CC MinutesChanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
utility easements on Lot 1, Block 1 of GATEWAY NORTH as dedicated on the recorded
plat thereof as described in Exhibit A. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Resolution #2017-49: Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that
the City Council adopts a resolution approving the vacation of all the public drainage and
utility easements on Lot 2, Block 2 and Outlot A of GATEWAY NORTH as dedicated on
the recorded plat thereof together with Document No. 206358 as described in Exhibit A.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City Council
approves Planning Case 17-12 subject to the conditions of approval and adopts the
attached Findings of Fact and Decision. All voted in favor and the motion carried
unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Laufenburger: Ms. Aanenson I have a question for you.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Will this item ever come back to the council again?
Kate Aanenson: Yes you’ll see it at final plat and I believe the applicant’s working trying to get
that on the next meeting and we’re getting towards the end of getting projects launched for
construction season so you will see the plat.
Mayor Laufenburger: So when the final plat comes that’s when we approve the layout,
everything that would then follow with building permits, movement of dirt, etcetera.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is that correct:
Kate Aanenson: Yeah it will be a site plan agreement. There probably isn’t any public
improvements in this so there wouldn’t be a development contract but there would still be a site
plan agreement tying them to all the conditions of approval and I’d just like to take one moment
just to thank Sharmeen Al-Jaff on our staff who probably worked on this, this property probably
for 6-7 years and the applicant to what we believe is a really good project for this site.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Well thank you Mr. Heuer. Best of luck in developing
your final plat. We hope to see you soon, alright. Okay. Alright thank you.
VENUE/ALDI: APPROVE SITE PLAN FOR A 134 UNIT, SIX STORY APARTMENT
BUILDING AND A ONE-STORY, 19,000 SQUARE FOOT RETAIL BUILDING WITH A
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
VARIANCE; AND PRELIMINARY APPROVAL OF A REGISTERED LAND SURVEY
CREATING THREE PARCELS.
Mayor Laufenburger: Let me just, I know a number of you are here to observe the proceedings
tonight. Let me just explain how we, you’ve seen a little bit of what we do observing here so far
but this will be the sequence of steps that I will follow tonight. First of all I will ask for a staff
report. Then I will ask if there are any council questions of staff. Then I will hear from the
applicant and I will ask if there’s any questions from the council to the applicant. And then I
point out that we had a public hearing at the Planning Commission. The City Council has access
to the Planning Commission verbatim. The video. We have in the staff report there’s a number
of emails. We’ve had correspondence with many of you as citizens and I have not yet decided
whether or not I will include public comment as part of this event. It’s not required but this is
kind of dependent upon how much time we have and other things. Once that is done then I’ll
bring it back to the council for discussion and then action by the council and then of course that
would ultimately potentially mean a vote if a motion comes forward. So that’s the process we’re
going to follow and I ask that you just observe and listen very respectfully as I know that you all
have come to so let’s begin with the staff report. And could we close that door please.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Mayor, members of the City Council. The application is from
Chanhassen Frontier LLC. It is for subdivision with a registered land survey, site plan review
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with a variance. This did go to the Planning Commission on June 20. The Planning
Commission did recommend approval 7 to 0 in support of it. They did have a couple questions
about the project and I’m just going to go through those now so I don’t forget to bring them in
with the rest of the report. The number and sufficiency of parking. The project does meet the
parking requirements. There’s a question about in the front and I’ll try to circle back on that.
92-94. Truck operations. They do, are able to meet and access the truck operations for
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deliveries for the Aldi’s. Bring the building closer to West 78. This is again constrained and
this goes to the parking. They have enough parking on site. There’s parking in front is shared
parking so the only control they have over is the parcels that are not included with the other
property owners so they do have shared parking through that so they can only respond to what’s,
they have control over so there are parking easements across the front of the site so they cannot
move it closer because it would affect somebody else’s ability to use those parking stalls in front
that they have cross access. One of the other questions about the height of the building. The
highest peak of this, and I’ll try to circle back if you would remind me Mayor when we get to
those drawings is 77 feet. There is an additional story that can go on the Southwest Transit
building which would bring that to a total of about 55 feet. The Country Inn and Suites is at 47.5
for the top. And when I’m talking about 77 that would be the top of like the parapet or
architectural feature on the apartments. And then the Chanhassen Professional Building is two
story with a height of 57 feet at the top of the cupola and 44 feet at the top of the roof height so
again the Planning Commission did recommend approval and I just wanted to share with you
that we did follow up on the comments that they had. So the location of this request is at 525
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West 78 Street. It includes as I mentioned before 3 parcels and the 3 parcels will be creating 3
registered land survey. One for the Aldi, one for the apartments and then one for the parking.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Again the request is for the site plan review for 134 units, a six story apartment building and one
story, a 19,000 square foot retail building with a variance for the existing drive aisles and widths.
Again those could be altered to meet code but because of the cross access agreement we felt
comfortable leaving them the way they are and did support the variance. So again the registered
land survey is creating the 3 parcels out of the currently 3 parcels that are there. This application
is a lot different. I know we’ve got questions about the time, how much time and why we spent
so much. A PUD when you’ve got a lot of moving parts putting together an ordinance is a lot
different than doing a site plan review of this caliber so what we look at here is does the, do the
two uses that are being proposed meet the ordinance and do they meet the city’s standards
regarding architecture and the parking standards. Landscaping requirements and the like so
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landscaping for the most part is going to be on West 78 and then the parking aisles in the back
so it’s a little different as far as the discretion and the control that the Planning Commission have
when there’s a PUD when you ask for additional things that you would like to see. So again
you’re looking at the land use. It is for commercial, this is our central business district which has
the most list of uses. Residential and commercial are both permitted uses in the zoning district
and again it’s zoned central business district so they are permitted in the district so there’s no
discretion of changing or giving permission to request a change. So this is looking to the north.
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This is West 78 and this would be the retail space right here, the 19,000 retail space and then
this would be the apartment buildings on top. So underneath this will be the parking garage and
I’ll show that in a minute but this is the existing parking that we’re talking about so while there’s
92 up here, the additional parking can be met in the back but there’s also cross access in front of
the Country Suites so at night at the Country Suites, if they have more people then they can park
over here too so those are part of the negotiations that the developer works out with the adjoining
property owners so I know it was asked could the City go through and extinguish all those.
Those are all private agreements. The City can only review what’s in front of the City tonight by
the applicant who has demonstrated that he has, or they have worked out parking arrangements.
So the, to get into the service delivery area would come up and back in and then they can go
back out. The existing driveway between the movie theater and the current buildings would stay
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in place. That’s for circulation there and then also access off of Market and West 78 Street. So
those are things that we always talked about keeping in place for redevelopment of any site here.
So this is the south view so this is looking at Market so this is on the back side of the building.
Again a couple met Sharmeen Al-Jaff on our staff who worked very hard to push the design on
this building and we think it’s a very attractive building. So this would be the entrance to the
parking garage on the back side so all the parking for the apartments is accommodated by code
and the back side of the building. Again a little bit closer detail. Again some of the things that
we were looking at was the articulation of the balconies and the movements of itself so it’s not
one square building. Again another perspective so this is the existing portion of the Dinner
Theater building that would stay. This right here and then the entrance to the apartments and
then the Aldi’s grocery store on this side over here so it’s a perspective there. Again so the
Aldi’s, the 19,000 square feet and then the entrance would be, and the delivery which I just
spoke of is on the west side. A question was brought up about the look of that perspective and it
does drop down. We’ve worked hard to try to get some additional articulation on the one wall
there looking at landscaping for buffering. I had mentioned at the Planning Commission meeting
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
it’s similar to when you go to Lakewinds, when you’re coming down that drive you look into
that, the bay there where they load at Lakewinds which is approximately about the same size.
Square foot building. If you recall the requirement there in that PUD was under 20,000 square
feet and this one’s the 19,000 so as I mentioned before the top of the elevation so this is the peak
in the back and that’s the one that’s at the 77 at the tall peak on the back and this is the part of the
Aldi’s here which would be the driveway going back down between the buildings and back into
the parking ramp. And more details on the looks of the building itself. So this is the
underground parking, the 134 underground parking stalls and as I mentioned the loading dock
here and then coming in on the back side of the building is how you would access that and the
elevators. There is on the top side of the building a service entrance so if people wanted to
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inquire about leases and the like that would also be on West 78 Street but otherwise any other
guest could also enter from the rear and there’s an elevator at that point too. Again majority of
the parking then would be in the back. These are the plans, I think there’s some nice amenities
on the top floor that the applicant want to speak a little bit more about that but on the top floor
there is a gathering place and nice views. Some of the amenities that we look for. It’s not going
to be amenities in the parking lot. Again this is a much more urban feel but again on the top
floor and then there’s some other amenities in the apartment building too but I’ll let them talk a
little bit more about that. Again the landscaping plan is on the perimeter and which is what we
would require and the developer the perimeter and then the landscape islands which we require
in all parking lots. So they do meet those requirements. And then also where you’d be beefing
up in front of the building too. Site utilities. They’re all in place. I think there’s a lot of small
utilities. As you know redevelopment is much more complex than taking a raw piece of land
when there’s, trying to accommodate the storm water. Again this is a challenge that we’ve
talked about some of the other developments in the core of downtown managing storm water so
there’ll be an underground system for this project too. As you know that was some of the things
that we looked at for a potential grant on whether they get or not is up to the Met Council and
that we did look for Carver County also to assist in some of that because that’s a bigger expense
here when you’re doing redevelopment. So again the registered land survey as I mentioned
there’ll be 3 lots. One for the Aldi’s. One for the apartments and then one for the parking lot
itself. So with that we are recommending approval of the 3 action items. The site plan review,
registered land survey. Excuse me, retail with the variance for the front and then the registered
land survey which is the subdivision and adoption of Findings of Fact so with that I’d be happy
to answer any questions you may have.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Ms. Aanenson. In a moment I’ll ask the council if they have
any questions of staff but can you just restate this for us. If this, if we take action tonight on this
tonight to approve this when would this come back to the council?
Kate Aanenson: They could begin without, they put together a site plan agreement. Again I’m
not sure if there’s any private or all the improvements are private. Otherwise they do a
development contract but they would ultimately come back for you just for consent when we do
the registered land surveys so they may want to do some demolition or some grading prior to that
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because when you do a registered land survey you’re actually, like for the parking lot, you want
to have that. It’s a 3 dimensional type survey. Little different.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right. And then one last question and I’ll open it up to the council for
questions. I noticed that on the language of what you’re asking us to approve the word Aldi’s
does not appear there.
Kate Aanenson: No.
Mayor Laufenburger: So what you’re saying is that the City Council is approving 134 unit, or
being asked to approve a 134 unit six story apartment building and a one story 19,000 square
foot retail building. That’s what we’re approving right?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: And the developer has told us this is what they plan to do but.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. We’re approving the buildings and their use.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Both are permitted in the zoning district, right.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright thank you. So does anybody have questions of staff or would you
prefer to hear from the applicant first? Councilmember Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And this is probably a question for the attorney. What discretion
does council have when it comes to determining what type of business comes into a retail
establishment?
Roger Knutson: You made that decision when you zoned the property. The zoning of the
property determines what can go in there. Once you’ve done that if they meet the zoning
ordinance requirements you have no discretion.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Roger Knutson: To the use. And I should point out site plan approval is what we call quasi
judicial. Not legislative. The law, the ordinances are in place and this is, and the purpose of the
site plan review is to determine whether they comply with our ordinances.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Mayor Laufenburger: So essentially what we’re saying is, they’ve made application to do
something in an area that’s approved. They’re coming to us and we’re saying yes or no. It is
approved or it’s not approved.
Roger Knutson: Yes what you’re looking at is do they meet the requirements of your
ordinances. Because the zoning is already in place. They’re not asking for any zoning ordinance
changes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Questions specifically of council. Mr. Campion, go ahead.
Councilman Campion: Question for Ms. Aanenson. So have we approached the developer about
you know the potential reducing the number of stories in the apartment buildings and extending
it over the retail space?
Kate Aanenson: Yes and I think that’s a design or the tenants whether or not they want to have
that apartments over their, a commercial use. Some are willing to do it. Some aren’t so it was
approached. I think the other question too we were asked is, could it even go higher. Well
there’s a nexus between the number of units, number of bedrooms you have and how much
parking you have to have so there’s a finite number of how much square footage and how much
building can go on there and they have to meet those performance standards which would be the
parking so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Campion I think that might be a question of the applicant to ask them
why this building. Why this size.
Councilman Campion: Okay I was just curious first whether we had approached them.
Kate Aanenson: Yes we did.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: We’re still at staff questions?
Mayor Laufenburger: Yes please. We’re here on staff questions.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah go ahead. Do you have one?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I do have another one if that’s okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilmember Tjornhom go ahead.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: If we could go back to the northeast view Kate.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Kate Aanenson: Did I pass it? Oh there yeah.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No, I must have that wrong.
Kate Aanenson: Okay.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: It’s where it’s.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right next to the Frontier Building right?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Where it’s kind of hooked up yeah, the Dinner Theater.
Kate Aanenson: This one.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: There you go.
Kate Aanenson: Yean northeast.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Sorry it was just a different slide of that view I guess. You know I
was sitting at the KleinBank yard watching the parade and I had a good view of that whole
building and that whole area and I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around how the
apartment building and the Frontier Building are going to marry where it looks like it’s not just a
hunk of the Frontier Building was removed and this big building was set in. So can you help me
with that a little bit or I mean did you try to work with it to make it look like it was meant to be
or it always was?
Kate Aanenson: Yep, we walked twice all the property with the applicant. I believe it was a
pretty cold day both times. Walked around. Looked at the surrounding architecture and how to
transition between the two. And there’s a nice space in there that they are working and talking to
the Dinner Theater to try to soften some of that. That transition or the use of the space back
there so that’s still an ongoing but the Dinner Theater is a frontier looking building and we
haven’t.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No and absolutely and it’s a part of our history.
Kate Aanenson: It is. And we worked hard to keep them here.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: We’re losing the Klingelhutz farm and so now I hate to think that
we’re going to lose that feel.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah. But I don’t think that the frontier type apartments is kind of what yeah
so it’s that transition between the two but I think because it’s attached to the larger building of
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
the Dinner Theater and their presence and I think that that helps because you’re just looking at
one little snapshot. If you look at the bigger part of the entrance to the Dinner Theater I think
that helps that whole façade.
Mayor Laufenburger: How long does it take for a building to look like that? About 50 years
right?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: You know I’m right Mayor.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, any other questions of staff at this time? Councilmember Ryan.
Councilwoman Ryan: I do. I have a few.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yep, go ahead.
Councilwoman Ryan: Some of the nuts and bolts I guess. So starting with parking. I know it’s
a challenging parking lot and you explained the shared access but now we’re adding the two
buildings and depending on the location we’re asking or the variance request is between 1 and 4
feet narrower than what’s, what our city code is and so if you could just explain and maybe this
is for the developer as well but how is this feasible for an apartment, a Dinner Theater, a grocer,
and a hotel and I think it was brought up at one of the meetings what happens in snow events. I
know the carts don’t have to necessarily be returned so now you have carts obstructing some of
the path ways so if we could just have clarification on that please.
Kate Aanenson: Sure. So actually these lane widths are actually wider than is required so could
it be restriped to make it work? I think the complexity is when you get over here and we start
changing that because of the surrounding, how this pattern then goes to the south that we felt it
made sense to just keep that the way it is because that’s how it works as it goes across over to the
Country Inn and Suites so it’s really just a matter of, like this is wider than the 26 foot
requirement. This lane width here so could it be restriped to accommodate that? Potentially.
Councilwoman Ryan: But then why are they asking for a variance?
Kate Aanenson: Because it ties into the other two surrounding properties that share this access
way. It’s the same thing as when people said can you move it to the street. Well the Country Inn
and Suites also benefits from the cross access that you know when they have, that they can use it
when it’s off peak. Maybe at night when they’ve got a bigger event there so.
Mayor Laufenburger: I’m confused Ms. Aanenson. What is the variance that is part of this
project? What’s the variance?
Kate Aanenson: It’s the lane widths. It’s the widths.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Mayor Laufenburger: The width of what?
Kate Aanenson: The parking stall and these parking stalls.
Mayor Laufenburger: I thought the variance was the road between.
Kate Aanenson: And that too. It’s existing and both of those are existing conditions.
Mayor Laufenburger: They’re existing. They’re legally non-conforming.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And in order for that, those spaces to be continue to be legally non-
conforming a variance is required.
Kate Aanenson: Correct, that’s how we saw it. Just to make sure there was no cloud over it.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well let me ask the question that some people are thinking. Can we
approve this without a variance?
Kate Aanenson: Well the parking lot, I’ll let the City Attorney address that. Their parking drive
is how it’s being used today.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well I think Mr. Knutson would say we can approve this without the
variance simply because we can do that. The question is whether or not the developer can
develop without that variance in the street.
Councilman Campion: We’re seeing more traffic use that lane then right?
Mayor Laufenburger: I don’t know. That may be an assumption. Do Mr. Knutson can we
approve this project without granting the variance?
Roger Knutson: You can grant site plan approval without a variance but then they would, but
then the question and I don’t know the answer to is they couldn’t do anything to make the widths
in the street, they couldn’t change them at all. They couldn’t enlarge the non-conformity. I
don’t know that there would be enlarging the non-conformity. They couldn’t enlarge or change
the non-conformity.
Mayor Laufenburger: Ms. Aanenson my understanding is that I’m talking about the road
between the retail, the apartment and the Country Inn and Suites. Let’s just call that.
Kate Aanenson: It’s this road right here.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah, let’s just call that. Okay. So today that road is narrower than what
our ordinances allow, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And it’s narrower than what our ordinances allow because the
street was in place before we put ordinances that widen the requirement.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. And they’re not making it any more narrow.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right so it’s legally, it’s legally non-conforming.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: It doesn’t comply with our ordinance but it’s okay because it was there
before we kind of, a term I would use is grandfather right?
Kate Aanenson: That’s the staff’s interpretation in granting, or supporting the variance correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so my question is can the developer build this development keeping
the road exactly the width that it is, legally non-conforming and still build their project the way
they want to?
Kate Aanenson: Keeping it the way it is today? Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Keeping the width that it is today.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Does it require a variance of our ordinances in order to accomplish
that?
Kate Aanenson: I’ll let the City Attorney address that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Knutson.
Roger Knutson: If they’re not going to increase the non-conformity, they’re going to leave it the
way it is, not narrow something, then they don’t need a variance.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And Ms. Aanenson do they need to narrow this street in order to
build their project?
Kate Aanenson: I’ll let the developer speak to that.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay we’ll let the developer ask that question, okay. Good. I’m sorry I
took that from you Ms. Ryan but I, that was a question that I had. Okay you had other questions
of staff.
Councilwoman Ryan: Well we’re going to come back to that though.
Mayor Laufenburger: I think we are, yeah.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay. And then, and I don’t, we haven’t talked about at all any, the
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impact of the traffic to 78 and Market and I know that in the packet it’s, the study that’s
referenced is the trip generation manual which was based on the specialty retail calculation. So
my question is you know how is that sufficient for this development and was the actual traffic
study performed?
Kate Aanenson: Sure I’ll let the City Engineer answer that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Oehme, good evening.
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor. Good evening City Council members. The City did complete
a traffic study last year as well on Market Boulevard specifically. Not in conjunction with this
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development but an overall global traffic look at specifically Market Boulevard, 79 Street, 78
Street so with that study we did include a, I think it was a 20,000 square foot retail business and
then it was a 120 unit apartment complex as well in that study and we looked at the access points
on Market Street and all the other side streets along Market Boulevard as well so that study, what
that looked at was you know the existing accidents that were out there. The trips. ADT’s that
are out there and the future growth in the area. We do assume some growth in the downtown
besides the apartments and the retail business. We did include a restaurant that just opened up on
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79 Street in that study as well so we did look at globally a traffic study that incorporated some
of the aspects of what we’re talking about here with this development tonight and that study did
indicate that Market Boulevard in the future will need some improvements and we are working
with, on looking at making those improvements along Market Boulevard in the next 5 years and
we feel confident that the intersections that we looked at will function at an acceptable level of
service in the future when those improvements are made as well so we anticipate that this
development would take several years to build out and we are in the planning stages for making
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improvements to Market Boulevard. Along with signal improvements along 79. 78 Street as
well too. There was a study that was completed just this year that the council reviewed as well
so. So we did look at the traffic.
Councilwoman Ryan: And I don’t remember, I see that report anywhere as it specifically relates
to this development. I know there was a study done for Chick-fil-A and the impact to that
intersection. Whether you’re spilling out onto Market but I don’t recall anything as it relates to
this. The only thing that I see in the packet where it says the current use of the site is classified
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
as specialty retail and the Institute of Transportation Engineer’s Trip Generation Manual and it
says using the trip generation information in the manual staff calculated the following. So I see
that but I don’t see any independent traffic study and it concerns me because you know we’re
putting in an apartment building as well as proposed grocer or some sort of retail and that is
going to have daily trip generations and nowhere do I have any information that as it directly
relates to this project so if I missed it could you point me in the direction of it. Other than this,
the trip generation manual for strip malls.
