what's this is jim going to be absent hey you gentlemen right ladies hey welcome everybody uh we will now start the corcoran planning commission meeting for may 5th 2022. i'll call the roll to order commissioner sholak is apparently out um and um commissioner vandenheity here uh commissioner landerman here commissioner bruman here and commissioner jacobs here so we have a quorum all right for all those who would like to join us please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay um agenda approval does anybody have any changes questions or comments about tonight's agenda without any i'll take a motion to pass the agenda i'll make that motion i'll second all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay the agenda is approved okay open forum tonight uh as always open forum is your opportunity to address the planning commission on any topic that you so may desire we only ask that you limit any comments to those that are not already on tonight's agenda if you have are you here for an agenda item if you could just wait until that item comes up as part of our ordinary business as we go through that would be great is there anybody here that would like to speak at open forum i would okay yes sir uh looking at the meetings from the previous planning commission meeting and i had to leave early that night the meeting did not wrap up until after 12 30. i think that it is unreasonable to expect a body made up of volunteers one to stay for that early in the morning and two to remain thoughtful and enthused for such a long sitting in the last city council meeting councilman bottoms suggested that it be assumed that the council had read the materials and dispensed with staff presentations i like that idea and i would like to gauge the interest of my peers on this commission and the chair i think it is important that the public hear about each application but my thought especially seeing those citizens who do provide feedback is that they are well versed in the issues having read the packets i just think that between the time reading the packets which seem to be expanding and the time spent at the meeting there is a lot of duplicated efforts for a volunteer body similarly the packet for tonight has five items and each one packs a punch the packet was delivered to me on friday night after 5 30. that gave me the weekend in three days to review a 253 page packet that is simply too short to turn around i wanted to bring up an idea that i have engaged gauge interest and feasibility for staff is it possible to change the schedule so that packets are delivered at least two weeks before a meeting i understand that there are items that can come up within those two weeks but to at least have the majority of materials i think would be helpful otherwise could we get a kind of preview packet that outlines the primary materials with more time before it's up for a meeting now maybe there are barriers to doing that but i really think that it is unfair to expect this body of volunteers to set aside a lot of time within a very short window that's all i have thank you thank you and certainly that is an issue that we have discussed in the past and i think commissioner lanternman is right as our city grows and the pace of development picks up the issues are bigger and greater and more important and they do take considerable time having spent i don't know 15 years on this commission i can tell you it's a far cry from our normal course of business talking about how many chickens are allowable on a three acre parcel of land so today is a far more complex job with greater demands and and i would certainly support anything that can be worked out with staff according to the timing i think that's a a good comment and and you're right um last month uh was one of the first times that we actually cut off an item um without full discourse that i can remember uh just because of of just the timing of it and and you're right the the uh the attentiveness and and clarity of thinking after more than five hours sitting up here certainly is going to suffer because of that yeah and thank you for those comments i just think that it can be assumed that we've done our homework and i don't need someone to read the packet to me yeah thank you okay and and i hopefully you know staff there's no way directly intended to you guys we all understand that what our workload is is ten times more for you just to prepare so um and we all understand that there's deadlines that that developers have to get things in in time for the packets um and the meetings and and in the 60-day rules and things like that so yeah there there might be some things that won't get into an initial packet but it's certainly something to consider and i don't know do you have any comments on how we can maybe address that in a in a formal setting um at this time i would like to think on how we would be able to make that feasible i i don't have an immediate answer at this point that i think would please the commission so let me think on it okay that's fair enough but you you would agree with me that there's no law stating that we cannot skip staff presentations correct i don't know of any law but there is a concern of accessibility which is why most cities have some brief staff presentation at the very least well the statute the state statute states that the requirement is for the city to post the packet online and that that fulfills the city's accessibility requirements so unless you can point me to some authority i would i would ask that we skip reading through the packet and just get to the discussions and most importantly let's hear what the public has to say about these topics okay thanks all right for those that are joining this meeting uh online uh natalie will give you instructions if you would like to participate in open forum for those of you joining by phone to raise your hand at the public forum you press star nine those of you on a tablet or computer you should be able to find the raise your hand function using the reactions tab on the bottom toolbar for zoom and at this time mr chair i'm not seeing any hands raised okay then let's move on uh item five minutes from april 7 2022 meeting of the planning commission does anybody have any questions corrections no comments for those those minutes no okay is there a motion to approve the minutes i'll make that motion and i'll second all right all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed okay okay we will now move on to the core of our business tonight item six um and these are public comment opportunities our first order of business is a public hearing for a zoning ordinance amendment to corcoran northeast district plan and design guidelines and first up is our staff report please thank you mr chair i'd like to make a motion to skip uh the staff presentation i i think you can assume that we've read the packet yeah that that would be fine i didn't know if you wanted me to just share the changes that have happened since the last time um as part of the comments are there changes to the material in the packet no we've read the packet right i just to inform the public as part of the public hearing i can do that or we can not it well i think i think the only way you know we can take a vote on that i i personally i think there's plenty of people out here that maybe have not had full access to that pack and it might be is more educational for them for us on a topic that has a wide base of people they're more important and if that's the case then we should move forward but i think as a practice i think moving forward i don't need someone to read me a you know a story okay if i can keep it short it does thank you does the commission want to bypass this or can we go forward i would vote to bypass we can move forward yeah i think i'd go to move forward with this one all right let's please move forward with the presentation okay um so commissioners tonight we have the review of the draft northeast district plan and design guidelines um i'll kind of run through some of this other stuff and just gloss over it so just there's a previous plan that is in place currently and this is the work we're doing to update that plan um previous plan is on the left hand side of the screen it was adopted back in 2004. new plan is on the right hand side of the screen this one does incorporate the comment specifically from commissioner jacobs about the road alignment um so you'll notice in the southwest portion of the city they're in the southwest portion of the northeast district there is a change to the road alignment from the last meeting um so there's been extensive public input i won't go through all the meeting dates but it started back in december and has led up to now um and the next step forward is the action tonight or the recommendation tonight followed by city council action on may 26th this was the original site constraints map it just shows the significant natural resources present in the northeast district based on the different areas within the city and it identifies them based on the categories that they fall under another piece that was identified with the northeast district was the street hierarchy on the street section so that map was updated to note in the draft that was in the packet the map i'll just run back really quick the street hierarchy map or the street classification map was updated per commissioner jacob's comments the other maps however were not in time for the packet so those maps will be updated as they move to city council just for the background because the street hierarchy is shown on each of the maps within the the plan um utilities were also included this hasn't changed since the last time so this is part of the water planning effort and just to provide utility services to the northeast district some of the allowable uses that are prohibited in the northeast district as it's drafted are contractor operations equipment rental lumber yards mini storage uh motor vehicle boat repair and sales mr shea yes may i interrupt you for a second sure can you go back to the last [Applause] slide okay now this is one that was not in our packet so can you explain to me what the red and the blue stars are yeah so the red and the blue stars i believe are the and i'm i'm not sure which one is which but the red and the blue stars are the search areas for the water tower and the the new well that we're looking that the city is looking at i believe mr chair the blue star represents the tower and the red star represents the well but those are search areas so it's not a sets area yet that's just the desired location okay now i had read that the northeast district will require two wells is it fair to assume then that two wells will require two towers i would have to ask the city engineer on that one to know if there's the capacity requirements between the two are the same or if one well is sufficient or two wells is sufficient with one water tower i'm not sure of how they interplay between each other to give you an informed response i don't know of any discussions of a second tower at this time also yeah that's the biggest thing we're working on right now um one water treatment plant which is just north of the intersection of 116 county road 30 on the eastern side there will be a well at that site there will be