uh good evening it is 6 30 p.m and i am calling the monday september 14 2020 planning commission meeting to order tonight's planning commission meeting is structured to allow virtual participation on zoom or participation in person while following social distance and mass guidelines members of the public are welcome and encouraged to participate when invited throughout the meeting if you are participating virtually and experience audio problems we suggest you leave the zoo meeting and then rejoin this has usually fixed the issue additionally or additional instructions on how to participate are posted online at www.dot in the public meeting calendar as usual tonight's meeting is available live and recorded for later viewing on bctv and on the city's website if you are unable to participate this evening and would like to submit public testimony i encourage you to email your comments to city staff or mail your comments directly to city hall you may participate in the meeting tonight online by going to backslash zoom.us.backslash and typing in meeting id nine six zero one three two one zero six two five once you're once you're logged into the meeting please use the chat feature to tell the moderator which item you wish to speak to you may also call into the meeting at 651-372-8299 and enter meeting id 96013 your call will be muted until there is an agenda item that contains public hearing i will provide further instruction and notify you when you may speak please note there may be a slight delay due to the differences in technology if speaking by phone please mute your computer to avoid any feedback now on to the agenda the first item of tonight's planning commission meeting is adoption of the agenda do any members of the planning commission have any changes to the agenda okay none here any from staff no changes none from staff so i'd like a motion to approve the agenda i'd move to approve i'll second the motion all right and all those in favor say aye aye aye aye opposed and the motion carries all right the next item is to approve the meeting minutes from the august 24th 2020 planning commission meeting um planning commissioners any changes to the minutes from the last meeting staff any changes no changes from student changes all right i have a motion i move that we approve the minutes from the last meeting john thank you all second thank you and all those in favor say aye and the motion carries and i vote eye on both of those items okay next we have a public hearing on the application of weekly homes llc for development stage plan unit development floodplain conditional use permit to allow work in the floodplain of north twin lake shoreline conditional use permit for impervious surface coverage shoreline variants for setbacks lot width and lot area preliminary and final plot of a 52 unit residential townhome plat to be known as twin lakes residential second edition city planner deb garros will provide a presentation of the item and an overview of the background report ms garros thank you thank you as indicated this application is a for development stage planned unit development there are a number of other items that go along with that including conditional use permits some shoreland variances and also preliminary and final plat and the project is a 52 unit townhome project the um on the screen is the location of the subject site uh the entire site uh is known right now as outlawed a and b of twin lakes residential edition it is it was planted back in march of 2019 when the property to the north of the rise on grand was platted and in order to develop the site at this point in time they need to replat those out lots because out lots are not buildable so they need to rebuild or replat those two lots in order for it to be buildable the entire property area that we're talking about is 23.5 acres and then again we're talking about the 52 unit townhomes that is going to be proposed on lot 1 block 2 and that is basically an eight point uh nine acre lot uh will be known as reserve as twin at twin lakes for the pud then out lot a which is to the right uh on this screen i'll let a when that was planted in 2019 is private open space and there was a condition at that point in time with the pud that that outlaw be combined with this parcel the developer the applicant um when they came in for the application was not aware of this requirement they did have meetings with the property owner uh and what has occurred is the outlet will be combined but it will be combined with lot 2 instead of with this townhome project the subject site as i indicated is 23.5 acres it is located on the north side of south cross drive it has north twin lakes which is at the south south east corner and then just to the north is a regional pond and we're going to be talking about that that regional pond used to be a wetland and in 2013 it was expanded and dug out to provide storm water management and also water clarity for the overall system uh within the city and then the rest of the site uh just to call your attention on the west side along grand there are commercial condominiums which were planted many years ago and have been in existence for many years otherwise the site is vacant to the very north is the rhizome grand apartment building which was phase one of this planned unit development and that is currently under construction and then to the east there are single family town homes to the south there are single family neighborhoods and then along the frontage road there are some twin homes for the application as i indicated there are a number of elements to this conditional use permit is needed for the following things there are uh three floodplain areas on the site which we'll look at in a moment they're proposed to be filled and in order to do that a conditional use permit from the floodplain ordinance is required in addition if you're adding more than a thousand cubic yards of fill material that also requires conditional use permit that's a flood plain standard as well and then in the shoreland district if you are going to have impervious surface exceeding 30 percent you can go all the way up to 50 percent but you do need a conditional use permit in order to do that and also they need to provide for surface water management of certain rain events in order to be able to do that but it is allowed with either conditional use permit or a planned unit development because this is shoreland we have to process it as a conditional use permit and the last item is something that you have seen many times before anytime we have two or more structures that are proposed on a lot they that needs to be done by conditional use perimeter pud so those are the the conditional use permits in terms of the variances uh the majority of the variances um or actually all of them are related to because this site is in the shoreline district meaning it's within within a thousand feet of both north and south twin lakes and the way that burnsville's shoreline ordinance was adopted back in the 90s there were specific provisions and the dnr allowed the city to come up with the unique facets of the city