CC Minutes 7-10-06
City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
residents. Both to the east and the west, and I think it would still be my suggestion to make sure
we get it right.
Councilman Peterson: And I would think we should be able to turn it around in 2 weeks.
Mayor Furlong: I mean we can. I mean there are issues here that need to be addressed and if we
can do that, that’d be great. Let’s turn it around as quickly as possible would be our
recommendation. Other thoughts and comments at this point or issues to, I mean I don’t want to
start repeating and, repeating and being redundant.
Councilman Lundquist: Given even the, ask the questions about the height of the other buildings
with the other things that have been brought up and the changes of the conditions, I don’t want to
have one where we’re you know, you know what she said.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, no. No, absolutely.
Councilman Peterson: Motion to table.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Lundquist: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded.
Councilman Peterson moved, Councilman Lundquist seconded that the City Council table
Planning Case 06-26 for Lakeside development. All voted in favor, except Councilwoman
Tjornhom who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 1.
THOMAS SCHWARTZ, 7376 BENT BOW TRAIL: REQUEST FOR A VARIANCE TO
ALLOW STRUCTURES WITHIN THE 40 FOOT WETLAND BUFFER SETBACK.
Public Present:
Name Address
Eric V. Doremus 7371 Bent Bow Trail
Paula & Thomas Schwartz 7376 Bent Bow Trail
Michael Nelson 7357 Bent Bow Trail
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. I just wanted to point out to the council, I did hand out
conservation easement. I just wanted to explain that. There is a conservation easement that’s
associated to this application and that’s some standard language for a conservation easement. So
I’ll go through that in a minute after we go through the staff report. The variance request before
you tonight is, the Schwartz case on 7376 Bent Bow Trail, located here in the Longacres
subdivision. This is the lot itself. While the lot is very large, it’s actually encumbered by a
couple different types of easements and I guess that’s one of the reasons why I pulled out the
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
easements for you tonight. What brought this to our attention, in going through the staff report
in the storm last summer, October. Excuse me, last fall. September-October, 2005 it was
noticed that there was some plantings and structures in the drainage overflow areas, so I’m going
to refer to the site plan. Again this was an exhibit in your packet, and there is a wetland on the
site. It’s a little confusing with all the colors but I’ll try to walk through this slowly. The subject
site, it’s a building permit application that shows the home on the site, and then there is an area
that’s called the buffer, wetland setback area. The pink area shows the drainage and utility
easement, and then there is a wetland with a vegetative buffer requirement. So this is supposed
to be the planting area and this is supposed to be the no build area. In this instance what you see
is about 75 feet for the wetland setback and to reduce that setback increased the landscape
requirement next to the wetland to reduce some of the material that was going into the pond, and
then allow the houses that…closest to the pond. And part of our investigation of the site, when
the storm events occurred, it was noticed that there was some structures in the site itself so staff
did approach Mr. Schwartz and ask them about how they got there, and that sort of thing, so this
is the house itself. The back of the house. And this is the gazebo. The gazebo and then the
patio, and then this is the planting area on the side. I’ll show you where that is in just a second
here, and then the gazebo with the patio blocks. So looking at the site itself, this is the last pages
here, and it’s really small so it’s kind of hard to go through it, but if you were to follow areas
where they were supposed to build in, this is where the gazebo sits. It’s not all in the no build
area. Actually falls into that kind of that buffer setback, as did some of the stones. Now it’s not
solid, but there’s stepping stones through there. And then the planting area, that is being
removed and resolved as we speak, so that should be a non-issue. What the Planning
Commission did…and again the issues are one, there’s a 12 foot encroachment into the wetland
buffer, then a 5 foot into the 40 foot setback, so it’d be for these structures here. The Planning
Commission did recommend denial of the variance request, and did ask for staff to work with the
applicant. Again they’re working to resolve this. This is the drainage overflow from the pond,
so we certainly, based on the storm events in that area, want to make sure that’s really been met
since we had an issue. We did work with the applicant and try to come up with some scenarios
that we thought might be acceptable, and obviously it’s pretty onerous when you look at the…so
we did recommend that that be…that might be a little onerous, so he’s still pursuing that and we
weren’t able to reach compromise because… So I just want to go through the recommendations
that we have in front of you tonight if there’s no questions on the variance itself. One…to
approve the variance for the encroachment of the gazebo, and to make sure that that gets a
building permit. And gets inspected and approved. And then also, there’d be no additional
expansion of the structure. That wetland buffer signs, the markings are there and they show up
on the survey, but the posts aren’t there…taken care of… And then possibly, and I think this is
the area that…removing of the fire pit area. And then also that all the garden areas be re-
established and those would be the areas that were targeted specifically in here that were
supposed to be more vegetative, and that would be just on the other side of the gazebo. Between
the gazebo. If you’re looking at this picture between the gazebo and the wetland, that will
increase to kind of mitigate that and the vegetation, and then again, number 7…get resolved. So
with that, be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Mayor Furlong: Questions for staff. Kate, I guess going back to the colored survey. Just for
clarification.
