This transcript is from a **Lakeville Planning Commission** meeting. Based on the roll call, the context of the department directors provided, and the dialogue, I have identified the speakers. **Key Identifications:** * **Chair Zuzak:** Presiding officer. * **Ms. Morrow:** Staff member calling the roll (likely a Deputy City Clerk or Administrative Assistant). * **Tina Goodroad:** Community Development Director (introduces items). * **Zach Johnson:** City Engineer (presents the Capital Improvement Plan). * **Anthony Cecil & Julie Berry:** Representatives from Bioenergy Devco (applicants). * **Commissioner Zimmer:** Identified as an engineer by his own comment. * **Commissioner Caloosa, Swanson, Lily, Marovich:** Identified via roll call and discussion context. *** [0:00] **Audio:** foreign [0:49] **Chair Zuzak:** I call to order the September 21st, 2023, Planning Commission meeting. Please join me in the flag pledge. Congratulations. [1:16] **Chair Zuzak:** Miss Morrow, will you please call a roll of members? [1:20] **Ms. Morrow:** Zuzak? **Chair Zuzak:** Here. **Ms. Morrow:** Caloosa? **Commissioner Caloosa:** Here. **Ms. Morrow:** Lily? **Commissioner Lily:** Here. **Ms. Morrow:** Marovich? **Commissioner Marovich:** Here. **Ms. Morrow:** Zimmer? **Commissioner Zimmer:** Here. **Ms. Morrow:** Inc? **Commissioner Inc:** Here. **Ms. Morrow:** Swanson? **Commissioner Swanson:** Here. [1:30] **Chair Zuzak:** Agenda item number three: approval of the September 7th, 2023, Planning Commission meeting minutes and approval of the September 7th, 2023, Planning Commission work session minutes. Fellow Commissioners, any changes? Then they will stand. Um, Director Goodroad, any announcements? [1:51] **Tina Goodroad:** Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission. The only announcement I have is, assuming items tonight are not tabled, we will not have an October 5th Planning Commission meeting due to lack of other agenda items for that meeting. That's all I have. [2:01] **Chair Zuzak:** All right, thank you. All right, agenda item number five: City of Lakeville, consider the 2024 to 2028 Capital Improvement plan. [2:10] **Zach Johnson:** Good evening, Chair, Planning Commission members. Tonight's presentation is the culmination of an effort that started in February of this year. The CIP is a document that's produced and developed each year in coordination with the annual budget. Its purpose is to program and prioritize Capital Improvement projects for the city in support of existing and forecasted needs. And tonight we're going to highlight a few of those, but we're going to focus on seven particular areas: Transportation, Utilities, Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation, Equipment, Technology, and Facilities. [2:50] **Zach Johnson:** Okay, so I'd like to highlight a few projects for you under consideration in this year's CIP. Each year we have an annual Street project that includes surfacing, resurfacing, and sometimes reconstruction. The purpose of that is to preserve our existing roads and then also reconstruct those that have extended beyond their normal lifespan. We have what's called an OCI, Original Condition Index, to make sure they stay at a proper level of 75. Happy to share with you that the program that's been implemented is doing a great job and we're presently a little bit over our goal of 75. But that's a project that we do each year. [3:34] **Zach Johnson:** Next year we're proposed to do what we call phase two of The Dodd Boulevard jurisdictional transfer. This year you're well aware that 179th Street between Highview and Cedar Avenue was realigned and it's almost done. You can actually drive 179th now, but next year we'll do phase two, and that's Dodd Boulevard essentially between Cedar Avenue and Pilot Knob Road. This project will be modernizing the County highway back into a collector roadway, and at completion of this project, Dodd Boulevard will be turned over to the city for ownership and maintenance, and 179th Street will be turned over to the county. You can kind of see the beginning and end here; some of these slides required that I cut them in half into two pieces, so apologize for that. [4:19] **Zach Johnson:** Second project is the freight rail car storage and transload facility. The city has been successful in acquiring federal funds for this project. It's currently kind of on hold as we work through some agreements with all stakeholders, but that's projected to address some of the issues that we're having for storage and transloading operations in our Industrial Park. [4:47] **Zach Johnson:** Next transportation improvement is scheduled for 2025. This is the expansion of 185th Street between County Road 50 and Ipava Avenue. The current roadway is growing and has volume that requires us to add additional lanes, so this project would be a four-lane divided roadway or highway. This would be under County jurisdiction and then have trails on both sides. Another project programmed for construction in 2025 is the extension of 179th Street east of Pilot Knob, which includes a bridge spanning the North Creek. This is a project that would be done in coordination with plan development and also then in partnership with the county as this would be a future County Highway as it extends east towards Highway 3. [5:49] **Zach Johnson:** Yeah, one of our more higher-profile projects is the Interstate 35/County Road 50 Bridge Improvement project. This is a project that the city did some interim improvements in 2004 and 2005. We're now realizing again additional volumes to the point where we need to implement kind of a long-term or ultimate improvement project. This would include replacing the bridges along I-35. Right now you have two bridges with two lanes; this would include removal of the bridges and then having two bridges with three lanes in each direction. We'd also be doing some work to realign County Road 50 so that instead of this kind of skew, it would be a little bit straighter. This project does also include some work on the on-ramps and off-ramps as well and would be in coordination with some State projects to address some capacity challenges that we have on I-35 as well. We have been successful in getting some state and federal funding on this, but this project is not... all the funding is not secured yet, so the city and county are actively working on that effort. [6:45] **Zach Johnson:** In 2026 and 2028, we have two projects programmed. In 2026, we'd be working on Highview Avenue from Heritage Drive to just south of 190th Street. This would also be a modernization project where the existing roadway doesn't quite have capacity, doesn't have curb and gutter, doesn't have turn lanes at all the intersections, so we would be modernizing it to add that additional capacity, safety improvements for turn lanes, and we would also be adding a pedestrian tunnel here to