and apply them in the shoreland ordinance um one of those things however is that the shoreland regulations do not recognize the city's current planned unit development process so if there are any deviations that are needed for a project we need to process a separate either conditional use permit or shoreland variants for anything that we would typically do through a deviation and that's uh virtually because the way the ordinance was adopted and uh the city does need fema and or actually dnr approval for shoreland ordinance and then for floodplain fema but the dnr also uh is the local i guess regional jurisdiction that we apply to so in terms of variances from shoreland standards and some of these standards are different than what we'd see in the the mix district one of them is to allow a 20 foot versus a 30 foot townhome front yard setback and the application includes a private street typically for a town home development we have a 20 foot setback that's applied throughout the community but the shoreline ordinance calls for 30 feet so we have to apply a variance for that staff does support this variance application then we have setbacks from the private street typically they are a 30-foot setback and this is measured from the actually the back of the curb to the units and in this case there are three units that have either a 10 or 11 foot setback from that private street as opposed to the 30 foot setback staff is not supporting these variances for these three the next one is for lakeshore setback and this is to north twin lakes and the reason that this is listed there are actually two different conflicting standards in the shoreline district if you are developing an existing lot then the structure setback is 150 feet measured from the ordinary high water mark of the lake however if you're planting a property next to a natural environment like then the setback is increased to 200 feet so two separate two separate standards and i'll explain later but staff is in support of the variance for the 150 foot versus 200 foot setback and i'll get into that when we look at the plat and then also there are lot area and with standards for the shoreland district that are different than our standards in for our twin home developments or town home developments so those are variances that are requested as well and staff is supportive of those variances and i'll explain why in a couple of minutes the variance guideline policy that the city council adopted is attached there were nine positive eight negative and two not applicable factors in that as you are aware the variance guideline policy is used on all variants applications so that we can look at them with kind of a consistent lens in their application so as far as the project itself um the planned unit development that was approved including the first phase of rhizon grand was approved in march of 2019 however this project really started its review through the city council back in 2017 where there was a concept plan that was presented then in 2018 there is a comprehensive plan amendment for the entire site to change it from business to mixed use and then also in the 2018 an environmental assessment worksheet was prepared for the ryzen grand project because of the overall density sorry the pud and what i wanted to reflect here is where we're looking at the town homes on the 70 part of the site uh that was approved for 52 units uh townhome units and then phase three is a future phase and that is another apartment building that would be proposed on the second lot that's being planted tonight and that would come in at some point in the future when someone purchases that property as far as the the subject site there are some conditions on the site which make development a little bit difficult or they have to do some additional work on that this shows from the dakota county soil survey the area in the red hatch mark area is areas of hydric soils and those are soils that are not generally conducive to supporting foundations and streets so what happens is when you have hydric soils you usually have to dig those out and then bring in good good fill at some point in time also there was phil added on this site we don't have the information as to when but basically what will happen for this development there's going to be a lot of grading and a lot of earth work that is going to be associated with this they have i believe between 7 and 19 feet of basically poor soils that they need to take out and then bring in good soils so they did know we did know that there's an area of hydric soils and the reason that i'm talking about this is to get to the floodplain which is next on this it's a little bit difficult to see but in the red there are three small areas and they're just to the left of the regional pond those areas are actually fema floodplain and those areas are proposed to be excavated and filled so with the application then what the applicant needs to do is when they're filling they need the conditional use permit which we're processing and then in addition to that they will have to go through and amend the fema floodplain maps to actually remove those areas of flood plain from the maps and there's a specific process that goes along with that and we have added those as conditions in addition to the three small areas of flood plain there's also just on the southwest corner of north twin lake there's some flood plain in that area as well however there's not going to be any grading or work done in that area so the the primary aspects of this when we're dealing with flood plain conditional use permit is related to those three more central areas that are proposed to be filled what i'm showing here is on the left is the planned unit development concept plan that the council approved back in march of 2019 and then on the right is the development application that you have before you tonight they both contain 52 town home units the major differences between the two projects are that when the townhome pud was looked at the concept in 2019 they did not contemplate or know that they would need to have a stormwater pond on site so there is a storm water pond in this proposal that was not shown or not thought of initially at that concept stage also the number of units although there are 52 units they're arranged differently and there's a different number of buildings for the concept pud they have i believe one triplex and then the rest are a mix of quad and then five unit buildings so they have fewer overall buildings but they're longer more units each and then what the applicant is showing is they're also showing the private road very similar they have their stormwater reuse pond which we'll talk about but that's in the center and then they are proposing the units basically around the private road so same number of units different layout and the proposal has their highest is a quad unit so four units attached so they have a mix of three and four unit attached buildings as opposed to the three to five unit attached as i indicated in the central part of the development site there's a reuse pond proposed because the site has