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Kate Aanenson: The multi colored one?
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, the multi colored one. And you did a good job staying within the lines.
The pink area is storm water drainage and the problem was to the, I guess to the middle on the
left of the survey. The less point there below the pond. No, move your hand. Right in there,
yeah. That’s where the problem occurred last fall, is that correct?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: With that, the pond over flowing? There was no place for it to go?
Todd Gerhardt: It over exceeded the pond banks and went directly south where the arrows are.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. But that was obstructed by the, that was obstructed, that emergency
overflow.
Todd Gerhardt: By the garden, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: By the garden?
Todd Gerhardt: Yep.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. What does it, to the upper right of the survey, to that area up in there.
What does that provide in terms of surface water drainage and flow?
Kate Aanenson: That’s actually the taller grassy area. That’s supposed to be the area that
actually the vegetative, so what that’s going to reduce is supposedly pick up some of those
sediments. The tall grassy area. Where you have, this is your buildable area. This is the area
that you can just, you can use the grass…lot area but it’s not that impervious, and that’s where
that conservation easement comes in, because we’ve had…
Mayor Furlong: And that area up there has a conservation easement across it?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Up in that area?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, it clearly says conservation easement on here. And then just to be clear,
this is a drainage easement which is different than a conservation easement, and they’re two
different documents so maybe the conservation easement, and we’ve been using, actually I think
you’ve probably…subdivision when we started doing conservation easements. These are really
an iteration of when we looked at the different approaches for tree preservation. And this was
one of the subdivisions, one of the first ones that we did a significant amount of tree
preservations along the Woods of Longacres and the Meadows at Longacres to save trees so the
conservation easement actually became an umbrella for both of those. Which is different than a
drainage and utility easement. So if you look at the document, description of how they tend to be
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
used is different. And we always check on those because if we want to use it for public purpose
or something, we would check to see what the use would be prescribed for the guiding. So I did
give you that and that’s pretty much, we made some minor modifications…that doesn’t work for
me but we’ve had problems with people putting in a lot of hard surface in there that, sport courts,
sometimes a lot of the play structures that we try to keep out of that area. Again that’s to help us
with, the green area provides an area for additional drainage and then also to help reduce the
velocities…
Mayor Furlong: Absorption.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: It allows the ground to absorb it rather than accelerate the runoff.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: And is that then the purpose in the blue area for the setback from that buffer is
again for the non-impervious component is key there?
Kate Aanenson: Yes. Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Because that does not have that conservation easement in the blue area. That is
strictly a setback.
Kate Aanenson: Yep, it’s a wetland setback. It doesn’t have the restrictions of.
Mayor Furlong: Of the pink area.
