approval i apologize nope are we good we're good we're good okay uh so you have the agenda in front of you is there any questions or discussions on the agenda no changes from staff all right do i have a motion to approve the agenda i'll make that motion i need a second second all right all those in favor say aye aye opposed all right the agenda is approved all right this time item five is open forum open forum is an opportunity for members of the community uh to address the planning commission for any items that are not currently on the agenda um are you here for open forum no no okay all right if there's anybody online uh natalie will give you instructions on how to uh to uh get uh recognized members of the public if you'd like to participate in the open forum it looks like you are all on a computer mobile device you should be able to access the raise your hand function using either the reactions tab or sometimes you'll find it under the participants tab at this time no one's raising their hand mr chair all right we'll move on to the meat and potatoes of our agenda item or i'm sorry we have the minutes item six minutes from november 4th um commissioner van denite you can um you weren't here so um we won't ask if you have any questions or comments on it you can abstain from voting um and same with commissioner sholak [Music] brund or any changes i didn't i didn't note any all right um motion to approve the minutes i'll make that motion and i'll second that motion all right all those in favor say aye aye opposed all right the minutes are approved okay now the main course item seven a is a public hearing for a preliminary platform and acres at 9247 trailhaven drive and involves multiple parcels and at this time we'll have the entertain the staff report please thank you mr chair megan magnan acres is a preliminary plot requested by brandon and chelsea magnan the request will result in two buildable lots where there are currently three parcels containing two buildable lots and one unbuildable outlet so this is a picture of the site location the outlot is the biggest parcel on the north highlighted in blue which is outlawed a of out called 2nd edition and then the adjacent parcel to the south is 9257 trailhaven road where there is no existing single-family home and again immediately south is 9247 trailhaven road where there is an existing single-family home this is the preliminary plat that's being proposed the outlot would turn into lot one of magnum acres and 9247 and 9257 will be consolidated into a single lot proposed lot two so the preliminary plot will allow for a single-family home to be built on proposed lot one and will exhaust an unused development right that's currently assigned to the adjacent parcel 9257 trailhaven the plot will also result in 9247 and 9257 trailhaven being consolidated into a single lot where there are no proposed improvements at this time the preliminary plaque consists of 13.89 acres in total and it is zoned rural residential proposed lot one will remain 10.38 acres in size proposed lot 2 will consolidate two legally non-conforming lots to result in one conforming lot 3.51 acres in size since no additional odds will result from this plant no park dedication will be required so the proposed lots meet or exceed all of our minimum lot standards for the rr district there is an existing structure on the northeast quadrant of proposed lot 2 that infringes on the rear yard setback of 15 feet but aerial photos with hennepin county confirm this structure predates our city code so it's legal non-conforming proposed lot one will have a driveway with direct access onto trailhaven road additional review of the location will occur within the middle of a driveway permit and will ultimately be approved by public works the applicants obtained preliminary approval from hennepin county for the location of their septic septic site septic system on lot one and there's no changes proposed a lot too [Music] a no wetland determination for proposed lot one was approved in november the wetland determination did not include proposed lot two so a condition of approval for the preliminary plat requires the applicants to obtain either a wetland waiver or complete a wetland delineation for proposed lot 2 prior to the final plot no significant trees are planned to be removed according to the plan submitted and the plot shows two new drainage and utility easements one along all property lines for proposed lot one there is an existing easement on lot two along the north and west property lines so they're just proposing to add additional easements on the southern and east property lines the applicants submitted preliminary house plans which satisfied all of our minimum standards additional reveal will occur with this middle of a building permit and this is just the front elevation that they provided [Music] and at this time the planning commission should open the public hearing and take comments and staff recommends the commission to move to recommend approval of the draft resolution approving the preliminary plan for minion acres thank you thank you natalie oh i do apologize i forgot to mention we did receive an email earlier this afternoon with one public comment from sandra item and that was mail two and also in the diocese and that should be considered as it was being said at the public hearing very good thank you all right at this point in time we'll uh open the public hearing um are you here for this public hearing okay so if you would like to speak um okay all right we don't have anybody in the audience um so those of you that are online natalie will once again give you instructions members of the public online if you'd like to make a comment on the preliminary platform magnet acres please raise your hand using the raise your hand function under either the reactions tab or the participants tab and chair i'll mention that the applicants are online as well thank you i do not see any hands raised at this time i have to give them a little bit of time because remember last time i was online and tried to raise my hand i couldn't find i couldn't find the raise your hand button and apparently i don't have one oh that's good well i was sending you emails you're sending me emails yeah sending jessica emails going how do i how do i raise my hand [Laughter] do anything and she saw that and she saw the email and then and then you know but it was like i didn't have that little raise your hand button a couple tech guys all right last call for anybody online to address the open hearing nobody okay um at this point then i'll take a motion to close the public hearing i'll make that motion all right okay on the second second that all right all those in favor of closing the public hearing say aye aye opposed the public hearing is now closed thank you okay commission discussion and recommendation um um does anybody i thought maybe the three of us will go first and you have would you like to start off then i'd be happy to okay commissioner lenterman uh natalie could you pull the map back up i just have a couple of questions yeah thank you go to the the next one i guess yeah that one so so which is so the top big chunk is that lot one or two proposed lot one okay and then where would the home be put is that on one or two so proposed lot one would have a home it's in that north east quadrant as you see where kendra's mouse is yeah yeah propose lot two there's an existing home on one of the lots that's going to be consolidated basically into proposed lot two and that home is on the southern half of that parcel and there was an oat building right that that's correct there's a house up top i'm sorry and it's not even fully in the rear yard setback because it's placed diagonally so it's just one point that's about 11 feet from the rear property line but it's legally non-conforming so staff isn't recommending that we make any changes so with the current development rights which which which lot currently has the development rights so the northern half of proposed lot 2 is where it's currently located the address is 9257 trail here okay so and natalie i'm going to beg you for for your patience with me because i do have a few questions and thank you for clearing that up so i understand the mechanics of how development rights transfer by contract but i don't understand where the following statement comes from natalie in your report it states quote the city of corcoran only allows for the movement of a development right within a plat that includes an adjoining property that has an available development right so basically it seems like the the way that reads is it seems like the right to move only when it's moving immediately next to where it's currently i don't see that restriction in our city's code can you point that to me or point me in that direction the basically it has to be part of the same plot and so if it's not an adjoining property i can try to find it in the code you know where it isn't quote off the top of your head well the exact language isn't in there but it says you have to have a development right in order to build on the lot so the exact language used in the staff report you won't find in the code but what it says is you have to have a development right in order to develop the property and and uh there's nothing in the code that allows a transfer of development rights which is something you might see in other cities where you could transfer from the east side of the city to the west and so because it's silent it's not permitted because it's not specifically allowed it's prohibited to transfer development rights therefore what that means is really i have five development rights on this property five developments on that property i can combine those two properties like merging two bank accounts is how i kind of describe it when you get married and then assign them however i want on those parcels but i couldn't sell my development rights to somebody on the other side of town because it's not specifically permitted okay so but somewhere in the code it says that the properties have to be adjoining it does not it simply says the property needs to have a development right in order to create a lot okay all right that language is [Music] okay and second uh i did find a code section that says that the rural residential district and i'm quoting here land owners shall be permitted one development right for each 10 acres of land and i'm referring to section 1040.030 sub 7 because the two properties with the development right to transfer because in this case since the two properties with the development rate to transfer since when they're combined they're less than 10 10 acres how how did they have a development right to transfer in the first place so i would need to pull up that plat i think that prize actually pre-dates our development rates program but a lot of record a lot of record is assumed to have a development rate so you can and you can have um you could have 10 development rates on 100 acres you could choose to only develop that to our minimum lot size of two acres based on our current code that we allowed so then you could theoretically end up with one remaining parcel that has a single development rate and then you have smaller lots that have development right even though they're less than 10 acres if that makes sense the it's basically it's a way to control density in the rural residential district so it trying to figure out the best way to explain this that the the 10 acre rule is based on the original parcel and they can be split down further and that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a development right for a lot that's under 10 acres yeah that's not what the code says that's how the development rates get assigned well the code says that there's one development right per 10 acres of land okay that's what our code 104030 sub 7 says and because these two properties the two smaller pieces when they're even when they're combined it's smaller than 10 acres so i i don't understand how is there even a development right there to transfer from one to the other because again it comes down to the original parcel that's how the development rates would have been assigned and you can have the minimum lot size in the rural residential is two acres and these parcels predate some of our code because they were created at a time where it could even be less than two acres okay i get that but if the code currently reads the way it does wouldn't that preclude us from approving this no because there's still a development rate on this pro on this property right my guess is how if it's less when when these two parcels are combined it's smaller than 10 acres our code states one building right per 10 acres so if we're combining these two parcels and together it's less than 10 acres i'm wondering how does either of these uh pieces of property have a building right because the building rights i don't know if i could take a stab at it but the building rates are separate from the minimum lot size required for building so if the original parcel was a hundred acres for saying then we they could have developed built all those houses or buildings within i think it was five acres before the 80s was what they needed to build and then we came up with a mound so now it's at two something but if they had densely utilized all of those building rights in one area then they had a large outlaw left that their you know would may or may not have development rights affiliated with it and then now if they are selling which i believe has already happened that outlawed right then the smaller piece left over originally owned by the other individual is less than 10 10 acres but held a development rate is that am i on the right track i i think you are but i'm not explaining it any better my neighborhood was very much that way it was 60 acres is raw land so the density is one house per 10 acres so that lot was was given six building rights now the developer can take that and he did and he basically created six lots but he couldn't build on any lot that was subdivided out of that less than two acres so when he platted it he planted six lots and each one of those lots got a building right the remaining acreage was put into an outlet and there's no building rights left here yeah so here this was planted according to one house per 10 acres but for some reason that one lot was assigned a building right when it was originally planted but it was just it was just never used okay now he's going to transfer it to the to the adjacent or they're going to re-plan it which is different than transferring it right they have legally correct yeah can i ask a follow-up sure and i um i'll also add that the quote has a development rights map that we're supposed to that allows us to maintain what is assigned what is left on any given parcel so i think that that's also something yeah that was my follow-up question has the development rights map been pulled and do we know it's not on there i just i did look at it if it's a lot of record it no longer shows as a development right on there because you can no longer subdivide that lot but the it's it's a lot of record it was intended to be built and so what they could theoretically do and we're