2. Planning Commission Summary & Verbatim Minutes 2-7-06
CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
SUMMARY MINUTES
FEBRUARY 7, 2006
Acting Chairman McDonald called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Jerry McDonald, Kurt Papke, Deborah Zorn, Dan Keefe, Debbie
Larson and Mark Undestad
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Uli Sacchet
STAFF PRESENT:
Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner; and
Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer
PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS:
Janet & Jerry Paulsen 7305 Laredo Drive
PUBLIC HEARING:
MINNETONKA MIDDLE SCHOOL WEST: REQUEST FOR AN INTERIM USE
PERMIT TO PERMIT OVER 1,000 CUBIC YARDS OF GRADING ON PROPERTY
ZONED OFFICE & INSTITUTIONAL DISTRICT LOCATED AT 6421 HAZELTINE
BOULEVARD (HIGHWAY 41), PLANNING CASE NO. 06-03.
Public Present:
Name Address
Dennis Clark 6651 Hazeltine Blvd.
Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Commissioner Papke asked about safety
measures around the pond. Commissioner Zorn asked for clarification on timing of construction.
Mike Murphy with Larson Engineering spoke on behalf of the applicant. Commissioner Keefe
asked the applicant to explain their process for removing fill. Chairman McDonald opened the
public hearing. Dennis Clark, 6641 Hazeltine Boulevard provided historical background of the
erosion problem and expressed concern with tree loss, size of the pond, and timing of the
construction. Chairman McDonald closed the public hearing. Commissioner Keefe asked staff
to explain how much input the city has regarding restoration of erosion damage on adjacent
properties. After commission discussion the following motion was made.
Keefe moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of
Interim Use Permit #06-03 to permit the grading of approximately 3,400 cubic yards for a
infiltration basin and drainage swales, plans prepared by Larson Engineering of Minnesota,
dated December 19, 2005 subject to the following conditions:
Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
1.The applicant shall provide the City with a cash escrow or letter of credit in the amount of
$5,600.00 to guarantee erosion control measures and site restoration and compliance with the
interim use permit.
2.Verify the existing 24-inch culvert has sufficient capacity before replacing the private drive
entrance.
3.The applicant must provide a proposed haul route for review and approval.
4.If fill is coming from and/or going to another site in Chanhassen, a separate grading permit
will be required for the other property.
5.All disturbed areas as a result of construction are required to be reseeded and mulched within
two weeks of site grading.
6.An erosion control blanket must be installed on all sides around the infiltration basin. All
disturbed areas as a result of construction are required to be sodded or reseeded and mulched
within two weeks of site grading.
7.Submit a full size drainage area map.
8.Add City Detail Plates Nos. 3101, 3102, 3103, 5300, 5301 and 5302.
9.Show rock construction entrance per Detail Plate No. 5301. The applicant shall construct
and maintain a rock construction access to the site. Access to the site shall be restricted to
this access point only.
10.The applicant shall obtain and comply with all permit requirements of the Watershed District
and MnDOT.
11.Revise the existing storm sewer flow direction in all plans to match.
12.The applicant shall supply the City with a mylar as-built survey prepared by a professional
engineer upon completion of filling and/or excavation to verify the grading plan has been
performed in compliance with the proposed plan.
13.A plumbing permit must be obtained before installing the storm sewer piping.
14.The applicant shall provide a cross section for the filtration area showing the elevation of the
draintile and the trenches, as well as a cross section of the trench and details of the material
used. The draintile trenches shall be lined with drainage fabric (4% to 6% open space) and
filled with pea rock at a depth of at least 18 inches and 3 feet wide. The bottom of the entire
filtration basin shall be backfilled with a mixture of 50% coarse clean sand, 25% compost, 25%
loamy topsoil for a minimum depth of 6 inches (from approximately 1034.5 to 1035.0). The
rest of the area shall be top-dressed with native topsoil. CB-1 shall be revised to be an open
beehive inlet at an approximate elevation of 1037 for handling large storm event runoff if the
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
calculations for rate control work out to avoid overwhelming the filtration area and having long
periods (greater than 72 hours) of ponding.
15.Erosion control blanket/turf reinforcement mat (MnDOT Category 5) shall be used for
restoration of the exposed slope from the emergency overflow to the ditch along Highway 41
within 7 days of final grade. The blanket shall be specified and a detail provided. Erosion
control blanket shall be installed on any exposed soils south of the private drive within 24 hours
of final grade.
16.A seed mix for shaded, wooded areas shall be specified in the plan, along with the proposed rate
of application. A seed mix for the filtration area and slopes shall also be specified.
17.The rip rap at the flared-end section at the south end of the 24-inch pipe south of the private
drive shall be replaced.
18.Runoff from the storm sewer system from the school shall be controlled during construction.
The water shall be conveyed through a non-erosive means to the Highway 41 ditch through the
job site.
19.Erosion control blanket category 2 or 3 shall be installed within the filtration area within 24
hours of connecting the 18-inch PVC to the basin. The blanket shall be applied following a
seeding. Remaining exposed soils on site shall be mulched and seeded or sodded within 14
days of final grade.
20.The silt fence used shall be a City of Chanhassen type 1 silt fence; monofilament silt fence with
metal T-posts, 6 foot maximum spacing and 3 plastic zip ties in the top 8 inches of the fabric.
The silt fence specified for the filtration area shall be labeled as “Installed after drain tile
installation.”
21.A rock construction exit pad shall be installed from the bituminous edge 40 to 50 feet long into
the job site.
22.Street sweeping shall be completed within 24 hours should soil be tracked upon paved surfaces.
23.Catch basin inlet control shall be provided for the catch basins adjacent to the school building if
tracking of soil becomes a problem on the paved surfaces.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING:
PINEHURST REPLAT:REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT
APPROVAL TO SUBDIVIDE APPROXIMATELY 28 ACRES WITH VARIANCES ON
PROPERTY ZONED SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF) DISTRICT; AND THE
VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS LOCATED AT PINEHURST
DRIVE AND GALPIN BOULEVARD. APPLICANT: LENNAR CORPORATION
(LUNDGREN BROS. CONSTRUCTION, INC.) – PLANNING CASE NO. 06-07.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
Public Present:
Name Address
Troy Bader 2244 Lake Lucy Road
Matt Goldstein Lundgren Bros. Construction
Nathan Franzen Plowshares Development
Robert Generous presented the staff report on this item. Commissioner Papke asked staff to
explain why or why not the recommendations on page 3 of the staff report under grading and
drainage not to relocate the storm sewer pipe in Lot 22 and to not relocate the storm sewer line
through Lot 4, Block 2, why neither of those recommendations turn into conditions in the staff
report. Commissioner Zorn asked for clarification of the drainage and utility easement
vacations. Commissioner Larson asked for clarification on page 7, item number 5, if it is typical
to say that the applicant shall create a homeowners association to take responsibility for the
retaining walls across property lines. Matt Goldstein with Lundgren Bros. Construction
presented their request. Commissioner Keefe asked the applicant to elaborate on the type of
homes being proposed. Chairman McDonald opened the public hearing. Troy Bader, 2244 Lake
Lucy Road expressed concern with drainage onto his property and provided information on
previous problems that have occurred with debris and runoff from this development. He also had
concern with who to contact when problems arise. Janet Paulsen, 7305 Laredo Drive asked for
clarification on the request for private streets. Chairman McDonald closed the public hearing.
After discussion the following motion was made.
Zorn moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the
preliminary plat creating 41 lots with variances for the use of two private streets, plans
prepared by Westwood Engineering Services, Inc., dated revised January 5, 2006, subject to
the following conditions:
nd
1.Revise the Final Plat to label Outlot C as Outlot A, Pinehurst 2 Addition.
2.A final grading plan and soils report must be submitted to the Inspections Division before
building permits will be issued. The soils report must have a lot conversion table identifying
how the test results from the original subdivision correlate to the new lot descriptions.
3.Separate water and sewer services must be provided for each lot.
4.Permits are required for retaining walls. Walls over four feet high must be designed by a
professional engineer.
5.The applicant shall create a Homeowners Association to take responsibility for the retaining
walls that cross property lines and maintain them.
6.The developer must ensure that the soils under all revised building pads meet the required
densities.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
7.The construction plans must be revised to reflect the new lot and block numbers.
8.Wetland buffer widths of 16.5 feet to 20.0 feet shall be maintained around all wetlands on-site.
9.All structures shall maintain a 40-foot setback from wetland buffer edges.
10.Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City’s
wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of
City staff, before construction begins and shall pay the City $20 per sign.
11.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed
soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to
the following table of slopes and time frames:
Time
(maximum time an area can remain unvegetated
Type of Slope
when area is not actively being worked)
Steeper than 3:1 7 Days
10:1 to 3:1 14 Days
Flatter than 10:1 21 Days
These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, any exposed soil
areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter
system, storm sewer inlet temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other man made systems
that discharge to a surface water.
12.Daily scraping and sweeping of public streets shall be completed any time construction site soil,
mud, silt or rock is tracked or washed onto paved surface or street that would allow tracked
materials or residuals of that material to enter the storm water conveyance system.
13.Construction site access points shall be minimized to controlled access points with rock entrance
and exit pads installed and maintained throughout construction.
14.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g.,
Riley-Purgatory-Bluff-Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES
Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering))
and comply with their conditions of approval.
15.The easement width shall be reduced to approximately 24 feet wide on Lot 22, Block 1, so that
the easement lies only 10-feet east of the storm sewer.”
16. Remove curb stops and install spot liners at Manchester Drive services and the services
between Lots 5 and 6, Block 4.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
PUBLIC HEARING:
DAVE BANGASSER:REQUEST FOR HARD SURFACE COVERAGE AND TWO
FRONT-YARD SETBACK VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A THREE-
STALL GARAGE ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 3633 SOUTH CEDAR – PLANNING
CASE NO. 06-04:
Public Present:
Name Address
Dave & Mary Jo Bangasser 3633 South Cedar
Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item. Commissioner Keefe asked for
clarification on the depth of the existing and proposed garage. Chairman McDonald asked for
clarification of the graph on page 4 of 10 regarding ordinance requirements related to
combination of the two lots. The applicant Dave Bangasser provided history of the property,
similar variances granted in the neighborhood and outlined their request. Commissioner Papke
asked about possible alternatives for the applicant to comply with the impervious surface
requirement. Commissioner Zorn asked for comparisons of variances approved in the area.
Commissioner Larson asked about the possibility of averaging impervious surface calculations.
Commissioner Undestad asked about the possibility of purchasing additional property for green
area. Chairman McDonald opened the public hearing. Janet Paulsen, 7305 Laredo Drive
clarified that the two lots are not contiguous, being separated by a street. Chairman McDonald
closed the public hearing. After commission comments the following motion was made.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission denies Variance #06-04 for a
19.61 foot front yard setback variance, a 19.8 foot front yard setback variance and a 6.05%
hard surface coverage variance for the construction of a 3 stall garage on a lot zoned single
family residential, RSF, based upon the findings of fact in the staff report and the
following:
1. The applicant could make reasonable use of the property with a two stall garage.
All voted in favor except Commissioners Keefe, Larson and Undestad. It was a tied vote of
3 to 3.
PUBLIC HEARING:
GATEWAY NORTH/GATEWAY PLACE: SUBDIVISION REQUEST TO SUBDIVIDE
PROPERTY INTO THREE LOTS AND ONE OUTLOT AND A SITE PLAN REQUEST
WITH VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MULTIFAMILY BUILDING ON
PROPERTY ZONED PUD-MIXED USE AND LOCATED AT THE NORTHWEST
INTERSECTION OF HIGHWAYS 101 AND FUTURE 212, CHANHASSEN GATEWAY
PLACE, LLC., PLANNING CASE 06-05:
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
Public Present:
Name Address
Janice Schutter 8691 Chanhassen Hills Drive North
Jacob Wert The Shelard Group
Daren Laberee Westwood Professional Services
Chris Moehrl Westwood Professional Services
Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Commissioner Keefe asked for
clarification and directed staff to look at reviewing the ordinance regarding underground parking.
The applicant, Richard Hennings with Sand Companies spoke to the issues of parking and
product type. Chairman McDonald opened the public hearing. No one spoke and the public
hearing was closed. After commission discussion the following motions were made.
Larson moved, Keefe seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of
preliminary plat for Planning Case 06-05 for Gateway North as shown on plans received
January 6, 2006, subject to the following conditions:
1.Submit storm sewer design calculations with full-size drainage map for a 10-year, 24-hour
storm event.
2.Work with staff to revise the pond design calculations for the 10- and 100-year storm event.
3.Realign Lot 1, Block 2 full access perpendicular at Highway 101 and Lake Susan Drive
intersection.
4.The applicant is required to coordinate with MnDOT on the full access at Lake Susan Drive
and the storm pond outlet control sewer construction.
5.The applicant is responsible for obtaining and complying with all regularity agency permits:
Watershed District, MPCA, NPDES, MnDOT, Health Department, etc.
6.On the grading plan:
a.Show an emergency over flow.
b.Show stormwater pond easement.
c.Show silt fence Type II around the proposed pond.
d.Extend Type I silt fence to the north along the west side.
e.Show minimum 75-feet construction rock entrance.
f.Add a bench mark.
7.On the utility plan:
a.Show the watermain within the street Right-of-Way as a public utility.
b.Revise the existing sanitary sewer flow direction.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
c.Add a note that any connection to any existing structure must be core drilled.
d.Show all utility sewer pipe type, class, and size.
e.Show all utility manholes rim and invert elevations.
f.Add a gate valve to Lot 1, Block 1.
8.Plan and profile views are required for the entire public utility.
9.To guarantee the installation of the public improvements, the applicant must supply the City
with a financial security in the form of a letter of credit or cash escrow and enter into a
development contract.
10.On the plans, show the pedestrian ramps and a sidewalk connection between the south and
north sides of proposed Lake Susan Drive.
11.Temporary easements are required for any off-site grading.
12.The applicant must provide a proposed haul route for review and approval.
13.If fill is coming from and/or going to another site in Chanhassen, a separate grading permit
will be required for the other property.
14.All disturbed areas as a result of construction are required to be reseeded and mulched
within two weeks of site grading.
15.Add City Detail Plates Nos. 1002, 1004, 1005, 1006, 2001, 2101, 2109, 2110, 2201, 2202,
3101, 3102, 3107, 3108, 3109, 5200, 5203, 5206, 5214, 5215, 5217, 5300, and 5301.
16.On the site plan, show the dimensions of the parking stalls and driveway widths.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Larson moved, Keefe seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of site
plan with a variance for the reduction of nine enclosed parking spaces for Planning Case 06-05
for Chanhassen Gateway Place as shown on the plans received January 6, 2006, subject to the
following conditions:
1.The applicant shall replace the Colorado blue spruce specified on the landscape plan with an
alternate evergreen species.
2.One monument sign shall be permitted at the entrance to the development off of Lake Susan
Drive. These signs shall not exceed 24 square feet in sign display area nor be greater than
five feet in height. These signs shall be set back a minimum of 10 feet from the property
line.
3.Additional information must be submitted pertaining to the height and materials used for the
privacy fence located east of the tot-lot and picnic area.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
4.Details on the storm sewer connection to proposed Lake Susan Drive and proposed TH 212
should be provided. An emergency overflow for the proposed pond should be illustrated.
The applicant should submit a routing plan for any pond overflows from the site to a public
water body.
5.Drainage and utility easements (minimum 20 feet in width) should be provided over all storm
water infrastructure, including any emergency overflow structures. The storm water pond
should be platted in an outlot.
6.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All
exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round,
according to the following table of slopes and time frames:
Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can remain open
Steeper than 3:1 7 days when the area is not actively being worked.)
10:1 to 3:1 14 days
Flatter than 10:1 21 days
These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed
soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter
system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man
made systems that discharge to a surface water.
7.Rock construction entrance shall be installed as illustrated on Chanhassen Detail Plate 5301.
8.Wimco or similar inlet protection shall be installed at all inlets that may receive storm water
from site per Chanhassen Detail Plate 5302A. All inlet protection shall be inspected and
maintained to comply with NPDES requirements.
9.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street
sweeping as needed.
10.Temporary stabilization of the exposed area shall include a straw or hay cover at a rate of 2
tons per acre, disc anchored into the soil, including the area around the apartment building.
11.To minimize tracking and erosion around the apartment building during construction,
temporary cover of straw or wood chips shall be placed around the building in amounts
sufficient to control rutting.
12.The plans shall be revised to show a concrete washout area, BMPs for containment and
potential stockpile locations.
13.Silt fence (Chanhassen Type 1) shall be installed around the north and east side of the pond
within 24 hours of permanent outlet installation.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
14.The plans shall be revised to show inlet protection for sediment during construction for the
trench drain at the garage and shall include a detail.
15.Submit a detailed lighting and signage plan consistent with the Chanhassen Gateway PUD
Development Design Standards.
16.Building Official conditions:
a.The building must be protected with automatic fire sprinkler systems.
b.The building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the
State of Minnesota.
c.An accessible route must be provided to the building, parking facilities and public
transportation stops.
d.All parking areas, including parking garage, must be provided with accessible parking
spaces.
e.Accessible dwelling units must be provided in accordance with Minnesota State Building
Code Chapter 1341.
f.The building owner and or their representatives shall meet with the Inspections Division
to discuss plan review and permit procedures.
17.Fire Marshal Conditions:
a.A 10 foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e., street lamps, trees,
shrubs, bushes, Xcel Energy, Qwest, cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure
that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to
Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1.
b.Yellow curbing and “no parking fire lane” signs will be required. Contact Chanhassen
Fire Marshal for exact locations of yellow curbing and locations of signs to be installed.
c.Builder must comply with the Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention division
policies. Copies enclosed.
c.1 1-1990 regarding fire alarm systems.
c.2 4-1991 regarding notes to be included on all site plans.
c.3 7-1991 regarding pre-fire drawings.
c.4 29-1992 regarding premise identification.
c.5 34-1993 regarding water service installation.
c.6 36-1994 regarding proper water line sizing.
c.7 40-1995 regarding fire protection systems.
c.8 06-1991 regarding fire lane signage.
c.9. 52-2005 regarding commercial plan review submittal criteria.
d.Show on utility plan location of post indicator valve (PIV).
e.The hydrant on the south end of the loop shall be moved approximately 30 feet northeast.
Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact location and approval.
f.Fire apparatus access roads and water supply for fire protection is required to be installed.
Such protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to and during the time of
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
construction except when approved alternate methods of protection are provided.
Temporary street signs shall be installed at each street intersection when construction of
new roadways allows passage by vehicles. Pursuant to 2000 Minnesota State Fire Code
Section 501.4
g.Fire apparatus access roads shall be designed and maintained to support the imposed
loads of fire apparatus and shall be serviced so as to provide all-weather driving
capabilities. Pursuant to Minnesota Fire Code Section 503.2.3.
18.Approval of this site plan is contingent upon approval of the final plat for Gateway North.
19.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement.
20.The building shall comply with the Planned Unit Development building setback
requirements.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING:
HALLA GREENS (AKA CHANHASSEN SHORT COURSE): REQUEST FOR A SITE
PLAN AMENDMENT (2003-07), CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AMENDMENT (2003-04),
AND VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A GOLF COURSE ON PROPERTY
LOCATED ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE INTERSECTION OF GREAT
PLAINS BOULEVARD (HIGHWAY 101) AND PIONEER TRAIL. APPLICANT: JOHN
KOSMAS – PLANNING CASE NO. 05-39:
Public Present:
Name Address
John Kosmas KKE Design, 6112 Excelsior Blvd., St. Louis Park
Don Halla 6601 Mohawk Trail, Edina
Sandy Halla 6601 Mohawk Trail, Edina
Erik Olson 9855 Delphinium Lane
Dennis & Nancy Mills 9510 Foxford Road
Tom Jessen 9570 Foxford Road
Tom Anderson 9371 Foxford Road
Elizabeth Smith Mikkelsen 9591 Foxford Road
David & Sharon Gatto 9631 Foxford Road
Steve McMeen 9391 Foxford Road
Kathy Asplin 541 Pineview Court
Magdy & June Ebrahim 521 Pineview Court
Tom Gertz 10001 Great Plains Blvd.
Gaye Guyton 10083 Great Plains Blvd.
Judy Walstad 10071 Great Plains Blvd.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item. Commissioner Keefe asked for
clarification on the light standards in the parking lot, berming, and landscaping. Commissioners
Undestad and Larson asked for further clarification on the berming and landscaping.
Commissioner Zorn asked for clarification on the gravel road adjacent to this site.
Commissioner Papke asked if the ordinance speaks to the possibility of looking at a different
type of lighting standard, concern over the size of the maintenance building, hours of the
operation, and future lighting of the driving range. Chairman McDonald asked for further
clarification of the lighting request and the nature of the application. John Kosmas, representing
the applicant addressed the changes being proposed compared to what was previously approved
and outlined their application. Commissioner Keefe asked the applicant to elaborate on their
lighting request. Commissioner Undestad asked the applicant to comment on the hours of
operation. Commissioner Larson asked about the possibility of the applicant requesting a liquor
license. Commissioner Papke asked about the long term use on the property. Chairman
McDonald asked how this operation would compare with the Chaska Short Course and
clarification of building materials. He then opened the public hearing.
Boyd Peterson, 9860 Pioneer Circle, the residence directly to the east on the proposed second
fairway, expressed concern with the hours of operation, noise, and buffering. David Gatto, 9631
Foxford Road, speaking on behalf of the 37 homeowners in the Lake Riley Woods Homeowners
Association stated that the association really encourages the development but did have a few
concerns such as when the operation is scheduled to open and completion of the bike trail
connection. He requested a copy of the hydro geologic study regarding the impact to the
surrounding wells that’s referenced on page 5 of 18, condition number 13. He noted concern
over the increased intensity of development, the fact that the Bluff Creek Golf Course does not
have parking lot lights and that the homeowners association agrees with the City on the denial of
the extended hours, and that increased traffic, lighting, noise, and disruptions after dark are going
to impair their property values. In summary, they do not agree with the staff recommendation
that the City Council approve the amendments to the conditional use permit for parking lot lights
and drive aisle lighting. Judy Walstad, 10071 Great Plains Boulevard which is on the south side
of the golf course directly behind the private road and directly behind the driving range
expressed concern with the noise from lawn mowing, year round use of the property, opposition
to lighting of a driving range in the future, and parking lot lighting. In summary noting a request
to clarify in writing, so there are no misunderstandings between the applicant and the neighbors,
a map site with all the building locations, explanation of the continued landscaping process,
definition of sunrise and sunset, when golf patrons are expected to leave the property, including
the club house, that the private road not be used for Halla Green purposes, and denial of the
miniature golf course and lights on the driving range. Gaye Guyton, 10083 Great Plains
Boulevard stated four things of most concerned were that the hours of operation were going to be
seasonal and from sunrise to sunset, not prior and later. There was going to be no outdoor
speaker system, no commercial kitchen, and no exterior lighting with the exception of safety
lights on the building. Also a concern that the applicant has not adhered to the conditions
previously placed on the development. Tom Gertz, 10001 Great Plains Boulevard stated he
didn’t have any qualms that a majority of the proposal falls within the current ordinances and
guidelines but noted that consideration should be given to the fact that this development is taking
place in a residential neighborhood. He expressed concern with buffering and drainage. Tom
Jessen, 9570 Foxford Road, part of the Lake Riley Woods Homeowners. His primary issue was
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
traffic safety and the intersection which is the main entrance to the golf course. Chairman
McDonald closed the public hearing. After commission discussion the following motion was
made.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City
Council approve an amendment to Conditional Use Permit #2003-4 CUP, Planning Case
05-39 for the construction of a golf course with a club house as shown in plans dated
received January 6, 2006, with the following amendment to condition 9 of the existing
conditional use permit and the addition of condition 10:
9. No exterior lighting shall be permitted with the exception of safety lights which includes
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parking lot lights and drive aisle lights. The height of the light pole may not exceed feet.
All light fixtures must meet ordinance requirements.
10. Mowing and customer traffic outside of the allowed hours of operation which is sunrise to
sunset is prohibited.
Papke and Zorn voted in favor, Undestad, Keefe, McDonald and Larson voted in
opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 4.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City
Council approve an amendment to Site Plan Review #2003-7 SPR, Planning Case 05-39 for
the construction of a club house, a maintenance building, a golf ball washing building and a
lean-to for a golf course as shown in plans dated received January 6, 2006, with the
following added conditions:
1. Applicant shall increase landscape plantings to meet minimum requirements for parking lot
trees. A revised landscape plan shall be submitted to the City prior to City Council
approval.
2. Applicant shall fully screen parking lots from adjacent roadways through the use of berming
or increased landscaping.
3. The applicant must submit detailed architectural plans for the maintenance building, golf
ball washing building and lean-to that meet the design ordinance requirement.
4. Comply with all conditions of the MnDot review letter dated November 23, 2005.
5. The temporary 120 square foot octagon building is permitted for a maximum of 12 months
from the day the City Council approves this application, or when the certificate of
occupancy for the club house has been issued, whichever comes first.
6. The applicant is responsible for obtaining and complying with MnDot and Carver County
permits and approval on any grading that takes place along the north and west side of the
property.
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Planning Commission Summary – February 7, 2006
7. All disturbed areas are required to be restored with seed and mulch within two weeks of
grading completion.
8. All plans must be signed by a professional civil engineer registered in the State of
Minnesota.
Papke and Zorn voted in favor, Undestad, Keefe, McDonald and Larson voted in
opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 4.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends the City Council
denies Variance, Planning Case 05-39 for metal to be used as the exterior material of the
maintenance and golf ball washing buildings, and denies the variance allowing the golf
course to be open from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., based upon the findings in the staff report
and the following:
1. The applicant has not demonstrated a hardship.
2. The property owner has reasonable use of the property.
Papke and Zorn voted in favor, Undestad, Keefe, McDonald and Larson voted in
opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 4.