clay soils infiltration is not workable at this site but they do have to provide for rate control and basically what they're proposing is a reused pond which is a little bit different than the typical stormwater ponds you've seen they are proposing this reuse pond and what they will do is they will actually irrigate using the water from this reuse pond so that is something that is a similar concept that is being done at the city's new fire station but otherwise i don't believe we have other projects that have done this and then um they are showing basically it's a private street uh it will access from the existing access point on south cross drive west come up and it's a circle street there's no other access to any other properties it's just the one access and again for the 52 units they have 36 guest parking spaces throughout the development project which exceeds the ordinance standard of 13 but they they do have those throughout the development and then they are proposing on the south side between the park and i believe it's block six that would be an area for um private for their dogs you know taking your dogs out to the dog park or runs or those types of things and what i wanted to show or bring out in this slide is that it's kind of hard to see but there is a red mark that is it kind of comes across where the private road is and that is the 200 foot setback which would be four new platts in a adjacent to a natural environment lake the other two blue lines uh the one and closest is the 150 foot setback the way that this project has been laid out the for the most part the units do not encroach into those setbacks there are a couple of units on the very south east side that would if we i use the 200 foot setback but they're proposing the 150 foot setback staff is supportive of that because in addition to setback there are standards for what's called shore and bluff impact zones and that's usually half of the setback so what will happen is even though the setback here is going to be 150 feet instead of 200 you still don't have units that are proposed within the majority of that area just a small corner of that most south easterly building and then in addition to that basically you're going to have 150 feet of open area where there will be no impacts at all to the shoreline and with the 200 foot setback you typically have 100 foot or half the setback here you'll have 150 feet where there'll be no disturbances so that is why staff is in support of those variances in terms of the development summary chart basically we've gone over the acreages there is some existing impervious surface on the site where the city accesses the ponds to the west and twin lake for infrastructure purposes and that's about one percent of the overall site they are proposing 43 percent impervious surface coverage they can have up to 50 so they're doing lesser impervious surface than they could and then that risk that corresponds to then um 57 percent of open space which is again above and beyond the 50 in terms of parking they comply with the ordinance they're actually providing more parking than is required by providing those extra guest parking spaces what is on this plan this is the storm water plan and what this is showing is basically in that central area from the storm water to the regional pond there will be an overflow pipe that is located in that area primarily with the storm water in the engineering section of the report and they talked about the need to provide additional storm water management for this area and actually a larger part of the region so the city has been working with not only the applicant but the property owner and the property owner has agreed to work with the city to look at improving or making improvements to that regional pond possibly to expand that so that it can take additional storm water and surface water part of the reason that that's needed is that as you all know we've been having a lot more of these heavy rains and a lot faster much higher volumes those changes plus some additional changes in just how rainfall is measured and the datum that's used for that the city has updated its stormwater management plan and found that they do need to expand the regional pond in order to provide for flood control storm water management and then also to help improve the water quality south twin lakes and other lakes beyond that study the city council approved last week at the city council meeting to undertake that study that will be working on over the next several months there will be separate public open house meetings for that and then they will be developing a plan and working with property owners um including the areas of south twin lake uh this area and then others along the way that are impacted they anticipate that that study will be done and that they can start making improvements uh the city basically making the improvements to the regional pond sometime next year which would be about the same time as a developer is going to be doing a lot of their grading and starting their construction this site is the grading plan also already had indicated in some locations they're looking at excavation depths again between 17 or excuse me seven and nineteen and a half feet and then this is the sewer and water plan generally there is sewer service available from south cross drive and then also there's a sewer line that was put in basically to the west of north twin lake and the regional pond and it heads all the way up to grand avenue by the rhizome ground and that that open space or excuse me that area where the city maintenance facilities are accessed that is an unimproved roadway and will serve as a an unimproved trail that the public can use to basically walk all the way back around those storm water ponds and the uh and the lake so that will that will continue to to be there on this plan what i wanted to show this is the overall pud again the red hatched areas are areas where they thought there would be tree removal for development of all three phases out there the applicant has been able to they've modified their plan and basically the two areas on the south that are circled in red are areas where trees will be retained so they will not need to remove as many trees as originally thought so they're able to retain those which is considered to be a benefit to the overall pud this shows a little bit better [Music] you can see the access the current access and then the maintenance road basically in that unimproved trail that goes all the way up and connects south cross to grand avenue to the north in terms of the landscape plan the applicant has provided a great deal of landscaping they are asking for a pud deviation to put in fewer shrubs than the ordnance standard staff is supportive of that pud deviation because they're saving a lot more of the existing mature trees on site in addition to that with the reuse pond that they have to put in and also maintaining and not doing grading and excavation work closer to north twin lake they have fewer areas for planting they are planting the required number of trees throughout the development they're