer 8470 Pelican Court
Shirley McGee 1950 Andrew Court
Terry O'Toole 8418 Burlwood
Wendy & Craig O'Connor 1702 Valley Ridge Trail North
Kim &Dan Obermeyer 1540 Heron Drive
Melanie Mertes 8671 Flamingo Drive
Tim& Shamus McNeill 1824 Valley Ridge Trail South
Jim Wagle 8411 Egret Court
Jeff&Kristi Strang 1701 Valley Ridge Trail South
Denise Choiniere 8481 Bittern Court
Pat Mazural, Bremer Trust 9501 Virginia Avenue South, Bloomington
PUBLIC HEARING:
6845 LAKE HARRISON CIRCLE: VARIANCE REQUEST TO BUILD A PAVER
PATIO AROUND A POOL AT PROPERTY LOCATED AT 6845 LAKE HARRISON
CIRCLE.
Aanenson: Commission Chair before we start can we just verify the applicant's here? I'm not
sure if they are here.
Aller: The applicants are present.
Aanenson: Sorry. We tried to save you a spot up front. I'm sorry, we'll proceed.
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Walters: Alright, this is a staff report for planning case 16-22. The 6845 Lake Harrison Circle
variance. The applicant has requested a variance to allow a pool area to be constructed in their
rear yard. The pool area would involve a 1,500 square foot paver patio with permeable pavers
around a proposed 40 by 18 pool. The property is located in the Lake Harrison subdivision. Lot
2, Block 2. It is zoned residential single family. The variances involves several different aspects
of the zoning code. The residential single family zoning code has a 25 percent lot coverage
maximum. This area is also within Harrison Lake's 1,000 foot shoreland management district
which is a zoning overlay that also has the 25 percent impervious coverage limit. The City also
has a blanket provision for all low density residential that limits detached rear accessory
structures to a maximum of 30 percent rear lot coverage and there is a Manage 1 wetland to the
rear of the property which with the current subdivision has a 20-foot buffer and a 40 foot
building setback. A little bit of history on the parcel is currently it has constructed a single
family house. It's zoned for residential single family as I mentioned. All of Lot 2 has a blanket
5-foot front yard setback variance and in 2009 the house had a deck constructed on the back. In
2011 the deck was expanded by another 320 square feet and in 2013 the original homeowner did
apply for a pool. The permit was approved but they ended up withdrawing the project.
Currently the applicant has applied, the new homeowner has applied for the aforementioned
1,500 square foot paver patio around a pool area. In order to accommodate this, it would require
a 1,459 % square foot variance on the lot's hard cover maximum. That's an 8.14 percent
increase. They would also require a 269 1/2 square foot variance on the detached rear yard
coverage for an accessory structure. That'd be a 4.5 percent increase and it would also require a
15-foot setback from the wetlands area. The applicant proposes to mitigate the increased hard
cover through use of a permeable paver system. This system would be engineered to have 2 1/2
feet of 3/4 inch clear rock and 1-inch granite chips below. The system would be designed to allow
storm water to infiltrate in and would have a release valve for when it exceeded capacity. They
are proposing a 2-foot-deep rain garden in the southwest corner of the property and a retaining
wall that starts at 5 feet and tapers down to 2 feet as it runs southwest to direct any runoff into
the rain garden. They believe that this will significantly improve on the site's current infiltration
and they're also proposing to place signs to delineate the boundary of the wetland. When staff
evaluated this proposal there were several concerns with the proposed mitigation for impervious
surface. The Water Resources Coordinator indicated that it is not generally accepted practice
from the DNR to allow permeable paver systems to exceed the 25 percent hard cover cap for the
shoreland areas. The big reason for that is concerns about their efficacy over time. Essentially
like any system as they age their effectiveness decreases. Permeable paver systems require a
large amount of maintenance in order to function at optimum capacity. The City does not
currently have any provisions in place for monitoring the maintenance or enforcing the
maintenance of these structures. With a pervious paver system of this size if as little as 2.7
percent of it became impaired due to dirt clogage, age, other problems it would be the equivalent
of allowing over 25 percent with standard hard cover so there's a very narrow margin of
operability. The other concern we have relies around the fact that the hard cover provisions for
single family districts are not only concerned with water infiltration. It is also a matter of
viewscaping. The reason why the words lot coverage is used is because the main goal is to
insure a large amount of green space in our residential neighborhoods. This is also reinforced by
2
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
the provision which limits detached accessory structures to a maximum of 30 percent real lot
coverage. In this case the proposed patio would exceed both the lot coverage limit for the entire
lot and the real lots coverage percentage by a substantial margin. We are concerned with the
precedent this would set in terms of the ability to cover backyards with extensive patios and alter
the fundamental views of the neighborhood. It should also be noted that, the next concern
involves the wetland setback. The depiction you see on the screen above you is the current
wetland. The purple line indicates the existing 20-foot wetland buffer and the green line shows
the current 40-foot setback from that buffer. Under the ordinance that currently governs this
parcel no structure is allowed past the green line. If you would switch to the next slide please.
The applicant does have the option to use a clause in Chapter 20, Section 411E which allows
them to upgrade the buffer to be in line with current zoning standards. This would be in this case
a 25-foot buffer with a 15-foot setback. The picture on the right, the green line shows where the
adjusted setback would be for accessory structures. The slide on the left by contrast show, the
green line indicates the current structure setback. As you can see in both cases the proposed
paver patio and pool area encroaches substantially into the existing buffer and that is the reason,
I'm sorry existing setback and that is the reason why a 15-foot wetland setback variance would
be required to accommodate the proposal. Again it would be possible to design a pool that is in
line with the setback requirements as well as in line with the rear yard lot coverage requirements.
This is an overview of the Lake Harrison subdivision. When staff looked through the building
files for properties throughout it we discovered that a large number of properties were built in a
very similar configuration to this house. Approximately 18,000 square foot lots that have lot
coverage in excess of 24 percent as-built. In short a decision was made by the developer to build
rather large houses on lots that are about average for Chanhassen. This resulted in not many
options for increasing impervious surface coverage but it does allow for decks and other things
that do not count as impervious surface to be built in the year yards. Going through the files we
could find no variances on record for any property within the subdivision excepting the blanket
5-foot front yard setback variance for all houses in Block 2. In summary the house is zoned for
residential single family and currently accommodates that use. There are numerous activities
that could be done and developed in the back yard within line of code and because of that and
concerns with the implication on viewscape, the wetland setback and stormwater infiltration staff
recommends the following motion to deny the variance request. If you have any questions, I'd
be happy to take them at this time.
Aller: Any questions from the commissioners at this point?
Weick: Is the pool considered an accessory structure?
Walters: The pool is classified as an accessory structure under our ordinance. However, we
have by policy not included pools in hard cover calculations so the 1,500 square feet that I
mentioned does not include the 40 by 18-foot pool area. Only the paver patio apron around said
pool.
Weick: Got it, thank you.
3
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Walters: Yep.
Aller: So from your answer my understanding is that the pool is fine. It's the pavers around it.
Walters: I can say that depending on how designed, as I mentioned in the history in 2013 the
original home builder applied for a pool. He was, the permit was approved. My understanding
from the records is that there was a deal where he was going to remove some of the impervious
surface from the driveway in order to accommodate a small pool apron and then he was going to
use I believe decking for the rest of the pool area but it is possible to put a pool in that back yard
under the code yes.
Aller: Any additional questions at this point? Okay, if the applicant wishes to come forward
they can make a presentation at this time.
Barb Hegenes: Good evening: I'm Barb Hegenes, 6845 Lake Harrison Circle in Chanhassen.
Aller: Good evening and welcome.
Barb Hegenes: Pardon?
Aller: Good evening and welcome.
Barb Hegenes: Oh, you're not loud enough. My son and I have been kind of a part of the
Chanhassen community for the last 15 years and we haven't lived in Chanhassen but we always
wanted to and now he'll be going to Chanhassen High School. We finally had the opportunity in
April to move into the city of Chanhassen. All of our friends and many of our family live here
so when we found the house, originally we looked for a house with a pool because this is kind of
a big project to undertake but when I bought the house the owner had said that he had already
gotten the City's approval and so it wouldn't be a big deal to put a pool in so I contacted Mark
Hauri with Outdoor Escapes and learned that he had put in several of the pools and done the
landscaping in our neighborhood. There's 3 or 4 other pools in our neighborhood so I didn't
anticipate that it would really be a huge issue to put the pool in as we now know it's become kind
of complicated but Mark and I have been working all summer. Actually since the beginning of
May to try to make this happen so I'm going to turn it over to Mark now and let him give you the
gritty details.
Aller: Great, thank you.
Mark Hauri: Thanks for hearing us. My name's Mark Hauri with Outdoor Escapes so I'm a
landscape designer that's worked with Barb and her team to go through the engineering of this.
I've also worked with the,had a couple meetings with the Riley-Purgatory Watershed. I showed
them the plans. Reviewed it with them and they were actually onboard with what we were doing
4
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
and made the comment that we wish more people would do things like you do and be forward
thinking in this so anyways we want to come before you and you know present what we have.
We'd really like to get the pool in for Barb so I do actually have some pictures of the lot I could
hand out to people. I don't know if that helps you at all or.
Aller: That's fine.
Mark Hauri: Is that okay?
Aller: Yep.
Mark Hauri: And so I've got pictures and then also kind of a little sketch. There we go. Oh
that's cool. So this is kind of what we're proposing to do. It's a little bit dark. Right now,put it
back. Right now the lot itself, everything from the front yard,rear corner of the house and
everything in back drains right to the watershed that's in back. Drains directly to it so one of our
main focuses was just the ecology of the wetland and instead of having this water just run off the
sod right into the wetland we decided that one of the best options, not only for the pool but just
to help the ecology of the wetland would actually be to pick this back grade up. Actually build a
wall kind of right along this back to alleviate the water runoff that's coming from the house, that
doesn't have any gutters. From the front yard and from the back that runs right into the wetland
so our big thing right now, number one is actually building this wall to actually pick up the grade
and that would be on the house side of that setback line. That allows us to flatten out the whole
yard and now we can actually do this permeable paver structure. We've engineered 2 '/2 feet of
rock based on the soil tests out there. We could actually go deeper if we want more holding
capacity and then our overflow pipe will go to a rain garden on this wet side so really now
everything running off, everything coming off the roof, everything off that pool deck will
infiltrate in the permeable pavers and any overflow will go into a 2-foot-deep rain garden before
anything will come over the wall to the wetland. It's a really tight lot. I mean as they presented.
It's actually a really difficult lot to work anything in the back yard and I know we're asking for a
little bit more than normal but again I actually had gone to the Purgatory, or Riley-Purgatory
Watershed and talked with them about it and they felt comfortable with what we are doing too so
that led us to the variance process and here we are today. So if anybody has questions.
Aller: Questions at this point. Did you have the calculations on exactly how much water will be
held?
Mark Hauri: I don't have true water calculations. What will be held. I mean that's something
we want to do once we excavate down. We're actually going to do soil bores. We're going to
have 12 soil bores all the way around to determine every point that we're going to have water in
so it will be a little bit easier to calculate at that point because then we can actually calculate
correct infiltration rates.
Aller: Is there a architectural reason why we can't put in the pool without the pavers?
5
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Mark Hauri: Well the pavers, you know it's really the deck you know for chairs. Things like
that. We could actually put a pool in, in theory. Do some coping around the outside and then
sod it. You know we still want to pick the yard up. We still need to flatten out that yard so that
wall needs to go in. The pavers, the permeable system will allow more infiltration quicker than
the sod will itself. Plus,we'll have more holding capacity with that top 2 1/2 feet of rock. So the
pavers do provide, the permeable pavers do provide a better infiltration of that water as opposed
to sod. I know one of their concerns was you know if everything clogs up. If there's a couple
percentage points that this won't drain as well as when it's new and I understand that. That's
one big question that every city, every government raises about permeable pavers. This is a little
bit different because it's in a back yard environment so we're not going to be plowing this. It
won't be exposed to salt and sand. The minute the snow hits it, it just stays that way so as
opposed to a driveway, a front sidewalk, a street, it's not going to see the sand. It's not going to
see the salt and that's the main reason for these to clog up. So my concern about this system
clogging up and plugging up over many years is, to me it's not even a minor concern just
because of it being in the back yard and not exposed to any winter salting or sanding.
Aller: Is there a reason you're tied to the size of the pool? Is there a way to restructure the pool
size so that you can fall within the maximums that are set out now in the zoning?
Mark Hauri: It would be virtually impossible to get a pool in to fit. We have talked about doing
a little smaller pool, 36 by 18. We have talked about the potential for changing the angle a little
bit of the pool. Maybe taking a little bit more off the back side, kind of that long run right above
the boulder wall. You know there's probably a good 150-160 square that could be taken off
there. Changing the angle of the pool a little bit would help. That could take off a couple
hundred square but in general with this permeable system you know we might still be looking
about 1,200 to 1,300 square feet of the back yard with this permeable system.
Aller: Is the permeable system required?
Mark Hauri: The permeable system isn't required but just to be good stewards to the land, what
we don't want to do is put a concrete surface in that has no infiltration and that we just shed
water off to the edges and then try to collect it with drain tile and run it into a drain rain garden.
