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PC Minutes 7-16-19CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JULY 16, 2019 Chairman Weick called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Steve Weick, Mark Randall, Michael McGonagill, Doug Reeder, and Laura Skistad MEMBERS ABSENT: Mark Undestad and John Tietz STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner; MacKenzie Walters, Associated Planner; Jason Wedel, City Engineer/Public Works Director; and Chief Don Johnson, Fire Chief PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AND SITE PLAN REVIEW APPLICATION FOR AN XCEL ENERGY METER READER POLE LOCATED AT 2150 LYMAN BOULEVARD. Al-Jaff: Thank you Chairman Weick, members of the Planning Commission. The application before you is for a site located at 2150 Lyman Boulevard. That is north of Lyman Boulevard and south of Chanhassen High School. The site contains the Bluff Creek Electric Substation which has been in operation since the 1980’s. The applicant is requesting a conditional use permit and site plan to construct 145 foot pole and a 5 foot lightning rod on top of that pole. The width of the pole at the base is 2 feet and it tapers as it goes up. The applicant is requesting to add meter readers at the top at the 145 foot level. Monopoles under our city code are only permitted under the conditional use permit process and that’s why this application is before you. One of the requirements within the city code is that we look at area within a mile radius to see if there are other poles that might be able to accommodate this request and yes, there is one within close proximity to this one. However it is 120 feet tall. It is at capacity at this moment so they can’t add anymore to it. As such the necessity for this one requires that we process this application. One other thing to add is this is a necessary public utility and they have gone through the Public Utility Commission approvals. Again this application is before you because our city code requires all poles to go through a conditional use process. The pole is proposed to be located on the site maintaining setbacks that far exceed those that are required by ordinance. The city code requires a 50 front, rear yard setbacks as well as 10 foot side yard setbacks. As you can see all of these setbacks far exceed the 200 foot. Currently there are an array of poles and electric structures on the site. We asked the applicant to put together an image of how this new pole would blend in and it will have the same color and blend in perfectly with the surrounding area. Staff is recommending approval of both the conditional use permit and site plan with conditions. We’ll be happy to answer any questions. The applicant is here if you have technical questions on this topic they will be able to address your questions. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 2 Weick: Okay. Certainly open it up for commission comment. I would say thanks for that picture. It shows up on page 4 of 10. You don’t have to show it again but with the pole put in there and in context of the surrounding landscape and other structures that are there I think that’s really useful so thank you for that. McGonagill: So I guess first question I have is why is it required at this time? What has changed? What has occurred? The fact that now you need it because of this system is already up and running so why is the applicant coming forward and saying we need a pole? Aanenson: I think we’ll just let them. I think at this point I think it does appear it’s going to be more technical so if you want to introduce yourself. Chris Rogers: Good evening Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, my name is Chris Rogers and I am a Principal Land Rights Agent with Xcel Energy. I also have with me Mr. Chris Sarles who’s probably going to be able to be better suited to answer the technical question. We call this our field area network or FAN for short The field area network is part of our advanced grid. You may have heard of the term smart grid which is coming up and many utilities are going to this for basically taking it to the next level. Not just to read our customer’s meters but it’s a way for us track our loads. Track our outages. We’d be able to respond quicker to outages. It’s a two way communication between our substation and our customer’s meters. It’s also a way for us to manage our load and our generation so when the grid is all together, not just with Chanhassen but with all the other areas combined, we’ll be able to manage that grid a little bit better on a distribution level which is your residences and your businesses locally but we’ll also be able to better manage our renewable energy on the grid which is pretty important right now. We have a big initiative for that too so it is reading our customer’s meters. In a few years our customers will have these smart meters installed. I’m going to bring Chris up. He’ll probably be able to speak a little bit better about the existing system because we do read our own meters now. Weick: Yeah. Chris Rogers: The system we have now is a little bit outdated from the mid 90’s and maybe Chris if you want to elaborate on the filtering network and what we’re replacing. Chris Sarles: Yeah good evening. So I was actually one of the folks that actually put in the original network that was here that is working today. Weick: Okay. Chris Sarles: With Cell-Net and I’m working on this network now. The main difference with it is the older network is made of one way meters so they chirp out their signal. It’s picked up by an MCC it brought up and is brought into the system but there’s no two way communication so Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 3 we can’t manage the meter in any way. We just read it. This way we have additional programs we can do. There’ll be new rates and different things that the company can offer customers. These meters, this two way network is also a mesh network so it will allow us to communicate to sensors. Voltage sensors. RTU’s. Different things like that through the mesh and that gives us some resiliency we don’t have today on the one way network, if that makes sense. Weick: It does. McGonagill: I’m kind of familiar with these kind of networks so with this it’ll be able to do, can you go in and calibrate your meters and look at them through the mesh and back up to see you know they’re accurate. They’re not. And I guess you could also then turn them on or turn them off if a customer wanted that kind of service. Chris Sarles: We can do remote disconnect, yep so that would be a shut off sensing thing but you know there’s a lot more sensors that are available on these newer meters. McGonagill: Sure. Chris Sarles: So we can sense hot sockets and things like that you know which are problems that can be taken care of. McGonagill: So unfortunately I had an outage this winter and I could go on your system and I could see where it up and how many customers were impacted so that’s kind of what you’re doing except just a little bit more beauty to it I guess. Chris Sarles: Yes. Although today we’re actually still reliant on customer call in’s. McGonagill: Okay. Chris Sarles: To figure out those outages and then we do have an OMS system that tries to take care of it but it’s tied in with a calling. This new system we actually can, since it’s two way and it’s mesh you don’t just have that last gap signal from the meter saying ooh I’m dying and that’s it but it actually, it can, it can go a little longer. It can re-route it’s signal so if it can’t find the way home through the normal ways it can find another path to get the data back. McGonagill: How many customers will this reach in this area? Where the tower is what’s the air length, how many meters are you going to pick up with it? Chris Sarles: So I, you know it goes in and out because of the landscape but we’re looking at it like 3 to 5 miles. A distance of radius. McGonagill: Okay is this first tower of several that are coming or is it? Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 4 Chris Sarles: It’s not the first tower of several that are coming. There’s actually one, I think today we actually stacked it in Eden Prairie. McGonagill: Okay. Chris Sarles: At the Eden Prairie substation which is right on 212 and 5 there right south of 494. McGonagill: Okay what about in Chanhassen though particularly? Chris Sarles: This would be the first one for here. McGonagill: Will there be more I guess is my question? Chris Sarles: I don’t think we’d need another one in Chanhassen, no. Not of this type. What we will have is we’ll probably end up with a handful of pole top. McGonagill: Repeaters. Chris Sarles: Yeah, access points and relays to go along to help enhance the mesh so if there’s places where your meters are thin you know they’ll throw a relay in there and that will help the mesh out. McGonagill: I guess the last question, if this thing happened to be in fact it’s the tallest thing around and does get hit by a lightning strike, yeah you’re grounded. You have that but similarly it can get fried. You know if that goes does the electrical grid go down and then stuff just goes on automatic itself? Chris Sarles: You know your electricity would still be delivered. McGonagill: You just couldn’t read it. Chris Sarles: We just, we would lose visibility temporarily for it. And the ground is pretty good on it. McGonagill: Oh yeah. Just asking. Chris Sarles: Yep it’s a good question though and it is possible to take it out. McGonagill: Anything with electronics. Chris Rogers: You’ll see a number of spikes in the substation too. We have a lot of other lightning protection there too on the box structures that protect the foundation because metal is kind of a lightning magnet too. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 5 McGonagill: Thank you Mr. Chair. Aanenson: I just want to point out to the Planning Commission we do have two electric providers in the city. The southern end of the city it actually has a different provider so there’s a substation down there on 212 just on the east side of Gedney Pickles so just when they’re talking about coverage area there’s a different area down in the southern part of the city. McGonagill: Good point, thank you. Weick: Other questions? Skistad: Yeah. Weick: Go ahead. Skistad: So the, you say 3 to 5 mile radius. Chris Sarles: Roughly. Skistad: Is there ultimately like a 30 mile radius? I was reading some information on the network that mentioned you could go out to 30 miles. Chris Sarles: We could go out 30 miles potentially if the line of sight is clear. The noise floor is low and those are two big factors we don’t really have here and so the terrain will cut it short in a lot of areas. Skistad: So this is primarily for wind energy? Chris Sarles: This pole? Skistad: This pole is created primarily for wind? Chris Sarles: No I wouldn’t say that but it will allow the, it allows us to better see our grid. We can do a lot better job of managing the voltage on the grid at connection points say when energy wanted to connect or interconnect with us then we would be able to manage that better. Much better locally because you know as that power comes onto the grid we have to make sure it’s at the right voltage or you know your houses are going to take on a lot more potentially so. Skistad: Right. Chris Sarles: It cleans that up. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 6 Skistad: Okay. So it sounds like there’s additional equipment that will be needed by customers to go with your tower? Chris Sarles: Down the line yeah, the smart meters will be coming yep. Skistad: What’s the estimated cost for those per customer. Chris Sarles: I don’t know that we’re charging anything for customers right up front. It will come in a rate case from a PUC so there’ll be monies and there may be a small increase coming down the line but it would be small. And then to counter that since not only we can see, manage our energy better you also will have the ability to manager your energy better if you so choose to. We’ll have a lot better customer you know websites. Things are going to improve around that so you’ll be able to see your energy in a much more granular manner than you can today. McGonagill: So could you interface with your meter and read it to yourself? Chris Sarles: No. I don’t think we have that capability and I don’t think we’re going to but I think you could look through your website and potentially just see your meter and see how it’s reading. Chris Rogers: We’ve got to be careful how we protect that information. Chris Sarles: So that will help. So that could potentially lower your bills then. That’s what our expectation really is on this. One of the projects we’re serving is, it’s call Integrated Voltage Optimization and what that is is we put a whole bunch of sensors out on those feeders and right now we just kind of generate enough electricity on that feeder to make sure that there’s enough voltage at the back end of that feeder that everybody’s happy working but a lot goes into the ground. It just goes, it gets wasted so since we can manage and measure that a long way we can actually lower the overall voltage of that meter making sure that the end customer is still maintained but we’re going to have to generate as much that will lower our generation costs which in in turn should lower the overall bills. Skistad: And I guess another question I have is, if it’s wireless what sort of radiation output are we putting? Chris Sarles: So it’s a 10 watt radio at this time and it’s, it’s you know it’s stronger than your cell phone but it’s also much farther away. There’s the MPE which is basically the allowed time you have to be in front of that tower and how close you can be is 18 inches so you can be within 18 inches of those antennas right on the front of them for half an hour safely according to the FCC so, and that’s the antenna that’s 145 feet high. Skistad: Okay. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 7 Chris Sarles: Yes, now the meters they’ll also put out an RF as will the AP’s. Those are at long lot so those are very similar to your cell phone and they’re in the same band as your cell phone. They’re in that 900 band. This tower will be running at 3.65 to 3.7 gigahertz so. Shorter waves. Skistad: It’s interesting that to read a little bit on this. I didn’t know anything about it before and at one point they were going to use cell phones on this. Is there any possibility of having? Chris Sarles: On our tower? Skistad: Yeah I’m just curious. We, for security reasons of our substation and just of our equipment because we will be running our grid we will not want co-location on this particular tower. Chris Rogers: It will also be inside the secured fenced area of the substation which is closed to the public. On our pavement. We don’t other carrier parties in there because it’s not safe basically and anybody who goes into our substations require an escort and proper clothing and those type of things too so it’s a very secure area. Skistad: Okay. Weick: So we’ll need more poles. Skistad: Kind of was curious if they were going to use technology or if you were going to change over and maybe we could. Chris Sarles: I mean there’s an unsecured tower about what, 2 miles up the road maybe. Something like that. Maybe the cell carriers can go on that. They have a space on it. Weick: Good questions. Skistad: I think that’s all I have. Weick: Okay. Any other questions for Xcel? Don’t see any. Thank you very much. Chris Sarles: You’re welcome. Weick: Appreciate it. At this time I will open the public hearing portion. Seeing nobody come forward I will close the public hearing and open this for commissioner comment. Discussion. Motion. Thoughts. McGonagill: Mr. Chairman I’d be glad to make a motion. Weick: That’d be wonderful, thank you. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 8 McGonagill: Very good. I move that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve a Conditional Use Permit and Site Plan to allow a 145 foot pole with a 5 foot lightning rod for the Utility Meter Reader subject to the conditions of approval and adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation. Weick: Thank you. We have a motion. A valid motion. Do we have a second? Randall: Second. Weick: We have a second. Any comment, discussion for the record before we vote? McGonagill moved, Randall seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve a Conditional Use Permit and Site Plan to allow a 145 foot pole with a 5 foot lightning rod for the Utility Meter Reader subject to the following conditions of approval and adoption of the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation: Site Plan Review The Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve Site Plan Permit - Planning Case 2019-07 for a 145-foot pole with a 5-foot lightning rod as shown in Attachment 4, and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation, subject to the following conditions: 1. A building permit is required to construct (erect) the (pole). 2. The pole plans must be signed by a professional engineer licensed in the State of Minnesota. 3. The contractor shall contact the Inspections Division as early as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. 4. The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement. Conditional Use Permit The Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve Conditional Use Permit - Planning Case 2019-07 for a 145-foot pole with a 5-foot lightning rod as shown in Attachment 4, and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation, subject to the following conditions: 1. The pole shall comply with the requirements in ARTICLE XXX. TOWERS AND ANTENNAS of the Zoning Ordinance. 2. The pole shall not be illuminated by artificial means and shall not display strobe lights unless such lighting is specifically required by the Federal Aviation Administration or other federal or state authority for a particular tower. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 9 3. No signage, advertising or identification of any kind intended to be visible from the ground or other structures is permitted, except applicable warning and equipment information signage required by the manufacturer or by federal, state, or local authorities. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Weick: The motion passes 5-0. And as we switch players at the desk, welcome MacKenzie. Walters: Thank you. Aanenson: And while we’re waiting for those of you that talked about gamma rays that was a big conversation when we did the National Weather Service. They had a lot of information in on that. Yes, a lot of information on that and we did get, but there’s some of the code amendments we added recently regarding 5G technology where we talked about where you could put, so we see towers going lower and more frequency as they move out in this area so kind of the changing technology. Skistad: I’ve seen a few. Aanenson: Yeah. Skistad: Concerning items on the 5G, I mean one that was placed low to the ground and what it did to a tree on one side versus another. I don’t know if that’s real or not. I would like to know. Aanenson: We’ve got standards in place in the right-of-way and so we haven’t had too many requests for that yet but we’re still further out. PUBLIC HEARING: AMENDMENTS TO CHAPTER 18, SUBDIVISIONS: DESIGN STANDARDS (STREETS AND FIRE APPARATUS ACCESS ROADS). Walters: Alright if you’re ready we’ll get started with the discussion of some proposed code amendments. So this is part of a, just to frame this a little bit. We’re in the process of updating the City to reference to most standard the 2015 Minnesota Fire Code and part of that is going to require us to update our street design standards. Because those are contained within Chapter 18 we’re going to be discussing those today as a public hearing which we’re required to by city code. They will then be bundled with the other items for the Chapter 9 Fire Code re-write that will go before the City Council on August 12th but first it will be discussed by the council at a work session on July 22nd so the council will see this in combination with some other re-writes to Chapter 9 of the City Code but because that’s outside the scope of the Planning Commission the public hearing, tonight we’ll be just focusing on the street design standard changes in Chapter 18 and we’ll explain a little bit why we’re adopting these as part of Chapter 18 instead of in Chapter 9. But without further adieux I’ll jump right into it. So as I mentioned we have street design standards in Chapter 18 and they differ from those that are cited in the appendix to the Minnesota Fire Code. So if you would have adopted the Appendix D as part of Chapter 9 we would have Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 10 created two issues. We would have created a non-conformity within our city code because we would have referenced standards that are different than our street design standards and that would have been pretty confusing for developers to navigate because there would have been two different standards within our code that didn’t agree. The second issue is the way the State law reads the final Court of Appeals for any issue with anything in Chapter 9 is the State Fire Marshal so in theory if we would have adopted Chapter, the street design standards in Chapter 9, if the City wanted to give a variance for that, you know they felt it was appropriate to say have a smaller cul-de-sac or something the City Council wouldn’t necessarily have the authority to do that and it could be appealed to the State so we wanted to balance, making sure these standards were established because we do feel they are very important with also making sure that we had local control to determine what was best within our community so the best solution we came up with was to take all the provisions that are in Appendix D, basically copy and paste them into Chapter 18 and that way we removed any potential inconsistencies between our Chapter 18 and the Appendix D Fire Access Road Standards. And also then because it’s in Chapter 18 it goes through the normal Chapter 18 variance standards rather than the Chapter 9 variance standards. So we felt that we absolutely had to pick up the Appendix D standards because they are important for ensuring the safe and efficient travel and emergency response vehicles and we also wanted to make sure that at the end of the day the City was the authority on this and that it was within our normal variance process. So the big changes are as follows. Our current cul-de-sacs have a turn around radius of 45 ½ feet and we would be amending it to be 48 feet which is the standard that’s in the Appendix D of the State Fire Code. Similarly we have a maximum cul-de- sac length of 800 feet in our current city code and that would need to be reduced to 750 feet to meet the standards of the Appendix D. The other thing is as it currently reads our maximum cul- de-sac length can be, we can grant administrative approval for a larger one if the City Manager feels there was an opportunity for future access or if the topography justifies longer length. We would be removing those provisions and any request for deviation from the 750 foot standard would need to go through the full variance process so they’d need to demonstrate that there was an actual hardship. That it wasn’t a mere inconvenience and the other Findings of Fact that are contained in Chapter 18. We’re also going to be adopting a bunch of new standards. I won’t read through all of these. They were in your packet but basically the fire code is very detailed in terms of making sure that the fire apparatus can navigate so there’s you know minimum street width when you’re near a hydrant. Minimum configurations for turn arounds for various length roads and as I said we’re adopting them wholesale. We feel that those standards were designed by experts in their fields and we think they’re important to ensure safe and efficient access. The one other note I will say is our city code allows temporary cul-de-sacs to have a 90 foot turning radius. We spoke with the fire chief and we’re comfortable keeping that because the idea is these will eventually become through streets. They will connect which brings us to something that we want to discuss as part of this. Oh I have more on temporary cul-de-sacs. So another slide. I mentioned they’re permitted to be a little shorter in the turn radius. We do require them to be located within a right-of-way and we have provisions in place like requiring the developer to put in escrow to guarantee that it’s not a cost burden to the City to remove the temporary cul- de-sac and create a through street. They do facilitate good subdivision design. A lot of times as I’m sure you’ve seen sometimes one parcel comes in but the surrounding parcels aren’t quite ready to develop and temporary cul-de-sacs can be a great tool to create place holders for where we know we want streets to go through in the future. That’s one of the reasons why we allow them to be a little smaller because if we required the full 96 feet and associated right-of-way it Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 11 could potentially lead to some real awkward lot design or poor subdivision design. And that’s also why we allowed them to exceed the maximum length is because the idea is at some point these will connect to form through streets so it won’t be an issue any longer. Unfortunately, or sometimes connections do not go through and so this is just a couple examples we found of some of the longer cul-de-sacs in the city and we highlighted areas where you can see there is the temporary cul-de-sac. It was intended to connect here. For whatever reason the connection did not happen and then the City ends up with a 3,800 foot cul-de-sac when again our current maximum cul-de-sac length is 800 feet and it’d be 750 feet under the new ordinance. And then this is another example where a connection didn’t go through and we ended up with a 2,700 foot cul-de-sac so the reason why I’m bringing this up is one of the reasons why we switch away and make cul-de-sac lengths go through the formal variance process is because we feel it puts increased pressure on the developer to make the case for why it should be an extremely long cul- de-sac and why it won’t connect. And we feel it pushes, we feel it helps illustrate the importance to city places on creating these connections and creates the presumption that streets will connect in the future. And this is something that is going to be coming up in the future. I just highlighted 4 properties that you know obviously there’s no knowing exactly when stuff will subdivide but that had the potential to subdivide and expand and where we have put in temporary cul-de-sacs or planned for streets to go through and where there may likely be issues with creating that connection and where the Planning Commission and City Council will have to weigh in on you know the relative merits of allowing for longer cul-de-sacs or requiring planned connections. And I think I’ll. Aanenson: I’m just going to add a couple comments. So the goal here tonight, we’ve got two experts here. Public Works and Engineering Director and then the Fire Chief because planners like to connect but I think there’s some other reasons to have the controls on the cul-de-sac. I think the challenge that you face is when a new subdivision comes in and people don’t want to make change even though it’s a temporary. As you can see on these drawings they’re not always a temporary level and sometimes it’s 10 years between subdivision connections. Sometimes even longer and we can’t control when someone’s ready to develop and the streets aren’t connected. We can only control what’s coming forward and plan for it in the future so part of what we’d like to do, if you have questions or if the two gentlemen, experts here would like to maybe give some of their feedback of why they want to have more specific language on this so I’ll turn it over to them if they want to make a few comments. Chief Don Johnson: Fire Chief Don Johnson. I suppose you can see my tag. We have, the fire code is more of our Bible here. It lends a consistent practice. It’s based on a few different things. It’s based on International Building Code. International Fire Code and adopted by the State Fire Marshal’s Office so it is kind of our guide book. From my point and standpoint with the cul-de-sacs it’s very difficult to probably explain to people unless you live in my shoes but if we have a structure fire in one of these areas and we call in 5, 6, 7 trucks, 2 of them are going to be over 40 feet long. The other 3 are going to be in the 30 foot length so if we can’t get those turned around, if you want to back one of those out, now we’re backing 5 or 6 of them out. Last night during a storm we had a tree, a