[0:12] Chair Rody: All right, we'll call the meeting to order. On behalf of the planning commission, I'd like to welcome our residents and viewers to this regular meeting of July 8th, 2025. On tonight's agenda, we have uh two public hearings. Uh before we get into those public hearings, we have one housekeeping item. That would be the minutes from our June 10th regular meeting. Are there any additions or corrections to those minutes? If not, is there a motion? [1:13] Commissioner: A motion. [1:13] Chair Rody: We have a motion. Is there a second? [1:13] Commissioner: A second. [1:13] Chair Rody: Motion a second. All in favor say I. [1:13] All Commissioners: I. [1:13] Chair Rody: Okay, minutes are approved. With that, then we're going to open up both public hearings at this time. We'll take them in order as shown on the agenda. The first public hearings a conditional use permit to construct a community solar garden. The location is south of County Road 50 uh west side of Flagstaff Avenue. The applicant is Dimension Energy. And Jared, you're going to take this. [1:42] Jared (City Staff): Yes. Thank you, chair. Uh members of the planning commission. Uh so tonight is a request for a conditional use permit uh to construct a community solar garden on P143400 87010 is currently unaddressed. Uh so the applicant is Dimension Energy. Um they would be the tenant of the site. They would be looking to uh lease the property from uh the property owner Brian Murphy. Um this site is currently zoned uh A1 Agriculture where solar gardens are conditional use. um and is guided for agriculture in the 2040 comprehensive plan. Uh currently uh the site is used um as farmland and surrounding us uses include farmland to the north and south um a single family residence uh directly to the east and then vacant industrial land um within the city of Lakeville to the west. Um so the purpose of this project um is to capitalize on the growing need for clean and renewable energy as well as supplementing XL Energy's increasing requirements for utility companies uh to obtain electrical power from renewable resources. And as you can see here on the right hand side on location map uh this gray line that runs down here is the um boundary between Farmington and Lakeville. So it butts Lakeville um just to the west. So getting into the site plan, um overall it would be a 4.95 megawatt community solar garden um across a 30 acre parcel. Um the project area would encompass 18.54 acres um of that parcel. Uh currently access into the site comes from a private driveway easement off Flagstaff Avenue uh further to uh the east. Um this private driveway easement serves um the adjacent residents um to the east side as well. Um, as you can see down here in the southeastern corner, uh, the access drive or there's a little um unimproved driveway easement where this access drive would connect into and go into the site. Um, and as you can see, the the property is kind of laid out in two distinct areas or the panels are. Um, and this is due to some of the property or some of the constraints on the property. Um, this includes two wetlands um that were delineated right here in the middle. Um, a smaller one here and a larger one here. Um, there's a gas pipeline easement that runs, let's see here, from the south western corner and goes up through this way. Uh, also XL service territory um stops um right at the south end of where the panels stop. So that's why there's no more panels within this southern portion. And then as well as future extension of County Road 70. Um as you can see in the southwestern uh portion here, County Road 70 is proposed in the future to be extended um from Lakeville down through the south western corner of the site. So considering these factors um the panels are laid out in this um kind of two separated areas. Um, I will note that the access drive uh runs along uh the eastern bound or eastern property boundary um and then cuts up into the site with two access gates proposed for each um area of panels. Uh the panels meet all applicable setbacks in the A1 district. This would be 20 ft from the side and rear um yards and then 50 ft in the front yard. There's also a 7 foot tall electric fence um proposed um to surround the panel areas. So, currently there are two types of panels um that would be proposed. Um this would be finalized at uh building permit submitt. It would either be a single axis tilt, which is on your left, or a fixed tilt um on your right. Um, I do want to note that I put in the packet that it would be up to 10 feet um, tall, but it would actually be up to 12 feet tall. Um, that would be the max height that it would reach. So, I just want to um, fix that error in there. Some other notes. Um, the access road is proposed to be gravel per code. It must be paved. Um, so this will be condition of approval. Um, county road 70, as I mentioned earlier, is proposed to loop through that southwestern corner of the site. Um, this must be platted as a condition of approval. um because the county would like this dedicated right away um when the property is developed. So, as a condition of approval, um we will require that the property get platted um and approved by city council. As far as landscaping goes, uh the ground beneath the panels will be receded with low growth grasses. Um there are roughly 54 trees around the larger wetland around the north side that are proposed to be removed. um a tree replacement plan will need to be um submitted to the city and will be also required as a condition of approval. Um as far as utilities go, there's no public infrastructure proposed. Um but the applicant is still working with um engineering on um storm water management for the site. And also what is typical with um these larger scale uh solar gardens is requiring a decommissioning plan. So this will be in place to ensure that panels are removed and the site is restored um once the solar garden reaches the end of its useful life which can be between 20 to 30 plus years. So there are six