[0:02] Corey Kolquist: So whenever you're ready, sir. All right, thank you very much. I would like to welcome everybody to the City of Hermantown Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for March 16, 2021. It's currently seven o'clock in the evening. We're going to start with a roll call of members this evening. Uh, myself, Corey Kolquist, here. Tracy Lundin is not here anymore. Valerie Orola? Here. Samuel Clark? Here. Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen? Uh, she just joined us. Okay, so we'll put her down for being here. Uh, Beth Winslow? Peter Buckley Simmons? Here. And Mr. John Geissler? Here. Thank you very much for that. [0:50] Corey Kolquist: Second up this evening will be the approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion on that, please? [0:55] Beth Winslow: Winslow makes the motion. [0:57] Corey Kolquist: Thank you for that. Can we get a second? [0:59] Sam Clark: Clark, with a second. [1:01] Corey Kolquist: We appreciate it. All in favor? Aye. [1:05] Multiple Speakers: Aye. Aye. [1:08] Corey Kolquist: Motion passes. We've just approved the agenda for this evening. Uh, number three this evening is the approval of the minutes from the February 18th, 2021 regular meeting. Does anybody like to make a motion on that or an adjustment to the meeting minutes at all? [1:29] Sam Clark: Sam Clark, I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes. [1:36] Corey Kolquist: Thank you, Sam. Can we get a second? [1:39] Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen: Jorgensen, second. [1:41] Corey Kolquist: Thank you. All in favor? [1:43] Multiple Speakers: Aye. Aye. Aye. [1:46] Corey Kolquist: Motion passes. Number four is public discussion. Um, does anybody want to speak on anything that's not on this evening's agenda? [2:01] Corey Kolquist: Not hearing any, we'll move on to number five, which is public hearings this evening. 5a has been withdrawn. We'll move on to 5b. It's an application by the City of Hermantown for a special use permit for the road project associated with Levate Junction in a natural environment shoreland overlay zone. This land area is all within an R3 residential zoning district. Uh, Eric, what do you have for us on this evening? [2:31] Eric Johnson: Great, I'm going to uh share a screen here. So, um, can everyone see that? [2:40] Multiple Speakers: Yes, sir. [2:42] Eric Johnson: Perfect. I like it when things work. I'm using a different computer this evening. So what this is, this is strictly a housekeeping type of permit issue here this evening. Um, this is the Levate Junction project that has just really started here last couple days with some tree clearing, but the project is from Ugstad Road to Levake Road. Once again, it's along the one-mile stretch of Levake Junction. Attempt to um see if I can zoom in here a little bit on these couple shoreland areas. If you see my cursor, green area right through here along Ugstad Road as well as this green area right there, which is about midpoint along Levake Junction. Those are the two natural environment shoreland areas associated with this part of the city. What that is, is requires some additional basically review, just an additional permit strictly from the DNR sake. If you remember back a couple meetings ago, we did something similar to this on a bridge replacement project up on Swan Lake Road. So, um, no changes to the project at all. Nothing in the scope is going to change in the project at all. Uh, once again, this is just a special use permit for the grading and filling activities associated with the Levake Junction project that's going to be kicking off here in earnest here shortly. And pretty straightforward on that, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that um that the planning commission members might have. [4:18] Valerie Orola: As somebody that walks on a road once in a while, it is much needed. Well, this is Valerie. Will there be an assessment to the residents for the work done on that road? [4:30] Eric Johnson: Yes, this is part of a road improvement project similar to what we did uh down on uh Carlson and Johnson streets. Uh, there will be assessment associated with that. I want to say it's plus or minus $9,800. I don't have the exact amount, but it's um it's around that amount for it. [4:58] Corey Kolquist: Commission members, any uh discussion on this evening or any more questions for Eric? Not hearing any, I will look for a motion on 5b this evening. [5:08] Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen: Jorgensen, motion for. [5:10] Corey Kolquist: Thank you for that. Can we get a second? [5:12] Peter Buckley Simmons: Buckley Simmons with a second. [5:14] Corey Kolquist: Okay, with a second. All in favor? [5:16] Multiple Speakers: Aye. Aye. [5:18] Corey Kolquist: Anybody opposed? Not hearing any, the motion passes. Thank you very much for that. We'll move on to six, which is continuing business. Uh, we're going to get an update on the PUD survey results from Eric. [5:35] Eric Johnson: Great, I'm going to uh share the screen one more time here. And I'll ask that question again: can everyone see my screen, please? [5:45] Multiple Speakers: Yes, sir. [5:47] Eric Johnson: Great, thank you. I apologize, uh, my computer doesn't quite like PowerPoint, so we're going to see both the main slide as well as the additional slides on the side. I'm going to start off this discussion this evening and then Josh and Justin from the ARDC are going to be joining us as well and have a brief presentation. At that point, we would really like to uh engage the commission members on their thoughts about the PUD with uh between myself and the ARDC kind of uh leading that discussion that way. Uh, the slides that I'm about to show you are generally a cleaned-up version of the 14 questions that you received that was part of our PUD and obviously that you've all seen here as well, but these are the associated results with that. As you can see, the vast majority of the people, over 93%, were familiar with what a planned unit development was uh as it applies to the city. [6:55] Eric Johnson: The um let me move this over here. There we go. So this is... we had a series of uh, other lack of better words, "choose an answer" sort of type of questions associated with this. "Do any of the following cause concern for you?" We had really three that really jumped out as far as the number of people that responded to that: Lack of variety of housing options within Hermantown, need for workforce/affordable housing, and development costs of new construction. Some kind of the "middle of the pack" type of answers: Overcrowding in the Hermantown School District, uh, increased traffic due to development, as well as consumption of a land area associated with large lot development. A couple people uh were not concerned with any of the above-mentioned type of items associated with that. [7:41] Eric Johnson: As you can see that um new construction and home sales, and we've been looking at this over the past year, it's risen about $445,000. And the question was: "Do we see a concern with that?" About two-thirds of the people did um and and a third did not. Uh, obviously people, you know, coming in new to our community are looking for different housing options. Uh, this is probably going to be more of a concern for them versus a long-time resident of Hermantown who really likes seeing their... the value of their homes increase. [8:27] Eric Johnson: And then obviously as well that um residential constructions has increased 24% probably in the last two days, but definitely since 2015 and uh once again, do you see this as a problem? With uh three-quarters of the people saying that, you