CC Minutes 11-14-05
City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
Councilman Lundquist: We’ve got the issues with right-of-way and all that, or easements taken
care of? Across the Degler property and all that.
Todd Gerhardt: For this portion of the project. Phase II we’re still working on a couple of
easements there.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions on this? If not, without objection we certainly can handle
all three of these items with a single motion. If there is a motion consistent so is there a motion
to adopt staff’s recommendation and the assessment roll on each of the items?
Councilman Lundquist: Motion to approve staff’s recommendation in the packet.
Mayor Furlong: For each, 3 (a), (b) and (c).
Councilman Lundquist: 3(a), (b) and (c).
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Is there any discussion? Again hearing none we’ll
proceed with the vote.
Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to approve the
following items for the 2005 MUSA Improvements, Phase I, Project 04-05:
a. Resolution#2005-94: Adoption of the Assessment Roll.
b. Resolution#2005-95: Award of Contract to Veit & Company, Inc., in the amount of
$1,615,113.00.
c. Approve Consultant Work Order with Kimley-Horn and Associates in the amount
of $187,000 for construction phase services for Phase I of the 2005 MUSA
improvements.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
REQUEST FOR AFTER THE FACT HARD SURFACE COVERAGE AND SIDE YARD
SETBACK VARIANCES FOR A SPORT COURT, 8491 MISSION HILLS CIRCLE,
PLANNING CASE 05-32.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. The subject site is located off of Mission Hills Circle in the Marsh
Glenn subdivision. This subdivision was built, or approved in approximately the year of 2000
and this home was built without the survey showing a sport court on the site. It’s an after the
fact variance request. It did not go through any approval process. The variance is for hard
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surface coverage and side yard setbacks. It did go to the Planning Commission on October 18.
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
A public hearing. At that time the Planning Commission recommended 5-0 to deny the request
for the 5.4 hard surface coverage. In summary I’ll point out how this house sits on the lot and
then go through and show you some pictures. But this is the existing home and this is the sport
court. It was recommended here, that’s shown in pink is the elimination to reduce some of the
hard surface coverage. You can see on the pictures here where the property line is and the
retaining wall going into a portion of that. One of the recommendations was to pull out some of
the hard surface coverage and one of them being the patio in the back. Staff has some concerns
about that. We have requests all the time that people would recommend taking out their front
sidewalk. We believe there’s some reasonable use of property and a sidewalk and sometimes
patios coming out of a door like that makes some sense. Some sort of hard surface there when
it’s being used as a doorway. Again this came to the city staff via a neighbor’s complaint
regarding the size and the location of the sport court, so the applicants again are proposing to
remove some of the hard surface but it still would require the variance for total square footage.
If you look on the staff report on page 5 of the staff report it goes through the actual square
footage of all the area and the, that could be removed including the concrete slab of 120 square
feet. Go back to the survey here. The area outside the sport court, and then removing some of
the sport court itself to get, but it would still be over but it would meet all the setback
requirements and they’re going to remove the boulder wall. You can see there’s a boulder wall
on the property line and one extending over which would go into the Mission Hills. Their
common area. This property just to the south of that. So discussing with the Planning
Commission, they had some concerns about again that size of the patio. One of the issues that
we also put in the staff report was regarding drainage and I just wanted to go over that with you
briefly. This may be a little hard to read but this is the lot itself. Everything shown in pink
drains to that pond. This was the original pond with Mission Hills. It was made larger to
accommodate the development of this area but this is a large area that drains into this pond. The
homes along the back have the minimum 3 foot from the lowest level. The homes in Mission
Hills actually have a greater separation. There’s more bounce on that pond, but this is one of the
things that we look at when we have, as we discussed earlier today, the larger rain events. When
we were, not only the velocity but the, how fast it’s coming down and the ability for it to actually
percolate into the soil when there’s that much hard surface, and those are some of the things that
I think was on the Planning Commission’s mind. Looking at that. While this may not be in, by
itself so egregious but if you accommodate that all the way around. One of the other questions
that was asked to me was, has there been other variances in this immediate area and there hasn’t
been in this particular subdivision itself. So with that the Planning Commission did recommend
denial. We do have another motion in here for you too if you did choose to approve and that
would include eliminating some of the additional square footage. Again one of the concerns that
we have is that we have some sort of patio or a landing space coming outside of the, this sliding
glass doors out to the back. Any questions?