basically skipping a step is the magnets could have purchased the 9257 done a lot line adjustment and basically consolidated their lot with that lot but the reality is they have no interest in that land and the property owner that has the two trail haven lots would like that land so we're skipping a second step of moving the lot lines back okay so i guess what i'm getting hung up on is okay so the two parcels put together are less than 10 acres but then the argument uh against that is well what if you know 50 years ago it was part of you know it it was that way um but if the development rights map uh has no recording of this development right on that piece of property how can we approve this it's a lot of record and so that's that's what tells us that that it but that's not what code said well it basically an outlaw is unbuildable and the outlook that's unbuildable is recorded as an outlaw trail hate the 9257 of trailhaven is an existing lot of record i think it's lot one of westwood gardens so that's what that's what tells me as a planner that that was a lot created to be built on yeah they could build on it right now exactly we could build it sell it and so therefore we'd have two smaller lots instead we'll have one slightly bigger yeah we'll have actually a legal conforming lot with the three acre and then a 10 acre plus one yeah for a new single family home exactly yeah i don't know well let me and see if i understand your question uh commissioner landerman so you're you're questioning there's there's the 10 acre the large parcel it has no building rights right per capita how is it possible to transfer a building right to that that doesn't exist on the map yeah how can you transfer something that's not recorded anywhere and per code cannot exist we have several lots throughout the city that have not been built upon yet that are recorded the same way on our development rights map basically the development rates in the area have been exhausted for subdivision and so it no longer shows up on the development rates map but the it's just because it's been exhausted they can't do any more subdivisions on those parcels and that's what that's showing us but that doesn't mean that they can't build on that lot according to code it means they can't build on that lot i i don't believe that interpretation is correct no just because the what how a lot that was created with a single family home in mind it does the building doesn't go away just in the thrive that was subdivided that's why the plot was created a lot is created for the the preliminary plat at one time created 10 lots right and those lots were created with the mind of putting a home on it right and then the reality is is anything at one point we allowed out lots to be built without a development right we no longer allow that unless there's certain circumstances such as an open space and preservation plan that we do but generally speaking we don't allow that as part of our development rights program i think that's exactly what's happening here well this i mean you're saying outlets can't be developed but yet that's exactly what we're doing well an outlier can't be shared i'm sorry this is counselor nichols may i may i have before for just a minute i think i might be able to clarify sure so if i'm understanding the question and the response it sounds like what i've heard natalie say is the development rights map only shows excess rights beyond what is built on the lot so if you've got a lot that hasn't been built on but is considered buildable it wouldn't show an excess right and i think what i'm hearing is when she's saying it's a lot of record that's what that entails so it doesn't show a one on the map but the right to build is inherent in a lot because of its classification is that correct is it is this just basically how the map is constructed and where the numbers come from well councilor nichols i when i looked at the development rights map i i thought well that's maybe just an error i mean if we're going to have complete transparency about where a development right exists where a house could be built legally that little lot should have had a one in it i think that would be the correct way to do it so that somebody could because it's been mentioned here in the letter from the from the neighbor that they were told that this couldn't be built upon and whatnot but you know how would you know that there was a building right available adjacent to the vacant lot the out lot if you looked at the development rights map you didn't see a one there so you would assume that there was no there was no development rights adjacent to it to begin with that makes sense yeah i see your point i think you're right in a perfect world you would see if there's a lot that doesn't have a principle structure on it it would be nice if the map would show that that could be built on oops but well with all due respect we have to follow the code our code says this this cannot be approved in my opinion uh mr chair i would suggest that we get an opinion from the city attorney on this otherwise i have to vote to deny thank you any um as far as an opinion from the city attorney i this has been something that we've discussed in length with the city attorney throughout just how we've administered this program throughout the years i understand that this lot they could come in tomorrow with a building permit for the slot and we would have to issue it it is a buildable lot and i think everybody understands that yeah and again well i did you have any other follow-up questions no sir okay then with all respect to our other commissioners i'll continue because there were a lot of clarifications i wanted to get on the topic um when two parties discuss the transfer of a building right does it require city approval at all they have to do a preliminary plot i'm i'm just talking there's no transfer well there's a safe there's no transfer of a development right that does not exist and we got to be careful about the language we use okay because transfer of development rights is a legal tool in some communities but not here okay then what are we doing here property with development rights so if i own two parcels which is every development we do if i have one or more parcels i can choose to combine those parcels through the plot and then apply those development rights that are on those existing parcels however i want in my plot as long as it complies with the minimum lot size okay but if you if you took three lots to transfer building rights but it was required but it was required that you replied it you're not going to have three lots at the end anyway i don't follow well i have three lots of records but let me give you an example because this is since i read this and saw this you know again i'm looking for ways to maybe maximize piece of property that i own i own an outlet that has no building rights it was left over as part of our development now after i saw this i started to question i have two there there's a there's two 20 acre parcels right to the south of me they're they're the same size each one has each one has two development rights but they're both landlocked and so they're just like me they're outside the musa they are not going to get sewer and water and there's no way to develop those building rights until sewer and water comes or unless somebody wants to build a road into there which wouldn't make any sense at all so i started thinking to myself well what if i tr what if i went to my neighbor and acquired okay that's the safest word i can say if i acquired a building right from him and transferred it to my property then at least my 15 acres would have one building right correct you and i spoke about that exact option on the phone that is absolutely correct and it's exactly what kearney acres did last year okay but in doing so though i would not have to replace you would have to replace your property with his okay but i wouldn't have to he wouldn't have he would have he would not have to give up ownership of land because this this right now does not give up ownership of land so it would be well i'm going to create lazy j acres lot one and lot two okay but he can still own that lot and i own mine there's no re-platting of anything it would be replated i mean i mean not reply but no change in no lot lines but your your outlet would now be lot one with one development right and his 20 acres would be lot two with one development right okay now that is a that is something that can be done between two parties without approval from the city no it has to be planned the preliminary plat would require approval from the city as far as the private sale between you for the development right that would be something you would administer privately that's not something the city administers but without the preliminary plat and vinyl plat approved it would be you wouldn't want to do that until it's the plan is approved okay now i think this maybe goes to something that we talked about earlier so like i said there's two there's two lots so what if i wanted to acquire two building rights now i can't acquire the two on the lot immediately to me because we can't create an outlet with zero building rights even though by definition that's what they are um [Music] right isn't that what we just said an outlier is a piece of land it cannot be developed so at one point our development rights program did allow for outlaws to be created that have no development rights we do still have outlaws in the city that do have development rights but you can't build on an outlet you have to plat an outlet fair enough so um i can't i can't acquire the two building rights unless i replat it and take ownership of the land or can i acquire the two building rights and replat it but that 20 acres now becomes outlawed okay i can't so the only way to get two building rights is i'd have to get one from the other parcel now can i take those or does it have to be transferred like checkerboard so i think if we want you want to talk about your outlet okay to do that offline because it's more complicated than you than than than this because you still have to provide access you still have to meet the lot frontage requirements there's a lot more complicated but if you want to talk about that we'd certainly be able to okay all right it's possible though there's a path forward dean we can talk about your well i i but i mean it it's it's the the idea that that building rights can transfer between parcels that mechanism by which how they're done is something and here's here's the comment i wanted to make about so in this thing apparently these people the neighbors were told that that there were no building rights on that lot and it would never be developed and and i'm just kind of wondering is that is that standard protocol for how we respond to this or mr chair if someone called me about your outlaws i would say that parcel is an outlaw with no development rights and is not buildable and i believe that's probably about what everyone who asked about this outlaw was told they were told the same thing exactly and that is accurate that's accurate the magnets got very creative and they looked around and said which parcels touch this outlet that i've purchased um and how can i make this happen just like nate caranimi did on kearney acres he bought a lot that was planted by a developer and he had a lot that was next door that had development rights he platted them together and reassigned the development right can a can a rural lot let's say it's 20 acres so 10 acre minimum it gets two building rights if somebody were to transfer rights could it get three if you bought another 10 acre parcel next to your 20 acre parcel your 20 acre parcel in that case had 22 building rights and the development the parcel the 10 acre parcel had one development right you would have three development rights and you can plot those three lots however you want okay i already mentioned that beck told farms there the that was another situation where there were development rates between the two parcels but they consolidated most of those development rates on the northern part and just one on their one or two on that southern parcel so there's a 128 they had 12 development rates between the two parcels but they put 11 of those on the northern parcel even though i believe it was four that were available on the southern parcel on the development rates map so it's not unusual for a platte to come in with adjoining lots that have development rights and to split it up however it makes sense especially considering we have constraints such as wetlands where it didn't make sense to put four development rates on that parcel it made more sense to put them to the northern part okay um in the staff report it was or in your slide deck it said lot 2 was non-conforming i didn't find that in the staff report lot 2 so basically 9247 trailhaven as it stands today is a non-conforming lot legally non-conforming because it's 1.7 acres and we have a minimum lot size of two acres in the rural residential and same with 9257 it's about again about 1.74 yeah thank you i just wanted to confirm what the non game right because again it it did it just all of a sudden popped up there was a non-conformance and i fair enough i started looking through it i'm like why is it not conforming i figured it was either the frontage or it was the size or both a lot size and i believe the frontage i think the frontage is pretty close if not maybe a little under the standards but the new lot that would be created is conforming with all of our standards for the district our existing standards so it actually creates less of a non-conformity by going through the planning process okay um wetland delineation on page four you've included a condition for approval for wetland delineation without without getting into the mechanics of of who i believe everything here is is uh com is a responsibility of the applicant but this is then a wetland delineation on property that they don't own is there is there any issue with you're talking about a wetland delineation that is going to be required on a piece of on a parcel that's only i mean uh mr chair i it's a wetland waiver which is something that the city council can be granted but can be granted or wetlands delineation and the wetland waiver they have already submitted an application for that it's actually set to go to city council on the 9th for review and the owners the aussies they signed off on it they authorized that application so it's just it's probably going to be the fact that they're going to have to coordinate that with the aussies as the applicant so they they and they'll probably if there's any additional fees they will have what is triggering this because it's being replated yes okay i just kind of thought you know they they listen they're given a right but yeah they're not doing anything to their property exactly but yet you know they could end up with a bunch of you know delineation markers all over their yard if there is now i know the aussies i've known them the whole time i've lived here and i went over there and i was like i you know i didn't see any wetlands but not to say that they're not there correct and it's just a potential