know, yes, they do view that as a problem. You know, obviously right now we're in some strange times with COVID and uh building construction costs have gone through the roof. And honestly, that's why item 5a was withdrawn this evening, is the person who'd been budgeting $30,000 for the work was come hearing that as an approach what, $80,000? So when you see those type of number jumps just on material costs, people start really thinking uh or rethinking the ability to build. I even saw an article in the Star Tribune this afternoon that uh people are starting to cancel contracts for new housing construction just based on the uh the increased costs that are happening to us right now. [9:13] Eric Johnson: And then uh looking to uh get some more information from people what they believe is some of the items that are driving up the cost of housing: Really the increase in building material as I just referenced, available housing does not meet the needs of the current population, and then uh competition—there's not enough residential homes or units available to meet the growing demand. The city in the past has also looked at a couple housing studies that have been done, uh primarily through St. Louis County and the City of Duluth, and both of those have indicated that uh there is definitely a shortage of housing products out there in this whole area in general and they foresee a need going into the future for for more type of housing types, just units in general. [9:58] Eric Johnson: So then we start getting into some of the meat of this. Uh, "Would you be open to new housing types within the R3 zoning district as a way to address the shortage?" Um, about 69% were yes, that they were responsive to that. Um, 20% indicated maybe. Uh, three with a no associated with that. And there's a couple people that did not believe that there's a housing shortage within the City of Hermantown. I mean right now I can tell you that um as far as available residential lots, uh we're really down to sub-10 available building lots in our traditional subdivisions that we have. Uh, there's a couple left in Jackson Estates 4th Edition. Um, I think there's maybe one remnant lot up in um Maple Village, and uh hopefully within the next couple months we're going to get about six new lots online in the Payton Acres development. And I believe there's still approximately six or seven lots available in the Kevin Cookless development, which is at the corner of Ugstad and Arrowhead Road. So right now, not a lot of available lots as far as the city goes at this point. So we we are in a deficit as far as available building lots at this point. [11:32] Eric Johnson: Getting into the question: "Are you favorable for any following types of development within the R3 district?" 69% were still in favor of the the traditional half-acre lots that we have. Uh, we're seeing about 62% with the small single-family homes now. Uh, you could pick more than one answer associated with this because right there you say well that's 130%, but people had the ability to to choose multiples. Uh, twin home/duplexes, uh almost 85% people had a basically a comfort level of that. Getting into three and four plexes, those are hanging out in the 55% range and then apartments, people referencing 46% associated with that. [12:18] Eric Johnson: So then to try to narrow this down a little bit further, we started asking questions about, you know, how do you access some of these planned unit developments? You know, are they lots with access to county roads i.e. Maple Grove, Levake, Arrowhead? Uh, are they lots with two major city roads with Stebner, Ugstad or Hermantown? Some people were not concerned about access, and that was actually the vast majority of people—it was almost 47%. And then we did have a a small percentage, almost 7%, that were not in favor of any of these different type of developments associated with it. So um really for them, you know, other than the non-concerned, about 31% were coming in that they wanted to see some sort of access to a county road system—once again Maple Grove, Levake, Arrowhead, Haines or Morris Thomas. [13:05] Eric Johnson: "To what degree or level of PUD development are you comfortable with?" As I said before, standard R3 zoning is two units per acre. Almost half percent of the people were looking at the mid-density, which is at three to seven units per acre. And if you recall a number of meetings ago when we first initiated this planned unit development moratorium, we had identified three units per acre as the basically the threshold before we start getting into uh, you know developments that would trigger that moratorium. Uh, there was uh approximately 27% that uh were looking at high density, which is seven units per acre greater. And then uh 24% were um we're just with the standard are basically three units or below, almost like the standard zoning that we have here today. [13:50] Eric Johnson: This question is a little bit more to help pin down sort of development even particularly if you get into higher density is: "What's a minimum lot size that you feel comfortable with with that type of development?" That um 31% were in favorable of lots two acres or larger, which starts opening up quite a bit more parcels within the city. Um, 38% we're in that two to five acre range which starts tightening that up. Um, that five to ten uh still almost was coming in there at about 21% and then greater than ten acres is 11%. So you start looking at five to ten and greater uh acreage sites, that really starts reducing uh these areas where planned unit developments in general could happen. So if that's something that um we end up going towards a minimum lot size, there may be more discussion on, you know, what type of density would be associated with um with those type of development, those type of lot sizes as well. [14:58] Eric Johnson: "So if apartments were to be allowed in an R3 district, what's the criteria that you're comfortable utilizing?" Um, for the most part it was height restrictions, minimum lot size, maximum allowed units, and specific locations within the R3 zoning. And then there was almost 18% that said that they're not in favor of that R3's... of the apartments in an R3 zoning. [15:52] Eric Johnson: Let's start to uh grab some more information, people asking the questions of whether they "strongly agree" breaking down to "strongly disagree" on the type of question. "So to better understand the impacts, please rate how you feel about allowing more housing types or options within the R3 district." So 47% strongly agree that the ability to allow more. Uh, 31% agree. We have about 13% neutral, and then getting into um about uh 9% either disagree or strongly disagree. So those people tend towards uh keep the um keep the R3 zoning as it is, which generally tracks with the other questions that we've had associated that way. [16:38] Eric Johnson: And then lastly, you know, "What are the reasons for ranking in the previous?" and the ones that really tried to jump out at you: Um, people believe would make a good use of existing infrastructure. There's a lesser amount of people that were concerned about it would require necessary infrastructure. One thing to note is currently with the city, if a residential builder comes in, uh the residential developer is responsible for the cost of those infrastructure improvements. So um that that's a cost that's borne by the um the developer, but hence it does tend to bring the cost of the lot up as well. Uh, people believe that um 25 or 55% believe it could be a good way to preserve our natural features by the clustering or grouping of homes. Um, unfortunately a lot of our lots that we have here in the city um are either impaired by poor soils or particularly wetlands. We have some sort some lots that have some a little bit more extreme topography, but for the most part it's wetland and so you start looking into what we call these cluster developments, getting these smaller lots within tighter areas and that way preserving some of the wetland structures that we have throughout the city that way. Then getting into some of the other areas: Negative increase in traffic, 22%. And that's one thing I've been discussing with the ARDC is um for some of these PUDs or all PUDs we'd have to look at the level—do we start requiring traffic um traffic studies or reports associated with those to help answer those questions? And obviously fire and emergency responses are always a question that way as well when you start bringing in more development that way. [18:12] Eric Johnson: So that outlines the survey. I think we got some really good data and information out of there. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have at this point and then after that I'd turn it over to Josh over at the ARDC. [18:25] Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen: Eric, if I may. Um, one of the things that I think about as I'm looking through and actually as I was taking the survey personally was um I wonder about how much we are looking at all of this um through a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens when we're thinking about um development. Um, we've talked a little bit about workforce and um housing availability. We've talked a little bit about affordability because, i mean frankly, $445,000 for a home is not um affordable for the majority of people. Um, so I'm just wondering, you know, I don't know that the city necessarily has a diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative, but it is something—given the climate of the country and given the climate of things that are going on politically—that I think feel like we should be considering as we move forward with some of these things. And I'm just wondering if you have any insight to what considerations are being made in that regard. [19:46] Eric Johnson: We currently do not have anything uh on the ordinance or regarding that... any of those things. Uh, I will um when Josh comes on, um I'm gonna put him on the spot a little bit, but they had done—and I believe it's in your packet too—a matrix that uh started talking, I believe, about I'm just stuck generally more like social issues like you're saying that you know what of those 10 communities that they looked at, you know, how many had provided that sort of um, you know, within their PUD requirements that way. But currently, no, that the city does not have those. Um, to date there's been nothing specifically discussed that way. We've just been looking at more of that 10,000-foot level on what can be done more purely from a um a cost standpoint of these lots that way because right now, I mean obviously a lot of things are market-driven and what can the city control as far as, you know, allowing more different different type of housing types in here? And the big thing of that is the allowance of these PUDs. [21:19] Eric Johnson: The city is looking at um potentially a new zoning district in the future and we are going to be looking further into at least a minimum the housing component of the um comp plan to something um I'll say near-term, but even those two—the rezoning, particularly the comp plan amendment—those are my 18 to 24-month documents that way. So um we feel that this PUD, at least by uh getting this moving forward, that that's something that we can um, you know, start uh discussing the uh the housing a little bit more at this point and then delving into that a little bit deeper as we get into the potential new zoning district as well as um the comp plan portion. Uh, long-winded answer, but the answer is is no, we currently do not have... not been discussing uh diversity uh those sort of aspects right now. [22:02] Beth Winslow: I have a question. Yes, Beth. Um, when I have... because of being new, I'm not sure some of the past, but in actually being very involved in some of the housing and and different parts of um the real estate in town, I'm wondering, you know, did you look... we're so different. Hermantown is so different. We've got such wetland, we've got uh water issues, sewer issues, all these different things. Realistically, have you... was a study done before with our commission to say, okay, here could be a park and here could be a development around it for more apartments or, you know, the little... not the big apartments, but the smaller ones and then cluster some things? I know before when we were on the Blandin, um, what's... we did that for Hermantown and looked at: here could be commercial, here could be residential, here could be some centers. Did you take... have you done that here now and I just haven't... I've tried to find something so far, I haven't found anything. [23:05] Eric Johnson: Yeah, nothing really recent. Um, i mean obviously we have the zoning and um right and a 20-year-old comp plan that briefly touches on some of those things. But um I'd actually... I'd worked for the City of Blaine a number of years ago and we've gone as far as, like you said, almost ghost-platting the entire city. Particularly in areas um at that point, a good portion of the city was outside of the uh urban service area of the sanitary sewer and so we went that far, and then as a developer would come in we would almost hold them to that because this is an area that we envisioned for this type of development. Once again, we've not gone that far; we're still leaving it more as a developer-driven. Uh, we're having discussions internally is, once again, you know, can we start facilitating infrastructure a little bit more and then to help bring in development at that point? Uh, like I said, we've got the marketplace and um primarily most of our city is residentially zoned and once again with that, primarily the R3 being a good chunk of it at least from a zoning standpoint, it, you know, pretty ties it in. That's why it shows the importance of at least having the ability to do planned unit development so you can look at something other than a standard half-acre lot. [24:25] Beth Winslow: Right, I just find it's very difficult to try to plan something for us when I'm listening to these responses and hearing about walkability and uh paths and everything. We don't have a very easy way to do that no matter what. So we need to be realistic on on what can be and then really focus on that and go wild with that. [24:50] Eric Johnson: Yeah, definitely. It's... as new developments come in, you can start control the ability to have sidewalks, etc. As part of the trails master plan, we're looking to create the spine of a uh an accessible trail going from essentially the wellness center down to Keene Creek. And then the hope is that other developments are touching down in that area, they start providing these little feeder tracks off that so we can get into some of that walkability. But but it is hard; a number of our subdivisions don't have sidewalks in it and they're they're bordering, you know, some busy roadways, so it makes it difficult. [25:57] Sam Clark: Sam Clark, just to kind of follow up on on Beth's comment. I I guess my my personal thoughts are I'm not opposed to development and I think for... I mean there's a lot of different factors that factor into it. But it's almost... we're almost doing developers a disservice because, in my opinion, going from an R3 zoning for almost the entire city into, you know, an apartment complex is quite a a jump and it tends