improve pedestrian safety and crossing of Highview Avenue. In 2028, we would have phase two, which would include a roundabout at 190th Street and then transitioning towards existing conditions at Dodd Boulevard. [7:47] **Zach Johnson:** Programmed for 2027 is another modernization project. This is an existing County Highway that has two lanes; however, it doesn't have the forecasted needs at this time to go to a full four-lane divided highway, so we call this a modernization again. There would be turn lanes at the intersections, we'd be modernizing it with curb and gutter versus a rural section with ditches, we'd also have trails along both sides, and we would also include again a pedestrian underpass at the crossing where we have the Lake Marion Greenway Trail, and that would be again in coordination with the county. You can see the extents there. [8:28] **Zach Johnson:** Moving on to Parks and Recreation: we have Avonlea. This year we are almost done with completing Antlers Park improvements. Next year Avonlea Community Park is programmed. They have a little slow to load, sorry... there we go. So we have an updated master plan to share with you there. You'll see a couple of field decks including cricket, and then we'll show you some close-ups here of what that would look like. We have the splash pad and play area; it's kind of centrally located. We have a ball field here that's in support with some donations from Lakeville Baseball Association. That's the only two I had on the one, sorry. [9:21] **Zach Johnson:** 2025, we have East Community Park. Again, following that theme in relation to the park bond referendum, more enhancements and improvements to improve the Parks and Recreation experience for our residents. You can see this includes a trailhead and tying into the county's North Creek Regional Greenway corridor. As part of the park bond referendum, we made completion of a lot of gaps along our trail system. I think we did four or five this year. We have two more programmed next year: one is along the west side of Highview Avenue from 172nd Street to 168th Street, and the second is along the east side of Cedar Avenue from Shakespeare Boulevard to Gemini Trail. And again, this will provide that connectivity to the existing system that we have. [10:10] **Zach Johnson:** Another project that we have a little bit looking forward to '26 and '28 is extension and connection of these Dakota County Regional Greenway Trails. This particular trail, the Lake Marion Greenway, actually is programmed someday to start up at Murphy-Hanrahan up by 185th Street and work its way all the way down through Ritter Park, over through Casperson, around Lake Marion to downtown, and then eventually over to Cedar Avenue. Due to the extent of the challenges that come with that, we've kind of broken it into phases. In 2026, we would expect to do this segment further east or downstream, and that would be from downtown to Cedar Avenue. We'd be making some connections there; there'd be a couple of bridges proposed and also a crossing of Cedar Avenue. 2028—and I don't have a slide for that, my apologies—but that would be phase two, which would be working our way west, and that would go basically from downtown west to Ritter Farm Park. The third subsequent phase then would be making that connection between Ritter Farm Park and Murphy-Hanrahan; at this time, that's not programmed. This gives you a little bit of a snapshot of what the greenway trails look like. You can see kind of some of these nodes here that run through rural areas. Obviously, there's some sections that would travel along a roadway, but part of that concept with the greenway trails is that it is to be compatible to the adjacent characteristics of the trees, greenways, waterways, things of that nature. And these are done in coordination with the county. Once we have a connection, these trails, the ownership and the maintenance is transferred over to Dakota County. We also have a number of neighborhood parks proposed in the next five years. This is just some examples of what some of these improvements would look like, obviously a little bit lighter scale than what we have at our larger community parks. [12:13] **Zach Johnson:** We also have a utility component. Part of our responsibility is to maintain our current system. This is just a quick five-second video of what we do to seal our manholes. This prevents inflow and infiltration of groundwater, which reduces our costs and preserves our system for the long term. Here they're kind of sealing up the cracks so that water doesn't come through it. As our community continues to grow in population, we also have to plan for additional water supply. That's done through drilling wells, and so we're at a point now where our projected water demand requires us to add an additional well in 2024, and so that's what this represents here. That well is anticipated to be located along 190th Street between Dodd Boulevard and Highview Avenue. We have maintenance of our existing water towers; next year it's the CMF site. This year was the Steve Michaud Tower; if you drove by, you probably saw quite a few trucks and equipment there. [13:27] **Zach Johnson:** For facilities, we have two major facilities planned. One is the water treatment facility expansion that's programmed for 2027. One thing I did want to mention is we do have a kind of mini-step, if you will, in 2025 which allows us to do some additional work inside our facility with our filters, and then 2027 would be a larger physical extension of our facility as well. And again, that's to accommodate the growing system and the growing population that we have in the city. You can see a couple of pictures of our most recent expansion. Again, following along that theme of a growing city, we have expansion of our Central Maintenance Facility. That's to address a growing park system, growing road system, and trails; that's where this equipment here is housed. And we also have materials; you can see in the back corner there is our salt shed, if you will, and so that would be addressed in 2027 as well. [14:26] **Zach Johnson:** Environmental resources: in maintaining our natural resources, we do a number of things. We work closely with different government agencies, and a lot of times we work with Vermilion River Watershed. We had quite a few projects this year; next year we're proposed to do one at Green Ridge Park off of Flagstaff Avenue. That's intended to look at the encompassing drainage area that goes there, and we put in some stormwater management facilities that would allow us to discharge cleaner water. This is an example of what it looks like: this would have been an eroded stream bank where we stabilized the banks, kind of cleaned out everything and created a flow there, and we also have plantings there as well. We also have an annual lake management plan that includes vegetation