[00:00:00] **Nate Stanley (City Engineer):** Um the Inwood 8 edition towns of Inwood preliminary plat planned unit development and comprehensive plan amendments. All right. Good evening chair and members of the commission. Uh I am going to share with you staff's review of this application. I've got about 44 slides for you. So I'll try and keep it brief but uh we've got a lot going on here. So I'll jump right in. All right. All right. So, in front of the city, we've got three different requests uh with this application. The first one is a preliminary plat. The second one is a planned unit development. Uh there's a number of different flexibilities we'll talk about that are uh requested. Um but uh one of the important ones to mention is that this development is proposed with private roads. Uh and then another is that we have uh standard flexibility requested from some of those bulk standards and we'll talk about all those things. Uh the third application is a comprehensive plan amendment. Um that is an amendment to the city's 2040 plan. And I just want to make sure everyone knows if you're looking at this image, obviously those red those parcels circled in red or surrounded in red. Those are the subject uh parcels. There are four different parcels. One of them has an address. Three of them are currently unadressed. The total acreage for this property that is in the Inwood area south of Fifth Street North is uh just under 19 and a half acres. All of that land is considered buildable. It's not encumbered by wetlands or other unbuildable areas. Uh this property already has, I believe, some mass grading that's been done to it and as part of uh previous development in this area and it currently is uh sitting vacant. Uh there are no existing land uses on this property. So I'll talk a little bit about some of the land use um analysis here and then we're going to talk about the background of this area because uh there has been obviously as you as you can see some uh some background in terms of development. So uh from a zoning standpoint, this property is zoned as high density residential. The city's zoning map does show a PUD overlay. This is common in areas that have already had an approved plan unit development. Um, Inwood, the single family portions that are already built out uh do have a PUD overlay that provides them some flexibilities to the city's ordinance. So, you see that PUD overlay over this highdensity residential and the developer is not proposing to change uh the highdensity residential zoning that it this property currently has uh to anything else. I do want to note that uh we have reviewed the PUD ordinance that granted the flexibility to the inwood development, the single family part of that area and uh those development flexibilities did not extend to this part of the development. Uh a very small part of this overall area is within the city shoreland overlay district. Um so there are some things to mention there. uh we've looked at it and there are really not no material impacts to this review, but the city does have a 25% imperous surface limit in that area and the DNR has the ability to review and comment on applications. So, uh we also, as you know, you'll remember from our training, we look at the comprehensive plan, the future land use map to understand what's the long-term guidance for this land that's being developed. And we note that the city's current comprehensive plan, the 2040 comprehensive plan, has the land guided with a mix of different categories. The first one is highdensity residential. That's the property uh the northern we call the northeastern parcel. It's the one south of Fifth Street North and east of Island Trail. Mixed commercial is a feature land use for that parcel on the northwest side. that's west of Island Trail and south of Fifth Street North. And those southern two tiny little parcels on the very southern part of this development, those are actually guided business park. So what the developer is proposing to do is just have one consistent future land use category that covers all of these properties and that would be highdensity residential. Highdensity residential allows 8 to 15 units per acre and um that's so the resulting future land use would have a consistent um density allowance of between 8 and 15 units per acre. It would also let the developer blend the density across the development. All right. So I did want to just talk a little bit about how we got to where we are now. So as background as mentioned the Inwood Preliminary Plat and PUD is what was initially approved for this was a master planned development. Um and one of the largest at the time in Lake Elmo's history. This was approved by the city council in December of 2014. U so that that's over 10 years ago now. Uh at that time the city also did an environmental assessment worksheet that's a formal environmental review which anticipated uh the following in this general part of the development 176 rental town homes 150 multif family units 120 senior housing units and 12 town homes. Um later on after this preliminary plat was approved, Inwood first through fifth editions were platted. These were the single family home parts of the Inwood development. Um so that was those were approved generally speaking between 2015 and 2017 is when they were built out and later on Quick Trip did come in in 2020 as the sixth edition. So, um, since that time, no other parts of the Inwood development have been developed, although we are now looking at what we're calling the eighth edition. Uh, there was a seventh edition that didn't ever materialize, as you may know. So, uh, we've skipped now to eight. So, that's a little bit of the background. And here is that image of the this was um the PUD concept or PUD plan as it as it were that was proposed at the time in 2014 that this project was initially approved. Uh at that time the developer was Hans Hagen Homes which I believe has turned into M&I Homes. So you can see a couple things I want to point out. You can see the existing single family development that has already been built, but it was accompanied to the west by strictly commercial development due west of the single family part. And then in the southern part of this development that's south of Fifth Street North, that is where uh this proposed project is located. It had at that time uh town homes and apartments. So, this has been something that has been anticipated by uh the city in in its previous reviews. Here is another image from that 2014 um development project where we again saw the town homes and apartment buildings. In this particular one, they this was an open space diagram showing some of the areas that were going to be open space at that time. as well. The city also reviewed a phasing plan and this kind of backs up the what what we just talked about in terms of the the history of the development here. So on the screen now, this is the application that is currently in front of the city. This is the preliminary plat that's been proposed by M&I Homes in partnership with Rachel Development who is the apartment builder. So on this pre preliminary plat you'll see um town homes and an apartment building is on the next slide here. This is the proposed phasing plan. So the town home portion would be built in three separate phases. I want to note that we're looking at a proposed 123 unit apartment building with 149 attached town homes that are proposed here. So, I'm just going to go through a couple different uh plan pages that we can always come back to reference. So, this is the landscaping plan that's been proposed, and we'll talk about all the different elements that staff have reviewed. Here is the a colored rendering that's very similar to the landscaping plan. It kind of shows how the development would be would would appear. Here's that a little closer up. And now I'm going to jump into staff's review against the city's code. So, uh, when we're looking at, um, planned unit developments, we do first start with those minimum criteria. The city has three minimum criteria to approve a plan unit development. The first one is that the property is over 5 acres, which this project meets. The second one is that the project provides open space equal to or greater than 20% of the total land area. In this case, staff have um reviewed the project and determined that there is 20 a minimum of 20% open space, but we'll talk about um staff's comments on the open space later. And then lastly, the project has to meet existing grid or lay street layout pattern in the city. And in this case, they're using existing access points that have been planned. And we'll come back and talk about these objectives as well, but the city also has objectives that are identified. If uh a PUD is ever to be approved, it should be meeting these objectives. And so there are a number of them. Um I've put a couple in bold. You can kind of see them here. Um we can come back to this again. Um but this the development or the city should find the development meets these objectives or at least one or two of them. Um to approve a PUD. These are things like innovation and land development, promotion of integrated land uses, establishment of appropriate transitions. You get the idea. These are kind of ideals of good development. I'm going to keep moving and if you do have questions, you are welcome to just jump in and let me know. Um I want to talk about the preliminary plat review and all those different elements of the code we've reviewed against. Uh just uh on the slide here you can see what they are. We're looking at things like land use which we've talked about. Bulk standards. These are things like setbacks, tree preservation, grading, public infrastructure, and park dedication. So these are the bulk standards. I don't expect everyone to be able to read everything on this table, but um this is provided in the staff report and it summarizes generally how the development would meet the city's performance standards. These are things like lot area setbacks and building height as an example. So um and I've also colored in and shaded those cells where a deviation from the city code is being requested. So the planning and development flexibility would be requested for these uh parts on the proposed single family attached town homes. Uh the units meet the city's minimum for lot area for the town homes and in particular it's because the overall part of the attached town home portion of the development is is a large enough size to meet a minimum standard per unit. Uh where we see the need for flexibility from the city's code is the uh impervious surface standards. And when you look at the lots, you'll understand why uh the city's front yard setback. Again, when you look at those lots, you'll see why. Um, typically we see these needs for flexibility with town homes because often they're platted on small lots that would be owned by individual owner occupants of the town homes and they're not all like a full standard um single family lot. Uh there is also a request for a rear yard setback deviation and a setback from Fifth Street North in a couple of different areas on the apartment building. Uh we're only seeing one need for flexibility and that is to the lot area. The simple thing here is that the apartment lot is basically not large enough to meet the city's uh requirements per unit. Okay. So I've advanced the slide