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PC 2005 08 02 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 2, 2005 Chairman Sacchet called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Uli Sacchet, Jerry McDonald, Debbie Larson, Deborah Zorn, Kurt Papke, and Mark Undestad MEMBERS ABSENT: Dan Keefe STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Lori Haak, Water Resource Coordinator; Don Asleson, Natural Resources Technician; and Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS: Janet Paulsen 7305 Laredo Drive PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR WETLAND ALTERATION PERMIT TO CONSTRUCT WALKWAY AND DOCK ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 6440 FOX PATH, MARIANNE McCORD & DAVID SANFORD, PLANNING CASE 05-22. Public Present: Name Address Marianne McCord and David Sanford 6440 Fox Path Tom Meier 695 Pleasant View Road Jahn Dyvik 610 Pleasant View Road Lori Haak presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Thanks Lori. Questions from staff. Go ahead Jerry. McDonald: I’ve got a couple questions for you. You may or may not know the answers. At that end of the lake what’s the depth of the lake? Haak: Well I can only say with what we’ve seen and there have been other dock issues in that area. In the channel, that area of the lake, the center of that is about 4 feet deep max. Even out in that area, it is quite shallow and actually we saw the presence of floating bogs or actually sediment that was showing up at the surface in and amongst the aquatic vegetation so it is quite shallow. Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 McDonald: Okay. One of the other things in your report was, you talk about I guess the existing docks. They dredge those channels out. How often is that dredged and who pays for it? Haak: Actually I’m not, I couldn’t state for certain that it was. I do know that there would probably need to be some dredging in order to accommodate this dock. But I think in the past they may or may not have been actually dredged. I’m not sure. There may be some people here tonight who can speak to that better. McDonald: And then the other thing you talk about is that, in putting the walkway and then the dock, you talk about the jog that’s going to have to be made in order to get, I guess to miss the existing dock there, the far western dock which is pretty much right on the border. Aren’t they going to have to go across the property of Lot 10 in order to get out there to make the jogs that you’re talking about? Haak: Yes. Actually that is. There’s a little bit of a discrepancy. There is a little bit of an uncertainty as to whether or not the applicant has the right to do that. Typically the interpretation that staff makes, and I believe the DNR makes is that you really don’t have a lot of property rights below the ordinary high water mark of your property simply because that’s where the DNR jurisdiction takes over. And that’s something we’d have to check with the attorney about. I haven’t actually asked that question but that is a point that would definitely have to be. McDonald: Okay, and then is that the same thing with Lot 8 because at that point if they now have property below the ordinary high water mark and they want to put a dock out, then we end up trying to put 3 docks in that particular area. Haak: Yes, that’s correct, and that’s one of the concerns. McDonald: And then we go down through and we have to cross over Lot 10, then Lot 10 which is governed by this common dock suddenly wouldn’t they have rights to this dock also or at least be able to say I want access to it by? Haak: And I don’t know the answer to that question. That’s something that we’d have to check with the attorney. McDonald: So we potentially could be opening up a can of worms there as to. Haak: Correct. McDonald: Now, you talk about in the beginning when all this was put together and the intents for Lots 1 through 9 as it was negotiated with the developer before any of this was cut out the developer agreed that Lots 1 through 9, as he put them together, would not have lake access. So all of that was put into the original agreement in order for him to get the development. Haak: Well it wasn’t stated that way. Lots 1 through 9 weren’t addressed really. Lots 7, 8 and 9 do have the conservation easement because the 900 elevation does cross those three additional properties but the only lots that were addressed specifically were Lots 10 through 19. So it 2 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 didn’t, it didn’t say that they didn’t have, you know it didn’t explain that they didn’t have dock rights but they were left out what appears to be intentionally. McDonald: So Lot 9 wasn’t discussed but your position would be that when the conservation easement was put in, that covers Lot 9 as far as… Haak: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. McDonald: Okay. I have no further questions. Sacchet: Okay. Any other questions? Larson: Yeah, I’ve got one. Sacchet: Go ahead Debbie. Larson: Can you point on your aerial view where the proposed dock would be? I was a little unclear as to where that was supposed to go. Haak: That would be the end of it. Larson: Okay. Would that be this permanent pier, whatever you want to call it, that would be there forever? Haak: Yes. Larson: And then there would be an additional dock added to that. Haak: It would depend on where the, in most cases when we make this recommendation you have the wetland that you’re crossing then you need to cross additional open water, so it may be the case that in this instance they would not need to cross additional open water so therefore there would not need to be a seasonal component to it. We just haven’t established that yet because we’re not exactly sure of where it would need to be aligned. Larson: I see. Okay. Haak: In order to get access to the lake. Larson: Okay. Papke: Two questions. Reading, it almost seems like a legal issue. Could you please explain what the responsibility and authority of the Planning Commission is in regards to the conservation easement. Now that easement is a legally binding document. I mean do we have the authority to over ride that with this wetland alteration permit? Where does our authority come in here exactly? 3 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Haak: Do you have any, okay. Aanenson: The conservation easement, as Lori indicated, was a condition of the original approval. All you can do is recommend to the City Council who would have the authority to remove that conservation easement. So the City Council would have to be the one, but you would make a recommendation. Papke: Okay. Okay, got it. The other question I have, is there a precedent for the Chanhassen Planning Commission of over riding such a conservation easement for the granting a dock like this? Haak: I’m not aware of any. Papke: So this would be the first time we would ever do something. Haak: Right. Typically when the city vacates conservation easements, it’s because there’s nothing to conserve any more. We’ve done it in instances, I know in Longacres as an example where the trees got cut down for some reason or another with the house building or the development or something like that. Papke: But specifically for the granting a dock like this, for the granting of that. Haak: Yeah, I’m not aware of any. Aanenson: The other point that I wanted to make is, again as Lori indicated is that there was a lot of history that went into the discussions of how to get those, so there was kind of a compromise. In order to get the dock there was conservation easements…discussion and we’re not, those notes in the file but not to the depth and breadth of really what all those negotiations, discussions were so going forward in time we’re trying to go back and kind of re-create what those discussions were. It’s our belief there was a strong purpose for putting that in place and that was strictly to limit the boats and the docks on the lake. Sacchet: A couple more questions. Is there any knowledge or wisdom why Lot 9 was not included in the community dock? We don’t know anything about that? Haak: No. It was, like I indicated earlier, it just wasn’t even brought up. Sacchet: Now obviously looking at the aerial photograph, there is no open water. I mean it’s all vegetation so they would have to be, the vegetation would have to be cut to make a water way. Haak: Potentially, and again the applicant, in my conservations with the applicant, the applicant is interested in extending the dock. They do believe, and I think they’ll share this in a minute, but that they can get a dock extended into the end. Sacchet: Of the existing water way there? 4 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Haak: Right. In order to gain access. Sacchet: So it would be minimizing the amount of. Haak: That’s correct. Sacchet: Now I don’t quite understand why Lot 8 keeps coming up. It seems like that one is quite a bit further removed from actually the water. Haak: In, this is actually a copy of the preliminary plat. This isn’t the actual recorded version but it does show documentation that the 896 point, well 896 contour, which is right here, does extend onto Lot 8. And based on the applicant’s most recent survey and the surveys of other properties in the area, it also appears that that hasn’t changed. That that is consistent, so there would be some shoreland frontage. Sacchet: That little corner would be sufficient to consider that that lot has riparian rights? Haak: Yes, because they can. This crazy little drawing is the illustration of the dock setback zone and how our code reads as far as interpreting dock setbacks. What the code says is you connect two points where the ordinary high water mark meets each property line and you connect those with a straight line, and then you draw at a 90 degree angle a 100 foot line, and then where those overlap on neighboring properties, you split the difference. So, and they have to meet a 10 foot setback from that. Following? It takes a couple times reading through it to get it. And it’s probably taken me the 5 years I’ve worked here to figure that out but, so that’s how this, which is called the extended lot line is derived and then the yellow as shown here is the dock setback zone. Sacchet: So the blue is actually Lot 8? Haak: The blue is actually Lot 8, so they would be able to, you know if there was a 10. Could you get me my scale please. The one line I didn’t put on here. I think this is 40. So if you look at a 10 foot setback here, there is actually about 10 feet right in the middle there that we would be talking about. Sacchet: But wouldn’t it come to a point further south? Haak: All you extend the lot lines are 100 feet though. So that’s all they have to meet the setback for. So as long as they meet the setback at that 100 foot mark, it’s fine. Which is why this dock, well actually this, why this extends past the green here. And it kind of jogs over is because they don’t have to meet the setback. Sacchet: So it has to be 10 foot from the green there at the 100 foot, and then basically it’s free for grabs? Haak: Yes. Yep. When I put these together it got a little shifty but I think this shows the idea. 5 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Sacchet: That’s good information. McDonald: Can I ask a follow up? Sacchet: Go ahead Jerry. Go. McDonald: On that particular one, didn’t you say earlier that anything below the ordinary high water mark on the State is considered the lake and no one’s really got rights within there. It’s the State. Haak: Except that the City has adopted this additional requirement of a setback. McDonald: Okay. Sacchet: Okay, well this is very helpful Lori. Thanks for explaining this. Any other questions? Thank you Lori. With that I’d like to invite the applicants to come forward and tell you your view. Tell us your view of what’s going on here. This looks like an interesting. Welcome. If you want to state your name and address for the record. David Sanford: Yes, I’m David Sanford and I live at 6440 Fox Path. I’m going to start off with some, a couple points to Lori’s presentation and then just some overview of kind of how this process started so there’s some background and my wife’s going to get into a little more detail to the specific points. You know first thing I think the absence of nothing written about Lots 8 and 9 does not assume anything. So nothing written does not make a point. There’s contradictory remarks on Lots 16. One is it had an independent dock and one is it doesn’t. It does not. 17, 18 and 19, 10 through 16 have the shared dock. I just want to clarify a couple points because that went back and forth. And I think that proves that some of the things that were written in that original thing had changed. And Lot 16 was one. But kind of some highlights. First, we bought our house in ’98 so well after the development of the project. There was no mention of any conservatory in our closing documents and we refinanced. Checked the title insurance. No mention of this conservatory in any of that. The goal of the conservatory is to protect the environment. We have done probably more than a lot of other folks in the conservatory nature. First, we use state approved and natural fertilizer. We do not use phosphorous based ones. We planted over 20 to 30 trees in different varieties in our yard and into the berm. We’ve reduced the turf in our yard by over 50% where many folks have extended turf against the conservatory option with no input from anyone out there. We’ve not used any sealant on our driveway to affect the environment. We don’t change our own oil on our property. And my wife’s an active participant in master gardeners in the Arboretum. When we first contacted Lori about this, it was actually in the purpose of offering our home to be, how to environmentally lakescape your property. So we’re very much into the conservation of our property. And the first purpose of calling this was not really to build a dock but to understand the rights are of some other docks that were built that were extended well beyond their original area, so it was more into understanding the purpose behind the lakes. We then asked in April, to Lori’s point, you know hey, why can everyone build a dock and seem to do whatever they want on the lake and we seem to have a lot of lakefront property. Lori very much encouraged us to pursue this issue. And so we’ve, you know we looked at that and we saw that a lot of people were changing the docks and 6 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 extensions. We discussed the impact of the environment on this end of the lake and Lori said at that time things were, I think the term we’ve kind of wrote down, were a bit fuzzy at this end of the lake. So we knew there was some challenges around it. Our original survey, as I think she showed getting to a point, which was an error. We actually have open water. In fact you know in reality I think 26 feet of open water we understand is required. We have about 100 feet of open water on our property. And then Lori strongly encouraged us to get a survey for our lot and actually indicated how beneficial to the city this would be to clear up many issues on this end of the lake, and some of the changes on that were specifically requested by Lori during our survey and then my wife is going to get into a little more detail. Marianne McCord: The map that we used, or that she used. If you could put up this map. Haak: Oh sure. Marianne McCord: It’s a little confusing because…he thought this was all vegetation but it’s water vegetation so depending on what time of the year you take the picture, sometimes it will look like open water. Sometimes it doesn’t. These right here are actually two lots, and so there’s open water for this in combination with the second one is about the same amount that we have open water. One of the other things that has been brought up was this part about 8. Well, there’s a open high water mark here and it goes this way but if you would just use the open water that we have on our lot, that’s Lot 8. So I’d like to go over…and I’m going to just address them very briefly. Again my husband talked about lake preservation and we very much want to go ahead and use the dock. It would be a very simple dock. We don’t want to, when we first moved there, these two docks right here were just a straight, long dock and that’s all we want. We feel that in a way our lot is being asked to do all the preservation at this end of the lake and then other lots don’t even have to follow the same things that we have to follow. We are good stewards of the land and we, again my husband spoke about the conservancy. Issue number two is reasonable access, and we are besides 9, we are the only ones who, Lot 9 is the only one that has the open water. Open water. These do too but then somehow in the original lot, or original surveys they went ahead and gave them dock use. If you go around the lake right here, we’re the only lot that doesn’t have either an access to a dock or a dock. Everybody else does. Encroachment into drainage swale and utilities. If my husband can pass this out. One of the reasons why we went ahead with the dock that we went with was because we talked to Lori and Don and they had initially said these things…and it saves us money anyway so we would be happy to do that. Four is dredging. I actually called Lori because we had 4 bids and during one of my calls somebody had stated that some people at the other end, my end of the lake were thinking about dredging and would I go in with them because it would spread the cost and it would be great, so I called Lori and I said well is this even possible. Can we do that as a conservation effort and you know what were the issues, so when we personally went down there, you can go back down to that part of the lake. We were down there with some friends and they have a boat, depth finder and it is 3 feet so we feel that shouldn’t be a problem right now with dredging. Again issue 5. 