As an expert transcriptionist, I have added the speaker names to the transcript based on the provided context, roll calls, and meeting flow. [0:02] [Music] [0:41] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Good evening. Welcome to the November 20th city council meeting. If you join me in a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance. [0:58] **All:** I pledge 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. [1:06] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All right, Ms. Orlofsky, roll call please. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Michelle Volk? **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Here. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Luke Hellier? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Here. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** John Bermel? **Councilmember John Bermel:** Here. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Dan Wolter? **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Here. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Joshua Lee? **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Here. [1:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Great. We'll move on to item number three which is Citizens comments. This is an opportunity for citizens or residents or business owners to share up to three minutes about an issue that's not on the agenda. So if it's on the agenda there's likely a time for conversation, but if there's something not on the agenda, either raise your hand or come on up if you have any comment. Yes, come on up. If you'll state your name and address. Yep, you're right here. Yep, you're first. [1:54] **Tom Bradovich:** Good evening. Tom Bradovich. I live in a HOA subdivision that's going to be affected by the Chimberland proposal. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, so that one's on the agenda for later. **Tom Bradovich:** It is? Yep. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** It's under 7B, Sundance. **Tom Bradovich:** Oh, we're going to be here a long time then, aren't we? Sorry. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, thank you. No problem. Any others? Yep. [2:24] **Mark Edgars:** My name is Mark Edgars and I live on 19141 Kenwood Way. And my concern is over the development that's proposed by Lennar to add 23 homes between Kenwood Way and the Kenwood Middle School. They're going to plumb up the street into Kenwood Way, and if you know Kenwood Way, it can't even handle two cars going side by side. One of my neighbors stops and lets the other one by. And if they want to bring—if half of this new neighborhood uses that street, which is by far closer to Kenwood Way to get onto it, that's going to triple the use of Kenwood Way and it just can't handle that. And furthermore, when they rebuilt Highway 50, I need to make a U-turn on my way home from work every day. So all these people going out, they either have to make a U-turn to get to where they're going or to get back home again. And that's already a dangerous situation and I've got plenty other reasons, but that's more my safety concerns. And they just rebuilt our street two or three years ago and there's only six of us in this little neighborhood. And they wouldn't even put curbing in initially; we were going to get curb and gutter but then they must have decided it wasn't—I don't know, I don't know what the reason was, but they didn't. So we're just a little neighborhood that can't handle 20 houses behind us. [4:14] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah, so if you would leave your contact information. This project is one that the school district is in process of selling. Our Planning Commission, I think in sometime in January, is having a conversation. So I want to make sure you're plugged in because that's the appropriate time to share that feedback with planning before it comes to us. **Mark Edgars:** Okay, thank you. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Give it to the clerk or somebody will stay in touch. Okay, any other citizens comments? Okay, moving on to item number four. Any additional agenda information, Mr. Miller? I'll give him a second. Additional agenda information? **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Nothing tonight. [4:44] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Moving on to item five: presentations and introductions. A, which is Small Business Saturday Proclamation. From time to time the city will offer proclamations and different recognition. This upcoming Saturday is Small Business Saturday. It's an opportunity to try to focus some of your shopping locally, and so Councilmember Wolter will read this proclamation. [5:09] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** It's a proclamation for Small Business Saturday. Whereas the government of Lakeville, Minnesota celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions they make to our local economy and community; and whereas according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are 33.2 million small businesses in the United States; small businesses represent 99.7% of firms with paid employees; small businesses are responsible for 62.7% of net new jobs created since 1995; and small businesses employ 46.4% of the employees in the private sector in the United States; and whereas 68 cents of every dollar spent at a small business in the United States stays in the local community, and every dollar spent at small businesses creates an additional 48 cents in local business activity as a result of employees and local businesses purchasing local goods and services; and whereas 72% of consumers reported that Small Business Saturday 2022 made them want to shop and dine at small independently owned retailers and restaurants all year long; and whereas the city of Lakeville supports our local businesses that create jobs, boost our local economy, and preserve our communities; and whereas advocacy groups as well as public and private organizations across the country have endorsed the Saturday after Thanksgiving as Small Business Saturday; now therefore I, Luke Hellier, Mayor of the city of Lakeville, Minnesota, do hereby proclaim November 25th, 2023 as Small Business Saturday and urge the residents of our community and communities across the country to support small businesses and merchants on Small Business Saturday and to shop small throughout the year. Proclaimed November 20th, 2023. [6:37] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Excellent, thank you. All right, that was very easy. Moving on to Item B, and we will now have police officer introductions and oath of office. I'll turn it over to Police Chief Paulson. [7:05] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** Good evening Mayor and members of the Council. It's an exciting night for us to introduce some of our newer officers to the public. And as I'm talking, maybe the five of them can start to make their way forward here. I'll just touch on when we hire an officer—and I know this is a reminder for some—but the first two to three weeks are kind of an administrative onboarding phase before they even get seated in a squad car. That's followed by a field training program which is about 3 to 4 months; it depends a little bit on the experience that that officer brings, their exposure to calls and things like that. All of these officers have completed their field training. We try to kind of find that window of introduction between the end of field training and about a year of service to the Police Department, and all of these officers are between five months and just about a year of service. So I am going to offer a brief introduction of each of them so that we have a little bit more than a badge number and a last name, so the community can learn a little bit more about these people. As I'm doing that, they've each identified a friend, a family member, someone special to them to do a ceremonial badge pinning. I'm going to ask that those folks come up now as well. Hopefully steady-handed folks. [8:23] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** We're going to start with Officer Jeremy Lural. Jeremy, why don't you just come out a little bit so you can get the spotlight while we talk about you. Jeremy's badge number 4840 and he brings a total of 27 years of policing experience. He began his career in 1996 working part-time for the Kenyon and Zumbro Police Department until he was hired full-time in 1997 with the Goodhue County Sheriff's Office. While at the Sheriff's Office, he worked as a patrol deputy and in various roles including contract town liaison, School Resource Officer, Emergency Response Team, and K9. In 2005 he joined the Lakeville Police Department and worked primarily as a patrol officer but also worked in roles including conflict resolution team, Street Crimes Unit, Crime Scene Unit, investigations, background investigator, and field training officer. In 2019, Jeremy was appointed as the Chief Deputy with the Goodhue County Sheriff's Office where he oversaw five different divisions consisting of about 105 employees and $13 million budget. He performed many administrative duties in the Sheriff's Office during his time in this position. We were happy about a year ago when Jeremy came back home to Lakeville PD where he is working currently as a patrol officer and a field training officer. Jeremy and his wife Jen reside in Jordan and together they have four children: Cody, Gabe, Haley, and Amber. In his free time he enjoys spending time watching his daughters play sports and relaxing at the family cabin. Jeremy Lural. [9:58] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** Not to short the other ones, but they haven't been around quite as long so their bio is going to be a little shorter. Eric Raymond, why don't you take a step forward. Thanks, Eric. Eric Raymond is badge 48123. Eric was born and raised in rural Plainview, Minnesota on a family farm. He attended college at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse where he obtained his criminal justice degree and played football and basketball. He then returned to his roots where he began his law enforcement career working for both the Wabasha County Sheriff's Office and the Plainview Police Department from 2019 to 2022. Late last year he was hired at the Lakeville Police Department. Eric enjoys spending his free time with family and friends. His hobbies include boating, golfing, and traveling. Congratulations. [10:52] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** Taylor Kennelly, badge 48124. So Taylor is from Lakeville and attended Farmington schools growing up. He moved on to college at the University of Minnesota Duluth, earning his bachelor's degree in criminology. He continued his education and earned an associate degree with Rasmussen University for law enforcement. He has also been a member of the Minnesota Army National Guard since 2017. Taylor comes from a long history of first responders and community servants in his family. His family name has a long-standing history with the first responder community in Lakeville and is probably known and recognized to many of you. All of this made working for Lakeville a very natural decision for him. In 2021 Taylor began as a Community Service Officer with Lakeville PD and upon completing his education he was hired as an officer in May of this year. In his free time Taylor enjoys being on the lake in the summer and skiing in the winter. He also spends time assisting the Minnesota Army National Guard Honor Guard team with military funeral honors across the state. Congratulations and welcome, Taylor. [12:09] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** Officer Jason Keh, badge 48125. Jason was born and raised in Red Wing and is the only person in law enforcement in his family. He received his associate's degree in law enforcement from Alexandria Technical and Community College and his bachelor's degree in police science from St. Mary's University. He started his policing career in 2016 working for the Goodhue County Sheriff's Office where he spent about seven years and was a field training officer and Union steward in addition to his patrol duties. He started with us at Lakeville PD at the end of May. In his free time he enjoys working out, duck hunting with friends, skiing, and taking his boat out on the Mississippi River with his wife Kayla. Congratulations and welcome, Jason. [12:57] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** Officer Eric Schaefer, badge 48126. Eric was born and raised in central Iowa, and we don't hold that against him. Graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in psychology. Eric attended the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy and worked five years for the Ankeny, Iowa Police Department. During his time in Ankeny, he held roles as a field training officer and School Resource Officer. He moved to Minnesota to be with his girlfriend who works as a doctor in Minneapolis. In free time he enjoys reading, biking, hiking, and spending time outside with his family and the recent shelter-adopted Pit Bull Terrier. He also enjoys annual trips to the North Shore in the fall to hike and see the fall colors. Congratulations and welcome to Eric. [13:50] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** This time we'll ask the Mayor to come down and read an oath of office and you gentlemen can all do this in unison if you're capable of that. So come right here. [14:13] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** [Leading the oath] I do solemnly swear... **Officers:** I do solemnly swear... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** To support the Constitution of the United States... **Officers:** To support the Constitution of the United States... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** And of the state of Minnesota... **Officers:** And of the state of Minnesota... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** And faithfully discharge the duties... **Officers:** And faithfully discharge the duties... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Of the office of police officer... **Officers:** Of the office of police officer... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** For the city of Lakeville... **Officers:** For the city of Lakeville... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** In the county of Dakota... **Officers:** In the county of Dakota... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** In the state of Minnesota... **Officers:** In the state of Minnesota... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** To the best of my judgment and ability... **Officers:** To the best of my judgment and ability... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** So help me God. **Officers:** So help me God. [15:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Well, I just on behalf of the community and city, we're just extremely grateful for your willingness to serve, protect us, and keep us as the safest city in the state. And in particular, I also want to extend our gratitude to your families who support you as well. I'm just going to open up for others on the Council. I know Councilmember Bermel wanted to share some thoughts. [15:43] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Yeah, I just want to echo the congratulations. We're glad you're in Lakeville. You are joining a professional, well-equipped, well-trained agency. Really, it's not a mistake or an accident that you're right here right now; you all belong here. I just want the public to know too and get a sense of how hard you all have worked to get to this point in your career and to be here in our community. We're so pleased that you've chosen Lakeville to continue your law enforcement career. So congratulations and welcome. [16:09] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Just a small comment. Chief, I just want to thank you for hiring people of such great caliber. These are going to be a great addition to our city. So thank you. [16:21] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Very good. I know I've said this before, but having served as a police reserve in Lakeville for several years, I feel like I have a special respect for the group that you're joining. I'm just so happy that you're here. You've joined an incredible team of people that will support you in the ups and downs of this position, and so not only that but this incredible community that supports you as well. So welcome and I look forward to seeing your journey in your career here in Lakeville. [16:51] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Yeah, this is the first time I've gone through this as a city council member and it's kind of emotional. I appreciate the sacrifice and service of all of you. We appreciate what you do, and as a citizen, it means a lot for your stepping up to do this. You know, we aim to attract the best and brightest and I appreciate getting the bios—I'm confident that we've done that. So thank you. [17:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Good. We're going to take a brief pause so you guys don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting. Feel free to kind of exit and take pictures and stuff out there. And again, we're so thankful for your willingness to serve our city. Thank you. [17:35] **Police Chief Brad Paulson:** Can I add one thing before they depart? Just of note to the Council and maybe some other community members that might be interested: from here tonight, these new officers will go across the street to the Heritage Center where we've worked with our mental health clinician who's putting out a little mini-workshop for those officers and immediate family members on some of the things that this career brings with it—some challenges, some strategies to cope and things like that. So we're happy that they're all willing to participate in that and I think it'll be beneficial to them. So that's where most of them are headed from here. [18:02] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Thank you Chief. And if you guys stay, want to spread out, fine. [18:42] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, moving on to item number six. There are consent agenda items. These are more routine, non-controversial items. Mr. Miller, anything to highlight on here? [19:07] **City Administrator Justin Miller:** Thank you Mayor and Council. Just a few items to highlight. Items 6F and 6H are labor agreements with two of our police unions—our sergeants and our lieutenants—and these will be two-year contracts for the years 2024 and 2025. And then item 6G is a radio advertising agreement. This is something we've had success with, specifically with the Art Center, and this is funded through a state arts grant and has shown success in the past. [19:24] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Council, any item for further discussion? If not, I'll take a motion to approve. [19:29] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. [19:32] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Second. [19:33] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. **Council:** Aye. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Opposed, no. Consent agenda passes. Moving on to item 7A: resolution ordering improvements and preparation for plans for the 2024 Street Reconstruction Project in public hearing. I'll turn it over to Mr. Oehme, our Public Works Director. [20:04] **Public Works Director Paul Oehme:** Right. Good evening Mayor, City Council members. We have a brief presentation for you tonight to review the project. But tonight, the city staff is asking the City Council to order the preparation of the plans and specifications and hold a public hearing for next year's 2024 Street Reconstruction Project. With me tonight is Monica and Chris Bunders with WSB. They helped the city draft the feasibility study and will give a brief presentation on the project tonight. So I'm just kicking it off a little bit. For the agenda tonight, we like to discuss a few topics: discuss the purpose and the need for the project, why we need to continue with the reconstruction project, review the proposed scope of the project to make sure the Council's okay with what we're doing on these streets, talking about the financing and the funding of the project as well. And then we also put together some preliminary assessment amounts for each individual project area and we like to highlight those. We'll talk about the schedule for the project and where we go from here, and then hold a public hearing to discuss the project and see if there's any residents that would like to make any comments on the project at this point in time. For this meeting tonight, we did invite 193 property owners that are on the project in the project areas to this meeting tonight as well. So the project in general includes 2.7 miles of streets that we'd like to consider for reconstruction. These are in six areas within the community. The pavements on these streets have deteriorated to the point where other pavement treatments such as overlays or patching are really not cost-effective at this time and the streets are deteriorated to the point where they really need should be reconstructed. The streets have been identified for reconstruction based upon our criteria that we use for pavement management program and also we also did an inventory of all the utilities in these areas as well too; they kind of are in need of some help as well. So with that, I'd like to invite Chris up to just go over briefly the project in general and talk about some of the highlights. [22:15] **Chris Bunders (WSB):** Thank you very much, Paul. Yeah, as Paul stated, we have a number of areas here. Obviously, this is our first set of areas. I will not list all the streets here, but this is our first main area. Jaguar is one of note that is a minor collector and as a part of the assessment was prorated down to be a standard city street. Kiffen Court as well is a part of this project. Italy Avenue and 201st Street. Italy Avenue currently is a non-curb section of the roadway and part of the project we will be including a full curb section for both 201st and Italy Avenue, which will be a great help for the drainage issues in this particular area being right next to the lake. 205th—another area where the road is in desperate need of some updating. Another section, originally this Ipswich neighborhood was originally going to be a part of the mill and overlay project that we were doing this year, but after doing further investigation into the existing roadway, we included it in this particular part of the project because the roadway itself is deteriorating to a point where a mill and overlay, as Paul stated, would just not be cost-effective at this point and wouldn't extend the life of the roadway to a cost-effective point. Per the payment management plan, we look at all the OIs for the roadways to kind of give us a general marker for when we should and should not be reconstructing roads. 43.8 is well below that marker for doing that, and that's part of the reason it was a part of the Capital Improvement Project for this year. The City Council authorized plans for the feasibility report in June of this year. We have held two open houses or neighborhood meetings: one on August 1st and one in November 9th. We had a pretty good turnout to each one. Many questions, as you would understand, from assessment questions to drainage questions. Italy Avenue has a number of drainage issues and we have some very passionate residents there, so there were some good conversations had there. And then obviously the public hearing was ordered back in October for this evening. Just kind of to recap what we're going to do: we're going to fully remove the pavement, do some partial curb and gutter replacement, and along with that, we're going to be updating the storm sewer, storm sewer basins, and any other utilities in the area like the water and sanitary sewer. We will be applying corrosion protection to all the water mains to help extend the life there and putting in infiltration barriers in all of the manholes to help keep water out. Total cost that we have right now as an estimate is $3.1 million. As you can see, the number of different areas of how the cost is being broken down and paid for. One of note is the special assessments, which is 40% of the assessable cost for the project is $900,000. Talking more about the assessments, obviously you guys all know the city policy is 40% of the street and storm sewer improvements. Like I mentioned, if there are any minor collectors or larger roadways that are outside of that city standard 32 feet, we would then prorate those costs down to be equal with a 32-foot local road. Another point of note: on Italy Avenue, it currently is not curb and gutter as I mentioned, so the urbanization of that which would be putting curb and gutter on it is 100% assessable to the residents. So as you'll see later, 201st and Italy are in the same neighborhood but they do have two separate assessment costs and that would be the reason for that. Along with that, water main, sanitary sewer, storm sewer basins—all new storm sewer are not included in that assessable cost. All assessment parts are denoted by individual units, so it is not by a lineal footage, it is by individual unit. With obviously the one example here of a town home with multi-family units, that is a half unit; so if the assessment were 5,000, it would be 2500 for the assessable. Commercial and public uses are obviously exempt and covered as a front footage. City assessment policy, just to kind of reiterate that, we are not counting properties more than once. If you are on a corner, you would be assessed where your driveway and where your access is to your property; that's how we determine the number of units on especially on a residential street where there's corners and cul-de-sacs and everything. And as I stated before, these are estimated assessments by neighborhood. Each individual neighborhood has its own assessment because each individual neighborhood has specific needs for the road and for the utilities. So Jaguar, Kiffen, 201st are as represented here; Italy Avenue, 205th, then the town homes off of 205th, and then the Ipswich neighborhood. The final amounts, obviously these are just estimates, will be based off of a construction as-bid cost. We will have another assessment hearing in April to discuss