another well over on that beltweather park site so that has been decided well that's the stuff we're proposing and working on okay those two wells will supply about a 250 000 gallon reservoir at the water treatment plant and at least the 750 000 gallon water tower which is right now tentative close to hope community church okay and that fall is coming to fruition here with the um moratorium that's in place for this district and all of the work that staff has done and all you guys have suggested and over 300 and some neighbors landowners and all of that in this area we've digested all of that we're doing everything we can to populate that good questions but roughly two wells will supply enough water for a million gallons the report the report mentions it but there's no identification of where it was i know where the first well is i know where the first search area was for the the tower but yeah i just wanted to know were we looking at two towers because then there's a picture and it's got a scribbly line around it so here's the search zone and so it can it can be confusing but we're narrowing it down pretty well again with everybody's input bellwether like the original uh plan was to put a tower on that seven acre site you know midland park those kind of things but the neighbors and concerns and stuff we removed that started a new search and and we believe we found a nice place that'll all come out here in the next month okay very good thank you you bet please continue um so the intent here in the northeast district is to allow businesses that serve the community with jobs and enhance the gateway to corcoran there was a public comment regarding motor fuel stations in the northeast district and staff the comment was to not allow them in the northeast district staff is comfortable and still suggesting motor fuel stations in the northeast district as there are certain locations that are appropriate for it such as the intersections of the county roads in the district 30 116 areas like that that would be appropriate for a motor fuel station the architectural standards in the northeast district staff there is included some higher architectural standards some of these include having a more robust composition of materials that are classified as higher class materials having commercial industrial standards that are strengthened in the area in the district as well and then also some standards or some encouragement for wind and solar energy within the northeast district the parking standards uh just looking at enhancing the landscaped island features in the parking areas as well as encouraging in some cases and requiring some others for pedestrian routes bicycle parking and then electric vehicle charging stations or services to charge an electric vehicle landscape standards so as part of the northeast district there is an established list of preferred trees and shrubs that kind of encompass a wide range to hopefully give as it develops options for providing trees that are native into the area and provide benefits to the community and then options as well for um development to provide uh additional xeriscaping rain gardens bioretention systems green roofs aesthetic design and then the new edition from commissioner bruman was for the urban gardens which has been included in the draft design guidelines and then as part of it there is an update and an inclusion of stormwater management i'm just encouraging that those storm water management features they still need to comply with all the requirements but are encouraged to provide more aesthetic stormwater management systems along with chloride management plans are required for new development and then regulated under the ms4 permit uh so as i mentioned some of the the change a key change at least in the street hierarchy map is shown um comparing the old from the april meeting to the new in this may meeting is in that southwest corner and these are all following the comments that we received from the member of the public commissioner bruhman and chair jacobs so we updated the street classification map include urban gardens as an option for landscaping and then some minor edits as recommended so with that the before you as the planning commission uh would be an ordinance approving the amendments which includes adding this as appendix c within the city code removing the northeast language from appendix a which is in the draft ordinance and then adding definitions related to the northeast district language within the city code in this definition section and then a resolution approving the findings of fact for that ordinance change and this is expected for council on may 26th and then the moratorium that this was the more return that's in place for this to move forward expires on june 10th following that june 10th correct yep okay great thank you [Music] um okay at this point we'll open up for the public hearing [Music] as a reminder we tend to encourage keeping our comments to five minutes we do have a lengthy uh schedule tonight and uh as we said last month we ran into we're pushing into one o'clock so to the extent you can keep them concise but those that would like to address the floating please state your name and address for the record nobody here is for the northeast district okay is there anyone online if so natalie will give you instructions members of the public online to speak on the public hearing for the northeast district please press either star nine if you're joining us by phone by tablet or computer you should be able to use the raise your hand function under the reactions menu and at this time mr chair no one is raising their hands [Music] okay um do i have a motion to close the public hearing i'll make that motion second all right all those in favor of closing the public hearing say aye aye aye opposed all right public hearing is now closed all right commission discussion and recommendation does anybody wish to start mr lantern just so that i'm clear on the history leading up to this agenda item uh city staff applied for a grant from hennepin county correct uh mr chair planning commission i i applied for a grant last year what was the dollar amount forty thousand dollars uh what has this money been applied to most of it has been to for the cost of the consulting time with both our planner and our engineers [Applause] i assume that this plan is a condition for the grant correct this is a the byproduct that was that sorry i'm trying to read that uh for the grant we have to have a deliverable and this plan is the deliverable did the city council have any involvement in this grant application correct it was authorized by city council authorized for you to do it or did they have feedback i i they authorized me to do it i provided a draft of the application before i submitted it and they provided a resolution of resolution of support in accepting the grant has the city given the county more power over our city planning in the northeast district the county has certainly been a stakeholder that we've involved in some meetings but as far as our plan there were some items that we said we were going to look into as part of what i offered when i was doing the grants part of that was resiliency looking at our street hierarchy but there's nothing that they're saying we have to do as a city in order to get the grant so so we've we've given up no discretion in our decision making i would not say that at all correct okay thank you for that now if i understand correctly this 23-page document if approved would essentially become a rider to our city code correct correct mr chair planning commission it's included as an appendix to our city code okay so the proposal removes the page and a half of the design guidelines currently in place for the northeast district and adds in these 23 pages correct correct it's not unprecedented the southeast district has its own design guidelines as a separate addendum but i think that this is not economical and convolutes our city code our city code is a monster as it is at over 700 pages and i have missed givings about making it even more difficult for our citizens to navigate i look at other cities codes and some i have seen are much easier to understand and economical to read i think that injecting more words into our city code indeed defining and managing which trees are acceptable makes the process more complicated for everyone involved applicants the council and staff now while i question the necessity of this plan having read it i would vote to recommend approval with the understanding that it may be required for the grant and i would like to see that requirement from hennepin county that the grant is contingent upon us passing this tonight it that is what you said right there was a deliverable as a that was promised with the grant um i whether or not we passed it how was it how was the deliverable defined couldn't we just send a thank you note no this is the deliverable defined in the contract i could definitely send that to you i just i mean as far as if it were chosen to shot down then i i don't know if they would necessarily take it back i suppose it's possible i don't know i have to look at the contract is there some reason why those requirements were not in our packet to review i just only i i could have definitely provided that upon request it was not it was not a question that i realized that was yeah how do i know to request something that i don't know about well commissioner andrew and you you asked if there was a deliverable this was something you could have asked me before the meeting and i would have been happy to send that to you so you could have taken a look at it okay so as i mentioned i would vote to recommend approval with the understanding that it is a requirement for the grant and i would like to see that requirement from the county and recognizing its utility for codifying the future vision there's nothing in the draft is currently written that i take issue with with but i will throw in my two cents that i think that the property owner should be able to decide what kind of trees and plantings to use and it should not be limited unreasonably so i agree with staff on that point also just one minor item and i realize this is just a draft but please check for spelling errors for example on page 10 item number nine is followed by a number of question marks i know it will be spell checked but just wanted to make sure it is proof read thank you just noting that the intent of the tree list was actually to preserve a lot of the landscaping and and habitat that naturally grows here so it's really meant to be not restricting i understand that it does restrict but i think it's it's the desire the intent behind it is to guide um a type of environment that is original to the city and i think some of it is meant to take out uh the is to provide a guideline for developers as they come in is i think the intent uh so if i am correct in understanding that the intent is really that then i i am in favor of uh passing it as it is tonight and saying that it should go through okay um let me ask you so in the report it says um [Music] this is a city initiated project update this plan that was originally adopted in 2004. was there a document in 2004 specifically related to the northeast district design correct so in