considerably large tree go down on Pleasant View. If that was on a cul-de-sac was affected by that it’s going to be difficult to reach past with some of these 2,800 and 2,700 foot cul-de-sacs so one of the reasons they have 750 listed out is I carry enough hose to probably get through one of those obstacles but when we start talking about impeding Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 12 services and that would be my point in a lot of these. I have not seen in my time here, which is short in 5 years where we’ve developed a cul-de-sac that connected. I know there was one previous to my coming here but it turns into quite a level of concern with the folks that are already on that home. I would say that if you would consider that when you make these decisions that you’re impacting folks that haven’t even bought homes yet and it’s not just the fire service. It’s fire, police and EMS that in some instances have to go a pretty long route to get down to the bottom of these places so in a good situation it’s okay but I can’t always promise that we have good situations. So with the lengths of the streets, the widths of the streets, especially in some of these longer areas if I do have an incident where we, depending on what side of the street the hydrant’s on, if I start pulling hose across I’m not going to be able to get any vehicles past that either so enough with the cul-de-sacs but that’s one of the reasons that we have that. The other piece of Appendix D also addresses the apparatus, aerial apparatus length. So any commercial developments going in, 30 foot above grade requires a certain load. Again that truck is 40 feet long and managing those roads on the way in can be difficult if we’re not bringing them to widths. As well as you’ll see some of the hammer heads and some of the ways those other roads and most of that ends up being in private residential, private streets such as townhomes and some of these cottage homes where you know there’s not a lot of homes on the street. There has to be some type of turn around depending on the length and I know talking with the Public Works Director that this probably wouldn’t be approved under public roads anyways but it’s one of the things that this Appendix deals with fire lanes. It deals with a lot of the different dynamics off how we set up our commercial and residential developments and it needs to be in there but it also allowing it to be an ordinance gives the council the flexibility to make some decisions past the fire code. So I can stand for questions if anybody’s got anything specific on fire apparatus. McGonagill: I do as always. You know part of what my business was was managing risk in another business and what you’re talking about is managing risk. Now when I was first reading this I was going okay, I was looking at cul-de-sacs and length trying to balance out which was the higher risk. I think you’ve answered that in my mind but I’m going to put that question to you. When you look at the risk matrix, which is what we do when we’re managing risk, temporary. You know the cul-de-sac restriction, size, diameter and length, which one’s the higher risk for you to operate and manage an event? Chief Don Johnson: You know to be honest it’s getting to the scene and setting up is probably more of, would be my concern than egress. Or getting out so the cul-de-sac itself allows me to turn that vehicle around in lieu of backing completely back out of the cul-de-sac so I think that’s probably, that would probably be a better concern for me is the overall length. McGonagill: So excuse me, so you’re saying the cul-de-sac is a bigger issue for you than the length. Chief Don Johnson: No the other way around. So the length of the actual cul-de-sac is what’s going to impede me getting to the scene and start handling the emergency. The cul-de-sac allows me safe exit on, and a less impactful exit on getting back out with some of the larger vehicles that we operate. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 13 McGonagill: This is a question for staff. MacKenzie if you had to look at the, use the word density, how many areas, how many temporary cul-de-sacs do we have percentage wise and then also cul-de-sacs, I’m talking about the circle part of the diameter and how many are over our standard, or decided length? Aanenson: We don’t have that data. I can get it for you. McGonagill: Well I’m just curious. Is it a lot? Is it you know, is this a common problem we have? Chief Don Johnson: I would say it’s not just in Chanhassen. It’s not just a common problem but one of the changes that’s coming with the proposed change is to actually, our current standard is a 90 foot cul-de-sac. McGonagill: Right. Chief Don Johnson: And this change would bring about a 96 foot cul-de-sac for anything that would come in after this proposal. McGonagill: And that’s driven because of the equipment that you have? Chief Don Johnson: Correct. Correct. I’d like to add one other thing about cul-de-sacs if you think about 20 years from now or go to the north end where they’re reconing streets, that’s the longer that cul-de-sac is while they’re doing the recon and repaving also impacts our time during that timeframe as well so again it’s just, I look at it differently because of my response and that’s. McGonagill: Yeah I agree with you and I’ll have some comments when we get in discussion. Weick: Okay. McGonagill: So what you’re saying is the length is the bigger risk, if I can use that term, than the diameter. Both are concerning. Okay. It’s harder to fix the length than it is the other thing so okay. Thank you. Wedel: So from a public works and a maintenance standpoint, talking about cul-de-sacs, a couple of reasons why we try to avoid cul-de-sacs whenever possible is because one, they require local trips to usually have to come out of their neighborhood and go onto one of our collector or arterial roads. The Longacres example that was shown on the screen. If you wanted to get to a neighbor’s house you have to go out onto Highway 41, go down the street and then get back into the neighborhood and you’re just trying to make a local trip so it’s putting unnecessary trips on our roads that are meant for long durations for getting people through town and getting them to work and now we’re putting local trips on there so that’s adding more congestion. Cul-de-sacs also are larger from an impervious area standpoint so when you’re looking at a new subdivision and the amount of stormwater runoff that is generated from a cul-de-sac versus a normal street, now we’re putting in more, larger stormwater ponds. Our infrastructure that goes to support that additional impervious area is increased because of the size of the cul-de-sac and how much Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 14 pavement is physically there. Chief Johnson mentioned reconstruction. When we reconstruct cul-de-sacs that’s, you know right now the City assesses 40 percent of the cost. 60 percent of the cost is paid out of the general taxes. They’re more expensive to replace for the City so when we do reconstruction projects, cul-de-sacs do add cost to our projects that otherwise wouldn’t be there. And then from a, just purely from a maintenance perspective we use different equipment for snowplowing cul-de-sacs than we do main line streets. Certain equipment is better used for cul-de-sacs versus what the radius is versus main line roads so it takes extra time for us to plow cul-de-sacs and one cul-de-sac you know is not a big deal but incrementally as you keep adding them it does become a bigger deal. We’re adding you know roughly 2-2 ½ miles of streets per year toward our city street network just with new development coming in and we’re not adding staff so our public works staff, the number of plow drivers we have. The number of trucks we use hasn’t changed in over a decade but we’re adding miles of street per year so when we’re trying to be efficient at doing our jobs and getting the snow off the road, cul-de-sacs just add more time and it just takes more effort for us. And then lastly that’s not so much related to the road but the utilities beneath the road. Our watermains. So our watermains when you have a cul-de-sac they just get stubbed to the end of the cul-de-sac. They’re not looped. They’re not connected to the rest of the water system so all the homes that come off that stub, that water can get stagnant more easily so, which then requires us to go out and flush hydrants and so some things to keep the water fresh in those cul-de-sac areas so those are just some of the reasons from a public works and maintenance standpoint why we try to minimize the use of cul-de-sacs if possible. Weick: Kind of along those lines though, question for you and it just kind of popped up when you were talking about it. I understand, I fully understand all the reasons why we’d prefer not to have them but do you find that homeowners prefer cul-de-sacs? From a safety, a perceived safety standpoint or you know slower traffic flow and those kind of things, do you fight that where? Wedel: Absolutely. I mean I think people value the quietness of a cul-de-sac.. They feel like, though they shouldn’t, they can allow their kids to go bike around in the street because they think there’s less traffic. We certainly don’t encourage using the streets for playgrounds and basketball hoops and everything else that tend to end up in cul-de-sacs and I would say developers they get more premiums for lots. Weick: And that’s where my question was. Wedel: And cul-de-sacs are so I mean there is a financial benefit to developers to put in cul-de- sacs so there is