the final assessment cost. And then obviously deferment for qualifying hardships are available for these assessments. Property owner comments that we've received from the open houses and the neighborhood meetings have been relatively all very positive. They're very encouraged by the city taking ownership of these roads and going out and wanting to improve them. Drainage questions came up, of course, assessment questions came up, of course, but overall it was a very positive meeting. Moving forward, this is kind of our project schedule: we had our second neighborhood meeting here in November, public hearing tonight, we will be preparing plans and specs from here on out and then opening bids in February, that final assessment hearing in April, and then construction next year. If there's any questions, I'd love to take questions; otherwise, we can conduct the public hearing. [29:31] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah, I just have a quick question. Do you know what the phasing for Italy Avenue is? I bring that up to say, you know, we're opening Antlers Park next year and so I don't know what type of impact this would have on that opening. [29:43] **Chris Bunders:** So as far as the actual phasing of the construction, that would be mostly determined by the contractor. Whether it is at the beginning of the year or the end of the year, that's not something I can really speak to at this point just because being that there's so many separate areas, I don't know where or what contractor will be doing that. So it will be based off of a neighborhood-by-neighborhood phasing. So they're not going to only do one half of Italy and then wait to do 201st so to speak. But obviously Antlers Park is looking amazing, I've been out there a couple times, so that—the construction of Italy and 201st will not infringe on that. [30:26] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, very good. Other questions? [30:30] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Yeah, just a real quick one. When was the last time the Ipswich neighborhood was done that we would have at one point had it in a different category versus, after examination, you determined it needed full repairs? So when was the last time it was done? [30:52] **Chris Bunders:** That is a great question. I do not have that exact year. I believe it was 1993 was the last time there was a full reconstruct on it. I could definitely get back to you on that. I'm not sure the exact date. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** At least 30 years ago. **Chris Bunders:** Yes, I believe that was the last time there was a full reconstruct. [31:07] **Public Works Director Paul Oehme:** And actually what we found with the Ipswich neighborhood area is that it wasn't the top one or two inches of the pavement that was deteriorating; it was the two, three, and four inches below that. So going in and doing a mill and overlay, we would actually be taking off the best part of the road and putting on more good road but on top of a base that is deteriorating, which would basically just perpetuate all that we're seeing now—cracking issues would come through even faster because the base layer of it is deteriorating faster. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Thank you. [31:42] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Yeah, could you go back to the proration of the width of the road? Just to expand a little bit more about what that actually means. [31:51] **Chris Bunders:** Yeah, so minor collectors and larger roads are traditionally going to be larger, wider roads. In this case, Jaguar is 40 feet wide back-to-back of curb to back-of-curb. The city standard width is 32 feet, so we would take those prorated costs—we would prorate them down to 32 feet. So your assessment cost would only be getting added to the 32-foot width, not the full width. So that would be 32 over 40... I can't do that in my head. **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Got it. Because there's more material going down, the cost is greater, so it's being paired down to the appropriate cost for assessment. **Chris Bunders:** Obviously everything is being paid by the city and by the separate funds. The whole cost of the project is being paid for; it's just the way the funding is being assessed for just the assessments is being prorated. **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Thank you, that's very helpful. [32:51] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Other questions? I just want to follow up with your question, it made me think. So when you're prorating it down from whatever to 32, but it's a minor collector, so it has a lot more vehicles that are going on it than other neighborhoods, correct? Because there's a lot of people that are using it to travel through to get to a different part of the neighborhood. How do you determine, even in those 32 feet, what would have been the outside forces that had caused the deterioration? I'm not sure I understand your question. You're asking how would I have determined what caused the deterioration? No, or sorry—I think I know what you're asking. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, if maybe you can do it better than I am. **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** She's trying to say, do we calculate resident use versus just general population use in that—the fact that the road gets used more by non-residents, is that factored into the assessment? **Chris Bunders:** Right. Yeah. But you know, 8 feet doesn't just... kind of the middle section of that 8 feet is what's getting used, does that make sense? The most. And I'm trying to figure out how you quantify the assessment in the benefit even though you took it down to 32. It just... I'm trying to figure out how you got there. I gotta... so maybe Paul can speak to this more. But I know the pairing it down to 32 feet is to allow for a standard width to be applied for all roadways. The benefiting properties will still be assessed per that 32 feet as if you were on Jakarta or another area in the same neighborhood. The fact that it's holding more traffic and could potentially have more deterioration really doesn't, I guess, really doesn't equate into the assessments. It's really more or less just how we are able to show benefit to that property and not to over-assess a parcel just because they happen to live on a wider road. **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** So there's a standard for each road. And when was the last time that this one was fully done? **Chris Bunders:** Ah, that is a great question. I do not have that one off the top of my head. **Public Works Director Paul Oehme:** In 1996. **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Thank you for your questions. [35:28] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, if not, this is a public hearing. So I will open the public hearing and if there's residents who have comments about the assessment, you can come on up, share your name and address and your concerns. Unless you're all here for B. So with—oh, are you here for this? Come on up. [35:50] **Kenneth Laboon:** Councilmembers, I'm Kenneth Laboon and my wife Dr. Kay Laboon is here with me this evening. We were unable to make the neighborhood meetings for other commitments previously. I want to say that I'm not opposed to improvements. I—we live at 20072 Italy Avenue. Now my... I think one of my principal concerns is the economic impact on the residents. By actual count today, from the intersection of 201st on down to the end of Italy Avenue, I counted 10 residences. One of them is unoccupied and available for rent. Four of them are occupied by retired couples, myself and my wife included. And I see a significant potential impact for the persons. And I... I will say this, that I've thought about this a great deal and yes, I've seen Italy Avenue underwater at least four times, three times since 1984. I even have pictures of a neighbor's family, their daughters in an inflatable canoe paddling along Italy Avenue which was temporarily renamed Venice Avenue. But it... you know, we are getting along with this. I don't know that I'm... I'm skeptical, I guess, about the absolute necessity for the improvement. Curb and gutter is nice, but right now what we're really doing is driving on louan sediments. There's no base under there. It's going to be a major project to dig that down, put in the... I'm not sure what I'm guess I'm saying there's... I'm not sure that the cost estimates really have looked at the geology of the area too. So maybe that's an engineering issue, but I guess what I'm saying is I'm concerned about the economic impact on the residents of the neighborhood. I know that one of our neighbors is very enthusiastic for this and has been pretty vocal about it. I respect his right to his opinion, I just don't happen to agree with it. So that's about as much as I have to say. If you have any questions of me, I'd be happy to respond. [38:18] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah, I appreciate the comments. If you want to talk about deferment from a senior standpoint, and then also about the financing for the project, and then also if any engineering comments you have would be helpful I think. [38:32] **Public Works Director Paul Oehme:** Thank you Councilmembers. In regards to the deferment, there is a process that the property owner is going to go through to request the deferment for special dispensation of the assessment. So there's a process and I'll definitely work with the property owner and see if we can... if they qualify and if that makes sense for them. In terms of the geology of the area, the city has already taken soil borings along the road and the proposed pavement section that we're proposing is based on those soil borings. So we have those costs already identified in the feasibility study and we're moving forward with that in putting those into the plans and specs for contractors to construct. [39:41] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Other public comments? Okay, seeing none, I'll take a motion to close the public hearing. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Mr. Mayor, I move to close the public hearing. **Councilmember John Bermel:** Second. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All those in favor say aye. **Council:** Aye. [40:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All right, very good. The public hearing is now closed and we'll move on to conversation about the project or I will take a motion to approve. Joshua? [40:24] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Can I ask just for a little more detail about Italy Avenue and the specifics of that street and engineering-wise? I mean, it is close to the shoreline. I'm sure it has been flooded a couple times over the years. Just curious how we're anticipating that drainage to improve. [40:40] **Chris Bunders:** Monica gave me some photos as well. If there's an overhead camera that I can show these on... yeah, Jack, if you're there, perfect. So these are two of the concepts that we are proposing for Italy Avenue. Obviously being right next to the lake, the actual lake level and the road level are just about the same, so obviously making drainage challenging. Right now what the issue is is the water that is trying to drain into the road is backing up into the system and is being seen by residents in the actual manholes. This is one of the options that we came up with as a solution to that. So this is a slotted drain that'll actually be in the flow line of the new curb and gutter. This allows for us to take basically the existing storm sewer system and raise it so it is right below the curb and gutter. A normal manhole would have a measured drop and then a obviously gravity flow in the pipes below it. The problem with that is the longer the pipe is, the more drop you need. This basically will take and collect all of the water in the curb and gutter and then run it on this cross pipe that is actually across the road to keep everything right at that level, so higher or at the same level as the water in the lake. This will help with the combination of the curb and gutter and the combination of getting water to the gutters and then into these shallower storm systems. It will allow us to outlet water into the lake at a higher elevation so that we don't have that backup onto the road and into the storm sewer structures. **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Sorry, and just a follow-up. That's very helpful visuals for this project. So the identified issue of flooding is not because of lake overage, it's rainwater that we're solving the issue for? **Chris Bunders:** Yes. Yeah. And obviously rainwater on a road is—the ideal thing is to get it to the curbs or get it to the areas where it's going to flow the best outside of the driving lane and then from that get it off of the road. So that is what our proposed design will do. It will get it into the curb and gutter, we will reestablish a 3% crown on the road, and then allow for it to get to the south to the corner of Italy and 201st and then exit into the lake at a higher elevation. **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Great, thank you very much. **Chris Bunders:** Yeah, absolutely. [43:08] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Extremely helpful. Other comments? Okay, if not, I'll take a motion. **Councilmember John Bermel:** I move to approve a resolution ordering the improvements and authorizing the preparation of plans and specifications for the 2024 Street Reconstruction Project, city project 24-02. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Second. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion? Okay, if not, roll call please. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Volk? **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Hellier? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Bermel? **Councilmember John Bermel:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Wolter? **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Lee? **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Aye. [44:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Thank you for the presentation. And make sure that you connect with Paul if you want to talk about any deferments. Thank you. Moving on to 7B: Sundance Lakeville comprehensive plan amendment and zoning map amendment. I think Ryan Syler and our Planning Director Daryl Morey are presenting. Ryan? Okay, welcome. [44:45] **Ryan Syler (Timberland Partners):** Mayor, members of the Council, thank you for letting me be here tonight. My name is Ryan Syler, I'm Vice President of Development for Timberland Partners, and I'm here tonight to discuss our proposed Sundance Lakeville project. Property location is the northwest quadrant of Buck Hill Road and 162nd, or County Road 46. It's a long vacant and underutilized 18-plus acres; it's been that way for over 20 years. I'm going to wait for my presentation to get loaded if you don't mind. [45:44] **Ryan Syler:** All right. Well, this shows again the project location at the northwest quadrant of 162nd and Buck Hill Road. 18-plus acres. Tonight we're here to request a comprehensive plan amendment to reguide the property from Medium Density Residential to Low Medium Density Residential and from Commercial to Corridor Mixed Use; and then also to request a zoning map amendment to rezone from RM-1 to RST-2 and from C-3 to M-1. This just shows a site plan of the proposed project. Again, it's about 18.7 gross acres. We're proposing to build a total of 176 market-rate rental housing units. As you can see, the northwest three acres of the site we're proposing nine single-family home rentals. These would be four, three, or four-bedroom homes. Currently, that property is zoned appropriately for the use. On the middle approximately 14 acres of the site, we're proposing 167 stacked flat townhomes. And then along 162nd, which is more of a commercial corridor, we'll have our clubhouse on the southwest corner. And then a southeast 3 acres, Davis separately is proposing about 28,000 square feet of medical office and two one-story buildings, each about... I think one's about 14,000 square feet and one's about 12,600. The actual housing component itself, specifically the stacked flats—this is a picture of an existing project in Woodbury, Minnesota. It's 167 units, two stories. Each building will have between 8 and 12 units—8, 12, and 16 units per building. Each unit will have its own attached garage, at least one stall; some of the twos and all the threes will have two attached garage stalls. All the units have direct access entries, so there's no common corridors in these buildings, providing residents a sense of privacy and safety. Amenities for both the single-family units and the multi-family component: they'll share a 5,000-square-foot community clubhouse which will contain a fitness center, yoga studio, a club room. We'll have on-site management here with our leasing office, outdoor pool and kitchen, and then a dog park and dog spot. The single-family—and I want to just reiterate, the single-family portion of this will also share the amenity center, will be connected by sidewalk to this part of the project to the amenities. These are just a few photos of some existing Sundance product we built before. The picture on the left is currently under construction in Omaha, Nebraska. The clubhouse on the right is the clubhouse for a Sundance project in Woodbury. One thing to note here: this particular project in Lakeville will have considerably more brick, as required by the City Zoning code. The southwest portion of the site, the medical office proposed by Davis, will be on three acres; again, two one-story buildings and then parked appropriately. The site plan that was in your packet, these projects will share two common entrance and exit points and a private road that will run east-west through the site. Just a sample rendering of the medical office. I believe both medical office buildings right now have interested tenants. This is a potential proposed street view from 162nd. And then I just wanted to go through a few reasons why we believe rezoning the site makes sense. One is it's consistent with the comp plan both for attainable housing options; also, it's near transit, although it's outside the half-mile radius, it's barely outside the half-mile radius to the Park and Ride. New employment resident base to support the local businesses, increased tax base for again a parcel that's been vacant for over 20 years. I also want to stress that these are very complimentary uses compared to what could be proposed on this site. The housing units themselves, most of the residents will be leaving for work prior to 8:00 and arriving home after 5:00, while the office component is basically an 8:00 to 5:00 use, so you have complimentary uses in that form. The other thing I want to note—I'm guessing we'll hear some concerns about you know, traffic tonight—this is a desirable land use transition, both going from commercial to two-story multi-family to the single-family neighborhood to the north of it. It's currently zoned commercial which allows things such as big-box retail and also fast-food restaurants along the frontage. What we're proposing here is considerably less impact in both traffic and parking than those uses. And then lastly, I just want to stress we have a locally-based development team. Timberland Partners is a private family-owned company, we've been around since 1992, we're headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota. We manage, own, and manage over 20,000 units. We are long-term holders; we are not going to build this and sell it. We rarely sell our properties. We have our own management company, so we will manage it ourselves and we don't do any third-party management for anybody else. Our theory is nobody cares about your property like you do, and so we really focus on our management and we'll have an on-site management team here. Davis, who's doing the medical, is based in Minneapolis, over 90 years of experience. I think the city's pretty familiar with them; I believe they currently have over 100,000 square feet of medical office currently under construction here. And then the residential component will be built by RT Residential, which is a division of locally-based Tradition Companies. It's a multi-generational company. In fact, all of these companies—Timberland, Davis, and RT—are multi-generational companies, which I think shows the stability of the group that we've assembled here. We'll be around long-term and we'll build a quality project. So with that, myself and members of the development team are here to answer any questions and I will turn it over. [52:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I have a couple questions for you first. One of the questions that we had at a similar project in another side of the city is how is the trash handled? At this other community, it's picked up daily by their staff; I'm just wondering how trash is handled. [53:11] **Ryan Syler:** Yeah, so we do it differently at all our different properties, but we will pick it up as often as needed. We can do individual trash cans or we can do a central system. I don't think we've determined exactly how we're going to do it yet; probably centrally located because we can more fully control how many times a week it gets picked up and then we don't have to worry about urging residents to move trash cans off their driveway or not. We have much more control over it. [53:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Central. And a similar project also... there was some sort of amendment, and maybe Mr. Morey can expound on that a little bit, but I think in other planning changes to Corridor Mixed Use we had some sort of rider where if the project didn't complete, that the underlying zoning returned. Is that... maybe I'll just tee that up for you, but that's the only questions I had for now. [54:11] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Snow management—how will that work in the property? [54:15] **Ryan Syler:** Yeah, so we'll obviously handle our snow management and we'll carve out areas within the site for snow storage. And then if we can't store it on site, or if we have one of those winters like we did last year, we'll haul it off-site at our cost. [54:35] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Other questions? [54:54] **Planning Director Daryl Morey:** Good evening Mayor and Councilmembers. So we know where the property location is: north of County Road 46—in other words, 162nd Street—and west of Buck Hill Road. The proposed applications are comprehensive plan amendment and a rezoning of portions of the property that would allow the 167 stacked flat townhome units and the nine single-family lots on the development. The two commercial office lots that front County Road 46 are in the current commercial land use and zoning, and that portion is not changing. The majority of the property is guided commercial, also zoned commercial. This northwest corner, it's a mixture of low-medium and medium density residential. The proposal where the nine single-family lots are located in the northwest corner is just to change that segment that's medium down to low-medium, so that whole entire area will be low-medium consistent with the proposed single-family lots. And then the portion for the stacked flat townhomes that's not the office buildings, the proposal is to change that to Corridor Mixed Use. And as the Council may remember, there was a similar proposal two years ago for this site for comp plan amendment and rezoning. The difference is at that particular time, there was no commercial that was proposed to be retained; it was the nine single-family lots and 188 stacked flat townhome units. So there was more of those units, no commercial retained. There was concern by the Council at that time about retaining commercial on the property, which this proposed site plan does. And that's part of this request, is that will remain. And as you heard, the Davis Group is behind those medical office buildings and they have the large medical office building currently under construction in Timber Crest, very near Buffalo Wild Wings. We did send the comp plan amendment out to our adjacent jurisdictions as is required. We did hear back favorably from all the jurisdictions. We did get comments from the city of Burnsville regarding the sewage flow for this site, which actually is routed to the Maple Island lift station which is very near Crystal Lake. We share that lift station with the city of Burnsville. The city of Burnsville was concerned that the lift station is at capacity and there's no additional capacity to accommodate this site, as well as there's a couple of other vacant parcels in this area that would go in that direction. We've talked internally about this with staff and there is money in the Capital Improvement Plan for the study and design of a lift station in the city of Lakeville that would accommodate this area, so it does not have to go permanently to the Burnsville Maple Island lift station. I think the developer—you're going to hear—is going to request for the office buildings, because they would be the first things developed on this site, the potential to temporarily tie into that lift station while the city's lift station is under construction, which could be online as early as 2025. We do have to broach that with the city of Burnsville; that's more of a development-related preliminary plat related issue because with preliminary plats obviously sewer service and water service is part of our review. So that would be reviewed in more detail at that particular time, but we are having conversations, or will be having conversations, with Burnsville on that to address their issue. [59:58] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** So can we talk about that a little bit more? Who pays for that? And if it was on our CIP, how necessary really was it going to be based on kind of the slowdown on current construction? [1:00:22] **Planning Director Daryl Morey:** In terms of who pays for it, we've talked about that and we've shared our thoughts and ideas with the developer is that at least this Sundance Lakeville would pay their pro-rata share of the cost of that since they're coming in now and again, the current lift station is at capacity. There are some