Kate Aanenson: Right. Right. So the issue is, you know when we look at this lot, it looks like
almost an acre lot, but it unfortunately is encumbered by a lot of easements. And this is, there is
a different application in the subdivision of the PUD. The mix of the lot size, so that may, some
of the lots that got bigger ended up bigger because they were burdened with some of the, yeah.
There’s different ways to approach it. You could have made that public outlot, which we’ve
done on some, and just called it a drainage swale and let it in an outlot. In this circumstance the
buyer gets the duty of maintaining that, but not getting the benefit of…
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Councilman Lundquist: Kate on this lot specifically, where does the storm water drains on
that…trail? There’s not much, as I remember, there’s not much space. It’s pretty steep from, if
you’re at the north.
Kate Aanenson: Then it goes up here.
Councilman Lundquist: Yeah.
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Kate Aanenson: It’s going this way.
Mayor Furlong: It falls off to the pond?
Councilman Lundquist: Right. It might flow, but it falls off pretty steep into that pond, right?
Kate Aanenson: Yep.
Councilman Lundquist: And is there storm water drains along Bent Bow there?
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Todd Gerhardt: For my guess that’s gravity flow down the road and the catch basins are.
Kate Aanenson: Somewhere at the bottom of the slope, yeah. And looked at the overall
material.
Councilman Lundquist: Okay. So that, you look at that pink and blue area between the pond
and the house, and you really, that’s mainly shedding runoff essentially from it’s own area.
Kate Aanenson: Correct.
Councilman Lundquist: It’s not like you’ve got half of the neighborhood flowing.
Kate Aanenson: No. No.
Councilman Lundquist: Over the curb and through there.
Kate Aanenson: No. Right, and again it’s the, it’s that we don’t want people in general to, and
that’s really what it’s about. And it’s not encouraged, or what people think that they can just
build in those areas…higher events, yeah.
Councilman Lundquist: If you look at that lot area as a whole, and with the house, the deck, the
gazebo and the fire pit area, did you figure out what the total hard cover is?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and that’s not the problem. I agree. It’s a big lot. Right, so in this
instance I would concur. It’s probably not the impervious. So really.
Councilman Lundquist: Just for curiosity.
Kate Aanenson: No. I mean I don’t know, you know that’s a good question and I’m not sure
that we have it in there, the total impervious. Because it probably would be pretty minimal
because it’s got such a large lot.
Councilman Lundquist: Less than 20% probably?
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Kate Aanenson: Probably, yeah. Because it’s .93. Yeah, so really I guess what we came down
to is trying to find a way to mitigate this, measure outside of that into this area more.
Councilman Lundquist: And the area from the gazebo and the fire pit to the pond is also pretty,
we don’t have any danger of the pond flowing up that high and not blocking any drainage out of
the pond? Right, that’s got to be 10 feet above the.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and there’s a significant grade change from the gazebo down towards the
lake.
Councilman Lundquist: So it’s really that part of the drainage and you know flooding the
neighbors houses and all that, that the garden is…and the rest is the building in a conservation
easement and not having a permit for the gazebo and those things.
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Councilman Peterson: Are the, is any of the paver walkways in the area or not?
Kate Aanenson: Yes they are. They’re also in that, if you look on this survey. You can see this
is supposed to be the area where the limited hard cover, but it shows this as a stone path but
when you look at the photo you can see it’s not solid.
Mayor Furlong: I think there are some, and maybe we can ask the applicant but I think up by the
driveway it’s.
Kate Aanenson: More solid.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah. Yeah, there are some other pictures as they said but I don’t know if you
have those or not. It varies I guess is the point.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Has there been any communication between you and the applicant
since the Planning Commission meeting?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, and that’s what I’m saying. I think you know the Planning Commission,
and so we thought maybe taking that out, and obviously that seems pretty onerous.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Taking the fire pit out?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Seemed pretty onerous and I understand that so. Their request was to
appeal it.
Mayor Furlong: Question on the, I’m looking somewhere in the report here but I thought I saw
some effect that when Longacres was approved, that was a PUD, correct?