There was confusion with the outcome of the vote. The applicant, John Kosmas, asked to poll
the Planning Commission. Chairman McDonald clarified that what the Commission voted
against and denied was the motions, which means what is left is the current conditional use
permit so the applicant’s request to expand his current conditional use permit is denied.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Zorn noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning
Commission meeting dated January 3, 2006 as presented.
Acting Chairman McDonald adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 11:45 p.m.
Submitted by Kate Aanenson
Community Development Director
Prepared by Nann Opheim/Kim Meuwissen
14
CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 7, 2006
Acting Chair McDonald called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Jerry McDonald, Kurt Papke, Deborah Zorn, Dan Keefe, Debbie
Larson and Mark Undestad
MEMBERS ABSENT:
Uli Sacchet
STAFF PRESENT:
Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner; and
Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer
PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS:
Janet & Jerry Paulsen 7305 Laredo Drive
PUBLIC HEARING:
MINNETONKA MIDDLE SCHOOL WEST: REQUEST FOR AN INTERIM USE
PERMIT TO PERMIT OVER 1,000 CUBIC YARDS OF GRADING ON PROPERTY
ZONED OFFICE & INSTITUTIONAL DISTRICT LOCATED AT 6421 HAZELTINE
BOULEVARD (HIGHWAY 41), PLANNING CASE NO. 06-03.
Public Present:
Name Address
Dennis Clark 6651 Hazeltine Blvd.
Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item.
McDonald: Kurt, you want to go first?
Papke: Are there going to be any issues, I mean kids, water, playing in the water? Any fencing?
Any barrier? Any concerns? What’s the plan there?
Generous: There’s nothing proposed as part of this development. Fencing generally we don’t
put around storm water ponds. There’s over 3,000 in the community. We need to start setting
that precedent to go on. This is on the back side of the school. It’s not a heavy use area for the
school district. So and again this is intended to be a dry pond so there will only be water in
storm events.
Papke: In a storm event, how deep does it get?
Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Fauske: The plans indicate for a 100 year event 4.4 feet. Which is quite typically in your typical
design for a pond in a development you will typically have between 3 and 10 feet all the time
with another 3 feet of bounce on top of that.
Zorn: Bob, is there any type of recommendation for timing of construction? Perhaps at the end
of the school year that we can recommend to help alleviate children being near this area.
Generous: That didn’t come up as part of our discussion. I wonder if the applicant might be able
to answer that.
Zorn: Okay.
Mike Murphy: I’m Mike Murphy, Larson Engineering. I prepared the plans and I’m
th
representing the applicant tonight since he’s on vacation. It’s scheduled for June 15 when
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school’s out through August 15. The construction on this project.
Zorn: Thank you.
Mike Murphy: Anything else?
McDonald: No? The only question I have for staff is that you had placed in the report about
there may be the need to take some of this fill and put it someplace else within the city of
Chanhassen and you were unaware of what those plans were. Has that been resolved?
Generous: No, and as part of any grading permit they would, if they’re going to export it to the
location in the community, they need to notify us and we have to verify they have a grading
permit for that site. If they’re taking it out of the city, then they just have to notify us as to the
haul routes.
McDonald: Okay, but at this point they have not made you aware of what their plans are?
Generous: No, I’m not sure. They could know that details.
McDonald: Okay. Then in that case we’ll ask the applicant to come forward and present their
case.
Mike Murphy: Well Bob mentioned, described it very well. Basically we’re adding a 3,400
cubic yard infiltration basin at the request basically of the Department of Transportation and the
DNR. They’re requiring a maximum of 5 to 6 cubic feet per second runoff. We’ve met that
requirement. It’s currently under review from the Department of Transportation. There’s a
permit application for right-of-way from MnDot and also a drainage permit that they’re
reviewing currently and the DNR has provided the school with a cease and desist order to
remove the erosion across Dennis Clark’s driveway and that will be done in May. Before May
th
30.
McDonald: Any questions for the applicant?
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Keefe: I’ve got a quick question. In terms of the fill requirements, are you anticipating that
you’ll be removing a lot and then back filling or how does, what is the process for this particular
site?
Mike Murphy: Well it’s entirely, almost entirely removal. It’s currently I believe 600 to 700
cubic yards on site from a previous project is how it was brought in, fill in. Which was a road is
calculated at 600 and 700 cubic yards. Last year before we knew of this issue with MnDot so
now it’s, they’re removing yet another 3,400 cubic yards to come up with this plan.
Keefe: Okay.
McDonald: Thank you very much. At this time I’ll open the meeting to the public. Anyone
wishes to make comment, please come forward. State your name and address and we will hear
your comments.
Dennis Clark: I’m Dennis Clark and my property is south of, south of the, it sits on the bottom
of the hill. It’s about 7 acres so the wash, the 600 or 700 yards that has washed that’s gone now
into the pond has kind of been an issue so they’re, everyone’s doing their best to clean that up.
It’s a pretty big canyon actually of what is washed. 700 yards of dirt would probably be as big a
hole as this room and there’s also been some fairly mature trees that have come down in this. I
would say maybe 8 that are 100 foot trees. Pretty big in diameter. They’re talking about
reforesting that. I haven’t really seen the, any particular plan on that or what they’re trying to do.
I’m sure they’re going to try to, or we’d like to see something replace. You’re not going to be
able to put back 100 foot trees so I do got some concern on that. The amount of water that
comes down in the spring, and where this started was from the reconstruction up on the top of
the school when they re-graded and blacktopped all of that and there was some question then
from the folks south where’s all this water going to go? We pretty reassured them that this was
under control. I don’t understand what 5 to 6 cubic feet of water a second are, but this stuff is a
river that’s coming off and the holding pond on the top, I don’t quite get it. It’s, you know I
mean I’m sure the engineers have studied the water but I don’t know if they know how much
water, what created this canyon now or what the existing shore was for years that was fined so
there must have been enough, being able to be dispersed but then when they added all that
blacktop on the top, that water I think surprised everybody, and this has really been going on for
2 years. And finally the trees started falling down and that’s when the alert was. So 3 questions
are, even the trick of getting this stuff out of the pond is going to take more equipment and
there’s a lot of mature trees all over this property that I’m thinking they’re going to get affected
so I’m kind of concerned because that’s my berm to the highway, to the school. The frontage.
I’ve got a pretty long driveway. 100 yards there probably. So I sit, and I don’t know, can we put
the map up on how big that piece of property is. It’s kind of hidden so nobody knows, it was the
only one on that pond. It’s been there 20 years. Okay so this, there’s actually two sections. That
little sliver right up here is where the erosion is and that’s the forestation that’s taken out. It
actually goes in and has a slot there but I’m just trying to make sure that it’s on record that we’re
looking for some serious reforestation there. And I don’t know how they used to do the
equivalent to that when they’re, I know when they’re cutting trees down it’s so many inches
bigger. You know if you take, there’s probably some formula there. If you take a 24 inch tree
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
you get 24, you know you might end up with 2 more trees or bigger pine trees. I believe there’s
some formula there. I would like to see that applied in this case. And maybe that’s in the plan. I
didn’t look at the plan. I’ve been out of town and. And then it’s the part that’s going also down
to the pond so there’s the hill where the big canyon is where the trees are coming down, the
power company’s probably got a little concern in there too because their big power poles, they’re
now within 10 feet would you say. Have you been up there? 10 feet of the hole. That will shut
down the whole west metro so I think they want to get on this thing. If those things, you know
that’s that big power trunk line that goes through there. But that doesn’t show up on the map.
So urgency, you’ve got spring water coming. I don’t know if there’s any contingencies. I think
the original dirt was just even, we thought we’d probably patch it up and maybe we just had a
sewer that was plugged but, so it’s back to these how big is this sewer. My concern is, I don’t
understand the 4 foot water holding pond. When this water comes, it’s a river folks. It’s not just
a trickle so I don’t know how big that thing is. If it’s a swimming pool? Two swimming pools?
It doesn’t mean anything to me. I just question that and how fast. If you have two rain storms in
a row or 3 in a row, this thing’s coming over and now when it comes over and breaks that dike,
now you’ve got this whole western, or the whole southern slope which, this whole property line
right here, that’s all hill. They don’t show the contours. See it back up here. That’s all, the
school sits, I don’t know what the height of that hill is. 100 feet higher. So DNR got involved
and they wanted this water to go north. What ever happened to that, I mean they wanted to
divert this water north and everything naturally. That pond is a runoff holding pond and then
that goes under the road, over to Minnewashta and my first discussion was why don’t we shoot it
right under the road now into Minnewashta Park because that’s all swamp down there on the
other side. And the other thing I’d like in consideration here, one more note and then I’m done,
is Carver Park is going to start a project on the other side of the road and I think they’re going to
make an egress into the park there for a dog park, and I don’t know what happened to that plan,
if that’s going down, but this whole driveway area that’s going to have what, bulldozers or going
down into this thing and pulling the silt out. You ain’t going to do it with shovels. They made a
beach. 700 yards of dirt like this just went down onto that sand and it’s made a beach and you
know I don’t know if there’s going to be more construction going on there but that whole spot
out on the highway there is probably going to be coned up and you know I don’t know if there’s
projects, you know just don’t know if they’re going to make that wider. Put a new culvert in. I
don’t know the engineering part of this thing that’s coming down. That’s all a wash now.
Everything’s, it’s even taken out my driveway underneath. So the school has come back in and
has re-packed underneath my driveway to hold some of that dirt, and that will be gone in the
spring. So there’s, you know just trying to say it’s, I don’t know what the dates are but spring is
coming and water’s going to be flowing there pretty soon and it’s going to be another 500 cubic
yards of dirt down in that pond.
McDonald: Okay. Thank you very much. Does anyone else wish to come forward and make
comment? Seeing no one else coming forward, I now close the public meeting and I bring it
back up to the commissioners for discussion and review.
Keefe: Yeah, I just have a question. Maybe, can you speak at all to any of you speak to the
adjacent properties in terms of the water flow that the gentleman was speaking about. I mean is
it, is the water really flowing? Is this going to slow down the water that goes onto that adjacent
property or what can you tell us?
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Fauske: I can speak in generalities on the storm sewer pipe design shows that it will discharge
into that basin and the intent of the basin is to slow the water down. Provide it an area where it
can pond and then slowly outflow through the outlet pipe. They do have some drain tile showing
at the bottom of the pond which will go into the pipe just to slowly bleed that water down the
slope, so to decrease the discharge rate. I don’t have the pre and post conditions to be able to
speak to how much they are reducing that. I think that’s something their engineer might be able
to answer, but that’s the intent of the system is just to slow that water down and then pipe it
down. I believe they have it piped it all the way down the slope there which we were glad to
minimize the amount of water going down that slope because they’ll have to actually eliminate
the water going down the slope for a 100 year event.
Keefe: How about in terms of reforestation on the adjacent properties? Is that contemplated as a
part of this project?
Generous: There’s nothing shown in this plans. I wonder if the applicant may have more
information on that. I know that’s a separate DNR thing.
Mike Murphy: We met with the Carver County Soil and Water Conservation District to help to
deal with the wetland restoration. They have told us, me personally that we could remove small
trees. That that erosion would be replaced or it could be removed with a, like a mini-excavator
and a skid loader and trucks. We work within the right-of-way. MnDot right-of-way so we’re
working with them right now to find out what their requirements are for traffic control, you
know what times of day, if it has to be at night or what not. As far as the I guess canyon in this,
as we’re calling it today, we’re not planning to add any trees in there. Again a majority of it’s
within MnDot right-of-way. It’s kind of their call. They’ve seen it. They’ve seen it for over a
month now. We’re waiting, anxiously awaiting comments from them. If that’s part of their plan,
we’ll definitely put that stuff in. I guess I’d like to comment also on the discharge rate. We are
at, we currently have an 8 inch, or 18 inch PVC pipe leading into this area currently. It drains
directly over about 3:1 slope. Very steep slope causing the erosion. We’re going to replace that
with this infiltration basin and an 8 inch outlet. That’s all there is to this pond. The high water
level, the difference between the high water level and emergency overflow for the pond would be
over a foot. So in a 100 year storm it should never overflow. You mentioned back to back storm
events. This isn’t designed for back to back 100 year storms. It needs infiltration time.
Keefe: Just sound, as the Planning Commission, I mean is it typical that when we look at
restoration of adjacent properties? Kurt you brought it in. I’m trying to.
McDonald: I guess the thing I would have for staff is, what’s our input? If this is on MnDot
right-of-way and it’s probably more their call than anything but what input do we have into that
as far as getting it put back to the way it was?
Generous: As he said, it will never be put back the way it is because of the age of the trees. We
can make recommendations to MnDot however it is their jurisdiction and they can say they don’t
want them in their right-of-way or they do.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Papke: Just one other point you know from a Planning Commission perspective, the only thing
we’re looking at tonight is the pond. Okay, that’s the only thing we have any say over at this
point.
McDonald: Right, and that’s all the plan addresses too. That’s why all this other stuff isn’t in
there. Mark.
Larson: Yeah, I’ve got one. Sorry. Dennis mentioned that the blacktop was put in what, 2 years
ago? At the middle school. The blacktop that you mentioned. When they expanded the
blacktop at the school.
Generous: For parking on the north side.
Larson: So is that what’s causing the problem? I mean we’ve had incredible high rain amounts
this last, well last year anyway. I mean I’ve had water problems in my home personally that has
never happened in 20 years so what I’m trying to determine is it because they added the
additional hard surface area and it sounds to me like you know, is the hard surface area then
going to drain towards this pond? It kind of looks that way from what I’m seeing but it’s a little
difficult to read.
Generous: Yeah, this is on the south side of the building so this isn’t picking up the parking lot.
Larson: Oh it’s not?
Generous: As a part of that project they put in a separate storm water pond north of the school.
Larson: It’s little isn’t it?
Generous: I don’t know.
Larson: Well I don’t know, I was just, it’s really hard to read this.
Generous: …yeah and this shows that southwest corner, the entire site so you have all the field
to the east of it.
Larson: So where is it draining from? To this pond.
Generous: I assume it’s coming down to this pond it would be the south side of the building and
down into the right-of-way it would be on the west side of the building.
Mike Murphy: Yeah, we prepared a drainage area map indicating, just based upon the existing
contours out there, what is all draining toward this area of the site and it’s quite a bit of
impervious surface from the building and there’s a large parking lot. There’s a track up there…
Larson: But he just said the parking lot’s not going to drain this way so that’s not going to be…
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Mike Murphy: Well there’s service drives around the building. There’s a parking lot on the side
of the site draining to the west so it’s, I don’t have the numbers right in front of me but I had
submit a drainage calculations and I believe it was somewhere between like 3 or 4 or 5 acres or
something like that that drains to the southeast corner.
Larson: That’s not up to me to call.
Dennis Clark: If I can address the Chair one more time? There’s an issue with, that needs to be
solved.
McDonald: Well at this point the open meeting session has been closed. I think what I’m going
to have to do is defer that. The opportunity was earlier to bring that up. As has been stated, the
only real issue before us that we can look at is the pond itself. Anything else that would deal
with that is probably beyond the scope of this particular meeting. So I apologize for that but
that’s what we have to do. We’ve got quite a few things to get through today. Mark, you were
skipped. Do you want to?
Undestad: No.
McDonald: Well I guess I really don’t have too much to add to all this. I think that staff you
know does need to stay in touch as far as where all this is going to go. Any input we can provide
to alleviate some of these other problems I think we should go ahead and do. Having said that,
can I have a motion before the commission.
Keefe: Yeah I’ll make a motion. Planning Commission recommends approval of Interim Use
Permit #06-03 to permit grading of approximately 3,400 cubic yards for an infiltration basin and
drainage swale, plans prepared by Larson Engineering of Minnesota dated December 19, 2005
subject to the following conditions, number 1 through 23.
McDonald: Okay. Do I have a second?
Zorn: I second.
Keefe moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of
Interim Use Permit #06-03 to permit the grading of approximately 3,400 cubic yards for a
infiltration basin and drainage swales, plans prepared by Larson Engineering of Minnesota,
dated December 19, 2005 subject to the following conditions:
1.The applicant shall provide the City with a cash escrow or letter of credit in the amount of
$5,600.00 to guarantee erosion control measures and site restoration and compliance with the
interim use permit.
2.Verify the existing 24-inch culvert has sufficient capacity before replacing the private drive
entrance.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
3.The applicant must provide a proposed haul route for review and approval.
4.If fill is coming from and/or going to another site in Chanhassen, a separate grading permit
will be required for the other property.
5.All disturbed areas as a result of construction are required to be reseeded and mulched within
two weeks of site grading.
6.An erosion control blanket must be installed on all sides around the infiltration basin. All
disturbed areas as a result of construction are required to be sodded or reseeded and mulched
within two weeks of site grading.
7.Submit a full size drainage area map.
8.Add City Detail Plates Nos. 3101, 3102, 3103, 5300, 5301 and 5302.
9.Show rock construction entrance per Detail Plate No. 5301. The applicant shall construct
and maintain a rock construction access to the site. Access to the site shall be restricted to
this access point only.
10.The applicant shall obtain and comply with all permit requirements of the Watershed District
and MnDOT.
11.Revise the existing storm sewer flow direction in all plans to match.
12.The applicant shall supply the City with a mylar as-built survey prepared by a professional
engineer upon completion of filling and/or excavation to verify the grading plan has been
performed in compliance with the proposed plan.
13.A plumbing permit must be obtained before installing the storm sewer piping.
14.The applicant shall provide a cross section for the filtration area showing the elevation of the
drain tile and the trenches, as well as a cross section of the trench and details of the material
used. The drain tile trenches shall be lined with drainage fabric (4% to 6% open space) and
filled with pea rock at a depth of at least 18 inches and 3 feet wide. The bottom of the entire
filtration basin shall be backfilled with a mixture of 50% coarse clean sand, 25% compost, 25%
loamy topsoil for a minimum depth of 6 inches (from approximately 1034.5 to 1035.0). The
rest of the area shall be top-dressed with native topsoil. CB-1 shall be revised to be an open
beehive inlet at an approximate elevation of 1037 for handling large storm event runoff if the
calculations for rate control work out to avoid overwhelming the filtration area and having long
periods (greater than 72 hours) of ponding.
15.Erosion control blanket/turf reinforcement mat (MnDOT Category 5) shall be used for
restoration of the exposed slope from the emergency overflow to the ditch along Highway 41
within 7 days of final grade. The blanket shall be specified and a detail provided. Erosion
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
control blanket shall be installed on any exposed soils south of the private drive within 24 hours
of final grade.
16.A seed mix for shaded, wooded areas shall be specified in the plan, along with the proposed rate
of application. A seed mix for the filtration area and slopes shall also be specified.
17.The rip rap at the flared-end section at the south end of the 24-inch pipe south of the private
drive shall be replaced.
18.Runoff from the storm sewer system from the school shall be controlled during construction.
The water shall be conveyed through a non-erosive means to the Highway 41 ditch through the
job site.
19.Erosion control blanket category 2 or 3 shall be installed within the filtration area within 24
hours of connecting the 18-inch PVC to the basin. The blanket shall be applied following a
seeding. Remaining exposed soils on site shall be mulched and seeded or sodded within 14
days of final grade.
20.The silt fence used shall be a City of Chanhassen type 1 silt fence; monofilament silt fence with
metal T-posts, 6 foot maximum spacing and 3 plastic zip ties in the top 8 inches of the fabric.
The silt fence specified for the filtration area shall be labeled as “Installed after drain tile
installation.”
21.A rock construction exit pad shall be installed from the bituminous edge 40 to 50 feet long into
the job site.
22.Street sweeping shall be completed within 24 hours should soil be tracked upon paved surfaces.
23.Catch basin inlet control shall be provided for the catch basins adjacent to the school building if
tracking of soil becomes a problem on the paved surfaces.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING:
PINEHURST REPLAT:REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT
APPROVAL TO SUBDIVIDE APPROXIMATELY 28 ACRES WITH VARIANCES ON
PROPERTY ZONED SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RSF) DISTRICT; AND THE
VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENTS LOCATED AT PINEHURST
DRIVE AND GALPIN BOULEVARD. APPLICANT: LENNAR CORPORATION
(LUNDGREN BROS. CONSTRUCTION, INC.) – PLANNING CASE NO. 06-07.
Public Present:
Name Address
Troy Bader 2244 Lake Lucy Road
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Matt Goldstein Lundgren Bros. Construction
Nathan Franzen Plowshares Development
Robert Generous presented the staff report on this item.
Papke: Bob, on page 3 of the staff report, under grading and drainage, third and the fourth
paragraphs you make recommendations to not relocate the storm sewer pipe in Lot 22 and to not
relocate the storm sewer line through Lot 4, Block 2. Neither of those recommendations turn
into conditions in the staff report. Could you explain those two issues and why or why not they
were made conditions.
Fauske: I can answer that Chair. Staff wanted to go through in detail and discuss storm sewer
relocation. Currently the plans do not show relocating that and staff just intended to reiterate that
we actually support what they were showing in the drawing. So that’s why it didn’t show up in
the recommendations. Basically we agree with what they showed in the construction plans.
Zorn: Just to clarify, just so I understand. Vacation from drainage and utility easements. Is that
what you just referenced or how is that different?
Generous: As part of the original plat they have all the drainage and utility easements dedicated
as part of that. By changing the lot lines they’re changing where those easements should be. So
when you get to council they actually hold the public hearing to vacate all the existing easements
and as a part of this plat they’ll rededicate new easements on the property lines and cover those
pipes that are in place.
Zorn: Okay, thanks.
McDonald: Thanks for clearing that up.
Larson: I’ve got a question for you Bob. On page 7, item number 5. Is that typical that it says
the applicant shall create a homeowners association to take responsibility for the retaining walls
across property lines?
Generous: This is something that’s new we’ve come up with because, especially on this one that
we have large retaining walls that go along the back of an entire block and rather than having a
homeowner responsible for that, we believe that the developer and then the associations should
be responsible to maintain that As a matter of fact we’re looking at next planning commission to
have a discussion paper on putting that idea into an ordinance form.
Larson: Oh okay.
McDonald: Mark?
Undestad: Nothing to add.
McDonald: Dan?
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Keefe: The request for private streets, was that approved before or is that new?
Generous: No, they have, they were approved before. It’s just because the replatting and we
wanted to show that they were continuing those because those have all been constructed.
Keefe: Okay, and then the curb on the street is, was in guidelines right? I mean it’s already
there isn’t it? I mean we already approved that cul-de-sac and yeah.
McDonald: Okay, is the applicant here to present their case?
Matt Goldstein: good evening Mr. Chair, members of the commission. Staff and guests I
suppose. My name is Matt Goldstein. I’m a planner with Lundgren. We’re part of the Lennar
Family of Builders. I’m also joined by Plowshares and Westwood. The reason we’re here is to
request permission essentially to remove home sites from this community. Since we first started
talking with Plowshares we had an idea for one particular series of homes to go here. Since that
time it’s been a few years, we’ve designed a new series of homes called Masterpiece Series
which is a bit larger and under the old configuration causes some conflicts with the impervious
surface regulations. In talking with staff at length and originally considering requesting a
variance from the impervious surface regulations, the direction was that our best bet was to
request a replat. Reduce the density. Create home sites that are appropriately sized based upon
existing regulations and move forward from that direction. So to reiterate Bob’s or his action
we’re basically moving some lot lines and we’re going to be reconfiguring a couple of building
pads. Some other things that had not changed are the street configuration and the public versus
the private streets. The tree preservation aspect of the plans have not changed at all either.
Every single tree that is approved to be preserved has essentially been preserved since all the
grading is done. And this new configuration does conform to the new minimum lot width
standard that was recently approved. So we’ve gone through the process of re-engineering the
entire site to confirm with staff that everything does comply to the minimum standards and in
many respects exceeds that standard. To address the question about the homeowners association,
we do have a draft declaration that will be filed with the County that does in fact place that
burden of maintaining those walls on the association. During build out the association is
managed by Lundgren. We take all those tasks on internally. We pay for those. As part of that
we file a whole series of documents with the County, including various descriptions in both
script form and map form to ensure that it’s clear that the association is responsible for those
things. That will also be in our disclosure. We have a 15 to 17 page disclosure that provides
each of our buyers, so that item should be clearly addressed. With that I have Plowshares and
Westwood here also available to address any questions if you have any concerns about the
history of the project. And I’m available to address any concerns as well. Thank you.
McDonald: Okay. Any questions for the applicant from commissioners?
Keefe: I just have one curiosity question. You said that your home type has changed. Can you
give us a flavor on what’s different and what you were planning to what you plan now?
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Matt Goldstein: Certainly. They’re bigger and better. Deeper into the upper bracket, if you
want to go pretty far. If you were to take our traditional series, which is in Ashling Meadows
and a few other communities, they take that to the next level. That’s what you’ll see in our
Masterpiece Series. The footprints are a bit larger in size. There you will see more architectural
detail in the facades. More side loaded garages. A bit higher level of exterior finishing. You’ll
see more masonry. A bit more detail in the roof lines, so Pinehurst will be unique relative to
other neighborhoods in Chanhassen, even that we’ve built. We’re really trying to ramp it up and
what we’ve seen in the past is we would set over to the lower standard in terms of what would be
your base package, even though you’re in an upper bracket custom single family home type of
market. We found that rather than ask people to spend a lot of money on upgrades to meet their
needs, we’ve taken most of what we’ve seen in terms of market feedback over the past several
years and increase that standard to a point where we don’t expect as many upgrades because
people will generally feel more happy with the package that they’ve given.
Keefe: Is that something that would be like in Settlers West or?