Paul Oehme: Yeah. So the trip generation that we worked with the developer on starting on
those and the impacts that or the additional traffic that was, is generated by this development is
in your packet and based upon those numbers, looking at the previous studies that have been
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done staff felt confident that the Market Boulevard, 78 Street corridors can handle the
additional traffic generated by this development.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay, well I won’t keep going. I think I have my answer there. The next
question that I have, and Mr. Oehme I think this is you. It says engineering is going to address
side by side driveway access. Could you speak to that please?
Mayor Laufenburger: You want to reference the page Ms. Ryan.
Councilwoman Ryan: Oh.
Paul Oehme: Oh yeah, I think I know what you mean. Yep.
Councilwoman Ryan: Let’s see here, it’s on page 15. It’s number 2 under engineering. It says
the developer shall consult with city staff to determine if modifications can be made to the
western entrance off of Market Street to eliminate the current side by side driveway access.
Paul Oehme: So if you look at the plan that’s up on the screen today, there’s parking stalls
currently at this location here and the main access point for this development is shown here just
to the east. There is an access from this island here to the curb line on Market right here so we’re
concerned with conflicts at this intersection since there can be right in’s and right out’s here as
well as right here so what staff is looking at is can we close off this parking area here and
combine it with this island here. Maybe losing a couple stalls right here so we channel the traffic
to this access point and one access point on Market Boulevard here, including a stop sign.
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s primarily cinema traffic is that correct?
Paul Oehme: Yeah correct. But I mean there’s going to be potentially some conflicts there we
feel and there has been and we’ve had some complaints over the years on that intersection so we
just wanted to see if we can clean up that intersection a little bit better than it is today.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Councilwoman Ryan: And so with truck access coming in potentially that direction, and then
with okay then coming up the alley way and the loading docks, then how, what’s the, again this
all comes down to kind of understanding the parking lot and the traffic. Then how are these
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vehicles going to leave, safely leave in front of the retail as well as the residential onto 78
Street?
Paul Oehme: So staff did look at and requested the developer put together truck movement
patterns through the development. How that would work orientating and looking at you know
are the lanes wide enough. Are they going to impact into the stalls and I think one of the plan
sets, I don’t have it in front of me. It’s in the packet. There’s a plan set that kind of shows, I
don’t think we have an exhibit on it. Is it? Okay. No there’s actually a truck movement, turning
movement sheet. It’s one of the plan sheets in your packet.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah it’s page 34 of 78 in your packet.
Paul Oehme: Okay, thank you. There it is, okay. So that shows you or orientates you a little bit
on how potentially the trucks will come into the site. Back up to the loading dock and then exit
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the site off of 78 Street.
Councilwoman Ryan: Right but does this have the improvements that you’ve asked of the
developer? Or is this is just the anticipated truck movements but have you received yet the
updated, what you’ve requested of the developer to have the, I don’t know if it’s.
Paul Oehme: We’re anticipating that to come through final design.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council members. The truck movement as shown on Exhibit C2.13, it
still works even with the access point open. It’s not ideal. It still needs to be closed is what
staff’s recommendation is. As you can see on Market Street the truck turns and goes north
through the alley. What Paul is suggesting to the developer is that they close that access point
and make the main access point where the truck is moving so that would be, the island would be
extended. The curb extended over to the Market Street curb.
Mayor Laufenburger: Essentially that would prevent cars from exiting between the island and
that, between the two islands.
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
Paul Oehme: Correct.
Councilwoman Ryan: And then the truck movement then is anticipated to go out past the
residential, the entrance or one of the entrances of the residential in front of the retail you know
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Seedlings and that whole, and Brindisi. That main entrance and exit over there. That’s where
these trucks or delivery trucks are going to come in and out of?
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Paul Oehme: They would access out of the site off of 78 Street, correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s one option.
Todd Gerhardt: This just shows, that’s one option. That it can make that turn with that, with the
island in front of Axle’s and the crossing there. What this is showing that a semi-trailer can go
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by Seedlings and make the maneuver out and go west onto West 78 Street.
Mayor Laufenburger: Just to, I would ask those of the chambers just keep your conversations
down please so that we can hear one another up here. Thank you very much. Ms. Ryan you had
other questions?
Councilwoman Ryan: I do but I think they’ll be a combination for the developer as well as staff
so I’ll wait please.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, any other questions for staff at this time? Is that it? Okay. Well
at this time I would like to invite the applicant to come forward, if the applicant is present. State
your name and address for the record.
Rick McKelvey: Good evening Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Rick McKelvey with
United Properties at 651 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Mayor Laufenburger: We have office space available in Chanhassen.
Rick McKelvey: I took note of that on the previous applicant, thank you. I think I wrote down
all of your questions but I may have missed some. I have no doubt you won’t let me forget them
before we’re done here.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. McKelvey are you here alone tonight?
Rick McKelvey: No I’m here with Jonathan Adam from Silverstone Realty, our broker on the
project. Mike Mann from HLB Architects, our lead architect and Ryan Anderson from ISG
Group, our civil engineer so there are, there is significant amount of expertise here should I not
be able to answer any of your questions.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Rick McKelvey: I’ll just have a few brief remarks then I’ll try to touch on the questions. I
personally have worked on this property, United Properties has worked on this property for
nearly 2 years. I’ve created several market studies myself. We’ve commissioned two
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
independent third party market study analysis and I have no doubt, we have no doubt after that
effort that there’s a strong demand, a pent up demand in front for new high quality housing
product in Chanhassen. Downtown Chanhassen specifically. We also believe there’s demand
for a new high quality and valued priced grocery offering in Chanhassen. When I say a luxury or
when I say a high quality housing option I do not mean luxury. This is not top of the line
housing but it’s very, very nice housing options. Granite counter tops, pendant lights, fans in the
bedrooms, vinyl planked wood floors, stainless steel appliances, just to give you a feel for the
interior of a unit but our building also has a lot of great amenities. Kate mentioned the
community rooms. One up on the roof level with an outdoor terrace and one down at grade level
also with an outdoor terrace. We have a movie theater. A large tenant storage area. Fitness
room and we’re also finding a location for a golf simulator so it’s going to be a really exciting
place to live and again we believe there’s a lot of demand there. From an architecture
perspective I have to give a lot of credit to LHB Architects. We started this process, many of
you saw an early rendering which really was just meant to be a massing diagram and it kind of
gravitated out into the public as what we were proposing. It was not but if we use that as a
starting point we’ve really come a long way with the design understanding the different
architectural influences in the area. We of course looked very closely, I stood in the parking lot
and looked with Kate and staff and looked at the surrounding area. The Frontier Building,
Axle’s, the hotel, and we decided that it was actually at the advice of our architect that we look
beyond the immediate surroundings and look at what we think is best in Chanhassen architecture
and that’s the new library. The historic theater on the east side of downtown and actually the
metro, or Southwest Metro Transit Station. It’s not Metro, it’s just Southwest Transit Station is
the parking structure but it’s a very nice one. Has a lot of nice architectural features so we tried
to take elements of what we thought was great architecture in Chanhassen and blend that in to
articulate the building to reduce the massing. I know there’s concerns about the height. The six
story height but we think with the exterior materials, the way we’ve broken up the façade and
setting the six story element to the rear of the building. Keeping the lower portion of the
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building along West 78 and again quite a distance back from the street front, it certainly doesn’t
feel or read aesthetically like a 6 story building in our opinion. With that I will try to address a
few of the comments. I just made some notes here. Traffic I think was one of Councilmember
Ryan’s questions. Multi-family housing is generally a low traffic generator. Is one, sometimes 2
cars per unit. They leave for work. They leave in the evening. They may stay at home. They’re
not a, it’s not a Life Time Fitness or a use that has these big masses of crowds coming in at a
given time. It’s a very steady flow of traffic. A grocer of course has more peaks and valleys
than a multi-family apartment building but in pure perspective of a multi-tenant retail building
and I’d like you to visualize a fully occupied one and not one that’s largely vacant, will drive
much more traffic than a multi-family apartment and a small grocer. Snow removal was a
question. That’s something we deal with. United Properties has over 6 million square feet of
property in Minnesota and upper Midwest. Snow removal just comes with the territory. We’ll
find a place to squirrel it away so to speak. If we can’t we have to bring in dump trucks and a
Bobcat to load it out and we’ll do that in morning hours and when everyone else is sleeping.
Myself included I hope but that’s when snow is removed from our community. The drive lane
width as staff mentioned, that’s an existing drive lane width today. We’d like to just work with
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
that existing. Not make it narrower. Not make it wider. We’re essentially working with the
existing footprint of the building as it is today because of all the easements that surround the
property. When one first looks at this property and sees a 4 acre site in downtown Chanhassen
your mind really starts, starts going. I know mine did with all the opportunities but once we
peeled back the onion so to speak on all of the easements and restrictions on what can actually be
done here it’s literally that existing building footprint that we have to work with so maintaining
that existing drive lane is very important to the project.
Mayor Laufenburger: So just to clarify Mr. McKelvey. You do not require that alleyway as it’s
been referenced, you do not require that to be narrower. You can work with it exactly the same
size it is right now, is that correct?
Rick McKelvey: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Rick McKelvey: The building height was raised as an issue. Building height is as much about
density and the constraints on the footprint that we have in commercial and really any type of
development. As you build you reach different types of construction thresholds. Whether it’s
wood framed. Certain fire ratings. You get into concrete high rise construction so our objective
to make this project financially feasible, and we’ve been very transparent with the City I believe
throughout on our costs and our projected rents in this market. Our objective is to drive the cost
per square foot down and the best way to do that is to build the most you can without broaching
that next construction type threshold if you will. We did hold back on bringing that 6 story out
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towards West 78, again to try to address the lower building height. Connection to the Frontier
Building. There is Councilmember Tjornhom, I’m sorry.
Mayor Laufenburger: Tjornhom.
Rick McKelvey: Tjornhom, apologies.
Mayor Laufenburger: Before you speak to that. So Mr. Campion your question related to why
this size. Did he answer?
Councilman Campion: Well he didn’t specifically. Did you explore building out over the
grocer?
Rick McKelvey: Oh yes I’m sorry. We did. Building over another use adds a lot of
complications, as you can imagine but this goes back, a lot of my answer is going to go back to
our limitations on our building footprint. We have approximately almost exactly 134 parking
stalls available in that existing building footprint that we have to work with so we have 134
apartment units that we can construct to keep the one to one covered parking so that was our
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
most efficient way to do that and not add the additional complication over of an apartment
building over a retail use.
Councilman Campion: I guess I was thinking more if the 134 was the same number and just
spread over less floors rather than.
Rick McKelvey: Well we elected not to do that to avoid the complication of that construction
type.
Councilman Campion: Okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: Can you speak to this Rick. How many properties, how many
apartments? You said you have 6 million square feet of parking.
Rick McKelvey: No, of commercial property.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, do you have experience with other apartments like this?
Rick McKelvey: We do. We have apartments in Duluth. We have apartments in Bloomington,
yes. Yes we do Mayor.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Continue.
Rick McKelvey: The last note I made.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Just for everybody here in the room could you talk about those complications of
going over top of existing retail space just so everybody understands that housing and retail
sometimes do not mix well together. Can you explain?
Rick McKelvey: I absolutely can and I would add that they never mix well together but
sometimes we find ways to do it when we absolutely have to. Retailer, in this case a grocery
store that we’re proposing has chiller systems. There’s obviously a lot of rooftop equipment and
exhaust so all of that has to go up through shafts. Chillers have to be mounted on the top of the
apartment building and piped down increasing the size and length of course of piping. There’s
maintenance complications as you can imagine in a shared property like this where there are
more than one tenant gaining access to the apartment roof to replace filters on a grocery store.
Mechanical, piece of mechanical equipment. It just, it adds a significant level of complexity to a
project that in this instance we didn’t think was the right thing to do.
Todd Gerhardt: How about noise and smell next to the loading dock area and.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Rick McKelvey: Well that loading dock area is as far away from the residents as it can be on our
site plan. I think we’re next to the restaurant. The hotel restaurant there. That loading dock will
be of course cleaned and maintained daily, if not hourly as needed so we don’t anticipate any.
Todd Gerhardt: No I meant if you built the apartments over top of Aldi’s.
Rick McKelvey: If we built the apartments over top of Aldi’s?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Rick McKelvey: Well we wouldn’t have smells per se because we would have to follow design
guidelines to get those smells up and out through the highest roof that we have so we wouldn’t
exhaust on the Aldi roof to go in the apartment windows. I’m not sure what, if I’m answering
your question properly Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Just the semi’s, the loading and unloading of the hours of the day when they
come in and the people that would live on that side of the building.
Rick McKelvey: Well yeah certainly if apartments were over that loading area it would, the
additional noise at that location. Our drivers are generally very sensitive to that. They may
arrive and park quietly if they arrive before their scheduled delivery but they’ll be backing in
during normal working and non-sleeping hours.
Mayor Laufenburger: Does your question relate to what he said so far? Okay, please do.
Councilman Campion: Related to that, I know I had seen it before. I think there’s an Aldi with
apartment buildings on top of it going up in Uptown, is that right?
Rick McKelvey: Yes.
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Councilman Campion: Off Lyndale and West 36 Street.
Rick McKelvey: I don’t know that that project has moved forward. I think they’re struggling
with that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is that a United Properties property?
Rick McKelvey: It is not.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Councilman Campion: Yeah I just saw some news articles saying it had gone forward.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Rick McKelvey: Yeah I don’t know that it has or hasn’t. It’s not impossible to do, I’m not
standing here telling you that you can’t do it.
Mayor Laufenburger: It just creates complications as you’ve identified.
Rick McKelvey: A lot of complications. A lot of additional costs. We like the design the way it
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is. That would bring a larger mass up to West 78 which, and some may be positive but we
think it’s a good design the way it is.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. McKelvey you were kind of going through questions that you had
written down. Did you come to the end of those questions?
Rick McKelvey: I had.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, go ahead.
Rick McKelvey: I had one left and that’s the connection between our proposed building and the
Frontier building from that northeast view which doesn’t show approximate 30 foot distance
between the edge of that thatched roof and our building there. What we are proposing to do and
we’re working with the Dinner Theater on this is heavily landscaping that 30 foot distance
between our residential entrance and the edge of their building. You can imagine I’m sure that
we weren’t excited about putting an aged deteriorated thatched roof on our new building but we
did try to identify materials that complimented the gray and brown tones but there will certainly
be a new and an old look here if you compare the two buildings in that manner.
Mayor Laufenburger: Young or mature.
Rick McKelvey: If you try to buffer the two.
Mayor Laufenburger: Young look and a mature look.
Rick McKelvey: That’s a good way to put it.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright. Any other questions you wanted to address?
Rick McKelvey: No, that’s the end of my notes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright there may be some here from the council so let’s.
Rick McKelvey: Happy to answer.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. McDonald you have any questions of the applicant?
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Councilman McDonald: Not right now.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Ms. Tjornhom do you have any questions of the applicant?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No.
Mayor Laufenburger: Ms. Ryan?
Councilwoman Ryan: I do.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Councilwoman Ryan: Alright. Just to go back to the, I found the page where I had read about
the width and I know Mayor you’re trying to get some clarification on that as well. It’s on page
11 and it’s right underneath.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is it 11 of 78 in the packet?
Councilwoman Ryan: Yes. Yes 11 of 78.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright.
Councilwoman Ryan: And it’s under the daily traffic trips but it says that the applicant has
indicated that the parking area on the north side of the building would primarily service the retail
portion. Due to the existing geometrics of this area the drive aisle is 24 feet which is 2 feet
narrower than the minimum requirement per city code. And then it says similarly the existing
and proposed pavement width on the west side of the building is between 22 and 25 feet wide
which is 1 to 4 feet narrower than the minimum required by code. So I just, can you just explain
why then if it isn’t needed then why are you asking for a variance.
Rick McKelvey: To follow city protocol is our understanding is to make it as Kate words were
so there’s no cloud above it. I don’t know that a variance is needed. I’m not the right person for
that but we’re trying to work with the existing layout and dimensions of the property.
Kate Aanenson: Right so the complexity comes in because of the shared parking agreement here
so when you look at this line that will be parking here, and then this line continues through
Country Suites. So then you’re offsetting everything so because there are cross access
agreements in place we felt it made sense to give the variance and leave the existing conditions.
Councilwoman Ryan: And it doesn’t, you don’t anticipate any challenges with traffic
movement, delivery trucks, etcetera?
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Kate Aanenson: We have a lot of the older part of the city that was built under a different
standard.
Councilwoman Ryan: Pardon me?
Kate Aanenson: There’s a lot of the older part of the city that was built under a different parking
stalls.
Councilwoman Ryan: Granted understand but now we have a new development with significant
traffic. Wouldn’t this be the appropriate time to make those changes?
Kate Aanenson: The lane widths are fine. It’s the depth of the parking stalls. Could they
accommodate it? Sure. I don’t think they’re going to lose that many parking stalls so.
Councilwoman Ryan: So if they lose parking stalls then are they under requirement of how
many stalls they have?
Kate Aanenson: I don’t believe so.
Councilwoman Ryan: You know I’m not trying to split hairs here. I’m just trying to understand
if when the recommendation is to grant a variance and I’m having a hard time understanding
what that variance is for.
Kate Aanenson: Sure. Again I’m trying to explain that because the Country Inn and Suites also
has, so every time, any time that they negotiate or redo that parking lot it impacts both other
parties on either side.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So on the back side you know the one place that we’re trying to fix as the City
Engineer indicated where there’s dual access out so you know these parking stalls, so by fixing
what they have control over it also impacts the other parcels so.
Councilwoman Ryan: And the other.
Kate Aanenson: So I guess I’m saying if you look at the percentage of what it would impact to
us it’s a pretty minor, and maybe their engineer can address that question but it’s a pretty minor
impact as far as, would it increase traffic?
Councilwoman Ryan: Not increase traffic. The impact to safety or snow removal or you know
we look at different parking lots and some of the challenges that we’ve had in various parking
lots with newer developments. Whether it’s parking stalls or access, I just want to make sure
that we’re doing our due diligence and making sure that this is a right fit for this development.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Rick McKelvey: Well and I’ll add a couple other thoughts. Not saying it’s wrong. It’s just fine
with Chanhassen’s requirements for drive lane widths and parking stalls as much wider than
most cities we work in, especially in urban, you know densely populated areas such as this site
plan. Chanhassen code aside works very well. It matches most of our properties. Snow removal
won’t be an issue. As was mentioned by staff we’ve done truck movement plans that in my
experience have utilized a pretty liberal or conservative approach to movement. In other words
they model a novice driver or me if I were to climb in a semi truck and try to pull out. I wouldn’t
recommend that but the point is a good driver can do much better than the models indicate and
the models work just fine.
Mayor Laufenburger: So Mr. McKelvey and Kate, whoever can answer it, the parking layout
today and the width of the alley today will service your needs, is that correct?
Rick McKelvey: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Do we need a variance in place in order to keep those the way they
are?
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor and council.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: The City Attorney and I have been having discussions here and what we have is
a non-conforming situation and.
Mayor Laufenburger: It’s legally non-conforming right now.
Todd Gerhardt: Legal non-conforming situation and what Kate is doing is documenting that
legal non-conforming situation by granting or suggesting a variance. You could go either way.
Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct. Do again.
Mayor Laufenburger: And that, granting that variance is using the words Mr. McKelvey used
and I think you did as well, removing any cloud…
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is that what you’re saying?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Okay. That helps me understand. Is that better for you
Councilmember?
Councilwoman Ryan: Yes.
Kate Aanenson: And to be clear the lanes in the back are being readdressed and realigned so
they’ll all meet standards. It’s those ones that are in the front there.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: Everything in the back is to current city code.
Mayor Laufenburger: Let me just restate this again. What you’re saying Mr. McKelvey is that
the layout of the structure outside, outside of your building footprint is perfectly acceptable for
you and Kate today it is legally non-conforming so it matches the requirements for the City
today?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Rick McKelvey: That’s correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Sorry for hijacking that.
Kate Aanenson: So just to be clear again that building line is staying the same on the western
side and the northerly side. It’s following that same building. They’re following the footprint of
the existing building there and the small building so that’s why I’ve got this drawing up there.
Following that same building line.
Mayor Laufenburger: Gotch ya.
Kate Aanenson: The back of the parking lot will be improved with additional landscaping and
that to meet the standards.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right, okay. You had some other questions? Go ahead. Keep going.
Councilwoman Ryan: I do. The financial situation of this project. I don’t know if you’re the
person who can address this. As you know at the council meeting, the last council meeting there
was a, it came before the council to offer a resolution of support for the LCDA grant for
$715,000 awarded by Met Council and some of the elements for that are storm water
management, a tank system, pedestrian/bike connections, renewable energy, solar PV green roof,
some of the architecture and engineering fees as it relates to renewable energy components.
There was also the $60,000 grant request and then the request for a TIF district. Certified TIF
district. What happens to this project if one or all of those things don’t go through?
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Rick McKelvey: Well I’ll take the largest one first which is the TIF district. We have as I stated
a few minutes ago, we’ve been very transparent with city staff on the cost of the project and
achievable market rates in Chanhassen and the market region as a whole. The project is
financially marginal which is why we requested the TIF subsidy and the City, and I don’t want to
turn this into an education on TIF. I’m sure everyone understands it just fine. Certainly we’ll
receive the majority of the tax increment as a result of helping this project get started. The grant
application is really an opportunity that we saw to make this project better for the City and for
our residents. That’s not to increase a financial return or even to make it, the project feasible.