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct.
Mayor Furlong: And some of the setbacks from wetlands were averaged across.
Kate Aanenson: And that’s typically how we do all wetland buffering. You can average it. It’s
built right into our ordinance, and that’s based on the fact that when we’re doing a subdivision,
and using this as an example, sometimes the wetlands pinches on a lot and you just have an odd
piece trying to get it to lay out with the streets, so somebody on the other side might get the
burden of a larger portion of the buffer…
Mayor Furlong: So you try to average it out there? Again trying to get that overall.
Kate Aanenson: Right, and sometimes it’s difficult and why we keep the markings in is so
people can see that physical barrier. The post. The posts are in so if you just look at the property
of your neighbors and make an assumption…
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Is the same process used for impervious surface? Using averages across
the development. Was that done here?
Kate Aanenson: Not in this. This is a per lot basis. We do do that commonly on commercial
and industrial.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
Kate Aanenson: That would be…
Mayor Furlong: I know we’ve done that so.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, on commercial industrial.
Mayor Furlong: Alright, thank you.
Kate Aanenson: Let me take that back. We also do it on multi family, but not on the single
family detached.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. I’m sure there’s a but for somewhere. I think we just did that on the
Preserve perhaps.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, where we used.
Kate Aanenson: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: Which was single family detached.
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Kate Aanenson: And that was…yep. A new zoning application, correct. But under this PUD,
single family detached, you could not average it.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Even though it was a PUD?
Kate Aanenson: Correct. Single, yeah.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. So we averaged the setbacks were averaged across the wetland
buffering.
Kate Aanenson: We averaged the buffering.
Mayor Furlong: And then wherever the buffer was, there was 40 feet beyond that.
Kate Aanenson: Right. Yes.
Mayor Furlong: And obviously Lundgren…
Kate Aanenson: …yeah, and really it worked out on how you tried to get the streets and if
you’ve got a steep slope and how, there was a lot of push pull.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright.
Kate Aanenson: So I would concur. This is probably one of the bigger lots out there. We have
lots as small as 11,000 up there. This is probably one of the bigger lots.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other questions for staff right now? Maybe some follow up
questions. The applicant I know is here. Good evening.
Tom Schwartz: Good evening Mr. Mayor or council members. My name is Tom Schwartz and I
live at 7376 Bent Bow Trail. I’m actually kind of humbled to be up here after listening to what
you had to endure for the last 2 hours previous.
Mayor Furlong: With your permission.
Tom Schwartz: I’m just going to kind of go through a history of events that kind of led me to
standing here in front of you today. I’ll try to make this brief. To begin with we signed a
purchased agreement with Lundgren back in January of 2000. We subsequently closed on that
th
house on August 29 of the same year. At the time that we purchased the property we were
informed of the 10 foot wetland setback. We knew of that. We knew that we had to stay away
from that, and we knew that that was the no cut, no mow, no touch zone. What we didn’t know
at the time were all the other restrictions that you see on this map. Because truthfully had we
known at the time, and I think it’s pretty common, I don’t think anybody would have really put a
house there. I think it would have been an outlot. Should have been an outlot, but with that
being said, we went through, afterwards I looked at all the covenants before we did our
landscaping. Before we did everything else and nowhere within those covenants does it state
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
that we couldn’t put gardens, gazebos, fire pits or any other surfaces. So with the lack of a map,
without the lack of any covenant indication that we had these restrictions, we moved forward. In
the spring of 2001 we worked with designers and landscapers. We created a pretty intensive and
pretty expensive layout. You saw some of it on the garden, which we’ll get into. That was
within the overland swale. It’s been removed. It had existed there pretty successfully for 5
years. In March of 2003 we submitted to the planning commission for the Longacres
Homeowners Association to put in the gazebo and the fire pit. Subsequently upon approval from
then, I called the city and asked if a permit was required or necessary to put these structures on
my property. At the time, and unfortunately it was by a phone. It was not hand written or over a
formal mode, I was told nothing else was required by city code. That I could go ahead and put
the gazebo on my property. So consequently in April of the same year I put it in. I had the
landscaping designed around it, of which you saw some of the pictures. And again trying to
make this brief so I apologize. Another view. Another view. You get an opportunity to see the
extensiveness of the landscaping that was designed around this gazebo and fire pit. The idea was
to minimalize the intrusion if you will to any neighbors. In other words, if they looked at this
from the front of the property, you virtually because of the pine trees that you see here, it creates
a natural buffer on the Bent Bow side. On the Moccasin Trail side, along Moccasin Trail we’ve
also put in pines. By the time that those mature, and with the advent of this landscaping, we felt
very confident that no one’s really going to see it. Nor would it be effected. You know it
wouldn’t harm them in other words. In the fall of 2005, and you heard some of this already, the
storms created a series of events that led us to know that these things are in the wetland
conservation easement. There’s overflow swales. We think, not knowing ahead of time but
finding all this out in the fall, that you know I guess we’d like to just be able to leave it there.