and you can see here these are the two different types of single family attached town homes that are being proposed. We have one called the carriage multif family town home lot. That's town homes that are we'll call it front loaded. They're facing the street with both the the front door and the garage facing the street. On the uh on the right side of the slide, you'll see the city collection lot. Uh this is a town home that is intended to be loaded both uh to the front and to the rear. The front being that you have that front entrance to a sidewalk or a street and the rear being that you have your garage facing an alley. Basically, that's the idea. So, before I get into the design standards for the units, I want to talk about the city code does have some specific performance standards for each of these these two different uses. So, the first one is those attached town homes. The city code requires that buildings are smaller than having 10 units attached together which that is the case here that the project meets that. Uh the city code restricts all basically all building types in the highdensity residential district from having parking in front of the building. So the idea is that you have parking rear loaded. Um, no parking again allowed in front yards. And then having a public street frontage or if you don't have that, having a conditional use permit granted for that. And lastly, that the open spaces have to be at least 300 square feet per unit, which is the case in the attached town home. On the multif family dwelling side, uh, that that part of the development actually does meet both specific performance standards. one to not have parking in the front yard area and two to have common open spaces of at least 200 square feet. All right, so I'm going to move into a review of the city's design standards manual. This is a separate manual from the city code, but is adopted by reference. So, uh the development does have to meet these standards for design. They're broken down into site and building design. So in the site design, we look at things like building placement, streetscape, and landscaping and parking. On the building design, we're looking at really the the facads of the building, the materials, etc. So, and I'll reference a couple different um parts of the site plan so that we can talk about them. And the first area that I'm going to look at is the attached town homes. So, you can see on the site plan here, it's the area in red. Those are the attached town homes. When we look at design standards for the town home site, uh the first note on building placement in the staff report, uh buildings and entrances do are oriented towards the street where possible. So they're perpendicular to the street. That's what the design manual wants to see. Uh interior to the development, building entrances are not always provided directly onto a public street. So some are provided onto a sidewalk, for example. On the streetscape side of things, uh concrete sidewalks do uh run with throughout the development and are available to each unit. However, they aren't necessarily along a public street because we have private streets proposed. Uh buildings along street C, which I'll go back. It's the east to west east to west street that's on the south part of this attached town home area. So, units along uh there are primarily loaded with their driveways facing the street. Uh, and those units on the south side of the development are all the way front-loaded and have both the front door and the garage facing the street. All right. And moving on to landscaping. The design standards manual wants to see preservation of existing trees, which this site plan does. Um, overstory trees, I will note, don't meet the city's boulevard tree spacing standard of 50 feet along streets. And I'm talking about those internal streets to the development. Lastly, the landscaping areas between the units and the driveways. Um there's there's really not any landscaping in those areas. So, I think there's an opportunity perhaps to add some parking. Um this part of the project does meet the city's parking standards with enclosed stalls um to serve the units, but the visitor parking would be on driveways. Here's the renderings of the attached town homes. And so I'll talk a little bit about those design standards for town home buildings. Um first of first the form of the building and the facade. The the buildings are proposed to have consistent architecture uh with facades that don't have a lot of blank spaces which is good. Uh again parking is not recessed or rear loaded. So that is a concern. Building materials. The colors are generally consistent with the city's standards. Although I will note that vinyl siding was a um propo was noted as proposed and that is not allowed by the city's manual. In terms of mass and scale of the buildings, they're articulated similar to those single family homes that are in the area uh in in that they're broken up a little bit. U they're not continuous, you know, eight unit buildings. Um and then Fifth Street North, I would note, also does create a nice buffer uh with a minimum of 180 ft between structures. So, there's a couple of other comments that I don't think I'll go into, but we can if you would if you have any questions. So, I'll talk about the apartment building now. On the apartment site, the building placement is what the city's manual will want to see. Uh the building is oriented towards the street where possible without having drives or parking in between the street and the building. Um, we there was a note in the staff report that that suggested better connectivity is needed to Fifth Street North in particular because we want pedestrians to be able to move from the building into those future areas that are for commercial development, be able to walk or bike there if they choose. Um, at first the site plan did not have that, but a site plan has been resubmitted that did show a sidewalk connection between the building on the north side and Fifth Street North. Um, there There is an a comment also on just landscaping of that area. There are a lot of trees there and I think landscaping will with paired with that sidewalk be able to provide a good amenity space. Um otherwise the develop the site design does appear to meet the manual. Here's the rendering of that apartment building. So you can see generally it looks like a modern apartment building. The form and facade of the building are generally meeting the manual. They're articulated with not a ton of blank space. Parking is fully screened internal to the site. The building materials are generally consistent with the city's uh those allowed in the manual. The mass of this building, it is broken up by the way that it's kind of U-shaped and not one really long linear building. Uh Fifth Street North again here does create a buffer between existing structures. The closest structure to this building is 235 ft away. And lastly, we have reviewed for other things like roofs, entries, and and lighting. And all all of those elements will have to be consistent with the city's standards if it is approved. So th that's the um design review on both of those parts of the development. If you have questions, I'd be happy to get more into the weeds there. I want to briefly talk about Parkland dedication. Um in in this area of the city uh there are two nearby public parks Ivywood and Stonegate. So um understanding that the city's park commission in March recommended that the city move forward with cash in lil of land dedication um if this project is to move forward. I would note to you that there are no um trail connections in this area that are really um critical. There are there is a trail that runs along Fifth Street north on the on the north side of that corridor. So, I think what we're looking at here is more of sidewalk connections and pedestrian connectivity. Tree preservation is a pretty straightforward review with this one. Uh there is a stand of pine trees on the east side of the property. There would be one red pine removed, otherwise the rest of them could be saved – with no mitigation required by code. Here's the landscaping plan again for reference. You can see that landscaping is provided throughout the development – but concentrated really on on kind of either end for the most part with a lot of the tree plantings that are required placed on the west side of the development. So, uh for landscaping and screening review, overall the number of the of the plantings that are required by the city's code are met by the plan. Um, that being said, some of those are in areas that could have spatial constraints, like if the tree isn't planted exactly where it's proposed. It could be, you know, in a utility corridor or something of that nature. So, um location would be very critical with the way the planting plan is, um proposed. And I would mention again that the city does have a standard of 50 feet spacing for trees along uh streets whether they're public or private. So I did do want to mention that again in terms of buffering – I was anticipating a question why you know why isn't this development providing buffering from the Bremer financial um use in in particular and the way that the city's screening buffering requirements work is that the more intensive land use would have had to supply the buffer which actually in this case would have been the Bremer but that came first and they didn't provide any because it was built before this standard was created. Um, and as I mentioned, there could be an opportunity to incorporate maybe some more foundation plantings throughout the development to really help break up a little bit of the – areas where the town homes are all loaded towards the street. One of the last design elements that we look at is parking and circulation. So, overall, this development does meet the city's parking requirements for town homes. We have – two stalls within each garage, plus those that are in the driveways and visitor parking throughout that part of the development. On the apartment side, there is a combination of underground and surface parking that would meet the city's standards. And then in terms of access and circulation, – there are existing access points along Fifth Street North. Those are fixed. There are no new access points being proposed, so that's good. – In terms of – turn lanes though, there could be some that are required along Island Trail to anticipate some of the traffic in this area. Pedestrian connections as I mentioned around and through the site will be required. Currently, the attached town homes are – are seen with some sidewalks throughout that part of the development. – And then lastly, there is an east east to west sidewalk connection that is presently proposed along the south side of the development. I'll bring up that planting plan. It's actually south of the southernmost attached town homes. Can't really see it very well here, but some maybe a break in that – that long connection would be good in – in terms of letting people pass through the site. So, – the planning department wasn't the only department that reviewed the project. We have sent out this application to internal and external reviewers. Internal to the city, the fire department provided a memo that's provided in the staff report. More or less general comments about making sure that the buildings are