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01-05-21-pc - Verbatim OnlyCHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 5, 2021 Chairman Weick called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Steven Weick, Mark Randall, Laura Skistad, Eric Noyes, and Mark Von Oven, Michael McGonagill MEMBERS ABSENT: Doug Reeder STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; MacKenzie Young- Walters, Associate Planner; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Erik Henricksen, Project Engineer, Matt Unmacht, Water Resources Coordinator, Matt Kerr, IT Support Specialist; Alison Vance, Admin. Support Specialist PUBLIC PRESENT: Todd Simning TPS Holdings, LLC, 2160 Paisley Path, Excelsior, MN and 350 Hwy. 7, Suite 218, Excelsior, MN Kathleen Jorfee (spelling??) 1341 Powers Ridge, Chanhassen Brian & Keri Colvin 825 Flying Cloud Drive, Chaska, MN Tim Erhart Black Cherry Dev., LLC, 14500 Martin Dr., Ste. 3000, Eden Prairie, MN Dan Blake Black Cherry Dev., LLC, 14500 Martin Dr., Ste. 3000, Eden Prairie, MN Ethan Kindseth Alma Homes, LLC, 2500 Shadywood Rd., Ste. 750, Orono, MN Weick: Good evening, everybody, calling to order tonight’s Planning Commission meeting. Tonight is Tuesday, January 5, 2021 and happy new year to everyone here and my fellow Commissioners and anyone listening. May this be bountiful and pleasant of a new year. I will conduct a quick roll call just to make sure who’s here to vote evening. So when I say your name, just say here for me to I know you are present. Commissioner Randall? Randall: Present. Weick: Gotcha. Commissioner Reeder? Reeder: [No answer] Weick: I will skip Commissioner Reeder for a minute. Commissioner McGonagill? McGonagill: Present. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 2 Weick: OK great. Commissioner Skistad? Skistad: Present. Weick: Hello, good evening. Commissioner Noyes? Noyes: Here. Weick: Gotcha. And Commissioner Von Oven? Von Oven: Here. Weick: All right. I’ll try Commissioner Reeder? Reeder: [No answer] Weick: If he is able to join later, we will certainly welcome him in. We do have a quorum this evening with six of the Planning Commission members. We do have a busy agenda this evening. We have five public hearings on tonight’s agenda. We will present them as we normally do although this is a Zoom meeting again I would implore my fellow Commissioners please don’t test each other or hold private chats on the side through the Zoom application. Everything we talk about needs to be public for the record. Thanks for that. Again we have five items on the agenda tonight. Staff will present the item and Commission members will have an opportunity to ask questions. At that time the applicant may make a presentation if they would like and also is available for questions from the Commission members. After that we will open the public hearing. Because we are electronic, electronically meeting, we will summarize any email we’ve received on the item; we will take in person comment as appropriate here is the Chambers, and we have a telephone number for phone calls if you would like to call in and get your opinion on the record. Once we’ve appropriately heard from everybody, through the different medium, we will close the public hearing it will be open for Planning Commission comments, open for a motion and we will take a roll call vote at that time. As I did mention, we do have several items on the agenda tonight. I hope we don’t have to, I hope we can move real quickly but we do have a 10:30 p.m. curfew. I would imagine will not have to enforce that this evening but keep that in minds as we discuss and move to vote on some of these items. We do want to keep the process moving this evening. With that I will introduce the first item on the agenda. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR A SITE PLAN REVIEW AND VARIANCE FOR A 110- UNIT APARTMENT BUILDING FOR SENIOR LIVING LOCATED AT 1361 LAKE DRIVE WEST (POWERS RIDGE APARTMENTS) Generous: Thank you Chairman. Commissioners, I’ll go through the powerpoint. Planning Case 2021-04 is Lake Place at Powers Ridge. Tonight is a public hearing. This item goes forward to Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 3 City Council on January 25, 2021. The applicant is TPS Holding LLC. As stated they are requesting a site plan approval with variance for the building height for 110-unit, three-story independent living senior residential development. The property is located at 1361 Lake Drive West; it’s part of the Powers Ridge development. It’s zoned Planned Unit Development Residential. The Lake Susan Hills Planned Unit Development was approved in 1987. As part of the development, it was a mixed housing project; it included 411 single-family homes, approximately 100 townhouse units and up to 375 multi-family units within this multi-family area. It’s approximately 21 acres total in the multi-family portion of the development. The Lake Susan Hills multi-family development came in in two parts. Phase 1 was Building A and it consisted of 100 units. Phases 2-4 had a total of 244 units that were approved. The first building was completed in 2000. The second building, the B Building, was completed in 2003. The D Building was constructed in 2016 and 2017 and was completed and now finally, the fourth Building C is coming in. Originally it had been approved as part of the site plan for 88 units. The applicant has revised that plan and that’s why we have a new site plan review and they’re coming in with 110 units. It’s still a three-story building with underground parking, however, it’s an independent senior living building so there are some different standards required for parking that will need to reduce the total amount of site coverage. Ah, the site plan, the currently building again is a three-story apartment with underground parking. 110 parking stalls are provided underneath. It has additional surface parking that provides the one for, the one stall per four units for visitor parking and it provides parking on the east end for, there’s a community building that’s part of the entire association and development. Architecturally, the building has significant architectural variation. It has multiple plains and multiple building materials. It includes masonry, and either they haven’t finalized the number for either block or a brick finish or a cultured stone. If we could go to the overhead picture the materials sample board is on, it also has horizontal lap siding fiber cement which is very consistent throughout, there we are, developments within Chanhassen. It also has vertical board and batten in a white artic white color that provides some lightness. It has gray asphalt shingles on the roof. It has a standing seamed metal canopy over the entranceway and it has either and they’re waiting for final pricing on either a bronze or a white window finish, framing so they provided us both those architectural drawings so that we can see what each looks like. Again the final pricing will determine what the final elevation is. Again, you see the articulation on the north side, north and west side of the buildings. Most but not all of the units have either decks or patio areas of them. The building itself has an outdoor patio on the west end as well as one on the northeast corner of the property. Floor plans again. 110 parking units are in the underground parking area. Each floor has a mix of one, two, one, one with a den, two and two with a den units on them. The entrance area is a canopy or is a common area. There’s also an outdoor deck which leads down to a lower patio area that includes a pickle ball court for residents of the development. The second and third floors again repeat the layout of the individual units, a concourse and an elevator system. The third floor has additionally has common area, a community area. They are providing an alternative where a portion of this common area would be a recessed roof-type deck area where people could go out and get some fresh air. Again, they’re waiting on final pricing to determine whether that’ll go forward. Erik will review the utilities and grand and stormwater operations. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 4 Henricksen: Thanks, Bob. Just checking here. Everybody hear me ok? [Sounds in background acknowledging]. So I will be going over some of the stormwater, grading and drainage on this slide and then continue on to the utilities and access to the site. The applicant for stormwater is proposing the use of two stormwater BMPs. One on the northwest portion of the site is an at- grade filtration basin and the one on the southeast side is an underground filtration basin to treat the stormwater. The information provided in their stormwater management report does indicate that the approach is feasible and they are going to be meeting total suspended solids and total phosphorus reductions along with volume and rate controls. However, these storm systems as you can see through the red arrows do discharge into the public systems. There’s a public stormwater system to the north that they’re proposing to tie into off of Lake Drive West which connects to a stormwater pond that the city owns and maintains and to the south they’ll also be discharging their stormwater into a public system, another pond to the south. As such, we are requesting that the applicant through the condition analyze and ensure, confirm essentially that the volumes can be handled and accounted for within the public storm system. There’s not too much concern about that from staff however, you know, we do want to see that taken into account in their modeling to ensure that those systems are sized appropriately. Additionally on some of the grading plans and the stormwater plans we would and we will be requiring on the updated final construction plan submittal some drainage arrows and emergency overflow routes. There is a low point at the southeast area of the site that’s adjacent to the current clubhouse. With low points, yep right there, there’s going to be emergency overflow routes and we just want to ensure that the stormwater won’t be directed towards that clubhouse so plans will have to be updated accordingly and will be reviewed on the final construction plans. Utilities, there’s nothing too exciting about utilities on this site. It is adequately served by public sanitary and water main. The applicant is looking to tap into these mains although there are existing stubs and apparently it doesn’t fit into their site plan so they will be abandoning those per city standards and then tapping the two new mains, or the two new laterals, excuse me. The water is begin proposed as an eight inch. It’s going to be a dual domestic and a fire main to the apartment complex. Sanitary sewer is going to be eight inches as well. There just going to core drill into an existing manhole which is actually already located on the property. The only extraordinary kind of condition, even if extraordinary, is that the monument sign that they’re proposing, the location, is actually right on top of one of our sanitary mains so we will require that to be located outside of the drainage and utility easement, a D&U a size for appropriate spacing for maintenance and possible reconstruction of the line if that’s ever to occur. That’s really the only condition. They will have to get an encroachment agreement if they do kind of go into the…. Access to the site, this site as Bob had kind of mentioned has been built out over several phases of the PUD. During 2000, the site access one through four were built out to access the site based on previous site plans. The applicant has elected to eliminate access one but still utilize two, three and four. Access two and four are utilized to get to the above-ground parking and also the main entrance to the apartment complex while access three is going to be for the underground parking. Staff did review and we did receive public comment that when, if you imagine using access three to go in and out of the parking, when you’re exiting the parking ramp is going to require users to kind of look over their shoulder and to the left down that serpentine street to ensure there’s no cars oncoming. So, one of the thoughts was if it was relocated to the east side, Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 5 or the west side rather than the east side, maybe that would help but essentially the layout of the access or this private drive would the same affect where vehicular users would still have to look over their left shoulder so staff recommended in the report to have the developer just reassess kind of their site circulation; take a look at possible alternatives to locations of maybe underground parking. While not required at this time, it’s something that they should take into account just to try to make the site….. It was already built out as such so their kind of just using what’s there but it can hurt to take another look at that. Lastly, pedestrian access on the site. So as you can see there are throughout the phases and the buildout of this PUD, there have been concrete sidewalks being installed which Bob was kind of showing there; the existing ones are kind of gray. There are some gaps that will be created so the applicant will be required to kind of fill those pedestrian access routes for circulation within the site. Additionally, there an existing trail to the west of the development that was extended from Phase, I believe, 1 and the applicant will be required or the developer to extend the public trail system just to continue that route, eventually getting all the way over to Sunrise Park, I believe is the name, just east. And with that, Bob, I can turn it back over to you. Generous: Staff review of the landscaping plans show that there was some deficiencies in their plan. There are deficits in the boulevard plantings that are required as part of any development and that’s one of the conditions of approval. There’s a deficit in the parking lot landscaping. They need to add additional trees and they want to change their species diversity as part of the tree inventory so that they meet city standards so we don’t have too many of one genial. Finally, we also recommend that additional landscaping be provided along this easterly access to provide some screening for the lower, first level units on that side of the building so they can revise that as part of their building permit process. As part of the application, the applicant is requesting a variance for the building height. Our ordinance defines building height as the height from grade to the midpoint of the roof and as they showed on their architectural plan, they are about 42 feet in height. The R12 zoning district limits height to 35 feet so they are requesting a variance. The primary reasons we believe that they meet all the criteria in the variance operations and specifically they are looking at their…they will be in harmony….consistent with the comp plan, they’re providing a multi-family development on a multi-family guided site and zoned appropriately. The practical difficulties are they’re trying to build to current design standards, building standards. They’re going with 10- and nine-foot ceiling heights and they’re using a foot-and-a half mechanical joists between floors so they can run all of the mechanical equipment within that. Additionally, because of the steepness of the slope, they’ve made the roof height taller to that it