all right we got everybody here i see meredith is here dean jeff jim all right um well as soon as it's at seven o'clock we'll initiate this meeting mr chair i have seven o'clock very good all right uh we will call the february 18th uh corcoran planning commission to order and we'll do a verbal roll call uh chair jacobs here uh commissioner dickman here mr sholak here commissioner varenkamp here mr wu here all right all right uh for those that would like uh please join us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay great um all right move right along to number three agenda approval now may i just remind everybody that the agenda that we had two weeks ago has been altered to the one today and that is the order of which the um uh the new business has been aligned uh i hope you all took note of that um uh and we i i i did not get the minutes i i don't know if i missed an email on that but i don't have minutes from february 4th but it looks like everything else is is up to par is there any comments questions or changes to the agenda mr chair i uh i did not go back and look at the order in which we're doing things today but i was hoping to be able to move item 6d to the beginning of the line just because of its uh attention and i believe a lot of people are online and i'd like to get that out of the way before we talk the other three items if that's possible and that was done okay all right yep yep that that was done so they'll be the first uh new business mr chase the packet online has the february fourth minutes do the other commissioners have the february fourth minute okay so we probably do need to we we could take action on that or we could table that to your next meeting i'll i'm i'm pretty sure we didn't do all that much all we did was approve the minutes from the from the previous two meetings uh so i'm i'm comfortable with going you know at it without it i'm sure that our other commissioners if there's anything that seems um that needs to be revised or called out they'll find it so i think we move right along so um do i have a motion then to approve tonight's agenda my second shulac all right uh all those in favor of approving the agenda jacob's dickman hi golack hi baron camp all right and commissioner wu hi all right the agenda is approved okay now before we go on to open forum i'd like to just take a minute and um make notice for our new yes um oh excuse me excuse me never mind okay um we have the city corcoran has a new planning manager natalie davis and uh natalie welcome to the city of corcoran and uh hopefully you'll find that this commission is easy to work with and uh hopefully but we're good enough to challenge you and and uh and get the city's business done in a in an orderly and and uh in in the right way um but uh would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself where you came from um sure i want to make sure you can hear me kendra said she couldn't hear me earlier can you hear me yes we can hear you okay great okay i am just came from brooklyn park i was working there in their planning division for a few years uh i have a undergraduate degree in urban planning with augsburg college in minneapolis actually it's augsburg university these days and i'm currently attending vermont law school remotely to for an environmental policy degree so i thought that with the focus on natural resources in corcoran that this was such a great fit and i'm so excited to be able to work with you all to make this a one-of-a-kind community well very good well welcome again and um um you know we uh we we you have some big shoes to fill from kendra and her team she has done an outstanding job for us over all of these years and and uh while we will always miss her constant involvement uh we look forward to having someone in the office day to day so there's a couple other items i wanted to mention um brad is uh is at a parks and trails commission meeting tonight so he won't be joining us i don't know if the rest of you knew but mike uh mike took up a new position in public works and so uh he won't be running our meetings uh anymore um and jeff uh mr dickman i understand that you are not going to seek a position on the planning commission meeting board again um we will miss you uh and thank you for your time and your dedication i you know hopefully maybe you'll have so much fun tonight you'll reconsider yeah thank you uh it's been a good couple of two and a half years i have appreciated getting to know all of you guys and and the the city folks that we've worked with for staff professional staff um just a family and business piece that uh i know the time commitment that this takes so it's uh unfortunately that's that's kind of taking priority right now as we we get into the very very busy schedule that i know that's going to be ahead of us for 2021 so hopefully it's uh returning back to the active citizen for a little bit and uh we'll see what the future holds but uh we'll still like to stay active just in a different format all right well we'll we can all respect that so but again thank you for your time and and we will miss your uh your involvement thank you all right well with that um we will move on to open forum uh now this is uh an opportunity for anyone out there uh wishing to address the planning commission um the caveat here is that um this is an opportunity for you to speak but if it is an item that is on the agenda we would prefer that you withhold your comments until that agenda item is um is called uh later in the meeting so uh if you would like to speak i believe you raise your hand and uh when you um when you are brought on board i think natalie you are doing that is that right yes uh so members of the public so uh callers who are on the phone they will press star nine to raise their hand everyone else over zoom should be able to raise their hand using the reactions button which is found along the bottom of your screen that toolbar that should pop up and i will be able to call on people and help them be unmuted and this is for items that are not on tonight's agenda god on tonight's agenda and if you do raise your hand to be to speak uh when you begin please state your name and address for the record correct so it looks like we do already have one caller who would like to speak caller ending in 8839 you should be able to just press star six on your phone to unmute when you're ready uh yes the name is d secora s-i-c-o-r-a addresses six four one elm street and in the last meeting matt covered the need for not needing a fire station for corcoran there's a question that has been asked over the years but i haven't seen any documentation that if corcoran does not have its own fire station and we do rely on others is there extra cost to the resident that needs that service or is this built into taxes um is supposedly your insurance company pick this up or does your resident get a bill because we are using outside sources so if anyone knows the answer to that um miss cora i the the commission here uh certainly would not be in a position to answer any of those questions i know that because we don't have a fire department we don't pay taxes for such a luxury if there's a reimbursement if services are extended to your property from someone else you'd have to probably get a hold of brad first brad martens and and and they would be able to address your question uh far more accurately than than we could ever throw darts at okay that's fine i will get a hold of brad thank you all right thank you anyone else natalie there is no one else raising their hand at this time okay um well we we have a lot to do here tonight so we're going to move on uh to item five which is the minutes from february 4th are there any comments or questions from my fellow commissioners on those minutes i see jim signaling no dean no everything was good on both but uh as far as the december minutes no issues okay meredith mr dickman done for me okay sorry no no question from me all right who would like to make a motion to accept the minutes i'll move there and cam dickman all right all those in favor of uh accepting approving the minutes from february 4th notify as such uh jacobs i commissioner dickman aye mr schollack aye mr varenkamp aye commissioner wu okay the minutes are approved okay uh on to new business our first item up we have a public hearing request for preliminary plat variants and administrative permit from white right hennepin cooperative electric at 19835 larkin and we will start off with kendra's presentation please thank you mr chair this is a request that the council reviewed partially in january when they granted a wetland delineation waiver for outlet a outlet a is part of the plot that's not proposed to be developed on the north end of the site the applicant did complete a wetland delineation for the lot one portion that they're proposing development on the property is guided low density residential for the portion where development is proposed and zoned urban reserve which is a holding zone until sewer and water is available this property is in the musa the metropolitan urban service area where sewer and water are planned to be extended but it isn't in the phase two of the staging plan meaning it's not intended to get sewer and water until sometime between 2025 and 20 30. this is the subject property it's a roughly 40 acre piece at the south east corner of larkin and 116. just south of our downtown industrial park the property does have mixed guiding and zoning the north half of this 40 acre parcel is guided mixed residential and the south half where the substation is proposed is guided low density residential in this portion of the site right here again the zoning shows the property as urban reserve as a holding zone the intent is to keep large parcels of land in the holding zone so that when sewer and water becomes available it's easy to subdivide the property and provide municipal services at an affordable cost this is that same 40 acre parcel larkin and 116 this shows the area where right-handed bid would propose to carve off a small lot for an electric substation right now it is mostly a vacant farm field there is a bit of one of the gulf holes that extends into this northern portion of the site but otherwise a fairly flat vacant parcel so the city's discretion this evening varies from very limited to very high the discretion in approving a preliminary plat is limited to whether or not the preliminary plat meets the standards in the ordinance the city has a very low level of discretion in approving a preliminary plat if it in fact does meet those standards however we have a high level of discretion with the variance because the burden of proof is on the applicant to show that that the variance standards have been met the applicant must show that all five of the variance standards have been met in order for the planning commission to recommend approval of a variance and the administrative permit normally you wouldn't even see the administrative permit the discretion is limited to again whether it meets the standards in the ordinance in this case because the application included two other applications the preliminary platinum the variance staff felt it was important to wrap them together just for a comprehensive review of both the planning commission and the council i also want to clarify because i've gotten some comments about this project it is staff's role and the planning commission's role to review the application as submitted meaning it is our job this evening to review the application on the site that the applicant has chosen to submit on this body's rule is not to evaluate other sites that they might have looked at or developed on simply to review the application that you have in front of you against the adopted ordinance standards and i think you saw in some of your application materials some comments from residents kind of questioning that but our role is to review the application in front of us this evening the application is for a new electric substation on a 2.26 acre parcel in order to carve that parcel off from the existing 40 acre parcel a subdivision is required and it requires approval of the preliminary plot to create the lot and a variance from the minimum lot size in the urban reserve district if that plot and variance were approved the final step would be for the applicant to apply for final plaid approval and then record that subdivision and proceed with the development again the substation itself is an administrative site plan approval under the ordinance but felt we felt that it was appropriate to review with the materials this evening for context so the substation would connect to the existing 69 kv transmission line on the south property line i'm sure you've driven by there's a huge power line that exists that runs east to west through the city and then on the uh west side of 116 another power line that it connects transmission line that connects to the existing substation on the southwest corner of larkin and 116. that 100-foot transmission line easement straddles the south line of this property and the adjacent properties to the south 50-foot easement on each side of that common lot line and that affects the layout of the site so we'll come back to that the plaid as proposed would create one 35.5 acre site and one 2.26 acre site as i said the minimum lot size in the urban reserve district is 20 acres this parcel is just a skosh too small to be able to split into two 20 acre parcels regardless the applicant's request though is simply to create a 2.26 parcel acre parcel on the south and again the reason for this large lot size in the district is to preserve large lots in the urban area so that it's easy to provide sewer and water when that becomes available the platas proposed would provide some public benefits by dedicating four more than four acres of right-of-way along 116. it would provide a 60-foot half right-of-way along the entire length of 116 from larkin down to the south property line that's consistent with hennepin county standards for new development it would also dedicate 33 foot half right of way along larkin which is sort of the existing easement area long term the city would require a dedication of 40 feet half right of way for larkin that's our standard right-of-way but because this is an outlet we would defer that dedication until outlet a was developed in the future park dedication would be required if this plan were approved it would be required only for lot one where the development is a is proposed and would be at a commercial development rate of 4 498 an acre the uh most significant item for discussion tonight is the variance to allow a 2.26 acre lot in the urban reserve district where 20 acres is required as i said the burden of proof is on the applicant to show that the variance standards have been met staff has prepared findings of fact for approval in the draft resolution but if the commission finds that the variance standard standards have not been met they should recommend denial of the variance which would also deny the flat and administrative uh permit as they are contingent upon that variance approval the findings of fact for a variance need to establish that there are practical difficulties in complying with the zoning ordinance and in the staff report for that item i identified that there are reasons where the commission could find that the variance standards have been met the idea of the 20 acre minimum lot size is intended to preserve the land in the musa until sewer and water are available and once the sewer and water become available the property could be rezoned to rsf2 and developed under those standards this property does not require municipal services to operate a substation so delaying the um ability to subdivide to a smaller lot is a temporary situation until sewer and water becomes available therefore you could find that the minimum lot size is a practical difficulty because it's a temporary situation until sewer and water are available and that this site does not require municipal sewer and water alternatively the commission and i did provide findings for denial that you could adopt as as a denial resolution should you choose the commission could find that the primary obstacles to compliance are financial in that the right hennepin electric co-op could purchase the entire 40-acre site and simply build their substation with an administrative approval they would not require a plot or a variance the second condition requires that you find that the conditions for the variants are unique to the parcel and were not created by the landowner again you could find that the conditions are unique because the substation is needed due to both to serve both new and existing development in corcoran and therefore it needs to be in the urban service area but does not require municipal server and water like other uses in that area this is one of the few uses in the musa that has to be located in the musa that does not require municipal urban sewer and water however you could also find that there are a number of other urban residential zone properties that would also like to subdivide into smaller lots today and therefore that does not create a hardship staff finds that they do meet the other three standards that granting the variance from the minimum lot size would not alter the essential character uh similar size lots uh exist directly to the south and to the west and that ultimately when sewer and water are available this property could be subdivided into lots as small as 11 000 square feet in the rsf2 district that the proposed variants would be in harmony with the general purposes and intent of the ordinance that the urban reserve district is intended to retain lands in their natural state until sanitary sewer and water and other public infrastructure is available the subdivision would create a parcel for essential services public infrastructure that's needed to serve the planned development anticipated in the 2040 comprehensive plan and we do find it is consistent with the comprehensive plan which would allow subdivision create a new substation which is needed and identified as in the comp plan as providing the necessary public infrastructure and services to ensure that proposed development will be in place and will not place a disproportionate economic burden on the city however this is the item tonight where you have the most discretion so i've tried to provide some guidance for findings of fact for both approval and denial in the staff report related to the variance essential services are our topic of the evening it's going to come up later in the agenda as well when we talk about building another essential services north of city hall and essential services really are public infrastructure there are things like our sewer and water systems electric services cable traffic signals our emergency sirens that we have in our downtown area all of those things are considered essential services and as such are permitted in all zoning districts with performance standards as an allowed use or an administrative permit the planning commission does not typically as i said review these administrative permits but we certainly know this is a a topic of interest so we wanted to share for transparency if it meets the standards of the essential service performance standards it must be approved uh but only can only be approved if you also approve the plat and the variance and again your discretion is with the variance application this evening these images were in your packet this is a rendering of what you would see from 116 a driveway into the site in the electric substation some plant materials behind a storm water treatment pond which would find some screening the substation is enclosed with a chain-link fence and then in the background you see trees on a berm that screen to the east yes to the east and to the north and then this is a view from the south looking north into the electric substation these are the existing transmission lines that you see in the foreground and then the substation in the background i've outlined the administrative permit performance standards uh starting on page five of the staff report and we do find that those performance standards either have been met or can be addressed with conditions some of those things that do need some modifications relate to the trees and electrical equipment are not located in the pond on the site plan but are located in that pond easement in that front yard along 116 and would need to be shifted east to the outside of that easement area the storm water design the engine has been submitted but the engineer has additional comments and so stormwater ponding final design must still be approved by the city engineer should this go forward landscaping does comply with the ordinance requirements however the the commission could and the next slide i'll talk a little bit more about it could add additional landscaping if they approved the variance that gives you discretion to add additional conditions the substation doesn't have employees but it does have people that come and check the equipment and so what we've required in the past has been two parking stalls for essential services that allows two employees to come work on the site and and have a place to park and that parking area does need to be paved the plans currently show class 5 but in our urban area we do require that to be paved as i mentioned the landscaping does comply with all ordinance requirements and does provide some transition or buffering to the substation the substation by its definition of having to connect to the power lines above has some very tall components and cannot be entirely screened but can be buffered with a landscaping uh and or fencing so if the commission does decide to recommend approval of the variants you may want to have some discussion about the landscaping and the screening of that substation i talk about that a little bit and some suggestions on on in the staff report as well but again we only get to that discussion item if you find that the variance standards have been met to approve the variance in the plaque the city has discretion in improving the preliminary implant and variance because you have discretion with the variance staff has prepared a resolution for approval finding that there are unique circumstances that warrant approval of the variance however we've tried to provide findings for you as well should you find in fact that it does not meet the variance standards then you should move to recommend denial of the variance with those findings and then that would deny the preliminary plat and the administrative permit as well so tonight this is a public hearing there were uh there was a petition that was included in your packet and two emails that were sent to the commission and those have been entered into the record as if the writer had read them into the record so those are on the record but you should open the public hearing and take additional public comments