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Agenda and PacketAGENDA CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2020, 7:00 PM CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, 7700 MARKET BOULEVARD A.WORK SESSION B.CALL TO ORDER C.PUBLIC HEARINGS 1.Consider a Request for Lot Cover and Setback Variances to Construct a Detached Garage and Driveway with Turnaround on Property Located at 7727 Frontier Trail 2.Discuss Code Amendment to Remove 1"=200' Scale Mylar Requirement 3.Discuss Code Amendment to Correct IOP District Permitted Accessory Uses Numbering D.APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1.Approve Planning Commission Minutes dated August 18, 2020 E.ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS 1.City Council Action Update F.CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION 1.Article G.ADJOURNMENT NOTE: Planning Commission meetings are scheduled to end by 10:30 p.m. as outlined in the official bylaws. We will make every attempt to complete the hearing for each item on the agenda. If, however, this does not appear to be possible, the Chairperson will notify those present and offer rescheduling options. Items thus pulled from consideration will be listed first on the agenda at the next Commission meeting. If a constituent or resident sends an email to staff or the Planning Commission, it must be made part of the public record based on State Statute. If a constituent or resident sends an email to the Mayor and City Council, it is up to each individual City Council member and Mayor if they want it to be made part of the public record or not. There is no State Statute that forces the Mayor or City Council to share that information with the public or be made part of the public record. Under State Statute, staff cannot remove comments or letters provided as part of the public input process. PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT Tuesday, September 1, 2020 Subject Consider a Request for Lot Cover and Setback Variances to Construct a Detached Garage and Driveway with Turnaround on Property Located at 7727 Frontier Trail Section PUBLIC HEARINGS Item No: C.1. Prepared By MacKenzie YoungWalters, Associate Planner File No: Planning Case No. 202017 PROPOSED MOTION: "The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves an 11 foot 9 inch front yard setback variance and a 7 percent lot cover variance for the construction of a detached garage, subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Facts and Decision." SUMMARY OF REQUEST The applicant is requesting an 11foot 9inch front yard setback variance and a 6.35 percent lot cover variance to construct a detached garage on the property. The property does not currently have a garage and the applicant is looking to improve the property by providing a location for the indoor storage of automobiles. The applicant has stated that the garage will conform to the character of the existing house and neighborhood. The applicant has noted that the City Code requires a twocar garage for singlefamily homes and that garages are present on all of the surrounding properties. They have also stated that the lot’s substandard size combined with the existing location and size of the principal structure make it impossible to add the garage without a variance. It has been staff’s practice to support variance requests for modestly sized twocar garages on substandard lots where no garage is currently present. Staff believes that the proposed 22foot by 24foot garage is reasonably sized and that its proposed setback from the front lot line represents an acceptable balance between minimizing the amount of impervious surface on the property and providing adequate driveway length and design. For these reasons, staff is recommending that the Planning Commission approve the requested variances. A full discussion can be found in the attached staff report. APPLICANT Paul Pope, Paul Pope Builders LLC, 5456 46th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55417 SITE INFORMATION PLANNING COMMISSION STAFFREPORTTuesday, September 1, 2020SubjectConsider a Request for Lot Cover and Setback Variances to Construct a Detached Garage andDriveway with Turnaround on Property Located at 7727 Frontier TrailSectionPUBLIC HEARINGS Item No: C.1.Prepared By MacKenzie YoungWalters, AssociatePlanner File No: Planning Case No. 202017PROPOSED MOTION:"The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves an 11 foot 9 inch front yard setback variance and a7 percent lot cover variance for the construction of a detached garage, subject to the Conditions of Approval andadopts the attached Findings of Facts and Decision."SUMMARY OF REQUESTThe applicant is requesting an 11foot 9inch front yard setback variance and a 6.35 percent lot cover variance toconstruct a detached garage on the property. The property does not currently have a garage and the applicant islooking to improve the property by providing a location for the indoor storage of automobiles. The applicant has statedthat the garage will conform to the character of the existing house and neighborhood.The applicant has noted that the City Code requires a twocar garage for singlefamily homes and that garages arepresent on all of the surrounding properties. They have also stated that the lot’s substandard size combined with theexisting location and size of the principal structure make it impossible to add the garage without a variance.It has been staff’s practice to support variance requests for modestly sized twocar garages on substandard lots whereno garage is currently present. Staff believes that the proposed 22foot by 24foot garage is reasonably sized and thatits proposed setback from the front lot line represents an acceptable balance between minimizing the amount ofimpervious surface on the property and providing adequate driveway length and design. For these reasons, staff isrecommending that the Planning Commission approve the requested variances.A full discussion can be found in the attached staff report.APPLICANTPaul Pope, Paul Pope Builders LLC, 5456 46th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55417 SITE INFORMATION PRESENT ZONING: RSF SingleFamily Residential District LAND USE:Residential Low Density ACREAGE: .2 acres DENSITY: NA APPLICATION REGULATIONS Chapter 20, Article II, Division 3. Variances Chapter 20, Article XII, “RSF” SingleFamily Residential District Section 20615, Lot Requirements and Setbacks. Chapter 20, Article XXIII, Division 1, Generally Section 20905, SingleFamily Dwellings Chapter 20, Article XXIII, Division 1, Generally Section 20908, Yard Regulations Chapter 20, Article XXIV, Division 2, Parking and Loading Section 201122, Access and Driveways BACKGROUND County records indicate that the house was built in 1906. Several permits for interior work are on file with the city; however, no permits associated with building or locating the structures on the property are present. RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends the Planning Commission, acting as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments, approve the 11foot 9 inch front yard setback and 7 percent lot cover variance requests for the construction of a detached garage, and adopt the attached Findings of Fact and Decision, subject to the following conditions: 1. A building permit must be obtained prior to construction and the building must comply with the Minnesota State Building Code. 2. Eaves may encroach an additional one foot beyond the granted variance, as shown in the plans dated July 31, 2020. 3. The detached garage must be architecturally compatible with the existing home. 4. The driveway turnaround shall be relocated at least onehalf foot north so as not to be on the property line; the maximum driveway width at the rightofway line shall not exceed 24 feet. ATTACHMENTS: Staff Report Findings of Fact and Decision (Approval) Development Review Application Narrative Proposed Plan Survey Affidavit of Mailing Engineering Memo CITY OF CHANHASSEN PC DATE: September 1, 2020 CC DATE: September 28, 2020 REVIEW DEADLINE: September 29, 2020 CASE #: PC 2020-17 BY: MYW SUMMARY OF REQUEST: The applicant is requesting an 11 foot 9 inch front yard setback variance and a 6.35 percent lot cover variance to construct a detached garage with turnaround. LOCATION: 7727 Frontier Trail APPLICANT: Paul Pope, Paul Pope Builders LLC 5456 46th Ave. South Minneapolis, MN 55417 PRESENT ZONING: “RSF” – Single-Family Residential District 2040 LAND USE PLAN: Residential Low Density ACREAGE: .2 acres DENSITY: NA LEVEL OF CITY DISCRETION IN DECISION-MAKING: The city’s discretion in approving or denying a variance is limited to whether or not the proposed project meets the standards in the Zoning Ordinance for a variance. The city has a relatively high level of discretion with a variance because the applicant is seeking a deviation from established standards. This is a quasi-judicial decision. Notice of this public hearing has been mailed to all property owners within 500 feet. PROPOSAL/SUMMARY The applicant is requesting an 11-foot 9-inch front yard setback variance and a 6.35 percent lot cover variance to construct a detached garage on the property. The property does not currently have a garage and the applicant is looking to improve the property by providing a location for the indoor storage of automobiles. The applicant has stated that the garage will conform to the character of the existing house and neighborhood. The applicant has noted that the City Code requires a two-car garage for single-family homes and that garages are present on all of the surrounding properties. They have also stated that the lot’s substandard size combined with the existing location and size of the principal structure make it impossible to add the garage without a variance. PROPOSED MOTION: “The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves an 11 foot 9 inch front yard setback variance and a 7 percent lot cover variance for the construction of a detached garage, subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Facts and Decision.” 7727 Frontier Trail Variance Request September 1, 2020 Page 2 It has been staff’s practice to support variance requests for modestly sized two-car garages on substandard lots where no garage is currently present. Staff believes that the proposed 22-foot by 24-foot garage is reasonably sized and that its proposed setback from the front lot line represents an acceptable balance between minimizing the amount of impervious surface on the property and providing adequate driveway length and design. For these reasons, staff is recommending that the Planning Commission approve the requested variances. APPLICABLE REGULATIONS Chapter 20, Article II, Division 3. Variances Chapter 20, Article XII, “RSF” Single-Family Residential District Section 20-615, Lot Requirements and Setbacks. Chapter 20, Article XXIII, Division 1, Generally Section 20-905, Single-Family dwellings Chapter 20, Article XXIII, Division 1, Generally Section 20-908, Yard regulations Chapter 20, Article XXIV, Division 2, Parking and Loading Section 20-1122, Access and driveways BACKGROUND County records indicate that the house was built in 1906. Several permits for interior work are on file with the city; however, no permits associated with building or locating the structures on the property are present. SITE CONSTRAINTS Zoning Overview The property is zoned Single-Family Residential District. This zoning classification requires lots to be a minimum of 15,000 square feet, have front and rear yard setbacks of 30 feet, side yard setbacks of 10 feet, and limits parcels to a maximum of 30 percent lot cover, of which no more than 25 percent can be impervious surface. Corner lots are required to meet the required 30-foot front yard setback along all street frontages, but the remaining lot lines are subject to side yard setbacks. Residential structures are limited to 35 feet in height. The lot is 8,819 square feet and has 1,756 square feet (19.9 percent) lot cover. The existing house has a non-conforming 7-foot front yard setback along the west lot line and a non-conforming 4- foot front yard setback along the south lot line. There is an existing shed on the property that has a non-conforming 4.7-foot side yard setback from the north lot line. The existing structures meet all other requirements of the City Code. Bluff Creek Corridor This is not encumbered by the Bluff Creek Overlay District. 7727 Frontier Trail Variance Request September 1, 2020 Page 3 Bluff Protection There are not bluffs on the property. Floodplain Overlay This property is not within a floodplain. Shoreland Management The property is not located within a Shoreland Protection District. Wetland Protection There is not a wetland located in the development site. NEIGHBORHOOD City Lots of Chanhassen The original plat for this area was recorded in October of 1887 and was replated in March of 1896. Over the following century, many of the original lots have been altered through vacations, combinations, or sales. Many of the resulting lots are substandard or have atypical shapes. The plat and many of its lot combinations predate the City of Chanhassen and since their creation, a zoning code was passed. The zoning code was amended numerous times, and buildings were built, demolished, and rebuilt to meet the standards and needs of the existing ordinances. The result of this is that many properties in the area do not meet one or more of the requirements of the city’s zoning code, and a significant number of properties are either non-conforming uses or are operating under a variance. Variances within 500 feet: 1976-16 221 Chan View: 4’ front setback variance (house) – Approved 1980-05 203½ Chan View: 5’ side and 20’ rear setback variances (detached garage) – Approved 7727 Frontier Trail Variance Request September 1, 2020 Page 4 1983-13 222 Chan View: 7’ side setback variance (garage) – Approved 1985-06 7725 Frontier Trail: 3’ side setback variance (garage) – Approved 1986-10 7791 Erie Ave.: 10’ front setback variance (house) – Approved 1988-10 7725 Frontier Trail: 3’ side setback variance (garage) – Approved 1999-06 226 Chan View: 18’ and 10’ front setback variances (addition and detached garage) – Approved 2001-01 220 W. 78th St.: 21.5’ front setback variance (addition) – Approved 2004-39 222 W. 78th St.: 26.2’ front setback variance (intensify non-conformity) – Approved 2017-21 204 W. 78th St.: 3’ front setback and 1.5% lot cover variances (house) – Approved 2020-03 306 W. 78th St.: 1’ height, 11.33 sq. ft. display area (monument sign) – Approved 2020-11 7701 Frontier Trail: 30’ front setback variance (porch) – Approved ANALYSIS Front Yard Setback The subdivision was originally created in 1887 with the home being built in 1906. Both the lot and the home predate the city and its subdivision and zoning ordinance. As a result, the lot is substandard with a frontage of 73.7 feet, a depth of 119.74 feet, and a lot area of 8,819 square feet, instead of the 90 feet of frontage, 125 feet of depth, and 15,000 square feet of lot area required by Code. Additionally, the home was built with a 7-foot setback from the west lot line and a 4-foot setback from the south lot line. There is an existing driveway access along the south property line. The applicant’s proposed garage placement would make use of the existing curb cut and place the garage 18-feet and 3-inches back from the south lot line. This placement would place the garage entrance and service door roughly in line with an entrance to the home, facilitating easy transitions between the two structures. The applicant had initially proposed a 16-foot garage setback; however, they pushed the garage back an additional 2-feet 3-inches at staff’s request in order to ensure that vehicles parked in the driveway would be well clear of the public sidewalk 7727 Frontier Trail Variance Request September 1, 2020 Page 5 along West 78th Street and that the driveway would meet the city’s 18-foot minimum length requirement. Given that the property is a corner lot with a 10-foot north lot line setback, the property is theoretically deep enough to allow for the placement of a 24-foot deep garage meeting the required north and south lot line setbacks; however, a placement meeting the required setbacks would have several drawbacks. Moving the garage that far back on the lot would significantly reduce the usable rear yard greenspace and add approximately 200 square feet (2.25 percent) of additional lot cover to the property. Staff has historically prioritized reducing impervious surface coverage over maximizing setbacks, especially in neighborhoods where many existing structures are already located within required setbacks. Since the proposed setback places the garage 14 feet further back from the lot line than the existing house and provides the minimum driveway length required by City Code, staff believes the requested front yard variance is reasonable given the substandard size of the lot and placement of the existing home. For these reasons staff recommends the front yard variance be approved. Lot Cover The applicant had initially proposed placing the garage 16-feet from the property line with access provided by a driveway that did not feature a turnaround. This proposal would have required a 4.8 percent lot cover variance. Since the City Code requires 18-feet of driveway length for all driveways and the inclusion of turnarounds on driveways entering onto city designated collector roads, such as West 78th Street, staff asked the applicant to revise their plans to meet the city’s driveway design standards. These revisions, while necessary to provide for off street parking and safe access, increased the proposal’s lot cover from 29.8 percent to 31.35 percent, an increase of 138 square feet. Upon reviewing the revised submission, staff also noticed that the garage contains an access door for which no landing is provided and that the redesigned driveway would be 33-feet 2-inches wide at the right of way, which is 9-feet 2-inches wider than is permitted by City Code. In order to avoid conflict with the city’s driveway designs standards, Engineering is recommending that the applicant be required to relocate the turnaround one-half foot north of the property line. This design change combined with needing to allow space for a landing off the garage’s service door will likely further increase the property’s lot cover. For these reasons, staff is recommending that the Planning Commission approve a 7 percent lot cover variance rather than the 6.35 percent lot 7727 Frontier Trail Variance Request September 1, 2020 Page 6 cover variance requested by the applicant in order to accommodate these changes. The staff- recommended increase would allow the applicant 57 square feet of additional lot cover to accommodate the required redesign of the driveway. Staff is typically reluctant to support variances allowing properties that currently meet lot cover limits to exceed their district’s limit; however, staff also recognizes that 2-car garages are a minimum requirement for single-family homes in Chanhassen and that driveways need to meet minimum design standards in order to ensure safety and functionality. In cases where an existing home does not have a garage, staff looks at the total amount of lot cover proposed for the property both as a percentage of lot area and an absolute total square footage, the size of the proposed garage, and the presence of patios, sheds, or other types of lot cover that could potentially be removed in order to determine if the requested lot cover variance is reasonable. As was noted earlier, the lot is substandard with only 8,819 square feet of lot area. To help determine how much impervious surface is reasonable for a single-family home, staff looks at the impervious surface allowed on a lot meeting minimum size standards. The minimum lot size, impervious surface limit, and minimum impervious cover allowed for the single-family residential (RSF) district, the residential low and medium density (RLM) district, and the applicant’s property are shown in the table below. District RSF RLM Applicant’s Property Min. Lot area 15,000 9,000 8,819 Impervious % 25% 35% 25% Impervious Cover 3,750 3,150 2,204 While the RLM district is required to dedicate significant amounts of permanent open space to offset its higher percentage of impervious surface, the increased amount of impervious surface permitted reflects the fact that it is extremely difficult to fit a home and garage on a 9,000 square foot lot without a higher percentage of lot cover. The 2,822 square feet of impervious surface that would be required to accommodate the applicant’s proposed garage is under the minimum amount permitted for non-substandard single-family lots and, in absolute terms, is not an inordinate amount of lot cover for a home and garage. Similarly, the dimensions of the proposed garage, 22-feet by 24-feet, are in line with the typical size of a two-car garage and does not represent a request for an oversized or excessively large garage. While there is a 95 square foot storage shed on the property, the property does not have large patios or other excess impervious surface that could be removed to help accommodate the proposed garage, and staff believes that given the relatively modest size of the proposed garage it is reasonable for the applicant to ask to retain the shed to provide additional on-site storage. A final consideration staff evaluates in determining whether to recommend approval of a lot cover variance is to evaluate the area’s stormwater infrastructure and the area’s history of drainage issues. In cases where there is a history of drainage issues or inadequate stormwater infrastructures, staff often recommends that mitigation measures such as pervious pavers or rain gardens be installed to offset the requested increase in impervious surface. In this instance, staff 7727 Frontier Trail Variance Request September 1, 2020 Page 7 is not aware of any deficiencies in the area’s stormwater system or of any history of drainage complaints in this neighborhood, and does not believe the amount of impervious surface being proposed necessities the use of any mitigation measures. Due to the fact that the lot is substandard, the size of the proposed garage is reasonable, and the configuration and size of the driveway is mandated by other sections of the City Code, staff recommends that the lot cover variance be approved. Impact on Neighborhood The City Lots of Chanhassen is the community’s original neighborhood. Many of its properties are non-conforming uses, and 12 variances have been given to the 38 properties within 500 feet of 7727 Frontier Trail. Of those 12 variances, seven were front yard setback variances and 11 were front or side yard setback variances. Five of the 12 variances were requested to allow properties to add a garage. Surveying aerial photos of the neighborhood, no property sharing a block with 7727 Frontier Trail, with one possible exception, appears to meet the required front yard setback. Given that neighborhood largely consists of smaller lots with structures located within the required setbacks, the proposed variance would not represent a departure from the existing character of the neighborhood. Furthermore, the proposed garage is broadly architecturally compatible with the existing structure and will not negatively impact the property’s appearance as seen from the street. RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends the Planning Commission, acting as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments, approve the 11-foot 9-inch front yard setback and 7 percent lot cover variance requests for the construction of a detached garage and adopt the attached Findings of Fact and Decision, subject to the following conditions: 1. A building permit must be obtained prior to construction and the building must comply with the Minnesota State Building Code. 2. Eaves may encroach an additional one foot beyond the granted variance, as shown in the plans dated July 31, 2020. 3. The detached garage must be architecturally compatible with the existing home. 4. The driveway turnaround shall be relocated at least one-half foot north so as not to be on the property line; the maximum driveway width at the right-of-way line shall not exceed 24 feet. 7727 Frontier Trail Variance Request September 1, 2020 Page 8 ATTACHMENTS 1. Findings of Fact and Decision 2. Development Review Application 3. Narrative 4. Proposed Plan 6. Survey 7. Affidavit of Mailing of Public Hearing Notice 8. Engineering Memo g:\plan\2020 planning cases\20-17 7727 frontier trail var\staff report_7727 frontier trail_var.doc 1 CITY OF CHANHASSEN CARVER AND HENNEPIN COUNTIES, MINNESOTA FINDINGS OF FACT AND DECISION (APPROVAL) IN RE: Application of Paul Pope for an 11-foot 9-inch front setback variance and a 6.35 percent lot cover variance on a property zoned Single-Family Residential District (RSF) - Planning Case 2020-17. On September 1, 2020, the Chanhassen Planning Commission, acting as the Board of Appeals and Adjustments, met at its regularly scheduled meeting to consider the application. The Planning Commission conducted a public hearing on the proposed variance preceded by published and mailed notice. The Board of Appeals and Adjustments makes the following: FINDINGS OF FACT 1. The property is currently zoned Single-Family Residential District (RSF). 2. The property is guided in the Chanhassen Comprehensive Plan for Residential Low Density. 3. The legal description of the property is: The South 80 feet of Lots One and Two (1&2) of Block 1, Village of Chanhassen, Carver County, Minnesota, according to the map or plat on file and of record in the Office of the County Recorder of said Carver County, Minnesota 4. Variance Findings – Section 20-58 of the City Code provides the following criteria for the granting of a variance: a. Variances shall only be permitted when they are in harmony with the general purposes and intent of this Chapter and when the variances are consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. Finding: Since the City Code requires single-family homes to have a two-car garage granting a variance to permit the construction of a two-car garage is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of Chapter 20. Concerning the requested lot cover variance, the intent of the City Code is to regulate and limit the amount of lot cover in order to allow for the management of stormwater. Since this area of the city does not have a known history of drainage issues or known deficiencies in the stormwater infrastructure, allowing a relatively modest increase in the absolute amount of lot cover on a property to facilitate the construction of a garage and a driveway meeting city design standards is in harmony with the intent of Chapter 20. 