wetland that's showing and they don't have any structures by it again they're not proposing any changes so actually staff and public works and i know public or engineering usually doesn't like the waiver process but everyone's on board that this is a perfect example of our wire wetland waiver process of this okay um on page five under the house plans um we talk about section 1030.03 uh the house must have a permanent foundation and have a minimum floor area of 1100 square feet um i i know that i always keep bringing this up you know i don't like the way we we describe square footage in terms of buildings it just says minimum floor area of 1100 so are we talking gross building area or are we talking footprint footprint i would i would talk about floor air minimum floor area i would say that that could be split up over multiple levels whereas a footprint that's just looking at how much space it takes on the actual ground uh the minimum floor area technically that could be split over a couple different levels [Music] okay so you could you could have you could have basically a tiny house with two floors that would meet the deaf is that really what we is that really what our is that really what our ordinance i mean that's a that's a broad question it's i mean footprint we we say footprint elsewhere in our ordinance and that's like with our accessory structures we have a maximum allowable accumulated footprint um so the if we were saying that the house needed to have a minimum footprint of 1100 square feet that's what we would be saying the floor area we're talking about the floor area available in the house again i you know i know that my you know my comrade commissioner lanternman brings a legal perspective to this i bring a real estate perspective to this and i don't like the way this is ever worded you know when when you say minimum floor area i think well then i'm looking at the plans going does it have 1100 square feet on one level or can we build a tiny house with two floors to meet the you know and i would think that it would be first level ground level you know at 1100 square feet so this really should say must have a minimum gross building area of 1100 square feet that's just my own two thoughts all right in the summary staff finds that the proposed preliminary plan is generally consistent with the city's comprehensive plan that raises a question wouldn't we say that it is generally consistent as i i mean as i went through this it looks like it meets pretty much all of them is generally just the way we that may have just been a stylistic error i apologize i believe it is consistent with our standards yes okay because i was like well how are we how does it not mean what is not generally consistent no fair enough um it is consistent with um with the ordinances we have in place and with similar projects that we have approved okay um i wanted to ask a couple things about the letter then that we received today and we won't talk about the development rights i i don't you know we i i don't know who informed them i don't know what their their belief was but um the the engineering report so when we get to the second paragraph item one down there there are concerns um snow removal i there there's nothing in their plat or what they're doing that says that they have to move the driveway the technically the driveway is something that is reviewed as part of a driveway permit that we did have them include the location so that we could kind of call out any errors or any red flags that we would see by what they were proposing public works did review the proposed location and they actually agree that it is in the best possible location they want to keep it away from 93rd because they know there's uh anticipated intersection improvements and so they don't want the driveway too far south and if they at the current location it actually provides for the best visibility lines and i agree 100 with that okay no i do i mean like i said i was up there and i was like i wouldn't put it at the bottom i and i think i think the engineer report said it's the best place for it um okay and then item two well the safety concern uh let's move on uh the last paragraph we are concerned about the beautiful existing trees that are being cut down on the property line now the road the private drive does have it it does have a row of trees but i don't see that being on this on the on the subject parcel here i mean are the trees actually belong to the outlaw that is a part of that whoever owns that private drive it isn't a part of the lot that's being proposed for that's what that's what i'm saying it's it belongs to the development on the other side of the road and to my understanding i i don't i know that there was concern about trees being cut down but i think that we're being concerned about beautiful existing shoes that are being cut down on the property line so i i guess i don't know if they're saying that trees have already been cut down or if they're concerned about them being cut down by the way this is red i when i spoke with the applicants and their surveyor about marking significant trees the the intent was to not take any trees other than what's necessary to put up their driveway which would be trees on their property so i guess i would need to follow up with the items the only tree cutting was actually the house across the street the first one on the corner behind them there's wooded areas and there's some there is some tree clearing going on there yeah yeah i guess i don't know exactly i i don't know if there's a mix-up of of you know who's cutting what trees but i didn't see any either but if it's not an issue um okay uh that's all the maidens are raising their hands so they maybe could even speak to that if you'd like to hear from them if if they want to enter you know if they want to chime in they can they can raise the hand um brandon and chelsea i'm going to unmute you now if you'd like to speak all right you can hear us now yep all right so yeah the i agree with your assessment there there aren't any trees that are going to be getting cut down the trees that line the private drive are there there's a row of flowering lilacs between our property and trailhaven and we moved one of those trees we transplanted it down the hill a little bit to give us our driveway cut through there but again there's not any trees that are going to be cut down through this process on that side at all okay and the pine trees up towards the the road are those on your lot or are they on the on the um on the other development those are on the other development sandra just planted one of those big pine trees shortly after we purchased the property too and so that that whole row of trees there is is hers okay to add to back to the development right map question so it does say on the development right map that even though some properties show a zero that there may be one development right remaining and it instructs the person to go and contact planning and so some of the confusion on there where you may see properties with no rights the map instructs the person to actually contact because there may in fact be a right remaining okay we have to look at plants to confirm so we go off the plats and make the discrimination from there has that been done yes it's been done we have a building right or a development right on that piece of property we have a platte westwood gardens edition that shows this as a lot of record that would be buildable today by itself yes with the development right assigned to it the part the plots don't show the development rates assigned yeah it's just the way that it was recorded it was a lot of record which means you can build on it if it was unbuildable it would be an outlaw okay how do we keep track of development rights is that on the map it is that is how we keep track of it now there we basically do the best we can because we were given a handwritten map i believe in 2004 it was digitized but yes when we get a plat and the development rates have been exhausted then we update our development rates map accordingly okay so by as it stands now though the development rights map shows there are no development rights for this piece of property correct for the the outlook correct has no development rates the 9257 and 9247 both shows no development rights but 9247 has a house and it is a lot just as 9257 is a lot and they could have built the house but the aussies chose to buy that land so that no one would build a house right there okay i get that but the development rights map shows that this piece of property has no development rights available correct the development rate shows that this entire westwood gardens edition doesn't have a development right because it's all been used that's all i needed to hear thanks [Music] is the concern upsetting is it is the concern that you have regarding the language and the map is it that it would set a precedent for future or i guess because i understand the concern i'm wondering just what you know because we're also dealing with trying to bring things into like from a former way of doing things into a new way of developmental rights my understanding and so taking these handwritten maps and then digitizing them so we've got this mesh of information that we're making work and so i guess i'm just wondering moving forward there shouldn't be these types of uh issues coming up so is the concern just that there are things left out there and it would set a precedence if this was approved no my concern is that if we approve this it's not in conformity with our city code that's my concern okay even though the city attorney feels like i don't know the city attorney is not here i've not heard from the city of attorney and i'm i was just told the development rights map shows there are no development rights for this piece of property and i don't believe that we should just rub a lamp and make one miracle you know you have to follow the rules and if we don't like the rules we should change the rules so going back to a recent plan that we've approved in this area under the development right spectral farms if someone were to those are all going to show up as lots of records and the development rights will be updated so that they don't see there's not going to be a one it's just going to be a zero but someone could theoretically buy a five acre parcel and then something adjacent similar to what the aussies have done that does and and not build because they just want that area for themselves that doesn't make that lot unbuildable all of a sudden it's just they haven't used they haven't exhausted the development rate or the ability to build on that parcel but the evidence that it has a development right is the fact that it's planted it's planted a lot of records yes otherwise it would be listed as an outlet um either it would either be an outlet with development rights or it'd be like what we are seeing here an outlaw with no development rates because at one point we allowed that to be created obviously we realized the confusion with that and we changed gears but we are working with what was created back i think westwood gardens was built or planted in the 70s and then out additions were planted throughout the 90s and early 2000s so if i'm understanding correctly the very evidence that it has the development rights is on this map this existing condition survey showing this lot one of west gardens that in and of itself shows that it has a development that it can be built upon yes yeah it can that it can be built upon yes it's a buildable lot if it was unbuildable it'd be an outlet it seems i and i'm new to this but just right what i'm hearing is that today on this extra lot that the aussies have that they want to give them they could build a house you're maybe suggesting they shouldn't be allowed even to build a house but we think you're saying they could build a house today on a 1.74 acre lot i think you're saying hey they shouldn't even be allowed to build there because there's no development right on the map and it's non-conforming is that true well what i'm saying is that our code section 1040.030 and i'm quoting here reads land owner shall be permitted one development right for each 10 acres of land that that piece of property is not 10 acres okay that's fine but then then i get hung up on the fact that there are no development rights recorded on the development rights map so now it's just kind of it just seems to me as though you know we're just approving things just because we want to when we have rules that we should be following and if we don't like our code if we don't like the restrictions then we should change them but we should follow our code and because of that i'm going to vote to deny [Music] so the the the density requirements you're discussing in the city code yeah i mean the only the only thing that i can say is that we're talking about the initial total area of land and that's how the development rates were originally assigned when the development rights programs were started and it's explaining that process but the code doesn't say that though we're speculating i don't believe the code says that if it does can you point me to that the section identifies the maximum number of influential units that may or non-residential units that may be developed the development rates program is intended to preserve a rural residential environment with active agribusinesses the the development shall be calculated based on the total lot area and rounded to the nearest whole number and this was done in the 1980s and we've since had a development right map that we have updated through time showing how the development rates have been exhausted right and we keep track of that on the map right yes and the map is showing no development rights for this property correct it would show any platted lot as noted any platted lot in the city which shows no development right but it's a pl it's because the there's no longer any subdivision rights it doesn't make it unbuildable what makes it buildable is the fact that it is a platted lot of record you could probably update the so potentially you're saying if you took the time you could go through the plotted lots find out which one and then and then update the development rights map with all of the potential lots that haven't built on i mean how do you determine i think part of the issue too is we wouldn't want to show as one on the development rights map because then all of a sudden someone could try to come in with a osmp and try to double those rights with like technically two because our osmp process and open space and preservation plan you get a density bonus so we don't want it to show as one when we've already been subdivided down when all of the development rates have been exhausted but every platted lot that has a single family home in our rural residential area is a buildable lot and the development rights map shows nothing for a development rate but it doesn't mean it's unbuildable if it's a platted lot of record it is buildable so you're saying potentially the magnets could buy in theory that you mentioned before they could buy this 9257 even though it doesn't show a development right it would they could then technically build