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1988 02 17 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING .- FEBRUARY 17, 1988 Chairman Conrad called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: Tim Erhart, Steven Emmings, Annette ElIson, Ladd Conrad, Brian Batzli and David Headla MEMBERS ABSENT: James Wildermuth STAFF PRESENT: Barbara Dacy, City Planner and Jo Ann Olsen, Asst. City Planner PUBLIC HEARING: EVALUATION OF BUILDING PERMIT APPLICATION TO DETERMINE COMPLIANCE WITH CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR A CONTRACTOR'S YARD ON PROPERTY ZONED RSF, RESIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY AND LOCATED AT 4141 KINGS ROAD, LOWELL CARLSON. Public Present: Oscar Anderson Applicant Applicant's Attorney 4151 Kings Road 4151 Kings Road Minneapolis, MN (Part owner of two parcels on Kings Road) 7115 Kings Road -- Lowell Carlson Wayne McCorney Mr. Chamberlain Jean Chamberlain Doris Brickley Barbara Dacy presented the staff report on this item. Conrad: Just for clarification Barbara, the applicant is applying for a 12,000 square foot building. First phase would be 2,000. Dacy: That's correct. Conrad: The conditional use that we granted before was a condition of how many square foot? Dacy: There was no specific number established in the record. It was just determined that whatever would be necessary to store the amount of material on site. Conrad: with that little bit of background, we'll open it up for any kind of public input. Mr. Carlson, if you'd like to make a statement about your application. Maybe it's good that you kick it off and we'll listen to your comment. -- Lowell Carlson: I really thought it was no problem after the 1985 motion. It was all set and cut and dry except for the setback and the price of the permit was going to cost. That's the only thing that drug this thing along was that. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 2 e Conrad: Tell us about the 12,000 square foot building. intent on that? What you're Lowell Carlson: The City of Chanhassen required me to, build a building big enough to put everything inside so that time, they wanted everything inside so I agreed to that size so everything was inside. that I had to I agreed. At build a building Conrad: By building the first 2,000 square feet of this 12,000 foot building, what will get inside in this particular case? Will much of what you currently have be inside or only a portion or what? e Lowell Carlson: Basically the 2,000, the ceiling, in the excavating business you work during the summer and you don't have much to do in the winter so as far as building a building, we wanted to build it this winter to get it done. Then I run into this thing. I've got to go and do this and that. Finally, we got the setback of the building settled. We still ain't got the red fee settled because they wanted, I called George at the time that he was here, he called and a square foot building at that time, he said was about $62,000.00. I said it isn't a new building. I didn't pay that. He says by the time you get that building up and have them put it up and everything, I said they're not putting some...I've owned the property for 18 years. There's no way that that building could cost me no $62,000.00. But he wanted to appraise that building. Charge me the permit price according to that $62,000.00 and I said no way. It's like a house. There's nothing in it. It isn't sheetrocked. It isn't plumbed and he comes with a fantastic figure like that. Somebody called him up or whenever he got his figure so this ain't exactly set on this deal and I guess you can ask Barb about it. I checked back with her several times all through 1987. In 1986 I checked back with her and that, so finally this thing got a setback. Finally I got a 30 foot setback so I could know where to set this building in the first place because the property drops off in back. If I put the building setback as far as they wanted it, there's no way you could put a building there. Now with a 30 foot setback off the road, the road, my property line is in the road itself. It runs off at an angle and then down below, the whole road is on my property. I didn't want to put it from the edge of the road 50 foot back plus so some of this has kind of come to a standstill on trying to get an answer and then I find out George has left. Nobody still has come up with the answers to what this permit is going to cost me to build this building. I don't know, like you say a $62,000.00 building and whether that's going to have any reflection on as far as a tax assessor or whatever. That would be ridiculous. If they assess the building at $62,000.00, I'm not paying taxes on that if that's going to decide it. e Doris Brickley: I'm part owner of several parcels of property on Kings Road. May I direct a question to Mr. Carlson? Conrad: Certainly. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 3 e Doris Brickley: How long have you been in the contracting business on your property? Lowell Carlson: Since I bought it in 1965. Doris Brickley: You certainly expect to expand your business don't you in the future? Lowell Carlson: It's expanded as it went up because I bought a dump truck and a front end loader and a tractor and a Jeep when I come from Minot, North Dakota in 1965 when I bought this land. I was doing excavating... Doris Brickley: Based on a 12,000 foot building, in the long range planning, and you plan to expand your building, what makes you think that that 12,000 square foot building is going to be adequate? You're going to be having still a lot of vehicles sitting allover the property. Lowell Carlson: the property. I'm not the one to be having vehicles sitting allover Doris Brickley: I mean your contracting vehicles. e Lowell Carlson: The contractor vehicles, they are planning to go inside so to do this, I personally have to build a building that will take care of their needs. What they want. Doris Brickley: I have just one comment and I think Mr. Carlson should be allowed to stay there in the residential dwelling but I think he should take his business to commercially zoned property. - Wayne McCorney: I'm here representing Mr. Carlson. Mr. Carlson is grandfathered in on this property. He had, I'm sure, the property long before Mrs. Brickley or anyone else had their property. What we would like to do, recognizing that he wanted, when this was totally by itself, it was wide open country and then with this village, he was running his business. Now the city is running his business. He did this long before there were any zoning ordinance. He has a right to run his business there and people have to recognize that. We're willing to cooperate recognizing that every Village and City now does intervene and attempts to clean things up and you can't get a permit for a junk yard for all the tea in China I guess but the fact is, those things exists and they have to exist in order for our entire economy to work. So what we're willing to do is we're willing to cooperate with the Council. He can not afford to just go out and buy something else so that Mrs. Brickley, who came in there facing a contractor's yard, so we improve the value of her property and therefore throw my client into bankruptcy. This is not legal and it can not be done. Consequently, since we are grandfathered in and have a right to operate this business from this property, we will restrict the manner in which we operate this if we can get the building, get it built and get a reasonable amount for a permit, for our costs. We'll help clean up what is our city. I'm sure our i c Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 4 e e interests are the same as yours except that we have the right to do this on this property. There are a lot of other buildings there. The farm building and this and that. If everything's inside, it should be no problem but I think that what we have to have is recognition that we're entitled by law to operate this and it's indeed unfortunate that we're here at this point to determine whether or not there was compliance with a conditional use permit because indeed, if Mr. Carlson had had counsel at that time, there would not have been any application for a conditional use permit. All the City's threats of criminal prosecution, etc., I'm sure if he had counsel, he would have just thumbed his nose at them because they had no right to do that. They had no right to bring criminal charges and all kinds of other charges, throw him off the property or take his business away from him, which is the reason he applied for the conditional use permit in the first place. So we will restrict the impact of our business if you allow us to build the building under some reasonable parameters that you might take the evidence. 12,000 foot building, there can be no argument or no question that the Council knew back in 1985 that he was going to put in something more than 1,000 feet. As a matter of fact, on page 8 of the Council meeting Minutes, they asked him how big. Councilwoman Watson asked how big a building do you hope to erect and Mr. Carlson said we're looking at 50 to 60 foot wide and 100 to 150 feet long so the Council knew at that time that he's not building a 1,000 square foot building. I guess we'll restrict the impact. We're willing to restrict the impact of the building on the surrounding area by building the building and therefore it is not going to look like a junkyard or an equipment yard or anything like that, which is normal in this sort of business. But we need this permit and then we also need some recognition that by law we're entitled to operate there and that we build a building and that the City does not have a right in 6 months or a year later, to come in and say no, you've got to move that building because it's a non-conforming use. As I see it, we have a legal right to operate the way we are now, to a certain extent. We will change that if we're given a reasonable alternative and I think the building is the only way to give us a reasonable alternative to use our property other than that. As far as I see, it's a Constitutional, unlawful, illegal taking of property. So we're willing to cooperate. We'll do anything. We just want to get this whole thing over with. We don't want to fight with anybody. We don't want to get into litigation but we do have to run a business. Conrad: The key issue, as I understand it however, is you don't want to build a building that has a high value because then the taxes are going to be high. Is that my understanding? That's what I heard Mr. Carlson say. e Wayne McCorney: No, what Mr. Carlson said is that the building is going to cost about $16,000.00 to $18,000.00. He's not going to pay for a permit for a building $65,000.00 and then have a $65,000.00 building assessed on the land. Now I realize that just the amount of the building permit may not have any bearing on how the assessor assesses the taxes but that's in theory. In practice, I'm sure they look at it and they will immediately raise the price value of the property $65,000.00 even if the building is worth $20,000.00 so we're willing to I. - Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 5 e pay a permit for what it costs us to build the building and that's going to be maybe $16,000.00 to $18,000.00. Dacy: Just to comment on the permit fee issue, that is not within the Planning Commission's area tonight. The Building Inspector, every City has to go by a Uniform Building Code and there are established building fees based on the construction value. If the applicant does want to seek relief from the typically required building permit fee, this is not the place to do that. I think we should keep the building permit fee issue out of it. That's for another. . Wayne McCarney: I'm not arguing with that. I'm just saying that's the main argument, one of the main arguments that he had. We can resolve that issue if we can just go ahead and change the way they are operating here so that we're still able to operate but operate in a little differnt manner which will make the City happy because it's more beautiful, whatever and nobody's going to object. Dacy: Right. I just wanted to clarify that the Commission's role is to determine whether or not the application is consistent with the 1985 approval and you're dealing with land use and zoning issues and not building permit fee issues. e Conrad: place. I'm trying to understand why it was not built in the first. Doris Brickley: King Road is not served by water and sewer. Is his commercial activity in the future going to conform to safety regulations and waste disposal regulations? What about all these vehicles up and down Kings Road? What about school aged children? That area is developing. I've seen these large vehicles tear up and down Kings Road. Wayne McCarney: It seems to me that any road has vehicles on it and on this particular road, it's a little dirt road. I think there's probably two children in that one house. The roads are there for vehicles to drive on. You drive your car on a road. Certainly he's got a right to drive his truck on the road. He's been doing it since 1965. e Oscar Anderson: I'm one of Mr. Carlson's neighbors and I'd like to say that...I'm very much against the junk yard that we have there now. I'm very much against the piles that he has. I'm very much against the burning that he does. He's got a regular burning dump there and all of this mess is not going to be taken care of by building a building. I'm against all the vehicles he's got there. I think he's got close to 35 or 40 vehicles. Some running, some don't. They're all sitting there, allover the place. He would need a building, at least 2 acres in area to house all the vehicles that he has. I'm just against it. I still own a place out there at the end of the road and I was told by a realtor at that time that I could have gotten $15,000.00 more for the place if you didn't have to go past a junkyard to get there. I'm very much against it. This has been corning, up and down for years. Mr. Carlson has not done one thing that has been recommended by the Planning Commission or the Council to clear up his area. To clean up his act at Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 6 e all. I don't mind a few pieces of construction equipment but I sure don't want all that junk. Wayne McCorney: I'd like to say, a great deal of the junk...that are on the property, van type bodies, truck bodies and all these truck bodies are used in his business to store property because he doesn't have a buliding to store them in. He wouldn't need perhaps 20, van bodies if he had a building. Erhart moved, Emmings seconded to close the public hearing. All voted in favor and motion carried. The Public Hearing was closed. Conrad: Barbara, I think for our background, there were some conditions set up in 1985 for the conditional use. Can you give us a recap of the conditions and the performance of Mr. Carlson on those conditions? Dacy: Okay. Condition 1 and 2, basically revolved around the construction of the building and that's at issue tonight. Item 3, unless the applicant wants to address that otherwise, there is still a substantial amount of litter and debris on the property. Conrad: Has anything been done to your knowledge? e Dacy: Not to my knowledge. Maybe Mr. Carlson could address that. Lowell Carlson: What are you people saying of litter and debris? What is litter and debris on that property? Conrad: Let's put it this way. When you were here in 1985, there was a concern that it didn't look the way we would like it to look so if you could reflect back in 1985, we wanted that property to look differently. The idea was to bundle it into a building. I guess the question I'm asking staff right now is not if there's 18 or 19 piles of litter but I'm curious whether you've taken any steps, either in your mind or in staff's mind, to solve the problem. Lowell Carlson: This is the time when anybody can come out if they wanted. Any stuff that's gone, is the stuff that's used. It's all on pallets. We pick it up with a forklift and stack the pallets. You can come out and look at it. We'll shovel the snow off for them. Wherever they set the debris and whatever. That place, as far as the vans, if you want to see what's stored in them. The plumbing stuff. We have compactors. We have compressors. We have pipe, sewer and water. Copper fittings. If you can get that all in a little building, whoever thinks you can or whatever. An excavating business isn't like an ordinary job where you have a pencil in your pocket and a piece of paper in your hand. Many a job that we do, people ask for compactors and everything else. If you're going to be in the excavating, you've got to be in excavating. You've got to have equipment to do the job. You call me, no I can't do it because I've only got a shovel and a spade. Sorry, if you've got something we can do with that. e Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 7 e Conrad: Have you done anything since November 4, 1985 to clean up the area? Lowell Carlson: Oh yes. You bet. Come out and look at it. The vehicles isn't in exact rows. I'm saying, some day when it snows, our vehicles get closer to the road because that's the easiest way to plow them out to the road. So they do get closer to the road and maybe that's why it's more agitating to someone but now we've got the building right in there. It's a steel rack. I've got a steel rack in my yard and all the crane and everything are stacked. All the iron is there. The metal for the roof is there. So you gain one and lose the other I guess. This building is sitting there. It could just as well have been up. That's the way I look at it. It didn't happen. Conrad: Had we been able to settle on assessed value and those type of things? Lowell Carlson: Yes. That's where the whole trouble is. I'm getting tired of waiting. All my vehicles, the seats and everything, they're getting worn. The seats deteriorate, whatever. I'm not very happy about leaving my stuff out there either. You paint it up and it looks shabby in a year. I'd like to have it under cover so when I go out to a job I can be proud of my stuff. - Conrad: Barbara, the point 4, expansion of the contractor's yard's activity beyond what has been represented in this application. What was represented in the application? Dacy: I believe in the original report, I'm going to have to refresh my memory. Conrad: Usually we want to know how many pieces of equipment there are. Dacy: Right. We have a number of vehicles and the location of the storage yard and so on. In 1985 we took a number of pictures and then after that, I believe it was in the winter of 1986, we went out to the site and we've got a handwritten check list here of the items that still remained on the property. Mr. Carlson is right, he has a substantial amount of material so to determine whether or not 2 pieces of wood have been removed or stacked on pallets versus how many vehicles have come and gone, without going out there on a regular basis, it's fairly hard to keep track but after going to the site this fall, during his application time, there is still the same amount of material along the east property line. There's still the little storage area of the vehicles. He has an enormous amount of materials stored on that property. It's very hard to keep track. Erhart: According to your Minutes of your 1984 Planning Commission meeting, there are 5 vehicles. 