PC Minutes 1-21-20CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
JANUARY 21, 2020
Chairman Weick called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Steve Weick, Mark Randall, John Tietz, Michael McGonagill, Doug
Reeder, and Laura Skistad
MEMBERS ABSENT: Mark Undestad
STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Bob Generous, Senior
Planner; MacKenzie Walters, Associate Planner; and Erick Henricksen, Project Engineer
PUBLIC PRESENT:
Jessica Galatz HCRRA
PUBLIC HEARING:
CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR AN INTERIM USE PERMIT (IUP) AND WETLAND
ALTERATION PERMIT (WAP) FOR THE PURPOSE OF REPAIRING LANDSLIDES
ALONG A PORTION OF THE MINNESOTA BLUFFS LRT REGIONAL TRAIL.
Weick: I will turn it over to Mr. Generous.
Generous: And I’ll turn it over to Erick.
Henricksen: So the applicant here is going to be proposing, or it’s what we’re reviewing here is
an interim use permit, essentially a grading permit. Anything over 1,000 cubic yards of grading
or disturbance requires an IUP for grading. The applicant here, and this kind of gives you a brief
overview of what the proposed repairs are going to be or what the work is going to be for the
area but I’d like to start kind of from the beginning as all things do. The impetus of why this IUP
or grading permit came in. Back in 2014 the metro area experienced some real intense rain
events. I don’t know if everyone remembers but in June 19, 2014 was a very intense rain event
as you can see from some of the precip data that’s given. This event caused flash flood watches
and warnings around the metro area. Eden Prairie, our neighbor there to the east experienced
precip’s in a one day of about 5 ½ inches which is fairly intense. And then also there were rain
events prior to this June 19th event which saturated soils and caused more washout of roads and
other kind of, oh sorry about that. Similar damage to areas or damage to the metro area. The
Minnesota Bluffs LRT regional trail did experience damage as seen from some of these images.
The images on your left here, right here is a drone shot of the south, what we’ll be calling the
south repair area. So here’s a landslide. This was taken shortly thereafter the landslide. You
can see a tree has fallen and what not. This landslide also caused some damage to the culvert
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that’s located just on the downslope of this landslide here and that conveys stormwater
underneath the trail. You can see the concrete headwall is damaged. This photo here was taken
in 2019 and then here’s just a photo of the trail that was closed. The Three Rivers Park District
closed the trail after this event in 2014. Blocked it off with just some black metal fence. In 2015
there was some repairs, some immediate repairs done to the toe of the slope with the installation
of riprap and the applicant or the Hennepin County Railroad Authority secured some FEMA
funds for that. This can be considered phase 1. Phase 2 was kind of a larger scope. A larger
repair of the areas and that’s basically where we’re at today with our IUP application. Just to
give you a better understanding of the project area, we’re located, this failure happened on the
trail in the south end of, or the south side of Chanhassen. The LRT regional trail bisects
Chanhassen as seen here with the red line. Connects Eden Prairie to Chaska. It’s basically a
bicycle highway. It’s a main route in the area which has been out of commission due to these
failures. The applicant has proposed two access routes to these construction areas or the grading
areas. One would be from Eden Prairie. Accessing the trail Eden Prairie about right here I
believe it’s called Highview Court or Highview Road. Access via the trail to the north repair
area and then they’re also proposing coordination with Moon Valley Aggregate and the property
owner there to access the south repair area. Due to, while these project areas aren’t immediately
adjacent to homes they are located and the trail is located kind of sandwiched between some
residential development so normal construction hours, which for the city is 7:00 to 6:00 Monday
through Friday are going to be adhered to. Also within the area and near the construction limits
is a city conservation easement that’s attached to Settler’s West. We have reviewed the plans.