Matt Goldstein: The Traditional Series is what’s in Settlers West and we missed the opportunity
to put Masterpiece there for very similar reasons. The impervious surface concerns. So we’re
going to be rolling out Masterpiece in Chanhassen.
McDonald: Mark? Deb? I have no questions either. At this point I will open up the meeting to
the general public. Anyone wishing to come forward to make comment, please come up to the
lectern. Give us your name and address and state your case.
Troy Bader: My name is Troy Bader. The address is 2244 Lake Lucy Road. ...show you here I
guess where we are. Pan in here. Our home would be right at the edge of where the city, what is
the parcel I guess that’s been dedicated back to the city. We’re right on the corner. And the
riverine that is referenced throughout the documents that came through, it discharges on the very
end of our property. The city property then continues on in this stretch that runs adjacent to Lake
Lucy Road. You know outside of the developer and is also city property. The, in connection
with this development we have had problems. There have been problems I understand with the
Manchester section but we’ve also had problems down in this section. When this first came up, I
just want to give you a little background. It will obviously lead to some questions here and there
will be more questions than anything else. When this first came about, one of the questions that
we had and concerns that we raised was what is going to be done in terms of erosion control as
all of this grading. As you folks probably know there were a lot of trees removed. There was a
lot of grading done and there was a lot of dirt brought in. One of our concerns, and probably the
biggest concern is what’s going to be done to control the erosion on this area as it comes down
the hill to the riverine and then discharges on the end of our property. Yes, we’ve had a lot of
rain this fall. In September we had a big one, and what happened as we understand it, and I
don’t know that we have all the details because we’ve just had a heck of a time getting good
details, but what was explained to us by Plowshares at the time, who by the way were, did a good
job stepping up to the plate in assisting us and working with us on the problems that we had.
What happened though as we understand it is that the construction drainage ponds didn’t hold, so
there was a tremendous discharge of water on or about Labor Day. What happened is, as that
water came down, the riverine, the culvert did not, it became clogged. There were debris.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
We’ve got photos of logs that came down, plus all the straw. Everything else that came down as
a result of the construction and the erosion control efforts came down. Blocked the culvert and
everything flooded all the way back. Fortunately, knock on wood we didn’t have water in the
house but the yard was flooded. The riverine as I stand in the bottom by the culvert, the top of
the riverine is above my shoulders. We had water above that and all the way up to our home.
Okay? Fortunately we have a poured concrete foundation and didn’t have water. The problem
is, when this all occurred there was a weir. There’s a concrete weir about midway back in that
riverine. I don’t know when it was put in or what the situation was, but what happened is that
when this came down, what the weir is, it’s a concrete structure between the two natural hillsides
I guess as you come through the riverine, and what it did was, from what we can tell, is to
control the water flow. Just as you were talking about in the earlier case. That failed. So what
has happened is you go to the end toward I guess it would be toward the east side of the weir and
the riverine. All of that caved in. Probably about a good 8 to 10 feet over. It has all caved in,
probably down about 6 feet, maybe more. As a result when water comes down now, it’s rushing
through. There’s absolutely no control. So since that’s happened I have been out there on two
occasions since then clearing debris out, continuing to clear out logs. Continuing to clear out all
these other problems. The most recent time was New Year’s Day, believe it or not. So it’s not
just when we have a rain now. Now it’s a thaw, so we have a very significant problem there and
you know, I don’t want to have to worry about when the yard’s going to flood the next time. To
compound it, there is no emergency exit from that property. That culvert is the only exit that we
have. We had the city engineers out to take some grades and they said don’t worry, you won’t
have water coming into your windows. I said can I see the grades so I can understand it. Well I
apologize we threw those away. I don’t know where we stand. I don’t know where we’re going
with this thing. It’s been very frustrating because since that, since this development, all the
grading and I understand that once yards are put in and everything else, hopefully this is going to
slow down but what we don’t know is how much more water is being put into that riverine and
unfortunately we now have a damaged riverine that is not flowing and handling the water as it
did previously, and nobody has come to us in response to our request and has advised us that
there will be any work done on this riverine to rectify those situations and better control the
water. So that is background of what causes me concerns as I see additional items. Now when
Mr. Generous was up and showed the lots that are being changed, what I don’t know are really a
couple things. First of all, is there more or less water as a result of this being drained into the
riverine? That would be number one. Number two, where are these discharge pipes going into
the riverine? And third, as I indicated before, I really still and maybe beyond this commission’s
authority but I’d like some guidance, what is going to be done to assure that this riverine, which
is now on city property after the dedication, what is going to be done to rectify the condition of
that riverine which is causing the problem. There are solutions. There are a lot of solutions. We
just need someone to help us with those solutions and put something in place. So those are the
primary concerns. The other piece is I know the applicant has now changed with Lundgren.
Plowshares would get our calls when there was a problem, and they were good about coming
out. We don’t know who to call now. We don’t know who is responsible for this and the reality
is we just don’t want another run around. Again this can be solved. We’re willing to do what we
can to help solve this thing. It wasn’t a problem before this. It shouldn’t be a problem again
going forward, but what I am seeing is a significantly increased flow of water already through
that area and really no solution in sight. So I’d like to understand what is the flow, what is going
to happen? Is there more or less water going into this? Has there been a study done whether the
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
riverine in it’s current condition can in fact handle all of this water because we’re talking of any
time there’s an improvement, any time you start changing a piece of ground to the degree that
this has been changed, you’re playing with fire. There will be changes in the flow and based
upon what we’ve seen today, I have a great deal of discomfort that in fact everything has been
done that can be done to make sure that this is still going to flow properly and we’re not going to
have problems. So that’s really what I’d like addressed in some way, shape or form if we can.
The final thing would be to make sure that if there is additional grading, and I understand it’s not
going to be significant grading at this point but if there will be additional grading, I really want
to have an understanding that everything that can be done will be done. When we raised this
when this first came through we were assured that everything that can be done will be done. We
will have silt fence. We’ll have all this stuff. Well they started. Started the work before all that
was done and unfortunately with the rain nothing held, and since then there have been dual silt
fences and everything else. I don’t know if it’s going to hold. I’m not an expert in that regard.
Hopefully you’ll help us. Thank you.
McDonald: Okay. Anyone else?
Janet Paulsen: My name is Janet Paulsen. I live at 7305 Laredo Drive. I just have a few
questions on the private streets. I was wondering if Bob could explain exactly, are those streets
have been approved and the lots surrounding then have been approved.
Generous: As part of the previous plat, yes it was approved to use the private streets and platted
with the private streets.
Janet Paulsen: Well this is after a fact but I’d like to point out a few errors and maybe more
variances that should have been asked for. The lots in yellow are on the private streets?
Generous: Yes.
Janet Paulsen: Well according to code the front lot line of lots that are served by a private street
have to be measured from the lot line that’s closest to the public street that serves those lots.
And I think that the front lot line is in the wrong place to serve those lots. I don’t know what can
be done after the fact.
Generous: These two, we treated the north lot line as the front because of the tilt in the property.
It seem to make sense.
Janet Paulsen: Was a variance asked for?
Generous: For the private street?
Janet Paulsen: For the change in the lot line from front to side.
Generous: That’s a matter of interpretation. You want to treat, which edge do you want to treat
closest and we figured that the north edge was contiguous with that line of that private street.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
McDonald: Well I guess before we get into this, if I could interrupt, I’m not sure what the
relevance is. I understand that we’re looking at private streets but this is a plan that’s already
been approved. The streets are already there and what’s before us is not the issue of the streets
themselves. It’s the fact that the applicant would like to reduce the lots in the development.
Janet Paulsen: I’m aware of that and it just said in the report variances for a private street, and I
think it should have had more variances than the one listed in the report. Thank you.
McDonald: Okay, so noted. Thank you. Would anyone else care to come forward and
comment? Okay, seeing no one else I will close the public meeting portion of this and we’ll
bring it back to the commissioners for their comments. Kurt, we’ll start with you.
Papke: I’d like to give my kudo’s to the developers for taking this action. My recollection from
when this was in front of the Planning Commission last time is the drainage area that you’ve now
made into an outlot was one of the biggest bones of contention that we had at that point. That
was really one of the most troublesome aspects of approving this so I appreciate you resolving
that issue. And also we get more than our fair share of requests for variances for hard surface
coverage and I also appreciate you taking the proactive stance and resolving that as opposed to
asking for a variance. So I appreciate what, your proposal tonight. That’s it.
Zorn: No comment.
McDonald: Deborah.
Larson: Well I, I have my concerns also regarding this drainage thing. Who was.
Papke: Could I make a suggestion? Is there a possibility we could take, the drainage issue really
isn’t in front of us tonight. Could we take that off, but I think it’s a serious issue. Is there an
opportunity for city staff to meet with the fellow who has the issues here to find out what the
plan of attack is from the city’s perspective? Or has that already been done or?
Fauske: Yes, after the storms this past September and October of this year, staff has had
basically a long laundry list of drainage problems in the city, this being one of them.
Papke: Okay.
Larson: Okay, so it’s already been basically addressed. Alright.
Fauske: On the list.
Larson: It’s on the list? Okay. I guess that’s all then.
McDonald: Mark? I guess the only comments that I would have is, I would re-emphasize the
thing about the water issues. Unfortunately that is not an issue before us. We were not the only
city in September to have water problems. The only answer that I can give to the gentleman that
raised the question is that, it is being addressed by city staff. It is being addressed by the
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
engineering. I would suggest at this point that you address all of your comments and you know
help to the city staff. This seems to be a little bit maybe beyond where the development at this
point is at and again as you pointed out, it looks like most of the problems is on city property
anyway. So what I would suggest you do to find your answer is just to go back to the city and
have them address them. There are certain remedies that are available for you. Having said that,
do I have a motion?
Fauske: Mr. Chair?
McDonald: Yes.
Fauske: I apologize for interrupting. After putting out these reports we had a recommendation
from the city engineer regarding the sewer and water services for the two lots that are now being
removed essentially from the plat. That we remove the curb stop and install spot liners at those
two utility locations just to put them out of service and remove any liability if something hit the
curb stop and had been damaged. So if any…recommend an additional condition 16.
McDonald: Go right ahead.
Fauske: Okay. Remove curb stops and install spot liners at Manchester Drive services and the
services between Lots 5 and 6, Block 4.
McDonald: Bob, since this is your report, would you agree with that?
Generous: That’s fine. I just put in what they handed me.
McDonald: Okay, that’s fine. Do I have a motion from the commission?
Zorn: I make a motion to recommend to adopt the Planning Commission recommends approval
of the preliminary plat creating 41 lots with variances for the use of two private streets, plans
prepared by Westwood Engineering Services, revised January 5, 2006. Conditions 1 through 16
with 16 so noted.
McDonald: Do I have a second?
Larson: I second that.
Zorn moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the
preliminary plat creating 41 lots with variances for the use of two private streets, plans prepared by
Westwood Engineering Services, Inc., dated revised January 5, 2006, subject to the following
conditions:
nd
1.Revise the Final Plat to label Outlot C as Outlot A, Pinehurst 2 Addition.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
2.A final grading plan and soils report must be submitted to the Inspections Division before
building permits will be issued. The soils report must have a lot conversion table identifying
how the test results from the original subdivision correlate to the new lot descriptions.
3.Separate water and sewer services must be provided for each lot.
4.Permits are required for retaining walls. Walls over four feet high must be designed by a
professional engineer.
5.The applicant shall create a Homeowners Association to take responsibility for the retaining
walls that cross property lines and maintain them.
6.The developer must ensure that the soils under all revised building pads meet the required
densities.
7.The construction plans must be revised to reflect the new lot and block numbers.
8.Wetland buffer widths of 16.5 feet to 20.0 feet shall be maintained around all wetlands on-site.
9.All structures shall maintain a 40-foot setback from wetland buffer edges.
10.Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City’s
wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of
City staff, before construction begins and shall pay the City $20 per sign.
11.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed
soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to
the following table of slopes and time frames:
Time
(maximum time an area can remain unvegetated
Type of Slope
when area is not actively being worked)
Steeper than 3:1 7 Days
10:1 to 3:1 14 Days
Flatter than 10:1 21 Days
These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, any exposed soil
areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter
system, storm sewer inlet temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other man made systems
that discharge to a surface water.
12.Daily scraping and sweeping of public streets shall be completed any time construction site soil,
mud, silt or rock is tracked or washed onto paved surface or street that would allow tracked
materials or residuals of that material to enter the storm water conveyance system.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
13.Construction site access points shall be minimized to controlled access points with rock entrance
and exit pads installed and maintained throughout construction.
14.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g.,
Riley-Purgatory-Bluff-Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES
Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering))
and comply with their conditions of approval.
15.The easement width shall be reduced to approximately 24 feet wide on Lot 22, Block 1, so that
the easement lies only 10-feet east of the storm sewer.”
16. Remove curb stops and install spot liners at Manchester Drive services and the services
between Lots 5 and 6, Block 4.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Troy Bader: Mr. Chair, if I might. There was the one question…is there more or less area being
drained into this, into the riverine in regards to this change? We’re not…we need to know if
there’s more less going in. Have they answered?
McDonald: Well again, we don’t have the answer for you and what I suggest is that you talk to
city staff and that’s where you’ll have to get the answer.
Troy Bader: I understand. I think that is the point that was relevant just for the record, or for off
the record but again that is a question that is relevant in terms of what’s going…but have a great
day. We’ll do our best.
McDonald: Okay, thank you.
PUBLIC HEARING:
DAVE BANGASSER:REQUEST FOR HARD SURFACE COVERAGE AND TWO
FRONT-YARD SETBACK VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A THREE-
STALL GARAGE ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 3633 SOUTH CEDAR – PLANNING
CASE NO. 06-04:
Public Present:
Name Address
Dave & Mary Jo Bangasser 3633 South Cedar
Bob Generous presented the staff report on this item.
McDonald: Kurt, would you like to start? Okay, Dan.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Keefe: Just a quick question on depth of the garage that’s existing now. Is the one that they’re
proposing is no deeper, it’s the same depth, is that correct?
Generous: It’s a little bit deeper to provide a work area where the two joined and then it jogs.
And then it’s actually slightly smaller. It’s 24 feet deep instead of 26, or 24 ½.
Keefe: Okay. So if we were to go to the 2 car alternative they’d be looking at the 24 ½ depth or
what do you? In terms of that alternative, what are you recommending for depth?
Generous: Well I don’t know that we have a preference. They could cut it off and maintain the
existing garage and just extend that over, or they could just use the new area. In either case they
would be at the minimum they would maintain the existing…because it’s a corner, it’s a
triangular lot so the lot lines go away from the structure as it goes farther to the west.
Keefe: So it’s toward the west you get a little bit deeper. You’d be alright with the deeper.
Generous: Yes.
Keefe: Alright. I want to get a handle on the, you know it looks like we’re going to end up with
a variance either way, and the 2 car, the 3 stall wouldn’t be as severe I guess. How do you think
of it in terms of.
Generous: The 2 stall variance is approximately 2.3% impervious cover variance as opposed to a
6% variance with a 3 car option. And so that’s really the difference between the two
alternatives. Again the ordinance, if they were building new they wouldn’t be able to do this but
we would require that they have the 2 car garage and so we think providing that is good.
However going beyond it with the 3 car garage is, we think it slightly excessive because of the
configuration of the existing house on the lot and then this parcel.
Keefe: Alright.
McDonald: Mark?
Undestad: The hard surface coverage Bob that both lots combined after?
Generous: It would still be over the 25% by combining them. Because the house is way over
but by adding the two together you, they currently meet it but with the expansion they would
exceed the 25%.
Undestad: Okay.
Larson: So they’re willing to, or has it been suggested that they combine them? The lots.
Generous: Yes, and he doesn’t have a problem doing that part of it. His preference would be the
3 car garage.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Larson: Of course, it’d be mine too but.
McDonald: Deborah?
Zorn: Out of curiosity Bob, do you know what is that small little parcel of land next to the
subject site? Is there actually a home on that site or is that an open lot?
Generous: I’m not really sure. It’s open.
Zorn: Okay. No further questions.
Papke: The lot that the proposed garage will be on, it states in the staff report that it currently
sheet drains to the west. Does the surface water runoff from the garage eventually end up in
Lake Minnewashta? Does it eventually drain into the lake? Is that a safe assumption?
Fauske: I would believe that would be a safe assumption in this area.
Papke: Okay, so from a hard surface coverage perspective, that’s really the consideration here is
how much runoff we’re introducing into Lake Minnewashta.
Generous: Yes.
Papke: Okay, thanks.
McDonald: Okay, I have a couple questions for you because I’m confused by your graph on
page 4 of 10. If I read through that, in the one column I have the ordinance requirement. I have
the existing requirements and the proposed requirements. As I go down and I look at all of this,
it appears that even going with the 3 car garage on this parcel, he meets all the requirements. So
where I’m confused is why would we deny him a 3 car garage? I understand the setbacks and
we can deal with that separately but the hard surface coverage area is only 19.7%. That’s under
the 25.
Generous: For the one lot but the existing is at 43%.
McDonald: But at this point they’re two separate lots. Okay that’s where my confusion is
because you make the recommendation that as part of this that we combine and once you
combine that, at that point he can’t meet the hard surface coverage between the two lots. But if
they’re two separate lots and what he’s bringing before us is the lot at the corner and that’s what
he’s asking for and these two lots are not currently joined, then at that point it would appear he
meets the requirements. Am I missing something here?
Generous: For that, except for you can’t have an accessory structure without a principle
structure.
McDonald: Okay.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Generous: So they combine the two, then we bring it into conformance with that portion of the
code.
McDonald: Okay, so it’s because that’s viewed as being an accessory structure that cannot stand
alone that we now get into the issue of combining the two lots so that the garage can go up and
then at that point now the hard surface coverage area is exceeded by the 25%.
Generous: Right. But overall it’s down from the 43%.
McDonald: Okay.
Generous: It’s a compromise by most variance situations.
McDonald: Well yeah. It seems as though he’s got plenty of room on that lot, that’s the
question I guess I have but okay. You addressed that now. I understand the problem there.
That’s all the questions I have for staff. Do we have an applicant here to present his case?
Dave Bangasser: Good evening members of the commission. I’m Dave Bangasser. I’m the
applicant, and my wife Mary Jo is with me this evening. Too chicken to come before you to talk
herself so I’ll talk for her. This property has been in Mary Jo’s family for well over 60 years.
There’s been quite a bit of history on Lake Minnewashta for the Anding family. There’s a
number of Anding’s that have had property in that area, including the lot immediately to the east
which up until 2 years ago was owned by her aunt and uncle, so there’s a lot of history there.
And I might say that we’re one of the few property owners in this subdivision that owned the
property prior to the current zoning ordinances being established. So these zoning ordinances
were imposed after we owned the property whereas most of the current property owners have
purchased after the ordinances were put in place. What we’d like to do is basically protect our
property. One of the issues that is asked in the staff report is why is the applicant feel that
proposing the structure and are they doing it to increase the value. We’re doing it to protect our
property. A single stall garage is clearly not adequate as the staff has also agreed with. That it’s
not adequate and we thought about this for quite some time. I think 4 years ago I talked to
Sharmeen informally about, we wanted to do something. We desperately need more storage
space. Quite frankly I didn’t know that I wanted to go through the brain damage of this variance
process. It’s not a lot of fun to most of us. Maybe it is to those that are responsible for dealing
with it all the time. What brings us here tonight is that this year we had a severe hail storm come
through while we were out there and everything that was out got pretty well hammered and
vehicles, whatever was out got hammered and obviously you know with one stall garage we
happen to try to keep as much of what we have inside that single car garage so vehicles were out
and trailers were in. I wish it would have been reverse that night but, that’s the reason that we’re
here is to protect the property. We do have two driving age children and with that we have 4
vehicles that often times with different schedules, are out there at any given time, which end up
being rather expensive to operate is more reason for needing storage. It seems that the crux of
the issue here is obviously what’s a reasonable sized garage. I mean that’s really I think the
basis for granting a variance, is it reasonable or is it not. As Bob’s already pointed out, the city
code has a minimum requirement for 2 cars. That’s a minimum. I don’t believe there’s a
maximum, but it’s a minimum and I believe that the intention of having a minimum requirement
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
on up to 2 cars is to minimize the need for outside storage. Anybody that’s been around this
neighborhood for any period of time knows that there’s issues with lack of garage space in the
area because of the relatively small parcels and therefore there’s also something stored outside in
this area. Our intention is to try to improve upon that situation. If you looked at any of the new
subdivisions, anybody that builds a house today in Chanhassen, and I’ll bet particularly the
Lundgren development that just came through here, they’re not going to build a house today with
a 2 car garage. I think the minimum standard today, I can safely say is 3 cars. Now I know that
there’s complications here with, because of the long history and the small parcels here but I
would suggest to you that the 3 car garage is today’s minimum standard. It’s, people just need
more storage space than they used to. And I would also suggest to you that lakeshore property
owners need more storage space than the average property owner because we all have boats.
We’re not going to live on the lake. Pay the kind of property taxes we do unless we’re there to
enjoy the lake, so we all have boats and water toys and so I would suggest that our storage needs
are probably higher than the average. I mentioned that there’s a great deal of issues with outside
storage. I’ve got lots of pictures I’ll share you, or I’ll spare you most of them. Or just give you
a few examples. This is just a couple of pictures but here’s a property that has essentially a 2 car
garage. They have 2 sheds. One that’s in view and one that’s not in view. They have an RV
stored outside. They have a pontoon boat stored outside. And because of the way they’re
utilizing garage space, they typically park their vehicles outside when they’re there as well.
Here’s another example in the area of someone that does have a 3 car attached garage, and
obviously they can’t fit all of their, they’ve got their pontoon boat outside. I think it’s pretty
typical, a lot of outside storage in the area and again I could show you more pictures but if
you’ve driven by there, I won’t need to. The trade off here is clearly, between the 3 car and the 2
car is outside storage. You can certainly limit to 2, you know whatever restrictions you want but
the fact of the matter is, people have these storage needs and if you choose to restrict this to 2
car, it means that there’s going to be more things stored outside. That’s clearly not what the
neighborhood wants. I’ve gone out of my way, we both have gone out of our way to
communicate to our neighbors what our plans are. We’ve staked multiple locations. We’ve
talked to all the neighbors about what our plans are. I’m not aware of anybody, and there might
be somebody here that I’m not aware of that has some issues but I’m not aware of anyone that
objects to what we’re talking about. I believe everybody in the neighborhood wants to see more
garage space, aesthetically appealing garage space as opposed to the outside storage and I
understand that at least 2 of the neighbors have taken the time to actually send e-mails or letters,
I’m not sure which it was, to staff supporting this. But I know that all the other neighbors I
talked to are also supportive of what we’re proposing here. I’d like to just, if I could, and I think
that several of the, I think that was included in your package but we’ve got drawings of,
renderings of what we’re proposing which I believe are aesthetically appealing. That was
certainly our intent. I’ve got some photo drawings which I’m having trouble locating right now.
Here it is. No. Well I’ve misplaced the drawings so I’ll use the black and whites that Bob had in
the package. I think what we’ve done is try to break this thing up so it doesn’t look like one
massive structure. We’ve tried to make it aesthetically appealing. If you notice from the shape,
there are no long, straight walls. The walls are broken down. Reduces the scale. We’ve shown
windows into the structure to make it look less like a garage and more like, and something a little
bit more appealing. If you notice the roof line along the adjacent South Cedar Drive, which is
where our nearest neighbors would be, we’ve planned that that roof line be lowest right at the
southern edge of the structure, again to kind of bring that scale down some so we hope, and it’s
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
certainly our intention that this is something that’s done in a very nice manner and it looks like
something other than just a storage shed. Something that I don’t know if it’s been talked about
quite as much as has been talked about with some of the other variances that have taken place in
the area, is some of the more unique features of our situation here. They’ve been mentioned you
know somewhat the fact that we’ve got this road subdividing our property but I know in other
variances, and I’ll maybe talk about that a little bit more in a minute. There’s certainly been
more effort on the staff’s part to present some more positive sides of what we’re trying to do as
well. Certainly we have a unique situation because of the triangular shape you know nature of
this back lot. There are very few properties that have the benefit of a back lot. None of the
properties that are, can I get the, none of the properties that are along South Cedar here have the
benefit of a back lot, and so a majority of those properties, Bob’s correct in saying that there
aren’t very many two stall garages in that area, but they also don’t have the benefit of having this
back lot that we have. But in addition to that many of those properties, even though they have
two garage doors, do have over sized garages even though they don’t have the benefit of a back
lot. If we had, if we only had the lake lot, this is very typical of surrounding properties that are
very similar to our’s. We have a relatively narrow lakeshore lot. We have 40 feet in the front
which both of these properties also have 40 in the front. We have 50 in the pack and I don’t
know if they have 50 in the back or not, but this is very typical of what is approved or has been
approved on these narrow lots, and so if we only had a lakeshore lot, there certainly is
precedence, not only precedence but city requirement that we’d have to build 2 stall garage on
that lake lot. What I don’t understand is why are you holding us to the same requirement if we
only had the lake lot. You’re saying you can only build two garage stalls. Why are you holding
us to that same requirement that others have built when they only have a lake lot? We have this
whole back lot. It seems to me you’ve kind of taken the benefit of having that back lot away
from us, if you won’t allow us to do anything more than the 2 stalls. One other topic that I
apologize to staff that we really haven’t talked about before but I feel compelled to bring up now
after having some discussion with Kate Aanenson this afternoon. I frankly called Kate because
we’ve been out of the country and I really have only seen the staff report and had a chance to
think about it the last 24 hours and I frankly was quite surprised and disappointed that it wasn’t
more positive, particularly given what I’ve seen in variances for adjacent properties within the
last 2 and 3 years, so I called Kate and said you know, what’s up with this? Why is this? And I
think it became clear to me after I talked to Kate that what I think may be staff’s concern is that,
if we go ahead and build a 2 stall across the road like there’s already been precedence to do, and
we have 2 stalls, if we were to come back later and build 2 stalls on the lake lot, which there’s
also precedence to have 2 and 2, I’m wondering if that’s not the concern. It seemed to me that
Kate was concerned about setting a precedence for going to 3 stalls on a back lot and then
coming back and wanting another 2 stalls on the front lot. We don’t currently live at the
property full time but we think that we plan to move out to the property sometime in the next 2 to
6 years, which is basically based upon when our youngest daughter is either in college or
hopefully when we’re done paying for college. And we don’t know what we want to do. If we
would move out there, the house would need work. It’s not a full time house. It’s a relatively
small house and it would need some work. We don’t know what exactly we would like to do if
we did move out there, but what we do know is that this, if I could have that camera back up
here. This is not what we want. Is to approach a house that all you see is garage. These people
didn’t have any choice. They had a 40 foot lot. They didn’t have any back lot. They needed to
have garage and so they didn’t have any choice but to put basically all the garages as you
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
approach the house. It’s not very welcoming as you approach the house and that’s certainly not
what we would like to do with the lake property. And so by building 3 stalls across the street,
our hope was that we would avoid having to do this where all you do when you see, when you
approach the house is see the garage space. Again I just have been, really just saw the report
within the last 24 hours and went out this morning and saw that there is, there are quite a few
houses or properties within the 500 foot area that the notification went out to, that do exceed 2
stalls. I’ve got examples of that. I’m not even going to take your time but there are quite a few
properties out there that have in excess of 2 stalls. I would however like to just focus a little bit
on the immediately adjacent properties because I think what we’ve asked for us quite reasonable.