our current city code there is an appendix for the northeast district it is about three pages page and half three pages something like yeah and so as as we've received more and more development pressure in that area it just was not as fleshed out as our south east district which is about 50 pages worth of design guidelines this is a little simpler than that um but yeah there what there is an existing document in place and this really flashes out the vision um for the development that is anticipated to come june 10th june 11th i suppose now there were a lot of pictures that were presented and you know of drainage ditches and you know wildlife ground covers and things like that um [Music] and these are just guidelines but there is no requirement that they do this is there are we talking about the landscaping well everything that you just presented there's no requirement these are just guidelines correct they are requirements so there are requirements so for example the landscaping in there they have to they're limited to the preferred tree list however that preferred tree list is really long same thing with the electric vehicle stations that's a requirement when you're over a hundred parking spaces there becomes a requirement to have an electric vehicle charging station and some percentage with that as you go forward so there are requirements in here some of them are encouragements you know encouragement of wind and solar resources things like that but there are requirements within this district plan yes basically mr chair if it says shall or must then it's a requirement if it's should or may that's when it's a recommendation and actually the preferred tree list is that i don't want to talk about trees it's above um but when i spoke last um that was actually supposed to be changed to not shall but it wasn't it's supposed to be changed yeah i'm just you know rain gardens i don't even know what that means um pollinator lawns um you know these are all great concepts but you know um i remember you know my my question is are these going to be required we're talking just specifically and i'm just going to focus most of this on county road 30. okay this is going to be commercial industrial business park so can we reasonably assume or expect that a developer who buys and develops a piece of property will put in these types of landscapes versus the traditional suburban grass irrigation some nice trees some planter boxes something that's easy to maintain looks nice and everything else because what i see here it looks nice it's a great idea i can see conceptually but i also can see where if you know this is a strip mall that's got a dry cleaner a fast food restaurant and you know [Music] you know a pharmacy who's going to take care of that landscape i mean to to manage these types of landscapes you need you need somebody that's going to professionally manage that so what is going to be more reasonable more cost effective for a developer to have a conservationist or environmentalist on hand to go through and maintain these little bugs and weeds and rodents and everything else that might habitate in them or will they prefer to just go with grass i mean what what is our expectation with these kinds of standards thank you mr chair uh the standards are an option list essentially of things they so it's not required it's an option right you can do it that's that was my original question two out of five or actually it's six now with the addition of the urban garden so there's six options listed they're required to choose two and like the xeriscaping that is simply just landscaping that requires low water requirements so there actually would be potentially less upkeep that they would need to physically do themselves um so it and then the other um one of the other ones is landscaping with native species 50 of the plantings um basically from our preferred list uh basically because that's essentially mostly native plants to this area buckthorn is pretty native out here well that's not what that's not one of the preferred lists well i mean you know use your words cautiously when you say what's native here well going back to the preferred list as it which does not have buckling on there yeah okay well i i when i look at this and we talk about words of less cost ease of maintenance self-sustaining i look at these and say i think that's just the opposite i think these are going to be rather expensive and and time-consuming and if not done properly you know what they're going to look they're going to look bad in the long run they'll look just plain bad so what again what is our expectation with some of these design guidelines is this is this what the city of corcoran residents voted for because i've looked at the i've looked at all of these i don't see anything in here about charging stations you know self self-reliant landscapes know urban gardens or farm gardens or i don't see any of that in there so where do where do we get the basis for this kind of thing for development of this district and i'm not trying to you know pinpoint you guys is like you you came up with some evil plan i'm just trying to where's the basis for this because when most people look at this i i this wasn't what i would envision corcoran and especially one of our main thoroughfares into this city would look like that this is what we value i could be totally wrong but i've never heard anybody speak of things like this if i could so if i may chair yeah so so i had a bunch of people or my neighbors at my house so this past weekend and i was showing them the this guideline and where i kind of landed was through the survey where everybody seemed to be landing is they wanted to be a rural feel here at corcoran i mean that's right that's kind of how i interpret it in in the general gist of it is generally the residents want it to continue to feel rural they lean towards that with the the parking lots were the ones that were much more heavily landscaped with lots of my one neighbor or he lives in he's a plot he plow does plowing he's like this would be horrible to plow you know but but again it was it was all leaning towards rural to me these things here are all about green spaces keeping that feel of green spaces i guess even in a even in an in industrial okay commercial that so i think maybe that is okay all right so then let's talk about the the mechanics of it um nowhere in these design guidelines so i see anything about setbacks now we all have setback rules that say you know on major artery roads stuff it's 100 feet but we have also everywhere in our code that allow 60 percent relief from that if they do more screening landscaping now if you want to protect to the best extent you possibly can a rural feel i think that'll only be accomplished by restricting to a strict adherence to 100 feet without any relief being requested like they do right now in downtown corcoran we can't even keep 50 feet we got parking lots 25 feet being proposed right on 116. so how are we ever going to expect any developer will want to preserve what at least in my mind is a rural character feel when they can lob off 60 to that feet and develop it and then just plant a couple extra trees which then goes to less area for all these nice little landscape things you guys are proposing why does this report not say anything about setbacks mr chair that's just not something that we identified as a priority but if you would like to make sure make sure that we add language for that for the city council we can do that okay so so we've got we got setbacks that we should maybe talk about as to whether or not we want to add it but maybe not here if i may add the setbacks are still governed by the zoning districts within the city that's it i know that specifically okay but but again we're talking about eight these are guidelines for a specific district right and if this is our main through fair into this city and we're going to line it with commercial industrial businesses do you think that we accomplish our our supposed stated goals of preserving a rural character by allowing people to put parking lots 40 feet from that road mr chair i do think it can be accomplished on our larger sites the larger industrial sites i'm thinking of one site by mama g's in particular where it'd probably be very difficult for anything to fit on that parcel with a 100 foot setback for at least further parking um but i think as it is the parcels are on along county road 30 and the industrial parts falls around along county road 101 we could accommodate that setback so i i with your permission i could we could probably add something to that effect but i am concerned about the parcel tied to mom and dad right now it's titan mama jeez um and i'm concerned and it isn't developed yet and i am concerned about that one in particular being able to support that kind of stuff back because it's not a very large loft [Music] okay all right so um on a on a more ten thousand foot elevation um i you know in going through this process something has bothered me and i thank you all for taking the consideration my comments related to that phantom road that is not in my backyard um i was the one that raised it it but it's in my neighbors and then um [Music] i think that there was a lot of a lot of issues with why that should have been removed and thank you very much for doing that even though it doesn't impact me directly but i'm looking here at corcoran's mission vision values and core strategies and if you'll bear with me for a moment our mission statement the city of corker will provide high quality services cost effective responsible professional manner to create a preferred environment to live work and play and conduct business vision statement senior corcoran will become a vibrant connected community while preserving its natural character and agricultural roots now that is about as close to what this whole thing gets to uh we got the values honesty pride partnership efficiency effective service delivery transparency blah blah blah core strategies enhance corcoran's sense of place and identity provide diverse community amenities recreational opportunities maintain excellence in safety and security for our community ensure high quality market driven growth and provide high quality innovative municipal services what i do not see in here is anything related to preserving protecting or anything related to existing residential or residents interests their land their homes or anything like that now we don't have to go very back in time to see some of the conflicts that we develop with with sewer and water mass development modern development coming into contact with those who those of us who either have recently moved here because of the amenities of being able to live on some land and away from your traditional neighborhoods those of us that have spent 27 years buying land and building homes raising families and now looking to retire from here but when i look at these core city things and i don't see anything in there that says as what we value or what our our vision is is to protect the lifestyle of those residents that have already spent decades if not lifetimes and generations i understand some will sell but not everything has to be impacted by development okay um and when you read this report this guideline there's