requirements um per code that cups uh must meet. Uh staff believes that all six of these um are met. These are included in your packet as well. So the action requested uh before the planning commission tonight is to approve the requested conditional use permit um subject to the following conditions. Um the preliminary and final plat application for the subject property is submitted and approved by city council. All necessary building permits are obtained. All engineering comments and requirements are met. A copy of the encroachment agreement with the gas company is submitted at the time of the building permit submitt. This is just for that access road that goes um through that uh easement area. A copy of the signed lease agreement with Brian Murphy is submitted at the time of building permit submitt. Uh the decommissioning plan is signed and executed with the city prior to release of the building permit. A tree replacement plan is submitted and approved by the city prior to release of the building permit. And then the access road must be paved. Um and the applicants are um with us tonight and they'll um give you guys a brief presentation about um who they are. [8:03] Chair Rody: All right. Thank you Jared. Welcome gentlemen. I don't know which one's going to speak or do the presentation. We're both. All right. Sounds great. You're going to keep it under an hour, right? [8:20] Daniel Sorzano: I will try. All right. No, it's be really quick. Thank you. Did a great job and uh try not to repeating, you know, information you already got. But thank you uh thanks for having us tonight. My name is Daniel Sorzano here represent uh Dimension Energy. I act as the director of development for the Midwest. Um, and so we just have a few slides here, project slides, and who we are as a company. Uh, Dimension was founded in 2018. Uh, we're are focused, extremely focused in community solar projects throughout the entire entirety of the country, mainly on the e in the coasts, east coast and west coast. I came in to work on the Midwest. So we have about 500 megawws now in Illinois. Um trying to develop projects in Wisconsin, Minnesota now. So in Minnesota we have about five five to six projects totaling about 35 to 40 megawws. Um we are yeah so we are an owner and operator. So you see a lot of developers working now uh nowadays just trying to get the permits, get entitlements, get uh everything you need to get the project settled entitled and then they sell the project to a bigger developer, somebody that can finance and you know run it. We're not going to do that. We're going to you know keep maintain ownership of the project through the life of the project. So we have a very robust team in New York City. Um I work in development. they have a lot of teams but mainly in New York City we have a team that's going to be working after me uh both build building the project and then operating it. Um, so yeah, very very great company to be at honestly. Uh, I've seen a lot of them and uh, Dimension is definitely up there. But um, yeah, with me I have Alex Ferno uh, with EO. So Alex, if you don't want to. [10:24] Alex Ferno: Uh good evening everyone. My name is Alex Ferno. I'm an environmental planner with Emmens and Oliver Resources or short for that we're just E. Uh we're a water resource-based company that's been active in many or St. Paul uh for over 30 years. We specialize in environmental engineering uh and have teams uh who have been involved in all parts of this project from wetland delineation to uh tree surveying, permitting uh and civil engineering on this project. So, we're proud to lend our expertise to the dimension team and happy to cover any environmental questions that you may have this evening. [11:08] Daniel Sorzano: Um, like I said, I'm going to keep uh a lot of these slides location wise, just bottom corner of the city, southwest corner. Um, just things to mention here. project area mainly covers the blue area um here on your right that's was reduced based on where Excel has their territory we didn't know at the time but essentially uh you have Excel and Dakota uh utility essentially you know Excel doesn't allow us to have any of our infrastructure in their territory so we had to reduce that size to what you see now and also was reduced because of the extension of County Road 70. So, highly constrained site. We tried to make it work as much as we could. Um, and the orange areas are the preliminary ements that we intend to uh use or put in place. The one on the north side will be the tree replacement area. Uh, that that's where we'll be uh you know the the of the trees that we'll be cutting down. That's where we plan to install them, which will also be serving as a tree buffer, like a visual buffer for the north area. Uh because there's, if you see the yellow up there in the uh right corner, northeast, those those are housing units. So, we plan to place uh some trees there that uh you know will block the view pretty much. And then the other one is just access access to the site that we already have. Brian Murphy also owns that area. So, we'll we have that in our lease agreement. Um, you already had this information, but essentially anything here that's new would be the program. The project, we plan to apply to the program. There's two programs right now available for these type of projects. One is a community solar garden program that the state has. Um, it has limited capacity. So, and it's first come first served. So, um one of the requirements is to have entitlements such as your approval and then the other one is to have interconnection agreement in place. Um so, both are you know obviously we're here for one and the other one is very close to having an interconnection agreement signed. So um once the the interconnection approval process is a multiplestep process where you apply uh you pay a fee utility Excel reviews the application sees if they can hold the energy the power that you're going to be pushing in and tells the applicant how much you