A rain garden would just be overwhelmed with the amount of volume. The permeable system
allows that water,we can capture that water and have it fill up and actually infiltrate down even
after the rain storm so that's why we went with permeable pavers right off the get go because we
wanted to mitigate any runoff that we had. Really let everything soak in and once everything
comes down that side hill it's actually going to be directed right to the pavers so again that runoff
can hit our hard surface. The permeable pavers. Get into our drain field and anything that
overflows then the rain garden can maybe handle that overflow. But it has a tremendous
capacity. I mean it would have to fill up 2 feet to hit that overflow valve and that's a tremendous
capacity so. The permeable pavers we thought about it right away just because we just felt we
6
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
were being much better stewards to the land going that route than just a straight concrete pool
deck.
Aller: What's the capacity of the rain garden itself? If you had a rain garden in there with no
pavers.
Mark Hauri: If we had a rain garden with no pavers, what we would actually do is we would
engineer that rain garden and make it probably about 4 times the size so basically this whole, this
whole corner right down here, we would actually create a larger rain garden. Maybe have a 3
foot deep. Maybe actually do some soil correction. Put 3 feet of rock in there. Some sand and
then have a 2 %2 - 3-foot depression too so kind of doing the same thing as a permeable pavers
but we would have a rock retention area and then the rain garden up above that to just maximize
the amount of water we could get into an area that was you know probably 20 by 30ish.
Something like that. 20 by 40.
Aller: Alright, thank you. Based on my questions anybody have any additional?
Tietz: Andrew, yeah.
Aller: Commissioner Tietz.
Tietz: The excavation for the pool itself.
Mark Hauri: Yes.
Tietz: You said that you haven't done any soil bores but you, do you know the consistency of
that soil? Is that going to be soil that you can use behind your boulder wall to build up or is it,
because it's getting pretty close to a wetland.
Mark Hauri: Yeah we're actually going to take all that soil off site.
Tietz: Off site.
Mark Hauri: Yep it actually, we did 4 tests and it actually drains very well. We did 2 kind of
what I would consider on the back side of the pool. Between the pool and the wall and we did
one kind of where the lounge chairs are and one kind of by the deck and it is pretty good draining
soil. We are still going to excavate that soil and actually bring it completely off site and
everything that when we build that wall we're actually going to use granular fill in back of that
wall again which is going to be a porous rock. We're not going to use a Class V or recycled. So
really everything from the edge of that pool to the boulder wall will still have a permeable
system below it. Above that wall we're going to do a big hedge of box woods so we will have a
planter that's maybe 3 feet wide by about 2 feet deep of nice black dirt that we'll be bringing in
7
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
but everything that we excavate out at that, you know basically it's about a 3-foot depth, we'll be
bringing that material off site.
Tietz: Thank you.
Mark Hauri: Yep.
Aller: Additional questions? Alright, thank you very much.
Mark Hauri: Okay, thank you.
Aller: Okay at this point in time I will open the public hearing portion of this item. Anyone
present wishing to speak either for or against the item or comment on the application may do so
at this time. Seeing no one come forward I'll close the public hearing and open it up for
questions, comments and concerns of the commissioners.
Tietz: I think they should be applauded for the work on the permeable pavers and the depth but I
think the, you know the amount of surface area that's encroaching upon the wetland is pretty
significant. It's over 1,400 square feet so to mitigate that I don't think the permeable pavers
really do that and it's really setting precedent.
Aller: Let me ask you a quick question. How is the City and the planning department,how have
we dealt with pervious pavers before in the calculations?
Walters: Yeah so I'm not kidding when every week I do get a call from builder asking how we
deal with permeable pavers. I got one Monday actually. The answer has always been the City of
Chanhassen's policy is we treat them as hard cover. We don't allow credits and we consider
them to be the same as concrete. That's largely due to the maintenance concerns. I do believe
there's one commercial development that was allowed to use permeable pavers. Kate could
probably talk a lot more about the conditions that were placed to make the City comfortable with
that but residential has never been allowed.
Aller: And I ask the question I've never seen it used and even with sport courts I know that we
haven't allowed it so any additional comments or questions? None? Alright, I'll entertain a
motion if anyone has one or would like to bring one.
Yusuf: I'll make it.
Aller: Okay.
Yusuf: The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments denies the variance request to allow
hard cover to exceed 25 percent by 8.14 percent, allow a detached accessory structure to exceed
8
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
the rear lot coverage in the amount of 30 percent by 4.5 percent and allow a 15-foot reduction in
the wetland setback and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision.
Aller: Having a motion by Commissioner Yusuf. Do I have a second?
Madsen: Second.
Aller: Commissioner Madsen seconds the motion. Any further discussion?
Yusuf moved, Madsen seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments
denies the variance request to allow hard cover to exceed 25 percent by 8.14 percent, allow
a detached accessory structure to exceed the rear lot coverage in the amount of 30 percent
by 4.5 percent and allow a 15-foot reduction in the wetland setback and adopts the
Findings of Fact and Decision. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with
a vote of 6 to 0.
Aller: So the motion carries. The variance is denied. If you wish to appeal that variance you
should do so in writing with the City and the follow up date on that matter before the City
Council would again be October 10, 2016. Okay.
PUBLIC HEARING:
PAISLEY PARK MUSEUM—REQUEST TO REZONE PROPERTY LOCATED AT
7801 AUDUBON ROAD FROM INDUSTRIAL OFFICE PARK(IOP)TO PLANNED
UNIT DEVELOPMENT IOP TO FACILITATE THE USE OF THE BUILDING AS A
MUSEUM.
Aanenson: Thank you Chair,members of the Planning Commission. This request is for a
rezoning. There are some other things that go along with the rezoning but the legislative action
is to rezone. The property is located at 7801 Audubon Road and the, as stated in the staff report
the Bremer Trust is requesting through the special administration or the estate of Prince Roger
Nelson to request a use for a museum. The location again is 7801 Audubon Road is located right
off of Highway 5 and also access by Audubon Drive or excuse me Audubon Road which is also
a collector street. In looking at the request the access again, two streets and that site is 9 acres
and the building, existing building footprint is 46,150 square feet and I'll get in a little bit more
detail on that in a minute. So the site is guided office industrial and that's what we're,that's the
underlying zoning district that will be going with is also industrial. Everything around this
property is industrial and this is taken from our land use map. The property shown with the star
on it here,this is the property. The City's public works is just behind that property and so the
request again for the museum is just for this subject site itself and it's just a rezoning at this time.
In looking at the applicant's request for the site and how they see it being used,there's no
interior remodeling at this time. I know I've given you emails and there's 3 more that I handed
out tonight that will become part of the record. There were emails that were attached to that.
Similar questions asked about why wasn't this treated like some other buildings we've done in
9
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
town. There's no site plan review. We're not looking at the architecture or anything but there
are certain codes that will be required in order for this to open and I'll go through those again in
a minute so again we're looking at the rezoning so included in your packet is the underlying IOP
district. So whatever is silent on that is what you would be following for example the hard cover
requirements and the like. So in this circumstance when we created the PUD we were specific
on things that would be permitted and then some of the other standards for the PUD district and
again I'll go through those in a minute too. So in the staff report itself we talk about what's the
intent of the PUD district and does this meet the requirements and we have done that as a part of
our analysis. Talking about the 5-acre intent. Again it's similar to the other uses in the district
as far as types of uses in the office industrial. So the existing building itself, as I stated there's
no architectural changes to the building right now so this is how it will currently be accessed off
Audubon Road so the Assistant City Engineer will be going through in a little bit more detail of
the access and parking situation but that's one of the main drivers. So we look at this use itself,
it's really a change in assembly and we do this all the time in the city. A business goes out.
Another business goes in. It may change the type of occupancy, whether it's an office or to
recreation or something like that so in this circumstance we're going from a recording studio to
the use of an assembly occupancy, therefore architectural plans for the interior of the building are
required and they are required through the City process. Building permit process to get approval
based on those plans. That they meet all the building code requirements. They're in process
working on that right now so again the action that you're looking at tonight, it's a legislative
action, the zoning itself and how it will be used so that is going on separately but we've
identified in the staff report those things that we are tracking and again to give them direction on
the expectations as a part of being able to operate the museum. And again the main points on
that were that we had talked about with the applicant is a perimeter fencing as a possibility
around the site and we put that in the PUD because it would be opaque all the way around and
that would help deter some of the walk up traffic so there's not the conflict with walk up traffic
and people that wanted to look in. I didn't go through too much in exact, all the details of the
business plan. Hours of operation. There was no limitations of hours of operation although
they've identified hours of operation in their business plan. Again General Mills runs 24/7 but
based on their operational plan it wouldn't be much past midnight and that would mostly be on
the weekends. I think one of the other things that we are very pleased about and it has been
practice out there,there's no alcohol. This isn't a nightclub. This is a museum so there's no
alcohol permitted out there. Again in the office industrial district you are allowed to do a
percentage of your retail building or there will be items for sale. Merchandise for sale. In
addition,there will be snacks and beverages available too so those are included in the PUD so
again everybody understands that's part of the operation. Again the intent under the PUD was
also to provide some, as they have in the past which we have done a temporary use permit but
we're trying to codify that and put it into the code so those would be placed, opportunities where
they would have maybe special events. Again all interior. There's no outdoor activities with this
so everything would be on the inside once a month doing concerts so again those would be
permitted once a month. The only thing they would check with us if there's, letting us know the
capacity who's going to be out there. That they're busing them in because that's what they've
done in the past when there's not sufficient parking on the site so those would be monitored and
10
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
again that's typically done through letting us know, letting the fire department know. Our Fire
Marshal know that they would be doing something like that and again there may be those
occasions depending, and I'll let the operator talk a little bit more about this, where they might
do some special events. Some business opportunities. School opportunities where they would
do some special programming out there. Again all that would be inside. There's no outdoor
activities and that's explicit in the PUD and again that's one of the reasons why we wanted to put
it into a PUD so everybody understands the operational function of the building. I did put in
here for your edification, I did put a copy of the PUD ordinance and I'll just take a minute to go
through that just for everybody's benefit here too. So the intent is to create opportunity for a
museum at this. Again it's a change in assembly which requires different architectural interior
standards they would have to meet and one of the other things with that for the staff to sign off
on is to meet the parking standards and again we'll go through that in more detail and so if
there's not all the required parking then they would have to take measures to provide busing onto
the site so they can accommodate parking on site so again the permitted uses would be the
museum, recording studio. They had talked at one time potentially using this as a boutique hotel.
Again that would require going through permitting on that because it would be interior
remodeling. Again that would be something that we would just do administratively. Again the
code allows minor changes. Up to 10 percent internally so we would just make sure that they
have enough parking. That it would meet building codes. And then so then again putting 2
buildings on one lot. We talked about no more than 20 percent of the floor area being retail sales
which again is in the underlying IOP district. And the prohibitive ones we talked about is the no
outdoor events and again no liquor sale or consumption so I think that's again meets the intent of
what, of how we saw this business being used. And then we talked about the parking and the
different scenarios on that and I'll let the Assistant City Engineer go through those scenarios in a
little bit more detail talking about there's kind of a menu of choices depending on how they get
that put together by the end of, when they want to open and then throughout the year so again
there's some additional permitting on that. I also included in your packet, if there was questions
on the underlying industrial office district. Some of the uses that were permitted so the uses that
are permitted right now are of greater depth and breadth of types of uses so we've narrowed that
down under permitted uses but again the other parts of the district would still remain and that
would be the lot size. The coverage. The 70 percent coverage. The height of the principal
buildings. Again we don't anticipate any of those being changed and if a new building did
request to go on the site, anything beyond that, anything beyond minor would come back for site
plan review so again because there's been a lot of questions of why isn't this a site plan review.
Because it's interior work except for the parking lot to accommodate that so anything beyond a
minor change which I know they're trying to connect 2 parking lots but significantly beyond that
they may need watershed district approval but because they would be a jurisdiction but other
than that it would be internally with the City. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Alyson
Fauske to go through the traffic issues.
Aller: Great, thank you.
11
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Fauske: Thank you Kate. Chairman Aller, members of the Planning Commission. It's my
pleasure to go over some of the traffic concerns that were looked at when evaluating the site for
the PUD. As noted in the and included in the staff report as an attachment to the staff report SRF
provided a very extensive overview of the proposal and Matt Pacyna who put together the report
is here this evening in case there are some specific questions to the traffic report that the
Planning Commission or any members of the public may have. The first step in the analysis is
taking a look at the anticipated operations of the site which the applicant provided to SRF which
was a 65 guest per tour, tours departing every 10 minutes. From that they established an
estimated total volume which is shown here on this slide for the existing and the build condition.
In summary 80 percent of the traffic is proposed to come from the east on Highway 5 to the site
with 5 percent coming from the west and then 15 percent coming from the south so they looked
at the most, the highest use of the site to take a look at those trip generations. When looking at
the proposed condition here on Audubon we do see a traffic increase of,the SRF counted about
4,400 vehicles per day which is in line with what the City has,the information the City has
gathered throughout the years. We do traffic counts out here every 2 years as part of our
cooperation with the Minnesota Department of Transportation so we do see that the existing
condition is close to what staff has seen and then under the proposed condition that section of
Audubon between Highway 5 and McGlynn Road would go up to about 7,800 trips per day. Out
of the analysis SRF determined what,what's the peak time and by that it means what, at what
point in the day would we expect to see the most vehicles on the site. The analysis concluded
that a weekday p.m. trip would be a peak which is between 5:30 and,pardon me. 4:30 and 5:30
p.m. during the weekday and then the Saturday midday between 11:45 and 12:45 p.m. Out of
that analysis again with the assumption of 65 guests per tour, tours departing every 10 minutes
the SRF analysis identified 2 intersections where under existing conditions there was a concern.