and then you have two options as i said recommend approval of the draft resolution which approves the preliminary plat variance and administrative permit or recommend denial of the request and provide findings of fact for denial and again you could use as the baseline some of those comments from the staff report so with that uh mr chair i'd be happy to answer questions from the commission before you open the public hearing or we could move to the public hearing and i know that the applicant is online this night this evening as well okay thank you kendra excellent report as always we appreciate all your work on this as far as comments and questions to you i think maybe planning commission members should we wait till after the public hearing i think that's that's traditionally what we have done um so if nobody has any objection let's move forward to opening up the public hearing anybody object to that sounds good to me okay at this point then uh we'll open up the public hearing and uh for those again wishing to speak uh press star nine or hit the raise your hand button at the bottom of the screen and for the record state your name and address and natalie uh will bring you in uh in order so mr chair yes sir if i can just make one suggestion i see there's an awful lot of people online and we've had this in the past where these meetings can get drawn out for multiple hours um i liked what we've done in the past is limit people to maybe five minutes at a and if we're repeating we really don't we are listening so we really don't need things repeated from person to person um as kendra noted the the petitions and stuff we have all that information we've heard loud and clear a lot of these things but it just in the interest of time it would be nice if uh if we could do that limit them limit the speakers to maybe five minutes and then we move on to the next one uh nice suggestion uh mr varenkamp and and i know that um um i know that the folks in eaglebrook did a good job at trying to channel those to a few people um i don't know what's happened uh in in particular regard to this this one but um we'll uh we'll watch the clock and and we'll try to limit that as you suggested so all right natalie do we have anybody that's uh that wishes to uh open up with some remarks to the planning commission yes so we so far have two people raising their hand uh we will go ahead and start with michelle friedrich i'm going to unmute you now we're going to request that you're unmuted now and then please state your name and address for the record thank you my name is michelle friedrich and i am located at 6830 county road 116. um thank you council and planning commission for allowing the public to have a say and comment on the proposed location for the electrical substation it does have an impact on for sure two of the neighborhoods that surround it and the two future neighborhoods that could be forthcoming into the area as well i understand it's not the planning commission's job to search for any other property in corcoran however i do feel it's necessary to state that um within the variance um i do not believe that there's a hardship being created that they need to have the substation placed where they've proposed it if it was the last parcel in the city of minnesota or in the city in the city of corcoran in the state of minnesota i would i would probably feel differently but we have like enormous amounts of land in corcoran right now land that is in very close proximity that is surrounded by farmland next to those two new developments that will be going in so i don't believe that there is any hardship that is being created um by having to put that substation where they're placing it um i also wanted to just make a note that i i was actually at the the council meeting on the 28th and the wetland delineation waiver was approved but it was a narrow approval it was two to one so we did have a council member that did vote nay on approving that waiver and they also had asked right-handed electric to provide some additional options and locations regarding where the substation could possibly go and i don't know if that's been presented yet maybe that will be at the next council meeting um i also wanted to just state that i believe that it creates an undue hardship for the neighborhoods that are surrounding that would be surrounding that substation um i also took an opportunity to drive by some substations other substations that were given to me by the representative from right hennepin electric and you can still hear a hum that comes from substations um it's a constant hum it does not go away um and if you're someone who is outside a lot that is what you will hear when you're outside doing your gardening or having a bonfire or whatever you might be doing and i think most people in corcoran move out here because that's what we want we want to have you know open space and i know that's a a definite desire of council to have open spaces and green spaces in our future developments in corcoran so i know that that's an important uh piece that we're trying to carry forward in the whole um idea of what we want corcoran to be i'd also like to say that i think we have a great opportunity to have a stay where things like this are placed in the city of corcoran and we should be able to as a city and council and planning commission everyone involved tell these companies where the appropriate places to put these substations and not allow them to tell us where they're supposed to be i feel that because we have existing neighborhoods right now where the substation is proposed um i think there needs to be a lot of thought given to if if where they're proposing is really the best spot for the substation i know that there's a place directly behind the commerce section of corcoran about 70 acres that is light industrial it's zoned light industrial and would be less impactful because there's so many farm fields around that area and also just that the business district is there um let's see with that being said um i just wanted to touch on the standards the five standards that are supposed to be included to approve the variance and two of those things are already not being abided by it's supposed to be a 20 acre acre minimum parcel um and about and creating the hardship so there is no hardship created it's not a 20 acre parcel and i would like to also add that the substation would be zoned light industrial and that future slated property is zoned low density residential um i also wanted to touch on i don't know if you're aware but because of where the location would be in in the future right-handed electric wants to put another transformer into that substation which now doubles the load on the transmission lines and also creates a higher emf radiation on those transmission lines so it's not necessarily a safe place that you would want residential homes to be in close proximity to we know so much more about emf radiation than we did 50 years ago when the lines were originally placed there and there's two sides to that some people are going to say that that's been disproved but there's also a substantial amount of reporting that shows that emf radiation is a real thing um so with that i would like to um i would like i would like the planning commission to deny the variance based on the reasonings that i gave and thank you so much for your time okay thank you michelle um now all of um your i i hope i got all of the main points and uh typically uh the way the commission works with this um that there are plenty of these questions that that maybe that can get back to you uh with further review from staff our professionals and uh through uh working with uh the applicant so we've made note of them um but unless anybody has a response to any of this we'll we'll just note it for now yes kendra just so that there's no confusion for the other speakers uh michelle said that the property will be rezoned to light industrial that's not true the zoning is not proposed to be changed it's not required to be changed as i said essential services are allowed in all zoning districts nose rezoning is required under the current ordinance so just to clarify that okay kendra is there any other response you can provide um the wetland delineation um i thought i heard you say that while the bigger lot the outlaw did not require it they got an exemption did i not hear your report say though that wright hennepin did do a wetland delineation for their two acre site that is correct mr chair and so i think um i don't think there are any other questions specifically in ms friedrich's statements but i did want to just clarify the the issue about the rezoning and then we typically just wait till the end and then we can answer all the questions from the public hearing at the end mr chair okay very good okay uh natalie do we we said we had another another yeah yep we actually have uh uh two more now again uh so we'll start with diane wally i'm requesting you're unmuted right now and go ahead and speak your name and address for the record can you hear me now yes i feel like the commercial my name is diane wally i live at 68 61 old sturbidge drive in the storage neighborhood um uh you know being right up front michelle's property and our property are the two properties that are adjacent or you know kitty corner from the proposed site so of course we have a very high interest selfishly so however i know that a lot of other people are also very concerned about the placement of a new substation um michelle covered many of the points that i have gone over in in what i wanted to speak to you about so i'll try not to duplicate her also i want you to know i have served on the planning commission so i do understand your decision-making process and kendra certainly gave a good review of what you can and can't consider so um you know and i understand that that all but i know you have to balance the request of right hana pen versus the comp plan and also i do think you need to take into consideration the desires of the citizens you being citizens as well and the point that i want to make is that i believe right hennepin should have respect for the city's comp plan you know it's early enough in the development of this of this area meaning corcoran to uh place a substation that is you know within the existing comp plan parameters even though i know that they can go into you know um i forget the term now that kendra said but you know into many areas however would you really want to put a substation in an area that you're going to have somewhere in water to me that's potentially wasted tax dollars in the future if if uh homes were built there instead um and i i believe you've all reviewed mr lanternman's letter where he also has pointed out that he doesn't feel that they've met the you know hardship conditions um i can see why wright hennepin wants to put the substation there um it you know i think that it's probably the most expedient place for them to put it and probably the most cost effective place but i believe it's your charge to look out for the best interests of the city not the best interests of wright hennepin and you you know this is just one of many decisions you'll have to make but i do think that your charge also is to consider the the appearance and the desirability of the city and i don't think many people who are looking at buying a new home or developers who are looking at building new homes are going to want to build next to a substation and certainly the neighbors who already exist um don't really want a huge substation next to them you know it just ruins the ambiance of a residential community to have a utility smack dab in the middle of it which it really would be so um i'm asking you to think about those things in your decision making and i'll limit my comments to that thank you okay thank you diane wally much appreciated okay natalie um so next up is catherine drivas um and i i believe i've been muted you please state your name and address for the record for starters my name is catherine drivas i live at 6747 old sturbridge drive and natalie you get gold stars for getting my last name correct i agree with absolutely everything michelle and diane have said um the old sturbridge neighborhood was first started being built in 1965 though the two uh other houses out along 116 are from the 1950s we've been here a long time and we've also of course been members of uh wright hennepin electric for a long time and i think both the city and wright hennepin need to respect the fact that this community has been there that long and in fact in our neighborhood i counted over half the people have been here more than 30 years and so we have a vested interest in corcoran we have a vested interest in our homes and the improvements we've made to our homes and by putting this substation nestled right against um our neighborhood it it really i believe is going to lower the value of our homes and though kendra has said that the zoning is not going to change around it who would want to put residences there when the time comes to develop when the sewer does come to develop and so i think that there are probably better places i can see why wright hennepin wants it there it's convenient like diane said but it is not the best place and it is a disservice i believe to long-term residents of corcoran and especially this neighborhood because this is really one of the first neighborhoods in corcoran that was built as a neighborhood i think we need to take that into consideration if you do decide to approve this i have concerns i have concerns about the drainage um anytime anybody has ever done anything in our neighborhood no matter how big or how small it messes somebody up somebody's basement gets flooded uh their property is flooded they have um water where they never had water before it's just that goofy corcoran clay that really messes everything up so i think i have concerns about the drainage i have concerns about that pond or that draining easement kind of thing that's going to be there and what happens if that fills where that water is going to go i also have some concerns if you do decide to do this about the screening you know i i feel like looking at what right hennepin has proposed for screening the golf course and 116 gets much better screening than the neighborhood side and i understand that it's because of the power lines but i think there are some ways to not have just a single row of trees there and also the screening on the southeast corner that seems awfully light to me and that i don't believe would interfere with any power lines and i think if you should decide to approve this which i don't think you should um i think that screening there needs to be beefed up quite a bit i mean really we're a unique neighborhood and um throwing up you know some arborvitae trees is not gonna do it and so that's it thank you for the opportunity to comment um i appreciate it but i really really think that the planning commission especially as things are built along existing neighborhoods really has to look at how that affects the neighborhood and how it's in the best interest of corcoran residents thank you okay thank you catherine um and chair we do have one more speaker raising their hand at this time okay natalie thank you yep and eric norja i should i'm sorry if i pronounced that wrong um go ahead and state your name and address for the record yeah hi this is katie um i'm eric's wife we're joining together um from home here and i i just wanted to speak maybe from a different perspective so we're we're a new family katie could you please state your address yeah i can it's 1721 oak ridge road thank you you can continue we just wanted i just want to get that on record okay yep so we're at 1721 oak ridge road and we're right along 116 and i i did speak with wright hennepin a little bit about the development and their interest in expanding and i understand and there are different perspectives on this i'm not so much worried about the aesthetics and how many trees i have um a young family i just have a newborn who's two weeks old we're growing our family i have a three-year-old and once all of this is going to be developed i understand that the substation is going to be probably 200 feet from my children's bedrooms and emf is a real thing um even in the evaluation of buying children's products they tell you the emf rating of their products and here we're looking at you know a substation bringing in large amounts of power with emf emissions and it's going to be very close to and vulnerable populations are different than your traditional doubt we have newborn pregnancies young children there are a lot more consequences to that and so i'm looking at this to be looked at also you know where a young family came to corcoran to raise their family and now we're looking at this so and i'm i'm just two weeks past giving birth and i really don't want to be dealing with this but it's very important to our family and i don't know if that fits into the five different buckets of whether we approve or disapprove but i think considerations like this are good times to evaluate well maybe isn't just these five buckets that there are other things to consider with people and their lives and their families okay is is that it um there are two more speakers that raise their hand uh so next is mark lanterman i'll go ahead and state your name and address for the record good evening my name is mark lanterman my address is 6936 oak ridge road in corcoran i just have a quick question for the commission i did send a fairly detailed letter to brad martin's two weeks ago addressed to you and i do not see it in the packet and i am wondering if you have received that and reviewed it i i don't want to take the time to read it into the record if you already have it and have read it thank you um i uh i you know kendra i i don't have that letter brad emailed that out to the commissioners uh the day it was received yeah it is um in the council packet for next week uh other commissioners did you receive a copy from brad in that email this is dean yes and i've reviewed it very well written mark this is meredith i received the letter and i read it what what was the date that that email was sent um i believe it was the fourth i'm looking in my email right now february 4th february 4th i received it and reviewed it you were out of the state weren't you dean um it was on february 4th that it was emailed to the commission no i don't think i was oh but sometimes uh some of the stuff gets to uh the junk email so i think for the record for mr lantern it was received and entered into the record but certainly since um the chair did not receive it if uh certainly he would be welcome to hit the highlights but the entire letter is in the official record okay mr lantern if you'd like to maybe expand a little bit for my benefit certainly in the in the interest of time uh i'll i'll pass on that i would ask you though to to read it and i think that it does express the views of several uh residents of of corcoran again i just want to be mindful of everyone's time and uh thank you for uh the work that uh all of you do so thank you okay thank you natalie all right uh we have uh one last caller raising their hand at this time a first name gail looks like she's calling from her iphone i'm unmuting you now let's say to your full name and address for the record please hi this is gail waldorf i live on 20117 larkin road in corcoran and in hearing the five people speak before me i agree with them that you should i recommend denial and i really believe you should deny this variance for the substation like michelle said you guys have a backbone is this really where you want a substation in your city secondly this is a residential area or is valuable land that should be a residential someday why on earth would you put a substation right there thirdly emf and growing families that should be a very big concern for everyone involved to have a substation in their neighborhood not on a city lot but in a neighborhood fourth i live on larkin road and i am the fifth house down from the substation on larkin road in 116. within three houses of the walk toward the substation i hear the hum i hear the echo and it is constant and why would a city allow that to be in a neighborhood blows my mind a way to even consider it like michelle said really think about you guys have the control on where we want to put this number one if we want right-handed pin to do this number two is this really the right spot i can totally see if the golf course continues to stay there or if the property is sold that it would be residential and it would be prime real estate where the city would get prime tax dollars from it but to have a variance to put a substation there it doesn't make logical sense maybe to write hennepin but not not to the city of corcoran so i would recommend denial thank you mr chair that someone else is using their hand as well now okay thank you natalie thank you uh so this is a caller ending in zero nine two six uh go ahead and say your name and address thank you hi my name is judy ung i am a neighbor of mark lanternman and also katie and um i just wanted to speak out because i will be looking directly at this thing and i have emailed the council opposing this and i hope and i want to keep it short because we can be here all night um with our disagreement and and tell you all all the stuff that why you shouldn't do a substation there but i just before you make that decision i just want you to make sure that you're doing it for the best interest of the residents here and you're hearing us saying that we do not want a substation there so just keep that in mind before you make that decision and again i do appreciate your time and appreciate you know the time to let me speak but um and i agree with everybody that said everything they already said what i wanted to say already is i don't want to repeat myself i just wanted to to just say that i oppose this and i hope you make the right decision and that's it thank you so much can you please uh state your address for the record oh sorry judy at 6970 oak ridge road thank you and we have one more i'm sorry go ahead no that's i i just wanted to thank our previous speaker so go ahead natalie and uh now we have scott gilliard raising his hand to speak and go ahead and state your address hello this is scott gilliard i'm at 7015 oak ridge road and my comments i understand we we are going to need more power and corcoran we need to grow the city in a way that makes sense and i just i'm asking for the principle of planning in the title of the planning commission be uh adhered here to us to the degree that you can we have a plan that has light industrial approvals in place already for the city west of the city the downtown area and i know that that may not fall under the purview and there may be exceptions that would be allowed based off of the uh the needs of the community to have utilities but in the same sense the principle