sprinkled, etc. – City engineer memo again similar to that was provided in the packet and the landscape architect provided a memo as well. In terms of external agencies, we did this send this project to South Washington Watershed District – who their staff indicated there were no comments on the project either the proposed plans or the comprehensive plan amendment. The DNR did not respond with any comments. Washington County, City of Oakdale, and Woodbury staff all – also provided no comments. They – they noted that they had no comments. Okay. So getting towards the end of this presentation here, I want to talk to you about the PUD flexibilities again that are requested. This slide intends to summarize all of the different flexibilities that are requested. So we're looking at minimum lot size for the multif family apartment building, front and rear yard setbacks for the town home lots, impervious surface for the attached town home lots. Again, when you have a small lot that's just drawn around the – the unit, you end up with easily over 75% impervious. – Number four is the building setback from Fifth Street North. – And that – that setback is needed or that flexibility is needed where Fifth Street North becomes turn lanes. And so when you have those turn lanes bringing the curb further to the south, those proposed attached town homes along that corridor are now within that mandatory 40ft setback. – The attached town homes on the south side of this development are not fronting a public street. Boulevard tree spacing, again that's a minimum of every 50 ft. Parking between the facade of the town home and the street isn't permitted by the city's code. And lastly, the design standards manual. again, vinyl siding for those attached town homes and access – to the apartment building. That one has been addressed by the addition of that sidewalk. So, – some of those design concerns that you've heard from me, staff – find that the plans don't necessarily exceed the standards for landscaping. – they're planting the number of required trees. The sidewalks and trees that are located in this development, some of them are pretty close to buildings or easements. So again, when I noted that tree plantings could be – could need to be pretty precise, that – that would be that comment. – streetscape will not necessarily have the amount of trees that we need to see via code. One thing that staff note is the development is proposed with 90 degree angled parking in the attached town home part of the development. Staff would suggest switching that to parallel parking. Be a little bit more similar to what you'd find in a – in the rest of the city and it would maximize the green space in the areas that are – currently with that 90 degree bump out. The open space on the town home side doesn't necessarily exceed the minimum standards. Most of the open space is made up of those areas between buildings or perhaps between the buildings and the street. The proposed rear loaded design has created a combination of a street and – street and an alley. So the roads that you see, if I can go back to the map, are sort of acting as both a like a street and an alley. It's like a really – it's like a narrow street. – What the city – what the city design manual I think wants to see more of is combination perhaps of public streets with private alleys which are a little bit more like drives – driveways. – In terms of access to the apartment building did mention that – that it was lacking to the north. – strong pedestrian connectivity is definitely going to be something that staff look for in – in this project because you have development that's putting a fair amount of people right next to a possible commercial area that probably develops if there's more households. Lastly, I do want to mention the screening of the parking lot to the south could be considered – just because there could be conflicts with that parking area. We've got people pulling in and then headlights pointed at the buildings. Okay. Couple more slides and then I'm done. So, findings in terms of the – the city to make findings on the preliminary plat and PUD, I didn't propose any findings necessarily to you in the report. – they should be made based on a number of different considerations. So, in terms of preliminary plats, they can only be denied if they meet criteria for denial. Those criteria I do have available if you'd like to reference those. And then the PUDS should meet the identified objectives which we have talked about. Considerations are up on the screen and we can talk about these as you get into your discussion a little bit further. – is the project consistent with the city's comp plan? – the city's ordinances – you know does it meet the minimum standards effectively with the PUD? Does the flexibility – bene – benefit to the developer? Is that – is there a public benefit to discuss there? and how might the project impact surrounding areas. In terms of the comprehensive plan amendment, staff are supportive of that. It would help to kind of clear up what you saw on the earlier slide was three different classifications or categories for this development or future development which was anticipated through Inwood. It would be beneficial to have one uniform future land use in this area. And it's also worth noting that the city's – comprehensive plan creates a maximum of 15 units per acre already. It's just we just have different categories. – Let's see here. So the options for the city – the planning commission this evening will make a recommendation to the city council. You can recommend approval, approval with conditions, denial, or you could move to table the request – for more information. Statutory deadlines. I do want to let you know we tal – we've talked about those before. The city has 120 days to review a project from the date of a complete application, which was February 14th. So, in this case, our – the end of our runway is June 14th. So, the last possible planning commission meeting that this could come back to would be May 27th. Although, I do want to note to you, I think May 12th would be a far better date for – we – we are to bring something back. If the city does move to approve the development, staff do recommend a conditional approval. I've put forward 14 conditions that are recommended to you. – primarily these are satisfaction of the city's review staff's memos, – the city engineer, fire chief, and landscape architect, and then a number of other, I would say more or less standard conditions for this type of development that include agreements – fees – permits and additional reviews as needed. That brings me to my recommendation to you. – that was in the report for this evening. Staff do recommend a denial of the preliminary plat – and PUD plans as presented. I want to note that – one of the things that – um staff are looking for is potentially more information or maybe some – some more discussion on what the city's planning commission and council would like to see for from a design standpoint because it doesn't appear to squarely meet the design standards. – staff do support and recommend approval of the comprehensive plan amendment again as I mentioned because that kind of cleans things up a little bit. The planning commission should hold a public hearing tonight – discuss the proposal and determine findings they would like to recommend – to the city council and then make that recommendation or as I mentioned – we can always table the request for more information. If a planning commission does move to table something I always want to ask for, you know, what are you looking for when it comes back to you? Is it more information, different design? Like what would it be? So with that said, – I have a couple of motions up on the screen that we can come back to for your discussion later. The developer does have a presentation that we've queued up for them they'd like to provide to you. So my recommendation for you, chair and commission, is to hear from the developer a bit about their development and then hold that public hearing that's been posted for this item. And – after the public hearing, we can always come back and answer more questions. So I'm happy to take questions if you have any for me right now. [00:23:45] **Chair Ray Camp:** questions for staff. What's our history with with the public roads within this type of development within the city? [00:23:55] **Nate Stanley:** That's a good question. There are a couple of developments that do have private roads in Lake Elmo. – Typically staff push development towards public roads because we have clear standards – for public roads. And I think the most important thing is the city's team knows what fits in the public roads. – What you have here is pretty similar – in the – in the sense that you've got utilities, which would be public utilities, water and sewer running under the road. And so we know how much space we need when we build a public road to fit all of that in it. – and potentially include things like boulevard plantings or dry utility corridors. That's your fiber – stuff like that. So, the simple answer is we know really well what public roads do and – and private roads typically are requested to help tighten things up, but at the same time it makes it difficult to fit in all the public improvements. [00:24:55] **Chair Ray Camp:** Sure. So, but if it's a private road, the utility, the water, the sewer lines are underneath them are not – or it's a private road, then those underground utilities aren't private as well. [00:25:09] **Nate Stanley:** Correct. So, it's not like they're hooking up at Fifth Street and the rest is right on the development. It still belongs to the – it's still a city asset. Correct. There are public utilities that would run under the road. And so there's an easement over the road to ensure the city has the ability to get in there and fix the – fix the utilities if and when that's needed. [00:25:31] **Commissioner Dunn:** Okay. I've got a question and it's regarding the irrigation. I know the city's really worked hard to get the reuse of the surface water to be used for that type of thing, but yet it said that – um they weren't going to util – utilize a storm water reuse plan. Is there some reason for that? [00:25:52] **Nate Stanley:** Well, I think the – the simple answer in this case is the inwood development from a stormwater perspective was planned in 2014 when they initially built the site. The storm water ponding that will serve this part of the development. And the developer and their team can also speak to this, I'm sure, but – the storm water pond that will serve this part of the development is already constructed. It's south and west of – of this area. So, I can pull up an aerial here. If you can see on the scoops, – see on the screen, there's an existing pond – just south and west of the apartment building site. [00:26:40] **Commissioner Vice:** Question for you, Nathan, about the impervious cover. – Requirements are 75% and – um on the tables that were estimated at 80 to 83%. Was that estimate by the developer or was that by you or [00:26:55] **Nate Stanley:** I – I scaled the drawings and just looked at it and did my best to estimate what I thought the coverage was going to be anticipating that we – we needed an impervious surface and – um I was looking at the specific lots. So if I'll go back [00:27:14] **Commissioner