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PC 2006 08 01 CHANHASSEN PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 1, 2006 Chairman McDonald called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jerry McDonald, Kurt Papke, Dan Keefe, Debbie Larson, and Kevin Dillon MEMBERS ABSENT: Deborah Zorn and Mark Undestad STAFF PRESENT: Bob Generous, Senior Planner; Sharmeen Al-Jaff, Senior Planner; Alyson Fauske, Assistant City Engineer; and Paul Oehme, City Engineer PUBLIC HEARING: BOULDER COVE: REQUEST FOR REZONING OF PROPERTY FROM RESIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY (RSF) TO RESIDENTIAL LOW & MEDIUM (RLM), SUBDIVISION WITH VARIANCES AND A SITE PLAN FOR A ONE, TWO AND THREE UNIT TOWN HOME COMMUNITY, LOCATED ON PROPERTY NORTH OF HIGHWAY 7, EAST OF CHURCH ROAD AND ND SOUTH OF WEST 62 STREET, PLANNING CASE NO. 06-10, APPLICANT, ROGER DERRICK, COTTAGE HOMESTEADS AT BOULDER COVE, LLC, (120 DAY DEADLINE WAIVED.) Public Present: Name Address Julie Hirsch 6321 Church Road Dan Torgerson 6185 Strawberry Lane James Gagnon 26125 Oak Leaf Trail Lisa Wagner 26145 Oak Leaf Trail nd Wade Navratil 3751 West 62 Street Stacey Klein 26000 Shorewood Oaks Drive Kim McReavy 1350 Heather Court Bill McReavy 3790 Meadow Lane William Kahman 3780 Meadow Lane Merlyn Wanous 6231 Church Road nd Leah Schneider 26420 West 62 Street Jill Biatek 26285 Oak Leaf Trail Mike & Mary K. Barga 26305 Oak Leaf Trail Dory & Tom Croskey 26265 Oak Leaf Trail Marcus Hoffmann 6195 Strawberry Lane David Igel 501 Big Woods Boulevard Roger Derrick 11954 Germanic Terrace, Eden Prairie Cara Otto Otto Associates Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Dan Smock 2475 Crestview Parkway Henry Vloo Braun Intertec Carrie Miller 6311 Church Road Dave Hughes 6311 Church Road Jacqui Kouba 3520 Highway 7 nd Mark Plewka 26540 West 62 Street nd Robin Dodson 26540 West 62 Street Jeff Jibben 26300 Oak Leaf Trail Ken Durr 4830 Westgate Road, Minnetonka Fan Tielking 26225 Oak Leaf Trail Keith Korinke 6310 Church Road Becky Finley 6310 Church Road John M. Hugo 26110 Oak Leaf Trail Al-Jaff: Good evening Chairman McDonald, members of the Planning Commission. As Chairman McDonald mentioned earlier, the applicant is requesting a rezoning, a subdivision with variances, and a site plan approval for property located north of nd Highway 7, east of Church Road, south of West 62 Street. Access to the site is nd proposed off of a cul-de-sac off of West 62 Street. The first request before the Planning Commission is the fact that this property right now is zoned residential single family. The applicant is requesting to rezone it to residential low medium density district. The proposed density for this subdivision is gross density of 2.85 or a net density of 3.32 units per acre. The comprehensive plan allows 1.2 to 4 units per acre. The proposed rezoning is consistent with the comprehensive plan and meets the low density criteria. Another thing that I need to point out that the Planning Commission needs to decide if they are going to allow the rezoning, then the rest of the application would then be decided. However, if you choose not to approve the rezoning, then the remainder of the application is moot. With that said, the applicant is proposing to replat 13.69 acres into 39 lots and one outlot. 11 of the lots will house single family homes, and they are shown in yellow. 16 will house duplexes. Right here. And 12 will have three-plexes. The outlot will contain a storm pond and a gazebo. There are variances attached to this application dealing with the length of the cul-de-sac. The ordinance requires cul-de-sacs not to exceed 800 feet in length. This cul-de-sac is 1,200 feet. The second variance deals with the private street. These two homes will be sharing access and at any time when you have more than one home utilizing a street, it becomes a private street and it requires a variance from the subdivision ordinance. Both of those variances are dealing with safety issues, specifically access off of Highway 7. Alyson will be addressing the traffic and the drainage issues later on and she will get into these two variances and justifications for them further. All of the lots meet the minimum requirements of the residential low and medium density district as far as lot area, width and depth. There is a single family home that currently exists on the site, as well as several accessory buildings. Everything is proposed to be demolished with exception of the single family home. That will remain on the site. Staff is also recommending that this lot remains zoned residential single family. One of the things that the applicant submitted was the design of the three-plexes, specifically the exterior. It is proposed to have brick, stucco and vinyl lap siding. Although all of those materials are permitted under the city code, we believe that it is 2 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 dated and we worked with the applicant and requested that they change the material, exterior material to a Hardie board siding versus stucco and then also use stone. The applicant made both of those changes, so this is the exterior stone that will be used on the elevations. And the variety of the Hardie board that will be used on the exterior of the building. There are also shutters. That will be the color of the shutters, and then the frames around the windows will be the white. The applicant also submitted a sample of the shingles that will be used on the exterior of the building. One of the requests that we made, a condition of approval of this application was if the stone was used, or the Hardie board, that it doesn’t stop mid way on any of the elevations but rather continue it all the way to the top and the revised elevations that the applicant has submitted shows the stone continuing to the roof basically. And then the Hardie board. And it’s alternating so it’s giving each building some dimension. And it’s a much better design. At this point I would like to turn it over to Alyson. Have her address the drainage, which has been a concern of the neighbors in the surrounding area. As well as traffic. Fauske: Good evening Chair McDonald. Planning Commissioners. We’ve been working a lot with this developer to address some concerns that some of the residents in the area have come up with. One of them being surface drainage. What we have here, and there’s some extra copies available since it’s sometimes hard to see this up on the screen. But what I have here is an exhibit showing the existing and proposed drainage areas, and the reason we thought that it was important to do this with this project is that a few of the residents have addressed staff with concerns with the amount of runoff coming to their property so we wanted to have an exhibit showing what’s there right now and what is proposed with this development. The area in yellow here at the top on this exhibit here, and down here, show the area that drains to the north up into Shorewood. The area in the green here, and this area right here, shows the area draining to the west. The area in the pink here and the pink here shows the area draining to the south. And then in the post development condition only, this area in blue is the area that goes to the pond, the proposed pond on the south side. So what we wanted to do is just to show that the actual area draining over land to these properties will be decreased. On page 6 of your report you can find these exhibits in a narrative. Staff wanted to clarify, at the bottom of page 6, the last paragraph should read that, the table below summarizes the existing and proposed surface runoff conditions which indicate that the area draining off site, the volume of the runoff and the peak discharge rate to the north and west will be reduced. We have some changes that will be incorporated into that table to reflect some changes that we’ve requested the developer’s engineer to incorporate in this area, the ditch drainage along Highway 7 and also to have a better representation of the flow characteristics of the outflow of that pond, so we’ll be revising that table to show a more realistic post development condition, but the applicant is meeting the requirement that the post discharge, the post development discharge rates to the south do not exceed pre- development conditions, which is what’s required by ordinance so apologize for that but just wanted to make sure that the Planning Commission knew of what changes we would be putting into the report to provide a more clear report there. The exhibit shows here, the proposed, the majority of the proposed development will be surface draining or draining to storm water, to storm sewer that will go to the storm water pond on the southwest corner. The challenge with this project is the overflow elevation at the south 3 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 end here to the Highway 7 ditch. That elevation is fixed. We’re trying to get it as low as possible. MnDot, we looked at all the grades through this ditch here and set this overflow elevation as low as possible so that we could try to get the high water elevation of this pond as low as possible. So that was a fixed condition that we’ve had to work with. And what we looked at in conjunction with this overflow condition is, the characteristics associated with having a pond here, with these existing 3 homes to the west, we had the developer had a consultant take a look at the condition. Come up with a proposal. In turn staff had Barr Engineering and Ray Wuolo with Barr Engineering is here tonight and he’ll be addressing the ground water issues here with you just in a moment. So that we could have clarification from staff’s consultant that what they were proposing would be consistent, would provide a measure of protection for these existing homes due to this pond so if Ray could come up here, he’ll give you an overview of what we looked at with this pond and with respect to the 3 homes on the west side. Ray Wuolo: Thanks Alyson. Members of the commission. My name is Ray Wuolo and I’m with Barr Engineering and the City asked me to take a look what the drainage pond would do to ground water levels there. This is a somewhat atypical situation from what I normally look at in that the ground water, the normal ground water elevation here would be equal to the normal pond elevation, which is 969 feet, and during a 100 year storm event, temporarily the pond water would bounce up a little bit higher. About to 971. I did an analysis, a ground water modeling analysis to figure out what that would do to the ground water levels in the area, and my analysis found out that there would be a very small and temporary increase in ground water levels in the vicinity of the pond, but there would be some, and as I understand it, the City has a requirement that you have to have at least 3 feet of separation between the lowest floor elevation and ground water. In this situation here the adjacent homes are at an elevation right now that’s, their bottom floor elevation is equal to the normal ground water elevation. So any increase in pond elevation is going to not meet that variance requirement. Putting in a clay liner in the pond would have the effect of absolutely having no effect on ground water. In other words the water going in the pond would not be an interaction with the ground water, so there wouldn’t be any changes in water level but you would still have the situation there where the existing conditions are less than 3 foot separation between the existing lowest floor elevations. Keefe: So if that just for the homes to the west then or is that also the homes in the new development? Ray Wuolo: It’s the homes to the west. The existing homes, yeah. McDonald: Could you explain a little bit more to the impact of this 3 foot separation and what it actually means. Ray Wuolo: Yeah. Well what it normally, my understanding is the City has this 3 foot separation and most communities in the metro area have this requirement of having 3 foot of separation between the highest ground water level. Actually the highest water level of the pond adjacent to it and the bottom elevation. The reason that they have that is 4 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 because many surface water features are connected to ground water. If you have a storm event and you have an increase in the pond elevation, that can cause a rise in the water level in the ground, and that can rise up into people’s basements. It can cause wet basement problems. It can cause sometimes failure, so the 3 feet of separation is a protective measure. In this case that 3 feet doesn’t exist to begin with. McDonald: Okay, and is that because what you’re suggesting is this clay liner will, within the pond so that any increase there doesn’t impact the ground water? Ray Wuolo: Exactly. Fauske: Mr. Chair if I could interject for a moment. With regards to when staff looked at this application initially, when we first consulted with Mr. Wuolo and we were looking at the 3 foot separation requirement, but we first started looking at the analysis, we spoke to the city attorney regarding the 3 foot separation requirement and what the city attorney advised us is that the 3 foot separation as we currently have it in our ordinance is for new structures only. And so what we were looking at with this development is an existing condition where the low floors are set at an elevation, as Mr. Wuolo stated, an elevation below that high water level by our ordinance. It came about after we started looking at this analysis, like I said from the city attorney that this requirement does not apply to the existing homes. But as we’ll explain in a moment here, what the developer is trying to do to remedy the situation that exists currently. Keefe: Is there a lateral, or a distance apart that has an impact associated with that condition? So I mean how far away is the pond from those homes? Ray Wuolo: The pond is sufficiently far that the pond won’t have an affect on increasing the water levels. But nevertheless, the existing water levels are already at the floor elevation. Keefe: Right, okay. McDonald: Are you finished with your part of it then? Fauske: If you have no other questions about ground water, we just brought Mr. Wuolo here because he is a ground water expert. We did have him do the analysis for that section. McDonald: I’ll bring it back to the commissioners. Do you want to ask questions of the city’s expert now or do we want to save our questions and ask everything at the end of the presentation? Papke: I don’t know if this is a question for Alyson or Mr. Wuolo but if, when the pond does get into an overflow condition, where does the water go to? I guess it goes to the ditch along Highway 7. Where does that drain to, and in the staff report there is a 5 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 mention of a French drain. Could you explain what that is? How it works and if that has any impact on the discussion? Fauske: Certainly I could. The overflow is approximately at this location in the southwest corner. The overflow of the pond goes into the Highway 7 ditch, and there’s some, there’s two culverts that go under the Highway 7 to the Ken Durr development to the south, Minnewashta Landings. Those are the post development discharge rates that we had to be left them, the existing discharge rate. With respect to the French drain, as I mentioned earlier, what I touched on was, what staff looked at doing and what the developer was, is proposing here is to put a French drain system along the west side of this pond. Essentially a French drain is simply a rock bed. They’re going to set that elevation. The bottom of the rock will be 3 feet below the low floor elevation for these homes and will have a perforated pipe in there and that French drain will extend along the west property line, along the south of this property within an easement, and then will… will discharge to the existing Highway 7 ditch. And so that was a measure that the developer is proposing to help remediate the problems that exist out there with the existing ground water elevation being so high. McDonald: Okay. Is this kind of a back up to you know if the water level gets to a certain point that it would start to effect the houses to the west, it will go through here and would mitigate any flow to the west? Fauske: It’s a back up measure in that respect but more importantly it’s lowering the existing ground water elevation in that area. Papke: Almost like a drain tile system in effect. Fauske: Correct. Papke: Just to carry it to completion here. When the water flows through the culverts underneath Highway 7, I assume it eventually ends up in Lake Minnewashta? Fauske: Yes it does. Papke: Pretty directly or how does it get there? Fauske: There’s a series of storm water ponds in Minnewashta Landings that we actually have a consultant taking a look at that system to make sure that there were some issues that came up during last year’s storms, as it did throughout the whole city, so we’re doing our due diligence to see that those ponds were designed properly for the runoff, for the runoff characteristics going to it. But as it pertains to this development here, this development is treating the runoff generated from their site, on site and so it’s merely a question of the peak discharge rate requirement being met, which it does. McDonald: I’ve got a question for you about the capacity of the pond and what all this means, and I’m not sure if that’s for you or the consultant, but it was stated that the 6 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 normal level would be 969 and it could go up as much as 971. What kind of volume are we talking about to get up to that? What kind of a storm event would have to happen to raise the pond 3 inches? Fauske: That’s the 100 year event. That’s the requirement for what we call the live storage, which is the difference from your normal water and your high water is your live storage for the 100 year event. McDonald: Okay. And during the past couple years we’ve had a number of storms in that area, because drainage is a big concern. How do those storm compare with the 100 year event? How would this pond system work in that particular case? Fauske: A 100 year event is described as 6 inches of precipitation over a 24 hour period. To give you an idea of how that falls with last year’s storms. The September storm was 4 inches in, I believe it was 2 hours or perhaps 3 or 4. So that certainly exceeded the design criteria for 100 year event. And the October storm wasn’t as intense, but was around the same intensity as the September storm, so those certainly exceeded the design standards for 100 year event. McDonald: Okay. And one of the things too, has the City looked, because we had a number of people come in after that, there were some other developments and one of the big complaints that I heard then was the system going from the north side of Highway 7 into Lake Minnewashta under those culverts. That there had been some problems there. What are we looking at to alleviate that so that that doesn’t back up and cause additional problems to this development. Fauske: The culverts at this location or further to the west? McDonald: Okay. Fauske: There’s certainly several culverts that go under Highway 7. I can’t tell you the number. I only know that there’s the 2 at this location. What we had the developer do is include some, as I mentioned, one of the reasons we need to update the table on page 7 is to include drain, pardon me, the area of the drainage ditch on the north side of Highway 7 so that our consultant will have better data to model those ponds downstream. We also have, because it’s a MnDot road, the applicant is required to get permission from MnDot. They have to submit their drainage calculations to MnDot, and we just heard today that MnDot has reviewed their proposal and is okay with their design so there’s certainly a lot of checks and balances, not only with the City but with MnDot to ensure that the discharge rates going through those pipes is not excessive. McDonald: Okay. Papke: One last question before we’re done with the pond. If we put a clay liner in here, obviously that’s to prevent too much ground water from leaking out. One would think that that would make it more impermeable and you’re going to have less inflow into the 7 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 ground period, and so if we had another situation like last year where you had storms in reasonable succession, would it be safe to assume that we’re raising the risk a little bit of it overflowing from multiple events just because we’re not going to get seepage into the ground. As much seepage into the ground as we would without the clay liner. Fauske: And if I could, I don’t know. I think when we were asking Ray about that is, do we, is there a system that warrants a clay liner and please correct me if I’m wrong. My understanding is that, the nature of the soils at this location based on the soil boring information is that a clay liner would not be any more beneficial. Ray Wuolo: That’s right. A clay liner is really a deminamus impact. It’s sort of the belt and suspenders approach. The soils are relatively impermeable and the applicant’s engineer did their calculations on sizing the pond, assuming there was no seepage at all. Papke: I was a little confused because it sounded like we were going to be putting in a clay liner. McDonald: That was what, that was my understanding too. Fauske: Any other questions on drainage that I could answer at this time? McDonald: Well I think, I guess this is about drainage. What we’re talking about here is you’re going to build up the soil in this area so that you redirect the drainage from what it currently is, and I read it in the report, and this is where I guess I thought we were talking about putting clay down, or something but we’re going to be raising the elevation in certain areas to redistribute the water. Is that, is that correct? Fauske: Yes and no. They are bringing fill into the site. The reason they’re bringing fill into the site is to provide building pads and to get drainage to work on the site. It’s a very challenging site because you’re fully encompassed to the north, south, east and west. But what they’re doing with bringing in fill, the reason the drainage areas are being minimized, as you see here, is because of the installation of storm sewer. So instead of, in this condition for example when we look at the yellow area going to the north, it’s high along this ridge here, if you follow my pen, and it drains overland