potentially break off that that 1.75 acres sell it back to the people that have it to a creator and that's what you're saying we're skipping that would would that fit would that be allowed well that's what they actually proposed to me first is they wanted to do what they wanted to do was do a lot consolidation so they could get that lot yeah um but then they told me but the but then they're going to send sell the land back and then they would do another lot line so they could have their property back but you would probably still say it still doesn't show a buildable right therefore regardless that even in there it's still technically even from you're saying that logic though every every lot in the world residential area that's part of the would be buildable wouldn't it be right but if that's the case then maybe we should consider rewriting the code chair yeah sorry to interject yet again um i do apologize but i've been doing a little bit of digging through my notes and i i did find uh to brendon's point earlier on the development rights map there actually is a footnote and i'll read it for your convenience here there's an asterisk at the bottom of the map and says existing vacant lots of record which show no building rights may have one building right remaining please confer with the city planner to confirm the actual number of building rights and so it it kind of closes the loop for me i certainly see commissioner lanternman's point in reading the code it does refer to the map as the official record but the map itself differs in these particular cases uh that if there are lots of record there could be a building right and it is not intending to display all of those so i i feel like maybe there's room to improve the clarity of the code but i don't think that this would be violating to approve commissioner i guess what i would say is then where is the planner uh going to for documentation of you know to determine whether or not a development rate or a building rate exists if it if it shows zero on the map and it says well just go check with the planner what is the planner referring to or is this just at the discretion of the city planner mr chair commissioner landerman i'm looking at the plots looking at the plots of record and lots on a plot are buildable an outlet is not buildable that's how i can tell the difference and i understand okay i i i do understand it it's just once it's platted the plat has outlaws and lots it has a lot it's inherently got a building right exactly and that is not therefore displayed necessarily on the building rights map exactly it's not stated it's just inherently so i i get that so and if there's no house on the lot then then there must be a right now i mean you can go down fox line drive i know of people that own two lots just like the aussies do i know i actually just had a call yesterday another lot in a different part a different part of town but still real residential where there is a vacant lot of record um that hasn't ever been built on it but the property owner who originally bought it because he wanted that extra space is now selling it and it is a billboard they would be able to come in tomorrow with a building permit and be able to build on that yes yeah i i get it okay um all right commissioner sholak okay you got the floor thank you sir uh most of my points have been already discussed i just wanted to uh mention the from the email or from yeah from the email of sandra hydem uh her last paragraph concerning the existing trees that are being cut down on the property sounds like it's it's happening now it's in present tense and she finishes it by saying there will hope there will be no more no more trees removed so that to me sounds like there is something going on there and i i think we also need to clarify not at this meeting but on page four under landscaping uh the applicant's plan indicates that no significant trees will be removed and i i don't know what significant our means has it's a certain caliber um they are not proposing as the applicant spoke before they're not proposing to remove any tree that doesn't need to be removed and i have to mention that our code does not have any kind of tree preservation arguments as we know right so they are allowed to remove trees that are on their property um if if they need to they definitely can or if they want to but they aren't that's not their intent from speaking with them they like the lot for the natural features that it has so they're not planning on removing anything that doesn't need to be removed okay and so the the term significant tree is that their definition or the city's definition that was the city's definition that was the response i got um when looking at the survey uh asking for them to to clarify if there were any significant trees on the property and they uh they made it clear that they had no intention of removing anything over the certain size i think we have a actual definition kendra's looking it up right now caliber inches of eight inches or more a caliper caliper of eight inches or more is considered a significant tree for our city code okay that's it for me sir okay thank you um okay uh commissioner uh romand everything that i was gonna discuss has been discussed uh i just would stay too that i've driven up and down that road and i think the driveway placement it's in lieu of them being allowed access from the private drive which is a private matter in lieu of that then i think the next best solution it really is the peak at the top of the hill the mailboxes are already there so any stopping for the postmaster garbage man everything can all happen in that consolidated location rather than adding another location um farther down that road so i think and i i hear the disappointment from the neighbor so i want that to be acknowledged but i do really feel like public safety and you know clear sight lines that really is the best place agree okay thank you all right commissioner vanden knighty nothing for me great dialogue already and all the things i was curious about so good plus i mean i gotta have gotten an overview and never met before so okay great all right have uh have we had a chance to um review the resolution during our discussion there's been no uh there's been no talk of changing anything um but i always like to read through there because sometimes it does bring up something that maybe you missed through the staff report i didn't um i didn't i didn't note anything um just from my understanding is that this is this resolution it looked like this is what gets what given to the city council is that what happens correct yes we are a body that we just recommend approval and we can add changes we can recommend changes to any of the resolutions that we forward to them or denial okay but we don't yep and then of course the city council if they see something um they always have the ability to the authority to change it on their own without our our recommendation or the parts and trails recommendations okay well um if there is no uh changes or further discussion um would somebody like to make a motion to approve the preliminary platform acres i'll make that motion shulac okay and i'll second that motion brahman all right all those in favor say aye aye opposed opposed okay okay well um thank you everybody um and good luck to the magnets the city council all right we'll move on to item 7b public hearing the zoning amendment for assembly uses and we will entertain the staff report please the planning commission is being asked to hold a final public hearing and provide a recommendation on the proposed zoning ordinance amendment adding performance standards for educational facilities and places of worship within urban residential zoning districts we've had a lot of discussion on this so i'm just going to summarize the performance standards in front of you tonight for review we have as discussed the sliding setback based on the footprint of the building i did specifically add in based on our last conversation that educational facilities and places of worship are not eligible for setback flexibility through additional landscaping as provided elsewhere in our code we have a maximum building height of 35 feet maximum impervious surface coverage of 50 percent and then we have the landscaping zone with the width based on the applicable setback based on the building footprint so if it's a 50-foot setback on all property lines then that 50-foot setback needs to be landscaped the standard for the landscaping zone i added language to make that a little clearer while still having room for flexibility and how it's implemented which is this red language the landscaping zone will consist of evergreen or desidious trees and shrubs with a sufficient density to provide visual buffering to a minimum height of eight feet with the great elevation of the building being used to determine that height earth mounding or berms may be used but cannot exceed more than three feet of the required buffer height and a fence can be installed if the developer applicant so chooses but it's not in lieu of the planted landscaping zone the standards also clarify that lighting for parking lots must reflect claire away from adjoining property and public rights away parking must be screened to a height of at least three feet to address headlights from vehicles we also have a requirement for large areas of parking to include internal landscaping islands i was speaking with the city attorney last wednesday i did update the language so the updated wording has 350 square feet of internal landscaping required for parking areas of 3000 square feet or larger the previous language it really didn't kick in until about 6 000 square feet i don't think that's really what we intended and square footage of land devoted to internal landscaping islands increases by a hundred square feet for each additional thousand square feet of parking space and that's definitely something that if you guys disagree with that change feel free to adjust that primary site access must be direct access to a major roadway or a major minor collector roadway no more than a thousand feet from a major roadway exterior bells and loudspeakers are limited to 9am to 10pm the city retains discretion to attach additional conditions as they see fit and then we also based on our last conversation added the safe harbor clause to our additional requirements which clarifies the city's ability to exempt religious uses from performance standards determined to substantially burden those uses without needing to formally change our policies so at this time we can open the public hearing to take comments and then staff recommends approval recommending approval of the draft ordinance amendment and resolutions approving the findings effect great thank you natalie all right at this point uh we will open up the public hearing um we have nobody in the audience uh here so if there's anybody online um please raise your hand and natalie will give you instructions on how to how to address the planning commission members of the public online if you are here to speak for on the assembly uses item please use the raise your hand function under the reactions tab or the participants tab can also sometimes have that and at this time i don't see any hands raised and half of our audience are council members so okay great thank you um okay uh do i have a motion close public hearing i'll make that motion second it all right all those in favor aye say aye aye opposed all right public hearing is now closed commission discussion and recommendations uh commissioner sholak would you like to start us off please just um just one point maximum building height and i'm thinking in terms of houses of worship does the maximum structure height include any type of steeple or cross or anything uh commissioner shulock actually those are considered architectural elements that are specifically exempt from the maximum building height so they would be able to still have spires and belt towers we're talking about the the actual roof pitch of the building whatever the highest point of that roof is thank you [Music] that's it for me sir okay thank you uh commissioner lantern uh the only comment i have is about the landscape zone uh section 4 reads [Music] in addition to meeting the landscaping standards of section 1060.070 subdivision 2a of the city code any portions of the site that about a residential area will contain a landscaping zone along the shared property line and then here's the language i'm commenting on with a minimum width of the applicable setback established in standard one so does this mean that the entire shared property line is screened buffered yes okay uh okay yeah because it's like the way the way it's written to me it's it seems a little another so i appreciate that clarification so does this mean that the zone will have like the zone will be packed with trees and the entire strip between the property line and the building to the point where it would be healthy like obviously if we can't pack in so many trees that the trees can't grow but it would be at this point i was hesitant to add specific numbers because we're already seeing issues where we have these numbers that are so unobtainable for the site that they have we have to get flexibility granted and then the idea is not to have constant ask for variances um so it's there is some discretion i'm trying to allow for that flexibility but the idea is there would be buffering there's you're still probably going to see it a bit that there would be some buffering between the residential properties and the use that you're trying to buffer from yeah because what my reach because when it says with a minimum width that seems to me like this is like a wall of trees just to just to meet this requirement and you know i i don't have a good imagination to see what this is going to look like fair enough um i was if if we looked i don't have the examples from some of the sites that we looked at last time but some of the wayzata high school they had a significant tree buffering um not on all property lines but they it would have probably far exceeded the 200 feet width and some areas i'm pretty sure it did so i don't think it's necessarily if we're talking about a large building i think that it it's something that would be accommodable on the site that can accommodate such a large building but it is the idea is that there it would provide some visual buffering and you want it to it's you want to span that with along the property line all right thank you anything else not for me okay uh commissioner bruhmann i just had two things and not to get hung up on terminology here um but oftentimes in the code at the beginning of a section you'll define all of the words and so impervious is one that is not defined and the only reason i bring it up is because we're talking about schools and so my question is just like baseball diamonds soccer fields football fields like play areas like that would those be considered impervious or would those be considered previous because my understanding is is just impervious means it's a hard surface that doesn't allow the water to soak into the ground right and so arguably a soccer field could be an impervious survey right