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Ms. Aanenson, in the storms that we had both
Labor Day weekend and early October, were there any issues in this area with the pond?
Kate Aanenson: No. Not that we received.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And the drainage from here basically runs across the property to the
west, is that correct?
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
Kate Aanenson: Yes. It would go to the west and actually goes along 101. Then it’s piped
underneath 101 and that’s the direction it goes.
Mayor Furlong: Eventually down to Lake Susan or down to Bluff Creek?
Kate Aanenson: Yep. Down to the creek, correct.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions for staff at this time?
Councilman Peterson: Kate, in your discussions with them, are they opposed. I know we’ll hear
from them in a few minutes but are they opposed to your proposed hard surface cover
calculations, the new ones that get you down 27% or not?
Kate Aanenson: No, I think they’ve agreed to those. Correct. It’s still over but they’ve agreed
to that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? If not, I know the Hurt’s are
here. If you’d like to come forward. Can’t wait to talk to the council.
Jennifer Hurt: Yeah, I can’t wait to talk. It’s been several months so I’m just, I’m kind of ready
to be done with this. Jennifer Hurt, my husband Clint Hurt. Council members, thank you. I
want to thank you of course for the time and listening to our request for a variance. We want
you to know, and obviously we’re in a little bit of a bind. We hired a licensed contractor back in
March of 2005. He assured us that he would take care of everything. Checking in with the City
to make sure that we were in compliance with the City. We felt very confident that paying the
amount of money that we paid him to build our sport court, and the fact that he was a licensed
contractor, that he would get the job done according, in accordance with the City. However we
were very let down and we want you to know that first of all we would never build a sport court
this large had we known that it would violate city code. We are not looking to be sneaky at all.
That was never our intent. But now we have to deal with the fact that our sport court is too big
and that is why we are applying for this variance. So at this point what we are requesting is a
2.7% hard surface coverage variance. Our original plan was to remove 8 feet off the south side
of the sport court, which is 320 square feet. Removing the concrete slab, which is 120 square
feet and removing 128 ½ total square feet of retaining wall. The Planning Commission did not
approve of our variance at the October meeting but encouraged us to come with you with our
request. After the meeting we sat down with Josh Metzer again and discussed some options and
we decided that we, one of the options that he presented to us is that we could remove our patio
on the lower level to decrease the amount of square footage but in hearing that, that’s maybe not
a great option and after thinking about it, I’m not so sure I want to remove my patio either. We
also decided that we definitely could afford the extra 5 foot, or 5 feet of square footage on the
west side of the sport court saving us another 260 square feet. If we are not going to be
removing a patio we would be very willing to remove the equivalence of the patio surface
coverage from our sport court. We are really trying to bring down our hard surface coverage
with the above mentioned items so that we can still keep as much of our sport court as possible.