studies, water quality monitoring, fish stocking, fish surveys, and also again looking at the stream banks and looking for opportunities to provide native plants while also reducing aquatic invasive species. [15:17] **Zach Johnson:** We also have a lot of public outlets and public facilities that have vegetated areas; we do a maintenance plan on that as well. We also have our parks where we have pollinator gardens, rain gardens at liquor stores, and water conservation. Again, we're getting to that point where we need to add an additional well for water supply. One of the things that we can do to kind of delay that capital cost is work on water conservation. As part of that, we do a series of educational videos. I think this one was relatively short; I'll share this with you, and this is an example of what we do to try to support that. We do have programs where we are proposing to match homeowners associations where there's a higher water use and try to bring that water need down. [16:21] **Video Voiceover:** Here are three ways to maximize your sprinkler's water usage: One, check for dry spots on your lawn. If you see a dry spot, chances are your heads need realignment. Two, address misting. If you see water coming out as a mist from your sprinkler head, your water pressure is too high. Three, install a weather-based irrigation controller. Take the work out of adjusting your irrigation controller while still saving water by installing an EPA WaterSense controller. [16:53] **Zach Johnson:** And we have a number of videos like that that we work on. We share that with HOAs, schools, and we're also expanding that to potentially commercial and institutional and industrial areas as well in the future. We have our 4C program that we use to combat EAB and then also other invasive bugs as well. [17:16] **Zach Johnson:** Finally, we have our equipment and technology; that's basically our acquisition replacement plan. As things get outdated or phased out, we bring in new technology so that we try to minimize our maintenance costs as well. So that highlights some of the significant components in those seven categories. The request of the Planning Commission tonight is to review the CIP for compliance and consistency with the city's comprehensive plan. Staff has developed this in close coordination. I'd like to also take a second to offer recognition, appreciation, and thanks to the number of personnel that worked on this. Like I said, this is a six-month effort that involves a number of staff from all the departments. We also work closely with Dakota County Watershed and other organizations as well. But I will stand forward with any questions. Thank you so much. [18:06] **Chair Zuzak:** Fellow commissioners, I'm particularly excited about this CIP, and I think it's more than just a six-month effort. I know that some of these projects have been worked on for years. I've lived in the city for over 30 years and I can say I'm extremely excited about the rail car storage facility. I think that that's going to do a lot for a problem that has kind of vexed the city for decades and has been a source of a lot of resident complaints with the rail car storage in our downtown area. I think that there are a lot of great projects in here that are really going to improve safety. I really love that we have a lot of kind of those underpass trails; I think that that's going to be great for our growing community, allowing people to continue to use our trail network without having to wait at a crosswalk or something like that. That's going to be great. So I really commend the city for all the work that's been done on this; there's a lot of great projects in here and I'm happy to vote for this. [19:29] **Commissioner Swanson:** Yeah, I'd like to say I'm pleased to see a balance of maintaining current assets and building new things. So we're managing our property taxes and funding for new things but also maintaining the old things. That is an important piece to maintain that balance. Appreciate that piece. [19:46] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Madam Chair, I may be biased as an engineer, but I always enjoy seeing this document come before us because it represents, as you have mentioned, the culmination of so much thinking and planning. It's taken years in many of these projects' cases to come to fruition. It represents a lot of things that many of us take for granted in our day-to-day lives as to, "Hey, is our road smooth and easy to drive on? When I flush my toilet, does it go somewhere? Do I have water to flush my toilet with?" All those little things. All these projects cost a lot of money and they're needed for a growing community like this, and it's not only just expansion of facilities, but it's also maintenance at those facilities long-term. So grateful to see all the thinking and planning that's gone into this that represents a well-balanced plan. [20:41] **Commissioner Zimmer:** The other thing I would comment on here with this is, as Planning Commissioners, this document is useful for us as we consider items that come before us. I can think of many projects we've had come before us in the past where we've had discussions and conversations about future projects that may occur, and this is a document that highlights what the city is thinking and planning for these next four years. It lays that out before us as a planning body to think about as we consider all the projects that come before us and how they work together—or don't work together, as the case may be. So grateful to see the document and have a chance to review it. I'll happily be voting yes on this. Thank you. [21:20] **Chair Zuzak:** One more thing: Commissioner Zimmer reminded me that one of the other exciting things—and this is really a testament to the planning that the city has done—if you look in this document, the projected debt that the city has and the debt per capita and the debt per household is going to be going down and going down significantly. And that is a testament to planning in advance and projecting what our growth is going to be. I think that that is just a really strong testament to the city staff that have worked to kind of plan all of this out over the years. [22:08] **Chair Zuzak:** I think we're ready for a motion. [22:11] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Madam Chair? **Chair Zuzak:** Yep. **Commissioner Zimmer:** Motion to recommend to City Council adoption of the 2024 through 2028 Capital Improvement Plan as presented, finding that it is consistent with the city's 2040 Comprehensive Plan. **Commissioner Caloosa:** Second. [22:31] **Chair Zuzak:** Miss Morrow? [22:35] **Ms. Morrow:** Zuzak? **Chair Zuzak:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Caloosa? **Commissioner Caloosa:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Lily? **Commissioner Lily:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Marovich? **Commissioner