of planning where those should go and how they should be placed into currently zoned places of of uh light industrial which presumably was decided by uh committee members similar to yourselves years ago with some forward-looking thought and attention uh that that be considered in your approval process and i would be against the plan as it is needed right now for this current plot that they are looking to get have not rezoned but exceptions to the zoning this existence today thank you very much appreciate your work thank you scott much appreciated for your comments and we don't have anyone raising their hand at this time we'll give it a few seconds in case someone mr chair yes dean if i could make a motion to close the public hearing on this okay do we have a second i'll second that would um before we take a vote on it uh kendra you said that the applicant was here maybe this would be a good time for the applicant to speak during the public hearing either way mr chair you can take comments from them during the public hearing or you can close the public hearing and just direct questions to them during your uh debate that's up to you okay who who is here with the uh with wright hennepin um there's several people on the line from wright hennepin i will let bryant and his team decide who their spokes person is [Music] by raising their hand perhaps well i guess to the folks at wright hennepin if you if you want to address the planning commission without questions at this point i'm sure we'll have questions for you later but if you would like to um address the planning commission now maybe answer a few of these questions or um now would be the time to do it uh this is bob sandberg from wright hennepin um uh is the spokesperson for right hennepin tonight uh so he is unmuted he should be able to go ahead and speak good good evening everyone thank you for your time uh thank you commissioners uh and thank you for everyone who called in i appreciate your comments um and expressing your your opinions um we you know we'll we'll basically respond to this what's ever best for the commission or you direct us if you would like to take into account what you heard and then ask us questions directly if that's more efficient we can do that so really at this point i believe i'll leave it up to you for guidance on how you like to proceed okay commission members um you know we always have a tendency to ask applicants questions through our discussions after the public hearing uh you wish to proceed that way i would yes all right all right we have a motion in a second to close the public hearing i'll take a uh i'll take a roll call vote uh jacobs yay uh commissioner schulack ea mr varenkamp commissioner wu annie commissioner dickman yay all right this public hearing is now closed we will now have commission discussions and questions we'll go with the same plan that we have been since we've been doing zoom meetings we can start off one commissioner at a time feel free to have the floor to ask questions make comments and then we will go through that one last time after we've gone through it once for any follow-up so uh why don't we start with uh commissioner wu i i don't have any questions at this time thank you okay commissioner sholak i have no questions or comments at this time thank you okay uh commissioner varenkamp i think i got some okay sir um if i can ask the first question why in this location yes thank you um a number of reasons hope you guys can anybody still hear me yes sir okay sorry about that something just came on my screen um really you know we don't take this lightly we evaluate a number of sites um we look at this we take into account where the low growth is occurring today where it's going to occur in the future we also have variables that we have to take into account um most important being the transmission line and interconnecting with that so there's you know limited opportunities and limited sites where that can occur and so when we look at where we see current growth where we look at the 2040 comp plan where we see future growth and where it's coming and in respect to our current substation along 116 is the prime location we take into account working with the city staff in terms of trying to address all their concerns impacts the community and at the end of the day we're a cooperative our members our owner company they're also the residents of corcoran so it's all those factors that go into site selection and at the end of the day this site came out on top from a standpoint of meeting the needs of the load today from a community impact standpoint from an operational from a from maintaining a grid resiliency standpoint and from an overall economic standpoint um mr sandberg i've been uh owner cooperative member for 30 seven years um being living in maple grove and being part of the planning commission there and dealing with some of the substations that went in um in that area we ran into the same kind of issue trying to put a substation next to um property owners and the substation that ended up going in is one over on station five off of uh lawndale i think it is um where there was nobody there and then now if you look at it today you've got the fire station to the north um a pretty good stand of trees around the back side and the whole front of it is facing lawndale across the street are multiplex homes um again back then it was the the try was to put it next to three or four rural homes and it just wasn't the right place so my next question is why what we we're looking at two and a half acres on this 35 acre parcel and such why not across the street from the existing substation is number one and then what are your plans with the existing substation to make it more um visibly appealing if you can do that with a substation um that one just looks it just looks wrong um is there a way to make that substation bigger without adding this one and then the comments from the residents and other things i've heard of adding to this substation that we're wanting to put in here that you're wanting to put in here at a further date and it just doesn't make sense going there related to low density basically surrounding it to the north and to the east it just this isn't a good place i understand where the power lines are i can understand maybe a substation over next to um the lions park this uh power line that you're going under um it go floats right over the wetlands and then over the lines park um at the other end of the neighborhood or other end of town we also have the power line that goes all the way down 116 and such um there's natural barriers there with elevations of of dirt and hills and trees and stuff that would protect it actually it would protect the neighbors more it would get them further away from neighbors and such so i i just it it seems convenient it seems like a perfect plot one of the questions i asked back when i was on the maple grove planning commission is as how many wright hennepin co-op workers live next to a substation and i'd never got an answer to that how many right-handed workers um would love to live as close as the folks i think it's michelle to the south here would love to buy that property because i'm sure she'll she'd be more than happy to get rid of it um before the substation goes into anyone that wants to live there i just it just doesn't seem like a good place as stated with all of the open parcels all of the open land there are a number of different places that this could go and still follow along the power lines well i respect the so your specific question being i mean i don't i think at the commission meeting we plan on addressing and we have been requested to bring uh other sites that were considered in rationale for those city city council meetings right at the city council meeting correct um and so we plan on addressing that and having that discussion and um but for this meeting we're you know we were focused on this site and the application at hand um i think kendra pointed out at the very beginning and so um again i can speak to this site um at tonight and what makes the most sense and you speak to a couple points of you know there might be other sites yes we can look at them and we have and we'll talk about that at the council meeting um but again we don't take this lightly right it's not just a matter of us trying to push it in and get it there we're working with the city we're working with the residents um there is growth that's driving this and i'm grossly aware of the growth i'm part of that plan on being on the planning commission i'm just extremely disappointed there's a 35 acre parcel here that we're talking about and i don't think you'd have anybody objecting by putting it on 116 and larkin across from the current substation the power line is there we're less than a half a mile upstream from this current location and that area is deemed mixed residential and you can do other things with it i just this just isn't the right place you're gonna there's gonna be no one that was gonna want to live across the street from that there's a private uh community across the street there that it just it doesn't fit here while i do like i said understand the junction of all of the power lines are right here this is not an appropriate place that's that's my feelings and thoughts and and again talking about all the concerns of safety and the the sounds and all that stuff i've had a conversation with one person i don't think i'd love to sit in my home with my windows open and 100 or 150 feet away listen to a whisper a constant whisper that never goes away i just it it really is a detriment to those properties to the south of this and it i just i just flat out disagree with this is a good place for it to be um thank you very much mr sandberg kendra there's something that concerned me when you presented um you had made the statement that if if wright hennepin were to buy this whole 35 acres they could essentially put this substation there without any resistance from us as the city was that is that right or am i simplifying it too much uh just like when we built our lift stations for our water system essential services are permitted uses via an administrative permit process so there is a review process to make sure those standards in the ordinance are met but it does not require a public hearing under our current ordinance all right thank you that's all i have make sure this is this is bob uh just to respond to your question we did initially look at the location you had uh spoken about at kitty corner to our existing sub and we moved away from that per the direction from city staff they had concerns about locating a substation at the corner and so working with staff for their direction we moved to this location as a direct result of that so so you know we that's where we started we ended up here um at the same time the uh the purchase agreement that we have for this land um is also for the south side not sure what the uh seller's position is for the northern part of the property um so taking into consideration those two variables um and those two those two parameters right this that's why we ended up where we're at i i can understand that i just our city staff is doing trying to do what's best for our city and such but again it's it's us making the recommendation to approve or deny or or voice our concerns and such and i just unless city staff has a reason why we moved it all the way to there and why it can't be on that corner um i haven't heard that from anyone um like i've said i i see almost a mile and a half from the corner the south the southwest corner of this on the other side of the road we've got a power line that travels all the way down to basically highway 55 that a substation could be in any one of those areas also um again if if city staff has a recommendation to us as a planning commission saying this is why we want it there then i think we've got to look at something different i just don't agree with this going there um the the low density that is planned around of this and again the neighborhood to the south the extremely mature neighborhood to the south um this just does not fit in my mind so just to answer your question or your comment about the transmission line going straight south that is not a transmission line that's a distribution line the transmission line the 69 kv transmission land that we need to interconnect to um it runs along larkin west east and then south to that corner to that section we're looking at we're proposing to cite a substation and then it goes direct east from there so again my my comments are is there a way you can put it over next to um 101. again it's a whole nother open conversation and stuff but i understood that i understand that that power line goes that way and there is a huge wetland um on the corcoran alliance park and stuff i think we can redirect that and still put you under that main power that you're talking about i just this is not in my mind the right place well hopefully i was able to address your concerns regarding or your questions regarding the why we chose this position right the location the existing substation there is not an opportunity to expand there um setbacks from the road site restrictions right we do not have the ability to that is the direct reason why we are seeking a new location um and at some point in the future that substation is approaching seven years old um we will retire it um and the design and the layout that we have submitted um the uh three quarters of an acre that would be fenced in already takes into consideration um adding a second transformer in there so it would not impact the uh site layout um expansion anything that's the what's been submitted already accounts for that but again it's going to get louder it the uh these are specked to a sound level um as we've indicated uh at the transformer itself it's 67 it's a si it's the uh level of a conversation at 350 feet the closest residence to this site um it's inspect at 20 mid 20s db levels which is you know equivalent to a whisper um that's not taking consideration the uh screening mostly where are the decibel levels and stuff i cannot i cannot be next to a place that is a constant whisper next to my property and i just i i'm not able to support this location i understand the needs and such i just i do not agree with this spot along that power line and that's that's all i got thank you mr mr chair thanks for the time okay uh commissioner camp um uh commissioner dickman thanks mr chair um i just want to thank the citizens um a lot of times we get into situations like this where we're working with partners within the city and the first question we ask is have you met with the applicant the answer oftentimes seems to be no so i was pleased to hear a lot of folks that chose to speak at the public forum that they had engaged with wright hennepin and already had those discussions also kudos to natalie for nailing friedrich priebus and wally the first go around so you're officially a corcoran employee now if you can nail those three without any uh any issues so thanks natalie for that um you know my comments are specifically around we know that the needs of the city are great when it comes to utilities but this specifically is a forever decision this isn't like something that shows up on hgtv and then a nice remodel can happen you put some james hardy siding on it and it spruces up the neighborhood this this is a a permanent piece and we're going to have another permanent piece that we're going to discuss later with the well so utilities are something i take extremely seriously and i know the commission does too because these are forever um forever decisions um i also want to just point out that this isn't a citizen v wright hennepin piece in my mind i grew up in greenfield lived in plymouth and i've lived in corcoran so basically almost since 1994 have been part of the cooperative and a pain member as an adult and i take very seriously the fact that wright hennepin prides himself and and and does a very good job of being a cooperative and i think part of that is not just sharing in the burdens of cost of power and keeping that low for everybody but it's also being respectful of of sites and and how they're thinking about where those future needs are so i appreciate the the applicant um sharing that they're trying to not only meet the needs now but corcoran is growing very very fast in the southeastern quadrant between 101 116 and all the way up to 30. and we're approving a lot of homes that are 400 plus home development and that takes a lot of power and especially with what's gone on with texas this week i think everybody's seen the spotlight on how important consistent and uh you know utilities are to the to the community my three points are are really just focused on specifically the variances and i i don't see practical difficulties here um you know to basically subdivide into a two and a half acre lot out of something that's a 40 acre parcel i could see the list being long and distinguished of people claiming something similar and to me the practical difficulty is primarily just financial um the applicant did mention something about staff directing it to move to another spot that's disappointing if that that is the case we could have something right across the street from the current substation which i drive by living just off of larkin so hopefully that's something that could be reconsidered down the road the last thing i'll say is you know this is a light industrial piece and i understand that from a zoning perspective this is a utility and those things can go anywhere but i do feel like this type of light industrial activity is altering the essential character of this area again this these neighborhoods um that are from 116 and across have been there so we're making decisions uh about this from a variant standpoint that already have existing people there as far as noise i i understand the specifics around utilities the only thing i'll say is that the traffic on 116 between 6 30 in the morning and 9 00 am and the traffic on 1 16 between 3 30 in the afternoon and 6 30 in the afternoon is probably going to be a lot louder than what the substation noises are having said that i agree that having my windows open and having kind of that decibel piece there is is is not ideal and having run quite frequently on larkin with another non-write hennepin substation that crosses over willow larkin and then also seeing the substation up on market in 116. yes there is there is constant noise that that is there and if i was a resident i would be extremely disappointed if if a substation was going into that so those are my comments no specific questions at this point but just want to share all that and think right hennepin for the service that they provide to the city and that what we are really deciding is the merits of this particular location and the variances associated with it so i yield back thank you commissioner dickman thank you very much and i guess that uh leaves me uh to go last um and yeah i i've kind of taken um i know initially uh some of the comments that were given by some of the residents and i went specifically well let me just first address loss and value i was an assessor in need in prairie for five years i started my career there and i can say um that when you give an economic or locational adjustment for loss and value for something like this the only one that we could measure through sales where a loss in value of five percent we gave to houses that were within i don't remember exactly what the proximity was to an overhead high voltage power line but as far as substations gas lines uh we had we had a landfill and we had an airport we couldn't find any any loss in value for that now i did call eden prairie and i did call maple grove i asked them if they give a locational economic obsolescence adjustment for a loss in value to homes that were next to or within a proximity of a substation and the answer is no so i am not moved or persuaded that there is a loss in value because you're located next to a substation now the applicant did give three substation comparables i went and visited each one started though of course with the substation in uh corcoran already and yes you could hear the hum now i don't know if that's because maybe that's an older one i didn't know how old it was but the applicant said it's now over 70 years so hopefully maybe there's been some improvements in its in in the quiet factor in which they are today um but i went to the lawndale one and the thing about the lawndale one um it is 276 feet from the closest home and if you go back in time through google earth and whatnot that substation clearly was there before those homes were built so i'm not persuaded by the argument that no one's going to want to build next to this um these homes were clearly all built uh when that substation was there i did go talk to residents and although i went to three of the houses only one of them was home and i asked them if um if that was a nuisance to them and they had just bought that home uh so they are the second owners and uh they had said no they're now 276 feet and i think our applicant is on just under 300 feet uh or um the the neighborhood uh to the south so comparable distance then the difference here is that the the the distance from those houses to the lawndale there is no trees really um on that backside in lawndale all of the trees were put towards lawndale and oddly enough the fire department so they had clear vision and clear openness to that and i was told that that was not a consideration for them and it was not a problem the second one bass lake in maple grove now this is somewhat unique um and again these are all on on major streets just like this would be on 116. now bass lake substation this was you google earth won't go back far enough to tell me what came first the substation or the homes but the closest home there uh is like 85 feet and i did i was able to get a hold of that gentleman and had a nice discussion with him and he said absolutely not he has no problem with it he never hears it um that might be according to mr dickman i would agree you're going to get you're going to get road traffic on 116 and in this case bass lake road so that has maybe a possibility of masking any of that sound that he would hear only because the road traffic is lighter i asked him if it now he's only been living there for six years and uh i asked him if if he thinks he's had a loss in value and he says he's constantly getting offers from realtors uh to sell now at a value much higher than what he purchased it um so again i'm not persuaded that being 90 feet away from a substation is necessarily um an evil thing as far as market value the last one trailhaven in rogers is interesting because this is a rural setting um now this one here the first house the closest one which is 270 feet from the substation that one was built immediately after he built his house um and when i talked with