2 Concerning the requested front yard setback, the intent of the city’s yard setback ordinance is to provide for a uniform neighborhood aesthetic and greenspace. In this instance, the proposed garage is set further back than the existing home and granting the requested front yard setback will allow the property to maintain a larger and more usable rear yard. Given the existing development pattern of the area and wide variance in the front yard setbacks within the neighborhood, granting the requested front setback variance is in harmony with the intent of Chapter 20. b. When there are practical difficulties in complying with the zoning ordinance. "Practical difficulties" as used in connection with the granting of a variance, means that the property owner proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by this Chapter. Practical difficulties include, but are not limited to, inadequate access to direct sunlight for solar energy systems. Finding: The applicant’s proposed two-car garage is a reasonable accessory use for property with a single-family home and no garage. The location of the existing home on the parcel and substandard nature of the parcel make it impossible for the applicant to construct a two-car garage without a variance. c. That the purpose of the variation is not based upon economic considerations alone. Finding: The variance request is not solely based upon economic considerations. d. The plight of the landowner is due to circumstances unique to the property not created by the landowner. Finding: The neighborhood was platted 1887 and the home was built in 1906. Since the creation of the lot and construction of the home predates the creation of the city and adoption of a Zoning Code, the applicant is forced to work within the constraints created by the non-conforming lot and house placement. e. The variance, if granted, will not alter the essential character of the locality. Finding: The property is located in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Many of the properties in the area do not have the required 30-foot front yard setback, either by virtue of variances or by virtue of their status as non-conforming uses. Additionally, no property sharing a block with 7727 Frontier Trail, with one possible exception, appears to meet the required front yard setback. Given that the neighborhood largely consists of smaller lots with structures located within the required setbacks, the proposed variance would not represent a departure from the existing character of the neighborhood. Furthermore, the proposed garage is broadly architecturally compatible with the existing structure and will not negatively impact the property’s appearance as seen from the street. f. Variances shall be granted for earth-sheltered construction as defined in Minnesota Statutes Section 216C.06, subdivision 14, when in harmony with this Chapter. Finding: This does not apply to this request. 3 5. The planning report #2020-17, dated September 1, 2020, prepared by MacKenzie Young- Walters, is incorporated herein. DECISION “The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves an 11 foot 9 inch front yard setback variance and a 7 percent lot cover variance for the construction of a detached garage, and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Decision, subject to the following condition: 1. A building permit must be obtained prior to construction and the building must comply with the Minnesota State Building Code. 2. Eaves may encroach an additional one foot beyond the granted variance, as shown in the plans dated July 31, 2020. 3. The detached garage must be architecturally compatible with the existing home. 4. The driveway turnaround shall be relocated at least one-half foot north so as not to be on the property line; the maximum driveway width at the right-of-way line shall not exceed 24 feet. ADOPTED by the Chanhassen Planning Commission this 1st day of September, 2020. CITY OF CHANHASSEN BY: Steven Weick, Chairman g:\plan\2020 planning cases\20-17 7727 frontier trail var\findings of fact and decision 7727 frontier trail (approval).doc .uthanli3i9n lD: EaCC9823.aCrC{307-410a{E2732F39646 COMMUNTTY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT Planning Oivision - 7700 Market Boulevard Mailing Address - P.O. Box 147, Chanhassen, MN 55317 Phone: (9521227-1 100 / Fax: 1952) 227-1110 Submittal Date:3t Eo PC Date:4 CNYOT CHAI{HASSII{ APPLICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT REV]EW ,o ccoate:1 l>V/l:60-Day Revaew Date Section 1: Application Type (check all that apply) (Rehr lo tl16 appppdate Applicatbn Checkfid fot Gquircd submittal infotmation that mud a@mpany this adication) D Comprehensive Plan Amendment......................... $600 E Subdivision (SUB) E Manor MUSA line for failing on-site sewers.....$100 tr Create 3 lots or less ........................... .. ......... $300 E Conditional Use Permit (CUP) E Single-Family Residence .....- Ar 5th;...:....:.....-..--.......:.::..:.:::.::::::.:.::: lnterim Use Permit (lUP) I ln conjunction with SingleFamily ResidenceE Att others...... Rezoning (REZ) E Create over 3 lots .. Metes & Bounds (2 lots).... Consolidate Lots. Lot Line Adiustment........... Final Plat... .....................$600 + $15 per lot( lots) . $32s .$425 . $325 . $42s trntrn ........$300 ........$150 ........$150 ........ $700tr tr Planned Unit Development (PUD) ..... Minor Amendment to existing PUD.... All Others............ (lncludes $450 escrow for attorney costs)' 'Additional escrow may be required for other applications hrough the development @ntrac{. E Vacation of Easements/Right-of-way (VAC)........ $300 (Additlonal recording fe€s may agply) E Variance (VAR).................................................... $200 .. $7s0 .. $100 .. $s00 E sign Pran Review................ .......$150 E wefland Arteration permit (wAp) tr!tr tr Site Plan Review (SPR) ! Administrative ..................... $100 E Commercial/lndustrial Districts'...................... $500 Plus $10 per 1,000 square feet of building area:( thousand square feet) 'lndude number oI g&.!lhg employees: 'lndude number oI@ employees:E Residential Districts......................................... $500 Plus $5 per dwelling unit ( units) E Single-Family Residence............................... $150E enotners...... .....................$275 ! Zoning Appea|...................................................... $100 E Zoning Ordinance Amendment (ZOA)................. $500 IJ9IE: Vvlon multlpls appllcatlont are proco$sd concurronlly, the rpproprlatq tee lhall ba ch.rged ior oach appllcation. E Notmcation Sign (city to install and r€rnove) ..$200 E Property Owners' List within 500' (city to geoerate after pre-appllcaton meetin g1............il,..-..--......................... $3 per address ( 76 addresses) El Escro,v for Recording Documents (check all that apply)........... ..........jjr...................$50 per document- n-Co"oiio""r u;;F;ii - - ' -'-" fite,i; u;;;;;"*'i " """iJ"3ii"'pr,n Asreement E Vacation E Variance E wetland Alteration Permit E t*,letes&Boundssubdivision(3docs.) [ Easements( easements) F.rfflia, $Sft Section 2: Required lnformation Description of Proposal Proposed detached garage with turnaround. Garage to have gutter and downspout to direct rainwater on to the property away ftom the street. 7727 Frcnliet Trcil, Chanhassen, MN 55317Property Address or Location Parcet#: 250500060 Legal Description:The South 80 feet of Lots 'l & 2, Block 1, City Lots of Chanhassen Total Acreage .2024 Wetlands Present?! ves fl tlo Present Zoning:Single-Family Residential District (RSF)Requested Zoning . Not Applicable Present Land Use Designation Residential Large Lot Requested Land Use Design "6n. Not Applicable Existing Use of Property:Single Family Residence I Ecnect box if separate narrative is attached. 'utr.ntiisn lD: E4CC9!23rCaC307-4104-882732F3546 Section 3: Property Owner and Applicant lnformation APPLICANT OTHER THAN PROPERTY OWNER: ln signing this application, I, as applicant, represent to have obtaind authorization from the property owner to file this application. I agree to be bound by conditions of approval, subject only to the right to object at the hearings on the application or during the appeal period. lf this application has not been signed by the property owner, I have attached separate documentation of full legal capacity to file the application. This application should be processed in my name and I am the parly whom the City should contact regarding any matter pertaining to this application. I will keep myself informed of lhe deadlines for submission of material and the progress of this application. I further understand that additional fees may be charged for consulting fees, feasibility studies, elc. wilh an eslimate prior to any authorization to proceed with the study. I certify that the information and exhibits submitted are true and correct. Paul Pope Builders LLC Paul PopeName 5456 46th Avenue South Contact Phone: City/State/Zip Email Minneapolis, MN 55417 Cell: Fax: Date Cell: Fax: Date Contact Phone: 612-720-5528 paulpope20'l 0@gmail.com Signature vEd Ptcar PROPERTY OWNER: ln signing this application, l, as property owner, have full legal capacity to, and hereby do, authorize the filing of this application. I understand that conditions of approval are binding and agree to be bound by those conditions, subject only to the right to ob.iect at the hearings or during the appeal periods. I will keep myself informed of the deadlines for submissaon of material and the progress of this application. I further understand that additional fees may be charged for consulting fees, feasibility studies, etc. with an estimate prior to any authorization to proceed with the study. I certify that the information and exhibits submitted are true and correct. Contact Phone: 7t31t2020 PROJECT ENGINEER (if applicable) Name: Address City/State/Zip: Email: This application must be completed in full and must be accompanied by all information and plans requked by applicable City Ordinance provisions. Before filing this application, refer to the appropriate Application Checklist and confer with the Planning Department to determine the specific ordinance and applicable procedural requirements and fees. A determination of completeness of the application shall be made within 15 business days of application submittal. A written notice of application deficiencies shall be mailed to the applicant within 15 business days of application. Section 4: Notification lnformation *Other Contact lnformation : Name: Dean Urevig Address 5725 Blake Road South #105 City/State/Zip: Edina, MN 55436 Email: deanurevig@qmail.com DanZ Property Owner Via:Applicant Via:Engineer Via:Othef Via: E uaiteo Paper Copy! uaiteo Paper Copy! tr,,taiteO Paper Copy D lr,,taiteO Paper Copy Email Email Email Email INSTRUCTIONS TO APPLICANT: Complete all necessary form fields, then select SAVE FORM to save a copy to your device. PRINT FORM and deliver to city along with required documents and payment. SUBMIT FORM to send a digital copy to the city for processing SAVE FORM SUBMIT FORM Address: Name: Aid'*". City/Statezip: Email: Signature: Cell: Fax: Who should receive copies ot staff reports? tran @ PRINT FORM 1 e ESIG ROUP. LL ' Urevig Design Group, LLP Dean Urevig 5725 Blake Road South#105 Edina, MN 55436 July 9, 2019 To: Members of the Planning Commission and City Staff SUBJECT: Variance Application Site 7727 Frontier Trail, Chanhassen, MN 55317 Scope of work New Garage New Driveway with Backup-Turnaround Variance Request The Owner is Requesting a Variance for the following reasons: 1.The City has a practical requirement for a minimum of a Two-Car Garage.This property does not have a garage and it would be practical to have a garage. 2. It is not possible to comply with zoning ordinances for lot coverage and setbacks. 3.This is for practical use, not for economic considerations alone. 4.The lot is nonconforming to current City Standards making it unique. 5.The neighboring residential properties all have Garages.The Garage will conform to the character of the house with 4" exposure siding and 4"corners. On behalf of the Property Owner and the General Contractor please accept this Variance Application. Sincerely, Urevig DesignsiGroup,LLP 4?;Zrfie Dean Urevig 612-424- 0211 deanurevig@gmail.com CITY OF CHANHASSEN AFFIDAVIT OF MAILING NOTICE STATE OF MINNESOTA) ss. COUNTY OF CARVER ) I, Kim T. Meuwissen, being first duly sworn, on oath deposes that she is and was on August 20,2020,the duly qualified and acting Deputy Clerk of the City of Chanhassen, Minnesota; that on said date she caused to be mailed a copy of the attached notice of a Public Hearing to Consider a Request for Lot Cover and Setback Variances to Construct a Detached Garage and Driveway with Turnaround at 7727 Frontier Trail, Zoned Single- Family Residential (RSF), Planning Case No. 2020-17 to the persons named on attached Exhibit"A", by enclosing a copy of said notice in an envelope addressed to such owner, and depositing the envelopes addressed to all such owners in the United States mail with postage fully prepaid thereon; that the names and addresses of such owners were those appearing as such by the records of the County Treasurer, Carver County, Minnesota, and by other appropriate records. c Ip- u,,,,k:TT tturk uic)3442—t, Kim . Meuwissen, Deputy Subscribed and s orn to before me thisO qday of 2020. Seal) c.ff ) Notary Public 4-;--. JEAN M STECKLING Notaryr. k1t1690tS r w mi_p_ydon Woe Jon 31,2024 Subject Area 78th stc Disclaimer This map is neither a legally recorded map nor a survey and is not intended to be used as one.This map is a compilation of records,information and data located in various city. county,state and federal offices and other sources regarding the area shown.and is to TAX_NAME» be used for reference purposes only. The City does not warrant that the Geographic TAX ADD L1»Information System(GIS)Data used to prepare this map are error free,and the City does not represent that the GIS Data can be used for navigational. tracking or any other TAX_ADD L2» purpose requiring exacting measurement of distance or direction or precision in the depiction of geographic features. The preceding disclaimer is provided pursuant to Minnesota Statutes§466.03, Subd. 21 (2000),and the user of this map acknowledges that the City shall not be liable for any damages. and expressly waives all claims, and agrees to defend.indemnify,and hold harmless the City from any and all claims brought by User,its employees or agents.or third parties which arise out of the users access or use of data provided. Subject Area t-. w nth sr Disclaimer This map is neither a legally recorded map nor a survey and is not intended to be used as one.This map is a compilation of records,information and data located in various city. county,state and federal offices and other sources regarding the area shown, and is to be used for reference purposes only. The City does not warrant that the Geographic Information System(GIS)Data used to prepare this map are error free,and the City does not represent that the GIS Data can be used for navigational, tracking or any other purpose requiring exacting measurement of distance or direction or precision in the N2Xt R2CO1d»ccTAX NAME»depiction of geographic features. The preceding disclaimer is provided pursuant to Minnesota Statutes§466.03, Subd. 21 (2000). and the user of this map acknowledges TAX ADD L1» that the City shall not be liable for any damages. and expressly waives all claims,and TAX ADD L2» agrees to defend,indemnify,and hold harmless the City from any and all claims brought by User,its employees or agents,or third parties which arise out of the user's access or use of data provided. O 0 c y V 2 7 U C C ui c, m to >. a2 ° ` c$ O C . r (6 Ol)C ._ w m omi o„.- o c L m^ O 0 7 _C U) a) Y C a) U) co y "O Ta ovcoo'm mo mens C c_ ac_ E E m E o o mE . 0 s a) V 0 U) 'N C . 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These comments are divided into two categories: general comments and proposed conditions. General comments are informational points to guide the applicant in the proper planning of public works infrastructure for this project, to inform the applicant of possible extraordinary issues and/or to provide the basis for findings. Proposed conditions are requirements that Engineering recommends be formally imposed on the developer in the final order. Note that references to the “City Standards” herein refer to the City of Chanhassen Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. General Comments/Findings 1. Any and all utility and transportation plans submitted with this application have been reviewed only for the purpose of determining the feasibility of providing utility and transportation facilities for the project in accordance with City Standards. A recommendation of variance approval does not constitute final approval of details, including but not limited to alignments, materials and points of access, connection or discharge, that are depicted or suggested in the application. The applicant is required to submit detailed construction drawings and/or plat drawings for the project, as applicable. The City of Chanhassen Engineering and Public Works Department will review plans, in detail, when they are submitted and approve, reject or require modifications to the plans or drawings based upon conformance with City Standards, the Chanhassen Code of Ordinances and the professional engineering judgment of the City Engineer. 2. It is the opinion of the Engineering Department that the proposed garage and driveway can be developed in accordance with the requirements of the Chanhassen Code of Ordinances (as it pertains to Engineering and Public Works requirements) and City Standards, provided it fully addresses the comments and conditions contained herein, and can be approved. 3. The applicant is proposing the construction of a 528 square foot two car garage and an associated 481 square foot driveway with turnaround, increasing impervious surface by 1009 square feet. The additional hardcover requires a variance from the zoning ordinance, while the proposed plan for the driveway and garage generally meet all requirements of City Standards and City Ordinance as it pertains to Engineering and Public Works. The applicant is proposing a turnaround with the driveway which would have been a requirement of the Engineering Department if one was not proposed. As W 78th Street is a collector road, turnarounds are required in driveways as to not create situations where vehicles would have to back-out of a driveway onto a collector, creating safety concerns. While the proposed layout will meet the turnaround requirement, the turnaround extends along the property line, which in the strictest reading of Sec. 20-1122 would be over the maximum 24 width allowed for RSF, see condition 1. Lastly, the portion of driveway to be installed within the right-of-way will be required to conform to City Standards. 4. Water Resources staff investigated whether this property has a history of drainage or erosion issues. No issues have been observed or documented at the City, and this area does not have deficient stormwater infrastructure. As such, Water Resources staff is not requiring any proposed stormwater conditions with regards to the increase in hard cover. Proposed Conditions 1. The turnaround shall be relocated at least 0.5 feet to the north as to not be on the property line; the maximum driveway width at the right-of-way line shall not exceed 24 feet. PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT Tuesday, September 1, 2020 Subject Discuss Code Amendment to Remove 1"=200' Scale Mylar Requirement Section PUBLIC HEARINGS Item No: C.2. Prepared By MacKenzie YoungWalters, Associate Planner File No: PROPOSED MOTION: The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the proposed amendment to remove the one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar requirement from the subdivision ordinance. SUMMARY OF REQUEST In 2004 the city amended its subdivision ordinance to require that final plat applications be accompanied by a one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar reductions of the final plat. This requirement was enacted to bring city requirements in line with Carver County recording standards. The county has subsequently ceased requiring one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar reductions and the city does not have a use for these mylar reductions. Staff is proposing that the City Code be amended to remove this requirement. RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends the city remove the one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar requirement from the list of final plat requirements. ATTACHMENTS: Issue Paper 200 Scale Mylar Reductions CITY OT CIIAI'IIIASSXI'I TO MEMORANDUM FROM: DATE: SUBJ: Planning Commission Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner MacKenzie Young-Walters, Associate Planner August 18,2020 200 Scale Mylar Reductions ISSUE The City Code stipulates requirements for the recording offinal plats that are in excess ofcounty requirements and which are no longer merited by city practices. In 2004, the city amended its suMivision ordinance to require that final plat applications be accompanied by a one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar reductions of the final plat. This requirement was enacted to bring city requirements in line with Carver County recording standards. The county has subsequently ceased requiring one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar reductions and the city does not have a use for these mylar reductions. Staffis proposing that the City Code be amended to remove this requirement. RELEVANT CITY CODE Sec. I 8-41 . - Final Plat - Generally. Lists the documents and files that an applicant must submit as part oftheir application for approval ofa subdivision's final plat. BACKGROUND Ordinance 369 passed on February 23,2004, established the current submission requirements for applying for approval of a final plat. Ordinance 410 passed on January 23,2006, separated the digital copy requirements out from the mylar reduction requirements. As technology has progressed and digital records and recording has become omnipresent, govemment agencies have moved away from requiring mylar copies. The county and city both still PH 952.227.1100. www.ci.chanhassen.mn.us. FX 952.227.1110 77OO MARKET BOULEVARO .PO BOX I47. CHANHASSEN .I'IINNESOTA 55317 'lI\ + ,T SflI Chanhassen is a Community for Life - Provlding for Today and Planning for Tomorrow SUMMARY ANALYSIS 200 Scale Mylar Reductions August 18, 2020 Page2 require and use full sized mylar copies as part ofthe subdivision recording process, but the county no longer requires one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar reductions. While the county no longer requires the mylar reductions, the City Code still lists them as a required part ofthe final plat application. Since mylars are exp€nsive to produce and neither the city nor county have a use for the reductions, staffis proposing amending the City Code to remove the mylar reduction requirement. The proposed amendment would still require a one inch equals 200 feet scale paper reduction as the Building Department uses the paper reduction to assign parcel addresses. Staff recommends Altemative I, which would remove the superfluous requirement for applicants to provide the city with a one inch equals 200 feet scale mylar reduction. The proposed amendment would read as follows: Sec. 1841. - Final plat - Generally. (a) Unless otherwise provided in the development contract for phased development, within one year after the date of the City Council approval of the preliminary plat, the subdivider shall file an application for approval of the final plat. In addition to the application, the subdivider shall submit: (1) Copies ofthe plat in such quantities as is required by the city; (2') Two mylar copies of the plat; @; (43) One inch equals 200 feet scale Mylar paper reductions of the final plat with just street names and lot and block numbers; (54) A digital copy in .dxf format and a digital copy in .tif format ofthe final plat shall be submitted. The digital files must be in the current Carver County coordinate system. If the final plat application is not filed within this period, the preliminary plat will be considered void unless for good cause shown an extension is requested in writing by the subdivider and granted by the City Council prior to the one-year anniversary date of the preliminary plat approval. The application for final plat approval shall be filed at least 30 days prior to the meeting of the City Council at which action is desired. g:\planvnw\issue pape6 and rcpons (dransNub ord rcquirements\issue paper 200 scale mylar requircment-docx ALTERNATTVES I ) Amend the City Code to reflect that current requirements to record and address a subdivision. 