here. Whereas in the proposed condition it mimics the same characteristics here. But the reason it’s such a tiny sliver here is because storm sewer is being installed along the property line to capture that surface water runoff. So it’s no longer going towards, north towards Shorewood. It’s being captured by the storm sewer, which goes to the west, to the south and empties into the storm pond. Likewise, with this green area here, which currently drains to the west, as you can see here the developer is pretty much all but eliminate the surface runoff going there because they will be putting a storm sewer and not perforated drainage tile along the west side here to capture that runoff so that it won’t exit to the west off the site. 8 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 McDonald: It sounds like what we’re depending upon, so we’re going to catch the water that would normally flow to the north, to the west and to the south and we’re just going to redirect it by using a storm sewer system. Fauske: A storm sewer for the most part and also from grades, particularly along this southern portion of the property. McDonald: Right, so it isn’t so much a topography type of a redistribution. We’re just going to put systems in place to capture the water. Fauske: Correct. Keefe: Okay just for clarity, these ponds are designed for 100 year storm events, is that right? Fauske: Storm sewer is designed to a 10 year standard. And the reason being is to design to a 100 year standard gets to be excessive pipe sizes. You get a very large diameter pipe. It has to go deeper. The costs just for the city, from the city’s aspect, it goes through the roof as far as maintenance concerns. So the standard engineering practice is a 10 year design for storm sewer. A 100 year design for storm ponds. When we look at the emergency overflows to the road here come back into the pond so we do have that extra measure, which is what we call the emergency overflow, so if this storm sewer is inundated in a larger event, or if a catch basin cover gets plugged, we can look at what the overflow route is for that storm water runoff and make sure it’s getting to an appropriate area. Keefe: So let me ask you the question, if we do have a big event, will there be more water draining, that exceeds the 10 year sizing. Will we have more water flowing to the north or will we have less? Fauske: There could be some water going to the north, under. Keefe: But would it be worst than the current condition? Fauske: No. Keefe: No. Okay. McDonald: Any other questions on this subject? Thank you Alyson. Fauske: I’ll go through the streets at this time too. First of all we wanted to look at the access to Highway 7, which has been a topic of discussion quite a bit with this project. When staff first started looking at this, we realized with MnDot controlling access to Highway 7, that we would have, that MnDot looks at this development and their comment is, wherever possible new development should access from a local road system. nd So when they took a look at this proposal, they said West 62 Street, Strawberry Lane 9 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 are existing road conditions that could, this development could connect to. What we looked at is historically what other developments along the Highway 7 corridor have gone in and what have we done for accessing these situations. Moving east to west we have Boyer Lake Minnewashta, which is this development in this hatched area here. They attain access from existing local street systems. Boulder Cove is here. Hidden Creek Meadows actually got access from this Hidden Creek development. The Hidden Creek development was a unique one where they were connecting to existing Pipewood Curve, and the existing Pipewood Curve access at this location was an unsafe intersection and so what they did is they closed off this intersection to Highway 7 and built a new one here at a new location where sight distances and sight lines were better. So when we look at the development along the Highway 7 corridor we haven’t had a new access onto Highway 7. The other benefit of looking at the proposed street accesses that we get 4 existing accesses off Highway 7. These are a single family if you will access to a single property versus a street. You know there have been discussions of, you know there’s 4 accesses off Highway 7 within this development with this property to the east. Why can’t we use one of those? Well it’s not the same type of access. The 4 existing accesses are for a single resident only. Actually 2 are for 1 property and then 1 each for the remaining 2 versus looking at a brand new development with you know 38 units accessing at that location. So we looked at that. We also looked at the city codes access spacing requirement. So having a full access here on Highway 7 would not have met the city access spacing requirement along Highway 7. And then the other point we wanted to make was, MnDot is interested in putting a signal, once it meets warrants as far as traffic counts, our concern at this location of Church Road and Minnewashta Parkway, they did a count in December, 2005. Currently it does not meet counts for a signalized intersection. But we certainly want traffic to be diverted to this Church Road intersection so that people will have a safe way to enter onto Highway 7. So those are all issues that we looked at when gaining access to Boulder Cove, and why we didn’t pursue a connection to Highway 7. When we looked at the proposal of the local street, the intersection of the street is at, when we were looking at the location of the local street nd intersection to West 62 Street and to Strawberry Lane, we looked at some alternatives and the issue through there is that it’s an existing curved road. As you can see up in through here. It’s an existing curved road. And we wanted to make sure that it was at the location that would make sense as far as sight distances so people entering and exiting this development would have adequate sight distance. So for example a vehicle taking a left out of this development would be able to see southbound Strawberry Lane traffic. So that was something that we were very cognizant of when we started looking at where this should access. There’s been discussions that Sharmeen brought up previously about the cul-de-sac length. The city ordinance limits the cul-de-sac length to 800 feet. This proposal is 1,200 feet. The staff is supportive of this variance because, as we already mentioned and as we’ve already discussed, to have a through street onto Highway 7 doesn’t meet access requirements. It doesn’t meet MnDot’s requirements for granting an access. So there were limitations as far as extending that street. Another issue that staff looks at when we came up with that 800 foot cul-de-sac length, maximum cul-de-sac length is the concern with treating a long dead end of watermain. When you have a long dead end of watermain, the users at the end tend to get water that’s sitting in the pipe. It’s not moving around. It’s not being circulated. However in this proposal there will be a 10 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 watermain connection that would be jacked under Highway 7 here and so it would be looping the watermain through the site so that eliminates that one concern that comes with limiting the cul-de-sac length. And then lastly, when we first started looking at this proposal we had residents of Shorewood coming in and giving us calls about the traffic on Strawberry Lane. The developer has hired TDI Engineering to take a look at the trip generations. Staff also did an analysis in your packets there to take a look at what the proposed traffic volumes would be from this site, which shows that if this was a single family development, it would have very similar traffic volumes, both for total traffic and for peak a.m. and p.m.. There’s a very slight variation but all in all it’s pretty similar. Mr. Derrick has indicated that this type of product tends to be more towards the senior housing which would be lower traffic volumes, but staff felt that we should just present it to you as the proposal so we came up with those numbers using the trip generation manual. In addition to looking at traffic volumes, the developer’s engineering, traffic engineer took a look at where the traffic from this project would go. And their analysis, this is the proposed development here. This is Highway 7. What they looked at, there was, this purple here shows this, if there was a shortcut route. It’s not really a shortcut nd route through the Shorewood neighborhood. In red here it shows going West 62 to Church Road. The developer’s traffic engineer took a look and estimates that 85% of the nd traffic from this development will go West 62 to Church Road and only 15% would use Strawberry Lane for destinations north. So we wanted to have that information available for you this evening so that you can get an idea of what volume of traffic would be generated from this site, and where that traffic would be going. Keefe: How do they determine that? Do you know? Fauske: What’s that? Keefe: How do you they determine that split? Fauske: They take a look at what amenities lie within a certain area. They certainly would have factored into the count that there’s a school up here. They look at, is there any commercial development that would draw traffic from this location? And they look at designs of streets and the speeds that people can take. They’re going to take the faster route that they can so, those are all factors. One last comment before I’m done up here is, this resident at this location here has expressed concern regarding the location of this street connection with his driveway. Chanhassen requires for a corner lot a 30 foot separation. And when we talked to the city attorney about this he said, his response was that in the City of Chanhassen ordinances cannot be applied to the City of Shorewood, and likewise the City of Shorewood ordinances cannot be applied within the City of Chanhassen. So we came up with a situation where you know what do we look at doing and when we take a look at this situation, the edge of the street to the edge of this driveway is approximately 40 feet. So it meets the spirit of the Chanhassen ordinance, which is 30 feet of separation and meets somewhat…to the Shorewood ordinance which is 40 feet of separation. So we were at that gray area where we have overlapping cities and we can’t apply our code to each other’s city so when we took a step back and said, what are these city codes trying to achieve? Well they’re trying to achieve a separation 11 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 from a road to a driveway, which is what this is in spirit achieving so. Those are the issues that we came up with during the traffic analysis and if you have any questions about that I would be happy to answer. McDonald: Want to start? nd Keefe: I’ve got a question. Who’s, West 62, is that a Chanhassen road or is it a Shorewood road or is that, and the question on that is just, you know I’m kind of buying the analysis which was included in the report in terms of the mix of housing. The question I have is just in terms of the size of that road and the quality of that road and if nd you’re going to generate 85% of your traffic going westbound on 62 and then taking nd that sharp turn down Church, are the roads, 62 you know an adequate road? Fauske: They’re not built to the current standards. Keefe: Yeah. Fauske: We can’t require, we’re in a situation where we have a street reconstruction program in place. Ultimately we’d like to get every street up to standards. It will be a long process. This one isn’t even scheduled in here. To answer your question, the road lies partially in Chanhassen and partially in Shorewood, so typically in these situations the normal, a county road, we’re in a situation where it’s a local street and I believe nd Chanhassen, I mean no. Shorewood. Shorewood plows West 62 Street. They have in this area of the city they have a, our streets department works with Shorewood to figure out who will be maintaining roads and so. Ultimately we look at these situations. Certainly you know when traffic volumes get to be higher and when we look at the conditions of roads for reconstruction or for widening, we certainly try to program those improvements and where it was possible. McDonald: Okay. Debbie, no questions? Kevin? Dillon: Not at this time. McDonald: Kurt. Papke: Questions or… McDonald: I’d say everything at this point. Papke: Okay. Let’s see, I think the only traffic issues, as long as you’re still standing up Alyson is, the report from MnDot was kind of a good news, bad news story. The good news is they like getting rid of those local driveways going out onto Highway 7. That’s the good news. The only piece of bad news I saw was they did raise an issue with the noise directly adjacent to Highway 7. There was a concern that it would exceed standards. Could you or Sharmeen go over the berming plan? Are we going to do anything to mitigate that noise or what’s the strategy there? 12 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Fauske: I can partially answer your question with respect to grades. The grading plan does show some berming along the south side here and I believe the landscape plan shows some trees planting along through there to screen them from the noise. Papke: What’s the height of the berm? Fauske: The height of the berm, if we move along from here, it swales down. Well this one isn’t much. This one will be at grade. Average 3 feet, yeah. Yeah, 1 here. A foot or so here. Al-Jaff: There is also. Audience: 3 feet above 7 or 3 feet above the existing houses? Fauske: Well if we looked, that’s a very good question. The question was, is it 3 feet above 7 or is it 3 feet above the houses. When we look at this location, the street elevation is at a 74 and the top of the berm is at a 78 so we have a 4 foot differential from the street to the berm. At this location you’re at 2 feet difference. And at this location you’re probably about 3 feet. The berm is 3 feet higher than the road. Papke: It looks like we might have some noise issues there. My last question isn’t so much a traffic issue or anything. It has to do with the rezoning, and clearly going through the RLM meets the density standards, and no issues there. I guess my concern is, it does create a relaxation of the hard surface coverage which is why I was querying Sharmeen today, and Sharmeen you did a great job on providing a table of all the hard surface and so on, and I guess given our surface water management plan that’s in the approval process and the desire to protect Lake Minnewashta, you know it would say that we should be conservative. On the other hand we’ve heard, it sounds like we’re going to, the water’s going to be pretty well treated to death by the time it hits the lake. I mean it’s going to go through a series of cascading ponds here. But I guess, I still have this little nagging thing in the back of my brain about are we doing something here we shouldn’t be with you know relaxing the hard surface coverage? And I know the City’s comprehensive plan, and maybe you can explain to me. It doesn’t seem like it directly mandates anything in this area. I mean it says low density, okay, and RLM is low density, but there’s a radical change in the hard surface coverage, and that’s one of the things that we’ve been kind of sticklers on here. I mean we’ve had other developments around Lake Minnewashta where we’ve ruled with kind of an iron fist about thou shalt not go beyond 25% and here, all of a sudden we’re hitting 35, 36 percent hard surface coverage on some of these lots. And it, can you guys address that at all? I mean am I worried about nothing at all or is, you know any guidance on that? Al-Jaff: It is a valid point and we do look at that issue in depth, and when Bob and I were working on creating that zoning district, that’s one of the things that we looked at in depth actually. Often what you see is units located within smaller lots and then, especially within a case such as this when you have a mix of single, duplexes and three- 13 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 plexes and then the surrounding area is open space. Often outlots maintained by homeowners associations. The overall hard surface coverage is still within limits. I don’t have the exact number as to what the hard surface coverage is. Papke: Does it average out to less than 25? Al-Jaff: It’s around the, it’s at 25%. It’s in that range. And always keep in mind that we design ponds to accommodate that specific hard surface coverage. Papke: Right. Right, okay. That’s all I have. McDonald: Kind of following up, if I can just add to what you’ve asked there. Is it possible for us to get something so that we have a feel for the exact numbers? You’re saying a little bit and it’s close to but you know, is the 25% overall, is it, I’m just trying to get a feel for the numbers because this is an important issue. Al-Jaff: Absolutely. What I did was, I gave you a breakdown for the individual lots. What the hard surface coverage was going to be on individual lots. And if you look at them, the majority of those lots are below the 25%. I mean some of them are as low as 10% hard surface coverage. McDonald: As I understand it, going to this subdivision approach we now look at the total area, and that’s one of the advantages to a developer is that we’re no longer looking at individual lots but we do tend to look at the total area and so then, that’s where the numbers could begin to look better? Generous: Mr. Chairman, that’s only through the PUD process that we’re allowed to average it. However, under this zoning district that was part of the intent. We were looking to have common open space to make up that difference and by going to smaller lots we would probably maintain the average. But each lot has to meet the site coverage for that. For single family it’s 35. For twins it’s 40 and for the triplex it’s 50% coverage on the individual lot. Al-Jaff: May I also that, you will notice that on three-plexes the percentages go higher. The middle one is the middle lot on a three-plex is where you have the highest percentage of hard surface coverage. You look at the side lot, and the hard surface coverage drops drastically. McDonald: Okay yeah, I’m not going to belabor the point. I think you got your point across. I just wanted some clarification on that. Keefe: I just have a couple questions. One, can you, there is a berm on the north side of this property. At least part of it. A small berm it looked like right, kind of where the nd road comes in to Strawberry Lane and West 62. Is that going to be, remain there or is that going to continue further along? On the north side of that. 14 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Fauske: I believe the area you’re referring to is this location, right before the curve in Strawberry Lane? Keefe: Yeah, doesn’t it continue a little bit on the west? To the east there as well. Fauske: There is somewhat, yes. Keefe: Yeah, okay. But there’s nothing along the, from the, go east of where you are. On the other side of the road. There’s nothing along there? Along that house. Fauske: The grades do go up at this location. In through here. What the developer has for example at this location here. This is a high point, so it drains from this point north. And then from this point to the south. What they’ve tried to do is, they have to match into the grades on site. They don’t show any off site grading that I saw on the plan, so that’s the challenge is meeting those grades. Keefe: Okay. It looks like the plan is to mass grade this piece of property and you know, I was out there walking. I mean there are a number of trees on there that seem to be fairly significant trees that are getting taken out and I don’t know, were there consideration of that? I mean there’s some, like 48 inch oak trees which are coming down and, can you speak to that at all in terms of what was considered there? What the sort of overall strategy was. I mean I went through the tree inventory plan and I’m going well why is this one coming out? Why is this one coming out? I mean I think my overall, my overall take on that would be, I’d like to have some reconsideration of some of the trees that are slated to be taken out. And I know they all said fair but I mean, and I’m not a tree expert. I’m looking at it and going, maybe it is fair but it looks like a pretty good tree to me. Al-Jaff: Jill Sinclair, who is the City Forester, went out to the site. Walked it and examined these trees, and believe me if there is a tree that needs to be saved, she’ll bring it to my attention and make sure that we do everything that we can to save it. She did comment that quite a few of the trees are not healthy. Keefe: Well there’s some lousy trees out there, and I mean it’s pretty clear you know but on the other hand, there seemed to be a number that at least I observed, just looking at them that are like so. This isn’t in the pond. This isn’t in a house. This isn’t in a driveway. This is sitting back here…decent tree. You know I guess my point is just to sort of re-look at it. Al-Jaff: Absolutely. Keefe: Yeah. Al-Jaff: There is one tree here that is an oak that will definitely be saved. And there are a few along the property line that will definitely be saved as well. 15 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Keefe: Okay. And then the last question I have is, is there any plan for a path going nd west? They’re all on 62. I mean one of the nice things about taking the driveways off, and not having access to 7 is, you know from a safety perspective I think you know, it’s a nice thing. But then you redirect some of that traffic onto the local streets, which may degrade some of the safety on those local streets and you know, we do have kids here and I know there are kids in the other neighborhood, for them getting to the Cathcart Park. nd You know 62 you’ve got more traffic on it. Al-Jaff: I had this conversation with the, Todd Hoffman, the Park and Recreation Director and there are no plans at this time to put any trails. One of the reasons why we did not require. Keefe: Dedication. Al-Jaff: Dedication of trails, or land on this subdivision. We didn’t require the sidewalks either. Keefe: Yeah. Al-Jaff: Because they would be going nowhere. McDonald: I guess I’ve got a couple questions for Alyson. When we go back to look at the access. Who controls access to Highway 7? How much input does the City actually have in those types of decisions? Fauske: It’s MnDot controls the access along Highway 7. McDonald: Okay. And then when we look at the cul-de-sacs, I seem to recall that we have violated the 800 foot for a couple of other cul-de-sacs for good reason. Am I correct in that? Fauske: The 800 foot maximum length requirement came about after, I think the Settlers West subdivision on the border of Eden Prairie. There have been several developments where the cul-de-sac lengths have exceeded 800 feet, but those pre-date the ordinance of 800 feet. That was just passed last December I believe. McDonald: Okay, and again you’re saying the main reason for the 800 feet was because normally water comes in at the top of a cul-de-sac and what you’re looking at is quality of water for the bottom? Fauske: We look at a variety of things. One is water. Water quality. Certainly we look to connect streets wherever possible. Staff, when we look at this to connect the street back over to Church, there’s no right-of-way to do that. There’s existing single family homes. We’re not, the north and to the east are the same challenges, and access to 7 is controlled via MnDot so there wasn’t really an opportunity to connect the road through. 