other properties adjacent that are either undeveloped or underdeveloped that could be redeveloped in the future. You have this one just to the east of it between Sundance and I think it's O'Reilly Auto Parts; this parcel here has a current single-family home but it is 4 acres in size and could be subdivided in the future. And then there's this part that's next to the apartments that is still undeveloped. So we haven't worked out those details, but potentially the development/redevelopment of those properties could pay their pro-rata share as well. With that, that would be have to be part of an agreement with Sundance Lakeville as part of the preliminary plat that they would pay their pro-rata share. And from what I'm hearing from the development team at this time, they're not opposed to doing that. [1:01:47] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, that's helpful. Go ahead. [1:01:52] **Planning Director Daryl Morey:** Planning Commission held a public hearing on the comp plan amendment and rezoning at their October 19th meeting and unanimously recommended approval. There was public comment from three neighboring residents, mainly concerned with traffic and speeds on Kendale Drive in that area. The Lakeville Police Department did do a follow-up study out there where they examined speeds and traffic going on Kendale in this particular area of this neighborhood, and they found that 98% of the traffic—the vehicles traveling during that period—were at or below the 30-mile-an-hour speed limit. And those that were above it were less than 5 miles an hour above the speed limit. In addition, the developer did prepare a traffic study for the project; it was submitted with the comp plan amendment and rezoning and found that the vast majority of traffic that is going to be coming to or exiting the site is going to do it via either Buck Hill Road or Candell out to 46, but there will be a very minimal amount of traffic that might go through the neighborhood and up into Burnsville, but that was very minor in terms of that traffic. In conclusion, staff is recommending approval of the resolution approving the Sundance Lakeville comprehensive plan amendment and also the ordinance for rezoning and adoption of the findings of fact. Just a reminder to the City Council: a four-fifths vote is required for approval of the comp plan amendment and I can stand for questions. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Just my question about does the underlying—if this project doesn't go, does the underlying zoning return? **Planning Director Daryl Morey:** Oh, I'm sorry, thank you for reminding me. Yes, the if you look at the ordinance itself right at the very towards the very end before the signature, it does state that the approval of the rezoning is subject to the preliminary plat for Sundance Lakeville being approved. [1:04:09] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Other questions? Joshua? [1:04:13] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Having reviewed the Planning Commission meeting, I heard the resident concerns about, and even from the Planning Commissioner about walking around Kendale Drive. I see based on Sundance's initial rendering that there is a sidewalk connecting those residents to the clubhouse, which is good. That wasn't as clear for me on my document initially. But is there opportunity to improve that curve as a whole as a part of this project to go to DuPont to provide some additional pedestrian safety? I might have to leave that to the experts; I don't know if project engineer is here or if Mr. Oehme wants to address that question in terms of upgrading Kendale. [1:05:07] **Planning Director Daryl Morey:** That's probably best for the experts if somebody wants to handle that. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Well, and that may not be a question you can really answer tonight because really the question we're answering is the zoning piece and we're going to be getting into the platting later. But I guess as we look at what the plat actually looks like at the next phase, I'd be interested in hearing if there are ways to improve that curve in conjunction with this project to address some of those pedestrian concerns. **Planning Director Daryl Morey:** Okay, thank you for that clarification. We can certainly do that. As we're hearing this, we can have our engineering staff review that when the preliminary plat comes in. We'll just make special note that that's a concern and we'll examine and see if we can soften that. I don't know if that'll require additional right-of-way dedication and then of course there would be the cost and who pays for the cost of those improvements, but we can take that under advisement. And when this does come back for preliminary plat, we'll make sure we can address that. Thank you. [1:05:54] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, thanks. Okay, so this is not a public hearing but we traditionally allow folks to comment up to about three minutes for issues like this. So feel free to come up, state your name, your address for the record, and share your comments. And again, if you'd please keep it to three minutes, we'd all appreciate that. But I will now open that up. So we'll start with you because you were Johnny on the spot an hour ago. [1:06:53] **Tom Bradovich:** Yeah, no, that's okay. Tom Bradovich. My wife Penny and I live in the Streefland subdivision. Back in '21 when this did not get approval, were you aware of Burnsville's concerns with a lift station? I don't know if we got that far. In reading their response to Frank Dempsey's request for them to comment, "a study will need to be completed and required improvements identified prior to approval of preliminary plat for the proposed development. Approval prior to the resolution would be considered premature." I would strongly and respectfully advise you guys to look carefully at this. Can you really build a lift station in one to two years? Secondly, the findings of fact concerning traffic: traffic generated by the proposed use is within capabilities of the street serving property. My wife and I lived there for only five years now, but I'll tell you: how many vehicles do you think are going to be in 197 units? I'm referring to Kendale Drive or Buck Hill. That's... I mean conservatively I'm going to guess 250 vehicles coming in and out of that daily funneling onto Buck Hill, which and that exit is really close to 46. And then Kendale—oh my God, that I guarantee you that cannot handle that amount of traffic. Those people are going to have a heck of a time getting into and out of that area. I respectfully request you guys to relook at that traffic study. The police study only looked at the speed limits. I don't think this area can handle that type of traffic. And I understand this is life in the big city; cities want to grow, you want to increase your tax base. You're sitting on a parcel of land that is generating zero income for you guys. A developer comes on board and says "hey look what I can do" and the dollar signs start ringing up in your head. Wrong place for that. It's just the wrong place. If a developer had proposed building—oh, I don't know—could you squeeze in there 15-20 houses that people were going to buy? I wouldn't be standing here. But for 176 units, that kind of traffic? I think it's the wrong place. By the way, as an aside, thank you Lakeville for hiring police officers. If you know of anybody on the Minneapolis Council, maybe you could consider having those people do the same. Thank you for your comments. [1:09:48] **Chelsea W:** Good evening, Mayor and City Councilmembers. My name is Chelsea W. and I live at 15956 Kendale Drive and our backyard butts up to the property that we're talking about. My concerns with this development are the volume of homes, the townhomes/homes being rental properties, as well as the increase in traffic this development will create. Prior to moving to our current house, we owned a townhome in Burnsville. One of the reasons we decided to move was to have more privacy, as that is a big thing for us. We loved our current location because it was wooded and has lots of privacy with the freeway noise in County Road 46. With 176 family home/townhomes, that is a lot of people in a small area and a lot more noise that will be created. Having all these townhomes and houses on top of each other and towering over the current houses gets rid of the natural beauty this land has, the different species it currently inhabited, and overshadowing our currently developed neighborhood. Another reason why we moved from our townhome was because the population had a huge turnover. We lived in our townhome for 5 years and during the first year we knew all of our neighbors. After that year, we didn't know the neighbors because they were constantly changing as well as the demographics. We lived with people who didn't care about their house or their yard because it was a rental. We started getting sketchy people with random people showing up all hours of the day and coming and going like it was a convenience store. The area started turning into somewhere we didn't want to raise our family, hence why we're here in Lakeville. Even though this development is supposed to be high-end rentals, you never know what kind of people will be renting and what their mindset is, knowing that it's just a rental. Lastly, with 176 rental properties and two medical buildings, that is a lot of traffic that will be created. Most families have two cars; that means that there will be well over 350 cars for just the residents, not including all the cars that would be going to the medical buildings each day. Kendale Drive is already a busy road and a difficult intersection to get out of. I have to double look sometimes, even triple look just to back out of my driveway because the car that I had previously looked over to see if it was there wasn't there and all of a sudden is there speeding by. There have been many times that cars don't even slow down for me to turn into my driveway, let alone go around the curve and drive on the wrong side of the road. I try to walk to get my mail and I'm almost hit because the cars coming around at that corner go so fast that they don't even see you. Adding the pass-through from Buck Hill Road to Kendale will only make this intersection more of a nightmare. Many office buildings and medical buildings have a one-way in and out, for example the office and hearing building right next to McDonald's across County Road 46. My suggestion for the developer is to not have this road go all the way through and to stop the road at the end of the medical buildings. While all this is much better than having a Costco or a major store put on this land, the idea of having huge volumes of homes, the townhouses and homes being rental properties, as well as an increase in traffic this development will create, needs to be addressed. A park or a play area for our growing families is a much better idea than 176 houses. Thank you. [1:13:30] **Amy Kenra:** Hi, good evening Mayor and Councilmembers. I'm Amy Kenra and I live at 11255 162nd Street West in Lakeville. And I'm wondering... is there a way that I can change this picture back to the aerial view that had the grass and the red line? This one, thank you. So I live at the property that you had mentioned that could be subdivided that has a single-family home. So I'm on the west side of Kendale Drive and I echo everything that has been said before. One thing that a couple things I'd like to add is on Kendale, that is the only thoroughfare going in and out of the Lakeville neighborhood and the Burnsville West Buck Hill area. All of those residents come down and take Kendale if they are going to be going east on County Road 46 because that is the only convenient way to do so; otherwise there's a median in the road and/or you're not going to go on five... the quickest path is from A to B, so you're not going to go on five to take a left on County Road 46. And so with that being said, I'm happy with the Planning Commissioners that they recognize that a high density is not necessarily the most conducive for that area and they want to lower the density. Even with the lower density, there's still a lot of density. One thing—and I'm very thankful with the that we were able to partner with the Lakeville Police Department that they were able to have some tools available, resources available to determine what the speed was—are they crazy drivers, etc. The key thing with that is that we really need a survey done, one of those survey strips: how many cars are coming and going on a daily basis? Again, I know that this is not the meeting for that, but with the building of or the consideration of building this land out, it is really important that we address the traffic concerns. And even if there's a thorough way on 158th... where that top red line is, and/or if you just, as Mr. Lee was saying, maybe readjust the curve in the road to where there's a stop sign, a speed bump, something that would stop traffic from going in and out of on that road so frequently, so fast. If there was a way that we could redirect, have another outlet for the West Buck Hill folks, maybe they go out onto Buck Hill Road... that