7 and 8 are part of the conservation effort but again they have no open water on their property. You also brought up something about in our area perhaps has there been a precedent with this. There’s been a precedent in our neighborhood. In this big code of how many inches Lori did you say, just hundreds of paper, we have a public trail and for 15 some years nobody did anything about it so all of a sudden we were going to lose that trail and we had 7 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 to go with the city. We went, we planned. There’s some people who wanted it. Some people who didn’t and they actually altered it from what the original documents were. So it was supposed to be 10 feet with so much easement and they went ahead and switched that. Again sticking with then finally with issue 6. Again the ordinary high water mark can only be an estimate on Lot 8 because they haven’t had that before, and this lot right here has changed the ordinary high water mark so you cannot take a point from here to here and know exactly where it is because it’s been changed. And our lot actually wouldn’t require an easement because if you follow, where’s your, you know with all the negatives… If you follow in here, Lot 8, yeah Lot 8, then we too can go off to this area and this then becomes our, kind of a variance so if you’re applying that rule over here, you then have to apply it over here and we have no problem cutting that and doing that. So I guess the part that we have a problem with and why I called Lori way back in April, and I had contacted her even 2-3 years ago, was that it didn’t seem that things were being fairly applied to my lot, the lot next to me and I just wanted to make sure that (a), I was conserving well by being a good steward of the lake, but also what they got to have, I can have. Sacchet: Thank you. Anything more Dave? David Sanford: One more point. You know as we went through this process, I think the other point that I want to make clear is, we worked closely with staff and had numerous meetings and literally encouraged. As a matter of fact during our survey process staff came out to ask for extra points on the survey that they wanted, which cost us about an extra $500 for our surveyors, and we were very much encouraged that this would be a supported thing, so quite frankly we were dismayed and a little bit surprised by the staff report, based upon the 4 months previous of our actions and working together. Sacchet: Thank you. Any questions from the applicant? No? Okay, thank you very much. Yeah, you have one? Go ahead Jerry. McDonald: When you bought your house was it sold as having lakefront property? Marianne McCord: It said we did. It said that we didn’t have a dock. David Sanford: It said that we didn’t have access to the shared dock. We knew that and we knew we had lake view. We knew we had water. Marianne McCord: We knew we had water but again if you went back to the original lot on the survey, I don’t know where that one is. That one unfortunately showed us, and in fact that was 2 or 3 years ago I contacted Lori and at that time she was giving me that 26 feet, 10 feet on each side and a 6 foot dock and she said, well you know she was looking at it and I was looking at it, We thought it just came to a point when in reality it comes out like this. So we had more than 26 feet of open water and adjacent to a point so again I think the problem was, in the 80’s when it was extremely fuzzy, and we were working, until we figured out exactly what our survey is. And I was a little confused with that too because I think the survey is supposed to be legally binding. I mean you’re not supposed to switch it. It shouldn’t have been just…it should have shown that we had more. 8 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 McDonald: Okay, so I’m understanding this about you keep mentioning open water. Where the 64 feet is at on this one where it shows the dock coming down, that would be open water so the boat would actually dock there and you wouldn’t have to go out beyond the dock next to it? Marianne McCord: Well what happened here was, again while we were going through the survey and costs, we realized that this next dock was less than 10 feet on what was considered our property line. So we were a little confused about that and again Lori, it was the 100 feet kind of thing like that. So depending on how we come up here, we could probably have done just parallel to that and now that we’ve heard concerns, we would bring it over to the ordinary high water. Bring it up to within 10 feet of what is considered our property line, and then bring it parallel over so it wouldn’t be 64 feet. It’d be much less. McDonald: Okay, and at that point would there be access problems between your dock and the dock next to it? Marianne McCord: No, we would try, well no because that wouldn’t be fair but no, we would go ahead and move it back over here. Then move it back up. Here’s where this comes in. Again the water actually comes down to about here. That’s this…and then we would just bring it up here and run it parallel. And we only want a very, very simple dock. Larson: Because it really does appear close. Marianne McCord: But these two docks are very close too, so it’s been done before. McDonald: Well if you bring your dock across, what impact does that have on Lot 10, which is the one next to you? Marianne McCord: Again we would be out, if you see the line right here…and survey and then if you go back to Lori’s, this part, it would have absolutely no impact. So regardless of which way you want to look at it, on that survey or… David Sanford: Lot 10 does…have access to the shared dock. Marianne McCord: Community dock. David Sanford: But we don’t believe that anything we do would cross into their property line… Sacchet: Any other questions of the applicant? No? Thank you very much. Now this is a public hearing so I’d like to open the hearing and invite anybody who would like to comment to this topic to come forward now and let us know what you have to say. If you would please state your name and address for the record please. Tom Meier: Good evening commissioners. I’m Tom Meier and I’m at 695 Fox Path. Or pardon me, Pleasant View. I used to live in Fox Path and I addressed a letter to the Planning Commission this week. We lived for 9 years ourselves at 6410 Fox Path which is Lot 6. From 9 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 1990 to 1999, and it was clear in our subdivision and it’s in the by-laws of the subdivision which are attached to Lori’s report that only Lots 10 through 19 had access to Lotus Lake. While Lots 2 through 9 had lake views, they were not and we were not allowed to directly access the lake. And the reason is, it’s a conservation easement which is a lot different than a utility drainage easement. We now live directly east of this property at 695 Pleasant View and I am the dock adjacent to where they’re proposing to go. And I had a number of points that I put in my letter. The first one, to reach open water in a straight line direction, while maintaining the city code dock setback requirements, which is a straight line to open water, and if you stay within the easements of this drawing, they will hit the shoreline. Because this, does this show up? This line, if you allow rights here, he also has the rights and their blue lines where it cross over the orange lines so you split the difference as was indicated. So they would then have to come out this direction. Here’s my dock over here. They’re proposing to come very close to my dock but you would in effect have to come this direction, but they’re crossing Lot 10 and Lot 10, it also has the same riparian rights which changes this line right here. You now have to get this ordinary high water mark to determine the riparian rights of Lot 10. So I believe Lot 10 riparian rights, the high water marks are about here and here, which means their line would look like this so they’d split this difference and they’d have to come in here and in here and somehow still cross this lot. And they are now intruding on the space of Lot 8, so if they’ve got a direction out of here somehow, because Lot 10 granted it or you did, they would just go onto the shoreline because the city code requires a straight line direction. This area by the way is very shallow. It’s 2 to 4 inches of water currently and if we don’t get rain it will dry up to a, it will completely dry up. There is no water typically in the area that they’re proposing and they want to extend their dock from their house, quite a ways behind their house. There will be 440 feet from their back yard to the end of my dock. And then to get to open water they would have to dredge from their dock around their dock to that channel which I just went through this to get a dredging permit, if you can get one. The DNR will probably will fight you and not grant you one but the minimum cost to get a dredger is $50,000 because it’s such a complicated process. This is considered protected environment but it’s contaminated soil. You have to remove it. You have to put it in an enclosed environment until it absolutely dries out. They have to mix it with good soil and re- process this and then haul it back to the earth and put it back in. It takes a year to do this and it’s a very involved process. There’s only one dredger around. That’s Minnetonka Dredging. I talked to him about it and it’s a very complicated process. But trying to get a DNR permit is almost next to impossible. That channel has been there for many, many years and it’s basically dredged out from boat traffic, not from any other kind of dredging so. Our, so your other neighbors are going to be adversely affected by their proposal, plus you’re going to set a precedent for the whole subdivision which allows everybody in that subdivision to go back to what you’re calling lake frontage. The reason 10 through 16 have a common shared dock is they’re all in wetlands and they’re all on vegetation. When you get to dock number, or Lot number 17, 18 and 19, they’re actually on the lake. They have pretty good lake frontage. But 10 through 16 have all kinds of vegetation and I’ve got pictures that I want to show you as well. They’re proposed extension by the way was within 8 feet of our dock because they failed to draw. There was a proposed drawing. My dock actually comes out to the end of this dock. It’s a U shaped dock and then there’s a platform, viewing platform that goes 8 foot out to that direction. So the way it was proposed to us, it’s too close. The channel is maintained by, with the weeds by myself. It gets complicated trying to get neighbors to share in these costs and I’m quite frankly not interested in partnerships or agreements. Our land is private. It’s separate from 10 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 the Fox Chase subdivision. The Fox Chase subdivision when it was established, ended up with this conservation district and that’s what is governing this whole discussion. And this conservation easement supercedes, again I want to reiterate, supercedes all riparian rights. There is a family, there’s a lot of wildlife down there. There’s a family of deer right where this dock is proposing to go through. There are, a lot of people don’t know it but there’s giant snapping turtles that live in that wetlands and they’re absolutely huge and there’s all kinds of birds and wildlife that live back there. And as far as the fish, in the spring that’s where the pickerel and the carp mate and it’s a quite active area. So you’d be going through and destroying a lot of the vegetation and lake, or what little water there is, and affecting the fish. In the spring, this is a view in front of my dock. And it’s very shallow. This is high water in the spring after all the rain, but there is mud where they would have to, this is not silt. This is actual mud that they would have to remove, which means they’d have to dredge. This is a little different angle of the same. There’s a thing on my dock, so looking to where they want to navigate, and again there’s 2 to 4 inches of water where you’re looking around that mud. This is what it looks like right now. Coming off the dock. They put a survey stake here next to my dock. And looking at it, it’s solid vegetation. There’s just a slight amount of open water but that will fill in with vegetation as well. Haak: Just for reference, that stake, if you could remove that last picture Tom real quick. That stake is where the McCord/Sanford property comes to a point. That appears to be where that stake is so. Tom Meier: What that stake represents is lakeshore. Okay? You have 3 different things. You’ve got lakeshore. You’ve got a wetland and you have this high water mark. So there’s 3 lines and the stake is where the lake actually starts. And the wetlands is back kind of in the middle and then there’s the high water mark, so high water mark is simply an elevation above sea level. It’s 896.3. These are just more shots at the end of the dock. Trying to show you the vegetation. I took this shot to show the water depth. We can, if you saw the picture up close, you can see into the water and how shallow it is. This is looking back from the end of the dock towards their house. Their house is back here. Again, that’s my dock. It’s 550 to 600 feet from the end of my dock to their back door. Marianne McCord: From that point it’s 466. It’s on the survey. Tom Meier: It’s where the dock would start and to their house. It’s further and then they still aren’t in open water and you can’t just go out there and turn your docks. The city code says you have to go in a straight line to open water. These are just more shots. I took these shots this morning so they’re quite current. Oh here’s, there’s the shot of the water depth. You can see again if you want to look at this up close you can see the bottom. It’s not very silty. It’s mucky. So a lot of people think you can just go in with an outboard and open that up but you can’t. It’s very, very dense. I looked up on the DNR site the definition of a conservation district and, easement I should say. And I’d like to read this paragraph. Conservation easement means a non-possessory interest of a holder in real property imposing limitations or affirmative obligations, the purposes of which include retaining or protecting natural, scenic or open space values of real property. Assuring it’s availability for agricultural, forest, recreational or open space use. Protecting natural resources. Maintaining or enhancing air quality, water quality or 11 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 preserving the historical, architectural, archeological or cultural aspects of real property. Now holder means the government body empowered to hold the interest in the real property under the laws of the State, which is the City of Chanhassen and that’s stated in the agreement with the developer and the City. So