nothing in there to talk about the impact of any of this development that's coming down county road 30 that says anything about how that development will be will be treated in terms of its relative distance and impact on on those that already have lived here there's nothing in there about noise sight volume setbacks anything like that and as you and i discussed with related to that one issue at my at you know about my neighborhood you know nobody you know not in my backyard applies when you try to propose a street and and when you look at neighborhoods in this northeast district for instance [Music] sorry bear with me here there are a number of of streets and neighborhoods that will be impacted and as part of our discussion and what i'd like to see considered as we move forward is how can we best best minimize those impacts to the greatest extent possible um so on appendix c now um there is proposal to run all this new development that is now going west of del webb and you're going to run a street connection right into hunter's bridge which given the fact that they maybe have what 10 homes [Music] is going to dramatically change the traffic pattern in that neighborhood i can't see how anybody's going to find that this is beneficial to them now to prove that point maybe some of you people here tonight i'll assume you're all here for walcott now there are people in this in in in this neighborhood when we speak tonight that are residents of rovinia they've only been there a couple years but what is one of their biggest complaints one of the biggest complaints is about the traffic that is going to come falling out of this this 38 acre development right through their their streets and what do they say our kids playing them and we enjoy the fact that we don't have heavy traffic and this and that but yet this is this is what's going to happen now that situation i can maybe see just from a practicality standpoint because it was designed that way and and you know yeah the houses are smaller and there's more people maybe on a net density basis well i shouldn't say that either because ravini is a three to five as well so they both have the same density but when you take a look at these neighborhoods that are part of this this here uh district it doesn't make any sense to me i mean the the difference between you know having 10 houses on a dead end road and then opening it up to hundreds and hundreds of more houses is a devastating effect and yet we're supposedly going to allow this to happen and it could happen it's going to happen over here hunter's ridge on the west side they're going to do the same thing you've got a road proposal coming up and it's going to circle back and it's going to run right down that right down that that neighborhood you've got uh the development up there on the north side county country road e um could very easily have something that will run into it i mean these are all proposed roads but at every point in which you have an existing neighborhood of acreage and limited housing you could easily run through a road through any one of those so as a matter of principle for this northeast district i'd like to propose that and this would really go citywide that that when you have an existing neighborhood and i can use mine as a perfect example you know we have eight houses but if those thirty acres that me and my neighbor own uh to the south of us along with hundreds and hundreds or more acres is bought up by a major developer and it's all of a sudden convenient to allow traffic to run down daphne drive i i can't imagine how that's benefiting anybody and when you talk about loss of enjoyment loss of value those are the things that should be codified in these development plans this is what needs to be guarded and i think should be valued by this city and when i don't see a word of it in our in our city vision and guidelines and and and all this development i'm really disappointed and i'm quite shocked that there's no there's nothing there mr chair if i made the road connection for hunter's bridge is on our existing plan all right all right so right here talking about this road around hunters ridge and then across to the west that is on our existing plan as it stands today so that's been shown for a while so that really there hasn't been a shovel dug and a design plan that's come through for this land right here and yet you're showing and proposing that's what this is right this is a proposal you're proposing to take all the traffic from this district right here and you're going to funnel it right out hunter's bridge is everybody here from hunter's ridge mr chair yeah that's part of the amberly bellweather plot that's already been approved so staff just overlaid the roads from the approved plat on this plan okay well i feel sorry for them and and i think it's a mistake so let's not repeat it over and over and over again i think my point is still valid um over here on this hunter's bridge you've got it right here yes and that's it's essentially shown right here as well oh sorry i'm computer right here well i think as the as the city council you know continues to evolve and address the issues um i would certainly like to see far more emphasis put into our stated our stated values and mission and vision statement to have some consideration about all of us that have put our time and money into making a life here that don't want to see it you know to the greatest extent possible uh destroyed by the fact that somehow we we've got we've got we're on a mission to to to develop this city without regard to it and and i i think that's that's the point that needs to be made and it's not just this district it's everywhere because you're going to run into it the further and further the met council moves that musa line out you're going to run into it over and over and over again and all you're going to end up doing is just creating a lot of ill will and people necessarily don't want to buy real estate acreage if they're not certain about what's going to happen to it you know what's going to be in my backyard that's a significant issue um you know you have a you have a property line that's 600 feet wide and you've got developers that are out here proposing 45-50 feet you know how many homes that is all of a sudden in your backyard 30 feet away so um now to to that extent um i know that i proposed um and and it is on the city council's agenda um relative to i call it legacy rural residential development that that maybe we incorporate some of the uh enhanced performance standards for setbacks that we initiated for accessory structures accessory uses and i don't know where the city council is on that issue but that is certainly one thing i'd like to see incorporated so if you kind of took this district right here if that was in play right now you'd certainly see that and it might impact different things about where the roads are or what things are zoned or where trails you know parks and trails would be so that is all i wanted to say there um in terms of allowable uses um [Music] hard to you know i i understand the the issue of what you don't want there has there been any discussion about fast food restaurants any consideration about putting that on the list does anybody have an opinion on that no what what again i had all these people at my house so they were like we don't want any this is more just they're they're like they don't want any do they live here do they live here yeah yeah yeah they were neighbors and i was doing a karaoke night and uh and so i pulled the documents out and i'm walking through them and none looked at it and so uh then they were just like i don't want any chains you know they didn't want any chain restaurants some had mentioned not they didn't like the idea of fast food either i think this is the feel of that but yeah that's what you're asking about right like yeah yeah that wasn't on the survey though per se mr chair uh planning commission there there seemed to be a general want for more food options more restaurant options um my concern with limiting drive-throughs is that would also impact banks but you do have to review them i didn't say drive-throughs fast food i just said fast food establishments in general okay you want to you want to build a texas roadhouse there build two of them one on each end of the street i don't care okay but filling it with mcdonald's and taco bell and and donuts you know i just don't want it well that to me doesn't that's again i'm trying to envision the million times i've driven down county road 30 i'm trying to envision what i think that should look like if we're trying to preserve a rural to character of of this community we got mcdonald's and everything else right down the road in maple grove do we need it here in corcoran i mean if you if you look at the way everything's developed around us there's not a lot that we really need to include we don't need to become another clone of maple grove or plymouth or something because they're only a few miles away there's a reason we don't have schools one question i would have so when we say fast food do we mean fast casual as well because i guess when i think of fast food i'm thinking of something that has a drive-through and but like a coffee shop generally can't function without a drive-through but like a coffee shop might be nice to have oh consider more fast but if you don't want a coffee i'm not trying to argue i don't drink coffee so i'm we're defining like what what are we defining as fast food um because drying that line is a little difficult and you know another thing i didn't find in here that i think needs to be addressed is signage you know a lot of a lot of communities have very strict signs you can drive down some of the busiest roads in our communities around the country and they don't you know you want to you want your gas station sign or your retail sign or whatever it can't be any higher than like say four feet off the ground you can't put it 20 feet up and it doesn't matter how much you color or hide the poles um they just won't allow it they keep it low but there again then you impact their ability to see it if you've got a bunch of landscape which might be all the more reason why you need to keep a hundred feet you've got more room to put a sign that won't be so uh mr chairs are you saying that you would like to limit signs to four feet tall hey i i don't get to make those rules what we are doing here tonight we are we are we are making a recommendation to counsel if that is something you would like us to add i can make that change so i'm just i'm trying to figure out what your direction is so we can address the concerns you're bringing up right now and mr chair i would say if you want it then go for it because this is going to go next council meeting and there the goal is to get it in before the moratorium expires and the applications for development come in so like i would say pick it and then go with it and they can always amend it but i think tonight's our last shot so all right all right four feet tall limit on fences well let's let's see if we got let's see if we have a consensus from you guys yes sir may i just add a couple of things so i want to thank the chair for his thoughtful insights uh i hear you i am very concerned that material facts were withheld from the