to make people unhappy. And, you know, people get unhappy all the time, it doesn't mean that it's right or it's wrong. But I guess as a city I would be more interested in, you know, how how can you make the expectation for a developer? Because at the end of the day you're you're kind of uh limited by the parcel that you buy—it could be anywhere in the city. We have the PUD process and I guess in my mind right now our process is so broad you can almost do anything just by doing an overlay. So so I do like the survey and I I I really think it's a a good question or something to consider for the city from a planning perspective. I guess that's where I keep coming back to is just kind of planning so that developers or people that buy property or want to come into Hermantown understand how it's best for the city with utilities and things like that too. [27:28] Eric Johnson: Yeah, and we um before we ever reach the stage at planning commission, uh I won't name the particular site, but there's a property currently on the market that's 10 acres. It's actually really good land. It does need some water and sewer extension which in turn will cause some roadway improvements. And um a) the cost of the land is high and people have looked at, you know, "Can we make these work with duplexes, different things like that?" And unfortunately the cost of these this infrastructure improvements and even the land cost, it just doesn't become feasible. Now this person, I said it's a 10-acre site, they're looking at potentially, you know, six, maybe eight twin homes in there for anywhere from, like I said, you know, 12 to 14 units total and they can't make the numbers work. And so, you know, we have a lot of these discussions. We engage David Bowles, the city engineer. What he likes to say is he's going to put on his consultant hat and he starts talking numbers with these people that um, you know, the same thing that says, you know, "What what's your planning? You know, great idea, but you know this is what you're looking at. You're looking at for six hundred thousand or million dollars worth of infrastructure improvements." So at that point, you know, your lot cost is gonna be approaching minimum of sixty, eighty, a hundred thousand dollars. [28:44] Sam Clark: And then what time it would be radar road would have, Eric. [Laughter] [28:50] Eric Johnson: Could be. [28:51] Sam Clark: The other thing I'll say on that is I'm from Wright County, I grew up in Otsego, Minnesota. And my past experiences... that's what it turned into in Wright County. They ghost-platted the entire county and residential lots for development that were not worth developing were selling for almost a hundred thousand dollars. It's just... it's it's a it's tough. [29:00] Eric Johnson: Yeah, it really is. It is. And um and like I said, I mean we try to have, you know, we as staff try to provide direction for um for people coming in and trying to figure out ways to uh facilitate it. But it but it is... I mean that's the problem. A lot of the parcels we have now are um you hate to say it, but there's a reason they're not developed on, whether it's lack of infrastructure, whether it's wetlands, something is is generally, you know, holding it up that way. And so um I think once again it just helps with this PUD that gives people a little bit more options because, you know, same thing, if you can't make it work with duplexes, you're certainly not going to make it work with single-family homes, at least on a standard half-acre lot scenario. And the same thing—I mean I won't say people are beating down our doors for apartments. No, they're not. I mean we had obviously the one up at P&R that's being built and then uh the gentleman who came in last October. But um, you know, the apartments are expensive. I know um, you know, you're talking tens of millions of dollars and there's not a lot of people up there that sort of have that sort of capacity to to pull off that sort of project. So, you know, I think, you know, obviously we keep talking about apartments as part of the R3, but you know I kind of think that that's more of an outlier that um, you know, then this whole process that you know you're probably going to see more of these developments where you can you can put in a twin home or a triplex and just kind of take off little bites at a time versus an "all in" at 10 or 15 million dollars. That's just some personal thoughts. [30:31] Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen: Fun. I mean, when you're talking about apartment buildings, the lack of um land available close to public transportation is an issue also. Because I mean without without having that additional infrastructure available, it makes an apartment building less attractive. [31:18] Eric Johnson: Yeah, the um i mean right now I said our the bus system just uh really comes on Loberg. That's the the furthest that we get into the city that way. [31:38] Valerie Orola: Eric, this is sort of on the other end of the spectrum from the $450,000 homes, but just just curious if you know—and maybe I should have done my homework—and the Bel Air development, is there much more room for the mobile homes there if they wanted to expand that for the lower-cost homes? [32:05] Eric Johnson: Uh, this is a Bel Air, I believe this is off of um Levake up there, yeah, behind Skyline? Yep, behind Skyline. Uh, honestly I think they're pretty well maxed out where they're at because there's quite a bit of wetland around that property as well. [32:15] Valerie Orola: Okay. [32:18] Eric Johnson: Yeah, they would certainly like to, but there's not any land to do it. Yeah, we had actually... um, I just started here, I want to say '16 or '17, we actually had a mobile home park come offline. It was the Williams mobile home park that had been located off of Ugstad, uh kind of up by Twin Pines there had been a two or three remnant lot or 20 units left in there, uh but they have since ceased operations associated with that. Yeah, that Bel Air, that's it's a nice nice little community up there. Um, you know, unlike a lot of those types of developments, that's a nice one. [32:51] Eric Johnson: Yeah, we had um the... I'm trying to remember the name of the development um um behind uh the theater. But um i believe that within the past couple of years there's a new owner that came in and was looking to do some improvements in there as well. But the same thing with that one, I think that the vast majority of that one is already built out. [33:16] Sam Clark: What is the zoning for those? Is that R3 or is that... that's got to be something different I would think. [33:30] Eric Johnson: Yeah, I'd have to double-check off the top my head here that um uh if any does what the zoning districts allow. Um, I know in the past and sometimes it might be a special use permit associated with those. He said since I've been here that there have been no developments or these mobile home developments that way, so I just have to double-check what the uh the current intake is from a zoning standpoint on those. [33:50] Sam Clark: Sure. [33:57] Eric Johnson: Well, I think maybe at this point um I'm going to attempt to give Josh Bergstad the ability to uh host the meeting from here. Josh, are you with us still? [34:10] Josh Bergstad: Oh yeah, Eric I am. [34:12] Eric Johnson: Great. Well Josh, uh a moment here and... [34:20] Josh Bergstad: Okay, it looks like I'm the host now. Uh, hello everyone. Um, I I know a few of you, but there's a lot of new faces here so I'll just introduce myself. Uh, I'm Josh Bergstad. I'm a planner with the Arrowhead Regional Development Commission. Uh, I'm familiar with some of you and Hermantown—we used to assist uh