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D-1. Minutes dated October 17, 20017 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING SUMMARY MINUTES OCTOBER 17, 2017 Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, Mark Undestad, Steve Weick, Nancy Madsen, John Tietz, and Mark Randall STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; and MacKenzie Walters, Planner PUBLIC PRESENT: Tim Erhart PUBLIC HEARING: 2040 COMPREHENSIVE PLAN: REVIEW DRAFT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO ALLOW FOR 6 MONTH JURISDICTIONAL REVIEW. Kate Aanenson and Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Concerning the introduction chapter Chairman Aller suggested expanding the visioning process and the meetings that were held. When discussing the natural resources chapter Commissioner Weick asked that the Planning Commission consider taking into account tree removal when considering developments in the future. Chairman Aller opened the public hearing. Tim Erhart outlined his vision for how to develop his property when the opportunity arises and his request to change the Bluff Creek boundary line. Kate Aanenson discussed the work that will be done by staff during the 6 month jurisdictional review period. Chairman Aller requested that the wetlands on Mr. Erhart’s property be delineated before closing the public hearing. After comments and discussion from commission members, no action was needed for this item. PUBLIC HEARING: CODE AMENDMENTS: PERMEABLE PAVEMENT (CHAPTERS 1, 7, 18 & 20). REVIEW CLASSIFICATION OF PERMEABLE PAVEMENT TECHNOLOGIES. MacKenzie Walters presented the staff report on this item. Commissioners Weick and Tietz asked for clarification of the incentive for the 5 percent increase from 25 to 30 percent. Commissioner Randall asked for clarification on what is considered impervious surface. Commissioner Tietz asked if there was a way to simplify the whole process. Commissioner Madsen stated she would like to see the ordinance pertain only to the residential. Chairman Aller opened the public hearing. No one spoke and the public hearing was closed. After comments and discussion amongst commission members the following motion was made. Planning Commission Summary – October 17, 2017 Tietz moved, Randall seconded that the Planning Commission table the code amendment regarding permeable pavement for further study by staff. All voted in favor, except Commissioner Weick who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 5 to 1. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Madsen noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated October 3, 2017 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. None. ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Kate Aanenson reviewed the schedule for the last two Planning Commission meetings of the year. Undestad moved, Weick seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 9:25 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 2 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 17, 2017 Chairman Aller called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Aller, Mark Undestad, Steve Weick, Nancy Madsen, John Tietz, and Mark Randall STAFF PRESENT: Kate Aanenson, Community Development Director; Bob Generous, Senior Planner; and MacKenzie Walters, Planner PUBLIC PRESENT: Tim Erhart PUBLIC HEARING: 2040 COMPREHENSIVE PLAN: REVIEW DRAFT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO ALLOW FOR 6 MONTH JURISDICTIONAL REVIEW. Aanenson: Before we start Mr. Chair just to, what our goal tonight is to be clear, we’re going to go through the in summary the Comprehensive Plan. You’ll look at each of the chapters. When we get to the land use we’ll give a little bit more detail on the two requests. There’s one the City initiated. We’ll talk a little bit more detail on that and then when we go through the entire summary of the Comprehensive Plan we’ll see if there’s questions from you and then Mr. Erhart’s here who’s also one of the people making a request for consideration for different land use will as part of the public hearing so we’ll open the public hearing afterwards but we’re going to interject some things inbetween there so that’s our intent and I’ll let Mr. Generous go through the overview. Generous: Thank you Chairman Aller, commissioners. As Kate stated we’re reviewing, this provides an opportunity to review and comment on the City’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan. It’s in the draft stage now because it still needs to go out for jurisdictional review. We’re trying to get more citizen comment on it and then in the spring when we have all the jurisdictional comments in we’ll have a final hearing and you’ll make a recommendation on this to forward it to City Council who will then have the opportunity to adopt it. We’ve been working on this a long time. We actually started in 2016 with some of the visioning ideas that we were looking at how, what’s good in our community. What did we want to continue? This April we went through this. We had an overview on the Comprehensive Plan update process. What we were proposing to do. Throughout the summer and spring we came back with, we tried to break it down and go in a little more detail on each of the individual chapters so to make it a little easier to digest because this is a lot of material to review. Again last, on the last Monday the council approved the Comprehensive Plan for jurisdictional review so we’ll be sending it out. Our goal is to get it all Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 together this Friday. I should point out we did give you one update that in the back of the plan we have the, where is it? Comments from the Health Department in there and then we were able to prepare some responses. I have a draft version. We will be updating the document itself to incorporate a wellhead protection section within the water resources, the water plan as well as it shows the Chanhassen drinking water supply management area map and then a second map that shows area potential intrusion into the wellhead system. Fortunately for our community it’s only, we have a low probability of wellhead infiltration. It’s only Well 11 that there’s some concern for that and that’s an emergency well so we don’t really use that on a daily basis. With that again what we’ll be doing is holding these public hearings to allow people to provide comments on the Comprehensive Plan. Allows people to review it and the Planning Commission to review it and then we’re trying to solicit direction on finalizing the Comprehensive Plan for adoption. There are 10 chapters within the Comprehensive Plan. The first one is the introduction and like all good introductions it provides a vision for the city’s development into the future. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on any of the chapters unless there’s specific questions or discussion that commissioners would like to have. The introduction serves to provide a community vision statement. It looks at development and economic development opportunities. Our attention and attraction, retention and expansion of our commercial and industrial businesses. Redevelopment opportunity and the proposed, the major development that we’re seeing in the current timeframe. Aanenson: If I can add one thing on that. So economic competitive is one of the chapters you can electively do so instead of doing that we embedded it into the kind of the intro section. Kind of talking about our strengths and weaknesses because of the link between jobs, housing, and our growth. Commercial growth so we put that in the front just showing kind of what we’ve been doing to expand the economic part of the city so it’s kind of just embedded in there just with some overall goals. Generous: And then finally as part of the introduction we pulled all the goals and policies into this chapter. It’s right up front we want people to know what we’re looking at for future growth and it’s an easy way. These things are all consistent with the individual chapter so if we make any changes in any of those goals or policies we’ll make sure that we bring it forward on this. Again all the goals are things that we’re striving to achieve. The policies are means of achieving them. There’s a whole lot of things. There’s a lot about interconnectedness between all the systems that we have in place. Land use. Housing. Commercial development. Our parks and recreation and that’s all tied into our infrastructure systems. Sewer and water and what’s getting even bigger is our storm water, our surface water management policies and as you’re aware there’s a separate process tracking our surface water management plan. There’s more detailed analysis by the watershed districts and the Department of Natural Resources on that element. We intend to bring it all back together in January of next year. We should have that document completed and then that will go out for it’s separate jurisdictional review. As part of our comp plan we’re just adopting that document by reference but we’ll have additional public hearings on the specific surface water management plan document. Goals and policies so that, unless anyone 2 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 has any specific questions or discussions items that’s the introduction chapter of the Comprehensive Plan. Aller: I would just like to comment on the community vision aspect and I know that it gets into a little bit about the process and the meetings that occurred early on but it really doesn’t show all the meetings and all the opportunity for input and I’m wondering whether or not it should be expanded to show that a little bit more. I appreciate that portion because I think it lays out what the City has done to get to where they are with these goals and how they actually received input through that process and the visioning process and the different reports and things that. Aanenson: …that’s one of the things we do through with our submittal to the Met Council but I think that’s a great idea. Aller: And then just briefly if you could explain for those that are watching and making sure that I’m on the right page, the jurisdictional review that goes on. It goes out to other communities so that they have a right to comment on what we’re doing. Generous: That’s correct. It goes to all adjacent cities. All the school districts within the area. All the watershed districts within the area. It goes to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The Minnesota Department of Transportation. Carver County, Scott County, Hennepin County so anyone that potentially could be impacted or contribute to our plan has an opportunity to review and comment on it so. And you know a lot of times we send it out to Carver County but there’s like 4 different parts of Carver County that will look at it. You have their public works. You have their land management department. You have the water, Carver County Water Management District so. Aller: And I just want to raise that awareness so that people know that it’s not just our vision but people that are giving outside influence and input into our vision and how they take a look at what we want and try to in their own way put limitations on the policies that we create to get to achieve those goals. Generous: And so with that then we move onto the land use. Aanenson: So in the land use section, as we stated in the previous meetings is that we didn’t anticipate a lot of significant changes. Really we did all the heavy lifting when we did the 212 corridor and when we looked at whether or not we could provide municipal services down there in a cost effective way. So in looking at that we also looked at the staging of the sewer and water and then the infrastructure improvements that need to happen so 101 needs to be upgraded for development to go south as well as the eastern side of 212. Old 212, Flying Cloud Drive which you know Hennepin County has delayed so that really to move forward we need to move 2 lift stations need to be built coming down the hill and then moving east and west towards that so again we did put in there, I think Commissioner Tietz asked about that. We did put in a land use map. A phasing plan because you know as was pointed out what we try to go to where we 3 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 already have infrastructure in place and work that way instead of leap frogging which is some of it is going to be controlled by the fact that we need to have other improvements made to the infrastructure improvements. Mostly streets but we did put that in there because I think that’s a good reminder for people look at that because we do have some people right now looking at some of the property along 212 for existing older buildings and want to know should I be investing in a sewer system. What is the timeline so it’s good to put that out there. So really the most significant changes under land use are going to be the request that came in. The City had one that was on Powers Boulevard that we wanted to change to, that we had mentioned is guided low density residential. We want to change that to parks and open space because no one can build on it. It’s got the retaining wall along that so I’ll just remind you what the two requests were and then I know Mr. Erhart wants to spend a little bit more time on his request so these are the ones that we previously discussed so MUSA expansion depends on supporting infrastructure which we just talked about and the realignment of 101 and 61 and then we expect the majority of the parcels to be developed by 2040 that should say. So currently this is what the city’s land use map looks like. We have properties, you know so if you look at some of the bigger properties. I know Mr. Erhart’s, the Halla’s property, the Bluff Creek Golf Course and then the stuff along the 212 corridor. The biggest piece is as you go south. As you may be aware we also have two large residential properties north of Highway 5 and that includes the Prince property and the Gorra property. Both of those could come in at any time. There’s sewer and water available so that would be quite a bit of density here. A few thousand units there so it really depends on timing and I go back to Commissioner Tietz’s point and looking at where you’ve already had the investment of infrastructure, looking at that. I think I mentioned in the past that we are requested that we do an environmental document on those two parcels because you don’t want one parcel to develop at the detriment of the other and how those tie together and they’re also looking at the th infrastructure access along the frontage road along Highway 5. West 78 Street and then also looking at the improvements that may be needed at Galpin Boulevard so those are some of the factors that are influencing whether or not we have enough different land uses. So if you look at the matrix and what we put in the Comprehensive Plan, one of the things that we’re required to do is to show the different densities and do we have enough to meet density allocations as required by the Metropolitan Council and we’ve demonstrated that we do and under the chart. I’m seeing what page that’s on. So the growth forecast, if you look at that’s under 2.2 and 2.4 under your, the land use section. So we’ve showed what we have in the different land use categories and then what those densities would typically result in which we track. We’ve got the, every time a subdivision comes in we track their density so we’ve got pretty good analysis and so we’ve got what we believe is the appropriate mix to meet our goals. Not always, you know we see ebbs and flows. We may do a lot of office industrial commercial and then we also know that when we do one or two apartments it swings the numbers pretty quickly. What’s also not showing up when we look at this 2016 land use map is that we also just approved Avienda and we’ll see what goes on there but that could be, you know there’s some housing in there. Some higher density housing in there too so those are all the things that we put into consideration and looking at what is the right mix for land use and do we have the right amount. So this is the 2040 land use plan and so the potential changes on