They are proposing to delineate that and not cause any disturbance in that area. Get a little more
familiar with the construction plans. It’s kind of a busy page here but one of the things to note is
a grading permit. The dark black lines are the proposed grades or those are areas where you’re
going to be seeing grading occurring. So the repair area you can see is kind of a little bit larger
compared to the north repair area. Looking at the north repair area, brief overview would be
they’re going to, well here let me point out this area here was one of the landslides or slope
failures and this area here was that one photo we saw previously of the landslide. Down at the
bottom is the culvert that was damaged but in general you can see kind of with these black lines
where the grading will occur. The applicant’s proposing approximately 25,000 cubic yards of
grading so there’s a lot of work to be done in this area but the grading would be mainly across
the trail here. We can see the slope repair area. There’s some grading here and then the creation
of a ditch or a drainage channel and some minor grading over here. To look more closely at the
repair areas, so this here in your upper left corner is a plan view of the north repair area and
below that is a profile view. The plan here is to repair the north landslide with some riprap. Fill
it in as you can see again on the profile and then re-establish grades here. They’re proposing a 1
½ to 1 grade. They will be capping so here is a stormwater conveyance pipe that travels under
the trail at this north repair area. They’ll be capping and filling this and abandoning this
stormwater pipe with the intent of, if we then look to the right here horizontally drilling a new
stormwater conveyance pipe to then enter into a drainage channel with check dams and then it
would enter into the south repair area. Essentially if I back up a slide. The stormwater would
come from Settler’s West, under the trail and then be routed essentially to this culvert area. So
what they’re doing is going to just be re-routing that drainage south here. One of the things that
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we’ve conditioned on this permit is to see some photo analysis on the drainage channel,
especially as it comes to hydraulic calculations and looking at the sizing of their energy
dissipation devices so at the drainage channel they’re going to be using rock check dams which
have been proposed to be evenly spaced at about every 50 feet. There is a slope within this area
that gets a little steep and we just want to ensure that the repair methodology that they’re using
once installed doesn’t necessarily degrade or cause further erosion or any other kind of
environmental impacts of that sort so that’s one of the conditions there. Also when they do the
directional drilling here they will be putting a tracer wire on it per city specifications so that way
in the future we can locate that if necessary. Or the applicant or the owner of this system can.
Looking more at the south repair area where I would say a majority of the grading will be
occurring, the intent here is to stabilize this slope. In order to do that what they’re going to be,
what they’ve proposed is to lower the grade of the trail approximately 10 feet and some locations
10 to 12 feet. Maintaining a 5 percent slope so again up here is the plan view and then below
that is the profile view to kind of give you a perspective of how far they’re going to be dropping
the trail. This is one of the reasons is to draw the slope here to a 2 to 1 so something a little more
gradual in order to maintain slope stability. To our right here you can see cross sections of the
trail kind of right above Station 600 and 650 so kind of right above where they’re doing most of
the cutting. So you can see there’s going to be quite a bit of removal and then the slope will be
stabilized with some reinforced matting. And then here’s just kind of another view to show the
extent of lowering the trail. Grading out the steep slopes and getting that kind of 2 to 1 max all
the way down to again this existing culvert. Additional improvements that they’re proposing is
to remove the damaged concrete headwall to this culvert and install the flared end section. Do
some riparian restoration to the stream here. They’re going to be installing some of these rock
veins or essentially check dams for anticipation and then they’ll also have a stilling basin here to
accomplish kind of the same task there. Essentially that’s an overview of the project. Kind of
how we, or how they came to this point through the storm events and the kind of looking at the
overall plan of attack to do the repairs and open the trail back up.
Generous: Well the staff is recommending approval of the interim use permit to permit the
grading and excavation of this site to repair the sloughing, subject to the conditions in our staff
report and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Recommendation.
Aanenson: Bob were you going to go through any of the findings or the conditions of the
grading permit at all or just?
Generous: Well they, the main thing is that all the improvements they’re doing are to improve
the condition of the site. We’re trying to re-open the trail facility and to do that they have to
clean up this area so.
Henricksen: I think one of the conditions that kind of diverge from your typical IUP or grading
permit is the applicant will have to enter into a maintenance, operation and maintenance kind of
agreement with either the city or the watershed district. These aren’t city owned utilities or
infrastructure or anything of that matter. We’re only issuing a grading permit to get the
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restoration completed. There is concern that in the future if there’s any, you know with any kind
of storm utility for instance that horizontally drilled pipe or when you’re looking at installing
improvements to a drainage channel with basins and check dams you know those kind of things
do have to be maintained so one of the conditions that are within this permit and the findings
here would be to have that executed agreement with the applicant and either again the watershed
district or the City for a clear understanding on who’s going to be maintaining operating those
improvements. Most of the other conditions I think are pretty straight forward when it comes to
grading, the time of operations, the haul routes. There is some encroachment if you see here on
the construction limits on the south repair area where they’re going to be going into the Moon
Valley Aggregate site so temporary construction easements of that sort would have to be
executed and provided to the City prior to any kind of issuance or notice to proceed on this
operation. Are there any others that stand out?
Generous: No and again it’s the slope restoration will create stormwater improvements that
should improve the conditions that are out there right now. It’s a net benefit for the community
to have this.
Aanenson: I guess what I was looking for was what Erick had just answered just for your
edification so as part of the grading permit they manage the traffic, the hauling routes. Those are
all part of the permit that would be administered too.
