PRC 1993 10 26
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CHANHASSEN PARK AND
RECREATION COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
OCTOBER 26, 1993
Chairman Schroers called the meeting to order at 7:38 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Fred Berg, Jim Manders, Ron Roeser, Larry Schroers, Jane Meger
and J an Lash
MEMBERS ABSENT: Jim Andrews
STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Coordinator; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation
Supervisor; and Dawn Lemme, Program Specialist
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Berg moved, Meger seconded to approve the Minutes of
the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated August 10, 1993 as presented. All
voted in favor and the motion carried.
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None.
FINAL REVIEW OF NEW CHANHASSEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CITY
~ INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR PROGRAM. CITY OF CHANHASSEN.
Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item.
Dave Leschak: Thank you Todd. Good evening. My name is Dave Leschak. As Todd has
mentioned, I'm an architect with Hammel, Green, Abrahamson and I'm here tonight to you
the final schematic plan for the site as well as the community portion of the building. From
this point we will be taking this plan and preparing it for a submission to the Planning
Commission, which they have scheduled for November 17th. Our submission to them will be
on or about November 1st. Highway 5 to the north. Galpin Bivd to the west. A new
collector road to the south. Originally the site was approximately 42 acres, including all of
the right-of-ways. Once the right-of-ways are removed from the parcel of land, including an
80 foot easement for right-of-way for the new collector road and as this new collector bends
up to the north around Bluff Creek and rises up to the north at the west end where it ties into
Galpin, we end up with approximately 34 acres of usable or buildable land. Initially, some
time ago the building had been proposed over here on the east side of the site. At one time
we indicated there was a possibility to get approximately 6 fields on the site. As we began
looking through it...subsurface conditions, the soil borings, we found that this east end of the
site had some poorer soils on it which really was not feasible for us to build on without going
through some significant foundation designs to accommodate the bearing pressures of a
building of this scale so the building had been shifted from the east side to the west side of
the site and as we began to take a look and to see how we're going to grade this site without
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
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torturing it, we realize that the number of fields were going to have to be reduced as well.
What we have is approximately 110,000 or 112,000 square foot building here. Staff parking,
which would be for the school district during their use or during the day of approximately
100 cars off of Galpin. Allowing this for access off of Galpin as well as access off of the
new collector road. We felt that that was a much better situation for the school district to
have that sort of access rather than having the building up here in the east which would have
then given us access really only off of that collector road. To the east of the building we
have a community parking lot of approximately 100 parking stalls. That would serve the
community portion of the building as well as the fields to the north and east of the new
facility. The bus drop off then to the south, which the students then would exit from and
enter into the school. So we have as far as zones, we've tried to create a true school entry
here on the west side. A community entrance here on the east and a student entrance to the
south. As you all know, security has been quite an issue here between the school district as
well as the community and we have identified what entrance people are to go to so we split
up those entrances and we would then use articulation in the facade of the building to help
promote those different entrances and what portion of the building it is that they serve. In
this area we have the 4 tennis courts, 2 hockey rinks. This is considered to be our lighted
portion of this park site. We've indicated we have significant plantings to sort of buffer that
from the neighborhood here to the south, Timberwood Estates, so they're not getting this light
drifting off of this site. We've added a smaller community parking lot of 30 to be accessible
to the tennis courts or this community baseball-softball-soccer area here. In this area on the
northwest portion of the site we end up with the ISD #112 fields. They have a softball and
soccer field programmed with their building, which of course could be used by the
community after hours. We have a community baseball field in this location. A soccer field.
A baseball, softball and soccer field. The soccer field being overlayed with the infield of that
baseball, softball field and that is as a result of us trying to maintain the grades. If you're
familiar with this site, the site begins to step as we get down here to Bluff Creek. With 4
softball and community soccer fields in this area here. The building as we have it proposed
right now would sit at a, or have a finished floor elevation of approximately 958. The fields
in this area here would be approximately 3 or 4 feet higher than that. And then the fields
begin to step or terrace down as we go to Bluff Creek. We felt that that was a far more
sympathetic solution having the building here, along this to terrace this down rather than
having the building here and have everything terraced down to the building. It puts the
building on a more oh prominent level as you're coming on the new collector road, you're
significantly lower than the building itself which would sit up high and we feel that that's of
an advantage. We were able then to preserve a portion of our wetlands in this area here by
reducing a number of the soccer fields. We still remain with 2, are those full sized at this
point. Are those the big soccer fields? And the other 2 I believe are 10 and under.
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Hoffman: Correct.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Dave Leschak: The planting scheme that we would like to establish is historically the
Chanhassen area has always had a lot of apple orchards and I believe even the Highway 5
commission has kicked around this idea that they would like to reintroduce apple orchards
along that Highway 5 corridor, and what we would like to do is more or less follow that
recommendation by a planting of orchard type trees along Highway 5 to help us buffer with
the traffic noise and then using evergreens as like wind rows to bring this back to maybe
what it used to be historically and help us to fmd these exterior spaces. We would also like
to use that idea as an educational aspect for the school where that you would have the wind
rows and the woodland type areas that might be created up on some of the higher elevations
with for instance your hardwood type trees and then get down into some of the wetlands and
along Bluff Creek and introduce some soft woods which would be characteristic of those
types of land forms. And that's again something that we would like to, or that the school has
wanted us to develop in conjunction with this park site. Is actually make the site as though it
were a classroom so that they could go outdoors for science. Visit the different areas on the
site and use that as a lab project for instance so as I mentioned, we're thinking that at this
point apple orchard along the Highway 5 corridor. Your sort of wind rows that we would
create then, running in a north/south direction. Down along the wetland areas we would have
soft woods and up on some of the higher elevations on the site, the hard woods and out in
front of the school maybe introduce a prairie type of ecosystem with actual prairie grasses for
the school. In this area we are indicating that our storm water retention for this site would be
handled in an outlot on the south side of the new collector road. We've indicated at this
point that in the future there could be a park shelter. We're anticipating that the services,
sanitary and water would access the site on the east side of our building allowing for, in the
future an easy tie in if the community wished at that time to add those types of services in
this area. We're anticipating that the electrical service for the building would come in from
the north. Again in reasonable proximity to the out building that the park could construct at a
future date. We have totlots located then on either side so that as parents drive in, park.
They're able to watch their participants in their sporting events and maybe the younger
children would have a totlot to go to but still be within a reasonable distance of where mom
and dad were for instance. And we would at least have some visual control over the younger
children. And that, we've indicated the trail system, which would tie into a pedestrian
underpass at Highway 5 and evetually continue with going beyond the site. We need to work
with Todd and his people on that yet. This is again just a schematic plan but at this point we
are actually beginning to set the grades, terrace the fields which is somewhat of a more
trademark here in Chanhassen with your parks and playing fields where they seemed to be
terraced. We've indicated that there could very easily be incorporated into the plans some
terraced seating areas. This area here would be, in the winter time possibly an open skating
rink or we see it as the front yard for the community portion of the building. And that really
is a brief overview of the entire site. If you have any questions concerning this site, I can
certainly answer those. Bob Rothman with our office will then take you into the actual
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
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building and show you how the different entrances and the community portion of the building
relates.
Manders: I have a question on the lower left comer there. The indication of the usage there.
Is there.
Dave Leschak: Well, the tennis courts are something that the community really wants to
have in a park such as this and we have indicated that there is an option to have tennis courts
over here possibly. I mean back when this project originally began, everyone assumed that
the collector was just going to go straight through here and that all this land would be a part
of our site. That ended up not being the case. As we began to look at the site and realized
that we've got all of this terracing going on and we needed to sort of expand and try to find
areas to lay some of these fields, we have suggested that this outlot could possibly suffice as
a tennis area.
Manders: Are there any other thoughts in terms of usage for that?
Dave Leschak: At this time, no.
Hoffman: It's not flat.
--'
Dave Leschak: No, it's not flat. If we would do tennis courts on there, they would also
probably end up being terraced.
Manders: Sliding hill.
Dave Leschak: It is, as a result of us, where our building is and how we tie into the collector
road, Galpin does come down a little bit and that does help us. It does sort of knock the top
off of that hill. This is the high point of that whole site right now. Is actually on top of, in
this southwest comer of that site.
Manders: So I mean is that still considered part of this site? That area. It's just whether we
use it or not
Dave Leschak: You know I don't know whether the city and the school district have actually
come to terms yet as far as ownership of the property yet. The road actually bends up this
way. There are three property owners over here. And in order to miss those property
owners, this new collector road actually moved up to the north so that it could go past those
folks without having to condemn those properties. And like I said, I really can't be certain
just how this site is going to be split up yet with the school district wanting 20 acres, I really
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
don't know yet Whether the school district would end up owning this portion of property or
whether the school district would end up owning this piece of property, that's still up in the
air.
Hoffman: Currently the basis for those discussions are, whenever you develop a site you
can't use it all. There are going to be outlots, retention ponds, portions of the property you
cannot utilize. The outlot may go to the city. It may go to the school district. The retention
pond that's there is most likely, or most aptly related to the school with all the hard surface
that it did bring along with it so more...site, we do not know but it has never been a real big
concern of the city's. The community's not going to know where the property line is out
there. It's all going to act as one property.
Lash: But would that comer be suitable for a sliding hill? That would be a good idea.
Hoffman: It slopes right down towards the street. We'd have a tough time with that.
Dave Leschak: It actually slopes down this way towards the school. You may, you know at
this point we're still putting some grades to this collector road and just how all of that works
r- yet, hasn't been quite determined. There's been some talk about some sort of a retaining wall
along the new collector road to maintain this existing mass of trees that exist there now. But
those final plans haven't been developed yet
Manders: My overall comment is, I like the plan.
Roeser: I do too.
Dave Leschak: It's been a tough site to deal with, to be honest with you. You know
thinking that we have 42 acres or 40 acres to begin with and trying to accomplish everything
it is that the task force has wanted. One of their concerns was accessibility to the playing
fields and what we have done then is added a drop off area here which would allow a parent
or someone to drop off a participant at this point Allow them to get up into this playing area
and then to park their car. You know we've added another parking lot, smaller parking lot in
this area which would allow for a little additional accessibility to this portion of the site as
well as the tennis courts. But as far as bringing this parking lot in further, or creating,
moving that parking lot someplace, really ended up just torturing this site as far as grades and
trying to get some sort of terracing and allowing us to create the sort of fields that they had
desired.
Berg: Is there any fencing planned for along the part of the park that goes by Highway 51
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
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Dave Leschak: That has been talked about and I believe there will be fencing along
Highway 5.
Hoffman: Dave, you touched on the major changes. I believe Chairman Schroers was at the
last Task Force meeting. What the major changes were coming out of that meeting and then
a few minor subequent changes which came out of staff comments.
Dave Leschak: Yeah, like I said, we have you know added the additional parking. You can
see that we've really lost one more field Larry. We used to have 5. We've gone to 4 but
what we've done is we've kept 2 of the larger fields, soccer fields. It just so happens that at
this point, this one we're showing a little bit...If in fact once we get into this plan a little bit
further and we realize that through our grading we may be able to take this field off of that
infield, that would be something that we would look to do. I think just discussing the plan
with our civil people today, they felt that it seemed as though maybe our fields could go just
a little bit further north but they're at the point where you know they're doing that rough
grading now and telling us what we can do. What we can't do and we're working to find the
solutions and we're always keeping in mind those issues that..that they were really concerned
with. We tried to create a little providence here with this building. I mean you've got this
major axis at this point going north and south. There's another axis coming here on an east
and west direction with a totlot, playground in this area. This playground being ISD 112 and
it's relationship is generated as a result of the cafeteria being in this location. And then
another node, if you will, that would indicate or have associated with it another totlot in the
larger community playground and some other additional landscaping. So we tried to
organized the site with fields across the north. A couple of real definite gathering places in
this site and some real axis that go through it to give it a little bit more organization and then
using the shelter belt concept to help defme those open spaces.
....,."
Schroers: Are the ballfields still coming in at 200 foot?
Dave Leschak: Yes.
Schroers: So basically we can look at this from park and rec point of view as a youth
facility. This is not going to accommodate adult ball playing at all. The fields will be too
small.
Dave Leschak: Yeah. And I know that from the school's standpoint, that was real attractive
for them. Here you have an elementary school and the park facilities itself was geared
towards the youth and maybe not the adults. They liked that idea. They felt it was a good
match.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Lash: Do these sizes accommodate all the youth sports?
Schroers: Up to 14 years old I think.
Bob Rothman: This is something to keep in mind also, at least on these larger fields, is that
these plans are strictly just chalk in the grass, with the exception of the infields. You've got
a large expanse of grass. If you ran smaller fields going the other direction, you'd get 3 to 4
fields. Mid sized fields in there.
Schroers: For soccer?
Bob Rothman: For soccer, yeah.
r-
Dave Leschak: For soccer or as we talked, even in some cases the baseball where the young
kids still don't hit it out of the infield. You could actually, and this is a significant area here.
I mean it's, as Bob was mentioned, it really is. The fields as you see them are just chalk
lines and it doesn't plan for the outfield fence. There certainly has been the direction from
the Task Force that they want the backstops, the dugouts, the whole works so, and also again,
the skinned infields. So that direction has come from the task force and that's what we're
looking to provide at this point. The ice rinks would probably have a hard surface on them
so that during the summer months either they'll be for rollerblading. Could be maybe
basketball, you know depending upon how that's all set up. That again is something that we
would work with Todd on. In fact we've asked that they actually research what type of
surface it is that they'd like to see there. And again, the ice rinks and tennis courts, they're
lit. A significant buffer to control that. That's where we're at today.
Schroers: I like the plan. I like the changes that you made to accommodate some of the task
force concern about accessibility. I think the drop off point is going to help and the other
parking lot will help for the one field but what the whole sports program is about is a little
exercise and recreation and I guess it shouldn't kill you walking from the parking lot to the
ballfield.
Lash: It shouldn't but we just, at the last meeting discussed over at Chaparral people cutting
through neighbors yards because they didn't want to have to walk from the parking lot over
the field...but they don't like to do it.
Bob Rothman: We did look at trying to take the parking a little bit further north and with
the site grading as it is, we just...would torture the site to try and bring the parking in deeper.
Hoffman: The middle parking lot though did come up.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
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Dave Leschak: Yeah. Oh yeah. It did move up. That's right. We did move it up. We also
did want to preserve this area as sort of a front yard for the community portion of the
building. Those...an area maybe where some sort of future expansion could take place so you
might be able to expand into that area without having to maybe remove something that
you've put in years previous. So there is some legitimacy to leaving this open and stopping
this parking lot where we've shown it.