know uh there's going to be an upgrade process to allow this to happen. uh both in um you know uh infrastructure improvements. So there's a cost to it that the project itself is going to pay. So taxpayers don't pay that if the project for any upgrades and you know if the applicant approves that then they'll move to the next stage and that's where we are right now. We're just waiting to see uh the final it goes through stages. First, they give us an estimate, just a range, a couple hundred,000 in in ranges, and then they give us the actual estimate. And that's where we are. We're just waiting for the actual estimate, and we should have it pretty soon in the next month or so. Um, and then lastly, the application for once we have those two, we'll apply for the program. If we don't get into the state program, we'll get into Excel. Excel has a different program, DG program. Um so we'll be applying for that too if if um the state program doesn't is doesn't have capacity. And then this is community solar project. So we expect to have subscribers. It could be anyone. Um it could be an individual organization public or private. So we expect typical savings of between five and 15%. And their utility bills. Yeah. Upfront. Nothing to do. So there's not not going to be any cost for the subscriber to sign up or if they choose to, you know, remove themselves from the uh the subscription. Uh in terms of Farmington and the county, Dakota County, um Minnesota generates revenue through uh the solar energy generating systems. Um, you know, essentially we have to pay $1.20 per megawatt hour of electricity produced. And just to make it short for you, what we estimate is um an increase from, you know, a current payment of $1,000 to about $20,000 per year. Um, that in a 35 year lifetime would be 750 just under for the project. And then you know that's a significant um increase from the 50 that you would see in the next 35 years. The way that u you know um the state and county divides it is listed here and this are our preliminary estimates. So the city would get 180,000 in that 35 year period. uh you want to just briefly touch base on this? [16:32] Alex Ferno: Yeah, I'll just briefly touch on some of the due diligence that came as we were preparing for uh this project. So, as I mentioned and as Jared mentioned, uh there's two wetlands uh up in the top there uh that are on the site. Both of those are kind of in the lowest tier of wetlands that are uh classified and we stay outside of uh the average buffer for for those. So uh those are things that would have sediment logs around them that prevent them from uh sediment from draining into those. Um there were no kind of archaeological, historical or cultural resources identified on the site when we did a phase one environmental u scan on the site. Uh there were some things that we noticed on adjoining properties but nothing on the site itself that were kind of caused for concern. And then as the project proceeds there's more geology and geotechnical that goes into it as um kind of various elements of the the design are cited on there to make sure that what we're building on top of is um is stable and if there's any soil corrections that need to happen when the pilings are going in. Uh again this is the site I think Jared did a really great job of explaining this so I won't uh explain or speak to this any further but if there's anything uh that we have on that that you are interested in knowing more about happy to field any questions there talk about interconnection. [18:19] Daniel Sorzano: Yep. Yeah, just briefly here. I think one one of the things the gated entrances uh the reason that we built it this way is because Excel needs access to the point of interconnection. So, um they don't want to be inside the sites. So, they need to be outside. Um and then, sorry, one more thing. The type of panel most likely it's going to be uh a tracker panel. So just follows, you know, path of the sun. Um 90% chance that that's what we're going to choose. So yeah, we we place the two type of trackers just in case, but most likely it's going to be a tracker. Um yeah, so finally the interconnection status like I said um we're in the final study results right now stage and we're actually expecting the interconnection agreement to come into in the next week. So it's pretty soon. Um the type of poles that you're going to see is just a three to five pole layout that are going to be uh placed somewhere in this corner. Um, so that's going to be overhead. So it's going to come up here and then it's going to go down again. So it's going to be underground towards the to the site and then underground towards the um the actual infrastructure where it's using Flagstaff Avenue. You don't see it here, but it's Oh, actually I put a picture here. So this is the pole that we most likely interconnect to. They'll go underground. They'll they'll bore and then just go somewhere where um where the project is in here. Um yep. [20:11] Alex Ferno: Yeah. So as we move forward in the project, we'll have be able uh be providing a SWIP and sediment control plan. So uh this project doesn't propose uh very substantial grading on that site. It's kept to a minimum. um because of how flat the topography is already. Uh on top of that, we've got um the receding requirements with native perennial grass underneath the panels uh will help keep that soil in place often better than uh what you see already in uh the row crops that are there. So that will have advantages in terms of less storm water coming off the site, less sediment kind of being washed away. Uh and then during the construction there'll be a silt fence around the perimeter that will keep um keep things contained and then that vegetation management is maintained uh by dimension and kind of mowed periodically to keep it so that it's away from those panels and there's enough clearance underneath there. Uh in terms of decommissioning uh we're working it adheres to the the federal, state, local codes. Um in terms