One is for traffic coming from the east so westbound Highway 5 traffic coming up to the
signalized intersection at Audubon. The analysis showed there would be a potential queuing into
Highway 5 under the current conditions and configuration of the street system so that was one
intersection that was identified after the initial analysis. And then the second one was this
northern access of the site that the queues for northbound Audubon would extend past this access
and would block the access. So with that they took a look at some level of service improvements
and pardon me. Looked at the level of services and wanted to see what type of improvements
could be done to the site as well as external from the site to improve those intersections and
alleviate the concerns that were identified in the staff report. So one of them is what's known as
optimizing signal timing on Highway 5. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has been
in contact with SRF regarding this site. They've indicated that there is a camera at this
intersection. They're able to monitor that and would be able to adjust the signal timing based on
what they're seeing out there for traffic and they were comfortable with what was shown both
from the SRF analysis and what they can do based on what they're monitoring with their traffic
cameras. The second recommendation was with regards to the northern access to the site.
Currently the access is approximately 100 feet south of Highway 5. We would be looking to
shift that so it would be about 220 feet south of Highway 5 and staff is also recommending that
we would restrict this to a right out of the site just to provide some better traffic circulation and
look at having this southern access off Audubon as the main entrance. That would be a hybrid of
12
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
what the SRF recommendation. They had 2 options that they presented and summarized on page
10 of the staff report so it's, what staff is recommending is a hybrid of the 2 options of the SRF
report. One of the other recommendations that staff is recommending is restriping Audubon
Road to include a left turn lane so that there would be a designated turn lane into the site and
travelers would have an opportunity to queue on Audubon Road while allowing the thru traffic
southbound on Audubon to pass by. The other thing that staff looked at and SRF report looked
at was, and Kate had mentioned as well as the parking. With the SRF analysis the proposed or
pardon me. The projected trips to the site were based on 65 guests per tour and 10 minute
departures and when we look at making recommendations we wanted to take a step back and
take a holistic look at it so that we weren't getting into the details of how many people per tour
and how often they could depart and looked at it and made a simplistic recommendation that the
tour sizes would be limited such that the on site parking would be able to accommodate guests
that are arriving by vehicles. By passenger vehicles so that would allow if they wanted to do
tour bus only. No guest parking on site they could do that. If they wanted to do a hybrid they
could certainly do something like that and as Kate mentioned with her site plan it provides some
options as far as what improvements they would like to do at the site and see how things start to
operate before they make any site improvements. And as Kate also mentioned we took a look at
the 4 scenarios which are outlined on page 12 to come up with that recommendation and that's
also included in the PUD recommendations for the site. So in short the recommendations we
took a look at either leaving the site as it is. We would restrict this northern access. There would
be restriping on Audubon. If they make a connection between the north and south parking lot,
we would again look to have this northern access restricted.
Aanenson: Thank you Alyson. So with that I just want to point out in the PUD ordinance there
is a menu of parking options depending on where they are and ultimately I know their goal is to
be open this fall so not all the improvements may not be achieved by that time so there's
different scenarios of how to manage those. Those are all built into the PUD ordinance as the
Assistant City Engineer just went through so we feel comfortable that based on those choices
that they can accommodate that based on what they get improved that staff is comfortable with
those parking situations. So because of that we are recommending that you recommend to the
City Council approving of the rezoning of Lot 11, Block 1, Chanhassen Lakes Business Park
from IOP to PUD and the adoption of the PUD ordinance and the attached Findings of Fact. I'd
be happy to answer any questions you have and then obviously open the public hearing.
Aller: Any questions of staff at this point?
Randall: I do. Alyson I actually have a question for you. Was there any provision for signage at
all to route traffic through different areas? So I'm thinking of someone driving on 212. They're
headed out to Chan for the first time.
Fauske: We've had some discussions with regards to having like for example the brown, the
brown directional signs for a museum, for city hall,public buildings, that sort of thing.
13
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Randall: Okay.
Fauske: That we would look at having some signage like that but nothing in great detail at this
time.
Randall: Okay.
Aller: Commissioner Madsen.
Madsen: So in conjunction with this request can we also consider some of the areas around
there? For example, McGlynn Road and the parking and the people who go across Audubon and
the safety of those people.
Aanenson: What we looked at, that was one of the issues we brought up in the traffic study and
maybe Matt would like to speak to it a little bit more but we did ask for that, one of our goals
was to try to eliminate that walk up and the operator will talk about how they are selling tickets
and how they're approaching getting people on the site to check so we don't have that. That was
one of the reasons we encouraged the fence so we don't have the, it's less enticing to come up
and try to look. If you don't have a ticket you can't get on the property so those are some of the
things that to manage all that, that we're working with them on and I think by we're having that
fence would help some of that, if that's your question. And also the goal is they have to be
parking on their property. Not across the street unless they were to come back and get approval
for a parking lot or something to the like.
Madsen: Can the City consider no parking signs on McGlynn for people who just want to drive
up and who cross Audubon just to look?
Fauske: To establish a no parking zone requires City Council action. We haven't looked at that
at this time due to, as Kate mentioned that there's certain site improvements and the operations
of the site would not be conducive for walk up traffic. That's certainly something that we could
take a look at in the future if we're still seeing high pedestrian counts. If we want to revisit that
we could certainly include that in our analysis.
Madsen: Okay. I also have a question about the proposed fence. Does the City in it's
ordinances have sort of an upkeep and maintenance of fencing which would kind of outline how
it would be maintained?
Aanenson: That's correct. Yep. So the difference in this one, it is requesting it be opaque.
That's why we put that in there because typically we have a transparency requirement. So yes
there is a maintenance requirement for fencing.
Madsen: Thank you.
14
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Aller: Commissioner Randall did you have another question? Commissioner Tietz?
Tietz: Yeah. Kate it's customary for plans, not just a narrative of a proposed activity be
submitted by an applicant. It seems like what I'm hearing from Alyson and in reading the report
the staff has essentially designed a traffic and parking plan for them. I think we should wait and
see official plans from the applicant prior to approving anything.
Aanenson: Well if you look at the traffic study, the traffic study does have the ultimate parking
on there so.
Tietz: I understand that but there's, you know there are alternatives to the access. There's
alternatives to internal circulation. The staff has a position but we don't know if the applicant
has a position. Have they accepted the responsibility to implement that?
Aanenson: I'll let them address that.
Tietz: Also on, why do we have hotels called out on the PUD?
Aanenson: Because if you look at their business plan that's one thing they talked about with the
silo building.
Tietz: So we're accepting that?
Aanenson: Correct.
Tietz: But they also in your document that there will be tents in the northwest corner. How do
you,how do you.
Aanenson: We talked about that in the narrative. So the building code limits a tent to 180 days
and so what we said is that, that we would ultimately like to see that a permanent structure. That
would be somewhere off the kitchen if you were to go just sit on the premises and rest for a little
bit that would be permitted. It's between the.
Tietz: So the tents would be open during a concert event?
Aanenson: It's one tent in this area right here.
Tietz: Right.
Aanenson: Yeah, yep. You saw that on their business plan drawing, correct.
Tietz: Right. But that would be accessible during a performance event? That's an outside
activity.
15
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Aanenson: Well there wouldn't be music out there. There would just be people out there, yeah.
Tietz: That's the question.
Aller: Any additional questions at this time? Okay, we'll hear from the applicant. If you could
state your name and address for the record and your representational capacity,please.
Pat Mazural: Thank you Mr. Chair and commissioners. My name is Pat Mazural, 9501 Virginia
Avenue South, Bloomington, Minnesota and my role here is as a consultant with Bremer Trust
and Bremer Trust of course is the applicant and the Special Administrator for the Estate of Prince
Rogers Nelson. I'd like to say a few comments about,by way of background and our due
diligence with the operator and answer questions that you might have including some that have
already been asked. Mr. Nelson was an international celebrity. He sold over 100 million
records. Received 7 Grammy awards, 1 Golden Globe and 1 Academy Award. Tragically on
April 21st Prince passed away. He passed away here in Chanhassen at Paisley Park where he had
created,recorded, often performed and welcomed renowned entertainment giants from all over
the world. The purpose of a museum at Paisley Park is to preserve the legacy of an international
celebrity. He was an extraordinary talent and a unique musical artist. He chose Chanhassen as
his home and the people of Chanhassen as his neighbors. Paisley Park is a unique facility within
the music industry because it represents all the work of one of the most recognized international
artistic celebrities of our time. Bremer Trust with support and encouragement from members of
his family has recognized that a museum at Paisley Park is the only appropriate location to
commemorate the work and life of Prince. Chanhassen is where he built his legacy. Chanhassen
is surely where he would want that legacy preserved. Preserving the legacy of Prince means
doing it in a way that honors not only his extraordinary work and the extent of his work but also
represents the neighbor that he was to this community. Bremer Trust has recognized that
meeting that goal has required and will require the best,most experienced, creative, artistically
sensitive and community sensitive of operators. The property closest in purpose and an
operational logistics to this is Graceland in Memphis which commemorates Elvis Presley.
Several of us,myself included went on tour of Graceland. We saw a very high level of traffic
coordination. The use of shuttles. Timing of crowd tours. A very cordial welcoming of guests
and the use of technology to make the tour experience pleasant. To make it educational and even
to make it moving. All matters that were anticipated would be of the greatest importance to the
family and to the estate but we have assumed would also be of great important to Chanhassen.
Behind the scenes due diligence of the Graceland operation revealed a high level of
thoughtfulness, logistical discipline and expertise in the coordination of operations. In their
financial record keeping and reporting and the archiving of artifacts and attention to detail.
Attention to the artist's brand and attention to the community impact. Great deal of
communication, engagement and coordination has occurred between Graceland and the
community. All are a priority there. We saw there an attraction that's a natural demonstration of
the artist's life. It's not a contrived exhibition. From interviews and having spent significant
time with the owner of Graceland Holdings, with personnel as well as the CEO and lead
16
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
executives of Graceland and witnessing the operators culture it's clear that our experience of
excellence and diligence and community sensitivity will be replicated at Paisley Park. As this
application has been processed with community development staff it's been gratifying to see that
issues raised by city staff and by residents are the same issues that were anticipated and that
Bremer looked to in it's due diligence,planning and questioning of the operator. Those are
issues of hours of operation. Of vehicle traffic. Control of attendance and tour flow. Security.
Community impact. They were all given ample consideration and questioned. Graceland has
dealt well with all of these same issues and their many years of experience and forms and guides
the response to those matters. Just briefly about community impact. Bremer Trust, LPark
Management, LLC which is the managing operator that will manage Paisley Park if it is
approved, and the family of Prince recognize that Chanhassen is a beautiful, well planned
community with a lot of attraction to many outside of the city. You've got attraction in
entertainment with your Chanhassen Dinner Theater. You've got attraction in sports with the
adjacent Hazeltine Golf Course about to host the Ryder Cup and has hosted the PGA tournament
and the US Open. You've got attraction for those enthusiasts of nature and art with your
Arboretum. All has been planned and handled well for your community and brings people from
well beyond the Twin Cities metropolitan area. The museum at Paisley Park proposes to be
another well planned and well managed attraction and a good neighbor providing jobs for
residents and bringing customers to your businesses. Since the application the operator has
hosted a job fair at the Dinner Theater where over 600 applicants appeared. Many are now
employed in archiving and otherwise preparing the facility. The operator has engaged local
suppliers for property improvement and will engage others for food,transportation and necessary
services. There are other places where this could be done. There have been requests to locate
the museum and actually to relocate Paisley Park to other locations, even outside of the United
States where Prince remains a celebrity. But Chanhassen has been Prince's chosen home for 30
years and with this commemoration of his legacy we request that you let it remain his home so
thank you much for your consideration. I can answer some questions but I want you to also be
introduced to several here. Several individuals who have had significant roles in this proposal
and they're here to let you know their commitment to making this museum a valued asset of
Chanhassen and if there are any questions that I'm unable to answer there certainly will be
someone here who can answer them for you. We have here Todd Phelps who's an attorney with
Stinson Leonard Street in Minneapolis. He's engaged in real estate and land use practice. We
have Jill Radloff, also an attorney with Stinson Leonard Street who has been engaged in the
contract negotiations with Graceland Holdings. We have Craig Ordall who is the President of
Bremer Trust. Joel Weinshanker who is the majority owner of Graceland Holdings LLC and that
is the organization which will wholly own PPark Management LLC. He's the operator who
stands behind the success of this project. We also have Regina Gamble. Regina is the Vice
President of Operations and General Manager for Elvis Presley Enterprises. She's here from
Graceland and of course has worked closely with Joel Weinshanker and with Graceland
Holdings in the operation of Graceland. So again thank you for your time.
Aller: Thank you. Any questions at this point? Hearing none, okay.