16 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 McDonald: Okay. No one has any further questions of staff or the consultant, I’ll ask the applicant to come forward. Roger Derrick: Good evening. My name is Roger Derrick. My company is Cottage Homesteads. A lot of the questions were kind of answered because I can tell that some of the questions really the answers need to be elaborated on a little bit. Before I get into that though I just wanted to say that, for the past 15 years we’ve been developing one level townhome communities around the state, and mostly senior citizen. Some open to anybody. We have done some two level. We’ve done other developments too, but we’ve done quite a few of the one level in the Twin Cities and then Rochester and Austin and Mankato and Duluth and other communities. The reason I bring that up is because today, not only Chanhassen but other communities are kind of tired of townhouses because there’s probably too many after the last 10 years of being built, and I think you drive down Highway 5 and you know you’re going to see them all over the place. And what we’re trying to do is something different. Suggesting to go one level. Not two level, and this doesn’t just mean it’s a rambler. It means that the people that live there are going to be older. And this is not a senior only development, but because if you’re going to buy a townhome, and if you’re going to buy a one level townhome, you’re going to pay substantially more per square foot for a one level than you would a two level. So if you’re younger, and you know you wanted nice space, you’re probably going to buy a two level. And on the other hand, if you’ve got problems with the stairs or your knees, like my wife does, we moved into a townhouse 3 years ago and I’ve been doing this for a long time. It finally was our turn to do it. We do get a few younger people but 80% of the people that move in to this development are going to be empty nesters or older. They’re going to want to get rid of the house. You know the kids are gone. Probably want to get rid of the stairs. They want something maintenance free and new and they want to be able to go away and turn the lock and all the maintenance is done for them. What that point though really means is that not only are the people that live here going to be from the community, because 90% of the buyers tend to come from just a few miles around. People like to kind of live where, well I did that. I live in Eden Prairie and I moved 2 miles away when we went into a townhouse that I didn’t build but, because I wanted to be close to where we lived. So that’s what you’re going to find, and also there’s a traffic. There’s a big concern about the traffic. I have a table here that was done by our traffic engineer, and I can pass that out but he shows, according to his charts, and when they look at a townhouse, they look at a two story townhouse because that’s what the charts show. If you look at a one level, he’s got to look at a senior only, because that’s the only way the charts are. We’re going to have more traffic than a senior only, but we’re going to have less traffic than just a two story. Just because of what I just said. But even with the two story, we are going to have less traffic. If we had a two story with the number of units that we would have, then if we had 24 single family lots. Plus the two that we’re going to service that don’t belong to us at the end of the cul-de-sac. Which are in the report, so even if it was a two story, we would have a little bit less traffic than if we had single family, but the fact that it’s one level is going to be substantially less traffic. Just wanted to bring that out. One of the questions that was just asked about the berm on the north side that’s east of the road. There is a berm there. It’s wooded. That’s going to stay. That isn’t going to be touched. That whole berm is going 17 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 to stay. It’s fairly new growth. It’s probably 10-15 years old and it does the trick. I’ve taken some pictures, if anybody wants to see them later on. I’ll be around but from Strawberry looking onto our property, looking both ways down the road, and of course this time of year it’s just a wall of green everywhere, and of course in the winter time you can see through everything, but there is a lot of vegetation on the neighbor’s property. On top of our berm, and on our landscaping plan we’re going to add some more landscaping. Not right there because it doesn’t need it, but farther to the east where there isn’t a berm. We’ve got pine trees growing on it and so on. Question was also raised about Highway 7 and how do you block the noise. That’s probably our number one concern, as you can imagine, because we need to find buyers and if you stand out on Highway 7 now, which we did with a few of the neighbors the other night, you’ve got to get real close to the other person to be able to hear them. So one of the reasons we called this Boulder Cove is because we’ve got boulders on the site. This was owned by a landscaping company, and some of those boulders we’re going to use to intermix with the berm. When we did the berm we had to show the berm as a landscaped earthen berm because that’s what you would normally show on a grading plan, and of course on a grading plan you have to have certain slopes and you don’t have a lot of room and you can’t do anything on MnDot’s property so you get a 3 to 4 foot berm. But when we really landscape it and get some boulders in there and get some vegetation, it’s going to be higher than that. So the trick is to get people that are standing in their house, not to be able to see the cars on Highway 7. So that’s really our number one goal. Also with the pond, I think it got kind of confusing when we talked about you know, is it going to have a clay liner. It’s not going to have a clay liner. I think the point was that, that the engineers were talking about, is having a clay liner isn’t really going to improve the situation, although we are going to have a clay liner because the whole property is clay. And when we first designed it, we were going to have what’s called fat clay, which is a real dense clay and that’s what you use on a pond if you want to make it waterproof. So that’s what we designed. Well that, sometimes it’s real expensive because you’ve got to go find it. Well with us it’s you know just right there, so it’s easy. But whether you have the fat clay or not, once you build that pond it’s clay anyhow and I think that’s one of the points that was being made, but yes. It’s going to be waterproof. We intend to have a fountain that’s, and then some boulders around the pond. It’s going to be real pretty. I know you’re not here to judge how pretty it’s going to be. You want to make sure that the water is not going to be intrusive to any of the neighbors. And I’d like to address that a little bit. When we started looking at that, and of course the staff and Alyson and her team, that was their number one concern because this is a site, this whole area is really saturated. It’s not so much that the ground water is high. It’s just that there’s water everywhere and when it rains there’s really nowhere for the water to go, because it gets saturated right away and it all runs off. That’s one of the problems that you know it’s had. It’s run to the north and it’s run out to Highway 7 and it’s run to the west. Just the surface water. Then when you get the water underneath, you’ve got clay but you have lens of sand and when the pressure gets on that water and escorts the sand into different areas, and of course the 3 houses, as you’ve already learned are a little bit lower than they probably should be anyway but they were built a long time ago. So 2 of those 3 houses have their sump pumps going 24/7. In fact a couple sump pumps I think in some cases. So naturally they’re concerned about anything we do, you know are you going to make it 18 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 worst because we can’t stand anything worst. How we going to take care of it? So in, you know we had our engineering company, Otto and Associates, and then we hired our experts and Henry’s here from Braun Engineering. And then the City hired their experts from Barr Engineering. We’ve already heard about so we’ve had meetings full of engineers and believe it or not we finally got everybody to agree, which was a feat in itself. And the things I think that they agreed on is, when we’re done the situation is going to be better than it is now. First of all we’re going to capture all the surface water, so it’s not going to go to the north or to the west like it is. But more importantly, putting the drain tile system in along the west, and that’s going to be down at a depth that’s deep enough so that it will have the effect of sucking some of that ground water into that system from those 3 lots to the west. Now nobody can say how much water it’s going to suck in, but the fact that it’s 3 feet lower than their low elevation, it’s bound to do quite a bit and maybe Henry can talk to that when I’m finished. So that’s going to make it, we think substantially better. Nothing that we’re going to do is going to add to the problem. The question was raised before about are we going to raise everything and truck in a lot of fill? The only fill that we’re going to truck in is granular, that’s either required by the city because we need to have 3 feet of granular under the road. That’s true with all roads, not just here because that’s a city construction policy. And also we want to put granular underneath our footings and underneath our slab. We’re probably talking maybe 6 inches to 12 inches, depending upon what we find when we excavate to make sure everything stays dry. All the buildings will have drain tile and we have a storm system so that, keep everybody dry. That pond that we are going to be building is as low as we can make it, and that is governed by the ditch. It has to be, it’s only about a foot higher than the ditch so it’s got to be higher than the ditch so the water goes into the pond. But all of our basements, where we do have basements. Some are basements and some aren’t, are going to be 3 feet higher than that pond so we do meet all the new requirements, but the 3 houses, that’s not true because they’re lower. So that’s why we’re putting in the drain tile system. So without the drain tile system we’re going to help those 3 because we’re going to take care of the surface water, but not the water underground. That’s what the drain tile system in that, we call it a French drain, which is really a big ditch that’s along the area and has got a drain tile at the bottom and then it’s filled with granular and then the top foot, you have black dirt and sod and grass. You can’t see it, and you don’t’ want surface water going in there. This is all for the underground water. So that captures that. So you know plenty of experts have looked at this and when we’re done the situation isn’t going to be perfect but it’s going to be a lot better than it is now. McDonald: Anyone have any questions of the applicant? Keefe: Yeah, re-looking at the tree inventory, just when I was walking out there I just, you know with the plan and was kind of looking at it and going you know why this one. Why that one. Roger Derrick: Well and you know we can, and I haven’t done that. I’ve been out there and I saw some of the things that they did but of course I’m looking at it from a different vantage point than you are, but let me just tell you some of the things that we did change. When the tree person from the city you know went out, she marked it and she talked 19 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 about some trees that she definitely wanted to save, and one that was brought up before. It’s near where the gazebo’s going to be. We had to redesign our buildings. Spread them apart. You can see there’s a lot of land there. All of that is just to save one tree, but it’s a big, beautiful tree. Then over on the opposite end of the property where we intersect with existing single family, there’s a grove of trees there that we’re going to save, and we had to move the lot line and she will put a little retaining wall in there, you know to do that because we had those out in the initial deal when we’re saving all of those. And of course we’re going to save the pine trees that are, the northern third of our property. Maybe the northern half of our property on the west, there’s some big pine trees there and we’re going to save as many of those as we can. They kind of come into our property so we can’t save them all but we’re going to save as many as we can, and a lot of those are on the neighbor’s property too so that grove is pretty much going to stay. There’s also some trees where the pond is going to go, on the west side of that. The ones on the neighbors yard are going to stay. The ones that are right on our property line, that’s where the plan shows a pipe. We’re going to move that pipe over as far as we can to the east into our property to save as many as we can. And before we do anything out there other than put the silt fence up, the first thing that’s going to be done before we grade anything is get the tree people out there and put the orange fence that you see around the trees that we’re going to save because I’ve learned over the past 30 some years that if you don’t do that, you can have all the best intentions in the world but the guy on the cat backs up and he hits the tree. So we’re going to mark, they’re going to be marked anyway but that doesn’t really help the excavators but we’re going to put the silt fence around it and take the trees down first and not just do it with big equipment. So we’re going to get them down. Get them out of there and, second thing we’re going to do is dig the pond and then put in the drain tile system and get all of the water apparatus in before we do the final grading. Of course then we have to do the grading. The storm sewer system of course goes in after the grading, but the pond and the French drain and all of that goes in first. McDonald: I’ve just got a couple questions for you concerning the houses and everything. You pretty much I think answered my biggest question was, you know why not single family residential houses, which is what it’s currently zoned for, but what are your price points for this development, just on average? Roger Derrick: It’s going to be 350 to 500. We’re going to have, I think it’s about a third of the lots are not going to have basements, and a big reason they’re not going to have basements is because they’re too low to have basements. Where we do have basements, and by the way, in our developments that we build, even where we can have basements, we usually don’t put all basements in anyway because not everybody wants all that space frankly, and some people do and some people don’t. So this is kind of a good situation for us, if it was all basements. I don’t know if we’d put them all in anyway but where there are basements, our basements are all 9 foot finished so we have a 10 foot basement. So when you go downstairs, I mean it’s, it isn’t like being in a basement. It’s a 9 foot finished. They’re lookouts. We’re going to have windows. Light. Finish the basements where people want that. We’ll probably price the basements finished, which again means nothing to you probably but it’s easier than saying to the 20 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 people well, it’s unfinished but it’s so much for this and so much, people hate that you know. They want it, they don’t want to pick out a hundred different things. If somebody doesn’t want it finished, we’ll back out the price but most people are going to want it finished. If they don’t want it finished, they probably don’t want a basement. We would also intend to have some triple garages, right where we can fit them in. Everybody will have a double garage, minimum. And some triple garages. Not because they’ve got a third car, but because they’ve got all the junk that they can’t bear to part with when they get rid of the house and they’ve got a place to put it. McDonald: Another thing you said, that I’ve read about is that you can’t guarantee who’s going to move in here. Whether it’s going to be a, you know empty nesters, which is what you’re trying to get, or if it would be young families. And there’s probably a big impact, especially upon traffic between those two particular groups. Is there anything special you do as far as marketing to try to get it. Roger Derrick: Yes, there is. I’m glad you brought that up because you know legally, unless you have a senior designated project, then you can discriminate by age but otherwise you legally can’t say no, you can’t be here. But that really is what happens. We’ve had, we’ve got developments, one level developments in 11 communities. We’ve been doing the one level developments for more than 15 years, and I can’t honestly think of one unit where there’s a family. Not one. The reason being is because they all have 2 bedrooms upstairs. Now if they have a basement, naturally they’re going to have more. A lot of times that second bedroom upstairs is really a den. It’s a smaller bedroom. There is no place for kids to play. You know the grandchildren visit, you know and they’re there and then they go home at the end of the day, which makes everybody breathe a sigh of relief. And it’s just not a family type orientation and our sales people know that. You know they’re instructed to point that out to people. But it really isn’t a big thing because if you’re a family, you’re either going to want a single family home. If you want a townhome, if you’ve got a lot of kids, you probably don’t want a townhome unless price is important to you and then you’re not going to buy a one level because you’re going to pay a lot more money. Why do you pay a lot more money for a one level? Because you’re density, because it takes up more room. There’s less so your lots cost more. A foundation and the roof are the two most expensive part of the building, and of course they’re a lot bigger if you’ve got a one level than if you’ve got a two story. So you can just get a lot more for your money with a two story. So it just, you know we don’t have to really discourage people. They just, it just doesn’t happen. McDonald: Okay. I have no more questions, unless anybody else has any follow up’s. Dillon: You spoke of a lot of collaboration with the varieties, different groups of engineers and people like that to sort through the drainage issue. Did you have an opportunity to you know meet with some of the local residents that have you know voiced concerns and, either formally or informally? Roger Derrick: Informally, yes. The 3 owners to the west have probably got the biggest concern. We’ve met with them, as a matter of fact last week, and previously but last 21 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 week we were at the site and kind of walked around and talked about the plan that we discussed here this evening, and what they were mainly concerned about of course is the water still going to come over land and what’s going to happen underneath the ground, and we talked about the drain tile. One thing that wasn’t mentioned that I neglected to talk about and that’s the drain tile system is going to have a T for every lot so that each, those 3 lots. So that each of the 3, if they want to, can run their sump pump into the drain tile system. And that may not even have to be pumped because the drain tile system’s going to be lower than the bottom of their basement or footing probably. So and if they want of course they’ll still have a pump just in case, but they can do that and that means that we think, we all think that means that they’re going to have less water. Now on the corner house, she doesn’t have the water problems that the other two have. She has a sump pump also but it’s not going 24/7. So we’re hoping that this is going to take care of things. Also as pointed out to me by one of the owners at the meeting, that there is an old, was it a farm system or is it, the landscaper put it in originally. Dave Hughes: The Minnetonka Nursery who owned all that property, put extensive drain tiles under probably 300 acres. Roger Derrick: That was 20 years ago do you think? Dave Hughes: Oh no, it was 50 years. Roger Derrick: 50 years ago? Dave Hughes: And one of those, I’ll let you explain. Roger Derrick: We have Mr. Hughes gave us a map of, there’s one line that goes through kind of at an angle through these 3 lots, and it looks like it ends up right about where we’re going to have, right by Highway 7 where we’re going to have our system. And you know we can either hook it into the system or open it up. Right now it’s clogged up. It’s not draining into the ditch in Highway 7. It could do either one depending upon what’s going to be the best way of doing it. But if that in fact drains, we don’t even know if it’s working but we can find out when we’re digging around in there. We’re going to open it up. If it is working, we’re going to put a new end on it and connect it either to our system, because if it was doing any good at all why not have it. So we’re trying to, just to answer your questions, really we’re trying to do everything we can to see what the present conditions are and what we can do to make it better and implement what’s already