sheds the snow in the winter. Staff is recommending approval the variance. As part of this project, the city is looking at requiring that they provide affording senior housing for the community. Kate will address that briefly. Aanenson: I just wanted to let you know that you will see this project back if it goes forward, is approved by you and for the City Council and that would be via a tax increment financing district. The City Council started discussing this with the applicant last summer, in July and through August and September, just to talk about the potential for a senior affordable project. As you know, in the comprehensive plan, we did identify that affordable senior housing is in need in Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 6 the city of Chanhassen. The other project on this site was built for seniors but there’s not an affordability component. So in order to make that happen, the Council is contemplating doing a tax increment district so this will come back to you as part of the process but I just wanted to briefly inform you kind of, of the process. It’s kind of truncated in a couple different components. Our financial consultants…once this goes through the City Council, they will have to set a public hearing, there’s a 30-day comment period the school district, everybody gets to weigh in on this but it will come back to you because you will have to say that the zoning of this this property is consistent with the comprehensive plan. You don’t get to weight in to the financial component but you will see this again. So I just wanted to let the Planning Commission be aware of that. Again, as Bob stated, there is a requirement that the Council set a TIF district of 50% of the units have to be affordable at the 60% median income. So that was a proposal that was presented but they’ll go through that whole process, the Council will, and then again you’ll have another opportunity to weigh in on the consistence to the comprehensive plan. So just wanted to share that with you. Generous: Finally, staff is recommending approval of the site plan with the variance. We are also requesting to add planning condition no. 6 that the developer shall record cross parking and cross access agreements with the parcels in the Powers Ridge development. Originally, this development had been under one owner and platted together and so the city attorney at the time said that we could record these cross access and cross parking agreements as part of each site plan and so that was one of the items missed as part of my review and so I’m bringing that forward that that be added before we go forward to City Council. With that, I’d be happy to answer any questions. Weick: Wonderful. Thank you. Any Commission members with questions of either Kate or Bob? [Someone is speaking but cannot understand] Weick: Is that Commissioner Von Oven? I can’t quite tell what you’re…pretty muffled. Von Oven: Nope, not me. McGonagill: Commissioner McGonagill. Can you hear me now? Weick: No. McGonagill: Can you hear me now? Weick: Better. McGonagill: OK, very good. We’ll try it this way. Weick: Go for it. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 7 McGonagill: Bob this is a question for the Engineering staff. When I look at the original plan on Page 3, they did show parking going out of…to the building. And when they go to Page 5, and they actually have a site plan, they only have one way in. That fact that is almost an S shape inside of that I am concerned about traffic in the parking area and again not having the….. from the garage on the west end as well. I understand that when you leave on the west end, you have to look over your left shoulder but you’re not crossing traffic, you’re turning into traffic where as if you go out of the east end and go to the left, you’re actually having to cross over traffic. And I ….and I’ve got to go. The original design made a lot more sense to me that this one when there’s only one way out of that long parking garage. There’s my question. Why is that OK? Weick: I’m just going to repeat the question as I understood it. The question is, I think, why not have exits out of, why not have three and four as entrances and exits? Generous: I believe the applicant’s architect and engineer would be better to answer that one, however, as part of the city review, there is no concern expressed by either the fire marshal or the building official with the design itself. Weick: So having only one exit point isn’t an issue? Generous: Right. That’s a vehicle exit. There’s multiple pedestrian exits out of there but the applicant’s engineer or architect would be a resource in answering that. Weick: OK McGonagill: Bob, I appreciate that. My point on that is where they have the exit point, you’re asking senior….to go out the cross traffic at that point and I believe that’s more unsafe that going out the….you follow me? Generous: I believe we haven’t thrown out the prospects of having that 2nd access point into it, as a matter of fact, as part of my initial comments to the architect, I was asking if they were going to access point also. Yes, it would be a better resource. McGonagill: OK Weick: Are there any other questions from the planning commissioners at this point? Skistad: I have a question. Weick: Sure Skistad: If you look on Page 13, under the Grading, the groundwater. It looks like the groundwater is only 10 feet from the bottom of the parking garage. That seems like that’s a concern. And also, sounds like it could change the height of the building if they hit groundwater Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 8 earlier than expect to hit it? Because all of our water in Chanhassen is basically well water so we’ve got to protect that groundwater, so that’s a concern for me. I mean, are we endangering the city wells by building so close, a large apartment building with all the parking down there, even though it says we’re supposed to catch it before it goes down there. You know cars are going to be bringing down material when they park in the garage. Aanenson: Erik Henricksen, do you want to answer that question? Henricksen: Ya, 10 feet for our review would be adequate separate from groundwater to bottom floor elevation of a foundation. City Code as it currently stands is three feet separation. Anything less than three feet would require grade adjustment. Based on our review of the borings, there was one location that had it within two feet. Again, based on those borings and the groundwater sampling, there really wasn’t any concern of those elevations. There are certain subdivisions that go in, for instance, where you have house pads that are within four feet but it’s still allowable by city ordinance. As that is adequate separation from the bottom of the foundation to the groundwater tables. It was addressed in our review and it is conditioned I believe that, if groundwater is, they have to have a geotechnical engineer on site at all times during grading operations and if groundwater is encountered, the grading plan would have to adjusted but it does have to come under review by city staff prior to that being adjusted. Weick: Commissioner Skistad, does that answer your question or do you have a follow up on that? Skistad: Well, I understand what he’s saying but it’s still a concern and I think also if you look at it, what was allowed here via the 2040 plan was only 59 apartments, 59 units and so now we’re going to basically double the units which is part of the reason why I’m assuming the parking garage needs to be the way it is, is for that reason so we’re trying to, I think we’re building too much building too much building for the land as per our 2040 plan and I understand that it’s possible for us to increase but I’m not sure that the land here actually supports that in this instance, despite the fact that we would like to have more senior living. Generous: Commissioner, as part of the site plan that was approved for this, the original approval was for an 88-unit apartment building which is Building C which had more underground parking requirements because it was not a senior building so it had one and a half parking spaces per unit had to be underground so the footprint’s almost exactly the same what was originally approved. They were able to reduce it because they’re going to a senior building and have less parking requirements. Skistad: Well, just because it’s approved doesn’t mean it was a good idea. The other concerns that I have are the, you look at all of the very end, there’s like 40 recommendation points when you go through this one. I think we need to go back and nail some of this down a little bit more specifically. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 9 Weick: And your primary concern is around size relative to groundwater… Skistad: I think it’s the 40 points, you’ve got, you’re doubling the housing for the 2040 maximum density plan, you’ve got 51 additional subsidized housing for taxpayers, you’ve got an additional traffic light, potentially, and if we’re doing a TIF, aren’t we really pay for that traffic light anyway. There’s additional city services needed for the additional building units and there’s no, I don’t see any tax offsetting that and the project won’t pay for itself which is why they want a TIF also would be my expectation. The driveway is an issue and with the letter that we received, there’s the underground lot which potential is too close to the groundwater. There are grading changes that are required. I don’t know, I just feel like there are too many variances for the project when you need three pages if we’re going to do this, we recommended if this. I think that’s too many. Weick: OK. Thank you for sharing those. I think those are all good points. Von Oven: So question for staff. Are we still on that portion of the… Weick: Please. Von Oven: Thanks. Should be an easy one. Is the only variance that we are looking at here the difference between 35 and 42 feet? Is that the entire reason that this issue is in front of us? Generous: That’s the only variance as part of the plan. It’s site plan approval because they’re increasing the number of units on this one site from what was previously approved. Von Oven: Right. The increase of the units which leads to a decrease of the parking spaces because it’s a senior unit. Right? Generous: Correct. Von Oven: Then just out of pure curiosity, I think there’s a potential picture of the front of it on Page 8. I’m that point at the top of the gable is the 42 feet. Can I assume that the rest of the building is lower than 35 feet at the highest point of the roof, to the right? Generous: It’s actually the midpoint of that gable, approximately here that we measure the building height to. So the top will be higher than that. I looked at one number, I think it was 39 feet. Weick: I don’t know if you have report in front of you Commissioner Von Oven, I had the same thought and I was able to kind of expand the picture on Page 6. I’ll just finish my thought. If you kind of look at the visually, you can see that the roofline of the entire building is actually in line with the top of that…you know what I mean? Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 10 Von Oven: Let see. Did you blow up that picture that’s on the right-hand side? Weick: I did. Von Oven: OK got it. Weick: When you do that it actual brings, the whole building actually peaks pretty darn close to the top of that peak. It’s a visual, when you look at it just from the front, it’s a funny visual. Von Oven: Yep. Thank you. Weick: Other questions? Hearing none, I would invite the applicant to talk about the project and do keep in mind we did have one specific regarding the parking 3 and 4 if you are able to answer that question, that would be wonderful. Simning: Yes, I am. Todd Simning, 2166 Paisley Path. Long-time local resident of Chanhassen. Thank you Bob, Erik and Kate for a good introduction on the overall project. First, just want to say that I’m excited to bring this project to the city. I’ve done a lot developments in the city, a lot of market rate, higher end homes. This really is the first time that we’re able to bring a project to Chanhassen that brings an affordable complex to the city. It’s something that I’ve been talking to Kate, the Mayor Elise Ryan, and other staff about for quite some time about what does the city need and how can we actually bring it to the city. This is actually something personal to me. I’ve been building a lot of really nice houses for a long time. This is the first time that we’re actually looking to do something long term to actually help the city. One of the most important things that we want to do for any municipal, any city, and particularly the one you live in, is to try to make certain that you can keep aging residents back into the community so that their not forced to go out west or to areas that their families are at and they’ve been here a long time and it’s one of the reasons why we are bring this project to the city of Chanhassen. One of the Planning Commission members was stating that there are 40 recommendations and this isn’t paying for itself and granted, it’s not. If it was 100% market rate again, yes, it would probably pay for itself but when you’re looking at trying to bring an affordable complex to any development, it’s very difficult to make the numbers work. As Kate knows, and City Councilmembers, we had two or three planning sessions along with working with the city financial consultant, Ahlers, and really analyzed what it was going to cost to do this. Is the city going to recoup their costs? Is it going to cost the city anything, and I think, Kate, you can back me up on that, that it actually wasn’t going to cost the city anything. It was more of what can we do to bring the affordable housing into the city of Chanhassen but almost more importantly, if you look at our structure, you look at the units, you look at the amenities that we have. In most municipalities, people are a little reluctant to have “affordable” come into their neighborhoods because it means that they’re going to have a nice building. It’s going to be downgraded. Well, in this case, when you look at the pickle ball, gardens on the west-hand side, again, somebody has brought up why aren’t you using both of the entrances/exits for the garage. One of the biggest reasons why we’re not using the west entrance, is that we actually wanted to create a garden over there. We want to create an area where the Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 11 elderly can actually have a garden, can actually have a nice area to sit down and enjoy. There will probably be a dog run over in that area. It really sets itself up to be an optimal spot for sunshine, relaxation for those that are in our community. With that, with you look at the east side driveway, number 1, it was already predesigned, so we’re not creating anything new. I actually went out to the site and I would encourage all of you to go to the site and review that. I actually backed up onto our property and set myself up exactly where our driveway where our driveway was going to exit and you’ll notice that, in the staff report, it said you’re going to be looking back to your left and in reality, you’re not going to be looking back to your left. We’re actually sitting at the high point where the road from Lake Drive W. come up, it actually plateaus well before our entrance into our garage, which