him we were actually standing out in his driveway and oddly enough you could hear a slight hum and i had asked him if he had any problems with living next to and he said absolutely not it doesn't bother him it doesn't it doesn't annoy him or anything like that subsequent to him because this is a cul-de-sac um there all the rest of the cul-de-sac homes have been built and so i don't find that that that substation was a deterrent from anybody else building new homes and these are all very very nice homes uh so with that being said um i i i don't know that i'm persuaded that this thing is an absolute new nuisance for anybody else and as far as you know oak ridge oak ridges across the road there was one person who spoke you know they're not 200 feet they're almost 800 feet away from this site so um again i'm not an expert here on noise and whatnot but i'll agree with the other commissioners that if this is something you can hear uh by opening up your bedroom window uh it it's not necessarily a good thing i did want to have some questions about the site plan if i could um on the east side there are a number of squares right along the fence line can somebody tell me what those squares represent are those footings for electrical yes i'm going to let you i'm bryan tower if you can unmute brian tower and mark sugden um brian should be able to answer that okay ryan's ahead of our engineering and um basically headed up the application okay good afternoon this is brian can you hear me yeah there are there are 12 squares there what what are those yes those would be a pad mount switch gear they're approximately six foot um square in dimension about uh four and a half feet long term we would say the worst case scenario we want to put on the picture was that there would be 12 of them on site behind those shrubs we depicted on the 116 rendering and those are very common switches that we have in road right of ways all across our entire system okay and why are they outside the fence that's a part of our distribution network once the wires leave the fence in area underground um we put those switches adjacent to the sub in event of uh outages um in the area we can quickly back feed the power in significantly shorter time having it available to the crews okay and why would we why why would it be advantageous if at all to put them within sight of the road versus maybe say on the east side of of the fence instead of the west side the smallest the small square boxes directly above the big two inside the fenced in area is where the wires generate from and those wires would need to exit into the 116 right away for distribution networking and so we would want to have them in line out to the distribution right away to connect the wires together okay all right where inside the fence is the building proposed to go the small square box and the middle on the north that's the building so it's going to go through the fence line or you might not see in the fence line right no that is correct it's a walk through building two doors one on the outside one on the inside now that's a little bit different from your other your other substation sites is it not that's correct this would be our newer design the new and improved design okay now there is on the on the west side and the south side the dotted area which is a drainage swale is that right that's correct okay now in your other sites that i visited i did not notice any such similar swales is there something about this site now i know that we've had someone talk about uh water problems and she's absolutely right it seems like everything that that comes before us as a water issue with somebody being concerned or had an experience of getting flooded so what what is with that swale that that that is necessary for that to exist yes per the mp3 we're required to a permanent stormwater management plan due to the amount of impervious area exceeds one acre on this site okay so if you had less than one acre you you wouldn't have to have that yes we're about 1 000 square feet too many okay so here's a here this might be a good question then so the lawndale substation is .23 acres in fenced in area i don't know what you have for land area i was just counting measuring the fenced area so you got less than a quarter acre there the bass lake substation is 0.2 acres and the trailhaven is 0.29 acres now this proposed site um is uh in fence was it 0.75 acres that's correct okay so is it the size of the site or is it the size of the impervious area being greater than one acre that requires the i'm just trying to get a better idea and the reason i'm asking is because it looks like that swale i too was very concerned about some of the um the um the the landscape of this site and it looks like that swale is quite a limiting factor on your ability i mean i i especially found it interesting that we're we're going above and beyond to try to hide or or landscape this thing from the north and from the east but the landowners to the south and the people driving on the road there's hardly any landscaping there at all or at least it doesn't look to be enough to hide this thing in its entirety and i'll i'll draw attention to like lawndale i think your lawndale substation has great street uh landscaping um um i and and same with your trail haven uh as far as as from the road is concerned there's not a whole lot you could do with the south because of the driveway and the wetland but as far as this site is concerned there didn't seem to be any options to do any screening only because of that that swale yeah so we to meet the screening requirements and the main limitation that we have is the overhead transmission lines that we're going to connect to on the south which we only want to have a height of 12 feet at full growth below those transmission lines so they can be safely operated and maintained in the future the other three sides don't have any overhead lines there and we recommend and propose screening in order to match the overall general steps to try and cover up uh kind of what we can given that substation is very tall on certain parts of it we work with city staff on a recommendation on the remaining three sides okay next question then related to that per the engineers memo on page 2 3.6 it said these basins are not feasible in corcoran can we can maybe someone enlighten me as to why the engineer would say these are not feasible but yet that's what's being planned for this site working with our civil engineer uh in our watershed district we had submitted a proposal and uh we are willing to accommodate any changes the city has recommended for any uh infiltration that we had recommended and adjusted to the pond if the product is approved for the city's request mr chair i think the comment from the engineers simply that with our clay soils infiltration as a general rule does not work in corcoran and so he wants to see more data to ensure that in fact either it will work or that we have a different plan for that same pond area to manage the water and he feels that that can be accommodated on site but requires additional information okay and i you know i don't want to get too far in the weeds so to speak on it but it sounds again like you know one somebody's saying that these aren't suitable here but yeah we'll figure out something but if we approve this and then we have you know we've already got some opponents uh uh speaking about flooding but then we don't really know really what the answer is going to be for this potential flooding problem if they don't find one and i don't want to get into that too much i just wanted to find out if if there was any kind of logic as to what what's going to happen there um okay um i i think that uh while i i certainly had a lot of different questions uh about uh some of this stuff i think kendra pointed it out very well that that this this discussion and our recommendation to the city council uh should all be focused on the variance and um uh i i kind of have now i remember kendra went through there and said that there is maybe some questions on the items number one and number two [Music] and i i don't believe there was anything on number three um that the granting of the variation will not alter the essential character of the locality and here is is my question about it so granting the variance from the minimum lot size would not alter the essential character of the locality once human water becomes available the parcel would be rezoned to districts compatible with the underlying land use and would allow 11 000 square foot lots in the rsf2 district now when we talk about character in the lot so here we're going to have a two and a half acre lot for eight utility in an eleven thousand acre or eleven thousand square foot neighborhood and that's assuming that somebody actually comes in there and develops eleven thousand square foot lots um i guess i wonder if that is uh a significant alteration of the character of that neighborhood just by the sears the sheer difference in size between the utility lot in the 11 000 square foot homeowner lots you know when you look at the other neighborhoods the comparables um you got lawndale now again i i don't know what the size of those lots are but being that they were far enough away from the existing homes um and you are right next to a a um a firehouse it would seem to me that those might be compatible right there uh when it came to the bass lake substation that's kind of an odd shaped lot but clearly maybe a little bit more like if you will because i don't think they might exist on two acres with the with the local size lots in that neighborhood and then you get down to trailhaven whatever their acreage is well that whole neighborhood is acreage so i would say that that clearly fits in with the with the character of the neighborhood this one then ultimately would be such that i i think it would be altered a little bit and i don't know that they meet uh number three i would agree [Music] that the 20 acre minimum lot size i'd like to see that be met and i understand the differences in uh or the the the complications with buying the 40 acre site i did have a question that if if the owner of the land was to sell 20 acre lots you would still we'd still be at this because the other the other lot would be less than 20 acres is that right kendra that is correct mr trump okay so let's assume that wright hennepin said all right we're going to buy the whole 40 acres they'd have to keep that as 40 acres until the development happened but they couldn't then split it off and sell it yeah they they certainly once saw and water become available and the property is rezoned to the compatible zoning district the landowner could subdivide the property consistent with those new zoning district standards okay um the question or the the comments about going to uh in industrial areas so again with that wonderful tool um uh google maps so or google earth so from the site that they have chosen to a site uh in our downtown light industrial park so this would be at the end of what's currently developed and i believe it's an open field is 0.7 miles away from the current site now i don't have any any knowledge or what the the cost differential or the you know the the technical issues for physical standpoint of of moving such a deal but i can see the benefit and i agree with commissioner varenkamp because i also thought about well why wouldn't they put this thing in the northwest corner knowing that eventually the existing substation is going to be retired and they could just then put it right across the street this would also allow them to do it over there but i didn't see any other options so if the if the argument is well we're not going to allow it in a residential district or we're not going to recommend even though it is allowed in any district in any zoning district i just wanted to point out that that's about 0.7 miles away so i i have i have some uh agreement with that there are some difficulties um with number one um uh but i i i would agree that in number two um uh that it is probably um now that they probably don't meet on number one or number two and i have some questions on number three um so that is that is all i have uh i think that is relevant to our decision here tonight and what we need to be focusing on uh and again i also want to thank all of the the members of the community that spoke out and i do want to thank uh the folks at wright hennepin um they were they contacted me and sent me some information and i did talk with them and uh i do believe they're a good organization they have everybody's best interest at heart here and there's no doubt that yes we we need to figure out how to get electricity um an increased electric power supply uh to our to our other areas but it just seems like maybe there's maybe some better options at this point so uh i will end and um we'll go around the horn uh one more time to see if there's any follow-up questions from the commissioners commissioner sholak do you have any follow-ups it was uh thank you chair um i it was brought up at some point about the health effects of low frequency low frequency e yeah emf um and just a cursory look at the at the internet including a from the national institutes of health uh some of the articles that they brought up uh are sort of contradict each other there's data out there that you can make for either argument uh whether it be for um for cancer or for uh affecting uh pregnant women uh livestock and uh and and even um the biological effects on on foliage uh so um i i think because the because you can for every one uh article that you can find that list the risks of this the physical risks of it and and [Music] you can probably find another article that says no this this uh it's not true uh i think what i'm thinking what i'm hearing more is the uh the visual and the psychological effects uh that this this would go into um how it would affect the the neighbors of that um but still going back to the fact that there's no clear one study that that definitively speaks to physical health or harm because it is a 50 50 situation i still would err on the side of caution and so that's that's all i would add to that okay thank you sir commissioner any follow-up questions or comments yeah mr chair thank you um again i i believe our co-op is absolutely excellent and such um while they made comments and and staff has made comments that they've worked together to to achieve or come to this location i just don't agree with that location um i want to thank everybody that's called in i've gotten a few emails um on my comments and such i just think there is a better place that has less impact on current residents and that's my number one thing um i'm i'm i i the talk about retiring the the uh current substation at larkin and 116 um it just seems like that would be something that could be overhauled or whatever i don't know what retiring the substation means but uh it just seems like we've got one there if the new could go in there and it could be quieter with the new designs and those kind of things i just think that corner makes things better in my mind or anywhere further east along the actual power line all the way over to 101 almost real close to like iv so that's my thoughts and ideas i know it'll be talked about a lot amongst us over the next few days and then it goes to the city council too again i want to thank uh wright hennepin for all they've done for the whole community um thank god we are not uh down in texas right now and we've made it through what we've done here for the last couple of weeks in the cold and stuff so thank you wright hennepin thank you for your efforts um thank our staff also um and again i just we we've got an open slate here i think we can put in a better place um than what we're coming up with or what is in front of us tonight thanks mr chair okay thank you commissioner uh commissioner wu any follow-up where she oh there she is uh i i don't have any other follow-up other than i'm in agreement with uh jeff dickman about um the variance uh the practical difficulties i i just don't see in favor of the applicant on items one and two um i do feel that they could follow the um [Music] what we're requiring for the district and make the purchase i think that their requirement for a smaller lot is purely financial and that is not um that is not a burden of proof to say that the variance should be granted in my opinion i also feel that it's not unique to this plot of land um so i have disagreement that on item number two that that that these conditions are unique to this passive land i just don't i just don't see that um so those are my opinions on um not awarding the variance thank you okay thank you commissioner wu uh commissioner dickman any follow-up questions no follow-up questions thanks to wright hennepin for being a member of our community and supporting us and again it's it's specifically on the merits of this variance i don't think it needs to be adversarial and i hope the conversation continues and we can we can get to a good solution that helps all of our residents and not putting a few of them at a potential disadvantage here thank you um i i do have uh just um uh one other um comment this would be um this would be under uh performance standards and under performance standards item d buildings and structures shall be constructed to be compatible with the size color appearance and character of other structures in the zoning district i will say that in my tour of the comparables i was less than impressed with the the design and structure and appearance of those buildings now our professional staff notes in paragraph 3 however if the planning commission feels that a [Music] higher standard is required because of the visibility along 116 the variance would allow the city to attach conditions go on down to paragraph five uh if the planning commission felt a more residential character was desired they could require an upgrade to one of the following materials which would be acceptable residential materials so if if the city council goes and approves this and we know that this will be surrounded by rook uh residential buildings i would suggest that the city that the planning commission support the the recommendation to the city council that they adopt the upgraded building structure materials that would lend itself more to a residential neighborhood that not only exists next to it but that surrounds it which would include then face brick and of course you know there's there's any number of other things there but you know what i mean kendra yes sir okay so um does anybody um it says here the flexibility to require an upgrade to the bill of materials could be part of a finding for approval of the variance in condition three now i'd like to make that recommendation to the city council can we do that regardless of whether or not the recommendation from the commission is to approve this or or not approved but to recommend to the council approval of the project or we deny or we recommend denial of the project um if you do not recommend approval you can take action on a denial recommendation and you can ask uh that those comments about the materials upgrades be forwarded to the council we had three council members on earlier tonight and uh um so they're hearing those comments live i think they're all still still on i see the mayor commissioner okay yep so i think we can certainly share those comments um if you had specific thoughts you can certainly discuss that and they'll hear that firsthand and we can pass those along but it wouldn't be part of your recommendation if your recommendation was for denial but it could be a separate uh comment to be shared okay uh fellow commissioners what do you think how about that i don't know if you guys saw but the other sites they all have nice monument signs out front i think it's like uh limestone and they're big and they're landscaped you know uh sitting out front and i i i did not uh miss uh not seeing that in this location i don't maybe it's a design standard that they drop but i thought it was very classy that they did that at their other sites i don't believe bass lake has one per se but given it was so cold and it just snowed that day maybe i just didn't see it maybe it was somewhere else along bass lake road but i noticed that the other ones did have it but apparently the corcoran site here does not have such a a a monument for that this proposed site um okay is there any other final comments or questions before we go ahead and uh take a vote mr chair yes sir i just wanted to comment on a couple of things uh again appreciate everyone's time tonight appreciate the dialogue the conversations we've had appreciate the opportunity and communicating with this commission um i want to reiterate in a couple weeks we will be having this discussion with the council we will be looking at we'll be reviewing the alternative sites um the purpose of tonight's meeting has been pointed out by commissioner dick and others is really the merits of our application with regards to the proposed site and a couple of the points that were brought up was the challenges of point number one the practicality of two and a half acres versus twenty um and i think that the reason the rationale behind that is it you know it doesn't make sense for either the city or the utility for a utility to secure 20 acres and even one of the residents made mention of this that that's valuable land and to tie it up as part of a utility essential service probably isn't the best use of that land the best opportunity for tax revenue in the future so from our standpoint of it was well what can we get by with a minimum amount that still allows the city then um future developments to capitalize on that um and take advantage of that in the future and it was also mentioned that it was a timing thing because once the city sewer and water gets there um that requirement is gone right and then you're down to the 11 000 square foot so we're trying to balance both of those and then there was another there the other point of well is two and a half acres too big well you know i don't think we want a marrow two you know make it too much smaller because the two and a half acres beyond the three quarters of an acre that we're actually using allows for the drainage allows for the um the landscaping you know we're 30 above the landscaping requirements by the city for this application right we've made a commitment to work with the city to work with this planning commission to do what is necessary to assure that this substation fits in with the character of that area it's a hundred feet off the road um within time you know and not too not too distant future those trees are gonna grow up it's gonna be blended in um so we're cognizant of the fact of the impact electric infrastructure has on the city on existing members and in this whole process we just try to be transparent in that in our decision making and our communication um with city staff with yourselves