Schroers: There's really very little unused space but yet it's organized and it looks the way
you have it laid out there that it will have a smooth flow and it will be a good working plan.
I think 1 like the way it looks.
Lash: I like it too. I do have a couple of questions. I guess you just touched on a couple of
them. One was basketball. I noticed was something that wasn't on there and I thought the
same thing. Maybe it could be tied in with the rollerblading. And I liked the idea of the
possibility of having open skating there. That's one thing we're really missing.
Dave Leschak: Yeah, and that again would have a nice relationship back to making your
shelter, future shelter.
Lash: Well and being closer to the hockey rinks too if we have to have a warming house. It
could be nicely positioned between the two. And then you pointed out the two playgrounds
right?
....;
Dave Leschak: Yes. We have, we've indicated as a part of the community task force, they
indicated the need to have a totlot. We always planned for a playground with the school but
we've added another totlot at that end. Added a totlot and then sort of a community
playground maybe for older kids so you have some separation between the real young kids
and some of the older kids.
Lash: And is the school district, do you know if they're planning on providing the equipment
for the school?
Dave Leschak: They will, yes. That would be part of their portion of the project. That they
would equip their playground.
Lash: Okay. And then another question I had. And this isn't even park related but it's just
my own personal curiousity. The way that the family pods for the classrooms are laid out, I
noticed that there's five. It looks like there's five.
Dave Leschak: Yes.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Lash: So is that grades 1 thru 5?
Dave Leschak: It could be grades 1 thru 5. However, there is the potential for one of those
classrooms to be a kindergarten classroom.
Lash: One classroom or one pod?
Dave Leschak: One per pod.
Bob Rothman: There's actually, in each one of those pods we have one grade so in each pod
there'd be one, grade one, two, three, four and five.
Lash: Oh, so it's a family of mixed grades?
Bob Rothman: Exactly. So each pod is not an individual grade.
Lash: And one of the rooms does have the potential to be kindergarten?
;""'"
Bob Rothman: Correct.
Lash: Square footage wise? Okay. And then, okay. Another thing was you said the
electricity is coming in off TH 5. I think that we as a commission and staff want to think
about the idea of, if it's cheaper to go ahead and hook up electric to a couple of ballfields
right away, because if it's youth we may have to have some pitching machines out there. So
if it's cheaper to do that ahead of time, we should look at that rather than having to go back
and do that. And then the apple tree idea, I think that's a really nice idea but do you know if
it's supposed to be mowed underneath there?
Dave Leschak: ...at this point at the concept, we're going to have to take a much closer look
at it to see exactly or how do we maintain it. Are there other problems that may be
associated with the fact that we've got apples out there. Yeah, they can become projectiles
very easily...you know so it's a great idea but we do need to look at it.
Berg: It needs further study is what you're saying.
Lash: Yeah, I'm pretty realistic about that stuff and then I think, okay if there's apples. Are
we going to spray the apples. Eat the apples.
Roeser: Or whether they're going to Haralsons or whether they're going to be, I think we're
a long ways from that point.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
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Schroers: I think that the-current landscaping practices would probably have something put in
like an ornamental minature crab which is something not much more than a berry. That
besides all the other things that you mentioned, don't attract an exorbinate number of bees as
well. So I think the landscaping will probably handle that.
Lash: I wonder sometimes though about landscaping people.
Dave Leschak: So do we. There are far more trees shown on this site than you'll probably
end up getting too...
Manders: One other question. That corridor. Kind of between the school and the ballfields
there from, yeah. What's that envisioned to be? Is that like have a walkway or a path or
what?
Dave Leschak: There is a pathway, yeah. It would be asphalt or you know.
Bob Rothman: Kind of a boulevard actually. Kind of help tie the site together. Similar to
the interior side of the building as we get into the next plan.
- Berg: It wouldn't have to be asphalt would it?
....."
Bob Rothman: No, it could be pavers.
Dave Leschak: It could be, yeah. At this point you know.
Berg: I'm thinking of the paths down, for example at the sculpture garden. Something like
that. That's a lot more amenable to a park than asphalt.
Schroers: One thing that you mentioned has me curious. As part of the collector road and
the turn in that collector road to avoid the 3 private properties from condemnation, aren't
those 3 properties across on the other side of Galpin Boulevard?
Dave Leschak: They are but what happens is that this collector road will eventually extend to
the west. So you know, I'm sure the city's thinking there is, if you did create an intersection,
you'd want to have, you know you're going to create the intersection. You're not going to
have a road tie in someplace else along Galpin. Your turn Bob.
Bob Rothman: This is the building plan. As Dave mentioned, the community entrance is on
the east side of the site. The major school entrance is on the west side with the cluster
entrances to the south. Basically your component is this orange portion to the northeast. The
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
building, as I mentioned, is organized along the...with more public functions being to the
north and getting a little more private for just students as you head to the south. As you
know these are the five school clusters that the...administration area. The parks and music
area, ECFE, building service, cafeteria, kitchen and then the gymnasium. And we've got four
meeting rooms which are divisible into, or actually one meeting room which is divisible into
four portions. A fitness room and aerobics room. Locker rooms. Restrooms. Two storage
areas. An office area and an entry vestibule lobby area. The gymnasium during the day
would be divided down the middle with the school using the southern portion and the
community having access to the northern portion. So the schooL.this removable wall, or
actually movable wall could be pulled back into position allowing the use of four 3/4 courts
which would run north/south for community use. We've located those obviously near the
locker rooms. Across from the aerobics and fitness room. Again as a proximity to the locker
rooms. The meeting rooms would contain, each of them would have a small, would have
some case work including, we've talked about maybe the north and the south room having a
small kitchenette. Originally we had hoped to use, have the meeting rooms in closer
proximity so they could use the full school kitchen. Because of some of these issues that
were raised in trying to keep the school separate from the community portion, we withdrew
on that idea a little bit and have looked at the idea of including small kitchenettes, not unlike
,-.. what you have out in the hallway out here for the refrigerator and microwave and that sort of
thing. And then in the evening for any larger type functions, the kitchen could be opened for
community use. I think it's envisioned that in the evening that if there's some either multiple
events or one large event, that the school could possibly drop a gate at this point and this
parking lot over to the west could then also be used for any sort of function so you can park
over there and just traverse through the building and get use of their function. During the
day things are being worked out as far as security issues with the joint power agreements.
What the school would like is a pair of doors here that would be locked from this direction
but containing a security camera so that they could monitor who gets access to the school.
Also we are going to be developing a courtyard which would be off the main entry to each of
the school and the community and this would be kind of a little more serene. Flower gardens
and that sort of thing. Kind of an eating or sitting area. And with that, if there's any
questions.
Lash: Do you typically use a 3/4 size court? For basketball.
Bob Rothman: More half court I think. I think this would be more for, probably your adult
leagues.
Lash: Okay. And then one other question. I think I read in the paper or somewhere that the
City Council had asked if there was some way of still incorporating a track into this plan?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
...",;'
Bob Rothman: Yeah, we looked at that and we did a proposal along with a schematic price
estimate and we forwarded that onto Todd and I think it was felt that the budget constraints
were not able to meet that at this time.
Lash: Okay, thanks.
Berg: This request comes from a coach. Will you please make sure that in the gymnasiums
you have plenty of baskets. Not just on each end. You can increase your playability or
whatever, your usage so much more if you've got baskets along the sides as well as on the
ends.
Bob Rothman: I think what we're thinking is, you obviously have 2 on the ends. You'd
have 2 here and 2 here and those would be for the 3/4 courts. I guess maybe the possibility
is also there for maybe to having them drop in the center to create a couple half courts too.
But we'll have to see how the dollars work out on that.
Berg: You can't err by having too many baskets.
Bob Rothman: Yeah, we'd pull them right up and they're out of everyone's way.
Manders: Would you just talk about the school part of it. Just out of curiousity. What's all
intended.
...""
Bob Rothman: Sure. These are called the family clusters and they contain 5 classrooms.
They're housed to contain 125 students apiece for a total capacity of 625. Each student, as
we've shown, we've got the bus drop off to the south and they would pass through kind of
their little house or science or outdoor classroom area and enter into their cluster. Again,
we've talked about you know moving the building we had a little bit to the east and because
of various reasons, the soils, among the other reasons were with the southern exposure is just
perfect for the school kids to have these outdoor classrooms and get maximum use in this
climate of the outdoor space. So the students would enter, the clusters are organized along an
interior corridor that would then, it's kind of glassy on both ends so wherever you're at in
this corridor you would kind of have a view of the outside and you'd be able to orient
yourself. A lot of times in schools of this size, if there's kind of an internal corridor, it's real
easy to get lost so we tried to stay away from that a little bit so you're easily oriented.
Cafeteria is to the north with the playground. We found that there's a strong relationship
between playground, cafeteria. Obviously when they're done eating they go out and play so
that kind of sets up the playground to the north here. The ECFE, which is the Early
Childhood Education is located close to the entry but it's a 7 day program so students or
parents would be entering that at various times of the day, various days of the week. Again,
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
the administration is in this portion along the main corridor to give them access or a little bit
of control ability of who comes and goes and seeing what's happening in the school.
Dave Leschak: We really see that major east/west line as being really open after hours all the
time. I mean the school has gone so far as to suggest there may be at anyone time maybe
one of the family clusters would be open to the community as well for meetings or the library
may be open.
Bob Rothman: We've got some conference rooms that they've requested have doors off this
corridor so they were also accessible to the community as well as the...or the media center or
the library.
Lash: So are these little teeny dotted lines by the hallway to each one of the little clusters, is
that some kind of a security gate system? So each area can be separate.
Bob Rothman: That's more of an architectural, it's meant that these are somewhat markers
for each one of the entries to the clusters.
'" Lash: So there's not like individual ways to close off each?
Bob Rothman: We're developing that as we go along and I think there probably would be
some sort of gate or doors for one we need for fIre rated partitions and also for security. We
could double up and use it all for security and enable to make this building as flexible as we
can and open and close clusters. In fact the possibility also exists to use these, for instance if
this cluster were to be open for some sort of night time class or something, that we'd close it
or just use this entrance and people could come right in this way. So we're trying to make
this building as flexible as we can.
Roeser: ...area to the right and the center there. The library area?
Bob Rothman: Yeah. Again, overlooking this courtyard and it would have a door so
students could go out and read.
Lash: Is there a stage area somewhere?
Bob Rothman: This area here is a, it would contain a portable stage. What we found,
specifIcally with the new ADA regulations, if you have a permanent raised stage, then you
have to require ramping to that So that gets very space consuming so what we do is have a
portable stage and portable ramp to go with that
,......
13
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
-'
Lash: Okay. And then is this supposed to be air conditioned?
Bob Rothman: Yes.
Schroers: Any other questions? Thank you very much for the presentation. It looks like
things are coming along very well and I hope that they continue. I didn't see here where
staff is looking for any kind of a recommendation or approval or anything like that. Basically
we're just looking for input on this.
Hoffman: You will need to make a formal recommendation to the Oty Council.
Schroers: At this time?
Hoffman: Correct.
Lash: That what?
Hoffman: That you like the plan that you see and you recommend that it be constructed.
The city portion.
Schroers: Alright. Is there any further commission discussion on this item? And if not, then
I would ask for a motion to recommend to the City Council to approve this concept of the
design for the public area of the school. And site as well.
....,I'
Roeser: Alright, I'll make the motion.
Schroers: Okay. We have a motion to accept this, or recommend to the Oty Council to
accept this concept for approval. Is there a second?
Manders: I'll second.
Roeser moved, Manders seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend
that the City Council approve the concept plan as proposed for interior and exterior
public areas of the new Chanhassen Elementary School. All voted in favor and the
motion carried.
Hoffman: Chairman Schroers, the only other person we have in the audience tonight is Dan
Herbst. Mr. Herbst is a developer as interested party in the property to the west of the school
site and then we have an update, land development status on the O'Shaughnessy property,
14
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"....,
r"
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Galpin Boulevard, 6(a)(2) so I would recommend that you move to that item at this time.
LAND DEVELOPMENT STATUS REPORT. O'SHAUGHNESSY PROPERTY.
GALPIN BOULEVARD.
Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item.
Dan Herbst: Good evening Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. My name is Dan
Herbst. The property is owned by Betty O'Shaughnessy. I'm the contract purchaser. After
meeting with staff and your guided plan which appears the site is very, a good site for a town
house type of project versus a single family or commercial type development so I am not in
the housing business anymore. We've done that for about 30 years and I'm basically doing
land development now so I came to Centex which I feel is one of the big premiere townhouse
builders in the city right now. Trying to encourage them to develop this site. It's a very
difficult one, as you know looking at the land arithmetic there. It's about 90 acres of land
that we're developing down to about 29 buildable acres with Highway 5 right-of-way. Galpin
right-of-way. Here's the collector street. An excessive amount of wetlands. We did our
own wetland analysis which was actually greater than what the city has on their behalf so the
park issue has been a big question mark for us. We, at one point in time were going to try to
develop the entire property. Sell off the southwest comer to the Trotters Ridge, is that the
name of it? Then further discussions with Todd, the site had some appeal to you people for
more of a passive and observation type area. So we've taken that off of the plans and then
we really didn't know exactly what the soils were like out in that middle nodule out there. I
thought Dan Blake was going to be here tonight with some of our graphics...road crosses the
wetland. There's a 8 or 9 acres of property there. Then Todd had some interest in looking at
that for some park space. Moving that off of the Opus piece onto this one and we sent...up
there. We did not gain access from the western property, which is the Opus and the Steiner
piece so we couldn't get out there with our heavy duty rig. We've got some real satisfactory
borings up on the hill where we want to put the townhouses and out in that island we did
hand borings. They weren't as bad as we thought they were but they're at a point where we
need to get out and do some good borings. As Todd mentioned in your report, I think other
cities have used that type of land for park. It's hilly. It's got some trees on it. It's kind of
an isolated piece. It's got a lot of very pretty property so at this point that's kind of a
question mark. It's if we could get some direction from you whether we should proceed with
attempting to look at developing that out there or whether it could be an open space for a
park type of piece. From a development point of view, I think the Planning staff would
probably see it as you know commercial kind of to the west. Kind of some of your parkland
to the west of that with a node of housing and then wetland again and then back to housing
again so it does create a little bit of an island effect. So I think it definitely has some, either
private or public park use out there but most of the soils would, we're encouraged with the
hand borings. If we do the field test and get a great big readout there, I think there's some
15
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
-'
potential for putting housing out on that site. But again, it's a difficult property to say the
least to make everything work. So the more direction we can get from you. Whether you are
going to drop the utilization of that island totally as any use for park, or whether there's some
consideration for it and would help us out So we're basically looking for direction at this
point.