correct yeah i could i could definitely add it and not that we you know i don't want to i don't want to be someone like but i just if it's going to create an issue forward and we could clarify now because it includes schools then maybe that would be helpful i'll be happy to add that that's not a problem good call and then the only other question i had was related to that edition about not um creating the setback like these two educational facilities and places of worship not being um eligible for the flexibility through additional landscaping and um i know you guys did such a phenomenal job i watched the two hours of that council meeting you know doing a number of other things but you guys did such a great job talking about uh like bringing up a lot of really good discussion points and even to like the the point that you had made like it's really hard to discuss something before there's a proposal in front of you and i think i think that's true and so i just wonder is that really something we want to commit to right now would it require a variance down the road then if we got if someone came in with a proposal that we really really liked and we were like oh we had made this decision that we were going to be inflexible i know that the safe harbor clause would it seem it would seem that we can say oh we don't need to apply that with the approval of the council without having to change the code so even if it's in here it doesn't seem like it might be a sticking point but i just wanted to wonder about that well and commissioner bruhman i would add that that's specifically for the religious uses so if it was a school like demon they do not have that that safe harbor clause would not apply to that's just specifically specific for religion okay um and that's yeah that's that's specific wording where i used basically verbatim what is in the federal statute because that's what it's best practices that i found elsewhere in terms of how we incorporate the safe harbor club okay but um so as far as that goes that would yeah that's specifically for religious uses so if we want to be flexible and allow for that landscaping or allow for more landscaping to reduce the setback from our county roads that's basically where that was only one yeah right then then i would say we would want to adjust we would want to work on that now rather than rather than ask for a bunch of variances down the road yeah right okay and so i guess like i had i remember the comments if i remember them correctly that some of the concern with allowing the flexibility was that it's been known that oftentimes that's done just so they can build bigger but i'm just curious if we if we in practice do we do that for developers of residential homes and then is that really something then that if we do it in practice already that we want to just not do for these two specific kind of buildings do we do it for residential isn't it mostly commercial that uses that clause well residential subdivisions have used oh that's what i wondered is that you want to get closer to that county road to change their lot division so we have allowed it for people making [Music] subdivision neighborhoods [Music] yeah yeah i know it's a very popular class that does get used when it's beneficial right right um and so i think it's the issue is do we want it closer to the street or do we want it further from the street okay i guess personally i would just appreciate the consistency um so if we don't want things close to the street then we don't want things close to the street kind of regardless it seems to me whether it's a residential home or whether it's a school or a place of worship but i feel like consistency if we're going to allow flexibility i also just clarified commissioner bremen with the county roads there's a hundred foot setback whereas a regular road or pretty much any other road that's not a county road it has a 50 foot yeah so and the 100 foot setback would take precedent even if the building footprint would otherwise allow for a 50-foot setback okay the county line county property lineup will have to be 700 feet sure um and that's kind of the same thing for other uses like it's it's basically trying to reduce it to i think it's we can reduce it to 60 feet landscaping for the building yeah the protein gets reduced to the other local street setback okay okay so yeah so it's i think it's it's still consistent overall with how our city is being developed elsewhere it's just having some flexibility from the more stringent county road setback okay but i see your point as well [Music] awesome that's it yeah i'm not totally settled on like uh like what do we do about that but if no one else has anything to chime in mine was more just like a forward discussion but if that's kind of it then i will defer to all of the hard work that you guys have already done on this so well i don't think there's any way we can make a foolproof ordinance without that'll handle every single oddity or situation will come in so you always going to know that there's going to be some soft spot or some hidden thing that is you know and there's variances and things like that that they can apply for and and the city has i think more often than not shown good flexibility to handle these things but in this thing particularly you know i'll bring up an issue when it's my time that you know you just kind of got to sit back and go all right is this really going to work you know how are you going to handle this situation mr abandonment i was more just curious about the like in the maple grove one they talked about screening for like mechanical rooms and um and uh trash containers we didn't have we don't wouldn't specifically put that in there is that something we just it does kind of just say that there's the city council may attach additional conditions is it kind of just like too much deep going too i mean it's too much detail at some point there's maybe some common sense it i don't know but then it's not a rule i don't know either if they they come and they're like no we want to have the container out here we don't want to screen it can we still put it on it if the proposal comes in front of us so uh as far as screening for garbage cans and we adjust that elsewhere in our code so there are some standards in our code existing um a b yes we can attach additional standards if we have a proposal in front of us and then um okay that's not going to work with the neighborhood we could we would be within our rights to do that you're not losing anything by having these standards in place this is just ideally to make our standards clearer for applicants as much as possible but yeah if they're proposing something that we haven't really seen before we would be able to adapt to it on the fly yes i mean i guess in theory where there would be shrubs or some type of screening around the whole property so why would i necessarily have to do that with the trash can but at some point deciduous trees don't have leaves on them and you know and it's now winter and that's why i play evergreen but then i know every greens are having any shrubs okay and i don't want to just put evergreens just because um i know that some of our evergreens are starting to have problems with our warmer climate so um i ideally will come up with like a evergreen insidious hybrid you know but i was trying to keep it flexible but the idea is that there would hopefully be some evergreens that would still provide full uh coverage in the winter all right that was just a question i figured there was some coverage on that no thank you great questions okay i i i got a couple of uh questions so on the first page the analysis under three um adding more detailed landscaping zone um uh the the allowing flexibility from county road setbacks currently provided to other air to other uses under the city code all of these items have been factored into the currently proposed zoning i didn't see the city council meeting i see here that they they opted for option two but they agreed here with the they had no comments they basically just said option two send it back let's get this done so i went with what your guy's recommendation was and figured we would hash it out on december 22nd okay all right um okay and then uh just to clarify um so on page two under one setbacks very last item on the page two uh b uh any property lines fronting the county road shall require a minimum setback 100 feet uh for anything under 24 000 square feet and that's because along county roads we already have a minimum of 100 feet exactly yep okay yeah that was just a clarification point yep okay um under four landscaping zone so under b second sentence the grade for determining height shall be the grade elevation of the building or use for which the buffering is providing protection so it has to be eight feet so what i'm envisioning here is you have this is where your use is and then you have your residential neighborhood over here but there's a great elevation change right okay could be four feet could be 12 feet right um but the eight foot standard is going to be eight feet from this point here not up here correct yeah that would be true uh it's a minimum it doesn't mean that they get away with no landscaping they still have to do landscaping well i understand they'd still have to do it but yeah but yeah if it's lower then they kind of have it pretty easy they could probably do more shrubs than trees um to be able to satisfy the code in this aspect they still have the landscaping requirements they have to meet elsewhere i actually seeing it be more of an issue where the tree's at a high or not the tree the church or school's at a high point um just because low points you probably don't want to build in a low point too much because they're going to have flooding issues so you're probably going to actually have it more at a higher elevation well i mean it you know it doesn't mean that this is going to flood what what um is it you know here again if you're if your neighborhood is higher than the use okay you could put yeah well getting into the weeds on that i was just trying to understand because it might it may mean that you could plant all the trees you want at six feet and it's not gonna or eight foot and it's not gonna do anything to hide it from an elevation item the only way you can actually properly hide it is you'd have to put the trees closer to the residential neighborhood you know instead of close to the use well it's supposed to be in the setback it's so it is supposed to be closer to the shared property line um unless again there's a hill i i just wanted to confirm where are we marking i just want to understand that's where the eight feet is going to be measured from is yes from the use yeah and i would also say well i'm sure hiding is a goal it's ultimately the goal that the code is describing is buffering so we're not saying that there's no chance you're going to see any of the building we're saying we're going to provide some buffering to minimize the visual and audio impact of the use yeah because if it was a 20-foot drop from some hill and they're down to a house they're not going to have a 30-foot with they can't even build a fence or would we expect them to build some giant berm and then try to build but and we don't want a berm that's more than three feet yeah so we can get 30-foot evergreen trees to i mean i think i think in that situation we would just do the best we could i still think that there would be i mean if you're at the high point and there's trees because ideally it's supposed to be on that step back line so if there's landscaping and you're at the high point there would still be some buffering that you're getting you might might still see the spire but that the goal isn't necessary to completely hide it so that you never see it it's just to provide some transition okay i wanted to ask then further on item four when we talk about this this buffer zone landscaping zone so i'm sorry that i'm drawing this crudely but i don't know how else to because i thought about this for another issue but so here's our residential neighborhood so you got house house and house right and let's say this is a this is a wetland um or something like that but there's no houses here so when we talk about the buffer going along the entire strip of land that's adjacent to the neighborhood would that strip of land end right here or does it have to go over here and they would be burdened with that strip even though there's no houses in that section that along that property border you see what i'm saying here if there's an outlaw but it would be considered residential it would be well maybe you've written it i think it would it'd be residential okay [Music] we could change the wording but i think yeah um kendra agrees that the way i've worded it they would have to plant along that wetland property line but we could change the wordings that specifically to develop residential lots because the wetland would be more of a outlet that would be an outlaw example or i mean it's kind of a tough call because because what if you have a house right and the use goes all the way around here you would still then obviously want to go all the way around so i think that that's that is just one consequence of the code um but yeah it's a fair question i mean obviously if it made no sense because we saw in the examples you pulled up there were homes that were sitting way over here you know here and here's the school but this is a this is a wooded section and nobody's cutting down the woods you know so quite honestly the strip would be somewhat redundant not really necessary because you've already got a natural barrier and that might be something that we could review with a specific or or maybe the woods is on this side right and then they wouldn't need to do any if it encourages them to retain that well we would all like to see them i mean it wouldn't be well here's the woods and now you now you still got to put another buffer zone on oh no it we would still go by the setback line uh so if they already have an apar if that area by the residential area is already 300 feet wide of landscaping and it provides the natural buffering as it is i think that it without having a tree preservation ordinance encourages them to not do anything with that because they already have the requirement they wouldn't need to plant anything in addition to that if they already have a landscaping buffer okay but when they came in then for a plant uh for uh a plant for that use would they have to get a variance then to not put in the buffer zone if they already have a buffer zone they would just need to show on a survey all those trees so that we can make a determination that they meet that code requirement okay great it's clear that it could be existing and we could make it clear in there that existing trees would count towards it i could add that i like it all right do you guys like that as well okay uh under item five uh c parking area so i just want to kind of and and i know that we i kind of brought this up during our last public hearing you know under under what we're proposing here it with with modifications to a smaller facility it would have been possible for a large um religious uh facility