Those transit oriented development grants are for projects exactly like this. To promote people
living on transit ways. Use public transit. We happen to have the Southwest Transit station right
there so it was a perfect candidate and our intent for those grant funds that were discussed last
week is to make the project better with sustainable features such as solar power, a green roof, so
it’s really to set a higher bar in Chanhassen as much as for the building on what a new property
should include.
Councilwoman Ryan: And so if that grant doesn’t come through or a portion of that grant comes
through, let me restate that. So if it doesn’t come through then those items aren’t, you won’t do
any of those?
Rick McKelvey: That’s correct.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay. If it is granted by Met Council what, what influence or impact
does Met Council have over this project? Are they involved in any way because of the,
providing the grant?
Rick McKelvey: Just certification that the improvements that we requested the grant funds for
are completed.
Councilwoman Ryan: So no strings attached by Met Council and what they’re requiring for
what the apartment building is or anything?
Rick McKelvey: No.
Councilwoman Ryan: It’s just specific.
Mayor Laufenburger: It sounds Mr. McKelvey like similar to what we discussed with Emerson
earlier. They make the application for the grant and then it’s their obligation to demonstrate that
they do the things that they say they’re going to do. So you demonstrate that you’re going to do
the things, excuse me. That you have done the things that you’re going to do and then the grant
funds get…
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Rick McKelvey: That’s correct. The City is effectively a conduit for the grant funds to help us
improve the building.
Mayor Laufenburger: So you’re accountable for them?
Rick McKelvey: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: So to that extent they are accountable to the Met Council Councilmember
Ryan. So the Met Council, they have administrative people that watch over things like that.
They don’t you know freely give these funds out just because people look nice. They do it
because somebody says they’re going to do something right?
Rick McKelvey: Right and the grants will be, would be if we’re so fortunate, be distributed at
completion so they don’t write us a check. We have to implement what we’ve agreed to
implement and they verify it and then issue the payment to reimburse our costs.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay. I just wanted to clarify any involvement with Met Council in this
project if you are a recipient of the grant.
Rick McKelvey: Correct.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council I think just to clarify that a little bit more that you do receive
these funds. There’s no affordable or low income housing associated with that money. A certain
number of the units do not have to be affordable or low income.
Rick McKelvey: That’s correct. Their motivation is to see people living near transit. Public
transit and that’s what but you’re right Todd. We don’t have any additional obligations for rental
type or anything else. Just to deliver what we are going to utilize the grant for.
Todd Gerhardt: What they want to see is better storm water management, green roof technology,
solar technology to be implemented.
Rick McKelvey: Near public transit yes.
Todd Gerhardt: Near public transit and housing, multi-housing.
Rick McKelvey: Yes. Yeah this project fits perfectly in our opinion of what they’re seeking.
Todd Gerhardt: You said you did a market study too. Could you explain to the council and to
the public here what your market study said that the market could support for rents for your one
bedrooms? Do you have two bedrooms? Three bedrooms?
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Chanhassen City Council – July 10, 2017
Rick McKelvey: Yes I didn’t bring a copy. I don’t have it committed to memory but on average
it was $1.80 to $1.85 per square foot so if you boil that into unit sizes, a typical two bedroom
would be 900, 850 square feet so that’s about a $1,500 a month rental rate for a two bedroom. A
one bedroom may have a higher dollar per square foot because it’s a smaller package. Same
bathroom, same kitchen, same everything but in a smaller package so a one bedroom or an
efficiency, we don’t have any efficiencies. I take that back. A one bedroom would be closer to
$1,100 or $1,200 per square foot which is about $1.90 if you want to think about it on the
microscopic level of cost.
Todd Gerhardt: And that’s the highest you have is a two bedroom or two bedroom den type?
Rick McKelvey: Yeah well we do have just a few three bedrooms. I believe 6 of them but on a
cost per foot basis the larger the unit the lower the cost per foot but on average, you blend it all
together about $1.85 per foot per month.
Todd Gerhardt: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Are you prepared to identify what that means in monthly rent?
Rick McKelvey: Yes. Well 1,000 square foot apartment which would be a two bedroom plus
den for example would be $1,850.
Mayor Laufenburger: $1,850.
Rick McKelvey: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Rick McKelvey: So they’re very nice apartments. I again stop short of calling them luxury
which we get into $2,500-$3,000 a month but they’re very high quality units.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay let me go back to Councilmember Ryan. Did you have other
questions?
Councilwoman Ryan: I don’t. Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Anybody else? Okay I do have some. Is the entrance to Aldi’s
separate from the entrance to the apartments?
Rick McKelvey: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: So if somebody is in the apartments they go outside just for a nice little
casual 10 step walk and go over to Aldi’s right?
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Rick McKelvey: Correct.
Todd Gerhardt: So Mayor on this picture the entrance to Aldi’s would be underneath the Aldi’s
sign.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yep.
Todd Gerhardt: And then the people standing over to the left would be the entrance to the
apartment.
Rick McKelvey: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. You may have answered this but I’m going to ask it anyway. Why
these apartments? Why not affordable housing, Section 8 or subsidized housing?
Rick McKelvey: Well first and foremost is not what United Properties does. Section 8 or
affordable housing is basically a small industry in and of itself. Much like being a hotel operator
or a movie theater operator. You have to have dedicated staff that live and breathe Section 8 low
income housing and we do not have that staff. We’re not set up for that type of operation. And
that’s nothing, we’ve never done a project of that type.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay so you’re just simply saying that’s something you choose not to do.
Rick McKelvey: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Why a grocery store? I know it’s an approved usage but why a
grocery store when other types of retail are available?
Rick McKelvey: In my opinion there are no other retail available that has the credit worthiness
to support new construction. We scoured the market intensely, as I mentioned for nearly 2 years.
We’ve had several different plans and the one tenant that raised their hand and said we
understand the market. We think there’s a place for us here is Aldi. Like it or not that’s who
believes they can make a go of it here in Chanhassen.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. If there were representatives from Aldi here I would ask a
question. I don’t know if you’re prepared to answer this. Do you want to try?
Rick McKelvey: I’ll do my best.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. What is Aldi’s market and why do they see a match in
Chanhassen?
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Rick McKelvey: In my opinion Aldi’s market is a customer who wants a high quality product at
a value price. They don’t have the frills of a Byerly’s. There’s no bagger. You actually have to
bring your own bag. You have to put a coin in a cart to bring out to your vehicle. Bring the cart
back if you want your coin back so they are low overhead so they can provide a high quality
product at a low price.
Mayor Laufenburger: Do you know of anything that Aldi’s is doing to invest in their current
stores or invest in the US market?
Rick McKelvey: Well this is a perfect example of what they’re doing. They’re conforming
away from their prototype that they would love to do. They’d love to go if there were a blank
corn field in this location they’d love to put up a free standing prototype store but they are
conforming to our architectural guidance and the City’s guidance to blend in with the look we’re
trying to achieve so I think they’re doing a lot to change. To improve their image to appeal to a
broader customer than they do even today.
Mayor Laufenburger: Are you familiar with the other Aldi stores in and around?
Rick McKelvey: Several of them yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah, what would be stores that would be close? Or the closest.
Rick McKelvey: Well Eden Prairie naturally is close but from an exterior perspective none.
This will be a very unique design. Of course their interior layout they try to keep as consistent as
possible. I suspect there will be some upgraded interior finishes but there will be none. This will
be really a concept store to conform to our architectural desires for this location.
Mayor Laufenburger: Any idea how many employees they will employ Rick?
Rick McKelvey: I believe 50 employees. Some, most part time as you can imagine but I think a
dozen or so of those full time.
Mayor Laufenburger: And what will their hours be, do you have any idea Rick?
Rick McKelvey: I think 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and they close at 8:00
on Sunday.
Mayor Laufenburger: And what kind of long term agreement will you have with them?
Rick McKelvey: A 20 year lease.
Mayor Laufenburger: 20 year lease, okay. Alright. Thank you very much.
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Rick McKelvey: Thank you. Anything else?
Mayor Laufenburger: I guess that’s it for right now. We reserve the right to recall the witness
though okay. Alright. Any questions or comments council? Okay. I have 9:07. I had allowed
myself a consideration to conclude this in an hour and a half so by my watch I’ve got about 23
minutes so I’m going to ask if there is anybody that would like, from the public that would like
to speak. Before you stand up though I’m going to put some restrictions on this. I would remind
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you that the public hearing took place on June 20. We’ve heard and reviewed comments on a
number of issues. Parking, height of building, vision, loading dock, color of the building, why
grocery retail, traffic issues, you’ve heard us, you’ve heard it all. I will ask that if you choose to
speak that you address something new that the council hasn’t heard before. Also I’ll ask that if
you’ve addressed the Planning Commission then I would ask that you allow others to speak so as
I recall a Mr. Caney, Dr. Legrand, Ms. Boudreau-Landis, Ms. Smith, Mr. Mayer and Mr.
Gustafson, thank you for taking time to, taking the time and preparation to appear before the
Planning Commission. It’s as if you appeared before the council so you are, I’ll ask that if
there’s anybody else that would like to speak I’d like to limit it to 4 or 5 minutes each and then
conclude in about 20 minutes so. I would also ask that you address your comments to me. Make
them about the project itself. Not the individuals involved in the project and I also ask that your
remarks be respectful of this body in the chamber and you’re welcome to disagree with an
informed opinion and I ask that you not be disrespectful in your approach. Thank you. So is
there anybody other than those that I’ve mentioned that would like to speak at this time? Thank
you. State your name and address please.
Joanie Demeter: Yes, good evening Mr. Mayor and members of the council. Joanie Demeter,
8203 Marsh Drive. As a member of Chanhassen I was shocked that there was going to be
permanent housing placed so close to railroad tracks. Active railroad tracks. I hope in full
disclosure that future residents will know that trains do come through and they’re not necessarily
quiet. And I don’t know if that’s been brought up yet or not. The other thing that I would
consider.
Mayor Laufenburger: Actually it has been mentioned that there will be trains going through
there. I don’t think that’s a secret. Pretty much known by the community but your point is well
taken Ms. Demeter.
Joanie Demeter: It’s not the point that it’s a secret. It’s that future residents may not be aware of
it. They may not go around the block and notice that there are railroad tracks so I’m just saying
that would be an important point to be brought up to any future residents. The other thing I
would bring up is, I understand the importance of keeping it looking like it’s part of Chanhassen
but the red and green may be offensive to some people. Think of red and green. Christmas
colors so I would say you might want to think about more neutral colors in the building itself.
The cyan to me on the south side looks very harsh and I don’t know how that ties in to any of the
cityscape here in Chanhassen. The cyan color. Thank you very much.
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Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Ms. Demeter.
Andrew Hiscox: Hi.
Mayor Laufenburger: State your name and address for the record.
Andrew Hiscox: Andrew Hiscox, 7500 Erie Avenue.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Hiscox is that correct?
Andrew Hiscox: H-i-s-c-o-x.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Andrew Hiscox: Some of the staff knows me.
Mayor Laufenburger: Now we all do.
Andrew Hiscox: Now you all do.
Mayor Laufenburger: Nice to have you here.
Andrew Hiscox: I’m a little concerned about the traffic. I know this has been talked about but I
just want to ask a clarifying question. The street between the Dinner Theater, or sorry. The
Country Suites and the retail that goes down the hill into the theater.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right.
Andrew Hiscox: Is that going to be a two lane road and trucks are going to come up and down
that street?
Mayor Laufenburger: That road will be exactly the same size as it is right now. Two lane, three
lane, four lane. It will be exactly the same size. There will be no change.
Andrew Hiscox: Will trucks go through that is my question?
Mayor Laufenburger: I expect trucks will go through as they do now Mr. Hiscox.
Andrew Hiscox: Okay. Has anybody on the council ever seen two cars on that road at the same
time passing each other?
Mayor Laufenburger: Yes I have.
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Andrew Hiscox: I never have. I’ve lived here 20 years. Never seen it and if it did happen I’m
pretty sure in the winter you’d have people running into each other. Is that road going to be
improved at all? I mean because it’s kind of weird. It goes down and it lumps and it goes over
the.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well let me ask this question Mr. Oehme. Mr. Oehme is the road between
the proposed building and Country Inn and Suites, is that a public road or is that a private road?
Paul Oehme: That is a private road.
Mayor Laufenburger: And who’s responsibility will it be to maintain that road?
Paul Oehme: The private owners of the.
Mayor Laufenburger: Is it shared between the property owners of Country Inn and Suites and
the project?
Paul Oehme: I believe it’s a cross access agreement.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. So the maintenance of that road would be covered through a cross
access agreement, am I correct on that Mr. McKelvey?
Rick McKelvey: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Andrew Hiscox: I mean my concern is the design. It just, I don’t.
Mayor Laufenburger: The design of the road or the building?
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Andrew Hiscox: Yeah, I mean trying to go from anywhere on 78 Street to go back to the
theater, and I’ve done this many, many times. Taken my kids to movies and stuff. It’s just, I’ve
never seen two cars pass each other on that. It’s a very difficult thing to negotiate and if you’re
now going to add delivery trucks to the mix there, I think you’re going to have a huge, huge
problem and I think it would behoove the City and interested parties to take a look at that a little
more closely and say maybe this should be modified. And then on top of that if you’re going to
put a variance in, on that particular, I think that’s one of them is that correct? No variance?
Mayor Laufenburger: The road will remain exactly the same.
Andrew Hiscox: No I’m sorry, it’s non-conforming.
Mayor Laufenburger: Right. The road will remain the same size that it is right now.
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Andrew Hiscox: Right and what I’m saying is I don’t think that road is adequate for the kind of
traffic you’re describing at all.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, very well.
Andrew Hiscox: Okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: Anything else Mr. Hiscox?
Andrew Hiscox: There’s a bunch more but I think you covered a lot of it in the last meeting.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you very much Andrew.
Andrew Hiscox: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Anybody else? Please.
Joel Jenkins: Joel Jenkins, 7305 Frontier Trail. It’s the first I’ve really listened to this project
and I like the idea except I would raise a larger question. Trucks going up and down there?
What about the fire trucks? Can fire trucks get in there? Can fire trucks get out of there? Do we
have a large enough hook and ladder truck to go up 6 or 7 stories and be efficient? Or are we in
the future going to be asked to build a new fire hall? Get a new fire truck or two or three to
accommodate the fire issues that are going to be prevalent in 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10 story
buildings. That’s all I’ve got.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you very much. Ms. Aanenson can you, has this project been
reviewed by the Fire Chief?
Kate Aanenson: Yes it has and it can adequately serve. Just as a note of interest on our next
project that’s coming up later on the agenda we also have a 6 story apartment building going in
there too. Yes we have the equipment to manage that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Thank you. Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: ...can reach 100 feet.
Mayor Laufenburger: 100 feet so 23 feet to spare. Okay. Anybody else? By the way I
appreciate those of you who come forward. I know it can be intimidating. I try to make it as
friendly as possible. Mr. Johnson? Oh state your name please.
Brad Johnson: My name is Brad Johnson. I live at 8922 Essex Road. I’ve been a resident of
Chanhassen for about 35 years. A couple of us in this room have basically been trying to
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redevelop this particular building now for 30 years. Originally it was going to be a community
center. Remember that Todd?
Todd Gerhardt: Oh yeah.
Brad Johnson: We were going to put an ice rink in there. We had, we lost out to the, what did
we lose out to? Can you remember? The fire hall.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Brad Johnson: The fire guys won out over the community center. So we’ve been looking at
redoing this building for a long, long time. I’m not anymore involved in it. I am involved in
redeveloping downtowns. As you know we started out with almost nothing here and we’ve
added 500,000 square feet of retail. Every housing unit that’s within about a half a mile here I
was either directly or indirectly involved in developing. Heritage, my wife currently has
management of about 1,000 units within a few miles of here. We’re very familiar with the
business of both development of downtown and with the business of marketing new homes or
new apartments. What’s driving this is two things. One is your grocery market, if you read the
paper over the weekend you’ll see is a dramatic change in groceries and right now Aldi’s is
adding 900 new stores in the next 5 years. They’re in the nitch market. If you visit the Eden
Prairie store you’ll say well this is not an Aldi’s. It’s an upgrade of the one I was in 10 years
ago in Marinette, Wisconsin. They’ve been improving the store. It does not even smell like a
farmers market that they did when they first started out so you’ve got the advantage and as Rick
said it’s a good quality tenant. You have a 20 year lease. It will be there for a long time. It’s
going to generate a lot of traffic where there is a traffic void. We did Town Square. We’ve done
all the buildings that are in that area.
Mayor Laufenburger: Town Square is, that’s over by Chapel Hill correct? No Town Square.
Brad Johnson: No that’s Colonial Square.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Brad Johnson: We own Town Square.
Todd Gerhardt: Von Hansen.
Mayor Laufenburger: Oh Von Hansen.
Brad Johnson: Town Square was the first building here. Todd and I drove his truck through it.
Remember those days?
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
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Brad Johnson: It was successful as the rents have dragged for some period of time. We don’t
have a true anchor in downtown. The Dinner Theater brings a lot of traffic but we discovered
very early in life it brings no traffic that uses Chanhassen because it’s an adventure on it’s own.
Once you go in the Dinner Theater you’re in the Dinner Theater. You leave, other than the
hotels have done very well as you know. So I think you’re getting an advantage of one of the
greatest credits in the business right now. They also own Trader Joes and they obviously made a
decision that Aldi’s fits here. I think you’re going to be surprised about who shops there. Right
now people are shopping for experience and I guess Wednesday is a real experience at Aldi’s for
people that like to shop. Second thing is we’re doing in a lot of communities is doing downtown
housing where there wasn’t enough housing and I’m afraid I am now considered to be an older
person in Chanhassen and there really is no, right now our Heritage is packed and we need a lot
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more housing. The downtown areas, if you read in the paper again, 49 and a half France
Avenue, I think they’re adding 200 units of housing there to try to create traffic and a feeling on
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50 and France if you can believe that for consistency so housing in the downtown will help
people. I have read the thing and it says a lot of people are wandering around to buy groceries.
It brings people in to go to the restaurants. It’s a delightful place to have all this stuff. In Duluth,
which is 150 years old and we’re currently working on a downtown apartment building, about
the same as this. There hasn’t been one built there for 100 years. There is no building like this
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with an elevator west of 21 Street.
Mayor Laufenburger: Could I ask you to wrap up in about a minute?
Brad Johnson: Yeah, and the purpose of this discussion was simply is these are the things that
you have to do to the downtowns. We’re doing in Duluth too late. Very expensive so the more
density you can bring into downtown, especially in Chanhassen for people my age and the
millennials is wonderful. Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Johnson. Is there anybody else? State your name and
address.
Michelle Christopher: Hi I’m Michelle Christopher. I live at 7300 Laredo Drive. I have not
been here as long as Mr. Johnson. I’ve only lived, well my city has been Chanhassen for 3 years.
I lived 5 houses away from Chanhassen for 8 so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Close enough.
Michelle Christopher: Exactly.
Mayor Laufenburger: Taking advantage of all of the amenities in Chanhassen.
Michelle Christopher: I claimed it. Yeah I claimed it. And so when I saw this, this is something
that I’ve watched even growing up. I graduated from Eden Prairie High School and grew up
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there and so Chanhassen’s always been very close. I’m excited to see that we are looking at
opportunities to bring it up and make it current. I was surprised at the retail option. You guys
covered that so thank you so much. A lot of great questions. I really appreciate that and the
concerns that I had and my neighbors have expressed. My question about the retail option that
we selected, or that was selected I should say is if there is a break of lease. You know with the
amount of competition in the area, there’s grocers and etcetera, if there’s concerns or issues and
there’s a break of lease, what other retail options would there be? It sounds like there was a
limited ability or wanting to step forward so that would be my question is if, you know with the
competitive market out there for a grocer and a lease is broken what other options so it doesn’t
sit vacant.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Good question. Thank you Ms. Christopher. If breaking the lease,
that’s not a city issue. That’s an issue with the developer. The property owner but if this retailer
vacated they, whoever comes in would have to follow zoning for that area, is that correct Ms.
Aanenson.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. I would just add to that. I think going to the developer’s point,
we have changes in the downtown in Villages on the Pond where people move around and I
think some of the complexities, we’ve had restaurants change and when you try to do venting so
let’s say in 10 years they decided to vacate and two restaurants chose to go in there. It’s easier
for them to try to remodel when there’s not, I think Mr. McKelvey addressed this too, when they
put the proper ventilation and all that stuff in when you don’t have a building on top so it does
provide flexibility for change in use. I think we always have to think about change in use. It can
happen but right, to your point Mayor. It’d be a permitted use in the district. It would have to
meet the parking standards and everything else but.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, I think we have time for one or two others. Is there anybody else
that would like to speak? Please. State your name and address please.
Tom Kersten: Tom Kersten, 7402 Laredo Drive.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Kersten, good evening. You comments.
Tom Kersten: Thank you. I mostly just want to bring up a point that I think is echoing the
sentiment that I believe was Mr. Hiscox’s earlier today. I think I understand why there is the
interest in retaining the variance that is lawful.
Mayor Laufenburger: Retaining the width as it is today, is that what you’re referring to?