this map, there’s, you can see those are identified in purple. The two requests so we are forwarding these requests out to get 4 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 jurisdictional comments but we have recommended or given you our recommendation so again it’s corridor 61 also has some high density down there too. We looked at some of those, if you recall at the Moon Valley site. We actually showed some potential senior housing in there. And then as you go to the, down on the western edge we also looked at some density there and then in the middle there along 101 that gets realigned. We talked about some support commercial there which we have in the current Comprehensive Plan and then also some potential for some density wrapped with that commercial. So the Erhart request is just at the interchange just south of where Avienda would be. South of the 212 interchange. North of Pioneer Trail. We talked about earlier the Fox subdivision. We were talking about that earlier this evening and so this is the portion Mr. Erhart owns a significant portion but this is the part that he’s looking at. There currently is 12 acres that is guided for office. Or excuse me, yeah pure office and there’s two issues there that Mr. Erhart would like to add additional acreage to that and which we had currently identified that’s in the overlay district and then the second issue would be to dual guide it for also for high density. So there’s a lot of issues on storm water and I’m not going to go spend too much time on this because I think Mr. Erhart’s got a good presentation that he’ll go through in a lot of detail but again in summary you know when we looked at the Comprehensive Plan we do believe we have enough density on that and a lot of that would, unless something changes on some of those properties that they would come in with significantly less density or other types of densities so from, I guess it’s 10 acres and they’re adding another 3 to get to the 12 acres of density going up the slope so that’s one request and I’ll let Mr. Erhart when we get to the public hearing process go through his in a little bit more detail. The other two were the Halla requests. Both of those are guided low density and one of them is just south of Pioneer Trail on the east side of 101 and the other one is where the Mustard Seed and some of that adjacent land right there. Again they wanted to go to the higher density senior housing and again staff’s position is right now we’ve got quite a bit of that and it’s premature to go to that much density and we’re not supporting that one at this time either. There’s no sewer and water available at that end and that may not be there for potentially 10 years or more. It would have to work it’s way through some of the other properties to the north. So that in summary. Oh, then we also have the 101 right-of-way so all of this on the Halla property is really predicated on getting the 101 improvements done and so we’re working hard on trying to get that funding. The City is working with the legislature trying to get that mapped and get that funding because that’s the game changer down there so again that’s kind of what we see is kind of premature to be looking that far ahead. We think we’ve got enough of that higher density development. It’s a little bit different than Mr. Erhart’s property who controls his own destiny with potential of putting a lift station in his property and doesn’t really need any other infrastructure so if there’s one to be in play that would certainly be ahead of this property, the Halla property. So with that this again is kind of what they were looking, this is just illustrative. It doesn’t mean what it’s going to be high density there so. So with that that’s all I had for land use and, unless there’s any questions. I think during the public hearing we’ll probably have a lot more discussion on that. Aller: Okay. 5 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aanenson: So the next chapter is housing. So again on that we have certain goals that we have to meet there. We looked at, we actually, we took I think we mentioned this when we went through the study. We looked at the Carver County update and then we also blended it with the Maxfield Study that was done in 2014 because there was some good numbers on that. As you know senior housing is really popular right now and we’re trying to make sure that we’re providing a variety of housing styles for the community and our goal in looking at this was putting together a matrix. I think the best matrix, MacKenzie modified this on Figure 3-19. It’s a really nice matrix and we kind of took how the Maxfield Study did it and modified it with, try to modify that with the Carver County and looking at some of our goals so we think we’re in good shape there again too. Looking at the diversity of housing types and that was one of our comments on the Avienda too to make sure that we don’t get an over supply of senior housing and that be located in the appropriate locations so all the charts that are in here are the ones that are required from the Met Council with some additional information that kind of gives you some idea of household incomes, make-up. You know we’re looking, tracking our demographic as far as median age. Affordability is one of the issues that they have pointed out to the City of Chanhassen that we’re deficient in providing that affordable housing. And then looking at market rents here so we’ve got one project on the books right now that’s coming in at market rate. There’s one at Powers Ridge that’s just opening up I think in the next 2 weeks. Senior housing project. They’re just finishing that one up there so that’s off of Powers Boulevard, just to the west of that. It’s like the third building over there so that’s coming along. And then we also gave just an inventory of the existing rental so people can see that so it will be adding the new Venue on that too when that gets constructed. So I don’t know if you had any questions on that? Aller: Not for me. Anybody? Aanenson: Any questions? Aller: No thank you. Generous: Chairman, commissioners. Chapter 4 deals with natural resources. It’s another system that we have within the community. It’s what we, our base point. As we pointed out this section identifies important natural resources within our community and what we need to preserve. It emphasizes resiliency and sustainability of our natural environment. The need to preserve our soil environment. Our treed environment and our water courses. It looks at connections between the various natural areas in the community and the need for the city to continue to extend that. We’re fairly lucky in that we have the Bluff Creek corridor which is entirely within the city of Chanhassen. We control it’s destiny through our development review process and what we try to preserve and hold as a community. We believe it’s an important natural environment that we need to preserve in it’s entirety and try not to eliminate any fragmentation. If you look at our map which shows up more in the parks, for the preserve element we have an extensive system of nature preserves that we’re providing along the Bluff Creek corridor. These natural areas we’re looking for more unimproved surfaces for people to 6 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 be able to explore and enjoy the environment but to minimize man’s impact on these areas. This chapter also points out as part of the development review we need to limit the amount, especially with the invasive species, to limit the amount or concentration of the types of plantings that we put in so we don’t have an over concentration. Currently ash provides a significant amount of the city’s canopy coverage. However we all are aware that the Emerald Ash Borer is moving westward and eventually will be hitting our community and so we need to look long term how do you present, or prevent this type of thing from happening. Well the best thing we can do is to diversify our tree stock and so limit the amount of any one species of tree that goes in and continue to maintain and keep as healthy as we can any of the trees that we plant. We do have a replacement requirement as part of any subdivision review. If they take out, we have target preservation areas. If they take too many trees out we require them to replace that. We have our minimum standards for boulevard plantings that also help to re-establish the big woods that used to be over our entire community but that were taken out with the farmers coming in here. What the City will be looking at in the future is creating an urban forestry management plan and we’re well on our way. We have an inventory of our existing tree species as well as looking at considering joining a green steps cities program which is a voluntary effort by the communities to help preserve the environment. One thing that Jill pointed out is we need to, natural resource inventory and stewardship plan is something that we’ll be looking at developing for our community. We have a lot of information. There’s more that we need to get. It includes the wetland inventories. The canopy coverage or the forestry inventories and the species and so that’s, again it’s a natural system that’s part of our community. It’s something that makes our community special and it improves the quality of life for everyone here so. Aanenson: I’d just add one thing too. The solar is a requirement so we actually, we switched that we had historic preservation which we added into land use so that didn’t change from last time and then we put solar under the natural resources so there’s a small section on that. So the Environmental Commission also reviewed this whole chapter too so. Generous: Okay then, and then the next chapter is parks. Weick: Are we doing comments on the third chapter? Generous: Yes. Aller: Sure, go ahead. Weick: I just, I wanted to make for the benefit of this Planning Commission and hopefully future planning commissions 2 of the 8 goals in there are specific to tree coverage and I don’t think that we as a planning commission capture the relative impact of tree removal when we talk about development. As well as the actual effectiveness of tree replacement policies so I know we have policies in place. I just don’t know that as we’re considering those developments now and into the future that we appropriately account for those goals so you know there’s specific 7 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 goals in here and I’m not sure that we consider that effectively so hopefully we can add that into our future planning as we hear those development cases. Aller: So while we’re on that, in the process of development we have a section and there’s a requirement that they meet certain landscape requirements and so could you describe what is generally done now so those of us at home can understand what Commissioner Weick is discussing when he’s talking about that process. Generous: Yeah Chairman Aller. Yes, as part of any subdivision development review the first step is to establish what’s there right now and we do what’s called a canopy coverage calculation. It’s where they survey all the significant trees and those are trees 8 inches or larger in diameter at breast height and we also look at the amount of the site that is currently covered with leaves. It’s like looking down on a site from above and you can see what’s covered with leaves. Then in our ordinance we establish based on that existing coverage what is the target preservation amount? How much canopy should they preserve? And as part of their review they show us their preliminary grading plan which is the primary thing that takes out canopy coverage is they change, alter the landscape and so from that they’re able to calculate the approximate canopy removal area and then we do, there’s some math that’s done and if they exceed the target preservation numbers and everything’s good we have more trees than would normally be required and then as part of their landscaping plan they will generally have to just put one tree in the front yard of each home. Now if they take out more trees than the target preservation amount there’s a penalty inclusion so we, they have to provide 1.2 times replacement of the area being removed and so we’ve developed a formula to calculate how many trees that is and so then they have to show that on the landscape plan. What they’re putting in and where they’re putting in. As part of it that a tree diversity comes in because Jill reviews that for the, what is it? 30-20-10 numbers that we have now. We’re hoping to go to a 5 percent number in the future for any one genus of tree. Type of tree instead of that, but that way we don’t get an individual concentration of tree in that. Additionally we look at wetland impacts within any development. Again that’s a more a grading issue. With the Wetland Conservation Act we’re required to try, number one to not have any wetland impacts. And number two, to minimize the impacts. And if there are any wetland impacts and those impacts have to be mitigated in some way. Preferably you’d like to see them build additional wetlands on site but that’s not always the case because a small development or whatever, then you’d like to have it built within the sub-watershed area and then the watershed district. And we’ve all heard about buying wetland credits if you can’t do that and those go a little farther afield but at least someplace in Minnesota then we’re getting, it’s a 2 to 1 basis. For every acre of wetland you impact two acres have to be created and that has to be of the same or better quality than the wetland that’s being impacted. Aanenson: I was just going to add one other comment to that too, so herein lies the challenge when you’re trying to save trees. It’s not only the number of trees but it’s the quality and the type of trees so that’s where we look at what’s the right tool to try to do that so it might be in RLM where we say you have to preserve the significant area but in doing that we’re going to cluster some homes but we’re going to save that area or a PUD so that’s the challenge. Or the 8 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 developer spends a lot of time trying to work the lot configuration to get those trees in. Then you’re relying on you know is it either preservation area or the homeowner to say, I care about it. They bought that lot because of the trees so it’s, it’s an art and a science to try to do that so it’s a big education curve and we’ve moved a long way in how we’ve treated trees. We try to save trees on lots and we found out we were trying to save trees that once the homeowner got in they were too close to the house so we found it’s better to save those clusters of trees and that goes back to what Mr. Generous was saying. Sometimes the types and the quality and where they’re located where we talked about on that subdivision off of Galpin. Are they going to be impacted by road expansion? Where’s a better place to save them? So we rely on your to help oversee that but we do spend a lot of time on that issue in and of itself so it was a good question. Aller: Yep, and thank you Commissioner Weick because I support that inference that, and maybe it’s incumbent upon us as a planning commission to bring forward a little bit more information for the public to know just what that process was so that it’s not just that we’re cutting trees but it’s actually being looked at and that’s our job then to say was it looked at in the appropriate manner so thank you. Weick: And the only, I bring it up because we’ve had small lots that we’ve been talking about recently but there’s potential in the future to have really significant acreage come under development and so I think when you take those small things and you expand it 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 times it accentuates the potential issues. Aanenson: Well I think that was the discussion we felt so strongly about on Avienda. Weick: Right. Aanenson: We actually, we eliminated the fire lane and there was another thing too just to make sure we preserved all those trees that were there yeah so those are the challenges. Weick: Thank you. Aller: And we’ll be talking more about canopy