4It Dacy: Yes, an International Harvestor Tote and Trailer, Ford Dump Trailer and Truck, a Chevy Pick-up, Ford Van and International Harvester Dump Truck. Those were the vehicles that were listed during that time Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 8 e and there's one employee listed. Hours of operation usually between 8:00 to 5:30. However, sometimes varied. That's what was listed in the applicant's letter at that time but based on the pictures that we took in 1985, I think it's clear that there were more than the number of vehicles indicated in the application. Erhart: I was there and I counted vehicles at the house and the yard had 16 vehicles, licensed and unlicensed. Conrad: You were there when? Erhart: Today. Conrad: It's staff posture basically that not much has been done? Dacy: That's correct. Headla: What was your comment? We've got to look at this as a 1985 application? e Dacy: My comment was that the issue before the Commission is, the applicant's request is to build a 12,000 square foot building. 2,000 square feet initially. It was brought to the Commission's attention to determine whether or not you feel that it's appropriate for that area and whether or not that's consistent with condition 1 of the 1985 permit. In other words, if you feel that what he's proposing is fine and he can store all his materials within that building, then you can recommend approval. Conrad: Mr. Carlson has the permit to go ahead and do this. Not the building permit but the conditional use permit. Staff felt that because the building size is so great, we really didn't anticipate how big that building could be. Therefore, they1re bringing that back and saying, is this really your intent City to tell Mr. Carlson to build a 12,000 square foot building out there? Secondarily is the issue of the permit being issued. Yet Mr. Carlson not living up to anything that was agreed to 2 to 3 years ago. Mr. Carlson is saying he couldn't because he couldn't resolve the debate with assessments and taxes on that expanded building. Headla: Where Lowell has been here and grand fathered in, how much control do we actually have? I'm comparing with like other contractor1s yards. I think the last time we had a contractor's yard at the south end of Chan. We were pretty stringent. We insisted on berms. The aesthetics of the building. Do those requirements apply to someone who's grandfathered in? e Dacy: I conferred with the City Attorney on this matter and to use Mr. McCorney1s words, the City does have the right to control the amount of impact of Mr. Carlson1s use. We have every right to require berms. Require construction of buildings. Require screening. Require any type of measure that we feel that can control the impact of this use against the adjacent properties. That is the purpose of a conditional use Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 9 e permit. The applicant's attorney is contesting the whole conditional use permit process in the first place. What I'm saying is that the City Attorney feels that that was appropriate. But again, our charge here tonight is to determine whether or not the 12,000 square foot building is appropriate. Headla: I think it all fits together. We've been very consistent on insisting that screening and berming for any contractor's yard. I talked to Lowell and I know this would be a hardship on him but at the same time, I don't see how we can back away from one person and then require it of everyone else. I really think we've got to insist on some type of berming and screening but then it presents another, this leads into another problem. In our area, even Minnewashta Parkway, it's questionable from that shoulder is 66 feet wide. It's never been taken off of my abstract. I own that land by my abstract. King's Road is muddier yet. I'm not sure where King's Road really is. Is it 90 feet north of Lowell's property or right next to the store? So where he's got the stakes, I don't know. He tried to go what seemed to be the right thing for the building but I think we ought to have some definition of where that road is and then room for a berm and then a setback. Then the third point I had was, Lowell I measured the drawing and it looks like that building would be 37 feet high. Is that correct? e Lowell Carlson: No, it can't be. Headla: I thought it said 18 feet to an inch. get 37 feet. If that's the case, I Dacy: That's the same dimension that I came up with on the scale drawing. The way that your architect has it scaled on here, it does measure to be 37 feet. Lowell Carlson: It would be 20 at the most. e Headla: What I have in writing is 37 feet. To put that in perspective, we're going to be talking about a church over here with a steeple and that's going to be 37 feet high. Anyway, 37 feet, I've got to assume that what we've got here on prints is correct for the time being. It may be wrong but assuming that, I think 37 feet high in that area is just way too intimidating. I don't have a problem so much with the building but when it's on a hill and then 37 feet high, it's going to be there for a long time. It's just going to dominate that whole area. Then the only other one I have is, on the finish of the building, do we have any control over aesthetics of a building? I don't know what you were going to put up there Lowell. You showed me part of the material but it seems like if something is going to be that visible, we ought to have some control. Just like last week on the contractor's, we went into detail. They have a block building and we were asking a lot of questions about it. Did it fit into the area? It seems like we ought to have some, and I hate to say control, but some yea or nay on it or some type of control. I'm not looking for an answer but that's just an opinion I have. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 10 e Wayne McCorney: You give us a color and we'll be glad to. It's going to be steel outside obviously and if you want some sort of color, we'll be more than happy to comply. If you like yellow... Conrad: I'm trying to decide what you really said on the issue. You're concerned, you don't think there needs to be a building and that berming is satisfactory or did you say there needs to be a building? Headla: I think he has to have some type of building. Conrad: So berming is an extra besides the building? Headla: Yes, and I think we have to require berming if we're going to be consistent. Send out the same signal to all contractor's. I don't see how we can isolate one and say you live over here so we can't do it. Conrad: And what do you think about the 12,000 square foot size? Headla: I think that's excessive. Based on the resolution we passed last time, we can't back up all of a sudden and say, this is a special case. I think we've got to be consistent. Batzli: I guess my first question was, has the business expanded from when the first conditional use permit was granted? I don't know that e that was ever answered clearly. Dacy: that. It wasn't answered clearly because to be honest, I can't address I did not evaluate that. Batzli: Has the City ever reviewed this conditional use permit? Dacy: Over the past year and a half, as Mr. Carlson relayed, we talked to him a number of times about putting up a building and the discussions were stalled because of the issue over the building permit fee. We advised Mr. Carlson to either appeal to the City Councilor go to the City Manager to resolve the permit value issue but that was not resolved. Now, we did get a valid application. Batzli: I guess it's clear to me he has submitted himself to the conditional use permit process and that for one reason or another, it appears he's in violation of his conditional use permit but on the other hand, I think he's trying to get in compliance at this time. I believe also that the building size is excessive, even from his own original estimates would put it at between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet even if he built it at this point. I do think it's a valid issue and it sounds to me like it's a concern to his neighbors whether he will put everything inside even if he does put up the building. Based on those facts, I think I agree that berming or screening should be required as well regardless of what size building he eventually puts up. 4It Ellson: I think the building sounds awful large. I'd like to see a smaller building. I agree that he needs a building. I have trouble seeing that this thing hasn't been resolved in this length of time or at Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 11 e least some best efforts basis of going ahead with something toward meeting these conditions from, Tim's mention of the number of vehicles now versus the number of vehicles in the pictures that were passed around. It does look like he has done some expansion which, according to this conditional use, has to have approval so I would say that he isn't necessarily meeting those conditions. Not only from the building standpoint but from the expansion standpoint as well. I'd probably go along with both gentlemen that we've heard from that I'd like a smaller building and I'd like to see as much as possible get in there and then cover up the rest with as much berming and screening as you can. [e Emmings: I don't have anything that's very differnt. I don't see any sense in building 2,000 square feet of the building. Somehow we've got to get a handle on what size building he needs to reasonably handle his use of the property. I think we need the berming and so forth but I have a feeling we're never going to find out what kind of a building would take care of it because I think, no matter what size building, unless you dome the whole property, I think he'll wind up outside anyway because that's what he's always done. There are several garages, I remember when we talked about this 3 years ago or whenever it was. He had several garages on the place and they were jammed to the rafters and I think that's what is going to happen to anything you put up out there because I think that's just the nature of his business and the way he runs his business. In a way, I think it's kind of hopeless. I really don't like backing away from the ordinance amendment that we've got going to limit buildings. This is an RSF zoned property and that bothers me a lot. I don't like backing away from our 1,000 square foot maximum size on that. I don't know how to resolve that in my own mind. I guess I wonder, are you going to take down all those other buildings if you have this 12,000 square foot building? will you take down all those garages that are jammed to the rafters with stuff? Lowell Carlson: If you were at them and knew they were that tall, basically some of them will have to stay there regardless. Emmings: I'm wondering, if you have a building that's as big as 12,000 square feet, would that eliminate your need for all those other buildings on the place or not? Lowell Carlson: Somewhat but like they're saying everything inside. I've got to make sure that everything's inside. If you want it inside, I have to build a building to put it inside. Now you're saying, I go back to 1,000 square feet. Now where am I going to put it in 1,000 square feet? Emmings: No, I said if you built your 12,000 square foot building that you're asking for, would you still have a need for all those other buildings out there? e Lowell Carlson: Yes, some. Emmings: The other thing is, I noticed in a letter here you were asking for structural calculations on the building. Did you ever get those? Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 12 e Dacy: No. Depending on what size is approved, that would eventually be required. Emmings: The bottom line for me is, I think Mr. Carlson has a mess out there and I don't think anybody would argue with that except maybe Mr. Carlson and I think it would be better to have it inside than have it outside allover the place. I'm opposed to this because I can't tell what it is. He says he wants a 12,000 square foot building but he only wants to build 2,000 square feet of it. Now we're going to wind up with another garage out there that's going to just get jammed full of junk and there's still going to be stuff outside. If I had something in front of me that said, if I can build this building on this property, I can tear down the old buildings out there, the garages and stuff, I can get all my stuff inside. This is what I need to make this place look nice and I don't see that here. This is not a concrete plan. It's just mush. He hasn't done a thing to comply with the conditional use permit conditions that we set out last time and he was here when we did that and it was certainly my understanding at that time that he was agreeing with them. He didn't do anything. I don't care what the reasons are, he didn't do anything and I don't think he'll do anything now either. Bottom line, I'm just plain opposed to going any further unless he can come in to the staff and say, this is what I need and put together a package to clean up the property, to build the building he wants, to do some berming and screening and we can see that plan. That's a plan I could act on. This one I'm not willing to act on. e Erhart: I have to, in fact Steve pretty much took away everything I was going to say. I'd have to agree a lot with Steve. I think you have a pattern here of delays. It's associated with the business and if I was in the same business I would probably could see myself following the same track that we've seen since 1984. He was required to build his building and he agreed to do it by June 30, 1986. Is that correct? Okay, that's almost two years ago. I'd like to point out, so we all understand, that this contractor's yard is a non-conforming use in this area now so it's not quite the same as the other one we were discussing. We're talking about residential RSF district. I think you want to keep that in mind. I'd like to also point out to the Commissioners that in a non-conforming use, and correct me if I'm wrong, but if this property is sold, that terminates the use. Dacy: No, the use runs with the land. He's been issued a conditional use permit for a contractor's yard at that site. If Mr. Carlson sold, for example to Mr. Yolk, he could continue operation as long as the terms of the conditional use were met. Erhart: Okay, so it stays with the land. e Dacy: Again, I'm drawing the distinction between the conditional use and non-conforming use and with the conditional use, it runs with the land unless it is revoked. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 13 e Erhart: The question was non-conforming. That ends with the sale of the property. Dacy: The City staff's position is that they were, Mr. Carlson was issued a conditional use permit and the City has the ability to revoke the conditional use permit. In a non-conforming use situation, if a property owner sells to another property owner, the use can continue if it's not expanded or intensified. The only time that a non-conforming is expired, if the ordinance says that the non-conforming activity ceases operation. I think it's a one year time period. Erhart: Did you have burning permits for the burning you're doing? Lowell Carlson: The little bit there is, all the neighbors, I see smoke coming from different areas. A burning permit as far as burning. e Erhart: My conclusions on this is, in viewing the property on the first place, on one side 12,000 square foot building seems large. On the other hand, if a 12,000 square foot would not contain all the materials that you currently have on the property. I think allowing an industrial building at all represents an extension of a non-conforming use and I think adding a building really makes the non-conforming use more permanent which is something we ought to be working in the opposite direction. Quite frankly, I don't believe that putting a building on the property is going to make it look any better. You're going to have a variety of sizes of small garages. You're going to have a used building. Given the pattern, I don't know, at any prediction at all what it would look like. I think you will continue to see materials on the outside of it so I would recommend creating a conditional use permit that requires some berming, screening, landscaping and strict enforcement of the setbacks. Then, if those aren't followed, then I think the City ought to take legal action to eliminate the non-conforming use. So I'm against the building for those reasons. Conrad: All together? 