would be wonderful. So that's all that I have to add. Thank you. [1:16:42] **Kay FY:** Good evening Mayor and Councilmembers. My name is Kay FY and I live in the HOA neighborhood Streefland Edition. We've lived there for 21 years; we were among the first builders in that neighborhood and we've come to really love it. My concern and my husband's are the fact that only three residents were commented; I apologize that I wasn't at the earlier meeting. But the density in this development, while efficient... if there are 176 units with two people per house, it's 352 people. With three people, it's 528 people. With four people, which is pretty standard, it's 704 people. The amount of traffic that has been discussed is excessive, and having to navigate that when there are families with small children on either side—on both the south side, the north side, and the west side of this development—it really does change the nature of the neighborhood. I moved to Lakeville from Burnsville where I was an administrator in the schools and I saw the impact of multi-family units. I saw it on my schools, I saw it on my students, I saw it on the families that moved out of Burnsville. And currently Lakeville is a delightful place to live, and thank you Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers for what you've done and what you continue to do. But when you add the density that this proposal has—and nothing against the developers or the purpose of getting more housing units available—this plot of land is really in a difficult situation as far as traffic. If you've ever tried to ski at Buck Hill and you've watched the cars going in and out during ski season, it's unbelievable. And if you're adding this number of people, this number of movement, I don't really think you can say that everybody's going to be home by 5:00 and leave by 8:00. I think it really is more than the land can bear. The commercial properties are expected, we knew that when we moved in, the signs were there. But I certainly would like those of you who are making these decisions to rethink the number of units that are being placed on this property. And again, thank you for everything you do and I sincerely appreciate living in this community. It's been wonderful for us, for our family, for our grandchildren. It's just great. Thank you. [1:19:48] **Alison Thomas:** Hi. My name is Alison Thomas and I live at 15829 DuPont, about three houses away from the proposed development. I want to echo Chelsea's concerns about the road going all the way through. What you can't see on this map is that north of here is one other road and that's 155th Street. So 155th, 158th, and Kendale are your main access points for all of the neighbors behind Buck Hill. There are hundreds of homes but there's no other access because Buck Hill is there. So tons of families only can access these neighborhoods and all the way up to the backside of Buck Hill through those three roads. So to add this additional development with hundreds of homes would significantly add to our traffic. I also want to note that when we moved in here, we didn't realize that DuPont was such a busy road. We have three kids and I know that many of the families on our street have made comments about how much traffic crosses DuPont because many of the families that need to go to 158th—excuse me, that need to go to Burnsville—will take DuPont Avenue to 158th and then out north on Five. So that would be the same for families coming from the new proposal to get out to Five; many of them would take DuPont to 158th. So I have personal concerns and obviously I feel concerned for my kids because of DuPont Avenue already being so busy. And I know that we already have traffic that comes from the HOA development that takes 158th to get out to Burnsville. So I would also strongly recommend that the road end, that it come from Buck Hill Road only and not access Kendale. I would like to verify that the picture shown does include a sidewalk; is that correct? I do really appreciate the addition of a sidewalk because I realize that the speed limit is 30 miles per hour, but 30 miles on a straight road is significantly different than 30 miles on a curve and there is no safe place at this time for anybody to take a walk. My family likes to take after-dinner walks, I know I'm not probably not the only one who does that, and when we take a walk around the block we have to often walk on the wrong side of the road to maintain safety because it's currently not a safe place to walk. Thank you. [1:22:34] **Alexis Z:** Hi. My name is Alexis Z. I live right on 15825 DuPont, just a few houses left of the land we're talking about. So when I look at the map and about density: our neighborhood is a west side of the property we're talking about, and if you look at the size of the land, we have only 45 homes there. The land is just kind of bigger than the land we're talking about. If we look right all across, it's kind of spread evenly. For me, it's just a nightmare to have 176 properties this, plus nine homes plus commercial buildings, and it's going to be kind of unevenly in density. That's my proposal is to not build that way, and kind of get all plans together and probably review the plans. Okay, very good. Thank you. [1:24:00] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Anyone else? Can I just have a show of hands on how many people? Just so I don't have to keep saying "anyone else." I just got three or so. Okay. [1:24:08] **Matt Lyson:** Mayor, Council people. My name is Matt Lyson and I live on Canard Court, which is just around Kendale. If you follow Kendale around... can I use my finger on that map? Or... **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Oh, the mouse might be able to show you, yeah. **Matt Lyson:** All right, which is just over here. And I want to reiterate what several people have already said to make the point of traffic flow as it is today. Again, all these people up through here and all these people here, if they are going to 35E, come through Kendale. So don't think of it as just this neighborhood coming through Kendale; it is everyone here who needs to get here going south or heading east essentially to Apple Valley or places beyond. So I just wanted to reiterate that. Now another thought, I hope you can clarify something for me: because I thought when we got postcards sent out to us a few months ago that it stated that it was a low-density proposal. Did that change in the meantime here or...? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I don't believe so, but I'll add that to my... I'm writing down questions people had and we'll go through them. **Matt Lyson:** I just wanted to make sure because I know I... Debbie's with me here over here, and I turned to her and I said, "At least they're proposing a low-density solution here." So that got me a little more excited because I figured something's going to go in there eventually. Everyone else's point again: putting 20 to 30 houses, single-family houses, against 167 townhome units plus nine houses and commercial with all the parking and people and all the work is just going to make it crazy on Kendale. So I just wanted to reiterate that again and that's all I got. Thank you for listening to me. [1:25:59] **Emily Pon:** Emily Pon, I'm on 15701 Fremont. I'm here echoing a lot of what you've been hearing. I have four children and I think that this discussion should actually be about safety. Because I don't let my four children go the route of DuPont; like if they want to go to McDonald's, I make them walk to the light along a County Road which is far safer than going on the curve of DuPont. This is safety and they should address a sidewalk or something of that nature before even considering adding more homes. And it's actually... I have a hard time when I was reading about it... Apartments stacked? It's just too many people and this is a safety issue. Thank you. [1:27:08] **David Kba:** Good evening Mayor, Councilmembers. My name is David Kba. I live at 15822 DuPont, the center house there to the west of the property proposed. I could echo everything that's been said; I agree with all of it. My issue is a little bit different tonight and that is a lot of the properties that Timberland Properties have built, at least a percentage of their rentals are income-based or low-income. And I'm wondering if there is something in the contract that states it has to stay market-rate, and if so for how long, to make sure that we don't end up with low-income 176 units of low-income in our backyard. All the traffic that goes up through to 158th Street... they're absolutely correct about that. I would like to see us do something, you know, separate the subdivisions or speed bumps. We do need something there. As far as removing the road where it connects to Kendale, you have room for about four vehicles before they hit the stop sign there and probably about six to eight vehicles on Buck Hill before they hit the light. So all those people, the congestion trying to get out of there, I think is going to be a major disaster. One thing that's nice: I do... those buildings that are in that property, I think they do attract a lot of negative activity, so seeing those go away would be a plus. But there is a lot of animals in this property; it's a green space that we all enjoy, everyone who backs up to it. You know, it's just nice to have. The sidewalk issue: my question would be if they create sidewalks up Kendale around the corner, is it then like the previous project that was proposed—are we going to be required to add onto that and create sidewalks up through our neighborhood or is it just going to abruptly stop in the middle of the curve on Kendale? So that would be something... is that going to be an assessment that we're looking at in the future if this goes forward? That is pretty much the gist of my concerns. Thank you for hearing me out. [1:29:43] **Steve Henbury:** Steve Henbury, 15826 DuPont, so neighbors with all the folks you've heard from. I'm not going to rehash everything you've heard. I want to reiterate the sidewalk concern and encourage you to have this issue addressed regardless of what happens with this proposal. I think it's become clear that the curve of the road is really a problem not only for children but for anyone from any part of this neighborhood that's trying to get out. And almost everybody is going east, right? To go to 35, to either Bolero or McDonald's which is over there. So regardless of what happens tonight, I just hope that we can work with you. And I really appreciate Sergeant Hansen from the Police Department who's been really communicative with us and with me in particular over the last several weeks and doing a study. He had officers out there in the speed wagons. So I really appreciate that and I would anticipate that you'll hear the concerns tonight and continue to work with us to address those. Thank you. [1:30:38] **M Ahmed:** My name is M Ahmed and I live in 16097 Canard Court, Lakeville. So I echo whatever has been said here. The other thing which I wanted to add was the road which is designed. I don't know who would think that: it has only four or five car spaces before it hits the road, right? So just imagine that 150 cars coming out at 8:00 from this property which is being proposed, and all the West Buck Hill also uses that road. So this will be like... who is going to solve that problem and how? So I think that's a... that's not a well-thought project, that's one thing. Second thing: 176 housing units and two office buildings in that small piece of land? Seriously? I mean this is so much high-density project which you guys are creating. And you know, it can affect the whole neighborhood. If this cannot be used as commercial, as was being said that it is vacant for last 20 years, fine, use it as single-family homes. I mean at least they will be equally distributed. As Matt said here, we have bigger than that land which houses 47 units. So you know, this can be used as single-family homes or it can be used as a park, which is very required for this whole neighborhood. Whatever the police has done for the speeding, I'm not doubting that, but nobody has done the survey that how many cars are passing through. All the West Buck Hill uses this road, we all use this road, you know? But there's a lot of traffic already on this road, let alone start any new project. I appreciate it. [1:32:44] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Last call? Okay, so I had heard a series of questions. And I don't know if some of them—I think Mr. Morey is probably the answer—and then maybe some Mr. Syler. I don't want to make you stand up there, but I'm going to start with Mr. Morey. These are some of the technical questions. I heard a question about has there been a lift station study? You did mention there's conversation, but if you had any further comment about the lift station and its ability to handle this project. [1:33:40] **Planning Director Daryl Morey:** Yeah, Burnsville did do a lift station study, actually in February of '22, so after the last time this proposal was considered by the City Council. And again, their concern is twofold—and I'll let Mr. Oehme chime in if I'm speaking... I'm not an engineer. But