Henricksen: Yep and that initial erosion control inspection would be called into the City to
review typical to again any grading operation of this size erosion control measures have to be
installed. Your typical BMP’s. From review of the plans they meet our standards and as always
adaptive management moving forward on, if more measures are needed you know it’s something
that we continue to review and inspect as it is in the city of Chanhassen.
Weick: Great, thank you. Questions for the City at this time on what you just heard?
Reeder: Mr. Chairman.
Weick: Yes.
Reeder: I think you heard you say that the trail will go down by 10 feet. What does that do for
the people that are trying to use the trail? What kind of slope are we going to have?
Henricksen: They’re proposing a 5 percent slope over the lowered section so that’s consistent
with ADA requirements. When you’re looking at regional trails I believe 5 percent. I believe
you might even be able to go up to about 8.33 percent over a certain amount of distance but as
proposed it’s within your requirements for ADA so.
Reeder: Okay.
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Henricksen: If you looking at this profile you kind of see it and you’re like well that looks pretty
steep. It’s just because of the horizontal scale that’s given to this so this is over I believe 700
feet. 800 feet that this lowering is occurring. Actually I correct myself. I believe it’s 1,200 feet
so it’s over quite a long distance that.
Reeder: That’s what I couldn’t figure out from this. Okay.
McGonagill: Erick on the, so the owner will be the regional trail authority at the end of the day
when you talk about maintaining this if I’m looking to who is listed as the applicant, who will be
the owner?
Henricksen: The applicant for this IUP is the Hennepin County Railroad Authority. After
conversation with the applicant I believe the intent is to transfer ownership of these
improvements to Carver County, although I would defer that kind of to their, what they are
looking for. In regards to meeting that requirement on the permit on who to enter into that
agreement at this time it would be the Hennepin County Railroad Authority. Any transfer of that
ownership and maintenance would then have to follow up with an update to that maintenance
agreement entered into with the City or the watershed district.
McGonagill: Okay. One more question. You’ve done a lot of work to take care of what I’d call
surface issues. You did a lot of surface grading’s. Surface lowering. And that’s reflecting the
surface conditions. What do you know about the sub-surface conditions? Have any soil borings
been taken along this to know you know is this just a fluff sitting on top of clay that when it gets
saturated it’s going to move again? You know you’re not going to be able to hold it. You know
what can you tell me if anything about that along that profile, what are we looking at? Is it kind
of like, to use a paraphrase is it an avalanche that’s just going to happen someday? Continue to
go on from that.
Henricksen: The applicant along with their engineer, Barr Engineering conducted over the
course of I believe 3 or 4 years subsequent borings to kind of do this analysis. They did a slope
stability assessment and kind of went through all the different alternatives to kind of land on this
one. I think that also was coordination with FEMA in regards to scope of work and the funding
so they have quite a few borings that were provided to the City. The City after review of kind of
their approach and looking at the sub-soils you know find that as far as soils, or slope
stabilization to meet your standards and what’s expected when you’re doing this type of work.
Our major concern would be the new drainage channel that’s being constructed and the stability
of that with an energy dissipation devices and kind of looking at a 10 year event or some event
that to ensure that that’s installed and corrected. Some of our review regarding the toe of the
slope is recommendations from our report but I know the applicant is kind of confined to what
FEMA and their engineers did on their review and then what Barr Engineering did on their
review as well. One of the other things that was found I believe in one of the soil borings I think
in 2015 or 16 was that there were some contaminated soils that were found. This is kind of one
of those rails to trails trail so it was a railroad at one time so it’s fairly typical to find the type of
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contamination that they did. They quantified that at about I want to say 2,500 cubic yards which
they’re going to haul off site and dispose of at a landfill but I mean borings and a slope stability
analysis was provided.
McGonagill: So when they did that slope stability, I mean if you can just kind of summarize it?
Is it fairly pinned in? Is it, is it fragile? I’m trying to think of the right words because when I
worked this in other areas and you kind of look at it and it says well if they have a really good
saturated it’s going to move you know or it’s not. You know that’s kind of where, that’s where
my question’s going.
Henricksen: Right we, our department after review of their study and their conclusions we found
were reasonable. To get into the I think the nitty gritty of you know they show you their mora
circles and their cohesions and all of that but to get into the nitty gritty of that I would probably
defer that to their engineer as well.
McGonagill: Okay thank you Erick.
Weick: Any thoughts down there on the end Commissioner Tietz. Looks like you might be
brewing something.
Tietz: Just scrolling through…
Weick: Alright. Fair enough. I just have one super minor clarification but on page 5 when
we’re talking about tree height, it’s noted as 6 inches and larger. Should that be 6 feet?
Henricksen: So that’s, DBH is the diameter at breast height so that’s, you’re looking at a 6 inch
diameter tree.