there. McDonald: Okay. Thank you very much. At this point I will open up the meeting to the public and I would ask you to come up to the podium. State your name and address and address your comments please to the Chair. Thank you. Dave Hughes: My name is Dave Hughes and I’m here on behalf of Carrie and Mike Miller. Carrie’s my daughter. I built the house at 6311 Church Road. I qualify that, we built the basement and moved a home from Minnewashta Parkway onto that site. And I 22 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 would like to add first off the issue of drainage. We, as far as I know this property owner was not consulted concerning drainage. They were told what the drainage plan was going to be last Tuesday night. If they had been consulted I believe they may have suggested, although there’s a 10 foot difference in elevation, may I have that coloring map, the big one? Thank you. This end is 10 foot higher than this end on the site approximately according to the drawings. I believe the property owner, at least the Millers would have suggested, although there’s a 10 foot elevation with this end being lowest, with the lots draining into the street and the storm sewer in the street, could have just as easily drained the pond and put it here into the highway ditch and kept the issue of the pond away from the 3 residences that are approximately 100 feet away from that pond. Right now the residence of the Millers, which is this residence here, which is the closest to the pond, is, their basement is 969.25, the floor level. The average water level of the pond is stated to be 968.7, or ½ foot below their basement floor. That’s the normal floor level. The outflow level of the pond, the discharge level is 971, making it approximately 2 feet or 2 ¼ feet higher than their basement floor. If the pond had been put over here, it wouldn’t be next to the homes that everybody’s concerned about. It looks like the developer or the engineers have done due diligence to figure out a plan to mitigate the potential problem with the French drain and other things, but it’s all a crap shoot. No one knows until the rain comes, whether it’s all going to work or not. And if it isn’t going to work, what are we going to do about it? I’m sure the 3 homeowners are going to be back here and talking to City Council and engineering. So I would like Planning Commission to consider asking the developer to take a look at that, and that home. I’m sure could be put back where the pond was or reconfigured so there’s no loss of revenue to the developer in that area. The second thing I would like to bring out is the water line loop that is scheduled to come in off of Highway 7. I would ask the developer and the engineer why isn’t it going out in the sewer excavation? It’s going to be in the same trench with specified separations of 10 feet I’m sure. Why does it just continue out there? What does it have to turn and go through between two properties being dug into an easement that is too narrow, according to city standards for excavation. The reason I know that is I tried to put a water line in an easement that was 5 foot utility easement on each side of the properties. Property line. And that was standard when Klingelhutz built the development next to my home, and I was told by engineering that you cannot put an excavation or you cannot bore because you may have to service it in the future, through a 10 foot wide easement. 5 foot on each side of the property line. And I at the time wanted to put in a sewer through the easement. They wouldn’t allow it and it cost me $19,000 more to go 500 feet the other direction. Now the plan calls for using an easement that I’ve been told is non-spec and non acceptable. It’s not wide enough. The third thing I would like to just point out to the board tonight is that, like the development that is east of this one, that was last. Just east of the ballfields on Highway 7. I don’t remember what the name of it is. They have beautiful tree lined berms and it looks, and it’s separated and I’m sure they have excellent noise mitigation for Highway 7, and there’s beautiful tree line, if I can have the overhead again. There’s a beautiful tree line along here. Very thick, developed by the nursery I think 50 years ago. And would hope that, where the 4 foot berm is nice, and can be added to a tree line, it doesn’t replace a tree line and I don’t know how much is being proposed of that tree line to be left in there but it certainly would do a lot to mitigate noise. And the last item I want to point out that I 23 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 don’t think has anybody is aware of, is that the developer of this little 3 home addition here had made a covenant with the City, and it’s recorded at the court house. I just picked up a copy of it today and it’s certainly available to the park and rec superintendent or the manager. Anyway, this lot does have an easement for trails, but that they agreed to as a condition to plot that property. Here it is but I can’t read easterly west 20 feet to the mark and so on. Somebody else will have to tell people where that easement is, but I also know that there is a utility easement for this water line that’s heading to Church Road, and it’s quite wide and now would be an excellent time to address the trail issue that council had brought up already during this development. And that ties into my last point and that is, there are a lot of children that are using the park, as we all know. That’s just on the west side of Church Road, and there’s children in the streets all the time. And I don’t know the process that is required but I would imagine there’s an easement adequate along Church Road, either on the east or the west side, that a sidewalk could be put in. I know it’s not relevant to this developer but it’s relevant to what’s happening in this area as it develops, and it would be an excellent time to tie in the, Todd Hoffman. That’s the name I couldn’t think of. It’s an excellent time for Mr. Hoffman to look at the issue of trails, not only for this property. Here we are talking about empty nesters and grandchildren and where are they all going to want to go? The developer stated, there isn’t room for them to play…and that’s not the way we want them to go walking into increased traffic. We want them to use a trail so now I think is an excellent time to address that issue, and thank you very much. McDonald: Thank you sir. Next. Tom Croskey: My name’s Tom Croskey. I live at 26265 Oak Leaf Trail in Shorewood. nd Today I’m representing members of the association, Shorewood Oaks, West 62 and Strawberry Lane. As a brief aside, as a brief aside I would like to mention I’m going to talk about the legal standards involved here, but as an aside on drainage, if we, I would like to ask the commission, or the commission’s engineers if we’ve had two 100 year events in the past 2 years, how many 100 year events have we had in the past 10 years and we also have a storm sewer designed for 10 year standard. That in itself begs a lot of serious questions about drainage and we are at our wits end in, on the north side, particularly on the Shorewood side, and I know Wade on the Chanhassen side, as far as drainage. We’ve got our sump pumps on all the time. I’ve had four instances of standing water in my back yard, in some cases as deep as 10 inches so if this plan, if this development exacerbates that in any way, that will surely affect us in not a positive manner. But what I am here to talk about specifically, and other members of the association will be discussing traffic and drainage issues, is the well established legal standards, federal, state and local, that are not being observed and what is a true rezoning. Aside from those protections provided by the Fifth Amendment, the Constitution and the rights of persons in the State of Minnesota, we have in the City of Chanhassen code, Section 20-58, General Conditions for Granting a Variance. In that section you have the following language and I quote. A variance may be granted by City Council only if all the following criteria are met. Section 1. Reasonable use including the use made by a majority of comparable property within 500 feet. Section 3. That the purpose of the variation is not based upon a desire to increase the value or income potential of the parcel 24 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 of land. I think it’s quite obvious to say that both of these things are occurring with this request for rezoning. Furthermore we are faced with a rezoning proposal that goes against Minnesota State Constitution that states, a local government failing to follow it’s own procedural rules may invalidate it’s own decision on the basis that it was arbitrary, if failure resulted in specific and demonstrable harm. The demonstrable harm in this instance and the transfer of wealth from the developer, the developer’s trying to achieve by devaluing our property through the use of a political process. This is also specifically prohibited in Chanhassen’s own city ordinances. Mainly, quote. That a purpose of a variation is not based upon the desire to increase the value or income potential of parcel of land. The developer was under no illusions when they purchased his property. They knew exactly what they were doing and what zoning was in place at the time of the purchase. The developer did this with the delibering intent to profit through the political process of rezoning to gain his highest profit. The developer is a speculator. He speculated about who’s going to be moving into these properties. He’s also speculating that this governing body will provide this rezoning so that he can achieve his highest profit, even though this will be counter to all existing federal, state and city of Chanhassen legal standards. Further constitution, U.S. Constitution, Fifth Amendment, the rights of persons, the developer must prove as a matter of law that he cannot use or develop this track under the existing zoning laws. It has been illustrated many times in the immediate surrounding area that developers can profitably develop lots of single family residential homes. The onus is on the developer to prove that he cannot use or develop this lot under the existing zoning laws. This is our position. It is supported from a legal standpoint on all levels of government, including most pointedly your very own City of Chanhassen city code. We are reasonable individuals. We realize that this lot will be developed in time. However what we object to strenuously is the development of this lot with structures that are not compatible with those who surround it. We are will organized and we are steadfast and we are determined to see this through to it’s end. I would like to thank the Planning Commission for the time this evening. McDonald: Thank you. Next. Ken Durr: Chairman and members, my name is Kenneth Durr. Reside at 4830 Westgate Road, Minnetonka. That may not show up the best but as long as you’re addressing the issue of drainage, I thought it might help. Before the development of Minnewashta Landings, which is on the south side of Highway 7, all of the water that came from the proposed development on the north side, everything from Highway 7 did not flow onto Minnewashta Landings property at all. Not one drop. All of that water flowed over land to the east of Minnewashta Landings, east of the old Ironwood Road. To, and followed along those residents to the east side. This is Ironwood Road. These properties on this side, all of the water from this area flowed over land across here. None onto the Minnewashta Landings property. Now the City couldn’t resolve that problem. That existed for years until we decided to develop this piece of property. Then the City came with the idea that we put in storm water ponds. Not one, but three of them. So we gave up land which would mean lots. We had a lot of expense to put the ponds in. A lot of culverting because one pond connects to the other, and then goes down the street. Connects to a third one down before it goes into Lake Minnewashta. We paid a $30,000 25 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 surface water management fee to the city. That didn’t cover the cost of the land. The development of the ponds, the culverts or anything. That was a fee we paid the city. We paid all the costs. Put those ponds in, all the culverts and lost the land that they took. In addition to that, at that time the City said that we would never receive more water into that area than what we were now receiving. Now it appears to me that this proposal, we will be receiving considerably more water than we did before. All of this yellow area before flowed to Minnewashta. But the green area flowed to the west. It was absorbed in land over here. This red area is the only one that flowed toward Highway 7. Now, what do we have? We have all of the land flowing to Highway 7, or the pond, which eventually goes to Highway 7. The only area that continues to flow a different direction is this very narrow strip along the north. So the amount of flowage and water off from there is at least, I would just guess looking at this, and I’d like to have it calculated, must be at least 25% more, and that’s assuming that it’s open land that at the time we purchased the property here for Minnewashta Landings was partially tilled land. Not even compacted soil. So now the amount of runoff is much, much greater than at the time we developed Minnewashta Landings. Now the 3 ponds that we put in have worked relatively well, with the exception of 3 times in the last 8 years they have overflowed causing a lot of damage, particularly to the beach. We have a beachlot where the final disposition pond on the lake receives the final water. The amount of water coming into that overflowed and washed out the beach 3 times in 8 years. And not to mention what has happened to the properties to the east. I know particularly Dave Helke has had a lot of problems with overflow, and washed out a lot of his property. Now that’s happened 3 times in the last 3 years. Just with the water that we’ve been receiving. Now if we get more water coming in to us, we’re going to have a real problem there. The property that is proposed for developer is a very high density project. I think that’s part of the problem. Now with 13 acres, there’s one pond and not an extremely large pond. Our development of 21 acres in Minnewashta Landings, we had 3 quite large ponds and even then that hasn’t been adequate in all situations to handle the flow of water. We had those 3 overflows in 8 years. The density there is 39 units on approximately 13 acres, something probably a little under 3 per acre as compared with our development, 21 acres and 26 lots. So we’re looking at, if we had the same density, it’d be 63 units or buildings on property that is only a third larger. I think the two things I think is the density of the area there, the runoff. When you look at the number of units, 39 units, you’re looking at what, a 1,200 foot street, which is hard surface. You’re looking at 39 units instead of, which could be quite a few less. You know all the hard surface with driveways, roofs, and so forth, there’s going to be tremendous amount of runoff and then almost all of that runoff is coming to the south. Now I feel that that retention pond that they’re putting in is not going to be adequate. There’s going to be overflow that’s going to augment the problem we have on the south side of Highway 7, and not good I don’t feel. So it’s either the density is too high or the ponding inadequate. Thank you for your time. McDonald: Thank you sir. Anyone else? nd Robin Dodson: Hi, my name is Robin Dodson and I live at 26540 West 62 Street. nd That’s on the north side of 62 Street. The Hennepin County side, and while I agree with everything that’s been said, one of my concerns, since hearing a projected number, 26 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 nd the 85% of this traffic using 62 Street, and I’ve heard there’s no plans for road improvement and there’s no plans for pedestrian safety. This road is I think 24 feet wide. It’s dicey. Two cars going by. There’s no shoulder. There’s no curb. There’s nothing, nd and Cathcart Park is on 62 Street. The only way to get to Cathcart Park is to walk on nd 62 Street. And there, I agree it’d be wonderful to have a path there to cut through this new development to get to the park, but that does not protect anybody who doesn’t live in the park, you know nor on Strawberry coming to use the park and I just have a deep concern for the amount of traffic that’s going to be put on a road that has no plans for you know widening improvements or anything to protect the pedestrians that already use the road and the way it exists. Thank you. McDonald: Thank you ma’am. Next. Kim McReavy: Hi. My name is Kim McReavy and I live at 1350 Heather Court in Chanhassen. I’m opposed to this rezoning in theory. I feel like there’s no justification for it whatsoever. To go to a higher density when we’ve got all these drainage issues and traffic issues and things like that increasing the density. I don’t care how you do the numbers, it’s going to work out to be you know an increased use of the property and I oppose that. I also feel like there are no hardship justifications that justify the variances requested for this. The variance requests are put in based on what’s planning to be developed there. It’s not like there’s a true hardship. If you were doing single family, the same hardship would not exist so I’m opposed to that. As well I’m concerned with the nd increased traffic, not just on 62 and Strawberry, but also on Highway 7. It just gets, it’s so crazy right now and I just feel like the existing infrastructure on this property and the surrounding properties do not support this type of development at all. It just doesn’t exist so those are my main concerns and I just feel like until the infrastructure is there, I don’t understand how the City could justify this type of development. Thank you very much. McDonald: Thank you. Next. Julie Hirsch: Hi. I’m Julie Hirsch. I’m at 6321 Church Road. One of the 3 properties immediately affected by the drainage, and while I don’t have as bad of issues as some of these folks, my system was running tonight when I left the house and I guess I don’t really, I’m not opposed to the development. My concern is that the developer’s providing us T’s to tie up to the French drain and if that can’t be moved, I’m wondering the T’s are a generous offer but could they be required to connect our properties and then assume any liabilities that could incur if the drains you know adversely affect our properties even more, and/or enhances our already existing water issues. So all that being said, I’m not completely against it but I would like that remedied for at least the immediate properties and the line of the water. Thanks. McDonald: Thank you. Sir. Dave Hughes: With all due respect sir I have to rebut a statement you made. You said we could, and I, with all good intentions I know you would if you could. The invert or the bottom of the drainage tile that’s been in there 50 plus years, where it comes out at 27 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 the ditch, or it doesn’t come out at the ditch. It actually comes out under the ditch, and the force of the water coming all the way from Smithtown Road, a quarter mile north, is forcing the water to percolate up and drain into the ditch. The invert, or the drainage bottom of that tile is a 964.2. As we shot it when we dug it up when we built the Miller house. The invert of your French drain is 966, so approximately 2 feet higher than that drain tile, so it cannot be used. It would be wonderful if it could but. So, in conclusion, that drain tile, we can only hope that it is going to continue to percolate up after the construction of the French drain and so on, because if it stopped up, it’s not only the 3 houses on the adjoining on the west side that’s going to be affected, but houses all the way to Smithtown Road because if you’ll look at the properties all the way north to Smithtown Road, you find that they’re only half basements. The high water was being drained from way up there all the way down to Highway 7 and to Lake Minnewashta. I believe I know where the drain tile goes on the gentleman that was speaking. Is he still here? On the development just south of the property. There is the historic drain tile that drained all that is on the east, yes, on the east property line and it goes from Highway 7 due south into the lake but it was abandoned. The State of Minnesota had, according to the son of the Minnetonka Nursery who was in the know about these issues. The State of Minnesota had an agreement, made an agreement with the nursery to allow a drain tile under Highway 7 and to then move along the southern ditchway of Highway 7. Drain it east to the property line on the east side of that development that was discussed, and then down to the lake. Minnetonka, or I mean Minnesota abandoned that agreement when they didn’t inform their Constructors the improvement before last and it was cut. And that mitigated problems on the north side for a lot of the property owners. That can be probably located. The gentleman still is in the area and I imagine it could be researched if the State finds the original agreement locations. McDonald: Thank you sir. Next. Marcus Hoffman: Marcus Hoffman. I live at 6195 Strawberry Lane. It’s right here at nd the corner of West 62 and Strawberry Lane. Right at the proposed entrance of the site, and I’d like to review also the fact that the spacing guidelines set in Chanhassen specifies 40 feet. I do not live on a corner lot. I live at the end of a road. A corner lot would mean that I have an existing road at the southern border of my property which I do not. One of the safety measures that we are all concerned in these properties is that we all have very small children who are getting to be school aged children who use this path back and forth to Cathcart. Pulling their wagons and bringing their baseball bats and everything so nd we would like to see something done with the widening of West 62 to accommodate the additional traffic of these properties. Also another point that was made earlier about MnDot approving this property and the traffic flow and all of that. There are four existing entrances. I know that’s been discussed and why they can and can’t be, but I think an accommodation could be made for a right-in only on westbound Highway 7 to flow through the property, not only for the standpoint of traffic