It’s first of all it’s not creating a hardship to any neighbors. It’s not affecting the values of the
neighbors. It’s not affecting the flow of water to or from the pond. There is, and I think Kate
mentioned on the back side of this gazebo, there is an area, and I’m not sure that you see it
clearly but there’s clearly a 10-15 foot area between the water’s edge and what I knew to be the
water’s edge at the time that these were built. There is 15 feet of vegetation back there. Okay.
And we maintain that, not only behind the gazebo and the fire pit, but behind the garden that was
recently reconstructed. So we maintained what I thought was a pretty safe level of distance from
the pond, and that would allow any runoff from any of the hard surfaces that we do have to
readily be absorbed. I think what I’m going to do is jump ahead very briefly. I wanted to show
some pictures of the before and after. This is the before pictures of the garden area that existed
within the overflow swale. What that looks like today, and as of last Thursday, and what I
proposed with this picture. Somewhat similar in nature and view. What has been done is all the
garden has been eliminated and there is literally a 3 to 4 foot trench between the pond itself and
the beginning of what was natural grass area. By engineers, they indicate to me that that swale
and the way that it exists right now will guarantee for the next 30 to 40 years that should this
pond ever flood again, that that swale will take care of whatever needs there may be. I guess
with that, and I kind of jumped around. I apologize but this has kind of got away from me. I
think in, lastly. With all the covenants and with all the restrictions and so forth, what has been
indicated to me is that clearly the area in blue is what I get to play with so to speak. Everything
else in that 9/10ths of an acre is what I’m being told no touch. I can’t alter it. I can’t remedy any
problems within it. I shouldn’t have put anything in there to begin with. And again I think that it
just you know, what’s there…restricts any use or utilization of this property in hind sight. And
some bad decisions were made and I’m hoping I don’t have to pay the price for those today.
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Thank you Mr. Schwartz. Questions.
Councilman Lundquist: Did the reconstruction of the drainage swale, staff saw those plans or
designs or those things? Did you guys see that before that?
Kate Aanenson: I’m not sure. Tom, has Don looked at those drainage? I don’t believe so.
Tom Schwartz: I don’t know that he has. He was notified that that work was being done last
week. I was told by the Lundgren representative which had a hand in that reconstruction, that he
had been in contact with engineering staff here and he was confident that what they had created
as an end result will, would suffice for many years to come.
Councilman Lundquist: So you Mr. Schwartz, you used Lundgren’s engineer or the engineering
firm that, or someone that was recommended by them?
Tom Schwartz: Recommended by them. Yeah. Yeah, we paid to have a complete re-survey
done as well as then, as I said and you can kind of see what we’ve done with what was a garden.
Councilman Lundquist: You did that work at your cost?
Tom Schwartz: Yeah. Well we’re in negotiations with Lundgren as to how that all comes about.