2) Do nothing. RECOMMENDATION PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT Tuesday, September 1, 2020 Subject Discuss Code Amendment to Correct IOP District Permitted Accessory Uses Numbering Section PUBLIC HEARINGS Item No: C.3. Prepared By MacKenzie YoungWalters, Associate Planner File No: PROPOSED MOTION: The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the Chanhassen City Council approve the proposed amendment to correct section 20813's numbering. SUMMARY OF REQUEST When the city passed Ordinance 377 listing five permitted accessory uses for the IOP district, no numbering was specified. Subsequent amendments specified numbers for added permitted accessory uses, but did not list out the entire section. The result of this is that one use appears unnumbered in between uses 5 and 6. This creates ambiguous formatting and could lead to difficulties understanding, citing, and/or amending the subsections of Section 20813. RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the city correct section 20813's numbering. ATTACHMENTS: Issue Paper IOP District Permitted Accessory Uses Numbering CITY OT CIIANHASSXN Chanhassen is a Community for Life - Providing for Today and Planning for lomorrow MEMORANDUM FROM: DATE: SUBJ: Planning Commission MacKenzie Young-Walters, Associate Planner August 18,2020 IOP District Permitted Accessory Uses Numbering Iq: There are seven uses listed as permitted accessory uses within the Industrial Office Park (lOP) District; however, only six ofthem have numbers. Summary: When the city passed Ordinance 377 listing five permitted accessory uses for the IOP district, no numbering was specified. Subsequent amendments specified numbers for added permitted accessory uses, but did not list out the entire section. The result of this is that one use appears unnumbered in between uses 5 and 6. This creates ambiguous formatting and could lead to difficulties understanding, citing, and/or amending the subsections of Section 20-813. Relevant City Cade: Sec. 20-813. - Permitted Accessory Uses. This section lists the permitted accessory uses for the IOP District. Anah sis: Ordinance 377 did not speciff a numbering system for IOP district's accessory uses; however, the first four were indented incomplete sentences, while the fifth was an unindented complete sentence. The company that codifies the City Code chose to format this by numbering the first four items 1-4 and leaving the fifth item unindented and unnumbered. Due to the lack of indentation and numbering when staff wrote Ordinance 619, they did not notice this item and amended Section 20-813 by stating that a new accessory use should be added as number five. The codifiers chose to place the fifth item after the fourth item, maintaining the formatting created for Ordinance 377. I/OO MARKET BOULEVARD .PO BOX I4T.CHANHASSEN .I'4INNESOIA 55317 TO: pH 952.227.1100. www.ci.chanhassen.mn.us. FX 952.227.1110 IOP District Permitted Accessory Uses Numbering August 18, 2020 Page2 Subsequently, when Ordinance 651 was written, staff again overlooked the unnumbered item and amended Section 20-813 by stating that a new accessory use should be added as number six. In this case, the codifiers chose to place the sixth item after the unnumbered item. This decision created a formatting break that ale(ed staff to the numbering discrepancy and also caused potential confirsion as the unnumbered item now appears to be a clarification ofaccessory use number five, rather than a permitted accessory use in its own right. In order to create consistent formatting and remove a potential source of confusion, this item should be indented and given its own number. In addition to removing a possible sowce of confusion, uniform formatting helps make the City Code more navigable. The more reference points that are present within the Code, the easier it is for staff to direct people to specific passages. Additionally, listing subsections makes it easier for staff to amend the City Code as ordinance amendments can target specific subsections for revisions, rather than needing to work at the section level. Alternatives: 1) Do nothing. The lack of correct numbering does not significantly impact the firnctionality of the City Code. 2) Amend Section 20-813 to correctly number the listed permitted accessory uses. Recommendation: Staff recommends Alternative two. The proposed numbering would be as follows: Sec. 20-813. - Permitted accessory uses. The following are permitted accessory uses in an "IOP" District: (l) Automotive repair shops. (2) Daycare centers. (3) Parking lots and ramps. (4) Sips. (5) Temporary outdoor sales and events (subject to the requirements of Sections 20'964). (6) Accessory Solar Energy Systems (subject to the requirements of Section 20-1093). (7) Retail sales of products stored or manufactured on the site provided no more than 20 percent ofthe floor space is used for retail sales. g:\plarvnw\issue papers and rcports (draffs)\op accessory use! numbering\issue paper iop accessory uses nElbering-docx PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT Tuesday, September 1, 2020 Subject Approve Planning Commission Minutes dated August 18, 2020 Section APPROVAL OF MINUTES Item No: D.1. Prepared By Nann Opheim, City Recorder File No: PROPOSED MOTION: The City of Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of the minutes from its August 18, 2020 meeting. ATTACHMENTS: Planning Commission Verbatim Minutes dated August 18, 2020 Planning Commission Summary Minutes dated August 18, 2020 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 18, 2020 Chairman Weick called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Steven Weick, Mark Randall, Michael McGonagill, Doug Reeder, Laura Skistad, and Mark Von Oven MEMBERS ABSENT: Eric Noyes STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Charlie Howley, City Engineer/Public Works Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; MacKenzie Walters, Associate Planner; and Steve Ferraro, Engineer Technician PUBLIC PRESENT: Mark W. Kelly 2925 Stone Creek Drive, #120 Joan and Larry Synstelien 6893 Highover Drive Tim Block 6903 Highover Drive Melissa and David Wargin 2443 Highover Trail Weick: I will remind everybody here in the chambers and also participating through the Zoom the guidelines are a little bit different and please bear with us as we move through this evening’s meeting. I always and will again ask that commission members not hold chats, texts, or discussions that are not audible or visible through the Zoom application. All discussions need to be made public and be part of the public record. Tonight we have two public hearings on tonight’s agenda. We present the items as follows. The first the staff presents their report. At that time the Planning Commission members may ask for clarifications or questions or staff. When that is complete the applicant is, the applicant may make a presentation if they wish and also answer questions or comments from the Planning Commission. When that is complete we would open the public hearing portion of the item. We will summarize any emails for the record. Anyone who is here in person who would like to speak will have the opportunity to do so and we are also accepting telephone calls and at the appropriate time that number will appear on the screen and you can phone in and express your opinions on the item as well. When everyone has been heard we will close the public hearing. At that time the Planning Commission will discuss among themselves the item and we would have a motion, a second and we will take a roll call vote similar to how we did attendance at the beginning. As mentioned tonight we have two items. The first item is number 2020-15. It is an appeal of the City’s denial of an Encroachment Agreement for retaining walls and variances for structures within drainage and utility easements at 6893 Highover Drive and with that MacKenzie I will turn it over to you. Thank you. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 2 PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER AN APPEAL OF THE CITY’S DENIAL OF AN ENCROACHMENT AGREEMENT FOR RETAINING WALLS AND VARIANCES FROM THE CITY’S PROHIBITION OF LOCATING STRUCTURES WITHIN DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS LOCATED AT 6893 HIGHOVER DRIVE. Walters: Alright we’ll wait one second for the power point to come up. Thank you. As the Chair mentioned this is Planning Case 2020-15, 6893 Highover Drive. The applicant is appealing the administrative decision to partially deny a request an Encroachment Agreement and is requesting a variance to allow two retaining walls to remain in the drainage and utility easement. If appealed or if not approved or denied by a three-fourth majority vote this will go to the City Council on September 14th. Before we start I just want to make a note that there are several historic and ongoing concerns associated with this property however I wanted to clear the purpose of this meeting is to determine two things. If staff made an error in denying the requested Encroachment Agreement for two of the retaining walls and if a variance should be granted to permit these retaining walls to remain within the drainage and utility easements. Comments and discussions should reflect those two points. So appeals don’t happen too often so I’d like to quick give a brief overview of that process. Essentially the city code designates the Planning Commission as the Board of Adjustments and Appeals. This empowers them to hear and decide appeals once alleged that staff has made an error of Chapter 20. And that’s the City’s zoning code. So the error can be in any order, requirement, decision or determination made by staff pertaining to any provision of Chapter 20. The decision threshold is the same as for a variance so if three-fourths of the members present vote one way the decision is final unless appealed to the City Council. However in a split vote or a vote by less than three-fourths of the members present it will then automatically go to the City Council for final decision. So the property in question is located at 6893 Highover Drive. It’s zoned residential single family. The minimum lot size for that district is 15,000 square feet. This is a corner lot which means it has a 30 foot setback on both street frontages and then 10 yard setbacks along the non-street lot lines. It’s limited to 25 percent lot cover under the code and the property has 10 foot drainage and utility easement along 3 of it’s lot lines and a 5 foot drainage and utility easement along the south lot line here. The current conditions on the property, it’s a lot of 22,774 square feet. Existing lot cover is 5,895, just under 26 percent. Retaining walls, there are three non-conforming retaining walls located within the north and west D and U’s. And then four new retaining walls have been constructed within the eastern, southern and western drainage and utility easements and we’ll talk more about those later. There’s also a deck which encroaches approximately one foot into the eastern drainage and utility easement. So a brief background of the case history. On August 16th staff started working with the homeowner on grading for the property. The homeowner was informed of the City’s permitting requirements and that retaining walls could not be placed in drainage and utility easements. On October, 2017 staff performed a final inspection for the grading permit and determined that the property had not been graded to plan and that retaining walls had been built without permits. On February, 2019 staff received a survey of the property showing that retaining walls had been built in the drainage and utility easement and that one of the walls exceeded in 4 feet in height. That’s a threshold where a building permit and engineered Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 3 design is required instead of just a zoning permit. On April, 2019 the homeowners applied for a retroactive permits and an Encroachment Agreement. Staff determined that additional information was required at that time. In February of 2020 the City Engineer partially denied the requested Encroachment Agreement and on July, 2020 the homeowner appealed the denial and applied for a variance to permit the walls to remain as built. So the applicant’s appeal. The applicant alleges the errors that staff’s denial of the requested Encroachment Agreements for Walls F here and Wall I here was incorrect. As I mentioned the applicant had applied for an Encroachment Agreements. The encroachment had 9 different encroachments that they requested for the City’s easements labeled here as A through J. Staff granted all of the encroachments except for Wall F and I. The applicant believes this was an error because there are no utilities located within the easement. There is a very limited encroachment in the easement for Wall F. They believe the potential conflict could be resolved through an Encroachment Agreement. They’ve stated that Wall F is necessitated by the location of the door under the deck and that the code does not require the removal of the wall. They’ve stated that Wall I does not alter the property’s drainage and that the installed French drain system does not negatively impact properties and conveys the water to the street. So an appeal of an administrative decision, staff did respond to each of the points within the staff report. However at it’s simplest essence the question before the Planning Commission is did staff make a mistake, an error in denying the Encroachment Agreement requiring the walls to be relocated. If the Planning Commission determines staff correctly interpreted and applied the city code, no error has occurred and staff’s decision should be upheld. If staff did not correctly interpret and apply the city code an error occurred and staff’s decision should be overturned. So the relevant section to city code is Section 20-908(6). This governs the placement of structures within easements. The bold text is relevant. Retaining walls may be permitted within an easement with an Encroachment Agreement if they do not alter the intended use of the easement and at the discretion of the Community Development Director or designee. In this case the designee is the City Engineer. Staff’s interpretation of this section is that staff is only permitted to issue Encroachment Agreements for structures that do not alter the intended use an easement. Drainage and utility easements serve two functions. They provide for both the installation of utilities and facilitating drainage. Staff determined that the proposed retaining walls impacted the drainage function of the easements. In this case the city code does not allow for the issuance of an Encroachment Agreement for a structure that impacts the intended use of an easement. Given the above staff believes staff was correct in denying the requested Encroachment Agreement and the city code does not allow structures in easements without an Encroachment Agreement which is what requires that the retaining walls be relocated. It should also be noted that Section 20-908(6) does not require the issuance of an Encroachment Agreement and places the issuance of an Encroachment Agreement at the discretion of city staff. With that I believe engineering will go through why staff determined that there was an impact on the easement and it's drainage functions. Ferraro: Good evening. This is a photo that was taken in 2016 after grading had started already occurring on the property. This is the approximate property line and the black line and the drainage coming to the north unobstructed in the drainage and utility easement. This is a side by Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 4 side comparison of the two. The property in 2020 on the right where you can see the grading towards the east. This is an excerpt of the approved grading permit showing blue arrows as the grading as it was supposed to be graded per the approved grading plan showing drainage following the drainage and utility easements both on the east property line and the south property line. This is a snapshot of the as built survey performed by the applicant showing the drainage going to the east onto the neighboring property and the Wall I obstructing the drainage and utility easement as well as Wall F. Walters: So the second part of this request is a request for a variance. This requested variance be from the ordinances prohibition on retaining walls and structures remaining in the D and U. Sorry being placed in the drainage and utility easement. The applicant’s variance request or justification is that the retaining walls facilitate the location of sidewalk and landscaping, both elements of which are reasonable uses for residential property and that the retaining walls do not negatively impact adjacent properties. They have noted that the applicant is not responsible for the location of the retaining walls. The retaining walls were sited and placed in the drainage and utility easement by their contractor without the applicant realizing that this would present an issue down the road. They’ve noted that the retaining walls are not highly visible from the street and they do not believe they change the essential character of the area. And again the walls in question are Wall F and Wall I here. All of the other walls have been either retroactively legitimatized through a zoning permit or engineering was able to grant an Encroachment Agreement for. So staff’s assessment of these walls is that the homeowner was made of all permitting requirements and restrictions when they applied for the grading permit. They worked directly with staff. The homeowner worked directly with Mr. Ferraro to develop the grading plan at which time retaining walls permitting requirements and the location of drainage and utility easements were discussed. The property was not graded in accordance with the approved grading plan. The retaining walls in question were not shown on any of the permit applications for the grading permit, deck or door and all of these improvements could have been constructed within the bounds of city code. Ultimately the homeowner is responsible for work performed on their property by contractors they have hired. As has been discussed the walls in question interfere with the function of the drainage and utility easements and divert water in a manner detrimental to adjacent properties. Given that the applicant’s request does not meet the criteria for issuing a variance under the city code. With that staff will be happy to answer any questions the commission may have. Weick: Thank you MacKenzie and thank you Steve as well for the information. At this time I think we’ll go ahead and just open it up for the Planning Commissioners to speak if it seems like we need to control the flow a little bit we’ll go ahead and just do a roll call style but for right now let’s see if there’s any comments or questions for MacKenzie or Steve regarding the staff report. McGonagill: Okay MacKenzie this is Commissioner McGonagill. Go, if you could because I, if you could just to be sure I think it’s something to highlight. Go to the original grading plan for me on the overhead if I can see it. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 5 Walters: Is this the slide you’re requesting? McGonagill: Yeah there’s more of a plot that showed the grading plan. That one. Is that the original one? Walters: No Commissioner McGonagill. This is the as built survey done after the work was complete. We have the additional, the full grading permit is in your packet as an attachment. However this photo here is a screen shot of the full layers of the approved grading permit. So it shows the berm the applied for. Retaining wall being relocated here. Drainage swale. Drainage arrows and the drainage system there. McGonagill: So in the original grading plan they did have the berm, or the retaining wall set back like it was supposed to be away from the edge and they had the other ones in here where they terminated before they go in the utility easement, is that correct? Walters: That is correct. McGonagill: Okay and then when you go to, because it still has even when you look at that grading plan there is some contour coming from the back of the house down to where that berm is because I’m just looking at the lines, the flow so it’s still got quite a bit of some relief dropping down because this house is on the really at the end of a hill that drops down. There’s quite a bit of relief that’s moving down so let’s go to the one as is. On this one basically what they ended up doing did they not just flat top the whole thing and away and that’s where these berms come in? Just basically they pushed the yard out flat from the back of the house all the way to the edges? Walters: Mr. Ferraro conducted the final inspection on the grading permit so I’ll defer to him as he’s most familiar with the property as it stands. Ferraro: Yes the grading in the back yard was raised and elevated approximately a foot and a half to two feet, if that’s what you’re inquiring about. McGonagill: Yeah that’s just when I was looking at that topographical deal it basically, and that’s what Wall I you call it really is doing. It’s allowing it to be pushed out and actually raised the whole yard above the existing grade. Is that correct? Ferraro: Yes it’s hard to confirm your question being as that before the grading permit was applied for and approved there was no preliminary survey done on the property. McGonagill: Okay good point. Appreciate that. The other question just for, just because MacKenzie went through this at a real high level but I just wanted to be sure that I understood this. I’m looking on the staff report page 4 and so, are you there MacKenzie? Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 6 Walters: Yes I am. Sorry I was flipping to page 4. McGonagill: Okay what I see here is you, well excuse me I’m on page 3. So in September of 2016 is really it started in August 15th of 2016 about grading was done without erosion control so it went through that. Got erosion control established on the site by, in a month. About a month later. It took a month for that to come in and then a draft grading plan was submitted and so that’s September. And then staff came back and said notes on what the grading plan should look like. Final version was submitted in October. Permit was signed and then in November we kind of go forward to look for several permits and then we just kind of move forward and suddenly we find that the grading plan was not followed. And this came from some comments both from the contractor and also from some homeowners around the site that, and due to inspections that it was not, the grading plan was not followed. So that was in October of 2017 that you find that the grading wasn’t followed and that was pointed out. We pointed out to the homeowner. Also pointed out to the homeowner in October, 2017 that there were I think it was 7 retaining walls in there that were put in without permit. I think the number 7 if I remember right. And then it moves forward through the next two years working through the process the homeowner and then ultimately to the attorney and finally you get a survey what looks like in March of last year. And that’s when this whole thing starts on the Encroachment Agreement and the issues of what retaining walls should have to be in or out of the area. Okay. So one thing that’s not in the report and maybe I just missed it. It’s possible like a lot of things. Did we ever get a formal, any sort of formal complaints for the homeowners around that about the water coming in? Walters: My recollection is we received numerous complaints about erosion leaving the site and concern about the changes of grades on the property. Mr. Ferraro do you have memories of specific complaints about water? Ferraro: I had one, it was a voice call I had received. I don’t remember exactly when from the neighboring property to the south concerned about the ponding of water on their property. McGonagill: Yeah okay that would make sense because that one, that house has a walkout, has a lookout basement if I remember. Not a lookout but, it doesn’t have a walkout. It’s got just a regular basement with wells. Window wells around it so it would make sense the one to the south. Okay. Thanks. Okay Mr. Chairman that’s my questions. I just wanted to be sure I had everything in order. Weick: Thank you Commissioner McGonagill. Other comments or questions from commission at this time? Randall: I have one. Weick: Yes please. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 7 Randall: What was the, had any damage happened to the neighbors property or has it actually improved water drainage issues or not? Walters: I am not aware of any damage being done to the neighbor’s property. However I would defer to Mr. Ferraro for staff’s assessment on the impact on the drainage. Ferraro: As of today I haven’t had any reports of damage being occurred. Randall: Okay. And I’ve got another question too. In the water flow diagram that we have where we have the I and L I think it was where it showed the flow of water. Walters: It’s up now. Randall: Is it up now? Walters: Yep. Randall: So if we’re looking at the retaining wall for the deck that seems to be not causing any issues with direction of water flow correct? Walters: I would defer to Mr. Ferraro on that. Randall: Okay. Ferraro: That particular wall is inside the drainage and utility easement and based on the elevation of that wall, the footing of that wall it’s, how it’s back filled and everything would, you’d have to back fill the foundation of that wall for it to hold itself and inherently the drainage then goes to the east. Randall: Gotch ya. Because I wasn’t sure if like that wall, the bottom on that’s in the curve. If you see that little off shoot. Yeah right in there. Is that causing the water to drain over to the neighboring property? Whereas the wall that’s closer to the deck area is not causing that? Ferraro: You’re correct in saying that the wall here that I’m highlighting is pretty much, 100 percent sheeting the water to the east as indicated by the red arrows whereas the wall in purple here is still allowing water to travel northeasterly but still onto the neighboring property. Randall: Okay. Okay those are my two questions that I had. I appreciate it. Thank you. Weick: Thank you Commissioner Randall and I would like to follow up on that because that just raised a question in my mind. It was my understanding that the intention of the original grading Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 8 plan was to have basically those red arrows point parallel to the property line. Not at the property line. Ferraro: That’s correct. Weick: So the water’s supposed to flow down to the street and the issue is it’s not. Ferraro: Yes that’s correct. Skistad: I have a question. Weick: Please go ahead Commissioner Skistad. Skistad: Yeah so I mean I understand the wall’s there but then it sounds like there’s also a French drain that was put in to try to mitigate that and send it to the road, is that correct? Is there a French drain there also that goes to the road? Ferraro: That is correct. Skistad: All those retaining walls. Ferraro: Yes it. Skistad: But you’re saying that, or what are you saying? You’re saying that the drain doesn’t provide enough drainage that direction? Drain tile. Ferraro: I’m trying to understand the question. Skistad: If like you’re saying that there’s still directional flow to the other property and that it’s not the French drain is not performing it’s task in a sense providing the directional flow to the street? Ferraro: Yes that’s correct. The French drain is capturing on this here you can see the French drain inlets are right here. And then the water is directed towards the street underground. So it aids in the, getting water towards the street but ultimately any sheet draining or any water that lands in the yard is not being contained in the drainage and utility easement. McGonagill: Clarifying question. On that French drain especially that one right there running down that line it’s not an exposed French drain. It’s underground isn’t it? I mean there’s lawn and sod and everything there. I mean it’s, some French drains will have gravel almost looks like a creek bed. That one is not that way. I think perhaps the one on the back side is but is that right? Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 9 Ferraro: Yeah the French drain system as installed has I believe 5 or 6 inlets that are approximately one foot or 10 inches in diameter along this southerly property line. McGonagill: But there’s none on the eastern property line? Ferraro: Not that I’m aware of and none that show up on the as built survey. McGonagill: So really the French drain is not doing any good in a sense on the east side is that correct? Ferraro: It’s not aiding any of the drainage on the east side, correct. McGonagill: Correct that’s a better way of stating my question. Thank you. Reeder: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Reeder. I just wanted to report that I did join you a little bit late. Sorry about that. Weick: That’s not a problem. Thank you for joining. Welcome and Commissioner Randall sounded like you had a follow up question? Randall: Yeah. So if we’re to deny the appeal and ultimately what would happen to the property? What changes would have to be made? Walters: The property would need to be brought in compliance with the grading permit issued in 2016 so the retaining walls located within the drainage and utility easements would need to be relocated and the grading would need to become conducive to the northward flow of water as approved in the grading permit. Randall: Okay. And how easily is that accomplished? Walters: That I’m not positive of. McGonagill: You wouldn’t require the whole site to be graded is that right MacKenzie but just the, this what we’re talking about here is a, because you’ve already granted. You’ve already granted the other encroachments to be okay. It’s the stuff’s that’s actually in these lines where you’re saying that needs to be done to get the drainage correct is that right? Walters: Correct. Staff would not require that for instance all of the walls built without permits be ripped out or anything of that extent. Staff is solely concerned with the two walls that interfere with the intended function of the drainage and utility easement and making sure that the function of that easement is restored. So the applicant could provide a grading plan removing and relocating those walls that restored the function that would be acceptable to staff. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 10 McGonagill: And Wall F is like 2 ½ feet isn’t it into this area? Walters: That is correct. McGonagill: Okay. And the width, the width of the utility easement is how wide? 10 feet? Walters: It’s a 10 foot easement. McGonagill: Okay thank you. Weick: Those are good questions. I will speak slowly and give a few moments for anyone else to jump in for clarifications. And hearing nothing at this time I would invite the applicant to come forward and make a presentation. And I would say as you come up we’ve wrapped the microphone so if you could be really extra loud into the microphone. It is hard for the folks on the Zoom to hear. Hear you so I just would ask that, thank you. Mark W. Kelly: Thank you Mr. Chairman. My name is Mark W. Kelly. I’m an attorney. I’m here representing Larry and Joan Synstelien who are present. And for the benefit of those in attendance we have a selection of photographs of the lot that perhaps MacKenzie can hand out. Weick: Is that something we should also try and show as well? Mark W. Kelly: Well I’d like to thank the staff for their report. As has now been identified quite clearly the City felt that it was appropriate and necessary to bring this matter to a conclusion and that an Encroachment Agreement be applied for which we’ve done. And as the city report shows the City has and is quite prepared to agree to Encroachment Agreements for 5 walls. There are two at issue. We’re not trying to call out anybody in particular. We are simply trying to exercise our rights from the standpoint of the code and the law in the state statute which allows us to challenge a decision by a city administrative officer and failing that appeal the decision and hopefully we only have to get to that at all. I’m going to diverge from some planned remarks to point out something that I think is very, very important. Wall F, the wall that runs parallel and along the easterly edge of the as built new deck is, can be seen in photographs. It’s third to the last page or so if you can see it on the screen. There it is yes. So this is a top view of the wall. You can see it barely breaches grade and that wall runs, is approximately sits one foot inside the 10 foot deep drainage and utility easement. I would point out that the City has a 10 foot drainage and utility easement for the property lying immediately to the east so your total surfaceable area for drainage and utility in this area is unencumbered, 19 feet. The next page you can see the wall on the left side of the photograph. You can see this is virtually at grade. And this next item shows the, the red line shows where the grade was before this was regroomed, regraded into it’s present state. We don’t have an image for you tonight but the Synstelien’s bought this property in 1999 and the grading at that time around the house as built sent water to the southeast. It ran and they were the recipients of all water coming from the south for various yards of property. Maybe 4 or 5 to the south drained right into their yard which necessitated their action to regrade Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 11 the lot. And as has been identified you can see that that regrading used a French drain system that collects the water along the south line and redirects it around to the east and out to a soft connect in the street. The grading has not increased the water onto the property to the east so we’re not acting in contrary to water law in that regard. We are making this application to the Planning Commission and City Council for a ruling on the decision to refuse an Encroachment Agreement for this wall along the deck and for the stub end of the garden wall which I’ll show you. Here you see the stub end of the garden wall that does lie, that curb stub does lie within the City’s drainage and utility easement but as I was indicating drainage has not been increased onto the property to the east. We believe that were an Encroachment Agreement to include these two items the issues between the City and the Synstelien’s would be resolved and it could be resolved amicably and immediately. That’s in the City’s interest. It’s in their interest and it would avoid further disturbance of the lot or the neighbors through construction and regrading. Encroachment Agreements are routine matters. The City staff has the authority to approve them. That’s been acknowledged by city staff. And as I noted these are not per se prohibited. They’re under the memorandum of the City they’re approving 5 in this instance. And if we focus for a moment on the wall along the deck the idea that that has to be now taken out will require disturbing the entire section of the yard that way. Perhaps jeopardizing the deck as built because the wall is necessary in one shape or another and would then have to be built under the deck and leading to engineering issues and construction issues which I cannot present at this time but are apparent to everyone if we now have to build a deck, a wall underneath the deck. There’s also been some allusion to the idea that walls were built that were higher than 48 inches and that was, these walls were exactly 48 inches above grade and at the City’s request we did obtain a structural engineer’s memorandum who inspected it and satisfied to the City administration that they were properly constructed and not improperly constructed requiring their removal so the City no longer objects to the placement of those walls or their construction as built and it shouldn’t be assumed that those walls have been built in any way that are inappropriate and needs to yet be addressed. The city staff summary simply says that the wall along the deck cannot be approved because it, it is inconsistent with the approved grading plan to the detriment of the neighboring properties and as you’ve heard discussed here tonight by staff there’s been a tacit acknowledgement that the wall itself is not actually redirecting the water but it’s pointed out that the grade, the soil backed up against the wall may be inappropriately graded but the wall itself in and of itself does not in any significant manner impact and redirect water to the property to the east. Imposing a demand or refusing to grant an Encroachment Agreement for that wall that comes into the drainage and utility easement only one foot is therefore unreasonable. It’s very arbitrary especially when the other 5 walls are being permitted. We would ask that the City Planning Commission acknowledge that and also acknowledge that to bring this matter to a close where matters, there’s no reason to be discussing this deck or this wall. Approving and recommending that it be included in an encroachment agreement is entirely reasonable all things considered. Now the second wall which you see now up on the screen, if the camera turns to that, that does curve into the drainage and utility easement and as has been noted it’s about a foot and a half change in grade. The wall itself is not significantly altering anything because you can see that there’s landscaping to it’s south and as I noted earlier the water in that area had always run in a southeast direction. So this is not increasing or accelerating or redirecting the water in Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 12 any significant manner from that which it once flowed. That again is a challenges the idea that it is cannot be approved because it’s to the detriment of neighboring properties. I would suggest to you that again forcing this to be ripped out based on an estimate that there may be some surface flow that was once there before but somehow now can no longer be there is unreasonable. Now we hope it doesn’t become necessary to, for the body to consider the, whether or not to grant or recommend that a variance be granted by the City Council in this regard but if it is we would want you to know that of course variances can be granted when there is practical difficulties being presented. The practical difficulty here is a three prong test. First is the proposed use of the property reasonable for the zone in which it’s located and I would put it to you that a retaining wall, a landscape retaining wall, a retaining wall for a deck is a reasonable structure and use of a residential lot and common throughout the city of Chanhassen. It also if variances were to be granted giving rise to approving the Encroachment Agreement those retaining walls do not change the essential character of the locality. Not in any fashion. These are all, these retaining walls are made out of materials that are commonly used in Chanhassen homes and throughout the area. The last question is whether or not the plight of the owner is due to circumstances that are related to the land and not created by the landowner. The City must acknowledge that the Synstelien’s did not themselves do the grading, the planning and the execution of the drainage system. They relied on a contractor and the city staff has asserted that while that doesn’t really mean anything because the citizens should be held responsible for that. Still all things considered it is not unreasonable to grant the variance here because the plight of the owner was not knowingly permitted or created. It wasn’t personally done and it’s adverse impact on the community is none. Moreover if we can move beyond this moment we can bring this matter to a conclusion. You’ve already heard that this matter dates to 2016. There’s a need to have some kind of closure on this matter and we have made the application for the Encroachment Agreement at the instruction and advice of city staff. We’re doing everything we can to meet the city staff’s concerns and we’re not interested in impugning the integrity or the judgment of any city staff member at all but we are faced with a conundrum. What can we possibly do to meet the City’s need for a proper application of it’s code, all things considered. My clients worked with city staff. Staff was at this site repeatedly for a number of years and clearly here we are now so it isn’t like nobody knew that anything was going on on this lot. It was available to be observed and was observed. It’s unfortunate that we’re here now and that we are now frustrated by a ruling that no, you can’t have an Encroachment Agreement. Especially an Encroachment Agreement regarding a wall that is parallel to the drainage and utility easement adjacent to the deck which in and of itself does not direct water to the east. The simple landscaping wall that you see on the photograph does not significantly alter the drainage in that area. So I would respectfully request that the Planning Commission consider approving the grant of a Encroachment Agreement if only to bring this to a conclusion in a manner that is in the interest of the City and the citizens and certainly of the applicant Joan and Larry Synstelien. With your permission I’d like you to have the opportunity to hear from Joan. Council? Weick: Absolutely, thank you. Mark W. Kelly: Thank you. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 13 Weick: And thank you for your presentation. Welcome. Joan Synstelien: Can this come off when I talk? Weick: Well yes? Walters: Yes. Joan Synstelien: It’s okay. Otherwise it fogs my glasses and I can’t read what I have here. And I was requested to kind of speak off the cuff here. Being nervous, never having done this before I will speak off the cuff but it will look incredibly like I’m reading what I wrote and that is what I will do here. My name is Joan Synstelien and I reside at 6893 Highover Drive since January of 2001 and I’m one of the few nearly original members of the Highover community. I’m married to Larry who is over here and I have four boys that grew into young men under the care of Larry and I and the Highover village. I’ve read this a few times and cry every time so I’ll try to hold it together here. My boys played with neighborhood children. The Block’s kids. They spent countless winters with these children sledding on our slopes and it was a great place to raise the kids and my home has always been where I’ve wanted to be reside and live and vacation for that matter. I want to review the bit of the history of this recent home improvement and give you a sense of the flavor of this project. In a nutshell because our project was purchased essentially new we began the ominous task way back when of making a safe yet appealing yard for our children to play in and they were young. They were 7, 5, 3 and 1 at the time but they were strong and smart and they helped wheeled wheelbarrows. Dumped dirt and smashed the plants into the ground as only young boys could do. Our neighbors at the time were gracious. The Block’s supported us with our work with cold beer. The Lorrie’s brought over marshmallows and chocolates when we put in our fireplace and it was just great. It was kind of a Mayberry situation. The neighbors to the east who have since left shared with us with a bottle of champagne and it was great but time passed and the weeds popped up and our young teens took to mowing rights and they were in demand by many of the neighbors for both landscaping help and animal care including the Michael’s, the Toole’s, the Block’s, Mulhausen and the Hayworth’s and while we enjoyed the property we certainly focused on the boys more than keeping the property up to date. But as they entered college we reached a point of stability and thought it was time to make some changes and invest in the home and we began tackling the work with both the use of a contractor which we had not done in the past and our own sweat equity. It started very small with the planting of a couple plants. We didn’t have big plans at the time and that was back in the dates you all have provided us several years ago. But we clearly along the way made mistakes with this project. We’re sorry about the mistakes and we continued to try to work to resolve these. At the time that we started this we had access to a Bobcat so we began moving plants to make a berm. We actually thought about a pool and we brought in a pool consultant but decided that would be incredibly disruptive so we decided not to make a pool in the back yard. The original plans had a pool in them. We brought in the city people to discuss the plans. There was a building official named Jared Moen who came out to Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 14 look at our grading line that we were proposing. He left a card and said we did not need a permit for what we were doing and if the neighbors had concerns they should give him a call. Through this suffice to say the City has provided us with outstanding suggestions, comments, and insights. Mr. Ferraro and Mr. I don’t see him but I know I’ve heard it a million times. Walters: Walters. Joan Synstelien: Yep, yep. We’ve talked about many times the great insights they had and they were at our property constantly. They mentored us on drainage, water flow, building requirements, timelines, and how to handle neighbor interactions. It went very well but complaints were beginning to be lodged because this project was kind of going on and on. Many stops and starts. Huge delays caused by both weather and the complaints of the neighbors that frequently brought us to closure and we had to start over again. The City was actually very wonderful through all of this. Again we had suggestions. Steve many, many suggestions from you that we took to heart and it completed the project and we kept getting better and better with everything you brought to us. Most of the issues were because of complaints and you all encouraged us to continue while providing guidance and suggestions. We were approved again and again and again and cleared to do more project on the, or to continue the project. Once the grass was installed things quieted down and while we still have some finishing touches we have about 99 percent of the work done. Neighbors now walk by and talk about how wonderful our gardens looked. We had one neighbor who stopped and just started crying and said that the property reminded her of her New England home. We’ve asked many of them to tour, or they have asked us many times to take them on tour of the back yard and talk about how beautiful it looks. How we had, apparently the kids got together and did a poll and said our home was the best looking home in the neighborhood so I was very pleased with that. It has really grown and looks good. Functions well. I believe the remaining Encroachment Agreement issue is the last matter and if we can approve this it will be to everyone’s benefit. I know the Block’s are pleased with the outcome. I think Mr. Block might be speaking a little bit later. The Wargin’s continue to think that the water’s diverted to their property but we have greatly, the grading has greatly reduced the water. The other neighbors that lived there prior, their home was flooded every year and I don’t believe that’s happened and it sounds like no complaints have been lodged so we have greatly improved that while that wasn’t our first goal, great outcome of that. They have benefitted from that regrading. We don’t feel that eliminating a retaining wall adjacent to the new deck or diverting the few feet of garden edging warrants the upheavals that would have to occur if those need to be ripped out. So thank you for allowing me to share my story and we ask that you don’t have us rip up our yard again. Weick: Thank you very much and thanks for presenting your views and story. We really do appreciate that and do take that to heart. I would say, I would open it up now. It’s an opportunity for the planning commission to ask any questions either of yourself about your home and your project or the attorney if any such questions exist. So at this time I’ll open it up for commissioner questions. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 15 Von Oven: This is Commissioner Von Oven with a question for Mrs. Synstelien. Weick: Go ahead. Von Oven: Great. Thank you first of all for taking us through that portion which obviously is not, we don’t get all of that context from the staff report. It surprised me a little bit. The glowing remarks about working with city staff given all that we see in here and pleasantly surprised. My question I guess would be in your opinion at what point, what event, what milestone did that change because I think what we’re here to do today doesn’t seem like that would have been where all of this ended. So was there a point in time or was there an event or was there a disagreement that that changed for you? Joan Synstelien: I do not believe there was a point in time. We have consistently been thankful for the guidance from the city and consistently it appeared they were encouraging us. I think the more the complaints were coming in from I would, I didn’t look them up but I assume it was a few of the neighbors but not a lot of them. The more and more complaints that got lodged the more the City felt they had to do something and were pressured into doing something but I’m just speculating. Von Oven: Gotch ya. Okay thank you. And then either yourself or the attorney, given the fact that our job today as the Planning Commission is pretty straight forward and that is to understand and determine whether an error was made in this previous judgment. Can you or your attorney please clarify for me succinctly what is the error that you believe was made in this administrative decision. Joan Synstelien: Can I say something to that first? Mark W. Kelly: You may. Joan Synstelien: Okay. I think the error was in assuming that the waters were flowing into our easterly neighbor’s property at a greater increase than they are. It is way less water on their property than ever has been the case due to the fact that they just aren’t getting flooded and we’ve had some pretty wet seasons so I think the error was in maybe not going back or understanding how badly that was being impacted over there on the Wargin’s side of the property line. That’s my piece of it. Mark W. Kelly: I believe Joan has stated that well. I would point out that the justification given by the administrative officer is that it adversely impacts the neighboring property owner but given the fact that the Synstelien’s grading plan and French drain now capture the water coming from the south which originally then slid either into the Synstelien house or southeast to the property on the Synstelien’s east lot side, that was has now been captured and redirected and into the French drain into the soft connect in the street and the grading of this has, the effect of regrading has greatly reduced the amount of water that naturally flowed in that direction and then Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 16 of course I would point out the fact the idea that the wall adjacent to the deck is redirecting the water doesn’t follow given the fact that the wall has no curve to it and doesn’t redirect water in any shape or in any manner to the east. It is the grading in the area that might be addressed but we don’t believe that needs to be addressed in order to approve the requested Encroachment Agreement for that wall. As to regard to the small stub end of the south garden wall, for all the reasons I’ve just indicated haven’t captured the water that originally flowed in that direction and largely redirected it. That wall does not significantly impact adversely the property to the east. Weick: Thank you Commissioner Von Oven. Any follow up questions? McGonagill: Yes Mr. Chair I’ve got a couple. Weick: Great. Hold on one second Commissioner McGonagill. I just want to be sure Commissioner Von Oven has finished on this topic. McGonagill: Sorry. Von Oven: Yeah just, sorry just one more and I was looking for the exact date and I can’t find it so I’m just going to go off the cuff here but in 2017 the proposed deck was reviewed by staff. There it is. Okay May 17th. And then the actual, the actual construction of the deck and the walls, all of the pieces in question, can you just quickly point me to the date when that was. I’ve lost it and it’s the basis for my next question. Weick: We’re looking right now Commissioner Von Oven so. Von Oven: Yeah. Walters: So Commissioner Von Oven I didn’t put a permit by permit interaction by interaction summary of the deck because the deck is not directly in question here but the work on the deck would have occurred primarily between May and I believe September. Von Oven: Of 2017 right? Walters: Yep in 2017. I believe that’s correct Mr. Ferraro as well. Ferraro: Yeah. Von Oven: Okay. So let’s just call it September of 2017 all of these things have been built and now there’s complaints from neighbors sometime, maybe multiple times between 2017 and now there is so the City is coming out and saying hey this isn’t to plan. My question is for the homeowners. Are there any changes between September, 2017, any physical changes made. Were there any physical changes made to the property as a result of the guidance that the City had been giving you and can you clarify what those were? Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 17 Mark W. Kelly: Mr. Synstelien? Larry Synstelien: I’m not quite sure I understand the question. Von Oven: Let me make it super simple. So of all of the things that are in question today, walls, lips, you know these guys are better at this than I am but all of the things in question after September of 2017 as the City poking around and saying hey we’re not sure the grading plan was followed. You know all this, were there any physical improvements made between September, 2017 and now that were, oh you know if you guys just did this we could. Larry Synstelien: Yeah there was never a if you guys could just do this kind of scenario so the. Von Oven: Okay, so from that point on it was always we’ve got to rip down a wall or we’re got to scrap something. Larry Synstelien: Yeah exactly. That’s exactly correct and if you add to that the carefully eliminated deck was actually built after the retaining walls were put in place and in addition to that Mr. Ferraro had asked to come out at any time and I said he certainly could and he said he had been out there looking at it every weekend and as you know it takes a little while to do grading and he went out and inspected the soft connect. Made no indication at all that there should be a change. Made no indication of the change to the grading so we did final grading based on all the inspectors for the deck, for the grading itself. No new walls were put up. Instead of using black edging, if you look at the back and I heard one of the commissioners say that that wall was put up to push earth against. That’s not correct. The final grading was done and the contractor simply asked us do you want us to put standard black edging in or would you like to continue with the retaining block. Retaining blocks cost more but looks a lot nicer and we got it back lit so the back yard looks very nice. It’s not holding any earth going one way or the other. It’s not a structural wall. It was simply an elective we picked instead of using lower quality black edging so I want to make sure that comes across so you kind of understand the perspective from our point of view. Does that answer the question? Von Oven: Yeah I’ll just clarify the last part. No retaining walls were ever shown or approved as part of the deck plan because what you just told us is they were never part of the deck plan. After or during the project they said hey you know what, what if we change to this and that’s when a retaining wall was actually became part, is that what I heard correctly? Larry Synstelien: Well yeah, there’s a couple of things. One is to build the deck there needed to be that retaining wall that we’re talking about right now. That’s actually a wall, it’s about 3 feet. We were instructed we did not need a permit for that because it wasn’t above 4 feet. We were instructed we didn’t need engineering to approve that. So that was built before we built the deck so that was out there and then the edging part, that’s in the back part, the back berm. The berm was approved and instead of using black edging we put in the retaining block. We just, the Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 18 contractor asked us and we said whatever would look the nicest so it’s not structurally affecting that whatsoever. Does that? Von Oven: Thank you. That’s all my questions. Thank you. Weick: Thank you and thanks Commissioner Von Oven. I cut you off Commissioner McGonagill. If you’d like to go ahead. McGonagill: The question I have and I can put this to the attorney or the homeowners. It doesn’t, which ever wants to answer it. In October of 2016 you signed a grading permit for the site, correct? Larry Synstelien: I don’t have anything in front of me but that sounds about right. McGonagill: Excuse me I can’t hear you. Larry Synstelien: That sounds about right. I don’t have it right in front of me but that sounds correct. We had initially gone to the City I think as Joan mentioned and someone with the City a couple years earlier had come out. Looked at the stake lines that we put in and said yeah I totally understand why you’d want to grade it this way and said you don’t need a grading permit. Just if the neighbors call or complain here’s my card. Have them give us a call so we started with that in mind. That that’s all we were going to have to do. And then we believe there were some calls made. That Mr. Ferraro and as my eloquently said Steve provided massive inputs to create a much larger project which involved drain tiles coming out of all our eave spouts. A French drain system which if you look at that easterly side wall it does handle a lot of water there because it is only you know 3 or 4 inches of soil but then after that it’s all clear coat all the way to the bottom. So as soon as that saturates it actually goes down and we never intended to really change the grade between the two properties. That was always sort of flush grade and if you look at the drawing that the attorney showed it matches the original grade. McGonagill: So I come back to the question though. You have a grading plan submitted and it was approved and you as the homeowner received a permit for the grading plan in 2016. Is that correct? Larry Synstelien: Correct. McGonagill: Okay and then as we go through what Commissioner Von Oven went through there were plans submitted for a deck that didn’t have any retaining walls in it. Then as we move into 2017 we start issuing, we start, staff has stated being made aware of issues and we then had, and I’m just kind of going through my list here. Sorry I’m just kind of going through but it suddenly we find in 2017, a year later that the grading plan that was approved was not followed. Is that correct? Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 19 Larry Synstelien: That’s the contention. McGonagill: Say again. I didn’t hear you. Larry Synstelien: I think that’s what Mr. Ferraro was alluding to. We disagree with that right. We disagree with the assumptions on the water’s that being shown there and if you look at that, there were a number of projects that were going on that the City approved. There was an egress door. An egress window. The full renovation of the basement along with the building of the deck so there was city inspectors out there continuously. There were building inspectors out there all of the time including Mr. Ferraro looking at the soft connect of the drain tile. There was never a single issue brought up regarding the grading permit. As you know that takes a while to do. There was not a single thing brought up until after the final grade and after the sod was put in. And after everything was landscaped. McGonagill: I understand sir but again I’m just trying to get my timeline straight. That you had a grading plan. You had a contractor that you’re holding accountable to follow the grading plan and you received it and then a year later suddenly things start happening and then it’s observed by staff in October of 2017, if I’m understanding this correct, that the grading plan had not been followed. And in addition the grading plan did not match the plans and additionally suddenly it appears that there I want to say 7 retaining walls had been built without permits. So okay. Larry Synstelien: But the part that I’d like. McGonagill: Let me state my question because I’m not trying to, I’m just trying to understand this. Larry Synstelien: Yep. McGonagill: The point, I understand. You’re doing the landscaping. You look at a way to make it look better using the brown block you did. I get that. I understand. I understand how that can occur but what I’m not following is okay when the staff raised those issues to you in 2017 it’s like this kept going on and I’m going well what was going on that led you to believe that now you didn’t do this when they had told you they could do it. Larry Synstelien: Yeah I think that the issues brought up after it was completed. It was startling to us that they brought up issues because they had been out there all the time and when those items were completed there was nothing brought up by staff. There was not, as you are aware right when you’re doing any kind of project and we are painfully aware when an inspector comes out, the issue you know fix or change this. At no time did the staff do that. All of a sudden in October, as you said, the project had been completed and then they started coming up with things and there’s a litany of items that they’ve gone through. That we’re a moving target and I’ll, you know it’s been a moving target since October just on the grading side. We’ve been able to finish all the other aspects of the project so. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 20 McGonagill: Well and I think staff, my opinion, you know just opinion has worked well with you because of the multiple retaining walls that are in, there’s only really that weren’t enough permits. They’re only call you to issue on two of them. Is that correct? Larry Synstelien: I believe so. I hope so. I look to staff on that. McGonagill: Well I mean that’s what staff has said tonight. Larry Synstelien: And that’s true and that’s great. Hopefully that’s the case and then we’re explaining why their argument for those two is not correct pertaining to the drainage and it affecting the drainage negatively. McGonagill: Okay and so another question. Was there a pre-construction survey of the site that would show the way the original drainage existed before you began your work? Larry Synstelien: Yeah that’s a great question. We pulled that topo plans from the original plot of the land so it wasn’t done specifically for our project and we’ve shown them to Mr. Ferraro so he is keenly aware that the water to the south of us, 3 lots would flow down into our lot and then into the neighbor’s lot the Wargin’s and those topo maps clearly show that drainage. McGonagill: Yeah…the elevation that’s there. I can see what happened. Larry Synstelien: Yeah. So the changes we have made the biggest benefit of that is to the property to the east which is benefiting from all the water that used to flow down from the other lots is now hitting the berm, which the berm was approved and in that berm on the other side is a catch basin. The City originally asked for one in the plan and we looked at it and said you know what we should increase the capacity so we added more catch basins and a better French drain and it was. McGonagill: You’re talking about on the south of your lot correct? Larry Synstelien: Correct, yep. Absolutely correct. And that was under. McGonagill: …you’re talking about that is in yes and that leveled your yard. Larry Synstelien: Yes. It didn’t completely level but there is a grade but it greatly improved the grade in the back yard that’s correct. Mark W. Kelly: It’s Mark Kelly again. Here’s the submitted with our application for variance and challenging the decision. This is a photocopy of the Synstelien lot survey that they got at the time. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 21 McGonagill: I can’t see it sir, Mark. Could you please get up to put it up so I can see it. Mark W. Kelly: Can we activate that camera? Walters: Yeah it’s on the camera. One second. Mark W. Kelly: Okay I’m going to turn this so it’s oriented I think better this way. There we go, okay. So here’s the corner and the property line that we’re talking about is here and you notice that when they obtained this lot here’s the home to the east. The water flowed from the south downhill and then veered south and it was directed to the southeast as well. Now there was apparently some bit of a swale in here that’s what that line is but water in this locale always flowed this way and the wall, the stub wall that we’re talking about is approximately in this location and the wall along the deck is over here. McGonagill: And the grading plan was it not to really take along that line, I’m going to point maybe it’s point 1066 that you were going to swale it through there to cause the water to run down the property line to the street is that correct? Mark W. Kelly: I believe that’s what they intended to do and we think we’ve largely done that but I can’t speak to it more than that. McGonagill: Now how do you think you say you largely done that? Mark W. Kelly: Well the as built grade doesn’t show a significant deviation from this illustration from approximately 20 years ago. McGonagill: Oh I understand the water is still going to the east but I thought the original grading plan was going to modify that so it would run to the street and stay off the neighbors property to the east. Larry Synstelien: I’d like to step in on that. That is not the purpose for what that grading permit was at all. That’s absolutely incorrect and the lines that you alluded to, the arrows that Mr. Ferraro referred to as grading arrows is not correct also. If you look at those we were showing underground flow of water in the French drain which there are 9 drain tiles underneath there. The absolutely the intent if you looked at the topo lines, the grading permit, the grading lines that we supplied we matched and it was intended just basically to blend in and match what we had before. There’s nothing, there’s never an intention ever to try to change this part of it because we knew, Ferraro knew that when we built this berm we would be deflecting all of the water flowing from all, 3 or 4 lots to the south and that used to all flow down into this property and that no longer does that. The minor, the minor, the smallest amount of a little bit of runoff from this is insignificant compared to all of the drain eave spouts from our roof that shed this way and then from the lots that came down this way and it all used to flow into their back yard and we knew the neighbors before and Tim can attest to that too that when you’ve got a lot of water it didn’t Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 22 hit us all that terribly bad but it poured into this poor lot because this lot is significantly lower than our’s. There was never, ever an intention to change this element of the grade here. McGonagill: Mr. Chairman I’m kind of getting into the weeds on this technically on whether or not on the berms as opposed to the real question whether the appeal, if the decision by city staff was proper or not so I apologize to that to get into the weeds with it so I’ll, I defer. Weick: Okay thank you Commissioner McGonagill. I think it’s all useful. All the information we’re reviewing I think is important and I think your questions are helpful. But I respect your desire to move on and if there are other commissioners. McGonagill: Well the reason I’m doing that Mr. Chairman is I’m starting to look at the technical aspects of the water flow, etcetera, etcetera, where the berms would go. Not go and that’s not the question before us. The question before us did city staff make an error in their determination is that not correct? Weick: That’s correct. McGonagill: So that’s why I apologize and just stop because it’s not the issue in front of us right now. Weick: That’s fair. Other commissioners with questions or comments for the applicant? Randall: I have a question. Weick: Yes Commissioner Randall. Randall: One goes back to the staff report on page 13 of the staff report. Is the, there’s two photos there. There’s one that’s an aerial satellite photo or aerial photo and the other one’s a drawing. And the one on the right which shows the red arrows, was that, were those red arrows added by staff or is that part of the permitting process that were submitted? Walters: The red arrows were added by staff. The picture on the left is all of the layers of the grading permit that the applicant signed off on for the intended grading of the property but the red arrows on the right were added by staff to illustrate staff’s assessment of the as built grading on the, drainage on the property. Randall: Okay. Well then. Oh go ahead. McGonagill: So just because that’s a great point Commissioner Randall. If I look at the grading plan which is on the left, if that’s what you’re saying MacKenzie is that correct? Walters: That is correct. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 23 McGonagill: While it does show water going down the property line from south to north. Walters: Yes and also contours indicating the creation of a swale to convey that water over land on that grading plan. McGonagill: Swales to, from the south to the north? Walters: That is my understanding. Mr. Ferraro could you confirm that I am reading that correctly? For the approved grading. Ferraro: I’m sorry I don’t have that in front of me what we’re looking at. Walters: The approved grading plan from 2016. Ferraro: Okay and what was the question again? McGonagill: I’m taking Mr. Randall’s, Commissioner Randall’s time so I’m just going to ask this and I’ll let it continue. When I look at the grading plan, I’m looking at the blue arrows on that. That’s approved drainage pattern showing that the flow as they were moving it around a lot there was intention to take it from the back to the west and also down the grade, French drain system and surface swales or I would say flow down the property line. In other words they were, that was part of the grading plan because usually grading plans that’s why you do them is you’re trying to control water flow. And so is that correct? Is that what the grading plan was intended to do? Ferraro: Yes. The blue arrows on the grading plan intend overland drainage and the black lines on the approved grading plan is the underground French drain piping. McGonagill: Thank you. Mr. Randall, or Commissioner Randall I’m sorry for butting in. Randall: That’s fine. My second question is to the homeowner. What was the response from the contractor in regards to all this and the issues with the City? Larry Synstelien: I can answer that. So we provided the contractor with the grading plan. We provided him with all the documentation we had. They executed to that and their response was they felt it was within the grading plan. Randall: Okay. Did the contractor come up with the grading plan? Larry Synstelien: No that was working with Mr. Ferraro and his input and it was given to the contractor to implement. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 24 Randall: Okay. Okay. Alright. I don’t have any further questions at all. Weick: Thank you. Are there other commissioners with questions for the applicant at this time? Applicants. Okay hearing no one speak up, thank you very much again. I do appreciate your openness and calmness in describing the situation. I really do appreciate that. I understand this can be a frustrating situation. At this time I would open the public hearing portion of this item. I don’t believe we had any emails for the record. Anyone here in chambers is welcomed to come forward at this time. Please state your name and address for the record and offer your comments on this item. Yes. Melissa Wargin: Melissa Wargin. Weick: Oh up to the, yeah microphone and again real loud into that plastic covered microphone. Melissa Wargin: Hello I’m for the record I’m Melissa Wargin and we’re the neighbors to the east of the Synstelien’s. Weick: Welcome, thank you. Melissa Wargin: So there’s so many facets to their tales. So let’s start with the grading. So our yard you know would get flooding since we bought it 5 years ago and we put in a special type of sump pump which worked but there’s other flooding that happens and has been happening and once they started their construction it got worst because what they did was they added over a foot of dirt. At least a foot. I only know how at least a foot because our sprinkler guys that Clearwater had to come in and raise our sprinkler head once they were after 2 ½ years. I mean we could have them raise it and then fix it and would get run over constantly and that’s the one that’s inbetween our yards. So that’s an easy way to know how high the dirt went so it was at least a foot if not more. I mean the guys were very casual about it so there, the constant backhoe beeping. I mean that’s how you actually know that there’s this stuff going on but the neighbors themselves actually were doing the work. When they said at one point during this hearing that they weren’t doing the work, they were. Adding dirt. Constantly adding rock. So what happened just for the grading and just for where the berm is what happens now is the water travels, hits that and then comes down into the driveway inbetween the trees and our yard and then some of it falls right into whatever they dug. You know where they put the door. So it just goes poush and down and out the spreads out to our driveway, our yards and then down into the street. The pictures don’t really show on our side inbetween their yard and our’s how it kind of drops off into the sidewalk. So what happens right before winter comes that whole sidewalk area freezes now. Just freezes like it’s sheer ice because of that grading too so it’s not just underground that’s happening. It’s over too. I don’t know where to go with this but the projects that they start they don’t always finish and as you’ll see in some of these photos actually that they took themselves, I mean so these trees were put in on Saturday. Okay, so those were put in on Saturday. You can see all the extra dirt here because that. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 25 McGonagill: Ma’am we can’t hear you. Could you speak into the mic? Melissa Wargin: I’m sorry. So here I see where the water flows inbetween the Block’s yard and their’s because of all the extra dirt they had put in. Here’s a good example of where the water is coming and now just dumps into that part of our yard instead of just going the whole way so it creates more of a, it funnels it. So here is an area that fills with water. I’ve seen them out there digging below here. And you’ll see it’s still unfinished. They wanted to put windows in there. I don’t know why. So then you’ll see where they put the new trees in and the water, I mean I don’t know what’s going to happen there but I don’t know if the trees will suck in more water. I really don’t know. And you can see how this is below. So when we had like those torrential rains the other day I have no idea what went on down there. But then you have a door there which wasn’t there beforehand. So when they started the project I talk to them. I talked to Larry about it and Joan isn’t very easy to talk to so it kind of goes in circles with them too. So asking for the plans you know we went to the City. We went here and we couldn’t get any structured plan and usually you submit it to the HOA too but it didn’t matter so these projects went on without sort of an idea, or maybe they had an idea for years. They’re still going on and the water pooling is getting, it’s worst or I mean it’s not better. It just now is funneling harder a certain way instead of going through our entire yard and more of the yard can absorb it. It no longer can because it’s blocked a little bit more but we still have the other neighbors that have sprinklers. There’s rain. We still get water but that’s, that part hasn’t gotten worst. What’s gotten worst is it coming down the sides now. Anyway if you have any questions for me direct that would be great because then I can maybe specifically answer them. Weick: Thank you and I share with you the same appreciation that I shared with the applicant. I do appreciate you coming forward and expressing your opinion as well. Melissa Wargin: Right so I don’t understand why the attorney thinks that nothing is going on. Constantly saying that. Thank you. Weick: Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there other, anyone else wishing to come forward. Please do so at this time. And again please state your name and your address for the record. Tim Block: Hi, so thank you very much for letting me talk today. My name is Tim Block and I am a teacher here in Chanhassen. Physics teacher at the high school. Lived in the northern property since 2002 so just after the Synstelien’s and have been at that property since. I guess the first question I have because I really want to take advantage of your time is to ask staff to put up the first slide that they put up because I wanted to know what we’re focusing on. If it’s just the two retaining walls but there seemed to be a third request and that’s what I was looking at. And that one being that they had to somehow comply with the grading requirements. Walters: If we could show the power point please. I believe I have the slide he’s requesting. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 26 McGonagill: Is he talking about the motion? Walters: Is that the slide? Tim Block: Yeah. That’s what I had missed before. Okay, or is there something before that as well about other? Okay. So what I’m wondering about is when I read the report they were talking about the two walls. Wall F and Wall I I believe. They’re at stake but then there was also a request that there be some compliance with the grading requirement and that’s really, I mean if I was to provide the commission with any information that’s where I would be able to provide it. The east wall is on the Wargin’s side. I can’t see it from my yard. I can provide some historic information about how the water would flow but I’m just wondering if that’s part of that, and I just wanted to show briefly so we can get a little bit more of an idea of what happened. It will only take me a couple minutes. So first of all here’s a picture. And here’s a picture of the Wargin house from my house 19 years ago and so this is, all the trees have grown up. I can no longer see their house but this is my yard right here and the Synstelien’s yard would be right over here. And if you can see the way that the property was designed was that everyone from the south, which is two up the hill. So we’re at the highest level of Chanhassen. Highover Drive. All that water would funnel down through my yard and into the Synstelien’s yard and it would actually go through, I don’t know if you guys call it a swale or a gully or something like that but you can see how the property is, here’s the property corner, is actually higher so actually the water was entering the Synstelien’s yard about 10 to 15 feet to the west of the property line. It was not flowing on that property line and so if you look at. McGonagill: Could you orientate me to where I’m looking at? Am I looking north? South? East? West? Am I south of the Synstelien’s? I’m a little confused. Tim Block: I am, you’re north of the Synstelien’s on my property. Okay? And you’re looking at the Wargin house so right here is the property corner between the, this would be. Sorry, this would be the lot line right here between the Synstelien’s and myself and this would be the lot line right here between the Wargin’s. The east lot line and this is the north line right here. McGonagill: Okay thank you. Now I understand where I’m looking. Tim Block: Okay. And so you can see how all that water wasn’t really flowing on the easement. The water was flowing in our yards okay. And so when the berm was installed, if you can imagine Highover Drive. The highest point in Chanhassen, three lots would empty out through my yard into the Synstelien’s yard and that’s where most of the water was coming from and the, from my perspective, I don’t want to put words in their mouth was they needed to stop that water and they needed to stop it badly and so they built the berm. And that berm looks like this. So this is my house to the left and this is the property line which is the north property line and that is where the water now comes into there and pools. Flow is now west to those drainage, to the French drains and that was originally the idea was just to let it stop there. Let it pool there and let it keep pooling until it could get to a point where it was high enough that it would actually Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 27 flow into the, into Highover Drive so it would actually pool up here and actually flow all the way up through here. Okay. And so the neighbors complaints that you heard from were at the time well we cannot have you damming up the water into our yard. You can see as if, if we dammed up the water too far well then we’re going to start putting pressure on my, on my foundation and so lastly here is a picture of what has actually happened. So this is the, one of the rain storms where we had 6 ½ inches of rain so it’s really just once in a 2 or 3 process but you can see about 10 to 20 feet of water dammed up on that property line. That’s what happened in our yard. And that’s the water that is being diverted now in those French drains so I cannot tell you whether or not I’m here to oppose this project because the reality is if it’s just those two walls I can’t have much to say but I can tell you that it is kind of scary that that much water can be dammed up onto my property in the city without somebody saying wait a second. Okay. And I think the City did. They said wait a second. You cannot change that much water without some significant amount of thought process and there is now the French drains that the Synstelien’s have put in and it works very nicely about 95 percent of the time. But last Sunday when we had 6 inches of rain those drains were overwhelmed. Again that is exactly the picture that you see. This is from before. I don’t have a picture from that night because it was dark but you can see, here if we look at this. The water goes up to a light that we had installed for a ice rink that we no longer have so you can see that water up to that marker so you can see on this picture how much water must actually be pooling here. Alright. And so it’s really significant from a standpoint that it scares me but at the same point I have to admit that that amount of water is being diverted now from the east side. All that water is no longer going to the Wargin property and that’s just the fact. The reality is that on that Sunday night that water build up into a pond onto my property and eventually hit a height where it had to go somewhere so it flowed to the west over the Synstelien’s driveway and released that way and so it never really got to the point where it was impacting my walkout. Or my lookout windows there. Don’t know what would happen if everything was frozen. Don’t know what would happen if somebody allowed more construction further west to stop that water going there and so if there is something to be done here about the grading I would just say that we need to be careful. We need to be careful because right now the process has worked. The lot is much better looking. The neighborhood has calmed down and everybody is happy again and so we’re all trying to be supportive of each other and I think that that’s important because we lived through 2 years of a lot of problems but at the same time I don’t want the Wargin’s to get more water into their house and I don’t want any more water in mine. Weick: Thank you very much. Great perspective and pictures. Thank you very much. Anyone else present who would like to come forward and offer comment on this item may do so at this time. I believe we also at one point had the telephone number up on the screen and there it is and we’ll keep an eye on the phone over here in front of Mr. Ferraro in case someone has the urge to phone in as well. I will speak slowly and allow people to dial. Nothing coming in? Not yet okay. I’ll just give it a minute. And take this moment again to thank everybody for their perspective and detail in offering information on this item for us. It’s incredibly helpful. With that hearing no one come through on the phone I will close the public hearing portion of this item and open the item for commissioner discussion. And again I think it’s been working with, I Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 28 don’t think we need to do a roll call at this moment so if you just wanted to speak up and talk about this item. I guess I would remind, and I don’t know if there was a slide on this one or not but I’ll remind you what we are considering. It might be helpful MacKenzie if we put that up but we’re considering if there was an error in the execution of the city code in regards to Items F and I as well as a potential variance request as well. Walters: That is correct. I have the appeal of administrative decision slide up. I believe that’s the slide the Chair was requesting. Weick: Okay. And then how does the variance play into this? Walters: So the applicant is also requesting a variance to allow the structure to be located within the drainage and utility easement. I would in absolute theory the commission could uphold the denial of the Encroachment Agreement and then exempt the property from needing an Encroachment Agreement. However I don’t know that I would recommend that course. I would recommend either upholding both or denying both. Weick: Right, okay. McGonagill: So MacKenzie, Mr. Chairman, Commissioner McGonagill. I’ve got a question for you. So really the first question is, did the staff error, make an error in the determination of what, of how they interpreted the code so it’s really an up or down vote on that error, is that correct? Walters: Yes. After hearing the position of the appellant and looking at the staff report the Planning Commission is being asked to determine if in fact staff correctly understood the situation and correctly applied the city code. McGonagill: Okay so let’s say we uphold staff. This is a hypothetical question Mr. Chairman. If we uphold staff but then want to consider the walls. You know Wall A, one of the walls or both the walls as a variance then that is a separate proceeding? Or not. Weick: I don’t think it’s not separate no. Walters: No. They have to remain linked because we, no matter what the City would need to have an Encroachment Agreement present to have walls located within the drainage and utility easement so if the Planning Commission believes that the walls, that it’s appropriate for the walls to be located there they should find that staff made an error and that Encroachment Agreement should be issued and a variance should be granted to allow the structures to be located within the D and U. Reeder: Mr. Chair? Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 29 Weick: Yes Commissioner Reeder, yes. Reeder: Question to staff. If the permits had been executed as they were issued in this case would the neighbors still have the problems that she was describing if it was done right? Ferraro: To answer your question, if the grading plan was followed overland drainage would provide any rain water or water in the yards to flow freely through the drainage and utility easements both to the west and to the north so the neighboring properties on either side, the drainage would not be adversely impacted. Reeder: Thank you. So that leads me to the conclusion that staff did exactly as they should have. Weick: Thank you. McGonagill: Commissioner Reeder I agree. Staff you know the, as unfortunate as it is, I understand that but I don’t see where staff made an error. In fact I believe staff has gone a long way to work with the homeowner to approve retaining walls for which there was no approval. Reeder: I agree with you. McGonagill: And so I think that particularly I get confused. It’s retaining wall I’m going to call it I, the one that actually comes across the utility easement just from my casual observation. I walk around this area quite a bit and when I kind of look up that line and I can see how it blocks it and push the water to the east because it definitely slopes down through there. There is no as far as I can tell on the survey, there’s no swale at all between those two lots. It just flows directly into the adjacent driveway as I believe the neighbor next door commented so I can’t hold them, see a basis for which saying that staff made an error. Reeder: I totally agree with you on that. I wasn’t trying to indicate that staff was in error. I think they were correct and it should have been the way they had approved the design. Weick: Appreciate your comments. I did find and I don’t mean to confuse the issue anymore but on page 14 there is an attempt I think to clarify what the variance means. If I could read that. If the Planning Commission determines that the City Engineer did not make an error in denying the Encroachment Agreement the applicant would like to receive a variance to permit the walls to remain within the drainage and utility easement. Walters: That was staff’s understanding of the request we received. Weick: Okay. Walters: Again staff’s position is that it’d be very difficult to break the two issues up like that. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 30 McGonagill: Well MacKenzie, Mr. Chairman my question though is the issue with the drainage. It’s not so much, at least from my rudimentary understanding. The walls are causing part of the issue but isn’t the bigger issue the fact that the original grading plan wasn’t followed and because of that the whole drainage is screwed up in a way. You follow me MacKenzie? Walters: I follow you. I will defer to Mr. Ferraro as has the…on that. McGonagill: Yeah that’s correct. Thank you MacKenzie. Ferraro: Not really an expert but yes. If the original grading plan had been followed the drainage we would not be seeing them presently. McGonagill: Okay. So in granting really what the technical solution, I’m not saying it’s the proper solution or what the Planning Commission should recommend but the technical, the proper technical solution, they’ve done a lot already with the French drains. And good on for doing that. That’s great but really the grade needs to be redone to the correct, to the east of the property. Is that correct Mr. Ferraro? Ferraro: Yes that’s correct. The east property line with removal of Wall I and Wall F kind of if you will stand in the way of that swale from going out towards the street to the north to direct the drainage along that property line. McGonagill: Yes that swale needs to be there from what you’re telling is that correct Mr. Ferraro? Ferraro: Yes that’s correct and that’s a part of the approved grading plan. McGonagill: Okay thank you. Mr. Chairman I’d defer back to you. Weick: Thank you. That’s actually really good clarification. Thank you Mr. Ferraro. Other comments from commissioners. Thoughts. I know that we’ve covered quite a bit this evening and I want to be sure you have a moment to collect your thoughts and offer comments. Thank you to Commissioner Reeder and Commissioner McGonagill for trying to break it down hopefully to a simpler, to a simpler aspect or decision but certainly open to hear other opinions. Skistad: I guess I do have, or I’m sorry if I’m speaking over someone else but it seems like from the testimony of Mr. Block, I think that was his name. The other guy that there has always been drainage problems with all of these neighbors so I’m, so I’m having trouble understanding how that slight, how that grading change would have solved all the problems of all the neighbors when it’s all flowing in that direction from, you know I think the City has done their best. The neighbors have done their best and I think that this is the unfortunate situation of drainage issue that there has always been with these properties because none of them apparently were ever Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 31 correctly graded in the way that they were supposed to work together to funnel it the correct direction. I mean that’s what I hear everyone’s testimony that’s what I think and that we’re trying to fix what went on maybe when it was originally built way back when with all the lots that flow together so it’s not just one lot. One lot unfortunately is, was faced with the dilemma of trying to solve it. They didn’t solve it and the City didn’t solve it. Nobody solved it but we solved some problems but we created other problems and I don’t know if there’s another way to think about it so that we could alleviate this. You know I mean this possibly needs to be more neighbors working together to get that done. I don’t know what my, you know I can’t understand how one simple grading on one side would fix all of this. It just doesn’t make sense to me that one grade would fix it all knowing how much water flows one direction. Von Oven: Yeah I think it’s a good point. Commissioner Von Oven here. It’s a good point. I think my opinion would be, I think the City plan and everyone following the rules and going with the permitting process and what it recommends all of that together is intended to fix the problem. One lot won’t fix the problem but one lot not complying with what was permitted and then being issued a reprieve by this body I think opens the door for other lots which then creates more neighborhoods that fall into this same situation. For me this is a super complicated issue and one of the most complicated ones I’ve had since I’ve been on this commission but at the same time it’s very, very simple. Our job here today is to decide whether or not staff made an error and I don’t see it. Not from the, not from the report. Not from the testimony. I was like I said I was even surprised to hear how above and beyond staff sounds like they went to accommodate this whole process and I was glad to hear that. But at the end of the day I don’t believe that staff made an error and I’ll be voting in favor to affirm the partial denial. Weick: Thank you Commissioner Von Oven. I would say that at any moment or at any time, do not want to cut off any commissioners that still want to offer opinion but I will say that I would accept any form of a motion if someone wanted to, wanted to provide one. We’re certainly. Randall: Chairman do you mind if I speak real quick? Weick: Yeah I didn’t want to cut anybody off. I just wanted to say. Randall: I understand the frustration that they’re dealing with. I built a home in Chanhassen. I understand the inspection process. I have worked with other cities. Friends that have built houses in other cities and how hard that can be and difficult at times. I really look at did it improve, what they did, did it improve the situation and I think it might have helped a little bit but there was one piece that came up in testimony that I was really concerned about and I wanted to put it back on the contractor and under testimony the property owner said that the contractor thought it would go through and, the contractor probably was correct. They thought like oh this isn’t that big of a deal but it turned out to be a big deal and it didn’t follow the plan on the drainage issue. There was concerns from neighbors and that was the one piece that I went back to. I would hope that they can get a variance for this. They can work with homeowners or the neighbors and maybe they might have to put some money into the neighbor’s property to make it Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 32 flow and work right but at the same time they mentioned in testimony that they had a lot going on at the site. There was multiple construction areas going on and it probably got lost in the clutter. Working for the government, I’ve done that for 20 years, I always try to side with the citizen on it and I can see that happening. However when it came out that the contractor thought it would go through that was my deciding point on it that the City did not act, or the City followed it’s direction and followed what they needed to do in this matter. That’s all I have to say. Weick: Thank you Commissioner Randall. I appreciate your perspective. I think we have heard from everybody but I certainly want to allow you the opportunity to speak again. Give you a moment to read the motion as it’s presented by City. You are free to amend that as you wish, whoever is, if you want to propose a motion you are free to adjust this motion as you would like. McGonagill: Mr. Chairman I’ll propose the motion as written. This is Commissioner McGonagill; Weick: Okay. McGonagill: Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments affirms the City Engineer Howley’s partial denial of the Encroachment Agreement and denies that the variance request to allow the retaining walls to be located with the drainage and utility easement and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Decision. Weick: We have a valid motion from Commissioner McGonagill. Do we have a second? Von Oven: Commissioner Von Oven seconds. Weick: Mr. Von Oven seconds. Any final comment from commissioners before we vote? McGonagill: Mr. Chairman I have one comment. The reason that I believe the variance should be denied is that, what I’d like to see is a variance come in with some revised grading plans. What they’re going to do to flow the water. Work with the neighbors as one of the commissioners talked about. I believe a couple did. What is the solution that you can do here to do here, to do what needs to happen. Do you follow me Mr. Chairman? Weick: I do and I appreciate you offering a comment for the record and that will be added to the record. You know I hear that you would like to see this come to a, you know some type of cooperation whether it be with neighbors or with the City but as it pertains specifically to the appeal here, you know and to the specifics of what we’re looking at this evening and what we’re taking into consideration is whether an error was made by the City. I think we all agree that it was not. At least what I hear from everybody. But that said you know respecting the amount of work that’s put into the property and the amount of improvements that’s been made to the property it sounds like it is your hope that there is still an opportunity for some type of Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 33 compromise whether it be with neighbors or with the City. Do I understand you correctly Commissioner McGonagill? McGonagill: Well I think cooperation with the neighbors, the City and I do believe it will take some revision to the grading on the property. Weick: Understood. McGonagill: …move the water away. You know if this was a variance to come up I would just say I would be looking for that. What has been changed to make that water move away from the neighbor to the east. Weick: Okay, thank you. McGonagill: But that’s just clarifying adding little comments because that’s not what’s in front of now. This motion is the one in front of us and go ahead Mr. Chairman. Weick: Okay thank you. We will do a roll call vote on the motion. McGonagill moved, Von Oven seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments affirms the City Engineer Howley’s partial denial of the Encroachment Agreement and denies that the variance request to allow the retaining walls to be located within the drainage and utility easement and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Decision. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. Weick: The motion passes 6 to 0. MacKenzie any final words? Walters: This either the neighbors or the applicant do have four days to submit an appeal. If we do not receive an appeal by 4:30 Monday this decision would be final. If we do receive a written appeal then it would go before the City Council. Weick: Thank you for the clarification MacKenzie and thank you again to everybody who presented and who has put so much into this. We appreciate, we appreciate the depth of this issue and hope that everyone appreciates the consideration that the commission has given this evening. We do have one more item this evening. Let’s give it. Yeah we need to take a 3 minute break and then we will restate so give you guys a chance to take a break. The Planning Commission took a short recess at this point in the meeting. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER AN APPEAL OF THE BLUFF CREEK OVERLAY DISTRICT COUNDARY DETERMINATION MADE BY A CITY ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER FOR Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 34 PROPERTY LOCATED AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF HIGHWAY 212 AND POWERS BOULEVARD. Weick: Mr. Generous is presenting this evening. Generous: Thank you Mr. Chairman. McGonagill: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman before we begin this, I just want to make it, I’m going to recuse myself from this discussion. Weick: Okay. McGonagill: I do not have a financial interest in this property however I just do know the applicant quite personally and some of the other people and I think it’d be proper for me to just to sit on the sidelines and watch this one. I don’t want any questions about it. Weick: Well we will miss your expertise for sure but thank you for letting us know and for the record we do still have a quorum in order to vote without Mr. McGonagill this evening. So thank you again Commissioner McGonagill and appreciate your candor. Generous: Okay thank you Mr. Chairman. Planning Case 2020-13 as you stated is an appeal of an administrative decision for the determination of the Bluff Creek primary zone boundary. This property is located at the southeast corner of Highway 212 and Powers Boulevard. It’s part of an outlot for the development, actually the lot that was platted was here and the rest of this property is one big outlot. The property is guided for office use in the future when urban services become available. It’s currently zoned agricultural estate district. In developing the Bluff Creek Overlay District the City first in 1994 began looking at the Bluff Creek corridor. They established a steering committee and a technical committee to review the natural environment of the corridor from basically Minnewashta, Lake Minnewashta down to the Minnesota River valley. To look at identifying and preserving a continuous greenway that would connect natural resources, wildlife habitat throughout the, the Bluff Creek watershed district encompasses approximately 40 percent of the city’s land area and this runs approximately 6.6 miles through the city so it was a significant corridor that the City wanted to preserve. At the end of 1996 the study was completed. It was presented to City Council. As part of the study the group looked at topography as one of the primary considerations in the corridor. They also looked at soil types, vegetative communities, wetlands. There were 5 districts that came out of the study. The uplands area which is the land north of Highway 5 to Lake Minnewashta. The Meadowlands area which is from Highway 5 down to Lyman Boulevard. The Lowlands area which is from Lyman to Pioneer Trail. The Gorge area which is the significant drop. It’s a 70 foot elevation change south of Pioneer Trail that takes Bluff Creek down to the Minnesota River valley. And then finally there an East Gorge area that’s east of Highway 101 near the Mustard Seed. It’s that ravine system that’s over there. Unfortunately as part of our ordinance we only did the western part. The East Gorge was left out of it. From that study the City did in 1998 adopted the Bluff Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 35 Creek Overlay District. This district was established by Ordinance 286 to protect the Bluff Creek corridor, the wetlands, bluff and significant stands of mature trees in the area. The property is located in what’s the Lowlands area. It’s significant because there is a, I’ve got to find which page I wrote this on. A natural area extended from Great Plains and Lyman Boulevard southwest to Pioneer Trail, a forested ridge containing an oak woodland. It linked several better quality wetlands within the corridor and areas that the City really wanted to preserve. So after the study the ordinance was adopted. It required that any development within the Bluff Creek corridor, and especially those that had the primary zone in it needed to receive a conditional use as part of their development approval. Additionally there was a 40 foot structure setback from the primary zone boundary with the first 20 feet being a buffer zone. The Bluff Creek corridor consists of the primary zone which is the area that’s to be preserved as permanent open space and the secondary zone which is where the City should look at low impact development types to reduce any impacts to the Bluff Creek corridor or primary zone in this case. Again the primary zone runs from Highway 41 north of Highway 5 all the way down to the Minnesota River valley. And it has two tributaries. One that comes from Arboretum Business Park and comes into the main branch and then one that comes from 101 and Lyman Boulevard down through this property. Crosses Pioneer and comes and meets the trail again. And then the third one on Pioneer Trail that runs from Audubon over to the main branch of Bluff Creek and again down to the Minnesota River valley. The specific areas within the low land, the portion that we’re looking at is a small 3 acre segment right here adjacent to the Highway 212 interchange. And I should as part of the City’s development review process we look at not only lines that are immediately adjacent to the Bluff Creek corridor but those that are adjacent to some of the tributary areas. There’s two instances of development to the east of Mr. Erhart’s property that are, have portions located in the primary zone. Fox Wood development has part of the wetland complex in the upland area adjacent to that. All of this Outlot A is all part of the Bluff Creek primary zone and it connects into the Fox Wood preservation area which then connects into Mr. Erhart’s property in his northwest corner. To the north of this development across that wetland is the Arbor Glen development. It includes the wetland and buffer area and as part of this development review the watershed district took an additional buffer area north of our Bluff Creek primary zone and this area ultimately remained permanent open space. Now you look at a tributary to the west and we have the Arboretum Business Park. As part of the Control Concepts site plan review the eastern quarter of the property was in the primary zone. This area is being preserved as part of the Overlay District and it will be permanent open space. As part of the development we did get a trail connection into a trail system that we have there. And finally I’m showing the Avienda development which is west of Powers Boulevard, north of Highway 212. Approximately 15 acres in the southwest corner of this site is part of the Bluff Creek primary zone. This is a wooded hill that’s an example of Big Woods. It’s not directly adjacent to the Bluff Creek itself but it does contribute to the watershed so. In looking at the drainage patterns for the Bluff Creek watershed district we see that Bluff Creek watershed drains from actually east of Highway 101 at Lyman Boulevard through that wetland complex through Mr. Erhart’s property and across Powers Boulevard to Bluff Creek which runs approximately here. So it’s now pipe. At one time this whole area was overland flow of drainage for the Bluff Creek corridor until Powers Boulevard was extended and Highway 212 was put in place. The applicant Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 36 has requested that this approximately 3 acres of his site be removed from the Bluff Creek primary zone and so the boundary would be revised to take out this area. As part of his request at the time the City didn’t have a Water Resources Coordinator so we hired WSB to do a review of the watershed district boundaries and whether or not it would be appropriate to make any changes to it. The applicant, to make an appeal the ordinance allows the property owners to provide scientific data, topography, vegetation, flora, fauna, to show why the land should be excluded from the primary zone boundary. He did provide, this is a survey that Mr. Erhart provided. It’s part of the existing conditions survey that he provided. It shows areas of steep slope. Areas where water drains through the property. Areas of Woodlands. This is that ridge line that was talked about as part of the Bluff Creek Overlay. The study that said the oak savannah type. I should note that this line is actually follows the wood tree line on this side. This is an area in the future where the City is actually looking at a potential lift station for development. We did as part of the review we submitted the study to the WSB and they reviewed it based on all the criteria that we have in our ordinance. Soils, wetland, topography, vegetation, significant stands of trees and they found that with some modifications the Bluff Creek primary zone designation that the City has is appropriate. At the time, they did show that the primary zone should not include land that drains to the east because that doesn’t impact Bluff Creek corridor and so the top of the ridge line they recommended that we take that out of the Bluff Creek primary zone. However they also showed that our line should be moved a little bit east on the south end of this property to the top of the ridge line to take in all the land that drains to the west. And so that’s based, based on that recommendation we sent Mr. Erhart our determination that the Bluff Creek primary zone boundary should not be revised pursuant to what he said. He had requested. And now we’re back to, again we have an appeal that he believes there was an error in our determination of the Bluff Creek primary zone and that Section 20-28 of city code allows the Planning Commission as a Board of Appeals and Adjustment to determine if we made an error in our determination of the city code. With that we’re recommending that the Planning Commission affirm our decision for the Bluff Creek primary zone and I’d be happy to answer any questions. Weick: Great. I will open it up to the commission. Anyone please speak up if you have questions at this time for Mr. Generous. Von Oven: I have a quick question. If we could bring the slides back up and go to the last slide before the proposed motion. I got a little confused on this. This assessment. This picture is from whom? Who created this? Generous: WSB put it together from topography and an aerial view of the site. They added the coloring for the primary zone which is red here. These bright red areas are areas of steep slopes. They were 25 percent or more. Von Oven: Got it. And sorry I didn’t get to step back. The, the applicant had the ability to have scientific data put together and that was, that’s this is what I’m looking at here? Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 37 Generous: Yes. Von Oven: Okay. And the aerial shot from WSB, this is the City hired WSB to do that in the absence of an existing water manager or something, right? Generous: That’s correct. Von Oven: Got it, okay. Thank you. Weick: Thank you Commissioner Von Oven. And roughly we’re on the next slide, roughly where does the property in question. Not this slide but the one, where is the property in question on this? Generous: Well it’s all this. Weick: It is? Generous: Yeah. Because this is just a primary zone boundary which would be this area. The primary zone boundary of the east edge of it runs along this top of this ridge line. Weick: Okay. Generous: And continues up to the northeast. And then it runs over to, actually it used to encompass Highway 212. That interchange but with the development of the road that portion would disappeared. Weick: Okay. Generous: And so it runs basically the west edge of that is the bottom on that ridge line and the wooded area that went across and it’s the existing canopy coverage. Aanenson: Bob could you go to the second slide? Or with all the blue on it. There. Can you just maybe illustratively show where you are based on this? Generous: Yeah the 3 acres is right in this corner. Aanenson: Does that help? Weick: Yeah, thank you. Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Generous from commissioners? Okay, hearing none at this time thank you Mr. Generous. Hearing none at this time I would invite the applicant to come forward and make a presentation. And welcome. It’s nice to see you. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 38 Tim Erhart: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you commissioners. Appreciate the time and effort everybody makes on this. I had my turn on the wheel many years ago for 6 years. It was one of the greatest experiences, are you hearing me okay? Greatest experiences I really had. Learned how our city works. Met a lot of great people including when Kate came on board so a lot of fun so appreciate the opportunity to have this side. I’ve got a few slides. Maybe it will help some of the questions about where this, where exactly this 3 acres exists. There we go. So we can go right into the next one Bob. Okay so here’s a Google view of the area. You can see 212 on, swinging across at an angle across the top. Powers Boulevard north and south on the left and winding 101, still winding 101 kind of down the middle and our property kind of runs, I’d say the bottom, kind of the bottom half of that area. It’s 120 acres we’ve owned since 1980. You can see the area from this photo. You can see that area is nothing but trees, wetlands, swamps. It’s to be honest with you we were very fortunate to somehow buy this piece of property when we got married and moved onto it. It’s in our view the most beautiful piece of property in all of Chanhassen. It’s, at one point before Gonyea developed that with the permission of Jim Wilson and Frank Fox, the prior owner of Fox Woods had 4 ½ miles of trails through this whole area and there’s still substantial trails and I encourage and allow everybody to walk on the still 3 miles of trails that are on my property so you can kind of see. The area in question, I don’t know if I got, if I can do. Yeah Bob’s got the idea there. It’s kind of in this area down here where it’s not fully wooded. There’s a hay field right there where he’s got his dot. It’s about 2 acres and then there’s open area to, well yeah the 2 acres is in the middle but 3 areas to the left of that is 9 acres that’s guided, guided office. So maybe the next slide we can, maybe shows a little better. So here’s a sketch of kind of what things look like today and inclusive of what a 40 year person living there has kind of laid out a sketch of how I think I’d like to see this developed and I think it’s pretty consistent with city staff and Hoffman. Todd Hoffman and Jerry Ruegemer and I love walking those trails and making those trails and we want to see them continue to be used. The 3 acres on the left where Bob has his dot and 9 to the left of that and then if you go up in Fox Woods and on our property there you can see what trails exist today. Aanenson: If I may Tim, I might just interject. I don’t know if everybody knows but the City did purchase the Fox Woods property a number of years ago so that’s a preserve area. Tim Erhart: That’s Fox Woods preserve today yeah. And then I’ve kind of laid out if you look at the whole area there kind of what potentially the street layout could be. Some of them that exist. It’s kind of the intent of there. You can see within this whole 400 acres there it’s a tremendous natural area where there will be some enclaves of beautiful houses and great settings. Great natural opportunities so. And then there’s the one last thing I want to mention is that there will be a connecting trail from Bandimere Park through this whole thing. I’ve shown it on the top along the top of those ponds there and I don’t know if that one will be a nature trail or a paved bike trail. I’m not sure what the plan of that is but it will, everything will be connected so okay we can go to the next one Bob. I don’t think this one, oh yeah this one is I just want to summarize the site features here. Just what I’m talking about and why I’m kind of, I’m very passionate about getting this development done correctly. This 9 acre, if we add the 3 it’s 12 to Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 39 13. It’s right at the intersection. Has great access to transportation to the rest of the Twin Cities. The access is right through Powers Boulevard. The cut is there available to use. There’s a preliminary base of a street already installed. It will be close to a bus stop. The site has great views. Great views of the site from eastbound traffic coming on 212. If someone’s looking for a high level office you would be able to have signage and a great view. It’s right next to the Fox Woods Preserve. People who use that either office or live there would basically walk out their door and be in the preserve on the trail system. You can go to Bandimere Park but another trail. Another nice amenity of the system and because of the hills that Bob’s referring to it’s isolated from what’s planned, single family to the east across the large, let’s see it would be yeah. What Bob is showing there is single family to the east of that planned and then to the south of that there’s some existing single family and as we found out when Fairview came in, we kind of want to be isolated from them too. There’s concerns from that and in summary it’s just a stunning setting so thanks, I think we can move on then Bob. I think what we, I’m trying to get to with this site. Because of all those, those list of things, I think it’s a perfect site for office which it’s guided. I think the size of that office should be 150,000 to 200,000 square feet. My experience in having people inquiring about this space for a corporate headquarters or in the case of Fairview Medical which proceeded to quite far along. Through Planning Commission and did it go to council? Yeah the whole thing was approved yeah so I mean that was 160,000 square feet they wanted to invest in. I think that’s the kind of thing we can attract to this site. It doesn’t come along every day. I get, I do get inquiring from time to time on it. I think it has potential if we do the proper planning for that. The other option is the high density residential. In that case the same amount of square feet that could equivalent to about 150 to 200 units so, and/or senior housing so either way. Next Bob. Let’s see, yeah let’s back up. Let’s back up to the two slides. One more. Yeah okay. So Bob introduced the idea here of how do we establish the real position of these Bluff Creek overlay boundaries. You know the ordinance states the boundaries shall be determined by using topographical survey, a flora fauna survey and soil data but nowhere in the ordinance does it actually tell you how to apply this information to determine the exact location of the line. The real setting of that line is really, left up to the planner. City planner specifically or the planning department and I’m not suggesting that the City doesn’t apply a consistent process for putting on that line but it is not, it is not laid out in the ordinance itself. The initial line for my corner up there was because there, when the ordinance was put in place there really wasn’t any of this data readily available so we used aerial photography and some on site survey work to set up where the original boundaries were with the idea that when someone comes in for development we would relocate the line depending on more information coming in but it still was a process that was basically established by the planning department. The first line on that particular project or property through aerial photographs was put on a fence that separated a cultivated field from a pasture line that had some trees in it. When Fairview came in we did a more detailed survey of the area. Tried to accommodate what they wanted to do and the line was moved further to the east approximately where it is today. Is that clear from the map there? Because of our, what we learned from the Fairview process, one is that there is a market for a high grade office or medical building in the area but typically as I mentioned they’re looking for, they’re really looking for 20 acres is usually the starting point. I’m not suggesting at all that we want to try to eek out 20 acres on this site but I think it’s reasonable to come up with 12 or 13 Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 40 based on our experience. My view is to accommodate that as we take the 2 acre hayfield and we add a 1 ½ acre hill with the trees on it and try to move that line east to encompass that yields the acreage I think we need to attract a high, a big, a major investment. I think in my view of, I think it’s a beautiful ordinance that we have, the Bluff Creek ordinance or overlay district and that it gives us, it’s designed to give us the flexibility to develop property, protect the natural areas and to preserve the corridor as a whole with what remains of the Bluff Creek watershed. As Bob stated the primary goal is to create the greenway from Lake Minnewashta to the Minnesota River and it’s not intended to obstruct development. And I think in this case we’re asking to have the flexibility to put this line where I think it reasonably can use this area in a way it should. So in our proposed line, if you go, look to the east it’s at the bottom of a very steep rise up to that hill that separates that pond from and there from the west. It’s all natural vegetation and it has very large high value trees on it. This area to the west of our proposed line is identical to what you see up in Fox Woods Preserve today and the 60 or so acres that ultimately we would envision from our property to be added to Fox Woods Preserve. Assuming we call it, if we call the whole area Fox Woods Preserve so. I’m not asking it to be called Erhart Preserve. Yeah Tim’s Woods but it really is consistent with that whole thing and we would, I would never suggest that we move that line any further into that. That’s a beautiful area. It’s very steep and we want that to remain and the trails that are in it. In contrast the areas on the west of our proposed line it’s more like the 9 acres that’s already guided for office. As I mentioned it consists of 2 acres of a hay field and, with a 1 ½ acre hill and on that hill there’s 18 oak trees. Large oak trees. That was formerly pasture and now I mow that tree and it’s become known as Tim’s park so it’s pretty impressive when you walk out there because these oak trees stand alone without brush around them so it’s like going to a really nice city park. I think one of the issues what’s happened here is that now the City kind of deems these 18 trees as kind of unique and a lot of attention to not, not losing these 18 trees which I don’t want to lose these 18 trees either but I think in putting this in context in Fox Woods Preserve there are over 1,000 trees that are 12 inches in diameter and larger and I’m guessing that there’s 250 of those are over 24 inches trees. There’s a lot of, as you saw from the previous picture there’s a lot of trees here. We just completed a tree survey on that area. See that little loop in there Bob? Can you throw that? Yeah right in there. There’s a 20 acre piece there that we just completed a tree survey. There’s 500 trees in that little area that are over 12 inches diameter. My point being that you know I love the 18 oak trees but these are not unique. In fact I would venture to say that within a mile radius there’s tens of thousands of trees similar to those trees. Particularly as you get down in what you’re calling what, the lower lower area of Bluff Creek? Generous: The lowlands. Tim Erhart: The really lowland and it just goes on forever so. Secondly is there’s no reason to think that these 18 trees would be removed during development of this site. The trees are really an asset and to flatten the hill on there would be quite an undertaking. One that’s really not necessary to develop it. Can you jump ahead a couple slides Bob? We have some, put together a couple ideas on how you would develop the, let’s say 13 acre site and preserve the trees. Here’s one that’s office and you can see it involves, in this case two buildings and a third which Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 41 could be retail or office. We would use the hayfield as a parking lot and the buildings would butt up against the hill so if the trees are there and we would not attempt to disturb the hill. The next one is an apartment complex idea where you come in and we have apartments here with underground parking and the hay field becomes one of the apartment buildings with an entranceway and then two other buildings closer to the intersection of the freeway. Here this concept includes an additional trail that might, would have a bridge over the entranceway to the upper apartment building. That’s a very narrow pass there and it would join up with the trail that already exists that comes from the northwest there. Kind of a fun idea. They call it the Bridges I guess so. Anyway you know my wife and I have owned this property for 40 years and during that time we’ve restored 4 wetlands. We’ve planted thousands of trees on this property and our vision for this is to have people, have a lot of people work or live there and I agree with the staff that this is a unique piece of property. But I think it’s a little bit different. My view is I think it’s unique in what it contributes to our community at large in it’s use. It’s maximum use as a high end office. Corporate office or an apartment building that would allow some people on this Fox Woods Preserve. I was just in there Sunday. I hike that area quite often. You hardly see anybody in that park today. It’s just, it’s a really under used asset for us. I did for the second time this summer ran into a mom and a kid, his son so I stopped and I asked I said you must be from Fox Woods. Oh no, we’re from Eden Prairie. I said why do you come out here? Why do you drive out here to use this trail? Well he said there’s nobody ever on it so. So you know it’s just begging for some people to come in and use it so the request we’re asking for is to provide that opportunity to maximize it’s use. To provide today clear, a clear, a clear way to describe the property to a potential investor as opposed to well it’s 9 acres and yeah maybe you could get another 3 if you’re nice you know. It’s really hard to sell a concept that way. The last, okay with that I just summarize what we’re asking for. Adjust the Bluff Creek Overlay District boundary to align with the property’s existing characteristics and the land use which two-thirds of it is agricultural today. All the best use. Potential for tax generation. I didn’t mention that but that’s something we all have to think about and attract a really superior investment and lastly to allow us to offer it both as a, there’s one more slide Bob. One as office or apartment or high density residential. So those are the two things that we’re requesting so that’s it. Weick: Great. Thank you very much. In. Tim Erhart: Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Dan has something that he’d like to add, is that? Weick: Is that part of the? Okay then yeah. Come on up. Tim Erhart: Dan Blake. Dan Blake: Mr. Chairman and commission, my name is Dan Blake. I’m with the Pemtom Land Company and been doing various development type things for a long time and I just told Tim I would talk a little bit about you know kind of the planning concept but I’m going to back up a little bit of history of things that Tim won’t say. He did mention that he bought a farm 4 years Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 42 ago. It was a dairy farm. He did not expand the dairy operation. Instead he’s been planting trees as he mentioned for 40 years. He did not cut down those oak trees that are considered kind of prime but could have. Why because he cares more about that site than probably the City does and in that regard he’s not the big bad developer. Maybe I am but I’m not his developer. I’m just a friend. He, I’ve been working with him to put a vision for this plan, the entire site so that even if he doesn’t develop it, it gets developed the way his vision has been evolving over 40 years and he cares about some of the things. Some of the things you just heard he cares about a lot which is you know I want people to use this. I want people to see this. I don’t want 7 houses backing up to this wetland. I want people to drive by the wetland and see it. I want people to see the trees. I want my apartment buildings to be next to the big trees so that people can walk out their door, through the little park and be into it so you know from that regard Tim as a landowner is not typical. I understand there’s a challenge in getting a firm commitment from him and the future landowners and how this all met but his goal in this corner is to create something with high value. You know Tim didn’t ask for 212 to be built. He didn’t probably even ask for Powers to be built but the result of that is a corner that makes sense for some type of a higher intensity use and the City has recognized that in guiding it office. There is though a parcel size that tends to drive the type of, the value and type of use and even though it’s proximity is fabulous if it’s too small you get a daycare. I don’t know what will end up there. You know it needs to be big enough to attract a high value use and that’s what I think that Tim is trying to accomplish in this discussion about where is that boundary. You know there’s, I mean if we build it they will come doesn’t really work in land planning. Somebody some day wants a high value use in the southwest metro, whether it’s housing or office and they’re going to look for the size property they need and if they can’t fit it here it will go somewhere further out which is contrary to good planning in that we have an interchange with access. We have, you know because of the uses, the road uses are probably not going to be single family kind of uses. There’s probably going to be you know it makes sense for a higher intensity use. Not even sure if it’s, you know you’ve got to preserve the real natural features that are there but it’s not even ideal to preserve those next to the freeway but that’s part of this but my point being is if someone wants their 13 or 15 acre site they’re going to, they’re going to find it. Maybe it will be in Chan or maybe it will you know somehow it’s going to be further away from the freeway or further down the road and it’s going to cause more people to be driving further and not using the transportation system as efficiently as we can to use that and so the, looking at this boundary which as Tim mentioned, you know it’s not arbitrary but it’s, there’s an element of arbitrariness to that boundary so I listened to the last presentation and the question was did staff make a, an error. That’s going to be hard to define error because it’s pretty fuzzy as far as how that boundary can exist. I think we’re trying to show that it’s somewhat arbitrary. The logic of moving it is just as sensible and there’s a great purpose in why that would be there so that we’re not chasing that high value use to a different location you know out, further away from the transportation system. Thank you. Weick: Alright thank you very much. I appreciate it. I was scribbling notes so I apologize but are there questions at this time for the applicant? For Mr. Erhart from the commission. And as maybe we’re waiting I’m trying to figure out in my head how to ask kind of a similar question Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 43 that was asked in the previous item we heard. Which is I guess why, why move the line? Like what if you could summarize, I mean you’ve given a really good background on sort of why it makes sense but more specific to that boundary line, could you kind of summarize kind of some of the key points as to why it would make sense to move it up or down? Tim Erhart: Okay yeah. Weick: If you yeah. Tim Erhart: Well one is I think the line that we propose has more technical support than where the line is today. Okay as I mentioned it starts at a very steep hill and natural vegetation with a lot of big trees. Okay where the line today is kind of drawn down the middle of a hill and through a hay field, okay. Secondly is our experience is that in order, as Dan mentioned in order to attract a really big investment in that area 9 acres is tight. We found with Fairview we were, well I mean it was, we were cutting into hills. We were putting in 15 foot retaining walls and we found out we should have moved the whole building site farther north to get it further away from, to get a wider area if you include that 3 areas. It’s wider and bigger and further away from the existing homes in the south. And I just it’s a great opportunity I think for Chanhassen to maximize it’s taxes from that area. The community’s use for it and I, the reason we need that today is I need to be able to communicate to someone when they call in or contact me is that this is the area we’ve got to work with. It’s not 20. It’s not 9. It’s 12 to 13. Otherwise it’s real difficult to kind of keep it kind of, make that conversation. Weick: Okay. Thank you. I mean that’s a good answer. Anyone else with questions for the applicant at this time? Von Oven: Commissioner Von Oven with a question. Weick: Go ahead. Von Oven: So Mr. Erhart first of all you are a wonderful story teller. I just met you and I feel like I’ve known you forever so thank you for that presentation. That was great. You’re also, I also love the fact that you’re an alumni of what we’re trying to do here today so that allows me to make statements like you know how this works. So as part of what I read in the staff report you have the ability or the you shall provide appropriate technical information and you just mentioned that you feel as though that the boundary lines as you’ve drawn them are more technically accurate I think you said. I’m not sure I’m quoting you correctly and it says in here that you provided a topographic survey and a tree survey, both of which I think were shown earlier. The picture that I saw from, is it WSB or let’s say the City provided, while I’m not an expert at reading that it seems like pretty hard evidence of moving certain lines both you know in your favor and another against your favor so I think my question for you is, after seeing what the City had provided and knowing that if you could provide appropriate technical information the staff would have just approved this. Is it that technical information does not exist to move the Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 44 lines where you want to move them and or was there just not the resources to be able to provide it? Tim Erhart: Excellent question. The thing is that almost all the surveys that they asked for is not measurable data. I mean it’s flora and fauna. Okay so we’ve got the trees. That’s measurable. But the flora and you know the soils, erosion, I mean these are all kind of subjective and you have to put this together all collectively which is what WSB did in their view when you collect the information in their view the line should be where it’s at and one of the points there is that, you know I’m as the applicant kind of have to approve, kind of show why it should be moved whereas the City kind of is in a position to say well this is where the line is and so I’m trying to show why it should be moved and why it’s a benefit to the City. But there is no clear. There is no clear actual data. Even the reference to the 25 percent slopes. There’s nothing in the ordinance that says 25, other than in the secondary zone there’s some minor reference to it. There’s nothing that says 25 percent slopes should automatically make this in the primary zone. It’s not in the ordinance. Again that’s a process and it’s kind of a subjective view that the City has taken. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying this is the problem with this whole thing. It’s not, there’s no magic formula to put in a calculator and a line draws out okay. It’s a view. Does that answer the question? Von Oven: Yes, thank you very much. Weick: Good question. Others anyone might have. Give you a chance to think. Hearing none at this time, thank you Mr. Erhart. I appreciate your presentation. And I will open the public hearing portion on this item. Anyone present wishing to make a comment on this item may come forward at this time. We are also accepting calls. The number is 952-227-1100 and is on the screen. I’ve heard some beeps from over there but I don’t think it’s an actual phone call. This is always my favorite part when I try and figure out a way to stall long enough to have someone come forward. No one is present in the chambers to come forward and speak on this item and I do not believe we had emails submitted either on this. Generous: None that we’re aware. Weick: Okay. Generous: I had well one email but it wasn’t directly related to this. It was related to all development. Weick: Okay. Aanenson: A call? Generous: Yeah that was a call. Well it was the email. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 45 Weick: Okay perfect. Well hearing no phone calls as well I will close the public hearing portion of this item and open for commissioner comment. And I will, I’ll kind of open the comment as people maybe collect their thoughts. You know for me I’ll just be very open about how, my thoughts on this item and they might not be exactly correct or appropriate but I guess I would say if this came to us in a form of like there was a development and they asked for a variance on 3 acres to put in you know a health care or an apartment or something like that, to me it is, it makes sense. Like I don’t think there’s enough to, it’s hard to decide where that line is I think especially through that property and I think if there was someone sitting in front of us here that said we can’t develop unless we have this 3 acres I would personally be inclined to say yeah. Let’s do it. That’s not the question in front of us today. I get that but to me the question’s less about really right or wrong and you know error or anything that’s been made. You know the question is, is there enough doubt in how that line could be drawn in order to support you know moving it one way or the other. Because I think honestly we could put that line, I feel like it could be placed in several different places that would make perfect sense to me through that property. So just kind of throwing out some ideas and some thoughts about where my head’s at. You know this is such important property I think for the City based on where it’s located off of 212 there. It requires our real you know sincere consideration at this time. Commissioner Reeder, it looks like you might be wanting to say something. Please jump in. Reeder: If I can figure out how to talk in here. Weick: Yep. Reeder: My request is to hear staff talk about their concerns in moving this line. I understand the original engineering study suggested it should be where it is but I’d like to hear staff comment about the, their concerns about moving this line. Generous: I’ll take a shot at it. The concern is establishing precedence in not following the city ordinance. This boundary came about from a study that was years in the making. It was then implemented through a public hearing process where we established these lines and the criteria for us to revise a line. We want to have, give people the idea that if you can provide sufficient data or information to say that well it should be shifted then that would be one thing but in this case as our current water resources person said there wasn’t sufficient information provided to create support for changing the boundary. Aanenson: I’d just like to add one other thing if I may. So the question came up you know regarding I think the Chairman brought it up regarding when a project comes forward. It’s always easier when a project’s going forward so let’s step back and look at the overlay district and how it was put in place. When we adopted the overlay district it was contemplated that we would buy all the right-of-way in the overlay district. Some of it was inside the urban service area. Some was out so there’s a price difference so at that time when the ordinance was put in place it was determined that as each project came through we would verify that if someone wanted to do earlier like Mr. Erhart wanted to he has the right to pursue that action to say I don’t Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 46 think the boundary is correct. So as we’ve applied it as each project comes in. We get more refined data so there’s a definition of flora and fauna. It’s the different types of vegetation that have unique characteristics whether in a wooded area, a wet areas so all the scientific things. It’s not just the planners. We have a lot of technical people that would look at that. We walked Mr. Erhart’s property a number of times and he has been a good steward of that property. I don’t want to dismiss that at all but what we’ve always done is apply typically with a project going forward so when you look at Avienda on this project. Maybe we didn’t preserve but what we have done and preserved that is there’s value to when something is in the overlay district so I don’t want to take Mr. Erhart’s ability to have value to that property but as were shown in the slides earlier there’s other residential projects, some of those were given different lot size configurations so but given the property for the overlay district they were able to have RLM zoning district which is a zoning district that says if you contribute a significant amount of upland area then you get credit for that. So in this circumstance let’s say they came in with an apartment building or this project came in as an office building and they could use that green space in the upland area for that preserve area for the green space so it would still have some value. Just like Avienda where we preserved the 15-17 acres of green space or wooded area, they get credit for that through their green space which allows them to intensify the area that’s not in there. If that makes sense. So the value is that there again. Now not always can you recapture that value. Sometimes it’s more difficult if you’re looking at an industrial zone. Typically those buildings have a certain footprint. They all go taller and an office building could go taller. Apartment building could go taller so that’s kind of how we’ve worked it out. So I’m not saying it’s not appropriate to have discussion now but it’s just a little easier when you have a project in front of you just to kind of you know to say well who’s giving and taking and that sort of thing so yes, this is a prime piece of property and with the visibility. Would it be more value to the owner with additional property in there? Not disagreeing with that. Reeder: So Mr. Chairman maybe a question goes to Mr. Erhart, what’s the concern about what I’m hearing from staff is that when you come in with a project this is something, switching some of the land could be considered. Why can’t we go that way? Tim Erhart: That means deferring the question until development. And again I think it’s important to be able to convey to potential investors exactly the amount of land area that they have to work with. Otherwise it’s a guessing game and as Mr. Blake stated you know if it doesn’t meet their criteria of 13, 14 acres they’re going to move onto the next spot. There just isn’t enough time in today’s world to play the games. Well maybe it’s 9. Maybe it’s 13. In our view this 3 acres is, is readily developable. Generally flat except for the hill in the middle and moving this line, I didn’t mention it but really have zero negative impact on what we’re trying to accomplish with that whole nature area and that 360 acre block. Did that answer your question? Skistad: Yeah I have a comment. Weick: Commissioner Reeder, did that answer your question? I think it was his question wasn’t it? Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 47 Generous: Yeah. Weick: Yeah okay. Well let’s assume it did. I think it did. I think we’re clear. Commissioner Skistad. Wait. Yes Commissioner Reeder. Reeder: As soon as I learn how to work this thing I’ll answer your questions. Weick: You’re fine. You’re fine. Reeder: I think it does. I’m still thinking that while discussion I think needs to take place sometime that we’re without a proposal I think it’s difficult to determine at this time that we should change the boundary so it seems to me that it’s premature. Weick: Understood, thank you. Commissioner Skistad. Skistad: I think what was interesting to me when I was looking at the presentation was which direction the water flowed and it looks like it flows from that little parcel to Powers, is that right? So I think what, so to me when I was looking at his presentation he’s looking here’s the part that flows into Powers versus the part that flows the other direction which would be the watershed area so that to me that was, you know when I looked it how I would differentiate that and how I would say well it’s already flowing into the road then I have a hard time seeing that the impact because it’s already going that direction. Weick: So you think that line makes sense? Skistad: It makes sense to me when I look at, once I finally orientated it correctly which I had to do using my phone and an aerial view so, I mean that really helped me see the direction and how it made sense where the preserve is. I think it’s north of there basically northeast or northwest. Or is it northeast? Northeast yeah, northeast of that location so I mean I think that he made a case for it for me as far as the way the direction of the water flow. Weick: Okay. That is helpful as well. Yes Commissioner Randall. Randall: I think we’re really kind of splitting hairs here on this. I agree though too. I thought he made a good case for where that line should be. I get it. It’s kind of a fluid line a little bit but I almost feel like we’re almost not the committee to decide this almost you know. I feel like it’s more technical than what was presented to us almost. I’d kind of like to hear a third party on it that’s more neutral I guess. That would just be kind of my thought on it but I kind, I feel like he made a very good presentation on where the line should be. Also after looking at it. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 48 Weick: I would say though I think the third party is WSB who suggested the line basically not move. I mean right there, they’re a third party consultant that. I mean I’m not trying to sway you any way. I’m just stating what happened. Von Oven: On that note could we, could we get another look at the WSB chart? I was going to ask a question about that. Yeah and it’s there. Man I don’t know how to do this. You’re opening my eyes a little bit earlier when you in some sense reminded me or brought up the fact that we’re talking about 3 acres here. So can you point out for me on this chart which 3 acres? Maybe just, maybe in a circle. If you can outline the 3 acres. Generous: It includes this open area which Tim refers to as the hay field. Von Oven: The hay field which is in the middle of all the red tornado. Generous: Yes that’s the steep slopes. Von Oven: Yes the steep slopes going down towards the southeast which is, that’s a lake there and then, and then north. Generous: It splits about here. This blue line would be the top of that ridge and so this goes into that wetland complex that Tim created and this one goes to Bluff Creek. Von Oven: Got it. Okay. And so the WSB recommendation, the green part was A, this is currently part of Bluff Creek primary zone and shouldn’t be because this water is running off into a different body of water. And then the blue one down there was hay but if we’re going to giveth and taketh away right, that kind of thing right? Generous: That’s correct. Von Oven: Okay. Can, I know I’m asking weird questions here but if I’m in the middle of that green section there on the line as they’ve drawn it, yeah so from where your pointer is down to that line about how far would you say that is? Generous: Tim? Von Oven: I know it’s a weird question. Generous: Yeah from the field to the top of the ridge. Tim Erhart: From the edge of the field or the middle of the field? Middle of the field? Generous: Yeah. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 49 Tim Erhart: Yeah I was just going to say 300 feet. Dan says 100 yards. Generous: They estimate about 300 feet. Von Oven: 300 feet, okay. And with the data that we have would you say that 300 feet is within the margin of error? You don’t have to answer it because I think you’d be speculating but since we’re just sort of giving positions here. I on one hand I look at this and I say alright, there’s the applicant did not provide sufficient data as to why and so therefore it is denied. On the other hand I look at and go well, you know I was reminded that we’re really talking about 3 acres here. Now on one hand 3 acres is a big deal when you’re trying to attract developers. I get that and I appreciate that. On the other hand if we’re talking about moving a line 300 feet here, and again I’m not an expert here but I could vote consciously in favor of moving this line given the fact that it probably is within the margin of error given the data that is available and so you know I’m also on the side of Mark that I’m not so sure we’re the right committee but I think it’s, we have to. Here we are. Tim Erhart: Can I comment Bob? Weick: Please. I would say yes. Tim Erhart: I just want to point out the line only moves to the beginning of that red steep area there. It doesn’t move to the top of the ridge. It moves to the bottom of the ridge so it’s not really, I would estimate that to be half that, half of that 300 feet so maybe the whole width of that. Well if it’s 2 acres the whole width of that’s probably, probably 300 feet so then half of it. From the center to where the proposed line would be would be 150 feet. Does that seem right? Yeah. Von Oven: Thank you. Weick: Okay great dialogue. We are and again I’m as I said before I’m not trying to cut anybody off. I just will remind you that we are at a point where we would, or can consider a motion. And you may word that motion as you wish. This is a version that would confirm that the current line as determined by staff is correct. You’re certainly welcomed to word a motion as you wish. You also I do not want to cut off the conversation at all if there is more comment or question. Now is a great time to talk through that with your fellow commissioners. Von Oven: What is the logical next step if this commission does not affirm this boundary determination? Generous: If you come to a majority decision, 75 percent decision that the line should be adjusted then it gets adjusted. Aanenson: Or if you deny it they could, the applicant could appeal it. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 50 Generous: Right. Or if it doesn’t, if it’s not a super majority then it automatically goes to City Council. Von Oven: Got it. So by not affirming it gets adjusted as the applicant has requested. By affirming with a majority vote but not a super majority it goes to City Council and by affirming with a super majority it’s done to move the line. Generous: But the applicant could appeal that. Von Oven: Got it. I see. Weick: And either, this is a question. Either motion if we vote that the line should be moved that has to be approved by 75 percent or more. Or else it would also go to the City Council so it’s not, either way we vote it has to be a 75 percent or greater majority for it not to go to City Council. Does that make sense? Von Oven: Got it. Yeah. Weick: Okay. Where or where should the line be drawn? Randall: I’ll make a motion. Weick: Here we go. Randall: The Chanhassen Planning Commission acting as a Board of Appeals and Adjustments affirms the staff delineation of the Bluff Creek primary zone boundary and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision. Weick: Thank you Commissioner Randall. We have a valid motion. Do we have a second? Reeder: I will second that. Weick: We have a second from Commissioner Reeder. At this time I give opportunity for comment on the item. And hearing none we will vote on the motion as presented. Again it will be a roll call vote. Randall moved, Reeder seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission acting as a Board of Appeals and Adjustments affirms the staff delineation of the Bluff Creek primary zone boundary and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision. Commissioners Weick and Reeder voted in favor; Commissioners Von Oven, Skistad and Randall voted in opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 3. Commissioner McGonagill was recused from the vote. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 51 Weick: The motion does not pass at a 3 to 2 which is not a 75 percent. Well it didn’t pass anyway so. Aanenson: It will go to City Council. Weick: Okay, the motion was to affirm the current delineation. It did not pass. Generous: It failed. Aanenson: It fails, yep. So that will go to the City Council that recommendation. Weick: And no appeal is required? Aanenson: Well yeah because it didn’t make the super majority. Generous: Yeah it’s not a 75 percent… Weick: So it automatically will go to City Council. Aanenson: Yeah and we have it scheduled for the 14th of September. Generous: September 14th is the date it would be at City Council. Weick: Okay. I’m sorry I have trouble. Aanenson: That’s alright. Weick: Even when I say it so clearly at the beginning it’s, when it actually happens I get very confused. So okay thank you. I’ll just reiterate it was 3 opposed, 2 passing that motion. Aanenson: So let’s be clear. The motion kind of failed because the motion was to affirm it so 3 people didn’t affirm it and 2 did so that’s how it will be presented to the City Council. Weick: Correct. Tim Erhart: Do we want to get a survey on whether we want to dual guide this or? Aanenson: That wasn’t on the, that wasn’t on the agenda so that’s a land use zoning so. Weick: Sorry folks, we’re just having a couple side conversations. Some clarifications. But it stands as we voted and will go to City Council on September 14th. Thank you again to everybody. City as well as Mr. Erhart. Appreciate it. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 52 Commissioner McGonagill rejoined the meeting at this point in the discussion. McGonagill: Mr. Chairman this is Commissioner McGonagill, I’m back with. Weick: Welcome back. Did you listen? McGonagill: Yes absolutely. Weick: Alright, I don’t want to hear. I just wondered if you listened. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Skistad noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated July 7, 2020 as presented. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Weick: And Kate? Aanenson: Yes I have a couple administrative presentations. Weick: Thank you. Aanenson: First I’ll give you the council update. So let’s see your last meeting was on July 7th so I’ve got a few things here. The revised preliminary plat for Avienda was approved. They approved the request for variance for construction of the water orientated structure. I think that was one that, was that appealed? Generous: Yes that was appealed. Aanenson: Yeah that was appealed. The water orientated structure on the outlot on White Oak Lane. That was the one that I think there was some ambiguity on the motion there. Then on the 27th they approved the development contract for Boylan Shores. That was a metes and bounds. Again metes and bounds subdivisions go strictly to the, straight to the City Council. If there’s just the two lot and they meet the frontage requirements so that was approved. And then they approved the amendment to the Chaparral PUD and then they also approved the Hemp Acres and I hope people have gotten the opportunity to read in the Chan Villager the nice article. It was a good article so pretty excited about that. Working on getting their building permit so that’s the update from the council. And I just want to share with you a couple things that are coming up on our agenda. We only have 4 more meetings before the end of the year because we do not meet on election day so we do have items. Your next meeting will then be September 1st and the 15th so there’s a couple variances on for the September 1st meeting. And then excuse me. Generous: Code amendments. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 53 Aanenson: It’s code amendments, yes. Code amendments. And then on the 15th we have a couple variances so, and we do anticipate there’s a couple projects that are floating out there. Just for concept to just kind of, we do have the opportunity instead of doing a full hearing just kind of see what you’re feeling about it first before we get, before the developer makes too much of a commitment on that so there’s two actual. One’s going to get your feedback on it. The other one’s going to go for a PUD and just submit the full application so we’ll see where that goes. So we do have meetings except for the 3rd all the way through December 1st. We only have one meeting in December so four more meetings so again appreciate you letting us know if you’re unavailable so we make sure we get a quorum. McGonagill: Kate I will not be, this is Commissioner McGonagill. I will not be here on the 15th. Aanenson: Thank you for the heads up. And that is all I had Chairman. Weick: Thank you Kate. Any presentations from the commissioners this evening? I will say that regarding Hemp Acres my mother read the article and was disappointed that I was so in favor of selling pot. Yeah. Yeah, my mom thinks that I’m all in favor of selling pot now so that’s on the record but yeah. Aanenson: Share the article with her though. Weick: I know it’s, you know. Maybe a generational thing and I don’t know. Anyway I tried to explain it to her and it was, it only made it worst. McGonagill: Just say yes mom. Weick: Exactly right. Anytime you try to explain something like that to your parents it never gets better but anyway thanks again to everybody this evening. Aanenson: Yeah I want to say that too. These are two very complex things. We don’t often see appeals. We saw two in one night on very complex issues but that is a process, or one of your functions so I appreciate everybody sticking with it and coming to a conclusion on something very complex. Weick: Yeah, yeah I appreciate all the input and really the sincere consideration is crucial to what we do so thank you. Reeder: Mr. Chair? Weick: Yeah go ahead. Chanhassen Planning Commission – August 18, 2020 54 Reeder: Well I will not be here on the 15th either. Commissioner Reeder. Weick: Got it. Aanenson: Okay so we’ve got 2 gone. No one else can. Weick: Now it’s starting to get a little dicey. Von Oven: When we’re down to, when we’re down to the skeleton crew does that mean that we meet physically? What is it, it’s a real question actually. What is our protocol going forward for these meetings? Aanenson: They’re still going to stay on Zoom for a while. Because the, when we have 7 in here we can’t socially distance and if we did do that it’d be hard to get the microphones moved around and then it limits the capacity of people coming into the meeting. So can 3 people be here? Sure. I think we try to limit staff. That first item was pretty complex so the City Engineer was also here so we’re just kind of looking at it month by month. But I think if you’re going to come in let us know. We’re okay with less than 2 great but many more want to come in fine otherwise we’ll just stay on Zoom for a while. Again I always want to make sure people feel comfortable coming in too so we’re all here then it’s harder to, it works pretty well. We’ve been using the senior center so people, kind of put people in the on deck circle in there so then when their item’s up and the council does the same thing, they just invite them in so they can see the meeting during that process too. Did that answer your question? Von Oven: Yeah it sounds like a sign up in advance. Aanenson: There you go. Weick: Great. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Randall moved, Von Oven seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 10:25 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING SUMMARY MINUTES AUGUST 18, 2020 Chairman Weick called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Steven Weick, Mark Randall, Michael McGonagill, Doug Reeder, Laura Skistad, and Mark Von Oven MEMBERS ABSENT: Eric Noyes STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Charlie Howley, City Engineer/Public Works Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; MacKenzie Walters, Associate Planner; and Steve Ferraro, Engineer Technician PUBLIC PRESENT: Mark W. Kelly 2925 Stone Creek Drive, #120 Joan and Larry Synstelien 6893 Highover Drive Tim Block 6903 Highover Drive Melissa and David Wargin 2443 Highover Trail PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER AN APPEAL OF THE CITY’S DENIAL OF AN ENCROACHMENT AGREEMENT FOR RETAINING WALLS AND VARIANCES FROM THE CITY’S PROHIBITION OF LOCATING STRUCTURES WITHIN DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS LOCATED AT 6893 HIGHOVER DRIVE. Bob Generous and Steve Ferraro presented the staff report on this item. Commissioner McGonagill asked for clarification of the timeline from 2016 to present. Commissioner Randall asked if there was any damage done to neighboring properties. Commissioner Skistad asked about the function of the French drain moving water towards the street. Mark W. Kelly, the attorney representing the applicants, discussed the warrants of their case. The applicant Joan Synstelien provided her personal story on living in this neighborhood and the projects that have occurred. Commission members asked Larry Synstelien for clarification on the timeline of interaction with the City from 2016 to present. Chairman Weick opened the public hearing. Melissa Wargin, the neighbor to the east, explained the flooding that has occurred on their property which has gotten worst since the Synstelien’s started construction. Tim Block, a physic teacher at Chanhassen High School, showed pictures of water pooling on his property during heavy rain events. Chairman Weick closed the public hearing. After discussion amongst commission members the following motion was made. Planning Commission Summary – August 18, 2020 2 McGonagill moved, Von Oven seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments affirms the City Engineer Howley’s partial denial of the Encroachment Agreement and denies that the variance request to allow the retaining walls to be located within the drainage and utility easement and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Decision. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER AN APPEAL OF THE BLUFF CREEK OVERLAY DISTRICT COUNDARY DETERMINATION MADE BY A CITY ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF HIGHWAY 212 AND POWERS BOULEVARD. Commissioner McGonagill recused himself from this item due to having a personal relationship with the applicants. Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. The applicant Tim Erhart presented information on his case to take 3 acres out of the Bluff Creek primary zone. Dan Blake with Pemtom Land Company provided historical background on the property and potential development options. After clarifying questions for the applicant Chairman Weick opened the public hearing. No one spoke and the public hearing was closed. After comments from commission members the following motion was made. Randall moved, Reeder seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission acting as a Board of Appeals and Adjustments affirms the staff delineation of the Bluff Creek primary zone boundary and adopts the Findings of Fact and Decision. Commissioners Weick and Reeder voted in favor; Commissioners Von Oven, Skistad and Randall voted in opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 3. Commissioner McGonagill was recused from the vote. Commissioner McGonagill rejoined the meeting at this point in the discussion. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Skistad noted the verbatim and summary Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated July 7, 2020 as presented. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Kate Aanenson provided the City Council action update from their July 13th and July 27th meetings and discussed items on future Planning Commission agendas. Randall moved, Von Oven seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 10:25 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT Tuesday, September 1, 2020 Subject City Council Action Update Section ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS Item No: E.1. Prepared By Jean Steckling, Senior Admin. Support Specialist File No: ATTACHMENTS: City Council Action Update City Council Action Update MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2020 Powers Ridge Senior Housing Discussion (WS) Potential Code Amendments Discussion (WS) Minutes for these meetings can be viewed and downloaded from the city’s website at www.ci.chanhassen.mn.us, and click on “Agendas and Minutes” from the left-side links. g:\plan\forms\development forms\city council action update.docx PLANNING COMMISSION STAFF REPORT Tuesday, September 1, 2020 Subject Article Section CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION Item No: F.1. Prepared By Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director File No: BACKGROUND Attached is a recent article published by the Star Tribune regarding visiting a private property that may be of interest to the Planning Commission. ATTACHMENTS: Article http: //e. startribune.com/Olive/ODN/StarTribune/PrintArticle. as North Oaks council member rebuked Mayor says Kara Ries should have followed protocol before visiting a private development site in the city. By SIIANNON P RATH ER s h u n n on. p ruthe{i stortribu,r e.corl The North Oaks City Council has taken a vote of no confidence against one of its members, who was accused of improperly visiting a private development site with a hydrologist without the owner's permission or the knowledge of other city officials. The developer, North Oaks Co., lodged a complaint with the city alleging that the unauthorized visit in June by Council Member Kara Ries violated its due-process rights. The company had a development application pending with the city that has since been approved. At a contentious meeting this month, the council took a no-confidence vote of 3-l against Ries, with Ries herself dissenting and Council Mernber Sara Shah abstaining. Ries, who has expressed skepticism about the development, had an attomey speak in her defense at the meeting who vigorously denied any wrongdoing. Mayor Gregg Nelson said Ries should have followed protocol by disclosing her desire to consult an outside expert at a public council meeting and then getting permission from the developer to visit the property. "It's bad behavior. She didn't follow City Council processes," said Nelson during a testy exchange with Ries. Nelson and other council members also raised concems that the hydrologist Ries consulted was related to a North Oaks resident. Ries countered that she was simply doing research before a critical vote that would shape the future ofthe city. "You are demotivating people from asking good, hard questions," Ries said at one point. The North Oaks Co. plans to build 174 luxury houses, twin homes and condos under a 1999 agreement, essentially building out the wealthy northern Ramsey County city known for its open space and privacy. A three-member majority on the City Council has supported the build-out, noting that the developer set aside 900 acres ofopen space as part of the agreement. But Ries has expressed concem about the validity of the agreement and the plans, saying it gives the developer "carte blanche" to develop North Oaks' rernaining acreage. Although the North Oaks Co. began in the 1990s, its lineage can be traced to rail magnate James J. Hill, who in the 1880s purchased 5,500 acres in what is now North Oaks and tumed it into a farm. His grandson, Louis Hill Jr., eventually inherited the farm and began to develop homes in the 1950s for what was described as a model community that respected the environment. Lots were spacious, often between I and 2 acres, and the roads were private. They still are; uninvited visitors who drive through I of 2 8124/2020,9:38 AM Nonh Oaks council member rebuked - Star Tribune, 82312020 North Oaks council member rebuked - Star Tribune, 823/2020 North Oaks may be issued a trespassing citation. hnp : //e.startribune.cor/Olive/ODN/StarTribune/PrintArticle.as.. After Louis Hill died in 1995, his daughter Mari Hill Harpur and her husban( Doug, started North Oaks Co. Concemed about environmental sustainability, they brought in a renowned landscape planner who created large conservation areas for the community's use. New homes were built on smaller lots about the edges of the city, which has somewhat altered its look and feel. Shannon Prather . 651 -925-5037 2of2 8124/2020,9:38 AJvl