Marovich:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Zimmer? **Commissioner Zimmer:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Inc? **Commissioner Inc:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Swanson? **Commissioner Swanson:** Aye. [22:38] **Chair Zuzak:** And Director Goodroad, when will this go in front of City Council? [22:42] **Tina Goodroad:** It's scheduled to go before City Council consideration on October 2nd, Chair. [22:45] **Chair Zuzak:** Thank you. Thank you. All right, agenda item number six is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak for the public hearing, please make sure to fill out your name and your address on the sheet in the back. Public hearing to consider an amendment to Title 11, Chapter 2 (Definitions) and Title 11, Chapter 87 (I-2 General Industrial District) of the Lakeville Zoning Ordinance to add "Organics Recycling Facility" as a conditional use in the I-2 district. And here to give us an overview is Anthony Cecil. Go ahead. [23:21] **Tina Goodroad:** Before we get started, Madam Chair, members of the commission, I just want to introduce the item a little bit just so there's some context for folks in the audience this evening. Bioenergy Devco has applied for a text amendment to add Organics Recycling Facility as a new conditional use in the I-2 zoning district. And so what is before you tonight is just the consideration of the text amendment to add this use in our definitions section and to add this use in the I-2 zoning code as a new conditional use. We are not considering approval of the facility; this action tonight would set the path for Bioenergy Devco to be able to apply for a conditional use permit in the future. So I just want those in the audience to know that we're not approving the use, but we would be considering the allowance of this use in the I-2 zoning district, and that could be in any I-2 zoned property within the city of Lakeville. [24:26] **Tina Goodroad:** Because we know the site that Bioenergy Devco is looking at, we did send notices out for this public hearing on the text amendment. That isn't typical; we usually don't do that on zoning ordinance updates that are affecting the entire zoning code, but we did in this case so that property owners that are near this site would be able to learn right away on what this use is all about. And when we do receive an application for the conditional use permit, notices will go out again in the future when we're actually considering approval of the site. So I just want to make sure that's very clear so the audience knows what we're doing tonight. Now I would like to turn it over to Bioenergy; they do have a presentation and then I'll be back to talk a little bit more about the text. Thank you. [25:26] **Anthony Cecil:** Hi, my name is Anthony Cecil and I'm joined by Julie Berry. We're here on behalf of Bioenergy Devco. As a global leader of anaerobic digestion, we have built 250-plus facilities in seven different countries. We continue to own and operate 150 of those, and we have 25 years plus of back data to support our technology. What you're looking at on the screen here is a bit about our process. Anaerobic digestion is essentially what it sounds like: we get organic food waste into our facility; our outputs are gas that is captured and also a soil amendment. As you can see here, this is from one of our facilities in Jessup, Maryland, of some organic material in local sources. We produce two byproducts: sustainable energy—we're capable of producing electricity up to 1.1 megawatts—and organic soil amendment. We also are able to apply that as dried, pelletized, and digestate. There's a few other things that we're here to talk about. We're proud to say that we're net zero in carbon emissions. And then we have a short video to show you guys, and then I'll hand it over to Julie. [27:25] **Video Voiceover:** Welcome to the Maryland Bioenergy Center Jessup, the largest anaerobic digester in the state committed to co-digesting excess food waste. Let's see how it works. We source and collect different types of organic materials called feedstocks from our local area. Upon entering our facility, each truck runs over a scale then heads to the receiving building. The door closes and the negative air pressure assures that the air is filtered before leaving the building. If the load is liquid such as fats, oils, and greases, the contents are pumped from the truck directly into one of our pre-tanks. If the load is solid like chopped fruit, the load is dumped on the tipping floor for visual inspection. The driver then exits the facility, runs over another scale, and we know how much feedstock he left behind. The inspected feedstock is then lifted by front loaders and tipped into the hopper where augers move the material to the next stage. Contamination—non-organic material—is separated out while water is added to the organics to create a slurry. The organics are then transferred into one of our pre-tanks depending on the characteristics of each feedstock. Like a good cook, we want our main tanks to have just the right ingredients to feed our microbes. Microbes need a balanced diet to do their work, so from our pre-tanks we carefully mix them into our large digester tanks. The materials in these digester tanks are continuously mixed and kept at a constant temperature to keep the microbes inside happily digesting. As the biogas created from the process rises, the double membrane at the top of the tank rises too. The biogas is then pumped out of the tank and sent to a gas filtration skid to be filtered. The gas can be sent to our combined heat and power unit, which helps us heat our tanks and power our operations, then directly into the grid replacing fossil fuel-derived gas. Solids left behind in the tanks are called digestate. This product is pumped out of the bottom of the tanks, dewatered, and turned into a compost-like material rich in organic nutrients, enabling sustainable agriculture. Any remaining water is either recycled back into the process or filtered through our on-site wastewater treatment facility. So there you have it: organics diverted from landfills and incinerators turned into renewable energy and organic compost rich in nutrients to build healthier soils. Join us and embrace a vision where environments and economies thrive in harmony. Anaerobic digestion: Nature's recycling engine. Visit www.bioenergydevco.com to learn more. [30:35] **Julie Berry:** So that video was our Jessup, Maryland site. We've been operational for over 25 years over in Italy, France, England, and into Germany as well, but the Jessup, Maryland site is the first United States operational site that we have. Anaerobic digestion is viewed even by the EPA recently as a sustainable solution to not only diverting from landfills that are quickly reaching capacity across the nation