there'll be kind of very kind of thorough communication uh in the event of abandonment and those kind of components of the project many of which can be recycled the panels the uh electrical systems uh much of the like the fencing u the posts that are are in the racking that's installed on there. Uh and so when we look at uh the decommissioning cost of it, uh we kind of had prepared an estimate based on uh the materials that are involved there, you're looking at a decommissioning total of about $26,000. But when you factor in salvaging, uh you can kind of salvage about uh 155 actually $156,000 worth of material from that site um at the end. And I believe with Yeah. [22:31] Daniel Sorzano: Um I just want to touch I didn't add the slide for timing uh for next steps in terms of what we plan to do. So right now like I said we're in the process of getting an interconnection study in place. Once we have that we'll apply for the program. The program we expect to have news from the state between August and September. If they decline our application then we'll go to the Excels DG program and we expect to have information about that in November. Um if any of those two are successful then we'll start construction sometime uh in spring as soon as possible with the you know current administrations I don't know if you following the news for us but it's a lot more complicated uh a lot of more restrictions um the investment tax credits going to go away pretty soon uh probably sooner I'm not sure there was an executive order yesterday so we're still trying to figure it out um if we can actually use it. But regardless of that, we'll we'll still if it's, you know, if the investment tax credit goes away tomorrow, we'll still go ahead and build this project. So, that's not going to be a I mean, it's only a deterrent, but it's not going to prevent us from doing it. So, uh yeah, we'll try and just build this as quickly as we can and, you know, get in operation as soon as possible. Yep. Thank you. [23:29] Chair Rody: All right. Thank you, gentlemen. if you can stay available. If there's questions either from our residents or the commission. Yep. All right. I'd appreciate that. This is a public hearing. If you have a comment or a question, please raise your hand. We're calling you. Um we're going to ask you to come to the podium. Just state your name and address, please. Any questions? If not, now we'll come back at the end of the commission. Sir, did you have something? Okay. We'll come back at the end. If somebody thinks of something, we'll call you afterward. We'll start with Commissioner Tesky. [24:06] Commissioner Tesky: Uh yeah, I think this looks good. It's very thorough. Um I'm happy to see that there's um you know follow through on the encroachments to make sure we're not going over things. Um and I'm also excited to see the decommissioning and thinking about the future and the infrastructure you know needs to take to take it down if and when that happens and then the very thorough estimate around like the salvage in that. Very awesome to see. Um just a random question. You said it was a a leased piece of property. It's not a purchased piece of property. [24:37] Daniel Sorzano: Correct. You're leasing it. [24:40] Commissioner Tesky: Okay. Because that just folds into the decommissioning piece, just making sure that's following through. And then just a broader question with this solar garden. Does the energy um go back to the community of Farmington or to the broader resident of the Excel customer base? [24:57] Daniel Sorzano: So it doesn't go to the community, it goes to Excel. Yeah. So Excel distributes it. [25:01] Commissioner Tesky: Okay. Thank you. [25:03] Daniel Sorzano: Okay. go to what's called the grid. [25:05] Commissioner Winshuttle: The grid. No, I think it looks real good. I appreciate all this detailed information that's in here. Uh just a couple simple questions. What generally for distance is the buffer between the water or ponds and the solar panels? I know it can vary but yeah. [25:34] Alex Ferno: The the closest we stay on that one wetland, if I can maybe go back into it. So if you look over here on this one, here we go. Um so around there, that kind of hatched line around there is 25 ft. And this is the only place in which um we the 25 buffer average is kind of what's set out in the uh wetland standards in the city's code. Uh you have to stay at least 16 1/2 ft away from that. And so we're in all cases we're more than 16 1/2 ft away from that. And then uh we've made up that kind of incursion into the the 25 ft buffer um through those other spaces around it. So you can kind of see in those kind of gaps that are around it in the corners here. U those are kind of the areas that are being planted as well that are going to have um that benefit of just kind of shielding that that wetland. Um, and so these ones are this over here on this one, you're kind of well outside of 25 ft on it there. And then, uh, you're kind of over 100. There's a a creek that's a little bit off to the side over up here. Not sure if there's a better one. You can kind see it up here. That one you are in excess of 100 ft away from u the official high water mark for that one. [26:52] Commissioner Winshuttle: All right. Thank you. And then just last simple question. So you have a development term and that's for three years. Is that how I'm reading this right? [27:01] Daniel Sorzano: And then that's right. Then it's leased for 25. Yes. [27:10] Commissioner Winshuttle: Okay. So you'll have it built within that three years. Obviously you've said in the spring you plan. [27:21] Daniel Sorzano: Yeah. Even before that we'll sign the lease. [27:22] Commissioner Winshuttle: Okay. So once we're through the process of in connection with the city of Farmington and the program um we'll sign the lease. Sure. And how just curiosity how long does it take to build the whole project? [27:25] Daniel Sorzano: Uh between four and 6 months. [27:28] Commissioner Winshuttle: Four and six