with residents and both from a need perspective and i think that's clear to everyone right we see what happens if you are not prepared and you do not place your infrastructure in the right areas as demonstrated in texas and the result of what's occurring there and what we just experienced in the cold weather and the stress it has on the systems um so there is rationale to why we locate these in certain areas and that is really to put it in the heart of where the load is because the farther you get away from that the more operational risks you take and what may be an an easy decision today on while it doesn't make sense there it may come back to be impactful down the road when we have issues with power god hope that that's not the case but that's the risk that you incur um and so we balance we try to balance that right it's a balance of operational as well as um aesthetics and working within the city so hopefully we did our best in trying to address you know the rationale behind the size the location the need for the variants um the benefits of just not to us but to the city and what the city can do with that land in the future uh and you know mr sandberg i i know that you and i talked about that and um yes i appreciate the conversation yeah and and and i agree with you um uh that you know and i think our our conversation went to the site had to be you know a couple acres because of all the setbacks and this and that and and i can i can fully appreciate that um i think maybe one of the unknowns that i know that there's some apprehension about is is is the future expansion of it i mean all of the comparable sites that that i saw that you that you provided you know the only it looked like they were all you know one you know one transformer um none of them were two and and that unknown as to okay well what's this thing going to really look like at the end of the day maybe in a couple years uh i think is one thing but that is not part of the you know the the conditions that that we have to measure by so um um you know and and i again i that this whole thing about um you know there there seems to be um a contradiction here you know if one person says well this is really valuable land um the the notion is then that well if you guys put this well then it'll devalue all the land and it'll never get developed and i don't think anybody buys that either um but it might have an impact on on what type of home gets built you know is it luxury or is it not um the the idea about pro you know property tax revenue uh there is uh um in in some of our applications the applicants required to show that you know what is going to be the impact on property tax revenue that is not a situation here um and it would be impossible for us to to do that but taking out you know the the two two and a half acres that you guys want to do would be negligible as far as i'm concerned to the property tax revenue that will be generated now and in the future um so so i i appreciate all your comments and and uh thank you very much um and just let your know commissioner all those sites you visited all those substations are structured or set up for to be able to do duplicate the transformer within the fence so we do develop we do design our substations now um of course this didn't occur 57 years ago yes sorry brian i just want to clarify so the three sites visited um bass lake and trailhaven were set up for one sub and so clarified long hill was for two and the the three sites bob was referencing originally was the three proposed sites we talked for all alternatives to consider were all set up for two in the corcoran area just to clarify thank you for clarifying brian okay thank you brian so your drawing that you see from us does represent the two transformers okay well would it be fair to say mr sandberg then that the second genera uh the the second one would be the replacement of the existing substation or would it be well we expanded we expanded the new substation but we're still going to run the existing one no that is a fair representation that is that would be the plan okay thank you okay fellow commissioners any other discussions or questions all right um well does anybody have any recommended changes to the resolution to approve a preliminary plat variance administrative permit for the shamrock edition i guess i hadn't said that word before so it kind of threw me for a loop there if there is none we'll take a vote then as it is kendra you look like you desperately want to say something well you have two options tonight i just want to clarify you can recommend approval of the draft resolution approving the request with conditions as may be modified and that draft is in your packet alternatively you could recommend denial and you could use the findings in the staff report for items one and two uh related to the practical difficulties and uniqueness um so you i just wanted to remind you you have two options and need to make a motion on one and then discuss and vote okay but the resolution as drafted is in in the is in the approval and there's no findings of fact in it for the denial correct the findings of fact for denial were the second paragraph in the staff report yep um because i i think if you wished to make a motion to deny you would say deny and then you would just kind of summarize those paragraphs for denial and then i draft a resolution to go to the council and if you want to recommend approval you have the findings effect for approval and conditions that could be modified okay if you wish to deny you ignore the resolution in your packet and simply say motion to deny based on these findings okay so would we want to take a vote on it as is and if the vote is to deny then we give the the reasonings after that well you're going to want an affirmative motion for denial so if the commission's inclination is to deny i would suggest a commissioner make a motion to that effect get a second and discuss it and then vote on that okay i'm not sure i heard a lot of support for approval i'm not sure i did either so um i will make a motion to deny the um to deny approval of the applicant okay and do you have a findings of fact that you would like to suggest for that commissioner wu uh i do feel that the the compliance uh the family to comply appears to be from a financial standpoint okay a b c or a or b i i don't remember that would be that there are no practical difficulties in complying with the zoning ordinance i feel that the that the uh motivation to not comply with the zoning ordinance is financial in nature and does not satisfy the burden of proof or variance okay i also feel that um that degranting the variance will alter the essential character of the locality because i feel that the description of essential character of locality focuses on the size of the lot whereas i also feel that it's not just the size of the lot it's also the use of the lot and at the time when the musa is lifted and that area receives utilities it will be populated by houses if it remains guided as is and we will have in my opinion a use that is not compatible uh or in harmony with the general purpose of that land so i i actually disagree on items one two and three of the variants i don't know if that helps anyone no no it's i'm looking at the body of text that describes the different variance points and i'm stating that they haven't met them okay but kendra you you you see what i'm saying as far as the resolution so we would be saying we're denying because [Music] the variants did not convince us on a b and c or a b or c yes what i heard from commissioner wu and i'm concerned about the findings for three because it's related to the use not the lot and i would want to review that with the city attorney before the council acted but what i heard her say is she's moving to recommend denial of the variance based on the finding that one there are no practical difficulties in complying with the zoning ordinance the applicant has not provided information to show that they cannot comply with the 20 acre minimum lot size in the urban reserve zoning district the primary obstacle to compliance appears to be financial and economic impacts alone do not constitute a practical difficulty two that the conditions upon which the petition for ovarians are based are not unique to the parcel of land for which the variance is sought and we're not crea uh created but we're not created by the landowner there are a number of properties in the urban reserve district that would like to subdivide into smaller lots the circumstances are not unique to this property and three the granting of the variants will alter the essential character of the locality because it will allow a use that is not compatible with the adjacent residential uses i am concerned about that one but i think that is promotion and i could certainly if there was a second and an action on that i would review it with the city attorney okay now as a point as a point of technicality kendra um we have potentially three a b and c but what if a commissioner agrees with two out of the three or one out of the three is this a all or nothing for each commissioner that we have to agree i mean do we have to have a consensus amongst the five of us to have one of those included as a finding of fact well what i would say is i believe i captured commissioner wu's motion what we should do is get a second and then the commission can debate each of those and then with the motioner and seconder's approval modify the motion but ultimately you'll vote on the motion either as it ultimately gets modified does that make sense that makes sense okay okay so we have a motion to deny the to deny the resolution uh findings effect for failure to uh meet the ordinance standards for uh a b and c all right we have a second okay i apologize here folks i'm just trying to get the my pages in order here um okay we will do uh roll call uh commissioner dickman aye for the denial uh commissioner wu hi for denial mr varenkamp aye for denial and commissioner sholak aye for denial okay uh i am going to vote nay um only because um i think that the i i the only one that i can really really sink my teeth into is c i think that this will alter the character of the neighborhood not only uh now but in the future as weak as that may be i do think there's some merit to a and b but at this point i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna vote for approval but um i do have concerns with c and so i i'll just leave it be as that so the motion to disapprove uh recommendation to disapprove to the city council passes four to one so um for everybody that is online we appreciate your time uh today and tonight and for everything that you've done uh hopefully um hopefully we i i feel strongly that this is all going to come to a resolution at some point obviously we need the power and i think there is an answer that uh will work for for everybody and i look forward to seeing that so thank you very much just just because there was some confusion from having to table the last planning commission meeting until tonight uh and there was maybe some misstatements this will go to the city council next thursday the 25th the packet will be posted on the website tomorrow and uh that will include a summary of tonight's meeting with your recommendation and while you did receive email copies of the letters and petitions those are both be attached to the packet that goes out to the council and again should be on the website by the end of the day tomorrow so next week is the council meeting okay very good and i think i'm i think i'm on that one i think i'll have to check so okay everybody no sir i am oh you are yeah okay jim do us proud young man will do sir okay thank you everybody um i know we still have a long way to go here so let us uh move quickly then does anybody need a break all right let's go on to item 6 b request a public hearing for a request for a preliminary plat for hunter's place second edition at 10110 county road 16 kendra your report please let's talk about essential services this is another plat to allow construction of an essential service facility on county road 116. this is hunter's place second edition tonight we only have the preliminary plat for you though this is a city project this is the lother farm on 116 hope church is right here north of hunter's ridge i think i probably got the name wrong i could always get that name wrong for the street but um uh bellwether's project uh fifth edition is is in this location so uh the lother farm home is located in the southern portion of the site and the city approved the topographic survey and wetland delineation for lot to the southern portion of the site that will be retained by the loathers because there is no development proposed on lot 2 at this time the home and structures will remain as is but prior to any development or redevelopment of the site of course a wetland and topo survey would be required this property is guided existing me existing residential and zoned rsf1 single-family residential and like the previous application essential services are allowed by an administrative permit in this district the um site again just another location map north side of town north of 30 bellwether to the east hope church to the west the city's discretion in approving a preliminary plot is whether or not it meets the standards in the zoning and subdivision ordinance if it meets the plot you must approve the plot we have limited discretion in preliminary plats along with the preliminary applied as a final plat that will catch up to this with the preliminary plan at the city council as you know planning commission reviews preliminary plot but not final platf the preliminary plot will create two lots a northern lot for a future well site and the southern lot will remain in the ownership of the loathers this is a city project so the design of the well facility is not complete the city council has authorized work to continue on that but we do not yet have the design but our purchase agreement we need to continue to move forward with so this is just for the plat to create lot one on the north about a 3.2 acre site and the remaining part retained by the lothers is about a nine acre 9.8 acre site on the south this is just a concept so again we're not talking about the plan tonight but just for context to make sure the lot is big enough the future lot will have a lime softening plant a 50 by 50 building an iron filtration expansion some lime handling and then the production well itself so we've got dry vials parking for employees for maintenance and then this concept initially we will likely come off of 116 but in the long term when lot 2 develops it will it's designed and it will be designed in a way so the access can come down to hunter's ridge again concept only just for sort of context you can see the relationship of the well lot to the loather home and accessory buildings here this was in your packet as well uh just as we make developers do ghost plaques to make sure that we're providing for future connections we provided a very preliminary ghost plot on our site to show how in the future this access along 116 could be eliminated and could tie into a new public street that would serve future residential on the east half of the lother site with perhaps some access here certainly not a plan from the landowner just a way to show how this road will connect in the future to provide access to the well site the proposed plaid exceeds the minimum standards excuse me in the rsf1 zoning district the setbacks haven't been reviewed because there's no actual site plan but the concept plan review does appear to comply with that the additional right-of-way for county road 116 will be dedicated with the plat for lot one but as is our practice we are not requiring dedication for 116 as part of the lot 2 dedication because in the future when that gets subdivided they will be required to provide that additional right-of-way at that time the site does not require park dedication and that's because the lot one which is the new lot is for public use and we typically don't pay ourselves for park dedication it's not a commercial use or residential use that's going to create park demand so no park dedication is required at this time however if lot 2 were to redevelop in the future they would be subject to the park dedication standards in place at that time mr chair this is a public hearing on the preliminary plat request we do recommend that you open the public hearing take comments and then move to recommend approval of the draft resolution approving the preliminary platfor hunter's place second edition very good thank you kendra at this point then i'll open this up the public hearing natalie is there anybody out there that wishes to speak on this topic currently i don't see anyone with any raised hands but there have been a couple people who've joined the call since we gave directions earlier uh so i will advise everyone um let's see here i don't think we have any oh we do have two phone callers so if you're joining us by phone please hit star nine to raise your hand otherwise uh via zoom you would just hit the reactions button in the bottom toolbar and you should be able to select the raise your hand function we can give everyone a couple of moments and mr chair i still do not see a raised hand at this time okay motion to close public hearing it's all moved very camp i'll second dad jacobs all right all those in favor of closing this public hearing please state your vote jacobs yay uh commissioner dickman yay commissioner sholek yay commissioner varenkamp yay and commissioner wu yay okay the public hearing is now closed okay uh commission discussion recommendation um i i you know what uh we'll just i'll start this time um so uh kendra uh this obviously differs uh from our previous one because this is already in an rsf1 district so we don't have a ur 20 acre minimum is that correct that's correct the minimum lot size in the rsf1 district is 20 000 square feet and the uh small lot lot one is 3.25 acres okay and since we don't we're not uh looking at anything here on the building or whatnot this is just for the subdivision my question my question is [Music] did i hear you say that this is another administrative application why are why are we hearing this then you're reviewing the plat you're reviewing the subdivision okay all right but it's just i think it's a i wanted to mention the essential service because i think it's important to understand how important these types of facilities are we have we have lift stations in town already that have been administratively approved we have a gas substation that looks negatively approved so it was just a point of reference that there is a next step and that's what's going to be there okay got it uh one last question um is the the owners the loathers do they not run a church off this site well the uh uh brian lother is the uh and jacqueline are the owners of this site and brian is the pastor at hope community church across the street on the other side of 130 i i don't believe they run the church out of this although i i don't know if they have host events at the church or not i believe the applicant is online okay i guess my question is is there any issue with the zoning and the future use and the division of this if this is part of the church property and it is tax-exempt i i know it's an obscure question i think i know the answer to it but i just wanted to ask you if you had any other take on this due to its current use um i mean here's the thing you know everything it is that we do with utilities there's always opposition but there doesn't maybe seem to be any opposition here since the person closer to this is selling the land i'm just wondering if that's because it's it's a future water you know a drill site or if it's because it's a it's not a residential property at all but it's a tax exempt church property well hennepin county data which was included in your packet says the property type is residential and homesteaded so i don't believe it's treated as a church property i believe it's treated as a residential property and tax that way mr chair i hate to interrupt but it turns out kathy was attempting to raise her hand during the public comment as she was having struggle troubles with the emoticons i think um so i don't know if you would like to give her some time to speak as she did thoroughly attempt to try to raise her hand okay and kathy is um kathy is a resident i believe she has been on the call for hours so i do want i would advocate to let her speak okay um i'm sure the regular commissioners the other commissioners would would agree so please by all means all right you kathy and please state your full name and address for the record unmute are we on yes you are okay cool uh the only reactions that i had on the uh on the emoticons here where i clapper a thumbs up and i didn't see anything about a hands up anyway to move on thank you uh this is gary dickinson we are at 19725 hunter's ridge i'm here with my wife kathy and we are concerned about this water treatment plant going in initially when we moved into corcoran we were told that our residential properties were not allowed to subdivide and now we have a neighbor subdividing for commercial use and i didn't know that was an issue i guess i'm concerned if that's a that anyone can do maybe i'll subdivide myself anyway um this industrial water treatment plant in a residential area oh there we go uh i think is a concern because it is a industrial treatment plant this will require massive amounts of caustic chemicals to operate and they will be coming on my street this will include things like lime and probably potassium permanganate if they're going to do actual iron treatment also it looks as though that once water and sewer is installed we can subdivide the rest of our property down to 10 000 square feet is that what i'm seeing on the maps here um i i think all of us would like to know about that and i'm curious if um if the covenants are involved in that or if there's enough infrastructure in the city to handle uh everyone to the east of 116 to subdivide down to 10 000 square feet thank you thank you thank you okay uh thank you um uh we'll we'll let those questions until everybody's is there anyone else i see mr lother you're on yes i can can you hear me i can okay uh just to clarify your question about the ownership my wife jack and i actually are the owners of the property and we do pay taxes it's not actually owned by the church i purchased this over the last 20 some years our church is on the east side of county road 116 this property i'm sorry on the west side of county road 116 and this property is on the east side of county road 116. so we do pay taxes and have been paying taxes for a number of years and it's the property is not owned by the church okay brian i i didn't put you lother to the owner loather that's okay um but and not to split hairs on this um but brian did at one time i remember that he