more regularly with planning and zoning up there. But so right now we're just helping out on this PUD project. I've got my colleague Justin Otsea here. You want to say hi? [34:55] Justin Otsea: Hey, good evening everybody. My name is Justin. I'm a planner and I'll be assisting Josh with the project. [35:05] Josh Bergstad: Yeah, so Justin is a... like like he said, a planner. He works a lot with the city zoning and planning and stuff too, so he's, you know, it's all about this fun stuff. Um, so I'm going to try to share my screen as well. Um, if you have any questions, uh maybe Justin or Eric... I'm going to when I share this, I'm probably going to lose my video thing, so I won't be able to see everybody. So if questions come up, just let me know. Um, can I... I should probably share my screen first. [35:36] Josh Bergstad: Okay, can everybody see my screen now? [35:45] Multiple Speakers: No, not yet. [35:50] Multiple Speakers: There we go. [35:54] Josh Bergstad: Okay, now you're probably looking at the small screen. Yes? Okay, so I'm going to do the same thing Eric did then. You'd think after a year of this I'd know how to operate one of these things, but I do not. Uh, so yeah, so tonight we just wanted to go through a little bit of the project that we were brought on to help you with, which is to uh help you review the planned unit development ordinance. Really quickly, we're just gonna review the planning process and scope so you kind of understand where we're at in the process. Uh, I want to talk a little bit just about the purpose of the meeting and what we're going to accomplish. And then we're going to go over uh what we found in our review of the comp plan and then the existing PUD ordinance practice, and as well as our review of other communities' PUDs and their uses there. [36:39] Josh Bergstad: So this process is a five-step. We started in January with working with Eric and Joe to develop the survey. We took the results. Once we figured out what we were kind of trying to figure out with this PUD, we identified 10 communities and one model ordinance and we reviewed those against Hermantown's ordinance. That matrix was sent out to you and we'll talk about that a little bit more. You know, and then again we evaluated your ordinance just to see um against both uh some best practices in literature as well as against the other ordinances, just to see uh kind of how you compare. You know, where you outlier or you... uh right where were you at? And then also to start to start seeing some things that, you know, ideas that we could take for improvement or changes after this... after tonight's discussion. [37:25] Josh Bergstad: And so that brings us to tonight's first meeting. We have... after tonight we will start doing some more research and developing an array array of recommendations that we will bring back to you, probably in May. Uh, we'll bring back to you, have further discussion, and then refine those with a final report and a plan that we would uh ask the planning commission and council to kind kind of uh ratify that report in June um by the time the uh moratorium that you have lapses. So it's a quick project, but I think we have everything we need to get it done. [38:10] Josh Bergstad: So the purpose of this project: uh a review of the city's use of planned union development to help the city decide the parameters on how and when to use PUD to help achieve the community's development goals. Um, in tonight's meeting we're just going to... we're going to present a summary of those first three tasks and then facilitate a discussion about that we hope will help us figure out what we want to look at for for recommendations. So it's really... we want to help you, we want to get feedback from from you on uh how and where, you know, and when the the community would use PUD and then what the parameters again on that would be. [38:59] Josh Bergstad: Starting with uh our review process, we actually started by just reviewing uh the different... um, we collected all the ordinances, reviewed them, um and then, you know, one thing that became really important for us to to review was the comprehensive plan. Because uh everything that we do in planning and zoning kind of has to flow from the comprehensive plan. So there's this uh land use pyramid here. Comprehensive plan is the foundation. Zoning is the first and kind of foremost thing you build on that. And in the comprehensive plan and the zoning is where you have the most uh the most leeway to do things. I mean, you know, you can you can basically say whatever you want in the comprehensive plan as long as it's not illegal under some other thing. You know, you can say we're only gonna we're gonna have commercial in this specific area, we're gonna have a park for every hundred residents or whatever. You can say whatever you want. Um, and then you start building your things uh to help you implement that. The first is zoning and then you have your subdivision is conditional use and those, you know, also... and as you go up that pyramid, you start having a little bit less leeway, all the way, you know, until, you know, issuing a building permit. If it meets your building code, um, you know, it's basically you you issue the building permit. [40:32] Josh Bergstad: And so in our review of the comprehensive plan, uh I guess summarized, we found eight things. But that we believe the use of the PUD is consistent with the comprehensive plan as long as it keeps in mind a few certain things. So as Eric said, the comprehensive plan was developed in 20... in 2000 and adopted in 2001. It set a 20-year time window, so we're right at that 20 years. And, you know, what it said was that Hermantown was going to surpass 10,000 people and that it would continue to attract young and old alike. It also said that, you know, a variety of housing types—including, and these are all listed out in there: two-family, three-plex, four-plex, and multi-family—are envisioned as part of the future housing stock of Hermantown. So what the plan really keyed in on was that it welcomed the growth, it recognized that in order to keep attracting people it was going to need uh changes in the housing stock, but it also recognized that those changes were going to create challenges for the community. [41:18] Josh Bergstad: And so the plan, secondly, envisions a two areas of the town: a rural area and a suburban area, with uh that line being at... being generally along Ugstad Road—it goes a little bit further west um as you go north. But that line is where in the 2000 comp plan, that line east of uh Ugstad was what was called the urban services boundary. I think someone mentioned something similar tonight, but uh, you know, that's where the road... that's where the water and sewer and generally paved roads are going to be available in the town and that's where the city wanted to wanted to direct, you know, most of the new new subdivision development. Um, basically leaving the area west of that boundary uh, you know, more rural, generally more rural with the larger lots. [42:03] Josh Bergstad: Within that urban services boundary, uh one thing you'll notice in the comprehensive plan, there is no zoning map or future zoning map. There is a map that talks about general land use concepts. And so within that area, within uh that is within what's called plan area one—which is that urban services boundary, which is um, you know, again the east half or not quite half of the city—you know, it talks about maintaining suburban character, preserving critical natural features, phasing residential development, and developing existing and new park areas. If you were to overlay this onto a zoning map, you would see