And due in part because of the fact that we weren’t properly notified of the restrictions that exist
on this piece of property.
Councilman Lundquist: I guess what, we didn’t, the city did not contribute any money into that
basically?
Kate Aanenson: No.
Tom Schwartz: Correct.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions? Thoughts? Comments or questions at this point for either
staff or Mr. Schwartz.
Councilman Peterson: Kate, I assume that you haven’t, nobody on your staff or Paul’s staff has
gone out and inspected this yet?
Kate Aanenson: That’s correct. So that would be a condition that we would just want to verify
that that, it seems like it would work but just to verify the design and that it works.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, thank you. Thoughts. Discussion. On this or other follow up.
Councilman Peterson: My immediate reaction is that I’d like to have staff, before I decide to do
anything tonight, is to verify what they’ve done and see if it meets what we’re looking for. Then
let staff and the applicant work together to try to figure out something creative. If they truly
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
have accomplished the goal of getting one of the issues resolved, let’s see if we can have them
work to get the other ones as well too.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, my thought, I think that’s reasonable. I think there is, while we’re not
overall on the property dealing with an impervious surface coverage issue, it’s the location of the
pit and the gazebo that is the, the location is an issue and I’d like to see if the Schwartz’ and staff
could look at that and see what options might be there as well. But I do give the Schwartz’
credit. One of the big issues that we have in this city is storm water management and making
sure that the system works when we need it, and the night that we needed it, it wasn’t working so
I’m glad that that was taken care of, or is in the process of being taken care of and obviously I
agree with Councilman Peterson that that’s something that staff needs to be, see what’s
happening. Make sure they concur with what’s done there and work together with them on that.
So other thoughts?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I agree Mr. Mayor, but I do feel, I mean Mr. Schwartz, obviously it
was painful to remove his gardens and it was not something he intended to intentionally do
something to damage his neighbors or the neighborhood or the water flow or anything. I believe
it was just an attempt to create an atmosphere that was desirable for their family and their back
yard so, I’m hoping that when this issue is resolved, it’s not as painful as it was having to remove
the gardens. They were gorgeous gardens and now you have something that’s as nice so I’m
hoping we all can come to some sort of resolve where they don’t have to have $15,000 to have
stuff removed and that yet still we can protect our surface water management flows.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Councilman Lundquist, thoughts.
Councilman Lundquist: I would concur with Councilwoman Tjornhom that you know having
talked to Mr. Schwartz, I didn’t get the feeling that there was a malicious intent to subvert the
process where if somebody saw a survey and said you know, you can’t build anything in here so
I want to build something there. If I just pretend that I didn’t know that and build it, you know
maybe they won’t catch me. Didn’t get that. Clearly the issue arose there with the overflow and
the fact that the applicant worked to mitigate that piece, obviously as I looked at it, that was the
one that concerned me the most. That overflow. That affects the neighbors and the rest of the
neighborhood and you know has the potential to create some damage to property there in a big
way so, being that that was corrected, and the fact that, is the gazebo and the fire pit in an area
it’s not supposed to be? Yeah. And nobody’s going to argue with that, but given the rest of the
topography around the neighborhood road, the steepness of that, by that, I’m willing to give
some credit to the applicant to, you know for the absorption of the cost of the rest of the changes
that were made with the removal of the garden and doing that piece, I would concur that I’d like
to see I guess that verified. Either engineering drawings or inspection or both or however that
works out to make sure that that is in fact going to work if we need it to work. Todd doesn’t
want to go out there and dig another trench so. But that I, I think I’m comfortable with where
it’s at. I know I’m comfortable with where it’s at right now, and you know to obviously go back,
do the conservation easements as staff suggested. Get the permit both for the gazebo. Get it
inspected. Make sure it’s safe and everything’s good there. But then I’m comfortable with the
level of changes that have been made and the things that have been done, that I’m willing to
grant the after the fact for the gazebo and the fire pit.