alleviation on Church nd Road and West 62 and Strawberry Lane but also for police, fire, ambulance, those types of services on such a long cul-de-sac in that design. That’s all I have. McDonald: Thank you sir. Next. 28 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Wade Navratil: Hi. I’m Wade Navratil. I live on the western border of the proposed development adjacent to the lot that’s about 2/3 of the development there. I’m not opposed to this development. The property. I. McDonald: Excuse me sir, could you give your street address. nd Wade Navratil: Sure, 3751 West 62 Street. Sorry. McDonald: Okay. Wade Navratil: I’m not opposed to this development. I fully expected this land to be developed when I purchased my property in ’98. But I do have a few issues. One is the traffic generated. We’ve heard all kinds of different stories of you know who’s going to be living there. Who’s not going to be living there but let’s just do some simple math. Two cars with 79 livable units in that development. Because there’s 39 buildings but he has duplexes, triplexes and singles. So 79 livable units with 2 car garages. That’s 158 cars alone, if everyone has 2 cars. If we give them the benefit of the doubt and only half of those people have 2 cars, and the rest have single cars, we have 118 cars. And if we add that one half of those half have 3 cars actually, we actually take that up to 137 total cars. If you develop that as a single, as a residential single family home, 24 units and everybody has 3 cars, that’s 72 total vehicles. That in itself is just half. The drainage has been beat to death. I do have a problem. The Millers have a problem. Julie has a problem. There is, as he talked about, the existing drain someplace over here that cuts kitty corner across our lot here that as he pointed out is 2 feet lower than the French drain. If that French drain is draining into there, water’s going to back up into us. It will push back up. It will follow a path of least resistance. And then in looking at your finding of fact, there was supposed to be 7 adverse effects listed in there. I didn’t see a one. All’s I seen was more propagation of why this should be done. And as far as West nd 62, it is a sub par street. It is lined by cedars. It is overgrown. I have troubles making lefts out of there. Rights out of there. It doesn’t matter. We’re picking people off. It does need some you know expansion, but additionally as well, if you’re going to zone this as a residential low to medium. Medium is supposed to allow for bike paths, mass transit, so on and so forth. There’s no reason that there can’t be a bike path that comes out of the cul-de-sac here and goes over to Freeman Park. It runs parallel with Highway 7, as the bike path does on the other side of Highway 7. And that would give you total access to the regional trail that runs behind all of our houses back there. And additionally, the residential low to medium, everything around there is completely residential single family. There is no barrier. There is no separation. There’s nothing. I see no reason to put the medium nomenclature on there. If it under residential low already and 1 to 4 units per acre. But I’d rather see it residential single family and stay at that. Thank you. McDonald: Thank you sir. Next. 29 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Carrie Miller: Hi. My name is Carrie Miller. I live at 6311 Church Road and my dad came and very adequately represented our property I believe. It was mentioned why build a trail. You know for personally I’m mainly interested in our children’s physical well being so, I’m interested in their safety. It was stated that it would lead to nowhere. Well I disagree. It could easily tie into the trail as Wade had mentioned, and people constantly run and jog down the trail and down Church Road down to Minnewashta Parkway. I’ll show you where people usually run because I’m right, let’s see where’s our property? They run right down Church Road. They run across the road and they’re up there and here’s the trail. This is where people run. They run up and down this road. Because there’s a trail right here. Across the street. Now also I am also concerned about the children at Cathcart, and the children at Freeman because this development actually is right inbetween two parks. Freeman’s right over here. You know right past this development, and Cathcart is right over here. Okay, so that brings me to my third point. There was mention that senior housing would be attractive to 90% of the residents in the area. Hopefully seniors so this would be senior housing hopefully because it would not necessarily attract families with children. I disagree because this housing is between two public parks, as I mentioned, and this area is influxed with children and families. Therefore this housing will be very attractive to families. Thank you. David Igel: Good evening. My name is David Igel. I live at 501 Big Woods Boulevard in Chanhassen. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. I’ve got a couple, I will try to be brief. There have been a lot of good points made tonight but I have a couple of things that I think maybe lend to my comments on this. One is that I formerly lived in Shorewood at the end of Strawberry Lane. While living there we had multiple vehicles flying through excess speed, excess alcohol, excess stupidity or what have you, either through our yard and into the yard, tearing up the grass or to the south of it through here where this new entrance is being proposed. At the time we were there the City of Shorewood tried to address it by tightening the corner, trying to reduce the speed. There wasn’t a lot of room in there to do much else. I’m not sure that I think we had as many accidents or issues before so I think that one of the things that I would suggest as now a Chanhassen resident, but a former resident of there, that you take a real close look at how that traffic is going to be controlled, because from experience I can tell you that it’s, it can be a very dangerous place. One of the things that we did before we left is put in some large berms and large trees, but coming through the wrong spot I’m afraid you’re going to have more danger to the people coming in to the north accessing that road. The other thing is, drainage has been talked about extensively. I have a great deal of respect for the City of Chanhassen’s staff. In looking at it, and it sounds like most of the issues have been with Chanhassen. The interesting thing about this development is that Shorewood is on the north, and I’m not sure how closely things have been reviewed from that perspective. Didn’t take much more than a couple inches of rain to completely flood Strawberry Lane on both sides. Those front yards. Back yards, and it looks like a lot of the drainage is going to be become a larger problem for the people to the south of Highway 7, which isn’t necessarily a good thing either, but I would just recommend that as you’re looking at this and looking at the solutions, that probably may or may not exist, there’s a lot of smart people working on the project. I would imagine they’d be able to figure something out but take a look at what’s going on in Shorewood to the immediate 30 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 north. There’s a lot of people that are having a lot of impact. I know that these are issues that come up as you’re dealing with bordering properties and new developments because they’re not always your residents, but they are neighbors and I think you know, they would like to see the City of Chanhassen be a good neighbor as well. The other thing related to that was the mention of the increased storm activity. Where we currently live now, we were exposed, you know hit particularly hard by the last storms. We’re at the end of Carver Creek, which is more of a drainage ditch for the City of Chanhassen. Before we moved onto that land we had our own engineers look extensively at it, and they built the storm systems to accommodate the rains. They took a look at the elevations where we built well above the ground level of water, or the added water. We built well above the water level of the lake. We took a look at all those things. When that storm came through last September, and the levy above us broke at the end of Carver Beach Road, our entire yard was flooded. Everything in our yard has gone out to the lake. Our basement flooded, not just from the water that was banging up against it and pouring down the basement steps, but the sanitary, not only did the storm sewers fail, but the sanitary sewers failed, and water was shooting up from our basement. Now, these are all things that were engineered to death, that were approved through the City of Chanhassen, and I paid for most of them so I’m, you know I take the responsibility to a certain, to a great extent, having built the home down there and had gone through and done that, but I would say, I guess I would caution you, take a look, take a look at the existing requirements. They don’t seem to have been doing enough to protect the homes and the well being of people and if you get another situation where you’re kind of doing, where you’re doing things to spec and you’re pretty close on a couple things to spec, doesn’t take much to push over that and you’re going to have some real issues with the people to the west, the people to the north and probably more likely the people within the new development. Thank you for your time. McDonald: Thank you. Does anyone else wish to come forward? Well seeing no one get up, I close the public meeting and I’ll bring it back before the commissioners for discussion. Why don’t you go ahead and start for us. Keefe: Sure. You know I think the first question that came up, and I think Sharmeen brought it and maybe we should have discussed it earlier is, should we be rezoning this property and I think the, you know in listening to everything I’ve heard tonight, I think that a lot has been done with the water, and managing the water on this particular site but I’m just not convinced that it’s been addressed all the way around the surrounding area and I think it’s just becoming a, just a larger and larger issue, especially when we do these infill, if you want to call this kind of an infill location. And you know, the other thing is I look at this and this particular zoning designation actually allows higher hard surface coverage, which I think in this particular area is really the wrong direction just given what’s going on in terms of water and all the issues associated with it so, I’m a little bit uncomfortable with rezoning it to a higher hard surface coverage, just given all the water issues. Even with all of the efforts which you’ve gone into to manage the water, I’m just not sure that it’s the right direction to go. I’d be interested in anybody else’s thoughts on that. 31 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Papke: Mr. Chair, if I could. Maybe Sharmeen, could you, I think there’s a little bit of confusion around this rezoning and there were some questions about you know the variance and could you comment on the issues surrounding this? Al-Jaff: Absolutely. Absolutely. Just wanted to mention that with this rezoning we remain at a low density. The low density of our comprehensive plan allows a range of 1.2 to 4 units per acre. As long as you remain within that range you are considered low density. This development is below the 4 units per acre, and it’s actually 2.85 gross density. 3.32 units per acre net density, and when we calculate the net density we are subtracting the street right-of-way. McDonald: Excuse me Sharmeen. Al-Jaff: Yes. McDonald: If I could say something. That’s about the second or third telephone that’s gone off. I would greatly appreciate it if everybody would either put their telephones to a silent mode or to buss yourself, but to turn them off. It’s very rude I think to do that at this meeting. This is a very serious subject. We are trying to get all the information we possibly can on this so that we can make an intelligent decision, and it really doesn’t help our concentration to be constantly interrupted by cell phones. Thank you. Sharmeen. Al-Jaff: Thank you. So, we are at a low density range right now. One of the things that were brought up earlier was the hard surface coverage on the site. The average hard surface coverage on the site, and we did run some calculations and what we have on this specific site is 18.9% hard surface coverage. If we went with the residential single family zoning, they could have up to 25% hard surface coverage, so we go back to, yes. The hard surface coverage is higher on individual lots. However, when you look at the average hard surface coverage of this entire development, we’re coming up with 18.9 percent. Keefe: But that says proposed development. Couldn’t they add on additional hardscape in the future to take it up to 35? Al-Jaff: They could add patios. It could go up, yes. But then. Papke: I’m sorry, go ahead. Al-Jaff: The residential single family could go up to the, and we’ve seen a pattern with single family residential. Three car garages. The added patio surfaces and they truly need to maximize the hard surface coverage on single family. It’s not as needed with this type of development. Papke: So just to be clear, since we’re staying within the low density range, what justification does a developer have to bring to the City to get clearance to get this rezoned from RSF to RLM? What proof or what burden of proof is there, is required there? 32 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Al-Jaff: He needed to remain within the low density range. One of the things that we requested he does is create a separation, specifically the. Papke: The point be, there’s no requisite for hardships or anything of that nature in order to do that? Al-Jaff: No. And speaking of hardship, there are two types of variances. The first one is a zoning variance. The second one is a subdivision variance. What we have in this application is not a, this is not a subdivision, a zoning variance. This is a subdivision variance. The criteria for granting a subdivision variance is different than use made by properties within 500 feet. And if anyone would like to contact me tomorrow, I’ll be more than happy to give them a copy of the subdivision variance versus a zoning variance. I’ll be more than happy to share that information with them. Larson: It’s still a zoning. It’s a subdivision zoning variance? Al-Jaff: It’s a subdivision variance. The length of a cul-de-sac. Larson: So why are they calling it a zone variance change? Al-Jaff: It’s not. It is not a zoning variance. Papke: It’s a rezoning. Larson: A rezoning. Papke: The variance is for the cul-de-sac. Larson: Okay, gotch ya. Al-Jaff: For the subdivision. McDonald: Beg your pardon sir? Would you. Tom Croskey: I’m sorry, I was confused. …rezoning. I think you weren’t clear on that. Al-Jaff: There is a rezoning request and that is changing the zoning from residential single family to residential low medium density. Mike Croskey: But you just characterized…and I was wondering about that. Al-Jaff: The variance. The variance portion. There are two types of variances in the Chanhassen City Code. The first one is a zoning variance, and when I talk about zoning variances, I’m talking about the chapter, the zoning chapter of the city code. There is for instance if the city code, the zoning ordinance requires a 30 foot front yard setback and 33 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 an applicant comes before the Planning Commission requesting a 20 foot front yard setback. In that case it is a zoning variance. A zoning ordinance variance. Now, subdivisions require that a cul-de-sac may not exceed 800 feet. That is a subdivision variance. There are different types of findings under the subdivision variances versus the zoning variances. McDonald: Okay. Keefe: So going from the rezoning, going back to the rezoning, because that’s sort of the first question. Is taking it from RSF right to RL. Al-Jaff: RLM. Keefe: RLM. Reasons for doing that. I mean reasons for doing that would be to allow the, what the triplexes or you know why? My concern was I guess is that it does allow for greater hard surface and just given what’s going on, granted, I mean I grant you that you know they’re at 18.9 percent or whatever it is on average, you know so be it but you know, if you put on accessory structures and they may not be planning it now but if it does allow them to go up, and just given all the water issues in this area, it’s a concern. McDonald: Okay, I have a question about that too because. Keefe: Well could she answer that, yeah. McDonald: You mentioned patios. My understanding is patios are built into this. They’re already included. Roger Derrick: Mr. Chairman, I think I can answer some of the questions. McDonald: Feel free. Please come back up. Roger Derrick: Roger Derrick for the record. Question right now is what about the hard surface. You build a house, you’re done with the house and you go in later you can build a bigger patio or you can you know do some other things which is done all the time. If you’re in a townhouse development, you’re under rules and regulations. You can’t do anything. Nothing. You can’t put patio blocks out. You can’t do anything without the approval of the association, and you just don’t get it because it’s the same, they run into the same thing you do. You let this guy do it, you’ve got to let everybody do it so you really, once you build it, that’s basically what you’re going to have. And the answer yes, the deck and the patio is part of the package that we put out. The other thing that’s connected with that is, it is confusing when you look at say a triplex and because there’s 3 different lots, and you look at one lot in the middle that’s got more hard surface and the reason the ordinance allows for that, because the ordinance is clear you can have so much for the triplex. So much for the twin, is because it doesn’t have any side yard of course. It just has that front and back, so that particular part you know has to be more, but then the other parts are less so when you take, if you’re going to go in and build 24 single 34 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 family homes, which you could easily do without any variances for lots or anything else, instead of 38 townhomes, you’d have, you could have more hard surface coverage, as Sharmeen pointed out because you could be 25%. Not counting any cheating that any individual homeowner might do later, but closing it you could have 25%. And what you would do probably is have all triple garages and you know just bigger houses because you’re going to have large lot costs and when you have large lot costs for single family, you’ve got to have bigger houses. So how would the whole thing stack up? You know I really don’t know because I haven’t done the calculation but the amount of hard surface coverage wouldn’t be any less if you had single family just because you’d have fewer units. We already talked about the fact that the traffic, if you had normal housing in there with families and extra cars would be more with the 24 than it is, then it will be with 38, because of the configuration and you’d have families living there where you wouldn’t so much now. And I think the important thing to recognize in the, where the cul-de-sac is and we talked about the length of the cul-de-sac and the two variances. One is for the length of the cul-de-sac and the only reason it’s that long is because we can’t get access from Highway 7. There was early on, we’ve been working for 15 months you know with the City and MnDot and so we’ve explored I think all possibilities. One was putting the through road in, but MnDot won’t allow it period, and I think everybody here can vouch for that. So that means there’s got to be a cul-de-sac coming in at some point. You could have a shorter cul-de-sac. One of the reasons it’s as long as it is is because staff wanted to, MnDot wanted to and we agreed to, make the cul-de-sac long enough so that it went to the existing house that we don’t own. The Truax’s on that. So that they will have access on that cul-de-sac instead of having to go out onto Highway 7, so that’s why it’s as long as it is. Now if we didn’t have that long, it’d still be more than 800 feet but it wouldn’t be 1,200 feet. Now, so that’s one variance and there’s really no way around it. If we were to do single family homes, that cul-de-sac road would be exactly like it is now because that’s the only way to do it. The other variance was to put the little private road area from the cul-de-sac to the people that live to the east of the Truax’s. There’s one home there and the idea is to let them eliminate their access on Highway 7 so that they can come in onto the cul-de-sac and come in that way. And that was not in the original plan but that was put in because if that was ever going to be done, now’s the time to do it. And otherwise those people would never be able to get off of Highway 7 and this is their opportunity to do that so, those are the only two variances that are requested and they’re both, neither one would help us as a developer or as was inferred before, make us a bigger profit or anything like that. It’s just the fact that it’s good planning to do that, and now’s the time to do it if it’s going to be done at all. McDonald: Okay, thank you for that clarification. Does that help? Just a second. Does that help as far as the clarification of what you asked as far as what’s being asked for here? Keefe: Yeah, I mean no. I’m not convinced that the hard surface coverage, I mean after really think through the math in terms of you know putting on 38 units, even though they’re on smaller lots and you’ve got a higher you know coverage that you’re actually going to achieve you know some sort of lower hard surface out there than you would putting in 14 fewer units on slightly larger lots. I’m just not convinced of it. I really 35 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 want to run the math on that. But so I mean that’s the question. The question for me on the rezoning is really, the piece I’m really stuck on the rezoning is the hard surface coverage, okay. And I’m just not convinced that, if I can get convinced of it, I’m actually pretty comfortable with the variances. I think the variances that are called for are you know, I think there are hardships associated with those variances, particularly the Highway 7 variance and the cul-de-sac variance and then the private street. I really don’t have you know I can see the hardships on those. I’m just having, I’m struggling with the rezoning a little bit, just particularly in light of the water issues. Papke: I’m kind of struggling with it myself but I’m starting to lean in the direction of saying maybe it’s not so bad. I mean from what I hear of the hydrology there, it’s going to run off anyway. This is saturated clay, and you know putting a couple pads on there isn’t probably going to have that big of an impact. I’m now getting more concerned about the impact on the other side of the road. If we washed away the beach a couple times in the last couple years. Keefe: That’s part of it. Papke: You know water is a zero sum game, okay. It’s either going to sink into the ground, which it’s not in this case, or it’s going to flow out of the neighbor’s lots on Strawberry Lane or it’s going to flow across the highway, okay. So it’s going to go somewhere. In this case, if this development goes in as planned, you know I’m fairly convinced that the city staff and the engineers have done a pretty good analysis here and we’ve got the color coded maps showing you know where it’s going to drain. I’m pretty well convinced that if we can fix the problem with the drain tile, that’s 2 feet lower than we might have thought, that it’s going to flow. If it overflows, it’s going to flow into the ditch and it’s going to go underneath Highway 7 and it’s going to glow down into the beach on Lake Minnewashta so I’m actually more. Keefe: Do you have any concerns about because the hard surface coverage can go up to a higher level, in the future on this area, given the designation, the zoning designation. Papke: There’s going to be an architectural control committee associated with the, you know and restrictive covenants and all that kind of good stuff so you know. Larson: It is already set. Keefe: So given that it’s an association governed development… Papke: Yep, been there done that and boy you can’t. Larson: …how many people that have to agree to it. Papke: You can’t put up a bird feeder in those things without getting permission. Keefe: So that’s why I asked the question. 