Vice:** Yeah, I know that impervious surface is something that we don't often like to move on, you know, move away from. – Um, so I would assume that would be one of the things that the developer would have provided with this, but one of my questions. [00:27:30] **Nate Stanley:** One thing to consider is with this form of development, it might be something that could be seen as acceptable. – Um, if you have the open spaces around the town home lots. So if we're looking at the impervious surface limit on the individual lots, you know, we're looking at the individ. So that's acknowledged, but it's still a flexibility that's needed. I think in the developers packet that was part of the staff report, they're showing that it's at 65%. [00:27:59] **Nate Stanley:** Yeah, that's a – a good point. One of the things that I'm looking at is with these individual units on – on the individual lots. I think the developers packet's looking at the whole project area and – and that's fair, but we need to understand how much impervious is on each of these individual owner occupied lots. Let's say some of the owners come in in the future and request to build their – a big – an – a larger patio. Then we've got technically more impervious surface that we hadn't planned for and have no way to review. [00:28:31] **Commissioner Vice:** And then just another clarifying question for the setbacks. They're – they're pretty low. Is that the setbacks from Fifth Street or is that the setbacks to the private roads as well? [00:28:43] **Nate Stanley:** That's a good question. So the front and rear yard setbacks for the town home lots that we're referring to. Those are actually again based on these – these lot lines that are on these small lots that are drawn around each individual unit. So it's five and nine feet on the front yards. And you can see – um there's a lot more space than five or nine feet from the house or the structure to the road. And again, we're looking at the individual lots because that's how we always review for things like setbacks and impervious. [00:29:16] **Commissioner Vice:** Okay. So each cluster of town homes you're – you're viewing as an individual lot basically. [00:29:21] **Chair Ray Camp:** Okay. – Uh more broadly speaking, if you look at the things like the distance of the building between the building and the road or building to building, those are – those are more appropriate. On the surface, I should just clarify. I don't think staff necessarily have concerns with those. [00:29:38] **Commissioner Vice:** Staff does not have concerns with setbacks. [00:29:40] **Nate Stanley:** Not necessarily with the lot setbacks that you've just asked about. [00:29:44] **Chair Ray Camp:** Okay. Any other questions for Nathan? Guys, not yet. All right, let's hear from the developer. Thank you, Nathan. [00:29:55] **John Rask (M&I Homes):** Yes. Yeah. Nicely done. Thank you, Nathan. All right. Okay. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. My name is John Raskin. – uh with MI Homes. And just a quick background, MI Homes entered this market about 10 years ago by purchasing Hanshagen Homes and – um we've been in business about 60 years here in this market and I was the one that brought forward. Sure. Okay. – Uh I will try to speak up. – So again, John Rask with – Mi Homes and I just had mentioned just for the benefit of the audience that you was – formerly with Hansen Homes. I was president of Hans Hagen Homes when we sold to MI. I've been the person that's been involved, probably the only one in this room, frankly, who's been involved in every step of this project since it was – first came forward in 2013. And I – I do think it's important here – there. It's a little bit more than semantics, but – uh this project and the property that we're here to review tonight is part of the Inwood PUD and was reszoned PUD. Now, the only thing that we didn't do in 2015 or that the council at the time didn't approve was the specific site design, but the land uses and the PUD benefits were all established in 2015 with that original plan. And I'm going to go through some of that. I think it – it will make a little bit more sense. And again, I think it's a little bit more than semantics because I think what we've brought forward tonight – uh is consistent. I don't see this as a new PUD. This is certainly part of the Inwood PUD and there were a lot of decisions made by the city council and the planning commission, the park commission – uh in 2014 and 15 that applied to this specific site as part of the Inwood PUD. So – um I will go through those but when we just by way of history when we first looked at this site it's 168 – 160 acres roughly and we master planned it. was MI Homes and the Shrier family, Dick Shrier at the time, – uh that looked at this entire site and really came to the city and say, "you know, you've got commercial up at the corner of Inwood and Tenth, and you've got high density to the south, single family, like how do we better integrate all of these things to deal with transportation, storm water, streets, trails, parks," and so we really engaged in a – like I said, a two-year process to study this thing – uh in great detail. And it's a little – to be honest – disappointing to sit here tonight and hear like pretend like this stuff never happened in – in essence and that we're not recognizing the many PUD benefits that were provided as part of this 160 acre development. And I – again I'll – I'll go through those and I understand there's been a change in planning commission. There's been a change in staff. I think we've worked with numerous – um community development directors over the last 10 years to advance this project. And you know, I understand at times we have to take a step back and – and take a look at what was actually approved. But when you look at kind of two-dimensionally on this site plan, – you know there were a lot of considerations given to how do you arrange the land uses and part of the PUB benefit was this is a mixeduse project. You – the city had identified in its comp plan that you wanted multifamily, you wanted commercial, and you wanted single family. So how do we best do that on this site? And again, we spent time – uh running through that. And one of the major factors at the time, as you can imagine, is you had the Stonegate neighborhood to the east, and those are large lot – uh residential properties. And as you can imagine, they were not thrilled about, you know, a more urban development next to them, even though it was consistent with the city's comp plan. So, one of the considerations as part of the PUD is we dedicated a linear park. – there were a row of trees that Mr. Shrier had planted for – uh Christmas trees to be harvested. But – uh nonetheless, we left them there and – and built a trail through there and we actually supplemented that buffer by adding trees. We relocated trees within the buffer to pro – protect the folks in Stonegate so they wouldn't see it and could have their privacy still. And that was a – a consideration. And we put the multifamily south of Fifth Street again away from the existing residence. – Uh and it was recognized that youknow we'd have this progression of land use intensity where we went from commercial to the south to the multifamily to the single family and then consistent with the comp plan had some – uh commercial – uh to the – to the west side of the project. – Um the other portion like I said was – was Eagle Point and how we dealt with that and the road connection that we provided. – Uh a big consideration though when we came in on this was Fifth Street because Fifth Street didn't exist – uh through this portion of the city and we worked with the city engineer and the landscape architect to come up with a parkway design that would be implemented through this project and that section of road alone was nearly $3 million that both Hanshagen Homes and the Shriers had participated in. Well, we fully funded it. – We've – uh participated in funding the signal at Inwood and Fifth Street. We built turn lanes on Inwood. We built turn lanes on 10th Street. And all of these were recognizing that the land use intensity that was going to occur on this site. And when you look at the PUD, it anticipated 72,000 square feet of commercial that's yet to come. So all of the transportation improvements we built not only served the single family but the multifamily – uh and – and the commercial. – Um in terms of storm water – um at the time there was a lot of flooding taking place south of this site mainly kind of coming through Lake Elmo into Woodbury. – Uh Wilmis Wilmies Lake I think is how you pronounce that in Woodbury – uh had a was flooding. So, we worked with the South Washington – uh count – or South Washington – watershed district – uh along with the city of Lake Elmo was to come up with a comprehensive storm water plan for this site. And I think one of the truly unique aspects of this project as it was developed is that every one of those islands within the single family is an infiltration base. And if you've ever driven this neighborhood, and I'm biased, but I think it turned out very well. – Um it looks beautiful today. – Um but those are infiltration basins designed to slow the rate and volume of runoff coming off of this site. And then we built it and those feed into a pond. And maybe to answer this large pond – uh on the site there is actually – uh does have storm water reuse. – When we put it in initially the city was had objected to storm water reuse in 2014 and 15. I know the neighborhood ultimately got the city I believe – uh to allow the use of that. – So I think the evolution or the thinking by the city has changed on that. But there's the ability the ir – the – uh irrigation system and the pumps are there to – to reuse that. But all of that was done as well as the ponds in the southwest corner of the site that those ponds were developed to serve the multifamily site. The commercial – uh there's large infiltration basins there. So quite a bit of thought went into and even though we didn't have a specific layout for the multifamily at the time the city asked us to provide the concept which you see here today so that we could understand how all of these things function together and again – uh I think Nathan correctly points out that it wasn't specific criteria developed at that time but the general land use and the density and the units were all accounted for in the EAW in the traffic studies in the storm water plans – uh the impervious surface which I'll share in more detail here in a minute were all part of this master plan – uh as well as the – traffic and open space. So when – when you look at the open space plan and – and Nathan showed a portion of this but – uh again there was a fair amount – uh dedicated – uh not only in terms of some private open space but public the park – uh that I believe is now it was an extension of the Stonegate Park. I think it's Ivywood Park maybe – um is what it was ultimately named and then the trail corridor going north and south that was dedicated as – as public park. – We had offered up some additional parks south of Fifth Street that the city park commission did not want it at the time but the amount of credits given on the parkland of the north also apply to the multifamily. So, I know the city doesn't want additional land, but there are park credits – uh that