Tom Kersten: Yeah, yeah. I think I understand that, yes. On the north side I understand that
with the parking lot sharing with other businesses but I would like to see, I would love to see all
of it up to code as written today to bring it up to compliance. However in particular this road
inbetween the two structures or two businesses, given the traffic that’s going there. The amount
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of construction that will be taking place I would love to see the council consider at least retaining
that or making that a requirement. That that road be brought up to compliance. I can understand
why the parking lot on the north side, there’s a lot of stuff that would affect existing businesses
but this road inbetween I completely agree. It is extremely narrow and given that typically when
property owners are asked to bring their residential properties up to code when they do, you
know they work on their basement they have to add things to other areas of the house just to
become in compliance. I don’t see why we can’t ask the same for this sort of situation and
businesses so that’s all.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Kersten. Got time for one more. State your name and
address please.
Steve Stamy: Steve Stamy. People know me as Slammer in the community. That’s my
nickname.
Mayor Laufenburger: Steve Stamy?
Steve Stamy: Stamy. 491 Big Horn Drive.
Mayor Laufenburger: 491.
Steve Stamy: Yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: So do you want me to address you as Slamey?
Steve Stamy: Look if you mentioned my real name most people won’t know who I am. So it
just happened a long time ago and I can’t get rid of it. A couple things. Just two things. One, I’d
like to know who did the study to recommend that Aldi’s could survive in the environment in
Chanhassen when we have Target, Cub, Whole Foods and Byerly’s, and I understand.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Stamy? The people who did that study are Aldi’s. They made the
determination that they wanted to be in this city.
Steve Stamy: I’d just kind of like to see the information. I’m a numbers guy and I like to see
you know how they, what they came up with and how they did it.
Mayor Laufenburger: I think it would be very appropriate if you wouldn’t mind Mr. McKelvey.
Say that again? Oh it’s proprietary. Oh.
Steve Stamy: They’re a privately held company right?
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah. Thank you for correcting me Mr. Gerhardt. I would hate to get in
trouble for that.
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Steve Stamy: And then has there been an economic study, I’m sure there has been and I didn’t
see it or overlooked it, about what this means for the community of Chanhassen in terms of
economic benefits and things like that? I didn’t hear any of that tonight. The other thing I didn’t
hear was briefly discussed was the improvements for Market Boulevard and some of the
surrounding streets. What kind of budget are we looking at for that because obviously those
improvements will have to be made probably sooner than later based on the traffic this is going
to generate. Do you have any information on that?
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Any other comments or questions?
Steve Stamy: No, that’s it.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Stamy. Let’s see regarding the economic development for
the community. Mr. Gerhardt can you speak to what the current market value of the property is
and what’s expected to be based on your projections?
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah to create a tax increment financing district first you have to determine if a
piece of property is blighted or not and we did a study and the Frontier Building was considered
blighted so it qualified for a redevelopment tax increment financing district, and that’s a 25 year
district. So today it has a current market value of about $2,200,000 and it generates about
$30,000 a year in taxes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Total taxes or city taxes?
Todd Gerhardt: Total taxes. The City’s portion of that $30,000 is $6,000. And after the
development it’s going to have a value of at least $23,560,000. City’s portion of that is about
$427,000. No total. The City’s portion of it is about.
Mayor Laufenburger: 90?
Todd Gerhardt: We’re about 20 percent of the 400 or about $80,000 and they’re going to create
at least 50 jobs with Aldi’s so it creates jobs. It enhances the tax base. It gets rid of a dilapidated
building that probably had the cheapest taxes or cheapest rents in the area. We were able to keep
at least 80 percent of the tenants here in Chanhassen and so that was a goal of our’s. And the
increment generated to the developer is $1.3 million dollars and based on the $427,000 the net
after the State takes their portion, we contribute to fiscal disparities and to the school district, the
net number back is $300,000 so there’s $300,000 a year in increment and the developer is going
to get 5 ½ years of that increment and then after that we have in the plan to use $2.1 million
dollars of the taxes generated from this project to put towards the upgrade of Market Boulevard.
Market Boulevard upgrade is $3.4 million dollars so the rest would be either MSA dollars or
municipal state aid and/or assessments back to the benefiting properties along Market Boulevard.
Does that answer your question?
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Mayor Laufenburger: So Mr. Gerhardt I think what you’re saying is, I didn’t do all of those
calculations but the development of this, but for the presence of the tax increment financing, the
development of this will actually generate an increased property tax to the City.
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: And our plan is to use that to upgrade Market Boulevard and surrounding
roads, is that correct?
Todd Gerhardt: Yes. And also to help the housing development become market rate. If you
heard the developer, and we did an analysis but for the tax increment assistance they would not
be able to build that complex at a market rate level. So we used Ehlers and Associates to analyze
their numbers. Their revenue. Their expenditures and based on their return they needed $1.3
million dollars worth of assistance to see the return that somebody would make in an investment
in a building like that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, thank you Mr. Gerhardt. Thank you to all of the people who
spoke tonight and at the Planning Commission. I appreciate the manner in which you present
yourself in a respectful way and this is what we should, frankly we’re a little bit of an example
that could be followed elsewhere in the country.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor?
Mayor Laufenburger: Yes sir Mr. Gerhardt. You want me to get angry at you now or what?
Todd Gerhardt: No. No. Full disclosure here, transparency. There are copies of the tax
increment financial runs and the City Council is going to hold a public hearing on the tax
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increment district on July 24. Some of you may have said how come we didn’t create the tax
increment district along with this? We did not want to pre-judge to how the council may come
and vote on this project so it would look premature to create the TIF district before you did site
plan approval so that’s why it didn’t get done ahead of time. But I do have copies on that table
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over there. The schedule is there. It’s a lengthy schedule but the hearing is July 24 in this
council chambers at 7:00.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mark your calendars folks. Mr. Gerhardt over the last 50 years we’ve
been a city how many times have we used tax increment financing to spur and encourage
development?
Todd Gerhardt: Oh how many times?
Mayor Laufenburger: 3? 20?
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Todd Gerhardt: Every building that you see in downtown received tax increment financing. We
created affordable housing at the Gateway project. The West Park you saw earlier. The
apartment building to the south.
Mayor Laufenburger: On the south side of Lake Susan.
Todd Gerhardt: We created a TIF district there to create affordable housing. North Bay housing
project down by Lakeside and Bearpath. We created 27 units of affordable ownership housing
down in that area.
Mayor Laufenburger: So this is a reasonably common practice and in fact it’s governed by State
statute right?
Todd Gerhardt: That is correct. There is many.
Mayor Laufenburger: You can’t just say I want to do one here. There are guidelines that have to
follow.
Todd Gerhardt: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: And the rules have changed dramatically since Brad and I first started doing this
stuff.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well that was.
Todd Gerhardt: A long time ago.
Mayor Laufenburger: Was that in this Julien calendar Mr. Johnson or not?
Todd Gerhardt: We age well.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yes you do. Alright I’m going to once again thank you for the public
comment and I’m going to bring it back to the council for any comments or any motion, action.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilmember Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I don’t have a comment yet I do but Kate would you mind just
reviewing the process that’s going to be happening in the next 4 years when it comes to the
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vision for downtown? And what we’re moving towards or what we want to work together to
create.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah if I can just step back a minute. I think one of the questions that was,
people got up at the Planning Commission and said we don’t have a vision for downtown but we
have been working on it and the library is an outcrop of that. The parkway out front here with
the Veterans Monument. The Southwest Transit Park and Ride were all part of the downtown
vision. So now we’re continuing to update. We’re hoping to have that done in the next 3 to 4
months. Again that’s working with the property owners in the core of the downtown. Looking
at the demographics and kind of some data points and looking at ways to strengthen the
downtown. But I also want to add and this is also at the table we put out there the Urban Land
Institute. We brought them in in 2012 to talk about, this is a group that’s in the, a think tank that
work with cities. Gordon Hughes, former City Manager of Edina was championing it so we had
Eric Anderson, Vice President of Ryan Companies. Bill Beard from the Beard Group. Well
respected apartment builder and then Anthony Shirtler who was with Springsted Incorporated to
look at our city. What our strengths were and so this kind of how we moved towards these
apartments downtown because that’s one of the things they talked about is when you have the
apartments downtown those people are also spending money in our downtown. They’re
shopping. They’re using the movie theater. Going to our restaurants. That helps get some of the
other things that we want because we always try to explain to people when we don’t have density
there’s a nexus between the number of people in a population, a decision for another user to
come in so that study which we’re working on right now and we’ll be talking to the property
owners, we’re hoping to have wrapped up here in 4 or 5 months. And that’s just focusing on
further development of the downtown core.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: And it will be possible for the public to be involved in that?
Kate Aanenson: Absolutely, yes. Yes.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: You reference a study Ms. Aanenson. You know this is not widely known
amongst the citizens of Chanhassen but we have these people come in, Gordon Hughes came in
and they created a brief document navigating the new normal and the new normal includes, well
economic changes. Millennials, boomers, etcetera. They made some observations but this is one
of the observations that they made. Based on these observations Chanhassen may wish to pursue
the following ideas. Chanhassen, and I quote, Chanhassen enjoys the many benefits afforded by
an authentic downtown. The incorporation of higher density, mixed income housing and
potentially taller buildings in the downtown core may be a great approach for attracting new
younger residents and retaining existing residents, primarily boomers. How many are boomers?
Okay. Who are looking for a different style of housing in close proximity to the amenities
offered downtown. This is precisely what Mr. Johnson was speaking to. Density is required to
support activity in the downtown area. I want to speak to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater for a
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second. Yes it’s true that they bring in people by the buses and cars and then they go in and eat
and have a wonderful meal and a wonderful performance and they may leave but they remember
their experience in Chanhassen and they may come back for other reasons besides the Dinner
Theater. And as was pointed out they may stay at a hotel so make no mistake the Chanhassen
Dinner Theater is vital, absolutely vital and I applaud those people that had the great vision
several years ago to insure that the Chanhassen Dinner Theater did not leave Chanhassen and go
to the Mall of America so that was a major, major effort. And not too many people know about
it and if you want to know anything about that don’t ask me because I won’t tell you who they
were. They choose to remain anonymous. Did you want to make another comment or question
Ms. Tjornhom?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: No.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Any other comments, questions or go ahead. Councilmember
Ryan.
Councilwoman Ryan: Yes actually I have a question and then a few comments. A couple
people brought up about bringing the road into compliance. I think this is the opportunity to
discuss is that an option for the developer to make that alleyway, bring it up to code?
Rick McKelvey: Thank you Councilmember Ryan. We haven’t analyzed that fully. We
certainly can but our intent right now is to utilize the alleyway in it’s current condition.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay so if you say you can analyze it is that?
Rick McKelvey: We will take a closer look at it, yes we absolutely will.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay.
Rick McKelvey: But I’m requesting approval of it as is.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay so you want approval as is and then you’ll take a look at it and if
you decide to do it you will but.
Rick McKelvey: Correct.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. I don’t have any other questions,
thank you. So I just wanted to address that. A couple comments.
Mayor Laufenburger: Actually could I just pause you for a second? Are these comments related
to your views on either approving or disapproving? I tell you, you go ahead. Speak. Speak as
you choose. Speak as you choose.
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Councilwoman Ryan: Thank you Mayor. At the Planning Commission and again tonight the
comment about just this district and how it’s zoned, the actual quote was that it’s the most
permissive district in terms of development and how, and what can go in and height requirements
and whether it’s 77 feet tall or 40 feet tall and what’s going to go in and as Mr. Knutson pointed
out we don’t have the discretion to pick and choose. So all those points being true it also is what
causes me concern about this development is that this development is really at the epicenter, I
mean it’s our downtown. It’s the center of our city and I think that it’s important for us to be you
know really thoughtful and careful and intentional with what we choose to have go into this
piece of property or any other property in downtown. Later, or after this topic of conversation
we’re going to be talking about the Avienda proposal and when that came before us all the
discussion at council was and with staff was about how are we going to protect downtown? We
have to protect downtown and rightly so because downtown is you know the center of
Chanhassen and so if we’re so concerned with how the Avienda proposal affects downtown, I’m
equally as concerned about what this development is going to do to downtown. As we just
talked about we, a few months or a few meetings ago we approved a contract with a consultant to
take a look at this vision study for our downtown and actually in our meeting tonight in our work
session it was said that this consultant wants to provide a broader public view versus parcel by
parcel as developments come in and that was said tonight and we have you know the work
program that’s going to examine existing conditions. Talk about or prepare a market scan.
Review demographic economic trends. All the questions that I think are still out there so we
aren’t looking at you know just a parcel by parcel but we’re really looking at the big picture of
what the downtown area is going to look like. And so I just don’t want to piecemeal downtown
together. I want to make sure that this development or any development that comes into
downtown is a long term fit. Therefore I would like to make a motion and the motion I’d like to
make is that the City Council places a moratorium on redevelopment or development in the
downtown district until the vision study is complete and has been presented to the City Council.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay could you just restate your motion? Please, please, please. Could
you just restate your motion?
Councilwoman Ryan: Yes. I make the motion that the City Council places a moratorium on any
redevelopment in the downtown district until the vision study is complete and has been presented
to City Council.
Todd Gerhardt: I think her motion meant interim ordinance.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay just, so before I ask for a second. Mr. Knutson or Mr. Gerhardt any
comments on the motion? Mr. Knutson from a legal standpoint.
Roger Knutson: It’s going to be an interim ordinance and it has to be for a specific duration.
Todd Gerhardt: So not a moratorium.
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Roger Knutson: It’s an interim ordinance. You’re moving to adopt an interim ordinance and the
downtown area, do you have a definition of what that is?
Mayor Laufenburger: Redevelopment in the downtown business district is what I heard you say,
is that correct?
Councilwoman Ryan: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Do we have defined boundaries on the downtown business district Ms.
Aanenson?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, sure.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright. Is there a second?
Councilman Campion: Second.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Campion seconds that. Any discussion?
Councilman Campion: I guess I’m offering my second because I do see there are benefits to this
proposal. The apartments. The density downtown you know offers a lot of benefits for the other
businesses there. But it is hard to step back and look at exactly how this is going to affect
everything else when we haven’t completed that study and taken that broader look. And yeah
that’s my thought.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, anybody else? Did you want to say anything else Councilmember
Ryan? Okay, alright. I’m going to change this just a little bit so if the motion reads to put in
place an interim ordinance, which is a moratorium against, to prohibit any redevelopment in the
downtown business district until the vision study previously identified is complete and presented
to council.
Councilwoman Ryan moved, Councilman Campion seconded to adopt an Interim
Ordinance for any redevelopment in the downtown business district until the vision study
has been completed and presented to City Council. Councilwoman Ryan and Councilman
Campion voted in favor. Mayor Laufenburger, Councilwoman Tjornhom and Councilman
McDonald voted in opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 3.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay that motion denied. Is there any other motions this evening?
Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: We’re not going to do comments, just motion?
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Mayor Laufenburger: Well let’s begin with a motion and then we have plenty of time for
discussion.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. I’ll make a motion Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Laufenburger: Please.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I make a motion that the Chanhassen City Council approves the site
plan review for a 134 unit, six story apartment building and a one story 19,000 square foot retail
building with a variance for the existing drive aisle widths and a registered land survey creating 3
parcels out of 3, and adoption of Findings of Fact.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay we have a valid motion as brought forward. Is there a second?
Councilman McDonald: Second.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. McDonald. Now is there any discussion? Mr. McDonald,
yes sir.
Councilman McDonald: I suppose I should justify my position to everybody. I was one of those
persons involved in the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. That was when I first came on council.
Mayor Laufenburger: I tried to keep it a secret Jerry.
Councilman McDonald: There’s also the story of Burnsville and what was involved in that and
Burnsville had built a performing arts center. That was the first place the Dinner Theater was
going to and we had to do a lot of persuading at that point to try to keep them from moving.
Then came as Mr. Gerhardt said there was the state statute that got in play because the Mall of
America got involved and due to legislative support that was killed. That’s what kept the Dinner
Theater here but because we kept the Dinner Theater here the Scanlon’s decided you know
we’ve had enough of this business. It was running in the red. They weren’t really theater people
and they sold out to a group that has taken over the Dinner Theater and really turned it into quite
a success. The plan that they have shared with me and the vision they have is they do want to
rebuild the Dinner Theater. That will be done on this site. The problem is that costs money and
then you know they’re a private company so it’s going to take a while for them to get in a
position where they feel comfortable with going with that kind of investment. There’s also
another piece to the story that several years ago prior council, we included as a TIF district this
entire area and the purpose of that was to help the family as far as development and to sell the
property because at that point they were wanting to get out of the real estate business and
basically cash in on their investments. So they came to the council and at that point the TIF
district was the entire Dinner Theater complex because at that point it was all owned by the
Dinner Theater. It was shortly thereafter that as the new management group took over the
Dinner Theater and became profitable they did work out a plan to buy their portion of the Dinner
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Theater which they now own. That’s why you see this development the way it is and why it will
abut to the Dinner Theater but the long range plan is they do want to build a more modern, up to
date Dinner Theater that will fit into the area and it will become a gem within our area. We
could wait and we could wait but we have other developments and again this is important to
strengthen the downtown area. To bring people in here which again will bring restaurants. Will
bring other retail. The City has been trying for years to redevelop various portions of the West
th
78 Street but the problem that we always run into is density. There aren’t enough people to
really attract some of the businesses that we’ve been trying to attract so we’ve heard this before
numerous times. Well yeah Chanhassen is a great place but you just don’t have the foot traffic.
You don’t have this. You don’t have that. So this is a step to start to solve some of those
problems so it is part of a long range plan. It is part of a piece of the big puzzle. We don’t need
to wait for a study to tell us you need more people. We’ve known that for years. So that’s why
I’m in favor of this project. I think what it does it helps to strengthen the downtown area. It
solves a number of problems because with Avienda, if they build the way they want to that will
take away from the downtown area. That’s a market force we can’t do anything about unless we
pre-position things within the core downtown area to again bring businesses here so that’s why
I’m voting for this because I’ve run for many years on the fact that we have to strengthen
downtown. This does that. It helps to bring redevelopment. It will help to bring other people. It
will help to strengthen our city and make it a much more livable place. I guess one of the
questions that came up about the you know why don’t we just make the alleyway better. I’ll
defer to our attorney but I think I already know the answer. Again if they’re non-conforming and
legally non-conforming and don’t touch that alleyway we can’t make them widen it can we? It’s
a private road.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, members of the council that is absolutely correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Knutson.
Councilman McDonald: So there’s been a lot of, and I have to get this off my chest because a lot
of the emails I’ve gotten and a lot of the phone calls I’ve gotten people seem to think the City
can do whatever we want. We can just tell the developer we want this. We want to build it this
way. We can’t. This is private property and the problem is, is that there are private property
rights and one of the things that the owners of this property have done, they have met all the
ordinances. Statutes. Requirements. They have done everything within the law legally to
change the footprint of this property. Our hands are tied. As Mr. Knutson said there really isn’t
much we can do here and so that’s another reason why I’m voting for this because I believe it is
a good project. As Mr. Johnson said this site has been undevelopment for the past 20 years.
They have come up with ideas about what to do. What not to do and it always has stopped short
of going all the way through development. One of my emails blamed the City for kicking out all
the small businesses. The City didn’t kick them out. Their leases expired and the land owner
chose not to renew the leases. Fully within the landowner’s rights. We as a City worked with
the landowner, with all of the tenants and at that point we found places for all of those businesses
to relocate within the city of Chanhassen. We could have lost all of those businesses but we
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didn’t so we have been actively involved in this project for many, many years. City does
everything it can to help and support landowners within the city. As long as they meet our zoning
requirements and as long as they meet our rules and regulations they’ll get support when they
come to the City. So to sum it up that is why I’m voting for this because it is a legally
conforming request before the City and I really have no reason not to vote for it.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, thank you Mr. McDonald. Any other comments before I ask for
the vote?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilmember Tjornhom please.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Thank you. Thank you everybody for being here tonight. Thank you
for the emails, the comments, for caring. I’m going to look at this from a different perspective. I
think we’ve already heard from the attorney Councilman McDonald which I totally agree with
him but tonight’s a really significant night for this town and we’re all here together experiencing
it. Tonight we’re losing a historical part of town our pumpkin patch. Think of generations have
gone to get pumpkins with their children. I have and you know that’s now going to be turned
over, that land will be turned over into homes and families will be raised there instead of
pumpkins and that’s going to be significantly different than what we’re used to. I mean that’s
change. I’m going to feel bad driving by and not seeing those signs and knowing that the
memories that I have there. The land that once grew hay and corn is now going to be an
entertainment, shopping and living destination south of 5. That also is going to be a big change
for our community. What’s going to happen there? I don’t know but I do know that we will all
go there as a destination, whether it’s to shop. To eat. To just enjoy maybe if it’s approved. I
shouldn’t say that. That development and that’s a big significant change for our community and
this downtown is a big significant change for our community. If you would walk down the hall
there are black and white photos of this community when it first started and I didn’t count but
there’s probably 20 homes and a church and I was not here at the time but I’ve heard stories
about Pauly’s.