you are the holder, not this commission but the City is the holder of this easement. And it’s there for conservation. And in the conservation it states that no dock, structure, building can be crossing through a conservation district. So again that supercedes. There was a question earlier about the judicial actions. Again this is looking at the main part of the code of the DNR and judicial actions is an action affecting the conservation easement may be brought by an owner of an interest in the real property burdened by the easement. A holder of the easement, which is the City. A person having a third party right of enforcement. A person authorized by other law. So it’s very narrow who can affect the changes on these kind of districts so being that there are no rights to the lake, being that the conservation easement disallows it and there is drainage and utility easements through the same area, it’s, it would adversely affect the laws. And I think that’s pretty much what I wanted to present. Any questions? Sacchet: Okay, thank you very much. Anybody else wants to address this item? This is your chance. Seeing nobody, I’m closing this public hearing. Bring it back to commission for discussion and comments. You want to start Kurt? Papke: Sure. I’m adamantly opposed to this application. I think it’s bad for the lake. It’s bad for the neighbors and it puts the city on a very slippery slope, pun intended, in regards to making precedence with easements. The conservation easement is very black and white. It states it’s a perpetual conservation easement. Perpetual. Names Lot 7 through Lot 19 inclusive. Specifically prohibits docks and walkways. Alteration of vegetation in any manner or form. I think this one is about as cut and dry as it gets from my perspective. Sacchet: Okay. Thanks Kurt. Deborah. Zorn: While I feel for the homeowners and they feel like they’re the only home without a dock accessing the lake, I would have to say I would side with adhering with the conservation easement as well. Sacchet: Okay. McDonald: Well I believe you could put a dock in there that would not impact on the area. I have seen quite a few areas but the problem I have is the easement that was negotiated. That was part of the original development. It should have been on your title. If it’s not, I’m sorry but you know, whenever they do the searches, the easement should come up. That is a restriction on property use that is there. It is law. It follows the property and because of that I could not support it. There is just no way around it and if we start trying to do that, we’re opening up a big can of worms. Again this was negotiated several years ago as part of this development. Everyone was on notice. They understood what the conditions were and because of that I couldn’t support it. Sacchet: Okay, thanks Jerry. Debbie. 12 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Larson: Boy. I actually went out and looked at this on my kayak and I looked at the area and it is very shallow. However, in looking at the dock next door I’m seeing that he’s quite close to the line as well and he’s got a jog in his straight line and so there’s an issue here. I guess I wouldn’t be terribly opposed to having the dock just because it’s not going to make a huge difference compared to what’s already there. However, the conservation easement is pretty big and it’s very clear cut what it says that you’re not supposed to put anything on it. But my main issue is the fact that the developer didn’t put it in the original, you know he covered through Lot 10 and it was very clear that he intended possibly to have lake rights or dock rights for those lots and not your’s and it wasn’t lined, outlined in there that it was to include Lot 9 and it looks like perhaps it was, it was such a small portion at the time that he looked at it. As I say, I’m a little bit, I could go either way but leaning towards perhaps not allowing this to go through as well. Sacchet: Okay, thanks Debbie. Undestad: No comment. Sacchet: No comment? I do want to point out just two things. We heard from one resident speaking against it. We also got written comment from another resident that is supporting the applicant in putting the dock in. And then I further want to point out that this is a recommendation with City Council that ultimately City Council will make the final decision on this. Other than that I don’t really have any specific comments. I think it’s an unfortunate situation that in the original situation this was not considered, that there is water on that lot. It’s also unfortunate that the conservation easement apparently wasn’t discovered until quite far into this process because without the conservation easement it’d be clear that the lot has riparian rights, and obviously that came as a not very pleasant surprise for the applicant and all of a sudden there’s this conservation easement. But you made it very clear from staff’s side that the City Attorney stated distinctly that the conservation easement supercedes the riparian rights and I think that’s only the fulcrum of what we have in front of us here. So that’s my comments. With that somebody want to venture a motion please? McDonald: I’ll make the motion that the Planning Commission recommends denial of the Wetland Alteration Permit #05-22 for a boardwalk across the wetlands at 6440 Fox Path, based upon the Findings of Fact in the staff report. Sacchet: We have a motion. Do we have a second? Papke: Second. McDonald moved, Papke seconded that the Planning Commission recommends denial of the Wetland Alteration Permit #05-22 for a boardwalk across the wetlands at 6440 Fox Path, based upon the Findings of Fact in the staff report. All voted in favor, except Larson who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 5 to 1. nd Sacchet: So this will go to council on August 22 and I encourage you to present your case there and see what the situation will be. Thank you very much. 13 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR REZONING OF PROPERTY FROM A2 TO PUD-R, SUBDIVISION WITH VARIANCES OF APPROXIMATELY 36.01 ACRES INTO 30 LOTS, 1 OUTLOT AND PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY; CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR GRADING IN THE BLUFF CREEK OVERLAY DISTRICT; AND SITE PLAN APPROVAL FOR 138 TOWNHOUSES. THE PROPERTY IS LOCATED EAST OF AUDUBON ROAD AND NORTH OF PIONEER TRAIL (1500 PIONEER TRAIL), LIBERTY AT CREEKSIDE, TOWN AND COUNTRY HOMES, PLANNING CASE NO. 05-24. Public Present: Name Address Kevin Clark Town & Country Homes Rick Janssen Town & Country Homes Ed Hasek Westwood Professional Services Kate Aanenson presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Thank you Kate. Do we have questions from staff? No? Yes Kurt. Papke: Could you, I’m not quite sure I understand the sight lines from the Peterson Bluff properties. Just to the west and I guess to the south of here. I believe those are single family homes on the Peterson Bluff property. Aanenson: Yes. Papke: What are the elevations here? Are those single family people in Peterson Bluff going to be looking up? Down? What’s the topography across? Aanenson: I believe they’ll be looking up. If you’re on this side. Kevin Clark: I think they’re looking down. Actually if they keep that hill, that slope there. Remember how high it comes? Aanenson: Yeah. Kevin Clark: They fall down on the other side. It acts like a natural mound between us. Aanenson: Well it depends because you’re also, this is like I say a 75 foot change in grade from the back. If you go to the back of that tree line down to that last portion here, then we also have, we looked at that. We’ve got about 300-400 foot of separation based on the creek itself and the flood plain and the primary district so that’s the buffer. Papke: So we’ll have single family homes that look out on a slope of quads basically. Is that what we’re really talking about? 14 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Aanenson: Yeah, what you’d be seeing is this portion right here. You’d be seeing this portion here. The primary district. You can see this line so you’d be looking across here. And down here, yeah same thing. Probably pretty much that portion. And those are some of the areas we looked at talking about some of that public space. Some of that view shed because that’s you know, especially after we re-establish and we’re kind of excited about this bigger piece that we’re doing the re-establishing and taking out the crop land and doing the wetland banking and our Water Resource Coordinator’s met on site with the BWSR and worked through those issues and we’re excited to take that and make it a little amenity, which was the goal of this whole area. So there’s some new wildlife corridor to make it a plus, and incorporate that into this plan itself. I think that’s one of the missing elements. McDonald: Can I ask you a question about. Aanenson: Just, can I just, would you like to see an elevation change? When we come back with the next iteration we can show that. What you’d be looking at. Papke: Yeah. One of my main concerns here, every time we look at one of these developments we often too long, too often look at them in isolation, okay. And in this particular case we’re doing this whole AUAR so we have a holistic look here and I’d really like to understand you know what, I think the Peterson Bluffs development, they’re going to great lengths to put in nicer homes and I’m just concerned, are we transitioning? What are the sight lines? How are we handling that so I’d like to have a look at that. When we look at this the next go around I’d like to understand better what the transition process is from the Peterson Bluff’s property to this one. Aanenson: I think that’s a good point. Sacchet: Jerry. McDonald: Well the questions I’ve got, again the next time it come through I’d like to know more about these roads. The one to the north. What’s the impact on the property there? What are we looking as far as going in there for development? The one on the west, which then begins to impact I think the Peterson Bluff, how does that tie in with the plan that they gave us? Aanenson: It doesn’t tie into the Peterson Bluff. Actually there’s, if we can zoom in on this map. We’re meeting with a group of the property owners this week to finalize the road design and that’s part of what we’re doing on your work session, review all that. Presenting that to the th City Council on their meeting on the 8. Actually there will be a road that comes through here to provide access to that property, so these are completely disconnected, and that’s the difference on this piece. It’s really it’s own little island and while it’s topographically separated, we still would like Commissioner Papke said, you still want it to blend and how it, the views still, are they between the different properties. McDonald: Okay, because one of the other things I’d look at, we talk a lot about neighborhoods inner connecting and that’s been a real big discussion, so what you’re saying with Liberty. With Peterson’s Bluff, these are going to be isolated communities? 15 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Aanenson: No. This road will tie, the road between Liberty will tie in here. There will be a connection to this road at the round about. There’ll be a road here. What this board is only showing you is that collector road. There’s also the primary trail that’s kind of really the common thread of the whole thing is the trail that follows Bluff Creek and it goes underneath the creek itself. That…structure that we talked about at the last meeting. Similar to what we have th on West 78. So it has the trail underneath and that’s really the unifying theme is the creek itself, so no pun intended but all roads lead to Rome. So all the trails, all those connectivity things actually bring you back either to this or to the trail, so they have internal sidewalks and trails that bring you back to that point, as does Peterson. And to get you to the park, whether it’s underneath or via the street trails. McDonald: Okay, because I guess one of the problems I’m having, we did a big discussion last week about the round about and about under utilizing the round about, and it looks like this is an opportunity, maybe the road to the west could utilize that better. Aanenson: There will be a road that, as part of the AUAR that’s development driven. This is just showing the common east/west that will connect between this round about and tie back down onto Pioneer Trail, and that will be decided. Now conceptually, because we move the road, the Peterson plan doesn’t blend any of this yet because they had a different configuration. Also there’ll be another round about which we’re working, we met with the Degler’s today so somewhere in this area where the other round about is, depending on where the park lands and we’re still working through all that. So you’re right, and that was a comment that was made before. The more legs to that round about the better, and that’s the goal also to reduce those infrastructure points, and points of contact. McDonald: Okay because you know, it doesn’t seem to be to our advantage after going through all this to end up creating a spider web of roads. Aanenson: Right. Well the other, the recommendation we saw that tied in with this round about to go down to Pioneer. The other one was to go from this road up to Lyman, and that would be where the other round about lands and that’s where we’re still working with the property owners. So I didn’t want to put that on to confuse anybody else but those will be the other legs. McDonald: Okay, and all those are reasons again to kind of put this on hold then isn’t it? Aanenson: Well, obviously they can’t proceed until we order the road project. It’s land locked. I think they’re just trying to do their due diligence. Trying to stay on a time frame. Obviously we would like to see some of those, there’s some poor soils in here and do some winter construction. So the goal is to keep the road project on track and they’re trying to do a design. It’s kind of a chicken and egg. They can do design to get the round abouts in the correct places that match their development, so we’ve asked them to proceed with some projects so we can get the road designed that best meets all the property owners. Undestad: Mr. Chairman. 16 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Sacchet: Yeah, go ahead. Undestad: Just one quick question. Are there any other, you say you’re getting together property owners. Are any of them bringing in ideas at this point? Aanenson: Yes. Yes. Sacchet: In terms of the grading. So it would definitely need some retaining walls but you want to minimize them? Aanenson: That’s correct. Yeah. Sacchet: Okay. Aanenson: 30 feet. Sacchet: That’s huge. Aanenson: Well you know when you turn it over to a homeowners association, you know that was our concern is long term. That’s a big liability for them to take on and. Sacchet: Then in terms of the housing types. I mean right now we have, according to the drawing we have a red version and a beige version. We’d like to have a distinct different, I mean do we have, do we give them some guidance or do we just send them off? Aanenson: Yep. Yeah, we met with the and they actually have hired an outside consultant and we’ve seen some of their early versions and we’re pleased we’re moving in a different direction. Sacchet: And we believe two types will be sufficient? Aanenson: That was our recommendation. They still want to have the one type so they’re up for the challenge to show you that they can make it, with different stylistic changes, that they can make that work. Sacchet: Then there was in the report there was an issue that kind of peaked my interest, is the access to the wetland mitigation areas, which are they on the other side of the creek? Aanenson: Correct. Sacchet: So they would have to come in from somewhere else. Aanenson: To get to this? Sacchet: Yeah. Aanenson: Was that one of the Water Resource’s comments? 