used i i saw a sign out there and and i i used to see chur before the church on on the west side was ever built right we realized and that's why i've always been under the assumption that the property was still used for church services and although i don't see the cars as much but i that's why i just asked because i just remember that from a historical perspective and i it was inconsequential but sure in in 1997 the property was purchased with the intent of building a church there uh that didn't work out for us and in 2000 we purchased the property on the west side of 116 and at that time then i started to buy this property as my personal residence and has have been paying taxes on it for a number of years now okay all right and um like i said i just want to know if there was going to be any any issue between uh an exempt use and that thank you very much for clarifying sure um natalie is there anyone else that has raised their hand and wants to speak have we missed anyone i don't see any current hands being raised and she was the only speaker or her and her husband were the only speakers that were struggling with the emoticons so i believe we are set okay um before we open up the mics into the other commissioners kendra would you like to address the questions that that they that they asked i i'm sure there's some relative answers to the subdivision and and everything else about what they might be able to do in the future with that sure i think there were some questions about when when uh not knowing that this land could be the subdivided and is their land subdividable and what's the minimum lot size and let's talk about those first as part of the 2040 comprehensive plan which was adopted two years ago now back in 2019 after two and a half years of public process we did update the land use map but uh the lother property as well as the other properties on hunter's ridge are guided existing residential the lother property because we were looking at it for the well site and because we had a specific request from the landowner was zoned to rsf1 all of the other properties on hunters are in the urban reserve district and tied to that zoning it is because the lother property along with the hope church property on the other side of the street is in the phase one sewer staging plan meaning to get service between 2020 and 2025 the other homes the existing homes on hunter's ridge are in phase four not planned to get sewer and water until 2035 2040. that is why they're in that urban reserve holding district once sewer and water becomes available they too could be rezoned to an urban zoning district with the underlying existing residential it would like this property be the rs of one zoning district which would allow 20 000 square foot minimum loss size not 10 20 000 square foot minimum lot size or roughly a half acre so that could happen in the future i think there was sort of a question about why is there a well site here that we're looking at and the comprehensive plan has long identified the need for both a well and one or two water towers in this northeast area of corcoran and for the last couple years we've kind of narrowed in on this particular site and have been working through that there have been a number of conversations at the city council meeting as recently as the last council meeting to authorize engineering staff to continue forward on the design so most of the conversation on the well site has been happening at the council over the last couple of years but has been in the comprehensive plan so i think those were the questions and in addition to the stated concerns um from the uh dickinsons okay thanks uh and you know for the dickinsons uh i was um i attended that meeting uh the last week um and there is a a quite lengthy report about uh the water system uh proposed and the potential um tower sites and i would recommend that if you had any other further questions that maybe you um uh call city hall and see how you can get a access to that either online or or a copy of it um it's interesting and and i don't live too far from you and i was asking questions about it myself so um that would be a great resource to get you up to speed as to what uh what the plans are for that okay um commission discussion questions um i i don't anticipate there's going to be a whole lot so i'm just going to open it up to the rest of the commissioners anybody who has any please feel free to to speak up okay um not hearing any um chair will entertain a motion to uh approve the preliminary platform hunter's place second okay mr dickman has a second all right um roll call vote uh commissioner varenkamp hi commissioner uh dickman aye commissioner wu hi commissioner sherlock hi and commissioner jacobs votes i so the resolution is so approved okay where's my agenda right we will move on to uh item 6c uh public hearing request for interim use permit for an accessory dwelling unit at 6330 snyder road and kendra you are up again thank you mr chair this property is existing residential property guided existing residential and zoned again urban reserve a wetland delineation was approved for the site no impacts to the wetland are proposed the applicant's request is to allow an interim use permit and to allow an accessory dwelling unit or an adu in that detached garage the new garage would be located on the north side of the lot this is the parcel you can see the house is down here and the new garage with accessory dwelling unit would be up here on the north side of the lot this is the location of the property again in the in the southern portion of the city north of hackamore in the urban reserve zoning district the plans again this is showing the approved wetland delineation so there are wetlands on site that separate the proposed garage on the north side with the home on the south the garage would have a new access coming in off of snyder road and the garage would be oriented towards snyder road the garage would be a 2000 square foot footprint 1200 square feet footprint for the garage and 800 for the adu the accessory dwelling unit the ordinance for a lot this size allows 25-94 square feet of accessory structure in your packet you had some information about the building itself the building does comply with the 10 foot sidewall height limit and does meet all setback requirements the applicant provided a lengthy narrative explaining why they desire the accessory dwelling unit for their parents to live in the home and help care for young children the image on the screen shows the new garage is the north side of the building and the new adu is the south side of the building the building will require a new well and septic and hennepin county has provided some preliminary review but must do final approval prior to issuance of a building permit there was a small discrepancy in a in a wetland setback for the septic it does need to meet a 75-foot setback from the wetland and i think that can be slid to accommodate that because they're not planting they're not required to comply with the wetland buffer requirements of our ordinance that's only triggered by a plat or a subdivision but we certainly do encourage them to maintain that wetland buffer given that the edge of the buffer remains largely in a wooded area that will be preserved we think they'll be able to preserve that buffer the garage will accommodate three vehicles in the garage itself which two parking spaces are required for an accessory dwelling unit and the architecture of the unit is compatible with the existing home so this top image is the view from snyder and this is the rear view similar to the materials the lap siding uh the shake and the and the um asphalt shingles of the house it's got a very much a residential look to the residential adu component of it which is what our ordinance looks for so that is compliant with the ordnance standards this gives you a sense of the footprint of the garage when i say three parking spaces i'm talking about here they have a drawing that shows perhaps they could have snowmobiles or four-wheelers in the back portion of the garage but the accessory dwelling unit has a separate entrance living quarters here on the south side of the building it does have some um storage space above the garage component and again that cannot be used for it expanded for living space the ordinance does limit accessory dwelling space to a total of 800 square feet but certainly can be used for storage of materials like any other accessory garage section 1040. of the ordinance establishes 12 standards for accessory dwelling units and i outline those starting on page 3 of the staff report and we believe that the applicant complies with all of those standards the thing i would note is standards number 11 and 12 specifically relate to the interim use permit and its distinction from a conditional use permit i know the commissioners are aware of this but for any members of the public who are listening this is different from a conditional use permit in that a conditional use permit runs with the land in perpetuity once you get a conditional use permit you always have a conditional use permit an interim use permit's different because it has a sunset clause it ends at a certain point it ends when the use of the property changes or the ownership of the property changes so if they were to sell this house a new home buyer would need to come back to the city and get approval to continue to use that accessory dwelling unit the interim use permit is reviewed by city staff every three years to ensure compliance and can be revoked if it is in violation of the approvals for example if it expanded into the garage space or something like that the attached resolution is for approval of the interim use permit for the accessory dwelling unit we do recommend that you open the public hearing and take public comments after the packet went out we did receive one letter of support and that was emailed out to the planning commissioners from from george gamock hopefully you all got that it will be attached to the council packet that goes out for next week's review as well but that is entered into the record as if it were read into the record with that mr chair i'm happy to stand for questions before you open the public hearing or after and i think i saw the applicant on okay very good um why don't we save our questions for our professional staff after the public hearing i got a feeling it'll be relatively short so at this point i'll open this up um natalie would you please let us know if there's anybody that would like to participate in the open forum yes they do have one caller currently with their hand raised a collar ending in 8839 go ahead and press star 6 to unmute and then state your name and address for the record please uh good evening the name is d sakura 64 10 elm street and um i have some questions even though it's wonderful couple and family that moved into snyder road we've been here on in our home for over 35 years which basically almost butts up to the back end of their property our concerns more from the neighborhood is the water drainage everything from up elm street trail lane trailing north valley view is all sloped to the wetland areas that are all behind the homes on elm street this particular property is kind of split in two with a natural pond in between with this structure going on the north side of that pond we do have a culvert underneath um snyder that leads from the other three natural ponds [Music] on valley view trail lane and the west side of snyder and that all goes back into all these wetlands that this property butts up next to uh the property that has the largest just east of him is the 20202 mcgowan property which was just i believe lenar had done a large wetland situation or marked everything back here because of some of their proposed homes going in off 116 and hackamore so the only concern we have as a neighborhood is to make sure that we don't have a problem with the water runoff which is naturally sloped to the back end of this property and also that the wetland area is behind us to the west of that snyder road and to the north where the largest natural pond is that elm creek watershed all has denoted on their maps aren't impeded by anything so when i read things like um the existing survey is showing a 10 foot buffer for wetland the city standard is 15 feet but it's not required that that's concerning because of the nature of the wetlands around us it's not wetland and areas that people can come in and will fill this spot and build you a new wetland in another area it's just not possible [Music] so i i guess that i'd just like to see a little more in-depth look at that part of this um request for a building one the size of i believe kendra said that on a lot on a lot this size which is a listed as 5.5 acres that encompasses the whole piece of property not the piece that the structure is going on that's much smaller so the footprint of 2500 that they've met at just 2 000 is also something might need to be re-looked at because they've encompassed the whole lot size in that equation also they came out and surveyed the property in november and this family's been very fortunate to be able to do the kind of clearing they've done for just the buckthorn but because we've been drier back here than usual and most of the time that's under about a foot of water that whole piece after 35 years and the previous owner was also my daycare provider i know the property i'm just concerned and i i thought i don't think any of my neighbors stayed up this late to ask questions so i got a list of them but that is the biggest thing are we going to have the natural water runoff that we have back here and um is it going to impede the natural ponds that are already laid out i mean documented on maps that we have and our roads you know are the culverts going to be okay they're all going to lead to his property and you know i'd hate to see anything new built and then damaged because there isn't any futuristic type oh what if we have uh you know a great rainwood everything's gonna roll right there anyway um i live right behind them they're great people but we the rest of the neighborhood needs to know if this is being looked at one of the maps has a basin one and two basin one for wetland is virtually in the southeast corner and that's nowhere near the area that is being built on it's being built on the basin two area so i'd just like the commissioners to take this into effect and just take a closer look you might not have been down here before right across from trail dusters where the horses come but um and improvement is great just so it doesn't damage anything we've got here that's natural and of course flood all our yards too thank you for your time and wow you guys do a lot of different kind of work thank you okay thank you very much for your comments um um kendra i'll give you a chance to answer those after we close the public hearing would that be fair uh so uh do we have anything else at this time no one else is raising their hand to speak okay all right um well again yes did you have something to say kendra no sorry i was just correct oh i thought i saw your action here okay uh all right if there's nobody else uh wishing to address the commission i'll take a motion to close the public hearing take that motion um i apologize someone just raised their hand is that okay to let him speak i do apologize it's still open okay all right kevin hen i'm gonna go ahead and request that you're unmuted please uh restate your name and provide your address for the record uh kevin hans 6330 snyder road um i'm the applicant i just didn't know if now was my time to respond um this is a time uh if you would like to address the commission mr hen and again when the when the commission goes into uh questions and discussion we may call upon you to answer a specific uh question so but by all means you have the floor if you'd like to if you have anything to say oh yeah just to respond these comments um yeah no i'm aware of the wetland system i'm aware of the neighborhood and um just and i've talked and i talked to about with the neighbor to the north and just got the whole history of the wetlands and how there's been different issues and how the sites performed over time um you know i've done soils reports i'm working with a civil engineer i'm a landscape architect myself i'm confident between the two of us that we could we'll we'll come up with an effective grading strategy that will impact the neighborhood in any way and then my builder is also our neighbor to the south and he proposed proposed a very similar shop um square footage square footage wise um and on similar soil conditions so the the team of us three three um we feel like we can we could propose something that'll work for everybody thank you all right thank you mr hen so is correct you purchased this just about a year ago yes yes okay all right thank you thank you all right natalie is there anyone else i don't see anyone raising their hand at this time okay good all right so we had a motion uh by i think mr schulack secondary second by bearing camp all right um all right we'll uh take a vote to close the public hearing uh commissioner jacob ca commissioner dickman yay commissioner schollac yay mr varenkamp yay and commissioner wu yang okay the public hearing is now closed all right uh planning commission discussion and questions who would like to start uh how about you jim all right i'm just wondering in in a situation like this and why wouldn't we all be lucky enough to have to be a landscaper and have two builders uh helping to prepare our our plans for us in a situation like this where there could be some runoff problems and flooding onto the neighbor's properties is there is there some sort of insurance or some sort of ostrance that that can be worked into the deal that if later some of these properties do see high water levels that uh someone someone at least is responsible for those well that is always the ten thousand dollar question jim you know and after all of the issues that have come before us that have a water issue uh i have yet to see the the perfect solution for um you know a a system that one guarantees there won't be any water and two that protects those that are are harmed by wetland kendra if there's anything you have to add to that well what i would say mr chair is that the applicant is required to require comply with state watershed and local water runoff rules and we do review for compliance with that the city engineer included a memo where he asked for a couple of additional details he has reviewed it the wetland delineation is approved we know where the wetland delineation is we have the contours for the site and he feels confident that the uh state local and watershed rules can be met okay but i mean i guess along this issue i when i went out to the site i listen it was winter and it just snowed six inches and the site still looked low to me and i thought well so if this thing has a history of flooding out the whole entire site i mean isn't this something that would give some red flags to building a structure in a in a in an area that has the potential to go completely underwater i'm just asking the question it is it does have a 998 floor uh floor elevation which is above uh is uh two feet above the adjacent ground which is what we require so you have to raise the foundation up slightly above the surrounding land so that the building itself doesn't slide it is a slab on grade i think engineering actually made a note in their comments that they might be more concerned if it had a basement in it but slab on grade they're confident that the drainage can be managed for the building um itself and it is uh significantly higher than the adjacent fl wetlands again three feet roughly higher than the adjacent wetland on the north and about five feet higher than the adjacent wetland on the south okay but so that is fairly flat but it does comply with our requirements to have a two foot separation okay i'm sorry jim please continue i think you're on mute jim uh yeah that was my only concern and my only suggestion would be to build a moat i yield the rest of my time thank you sir all right very good uh commissioner varenkamp um i want a graduate i can live in i'm very much like this my only concern question would be does that living space is that something that can be rented out is that a is it a revenue generator or that's nothing we can control it could be rented out in fact the adu ordinance contemplates the potential for that it simply says that the owner must live in either the primary or secondary unit we do not have a rental licensing [Music] ordinance so people can rent their homes or their accessory buildings okay thanks is that it mr barron camp that's all i got other than i'd love for them to adopt me i'd love to have my snowmobiles my four wheelers right next to my bedroom but the whole other discussion yes uh commissioner wu you know when i looked at this application i felt and this may not be correct but i felt like they really wanted to build something bigger than 800 square feet that it's kind of they're building the accessory dwell and i could be completely wrong on this but this was my first reaction when i looked at it was that they really wanted to build something that was more house than garage but garage an accessory dwelling unit with the garage was the way into building the residence so i when when we got the letter from george gumar um i think it brought up some really good points about the limitations on the square footage and i realized that this isn't the time to really debate that um but um i think going forward i would ask the question as to you know is 800 square foot uh limitation of a fair limitation on an accessory dwelling unit um especially when when the primary dwelling unit houses are getting larger and so 800 square feet is you know for we're meant to be a ratio of comparison between the accessory dwelling unit and the primary dwelling unit is 800 still reflective of where the primary dwelling unit size is so i think we all know houses have gotten a lot larger in the last few years um other than that i think it's a really lovely design and um and i wish the applicants well thanks okay commissioner dickman yeah i had similar comments uh or thoughts to commissioner wu around um do we have the right code or ordinance for for adus and is that another plank we could be thinking about is the in the city as we go forward for multi-generation housing opportunities and or rental opportunities we've we've talked about affordable housing before and no apartment units and things of that nature but is this a way to um think about that and have the code that matches up with it the other question i had it's not a he shed or a she shed so i don't know what it is when parents move in in-law suite or what the official term is but mother-in-law's apartment mother-in-law's apartment okay yeah um i i agree with the drainage piece having run by that area several