PC Minutes 2-7-06Planning 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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