is straight across from the other one, and you just naturally look to your left and you have a very, very good visible and then secondarily, on your right-hand side, it’s actually coming down and you have another really good visible area. So our intent, and I want to go on the record and I want to Council to also know this, our intent really is not to utilize both exits, particularly the on the west-hand wide because, again, we’re trying to create something that is different in the city of Chanhassen where we’re actually creating garden space for people that actually live there and then, secondly, the area on the east side, again, I’ll encourage you to go there, you are sitting so high up and you’re really at a plateau that you really have good visibility at that area. So, I just really want to make sure that hit that. For me personally, I have a vested interest in this project. I do very high quality projects. I’ve numerous developments in Chanhassen. I think probably at least a dozen or so over the last 34 years. In this case with this senior project, I’m not only going to be the developer but I’m going to be one of four owners. There are five of us that are going to own it long term. We have a vested interest in producing a high quality project similarly to what I have actually created in the city of Chanhassen from my single-family development. I’ve never done a multi-family here. This will be the first one but super excited to actually bring the affordable component into the city of Chanhassen. One thing I wanted to know, and I know Kate had noted that she had thought she thought that 50% of the units were going to be affordable and I’m pretty sure, Kate, according to Ahler’s report it was going to be 45% of the building which would be 50 units. So not 50% but I think it was 50 units and can make certain that we go through that but I just wanted to make certain that I hit that. So, number 1, the relocation of the garage. We are planning on using the east entrance. Secondly, with the trail system, I was going to make a comment that I didn’t think the trail behind our building, along Lake Drive W. was going to be important because our sidewalks are going to interconnect and there are two pedestrian crossings on the east and west side that actually go across the road and connect with the trail system along Lake Drive W. but I heard Erik state that they are planning on actually trying to get this connection all the way down to the local park which is just to the west of us and if that’s the case, then it does make sense that we do construct that trail all the way along the back side and eventually it’s connect with the park system. I don’t know if that’s a city project that’s going to do that or local because it looks like it’s city property from the west there. What else did I have? I think that was pretty much it on my side as a developer. I look at 40 recommendations and I spoke with both of my architects this morning about the architecture and I also spoke with Matt from Civil Site Group today about, “hey is there anything that’s giving you any hesitation that we can’t accomplish what Erik and Bob and staff has kind of recommended that we change” and neither one of them gave me Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 12 any indication that there was anything out of the ordinary, so of the 40 points on there, it might seem onerous that there’s 40 items, but from our standpoint, it didn’t seem like it was, they were all very small very small items for the 40. So, with that I will open it up to any questions. If there’s something technical, I will open it up to either, Even, my architect or, Matt, my civil engineer. Thank you. Weick: Thank you and I appreciate your openness and candor about the project. I think that perspective is helpful. I would open it to my fellow commissioners if you have any follow up questions, directly. You may do so now. Any questions for the applicant? Yes. Well, thank you and thank you for providing that level of detail about the project. At least for myself, that was helpful. So thanks for doing that. At this time I will open the public hearing. The number, 952- 227-1630, if you’d like to be heard. We are watching the phones. Where there any emails sent in on this one? Generous: The one letter that we included as part of the packet with the concern about the entrance to the parking lot. I had several people call. Young-Walters: We have a call… Weick: Let’s do it. Kathleen Jorfee: 1341 Powers Ridge. I just have a question because 110 units and you have 110 parking places, I feel there are…will rent and maybe have two cars. I know the building at 1351, they have very little parking for visitors and if you have a couple with two cars, they’re going to take up the parking lot and you know with snow removal piled up, that takes up space. I don’t know, is this a concern? Weick: Thank you for the question. I think we would have city…[someone speaking in background]…was that your only question? Young-Walters: I believe we have another call and then I believe staff will respond to the question. If you could please state your name for the record. Sherm Bile: Hi my name is Sherm Bile and I live at 1321 Lake Drive W. which is Powers Ridge. We’ll be a neighbor to the new building coming up. A good neighbor I hope and we’re looking forward to it but I wanted to ask or remind the Commission that they have a letter of mine in their packet, or at least they should and it’s regarding the exit to the building on the east side. I’ve heard a lot of flowery talk about that tonight but I would also ask the Commission to come out here and park right where the presenter parked and give us your opinion on how you think that driveway is. It’s a narrow S curved driveway that is quite narrow even now with the snow coming in from the side. It faces the east then coming up, we’re trying to accommodate seniors and I’m a senior, I’m 83 years old, nimble as a catfish but I’m telling you, I pay very close attention when I’m driving out the S curve and that’s literally what it is, it’s an S curve and I Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 13 don’t think we need to challenge our seniors like that going in and out of their home. Now the west end has none of those concerns. It’s very close to Lake Drive W., it’s got a much wider driveway. I paced it off, it’s at least five or six feet wider, it’s much shorter and you turn right and that’s very important for you to remember, exiting the east, you turn left and if you’re a driver, you know what a challenge left turn always are. You’ve got to cross two lanes of traffic, get in the right lane, make sure there’s nothing coming from both directions. That exit on the east end exits directly across from the 1321 building which is needless hassle for seniors coming in and out. So I ask you to just give it your best judgement. Pretend your mom and dad were driving in and out of that day in and day out and ask yourself, which driveway would you rather have them driveway out of, the west end or the east end. I think you commission members for your service. You guys are really good and you deserve to be recognized. Chanhassen has a good bunch of people in their local government and I support you all the way. The planners, the commissioners, the Council and Godspeed to you all. Just read my memo, read my email and assess for yourself. Thank you very much for listening. Bye. Weick: Thank you so much. Can’t see, do we have other calls? Young-Walters: We do not have any other calls. Weick: OK. So we had two calls which is exciting because we haven’t had a call before so I apologize if I got a little flustered. The first question I would prefer if staff would try and speak to what the Code is for the number of parking spaces and I guess I’ll just leave it at that. Generous: The applicant actually exceeds Code requirements. They need to provide 128. That would be the 110 for the units themselves and then 28 for that additional parking. They need a total of 128; they’re providing a total of 155 parking spaces on their property and so that again is part of the reason that we’re doing the cross access and cross parking agreement because, within the entire development, there is some cross connection that are taking place. Additionally, if you look at the driveway on the westerly side of this entire development, it’s all on this lot. So there must be some that must have previously been recorded but we want to make sure that those are in place for perpetuity. Weick: OK Aanenson: I would just add. I think Bob pointed out earlier that there are different parking ratios depending on number of bedrooms. That’s a factor that’s weighed in too, whether it’s senior housing or two or three bedrooms all based on that. Weick: OK. So it exceeds what the Code is. I do understand the caller’s concern with potential visitors and multi-car families, assuming that the Code takes that into consideration when trying to weigh how many spots are required vs. the space that they take up. So that’s helpful at least knowing what the minimum numbers are for that space and certainly the commissioners can form their own opinions on that. And then the second call, and again, we’ve talked about it, but I Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 14 do appreciate the interest of the caller and although we read the emails that come in, it’s always nice to from people in their own voices in their own passion what their opinion is about an item so thank you very much for calling in on that. I think we’ve addressed it, it’s certainly out there for commissioner consideration as we move forward. Are there any other calls that came in while I was babbling, MacKenzie? No, OK. So I will close the public hearing portion of this item and open up for Planning Commission comment, motion, votes, all of the above. Thoughts and considerations regarding this item? McGonagill: Mr. Chairman, can you hear me better now? Weick: Oh wonderful. That is so much better. McGonagill: I had to reset my speakers. Weick: Not a problem. McGonagill: That was my error. I think it’s a beautiful project. I appreciate the developer and what he’s doing and I like the things he’s putting in place. I am hung up though, still, on the west end egress. I think it needs to be there. I think it’s just too long. I think there needs to be two outlets on a parking garage that long and I agree with the last caller with the comments of going in and out of crossing traffic. That was a concern I looked just myself. I haven’t been to the site but I was just looking at the plans. So outside of that issue of the west exit. I do appreciate the gardens because I do love to garden but I’d rather have safe access to the building than gardens so outside of the parking deal, I mean the driveway, I’m okay. I just don’t know how we deal with that because it’s not the variance their asking but it’s the only concern I have with the application, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Weick: OK and that’s certainly a part of the record that’s passed to City Council really no matter which we vote on the item so certainly that I think is obvious in the record at this point and something they would certainly consider regardless of what’s passed to them. Other thoughts? I know there were some concerns and questions. Any final thoughts on those? Skistad: Well I think I don’t have any problem with the building, I think the building is beautiful and the use is beautiful but I still stand on my other comments and concerns I have overall and I will not be supporting this. Weick: OK. Thank you. I certainly would entertain a motion. I’m not trying to cut anyone’s thoughts off though so if you do have comment, please do so. I think the motion is up on, at least I can, is up on the screen. I guess I would ask if there aren’t comments and there isn’t a motion at this point, can you guys hear me? Voice: Yes Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 15 Weick: I would just say that if there are things that are preventing you to make a motion, we would certainly discuss that and you’re certainly able to make any motion you’d like. You are not limited to what is on the screen in front of you. If there was a different opinion that you wanted the Commission to vote on, you can certainly do that as well. Von Oven: I was sitting, enjoying the uncomfortable silence because I did have a ton to add. Weick: I wasn’t. Von Oven: Yes I know. I’m watching you squirm. I will say a couple of things. One, I thoroughly appreciate the thoroughness of my fell Planning Commissioners. This is one of those where I went in and read through this whole thing and I didn’t see any huge issues with it. I think there’s one reason for that when I read through the 30 points and everything that was here and that is that if there were major safety concerns or major sort of bad stuff in here, I don’t think it would make it through our city staff. I don’t think city staff would be recommending to approve this. That made me feel better about the long list and Mr. Generous addressed it. The second one is, I have not sat and looked out of my window the way Mr. Bile did so I have not had that experience and I appreciate the caller coming in. I also believe if there were truly a safety concern, city staff would be calling it out and I’m strengthened by the fact that Mr. Simning is an investor in this property himself so if there truly is a danger there, he is putting himself at risk. So with that I am happy to make the motion that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of the site plan for a 110-unit, three-story apartment building with a variance for the building height to allow 42 feet to the midpoint of the roof subject to the Conditions of Approval and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Recommendation. The developer shall record cross parking and cross access agreements with the other parcels in the Powers Ridge development. Weick: We have a valid motion from Commissioner Von Oven. Do we have a second? Noyes: Chairman, Commissioner Noyes. I’ll second. Weick: Thank you, Commissioner Noyes. With that, before we vote, any final comment? I will conduct a roll call vote. Commissioner Von Oven? Von Oven: Aye Weick: In favor. Commissioner Noyes? Noyes: In favor. Weick: Thank you. Commissioner Skistad? Skistad: No Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 16 Weick: Thank you. Commissioner McGonagill? McGonagill: Aye Weick: Thank you. I will call Commission Reeder. I’m not sure he joined though. I don’t think so. No? OK. And Commissioner Randall? Randall: Aye. Weick: In favor. I also vote in favor. The motion passes, five in favor, one opposed and will go to City Council with all comment attached. Thank you again everybody. Bob, thanks for your presentation. Thank you to the applicant for being available and thank you to the commissioners as always, important and educated input. Von Oven moved, Noyes seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends that the City Council approve the site plan for a 110-unit, three-story apartment building with a variance for the building height to allow 42 feet to the midpoint of the roof subject to the Conditions of Approval and adoption of the Findings of Fact and Recommendation. The developer shall record cross parking and cross access agreements with the other parcels in the Powers Ridge development. The motion passes with a vote of five in favor and one opposed and will go to City Council with all comment attached. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR SETBACK VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A DECK ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 3616 RED CEDAR POINT Young-Walters: Thank you. This is Planning Case 2021-01. It is a variance to expand an existing nonconforming deck at 3616 Red Cedar Point Road. As a reminder, if the Planning Commission does not pass this or denies this by at ¾ majority vote, it will go to the City Council on January 25, 2021. Additional, anyone aggrieved by decision of the Planning Commission, may appear the decision and they will have four days to register an appeal with staff in writing which would also then move it to the City Council. With that being said, I’ll jump into it. The location is Red Cedar Point. We have had quite a few variances over the years in this area. This is 3616 Red Cedar Point here. It’s zoned Residential Single-Family. This is technically a corner lot due to the presence of right-of-way (ROW) here. The zoning district requires a 20,000-square foot minimum lot area, 30-foot setbacks from any street frontage so that would be 30 feet from the east as well as the southern lot line and then 10-foot setbacks for the side yard and a 75-foot shoreland setback. Properties in this area are limited to 25% lot cover, are permitted one water- oriented accessory structure with a 10-foot setback from the lake and that structure would be limited to 250 square feet in size. The existing conditions on this site. The lot is 7,206 square feet. It has only 77½ feet of the required 90 feet of lot frontage along the south and only 45 of the required 90 feet of lot frontage along the lake. The house has a nonconforming 72.8-foot shoreland setback and the deck has a nonconforming 62-foot shoreland setback. It has a Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 17 nonconforming 15.3-foot front yard setback on the east and at 15-foot nonconforming setback on the south. As a side note, the house does not meet the ordinance’s minimum size. No two-car garage is present and the parking pad that services the property is located in the city’s ROW. So quite a few nonconformities on the property. The applicant is proposing to expand the deck out from the east and west walls of the home out to the edge of the existing deck stairs. This would maintain the existing nonconforming lake setback. They are not proposing any new impervious surface. They’ve stated that the existing deck does not provide a usable outdoor area. The existing deck is right around 100 square feet. Surrounding properties have received variances to allow for updates and improvements. Other properties in the area have decks that are similarly sized to what they are proposing and the substandard lot size and existing home placement does not allow for any improvement to the property without a variance. Staff did our usual assessment. This is a very constrained parcel in an area where nearly every property is operating under a variance or has an existing nonconformity. The proposed deck expansion would be 300 feet, about 28x10 and then with another 16 feet or so for a stairway. This seems to be pretty reasonable given the size of decks and patios present on the surrounding properties. They aren’t proposing any new lot cover and all of the improvements are still set quite a bit back from the lake. Initially, the applicant had proposed having the stairs come off here, in red, which would have increased the setback, I’m sorry decreased the setback to the lake by approximately an additional five feet. Staff looked it over and didn’t see any reason to why the stairs couldn’t come off the side. We contacted the applicant and asked if they’d be amendable to relocating the stairs. They agreed so they will not be increasing the nonconformity. Regarding the east lot line setback, this is an extremely unique corner lot. The ROW of the road along the east terminates about half way down the property line and then becomes essentially a private drive serving five houses. It’s extremely low traffic. Where the deck would be would not be interfering with the road sight line. There is no property across the street that would have to look at it. It’s only four feet above grade. It’s open construction. In this unique instance, staff does not see any concern with granting a variance to allow that to go down to a 12-foot setback. So for these reasons, staff would recommend that the Planning Commission grant the variance to permit the deck’s expansion but require that the stairs be relocated to maintain the existing setback. I would be happy to answer questions you may have. Weick: Great, thank you, MacKenzie. Any questions for MacKenzie regarding this item? Von Oven: I guess just real quick. You said there are a bunch of other variances in the area, are they all basically the same, imposing on the setbacks of the lake, given that this is such a thin strip of land? Young-Walters: Yes, there are 16 of the properties within 500 feet have received variances and 25 different variances have been given to those. They run the gambit. There’s a lot of lot cover variances due to the small size of the lots; there’s quite a few front yard setback variances, I want to say 11 but I’m not checking my notes. I think I have that number in the staff report. Similar number of variances from the shoreland. Staffs’ general rule has been for the shoreland to try to hold properties to the extent of their existing nonconformity, so to not let them go closer to the Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 18 lake then the original house was built. I hope that answers your questions, if not I can look up the numbers quick for you. Von Oven: No that was perfect. Thank you. Skistad: MacKenzie, this is Laura. So if they move the stairs, there’s room to do that and still maintain the setback and it doesn’t run into another one of the setback? Young-Walters: Nope, great question. Because this is a corner lot, any of the setbacks that aren’t facing the street is reduced to a 10-foot. So if you look here, you’ll see there is a 20½-foot distance from the edge of the house to that lot line. Even assuming they went with a five- or six- foot wide stair which is wider than the typical four-foot you’d see, they’d still have 16 feet, I’m sorry, 14 feet on that side which would give them four fee to spare off that 10-foot side setback so should be plenty of room. Skistad: OK. Thank you. Weick: Thanks, everyone. I’m not sure if the applicant is on the line but if you are you are welcome to speak about this project. Simning: You guys get me again. Weick: Hey, alright! Simning: Todd Simning, this time representing Dave Melin and Adore Homes. Anyway, MacKenzie, we’ve been working through this for the last month or so and obviously, Dave and I are onboard to move the staircase over. Honestly, unless anybody has any other questions, we don’t have a whole lot to add to the conversation. Weick: OK, thank you. Any questions, from the commissioners? As has been noted, I don’t like the silence at all so just start talking randomly. Thank you very much. I think it’s pretty straight forward from the staff report and from what MacKenzie presented already. With that I would open the public hearing portion of this item. The call-in number is on your screen at 952-227- 1630. While people are dialing, did we have any email? Young-Walters: We received one email initially expressing concern about the potential for impervious surface to be added. Once it was explained that it was decking and would pervious, they were not concerned. That was the only contact we had. Weick: OK. Plus they are well under the lot cover, are they not? Young-Walters: They’re only at a little over 14%. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 19 Weick: OK. Thank you. No one is here in Chambers with us today, I did not hear the telephone ring. With that I will close the public hearing portion of this item and open for commissioner comment, motion, and uncomfortable silence. Skistad: I’ll go ahead and make a motion unless I’m interrupting someone who wants to comment. Weick: Go ahead Commissioner Skistad. Skistad: OK. The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustment appeal 13-foot shoreline and 18-foot east front yard setback variances to replace and expand the deck subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Facts and Decision. Weick: Thank you, Commissioner Skistad. We have a valid motion. Do we have a second? Noyes: Chairman, I’ll second. Commissioner Noyes. Weick: Thank you, Commissioner Noyes. Any final comment before we vote? With that I will conduct a roll call vote. Commissioner Randall? Randall: Aye. Weick: In favor. Commissioner McGonagill? McGonagill: Aye. Weick: Thank you. Commissioner Skistad? Skistad: Aye. Weick: Thank you. Commissioner Noyes? Noyes: Aye. Weick: Thank you. Commissioner Von Oven? Von Oven: Aye. Weick: Thank you and I also vote in favor. Skistad moved, Noyes seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustment approve the 13-foot shoreline and 18-foot east front yard setback variances to replace and Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 20 expand the deck subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Facts and Decision. The motion passes unanimously with a vote of 6-0. Weick: Jumping, leaping over our ¾ hurdle. Thank you everybody and thank you, MacKenzie, for your presentation. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR AN INTERIM USE PERMIT TO OPERATE A GOLF DRIVING RANGE ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 825 FLYING CLOUD DRIVE (GOLF ZONE) Young-Walter: This is Planning Case 2021-02 and the Chairman said, this is a request for an Interim Use Permit (IUP) resume operating a golf driving range on a property that is zoned Agricultural Estate. Because this is an IUP, it will go before the City Council on January 25, 2021 with the recommendation that the Planning Commission at this time. This is an overview of the site. As was mentioned, the present zoning is Agricultural Estate. The city’s 2040 Land Use Plan calls for the northern section that is outside of the flood plane to be guided for office use and the rest of it to be agriculture. The site is a little over 97 acres. Currently, it is not in use, however, it was a golf driving range from 1998 to 2018 and the applicant is essentially proposing to resume operations. They are not proposed any change or alteration to the site of expansion of facilities. A little bit of background. There are quite a few different case numbers associated with this. Site Plan 98-8, Interim Use Permit 98-2, Conditional Use Permit (CUP) 98-2 and Wetland Alteration Permit (WAP) 98-1. The verify brief background on those is that in July of 1998, the city approved the site plan and IUP, CUP and WAP to allow the initial driving range to begin operation. The next year, they amended that site plan to allow a second story to be constructed over the driving dens and then they also amended the City Code to allow the service 3.2% malt liquor on the site. In October 2006, the owner at that time requested a site plan amendment and variances to allow an 11,100-square foot additional to the site so they significantly expanded the club house and in 2018 then the driving range closed. Under our City Code, an IUP, if inactive for six months and is no longer valid which is why the new owner of the site is requesting a new IUP. The applicant’s proposal to resume operation of the golf driving range, as I noted earlier, they will be using the existing facilities. They are not proposing the construction of any new buildings, they’re not proposing any grading or alterations or expansion of the site. They will be conducting obviously, any needed repairs and maintenance to get the building up to Code and inviting and well-kept again, but they are proposing substantially the same business model and scope of operations that were present on the original golf driving range. This is a very interesting site and it has a lot of environmentally-sensitive features. I just pulled up a quick GIS map. These are all preserved-class wetlands and this is the Minnesota River floodplain. So as you can see, a portion of the driving range is within the floodplain but the building itself is out of the 100- year or 1% annual flood chance region and golf driving ranges are a permitted use within the floodplain under our City Code. Because they aren’t proposing any alterations within these areas; the driving range is well clear of the wetlands and it’s allowed in the floodplain and the buildings are clear, neither the Watershed District nor Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 21 contacted us with any concerns about the resumption of activities nor does staff have significant concerns. When determining whether or not to grant an IUP, the City Code lists basically three standards that need to be met. I go through these point by point in the staff report, however, in summary Section 20-232’s goal is to just to ensure the use is not going to be detrimental to surrounding properties, that it won’t be detrimental to the environment, that it will not be detrimental to the city, and that it’s adequately served by infrastructure, so access and utilities. Staff believes that this proposal meets these standards. Section 20-322’s goal is to ensure that the use meets the zoning requirements, will not incur a public cost at a future date, and has an identifiable end date. A little segway, this section particularly deals with interim uses. Interim uses are different than pretty much any other use in the city in that they are by nature, temporary. They have a definite end date. So when the Planning Commission issues a CUP, that conditional use will endure in perpetuity. It doesn’t end as long as that use is maintained. In order to grant and IUP, we have to have a specific event that will cause the permit to close to allow the property to be used for a different in conformance with the future land use plan. In this case, that event would be the extension of city sewer and water service to the site, at which point, staff is proposing there would be a one-year grace period and then this permit would expire. The applicant has been made aware of this and staff believes that their proposal meets the requirements of the interim use ordinance. The final Section is 20-259 and that is the specific performance standards for a golf driving range that’s designed to prevent them from negatively impacting the surrounding properties. Again, the applicant’s proposing essentially the exact same scope of operations that were in place for 20 years. There were no issues with the previous operation and staff believes the use as proposed will not create issues and meets those standards as well. I would like to call out a couple of the conditions that will be imposed on this IUP. The first I got into a little earlier and that’s the IUP will terminate 12 months after municipal services are extended to the site. That’s required as part of issuing the IUP that there is a fixed end date. The site will be required to pass building, fire, and septic compliance inspections to ensure it’s safe to resume operations. The site will not be allowed to be altered beyond what was allowed in previous permits. They will need to restore the