saving more than they needed to they have less overall impervious surface than was required so staff is supportive of the landscape plan we do have a condition in that they do need to modify some of the plant material amounts because the city has got a 25 percent standard maximum standard for the types of materials they want to have diversity in the plants and trees that are planted so we've asked them to take a look at the at the landscape plant and just modify those numbers to meet that 25 percent requirement this slide shows the landscaping around the units how that will be how that will be done and we've got basically they are providing more perimeter building perimeter landscaping about 75 percent as opposed to the 50 foot standard so again staff supportive of this they're also irrigating the site uh the green areas in the development area show what will be irrigated so that is a positive for the pud as well and those irrigation again will occur from the reuse pond in terms of the townhome units themselves this is uh the front side of the units and in this development the front side is the side that faces the water bodies if you will as opposed to what we typically consider the front facing the street so these will be facing all will be facing either water bodies the region or the regional pond and north twin lake the reuse pond that they are putting in or we've got there are a set of units to the south side of that road that will be facing wooded area towards south cross drive and then the side and rear yard basically on the bottom this is what you'll see from the street when you're driving through primarily just the garage doors and then second story windows the heights of the building do conform to the 30 foot building height standard so there are no issues with respect to that there are four different color schemes that are contemplated and we've provided the colors and and sample materials for you and what we've done is just shown here this shows all four units the applicant did identify that because the coloring of the prints can be off the actual materials are provided as well so you can see the actual color samples so this would be the front of the units and then this we just took one of the concepts one of the color schemes out of the four to show the other sides of the units and they have the floor plans the all of the units provide for two-car garage they have a two-car parking on the driveway and then in addition to that i believe they are all three bedroom units and are two floors each there are three different options that buyers can choose from in terms of how they want to finish their product or what product they're interested in and price ranges in the applicant can address any questions that you may have related to that in terms of the pud benefits we talked about some of them and i just need to get to that point here sorry for the benefits we included that the applicant is going to complete two of the three phases which includes a mix of residential housing types this again townhomes where the other two phases are apartments town home product will relate to a wide range of consumers they will also serve first-time homebuyers and younger families unique features to the development include internal sidewalks all of the units will be accessed from a private sidewalk where you walk around the building to the other side that's facing the lake to get to the units they are also they will have a communal fire pit on the reuse pond uh and then we talked about the dog park or open space area town home project provides 57 percent is green space exceeding the ordinance standard over 75 percent of the perimeter of the townhomes are landscaped exceeding the 50 standard and they will be saving additional wooded areas on the site which is a valuable asset to the application in terms of pud deviations these are very similar to the variants the shoreline variances and from a staff standpoint the staff is in support of the deviation to allow fewer shrubs than the landscape ordinance requires we do have issues however with the with the proposal let me go back here to a good plan we do have issues with the distance between the buildings the standard is 20 feet the applicant is proposing about 11 feet between the buildings we don't have another development in an area outside of and i did not look at heart of the city because that is a completely different district but 20 feet is really a minimal amount the whole purpose is for air light noise and in addition to that we have a 15 foot building separation standard which is the only other standard in the ordinance but that's only for garage units to be 15 feet apart so this is a very minimal standard and staff is supportive of maintaining the standard as it is in addition to that there are three units on the basically on the corners that have a setback between 10 or 11 feet from the curb of the private street that would typically have a 20-foot setback at minimum if this were a on a public road you would have additional area because the public road is going to have right of way so you have a boulevard in between so your setback would say typically be 20 feet then you'd have up to 15 feet of boulevard and then the street in this case they're showing 10 or 11 feet for those three units from the actual back of the curb of the road and the staff is not supportive of that and is suggesting that the 20-foot standard be maintained on that as well and with that leave that we did have a neighborhood meeting and this was identified in the background report which we summarized it was a zoom meeting and that was held on september 3rd we did notify the department of natural resources in dakota county of the project and we did not receive comments back from them to date and with that we have the recommendations which are in your background report and i can go through those if you want me to or if you have questions on specific ones i would be glad to entertain those also just to let you know if you do decide to approve the variances and pud deviations for the building setback and between the units all you would need to do then is to remove conditions one and two from the recommendation thank you all right thank you doug i guess commissioners at this time i would open up for questions for ms garros before we move on to any additional information from the applicant that's commissioner john uh so this is a two-phase project maybe a three-phase project and is it all the same owner of the land is the same developer a different developer the owner of the land currently is i believe healy ramy and they have a purchase agreement with weekly homes for the second phase and then the third phase would be probably a different uh developer that would be sold separately as well and is there any conditions or anything when they did the phase one or they expected to do phase two or did it have to go through the process or they were well aware they'd have to go through a process before they got phase two in yes okay yes um they received concept pud only on uh phase two and three so that requires them to come back through