that wrestling with what’s the right design for the neighborhood versus a developer who is just really wanting to get the most bang for their buck from their projects. Weick: Right. Chief Don Johnson: I would just add to that, that I’m not opposed to cul-de-sacs. I would just like conforming cul-de-sacs which allow us you know an in and out. Again I would just say that you’ve got one way in to this location. You don’t have multiple ways in if something were to impede that roads or for any reason for any of the services. I’m not just here on behalf of the fire Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 15 service but you’ve got one way in so which sometimes is time for whatever is going on in that area. Aanenson: So I’m going to circle the conversation back to planners. It’s nice to have other experts here to get their opinions so we’re grateful for that. They’re here with us but I think the big issue that we look at is we provide a stub street. We see how it’s going to be connected so our job as planners we see is how do we make all the pieces of the puzzle fit. Not every piece is ready to go at the same time. Some people have bigger pieces that they can maximize their development. Some people have smaller pieces that are dependent on getting extension from somewhere else and we have regulations of how you divide your property. We don’t want every property to be to access off a collector road you know so we have internal so we look at that. When one piece comes in we always ask or we used to a lot in the past when we had minor pieces to do a ghost plat. How would this street be extended in the future and so when you do that, and when we had this conversation now it’s a lot different than when you have a bunch of people in there saying I never wanted this to go through. I didn’t anticipate that and that’s when it becomes harder but what we’re trying to encourage now is kind of being more deliberate in these, in understanding. That’s using you to be the advocates or educate the public that we believe that by not connecting certain streets you really as was stated you’re limiting other factors. The potential of someone else to divide it because they can’t get access because we require a public street. Additional trips because of the way that they get to their property so we just want to think through those a little bit more so I think, I don’t think I’m confident by having you know more sensitivity on this topic when we come forward with some of these subdivisions that it will help us all make better decisions and it does create the flexibility of what we wanted for the City Council. There was some unique, which we’ve had in the past whether it’s steep slopes, a significant wooded area that we didn’t want to but I think the first thing the neighbors said we don’t want to connect to somebody. Well we’re all connected to each other and again this is plannereze. We’re all connected. Our kids are going to go to school together. That sort of thing and the mailman’s going to go by. The school bus is going to go by. The garbage is going to go by. Those are all the extra trips that Jason had talked about that you’re actually putting on the roads. By not letting the garbage man go through or the mailman you’re actually creating extra trips so those are the things that we think about and the like so I think we just want to make sure that we’re giving good consideration as we move forward on these subdivisions, and especially those little infill parcels that we had provided access. We have planned ahead and said no, we don’t want you to take advantage of that and we do have some that are coming forward. I think the easy pieces have been taken. Some of the more challenging ones are coming forward so again this will be a discussion with the City Council but this is a public hearing Chairman so if there’s any additional questions I would. Weick: I think fairly easy questions. One, so a temporary cul-de-sac we’re changing the. Aanenson: Radius. Weick: The radius and then, but we’re not changing, a temporary cul-de-sac still needs to be at a max 750 feet correct? Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 16 Walters: Yes it would be subject to 750 foot max and to clarify the radius for the temporary cul- de-sac would not be changing. It would still be that 90 foot yep. But it would need a variance to go over the 750 feet. Aanenson: Yeah. Weick: Just like any of them would. Walters: Exactly. Weick: And then we’re not changing how a cul-de-sac is measured correct? Walters: No we are not. Weick: Okay. Because I know we’ve had a lot of discussion over that in the past. Walters: I briefly considered redoing the graphic to try to further clarify what I thought was a very clear graphic but decided I was still happy with my graphic. Weick: We want to get home tonight so we’ll jut leave that where it is. Yes please. Skistad: Just have one question. So if I look, if you look at Foxwood and you have that circle down there. So I’m assuming that the person who would purchase one of those properties next to it would have a pretty good idea or would be able to go and ask you guys. Aanenson: Yeah there is a sign down there too. We typically do that now. There weren’t in the past that says this road will be extended in the future. Skistad: Okay. Aanenson: But that doesn’t mean that they’re going to acknowledge that or. Skistad: All I’m saying is. Aanenson: Correct. They can have. Skistad: It’s there. It’s in the city so it’s not a surprise to anyone unless they haven’t done their homework. Aanenson: Actually have…in your comp plan too because that’s a connection that’s going to actually tie into Powers Boulevard where we’ve got a lift station. That road will come all the way back up onto 101 so that’s kind of an important thread yeah for a connector. Skistad: Okay and I was just using that one as an example there. Not, you know I look at some of the other ones and there’s clear issues. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 17 Aanenson: Well I would say this. I think sometimes the biggest challenge is we have different densities. When you’re talking single family single family because whether it’s the lot size it’s still single family homes and typically they’re within the same square footage or price range. I think the more challenging connections are if you have a townhome going to a single family neighborhood which we do in certain areas but typically we like to see the townhome closer to the collector and the single family for the back so the single family with the less trips are going through the more dense if that makes sense. We typically do not try to mix those two together. Skistad: Okay. Weick: But the trips are certainly no light matter. I think the City Council now is dealing with repairing roads right? Aanenson: Oh yeah. Weick: It’s a direct, you know I live on one of those cul-de-sacs that yeah I would love the road to be replaced right but we can’t afford as a city to replace every road because the trips are higher and the road’s getting deteriorated faster and that’s unfortunate. That’s a real side effect of increased trips. That’s not just a kind of a thing people say so. Anyway all real issues. Any other comments? Questions. McGonagill: No discussion? Weick: Well open the public hearing. Right sorry. I will at this time open the public hearing portion. Seeing nobody come forward I will close the public hearing and open it up for commissioner comment and discussion and motion. McGonagill: Well then I’ll start and you know thank you MacKenzie for the work you’ve done on it. I don’t believe anything’s ever temporary particularly when it comes to safety. I never built a temporary pipeline. I don’t have temporary airplanes. It’s permanent. When you build something on the ground, particularly a road it’s permanent so I don’t, I’m not in favor of a 90 foot temporary cul-de-sac because the odds of it becoming permanent in this day and age are becoming harder and harder in my mind so I think you lock a design. There’s no temporary patches in my Bible. If you have a Bible it’s a Bible and that’s what you use so I’m, I’m rigorous about that particularly on safety matters. There’s other things that I’d go all day on but that. I think the other point, and you’re right Chairman. Mr. Chairman the amount of trips on our roads, particularly on cul-de-sacs because I live in Longacres. We have a ton of them, due to just the fact of the way our garbage situation is now with garbage trucks and now we have, we have to pick up, we don’t have a place to dispose of our lawn waste. There’s another trips and those trucks are getting bigger. When they make those corners it just grinding those streets to bits and then with the increased delivery mail due to home deliver of products like Amazon, now more trips. So there’s, that hits me with two things. The roads are going to go higher and higher use. Therefore you need to make them more vehicle friendly which makes, you want a larger turning radius I mean for them frankly and shorter lengths. And you just can’t do that. I look at some of the designs going here and go some of these, you know I look at and go, really I don’t want to set that up for future planning commissioners to deal with. I think you’ve got to be Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 18 pretty hard and fast about the way it is. This is our design. This is what we adhere to. We don’t deviate from it. I mean I wouldn’t do that on building a house on fire code and this is no different than that so I, I look at you know I don’t like the 90 foot at all because once it’s there it’s there so it’s I think