17 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Sacchet: Well it said it’s unclear how the contractor will gain access to wetland mitigation areas. A temporary creek crossing may be needed unless access can be gained from the west or south. Aanenson: Correct, and they’re working on that. Ed Hasek: Just as a comment, we still maintain access to Pioneer Trail. If you look at the lower right hand corner, you can see there’s, we’ve got an access down there. Sacchet: Oh, that would still connect to. So you’re thinking to make a connection? Ed Hasek: ...remain there until the… Sacchet: Alright. Would that be using like the existing driveway type of thing? Okay. But it will be temporary in that sense. Ed Hasek: Yes. Sacchet: Okay. Aanenson: That’s Outlot A. Sacchet: And this is probably a question for the applicant. On the tree inventory it has notes and it says X to a lot of the trees. Do we know what the X means? Sort of specific, but it’s my interest in trees that are definitely. Well I’ll ask the applicant Kate. Aanenson: Are you on page 9? Sacchet: I’m on the big piece of paper. Aanenson: Aah. Well actually the submittal, originally there was some problems with the submittal so I don’t think that matches this. What’s in the text is correct. The Forester looking at that realized there were some problems with the numbers that were submitted with the plat, so the plat numbers I would ignore and go with the text in the report. Sacchet: Okay, okay. Alright. Aanenson: Those numbers are wrong in the plat and we caught it. Sacchet: I’ll ask the applicant anyhow when he comes up. Alright, thank you very much. Any other questions from staff? Kurt, you have one more? Papke: Just to make sure I’m reading the parking diagrams right. In our standards, design standards for this area we were looking for a little bit more variety in the parking. It looks like all of the parking right now is proposed to be on street with no. 18 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Aanenson: Or, yeah because it does have a longer driveway or it would be guest parking in the driveway. There is some guest parking if we look at this map. There is some here, and those are some of the changes through the design they would have to make. There’s limited. You can see with the retaining walls, there’s limited. Sacchet: That’s the only point place? Aanenson: Yes. So we talked about, they looked at this. What this becomes so we talked to them about that. Kind of the orientation and some of those tweaking. It just needs a little bit more work. Papke: And it looks like buildings 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9. There’s no parking right in the immediate vicinity there. Do we have any. On street parking. Aanenson: On street, yep. Papke: No, there’s no on street parking very close to. Are there any standards or codes that we have to follow that there has to be on street parking within a certain distance of the home or anything, or? Aanenson: There is a requirement for the guest parking. There is within the driveway that would meet that but obviously if you have additional, it would be more convenient to have it, and you’re talking about like in this area here or over here? Papke: Basically up in the upper right hand corner there. A little bit to your left. Right there. Those immediate 6 buildings. It looks like there’s no on street parking anywhere in front of those buildings at all. Aanenson: You’ll have to challenge that, yep. It’s going to go in the changes. Sacchet: Alright, thank you Kate. With that I’d like to invite the applicant. If you want to come forward and present additional highlights and context. Please state your name and address for the record. Kevin Clark: Good evening. Chair, other commissioners. My name’s Kevin Clark, Director of Land Development for Town and Country Homes. A K. Hovnanian Company. And also with me tonight is Rick Janssen, our V.P. of Acquisition and Ed Hasek, Senior Landscape Architect with Westwood Professional Services. Before you this evening is really our second proposal for the Liberty neighborhood located just east of the other community that’s being considered by the City, Liberty at Bluff Creek. This neighborhood proposes 138 townhomes in 4 and 6 unit building configurations. We have a few of these planned in the Liberty on Bluff Creek project as it’s noted. As mentioned by staff, we are in the process of creating additional elevations which we visited with Kate on earlier this week, and have also, as she mentioned, we’re working with a design consultant to put together a more, an elevated color palette. I think at this point we’re looking at anywhere from 3 to 4 different color variations for that sort of elements and materials with that also. We certainly want to make sure that this neighborhood is a step above and intend 19 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 to elevate our streetscape to accomplish that goal. We will be working with staff to put together a very attractive variety of elevations and color palettes. As Kate mentioned, understandably with the location of the main collector road having just recently been determined, as she mentioned there’s going to be a meeting scheduled for Thursday to share the final design with all interested parties. This has been an element that’s been moving in relationship to the whole area, and we’ve been working and very collaborative with staff and the other parties to move this process forward, not only from the prior to the AUAR and variety of meetings. I think we’re onto, this has to be just under our fifth or sixth meeting on the road in the last really less than 3 months. So there has been a lot of effort on all parties, ourselves included to make sure that we’re all planning and working in concert. But now with this information our team will be better prepared to address both the road access and the grading issues mentioned in the staff’s report. It is our objective to minimize the need for retaining walls, eliminate the condition of having buildings surrounded by roadways and other items mentioned in there. And restore the previously farmed areas and maximize the opportunity to focus as many homes as possible to take advantage of the surrounding views and natural amenities. I want to mention too that the product that we’re proposing with this type of construction within the medium density zoning area is probably the most adaptable to the grade to minimize the impact of any grading and yet with the grade, as Kate mentioned, we still will be challenged to not have some walls and in certain cases to have some that are going to be potentially tall. We are working to minimize that but that will be a condition or a challenge that we have and we’re ready for that to work with, but again this product because it has full basements, walkout capabilities and things like that to allow us to blend that with the environment much easier. We’ll also be planning a neighborhood gathering area to again take advantage of the beautiful surroundings. The creek. The hillside and the forest and create a neighborhood focal point for the site. Certainly the areas as Kate mentioned along this area are prime opportunities for us to create that focal point. At this point I kind of envisioned that will take the form of either a gazebo, as she mentioned, or a pergola. Something a little bit more you know of natural wood product fitting into that hillside. Benches, pedestrian connections. An area for that to fit together within there. This neighborhood is uniquely located as mentioned and because of it’s unique location, it’s not really identified with other areas and part of it’s identity is I think that. The fact that it has these view sheds of not only the woods, of the creek and the varying terrain as it looks out both to the south, to the west, back to the north. The future park up to the northwest. So a lot of that is the character and the interest that this community will make. Commissioner McDonald when you mentioned the road, because of the MnDot alignment, really that’s the only opportunity to have connectivity through this neighborhood is to provide roads, both at that northeast corner and then subsequently where it’s shown there on the east side of the project. And again we walked this well over a year ago and identified potential locations for this. In earlier discussions well over 2 years ago when we met we were discussing and seeing what the viability was of having a crossing and looking at how to get across the creek. And at that point it was determined that you know that area was maybe better served to leave in it’s natural state and then we are now working towards not only creating additional, improving the wetlands there, but also the restoration of that currently farmed area. So I guess, the fact that it’s uniquely located. This is not a drawback but rather a positive characteristic that will allow us to create a very private, quiet and attractive neighborhood. We understand that there are a number of items to be more thoroughly thought out and for those reasons make it impractical for you to take any action this evening. We are actively working with staff, as Kate mentioned, to address these issues and look forward to 20 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 returning to this forum in early September as I think you have a workshop at mid month, to complete the review. We agree with staff’s recommendations to the commission for the stated reasons and objectives in the report and I thank you for your consideration of our proposal. I look forward to coming back to you in early September and we can address any questions you may have. Sacchet: Thank you. Questions from the applicant. Just quick question. From your, what you just presented I gather you’re looking at variation of elevation and colors. Not necessarily in housing types. Did I hear that right? Kevin Clark: Correct. Sacchet: So you’d, what’s your reasoning why you’d want to stay with one type of housing? I’d like to understand that a little better. Kevin Clark: Well probably part of it is the market and also the density in this area. The fact that then to try to introduce a second product in here to be able to market an additional product in this area would be a challenge. So we feel that this design for probably the primary reason, if we come in with a single level or something like that, then we’ll really be lending more towards a different zoning characteristic and we’re, as we started out looking at this we were looking at from a medium density standpoint and this product really lends itself most appropriately to that in this configuration and we figure with the different housing types or the different foundation types, having both full basements, walkout, daylight type situations, and then adding the punch of having a variety of elevations in the different color palettes, I think we’ll be able to not only meet but exceed the subdivision guidelines that were put together in the last 6 months. Sacchet: Okay. And then my detail question about the tree survey. The notes that say X. I don’t know whether we need the landscape specialist to explain that. I was just curious because I figure it said Note: X. It would be explained somewhere what X means but it was hiding. Kevin Clark: Just as a quick aside, while looking at that. I’m going to put this up. What this reflects is, there’s 276 parking spaces with 2 in the garage, 2 in the parking. And the driveway area and then there are 92 throughout the site on street parking and then there are 5 in more of an off street visitor parking area. So there is quite a bit of additional. We’re at about 2.5 plus parking areas. Sacchet: So from your experience you would say that is adequate? Kevin Clark: Certainly I think that this is something we’re going to be forced to come back and look at because they’re looking at doing some other adjustments in the site plan but I guess I just wanted to show that that isn’t something that was an over sight. That we are looking at that and we’ll look to improve that as we make adjustments to the plan based on the grading where the roads land and a variety of those other items that have come up in the staff report. Sacchet: Okay, thank you. Well if we don’t know what the X means, just make sure we know what it means when it comes back. 21 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Ed Hasek: It means there…but we’ll get you a key. D by the way means diseased… Sacchet: I suspected that. Alright. Kevin Clark: All set? Sacchet: That’s it. Thank you very much. Now this is a public hearing. I’d like to invite anybody who’d like to address this item to come forward. State your name and address. Let us know what you have to hear. What we have to hear from you. What you have to say. Bear with me. It’s almost 3:00 in the morning for me. Anybody? No takers? Yes, Janet. Janet Paulsen: My name is Janet Paulsen and I live at 7305 Laredo Drive. I just had one question and it said in the front of the report and in the newspaper ad that there are variances and I don’t see any reference to variances in the report. So what are they? Sacchet: Is the variances addressed in the staff report? Aanenson: No they don’t. We notice it with variances just in case as we’re reviewing sometimes we may have missed it in the early review. When we publish it because as they’re developing the staff report we may find some. At this point we don’t believe there’s any variances. Sacchet: So at this point there are no variances. Janet Paulsen: No, but the report on the front says there’s variances so I was wondering what’s going on. Aanenson: I’ll correct that in the next review. Sacchet: Okay. Janet Paulsen: So there are no? Sacchet: There are not apparently. Janet Paulsen: Okay. And then on the developer’s report, I don’t have a page number but it’s talking about street, roadways and drives. I just had a question, it lists public street and private streets and private drives, so I didn’t know there were private drives. Is that a driveway? Is that what they mean by private drive? Sacchet: You want to address that? Sure, go ahead. Ed Hasek: We have private streets. The private street is the loop in the lower right hand corner built to public standard. But it’s private. There are 2 or 3. Public street. Or I’m sorry, public street. Private street. Private drive. Private drive, private drive, private drive. 22 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Sacchet: So you call those private drives because they’re like a driveway to a multiple unit. Yeah the reason, oh telephone. The reason why this was brought, we had some go around’s in the past trying to figure out what terminology we want to use and according to our city definition there is no such thing as a private drive. Aanenson: Just to be clear, that wasn’t the staff’s use of terminology. It was the applicant’s terminology and so… Sacchet: Yep. Yeah, we just got that clear, correct. Okay. Janet Paulsen: That’s all, thank you. Sacchet: Thank you. Anybody else? Want to address this item. Seeing nobody get up, I close the public hearing. Bring it back to the commission for comment with a note that staff recommends tabling and the applicant seems to be in agreement with that. Is there any additional aspects we want to mention to give some guidance and direction? Papke: Yeah I have one. One other thing I’d, for staff to take a look at the next time we look at this and that’s where the trail will go through here. I couldn’t see it indicated on any of the drawings. Is it on this side? Is it on the other side of Bluff Creek? Because one of the important things in designing this parkway here will be what the views will be from the trail. So it would be good to have some idea of what, even if it’s tentative, where that trail might be and how that will fit in. You know what the people from the trail will see when they walk or ride their bicycle along there. Zorn: …to see perhaps this neighborhood gathering area might be a little bit more than a gazebo. Perhaps a playground or something a little more conducive for family living in your units. So just something to think about. Kevin Clark: Okay. Zorn: And I too would favor perhaps another product within this development for a different look. Sacchet: Okay, thanks Deborah. Any comments Mark? Undestad: I guess I’d look for a couple different products out there too from a variety side, or with facades, if you could change those a little bit. Then I always have this parking, street parking. I know in the first round we looked at changing driveways to try to get more of the parking off the streets and things and here we’ve pretty much got all the streets lined up with cars out there and I don’t know if that will ever be that way but if there was any possibility of getting some other parking areas or something in there to try to get some of these off the street. Sacchet: Thanks Mark. Debbie? No? Jerry? 