36 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Papke: I was struggling with it myself. Keefe: Right. McDonald: I guess ma’am, unless you have something to add to clarify it, at this point I’m not sure that we need clarification. Cara Otto: Okay, it’s just I’m the project engineer and it’s regarding the impervious and what the calculations were for the ponding. I’m Cara Otto with Otto Associates and I just wanted to clarify that although there is a less amount of impervious proposed based on the buildings they submitted and those kind of things, the hydrology calcs were done prior to them having a building chosen, so what you’re seeing on the plans are actually quite a larger size. It’s actually more of a house pad that we’d be grading, but the buildings would be smaller and the ponds is therefore designed with that conservative number. And we never did, because of the drainage concerns, we never reduced it down once they, instead of 80 feet deep it’s you know 65 feet house pads, or buildings. We never did reduce that just because of some of the history of the area, so the pond is actually you know planning on an increased amount, not a 25% impervious but a larger, much larger so. McDonald: Ma’am, could you state your name? I’m not sure you did that in the beginning. Cara Otto: I did quickly. It’s Cara Otto with Otto Associates. McDonald: Okay, thank you. Larson: Oh, my turn? McDonald: It’s your turn. As long as we satisfied Dan’s question. Keefe: You know just a couple other comments. In regards to, you know to get into the actual development itself. I’d like to see some reconsideration on the trees, particularly along Highway 7 and those significant trees. I have a concern with the safety along West nd 62 and along Church and would really like to have, boy I’m not sure what can really be done in association with this particular development but the city really needs to monitor the safety situation along those streets so. McDonald: Okay. Now it’s your turn. Larson: Well you know, and I don’t want to reiterate everything he said but let’s just say I agree with everything you just said and I want to bring up the safety issue with the street. I’d like to see the city perhaps do a little more study on what they can do to perhaps put in sidewalks or something, or some sort of path because there are children in that area and there are parks. Regardless of what’s going in beyond it, the traffic flow is 37 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 going to increase quite a lot and that’s a very large concern. I mean granted, he didn’t hear the previous. Anyway, enough people brought it up so I think it really needs to be looked into. The drain tile issue, if we can drop that deeper on the property so the West nd 62 residents aren’t getting flooded out, and then again the issue of the water going down and washing out the beach. That’s a problem. I don’t know, I’m not an engineer. I don’t know if I can understand what can be done to even take it further than what we had already done, but I would like to see it looked into. And that’s all I have. McDonald: Thank you. Kevin. Dillon: Yeah, you know I don’t know if I can add much to that. I mean we’ve got water, water everywhere and you know right now we know what happens when there’s a big rain storm there. Everyone gets in trouble. Seems like there’s been a lot of professional engineers have looked at this and have come up with a solution. On the other hand, there’s a lot of emotion that you know says it’s not going to work and I don’t, I mean I think we need to give, this looks like a, there’s at least a pretty good logical way of things are going to float through the area and hopefully make it over to Lake Minnewashta in one piece so there hasn’t been any concern from the, just the one person that kind of spoke about that... I mean I think most people here are the neighbors to it and they’re the ones who are kind of most concerned. It happens in their basements and their back yards and I understand that. Is there any need to look at what might happen across the street? I mean is that a part of the analysis? Al-Jaff: We are currently, do you want. Fauske: Commissioner Dillon and Planning Commission, what city staff has done is we have hired HTPO to take a look at the drainage issues on the south side of Highway 7. One of the preliminary findings that HTPO has found is that when the Minnewashta Landings development went in, they made an error and did not include the drainage ditch from Highway 7 in their drainage calculations. So that’s an issue, and so it’s a downstream issue from this project. The ponding there. The overland flow. It didn’t include all the drainage area going through there, and so what we’re doing is getting HTPO to take a look at what are the volumes coming through there. What are the discharge rates and what are some possible solutions to there. Larson: Excuse me, who made the mistake? Fauske: The engineer for the project, as far as I know from Minnewashta Landings. There was over sight and they didn’t include some drainage area. Dillon: And then the other thing is, I mean the road that leads from this development to Cathcart Park has been inadequate since way before this project was conceived. I mean I’ve been along that many times and so, I don’t know if there’s, if we should encourage some greater collaboration between Chanhassen and Shorewood to put a sidewalk or a widening or something like that between those you know, because it could tie into the Shorewood Oaks you know thing pretty conveniently too possibly if it was done right. 38 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Papke: …circulated back to supporting the rezoning. I think it’s an appropriate land use for something right along Highway 7. If you look at what we’ve done in other areas of the city, you know it’s that transition zone where you transition from a busy highway to something a little higher density to residential single family, so it’s an appropriate spot to do that. The only bad news is, and we’ve kind of been over this, is the traffic pattern and the only thing I’d add, if you look at the fourplex just to the northeast of here, they do have a little better access from that fourplex, so it’s not really apples to apples comparison to say that this is exactly equivalent, because that one did not, if I understand the traffic flow from that one didn’t cause as many as the traffic problems that this one will. Sometimes when this kind of development goes in, it does push the city over the edge to say whoops, maybe we should push this farther up on the priority list for improving the road so, in a back handed way we may end up, just as MnDot was saying, this may be enough to push over the Church Road traffic light, which would help these people in trying to make a, pull out and make a left hand turn in the morning when they’re trying to go to work. It may happen that putting this would actually lead to the solving of some of the traffic problems in the area. McDonald: I guess my comments are that, you know I think I would echo what Commissioner Papke just said. This is an opportunity for the residents within that neighborhood. This developer can’t do anything about the roads. That really is beyond the bounds of what this development is. Land is going to be developed. Everyone here tonight has said that. Whether it’s single family homes or whether it’s what the developer is currently asking for, it’s going to be developed. That problem is not going to go away. The opportunity is that you have a chance here to influence your City Councils, both of Shorewood and Chanhassen to do something about those roads. That is a problem because the roads really are in no man’s land and what this could do is to tip that balance to get those roads fixed, and that seems to be the biggest thing everyone has said here tonight is that the infrastructure needs to be upgraded. It is not going to be upgraded unless there is a reason for it, and it’s not going to happen unless you all talk to your City Councils. There is nothing that we as a planning commission can do about the roads. All we can do is look at what this development is. The issue of the water. I would think that for the people living in Shorewood you would be in favor of this because what we’re saying is, we’re going to take all the water and we’re going to dump it to the south and we’re going to impact Chanhassen more than we’re going to impact Shorewood. As far as the two cities, we have a letter in our file from the City of Shorewood requesting that we cooperate with them. I’m sure staff is doing that. There is nothing that the City of Chanhassen would rather do than cooperate with Shorewood. However again, it’s a political problem and I think what you need to do is to address these issues. This is an opportunity to I think get things upgraded. But this development really impacts I think Chanhassen a lot more from a water standpoint, and I’m concerned too about what’s happening with the water as it goes to the south, but it sounds as though we’re looking at that and there may be some fixes for that. So as far as to the people to the west on, to the west of the development, I don’t know what to tell you. When those developments came through, I don’t know how your houses got built and the way they got built because of where the water table was at. This may be an opportunity to fix 39 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 some of those problems. We cannot offer any guarantees that it will but you’ve got a developer here that’s I think willing to do some of those things. Is willing to do something to take a step forward to alleviate a problem that if he does nothing and walks away, the problem does not go away. Water is a zero sum game. It’s there. It’s going someplace. You know you have an opportunity here to try to redirect it someplace else. I would think that would be an opportunity for you to take and to try to get that to happen. As far as the, I guess the concern that a Commissioner Keefe has got about the percentage of the hard surface coverage and everything. I guess I’m not as concerned about that because yeah, the patios are there. If anyone tries to build anything more, we’ve already been through this with a lot of the other commissions, it’s not going to happen. If you had to go before an architectural committee, we’ve already seen the results of that. They are very reluctant to allow any future development with any particular area. So I guess I feel a lot safer from that standpoint, and it’s just overall, overall I think this is a good use of the land. I know that’s not what everyone out there wants to hear, but the other alternative is okay, we’ll deny it. We’ll make them put in single family residences and at that point the hard surface could go up. Most likely will because that is our experience with single family homes. That people add things to it. Your problems do not go away. The whole thing about the water flow becomes a different issue with single family homes than it does with this particular developer. So I’m not sure that we do you any favors by denying the rezoning here. As far as the issue of whether or not we are violating our own city code, what I would ask staff to do is to ask the city attorney for an opinion on that and to give it to City Council when this goes before them so that he is prepared for that. And I think other than that, I’m ready for a motion on this. Papke: Are we going to take these one at a time? McDonald: Yes, let’s take the first one with the rezoning because I think as Sharmeen has said, if that goes nowhere then the rest of it’s moot. Papke: Okay. Mr. Chair, I make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Case No. 06-10 to rezone 12.99 acres of property zoned RSF, Residential Single Family to RLM, Residential Low and Medium Density District for the Boulder Cove as shown on the plans dated received July 7, 2006, and revised July 25, 2006 with the following condition, 1 and only one condition. McDonald: Okay, do I have a second? Dillon: Second. Papke moved, Dillon seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Case #06-10 to rezone 12.99 acres of property zoned RSF, Residential Single Family to RLM, Residential Low and Medium Density District for the Boulder Cove as shown on the plans dated received July 7, 2006, and revised July 25, 2006, subject to the following condition: 40 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 1.Lot 22, Block 1, Boulder Cover shall remain under the Residential Single Family zoning district. All voted in favor, except Keefe who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. McDonald: Now let’s go ahead and continue with the others then. Papke: Mr. Chair, I’d like to make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the preliminary plat for Subdivision Case #06-10 for Boulder Cove for 39 lots and 1 outlot as shown on the plans received July 7, 2006 and revised July 25, 2006, subject to conditions 1 through 33 as stated in the staff report, and I’d like to add two additional conditions. Condition 34. Work with the developer to resolve the back flow on the drain tile at the vicinity of the French tile outlet. And a condition number 35. To work with the developer to see if the additional significant trees can be saved. McDonald: Do I have a second? Larson: Second. Papke moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of the preliminary plat for Subdivision Case #06-10 for Boulder Cove for 39 lots and 1 outlot as shown on the plans received July 7, 2006 and revised July 25, 2006, subject to the following conditions: 1.Hydraulic calculations must be submitted with the final plat application for staff review. The revised calculations should include the entire area drained by the north ditch of Trunk Highway 7 since concentration points have been established at the inlets of the two existing culverts heading south underneath Trunk Highway 7. 2.The top and bottom of wall elevations must be shown on the final grading plan. 3.The developer will reimburse the City the cost of the Barr analysis upon final plat approval. 4.Any retaining wall four feet high or taller must be designed by an engineer registered in the State of Minnesota and requires a building permit. 5.The developer is required to obtain any necessary permits for the sanitary sewer extension from the Metropolitan Council (sewer connection permit) and the City of nd Shorewood (work in right-of-way permit) and West 62 Street must be restored. 6.Rim and invert elevations of all sanitary and storm sewers must be shown on the final utility plan. 41 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 7.The utility plan must show the existing drainage and utility easements on the Miller and Navratil properties. 8.The developer shall be responsible for any damage to the Miller’s fence as a result of the watermain installation. 9.The existing wells and septic systems must be properly removed/abandoned. 10.Public utility improvements are required to be constructed in accordance with the City's latest edition of Standard Specifications and Detail Plates. Detailed construction plans and specifications must be submitted at time of final plat. 11.The private street must be constructed to a 7-ton design. 12.The developer shall be responsible for installing all landscape materials proposed in rear yard areas and bufferyards. 13.Tree preservation fence shall be installed at the edge of the dripline for tree #71 or as close to that location as possible. All other tree preservation fencing shall be installed at the edge of the grading limits prior to any construction. 14.All landscape planting shall be field located. No plantings will be allowed within the dripline of tree #71 or below the NWL of the proposed pond. 15.No evergreens shall be planted in the front yards within a space less than 40 feet in width between driveways. 16.The grading and the storm sewer alignment shall be shifted as far east as needed in order to protect and save the evergreens along the westerly property line. 17.Payment of park fees at the rate in force at the time of platting shall be required as a condition of approval. The 2006 park dedication fees are $5,800 per single family dwelling, $5,000 for each unit in a duplex, and $3,800 for each unit within a three-plex. 18.Drainage and utility easements shall be provided over all storm water ponds and storm water conveyance features outside of the public ROW. 19.The future storm water pond shall be constructed prior to mass grading of the site and shall be used as a temporary sediment basin. A temporary outlet shall be installed (perforated standpipe with rock cone) in the temporary sediment basin. A detail shall be provided within the Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP). 20.Energy dissipation shall be installed at the flared-end section outlet of the storm water basin within 24 hours of outlet installation. 42 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 21.Area inlets and curbside inlet control (Wimco or similar) shall be installed within 24 hours of inlet installation. A detail shall be provided in the SWPPP. 22.The proposed rock construction entrance shall be a minimum 20 feet in width and 75 feet in length with a filter fabric installed under the rock. 23.All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water. 24.Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as needed. A pickup broom shall be used at a minimum of once per week or as conditions warrant. 25.The plans shall be revised to include a typical erosion control detail for individual lots and multifamily lots. 26.At this time the total estimated SWMP fees payable upon approval of the final plat are estimated at $67,384. The applicant will receive a water quality credit of 50% of the per-acre water quality charge for each acre treated by the on-site pond. 27.The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (for dewatering)) and comply with their conditions of approval. 28.Building Department conditions: a.Accessibility must be provided to all portions of the development and a percentage of the units may also be required to be accessible or adaptable in accordance with Minnesota State Building Code Chapter 1341. Further information is needed to determine these requirements. b.Buildings over 8500 square feet of floor area are required to be protected with an automatic sprinkler system. For the purposes of this requirement property lines do not constitute separate buildings and the areas of basements and garages are 43 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 included in the floor area threshold. c.The buildings will be required to be designed by an architect and engineer as determined by the Building Official. d.The developer must submit a list of proposed street name(s) and an addressing plan for review and approval prior to final plat of the property. e.Demolition permits must be obtained before demolishing any structures on the site. Application for such permits must include hazardous substances investigative and proposed mitigation reports. Existing wells and on-site sewage treatment systems but be abandoned in accordance with State Law and City Code. f.A final grading plan and soils report must be submitted to the Inspections Division before permits can be issued. g.Walls and projections within 3 feet of property lines are required to be of one- hour fire-resistive construction. h.Retaining walls over four feet high require a permit and must be designed by a professional engineer. i.Each lot must be provided with separate sewer and water services. j.The developer and or their agent shall meet with the Inspections Division as early as possible to discuss plan review and permit procedures. k.The developer must coordinate the address changes of the two existing homes with the construction of the development and provide access for emergency vehicles at all times. 29.Fire Marshal conditions: a.A 10-foot clear space must be maintained around fire hydrants, i.e., street lamps, trees, shrubs, bushes, Xcel Energy, Qwest, cable TV and transformer boxes. This is to ensure that fire hydrants can be quickly located and safely operated by firefighters. Pursuant to Chanhassen City Ordinance #9-1. b.Fire apparatus access roads and water supply for fire protection is required to be installed. Such protection shall be installed and made serviceable prior to and during the time of construction except when approved alternate methods of protection are provided. c.Temporary street signs shall be installed at street intersections once construction of the new roadway allows passage of vehicles. Pursuant to 2002 Minnesota Fire Code Section 501.4. 