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City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Any other thoughts? I guess my overall, you know I, again I commend
the work that’s been done. I agree with you Councilman Lundquist on that. The issue of, if this
wasn’t an after the fact, I’d be surprised if the council would be granting the variance to locate
these there, and I don’t have a sense that there was, as you said, any malicious attempt. At the
same time I think you know the location of the impervious surface coverage is something I guess
I’d like to have staff spend a little more time and work with the residents and see if something
can be done there before we go forward but.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I was going to suggest something on that line, is to look at the overall
impervious for the entire. That seemed to be some of your discussion. For kind of a rational
basis for the findings. To look at how much impervious, or how much coverage on there right
now so, see where we’re at. It is a peculiar lot in the fact that it’s encumbered by the large
drainage swale.
Mayor Furlong: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kate Aanenson: And that makes it a little bit different, which again would be another kind of
thing, looking at the findings.
Mayor Furlong: Yeah, and I think as part of the findings, I think traditionally you know in terms
of continue to look and see what more might be done is just the location of where it is. Other
thoughts or.
Councilman Lundquist: I wouldn’t dig my heels in to take you know a couple weeks or
whatever to look at that. I think that’s fair and reasonable. We’ve gone through this much so
yeah it’s.
Mayor Furlong: And Mr. Gerhardt, you can guarantee we’re not going to have another 100 year
storm?
Todd Gerhardt: Sure. Don’t want to go through that again. Any comments regarding the
inspection of the gazebo? Getting a permit. Getting that inspected included.
Mayor Furlong: Yes, I think that’s part of it and making sure that everything’s done right. Other
thoughts. Councilman Peterson?
Councilman Peterson: I’ll agree.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. We table. There’s a motion to table?
Councilman Lundquist: Motion to table.
Mayor Furlong: Let staff and the applicant work together. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
50
City Council Meeting – July 10, 2006
Councilman Lundquist moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council
table Planning Case 06-22, Variance request at 7376 Bent Bow Trail. All voted in favor
and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 4 to 0.
ND
GARY CARLSON, 3891 WEST 62 STREET: VARIANCE REQUEST FOR RELIEF
FROM THE 30 FOOT FRONT YARD SETBACK REQUIREMENT FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF AN EXISTING FOUR-STALL GARAGE AND RELIEF FROM
THE 1,000 SQ. FT. DETACHED ACCESSORY STRUCTURE RESTRICTION FOR THE
RSF DISTRICT.
Public Present:
Name Address
nd
Dale Keehl 3841 West 62 Street
nd
Gary Carlson 3891 West 62 Street
nd
Luke Melchert 112 2 Street W, Chaska
nd
Maureen and Molly Carlson 3891 West 62 Street
nd
Megan Moore 3891 West 62 Street
Kate Aanenson: I did hand out to you a copy of the most one that we received this afternoon
nd
from the applicant. Subject site. Mr. Carlson’s variance request is located on 3991 West 62
Street.
Megan Moore: 3891.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you. Yeah, I believe that’s what I said.
Megan Moore: You said 39.
Kate Aanenson: Okay.
Mayor Furlong: Go ahead please.
nd
Kate Aanenson: 3891 West 62 Street. Located on the northern end of the city, north of
Highway 7. This is the subject site. You can back out a little bit Nann. This photo is a little bit
outdated. I’ll go through the current site plan here in a second. Request is for the variance of the
garage. This garage located right here. A 20 foot front yard setback for 1,000 square foot
th
garage. The Planning Commission did hold a public hearing on June 20, 2006 to review the
variance and the Planning Commission voted 6-0 to deny this. In the staff report there’s a
background. This did appear before the Planning Commission, in the background, and that date
th
in, let’s see. Oh, on April 4 and they had 10 days to appeal that variance and that did not occur
so it, they had to start the process back over, and that’s the same application that you’re seeing
before you. This property, in the background, this property is zoned residential, although it’s
been, has non-conforming agricultural rights. It also has a non-conforming as far as additional a
51