23 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 McDonald: Well I guess the biggest comment I’ve got, at this point there probably isn’t enough detail in it and part of what you’re going to do as far as coming up with planning but I do have concerns about the parking also, especially in certain areas. We discussed this before with the other development and I believe that you’ve found some good solutions for that. And my concern about parking is again when you have visitors. At certain times of the year or something, in a couple of those areas I don’t know where they’re going to park and you know we’re going to end up probably creating problems at other points so I would just say I’d like to see something that addresses that so that we don’t create problems within those particular areas. That’s probably, that’s all I’ve got. Sacchet: Okay, thank you. Yeah, I think we pretty much covered all the things. I don’t have much to add so with that I’d like to ask for a motion. It’s on page 17. Zorn: I’d like to make a motion that the Planning Commission to recommend tabling the request for rezoning A2 to PUD-R, site plan review and subdivision for the following reasons, 1 through. Sacchet: As stated in the report. Zorn: As stated, yeah. Sacchet: We have a motion. Is there a second? Larson: Second. Zorn moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends tabling the request for rezoning from A2 to PUD-R, site plan review with subdivision for the following reasons: 1. Allow staff the opportunity to work with the developer’s engineer to attempt to reduce the number and height of the proposed retaining walls; and 2. Significant changes to the grading plan that may result from #1 may change the site plan; and 3. Work to create greater neighborhood identity and housing design. The applicant shall work with staff to incorporate the following conditions prior to the next submittal: Park and Recreation Recommended Conditions of Approval. 1. Park fees in lieu of land dedication as a condition of this subdivision. 2. Additional pedestrian trails, sidewalks and trail connectors also need to be incorporated into the project as required. The planning and construction and financing of these pedestrian improvements are the responsibility of the applicant. The City will reimburse Town and 24 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Country Homes the cost of construction materials only for the ten-foot wide Bluff Creek trail. Water Resources Subdivision Recommended Conditions of Approval. 1. The applicant shall work with staff to address comments on Liberty on Bluff Creek’s wetland mitigation that are received from the reviewing agencies. The wetland mitigation for Liberty on Bluff Creek shall be constructed prior to or concurrent with wetland impacts on the Liberty on Bluff Creek project. Wetland replacement shall occur in a manner consistent with the Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act (MR 8420) and the conditions of the Wetland Alteration Permit for Liberty on Bluff Creek. 2. Wetland buffers 16.5 to 20 feet in width (with a minimum average of 16.5 feet) shall be maintained around Wetlands A and B and the constructed wetland mitigation areas. Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City’s wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of city staff before construction begins and must pay the City $20 per sign. 3. All structures shall maintain a minimum 40 foot setback from the edge of the wetland buffer. 4. The plans shall be revised to show bluff areas (i.e. slope greater than or equal to 30% and a rise in slope of at least 25 feet above the toe). All bluff areas shall be preserved. In addition, all structures shall maintain a minimum 30 foot setback from the bluff and no grading shall occur within the bluff impact zone (i.e. the bluff and land located within 20 feet from the top of the bluff). 5. All structures shall maintain a minimum 40 foot setback from the primary corridor. No alterations shall occur within the primary corridor or within the first 20 feet of the setback from the primary corridor. The grading plan shall be revised to eliminate alterations within the primary corridor or within the first 20 feet of the setback from the primary corridor. 6. The applicant shall submit a plan for the revegetation of the area south of Bluff Creek that incorporates native plants and is consistent with the City’s Bluff Creek Natural Resources Management Plan. Special attention shall be paid to areas with steep slopes (greater than 3:1). 7. The applicant shall determine whether impacts are proposed within the mapped FEMA Unnumbered A Zone and shall either submit a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) showing that this area is not floodplain or obtain a conditional use permit for alterations within the floodplain if impacts are proposed. 8. A storm water pollution prevention plan (SWPPP) is needed for the development and shall be completed prior to applying for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. The SWPPP shall be submitted to the City and the Carver Soil and Water Conservation District (CSWCD) for review prior to final approval. 25 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 9. A stable emergency overflow (EOF) for the proposed pond shall be shown on the plans. A typical detail shall be included with the plan. 10. The plans shall show paths of access to both wetland mitigation areas as well as all erosion controls and restoration practices. 11. Additional erosion control notes shall be provided on the plan to address the extension of storm sewer outside the perimeter controls; erosion control blanket shall be installed as needed in this area within 24 hours of storm sewer installation. 12. Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes and any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water. 13. Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as needed. 14. The silt fence proposed for the north side of the property shall be moved to be consistent with the Bluff Creek Overlay District Grading Limit Line, as shown on Sheet 5 of 10. 15. Wimco-type inlet controls shall be used along curbs and installed within 24 hours of installation. 16. Typical building lot controls shall be shown on the plan. These controls shall include perimeter controls (silt fence), rock driveways, street sweeping, inlet control and temporary mulch after final grade and prior to issuing the certificates of occupancy. 17. The proposed storm water pond shall be used as a temporary sediment basin during mass grading. The pond shall be excavated prior to disturbing up gradient areas. Diversion berms or ditches shall be used to divert water to the pond and a temporary pond outlet should be installed. A detail shall be provided for the temporary pond outlet. Additional temporary sediment basins shall be constructed if necessary during construction. 18. The ultimate outlet from the site to Bluff Creek shall be adjusted to discharge water parallel to the creek flow. The outlet shall be turned to the southeast to align with the creek. 26 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 19. Storm sewer plans shall be revised in two locations so storm sewer is not located beneath retaining walls. Plans for the storm sewer shall be submitted. 20. Drainage and utility easements (minimum 20 feet in width) shall be provided over all existing wetlands, wetland mitigations areas, buffer areas used as Public Value Credit (PVC) and storm water ponds. An easement adequate to provide access to the pond for maintenance purposes is needed and shall be shown on the plan. 21. At this time the estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of final plan recording, is $221,678.00. 22. The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g. Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering), Army Corps of Engineers, Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota Department of Transportation, and comply with their conditions of approval. Forestry Recommended Conditions of Approval. 1. Tree protection fencing shall be installed prior to construction around all areas designated for preservation. 2. Silt fence or tree protection fencing shall be installed at the edge of grading around both wetland mitigation areas. 3. A fenced access road will lead from the east mitigation area to the west mitigation area. This will be the only access allowed to the western site. Fencing shall be placed on either side of the access lane. 4. Additional landscaping will be required behind the units on Lot 7, Block 1 to increase privacy and minimize headlight glare. A minimum of 6 evergreens and 3 ornamentals shall be strategically located behind the units. 5. A walk through inspection of the silt/tree preservation fence shall be required prior to construction. Fire Marshal Recommended Conditions of Approval. 1. No burning permits will be issued for trees to be removed. Trees and shrubs must either be removed from the site or chipped. 2. Temporary Street signs shall be installed on street intersections once construction of the new roadway allows passage of vehicles. Pursuant to 2002 Minnesota Fire Code Section 501.4. 27 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 3. A fire apparatus access road shall be designed and maintained to support the imposed load of fire apparatus and shall be serviced so as to provide all weather driving capabilities. Pursuant to Minnesota Fire Code Section 503.2.3. 4. Fire apparatus access road and water supplies for fire protection is required to be installed. Such protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to and during the time of construction except when approved alternate methods of protection are provided. Building Recommended Conditions of Approval. 1. Accessibility will have to be provided to all portions of the development and a percentage of the units may also be required to be accessible or adaptable in accordance with Minnesota State Building Code Chapter 1341. Further information is needed to determine these requirements. 2. The buildings are required to be protected with an automatic sprinkler system if they are over 8,500 square feet in floor area. For the purposes of this requirement property lines do not constitute separate buildings and the area of basements and garages is included in the floor area threshold. 3. The buildings will be required to be designed by an architect and engineer as determined by the Building Official. 4. The developer must submit a list of proposed street names and an addressing plan for review and approval prior to final plat of the property. 5. Demolition permits must be obtained before demolishing any structures on the site. 6. A final grading plan and soils report must be submitted to the Inspections Division before permits can be issued. 7. Walls and projections within three feet of property lines are required to be of one-hour fire resistive construction. 8. Retaining walls over four feet high require a permit and must be designed by a professional engineer. 9. Each lot must be provided with separate sewer and water services. 10. The developer and/or their agent shall meet with the Inspections Division as early as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. Sacchet: You want to add something? 28 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Ed Hasek: A real quick question Mr. Chairman. You closed the public hearing. Is that going to re-open again when we bring it back? Sacchet: Yes. I will re-open again with, should we technically have left it open? Aanenson: That’s fine. Sacchet: Either way’s fine, right? Okay. Alright, thank you very much. PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR SUBDIVISION WITH VARIANCES ON PROPERTY ZONED PUD-R LOCATED AT 6560 MINNEWASHTA PARKWAY, MINNEWASHTA CREEK HILLS, APPLICANT ROBERT RICK (FOR PROPERTY OWNERS TIM & MARY COLLERAN), PLANNING CASE NO. 05-25. Public Present: Name Address Steve Larson 3861 Leslee Curve Tim Colleran 6560 Minnewashta Parkway Kevin Mattson 8566 Drake Court Robert Rick 4700 Otter Lake Road, White Bear Lake Connie Villari 1257 Winslow, West St. Paul Mr. & Mrs. Gil Laurent 24760 Cedar Point Road Ruth Menten 6630 Minnewashta Parkway Mary Knutson Rogers 3851 Leslee Curve Julie Ann Terpstra 6581 Joshua Circle Marcia Ortner 3920 Linden Circle Michael J. Barnes 3840 Linden Circle Brian L. Windschitl 6591 Joshua Circle Jim Markham 6500 Kirkwood Circle Greg Greenwood 6501 Kirkwood Circle R.W. Hueffmeier 6551 Kirkwood Circle Anthony Farina 6590 Joshua Circle Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Sacchet: Thanks Sharmeen. Do we have questions for staff? Jerry. McDonald: I have a question. On the lot itself, where the private road is starting, right now there’s a retaining wall at that point that’s roughly 5 feet, 6 feet tall and you’ve got quite a variance there on the front. The whole thing is held back right now by a retaining wall. The road to come in there, is that going to go up on a grade or are we talking about leveling out all that area and bringing it down to street level? 29 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Al-Jaff: If we can, if I may ask Alyson to answer that question. Morris: The proposed grading plan which is shown Exhibit A, proposed layout, it does show that the retaining wall will remain at approximately a location they don’t shown. We can get some clarification where that, if that will change but just looking at this right now they’re showing that that will stay. McDonald: Okay. Sacchet: That’s it? Okay. Question from staff. There is some discussion about right-of-way of Minnewashta Parkway so what I understand it’s not the same on the two sides of the road. There’s enough right-of-way that it’s not a concern, is that an accurate understanding? Al-Jaff: That’s an accurate understanding. Sacchet: Then, and you touched on, you make this correction about the hard surface coverage. So they’re currently at the 25%, which is the maximum they can be with this drawing. Al-Jaff: Well and that’s what we asked them to show us. Show us what you can get with a 25% hard surface and that’s what they came back with. Sacchet: So they’re trying to fit in to that. And then the driveway, the setback. So we’re actually telling them they should be closer to the private road. Al-Jaff: Correct. Sacchet: And the reason is that there would be less impervious or. Al-Jaff: That would be an option, yes. I mean there would be. Sacchet: Because I’m just trying to understand why we would require that, yes. Al-Jaff: Well it’s an option. Right now when they drew these plans they were assuming that the required setback is 30 feet from the edge of the. Sacchet: So 20 would help them. Al-Jaff: Would definitely help them. Sacchet: Thank you. That’s the questions I have. That’s it for questions? Alright. Thank you Sharmeen. With that I’d like to invite the applicant. Do we have an applicant here? If you want to come forward and just tell us if you have anything to add. You may want to move the microphone towards you please. State your name and address for the record. Robert Rick: My name is Robert Rick. I live at 4700 Otter Lake Road in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. First of all I’d like to thank staff. It was a pretty good process to start off and work 30 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 through things and tried to keep in mind staff’s wishes as best we could. I really only have a couple things to add, and the entire process was with kept in mind trying to minimize the impact on the current lot so, and we did, you know I think we came up with a fairly good game plan. The reason we do not have finished drawings, finished concepts, the type of builders that I’ll be working with on this development, they’re design build architects and so they’ll bring a client who would like a specific type of home. Sacchet: To be custom type? Robert Rick: To be custom. These are going to be 3 custom home sites. I’ll name a few names of folks that I’m actually working with who have potential interest in this. Delahay Homes. Peter Bren. TJB. Keith Waters. Marquette and Lee. Charles Cudd. These are luxury tour home names. Pretty well known. Very well known for you know blending in with communities. Improving communities so that’s in keeping with what we’re trying to do, so obviously trying to enhance the value of the property in the neighborhood. I think that’s it. I just want to reserve the right to be able to answer questions along with my engineer Connie Villari as well… Sacchet: It’s interesting you mention custom home. You’re comfortable with that restriction that was just pointed out with the middle lot, having kind of a small pad to work with. You don’t think that’s going to cause an issue? Robert Rick: It actually you know small, 2,000 square foot is not… Sacchet: It’s not teeny yeah, but. Robert Rick: And it will lend itself, the middle one to more of a villa type home is what the upper end folks would call it, but it’s certainly fair enough size yet. And staff had mentioned if you pull the house forward, you do gain some area there. And again you know, most of these, I don’t know this again because I don’t have customers in hand, will be multi story. They’re going to be 2 or 3 stories so 5,000 square foot home is not a little home so. Sacchet: Right. Alright, do we have any other questions from the applicant? No? Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Now this is a public hearing. If anybody would like to come forward and address this proposal that’s in front of us here, this is your chance. Please come forward. State your name and address. Let us know what you have to say. Tim Colleran: My name is Tim Colleran. I’m the current owner at 6560 Minnewashta Parkway and I just wanted to thank all the neighbors for coming out in support of the development and I look forward to all your comments and we’ll see you at the beach. Sacchet: Any other comments to this? Yes. Ruth Menten: My name is Ruth Menten. I live at 6630 Minnewashta Parkway. We’ve lived on Minnewashta Parkway since, in the 1970’s. This house has been a landmark house. I thought that it was a historical, historically registered house. I’m not sure. It’s going to be a sad day to watch that house go down if this gets approved. One concern I have is the traffic that will be 31 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 coming out across the trail. Most of our houses are private lots. We have one exit out onto the parkway and since we added the walkway or the trail it’s got more people walking, bicycles and all that kind of thing. This is going to have 3 homes coming out onto one driveway which is going to be a road I guess. And it’s a blind sight because the walls, retaining walls go up quite high and so I’m a little concerned about the traffic issue and the pedestrian issue. Sacchet: Okay. Is that something, you’re our new city engineer. I haven’t met you yet. Hi. Would you want to say something to that please? Morris: This site is adding 2 single family homes to the site. You look at the amount of traffic entering and exiting this private drive and it’s not a significant amount. The driveway grade, as shown on the plans will be 10% maximum which is according to city code so that’s also to make sure that there’s adequate sight distance for them to see any pedestrians coming through there. McDonald: Can I ask a question because that’s my concern when I was asking about you know where this is at. You’re creating a canyon. That’s what I don’t understand on this driveway. It’s a very good point. As you come down, you’re talking about taking out the retaining wall there and at that point it’s got to be 5 feet high. Morris: No, the retaining wall will remain. McDonald: But you’re going to take out part of it to put the new private street in. The current driveway follows the lot line to the west, so that driveway is going away. Now you’re going to create a new driveway towards the middle of the lot and there’s a retaining wall there. So the driveway’s going to have to go through a retaining wall. Sacchet: Isn’t it close to where the old one was? McDonald: No. I went out there and looked and you look at the drawings where the current driveway, where the circular driveway is and the one there to the west follows the lot line. Sacchet: Do you want to come forward? Robert Rick: The new private street is going to follow the path of the current driveway. McDonald: But that’s not what’s shown in this drawing because according to where the driveway’s at now in the documents, it follows the lot line and comes off. Sacchet: It’s the lot line of the middle one…so it’s the lot line of the middle lot that it follows, not the edge one. McDonald: Okay. Okay, so it would follow the current driveway. Robert Rick: Yeah, and basically what we’re going to actually do is probably again to minimize impact to the current one, we’ll probably pull up the far end of the driveway but vegetate in that area. Not necessarily destroy the retaining wall that leads down towards the path there. Just 32 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 block the entrance. And actually we use the south entrance on staff recommendation. Naturally it started from the north, so thinking that we were pulling away from the right-of-way on, I’m not sure of the name of the street there but. McDonald: Okay, well at least that driveway that does alleviate the problems of sight lines and everything so, okay. Thanks. Sacchet: Okay? Public hearing is still open. If somebody else wants to come forward, please do so. Jim Markham: Hi. My name is Jim Markham. I’m the President of the Minnewashta Creek Homeowners Association. We have an association that is to the, would be the north side of the Colleran’s home and we, our concern is our beachlot which is across the street. Right now they have access to easement of walking across our beach and what our concern is that, are they going to have all 3 homes going to have that access or not. We right now feel that we have too many people already in our beach and we really don’t want to have that. We have taken a vote and decided that we did not want to have them come into our homeowners association so that they could use our beach, but they do have, the one home, the Colleran’s home does have access to cross our beach and we’re just concerned that all, they’re going to get 3 homes now having that. That’s our concern why we’re here. Sacchet: Yeah, I don’t think that’s something that is addressed by the staff report. Is that something you want to say? Al-Jaff: We have spoken to the city attorney regarding this issue and he has repeatedly said that it’s a private matter. There are by-laws to homeowners association. We do not enforce them. Private covenances are private covenances. Sacchet: It’s up to the homeowners association. Jim Markham: So they would have to come to us to get 2 more easements is what you’re saying? If 3 homes are allowed on that lot, that you’re saying that 1 has easement right now and the other 2 would have to come to get permission to come across our beachlot? Aanenson: Again it’s a private matter. We’re not commenting on it either way. Jim Markham: Okay. So this is something that we’ll have to take up with, in a private situation with them. Aanenson: That’s correct. Jim Markham: Okay. Well that’s why we’re here. That’s our concern. Sacchet: Okay, understand. Sorry we can’t help you with that one. Anybody else wants to address this item? Yeah, looks like we have more. Please come forward. State your name and address please. 33 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Brian Windschitl: My name is Brian Windschitl. I live at 6591 Joshua Circle, which is, covers probably 2/3 of the back side of this property. I don’t know how accurate of a tree survey we’ve done on there. I don’t know anybody’s looking at it but they seem to have the trees all placed away from these little boxes that are here but my concern is what’s going to be left of that when the custom homes come in. They’re not going to be a little square box like that. A lot of these trees, you just drive on the drip line and they’ll be dead a year later. They’ll say they’re not going to take them down but by the time they get all the work done around there, they’ll be losing those and. And then the other concern I have is, I’m sure you have height requirements. Right now I can sit on my deck and see the lake. When you fill that in with 3 homes, I mean I’ll be looking at people’s back yards with no trees in them, so I guess I would like you to maybe take a look at that out there and see if that tree survey is accurate you know, because there’s 150 year old trees there that can’t be replaced so. Sacchet: Right. Do you want to address that Sharmeen? Al-Jaff: Sure. We did go out to the site verified the location of the trees as far as what is shown on the plans and what will be preserved. Typically prior to any grading taking place on the site, we make sure that tree preservation fences are up. Sacchet: In terms of the size of the building pads, how much flexibility does a builder have? Al-Jaff: Remember the 25% hard surface coverage with these sites. So it’s to your advantage to stay as close as possible to this front portion of the lot. We had highlighted all the significant trees. We highlighted all the significant trees. The majority of the area right here really is open. It does not contain that many trees. They are closer in this portion of the site as well as around the parameter. There will be. Sacchet: About half a dozen. Al-Jaff: 5 tree, 6 trees that will come out with this building and 2 trees that will come out with that. Sacchet: So that is pretty reliable and has been verified. Brian Windschitl: Well my question is, is how accurate is that tree survey? I’ve lived there 26 years. I don’t see that tree in that bottom left hand corner. So I guess the question is, are they survey trees or that somebody just kind of scribbled them in there? Al-Jaff: No, they’re surveyed trees. Tim Colleran: I can name them…There’s Alfred and Betty and Charlie. Sacchet: Yeah, I mean obviously is it 100% accurate? Probably a slip here and there. But generally they’re actually pretty good those tree surveys from my experience. And ultimately what Sharmeen also pointed out is that when before any cutting and grading starts, staff will go 34 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 out there, the city forester will go out there and actually deal with it on site specifically making an effort to preserve and then put the protective fencing up and all that. That’s the city forester is somebody who knows how close you can go without damaging. Al-Jaff: Also it’s not to the owner’s benefit to lose any trees because at this point if they said they are going to save these trees, every time they lose them they have to replace them with double the inches. Sacchet: Okay. So there’s a penalty in the mitigation. How about the height? You addressed the height. Al-Jaff: Maximum height of a building cannot exceed 35 feet. Sacchet: 35 feet max. Al-Jaff: From the shoreland management as well as in the residential single family district. Sacchet: So that’s something that’s regulated. Brian Windschitl: 35 feet is the highest point, meaning… Al-Jaff: At the mid-point. Brian Windschitl: Mid point? Sacchet: Like if you have an angle with the middle of the slope. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Thank you Sharmeen for addressing that. I hope that answers at least somewhat what your question is. Brian Windschitl: Well I guess my only question, we’re looking for approval here tonight with some boxes there you know. What, at what point keeps them from coming way back? How far back from the access is the setbacks? Sacchet: Well, they’re very limited. It’s my understanding through that 25% hard coverage requirement. We didn’t want to put a lot of driveway on there because then they won’t have any room for a house. Brian Windschitl: …30% instead of the 25%. Sacchet: No, that was actually what Sharmeen mentioned was a mistake on our part. Brian Windschitl: That was a mistake? Sacchet: Yes. It’s the 25 is actually accurate. Okay? So I think I wouldn’t be concerned that they get further in, unless they want to just put a little shed out there and then you can see around it. That’s to your advantage again too. 35 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Brian Windschitl: And side setbacks are 10 feet now? Sacchet: Yeah. Brian Windschitl: So basically… Aanenson: Mr. Chair? Sacchet: Yes. Aanenson: If I could have him come to the microphone. It’s very difficult. Sacchet: Yes, would you like to step up to the microphone once more if you have further questions because it’s hard to hear for everybody. Brian Windschitl: No, I’m good. Sacchet: You’re good. Alright. I think there was somebody else itching to get up before. Are you still itching to get up? Anthony Farina: My name’s Anthony Farina. I’m at 6590 Joshua Circle. I am not directly adjacent to the property. However standing in my back yard I can see the property. My question to the planning committee is, why do we have to do this? What do we get out of this? Obviously we know what the Colleran’s and the developers are getting out of this. Is a dollar sign. If you drive down Minnewashta Parkway, it is a park like atmosphere. Couple of the builders that the developer Rick had said are custom builders, yes. But there’s also a couple of them who have built several homes. What’s a custom builder? 100 homes? Or 5 homes? When you drive down that parkway… And standing in my back yard I’m going to have 3 towers, 35 feet high. There’s not one home in our neighborhood that’s 35 feet high to midpoint. Completely different than everything else that’s going to be there. And I would hate to see, like someone else stated, the nostalgic and the prestige of that area get thrown in with every other development type atmosphere that’s out there. And we see it every day. All the development in Chanhassen, everywhere around us, and that’s great. Population growth. We want that. Several different reasons. But you’re taking a house that’s been there since 1850 plus, and you’re going to make it into everything else and we don’t have much of that left in our neighborhoods. So I encourage you to think about that and realize that this is just not the 3 houses or the 1 property owner that’s affected. It’s every neighbor around there plus that whole parkway when we have families and guests coming down there and seeing all this going on and these towers of 5,000- 6,000 square feet. They are completely out of place. Thank you. Sacchet: Well what do we get out of this? Hopefully some friendly, lovely new neighbors right? Do you want to address that? Robert Rick: Yeah, I’d like to make. 36 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Sacchet: Well do you want to step forward, if you’ve got a comment. That way people can hear better. Robert Rick: I just want to make a statement that I think not more than 500 feet away from that is the Minnewashta Landings, Ken Durr’s development and there are homes there in excess of $3 million in value and probably 8,000 or 10,000 square feet so it’s, we may or may not, but it’s a stone throw away. It’s the first development as you come down south on Minnewashta Parkway off to the east. So it’s not unlike some homes in the very close proximity so. Sacchet: And I did want to make a comment to your question too, or to the point you made I should say. As I mentioned when I opened the meeting our task is to look at to what extent do the proposals that are brought before the city apply to the ordinances and regulations of the city. I mean in a crisp way I would answer your question, it’s the property owner’s right to use the property within the city’s regulations and as the proposal clearly states, it shows they are within the guidelines in terms of size of lot and so forth. We’re not looking at the specifics of the buildings. We’re looking at the subdivision part at this point and that simply is a landowner’s right to do that if the parcel is big enough. Did you want to add something? I saw you itching to try and get up once more or. Anthony Farina: And I understand that it’s the landowner’s right and the property and the development that they were talking about is I think uniquely designed because when you drive down Minnewashta Parkway, obviously in the middle of the winter when the leaves are off you notice that there are very large homes there. But in the summer, tree foliage, it’s difficult to see that unless you actually drive down that subdivision. Down that street. Lakeside’s a different story. You see those 3 story, 5 to 4 story homes without a doubt obviously in the middle of the lake. Here we’re all directly affected because we’re in our back yard. Okay. Everybody in the back yard of that neighborhood has the exact same home. Here also our beach is directly across from that too. So I understand that it’s the Colleran’s right to divide that, which they feel fits in the requirements. But to make it work and make it look like the rest of the homes, it just, I do. I don’t know the rest of them, I feel it’s going to be an eyesore, even though it’s going to be a beautiful custom 5,000 square foot home. To the neighborhood so. Sacchet: Well, we’ll have to be patient to see how it looks like, right? Anthony Farina: I mean it’s totally up in the air what exactly it’s going to look like. Sacchet: Right. At this point we’re not looking at that aspect. I mean you’re right about that. Yeah Kurt. Papke: Question for staff. Several homeowners have commented on the historical nature of the building. There was nothing in the staff report concerning that. Could you please clarify what the historical status of the building is. Al-Jaff: It is not on the historic registers listing. The home was built in the mid 1800’s and I’ve heard that, I have not been able to verify this but I’ve heard that it’s the second home in Carver County. 