that it is largely R3, but there is, you know, the marketplace there, there is where the old R3a multi-family used to be. There are some apartment buildings scattered in here, but it is still largely, you know, largely single-family residential. Um, and again, it's where most of the um, you know, half-acre or three-quarter acre subdivisions exist. [42:50] Josh Bergstad: And so what what the plan said was the city's growth management policies will be used to achieve moderate density development and mesh new development with existing neighborhoods. Um, and then and that's really the the key, I think, to our conversation around using the PUD within within this area is, you know, "What is an acceptable density level? What is an acceptable... you know, how do you acceptably integrate different types of housing which are envisioned? How do you successfully and acceptably integrate them into into and throughout Hermantown?" [43:37] Josh Bergstad: And then, you know, the growth management policies that we have focus largely on... talks a lot about, you know, the impact of roads, not overloading the roads. I'm talking just both physi... both in terms of the actual quality of the infrastructure as well as the amount of traffic, uh impacts the utilities, the parks and recreation system. And uh, you know, it says that the city is going to evaluate all new developments on their short and long-term fiscal and environmental impacts and impacts to, you know, public safety services so police, fire, ambulance. Again, making sure that this new growth that the comp plan wants to encourage and allow isn't starting to take away from all the things that make Hermantown great. [44:23] Josh Bergstad: And so in your packet, um, there were two kind of matrixes or matrices, I guess. Uh, one was what was called the purpose matrix. And this, I just went through each of these ordinances and looked at the purpose statements, which are really important in the planned unit development because that's where you start getting into what are the reasons that we will use a planned unit development to um... and that generally gets back to "What are your community's development goals? What are your goals in the comprehensive plan where using a planned unit of development would be, you know, appropriate?" And you can see there's a a long list of items. Um, the two items that were common, that were consistent throughout every one of the planned unit development ordinances that we reviewed was a variety of housing and neighborhoods and then efficient and then efficient services and utilities. And that's also common in ours, but that really gets to, I think, two of the the key issues that are facing a lot of cities um now and into the future is uh... we don't say affordable housing, but for the variety of housing and neighborhoods and then, you know, again, "How do we, you know, cost-effectively um deliver those services and utilities?" And then other very common things that almost everybody has: you know, preservation/enhancement in nature, reco... you know, um, mixed-use development pops up um, but really after you get past the preservation/enhancement in nature and then the efficient services and utilities, then each kind of PUD starts changing based on on the community's goals. You can see the left side, you know, the first 10 or 11 are are ours and then it starts, you know, kind of going off into other worlds. [46:41] Josh Bergstad: And so we reviewed those 10 ordinances, and what we did was we just selected 10 cities. Some of them were based on cities that we looked at in the past based on size, based on location, based that based on, you know, based on them being a suburb of uh another city, you know, so like uh Sartell and Sauk Rapids with Saint Cloud. We looked at Duluth just because it's in the region. Um, and so when we actually looked at each of those cities, each of them had a PUD ordinance, which we selected them without knowing that, but each of them had a PUD ordinance again encouraging a variety of housing and neighborhoods and efficient services and utilities were part of the the purpose of every PUD that was reviewed. [47:26] Josh Bergstad: From there it gets a little different because the content of the ordinances vary greatly and with different degrees of variations and specificity allowed. So with the planned unit development, you offer up flexibility in return for something. Um, you know, and that flexibility can arrange anything from, you know, like a lot of zoning runs to say we can we can vary any of our zoning or subdivision uh requirements—lot size, setback, height, uh overall density, a lot of stuff about street types—can all be can all be varied within the uh within the PUD. Um, some of the... um, a few of the communities uh set, you know, kind of uh some some limits on these things, but a lot of them really kind of left it very very unspecified. Um, you know, and where there were limits it was uh around height or setback if it was adjoining or, you know, coming into contact with another property or or area. [48:12] Josh Bergstad: And then allowing uses not allowed in the underlying zoning district was allowed in eight of the ten cities reviewed. So um and specifically um in six of those cities, the allowance was specifically to allow for any housing type. So um in our case, you know, we have an R3 zone which allows a single-family residential, that allows twin-family residences, two-family residential, and I think maybe three-plexes. But, you know, our PUD ordinance and many of the other PUD ordinances would allow an apartment building or some other type of residential use within that district. And then, you know, limits on those and stuff again are pretty flexible and varied over over the over everything. [49:43] Josh Bergstad: So that's a really quick summary of the materials we sent out. Um, if you would like, we could spend a few minutes looking at the... at that uh the main matrix, um, kind of get some, you know, idea about what we looked at. Um, otherwise, you know, i think uh we would be looking to just to start again a discussion on your thoughts about... hopefully you're able to take it all in, the thoughts about what you heard and what you saw and then how that relates to, you know, your thoughts about how to use the PUD and what you would like us to start uh working on uh to bring back to you. [51:15] Corey Kolquist: Well thanks, Josh, for that. Um, I guess I'd like to encourage all the commission members... thoughts, comments? This is a good work session here for us. So this is a, you know, one of our opportunities here to um at least is kind of expounding on what we've heard so far and probably even your thoughts when you're taking the survey as well. [52:02] Valerie Orola: This is Valerie. I'm just um looking at this and down uh fourth up from the bottom where it talks about common open space and um it shows Hermantown doesn't have anything for that. Um, it would seem with the all the baseball and soccer fields and such that we kind of have that covered. Am i... is that not the case or is it because it's not in our zoning specifically that that that's not checked? [52:30] Josh Bergstad: Um, yeah, so common open space, um when we talk about it in a PUD is uh would be the area set aside within that specific development to be used by uh generally the residents of the development, though sometimes you could make it a public park. And so the one of the ideas behind that is, you know, oftentimes with a PUD you might be shrinking lot sizes or or again introducing an apartment building, some kind of a apartment building into um into a development. And, you know, and so the common open space is actually