2,000 or 12,000? Erhart: Yes. Conrad: My feeling is, I think the 12,000 square foot building is excessive. Especially in a residential single family area. I don't see that Mr. Carlson has taken any step to resolve the problem in 2 1/2 years. I honestly don't see that anything presented tonight is going to resolve the problem. If there was a plan in front of me tonight and Mr. Carlson said this will take care of the City's needs, I think I could feel responsive and act on it. I don't see anything. I see some schematics but I'm also hearing Mr. Carlson saying that the building won't take care of what we were trying to resolve 3 years ago. My opinion is to revoke the conditional use permit. e Headla: When you say revoke the conditional use permit, the conditional use permit for the building? Conrad: The conditional use permit that we granted in 1985. To revoke Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - page 14 e the contractor's yard. I don't think anything else is going to take care of this issue and this issue is taking up a lot of our time and city staff's time and nothing happens. There are other issues. Contractor's yards are a problem in Chanhassen. Most communities outlaw them. We are trying to give contractor's like Mr. Carlson the opportunity to stay in business in Chanhassen because they have been here. We flexed our rules to allow them to stay here like good citizens. In this particular case, I'm not seeing anything happen and I still don't see anything on the desk right now that gives me hope. If revoking the contractor's yard permit is what it takes to get something happening, maybe Mr. Carlson will realize that we're serious about this. Erhart: What's being requested is what? Is it the building permit or is it the continuation? Dacy: What is being requested is a building permit for 12,000 square foot building and just to clarify, Mr. Carlson has said he is set and prepared to build 2,000 square foot of that. Erhart: But what are we being specifically asked to vote on? e Dacy: You're being asked to vote as to whether or not a 12,000 square foot building is consistent with condition 1 of the 1985 approval. Is this consistent with the intent of the City when they authorized the conditional use permit in the 1985? What the Commission has said so far is that you have concerns about the size of the building. It's excessive and you're sure about the overall plan for the clean-up of the property. Erhart: I'm not sure we want to vote tonight. Even though the conditional use permit that we voted on in 1985 may have directed the owner to build a building, I'm trying to make a motion that we deny the building of the building but I'm too sure that's the purpose of the public hearing. Conrad: The public hearing would be conducted by the City Council to revoke the permit. We can make that motion that the City Council conducts a public hearing to revoke the permit. My understanding is that that permit would not be for the building but for the entire contractor's yard. That's one alternative. I think we all have similar opinions about how the contractor's yard is being run. How we want to resolve this issue is, I think we might have six different opinions on how we want to resolve that issue. My opinion is to have the public hearing but there are other approaches. Erhart moved, El1son seconded that the Planning Commission recommend to the City Council revoke the conditional use permit for Lowell Carlson. Head1a: Now we're talking strictly the building? e Conrad: No. Headla: His whole operation? Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 15 e Conrad: Right. Batzli: The motion on the floor is to revoke the conditional use permit. Erhart: What it will do Dave, it will basically restart the process all over again. Headla: What's it going to do to him? Erhart: He's going to have to come in and negotiate an acceptable way to do his business. I think in voting for this, what it says is, we are not accepting anymore those conditions which include a building. Dacy: Just to clarify. Your recommendation will be passed to City Council and they will consider this on March 14th. They may choose to accept that recommendation or they may work out an agreement with Mr. Carlson so this is a recommendation only and the council will have the final say on it. Erhart: But it may be changed to a berming/landscaping. From a building to a landscaping given that they look at our Minutes. e Headla: I guess what it's really going to do is force some action to get this thing resolved. That's what you're really after I guess. Batzli: I'd be against the motion in that I think a large part of the inactivity is perhaps based in part upon the City of Chanhassen's lack of enthusiam for the entire process as well. Once we did finally grant the conditional use permit, I don't think anything's been done as far as monitoring the activity of the contractor's yard. There hasn't been an annual review. I don't entirely place the blame, from my viewpoint, on Mr. Carlson. At least to a point where revocation of a conditional use permit would be warranted. Headla: Even though this is a recommendation and we're trying to work toward a resolution? Batzli: That's right. Erhart moved, ElIson seconded that the Planning Commission recommend to the City Council revoke the conditional use permit for Lowell Carlson. All voted in favor except Batzli who opposed and motion carried. Batzli: What I stated prior to the vote is my reason. e Conrad: Mr. Carlson, I would recommend if I were you, I would go in there with them how you would resolve the problem. but in front of us tonight, without any said you wanted to resolve the problem, if I were you, and I'm not, but plans that would demonstrate to I'm not a lawyer by any means plans, even though you're lawyer there was nothing here that gave Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 16 e me any confidence that there were plans to resolve the conditions that were set forth 3 years ago. If I were you, I would be going into that meeting showing them how you would resolve that. Emmings: I'd like to explain my vote to some extent. I agree with what Tim said after me. I think maybe a more overall approach to the landscaping out there. Doing some berming and doing plantings may be a better first approach to this problem. If it's done right and if it's maintained, I think that might be a better type of solution. Conrad: I'll jump in that too. I'm not convinced that a building is the right solution to the problem. I totally favor the berming and the screening. Wayne McCorney: ...number one, we bought the building because we wanted to do something about it. It seems to me if you buy a building and you make the building look like it's brand new, even though it's used, by putting all new steel on it, and put all the vehicles and all the crap that you're complaining about now, put it inside of that, I don't see any reason for berming and everything like that. Emmings: He told us it all wouldn't be inside of it. I heard him say that to me. e Lowell Carlson: you that? I said it wouldn't be inside of it? When did I tell Conrad: I heard the same thing. Lowell Carlson: I'm sorry if I told you that. Conrad: Mr. Emmings said that if you build a 12,000 square foot building, would you be able to fit everything in and you said, no you could not. You said those garages would still be standing, packed. Lowell Carlson: Yes, that I did say. Wayne McCorney: He's not going to tear down all the buildings that are there but everything that's outside is going to be inside. Consequently you've got room that you can paint and fix up the buildings you don't have everything piled up against the building so consequent~y all the buildings are going to look decent and look good if he got the building. The size of the pile is concerned, that there's too much to go in there. You've got to realize that that building is entirely there and that building, when it's broken down sitting on that pile, it would take up about one-third of the building so forget about that pile because it's going to be gone. It's going to be inside. e Emmings: I think you might get a long way with the City Council if you would come in with a real hard plan and say if we can put this building here, we'll take everything off the ground and put it inside this building. We'll build the building by such and such a date. We'll have everything cleaned up by such and such a date. If you came in with a ~ Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 17 e real hard plan, they might be interested in listening to you but you didn't do that tonight. It's hard to evaluate something that's in the future when you have people you're dealing with who haven't shown any interest, really, in doing what they said they would do in the past. Lowell Carlson: Number one, how do you go about getting a price on a permit? Emmings: I have no idea. This is the wrong body. TEMPORARY CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT TO ALLOW A TRAILER TO BE LOCATED TEMPORARILY ON 5.65 ACRES OF PROPERTY ZONED RR, RURAL RESIDENTIAL AND LOCATED AT 1660 ARBORETUM BLVD., DAVID LUSE, NATURAL GREEN. Conrad: Staff has advised me that the second item regarding the temporary conditional use permit for a trailer to be located temporarily on property at 1660 Arboretum Blvd., the Natural Green site, that this item should not be handled at the Planning Commission level and will be handled at City Council. Barbara, can you explain that a littel bit more for us? e Dacy: The City Attorney reviewed this request and because of a previous document called a Settlement Agreement with Natural Green that was executed in 1985, that the issues involved with the office space can be handled by an amendment to that agreement and should not be handled through a conditional use permit. So the City Council will be considering that agreement at their March 14, 1988 meeting. So if there is any public here regarding that issue, they should attend that meeting. Conrad: So the rationale is, there is already an agreement governing that parcel or that property? Dacy: Right. So we would execute a secondary agreement that would wrap up the issues concerning the first agreement as well as the office space issue. Emmings: That would also include, would the...for allowing the trailer be that we get the old railroad building by a certain date and that he have his trailer out of there by a certain date? Dacy: That's correct. Emmings: I think that sounds real good. PRELIMINARY PLAT APPROVAL TO REPLA~ 5 COMMERCIAL LOTS INTO 6 COMMERCIAL LOTS ON PROPERTY ZONED BG, GENERAL BUSINESS AND LOCATED NORTH OF WEST 78TH STREET BETWEEN POWERS AND KERBER BOULEVARD, T.F. JAMES COMPANY. e Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report on this item. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 18 - Charlie James: I just had a chance to look at the staff report this evneing and I have substantial agreement with everything that's being proposed here. I guess one of the things, there are two areas that might be a bit problematic that I would like to discuss. One is this recommendation that there be no access allowed onto CR 17. I have a concern there because I don't if we're talking about just this here because at some point we've provided a road up here that we thought would go through this area and come out into CR 17. Olsen: No, we're just talking about this plat. - Charlie James: Okay. I was confused there because there may be a situation where the Fire Department may require a continuous street through here to the north through this multi-family area rather than a cul-de-sac and we had made provisions with Mr. Jacobsen to reserve the public and private right-of-way through the center of his property for a future street that may go to CR 17 here. My only concern would be on the timing of this. We may have a situation where if this doesn't get built right away and we have somebody that wants to go here, there is sewer and water and if they can get a temporary access off of here. That's only the condition that if for some reason this thing here gets held up. This relocation. We did submit when this was all approved, a temporary access plan for this Lot 1, Block 2 showing how all that will work on a temporary basis until such time as this is constructed and we also have a temporary drainage plan showing how that will work until such time as these improvements. Those have been reviewed and accepted by Staff and I guess I'm concerned about this no access onto CR 17 from the standpoint of just timing this and maybe we might need it on a temporary basis here. I don't know. The other issue is, I don't have any problem here. We've got these driveways lining up here and we've got a driveway lining up here and the reason for this configuration of this lot down here relates more to the farm houses. There are now an old couple living there, that future use that we capped for that. What we may have to do before we go to the council, if staff wants a driveway at this point, is perhaps replat this lot to expand this west property line over to this point or something so there isn't an easement required to get into that lot. I don't have any problem with increasing the easement to 33 here. I did want to point out in the staff rerport, from Gary Ehret's report, I think he said we've only provided 40 feet of right-of-way here and that's not correct. Along here the right-of-way was vacated out to make it consistent with the width of the right-of-way in the downtown segment of the street but I want it noted that we provided 80 feet of right-of-way through our property here. Not the 40 that was mentioned in the report. Dacy: I think he was referring to the existing portion. Charlie James: I guess that's my only comments. e Headla moved, Erhart seconded to close the public hearing. favor and motion carried. The public hearing was closed. All voted in Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 19 e Erhart: Why do we recommend that these driveways be directly across the street from another driveway? What's the purpose of that? Olsen: It's much more preferred to have them come at a direct rather than be off-set. People pulling out from one driveway. engineering standpoint, it's much better to be directly across complete intersection. angle From an to have a Erhart: Do you have any businesses that are going to be built here? Can you give us an idea of what? Charlie James: We have our hopes and dreams. Erhart: Are you working with someone specificly on something at this time? e Charlie James: We are working with a number of parties. I wouldn't exactly say that, we're ready to go as far as this southwest corner of the property. They're finishing the structural drawings and we're going to be submitting, we've already been out pricing the plans and we're going to be submitting our building plans, our finished plans to the City probably by the first of the month. On the other side of the street, we've had various inquiries. We've had some people who want to put a landscape business here and I turned them down because I didn't feel it was an appropriate use. We've had some interest from some banking people and we do have a plan at the other end there at some point, to do some sort of community sized shopping center at the east end of the property at some point when conditions warrant that. That's why it has the configuration that it does. We have done some prelimnary drawings to lay things out. I think the other reason to have the driveways line up is, if they ever put a median down that street, it gives an opportunity to add turn lanes in. Erhart: The building that you showed, was that in here once already? Okay, and that's progressing and that's going to be what? What's going to be in that building? Charlie James: There's going to a little grocery store and dry cleaners. Erhart: When you expect that to be constructed? Charlie James: We're trying to tie our completion of that with the completion of West 78th Street. We don't want to be opening that if West 78th street isn't... Erhart: When's that planned? Charlie James: October 1. We're shooting for fall. - Erhart: My only comment is, I believe we should not have permanent access to CR 17 but a temporary one would be okay. That's all. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 20 e Emmings: In the staff report it talks about minimum 300 foot separation between driveways and from Powers and Kerber Blvd. but it doesn't say that in the conditions. I don't think, does it? Olsen: It does from Kerber but it didn't say from Powers. that too. I noticed Emmings: So we should add in Powers? Olsen: Yes. Emmings: Now I noticed that Lot 1 only has 294 feet of frontage. How can he get a driveway 300 feet away? You knew this question was coming. Olsen: Yes, because we discussed it with the engineer too. When we were going through it, I pointed it out too. I said, that will put it right on the lot line but the way you measure it. The center line. With 294, the driveway can be anywhere from 20 feet wide. It would still be able to placed on it. Emmings: But if you also want 300 feet of separation between driveways, then how do you get one into Lot 2? Are you planning that 1 and 2 will share? e Olsen: They wanted it just from the main streets, Kerber and Powers. Emmings: Okay. Again, the staff report seemed to say 300 feet separation between driveways. Oh, I see. That's not saying between driveways. Just between the driveways and those two roads. Okay. I understand what you've got there now and that's fine. ElIson: I have nothing further. Batzli: Are there any conditions on the driveways for this Lot 1, Block 2 going north to West 78th? Olsen: The driveway was already approved as a part of the site plan. This will be West 78th Street, the new portion. Batzli: So you're already basically limiting where you're going to put that driveway on the north. Where does that line up on the other side? Olsen: They line up almost directly. Charlie James: The one down there at the southeast corner of the site lines up with where we placed the driveway for Lots 3 and 4. Batzli: Are you sharing driveways then? e Charlie James: Yes. We have cross easements for all the driveways. Batzli: So 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 are already sharing driveways based on your having driveways in your Lot 1, Block 2? I don't have any Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 21 e questions then. Headla: Let me take off on a tangent on one thing he mentioned this multiple housing to the north. I don't know, have any of you gone to any of the referendum issues? The fire station. The main rationale for a new fire engine was those units. They need different equipment to get to those buildings. So I asked the Safety Director, what goes on? When you approved that you never said anything about a fire engine. Shouldn't those people have born some of that cost if we need new equipment? He came back, it's against the law. We can't charge those people for a new fire engine. If we allow them to put up that building, and it needs equipment to fight fires, they'll disperse that cost. Not that person. I really had an eye opener on that one. I got a little upset but that's the way it is and the Fire Department's in the State are trying to work with the legislature to change that. But as it is right now, that's the way it is. Charlie James: I'd like to distance myself from that. I don't have anything to do with that. I just sold the land to him. Headla: I understand that but this is an education for us. When you brought that up it just jarred my memory. e Charlie James: I want you people to know that we're working very diligently with our plans to bring them into conformity with what your fire people here want. You should also be aware that you're local fire people have, they can't do less than what the Code requires but your local fire marshalls have the power and authority to request more than what the Code requires and that's what is being requested of us. They're requesting sprinklers and a central 24 hour monitoring system which is something that I could see on the pillsbury Tower downtown tied into the police department. We're actually being required to do what I think is excessive. Conrad: I have nothing to add. Emmings: Could I ask just a clarification here? If he wants to move that westerly boundary of that lot to get in a driveway or something, I don't think anybody would have any problem with that but do we have to put anything in here to allow him to do that? Dacy: No, if he wants to make that change between now and the Council, that's fine. Emmings: So the plan can change between here and the City Council without causing him any delays? Dacy: If it's a minor change. e Conrad: We've had times when plans did change and we didn't see what was going and that's always a concern of mine. I want to know exactly what's going to Council but in this case I don't see a problem. e e 6. e Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 22 Emmings moved, Batzli seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Subdivision Request 186-11 for West Village Heights to replat five commercial lots into six commercial lots as shown on the plat stamped "Received January 28, 1988" with the following conditions: 1. There shall be a maximum of four driveways on the north side of West 78th Street and the driveways shall be directly opposite of existing driveways to the south or placed in a location such that future driveways on the south side can be constructed opposite of those on the north (i.e. lot lines). 2. Lot 5, Block 1 shall share access to West 78th Street with Lot 4, Block 1 at a minimum of 300 feet from Kerber Boulevard and Powers Boulevard to intersect with the Burdick property to the south. 3. A maximum of two driveways shall be allowed along Kerber Boulevard and a driveway servicing Lot 5, Block 1 shall be directly opposite Coulter Drive. 4. There shall be no permanent driveway access to Powers Blvd. (CR 17). 5. Final site plans shall conform to city and watershed district criteria for 100 year freeboard elevation. The drainage easement for the ponding area on the Eckankar site must be acquired prior to development of Lots 2 and 3, Block 1 and the 25 foot utility and drainage easement on the west border shall be increased to 30 feet. All voted in favor and motion carried. SITE PLAN REVIEW OF A 7,277 SQUARE FOOT CHURCH TO BE LOCATED ON PROPERTY ZONED PUD-R, PLANNED RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT - RESIDENTIAL AND LOCATED AT 251 LAKE DRIVE EAST (LOT 1, BLOCK 7, HIDDEN VALLEY), FAMILY OF CHRIST LUTHERAN CHURCH. Jo Ann Olsen presented the staff report on this item. Conrad: Would a representative of the church like to talk to us? Maybe respond to anything you've read in the staff report or what you've heard tonight. I think that's important if you agree with the staff's recommendations or have problems with them. We're interested in that. Dean Brown: I'm chairman of the new building committee and representatives of the building committee, as well as the church, are here. Terry Lyons is also here. He is an employee of Banden Construction Company and they are our designers and they have prepared the drawings and at this point, will be the ones that are going to be carrying through the whole construction. I think Barb knows us pretty well. Let's see, we've been working together for quite a long time Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 23 e e here. I think that we've come a long way. We agree with the majority of the recommendations here but we would like a couple clarifications on a couple of them. First of all, on number, we might as well just go ahead and start with number 5. I think that that, from our perspective, is fine. To realign with that intersection is okay from our perspective. One thing that we were wanting to know though is, if when we realign and move that 60 feet down, there seems to be an area there that we could possibly get some more parking. I think it's important to realize that the church that we're building is on an area where we can not park on any streets and we don't want to park on any streets so we want to be able to maximize the amount of parking space that we can get. I realize that you have minimum requirements but at the same time, we want to be able to provide as much parking so we don't have any problems in the future. I think what we're talking is just north of that intersection, you can see there's a little bit of area in there, if we could possibly get some more parking in there. Second is item number 6. A second access to Lake Drive East shall be provided and approved by the City Engineer. We're a very new congregation. We've been in existence for about 7 years. We have experienced a growth rate in the last 3 years of approximately 20% a year and that's why we're at the point right now of proposing to you, we need to move on. We've been very fortunate that we were able to rent the old st. Hubert's church but at this point we've outgrown our needs. We are a member of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church of America who has a very tight building program that's been in existence for a number of years. We've been working through them as far as estimates for a building and that's really our lending institution is our main church. What we're up against is that because of the size of our congregation, they go through and recommend and approve an amount of money that they will lend us for building our church. We have to pay it back at a specific interest rate. We have to live within a budget of $450,000.00. We kind of have a top end here where we just have a certain amount of money to spend. The reason I'm bring this up is that a number of the items that have been proposed by the City we're very much in agreement with. We feel that they're very important but I think it's important that you also understand that a number of the items are kind of outside of the original budget that we were going with. Now I can't say it's your fault that our budget was a certain amount but we were relying very heavily upon a very well established building program within the Lutheran church. Currently, up to the point where we don't have to do this extension drive, we're spending approximately between $50,000.00 to $60,000.00 of our money to comply with the curbing, landscaping, sprinkler system, additional fire hydrants and this is money that was never appropriated for those types of things. What we're thinking on item 6 is that at this particular time in our building phase, we're looking at approximately $6,000.00 to $10,000.00 of additional money to add that road. We would very much love to have that second access when we add our additional parking but at this particular time, it's a cost that we just really can't bear. We don't quite understand the full reason behind it. As stated earlier by the gentleman just preceeding us, we found kind of three tier effect here from the Fire people. A sprinkled building. That's fine. We agree that that's a very important aspect. That will help our insurance but it's a cost to us upfront. e Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 24 e Second is the number of fire hydrants that we're providing on our lot. Currently we're providing two fire hydrants and we're going to be adding a third one when we add our final sanctuary. We feel at this point we kind of have two tiers of fire protection. Now, all of a sudden we're getting an additional access for emergency vehicle type of equipment and it doesn't settle well with us. Conrad: What's the rationale Jo Ann? Olsen: It came back, again from the Fire Department and also from engineering. Staff, we always look at a second access. They wanted that for emergency purposes in case, for some reason this was blocked and trucks could not get in to the fire hydrants around here. We can negotiate. It's pretty level here and I think a truck might be able to get in there if it is a gravel road and maybe just keep it plowed in the winter to keep a path open. That's something we can negotiate or work with them. I know that we want some form of secondary access onto that site. If it's just a driveway that is maintained or kept clear than I think that would be acceptable and possibly they wouldn't have to do a bituminous drive at this time. We can work with the Fire Department and the Engineering Department. e Conrad: We've always wanted to get two roads to a parcel, a building site, a residential site, but also we're asking for two accesses to the site? I guess I'm not aware that we have applied this standard before. Maybe we have and I just haven't recognized it. Olsen: When we have the two separate roads it helps provide us with an area for a second access. We have been lately though providing a secondary access. Headla: I can remember having battled through when Tim and I, when we couldn't get them. Olsen: The mini-storage for Gary Brown, he had to provide a different easement. The neighbor is letting us drive over their land but it's still some form of secondary access. Conrad: Where's the guideline that we use to require a second access? Where is that? Dacy: I think you have to remember, how many people can assemble in the sanctuary? Conrad: Barbara, I think I heard Jo Ann say that we can work out some kind of access. I'm just going back to some basics. It really has nothing to do with this. I'm just trying to understand. e Dacy: That's part of the rationale. You're asking, what is a guideline and a guideline is the type of use. What I was going to say is that the sanctuary can hold up to 400 people. If you have a parking lot that's full of people and there's an emergency that occurs, you have a 2 foot berm plus landscaping, let's say it's during the wintertime and for some Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 25 e reason that access into the front of the church is blocked, the emergency vehicles have no other means to get to that. To scale berm and maybe a snowpile, a secondary access is going to help that out. The July superstorm, if there's flooding or something occurs in that area that that access is blocked, again that leaves a second means in and out. The amount of people going in and out of there, especially if it's full, at a Christmas mass for example, that's what we felt was the criteria. Conrad: Is it a planning staff guideline? Is it a Fire Department guideline? Dacy: All three. As Jo Ann said earlier. Engineering, planning and Fire Department. Conrad: So in terms of the motion that the staff has recommended, that a second access be provided and approved by the City Engineer, do we need to change that in light of Jo Ann, you feeling that we can work with the church somehow to insure that we have a second access, because that probably makes sense? Do we need to modify that to give the church folks a warm feeling that... e Olsen: Yes, you might want to modify it just because the conditions, Larry's conditions are pretty specific that it must be a bituminous driveway. Emmings: Why don't we just leave it general one in here that there will be a second access and take out the specific one and let them negotiate. Ellson: Take out the words "Hidden Court" and just say, a second access shall be provided and approved. Olsen: Maybe just take out Larry's specific. Batzli: If you remove the engineer's condition 5? Is that the recommendation? Olsen: That deals with both of them. Dean Brown: Just for clarification from our standpoint then, if we provide the second access, what about the curbing along the street? Do we have to provide the curbing into that access and assuming there is some sort of berming and landscaping along there, how do we? We want to comply with you guys but we just want clarification. Olsen: That's something we would work out with the engineers. I know what we want to do and I can work it out. e Terry Lyon: For example if we were to provide a curb cut...and insure it's clear in the winter. Dean Brown: I guess I kind of want to bring up a point too about the use of the building. We are a congregation that meets on Sundays, Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 26 e Wednesday activities, Monday activities but we do not plan any type of a day school or any type of a child care either so the use of the building is not going to be continuous all the way through. It is going to be on specific days and specific times. Again, I guess I'd really like to say that we agree that we would like a second access but a fully, true second access would be provided... I think we needed clarification again on point 8. The steeple shall be constructed of non-combustible material or shall not exceed 20 feet in height of? Olsen: I talked to the Building Inspector this evening to confirm that and what he's saying is that you will measure that 20, not from the actual highest point of the building, the sanctuary but there it's pretty much the height of that building, you can go 20 feet higher than that. Dean Brown: And that height is 44 feet? Olsen: Say that height is your 33 feet of the sanctuary. You would be able to go 20 feet higher than that. It's from the State Building Code. Dean Brown: And if the height of our building was 44 feet and then it would be 20 feet above that? e Olsen: I believe that's how it works. I don't know if that 44 feet adds something to that 20 feet. It's a Building Code that he's using that from. Terry Lyon: I feel obligated to talk with the Building Inspector in that regard too because as I read the specific section that was cited in the UBC, Article VII, it says that you can go 20 feet above the highest allowable height which in this particular building, it's a Type V, is 50 feet. 50 plus the 20 and I realize we're still 3 feet above that but I'd like to discuss that issue to clarify it. Conrad: So just for my own clarification, and I don't even care but if they built it entirely out of non-combustible material then these 20's, we don't care about. But if they do, then the building code applies. Olsen: And that will be caught in the building inspection action. Dean Brown: On the water, I think we needed clarification. We've been told or talked about a total water loop for the fire hydrants connecting Chanhassen Estates into a fire hydrant on the lot just to the south of us. What's the ruling? Terry Lyon: By that they mean they would like an adequate water supply line connected to the east on Chanhassen Estates and also to the south so there is a continuous loop. There again, as we were indicating before, we have a sprinklered building. They required hydrants. Now they want a complete loop. A watermain is not real cheap and then the access. We're just asking how many different requirements. e Olsen: That's a typical requirement for the loop in the water. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 27 e Dean Brown: Again, I'll reemphasize the first phase of the building...a limited budget in the sense that we agree, we very much intend to do the sprinkling and do the two fire hydrants but I would like to amend it to say let us do the total water loop at the time we add the third fire hydrant and add the final sanctuary so that we could possibly delay some of the costs because at this point, we don't really see that to be anything other than a convenience for the City. Again, we want to comply to that but we're talking some money here and again, we're already, to meet the landscaping, the parking and I'm going to reiterate these things because from our perspective we're not a business. We don't sell a product. We don't get any income from something. What we survive on completely is donations and we want to make sure that we are completely responsible to the citizens of the city of Chanhassen. What we're looking at here, is really experiencing a cost that's just a lot for us in the first phase. We would like to see that amended to say, bring the watermain in for the two fire hydrants and then at the time we go to the third phase for the sanctuary, be required to do the total water connection into the third fire hydrant. e Conrad: Is there any supportable logic to phasing in those types of things? Olsen: I would need to discuss those with the engineer. I think that it might be more logical to do it now. I don't know whether I could say that it could be amended. I guess I don't know the facts. Dacy: To be honest, we didn't anticipate the detailed questions that the applicant has so we didn't ask Mr. Brown to attend tonight. Jo Ann's right, we can't recommend to the commission one way or the other on their request but we understand your concern. This is a detailed item that, as far as the Plannipg Commission is concerned, unless you do have a real big problem with it, this is something that staff should be able to work out. Conrad: The only impact is the motion that we make. Dacy: If you want to phrase a motion so there is some leeway in there, we'd sure appreciate that. Conrad: The trouble is, we don't have the insight either. I'm not sure why we require two fire hydrants or three. I'm not sure why we require the looped water. What's it a function of other than it's probably a standard that makes sense to me but I'm not sure when can you slip that requirement and when not? e Dacy: Exactly because the engineer, the basic purpose of it is to maintain a constant pressure and if you're using one fire hydrant and that draws all the water off of one main and there's not enough pressure to serve the second hydrant, you want to keep a looped system, as Mr. Lyon's said. They go through the flow and pressure analysis and I'm sure Larry has done preliminary evaluations of that to determine this recommendation. They have submitted another proposal that he mayor may Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 28 e not have looked at. Unfortunately Larry isn't here and he could have probably answered that. Batzli: A continuous loop may have been based on an evaluation of the third fire hydrant already being installed. Mayor may not have been. We don't know. Dacy: Right. Terry Lyons: Actually, I believe the continuous loop is a request whether it's 1, 2 or 20 hydrants. The concern, as Barbara mentioned, is they want to maintain pressure. If for example there was a fire at the church and Chanhassen Estates, if all the hydrants were open at the same time the pressure would drop. Our feeling is, possibly but there again it's belts and suspenders and should we be made to bear that cost all at this time. - Dean Brown: I would assume that the majority of you have built a home and had a budget. Again, being the chairman of this building committee, I have to be very conscience of that budget because the money that we sink into the ground for these things are very important to us but they also deduct from the aesthetics that we can build into our building. Right now we can't even afford brick and that's not anything from your perspective so we're giving up a lot of things. We're reducing the quality of the windows that we're putting in the building and the quality of the carpet. Things so we can afford stuff that will make the building what you guys want. Conrad: We've heard that. I think we all work with a budget. On the other hand, one of the charges for the City and for this commission is to make sure things that are built are safe. There may be liability problems if we allowed you to do something that's not considered safe and I think that's a responsibility that we have to make sure is satisfied that whatever building goes into Chanhassen, has the safety of the citizens as a cornerstone. I think the City will work with you and if a phased in approach can be worked, I think we'll try to do that. If it can't, you're going to be stuck with it. You should continue, when you go to City Council, between now and City Council you can be working with City staff on these. I know the road access can be taken care of. The other issues, I think they have to talk to the engineer and get some specifics and you should sit down with him. Dean Brown: But that's something we hadn't heard before was the phased in approach. That's why I'm asking these things several times. We've just been told water loop, fire access, pavement. To us those are there but let's give and take a little and thank you very much for saying that. That's what we're looking for. Conrad: And I don't want to lead you astray. Maybe we can't do that ~ but I think we should look at it and see if that's possible. Dacy: It was my understanding that Mr. Brown did talk to you about these recommendations. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 29 - Dean Brown: Yes. Dacy: Okay, so you were aware of them? Dean Brown: Yes. Dacy: Okay, so now you've corne up with alternatives that you may not have posed to Mr. Brown? Dean Brown: That's right. Dacy: Okay, so that makes me feel better. They were aware of these conditions and we can go from there. Dean Brown: The point 4, the future phases shall preserve the additional right-of-way required by the TH 101 improvement. What does that mean? Olsen: That's more of a condition just so when those future phases corne in, we will know to review those sites and not let you put the parking lot within the right-of-way. If this goes through, they will be acquiring this property. Dean Brown: At what point would they acquire that? e Olsen: When it would be improved. Dean Brown: That again is cutting into an area of our parking that we're concerned about. Can we get some sort of approval at that time that would say, that setback would change so we can still get some parking for there? Olsen: Right. The way we're considering this is that it's a hardship imposed by the City so you could possibly get a variance to the setbacks. It is something we are taking away. Land that you did have for the setback so the setbacks may be reduced. You still would not be able to build into it but we may be able to look at reducing the setbacks and provide some screening or additional berms or something. Dean Brown: Again, our concern was that to us it's taking away from some of our parking and so long as we can work on a variance. Is that the only spot we're talking about? Olsen: So far. Dean Brown: And we wouldn't know that until it was all approved right? Terry Lyon: That's pushing that one right to the limit but as you all know, that parking is just meeting the requirements for the future expansion so if indeed you say we may get the setback, that's not going to allow us to meet your requirement in the future. e .-- - - - Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 30 Ie I Olsen: You still have to go through process. get it. I can't say that you'll Terry Lyon: In your opinion, it would be approved? I feel it's justified to ask. The church is setting aside that property for something that may not happen and receiving no compensation for setting that aside and also it may be limiting their ability to expand in the future because they won't be able to meet the parking requirements so we need some sort of commitment that it would be acceptable also. Dacy: That would be staff's recommendation. We can't guarantee what a City Council is going to do. Dean Brown: So by us agreeing to this recommendation, we're just saying that the future phases shall preserve that particular piece of right-of-way or any right-of-way? Olsen: We're saying that particular. If things change... Batzli: I don't know that staff can even make that statement because how they develop TH 101 will have a major impact on that and we have no control over that really. Very little. e Olsen: When they determine what property need, that's when they will start the acquisition process. As of today, that is the corner that they are looking at that would need the additional highway right-of-way. Dean Brown: But we can go on the assumption that if it was condemned for state use or whatever use, then we could apply for a, what type of a permit was it? ElIson: Variance. Dean Brown: A hardship variance. A hardship imposed variance saying that we still need the parking. Because potentially what could happen there is if you condemn that and then didn't give us the right-of-way, we wouldn't be able to meet your minimum requirements for parking. That's the extreme to the one end. I guess that's what we want to make sure everyone is aware of is that we're building now with the thorough assumption that we can add a second and third phase. We would hate to be able to develop this and the second phase and then all of a sudden find out we can't do the third phase because we're 5 parking spots short. Headla: This summer when we had that heavy rainstorm, what happened to that area down there? Did they get flooded? What I'm really referring to is if we take that spot of land now and we blacktop it all, we're going to have faster runoff. Are we going to create a problem for that church or for the immediate neighborhood? e Olsen: The Hidden Valley plan always had, their storm water system always had this lot also included in those calculations and perhaps you could clarify it a little bit better but it was always planned for the 4~'_., .~_ _._~....J Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 31 e development of this lot so it will be able to. Headla: It will be able to handle that more rapid runoff than if it was just plain ground there. Terry Lyons: That's also addressed in the engineer's report. Headla: Yes, I see they talk about it there but where they put it all blacktop, I just was wondering about that. On the lights you have in the parking lot, how tall are those lights going to be? Terry Lyons: 20 feet. Headla: And will they be on all the time? Dean Brown: They'll be on a timer switch where they'll come on. Headla: So during the night they usually stay on until middle evening, something like that? Dean Brown: We do use our church into 10:00 to 11:00 at night. Like on Wednesday evenings and sometimes on Mondays so for our safety purposes, we'll more than likely have them on. e Headla: But they would be on 7 days a week? Dean Brown: Yes. Headla: I was wondering there, 20 feet, is that going to affect neighbors a ways away if it's on every night? Olsen: We usually have the lights shielded so they're directed. They might still be able to tell that there's a light over there but it's reflected so it doesn't shine into a neighbor's property. Does that answer your question? Headla: I'm thinking about when I look out my back window, 2,000 feet away I see the lights from my church parking lot and to say they point down, it leaves a fair amount of light there. What kind of lights are these? Terry Lyons: They will be high pressure sodium. Shielded high pressure sodium. Dean Brown: I think it's important to note that all of the houses to the east of us, that you would be referring to, are lower than our lot to begin with and we're still going to have a 6 foot berm as well as 10 foot trees across there. So, it's like if our lot is here and the houses are down here plus there will be that 6 to 10 foot shield across e there. Then the lights are going to only be from one end to the other. Terry Lyons: One of the parking lights that would be visible to the residential neighborhood. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 32 e Headla: The one up on the north end? Terry Lyons: Yes. Headla: That's all that I have. Batzli: I guess I'm curious, are we recommending this as a conditional use but you evaluate it as if it was a conditional use? Olsen: We use the requirements of a church within a residential district as the guidelines. We had no specific guidelines for a church in a PUD district so we really haggled this over. We were going, well is it a conditional use? No, because it's not submitted as a conditional use in the PUD ordinance but yet there are no specific regulations for the church in the PUD so we felt, since it is a residential district, that regulations for churches as conditional uses in the RSF district, whatever would be appropriate to use for the site plan review. This lot was always approved as a church site. We felt that it was still an approved use. Batzli: So the future expansions would have to come back in as another site plan? e Olsen: Yes. All phases have to come back in. We have to make sure that they're conforming to the parking and the setbacks. Ellson: I think it looks awful nice. I don't know how we can make a recommendation with the motion so open to this type of thing. Maybe you've done this in the past but it seems like it will be awfully vague to try and do something when there's so many things that's left to be done. Do you do this a lot? They have to do this and that. Okay, we're going to go with that. It seems like anything can be written in there. I'm just a little apprehensive about that part of it but if you guys have done it before, I'll trust you. Emmings: He mentioned they're not doing a daycare or not doing day school. We one time talked about a church who was going to do a school or we talked about the possibility of them doing a school. If they would add that as a use, would that have to corne back? It seems to me we talked about the fact that there had to be different requirements for bathroom facilities and all kinds of other kinds of things. Is that being taken into account now? Olsen: No. If they came in for a new use, a lot of times we'll hear about it from the building department and within the PUD district, we would have to address that as a permitted use. It would have to get some sort of city approval. e Emmings: back? So if they decided to add those uses, they would have to come Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 33 e Dean Brown: And we already fully understand that that is very well, I talked to Barb and staff, that construction of the walls are different. The fire code is different and that's why we're stating now that we're not doing that so that what we're proposing is what we're using. Emmings: The only time I talked against a church related issue, my furnace stopped working at home. I'm not willing to risk that anymore. Erhart: Why are there no trees shown on the landscaping in some of the areas such as the very north end and the south end? Olsen: The reason is because they're not developing this side. Erhart: What about the other? Olsen: They are landscaping it all around. Erhart: I see they're landscaping directly around the parking lot but not around by the street. Okay, so that future parking essentially will be seeded at this point? Olsen: I think we're just going to leave it in it's natural state at this time. e Dean Brown: We plan to seed or sod it. As you point out in one of your recommendations is that all land that we're not using needs to be seed and sodded. Erhart: That's a good point. If the land is natural grass now and you're not disturbing it, that may be imposing an additional requirement that may not be necessary. Olsen: It was my understand that you were going to leave that southern portion all in it's natural state. Dean Brown: Point 2, all open areas in the first phase shall be covered. Erhart: I have a question, does the City have written requirements for fire hydrants and loops or is this something that the building inspector sort of comes up with from time to time? Dacy: The Fire Code does. Erhart: But I don't see a condition requiring three fire hydrants on my list. Am I missing something? Dean Brown: It's on the plan. e Erhart: Oh, you've already got that on the plan. And I think you'll see that a loop is a standard requirement of the City for a fire hydrant so I don't have a problem with that. I do think we ought to change the condition for the steeple so there's not, again, I don't think we ought -~ ---- Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 34 e to be imposing fire restrictions that go above the Uniform Building Code so I'd like to see us change condition 8 to say that the steeple shall be designed in accordance with the Uniform Building Code period. I sometimes think we do get a little carried away with this fire thing. You're requesting that one entrance be moved 60 feet further to the south as compared to as shown on the plan? Olsen: Yes. Erhart: And the Fire Inspector is asking that the second access be added at Hidden Court. I agree, if nothing else, that we should just leave it open but I really question whether you want to have that many parking spaces and one access. It just seems to me, from a practical standpoint, given that Lake Drive East is basically a private street. In other words, it's not a collector. It's not an arterial. Why you wouldn't have an access up on the north end. It just seems there's going to be a tremendous congestion bringing all those cars in. You know how people all come in 5 minutes after the service starts. It just seemed practical to me to have a second access up there. I think that's much more logical than the south