later on in the evening I think. We’re going to start talking about hard cover and it’s so intertwined so that’s what makes it so difficult. Generous: Mr. Chairman now, the next chapter is the parks and recreation chapter. It provides an inventory of our current park systems and additional park needs that the city will have in the community. Commissioner Tietz is well aware of the initiative the City’s taken under the parks and recreation to provide, develop a system plan for that. This is a sibling to that. It provides more a look at the goals, the overall framework for the park development. Again this is a lot like our natural resource one and a lot of the natural resource stuff show up in here because we preserve natural areas as in several of our parks and we continue to do that as development goes forward. That said those linear park systems that the city’s really looking at providing to provide opportunities for people to commune with nature and actually go someplace. Eventually we 9 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 want to be able to go from the regional park on Lake Minnewashta down to the Minnesota River valley so through our natural system. Our trail system. We also, we’re lucky to have outside jurisdictions that have facilities within our community. The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, the regional park. We have the golf course. We have the wildlife areas down on the Minnesota River valley. All of these are connected and part of the system that makes Chanhassen a quality community for life and so that’s something that’s very important for us to do. The trail system, we like to connect things. We actually have amended our ordinance to provide criteria when sidewalks will be included but as part of any development review the parks and recreation commission looks at it for trail and park facility needs in that area. We want every home in the community to be within a half mile of a community park facility to provide play opportunities and places for people to gather. This is the trail and sidewalk system connects me to the transportation element which is the next chapter that we get into. Again the City is working on a separate system plan for this but this is, provides the goals and policies for that plan that’s being developed. And with that I’d be happy to answer any questions or take you to comments, directions. Aller: Questions or comments? None other than I would like to recognize all the great work that Commissioner Tietz did with the park and rec’s committee when they were going through that process. I know it took a lot of time and energy on his behalf and those on the committee and a lot of that is moving forward. A lot of their work is moving forward as part of this plan. Generous: Any more comments? Then the next chapter, Chapter 6 is a transportation element. This describes the city’s, how people get around in our community. Everything from the trails and sidewalks to the interstate highway system. What it does, the two major things in the transportation element are the functional classification system that shows you where and what extent our roadway system will be. It goes all the way from local streets up to arterial roadways. We have two arterial roadways in the community. Our major arterials which are U.S. Highway 212 and Highway 7 in the northern part of the city. We also have a minor arterial in Highway 5 which provides long distance commuting but it’s broken up by the traffic light system so as a commuting thing it’s, while it provides an alternative it’s not as efficient for moving transportation. Transportation element also looks at potential transit options. While we currently don’t have the Metropolitan Council’s plans for light rail don’t come out as far as Chanhassen. We are encouraging as part of the plan that they continue to look at the commuter option which would come through downtown Chanhassen and can continue out to western Minnesota so long term, it might not be in our timeframe but eventually it may be something that the State will look at as viable option rather than trying to build enough roadway miles to move everyone around. The other thing we look at in here, we go through and describe all the roadway systems within the community but we look at the deficiencies in our transportation system so that we’re aware of things that we need to work on to make improvements. The big one which ties into land use and utility extension is the 101 realignment from Pioneer Trail down to Flying Cloud Drive. In conjunction with that the City would also look at utility extension. At least put the piping in for sanitary sewer because we’ll need a gravity sewer going down to the bottom at the wye and then a lift station, a force main coming up the hill so and that will serve everything 10 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 in the Minnesota River valley eventually so, that’s why as part of the plan we’re saying that the entire city of Chanhassen will be in the metropolitan urban service area by 2020 to allow us to do that extension. However development is contingent on an orderly system of strategic infrastructure improvements. The big one is the lift station on Powers just south of 212. There’ll be another lift station at the bottom of 101 at Flying Cloud Drive and then another one on the western side of Flying Cloud Drive so those are the big improvements that we’ll see but that’s getting away from transportation. But again it shows how everything is linked together. We have all these systems that work together and if we’re going to rebuild a road we don’t want to come in later and tear it up so that we could put sewer and water in and so we’ll put those pipes in place in conjunction with that infrastructure improvement. We want to provide multi-modal opportunities for people. We want people to be able to get around our community within and without and we’d like to be able to bring people into the community in an efficient transportation system. So if you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them. Aanenson: I was going to add this too. That not only the deficiencies or the intersection improvement areas are also tied back into the CIP so you’ll see those where we try to identify priorities and a lot of that is also development driven so when a developer comes in we know there’s a deficiency that that would be identified as something that we would need to fix and maybe that be even something the City may have to partner with the County. Generous: Okay, lucky 7, the sewer chapter. The City does have a significant sanitary sewer system. It all goes to the Met Council at the Blue Lake Treatment Plant services us. We have a capacity that’s been reserved for us of 16 million gallons per day of capacity. As part of the sewer plan they look at development and we’re about 13 million, maybe 14 million gallons a day at buildout so we’re under that guideline. We look at infiltration into the sewer system and the ways to reduce that or eliminate that. A lot of our systems are older. You know some of the older subdivisions so when the city does a road reconstruction project we also look at the sewer and water lines within those streets and see if those have to be replaced or repaired so that we again we don’t want to put in a new street or fix a street and then have to go back in later and try to replace the piping underneath. We try to do it all at one time and it extends the life of the facility. Aanenson: Let me just clarify that. So sometimes we get a lot of storm water infiltration in the sewer line so that’s affects, we get big blips if they’re not in good repair so that’s something that we, that’s also in our capital improvement plan to continue. As you can see the Metropolitan Council’s up doing up on Audubon, they’re lining one of their lines there so that’s an ongoing system that we work on and it’s part of our capital improvement plan also so then it helps us stay within our range that we can treat and when they notice those anomalies then the cities are notified of that. To look for those so we televise certain segments of the city every year just to look for those issues. Aller: And just for clarification when we exceed those then we get charged. 11 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aanenson: Correct. Generous: Right. Aller: So we’re saving money in the long run by proper planning and repair and replacement of these systems. Generous: As part of that penalty we can get a credit for the improvements that the city makes to eliminate to reduce that inflow into our sewer system. Capital improvements are included as part of this. It’s currently it looks like that $22 million dollar project to provide sewer down to that Flying Cloud lift station so as everyone is aware those improvements are expensive and, but it makes us aware of it. Again that’s one of the reasons we try to coordinate all of these because you can get some economies of scale in the projects if you put them all together. We do have a few septic systems still in the community. They have to be maintained until urban services become available. It’s a funny thing if sewer and water are extended to your neighborhood, if you’re within a certain distance of the sewer you have to connect but if you have an operating well you do not have to connect until that well fails so. Aanenson: We do have some neighborhoods that we said they can continue to be large lot subdivision on septic and well and those have been identified in our land use map. The people bought into that rural lifestyle. Those are 2 ½ acres lots. That would be Hesse Farms. That’s also. Generous: Deerwood. Aanenson: Yeah Deerwood. I’m trying to think of the one up by the elementary, Bluff Creek. Up that way. Generous: Timberwood. Aanenson: Timberwood, yeah so we do have some of those neighborhoods that, but as we looked at with the 212 study we also looked at running sewer and water down Hesse Farm Road so if there is an opportunity 20 years down the road, if there’s failing systems we always want to be able to come in and provide that so some of those subdivisions that were done a number of years ago, only done with one alternative site for a septic system so we’ve gotten pretty creative on some of those properties that maybe are very steep and don’t have an opportunity or even up in Timberwood where people have done some remodeling and have to increase that some challenges occur and that’s so we do want to provide opportunities but people have bought into that large lot atmosphere and we don’t want to just incrementally change all that until the neighborhood itself makes a decision that they want to change. Generous: Ready for the next system. We’re onto potable water. Our drinking water. The water element again is we try to look at in an efficient and effective way to provide water service 12 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 to the entire community. As Kate pointed out we do have our plan show how we can service every property in the city. However some of the large lot developments will be excluded unless we see a lot of failing systems or there’s some health safety issues to that. Or if the neighborhood comes in and decides hey, we want to change. We think we should be a suburban development rather than an ex-urban development. A large lot development and so if they, as a neighborhood they come in we would look at potential land use amendments to build a residential low density instead of large lot. The City has an extensive system of wells throughout the community. If you haven’t been on Galpin Boulevard we are building a new water treatment facility out there. That will serve all of Chanhassen but primarily the high pressure district which is the northwestern part of the city. The water plan looks at what our needs will be for storage capacity. We’re looking at, at least one more storage tower tank south of Highway 5. On the map they show two possible locations. I think the one closer to the public works facility will win out on that and then we always like to, like we do for roadways we like to provide two, a loop system so there’s not a dead end line in any areas so we’ll see that throughout development. Wherever we have an opportunity we’ll have two connection points to our water system. Again we’re looking at a cost effective means of extending water to all the community. These, our projections for the demands are based on the land use estimate and our TAZ analysis on development into the future. It looks at number of households. The population. Employment opportunities and so that’s all put together in developing this plan. It is a feasible system. It just will take time and money. As part of this we also looked at upgrading our conservation effort. We do have water wise right now. We’re trying to provide educational opportunities for residents. The primary driver on water demand is irrigation. Not consumption and so we need to work, do a better job of educating the community on that. Not have sprinklers going when it’s raining out. Reduce the amount of watering that people need to make. Our water system will be, we’ll be a full service community. We can serve every property in the city eventually and so. Again this element has it’s own capital improvement plan and then we also will pull that to the implementation and capital improvement element. We’ll put it all together for a final document so, and we’re in the processing of updating our 5 year capital improvement plan so we also have more current data to include in the spring. Aanenson: I was just going to add too for the planning commissioners. So both the sewer and water are utility funds that the City operates so you get charged when you do a house connection. A sewer and water connection charge and that helps pay for the system. Your contribution to the system so those are kind of the drivers on the revenue side and it also helps when we’re repairing, doing street upgrades. Some of the participation in those costs but I think too it’s just important that we have to balance a lot of things. The pressure zone so as Bob indicated when we look at how much commercial district, those are all the things that the Met Council is looking at too. Do you have enough water supply? When we’ve got office industrial that, for example like General Mills that might be a higher user of water. Those sort of businesses so all those factors come into play looking long range at the water plan, but the biggest driver of this is really going forward to the DNR. Looking at as the water table in the metro area is changing and so they’re really working hard to, we asked for this. We probably sent our stuff way back in July. We just got the response back now is why you got the wellhead in there. We’ve been waiting for 13 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 that to put those comments in there. But also to look at, as Bob indicated, what ways that we’re doing to reduce water consumption. That’s not wasteful so that’s a challenge for us so that’s one of the things that they’ll be reviewing as this goes out for jurisdictional comments. Have we done a good job in identifying ways that we’re going to continue to work to reduce water consumption. Aller: Commissioner Madsen. Madsen: For some of these capital costs related to putting the water, the sewer improvements in 101, can some of those costs be shared by some of the developments that may be going in for example like Moon Valley? Aanenson: Yes. Madsen: In that area. Aanenson: Yes, exactly. Yep. Generous: Those would all be assessable projects because they will be providing benefit to those properties. Aanenson: So the way that works is if they oversize it, the City carries some of that cost. They’re responsible just for what they need but often we have to oversize those to carry more of a load so then there’s a proportionality that the City would pay for that oversizing because that might serve existing or future but then they’re responsible for what’s attributable to them. So we do that on other projects too where we oversize sewer or water because it’s carrying much more volume as it goes past their property or in this circumstance it’s coming down 101. They’ll be definitely