times the the one thing i think going in favor for the applicant is that the driveway is going to be on on snyder versus um facing to the north the other thing too about drainage i don't want to miss the forest of the trees is we're going to have 475 plus houses going in less than a quarter mile away so drainage could look very different the next five years than it has the past 35 years as tavara gets up and going and they bring earth movers in and do whatever they're going to do um with with the with the area between 116 and hackmore so um i think given the expertise and the city guidelines um it i i think the applicant will will be just fine um though we have had a dry spell here since they've moved in so we'll we'll see but i i would think that maybe that's something to talk about as this adu and what that looks like more prescriptively for the city and making sure that 800 square feet are we artificially capping that or should that be something different to consider going forward okay thank you mr dickman um well uh i i have uh some concerns about the whole um adu um concept now um i'll just get right into it um and and i know that we're not here to redesign this but i i think it's something that in that we need to address as a commission later on um and i thought george did a great job i have a lot of respect for george um but there's a couple things you know that he says um you know we have a long history with this and i i know that firsthand i have several neighbors that have homes that were little shoe boxes built on on them but they're agricultural um family members lived in them years and years and years ago but all of those units right now are all rental units now my neighbor right next to me when he built that house he put up a garage down in the back of the yard and built a livable space it's got its own septic it's got its own well and at one point in time they rented the whole house and then they were going to rent the top of that unit i called the city and i was told that in a single-family residential district that you could not rent houses and i would assume that that goes right along with these adus i'm you know someone please help me out but i had no fun when i had a residential house next to me that was rented by about five 45 year old guys and and then it went to young kids so i'm very concerned about adus and even primary residences all of some becoming residential units um when when this neighborhood that i live in was developed it was one house per 10 acres but now with the adus it seems to me like it's almost open it's almost open season to build a second house right because that's what this basically is it's a second house on a lot that was only designed for a density to accommodate one house and and i don't know that that maybe our adu um uh ordinance really quite thinks about this i mean how would we all like to have everybody in our neighborhood building second houses i actually the neighbors on both sides of me have the situation where they could do that and if they started renting it out what would that look like is that something you want next to you you know i don't know i mean i think it's good intentions when people such as the applicants say that they they want to have their two parents i maybe i sell my house to my daughter and i build one down you know i tear down my building and build a house and i can live there but i don't know how my neighbors would would feel about it um so i think there's some really really um considerable implications about about this system that i'd like to suggest that we all talk about in the future to address this but as it is this is allowed and we'll deal with it as such the only the only thing that i want to know and i think it's another topic of discussion for this commission is the idea about the gross building area and it was just mentioned by commissioner dickman about the 800 square feet uh mr gamak makes reference to the size 800 square feet maybe it's arbitrary i wholeheartedly agree um what i don't agree with though is our definitions of building area now in this in this application and this is not this is certainly is not a reflection on our professional kendra or anybody else and i had a discussion with her about it today this came from a city council that kind of ebbs and flows uh with maybe particular situations where they change our our ordinances but in this ordinance it says that applicant with 5.5 acres can have 2 500 square feet and that he's building a 2 000 square foot building yet there's 1200 square feet on the second floor now again i'm not familiar with maybe you know what the roof area is and i know that there's a there's an equation about how much that might equate to but if you add that certainly they're over the the allowable 2594 square feet but we're just letting it go and at this point in time i you know what i had to get a condition use permit for my barn for an overhang and apparently they counted that as gross building area which caused me to get a conditional use permit because apparently somebody thought that i could go and board that in and become square footage well in this particular case what is to say this applicant i'm not going to accuse him of this but somebody down the road they could look at this and say well we have we have well we have septic we have heat and we have second floor we could extend that right up to that second area and we could expand that living area there's nothing to stop them from doing it but then that would clearly be in violation of this so i think we need to look at our definitions because if we included that second floor area they would need to get a variance with this as well and that variance would then would give us uh the ability to maybe say that this can't be used as a resident or as a as at least out property [Music] but right now as it stands we don't have we don't have those kind of tools uh to do that but i i think that those are things that we should discuss at some other point uh as it stands right now it looks like they meet you know all the requirements for it as is but i do have some concerns with where this whole thing is going and and that's the discussion for another day um with that being said oh i did have one question um and maybe this goes again with a technicality within uh 1040.020 it says in the conditions item number two and accessory dwelling unit shall be located in existing single-family home or above an attached or detached garage this obviously is not above is that is that an allowance that we're given because it's not required or or what why why are we making this recommendation because and i asked that because oddly enough my two neighbors that built these types of facilities both of those living areas are above a garage and they were built specifically maybe in accordance with this this condition but now we seem to be just letting it go uh maybe it's just how we how i read the ordinance in an existing single family home or above an attached garage or in an attached or in a detached garage it didn't say above a detached garage so maybe i'm misinterpreting that and we should re-look at it okay i just i i just i saw it and i just thought well this isn't this isn't above anything the other thing i'll say about the square footage there are you know for accessory buildings they do have two other accessory buildings that were not counted in this um i don't think collectively they meet you know almost 600 square feet of space so i don't want to make an issue of it but um if we're going to count accessory buildings where it says you're allowed one accessory building now these people have three we don't limit the number but you're right i should have included the square footage in the total which is under the 25 000. that should have been in the staff report i will add that tonight so it is in the council report for next week okay all right um we'll go around again anybody else have any other questions or comments for professional staff or discussion points okay does anybody make any recommendations to changes in the ordinance itself or the resolution no okay i'll make a motion then to uh to approve the interim use permit for an accessory dwelling unit do i have a second i'll second you like okay we'll do a roll call vote uh chair votes yay uh commissioner dickman yay mr schulack yay commissioner varenkamp yay and commissioner wu yay okay it passes five nothing okay thank you so just a clarifying question as we as we talk mr chair you know the examples that you you talked about your neighbors if if that's interim use that would be subject to being reviewed correct that's that's the way i'm in terms of it they're already built i mean whether or not they got a an interim use permit or anything else for that i don't have any idea all i know that both those pole buildings were built as garages with living space above them and they could they could easily be occupied and rented out by anybody at any time so it may surprise the planning commission to learn that people do illegal things on their property and when and staff gets code enforcement complaints and does investigate them if we know about them um we adopted this uh just briefly and and i think certainly the commission could add this to a future work plan and make a recommendation to the council staff has had an update to the adu ordinance on our to-do list as a wish item almost since it's been adopted in 2005. 2005 is when we adopted the adu ordinance prior to that we did allow and we still allow by conditional use permit um living facilities accessory to a farm in fact the pat nodes and um another house on 30 um since i've been here have both gotten those conditional use permits intended to allow for a farmhand to live on the main farm in a second house and that's still something that is allowed under our ordinance in the rural residential district the adu is intended to be something different but certainly um the i only have a record of one other person getting approval of an adu since the ordinance was adopted in 2005. so other things may be happening elsewhere but i can just say that what we've approved so far has been won and this is our second application in our city records but you certainly uh raise good points and i think that's something we can talk about at a later date about uh whether this is the correct standards for our ordinance yeah the only reason i ask is i just think about you know what what's going on with covet right and if i had aging parents and going into a facility where maybe it was single level like the applicant had was something that they could be on my property um i would think that maybe that would be something i would want to have as an option that's affordable housing that life cycles them to something that is close to their grandkids and i could see it vice versa where maybe it's accessory unit for someone that is nannying or somebody that is doing whatever that may be not rural focused but has the benefit of the space use and property use of corcoran so that's that's where my head went with that yeah well i i think george is you know right i mean uh now this here you know says that one of the conditions is that they can't subdivide it you know but does anybody really see that when this you know when the sewer and water goes through here and it's all you know re-zoned that might be a possibility and i don't have a problem with that but um you know the the two agricultural farmsteads that i'm talking about on conroe 30 i talked with uh a good friend of mine that owns one of those or his parents do and i said are those rented and he said yes however both of those units were subdivided out they have their own address but they also have their own pid and and that must have happened a long time ago um but you know i i now that i think about it in just in my little subdivision neighborhood there's actually three houses here that were all built with accessory buildings that have livable units and the one uh down the road uh they did finish off after it was built a livable area that was for a mother-in-law and now it's rented out so um i don't think it has its own its own address um but it is right next to the house and uh and so you know yeah a lot of people do will do a lot of things um you know without going through the proper channels and and and where that's discussion but i would very much like to put this on our our wish list if you would okay uh let's move on um we i guess that is it for our new business uh why did i think we had one more you do have one more mr chair it is not a public hearing but as a variance for the property at 207.95 larkin road yes i'm sorry you are correct um okay we'll have staff report please or does anybody need to take a break anybody at all okay um it is 10 30 uh five minutes with that is everybody okay with that okay sounds good back at 10 35. you got 10 35 yeah it's 10 29 we'll be reconvene at 10 35. oh i was gonna say if you thought it was 10 35 that's almost like bar time kind of thing is bar time all right we'll see you at 10 35. you [Applause] okay [Applause] are we ready to begin again is it time yes okay we will um we'll call the planning commission back into session uh and we are on item 6d a public hearing for a front setback variance for a property located at 20795 larkin road again this is a public hearing and we will entertain a professional staff report mr chair it is not a public hearing um we did not get we we did not we skipped over the public comment at the beginning of new business for this item but um so we can take public testimony on this but it is not a public hearing for the variants okay this says a public hearing the agenda yeah item 6d request for variants item 1 staff report item 2 open public hearing 3 closed public hearing well uh i'm not sure are you looking at brad's cheat sheet yeah okay uh well that's it's not a public area so we can take it we can treat it like one but it's not in any case um i'll give my presentation and then we can take public comments about that all right sounds good um uh the applicant is requesting approval of a variance uh to the front yard setback where 50-foot setback is required in the rural residential district some history on this site the applicant platted the two lot larkin edition subdivision in 2019 that same applicant is the person now submitting the variance request the subdivision included a private drive to meet the frontage requirements which is an option rather than requiring a developer to provide provide a new public street the city occasionally allows subject to certain standards or private drive but that private drive is treated like a public street for setback requirements the city has a high level of discretion in approving a variance because the burden of proof is on the applicant to show that the variance standards have been met this is the site the subdivision uh subdivided this uh parcel here um from this parcel so there's an existing home that it remained on the north side and then created the second lot without frontage on a public street so to meet the frontage requirements they needed to extend a private drive 200 feet into the lot and most of you were on the planning commission when we reviewed this so it should sound familiar and so they extended that private drive back into the lot the property is in the as i said in the rural residential district [Music] the this is the approved preliminary plat so this is larkin this is north uh it carved off um larkin on the north carved off this lot to create this five-acre lot on the south for development so the concept for the platt was required to show that they could meet the setback requirements the 50-foot setback requirements and to do that they showed a potential house pad they didn't have a house design but they showed a 50 by 60 house pad that's a pretty significant house pad that's uh larger than the homes that we see in rivinia so it should give some room for a future developer to provide flexibility additionally there's a lot of room south of this driveway to provide a house on this five acre site in compliance with the setback requirements the new plan uh that was submitted um showed two different concepts and it's a little bit hard to see um there's a black outline here for the request for the house and then the garage comes up here so it's a big long rambler with an attached garage and they showed an alternative site where they could shift the house slightly to increase the setbacks but we don't review multiple options with the variance so the variance request is for this plan with a 12 and a half foot setback from the driveway here and a 2.63 foot setback from the driveway here where 50 feet is required the variance standards we just reviewed for another application need to be met and the applicant must meet all of these standards if they fail to meet one of the standards you should deny the variance and staff finds that they do not meet the variance standards particularly that there are no practical difficulties this is a five acre lot there's plenty of room on the lot to provide a house the applicant could provide another home design and build the home where he showed the house pad on the original plat approval so staff finds that there are no practical difficulties as outlined in the staff report that the conditions are not unique and and were created by the landowner the landowner planted this property put the road where it is and looked at a potential house pad site on this site so it's hard to argue that this is a unique condition not created by the landowner when he's also the developer and the uh granting of the variants will alter the essential character of the locality to start allowing a two-foot setback from a street whether it's public or private really does change the character granted this is at the end of a of a turnaround and it's not visible from public streets um but it does um um change the character of the standards that were adopted in the ordinance and the purpose would not be in harmony with the general purposes and intent of the ordinance when we establish private drive standards we establish them to be consistent with the other street standards and create large setbacks in the rural district and this simply doesn't allow that and so for the reasons outlined in the staff report uh staff finds that their the variance standards have not been met and we do recommend denial of the variance however if and we've provided a resolution recommending denial if you find that they have been met you can recommend approval with findings of fact should you recommend approval you would need to provide findings of fact for all five of the variance standards you must meet all variant standards to approve a variance so mr chair with that we recommend denial of the variance based on the findings in the staff report okay thank you kendra uh much appreciated all right [Music] um well uh since this is not a public hearing um um i i don't know natalie is there is there anybody that that has requested to speak on this is yes uh we do have one uh zoom participant with their hand raised mike tobias would we like to open up the public hearing well there since this isn't a public hearing i don't want i don't want to open up anything um mr chair we did not do the public comment though that we normally do under new business we skipped over that tonight okay um all right so i think we should um at least allow an opportunity for public comment uh because we normally would have done that at the beginning of six before we opened the public hearing for right hennepin and i think we just all forgot that okay i i agree and that's that's fine so we'll open this up right now for public comment and um natalie if you would uh if you would unmute them please and again um to our caller or uh please state your name and address for the record ah yes i can you hear me yes hello okay yes hi um my name is mike tobias i live at 20801 larkin road i'm the property owner immediately to the north of the subject site that you're talking about and i purchased this lot from from nate who's the owner of the project that the app variants is requested on you know i would i mean i would like to request that this variant actually be approved um given that where these this building pad was located um is very close to my buildings on my property i think by forcing him to put that his house up in the upper corner of this project this property is just going to detract from what you're calling your rural residential character to have the two buildings basically adjacent to each other there's plenty of land and all he's really doing is asking to uh slide his uh his house plan down the hill a little bit um you know to to be closer to the road um i never understood the purpose of this private drive which extends in excess of 200 feet into his lot and serves no other public purpose or serves no other property it's essentially fundamentally the same as a driveway as anybody else has so you know to have a 60-foot private drive right away and a 50-foot setback on top of that is just excessive and it's going to wreck the character the of the sights and the the rule the rural character of the neighborhood um you know i i saw his building plan and it won't even fit on the 50 by 60 foot building pad which is on the plat um so i guess from your rationale number one i mean there is a practical difficulty in fact that is building pad won't fit on the site that's allocated for the building um [Music] you know the the main thing being is to have these to have the two houses so close together when there's so much land available uh you know just doesn't make sense and uh and it's really all due because of kind of this excessive requirement for this this driveway which essentially is only going to serve his lot so i mean yeah i know that there's set requirements that go with the zoning ordinance and things like that but i mean we are the only two people that are going to be impacted by this variance and you know we we would both like to see this variance i would like to have his house move further away from mine and um you know we're the we're the ones that live here we gotta we gotta work this is our home this is where we live and you know to have it kind of just ruined by this requirement which is kind of over the top in my opinion um you know that would be too bad so um thank you for your time and i hope you uh please kind of take my comments into consideration on your decision thank you thank you mr tobias um um um natalie is there anyone else right now i don't see any other hands raised okay again there's no there's no public hearing to officially close uh kendra is there any response you would like to provide mr tobias well certainly has a right to support that i would say the setback from his north property line is exactly the same the proposed house under the approved plat was 25 feet and this house is 25 feet so this doesn't move it further from his house it just extends the length of