Weick: Diameter, got it.
Henricksen: And it’s a certain distance from the ground and that defines it.
Weick: I was confused on that, thank you very much. Other silly questions from the
commission. Better questions would be even better. Alright with that then thank you Erick and
Bob. Would invite the applicant to come forward and tell us about the project.
Jessica Galatz: Thank you Chair and commission. My name is Jessica Galatz. I work with
Hennepin County, specifically the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority and I’d like to
introduce Brent Turro with Barr Engineering is the project engineer on this.
Brent Turro: Project Manager.
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Jessica Galatz: Project Manager from our engineering consultant. I’m happy to answer any
questions. I think Erick and Bob did a great job explaining this project. As you all know, I don’t
know if any of you are avid trail users but this trail has been closed since 2014. It’s been quite a
rollercoaster ride trying to get it repaired. We worked with FEMA for several years and then one
of the questions from Commissioner McGonagill was who is going to own this property. A
couple years ago we identified a funding program through Met Council and we can sell this
segment of the corridor to Carver County so we’ll sell the corridor to Carver County and then
those proceeds will be used for the project repair. So ultimately.
McGonagill: …Carver County.
Jessica Galatz: Yep everything from the county line to the end of our current ownership in
Chaska. So it’s about 3 miles
McGonagill: Oh okay. So it’s a good section. They’re not just buying this. They’re buying a
lot of it.
Jessica Galatz: Yep and I’ll be honest this has kind of been our goal for a while. I think when
we bought this corridor Carver County didn’t have a regional railroad authority or didn’t have,
wasn’t in place long enough to take on this ownership so we bought the 13 mile long corridor in
one piece in 1990 and now we’re trying to convey it to the county that it’s housed in. So they’ll
be the ultimate owner. We are working with them and the watershed district right now on that
maintenance agreement so we’re all in the know about what the expectations are in the future to
maintain that new drainage channel. I don’t know if anyone else has any questions we could
answer.
McGonagill: Well let’s go back to my question on the slope stability. You know with Barr. It’s
more looks like the subsurface geotechnical that you’re dealing with.
Brent Turro: So you want me to just give you an overview of what we found?
McGonagill: Yeah.
Brent Turro: So in general the embankment is a sandy clay soil. It’s a mix of maybe natural
clay soils or soils that were cut as the rail corridor was built and then used as embankment fill,
particularly in this stretch. Below that is some siltier surface soils but then as you get down into
it it’s mostly sand. So slope stability we assess through looking at different alternatives. One
alternative was to keep the trail grade where it is and move the embankment slopes out required
a lot of fill. It’s ultimately more expensive as well. This concept would require, I shouldn’t say
require. This concept would be to take the trail grade down further and then reduce the slopes.
That improves the slope stability so we did the analysis where we targeted standard factors of
safety for trail embankments along transportation or other infrastructure corridors and our
analysis satisfies those factors of safety. And that’s really the gist of it.
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McGonagill: Okay. I notice they’re using flexi mat. Is that what you’re putting in the drainage
channel?
Brent Turro: Correct.
McGonagill: Yeah I’ve just used that in a previous life. It will stay. It’s a good product. It
doesn’t move.
Brent Turro: Okay, good to hear.
McGonagill: Once you get some growth around it you’re pretty well, you’ll pin it in.
Brent Turro: Okay, yeah good to hear. We considered that and upon recommendation from the
County here they had used on previous projects so.
McGonagill: Yeah I’ve used it on some really bad soils and just give it a couple, you know over
seed it a lot and give it a couple years and you’ll be good.
Brent Turro: Well that’s good to hear.
Weick: We’ll have to leave that note for Carver County.
McGonagill: There you go.
Weick: Is the trail fenced at all in that area to keep people on the trail?
Jessica Galatz: Yes I believe when the trail was built it had a fence running along both sides
because both sides of the trail are pretty steep in that area.
Weick: Okay.
Jessica Galatz: And those are still in place although at the specific location of the south failure
not all the posts are still in place.
Weick: Okay.
Jessica Galatz: And then we’ve added fencing at both ends of where we’ve closed the trail to
fence it off from public use.
Weick: Right. So that fence will be repaired then and reinstated.
Jessica Galatz: Certainly, yep.
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Weick: Okay.
Jessica Galatz: So there will be some repair to the trail as part of this project. There was damage
to the trail in the 2014 storm event and then just over the last almost 6 years of not getting in
there to maintain the trail regularly nature has kind of taken back so that will be included in the
project.
Weick: Okay. Good down there? Questions. Okay well thank you very much and thank you
for helping us understand the project a little more.