be oversized because there’ll be a lot more coming down. Madsen: And question on the water conservation. As I understand it with the hard clay soil in our area if more topsoil is added when developments are developed, for example housing, then it wouldn’t need as much sprinklering to keep that grass during the summer. Aanenson: Exactly. So that’s some of the things that our Water Resources talked about at our last meeting. So that’s going to be some of the code amendments. We’ve tried to add more topsoil but there’s another one where what you do is called soil remediation. Generous: Decompaction. Aanenson: Decompaction where we’re also going to do that too because it’s almost sometimes easier to do that so those are some of the once we get done with this we have to also show all the implementation strategies that we’re going to do so some of the biggest implementation strategies are actually going to be under surface water in those particular areas. What are we 14 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 doing with our hard clay soils too so people aren’t forced to water all the time and education. Good question. Madsen: Okay, thank you. Aller: And I think a lot of that will be covered too by our application. What we talked about last time when we were talking about the SWPPP and our… Aanenson: Yes, exactly. Aller: That the education component and the more we get out there and educate the public that there are things that they can do instead of paying for water, they can pay for topsoil or regeneration of their property so they can create a situation where more water is absorbed. Generous: And as we were talking earlier tree preservation is a good way to take care of surface water issues because one big tree will consume the first 2 to 4 inches of rain water on that site, in that area so you don’t have the going off site so. We need to educate people about that, which leads us into the next chapter which is the surface water. Again the comp plan we are just referencing basically the local water management plan or the surface water management plan. We did incorporate the goals from that document into our surface water management plan. We are looking at completing the local water management plan by the end of this year and then having it ready for comments by the watershed districts and the DNR beginning in January so by February or March these will all be together and when we review it for final adoption we’ll have those final documents. Usually the surface water management plan is already in place and we just reference it but this in this case they all came due at the same time and so. But again a lot of that has to do with you know preserving a lot of the natural resources. Protecting our wetlands. Which are things that our ordinances already do but we have, we’re working because of the different watershed district rules potentially adopting the most restrictive of all of them so that we can comply with everyone and again become the responsible governmental unit for enforcing that… So and we’ve been doing the surface water management since, what was it ’86 I think they started doing that so a lot of years in there. So yep there’s 6 goals within the surface water management. Again it’s water quality, quantity improvements. Preserving natural features. Things that again they lead to a better quality of life for our residents and our businesses if we can keep all this stuff working together. So that’s surface water management. And finally we have the capital improvements and implementation chapter. Again this just pulls out all the improvements from the various chapters and things that we’ll need to do to implement this Comprehensive Plan in one spot. The implementation also deals with any code amendments or initiatives that the City will have to undertake to implement the Comprehensive Plan. For instance we know very well that the surface water management plan will lead to additional code amendments in our Chapters 19 and 20 and 18 of city code and so we’ll be seeing those come back. I believe we have a year after adoption of the plan to implement that. Adopt those ordinances. And again what I did for this is I took out parts of the current 5 year capital improvement plan and put it in here. With the final document we’ll have this plus we’ll have 15 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 whatever we have in the comp plan out to 2040. And with that that’s the 2040 Comprehensive Plan in a nutshell. Lots of information. Lots of systems. If people want to know where the community is going, at least the vision it’s all in here. Hopefully they’ll provide, review it and provide the City comments. You know things we need to change. Directions that we need to go in. Aller: Any additional comments or questions at this time? So keeping that in mind, the fact is that we love it when we get input so let’s open up the public hearing and have out any comments and presentations for purposes of potential amendments. So opening up the public hearing. Tim Erhart: Oh am I up now? Generous: Did I put you to sleep? I’m sorry. Tim Erhart: I thought you wanted to talk about trees or something. Generous: I did want to talk about trees. Tim Erhart: Okay, well alright thanks again. I know how hard it is to serve on the Planning Commission from personal experience and, but to tolerate having me come up here twice in 2 months and entertain you that’s just persecution. That’s not planning. So tonight I’ll just try to kind of review what I did here, I don’t know 6 weeks ago and clarify some of my points and then we can carry on from there. So do I get to move the slides from here too? Aanenson: There you go. Tim Erhart: There we go, alright so do I have to speak into this or? Aanenson: Yeah, so she can get the minutes. Tim Erhart: Okay so the area, as Kate showed on her map is, well okay. I’ve got to get, I did. Alright so here we go. I got it. Aanenson: It’s this area right here. Tim Erhart: Oh I see. I had a pointer but that’s not working very good. Alright so the area that we, our property. We’ve lived here since 1980 when my wife and I and we’ve owned, we bought that property when we moved here and we’ve lived on it and for 20 years and then moved over to Riley Lake but it’s been kind of a passion of mine, as most people know here. This is a beautiful piece of property and I’ve always had a vision that we would do some really special things on this when it finally comes to development and Kate’s been and Bob’s been part of my sharing those dreams all along here and sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t so tonight we’re talking about focusing on that area on the very west end of the property. It’s, there’s about 16 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 15-20 acres there that is really, well I can say the point on this slide is that the whole area, that whole one square mile there is there’s about 300. Excuse me, not one square mile. There’s about 360 acres there so it’s two-thirds of a. Aanenson: In this yellow square. Tim Erhart: Yeah. Yeah you know more than half of that, because of the topography and all the water there and hills and things more than half that is going to end up being open space so it provides, and currently there’s about 140 acres of public park if you include the water so we’re going, we’re transitioning into this public park as we go along here and the challenge is to, and the opportunity is to take advantage of all that yet try to use as best possible the land that is developable in the area. The other way to look at this area is that western 15-20 acres there, that’s west of that line. Yeah right there, it’s really part of this complex. This retail industrial office complex associated with the intersection of 212 and Powers Boulevard there and that makes this from our community point of view economically very valuable property and I know you and the City has spent an enormous amount of time in recent years focusing on that retail up there but there’s also the other three intersections that are, will be available for development as well and it also includes the lift station that Bob referred to earlier is that one of critical steps to developing south Chanhassen or further south is the lift station that is planned to go on our property. Maybe you can point that out. Yeah right in that area so, so again just to review this property is an integral component of that industrial commercial area. It’s right next to the intersection and across from Avienda. Close to a planned bus stop and then it has direct access from a future street that’s planned through there that connects to the street that Gonyea’s putting in ending with a temporary cul-de-sac on my property but it will come all the way through so that provides really great access to this area up there. And then of course trails. Trails, I spent the last 36 years building trails there and enjoying them and I’m really pleased to see that these trails are now being incorporated into Foxwoods Preserve so the trails that I built and maintained for all these years weren’t, actually most of them weren’t on my property so I always say oh yeah, I had almost 250 acres there because Jim Wilson let me put trails on his 40 acres which is now the Gonyea development so between the park and everything and my property there’s actually 4 ½ miles of trails that are, you don’t have to walk over twice to get around so, and I’ve always made it open to the public so it’s really, really a fun space and also the wetlands that you see. A lot of those ponds were built during the time we’ve owned that property. The one right in the middle was a field when we, it was tiled out and so worked with the State on that one and we pulled out 50,000 cubic yards of peat out of there and turned this into just one of the most beautiful wetlands there so tremendous amenities in the area and looking forward to something really special here. So what the area in question right here, that’s Powers Boulevard. You know our access are changing as we go along here so hope it’s not too confusing but what you’re seeing there is the entrance to 212 going east and then Powers Boulevard so we’re, up is now east and the area in question there, right now I use it for tree growing in the western part or the bottom part. The area in the center there where it’s called pasture. That was pasture when we moved there and I’ve kind of retained that as a pasture. Kind of mow it. There is no cows but I keep mowing it to make it look like there’s cows because I was raised on a dairy farm and I like 17 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 that look you know so it’s kind of pretty and then we’ve got hay and a meadow in there that Chuck Worm uses for his horses. And then that’s that east/west road on the right there as you see so that’s kind of what we’re looking at today. One of the things I think I just want to state is that in making changes here to this, or making the request to change here and the location of this Bluff Creek boundary line really won’t, really in reading of the Bluff Creek ordinance doesn’t really impact I think on the major intent of the ordinance. The major goal or intent of the Bluff Creek Overlay District is to protect that corridor as Bob mentioned and the corridor runs from north of 5 all the way down to, into the Minnesota River valley and it’s really the focus of it and with the intent and the goal long term is to create a greenway from top to bottom that people can walk and enjoy the trees and the big woods that are in that area so in reality I think we have to understand that really a very small amount of the Bluff Creek watershed is actually in that corridor. And the area I’m talking about here actually lies outside that corridor to the east and I call it an inclusion because it’s the only place along the whole, the Bluff Creek that, an area that is separated from the actual course of the waterway is included and I just want to point out in looking at you know assessing what we do with that area, that there are no, even though the ordinance protects tributaries in the corridor itself. In this case over there, there is no tributaries. No creeks. Over the years all the water has been drained through either drain pipes, ditches and so forth and it’s really removed from the greenway by a 4 lane highway so I think what we’re asking is to look at it a little bit different. Provide more flexibility on what we do in there as it does not really affect the intent of the Bluff Creek Overlay District. So our request is to adjust the Bluff Creek Overlay District boundary line on our property to match the characteristics and existing use of that 20 acre area and you know I think what happens is that these things occur at the time of development anyway and what we’re asking for is to do it now and let me explain that in the next slide. So the second thing is to allow optimum use of the property considering the high value to our community because of it’s location and access and the tremendous amount of open space in the vicinity and so the details of that, the current line is the blue line there. That was a result of a, I guess what I was hoping to be the success of my dream for this piece of property and that is a really high value three story vision. In other words another Life Time Fitness building on this site. That’s always been my dream. You know the three story corporate center or medical center or high value living area if that’s what it is. It’s a beautiful site. It’s absolutely unique in both it’s access to transportation and the wonderful natural amenities and I’ve always believed it deserves something really special and I am willing to wait until we get what we want and I think that Kate and Bob know that vision that I’ve got for this thing and so the details. So we had that, we thought we had that with the United Properties proposal for Fairview Hospital but that fell through. That resulted in the line where it is but in giving more thought to this thing and as a result of that meeting some years ago, if you look at the real logical place to put this line is at the bottom. At the bottom of where the hill, the steep hills start. Okay, and so what happened in the Fairview project, this line evolved around the building that was being proposed rather than the property. Okay. So in looking at the property and our proposal is let’s put the line where the steep slopes start and generally that’s also where the heavy woods start there and that involves moving that line back or further east on the top but then bringing it into the property on the bottom and getting it to the bottom of the hill rather than a third of the way up the hill and then adding a public area on the right. We’ve discussed moving this 18 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 retention pond over in that area. Everybody, there doesn’t seem to be any objections to that and then use that area for, that’s also the area where the lift station goes. Where the relocated pond is. A trailhead or at least the trails that you see up there with the exception of one that connects the east/west trail to the trailhead is in place. It’s been used many years by a lot of people and so we have a trailhead parking there and then access for maintenance of the sewer station. So the net addition of that, with the addition of 3.6. Taking out .6 of 3.2 acres and that would give us a 12 acre. I think that’s what you were referring to Kate. Aanenson: Yeah. Tim Erhart: 12 acres, yeah. The other thing is that I guess the point here is that, I guess I was involved a little bit. I think it was after my Planning Commission days but involved when this ordinance was put in place and I think the intent was, you know let’s get something in place and then we’ll move the lines depending on when we, because we didn’t have facts at the time. We didn’t have data to support any particular location. The idea being when the development comes in we’ll have all kinds of data and we can move, put the lines where we think appropriate at the time so you know the key, the goal is in my view is to protect the permanent natural feature such as bluff wetlands. Steep and extended slopes and natural buffers. Otherwise