development stage and then to plat those out lots okay and then with the 11 feet you said air light and noise were the reasons we didn't want to separate any more than 11 feet was there anything else was there anything that um rain runoff or anything like that is there any other bigger reasons behind the difference between 11 feet and 15 feet and 20 feet um primarily the buildings will be sprinkled they are required to do so for fire code so that is a positive thing but what you have is basically the separation is measured from the foundation they're going to have overhangs on these buildings so they're actually going to be even closer than 11 feet and from a staff standpoint we did not find any other deviations for other town home projects when you go out and drive by town home projects and they only have 20 feet it doesn't look like a whole lot and really it's a matter of yeah what you can hear from you know the adjacent property owner's light and those types of things are typically where building separation standards come from so there isn't any worries about fire going from one building to the other or anything like that um i wouldn't say there's no worry i mean if you have wind you're going to have that but these are going to be protected um more so than some of the other developments that don't have fire suppression in the buildings so i'd say it's lesser of a concern here than it might be in in other developments where the buildings are not sprinkled i think that is everything i oh uh the sewage or the sewage um the the sewage is all storm water it's not that sword the drain the from the pond yeah yes that is that would be basically surface water only they will have sanitary sewer which they'll be hooked up to the city's sanitary sewer system and water system and then there is also storm water improvements in the area as well um i'm looking at the plan and maybe this is a question for the applicant but the driveways really the setback from the street is really the length of the driveway is that am i understanding that yes they're 20 feet so the driveways are 20 feet yes and there's a few units where the driveways are less than 20 feet i don't believe so i think the minimum is 20 feet there are a few that are longer oh i thought there was 11 foot maybe um the 11 foot uh setbacks are this is this side here only it's not a street setback um it's a side street side street here yeah oh it's from the building side of the building to the street i understand yep side of the building to the street okay got it yes yep okay okay okay that makes sense they i thought they all look the same and the driveways okay thank you it's gonna be tight girls um will you just give us a little bit of detail on the difference between public public versus private road if we're not dealing with the easements here i i feel like there could be a little more flexibility but i i guess what is the difference with maintenance and with you know the public utilities that i guess wouldn't be going into a private road that may run along a public road sure there will be public utilities as i said for sewer water and storm sewer um the difference is that this is a private street which is pretty typical for town home projects but when you have a private street they're proposing that street to be 24 feet wide and that's it there's nothing beyond that for additional right-of-way per se public streets generally have extra right-of-way for drainage and utility easements and for actually providing private and public utilities along the street in this case um they are the utilities are identified let's see which plan the sewer and water plan which is shown and they've got individual units being served it's very difficult to see on there but you don't have that boulevard area which you would have in a public street public street standard right of way is 60 feet with a 30 foot street and then in this case for a private street it's 24 feet and the homeowners association will be responsible for maintaining all the sidewalks the street the reuse pond also any private utilities and then the city is responsible for where there are public utilities which generally is along south cross drive within that right-of-way there are public utilities for sewer water and storm sewer and then there's also sanitary sewer that runs up actually on the adjacent lot between where these units are and where these regional pond and the lake are so these lots are all going to be privately owned is that correct okay yes all right i think at this time i'd like to have the applicant come out and uh the applicant is here correct um and just share any additional information you might have we might have a few additional questions for you and i guess for starters i'd like a little bit of an update on how the neighborhood meeting went too good evening chair commissioners staff members thank you for this opportunity um i'm aziz siddiki i am responsible for the entitlements and developments for the midwest cities and the western part of the country for david weekley homes and uh um we're very excited happy to be here and looking forward for the uh development of this uh project and uh deb and jen and uh have been extremely helpful and to the whole process um the the idea that that we came about when we saw originally uh the concept is to create a product that would serve and preserve the existing conditions that are out there because we thought are very valuable to the project and that's one big reason why we selected this product and we are very successful with this product uh across the country uh burnsville will be the first city that we're going to introduce uh in minnesota market and uh hopefully we're looking at a few of the parcels that are in the works they're going to bring this similar product uh into the city here this product allows us to maximize uh the exposure on the amenities as dep described for the detention basin and then the surrounding water bodies and also the the tree preservations around the perimeter of the property having said that about the product uh i wanted to take a step back and talk about why we did the way we did in terms of the number of units from what it was conceptually thought at one point in time by the sellers so to speak we were told very strictly from day one we can't add more units we need to stick with the units if anything we could go down but looking at the economics 52 makes sense from where we're sitting and in the past a lot of our projects we are not in favor of long buildings um static wise um and from the marketing aspect what the market is looking for what the buyers are looking for the sellable part of it everybody wants n units so what do we do we come up with a desired building format where you have maximum end units possible and create that that was one reason why we came up with three and four units we are doing extremely well in the washington portland market for that matter um and then we thought this was this is wonderful because the reception was pretty awesome with people because you know they get to as as we were talking about concern about the light the wind and and openness bring as much sunlight you possibly can so n units gives you that so that's why we did the three units majority out here and then four units uh we didn't want it to go we have a luxury to go to five and as well as six we could do that we could give what deb was talking about um 20 feet setbacks or 15 feet setbacks on those three end units now here's we have a an awesome opportunity as a pud to deviate from what the standard uh the city is is is requiring so to speak i don't know if there is a single project in the city i've asked this question in the past on the workshop and couple meetings and few phone calls on the zoom are there any developments that are puds that are 20 feet that you guys have set the standard on so there's really no example as deb pointed out that they have a pud with 20 feet so if there's two or three buildings that are 11 feet but gives us the maximum exposure to utilize what we have out there we thought this would be the way to go on a pud this is not set in concrete but we can take this approach and do that we still have as as dev pointed out on the south end we're thinking about a lot of openness we wanted because if you still drive on that street i can't read the nema yes south south cross south ross if you drive on that street even if the development is completely finished you will still not see the homes from outside with all the trees and everything else the intent was to keep the perimeter as is even after the development is done now if we were to go back and start creating those standard all across the city setbacks we'll end up eating up all the trees out there and i don't think that's going to make a lot of neighbors happy out there to begin with so that was one of the thought from day one what can we do to preserve that as you're pulling in from that south cross can we maintain that so this gives us an opportunity to do that so we were very excited about that and now um you know the pond was a surprise to us we didn't we thought there's enough body of water there we you know we should be able to go there with our storm water but then we will realize after talking to the engineering uh with sam attack our our engineer on the project no no no aziz we need to have a body of water within we have to treat it and for irrigation purposes too and we haven't done many projects that we go back and use the storm water and then treat them and they use them for irrigation we said fine i mean if this gives us even more water body of the exposure to the homes the better it is for the neighborhood so really just you know all in all i guess what i'm trying to address is why the setbacks are the way they are on on these three four units we can pick them out we can throw them in the south and there's no need to talk about any variation going forward so uh here we are with this and as far as the product is concerned we did the best we could to try to have some presentation because there's a new product i wish we had a little bit more detailed plans on it but i think our uh our design team did a very good job given the time frame we had uh to come up with this scheme of color schemes so that the staff has a you know and the commissioners and yourself has an opportunity to look at all the combinations with different patterns and different mix of materials so you know we have done this similar ones and uh in detached homes in maple grove well received very well received we have sold well over 100 units in a span of 14 months very similar patterns uh that would be a good product for some of you if you want to go and look at us i mean look at the product the site uh in maple grove uh that would give you an in a little bit of an uh uh opportunity of what kind of product in a high density uh environment that david weekley is uh you know putting out there so um you know and and with that i guess uh we will take the questions and uh you know we'll open up as you know take the lead from dev and go from there any questions thank you mr roberts yeah this is just uh these are just standard town homes this isn't 55 plus this isn't anything for age things like that no no no no no this is not age restricted uh we're looking for young families uh you know um parents single parents with you know one or two kids or you know three kids um mover buyers uh the price range we haven't set it down as we as i just said we don't have a plan we don't have full finish plans on it we are still developing the product we are hoping to have this rating the next 60 days or so but we are targeting between 360 to low 400s that's the that's the goal we have and we felt at the same time going back you know the current apartment units that are being built this would be a good transition from the apartments to the town homes to the single family and the water body will separate that single family from where we are so all in all we thought this would be a good good mix i'm just curious on how you feel about the the flood flood plain the water tables there is there it seems really low to me it's um below the the grade there's a lot of water ponds right in that area i'm just curious i'm flooding things of that nature um great question um i i think this is something that we have been looking at from day one and uh the site has been engineered and i think samba tech my friend here uh eric might be in a better position to answer that question but we did we did address that the current condition of the of the site and especially the soils are in uh needs a lot of attention uh it's not here and there seven feet or seven feet 17 feet it's all across every unit will have to be done that way so all the bad materials i think uh she was not able to answer the uh she didn't have the information on the uh when the fill started uh the reports that we received when we came in started in 1989. a lot of dump happened at 1989 and then later on in 93 correct me on the years um and uh and then we went went out there we thought if there was some other developer uh david weekley i'm very proud to work for david weekly we want to do the things right the correct way uh not only the our local engineer advised us that we could go get away with consolidation and be able to build the and he was ready to sign off on it then we had our national uh consultant we brought in to to have a second opinion on it and i myself have a geotechnical degree and i have experienced these soils in the past so i said no we need to have a second opinion on this one that's where we found out that no we need to go down all the way remove it start from scratch and get it done right so there's you know going back to your question yes the whole site is going to get built up and we're we're containing the water within the site and then only releasing as we need it if needed at all we have enough storage uh we are out of the floodplain uh you know and we are respecting you know the shoreline the dnrs and the fema and uh as deb mentioned once the small pocket isolated wetland areas are filled we'll do the you know letter of map provisions lomar with the fema it's a very standard generic