but also food waste in general. So over one-half of the Earth's habitable land is devoted to food production, and of the food produced, one-third of it is thrown away and usually goes into the landfill. And so the EPA published a solution pyramid, a food recovery pyramid, and within that pyramid are both composting as well as food waste-to-fuel conversions such as anaerobic digestion. And that was just this year that they published that. [31:38] **Julie Berry:** We take in at the Maryland site 115,000 tons of that food waste, that organic material, and produce for the digestive part of it 16,000 tons per year. Now a lot of that can go to like a compost facility; it speeds up the maturation process for them and adds nutrients to the product. The Jessup site is within the Maryland Food Center Authority, and so it's actually in a pretty small footprint; it's only about five acres. And the next few slides are sort of what you see as you drive down the road. So those are the two big fermentation tanks... another fermentation tank. As far as the renewable natural gas... oh, mine went... there we go. It's British Thermal Units per year, which means almost nothing to anybody, so that's why we include the equivalents on here. So it's like taking over 12,000 gas vehicles off the road, powering nearly 8,000 U.S. households, and if you think about carbon sequestration, it's about 82 times the size of Central Park. [33:06] **Julie Berry:** That's the actual building itself. So when you see sort of the conceptual site plan in a later slide, that is basically the building that you would see from 225th. As far as building materials, it's really typical precast. We've been working and talking and negotiating with Launch Properties—which I'm sure you guys are all familiar with Dan Regan—who annexed the Adelman site in 2021 with you. And so we are looking to locate in the far southeast corner of that newly annexed 100-plus acre land on about 16.4 or 16.5 acres. And that house that you see that's right next to the star is actually the Adelman family, so they're clearly well aware that all of this land was being annexed in and zoned as industrial. [34:10] **Julie Berry:** This is a zoomed-in view. You can see 225th on the south side of the picture there. So what you'll see again is you'll see that receiving building with the tanks and wastewater on that north side facing whatever Launch brings in on the adjoining north property. And this is sort of a zoomed-out perspective of all of the Adelman site that they're looking to develop in relation to us. So they're going to build public Street A that will connect to our site. [34:52] **Julie Berry:** If you wanted to know about operationally and jobs and stuff like that: it's about two to three years from permits to construction to operations. And there's obviously jobs created during construction and then there's 15 or 20 permanent employees. The facility runs seven days a week, 24 hours, but we're not receiving feedstock all of that time. It's usually Monday through Friday, limited hours on the weekend, just AM peak to PM peak hours. And Kimberly-Horn, who was the consultant for Launch, did traffic studies; they compared what had been done for the AUAR for the annexation against what the traffic generated for this site would be, and it was actually well below what had been anticipated. So the levels of services are actually less with our site. No hazardous waste or outdoor storage; it's in a closed-loop system, everything's enclosed. And the idea is to have as many local partnerships as possible, whether it will be for the offtake for digestate and educational opportunities with schools and other local community groups. And then obviously most communities—the county—have sustainability goals that we would love to be able to... if we can help you achieve more. [36:25] **Julie Berry:** On the community engagement: it's a very robust part of our proposal, part of our company. So we actually, once we've paved the way so to speak to move forward—which sort of this zoning text amendment would be—so that we would actually be able to come to you with an application, we start the community outreach right away. So we look to you guys for recommendations for community groups that you think might be beneficial. We'll go to farmers markets, we'll go to Earth Day events, we'll approach schools and universities, the county, anyone that is willing to talk to us so that we can achieve those partnerships and get the word out there and see what we can do to be an active part of the community. [37:16] **Julie Berry:** We've already talked to the state and the county and obviously Lakeville, so we know sort of all of the permit paths that we need for solid waste, for air, for stormwater. We need a facility license from the county, obviously the conditional use permit, domestic water with the city, wastewater with the Met Council. So that's just sort of a way of showing you that, you know, our very first facility in Maryland, it's really stuck in there, and on one hand it's great because a lot of our sources are right there as far as food waste goes. But obviously you can see that we have very, very close neighbors and there's food being produced there. So they're very keen on not having any vectors, not having any nuisances, any odors that might emanate that people complain about. Someone's going to maybe be asking them if it's them that created that odor, so it's really important that we are a good neighbor and that all of our best management practices don't affect anybody around us. And we've been operational for over a year and everything's fine; in fact, zero complaints. [38:31] **Julie Berry:** In fact, before Dan from Launch would even talk to us about purchasing this property, he went and he visited our Maryland site to make sure, especially with odor, that he couldn't smell anything. And he did that before he would even talk to us, and he said it was fine. So more on best management practices: odor, traffic, nuisance, emergency response, inspections. You saw from the video that from an operational standpoint, those overhead doors only open when a truck is entering or when it's exiting. And all of the trucks are containerized or tarped, and the building is under negative air pressure. So as soon as that door comes back down, anything that might have escaped is filtered through before it gets released. We use biofilters, exhaust fans, activated carbon scrubbers—those are just some of the examples of the technology that we use. And we wash down the receiving area, so that feedstock that you saw being dumped onto the tipping floor, it doesn't sit there garnering odor so that the next time the door opens it all comes out again. It's immediately inspected to make sure that there's no contamination, that's what we had agreed to receive from that provider, and then it's put into the augers and everything's