rain garden and meet the old site plan’s landscaping requirements. The driving range nets are required to protect the wetlands to prevent stray balls from flying off into them. If the applicant chooses to use pesticides and fertilizers, they will need to provide a plan to the city and chemicals cannot be stored in the floodplain. Obviously, there is a lot of environmental impacts that can happen if that condition was not in place. And if they do for any reason decide to expand or alter the site or it’s grading, they must receive the appropriate permits from the relevant agencies. With that, I would be happy answer any questions you may have. Weick: Thanks, MacKenzie. I actually have one question. Has anyone from the city or environmental department or parks I guess, gone out and looked at the site since it closed? Young-Walters: Yep. Myself, Jill Sinclair the Environmental Resources Coordinator, and Matt Unmacht the Water Resources Specialist. All three of walked the site and did an evaluation. That’s part of how we determine that the landscaping was deficient and would need to be Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 22 brought up to Code and that the rain garden wasn’t in place. We also looked around for golf balls to see if there were any still lying around and couldn’t find any. We did do a site visit. Weick: And I assume, especially Jill Sinclair, would have noted, what I’m thinking specifically about is, the only thing I can think of with a golf driving range is retrieving the golf balls. You’re using some type of machine which over the years, if you use is it when the ground’s really wet, you could mess up the ground. I would assume she would have seen something had it been present, some damage, or.. Young-Walters: I would defer to Matt on that. I believe he observed where he felt the wetlands started with relation to the driving range and might be able to comment on if he felt there was any concern with that. Matt, are you on the call? Unmacht: Yes, can everyone hear me? Weick/Others: Yes, barely. Unmacht: We stopped out a few weeks again, MacKenzie, Jill and myself and I don’t have any concerns about any sort of machinery, specifically with regards to the wetlands. The wetland boundary is located well off where most people are capable of hitting the golf ball. I would hope so. I’m not too concerned about any use of machinery that’s going to impact the wetlands. I didn’t notice any sort of residual ground impacts or vegetative impacts outside of the wetland area sort of where these machines would normally operate. MacKenzie, maybe you did, but I didn’t notice anything that called to my attention, that “hey this is going to be really impactful to this area”. Long answer to I would say I’m not concerned about it. Weick: Great and that’s exactly what I was wondering about. Any other questions from fellow commissioners? Great. That was a thorough report, MacKenzie. With that, if the applicant is on the line, you are welcome to tell us a little bit about your project. Brian Colvin: Absolutely. Thank you, MacKenzie. Thank you, everyone. My wife, Keri, and I are very excited to reopen the Golf Zone for the community. We want to bring a positive environment to the surrounding families, surrounding communities, all the local schools, and then the instructors that have been coming out there for years just to instruct students and adults and teach the game of golf. As far as the driving range comment about the wetlands, the ball pickers are staying the right vicinity of the driving range and I think where the balls go are roughly anywhere from 50 to 100 yards or more before the wetlands so we don’t even come to the wetlands with the ball picker or any machinery of any type. Weick: Great. Thank you for that explanation. Any questions for the applicant from the commissioners? Well, thank you again for taking the time… Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 23 Brian Colvin: I did also, can I mention one other thing? As far as the inspection, we do already have lined up later this week, we have a licensed HVAC service will be coming out this Thursday and Friday to go through all of the heating and ventilation and they’re going to go through everything and make sure everything is up to par and up to Code and then next week we also have a licensed electrician who will be doing the same and then after that we will be following up the fire marshal and city inspection to have them come out and give us a punch list if there any and if there is, we will take care of that in an ample amount of time. Weick: Fantastic. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us this evening. Brian Colvin: Thank you. Weick: Ya. With that and hearing no questions from commissioners, I will open the public hearing portion of tonight’s item. The telephone number is on your screen, 952-227-1630. Did we receive any email? Young-Walters: No. Weick: No email correspondence on this one. There is no one in Chambers to make comment and I do not believe the phone is ringing. Young-Walters: It is not. Weick: Fair enough. With that I will close the public hearing portion of tonight’s item and open for commission comments and we’ll get the motion up there on the screen as well. I can speak for myself to say that do miss having Golf Zone and… Brian Colvin: Thank you and with that being said, I’ve heard that more times than none in the last couple months. For example, I had the UPS driving show up to my personal house the other day and thank me for trying to open it back up. Weick: That’s awesome. Those are good stories. Brian Colvin: [Laughter] We’re very excited. Skistad: This is Commissioner Skistad. I’ll go ahead and make a motion. Weick: Thanks. Skistad: The Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of an Interim Use Permit for a golf driving range subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation. Weick: Thank you, Commissioner Skistad. We have a valid motion. Do we have a second? Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 24 Von Oven: I’ll second. Weick: We have a second from Commissioner Von Oven. Any final Commission comments? McGonagill: The only question I have, Chairman, is why would anybody want to play golf? OK I just wanted to go there with that. So no, I have no questions. [Laughter] Weick: Man, that’s on the record now. Von Oven: Because at the new Golf Zone, they have a promotion where you can hit your ball to Shakopee. McGonagill: Oh there you go. I heard the deal about lessons so I think I’m probably in good shape to go there. Keri Colvin: You can come to the putt putt. McGonagill: There you go. That’s my game. Weick: Alright. We will do a roll call vote and I will start with you Commissioner McGonagill. McGonagill: Aye. Weick: In favor. Commissioner Von Oven? Von Oven? Aye. Weick: In favor. Commissioner Skistad? Skistad: Aye. Weick: In favor. Commissioner Noyes? Noyes: Aye. Weick: In favor. And Commissioner Randall? Randall: Aye. Weick: In favor. I also vote in favor. The motion passes unanimously 6-0 and I wish the applicant all the luck in the world with the new business. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 25 Skistad moved, Von Oven seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of an Interim Use Permit for a golf driving range subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Fact and Recommendation. The motion passes unanimously with a vote of 6-0. Brian Colvin: Thank you, Commissioner. Weick: With that, we’re 3/5 of the way through tonight’s items. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR AN INTERIM USE PERMIT FOR EXCAVATION OF EXISTING WETLAND ALONG WITH EXCAVATED BORROW BEING PLACED ON A LOCATION WITHIN THE PARCEL Weick: I don’t have the address of the item. Generous: There’s no address, unfortunately. Weick: Okay. That’s why I don’t have an address then. Generous: It’s three PIDs. Weick: Great. With that, I will hand it over to Mr. Generous for the staff report. Generous: Thank you, Chairman. McGonagill: Mr. Chairman? Before you get into it I’m going to have to recuse myself from this because I know the applicants. Weick: Okay. Thank you, Commissioner McGonagill. Commissioner McGonagill has recused himself. McGonagill: I did want to thank staff for the report. It’s a fairly simple thing but they went through a lot of detail. I just want to tell you, Bob, you did a nice job, so thank you. Generous: You can thank the engineers for that one. Weick: Just for the record, we do have a quorum with the remaining five commissioners. Generous: Planning Case 2021-03, Black Cherry Development is the applicant. The public hearing is tonight. This goes to the City Council on January 25. They’re requesting an interim use permit for the excavation of an existing wetland along with the excavated borrow being relocated onto the property and stored. There’s no address for this so it’s hard to explain. It’s Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 26 west of Great Plains Boulevard and east of Eagle Ridge Road. There’s three properties that are actually involved in this. The big one, the property is zoned Agricultural Estate District (A2), and it’s guided for residential low density development. We will see the rest of the site developing sometime in the future except for the city portion which is permanent open space and part of a trail connection out to Highway 101. The existing site, again, consists of three parcels. Outlot E, Foxwood Subdivision is a city-owned property. It is 1.66 acres. It’s this little piece on the corner. Outlot A, Butternut Ridge is 113 acres of property that runs all the way out to Powers Boulevard and includes the majority of the site, and 9197 Eagle Ridge Road which is the property to the north. It actually accesses via a private street off of Eagle Ridge Road. There is one single-family home on it. The applicant purchased that property recently. We are a co-applicant. There’s some trees up in this portion of the wetland that the City is requiring to be preserved and taken out of excavation plans. There are two large wetlands within this area. This one is a reed canary grass. They are proposing to excavate it to turn it into an open water type wetland. There’s a second wetland down to the south. There’s some open water but then there’s a lot of reed canary grass and more natural features around it. The existing farmstead is part of the Butternut Ridge Development. It is located here approximately 2.5 acres. The rest of the Butternut Ridge Development is outlots. There is a state-owned and maintained stormwater pond that was built in conjunction with the Trunk Highway 101 upgrade that went to four lanes. This is the wetland that they are looking at doing the excavation in and then I’ll be turning this over to Matt. Originally, we thought there would be a wetland permit included in it but it’s not. Matt will go through that. Unmacht: This summer the applicant came in with a wetland delineation to delineate the whole site, both that Wetland 2 that you see on that photo there along with the larger wetland that Bob mentioned, and then actually there is some more wetlands on the site. They just delineated the entire site. That was approved in July of 2020. On November 19, 2020 the applicant came in with what’s called a no-loss application. That’s submitted through the Wetland Conservation Act process. Basically, a no-loss is applicant coming in and saying these activities won’t result in any loss of wetland function or value. Because the excavation is only proposed in wetland types of 1, 2, and 6, the Wetland Conservation Act doesn’t even regulate these types of activities so it wouldn’t regulate excavation and wetland types 1, 2, and 6. That key there on the bottom isn’t super clear but you can see the pink area Type 3, that area. That area is not allowed to be excavated. That’s Type 3. That is regulated by WCA and would need wetland replacement if it was going to be excavated, so the excavation will not be happening I that area there. Like I said, as long as the excavation is limited to wetland types 1, 2, and 6 and does not exceed 6.5 feet in depth, the project is not regulated by WCA so the technical evaluation panel for the Wetland Conservation Act met about this as well. They concurred with the determination that a no-loss can be issued for this project. That was issued on December 22, 2020. Relatedly, to the wetland alteration permit, originally we thought a wetland alteration permit would be necessary in this case, but after talking with the City Attorney, because a no-loss determination was issued there’s a section in our code that reads that activities exempted by Minnesota Rules, Chapter 8420.0122, which is the wetland conservation act, or determined to result in no net loss of wetland, shall be Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 27 exempted from the provisions of the article. They don’t need a wetland alteration permit for this work, is kind of the summary. With that, I will turn it over to Erik. Henricksen: Thanks again, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. Looking at the grading plan or this wetland dredging I would call it to create that, as Bob mentioned, an open-water feature, the applicant has expressed that this is desirable for mainly visual aesthetics of the wetland, having that open water rather than the canary reed grass. The work entailed would result in approximately 21,000 cubic yards of material being excavated from the wetland. With an interim use permit for earthwork, if you go over the threshold of 1,000 cubic yards you do need an interim use permit. That’s why we are here today looking at this. The plan, as Matt indicated, is to work around that Classification 3 wetland so there dealing with the no-loss area. They are looking to complete and do the work during winter conditions. It’s fairly similar to what the City does when we do stormwater pond cleanouts. We want kind of the frozen conditions for access and it limits dewatering, it’s just more feasible at that time. They aren’t proposing any increase or decrease in the footprint of the wetland. Hence, the no-loss excavation is adjacent to an existing neighborhood which was briefly touched on. Foxwood Development abuts this wetland and where the work is going to be conducted so staff recommended the condition that the hours of operation align with your major land development or subdivision buildout, which is essentially 7-6 Monday through Friday, Saturday is 9-5, and no work on Sundays or holidays, to be consistent with this type of work. The land disturbance does exceed one acre so the applicant will be required to get the MPCA’s general construction permit on this where they will involve the SWPPP, which one was provided. There are some minor updates that staff is recommending that be approved as a condition that the applicant’s engineer and applicant work with staff to kind of shore up some loose ends…erosion control. Just real quick, I guess we have the plan up. You can see on the plan view the extent of the footprint but below that is the actual cross section. From the plan view you can see the arrows that are indicating the cross section extends, yup right there. BB. The idea is I think they want to create essentially a three to four-foot deep open water feature wetland. This is kind of a more holistic look of the overall plan. We were looking at the north section that’s highlighted in green here, that’s