to be built uh where eaglebrook was okay and if we recall back then we were talking about a 75 000 square foot building and we were talking about 10 acres of parking now under under our our our proposal here certainly they would have maxed out on everything oh yeah okay and the the landscaping for the parking would have definitely cut into well so that's what i wanted to bring up under seat so you know what is it 43 560 square feet in an acre yes yeah all right so if you've got 435 600 square feet because they propose 10 i'm just going to use 10 acres because in the realm of possibility it's there right okay so you take off your 3 000 you got hundred thirty two thousand six hundred divide that by a thousand you got four thousand three hundred and twenty six now multiply that by a hundred right oh yeah a hundred a 100 feet landscaping yep yep i'm sorry i was like where did we get 100 so you're talking about a lot of landscaped islands a lot of landscaping space i mean so this is this this policy i think works good in normal sized you know reasonable expected type of situations and kind of to the point that the commissioners made earlier what what option does a church have now under the under the federal safe harbor you know the church could say man we just you know that's gonna blow our budget to have to put in all these landscaped islands you know and we're gonna they're gonna come right back here and then the city council is about to figure out ways so how do we handle the process of reviewing a parking lot situation where you don't have all these landscaped islands is there is that is that through a variance or is it through the application process asking for a modification at that point i think you'd be able to do either so if they if they knew from the get-go that they aren't going to be able to meet that landscaping standard keep in mind our variances financial hardship is not the only consideration they have to prove that something about the lot is unique that they can't meet this standard so that'd be one route um the other route would be that safe harbor clause didn't try to invoke that um if it's a church that or a place of worship they would be they could theoretically invoke that and then the city could decide from there if they want to waive that requirement um [Music] well again i i'm not saying that this would be a necessarily a financial hardship but you know if you've got you know 432 and then times 100 you're going to have you're going to have 43 000 square feet of landscaped islands and i and i mean that's a that's a that's as big as the building fair enough i mean that doesn't make it just doesn't make practical sense well it is an existing code in the city of plymouth it's pretty much based off that the only difference is we're having it kick in at 3 000 feet instead of 6 000 square feet but it is other than that it is basically the same quote employment so they have and they do that across the board that's pretty much every use that they require that for it's not something specific to churches so i do think it's something that people will adapt to the reality is is from a planning standpoint i'm trying to minimize the impact of a parking lot that's built for christmas day and for and the rally is the rest of the year it barely gets used yeah um so i'm trying so if we're going if they need that big of a parking lot and keep in mind there's also an impervious surface limit but if they need that big of a parking lot we need to break it up with some landscaping so it's not just a gray parking lot looking at us all year yeah okay um page four then under five c again so the last part such islands shall be bound by concrete curving unless comparable or comparable green infrastructure is approved can you please just define for me what green infrastructure is um it's allowing for some flexibility i think that there could be like an insurmountable curb um i don't well insurmountable i don't i think we would i think it's the concrete like if there's a different material it doesn't need to be concrete we would still want curving around it we wouldn't want boulders um i don't really know i don't know if i had boulders i mean i've never heard that i've just never heard that term i'm just trying to you know we were talking about definitions and i've just what is a what is a green infrastructure well i actually have that question too when reading it is does it mean green in the sense of sustainability that was actually going to be my question or did it just mean green in terms of like um naturally more environmental yeah so i think the idea was or i know my idea was concrete is this pervious surface i don't want to discourage i'm sorry it's an impervious surface i don't want to discourage uh pervious surface especially as technology changes so i'm saying if there's something comparable that you don't want to use concrete because something comparable comparable that will provide that curbing then let's talk and it gives us some flexibility to adapt as things continue to change yeah i you know i i one time long time ago i had a client that had a corporate headquarters and they they were in uh they they actually had a big wetland and a trail system that they built through and it's quite remarkable but when they did their when they built this thing and as they added on they made sure that their parking lots were were friendly to wildlife and that's they built you know surmountable curbs they you know the flat ones so that like turtles can crawl over it they don't they all of a sudden don't have a a six or eight inch curve going straight up and i could see you calling that infrastructure animal friendly or nature friendly i wouldn't say it was green that's what i was wondering is i think it could be something someone could come in and propose and then we'd be able to have discretion if that would qualify for it i think that that is the idea of green infrastructure and especially green infrastructure's supposed to help with the drainage of the site and it's supposed to help with things like okay yeah adapting to wildlife so i think it'd be something that we could look at on an actual proposal in front of us if they're going to propose that most likely they're going to come in with concrete gripping because that's what people are used to okay under different language in our parking standards that maybe we could look up before the council meeting okay but it doesn't say green could it just say comparable curbing yeah that's what it says in the parking sector yesterday sure so you instead of comparable green infrastructure just comparable curbing sure well i think two we had mentioned at a previous meeting about doing like tree trenches or curb cuts like the city of minneapolis is coming back and redoing a number of the ways that they line their sidewalks and their streets to so i get what you're saying when you allude to i mean if that's what you meant like the green infrastructure because it is a way of capturing storm water um and repurposing that to actually water your landscaping so that you're saving money on what's being dumped into the stormwater systems and so yeah and that's kind of the ideas like you can use like tree filter boxes and things like that to help facilitate um drainage on site uh and then that can help minimize flooding in the area so it's like trying to trying to encourage people to think outside of the box where we might not necessarily have all those answers right now because things are changing rapidly in this field so um okay uh again on page four under eight additional requirement c just for clarification and clarity that is our safe harbor provision that is the safe harbor provision i looked up best practices for including it and they said you should include it verbatim i pretty much did verbatim except for i added i i clarified fed federal statute 42 instead of verbatim it would have said this chapter which just didn't make sense in the middle of the city code so that's really the only words i changed but it's a clause directly in the federal statute itself and basically what i've what i researched said to put it in verbatim [Music] i i find this interesting and that i think there's and and again i don't have the legal mind um mr chair to be clear we have this authority whether or not we include this i understand i understand okay but yeah it's just it's just again clarity and it's just calling it out so that they're we don't avoid confusion later on that we do have this authority yeah i i just you know i i find it interesting that there seems to be again without real you know strict definitions and stuff you know a policy or practice that results in a substantial burden on religious exercise you know i'm looking for words and and actions or anything in our policy in and of itself you know in this ordinance that that somebody could say again that's why i went to the parking thing i'm like well could the church easily just come and say you know this is a substantial burden this this parking lot thing uh to be fair for the landscape i think it could i think any if they wanted to try to create um try to create push back on it using this clause they would do that either way the reality is what i found in doing some research on when they have been successful or when substantial burden cases have been accessible in favor of places of worship usually it's much more of an infringement on their right to exercise so saying that requiring landscaping infringes on their ability to exercise religious use i think with us having clear findings of fact showing why we have these standards in place and and having a clear defined goal of protecting the nearby residential areas i i think that we would make the case from there and we would just have to decide on a case-by-case basis if someone comes in and does have a valid agreement or value about valid arguments sorry but um but the city attorney has been drafting these with me um and we we we have really good findings of fact we think proposed so we believe we've done everything that we can to provide something that protects our residential areas while allowing for clear standards for these uses to go in okay uh last chair yes i could just quickly comment on that i i i agree with staff i think it was um an excellent move to include this verbatim i agree with staff also that the city would have this protection whether or not it's in our our our code or not i think uh i think the importance of including it is let's say if we have a limitation and we have an applicant who claims an undue burden and they decide to sue us and let's say we research it and we determine well by golly they they have a point here i think we made a mistake as long as we correct whatever mistake we made once that correction is made we no longer have liability so i think that this this should be included for if for no other reason than simply risk management so if if if we have created a condition that violates federal law and we have an applicant suing us for millions of dollars we can cure that by simply correcting our code or exempting something or exempting yeah yeah well and again i i get just any one of our particular things with the the landscape or the the parking lot and things like that if if there's a cost that they just can't meet and they say that's gonna that that kills our project you know it's not a mistake because it's in our it's in our ordinance so it's not a mistake it's just that they just you know we saw a development that went down the tubes because they can't afford a 750 000 turn lane you know and and these are burdens that they're real and they kill projects your zoning you know ordinance requires us to do this and it's just too much for us to handle we can't do our project could they make a claim and so therefore then what they're doing is they're coming back to the city council and the city council then we'll just say we'll exempt you from that requirement theoretically yes that and that that would be something that we could do at the same time the idea of these standards is we don't want these uses going on sites that are incompatible and that is it so that if they're trying to fit in a space they simply don't fit in that's what these standards are trying to prevent okay um on lastly on page six um there was discussion here in the middle of the page uh finally there was also discussion regarding how to regulate accessory uses for places of worship um and i remember that in the what i had brought uh to the last meeting that article by the gentleman that was talking about how to put on performance standards and and he made the point in his in his writing that the city that the city should very it would be an error not to include specific stuff and it wasn't in the report it it didn't make it into the language i'm fine with that you know things like day care shelters food shelves soup kitchens etc um so staff believes existing zoning ordinance already provides sufficient protection for these correct so what are those protections is it okay they want they want also now they want to build a they want to do daycare what's what can you just give me just in one example what's the protection from the neighborhoods for a big day care center going in at a church so the first of all because it's a conditional use permit already something like that where we're talking about significant changes to their operations and traffic to the site they would have to come in for a conditional use permit amendment at the very least and that would require public hearing and there's there it's going to be very difficult for them to say that a if we want to deny a place of worship a daycare i don't know why we necessarily would want to but if we did if we had reasons why that daycare just does not fit on that site for them to make the argument that that infringes on their right to exercise their religion is going to be an uphill battle it's not necessarily something that's preventing them from holding services and worship so it's something that we would have discretion over just because we already have it as a conditional use permit to begin with okay now in the motion the redlined information between rsf1 rsf2 rsf3 um and lastly uh rmf1 rmf2 rmf3 um etc etc they're all identical okay there's no subtle differences between them no based upon i could have gone through and read it all in the face but i knew you would know if so that we don't have to blindly maybe take a vote or no i have to look at something good i even had it even more difficult it was 23 pages because i had originally had educational facilities separated from places of worship and the city attorney called me he's like we don't need to do that so i eventually just was able to copy and paste it for each section so it is the same all right it's all the same okay very good um okay that's all i had are there any other follow-up questions for the staff by any of our commissioners i would just like to uh acknowledge the amount of work that must have gone into this and the time and effort for anybody who contributed to it it's when i started looking over all the the red type and everything i'm i was thinking wow i can't even imagine begin to imagine where to start with all of this