are provided for in the developers agreement between the city and – and – uh MI Homes for that transfer to apply to this multifamily – um which is – uh clearly stated. – Um and really at the time it was a youknow there was more of a the city didn't want a large park so we gave a little pocket park that connected to the Stonegate Park. – Uh more of the focus was on the trail corridors through the city which I'll show you here in a minute or through the neighborhood. – Uh and then really how do you kind of incorporate some of the open space and the ponds and we really focused on taking getting rid of a lot of little ponds throughout the neighborhood as you often see and create a bigger – bigger pond that could be an amenity for the future commercial the neighborhood. It could be pond irrigation and the whole site was kind of created around that concept. – Um there's just I know comments and we'll talk about their site just on the amount of open space. This calculates the acreage within this portion of the site. Again when the city looked at this the storm water – uh plan for the entire neighborhood – um all of the factors that went into it at the time including the multif family we had about a 37% imperous surface calculation. So I don't think it's appropriate to just look at impervious or open space on just the multifamily portion because this was master planned and a PUD was approved for the entire site – uh with the – common open spaces – uh provided and as part of this plan – uh the city asked us to put together a sidewalk and trail plan and this is part of the approved PUD for the entire site. – Uh the orange, if you will, pro – is – is the trail connections through the neighborhood and the red is – uh the sidewalks. And again, a lot of focus was put on by the park commission and the planning commission and the council on what does this trail look like as it relates to Fifth Street and connections through the neighborhood and future connections on Tenth and Inwood. And – and at the time, again, we were looking at how do we do something a little less intense in terms of imperous surface? How do we do a lower impact development as it relates to storm water? And we did not put sidewalks on every street in this neighborhood. And that was again something discussed through numerous meetings and discussions with staff. And a lot of the single family portion of the neighborhoods don't have sidewalks because they're small loop streets designed to calm traffic, allow people to walk, reduce the amount of impervious and the amount of concrete that's in the neighborhood. And the same thing was true when we looked at the – the multifamily. Again, trying not to pave it – uh the entire site, but leave more green space, provide the trail connections and the pedestrian connections within the neighborhood to feed the commercial, to feed, you know, the trail connections and allow people to walk and have a walkable community, but also balancing that with trying to put too much – uh impervious impavement everywhere. So whether I guess you agree or not, – uh this was what the city council approved for the neighborhood and the rules we've been playing by since 2015. – Uh which now I understand, you know, in staff's comment and review, they're trying to apply ordinances that maybe were just adopted in the last year or so to something that's already been approved – uh to something that has a lot of – um you know infrastructure already installed on. And in addition, you know, to the kind of the physical layout and the land uses of the site, you know, we did do a lot of enhanced landscaping – uh throughout the project. If you've driven it, you'll notice along – um Fifth Street that at our own doing, we provided an enhanced – uh entrance and burming and trees. And part of that was obviously to buffer the single family from Fifth Street, but provide that appropriate transition – uh from the single family homes to the multifamily. – Um and that – uh was provided all the way along – uh F Street. When you look at some of the these aren't great pictures, I'm sorry I took them off – Google Maps, but the one on the north is the park that's there today that was dedicated by us – uh for the entire neighborhood. – Uh the lower right corner is the trail corridor that goes along – um the – the neighborhood to the east there through the existing trees. – Uh and then the prop – the picture in the lower left corner is the one that it illustrates what we did within the neighborhood to provide trail connections, – um you know not your typical trail connections in the front yard, but through a green corridor that – uh where trail meanders and has some landscape features and – uh benches and all those were part again of this comprehensive plan. – Um we did do a very detailed traffic study – uh for the entire neighborhood that looked at all of the joining roadways. It looked at – um the – you know the improvements that I – I talked about to 10th Street and Inwood and the Signal and the Fifth Street connection and – uh Eagle Point. – Um and one area of – uh note was, you know, as we looked at all of the – the transportation needs – uh of the neighborhood and in the the study that was provided and reviewed by the city and MDOT and the county. – Um, you know, Inwood or – um what is the island trail, sorry, – uh was installed – – um and it was installed to serve this neighborhood obviously otherwise why build it. – – um and turn lanes were not required by the traffic study. Now, the traffic study – uh did provide turn lanes along Fifth Street and like I said, 10th Street and – uh Inwood, but there were no – um turn lanes anywhere on Island Trail from – uh Eagle Point up to Tent. So when you go through – uh the existing neighborhood – – um there are no turn lanes provided and none were I don't know if you need to see it but none were asked none were required by the transportation study and it's – youknow it's not intended to be a high-speed roadway. It's intended to be a neighborhood collector and neighborhood collectors typically would not have a – a turn lane. – Uh the wider the road, the faster people go and we were trying again to calm traffic and – uh provide more – more green space. – Um we started – uh just shifting gears to the current site plan now. You know, we – we went to the city staff, I think it was back in July of last year, and by August, we submitted a formal plan to them and a formal concept plan review application that was reviewed – uh by the city over about a 60-day period. and they came back to this original plan and said, "Hey, we don't like culde-sacs and you know, we don't like the the private roads." – Uh I would say that the private your ordinance allows private streets. – Uh that's not something unique we're asking for. It's – it's provided for in the code as a conditional use permit. And – um it is something that's common in a project like this. – Um but we listened to staff's concerns and we came back after the August submitt and submitted a concept plan and response that got rid of the culde-sac and made some other changes. – Uh we still were requesting private streets. engineer and Nathan and the city planner had commented that youknow they're with they are allowed but we'll have to work through the details which we – uh thought we had until we get the staff report but and then we came back with a final concept that again got rid of the culde-sac on the – uh west side of – um the road there. We got rid of the – the – uh drive and combined it with the single family and we fronted the – um the – uh town homes on the public street. But as you get to the – the current plan here before you, I think what – what's probably a challenge is – um trying to apply public street standards to basically a driveway or an alley, however you want to describe it. I think what's important from the time we started this project till today is how do you address Fifth Street? I mean, Fifth Street's the public thoroughfare that when people drive, that's the image they get of Inwood. That's the image they get of what's to the north and the landscaping we did. And it's going to be the image they get here. And as people get into the neighborhood, of course, we need it to look good. We're selling these units. And we've done numerous projects like this throughout the metro. Never one I would say with private streets – uh or excuse me public streets. Every one of them have private streets. – Uh every city we've ever built town homes in allow private streets and youknow I'm not aware of any that don't. It's a pretty common approach in a project like this. And youknow the – the issue is if you're going to front the front doors and create a streetscape that's more pedestrian friendly that – youknow hides the garages and the parking areas. At some point you need an alley and then at some point behind that you have to have as in the south part of the site homes that can be accessed from the front. So – uh we put those in the back. – Um I'll show you some examples of where we've done this every other in other places, pictures, but you can't meet every one of these city public street requirements and front every because what's being asked of us is that we front on a public street and then we build a public street behind us so that we have basically double fronted lots everywhere. People don't like to live like that. – Um and I don't – it's not necessary. It just adds a lot of street – uh to – to an area that's really designed to be a youknow private driveway. So this is an example of a project we did in Minatrista. – um it's similar unit styles. – Um the nice thing about this is when you front the units on the street – uh and you put the driveways and the garages and the utilities in back, you've got plenty of room to landscape. So, I know there's concerns about how do you landscape in the back? But I think what's more important is how do we landscape along Fifth Street? How do we create the true public elements of this neighborhood in a way where you can create something that looks good and you can landscape it and you put the utilities in the back. It's traditional kind of design approaches and – uh we've got a lot of experience doing it. This is a project down the street, not ours, but on Fist Street. And this is what we tried to design around because this is a – a I don't know the name of the project, but it's just to the east of ours where they back the town homes up to Fifth Street and I think, youknow, they're nice looking units and I'm not casting judgment on it. – uh they're people's homes and I'm sure they're proud of them, but we wanted to do something different where the front doors were facing the street and I think that looks better. – Uh this is another project in Lake Elmo just down the street from the last one where they instead of put in the back they put the sides but again I don't think it has that same feel for what we're trying to accomplish in Inwood and youknow if we were doing this youknow perhaps we wouldn't need as much flexibility but trying to come up with something – uh like this – uh does require some of the flexibility we're requesting when you look at and this is a lot tighter than what we've agreed to here in Lake Elmo. because this these driveways are about 24 ft. The – the road is probably 22 and the – and in here we have 30 foot setbacks and a wider road. But – well, I think