the excavation area. The proposed plan as provided shows a haul route as indicated as Bob is highlighting. Thank you for that. Then a stockpile area down to the south. All of this contained within the applicant’s property so they are not hauling anything off site. Staff would have recommended an alternative route. The only reason is because the applicant and the property owner in entering into pre-application meetings for a potential future subdivision in the area, staff would have recommended rather than taking the route shown which right now ghost platted as backlots kind of go a little more to the west and through where the area would have been developed. That’s where roads would be constructed, building pads, that kind of thing. Trees would have cleared in that area. Streets would have been compacted and all that kind of stuff so it wouldn’t of minimized the impact overall to the site. However, there was some pre-clearing by the applicant prior to us receiving the application so the haul route is kind of already cleared so in essence, staff can approve it but it will just add a couple more conditions which I will discuss at the next slide. Additionally, with the pre-clearing of the trail there were some spoils from that. Essentially trees, trunks, limbs and stuff like that that were actually placed in Wetland 3. That’s that larger wetland to the south. A part of this IUP Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 28 we are going to want to see that the plan is updated to remove those trees from the wetland on to alongside of the wetland. The proposed haul route as you can see is adjacent to wetlands. There is a haul route section located at the bottom of the slide where they do show, they’re thinking about where future buffers are going to be. Their putting in BMPs getting away from the wetland which is good but there’s certain, like I had mentioned, amendments to the erosion control plan we are going to see when you are next to a wetland or a water feature or any kind of water body the State, we need to see double row of BMPs, essentially two silt fence separated by five feet. That’s actually a requirement also in the general construction permit which, once we receive the updated plans, we have a robust review process to ensure every part of that permit is adhered to. Lastly, the location of the stockpile. It is on the applicant’s property; however, because the area is proposed to be subdivided and there is potential for public streets to be located in the area, housing pads, things of that nature, and coupled with the idea that you’re dredging out a wetland which has hydric soils or really organic finds and basically soils that are typically not suitable for engineering fill or any kind of structural foundation. We’re requesting the condition that prior to the stockpile being placed and afterwards it be surveyed so we can delineate the extents of this kind of, we’ll call it topsoil muck peat. Just so we know where its location is so that way in the future if roads are extended and we can account for that for any kind of public utilities or transportation that goes through that area. That was brought up to the applicant and their engineer and they found that to be acceptable knowing what kind of material is at the bottom of a wetland. Here are some images from a site visit that was conducted by our Environmental Specialist, Bob, and myself. It was found that there was some, with the pre-clearing of the haul route, some of the pre-clearing extended into wetland buffer area along with the haul route area so these pre-cleared areas will be required to be incorporated into a restoration plan in association with this IUP. It’s kind of outlined in the staff report for environmental review and listed out as conditions in the environmental review as well. Essentially, we can kind of get everything restored…on the applicant. With that, I can turn it back to you, Bob. Generous: And with that, staff is recommending approval of the interim use permit subject to the conditions in our staff report as well as adoption of the findings of fact and recommendation. With that, we would be happy to answer any questions you have. Weick: Great. Thanks, everyone involved in that report. Very thorough. I do have a question. It probably could be answered by the applicants as well, but there is a version of it that I think maybe you guys can address. Since this isn’t, the reason for this is an aesthetic, to create I assume some kind of pleasing pond look, is there any portion of this that the applicant is requesting any type of devices or anything to maintain that look? The reason I ask is that the City did something pretty similar in our neighborhood and it was pretty for about two months and then all the same weeds grow right back, right? It ends up looking just like it did before. I guess my question is there, is this, do they have the opportunity to continue to dredge it in the future? To maintain the look? Have they asked to put pumps in or anything to maintain any kind of aesthetic for this? Or is this just a simple dredge? Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 29 Henricksen: As currently proposed on the plans there were no other kind of novel proprietary devices like aerators or pumps or anything like that that we saw so essentially this is a dredge. Getting rid of the canary grass. Create that depth in the pond to have that open water feature. I know that on the plans they are working with environmental scientists and wetland specialists as well so overall I think the short answer, there weren’t anything that we saw on the plans that would indicate… Weick: Okay. That’s the only question I had. I would open to fellow Commissioners comments or questions for staff. Noyes: Mr. Chairman? I do have a question for staff. One of the attached artifacts was the letter from Terry Jeffery of the Watershed District. If you go through his letter, basically you get to the end it seems like he’s against this mostly due to some loss unrelated to the plant communities and some of the diversities associated with that plant community. How is that factored into this? Is it relevant? How are we responding to that letter that was dated December 23? I think the timing is relevant so I would love to hear from planners on how we factor this in. Generous: I think Matt would be the best person to respond to this one. Unmacht: Yes. Terry’s letter certainly brings up some valid points and they are items that were discussed in the Wetland Conservation Act process when the technical evaluation panel met. I’m just not sure what the extent of the City’s ability to necessarily mitigate against some of his concerns were. We certainly weighed the possibility of some of the concerns he brought up, but ultimately, given that it’s not governed by the Wetland Conservation Act and a wetland alteration permit is not needed, we did not end of necessarily including some of those concerns in our final review. Generous: If I may, there was one condition, at least on the city-owned property, that the wooded wetland area be preserved and not graded out and dredged out. We did encourage on some of the other locations on the property so they could reevaluate that and see if they would to preserve more of that wooded wetland type to provide that wildlife habitat diversity. Weick: Does that help you out, Commissioner Noyes or did you have a follow-up on that? Noyes: No, I think it helps me out. I’m not sure that I’m in agreement with it given what the intent of this whole project is. It’s more aesthetic than anything but it does help answer my question so thank you. Von Oven: I’m pretty unfamiliar with this type of project. I think one of the things that surprised me is, this will result in a question, the pre-clearing. Is that normal in this kind of a project or did the applicant jump the gun? It seems like there is a whole lot of sort of mistakes that were made that now need to be fixed. Is that a normal thing or was this just a wait, you’ve gone too far? Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 30 Henriksen: I guess I’m not familiar with when this project was thought of to dredge and all of that. All I know is that whenever we get a development application review it’s always beneficial for staff to go and take a look at the property and the plan and just to get a sense of kind of the surroundings and get an idea. I mean you can look at plans and you can glean so much from them, but when you’re actually on the ground it can really help. We wanted to take a look at the proposed haul route just to see, you know, it’s feasibility with slope, sensitive areas and that kind of stuff. It was only at that time that I was aware and I think all the staff that went out there that it was pre-cleared. I don’t know if there were discussions at any point previously with staff. I know I wasn’t apprised of those meetings so it really was kind of the property owner’s purview to remove trees from their property essentially albeit… Again, their property, their purview. That’s kind of how staff reacted or evaluated based on the plans provided with the conditions for restoration of the areas and making right what environmentally we see as kind of future land use based on these ghost plats and whatnot. I know Jill Sinclair, our Environmental Specialist, took a great look at that and kind of conditioned as such to kind of remediate some… Von Oven: Great. Thank you. Weick: Any other questions for staff on this one? Hearing none, I would invite the applicant if they are on the line to join us and maybe either answer some of the questions that you heard or just tell us about the project. Tim Erhart: One of the applicants, Dan Blake, is on the line with us here. He’s a partner in Black Cherry and doing the engineering work for our effort here. Thank you, Chairman for the opportunity. I feel like I’m becoming a regular on the Planning Commission agenda now. I also want to thank Bob, Matt and Erik for their work to get us to this point. We’re very excited about it. Something that I’ve been, being the property owner all this here. It’s been something that I’ve had a vision for many years. Obviously, there’s one big question that needs to be answered. Why are we doing this? If I could have a little patience and kind of go back a little bit of history here. Some 20 years ago, I purchased this property in 1980 and sometime after that the City saw fit to purchase the land just north of my property which was owned by Frank Fox. It was a unique area of old growth woods and very steep hills and they wanted to preserve that for future generations for a park. That project is online today. It’s called Foxwoods Preserve. It’s got some really nice trails in there and a lot people from the Foxwoods Development use it as well as other people that park over on my property on Powers Boulevard walk the area. Our vision for this area was expanded when the freeway was built from the original 40 acres to 75 acres as more land was added to the north. Our vision is to add another 25 acres to the east including this pond, this basin we are talking about, and all the other ponds that Bob had referred to, ultimately bringing Foxwoods to approximately 100 acres of wilderness and ponds and trails. The goal initially and first of all is to protect the old growth forest that sits in these areas. Also to, there is a number of wetland basins either in it or adjacent to it on my property that have either been restored into open water wetlands and there’s another four or five if we can expand the park to 100 acres to be added to it. As you can see from this map there is a whole area of environmental resource for Chanhassen citizens to use including 8 or 9 wetlands ultimately, old growth forest and a lot of Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 31 trails. Another goal was to again reestablish some of these wetlands back to pre-ag conditions. I’ll get into that next. What’s the history of the basin we’re talking about here, or all the basins in the entire I would metropolitan area of the Twin Cities. Back in the 1800s as settlement was occurring in the area, the wetland level was established by deep beaver dams throughout the state. When settlements occurred, these beaver dams were destroyed or cut, dredged, and the basins drained for cutting hay for winter food for the cattle that they were starting to grow herds of that in their farms. During the 1900s as the woods were cleared and hearty alfalfa was introduced, the hay that was taken from these basins was then replaced with alfalfa for winter food and the basins were left empty because nobody restore the beaver dikes and the beavers didn’t come back. What we find is literally tens of thousands of these basins around that have been degraded and basically are grass. What we are trying to do here is to restore this basin as well as the other ones here to pre-ag conditions. That’s one of the objectives of that. To do that, we have to, our proposal is to, and what we have done in the past, is excavate. Well, either replace the beaver dam which we have in some of these basins. In this case it’s not practical because the elevations is already controlled by the state’s new settling pond so he only option here is to excavate this one. To answer your question, Mr. Chairman, to avoid regrowth of simple more weeds, you have to excavate somewhere between four and six feet deep. Then you will have a very long-term open water pond. If you look at that pond in the west area, Bob can you point that out? We excavated that in 1988 to approximately five feet deep and it has remained open the entire time so that’s some over 30 years. That’s what we’re trying to do here. The goal is to accomplish that by dredging it to that depth. By doing so, we will attempt to create resting and nesting areas for waterfowl and marine animals like muskrats, otters, beavers and so forth. We want to create, if we’re looking at the 100-acre park, is that this becomes a dramatic entrance from anybody coming on the trail from Bandimere Park area on 101 going west into Foxwoods Preserve. Rather than just viewing a degraded bottom basin of reed canary grass, now you can see open water with ducks, geese, swans, and so forth. A second goal of all this was to create, the applicant made a complete a trail system from Bandimere Park. The trail system that envisioned for Foxwoods Preserve and by doing this is to make everything connected. We also want to allow a future paved bike trail system from 101 to Powers Boulevard through my property when it develops which will be very, very pleasurable for people who want to use their bikes, but primarily the trails that are in the park today are nature trails, wood chipped and so forth. What we envision now is basically wood chip trails until the hill area is developed which we can then upgrade to bike trails. We want to improve the aesthetics of the Foxwood Development itself by creating more open water. There’s one nice pond on the south end of the Foxwood Development that we created going back 25 years ago and in this case, we were able to reestablish the beaver dike by putting a culvert there and rebuilding the surface of that. Adding a second pond will increase the nice view from Eagle Ridge Road as you drive through. It will also improve the views from 101, people driving up and down 101. We want to eliminate invasive and undesirable woody plants and materials from