Schroers: Okay, thank you very much. Basically we're looking at an overview of the entire
area there, including the Opus site and we're trying to see how it's going to blend in to form
a workable, fluid type of park system. I know that we have considered a trail system of some
sort running through the area and without having this information in front of us, the
overheads and things here to look at, it's going to be rather difficult for us to say right now
that we defmitely want to retain that island parcel for park. We need to see that along with
the overlay for the Opus property and see how that fills in and then also we have not, to this
point, been able to come to an agreement I believe with Opus as to what property we are
actually going to be able to acquire for parks. So there are a bunch of unanswered questions
and I'm not sure if Todd went to get us some information to look at right now or not.
Dan Herbst: I apologize. We should have brought all our graphics along but I think what
you're saying Mr. Chairman is the same position we're in. What's going on with Opus has
been rotating and as far as you people have been rotating. We have a collector's street
through this site that moved.
....",I
Schroers: It doesn't really seem fair to have to be tied up by another development but.
Lash: Can you...so we can get our bearings?
Hoffman: Sure. The Highway 5 to the north. Galpin Blvd then is right along this side of
the diagram of the school site. Then coming off over here up in this comer. The
O'Shaughnessy property runs from Galpin to the west to this line right here. The area which
is being looked at for the townhomes would be the high ground to the north of the new
collector road which is coming through. This is that intersection point we talked about. The
road coming from the school will intersect here and traverse the site east to west over to the
Opus parcel into the road pattern over on that side.
Lash: Okay, and Opus starts where?
Hoffman: Opus starts right here and goes to the west. The Trotters piece is right now in this
location. They're even a little farther south. Actually quite a bit farther south. The
O'Shaughnessy property goes all the way from here down to about the bottom of your screen.
16
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Lash: So actually when you were talking about the...to put homes in there, it wouldn't be on
the passive area of the park, it would be right where that shows the ballfields.
Hoffman: Yeah. In essence what Dan was asking is if we put buildings there instead of this
active park, the buildings instead of the active park would be right in the middle of your
passive area. You know it's passive all the way around here. Would the Park Commission,
you know would you have a problem with that or would that bother you? This diagram does
show the 3 locations of the hand probes which were done by SDS. Soil consulting. So the
fIrst probe was here. The second here. The third was down here. These are the two hills
that Dan referenced and they are treed with, fully treed with box elders and this hand probe
here, the soils aren't bad. There's some type of low...they weren't bad but the soils out in
this area are not the best and getting this road through is going to be difficult. You can see
how the site lays out. With this being wetland and this being wetland, something tells you
there's nothing going on inbetween there and even though it's a little bit higher, it's got those
two knolls on it where the soils aren't the best. So these would be the locations for the
townhomes up in the northeast comer and then along this side down in here.
Roeser: A question I have is how does this map tie into what we've got in front of us?
".....
Hoffman: Okay. What you've got in front of you, there are two alternative park locations.
One being located right in this comer. So it takes, this is the Opus property, this little square.
Right here. So it includes that and then travels to the west and you can go like this to the
property as part of the active park site. That's where those are located.
Roeser: So the road on top is really this new collector road that's coming through there then?
Hoffman: Yes. This road on top would be this new collector road coming down. This is the
intersection on both of those plans plus that intersection...build a park in that confIguration
either. You still have this...low lying area down in here and you can see they've identifIed
their ponding down here.
Lash: Okay, the way that's laid out now, is that, the amount that's on the Opus property is
that in line with what we can require for dedication or is that over and above what we can
require?
Hoffman: As I referenced in the Opus site, what they have identifIed on their initial concept
plan, approximately 18 acres, is just about what you can acquire through dedication.
Anything additional, if you went with one of these other two concepts, we would have to
compensate Opus for that additional property.
,.....
17
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
....""
Lash: But what does that?
Hoffman: This site, this plan right here represents the original, just about the original plan
from Opus. So again we need to make that split. That's Opus, this is Pemtom, and the
O'Shaughnessy property. H we leave this behind and allow the applicant to make their own
mind up as to what they'd like to do with it.
Lash: Well if we did that we'd have nothing because there's not enough property from Opus.
Hoffman: Correct, we'd have to go out and buy it. Incorporate it into a ~ increment
financing plan. As address, particularly in my staff comments tonight, the city...tax increment
districts are no longer as slush as they used to be. There's a lot of competition for dollars. It
is expensive property. We can go elsewhere. My comments back to the city planners is that
I don't see anybody coming back and criticizing the city for going out and getting the
property in 10 or 15 years. I don't think that's the case. But one potential discussion, area
of discussion is north of Highway 5. There will be considerable residential properties and
pretty high densities by the time you get done with the new frontage road and all the housing
that would go in there. There's a study area. A very large study area north of here. And
there will be all that property south of that big wetland which is the Rogers-Dolejsi property.
We've got that big wetland that splits the Song and Rogers-Dolejsi to the north to this
property that will develop to the south. But locating some type of community or regional
recreation area south of that wetland makes a lot of sense. But then you're isolated by
Highway 5. So do you need an active community park site here to meet the needs of the
neighbors, the residents who can get to it and to meet the needs of the employees in the
business center. Or with that passive trail, are they going to be happy? So we kind of
overlap in the two here because they do, but whatever the direction the Commission could
give both the applicants and staff...would be appreciated.
...",.,
Lash: So if we were to pursue a plan that was like that. We've got part on Opus. Part of
O'Shaughnessy and the two together would both fill the requirement of what, the maximum
that we could require for dedication from both developments? Or would it still cost us
money to do that?
Hoffman: O'Shaughnessy we would have to be compensating the land purchaser. We would
be buying that property which would be over and above what we typically would use...
Schroers: By how much?
Hoffman: It's hard to say. I mean we're obviously the value of that land is in question so.
18
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Dan Herbst: It's going up as we get less land.
Lash: But acreage wise, is it an acre? Is it 10 acres? Is it, how many acres would it amount
to?
Roeser: Isn't the question though, total acreage for the total park area. Isn't that covered by
the whole development of all the properties around it? I mean we wouldn't have to buy
additional.
Hoffman: The park requirement, which would be, which is generated by the development of
the O'Shaughnessy property. We're talking 15 acres here. A lot of wetland which we do not
give credit for. Some high ground down on the south that would probably be up to 18-20
acres. That site most likely generates how many acres?
Dan Herbst: Total?
Hoffman: Yeah.
IfII""'"
Dan Herbst: 232.
Hoffman: 232 so 600 people. Something of that nature. Probably 6 or 8 acres so you'd
probably have at least double that. Double or triple. By the time we get done with the
calculation. How many residents per unit. One acre per 75 residents.
Lash: Well, I want to look at this, the whole general locality of this and having just had that
school site where Todd you've got hockey there. We could have open skating. We're going
to have tennis. There's going to be several pretty nice playgrounds hopefully. Five fields...
for youth and then not adults but that's a lot of active equipment right in, I think in pretty
close proximity to this. And if this is going to cost us another chunk of money to get this
little piece to put in a couple more adult ballfields, I don't know. We're just so short on
money and so on and the needs, that especially from commercial property, if we decided to
go back and just get the fees from Opus and then look on the north side of TH 5 when
something else comes in. Maybe we'd be better off. I don't know. This is a tough one. I
agree. We'll never be criticized for taking too much property but in the end if we end up
shooting ourselves in the foot and we can't develop anything because we don't ever get any
money, we're going to have a lot of complaints there too.
Hoffman: ...somebody else is living by the park to protect...
,....,
19
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
......"
Lash: But you know, like you said. The TIP money is starting to peter out and maybe one
of the things that we need to look more at using that TIF money for is the underpass and
ways to access the park that we know we are going to have and make sure that we get that
trail connection that we need.
Schroers: I guess there's a lot of different things to consider here. I'm not so sure that
residents of the O'Shaughnessy development would want to have to cross a major road to get
to facilities and I kind of like the way it ties in with the proposed parkland that we have with
Opus. I wish that we knew a little bit more about what actually was going to happen there.
To have the two parcels tied together and end up with a good sized, basically a park system
down there would be a nice amenity and it would serve a total different purpose than what is
proposed at the grade school.
Lash: Well it would be adult ballfields. Other than that I don't see that...different. If the
plan shows tennis for the plan, I don't know what all is planned.
Schroers: Well I think it would serve the adult community and the industrial commercial
community there as well so that we would be catering basically to different types of users and
different age groups.
Lash: What other things do we have to the south of this area? There's a couple housing
developments down there too aren't there?
...."
Hoffman: Well you run right into Chaska if you go west..and Trotters Ridge development is
there and then the next closest park would be down on Hans Hagen.
Lash: So what are we putting in at Trotters Ridge?
Hoffman: Trotters Ridge would be acquired...that little triangle of property up there for the
preservation which came in. It was really a knoll that you...from Trotters, O'Shaughnessy
over to Opus and thaf s for preservation.
Schroers: Thaf s that nice hardwood oak.
Lash: And thafs just a passive?
Hoffman: Yeah. We still will preserve this wooded area here. This wooded wetland if you
will for passive and incorporating that trail. Part of the concept for this active parking point
with the trail head so this is significant enough that people want to drive through there to
walk this 3/4 mile loop around that wetland. If s very serene. Very beautiful. The area is
20
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
full of wildlife. A lot of people want to go there. We still could incorporate that up in this
top side somewhere with the parking lot and the trail head and if you imagine, let's say that
they developed this. Do the soil corrections into homes, this could be multi-family units and
the trail would then pass down in front of those along the wetland and down and make the
loop around the other way. But again the Park Commission has pretty much at this time
dismissesd this because of the soil problems there. If you're familiar with Curry Farms, it's a
very similar area and we've filled the ballfield 6 times and it still sinks. We talk about the
nightmare that happen with peat soils and when they filled for the Cub store at TH 7 and TH
41, they surcharged those peat soils in there and they had a big mountain come up somewhere
way out in the wetland. You push down over here, it has to come up somewhere. I'm not
sure that's, I'm not trying to insinnuate that that's what would happen down here but those
soils are questionable.
Lash: So we potentially use up all the funding we could generate from Opus and Centex plus
use up some TIF money plus use up some of our budget money to ultimately develop this
someday and it could be on a chunk of land that isn't even going to accommodate a ballfield
anyway.
,.....
Hoffman: Correct. If the Park Commission wants to pursue this, from a city level I would
want to hire some intensive, more comprehensive soil borings. You couldn't get in from the
west, coming in here?
Dan Herbst: I think both sides with the...
Roeser: Is the issue with that area there, if we didn't want to spend the money to, even if it
could be brought up to a level that would be acceptable, that they would be able to put
houses on there? Wouldn't they have to spend a lot of money to be able to do that? And is
the question there whether they can even do that or whether it would be feasible?
Hoffman: Sure. I think what Dan was asking is, before they went down that road, started
investigating that and then have the Park Commission say, ah. Hold it. If you're really
serious about this, we don't want you to do it. So before they invest that time, and I think if
he wants to receive and opinion of the Park Commission... We don't care if you can do
$50,000.00 worth of soil corrections to get the buildings in. Maybe that's in your margin. It
probably doesn't fit in the park's margin to build a park.
Lash: And there's going to be 232?
Dan Herbst: That's correct. If we were to build out on this, otherwise it would be around
180. Up on the higher end.
fill""'-
21
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
......",
Lash: Well the more I'm hearing about this the more I'm leaning towards and ultimately
what we'll maybe do is get a little chunk of property so we could put in maybe just some
kind of a open field and a play structure or something so like Larry said, you don't have
people with, in 232 homes there and Trotters Ridge too, all having to cross Audubon to get to
any kind of a park facility. I guess I'd be interested in knowing what the service area of the
elementary school. How far that would dip into this and the Trotters Ridge area just to make
sure that we're, we wouldn't be shorting them if we just passed them altogether. But I guess
maybe I would envision something there. I don't know how big of a park area but.
Schroers: I don't know why it would have to be the whole area there that we proposed.
What if we just took the normal dedication. What would be the normal dedication so that we
didn't have to make additional purchases and that would probably be enough land to develop
some kind of a neighborhood park that would have a totlot and maybe some open field play
area but not, wouldn't contain adult softball fields and then also acquire the trail easement so
that we can do that trail but not have to make a land investment out of our budget.
Lash: What kind of acreage would we be talking about?
Schroers: Didn't you say like 6 or 8 acres?
Lash: No, not for that. If we just wanted to have a trail head and a playground and a place
where a person could play catch or fly a kite or something like that.
.....,;'
Hoffman: The Commission's neighborhood standard for a neighborhood park again is about
10 acres. We've gone under that. We've kept at 10 acres for the Minnewashta park. We've
gone under that for the Stockdale purchase at about 6 acres.
Lash: A neighborhood park is usually 10 acres?
· Schroers: 5 acres.
Lash: 3 acres.
Hoffman: 10. Minimum of 10. Comprehensive plan. We have come down below that but
it's where you begin to talk about, it's for economics of scale. Whether you want a whole
ton of little tiny parks out there. To answer your question about the service area. The school
site is just across the street. You could probably see it from a majority of these units. There
will be a stop light semiphore at Galpin and Highway 5 which will allow you to cross to get
to the school site. The interior collector road, I'm not certain there will be a stop light there.
Dan, do you know?
22
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Dan Herbst: I haven't heard.
Lash: There will be someday.
Hoffman: Yeah, with the school access.
Roeser: Will that be a 4 lane road then probably? Or not?
Hoffman: Audubon?
Roeser: Galpin.
Hoffman: Galpin? It will be upgraded. I'm not sure if it will go to 4 lane but with the
school there, so you'll probably have two stop lights there to be able to get back and forth to
the school site.
Lash: How about Trotters Ridge?
,~ Hoffman: Those people will have to come up the trail system.
Lash: But would they be within the service area of the elementary school?
Hoffman: Yes.
Schroers: At this point in time Centex does not have a concept plan so we could see the way
that this development is laid out.
Hoffman: You should have a concept plan that was, it was presented to the Park Commission
at a conceptual level. Tonight's information is merely an update in response to going to the
ongoing design of the project...
Lash: And what kind of, from Opus, which is not...but what kind of fees would that generate
if we didn't take land dedication?
Hoffman: As you recall on Opus, the original concept showed, indicated approximately 18
acres of heavily wooded knolls going into low lying areas. That meets their dedication. If
you say I don't want that, then it will, that 150 acres at $3,000.00 per acre, $450,000.00.