washed down again before anything else comes through. [40:11] **Julie Berry:** Your typical traffic control: we adhere to all of the regulations from a federal standpoint to what you have in your regulations—signage, turning radius, all of that. Nuisance abatement: we already talked about the roll-up doors, building obviously. Landscaping is a huge thing; we maintain the landscaping to ensure that we're not providing habitat to harbor nuisances like mice or anything like that. But we also will contract with an actual agency to regularly make sure that nothing's going on. And then from an operational standpoint, everyone goes through training about keeping everything clean, and there's your typical litter control that you would see. We've never had an issue with noise compliance, so any noise ordinances aren't an issue. Everything's automated as far as inspections and record-keeping, and we always have all of that available for regulatory agencies or whomever to inspect. And we're OSHA compliant, audits, all your typical emergency response plan factors. That ends the presentation. Thank you for listening. [41:40] **Tina Goodroad:** Thank you. I'm going to step back up here and talk about the text a little bit, and then these guys can help with any other specific questions that you might have. Again, the public hearing deals with two amendments to the code. Jack, if you could bring up the staff presentation? [42:15] **Tina Goodroad:** Okay, so the definitions section, 11-2-3, needs to be amended to introduce the "Organics Recycling Facility" as a use. We need to define that. So we are proposing the definition of "the recycling of diverted organics and food waste to produce sustainable energy and soil nutrient through naturally occurring biological processes known as anaerobic digestion." So that would be added to the definition section. And then the amendment continues to 11-87-7, which is the I-2 zoning district—our kind of more heavy industrial district, if you will, which the Adelman property is zoned and also guided for industrial use. [43:04] **Tina Goodroad:** As a conditional use, we are proposing several different conditions. I'm not going to read these word-for-word, but that first bullet point basically deals with the required licensing that Julie just described. There's specific licensing that is going to be required from the state as well as the county, so we need to ensure before any operation that those licenses are valid and they are not in any violation. The organics recycling facility must be connected to sewer and water. The materials processed must be non-hazardous; they must come from animal or plant origin. Any organics recycling facility—the conditional use permit is set up that it's not intended to be open to the public; that would only be allowed if an amendment to the conditional use permit was made. All the processing operations must be entirely enclosed within the facility. And again, being that this is initiated by Bioenergy, we wanted you to see the Maryland site to see how that operates to show you with their future proposal of the CUP how they would be able to meet that requirement. All the processing operations have to be entirely conducted interior; that includes no outdoor storage of any of the processing products or byproduct. So there will be no outdoor storage of any products. The facility must be available for inspection, and the last condition: any records have to be available as well. [44:48] **Tina Goodroad:** Those are the conditions that staff is proposing with this amendment. I would stand for any questions. If you have questions about the specific use, Bioenergy staff can certainly address those. Again, this amendment tonight is specific to the text, so we are not getting into the detail of the site. Again, we are sharing the information about the site because we know that there is a purchase agreement there and we're anticipating a conditional use permit application in the not-too-distant future. But tonight is just on the text—if the Planning Commission would recommend this to the Council and if the Council would consider adding this to the zoning ordinance. And that's all I have. Thank you. [45:31] **Chair Zuzak:** And this is a public hearing, so anyone wishing to speak regarding the text amendment, you can please come forward at this time. [45:40] **Aaron Wagner:** Good evening, Chair, members of the commission. My name is Aaron Wagner with Kimberly-Horn and Associates. We are a civil engineering consulting firm and we were recently engaged by Dunham Incorporated, which is located at 10831 215th Street West in Lakeville. Dunham Incorporated requested that we attend the meeting this evening on their behalf and communicate their public support for the Bioenergy Devco development. Thank you. [46:13] **Chair Zuzak:** Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? [46:25] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Madam Chair, make a motion to close the public hearing. **Commissioner Caloosa:** Second. [46:29] **Chair Zuzak:** Motion and a second. All those in favor of closing the public hearing, signify by saying aye. **Commissioners:** Aye. **Chair Zuzak:** All opposed? All right, the public hearing is now closed. I do have one question quickly: could you flip back to the definition? I just had a quick question regarding organics recycling facilities in general. Do all run the process with the anaerobic digestion? [47:04] **Tina Goodroad:** That's a good question. I don't know if the experts can help address that. This definition was pretty fine-tuned towards this type of facility in terms of the extent of how the materials are being processed. I don't know if Julie can expand on that question anymore. You'd have to come up to the record. [47:33] **Julie Berry:** There's more than one type of anaerobic digestion—there's a wet process and a dry process—so there's variations within anaerobic digestion in general. And certainly even wastewater treatment plants use anaerobic digestion a lot more now to speed up their process and add to the success of it. But as far as if you just think of organics recycling in general, you might be thinking of something like composting. And generally what you're going to see is outdoor composting and windrows exposed to the elements, potential stormwater runoff issues, which is why, as Tina said, this definition is really earmarked for AD in particular, knowing that this is probably the best fit for Lakeville because it's all enclosed, because you're not going to have those impacts on the land or the neighboring properties, and it's just going to be really beneficial. In fact, California actually defines a typical industrial or commercial scale anaerobic digestion process as "in-vessel composting"—the idea of it being composting but it's all enclosed. So, I don't know if that answers your question. [48:58] **Chair