months. Okay. [27:32] Daniel Sorzano: Yeah. If we were building in the winter just going to be longer budget. Yeah. [27:32] Commissioner Snowback: Thank you. Looks good. Nice job. Appreciate it. Commissioner Tesky took all my great questions. Sorry. Um can you explain more? You talked a little bit about the 5 to 10%. You know, citizens can apply to be a part of the program and receive a 5 to 10% discount. How does that work? If you're selling the energy to Excel, how does that work? [27:47] Daniel Sorzano: Yeah. So, we offer to provide energy on the supply side of the bill. Mhm. Um, and we'll give the subscriber an um essentially a fixed amount of rate. Um, and I cannot tell you right now what it is. It'll be a determined at a later point, but essentially we're selling energy to the Excel customer. It's, you know, it's not a Farmington citizen. That's I just want to be clear with that. It's an Excel customer. It has to be somebody that is um a customer of Excel. [28:26] Commissioner Snowback: So then they apply. Why would they receive a 5 to 10% decrease in their the the members that live in that area? How does that work? How's the subscription work? [28:43] Daniel Sorzano: Yeah. So they'll just it'll be a simple website. Uh they'll put information in account number and yeah, we'll just send the paperwork for them to sign it. It's pretty simple. [28:47] Commissioner Snowback: Okay. Well, good. Um that was that's all I have. appreciate all your work and the decommissioning thing was important to me too that that that was laid out so well. So, thanks for your work on that. [28:57] Chair Rody: And Mitch, that isn't unusual that that um discount if you want to call it. And this is would be on the generation side, not the distribution side. [29:08] Daniel Sorzano: Yeah. You know, I'm not on that team unfortunately for me. And it works very different between each each not only each location, but each utility. Mhm. Um I know in Illinois it works for both sides. Okay. But in your total bill you'll be between five and 15% discount. [29:27] Chair Rody: They've done it for wind energy also in the past for different utilities. So it's not unusual. It's just it's uh you did a good job of explaining it, but it it it can be a little bit of complicated process. [29:50] Daniel Sorzano: Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, even for me right now for Excel here in Minnesota, I'm not sure how is how is it going to be laid out, but uh I can provide more information later. [29:50] Chair Rody: That'd be more for the those customers and residents that that are planning to utilize that. It's not for the commission doesn't need that. Anything else, Mitch? [30:13] Commissioner Snowback: Oh, I'm good. Thank you. [30:13] Commissioner Berg: Commissioner Berg. Yeah, you guys did a great job of laying everything out. Uh had a lot of the similar questions that that the other folks had. Um, I did have just a quick question, Jared. This might be more for you. Around the paved driveway, that does not include Flag Staff, I am assuming. Right. That section from 50 down Flagstaff, right? That's still going to remain gravel, correct? [30:34] Jared (City Staff): Yeah. Unfortunately, we can't um see here require um that to be paved at this time, but as you can see on the right hand, this is where the easement starts. The gravel goes all the way towards the end. We since the property is being developed at this time um and with our current ordinances we would require once it reaches that property line that portion gets paved. [30:59] Commissioner Berg: Okay, that makes sense. That's kind of what I assume, but I just wanted to sure clarify. And there's no concern from emergency services with having access in there once it's built if there was a need for fire or something like that. [30:59] Jared (City Staff): Correct. No. Um fire has uh signed off on it. Um even with you know like water uh connections with solar um these solar community solar gardens um sounds like the state removed any you know fire sort of requirements around that so there's no concerns for that. [31:16] Commissioner Berg: Great. Um one last question and this is just for you guys in general is you mentioned other projects in Minnesota. Have you are there ones that have been completed already that you've worked on? [31:37] Daniel Sorzano: No, they're uh not yet. They're at the same stage. So, we're about to uh get all the applications into the state admit um the state program. Yeah. So, yeah, these actually this project will be one of the first two to go in just based on where it is. Yep. Yeah. I was only asking because if there was one that was completed, I was just going to ask where it was at and what your experience was there. But, right, that sounds good. No, one is in Lion County, the other one the other two are in Rice County. [31:55] Commissioner Berg: Oh okay. So, very close to here. Yeah. Great. That's all I have. [31:55] Chair Rody: Thanks, Andy. Um, great job. Questions, commissioners. I think you explained the timing fairly well. Um, the only question I had is if you don't get either uh subsidy, you're still going to do the project. You said what's that? If you don't get any the either the current one through the state or the Excel one, you're still going to do the project regardless. [32:12] Daniel Sorzano: So maybe for those two programs, so we're expecting to have either the state or the DG program. Mhm. Uh what I said was if for from the perspective of the federal side with the ITC, if that is revoked entirely tomorrow, we'll still build it with the state program. The state still has funds. [32:29] Chair Rody: All right. Well, good luck with those. And now, and you used a generic term. You called it an electric fence. My sense is is that it's a a chain link with barbs on top and not not that's that's an electric fence. [32:56] Daniel Sorzano: Yeah. Did I say electric fences? Yeah. I'm not sure. It was listed as an electric fence in here, but it's not an electric fence. It's the No, definitely