Lash: But the treed areas, if they take that, that 18 acres doesn't even include this park here?
~
23
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
.....,,'
Hoffman: No, the 18 acres incorporates all.
Lash: All the different
Hoffman: It starts in this area and then it goes down and hits the fringe areas. This big knoll
here and then there's one to the south. Those are all within the park boundary and those are
all heavily wooded. Old growth knolls which, as you recall when they were in they said we
preserved the most beautiful property on the site. Well, yeah they have no interest in going
in there and tearing up trees. They'd like to see it preserved for the site as well. But if you
don't take it into park and public ownership, you don't have it forever so.
Lash: So all that's shown that's developed into park there, we were going to have to pay for
anyway? That was above and beyond what we could require.
Hoffman: Over here?
Lash: Right.
Hoffman: Yeah, then we cross the boundary and then we're dealing with the other applicant,
the O'Shaughnessy property.
...."
Lash: No, but the park that's shown there that's developed, that's Opus. That part right
there. We were going to have to pay.
Hoffman: This.
Lash: Yes. We were going to have to pay for that anyway?
Hoffman: No. No. That's what their original concept says is the about the 18 acres.
Lash: That's part of the 18?
Hoffman: Yep.
Lash: Okay. So we could have some land, some cash?
Hoffman: If you wanted to.
Lash: If we skipped this altogether and all we kept from Opus was just the treed areas, we'd
still preserve all the treed areas. We wouldn't be buying any property but part of, the 18
24
.....",
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
acres is less than what we could actually require?
Hoffman: No. The 18 acres is just those treed areas that they established in their original
concept plan. Just preservation. It did not account for any active park space. Then we
started asking them for additional property in this area. To the west to create an active park
and thal's when Howard Dahlgren was here saying, no. Absolutely not. We can't do that
And that kind of went on the back burner and in came Pemtom and Centex and we started
looking over here and we said ah-ha. This works kind of nice until the soils came in. Then
we went back onto the Opus site. Did some more concepts. None of those work real well.
They're always, they had some soil problems again down here. Then you run into the cost of
purchasing the property.
Roeser: Is there any, just getting back into the history of this. I seem to recall a discussion
about some type of adult park, in terms of ballfields. Access for corporate ballfields. I mean
is that just some early discussion? Is there any precedent behind that that we had planned or
intend somehow to get those in there? Or are we coming to a certain reality now that maybe
that isn't what we should be doing there?
......... Hoffman: That was one of the premises which the discussion was based.
,~
Roeser: Yeah. And has that changed at all? It looks to me like the conditions of what we
have to work with just don't allow for that in terms of the land.
Hoffman: They're not optimum, no. We certainly can make it happen as we travel down the
roads trying to point out the areas which we...The thing to consider in here, area of growth in
our adult athletics or adult recreational facilities is...we've Bandimere which is targeted for
use...so the squeeze at Lake Ann as we continue to grow and we don't have another adult
facility, community park if you will identified. Now maybe that goes north of here so as you
come down the Highway 5 corridor you start at Lake Susan. You hop to the north of
Highway 5 at Lake Ann and then you hop to the south of Highway 5 at the school. Then
you'd hop once more to the north up in this area, what we call the Fleet Farm area. You
have a pretty nice community park system along a major corridor where people can feed into
it from the north and south and the east and west along that new collector. That last one
could be a community park which would facilitate and handle these adult type activities with
lighted ballfields and there's a lot of cars, a lot of traffic which you probably could do a lot
on that frontage road. That access boulevard. That seems to work out but as we've always
said, why we pass up opportunities, looking in the future, you have to make sure that that
future comes true.
".....
25
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
...."
Lash: I'm looking when the new elementary site's done, it's going to take a little of the
pressure off of Lake Ann because right now we've got some of the youth ball at Lake Ann.
A couple fields anyway. So once that opens and they can move to the new elementary site,
we have two more fields.
Hoffman: It will free up a little bit but the fields normally used for that older age group, so
if you...Field #1 is used for the Babe Ruth level so we know Babe Ruth...Field #2 is used for
official Little League. There's no official Little League at the new elementary school.
Lash: Well what would it take to have official Little League there?
Hoffman: Put in a mound, backstop and...fence.
Lash: So would that be that big a deal?
Berg: You'd be losing a soccer field or two that way. If you put a mound in.
Lash: Oh yeah.
Schroers: I guess that I don't feel real comfortable in giving direction this evening as far as
how Centex should proceed with their development when we don't really know what it is we
want to do there yet Basically what it comes down to is that we're kind of waiting on Opus
to see what's going to happen there and that's I believe what ultimately affects what we
would like to do on the O'Shaughnessy property with the Centex. I think it's difficult right
now to advise someone to go ahead and make an investment when we're in a position and
we're not sure about what we want to do there. I mean that's, I feel like I'm not sure about
what we're going to do there and so...
..."."
Roeser: My opinion is that, to build another major, big active area so close to another active
area, and I understand that they're two different areas. One's adult and one's youth, is
questionable that you'd want to put two areas that close to each other. The adult piece of it
is, the lands I think are pretty suspect and the only problem that I could see. A problem I
could see is the funds available to develop someplace else. You're going to have to come up
with these funds if you want to put in a corporate or an adult sized facility someplace else
and is that going to be any less or more than putting it in right here?
Schroers: And the other question is, is the space for that going to become available?
Roeser: Right.
26
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"
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Schroers: That's what we don't know. We could say let's just accept the park dedication
fees and we'll just develop a trail in there and identify it as a passive use. Natural area and
let it go at that and that would be nice and that would be easy. I think it would be a
desirable thing to have and to leave that area down there nice without putting ballfields and
stuff in it. That would be nice too and then we would have the dedication fee. Well, we
wouldn't have the dedication fee but we would get the trail in but then what we are banking
on is that something else out in that area, probably to the north of Highway 5, is going to
become available and a large enough parcel that's going to allow us to develop another adult
facility that's going to accommodate the future needs. And I guess I don't think that we
know for sure whether or not that opportunity is going to present itself.
Meger: Todd, where does the Stockdale property fall in relationship to all of this?
Hoffman: It's directly north on Galpin. Just about a half a mile. So you hit the intersection
of Highway 5. Continue north about a half a mile. Up here. Continue north and then it's on
the same side, the west side.
Lash: We know we're never going to be sure that we're going to get the property but it was
June or something when Opus came in the first time and at that time we didn't know
anything about the O'Shaughnessy property coming in. We didn't know anything about any
of these things coming in and we were so nervous at that time that we couldn't count on that
Well we know that almost all that land out to TH 41 is coming in for development. So I
don't think we have to be too worried that it's not going to come on line for development for
us to get some property on the north side of TH 5. It may cost us some money to get it to be
as large as what we want. There's probably not going to be one development coming in that
would be big enough that we could have that much property dedicated but if it's all coming
in at one time, we have a better shot at trying to coordinate the location and the dedication of
more than one development, like we were trying to do here but maybe end up with a more
prime piece of property that would suit our needs more than a questionable one like this.
And it would maybe be a larger site that we could have 4 fields on instead of 2. You know I
look at 2 as being a little bit isolated. If you want to make it a youth, or more of an adult
complex than trying to get 4 fields in or something. And maybe we don't have to feel we're
completely locked into Bandimere being a youth complex years down the road. Maybe we
want to change Lake Ann and have that be a youth complex and have Bandimere be an adult
one as long as we're starting to, you know if we have Little League already set up at Lake
Ann. That's money already invested there. So maybe we need to look at this as being a
little more flexible in the future and going with it as we can and if this isn't a prime piece of
property for putting ballfields, and we don't really think it's a prime location, then maybe we
should pass on this and focus a couple of months down the road when we know the other
things are going to be coming in.
27
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
..""
Hoffman: What the Commission does need to remember is that you are the planning group
for the parks in the city. If you don't want to wait for it to develop. If you want to instruct
us to go out there and buy the property and find out how much it costs and bring it back...
it's going to cost this much. We could finance it over 10 years or we have to do a bond
issue to buy this property. Then we can go out there and be proactive. We can get right into
the hop with everybody else and go out and purchase the property. Next meeting we will be
picking up the comprehensive plan issue again so we can start right in this area and try to
identify what property is available. What would be suitable for an active community park
site. How much would it cost? There's no surprise that it's costing a heck of a lot more
than purchases we made at Bandimere of approximately $6,000.00 an acre. Lake Ann
expansion, was purchased back when the market fell out. The property owners reverted
back to the bank... City Manager Ashworth relayed a story where we was tentative to
purchase it because it was at that high interest rate. He said, if I have to carry at this high
interest for 4, 5, 10 years, why should I be carrying it. But today you couldn't touch that
porperty for $30,000.00-$40,000.00 an acre and that's just been 8 or 10 years ago. So we
are, our money does not go nearly as far so we have to face that fact. We have to go out
there and especially in the Highway 5 corridor, identify what we want to buy and pick it up
now because as we talk about acquiring it through dedication, it's going to be, you're going
to get a fourth or less of it through dedication. You're going to have to come up with the
cash to buy the rest of it.
...".,
Berg: I guess I've been leaning towards waiting and seeing what we could get out of Opus.
What we could do with Opus is a better way. You make a real good point about looking at
priorities of what we've already set aside. Maybe we do have to look down the line at
Bandimere and changing the emphasis from youth to adult. And maybe we do have to look
at the possibility of acquiring property to the north. I think that's the ideal spot to go because
the concept of Highway 5 being the center corridor for all of these complexes is really
exciting...
Hoffman: If you want to wait until we see what happens on Opus. Well they're waiting to
see what you're going to do on Opus so if you want a park at Opus, tell me and I'll tell
them. Then they go on. If you just want the passive area, tell me that and I can relay that to
Opus but if we continue, I mean it's been 2 years. We've continued on this cat and mouse
game and again parks is just one of the issues. In fact the acreage which would be calculated
in the park dedication may decrease because of the deals which are being cut west of TH 41
with the Arboretum. And if they bend over to such a degree on that side. We lose the
capability to assess park dedication against that property, then we're down to 120 acres and
then you can get 12 acres of property. So we do need to tackle this. Staff needs to know
your position in that regard. We've brought forth 3 concepts for an active park site. Do you
like that? Do you want to throw it out the window? Do you want to tell them to throw all
28
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
park dedication out the window and take the cash at $3,000.00 per acre for park dedication
and use the money elsewhere? As you recall, the reason for going after those wooded knolls
was always a big passive treed area which boy, that was a big...with the Park Commission
and the Planning Commission about 8-10 months ago. We can't just all get a lot of active
park sites. We need to preserve some trees for the future of our community so that's where
that came in and as Mr. Herbst eluded to, they actually showed a cul-de-sac coming up in
there so you're not servicing that entire area. Cutting down trees and the Park Commission
said no, we don't want to see that. Go out there and acquire that land. So you already have
played your card in that regard. We're going to have to acquire some of that. On the Opus
site it's probably 4 or 5 or 6 acres. So you're already halfway there in your dedication.
What do you want to do with the rest? Burn it up or do you want to take some cash?
Lash: Are they going to come back to us if we come up with a different idea, direction we
want to go? Is that going to alter their plan do you think? That they'd come back with
something new?
Hoffman: On Opus? It should.
,.... Berg: I'd like to explore the possibility of money and passive. I'd like to see how realistic
that is.
Manders: ... be leaning towards a passive facility and preserving the knolls.
Hoffman: It's key to that whole passive area there. Those knolls that we're talking about,
that's right where the trail is coming up on this side. The knoll to the south of this one and
then it goes over into the comer of the O'Shaughnessy piece. The diagram for it but you've
already said, don't..that. We want that. You've already said you want 4 or 5 or 6 acres,
depending on how much you can get. You also need this property up here so, as you can see
there's a break out...to the last page in the packet. The total park dedication for the Opus site
as proposed originally was 32 acres. The high and dry was about 18.8 so we're at, we're
maxed out at that point. If you want to start chiseling away and say we don't want this, we
don't want this little piece. We want that little piece and what you're going to do with...this
little sliver up here right next to this wetland. You know squeezed in here, even though it's
high and dry...you know will come down to that type of a negotiation. Right now if you
want to say you want to cut that in half, you're going to take some cash here, that would
change both their plan and it would change our vision.
Lash: I guess before I'd want to really go too far with that, I'd want to see the plan again.
Their whole plan so we can see exactly which areas amount to the 18 acres and what's on
those areas but I guess I would be leaning towards the other commissioners who voiced their
,....
29
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
....",
opinion. That with this idea, I think I'm to the point where I'm ready to scrap that concept
and go, stick with the passive and I guess I would like to see staff come up with some
alternatives on the north side of m 5 that we can explore. If we're going to work on the
Comprehensive Plan so we can pick what we think will be a prime site. That we know the
soils are conducive for an active area and will accommodate what all we want and then what
we have to do is earmark that so as everything comes in, we know exactly which comer of
each little development we need to grab to make it all come together.
Hoffman: Okay.
Schroers: If I remember correctly, as far as Opus was concerned, the last time we identified
what it was that we wanted and gave it back to them and the ball is pretty much in their
court They have not come back to us with a response or a revision of their concept or a new
plan or a new idea. So I had the feeling that the ball was in their court and we were kind of
waiting to hear from them to see what their response was going to be. So we don't really
know what is going to happen there. We don't know what they're going to come back with.
It seems to make sense when we take everything into consideration. That the soils are poor
and that it lends itself very well to being a natural passive area. And it's a much more
doable thing than trying to make an active use facility. But actually we're reverting right
back to, we're actually contradicting ourselves. That's what was proposed to us pretty much
in the first place and we said no. We didn't want it. This is what we want. We need an
active adult facility in this part of town. We were, we came across very solid with that point
and now here we are a few months down the road changing course totally and basically
saying we want what they offered in the first place.
...."",
Roeser: Well you just say it was the new members that forced this.
Lash: I agree. It doesn't make us look good but we didn't have any information on soil
conditions.
Schroers: We can say that and we also didn't know exactly was going to come in and we
didn't know what was going on at the elementary school and there were a lot of unknowns at
the time. There were a lot of changes.
Lash: Given what we knew at the time, we made the best decision that we could. Given
what we know now, we now have a lot more information than we had at that time so if we
want to go back and change that recommendation, personally I don't have a problem with that
because nothing's been carved in stone. Opus...! don't think invested a lot of money or time
into doing anything towards our recommendation. It sounds like they've just been sitting
around waiting anyway. So I don't, I guess I don't have a problem with it
30
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Berg: I don't have a problem because I don't feel like we've been pressured to come to this
decision. I think we've taken our time. We've looked at what's developed with the new
school site. We've looked at the soil samples, etc. We've come to the conclusion that this is
not the best for the city. There isn't any pressure from any outside sources. I don't like
giving in either if I feel like I'm really losing or giving in...we're making more of a...decision
now than we were able to make before.