again my view is the developable land should remain developable unless there’s a real reason and a need for parkland in that location so you know, and the cost of setting aside land for public use, parks and open space, there is a cost to it because we know obviously we’re not going to generate tax revenue. We’re going to increase the cost of housing because we’re limiting the amount of space available for people who want to live here. We’re adding to urban sprawl. Inefficiency of utility and services which we already have in south Chanhassen and more and more…and more and more traffic so. So the effects of this change of this line is I think it allows us to best use of this 12 acre piece of property. It has no impact on the amount of, almost no impact on the amount of open areas. There is so much in the area already. By putting something, putting a more intense use on this property we’ll have more users for the flat preserve park system and all the trails anyway and what I found in talking to developers and you know for 36 years we’ve had developers. Is that when you start talking about a really high value piece of property they all talk 10 to 15 to 20 acres. We had more one just recently we had, oh one of the major developers. I don’t remember out there we viewed the property and I think perhaps you talked to him but you know like well we really need 20 acres you know. Could we get by with 15? Yeah maybe you know so if you want that really high value thing more acreage helps get that so, and I think a little more, adding another 3 acres to that gives us a little more opportunity to create something really cool. This was a plan done by Westwood. Shows you how you could develop the area for some multiple buildings in the whole 12 acres. Could be really unique. We would preserve some of the canopy in that area and use what’s kind of open today so I think the key here is what we’re asking for is to, if I’m trying to market this today it’s nice to be able to tell the developer what it really is. Okay. If you say 9 acres then that’s what they make their kind of decision on. I want to be able to say 12.7 acres. I want to be able to explain where the limits of construction is and have some logic behind it. The logic that we would apply at development and lastly I think, I think getting this site in place is finding a user of this site or high values or is one is it’s a 19 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 high value user that would generate a lot of tax revenue. Be a nice entranceway from that intersection and it will allow us a high enough use to get this lift station in. I think we’ve talked about that for years. It’s kind of the obstacle. It’s the next really big capital step so, and then the last thing is, I think in creating this vision for a really high value recognizable place I think there’s potential that instead of being office or corporate headquarters, I think a high value residential could also fill that use and so I just suggest that if that’s of interest to the City then I’d suggest we look at adding that but again I’m not talking about just filling. Just developing the property. I’m talking putting something really, really cool on this spot. Anyway appreciate the opportunity to share our dreams for this spot with you again and if there’s any questions I’m more than happy to take them. Aller: Questions at this time from anybody for Mr. Erhart? None. Thank you. Aanenson: Mr. Chairman just to clarify next steps on this and for Mr. Erhart’s benefit too. So as this goes through jurisdictional comments we’ll get comments and we’ll look, you know we gave our first blush response to that but we’ll look in more detail on some of the questions that were raised. As we stated before the illustrative picture looks wonderful but you don’t always get to control what the developer wants to put on there so we’ll look through those issues as we come back to the, you know in 6 months we’ll certainly be sharing our thoughts with Mr. Erhart during that process but look more on that tributary. Whether that meets credence or some of the slopes or some of the issues of how that got into the Bluff Creek. Does it really belong. Start looking at that detail because that certainly was one of the considerations but as it’s moving forward we did leave the dual guiding. As we suggested before the high density residential probably is not as much need right now. There’s a lot of other pieces of that but that still might make a good transition between the housing that’s behind. That’s some of the issues too but we’ll commit between now and work with Mr. Erhart to kind of look in and work through some of these issues so there’s better understanding for you the different, the rationale basis for both positions, if that makes sense and we can find some middle ground there. Aller: My request would be that we also look at the impact of, when we do wetland delineations and we’re looking at the other portions of this plan, how that impacts and whether or not we can actually delineate these, can we come up with the information that we would like to have in order to make that decision? Aanenson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah that’s good. Aller: So and the only other comment I have is, before I, in fact I’ll go ahead and close the public hearing at this point in time seeing no one else coming forward is to thank Mr. Erhart for coming forward with a presentation which was so well done. So well thought out. Includes not only items of your vision but also the way it mixes with your vision of the way you want to see Chanhassen which is what we’re here for so we really appreciate the input. This is a big project. It’s the 2040 plan and you’re the individual that came forward tonight with this type of presentation and input so I really appreciate it and I thank you for that. 20 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Tim Erhart: Thank you. Aller: Okay so the public hearing portion of this scenario is over so I guess we move onto comments on where we’re moving forward and likes. Dislikes. What you’d like to see looked at in the review process as it moves forward from here. So would anyone like to comment? Weick: I am. Aller: Commissioner Weick. Weick: I don’t know exactly what the ask or process is with Mr. Erhart’s property but I don’t mind going on the record saying I would be in favor of moving the bluff line whenever that conversation is appropriate. I do think that that is important use of that land. It seems to make sense to redraw it in a way. Aanenson: Do you want to look at some empirical data first or you want to just, you’re thinking just move it? Weick: I mean I’m personally in favor of moving it only because I do think that, I do think it helps attract developers but I’m just throwing that out there as my, that’s my opinion based on everything I’ve seen so far. Undestad: Something else just to note on that too is, to Mr. Erhart’s credit there that 36 plus years of planting trees and creating wetlands and creating park areas and allowing Chanhassen citizens to walk around his property out there, you know in the last 30 some years we could see no trees out there and a lot of flat lands and a lot of crops growing out there but instead he’s taken it the other way so I think we need to look at a little bit of that as to the outcome of that property as well so. Tietz: I would concur. I think there’s some options I think we are faced with a situation with Avienda that precedes your request where we’ve held our ground and Avienda has acquiesced and is looking at saving that whole hillside of trees and that’s in a situation that it’s not a direct drainage area either. It is within the bluff land overlay district so, but I do see the benefit in moving the line in this case if we can, maybe we put it off and I know it puts the onus on the proposer, the developer coming through and asking for a variance or asking for a request much like Avienda did. It just kind of, it’s pushing the decision down the road. I’d be concerned though if it is, if those additional acres are added and the line is delineated down closer to the wetland, I’m not that familiar with the property but I think there’s, would be significant grading to make that parking lot work and I’m sure we would be pushed to the limits by the developer to maximize the parking space and to build retaining walls to make things work and I think that creates some potential issues for us to consider in the future so. But having said that I think there is some rationale behind adjusting that line if everything else can be accommodated. 21 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aller: And what I, again what I’m hearing and what I was leaning towards doing before is, based on the process here we’re still involved in a process. We’re not making a decision tonight so I would recommend, and it sounds like everyone else is asking that we look at this issue closely. I think it’s intertwined with Avienda. I think we’re still looking at what’s going to come forward in a site plan and what we’re looking at. We’re still looking at hearing from the Riley Creek and Bluff Creek associations. We’re looking at what the impacts are so let’s really take a look at this, this particular property and then the other thing that struck me was that the three story building that he would kind of like to see. He, Mr. Erhart would like to see was a planned unit development and so it may end up being that this property, developer comes in and we do a special zoning which takes those factors into consideration at the time and that’s that trade off the City makes when we’re getting something, you know we’re giving something so. But I think what I’m hearing is a direction to the staff to really, let’s look at this corridor or whatever it is. Maybe it was in artfully termed but let’s delineate what we need to delineate as we move forward and we can certainly understand and I think the City has gone in the last couple years, gone overboard in attempting to shorten the process and create a process where developers can come in and where homeowners know exactly what they can and can’t do with their property. We went through a lot of zoning issues in the last couple years and changed a lot of zones so they would be consistent and not to change the use or the present use but to give the owner the ability to transfer their property and let the new owner know exactly what they were getting and what they can do with their property so I think it’s just moving in the same vein and the same direction that we have been over the last couple years. Any other comments on any other sections or divisions that we’ve looked at? Or just the whole plan. Tietz: I think everyone’s done a great job. I mean these are well documented, very comprehensive. Aller: And there’s more to come. More to come. Tietz: It gives us a guideline going forward. I think there’s a lot of good effort shown by everyone involved from staff to the community and everyone who participated at all the stages of reviewing and editing and adding and setting up goals and policies for the future. I think it’s really well done. Aller: I think we’ve had presentations of the new norm. We’ve had presentations regarding the vision that was out there in reports and we’ve seen reports of the visioning process as it moves forward and I’m really pleased that it seems that everybody is moving in the same direction. I don’t see anything in the proposed plan or the draft plan as it sits here today that it would be a surprise. It would be a surprise for me to see a new report coming in that was different. In the visioning process I think you’ve accumulated a lot of information. Taken a lot of time to break this down to have public hearings so I say kudos to staff in doing that and utilizing the information and the resources that we had available to us in getting people to come in and do those reports and using those reports in the creation of this draft plan. And with that I guess I’ll. 22 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aanenson: Clarify too that we’ll make a couple changes. Aller: A motion to submit this to? Aanenson: Yes. The City Council did that but I would just say that yeah, just that you’ve taken comments and you expect some changes or some feedback later so this will come back to you so we’ll work on the Erhart piece. Get your some better empirical data and show you that and then we’ll change the vision. We’ll probably change that vision before we submit that because that’s an easy fix, and then we’ll just keep track of the other comments that come in and so you’ll see those all again. Have another public hearing so at that public hearing we’ll finalize the draft up for the City Council. Aller: And that hearing will be in November? Aanenson: No, that hearing will actually be in April. Aller: Oh after the 6 month period? Aanenson: Correct, 6 months so yeah. So it could be less than 6 months if we got bad comments from everybody by then. Yeah, so it just depends on how long it takes people so. Aller: Great. Randall: Is it okay to ask Kate a question? Aller: Absolutely. Commissioner Randall. Randall: You know in the empirical data can we also get some of that history of how that line was determined? Aanenson: Yes, that’s what I think. I think in looking at it in context, and I’ll just go back to it. I certainly want to do right by Mr. Erhart. Don’t get me wrong but also we had to look at Avienda when, we didn’t have a project in front of it so it’s easy to say that there’s nothing there but once you say this can be this and somebody comes in and masquerades it and ends up with more retaining walls, we just need to not, we just need to look at it a little bit more comprehensive but certainly we want to make, that’s a very beautiful piece of property and we certainly Mr. Erhart to maximize that but just to give a little bit more thought. That’s all I’m saying is that we have that in front of us and we’ll work with him and get something before you. Aller: And I think that’s where we need to take a look at the different areas where that piece of property will be impacted. 23 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aanenson: Correct and just to look at. Aller: I’m almost tempted to say that it’s best that a developer comes in with a PUD and says this is, I’ve sat down with Mr. Erhart. Aanenson: Right. Aller: This is now our vision of what we want to proceed with and we’ve got something to look at. Aanenson: Or back to just how did that tributary, how did that piece get on? Is it a drainage area? Is it just because it doesn’t, so just give a little bit more background. Little more context and then kind of make a decision process from there so, yeah. We want everybody to feel good about the process so. Aller: Thank you. Aanenson: Thank you for your input. Aller: We do not need a motion. Aanenson: No, the council has moved this to go on so we’re trying to get it out Friday so. Generous: My only concern was if you thought we shouldn’t send it out yet. Aller: No, I think it incorporates a lot and it will go with the proposals and people will be able to see what our motivations are as we do a long range vision for the built portion of this community. So number 2 on our agenda is code amendments. PUBLIC HEARING: CODE AMENDMENTS: PERMEABLE PAVEMENT (CHAPTERS 1, 7, 18 & 20). REVIEW CLASSIFICATION OF PERMEABLE PAVEMENT TECHNOLOGIES. Aller: Mr. Walters do you have this? Walters: Yes I do. One second please. Sorry I was just getting stuff fired up. Aller: Thank you. Walters: So this is a potential code amendment to the city code reviewing how the City treats pervious pavers or permeable pavements. This is the, I know the City Council is looking for a lot of input and advice from the Planning Commission and a recommendation on this proposed th code amendment. This will go before the City Council for consideration on November 13 24 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 along with recommendation and comment from this body. So jumping into it, the little bit of background is currently the City’s practice is to classify pervious pavements as impervious surface so we treat them just like concrete. Building a footprint. They contribute towards lot coverage. The reason why we’re discussing this today is the City receives a lot of questions about using pervious technologies on residential properties, especially a lot of the older ones in the city that maybe you were on a smaller lot and have been built to the current capacity. Homeowners are looking for some flexibility. It’s one of the biggest causes of variances that come before you. I think I’ve dealt with 3 of them in my rather short career here and I expect I’ll deal with many more moving forward. And we do get a lot of complaints and criticism from contractors and residents about this policy. Anecdotally they inform us that we are the only city that does not exempt these from lot cover calculations. I couldn’t resist doing a survey of other cities and that’s not quite accurate. Generous: No. Aller: Shocking. Shocking that you would check that out. Walters: I did contact 18 pure cities. 