We live in a very unique neighborhood. There are 8 houses in our development that are directly
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
on the marshland. They are well aware of the fact that when they built their houses they were
not allowed to cut down or build anything on that marshland, and we noticed that that is part of
the drainage system that drains with our pond. So we feel that maybe our variance could
somewhat balance their property. Those neighbors support our variance. Also we know that our
drainage flows to an existing pond near us and that this pond can accommodate the additional
runoff. We have 16 letters from neighbors who…neighborhood have already used our sport
court and we take comfort in knowing that our children are in our back yard rather than a mile
away playing in a park. While the parks are very fun to visit, the closest park to us is Rice Marsh
Lake which is accessible via walking trail but approximately a mile away. And Lake Susan
Park, which we must cross over Highway 1 and in the near future we know is not going to be a
safe thing to do. So you see our intent of installing a sport court was not to increase the value of
our home but rather provide a safe place for children to play close to home. We’ve also tried to
gain support from the townhome owners to the south of us and in talking with some of the
townhome neighbors, there were several people that spoke. One woman said to leave it all. I
don’t have a problem with it. Another woman said there’s nothing better than to hear children
laughing. And yet another comment was, it’s nice to see the kids playing off the streets. This is
exactly how we feel. We absolutely love our court. In taking the 8 feet off of the south end we
can no longer have a short court tennis court, which is one of the things I love. To comply with
ordinance requirements you are asking us to cut our sport court from 2,437 square feet to 1,210
square feet. This is less than half. So we’re asking you, how do you play safely in a court that
size with more than 3 or 4 people? So the advantage of our sport court being the size that it is, is
that many people can benefit from it all at once. We have lots of different things that we have
done on the sport court and obviously because of it’s size we’re all able to enjoy it at once. We
realize that you’ve had a number of hard surface coverage requests for variances within the past
months. We hope that you will consider our request as an individual case. We would like for
you to come out and see our sport court before you make your decision so we’re asking that if
you aren’t going to approve our variance tonight, that you table it. Thank you.
Clint Hurt: The other thing I’d like to bring up, I know that we have pictures of our sport court,
is the fact that.
Mayor Furlong: If you could speak into the microphone so the people at home.
Clint Hurt: Is a fact of a lot of these pictures are taken, our sport court is not totally complete.
These rock walls would totally be moved off of the lot line and back onto our property, really
butting up to what would be the sport court so the only problem is that we did have the retaining
wall in this back side, which we would have removed that anyway so, but with this variance we
are going to be taking on all of this back side and the side side of the rocks, and pretty much
whatever we can do to kind of be in compliance with the city here. But we would like to keep as
much of the sport court as possible and hopefully we’d…and maybe see what else we could do…
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for the Hurt’s at this point?
Councilman Peterson: Either Kate or you guys. Feel free to respond but if you take out the
retaining wall, is the setback issue mitigated or is it still there?
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
Jennifer Hurt: No, we are taking an additional 5 feet off of what we had originally planned and
so there is not a setback issue at all. We are complying with city easements. We’re complying
with side setback. The only thing that we’re not in compliance with is the amount of hard
surface coverage.
Kate Aanenson: On this side there’s a 5 foot drainage utility easement so that wall’s currently on
the property in the easement so there’s a 5 foot easement. So if they were to remove this, just to
be clear, then they would be in compliance but it would have to be removed to meet the 10 foot
setback.
Councilman Peterson: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: When you say remove, the pink shadow there?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: The sport court and then move the rock wall in.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct, yes. Then you get compliance to get the 10 foot.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. And that’s what you’re proposing?
Clint Hurt: That we would do, correct.
Mayor Furlong: To do as part of the.
Clint Hurt: Yeah, we would take everything away in pink on here.
Mayor Furlong: And move the wall back to the outside that side yard setback or that utility
easement?
Clint Hurt: No, because this back wall here, we’d actually remove it. That whole back wall
along the, or that 8 feet. We’d actually move the sport court on the west. The retaining wall on
the west. The retaining wall on the south and then up to 10 feet back on the east side of that.
Mayor Furlong: Those walls would come out and not be replaced?
Clint Hurt: Correct. We would remove it all. Take the rock away.
Kate Aanenson: Let me just try to clarify it. There’s a couple things we’re talking about. One is
setbacks. In order to meet the setbacks the area in pink would have to be removed. Then the
second issue is impervious surface, which even if they removed everything in pink they would
still be over. I guess the position’s is on the patio coming out of the porch. We need to make a
house inferior. We believe that may not be the best thing to select to take out.
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
Jennifer Hurt: But again we’re trying to be, we’re trying to cooperate with the city because that
was one of the recommendations that was given to us. From Josh Metzer, so we’re trying to
comply and that’s one of the things we’re sacrificing.
Mayor Furlong: But what I heard you say tonight too is if you kept that you would take.
Jennifer Hurt: Well it sounds like they probably maybe don’t want us to do that.
Kate Aanenson: I’m not saying that. That’s the council’s decision. I’m just saying as a staff, as
it would be if you were going to take out your front sidewalk, I’d just don’t think that’s a good
solution to solving a problem.
Jennifer Hurt: And honestly I would like to keep my patio. So I would, I mean we would be
willing to take the equivalence of that off of this, the west side of our sport court.
Mayor Furlong: Additionally?
Jennifer Hurt: Yes. So that would be approximately another 2 feet off of this side.
Councilman Peterson: Had you contemplated or pursued acquiring additional property so you
wouldn’t have to take out the?
Clint Hurt: Ah yes we have.
Jennifer Hurt: Yes we have. And that wasn’t an option.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: But you do have I think an unusual driveway shape too. Is that
correct?
Jennifer Hurt: Yes we do and that was another option Josh Metzer gave to us was that to take off
some of the driveway. Unfortunately we have this kind of odd driveway and it curves around
and it is rather large, and maybe someone could come and draw sidewalk chalk out there for us
to tell us where we could take some. It’s another option for us but the way that our driveway
goes, I mean we are driving on our grass all the time anyways. No one can drive out of our
driveway backwards the way it is because it’s so curvy. So if someone has a recommendation
for us as to where the best place might be to take off of our driveway, we certainly would
consider that as well.
Councilman Lundquist: Have you had any discussions with that contractor that you hired about
responsibility for removing and things?
Jennifer Hurt: Yes we have. As far as monetary dissolutions, I guess we haven’t gotten to that
point. We were kind of waiting to hear how the variance process went and go from there. He is
well aware of the fact that it is his responsibility. He did not check in with the city as he was
told, he claims he has never had a problem with the City of Chanhassen. He knew that he did not
need a permit and that was one of the things that at the Planning Commission meeting it was
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
mentioned that a lot of builders, contractors, people who are doing their own work, kind of stop
there at the permit because they know they don’t need a permit, and then they kind of stop and
so, and I’m not saying that that’s the fault by all means but it is one of the things that it kind of
stops there so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions?
Councilman Labatt: So a point of clarification?
Mayor Furlong: Certainly.
Councilman Labatt: So they take out all the pink stuff, then they’re asking for 2. whatever
percent.
Jennifer Hurt: It’s approximately 2.7%.
Councilman Labatt: Right?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Councilman Lundquist: That’s about half. The pink is about, removes it or cuts it in about half.
Mayor Furlong: Of what’s over on the hard surface but it also eliminates the need for a side yard
setback.
Councilman Lundquist: And the easement and all that good stuff.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, any other questions at this time? Okay, thank you. Appreciate
it. Any follow-up questions for staff? If not we’ll bring it back to council for discussion.
Thoughts on this one.
Councilman Lundquist: I actually took a drive out there this afternoon. You can see it pretty
good from the Mission Hills area. There you get pretty close to it. I guess overall I’m
sympathetic with the Hurt’s because of the, you hire a contractor. You think that they’re going
to do all the stuff they’re supposed to do. However, I know they’ve got signatures and all of that
but I’ve also had some contacts from some of your neighbors that aren’t overly impressed with it
either. So I think it’s a difficult one. Appreciate all of the work that’s gone in so far and your
ability, or your willingness to cooperate and do that things. Wouldn’t support, I wouldn’t
support taking the patio out. You’re not going to walk in and out of the mud to get in and out of
your house so that’s just going to go back someday so that’s not going to really do anything. But
I don’t, this isn’t really one tonight that I’m ready to say yes to even with the pink stuff taken
out. I just think this is a use that is, I mean the Hurt’s raise a lot of good points about the kids
playing in the back yard and keeping them close to home and off of the streets and safe and all of
those things are excellent points and there’s a lot of truth to that. But the rules are the rules as
well and I’m not sure that I’m compelled to say that this is one I’m willing to go on. You know
we have hard surface variance issues where people build garages and other things that are bigger
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
and different things so I think I would like to see a little more work done to see what else we can
do to try to get down as low as possible. If there’s some other solutions or look at a picture of
the sport court of what it would be to get at the 25% extra stuff taken out. I know the numbers
are in the staff report but a picture’s worth a thousand words right so. I guess the overall I’d like
maybe take a couple of more weeks, take a look at it. Continue to have the Hurt’s work with
staff and see where they’re at and try to get a little bit lower on that if we can closer to that 25.
Mayor Furlong: Alright. Appreciate your comments. Other comments or discussion.
Councilman Peterson: I would agree with Councilman Lundquist. I mean we were successful
earlier tonight with the Kakacek’s and letting staff work their magic. Although I think this is a
bit more of a challenge, I certainly wouldn’t disagree with giving the ball back to staff and letting
them be creative.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Councilwoman Tjornhom.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I totally also agree. I think that if they’re, the Hurt’s are going to
make a sacrifice, to try to preserve what they have in their yard now, certainly I don’t know why
we wouldn’t give them more time to try. To try to work something out somehow. And make
everyone happy maybe.
Mayor Furlong: Councilman Labatt.
Councilman Labatt: Well, for this one I disagree with my fellow councilors. I think they’ve
come up with a solution here with removing the, we’ll call it the shaded area according to their
drawings in the pink and when you look at that and the fact that their contractor put them in this
position, granted you know, ultimately it’s the homeowner’s responsibility but I think that you
know 2% is about what, 100 and some square feet? I can live with that so I would support the
variance.
Mayor Furlong: And that’s fine. I think point of clarification, I think it’s closer to 400 or 500,
isn’t it?
Councilman Lundquist: 6 something. 620.
Mayor Furlong: The 2.76.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman Labatt: It’s 568.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, well I appreciate the comments. I want to commend the Hurt’s
for coming back with some proposal other than just saying we need it all. I think that’s
admirable that they’re looking to work, and it sounds even tonight they’re willing to be flexible
there. While I’m not willing to say, I’m certainly not willing to say no either. That there isn’t
something that might work out so I too would certainly support council’s action if that was to
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City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005
give it some more time. There’s not going to be much tennis playing in the next couple months
here, especially if the forecast is right so I think we’ve got a little bit of time to work on this one
before anything has to happen anyway so let’s take advantage of the time we have and let’s, you
know work with staff. …and come back when we come up with a plan that’s workable, but
better than the one we have, and that’s what I’m hearing from my council members as well. So.
Roger Knutson: Mayor?
Mayor Furlong: Sir. Is there a deadline?
Roger Knutson: Mayor, there is a deadline. What we’d need from them is to agree on an
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extension and I’ve picked the date, January 15. Since you only have one meeting in December.
I have written…
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Would that be acceptable? We need to get that, if you could come up
and agree to this? Then we’ll proceed with the motion to table, I think that’s where we’re going
and then, at this point. Is there any further discussion on this or is there a motion to also
consider?
Councilman Lundquist: I would move that we table item 4…the agreement.
Mayor Furlong: So we’re tabling item 4. Bring back at a future meeting. Thank you. Is there a
second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion to table’s been made and seconded.
Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded to table the request for
an after the fact hard surface coverage and side yard setback variances for a Sport Court
at 8491 Mission Hills Circle, Planning Case 05-32. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
MIKE & CINDY KOENIG: REQUEST FOR A HARD SURFACE COVERAGE
VARIANCE FOR A GARAGE AND A FOUR SEASON PORCH, 8005 CHEYENNE
AVENUE.
Kate Aanenson: This is located in the Chan Estates neighborhood. Again this is an after the fact
st
variance. It did go to the Planning Commission on November 1 and the Planning Commission
voted 6 to 1 to deny the variance. Again there was some additions put onto the house that were
not permitted. Did not go through any building permit approval process so it was discovered
when someone was actually looking at purchasing the house. They did some research that,
noticed there were some additions put on, so that was one issue. And then the, trying to remove
the hard surface coverage which was over. So what we’re trying to eliminate is everything, the
applicant’s, everything that they could besides taking out the existing building portion. So
there’s a couple of new differences between this one and the one we just saw. This is a lot that
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