17
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Aanenson: Mr. Chair I'd like to go back to answer Mr. Tietz's question because I'm not sure I
understood it. Or didn't answer it correctly. You asked me about parking. When they provide
additional parking, yes. They're required to provide civil plans and the like for a parking
expansion. What we're saying right now, it can be operational if they accommodate it using
buses and alternatives. Right now there are large events handled on special,under a special
events permit where they bus people in and that's how it's accommodated so yes. When they
expand the parking lot they will have to go through a civil,private civil plans. Go through the
watershed district. Review all our requirements. They're adjacent to a creek. To meet all those
standards and they're aware of that.
Tietz: Well I understand that Kate. My concern is that some of the issues that were identified in
the SRF study, and that Alyson presented to us, if they're not implemented in a timely manner
we will have serious traffic issues at that intersection and one of it's moving the north access
point down and restricting the lanes and potentially if, on Highway 5 if the queuing isn't
satisfactory and if they can't control it with signalization there may have to be an expansion of
the queuing lanes so there's a lot of issues that I didn't see a timeline established with them that I
think are really critical to the success of the project. And if I'm traveling from far away and I
can't get to the site because traffic is a concern or if I have to ride a bus you know 15 miles, like
we have to get to the Ryder Cup,that's going to be a potential problem and I think the circulation
internal to the site,we need to see a plan that they commit to and have a time schedule to
implement. That's all I'm asking.
Aanenson: And that's part of what we stated in order for them to get occupancy,parking is tied
to that. There has to be a defined parking plan. How they're going to operation it for us to give,
again that's the internal part of getting a Certificate of Occupancy that they can meet those
requirements.
Tietz: But is that 2 months? 6 months? 8 months? 12 months? When would it be
implemented?
Aanenson: Well they're working on all those right now.
Tietz: Okay.
Aanenson: Yes,
Tietz: But none of it would be in place by October 3rd
Aanenson: I believe most of them will, yes. The striping yes. That's, correct me if I'm wrong.
Tietz: The north access point is going to be moved and repaving connecting the parking lots
internally? You know I don't want to be a nuisance here but I think there's a lot of issues that.
18
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Aanenson: Yep, the watershed district has given approval.
Tietz: And most of it is safety and security of folks arriving and of the neighbors and of the
community. It's a great asset to the community, don't get me wrong. I think we just want to be
sure that we do it properly so it's successful.
Aanenson: Correct and I concur with that. That's the issues we raised and we've been in
discussion with them and they want to have a good experience because if it's not it's not going to
be successful and we want to have a safe community so we both have the same goal.
Tietz: Good.
Aanenson: So I think we're both marching down this path to get to that point.
Tietz: Thank you.
Pat Mazural: And commissioners if I may add to that. There are several scenarios contained in
the staff report which have been very helpful to understand what's needed out there to make this
a pleasant experience for not only those who are attending but those others in the neighborhood
and as I look at the various scenarios essentially one of those is a scenario 3 which includes the,
essentially the driveway between the north and south parking lots. That will be completed by
opening day so that will be done as community development staff has represented. The striping
is in process. The other piece of this is that the entrance that is nearest to Highway 5 will be,the
north entrance,will be an exit only entrance. It will not be moved by the time of opening but
that's something that could occur later. It will be right only and that, understand that that
driveway between north and south is what allows that to happen. It's sort of a loop. I believe the
only piece of this, and I want to make sure we have this clear is that one part of scenario 3
includes sidewalks installed to accommodate foot traffic and that may come later?
Aanenson: Yeah that was, that was eliminated from part of the PUD ordinance because that will
come later, correct. And that way we'll see the civils on and do that but ultimately you want
some internal walking sidewalks too.
Pat Mazural: So there is a plan that's been informed by the study and with wonderful input and
talking to the city staff. Thank you.
Aller: Thank you. Commissioner Madsen.
Madsen: So as I understand it scenario 3 should be basically ready by opening day, except for
the items that you just referred to and so the parking lot will not be expanded by that time so will
you be making the tour size smaller or will you be busing certain people in? How will you
accommodate that?
19
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Pat Mazural: The operator is committed to bus where needed to maintain the conditions within
the parking lot so we don't over park. And also parking on heavy days will in all likelihood be a
hybrid of buses and parking anyway where during that maximum,those peak times those that are
on what's been termed the VIP tour may be parking on site but others will be bused. Shuttle
bused.
Madsen: So when people purchase their tickets will they know if they get parking with it or will
they go and drive around the parking until a spot becomes available?
Pat Mazural: There will be no tickets sold on site so everyone will have their tickets in advance.
They'll know where it is. The tickets if they're sold on site will include the parking fee to park
on site and there will be parking monitors out there so that people are arriving within a
prescribed time of their tour and not filling the lot except during the time that they're touring.
Madsen: Okay. And if I may I have a question about the parking monitors. The business plan
indicates that the attendants will immediately review the parking tickets to confirm that it's okay
for the vehicle to be there but if they do that immediately upon entering the parking lot, won't
that cause a back-up of traffic on Audubon?
Pat Mazural: Actually with the sufficient number of parking monitors and with this lane I was
talking about,the traffic will be circulating from the south entrance to the north entrance so it
will keep it moving.
Madsen: Okay, thank you.
Pat Mazural: Yeah.
Aller: Any additional questions at this time? Okay, thank you.
Pat Mazural: Thank you.
Aller: Did we want to hear from the traffic analyst first? But for.
Aanenson: Unless there's questions. He's here to listen...
Aller: Okay so I think what we'll do then is we'll open up the public hearing so the analyst can
hear the questions and comments and perhaps address them at that time. Great. So at this point
we'll open up the public hearing portion of this item. It's an opportunity for those present to
speak either for or against this presentation and the application or make comment upon it. So if
you'd like to come up and make a comment you would come to the podium. State your name
and address for the record and then proceed. Welcome.
20
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Shirley McGee: Welcome. Thank you. My name is Shirley McGee and I'm a resident of
Chanhassen at 1950 Andrew Court which is close proximity to Paisley Park. Got a couple of
concerns. One is about, did they give consideration to inspecting the cars or if that's going to be
one of the issues because I noticed throughout the time when they had affairs there, the traffic
would jam because they're going under the cars and they're inspecting them for security reasons
so has that been introduced into the plan of coming off of 5 or how is that going to work?
Aller: I think what we can do to try to keep this moving is, if you tell me that you'll address that
then we'll go ahead and address that when.
Shirley McGee: Okay, and I'll give you my other question.
Aller: Absolutely.
Shirley McGee: Can this be a museum without being rezoned? That was one of my main
questions because I have a serious problem with the hoteling part. If they're going to build a
hotel like they did at Graceland I'm not in favor of it. That part.
Aller: Great,well make sure that that gets answered for you.
Shirley McGee: Thanks.
Aller: Any other individuals wishing to come forward? Welcome.
Lynne Etling: Hi, Lynne Etling and I live a couple blocks from Paisley Palace, 7681 Century
Boulevard and I'll just keep mine brief. The major concerns that I have obviously are the traffic
and the pedestrian traffic but the one thing that's not clear to me is the parking lot is not, the
additional parking lot is not going to be done beforehand right and if you're going to be
inspecting cars before they actually enter the parking lot, that's one question. Where are they
going to go and the biggest question I have is,how are they going to know if they're going to be
bused in or driven in and therefore where are all these buses going to park? That's a bigger
question.
Aller: Thank you.
Lynne Etling: You're welcome.
Aller: Welcome.
Wendy O'Connor: Hi. My name's Wendy O'Connor and I live at 1702 Valley Ridge Trail
North. I've talked a bit with Kate and submitted quite a few things just because I live very close
by and I'm concerned about a number of things and I'd like to go through those briefly. Number
one. Who will be the management? We keep talking about the management. The organizer.
21
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
The whomever but, and I know that people from Graceland are here. People from Elvis Presley
Enterprises are here but who is it? Who is the person that we can go to? Anyone? Is it you?
You'll be on site? Okay. And so you.
Joel Weinshanker: I'm the management partner of Graceland Holdings. I've been here many,
many days. I'll continue to be here many, many days. Anyone can reach out to me. My email is
Joel@Graceland.com so you can contact me directly.
Wendy O'Connor: Okay so my question with that is, so.
Aller: Ma'am,why don't you just go ahead and address us and we'll get them answered.
Wendy O'Connor: Sorry. So my question with that is, so Graceland Holdings, I get it. You
know it's Elvis and everything for Elvis but through my research I noted that Elvis Presley
Enterprises was sold and then CKX bought it and then Apollo Global Management so how does
Elvis Presley Enterprises and Graceland flow with that?
Aller: Okay we're going to get those answered.
Wendy O'Connor: Okay I just think that's a big deal.
Aller: I think that's a good inquiry.
Wendy O'Connor: Just because this Apollo Global Management is a privately held company.
It's an investment company and you know it's not Graceland you know as we all imagine in our
mind what Graceland is. So with that, nice to know who I can go to. So the McGlynn Road part
which I had addressed in one of my emails to Kate. In the traffic study it said that it wasn't
necessary to review McGlynn Road and so I went out on a Saturday myself and counted cars. I
counted people and through that I counted over 600 pedestrians crossing illegally on Audubon
Road in a 2-hour period. Just 2 hours so I know that it would be more than that and frankly I
went out there thinking I'd find 30, 40. It was nonstop. I actually couldn't believe that it was
that many so, and again as someone who drives past there every day,back and forth, you know I
see people. I see cars stop all the time. I definitely documented it and it's probably in your
packet of cars pulling over in the crosswalk. Sitting there. Causing traffic. Uber pick-up. I
mean there's going to be that. Is there a plan to get Uber cars? How are they going to do that?
Where are they going to pull? The sidewalk's not going to be there and it's not going to be ready
in time. Where will foot traffic go? Will there be foot traffic? I don't know. You know from
my opinion right now the people that I spoke to out on the street that day they're just,they want
to see what's going on. They are not there because they want to see inside. Some are for sure
but most people just were driving past heading home from somewhere and they want to see.
They want to see what Paisley Park is so my concern is that you're still going to get the traffic
driving past. You're going to have the foot traffic. We're going to have a problem. We'll have
an accident and who will be holding the bag? It will be the City of Chanhassen so my
22
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
recommendation as a solution would be to install a HAWK. I was speaking to a Streets
Minnesota gentleman and trying to make it very safe for pedestrians. It's the High Intensity
Activated Crosswalk beacon so it's similar to what we have on 101 by IWCO. I mean if safety's
a concern, if we're going to have it I don't think that we want to wait until something bad
happens. What is the rush? Finally, I'm almost done. So the hours. The hours are a concern to
me because 9:00 to 9:00. 12 hours a day is I think a bit much. Besides the fact that the peak
traffic time is 4:30 to 5:30. So if you were to actually change the hours to the hours of Graceland,
because Graceland has hours of 9:00 to 5:00. If we had the hours of Graceland, you could
eliminate the complete peak traffic activity. It would be done because you wouldn't have people
coming at 4:30 because a tour is an hour. Or it's 60 minutes so you would completely eliminate
it. There'd be no reason to keep that 9:00 to 9:00 or have that extra concern about traffic and
concern about people trying to get home on 5 and concern about the traffic signals. The parking
standards, I'm sorry I have one more thing. So talking about the holding traffic as they wait, I'm
just curious where, we don't know where those people will go so how will when they get, when
they bring their ticket in and they're supposed to check in at say let's say 2:00 but they get there
at 1:30. Where do they go? So they flip around and they just drive around until it's time to go or
they park in front and queue up in front of Paisley Park. I think that that's a real concern because
if there's what, 6 or 300 extra trips you know that's a lot of cars. That's a lot of cars waiting so,
and I think if they don't have the accommodations for it there's no need to open right away.
Why wouldn't we do that? Why would we let them open so with that I think that you know and
we just saw the presentation for the people with the pool and with setting the precedence to have
everything right. They have been working on this they said since May. Trying to get it all
correct. We've been hearing about this since August. August 13th to be exact and again it's this
big rush to get it done. Let's get this done by October 6th because they want to open. Why don't
we have it right the first time? Why don't we make sure it's right? It's all buttoned up. All our
ducks are in a row before it opens. You cannot un-ring that bell. It's only going to be closed 2
days a year and then you're going to have construction on a parking. You're going to have
construction on 5. You know all these other things. I just think it's irresponsible for us as a city
to let them open right now without having everything on that list done.
Aller: Thank you. Welcome.
Ann Miller: Thank you. Hello, my name is Ann Miller. I live at 6561 Fox Path in Chanhassen
and I've been here for 25 years so Prince beat me by 5. It has been a pleasure being here and
watching Prince's studio and his home that used to be over off Galpin and we would frequently
walk and bike by both places and look at them so please don't build a fence where we can't see
it. I was thinking of museums on my way here. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The Walker
Arts Center. The Russian Art Museum. They're all in neighborhoods. There are no fences.
You can see everything. Prince would want us to see everything. Don't block it off. And when
I go to see his museum I'm going to walk over to see it and so this is a walkable, bikeable city.
We have wonderful paths, et cetera and it's just a wonderful opportunity for us but let's make it
an opportunity and we have a walking bridge over. I wrote Kate an email about it. Over the
Highway 5 that's not utilized very well right now and I think it could be moved down to the
23
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
other part of 101 and/or Powers Boulevard so that the people who park maybe a school bus in
town can use those businesses and then when it's their time to take the tour they can walk over
that bridge and take the tour. I think the other thing that,the mistake that or something that
needs to be remedied maybe is off of 212 there's no on or off ramps for Audubon. The only on
and off ramps are at Powers and 101 so you could alleviate some of the traffic issue if you had an
on/off ramp at 212 on Audubon. And the other thing is education. School buses will be coming
too and if you think of the school buses lined up at the Institute of Arts or the Walker Arts Center
that does happen and those places I think even have a smaller areas for parking so it can be done
and there could be off site parking in other places in the city so please don't take away from the
walking and bicycling senior citizen like me. Thanks.