Schroers: Yeah. I don't feel that we're giving in either. I'm just pointing out the fact that
we're doing a 180 here and that I don't have a problem doing it provided that we have some
validity and some support behind us for making a complete turn around in midstream.
Berg: And I wouldn't be willing to do the 180 until we get some information from staff too
as to what's available north of Highway 5.
Roesers: The reasons are good. The soil is bad, you know and the elementary school is
going in. Certainly for changing our minds, the reasons are good I think.
Schroers: Actually the property, most of the property north of Highway 5 is a higher
,,-.. elevation and would probably not run into the problems with the wetland and the soil as
much as on the south side of Highway 5. When that property becomes available and in what
sizes and all that, but you know what we have to do is go back to the plan and identify an
area and we're pretty much going to have to get on that course and stay on that course. If we
start making these decisions and we give up opportunities like this, where there is adequate
space available even though it's not ideal and perfect, we're going to have to stay focused
and realize that we are then on a mission and we are going to need to identify some space
and we may have to take some aggressive action in order to acquire it.
Lash: We'll have to be real proactive on the north side instead of just being reactive. So
they're just wrapped into each development as it comes in. We've got to have the plan
before each development comes in.
Hoffman: You're correct that they didn't respond so we went out and did our own
investigation. We took some plans of the Opus site and then O'Shaughnessy came in and as
you recalL.the consultant planner for Opus designed the whole park over on the
O'Shaughnessy property so there you go. There's your park. And at the time we said, well
that's probably not your area to design the park on another property but then it came in and
we said, maybe it will work. So we said, let's take a look at it. We took a look at it and
designed this and in fact, no. It's probably not, the water...The City of Chanhassen and many
other communities, older communities in particular, have acquired a lot of this property over
the years and have a very hard time in...active spaces sO...we've done our own analysis.
",....
31
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
...."I
Inside our own...1ook elsewhere and it's not a suggestion. This came from the Planning staff
and out of staff meetings with Opus. As we get farther down in negotiation, things are going
to get tougher. Resources are going to get scarce and if this is something you really want,
they'll stick by us. Management will stick by the Park Commission. They stuck by you in
the CBC property. They went out and acquired that woods using tax increment dollars to
preserve park fees as part of the CBC so we've done this on other sites.
Lash: What's CBC?
Hoffman: Chan Business Center. The triangular development with the Weather Service.
Lash: Oh yeah.
Hoffman: The little block of woods down there which the Park Commission said we want
that for passive...saw that the district was amended as a result of your actions in that case to
go ahead and purchase it. And at the same time preserve all the park and trail fees as a part
of that development to come back and use funds. So did the city go back...in those regards.
Larry, I'm glad you brought out that...The fIrst thing I said...Do we want 2 ballftelds? Do
you want this? Do you want this? They didn't respond so we designed it and...
Schroers: The proper course of action at the moment here seems to be the dilemma. I guess
that I am willing, I mean I'm in favor of passive, natural areas for passive use and I am in
favor of that and I guess I would very much support that provided that all the other
commissioners felt strongly about it. But if there are reservations at this point, and we need
more information then I guess that I would welcome an opportunity to look at some more
information before making a real fmn commitment as to what we want to do in this area and
we don't want to mislead developers or anyone else and say, okay. This is what we want to
do and then at the next meeting come up with some new information saying now we don't
want to do this' and somebody's already gone ahead and made a bunch of investment in time
and money and energy. I guess that I would like to be a little bit more sure about what we're
doing before we actually make a real solid recommendation.
...""
Lash: So like what would you want to know?
Berg: I'd like to have some idea if it's just a pipe dream that we're talking about north of
Highway 5 and if that's something that's at least feasible. That's what I'd like to know.
Lash: Is that something you could put, have for us by the next meeting Todd? An applicable
site, possible site to locate it?
32
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Hoffman: Sure. I'm real comfortably today saying that yeah, it's feasible. There's big
chunks of property up there. Fleet Farm has one of them. Dolejsi has another. There's one
inbetween there. Money talks. If you've got the money, we could buy it tomorrow.
Lash: Well the problem is we don't have the money.
Hoffman: Correct but we're going to come back to you with a commerciaL.of Stockdale's.
That went out to David Stockdale today and we're going to spend, we're...our dollars. We're
going to spend some dollars. We're going to purchase it on some type of contract for deed
over the next 2 or 3 years forecasting the incoming park dollars which are coming off the
Song and the other developments there. You can do that. Simply because we're city
government doesn't mean we have the cash...We do finance properties. The Carlson lot and
the referendum. The last purchase of Bandimere was through a referendum. The Park
Commission at that time identified it...
Schroers: Okay the information I want to know is, if we just go with this as a passive park,
what the dedication is from Centex and what the dedication is from Opus and I want to see
how that lays out as a passive park before we recommend it. How many acres do we have?
,..... Where and how the trail is going to run and something that we can look at cohesively as a
commission and say, yes. We like this. We like the way this lays out. We like the way it
looks. It seems very suitable for a passive park and in lieu of all the new information we
received, we think that this is it and we want to pursue rather than the active park that we
had originally thought about. And I would just like to see how that all lays out. Tied in
together with the Centex and O'Shaughnessy and Opus.
Lash: I guess in with that, what I would like to see and I think I mentioned this last time but
nothing new has come in. Is that whole section from say like Audubon or whatever over to
TH 41 and TH 5 down to Pioneer Trail. All of those developments that have come in and
each park that we have put in and if we've got it ear marked to be passive or active and size
and all that. So we're looking at that whole, I don't want to call it a quadrant of the city but
that whole chunk that is all fairly new stuff that's come in for us. So we can see what we've
done and how it all fits together. Make sure we're not missing a piece of that puzzle.
Hoffman: Okay. I've drawn that diagram. It's right on the clock because that was an
issue...
Lash: And then maybe the next step would be to see north of TH 5 from Galpin. Probably
that would be the Song property and the Dolejsi property and where Fleet Farm is and the
other site you mentioned and try to fit that piece of the puzzle in too.
,.....
33
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
...."
Schroers: Is that available in an overlay? Do you have an overhead of that?
Hoffman: Currently?
Schroers: Yes.
Hoffman: I know we had an overhead...
Schroers: Would you want, prefer to do that at the next meeting or would you like to do it
right now?
Hoffman: I think it can wait to the next meeting. It's safe to say for the applicant's
information that the active park site on Pemtom, or O'Shaughnessy is not as desired or are
we going to leave him hanging again?
Schroers: Well...! think what we're saying here is that we are interested, equally interested at
this point in looking at the facility as a passive use only as well as active use depending on
how it fits into the master park plan if you will.
Lash: So you have all your bases covered there now?
....",
Schroers: I'm trying. I'm trying not to make it any more confusing than it has to be but I
think that also we don't want to make a mistake here and go out on a limb and say, okay.
Now we're going to, just like this we're going to do a 180 and this is going to our decision
and then all of a sudden some other new information presents itself and then we're doing
another 180. I guess that I prefer not to operate like that I want to see how, take a look at,
I guess I'm not interested in going all the way over to Lake Susan and to the school and all
that because we know how that's laid out and we've just been through that. But I want to
look at O'Shaughnessy and Opus together and just see how it fits in as far as a passive park.
At least before we decide that we just totally want to forget about any active use in that area.
Hoffman: Do you want to relook at that, because we have done that. We did the master
plan. We looked at that
Schroers: Yeab but we did that in a combination of both active use with a passive. Okay,
now what we're talking about is we're talking about eliminating the active use and having
just passive. I guess that I would like to see what that would look like as a concept plan to
take that entire area that we have proposed for both passive and active and turn it into passive
and see what we've got and see if we're happy with that.
34
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Hoffman: Okay, we have that all on file. What I would simply do, I wouldn't spend any
more money and have us draw another one. I would just put it up there and say, put a piece
of paper over the active.
Schroers: If you want to do that right now, that's fme with me. I don't care.
Hoffman: Okay.
Berg: I'd like to do it the next meeting.
Roeser: I would too.
Dan Herbst: Mr. Chairman, could I ask? I'd like to kind of ask four questions to help me
move forward and then maybe to think about it and you can answer them back to me.
Number one, I guess I want to make certain that the passive corner on the southwest corner,
we were already in a position to sell to Tandem as a foregone item. We were in the process
of selling that piece of land. They were in the process of putting a cul-de-sac down there.
I""" Schroers: Would you point that out.
Dan Herbst: It's not on the site but there is a knoll right down here that Tandem was going
to put a cul-de-sac in and we were negotiating to sell them that property. We were directed
by staff and I believe by the Commission that you wanted that piece so you acquired that or
gave credit to Tandem which really has now has us landlocked. Tandem was going to put
that cul-de-sac. They were going to get 3 lots off that comer so I'm assuming that that's a
given. Right?
Lash: And Tandem is Trotters Ridge?
Dan Herbst: Correct.
Lash: Okay. I can't keep all these names straight.
Dan Herbst: Is that a given?
Roeser: I would say we want to keep that for park space.
Lash: That's the treed.
Roeser: Yes, that's the treed area.
,....
35
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
......,
Dan Herbst: I have an isolated piece of land.
Roeser: Right, yeah I don't see a problem there.
Dan Herbst: Second question. If you had good soils there and if the soils are adequate for
what you want to do there, would you go ahead and acquire that site and develop a park
there? The third question I have, if the soils are not the best for an active park but there may
be some passive considerations there, would the commission consider some type of passive or
smaller use type park there but not the full acquisition. Maybe it's a lesser price. And the
fourth question I have is, if that's completely out of the question, can we look at that for
development purposes? Answering those four really give me a lot of direction.
Schroers: Okay, the second one that you asked. Whether or not, depending on the soils, if
we want to pursue that as a active park.
Dan Herbst: Yes.
Schroers: The answer is, that depends. What happens with Opus. That's kind of where that
one is.
Dan Herbst: It sounded like you worked your way in and you haven't made a definite
decision but it seems to me that there's enough land, passive land on Opus' piece and our
piece that you've already talked about, to meet both of our park requirements. Right or
wrong?
..",.,
Schroers: Yes. I think there is.
Hoffman: Well passive on your's and...
Dan Herbst: Right. And then Opus seems to have met their requirement if you want their 18
acres or total of...so that's an assumption. And then the next step is, if there's good enough
soils there would you acquire that and develop a natural park?
Schroers: That's not what we're talking about right now. Now what we're looking at. What
we're looking at is a passive and that was your third question. Would we develop it as a
passive. That's more what we're thinking about at this point.
Dan Herbst: So this concept would be out then?
Lash: But we wouldn't be developing that whole area as a passive park. We would just be
36
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
developing what is already basically been earmarked.
Schroers: Yeah, basically what would be through there would be a trail corridor is what was
identified in that area.
Lash: It would basically be the treed areas, right? In the south, yeah.
Hoffman: It would be the wetland areas and then a sufficient corridor along that wetland to
get a trail.
Lash: Right. But I mean the wetland isn't part of their park dedication. We don't accept the
wetland as park dedication so it's basically just the treed areas that require anything.
Hoffman: And anything that would be to the north that would be along the wetland and
allow you to get that trail corridor in.
Schroers: Am I right that more than likely what we would be doing is we would accept trail
dedication and then probably fees in lieu of park space. I mean we would be seeking a trail
corridor but we wouldn't be seeking active park use. So we would be dealing more with the
trail part of the dedication rather than the park dedication.
".....
Hoffman: You're taking that bottom comer there as...
SChroers: Okay, so then we're acquiring it for park dedication but we're using, that part
would be a trail corridor?
Hoffman: Correct. And a trail as part of the master.
Lash: And what is their, can I ask them what we could require. 6 did you say?
Hoffman: Somewhere just off of those.
Lash: Okay, so we're looking at approximately a 50/50 split on the O'Shaughnessy between
properties dedication and cash park fees.
Hoffman: Again, we're at the conceptual stage. What you eventually end up with.
Schroers: See that's why it's so hard to answer these questions because we don't know
exactly what it is that we're working with. We're kind of in the same situation you are. You
don't have all the information you need to go forward and we don't either.
,.....
37
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
.....-I
Hoffman: We do set the direction. They're asking what you want to do and you hold the
cards. You and the Planning Commission and the Council. And if you...designate it our job,
my job is getting the information you need to make those decisions and helping you do that.
I know when we review these, we review these conceptually. We reviewed this park. We
need to take a look at the information again fresh, we can do that but that was the answer I
was trying to get out of the commission. If these are good soils, do you want to pursue this?
Lash: But if they're not good soils, then why do we have to try and answer that? Can we
make them good soils?
Hoffman: No.
Lash: Okay so then what's the point in even saying whether we would do it or not. If it's
not doable, then what difference does it make?
Hoffman: Well if you want to do it, you tell me to go out there and fmd out what the soils
are, I'll come back with a recommendation. And say hey, if we want to do that, there's good
soils out there Todd. We want active park.
Lash: But you said it's not good soils.
.....-I
Dan Herbst: This is specs. I think we have to do more tests.
Hoffman: They're bad soils. They're not good soils. Whether or not we would work, to
what extent correction we would need. I think they would be extensive in many areas there.
In other areas...but we continue to say we don't know what is going to happen on the Opus.
Again, you're in the driver seat. You make that, as I explained. If that's your decision, the
City Manager will back you. We'll draw...as we've been chastised for at all those meetings.
We'll continue to do that and we'll go out there and we'll get the property. If you don't
want to do that...
Dan Herbst: Last night we were not allowed to, we weren't voted on because, but in 2 weeks
from now we're going to be before the City Council and the City Council is going to ask
Todd what you intend to do with that piece. We're showing buildings out there now.
Schroers: You're showing buildings on where the ballfields are?
Dan Herbst: Correct.
38
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Schroers: You know I guess we're just throwing this around but I keep coming back to the
same thing. I would like to again see how a passive park would layout between the
O'Shaughnessy property and the Opus development. I would just like to see how the trail
runs and what it would look like as a passive park. What kind of amenities we could offer
there. If it would be enough that it would lend itself to cross country skiing in the winter.
That type of a trail system or if it was only going to be a short nature trail.
Lash: We can't just keep putting this off. This guy's got to, I mean they need to know.