The setbacks we’ve asked for are probably greater than a lot of the setbacks relative to front yard
setbacks, etc, and certainly hard surface coverage, even when you combine that 31% I believe is
well below the typical property out there. Again I understand it exceeds the 25% coverage, but
everybody out there exceeds the 25% coverage. There was a question about where does the,
what happens to the drainage. The drainage does go to Lake Minnewashta. However it drains, it
drains to the west across the property to the west here and there’s a culvert going underneath Red
Cedar Drive there that is a relatively small culvert so what happens is, when you get a big
rainfall, this lot here is basically a wetland and what happens is, the culvert backs the water up
and it slowly drains across Red Cedar Drive and follows a ravine all the way across and over,
and dumps into the lake at this point so there’s ample opportunity but no, it’s not an engineered
treatment system. That culvert in effect acts as a treatment system because the water backs up
into the wetland. Even once it crosses through the culvert it runs through a considerable length
of drainage ditch. It’s slowing things down and dropping out a lot of particulates that might be
in it, etc.. Again I wanted to just talk a little bit about what’s happening in the surrounding
properties. This property right here is our neighbor to the west, the Johnson’s who, their
variance was just approved 2 years ago to add onto the garage, basically lengthen the garage by 6
feet, as well as build another story on top of the garage and on the lake side to expand the house.
McDonald: Excuse me Mr., if I could just interrupt you for a second. What I’d like to do is
move onto questions because at this point I’m not sure how the relevance begins to fit in and we
have several questions for you and this is a limited time period that we have with a majority of
your case, you’ve answered most of that. If you would allow us to address you with some
questions and then at that point if any of the rest of this comes up, then you can expand upon it.
Thank you. Questions from commissioners.
Papke: I’ve got a couple. I’d like to start with staff. Bob, if the applicant were to put, to
substitute say a carport/awning with a gravel base for the third stall, what from a city code
perspective, what does that do for the hard surface coverage?
Generous: We would count that as hard surface area.
Papke: With the awning? Because of the awning or?
Generous: Both. By putting in the gravel and compacting it appropriately you’re creating an
impervious surface and by the use of the roof structure you’re concentrating it and that’s part of
the issue that we have to determine this.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Papke: So there’s no way for them to, you know I appreciate the applicant’s desire to protect
their cars and boats and so on, so is there no alternative type of structure that could be substituted
for that third stall that would afford protection for their boats and cars yet not incur a hard
surface coverage penalty?
Generous: Not a permanent structure, no.
Papke: Even if it was a canvas awning type arrangement or something like that?
Generous: No, we prohibit those.
Papke: Okay. Okay, I thought I’d try. Both for the applicant and city staff, you have a fair
amount of concrete pavers and concrete sidewalk on your primary resident structure. In some
other similar cases we’ve had applicants that have removed part of their paver, patio, sidewalks
and so on and substituted something that was pervious to bring back into compliance. Have you
considered or contemplated any of those alternatives?
Dave Bangasser: We have not discussed that up to this point. Again I think at 31% coverage as
with what we’ve proposed, we’re well below the norm. The property directly to the west where
a variance was just granted 2 years ago was approved at 44% coverage after they reduced some
of what you’re talking about. And I don’t think that 44%, I don’t throw that out like it’s you
know way too high. I think that’s more typical to what we find in this area, and some of the
pictures I would have shown you, if I’d have kept going would have shown that there is a lot of
hard surface out there and I think at 31% we’re probably well below the typical. Part of the other
issue is on the hard surface, we have a steep slope on our lake lot, and a good deal of that slope is
so steep that we’ve got it covered in rock in order to stabilize it, so really the only thing we
maybe have to talk about is we’ve got a patio kind of midway down that slope, but we use that. I
can’t say I’d be excited to give up my patio. I wouldn’t want to take the rock off the slope…
(There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.)
Papke: …the commission has to either approve or deny a request. Now city staff has put an
alternative in here which is for a 2 car garage. At the end of the day are you going to, would you
be willing to settle for the 2 car alternative? If that’s your choice at the end of this session.
Dave Bangasser: I am not prepared, I would go to council to appeal for the third car. Who
knows if they deny it but, and again my reason for that is, is more thinking about the lake lot that
if you restrict me to two stalls, then I may well be forced to try to add 2 stalls to the lake lot and
that’s not, I don’t think that’s in anybody’s best interest.
Zorn: I have two questions. Staff, on page 5, do we know what the percentage for hard coverage
surface ratio for the variances that were granted and is that something that we might take into
consideration?
Generous: We were looking at one, I think 3507 South Cedar was 51%. That’s actually the one
that led to our change in our ordinance.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Dave Bangasser: Let’s see, Johnson’s which, there’s several variances that are not, there’s at
least 12 variances, as I look back at the Johnson’s staff report, there were 12 variances, 12
additional variances listed on the Johnson report that had previously been granted that aren’t
listed in this report and again the Johnson variance was approved at 43.9%.
Zorn: So it seems like 51% is probably the greatest? Okay. Second question for the applicant.
This subject site, so the back lot that you refer to, was that at one time part of the current
lakefront property and that the road came later and divided it or, was this a piece of property that
was purchased later just from the context of.
Dave Bangasser: We purchased the back lot about 4 years ago and basically the reason for it was
to try to mitigate some of these issues of you know again having a relatively small lake lot and
with what had subsequently been, you know in place. You put these zoning ordinances in place
in terms of restrictions. We had the opportunity to buy it 4 years ago and we did and clearly that
has helped mitigate some of the issues with having such density on the lake.
McDonald: Debbie.
Larson; I’ve got one question for staff. In looking at these lots that are on the same side as the
garage site, not all of them are developed. Is there any way like averaging in, I think we
probably came across this once before. Because truly what he’s doing, he’s not taking up a very
big chunk of that land. Looks like the piece adjacent…will never get built on and then there’s
that larger piece that he said where the water drains in. Is that something that could be looked at
perhaps?
Generous: You can always look at it. Fortunately a lot of these areas develop prior to our
having all the building permits and stuff so we don’t have surveys of it. With the photometric
system we may have a better ability to estimate that.
Larson: Just a thought. It could possibly be an option, I don’t know.
Dave Bangasser: It’s my understanding those are unbuildable lots.
Larson: Unbuildable?
Dave Bangasser: Right. They are not buildable lots.
Generous: If it’s a wetland then yes. They would have to fill it and then do a mitigation.
Larson: That’s not what I’m saying.
Dave Bangasser: And I think it’s too small. It would be too, even the bigger of the lots is too
small to be considered buildable.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Generous: You want to, if they have the ability to look at the entire area and see if overall they
have 25%.
Larson: Right.
Generous: Yes. Currently we don’t have the capabilities.
Larson: Okay, that was my question.
Generous: It may come up with the new photometrics system that we’re getting.
Larson: Okay. That’s all I have, thanks.
McDonald: Okay. Mark.
Undestad: So can either of those parcels on either side are for sale or available just to use as
green area?
Dave Bangasser: The property immediately to the west is Mary Jo’s cousin. I don’t think he’s
got interest in selling it, and we actually did just talk to the owner of what I’ll call the wetland of
that piece here this spring. That’s actually who I, who we bought this back lot from 4 years ago.
And you know at this point he’s not selling.
Undestad: Because you don’t really need a buildable lot. You need more green area.
Dave Bangasser: Right.
McDonald: Dan.
Keefe: I have a question for you. Do you have a lot of examples of other riparian lots where we
granted hard surface coverage variances for 3 stall garages? I mean at least in the ones that you
have here, it doesn’t mention 3 stall and I know city code kind of defines 2 stalls as the sort of
normal, despite what you’re saying. I know there’s definitely a trend toward 3 stalls, but I think
the city code still defines it as 2 stall.
Generous: In the list that I have it only discusses 2 stall garages.
Keefe: So the question would be, there would be sort of taking…precedence of granting.
Certainly if we grant a 2 stall…
McDonald: Okay, just to clear up at this point, I don’t have any questions for the applicant. I’ll
reserve that til the end. What I’d like to do now is throw it open to the floor, if anyone has any
comments on this as part of the public meeting portion, come forward and state your case.
Thank you sir.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Janet Paulsen: Again Janet Paulsen, 7305 Laredo Drive. I would just like to clarify that these
two lots are not contiguous and they’re separated by a street. In our code, definition of a lot is,
when a separate parcel, tract or area of land undivided by any public street or approved private
street. So how is that going to be reconciled? With another variance?
McDonald: I guess that’s what we’re trying to determine. I don’t know. Anyone else have any
questions or comments wishes to come forward. Okay. Seeing none, I will close the public
meeting portion of this case and I’ll bring it back up to the council for comment and discussion.
Who would like to start? On my right or my left? Dan, why don’t you start because you had
some comments.
Keefe: Yeah, you know I came in here sort of a firm idea of what I wanted to do and now when
I hear the case, I’m not sure. You know it’s a riparian lot so I mean my feeling and my general
thinking on these things is to be a little bit tougher on this variance issue than non-riparian lots…
variances that tend to come up on these lots in a lot of places in Chanhassen because the
neighborhoods were developed before the big ordinance was put in place so while the lots tend to
be smaller. I’m struggling a little bit with the two separate lots. I mean as I look at putting 3
stalls on that one lot on top, you know given the fact where it drains, it doesn’t even drain out
onto the same property. So the water goes somewhere else so are we really, is it fair to combine
the hard surface coverage for those two lots since the water drains in different directions. I’m
not so sure about that. So I’m still thinking about all this.
McDonald: Okay, Mark.
Undestad: I think with again the older neighborhoods, you brought up a good point. A lot of
those houses are in 40, 51% in worst case scenario hard surface coverage. Granted if any of
them come in and want to add more garage space onto their lots, they’d all be over the 40%
probably that wouldn’t happen. But I think again the fact that he does have the lot and drainage
in different directions, I kind of agree with Dan. We’ve got two different drainage areas on
there. We’re combining two lots on each side of the street. …separate lots.
McDonald: Okay. Deborah.
Larson: I’m kind of on the same.
McDonald: Still thinking?
Larson: Thinking, well yeah. I mean if there was a way that he could either purchase the lot
next door, then the problem is solved or if he could have the capability of combining all of that
area, it throws it right into the home but it’s not at this point so I don’t know.
McDonald: Well we move down to Debbie. We’ll throw it her.
Zorn: I see the issue to be less of an outdoor storage space and more of the additional hard
surface coverage that we’re adding and the water quality of this additional drainage to the lake
ultimately. I feel like we don’t have very good information. On page 10 I really would have
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
liked to have percentages of these variance files before me because it seems there is a precedence
right now in the neighborhood to be higher and, but once we continue that precedence it becomes
very difficult and there might be larger issues down the road. So I guess I’d probably lean
towards denying this request. Trying to break from the precedence at this point.
McDonald: Kurt.
Papke: The drainage direction is an interesting question but I think if you look at the previous
hard surface coverage variances that have been requested, that’s never really been an issue, so if
you put in a Sport Court, it doesn’t make any difference what direction it drains off the Sport
Court. It’s still over the hard surface coverage. So I don’t know that we can really take that
much into account. I think the point about this being an issue of hard surface coverage is really
well taken. I think if you drive down that street, the setback issues aren’t a major issue. People
aren’t going to do 60 miles an hour down this street. These are pretty darn narrow streets so I’m
not too concerned about the setback issues here. But I think clearly from a variance perspective,
giving a homeowner the right to and properly utilize their property and bring it into city code
with the 2 car garage is perfectly justified but I think going for a 3 car just takes it over the top
and as you mentioned before, I think brings up some nasty precedence that we really don’t want
to set. I think it’s also worthwhile noting that all three of the cases we’ve heard tonight have had
surface water issues with them and Monday night we’re going to meet with the City Council to
look at our plan for the next 10 years for surface water management, which is likely to get even
more and more strict in this area as we try to protect the natural resources like Lake
Minnewashta so I think that’s our primary goal here is to do the right thing for the lake at this
point so I would recommend denial.
McDonald: Okay. I’m really torn on this thing because what it reminds me of is problems that
we went through with Lake Riley and all those homes up and down through there. I agree with
Debbie from the standpoint, or from Deborah, I’m sorry. From the standpoint of I’d like to see
what the hard surface coverage is in this neighborhood. That was one of the things that we
looked at at Lake Riley and then begin to base decisions around that because it is common usage
within the area. I also do not see the big deal about the setbacks because of the particular area.
It is a hard surface coverage problem. I’m not sure that we’re setting a precedence. That’s why
I’d like to see the numbers because at that point this may be totally within bounds of what’s
normal for that particular neighborhood. I mean if I have to vote on it tonight, I probably would
vote to deny only because I’m not sure that we have the freedom to make a lot of these changes.
Again that’s not within our prerogative but my feeling is that this probably is within the norm for
that particular neighborhood. I have received the e-mails. There’s not, I haven’t received any
that spoke against this. In fact everybody seems to be pretty much in agreement with it. You
know the way the water flows, does that make a difference? I don’t know. You know, I mean
we’re at one end and it’s going to the other. What’s the impact on all the other houses as it
makes it’s way toward the lake? You know we do have a water is a very big deal. I mean we’re
hearing about it constantly about drainage flows and the things that people do. No problem and
then all of a sudden a guy’s got a flood coming down and washing out his driveway. So I do
think that we do need to look at this a little bit more. I’m, it’s just, I would vote in favor of you
doing a 3 car garage. I really would, but the way that everything is written and the way the code
is, I feel that I have no choice except to vote against that. I would be willing to support the 2 car
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
approach, which you’ve said you can’t live with, and at that point yes. Your alternative is to take
this and appeal it to the City Council. The City Council can make those kind of variances and
grant those, you know grant what you’re looking for. This commission I’m afraid can’t do that
without further information that we just don’t have time to get. At Lake Riley we had requested
this and the applicant in that particular case I’m thinking of, withdrew their application so that
between city staff and us we could go back and re-work everything. It came out not exactly the
way they wanted but I think they got something that was very livable and was better than what
they had before. If the applicant wish to do that and negotiate a little bit with city staff and work
on those things, we could certainly look at that. Otherwise I’m afraid the only alternative you’re
going to have is to go up to City Council and ask for other variances there where they can be
granted. With that said, does anyone wish to make a motion?
Papke: Mr. Chair, I’d like to make a motion that the Planning Commission denies Variance
number 06-04 for a 19.61 foot front yard setback variance, a 19.8 foot front yard setback
variance and a 6.05% hard surface coverage variance for the construction of a 3 stall garage on a
lot zoned single family residential, RSF, based upon the findings of fact in the staff report and
the following. Number 1, the applicant could make reasonable use of the property with a two
stall garage.
McDonald: Do I have a second?
Zorn: I second.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission denies Variance #06-04 for a
19.61 foot front yard setback variance, a 19.8 foot front yard setback variance and a 6.05%
hard surface coverage variance for the construction of a 3 stall garage on a lot zoned single
family residential, RSF, based upon the findings of fact in the staff report and the
following:
1. The applicant could make reasonable use of the property with a two stall garage.
All voted in favor except Commissioners Keefe, Larson and Undestad. It was a tied vote of
3 to 3.
McDonald: So we have a split, 3-3. Okay, at that point then this needs to go to the City Council
and what they can do is resolve the dilemma at that point. Thank you very much.
PUBLIC HEARING:
GATEWAY NORTH/GATEWAY PLACE: SUBDIVISION REQUEST TO SUBDIVIDE
PROPERTY INTO THREE LOTS AND ONE OUTLOT AND A SITE PLAN REQUEST
WITH VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MULTIFAMILY BUILDING ON
PROPERTY ZONED PUD-MIXED USE AND LOCATED AT THE NORTHWEST
INTERSECTION OF HIGHWAYS 101 AND FUTURE 212, CHANHASSEN GATEWAY
PLACE, LLC., PLANNING CASE 06-05:
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Public Present:
Name Address
Janice Schutter 8691 Chanhassen Hills Drive North
Jacob Wert The Shelard Group
Daren Laberee Westwood Professional Services
Chris Moehrl Westwood Professional Services
Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item.
McDonald: Go ahead Dan.
Keefe: I have a question around parking. Is our ordinance, I’m not sure why we’re short
underground because of the predominance of 2 and 3 bedroom units versus 1 bedroom units?
Al-Jaff: That is what.
Keefe: Seems like our ordinance should be able to reflect a product that is more 2 and 3
bedroom units than maybe 1 and 2 bedroom units.
Al-Jaff: It definitely is something that we can take a look at.
Keefe: Because you’re talking about the project and market demands more 2 and 3 bedroom
product and just have some static parking number for underground, that really reflects a certain
mix of product, right? I mean again, so the ordinance doesn’t allow us to sort of have the
flexibility in our product…
Al-Jaff: Correct. If you wish to direct us to take a look at the ordinance, examine what other
communities are doing as far as requirements for underground parking versus surface parking,
we’ll gladly do that.
Keefe: Yeah, because I mean we’re in a situation where we have a variance so to look at the
hardship on it, so then I think well is really the ordinance set up to accommodate a product of
this type, you know which really is predominance of a larger, or more better use. I wonder about
that a little bit so. That’s really the only thing I have.
McDonald: Well if you want to direct staff, we can certainly do that. I mean I kind of agree
with you that the ordinance.
Keefe: Well I think it’s something we should look at, yeah. I think it’s something we should
look at and, at the appropriate time so. I don’t know if there’s any urgency…but it’s definitely
something we should look at.
McDonald: You can put it off on your list for this year. Mark. Deborah. Debbie.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Zorn: Sharmeen, related to that, how does the park and ride actually help the parking situation?
Al-Jaff: If you need to, residents of this building will have a choice. You can definitely be
dependent upon your own vehicle, but in this specific situation you will have an alternative. If
you need an alternative method of transportation, you have another solution. You do have the
public transportation. You can take the bus.
Zorn: So it’s the transportation. That’s not really helping the parking deficit?
Al-Jaff: Yes, if I lived there chances, and I lived in a 2 bedroom or a 3 bedroom, I might opt not
to own a car because public transportation is available to me and maybe whoever was living with
me would have a vehicle.
Zorn: I understand. I’m too tied to my car so I didn’t think of that one.
Al-Jaff: Aren’t we all.
McDonald: Kurt, any questions?
Papke: Yeah, kind of continuing on that same thought. You know one can envision two
possible scenarios here with the park and ride next door. One of them is I don’t buy a car. The
other one is, I have just as many cars but they stay parked all day long so, you can also look at
the possibility that that actually makes the situation worst, which would even require more need
for underground parking. Do we have any data, any market studies or statistics that would bear
out a decrease in need for parking when you’re in proximity to a park and ride? Do you have
any data to make this decision on?
Al-Jaff: The only situation that I am aware of is the one in Eden Prairie and I can promise you
that before this item appears before the City Council I can check into those numbers. But I don’t
have those on me today. And again, the overall number of parking spaces exceeds ordinance
requirements. It’s the underground parking that is short.
McDonald: I have no questions for you. Oh, okay.
Larson: So if it exceeds on the outside, and it’s deficient on the inside, is that per unit?
Al-Jaff: The way this ordinance reads is, for the 2 and 3 bedroom, 1 ½ have to be enclosed. 1 ½
parking stalls.
Larson: How do you do that? Share a car with your neighbors.
McDonald: The problem with fractions.
Al-Jaff: If you turn to page 8, bottom of page 8.
Larson: There it is.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Al-Jaff: How the ordinance reads per 1 bedroom unit. 1 ½ of which 1 has to be enclosed for 1
bedroom unit and then for a 2 bedroom unit, 1 ½ has to be enclosed. So for 1 bedroom, 1 has to
be enclosed. For 2 and 3 bedroom, 1 ½ has to be enclosed.
Larson: That’s dumb.
Papke: Sharmeen, is it safe for us to assume that this is statistically based that on the average
you need 1 ½? I mean obviously no one’s going to be allocated 1 ½ stalls.
Al-Jaff: Correct.
Papke: So statistically on the average it evens out. Perhaps a question for the applicant later
would be how will those be allocated to the units.
Al-Jaff: Sure, and that’s something that we have discussed with them and it’s 1 stall per
apartment.
Keefe: And the other question would be whether they are taking up the entire footprint on the
foundation in regards to parking stalls. At least it looks to me like they are. I mean I’m not sort
of taking the underground garage and just sort of cutting it in half and seeing what I can install.
They’re getting as many, it looks like they’re putting pretty much as many car stalls as you can
down there. So that then brings up the question, just sort of the size of the units and the
appropriateness of the 1 ½ to those types of units.
Al-Jaff: They will be able to provide…
Larson: So we’re basically going on the assumption that some people will have 2 cars, some
people will have only 1 or none. So it all averages out really to 1 ½.
McDonald: Okay, moving along. Is the applicant here to present the case?
Richard Hennings: I’m Richard Hennings. An architect with Sand Companies. Developer of
the project. I think I would probably speak directly to the parking issue and part of the, I was
actually surprised when I read the staff report because I thought I had so carefully followed the
ordinance. Actually when we started the project I downloaded all your ordinances. It turns out
that I should have updated them because you changed your parking ordinance, not in terms of
total quantity but in terms of the number inside and so I, that left me short but, and when I read
the new ordinance, Sharmeen is correct. I was at first then thinking gee, I should have been able
to design this to fit enough in and so I went through a little exercise, and I’ll just hand this out
and it might be in support of what you’re saying here. And because our building is a somewhat
complex shape, I thought well perhaps that’s what’s doing it. It’s not a very efficient way to
park, and so the little exercise I undertook, mostly to show to myself whether I was being
deficient or not said if you just took a typical 48 unit building and you said let’s just make a box,
you know that has to be as efficient as could possibly be in terms of parking. It doesn’t make a
very good building. And in this case I said you know, the building’s need to be 64 feet wide.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
That’s how you can park on both sides and if you subtract a 6 foot corridor, that tells you the
apartments are 29 foot deep. Simple math, and then if you look at typical sizes of 1, 2 and 3
bedroom apartments, that really tells you how long each one is and I listed those there. Without
even putting a pencil to paper you can kind of predict how long this building is and you can see
then that by simply adding up the apartments, allowing a little bit of space for stairs and an
elevator lobby, trash room and entrance, you get a building, 330 feet long. If you jump to the
basement of that building with a garage area and presuming that the stairs need to come all the
way down, as does the elevator and the trash area, and you take just a minimum amount of space
for mechanical room and electrical room, I actually was able to get 62 parking spaces in that one
so it’s just a little bit more efficient than our building but I think, I hope not as, quite as nice
looking. So I think if the logic says that we understand that 3 story apartment buildings are
something that meets the market, I’m probably not the only one that can’t meet your ordinance
there. And I’m not sure, I was going to do the exercise with a whole bunch of 1 bedrooms to see
if it helps because remember the 1 bedrooms are all smaller units and so I’m not dead sure that
you could make it with 1 bedrooms either. You might get closer though, so I would just you
know if you’re, that’s kind of an illustration of why we can’t get more parking spaces in.
Obviously there are architectural solutions that would do that. A building that was full two
stories and only had half the units on the third floor, or something could probably meet that
requirement, or a building where the basement was bigger than the building.
Keefe: Two level parking.
Richard Hennings: Pardon?
Keefe: Two level parking.
Richard Hennings: The other, someone asked the other question about how the parking spaces
are allocated and with the rental of the 1 space will be allocated to each apartment within the
rental. Then and we haven’t decided fully yet but we’ve done this in other buildings, we
basically do it either on first come, first rent, first serve basis or on a lottery basis, the additional
spaces are allocated to people who want them. We don’t have a way of charging for them so
they won’t be charged for it so they should therefore go to the people who need them to the point
you know, when there are no more available so 48 from 61, there will be what, 13 units that are
allocated the second space. And I guess with that I’d just ask if there are any other questions of
us.
McDonald: Any questions for the applicant? Dan.
Keefe: Yeah just, can you give us a sense on sort of your target market is for this product?