the basin including buckthorn, box elders, unstable laying trees and numerous dead trees and branches which now kind of encompass the basin. It’s basically a jumble mumble of nests of reed canary grass and a lot of dead weedy stuff. Part of that we want to identify, mark and preserve high-value trees such as oaks, maples, basswoods, hackberry, elms, ash and black cherry to allow the eventual domination of these old-growth species in this Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 32 entire 100-acre park. We have that in the western part today. Our vision would be to get that over the entire park eventually. The only way to do that is to eliminate undesirable species to allow desirable species to take root and flourish. Actions we’ve taken to date so far is that, as Matt has said, we’ve delineated the wetland boundaries, we’ve worked with the city to try to identify the ponding area where the excavation is which Bob showed you. We’ve marked all the wetland buffer areas where the clearing was to occur. We identified and marked valuable trees in the haul road area. We cleared undesirable trees and underbrush allowing us to see where we can put the final road. Trees that were marked as desirable species were not removed and you can see them in the pictures. They still remain. There is a tremendous amount of trees still in this area but now it’s cleared of all the underbrush. You literally could not walk through this area prior to us clearing this out. Now we can kind of see where we can put the haul road which will have minimum impact on these nice trees that are remaining. Again, what’s remaining are all species that can eventually turn into a big woods growth forest. To get the trail route through we had a very large obstacle in the previous owner of that property on 101 to the north there was owned by Blanski and he wasn’t in a position to allow the City to finish the trail from 101 west. It turns out Mr. Blanski was moving so we purchased that property so we could remove that obstacle from our project here and now I believe next week Dan and Jill and Matt and maybe Erik will be going out and try to locate where that trail is going to so. That’s action items that are continuing. The last is that we, in the staff report there is a number of issues that quite frankly because of the timing of this and that this excavation has to be done by the end of February because it has to be done while it’s all frozen. Moving along we haven’t really had the time to have a meeting with Bob and the other staff people to kind of work through these issues and some of the requirements so that’s why it’s a little, might be a little bit confusing at this point. We are looking forward to that. I believe that’s been scheduled for next week. With that, I open it up to any questions you might have. Weick: Thank you, and thank you for offering the history of the area. It’s a beautiful area. Any questions for the applicant from my fellow Commissioners? And thank you for answering the question about regrowth. Erhart: I love to give that answer. Weick: That helped, thanks. Von Oven: Mr. Erhart, thanks for being here. I have one simple question. It’s going to sound strange but are you building a park? Erhart: You know I was on the Planning Commission a few years ago and I’ve been involved with the City and Todd Hoffman and Jerry and I think we’ve all been building this park since 1980. I see it as a community effort. I play one little small role in it but I think in the end we’re going to have just a beautiful asset for the community for hundreds of years. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 33 Von Oven: Is this the end state when this wetland has been dredged and it looks like the one on the left. That was super helpful by the way because I heard Commissioner Weick’s question. I got to clear weeds from my property every year. I can’t imagine that’s going to stay but that’s cool. What’s the next step beyond this dredging? Once it looks this way and you’ve got the trail from Bandimere, is the vision now complete? Or are there more steps that, I’m not putting all the pieces together. Erhart: I’ve kind of declared my vision for it. Maybe we should hear from the City. We’ve been working together on this. Maybe they have some more input on this something. Bob or Kate? Do you have something you might add? Aanenson: I’m not sure there’s a question in there. Von Oven: I think Mr. Erhart actually just answered the question which is once this is done, he’s done. Is that fair to say? Aanenson: I think as Bob indicated already the next step is that he’s going to come in for another phase of development so in order to plat the lots around this, this is kind of the first phase which he needs to do in a timely manner as he state while the ground is still frozen. It’s just kind of sequencing things so he can move forward with the next phase, the development on his property. Erhart: You can see on this map here there’s a small development that we’re talking to the City about right now to take advantage some of the existing infrastructure and it would be in this area. I guess that’s probably why we initiated this action at this time. If that’s what you mean by next step yeah, we’re working on that and I think that’s very exciting. Aanenson: I didn’t know if that, I thought we talked about that that was your intent so yeah. Erhart: Yeah. Aanenson: That this was the sequence to making that happen. Von Oven: Super helpful. That clears it up for me. Thank you. Weick: Isn’t the area to the north of the proposed trail developed? Aanenson: That’s Foxwood. Weick: So we’re taking about the area, the light green to the south… Aanenson: Correct. Weick: Which is not yet developed but could be. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 34 Aanenson: Yes. Generous: And the rest of the… Weick: Right. Sure. Aanenson: One of the things that we did ask Mr. Erhart to do as planners. We always like to see ahead so you don’t, so we asked him to show how the road would connection because that’s in our comprehensive plan to just layout that out. You can see the existing roads that are off of Pioneer Road which is the Homestead area. That’s a large lot subdivision and then you’ve got the other subdivision that has the horse property that would be coming off of 101. So this shows the existing streets but it was always contemplated that this road coming off from the north off of Foxwoods would eventually tie down where we will have a future lift station and the potential. I know Mr. Erhart has talked about a trail head there that would connect into that trail. Doing this wetland kind of lays the groundwork to move to the next step of platting additional property up there. I believe I stated that correctly, Mr. Erhart. Didn’t I? Erhart: Yeah. I think ultimately on this map the slanted areas, I don’t know what would you call that area there. That’s what we envisioned to be ultimately part of Foxwoods Preserve and that’s as the land is developed. Weick: Does that help you out, Commissioner von Oven? Von Oven: It does. Thank you very much. Erhart: I also want to point out there’s no particular schedule for developing this land either so don’t have the expectation that somehow during the next 12-24 months that all of sudden this is all going to be developed. That’s not the vision today. We just happen to have this area up here that lends itself to be what I am calling a Foxwood addition because it’s there and the lift station and water in the area. If we can use that then we can do that now and get some more people in there. It’s a very nice development. Nice homes. Another asset to the community and we will do that and if we can’t use those assets then we won’t do that at this point. Weick: Mr. Erhart, I do have a follow-up question. Commissioner Noyes mentioned the letter that we received from Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek and I just wanted to give you an opportunity to sort of give us your perception of sort of a before and after of that area. I think their concern was that there’s a little bit of diversity there, albeit maybe it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing but there is some diversity to the sort of wildlife plant community there and be taking all of that out it sort of makes it a single type of area. Could you give us your perspective of sort of the before and after of what this area will mean? Erhart: Sure. I worked with Terry. Actually in some of the construction of these ponds we had a great time. I appreciate his love and passion for the outdoors as much as I have. I think Terry is Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 35 the kind of a guy that’s kind of a show me kind of a guy. I’m going to express my ideas and show me how you are going to fix it. I think in this case here I don’t know exactly how much open water. If you take the whole 100-acre park in the future, I don’t know how many acres of water we might have there, but let’s say it’s 25%. The rest of it will all be, will either be a big area of cattails out by 101 and the rest will be wooded. I think all combined with the open water, the wetlands, the cattails, old growth forest, I think it offers a tremendous diversity for wildlife in this area. Even today, I’ve got guys that hunt deer with bow and arrow on my property and I get my share of them. I’ve got a freezer full of venison right now. It’s a great wildlife area. And they all have to drink water. Weick: That’s fair. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the Commissioners for Mr. Erhart at this time? Well, thank you and again, thank you. I know we all appreciate the history that you bring and the passion that you bring for this area. I certainly appreciate it as a citizen, a resident of Chanhassen. With that, I will open the public hearing portion of tonight’s item. Generous: No emails were received regarding this project. I did have two or three calls of people who saw the development sign and asked what was going and when I told them that it was a creation of an open water wetland they said oh, that’s very nice. Weick: Okay. Erhart: If I can point out there, we did meet, Dan did meet with the neighbors there. There are five different homes that are directly adjacent to the water and he basically gave them a tour and explanation of what we were trying to do so that occurred about a week ago. Weick: Great. Thank you. Again, there’s no one present in chambers this evening and no one has called in so with that I will close the public hearing portion of this item and open for Commissioner discussion and consideration of a motion that will pop on the screen here shortly. I will say that for myself, Commissioner Noyes you sort of hit on something that I noticed and I’ve worked with Terry in the past as part of this commission and have grown to respect his opinion quite a bit so when I read his letter I was a little concerned, to be honest. Because he seemed to have a pretty strong opinion about disturbing that area and I think it’s really just a question of, and again I’m not an environmental specialist, it sort of as it is now I’m sure there are certain flora and fauna and animals that thrive in sort of that environment and the way it is going to be in the future it will certainly allow a different additional type of flora and fauna and animal to thrive in that area. To me, it’s a question of what is it that we want that area to look like because I think you could argue whether it’s truly detrimental to the area pretty convincingly on either side, at least from what I’ve heard. I’d love to hear, Commissioner Noyes, if you had any further follow up or opinion on that. Noyes: I agree with you. I just wanted to make sure that that opinion was being factored into this. I think the applicant’s explanation of what’s going on helped give me a better appreciation for Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 36 what’s being disturbed and what it’s going to look like in the future so I have a better feeling for it now. I appreciate the follow up. Weick: Okay. Cool. Dan Blake: Mr. Commissioner, if I may interject? This is Dan Blake. Tim’s partner at Black Cherry. Weick: Sure. Blake: For whatever it’s worth, we still need a watershed permit so we will be going before Terry and the Watershed board with basically the same application so they’ll get their say and we’ll have to convince the... Weick: Well I’m glad you spoke up. That is helpful information. Thank you. Other comments? Von Oven: This is a tough one. I started off with my question earlier with this is the first time I’ve seen this kind of project come through. The transparent thought when I read this a few days ago when I saw allow excavation wetland and I thought, wait a minute. My whole time on the Planning Commission has been all about protecting wetlands but they’re going to dig one up. So that doesn’t feel right and Terry’s letter didn’t help with that, just to be perfectly honest. On the other hand, there’s a lot of good here. It is quite the site in terms of a park, next to a park and the walking trails and all of that and obviously having more of that in Chanhassen and combined with the ability for some development in there that will overlook a nice pond versus what it is today. It doesn’t help me make the case either way. I’m dying to hear from other commissioners to see how they’re feeling about this because I honestly feel like I can be swayed right now. The other comment I’ll make is whoever that was that just spoke. Mr. Blake. Mr. Blake, that was a very helpful comment because you’re right. The people who help us with the wetlands, somebody help me here. Weick: The Riley Purgatory Creek? Von Oven: Thank you. Bluff Creek. Yes, that is comforting to know that there is still a decision to be made on that side of the argument. Commissioner Skistad looks like she wants to say something. Skistad: Actually, I don’t on this one. I listened through all of it and I’ve sat through a lot of wetland conversations in the past and I’ve walked through many of ours now and this one makes sense to me, surprisingly. It didn’t at first but with the explanation I’ve feel comfortable with what’s happening here. Von Oven: Can I ask you what makes it make sense to you? Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 37 Skistad: Well I think going back to the original wetlands instead of just a wetter area…this is to me more of an actual wetland which is a little bit deeper with the reeds on the outside. If I look at over by the Chanhassen High School area, what that has become now versus what it was when they did more of the restoration there. I feel like this is more of a restoration project to what it originally should be versus what it currently is. Von Oven: Cool. Thank you. Weick: Commissioner Von Oven, you just said something that made me realize I can’ see anybody. You can see all the people in the squares and you know when they’re thinking and ready to talk. I just want to for the record state that I’m completely blind here. I cannot see anybody so when you shake your head or look like you’re about to speak I don’t know that. Does that help at all with my own comfortableness? Von Oven: It does. And also for the record because we can see each other doesn’t mean that we have developed some language that we can speak to each other. Weick: Which would not be appropriate. Von Oven: Which would not be appropriate. Noyes: Chairman, it sounds like you’re both blind and jealous tonight. Weick: Yes, yes. Thank you so much. I wish we were all together, then we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. I can see you. Skistad: You need another screen I guess. Weick: I definitely digress and I apologize for that. Back to this item at hand. Really good thought behind this and I really do appreciate as I share a lot of the same questions and this is a good one. A good discussion, that is. Skistad: I’ve seen like the ducks come back and a lot of the wildlife that you would expect and the wetlands to come back over behind the Chanhassen High School area? That was something I really noticed living in that area and walking through it for so many years after they, I don’t even remember exactly what they did, but they basically in my mind did the same thing and dug it out and repopulated it with plants that fit the area. There’s definitely still the reed areas are still there because they are around the outside of it. It just now can house more wildlife than it did before. So I guess I’ll just go ahead and make a motion. Weick: I will second the motion. We have a motion and second. Any comment before we vote? I’ll jump in again and only to say that there was some question raised regarding the pre-clearing of the haul route and I would only point out for the record in the recommendation under Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 38 environmental resources, there’s point number three and there’s point number seven and both of those very specifically lay out recommendations from our environmental resources group about a restoration plan around the haul route as well as the buffer area that have potentially already been disturbed. I just wanted to make a note of that that is a stipulation in the recommendation that we are approving. Commissioner Skistad moved, Commissioner Weick seconded to recommend that the City Council approve the interim use permit to allow site grading subject to the conditions of approval, and adoptions of the findings of fact and recommendation. The motion passed unanimously with a vote of 5-0 and one recusal by Commissioner McGonagill. Weick: Thank you, again everyone for your presentations as well as Mr. Erhart and Mr. Blake for really insightful comments and perspective. Good luck with this project which I assume hopefully is going to start pretty soon for you as we are in the deep of winter. With that, we will move to our final item on tonight’s agenda. PUBLIC HEARING: CONSIDER A REQUEST FOR VARIANCES TO MODIFY A NONCONFORMING STRUCTURE BY ADDING A SECOND STORY TO AN EXISTING HOME LOCATED AT 9243 LAKE RILEY BOULEVARD Young-Walters: This is Planning Case 2021-05, Request to intensify an existing, nonconforming structure at 9243 Lake Riley Boulevard. The is a variance so if it’s not approved by a ¾ majority vote for denied by a ¾ majority vote, it will go to the City Council. Similarly, any resident aggrieved with the decision can appeal to staff in writing within four days and it will then move to the Council for consideration. That being said, I will jump into it. The property is located at 9243 Lake Riley Boulevard. This is zoned Residential Single-Family. It is a shoreland property and it is riparian. This district requires a 20,000-square foot lot area, 30-foot front and 30-foot rear setbacks, 10-foot side yard setbacks and a 75-foot shoreland setback. Properties are limited to 25% lot cover, are permitted to have a water-oriented accessory structure 10 feet from the ordinary high water level (OHWL). That structure would be limited to 250 square feet in size. The site’s existing conditions: The lot is 12,569 square feet. It’s currently at 24.4% lot cover so very close to its maximum. It has a nonconforming 64-foot shore setback for the house and that is 66.9 feet shoreland setback for the deck. It has a front setback of 19.1 feet. The east side is a nonconforming 9.6-foot setback and there is also a 2½-foot encroachment into a sanitary sewer easement along the west side. I would note that variances were issued for the front and shore setbacks in 1977 and 1993, respectively. The house was built a little off those, likely due to errors in construction or improvements in surveying technology so there are minor differences from the location of the actual house building pad from the variances given at those time. However, they applied for all the permits, they went through the process and that’s why we treat this as a legal nonconforming. So the applicant is proposing to a story on to the existing rambler. They have stated that they will maintain the existing footprint and that they will not be increasing any of the nonconforming setbacks, and that they will not be adding any lot cover to the Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 39 property. In the pictures, this is a shot I took from Google Maps of the house and then this is the rendering they provided of what the façade will look like once the renovations are complete. They’ve stated the existing home doesn’t provide adequate space for their family and needs to be modernized and expanded. The existing home is two bed, two bath with approximately 1,700 square feet of living area. They’ve observed that the lot size and the existing home placement, I mean there’s no expansion possible without a variance and that expanding vertically is the least impactful option. They believe that their proposed home renovation is consistent with the neighborhood character and will represent an improvement to the existing home and property values. Staff looked it over and one of the first things we did is we looked at what the yard setbacks essentially left in terms of areas that could be improved without a variance. This green line is the approximate 10-foot side yard setback, 30-foot front yard setback and 10-foot side yard setback and then the blue line is the shoreland setback. Again to the best of staff’s ability to sketch it out in Paint. This doesn’t really any option for improving the house without a variance. Any other variance the applicant requested would involve increasing lot cover which would put the property over its 25% lot cover limit and that would obviously have a greater impact on the lake and environmental resources. It would also an additional setback, either moving closer to the front yard or the side yard or the lake, again, which would have a bigger impact on the surrounding homes. Going up is the most logical and least impactful way to improve the property. Staff did investigate the possibility of doing a second story without variances. Given the constraints, they would be limited to a 16-foot wide second story. Staff felt that was pretty constrained in terms of providing reasonable living area. The applicant’s proposed maximum height is well under the 35-foot maximum. It would be 22.8 feet, measured at the midpoint of the highest gable. So, again, they’re not pushing the envelope. They’re not doing incredibly steep roofs that would have the chance to obstruct site lines across the street. They’re not proposing increases to the setbacks. Staff does not believe this will negatively impact any of the surrounding properties. One thing that staff looks at with the nonconforming use ordinance is its intent to essentially remove nonconforming structures and uses. In this case, staff doesn’t believe there’s any possible scenario where a house could be built on this property meeting all setbacks and requirements and the existing use of a single-family home is the desired us for the zoning area. We don’t believe that allowing the nonconformity be intensified, it runs counter to the intent of the ordinance in this case. For these reasons, staff would recommend that the Planning Commission grant the variance to permit the addition of a second story to the nonconforming structure. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have. Weick: Thanks, MacKenzie. With that I will opening to commissioner questions. Must have been one heck of a report, MacKenzie. Hearing none, I would invite the applicant, if you are still on the line and you’d like to mention anything about your project to the commissioners, you may do so at this time. Ethan Kindseth: Good evening, Ethan here with Alma Homes. We are working with the Galleger’s on this project. Thank you, MacKenzie. I think that did a great job of summing up the constraints we’ve been dealing with and coming with a solution on this. I don’t have a great deal Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 40 to add. I think we’ve looked at any possible scenarios that we could to make this work within the confines of what the lot came to us with. If anyone has questions, I’m happy to answer anything. Weick: Thank you for sticking with us here. Based on the renderings, it’s going to be a beautiful home and I do appreciate that is stays within the existing nonconformities in that area and areas like that. That’s a really big deal and so in my opinion, it’s nice to see that someone can upgrade and improve their home and still store of maintain what was there before from at least a footprint standpoint. Any questions for the applicant or builder from any of the other commissioners? Hearing none, thank you again for joining us and sticking with us this evening. With that I will open the public hearing portion of tonight’s item. The phone lines are open and I don’t believe we received any comment. There was nothing in the packet. Young-Walters: No, staff did not receive any questions or emails on this subject and we are not receiving any phone calls. Weick: I’m going to go ahead and close the public hearing portion of this item and open for commissioner comments and the motion’s coming up there on the screen so certainly would entertain a motion or comments on this item. McGonagill: Chairman, this is Commissioner McGonagill. The only comment I have is my complements to the applicant. They’re trying to build a beautiful home for themselves but they are taking with the lot gave them and they’re working with it and not trying to force it. You know what I’m saying? Weick: Oh ya. McGonagill: I agree with you. The hardcover is staying the same, staying within the variances and not trying to ask for a ton of things so I appreciate the applicants’ going that. That’s what we like to see in the city and you are to be complemented for that. Weick: I agree. Thank you for that. McGonagill: So if there are no other comments, I will give you a motion. Weick: That would be great. McGonagill: The Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves the variance request to intensify a nonconforming structure by adding a second story meeting the existing nonconforming front, side and shoreland setback, subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Facts and Decision. Weick: We have a valid motion from Commissioner McGonagill. Do we have second? Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 41 Noyes: I’ll second, Commissioner Noyes. Weick: We have a second from Commissioner Noyes, I believe. Thank you. Any other comment before we vote? Hearing none, we will have a roll call vote. I will start with Commissioner Randall. Randall: Aye. Weick: In favor. Commissioner McGonagill? McGonagill: Aye. Weick: In favor. Commissioner Skistad? Skistad: Aye. Weick: Thank you. Commissioner Noyes? Noyes: Aye. Weick: Thank you. And Commissioner Von Oven? Von Oven: Aye. Weick: And I also vote in favor. The motion passes unanimously, 6 votes to 0 and another one hurdles over the ¾ barrier in fine fashion, I must say. A great way to end the evening. Thank you, MacKenzie. Thank you, again, to the applicant/builder for sticking with us to this last item and good luck with your project. With that, if someone would please note the Planning Commission minutes dated December 1, 2020. McGonagill moved, Noyes seconded that the Chanhassen Board of Appeals and Adjustments approves the variance request to intensify a nonconforming structure by adding a second story meeting the existing nonconforming front, side and shoreland setback, subject to the Conditions of Approval and adopts the attached Findings of Facts and Decision. The motion passes unanimously with a vote of 6-0. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: So noted the verbatim Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated December 1, 2020. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Weick: Kate do you have an update for us? Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 42 Aanenson: At the last City Council meeting, actually there are two since you last met. December 7. MacKenzie’s been hard at work continuing on the Code amendments. There was some addressing, some street administrative, septic and earthwork. Those were all approved. I just want to add, I know Matt Unmacht our Water Resources Coordinator, you’ll be seeing that here. He’s still waiting for some comments from other Watershed Districts. You’ll be seeing kind of a big lift on the stormwater changes going forward. Then on Monday, December 14, the Island property was approved that you saw and then the final plat for the 3rd Addition. You didn’t see that one; final plats just go to the City Council so that’s the 3rd Addition of The Park that Lennar is working on. Not the top part. The request for the Gateway, the auto repair, that was also approved by the City Council and the Outdoor Storage of Boats, Trailers and Recreational Vehicles, let’s just say, hit a bump. And do, that’s tabled until further notice. There are strong feelings on both sides so we’ll where that goes. Weick: From the Council? Aanenson: From the residents. I would never say that about the Council. So strong feelings from the residents so I think people felt like maybe there wasn’t a good opportunity to share their feelings and a lot of other feelings. We’ll probably kinds of revisit that in a few months. I know that’s been asked on Facebook a little bit too so we’re following up on that. I do want to think the Planning Commission. We had a heavy lift here because we didn’t have a meeting. Our last one was the first part of December so I appreciate everybody hanging in there. We have people that want to get to work which is great on projects and their businesses and in addition to that, I do want to remind you that we do have two items on for your next meeting in two weeks. So we’ll kind of taper back and those just happen to be variances. With that, that’s all I had. Again, thank you to the Commission’s insightful detail to reviewing the applications. Appreciate that. Weick: Thanks, Kate. I’m really, my head is spinning about the storage, I’d love to hear more but I think that is our final item on tonight’s agenda and as you all hear about a half hour ago, my bedtime alarm went off so I would accept a motion to adjourn. Young-Walters: They know they can go to 10:30. Weick: Ya, it’s killing you. Oh shoot. Von Oven: It’s like the best part of my day. [Laughter] Von Oven: I’ll motion to adjourn. Weick: All those in favor? All: Aye. Chanhassen Planning Commission – January 5, 2021 43 Weick: We are adjourned. McGonagill: See Mr. Chairman, we’re all home and you’re not so we really don’t care. Weick: This is a tough crowd. Good night. Von Oven: Take care. Skistad: Night. Von Oven moved 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 9:45 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Jean Steckling & Kim Meuwissen