Mayor Laufenburger: I think Brad was here.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay Brad, help me Brad. Chanhassen has had it’s seasons. It had
it’s seasons of Pauly’s and small town and then all of a sudden it got a big box store Target and
other stores followed and that was a change for us and now we’re moving into another change
and change can be scary because we don’t know what that means. You know I’ve expressed that
I’m not sure if the two buildings fit together. That’s going to be a change for me. Something I
have to adjust to but I do know that we’re going to have new neighbors and new neighbors that
will be loving this community the way we do and I think that’s a good positive change and so
that’s why I’m supporting this tonight because like it or not we’re changing and you either have
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to get in front of it and support it or we’re going to be trying to figure out what to do next so
that’s why like I say I will be supporting this tonight.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Councilmember Tjornhom. Any other comments?
Councilman Campion: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: Mr. Campion go ahead.
Councilman Campion: Alright. So I believe that it’s not government’s role to specifically
decide which businesses are going to succeed or fail and as Councilman McDonald stated you
know if a proposed development falls within our zoning laws and ordinances we can’t stand in
their way but at the same time you know I don’t feel compelled to make special provisions you
know for approving variances. For submitting grant applications to the Met Council on their
behalf or enabling TIF districts you know for a specific development that aren’t in the best
interest, at least in my mind of the City or it’s residents before taking a comprehensive look at
reaffirming or modifying our vision for downtown. Now this redevelopment here is going to
have a great impact on other redevelopment efforts downtown in the future and I feel like you
could look at this property like Reading Railroad in the game of Monopoly. It’s very significant.
It’s in the heart and maybe this is the best use for the land. Maybe these are the best zoning you
know loose requirements that we can have on this district. But maybe it could be better. Maybe
there could be modifications that could make it fit in better to how the whole downtown might be
mapped out in the future. We’ve waited 20 years apparently to redevelop this site and I you
know am surprised that we couldn’t wait the 3 to 4 months or 5 months to complete that
visioning study that we’ve contracted a consultant to perform for us. So it’s for those reasons
that I’ll be voting against.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Anybody else? Councilmember Ryan.
Councilwoman Ryan: Thank you Mayor. I’ll be brief because I explained my concern. I think
most people welcome development in downtown. I mean we hear it all the time. Where is the
development. We need more people. We need some energy in downtown but I keep coming
back to the question well who is Chanhassen and the reason why we’re spending you know
$42,000 to perform a vision study is so we can figure out who we want to be in 5, 10, 15 years.
Where we’re at today. Understanding market trends and that’s part of the process so when
change comes you’re changing for the better and the impact that you have in your community
and the surrounding areas has a positive impact on Chanhassen as a whole so I am very
disappointed that we can’t take the extra 5 months to get the feedback from the vision process
and therefore I am definitely voting no on this proposal.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, anybody else? Let me just make some brief comments. For me
processing this decision, excuse me. Processing this decision is not unlike decisions that I make
at council and have for the last 7 years. It’s important to hear, it’s important for me to hear what
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the citizens say. It’s also I’ve observed over this time that often times the strongest, the loudest,
the most emotional, the most passionate voice, and I’m not saying that in this case but often it
comes from people who don’t understand the process that we follow. The process of reviewing
what we can do legally. What we can’t do. The process of reviewing this plan against our
ordinances. City government can be very, very complex and I’m just very thankful that we have
people like Kate Aanenson, Todd Gerhardt and other staff who understand and help guide the
council to do the things that we can do so that lawyers don’t come after us because we did
something that, no offense Mr. Knutson. So the lawyers don’t come after us to say you’ve really
done a faux pas and you can’t do that so I’m thankful for city staff. I’m also thankful that by and
large developers view Chanhassen as an opportunity. You know Pulte Homes is planning to
build 82 units. There’s more developments in process that we can’t talk about because the
developer doesn’t want us to share that. Avienda’s another one. West Park. There’s many more
but these people. What? Just a little yeah. But people come here because they observe the
goodness that is in Chanhassen and the goodness is in our public safety. It’s in our parks and
trails. It’s in our downtown area. It’s in our festivals. It’s in our schools. It’s in our
neighborhoods. It’s in our families. The character of this community is not wrapped up in one
apartment building or one retail store. The character of this community is represented in the
people who choose to contribute and make this the community that they want. I processed this
decision with 3 perspectives. Number one. The apartments are an approved use in the area.
Grocery is an approved use in the area. The current property owner has been trying to sell this
property for about 4 years. They have been active in the market to find a buyer. This buyer
comes forward with the intent to invest substantially in the acceptable development of our
downtown area. It will bring density in close proximity to businesses that want to serve the
public and it will substantially increase the tax base of our community by ten fold of this
property. The developer has determined there is a demand for their real estate project. United
Properties are smart people on these things. The grocer believes that they can be successful by
delivering a product and value that they feel is in demand and not currently being serviced
adequately at present. Then I ask these questions. Is there anything about these people behind
the development that would suggest that they abuse their employees, cheat their customers,
conduct illegal or criminal activities on their premises or intend to do any of these things. No.
So should government interfere with the property rights of the owner. Furthermore should
government prohibit a business from entering our town who has demonstrated affirmatively to
number one. Has not shown B, the second one, criminal activities. Should we prevent a
reputable business from the opportunity to deliver goods and services while employing people
who want to work? Councilmember Ryan I don’t think that we lack a vision. I think we have
developed comprehensive plans for this community for a number of years. We’re in the process
of doing it again. The fact that we have identified, as Mr. Knutson said, we made a decision on
what’s allowed in the downtown area when we put together the business district. The ordinance
of the zoning for downtown area. This is an opportunity for this very reputable developer and
very reputable retailer to set the standard that other redevelopment may follow. So for that
reason I will be supporting this application at this time.
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Councilwoman Tjornhom moved, Councilman McDonald seconded that the City Council
approves the Site Plan Review for 134 unit, six story apartment building and a one story,
19,000 square foot retail building with a variance for the existing drive aisle widths, plans
prepared by ISG, dated May 19, 2017, subject to the following conditions; approves a
Registered Land Survey creating three parcels out of three; and adoption of the Findings of
Fact and Recommendation:
Building Official:
1. Accessibility must be provided in accordance with the “Minnesota Accessibility Code” (see
MN Rules 1341). Accessible parking must be adequate, dispersed and on located on the
shortest accessible route. Residential units are required to be accessible or adaptable in
accordance with Minnesota State Building Code Chapter 1341. Further information is
needed to determine these requirements.
2. Buildings are required to be protected with an automatic sprinkler system. For the purposes
of this requirement property lines do not constitute separate buildings.
3. The buildings are be required to be designed by an architect and engineers as determined by
the Building Official.
4. Demolition permits must be obtained before demolishing any structures on the site.
Application for such permits must include hazardous substances investigation and proposed
mitigation reports.
5. A geotechnical (soils evaluation) report must be submitted to the Inspections Division
before permits will be issued.
6. Walls and projections within 5 feet of property lines are required to be of one-hour fire-
resistive construction.
7. Retaining walls over four feet high require a permit and must be designed by a professional
engineer.
8. Each lot must be provided with separate sewer and water services.
9. The developer and/or their agent shall meet with the Inspections Division as early as
possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures.
Engineering:
1. The developer must obtain the necessary permissions for the off-site work required to
rebuild a portion of the existing retaining wall on the east side of the proposed building.
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2. The developer shall consult with city staff to determine if modifications can be made to
the western entrance off of Market Street to eliminate the current “side by side” driveway
accesses.
3. The applicant shall work with city staff and the owner of the property to the east to
ensure that tractor trailer delivery trucks can access the Dinner Theater’s loading docks.
4. An encroachment agreement is required for the private storm sewer within the city’s 30
foot wide drainage and utility easement.
5. The applicant must obtain a permit from RPBCWD prior to grading the site.
6. The applicant shall include a cross section of the underground storm water system with
the next submittal.
7. A dewatering plan must be submitted prior to issuance of a building permit and shall
include a note that city staff shall be notified before dewatering occurs.
Environmental Resources:
1. The applicant shall revise the landscape plan to show any existing trees to be preserved.
2. The applicant shall plant a minimum of 28 trees on the site.
Fire:
1. Separate addresses for ALDI and Venue buildings are required.
Planning:
1. The applicant shall develop an alternate plan to provide residents of the apartment a view
of the camouflaged or alternative roof.
2. The applicant shall incorporate additional benches, bike rakes and possibly picnic/cafe
tables around the site.
3. Signage shall comply with the CBD sign regulations. A separate sign permit shall be
required for each sign.
Mayor Laufenburger, Councilwoman Tjornhom and Councilman McDonald voted in
favor of the motion. Councilwoman Ryan and Councilman Campion voted in opposition to
the motion. The motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2.
Mayor Laufenburger: That motion carries 3-2. We’re going to take about a 5 minute break. Bio
break and we’ll return. Thank you very much council.
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(The City Council took a short recess at this point in the meeting.)
AVIENDA: APPROVE REZONING FROM A2 TO PUD REGIONAL COMMERCIAL,
PRELIMINARY PLAT, CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT, VARIANCES, AND WETLAND
ALTERATION PERMIT.
Mayor Laufenburger: Staff report please.
Kate Aanenson: Mayor, members of the City Council. Let me just get a little bit organized here.
That doesn’t look good. I’ve got an extra slide in there. Alright. So the application before you
tonight is for Avienda preliminary plat and PUD. This actually went to the Planning
ththth
Commission a few times. May 16, June 6 and June 20 and now it’s before you tonight for
preliminary plat. I’ll go through all the motions in a minute but I just want to remind everybody
about this project. So it’s 115 acres. We shown 118 acres kind of gross but it’s a network of 6
parcels and so as you recall we did a, the Planning Commission gave it conceptual approval back
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in November. On November 1. November 28 the council gave it conceptual approval and
also ordered the AUAR update. In February the, during it’s work session the council reviewed
the significant issues of the Alternative Urban Areawide Review, the AUAR and then on, so we
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wanted to explain to you what was in there and then on February 28 we had an open house and
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then on March 7 we had a public hearing before the Planning Commission. Again those
weren’t required for the update but we wanted to make sure there’s a lot of residents. This is a
big project in the downtown to make sure that everybody had an opportunity to comment. We
knew traffic was an issue so we wanted to make sure that we could address those questions as
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part of the AUAR. Not necessarily a part of the review itself. So then on March 13 you
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approved the publication in the EQB for the AUAR comment period and then on May 8 you
approved and adopted a final resolution for the AUAR. Some of those findings are also included
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in your staff report as they relate to the project going forward. So as I indicated on May 16 we
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had a hearing and then on June 6 and June 20 we also had a public hearing and made a
recommendation. The Planning Commission did recommend approval of the project. There’s
some different discussions on the Overlay District which I’ll go through in a minute so this is
kind of like the first project in the fact that there’s a lot of moving parts. Because you’re doing a
PUD and you’re creating a zoning district so you’re rezoning to be consistent with the land use
guiding which is either office or regional commercial. In this circumstance they’re going for the
regional commercial so that you’re doing a PUD rezoning. You’re approving a preliminary plat,
a wetland alteration permit, a conditional use for development in the Bluff Creek Overlay
District and variance for construction within the Bluff Creek primary zone. There was a lot of
discussion at the Planning Commission regarding the conditional use and the variance and I
apologize in the hour of the night we combined both of those motions into one and actually the
staff had supported the conditional use of grading in the primary zone. We saw that it was a way
to grade to get to some of the units there but we just didn’t want construction in the primary zone
so the Findings of Fact for the City Council have been reflected and modified and reflected and
those were redistributed and included in your packet. In addition the PUD we had it as an
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exhibit. It’s actually a part of a PUD ordinance so that was also modified for you. And then
finally the conditions for the conditional use permit were also changed and those were also
shared with the applicant.
Mayor Laufenburger: So Kate I’m going to ask you just for a second for clarity for the council.
Can you put up the final action that you’re recommending? Just so we can look at that and
understand what it is that we’re essentially evaluating.
Kate Aanenson: Sure. I think it’s at the very end of the motion here. Recommendation.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So you’re recommending for rezoning from A2 to the PUD Regional
Commercial. You’re going to be recommending approval of the subdivision preliminary plat
creating 17 lots, 3 outlots. You’re also going to recommend conditional use permit to encroach
into the primary zone. That will be for grading and then we’re still recommending denial of the
variance and I’ll go into a little bit more detail on that. And then finally we’re recommending
approval of the wetland alteration permit and that’s subject to going through the permitting
process. And then also the Planning Commission adopt the Findings of Fact and those are the
ones that we sent out different because the motion at the Planning Commission was listed.
Mayor Laufenburger: So these are the 6 actions that you’re recommending?
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Let’s go back, everybody understand those 6 actions? Alright.
Thank you Kate.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you to Mr. Knutson who helped me revise a few things on Friday. Okay
so we went through the summary of the request. So this is the preliminary plat and this is
changed from the original one that was going through. This is the 17 lots and, I did this wrong
every time. Picked the wrong one. So the lots have changed in this area here and I’ll go through
that in a little bit more detail. So Outlot A is where the Bluff Creek Overlay District and that
would be the heavily wooded area. The two wetlands and then Outlot B will be preserved as a
drainage area. That piece was actually severed by the completion of Powers Boulevard and
that’s a remnant piece there. That also the developer can use that for green space as the PUD
ordinance allows that. I’ll let the City Engineer go through some of the traffic.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Paul Oehme: Thank you Ms. Aanenson. Mayor, City Council members. So the City did
complete an AUAR study updating the existing one that was completed I think in 2006 looking
at traffic and environmental impacts and other associated impacts to this area. Just wanted to
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briefly go through some of the findings of that study. One was the potential need for a signal
system at Lyman Boulevard and Sunset Trail. It’s shown here in red. New access point where
the current driveway is currently located today. The north leg of the 212 loop we’re looking at,
the AUAR looked at two through put lanes into the development and reconfiguring that
intersection just a little bit. There would also be two left turn, existing two left turns on
northbound Powers Boulevard into the development and then the exiting location there’d be 3
lanes of traffic lanes. One for northbound on Powers Boulevard. One for through onto 212 and
then one left onto southbound Powers Boulevard. The other items of note, there’s a potential
need for a signal at Powers Boulevard and Pioneer Trail in conjunction with this development
and then also at Audubon Road and at Lyman Boulevard as well so. That was basically the
findings of what we had looked at. I think I covered most of those items so thank you.
Kate Aanenson: So this development data then is illustratively showing how the project would
be laid out and so this is kind of the genesis of looking to structure the PUD ordinance which
talks about which uses can go in there and there’s a lot of back and forth on that. Again trying to
create flexibility because we don’t know as we look to the future as this builds out but also have
some assurances that we don’t end up with just a lot of big boxes. So we’ve worked through all
those issues and those are put into the PUD ordinance. This drawing here has been changed a
little bit. I’ll go through that in a minute but this development data then talks about how many
square footage of each building and the type of use. So the housing would be the buffer area on
this side. We’ve always talked about that as the good transition for the existing neighborhood.
The through street connection which is important for another outlet for these long dead ends and
also then the extension of Bluff Creek Boulevard. The housing on the southern end, I’ll circle
back again on that but that was one of the issues we talked about was senior housing. That we
believed that we had a lot of senior housing. We acquiesced on that but we’re still kind of
holding firm there on the overlay district. One of the unique attributes of this site then is the
housing as we talked about with the downtown project. Housing is going to create the traffic
then to help support this. The daytime, night time use of this. There was some interesting
comments at the Planning Commission talking about Arbor Lakes saying whether or not because
there’s not housing there what happens there in the winter time and how do you keep this a
viable project and so we certainly think the apartments and the housing there is important to
make this a lifestyle community which is what the goal is. So from that the drawing that they
put, we put this in a chart for us to understand the types of uses in there and the square footage
and encapsulate that, what we were looking at. What expectations are out there. Again there’s 3
outlots as I mentioned and so one of the things that we also looked at, we assumed under the
PUD ordinance that we maybe 20 percent housing but as we looked at that we changed that
number to a greater 30 percent so that would allow up to 533 which is this number here. Right
now the project is at 364. Again we’re trying to strike that right balance of housing and
commercial office mix and there is office on the north side. Go back to that. So this is the
daycare. Some offices over here. The restaurants and then this is kind of the urban, really the
urban core right in the middle here. The larger grocer, retail, hotel. So again this is more the
specifics of that but if some of the housing goes up those numbers shift around a little bit.
They’re still within then the PUD ordinance itself. Again the goal, we know some of these uses
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will change but the goal is that we want to make sure that there’s a good mix and as they do to
make sure that it’s a great project. So with that again there’s some wetlands so I’ll let the City
Engineer kind of go through the permitting process.
Paul Oehme: Thanks Kate. So one of the biggest issues regarding this site was the wetland
impacts and making sure that the City’s following the correct Wetland Conservation Act and
permitting application that goes along with that. So here’s illustratively the drawing showing
where the wetlands are on site. The ones the areas in yellow are kind of the wetland delineated
locations for the wetlands and most of these would be impacted by the current development. The
background for this and the timeline where we are today, the applicant has submitted wetland
replacement plan back in February of this year with preliminary storm water modeling
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information back in February 21 of this year. The City determined the application was
incomplete at that time. We reviewed it and then made comments back to the applicant. The
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applicant turned around and gave us some revised information back on March 14 as well so
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what we did then was, the City determined the application was complete on March 17. A
Wetland Conservation Act notice was, application was sent out to the Technical Panel on March
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17. There was a meeting held for that and then also on April 6 the US Corps of Engineers had
a meeting too and they reviewed their application and requested additional information at that
time. Here’s the proposed, here’s a list of all the wetlands on the site and which total 5.2 acres
and then putting the potential impacts associated with this development are shown here in a little
over 4.4 acres. So with that the proposal, there is process for working through the wetland
impacts for the Wetland Conservation Act process. The land development plans submitted to the
City after the wetland permit application was submitted has discrepancies that we had already
talked about and the wetland impacts. The applicant shows wetland impacts to Wetland 4 but
they’re wetland development plan does not show the impacts on some of the other locations so
those were the changes that we had requested. Bottom line that the analysis shows that you
know the City is not the determining body for determining if the applicant has gone through the
sequencing for the wetland impacts. That’s provided by the TEP and the TEP is going to be
meeting here shortly to review that application. The functions and values are shown here. I
don’t want to get into too much detail. This is just showing you what the wetlands are. How
they’re managed. You know how you can mitigate them and those type of things. The current
wetland mitigation is shown here. What the applicant can do so one of the first thing in
sequencing is to try to figure out can these wetlands be mitigated on site. And with the high
density that’s currently proposed on the site, there is very little opportunity to mitigate those
wetlands on site so we look at replacement in the sub-watershed. In this case the Riley-
Purgatory watershed district and we were not able to find any suitable location for mitigating the
wetlands in this watershed district so we’re looking at right now, the developer is looking at
purchasing wetlands outside of the watershed district in a wetland bank and in looking at
mitigating the wetlands through that process so that’s where we’re at to date. And the developer
has the opportunity to do some combination of mitigation or on site wetland mitigation but under
this case I think it’s going to be more feasible for him to mitigate off site. One of the things that
the City has requested that the applicant look at is try to work with the City on a joint project
within the watershed district to improve wetland quality in the area or storm water improvements
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within the watershed district. Unfortunately we haven’t come to an agreement on what that
project would look like or a feasible project at this time so in the staff report we requested that
the developer look at contributing a sum of money to the City for future project to be named
later. That can improve the water in this watershed district to service in lieu of the impacts to the
wetlands that are being proposed on this site. So again you know the US Corps of Engineers has
reviewed the application. They’re ongoing I think. The developer has, the applicant has made,
given the Corps some additional information so they are currently reviewing that application.
There’s really no time line associated with that application so that’s going to be kind of ongoing.
As I mentioned before the Wetland Conservation Act process, our TEP meeting is going to be
held tomorrow so there’s going to be a 60 day decision making process after that point in time
and a decision has to be made at that point in time so. With that I think here’s the next steps that
we had talked about previously. Again the wetland mitigation has to be completed. If it’s off
site at a 2 to 1 ratio so there’s going to be a substantial bank that the developer would have to
apply for and create those wetlands with so. And then we’re basically just waiting for the TEP
panel to move forward and hold that meeting. See if they have any more information or request
additional information from the applicant and like I said they have a set, I think 60 days after that
meeting to make a decision.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Paul. I just wanted to add one thing too. What the City Engineer
was talking about. This came up at the Planning Commission where we were spending some
time talking about the fact that all the wetland replacement was being done outside the city so the
Planning Commission felt it was really important that some improvement be made within the
city as Paul indicated. The city and the watershed district. While we don’t have a proposal right
now for a live project there is a condition of approval that cash escrow be put in place that as we
move forward that that could be done. So Bluff Creek Overlay District is one of the issues that
we’re still trying to reconcile. Again those two conditions got kind of comingled at the Planning
Commission but we recognize that there could be some grading in there. We had a road going
through at one point. A fire lane. We acquiesced and took that road out because that was one of
the drivers for the big impact. Obviously there’s some impact grading within to get the road to
go through on the easterly edge so quite a bit of the removal so then we were up to the 3 acres.
Then the developer re-examined the site and actually went back and took another look at how
they could make it work so this was a reconfiguration of the senior housing. As I mentioned
earlier one of the concerns that we had is we do have a lot of senior housing going. The
developer felt it was really important to, so we had that first on our no list. We took it off but
then we felt like we were squishing something in there that was a little tight so we still wanted to
work with them on that and felt like if they could be grading in here to get there. There was a lot
of parking. There was discussion on the right amount of parking. Obviously we want it to be
successful for both parties. There’s a lot of parking on this site too so we really wanted them to
take another look at that and felt like they could work within that. I’ll let them address that but I
would like to just show you, I know it’s late but on this doc cam here because Sharmeen put this
model together and I think it’s just more illustrative way to show you the entire project so again.