Richard Hennings: Yeah, this is a project that will be financed under the Minnesota Housing
Finance tax credit program and so it’s at a moderate income base. One of the reasons for the 2
and 3 bedroom units of course is we’re aiming this at family housing and the, one of the rental
requirements would be that people be at the, that the rents be no higher than 30% of the median
income in the area, and that’s part of the requirements to qualify for the tax credit basis. And
that’s working families I guess I’d say.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Keefe: Gosh, I really like the architecture on it. This product type. I think it exceeded our
requirements for landscaping, which I think is terrific and.
Richard Hennings: I did want to point one thing out too about the stone product because it has
another feature to it. The sample doesn’t really show it. One of the things that we were
interested in, and Sharmeen was interested in is not having it look like concrete block. A lot of
that product looks like concrete block, and the sample doesn’t demonstrate this but the product
comes not in just 8 by 16 pieces, and so it will be laid up in what we call an ash or a pattern. The
pieces are available all the way from 4 by 4 up to 16 by 24 and that’s what really is going to
make it look like stone is that it won’t, you know every piece won’t be 16 inches and it will not
have horizontal coursing marks on it so. This particular product is from Master Block Aggregate
Industries but, right over on Highway 169. Anchor Block makes the identical product so there’s
the manufacturers of it so.
McDonald: Mark. No? Deborah? No? Debbie? Kurt? No? I have no questions either. At
this point I will open the meeting to the public. Anyone wishing to make comment, please come
up to the lectern. State your name and address and we will listen to your comments. Okay,
everybody’s here for the next one. At this point I will close the open meeting and I’ll bring it
back up to the commissioners for discussion and comments. Dan.
Keefe: Well I think you’ve done a great job in working with us and coming in and, over a
couple of time periods and sort of prepping us on this thing. It’s great. I like the architectural
design. I like the…which is great. I like the top off. The access to the trail system is a good
thing so I support this 100%.
McDonald: Mark.
Undestad: I agree with Dan.
McDonald: Okay. Deborah?
Zorn: I agree.
McDonald: Okay.
Papke: Yeah, great job. The first time we saw this I was really taken aback. It looked like this
huge one long bunker along Highway 101 and I think you’ve done a great job of breaking up the
sight lines and provide angles and as long as we don’t misconstrue that area, the tower out in the
front as being a silo like some of the other proposals we’ve seen, I think we’re in good shape.
McDonald: Okay.
Keefe: Just one point additional question for staff. On item, under the site plan number 3 it says
additional information must be submitted pertaining to the site. What additional information
being what, just a clarification on that.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Al-Jaff: What page was that?
Keefe: I’m sorry, that would be page 16. You just say you’re looking for, or what are you
looking for there?
Undestad: On the fence.
Keefe: Yeah.
Al-Jaff: Oh, on the fence.
Keefe: So you’re looking for what? Just as additional information looking for what? A plan?
Are you looking for, what are you looking for? Page 16 of 18, number 3.
Richard Hennings: …I actually brought some copies, just another perspective to happen to show
that.
Al-Jaff: Yeah, it’s just, I need the height of the fence and the materials. Just we wanted to make
sure that it’s compatible with the building.
Keefe: Okay, thank you.
McDonald: Well I guess the only comments that I have is I agree with everything the
commissioners has said. You put together what looks like a very good product that will fit in
that area quite well, and also I guess our hats are off to you for pointing out a weakness in our
ordinance for parking, which we will revisit and we will see about coming up with something
there. Okay, do I have a motion? And I think I’m looking for two.
Larson: I’ll do a motion for you. Is that this one?
McDonald: That’s the first one.
Larson: The Planning Commission recommends approval of the preliminary plat for Planning
Case 06-05 for Gateway North as shown on the plans received January 6, 2006, subject to the
following conditions 1 through 16. And the Planning Commission recommends approval of the
Site Plan with a variance for the reduction of 9 enclosed parking spaces for Planning Case 06-05
for Chanhassen Gateway Place as shown on the plans received January 6, 2006, subject to the
following conditions 1 through how many have we got here?
McDonald: It looks like 20.
Larson: 1 through 20.
McDonald: Do I have a second?
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Keefe: Second.
Larson moved, Keefe seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of
preliminary plat for Planning Case 06-05 for Gateway North as shown on plans received
January 6, 2006, subject to the following conditions:
1.Submit storm sewer design calculations with full-size drainage map for a 10-year, 24-hour
storm event.
2.Work with staff to revise the pond design calculations for the 10- and 100-year storm event.
3.Realign Lot 1, Block 2 full access perpendicular at Highway 101 and Lake Susan Drive
intersection.
4.The applicant is required to coordinate with MnDOT on the full access at Lake Susan Drive
and the storm pond outlet control sewer construction.
5.The applicant is responsible for obtaining and complying with all regularity agency permits:
Watershed District, MPCA, NPDES, MnDOT, Health Department, etc.
6.On the grading plan:
a.Show an emergency over flow.
b.Show stormwater pond easement.
c.Show silt fence Type II around the proposed pond.
d.Extend Type I silt fence to the north along the west side.
e.Show minimum 75-feet construction rock entrance.
f.Add a bench mark.
7.On the utility plan:
a.Show the watermain within the street Right-of-Way as a public utility.
b.Revise the existing sanitary sewer flow direction.
c.Add a note that any connection to any existing structure must be core drilled.
d.Show all utility sewer pipe type, class, and size.
e.Show all utility manholes rim and invert elevations.
f.Add a gate valve to Lot 1, Block 1.
8.Plan and profile views are required for the entire public utility.
9.To guarantee the installation of the public improvements, the applicant must supply the City
with a financial security in the form of a letter of credit or cash escrow and enter into a
development contract.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
10.On the plans, show the pedestrian ramps and a sidewalk connection between the south and
north sides of proposed Lake Susan Drive.
11.Temporary easements are required for any off-site grading.
12.The applicant must provide a proposed haul route for review and approval.
13.If fill is coming from and/or going to another site in Chanhassen, a separate grading permit
will be required for the other property.
14.All disturbed areas as a result of construction are required to be reseeded and mulched
within two weeks of site grading.
15.Add City Detail Plates Nos. 1002, 1004, 1005, 1006, 2001, 2101, 2109, 2110, 2201, 2202,
3101, 3102, 3107, 3108, 3109, 5200, 5203, 5206, 5214, 5215, 5217, 5300, and 5301.
16.On the site plan, show the dimensions of the parking stalls and driveway widths.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
Larson moved, Keefe seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of site
plan with a variance for the reduction of nine enclosed parking spaces for Planning Case 06-05
for Chanhassen Gateway Place as shown on the plans received January 6, 2006, subject to the
following conditions:
1.The applicant shall replace the Colorado blue spruce specified on the landscape plan with an
alternate evergreen species.
2.One monument sign shall be permitted at the entrance to the development off of Lake Susan
Drive. These signs shall not exceed 24 square feet in sign display area nor be greater than
five feet in height. These signs shall be set back a minimum of 10 feet from the property
line.
3.Additional information must be submitted pertaining to the height and materials used for the
privacy fence located east of the tot-lot and picnic area.
4.Details on the storm sewer connection to proposed Lake Susan Drive and proposed TH 212
should be provided. An emergency overflow for the proposed pond should be illustrated.
The applicant should submit a routing plan for any pond overflows from the site to a public
water body.
5.Drainage and utility easements (minimum 20 feet in width) should be provided over all storm
water infrastructure, including any emergency overflow structures. The storm water pond
should be platted in an outlot.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
6.Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All
exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round,
according to the following table of slopes and time frames:
Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can remain open
Steeper than 3:1 7 days when the area is not actively being worked.)
10:1 to 3:1 14 days
Flatter than 10:1 21 days
These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed
soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter
system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man
made systems that discharge to a surface water.
7.Rock construction entrance shall be installed as illustrated on Chanhassen Detail Plate 5301.
8.Wimco or similar inlet protection shall be installed at all inlets that may receive storm water
from site per Chanhassen Detail Plate 5302A. All inlet protection shall be inspected and
maintained to comply with NPDES requirements.
9.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street
sweeping as needed.
10.Temporary stabilization of the exposed area shall include a straw or hay cover at a rate of 2
tons per acre, disc anchored into the soil, including the area around the apartment building.
11.To minimize tracking and erosion around the apartment building during construction,
temporary cover of straw or wood chips shall be placed around the building in amounts
sufficient to control rutting.
12.The plans shall be revised to show a concrete washout area, BMPs for containment and
potential stockpile locations.
13.Silt fence (Chanhassen Type 1) shall be installed around the north and east side of the pond
within 24 hours of permanent outlet installation.
14.The plans shall be revised to show inlet protection for sediment during construction for the
trench drain at the garage and shall include a detail.
15.Submit a detailed lighting and signage plan consistent with the Chanhassen Gateway PUD
Development Design Standards.
16.Building Official conditions:
a.The building must be protected with automatic fire sprinkler systems.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
b.The building plans must be prepared and signed by design professionals licensed in the
State of Minnesota.
c.An accessible route must be provided to the building, parking facilities and public
transportation stops.
d.All parking areas, including parking garage, must be provided with accessible parking
spaces.
e.Accessible dwelling units must be provided in accordance with Minnesota State Building
Code Chapter 1341.
f.The building owner and or their representatives shall meet with the Inspections Division
to discuss plan review and permit procedures.
17.Fire Marshal Conditions:
a.A 10 foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e., street lamps, trees,
shrubs, bushes, Xcel Energy, Qwest, cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure
that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to
Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1.
b.Yellow curbing and “no parking fire lane” signs will be required. Contact Chanhassen
Fire Marshal for exact locations of yellow curbing and locations of signs to be installed.
c.Builder must comply with the Chanhassen Fire Department/Fire Prevention division
policies. Copies enclosed.
c.1 1-1990 regarding fire alarm systems.
c.2 4-1991 regarding notes to be included on all site plans.
c.3 7-1991 regarding pre-fire drawings.
c.4 29-1992 regarding premise identification.
c.5 34-1993 regarding water service installation.
c.6 36-1994 regarding proper water line sizing.
c.7 40-1995 regarding fire protection systems.
c.8 06-1991 regarding fire lane signage.
c.9. 52-2005 regarding commercial plan review submittal criteria.
d.Show on utility plan location of post indicator valve (PIV).
e.The hydrant on the south end of the loop shall be moved approximately 30 feet northeast.
Contact Chanhassen Fire Marshal for exact location and approval.
f.Fire apparatus access roads and water supply for fire protection is required to be installed.
Such protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to and during the time of
construction except when approved alternate methods of protection are provided.
Temporary street signs shall be installed at each street intersection when construction of
new roadways allows passage by vehicles. Pursuant to 2000 Minnesota State Fire Code
Section 501.4
g.Fire apparatus access roads shall be designed and maintained to support the imposed
loads of fire apparatus and shall be serviced so as to provide all-weather driving
capabilities. Pursuant to Minnesota Fire Code Section 503.2.3.
18.Approval of this site plan is contingent upon approval of the final plat for Gateway North.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
19.The applicant shall enter into a site plan agreement.
20.The building shall comply with the Planned Unit Development building setback
requirements.”
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 6 to 0.
PUBLIC HEARING:
HALLA GREENS (AKA CHANHASSEN SHORT COURSE): REQUEST FOR A SITE
PLAN AMENDMENT (2003-07), CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AMENDMENT (2003-04),
AND VARIANCES FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A GOLF COURSE ON PROPERTY
LOCATED ON THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE INTERSECTION OF GREAT
PLAINS BOULEVARD (HIGHWAY 101) AND PIONEER TRAIL. APPLICANT: JOHN
KOSMAS – PLANNING CASE NO. 05-39:
Public Present:
Name Address
John Kosmas KKE Design, 6112 Excelsior Blvd., St. Louis Park
Don Halla 6601 Mohawk Trail, Edina
Sandy Halla 6601 Mohawk Trail, Edina
Erik Olson 9855 Delphinium Lane
Dennis & Nancy Mills 9510 Foxford Road
Tom Jessen 9570 Foxford Road
Tom Anderson 9371 Foxford Road
Elizabeth Smith Mikkelsen 9591 Foxford Road
David & Sharon Gatto 9631 Foxford Road
Steve McMeen 9391 Foxford Road
Kathy Asplin 541 Pineview Court
Magdy & June Ebrahim 521 Pineview Court
Tom Gertz 10001 Great Plains Blvd.
Gaye Guyton 10083 Great Plains Blvd.
Judy Walstad 10071 Great Plains Blvd.
Sharmeen Al-Jaff presented the staff report on this item.
McDonald: Okay. Dan?
Keefe: Let me start with the lighting. How many light standards are we talking about in the
parking lot, do we know? How many light standards? I presume they are on poles and would be
cast downward, correct?
Al-Jaff: Correct. If you turn to the last page of your staff report…
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Keefe: Is it just the six? Oh, there’s over here, too and along the road.
Al-Jaff: Correct. There will be three fixtures, now these are the double-headed ones, the
shoebox. There are two fixtures along the driveway and then there is another fixture lighting the
way into the storage building.
Keefe: Can you orient me just a little bit on what I’m looking at here? Is Pioneer Trail to the top
of the page and then 101 is on the left side?
Al-Jaff: Way on the left. If you would look at this…here is Highway 101, here is Pioneer, this
is the parking lot right here and the light fixtures will be right here.
Keefe: So the property line to the east is approximately how far from that parking lot?
Al-Jaff: 388 feet.
Keefe: And the topography of the land, do we have berms or do we have golf course
topography? Often golf courses have some topography to them.
Al-Jaff: There isn’t substantial topography.
Keefe: Okay. So to the east we are not seeing any. How about then to the south? Is there more
to the south?
Al-Jaff: There is a substantial distance to the south. Again, these are the questions related to the
lighting fixtures?
Keefe: Yes, more to the lighting and I’m just concerned, I’m particularly thinking of the
surrounding neighborhoods and kind of what they would see when the lights are on and if
limiting the hours of operation to sunrise to sunset, if we agree to that, would the lighting be
allowed beyond that? After that, is there a requirement to turn them off or how would that…?
Al-Jaff: We could make it a requirement of the conditional use permit that they be motion lights
if they are for safety reasons. That would definitely be an option so they would be turned off but
if there was movement in the area then...
Keefe: …they would come on. …to know that that’s lighting for safety reasons. I don’t have
any problem with that. The question is, are we going to have a beacon of lights sitting out there
when nobody’s there or, that really…
Al-Jaff: It has to meet ordinance requirements which is the downcast, shielded and not-to-
exceed ½-foot candle. Based upon the photometrics that we have received, they meet that
requirement.
Keefe: It’s one thing of the light casting out rather than sort of looking at it and seeing if we can
require just the motion after dark.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Al-Jaff: That’s definitely a requirement.
Keefe: So to the east we probably have a view. To the south it’s a much greater distance.
Al-Jaff: It’s a substantial distance. And there is landscaping on this side.
Keefe: And north is…
Al-Jaff: North, we have a 50-foot setback from the edge of the parking lot and then you have the
right-of-way for Pioneer Trail, which I believe is 80 feet.
Fauske: The plan shows 73, but they may not be current.
Al-Jaff: 73? So 73 plus 50, over 120.
Keefe: Do they have berming along the north in this plan?
Al-Jaff: There is some berming but it’s not 15 feet. It will not be 15 feet.
Keefe: Any landscaping?
Al-Jaff: There is landscaping proposed around the entire site.
Keefe: I’m just trying to get a feel for the site as we look at it. Thanks.
McDonald: Mark?
Undestad: While you’re on the lighting. The parking lot, there’s some berming on there for
these cars that should be out of there at sunset and the employees or whatever that might be
around there as they are coming and going, are the headlights going to be shooting off on
everybody or is that bermed up enough on Pioneer Trail, all these stalls that face the north?
Al-Jaff: There will be berming along Pioneer Trail. There will also be some landscaping along
that area.
Undestad: Nothing will shine up onto Pioneer Trail or over the hill into the neighborhood?
Al-Jaff: No.
McDonald: Debbie?
Larson: So we’re dropping the lights 10 feet from what they proposed?
Al-Jaff: That’s what staff is recommending. May I go back to this? What I will do is just focus
on this area here. This plan proposes a berm and the berm is approximately 10 feet at the highest
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
point and it gradually goes down. Here is the parking lot immediately behind it. You will also
notice that there is landscaping along the entire perimeter of the site. There are no changes
proposed to the landscaping plan. There are no changes proposed to the grading plan either.
(male voice)???: Is that berm in now?
Al-Jaff: No.
Larson: So the trees are going to be immature for many years yet?
Al-Jaff: They have to meet ordinance, 2-1/2 inch caliper but yes, to answer your question, the
answer is yes.
Larson: Is there any possibility that it could be set to where they would have to put in a fuller-
type tree like an evergreen versus a deciduous tree? Just for the sake of the headlights, the
shielding of the lights.
Al-Jaff: I don’t believe that with the berm here you will have an issue with the headlights. That
will be a substantial berm out here.
Larson: Okay. That’s all I have.
McDonald: Debbie?
Zorn: I’m sure this will come out in some of the public comments but out of the emails that you
shared with us, there seems to be this gravel road that I know it’s not part of this. Can you just
make a comment on that?
Al-Jaff: Absolutely. This is Highway 101. This is the curve in Highway 101. I’m sure you’re
all familiar with it. There is a private street that continues back here. The nursery uses this
private street. This is a private street. There are private agreements. The City cannot get
involved in enforcing who uses this private street. I have explained that to the neighbors and
explained that because it’s a private street governed by private agreements, we can’t get
involved.
Zorn: Okay. Thanks.
McDonald: Kurt?
Papke: Is there anything in City Code or ordinance that would prevent us from looking at a
different kind of lighting design? I’ve been in parking lots that have been very tastefully lit with
very low lighting posts, four feet or less tall, where it provides you with sufficient light to get to
your car without tripping and falling and finding the lock to put your key in and so on. Would
there be anything that would prevent the applicant from taking that kind of approach here?
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Al-Jaff: I think that they could definitely work with the neighbors. Obviously, this is a great
desire the neighbors that they…
Papke: But from a City Code perspective is there anything that would prevent that kind of
design? Would that go against any of our rules, regulations, guidelines, anything of that sort so
the applicant has complete freedom to design something that would be much less intrusive into
the surrounding area.
Al-Jaff: As long as the fixtures are shielded, they are fine.
Papke: Okay. Are there any issues with the increase in the size of the maintenance building?
This is four times the size it was before.
Al-Jaff: That is something that we talked about in house at length. The materials used to
maintain the golf course would be stored in that building. There is no size limit in our ordinance.
Papke: Okay. There is mention in the applicant text concerning eventual application for lighting
of the driving range, if I read this correctly. What we’re approving tonight, would that in any
way impact, allow, deny, whatever. Is there any consideration to be taken for that aspect of
the…
Al-Jaff: The only lights that you are approving are the ones that are in the parking lot and then
you have two along the driveway, and then the other two.
Papke: Okay. If the applicant were to desire to light the driving range, would they come back to
the Planning Commission again or what is the process.
Al-Jaff: Yes, especially knowing the nature of the situation and how we want to be sensitive to
the neighborhood.
Papke: Okay. This is more of a rhetorical question. Is there any consideration taken in City
Code or guidelines for lighting in this situation that take into account the ambient lighting
conditions in the area? Let me explain myself a little bit. We looked at things, for instance,
when the movie theatre in downtown Chanhassen wanted to put a few uplights on the movie
theatre. In that case, those sorts of things seem reasonably harmless just because it’s in a well-
lighted area. There are tons of lights surrounding those structures. This particular application is
in an extremely dark area. There are almost no street lights. You can see the lights from the
casino at night, it’s so dark. Am I correct in assuming there is no allowance in City Code for
light pollution in an area like this?
Al-Jaff: The way light pollution is addressed in the City Code is requiring the fixtures to be
shielded, downcast, not to exceed ½-foot candle.
Papke: So your answer is that there is no consideration for surrounding conditions?
Al-Jaff: Correct.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Papke: Okay. How about winter hours? Is there any consideration in this application for year
round use? I’m particularly concerned about the driving range. This application is starting to
look more and more like the setup down at the base of 101 and 212 where you have a driving
range and a golf course and it’s lit up at night and yadda, yadda, yadda.
Al-Jaff: The hours of operation are sunrise to sunset. This application will be different than
what you see down along 212 and 101. They are two different applications. There are specific
requirements and things that are permitted on property that abuts Highway 212 or Highway 5
that is not permitted along Highway 101. Miniature golf is not permitted on this site.
Papke: Was there mention of miniature golf in the application?
Al-Jaff: There was some talk about at some point in the future. There were numerous requests
with this application.
Papke: So there are no limits to winter hours?
Al-Jaff: Sunrise to sunset.
Papke: Sunrise to sunset. The only concern I have there is if the lights are on at night and you
have snow on the ground, it reflects off the snow so you are going to get more of an issue during
the winter as we all know than you do during the summer. I’m assuming then that with a driving
range there would be a desire to use that driving range during the hours of operation when
there’s snow on the ground, yes?
Al-Jaff: Yes.
Papke: Okay.
McDonald: I’ve got a few questions for you, too. You addressed the one about driving range.
On the lights, you say that they have to be shaded so that they downcast. I take it what you’re
talking about is all around the light would be opaque, I believe, so it’s focused down.
Al-Jaff: Like a shoebox. Correct.
McDonald: On the north side, and again I’m not worried about the east or the west or the south,
on the north side there at the property line which is roughly 120, 130-something feet from maybe
the light poles or something, that’s going to be 1 foot candle? Is that what the ordinance…
Al-Jaff: That’s going to be less than half a foot candle.
McDonald: And we know this why?
Al-Jaff: Because they submitted the photometrics and we will hold them to these photometrics.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
McDonald: Now what’s the difference between a 15-foot pole and a 25-foot pole? What does
that do?
Al-Jaff: When you bring the light fixture down, two things will happen. The area that’s
illuminated becomes less so we know that as you get closer to the exterior property lines, your
foot candle is substantially less. Also, if you live across the street and you look out, chances are
you will be able to see a 25-foot tall pole a lot easier than a 15-foot pole.
McDonald: And by going to the 15-foot with the 10-foot berming, that would help the situation
to the north now where I’m talking about where you’ve got roughly a 10-foot berm at that
north…
Al-Jaff: The reason why we chose the 15-foot is we believe it’s a human scale, if you will, a
human-scale light fixture. So it’s the height of the street lights that we have in downtown versus
the shoeboxes that you see along public streets and highways at times.
McDonald: Are these going to be halogen lights, or the gas plasma lights, or incandescent lights,
or fluorescent lights? What kind of lights are we talking about?
Al-Jaff: The City Code, I need to look at it. There is a specific type of light fixture that the
applicant would have to use. We have a City Code that governs the type of light fixtures. Bob,
if you would kindly…If there is another question, maybe we can answer it.
McDonald: Okay. The other thing that I’ve got is you state in the report that we are sunrise to
sunset and seem pretty much in agreement on that. That’s not what I read in the report. The
applicant is wanting things, what I read, until 11:00 p.m. at night.
Al-Jaff: And staff is recommending denial of that.
McDonald: Okay, but what’s coming out is there doesn’t seem to be a lot of agreement here in
some of these areas. I hear the applicant talking about halogen lights. You’re saying that there’s
a City Ordinance requirement that is probably not halogen, it’s probably something with a…
Generous: Pressure sodium.
McDonald: Okay, that’s not that much better. So, in some of the points that have been brought
up, I guess what my question is how solid is this plan that you’re bringing before us because it
sounds as though there’s still a lot of unknowns here as to what we’re looking at.
Al-Jaff: The applicant has provided us with a list of amendments. We are recommending that,
we believe that what we have before us, what we are recommending approval of, is in
compliance with ordinance requirements. Everything else such as landscaping, grading has to
comply with the original plan that was approved back in 2003.
McDonald: Okay. So for the most part, this is the original plan with certain amendments which
are increasing sizes, bringing in the lighting, and those types of things.
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Al-Jaff: Increasing size, extending hours of operation, illuminating additional area.
McDonald: Okay. Down a road as additional things are added to this, they will have to come
back through the Planning Commission again to get approval.
Al-Jaff: Correct.
McDonald: Okay. That’s all the questions I have at this point. Is the applicant available to
present his case?
John Kosmas: My name is John Kosmas. I’m representing Halla Greens. I have an
architectural office in St. Louis Park. We were sort of latecomers in the project. This project
had been before you well before we were involved two or three years ago. We’ve basically
gotten involved to take a look at the previous request that was approved and then to see how that
fits with the current needs and some evaluation that has taken place over the last couple of years.
The process of getting this building put together has been taking a bit of time. There’s a lot of
work that has been going in, a lot of hard work. The people have gone in to develop that site and
get that into the condition that it is right now and in doing so, also gave them time to look at,
okay, how do things fit together in what we see today. We have a very good project. We’d like
to enhance that project with the changes that we’re requesting. I’ll take them kind of in a one by
one. The original building size, what was determined was that that needed some enhancement.
Just having outdoor spaces, we live in Minnesota, our favorite bird doesn’t always want to be
around us so we wanted to enclose some portraits, so that was developed. The look of the
building was reevaluated. There was an architectural office, Anderson & Associates, who would
take a look at it, and the Halla’s took a look at the building saying, we’d like something a little
nicer. All of a sudden that starts changing the characteristics of the building, the characteristics
of the grounds around it, and the requirements that I gave you. Beyond the club house, then the
amenities of the other buildings. If you are going to have a driving range, you need a facility that
cleans and washes the balls and where you bucket them, I’ll use that terminology, where you
distribute them, where you handle that process. That should be adjacent to the club house.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t one of the things that was included in the building. Then the
evaluation of the means of maintaining this property that’s development. Now you start
counting up number of mowers, the number of types of mowers that you need and the vehicles
that you needs, and we started placing those inside of a building, all of a sudden we realized,
okay, that building has to be bigger if we’re going to put everything inside. For the longevity of
the equipment and proper maintenance of that equipment, it is better if it’s inside. We had the
discussion with Sharmeen about putting it outside, build fencing and screening around it. But
you’re not doing that equipment any good having to go through the rains and such like that. So
you look at that as say, okay, let’s increase the size of that building. So we got to the building,
the various buildings that were involved, and the little teaching shed that’s off on the course that
Sharmeen noted as a place for when it’s inclement weather but you can still do some teaching so
that the golf pro that can be helping that person doing the work on the driving range, they’re in a
shelter. That’s the function of that building. It’s often referred to as a loafing shed as far as it is
concerned when you have horses so it’s the same type of structure as that three-sided, open-end,
sloped roof, so that when the swing takes place you’re not hitting anything as far as the structure
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is concerned. So all of those were kind of looked at. We put it together. Basically the site plan
is identical, as Sharmeen was saying. Nothing’s really changed. A little massaging here and
there to accommodate these different buildings, placing them basically staying in the same spot.