Aller: Thank you. Any additional comments from the audience.
Gary O'Toole: Yeah, Gary O'Toole, 8418 Burlwood Drive.
Aller: Welcome.
Gary O'Toole: My compliments to staff. I went through your presentation. I think it's pretty
good. Didn't really have a question until Ms. Madsen mentioned traffic and queuing and I'm
thinking right down the road we have the Arboretum and I'm sure there are other members here.
They have a long driveway. They have lots of monitoring. There's lots of queuing. I don't see
that it goes away unless somehow the site can absorb traffic that comes in so that they can absorb
it. I'm happy to hear we're talking with a traffic specialist but I think we right in our back yard
have a very specific situation at the Arboretum that I just don't see with the traffic how this is
going to be alleviated but you've got good people working on it.
Aller: Thank you.
Tim McNeill: We're Shamus and Tim McNeill. We live just south of Paisley Park at Valley
Ridge Trail and Audubon and we're mostly concerned about the excess traffic north and south
bound that's going to come our way because as it is it's a 45 miles an hour zone and the hill
crests as it gets up to Valley Ridge Trail North and it's a really hard intersection for, especially
kids but even adults to manage with the speed of the cars especially headed northbound. It's just
really difficult and we'd like to be included in some of the plans to make sure that the kids and
other neighbors are safe.
Aller: So which one is Shamus and which one is Tim?
Tim McNeill: I'm Tim.
Aller: So Shamus you've been out there biking and walking around?
Shamus McNeill: Yes I have.
24
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Aller: And what do you think about the traffic?
Shamus McNeill: It's very busy and dangerous.
Aller: Do you think, what do you think about the possibility that there will be a Prince museum?
Do you like the idea or not like the idea?
Shamus McNeill: I like the idea but I think we should wait until it's been more thought out.
Aller: Okay, thank you.
Tim McNeill: Thank you very much.
Aller: Welcome.
Joy Gorra: Good evening. Joy Gorra, 1680 West 78th Street and I guess I have some concerns if
this is really successful what kind of expansion do you have in mind in the future. Do you plan
on going over your borders and building something elsewhere? A lot of people have come up to
me and wanted to know if there was going to be a Purple Rain Amusement Park so just throwing
that out there. But maybe it was mentioned earlier and I missed it but I know a lot of you in,
who live here in Chanhassen are aware of the first Saturday of each month at the motor complex
park and that traffic is just wild for you know those first couple hours so hopefully you're going
to take in mind scheduling on that first Monday. First Saturday, excuse me. Thank you.
Aller: Thank you.
Elizabeth Kressler: Hi, good evening. Elizabeth Kressler, 1750 Valley Ridge Trail North and I
actually had a couple of questions and comments with regards to the tent that has to come down
after 180 days. That to me depicts that there's something outside going on even though there's
no music, it depicts an outside event which is not in the plan so I'm not comfortable with the tent
hanging out for that period of time. I am in agreement with Shamus and his dad with regards to
crossing at Audubon into what we call the bird neighborhood. I am an avid walker. I walk
anywhere from 4:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night and even our lovely community service
officers do not stop at a crosswalk when I'm in it and that is a huge issue. I think I brought that
up originally when we were widening Audubon and it was my concern and I actually suggested
that we slow the speed limit down to 30. However, it's apparently not allowed so I'm really
concerned about the upkeep of traffic because when the traffic starts to get jammed on Highway
5, those people are going to find another way. I know I would. I am all about not sitting in
traffic. They're going to come right up Audubon. They're going to come flying up Audubon to
get to Paisley Park because they have a tour and they've got to be on time and that's the way it's
going to be and it's going to be really sad for our residents, for somebody like Shamus trying to
cross over to see his friends. The other thing is, is the opaque fence. Should it go up which I am
25
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
not in favor of. Will it be 6 feet or 8 feet? And so that was not addressed. As well as it was
addressed, when do you address the McGlynn parking? And when I came here I left my house at
6:30 and I counted 25 people hanging out at the fence. 6:30 at night. They're not home.
They're not at a sporting event. They're at 6:30 at night at Paisley Park and I avoid that
intersection at all costs because already it's a nightmare. I constantly stop for people. I know
I'm going to get rear ended for being a good resident and letting people cross because it's not a
crosswalk so there's a lot of things that have to be done to alleviate the concerns and do it right.
We make laws and rules to keep us safe and you are going to set a precedent for other people to
come in and disregard those laws because you let Prince do it and you can't do that. It's not fair.
It's not fair to the people that live here so I need you guys to listen to us. Thank you.
Aller: Thank you. Any additional comments or questions? Welcome.
Melanie Mertes: Hi, I'm Melanie Mertes and I live on 8671 Flamingo Drive so the traffic on
Audubon and Powers and 5 directly does impact my neighborhood and myself. My two
concerns that I have is you know the purpose of a planning committee and city council is to
preserve the quality of life for our residents here at Chanhassen and so we just ask that we do our
due diligence before rushing into opening anything. My concerns are the traffic analysis.
They're saying 15 percent would be going onto Audubon. Without signage that we had talked
about people are going to use Google maps. They're not going to go according to a plan that we
think looks right. Google maps from Highway 12 takes you up Audubon. That's going to bring,
that's our back yards. It's people's neighborhoods. It's residential crossing. It's crossing to get
to our schools and that was a reason why our neighborhood in the first place was bused rather
than walking because of the existing traffic on Audubon was not safe to cross to get to our
schools. We are bused in our neighborhood and we are less than a mile away. So the limited
signage requirements. Google maps is going to take you on Audubon. It's also, I felt that the
traffic analysis was very limited in it's scope. It didn't go down to what's going to happen to our
non-signaled intersection by our school at Lyman and Audubon? That's where our teenagers
drive to get to school. There's a left hand turn off of Audubon to get towards Highway 12
without any type of a signaled intersection. Those are the streets around 3:00 in the afternoon
that our high schoolers are taking home. And so that was a concern is just the really limited
intersections that this analysis seemed to take in. And my other concern are the hours of
operation. They say 9:00 to 9:00 but if you go online the last tour begins at 9:00 so we're really
extending the hours of operation from 8:30 when people come until about 10:30 at night when
the VIP tours end. Many of the businesses around there are 8:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday
so now we are taking heavier traffic on all of those roads into the weekend. You know we talked
about our attractions of the PGA tour. We're closing our schools to accommodate traffic. We
talk about the Arboretum. If you go there during a plant sale, Highway 5 is backed up forever to
get in there so we already do have existing traffic concerns in our area that aren't addressed so
I'm very concerned about the number of people coming in. Then also the current tickets are on
sale and it does say that parking is included so for saying we're not ready for it and we're busing
people, how are all of these people from across the country going to know that they shouldn't be
showing up on Arboretum. On Audubon. And then my other question is, in the study with
26
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Graceland is what has the impact been to any neighborhoods nearby? Has it brought increased
value to neighborhoods that now the traffic is going through and the back yards that are getting
affected by it? And so before we open anything I think we just really take our time and see what
our traffic issues are and also hours of operation and I just propose if we do something like
Graceland, closing at 5:00. That's just going to give 4 hours,those 4 hours are going to give
back to our city of Chanhassen. The reasons why we moved here. And one thing that I just have
to, I'm a runner and I run these paths and these roads every day and right now as it is, the bike
path that runs in front of Paisley Park that goes underneath 5 so that's supposed to be our safe
crossing to Highway 5 is next to impossible to get to when you're on the east side. Or the west
side of 5. You're already crossing turning lanes so people are trying to merge onto a 55 miles an
hour and I'm trying to get to a bike path so that I can go underneath 5 safely. You can't do it
now so I'm not sure with all of those turning in there how that's going to be addressed so that our
bikers can cross 5 safely and walkers and runners and the people who live here. Thank you.
Aller: Thank you. Any additional questions? Comments. Concerns. Welcome.
Denise Choiniere: Thank you. My name is Denise Choiniere and I live on 8481 Bittern Court
and that's one of the bird named neighborhoods that Elizabeth referred to. A couple things. One
of the things that I noticed in the traffic study is that the traffic study was done before school
started so I'm a little concerned that those numbers are going to be artificially low because you
don't have any of the extra transportation with students and parents transporting students. I echo
a lot of the concerns that the other neighbors in our neighborhood have expressed. I too am
concerned about the hours. I would even prefer it closed at 4:00 so that we have the evening and
aren't worried about all of that traffic. By the time the tours are done it's 5:00-5:30 and then it
does feel like the same neighborhood we have now and that Prince wanted to be in. Prince biked
and walked around and did all the same things that we do and I think he would want our
community to stay that way so thank you.
Aller: Thank you. Okay anyone else? I think just about everybody here has had their shot.
Alright we're going to close the public hearing at this point in time. And then we'll return and
put Mr. Pacyna on the hot seat if we could. And I hope you were taking great notes.
Matt Pacyna: My name is Matt Pacyna with SRF Consulting. I'm a Senior Associate Traffic
Engineer there. Appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening. I hope I took good notes.
I'll see what I can do. I know some of the questions I would defer to some of the management
staff but as far as, I'm just going to go, kind of run down the line here and some are duplicates so
as far as the car inspections, different things of that nature,that's really a management and how
they're going to operate that. From a traffic operations perspective, we looked at you know
really utilizing that south access point. That provides you most amount of storage on site to be
able to manage that internal queue as well as the restriping of Audubon Road. What that does is
that actually does allow for some extra queuing space on Audubon if there is some queuing that
happens from the internal site operations and so that was taken into account. They'll talk a little
bit more about how they manage to ingress/egress relatively quickly. As far as let's say if
27
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
someone enters too early, that was another question as far as the access point. With how they
probably would be expected to manage that as well as the north access being an exit only. They
would be able to reroute those vehicles to get them out of the site but at the same time if they'd
be able to manage that where if there was available parking and they knew, they know how many
tour staff or guests that they're going to have,there's available parking they can let them in and
park. So it's really an on site management type of situation with how that internal operation
works for that check in point. Another question that was brought up was with respect to
McGlynn Road. I think the city staff had talked a little bit about some of the parking
management strategies. Whether restriction. Things of that nature as well as the pedestrian
access that's going there. The management staff, as they mentioned,they're not planning any
walk up ticket sales so they're doing their part to manage that. Now there is the residents and
just the overall people that come to just see the site from afar. That's happening today and so is
there a better way to manage that today? There is the possibility yes through signage. Limiting
parking on McGlynn. You know even if it's temporary signage they go up to cross at Audubon
at Highway 5 where the signal is. I know there was some mention of that being a challenge as
well so there's different strategies that can be implemented with respect to pedestrian safety.
There was a mention of a HAWK signal. There's other techniques such as RRFB's which are
Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons. Those are also very effective from a pedestrian crossing
perspective and so I think that would just be something that would continue to need to be
monitored and determined if that's the appropriate mitigation that would be warranted. I think
there just needs to be a little more dialogue through city staff in that regard. The next question
that I had on here is with respect to, really gets along the lines of Audubon Road and traffic
volumes there. Where vehicles are destined or where they come from and access the site,that's
probably one of the most subjective things that as traffic engineers that we do. So we take into
account you know where we expect, you know where your population centers are as well as you
know how routes or what routes you could take depending on where you're coming from so
whether you're coming down from Mankato. How is Google maps going to route you? You
know those are type of things that we look at when we develop that distribution for where traffic
is going to come from. Some of the things that we can do to manage that is, you can actually
work with Google maps and the other map sites to change your routing for your specific address.
So if somebody puts in the address for 7801 Audubon, you can tell Google that I would like
them to be routed on Highway 5 and so that when, when a resident types in that address into
Google it will actually pull up Highway 5 as their route. So that's something that can be
accommodated to manage and kind of limit the impacts on Audubon. We did mention the north
access point would be converted to a right out only so that would be directing exiting vehicles to
go north to Highway 5 so that would also reduce our impacts on Audubon Road as much as we
can. There's another question as far as with respect to the auto complex. We did provide some
supplemental data collection on one of their event days with respect to how those volumes
change on Audubon Road and so that was considered. Looking at the peak and how those
volumes change. It's not necessarily an intersection operations perspective. Yes, is it an
increase in traffic? Absolutely but does it break the intersections down from a level of service
perspective, we did not see that from our operations analysis. Other questions,there was some
additional information about crossing further south on Audubon. I'm not going to cover that.
28
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
That's you know we talked about the traffic volumes on Audubon and what the site's doing to
limit additional impacts further to the south so I'm not going to cover that aspect of when we
were, as part of this, the working with city staff we were, they provided the intersections that
they wanted us to evaluate and so that's what we were scoped to do. Other than that I think the
only other, the last comment was when the timing of the study and the counts with respect to
when school was in session or not in session. We collected in late August. School was not in
session yet at that time for all of the districts in the area. Some were but with, looking at the data
that we did collect as well as the supplemental data that we collected along Audubon for the auto
complex which was, was once school, it's a Saturday condition but isn't a school necessarily but
we looked at MnDOT provides their average daily traffic volumes that they annualize throughout
the year, throughout the area and that data that we collected was actually very consistent with
those annualized averages and so we feel pretty confident that the data that we collected
represents a conservative or a good condition.