so kudos and applause to everyone who had an input on this thank you yes right yeah i mean this is our second public hearing on this right yeah all the information that you you know you're garnered from the other community and i didn't read it actually um um [Music] that that's reassuring i mean it you know but it was interesting i i didn't read all of duluth or all of maple grove because you know oh yeah matt i hope we never get that complex right um but um it was interesting to see that you know where the takeaways that we are have are somewhat a little bit different that you know and there was no one answer from a single source for and guaranteed this will change over time i believe it will yes yeah we'll just adapt and to your point with some of your concerns it is it's i'm learning like there's no way to legislate or create enough ordinances to always make people do the right thing but we can certainly hope that anyone wanting to come in would really want to be upfront and honest right about something that was legitimately a burden yeah yep exactly i was just curious yeah so you'd remove the words assembly but in some of these like these rsf's that still kind of mentioned it i didn't know if that was that mattered it says the a the kind of at the top of each one it has the a it says oh i think that's on each one yeah i will take care of that thank you the rookie comes in the catcher right at the end and i was thinking about that impervious surface thing like if you ever have like i mean because it does doesn't give a lot of leeway for it just says landscaping because that is if you think of soccer fields or if you have a lot of them do turf now if you have like certain well and it's undecided if some people because i re i looked it up if i looked through the code to see if we had a definition and then we didn't but then i looked at other cities and some people the turf is some people define it as an impervious surface well they do yeah yeah i mean they're meant to allow drainage obviously so it's not the same but it's also not landscaping right it's not something else i will prepare a definition and concept in consultation with public works on what high school i mean they got a lot of artificial ball fields outside have i think underground storm water management um and so there's some green areas that look green that aren't because water really isn't filtering naturally and so our stormwater rules kind of define what's impervious and i would use that as our guideline that's why i think natalie will work with engineering so um yeah you can debate some of the uh i have you know i have shoreline property and i want to debate with my county about whether in fact my drain field is in fact impervious they say it is and i say it's not well did i lose did commissioner lanterman send you the the the case of the lakeshore lot on bush away road on minnetonka fascinating that's a green uh yes push away road yes i can i'll talk to you about that after uh yeah it um that hearing is coming up uh january 5th and uh talked to my barber about it and he had a lot of interest oh yeah he's he's plugged into everybody down there was that that explains the uh the cut got it right before thanksgiving dinner okay let the barber focus don't talk to the barber that's all we do is talk um okay so we have a resolution uh approving findings of fact for an ordinance amending the tax of sections you know 10 20 10 40 10 40 et cetera et cetera um you were going to recommend some changes do do we need to formally address or um acknowledge those in the resolution before us i would include that in your motion yes so i have we're adding a definition for impervious surface and removing references to assembly uses um i don't know what other you were adding in that existing trees could meet the requirements oh yep i have that okay yep thank you that was on i wrote i didn't type it but i wrote it on my packet okay so adding existing trees and vegetation going to look at the language for green infrastructure and look at language for green and restriction infrastructure in the parking lot is there any other points of clarification that members of the commission had [Music] i think so okay so um i have what it is that we discussed to a change in the draft resolution so if you wanted to just make a motion with edits as discussed i think that we could get that covered nope okay um any other uh further questions or discussion before we vote okay um all right do i have a uh motion to uh recommend approving the resolution i'll make that motion a second third you've got to get used to that [Laughter] okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed all right recommendation is approved all right thanks everybody um okay planning project update um you no doubt saw this and okay i i gathered this as a this is like a list of i mean this was like a list of projects i i correct it is a list of ongoing projects that we are processing uh from the planning standpoint and then the next one is an ongoing list of things that the city council is working on and an update on their status so basically this planning project update provides you with an update on projects you've either seen or applications that are coming in i was just curious about the terminology of that number that first time that vacation of like what does that mean to vape the vacation so it's talking about an easement vacation so at one point i think you're talking about the king yeah yeah vacation of cane road road yeah right away so oh right basically there is a right-of-way portion of king road right away that was dedicated at one point that has never been developed as a road it's just remained as right-of-way and really it's very unlikely that it will ever be developed as a road now that um we're looking at it decades later and there's a wetland that kind of prevents any connection to the north so the landowner had requested that we vacate the portion of the right-of-way that touches his property so oh like give it like release it release it back so and that um there hasn't been much movement on that i was actually going to reach out to the applicant this month um to see what he wanted to do because they're kind of landlocked with that one but can you um item 10 [Music] for those commissioners i i was at the last city council meeting um for personal reasons um but i did watch a couple of these uh sketch plan reviews and um so the one by pulte homes which is being proposed for the uh eagle brook church site was interesting but i just got a point of clarification it says here the application is scheduled for council review on november 22nd so that was the meeting that i was at do they actually have an application for a sketch plan review yep we have an application process for sketch plan review and they have to submit fees and escrow for it yeah okay all right what is the escrow money used for to cover the review costs for uh staff review consultant review sometimes it goes to other miscellaneous costs uh like i've had some if they have leftover escrow and they have like wetland buffer signs they can request to pay it from their s girl so it just covers additional costs so does that go toward paying city employees or does that go toward paying a land form both as well as a city engineer through stantec um and the city attorney as well okay thank you but you know it's interesting so i i thought that the sketch plan review process was to allow a developer to get input before significant costs were invested by the city as well as the developer so doesn't it i mean why is there an application i mean i'm not going to try i'm not trying to argue for changing the system here but i guess i'm a little confused as to there's still meetings how is this official i thought the idea was hey we're going to brush this by tell us what you think and we'll do it three or four times if necessary so you can give us input before we start putting a bunch of money into the idea so concept plans are significantly cheaper than a preliminary plat and final plan process and that we still have several meetings with them that need to be the costs need to be covered and we still have to do a staff report and we have to get it through council um so some of those like the actual council meeting is covered in the fee so that's like an administrative charge overhead charge but as far as staff review and staff time to have meetings with to inform the concept plan to ideally get it to something that council will give the thumbs up to that that all costs money so it's still cheaper than submitting a preliminary plat that gets denied because you didn't even bother to get an opinion in the first place um which can totally happen so but i'm sure that we've discussed this before [Music] see so when you just said so that they get the thumbs up well but then it comes to the planning commission so it's almost like well we're gonna you can meet with the city council we can do all this review as long as it's a sketch plan but then it goes through the review process as as normal and there might be significant changes there correct and maybe thumbs up was too much everywhere but it would allow it like estates probably figured out and it did yeah but it does allow for feedback so if they come with something and the answer is hard no we don't want any townhomes here uh that's not going to work then they don't proceed with the preliminary plat process which would be like the preliminary final plot that escrow alone is ten thousand dollars so that that is that is much more significant than i think the 1200 we require for a concept plan so it's it's it does prevent waste of time if it's a hard no and it provides feedback that they can incorporate there's still definitely it's not a hard yes because a public hearing needs to be held uh duly held and you don't want well i know it's not hard yes yes we're talking about perceptions you know and i again i've seen people that have gone through this process that had a perception that they were fully backed by a city council to do something and then they went through the formal process and then they found out they got a new council yeah well new planning and the answer is no so mr chair are you suggesting we should eliminate the sketch plan oh no no i just couldn't understand the the formality of it that's all yeah because i didn't i didn't know there was a formality to it if we didn't charge a fee the taxpayers would pay for it out of the general fund and we feel like in corcoran the council said it's a pay as you go so that's why there's that fee so we'll cover the staff cost for natalie to review and write a staff report of myself and to engage them yeah no i mean i i totally understand that i didn't know that there was fees and an application to that process i thought everybody's here on their own time in time that's that's all so um any other questions just again the terminology question so number 13 ms4 ordinance amendments what's ms4 i wish i could tell you what that acronym stands for i forget it's something to do with grading um it's required by the state uh i it'll be coming in front of you i i will know the acronym for january because i have to write the date oftentimes is it required it is a state requirement for grading um yeah it's basically how we handle grading for sites over one acre and that's where you can read it like reading no no the state has certain requirements and the city has to facilitate the permit and so we have to well it's a there's multiple levels of permits and we have we are required to update it to meet state minimums and we're not quite we're not quite at state minimum so we have to kind of do some changes it doesn't stand for anything it's the municipal stormwater permit oh all i know is i've had several conversations with engineering about yeah how we're gonna enforce our permit process yes and then if i could ask another question about the terminology so number 11 what's because i think that was mentioned in one of these other ones is the wetland waivers the wetland delineation waiver what what what kind of stuff is that around wetlands i mean i live on a part of my properties on a wetland and there are rules on it so going back to the main actors application tonight we at times have allowed wetland we require wetland delineations for most anything if you're building a new what does the delineation mean that means we are saying we know that this type of wetland with this quality is located exactly here on your property so it requires a surveyor and a wetland specialist to put it on a map and then we have someone from stantec who is a wetland specialist who comes out and has to also review it and approve it and because we're the local government unit that facilitates this for the watershed okay so anytime there is new construction and like a preliminary plot a wetland delineation is required it's sort of like validating where the wetland is exactly right sometimes hennepin county shows that there's a probable or potential wetland and there's not um and actually that was the situation with the outlaw that we looked at tonight hennepin county shows that there's wetlands and there was no wetlands so but a wetland waiver is a process that the city has in place for times where under normal circumstances we would require wetland delineation but you're not proposing to do anything different with your lot so it seems like we really don't need it um so we go ahead and have a waiver process that's what that is thank you i think i'm good say kendra so um the garages too right so that has been recently acted on and will be closed out it was approved and one of the one of the reasons that the planning commission recommended denial was because um they felt that the development should not take place ahead of the availability of soon water even though that applicant did not need or want sewer and water so i watched then the other night the sketch plan review for highway 55 business park right and they kind of went along the same thing you guys want to build 500 000 square feet of industrial space but sewer and water isn't there yet and as i sat and listened to this whole discussion about whether or not the city has the option to to maybe deny this even though they want it eventually that's the one difference they want it but they're right next door to each other [Music] haven't we already set precedents in garages too well mr chair as you've heard me say many times no variance that's a precedent because it's based on the unique circumstance of that application yeah um but i think the council did say they felt that it was not a premature subdivision and that they supported the concept plan and encouraged the applicant to move forward with the application that would include a variance from the standards that require municipal sewer okay i just the only thing i could think of was i don't know how why this is even an issue that they they should be granted the variance because we just did it for another you know and the largest portion of of this development that they're talking about is is more of like the park place storage units it's the same developer and and they're going to have a majority of this thing is going to be that and so at a