commission uh i also don't understand you know and correct me if i'm wrong this 23-page document now becomes a rider to city code right so we're tacking on 23 pages to our city code but you said that the grant from hennepin county required a deliverable was there a requirement from hennepin county to add these 23 pages to our city code i'm wondering why are we rewriting our city code for a forty thousand dollar grant that is simply going to go to pay land form why are we rewriting our law to get landform paid i don't understand that okay mr chair planning commission updating the northeast district was a city identified goal before i even arrived here um so i was simply what was the purpose of the grant to up to get landform no no where is the money you just told me that the money is land is earmarked for landform right just yes or no commissioner lanternman the project was for the northeast district and we chose landform as the consultant to work with because we were under a very aggressive timeline with the moratorium did that go out for an rfp to other bidders to other vendors no that we were able to select it and at this point because of the tight timeline that we were on we decided but we but we put out our asphalt needs to an rfp when was the last time landform applied for uh through an rfp is that just an open-ended contract i'm trying to understand why are we amending our city code to accommodate a grant that you said is going to be used to pay land form commission landerman i feel that words are being put in my mouth right now at this time i am carrying out a city identified goal and it was the goal all along was to update this part of the code as far as rfp for landscape or i'm sorry landform that's something that we can discuss offline as far as last time they may want to hear anyone can reach out to me and i can provide that information i don't have that on top of me when they last around for rfp i know there's talk about going out for rfp this year so i it's at this point that is not what we are looking at tonight i'm just saying if you get a 40 000 grant that requires us to amend our city code by 23 pages and you tell me that the grant is your mark to pay our city planner contractor vendor how am i putting words in your mouth well it's also for the consulting time with our engineer it and it was it was the cost of getting the the open houses ready and i don't believe anyone would have been able to do it as quickly or as cheap because if we had a six-month turnaround basically to get this done and if we had to go out to rfe that would have taken another at least a month off of our timeline and we were under a moratorium and generally in the past lam form has done this type of work for us and i we felt that it was best to just move forward with landform and that that the contract with the county that was fine that was acceptable with the county i have two quick follow-ups is landform considered a sole source provider there are they are he is our con our city planner contracts but they're not a sole source provider correct i would have to look at her contact i don't know i don't know the details of that that would be a question for jessica okay and then my only other question is did the grant require this these 23 pages to be incorporated as part of our city code does it does it say that in the grant the deliverable that i promised as part of the update was for it to be a similar appendix as what we have for our southwest district our southeast district did hennepin county require that these 23 pages be amended to our city code and if so why is that communication not in the packet mr chair commissioner landerman at this point i did not include the contract in the packet i that is not something that i believe we've done in the past this is not the first time we've received a grant to do district planning so i apologize that's not in the packet i can definitely bring that available for anyone but you would you would agree with me that adding 23 pages to a 700 page city uh city code um don't if that was a requirement of the grant don't you think that that would be a material fact to share with us i did make it clear that we uh applied for a grant uh-huh i made that abundantly clear that the city council has approved that grant great thank you for that i get that great you applied for a grant why are we adding 23 pages to our city law yeah mr chair did hennepin county make that a requirement of the grant or or in the con so the final contract includes the promise deliverable that was in the application and the application was approved by council before i submitted it okay and around we go okay thank you thank you mr you said that you're welcome okay do you want to continue to discuss signage or are you not sure i'm sorry like for i'm i am trying to do my best to keep us on track because this is item one i appreciate that um um well i you know i only had a very short list of things here here's where i'm i'm at with you know these guideline plans we have yet to execute any one of them in the downtown well with the exception of of uh our first i guess our first our first attempt at it was saint therese and look at the problems we had with that one you know already um um i i i don't know that i throw a lot of faith into this process not maybe on a different tangent than what uh commissioner lanternman is on but you know the more technical we try to get with this when there's already so much that's left out of it and embedded with this district it always refers back to our existing zoning so it's not like this doesn't have backbone it doesn't it's not like it doesn't have standards specific to it but if this is nothing more than a wish list you know for something that's going to may or may not happen the way we want it to because again we we we can't we can't maintain a 50-foot setback how do how do we expect anything all these design guidelines running down kind of 30 to actually hold we seem powerless to the development pressures and the whims of of them you know so if the city really wants to keep a rural look but then keep a hundred foot no exceptions if you don't like it you don't build there you know that's just the way it is um these are these are things that we we didn't they didn't drop out of the air they're in our code but we have an exemption for everything i mean in here we've got exemptions for building types you know well you have to have this kind of building siding but you know we'll we'll let you you know we'll ease it off here for buildings in the i1 district which are not located on roads class 1 materials may be reduced to a minimum of 25 you know when 60 was required now how many people do you suppose are going to take advantage of that and they're going to find the reasons and so i find this to be somewhat very unproductive because they don't seemingly have the effect that we all think they will at some point in the future because you know right we don't know who's going to develop it well mr chair i also like there is a development review committee that has and that group of individuals has over oversight over the plans before they even come before the commission in terms of the development as well so i i understand i feel like having something in place even if it is sort of a wish list at least is like i think about the number of times that i've reviewed the southeast district though i had no part in putting it together and have held the the plans or reviews that come in against that and said does it line up so if nothing else like you know beyond when we're here it can be like this is what we wanted um you know whether it has teeth or not um but i think at this point in time we just have to decide what we want to do what we want to make a recommendation to council well my my short list is again uh stringent setbacks uh with no no changes i would love to see you know it's it's a mile long stretch of road do you think we can go without you know four fast food restaurants uh i'm not saying not drive-throughs it's good food fast good food fast there you go um the meeting on county road 30 um absolutely i think the county i think the county owes us that you know that that's what they did to maple grove and this can't be a status thing they get it because they're bigger um i don't think we have to play a second backseat to anybody we deserve something and my question is that would only go to 116 correct would that go the full mile or would it go all the way to the end of the district i believe it go along basically down to definitely however every portion of the road that gets some fruit i believe that's the idea correct throughout the district is what we're looking at right now i don't believe there's we would have to look at the county plans but yeah the idea is as county world 30 gets improved um that would be the same okay but to be clear though that's really not our choice we can't we can't require it because it's ultimately up to hennepin county right correct usually development drives of those so as the numbers weren't an upgrade to the road then that's what kicks and we've had such good feedback in and working relationships with hennepin county on kind road 50 and county road 10. all that downtown development planning we did and then they came and said we don't want to move your roads and we had to redesign everything just because of it so we can't count that they'll do that can we it's a wish list but we can't guarantee it i just want to definitely need their participation or county road 30 to be updated okay um in addition i'd like to see that there be no through roads uh through um again i don't have a better word for it other than you know legacy uh rural residential um i i don't think it's fair to them to be impacted by by development that they did not want or participate in and i think it would be adverse to their enjoyment and as well to their property values and i think by all means that should never be allowed to happen in addition um if the city council gets around to and i don't mean that in you know um uh in a in a mean way i know that they're they'll work on it if they put it on their list i know they'll address it but if they do in fact improve setback standards for legacy rural similar to that that we use for assembly i think that that should that should go around all of those and and you know again i think it's been discussed 50 feet um set back in as much as 100 but maybe that is something that can vary you know it's it's interesting here that when you look on some of these things you got residential and you've got well the only part you know if you're going to have mixed-use residential up against a legacy rural maybe that that should be um a bigger setback oh yeah yeah so that's all i have you did not want to make a mention of signs like i just want to double check because he's making noise because you know that i i'd just be throwing something out there okay we already have design standards those can be addressed okay at that time i don't i think in the spirit of moving on [Music] um i liked your recommendations so i support those anybody have anything else that they'd like to put on their wish list can i ask for mcdonald's wait no we didn't want to be there's never a mcdonald's when you need one right i would make a motion then to