Aller: Okay.
Matt Pacyna: I think that's everything that I had. Feel free to chime in or if you had one more or
anything else. I kind of lumped a few together there.
Audience: (Inaudible)
Aller: So was that addressed? In the analysis the pedestrian crossings.
Matt Pacyna: We did look at pedestrian crossings. Right now the pedestrian crossing at
Highway 5 and Audubon, that is a signalized intersection so pedestrians would be crossing
during you know a walk indication which is typically a safe condition. If they're not walking
during that walk condition,then that's enforcement type of issue. I do recognize that yes there
are motorists that come up on northbound on Audubon and they're not necessarily thinking about
pedestrians being there and I think that comes down to you know is it a signage. Watch for
pedestrians. Is there something else that could be done from that perspective to notify motorists
that there, watch for pedestrians in that location. You know from a crossing perspective a
signalized location is a good crossing from a pedestrian perspective.
Aller: Any additional questions regarding traffic at this point?
Audience: (Inaudible).
Aller: So with regard to buses and busing, is there sufficient parking on site? And if not on site
at another location?
Matt Pacyna: That would come down to a management perspective. We didn't look at busing
operations from a traffic and parking perspective at this time. You know typically school events
are off peak periods so it would generally be lower type of attendance. Time periods when for
29
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
other tour guests so there may be sufficient parking at those times. Otherwise I would defer to
the management and how they would propose to deal with their buses in that situation.
Aller: Is there a difference in the type of calculation that you do or the results of calculations if
we replace cars with buses?
Matt Pacyna: So our analysis what we looked at from a parking perspective was really kind of a
worst case condition as far as we didn't assume any reductions or anybody coming from a shuttle
perspective. We looked at it as okay if there were 65 tour guests for that every 10 minutes and
everybody was coming from their car at their typical vehicle occupancy and so we looked at it
from that perspective so all our operations analysis looked at it from a relatively conservative
perspective.
Aller: Okay, thank you. Anything else?
Yusuf: Can I ask a question?
Aller: Absolutely.
Yusuf: Actually I'll ask Kate first.
Aller: Commissioner Yusuf.
Yusuf: Is it an option to do a repeat study you know maybe a couple weeks into this when this
is, when this kind of takes effect? I only ask because we've done the simulation and we have
these predictions but I share a lot of concerns much like everyone else about the traffic condition
and the foot traffic that's going to be in the area so I'm very concerned that we have the study
based on simulation. When things start, when we start selling tickets and people start showing
up is it an option to do a repeat study to either validate your results or just maybe bring about
some more concerns or possible additions or corrections?
Aanenson: I'll let Alyson Fauske answer that question.
Fauske: Thank you. That's an excellent question Commissioner Yusuf and one of the things
that I believe the applicant would be better able to answer the question is contracting with law
enforcement during those opening times when they anticipate higher than,you know we're at the
maximum capacity for their tours. We certainly do have an opportunity to monitor the situation
but as far as requiring additional traffic analysis upon opening that is not something that we have
discussed at this time.
Aanenson: I will say something.
Yusuf: That is something that I would like to push for if I can.
30
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Aanenson: We did put in the PUD contract, there is a level of service requirement in the PUD
and so it talks about, if you look at the ordinance.
Fauske: Kate if I may. We discussed a level of service in the staff report. We did not include a
level of service requirement, minimum requirement threshold in the PUD requirements as when
we take a look at that to go and say that the level of service decreased to be directly attributed to
the site in perpetuity in the PUD, we weren't comfortable with that recommendation. We had
some discussions about that. Taking a look at that certainly after the opening but 10 years down
the road if the level of service at any of those intersections were to fall below to go and link it
specifically to this property, staff didn't feel that that was an appropriate recommendation in the
PUD ordinance.
Aanenson: That's separate from going back and measuring it again. I think the level of service
issue was there's not all those properties are not developed at this time and in 10 years it'd be
hard to say that, to attribute all the changes in the intersection based on this use so we would look
at that differently level of service as opposed to going back and studying again to say how it's
functioning.
Yusuf: Okay. Can I say one more thing please? I like when you mentioned about the
preferential routing on Google maps. I have never heard of that before. It sounds like a good
option. You mentioned a lot of nice things and I just don't know about the implementation of it
so yes that's an option but who's going to do it or who's going to look into all the different
navigation options to try to do that preferential routing?
Matt Pacyna: That's a fair question. I would defer that question to the management.
Aller: Awesome, thank you sir. Would the applicant like to discuss some of the leftover issues?
And we can start off with Commissioner Yusuf's last question which is basically now that we
have the traffic study how are we intending to implement the traffic based upon the survey that
we have?
Pat Mazural: Yeah obviously it's the hope and intent of the operator of the estate and of the
family that this be a good experience not only for those on the tour and for fans of Prince but for
the neighborhood as well so I can't, I don't want to speak for the operator but I'll look at him and
say certainly there will be ongoing assessment.
Joel Weinshanker: And specifically to your question so Graceland actually was able to.
Aller: So why don't we have you come on up. That'd be great and state your name and address
for the record.
31
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Joel Weinshanker: I'm Joel Weinshanker. I'm the managing partner of Graceland and
Graceland Holdings LLC. Graceland was actually able to,through Google maps change the
avenues in which people came so we've actually done that successfully with Google to date. To
address a couple of the other concerns. So and some of the neighbors because I think Prince was
a great neighbor. We're actually using you know assuming this is approved at this time, not to
be at full bore but actually to work up to it. We've arranged with Southwest Transit,which is
only 1.8 miles away to have spots during peak times so what we're actually going to be close.
Every person who ordered a ticket ordered it online through email so we have direct access to
each one of those people so we can communicate to those people. To the talking about having
an extra traffic on Audubon,the road which will exist before October 3rd from the south to the
north will be able to handle over 20 cars so there will be no checking of anything before people
come off Audubon onto the property and then we're going to have 3 to 4 times as many parking
attendants as we feel would be necessary in a normal circumstance to make sure that there is
never ever a back up. Dealing with the buses, during peak days and just so everyone understands
we only anticipate 5 peak days during the first 6 months of operation so we don't even think
we're going to come within 50 percent of what the traffic survey thinks is a reasonable amount
of traffic outside of those 5 days. On those 5 days we are going to have 2 buses that are never
parked that are actually going to be doing the continuous you know basically from the Southwest
Transit through, coming into Graceland and at any peak time during those days only VIP people
are able to park there so you go down from 65 guests per 10 minutes to 15 guests per 10 minutes
which is an average of 6 cars per 10 minutes so you're looking at an average of 36 cars per hour
so it's less than 1 '/2 cars you know per, for every 2 minutes. So those people, you know all of
the people who are in the regular tours are going to be bused in. Those buses are never going to
be sitting there but with that traffic, with only 36 cars per hour we're always going to have a
third of the main parking lot empty so that would be if people come early. If people come late.
We don't have a 2.7 percent gap with no difference from the one before because I was listening.
We have a 30 percent gap. We have 2 buses during peak times that will be coming in and out.
They will never be parked so.
Aller: Commissioner Madsen.
Madsen: So you mentioned you will be using the Southwest Transit parking ramp.
Joel Weinshanker: Yes.
Madsen: In the business report it mentioned shuttles from Mall of America. Possibly the airport.
So are there all of those or you just, has it changed?
Joel Weinshanker: So I think it more long term from Mall of America and the airport because as
we understand it there's issues with what can and can't be done between public and private
transit so as we were told because Chanhassen opted out of public transportation and obviously
I'm telling, you know infinitely more than I do about this. That eventually with the town's
permission we would like to be doing that. The Mall of America would love us to be doing that.
32
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
To be honest with you they've offered us all these incentives because they would love people to
park there so that they can purchase there but currently and again we're looking at 5 days
maximum in the first 6 months where this is going to happen but we've already secured spaces
there for this endeavor.
Aller: So I'm going to ask the question that's on everybody's mind. What 5 days?
Joel Weinshanker: So the ones that exist right now are October 6th and 8th,the opening day and
the first Saturday. October 14th which is the day after the tribute show and October 15th. I've
given you 5 just as...
Aller: Okay thank you. Commissioner Madsen.
Madsen: And in the packet there is a proposed bus route. There are actually 2 of them and one
of them goes along Highway 5 and another goes down Lyman and then up Audubon through a
residential area where some of these people live who are concerned with traffic. Can we, will
you have a chosen bus route for these buses?
Joel Weinshanker: I can't imagine it wouldn't be from Southwest Transit and again you know
your neighborhoods a little bit better than I do. I can't imagine it wouldn't be Route 5 and
another thing because I'm just as concerned about the local impact to people who live off
Audubon. Prince has amazing fans. These aren't you know,these are fans that are articulate.
They're educated. They're really the best fans. If we send the messaging out, and again we have
the email address of every single person who's bought and said please don't travel on Audubon,
they won't. They just en masse these are amazingly wonderful fans and I'm one of them but
they really, you know if we say this is what you need to do to be a good neighbors and Prince
would want you to be a good neighbor...they will. You know and it's very frankly it's been our
experience, someone asked about housing values. If you do a Trulia or Zillow search at
Graceland the housing values within a 5-mile area are greatest bordering Graceland so the closer
you are to Graceland you can do a Zillow or Trulia search, the closer you are to Graceland the
more the homes are worth and we have the lowest crime rate in the city of Memphis.
Madsen: Okay then I have a follow up question.
Aller: Commissioner Madsen.
Madsen: So, and I've been to Graceland. I had the pleasure to visit there and they have a very
large parking lot which is off site from the actual Graceland where people can go and walk
through exhibit areas and then you have your ticket and you queue up for a shuttle bus for your
assigned time. Are there any plans similar to that here?
Joel Weinshanker: I think there are contemplations of doing that. You know we don't know, we
know that there are a great many Prince fans in the world who want to see Paisley Park but we
33
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
need to, you know we're walking before we're running. We're not selling, Prince fans in the
world who want to see Paisley Park but we need to, you know we're walking before we're
running. We're not selling, you know we're capping tickets far below. The survey was done at
a, what is the most of the most of the most that could ever be sold on a given day but I can tell
you on an average Wednesday, especially in the first 3 to 4 months we're going to be looking at
7 or 8 cars an hour. We're not looking at you know, we're not going to be looking at you know,
for the maximum that they've put for an hour we're going to have less visitors during the week
except for something like the day after the tribute show. We're going to have less visitors per
day than the calculations were made per hour.
Madsen: Okay, thank you.
Pat Mazural: If I could just, I'm sorry.
Aller: Commissioner one second.
Tietz: Well I was just going to ask a question about what's left on your list to update your
certificate of occupancy and when will that work be completed?
Todd Phelps: Mr. Chair,members of the commission. We have retained an architectural firm
who we anticipate preparing our,has prepared and is delivering a report this week certifying that
there are no code violations. Building code violations or that there are some minimal things. We
think that there are some hand rails that need to be added in certain locations but we've been
advised that there's nothing significant in the report that would preclude the issuance of a
certificate of occupancy.
Tietz: But the City has yet to sign off on that correct?
Todd Phelps: Correct. The.
Tietz: It's just in process.
Todd Phelps: If there was an approval it would be subject to the issuance of a certificate of
occupancy.
Tietz: Were there Kate.
Aanenson: Yes.
Tietz: Were there issues with life safety and sprinklers and exiting?
Aanenson: No,the Fire Marshal has been through.
34
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Tietz: And toilets.
Aanenson: Yep,the Fire Marshal has been up there several times just checking on things.
Getting the status,right. Opening is predicated on that architectural report and our building
officials going through the building as well as the Fire Marshal and signing that document before
it can open, yeah.
Tietz: Okay. I assumed that that would occur but I just want to check.
Aller: Commissioner Weick did you have a question?
Weick: I did not.
Aller: Okay.
Pat Mazural: Mr. Chair and commissioners if I could add one thing to one of the questions that
was asked.
Aller: Please.
Pat Mazural: And that relates to the management of the site. Mr. Weinshanker was very
gracious in giving everyone here and on television his cell number.
Aller: And email address. Even better.
Pat Mazural: Email address but we do, Paisley Park will have an on site manager as well who is
a local person and the search for that person is underway right now. There's a temporary
manager there but there will be someone responsible for the property here in Chanhassen at all
times.
Aller: One of the questions that was asked was there an intent to have, if a wall is required that it
would be 6 or 8 feet or opaque or not opaque but what are the intentions with the wall?
Pat Mazural: Yeah that was an interesting series of questions and certainly appreciate the
comments of Ms. Miller and others about the beauty of the site and wanting to keep it visitor.
Actually the wall and the intention to put an opaque wall there really addresses some of the other
issues that have been raised which relates to pedestrians and also not just opaque but a wall on
which there, it would not be easy to hang things and so it would significantly cut down,
hopefully eliminate the kind of foot traffic that we see around there so that the traffic that's in
will be for those on the tour with pre-purchased tickets.
Aller: Thank you.
35
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Tietz: That's currently part of the aesthetic of the site.
Pat Mazural: Excuse me. I'm sorry I missed the comment.