So this is the project as it came in so the, there was a hotel over here. And so this is the Bluff
Creek Overlay, the original buildings. It went way into the Overlay District itself.
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Mayor Laufenburger: Way? What do you mean way in?
Kate Aanenson: Well like 5 acres. 3 acres. So we went and asked them if they could take it out
of the Overlay District so this would be the Overlay District and the response came back they
actually eliminated part of a building so in their best efforts which we appreciated. They did
work to redesign it. Again the Bluff Creek Overlay District is still within this area. They
moved, so they cut off some retail space and then they moved the hotel over to here. So the
question was then could we still try to work to make this building fit and we know that for our
senior housing, especially assisted that the wings have to be a certain length so people want to be
able to get back and forth. Understand how that works and going back to saying that maybe that
wasn’t the best suit and you know their position we’ve always shown it there and but it’s still a
process to get a variance as it is a process to get a wetland. It doesn’t give you standings so
we’re still trying to work through those issues on the design itself.
Mayor Laufenburger: Kate part of one of the conditions or one of the recommendations you’re
making is that we grant a conditional use permit in the Bluff Creek Overlay District for the road,
is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. For the road and then to grade to get into this. So if you stay
outside of that blue line you’re in the secondary zone which you can grade within. Because by
putting this in there’s two substantial walls in here now to get up to this. This is a wetland.
When you walk the site there’s water coming out of that wetland that drains so if you’re putting
up 2 walls, and we’re just trying to see if there’s another way to make that work. And so
obviously for them trying to get that to fit on the site is more challenging.
Mayor Laufenburger: So we’re talking about this particular space. This southwest corner of this
property.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: How many acres are in the Bluff Creek Overlay District?
Kate Aanenson: Up to 3.
Mayor Laufenburger: No how many are in the Bluff Creek Overlay District in that area?
Kate Aanenson: I’ll go back to my original. Thank you, 18.
Mayor Laufenburger: So 18 acres here is in the southwest area?
Kate Aanenson: Yep, correct.
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Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. And what we’re seeing here is the upper border of the Bluff Creek
Overlay District is the blue line, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. This is the primary and that’s the secondary so you can grade, and that
was what the conditional use is for is to grade within that. So our position was can you reshape
that building? Can you flip those buildings? And so I mean obviously they have their concerns
on that too.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: You know other thing just looking at the woods itself the Overlay District is
for, you know as the City Engineer talked about it’s for the impaired waters and the Bluff Creek
and this is a wooded area that’s unique attribute to the city. John Tietz on the Planning
Commission is a landscaping architect. You know once you start putting a road in, which is why
we acquiesced, then it changes the whole character of, by the time you put the retaining walls
and all that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Wait a minute, when you say we acquiesced on a road. What are we
acquiescing?
Kate Aanenson: The connection road here.
Mayor Laufenburger: I thought you said we took it out.
Kate Aanenson: I did. That’s what I said we took it out because of the impact of putting that in
with the retaining walls.
Mayor Laufenburger: Oh, okay. Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So we’re just saying we’re trying to work together to do as minimal impact as
we can.
Mayor Laufenburger: Gotch ya.
Kate Aanenson: So my point on this slide here is that we think it has too much parking for that
type of use and could we shorten up the driveways? There’s a lot of things we can look at there
and we’d like to see take another run at it. Obviously they worked hard to get it to this position
and maybe they feel like this isn’t working. They want to go the other direction but we felt
strongly about saving more of the Bluff Creek Overlay District. So this is the two retaining walls
going back up along that trail where we just saw. So these are these two retaining walls here. So
again adding more retaining walls so. So this is the CUP. All the conditions in the staff report.
Again we supported the conditional use for grading but not for construction which is the
variance. We recommended no on the variance for construction. Yes on the grading within that.
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One of the other issues that came about was the Fire Marshal’s concern about the traffic calming.
They spent a lot of time on putting together, hiring a consultant to traffic calm. That was one of
the biggest issues facing the residents is they wanted to make sure that people didn’t speed to get
through their neighborhood and so we all worked together and we had a great design. Planning
and engineering was happy with it. The applicant was happy with their recommendations and
the Fire Marshal wasn’t too happy with the recommendations so in your staff report we, it’s the
stopping on the street issue. If everybody was, a fire truck’s going and people stop on the street
so we’re all smart enough to figure out how to make that work so we’ve got a condition in here
that we’ll work together before final plat to get that design figured out to the satisfaction because
the Fire Chief isn’t going to design that. That’s going to be between the applicant and the City
Engineer to figure out that right fit. Changing the approaches. The median. We really felt the
median because that runs the length of that whole, it’s part of that traffic calming and the nice
aesthetics so we’re going to work hard to see what we can do to get the road width that meets the
Fire Marshal’s concerns. Makes the developer fit their design and the neighbors traffic calming
issues.
Mayor Laufenburger: So you’re talking about this, this is something that is yet to be decided but
the council is not making this decision tonight.
Kate Aanenson: No we have it as a condition that we’re going to continue to work on it.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So there’s two outstanding things.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay and eventually that condition will be resolved right?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Alright. Anything else Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. So this is the other retaining wall so on the back side, so when you’re
looking to the west there’s significant retaining walls on, this would be looking to the north.
Excuse me on the south looking to the north and this is on the north side looking south so this
would be the daycare has a retaining wall and then the office buildings so you’re putting
retaining walls on either side and then grading through the middle to balance out all the dirt
between and filling the wetlands that were in there. So again our concern is making sure that we
have the right walls in there. We weren’t clear at the first meeting, this is some of the
information as we moved through the different iterations that the wall on the back is two tiered
with landscaping. I think that was one of the things, the view we were concerned about. I’m not
going to show the slides. I think you have your slides of the wall just to make sure, because you
have a tall building. The grocery store will be very tall so you have just a large wall and what
are we doing to break that up especially when you have parking or loading docks in the back of
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that too just working through those design. And to be clear on that every building that goes in is
going to have to come back through the process too so we’ll see site plan review on each of those
so what you’re approving now is the framework that each of the projects as they come in will be
measured against. So I’m going to skip through those because I think the applicant’s going to
spend a little bit more time on those kind of going through the walls. So the district master plan,
so this was helpful for us. How the developer put it together. So each of the areas are described
by district and that’s how we kind of put the PUD ordinance together and that includes the sign
package and then the uses itself. So the multi-family we talked about. That’s the senior housing.
Independent and assisted. Lower density housing. Again those numbers can change a little bit
but we wanted, we always committed to the neighbors that that would be a nice transition in
there. And then office, daycare, more office, restaurants and then the retail hospitality where the
grocer will be. Probably some drive thru’s. We also limited the number of drive thru’s so
there’ll be two at the grocers and they can pick two other places. And then the retail district
which is really more the pedestrian oriented which also includes the apartment with retail
attached to it. And then there’s also more, a large retail around the perimeter. So this is also
included in the PUD ordinance and then it talks about what uses will go in that district because
again for transparency on both parties we want to see it be somewhat, when the projects come in
that they match this. So again the PUD zoning, this is the rational basis for that so putting the
PUD, you know you’re preserving something to get the PUD zoning. This gives you more
flexibility so they could transfer the hard cover so the treed areas that are preserved counts for
the green space. That allows them to put more intense development. I think the challenge there
is for them to manage all their, with their packed soils to manage all their storm water so those
are some of the issues that we’ll have to work out as it goes forward. I also wanted to remind
you that this is in a rural service district. On your next meeting we’ll be putting together a
resolution and a report that takes it out of the rural service to tax it at a different rate because now
that this project is going forward and the County changes those the first part of August so you’ll
be getting a letter from the property owner saying that they will be taking you out of the rural
service district. So with that I kind of jumped through a lot but I know the applicant probably
wants to, I went through the motions. I’ll let him go through then I’d be happy to answer any
questions.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: If you want to take some now that’s fine.
Mayor Laufenburger: Anybody have questions of council right now? Mr. McDonald. I mean
excuse me, questions of staff. Well you could ask, talk amongst yourself Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Kate I’ve got a question. Yeah go back to that first one where you’re
asking us to rezone. What did we do? I thought it was dual guided. Wasn’t that part of rezoning
or was that just a guiding?
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Kate Aanenson: Sure that’s a great question. So it was guided. You could choose either one. It
gave you the flexibility. If someone came in with a lifestyle center or something you didn’t like
and that was the conceptual approval is to say in good faith we’re both going down this path that
we’re going to continue to develop this. We’re going to go through the AUAR and part of the
AUAR also states that we’re going to follow the rules of the City so everyone’s moving forward
in that so the office is no longer the potential so regional commercial is a land use that is
approved so that’s the zoning that you would be applying.
Councilman McDonald: Okay so we finally made a choice as to which way we want to go. I
mean you’re asking us to zone it that way.
Kate Aanenson: Correct. And that’s what the PUD ordinance is and that spells out all the uses.
I think I lost part of my staff report. The other thing is we wanted to make sure is that you knew
that there was a few things that we’re still working on. We talked about the roads. The wetlands
we’re still working through. We have a TEP meeting tomorrow and so there’s a couple
outstanding issues that we’re still working through but we’re pretty darn close so.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, thank you for that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, any other questions of staff? Councilmember Ryan.
Councilwoman Ryan: So does that include, when you said you’re still working through some
details with the storm water management, that’s also just because when I was reading through all
the different attachments it talks about the irrigation system. Has that been revised? That some
of the designs don’t meet the Riley-Purgatory so are those all the pieces that you’re still working
on before it comes back?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Yep, yep. So watershed district approval. Looking through the storm
water. So the goal is to, for them is to get the approval. They can’t do any grading until they get
the wetland approved so to work through those processes. Come back with the final so they can
begin to grade. I think they’ve stated that from the beginning their goal is to try to grade yet this
year.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: So it’s onus on them so a lot of this is their marching orders that they need to do
to keep the project moving forward.
Councilwoman Ryan: Okay so all those approvals have to come back to you before we move
forward.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
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Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, council.
Mayor Laufenburger: Anything else, yes.
Todd Gerhardt: Just to complicate things. Item E, since we don’t have the wetland alteration
permit approved yet should be eliminated and we would bring that back as a part of the final plat
if we have the wetland alteration permit completed by then but we don’t have the wetland
alteration permit approved by the TAC board yet.
Mayor Laufenburger: TEP. The Technical Evaluation Panel.
Todd Gerhardt: TEP, yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: That’s tomorrow.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: So are we delaying this by not putting approval on this? Can we put our
approval subject?
Todd Gerhardt: You can do this.
Roger Knutson: You could approve it subject to their…
Mayor Laufenburger: We could approve it subject to approval by the TEP.
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Mayor Laufenburger: So that means it doesn’t have to come back to us again.
Kate Aanenson: That was always.
Mayor Laufenburger: We accept this.
Kate Aanenson: Right, that was always our goal. We’ve always been working towards that and
I’m sorry I didn’t put that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Bring that page up again.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah I’ve just got to type it in here. Subject to.
Mayor Laufenburger: Subject to approval by the TEP.
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Kate Aanenson: Isn’t it WCA?
Mayor Laufenburger: Well she’s doing it right now so change it to what it’s supposed to be.
Paul Oehme: WCA.
Kate Aanenson: WCA. I got it.
Todd Gerhardt: And then put the same thing at the Decision portion.
Mayor Laufenburger: Wait a minute. What is it? Is it.
Mark Nordland: It’s WCA. Wetland Conservation Act.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. We got it on this side, we’re all good.
Todd Gerhardt: And Kate if you go to the Decision portion.
Kate Aanenson: Yep. Oh City Council thank you.
Todd Gerhardt: Add it there also.
Kate Aanenson: That should say City Council too correct.
Todd Gerhardt: In the Findings.
Roger Knutson: In the Findings of Fact, in the Findings of Fact will have to be amended to say
the Wetland Alteration Permit is approved subject to the findings of the TEP.
Kate Aanenson: I got it.
Mayor Laufenburger: I’m interested in hearing from the applicant unless there’s any other
questions of staff. So let’s hear from the applicant. Are you charged up Darren?
Darren Lazan: Yeah, fired up. I was reminded by Mr. Akradi to ask which version of the
presentation you wanted.
Kate Aanenson: I got the right one up.
Mayor Laufenburger: People all over the world.
Darren Lazan: No I meant the short version or the medium version or the long version.
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Kate Aanenson: Oh okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: People all over the world are watching this.
Darren Lazan: I understand that.
Mayor Laufenburger: So just keep that in mind.
Darren Lazan: So Mr. Mayor, members of the council my name is Darren Lazan. I’m with
Landform Professional Services and I represent Level 7 Development, the applicant on the item
before you tonight. It’s a tremendous pleasure to be back here again. I was going through doing
the presentation this afternoon realizing that for my part my work began on this site in ’14. This
team in ’16 I believe so we have a tremendous history on this site but as I went through this I
realized that your staff and yourselves have an even longer history and for many it’s been good
portions of their career looking at this site and trying to contemplate what belongs here and
what’s the best use and fit and as a team we’re very excited to play a part in helping that vision
come to life so we’re excited to be here tonight and look forward to answering your questions.
So I will go through this quickly. What I did is I put a pretty small subset of the slide show
together and now I’m even more glad that I did but I’m also going to move through it quickly
and if you have questions we can come back and zero in on it. I kind of hit the pieces I think you
folks have commented on in the past so I can address those.
Mayor Laufenburger: So just let me stop you a second. There’s a question that I want to ask
you. Do you have a clear understanding of everything that’s in the packet?
Darren Lazan: We do. There are a number of things that we are going to work on going forward
so unlike most approvals when we can say we agree with every condition in the staff report,
there’s a number we’re still working on but we understand everything in the report and we’re
comfortable that we can move forward…
Mayor Laufenburger: What’s most important for me, and speaking on behalf of the council is, if
there’s any decision that we’re making tonight that you want to raise, that you have either
disagreement with or an issue with you need to tell us that.
Darren Lazan: We will and we, I may have some. Mark’s going to have a close at the end and
lay those out cleanly for you so we can have that. Ownership team here, I think you’ve had this
presentation in the past and now with Mr. Akradi in the audience it’s going to be more difficult
to say this but I can tell you it’s been a pleasure to be on this team. Mr. Akradi’s drive for
excellence on this is a real challenge for us and we enjoy that push. As most of you know this is
a project he does not need but it’s amazing to us that he continues to take the time to be involved
and help push this project along and make it what it is today so great group of people. Great
team and we look forward to the next stages with you guys. And again this is a little excerpt
from the Business Journal as well. A little bit about the vision he has and we’ve tried to carry
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out for an excellent project with a full life cycle component. Something that’s timeless.
Something that has very high quality and something that he can be proud of in 50 years when he
comes back through here again and decides this is his best work so again he’s that force. We
keep driving to achieve that and we’ll continue to do that. Existing site Kate went over and
we’ve been over a number of times. You know where it is and those constraints so I’ll move
through quickly. This is a fairly new exhibit. I just want to spend a couple seconds on this one
because it effects those components such as retaining walls and grades and approaches and what
can work and what can’t. This is kind of a sensitivity map showing the elevations on this site
and there’s 72 feet of relief across this site. Both east/west and north/south so it becomes a
tremendous challenge to get all the components of this site to fit in here and connect to each
other and stay connected and we know that connectivity is a big component of a lifestyle center
so it involves quite a bit of grading. It’s quite frankly driving the viability of preserving wetlands
and working through that process. It effects the grading and how we manage those retaining
walls and so forth so went through this in a little more detail at Planning because they asked that
question but it is interesting to note the amount of grade we work with across this site. Kate
went over the districts. They’re very important in the design and documenting the design
standards and so forth so we’re carrying that through in all of our efforts as well. Site plan here.
You’ve been over. Kate went over. We’re excited about where this sits today after a lot of
work, both on our team and with staff. A lot of back and forth but we’re excited for this plan.
We think those components that have been addressed already, the residential component in the
center inserts that vitality into the middle of the project. The full life cycle with seniors, empty
nesters, millennials, all the way across the spectrum in the project. Here in the morning. Here at
night. The office mix across the north with a daycare on site. These are all drivers that help
those retailers be successful and without boring you to death that’s the challenge with retail
today is to try to find a way to make it experiential. Desire to be here. Put bodies in the center in
the mornings when they leave for work. At night when they come home. During the day when
they’re working and we really think this does an excellent job of that which was the goal of the
comp plan. Little bit about the roadway. It was touched on so I’ll skip most of it but we did put
a great team in addition to our core team on this. Toole Consultants came in and helped us.
They are a traffic engineering group that specializes in pedestrian lifestyle center type work or
urban type work. We brought them in specifically because we heard throughout the process that
traffic was the number one concern of the neighbors. We wanted to work on calming on this
road. A couple of those components you’ve heard from already. The lane width and the
medium helps slow those cars down. But also even in the pedestrian components, the top half of
this image shows shorter crossings for pedestrians. Areas of refuge between crossings where
they can stop. Let cars go by and go again. This was all very thoughtful in the process and both
engineering, planning and our team I think put a lot of work into this. There’s a memo in the
application about how we arrived at this balance of traffic calming and through fare and
emergency access and so forth and I think this was an incredible well balanced approach.
Mayor Laufenburger: And this road complies with requirements is that correct?
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Darren Lazan: This road complies with requirements. It’s a continuation of what you have as a
section in the remainder of Bluff Creek Boulevard. We took our cues originally from that.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Darren Lazan: Carried it through. Meets all the requirements for stacking and turn lane distance
and all those components. MSA standards. Everything across the board so we look forward to
working with the Fire Chief and the rest of staff on coming up with something everybody can
live with. I think one quick important note, when you look at the lane width requirement and the
stopping the portion of this road that is effected by that is roughly a third. Maybe less. Maybe
closer to a quarter because we have turn lanes right. Turn lanes left. Roundabouts. Two lane
sections in that run of Bluff Creek Boulevard so the area that actually is constrained is not that
entire run of roadway and we think there are things we can potentially do in those few sections to
help that. It’s also important to note that there is access to every other component from other
entrances. From the north and otherwise so we look forward to working with staff on resolving
that. We have a great design. I think we can make a few changes and get there. Very briefly
about project branding and identity. Again this is going to carry through in architecture, signage
and the identity of the project. All 3 of those have been very tightly coordinated to deliver a very
quality project so none of those really stand on their own. The signage is part of the identity.
The architecture and landscape architecture fits in there. These are all very tightly coordinated
and that will show in a lot of the components as we go forward. We submitted quite a bit of
material on architectural standards and sample elevations. That was in your packet. I haven’t
put that in the presentation tonight because I think this is fairly new. I wanted to focus on the
village tonight to walk through this component and the walkability lifestyle components so you
can get some better imagery of where that’s at so as we walk through this from east to west, it
starts with an aerial view showing the long corridor. Starting with the water feature and the open
plaza between the restaurants. Continuing all the way through that center portion and ending at
the far side with the apartment project as the anchor on the far end. As we get down to street
level on here, this is the plaza between the restaurants. Program space. Casual space. Active
space. All of that possibility can exist in there to engage that space and make it useful and
vibrant and make folks want to be there. Another picture on the, some potential for outdoor
dining in that same space adjacent to the water. We have more active spaces as we travel down
now. We’ve crossing the street, Avienda Parkway and we’re on the west side now. Beginning
of that main street component. We have pieces of this project where we introduce these open
pocket areas of landscape architecture to create engaged spaces and we’ll see those at a couple
different levels. There’s some adjacent to the potential shops and restaurants along the way.
Some like out at the roundabout where there’s a water feature where it can be a little bit more
distant from the roadway in the center but it’s still very well landscaped. Beautifully done.
Hardscapes and again active engaged spaces as we’re moving to the middle of the block. Each
of these end caps on these small buildings have opportunities for more of these spaces to create
programmed or casual spaces. Outdoor dining. More outdoor dining in there. Then we land on
the other side of the main street area. The village area where we have probably our largest open
amenity space with a water feature, landscape components. This could be more heavily
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programmed spaces as well as space for the adjacent retailers. Another view at street level there.
The first one was an aerial, with the apartments in the background. And again on the back side
more spaces adjacent to that apartment component as well. And then as Kate had mentioned we
have some retail on the ground floor. That’s the end of that run looking at the front doors to the
apartments with some ground level retail and some more landscape areas on that piece. And
then the last staff report has a condition that we provide the trailhead connection for future
natural trails so we did a quick rendering on what that might look like so you’re leaving the trail
along the side of the road and move into more natural trails but some way finding, landscape
features and a connection to that Bluff Creek space there as well. Environmental items for
Councilmember Ryan. So I have 3 slides on the environmental components. First is storm
water. I want to talk about that a little bit. We looked at deploying a number of components to
meet the storm water requirements. As you know it’s heavy clay soils. Little to no infiltration
and we have very heavy storm water requirements to abstract or remove storm water from the
site and not allow it to leave the site. One of the ones we’re most likely to deploy to get nearly
all of the required abstraction is an extremely extensive use of permeable pavement systems.
Probably the most extensive done in the metro area. I think we have 15 acres of permeable
pavers and 20 something acres of rock retention areas under those. Pretty extreme measures to
meet those criteria. Similar projects in Chanhassen on similar soils have gotten about half the
requirements. We’re hopeful we can get to all the requirements with this project as kind of a
demonstration piece of this used on this scale.