go ahead and recommend this approval with the added notes that you just made chair i second if you guys will permit me to [Music] we don't have we don't have a specific um resolution i don't think resolution do oh yeah we do right here okay so this is for the findings of fact and that's it there mr chair there is an ordinance and a findings of fact resolution the ordinance should be okay where am i not finding it then the ordinance is the first attachment in the packet uh which precedes the appendix c and then the resolution is the last oh is that the one that yeah this you need this one here with all the red ink correct i i quite honestly i didn't know what this was i thought it's appendix c the northeast district is all and i mean because you wore that you took out two pages of stuff only to replace it with charging levels and electric vehicle charging stations that's the definition amendments as part of the ordinance does anybody have any changes you're all aware of that okay okay um if there are no substance well we we did change uh we did change the um findings of fact right is that where you're going to make the changes or recommendations you're just going to put it to a report to the no uh mr chair the changes will be incorporated into the ordinance i um i think we have the gist and i don't think we need um i don't believe you need to necessarily carve it out because i think we'll have to go through and figure out where it makes sense to add this okay um but um so you can make the motion basically jacob's final wish list and i have that as uh um limiting fast food specific companies i do want to look and i want to have that through with um the city attorney i believe that should be okay but i'm just i want to make sure we have uh well of course because these are in the ordinance they can always be updated and mended by the city council and by this commission as a recommendation anytime in the future this is true so um but right so i have fast food as an excluded youth uh not not drive-through so just fast food and then no through roads uh through legacy rural residential and increased setback and buffer zone for legacy barrel residential so that's what i have is the final wish list at this time sounds good all right why don't we take a single vote then on the amending the text of chapter 10 and again the [Music] uh the resolution findings of fact for the ordinance and mending the text of chapter 10. mr chair if i may just have one final comment yes i just think that it is a bad idea for us to add 23 pages to our city code in exchange for a forty thousand grant that is going to pay our vendor who build this city over 42 000 last month i think it's a bad idea and i don't like it so that's all i have to say well and you know commissioner lantern i think you bring up an interesting point i never thought of it that way um [Music] we already have existing zoning ordinances in there i i don't know if this is a guide plan to prevent the wild west um from happening but uh i guess i just inherently took a look at it and assumed that there was some good reason and and and i i just think that the government should stay out of people's business okay all right so noted all right do i have a motion to approve these two ordinances i will make that motion is there a second i will second all right all those in favor say aye aye opposed opposed okay all right um i feel betrayed my neighbors all left me out here hanging by myself all right um let's um let's move on to our next item of business um 6b public hearing rezoning preliminary plat and planned unit development application for walcott glenn and we'll have the staff report thank you mr chair uh tonight we have the public hearing uh for the rezoning preliminary platinum preliminary pud for walcott glenn it is located on the northwest corner of county road 101 and hackamore road just some background from the exist or the concept plan that city council reviewed on november of 2021 is on the left-hand side of the screen the current plan is on the right-hand side some of the highlights of it the there's a shift from 45 to 47 single-family homes and 82 town homes to 44 single family and 85 townhomes with the current plan you'll notice that the town homes are more centrally located on the lot with the current plan and that some of the single families shifted around some of the single family adjacent to the west property line has larger lots to mix in with the existing residential on that hotline and then some of the storm water and the tree preservation shifted a little bit on the site so the concept plan was reviewed november 2021 and the plan was revised to try and address council feedback from that november 2021 meeting uh this is guided low density residential zoned pe uh pud and rsf2 has four parcels that are planted as part of the ravinia pud would be incorporated in this walcott glenn pud overall it is 129 unit development with 85 town homes and 44 single-family units so the request tonight is for the rezoning to pud from rsf2 and the revenue of pud loss would be incorporated in the walcott glenn pud and then the preliminary platinum pud for the units as mentioned um so the applicant is requesting pd flexibility for the garage with requirements for townhomes the garage size requirements for town homes and the lot size and with standards for single-family homes in exchange the applicant did state that the uh benefits would be to preserve wetlands preserve existing trees along county road 101 and hackamore to buffer create a landscape buffer between the development and the existing homes in revenue to the west add trees to the buffer from hackmore road provide a small private park financial contribution to hackamore and accommodations of hackamore trail within the project staff would note that the hackamore road improvement project any project that or any development that would occur on this property would be subject to the financial contribution for that hackamore road improvement project so that's not specific to this project it just would happen alongside the project just an image of the site plan so this is showing all the wetland buffers the storm water ponding the units and the lots and the road layout the town homes are on private drive so it is public right-of-way for the single-family homes and the street that connects from ravinia down to hackamore and is a private drive for the remainder of the townhome units aside from the ones that connect up into ravini 11th edition on the north south connection so with that the the rezoning uh this is from rsf2 is the existing zoning to pud um and as i said their existing ravinia pud zoning will be changed the walcott glenn pd that's for just a couple parcels that were part of the ravinia pd the proposed development is within the three to five units per acre of density for the low density residential it falls at 3.97 and the pd zoning does allow for the mix of land uses that couldn't otherwise be accomplished through the standard zoning so to note townhomes are not allowed in the rsf2 but as part of a pud zoning you are allowed to mix of land uses that couldn't be accomplished under the strict standard of the zoning regulations so that's where the townhomes come in here and the rezoning would be contingent about the predominant preliminary pud plant approval so the single family units excuse me they're concentrated on the perimeter of the site to buffer the town homes from the surrounding roads and neighborhoods so they are centrally located in the project site the rivinia homes to the west are 75 foot wide lots and the applicant has placed their largest single family lots adjacent to that in the in an attempt to buffer from those lots to the town homes um plans do show compliance with the single family architectural design standards and they aren't requesting any flexibility from those design standards as part of that uh and they would be required or they are required to have equal architectural treatment on all lots that face public right-of-ways so that would be any lots you know front-facing and then any lots that back up or have a side of the building to another public right-of-way would have the same architectural treatment on those sides of the buildings as the front facing a front street so as an example of the single family elevation here you can see some of the percentages for the materials including the stone siding shake siding and horizontal lap sightings the townhome units were reviewed against the rmf one standards because there are no town homes in the rsf2 district staff did review the town homes with the standards we have in the rmf one which is the district that would townhomes would be placed under if they were allowed under strict zoning standards uh the town home units do comply with lot area with and setback standards and they are requesting flexibility from the garage with and size requirements uh similar to how what was requested in the tavera project um and the townhome units do comply with the architectural design standards with no flexibility requested from that and this would be the first project through the city that wouldn't be requesting flexibility from the design standards for the townhome units this is an example of the townhome elevations showing the same or similar materials with some of the stone horizontal siding and you can see that the the base has one single brick layer wrapping around it brick stone i should say for tree preservation so the applicant is providing 162 overstory trees for the 128 residential units so that's 34 over what is required and they're providing 33 conifer trees along the west property line to buffer development from ravinia no tree preservation is required however they are preserving 45 of the existing significant trees most of those are concentrated on the perimeter of the site on county road 101 and then on the west property line uh and then there's reduced setback flexibility for county road 101 for a lot for a single lot lot 38 to reduce from the 100 foot required to the 60 foot required which is as we were discussing earlier is the reduction the 40 reduction allowed by code to go down to 60 feet with additional landscaping uh that would be in place on lot 38 which is the lot on the cul-de-sac in the northeast corner of the site park dedication parks commission recommended accepting cash in lieu of land in the amount of 470 thousand dollars 617. um they have proposed a private park and it says amenity but that does not receive park dedication credit additionally they also have the hackamore road trail located within their property but no credit is given for that trail easement so tonight that would be to open the public hearing and take comments um public comments that were received prior to the pack going out uh were included in the packet and forwarded or included on your dais for those received after the packet went out and then the commission has two options tonight if you find that the pud standards have been met you can move to recommend approval of the following ordinance and resolutions if the planning commission finds that the pd standards have not been met then they should recommend denial and provide reasons to staff to prepare a resolution to bring forward to council with that if you have any questions for staff