you put the standard in. They’re all built the same and I think that if, if you have to build a temporary what you might call a temporary because you don’t have a connection on the other side I get that. I agree with your planning staff Kate to push that as hard as you can to put in some sort of skin in the game on the part of the developer but I think we’ve got to plan on the fact that that thing is going to be there. What is a real, and if you particularly have to push back hard, whenever you start to see a cul-de-sac go or road to a cul-de-sac go 1,000 feet, 1,500 feet, 2,000 feet, you’ve got, we just have to fight against that harder because it’s going to be, even at a path we have a 3,500 foot down the road right? And that is bad. I think you could probably handle with the apparatus 1,000 foot. You know 1,200. You would figure it out but when you’re 3 times that we’ve made you a problem that you can’t solve so all that being said I would like to see this design standard tighten up and be tighter to allow fewer exemptions to it because as we get on the road these problems are going to get harder. Not easier. And the only way you can make them easier is with a Bible that you don’t deviate from. So I don’t know what I’d do with the recommendation but I’m just saying I don’t think it’s tight enough. I think it’s got to be more restrictive. This is what we do. Particularly traffic from the roads. Aanenson: I’d just challenge that a little bit because we spent some time. You know we work with developers on this all the time and so, actually Jason and I looked at some different drawings too. You know if you put the burden all on the developer it’s going to be really difficult to develop here. You know if you make them do the connections a little shorter, make the houses set back and not a temporary, they’re not going to be building those and so then it just really, I’m not sure there’s a good solution to that. McGonagill: But a 3 foot is not that much more. 3 foot on a radius on a 90 versus a 96 is it? Aanenson: Well the impact of the driveway is. I mean we looked at the different drawings and again you’re putting a lot of onto the builder so you know we can look at some more recent ones that we just approved that are existing stub streets that don’t meet conformance on the recent larger subdivision that we just did. I think we have 2-3. McGonagill: Two or three. Aanenson: Two or three in there right. McGonagill: I understand completely. Aanenson: So and those are all substandard but putting those larger ones, those homes wouldn’t go in there so when you’re putting someone in escrow and to say to a developer you know you can sit on that in escrow for 15 years until the street goes through. I’m not sure you know. McGonagill: As a come back against your point. I understand that. Our job’s not here to make the developer money. Our job in this case is safety and that’s what I’m hearing and therefore the standard is a standard in my mind. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 19 Aanenson: Sure. Wedel: May I? Weick: Sure. Yeah please. Wedel: Mr. Chair, members of the commission. Weick: It’s a good discussion. Wedel: So the photo that’s in front of you is actually from a project in Prior Lake. So prior to my coming to the City of Chanhassen I worked for the City of Prior Lake and this is a project that I was involved with. McGonagill: So you did this? Wedel: This cul-de-sac doesn’t exist anymore because the street went through but part of what was done here is, you can see the right-of-way lines go straight through, it’s just a normal 60 foot right-of-way width. It doesn’t follow the bubble of the cul-de-sac so it allowed the homes to get built but you can see how close they are to the bubble of that cul-de-sac. They really almost don’t have much of a front yard. It felt awkward and uncomfortable so these homeowners couldn’t wait for the street to go through because they wanted their front yards back so it’s finding that right balance of not, we don’t want to accommodate a temporary cul-de-sac too much so that it feels comfortable that people want it to stay. We want it to feel uncomfortable so that they want the temporary to go away so they can get their front yards back so that was part of the discussion we had. McGonagill: I agree with you because if the temporary, what they do they do become basketball courts. I’ve seen them. I’ve driven past them and then you really fight against them because they want to, it’s a safety issue. Where it’s a safety issue to start with. Chief Don Johnson: Commissioner McGonagill I’d add to that too. This was a discussion that we had because I was kind of on the same page as you and I say that because I don’t see them ever connecting. I see, and I think it was the way that Jason and Kate talked to me about it. I think this is something that we could live with. If we could hold to that 90 in regards to some of these temporaries in limited situations I can live with that as long as we’re not going under 90 which we have in some instances and as this points out it’s pretty easy to see. This isn’t really an appealing, an appealing place to be right now when you can’t even park a car in a part of your driveway without hitting the street so. McGonagill: I agree with you Chief. The only, and I agree with what you said except the problem has, you said you know I agree with it as long as it’s temporary. There’s no rules for what the temporary means. There’s no, you know what you’ve done is given people a way out that says I decide what should be temporary or, you know the council decides and suddenly in my mind you’ve suddenly put a safety issue in the hands of people that you know against a code Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 20 that exists over here that you’re trying to adhere to. That’s why I’m pretty rigorous about these sort of things. Chief Don Johnson: And I appreciate that. McGonagill: And you do it whether you like it or not. It’s the way you do it you know. Does that, because I, give people something and they’ll take this and that’s what’s happened with some of these 3,200 and 3,000, 2,000 foot long cul-de-sacs. Thank you. I mean sorry, I could go on and on about it. It’s a personal thing. Skistad: So my question is why do we really need a temporary cul-de-sac? Why can’t we push the road on this one all the way through like it would and just have a turn around with no houses on that turn around? Aanenson: Right that’s the other, that would be the other option. You wouldn’t let them build on those last few lots and put the cul-de-sac at the end. That could be an option. Skistad: So that could be an option that we could do instead because I’ve seen that before but. Aanenson: But then you’re back to the same thing. You’re back to that street will never go through even though we believe the property to the north in order to develop needs that road to go through but now it will never go through because now we’ve got the perfect scenario. A cul- de-sac with nobody on it that nobody can come down. Plenty of snow storage for the snowplow to go by so I think what we all rationalize is, the neighbors have some skin in the game to get that road to go through because they’re going to end up with a bigger front yard because if you put the cul-de-sac at the end it would be very difficult to push the street through we believe. McGonagill: Yeah then it’s a traffic issue. Aanenson: Right. Right, right. Weick: And we did, I mean from a safety standpoint I mean we did kind of discuss how the lengths are probably more key. You know if we can be diligent about trying to limit I think the length of these in the future to me that’s the more important variable than the diameter. But that’s just my. Skistad: And that can’t be marketed as a cul-de-sac then. Aanenson: Yeah they’re not but people still, they have the perception. And let’s say the property changes 2 or 3 times before the street goes through. Well I didn’t buy into that. I didn’t know that. I was the third buyer so it’s, that’s what I’m saying. It’s a constant education on everybody’s part is that this street was intended to go through and like I said we put those sign down. If you came and looked at the plat you could see the plat doesn’t show a permanent cul- de-sac but most people don’t do their due diligence. If they come talk to us we always would explain that they’re looking at a lot, they should know that that street’s intended to go through. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 21 McGonagill: Can you put something in the code that would, I don’t know it’s a requirement on the city staff that wherever these temporaries are that there is a sign there. That we inspect it every year to be sure they’re there. Aanenson: We do. McGonagill: Well a lot of them the sign. Weick: Signs walk away. McGonagill: Signs walk away. That’s why we can come back and say it’s there and we keep putting it up and. Aanenson: Sure, we put in the chain of title in people’s properties too and you know that doesn’t stop political will to come in a big group and talk about the children and so, that’s why we’re having this. It’s an uncomfortable discussion and we don’t have a project in front of us. It amplifies when you have a project in front of you yeah, so. Chief Don Johnson: Technically by design those would become fire lanes as well and no parking because they would have to be free of access for the turn arounds of whatever is going down there. Whether it’s a garbage truck but those would be posted as fire lanes and no parking for those folks at the end as well. Skistad: I always wonder what you do with some of those tiny developments. Around the lakes. Aanenson: Oh yeah it’s a challenge. Challenge to snowplow. Weick: Good discussion though. Good feedback. Aanenson: So part of you’re discussing tonight will be discussing at the next City Council meeting. We’ll kind of be sharing with them what your discussion was. I mean you’re going to make a motion but we’re also going to share a little bit more detail of the discussion. Weick: It’s going to be part of a work session right? Aanenson: Correct. Yeah so it’ll be a little bit more robust. Weick: Yeah. Are there any other open questions that we need to get answered as a group? Skistad: I think we’re good. Weick: Thoughts of a motion of any kind? Randall: I would make a motion. Proposed motion. The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council adopt the proposed amendment to Chapter 18 concerning street design standards. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 22 Weick: We have a motion. Do we have a second? Reeder: I’ll second that. Weick: We have a motion and a second. We should pause for comment. McGonagill: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I will vote against it because I do not think it’s tight enough. I think you’re still, even through you have a design standard and the best intention of the planning people and our city council I think it’s just, you just, it’s kicking the can down the road for further debate in this room which we’ve been part of on cul-de-sacs and streets. Do I have the right answer? No but I think you’ve given the street loads. What we’re going through with that. Given the fact with what I’ve heard from the Fire Chief, you know and I’ve benefitted by some of these decisions in my own neighborhood about very long cul-de-sacs so, but I see what’s happening to the place because of it and the amount of traffic that’s increased because of it so while I appreciate staff’s work I will be voting against this amendment. Weick: Appreciate that and also as we’ve talked about, you know I think all of these really valid concerns and comments obviously will be part of the record for the work session and certainly gives that group an opportunity to consider all of your concerns as well. McGonagill: Yeah and I’m not against adopting a standard. Weick: Yep. McGonagill: I’m really not. I think we need one. We desperately need one. I just don’t think this is, this simply leaves too much wiggle room for other, for the problems to continue. Skistad: You’re primarily concerned about the length. McGonagill: Length and the diameter as well. I agree with what he’s saying here so you just set a standard and that’s what you design to. Weick: The length is getting shorter. McGonagill: It has to get shorter. Weick: It’s going from 800 to 750. Randall: But the problem is with the temporary ones that’s. McGonagill: See that now you trying, somebody has a 1,600 foot like that. Randall: I know and you know I was just looking at the map of Stratford, remember that one? The one that was a temporary one that. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 23 Weick: Is now permanent. Randall: No one every knew that it was but I’m looking at the footage of it and like those homes on that cul-de-sac were designed at an angle when we saw the one that Jason showed us where they purposely made the houses so that it was sure of going through you know and is that something in the standard of a temporary that you make it uncomfortable like you said. I like that idea. McGonagill: I do too. Randall: Because I mean you can see it right there. McGonagill: Oh yeah because, that’s exactly the one I was thinking about. Had this big debate and there was a basketball hoop sitting right there and it’s like, and that’s what they were fighting against. Randall: I know. Skistad: They were fighting over the basketball hoop? Randall: No they were fighting over the temporary one because it was supposed to go through and it was a long, lengthy process but yeah so. McGonagill: And so now you have a long cul-de-sac with a shorter diameter. Aanenson: You might be seeing that property again very soon. McGonagill: And they have to come through. Skistad: Could you show, do you have it up there? Could you put it up there again please? Walters: Were you looking at this one or? Randall: No the one I was talking about was Stratford. McGonagill: Stratford you don’t have that. Skistad: Okay. McGonagill: It’s coming so to the commission so anyway, sorry. Weick: But temporary would all still need to be 750 feet. Walters: Yes and to clarify that is one of the changes that is being made under the code as it currently is one of the reasons that it can be approved at a longer length without a variance is if Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 24 there’s a potential for future access and that’s been used to allow for temporary and they’re longer. Those provisions are being deleted. Weick: Right. Walters: In order to exceed 750 feet now they will have to demonstrate hardship and have to convince yourselves and the City Council that it is not a mere inconvenience. You know not a mere we’d like another lot here. That it is an actual hardship. Weick: I mean this gives us more. Aanenson: Oh absolutely. McGonagill: Oh absolutely. Weick: Control. Not if you use that word but over how these things get developed in the future versus what we’ve had in the past. And tightens the length. McGonagill: It does. I would agree with that. I just, I don’t like the word temporary at all and it is what it is. Do it right and you’re done. Skistad: But if we don’t go forward with this then it’s going to be sitting there for all the other developing items or properties that are coming through so I guess for me I’d want to make sure we have something different even if it’s not perfect because I don’t know that we know what perfect is. Weick: Agreed. Also good, valid points. Well we do have a valid motion and a second. And we’ve had good discussion as well for the record. Randall moved, Reeder seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council adopt the proposed amendment to Chapter 18 concerning Street Design Standards. All voted in favor, except Commissioner McGonagill who opposed and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. Weick: Motion passes 4 to 1. Thank you all again and thank you for your input and really important and valid. So those are the two items we had this evening. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Randall noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated June 18, 2019 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. CITY COUNCIL ACTION UPDATE. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Randall noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated June 18, 2019 as presented. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 25 COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. CITY COUNCIL ACTION UPDATE. Weick: Kate I will turn it over to you for administrative presentations. Aanenson: I’ll give you the City Council updates. Weick: Yes. Aanenson: So because we did have a meeting on the 24th. They discussed the Applebee’s site. We’ll talk about that when we do our tour. The redevelopment there. Also on a variance on Red Cedar Point. I think we got to a conclusion there. I think isn’t it a win/win when everybody’s unhappy so maybe you want to just explain a little bit what that was. Walters: Yeah. After discussion the council wanted to maintain the longer driveway that the Planning Commission had recommended while also allowing the applicant to maintain their footprint so they allowed the house to move 3 feet closer to the lake in order to facilitate a longer driveway. And so the motion was then changed accordingly to allow for the increased lot cover that would be associated with that. Aanenson: And then also I wanted to note that Control Concept was approved. Remember we had the stipulation on there regarding making sure the driveways, they needed to do a traffic study. They did do that so it was determined that those two driveways should align on Century Boulevard so there’s a piece of property, city property to the north so they’re going to do an easement, driveway easement over that property so that’s in the works right now. …no they’re just giving an easement. It’s a minor change in the driveway approach. That’s it so. Skistad: Oh okay. Aanenson: Yeah. Skistad: That’s not the, that’s the Applebee’s? Aanenson: No. It’s Control Concepts. It was an industrial building on Century Boulevard, yeah. So the Applebee’s, the parking easement was approved. They haven’t executed that document but we’ll go by that on our tour. I’ll talk about in a minute. We did talk to the property owner on 1891 Arboretum Boulevard. That’s the property just to the east of the town, corporate townhouses that are there on Highway 5 and kind of to the west of Paisley Park. On that so it’s 21 acres guided industrial. When we did the Highway 5 corridor study and looked at access there was a right-in/right-out granted on that. They’re looking at potentially trying to put some commercial there. Staff had some concerns about that. They’re going to give us some information regarding traffic and then the City Engineer will meet with MnDOT and see what the status of that right-in/right-out would be there. So that you would see if it comes in for a project. Camp Tanadoona was approved so we’ll be seeing that permit come through this fall and then grading permit for The Park was approved so that’s Phase 1 of The Park so pretty close Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 26 to having a pre-con it sounds like and so I