Mayor Laufenburger: You said something below the permeable pavers.
Darren Lazan: Rock retention, yeah. So there’s rock beds below the permeable pavers and then
drain pipes that drain that rock bed over time so yeah. It’s clearly the most extensive use of
permeable pavers we’ve done. I don’t know if Paul’s seen a more extensive use ever. We
haven’t so it’s a pretty aggressive piece but I think it stands as a testament to the effort we’re
going to look at putting forward on this project to meet that criteria. We also have that re-use
rain water component. Collection. Recycle water using best practices to re-use that to the extent
possible with the quality of visually appealing treatment areas. We can use rain water harvesting
purple pipe irrigation for areas where that makes sense and planted basins where we can take
advantage of that bio uptake so that’s in addition to the permeable pavement systems. Those two
together we’re pretty comfortable we’re going to meet the criteria so. I think it’s important
before we move to the wetland piece to talk about this. This is still in concept because we have
to make our watershed application for the storm water approval. We’re going to roll these out.
We’re going to present those. We’re going to make our best effort at meeting 100 percent of the
criteria but there’s always and will be give and take with the watershed as to what that looks like.
How much of each of those are used and how they’re used and so forth so this is a process like
the wetland process. It’s kind of running parallel right now so we’ll, all of our approvals tonight
are subject to getting our watershed approvals so we’ll be working on that in the weeks to come.
On our wetland side as Paul walked through in detail. I’m going to go through very briefly. We
have this concurrent process of the Corps of Engineers and the Wetland Conservation Act which
you folks are the local government unit on behalf of the Wetland Conservation Act so you’re
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running that piece. The Corps is running the other. That’s going to result in, if we’re fortunate
enough to be approved a 2 to 1 replacement and we get in a unique situation because the Corps
involved. It’s almost determined that we’re going to end up doing Corps certified credits. It’s
almost impossible to do anything but that. They argue for it. They want it. They certify the
bank credits that they’ll accept so once the Corps steps in and both the City and the Corps are
involved, we get pushed to this bank credit scenario as a default and almost the only solution.
But a lot of great questions were raised during planning and again even when we first started this
project. What’s available in the watershed? What’s available in the city? And it came up again
so as Paul and Kate had mentioned we were presented by staff the opportunity to participate in a
contribute for demonstration project that would help mitigate the function and value that you’re
losing in the city and we’re happy to contribute in that form. We were from the beginning and I
think this is a great vehicle. I don’t know any other community that does this and I think it’d be
a great model going forward because whenever we have these Corps related permits you’d have
the same thing. All the mitigation happens outside your community and I think this is a great
piece. I think we look forward to working with staff to try to quantify what that contribution is
and help set that structure up and make that contribution. We’ll go quickly around the perimeter
sight lines. Main entrance off of Powers and the 212 exit with the branding and signage
architecture showing at that corner. This is from the Powers overpass over 212. You can see
that it’s an effective exhibit because it shows how quickly that giant wall disappears from a
distance but there’s a fair amount of existing trees at the base of that wall too that screen that
wall so really the entire western half of that wall is pretty well screened from this position here.
And then you can see the building does stick out from the top and this is the view from
eastbound 212 where you get just a slight look at the very end of that wall and the rest is pretty
well screened with existing vegetation so I thought it was important we show these elevations as
if you’re standing at the base of the wall but as you’ll see from the sight lines they’re pretty well
naturally screened and then as Kate showed in her presentation we’re showing a terraced wall
and plantings at mid wall. Plantings at the bottom and so forth to further screen that. This is
from the neighborhood to the south looking north. That was a question amongst many residents.
Again it’s certainly don’t 100 percent screen but it’s substantial screening from this position.
This is the approach up Bluff Creek Boulevard so you’re heading east on Bluff Creek Boulevard
and those are existing homes on the right and left and you see the first sight of the senior project
in the background there. And this was from the existing neighborhood to the west, looking
across that small wetland at the taller structures. This is coming around the north side looking
across Lyman. And then from the corner here as well. And these weren’t meant to be your high
quality renderings of what the architecture looks like. Those were included in the design
guidelines but we wanted to walk the perimeter and those important approach angles and show
you what that look likes for scale and that’s the purpose of walking through those. We have
project signage goals and Mark’s going to finish on this item but wanted to just briefly go
through these. The purpose, our goal and the purpose was to provide a comprehensive package
to approach this project. That that be appropriate for the size and scale of this project. That it
support the retail vitality and that it be appropriate for the interactions with the public so where
you have major entrance points, you’re arriving by car the signage gets bigger. When you’re
down on main street we use projection signage and smaller scale signage so those are some of
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the goals that we went through when we proposed signage. That’s made up of identity signs,
tenant signs, way finding, all of those signage components. They’re broken down by district so
there’s appropriate signs in each of those districts. And then building signage I think we’ll
probably just touch on this for one second because this is in the staff report but we’re proposing
pretty significant four sided architecture. We have four sided design and that we’re parking on
the backs of buildings and walking to the front of the building. We feel it’s important that we
look at signage that’s appropriate on all four sides. Again staff’s recommendation differs from
our’s. We have a complete breakdown on where those are and I think Mark is going to talk a
little bit about our approach on signage but we just wanted you to know that we worked through
this on a comprehensive level from every aspect district by district and so forth so with that we
have 4 key items that Mark’s going to go through and we’ll stand for questions after that.
Mark Nordland: Mr. Mayor at the beginning you asked if we were okay with everything that
was in the staff report and just to kind of break things out. We’ve heard you know exhaustive
reports on where we’re at. There’s 4 items I just want to talk to quickly that we’re still working
on with staff just so you don’t, you’re not surprised later on when we come up. The first of
course is signage which is what Darren was just talking about. They’re four sided buildings. We
need to speak internally once you’re inside the development but also externally when you’re on
the freeway and you’re trying to find the site. We’ve talked to staff quite a bit about it. It’s a
unique development and we’re trying to come up with something that will work for everybody.
I’m confident that we’ll be able to work through that as we come through for the final plat and be
able to come up with a solution that everybody agrees with so you will be seeing that again. We
are not fully in agreement with what the staff report says but we feel confident that we’ll be able
to work it out with them between now and.
Mayor Laufenburger: But that’s not something that we’re deciding on tonight.
Mark Nordland: You’re not deciding on it tonight.
Kate Aanenson: …because it’s in the PUD ordinance so I think there’s a, if we’re changing a lot
of things then we want to make sure we get it right in the PUD ordinance so we would, I think
what we should do is get a list of all those. Get some direction from the council and then get the
ordinance correct and come back with that in 2 weeks because we have to come back with the
rural service district.
Todd Gerhardt: Once you approve the ordinance it’s very difficult to change it so we want to get
it right the first time.
Kate Aanenson: I thought we had til final plat too so yeah.
Mark Nordland: Yeah we discussed we can’t wait til final plat on the signage.
Kate Aanenson: No. They want to put it into the PUD ordinance.
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Roger Knutson: Signage is a zoning ordinance issue so it’s in the PUD ordinance. You have a
copy of it I believe.
Mark Nordland: Yes.
Roger Knutson: So if you want anything changed in this ordinance you should be very specific
on what you want changed and what you want it to say.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, he’s going to go through that but the question is whether we’re going to
be able to resolve.
Mayor Laufenburger: This is what I’m hearing is that Kate you’re presenting the PUD for
approval tonight.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Laufenburger: The PUD ordinance for approval tonight and Mark what I’m hearing you
say is that you don’t agree 100 percent with the signage stipulation so the only alternative for us
is either you make your argument tonight and we change the, we approve or deny or you work
with city staff to get the language in the PUD right. As Mr. Gerhardt and Mr. Knutson said…
Kate Aanenson: If I can just suggest another route. I think it’d be helpful if they did explain to
you what you want and you can give us some direction and we can kind of have some because
otherwise we may agree to disagree and then we’re back at the same spot so, does that make
sense?
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay. Yeah that’s probably true so Mark have you made your full
argument on signage?
Mark Nordland: No. We can. The direction we had from Planning Commission and from staff
prior to this meeting was that we were going to come to agreement on a comprehensive signage
plan for the development and have that adopted at final plat. It sounds like legally there’s
something different here. I’m wondering Mr. Knutson is there any way that we can have the
signage portion removed from the PUD ordinance right now and adopt that at a later date as a
separate matter? We’re really, you know as you’ve seen we’ve been through 3 Planning
Commission meetings. I think you probably all watched the tapes and read all the Minutes and
it’s been a long process which deservedly so. It’s a major project. There’s a lot of moving
pieces but if we can get this approved and then work with staff I feel very confident, there are 4
issues I was going to talk about that we agreed that we would work on between now and final
plat to get finalized but get the zoning in place now so that we know the basis upon which we’re
moving forward.
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Roger Knutson: Signage is part of the zoning. You could, if the council adopt this tonight then
you would have to go back to the Planning Commission. Have another public hearing to amend
this. That’s one possibility.
Darren Lazan: Mr. Mayor one of the thoughts we had going into this is that potentially the
ordinance could be adopted tonight that reflects, unless otherwise approved as part of a
comprehensive sign package these are the sign criteria as staff has laid out. That gives us the
opportunity to either comply with what’s been laid out by staff or come back with that
comprehensive package.
Roger Knutson: They cannot, the council cannot approve anything that’s inconsistent with this
ordinance.
Kate Aanenson: That’s what he’s saying. Didn’t you just say you.
Darren Lazan: Yeah, no I just said that we would, it would, the comprehensive sign package
would have to come back before the first development stage plan. That would have to go
through planning and council and be approved. Then it would over ride the base that you’re
approving tonight.
Kate Aanenson: So what they do when they come back for site plan they also ask for an
amendment to the PUD.
Roger Knutson: It’s have to be a PUD amendment.
Kate Aanenson: Right, right. I like that.
Roger Knutson: So then we can adopt this tonight as it is.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Darren Lazan: Yeah that was our hope…
Mayor Laufenburger: So then it becomes your decision as to whether or not in your discussions
you choose to comply with the signage ordinance in the elements of the PUD or not. If you
choose not to then you know that you’re coming back through the Planning Commission public
hearing for.
Kate Aanenson: An amendment.
Mayor Laufenburger: Amendment to the PUD.
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Darren Lazan: And I think the most likely amendment will be our initial package we’d like to
put together to put this comprehensively. Work with staff and bring it forward for your
consideration and it will likely be hopefully the only amendment related to signage for that. But
we just wanted the opportunity to take this is the baseline and have the ability to demonstrate the
projects as they come in and how they’ll tie together with signage and why that’s critical to the
success so.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, what I’m hearing from Kate is that you’re prepared to accept that
process is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. Continue Mark. So that’s point number one right?
Mark Nordland: Perfect. You just saved about an hour of a signage presentation from Darren so
that’s good.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well we didn’t save it. We just postponed it.
Mark Nordland: Postponed it. Well until we’ve had a better chance to work through. There’s a
few areas that we’re for sure going to need to compromise and I think we can all come to
something that works well. Senior housing. I believe the approval that’s set forth allows for the
senior housing with services. Is that correct Kate?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, we did agree that we would allow senior services.
Mark Nordland: Alright because some of the earlier staff reports staff was unsure if that was a
good use on the site and Planning Commission I think and hopefully some of our.
Mayor Laufenburger: I have a question regarding that?
Mark Nordland: Yes.
Mayor Laufenburger: You’re aware of, I think Kate’s comment was we believe we have enough
senior housing.
Kate Aanenson: That was in the earlier reports correct. Yep.
Mayor Laufenburger: So you’re aware of some of the senior housing developments that are
underway?
Mark Nordland: Yeah, very aware.
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Mayor Laufenburger: And the people that you’re working with still believe that there’s a market
opportunity, is that correct?
Mark Nordland: Very much so. We’ve, Tom Palmquist is here tonight who’s helping us market
the project or who’s leading the marketing on it and we’ve got 6 prospective users that are all
competing for that use right now on our site that all would like to be here in Chanhassen so it’s a
good thing and I think the development that we’re creating is a great place for seniors to be in
addition to the other housing that we’re providing. That you wouldn’t want it just to be a big
senior housing development but it’s a mix that allows the full life cycle of folks to be on the site.
And we have senior independent or age restricted independent that wants to be here but to be
able to have the senior with services it allows people to age in place which is really important for
them. If you’re going to go rent an apartment as you’re aging it’s nice to know or it’s important
and critical in a lot of cases to know that you can you know across the parking lot be in another
facility or your spouse can be as you age going forward so that’s really important in the
marketplace and we appreciate staff’s hearing of us and the Planning Commission and others.
Mayor Laufenburger: So item 2 has been approved so.
Mark Nordland: So there we go.
Kate Aanenson: Check.
Mark Nordland: Well it’s in the PUD as drafted to potentially be approved.
Todd Gerhardt: It does have not to exceed 150 units.
Mark Nordland: Yeah of senior.
Kate Aanenson: Of senior. Of assisted.
Mark Nordland: With services correct. We agreed that it would just be one project.
Todd Gerhardt: Okay, but the 150 was fine?
Mark Nordland: Yes. Yep, no that was the number we agreed to. I just wanted to make sure that
everybody was on the same page there. And then the Bluff Creek Boulevard road profile.
That’s another thing that we’re going to work out. I think the traffic calming is critical to the
development. It’s critical to the neighbors. You know we hired this Toole Design out of
California for an exorbitant fee to come in and help us figure out exactly what works well here.
There’s a compromise to be had there and I think we all just need to sit at the same table.
Planning staff and the fire staff and ourselves and whoever else wants to be at that table to come
to a conclusion on what works and we’ll offer up some suggestions and take their feedback and
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work through that process, and that will come through on the final plat because it’s not a PUD
item. That’s part of the plan, correct?
Mayor Laufenburger: So you’re comfortable that whatever results from that process you’ll do?
Mark Nordland: Yes. We’re comfortable that we’ll be able to get to that conclusion. And if
there’s still some disagreement it would be back before you to I guess arbitrate that but I think
we’ll be able to get there. Staff has been good to work with and we just need to all sit around
and figure that out together. And then the last is the Bluff Creek Overlay District. I’m sure from
watching the Planning Commission meeting you’ve seen sort of where they came out on that.
You know we initially, in our initial concept plan that you, I don’t know if approved is the right
word but you saw back in November and commented on. We had 4.4 acres of private impact
there plus 2.1 acres for the road that went through. Our submittal was 2.9 acres of impact for the
private development. We tried really hard to get it down. You saw the plans earlier. We got it
down as much as, as little as 1.3 acres but as we brought that back to the providers that actually
own and operate those facilities, that plan did not work. That was us trying to make it work but
it was too linear and really we need to go back and figure that out and the Planning
Commission’s direction to us was go back. Get an actual site plan that minimizes the impact as
much as you can and then come back in with the variance and the site plan together, which is
what we intend to do so we actually would formally like to withdraw our request for that
variance because I think that if we are denied that variance we have to wait a certain period
before we can come back in and request it again and we’d like to come back in with the actual
provider. With their actual plan. They can stand here and defend it much better than I.
Mayor Laufenburger: Seems to me that’s sort of what the Planning Commission said.
Mark Nordland: That’s exactly what they asked, yes. And we contemplated trying. The trick is
we need to get the provider to spec the time and money and energy to come in not knowing if the
building envelope will be there for them or that the site will be there for them to accommodate
their facility but we don’t see another choice in the matter and we’re going to go down that path
and.
Mayor Laufenburger: So the Bluff Creek Overlay District is, could potentially be impacted two
ways. Number one by Bluff Creek Boulevard. That’s building in the Bluff Creek Overlay
District.
Kate Aanenson: We’ve got that covered already.
Mayor Laufenburger: But that’s one way. And then the second is this impact into these 18 acres
of woods, is that right?
Mark Nordland: Yes. Somewhere up to 3 acres we will likely be back in here asking for your
approval on so we didn’t want to just have this be passed and not make note of the fact that we
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will be back with that but you’ll have every right to review and ask us a lot of tough questions
about whether or no it’s an impact that’s worthwhile and vote on it accordingly at that point.
Mayor Laufenburger: So it sounds like we’ve agreed now on number 1, on the signage. You’re
prepared to submit an amendment to the PUD. You got yes on the senior housing. 3 is the road
which is going to be a discussion and then you’re withdrawing the request for a variance so that
is one of those items in, when we get there. We just will not include that.
Kate Aanenson: Well actually we recommended no so it’s consistent with that. With our
recommendation because we recommended no on the variance so they’re agreeing to the no so.
Mark Nordland: Yes but I think the important.
Kate Aanenson: Withdrawing the application.
Darren Lazan: We want to withdraw.
Mark Nordland: We want to withdraw so you don’t actually deny it as Mr. Knutson would
advise us. It’s a good thing otherwise we’d have to wait 6 months or a year before we can come
back in.
Mayor Laufenburger: We’re taking his advice.
Todd Gerhardt: We need an official letter of withdrawal.
Mark Nordland: So with that I just.
Mayor Laufenburger: Do we?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: Yes.
Kate Aanenson: Did you hear that? Someone’s got to pencil out or pen out a withdrawal and
date it.
Darren Lazan: Do you want it done before the vote?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Mark Nordland: With that I just really want to thank the staff.
Todd Gerhardt: You can send us one.
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Mark Nordland: The neighbors that have been involved in this process. You know at the initial
neighborhood meetings there were hundreds of neighbors. We’re now down to, she’s still here.
We’ve got a couple.
Mayor Laufenburger: Let me stop you. Todd wants to say something to Kate.
Todd Gerhardt: We can get it later.
Mark Nordland: Now it’s down to just a couple neighbors and I think we’ve done a pretty good
job of working together with staff and neighbors and the Planning Commission and the council
when we were here before and hopefully again here tonight. To take a really complicated project
with a lot of moving pieces and drive it forward. I also would like to thank our client Level 7 as
far as a client to work with that’s got vision and normally we’re always trying to cut corners and
trying to do things to drive cost out or try to make things work and it’s been really the exact
opposite in working with Level 7. They’ve been really pushing us to excel and do more. I’ve
been doing this over 20 years for a lot of major developers in Minneapolis and nationwide and
never had an experience like that so we really appreciate everything and we’re here for questions
and whatever else you need.
Mayor Laufenburger: See if there’s any questions of council. Council any questions regarding
what we’re being asked? Just keep in mind one of the items will be withdrawn and the wetland
permit is subject to approval by the WCA. WCA right so that’s the two changes. Any other
changes there Kate? I think that was it.
Kate Aanenson: I think Mr. Knutson probably redid the Findings of Fact and Decision for me
and the motion. But I think we’re in a good place.
Mayor Laufenburger: So any questions of the applicant? So let’s bring this back to the council
then. This is not a public hearing. Mr. Akradi, it’s late at night. Would you like to say
something to the council?
Bahram Akradi: I just want to thank you, if you don’t mind I’ll just do it from here. I’ll say it
loud enough. I want to thank starting with Kate, Todd, city staff, my team to work so well
together. This has been a work in progress. It’s been we’ve been at it now for a little over 2
years. Working on the project. I’m excited about doing something totally first class. We talked
about doing things environmentally friendly. I’ve been pushing them to do so as much as we
possibly can. I want it to be something timeless for the community and I’m just excited to go
through and I appreciate all of you. The City Council as well as the staff for cooperation.
Obviously I’ve developed over 25 million square feet across the country and it’s not always this
cooperative and for many times for no good reason so I just want to thank everybody for the
effort that you guys are putting forward in this. That’s it. Thank you.
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Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, thank you very much Mr. Akradi. Okay bring this back to
council. Are we ready for a motion or not?
Kate Aanenson: I think if we can get some directions on the motions and potentially Findings of
Fact. If we need to change that at all or.
Roger Knutson: Mayor, members of the council. Can I make some suggestions?
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay.
Roger Knutson: Where it says the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends, that would
be deleted and replaced with the City Council approves the rezoning. City Council approves the
subdivision.
Todd Gerhardt: You’re just taking out Planning Commission.
Kate Aanenson: Oh that’s always good.
Mayor Laufenburger: Does anybody feel comfortable in reading what we need to have or do you
want to.
Roger Knutson: And then.
Mayor Laufenburger: Do we wait for the change?
Councilman McDonald: If you want I’ll give it a try.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: He’s a trooper tonight isn’t he?
Mayor Laufenburger: Isn’t he though. Put that up there Kate. We’re going to try this.
Roger Knutson: I’d point out that item D has been withdrawn.
Mayor Laufenburger: Yeah.
Todd Gerhardt: Take D out completely.
Roger Knutson: And if I can explain the Findings that you have will be amended. On paragraph
6. Wetland Alteration Permit. Amend it to provide that it’s approved subject to the TEP panel’s
approval. Recommended approval. Paragraph 7. Variances will be deleted and it will noted the
applicant is withdrawing the request. In the Decision it will be amended to say that Wetland
Alteration for the grading and filling of wetlands is approved subject to the TEP panel approval.
Recommended approval. And you’ll take out the provision on variances. Will not be needed.
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Darren Lazan: TEP panel’s an advisory body to the City as the LGU so it’s really subject to the
City’s approval of the wetland alteration.
Roger Knutson: That means it has to come back.
Darren Lazan: It does yeah. Same thing. It’s just not subject to the TEP panel approval. It
would be subject to the City’s approval.