the road's 24 as well, but – um the city staff wanted greater separation, but this is a – an image that depicts the rear of the town homes facing the front of another. And youknow, we don't typically put sidewalks in the drive or the alleyway. and the sidewalks are on the other side of the unit where the front door connects. And then the units on the left side of this image, they don't have – uh a sidewalk in front, but I know there's concern from staff about being able to plant – uh these areas and youknow, we plant them in every one of our communities. – Um this is in West St. Paul's, a redevelopment deal. You can see all the flags and the utilities and you can still find room in there to plant. – Um we do it consistently and youknow it looks nice and it softens the view of that – uh private drive. – Um this is another example again of – of a frontload town home project. This one's in Blaine on the Groveland village. – Uh this one is out in Corkran. – Uh this would be representative of the units that are going to go – uh along the Bremer Bank property. So again, where you can't because it to – to build another street or flip these units as suggested, then we have now you got units facing out towards Bremer Bake parking lot. – Um again, I know staff has concerns about how do you plant trees? Well, there is room within these areas. You can see the – the electrical – uh transformer box there – um in the middle foreground. the – the others. You got sewer and water coming in there, you have to locate it, you plant them, and – and again, these are – these are for sale – uh town homes. So, these are owners – uh they take pride in their homes. – Um it's an attached home, but a lot of homeowners will plant additional plantings. They'll have flower plots – pots and other things that they put into the neighborhood. So, it's – it's not the sterile environment, and homeowners are free. And, youknow, we'd like to do more landscaping in the area. is trying to work through the details – uh with city staff on that. So, – um the one comment I would make too because I know there was if you look at we did originally show because the comment was made to us that we wanted – um that youknow the city wanted each unit to have a sidewalk or a trail. So, we did put a trail along the Bremer Bank property line there in the open space if you will. And if it's the desire of the commission, we would gladly move that to the front yard and put it along the road. – Um we're open to either one of those. So, I think that's that right there is an easy fix. But those units again are the ones I just showed you. We can't flip those and have the front doors facing the commercial area. So, as I mentioned, the trick to doing the having the front doors on Fifth Street is ultimately you got to flip that and have units facing – uh the other direction. So, I think with that I'm – I know that was long, but – um I appreciate you taking the time to listen because there's whatever 14 years of history on this project and an awful lot of money and time invested in it – u by us and in the Shrier family. And it's important that we're able to advance this project as originally – uh contemplated. And I think we've done a really good job of trying to fit the original PUD and what was approved to your new standards. And youknow, this is somewhat of a hardship situation like you would look at in a variance where, youknow, we didn't create the hardship because the standards that we designed to in 2015 didn't exist. And now you got new standards, more recent, and we're trying to balance the two. And I guess we just ask for, youknow, your consideration on this as you look at it to say, "youknow, you got new standards, you got an approved PUD, how do we marry the two?" And I think we've done a really good job of that. But if there are things that you think can be improved on, we're certainly – uh open to – to discussing that. And if we have to discuss it with staff some more, – um we're happy to do that. I would say it's – um we've been at this for eight months. – Uh I was surprised by the recommendations in the staff report. Some of those we had never heard. – Uh I'd never heard of a recommendation of denial until whatever 20 minutes ago. That was not in the report. That was not shared with us. – Um so we weren't in a position to respond to that. But again, I think – um given everything here, there's certainly reasons that I hope you can find to support it because we've done I think everything we set out to do when we started this neighborhood and we certainly would appreciate – uh a vote of approval on this tonight. So, be happy to answer any questions. [00:54:15] **Chair Ray Camp:** Any questions from the commission? So you've obviously changed the the plat from what you established in 2013 2014 to what you have now. [00:54:26] **John Rask:** Correct. [00:54:27] **Chair Ray Camp:** Have you increased the density as well? [00:54:30] **John Rask:** I think the density overall for the project is if it's not the same. It's within a few units anyways. I don't I think I saw it was eight. It was eight. It's actually a little less overall on the project because I think there was some final adjustments on the single family but totally. [00:54:50] **Chair Ray Camp:** So the previous one had more density slightly. Okay. So why not stick with the original plat? [00:55:01] **John Rask:** I think what was recognized is that that was a concept just what we thought at the time. – Um there's nothing about that plaid either that conforms. It wasn't the plat itself wasn't approved. the PUD, the general zoning, the land use was approved, but as Nathan correctly points out, there was no specific plat approval because it was a concept, but a concept that [00:55:31] **Chair Ray Camp:** why we're trying to improve the plaque now. Correct. And I think what we're doing today brings us a whole lot closer to the city's current design standards in terms of how do you address the public streets and some of the the pedestrian connections and the layout. So, I think it makes sense to I certainly appreciate all the work that you put into it. So, you obviously made some efforts. So, thank you. Okay. All right. All right. With that, we can – uh any other comments from the commission till we open the public hearing. [00:56:06] **Commissioner Vice:** I move to open the public hearing. [00:56:09] **Commissioner Char:** Second. [00:56:10] **Chair Ray Camp:** All approved. [00:56:11] **Group:** I I I [00:56:13] **Chair Ray Camp:** All right. It is 7:38 and – uh with that we'll open the public hearing. I've got two people scheduled to speak. I know we had one comment that got emailed in that commission all saw. – Um other than that I've got two people. We'll call you up. I ask you that you give your name and your address and you'll have six minutes to comment. It's not a question and answer period for us. We're just listening. – Uh, and when you get to if you're about a minute left, I'll give you a little signal here to let you know that time is short. – Um, with that, we'll start with Lisa McInn. [00:56:51] **Lisa McInn:** Lisa McInn, 8756, Upper 7th Place North in the Inwood community. – Uh first this evening – um I would like to address – um the prior development. – uh they only came through with the apartment building there on the corner of Fifth. And – um in looking at that, we noticed that a very high building with no setback or very minimal setback would cause a tunneling effect on Fifth Street. And – um that's kind of how our setbacks changed through council over the last four or five years is the recognition that if you put a building right on top of a sidewalk there, it causes a tunneling effect within that – that neighborhood, which certainly isn't consistent with private homes right there and – uh the traffic that goes through that area. – Um Mr. asked talked about history. I'd like to give you 10 years of history of living in Inwood on Island. I live right on the corner there. – Um while they did a – a traffic study to begin with, history has shown us that island has now become a throughfair, especially with traffic on Inwood and – uh 10th. – uh the – the speed in which they drive through our neighborhood now is in excess of 30 to 40 miles an hour and that can be seen on a daily basis by any of the – um residents within our community who by the way are mostly 50 and above. – Uh the also the traffic on Fifth Street – – um has become – uh a basically a freeway. – uh you rarely get anything less than 40 to 50 m an hour on Fifth Street in that area. – Uh I have concerns over the town houses being built – um close to that blind curve. There is a – if you've driven Fifth Street there, there is a blind curve that comes around the east side of that project. – Um, so what I am asking the city or the developer or maybe a partnership between the two is to find a way to get pedestrians across Fifth Street because we will get somebody killed there. – Um, they have very little open space on the south side of Fifth Street. We have two very nice parks that now have almost become one, and they're going to be using those parks, which is what they're there for. In the past, we've talked about Stone B Stonegate not being used. It is used now on a weekly basis. They were just playing soccer over there. They were playing lacrosse over there this week. But it's dangerous to get across Fifth Street. So whether that is relooking at – uh the traffic that is in that neighborhood, – whether it's participating in this crosswalk study that the city is currently doing, we need a crosswalk at Ivywood or at least at Island Drive. It's – it's a dangerous condition. And – um I can tell you from law enforcement experience, we're going to have an accident and it's going to be somebody's kid trying to cross that to get to that park. – Uh third for me would be – uh the recognition by the planning commission and council that Stonegate Park remains a park and is taken off the list for the filtration plant that they've talked about. I know that council has said that's their priority that we want it to remain a park, but they will not give us a guarantee that that park will remain there. They said, "well, it might be a last ditch effort at the filtration plant." – Um, our concern is is that it's the only Ivywood and Stonegate are the only parks available to a large area of residential and now multif family use from Keats from Tenth to Hudson. That's the only parks available for the residents that live in that area. – Um, we all knew that we were going to have multif family and town houses to the south of us and we, – – um I trust M&I Homes, they build our homes and I trust that – uh they will build a good product, but with the concerns that we have, I'd like to see the funds that are – um taken in lie of a park, if those funds somehow could be dedicated to Stonegate. and IDwood to enhance that area. Our association within Inwood already has taken on the responsibility for plowing all the trails – uh that surround our neighborhood. And we pay every month to have those trails plowed throughout the winter. And we take pride in that area and allowing not just our neighborhood, but Stonegate and the rest of the neighborhoods to the east of us now can walk through our neighborhood through the winter because we have chosen to to do that. We've also – um for Miss Dunn the other thing that