otherwise the applicant is present tonight and does have a presentation that they wish to share with you otherwise then you can move into the public hearing okay great thank you all right at this point we will open the meeting for the public hearing um is there anybody in the crowd tonight that would like to speak on this yes if i may sure i'll start this off um dean varenkamp 9310 back told road i'm on the western side of the city um and i'm also one of your council members um all your input tonight has been very well received less than the frustrations and everything this development in is a culmination of a significant number of neighbors from rivenia and input to the results here have been from those rivenia residents along with one of our current council members and our current mayor on this this whole development the thing that i appreciate and like about the most if if i may say the the the borders the screening and those kind of things of existing trees a developer can come in here clear-cut everything and do an awful lot of stuff i i feel this is the best of both worlds a lot of the trees are left a lot of the natural ponding and those kind of things are done with that result i think it fits am i a favor of all of the town homes and those kind of things probably not but it does kind of make this happen in this neighborhood you guys all remember the eaglebrook incident down there and such a lot of the neighbors we don't want that i didn't want it i didn't think it was the right fit for the neighborhood um they wanted residential they wanted to keep the screening so 101 would be blocked those kind of things i think a lot of what's here is addressing all of those [Music] neighbors that have participated so far you know i want to give kudos to the developer on what they brought to you guys initially and i can't wait to hear what you all have to say so thank you very much thank you sir is there anybody else mr chair money commission i'm paul boyer with pulpit group would you mind if you give a short presentation no please do how do you spell your last name sir yes i'm sorry i should have finished h-e-u-e-r five zero zero flying glove drive suite six seven zero eaton prairie minnesota five five three four four it's good to be here this evening we also have some of the land owners uh road for the land and also virtually we have our civil engineering case uh without any questions on some contests thank you i've got a short presentation tonight um which one do you guys remember paul just tell me when to switch slides for you paul i apologize someone i'm assuming the microphone isn't on i just tried to turn it on can you check that for me please [Music] i'm sorry no i'm sorry you want mine [Music] should i sit over here yeah maybe speak over here you guys okay thank you dressed up for the occasion yeah yeah well it's not going to be on tv i guess i apologize all right go ahead uh i really wanted to show some things graphically tonight that weren't included in either the staff report or our narrative submitted sometimes i can show things graphically and it helps you understand at least what we're thinking it doesn't mean we're always right but at least it gives you an idea of our perspective next go ahead a little bit about our firm we're highly reputable builder uh it's our floor plans that are really what we're known for we've consistently made changes over the decades we actually go out and ask our homeowners and the public what they like and what they don't like about floor plans and we're always building these rooms and homes in warehouses and having people walk through it and actually give us good feedback so through that process we've come up with a lot of very innovative ideas for our floor plans in the twin cities we're selling homes under two brands right now pulte homes and dell webb this would be a pulte homes branded neighborhood and you know us in corcoran from our bellwether and amberley neighborhoods up in the northeast part of uh corcoran you can see i kind of cobbed together those different neighborhoods in the graphic to the right uh all around stig road and 101 and mama g's in that area next a density issue so this is declared in your comprehensive plan as a low density residential area which makes sense and it's very fitting townhomes are not listed in this area as allowed however the density applied to it is three to five units per acre next and when we look at different site plans for this fairly unique property we can't get over 1.9 units per acre density for this land if we use just single families so what we've determined is the only way to meet the density requirement is to have town homes and as it happens we believe this is a fairly suitable area for a little higher density because when you look at the future traffic projections for 101 and hackamore in the future it's a busy couple roads in a very busy intersection next and a little bit about how we look at a project you know we always come in and it's really like threading a needle we have a lot of different cons constituencies to try to satisfy in this case it's the comp plan density and the land use we talked earlier about some feedback that we got from the city council back in november and efforts we've made to try to satisfy those comments always the wetlands the quality the size of the wetlands the location there's always providing i guess it provides limitations in what you can do with the property traffic as i referenced both on 101 and hackmore pretty heavy neighbors trying to be sensitive to the neighbors to the degree possible is always something we look for existing trees and that is really where the focus of our work has been you know every property has its own unique characteristics this one had really solid tree buffers around the east and west especially but also somewhat along the south boundaries and that really is what led us to seek the pud effort because back when peod's begun in the 1980s this was really one of the standard definitions of why you'd use a pued it's to try to save trees in some space and have a little bit higher density where you don't have as many trees and finally the access and by that i mean uh it was kind of preset this is the last puzzle piece in the area so um we we really knew what streets we had to connect to based on what the city plans had shown in the past so we worked really hard to try to again thread the needle one thing i didn't write on here which is really critical to us and that is the market too we have to find homes that people are willing to buy and right now is a pretty volatile time in our industry as you've probably learned with supply chain issues and our material costs going up so much also mortgage rates going up so this is a really volatile time in our industry um and there are certain types of housing that are becoming in more demand right now than than what you've seen even a year ago so we worked real hard to kind of thread the needle in trying to manage and balance all of these different factors trying to make everybody not happy we realize that we can't make everybody happy but trying to trying to make it something that works for for all these different categories next so just taking through a handful of these things you know preservation of wetlands was really important to us and this plan reflects that priority so we worked real hard to preserve all the wetlands here um you know if it went straight zoning there's still complications in filling wetlands but generally you can get away with filling some wetlands depending on the quality location and if a street's necessary to to run through it those sorts of things so we worked real hard to preserve the wetlands next placement of ponds on the perimeter to some degree ponds have to just be in the low areas you don't have a choice but when you're grading a site you have some flexibility in pushing the ponds where you want them in this case we wanted the ponds kind of on the perimeter because on the perimeter it leaves a more open space to the surrounding area one of the themes we heard in listening to the city council last november was we liked the idea of hiding this neighborhood keeping the trees on the outside hiding the townhomes on the inside working really hard to kind of hide the neighborhood it would give a more rural feel which is similar to what we heard earlier on another topic next open space um we've got almost 30 percent open space here and that doesn't even count the uh the big setback and open space buffer we're leaving along the west property line um this is where if you went to straight zoning you'd see something different you'd have larger lots yes but you wouldn't have open space either next tree preservation i probably should have put this first this has really been the most important issue that we've dealt with because this unique site has a lot of trees on it so we put a pretty extraordinary amount of thought and energy and money into evaluating with our engineer what we could do to preserve trees particularly along the perimeter which is where you see the neighborhood and i think where what i heard the council especially say was most important to them um i i would think some of our competitors would call us crazy for what the effort we went through on this but we knew it would be important on this very unique property we had a lot to work with with these trees and put a lot of work into it and we were able to save 433 significant trees significant is a definition in the city code it's eight inches in diameter or greater there are a lot of trees smaller than eight inches of diameter that we're preserving as well there's a lot of brush there's probably some buckthorn um all of that is good good uh buffer as well but the point is 433 significant trees probably well over a thousand trees that we preserved on this site next so let's just go through a couple of these buffers in a little bit more detail because i think this is this is really important this is the heart of this pud along 101 all of the green trees you're showing we're showing on the plan here are significant trees eight inches or greater that we're preserving a parallel to all the trees that we're preserving is that we're setting the homes back further than required earlier there was discussion about along a 101 for instance there's a 100 foot setback requirement we've got our townhome set back 220 feet and the homes on the south are set back 170 feet we didn't have that flexibility on the northern portion but we still have a really solid buffer there so um i question uh how well that that home that's closer to 101 in the north part is going to be seen from 101 next and this just illustrates some photos upper left starting at hackamore in 101 and walking north and continuously taken photos and this was really showing the combination of deciduous and conifer trees that are all along 101. it's a really hefty buffer it was it was valuable enough to make an effort to save it sometimes that's not the case and we go other directions with our designs in this case knowing this was really important to the the neighbors but also the city council we wanted to save it next and this is the hackamore buffer um same kind of situation not quite as many trees but especially where the townhomes are shown there on the left