The elevations of the building are the same. All of that is still the same. All of the basic grading.
There is undulation a bit to all directions from the club house. The club house is sitting up at 916
which is basically a little bit taller than the rest of the site is happening around it. That drops off
as you go down to the parking lot and go to the point. That grade drops down approximately six
to seven feet. You have an elevation back at the north end of that parking that’s at an elevation
number 910. The road, Pioneer Trail, is an elevation of 914 so this issue of headlights going
right onto the highway, they’re basically going into the ground. The cars are not perched in an
upward direction while they’re doing that. They’re actually in a downward slope. Everything is
draining in that north direction and then off to the west. All of that was taken into consideration.
I’m going to walk through a little bit on the, let’s take this section. I’m going to have you do the
same thing that Sharmeen had you do. The buildings that we’re talking about and the orientation
as we talked about, Pioneer Trail is on the north side of the property and hopefully I’ll put all of
these drawings down so north is always up. We have the club house building, the maintenance
building, the accessory building (we’re calling it a ball washing building), and the teaching
building. That’s the physical buildings that are on the property to the south. The course is
basically laid out and some of you have probably seen it before as far as the first tee, then
picking up second, third, fourth, cutting back to the fifth, crossing over six, seven, eight and nine.
It’s a nine-hole course. There is some variation of grade that occurs in through here. We’re all
aware of how 101 drops down so that grade down at the lower corner down in there is
considerably lower than the course itself so there is some undulation that is occurring there. The
plantings that occur all the way around and through, all of you know that this was basically a
nursery, a little growing space that was almost like a little tree farm I’ll call it, that was
functioning. What they’ve done is they’ve basically taken out the trees that are necessary for the
course, leaving the other ones all in place. We talked about buffering around into this whole side
of the property is quite heavily done. This is probably, the north side is probably the most open
side and that’s the side that will have some plantings and such reestablished in that area. They
enlarged some berms that occurred over on this side. There is a break in a berm that happens
here to allow water infiltration and then there’s a slight berm that’s happening over in there and,
like I said, there are some new plantings that are happening along the south property line. I’ll
probably have you come back just a little, let’s stay in the parking lot. That seems to be a focus
tonight. Let’s take care of lighting and I’ll fill that in a bit. I did say that we were
recommending metal halide rather than sodium. My recommendation for that is they get better
coverage and more efficient use of lesser lamps and I figured the fewer number of lamps and I
figure the fewer number of lamps starts to help with the idea of less intrusion on my eyes.
We’ve tried to do it with a smaller number a bit taller than what’s being requested by staff and
again, that gives me better coverage so that I don’t have the issues of having lights sitting right
next to the roadway. I tried purposely not to put any in over here. You have to on the driveway.
That’s an automatic. You have to do something to identify this from a safety standpoint. I do
not want cars pulling in and out of here if it’s perfectly pitch black. Now, the ordinance reads
half a foot candle. Along this property line, and I know it’s very difficult to read the
photometrics, the numbers along that property line are basically running 0 to 0.2 all the way
across. This corner, right in through here, is where pick up into that 0.5. Normally, if I were
laying the site out, I would have actually made that about a 1.5 to 2 at an intersection because I
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
like that intersection a little brighter but to comply with the ordinance, we’ve kept it at the 0.5.
So you have the 0.5 that’s in this area and all of this like I said is either 0 or below. All of the
plantings that are here, both the trees and wildflowers and such that are going to go on that berm,
will all be there during the summer season. They will not be there in the winter season except
for the trees themselves so there will be a little different type of character. But with the berm
that’s there, which unfortunately there was a grading plan that was developed that did say ten
feet there, but there is no way physically to get ten feet of earth change between what the
elevation of the highway is and the elevation of the property. We’re not going to build a straight
up and down retaining wall and put the earth sloping right back down onto the highway or
something like that. Basically, it’s going to be a four-foot grade change that occurs that does
take care of the, so when I talk about headlights in that area, they’re basically being taken care of
by the berm that’s there and the highway that’s there. In relationship to how the light then
traverses from vehicles through here, it’s basically taken care of by the berm and by the
plantings. The lighting from, this is my style of a shoebox, that pole with its lights are basically
directing the light downward. Now if I take and just pretend it’s sitting way over here off to the
left, that light that’s coming is basically like I said where this property line runs through here, is
zero. There is no light coming from that fixture any place past the property line. I’ll correct
myself. I said zero but it could be 0.2. That is very minimal, it’s virtually zero. I even thought
about bringing a photometric reader and turning the lights off and leaving something on in the
room so you could see what that actually is. It is virtually darkness. You’ll get more ambient
light coming from around you, houses or whatever else coming from at you when you measure
that kind of a light level. The fixtures are shoebox as it’s referred to in the trade. It’s basically a
box that sits like that. The lamp is typically a horizontal lamp because of the shallowness of the
fixture, rather than a vertical lamp and the lens is very minimal. It think it’s about a half-inch
projection below the actual box itself. So it’s a downward casting fixture. Its not intended to
spread. Many times you’ll see parking lot lights that are sitting like that and shining outward but
that is not what we’re are proposing. We are proposing that they stay in a downward position
because we’re not trying to light the road. We’re not trying to light the neighbors, we’re trying
to light the parking lot in a nice, safe manner for people when they come and go. So to address
that issue of hours of operation, however we handle that, basically what we recommend is the
use of a solar time clock so that that time clock keeps up with what type of day we’re having and
it changes it. It automatically makes a change on that basis. Something that’s going to be
motion, it takes too long for a reaction, especially in either one, the use of a halogen or metal
halide, or the use of a sodium. They all take a certain amount of time to cook before they
actually are a lamp so you don’t want those cycling on and off in that manner. So the lights will
be kept downward. They’ll stay away from the neighborhood. The lighting that is being
proposed as we were talking about is basically two along the drive and those are 15-foot poles.
Those are a different scale because we’re only trying to light a pod of area in that manner. We’re
not trying to light all the way down into the course and we’re not trying to light back on the road.
These we do recommend staying at the 25-foot elevation because again, going back to the
question, it allows me to put less in. It’s like the question do I put more lower ones in or do I put
less with a reasonable height to them. We’re not asking for 30 and 40-foot which you find
sometimes in shopping centers. We’re talking about staying in that 25-foot zone. It gives good
coverage. It takes care of the areas that we’re talking about. We get some wash out of those and
we give people lighting to go by. That lighting is basically there for both customers and
employees. Not to shied the customer, but I’m more concerned about the employee coming and
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going because that employee has to be able to come safely before the customers come and leave
safely after the customers are through so it’s more of a matter of taking care of their needs more
than the customers’ needs. That leads me to the question of hours of operation. We have
sunrise/sunset. That’s when we start playing golf, and that’s when we finish playing golf but if
I’m working in the golf course, I’m going there before that and I’ve got to do things to get ready
for the golfer and I have to do things to close after the golfer’s been there. So when we start
talking about these hours, it’s like if you’re going to be there for golf at 6:00, at sunrise, I should
have been there by 5:00. I should have started mowing green one at that time, have green one
clean and ready. Be on green two or three before that first person tees off. There’s a difference
in what I consider the operational hours for a customer, and the operational hours for taking care
of the facility itself. In reverse, the same thing at closing. If I’m coming in at 9:30 or 10:00, as
the sun sets in the long hours of the summer, I’m going to then be having to clean up and close
after you come in and have a coke or a cup of coffee and a sandwich or whatever until maybe 10,
10:30, 11:00 so I’m going to be leaving at 11:00. So that’s our request for looking at the hours
actually getting talked about hours. I’d like to see the ordinance; I would have loved to be
involved in writing your ordinance. I was listening to your earlier about your differences in
ordinances and the car and a half for three bedrooms and such like that. We only had the
opportunity once to get involved in writing an ordinance as a user of an ordinance, and it was
great because it ended up in my opinion, of course. It worked because it worked for what we
saw everybody needing. I would have loved to been involved in writing this one. I understand
the sunrise/sunset for the operational hours of the customer, but it has to be different for how you
actually run the business. The business has to be earlier, and has to run later and therefore
you’ve got to light it before and after. They’ll be off all day and they won’t be sitting there
burning from 10:00 until 4:00-5:00 in the morning, they’ll be off and hopefully everybody’s
sleeping at that time that’s in the neighborhood so it really doesn’t make any difference if they
are on or off, but they will be off at those kinds of times which appropriately should be. The
other lighting that does have to take place is again we have to take customers and clients or
golfers back in the balance of the part of the site and so they’ll be coming, this is our handicap
accessibility and even though we don’t see a lot of handicapped golfers, that facility has to still
meet those requirements and it will. It does. The driving range at this time is not lit and we have
not proposed it to be lit purposely until we see what happens. You have a different facility as I
referred to down at the bottom of the hill at 212 and 169 than what we’re talking about here. The
primary function for this one is the golf and also practicing during the day. It can’t run during
the winter because the only way you can run, we’ve done some other winter driving ranges as the
one that is down the hill as a net system so they can catch the balls. Those balls come back in
through a trough and retrieval system. You can do that in the winter because you’re sitting
above the snow. In this case we’re not proposing anything like that. It’s not that type of facility.
It’s more like you would see like the other golf courses in the area, some of the traditional ones,
the Hazeltines, and the Minnekahdas and the Interlachens type of thing. They are seasonal.
They don’t have ball catchers and continuing on through the winter. I’m trying to think if we
covered all of those…we got time, the hours, we got the lighting, the building sizes. What I’d
like to do on the building size just to help maybe have you understand that. It looks like we’ve
got a fair amount of room in this building but this is that maintenance building. It gets too light.
I’m sorry. I could have darkened it. But basically, the maintenance building has a small office, a
little break room for employees, bathroom facilities, a small little storage area that’s separated
the whole parts department because you have maintain your equipment, and the rest of it then is
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basically vehicle parking and a maintenance area, a little shop area. It’s basically there to bring
the equipment inside, bring the mowers inside, bring carts inside because there will be carts
available for the course. In doing that, then the building gets to be a little bit larger, it gets a little
different scale, a different type of building and the economics, and it is partially economics that
drive the color, a dark green, evergreen, and a cream color. We’ll call it that. At least on my
screen that I’m looking at up here turns out to be a little less green. A very moderate, reasonably
priced building and efficient building utilizing the same type of building that was proposed
before, being a Lester-type building type of facility and I guess I’m one that pushes a little harder
as I look around the neighborhood. The property to the east of the golf course has a two-toned
brown Lester-type building. I’m going to use their terminology for that. So it felt like it was
compatible with that. Looking across to the northwest corner of the property off the corner,
there’s one, two, three, I think five maintenance-type buildings, Lester-type buildings. There’s
even one that’s a Quonset hut, which is more of a ribbed metal type of a look. In this particular
case, we’re talking about it being a building that has metal panels that has sort of a board and
batten look to them so it’s not corrugated. It’s not like what we thought up when we were doing
typical metal buildings where we had the corrugated metal that we’d screw onto the frame. So,
we’re looking at it being something that’s acceptable in the neighborhood. It becomes sort of a
dual question. We’re back to codes again. If I were a farm, I could have them. If I had a farm
and a residence not any larger than our club house building, it’s only a 4,000 square-foot type
building. We draw homes that are that large and I have my horse barn. I don’t know exactly
what the people of the northwest that are across from that other kitty corner do, but there is four
buildings on the one parcel and at least two or three on the other, and I think even to the south of
us there’s a couple of buildings. The metal building, because it’s so far off the property and
because it seems to be in keeping with the neighborhood, we feel that’s an appropriate use. If it
were a commercial use, which we’re not rezoned as a commercial, we are maintained as an A2
Agricultural property, allowing us to have a golf course on it, it would be a different matter. But
it doesn’t change zoning. We stay as an ag zoning so therefore I think the ag applications should
be applied to the property in its fullest. So therefore the property, the building would actually
stay as a metal building rather than changing the materials itself. And that’s true for the other
two buildings. As Sharmeen indicated, we have changed the appearance to the building. I’m not
giving you all of the, I didn’t tone at all because it’s a fair amount to do, but the building that you
saw in that colored photo before was basically almost the same lean-to type of building. We’re
not proposing that. This is a hand, stick-frame building, and trussed roof adding some character
to it. Accentuating entries is what is really what you want to have happen in your
neighborhoods. It’s residential scale. It’s potentially, well I don’t know how I would judge it.
There are homes that I saw when I drove through the neighborhood to the north that I think are
larger scale than this one, different style. We’re looking at it more for a little different use than
we are trying to put…but it’s basically we’re using the same material that Sharmeen was
showing you before. The asphalt shingles. The question as to what these materials are. This is a
trim material. There’s bead board that will occur in part of the entrance. This is a product that’s
called Azack(?). It’s a trim plastic. It sounds cheaper when I use that term. It’s a much more
elaborate trim than that. It’s a permanent material. It doesn’t deteriorate. It doesn’t fail. It
accepts paint. We’re basically looking at using the white trim with our siding and these are the
trim boards that go around the windows and such like that. There will be residential double-
hung windows. They’re actually what’s called a cottage style where the top half portion is
smaller than the lower portion so it’s being kept in that nice scale of a residence. The use of, in
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
this case we ended up developing the clear story glass up on the top, a dormer type of a
treatment, to again let some light in from a different direction and add a different character to the
building. Currently there are the two screen porches that are on the end. There has been some
discussion and it is the same thing relating to if we change the approach. We’re going to actually
build those screen porches where the foundation is insulated so that if there is a need and a good
rationale in the future we may be talking to you again about enclosing one of those so that they
can enhance their facility. What did I miss? I’ll shut up. You can turn me off. I’ll answer
questions.
McDonald: Okay. I have a question for you. We do have a time limit now. We’re obviously
not going to make the time limit. Can we run these meetings over or are we…
Generous: It’s up to the Commission.
McDonald: Okay. That’s all I wanted to check on. At that point, does anyone, Commissioners,
who wants to start asking questions? Go with Kurt. Dan?
Keefe: Let me ask you a question. In regards to the, let me get back to the hours of operation
and the lighting, if we were to run that to sunrise to sunset, what would that do to the lighting
that you’re proposing?
John Kosmas: It would stay the same.
Keefe: It would stay the same even though…
John Kosmas: I’ve got to have the lights on for you to come early to your tee time and I’ve got
to have the lights on for you to leave and I’ve got to leave the lights on for the employees. Even
though, even if you were to say sunset is the theoretical closing time, people are still on the golf
course. They’re going to come in, they’re going to finish, and the employees have to stay and
take care of them. That’s why I kind of question the use of that, in the ordinance. If I were
running a golf course, that’s what I’d have to do.
Keefe: Now in regards to lighting itself, you reference a couple of golf courses, Minnekahda
and Interlachen, where they utilize in their entrances much lower lighting than what you’re
proposing.
John Kosmas: Not that…
Keefe: No, but in terms of height?
John Kosmas: Minnekahda has their pole lights coming in on their main drive that are up there.
Keefe: Yeah, but Interlachen has their…
John Kosmas: Interlachen has it’s globes.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
Keefe: Yeah, right. You could do that if they’re lower.
John Kosmas: And I could do that efficiently in the driveway because the driveway, just like
the…
Keefe: They’re not 15 feet high.
John Kosmas: They’re probably 12 to 15 and they’re also greater than 360-degree lamps. Now
they let light, they’re typical, old street-light fashion and they emit light in all directions. You
get a great deal different efficiency out of a lamp that’s doing that and in many cases it’s more
efficient for the lighting, but it’s potentially more objectionable to the viewer. So your use by
the ordinance to ask for it to be a shoebox, I think from the standpoint of those that are driving
by and going by, I think it’s more compatible. But you have to get them up to get them to light.
Otherwise, you’re putting them at every 15-foot interval type of thing and that gets to be a lot of
lamps.
Keefe: What would be, so if we were to go with more lamps, what would be the conceivable
minimum height that you could go at?
John Kosmas: I don’t know where I would put them except for putting them out on the north
side of the parking lot and I don’t recommend that because then I’m taking and putting more
light to an area where I don’t want light so I’ve got to keep the lights where they are.
Keefe: What height would you be looking at?
John Kosmas: I’d probably work at 20, I’d work with a 20-foot high and I’d tip them up to make
them cover better. If I start bringing them down to 15 and squaring them up, you’re going to
probably be putting them at every third parking stall. That’s 27-foot spacing. That’s a lot. We
have nine stalls to park now, so it’s much more effective and actually I think softer when you get
to the property line. The ambient light that’s going off to the sides like I said is virtually zero.
McDonald: Okay. Mark?
Undestad: I just have a question on your hours of operation. You want to start at sunrise and
have your employees come in an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, who knows how early they
are going to come.
John Kosmas: A reasonable time to come in.
Undestad: But I think most golf courses now, aren’t they going to first tee times of 7:00 a.m.
rather than the 6:00 a.m. and not having all that? Again, how you can show all that and then
you’ve got residents around there, the trucks come in, the employees come in, the equipment
starts rattling. In the summertime people like to sleep with their windows open. I’m seeing
more of these that are now, the first tee time is ________. People try to get out there before the
club house opens up, but I think 7:00 a.m. to me is…
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
John Kosmas: I’m not a golfer all the time. I’m a hacker. I don’t get up early to go play golf.
You won’t see me be the sun riser. But I understand that, what I’ve learned and understood, that
sunrise is the starting time and many people are willing to do that, partly sometimes to get that
early tee time to get through this course in an hour, hour and a half, and they’re at work at
regular times almost. So it doesn’t interfere with anybody’s day.
Undestad: I kind of see that more with golf courses out in the farms yet. They’re still, every time
you want to get up, come on out and play but I think the things that are, the courses that are in
around the cities and things are starting to move that back.
John Kosmas: I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that because I’m not familiar with it in
that respect.
Undestad: It minimizes all that early morning noise out there.
John Kosmas: The mowers that we’re talking about, they’re not huge tractors. The mower that
works on a green is almost like a hover because it’s not trying to maximize what it’s throwing
around. It doesn’t have to be powerful, it’s maintaining. That’s the mowing that takes place
early. The course can be done safely during the day because they’ll be in cages but you can’t
mow while I’m playing golf or while you’re playing golf. So you’ve got to start that before the
people get there and sort of stay ahead of them and that’s the purpose for that.
Undestad: Other than just the sheer numbers, is there any reason why you wouldn’t set up your
hours with first tee times?
John Kosmas: I’ll do it as in economics. If I say you can’t start playing golf, let’s say I lose four
tee times in the morning and I do that enough times during the year and we did a little math, I
think if we lost, there were four tee times that you would cut off…let me just check my notes
because we did do it. The question did come up. If you had three foursomes, because you’re
basically starting them at that 15-20 minute cycle so you cut off an hour of starting time, you’d
lose 12 golfers in the morning. If you did it in the evening and you said okay, because we’ve got
to be gone I’ve got to take off four starting times. I’ve got to cut it off a half hour, 45 minutes
early. Take away another 12. You have 24 golfers that you’ve lost in that day and if each golfer
intended to spend his green fees of $15 and you do that over the period of days that you’re open,
it’s a $60,000 swing. That’s $60,000. It helps take care of everything that you’re doing on that
course. That’s a big number. If I could put it in my pocket, I wouldn’t probably be here. So it’s
a big number when you start saying, let’s change that half-hour, 45 minutes. It does make a big
difference in the operation. I’m not saying, of course, it’s an ideal condition. It’s every day.
And there’s days when you don’t even play golf because it’s raining so that will throw out those
days. Just taking them on that average, that’s what makes a difference so it is an important factor
for us to try and look at that hour of golfers starting at sunrise and employees starting before that.
That’s how I guess I would have worded, if I’d rewritten the ordinance.
Undestad: Just out of curiosity, how many total golfers do you plan on running through in a
day?
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John Kosmas: If you say you can do, oh what would be a good number, a foursome every eight
minutes? If you’re really on pace, you can do a foursome in eight minutes so if you’re open and
you really have that many people out there, it’s a lot of people. And that’s part of the reason for
having them start earlier and doing some of the maintenance and cutting those greens because
you’ve got to stay ahead of them. You can’t do that while you’re open. That type of thing you
can’t. You can’t be on that green.
Larson: Okay. Just one quick question. You may or may not know the answer to this. Are they
planning on applying for a liquor license?
John Kosmas: They’re looking for a beer license.
Larson: Okay. The reason I ask that is then, the course is open sunrise to sunset. Then you’re
talking people, they have to be off the course by sunset or do they off they premises by sunset?
John Kosmas: I think that’s a very good question.
Larson: Because if they’re going to go and finish up and go have a beer that puts them an hour
later maybe?
John Kosmas: I think they should be able to do that.
Undestad: I think the reason for the sunrise/sunset is the lighting issue. If you don’t want the
lighting issues then you need to close the place down.
Larson: Right. That’s what I mean. It puts your lights later. Your lighting issues are later.
John Kosmas: I happen to think I should be able to that. I think I should be able to play a good
round of golf and I should be able to stop and have a sandwich and a beer or a sandwich and a
pop and then leave. But if I go to the literal interpretation, and that’s what I guess I’ve got to ask
you to do, is look at that interpretation a little differently, because if I look at the literal
interpretation, if sunset that day is at 8:30 it’s closed. And there’s a lot of light potentially after
what we count as sunset. We talked about the sunset on the calendar, on the time clock as one
thing, but actual sun’s gone is anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour past…
Larson: Lake zoning ordinances, like jet skis and small things, have to be off half and hour or an
hour, whatever it is, before sunset. I should know that one. So that’s what I mean. That might
be something that needs to be discussed. That’s all I have.
John Kosmas: Like I said, I’d have loved to been in writing that ordinance because I would have
written it…
McDonald: Debbie?
Zorn: I’m going to let Kurt go first.
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Papke: What’s the designed lifetime of the buildings? How long are you designing these to last?
John Kosmas: The club house building?
Papke: Yes.
John Kosmas: As long as you’re residence. It’s a long-term building.
Papke: Okay. We’re also the planning and zoning commission so we do have to take zoning
considerations into issue here. So staff, this area is guided rural residential in 2020?
Generous: Large lot.
Papke: Large lot. So 2020 comes along and gets rezoned, what happens?
John Kosmas: We stay there.
Al-Jaff: The applicant needs to make a decision, do they want to continue the golf course use or
do they want to change it to a residential use?
Papke: But there’s nothing that requires them to then stop operation of the golf course?
Al-Jaff: It’s a conditional use. There is a higher and better use with residential.
Papke: But they can continue to operate this golf course until the year 2100, as long as the
building doesn’t fall over.
Al-Jaff: Unless they violate the conditions of…
John Kosmas: My understanding is that you have some interim uses in your ordinances and I
think that thought of an interim use would be applied but in this case its not an interim use.
Al-Jaff: It’s a conditional use.
John Kosmas: It’s a conditional use under the ag zoning.
Papke: So coming back to, I think this issue of hours of operation is going to be crucial here
from a city code perspective. In this case, taking into account somebody sitting at the bar having
a beer and somebody mowing the greens. What constitutes hours of operation according to our
city code?
Al-Jaff: Sunrise to sunset.
Papke: But what operations, what things can take place during that time period? After sunset…
Generous: They cannot maintain.
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Papke: They cannot maintain. That’s the way it’s currently written?
Al-Jaff: Correct.
Papke: Do we enforce this?
Al-Jaff: We haven’t had a problem yet. I’ve never had a complaint.
Papke: I’ll make one now.
Al-Jaff: Okay.
Papke: On Bluff Creek.
Al-Jaff: Done.
McDonald: Okay. Debbie?
Zorn: I want to hold my comments or my questions so that we can have the public hearing.
Thanks.
McDonald: Okay. I have got some questions for you. You talk about economics. Have you
compared this course to the Chaska course the way it’s run and operated? To me they’re
comparable.
John Kosmas: My understanding is they have, are aware of how the Chaska course operates.
McDonald: Do you know what the hours of operation are for that course?
John Kosmas: No, I’d have to defer to that. The Chaska course?
McDonald: No, the Chaska short course. It’s over by Hazeltine.
: We didn’t talk to the par 30 course but we talked to the town course and we’re
basically running the same as the town course.
McDonald: You want to come in early and do the mowing and everything, but how can you do
the mowing without light?
John Kosmas: The lighting that you need for the level of lighting you need for the greens is
strictly on the mower itself. There’s no need for broad headlights or beacons of light to do that.
McDonald: Okay. You’ve run through the economic numbers of what it takes to make it work
and all such as that but one of the factors I think you need to put into that is that you’re in a
neighborhood, a residential neighborhood. That’s why a lot of people are here today and you’re
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going to see a lot of pressure coming from us as far as the use of this course. I understand you
have to make a profit. I understand you’ve done your numbers and you know what it’s going to
take to go through it but the problem that we’re going to hold you up to that’s a scrutiny that
we’re looking at on this is you’ve got to live within that neighborhood and we just don’t want a
lot of complaints. That’s one of the things that we look at. The whole thing about the liquor
license and those things. If you come back before us with that, you’ll have a hard time getting
that through, I’ll tell you right now. I guess the reason I say all that is that we do look at this in
the context of where it’s at and my question is have you looked at that? There’s a lot of
complaints here. I’ve got a stack of emails. I’ve been getting calls constantly about this and
what it comes down to is maybe it’s a lack of cooperation or listening to your neighbors. The 25
to 15-foot, it seems to me as though it’s a small trade off but it would buy you a lot of good
capital. What have you looked at as far as talking to the people within the neighborhoods. Have
you held meetings with them?