we've done is our – our – uh association has taken on the responsibility of – um taking care of the water reuse and we use that for all of our common areas within both our basement homes and our slab homes. And to – to – um our benefit, we have saved several thousand dollars a year in irrigation cost. But it doesn't come free. We've had people out there for the last week working on those pipes and and whatever else has to be taken care of, but we've chosen to pay for that every month to make sure that those – uh water reuse is – is working. And so for that, I think that – uh that is a good thing for the people even living south of us. – um in closing, there is very little parking. In fact, there's no parking for Ivywood Park. – uh they have to park – um just parallel park on the side. It has already become an issue because of the pickle ball courts, which are – are great. Everybody loves them except the neighbors right north of them. But if we're going to take on this much multi-family homes, we're going to have to look at some type of parking – um for Ivy Wood and Stonegate there. [01:02:45] **Chair Ray Camp:** 30 seconds. [01:02:47] **Lisa McInn:** So, – um thanks, Lisa. I guess that's all I have to say this evening. I hope that you consider what we've said tonight. Thank you. [01:03:01] **Chair Ray Camp:** Thank you. – All right. – Uh, Matt Anzle, I said that right. Council members, appreciate your time. Matt Anzel, 8757 Lower 8th Place. [01:03:10] **Matt Anzel:** Council members, appreciate your time. Matt Anzel, 8757 Lower 8th Place. – Um, I'd like to reiterate what Lisa had to say. I live on the corner there of Island Trail and I can see this being a – a very – very busy street with this development and I think Mr. Rask alluded to the fact that initially it was going to be pretty much of a – of of a – a little street way there for the for the development, but now for the access to get up to 10th Street, I could see a lot of the people in the new development proposal – uh using Island Trail to – to get up there. They're not going to go towards the Quick Trip and deal with a stoplight there and then another stoplight up on Tenth. They're going to shoot right up Island Trail and – and cut right across and – and – and go wherever they want to go from there. And then – uh I'd like the council to also consider the – uh the water source, good, clean, well water. Is there going to be enough of that? – uh with the – uh school going in – uh to the east few miles down 10th Street and with this new development, how is that going to affect – uh good clean water? – uh so I thank you for your time. [01:04:35] **Chair Ray Camp:** Thank you. – Thank you. – Any other comments? Anyone else would like to speak? No. With that, it's – uh I forgot one question. [01:04:55] **Commissioner Dunn:** Go ahead. [01:04:57] **Chair Ray Camp:** Did you say that something came in for an email the deputy read into the record? What do we do you have a copy of it, Sophia for? [01:05:07] **City Staff:** I got it right here. Ready? – Uh, it was an email. – um I don't know that there's an address from a resident at 8725 upper 7th place and they were not in support of the – um PUD – uh final plat or just generally not in support. [01:05:27] **Nate Stanley:** Chair, members of the commission, I just add that that public comment that the city's received is available on the city's website for public review. [01:05:37] **Chair Ray Camp:** All right. – If there are no other I need you to please approach the podium. Name and address, please. [01:05:46] **Ron Kalpinsky:** My name is Ron Kalpinsky. I live at 8817 upper seventh place. So, I'm on the other side of fifth. My question, it's not clear to me based on all the different slides and so forth. Are the units facing fifth, facing to the north? Are they twotory or threetory? Very. [01:06:14] **Nate Stanley:** Is – is that chair, members of the commission, if you'd like me to answer that question. The answer is three stories. [01:06:22] **Ron Kalpinsky:** Okay. Thank you. [01:06:23] **Chair Ray Camp:** Thanks. [01:06:24] **Commissioner Vice:** Motion to close the public hearing. [01:06:25] **Commissioner Char:** So move. [01:06:26] **Chair Ray Camp:** Motion by Commissioner Vice, second by Commissioner Char. – And it is 7:49. We will close the public hearing. [01:06:33] **Nate Stanley:** You got to call the question. [01:06:34] **Chair Ray Camp:** Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. Thank you. I have to keep on forget to do this. – All right. I appreciate you should be doing this. – Uh, and we need all in favor to close the public hearing. [01:06:48] **Group:** I [01:06:49] **Chair Ray Camp:** All right. Public hearing's closed at 7:49. – And we need a question for Nathan or we need to have a motion. We need to have a motion or discuss. [01:07:05] **Commissioner Vice:** Is that to discuss? [01:07:07] **Chair Ray Camp:** Yeah, we need to do that. [01:07:08] **Commissioner Vice:** Yes. [01:07:09] **Chair Ray Camp:** Okay. Y'all might want to stay. Yeah. – All right. So, we've got – uh two things to consider here. There's – um basically the primary plat PUD and then later on is the comprehensive plan amendment. So, first off, I move to recommend the city council deny the permanent plat and PUD for the Inwood Town Home – uh development requested by MI Homes with the findings in fact provoke – uh proposed by – um staff and the commission. [01:07:44] **Commissioner Vice:** I second that. – Um things have changed. – uh so I mean it's – uh yes as a whole the whole development was – uh proposed and approved back in 2013 2014. – uh city staff and council have made a lot of moves since then to improve our standards and I think that this – um this new the new portion of this development needs to abide by those standards and I think what we've been presented with is too far away from what where it needs to be. – Um for me a lot of the setbacks and – um I think there needs to be a new traffic study as well because traffic has changed a lot in the last 10 years. There's a lot more dense in the area. – um so for that reason I am – uh not in favor of the perilian plat and ped. [01:08:35] **Commissioner Dunn:** Commissioner Dunn I've had quite a few questions and I'm glad that the traffic study was brought up. I went down and saw the area in person and walked it and – u I was involved in the parks commission many many years ago and I saw the Ivy the park on the corner and all I could think of was if you had another 500 or so residents to what already is there it's just overwhelming so I didn't think that that was appropriate and then I went up to Stonegate Trail Stonegate Park and looked down over the hill and that's where they were talking about taking out the trees I guess So I just I just looked at it and it's so intense and when everything is so close. I mean five foot is not very far and I think that we can do better and have a – a better development on that site. Health, safety and welfare has always been important to me and the water issue will continue no matter what for me. I understand the – uh that it was brought up in the 2014 2015 and yes there was some preliminary work done but it wasn't specific and when I'm looking at the specific it just seems like there's so much squished in there and I know there's an additional eight units and there was one little youknow I'm not a developer so I'm not going to say it but one little youknow 12 unit piece in there that's kind of cockeyed in there and I just feel like some of this could be kind of shifted to give us the setback and the impervious surface. You're right there on the edge and I cannot believe that some homeowner is not going to come in and want to put in an additional patio or something like that that takes away even more impervious surfaces. And then you've got the water issue. I just – um there's a lot of things that I think come into play with this that I'm not quite it's not quite there for me. [01:10:44] **Commissioner Char:** question. What was the density the density is decreased overall from the initial [01:10:50] **Commissioner Vice:** Yeah. [01:10:51] **Commissioner Char:** So yeah, was that is that a result of the apartment building or is that a result of do we know that? So did did we lose a floor in the initial plan for the apartment building so therefore we've the density has gone down. Okay. [01:11:13] **Nate Stanley:** Yeah. So – chair Ray Camp if if the question is – in 2014 we had a certain number of units and now we have fewer right? Why? – Um the answer is that there are fewer proposed the and it's fewer town homes but mostly it's – it's fewer units in the apartment building. [01:11:38] **Commissioner Vice:** Okay. So we've – um if if there was a shift it was it was down more town homes less apartments. [01:11:46] **Nate Stanley:** So in the city in the EA which is what – what we had to look at in order to understand like what was contemplated when this first came in in 2014. Yeah. Staff looked at the number of units that were anticipated in that review and there were 150 attached town homes and now proposed there are 149. So there's one fewer than there were previously. [01:12:12] **Commissioner Vice:** Okay. [01:12:13] **Nate Stanley:** And then with the apartment building there was another 150 – 140 units that were anticipated by the AW and now you have 123. So you have fewer units proposed for the apartment building than were initially and – and one less town home. [01:12:29] **Commissioner Vice:** And one less town home. Okay. stand corrected the other way. [01:12:35] **Chair Ray Camp:** Okay. [01:12:36] **Commissioner Vice:** I guess that a little bit of my challenge here is – um understand what was agreed to and what was passed in 2014 with the plaid and the PUD and where the conflict lie and – um and the current proposal and why the developers having to come back. [01:13:00] **Nate Stanley:** Yeah, if I could just provide a little bit of clarification on this point. – Um, the city did review and approve a planned unit development that had a certain number of units in it. – Um, it also has a density that's in its comprehensive plan that would generally support about this level of development. – So, I think that, you know, with that all in mind, the – the form of development here is appropriate in terms of the types of units that are proposed and the location of where they've put the apartment building and the town homes is also appropriate. – Um, it – it meets not only the city's 2040 plan, actually the 2030 plan before that had similar future land use guidance in this area. – So, this development has been, you know, a known commodity for a decade or longer. and – and so youknow the – the actual form of development in terms of units is supportable but – from staff's perspective but – uh the design is where we – youknow get into those details and so that informs staff's review. [01:14:15] **Commissioner Vice:** Okay. So I was incorrect on mine sorry but I do like the additional trees – landscaping – um the city wanting the where the parking goes – um things like that. There's still – uh I still think there's some tweaking to be done. I guess overall I – I like the idea. – Um I like the idea of the additional housing and – – um I'd like to see you go back to the senior housing units in there. I didn't see anything referenced in this current presentation and