7 of them have a very similar policy to our’s where they consider them to be blanket impervious surface. A couple, one city was only in the shoreland area. They were strict and then in non-sensitive regions they didn’t count them. Others allow credit if they’re engineered and others simply don’t regulate or work their zoning code through floor area ratio or another mechanism where these pavers just aren’t an issue. These are fairly broad categories and I believe in your packet there’s a pretty extensive Excel sheet showing the results of my survey and all the different systems I was able to find. So we’re about half the cities roughly do consider these impervious. About half don’t. So what are these pervious pavers? I thought before we jumped in I’d give you a brief talk about how they work. Essentially what happens is they remove some soil. They do some pre-treating to allow infiltration and then they put down larger rocks to create a stone reservoir. Compact those down. Put pre-formed concrete panels on top of that. Fill in the little gaps with really small pebbles and fill that water can move through and so what happens then is as the rain water falls down it slips through these cracks. Goes into the reservoir. Now in this one they have a drainage pipe so it wouldn’t actually infiltrate and it would be conveyed to say a rain garden or different water feature. A lot of them will have a drain pipe about oh two-thirds to half of the way up. And in that case all the water below that will be able to infiltrate into the soil over the next hours or days and anything that overflows instead of spilling out is then directed into a water feature or drain tile or what have you. So that’s just a really quick brush of how that technology works. In order for these to work properly they have to be designed properly and they have to be installed properly and they have to be maintained so it’s not a put in and forget about it technology. Upkeep is necessary and we’ll talk a little bit about the implications of that as we move on. So when we began looking at investigating changing this ordinance we came up with four potential impacts that changing our pervious paver policy would have. One would be on how we define terms within our ordinance. One would be on the potential intensity and scale of land use. Another on sensitive areas like the Bluff Creek Overlay District, shoreland districts, and bluff 25 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 areas in general. And then some potential financial and administrative impacts and so I’m going to break those all down for you. So the first problem, definition and terms. Currently the way the city code is written we use impervious surface, lot coverage and hard cover virtually interchangeably. This isn’t ideal and it can create some lack of clarity that we’d like to address as we go through this. And the city code does not currently define pervious surfaces at all. So one of the things we are looking at doing in this potential code amendment would be adding a definition for pervious pavement. Updating the definition of impervious surface to be more in line with the state definition that the watershed and other districts use and then creating a definition of lot coverage that encompasses both impervious surface and pervious pavement. And then one of the goals would be to remove the term hard cover entirely and then either replace it with impervious surface or lot coverage depending on what made the most sense. If at any time you have questions on anything please let me know and I can go more. So the second big issue we hit was intensity and scale. The City uses lot coverage to limit development intensity so if we can change what’s lot coverage we can really have unintended consequences. For example if we said all pervious pavers do not count as lot coverage, and I’m an industrial user, I could do my entire parking lot in pervious pavers. That’s now not lot coverage and I can add, I think we had one example where you could add about 80,000 square feet to a building beyond what’s currently allowed by code so we feel that because our main goal is to provide relief to homeowners and we do currently allow industrial and commercial to use these technologies as part of site plan review, that it would be appropriate to only look at changing residential low density districts and how pervious pavers are used in those. We felt that was a good way of preventing all those unintended consequences in terms of the intensity of use within the city. So as I mentioned the way we do that is by making both impervious surface and pervious pavement can count as lot coverage and then we’re looking at doing a percentage increase potentially for single family and twin homes in the RR, A2, residential single family, R4 and residential low and medium density districts and we would like to do a little bit more discussion on what districts that may or may not be appropriate in later on. And yeah, then the other thing is making sure with the unintended consequences. If you remember earlier this year we amended how lot coverage counted on flag, neck lots and private streets. We don’t want to undo all the work we did by creating exemptions for pervious coverage so we would change language to make sure that pervious paver driveways were still subject to percentage limits. Yep. Weick: I’m confused. I’m just, I’m not lost. So we would increase the lot coverage by 5 percent whether or not you were using pervious pavers? Walters: I phrased that very poorly in the slide now that I read it. My apologies. So what we would do is the language we would use was so for instance for a residential single family district, currently we allow 25 percent lot coverage. Weick: Right. 26 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Walters: We would change that to 30 percent but state no more than 25 percent of that may be impervious surface. Weick: Got it. Walters: Yep. So I did not clearly articulate that. Yep. Randall: I have a question. Tietz: But if you’re increasing, oh go ahead Mark. The pervious pavers do they reduce the runoff by only 5 percent? Is that why we’re allowing them to have increased coverage because the pervious pavers are doing something positively? Walters: So the phrase I got from Water Resource Coordinator Strong was pervious pavers when done correctly are storm water neutral. If they’re engineered correctly they can do infiltration rates sometimes exceeding 100 inches an hour. We probably wouldn’t get that here with our soils but definitely for any rain event you’d encounter they could neutralize the runoff, again assuming properly installed and maintained. Tietz: So they could be considered almost like grass then so why would it be covered as impervious surface? If you only get a 5 percent benefit for using them in coverage, why wouldn’t you get 100 percent benefit for using them and coverage? If they’re that effective. Walters: Yes. Aller: No I think that sounds like it’s the key is the effectiveness is really what is the question. Tietz: Well yeah but then we have to have inspectors out there every day. Walters: So we have two responses to this, and unfortunately the Water Resource Coordinator couldn’t be here. She could do a better job of explaining this point than I can but I will attempt to convey what’s been conveyed to me. Pervious pavers, while they do good with infiltration they do not and should not be considered to replace vegetative cover. They contribute to heat island effects and they don’t provide a lot of the filtration benefits that vegetation does so that’s one of the reasons why we would want to limit their usage still. The other concerns are quite frankly aesthetic. I mean if you allow them to be 100 percent pervious pavers, I did some rough drawings of it just to see what would happen and then for instance our RLM district, you could drop to under 30 percent green space. In terms of what we feel residents in Chanhassen expect and what to see driving down their neighborhood, a home where virtually the entire lot is paved we don’t feel is consistent with neighborhood characteristics. So those are the two components. Is one maintain that vegetative cover for all those benefits and the second is trying to limit, for lack of a better word, the intensity of use and maintain character in residential neighborhoods. 27 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Tietz: So it really an incentive for people to use pervious pavers by giving them a 5 percent? Walters: I don’t know that I would, it’s more of a way of granting them relief is how I consider it. You know we do get a lot of people who I just want to have a patio and you know for whatever reason with the increase in garage sizes on a 15,000 square foot lot they’re 200 square feet from being able to have a patio in their back yard and this is a way where they would be able to say okay we could have a patio back here using these paver technologies. We’re not going to create the runoff and it lets us improve our property and update it. Aanenson: And the fact of the matter is it’s trying to eliminate some of the variance requests. Walters: Yes. Aanenson: That’s, because you see a lot of those. So we’re trying to give somebody a percentage increase to do exactly what he said. That sidewalk. That patio. That little bit extra wide driveway as it goes to the third stall garage. That’s it. Randall: Can I ask a couple questions here? Walters: No, please. Randall: Alright. What is considered a pervious surface? I mean if I had a driveway with Class V would that be considered? Okay. Walters: Nope. So those are compacted. So the definition we have is, pervious pavement allows water to filter through surface voids into a stone reservoir for temporary storage and infiltration and then we are also going to, and I’ll get to this a little later. We would require them to be engineered to specific design standards and there are professional organizations. The Institute of Concrete Paver Installers I believe. ICPI which has a large manual, dedicated certification process and requirements and then the engineering staff would review those plans and say yes, this meets design criteria. This is going to allow the infiltration we need. Aanenson: We’re getting deep in the weeds here. I mean I just want to remind everybody that this is really new and we’re going to spend some time. We’re going to ask the council, the council would like to see this move forward but we’re also going to take some time before we implement this. We’re going to be meeting, we’ve got to get some, as MacKenzie goes through this, you’ll see there’s a lot of things that need to be put into place. Some education with homeowners. Some of our common landscapers that are here in town so we’re going to spend some time educating everybody so for the same questions you have it’s like, I just want to do this. Why is it so complicated? So here’s the type of service you need to use or somebody that’s qualified, that sort of thing and the correct installation requirements so we can’t just roll this out if the council approves it in the next couple of months. We need to take some time to go through all that. 28 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aller: Have you seen in your surveying of the other locations where it was allowed, where they perhaps restricted it to patio use only? Sidewalk use only. Walters: I have not. I did talk a little bit about that with the Water Resource Coordinator. These are kind of industry standard, highly recommended for areas like driveways and parking surfaces. There are grants actually available specifically for those purposes so she felt it wouldn’t be, the words she used was it wouldn’t be defensible to restrict their use from those surfaces given industry standards so. Tietz: Yeah I think you’d have to have a reasonable sized area to justify the cost because if you did a 200 square foot patio out the back of your deck, I mean this would be, this is pretty, what you showed us in that sketch, I mean that’s not inexpensive to build. Aller: Proper. Walters: No it isn’t. Undestad: Right but that’s where the education part has to come in for the residents. Tietz: Yeah, yeah. It’s a great idea. Undestad: They think pavers are, that will do it. Just putting pavers down, right. There’s a lot to it. Aanenson: Right, and that’s why the education. Aller: And that whole rationale but that’s why we have coverage percentages in the first place is we’re dealing with these runoffs and our water requirements. Other requirements that are placed on the property. Aanenson: Again to be clear we’re recommending the 5 percent. We’re just trying to get our arms around. That number may move. Right now it’s just trying to set up that framework. Understand the process. The rational basis. All the code amendments that need to go into place. Randall: Is there other things that they could do that, you know when we were talking about the water stuff. Remember I brought up the water tank issue. Could something like that, if they’re actually capturing some of their water. Aller: Using rain barrels and things like that. Randall: Going back to the change in percentage if they use some of those things? Like can we counter balance it that way? 29 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aller: But again that goes back to who’s going to watch the hen house? To monitor the… Randall: I agree, I agree. Walters: Yes. Undestad: And I think you’d be surprised at what the calculations might be. How much rain water you need to store it right… Weick: I have a solution. We could build smaller houses. Aanenson: There you go. Weick: On the smaller lots and then we would have plenty of percentage left over for patios and decks. Aller: And bigger trees. Weick: And save trees. Randall: But I know you can factor in, can’t you factor in the gap on a deck inbetween? Aanenson: We’ve been asked. We’ve been asked. Randall: Well I’ve talked with…landscaper, that’s why. Walters: No, and I do know one city that within, I believe it’s within their shoreland zone they will allow up to 30 percent credit for the voids within pavers but consider them impervious except for the little cracks so they make the person submit, you know and again we decided ultimately we didn’t want to go down that road. But yeah there are a lot of approaches. I know one city did a flat 150 square foot credit and then stopped it there. So there are definitely other systems we could explore. Tietz: There’s a reference to pervious asphalt. Did you mean pervious asphalt pavers or pervious asphalt because there is pervious asphalt. Walters: Yes there is. Tietz: So would it use the same design guidelines MacKenzie? Walters: Yeah so pervious asphalt has the same substrate. Sub-base I think is probably the proper term and reservoir systems and would be encompassed under our definition. 