Roger Knutson: So we’re not approving the wetland alteration permit tonight then.
Kate Aanenson: So the whole goal from the beginning is once they made a determination we
wouldn’t have to come back to this body. That’s been our goal so I think we want to leave it to
the TEP panel.
Darren Lazan: Gotch ya.
Mayor Laufenburger: Can we say subject successful review? Subject to successful review by
the TEP?
Darren Lazan: Subject to obtaining Wetland Conservation Act.
Roger Knutson: And the recommended approval of the TEP panel.
Mayor Laufenburger: Subject to recommendation of approval by.
Roger Knutson: Ideally it would come back to you but they don’t want to do that.
Todd Gerhardt: They want us to maybe override the TEP panel.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well you still comfortable with this Mr. McDonald?
Councilman McDonald: Sure, just let me know when. Are you ready Mr. Mayor?
Councilwoman Ryan: Can we get clarification then on this TEP panel approval.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah can’t we say that.
Roger Knutson: TEP panel by ordinance makes a recommendation to you and then you make
the decision.
Councilwoman Ryan: Right it comes back to us.
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Roger Knutson: That’s not the way this is set up.
Councilman Campion: So is it subject to no changes from the TEP panel?
Roger Knutson: TEP panel by ordinance, state statute makes a recommendation to you, the
governing body.
Todd Gerhardt: And then you can make changes to the TEP panel.
Roger Knutson: You don’t have to follow the recommendations.
Councilman McDonald: Okay subject to recommendations by the TEP panel.
Mayor Laufenburger: There we go. Approval subject to recommendations.
Mark Nordland: So if they recommended against then we’d have to come back.
Todd Gerhardt: And you have to convince this board of those changes.
Darren Lazan: Yeah, we got it. I think we’re fine with that.
Roger Knutson: Okay.
Mayor Laufenburger: Subject to affirmative recommendation.
Darren Lazan: Well now you just changed it.
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah.
Darren Lazan: And the only, and I’m sorry Mr. Mayor. The only reason I’m hung up a little bit
on it is that the TEP panel doesn’t approval anything. They provide the recommendations to you
folks.
Councilman McDonald: It wouldn’t be affirmative. I mean they could recommend in the
negative too.
Darren Lazan: Yep, and then you can decide on the positive.
Councilman McDonald: Yeah then it comes back to us.
Mark Nordland: So if they recommend in the negative we have to come back before you and
make our case.
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Darren Lazan: Yeah.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, Mr. McDonald you want to try it?
Councilman McDonald: Okay. Mr. Mayor I make the following motion. A. The Chanhassen
City Council approves the Rezoning of 115.519 acres from Agricultural Estate District, A2, to
PUD Regional Commercial including the PUD ordinance. B. The Chanhassen City Council
approves Subdivision Preliminary Plat creating 17 lots, 3 outlots, and dedication of public right-
thth
of-way as shown in plans prepared by Landform dated April the 14 and June the 12, 2017,
subject to conditions in the staff report. C. The Chanhassen City Council approves the
Conditional Use Permit to encroach into the primary zone and required buffer for the
construction of Bluff Creek Boulevard, subject to conditions in the staff report. Then I guess
next one should be D. The Chanhassen City Council approves the Wetland Alteration Permit to
4.4659 acres of permanent wetland impacts subject to conditions in the staff report and subject to
approval, it should by the WCA.
Mayor Laufenburger: I think you want to make that word recommendation. Subject to
recommendation.
Todd Gerhardt: The TEP panel.
Councilman McDonald: Well I thought the TEP panel.
Roger Knutson: Subject to the TEP panel’s recommendation for approval.
Councilman McDonald: Okay, subject to the TEP panel’s recommendation for approval. And
then E. The Chanhassen City Council also adopts the attached Findings of Fact and
Recommendations subject to the approval of the TEP panel.
Roger Knutson: That’s not necessary. It will be in the Findings.
Mayor Laufenburger: Modifying paragraph 7.
Councilman McDonald: Modify paragraph 7.
Mayor Laufenburger: Withdrawing the request for a variance.
Councilman McDonald: And with modifying paragraph 7 in which the request for a variance is
withdrawn.
Roger Knutson: Right, and modify paragraph 6 to show that we need the TEP panel’s
recommended approval.
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Councilman McDonald: And modify paragraph 6 to show that the Chanhassen City Council will
need the TEP panel approval.
Roger Knutson: Recommendation for approval.
Councilman McDonald: Recommendation. Scratch approval. Recommendation.
Roger Knutson: For approval.
Councilman McDonald: For approval.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay let’s sit on this for just a second.
Kate Aanenson: Where is paragraph 7?
Mayor Laufenburger: Findings of Fact.
Todd Gerhardt: Findings of Fact. It has the variance in the Findings of Fact. Page 8.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you.
Mayor Laufenburger: So we have a motion for A, B, C, D, approval of the wetland alteration
permit subject to a recommendation of approval by the TEP panel. And item E, adopting the
attached Findings of Facts and Recommendation with modifications to paragraph 6 citing that
wetland permit is subject to recommendation for approval from the TEP panel and paragraph 7,
applicant’s desire to withdraw the variance request. That’s what we have in front of us right
now. Mr. Knutson, is that acceptable?
Roger Knutson: I think it’s what you, sounded good to me.
Mayor Laufenburger: Okay, alright. We have a motion. Is there a second?
Councilman Campion: Second.
Mayor Laufenburger: Thank you Mr. Campion. Any discussion at this time?
Councilman McDonald: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilmember McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: Well I’ll let.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilman Campion.
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Councilman Campion: No I just want to apologize to the Level 7 and the Avienda team for
pushing you back tonight but yes, so I apologize for that but I appreciate your patience in
working through all these issues with staff and it looks like it’s shaping up to be a great
development.
Mayor Laufenburger: Councilmember Ryan, did you have your hand up?
Councilwoman Ryan: I did not. I know you’re used to seeing that but.
Mayor Laufenburger: You must have scratched your face or something. Councilmember
McDonald, did you have a comment.
Councilman McDonald: Well yeah, I had a comment because one of the things that Ms.
Aanenson said was she’s looking for some direction from council so I thought I’d give her some
direction. At least from my perspective. I want to thank Level 7. I think, well as you heard last
time I’ve been involved in the project across the street for a lot of years. Been involved in this
project for a lot of years and my question has always been, what are you going to do? What does
it look like? Because we were always being asked to approve things that I had no idea how it fit
into the overall picture so I really appreciate being given a vision and an idea of what it is you’re
trying to accomplish with all of this land and my hope is that again you’ve shown great
cooperation working with the City which is very welcomed and again very different from what I
think we were used to and I would encourage the City that, or the staff at all possible give them
the benefit of the doubt. I think this is a great looking project. I think it would make the City
proud. I think it’d be a destination just like Prince’s property would be so I wish you a lot of
luck and I’m hoping that the cooperation can continue but again I would lean toward giving them
the benefit of the doubt. That’s my two cents worth and my direction.
Mayor Laufenburger: Well that was more like 4 or 5 cents Mr. McDonald but you’re allowed.
You’re allowed. Anybody else a comment? Okay.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council approve Planning Case #2017-19 to rezone 115.54 acres from Agricultural Estate
District (A2) to PUD Regional Commercial-PUD Subdivision contingent upon final plat
approval, as shown in plans from Landform dated April 14, 2017 and June 12, 2017,
subject to the PUD ordinance and adoption of the Findings of Fact. All voted in favor and
the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council approves the Subdivision Preliminary Plat creating 17 lots, 3 outlots, and
dedication of public right-of-way, plans prepared by Landform dated April 14, 2017 and
June 12, 2017, and subject to the following conditions:
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Engineering
1. Top and bottom elevations for all retaining walls shall be labeled on the plan set.
2. A fence or other barrier is required at any location where a wall is greater than 6 feet tall
and within 10 feet of a public right of way.
3. The following wall materials are prohibited: smooth face, poured in place concrete
(stamped or patterned is acceptable), masonry, railroad ties, or timber. Boulder walls are
prohibited if the maximum height is greater than 6 feet.
4. All retaining walls shall be owned and maintained by a property-owners association.
5. The applicant shall submit a revised grading plan to show Wall E, including top and
bottom wall elevations.
6. As large, landscaped boulevards are proposed, the applicant shall add a note to the typical
sections to identify a corridor for installation of private utilities such as power,
communication, gas, etc.
7. The applicant shall show the road profiles and a horizontal alignment table in the plan set
for all public roads prior to final plat.
8. The public roads constructed with this development are: Bluff Creek Boulevard, Avienda
Parkway, Sunset Trail and Mills Drive. All other roads and drives constructed with this
development will be privately owned and maintained.
9. The applicant proposes an Ultimate Plan for the Bluff Creek intersection with Powers
Boulevard that includes two-lane entry into the roundabout. The City requires this
Ultimate Plan be constructed at this time, but the roadway can be striped for one-lane
only.
10. The applicant shall remove pavement and expand the median on the southern leg of the
Powers Boulevard/Bluff Creek Boulevard intersection to remove the second left-turn lane
from northbound Powers Blvd to westbound Bluff Creek Blvd.
11. Staff recommends the applicant add traffic calming measures to Avienda Parkway West
near the residential areas of development. Specifically, the applicant shall incorporate
pedestrian-friendly crossing features to the intersection at Mills Drive and Avienda
Parkway West.
12. The applicant shall revise the width of Mills Drive to correspond with the existing Mills
Drive section in The Preserve at Bluff Creek.
13. The applicant shall align the intersection of Mills Drive and the access to the apartment
building with the parking ramp to form an intersection rather than offset as the current
plan shows.
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14. Sunset Trail will become a private roadway from Avienda Parkway to Bluff Creek
Boulevard as it winds through the center of the development. When Block 5 and/or Lot 2,
Block apply for site plan approval, this private road shall be constructed.
15. The plan for concrete sidewalk on the inside of Avienda Parkway shall be revised to a 5-
foot width.
16. ADA-compliant pedestrian ramps shall be constructed at all intersections and median
refuges per the MnDOT standard details.
17. The sanitary stub from MH 25 shall be no larger than the 8” downstream pipe and the
slope shall be adjusted accordingly.
18. Sanitary service stubs shall be provided for the six twin home units proposed on Mills
Drive.
19. Sanitary structures shall be moved out of the landscaped median and into the center of
lanes for improved future maintenance access.
20. All sanitary sewer main constructed within the right-of-way in this project shall be
publically owned and maintained.
21. Private sanitary main must be constructed to meet the City’s requirements for public
utilities.
22. The plan shall use 2017 Chanhassen standard detail plates, which are available on the
City’s website.
23. The proposed water main connection 570 feet north of the Bluff Creek Blvd/Powers Blvd
intersection shall be removed. A water main connection from Avienda Parkway to
Lyman Boulevard through the parking lot of Lot 3, Block 4 shall be installed. The
applicant shall grant a drainage and utility easement for this publically owned and
maintained connection.
24. Water service stubs shall be provided for the six twin home units proposed on Mills
Drive.
25. Additional water main stubs shall be provided at the accesses for Lot 1, Block 4 and Lot
1, Block 5.
26. All water main constructed within the right-of-way in this project shall be publically
owned and maintained. Private sanitary and water main must be constructed to meet the
City’s requirements for public utilities.
27. The applicant must show a maintenance access route for the pond at the bottom of Wall
D.
28. The applicant must provide the total disturbed area of the proposed development.
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29. Permanent stormwater management controls for Volume, Rate, and Water Quality are
required per the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District (RPBCWD) rules.
30. The applicant must provide a figure clearly identifying the areas to be irrigated with areas
quantified, which is not included in the current plans.
31. The proposed reuse system does not provide sufficient volume reduction per RPBCWD
rules. It is recommended that the irrigation system is revised to provide further volume
reduction.
32. The applicant must provide documentation that each of these ponds meets the Level 1, 2,
and 3 criteria per the Minnesota Stormwater Manual to ensure that they will produce the
calculated water quality benefits.
33. The applicant must provide the annual runoff volumes to each wetland for the pre- and
post-project conditions.
34. The applicant must provide further information on the bounce and inundation periods for
each of the identified critical wetlands. The bounce and inundation changes caused by the
project must be in compliance with WCA requirements.
35. The twin home units must pay a water and sanitary service partial hook-up fee when Lot
1, Block 2 and Lot 1, Block 3 are replatted at the rate in place at that time. The
remaining hook-up fees would be paid with the building permits.
36. The developer shall work with the Building Department to determine the City SAC and
WAC fees for commercial and multi-family buildings. The hook-up fees for commercial
and multi-family buildings are due with the building permit at the rate in place at that
time.
37. The developer shall pay this site’s portion of the 2005 AUAR costs- which is $25,836.70
with the final plat.
38. Collector and Arterial Roadway Traffic Impact Zone fees will be collected with the final
plat. The fee will be based on the commercial rate of $3,600 per acre and a residential
rate of 2,400 per acres.
39. The developer shall escrow funds for installation of traffic signals at Sunset Trail, Powers
Boulevard and Audubon Road. The escrow amount shall be based on the Carver
County’s cost participation policy as published on their website.
40. The proposed redevelopment will need a Riley-Purgatory –Bluff-Creek Watershed
District (RPBCWD) permit prior to beginning construction activities.
41. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that permits are received from all other
agencies with jurisdiction over the project (i.e., Army Corps of Engineers, DNR,
MnDOT, Carver County, RPBC Watershed District, Board of Water and Soil Resources,
PCA, etc.).
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42. A drainage and utility easement shall be placed over Outlot B.
43. The developer shall dedicate the Conservation Easement containing the Bluff Creek Primary
Zone to the City.
44. Provide a cross access easement to Lot 4, Block 1.
Landscaping
1. No development encroachment on the Bluff Creek Overlay District primary zone shall be
allowed nor fragmentation of the primary zone area.
2. The access route shall follow the shortest route from Camden Ridge to the proposed
development.
3. The applicant shall submit an overall landscape plan that shows proposed landscaping for
the overall site including items such as parking lots, perimeter, foundation and open
space areas.
4. Parking lot islands shall be linear areas incorporating planting area and stormwater
management.
5. If the applicant chooses to install the minimum requirement sizes of parking lot
landscaping islands, then if the proposed plan remains committed to individual landscape
islands, then silva cells, engineered soil or other accommodations must be used in order
to insure the survival of the trees.
6. No more than 20% of the total trees should be from any one genus and no more than 10%
should be from any one species.
7. A reuse watering system should be considered to irrigate all plantings within the site.
8. Drought tolerant plants shall be incorporate into the overall landscape plan.
9. Proposed landscaping plant materials shall be selected based on site conditions.
10. At a minimum, overall tree cover should be at least 20-25% or higher in commercial
areas and a minimum of 30-35% or higher in residential areas.
11. Any landscaping located within the ROW or the median shall be covered by an
encroachment and maintenance agreement
Park and Trail
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1. Incorporate meaningful park-like places, including the provision of appropriate recreation
equipment, site furnishings, and landscaping adjacent to residential components.
2. Preserve the woodlands identified in the Bluff Creek Overlay District. Provide a blanket
trail easement over the entire preserved area to accommodate the installation of natural
surface public trails.
3. Provide an attractive public trail connection from the north entering the Bluff Creek
Overlay District.
4. Incorporate traffic calming into all pedestrian crossing locations.
5. Full park dedication fees shall be collected per city ordinance in lieu of requiring
parkland dedication.
Building Official Comments
1. The buildings are required to have automatic fire extinguishing systems.
2. Building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the State of
Minnesota.
3. Soil evaluation (geo-technical) report required.
4. Retaining walls over four feet high must be designed by a professional engineer and a permit
must be obtained prior to construction.
Fire Department Comments
The east and west bound driving lanes of Bluff Creek Boulevard extending from Powers
Boulevard to the existing Bluff Creek Boulevard be increased from 16 feet to 20 feet curb to
curb. This is in order for emergency apparatus to safely pass cars and trucks once they pull over
and stop.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council approves the Conditional Use Permit to encroach into the primary zone and
required buffer for the construction of Bluff Creek Boulevard; subject to the following
conditions:
1. The developer shall dedicate the Conservation Easement containing the Bluff Creek Primary
Zone to the City.
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2. The Developer shall provide the city with a management for the area and submit to the city
for review.
3. Monuments indicating the Bluff Creek Overlay District shall be placed at every other
property corner and at an angle of deflection greater than seven percent, but in no case
shall they be greater than 150 feet apart.
4. The developer shall not encroach into the Bluff Creek Primary Zone.
5. The developer shall comply with the with the 40 foot primary zone setback and preserve or
create a 20 foot buffer from the primary zone.
6. The buffer will be required to have a vegetation management plan and soil amendments.
7. The plans shall be revised to remove any structure in the BCOD.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the City Council
approve the Wetland Alteration Permit to 4.4659 acres of permanent wetland impacts
subject to the TEP panel’s recommendation for approval and subject to the following
conditions:
The applicant needs to supply the needed additional information to the city. The additional
information is needed to determine if the project meets the WCA requirements.
A Technical Evaluation Panel meeting is needed to review the application.
If the application is deemed to meet the avoidance and minimization criteria of the WCA, a
mitigation plan that adequately replaces wetland functions and values is needed.
City Staff has reviewed mitigation options. City Staff recommends the applicant provide
wetland mitigation via the purchase of wetland bank credits, at a ratio of 2:1, in accordance
with WCA requirements.
The applicant shall contribute $300,000 to the city for water quality improvement projects
within the watershed.
Wetland Functions and Mitigation
If the project meets the WCA sequencing and shows that the wetland impacts need to occur for
the project (i.e. if the project meets wetland avoidance and minimization requirements), the rest
of the WCA review for this project is dependent on wetland replacement.
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The WCA requires that wetland replacement must replace the public value of wetlands lost
because of an impact. The public value of wetlands is generally based on the functions of
wetlands including: water quality, flood water attenuation, public recreation and education, and
fish/wildlife/plant habitats. The WCA uses the Minnesota Routine Assessment Method
(MnRAM) to determine functions and values. The City completed a citywide MnRAM in 2006.
The applicant has completed MnRAM as part of the application process. For the onsite wetlands
that were previously evaluated by the City, the applicant’s MnRAM has either the same result or
a slightly higher quality results for the wetlands.
The table above shows the wetland management categories from the application. The standard
categories that the city uses, which are in conformance with state guidance, is as follows:
Preserve: These are the highest quality wetlands and have high quality habitat and native
vegetative diversity.
Manage 1: These are a lower quality than Preserve, but still show high habitat quality and
plant diversity.
Manage 2: These wetlands have been impacted by stormwater, invasive species, or other
impacts and are lower quality than Manage 1. They likely still provide some habitat and
may have some native plant species.
Manage 3: These wetlands have been impacted the most and may provide a stormwater
treatment function and have minimal native plants. These are the lowest quality wetlands.
The wetlands proposed to be impacted by the project are either Manage 2 or Manage 3 wetlands.
Some have historically been excavated. These wetlands do not contain a diversity of native
plants. They do provide stormwater and floodplain treatment for downstream wetlands as they
are at the headwaters of the Bluff Creek and Lake Susan watersheds. Downstream waters are
impaired for water quality.
Wetland mitigation that replaces wetland functions and values at a minimum of a 2:1 ratio is
required and can be met in a variety of ways:
Onsite mitigation: New wetlands are created or restored within a project area. This could
address replacing functions and values in the same area, but the current layout does not
provide opportunity for a reasonable creation or restoration project. Also, creating new
wetlands takes time and there are many factors to consider for its success.
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Replacement in the same subwatershed: New wetlands are created or restored within the
same minor or major subwatershed as the project. This would allow wetland functions
and values to be replaced within the subwatershed where the project is located and the
project layout would not have to be altered to fit mitigation on site. However, a suitable
site would need to be located.
Purchase of wetland credits from a wetland bank: There are several wetland banks in the
state and applicants can purchase credit from these already created wetland areas. It is
preferred in the WCA rules that a bank within the same bank service area be chosen to
purchase credit for a project.
Some combination of these mitigation options: An eligible project can also use a
combination of these mitigation options.
As stated, if the project is determined to have met the avoidance and minimization criteria for the
wetland impact, wetland mitigation for the lost functions and values would be required at a
minimum of a 2:1 ratio. Currently, the applicant is proposing mitigation through the purchase of
credit from three wetland banks in Blue Earth, Stevens, and Rice Counties. These banks are in
the same bank service area, and only one is in the same major watershed area.
In addition to the wetland bank credits, City staff recommends that a condition of
approval will include the applicant shall contribute $300,000 to the city for water quality
improvement projects within the watershed.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilman Campion seconded that the Chanhassen City
Council adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendations as amended by the
City Attorney. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
Mayor Laufenburger: Congratulations. We look forward to seeing you more. Wow. You may be
done but we’re not. Alright, thank you. We have one more item that was taken from the consent
agenda.
CONSENT AGENDA: D-8. AWARD OF BID, CITY HALL EXTERIOR LANDSCAPING.
Mayor Laufenburger: Who’s is this?
Todd Gerhardt: Mine.
Mayor Laufenburger: Alright, Mr. Gerhardt.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, City Council members. Staff is recommending awarding bid to Blackstone
Contractors for a base bid of $33,835 and add Alternate #2 for signage of $32,000, giving you a
total award of $365,835.00.
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