37 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Sacchet: So it does have significance from that angle, even though it’s not formalized. Yes please, you wanted to add something. The public hearing is still open. Larry Nelson: I’m 3860 Linden Circle and just an interest to me is that Chanhassen doesn’t have a preservation association. Kind of similar to other cities around the area like Victoria and Excelsior. Chaska. I don’t know if you can comment on that. Sacchet: Is it something you can something about Sharmeen? Larry Nelson: I don’t think that there’s anything in Chanhassen that has a chance to protect a home like this that has the history and. Sacchet: I think a home has to be on the historical register. It has to be registered. It has to be listed in order for it to be protected historically. Sacchet: Then it would apply… Larry Nelson: But I think in this situation as us as neighbors we don’t have somebody standing behind us, and of course I chose to live in the wonderful city of Chanhassen, which I love but if this was in Chaska we’d have somebody standing behind us. From their historical society from Carver. Sacchet: Even there I would think it would have to be registered on the historical register. Larry Nelson: So I’d just like to see you take on consideration that it is a pretty big landmark. One other question, just to verify the engineer seems to be mention that there were 2 houses. Or is there 3? Aanenson: 2 additional. Morris: 2 additional homes. Larry Nelson: 2 additional homes you said. Sacchet: Total of 3. Larry Nelson: Back to the lake rights. I’ve just been totally confused on what this all means with lake rights. They really have and where that’s going to continue from there. Where would we continue now? Everybody says it’s a private matter. Sacchet: Correct. That means we don’t intend to get involved from a city side with that. Larry Nelson: Okay, and what side would us, where, what side should we get involved with then? It’s a private matter but our association. 38 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Sacchet: Amongst the owners. Larry Nelson: But in the past I’m sure you’ve had a lot of experience with places being split, or places being developed like this where there’s 3, or 2 or 3 where there’s 1 piece of property that has lake rights. You must have some type of history and what has happened before with it. Do we? Sacchet: I wouldn’t know. Aanenson: We’ve done other ones in associations, yes. Larry Nelson: But the thing is, from my understanding, they’re not really a member of our association. Am I correct on this? You come up and help me with this… Aanenson: Again that is something we’re not going to, we’re silent on that matter. We’re not going to get into. Larry Nelson: No, no, but I’m just asking that you. McDonald: Well if I could address your question. Larry Nelson: Yes, thank you. McDonald: It’s a private matter. It’s a contract. It’s a contract issue. The city’s already said we have nothing to do with your contract. If you cannot negotiate it out between yourselves, your only recourse is to take it to court. It is not a city issue. It is a contract matter. So whatever your contract says, whatever the easements say, that’s what governs your negotiations. Larry Nelson: Are we satisfied with that? McDonald: Yeah, there’s nothing we can do and it’s not part of our charter to get into that. Larry Nelson: Thank you. Sacchet: Thank you for your comments. Do you want to say something? Please. Mary Knutson Rogers: I’m Mary Knutson Rogers. I live at 3851 Leslee Curve. I just have a question to allow the south side, okay going here. The driveway, does that have to be widened in order for that developer to just have one car. Morris: Correct. I think it’s going up. They were proposing a 20 foot wide bituminous surface. I think the existing is somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 feet so it’d be widened by 8 feet. Mary Knutson Rogers: And then this home, what’s the distance there from the lot line? Morris: 10 feet. 39 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Mary Knutson Rogers: Just 10 feet. Aanenson: That’s the ordinance. Until you see a building permit we wouldn’t know for sure. I mean that’s what it has to be at a minimum. It could be more. Sacchet: Thank you. Ruth Menten: I’m back again. I would like you to really consider the safety of the cars. I know you said it’s only 2 lots going but in actuality it’s 3 lots that will be up there. And when there’s 2 average cars per family and that’s for people who are young and if you have families you know there’s teenagers that have, you have to have teenagers here. So let’s figure that 2 cars, that’s 6 cars coming out of that one driveway with a low vision. I don’t know if there’s some way you can take and get better vision. Put mirrors up or stop lights, I don’t know but it’s driving you know across the walkway and I just, the safety issue is a big thing for me. Sacchet: Is this a situation where mirrors are needed? Can you comment to that Alyson please. Morris: Based on going out to the site and looking at the sight distance, cars are safely exiting at that point already. It’s just a matter of driver caution going down there and having due care when they enter onto the street. It’s similar to, although you would have tree loss off the one private driveway there, it’s similar to single family lots exiting onto a street. It’s just simply a matter of driver care and attention. Sacchet: So you would think that common sense should be able to mitigate it sufficiently? You want to add something? Ruth Menten: I just wanted to add something. It also is on an incline. It isn’t flat like the piece of paper you’re looking at. We’re looking at an incline too so I just really want the council to consider the safety and the developer’s to consider the safety if this should go through. Sacchet: Okay. Good point. Finally we get to you. You’ve been going up and down a couple of times haven’t you. Mike Barnes: My name is Mike Barnes. I live at 3840 Linden Circle. I’m off on the north side of the property. And my concern has to do with the drainage. Is there a limitation on how much height can be added to the property. You know everything kind of tends to come between my house and both of my neighbors houses and I’m just somewhat concerned that with the new properties here that there will be more drainage coming down and that I might have flooding problems. Sacchet: Generally there should actually be less. Alyson, do you want to address that please. Morris: That’s correct, thank you Chair. The developer’s engineer was required to do a drainage analysis of this site. Minimal increase in peak discharge through the site. You’re the site directly north? 40 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Mike Barnes: I’m the second one back. Morris: Okay. Mike Barnes: I would be this one. Morris: Okay. As far as increasing drainage, looking at where the proposed homes can be at this setback, it would not increase. The drainage pattern goes from the southwest, at the back of the lot that goes to the north and then it starts to spread out towards Lake Minnewashta. Looking out there you see where the high point is. It’s a gradual slope. They’re not proposing to change that area at the back. Mike Barnes: Yeah, I guess my concern is with the 3 homes there that it won’t flow towards the front anymore. Everything in the back that was flowing around will now flow off my way because my house is built on a hill, instead of coming down. So that’s just my concern with it. Morris: Again you look at, it depends on the pitch of the roof. The proposed house style. Position of eaves. We could ask the builder to be. Sacchet: Be sensitive. Morris: Very sensitive to that and look at placement of the eaves. Sacchet: Alright. Anybody else wants to address this item? Yep. Janet Paulsen: Janet Paulsen again. I just want to have, make a statement about private streets and especially this private street. I don’t know if you’re all aware you’re not allowed to park on a private street so the guests of these 3 homes cannot park there. And Lake Minnewashta Parkway, not allowed to park on either side of that so where are the people supposed to park? Aanenson: Sharmeen, you want to show them? Al-Jaff: They will be able to park within the driveway. There’s a turning lane here. You can have a couple of cars on there. Sacchet: Okay. So we believe that is sufficient parking space? Janet Paulsen: And sufficient for a fire truck? Sacchet: What happens with the fire truck? Al-Jaff: Our Fire Marshal did look at this and concluded that this is adequate for their purposes. Janet Paulsen: I have a private street next to me at the end of Laredo Drive and I watch my young neighbors struggle trying to turn around and have their delivery trucks turn around. 41 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Mostly they end up parking on the public street to do that. I think private streets require a variance because they do cause difficulties for the people living around them for parking. And for turning around. For turning around a boat trailer. Camping trailer, anything. And delivery trucks, I know lots of people living on private streets have complained about them. That their property is being, especially if they’re the last lot, to turn around. So it should be stated specifically that there’s a big enough turn around for all that. Not just a little back up space. Thank you. Sacchet: Good point. Thanks Janet. Janet Paulsen: Oh, and one more thing. Does this PUD require a 30 foot front yard? Do you know? Al-Jaff: We are requiring today’s standard be imposed on this portion of the Planned Unit Development. Majority of the homes have the 30% and so on and so forth. We’re requiring a 50 foot front yard setback. Janet Paulsen: Okay thank you. Sacchet: Thank you. Anybody else? Jerry. Jerry Paulsen: Good evening. I’m Jerry Paulsen, 7305 Laredo Drive. There was concern expressed about blocking your view. Between the lake and the new houses. The housing regulation says the maximum height is what, 35 feet or? Sacchet: Correct. Jerry Paulsen: I can show you a house on Big Woods that’s 43 feet from ground to peak because the height of the house is based on a measurement of a gable height. So if you have a high pitched roof, in effect you can have more than a 35 feet. I can show you how… Sacchet: Yeah, I think that was actually clarified. That’s the mid point of the gable that we’re measuring, so you’re right. It could go to the tip of the gable could be higher. Any other comments? Otherwise I’ll close the public hearing. Yes. Yes, certainly you can do that. Absolutely. Connie Villari: My name is Connie Villari with Cornerstone Land Surveying and I’ve been referred to as the engineer but actually I’m a licensed surveyor, so just want to clarify that. And I’d like to take a few moments to answer some of your questions, specifically about the safety issue. One of the things that staff first commented on when we came to them discussing this lot was, if this is going to be subdivided they wanted to see one entrance rather than two which currently exist on the property. In the name of safety we took a look at both entrances. On the south side there’s only a retaining wall on the north end. If you take a look at this, there’s no retaining wall down here, so the sight is slightly, if it is, if you can call it an impairment, it would only be an impairment on the north side. Not on the south side. The other side, or on the other driveway…so that’s part of the reason why we chose that. We also chose the driveway that was 42 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 farthest away from Linden to keep a separation between the streets that are existing, to try to maintain as much safety as possible. So it’s one direction and I understand your concerns and perhaps we can take a look at that with the final design if we have a couple other changes. We’ll have the engineer review that specifically. Couple other questions were about the drainage. One of the things that we’re trying to do is maintain drainage towards the front between the houses so we’re trying to make sure that the water is traveling across a great deal of grassy area or vegetated area and we’re trying to keep that, keep swales between the houses and that sort of thing to minimize any impact that’s there. Again the rear of the lot, these are, it was difficult to design a plan for a development like this because they are going to be custom homes. It’s a lot easier to go into a site such as the one that was presented before this where you’re changing everything and you’re designing everything from scratch. We’re doing the best we can to fit in with the neighborhood that’s there. We’re trying to keep the grades as close to what’s naturally there now as possible. We’re trying to keep the street grades as close to the drive that is there now. However that appears to exceed the 10% slightly so we’re going to have to abide by city standards. So part of the impetus of keeping the houses back 30 feet is to maintain the grades that are existing as much as possible. Another question was about the private drive and access and turn around’s and one of the things we tried to do is provide a realistic image of what somebody would want a home to look like with a driveway. To get realistic numbers for our percentages. And we’ve shown turn around’s on both the north and the south house to kind of help those people back out of their driveways because it is an issue. And so we have talked about it so… The final design of the homes may be different but we’re trying to be realistic with our development calculations and so that’s why we’ve shown those on there. Trying to take that into consideration. I think I’ve tried to hit most of your questions. As far as accuracy of the tree survey, all the trees were located in the field. If there’s an extra one there, it was an oversight but they were verified by two people in the field so it would be an error and I will check on it and the person that was in charge of the survey. Sacchet: Thank you very much. Good comments. McDonald: I’ve got a question. Sacchet: We’ll get to you in a second. McDonald: Excuse me, ma’am. Since you’re the engineer or surveyor, can you tell me how high is the current house? Connie Villari: The current house is at, let me just double check. It’s at about…and I can get another plan, but it’s shown here at 967.7. McDonald: No, I’m talking about from the ground up. You know we’ve had a lot of discussion about. Connie Villari: You know I’m not sure. That is not a measurement we did. Perhaps the homeowner has an idea. I’m not sure. Tim Colleran: It would just be a guess. 