know we’ll check all the construction easements for that first phase which goes a little bit beyond that but the final plat, we’ve got scheduled for that first meeting in August so all the work has been done on our side internally reviewing all the plans. They’re making a couple tweaks regarding the location of a parking lot that was put internally. They want more to the south so they’re working through that. McGonagill: What did they end up with how many lots on that thing? Aanenson: 167. McGonagill: They stayed with 167? Aanenson: Yes. Yep so that’s it for the update. And I just want. McGonagill: One question on the Applebee’s. Aanenson: Sure, absolutely. McGonagill: I had a question from a citizen. They were asking me about that parking lot that Applebee’s put in. Does the, will that be restricted just to the employees or is it public parking? Aanenson: You know we looked at that. There’s really no other uses that would use it. Walgreen’s has plenty of parking so I can’t imagine anybody else. Actually our recommendation is that they put the employees over there. Can we regulate that? We’re hoping they self police on that but there is cross access against all of those properties so we’re guessing on the weeknights that people they’re up to 20 spaces on the Walgreen’s parking lot that’s available. And then there’s also if the tire in the back so there is additional there. McGonagill: Where the question was coming from was growing out of a concern around the Venue and parking, limited you know parking there if someone has an extra car or two they just go park it over there and they leave it there instead of having to park it on the street or something. You know can that happen was the question? Aanenson: Parking on the street? McGonagill: No. Could they, could somebody like say if I had a truck you know could I park and just leave it? Aanenson: I don’t think the easement agreement calls for that but you know could it happen? Yes. Just like someone could park on a public street anywhere in the city without being in front of their property. Skistad: How come that didn’t come through the planning, I’m just curious. Aanenson: It’s an addition, a minor change to an existing building. By temporary, if it’s 10 percent minor change to an existing building then it doesn’t have to go to the Planning Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 27 Commission. So it’s the same thing with the parking on the Control Concepts. Their parking’s going to swing a little bit to the north for Control Concepts and they’ll be coming across the City parking. Excuse me the city property to align that driveway so we would consider that but it’s the same number of stalls. They’re just swing it a little bit to make the driveway work so again we, the city code allows if it’s a minor change. They’re not the number of parking stalls and that sort of thing isn’t changing so for the parking lot it’s less than 10 percent of the overall shared parking so that’s the interpretation. The still have to get all their watershed permits so the review that they have to have, they have to submit all their civils so all that will still go through the engineering department. It’s not any different, we’ve done large additions to existing industrial buildings that they still have to submit all their plans and get approved by the City so our engineering department, water resources and the watershed district will be doing all the permits and they have to submit any other permits that were required for them to construct so. Skistad: And let’s look at that and what happened with the parking lot on the other side where the, I’m trying to think. I don’t go over there because it’s so bad. That little section of parking and all of that, that’s basically the only other through street through Chan is that little frontage road is what I think of it as. Aanenson: Are you talking about Smashburger over there? Skistad: Yeah. Aanenson: Yeah. Skistad: Panera now and now we’re like, it’s hard to like today I was trying to drive in the middle of the day just trying to turn out on either end of those roads. Getting across there is almost impossible so now we’re adding additional you know people. A people burden crossing that road. Aanenson: Yep the council was really in favor of that project so. The other thing I would say I met with the TIF district that was put in place with the apartment project and Aldi’s. That will be Market Boulevard has some improvements and maybe that’s what you want to talk about. Wedel: No I was just going to mention with the Applebee’s parking lot that we did also consult with an engineering consulting firm that specializes in traffic and pedestrian crossing so we did get some input on some design factors that they are going to incorporate into that design so there was some additional help we included as a part of that as well. Skistad: Who do we consult with? Wedel: So for that one we consulted with SRF, an engineering firm. They’re kind of a transportation and. Skistad: Is it we use different farms? Wedel: Yes. Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 28 Skistad: On a regular basis. Wedel: We have different engineering consulting firms that specialize in certain things. We use Barr Engineering when we’re dealing with wells. We use SRF for traffic. You know we, so there are different firms that have specialties and so this was one area where we wanted to make sure we were doing all the right things when we were looking at that pedestrian crossing and so they provided some good input on the design that is now being incorporated by them. Aanenson: So one of the things that we were adamant about is the crossing is that we don’t want people to try to cross mid-block and go to that sidewalk so we’re making them move, eliminate the existing sidewalk a little bit closer to the door so we looked at all that and so those are, I would say the last time we used SRF was actually on Paisley Park and they gave us some really good recommendations on bus circulation and traffic into that so I think that’s, they did a good job and they gave us some good insight and Jason didn’t talk about this but there’s actually going to be a median so when you’re crossing, it’s one way in. One way out and then when you’re crossing it will be a raised controlled median so you get halfway across the street and they’re restriping it for the turn into the site so if anybody’s interested we’ll have those drawings out for that meeting when we drive by there too. We’ll go over in a little bit more detail on the tour and Jason’s coming on that one too so we’ll show you how that all works. Skistad: Okay I’ve just seen, I mean just so you know I have seen a lot of comments, community comments that are, people who are very concerned about that. Aanenson: It’s good to know. We’re going to share that with the council. Yep. Skistad: Yeah. Aanenson: So that’s on our tour. I’m not sure where I left off. We do not have a meeting in two weeks. It’s Night to Unite. Walters: I think that’s what it’s called now. Aanenson: So we encourage you to meet with your neighborhood and get to know and that sort of thing so it used to be called National Night Out so we encourage you to do that. Typically we don’t have a meeting. For some reason we didn’t have it blocked out in advance but there will not be a meeting. But instead of that we’ve got a great tour the next night, on Wednesday night so it’s all commission tour. City Council is also invited on that so we’ve got a bus. I’ve given out the agenda so please let us know if you’re coming so we can plan it. I’ve heard from a couple of you. If you can let Jean Steckling know so we’ll start here in the lower level of City Hall. Again we’re going to go by the Venue and Aldi so we’ll have someone from the Venue to talk about the rents. Who’s renting. A little bit more about that. The demographic and how that’s going and then also someone from Aldi’s. Why they picked this site. How that’s all going and then also we’ll talk about Applebee’s. We’ll have a big map showing how they’re going to lay that out and then we’ll go by Arbor Glen. The small lot subdivision so I think that’s, why did they pick that market. How do they think that’s doing. ...Crossing, the senior housing. We’ll Chanhassen Planning Commission – July 16, 2019 29 also have the developer there to talk about that project. Hopefully we can get in on that project but we can take a look around. But we also, that one is already has a sign up for it’s all rented. 130 units so we’ll again look at that demographic for where people are coming from which I think we’d like to know a little bit too on the Venue and then our final stop will be at Greenwood Shores Park and then we’ll walk into the park and we’ll talk a little bit about where we are in the schedule, which you know but maybe some of the other groups don’t as far as you know the first phase. It’s got 4 phases. This is phase 1. The 50 lots and then we’ll maybe have Jill talk a little bit about with the Environmental Commission a little bit about the trees. Some of the natural resources in there and then Hoisington-Koegler will be there to talk about the trail and how they see that developing and time line and costs and some of those things too just for everybody’s edification so hope you can all make it. It will be fun. It’s kind of good to just be collegiate with some of the other commissioners and staff so that’s all I had Chair unless you had any questions or anybody else does. Weick: Any more questions? With that I will entertain a motion to adjourn. McGonagill moved, Skistad seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim