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CC Minutes 11-14-05 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 th 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 16 City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005 was created in, the subdivision was created in 1966. At that time we had different zoning standards. Actually most of the lots in this area, Chan Estates are averaging around 12,000- 13,000 and some are actually smaller than that. Homes on either side are actually a little smaller than that so this was rezoned to RSF, which is a residential single family zone which has a minimum lot size of 15,000 square feet. Because this lot is only 12,800 square feet, it’s already impacted by the 25% impervious so it restricts the…of the lot, which wasn’t discovered obviously when, because it was not, did not come in for the permit. So the applicants in good faith have worked hard to try to resolve these issues based on the fact that it was already over and it would be difficult to remove the existing additions to the house to try to get that. So they worked to actually buy, acquire property from the adjacent property owners, so you can see the existing lot lines on here. And you can see the new lot line. This is the old lot line and new lot lines. So lots were acquired on either side of the property to add additional square footage. Which we actually haven’t seen too many people use that approach which we always suggest so we were actually pleasantly surprised that they were able to work through that issue. They have removed, I’ll get to the pictures here real quick. Councilman Lundquist: Kate, is that property, has it been purchased or they have it? Kate Aanenson: One of the conditions is they do have the legal description and in here it’s an administrative subdivision because they’re not creating a new lot. They’re just adding a lot to another so we have the titles in here and one of the conditions is that before we’d record it, that those be executed. Certainly we wouldn’t want to give a variance and then not have it executed. Councilman Lundquist: So they’ve written the check or they haven’t written the check? Kate Aanenson: The descriptions are all written up. They’re in the file. They haven’t been recorded yet, until, if you give approval with the condition before, we would record it that they would have to execute. It’d probably have the attorney’s office simultaneously do all that but they would actually have the administrative subdivision executed first. Signed by the County. Us and the County, then they would record. Councilman Lundquist: So they wrote the check or they didn’t write the check? Kate Aanenson: For us? Councilman Lundquist: No, to the. Kate Aanenson: For the property owners? Councilman Lundquist: The property owners. Kate Aanenson: I don’t know. We have the descriptions here. So I don’t know what, I didn’t ask what the financial transactions were. We have the descriptions here so. Councilman Lundquist: Fair enough. 17 City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005 Kate Aanenson: So there’s a driveway pad that was removed that’s right here to also eliminate some of the hard surface. In looking at the house and where you could eliminate again, similar with the last one is really, it’s a difficult thing when you try to move some hard surface and still make it a viable, a pleasant house too. You don’t want to degrade it and make it an inferior lot so looking at some of the patio because some additional sidewalk be removed, what does that do to the impact of the house? So there’s a patio between the two additions. You can see back here. You could eliminate that. I’m not sure as far as reducing that size, you can look at the back of that lot, what that does. I do have a picture showing what they added, but you saw that before… And then like I said, there’s an additional sidewalk that could be removed. That goes to an arbor on the side. That sidewalk that goes around. You can see they have removed and this was the paver, you saw the other picture that has been removed and already sodded over. So again, and they’ve really done, what they believe as much as they can short of, getting to this arbor, removing and it’s a small percentage. So again because of the Planning Commission taking the hard and fast line that the variance was self created, because they did not seek building permit approvals and the like, again and in working with the staff, they in our opinion have done as much as they can based on the fact that it’s an undersized lot. And I want to point out, at this point if it was a 15,000 square foot lot they would meet it. That standard. Another interesting point too, we do PUD’s on some of those smaller 11,000 square foot lots. They get the 30% so if it was even given a different zoning, they would maybe be closer to that, so we did put recommendations for approval and for denial as we did for the Planning Commission. Again I just want to clarify too that separate from this they’re still working through all their building permit issues, which is a conditional use. Want to make sure that gets carried through here too. They’re working on getting all those inspections completed and recorded factually and that they also have to put new easements in place because the old easements have to be vacated. So there is still some work, and then you can see that it would not be recorded, condition number 3, until the other administrative subdivisions are executed. So with that I’d be happy to answer any questions that you have. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Couple that you mentioned, just for my understanding. You said if it was a PUD, our PUD’s go with a 30%. Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. Mayor Furlong: Which this would fit in. Why isn’t it a PUD? Kate Aanenson: That was rezoned before my time here and I’m not sure what the rationale was to get it to be RSF. I’m not sure if we even had that PUD zone in place. Okay, Todd’s saying we probably didn’t have that PUD zone in place. Mayor Furlong: So that wasn’t. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, it wasn’t even a factor so yeah. But if it would have been given something else, yeah. In looking at it in hindsight, you know they were already under sized lots. It’s pretty punitive to put that 25%. Mayor Furlong: Okay. 18 City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005 Kate Aanenson: And just to be, there hasn’t been a lot of variances right in this immediate area either so I think that question. Mayor Furlong: There have not been? Kate Aanenson: There have not been in this immediate area. Mayor Furlong: Alright. And you said the building permit would, is it fair to say that had they gone through the building permit process when the porch and the garage was added. Kate Aanenson: No, they did not. Mayor Furlong: That these would have been caught? Kate Aanenson: Oh absolutely. Yes we would have… Mayor Furlong: Is that a standard process of use in terms of… Kate Aanenson: Correct. They’re routed through each department to make sure they’re not in an easement or engineering, any issues there and then planning would check impervious surface and setbacks. So we’ve eliminated the setback issues, which was one of them. So again, this was one, there’s two issues. The impervious and the setback so we’ve eliminated one issue which was the setbacks. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilwoman Tjornhom: So Kate go over for me, what can they do to bring this? Kate Aanenson: Well you know, you’re talking about a minimal amount here by removing the sidewalk, and I guess I always try to temper that, livability of the house. If you get somebody else in there and then they come back and say this really isn’t, on taking the patio out. Councilwoman Tjornhom: So what else can they do then? Kate Aanenson: That’s about it. I don’t know if it’s reasonable to say take down the addition. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Well that’s what I’m saying. Kate Aanenson: Right. Exactly, right. I guess that was our opinion too at the time. They’ve done this much as they could and at this point, sort of taking that out if you feel strongly about that. Councilman Labatt: So, quick question. So a lot of the stuff, if I understand your staff report, was the Koenig’s bought the house in May of ’91. Right? 19 City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005 Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman Labatt: And a lot of this stuff was done by the previous owner to them? Kate Aanenson: No. They did the additions. The part that was no fault of their’s was the original zoning and the changing of the zoning to the 25%. It may have been caught but they wouldn’t have been able to get those additions when they came through in 2000 to get those additions but. Mayor Furlong: The fence line was pre-existing. Kate Aanenson: Yeah, the fence line was up. Mayor Furlong: It was 1980. Kate Aanenson: Yes. The fence was outside the property line’s prior to there so, we did fix some other issues. The fence not on the property line so. Councilwoman Tjornhom: I still go back to what other options then. Kate Aanenson: Right. That’s why we recommended approval as one of the options. To recommend approval with those conditions. That’s in place and then get those other things executed. Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff at this point? If not, are Mr. and Mrs. Koenig here this evening? Mrs. Would you like to address the council on any matters? Please. Cindy Koenig: Thank you. I’m Cindy Koenig, 8005 Cheyenne Avenue. Mayor Furlong: Good evening. Cindy Koenig: We have tried to work with Josh a lot to try to fix the things that we caused. Trying to make amends. We’ve spent about a little less than $15,000 to try to fix these issues. We have wrote the checks to our neighbors and they have been cashed so you know we’ve completed that and when we all moved in those fence lines were that way so it was easy for us to all agree because it was property that nobody knew the other person had. We’re in the middle of moving to Arkansas and so trying to get to my family down there and I’m here trying to fix whatever I can fix to get this to work. Mayor Furlong: Good, thank you. Any questions? No? Okay, thank you. Bring it back to council for discussion. Councilwoman Tjornhom, you’ve asked the question a couple times. What more can they do? Councilwoman Tjornhom: I don’t know what is there to say. There’s definitely no options so I don’t know what there is to really even discuss. They’re kind of in a tough spot and I’m 20 City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005 certainly not going to vote that we deny this and have her tear her garage down. That doesn’t make any sense at all, so I don’t think there’s much to discuss as far as I’m concerned. Mayor Furlong: Okay. Others may want to discuss something. Councilwoman Tjornhom: Well maybe they would. Mayor Furlong: I’ve got to give them a chance. Councilman Peterson: Well the dilemma is obviously if you, how do you compare a garage to a sport court? So is a sport court any less important to a homeowner than a garage expansion? So I think certainly we have to ask ourselves that question but I think I would have a tendency to agree with staff’s recommendation and move ahead with this. Mayor Furlong: Other comments, discussion. Councilman Lundquist: I think I would echo Councilman Peterson’s comments about interesting that these two came up on the same night I guess. Time will tell what happens with the sport court and this issue specifically. You know Kate I think you made some good points in the staff report about you know between 1960 and now and the changes that were made and this would fit that and all of the things and again as with the previous would commend the Koenig’s for working, buying extra property. Tearing out the driveway. Put the sod down. They’re obviously motivated to comply. Always struggle a little with it when they’re after the facts and some of those types of things, but I think in this case that I’m compelled to grant the variance and mostly because there’s been some effort there. A considerable amount of effort there and we really don’t have a lot of the other, of other options without some significant detriment to the property. Mayor Furlong: Councilman Labatt, questions? Councilman Labatt: No. I agree with you guys and you know, they’ve done, they’ve clearly done all they can do and you know, this one’s 2% more than the other one… I support it. I mean you know, I supported the other one too. Councilman Peterson: But Steve you supported taking 560 square feet off of the sport court. Councilman Labatt: No. I supported the tabling of that motion. I still, I think we did the right thing by not denying it but I supported the tabling but I still think we should have approved it but I support this one. Mayor Furlong: I think to raise questions. We’re dealing with each of these individually. You know in this case they have acquired property which is one of the questions that we always ask and here they did it. And you’re right, that usually doesn’t happen. What I was also impressed with is part of the property that they acquired put one of those property owners into a, over their hard surface coverage as well and that property owner took steps to remove hard surface coverage to get themselves back into compliance so they weren’t in the same situation. What 21 City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005 created this was following through and getting permits you know, building permits on these but I agree. I think they’ve worked it down as far as they reasonably can. I think there are differences between these two. This lot is 12,000 square feet. The other was a half acre. Garage, you can talk about how big a garage people need but a garage to me is a little bit more from a utilitarian standpoint, a requirement especially in Minnesota than a sport court. Does that mean that we shouldn’t let people have sport courts? Absolutely not. I mean that’s an amenity. We want to have people improve their property within the ordinances. So I think there might be some, there are some differences in the two. I think here, at this point, they’ve gotten it as good as they can. Short of you know, before we take a few feet off a sport court. Now we’re talking about taking a few feet off the garage. I don’t know how you do that. So I think in this case they’ve worked and finally got it the best they could. There are different circumstances here and I agree with staff, we need to go forward. I think we do need to make sure we have those conditions in there, specifically one with regard to the permits. Make sure that the additions are properly inspected so that those can be done. And we’re comfortable that they were constructed properly. With that being said I think we should move forward at this point with this one. Any other discussion? Councilman Labatt: We call it a shed then right when you take a few feet off your garage? You’ve got a shed. Mayor Furlong: You have a shed. Okay. Is there a, I think the motions are on page 7 of the staff report. Would someone like to make a motion? Councilman Labatt: Mayor, I’d move that we approve the variance 05-34 for a 4.06 hard surface coverage variance from the maximum 25% hard surface coverage restriction for a garage addition and four season porch on a lot zoned single family residence, RSF subject to conditions 1 through 3 in the staff report. Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second? Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second. Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion on that motion? Hearing none, we’ll proceed with the vote. Councilman Labatt moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council approves Variance #05-34 for a 4.06% hard surface coverage variance from the maximum 25% hard surface coverage restriction for a garage addition and a four season porch on a lot zoned Single Family Residential (RSF), with the following conditions: 1. Building permits, plans and necessary inspections for the additions shall be required in accordance with the Minnesota State Building Code. 2. Property owners shall vacate existing drainage and utility easements and shall dedicate new drainage and utility easements adjacent to new property lines. 22 City Council Meeting – November 14, 2005 3. Variance #05-34 shall not be recorded until after the two administrative subdivisions conveying property to Lot 3, Block 3 Chanhassen Estates have been recorded with Carver County. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. Mayor Furlong: That motion prevails. Good luck with the move. Cindy Koenig: Thank you. 1(k). SPALON MONTAGE: REQUEST FOR A SITE PLAN AMENDMENT TO PLACE A WALL SIGN OUTSIDE FO THE APPROVED SIGN BAND AREA, 600 MARKET STREET, KRAUS-ANDERSON REALTY COMPANY, PLANNING CASE NO. 05-33. Councilman Lundquist: Issue with this one Mr. Mayor, wasn’t more than a couple of weeks ago we had a sign variance request for the same building. Understand it was different. That they already had some signage on the second, or higher elevations let’s call it. Couple of questions I guess I was looking at either when we went through that one and in the staff report on this one as well, staff talked about being careful with where we’re putting signs and we do it once and then the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one and pretty soon you know, they’ll be flashing bright neon lights like the movie theater sign did in the beginning so I want to be cautious about what those signs are. Where they are. Do they really have to have it there? Is there another spot for it that would serve purposes, you know understand that the building was set up for offices at the beginning on that second story. Now things change and that’s fine, but as a, I wasn’t comfortable as a consent agenda item to have that out there so just like to have some staff input on that sign and any other like it in the city or in the area. Do we have any other second story sign kind of things and some discussion. Kate Aanenson: You bring up some good points Councilman Lundquist and that every project that comes in, a multi tenant one like this, we try to approve a site plan. In this instance they’re asked for us, actually an amendment to the sign package that we approved. They could have asked for a variance. They chose not to. The variance would have been to put it over the front door, which they didn’t want to put one over the front door. This is the space that Spalon is going into, so they wanted a sign over the top to get visibility over that use, but it’s, internally in staff we were having a lot of issues regarding that because if you put it over this, it almost leads you to believe you go into this door. That’s a single tenant. It’s not the multi tenant. But our rules say if it’s a multi tenant, you shouldn’t have a single sign over that, but you still could have got, they could have applied for a variance from that rule as opposed to the sign amendment allowing the sign on the top. Again we’ve been careful about how we place those. I just wanted to take a minute and kind of go through. Actually this was put together for the Planning Commission and it’s a series of photos that are put together so it’s not quite, you can see there’s some chop lines in there. When it originally came in they knew the bank was going to be a tenant so they fully disclosed it was their intent to put the bank sign up on the top, so that was approved right on the outset. In the instance of the Spalon, like you indicated, that was intended, we intended or they envisioned that they may be offices, so we didn’t really contemplate that 23