John Kosmas: No, we have not. It was a discussion to do that but there is also the understanding
that it has been in front of you before and the neighbors were involved before and so we are
basically working with that.
McDonald: Okay. I guess the feeling that everybody has while you’re back is these seem to be
some rather drastic changes. This is not the deal everybody signed up for is kind of the feeling
I’m getting from reading through all of this. I understand the issue about the lights but why
wouldn’t 15-foot light poles work?
John Kosmas: I’m not saying they don’t work. I’m not saying that they do not work. They do
not work in the configuration we have them set up right now and if 15-foot is the number that
you work with, we’re going to have to have more lamps than what we’re talking about with the
six we’re talking about. I don’t recommend that. That’s where I’m at with it. It doesn’t make
sense for the use of the property to put more of them around and start moving the lamps closer to
someone who doesn’t want them. I don’t want to put them in your backyard. That’s not the
purpose. The purpose is to keep them away from you.
McDonald: Does part of this come down to the resolution of what does sunrise to sunset mean?
John Kosmas: It is some of that, yes. And the safety of the employee leaving and/or coming. I
don’t want to send an employee out there in any business. I work at a nice little strip center in
St. Louis Park and I really like it when that light’s on over that door and lighting up that alley
when I walk out the back door to go get in my car and I’m not small guy but I feel much better.
When that thing’s out, I let the landlord know.
McDonald: I don’t think any of us are saying anything about safety. We all agree with that. I
think the question comes down to how much lighting do we actually need to achieve that
objective. The other question I’ve got concerns the building materials. Staff seems to have
made a point about the ribbed metal. What I heard you talking about, I’m not sure that that’s
what you’re talking about. Is there a difference of opinion there between you and staff or has
something changed?
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John Kosmas: I think it’s a play on words. The metal building that we’re talking about is a
metal building that has a simulation of a standing seam and a board and batten type of look
where it has a flat panel, a strip, a flat panel, not a corrugate, what I would call a corrugated…so
I think it’s just a matter of terminology.
McDonald: Because when I think of ribbed, as you said, I think of corrugated but that wasn’t
what you presented. Okay. I have no further questions and I don’t mean to be overbearing about
all of this but it’s just one of these things. There are a lot of questions about this coming back
that it does appear things have changed from what we initially approved.
John Kosmas: Hopefully I’ve made it obvious that it isn’t that drastic of a change what we’ve
done. It’s more a clarification of what, I’m not picking on the people that were here before you
before, but I think some of it should have been taken care before but I’m willing to carry the
message afterwards now to try and get the answers squared away. Because I want these people
to live with what’s there. I like the building that we’re developing. I think it’s a good use.
Therefore, let’s bring it back and let’s talk about it.
McDonald: Okay. Let’s see what everybody has to say and then we’ll go from there.
John Kosmas: Thank you.
McDonald: Thank you. At this point we will open up the public meeting and what I would ask
is that you step up to the podium, state your name and address and then address your comments
to the Commission and we will try to get everyone in. Yes, sir.
Boyd Peterson: Good evening. I’m Boyd Peterson. I live at 9860 Pioneer Circle. I’m the
residence directly on the east side of it which puts me right on the second fairway. I’m the
fellow with the big brown pole barn that was built in 1985. At that point in time there were farm
fields, three nurseries, this and that. There wasn’t these fancy buildings that we can do that with
so I need to point that out. Other thing is these hours of operation. When those sprinklers go off,
my house is probably, you know, 200 feet away. You would not believe how loud those
sprinklers are when they’re going off and they run them things unbelievably a lot. As far as lawn
mowing, them lawn mowers run a lot and they start damn early in the morning and they seem
like they are mowing all the time. Now that’s a lot and it’s right there. Another problem with, I
mean I don’t want to make any enemies with the applicant, but it may too late for a lot of that.
I’ve been there since 1987. But the big problem I have and I was hoping there was a little bit of
a buffer between my property and the second fairway and the original design of this course was
great and happy and everybody that’s here was really great and happy about this going. It was a
real tame nine-hole course for the public and for the kids, older folks that can only go do nine
and be done and a quick deal. I don’t think there’s anybody here really too stupid to see what’s
going on here. This is a master plan for bigger things. It’s ridiculous. I was hoping for a little
more of a buffer. I want to get back to that. I mean the applicant, he’s well aware of what I was
hoping for and well aware of what was on the original docket. As a matter of fact, I even took
care of trees that were planted by myself. I drug 400 feet of hose around for months just so they
could take care of the rest of the course. They had enough problems. I wanted this thing to
work. Now, what I got is, they’re mowing right up to the line fence and what happened to my 40
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yards of weeds? What happened to my buffer? It’s not there. I’ve got a dog. Okay, well keep
your dog off of my course. Well, okay but what happened to my three, four feet of weeds for my
dog wouldn’t see a golfer running across. My dog don’t see nobody over there, my dog ain’t
going to go there. I got four kids. My big concern is where my pole barn is. It’s real close to
the second tee box and I know damn well this is going to happen because there’s a lot of golfers
that have a few before they start their round. What’s real convenient, and you’re all welcome to
come over to my place and look around all you want, the back side of my pole barn’s a perfect
place to walk over and relieve yourself. And I know that’s going to happen and that’s why I was
hoping for a buffer. You’re not going to walk through 30 yards of weeds with hopefully thistles.
What it’s supposed to be isn’t happening and I don’t want to make enemies with the applicant.
That ain’t what I’m trying to do. The applicant’s well aware of all I really wanted. I got one
pole barn with one light and you’re all welcome to cover over after this meeting and see what
one light does. That’s all you need. I got kids running around all the time. I got cars coming
and going. Why do you need all these lights. I could talk all night. It’s obvious I’m a little
frustrated on how it’s gone at this point and nobody comes and asks me what would be nice. I
thought that was all worked out but it isn’t what’s happening. I’ll let other folks get up. Thank
you.
McDonald: Okay.
: I have a question for him. Sir, quick question for you. Do you have any
concerns with golf balls hitting your pole barn?
Boyd Peterson: I’m not a golfer, plain and simple. In talking to golfers and the original guy that
was putting this all together, designed this so the balls are all drove nice effectively away from
my property. I guess unless you put a pretty heavy hook on and there’s been people say that’s
going to happen so there are going to be balls coming at my house and I’m hoping the first
window that gets broke that the golf course takes care of it and puts in one that won’t break again
for when the next one hits. That was kind of a, in a sense, a verbal thing that was worked out
just being a nice neighbor about stuff. I’ve got beautiful pines that have been there forever that
are up there that I’m hoping they’ll take care of a lot of that. I took care of a bunch of trees and
I’m hoping they’ll take care of that, too. I hope that answers your question.
McDonald: Thank you. Next, please.
David Gatto: Good evening, folks. I’m David Gatto. I live at 9631 Foxford Road. I’m going to
represent the entire Lake Riley Woods Homeowners Association. Several members of the board
are present tonight. In fact, the President is right there. I’ve been authorized by the board to
speak on the behalf of all 37 families that live across the street and to the north of the golf
course. I’ll invite any other members of the association that are here tonight and present that do
not agree with any of my comments to come forward or speak up and correct me. I want to say
first that the association really encourages the development. I’m sorry, I’m going to kind of read
this because I prepared these comments and I shared them with some other people and they
listened so I’ve got some things to say but I’m going to read most of it. We encourage the
development of the golf course and wish its management a great success with this current
business model and as presented and approved in September of 2003. I know that myself and
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several of the residents are eager to use the facility. We’ve been encouraged by it’s positive
visual impact. We feel the landscaping that has been completed is an improvement from even
the beautiful nursery that was present there before. We know we could have something across
the street that’s far more detrimental and not as pleasant to view as a golf course so we don’t
want the Halla’s to misconstrue our comments tonight in any way. We have a generally positive
impression of the development and look forward to its completion and opening. Our first
question to Halla’s is when is this thing going to open? One of our concerns is this is going to
become a white elephant and never open and that will be an embarrassment to Halla and the
neighborhood out there. We want to plant that first question. So we understand it, the Planning
Commission now has the discretion in approving or denying the site plan and is limited to
whether or not the project complies with zoning ordinances. When we review the September
th
15 conditional use permit, we want to acknowledge for the record again, the applicant did
accept that City awarded them the permit with no exterior lighting except a safety light on the
building, as we understood. Let’s talk about safety for a minute, guys. Sharon and Kathy, would
you stand up? This is the example of the kind of people that are out in our neighborhood after
dark and before sunrise. These two ladies and several other ladies that are nearly identical to
these ladies get up before the sun rises and walks around our neighborhood. Walks right down
the street. Right down the bike path. Some of them walk entirely around Lake Riley and to my
knowledge; we have not had any problems with safety. Now unless that some other kind of folks
are brought into the neighborhood by this business, we don’t think that there’s going to be any
problem with safety and we frankly don’t understand all these needs and all this talk about
protective of employees before the sun rises and after the sun sets over there, because we think
that we’ve been pretty lucky with what we’ve got. We’ve got the following comments. We’ve
got another question. The conditional use permit states the applicant is going to provide a
pedestrian bikeway connection to the City’s trail system at the intersection of Great Plains
Boulevard and Pioneer Trail. We want to know, Mr. Chairman, when Halla’s going to complete
that connection. So far we haven’t seen any evidence that they’ve even begun that. Then also,
we want a copy, the Lake Riley Woods Homeowners Association needs a copy of the hydro
geologic study that’s regarding the impact to the surrounding wells that’s referenced on page 5 of
18, condition number 13. I want to comment for the record tonight more about this watering and
the irrigation system. I personally observed the watering and specifically during the month of
September when we received over 10½ inches of water. I had to go out and get my newspaper
one morning with an umbrella because it was raining so hard, and as I glanced over at the
nursery, they were pouring out irrigation water onto that (shag field?) during a heavy rainstorm.
You know, all of us neighbors have talked a lot and we’re really sensitive to our common water
supply and our wells out there and really don’t see the need to operate a commercial golf course
sprinkler system during heavy rain events. We wonder if the golf course has any sensors integral
to their system or can be added to their system that will preclude the system from working,
especially during a heavy rain. Now I know that I can override my automatic sprinkler system
and I do when it rains or when it gets so wet in here and that usually occurs different times in the
summer. We just shut the irrigation system off. So we’re wondering if the golf course can do
the same for us. We also would like to review the Carver County, the letter dated August 29,
2003 and a MnDOT letter dated 8/26/03. We’d like to look at all this prior to the City Council
meeting which this matter is going to be under consideration. The reason I say all that is because
I’ve got some comments in their personally and this applicant has shown time and time again
their lack of consideration for what is actually permitted. In other words, the City of Chanhassen
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tells them they are permitted to do and they go about their own business and they do things that
are not consistent with the permit. So we feel that would be better if we just go ahead and
double check it ourselves, too. We now know the reason for the parking lot lighting. It kind of
was a mystery to us but it’s clear after we read the application items number 5 and 8, and I think
everybody’s been alluding to this, that this applicant is really trying to have a future driving
range with lights, a future miniature golf range with lights, and some sort of future evening
operations that revolve something around maybe coffee and a sandwich shop, maybe more. I
mean there’s no way we can tell. But its really clear that the applicant desires to kind of step up
his business model. I mean, he came here and everybody, as everybody’s been saying, was
really happy in 2003 that we were going to have a executive golf course and we were all going to
be able to use it like Mr. Peterson said during the day, and now we’re back here and we’re
talking about massive buildings, different kinds of uses, all kinds of lights in the parking lot for
safety reasons, and we can see that the technique here is to come in and ask for more variances
on top of the conditional original intent and permit and we flatly don’t like it, obviously. So the
facility is only needed to operate between sunset and we really wonder why safety lights are
needed during the day like everybody’s been talking about. I guess Mr. Papke, you must have
read my notes before the meeting because you got most of my, you’ve already talked about most
of my ideas. I was going to talk about, and so I’m not even going to waste too much of this, but I
was going to talk about the lighting pollution. I mean, these folks talk about lighting that is
downblasted and has so many foot candles and so forth at the property line, but we all know that
what really in effect happens is I don’t care what color, flat black, those lights are going to reflect
off we’re going to have light pollution. When it snows, if those lights are on, and these guys
want to operate in the winter, its going to reflect off the snow and it’s really going to be bright.
And it is true, we can see the lights from Mystic Lake in the south end of Chanhassen real
clearly. And it is true, I can look to the sky in the south, I can look to the sky in the west, not
everybody knows this, but all of our neighbors get together a lot of nights and we try to count the
number of satellites we can see fly over the City, the skies and its really nice in that part of
Chanhassen still and we just don’t want to lose it. So, now I do have a, I got a trump card. I
can’t believe nobody else has said this tonight. I want to make note that the Bluff Creek Golf
Course does not have any parking lot lights. I don’t know that everybody understands that. I
drove over there today because I was curious and that’s kind of what I thought. That seems to be
a pretty successfully golf course and one that has never kicked anybody off because of sunset
and you can get pretty decent tee times in the morning and I’ve never felt threatened by any kind
of safety. You know, I golf all the time folks and these guys talk about going and doing their
maintenance before the golfers get there. That would be pretty hi-fi, because I can’t remember
too many times when I was the first golfer on the course and I didn’t have go ahead and put
through the moisture and dew on the golf greens, or I didn’t have to wait for the guy to mow off
the golf green before I was putting on it. There’s a lot of us in here in this room that are golfers
and we know the way golf courses work. We agree with the City on the denial of the extended
hours, the increased traffic, the lighting, the noise, the disruptions after dark are going to impair
our property values. I notice your ordinances are full, your ordinances are full of those words,
things that impair property values, things that diminish property values, things that impact
property values. That’s the kind of thing where somebody’s going to come look at our house if
we want to sell it. I know that some people in my neighborhood have their houses directly from
that golf course for sale right now and that individual told me just tonight that he didn’t buy his
house next to a parking lot and he doesn’t this house next to a parking lot, and I’m sure that the
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people that are going to try to buy this house don’t want to buy a house that’s next to a parking
lot. So it’s probably pretty obvious that that’s going to diminish the value of that property. The
maintenance building, I mean, we don’t agree with the increased size of this maintenance
building. We’re trying to figure out why you need a maintenance building that big for a golf
course of this size and I don’t think that’s been clearly demonstrated even though we’ve seen lots
of diagrams here tonight. A 32-foot by 24-foot ball washing building is kind of curious also. I
have been to a lot golf courses and the ball washing buildings and the buildings that dispense
those golf balls, and I’m talking about the Hazeltine golf course, it isn’t any bigger than this little
space here between all these desks and Hazeltine golf course uses that and I think that’s a pretty
good golf course. The Deer Run Golf Course over in Victoria has got just that little building that
does the same thing so I guess it’s not clear to me what 32 to 24-foot is going to be used for, in
addition to 100-foot long maintenance buildings. It’s kind of interesting. These larger buildings
and more buildings on this property are certainly going to impact the visual appearance of the
property and again potentially impact our property values. We want to agree, a comment that we
agreed with the staff recommendation that all the buildings be consistent with the wood exterior,
whatever you approve. I mean the steel exterior skin would certainly be something that we’re
not used seeing. Mr. Peterson’s got some metal buildings over there. I live across the street
from him. I can’t see them. He’s got plenty of trees around them, it was built a long time ago,
and it’s just not going to be out in a new golf course. Finally, let’s talk about non-compliance.
I’ve got a specific one for you. The neighbors have noticed that the underground wiring is
indeed presently installed for the lighting of the parking lot. Mr. Chairman, some of our
neighbors want to know why we were all subjected to very strict compliance and inspections
during construction of our homes; however, this applicant has been allowed to install items while
they’re clearly inconsistent with his present permit. We just don’t understand how that happens.
Additionally, they’ve admitted tonight that the permit says that the berm is going to be 10-foot
high on Pioneer Trail and they simply said, aw gosh we can’t do that. I guess we don’t
understand that attitude. I would have had a hard time telling the inspectors that when I built my
house that geez the plan said that I can’t have that drain box under my garage but I just can’t do
that. I want a drain box so I’m going to put it there. That’s that tough things for us normal
people to understand. So I’m going to do a quick summary here that we do not agree to the staff
recommendation to the City Council to approve these amendments to the conditional use permit
for parking lot lights and drive aisle lighting. We just don’t think they need any lighting. I do
agree, Mr. Papke, if you really wanted to come to some sort of agreement, the short path
lightings, we would talk about those. That’s a great idea and we actually had that idea tonight.
We were talking about that over pizza before we came up here. We don’t feel the applicant has
really shown this facility is different from other facilities engaged in the exact same business. In
fact, the business that Bluff Creek is in is enhanced. Bluff Creek is the closer of this golf course,
and not an executive golf course and so they’re in the same business in Chanhassen and actually
directly adjacent to the same property we’re talking about. We don’t see any real comments or
valid documentation from the applicant to support that the lighting after dark will in any way
provide a safer environment for the public during the period from sunrise to sunset. We do not
agree that the applicant should be given the opportunity to put commercial lighting of any type
on the property just because the local ordinances provide them for safety. They were permitted
to have lights on their building for safety. That’s exactly what Bluff Creek has. Bluff Creek has
a very standard double fixture on one end of the building. I noticed that was pointing where all
the carts were parked on the side of the building as I drove through there today and that’s all
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there is. So, I’m sure a lot of other people want to talk; I have just spoken for 37 people, so
thank you very much.
McDonald: Thank you. Anyone else?
Judy Walstad: Hi. My name is Judy Walstad. I live at 10071 Great Plains Boulevard. Our
property would be on the south side of the golf course directly behind the, we have a private
road, and we are directly behind the driving range. Could I just confirm first of all that you did
th
receive an email from Dave Walstad dated February 6?
McDonald: Yes.
Judy Walstad: Alright. Thank you. I would just like to say I do have concerns with the lawn
mowing. I guess I didn’t realize that they started or considering starting that early. I have to say
I was shocked about hearing any winter usage because on page 2 of the 18-page proposal it says
operations shall be seasonal and limited to sunrise and sunset. I’ve always assumed the golf
course was summer, luckily in the spring sometimes and in the fall, but I never heard of it for
winter usage. I might just add to my neighbors to the north that I haven’t met yet, but in a
comment with the lighting in the parking lot and cars leaving, I think we should consider that
headlights on a car, on a vehicle are not on the ground, they are three to four feet off the ground;
therefore, you might be getting some of that headlight projected into your properties. Since we
live directly across from the driving range, the range actually butts up to our front yard, my first
area of concern is regarding the demand for lights on the driving range, and I guess that’s going
to be discussed in the future but I would just like to state while I have an opportunity that I’m
adamantly against lights on the driving range. I would also be opposed to the proposed future
miniature golf course and lights involved in those and the parking lot lights. Also, I didn’t know
about the lights on the maintenance building that would be right in our path of vision. I would
not be comfortable with lights on that building. In addition to the lighting, if the concern if truly
for personal safety and not for property protection or to generate income, and it’s deemed
necessary to have parking lot lights, I feel they should be put of timers to shut off after the
business is closed. We do not support all night lighting solely for personal property protection.
If that’s the major concern we feel the applicant should handle that protection with alarm
systems. I am vehemently opposed to extended hours 6 to 11 p.m. and being open year round. I
feel that this is an operation that occurs in the prime season of the year and they are running from
sunrise to sunset, 7 days of the week already and I feel there should be no extension of these two
items. This is not zoned as a business district and we don’t want it to become one. I would like
to mention during the construction of the golf course a berm was placed directly north of our
private road. This was not in line with the original plan and we are concerned that this will cause
water to drain onto our road causing pot holes and increased maintenance costs. And I do
understand the private road was mentioned earlier tonight. That would need to be handled
separately. But I would like to say that that berm was not intended to be there and it was not in
compliance with the plan that was proposed to us earlier. The drainage was supposed to go into
their drainage ponds. I just wanted to mention that and feel that this needs to be addressed.
Landscaping: I would like to say I am very pleased with the evergreen trees placed directly
across from our driveway and I have faith in the manager and crew upon putting those in. I feel
that this project though is still in process regarding the south side of the golf course along the
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private road. It is hard to know where they are since they did not go by their original proposal
again so I would like in writing what they are doing to complete this project. I wanted to
mention there is that driving range they talked about earlier that’s one mile south of our property
and I would like to comment that it is open year round and what is convenient with that property
is there are no residents in the area so I think that is fabulous and there’s not any conflict there.
In closing, the following is a list of things that should be clarified in writing so there are no
misunderstandings between the applicant and the neighbors: A map site with all the building
locations. I was really kind of surprised to see the map proposed has two buildings. It does not
show, I did see it tonight, but it does not show where all four buildings were to be located.
Explanation of continued landscaping process. Definition of sunrise and sunset. Again, what
golf patrons, when they’re expected to leave the property, including the club house. I would like
to have in writing that the private road not be used for Halla Green purposes. That again may
need to be handled elsewhere. We would like, if this is possible, to have the intentions for the
use of the road, if they plan to do so, in writing. I would like to see denial of the miniature golf
course and the lights of the driving range to be in writing also. I think that’s it and I thank you
very much for your time.
McDonald: Thank you very much. Would anyone else like to come up?
Gaye Guyton: Good evening. My name is Gaye Guyton and I live right behind Judy Walstad,
10083 Great Plains Boulevard. First of all, I know this evening has gotten so late and you all
look so tired so thank you for staying and listening. I’m very concerned about this, and I was
one of those optimistic people who was here telling you we were really in favor and excited
about this golf course. In 2003 I spoke in favor of it. Ron Saatzer was really good at coming to
visit with us neighbors and just running things by and making sure we were all on the same page
and we’ve seen that change. The initial things that you approved in 2003, some of you were here
and some were different, were the four things that we’re most concerned with. The hours of
operation were going to be seasonal and again, hours of operation were going to be from sunrise
to sunset, not prior and later. There was going to be no outdoor speaker system, no commercial
kitchen, and no exterior lighting with the exception of safety lights on the building. I have been
on my property for about a dozen years at this point and I have seen that Mr. Halla has just
pushed and pushed and pushed with so many other things and that’s why we brought up the
private road issue. In 2003 there was supposed to be some of that orange construction fabric
running between the edge of the golf course and the private road so that none of the heavy
equipment would come up and down and that was one of the things that was spelled out on that
evening that everything was approved and so, lo and behold the orange fabric went up and then
they came and they ripped it down so they could use it for the those. The hours being seasonal
are now getting pushed. The sunrise to sunset limits have been pushed. We haven’t heard yet
about an outdoor speaker system and I hope that’s not going to happen. The commercial kitchen
not being permitted in the club house was so that there would be no long-range, long-hour thing.
It was supposed to just be a spot for kids to run in and get a Coke, have a sandwich, it wasn’t
supposed to be a place for people to stay long after their golf game. There’s lots of other golf
courses in the area if people would like to do that. They certainly could but this was a different
type of golf course that was being proposed at that time and it just seems like it’s changed a lot.
I’d like to talk just for a minute about the exterior lighting. We had seen in what you all had
written that you had said this, “Just as granting the extended business hours in the variance will
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be considered an annoyance to the neighbors in the early morning and evening hours contrary to
the original use permit, so will these lights be considered a nuisance. I’m not here to quibble
with you. If you say we need to have three 15-foot lights for safety, that’s fine. But I’m starting
to get very concerned when they say okay and then there’s one by the maintenance building
that’s going to be shining right into Dave and Judy Walstad’s area. There’s not that much
topography there. It’s pretty flat. We can right out to Pioneer Trail right now. It’s not a nice,
rolling area. It’s got little dips but it’s not rolling. On page 13 in the booklet that you all did you
talked about the sound and site buffers and preservation of views and with not only those lights
going in, and again keeping those to a minimum. If we need to have three low I can go along
with that but those other buildings and other things, it’s really going to change that corner. Mr.
Halla does not have bright lights on during the night at his nursery. This is something I’ve told
him repeatedly. The nursery’s also called in the past to ask are they being good neighbors.
That’s never happened with the golf course and so one of the things I’ve had chance to tell the
nursery when they’ve called is how much we appreciate the lights being low or dark at night.
That area is so dark that we are some of the people who come out between sunset and sunrise to
be able to look at the start, shooting stars, in August where there’s all the comets and things
going by. It’s a really special place so that’s an important thing. I thank you for you all to
consider. If the golf course opens and dawn and closes at dusk, I also don’t understand why it’s
so important that there be all those lights there anyway. There’s no one going to be there. They
also have not really complied with the original landscaping plan at this point. There is a
gentleman there named Eric Olson and he’s been really good about trying to tell us what he’s
doing but they have been changing things and so again, I don’t know if it’s just that they’re not
going to do it and they’re just doing what they have with the trees they have, but they were
supposed to be on the plan a whole lot of little shrubby plants that were planted right at the end
of the driving range. Those have not gone in. They’ve put in a berm and some nice pine trees
but again, they’re just changing things that were on the original plan. Also, when the architect’s
mentioned, kind of haphazardly, that oh well, the club house is only about 4,000 square feet and
that’s just like the houses that are in the area, there are no houses in our area that have 4,000
square feet on one floor. That’s much, much bigger than our area. To come back to the gravel
road just for a second, even though it’s private, I just am making this point to show that Mr.
