This transcript appears to be from a **Planning Commission** meeting in late 2024/early 2025. Based on the context provided, the "Gina Massina" mentioned as Chair is likely **Gino Messina** (listed under Public Safety but serving here), and "Rob Hallberg" is the Vice Chair. The "John" providing staff reports is **John Hinzman** (Community Development Director). [0:00] **John Hinzman**: uh Commissioners Hallberg, Peterson, Swedin please uh Swedin please stand up raise their right hand and repeat after me I state your name I do affirm do affirm that I will support that I will support the Constitution the Constitution of the United States of America of the United States of America the Constitution the constitution of the state of Minnesota of the state of Minnesota and the charter and ordinances and the charter and ordinances of the city of Hastings of the city of Hastings and that I will Faithfully discharge and that I will Faithfully discharge the duties of a planning commissioner the duties of a planning commissioner for the city of Hastings for the city of Hastings [0:46] **John Hinzman**: counties of Dakota and Washington counties of Dakota and Washington and state of Minnesota and state of Minnesota according to the best of my ability and understanding according to the best of my ability and understanding well congratulations Comm thank you all right and congratulations thank you for staying on all right next is electing the Planning Commission chair and vice chair for 2025 we do I'll give you a little bit of guidance before we get in here we need to elect those positions for the year 2025 all Commissioners serving at least one year which is all the Commissioners this year are eligible to serve so nominations and second can be made either individually for each position or [1:34] **John Hinzman**: uh in a block with both of them and they would be a nomination second and vote the current holders we have are Gino Messina serving as chair and Rob Hallberg as Vice chair so I will open it up to the commission [1:34] **Gino Messina**: okay thanks John so Commissioners we are ready to elect I have been um honored to have been Planning Commission chair but I am certainly willing to give anybody else a chance who wants to try it um so I'll go from there so I will hear from my fellow Commissioners as to which way you'd like to go [2:20] **Melanie Peters**: commissioner Peters uh well I was just going to say I think that commissioner Messina and commissioner halberg have served wonderfully is chair and vice chair and I would like to see that I would fully support that continuing so I would make a motion to um elect commissioner Messina as chair and commissioner halberg as Vice chair [2:20] **Rachel Swedin**: all right commissioner Swedin I'll second that [2:20] **Gino Messina**: all right any further discussion okay Rob would you like no no you're you're good yeah right there I was going to say do we want to table this until we had the full commission but that was my next question um I do believe that probably would be the best thing okay um rather than taking a vote tonight per se okay just [3:06] **John Hinzman**: make our statements and and wait for so we've got a a motion and second on the floor at this point so uh if the maker of the motion secretary is agreeable to delaying any action until the next Planning Commission meeting that would be appropriate [3:06] **Gino Messina**: and at this point if we do not have a full attendance for one reason or another how long would we be able to go without taking a vote is there a time frame [3:52] **John Hinzman**: yeah I mean the time frame technically is to have the the positions filled by the end of the previous year so in December our ordinances have the election to take place at that time so we're a little behind a little behind [3:52] **Gino Messina**: okay all right Commissioners I'll leave it up to you how do you would you like to proceed on that we have a motion on the floor we have a second do we want to wait until the other two are present I'm sorry go ahead [3:52] **Melanie Peters**: I think it makes sense sense to wait till we have okay all right um do you want to go ahead and uh modify your motion or or maybe suggest well we retract the motion on on the floor and we can make it again the next time that might be as I retract the motion [4:39] **Gino Messina**: okay all right commissioner Peters retracts motion motion is retracted as is the second do you agree with that [4:39] **Rachel Swedin**: retract the second okay [4:39] **Gino Messina**: all right Perfect all right so we'll go ahead and table that for the next meeting um for commissioner Tyden and McGrath to be present all right thank you guys um approval of the minutes from November 20 excuse me November 25th 2024 regular meeting and December 2nd 2024 joint meeting with city council um for those that were in attendance do you have any corrections or comments on that if not we'll go ahead and consider those to be approved okay those are to be approved um we have no public hearings so other actions uh we have windberg company site plan 2024-38 storm water ponding and parking lot at 3050 Redwing Boulevard and John Hinzman with this report [5:25] **John Hinzman**: okay thank you Mr chairman planning Commissioners as the chair pointed out site plan approval tonight is what is requested we're looking at this property here which is the National Guard Armory located east of Highway 316 Redwing Boulevard between Spiral Boulevard and 31st Street East it's about a 6 acre property altogether what is being proposed tonight is the inclusion of new storm water areas which would essentially be here along spiral and in this location here towards the east end of the property as well as new parking areas which would be a new extension of parking in this General location and then then the repavement of parking throughout the site so that is what is being proposed tonight and triggers the site plan application the comprehensive plan guides the property for institution and it zoned i1 [6:11] **John Hinzman**: Industrial Park both are consistent with the present uses of the property the building itself was constructed in 1973 has been used for a National Guard Armory since that time contains about a 17,900 ft main building there