44 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 d.Fire apparatus access roads shall be designed and maintained to support the imposed load of fire apparatus and shall be serviced so as to provide all-weather driving capabilities. Pursuant to Minnesota Fire Code Section 503.2.3. e.No burning permits shall be issued for trees to be removed. Trees and shrubs must either be removed from site or chipped. f.Fire hydrant spacing is acceptable. 30.All existing buildings on the site, with the exception of the house and garage on lot 22, block 1, shall be removed. 31.Lot 22, Block 1, shall maintain a maximum hard surface coverage of 25%. 32.Sheets 2, 3, 4 and 5 shall be modified to reflect the new layout of Outlot A. 33.A cross-access easement agreement shall be granted in favor of the property located at 3520 Highway 7.” 34.Work with the developer to resolve the back flow on the drain tile at the vicinity of the French tile outlet. 35. Work with the developer to see if the additional significant trees can be saved. All voted in favor, except Keefe who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. McDonald: Motion carries 4 to 1. Papke: Might as well finish her off. I’ll make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends approval of site plan, Case #06-10 to construct 4 threeplexes as shown on the plans dated received July 7, 2006 and revised July 25, 2006 with the following conditions 1 through 4 as stated in the staff report. McDonald: Do I have a second? Dillon: Second. Papke moved, Dillon seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Site Plan #06-10 to construct 4 threeplexes as shown on the plans dated Received July 7, 2006 and revised July 25, 2006, subject to the following conditions: 1.The applicant shall evaluate the potential for wing walls between the patios on the three- plexes. 45 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 2.The three-plexes shall be built as shown on the elevations and floor plans dated received February 3, 2006. 3.The applicant shall utilize cultured stone on a variety of elevations, i.e. an entire garage elevation or an entire entryway elevation, rather than stopping at the midpoint of a wall. The applicant shall also use Hardie board siding versus stucco. 4.The applicant shall submit drawings showing the exterior elevations and materials for the single-family and duplex units. All voted in favor, except Keefe who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. McDonald: And with that we conclude this particular case. Papke: 5 minute bio? McDonald: Yes we can. What I would say to all the residents out there that yes, if you do have questions about this, please contact staff and they would be more than happy to explain. (The Planning Commission took a short recess at this point in the meeting.) PUBLIC HEARING: REQUEST FOR AN INTERIM USE PERMIT FOR OFF-SITE GRADING FOR THE DISPOSAL OF DIRT FROM THE HIGHWAY 312 CORRIDOR ON PROPERTY LOCATED AT 1560 BLUFF CREEK DRIVE AND 1425 BLUFF CREEK DRIVE, AND SOUTH OF THE HENNEPIN COUNTY RAIL CORRIDOR AND BLUFF CREEK DRIVE, PLANNING CASE NO. 06-28, ZUMBRO RIVER CONSTRUCTORS. Public Present: Name Address Brad Moe 14372 Westridge Drive, Eden Prairie Mike Billing 312 Lake Hazeltine Drive, Chaska Cindy Peterson 1161 Bluff Creek Drive Lindsay Lein 1161 Bluff Creek Drive Mary Fafiushi 1520 West Farm Road, Chaska Alyson Fauske presented the staff report regarding Site 1 and asked for commissioner questions. Dillon: Why is this being done? 46 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Fauske: From what staff has been told, these property owners approached Zumbro River Constructors stating that there’s some low areas on the property that they would like to be filled. Zumbro River Constructors has an excessive amount of material from the 212 project that they are looking for locations to be able to use them, and so Zumbro River Constructors came in and talked to staff about the potential of using these sites for fill and has the proposal through here. Larson: How does this impact the neighboring properties? Fauske: The proposed grading would be entirely on the, Mr. Hesse and Mr. Moe’s property. As far as impacts, there’s no physical. Commissioner Larson made a comment that was not picked up on tape. Fauske: It would be filling in a low area. I don’t have a photograph but. Larson: They’re not building a mountain on that property? Fauske: No, it’s filling in a low area. The property drops, there’s a large barn, a white fence that they’re looking to remove regardless of the project. And it slopes from the north to the south down to the roadway there. Just kind of a localized low area. Larson: …fine with the neighboring properties. Fauske: This shows the proposed area. The proposed fill area through here, and I don’t know if the blue and the red show up very well but the red shows the low area in through here. This is, we start moving up the slope through here and the blue shows where the proposed fill would go in. There’s some tree lines in through here. Keefe: And how do they get there? Fauske: They would come from, via Audubon to Bluff Creek Drive and then staff is, if Planning Commission is going to recommend approval, staff has provided a recommendation to get access from this private drive here just to minimize the truck moving, truck turning movement onto the site. Keefe: So it just goes over land? There isn’t a roadway in there. They’d create a roadway in there. How many trips is it? You say it’s a lot of trips. Fauske: It’s several trips. Keefe: Yeah. Fauske: Each truck can take 10 cubic yards, so you’re looking at, and we never clarified this with the applicant. I’m assuming the 35,000 cubic yards is a compacted volume, so the volume that’s in place right now. So when you look at trucking operations, that’s the 47 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 amount of fill, that amount of volume of fill to be trucked may be increased by 20% or more. Papke: Could you kind of summarize your, I’m looking at the findings of fact here. The statement that this would result in stopping traffic every other minute for over 3 weeks. Could you explain that calculation? Fauske: We went through this and what we looked at was, we looked at the proposal based on the timeframe that they were requesting and the hours of operation that we would be restricting them to. We can certainly, we can play with numbers all we want and reduce the volume of fill being brought in there but looking at the volume of fill to be placed in here, in their anticipated timeframe, we just looked at those trucks on a 28 foot wide street would shut operations down every other minute. McDonald: Is it possible to stage the trucks and say that only during certain times and you know try to minimize the impact on? Fauske: Well we can try to stage the trucks as much as possible but the issue is, it comes down to the volume and the width of streets. With it being a 28 foot wide street and with the type of vehicles that they’ll be using to bring the fill onto the site, when you take the truck turning templates onto here, I just, I couldn’t get them to make the turns without using up the whole roadway. Larson: Does it wreck the road? Fauske: The actual design of the pavement thickness of Bluff Creek Boulevard is a fairly good thickness. So we don’t have an issue as far as the weight of the vehicles on there. We just have an issue with the width of the road. Larson: So. Papke: How about the curb? Fauske: The curb would be an issue. That’s why we would look at collecting an escrow so that if there were curbs to be replaced, that we would have money to do so. Larson: So the traffic issue that we’re talking about, it looks like it’s relatively…in that area. Larger properties. So what kind of impact are we really talking as far as actual citizens who…it doesn’t seem like it’s terribly far from one property to the other. Fauske: I mean certainly it would, they would, Zumbro River Constructors would have erosion control and dust mitigation measures to make sure that, to the most amount, to the most extent praticable that they wouldn’t be disrupting neighbors. There will be truck traffic generated from this. Larson: Have any of the neighbors…? 48 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Fauske: All 3 sites had a sign put up. We’ve had several calls from, and some visits to City Hall from residents that saw the sign. They wanted to first of all make sure it wasn’t development coming through. We explained it was a grading operation. Bringing in anywhere between 30 to 90,000 cubic yards of fill. Commissioner Larson’s question was not heard on tape. Fauske: You know to be honest with you for, I don’t know if the volume of fill registered with them. But to be honest with you, as soon as they found out it was not development, they were fine. Larson: You mean more so than we’re talking about what it’s going to do to the trees on the property and that. Fauske: Correct. And as far as traffic trips, I’m sure that there’s a representative from Zumbro River here tonight who would perhaps give a better explanation as to what their staging would be for traffic. How they could minimize the traffic trips through there and you know try to make it as seemless as possible to do, if you approve, recommend approval. Papke: When would this occur? What time of the year? Fairly soon? Fauske: I believe their application, well that was another issue is, you know they gave us some time frames in the application for this site. Papke: While school is in session? Because one of my concerns is that is a school bus route and if we’re closing down traffic pretty frequently there, I’d feel concerned about school buses. Fauske: They’re predicting sometime in August, September or October of 2006. Papke: Yeah, then you’re going to impact buses. Fauske: And they anticipate, I believe it was 3 weeks for this. 2 weeks, okay. 2 weeks. No, it’s 3. 3 weeks for this one. And when Zumbro River came in to talk to us about this, they had identified that there were several sites they were looking at for grading operations, and at that point we told them to bring them in as, all the applications in at once, so that we could look at the cumulative effect of them. Again, they’re here tonight to talk about what they can do as far as doing some fill operations here, and then waiting, staggering them if you will so that they’re not trucking to multiple sites at the same time. To the two sites off Bluff Creek Boulevard at the same time. McDonald: Okay, if this property isn’t going to be developed, what’s the purpose of putting the fill there? I know you said it’s low, but are we trying to bring it up so at some point it can be developed or why these sites? 49 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Fauske: What we were told is that the property owners approached Zumbro River Constructors to place some fill on their property to level it out, and that’s all that we’ve been told. McDonald: And then if we go and restrict the hours from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., does that take care of the school bus operation at that point? Fauske: I believe that would still provide some conflicts. I would think for elementary school that would have some conflicts. McDonald: Okay. Anyone else have any questions on this particular? Dillon: How close is this to the Seminary fen? Fauske: This particular site, this is right here. The Seminary Fen is located right here near Site 2. Papke: So Site 2 would be more. Fauske: Site 2, yes. So Site 2’s getting fill. Are we ready to move on to Site 2? Okay. Site 2, as you can see on the drawing here, is on Bluff Creek Drive as well. The Seminary Fen is located around here. There’s also Bluff Creek Inn is located just to the south and east of the property. Again this is their proposed grading plan. This shows Bluff Creek Drive at this location. To give you an idea, this is where the Inn is. Their access would be from this field entrance here. This proposal is for 90,000 cubic yards of fill. And their proposal would be for, I believe it was 5 weeks. 5 weeks of hauling to this site. As you can see from the grades here, we’re high here at Bluff Creek Drive existing. There’s some trees here located adjacent to the road, and then grades drop off as you head to the south, and this proposal to fill along through that corridor up to the tree line. The maximum amount of fill for this site is 27 feet. There’s some concerns that staff also had with this site. One is that this isn’t a low area. It’s a gently sloping area. It’s not a low area. However, so when we looked at this application, it wasn’t, we struggled somewhat with what the reason was to place this fill here. With it not being a low area. Just instead flattening out the slope up here at the top and then grading down to 3 to 1 up to the tree line. That was one concern. Second concern is, all these trees along here would be removed, and then third of all, would be the impact to this old structure here. The Bluff Creek Drive Inn. It’s in some proximity, certainly there are construction measures that we can take to minimize vibration to that structure but we would certainly, we need to be cognizant of that structure being there and employ practices that would minimize any potential damage to that building. Larson: The trees that are there, are they significant trees or what do we have over there? Fauske: The trees in through here, I don’t know that they, that tree’s a significant tree. I think they just showed the tree removal. They just showed the percent of tree removal. 50 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 It’s a lot of small, especially as you get along the right-of-way, it is smaller trees. The City Forester has looked at this and her comments are also in the report. One of the, one other environmental concern that came from our Water Resources person is, as Commissioner Dillon had alluded to earlier, is this drawing here shows the extent of the fen. To give you an idea of where we’re at, this is Bluff Creek Boulevard. I apologize this is a little difficult to read. This is the proposed site where the fill will take place. The fen comes up through here. And they have some hydric soils that come up through here and we also had, we have another hydric soils map that indicates that there might be some hydric soils up in this proposed fill area. The report indicates what some of the issues are from an environmental perspective with placing fill so closely to the fen. There’s concern with compaction of the underlying soil, that this could interrupt some of the ground water flow characteristics in this area. There’s currently a feeder if you will down to the fen area that runs north/south in this direction here so there’s some concerns with ground water and the hydrology of the fen, Assumption Creek and the wetland complex. Again, similar to the other site, staff also had concerns with the amount of truck traffic and disruption to traffic on Bluff Creek Boulevard as a result of this fill operation. We’ve recommended denial of this one. However, we have also provided again an alternative recommendation on page 5 with some conditions of approval should the Planning Commission find that there’s some resolution to the issues presented here this evening. McDonald: Okay, any questions on Site 2? I guess the questions I had, you can’t really answer so I’m hoping that whoever the applicant is, that they can answer some of this. Fauske: Okay. McDonald: Why don’t we move on to Site 3. Fauske: Site 3. The John Klingelhutz property which lies right here. 212 is right here. This proposal includes the placing of up to 35,000 cubic yards of fill. Oh pardon me, 30,000 cubic yards of fill. Maximum fill of 27 feet. This drawing shows, again in red, the existing and proposed, the existing contours, proposed contours in blue. They’re proposing to fill a low area that is this, along the north side of Bluff Creek Drive, and along the north side of the access to the property. There’s some tree, some tree lines along the driveway here. This is again a natural low lying area that they’re proposing to place some fill in. Unlike the other two applications, the fill would be brought over land via the new, the new alignment of Bluff Creek Drive. So there would be no impact to public roads associated with this hauling. They provided erosion control and restoration similar to the other two plans. Therefore staff is recommending approval of this grading interim use permit. McDonald: Any questions concerning Site 3? Thank you very much. Is the applicant here? Mike Billing: Hello, I’m Mike Billing with Zumbro River Constructors. We’re located at 312 Lake Hazeltine Drive in Chaska. 51 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 McDonald: I guess at this point you’re waiting for us to ask you questions. Mike Billing: Any questions you’ve got. Keefe: When’s the highway going to be open? Mike Billing: Which section? Keefe: Dell Road. Mike Billing: Dell Road? This fall. And if MnDot would reduce the revenue cap, we’d open up Powers this year. McDonald: Why this fill on these sites? What’s the importance of these particular sites that we need to look at putting the fill there? Mike Billing: This site here we were approached by the landowner. He’s got a low area. He’s got a horse pasture right in this area. He’s got some standing water issues that by filling that in he won’t have the standing water. Horses will be up on high ground instead of on soft ground. And it will raise the site up for future development so that it would alleviate the need for a lift station. McDonald: It would alleviate the need for a lift station? Mike Billing: For this property because it is so low right there. Brad Moe: If it were to be developed. Mike Billing: If it were to be developed down the line. I guess I’d have to go back to staff. Do you concur with that? That doing that could possibly benefit the city? Fauske: Based on, without looking at a development plan to know a dirt balance on the site, yes it is a low area based on the existing grades but as well most developments have cut in some places, fill in others. To give you a definitive, that absolutely this would require a lift station, I cannot say that. McDonald: Okay, that’s fair. If you don’t put the fill on these sites, where’s it going? Mike Billing: It will either go down Audubon Road to 212 to a disposal site we have currently down by the river, or down Bluff Creek Drive to 212, down 41 to the same disposal site. McDonald: And how involved are you as far as putting the fill on Site 2 and a potential environmental impact to the fen area? 52 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Mike Billing: We did talk to Bob Obermeyer from the watershed district. Met with him on site and he did not see an issue with Site 2. Keefe: Can you just back up a minute. So you’d take this down Bluff Creek Boulevard anyway? I mean I know one of the staff concern is the number of trips going down Bluff Creek and the amount of traffic it would generate. I mean if you weren’t doing these particular sites during this time period, would you have more or less traffic along there? Mike Billing: It’s about the same. Keefe: It’d be about the same. Oehme: I’d like to clarify that a little bit Commissioner Keefe. ZRC is not allowed to run any trucks from their contract for the 212 contract on Bluff Creek Drive. That’s a local road, collector roadway. They are only allowed to go down Audubon or county roads at this time. McDonald: So if they want to go down Bluff Creek, they have to do the same thing here. Apply for a permit to use it? Oehme: That’s correct. That’s in their contract. Mike Billing: I guess we’d have to get a revised haul route. Which we’re currently in the process of doing with the new realignment of Bluff Creek. Dillon: You know the Site number 2, if we support the staff’s first thing to deny that, I mean then are you guys prepared or is the land owner prepared to do the environmental impact work that’s asked for and all these other stipulations? Or are you just going to take it to the river bed after that? Mike Billing: That, we’re undecided at this time. I mean it’s going to depend on how fast we need the disposal area and timeframe that it’s going to take to do all the paperwork. McDonald: Any further questions? Okay, thank you very much. Mike Billing: Sure. McDonald: At this point I will open this up. This is a pubic meeting and we do accept comments from the public. Come on up sir and again, state your name and address and address the council. Brad Moe: Hi. I’m co-applicant. My name is Brad Moe. I live at 14372 Westridge Drive, Eden Prairie. I’m also here for my father-in-law, Harold Hesse. He’s co-applicant as well. He lives at 1425 Bluff Creek Drive, Chanhassen. A lot of, council had questions apparently, and I hope I can answer those. Excuse me, not council, commission. And 53 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 staff. I just want to make it clear, I’m not a developer. I’m just a farmer. We’re, you know people are asking about the fill. I guess I’m a little concerned because I didn’t think it was going to be this big of a thing, and we just found out this afternoon that staff’s recommendation, that it not be approved, and I guess that’s surprising to me. I guess I want to explain my position. I can start with Site 1. Site 1 is the homestead and my father-in-law, he basically developed all of the Hesse Farm. I don’t know if anyone’s familiar with it, and the homestead is this portion right here, and our intent there is, we have the barn and the cow yard. And the cow yard slopes down and since the 1950’s my father-in-law has been bringing fill in, and he’s put fill there and behind the barn and what it’s done, it’s basically created a drop off to the south. And we can’t farm that. You can’t cut the weeks. It’s a drop off. So what my intent is with this fill is to raise that cow yard flat where it should be, and then from the cow yard down to Hesse Farm Road, fill in the low wet area so then you can farm that and you can use that area. The other thing is, it’s a neighborhood that was developed, as I said, previously by my father-in-law and his desire was to keep the land rolling and wooded and natural. There has not been extensive grading on the property. The only thing that we’re doing here, and I want to respect that as well. And Harold’s with me