the garage but um no i think those are fair comments and the planning commission should consider them okay but our job is to review it against the adopted variant standard which is a high bar do they meet the variance standards okay okay um well thank you again uh for your report uh kendra and um uh natalie i assume there's still no one else you assume correctly okay all right we'll have a commission discussion and questions uh commissioner dickman would you like to lead us off i would since uh they're pretty much my neighbors it's a 400 meter run from from my place up to the hill um i i i think the struggle i have is what kendra laid out which is the plat and the the design by the applicant was the one who designed it so to cite practical difficulties when you're the person that put the plot together is a bit of a head scratcher to me um the other thing is is if if we're talking practical difficulties the neighbor to the east had to do something similar where they basically went over the wetland which this property does go over a creek to build their homes so you could theoretically have the house go even further back um and uh the third comment is um mr tobias and nate would share a driveway as part of the condition for the previous property as we is the commission members may remember that the existing driveway had to be removed from mr tobias's house to larkin um so that both he and mr karenimi now have access via the private drive so there was some delineation that had to be done in some site improvement that had to be done to go 200 feet back and i think the dangerous precedent i would be concerned about within the specific variants is 2 feet and 12 feet is a lot different than 50 and you don't have to go much further up the road to see that the variance was upheld on larkin road with a two private drive handled within code so that's where i'm kind of in alignment with what staff's recommendation is is not not very clear that practical difficulties were shown here when you're the one that had created the plot less than two years ago that's all i had okay thank you mr dickerman uh commissioner wu would you like i don't have any comments thank you okay mr varenkamp no comments thanks and commissioner sherlock no sir thank you okay um i um i i don't really have a lot other than i mean i i talked briefly uh with kendra about it today i i initially had uh some concern um about the the diagram i i you know and looking at that i i didn't quite really see where the you know where the issues were um but she clarified all that for me um i was out at the site and uh i did walk around there and i saw all of these markers out there and i would agree with kendra that it it's not gonna it's not gonna push this thing back any further for mr tobias and than what it already is um i questioned the closeness of it well i was out there i was like why would anybody want to build a house where your front yard is in that guy's backyard but that's just my own preference but obviously you can see that there's a hillside there uh to the uh uh to the south that lends itself to a walkout but that is not a consideration for us at this point and i would agree with the staff report as well are there any other further questions or comments for staff all right not hearing any um we have a resolution then denying the variance uh for the front yard setback do i have a motion a motion method okay do i have a second second all right we have a second uh to deny the variance and we'll take a roll call vote um commissioner jacobs yay uh commissioner dickman okay and commissioner shellac mr varenkamp and commissioner wu hey okay um the recommendation to deny the variance is um is confirmed uh thank you very much everybody um all right let us move on uh to um item seven uh reports and information uh the planning project update anybody have any questions okay uh sorry um if there are none uh we'll move on then to uh item 7b city council report uh council liaison nichols is he even still with us there he is hello everybody uh how you doing thank you for joining us tonight thank you for participating in a marathon session this evening this is standard for us this isn't a marathon it's still thursday so what you have for us counselor i have a little bit of a list for you so one of the things i wanted to touch on for your benefit i know we spoke at the beginning of the year on planning commission goals for 2021. the council just completed its own goal-setting session a couple of weeks back so i just wanted to share some of the top ideas that were discussed by the council the top three that had support of four of the five counselors one of those was complete a review of specific sections of the city code including zoning ordinances to increase incentives to incorporate the vision and northeast district design guidelines so this is firmly within the wheelhouse of the planning commission you talked in the course of the session today about wanting to have a greater involvement in certain aspects of how the zoning is updated and this is a good opportunity to do that in alignment with the active goal of the council and i know at the next council meeting next week we're going to be laying out some thoughts from brad and kendra as to how we might approach that uh i'll look forward to seeing the consolidated list that you folks were trying to put together of things that you thought might be good for us to consider that'll be i think a really positive way to get us off on the right foot the next goal that also was supported by four of the counselors was to facilitate expansion of broadband coverage in the city so we've talked about internet access being spotty for a number of folks some of them even on this call and that will be something we will see what we can do to facilitate um brad is already working toward that as well number three was work on developing a long-term financial model including future revenue forecasts and comprehensive infrastructure financial planning and this taps into the the idea that as the city develops we're getting infrastructure put in by the developers over time that will need to be maintained by the city and supported by existing tax revenues so we want to make sure we have a good understanding as we're aligning all of these new zoning ordinances are we likely to pull in revenue that is sufficient to cover those long-term liabilities can we can we cover a replacement of roads with the property taxes the houses on the road will generate and the same for other infrastructure sidewalks uh signal lights in utility infrastructure and so on um so we're looking at doing what we can to try to understand what those long-term costs would be and make sure that we've got our tax policy and other design guidelines in place to make sure that we're doing things in a way that's sustainable long-term so there are additional one two three four five topics that were supported by three of the council one of them is to develop a economic development marketing and business development plan to help businesses that are in corcoran succeed and thrive and draw new businesses in the next is evaluate strategic opportunities to bring contract services in-house so as we have done with natalie welcome natalie uh looking for places where uh it makes sense to start developing an internal capability to do things that we have outsourced historically as we grow there'll be more demand for the kinds of things that we have historically contracted so it makes sense for us as a city to make sure that we do the same kind of make versus buy decision that any company would do not necessarily eliminating any reliance on contracts but potentially supplementing and forcing not forcing but shifting to a model where we use them for buffer capacity rather than as a primary resource next would be digitizing and implementing technology improvements to reduce costs and increase efficiency including asset management programs and this really ties into the idea of trying to remove some of the manual operations that city staff have to do that scale with the growth of the city so utility billing for example still relatively manual a lot of the finance functions that the city does are relatively manual so staff is working on putting the other plans to implement software to try to automate as much of that as we can and make it easy for the city to accommodate its growth without having to add more people performing simple administrative tasks and then finally develop and implement the work plan for fire services and this was another item i was going to touch on a little more detail later on because it was discussed at the last council meeting so for the fire services plan there was a proposal put together in 2019 that the council recently authorized staff to continue working to develop where we will likely initially begin looking what we can do to better serve medical needs within the city uh by having some kind of a system in place to either voluntary staff or have staff more existing ems responders in loreto and rogers and louis hanover staff a site that would be able to respond more quickly to issues especially on the eastern part of the city where we tend to see more demand so staff is going to work on putting together a future vision for what that could look like that the council will consider more detail at a later date we also approved updates to the nelson project which you folks were aware of because i believe you approved them just before we did we also had a nice discussion with the bellwether developer polti uh about their future expansion on land to the west council expressed an interest in trying to ensure that the city park that's part of that development plan would be accessible to residents and have an open feel and not be so enclosed within the neighborhood and within the houses that it feels like more of a neighborhood park rather than a city park and try to ensure that as the trails are developed to go through that area we try to the extent possible to make those go through natural areas rather than on neighborhood streets just as a way to make it more pleasant not only for the residents who probably would appreciate having more separation from trail traffic but also for those folks using the trail to experience a natural environment rather than a neighborhood environment uh we discussed the appaloosa woods paving project we are proceeding with gathering more information there including on pricing and potentially partnering with maple grove to further reduce cost there was a similar discussion that we had with regards to the corcoran trail east and west loops again authorizing a feasibility study to determine what options exist for either the overlay or replacement of those roads let's see we also had an excellent planning session around in a careful consideration of whether water tower versus tank would make more sense in the city based upon long-term costs there was some information that if we opted to go with the water tower route the annual maintenance i'm sorry not annual the regular maintenance to paint and maintain those towers is relatively significant and it might be worth considering a tank system instead to avoid those costs so we want to make sure that staff is evaluating both choices and we also looked at the idea of doing a more intensive version of softening on the water that might be typical in the area to try to ensure that we're providing a high quality product to residents who go onto city water from the maple grove water that we're currently contracting for that's the last item that i had on my list i'm sure if brad was here he might have a couple things that i forgot um but i i know chair dean you often participate in some of those console sessions so there's anything else you wanted to discuss i'd be happy to review with you and i see that we've got tom and alan here to provide additional color commentary if needed okay uh thank you counselor nichols i i do have one quick question for you um so the uh the work plan for fire services and and i you know i i heard about well it's more medical than it is actual fire and and i get that and when you talked about staffing something here would that also then include staffing a 9-1-1 operator within corcoran or within our our city facility or is that still something that gets i mean i don't know what i call 9-1-1 i couldn't even tell you where it goes i don't know what city it goes to but i know like for instance the city of eden prairie has their own 9-1-1 call center so i i just was thinking is 911 system or is it is it a regional uh it is regional but i would defer to that to provide the details of the functions yeah yeah i can answer that if you'd like um there's the uh the region that we're in uh is in plymouth there's the the 911 center uh as a reserve class we got to tour it as a matter of fact okay very good thank you jim okay um yeah so as far as the top three uh certainly number one uh complete review of the code um i know that uh i'll be you know um i think we've already put on their um review of the pdu ordinances i think there's some other things in there about [Music] tree preservation and things like that but then i you know much smaller in scale uh might be than just defining what is gross building area and and i thought about a lot of what my conversation was with kendra here today and i think that we can draw a distinction as to what we you know count as second score you know second four square footage the difference between a barn that has a loft for a um by a farmer on actual farmland versus the second floor of somebody sitting on a couple of acres building a garage uh with the second floor um i think these are things that can be easily ironed out but you know the the concept of gross building area um and whatnot i think is something as our city grows when we start talking about residential uh uh square footage and then more importantly commercial industrial i think those are definitions that we should probably um we should probably get nailed down before we get caught you know with something that somebody does i you know i i know i've had several clients um that will build um and i was at uh heinen's in uh in ossio and here they took an existing commercial building but they put on they they build um uh they build a second floor if you will uh mezzanine uh up above it and the question is whether or not that's actual gross building area um and i've made arguments in front of courts that that is not if it's based upon um you know what they do is they just put up some i-beams uh bolted to the ground it's not attached to the building and you could take it down i've had anywhere from 80 000 to 130 000 square feet taken right off the tax rolls but if there's a requirement or there's a limitation about square footage in a commercial or industrial building and you don't have that lined up as to what that what that is you could see where you might get yourself in some problems as to what a what an owner of property can and cannot do um so thank you chair we talked about um total acreage versus what's truly buildable acreage like you mentioned earlier on this discussion everything comes around wetland delineation and what you know what is actually buildable acreage and development rights based on total acreage versus actual building buildable acreage and as as more land can get moved from ag preserve or or you you are i i think that's gonna continue to come up where half of a property could be a wetland but it's considered 15 or 20 acres when in reality you could only build on seven of it so i think that's something probably just to clarify and tighten up as we've gotten smarter at what uh what's truly buildable and what is okay not well i we need to get a wish list of the things that we'd like to do um again all of these all of these topics i can see where they will will fit nicely with the um the city council's top top goals i'd love to be a part of that i think we should be a part of that but that takes work sessions and those would need to be scheduled and and we probably need to maybe have some you know pre-readings for that so that when we get there we can all um talk about it and and what we think is is is a good solution or or changes to those so if if any of you have anything that that you feel strongly about it doesn't hurt to just send them to brad and he can include him then in our annual report which will be read before the city council on march 11th so yeah and thank you guys for talking about internet because as i sit here in greenfield at my parents house that's where i'm taking the meeting from because my internet connectivity is so poor and corcoran so i was gonna say you're coming in you're coming in much better today yeah mr dickman yeah t-mobile t-mobile hotspot which is not available in corcoran so basically you can use existing t-mobile cell tower capability to have a a hot spot that's actually put into your house so it's a modem hotspot that's at my parents house at greenfield and when i asked to get it in corcoran they said not uh not available so i think i'm like yeah but i got a high v three minutes away how can i not have a t-mobile hotspot for your benefit uh i did just read that uh starlink is offering satellite internet at 100 mbps with 20 milliseconds of lag in the next year and they're doing uh better than nothing beta currently yes so we'll get there but i think i know it that's come up a couple times with residents and and not we shouldn't be doing it for me but certainly with the the virtual or hybrid learning that's coming to a critical point and then as a as a consultant and business owner having that connectivity is is huge because it allows me to live where i want to live um and still do work that i need to do so mr dickman i didn't realize that we had an issue with with uh broadband internet here in the city our seems to be pretty good here but um comcast does go down old settlers road unfortunately um my setback is quite a bit different so for the tidy sum of 14 500 i could have comcast to my house but um but the good news is with comcast is the first hundred feet are free so jeff we were told forty thousand yep yep yeah the first hundred feet are free though meredith unfortunately i've got a two tenths of a mile driveway so that that gets me about from my mailbox to the culvert all right any other questions uh for councillor nichols yeah committed her mr chair yes sir i i just i i keep getting a lot of questions around uh officer zeke um are we have we got a good plan going forward and bringing him back into our work our police force and stuff i know i put it out on the internet you're out on facebook asking and there was a summary and and things were going is that still going good i know there's a tremendous amount of money that was raised to get that in to get him here um a tremendous amount of time by the previous officer everything um i'm excited to get him back and so are a lot of other residents and stuff that would really like to see see some updates on him if if it's possible that will be covered in i believe the march 11th meeting that's on the agenda uh matt will be presenting his plan to get zeke back out on the street yes thank you okay anybody else see the mayor had his hand up man the mckee welcome on the uh on the internet topic that we are working on a number of different options um and starting to make some progress um and i did hear um commissioner dickman did you mention the t-mobile is that what you were talking about yes i've heard from a few people that they have had in town that they've had trial runs with t-mobile and that they should be rolling that out throughout corcoran sometime the next month or two so uh i'm definitely keeping an eye on that and that might be a good short-term option before we get um you know provider really throughout town that can provide quality high speed access so 5g that's what we want there you go whatever whatever gets us some better speeds because for a lot of a lot of areas of town it's rough yeah as long as we don't do the uh st louis park wi-fi model which was to stick all those weird towers everywhere around and then have the company go belly up and the towers were still sticking there but i'm not familiar with that but i'll i'll write it down and have to take a look at it that was a that was a boondoggle okay any other questions for our city council representatives okay thank you very much both of you for attending uh once again it's a pleasure to have you here thank you um all right uh item 7c uh other business any okay uh last item eight our city council liaison so we have on the 25th we have uh uh commissioners cholak and on the 11th commissioner barron camp moving out farther is there anybody or anywhere in there is there anybody that looks like they'll need a change a swap you guys will have to cover oh that's right this is your last meeting apparently yes okay um i was gonna bring cupcakes hey you never know we might all be back in city hall by then i you know who knows um i can cover the eighth okay uh thank you mr chair could we just um slide everybody just slide everybody one meeting or do you wanna um so you mean move me to that yes and shoelock to the 22nd yeah we could just keep our rotation or do you want to i i don't think i'll be snowmobiling in april so uh i'll be i i'm i'm good with that you know so um dean thank you for that but maybe maybe that makes better sense um so i could take the eighth and uh mr scholar could take the 22nd um i i guess a question i have is um are are we going to be down one or we we had a couple vacancies coming up who re-applied for the commission uh i i don't know that i can confirm with brad and we can follow up next month i i believe meredith has reapplied i believe but i'm not certain that we got any other applicants mr mayor do you know or or council member nichols i believe we have uh at least one applicant in as of right now so uh it's a start okay okay so on our next meeting then which is going to be scheduled for um i i can't uh let's see it'd be the first march 4th march 4th um i i don't suppose commissioner dickman's replacement will be confirmed in that or possibly i don't know okay that's okay i'm not sure yeah okay all right well um that'll do it i i guess for now so uh chair will take a motion to adjourn this meeting so moved very happy come on jim i know you want a second that thank you thank you jim yeah all right uh roll call vote uh commissioner varenkamp uh commissioner jacobs aye commissioner shellack aye commissioner dickman aye commissioner wu is starting to yawn i'm sure she's gonna be an i okay very good this is this meeting is now uh uh adjourned thank you again everybody and uh thanks for sticking up this late thanks natalie thank you commissioner dickman for your service i've appreciated working with you don't be a stranger i won't be come back in two years thanks jeff yeah we'll see we'll see what it looks like all right see you guys thank you everyone thanks chef bye-bye