my understanding is their concern was twofold: the capacity at the current lift station, Maple Island lift station, plus its proximity to Crystal Lake. So if there was a situation where the lift station wasn't—lost power or wasn't functioning—there's potential for discharge into Crystal Lake. So it was an environmental concern and their response time to be able to get crews out there to be able to maintain that before that happens. Those were the primary concerns. And again, Mr. Oehme can jump in here, but we do have our own study to build a lift station in Lakeville somewhere in this area to handle the sewer not just from this parcel but from others. We have the money in the CIP to study it, to design it, and then we have to work through the cost of construction. I will say that most of these issues that we're talking about tonight and have been raised are development-related issues. So those really are more issues for the preliminary plat and the design of the plat. If this gets approved tonight, the question is whether the proposed land use change and the rezoning is appropriate and makes sense for this property. And again, I will leave it up to the developer; I believe the property owner is here, he could tell you about how long he's owned this and how hard he's tried to market this property for commercial development. But it's really about the land use. Believe it or not, we did have a public hearing at the Planning Commission meeting where people were given an opportunity to speak, so we did go through that process as is required by our ordinance and state statute as well. If this gets approved by the City Council, there will be more opportunity to examine the specific design of the development of this property, the current design of Kendale Drive, more detail in the traffic. Although I would like to at some point turn this over that there is a representative of the firm that did the traffic study, and since so many comments were related to traffic tonight, I think that person who's more of an expert on traffic than I am should speak. I did review the traffic study; there weren't any concerns about the operations of the intersections and the stacking distances and the sight lines, but I again I will leave that to the experts to go into more detail. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Did anybody else have questions for Mr. Morey? Other questions? **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** In that traffic study that they did, did they put one of those counters on Kendale? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I'll have to... yeah, no, I know, but that's... I think that's the biggest question. Let's... I'm going to turn over to the person who can answer the traffic questions if that's okay. Maybe it makes sense just to kind of give an overview how and what you studied and conducted, and maybe some more information that might be helpful. [1:36:50] **Nick Erage (Alliant Engineering):** Mayor, members of the Council, my name is Nick Erage, I'm with Alliant Engineering, 733 South Market Avenue, Minneapolis. We've actually performed two studies for this development: one originally in 2021 with the earlier development plan, and then again in 2023. We've actually collected data out there three separate times: 2017, 2021, and 2023. The 2017 data count was related to some signal timing that we did for Dakota County on CSAH 46. When we collected in 2021, we were obviously on the back end of the pandemic; we analyzed the 2021 volumes relative to the 2017 volumes to make sure that there wasn't a considerable drop-off in traffic, and we applied some factors at that time for the 2021 study to make sure we were analyzing pre-COVID conditions. And then in 2023 we collected in August before performing the current study, and again we referenced the 2021 volumes and the 2017 volumes to make sure that it was consistent historically with what we've seen out there. Traffic volumes have not returned to pre-COVID volumes in most places across the Metro and the 2023 volumes that we collected were consistent with what else we're seeing through not just Dakota County and the City of Lakeville, but the state as a whole. So we're confident that the volumes that we collected as part of this and analyzed as part of this study are consistent with conditions that are out there. When we collect data, we do it on a typical weekday. We don't design for major events outside of major areas like sports stadiums. So you know, we're looking at that typical weekday peak period, so that doesn't account for, you know, maybe Buck Hill traffic on a weekend in the winter, but it does account for the typical Monday through Friday to-and-from work, to-and-from school. So we analyze an AM peak hour and a PM peak hour. Typically the PM is a little bit higher with people going to, you know, after-school activities or restaurants and that sort of thing. So that was the case here as well; the AM was a little bit lower than the PM peak hour. Looking specifically at Kendale Drive which has been brought up quite a bit: there were 66 AM trips on Kendale Drive—that's in and out of the neighborhood in the AM—and 78 in the PM. Typically, AM and PM peak hours are collectively 20% of daily trips. We did not count a full 24-hour period, we just count enough to be able to get the peak hours, so we would estimate that to being roughly 700 cars per day on Kendale. The capacity of a two-lane local street like that is roughly a thousand vehicles per day, so there's 30% of the capacity still there. Looking at the development as a whole, a lot of the trips that are coming out this development are also residential. In terms of trip distribution, we do not assume that a lot of trips are going from residential to residential, which is why as part of the study, a lot of those trips are going to 46 to Buck Hill and eventually over to 35. So we do not estimate a large number of trips from this development utilizing Kendale. Our projections, which was maybe a little bit conservative about trips using Kendale, would be 76 in the AM—that's a difference of 10—and 98 in the PM, a difference of 20, bringing the total daily trips up to roughly 870, still well below that thousand. Typically when you're exceeding a thousand vehicles per day on a local street such as Kendale, the solution is to add turn lanes at major pinch points; that's where you start to see kind of the capacity issues with rear ends as vehicles are slowing to turn. It wouldn't be adding more lanes, you know, going to a four-lane section or anything like that. So long-term with this development, we analyzed both the major intersections on 46 and the access locations—two on Kendale (one from the single-family and one from the larger development) and then the one on Buck Hill. All intersections performed at level of service B or better. Typically we would not see any concerns with anything until it degrades to like a level of service D. So they're all performing adequately and we analyzed 2025 which was the build year identified, and then 2045 which is 20 years in the future, still without issue. So we do not have concerns from a traffic perspective. There are concerns about existing traffic behaviors and, you know, safety relative to Kendale Drive and I understand those concerns, but from a development perspective the traffic that's being added to the network is within acceptable performance of those intersections. [1:41:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Other questions traffic related? Okay, we can follow up after. Yep. Okay, so I had some questions Mr. Syler. I don't know if you wanted to share based on what you heard, but some of the questions I had for you: if you could talk a little bit about the typical resident—like family size, is it one person, is it three people?—to kind of have a better sense about what we're really thinking about for population. I think there was a specific question about market-rate long-term that maybe you can answer. And then my other question for you is: does the plan have holding onto some of the tree buffer between the single-family that you're presenting versus the single-family that butts DuPont and Kendale? [1:43:05] **Ryan Syler:** All right. I'll do my best to remember all that. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Don't worry, I got it written down. **Ryan Syler:** Unit mix: right now this is set up to have about 100 one-bedrooms in the stacked flats, and then the rest would be, I think it's around 58 two-bedrooms and four to six three-bedrooms. So what we've seen for most of these developments that we do, the demographic tends to be young professionals, married couples that are looking to establish roots in the community, eventually probably move up, have kids, and be in the school district. The other large demographic, which is actually a little more surprising to us, was downsizers: Baby Boomers who don't want to keep up with maintenance on their home, don't want to go to independent living or an apartment, but like the space, the garage, and somebody else doing their maintenance for them. So that's kind of what the demographics have been. The household incomes of these—and just to back up a little bit, the rents on the two-bedrooms are around 1,800, I think the two-bedrooms are around just under 2,400, and then the three-bedroom apartment units around 2,800 to 2,900 on average; single-family homes over 3,000. So typical household incomes for these developments have been well into the six figures. They cost over $300,000 per unit to build. So that kind of leads into the question about the comment about a lot of our projects I guess having an affordable component. Happy to have that conversation. If you look at the website or the projects that have that, that's usually driven by a city requirement. The cities that we've worked in—Eden Prairie has required that affordable component, the City of Minneapolis requires it—so the deals where we have it have been driven by a city requirement. None of the Sundance projects that we have built have any affordable component and this one won't either. And actually, you know, this seems to go both ways: sometimes we're getting grilled because we don't have it, you know, sometimes we get grilled because we do have it. So I think that's demographics. I would comment generally: what we're requesting here is actually a down-zone. Just to be clear, I mean this is... we're trying to down-zone from a higher intensity use that currently exists on the site with the exception of the northwest quadrant of the site, that 3 acres which has got nine single-family homes, very low density. And the city has been very adamant from the beginning, back in 2020 or 2021 when we brought this up, to keep that buffer—that low-density buffer—to buffer those single-family homes to the west. And in the rest of it, they're two-story stack flats. There was a comment about the development towering over the adjacent uses; that's just simply not the fact. They're two stories, just like the surrounding houses in the neighborhood. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Sorry, what... is there a plan to keep any of the greenery between the single-family... like the two... so if you... DuPont is the one that comes directly—so it's the one road to the left of that red line. There's some trees in there. Is there a plan to keep some of the trees as a buffer between that and that neighborhood? **Ryan Syler:** Yeah, I mean so we will keep the buffer. Any trees we remove, the city's usually require a replacement plan, and if that's a big concern we will work throughout the preliminary plat and the development agreement to make sure that that buffer exists. Happy to go above and beyond. All right. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** And then another question I had was... it came up about turn lanes on Kendale. Has that been something that's been... so if you maintain Kendale as an access point, creating a turn lane to turn right into there from 46... or so if you go on Kendale and then just adding a turn lane, has that been considered? **Ryan Syler:** No, we have not considered it. So far our decisions have been based off what's driven by the traffic study and what the traffic study showed, so we have not looked in depth at that. [1:47:33] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. Other questions from...? Yeah, John. [1:47:35] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Can you just describe—you talked about it a little earlier—but the management of the property? I just want to verify that it is your management and that they're there all the time. [1:47:50] **Ryan Syler:** Yeah, it's... I mean Timberland Partners, we manage, like I said, over 20,000 units. It's all in-house. This site, this property the size, will have five people working on-site daily: community manager, assistant community manager, a leasing agent, and a service supervisor and a service tech. So another comment I would say is we take care of the maintenance. This isn't a single-family—which there's a lot of them going on right now—but single-family rentals or you know, a for-sale townhome HOA where some of them are then rented out and you can't control the maintenance. We control the maintenance. We also have the ability to go into units and we have a lot of control over the upkeep and maintenance of our properties. **Councilmember John Bermel:** So if our police officers or code enforcement people need to get a hold of somebody over an issue, they aren't going to have to call some number and get a call back later and all that? **Ryan Syler:** We have 24 hours on a call; somebody will pick up the phone. **Councilmember John Bermel:** Perfect, thank you. [1:49:14] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah. Other questions? I just have a couple comments. I mean I was opposed two years ago to the rezoning, and part of my comments then were that I was really concerned about losing commercial property. And this plan makes a lot of sense to be able to maintain some of that, but then also having the single-family buffer into the other single-family homes, I think makes a ton of sense. I'm supportive of the rezoning. I think we've heard a lot of concerns about Kendale and the traffic, and so my hope is that you guys continue to stay engaged with us and we will with you to make sure we have those traffic issues addressed through the platting and kind of the further process. So that's where I'm at on it. I don't know if anybody else has other comments, but for me I think moving forward the rezoning makes sense and then we can button up some of the details when it comes to the other safety concerns that people have. [1:50:02] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I will allow you to do that as the person who showed up first, but just if you'd please keep your comments limited because we're kind of wrapping up. [1:50:15] **Tom Bradovich:** So the traffic study that you... where is he? I'm sure that's a traffic study that's going to consider a street like this. Can it handle 300, 250, 300 cars coming out of this area feeding onto Kendale, turning left? There is no way. I guarantee you, if you guys haven't been there, drive over here. I live... I turn left on 46 from Jamaica so I know what it's like. Turning left on here's where Penny and I live right here, and when we want to head east we have to come out here. And I guarantee you this is an adventure now trying to get across here. People coming east on 46 coming from Five and when they want to get to the freeway, this is busy all the time. You're going to add, I guarantee, a minimum 250 cars going to work Monday through Friday trying to get out on Kendale when you can stack maybe three, four cars waiting in between that exit point or on Buck Hill. It's... yeah. Okay. Take DuPont... it's not going to work. It's not going to work. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yeah, I appreciate it and we'll continue to talk to you guys through the process. So other comments? Yep, Joshua. [1:51:50] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** I mean, first of all I want to thank the engagement of the community on this because the concerns are valid. Traffic is one of Lakeville's biggest trends right now, and pedestrian safety, so it's not missed on I think any of us—the concerns folks have particularly when a development like this is coming in. I'm trying to balance out what the data is saying and what the qualitative experience people have on that bend is. Also my own personal experience living next to 200 similar-type style homes where my house is, and you know, my lived experience is that this type of housing does not have 200 cars coming in and out of a development on a daily basis; that's just not how employment trends are working right now. So again, I sympathize with the concerns and I think they're valid and I think the platting process is really important here because there are ways that I think we can minimize the impact. I am supportive of this comp change because I would rather see this here than something else. In fact, I prefer this than some of the other things we've been out trying to find. And I've really appreciated the developer's changes that have already been made because of the orientation of the site; the transition makes sense. Unfortunately, platting single-family homes all the way to Buck Hill Road just wouldn't be feasible, I don't think. That's not the design of our city; we're trying to build in buffers from medium to lower density. So there's a lot of things at play here and I think we are getting closer to something that I think all of us can come closer to compromise on. So that's kind of where I'm at as well. So I appreciate the comments there. Also just wanted to make a comment too that we aren't trying to subdivide anyone's current personal residences around here, so that's up to you to sell your own property. I don't think we addressed that formally. So that's... that's where I'm at and again just appreciate everybody's comments tonight. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yep, Michelle. [1:54:14] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** So I had brought up my concerns about traffic at our... was our study session, wasn't it, when they brought this forward to talk to us about their idea? And at that time, so I'm grateful for the residents coming in because it hadn't dawned on me that the West Buck Hill area, how much usage was coming out of that street too. I did make a comment—I do live over by this area, so I'm familiar with you guys trying to make a left out of there and I've often thought, "Oh, this is crazy." But the other thing is though, you know, just because we as humans... most of these people, I'm just going to speculate, are going to want to go to a light and they most likely going to take themselves over to Buck Hill Road even if they were going to take a right onto 46, just because of the turn lanes etc. that are accessible. I had more concerns about the sightlines on Buck Hill Road because of the kind of the S-curve. I don't think that's going to be corrected and you know, that was kind of my thought process: how many more accidents were we going to have in that area because it would be such a short distance to get to the light? The other thing is that I was grateful to this... while I didn't really want the comp to go forward, but when they made the change to have the medical commercial come in, for me personally in my opinion, that really is a lower volume of people and a clientele that is more desirable for commercial properties considering what could go in. Because this whole thing could be a big box and we'd be having issues with the big... the problem is the reason the big box won't buy here is because Buck Hill Road, I mean, you know, and the access and getting in and out, and then it's just not a desirable property for something like that. So when a medical building proposal came forward, that was definitely more desirable and it fits in with what's across the street with the other office building, etc. It fits in with the Moments Nursing Home; you know, the corner fits those types of commercial uses kind of fit the area. It keeps it low-key. For you folks, I am very concerned. I didn't realize the issues that you were having in your neighborhood with only 40-something people. You don't have this... hundreds being able to bring those issues forward to the city. So I'm really hoping that we can come up with some solutions for the safety because that is a huge concern and I can't really see what else can go on this property and we have to just kind of figure out a way. I hate to make the step of approving this and then have to go through all these things, but I realize that that's the step that you take: you do one little step and then you go through the plat process. So my question is when we get to the plat process: if we made this step, when we get to the plat process, is there any room for refusal if we don't like how it's laid out and we don't think it's safe for the residents' concerns? [1:59:16] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** An answer... well I defer to the City Attorney, but if a project comes in and it meets the subdivision requirement as set out in the city code, then the discretion is pretty limited, correct? And so that is my problem with taking this step until we actually can solve some issues. And I made that clear the last time, but I just wanted to at least outline some of the positives I see with it, but I still can't move forward with it because I just think there are too many safety concerns that need to be addressed before we could move forward with the project. And I'm limited by the time we approve it here to the next time it comes forward because of with the preliminary plat. So that's just my personal opinion. [2:00:01] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Other comments? John. [2:00:03] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Um, I agree. I appreciate people coming forward. It's actually nice to see this room full and people coming up and commenting because it's important to you and you are heard. I see this as a process and the first part of the process is to make a decision on the zoning. The platting comes later, how this is actually ends up being laid out. Back and forth, taking your comments into consideration and inviting you to remain engaged in that process. This isn't the last time that you would be heard from. So I support the zoning change, but I do want to see us do the best we can in platting in terms of safety and trying to make the pedestrian safety as much as possible and the traffic safety as much as possible. And that's where I sit right now: I support the zoning change, but we have some work to do. [2:01:03] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Yeah, I want to echo what's been said, thanking everybody for coming and participating tonight. I've spent many years of my life serving on Planning Commission, so we do a lot of public hearings in those settings and I gotta give you all my kudos for the respectful tone that you've had this evening. I know it's very emotional when projects impact your homes and livelihoods and that sort of thing, so thank you for participating here. The question before us tonight is the land use issue, and moving this from a commercial zone... you know, we have a lot of discussions about traffic and I've gotta say everybody keeps talking about the commercial use that was envisioned here—it was a Costco at one point. I don't know if you've ever been to the Burnsville Costco, but the traffic going in and out of there is significant and substantial. So I think this is an improvement in that regard. But I just want to echo what John and Michelle have said as well, that we do have a lot of issues. I'm concerned about the roadway issues that have been raised there and think we need to address that as we go through future steps. But I'll be supporting this. [2:02:18] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. We've all kind of waited. I'll take a motion then. **Councilmember John Bermel:** Yep. I move to approve: one, a resolution amending the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, and two, an ordinance amending the zoning map and adoption of findings of fact for Sundance Lakeville. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion about the motion? Joshua. [2:02:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** I guess my only last comment is that as a developer who has strong roots in the community, I guess my expectation it would be that this, even though our as a Council may be more limited, that we're going to continue to be working on this together until it's ready to go. So it's not only an expectation, it's just what I believe is going to happen because of how we've worked in the past. So thank you for continuing to do that. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, very good. Is there a second? **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Second. [2:03:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, roll call please. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Hellier? **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Bermel? **Councilmember John Bermel:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Wolter? **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Lee? **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Aye. **City Clerk Ann Orlofsky:** Volk? **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** No. [2:03:30] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Again, I want to thank everybody for coming. We'll continue to engage with you folks as we go through this process. So thank you again for sharing your concerns. We'll now move on to item number eight and nine. Unfinished and new business? Okay, seeing none. Announcements: our next work session is next Monday at the Water Treatment Facility on the corner of 185th and Ipava, and our next regular City Council meeting in these chambers is December the 4th. And with that, I just want to wish everybody a happy and safe Thanksgiving and have a wonderful rest of your week. And with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I'll make a motion to adjourn. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All in favor say aye. **Council:** Aye. **Mayor Luke Hellier:** We're adjourned. [2:04:17] [Music]