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PC Minutes 1.16.18Planning Commission – January 16, 2018 Aller: Motion carries unanimously. Thank you again sir. Richard LaMettry: Nothing to it. PUBLIC HEARING: 7700 QUATTRO DRIVE – CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AMENDMENT TO EXTEND COMMUNICATION TOWER. Generous: Thank you Chairman and commissioners. Again this is an amendment to an existing conditional use permit. They were approved for a 75 foot tower. As a condition of approval they were required to construct it so that it could be extended in the future to accommodate another set of antennas. However it was too short. Again this is a public hearing. This will go th to City Council on February 12. The applicant is Crown Castle Services and the property owner if Marilyn Beddor. This property is located at 7700 Quattro Drive. That’s actually in Hennepin County. It’s just north of Highway 5 and east of Dell Road. There’s an existing cell tower in the back yard and the property is zoned industrial office park. It’s over 2 acres in size. The location of the tower meets all our zoning requirements. Again the existing tower and equipment are behind the building, the northerly building on the site so they’re not visible from the public right-of-way. They would be adding 15.2 feet to the height of the tower and an additional 3 feet on top of that for a lightning rod. They will be putting in additional equipment platform on the rear and then they’re going to enclose that with a fence system. (Due to technical difficulties a portion of the staff report and the applicant’s presentation were not recorded.) Richard Krueger: …so yeah this is definitely no, yeah. Tietz: Taken into consideration. Richard Krueger: Absolutely yeah. Tietz: That was the only thing I was concerned with. With an aging, for an 18 year old structure and. Richard Krueger: Right, yeah they’ll do welding and there’s welding standards and stuff like that on the flange plate and all that kind of stuff so yeah. It’s, if it were to fail it would be very bad for the company and the public and you don’t hear about cell towers falling over for that reason. It’s very safe so. Yeah there’ll be, an act of God would have to happen basically. A 100 year flood down in Texas or something like that so yeah there’s a lot of testing that goes along with that. Tietz: Good, thanks. 9 Planning Commission – January 16, 2018 Richard Krueger: Yeah no problem. Aanenson: I was just going to add on that too Planning Commission members that those permits will be reviewed by the City so they have to submit those engineering reports so, before a permit would be issued to work on it. Tietz: Good, thanks. Aller: Based on the commissioners question or the response any additional comments or questions for the applicant? Seeing none. Oh Commissioner Madsen. Madsen: I just see in our packet that the ordinance would allow for a taller tower. Do you anticipate in the future that to make it taller or could you add additionally at a later point in time? Richard Krueger: I think if they really wanted to do it. The impetus for this is Verizon, the carrier came to us and said we wanted coverage in this area. We looked at the tower. It says well we don’t have what we call a center line, RAD center line radio distribution center line so we’re going to extend the tower so the reason why we’re doing this right now, to this height is because it’s the most economically feasible one and frankly I’m not an engineer. I went to law school. I don’t know like the calculations and stuff like that but I’m guessing that if it got a little bit, if it got too tall that’s when we run into issues with structural integrity and also legislatively speaking there’s a 6409A passed by the U.S. government says you can go up to 20 feet. It’s called an eligible facilities request which this is so anything under 20 feet is not a substantial change to the tower and there’s other criteria too but if we’re talking about height it’s under 20 feet so they like to keep it underneath that no matter what because the cost benefit analysis, it wouldn’t really work to extend it another 10 feet and then run into an issue where it’s like, instead of going to 87 or 90 we’re going to 100 or 105 or something like that. It’s just more spooky. We’re getting into triple digits there so, as far as coming back and extending it, I don’t see that happening. But if it was to be the case that would be 20 years from now and by that time everything will be small cell anyways so. Madsen: Okay, thank you. Richard Krueger: Yeah no problem. Aller: Great, thank you very much. Just a follow up for staff. The conditions are requiring a building permit which will allow for a 90 foot tower and the structure would have to be substantially fit for 90 feet. Generous: Correct, it would have to meet the 90 miles an hour wind load and then the half inch of ice so. 10 Planning Commission – January 16, 2018 Aller: If they were to come back how high would it be for purposes of an administrative request as opposed to coming before us again. Generous: We only get 10 percent so 9 feet. Aller: Thank you. Now we’ll open up the public hearing portion of the item. Any individuals wishing to come forward can speak for or against the tower issue before us. Seeing no one come forward we’ll close the public hearing and comments or action. Randall: I have no comments. Madsen: Looks good. Aller: I’ll invite a motion then. Madsen: I’ll make a motion. Aller: Commissioner Madsen. Madsen: The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of the amendment to the Conditional Use Permit to permit the extension of the communication tower and approves the Findings of Fact and Recommendation. Aller: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Randall: Second. Aller: Thank you Commissioner Randall. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Madsen moved, Randall seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of an amendment to Conditional Use Permit #2000-6 to permit the construction of an extension to the communication tower up to 90 feet monopole, plans prepared by Design 1, dated revised 04-10-17, and subject to the following conditions and adopts the Findings of Fact and Recommendation: 1. A building permit is required to construct the platform and tower extension; the tower must be designed for a 90 MPH wind load and include the effect of one-half inch of radial ice. 2. The original plans must be signed by a professional engineer licensed in the State of Minnesota. 11 Planning Commission – January 16, 2018 3. The contractor shall meet with the Inspections Division as early as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. 4. The applicant shall submit a detailed grading, drainage and erosion control plan for staff review and approval. 5. The tower extension shall be of the same color as the existing tower. 6. A letter of intent committing the tower owner and his or her successors to allow the shared use of the tower if an additional user agrees in writing to meet reasonable terms and conditions for shared use shall be submitted to the City. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: 7555 WALNUT CURVE – VARIANCE TO BUILD A POOL. Walters: Alright this is Planning Case 2018-04, 7555 Walnut Curve. If appealed this would go th before the City Council on February 12. The applicant is requesting a 4.9 percent lot coverage variance for the construction of an in ground swimming pool and pool apron area. So it’s located in the Walnut Grove subdivision on 7555 Walnut Curve. This is a planned unit development. It has a minimum lot size of 10,400 square feet and then 30 foot front and rear setbacks. 10 foot, I’m sorry that should read 10 foot side setback and this zone, this PUD has a 30 percent lot coverage but properties within the shoreland overlay district are limited to 25 percent. This property is located within the shoreland overlay district due to the presence of a mapped stream or creek in the field to the east. There are 4 houses within the planned unit development, 4 single family homes within the planned unit development that are subject to this 25 percent limit. The property has a 14,283 square foot lot. There’s currently 26.4 percent lot coverage and it meets all required setbacks. The applicant is proposing to construct an 18 foot by 36 foot sport pool with a 566 square foot pool apron/patio area. They are proposing to install a rain garden in the southwest corner of the lot in order to capture a lot of the pool runoff. The property naturally drains towards that corner away from the stream so their rationale is most other similar properties within the PUD would be allowed the 30 percent. The intent of the shoreland management zone of protecting the creek can be met due to the grading of the lot even with the higher percentage and the applicant is planning on installing the rain garden and also an additional rain barrel to minimize runoff and impact on the stream. When staff looked at it water resources agreed with our assessment of the grading with the exception that they noticed that there’s a slightly lower dip here and they believe that if a one foot berm is constructed here to bring it all up to 1,000 foot elevation that it would then function as intended and direct any potential runoff away from that stream or creek. As you can see the creek is, looks to be pretty much plowed under in the field. We’re not exactly certain where it is there but it is, it does exist on the map so that does trigger the shoreland overlay district. Staff does believe that the intent of the overlay district of protecting the creek can be met through grading and through the use of the 12