process we do all across the country it's a three-month process during the course of the final engineering we'll get this wrapped up that way so yeah sure what yeah you you mentioned um you know i think kind of the issue that were the only kind of sticking point is how close the buildings are together and you mentioned one of the reasons that you don't have five and six unit buildings is that so you can have more end units that's a pretty easy way to get you know if these were all six unit buildings you'd be able to spread them out a little bit further um you also mentioned that you could put more units on the south side as an alternative if needed to if if if the boat and the council says well we need 20 you know we're going to put our foot down or whatever yeah okay then we'll eliminate a bunch of trees and then we'll have to fill up those areas open areas okay so so the area that as i'm looking at this picture right there there's kind of two guest parking spaces and it says twin twin lake second edition going this way that's a potential building site but right now that's being left as trees and it's also since the trees are there it's an area where you don't have to do soil correction the trees are trees are a little bit behind there but there's we wanted to create some immunity area yeah for we haven't thought about that but like a dog park or a hangout area uh where we are creating as you can see it in the center of the the pond area we have a fire pit the walkways the entire community will have a connectivity with the parkways from one corner to the other one that's what really uh a beauty of this heightens uh high density product uh that you really have a lot of room for people to walk around and everything else and still have an access to your own units yeah very enclosed so where you're not building a building you don't have to do silk soil correction is that correct everywhere you have to correct the soil everywhere everywhere except where the trees remain because you can't excavate you don't need to do that okay literally the entire site is a is it is a dump yeah yeah i mean it's a film yeah different kind of materials i can appreciate the kind of uh hoops you have to jump through to get this you know coming out of the ground so i i and personally i don't have a problem with the density aspect of it so thank you very much thank you thank you commissioner any other questions yes commissioner henderson just a quick question if the buildings were to stay 11 feet apart how close will the eaves be uh we will end up losing roughly around uh three feet at the closest stand but remember one thing if you look at the building they're not parallel they're in an angle so there might be one point there might be nine feet or eight and a half feet so it's not consistent no no no no that's not how the buildings are uh most of them there's like one set and two sets like that um you know but again uh that's the closest again everybody's got their own perspective looking at it obviously anything i will say will sound like i want to do this way we want our neighborhood to look right you know we want to we want our neighbors to feel right more than more than us because at the end of the day they're going to live there and we want to be proud of what we leave behind great thank you well i respect your sorry i i respect your flexibility too in the sense that you know there are other options um you certainly know your your market better than i do i don't want to live in a town home where i am trading an end unit for looking into somebody else's kitchen or living room or bedroom or whatever uh you know eight to 11 feet away but there are a lot of products similar to this that are built this close together throughout the country um i i guess do you find success in in selling these products that are as tight as they are here my colleague here uh uh can answer that better but all i could tell you is uh we are as tight as three feet in high density and they are selling like hotcakes all over the place because as to deb's point these are all fire sprinklers uh we respect the window locations of these units um so a lot of a lot of considerations has been done it's just like we just we have a staff of over 200 people on the the design team uh to support the uh the product throughout the country so there's there's been a lot of thought given to it we feel very strong about before we bringing into the market uh we're new here we've been here for the last four years we're still new uh we are introducing product uh after product and we have been received very well so far thank you commissioner roberts yeah i can't imagine you not taking the consideration window placement for that type of thing my question was i mean obviously designs and that give you kind of a different perspective of things do you guys have a standard length for the driveways uh there is really no set strength for the driveways we actually uh we just we are wrapping up a new development in anoka we are very excited to be there too we just started entitlement same time as this reserve at twin lakes um there were supposed to be 18 18 feet driveways so then we pushed it out to 20 feet because if somebody got a pickup truck you don't want them to hang out in the driveway i was just going to ask that question for the guy that owns a 1906 truck correct 18 won't work no 18 won't work that's one reason we did that and uh you know to to deb's point and she you know she was very kind when she pointed out uh we have a lot more parking spaces than normal i i'm i don't live in minnesota but i feel sorry for a lot of people live here because of snow you guys got a lot of snow here right so there a lot of open area that could become a storage for snow during the in the winter times because then you need to worry about where you're gonna haul off you know what not people need to get out of to go to work and stuff like that so for that purposes i thought why don't we just leave extra parking spaces that could potentially be used for storage for snow purposes and i want to correct and i could be wrong but i will confirm that too i want to correct one thing that during her presentation and i think it was uh your question chair uh about the uh utilities to our understanding this project is 100 hoa responsibility sewer water storms streets street lights paving curbs sidewalks landscaping everything is private so i just want to emphasize on that yes that will be through the development but the development will connect to the main suit but there's a big difference anything on the property of the playa would be the hoa's responsibility i just want to highlight that do these units have basements in them uh no okay thank you any other questions before we move to a public hearing all right well thank you and don't feel sorry for us the snow and handling that is a point of pride so all right all right so we do have a public hearing tonight and i would like to open the public hearing uh now at 7 30 2 00 p.m i had to wait a couple seconds there um and i will take a look to see if we have anybody who wants to comment on the