PC Minutes 1-5-21Chanhassen 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