certain point when the city grants a lot of variances should the council grant this variance i can guarantee because i've been talking to several other landowners they're going to get a couple of other variants requests and if you are granting a lot of variances then you should change your code and so that may be something that comes out of this that we just say yeah go for it okay all right good all right any other questions all right well let's move on to item 8b schedule planning commissioner training date [Music] i know that that was canceled previously and we're looking to reschedule it is there a proposed date i don't i can tell you that january 11th we are planning to have a landowners meeting with the northeast for the northeast district corridor planning project and you all are encouraged to come uh so let's not do it january is that by the dayton uh yes it's uh it's not central it's not the northeast district so it's a sheddy road the northern north of shetty road up to the rogers border um and then the musa line to underwood 101 that's where the moratorium is currently that is the northeast district and we're doing a corridor planning for that as part of the reason for the moratorium okay so uh i spoke with someone at hope church about potentially rent or eating space for a community meeting on january 11th i'll have to follow up with her tomorrow um so more to come on that but just saying that date probably won't work i suppose we don't have we don't have our community room anymore i know so tuesday january 11th i think it's off the table but maybe still keep on your calendar and then as far as another alternative date i believe tuesdays or mondays work best for me i don't know i think kendra is also available so it depends um so if there is a date in january that you all might be able to work around and let's do it when's the super bowl i don't know yeah let's schedule it that day [Laughter] maybe tuesday the 18th it could be a possibility we can't i would say maybe we don't want the last week of january because the the ultrasound showing the baby it's going to be born february 2nd so we're cutting it really close [Music] training slash baby shower it's a great way to get that baby to come just plan something correct i don't even know if i'm gonna make it to that february planning commission meeting i'm like can we just hold on one more day but at the same time i think february 2nd 2022 would be such a cool birthday um hospitals have meeting rooms on thursdays so yeah so and i would say tuesday or wednesday would be probably best for city staff right yeah tuesday or wednesday um so we could do we could do either the we could double up on planning commission meetings the first week of january either the fourth or the fifth and just get it out of the way or we could look at the 18th or 19th you're saying hold it before our meeting on the sixth uh or or have a second meeting that week and just double up on planning commission meetings that week okay well i i don't you know i might be out of town snowmobiling in january but that's weekend stuff so any day it's fine if anybody has a conflict maybe you could let natalie know you said mondays and tuesdays were good originally but now looking at it and thinking about the staff might be tuesday wednesdays week i think we get it kendra's kind of all over the place but we could yeah so i think what's most important to us at this point is we would like everybody to be there um i i'm the one that's doing the presentation i prepared it i'd like kendra to be there if we can make it work but technically i have everything ready to go so i can make a tuesday or wednesday it's just a little trickier um with some advancements how do you okay so mondays are i mean if we're asking mondays are the best i'm gonna say mondays are the best wednesdays monday is the 17th is everyone available monday the 17th oh my goodness i'm not available or we could do wednesday the 19th would that work for you commissioner bremen i can make i can make wednesday work yeah what did you say wednesday she is promoting the 19th of january wednesday january 19th 19th i can't make that you can't can you make january 5th yes or the 18th you may but i think she said yeah tuesdays aren't ideal for her so we could if everyone can do january no that's fine january the 5th would work for me um it's a wednesday yeah that's wednesday [Music] again fine for me mm-hmm right in the middle of the week because you shouldn't be snowmobiling i'd like to be i mean i mean what nowadays are you proposing for this i'm sorry what what time are you proposing yeah like how long is this uh well we could do it we i i'm hoping it won't be more than two hours um we could do it depends on what your guys work schedule i'm i'd love to do it at five o'clock because i'm minimizes the time that i'm here but if we need to extend it later into the evening then we can [Music] i'm available i'm [Music] then let's do january the fifth at five o'clock but if conflicts come up between now and then please just let me know right away i i just would um ideally i want to make sure that you all can make it are we reserving january 18th as a secondary date then that was another one that was thrown out like are you able to make it on a tuesday um i uh my son and my husband are both in civil air patrol so they're sure right they meet on tuesdays but i could potentially with some advanced notice located babysitter so maybe exactly i can yeah if that if that's the secondary yeah unless you can i can't do the entire third week of january oh okay sorry is that right okay so let's just hope for january and we'll go from there all right january 5th yep at five o'clock all right well send out an invite or info and sure everybody can look at their calendars and give you some feedback that's good okay uh let's move on to item 8c city council report councilor nichols good evening everybody thank you for the opportunity to address the commission uh welcome to our newest new member and our oldest new member maybe that's not the right term thank you volunteering your time and thank you for the new folks who joined the commission recently uh going through the list maybe i'll give you guys a chance to ask questions on specific items first i saw four that i thought you might want some background in comment carry on but i'll see if you have any specific topics you would like to discuss first okay hearing none the first one i thought you might be interested in is on page one of three the rezoning site plan a conditional use permit for garages 2 and commissioner jacobs referenced that a little bit ago in addition to the overall approval one thing that i was pleased with was the council had a relatively strong i think consensus that we wanted to try to do something in that area to address some late storm water issues where um even in the existing configuration there are challenges for some of those residents likely due to just the way the neighborhood was originally laid out in the late 1970s so we seemed to have consensus that we wanted staff to come back with a proposal that the city would undertake in collaboration with the developer to ensure we can try to clean up as much of that as we can in parallel with the approval and we have talked with staff in the past hopefully early in 2022 there will be a proposal from public works on developing a stormwater fee that we can use to start accumulating funds for those kinds of projects to deal with some of those long-standing issues uh the second item was on page two there's a note for the number second meeting we had the work session to discuss the proposed urban conservation subdivision ordinance uh that will be coming to you folks i believe early in january and since many of you um are newer to the commission i would suggest if you're looking for some background on it there was a really good feedback session that was recorded on august 26th of this year where we had two different developers come in person and speak with council about their impressions from that proposal there have been some minor tweaks since that point and we gave some feedback to kendra looking towards some modifications to uh housing types that we that would be permitted uh but largely the the proposal will be similar to the one that we got feedback on so if you're looking for some more discussion on how this might actually work in practice that would be a good session to look at uh the third one was uh on also on page two the preliminary platinum variants approval for bechtel farm uh we did review that and actually was a fair bit of discussion around how to handle awesome trail easements on that site and i wanted to thank commissioner jacobs for contacting several of us and reviewing that ahead of time a little bit and helping us familiarize ourselves with the issues involved and i think ultimately we did end up with a pretty good approach there and i also want to thank staff for their patience with council as we've worked our way through it um the last one that i thought you might want to discuss a bit was the approval for uh saint teresa's preliminary plat and i just wanted to raise an issue and we talked earlier in this session or sorry the commission talked earlier in the session about ordinance updates on a couple other topics one that came up as a potential need in the future that was raised by um saint terese was the landscape requirements that were requiring a pretty significant number of trees to be um installed because of the square footage of the site and we'll probably see more challenges like that in that downtown district because of the multi-story nature of the buildings and the smaller natures of the footprints that those buildings will be on so we'll probably in 2022 want to look at some kind of an objective around a code modification to deal with how we can uh still meet the intent of that ordinance to enhance our natural spaces and landscaping in areas where we have multi-story buildings and not have to do variances continually whether that's allowing trees to be installed off-site or some kind of other fund that they contribute to if there's not room on a site for the required number of landscape items that was the only those were the only topics i thought you might want to discuss further are there any questions or need for dialogue on any of those i i have a question i see here a firearm ordinance update this must have slipped by me this is the first i'm seeing this uh where do i go to find a copy of the working draft of this i don't think there is a working draft yet all that the council discussed was a couple of incidents that occurred in the last year or so and we identified a subcommittee of the council to work with um matt and lieutenant burns to develop some updates so if you're looking for further feedback and to have input i would direct you to matt okay thank you um [Music] commissioner nichols or councillor nichols so um related to saint therese um as we looked again with um you know some of the setbacks in the accessory use you know the the concept of screening trees landscape i i really the more and more i think about it i think it would be uh a good option uh to allow and and we've talked about this recently you know to allow a applicant to maybe exchange the requirements of smaller overstory trees or bushes with the option of putting in bigger trees i.e spaded trees you know something that's 10 feet 12 feet i would like to see it would be nice maybe to see something um in the concept plans or the changes uh to our landscaping requirements that would give people that option yeah i might disagree i think the best credit might make sense yeah that we should certainly be open to that as one of the choices and you know again i think maybe in certain cases it's the best option because you know maybe something needs to be screened more immediately and and taller with less area than you know putting in a bunch of little trees because the developer is always going to do that i i you know i happen to be driving down the road uh in down by holy name lake and there's some houses that are being put in there and you know this guy's got a driveway it's probably about a half mile long but he spaded in these maple trees all along he's just i don't even know if the house was even built yet but but i mean what a dramatic difference you know versus you know just doing a ball in burlap it was it was stunning to see the sudden impact that he made on that landscape and it was a bare field but just lining that driveway with all these trees i'm sure it was expensive but um but it really was it really was a nice feature that he added that he got instant uh he got bang for the buck right away yeah i i don't want to pre-judge the options but i certainly want to consider it and we'll be looking to natalie to come up with some great suggestions to add to that i think yeah um so we are we are short a uh a full-time or a designated uh city manager what is the timeline for the city council to look for a replacement for mr martin's so there's a multi-step schedule that was in the last packet it will end i believe in april as the target we're trying to get rfps from uh different recruiting firms that may change that timeline depending upon which one we select and how long we believe it will take to complete but at this point we're hoping to have it done around april or so yeah okay all right all right that's all the questions i had anybody else all right well uh councillor nichols thank you again for uh find up and prioritizing that it certainly makes for a quicker discussion um thank you very much and if anybody has any other questions you can always send them an email very true thank you all okay uh item 8d other business any other business nope okay item nine uh commissioner liaison calendar so um commissioner of van in 90 the this calendar is a liaison position that you would attend on your designated date to go to the city council meeting or virtually attend or you can virtually like he did yeah and and you know what it is is you know if there's something that we've discussed you know um and you want to bring clarity to it or if they have a question directly for the planning commission liaison they will ask you and and you're there to provide insight about how our discussion went or something to that nature and i see here you have already been scheduled on february 24th now if you have a conflict um it's we've we've never had any difficulty in in switching things up okay all right so just let us know i mean that's still a ways away but if you have a conflict please let us know as soon as possible so commissioner scholak you're up next on the ninth and then commissioner brummond still okay yes yes yep it's a wednesday that's why it's in red yeah okay that's eggnog wednesday too also close to christmas so the red kind of little green in there would have been good oh shoot i should have done the other one screen yeah okay well if there's no changes to the schedule um [Music] the chair will take a motion to adjourn this meeting i'll make that motion i have a second i will second it all right all those in favor of a german say aye aye aye opposed this meeting is adjourned thank you everybody amen okay