is no proposal within tonight's proposal to to change that that's not part of what we're doing and then there's also about a 5600 Square ft accessory Building located here on the property and then a a tower at that location uh the property itself stores a lot of vehicles for the military and you can see some of those within the aerial map at this location property is relatively uh relatively flat with no topographical relief few [6:57] **John Hinzman**: mature trees on there few of the mature trees would be impacted by the development subject to our tree preservation policy and new trees have been suggested to be replanted that would meet that requirement so let's get into what we're looking at today this is the view of the property from different angles this is what we're looking at for improvements new parking area would go here and then repavement and new storm water areas in the this location the site itself would would function very similar to today there's no new accesses that are being proposed the setbacks would stay the same there would be a trash enclosure structure which would be [7:43] **John Hinzman**: located um in about this location here which uh is that right yeah in this this location down here so that would be part of the proposal as well parking on the site the parking surpasses the requirements that we have right now it's a little bit different situation parking is not really for the general public but more for the storage of of military vehicles and equipment so they're certainly exceed the parking requirements and the need for the parking is understood because it's the mission of this property is different than most commercial properties uh mentioned the tree replacement plan they meet that lighting plant adheres to our foot candle limitations our engineering [8:28] **John Hinzman**: department is been through the grading drainage and erosion control plan on that uh this would Connect into an existing sanitary or excuse me storm water system over here there would be an easement that would be looking at granting to them upon approval as part of the conditions for approval tonight so this is the proposal that we have we have representative from uh WTH uh Bill who is in online via Zoom as well if you have any questions for him thank you [9:15] **Gino Messina**: all right thank you John and thank you to our guest for appearing on Zoom did you say Bill? [9:15] **Bill (WTH Representative)**: Bill B. [9:15] **Gino Messina**: okay all right welcome Bill let me do this come okay great okay perfect um Commissioners I open up for any uh questions comments while you're thinking about it I do know that um they could definitely benefit from that additional parking especially when they have their couple larger events so definitely be a help for them so commission I'll uh any discussion motions [9:15] **Rob Hallberg**: Mr chair I'll make a motion to uh approve the National Guard Armory site plan 2024-38 storm water ponding and parking lot uh at 3050 Redwing Boulevard [10:04] **Gino Messina**: all right we have a motion on the table for approval [10:04] **John Moes**: second M... Moes on second [10:04] **Gino Messina**: any new discussion if not all in favor say I (I, I) opposed all right that motion carries great and this will move forward with the recommendation of approval to the city council meeting on Tuesday January 21st and thanks to bill for joining us on Zoom appreciate it [10:04] **Bill (WTH Representative)**: no problem thank you [10:04] **Gino Messina**: thank you okay all right um 2024 annual report we'll back over here [10:04] **John Hinzman**: all right Commissioners with within your packet I presented the the the 2024 annual report and I'll highlight a couple things a point of tonight is not to go through everything in there but really to emphasize some of the things that we've done and some of the things that we will look forward to in 2025 so last year we had 43 single family home permits which was the largest number of single family homes that we've had over the last 20 years so that that's great [10:51] **John Hinzman**: to see when you look at the overall permit numbers they were were down because we didn't have an apartment project this year like we had last couple of years which adds to that so the whole 43 permits we had for new construction was all single family we're seeing completion of some of our residential developments which is great of notice Villas at Pleasant where we had 38 properties altogether 32 of those have permits pulled or under construction so there's only six left there in Heritage Ridge where we have 60 of n 60 of 80 permits pulled there so we're seeing good growth within the existing developments from a commercial standpoint we had 81 permits $20 million in valuation uh projects continuing on with [11:36] **John Hinzman**: the United Hero Leagues their stadium and locker room Real Grand Trucking Storage Works etc we've been involved with our 55 and Jacob growth plan starting last year we'll be doing more of that coming into this year with the comments back from our conceptual plan that was presented to the public worked along on cannabis last year with this commission setting rules for production and also had five permits for sale for low potency and we amended our chicken ducks and quail ordinance as well to provide more use within that this provides some information here showing some of the projects with United Hero Leagues and Storage Works one of the things we started last year which will be getting more into this year is our zoning code in fact when we look at [12:21] **John Hinzman**: our next Planning Commission meeting on the 27th we will have more uh information on that first part part of the zoning code at that meeting when you look at residential permits here's the the valuation we had down in the number of permits altogether from 2024 but up on single family commercial permits we are similar to what we had in 23 although the valuation was was down from 38 million to about 20 million land Supply we're heading good uh we we take a look at what we have immediately available that can be platted things that have been planned for future development and potential inventory so we've got a decent supply of single family we've not been seeing the growth