Schroers: Well that's the thing. Todd says we're in the driver's seat and I realize that but
being a driver you have to take some responsibility for how you're driving and I guess that I
don't feel just because you're in the drivers seat you have the right to run someone over.
~
Lash: No, but the question keeps coming back to me. If the soil was good, would we pursue
it? Well yeah, we probably would or we wouldn't have made the recommendation to start
with. But we know now that the soils aren't good so what, I just can't see the point in
continuing to pursue it. If it's something that's not going to work and we can't develop it the
way that we had intended and it was to fill a need, then what's the point in passing up some
possible fees and spending even more city dollars. Whether it comes out of our budget or
. TIP budget or the next5 years or a bond referendum or whatever, what's the point of
spending money on land that's not feasible for park development?
Schroers: That's a good point and you know we wouldn't want to do that but if my memory
serves me correctly, the last time that we addressed this issue, again on the Opus property, I
was left with the feeling that with the grading and the earth work that was going to be needed
to complete it, that an active use facility would be very feasible there. Even knowing that it
isn't the best soils in the world but it would support a ballfield.
Berg: I guess what's swinging it for me more than anything right now is what we didn't
know when we talked to Opus and that's the elementary site. It keeps coming back to me
what Todd said a few minutes ago. Everything within this park that we're thinking about
here and the homes that are going in here, it's going to be within site of the elementary
school. And it's within the use area of the elementary school. Trotters Ridge. Centex. All
of these. I'm just wondering if it's practical to be thinking about an active park that close to
what's going to be a jewel of an active park. I just don't know if that's the most responsible
way to go.
Schroers: I hear what you're saying but I think we're talking about two different parks.
We're talking about an adult park and a youth park here.
,......
39
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
.....,,'
Berg: I agree.
Schroers: So I don't think that we necessarily have to have an adult park there but we have
to have one somewhere.
Berg: I couldn't agree more on that.
Hoffman: Even the few comments I've said were prepared by...group for the total of the
three properties. This is probably about 2 months back. I do have an overhead too. This
fIrst overhead basically...Opus' original concept before the Park Commission, with some
modifIcations. Again, this is the boundary line. Opus' industrial park and then to the east is
the O'Shaughnessy property. So at the time you saw this, Dan was out doing his stuff and
we didn't know anything about it and then they came in the door. ModifIcations that the
Park Commission asked for was, they were a connection over to the street plan in this
location. They made that connection so you'd get on street. And then in your...way you
were trying to get an active park site, if you recall. They said we want to move it over here.
That night was a...we want to match it up here. Absolutely no way will we do that so we
stalmated at that point and then O'Shaughnessy carne in. We came up with these concepts.
We have either one on, however they're labeled there. One on the O'Shaughnessy and one
on the Opus and we continued on down the planning process from there and came up with
the concept back on the Opus piece. The property which we talked about down in this
corner, obviously that's a, this is a common point for all three sites. And so if you will, this
pie right here is a high knoll on the O'Shaughnessy property which Pemtom was going to
penetrate their site, this property line here with a cul-de-sac. Come up. Put a cul-de-sac back
in here and service all this property with homes. That was the meeting where tree
preservation was a big issue. We were active in the Tree Board's issue and we said, no.
Want to preserve that. Take your cul-de-sac away. We took this corner down here from the
Trotters folks. We said this site we want this and we said Opus, as part of this we want this
site. These are the areas which comprised the 18 acres so you've got a high piece of ground
here. Fairly substantial. You've got a high piece of ground here. You've got some high
ground at least as it shows on this plan here. Up to the north in this confIguration and then a
little bit along here. So those areas total that 18.:t. acres which, and then some of this to the...
.....",
Lash: So which of those areas are the tree, the heavily treed.
Hoffman: Heavily treed areas would be that entrance point is very heavily treed down
through here. The creek that comes down through the bottom to feed this wetland. This
knoll. The entire area through here is heavily treed and then this knoll up in here again.
Those are quality trees down on this side. You move up here into the wetland...and it's all
box elder.
40
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Lash: Okay, so what if we ultimately said the one to the south, the better quality trees. Yes,
we'll accept that as park dedication but then the ones that are more to the east and the north,
that we don't really have interest in that.
Hoffman: You can do that. The one, we have a variety of goals which we want to meet. If
we want to have some sort of a trailhead access or a visual impact down into this area, you
would want to preserve this road frontage up here to do that.
Lash: What if that was on the O'Shaughnessy property?
Hoffman: Well, yeah we could, we're back down into the soils and where they want to put
their. They need to gain access onto here for those units as well. For that building there so
we could look at that. So again that plan was developed and all of a sudden we said, we
realized all three properties are in. We should really do something with that passive
recreation area. What are the concepts? And the active area was incorporated into it and we
have those two conceptual plans there.
Lash: Well the chunk up in the northeast corner looks to be like a sizeable piece that would
,....... be really of no use for us. Isn't it?
Hoffman: Northeast? Yeah, that's wetlands.
Schroers: Well you know the way that this lies out, I would imagine that Concept 2 was the
latest and the one that we were waiting for some word back from Opus as to whether or not
they were going to accept that. Is that correct?
Lash: Or was that our fIrst one?
Berg: I think 2 was our last one.
Schroers: If my memory serves me right, we were going with 2 and that was what we
decided to do. So when you look at that and then you look at the proposed active
development for Centex and O'Shaughnessy there, I mean they're not connecting. It
wouldn't be an active use system. It's like two different things. Two different locations
wouldn't it be?
Roeser: Were you talking active use on O'Shaughnessy?
Schroers: Or on Centex. I don't know if I'm following myself or not.
I""""
41
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
-"".
Hoffman: Concept 1. And again, I need to continue to make it clear that it's not a question
of whether or not Opus is going to accept it It's a question of whether or not you want to
mandate it and fight for it in some sort of negotiation and what we would pay them for it..
Lash: We decided they were right after all.
Hoffman: That's why you are governance. You can mandate what you want in some cases.
In other cases...
Lash: So the Concept 2 shows all the park on the Opus property, right?
Hoffman: Correct
Lash: And that property is conducive for ballfields? And that's different property than what
we were looking at for park. So I mean we've already answered our own question
concerning the O'Shaughnessy property haven't we? The Concept 2 was the preferred plan
and it's not even on the O'Shaughnessy property, then what's the problem?
Hoffman: I don't know if that was preferred.
Lash: It wasn't? Oh, okay.
--'
Manders: The reason I said that was I think that was preferred based on some information
about these soil conditions.
Hoffman: Oh sure.
Manders: And so were leaning towards that.
Hoffman: Yeah. Leaning towards Opus.
Manders: Right For that reason.
Schroers: Okay. Before you put this over that, would you put back the one that you had up?
So where are the active use fields on there? Point them out. The same place.
Hoffman: This would be concept.
Roeser: This is concept 1.
42
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Hoffman: Same intent.
Schroers: Did you have an overhead that showed active use on the O'Shaughnessy property?
Hoffman: This one.
Schroers: That's on the O'Shaughnessy property? And the Opus property is to the west?
Meger: I think, piggy backing off what Ian had just said about kind of answering our
question. I don't know, maybe it's just that I wasn't here through all of the discussions but it
seems like we can answer this question from everything that we've seen. At least we can say
that we don't want to pursue an active park on the O'Shaughnessy property based on the soil
conditions. And what we need to decide is do we want to pursue an active park with the
softball fields on the Opus property. So I don't know, it sounds to me like we can give him
that answer but maybe I'm missing something.
Roeser: No, I agree. I think you're right. That's what we should be. If this is the better
place to put the ballpark, on the Opus property right and as far as you know the land is
"..... better. I mean it wouldn't require all the work that it would require on the O'Shaughnessy.
Then it seems to me it's pretty obvious that concept 2, we could tell, yeah. We can go ahead
with, he can go ahead and pursue the soil, or whatever you're going to do with this you
know. Because this is the better of the two concepts. Concept 2 is better than the other one.
Hoffman: Obviously at this point I don't want to muddy the waters. But the thought process
is complex so, it does help if you identify whether or not you want the active park at all
because let's say the property at Opus costs us $35,000.00 an acre. So we're going to spend
$400,000.00 on land acquisition whereas if we buy this swamp land, peat farm for half or less
of that and we have $80,000.00 in soil corrections, this is a better deal if you want a park.
Again, I don't have all the answers for you so before you go on and say, we don't want this.
We want a park here. We want it on Opus...
Lash: I asked if you could make the good and you guys said no. You can't make the soil
good. So what are you saying?
Hoffman: Did I say that?
Lash: Yeah, both of you guys did.
Berg: Yeah, you both did.
""
43
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
....",
Dan Herbst: ...yeah they can be corrected you know. If they can be corrected to hold a
building, they can be corrected to hold a park.
Lash: Well I kind of got the impression that, I don't remember...
Hoffman: I don't know if they can get their rig out there because they couldn't drive out
there. They can't get access to it Right now you'd sink out there. They're going to build a
road through there. Right down in here, if you know Dave Hempel the engineer. He's
bigger than I am but we stand 5 feet apart and he jiggles and I jiggle like jello. I mean that
stuff is water permeated. The water table's at a foot so yeah, you'd have to do soil
corrections but we had that conversation. Well, if you want a park you can't overly dismiss
this site. It wouldn't be my fIrst choice.
Lash: Okay, Jane and I were having a little side conversation here a little while ago. Okay,
sometimes that's when you accomplish the most. What we're thinking is, what we're getting
out of this plan, wherever we put it, is 2 adult fields. Everything else that's in there we
already have on the elementary site. So it's sort of a duplication of facilities. Within a
service area. So that's what's kind of contradictory to our own philosophy here. If we're
going to put in a couple of ballfields for adults, I mean 2 is going to help but 2 is a drop in
the bucket in the overall picture of things in future years. So maybe what we need to do is
just scrap this whole thing. Look north of TH 5. Get a big enough parcel so we can put in 4
or 6 or whatever we think ultimately we're going to need because north of TH 5 we're going
to ultimately have to have a playground and tennis courts and you know whatever over there
anyway so then we're going to have them at the school site. We're going to have them at
this site. We're going to have them right on the other side of TH 5 and they're going to be
getting, the tennis courts especially, will start getting to be lumped pretty close together and
that was contrary to another one of our philosophies. So ultimately what we're getting here
are two adult fields and is that the location that we really want to have them. Or do we want
to have one bigger facility for maintenance wise, parking and everything. Put it all together
in one site and be done with it because we're going to have to put one north of TH 5 anyway
in a few years.
.....-I
Hoffman: Don't get me wrong. I was right on that road with you pulling for this park stuff
here and I'm riding into the...with you so that's again the reason we need to get into that
Comp Plan and talk about work...
Lash: It wouldn't be quite as hard if we all hadn't made a showing at the City Council
meeting.
Hoffman: They've got a lot of issues, don't worry.
44
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Lash: They've forgotten about it.
Hoffman: They'll forget about you like that, and they'll be onto something else.
Schroers: Our feeling was that a development of this size was going to generate it's own
needs and that's why we wanted to have the fields in that location. To accommodate the use
that was going to be right there. That was our intent. That's what we were hoping. If you
recall, we were talking about commercial development of 160 acres. How many softball
teams is that going to generate? Probably quite a few and we could accommodate their needs
right there on site without having to put that extra burden on Lake Ann and that's another
thing that we're talking about now is the timeframe. We're going to be looking for
something in the north and are we going to find something in the north and are we going to
get it developed or are we going to earmark something in the north and go after it
aggressively and get it developed in time to accommodate the need that is going to be there if
and when Opus comes on line and a development the size of Centex homes will probably
generate an additional softball team or two as well. And for the point of clarification here, I
guess in my own mind, I'm a little bit confused. At one point here we're talking about the
O'Shaughnessy property and then the next time we're talking about Centex Homes and they
,.... are in effect one and the same.
Hoffman: Correct. Betty O'Shaughnessy is the current landowner.
Berg: Jerry, I don't know if you can help us at all or not. What kind of effect would the
addition right now of 2 more fields, adult fields have on the leagues? The adult leagues.
Ruegemer: It depends if they're...or not.
Berg: Well let's say they...because we've been talking about that the whole time too.
Ruegemer: You could probably go, you could cut back...and get 4 games a night in on each
site. So adding 16 more teams.
Berg: So 2 is significant.
Ruegemer: It's nice. 3 is better. 4 is better but it would help. If you wanted to just
earmark that for...
Berg: I'm wondering if we could get 3 on that site if we eliminated all the other things we
have listed on there. The tennis courts and the picnic area. The volleyball, etc. On the
Opus site for concept 2.
",.....
45
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
-*'
Hoffman: Yeah, the site's not conducive in there. It's not...mass grading isn't friendly to
that site. In fact that's some of the Planning Commission's directives back to Opus is to be a
little sensitive to the site. Some of those tennis court, play areas, those can be pigeon holed
in here and there but if you wanted 3 ballfields.
Lash: You know part of me, and this might not be, this isn't going to sound compassionate,
for lack of a better word but part of me is having a little bit of a problem with the fact that
Opus wants to come and make a development. Build a development on that property creating
the need for ballfields for the people that they are going to be bringing to that site, yet we are
the ones who are going to have to struggle to find the money to pay them for their property
to put ballfields there to accommodate the people that they're bringing. You know what I'm
saying?
Schroers: What they're going to say is they're not bringing anyone. They're developing the
property and whoever purchases the property and stuff after that are going to be the ones that
are developing. You know that are going to be.
Berg: Bringing the people?
Schroers: Bringing the need, or so to speak. I mean Opus are the developers but they're not
going to be the people who are in business out there. It's not going to be Opus is not going
to end up with 10 softball teams out there.
-*'
Lash: Okay but if I'm a taxpayer, and I am, and I don't understand TIF, like most taxpayers
but I have a better handle on it than most people but I still don't get it. And I'm thinking
that either my tax dollars or some of the TIF money that's getting generated here and there is
going to put in ballfields basically for a couple of industrial leagues that are going to be
playing in a new office park, and I'm thinking that TIF money could have gone to put the
underpass under TH 5 or it could go to, so that people can cross TH 5 or it could go for this
or it could go for that. I'm not as happy with that allocation of the money I guess for some
reason and I'm not quite sure why I feel that way.
Hoffman: The one...of that is if you take your family out for a walk in this passive area,
you've just watered down your argument because the passive area is a community asset.
Lash: But we can get that without paying anything. We can't get these ballfields. We can
get 2 or 3 ballfields here without paying a pretty sizeable amount of money just for the
property, not even counting the development of it and the money to light it and all of that.
We know how much that is.
46
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Hoffman: What the city's mitigation system is set up for is...This is a community asset so
the rest of the community thus can turn around if you will and support the other needs which
are being generated by this development Those being community ballfie1ds. You can make
that argument I don't want to do that
Lash: It sounds petty but I think I've lowered myself to that level.
Hoffman: Do we want to answer those 4 questions and move on?
Lash: Yeah.
Hoffman: Okay.
Schroers: Yes.
Hoffman: Okay.
that plan?
,..... Schroers: No.
The fIrst one we've answered, right? Passive comer.
Number two, if there's adequate soils down there, do you want to pursue
Hoffman: If the soils are not the best, would you consider acquiring it at some level? Either
through dedication.
Schroers: Well, we decided that we would be acquiring the portion that would accommodate
the trail.
Hoffman: Okay. And then they can look at it for development?
Schroers: Yeah.
Lash: They already have.
Hoffman: Got it Thank you very much.
Lash: At least he fully understands how much we struggle.
Dan Herbst: No, I understand your process and it is a complicated issue. That's why we
started out talking and I understand what you're going through and appreciate all the
dialogue... Thank you very much.
I""""
47
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
-"
Schroers: I would love to blow off item 6 all at one point in time. As long as we're still on
it, under the land development status reports. Briefly if we can do 1 and 3 and then hit the b,
c and d just quickly and then move on.
Hoffman: You got it Item 1 is the Song property...P1anning Commission level. The plan
finally arrived in the office on a Thursday morning after Planning Commission. Typically
they walk around the long way to get an update...They had some disagreement with the
recommendation and that confused me at that point because essentially after they were here
that evening they didn't agree with it but they certainly consented to it. Or most of it
anyway...so I called Lundgren Bros. At that time what I recognized as a response when I
called Mr. Forbord was a call back from...presented to you this evening. Mr. Uban. I then
again called Mr. Forbord. Talked specifically about why, at least he can see my opinion.
They went to the Planning Commission and represented themselves differently than they did
so before you...! put this report out and then received a phone mail message today from Mr.
Forbord and he responded he wanted a call back and I received this fax which you have
before you this evening. Essentially I disagreed...conditions on parks. The existing condition
is that we...association park be approved only with the additional amenity of an open play
field 250 x 250 being identified. They still would like to stay with 180 x180. I forwarded
we compromise at 180 x 250. As you can see by their letter, they would still like to stick
with 180 x 180. In regards to the full park fees, again you had continually said that that be
required...paying full park fees. In regard to trails, that's where one change was made. The
existing condition along Galpin was that a 20 foot easement shall be granted. That was based
on a conversation with the County. They indicated they'd like to see...outside of the right-of-
way. Through internal negotiations between the city and the county, that was resolved and
now the trail can go within the county right-of-way with the only easement being necessary at
intersection points...! suggest we make that change accordingly. Item 2 under trails, the
existing condition. That would be the more extensive condition that the applicant shall
mitigate the lands to accommodate for trail construction along the southern boundary of the
Johnson/Dolejsi/I'umer and that they construct that trail. Again, that was the original offer
from the Lundgren Bros to do so. That that trail showing their connection to the street plan
which is obviously you have the trail running...Additionally that evening it was arrived and
the applicant agreed to upgrade the Stockdale property if we acquired that. That has been
qualified to some degree I think in this letter which says, if economically feasib1e...My point
in this case or in this issue is that facing the possibility of the Park Commission of denial of
this application. The applicant offered to provide...that evening. The Park Board said table
this item. We would like to discuss the possibility of an alternative...The applicant, Lundgren
made the offer to build the trail. We would give the easement Then he called and he said,
you know I want to rescind my offer to build the trail. I said well that's an important part of
it and my reasoning is, we know we can get the easements in the rear yard of people and then
try to build a trail at a later date. That's a real nightmare...We talked about that phasing
....,I
48
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
I""""
approach. In fact then Mr. Forbord that night...made that statement that I talked to Parks
Director Hoffman about the construction of the proposed trail and he didn't have a problem
with the proposal. I think his staff report already says that he would like to build that public
trail as development moves in phase. We will be doing one phase and we'd like to build that
public trail along that phase and then when we do the next phase, build that segment of
public trails and then as you go because that's how you're going to be doing the grading.
You kind of build it as you go and I think that's what, I'm not sure, he was talking about
today. Then however it was, and this is what I had the problem with...stated that the
Planning Commission had problems with this and not only do they want you to give them the
land, they want me to build it for them and they want me to grade a park on the Stockdale
and do all these things. We can't afford to do that and all these other things. Again, as you
can see by his letter this evening, he calls that a misunderstanding. Again, I can't quote it
specifically...that's a misunderstanding...They also agreed to construct a trail around the
wetland in exchange for the waiver of trail dedication fees which are equivalent to the cost of
constructing the trail. You need to tell both staff and the applicant if that was the intention.
My reading of that was, they needed to go above and beyond what is normal in order to bring
the commission into the position that you would approve the private park. I guess that's one
area in the presentation...that we give direct compensation if they're going above and beyond
what is required...or reduction in trail park dedication fees. In this case, I did not believe that
to be the case but again the Park Commission needs to make that determination. So that's
the single biggest issue. The construction of that trail. The second issue would be the open
play field. Whether it should be 180 x 250 or 250 x 250...You don't need to take action on
this this evening other than the action which would be to make the recommended changes
which are only two and that would be the reduction from 250 x 250 to 180 x 250 and then
the changing of that trail easement. Then to forward that amended motion to the City
Council and Lundgren Bros will be going to the City Council and then that would be the
forum at which these issues would be addressed. Both from the applicant level and staff
level, from the Park Commission directly to the City Council.
Lash: ...go back to look at the Minutes from the August 24th meeting. I see the quote from
Mr. Forbord. When we, Larry asked about the rough grading of the Stockdale property and
Mr. Forbord's response was, if Lundgren has equipment on the site at the time that the city
would like to have that park developed and graded, we'd be willing to talk to the city to try
to facilitate the most inexpensive way of development. Timing would probably be the key. I
don't interpret that as a current commitment on his part to do the rough grading for free. I
look at that as an agreement to cooperate with us and try to come up with the most
inexpensive way to do it. Although in the recommendations it reads that they would be
required to do the grading. Also in the recommendation it says that we would acquire
easements and the developer would provide construction of a nature trail or the trail around
the wetlands and in lieu of that, full trail fees would be waived. That was just on the Song
,...,
49
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
...""
property. Not the Dolejsi property. That's the way I interpretted it.
Hoffman: Did the condition read specifically should be both the Johnson/Dolejsi/furner and
Song on the waiving of trail fees?
Lash: Is that that amendment be done to the Johnson/Dolejsi/furner development from last
year. Amendment for what? That wasn't for the trail fee. That was for something else
wasn't it? If they wanted an amendment that had to do with them to waive a fee that they
would be charged for.
Hoffman: Yeah, for doing the change.
Lash: Right.
Hoffman: Part of your recommendation is that in recognition for the dedication of the trail
corridor and construction of said trail, it is recommended that the applicant receive full trail
fee credit at the time of building permit application for both the Song property and the
Johnson/Dolejsi/furner application. They would receive full trail fee credits on both of those
and they would need to change potentially the preliminary plat on the Johnson/Dolejsi/furner
and any fees that would be associated with that change...
...""
Schroers: But they were responsible for installing the trail?
Hoffman: Correct. But now they are of the position that they want dollar for dollar
compensation for what it would cost for that construction.
Schroers: No, that wasn't our agreement. Our agreement was that they were going to install
the trail.
Roeser: That's what I thought.
Berg: That was in the motion wasn't it?
Schroers: Yep. So I think that you can inform them that that is our interpretation of what
our agreement was. And I don't know how the rest of the commission feels but I don't know
why we should back off of 250 x 250 at all.
Lash: And by saying 250 x 250, we're not insinnuating that there's going to be active,
organized sports taking place there. He's making that assumption.
50
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~
Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Roeser: Yeah, that was kind of, there was never any indication that the city was going to use
that park for anything.
Lash: We never gave an indication of that. If anything we said exactly the opposite. That
it's our policy not to do that.
Schroers: This is a neighborhood park.
Berg: And we're on record as not using neighborhood parks for the community.
Schroers: With the exception of Meadow Green. I don't know if we have that labeled a
neighborhood park or if that falls into the community.
Manders: I'd be less inclined to be objecting to the 250 x 250 and accept the 250 x 180 but
stand by the need to grade the Stockdale park property. Instead of backing off from that
because we know we're going to have that. Or I guess that's the direction we're going.
Lash: If we back off the 250 x 180. Require the construction of the trail. Require the
I""""' grading of the property and back off on the right-of-way along Galpin, I think we're being
very flexible. In all honesty, I really resent this whole process.
Roeser: My feeling right now is that we should let them build their private park and give
them absolutely no credit for it.
Lash: We are.
Roeser: No, I mean they should still go along. They can do what they want with the
property but.
Schroers: You're saying they just still give us full park dedication and credits.
Roeser: Right.
Lash: They are giving us fees.
Schroers: And that pretty much is the thing. But what's happening here is that we agreed
that they were going to install that trail and now...paying dollar for dollar and that's not what
we had agreed to. We had agreed to...install the trail in lieu of trail fees and that was our
intention and that hasn't changed. I just don't know any reason why we would back off from
the 250 x 250. Why would we? Why should we?
,.......
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
~
Lash: The whole point, and I'm agreeing with you Larry. The whole point is, we had a
discussion, a lengthy discussion for two meetings with that developer. Came to what we all
thought was a good agreement. Things that everybody could live with and he's not
complaining to other commissions about our recommendations. I resent that process. I even
resent the fact that the Planning Commission listened to his issues. I look at those as being
two separate bodies. They have no reason to listen to his reaction to our recommendation
anymore than we would listen to someone's reaction of the Planning Commission's
recommendations.
Berg: I'd like to think at that point when we realize what somebody was standing in front of
us and doing, we would say this is not the appropriate forum.
Lash: Right. Right. Granted he can go do that at the City Council and they have the
authority to accept or deny our recommendation. The Planning Commission doesn't and I
don't think that because the Planning Commission doesn't agree with what we recommend
that we need to go back and review our recommendation.
Schroers: No. I mean they're just trying to chisel away what we've already agreed on and I
guess.
Lash: Right. He's trying to work our own players against each other and I resent that.
...""
Hoffman: It's not the Planning Commission changes their mind. The one issue which really
we clarify here is that trail easement. The other one is simply my conversations with their
after meeting with the applicant, can you live with 180 x 180. I said no. But what we were
thinking about is we want to continue to maintain that length so if somebody wants to play
flag football or pick up football or soccer or whatever, you've got the length of this field. If
you want to stick by the 250 x 250, that's what it will be.
Schroers: I mean why did they come back and say that? What's their reason for wanting to
cut it down?
Hoffman: I believe it's stated in there that they want to protect themselves from active
organized.
Lash: What they want to do is maintain as much property to develop...as possible. Let's face
it. I mean they're developers.
Berg: If you're going to have a park where a boocy of kids can't even get together and play
touch football, but you will on a small one. Even their own little neighborhood kids want to
52
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
play. Kids don't sit at the picnic table and read comic books. They want to do something at
a park.
Schroers: Just basically tell them that it is not our policy to operate active organized athletics
in this neighborhood park so they shouldn't be concerned but we still want the 250 x 250.
Berg: I'm seriously getting more and more upset that we're spending our time discussing an
end run by someone else to a different commission. I suggest we move on to another issue.
Our statement, our proposal is on record. We're not changing it. Why are we continuing to
talk about this?
Schroers: Well put. Let's move on.
Lash: How about the Galpin trail easement? I am willing to...that one if there's been an
agreement between the County and the City.
Schroers: Yeab, do you need a motion on that?
,..... Hoffman: Correct. The issues was trail, number 1 and...
Schroers: Is there a motion to change condition 2.
Lash: So moved.
Schroers: Second.
Berg: Second.
Lash moved, Berg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission change the
condition regarding the trail easement along Galpin Boulevard that the trail be
constructed in the street right-of-way except within 200 feet of street intersections. In
these areas a trail easement up to 20 feet in width is required. All voted in favor and
the motion carried.
Hoffman: Thank you. Just for the record, one paragraph that...Parks Director does not like
our proposal and he recommded that the Park and Recreation Commission the denial of our
submitted proposal unless it was modified to a degree that was then unsatisfactory to
Lundgren Bros. I never made that proposal.
Lash: And he was in full agreement with the conditions, the conditional, well I can't even
I"""
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
....""
think what I want to say about getting the Sotckdale property. He sat right there and was in
full agreement with that and willing to go along with it and I resent how he's going back to
someone else and basically whinning about the whole process here. He was here and he
agreed to it So he can do his business at the Planning Commission and go on to the City
Council.
Hoffman: Very quickly, as you asked for Chairman Schroers. We've done item 6(a)l, 2 and
3. Item 6(b).
HIGHWAY 101 TRAD.. UPDATE.
Todd Hoffman made his very brief staff presentation on this item.
Schroers: Would anyone like to respond to that?
Berg: I just think it's really going to, they're going to have real trouble trying to assess
people $700.00 or whatever it comes to.
Hoffman: ...concept. That's a stab in the dark. I tried to paint a potential funding scenario.
Schroers: I guess you know, it's like what it's coming down to is whether the residents along
TH 10 1 want to foot the bill for a trail and I guess you know that's going to be up to them.
....",
C. STATUS REPORT. 1993 CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM.
Hoffman: Essentially everything's either, most of it's been purchased or is in the hopper.
Some of it has been delayed or postponed. Or omitted for good...
D. YOUTH FORUM DISCUSSION.
Lemme: I am hoping that you're going to recall that we talked a little bit about having the
Youth Commission come in to have some discussion with a youth organization in regards to
recreational needs within the community. I guess there's four questions pointed out here.
What would you like to see covered if we were to have this discussion at the November Park
and Recreation Commission meeting? What type of questions do you have specifically?
Would this take place prior to or during the meeting? Again, just some feedback. I've talked
to the person who's kind of in charge of the District 112 Youth Commission. I have not yet
talked to the other school district but I can do that if that's...wish me to do.
Schroers: Okay. Would you like to just kind of take these in order?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Lemme: Sure.
Schroers: I guess we can just ask if the discussion were to take place, I think you can see
how the meetings go. We would probably want to set up a special time. Maybe start the
meeting at 7:00 and have the discussion from 7:00 to 7:30. Have a timeframe on it and deal
with it in that manner.
Roeser: Sounds good.