meant to provide a usable outdoor space for the residents of that development so that, yeah, we're giving up half-acre lots, not everybody's going to have a huge fenced-in backyard, but everybody's going to have a common lawn that they can throw a picnic on or play with their dog on. And so um I think I know it's R... it is referenced in our PUD, but it's not in the purpose section. Um, and so the one thing about the common open space where you see it is um a lot of the places that really do talk about it, they talk about how um it has to be usable for the purpose of open space. So you can't just say, "Well I didn't build in that wetland, that's the open space." Well, except for bird watching, it's not a really usable space for the community. Or, you know, that stormwater pond is the open space. So um, you know, and so that's where, if I might, I think uh I don't know, Beth was talking about developing areas around little parklets or something. You know, that that's where that's where like the concept of an open space would come in. Uh, other places talk about it in terms of recreational amenities; you know, maybe you're throwing a little playground or something. [54:21] Valerie Orola: Okay, so Josh, so in other parts of the country they may have a pool area or tennis court or that's sort of what you're talking about within the community itself? [55:00] Josh Bergstad: Yeah, that's definitely an example, but it could just be as as simple as, again, like a green... just an open park area with a trail and some benches, you know. [55:18] Valerie Orola: Okay. [55:20] Eric Johnson: And again, that's where a lot of places, you know, in the PUD or they talk about it, but they don't get into strictly defining it. And so, you know, that that's where it's through the process you want to make sure that you're getting something usable. And I believe Josh really hit that nail on the head on that one is is like you said that yes, we have some infill land that's difficult to develop, but not having a plan that just maximizes all that upland... open up in space and doesn't provide that that green for the the residents of that community. So I think that's be a good part of a, you know, PUD in some of these moving forward. [55:52] Beth Winslow: That's where i think having the planned park to open space for apartments, excuse me, is going to be critical. Um, if we don't have places for... even if if it's all 55 and older, you want someplace for people to go out and enjoy some green space. And if we if we aren't careful of that sort of the overlay in some areas, I think we're going to miss that and it's going to come back to haunt us later for not watching that. [56:26] Josh Bergstad: Were there any questions about any of the kind of terms or categories that were included in there? [56:45] Beth Winslow: It's going to take a little while to read all of this to really get it through my head since we didn't get it that long ago. [57:12] Eric Johnson: And I'm gonna jump in right here. I'm thinking back to your matrix uh timeline, Josh, that um I wonder if, like you said, that um we give P and Z a little bit time to digest this and then uh maybe do this again in April. Because right now we don't have any applications for April, that uh turn that into another work session to keep expounding on this. I think there's there's a lot of really good information that the ARDC put forward and then some good information that came out of that survey. And I think that um at least if the members have a chance to like digest it a little bit further, that I think we could have even a better conversation a month from now. And that's... I mean, how does how does a PNG feel about that? [57:58] Sam Clark: Eric, Sam Clark here. I'm fine with that too. Is there any uh leeway if it's just the planning and zoning commission to do something outside just the monthly seven o'clock? I mean, could we schedule something for like two two weeks out or something? [58:12] Eric Johnson: Yeah, we we have the ability to do that. We would just call it a work session. Um, I don't think we're hitting... if Councilor Geissler is on, I don't believe P and Z is affected by open meeting laws. I'm not quite sure of that. [58:25] John Geissler: I think I think we are, yes. [58:28] Eric Johnson: Are we? Okay. [58:30] John Geissler: So I don't like the airport planning... you know, planning and zoning for the airport is, so I'm pretty sure that that we would need to publicize that. [58:38] Eric Johnson: Sure. Okay, so like basically... [58:40] John Geissler: Yeah, exactly. [58:41] Eric Johnson: But it would be about two weeks out by the time we get into the Star and things like that. So... [58:43] John Geissler: I don't even think Star is necessary. I think just on the website would be adequate. [58:46] Eric Johnson: Oh, okay. [58:48] John Geissler: We can help, but uh we could check with Steve, but I think that would be just a website notification. [58:53] Eric Johnson: Okay. Gives us a little bit more flexibility in the timing of that. [58:55] Corey Kolquist: Yep, okay thank you. My other question, Eric, would be the um, you know, once we get through this, what does it take to... is it a new ordinance? Is it an amendment to the ordinance? What's it going to take after we kind of make some decisions? [59:15] Eric Johnson: Yeah, exactly. The... um, myself and Josh and Justin been talking about that. We don't envision it's going to be a total rewrite of the PUD ordinance, that it's going to be um, I said, kind of a an amendment, for lack of better words, getting in some of this criteria for, you know, "What what we envision as the PUD?" Once again, establishing some parameters that way. So um, if you look in... if you think about the R3 zoning, we have some set charts in there, uh some maybe more aspects like that. But um, you know, we're still kind of working our way through that to tell you the truth. [59:45] Corey Kolquist: Yep, okay. [59:48] Eric Johnson: Yeah, I mean on the from a timeline standpoint, um I'd really like to get this in front of the City Council that first week of July, so we don't really have any downtime by time the moratorium ends. And that, you know, in a perfect world, we'll be sitting at the June meeting at City Council with the new ordinance, but once again we're excited to see how it pulls together here. [1:00:10] Corey Kolquist: Yeah, time goes quick. [1:00:12] Eric Johnson: It does. [1:00:14] Sam Clark: Eric, have you guys started on the comprehensive plan at all? [1:00:18] Eric Johnson: No, we have not. We have not. [1:00:25] Sam Clark: I guess Sam Clark here again. Uh, kind of going off with John and maybe kind of taking off Corey's question. I... my personal preference would be that uh if we're going to review this as a planning and zoning commission, that we do it sooner than later just to streamline things and keep things moving forward. [1:00:45] Corey Kolquist: I agree with that, Sam. I think that uh that would be nice to get that going as quick as possible. That way if we had to have two sessions we could probably pull that off. I also think it might be nice just to have a, you know, maybe not at this time of night, but just a little earlier. People can ask questions or have questions prepared and then just kind of work forward from there, you know. [1:01:10] Eric Johnson: That that's great. I I really appreciate that that comment because, like I said, it's four weeks is a long time from now, that's for sure. Um, the... I'm just thinking about the format. If it's still a Zoom format at that point, I think ARDC, you still um you still need to work under the uh that process, I believe. Correct? [1:01:30] Josh Bergstad: In two