Zuzak:** No, it does. It's very helpful. Would it be more direct if we changed "Organics Recycling Facility" to state like "Anaerobic Digestion Organics Recycling Facility" or "AD Organics Recycling Facility" just so the definition of this is just speaking to...? And it's just nitpicky, so you can ignore me, but I just think if we're going to define "Organics Recycling Facility," then we should define what type it is. And maybe it does at the end; it was just a little confusing to me because I thought of organics recycling facilities holistically. [49:26] **Tina Goodroad:** Madam Chair, if I'm understanding your question, do we want to be more specific that they have to use the anaerobic digestion process? Is what we are targeting... [49:37] **Chair Zuzak:** I would suggest that. I don't know how anybody else feels. [49:46] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Madam Chair, perhaps if we are more specific that it has to be done inside a facility. Because my concern would be somewhere down the line there's somebody who has another organics recycling facility but it's all exterior-based, and that could cause some other issues. But it would fit within this, and that's a concern I have because we don't know what kind of technology or tools will come 10 years down the road. [50:11] **Tina Goodroad:** Understood. So just trying to think through the language... "naturally occurring biological process utilizing anaerobic digestion." [50:41] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Well, I think you had mentioned California uses "in-vessel"? [50:46] **Julie Berry:** Yeah, I was on kind of the same path you were, just concerned that the definition of it could be so... I'm not an expert in this area by any means, so Julie, help us out a little bit here. [50:58] **Julie Berry:** Recycling is addressed in the very first sentence because you say "the recycling of a diverted organics." As far as the title goes, if you called it an "Anaerobic Digestion Facility," you could put "fully enclosed." [51:31] **Commissioner Caloosa:** Madam Chair? I hear what you say about your concerns. I think in my thought, if you just change it from "Organics Recycling Facility" to "Anaerobic Digestion Organics Recycling Facility," that might address some of those. I would be uncomfortable with kind of thinking of future potential uses; I think that's kind of why we have this process with work sessions and the public hearing. We don't know what might come before us or not come before us in the future. So I think it would be appropriate to deal with the matter at hand, and if that could be addressed by just kind of changing that title, that might be appropriate. And then you can just take out "known as anaerobic digestion" because you've said it. [52:22] **Chair Zuzak:** One other thing to noodle on while we're figuring out this: do we have a definition of "organics" already in our ordinances? And if not, do we need to add that? [52:33] **Tina Goodroad:** I think that's one of your conditions: "non-hazardous." And again, I took that from a different state's definition, seeing that it wasn't already defined in your... [53:08] **Commissioner Swanson:** Madam Chair? I think we're getting a little hung up in the technical side of things here. Part of this is the definition, and the definition is literally just saying this is what the use is. That's it, nothing more. And so as far as all sorts of other uses in the industrial district, this is what we would be putting here. So there's all sorts of other uses that are already defined, and they're—I'll say—a fairly simple statement of what that is. And then for each one of those, we then lay out those conditions. And so in this case, as you look at the way this lays out, it has the conditions about outdoor storage not permitted, not allowed. It defines what the organic material could be as being plant or animal origin, non-hazardous materials. So it's kind of laid out in those conditions. So to me, the definition is literally just "what is the land use?" That's it, nothing more. And then the conditions follow with the land use, and that's kind of how most of the I-2 uses or any of the land uses within the zoning code lay themselves out. I guess is the way I'm viewing it; I could be swayed otherwise, but that's how I see it at least. [54:03] **Commissioner Lily:** Good point. Madam Chair, I'm not trying to get... but "non-hazardous animal waste" makes me think when we discussed the new puppy facility, the pet place, and we're offloading all of that waste. And I am not an expert in what constitutes hazardous waste and what doesn't. So in just that kind of thought process—and maybe Commissioner Swanson has an answer for that—that was one of my questions. I realized we're doing it all indoors, we're not going to smell it and all that kind of stuff, but just being careful of our space as defined by the EPA so we really hold to that as a federal standard. [55:00] **Tina Goodroad:** You could specify in that condition "non-hazardous as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency" if that helps. [55:08] **Commissioner Lily:** And that might be overkill, my comment, but this is the first time we've had this as a definition. [55:16] **Tina Goodroad:** Madam Chair, members of the commission, should we go back to the definition to make sure we're all on the same page? I mean, I would agree with Commissioner Swanson's thought process on definitions, but I'm open if the commission feels an edit needs to be made. [55:58] **Chair Zuzak:** No, I really appreciate Commissioner Swanson's comment. I kind of retract my modification because that does make a lot of sense. So I appreciate that. So is there consensus on keeping it as it is? [56:10] **Commissioners:** Okay. [56:11] **Chair Zuzak:** What about the proposed conditions? Any considerations or suggested edits to those? [56:14] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Madam Chair, yes, I did have one potential suggested revision, and that would be to number six of the conditions. It talks about "outdoor storage of processing products or byproducts shall not be permitted." As I was thinking about that, one of the things that kind of struck me there is it doesn't discuss the raw product or the feedstock that comes into the facility directly. You kind of loosey-goosey get around that with the processing products, but my consideration would be: could we add the word "feedstock" to that as well? I'm guessing the applicant wouldn't have an issue with that based on the process you've described and how this facility is suggested to run, but to me, that makes it a little more crystal clear that it's the feedstocks, any processing materials, any byproducts—none of it is allowed to be stored outdoors. [57:25] **Commissioner Caloosa:** Yep. **Chair Zuzak:** Other Commissioners agree? **Commissioners:** Yeah, I agree with