30 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Tietz: Of a paver? Walters: Well under pervious pavement we chose to use, so that if better technologies came along we wouldn’t have boxed ourselves in to just one. Tietz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Walters: The proposed language in the code would require any of those systems to have a higher level of scrutiny and the city engineer would have to essentially look over the engineered designs and say yes, I believe this will work at or above the level of the permeable interlocking concrete paver systems that are kind of the current gold standard for residential use. We just wanted to make sure that you know 3 years from now if they invented something new we weren’t sitting here having you know the same conversation. Tietz: Do we have standards when people want to use pavers for the quality of the paving material that’s used because I see the future of these pavers just breaking down and crushing just like all the retaining walls that are built out of the CMU block and the face gets sprayed with salt and in 5 years it looks like it’s just eroding down and it’s just because it’s a crummy spec on concrete. Is this going to, is there that potential too that we’re going to see failure of the surfaces because of someone buying a cheap solution? Walters: I’m going to be honest, I don’t. Tietz: I don’t know. I’m just. Walters: I don’t know if the standard manual for the Institute has material requirements for that or not. If it did they would be forced to abide by it but I just don’t know. Aller: If you break it up it’d be like crushed rock right? Tietz: Yeah I suppose. Yeah. Anyhow. Aller: It’s the salt that would have done all the damage on it. Tietz: Well it’s the salt. Walters: And that’s why it’s so important to have a reservoir. Alright, so the other issue, moving beyond the intensity and scale and sensitive areas. So as we got into a little bit in the last slide, while these are pretty good for infiltration. They don’t provide the same benefits as the native vegetations so our solution to that would be to keep these out of the shoreland overlay district. Keep that at the current 25 percent limit and also then keep all the existing bluff setback limits and the bluff impact zone limits that prevent the grading within those areas and apply all 31 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 existing wetland buffers and setbacks to these new technologies. So basically there’d be no change for any of the environmentally sensitive areas. Current policy would continue to go on. You could put these in but you wouldn’t get any benefit from it. So some of the potential financial implications of this, and this is again more the water resources aspect of it but I will do my best. The stormwater utility fee would need to be reviewed, especially with updates reflecting the changes to hard cover, impervious and lot coverage within a subdivision is my understanding and this could potentially lead to these fees being increased proportional to homeowners changing their lot coverage and I’m afraid I won’t be able to clarify that because. And then the other thing is just increased administrative costs. Making sure that we have a …permit process to review the you know engineered diagrams. Make sure they comply with the standards and then creating a maintenance program. The big thing here is not triggering these other organizations and their review processes. So some of the thresholds we wanted to make sure we stayed under. Watershed gets triggered at 5,000 square feet or more. So making sure there was no way that anyone would ever put in a 5,000 square foot patio that would then trigger that host of regulations. The other thing is the City’s permit. The Water Resource Coordinator said the size and residential nature would mean these wouldn’t be considered best management practices which means we don’t have to do the annual inspections and the reporting requirements that go on when we take custody of like a stormwater pond or something like that. So again our goal was to really minimize the amount of reoccurring staff time that went into monitoring any system that went in. And we’ll talk about how we’re going to try to ensure they’re maintained properly later on. So in terms of implementing it. There’s 3 aspects we believe come into play. One is the administrative. Second maintenance. Third is education. The administrative we mentioned the application. Making sure that these are designed in line with the agency’s standards. Reviewing it to make sure it goes through and making sure that they’re installed by a certified installer. We’re hoping that guarantees that things are actually you know put in the ground as they’re shown to us on paper. We’re going to try to front load as much of it as possible on the front end so we do it once. Invest the time administratively there and then for the lifetime maintenance, homeowners would be required to enter into a maintenance agreement. That would be filed with the county so it would travel with the property when it was sold or transferred and it would include enforcement procedures specific to the pervious pavers or permeable pavement be installed. And that’s one of the things that was mentioned earlier in terms of why it would be very, very challenging to roll this out immediately upon passage is we need to figure out the exact language, content and mechanisms for that maintenance agreement. And then education. Oops, yes. Tietz: Can we make this as simple as possible? It’s getting more and more complex as we go page by page and it’s going to be, I think it’s going to be really difficult to enforce. It’s going to be very difficult for a homeowner to maintain it if we’ve got a pipe underground and you’re getting a driveway area that’s 20 by 40 and now how they, how do you inspect it? You don’t have ports on the thing like these big tanks like we put in at Chick-fil-A. You can’t get down inside and look at it. It just seems like, I grant it we need something to give direction to people but I’m just worried that this is, it’s so comprehensive it’s going to. 32 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aanenson: Who’s going to do it? Tietz: It’s just huge. Walters: There are maintenance has been one of the reasons why I believe the City looked at this several years ago and didn’t move forward for again the maintenance concerns. Routine maintenance, these systems have done pretty well when they’re maintained and routine maintenance can be as simple as vacuuming. Using a weed blower to just get the particulate matter out of the gaps. One of the reasons why folks tend to go with the permeable pavers is because when you go get a section that’s gunked up or clogged, which tends to be where these systems fail, you can pull out the 10, 12 pavers needed and do a much chapter repair whereas with the porous asphalt you mentioned you do have to just rip the entire thing out and start over. That being said one of the details we’re going to have to work out is yeah, there’s going to need to at some point be some inspection or a way to identify a failing system. Tietz: Yeah I mean it’s going to have to be designed to drain like any, I’m just using driveway as the example. It’s going to have to be designed to drain like any driveway. It’s not, you’re not going to bathtub the driveway so that it all collects and then hopefully it infiltrates. It’s still going to, so 5 years from now, 10 years from now it all clogs. It’s going to continue to drain just like it normally would have drained to the street or to the yard and the benefit is someone could get 5 percent greater coverage area and, I don’t know. It just seems like it’s, you’re probably in a rock and a hard place by giving developers and homeowners some direction as to what to do but if we can simplify this whole process any way I think all of us would be better off. The City would be better off on the maintenance and the observation or the inspection is going to, you know these pictures are great but my god I’ve never seen a green pavement system look like that after it’s been driven on for 2 weeks. Sorry I’m just kind of the contrarian here I guess but. Walters: No the point is extremely well made and well taken and certainly one of our goals as we’ve gone through this is how do we get some sort of accountability without having you know to hire additional staff to go out and inspect every one every couple months to make sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to. Weick: It’d be nice if there was an incentive for the homeowner financially. Tietz: Right. Weick: From somewhere so that then the onus is on them. I keep it maintained. I get $50 bucks a month off of my whatever. Sewer and water bill. And then. Aller: Well the contrary is true too. I mean as a result of a blocked system. Weick: Yeah. 33 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aller: And there is additional runoff and the City’s going to have to pay additional fees in clean up and costs and everything else so how do we monitor that? So we say this month you used, it’s not properly maintained and you owe us $100 as opposed to the $50 credit. Weick: Right. Walters: And I believe though that the provisions, water resources is looking at putting into the maintenance agreement. As mentioned, you know as has become apparent in this conversation this is a very complicated issue and this isn’t a simple you put down some pavers and it works type of technology so we’re going to need to get it. Distribute a lot of information to the public and also create that information depending on what exactly we end up doing with our paver policy. Some of it we can do fairly quickly like creating the informational brochures. Putting information on the website. Others like sorting out maintenance agreements, the other slide, but setting up meetings with developers, contractors will take a lot more time and a lot more outreach on our part. So with that I’d like to move into some of the discussion items and we’ve touched on a lot of them going throughout but these are issues that staff has come across as we discussed potential changes and would greatly appreciate insight and direction on. One of the big issues are planned unit developments. The historic ones. The map in front of you has the purple, are the planned unit developments that have been enacted to date. These are a lot of properties that were given, many of these were given extra lot coverage. Planned unit developments typically get 30 percent so they already have higher than the 25 percent base. A lot of them have existing water issues so the question that we would like direction on is does it make sense to let these properties as well take advantage of pervious pavers or since they already have the higher lot coverage, have they essentially already gotten the net benefit. Aller: So my initial thought is they got the additional benefit at the 30 percent and my concern is that we do know that they have water issues and how can we assist them in correcting those and I don’t know whether this, giving them additional hard cover is not going to correct anything in my opinion so the question is, is there an alternative or something we can do to encourage them to correct those water issues because they need to be addressed. Any other comments for the sake of discussion? Mr. Contrarian. Tietz: No. Aanenson: There wasn’t uniformity internally in the staff position on this either because, so the other was voted to…on 35 and these are some of the older PUD’s too which are smaller lots and how we do PUD’s now is a little different than how we did PUD’s in the past so. Not that we can’t change it. I think what we’re trying to, to Commissioner Tietz’s point is keep it simple. Move forward with something and then we see how it works. Just like we did in our first tree ordinance and then it kind of morphs into what seems to settle into the right way to go but we just kind of want to move into it carefully and with a control so that was the question on the existing. Do we want to go that far or do we kind of just want to see where it goes? 34 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Tietz: Can it be limited to certain uses like driveways and patios period? You know just to narrow the range of use. Sidewalks, I mean trying to install the system as you defined or illustrated in that sketch MacKenzie, an 8 foot wide sidewalk and my goodness the system you’d have to put in to make it infiltrate. Limiting it to certain areas of certain sizes or something may have a, give definition to a developer. Aller: Well I think in order to answer that appropriately we need to know are those the areas where these water issues are arising. I mean what are the water issues? I mean is there a consistent area that is of concern that this might be able to help in which case we can look at alternatives. It doesn’t even have to be greater but is the system going to solve the issue at all? Walters: I think a lot of the water issues deal with just stormwater ponding already being at capacity or inadequately installed in the original so you know again best case these function as intended. They’re stormwater neutral. It doesn’t necessarily alter that equation any. If they have clogging issues, etcetera and aren’t maintained then potentially. Aller: And my thought is that ultimately you probably have slab on grade or you’ve got something on Class V and anything that goes through there doesn’t have anywhere to go so maybe it’s a drain tile issue more than a pervious paver issue. Aanenson: So here goes the discussion. If the assumption is that it’s neutral does it matter if they’re already at the 30 percent and it’s functioning? Some of those are not functioning at the 30 percent but let’s just assume that, so then they would get the 5 percent. The other position would be that let’s see how it goes to just bring those 25 percent up to the 30. See what that area goes or are we penalizing somebody that’s in a PUD so we’re just trying to go at it incrementally and carefully so. Aller: Well by definition they as a PUD got things when they requested their PUD status. There were tradeoff’s made and I think those were bargained for so. Aanenson: Right and that certainly was the position that was taken by some members of the planning staff so there was another position that would be to say you know why penalize the others so. Aller: But is it really a penalty? Aanenson: Well if, then you have to go back to the theory that the ponds are functioning and they’re maintaining capacity and. Aller: But then you have commercial people that are going to come in and say what about me? Aanenson: Well I think too the commercial one, at the end of the day anybody can ask for a variance. Whether they’re residential or commercial. Someone could still come in and say, you 35 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 know I can’t get the 5 percent. I’d like to see somebody to have that right. So what we’re trying to do is eliminate or to solve the problem are we making a worst problem. We’re trying to give people an alternative path and not have to get a variance. Without impacting the amount of surface water. That’s the paradigm right there. Aller: Well preferably that they reduce it right? Weick: Would be lovely. Aanenson: Or at a minimum neutral. If it’s installed right, yeah. And to get there you can see the complexity in this at this time of night trying to go through this. Yeah it’s a complex issue. Madsen: I think I’d prefer initially to just do it with the residential with the 5 percent. See how it goes. The PUD already got the benefit of additional coverage and even if the systems work perfectly you still get those heat islands. It would have other effects besides the water drainage so maybe just initially just see how it goes. Tietz: So how was, you know Avienda was proposing to do massive areas weren’t they? Aanenson: All underground storage. Aller: Yeah. Tietz: Yeah, all the parking lots and everything weren’t they. Aller: That’s a whole different ballgame. Tietz: And they’re using that gray water for… Aller: Recycled water for, so I kind of agree with Commissioner Madsen. If we’re going to do anything, tiny steps for tiny tots and if, it doesn’t stop a person who has a PUD from coming in and asking for a variance or changing and they can say these are our issues and this is how we’re going to address them and this is why it’s a zero impact or not and maybe one or two. Aanenson: They can put a rain garden in or other things that you’ve asked to do before, correct. Aller: …come forward and we’ll see. Walters: Alright, sounds