side there's a lot of trees there and once again we put a lot of effort into locating the pond in a location where it would be kind of out of the way from the trees and protecting all the trees that are shown in green here so that again we've got a really solid buffer going along hacklemore so that you'll have a hard time seeing those those townhomes next and these are photos from west to east along hackamore again not as thick of a buffer but maybe a wider buffer because there are trees both close to the road and also further away so again a good combination of coniferous deciduous trees pretty solid buffer and we're retaining that next and along the west property line that that maybe took the most effort just because it was a little complicated um forget the left stuff let's let's talk about the arrows on the right from top to bottom the the green circles there dark green are representing off-site trees that of course we're not we're not going to remove because they're not on on the property we have under contract here but those are in the backyards of the folks that live in ravinia there those of course will stay the next arrow down are the bright green trees on the property that we have under contract and all those trees will be preserved so what we did is we pushed the lots and the homes further to the east to create this this buffer there to retain those trees an example uh look at the third arrow down so for the rear lots you can see a red dashed line there going all the way up and down that red dashed line is 30 feet from the property line that is how close we can build homes to the property line and you can see where the homes actually will be they are three to five times the distance of the allowed building set back there so we knew this would be a very sensitive issue and we worked really hard to push those homes far to the right and the last arrow down at the bottom of the page is a side of a home so on a side setback we could be as close as 10 feet from the property line so again you see the red dash line that's really close to the property line instead we're showing their homes four five six times the distance that is allowed there so the whole effort here was really to preserve as many trees as possible next mr howard uh how long is your presentation um i've got about five minutes okay 13 more slides uh no most of those i won't go there in case you have questions yeah we really do have a busy schedule and and i appreciate that you're making a presentation to the public but this is a this is a all right i like hearing from the commission and well we've had the luxury of looking at a lot of this but um yeah so please continue i'll accelerate it next this show is in the dark circles the additional trees along that west property line that we we plan to plant it's around 30 trees so there's some areas that we recognize the existing trees are mature they cover really well above up above but we recognize that down below you might be able to see through so we plan to plant some conifer trees to block the views on the lower levels next and really to conclude the pew benefit pod benefits which is what you really need to look at here and weigh in this application the key thing is trees trees trees trees we we worked really hard to preserve a lot of trees in really critical locations visual locations um next setbacks are the other really critical thing trying to move these homes as far from the major roads and as far from the existing homes as possible i should point out in the northeast corner we did have things to work with there we didn't have existing trees we have to connect to the street so there's much less we could work with on the northeast corner and that's my apologies it's just the way the layouts had been before us and the fact that there's no trees to preserve there next um first corcoran townhome that meets architectural requirements we're actually exceeding your requirements for stone instead of 25 we're going to be between 30 and 35 percent next and this is the rebating pb pod benefits there are others we are um providing for free an easement for the trail along hackamore on the property of course we'd contribute money for hackamore and we're providing a private park too so that takes a little bit of demand off the parks in romania and a number of other things but i think we've we've hit the primary points here next that is it um thank you appreciate it okay thank you and and you'll be here and um we get to the point of deliberations um i know that there might be good opportunities for you to help bring clarity uh to this commission so thank you very much is there anybody else [Music] yes sir thank you um my name is greg hogan i live at 19220 hackamore road my wife and i jackie back there are 22-year residents of corcoran which might i don't know if i'm one of the older ones but uh when we moved out to corcoran county road 101 was a winding two-lane road the wild meadows development was a turkey farm and um my neighbor to the side was an old ratty house and they had a mountain lion as a pet okay and i kid you not okay so uh things have changed around uh greg and jackie's house okay and as we've seen the path of progress come the path of progress has come 100 percent because of the wayzata school district corcoran has five school districts it doesn't take much to realize that the path of progress in plymouth maple grove and the oyster school district that school's going to 5 000 kids okay and my kids graduated there it's a it's a great school along the way as you had mentioned earlier we've been the beneficiaries of of sitting in the middle in the middle of unbelievable unbelievable construction and at the time we withstood 50 feet from our home 7 a.m to 10 p.m major major heavy equipment rattling my house um all unbelievable you guys would not believe it throughout there i've dealt with the developer that flooded our yard at least two times with 10 acres of manure and soil erosion and many minnesota pollution control violations it's a joy to live next to them and probably even worse which i i found is the developer put for some fraudulent purchase agreements depicting that my wife and i were in agreement with lennar and presented them in the public record um to the mayor and the council so we've been through a lot and one last thing mr lanternman 12 30 meetings is not the latest because we we got to sit here in these chambers at one time and i left at 3 30 in the morning on december 29th of a rush council meeting on this land and it ended at 4 30 in the morning so you should find yourself lucky okay um a couple things here on the traffic obviously the traffic has come because of location there's a hyvee you guys all know if you've been there i'm not sure if anyone realizes that the city of plymouth took over county road 47 so it is aimed directly at this corner it's underway it's closed right now it's a four-phase construction they're investing 32 million dollars aiming to this corner from vicksburg to 101 to withstand the traffic and then subsequently the city of corcoran and medina in the early conversations with an 8 million dollar hackamore road improvement and my math that's 840 million dollars of road construction so we might have some of the finest roads and corcoran um right there for us that easily could withstand this traffic i don't think the major traffic is going to be coming because of this violation it has come because we've approved a thousand homes to the west of my property secondly on that if there are any traffic discussions or anything like that i have sat through at least 15 phases of meetings with lennar and i've never heard one person really come to a council meeting and express any issues i've never heard anyone come to a council meeting with a lennar meeting and express an issue over traffic okay and i've been here and that includes both ravinia and tavara now on the issue of town homes two things for those of you that are up to date on council proceedings just several months ago the city has approved town homes on hackamore and 116. i'm not sure everyone knows that so there is a little precedent it's not the first time townhomes are being approved in the wayzata school district secondly on that topic i saw an article two weeks ago going back to the housing dilemma that we're all in in the city of plymouth at that time the city of plymouth there was nine homes listed for less than five hundred thousand dollars okay so there is a crunch if you are uh a divorced parent or somebody that needs to stay into the waisetta school district you all know that they cannot afford eight hundred thousand dollar lennar homes or two million dollar wild meadows homes there is a need for some affordable uh living in the wyzetta school district and um townhomes these these townhomes will fill a niche for people that need and want to be in the hoisetta school district i'm almost done um lastly my point is there's a lot of precedent here that i've watched puds get proposed for many years up here i've watched town homes be approved on 116 and hackamore and we've went through a lot in the last couple of years especially with the eaglebrook church incident so there is precedent this this stuff has all come there and um while we've been waiting and lastly you've got a developer here with some history within corcoran they do a very fine work at del webb you know what you're getting they they have listened to the council made adjustments based on there and i think you're going to get your trail down hackamore road which is which will be wonderful and i think you're going to get your trail down 101 as an entry point to corcoran so i i hope you will consider some of the points that i've made and thank you for allowing me to speak thank you greg okay is there anybody else can you hear me speakers online when we are ready okay why don't we go ahead and give them instructions to uh to come online members of the public if you that are joining us via zoom if you have feedback that you would like to be a part of the official public record please raise your hand if you're on a phone that would be by pressing star 9 and if you are on a tablet or computer then that is by pressing the raise your hand function via the reactions tab or menu so at this time i know the participant labeled iphone has had their hand raised for a while so you feel free to go ahead and state your name and address for the record and we will start with you hi i appreciate you all being here uh can you hear me okay we have a one second i apologize there seems to be an issue can you try again iphone can you hear me okay hello [Music] hello can you hear me okay one second iphone we are having some troubles hearing you natalie can you hear me can you speak iphone i'm trying to try to test a few things here hi nope it's not working for us sounds like other people can hear me natalie not sure if you're able to hear me because of settings um my name is tiffany checketts i live at six three one zero at this point um why don't we all take five minutes stretch your legs use the restroom if you'd like and uh we'll reconvene at nine o'clock public hearing is still open um i'm just going to figure out what's going on with our computer i apologize are you keeping the mic down huh oh the mic so yes the whole community