it looks like it was a part of the prior development for maybe the – the apartment building. – Um I'm – I'm looking at the way these are laid out in there and they are really tight. – Um it reminds me of Bailey's Arbor, how you have the streets behind with the garages and everybody's backing up into everybody's driveway to get in and out of there. [01:15:22] **Chair Ray Camp:** microphone. [01:15:23] **Commissioner Vice:** And – um and then on the other side you have the – the sidewalk that goes through there. But it's really hard to identify where you're supposed to park and where people live because the addresses are, youknow, to access the units. You have to walk down a sidewalk to get to their house versus just parking in a guest parking in the back area there. – Um I would like to see more trees somehow implemented in here. And can we do something other than vinyl? – Um there – there are so many options for sighting. I've seen beautiful siding – um materials that are they seem – um cost-effective and – um maybe hail resistant, youknow, something that'll hold up better in the storms. I – I just that vinyl has to go away. I – I that – that's one of my biggest problems with this whole development. So those are my comments. [01:16:32] **Commissioner Char:** So question, when was the last traffic study completed? [01:16:36] **Nate Stanley:** Commissioner, the last traffic study would have been reviewed with the EAW. That would have been in 2014. [01:16:44] **Commissioner Char:** 2014. Okay. – So, I echo some of the concerns here. One certainly is I just mentioned the questions as traffic and I think – um that's something that would does bring some concern in – in terms of I don't know I don't know the solution to that but certainly it's the proximity to – uh that street that street I should say. – Um and second just to echo I think the – the trees and making sure that we – we hold – hold fast on what we feel we need it for community to maintain the things we're trying to – um for the look and feel of our community. – Um so, so that and the setback, I – I think that that's probably been I think that's been discussed. [01:17:40] **Commissioner Char:** I'll just say one more comment. Visually, if you could come up with something different, that apartment building is not visually appealing. And if you're going to have to look out on it from across the street and single family homes, it just – I don't even know what it looks like, but it's not visually appealing. – So, I maybe a different Does it meet our design standards? It probably does, but it's ugly. – So, not something I'd want to look at every day. [01:18:18] **Chair Ray Camp:** So, if – if we are going to have the motion is denial, we have to provide fact and findings. [01:18:25] **Nate Stanley:** Correct. [01:18:26] **Chair Ray Camp:** – uh, so from what I'm hearing is it does not, if I'm not, if I'm not mistaken, it does not meet what the city is requesting for trees and landscaping, for the parking, for the pedestrian connectivity and – um possibly impervious surface. Nathan, you can correct me on that one. And setbacks. [01:18:52] **Commissioner Vice:** The setbacks. Yeah. [01:18:54] **Chair Ray Camp:** And we still have the concern about water and – and – and safety and traffic – traffic safety traffic. Any other comments? [01:19:07] **Commissioner Dunn:** On a positive note, I do like your subdivision. I do like the work that has been done. [01:19:14] **Commissioner Vice:** Absolutely. [01:19:15] **Commissioner Dunn:** And I do like what this company has to offer and the trails and the – and the green space and the homes, the single family homes. I – I'm not saying that I don't want anything having to do with this company or them coming in. I think what they have done is beautiful. I would just like this to meet with I'm – I'm a community member here in Lake Elmo. I want to maintain what we – what we expect here. [01:19:48] **Chair Ray Camp:** I think my concerns are the developer has rights and developer – uh I think was led down a p – felt he was following through and has been very adaptable in the last four months and trying to meet these solutions. – Um and the density is there. The plan is pretty good. I don't know what more – how much more flexibility they have with a small space to get the density to fit these units in there to make it a viable project. and it's been a known since 2014 that it was made – uh that this is what was basically going to come out here. So within that I think the solutions aren't that far away to get there for you. So we're youknow 90% but I think we know where youknow once the vote goes it's going to go to council and council's going to make their decision on what they want to do. – Um but I appreciate obviously the effort that the developers put into this. I think the community engagement is key to come back and give you some more feedback of what tweaks need to be made and with staff. – Um we're close. Any other comments? [01:21:05] **Commissioner Char:** I agree with that. No, I think that – that message is to be sent to – I think it's it's closer than maybe it sounded like when we were going through all these list of things. I think – from my perspective, I think the – the delta between where we are – where we want to be and where we are is not significant. It might have sounded like it when throwing all these concerns out, but I agree. [01:21:30] **Chair Ray Camp:** Okay. – And with that, – uh take a vote on the motion. Move to recommend city council deny the preliminary platin – for the Inwood Tony – Inwood town home development requested by MI Homes with a [01:21:46] **John Rask:** Mr. Chair. Yep. Sure. – Um, just quickly, I – I do appreciate the comments. – "youknow, like I said, we've been at this for eight months trying to work through with staff. – Uh a lot of things that we never saw until the report came out. Some we heard about a week ago, some we heard about tonight. – Um, youknow, I do agree we're close on so many things. I did not know some of these were concerns. Had they been concerns, I think we would have addressed them before we appeared here tonight. – Um, I do think it's – it's been a tremendous struggle to understand exactly what staff was looking for because the – the standards are arbitrary when it comes to public streets are loud and we've been trying to design them with the help of the city engineer, but they're trying to understand it as we go and I – I understand they haven't done a lot of private streets in this community. So, – um I think we could – we can certainly work through that. Now I would say youknow trying to incorporate – so when we designed this site we understood with working with the city we could do private roads in here. So the location of Fifth Street really was placed understanding how we could get a reasonable use of this property with Fifth Street and that wasn't public streets and that wasn't the design standard. So had we known all of this today maybe Fifth Street should have swung north so we could have got additional roads in there to meet some of these. But those weren't the decisions made. So I would like, youknow, perhaps to have you consider tableabling this so we could go back. – Um, but I will say if – if that tableabling means we have to do public streets, then we probably should just take it to city council with the recommendation of denial. If – if you think private streets can be incorporated and we can try to work towards some of these other concerns, – uh then I think it's I would appreciate you tableabling action on it tonight so we could go back to work with city staff and our engineers and figure out if we can't address some of these concerns. Thank you. [01:24:25] **Commissioner Vice:** Well, now your Robert's rules have been called into order. [01:24:28] **Chair Ray Camp:** I know and I'm – uh that's why I'm looking at staff – uh to do we need to resend the motion? [01:24:36] **Nate Stanley:** Yes. If you – so, chair, members of the commission, if you would like to move to table this item, you would have to resend the motion and – then that the person who made the motion would have to resend it and then you would have to make another motion in this case to table the item to a future meeting. [01:24:58] **Chair Ray Camp:** In the spirit of cooperation, – uh, I can resend the motion to deny and instead, – uh, move to table consideration of the Inwood Town Home Development to a future meeting, which would be May 12th. – 12th, – um to allow the applicant to, – uh revisit some of the things that were called into question here at this meeting. [01:25:27] **Commissioner Vice:** Do we have a second? I second that. [01:25:31] **Chair Ray Camp:** And we need a vote. [01:25:32] **Commissioner Char:** Can I ask a quick question, though? [01:25:34] **Chair Ray Camp:** Absolutely. [01:25:35] **Commissioner Char:** May I ask a question of staff? I'm – I'm I have no knowledge on this. What is I don't know if it's preferable is the right word, but which is the best working document – document so to speak – – to deny it – to table it – how works best to come to all of this? [01:25:54] **Nate Stanley:** Sure. So, if the question is how do we work move forward in a way that we can all work together? Correct. I think a motion to table – which has been – uh requested by the developer would be wise. It keeps – um us from having to make a final decision at the city council. – We do have some time in the review process yet to – um come to a decision on the application. You should keep in mind that the city only has 120 days by statute before it has to provide a decision unless the developer wishes to – to grant the city more time. And in some cases that can be a good thing because it allows us to work through details together. So I think tableabling would be an appropriate motion. [01:26:45] **Commissioner Char:** Thank you that I wanted to hear it from your side as well. Thank you. [01:26:50] **Chair Ray Camp:** And with that vote to move to table consideration of Inwood Town Home Development to future meeting. All in favor? [01:27:01] **Group:** I. [01:27:02] **Chair Ray Camp:** All opposed. – The motion is the table. Thank you. [01:27:09] **Nate Stanley:** Um, so chair, members of the commission, one point of clarification here. I believe we've tabled the entire application. So I just want to be clear that it's all – all things including the comprehensive plan amendment. Okay. [01:27:24] **Chair Ray Camp:** So all three requests. Just want to be clear. Yes. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. We'll move it all together as a baggage. That makes sense. Great. – Next on the agenda – – uh would be new and unfinished business which I don't believe we have any. And then after that is communication updates. [01:27:46] **Nicole Miller (City Administrator):** Thank you, Mr. Chair. The city council approved the annual in – conditional use permit and variance extension for two – two years. That was approved on April 1st and your next meeting will be cancelled. So we'll see you again on May 12th. [01:28:04] **Chair Ray Camp:** May 12th to discuss this project again. Fantastic. Please. – Uh, and with that, then need a motion to adjourn the meeting. I don't think you do. I don't. You're right. You can just do it. – And with that, it's 8:07. We'll adjourn the meeting for Monday, April 14th. The plan commission