good. I feel like that was very clear. Thank you much. Next quick discussion item. The agricultural estate and rural residential districts. These are single family low density so under current language they would be considered with the 5 percent but once we sat down again doing some numbers, with a minimum 2.5 these are already 20,000 plus square feet of lot coverage entitled. An additional 5 percent is over 5,000 feet. Does that really make 36 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 sense? Do these people actually need relief in terms of lot coverage? And we can circle back to that. I can move onto the next slide. Aller: Well that’s where we get back into just what makes sense for an amount of acreage. You know using a percentage versus runoff versus whatever the benefit is and saying that at some point in time the percentage doesn’t make sense. And again I look to the numbers that come through with the our requirements for our SWPPP and our water requirements and runoff and is it possible, I mean if we add 5,445 square feet, what does that do to our ability to take that first inch of rainfall? Are we going to bet the farm on that? Madsen: I would suggest adding a hard limit to that 5 percent. Not to exceed some amount. Square footage. Aller: Or I don’t know whether you can quantify the amount of runoff that’s actually collected and maintained. That’s what we’re looking at. Madsen: Oh, the measurement of the runoff, yeah. Aller: When we’re doing any kind of development right? We’re looking at what is the runoff and can we, we’re supposed to have a zero impact. Otherwise it effects us. Undestad: So across the board though if it’s looking for a zero impact, whether it’s 500 square feet on a small guy or it’s 5,000 on a big guy. Aller: It depends on the parcel. Madsen: But it changes the neighborhood look. It can change because the hard cover is so large. It’s not hard cover but impervious. Aller: And depending upon where this, where the hard cover is because you have your back lot lines abut water features and then you have different setbacks and so all of a sudden you’ve moved all your hard cover to the front. Walters: Second to last. So RLM properties are the other question that we’ve discussed a lot. They’re currently entitled to 35 percent lot coverage. In order to get the RLM zoning developers have to dedicate open space as a trade off for getting that. The intent of the district was that our single family districts, whether RLM or RSF would be at about 20 percent hard cover and that you know we would allow the increased hard cover in exchange for land dedicated. So if we increase this by 5 percent, does it make sense to also then establish a minimum standard for space dedicated in order to ensure that that same threshold is maintained between the RSF and the RLM. 37 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aanenson: The challenge with that is, you’re raising an expectation that someone’s going to save, put enough land in the bank that every homeowner over time can add on. Is it first come first serve? Well two of you can add on but the rest of you can’t so it’s a really big challenge to try to so right now we haven’t been as tight on the percentage. We just look at a significant wooded area that we want to preserve in order to do that. That might be a way to, so you look at Foxwoods was given an RLM zoning district. They saved a significant amount of trees around the perimeter but that doesn’t mean everybody in there, if we put 5 percent on all that would probably equate to what we did preserve. Although you probably, if you looked at all the abstraction that those trees would create so that’s again a deeper dive into some of that minutia. Aller: And we’re not talking about an exchange or using a bank. We’re talking about preserving Chanhassen property really. Aanenson: So let’s say you had 10 lots and you had to preserve enough acreage so each of those lots could, that preservation would equal that 35 percent. So if you wanted to go up to 40 percent then you’d make sure that there was more land available so someone else could, because otherwise then you’re not. Undestad: But it would all be within that development. Aanenson: Correct. Undestad: Still in the same yard. Aller: So you could figure it out at the 5 percent and that would be your number so that the City would always benefit and the community would always benefit by that larger trade off. Aanenson: But the challenge is, is the developer going to say I’m going to give up a lot and just kind of add that to my pool so the people in the future have the opportunity to expand? I think not. I don’t think that’s going to happen as we move forward. I think they’re going to maximize their’s and it’s somebody else’s problem down the road. Aller: Then we’ll have 100 percent open space. Aanenson: So that’s the challenge. I think kind of the 35 percent kind of just making that proportionality and because they’re already at the 35 percent. That was the reason why we let them go smaller and you kind of buy into smaller lot. Undestad: Do we have a calculation when we did the Galpin, that 5 acres of so much of it could go towards green area? Generous: Oh yeah for… 38 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Undestad: So we made, there was a formula that was generated. Again not that it makes life simpler for you but. Aanenson: Yeah but there was an extra there yeah. Walters: And then our last discussion issue and we’ve hit on this a lot timeframe. I guess you know again this is something that we feel probably needs a delayed implementation to allow the educational, the outreach, and the administrative procedures to be put in place before the code can take effect and I think the discussion tonight has made that very clear that it’s a complicated issue with a lot of moving parts. With that, that concludes my presentation. Aanenson: This is a public hearing so you have to open. Aller: So I will open up the public hearing for comment and discussion for any individual wishing to come forward and speak for or against the item that’s before us. Seeing no one come before us we’ll close the public hearing and open it up again for commissioner comments and discussion and Commissioner Weick. Weick: I am opposed because I am not convinced that pervious pavers are a viable solution, either in the purpose of draining and/or maintenance in the long term and because of that I’m not convinced that adding 5 percent to anything isn’t doing anything more than truly just increasing our lot coverage. Impervious lot coverage and so instead of taking small steps I think we should take no steps because I just don’t think the technology is proven. I don’t think it works and I don’t think we can maintain it and I think it will just be an excuse for people to add 5 percent to their coverage and I don’t think we want to do that so that’s my opinion. Aller: Anyone else? Tietz: He’s got a good point. Undestad: Does have a good point but on the other hand with what all the watershed districts have done and are doing and bringing all this stuff to the surface that it’s something that’s going to happen. You know they’re already doing it. That’s what all these developments are involved with right now so I think we do need to start working in a direction to figure out how we are going to handle, there’s you know there’s pavements and underground stormwater stuff going on right now that we’re going to have to deal with so. Weick: Well and I’d like to see. Tietz: Maybe Mark the definitions can trigger. I think the front end of this whole thing is good for us to look at you know the definitions that have been on the books of impervious and surface area and everything. But maybe there’s no incentive of the 5 percent. That we encourage people to do it because it is good practice and it does help the runoff and our storm water retention and 39 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 everything and maybe there’s another way to incent people. Maybe it’s just we start with a good strong education process and we find out if it really catches on and developers are jumping onto it then maybe some, there’s another way to benefit them for doing it. Not benefit them but encourage them through some other vehicle than increased. To give more coverage, we’ve dealt with this issue in the last year and a half with people wanting to expand their decks and expand, put up another outdoor facility and then it’s the wetland issues creeping up and they’re coming down and I don’t know we’re just, I think we’re creating the coverage I think the limits that we’ve had on the coverage have been acknowledged and in the books for a long time and now to add 5 percent to allow someone to use pervious pavers, maybe we just don’t do it. Maybe it’s just education and we see if they work. I’m with Steve. I’m not so sure that over time that these things are going to work on a small scale. I think in the big scale, the way they have to do it with the tanks, the jury’s probably still out on those too but it is a way to contain it and you can get down inside those things and clean them out and it’s not an inexpensive process. But on a small residential scale I’m just not so sure that they’re going to be, I don’t know that they’re going to have a long term benefit and continue to function as designed. Maybe they are. Madsen: How long have they been enforced in other cities? Have they been using them? 5 years? 10 years? Walters: I’m afraid I don’t have that information. It’s something I can look into and report back on but I don’t know off hand. Weick: But for the benefit of I think, my angle on it is, instead of having it be a way to increase your lot coverage I’d rather see it be a way that homeowners gain so there’s an incentive to make their existing 25 percent behave better environmentally. So instead of saying you can use pervious pavers to get to 30, I’d rather have people say wow, I can save $100 bucks a month if I took my 25 to 20 and replaced my patio when it’s time to replace it with pervious pavers and get a benefit and I don’t know how to do that. Like right, that’s big. That’s government whatever. Subsidies or you know like solar and wind and all that kind of stuff but I, to me the question is are we comfortable with 30 percent lot coverage and I’m not so I think that’s why I stop at the 25 and then I’d rather make it a positive that people can do something good for the environment and gain instead of the other way around. Randall: I think back to, I think back to one of the people that was coming in for their variance and they had bought a home thinking that they would be able to do it and how many people really know about hardscape percentage and that type of thing. You know it’s almost like you need a disclosure on that when you buy a home to know what you can actually do to the property. I want to hear more from the people in the field that are using it and see what they have to say. The maintenance issue I think is huge. Like you said the inspections and getting into this, I just think that’s going to be a really big headache and I don’t know if the technology is there yet or not. I mean it appears to be on a commercial scale but not at maybe a residential scale. I don’t know so that’s my two cents. 40 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aller: Any additional comments, questions, concerns? So we have an opportunity here to do a number of things. We can have a motion to modify. We can have a motion to table. We can have a motion to come back at a different date and continue if you don’t have enough information. Thoughts? Or you can make a motion, an alternative motion just to reject. Weick: Would you do that or would you just not do anything? Aanenson: We have to have a motion. Weick: We have to do something? Aanenson: Yeah. Undestad: To table it or look for more information, yeah. Weick: Yeah. Aller: And it could come back at some later date and could be laid back on the table or you can say we just don’t want to do anything in which case then it would either fail for a second or have a second and a vote. Lots of options. Tietz: Well I’d move that we table it and send it back to staff and MacKenzie to get some further information. As Mark indicated maybe there are installers, there are folks that could, you could give us a little more insight on it. But to Steve’s point too, you know we don’t have, I don’t think we have to add 5 percent. I think there’s some re-study that is, well now this isn’t a motion. I’m talking instead of making a motion. Okay I’ll go back. Motion to table for further study by staff. Randall: Second. Aller: Now we can have discussion. And I would just, I guess my comment on the motion to table is I’m not, certainly not opposed to getting more information but I would not discourage staff from potentially bringing forward in a sequential step like manner maybe attack our ordinances as written and maybe bring them in line with the definitions that we’re going to deal with right away and that way as we move forward and look at the information that we’ve got we’ve, we’re moving in a positive direction and we’re taking it, a statute that obviously is going to be looked at, or an ordinance that’s going to be looked at in the future and we’re making it easier to work with as we go along. Weick: Okay and if I could, because I don’t think I’ll get a chance to clarify my vote after I vote. If, my opposition to the motion is not implying that I am for doing this. I want to be very clear that I am against doing anything. Like I do not want to table it or change it so I just, when you hear that I don’t want you to think that I’m for approving. That’s all, thank you. 41 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 Aanenson: Chairman did you close the public hearing by chance? I don’t remember. Aller: I did. Weick: He did. Aller: But if I didn’t I’m doing it now again. Weick: You did. Aller: I’m pretty sure I did but. So we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Tietz moved, Randall seconded that the Planning Commission table the code amendment regarding permeable pavement for further study by staff. All voted in favor, except Commissioner Weick who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 5 to 1. Aller: So the motion carries. Then we move onto our next agenda item. Tietz: Good work though MacKenzie. Walters: Thank you. Tietz: It got us to talk about it. Aanenson: It’s a beast. Weick: I don’t know how you could ask him to do more work on it. Randall: That seemed cruel. Aller: Well it’s really just finishing what he’s already. He’s already dug the hole and. Walters: I like learning. Aller: He’s already dug the hole and now the stuff is coming in. It’s pouring in. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Madsen noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated October 3, 2017 as presented. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS. None. 42 Chanhassen Planning Commission – October 17, 2017 ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS. Aller: Administrative presentations. Aanenson: The good news is you do not have a meeting until the second meeting in November st which is the 21 so you have almost a month because we have a school board election on th November 7 so we do not have a meeting then so there’s an extra Tuesday in there so. So we’ll st be coming back with some more code amendments on the 21 because they’re so fun so we’ll see where we are on this one. If we can get enough information to make a productive use of your time. We’ll do that. We may potentially have a subdivision on too so we only have two more meetings. Walters: Variance. Aanenson: Oh we’re going to have a variance on. Yeah a variance also came in so. For hard cover? Walters: Expanding garage and hard cover and… th Aanenson: Yeah so there’s two more meetings left in the year. That would be the 17 and, or stth excuse me the 21 and December 5 are our last two meetings of the year so have a good month off. Aller: Awesome. And that’s it. Undestad moved, Weick seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0. The Planning Commission meeting was adjourned at 9:25 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 43