that. [57:31] **Commissioner Caloosa:** I'm comfortable with the conditions and the definition. Just since there's some interest in this, Director Goodroad, would you mind talking about the conditional use permit process and kind of, if this would be passed by the City Council, what the steps would be? What is a CUP and what would those next steps be for a project like this? [57:56] **Tina Goodroad:** Certainly, thank you. So for this property to develop, it's raw land, so the property owner and applicant will be working together on submitting a preliminary plat. And as you know, this Adelman property was recently annexed and it was guided industrial, it was zoned I-2, it's within the current MUSA boundary. And so platting will have to occur. If you recall the AUAR, the alternative area-wide review that was completed, planned for multiple industrial facilities that could be a combination of manufacturing, warehouse, what have you. So this is changing that plan a little bit towards a very more specific type of this kind of a processing facility, if you will. So that property will have to be platted into its own lot. I would anticipate the surrounding buildings will be industrial. [58:48] **Tina Goodroad:** At the time of the preliminary plat, they'll apply for a conditional use permit. And a conditional use is the same thing as a permitted use with the ability for the zoning ordinance to have specific conditions related to the specific use. So in this case, what's been outlined in these bullet points are all intended to control that use to the best of our abilities, to understand what the use is but have some kind of controls over it, like the lack of outdoor storage being allowed and those kinds of things. Once that application is submitted and reviewed, Planning Commission will make action, City Council will approve it, and then they'll move forward with the building permit plans and process and the development of the site. But a public hearing will be required for the preliminary plat and the conditional use permit. And so we will do all the proper notifications and, as Julie mentioned in her presentation, we'll work closely with the education and we'll assist however we can with the outreach because this is a really unique use, but it's also a really unique opportunity for Lakeville to bring in a use like this. And as Julie said, and what I'm learning more and more about this use and just the need for it, the county has reached out to me encouraging—or being very encouraged—that they are wanting to bring this to Lakeville. So I think there'll be a lot of users and a lot of need for this facility. Thank you. [1:00:15] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Madam Chair, yes, I think I would just kind of follow on with a general statement that I appreciate the slides that you put in there showing the location of this facility and what some of the surrounding uses were in relation to that. As I pondered that graphic and thought about it, I had visions of Airlake Industrial Park in my mind. Think about that: we have a lot of food processors out in that particular area—not necessarily in this concentration, but we have companies that do food processing. This is a use that would be nestled in right next to something like that. In this case, we don't have any right there today because it's raw land, it hasn't been developed, but there's potential it could be. So someone could co-locate out in that area specifically because this facility is there; it's something else to kind of think about. But again, I also looked at it in the perspective of: this isn't... while we're talking a lot about a specific site, this could be anywhere in any of our I-2 industrial properties as well. So I think I'm comfortable with the conditions the way they're written, that it would be applicable and would work with what the intent of any of our I-2 properties are as well. So thanks. [1:01:21] **Commissioner Marovich:** A question that I would have is obviously we're seeing large trucks pulling in and out. Would your facility own any of those trucks? Would any of those trucks be corporate trucks? Any storage of those trucks on-premise? [1:01:42] **Julie Berry:** No, the only vehicles that remain on site are of the employees during their shift. We contract with haulers, or if the waste provider has their own trucks that they would usually be taking that waste to the landfill, then they would be using their own trucks. But they'd literally come in and go back out again just like you saw in the video. [1:02:04] **Commissioner Marovich:** Is that kind of the normal process? Your company does it that way, other companies do it any differently? **Julie Berry:** I don't know, I can't speak to any other companies. I'm not sure. Thank you. [1:02:14] **Commissioner Lily:** I did write down roads and truck weight. And as we're planning our Capital Improvement Plan and what tonnage are the roads going into a facility at our I-2... I assume it's accommodating for that kind of a weight, but something to think about. And our presenter's not here to hear that comment, but you are, Director Goodroad. [1:02:44] **Tina Goodroad:** Yeah, when we go through the site plan review, you know, there is going to be road and crossing construction that is required by not only the... you know, there's going to be a combination of efforts between the landowner and the applicant, and so that will have to be considered in the review. Thank you. [1:03:07] **Commissioner Swanson:** Just a comment that would hopefully provide context to the concept of trucks: in the I-2 section, truck stops are allowed and property that I think is similar—waste and recycling transfer stations. So this seems to be in keeping with those other things that are considered by conditional use within that area. [1:03:42] **Commissioner Zimmer:** Madam Chair, if we're ready for a motion, I would move to recommend to City Council approval of amendments to Title 11, Chapter 2 and Title 11, Chapter 87 of the Lakeville Zoning Ordinance as amended. **Commissioner Caloosa:** Second. [1:04:14] **Chair Zuzak:** I have a motion and a second. Miss Morrow, will you please take a roll call vote? [1:04:22] **Ms. Morrow:** Zuzak? **Chair Zuzak:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Caloosa? **Commissioner Caloosa:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Lily? **Commissioner Lily:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Marovich? **Commissioner Marovich:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Zimmer? **Commissioner Zimmer:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Inc? **Commissioner Inc:** Aye. **Ms. Morrow:** Swanson? **Commissioner Swanson:** Aye. [1:04:36] **Chair Zuzak:** And when will this go in front of City Council? **Tina Goodroad:** October 2nd. **Chair Zuzak:** All right, and with that, the meeting is adjourned. [1:04:57] **Audio:** [Music]