Tietz: No that's, you know the fence and the materials on the fence from day one that's, in my
mind that's been kind of aesthetic of the site and it enhances that experience because it
personalizes the opportunity to remember Prince.
Pat Mazural: It does and in fact you know the memorial that it represents and the love for Prince
is part of the tour and the show of love from his fans and residents here around the community. I
was informed too that the intention is that it be an 8-foot fence. Can't be jumped very easily.
Tietz: Is that code?
Aanenson: It does and I think you're seeing the two positions on this. People pull over on
Highway 5 right now and that's a nuisance so it's a challenge is how do you stop that so and
maybe it's temporary until people get used to just so they can't see something so we're just
trying to internally,we put it in there. The opaque fence because that's normally not standard.
The city code allows them to go to 8 feet. We'd like it not to have one. I think the other thing,
we do get nuisance complaints regarding stuff that's on the fence. Maybe blowing. Some
people appreciate it. Some people don't so I think we're still trying to figure that out. It all
comes back to safety and it's not just people walking, it's people pulling over on Highway 5.
Parking and getting out so we're just trying to solve that between both parties.
Weick: Can I comment on that because I was going to save it for later but I would, I would
challenge that logic. If our primary concern is pedestrian safety the material of the fence I don't
think would increase or decrease the pedestrian activity outside the building so if it's an opaque
wall, and I've seen Graceland a lot, it now becomes a different type of canvas. You don't hang
things. You write things. Okay and it now becomes,probably an awesome graffiti wall. I think
it'd be beautiful but you still have pedestrians that are going to stop and do that and so if there
are security concerns for like people jumping into Prince's property or something I get that but I
would put on the record that the material of the fence I don't really believe would change the
pedestrian activity. I'm not worried about cars and parking. I mean it would be awesome if you
had the kind of parking issues that we've talked about here today and all day long,that means
that thing is wildly successful and I think that's fantastic for the city. I don't think that's
necessarily going to be the issue. I'm concerned about the pedestrian and so we talk about the
fence. I'm concerned that we're fooling ourselves into thinking putting an 8-foot opaque wall is
going to reduce people from wanting to walk up on that property.
Aanenson: ...there's other ways to do it including landscaping. Some vegetation.
Weick: Yeah.
36
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Aanenson: And you know again for us when you see cars pulled over on Highway 5 that are not
in the travel lane. When there's semi's coming down, it's a concern. And not only for that with
pedestrians but as long as people want to continue to walk and you've got people coming in,
we're just trying to figure out how that all comingles and maybe there's appropriate places for
screening. We can certainly work with the applicant on that.
Aller: Great. Thank you. Additional questions? Comments.
Aanenson: I just had one other thing Mrs. Gorra brought up regarding the amusement park and
maybe if you want to go back up and talk about the hotel was just talked about in this one site
here is my understanding was the building that's already in place. Any other new buildings that
would come on have to come through site plan review. Any, you know again we're not talking
about new buildings. Across the street is still zoned industrial office park. I've included that in
the packet. There is not amusement as a permitted use in that zoning district so we've never
talked about an amusement park at this point or anything like that so any change like that would
have to come back through for another amendment to the code or another public hearing or
something like that so right we're just talking about this parcel and any changes beyond that we
haven't put amusement park as a permitted use on this property so I just wanted to make that
clear.
Aller: So in the end analysis here what, what are they asking for that couldn't be done under the
current code?
Aanenson: If you, well can you ask that again.
Aller: In other words they can operate a business now.
Aanenson: Correct.
Aller: To what extent can they go under the zoning the way I'm reading it they can go 9:00 to
12:00 instead of 9:00 to 9:00. What things are they asking for in the PUD process that we're
exchanging here? We're giving them the right to do something they wouldn't already the ability
to do.
Aanenson: Correct. Well if you're looking what's the underlying IOP zoning district doesn't
have hours of limitations right now so. So other than that.
Aller: I mean he's had events there before. He would go through the process.
Aanenson: Correct. Yeah we've had permits.
Aller: They would have to go through that process if they wanted.
37
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Aanenson: We've had significant number of people out there that they've managed through
busing so we're used to that. Those typically were in evening hours, overnight hours til early
morning so we've,the City's managed those before so.
Aller: And the reason I say that is that, I'm looking at this that it's a business. They can operate
their business and as a City if we're going to give them a PUD and we're going to fine tune this,
the whole reason for a PUD is to gain some benefit and so I think the traffic analysis that's being
done and the questions concerning traffic and pedestrian safety are really the issues that we need
to get something back and so that's what I'm looking for but as far as the zoning itself, I'm
looking at it's a, or if we allow this to move forward we're doing something. We can have
progress at this site but the traffic problems,the pedestrian problems that we're facing there are
there today and we really need to look at those regardless. So I guess I'm moving this forward to
comments from the commissioners on their feelings on the application.
Tietz: One more question for Kate?
Aller: Sure.
Tietz: The $20,000 escrow account, what would that cover and who's going to judge whether
they don't comply? And then how do you collect it?
Aanenson: I'll let Alyson answer that question.
Fauske: That's a great question Commissioner Tietz. As we looked through the analysis and
what we were looking for with regards to required improvements we looked at having a financial
security in order to insure that the site was operated as it was intended. That the parking
situation was put in as intended so typically what we do in that case is we have through this
process we have an agreement with the development team. Between the development team and
the City. We have the money either in escrow which means a cash submitted to the City and put
into an account that can only be taken for those purposes or a letter of credit from a bank so
that's, when we looked at that we holistically said, and that's something that we typically do with
sites that undergo site improvements is we typically do collect an escrow to insure that it's being
done.
Tietz: But on a site like this where it's traffic and it's a number of things. It's not like a big
residential development where there's a lot of public works and infrastructure installed. How did
you determine or how did the City determine it was only$20,000? That seems like a pretty
minimal amount on a major project of this sort.
Fauske: When we start looking at that, we looked at it from a standpoint of the parking
improvements. If there was parking or a connections for example of the time of writing the staff
report you know the connection between the north and the south parking lot, I was unsure of the
status of that and now they've indicated that they're going to do that so it was a financial security
38
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
to insure that the onsite parking is there. What I'm hearing from the Planning Commission is
that perhaps we want to take a look at the traffic and insuring that the site operates within the
parameters or the predictions of the traffic study and we could certainly take a look and talk to
the management team and take a look at perhaps instead of having a level of service in perpetuity
that within 6 months we take a look at the level of service of some of these intersections and see
if that's operating as we anticipated based on the improvements installed. So we could certainly
if the Planning Commission would like to take a look at doing something like that and
forwarding that recommendation to council staff and the applicant can certainly go back and
have that discussion and provide a recommendation based on what the Planning Commission
discusses.
Tietz: Yeah I think that'd be prudent Alyson, thank you.
Aller: Does anybody disagree with that? So we'd make that request right now.
Audience: Can I get my question answered?
Aller: I'm sorry ma'am, what other question were they?
Audience: The question that I asked was, why is it being rezoned? What are they asking for?
Aller: That's what we were,that's exactly what my question was as well.
Audience: I heard you but I didn't get the answer.
Aller: I suppose we want some clarification on why it's being rezoned. I understand that they
had, at least at minimum for the simple reason that the City does not have museum in the zoning
saying that they can have a museum. So that would be the first and foremost reason. Additional
reasons would be the potential for someone to stay on the property as a hotel. Or other uses.
Am I correct in that?
Aanenson: That's correct.
Audience: So when they're, if they do the.
Aanenson: Mr. Chair can you ask them to come up to the microphone so we can.
Aller: Yeah come on up to the podium and state your name and address, especially I don't think
you were up here before so one of the only ones left.
Jim Wagle: Jim Wagle, 8411 Egret Court.
Aller: Welcome.
39
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Jim Wagle: And I'm just wondering with traffic and everything and then I wasn't even thinking
of having a hotel or motel or whatever on site and that, what does that do as far as how many
people? You know number of clients coming into the buildings, all that kind of stuff. What is
that going to throw into the mix as far as traffic control? Taking away space there for parking. I
guess that's kind of what my question is on that.
Aller: Great,thank you. And again I'll go to my understanding and then but if they were to do
that they would have to come back and ask for, certainly if they were going to put up or add to
the buildings,then they would have to come back before us and get a site approval.
Aanenson: Correct unless it was just the existing silo building, then they would get a building
permit. They'd still have to show parking. Then we would still factor that into the equation of
how much and going back to what Ms. Fauske was just talking about. Checking on the level of
service and making sure we're still within that range but the intent right now is just looking at the
existing building on site.
Aller: Right and if it also,if they were even to use that as a place of occupancy for anyone then
we would be looking at other regulations that would have to be complied with in order for them
to have a certificate of occupancy for a human being to stay on the property.
Aanenson: Correct, yep. All building codes, correct. Otherwise if that was to come down and
some other smaller building, that would have to come back through site plan review just like any
other application. There'd be a public hearing. We'd look at the architecture. All of that. If it
was anything different than the existing building there, it'd be our same normal process.
Aller: Based on any of the questions we asked any other last questions? So we're back to the
conversation that we're having. What does everybody think or does someone want to make a
motion?
Madsen: I would like us to consider to designate a bus route on Highway 5 to be included in that
so that, to stay out of the residential area of Audubon. And I would also like the City to consider
making some safety improvements related to the McGlynn area. Whether they limit parking.
Add a crosswalk. I'm not sure what the solution is but I think it needs some safety
improvements.
Aller: Any other comments or.
Tietz: Well I guess I just wish we would have had more time at this. I know things have
happened very,very rapidly but the first 5 biggest events of the year are going to happen within
the next 30 days and we're barely into understanding how this is all going to come together and
how the traffic analysis is going to work. There's a lot of I hope it works right now and the
statistics that, and I trust SRF. I know those guys. I worked with them for many,many years but
40
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
I think you know it's conjecture and based upon their studies and I think that there's a potential
for some pretty significant issues for our public safety folks over the next 30 days. If those are
the 5 busiest days of the year, I just wish we could slow the process down and have more time.
They could have more time and implement a lot of the plan before they open up.
Aller: Comment. Commissioner Randall.
Randall: Is it possible that they could get a conditional use permit to cover October to see how it
goes?
Aanenson: No.
Randall: Okay I just thought.
Aanenson: We don't have a conditional use. It has to be in the zoning district so a conditional
use would serve with the property so then, if you want add anything else Mr. Knutson?
Roger Knutson: As zoned it's, a museum is not a conditional use permit in this district so no.
Aller: Right.
Yusuf: I do want to say I do like that the tickets have to be pre-purchased so that gives you an
idea that you know how much volume to expect so I think it's going to give us a level of comfort
knowing that you'll be monitoring that going forward. Knowing that you'll keep track of how
much volume to expect and then we can marry that up with the traffic studies and see how things
are flowing would really help the City make the right choices here.
Audience: Could I ask how far in advance can they buy? Could they buy like an hour before
online?
Aller: That's a good question but why don't you come up to the podium so that people at home
can hear you. I`ll repeat the question which is how far in advance can you purchase a ticket
online.
Joel Weinshanker: So during down times it will be several hours before but we're actually
shutting down ticket sales days before once we hit certain times and we're actually shutting
down hour by hour. If I can show you on my laptop I've checked ticket sales a dozen times
today and we've actually moved around hourly so even a day where we might not be very busy
but you know if too many people are buying in one hour we're shutting down. If you look at it,
if you go back to the site where you see every 10 minutes we've actually moved the general tours
from every 10 minutes to every 30 minutes in a lot of instances so we're doing minute by
minute. We're even actually shortening the hours on some days where we don't find it necessary
so what we've been able to do with this exercise and what the City Council and the mayor really
41
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
understood is we're trying to figure out how to be the best neighbor so by putting tickets on sale
we've actually been able to see when the interest is. We've been shortening hours on some days.
We've been taking times out so if too many people are buying one type of tour we'll shut down
the other type because we don't want as many people and on the busiest day I think we had 65
for 10 minutes which would be 390 per hour. On the busiest day we don't anywhere close to
that. On opening day there's not close to 390 people in any hour even though we felt the
building could handle it. With buses could handle it. We're walking before we can run.
Audience: So why...return on investment?
Joel Weinshanker: We are limiting hours.
Audience: No I mean to...
Joel Weinshanker: Because when Graceland at times was, first of all Graceland doesn't close at
5:00 so a comparison wasn't fair.
Audience: (Inaudible).
Joel Weinshanker: No,no. The last tour.
Aller: Direct all your comments to me.
Joel Weinshanker: Okay. So Graceland doesn't close at 5:00. The last tour starts at 5:00 and
they close 21/2 hours later into the, you know into across the street where people are buying
merchandise but at times and many times over the year they've had night time events and are
open to 7:00. It's really about the fan. There's a different fan. There's a, you know obviously
the fans are older at Graceland so what we're trying to do is to accommodate the people who
actually love Prince. We're trying to be open hours without being open at midnight. Without
being open at 2:00 a.m. Someone who would live close by through email had questioned the
level of volume because they said sometimes when Prince had shows in the middle of the night
they could hear from 10 blocks away. I don't know if that person's here who sent that email.
The museum is going to be a museum. I mean very frankly if something's loud I'm putting ear
plugs in,there's going to be nothing that anyone's going to need to put ear plugs in the building
never mind 7:00 or 8:00.