on this as well is just fill the low area and keep it appearing natural as it should be. And kind of fixing what he wrecked in the 50’s with his fill at that time. Site 2 is located further down. That’s actually Harold’s land as well. 20 acres below the bike trail. Formerly the railroad. And the intention there is the same. Is to, staff stated that it’s not a low area, and it’s really not a low area but what it has is when they built Bluff Creek Drive, when they improved it, paved it, the road was built in such a way that it’s right on the edge of the hillside there and there’s a lot of fill placed against the side and it drops off. And what happened previously with the railroad, the water shoots down the hill quite fast and it goes in the gutters and they have catch basins along there and it’s suppose to divert it down the hill. What’s happened is over the years, once they removed the railroad tracks, that water shoots across there. Hits the edge of, right at the top there and it falls down, so you have all this water coming down Bluff Creek Drive, and it’s basically eroded in the what, 10 years or more since the road’s been there. Eroded all this hillside and all that’s washed, we get all the trash off Bluff Creek Drive and all the water, all the sand, and that’s my intent here was to fill that up so that the water would stay within the roadway and provide us with an area that we can still farm. As far as trees down there, those trees are dead elm and box elders. I don’t know how you could find significant trees. There are some big box elders but the oaks and the nice trees are further to the west. As far as the trees on Site 1, there’s probably a hand full of those. And those are all trees that we’ve planted. My intent is to plant trees in there once it’s done. The road project’s affecting additional land of our’s up to the north and I have trees there. My intent is to take those trees. Transfer those onto Site 1. As far as traffic, my understanding is reading the staff comment is that traffic’s a big issue. I guess I look at it, yes traffic is an issue but it’s a temporary issue. I’m trying to fix something here. Like I said previously, I’m not a developer. I’m not trying to make money off this. I’m trying to fix problems and do the right thing, and I ask the commission to do the right thing as well. I don’t, you know we had a case in here beforehand. There’s a lot of people. There’s a lot of people on the Hesse Farm that would have worst to say and I think there’s a few people here that might want to say 54 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 some words but for the most part I don’t think there’s any objection to this taking place. And I can answer any questions you might have. McDonald: Anybody have any questions? I guess the question I have is, would you be agreeable to further restrictions as far as the hours? If this were to go into the school year, to give priority to basically the bus schedule. Brad Moe: I’d have to leave that to Zumbro. We wouldn’t have a problem with that. Keefe: What’s the potential for getting it done before the school year? Brad Moe: Depends on how fast the council can act. Keefe: Does this have, this has to go to council doesn’t it? And when will it be on? th Generous: It’s scheduled for the 28. th Keefe: Oh, not til the 28. School’s in session then. McDonald: And the other thing on Site 2, you know one of the recommendations that they’re looking at is because of the Seminary Fen, there’s probably going to be some additional impact that you’re going to have to look at there. Especially from the standpoint of environmental impact. Are you prepared to pay the cost to get that done? Brad Moe: I personally am not. I’m not, I can’t speak for Zumbro, but my concern is, the fen doesn’t, isn’t adjacent to our property. I’d asked the City to place the location of the fen because from what I can look at on this, it’s not on our property, if that’s what’s in the red there. The orange is, I don’t know what the orange is. Keefe: How far down from your property is the wetland? You’ve got on the elevation there. Brad Moe: Right. I mean everything we farmed is, it’s not wetland. I mean we’re farming it and you can see that in black here. And that ends right at this point here so you’d have, I don’t know. You know thousands of feet to that point where you’re at there. It’s not a close you know, I’d be willing to meet. Larson: ...lot? Brad Moe: No. It’s flat. But you know I’d be willing to meet with staff and walk the ground and you know, I’m surprised that it came to this point. That was my phone number and name was on the application. I would have assumed I would have got a call. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. 55 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 McDonald: Okay. Well I appreciate you coming to the meeting tonight. No one else has any questions, is there anyone else that wishes to speak? Would you come forward please. Cindy Peterson: Good evening. My name is Cindy Peterson. I live at 1161 Bluff Creek Drive and I own Bluff Creek Inn. So Site 2, I’m concerned about the Site w proposal because it would have an impact on us. Traffic wise it would be difficult for guests getting in and out. We’re at the bottom of the hill. Just right off of 212 so I think that would impact people coming in and out. It would impact the hours of, between 9:00 or 3:00 would not necessarily impact us. We serve breakfast generally at 9:00 in the morning and check out is at 11:00, but it is conceivable that people would be disrupted from what they’re doing. Part of the charm of our place is that it’s country. There’s no other buildings around. There’s not a lot of noise, except for the noise that goes up and down this street. We have a well. That’s how we get our water. I understood that there was some concern about compacting the ground with trucks and the additional of fill being put in there affecting the ground, the water table under the ground. I’m concerned that that might also affect our well. The field right now is level with our property. If they filled it, then I do have some concern about drainage onto our property then, and it’s not, it will no longer be level so I wouldn’t be interested in knowing what, how that intends to play out. The trees are not necessarily significant trees but for guests in the Inn that have rooms on the second floor, what they look out in the westerly direction and that’s what they see. They see the field and they see the trees along that road. If those trees are gone, that would impact the multi aesthetics for our property as well. 90,000 cubic yards of fill is 3 times the amount of fill for the other sites further up the hill. That’s a lot of dirt they’re bringing in. I just have some concerns about our business. I think it would impact our business and our livelihood. Have this construction go on. I don’t understand how the trucks would be turning onto the property to dump the fill right there because it is just Bluff Creek Drive, so you would have to stop traffic for trucks to be able to get in and out and that would definitely have an impact on us. Thank you for your time. Keefe: One quick question. Is your business open when? Is it seasonal or is it year round? Cindy Peterson: It’s year round. Keefe: It is, okay. Cindy Peterson: And we’re in a good location for it to be year round. McDonald: Thank you. Cindy Peterson: Thank you. 56 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 McDonald: Does anyone else wish to come up and speak. Okay, seeing no one else coming forward, we’ll close the public meeting on this agenda item and I’ll bring it back up before the commissioners for an open discussion. I’ll start with you Kurt. Papke: I guess I have to side with staff’s recommendations on this one. I’m real concerned with disruption of traffic flow. You’ve got Bluff Creek Inn. You’ve got the homeowners in the Hesse Farm development and those that live along there. You’ve got the trailhead for the LRT right there, so you’d be disrupting access to the Hennepin LRT. When, normally when we see a development, you know we’ve got pretty good grading. You know we just went through 3 hours of drainage for the previous development with real reasoned analysis on hydrological analysis of everything, and here we want to move 90,000 cubic yards with you know a topo map. Boy, you know I got a tough time with that one, right next to the Seminary Fen. So you know I don’t have any problem with the Klingelhutz one. I mean they’re going to go overland. They’re right next to 212. There’s no disruption to traffic. The only other thing I’d add is, you know I live right along Pioneer Trail. I’ve lived through 2 years of these trucks and don’t under estimate. These are monster trucks, alright. My house is 300 feet away from Pioneer Trail and my house shakes when they go by in the morning so, you know this is no minor impact so. McDonald: Okay. Kevin. Dillon: I’d agree. I think the Site number 2 is definitely got some issues on that. I think that is kind of closer to comfort to the Seminary Fen so that, and plus we heard from the one person on there with the, although it’s temporary, a potential impact on business for a while, and certainly the added you know, you’re going to be right near the bicycle trail and stuff. With the Site number 1, you know with the staff’s recommendations, stipulations they have and they seem pretty reasonable. I would support that one and the Klingelhutz one certainly seems… Larson: Exactly what they just said. McDonald: Okay. Dan. Keefe: So what can we do, we can’t do 1 and 3 right? So I guess I’d be in support of 1 and 3 which is different than what staff. Papke: You are going to impact traffic when you do that. Keefe: Right, but for a shorter period of time and I think. Commissioner Larson’s comments were not picked up on tape. McDonald: I guess my concern is, the lack of detail, especially well with the Site 2. You know I guess Site 1 and Klingelhutz, I can be in favor of that, especially if the Klingelhutz, when you tell me that we won’t have to use the road to get there, that makes it a little bit more palatable and with the other one, if there’s some way to arrange that so 57 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 again there’s minimal impact, that would be something that I guess Zumbro needs to talk to staff about and whatever restrictions staff would come up with. You’ve got to give priority to the school year. You can’t be stopping buses and those things. And I guess with Site 3, looks as though that one could be done fairly quickly so that minimizes the impact off from the rest of the roadway there but, yeah I just don’t have enough detail and I think Mr. Papke’s right. We spent 3 hours you know going through all kinds of stuff about changing land because of water and those things. I don’t have enough detail and confidence on Site 2. Even if you’re agreeable to working with staff, I think that’s something that probably should have been done before hand so that we don’t have to do this all on the fly. That’s just kind of my opinion on it but, now a question for staff. My understanding is that we can vote on these a site at a time, is that right? Generous: That’s correct. McDonald: Okay. And at that point are you willing to accept. Keefe: We could amend it too. McDonald: Yeah, well…staff’s already proposed an amendment for us for Site 1. So I’m open to a motion. Keefe: I’ll make a motion the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends approval of Planning Case #06-28 for Interim Use Permit to grade and fill Site 3 in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Zumbro River Constructors for the site subject to conditions 1 through 10, and I would offer an amendment to this to include Site 1. Larson: Second that. Keefe moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Planning Case #06-28 for Interim Use Permits to grade and fill Site 1 (1425 Bluff Creek Drive) in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Zumbro River Constructors for the site, subject to the following conditions: 1. “Truck Hauling” signs posted at each end of Bluff Creek Drive. 2. Flag-persons must be on-site during trucking operations. 3. Bluff Creek Drive must be scraped and swept daily. 4. For safety reasons, access to the site should be via West Farm Road. The owner and applicant are responsible for obtaining permission for this access. 5. A $4,500 escrow must be posted to guarantee the replacement of Bluff Creek Drive curb and gutter and pavement that is damaged due to the trucking operations at this site. 58 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 6. Hours of operations shall be 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, with no work allowed on holidays. 7. The site access must be clearly shown on the plan. 8. No fill shall be placed within the Bluff Creek Drive right-of-way. 9.The proposed swale along the southeast edge of the property shall be constructed to minimize the potential for erosion around existing trees. 10. Each site shall be examined by a professional wetland delineator to determine whether jurisdictional wetlands exist on-site or within 150 feet of the proposed fill. Any wetlands that are identified shall be delineated, then reviewed by the City prior to any work commencing on-site. If the delineation shows the proposed project to include wetland impact, the applicant shall obtain a wetland alteration permit from the City prior to wetland impacts occurring. 11. A wetland buffer 16.5 to 20 feet in width (with a minimum average of 16.5 feet) shall be maintained around any ag/urban wetlands. Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City’s wetland ordinance. The applicant shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of City staff, before construction begins and shall pay the City $20 per sign. All structures shall maintain a setback of at least 40 feet from ag/urban wetland buffer edges. 12. Wetland replacement, if necessary, shall occur in a manner consistent with the wetland alteration permit and the Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act (MR 8420). 13. Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water. 14. Silt fence shall be installed at the base of all proposed slopes in accordance with Chanhassen Standard Detail Plates 5300. A rock construction entrance meeting the specifications of Chanhassen Standard Detail Plate 5301 shall be installed where truck traffic will enter and exit Bluff Creek Drive. Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as-needed. Wimco-type 59 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 inlet protection shall be installed in accordance with Chanhassen Standard Detail Plate 5302A in all catch basins within 200 feet of the proposed project sites and maintained as needed. The construction plans shall be revised to show the locations of the proposed silt fence, rock construction entrances and Wimco-type inlet protection and to include Chanhassen Standard Detail Plates 5300, 5301 and 5302A. 15. The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Site Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota Department of Transportation) and comply with their conditions of approval. Zumbro River Constructors shall apply for and receive an amendment to their existing NPDES Phase II Construction Permit for the Trunk Highway 212 project from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to incorporate a storm water pollution prevention plan for these sites. 16. The applicant should review proposed slopes and runoff velocities for the site and provide additional rock checks as an erosion control mechanism if needed. Rock checks proposed within the right-of-way for Bluff Creek Drive must be reviewed and approved by the City prior to installation. All voted in favor, except Papke who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. Keefe moved, Larson seconded that the Planning Commission recommends approval of Planning Case #06-28 for Interim Use Permits to grade and fill Site 3 (1560 Bluff Creek Drive) in conformance with the grading plans prepared by Zumbro River Constructors for the site, subject to the following conditions: 1. Overland hauling must utilize the existing creek crossing for the Bluff Creek Drive realignment. 2. No fill shall be placed within the Bluff Creek Drive right-of-way. 3. Hours of operations are 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, with no work allowed on holidays. 4. Each site shall be examined by a professional wetland delineator to determine whether jurisdictional wetlands exist on-site or within 150 feet of the proposed fill. Any wetlands that are identified shall be delineated, then reviewed by the City prior to any work commencing on-site. If the delineation shows the proposed project to include wetland impact, the applicant shall obtain a wetland alteration permit from the City prior to wetland impacts occurring. 5. A wetland buffer 16.5 to 20 feet in width (with a minimum average of 16.5 feet) shall be maintained around any ag/urban wetlands. Wetland buffer areas shall be preserved, surveyed and staked in accordance with the City’s wetland ordinance. The applicant 60 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 shall install wetland buffer edge signs, under the direction of City staff, before construction begins and shall pay the City $20 per sign. All structures shall maintain a setback of at least 40 feet from ag/urban wetland buffer edges. 6. Wetland replacement, if necessary, shall occur in a manner consistent with the wetland alteration permit and the Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act (MR 8420). 7. Erosion control blanket shall be installed on all slopes greater than or equal to 3:1. All exposed soil areas shall have temporary erosion protection or permanent cover year round, according to the following table of slopes and time frames: Type of Slope Time (Maximum time an area can Steeper than 3:1 7 days remain open when the area 10:1 to 3:1 14 days is not actively being worked.) Flatter than 10:1 21 days These areas include constructed storm water management pond side slopes, and any exposed soil areas with a positive slope to a storm water conveyance system, such as a curb and gutter system, storm sewer inlet, temporary or permanent drainage ditch or other natural or man made systems that discharge to a surface water. 8. Silt fence shall be installed at the base of all proposed slopes in accordance with Chanhassen Standard Detail Plates 5300. A rock construction entrance meeting the specifications of Chanhassen Standard Detail Plate 5301 shall be installed where truck traffic will enter and exit Bluff Creek Drive. Street cleaning of soil tracked onto public streets shall include daily street scraping and street sweeping as-needed. Wimco-type inlet protection shall be installed in accordance with Chanhassen Standard Detail Plate 5302A in all catch basins within 200 feet of the proposed project sites and maintained as needed. The construction plans shall be revised to show the locations of the proposed silt fence, rock construction entrances and Wimco-type inlet protection and to include Chanhassen Standard Detail Plates 5300, 5301 and 5302A. 9. The applicant shall apply for and obtain permits from the appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., Riley-Purgatory-Bluff Creek Watershed District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (NPDES Phase II Construction Site Permit), Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota Department of Transportation) and comply with their conditions of approval. Zumbro River Constructors shall apply for and receive an amendment to their existing NPDES Phase II Construction Permit for the Trunk Highway 212 project from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to incorporate a storm water pollution prevention plan for these sites. 10. The applicant should review proposed slopes and runoff velocities for the site and provide additional rock checks as an erosion control mechanism if needed. Rock checks proposed within the right-of-way for Bluff Creek Drive must be reviewed and approved by the City prior to installation. 61 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 All voted in favor, except Papke who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. Generous: Mr. Chairman, could I have a point of clarification? McDonald: You certainly can. Generous: As part of that motion, did you add those alternate conditions on page 3 of the staff report? That directly dealt with Site 1? McDonald: I thought that that was your intent. Keefe: Yes, it was my intent. I thought were those included in the? Generous: They’re not. Keefe: They would be to include those. Generous: So add those conditions. Keefe: Yes. Generous: Thank you. McDonald: We need to look at Site 2. So I would need a motion for Site 2. Keefe: I though it was either or. A or B. McDonald: Okay. It’s getting late. This is one of those things where we’re having problems. I need some help from staff as far as. Generous: Mr. Chairman, if you’d just take Motion A and drop Site 1 from that, then you would be denying Site 2. Keefe: We can do it that way. McDonald: Is that alright? Okay. Do we need to revote on that then? Generous: You would have to make a motion, yes because you did the approval of the interim use permits so now you’re actually moving to deny an interim use permit. Keefe: Okay, I’ll make a motion the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends denial of Planning Case #06-28 for Interim Use Permit to grade and fill properties identified as Site 2 in the staff report. McDonald: Second? 62 Planning Commission Meeting – August 1, 2006 Larson: Second. Keefe moved, Larson seconded that the Chanhassen Planning Commission recommends denial of Planning Case #06-28 for Interim Use Permit to grade and fill properties identified as Site 2 located southwest of Bluff Creek Drive, south of the Hennepin County Regional Trail Corridor and north of the Bluff Creek Inn. All voted in favor, except Papke who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 4 to 1. McDonald: Okay, motion carries 4 to 1. Now the other site, was that covered? Generous: That was part of the first one. Keefe: Yeah, that was part of the first one. APPROVAL OF MINUTES:Commissioner Papke noted the verbatim and summary minutes of the Planning Commission meeting dated July 18, 2006 as presented. Chairman McDonald adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 10:35 p.m. Submitted by Kate Aanenson Community Development Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 63