not 6T with barbs on top or something. [33:12] Chair Rody: Barb, what's the peak megawatt output of this solar garden? [33:12] Daniel Sorzano: The peak megawatt the size. Yeah. 5 megawatts AC 4.95. [33:12] Chair Rody: Okay. The distribution lines you talk about your line coming out underground up to the disconnect point from Excel. Is that correct? Then it'll go overhead along Flagstaff. [33:40] Daniel Sorzano: So it will all be underground. Oh, actually you don't see it anymore. It's in the other one. But yes, so from this point uh towards Flagstaff will be underground based on what Excel told us. [33:40] Chair Rody: Okay. [33:40] Daniel Sorzano: Mhm. That will be Excel's own equipment, too. All right. But we're not going to own that. [33:40] Chair Rody: Now, the last question is probably for Jared. Jared, timing of County Road 70 there. I've I've heard not for a long time. Not in my lifetime at least. Right. That's not very long though. All right. Gentlemen, you did a great job. Um very detailed report. Um I like the environ environmental side of it also very thorough. I'm comfortable with your proposal for this community. I am going to ask our residents now, sir, you had a comment, please come up to the podium, state your name and address. [34:21] Nathan Dull: Uh good evening. My name is Nathan Dull. Uh I live on the 18,000 block of English Avenue on the north side of town. Uh I'm here tonight on behalf of the Minnesota Land and Liberty Coalition. Though uh we're a statewide group of farmers, land owners taxpayers rateayers business and community leaders and advocates of an all the above energy strategy across Minnesota. Uh we support a lot of projects like these across the state as we believe they protect private property rights, allow local investment, and help us contribute to a strong and resilient energy grid. Uh one of the things that they mentioned in the presentation that I think warranted just a little bit of further elaboration was uh the production tax. Uh because uh when people hear tax, they probably think, "Oh great, I'm being charged more on my uh property taxes or I'm going to be charged more my sale of electricity or whatever." Uh this is exclusively paid by the operators of the project. Um not the taxpayers of Farmington or Dakota County. Unfortunately, Dakota County is going to get s uh 80% of that production tax revenue figures that they outlined earlier, but Farmington does get uh will get 20% of that which can be used to offset stuff that we want to invest in. So just wanted to add a little bit of clarity to that and thank you for your time, Mr. D. [35:29] Chair Rody: Thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it. Anybody else? Can you come up here, please? Ma'am. Thank you. [35:45] Lesley Ningkirk: I'm Lesley Ningkirk. I live at 19731 Canary Path and I'm curious about the um length of the lease. Should the current homeowner pass, is there um a a condition that the lease continues with his um inherit in his uh whoever lives out lives him? Um or is there the potential that the lease would end earlier than that? Um, yeah, thank you. [36:26] Daniel Sorzano: The lease will be assigned to the heir of Mr. Murphy or whoever he assigns it to. So, there will be a continuation to the lease most likely. [36:41] Chair Rody: Answer your question. Y, it's a good legal question. So, I'm glad he got answered for you. Anybody else? All right. If not, I'd look for a motion to close the public hearing. [36:57] Commissioner: Motion to close. [36:57] Chair Rody: We have a motion. Is there a second? [36:57] Commissioner: I'll second. [36:57] Chair Rody: Motion second. Call the role, please. [36:57] Clerk (unnamed): Windshidle, yes. Tesy, yes. Rody yes. Snowback, yes. Berg, yes. [37:18] Chair Rody: Front of the commission, then the conditional use permit uh to construct a community solar garden on the P that Jared outlined. There are eight contingencies. Mr. Soriano, I'm going to ask you, do you accept all eight contingencies? [37:18] Daniel Sorzano: Yes, we do. [37:18] Chair Rody: All right. The applicant accepts. And with that, I'd look for a motion for approval. [37:18] Commissioner: Motion to approve. [37:18] Chair Rody: Motion to approve. Is there a second? [37:18] Commissioner: Second. [37:34] Chair Rody: Motion and second. Is there any more discussion? If not, call the roll, please. [37:34] Clerk (unnamed): Tesy, yes. Rody, yes. Snowback, yes. Berg, yes. Windshadow, yes. [37:34] Chair Rody: All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for coming out and the great questions from our our residents also. With that, then we'll move into our our second public hearing. This is a variance request for a maximum height requirement for fences. Uh the location is 19500 Municipal Drive, which is our police station. The applicant is the city of Farmington. Tony, you're going to take this? [38:01] Tony (City Staff): I am. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commission members. There we go. Uh yes, the city of Farmington is seeking a variance from the maximum height allowed for fences in order to construct an 8ft tall fence. The subject property is uh at 19500 Municipal Drive. It is the Farmington Police Station. Uh as far as the uh existing division or the plane division review, uh the existing zoning, it's zoned R1, low density residential. It is public slash semi-public in our 2040 comprehensive plan and the existing land use is the northern municipal campus and as I previously mentioned the uh police station in particular uh the city did receive a substantial grant in the amount of $869,000 last year uh for this particular uh fence installation. Uh the fence would consist of a foot tall uh decorative metal fence uh with brick columns between each section of the fence. The brick would match the color and material of the existing police station building. Uh do want to mention that section 10612 letter D requires a variance to be approved for fences over 6 feet in height up to 8 ft in height when constructed