Jessica Galatz: Okay.
Weick: With that I will open the public hearing portion of tonight’s event. Anyone wishing to
come forward please do so at this time. And seeing nobody come forward I will close the public
hearing and open the item for Commissioner discussion. Seems to me you know hallelujah, this
is one of those where.
Randall: It’s very well planned out.
Weick: Yeah.
Randall: It’s obviously engineered well and they know what they need to do so.
Weick: Yeah it will be nice to have this open.
Tietz: Having biked that for many years I’m looking to it getting back into shape. It was such a
beautiful trail down to Chaska and some of those overlooks were spectacular down at the bottom
so it will be good to get it back.
Weick: I certainly would entertain a motion if there was no further discussion on the item.
Tietz: I’ll make a motion.
Weick: Thank you.
Tietz: The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends the City Council approve the Interim
Use Permit Planning Case 2020-01 to permit grading, excavation and slope restoration as
proposed in the plans prepared by Barr Engineering Company dated 12-13-2019 subject to the
conditions of approval an adopt the Findings of Fact and Recommendation.
Weick: Thank you Commissioner Tietz. We have a valid motion. Do we have a second?
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McGonagill: I’ll second it.
Weick: We have a second from Commissioner McGonagill. Any interim discussion before we
vote? Seeing and hearing none.
Tietz moved, McGonagill seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission
recommends the City Council approve the Interim Use Permit, Planning Case 2020-01 to
permit grading, excavation and slope restoration as proposed on the plans prepared by
Barr Engineering Co., dated 12/13/2019, subject to the Conditions of Approval and
adoption of the Findings of Fact and Recommendation.
1. The interim use permit shall be approved for a period of two (2) years from the date of City
Council approval. The applicant will need to request a formal extension 60 days prior to the
expiration date of the interim use permit.
2. Permits from the appropriate regulatory agency must be obtained; including but not limited
to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Lower Minnesota River Watershed District and
Carver County.
3. The applicant must provide the city with a cash escrow or letter of credit in the amount of
110% of the construction costs for the appropriate phase of the grading operations to
guarantee erosion control measures, site restoration, and compliance with the interim use
permit.
4. Documentation and/or load tickets from the approved waste disposal facility where
contaminated soils will be disposed of shall be provided to the city.
5. All required ROW permits, access agreements, and temporary construction easements shall
be secured prior to the commencement of any construction activities.
6. All oversize/overweight loads leaving the site to the east must apply for County
Transportation OS/OW trip permits.
7. Permitted hours of operation will be 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday with no work permitted on Sunday or legal holidays.
8. If any excess material is hauled to another site in Chanhassen, a separate grading permit will
be required for the other property.
9. The applicant shall schedule a walk-through of the site with city staff to review boundary
staking and removals of edge trees prior to any activity commencing.
10. The applicant shall identify conservation easement boundary on site. Vegetation within the
easement may not be irrevocably damaged by construction activities. If irrevocable damage
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is caused, the applicant shall be responsible for replacement plantings at a rate of 2:1
diameter inches.
11. Applicant shall report tree removal quantities to the city.
12. Upon completion of the installation of initial erosion control measures, the contractor shall
contact the city’s Engineering Department (Ryan Pinkalla, 952-227-1173) for an initial
erosion control inspection prior to grading operations.
13. HDPE pipe installed shall be furnished with tracer wire meeting the City of Chanhassen’s
Standard Specifications.
14. The applicant shall submit hydraulic design calculations and follow-up analysis for the newly
proposed stormwater conveyance system, including analysis for riprap stilling basins and
rock check dams as energy dissipaters.
15. One hundred percent (100%) construction plans shall be provided for review and approval
prior to commencement of any construction activities.
16. The applicant shall enter into maintenance agreements with the city and/or Lower Minnesota
River Watershed District to ensure maintenance responsibilities and ownership are the
responsibility of the HCRRA or their designee, in perpetuity, prior to commencement of any
construction activities.
17. The applicant shall provide further justification to the wetlands being impacted being
incidental. This can be accomplished through the WCA permit process that is currently
underway.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Weick: The motion passes unanimously 6 to 0.
McGonagill: Get her done.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Skistad noted the verbatim and summary
Minutes of the Planning Commission dated December 3, 2019 as presented.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
CITY COUNCIL ACTION UPDATE.
Aanenson: Thank you. Since we haven’t met since the last meeting was December 9th. The last
time the City Council met of last year so I’ll kind of give you an update on that. The City
Council did grant Avienda an extension of their grading plat permit. We do have a meeting set
up here in the next week to meet with them and see where they’re at and get things rolling. I