Aller: And just to extend the set hours now are going to be 9:00 to 9:00 so the last tour would
start at 9:00.
Joel Weinshanker: The last tour will start at 9:00 on certain days but we've already on weekdays
we've already shorten it til 7:00 p.m. so those were really weekends and possibly opening day
and the day after the concert is opening day so just on a few special days we've actually shorten
the hours on weekdays to 7:00. To start at 7:00.
42
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Aller: And then while I've got you up there another question came back to me and that was
regarding the tent and the use of the tent. What type of functions and use of the tent would be?
Joel Weinshanker: Just simply so,the only thing that the tent is being used for is Prince's chef is
preparing a tasting plate of Prince's favorite food that will be offered in the tent and then it's the
same place where you can buy a tour book or a t-shirt. Those are the only uses for the tent. And
we're doing it because we didn't, we're trying to change the building as little as possible because
Prince had a real intent he wanted it a certain way. He laid it out for tours. He already had tested
bringing some people in because he loved it and he really wanted it and we have videos and we
have directions via email on what he wanted to do so the test was necessitated because there is
no area in there that was really for that.
Aller: Thank you.
Lynne Etling: May I ask another question please?
Aller: Okay,why don't you come on forward and ask it to me. I'm going to.
Lynne Etling: Lynne Etling again and it's directed to Joel.
Aller: Direct it to me because I don't want to have.
Lynne Etling: Okay direct it to you.
Aller: Thank you.
Lynne Etling: Well when he was talking about his website one thing that is, well a big question
in my mind is it sounds like his website is not engineered to say okay at this hour set number of
people are allowed to buy tickets. At this hour set number of people allowed to buy tickets and
so forth so there's no way for him to control automatically how many people buy tickets for a
certain day. Certain time. Do you know what I mean?
Aller: I understand the implication of what you're stating.
Lynne Etling: And so that has to be manually managed by him is what I'm gathering.
Aller: Okay so.
Lynne Etling: Because you're saying you're going in and moving around times.
Aller: So your question is regarding the management of
43
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Lynne Etling: Yes.
Aller: Will they be cutting off these tours appropriately.
Lynne Etling: Right and I guess it all falls back to is you know it seems to me like you know
they paid $1,054 and most of the work here has been done by the City of Chanhassen because we
you know, it's a very small business plan. There's not much that's been given to us to even
review and you know maybe I'm just not understanding what he's saying but yeah it's a concern
because what happens if someone doesn't manage it for a few hours? You know what happens?
Aller: Great, thank you.
Lynne Etling: You're welcome.
Aller: Okay so we're going to cut off public comment at this point or we'll be having a
continuous conversation. Not that it's not a good thing. One of the best things about
Chanhassen is that as neighbors we come forward and I try to run these meetings so that there is
a conversation instead of holding people's feet to the fire on time or but I do prefer that all the
comments are directed to us as a commission rather than to individuals to avoid any heated
communication so let's get back to our conversation amongst ourselves.
Roger Knutson: Excuse me Chairman, do you want to close that public hearing?
Aller: So the public hearing is closed. It was outside of the normal customary procedure. It had
been closed and we just had a side bar. So back to the conversation. We've been talking about
additional potential desires as far as conditions. Any other comments or is anybody flat out
against it or?
Yusuf: No I really like what you proposed, the addition you proposed. I think that's going to
capture a lot of what we were looking for. I think that's going to help alleviate much of the
concerns that people have so I would really appreciate sneaking that in there.
Weick: I've been relatively quiet.
Aller: For a change.
Weick: I know, isn't that weird? You know everything that everyone has is I think very valid
and you know the concerns. It does feel rushed. I mean it has to feel rushed right? It's opening
soon if everything goes through so. I'm in mostly in agreement with everything. That we need
to be, we need to be careful and work overtime on this one to make sure that everything goes off
well. I am personally, you know part of our responsibility is not only to the immediate
community around Paisley Park but also to the City of Chanhassen. I sat in a local restaurant a
few weeks ago and you know listened to groups of people that were coming in. They were from
44
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Texas and they were from Oklahoma and they were in town for the,there were some tribute
shows or something. I have to admit I'm not really a Prince fan, if you can believe it but you
know they were in town. They were going to those shows. They were staying in Chanhassen
and they went to Paisley Park right to see it and look at it and everything like that and for sure
they would go to the museum but they were staying and dining and buying coffee and shopping
and those are the kind of things that I hope we don't lose sight of that something like this brings
to the city of Chanhassen as well. It does not, I'm not diminishing anything that's been said here
tonight for the very real concerns about traffic and pedestrians. Those are real and we have to
make sure that those are handled properly but there is also a side of this that makes the city of
Chanhassen an incredible destination and an opportunity for commerce outside of Paisley Park I
think that we have long needed so I'm excited about that.
Aller: Any additional comments? At any time anyone can make a motion. I just can't do it.
Weick: I'll make a motion.
Aller: Commissioner Weick.
Weick: Is it as simple as the one that's stated here or do I have to add?
Aller: I would add. Add the conditions to their request.
Aanenson: Can I get an interpretation from the City Attorney? We're not adding conditions.
We're just forwarding recommendations to the City Council, is that correct Roger?
Roger Knutson: Yes. Their recommendation can be anything they want it to be. They're
changing the ordinance,the draft in front of you or what have you, it's a recommendation.
Aanenson: Right, okay so it would be a recommendation to the PUD if you wanted to put some
of those in,that's why I'm asking.
Weick: I'm not the right person to, because I'm not really aware of what all those
recommendations would be I'll be honest.
Fauske: Chairman Aller?
Aller: Yes.
Fauske: Just as a point of clarification for staff and also when you're considering your motion,
when looking at the updated traffic study if you would like, I heard both pedestrian and vehicular
traffic analyzed so I'm very clear on that but if the commission could please provide some
clarification on all intersections. If it is your desire to relook, re-evaluate all intersections or just
the 2 intersections that were identified as a point of concern within the traffic study.
45
Chanhassen Planning Commission—September 20, 2016
Aller: In my mind the easy thing to do would be to say all.
Yusuf: I would agree.
Tietz: But how far is all?
Aller: Well the ones that were, with the understanding that McGinty is included in that. I mean.
Yusuf: McGlynn.
Tietz: The immediate,not as far south as Lyman?
Aller: No. I don't think in my mind, I think that's far enough away that there wouldn't be an
impact but if you think differently.
Tietz: No I think it's just those folks who potentially Googled it and came off of 212 then that's
an impact because they come down Powers to Lyman and Lyman to Audubon and then shoot up
Audubon and that's probably minimal. My greatest concern is still the queuing on 5 and those
left turns. You know we mentioned, someone mentioned the situation at the Arboretum. I mean
that's horrendous when they have their plant sale in May trying to even go down Highway 5
from downtown Chanhassen it's backed up. I can't imagine what's going to happen at the Ryder
Cup with Highway 41 and 5 but.
Aller: But those are specific events too.
Tietz: Well those are significant events yeah but you know this is going to be a significant
destination as Steve pointed out.
Weick: I agree.
Tietz: Yeah so we just have to be really cautious and monitor it closely and if there's impacts we
have to back up and take a second look at it and take another swing at it and those improvements
could be costly and I don't know who bears the cost of those road improvements. You know we
have a state highway and we have, is Audubon a city? That's not county right?
Fauske: It's a county road that.
Tietz: Is that county on Audubon? Anyhow there could be significant highway improvements
that have to occur based upon a 6 month run time or a 12 month run time and I think we have to
be prepared to deal with that and someone has to bear the responsibility.
46
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Yusuf: I think a good place to start is the traffic study. The follow up study and then we can go
from there.
Aller: But we're looking at directing them and how far that study should go.
Yusuf: I would recommend the immediate intersections because whatever traffic we're
concerned about on Lyman is eventually funneling down to this Paisley Park so if you're
studying that immediate area you should capture that too.
Aller: So if I'm understanding you want to go to Lyman?
Yusuf: No. I'm saying just do the immediate intersections around Paisley Park.
Madsen: I would like it to extend as far south on Audubon so we would know if we need to add
a HAWK signal so that pedestrians can safely cross Audubon in the residential area. I'm not sure
how far south.
Audience: Osprey is where one of the two crosswalks...
Madsen: Just as long as it includes all of those.
Tietz: What's the cross street at the auto Motorplex there that comes off of, it goes between.
Because that comes from Powers all the way over to Audubon so if people got off on Powers
they could short cut if the traffic on 5 is bad they could short cut and come in the back way so.
Maybe we should just say, Alyson maybe we should just say that to be determined after 6 or 8
months. Confirm the location of the intersections to be studied otherwise we're going to talk
about this all night.
Madsen: Yeah, agreed.
Aller: So Commissioner Weick, you're going to make the basic motion and then we'll add,with
the additions that we just outlined to Alyson.
Weick: Okay.
Madsen: Well Nancy had a couple points though before didn't you? Yeah.
Weick: I don't have knowledge about...
Tietz: Just with them.
Aller: Start with the basic.
47
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Aanenson: You can make a motion and then make an amendment.
Weick: Thank you. I'm going to make a motion. The Chanhassen Planning Commission
recommends that the City Council approve the rezoning of Lot 11, Block 1, Chanhassen Lakes
Business Park from IOP to PUD and adoption of the attached PUD ordinance and Findings of
Fact.
Randall: Second.
Aller: We have a motion and a second and then I have, so we're open for discussion and then I
have some friendly amendments which will be brought forth by Commissioner Madsen.
Madsen: So one would be, the one that we have already discussed with the transportation study
to determine the level of service at, I don't know what the time increments are. If it was 6
months or 1 year. And then also to consider to designate a bus route on Highway 5. And also to
consider developing a safety plan related to McGlynn and that intersection. Right away.
Tietz: Could we include something about timing of the implementation of the approved option
for completion of the internal site work? So there's, you know it sounds like we can get some
work done before October 6th. It's just the connection of the two lots but we've got other
recommendations to move the access point and then additional on site parking and expanding the
on site parking and some other site improvements which may require you know storm water and
so forth but I'd like to see a timeframe if the applicant is willing. Is that something, you know
June of depending upon weather. Is it summer of'17 if the work is complete? Or is that
dependent upon the success of the project?
Aller: I would do it dependent on the,to coincide with the traffic study so you're looking at the
whole ball of wax at the same time.
Tietz: That's one way of doing that.
Aller: Because.
Tietz: An artificial timeframe doesn't, yeah.
Aller: Yeah so I would.
Tietz: So the implementation would follow the completion of the subsequent traffic analysis and
a timeframe for implementation. Something like that.
Aller: And you accept that as an addition to your friendly amendments? And you'll accept that
as a, all these amendments to your motion?
48
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
Weick: Noted.
Weick moved, Randall seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends
that the City Council approve the rezoning of Lot 11, Block 1, Chanhassen Lakes Business
Park from IOP to PUD and adoption of the attached PUD ordinance and Findings of Fact
with the following recommendations for City Council to consider:
1. Review the transportation plan.
2. Consider a bus only route on Highway 5.
3. Have a pedestrian safety plan.
4. Have a time frame for completion of improvements.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Aller: Okay we're good to take a 5-minute recess here to allow the room to clear out. For
people to take a break.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Yusuf noted the verbatim and summary
Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated September 6, 2016 as presented.
COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. None.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
Aanenson: The only thing I have right there is consideration for Chick-fil-A who applied for a
Carver County CDA grant. Just the cost of the stormwater treatment. Soil corrections to help
give them some relief so we'll hopefully be getting that up to the County this week. I'm not sure
we had any other, we haven't had much going forward because we tried to fast track a couple
things there so that's it. I just want to talk a minute on the future agendas. We don't have
anything on the regular agenda in 2 weeks but what we are trying to get together is a potential,
have the Riley-Purgatory watershed district come and give you a presentation so that's a
potential. I'll let you know. Terry Jeffery is working on that and then on the 18th we're doing
some code amendments and then we still are planning on Avienda, the lifestyle center so I think
there might be a couple people here on that one too. Yeah and that's again concept review so
with that one we are going to just have.
Aller: There's no Findings of Fact and its just recommendations.
Aanenson: Correct, give them direction. Traffic study and the like yeah so I think just on
another note, there's 2 property owners across the street that could potentially be for sale so
we've talked about it internally. We're getting a lot of requests. The staff is to talk to people
because they're going to be going out for bid, we want to make sure we're giving everybody the
same piece of information so we probably want to do an AUAR to look at both large properties
49
Chanhassen Planning Commission— September 20, 2016
together. I'm talking on the north side of Highway 5 and then include park recommendations.
Vegetation. Forestry issues. Improvements that may be acquired along Galpin Boulevard.
Impacts to West 78th Street. Access points. Those sort of things so we're giving that to
developers to all have the same information so we want to be very consistent in our messaging
on that so, especially if they're going out to bid and say oh I didn't know that would be an issue
so we're hoping to get that put together here in the next month because there's people working
actively on some of those properties and we want to make sure we have the same message so
that's all I have. If anybody else has anything.
Aller: Anyone else?
Randall: What happened with the water treatment plant?
Aanenson: That is going to the City Council on the 26th.
Randall: The 26th, okay.
Aller: Alright, well I'll entertain a motion to adjourn then.
Commissioner Yusuf moved to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was
adjourned at 9:45 p.m.
Submitted by Kate Aanenson
Community Development Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim
50