Berg: It might help if they had some of our questions ahead of time so that they can have
some answers ready. I've got some questions. Well, I see the things allover school all the
time and I know they're very service oriented. But I don't know what their other goals are.
I'd like to know what the goals of the Youth Commission are. Are they basically community
service oriented or is there another angle to what they're looking for trying to do? What
activities and facilities do they think would best meet their goals? We've talked many
months ago about teen centers and that type of concept and recognizing that there's a real
need in this community for providing something for the teenage group. We've also talked
about the fact that places like churches are not very well accepted because they don't want to
,....... go to church to recreate. . So what are they looking for from us in that regard or what kind
of direction do they want from us. What kinds of things.
Lemme: Facilities?
Berg: Yeah. Are they even talking about something like that.
Lash: Activities.
Berg: Activities. Things that we could use some direction. I know we stumbled a few
months ago on what is it that teens would like to do and where do they want to do them and
what can we do to help that. Assuming we all think there's that need.
Lemme: Any other questions?
Schroers: It would be nice, like Fred was saying, maybe they could give just a little
presentation of what they're all about. It's hard to ask questions when you don't know what
you're asking about.
Lash: I guess my questions were along Fred's points too. What we can do. Would they
want us to organize things like we, like Jerry started...Middle School kids. Would they like
ski trips or would they like Apple River or some of those types of things that they can all go
~
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
...,
on but they don't all have to drive. They can take buses if they want to.
Manders: What age bracket are we talking about here?
Lemme: I believe it's high school.
Berg: I think it's 9-12.
Lash: Or are those kinds of things just totally uncool by that age? I don't know.
Berg: Would they like to use Lake Ann shelter all of a sudden or is there something they
could use the senior center for. That's the kind of thing I would like to draw out of them.
Lash: Or meet with this new elementary, the meeting room areas there. Maybe one of those
rooms could be designated as, you know...what would they want to happen to make it
appealing.
Schroers: Does that help you out Dawn?
Lemme: That helps me out...
...."tI
Schroers: Okay, fmally we got through item 6. We'll back up to 4.
THIRD QUARTER PARK AND TRAIL REVENUE REPORT ENDING SEPTEMBER
30. 1993.
Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item.
Berg: Do we typically get 100% eventually?
Hoffman: Hopefully. Unless we have an off year...
Berg: So you do by the end of the fiscal year we're pretty square on both sides?
Hoffman: Yeah.
Schroers: Okay, very good. Moving on to 5.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
PROGRAM REPORTS:
A. REVIEW 1993/94 ICE SKATING RINK PROGRAM. LOCATIONS. ETC.
Jerry Ruegemer gave the staff report on this item.
Roeser: What's book hockey?
Ruegemer: Boot hockey is like.
Roeser: Is that like broomball?
Ruegemer: Right. It's kind of the same concept of broomball and hockey. Kind of more
kind of tied together. You know broomball you have more like the, you use the side of
brooms with the bigger ball. Boot hockey is more with the hockey sticks and you can use a
tennis ball. You can use like a Gretzky ball. That's more of a ball that...so you have better
stick control. And then there's the slap shot.
,.....
Roeser: You wear skates?
Hoffman: Boots.
Berg: Do we have a liability for things like this? Does the city have any liability if
somebody loses all their teeth?
Ruegemer: Really that's a, in all our organized activities, they sign a waiver...
Berg: But...really doesn't.
Hoffman: As a participant, they are participating in an activity...recognizes some risk. In
fact in your Administrative Section you have a lawsuit...on Lake Ann for in excess of
$50,000.00 for injury at the time of fIrst base. Well the city maintains we provide safe
playing facilities up to a standard and we maintain them...We provide safety bases and the
participant is at risk...participate in a sporting activity. I'm sure...
Berg: Because I know we can't legislate and insist that people do only safe things. But boot
hockey sure seems like it's opening up, I mean you're stable now while you're swinging that
stick.
Roeser: Well do we have broomball?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
-'
Ruegemer: No. We're moving...Chaska offers broomball.
Roeser: And that's a pretty wild and...game too.
Ruegemer: One thing that we might be able to protect yourselves possibly as far as the
city...and what not is require helmets and face masks.
Hoffman: In my conversations with our City Attorney, his opinion is always...fear of a
lawsuit, your department won't be able to do anything...As long as it's a reasonable activity,
as long as other people...
Lash: ...eventually do you think we may just get to the point where we'll just have a bon fire
out there and maybe we'll just get one of those rental ones and have a rental one until we
fmally.
Hoffman: The rental ones...no bon fIres.
Lash: Get rid of the old one...but we have to look at some just kind of short term solutions.
Hoffman: We'll just continue using this building in the short term but on these other sites,
we've talked about in the past to make them more usable...!' d also like the commission as
part of this item...request on an annual basis that this neighborhood doesn't have a skating
rink. We want one. They've got one. We want one....
-"'"
Schroers: ...and we tried to and actually maintenance went down there and said there was not
suitable level space and that also a new well was going to be installed there. There was an
interference and I think that also some kind of power lines were in the way or something. So
we tried.
Roeser: I didn't know about that.
Lash: Maybe the thing to do with this deal with the skating rinks is...tennis courts either is
sit down and fIgure out a policy of the service areas so we know that every so many miles or
whatever, we'll consider putting in a tennis court or we'll consider putting in a skating pond
and so you don't end up with a skating pond in every neighborhood, just like we decided not
to put tennis courts.
Roeser: These neighborhoods ones are just daylight ones aren't they? I mean you don't light
them or anything.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Schroers: I'm real encouraged about that open skating area up at the new elementary school
and the fact that there could possibly be some lighting there for that and whatever. And that
utilities that go in there I see as a warming house in the winter. Just they have rubber
material matting especially made for that. Just put it on the floor and turn it into a warming
house. Use it year round.
Berg: Jan's points a good one too of looking at the 6 that we're going to have this year and
3 of them are real close to each other. That being Carver Beach and City Center. Maybe we
do have to look at expanding out, and Rice Marsh isn't that far away.
Hoffman: Do you want to look at this again in November because I will, when the calls
come in after we start flooding them saying the Park Commission reviewed this and made a
determination that.
Lash: But they're a high maintenance thing. They need to be flooded...they needed to be
plowed every time it snows or you can't use them so from a maintenance funding thing, we
need to be a little bit careful about we're not creating a budget drain.
",...... Hoffman: We'll look at it closely and...
B. HALLOWEEN PARTY UPDATE.
Jerry Ruegemer gave the staff presentation on this item and asked for volunteers.
Schroers: Yeah, put me down for a couple hours here.
Ruegemer: Costumed or otherwise?
Schroers: Otherwise.
Ruegemer: I have a costume for you.
Schroers: I'll drive the hay wagon. No, I don't want to be in a costume. I'll just do some
manual labor for you. Whatever you need.
Ruegemer: Any other commission members? Big pressure.
Lash: I tried to get a group of teens together. I thought it would be a fun sort of phase out
from trick or treating and they could still get dressed up but a party came up so.
r-
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
-"
Ruegemer: Commission members can think about it...interested in helping out.
Schroers: What time does that start?
Ruegemer: 6:00 to 8:00 so be here by about 5:30 and we can get everything set up.
Schroers: You might want to call and remind me but I'm working Saturday anyway so I may
as well work Saturday night too.
C. SUMMER AND FALL ADULT SOFTBALL LEAGUE EVALUATIONS.
Jerry Ruegemer gave a brief presentation on this item.
D. TEEN NIGHT OUT EVALUATION.
Jerry Ruegemer gave a brief presentation on this item.
Lash: I have a couple of things about this. I guess I'm interested in how many chaperones.
Ruegemer: We had 14.
-"
Lash: Okay, and what do you consider to be a say ratio of how many chaperones to kids.
Ruegemer: I'm pretty confident that the amount of people. We have groups of 2 or 3 people
kind of positioned in critical areas. Locker room areas. Gym areas. Access points. Entry
points...concession areas. We have people roaming around at all times to kind of keep the
kids aware that somebody is there to help supervise. We hire a uniformed security person to
help out and assist in any trouble. Troubled areas. They can handle that Just having a
uniformed person present I think deters a lot of kids from even trying anything. What we
have is that person is visible right when the kids walk in at 7:00 so you say okay, this person
is here. I'm going to think twice about screwing around. So that curtailed a lot of potential
situations.
Lash: So you're comfortable with that number?
Ruegemer: I am.
Lash: What number will raise your level of comfort?
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
Ruegemer: Well that was just my point was going to be. H we continue to grow beyond this
point, we're certainly going to be adding more chaperones.
Hoffman: There's about 1 per 30. I wouldn't be comfortable with any more than that. 1 per
50.
Lash: I guess I'm getting nervous with the numbers and that's a searey age to have that
many kids together. And so I guess I'm getting a little nervous with how many kids are
there, although I mentioned it to a couple in the middle school and they wouldn't be happy,
the ones I talked to, they wouldn't be happy with the concept of splitting up grade levels
unless it were to be two grades at the same time. Like 6th and 7th together for one or 7th
and 8th because they have friends in other grade levels. But I did hear of a little mini brawl
that broke out and one kid got pounded I guess pretty good.
Ruegemer: I don't know if it was a mini brawl.
Lash: Wellno, but the one kid got pounded on and was crying about it and you know that
may be, and it was somebody that I know. It was our pitcher this year. I he's a tough little
,-.... kid you know for him to be coming out of there crying raised some concern for me and that's
why I wanted to find out about the chaperone ratio.
Ruegemer: Okay. I guess I wasn't aware of that. That person, I don't know who that was
but it's not important right now but, we had a little minor type of thing but I didn't know of
anybody crying. These kids were pretty big for their age anyway.
Lash: You know what I mean?
Ruegemer: I know what you mean.
Lash: As a parent with all these kids going there, it just makes me nervous and I guess I
want to feel comfortable. I know if my kids going there, that there's plenty of chaperones.
Ruegemer: We try to make that visible too. The parents come and they pick up their
children or drop off the children. The volunteers and the adult supervisions at the front door
just to let them know.
Lash: And they're not allowed to come in and out.
Ruegemer: No. No. Once they come in the d '
them up and that's a policy that we do stick bY on t go out unless their parent comes pick
y.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
......"
Lash: So how do you know that? I mean how do you know if their parents are there to pick
them up?
Ruegemer: Because the parents have to physically come and pick them up out of the school.
We don't let anybody out of the school.
Lash: Before the night.
Ruegemer: Before the end, right.
Lash: Okay.
Berg: Maybe it makes a difference of who you talk to. I talked to a bunch of 8th graders
and they said it's just not cool for 8th graders to go to a party with 6th graders. And the
school is breaking it up now. The middle school has a party for the 6th graders one week
and the next week they have it for 7th and 8th.
Ruegemer: Yeah, we discussed last Friday as well and that's certainly a possibility that we
might be going to that type of a format.
Lash: And I do know from parents of 6th graders, for some reason either they aren't as
uncomfortable with their kids associating with 7th graders but for some reason the leap to 8th
graders is a real scarey thing to do. I can't even explain why they feel that way but I know
there are a lot of people who feel that.
--,"
Berg: I guess I keep beating the same dead horse but I really want to see it broken up
eventually. The sooner the better. If we're talking 400 kids. If you're talking 1 per 30,
that's not acceptable in the classroom setting where you've got them right there. 1 to 30 is
not a good ratio in a space where they can get so many places. And I disagree a little bit
with, and I haven't been there. This is based on other experiences. I disagree a little bit with
a uniformed officer being terrible effective.
Ruegemer: It certainly can...
I
Berg: I think 10 more free parents could probably deal just effectively. But that's just my
op~ot\ on ~~t ~ne. \ 'ml)~ \Vifu o\(\et lids it becomes ~~~e~ge as far as the uniform is
concerned. Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong s u.
Ok Anything further any further discussion on Teen Night Out? If not, thank
Schroers: ay. '
you Jerry for the program report.
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
COMMISSION MEMBER PRESENTATIONS:
Lash: I have one short one. Piggy backing on the elementary presentation tonight. I think
we'd better make sure we remember in our long term budgeting that we're going to have
some big expenditures there like backstops and playground equipment and tennis courts and
hockey rinks and all that so we need to figure out which things are the priority and which
years we can put them in and where we're going to get the money and all that.
Hoffman: You're buying the tennis courts, hockey rinks, backstops and the dugouts. But you
are buying the lights for those facilities. The building. The out building.
Lash: You mean it's been included in already the money, the $2 million or whatever?
Hoffman: Yep.
Lash: Are you sure? Because when they were here before they said none of that was
included.
".... Hoffman: You're buying all the outdoor activities. The tennis courts. The hockey rinks.
The playing fields. Backstops or whatever. The play equipment's not in there...city portion.
Lights are not going to go in. The building's not going to go in...We're going to have
hockey rinks out there but no warming house. And the building should come fairly quickly
so...
Lash: Oh, and the other thing on that. Do you think that we can contact CAA or the Hockey
Association to help us do some fund raising maybe to help to raise some of those costs?
Hoffman: Sure.
ADMINISTRATIVE PACKET.
Schroers: Is there anything in there requiring special attention? Does staff wish to bring
anything to our attention out of the Administrative Packet?
Hoffman: No, other than the...additions to our agenda would be, the park crews have been
out in corporation with public works and did a lot of grading, a lot of seeding...North Lotus
that big back open expanse of field which at times the commission has talked about, staff has
talked about leveling that thing so you have an additional playing field back there. They're
supposed to go in there and do some grading. Would we want to level it out to make a
playfield? I said well...we don't want to make...we don't want to make everything in the city
,....
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Park and Rec Commission Meeting - October 26, 1993
.J
a playing field but this is a grassy knoll that currently is unused. It's labeled picnic on the
master plan.
Manders: It's kind of an area closer to the lake? Yeah.
Hoffman: Do you want to flatten it out so they can practice soccer?
Schroers: I guess I don't care.
Manders: Yeah, it doesn't matter to me.
Schroers: If they've got the time and they want to do it. that's fine.
Hoffman: Flatten it?
Schroers: Flatten it, yeah. Have they done anything at Pheasant Hills?
Hoffman: Yep. That will be seeded fairly soon.
....,;'
Schroers: Okay. Whatever fits in their plan.
Hoffman: But again, I bring these to you...reviewed by the Park Commission. They...I didn't
make the decision. The Park Commission did and that is my job and that's your job so that's
why I ask you.
Schroers: Okay. If nothing further than I guess we can call for a motion to adjourn.
Lash moved, Manders seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the
motion carried. The meeting was adjourned.
Submitted by Todd Hoffman
Park and Rec Coordinator
Prepared by Nann Opheim
64
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