in residential areas. Uh therefore the variance as be requested this evening is an additional two feet of height. Uh the expected outcomes of this fence um are uh the establishment of a robust physical barrier that restricts unauthorized access to the site. It safeguards sensitive areas such as the evidence room uh equipment such as the city's fiber hub is located at the facility and the personnel that work at the facility itself. Uh this is the uh elevation of the fence of what it would look like. Um it is again 8 foot 8 foot tall uh decorative metal uh almost like a rot iron type of uh situation type fencing um with those brick columns in between. Um so it will be a very nice looking uh fence. As far as the location is concerned, uh fencing will enclose the entire police station building. Uh parking lot and additional open space to the east and west of the uh existing facilities. Uh fencing to be set back 20 ft from the right ofway line of both 195th Street and Pilot Knob Road. Uh and it will also be set back approximately 40 ft from the right ofway of English Avenue on the very east side of the site. I do want to mention the fencing would encroach into an existing 100 foot wide northern natural gas easement that is located on the west side of the site and you likely won't be able to see it on this but that easement extends basically from here to uh basically the edge of the parking lot over here. So it is a substantial easement that goes through there. uh an encroachment agreement will have to be obtained from Northern Natural Gas for that fence to uh go into that easement. Uh we've already uh had conversations with the gas company uh and are working through that process right now. So uh it sounds like they should not have any issues with uh granting that approval, but it's something that we'll have to make sure that we have in place prior to installation. Uh building permit. This will require a building permit as uh the code does require any fence exceeding 6 feet in height uh to require a uh building permit. Uh this will be a condition of approval. Um as the commission is aware, there are nine criteria that must be met uh to find basically what are called practical difficulties um for approving of a variance. Um I won't necessarily go through these. are in your packet and uh on the screen. Um staff uh does believe that the criteria have been met in this instance uh and will be uh um requesting that the plane commission uh approve the variance of two uh additional feet of fence height. Therefore, the action as requested this evening is approve the variance request of 2 feet of additional fence height contingent upon the following. First, submittal an approval of a building permit application for the proposed fencing. And number two, obtaining an encroachment agreement with Northern Natural Gas for locating the fence within their gas pipeline ement. [42:41] Chair Rody: All right. Thank you, Tony. Very nice job. With us tonight is the police chief seam. Did you have anything to add to the staff report? [42:41] Police Chief: Um, I can give a brief or rough timeline of the project. Um, currently the project is out for bid and it's open for bid until the 17th. um bids will be opened here in the chambers on that day at 2:00. Uh once we have um read the bids, we'll prepare a contract to present to council on the 21st and that's when construction should begin um pretty quickly following that day. And we looking at approximately a month and a half to two months of construction time to complete the project before the end of September. Thank you. Yeah. And official and you know formal notification to the public. uh would be taken care of once we've secured a bid and and a contract and then we present to the public our project and uh just so that they're aware of what's going to be happening around the police station here in the future. [43:39] Chair Rody: Perfect. Thank you very much. If you can stay available in case there's questions. This is a public hearing. Are there any comments or questions regarding this variance request? Yes, ma'am. [44:01] Lesley Ningkirk: Again, Leslie Ninkirk from 19731 Canary Path. And I'm curious if this fence will be open during the day for access to the police station or what the hours might be for people who feel a need to um find safe refuge there. Absolutely. [44:18] Police Chief: Um the the perimeter fence will be uh will have access points around it that have closable gates. Um those gates will be secured except for the current main entrance to the police station. Um as you would approach it now and enter into the main area, the main parking lot, that gate will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It only closed in instances of of emergency when we need to secure the entire property. outside of that. You can see in the picture here, um that that vertical line from the south end of the gate right there. Yeah, that is another gate that secures that east end of the property, employee parking, and then um the other items, sensitive items that were mentioned previously. [45:09] Chair Rody: Answer your question, ma'am. Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Any other comments or questions regarding this variance request? Seeing none, it's fitting that we ask Mr. Winch. [45:09] Commissioner Winshuttle: It's a much needed project. I will say that. So, and I just appreciate the chief and his staff for applying for the grant and getting the grant. It uh goes a long ways for your employees and citizens, too. So, thank you. Looks good. [45:32] Commissioner Snowback: Thanks for your work. I'm excited to see it when it's finished. It looks really nice. [45:48] Commissioner Berg: Mr. Bird, uh, couple questions. Uh, first of all, I think this is an awesome project. As someone who spends my day job doing risk management and risk mitigation, this is fantastic because protecting critical infrastructure and secure locations is what I talk about almost all day every day. So, fantastic to see from that perspective. Uh our citizen asked one of my questions already. So that's great to hear that we have a plan for access for public uh need and things like that. The other question I have is does this allow for future expansion? You know, as as Farmington continues to grow, we may need a bigger police station, right? And does this allow for space for that as well? [46:17] Police Chief: Right. We do anticipate uh a future expansion remodel to the police station in the coming years. And that is uh the main reason why that eastern end of the fence does about all the way out to uh 40 ft short of um English Avenue. Uh the ex the expansion to the police station. The plan is to have it um come out in that direction covering our entire uh current parking lot. And then that would bump out uh a roadway that goes around that the bu that end of the building out this way. So, we wanted to make sure we had plenty of room over here for that. [46:57] Commissioner Berg: Does that allow then enough parking for staff in in the event that we move that out? That's all been accounted for already, right? [47:12] Police Chief: Yeah. Staff U parking will be still in these areas just south of the building, the the future building area. um on the south side between the building and the fence. And then uh a garage that will move all of our uh city- owned vehicles inside and relieve a lot of that space outside for uh personnel parking. Right now, we have a considerable number of police department vehicles that are parked out in a parking lot. [47:32] Commissioner Berg: Yeah. Okay. No, that's great. I'm I'm glad to hear it. That's all I've got. [47:47] Chair Rody: Thanks, Andy. Commissioner Tesky. [47:47] Commissioner Tesky: Yeah. No, I thank you. Thank you for your service. I think it looks great. I appreciate the attention to detail around the aesthetics of the fence and the brick matching with the columns to support in between. My only other question is with regard to community engagement activities. Will those be limited now that we have that fence will go in and we won't be able to have like helicopters land or activities like that? [48:01] Police Chief: Um I I can't the current state of the building and the size of the fence. I don't believe that's going to have any um impact on the helicopter. Okay. I can't say the the future building how how it extends out the amount of space there if that's going to be impacted at all. But really we see this as something that's going to enhance our community engagement. Currently when we have our open house we use that west lawn for our bounce houses and public works has to put in a um barric yeah snow fencing basically around the property to keep children away from the busy pilot off road. So, this is going to help with that, keeping everyone inside that's supposed to stay inside. And then on the east end, we have our K9 demonstration. Okay? And it's always a huge concern that we have people approaching that we don't foresee coming in with dogs when we're doing our demonstration. It's a danger to them and danger to our dog. Uh so this will help with that as well. Excellent. Thank you. [48:57] Chair Rody: Um simple question, Tony, maybe as much for you because you mentioned the setback from right away. Yeah. Um, so on long 195th, how far behind the path is that fence going to be? [49:33] Tony (City Staff): It will be it's probably closer to 30 ft, 35 behind the path. So there's plenty of room still on the path for walkers, bicycles. Absolutely. And then from the trees on English, uh, it will be that's probably I'm guessing 25 ft from those trees. So plenty of distance. Yeah. The only thing I got, and it's not a solid fence, but s uh sight lines. Yeah, sight lines, you know, both at 195th and at English, this won't impair that sight line at all. It shouldn't. It's set back far enough to where um it shouldn't have any impact on those. And with the roundabout at uh Pilot Knob and 195th, um there shouldn't be any type of sight line issues at either of those intersections. [50:00] Chair Rody: Perfect. All right, that's good. But I mean that's a safety issue and you're on top of that. So I mean you wouldn't do it if you it was and you answered all mine. You know it was the timing and you did a nice job of notification to our residents are always interested and when the community is doing a project on on community land that they want to know when and how and where and everything like that. So I have no problem. You did a nice job and I appreciate it. So with that I'd look for a motion to close the public hearing. [50:27] Commissioner: Motion to close. [50:27] Chair Rody: We have a motion. Is there a second? [50:27] Commissioner: I'll second. [50:27] Chair Rody: Motion and second. Call the role please. [50:27] Clerk (unnamed): Rody, yes. Snowback, yes. Berg, yes. Winch, yes. Tesky, yes. [50:47] Chair Rody: All right. In front of the commission ends a variance request from the maximum height requirement for fences at 19500 municipal drive. We have two contingencies. Um along with that, is there a motion? [50:47] Commissioner: Motion to approve. [50:47] Chair Rody: We have motion for approval. Is there a second? [50:47] Commissioner: A second. [51:02] Chair Rody: Motion a second. Any more discussion? If not, call the RO, please. [51:02] Clerk (unnamed): Snowback, yes. Berg, yes. Windshettle, yes. Tesy, yes. Rody, yes. [51:02] Chair Rody: All right, that concludes our agenda. Is there anything else from staff? [51:02] Tony (City Staff): Nothing sir. [51:02] Chair Rody: Anything else from the commission? If not, I'll remind our residents and viewers our next regular meeting is August 12th. And with that, I'd look for a motion to adjurnn. [51:17] Commissioner: I'll make a motion to adjurnn. [51:17] Chair Rody: We have a motion. Is there a second? [51:17] Commissioner: Second. [51:17] Chair Rody: Motion and second. All in favor say I. [51:17] All Commissioners: I. [51:17] Chair Rody: This commission is officially adjourned. Thank you, everybody.