end. Particularly considering, in the future you're considering a classroom. If you're going to have a second access, it's more reasonable to put it on that side where you have a density of children and so forth. Again, I don't know if it has to be done now. e Terry Lyon: The staff would not allow us a second access onto Lake Drive East. Olsen: Lake Drive East is a collector. It's a major east/west. Erhart: But according to your TH 101 plan here, that's going to become... Olsen: That's still going to be a major road. And we did look at providing that secondary access onto Lake Drive East and they had a large berm to cut through. The sight distance of before. Erhart: A berm that doesn't exist today. Olsen: Right but it's just that the sight distance was not good. There are good points to having it on Lake Drive East but we reviewed it and we determined that... Erhart: What's the distance, if you move that driveway let's say closer to Hidden Court, can you maintain a 300 foot distance between the two driveways? Olsen: I think the City Engineer was recommending 100 foot distance from Lake Drive East to Hidden Court. e Erhart: And it looks like you've got, about what? 200 feet there now? About 160 feet now so if you move it 60 feet down, that would get you to your 100 feet. If you put another driveway up on the north end, that Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 35 e would easily be 300 feet from that driveway. Aren't we requiring collectors, that driveways be 400 feet apart? Dacy: In the rural. Erhart: So it doesn't apply here. Whatever, I think just looking at this whole thing, you ought to have provisions, at least for the future on the driveway on the north end. Not the south end. Dacy: That curve and the grade is the biggest factor there. The sight distance is poor there. Even the existing elevation now. Batzli: Is Hidden Court a through street? Olsen: It curves down in a round about way. Batzli: It does link up with something else somewhere? Olsen: Yes. Dean Brown: Lake Drive East curves around and connects with Dakota. Batzli: We're talking about Hidden Court. ~ Olsen: Yes, Hidden Court does dead end. There is another access. Here's Lake Drive East and then there's another Hidden Lane back there. Erhart: It must be the new design for the TH l0l/TH 5 crossing. I've not seen this before. This is much preferable over the one Mark's got in his book. Conrad: I don't have anything to add. I think Tim, your comment on point 8 was using the Uniform Building Code instead of the specifics that were in there? Thinking they would cover what staff detailed? The only other thing I would say is that whoever makes the motion, is that we recommend that the applicants work with staff to review access. Maybe some phased in approaches if it works for fire hydrants, looped water, whatever but basically working with staff and the City Engineer to see if any of those things can be deferred. If not, the City Council should be aware of that when it gets to them. Dean Brown: That's what we're looking for. If it's a rule, we'll have to live by it but if we can work, we'd love to. Erhart moved, Headla seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Site plan #88-1 as shown on the site plan dated January 28, 1988 with the following conditions: e Headla: That second access, we're really talking about quality. that second access aren't we? On Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 36 e ElIson: Right. Not necessarily the road as constructed in the Engineering report but we still want some sort of... Headla: Yes, I think we want an access of some kind but...it's the quality of the access. Erhart: I think what we're trying to say is on Phase 1, maybe we could live without it but if you're going to build all these parking spaces and the additions shown here, we feel that a second access will be needed at that time. Conrad: Emergency vehicles need a second access period. It just simply, right now the mechanics of how quickly we want that access upgraded and I think they can work that out. Headla: Did you say anything about, like the fire hydrants and the loop? If that could be negotiated with phases? Conrad: Tim didn't. Batzli: Could that be a friendly amendment? Erhart: There has to be a second first. ~ Headla: I'll move that the requirements for the fire hydrants and the looping of the watermain be considered for negotiation to be incorporated in with the third building phase. Emmings: Shouldn't we just say it like this maybe. If they can satisfy the City Engineer that it's not necessary to do it all at this time, then that would be alright with the Planning Commission. Whatever the City Engineer thinks is necessary or appropriate at this time. Is that the idea. Batzli: Are you suggesting in your point 8 that the steeple need only be designed in accordance with UBC and not constructed in accordance with that? Erhart: I'm assuming that's the same. Batzli: Okay. Are there other applicable building codes that you would like to include? Is the problem that we have a building code that's tougher than the Uniform Building Code. Was that merely a requirement of the Engineer or the Fire Department and the City? Olsen: That was the interpretation, 20 feet was how the Building Inspector interpretted the height that they would permit under the UBC. e Erhart: If his interpretation differs from somebody elses and we approve the requirement including this wordage, then the interpretation doesn't mean anything anymore. Then it's what we approve and I want to go back to the Uniform Building Code and let them work out this interpretation. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 37 e Terry Lyons: The only other applicable Code would have been the Minnesota Building Code and it doesn't address that specific issue so the Uniform Building Code is the only one. Batzli: I guess I would rather have said, the steeple shall be designed and constructed in accordance with all applicable Building Codes. Erhart: That's fine. Emmings: Aren't you just talking about the UBC there? Batzli: I don't know. Emmings: I think the State has adopted the UBC and all these communities have adopted the State so we will have the same. Erhart: I'm not trying to get us, put words to try and back up somebody's misinterpretation if in fact that's the case. I don't know. Headla: One other thing, looking at my notes, we were going to put in a note that whenever they do further expansion, they were to come back. e Conrad: I think that's implied though. Olsen: We would require it, yes. Headla: You would require it anyway? Okay, then there's no need for it. Terry Lyons: It's required by your zoning Ordinance and it's required by the Uniform Building Code and it's required by the Minnesota Building Code. Anytime you add, alter, modify. Headla moved, Emmings seconded an amendment to the motion stating that the Planning Commission approve phasing of the fire hydrants and looping of the watermain if the City Engineer determines that these requirements are not necessary at this time. All voted in favor of the amendment and motion carried. Erhart moved, Headla seconded that the Planning Commission recommend approval of Site Plan #88-1 as shown on the site plan dated January 28, 1988 with the following conditions: 1. The applicant shall provide details on type of shrubs proposed along the east lot line and provide 1 foot of hedge along the west property line between vehicular access and Lake Drive East. e 2. All open areas disturbed during construction in the first phase shall be covered with sod or seeded. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 38 e 3. Two additional handicapped parking spaces will be provided with the second and third phases or as required by the State building code. 4. The future phases shall preserve the additional right-of-way required for the TH 101 improvement. 5. The proposed access to Lake Drive East shall be relocated 60 feet to the south. 6. A second access to Hidden Court shall be negotiated with the city staff with the possibility of phasing. 7. The applicant shall receive a sign permit for the proposed sign which shall not exceed 24 square feet. 8. The steeple shall be designed and constructed in accordance with all applicable building codes. 9. The hydrant located in front of the proposed sanctuary shall be relocated to the south corner of the entrance from Lake Drive East. 10. Lights must be shielded and not be intrusive on adjacent neighborhoods. ell. The 16 points outlined in the City Engineer's report shall be included. 12. The Planning Commission approves phasing of the fire hydrants and looping of the watermain if the City Engineer determines that these requirements are not necessary at this time. All voted in favor of the amendment and motion carried. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Emmings moved, Conrad seconded to approve the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated January 20, 1988 as amended on page 11 by Steven Emmings. All voted in favor and motion carried. Erhart moved, Ellson seconded to approve the Minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated February 3, 1988 as amended by David Headla on page 23. All voted in favor except Conrad who abstained and motion carried. COMPREHENSIVE PLAN - TRANSPORTATION CHAPTER. e Mark Koegler: You made a statement before that I was going to be talking. What I'm really going to mostly do tonight is turn it back to you and let you do the talking and just take notes and agree and disagree and those kinds of things. Let me tell you, the material that's in front of you tonight is the entire Transportation Section ~ Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 39 e draft of the plan. There's new material in there and there's a mixture of material that this Commission has seen before as well as, obviously some redrafting and rewriting of the text from the old Comp plan portion and the Broadened Study Area Report into one document. The actual new pages occur on pages 12 through 32 and then again on 39 through 46 and addresses such topics as planned improvements, the recommended system which is primarily a compulation again of the major recommendations from the last plan that we did some 7 years ago or so plus the Benshoof Report that was done on the Broadened Study Area. Then it moves into some new sections on jurisdictional classification. Airports, transit and some language on implementation. I think the bottom line conclusion is that probably transportation has been studied fairly extensively within this community over the last 10 year period. I think the result of those studies is that there's not a great deal of "new revelations" that have come out of this. However, it really is pointing again that their number in the original recommendations, for a lot of reasons, haven't been implemented yet or in some cases are in the process of being implemented. To a certain degree becomes a restatement of some of that and a reaction to some of that with the eye towards, again implementing that to the best of the City's ability over the next 10 year period of time. So with that, I don't know that any elaboration on specific section. I'd be glad to do that if you so desire. Perhaps it's more prudent to field any comments or concerns or questions that you might have. . Conrad: Anybody have any comments on the first 10 or 12 pages? Emmings: Mark, I just noted again that there's an inconsistency in that major arterial versus intermediate arterial language. That happens on page 2 and page 3 and page 4 and pages 34, 35 and 36. Sometimes it's in there as a major, sometimes it in there as an intermediate. Mark Koegler: That's correct. I have not gone back and cleaned up the language on some of that first part of the text. All of that will be changed to read major/minor and that is the current language. The chart's that in here which replaces the previous chart that's the Metropolitan Council information, is the current classification language. Emmings: Is that on 34? Mark Koegler: The interstate have preceeded language. Yes. There you see the current categories we utilize. freeway then we go major/minor collector so those now and totally replaced the old minor and intermediate e Emmings: Another thing I had is that on T-4 there's this exhibit 2-T, existing roadway system and there are these heavy dark lines which I think indicate maybe improvements that are occurring at the present time. There's nothing in the key to tell us that. It took me a while to figure out what they were and either they shouldn't be in there or else be something in the key to tell people what they are. And then I wanted to thank you for adding the TH 7/Lake Minnewashta area turn-ins Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 40 e on page 8. That's all I had on those pages. Erhart: I like to look at the pictures and I have a couple of comments on the maps. It seems when you go through it fast it's redundant but I'm sure there's some reason for saying the same thing over again three times. I think it's real good. I do have a comment here Mark, maybe just some corrections. On exhibit l-T. Wasn't CR 17 in existence in 1980? Mark Koegler: No. Erhart: Okay, then if it wasn't then, then it should be on the 2-T as an improvement from 1980 to 1987. It should have a heavy black line on the next one that Steve referred to. Am I correct? Mark Koegler: That's correct. Bear in mind here what happened. The roadway probably physically was in the ground in 1980. This plan was put together in the late 70's and I think there were some assumptions made so this really is an exhibit from the previous plan reflecting what was there. I agree, it should be shown as an improvement that occurred. Erhart: I wasn't aware that that wasn't there in 1980. e Mark Koegler: That was about the time of construction. Erhart: I don't have anything until after 12. Conrad: Mark, what's the difference, the issues and deficiencies starting on page 5. You've got them broken down by intersection and access. Mark Koegler: We had three really major categories there. Intersection, Access and then Road Capacity Connections and Jurisdictional Continuity. Conrad: In terms of road capacity and connections, on point 3 under Pleasant View Road. What are they indications of that problem? Where did you get that information that there's capacity problems? Mark Koegler: That really is from the previous plan. I have modified the text to bring it up a little more to date. I'm sure you're aware there was an effort at one time to upgrade that as a full collector street. There was a perceived need in the overall transportation of the city for collector movement in that area. That politically was not feasible and pretty well was finalized that that would never be feasible. I think that assumption prevails in this text and simply reiterates from a design standpoint and from an application of the normal standards, you would look for one in that area but given the geography, given the political circumstances, it won't happen. - Conrad: You've described it right. The inadequancies of this route will continue to intensify but in my mind, it's not a solveable, as you just said, it's not a solveable problem so do we keep it there as a Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 41 . problem, even though it is, but it's not solveable? Mark Koegler: That's correct. It is insolveable and I guess that falls back to you as to whether or not you feel that it should or shouldn't be there. It is a situation that people in that part of the community are going to experience in the future, obviously. Whether or not that means ultimately there will be enough pressure to do some kind of improvement to that route or not, I don't think anybody knows. The assumption is now, is that won't happen. I've also seen really multiples last of the parcels development with the exception of the later stages of Near Mountain as it laps around here to the west. The high end of residential in there. But as the demographics continue to change and there's continued increases, as the Metropolitan Council data shows, that the use of personal cars and the number of cars people have and everything else, traffic on that route is going to continue to increase. It was just pointing to the obvious perhaps with no solution. ElIson: What are you saying your problem is? To have it in here if there's no solution. I think it's important to let it be known that we know it's a deficiency. I think it would be an oversight not to mention it. Conrad: What are you going to do about it? . Erhart: Light Rail Transit. Conrad: It doesn't go through that part of town. Erhart: I guess the concept is, the light rail transit would take significant traffic off these major arterials and freeways. That the existing system would be maintained tolerable. Batzli: I think you'll have the same amount of traffic on Pleasant View whether or not you have light rail transit. Emmings: They'll all be driving that way to go to the station. Conrad: My only point is, if you don't have a solveable problem, why... ElIson: TH 5, it runs parallel to that and I think as that improves. People are taking Pleasant View sometimes just to avoid TH 5 in rush hour. I think maybe it would improve to a certain extent. Batzli: I had a question, if we're done with this. Conrad: I think we are. It's identified properly. ElIson: I know like a problem having a solution. . Conrad: Well, there should be. Typically, identifying something without a solution doesn't solve anything and here's a case, why put up a flag when there's really nothing to do for it because it's really been predetermined, based on a couple years ago on how we let some properties Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 42 e be