in the town home over the past 10 plus years and we've got a [13:07] **John Hinzman**: number of multi-family developments that could be developed this shows the number of housing permits where they've been over the last 15 years or so showing the the growth of uh a permits here since 2018 primarily driven by the purple which are apartment and the residential permits we saw single family this year other projects by other commissions we're working with HEDRA on what we're terming our block 28 Gateway project which is right across the street from us at Fourth and Vermillion this is today's view we want to have a better view something similar to this uh which would be commercial development on the bottom residential on top and then this map represents what we've acquired [13:53] **John Hinzman**: previously in this year so green we acquired prior to 24 the gold is what we require what we acquired last year so we own 90% of the block and we're ready to work with developers in 25 and hopefully have a project going in 26 so that'll be great project moving forward the retail opportunity site over by West View Mall the purchase agreement fell through on that but HEDRA does own the property and is marketing the property for future opportunity we do own the property at 213 Ramsey Street we executed a lease with HPAC for the next couple of years to use that when we take a look at HEDRA the sites that we own we go through a strategic plan to prioritize sites block 28 the Gateway is our number one project [14:39] **John Hinzman**: and we're putting our capacity into that at this point other projects like this one which we see in the future finding some sort of interim use like HPAC lease is is working out great uh Confluence won a Brownfield Innovation award last year for Minnesota Brownfields they recognized the unique challenges for redevelopment so that that was a great sight to see we had a facade Improvement grant program last year where we had $26,000 in Grants given with 134,000 new investment which will continue to go next year and then we assisted with our Makers Market last year we did twice a month this year we're going to do it every week with the uh the concert series in the park so that'll that'll be great we had 25 to 30 vendors last year [15:26] **John Hinzman**: per event so that's most of what I've got to present tonight as far as activities in Community Development so can stand for any questions you might have [15:26] **Gino Messina**: all right thanks John any uh comments questions for John or in general? [15:26] **Melanie Peters**: commissioner Peters I just want to say I really appreciated sharing this report and it it's great to see all of the work of um staff with the city as well as the different commissions coming together in one report it was I just it's very well done thank you for putting it in there and it um just kind of made me aware of some of the things that um HEDRA is doing as well so that was was great thank you [16:12] **John Hinzman**: thank you thanks commission [16:12] **Rob Hallberg**: commissioner Hallberg yeah I just wanted to Echo exactly what Melanie said uh it's fantastic this is a great report um it's kind of mind-blowing when you go through anything about all the different things that we've touched over the last couple years and to see how everything's just progressed and what the future holds so just want to say thank you to you the city staff and all the Commissioners for everything they do [16:12] **John Hinzman**: thank you [16:59] **Gino Messina**: yep I'd like to Echo or piggyback on those uh two comments the um the meeting on 55 and Jacob I was able to attend the latter portion of that and I have to say I have to commend everybody that was there um commissioner Tyden and commissioner McGrath who's not here tonight um the suggest the the input the feedback really brought to light just the various backgrounds of our commissions and our city council members and just the thoughtfulness that the thoughtful comments that went into it things that you would never think of um really brought to light just how important it is the work that we do the work that the city council does excellent work the staff does coming into a new year you know ending a great year coming into another you know good new year so I mean it was it was nice to see and hear those comments I just thought it was amazing to get that feedback just yeah so I just wanted to put that out there thank thank you for arranging that and spearheading that so um commissioners any other yeah no action required— [17:46] **Rob Hallberg**: yeah I'm sorry yeah just just a quick small one John I just want to thank you Justin the rest of Staff um you set the tone everything my entire time on this body and ideally hopefully going forward I don't see it changing super positive um very productive fantastic I think we have some really really the great things ahead in the next year too so looking back it's been amazing um and yeah I'm looking forward to continuing to be a part of it so thank you much appreciated [18:32] **John Hinzman**: yeah no action required on this report tonight just more of a a presentation here and then I mentioned before the the 27th is our next meeting in two weeks we are going to have a roll out of the first part of our zoning code so that'll be pretty exciting I I think what we're going to do is do it more in a workshop setting I don't I'm not aware of any action items uh so if we had action items we'd have a meeting and then I think it'd be best for us to adjourn to the conference room more for uh the session on that one so we will be meeting on the 27th and we'll be getting into some heavy lifting which would be cool perfect thanks [18:32] **Gino Messina**: all right thank you y I'm excited for that uh commissioners anything else any other business no all right um do you have any other business besides that or good okay all right sounds good all right if not I'll entertain a motion to adjourn [18:32] **Rob Hallberg**: Mr chair I'll make the motion to adjourn commissioner halberg [18:32] **Rachel Swedin**: second second commissioner Swedin [18:32] **Gino Messina**: any objections or further discussion on adjourning no all in favor say I (I, I) opposed all right we are adjourned all right thank you guys