weeks, I'd probably be more comfortable doing that. Later on, we might be able to do something else. [1:01:35] Eric Johnson: Okay. [1:01:38] Josh Bergstad: Okay, if we're gonna kind of um adjourn the discussion, I maybe wouldn't mind just—and turn you turn you all loose to look at this over the next couple weeks—I wouldn't mind just going down the matrix and maybe just give me a little uh explainer on on on the categories, just because um these are just what I how I title them in my mind. So uh um so on the in the top, and the first one on on the main matrix, you know, the minimum size. And and that's again just "What is the minimum size of area that you have to do a PUD?" And that's pretty explanatory—it's just acres. [1:02:15] Josh Bergstad: Flexible land use: That was getting towards that question of of "Could we allow different types of housing or different types of use?" And these are again, these are just taken straight from the ordinance. Uh, you see maybe Mankato is missing um a thing, but they allow housing of any type. [1:02:40] Josh Bergstad: Comp plan reference: That's basically just a language right from the plan where it talks about the comp plan. [1:02:55] Josh Bergstad: Flexible dimensional/performance standards: Again, those are... the dimensional standards are, you know, lot width, lot size, building height, building setbacks. And then performance standards, you know, might be some other things like uh um, you know, screening or stuff like that. [1:03:10] Josh Bergstad: Density bonuses: Um, I think it's self-explanatory. You know, uh the underlying zone is four units per acre, you can go up to six units per acre or eight units per acre or whatever. [1:03:30] Josh Bergstad: And then the last kind of... and then some of these are are the things that um are kind of supposed to be the things that you do start getting those different flexibility bonuses. So common open space, we talked about that. Clustering—you know, "Can you take 40 units that are supposed to be over 40 acres and put them on 10 acres?" Mixed-use, self-explanatory. [1:04:10] Josh Bergstad: You know, and then some of these things like design standards, conservation standards... it's hard to call them standards when they're unspecified. But um, you know, in our ordinance we talk about "you can do a PUD... one of the things that we do PUD is, you know, that we get in return is better design or better sustainability," even though they're unspecified. [1:04:35] Josh Bergstad: Um, and then the last few are landscaping... again, kind of the same thing. And then the last couple are just some process things, like: Is this done through a rezoning? Is it done through an overlay? One community does it as a conditional use permit. And then "Other," that was just stuff that as I read through kind of popped out that might... at the time I thought was interesting. And that mostly related to uh laying out some standards for uh different street standards within these developments. And so that's basically... one thing that I did not look that closely into was the actual um application and review process, though what I did notice was they're pretty similar for the most part. [1:05:41] Eric Johnson: Josh, when you're just talking performance standards, was there a couple communities that actually identified a height? If I'm remembering back, there wasn't many if I recall. [1:06:05] Josh Bergstad: There was a couple... and I just closed... I mean, you know, if they answer this moment that that's just... you know, as as you know thinking back to the survey, one of the things that we had identified. I think a few of them... it looks like a few of them mentioned that the set that the height must be equal to the setback from adjacent property. Yeah, so uh yeah like I think Oakdale has a maximum height of 45 feet, but a lot of it yeah is uh looking at um how to buffer that height. Um, not within the... so not within the PUD itself, but um against, you know, the neighboring properties. [1:07:01] Josh Bergstad: So I mean, there's really... well, you know, the thing about the PUD is that there's really quite a few tools that you can can use to um to not only achieve the desired outcomes but then also, you know, start to mitigate against any of the things you're concerned about. So, you know, as you start thinking about what you what your preferred parameters within the PUD are, um, you know, I think it would also be good just to think about um different ways to to achieve those parameters through either allowing or not allowing something or or or laying out some guidelines for how uh you know for again some of those tools about height or setback that we could use to to achieve that. [1:07:46] Eric Johnson: The one thing that jumps out at me that might be worth a good discussion here in a couple weeks is the idea of that density bonus. Because then we start getting in that idea of, you know, defining how many potential units in a particular space. And i think it once again it helps define so someone knows coming in, "Well, the underlying zoning's two units per acre. If I if I want five units per acre, I have to do this or ten units... i'm just saying a number... ten units per acre, I need to do that." I mean, it starts to quantify it a little bit. Or I think that's where it's always been difficult with our existing PUD, is the sake... it says in here it's unspecified. So it's um, you know, I think that would be something to kind of start honing in a little bit as well. [1:08:32] Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen: And i think that's true across a lot of these dimensions, is that the things that are unspecified are causing our potential developers to not know exactly what is expected. And then they're... because they're unspecified, it's really allowing the neighbors to have objections and potentially for us to deny things just based on a neighborhood feel versus the actual facts of the situation. You know, you start to get into that whole "not in my backyard" type of mentality. I mean, there were even a couple of comments within the survey about um not wanting group homes, which is clear or clearly should not be an issue any longer. [1:09:40] Eric Johnson: Well, what I'll do—unless there's some further comments or discussion right now—uh, I'd like to propose in March 30th, two weeks from today. Um, and and I might try to do um sending out a survey so I can get some input from all of you, you know, some potential times that work out well. And um regroup at that point, and maybe even a couple different days, but um I'll work on that tomorrow and send that out to the group. But i'd say tentatively let's figure for, you know, two weeks from now sometime during that week to at least have this interim meeting. [1:10:40] Joe Peterson: I like that idea, Eric, a lot. And that sounds good. [1:10:56] Eric Johnson: Well great. I think with that um Josh or Justin, did you have anything further uh this evening? Or um otherwise, it said we'll uh regroup here in a couple weeks' time. [1:11:05] Josh Bergstad: No, I think that's everything we had. Uh, yeah we just... I look forward to having that conversation in a couple weeks, and I think that works good for us. It gives us the time then to work on what comes out of that. [1:11:15] Eric Johnson: Yeah, I think so. And thank you, Sam, for suggesting that, because yeah, things get stale after four or five weeks. So uh said keep keep it in the forefront, keep thinking about it. That'd be great. [1:11:28] Josh Bergstad: Thanks, Eric. [1:11:30] Eric Johnson: Thanks, Josh. Nice to see you. [1:11:42] Josh Bergstad: Yeah, thanks everyone. Uh, have a good evening. [1:11:50] Eric Johnson: Good night.