Halla has over and over the years, as long as I’ve been there, kind of disregarded the rules of the
City and the guidelines from you pertaining to that road and what it was supposed to be used for.
Since the Halla trees no longer exist I believe there’s no valid reason for the Halla trucks to
utilize this road anymore. It’s just meant to be an easement and not a commercial road and it
was one of the things again in the original use permit or conditional use permit that MnDOT was
asking what part that road had in the plans for the golf course and as far as we knew, the answer
was none. At this point they’re using it with their heavy equipment that tears up the road and
Mr. Hall does not put money into the repair for the road at all. It is our private road. At this
point, the current business use for him to use it is for access to the golf course or accessing the
ravine for dumping. It has nothing to do with the nursery so if there’s anything that you can do
within the limits of having the plan and MnDOT looking at that be considered outside the realm
of the golf course, we would really appreciate whatever you could do. We’re not in favor of year
round business. It seems more suited to a commercially zoned area and if that’s what Mr. Halla
wants there are other areas where he could do that. This is a landscaping and agricultural area
with neighborhoods and so we believe that the original conditional use permit that you gave were
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given so well and thoughtfully, that to come back with all those changes now really changes the
heart of what the business was. Thank you very much.
McDonald: You’re welcome. Thank you. Next? Step right up. State your name and address
and address your comments to the Commissioners.
Tom Gertz: Commissioners, good evening. Good late evening. My name is Tom Gertz. I live
at 10001 Great Plains Boulevard. That’s on the southwest corner of the property. I’ll show you
a map of that in a minute. First off I would like to say that I’m very pro business. I’m very pro
small business. This expansion into the golf course really means more jobs created. That’s a
good thing. Everyone’s going to get on board with that. I don’t have any qualms with the
majority of the proposals that fall within the current ordinances and guidelines. I have no issues
there. My issues come with some earlier matters and some current ones which I’ve actually just
learned tonight. I think when you choose to develop a golf course in an area surrounded by
residential areas, there should be some caveats. There have to be some limitations there versus if
it was surrounded by a commercial site. I’ve done some golfing. I think I’ve golfed in both
kinds of environments and I do see differences in certain rules and regulations that apply. And in
all due respect to the applicant speaking earlier, it’s easy to make the case, to make it sound
reasonable that we need lights for safety, we have employees that are going to come in early.
They have to mow the lawns and maintenance has to be done prior to sunrise and afterwards I
want to stop and have a beer before I go home. I agree. On the surface that sounds great. The
problem again, this is a residential neighborhood. I believe there has to be some kind of noise
ordinance in place for the lawn turf people. I believe they can’t start blowers and mowers and
things before 7:00 a.m. I don’t know that specifically but I know that there are guidelines for
that. I would think that those probably are a good model to apply to a golf course as well. Let
me show you where I live. Right here. I’m definitely the closest adjacent to this property
line…entire golf course. In the first home on the private road, that private road has five property
owners and four dwellings on it. I do happen to bear probably the brunt as my adjacent
neighbors of the traffic, commercial traffic, this flotilla of commercial vehicles that is building
and developing the golf course. On the surface of that, I tolerate that without great problem
during the construction phase of this. I understand you have to access your golf course. There’s
other way but the straightest line and my property lies between the straightest line between two
points so they cross the property. He does have a legal easement to do such. I don’t know that
that transcends into his flotilla of commercial vehicles but during this construction phase it goes
both ways. Neighbors have to be neighborly. I do have issue with the fact that there is no effort
in putting in maintenance of that road. We as the private property owners have to do it. I
understand it’s a private issue but I hope that that relationship will get better and not worse
because it’s been a bone of contention for some time. I’m up here on the backs of other people’s
speeches so I’ll try not to fracture this out, but the crux of the matter for me is operational hours,
simple and clear. In warm weather you have your windows open. If mowers are running at
5:00, how am I not going wake up? If operation hours are extended into a 10:00, 11:00, 12:00
night, whatever it may be or end up in actually, and I have to listen to pinging golf balls and
doors slamming in the parking lot. That’s not a NIMBY issue with me. It’s a quality of life
issue. I get to sleep. If you do a little quick math of a party of four taking off every eight
minutes depending on if they all go together or go separately, that can be 50-200 cars within that
hour needing to service that area, something like that. It was quick math. Now that’s on a prime
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day. That’s a lot of doors slamming at 10:00 and 11:00 at night and I am within proximity of
that and I will hear that so that’s one of my issues on that point. As far the, going back to the
original agreement, the vegetative borders, it has not been installed adjacent to my property.
Again, I’m the closest one. I have spoke with Eric who’s present here tonight and he’s been
good to work with and per Eric that it’s forthcoming, but it still hasn’t. There just hasn’t been
any progress on that point so I just really wanted to go on record to say that that is still an issue
for me. I hope that that still comes to fruition, one so that there’s just a natural barrier for golfers
not to impede upon my property whether they’re chasing golf balls and as the other gentleman
stated, may be relieving themselves. I think I’m at the furthest point from the club house. That
would be nice to get that natural barrier in there. Drainage, I would like to go on record
additionally saying I want no additional drain tile installed and drained over my property. There
was excavation and drain tile installed across my road on my property without my permission. I
took issue with that immediately and I don’t know the watershed area that’s being drained but
it’s probably several acres, maybe greater. Eric was very responsive to that and he did install a
pipe that runs over my property so it will not erode it and I appreciate that and currently if that
holds up that will be fine. If you’d go back to the original agreement you can see that the
requirements were for the vegetative barrier and the type of vegetation. I just ask that that be
honored or if there’s a deviation in that, come talk to me. I’m a pretty easy guy to work with. I
think that’s my big talking points and I actually know Bluff Creek didn’t have lights a while
back. Again, lighting in a much lower grade fashion is probably the desirable thing. It is a very
dark neighborhood and there is some benefit to that but my biggest issues comes down to
extended hours meaning more noise. It’s unavoidable. I wish the endeavor well in success to be
profitable but again, within the understanding that it’s a neighborhood and there has to be some
adjustments. Thank you.
McDonald: Thank you very much. Next?
Tom Jessen: Good evening. My name is Tom Jessen. I live at 9570 Foxford Road. I’m part of
the Lake Riley Woods Homeowners. The primary issue I’d like to address is traffic safety and
the intersection which is the main entrance to the golf course and it’s also the main exit point that
I go to every day to work. I’m afraid you’re creating an unsafe traffic issue there. Where my
home is at now I watch traffic accidents take place on Highway 101 on that sharp curve that goes
north of the intersection of the Highway 101 and Pioneer Trail and it’s a dangerous situation
that’s there and also living in the neighborhood for 13 years, I’ve had trouble adapting to get this
hill to leave home every morning and get onto Pioneer Trail and to do it safely. All the people
that are exiting that golf course will be facing the same kind of issue. When traffic comes
through there it’s going 50-55 miles an hour and with the stop lights that’s there, they’re coming
from the west at a high rate of speed. If you don’t pull out properly and pick your opening to get
out in the traffic stream, it’s very likely going to have some accidents in that area and as related
to the issue of drinking and late hours, that intersection is going to be even more dangerous. I
was surprised that there wasn’t a traffic light involved with them. One time going to work
pulling out from that intersection I had a car come up from 101 and Pioneer Trail intersection
and he didn’t like the way I merged onto the traffic and he rode my bumper all the way to Flying
Cloud Drive within 10 feet of my car. If you look at the traffic situation there, I’d say that’s
something that needs to be looked into, especially with after-hours operation or dark operation
with cars coming and going there. Thank you.
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McDonald: Thank you. Would anyone else like to come up and address the Commission?
Okay. Seeing no one get up, the public meeting is closed and I will bring the meeting back to the
Commission for our review and discussion. Who would like to start or who would like to go
last?
Papke: I’ll go first before I collapse.
McDonald: Okay, Kurt?
Papke: Okay. I have the honor of driving by this site twice per day on my commute so I’ve had
the opportunity to observe the construction and so one and my kudos to the applicant on the
landscaping. It’s really spectacular, I think. The plantings, the waterfall, the boulderscape and
so on, very very nice and the club house looks very nicely designed. The maintenance building
gives me cause for pause. I’m not going to make any allusions or inferences here but just as a
data point for the rest of the Commissioners, the last time I remember Mr. Halla making an
application to the Planning Commission, it was to build another building in the nursery for
raising koi and that was denied so he has a track record of requesting additional building sites so
just a data point there, just for the folks that weren’t around back at that point. I’m very
concerned with the ambient lighting. As was stated by a number of the residents, I live down in
this area, it’s very dark and it’s amazing how much the lighting carries down there so I think we
have to be very sensitive to that. The same thing with the noise issues. I live across from Bluff
Creek Golf Course and my bedroom faces the golf course and I can very clearly hear them when
they fire up the mowers and 5:00 a.m. or whatever during the summer so it carries for a long way
down there. One of my concerns here overall and this is kind of where I was going with the
zoning issues, I have a concern that this has grown from what was kind of a mom and pop type
operation that was very limited in scope, to something that is now snowballed. When you get
into this kind of a situation as a business owner, you make an investment and you want to make
it profitable and sometimes in order to do that you need to invest even more and so what I see
happening here is I seen fireplaces planned for the club house, I see what looks like almost like a
bar situation, the screened-in porches on both sides, the increased maintenance size. It just looks
like there’s a tremendous investment that’s going into this and I just have a concern that we’re
going to see the applicant back again looking to enhance this site even more to make this more
like a commercial site which is why I think some of the comments from the public were coming
from. What was originally kind of a mom and pop outfit in a residential neighborhood is now
starting to resemble a commercial enterprise and I just have a concern that we’re creeping into
something that we didn’t earlier anticipate. Last but not least, there were a couple comments
about the water supply and the wells and this was a major issue when it came before the Planning
Commission last time. There was a lot of concern about the impact on the water supply. I
haven’t heard anything since then as this being an issue so as far as I’m aware and heard since
then that there weren’t any legal issues or code issues surrounding this one. Overall, I have a lot
of worries but at the end of they day, once again we’re looking at what do we approve as a
Planning Commission with the proposal in front of us. I think if we can work something with
the lighting, if we’re very specific and stringent about the hours of operation here, I think it’s a
reasonably workable proposal but I think we’re going to need to nail down a couple of these
things to make sure that we don’t stray outside the boundaries.
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McDonald: Thank you.
Zorn: My comments. This was the first time that I was able to read through this application and
not being on the Commission in 2003, I’ve been struggling to try and understanding what the
2003 proposal was that was accepted at that time and what the changes are and it really seems
that there’s different levels of, public members here feel that the proposed plan is significantly
different while the applicant indicates that it isn’t. My observation I feel is that the zoning isn’t,
does not seem to be matching up what is before us this evening. The increased lights, the lights
for safety reasons, the larger buildings, really do suggest a larger operation here. Once these
large buildings are in place that will lead to more profitably and that is what is concerning,
especially wanting to max out the number of golfers per day. I think that traffic and noise and
additional lighting, I think all of that is peripheral to how this conditional use is interpreted. The
hours of operation, I think we need to be very strict in considering this area and that operation,
meaning that a sprinkler cannot turn on before 7:00 a.m. I’m strict in that way. I live in an area
that’s under construction right now and no one can start their saws or radios before 7:00 a.m. I
feel like that shouldn’t be any different for a business operation in a residential area. Sprinklers,
all of that. I guess have some great concerns in changing the materials also relate back to the
surrounding cedar was a very nice choice. Moving towards a metal just seems to be less of a fit
for the area. I guess I’m struggling a little because this is new to me but I just feel like there are
some big concerns and if we can work with the lighting and perhaps, I guess some other aspects
but, I would not be for this at this point.
McDonald: Okay. Deborah?
Larson: Okay. A couple of the issues I want to bring up is one of the first things that the citizens
brought up was it’s a safe neighborhood so the crime issue to me and safety lights and having to
have the 25-foot poles just doesn’t seem completely necessary at this time. I’ve lived in
Chanhassen 21 years and I’ve seen it go from farms everywhere to pretty much city and
everything else going on. However, one thing the neighborhoods have not taken into
consideration is that there is growing population happening, quite a lot of it. We’ve seen a lot of
new neighborhoods going in and high-density homes and other things maybe a little be further
west to you. That is going to cause more cars, more people, more everything and so that’s
something you guys need to think about. It is a growing city and that’s progress and that’s what
happens. That’s how towns grow. So, both sides of the fence on that one. I really would prefer
to see if we’re going to do some sort of lighting, I love the idea. In fact, I was thinking about it,
Kurt, when you brought up the short ones. Some of the golf courses that we go to up north,
that’s what they’ve got. These low things and they illuminate the ground and their non-obtrusive
and they do sufficient lighting so I’d like to see maybe some more feedback into that. I’m not
happy with what I’m hearing from the citizens about what the original plan was and what the
Halla’s have been doing since which aren’t quite consistent with what they originally planned to
do and the fact that the City hasn’t seen it our caught it and I think it maybe needs to be
scrutinized more. Hours of operation, I think we also need to be very strict on that. I for one
also have my windows open in the summertime and I want to go out and scream at the people
that start mowing at 5:00 a.m. I think it’s wrong to have the caliber of machines that are going to
be out there doing the courses. It’s going to be loud. It’s going to be a lot and I think that does
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need to be scrutinized. The thing if they do get a liquor license, that’s also too to consider.
Hours of operation, I think it should be everybody needs to be off the premises at a given time
and it needs to be like and hour before sunset or at sunset, something. For the sake of the
citizens, it needs to be a safety issue again if people are going to be pounding down a lot of beers
afterwards and that could be a growing problem. That’s all I have.
McDonald: Okay. Mark?
Undestad: The only comment I’m going to have here tonight is with all the issues that are going
on and it doesn’t sound like there was a lot of communications between the applicant and the
neighborhood and the changes that have gone on here and kind of the way we’re heading here it
doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to resolve these issues on exactly how can we nail down
what are these times and issues with hours of operation. What are our lighting options and some
of that stuff. We should maybe send them back to kind of look at, bring some more options back
as far as lighting and come up with something that makes sense for hours of operation. If you
use the sunrise to sunset, it keeps ticking off through the season. There just are a lot of issues on
this matter that are unresolved right now.
McDonald: Okay. Dan?
Keefe: I’ll try to keep my comments fairly short. I’m disappointed that the applicant hasn’t met
with the neighbors, particularly given where the previous owner was and then where the site is
and the surrounding neighbors. I think they should have made a bigger effort to engage the local
residents. I’m concerned with, I’m going to consider it the incrementalism. I kind of look as this
as we’ll try to continue to try and build this thing and we’ll add on, we’ll add on, we’ll add on to
make it a fairly low-cost business site. I’m a business guy and I kind of understand that but I’m
concerned just about the location here and the lack of working with the local residents to try and
get a proper fit. I’m against the lights. I just don’t have enough evidence on the safety issue. I
liked the comment on Bluff Creek Golf Course. I’m just not convinced on the need for safety. I
think that links in a little bit to the incrementalism and I have a concern there. The conditional
use permit I think would be alright but I would want to amend what is stated here on number 9.
In regards to the site plan review, I’m generally okay with it. I like the landscaping like Kurt
said. I think they’re doing a great job there. Generally the site plan, yeah the buildings are
bigger but if you look at the alternative to go maybe to residential or something like that, you
look at the number of buildings and go well, its a few buildings. So I’m generally okay with the
site plan. I’m in agreement with the City in regards to the denial on the variances which would
be to not allow the corrugated metal or allow the golf course to be open from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00
p.m. Essentially we revert back to the other one which is sunrise to sunset as I understand it.
Those are my comments.
McDonald. Well, I’m not quite sure where to begin. I guess the first thing is that I understand
the arguments that the applicant makes as far as the economics. You have to do what you’ve got
to do within your particular business in order to make money. That being said though, as I’ve
said before, a deal is a deal is a deal. We had an applicant in here earlier that wanted to change a
deal that had been made as far as the wetlands. We denied it. I see this as creeping
commercialism. Everybody agreed in the beginning as to what this was going to be. Both sides
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said that this would work. We can live with it. We can go forward with it and it will be a great
addition to the neighborhood. Suddenly, we’re all told this wasn’t quite it. It needs to change
because of these reasons and those reasons and I guess I’m really disappointed because one of
the things that seems to work the best when you want to make changes is you will talk to your
neighbors and you will get at least as much support as you possibly can so that there is at least a
couple that will speak in favor of what you are wanting to do. As I said in the beginning, I’ve
got a pile of emails. I’ve got a bunch of emails here. Staff’s gotten calls. We have been
inundated with everybody speaking against this and for a number of reasons. The big thing is,
they’re afraid this is going to grow into a big retail outlet where food, drink, whatever, you name
it is going to expand. I do have concerns is that the next thing is you’ll be in here asking for
lights for the driving range. That was not in the bargain. The issues of safety, I’m not sure what
safety we’re talking about. At one time I thought we were talking about individual safety of
going back and forth in a darkened lot to get to a car. Well, if that’s what it is I agree. That
doesn’t require 15 or 25-foot lights. I think you can light a parking lot so that you can safely get
back and forth to a vehicle. If you’re talking about crime, that’s different. Maybe that is the 15
to 25-foot lights but as has been said, this is not an area with a history of crime. I don’t know of
any place within Chanhassen right now with a history of crime that it requires that type of
scrutiny. Because of that, I have to tell you I can’t support any of this and where I am at is that
the original permit that was agreed to and bargained with in the beginning, that is the deal and
unless there are better reasons than just economic to change this, I could not support it. With that
being said, I’m open for a motion from the Commissioners.
Papke: I’ll get one going here just so we have something to deal with. I make a motion that the
Planning Commission recommends that the City Council adopt the following motions.
Conditional Use Permit as stated in the staff report. Condition number 9 I would like to change
the height of the light pole may not exceed four feet instead of the 15 feet stated. The motion
includes conditions 1-9 as stated in the staff report and then amended as I just mentioned. I
would also like to add condition number 10 that the hours of operation will be sunrise to sunset
as previously stated and that will include and mowing and customer traffic outside of those hour
are prohibited. The second motion is I’d like to make a motion that the City Council denies
Variance Planning Case 05-39 and I would like to amend it as stated in the staff report. I’d like
to remove the term “corrugated” so it will state “denies variance for metal to be used as the
exterior material and I’d like to clarify this to say “and denies variance to allowance of the golf
course to be open from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. because I think there’s too much ambiguity in the
way its stated there so I want to make sure its clear that both of those are being denied.
McDonald: Do I have a second?
Zorn: Second.
McDonald: I have a second. I have a question for the Commission. Do we need to vote on
these individually as each one or is this one big? Each one? Just one? Okay. Having said that
along with the changes that Kurt has made, all in favor, say aye.
Papke: Did you want to ask for any friendly amendments?
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
McDonald: Does anybody want to ad any friendly amendments?
Keefe: Could you restate your number 10 again?
Papke: Number 10 is that specifically the hours of operation will remain sunrise to sunset and
specifically no mowing nor customer traffic allowed outside of those hours of operation.
Undestad: Do we need to put anything in there as far as the seasonal stuff too? What are they
doing? How long?
Papke: I don’t think they’re going to mow during the winter.
Larson: Yeah, but they wanted to have operations year round so do we want to friendly amend
that it’s spring through fall?
McDonald: In that case, what you’re wanting to do is to stick to the original agreement which
was hours of operation shall be seasonal and limited to sunrise to sunset.
Papke: What’s seasonal? If we’re going to do that we should state what is seasonal.
Larson: Lack of snow and ice?
McDonald: Well, that’s one of the problems with some of this is, what is seasonal and what is
sunrise to sunset?
Larson: And when we have that 80-degree day in November?
McDonald: I’m not sure that we as a Planning Commission can define those particular terms.
All we can do is say you must adhere to it and if you want clarification that’s above our paid
rate.
Papke: Was there a friendly amendment there Deborah, or not?
Larson: Yes. Well, no because it’s already there.
Zorn: Kurt, could you please repeat your motion so I make certain I vote accurately?
Papke: The motion is as stated in the staff report with the following exceptions. The first
exception is a change to condition number 9 to limit the height of the light pole to four feet. The
second change is to add amendment number 10 which prohibits mowing and customer traffic
outside of the allowed hours of operation which is sunrise to sunset, and the third change is to
remove corrugated from the denial of the variance so it denies a variance for metal to be used, so
this would not be a metal building in any shape or form. Also, make sure that we deny the
extension of the golf course hours.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
McDonald: So I think that what you’re saying is the course would be open from sunrise to
sunset?
Papke: Yes. Period.
McDonald: Any other amendments or clarifications? Okay.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City
Council approve an amendment to Conditional Use Permit #2003-4 CUP, Planning Case
05-39 for the construction of a golf course with a club house as shown in plans dated
received January 6, 2006, with the following amendment to condition 9 of the existing
conditional use permit and the addition of condition 10:
9. No exterior lighting shall be permitted with the exception of safety lights which includes
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parking lot lights and drive aisle lights. The height of the light pole may not exceed feet.
All light fixtures must meet ordinance requirements.
10. Mowing and customer traffic outside of the allowed hours of operation which is sunrise to
sunset is prohibited.
Papke and Zorn voted in favor, Undestad, Keefe, McDonald and Larson voted in
opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 4.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends that the City
Council approve an amendment to Site Plan Review #2003-7 SPR, Planning Case 05-39 for
the construction of a club house, a maintenance building, a golf ball washing building and a
lean-to for a golf course as shown in plans dated received January 6, 2006, with the
following added conditions:
1. Applicant shall increase landscape plantings to meet minimum requirements for parking lot
trees. A revised landscape plan shall be submitted to the City prior to City Council
approval.
2. Applicant shall fully screen parking lots from adjacent roadways through the use of berming
or increased landscaping.
3. The applicant must submit detailed architectural plans for the maintenance building, golf
ball washing building and lean-to that meet the design ordinance requirement.
4. Comply with all conditions of the MnDot review letter dated November 23, 2005.
5. The temporary 120 square foot octagon building is permitted for a maximum of 12 months
from the day the City Council approves this application, or when the certificate of
occupancy for the club house has been issued, whichever comes first.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
6. The applicant is responsible for obtaining and complying with MnDot and Carver County
permits and approval on any grading that takes place along the north and west side of the
property.
7. All disturbed areas are required to be restored with seed and mulch within two weeks of
grading completion.
8. All plans must be signed by a professional civil engineer registered in the State of
Minnesota.
Papke and Zorn voted in favor, Undestad, Keefe, McDonald and Larson voted in
opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 4.
Papke moved, Zorn seconded that the Planning Commission recommends the City Council
denies Variance, Planning Case 05-39 for metal to be used as the exterior material of the
maintenance and golf ball washing buildings, and denies the variance allowing the golf
course to be open from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., based upon the findings in the staff report
and the following:
1. The applicant has not demonstrated a hardship.
2. The property owner has reasonable use of the property.
Papke and Zorn voted in favor, Undestad, Keefe, McDonald and Larson voted in
opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 4.
Larson: Wait. Did we say that wrong.
McDonald: It doesn’t make any difference. The motion fails.
Larson: But I wanted a nay.
McDonald: The motion fails 4 to 2.
Papke: You were either voting for or against my motion.
Larson: Right. Okay. I don’t know.
McDonald: The motion fails 4 to 2.
Larson: Okay. I don’t think that’s what I meant.
McDonald: The request for the additions are denied and what we’re left with is the current
conditional use permit and the applicant will I’m sure…
Larson: I’m confused as to…
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
McDonald: Well it goes to City Council but what we are doing is forwarding it with a
recommendation that the amendments be denied.
Generous: That would be the second... Would you have to approve that though?
Larson: Did I vote how I wanted to?
McDonald: I beg your pardon?
Generous: …move denial of the proposed amendments?
McDonald: We are denying the proposed amendments to the conditional use plan as presented
to us here.
Larson: No. That’s not what happened.
Generous: No, that would be another…
McDonald: Well, even as amended by you…
Generous: This was to approve with the changes to the conditions.
McDonald: Right.
Larson: Okay. Who am I denying? Who did I say yea to?
McDonald: You said yea to Kurt’s motion which he changed their amendment to allow for the
four-foot height and the limitation of hours and the elimination of corrugated and no metal
building would be allowed.
Larson: Okay. That’s what I meant.
McDonald: What the Commission voted against and denied was that motion, which means what
we’re left with is the current conditional use permit so we have denied the applicant’s request to
expand his current conditional use permit.
John Kosmas: That’s not the way the recommendation of staff…
Larson: See, that’s what so confusing…
McDonald: We denied staff’s recommendation. We voted against it.
John Kosmas: No, you modified it.
McDonald: Then we voted against his.
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Planning Commission Meeting – February 7, 2006
John Kosmas: I heard a 4 to 2 positive.
McDonald: No, you heard a 4 to 2 nay. Its 2 positive, 2 against, (correction) 4 against.
John Kosmas: I misunderstood the direction that you took. So, the motion was to deny the
recommendation of staff?
McDonald: Yes.
John Kosmas: Even though the motion was positive?
McDonald: Even though he amended your motion, we still denied it.
John Kosmas: Okay. Can I poll? I would like to know who are, I mean I want just to
understand…
McDonald: You can poll. I have no problem.
Papke: Yea.
Zorn; Nay.
McDonald: Nay.
Larson: Yea.
Undestad: Nay.
Keefe: Nay.
John Kosmas: Okay. That’s not what I heard when it was, it was too far back. So now what
happens?
McDonald: It goes to City Council. City Council can either approve or… Okay. That planning
case is over. Next? Do I have a recognition of the minutes?
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Zorn noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning
Commission meeting dated January 3, 2006 as presented.
McDonald: Okay. A reminder, next week on February 13 at 6:00 p.m. we’re to meet at the City
Council.
Acting Chairman McDonald adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 11:45 p.m.
Submitted by Kate Aanenson
Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim/Kim Meuwissen
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