subdivided. And the neighbors don't want that anyway through that area but I'm just trying to make sure this is as clean as we can make it so we understand it when it comes back. I think we'll leave it stand. Batzli: I think your problem will be exaccerbated though by the fact that they are building more units on Pleasant View, at least at the east end. I think the problem will get worse before it gets better and there may be a solution to some of the problems. Conrad: It gets worse when they build up the west end and they build on top of the Mountain because that's when the traffic builds and the traffic doesn't want to go west to CR 17. It wants to go east to TH 101 and that is the real guts of the issue there but we'll leave this stand. e Batzli: That gets me to my point and that is, when we're talking about jurisdictional continuity, I would have thought TH 101 was probably the worse case of jurisdictional continuity but it's not listed under that category although it's elsewhere. Or don't I understand what you're talking about by jurisdictional continuity? Mark Koegler: No, I think that's a fair criticism. I think TH 101 is discussed so many times elsewhere is probably the reason I didn't include it in that. Most of the other routes in terms of jurisdictional continuity is that they don't have any problems with TH 101. In that at least TH 5, the continuity that we're speaking of, the problem occurs once you leave the Chanhassen borders. The same thing with CR 17. You've got good continuity within the geographic area of Chanhassen but when you cross into Excelsior, it falls apart. North TH 101, obviously we've got a different situation because we've got only jurisdiction within Chanhassen borders. There's no problem. That can certainly be added. Batzli: I was looking at it along the stretch north of 78th Street up to Town Line Road where it's the border between Chanhassen and Eden Prairie. I think the traffic load on that stretch of the road is increasing and is getting more dangerous as we have these developments like Fox Hollow and all these other nice ones, where a lot of people again to avoid TH 5, are trying to get on to Valley View via either Duck Lake Trail or going down to Valley View and it's a very dangerous, couple dangerous road situations rith there where it's a problem that both Eden prairie and Chanhassen are really experiencing at the same time. I guess that's how I would look at it. Mark Koegler: What I would propose in light of that is to add some fairly brief commentary referencing again that it was discussed in other areas of the plan. Batzli: Yes, you've discussed it on T-9 in depth. - Conrad: Anything else on the first 12 pages? something. On page 13, Steve had Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 43 e Emmings: I'm not on the map. I live in Chanhassen. We've got an exhibit here that shows the city and all kinds of information about it and our end of town isn't on there Dave. Mark Koegler: Let me explain that. First of all, let me offer a comment on the maps. The maps that are in there, may exist in that final form and they may ultimately be altered. Those are going to be reviewed by Barb and determined what she wants to have reworked and not reworked. That was not really the prime responsibility we had in terms of updating the plan itself. What we did in the transportation section, just go through and include what was appropriate because it's easier to see how it all fits together. Some of those may be reworked. This particular exhibit does not include the Minnewashta area because it's an exerpt from the Broadened Study Area Report and that geographic area was not a part of their planning boundaries. So the subarea information that's been developed on the tract assignment zones has not been developed to the degree of detail for the Minnewashta area that it has been for the balance of the community. e Emmings: I don't know why we want to include something here that is that incomplete and I don't think this is purely parochial but maybe it is. We got that problem on several of these maps. There's information here and naturally when I'm reading this, I look down to see how we fit into the rest of the city and we're just not there. Maybe it's not important for the specific purpose but maybe just out of a sense of fairness you ought to include it. Dacy: As Mark referred to earlier, the traffic study that Benshoof did had a specialized focus and we're just using that information to plug into the transportation section. They did the computer modeling based on the traffic trips coming out of those subzones. It wasn't meant to cut off the western area. Emmings: I suppose you could just call the document a semi-complete Comprehensive Plan. Dacy: If we were to add the Lake Minnewashta area, we would have to go back to Benshoof and have them rechange all the calculations and add that and factor that in. Emmings: Why was that area excluded in the first place if we're doing the rest of the entire city? e Dacy: The basic reason why they established those boundaries was, and actually they only even looked at from the TH 212 corridor. They looked at the subareas in there just because it's rural, just to get a feel for how many single family areas are in the southern part of Chan and Eden prairie but their primary focus again, remember was the TH 212 corridor, TH 101 and access into downtown. The area that they focused on in Chan and Eden prairie were the major generators of traffic that would go into the downtown area. Granted, there is a significant population in and around the Lake Minnewashta area but they felt that from TH 41 on the west to Dell Road on the east, was going to give them a good feel for Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 44 e the traffic patterns in and out of that area. Emmings: The other thing is, if Met Council is looking at this table like 3-T, they look at this and they don't know that part of the city is excluded from it, I don't know if that gives a false impression. First of all, the number of households, maybe there ought to be a disclaimer up there that it doesn't include the entire city. Dacy: That's a good point. Mark's got marked on here, source Benshoof and Associates and you're right, what we should add on there is the title of the report. Met Council has seen the report. They're all too familiar with the report so that's a good point. We should clarify that this is not the entire city and obviously it goes into Eden Prairie. Emmings: There's a lot of exhibits and tables in here that you'll have to do that on. Dacy: Yes, we have a lot of work to do in the land use chapter and the other chapters as far as graphics is concerned. Conrad: Anything on page 14? 15? Planned improvements, page 16? 17? e Erhart: Mark, you left out the intersection on the proposed TH 212 and CR 17 on the map although you do show it later on. I'm not suggesting that somehow it's not on the plan anymore. I want to emphasize my concern about that because I think there's going to be a lot of pressure to eliminate that intersection if this thing goes forward. My concern is, if we eliminate it, then we will not be able to restrict access on TH 101 into the city as automobile only on the boulevard. We will have the trucks going to the industrial park going up our boulevard into the city and into the industrial park. It's important to maintain, since it's on the plan I think we need to make sure we keep it on the plan so that access becomes the industrial park's access from TH 212. Mark Koegler: We can certainly add that. As you referenced, it is on the recommended system map and for the sake of continuity, it should be on this one as well. Erhart: Yes, you do show it later on, I think on your map 8-T it is shown. Conrad: Page 18? 19 or 20? 21? Erhart: 21, again here if you extend CR 17 down and show that intersection on the map. There I think you have the street connection. Conrad: Page 22? 23? 24? 25-26? 27-28? . Batzli: I have a question on 28. We saw what I think was a proposed intersection around TH 5 and TH 101 earlier. Is that the one we're talking about here on this page? Conrad: The next page, 29 is that. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - page 45 e Batzli: But this is different. Erhart: Yes, I had a comment too. Dacy: Right. It's the same location and same intersection. It's a more refined study of the exhibit 13-T. To be frank, it is a preliminary design. It's a best guess by the City right now but we haven't gotten approval from MnDot yet. Emmings: This one looks a lot better. Dacy: The purpose of 13-T is to illustrate concepts whereas the graphic that was included in the site plan report, really got down to the geometries. Turn lanes and so on. I would prefer that maybe we qualify this graphic by saying, conceptual or whatever but... Emmings: Couldn't we get rid of it? Couldn't we get it out of there and put this other one in in it's place? Dacy: Again, if it's labeled as conceptual and so on, I just don't want to lock the city into a design when it hasn't been reviewed by MnDot and that's just for use for planning purposes. e Emmings: But we all like that one and we all hate this one. Why don't we call that one our conceptual diagram? Everybody has always hated this one. It's sort of like the twisted building downtown Barbara. Dacy: Okay, we can work up a revised graphic. Mark Koegler: The text will have to be modified too to reflect because there are some subtle differences obviously when you talk about the railroad crossing at angles and things. Dacy: I keep coming back to that, if we put something like that in there, even though it has the preference of the City, the railroad and MnDot might come back with something else. So we're really going to have to cover our tracks. Emmings: Isn't that true anyway? Dacy: I just have a little concern about that and we'll work it out and we'll revise the graph. Conrad: I don't understand. The packet tonight of the church, my understanding that the one Mark had in was always the one we were flying with but that's not the case? Ie Dacy: It is the same intersection. It was always qualified in the Benshoof Report as a conceptual idea trying to link TH 101 from the north down to Lake Drive East. The plan in the packet was a refinement done by BRW for preliminary engineering standpoint. Done specifically for the church, as a matter of fact and to give us a beginning point Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 46 e from that. I don't think there's an issue here. sure that we're not binding. I just want to make Conrad: Other than smoothing some things out, are there any changes in the two? Erhart: Yes, Lake Drive East now is connected to Hidden Court. Dacy: The changes that have occurred would be that on 13-T, the leg into Lake Drive East over to Dakota Avenue, there's not that curvature in there. We have shifted the road over to the west of the intersection. I agree, everybody is pleased with that. I'm not disputing that. Erhart: The same consultant did both right? Dacy: No. BRW did the refined drawing that was in the site plan. We can change it. Conrad: Is that the only change that you did in terms of the two? Olsen: There's a different intersection into Lake Drive East going to TH 101. e Conrad: I'm looking at the north side, not the south. Dacy: On the north side, it's a straighter intersection from TH 101 in. You don't need the curves. Conrad: I thought that this plan required so much interaction between the railroad and it still does. Emmings: I suppose the trouble with the new one is we've really got two crossings instead of one. Conrad: That's right. Dacy: Supposedly the railroad, initially at least, has been agreeable to that. Again, we can change the graphics to be what you see on the site plan. Conrad: It's got to be, what are we presenting in here? Ie I I Dacy: The number one issue is whether or not we should have an intersection at that point in the first place. That's going to be the big issue from Chanhassen Estates and McDonalds and everybody else. When Benshoof did this it was just to illustrate that it could work and it could get the north/south volumes out of downtown and onto a new TH 101 alignment. The BRW graphic does probably a much better job of that from a traffic standpoint. There's going to have to be a feasibility study conducted and approved by the Council to determine the exact alignment of that which will be reviewed by MnDot and approved by the railroad, etc.. That's why I'm saying, whatever we show, this has Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 47 e to be labeled conceptual. That we're just talking ideas about making connections here. Batzli: I guess if we have a choice of what concept to present, I'd rather present the one... Conrad: The one that's been refined. Yes. That's a lot better than the one we've been flying with but that's brand new information to me. The one we've been flying with from Benshoof has been there simply because, at least on the north side. I don't see a problem with the south side but the north side was the railroad crossings and we had to have it that way because we spent all that time, and apparently all that money, to design this incorporating the concern with the railroad and now all of a sudden we've changed the north. I don't know that those problems have been addressed. I don't know what kind of concept we've just presented even though it's a lot cleaner. It's a better looking thing but it may not be real. e Mark Koegler: The important thing to convey in the Comprehensive Plan is the fact that these two intersections really are the same because what they're doing is we're taking the TH 101 traffic, as Barb said, out of the downtown area and relocating a new intersection point. That's the key item. Then you get beyond that, you get into the level of design detail and how do you handle the cross street connections and there are probably other alternatives that we missed that may be equally as viable too. As far as the Comp Plan goes, the Planning Commission's normal interest in the "big spectrum of planning", the important thing is that we're looking at deemphasizing the existing intersection, two of them actually, at Dakota and TH 101 with TH 5 and emphasizing a new one that's kind of midway between the two. You can do that with a much simplier graphic than either of these just showing a movement line sweeping through with the appropriate text. Whether you focus on one of these and label it heavily that it's a concept only, I don't really think there's a lot of difference as long as the key thing that you imply to any reader is that we're looking at this movement. Very specific graphics like this tend to focus interest at a public hearing. That may be an item on this comprehensive plan, as you hold the public hearings, that may be a target. Why do we have Lake Drive East coming in this way? Why do you have this and why do you have that? That's not really the focus of the Comp Plan. Emmings: Wouldn't they ask those same questions about this other one Mark? Mark Koegler: They could, yes. Emmings: So it doesn't matter which one we have in here, we're going to get the same questions. e Conrad: Barb and Mark, if you can, I think we all like the newer version and Barbara, I understand you're concerned with presenting something that hasn't gone through all the rules and reviews yet. If you two can come up with something that is presented for the plan that L Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 48 e kind of is drifting towards the new one, I think we'd all like that. I'll let you work that out. Emmings: I would say too, if you think there's good reasons to leave this one in here, I wouldn't be uncomfortable with that either. Maybe if that one is drawn in a little more abstract way. If you think it's too detailed, maybe you want to just have it drawn in a little more abstract fashion. Conrad: It looks like the south part is real. That seems like it should happen and I think that should be incorporated so if we stick with the current Exhibit l3-T, I think we should make those modifications. The north side bothers me because I don't know that we've got something real there that is going to change or is actual but I'll let you folks figure out how you want to treat the north part of the map. Pages 3l-32? 33-34? 35-36? 37-38? 39-40? Emmings: On 40, I was interested in this part on airports since I live on Lake Minnewashta and we do have a very little airport out there on the lake. I became concerned last summer when there was this accident up north somewhere where some guy crashed his plane and some people got hurt. I think actually on Lake Minnewashta, it's really decreased a lot during the time I've been living there. We used to have 4 or 5 planes parked on the lake all summer and planes corning and going. Now I think there are 1 or 2. e Headla: One at the south end permanently. I think that's it. Emmings: When Leech's was there, there was always a couple in there. 