43 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 McDonald: I’ll accept a guess. Tim Colleran: It’s a two story with a pitched roof. It’s tall. McDonald: Okay. Sacchet: Alright. There’s still somebody there. Greg Greenwood: I’m Greg Greenwood. I live at 6501 Kirkwood Circle. I’m not even close to their property but I live back in the association area. But my concern is, we, you’re going to move the houses 10 feet up now that they have that grade basically for, you know to make that 25% if I hear what you’re saying correctly. So shorten their driveways by 10 feet. That’s, we’re moving all the properties up where all the slab space is. Sacchet: Isn’t that drawing actually using 30? Al-Jaff: That’s not the reason why. They’re showing it at 30… Greg Greenwood: At 30 so they can move it up. So that sounds like they’re cutting off some of the driveway. Sacchet: That’s the idea. Greg Greenwood: Okay, so as part of the parking and turn around section that I’m kind of concerned about, is we walk down to the beach every day. Or every time we use it. There’s going to be that much more traffic if one of these guys has more than 2 people in their driveway, or 2 cars come to their house. So that’s going to be that much more traffic that they’re going to have to park on Linden Circle basically, up and down that road. And that’s going to increase the traffic and the amount of kids that are up there already too. I mean we’ve got people zooming through there that don’t live there as well, that don’t know that we have small kids and what not around there. Sacchet: So it’s about the safety, okay. Greg Greenwood; Yeah, big time. Okay, and we’ve got small kids that live right up on that corner that the people would turn around at. Sacchet: Appreciate your comment. Greg Greenwood: So thank you. Sacchet: Thank you. Anybody else? If not, I’m closing public hearing and bringing it back to the commission for comments and discussion. I’ll start on this end with Mark. 44 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 Undestad: Well, I guess I mean your comment again, it’s, they get harder as they get into the neighborhoods here. It looks to me as if, I mean staff has worked with them. They’ve covered what’s required in their program there. I can see some of the concerns for the increased traffic on there. It sounds like Alyson has looked at that and it doesn’t seem to be an issue right now. I understand the numbers and the feelings out there but when it comes down to the requirements and meeting them, I guess it’s from my...around with the cul-de-sac up there, I think they’ve done a good job of changing the driveway around. It will save some more trees and move the buildings around and I understand, I think each individual home site would then come back, wouldn’t it prior to another, as they get. Would the homes come in or no? Aanenson: No. They would just come in for a building permit and then we’d review that. Sacchet: We wouldn’t see it. Aanenson: You wouldn’t see it. We would just internally check the building permit. Undestad: Okay. That’s it. Sacchet: Thanks Mark. Any comments Debbie? Larson: Well I’m quite familiar with the area because we have friends that are part of your association and invite us to the beach so I’ve been there on a few different occasions and I drive that street and I certainly understand your concerns about the additional traffic. However, typically when I come in on that road I come from 5 and houses that I see along the parkway seem very in line with what they’re planning on doing here so it’s kind of a continuation. It’s not necessarily changing, you know to me it’s lake view property, or so it appears anyhow. I don’t really have a problem with putting up beautiful homes in an area like that and I tend to support what they’re planning on doing. I think it’s a good improvement. It brings everybody up as far as their property values. Sacchet: Thanks Debbie. Jerry, any comments? McDonald: I’ve got a couple but yeah, when I first looked at this I made the mistake on the driveway. I was concerned about that too because what I was afraid we were going to create islands or blockage as far as getting in and out of the private drive. I like the private drive concept over the circle because you know after looking at it you would have had to have done quite a bit of work there which I think would have destroyed a lot of the property. Yeah, we’re having a problem. There are these lots around the city that are available for development and as long as they meet the code, I don’t see much choice but to grant them. And this particular development seems to have worked through all the problems. They’ve come through a couple solutions working with staff. Yeah, I would support this at this time. Sacchet: Deborah. Zorn: I would also support this. It’s difficult and concerning that it’s a beautiful house and that would be destroyed throughout this process. But it does meet all of the ordinances and the 45 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 couple concerns I do have would be the parking and the turn around on the private drive. And also that middle lot being at the 25% hard coverage surface right now, and this would be a later issue for whoever develops but there will be no space for any other type of landscaping or other things. So that issue will come, issue will come at a later time. So I would have to support this at this time. Sacchet: Thanks. Kurt. Papke: I find myself unusually conflicted over this one. I think the developer and the owner have done a great job of coloring within the lines. I think you’ve done a good job of preserving trees, which I normally support. But in this particular case I cannot be a party to demolishing the second oldest house in Carver County and so I intend to vote against this proposal. However I think this is a quasi judicial decision and I will not make a motion to deny the request and so I just suggest that someone else make a motion to approve it and I will simply be allowed to vote against it because I am ethically opposed to this. Sacchet: Well, I don’t have too much additional wisdom to add from what we’ve heard. I do think we touched on three very crucial aspects in all the comments and you well addressed it from the developer’s side. The safety of the access to the street. I think it’s definitely something I like to see the developer work with staff to do everything possible to put the most safe solution in there with that private street access onto that parkway. And it looks like you already did it. Make some efforts with that and maybe explore, make really sure you’ve exhausted all possibilities with that. Similar with the drainage concern that was brought up from the neighbor to the north. You already addressed that obviously trying to have the drainage patterns maintained. That it drains toward the lake but just put some extra attention on that as well. And then the parking and turn around space aspect to really, I actually would like to highlight those 3 items in a condition, something like applicant shall work with staff to put particular attention on those 3 aspects. I’m with you Kurt about this being the second oldest house in Carver County is a real shame to demolish it. However I don’t think we have any legal foundation whatsoever and to step into that space we have not, we don’t have jurisdiction. We don’t have a case per se. So other than knowing a little bit about it, I don’t think there’s much more I can do about it because it comes down to property owner’s rights which are very fundamentally entrenched in the Constitution of the United States…and all these wonderful things, but one thing that founders of this country particularly anchored in as well is the rights of property owners and so that’s in your hand as far as I see it. So with that I do have to state, as it was stated before, this is from the ordinance regulation from anyone in the city is a very clean proposal and the additional of the private road definitely preserves the significant, significantly larger part of nature than a public road would, so from what I consider our task as Planning Commission it seems a clear case that we need to support this. With that I’d like to have a motion. McDonald: I’ll do a motion. But before I do that, you had asked about adding some things. Sacchet: We can do friendly amendment. McDonald: Okay. I’ll make the motion that the Planning Commission approve the preliminary plat for Planning Case 05-25 for Minnewashta Creek Hills for 3 lots and a variance to allow a 46 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 th private street as shown on the plans received July the 20 and subject to conditions 1 through I believe 24. Sacchet: Yep. We have a motion. Is there a second? Larson: Second. Sacchet: We have a motion and a second. I’d like to propose a friendly amendment. That would be I guess number 25. Applicant shall work with staff to maximize safety aspects of the access of the private street onto Minnewashta Parkway. To minimize, how do we say that? To maximize drainage pattern be maintained flowing towards the lake, and putting special attention on parking and turn around space within those lots. Is that clear enough? Al-Jaff: Yes. Sacchet: Alright. Is that acceptable Jerry? Since you’re the man with the motion. McDonald: Okay, and I have a question. Number 3, does that take care of what you want to do for drainage? Sacchet: Not fully. McDonald: Okay. I have no problems with it. That’s fine. Sacchet: Okay. So we have a motion. We have a second. We have a friendly amendment. McDonald moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the preliminary plat for Planning Case 05-25 for Minnewashta Creek Hill for three lots and a variance to allow a private street as shown on the plans received July 20, 2005, subject to the following conditions: 1.Environmental Resources Specialist Conditions: a.Tree preservation fencing shall be installed at the edge of grading limits prior to any construction. Fencing shall be maintained until construction is completed. b.Any preserved trees removed will be replaced at a rate of 2:1 diameter inches. 2.Park and Recreation Conditions: a.In lieu of any land dedication, full park fees shall be collected at the time of platting. With the one existing home, the total park fee for Minnewashta Creek Hill will be $8,000. b.Additional trail construction is not required as a part of this project; however during demolition and construction, the existing pedestrian trail shall be protected and remain open. No construction equipment shall be parked on or use the trail as a 47 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 staging area during construction. In addition, all match points encountered on the trail for demolition and/or construction shall be professionally constructed. 3.Detailed grading, drainage, tree removal and erosion control plans must be submitted with the building permit for each lot. 4.The driveway grade must be adjusted so that runoff from the driveway will sheet drain to the east. The grades east of the proposed private drive must be adjusted to provide a drainage swale along the east side of the driveway to the proposed catch basin. 5.Any proposed retaining wall over four feet high requires a building permit and must be designed by a Professional Engineer registered in the State of Minnesota. 6.Tree preservation fencing must be installed at the limits of tree removal. All disturbed areas, as a result of construction, shall be seeded and mulched or sodded immediately after grading to minimize erosion. 7.A 75-foot minimum rock construction entrance must be added to the entrance that will be accessed during construction. 8.If importing or exporting material for development of the site is necessary, the applicant will be required to supply the City with a detailed haul route and traffic control plan. 9.The developer shall also extend storm sewer from the existing storm sewer manhole within Minnewashta Parkway at the south end of the property. The upstream storm sewer structure shall have a catch basin cover and a three-foot sump. 10.The lateral sanitary sewer and watermain connections to the existing trunk utilities must be north of the proposed private drive. The developer shall extend 8-inch lateral sanitary sewer from the existing manhole (top elevation 951.23’). 11.A manhole must be installed wherever a bend is proposed in the sanitary sewer. Individual sanitary sewer services must be 6-inch diameter. 12.Six-inch lateral watermain shall be wet tapped from the existing trunk utility. 13.A gate valve must be installed immediately west of the wet tap. 14.A hydrant is required at the end of the proposed watermain for flushing purposes. 15.Additional drainage and utility easements may be required based on the revised utility plan. Easements shall be minimum 20-feet wide centered over each utility. 16.According to the City’s Finance Department records, the parcel was previously assessed for one sanitary sewer and water hookup, therefore sanitary sewer and water hookup charges must be paid for two lots. The 2005 trunk hookup charge is $1,458.00 for sanitary sewer and $2,955.00 for water-main. 48 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 17.Public utility improvements are required to be constructed in accordance with the City's latest edition of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. 18.Detailed construction plans and specifications must be submitted at time of final plat. 19.The applicant is required to enter into a development contract with the City and supply the necessary financial security in the form of a letter of credit or cash escrow to guarantee installation of the improvements and the conditions of final plat approval. 20.Permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies will have to be obtained, including but not limited to the MPCA, Department of Health, MCES, and Watershed District. 21.The driveway easement must clearly stipulate that the owners of Lots 1-3, Block 1, Minnewashta Creek Hill shall own and maintain the private drive and the private storm sewer north of the private driveway. The private street must be built to a 7-ton design, 20-foot width. The developer will be required to submit inspection reports certifying this. 22.Water Resource Coordinator Conditions: a.The grading plan shall be revised to show silt fence down slope of all disturbed areas. Chanhassen’s standard detail for silt fence (Plate 5300) shall be included in the plans. b.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water. c.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as-needed. d.The estimated total SWMP fee, due payable to the City at the time of final plat recording, is $5,355. e.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies as necessary (e.g., Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Site Permit), (for dewatering)) and comply with their conditions of approval. 23.Building Official Conditions: a.A final grading plan and soils report must be submitted to the Inspections Division before building permits will be issued. 49 Planning Commission Meeting – August 2, 2005 b.Demolition permits must be obtained prior to demolishing any structures on the site. c.Separate water and sewer services must be provided for each lot and must have a separate connection to the public sewer or to a manhole which is connected to the public sewer. d.Curb box valves cannot be located in driveways. e.Permits are required for retaining walls. Walls over four feet high must be designed by a professional engineer. f.The developer must submit a proposed name for the private drive. 24.Fire Marshal Conditions: a.The new proposed private street will need a street name. Submit name to Chanhassen Building Official and Chanhassen Fire Marshal for review and approval. b.No burning permits will be issued for trees to be removed. Trees and shrubs must either be removed from site or chipped. c.Temporary street signs shall be installed on street intersections when construction of a new roadway allows passage of vehicles. Pursuant to 2002 Minnesota Fire Code Section 501.4. d.A fire apparatus access road shall be designed and maintained to support the imposed load of fire apparatus and shall be serviced so as to provide all weather driving capabilities. Pursuant to Minnesota Fire Code Section 503.2.3.” 25. The applicant will work with staff to address the issues of safety of the private street accessing onto Minnewashta Parkway, drainage towards the lake, and providing appropriate parking and turn around areas. All voted in favor, except Papke who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 5 to 1. Sacchet: So we have 5 to 1 and we already heard why you’re opposing. So this goes to City nd Council on the 22 of August and there the decision will be made on this. Thank you very much. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Commissioner Papke noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated July 19, 2005 as presented. Chairman Sacchet adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 9:30 p.m.. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 50