2 or 3 and now there aren't any so I think the use has really gone down. But I'm wondering, especially when you think about the public access that they put in there, I thought if the lake use increased very much it could be a conflict but it's amazing how. When I first saw there were planes on there, I thought this was a terribly dangerous thing but the use seems to get along pretty well. It seems to work. Headla: I don't understand why they get along so good but they do. Emmings: There always seems to be plenty of room for them to land and no problem. You'd think even a guy coming down would maybe have a water skier shooting across in front and cause a big problem and it just isn't and I don't know why. Conrad: When they come in here and talk to us, they seem to be well organized and very concerned. Emmings: Who? e Conrad: There's an association of folks who will come and talk to us occasionally when they think we're changing the lake surface ordinance at all. They're in. They seem rather responsible. What is that black line through Minnewashta? Is that the landing strip? Is that a floating landing strip with lights that come up? l Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 49 - Mark Koegler: No. Again, that's a recycled referenced map. The only intent was to indicate that those are the two bodies of water. Batzli: I've heard periodic rumor and inneundo that they're talking about eventually having to build a new metropolitan airport. Do you know if the plans for that would be south, west, east or north of the cities? Mark Koegler: I've seen, probably some of the same articles you have, citing a need and everything I've seen is referencing that it will be north. Conrad: Page 42. Light Rail Transit. Mark, we really haven't said anything in that section. We said, if it reaches us, we're going to have to get there somehow. Mark Koegler: What are your thoughts and interest I guess in that regards? e Conrad: They're very personal. I really believe in a light rail transit system. I don't know if this is a section where we state commitment. It's a personal commitment. I think it's necessary and it certainly looks to me like the north route is the most beneficial to Chanhassen. You kind of say that here. I just bring it up as a point of do we want to say anything in the Comprehensive plan that we support? I'm saying that because of the little that I've read, I don't know if we want to be more powerful in supporting that or what we want to do. Mark Koegler: Your in kind of a unique position, different position if you will, from somebody like Minnetonka or somebody that has the line running through the community which will have more of a land use than transportation concerns directly. Park and ride stations and so forth. Chanhassen is a little bit more insulated from that just because of the fact that the northern alignment just barely runs through the City. The southern alignment is totally in the rural service area. Any direction that you think is appropriate there, we can certainly build the language into the plan. I'm sure that certainly Hennepin County would be very happy to see all the language we would want to put in there in support of light rail. Carver County is setting up a light rail program now. What do you want to say? e Conrad: I guess I'd like to just make somehow a stronger statement that Chanhassen supports the use of light rail. I guess I don't know enough about the two alternatives, even though it sure appears that a northern one is better but maybe we don't need to get into selecting the route other than saying that from the standpoint of Chanhassen's growth and it's ability to access the metropolitan area, that we strongly support light rail transit and somehow want to be incorporated into the thinking of the planners that may put this system in. I assume that there's absolutely nothing we do, I can't think of how we would link up to the system. We don't need park and ride. It's there. It goes through Excelsior. You drive over so there's nothing that we have to Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 50 e anticipate. Our railroad track won't link up to it. I can't think of anything that we can do as a community that would say we should connect up somehow or do something different. Erhart: I guess I'd like to see a statement in support of it. I think we have nothing to lose and everything to gain in this city. I think the real beneift is that it is an alternative to the growing taffic already on our congested TH 5 and TH 212. The southern route would be an alternative to TH 212. That's why Chaska is so interested in it and of course, the northern route would be an alternative for TH 7 and TH 5. I think we ought to support it. Conrad: In terms of how we plan for other than supporting it, my last comment, is there anything we should be doing and I can't think of anything other than saying we like it. To take advantage of it is simply getting in our car and driving over to the station or whatever and hopefully there's enough parking places. Erhart: I think it is a politic thing. The fact that we will have it on our Comp Plan and we support it, I'll bet you'll see that in the Minneapolis paper. Hennepin County will use that. They'll use that in the arguments down in the meetings they're having right now that Chanhassen is supporting it because Excelsior is going to fight it. e Batzli: The people along where the track will go do not want it. Conrad: Nobody wants it where, anybody who touches it or is close to it, they do not want it. Erhart: I think we ought to support it. Batzli: I think there is an element here that we do have input on and that's the last paragraph where we're talking about, how do we get to the light rail transit. Whether that means that the bus system of this area needs to be improved because I don't think they're going to be enough spots at a park and ride for everybody to park. So that means, whether they're going to have off-site parking facilities with buses connecting to the light rail transit or trying to improve bus service, which I think has been a total disaster in the metropolitan area ever since I can remember. There's going to need to be more planning in regards to how do you get the people to these stations because that will have a major impact on traffic flow if these things are put in and people start patronizing them. Ellson: So how do you say something like that Brian? That we'd be willing to... e Batzli: I don't want to say that we're going to pave Chanhassen as a parking lot for light rail transit but I'm just saying we are looking at this plan, I think, we're looking at it as if the present traffic congestion is going to be there and this is where all the traffic is because everybody is commuting on TH 5 and TH 212 and TH 169. In 20 years, if light rail transit goes in, you might be able to get on TH 212 Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 51 e and go 70 mph and never see another car. If light rail transit is everything it's cracked up to be. Then again, maybe no. This is kind of like that 00 on the roulette wheel. This is a variable that nobody knows what's going to happen. Conrad: Maybe we should put some corridors on this map, on page 43. Our light rail corridors. Dacy: As Mark mentioned, Carver County has formed their rail authority. As a matter of fact, I think they have their first meeting next week. That's an issue. Who's going to maintain and who's going to build the park and ride sites so maybe you could put in language stating that the City feels that park and ride sites should be located appropriately as well as corridors to make sure there is good access. Or whatever you want to say in that we need to work with Carver County on that issue. But then again, Carver County is saying that they're not looking at light rail into Chanhassen until after the year 2000. Maybe we could try to come up with some more information. It's a tough one because who knows where the money is going to come from. Conrad: Mark, if you can weave the words in that say we strongly support it and if you can probably put in some very general terminology in here speaking to the Chanhassen need to consider it's access points and it's park and ride in conjunction with light rail transit. It's going to be kind of fluffy. I don't know that you can be very specific on that but maybe if you can work a few sentences in. e Mark Koegler: I think the last paragraph begins to be a little fluffy but perhaps it doesn't have enough loft. Conrad: 43 and 44? 45 and 46? Anything else? Emmings: I wonder if we have him put in there that we strongly support light rail. I wonder, does everyone in Chanhassen support light rail? Headla: I was going to bring that up. I'm not sure that's an accurate statement at all. Conrad: I don't know. I think we support better access to Chanhassen. Ellson: Any alternative to TH 5. Conrad: You're right Dave. To a degree, if we knew all the facts, maybe we would be concerned. Erhart: Don't we have a public hearing on this. e Conrad: City Council also has a review of it and then we'll see all the people who come in in droves when we do have the public hearing. Actually, there might be a change this year with the support of the papers and we may have actually some interest from people seeing what we're doing. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 52 e METROPOLITAN COUNCIL SEWER POLICY PLAN. Conrad: Barbara, do you need anything from us on this? Dacy: Does anybody have a strong position on any of the commens that I tried to summarize. I know it was fairly long and if you didn't get a chance to read it, I can understand. Erhart: I read it. I was hoping you'd have a communist representative from the Central Committee here tonight. I was hoping we'd have a representative of the Met Council. We have not had one since I've been on the Planning Commission and I would look forward to that sometime. I'd sure like to better understand their authority. Conrad: What do you find in this thing? Erhart: I had a few questions about some of the issues. As long as I can't pick on anybody. Conrad: It's sort of like God, Mother and the Flag isn't it, when you review this stuff? Erhart: Timing and sizing of the metropolitan sewer service will be based on population, housing and planning forecasts prepared by the Council. Doesn't that strike you as... e Dacy: Especially when they're forecasts are already below us and we've already exceeded our 1990 projections. And that continues to be our concern. Emmings: When you bring that to their attention, how do they respond? Dacy: They respond to it by saying, and this is true, that the City reports it's annual building permit activity to the census bureau and the Met Council and they supposedly keep track. They said they will update their information on a regular basis. They indicated that that's done every 5 years or if a community wants to object to the annual population estimate that it does, it will consider that. We're concerned though that the population gets turned into a sewer allocation and you can't go beyond it. We're not necessarily saying that we want more people here. We want more people here. It's happening with or without our help and we just want to make sure that we have enough capcity sewer and transportation wise to provide for those that are coming. Emmings: So you just have to kind of keep hammering on them? Keep confronting them with reality. e Dacy: Right. What Eden prairie did, they went to the extent of taking a special census in the 1984 and 1985 and that worked. They revised their calculations. Erhart: Do you find them flexible at all? Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 53 e Dacy: You deal with a couple of staff people. It depends. In Chanhassen, as opposed to Eden prairie, we're talking about a difference between 4,000 and 5,000 people. That mayor may not be a big difference as compared to Eden prairie where they're talking 5,000 to10,000 people. We just want to make sure that the sewer capacity is there. Erhart: A question Dave, you were on the downtown Community Center and you selected the downtown because of the existing buildings and so forth. Given you didn't have that building, what would have been the second choice of location? There are a lot of editorials about not having it downtown. What would be the second choice site location if that existing building wasn't there? Headla: I think the general consensus was we kind of wanted to put it at Lake Ann but we didn't see how we could do it. Erhart: Why? Headla: We didn't own enough land and we'd have to go half a mile, third of a mile with sewer and water. It was quite a bit of money. Erhart: Is that outside of the MUSA line? e Headla: Coming off of Powers Blvd.. think that was the one... If you don't consider downtown, I Erhart: But that's outside the MUSA line isn't it? Headla: On the east side of Lake Ann is outside the MUSA line? Dacy: The Eckankar property is within it. The Lake Ann property is outside. Headla: So that's the land we would have to buy to get it. And we looked at just south and west of here. That land's quite expensive. And we looked just north of the building and we didn't see any space available. Erhart: I guess what I'm getting to on this Metropolitan Council, I kid about being communistic but I think this is the real world. If it gets defeated, and I have no idea what the polls are or anything, but I think it's going to be because of location and then the question is, is the committee going to have enough energy to go back and plan another site and try to put together the plans and so forth. And these guys are restricting us from something that makes sense because I agree with you. I think the best site is the Lake Ann Park facility. Ie Headla: I think it would give us an overall better recreational complex. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 54 e Conrad: Anything else about the Water Resource Management Development Guide Amendment? In the packet Barbara sent us a note about Scott County Lumber vs. the City of Shakopee. Headla: How would you like to be that City Appraiser? Did he get his hands caught in the cookie jar. Conrad: The only clarification in your note Barbara, it says you can't deny a conditional use permit unless there's an adverse impact but also if it doesn't meet the standards that you've already pre-established for a conditional use permit. In other words, if you've got standards set up and they don't meet those standards, you can reject anything you want. When the standards aren't there, then it becomes tough and that's when you go back to the health, safety and welfare but as long as when you establish a conditional use process, if you don't have pre-established conditions, then you're open. I buy what this note says but I also want to make sure that every time we think about requiring a conditional use, that we're thinking of what those conditions are that we want met. If we don't have those conditions, then we're probably not really monitoring much at all because the conditional use permit will go through because we don't have anything to measure it against. In the City Council update, I'm real intrigued in the first one. The wetland alteration permit for Eric Rivkin. The city made the decision or in the wetland permitting process, I guess I was not aware that our ordinance doesn't supersede DNR jursidiction. Why doesn't it do that? e Olsen: Because of a State Statutue that specifically gives DNR jurisdiction on public waters for dredging. There have been court cases. Conrad: For dredging. Olsen: For dredging. We could still regulate docks. Batzli: But it only regulates it below the ordinary high water mark. Conrad: Because most wetlands are below the ordinary high water mark and most docks are above... Olsen: We're going to be meeting with the DNR just to see how they would feel if we would try to amend it to give us jurisdiction. Conrad: Why can't we be more restrictive than the State? Olsen: It's just the way it's written in the law. Emmings: It's preempted. It's just like the antennas. They have taken the area and they said, we're going to regulate this and nobody else can. e Olsen: I believe the County and the Watershed District does have jurisdiction...within the public waters. We're looking into possibly doing that with the City. Planning Commission Meeting February 17, 1988 - Page 55 - Conrad: I'm real confused and I would hope that staff could help. Here's a case where we're trying to keep the wetlands from being dredged and now we're saying we don't have that authority so I sure would like staff to help clarify the impact of this action on our ordinance and what we should do with it. Dacy: It's not so much the ordinance as what we've got to do to change State Law. Batzli: Actually our ordinance, as aptly pointed out by one of the two of you at the Council meeting, it does have a significant impact and if there's a disturbance within 200 feet of a wetland, we can control the permit process. So assuming that any portion of what they're going to dredge is above the ordinary high water mark, they would have to get a permit from the city as well. Olsen: So that's where we stood. We still acted on a wetland alteration permit because he was developing within 200 feet and he was locating his spoils within 200 feet so we did put conditions to control that. We'll still be able to control activity going to the dredging path. I also wrote the DNR and asked them to add on all of our other conditions. We had other specific conditions with our initial wetland alteration permit. e Conrad: I'm really kind of amazed because the DNR was involved in our wetland ordinance. They were counseling us. They were encouraging us because they knew there were certain things that they could not do and they thought that we could help out and they were looking to us to be leaders in that area. Politically it was not sound for DNR to get involved in some of these things and therefore they kind of thought it was, certain levels of their group thought it was good that Chanhassen was involved. Not all levels mind you but they were very supportive so now I find it real interesting that we've drafted an ordinance that really I'm not sure how much of it is valid anymore. We do have some controls that we've implemented but some of the key things that we were trying to do, I'm not sure that we've done it. Erhart moved, ElIson seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 11:25 p.m.. Submitted by Barbara Dacy City Planner prepared by Nann Opheim e