telephone uh or via zoom but i do want to remind folks that if they do uh wish to ask any questions or if they have any comments to please address the commission rather than saf or the developers and we will make sure the questions get answered appropriately at this point i don't see any questions on zoom or on the telephone and so i'm going to open the public hearing for folks who have joined us today if you'd like to uh yup step up to the microphone and address the commission please state your name and address for the record as well scott hemingway 27 geneva boulevard in burnsville um question the far east corner of the development how close i think i know the answer but how close is that to the northern twin lake and is there from a development standpoint any tree lines or any type of well let's call them tree lines that separate the development from northern twin lake and then the third question is does the development have any direct access to northern twin lake so in other words do they have access via like launching a canoe or something like that or fishing or any type of amenities that would go with the project and then maybe one more question since i'm up here um the access to south cross um i assume there won't be a stoplight there i'm seeing nods so let's try to take your questions and i might invite you back up if we don't answer them all um but miss garros do you want to take a stab at his four questions and then if we need to we can have the applicant also address them um on this map it's kind of hard to see but the kind of little dots there are trees that are existing between the development site and the um the separate lot that twin lakes is on in the regional pond so there are existing trees uh in that location there won't be any public access from this development to twin lake other than if uh somebody decides that they want to is anybody can from the public walk up that access that the city uses to the ponds as part of a trail but otherwise this is physically separated from the lot that north twin lake in the regional pond is located on and with the stopped light i will ask our city engineer did that address your questions yes thank you very good thank you i believe we have uh kyle lenzin on zoom who would like to ask a question or make a comment well there thanks for letting me uh speak it's a very very nicely laid out presentation we did have a couple of questions and concerns um about the project and kind of the timing and um some safety concerns we had so in the past three years that this corner of kind of burnsville's little community we've had a lot of development happen so there's been a senior living development that's gone just north of the site we have the new uh rise on grand now so so in this little quadrant now it's gone from a small kind of neighborhood of 50 60 houses and now we're adding kind of 280 300 some plus units right sorry 400 and some um residents that that's a big change to have um some of the comments when the rise on grant came there's a lot of surveys done a lot of studies done on the traffic um and at the time we were told it was fine uh trust him it's fine it'll work out what i'm asking for is if we could have time to to to show that it's fine before we kind of go on the next part before we kind of keep this this ball rolling here just kind of take a little stop and just make sure that the developer was right and make sure that those kind of traffic concerns kind of leave you in that there's nothing else we have to do because when when this is done you're going to leave they don't believe and there's no recourse there's nothing that we get to do to fix the problems that are made if there are problems that happen so that was my first concern it's just the timing of this and if it's a six month or a year wait before we go on this path that would be ideal uh the second concern is more on kind of safety we've had now in the last we've been here in the seven years a lot of the neighbors have have been in this coldest economic boulevard so we are on the the eastern the northeast side of this property on development there have been zero police calls in the last recently except after these developments started going in now um in the last four months we've had two calls um at ten geneva boulevard we've had one coming in off of the brienne baptist church the their new parking lot development so again it it's kind of two-fold one back to the original point on can we take a stop and wait and kind of make sure we do the right things for the sake and security of the neighborhoods and second are there things we can do on the development on these plants before anything's official to call out that these aren't public roads going into these private areas um and that's that's kind of those are the big concerns we have at this point so thank you thank you for the time thank you and while i hit you if you wouldn't mind just stating your address for the record i didn't get that on the front end not a problem it's kyle lenson ldn geneva boulevard okay very good thank you so much and we will try to address your questions here and if we have any follow-up i will let you know all right thank you okay thank you um i am going to move the traffic question to um well i'll start with deb but it sounds like we also have um brian on the zoom call who can address the historical traffic study that we have done in the last couple years yes uh brian nemeth uh is with bolton and bank and he's with our consulting uh engineering firm and he can speak to the traffic okay brian if we can get you on we would love to hear from you uh regarding the traffic on this project and how it kind of ties into the previous project and also it really hasn't come up but a potential phase three as well yeah so the traffic study that was completed by another consultant um we reviewed the the traffic numbers that they did um looking at phase one phase two and phase three also incorporating all of the um traffic numbers from the other developments that are in the area that the president had um mentioned there the berean baptist the the medical center the rise and grant of course included with this but all those developments were added into the study so we understood you know what traffic's out there today how much additional traffic is being added with all these certain types of developments um one thing of note so we say everything will be fine it's there's different standards that we're looking at for it trip generation which is issue of transportation engineers provides rates for different types of development so that's the rates that we're using that were used on this traffic study and were appropriate we're also looking at how much volume of traffic is on the roadways and does that degradate the level of service that we're experiencing at intersections traffic study indicated that there's going to be no issue with that um we're at level service a which means very little delay during most times of the day and again we have a little more delay during the peak hours but um all within acceptable um limits and any of this development is is anticipated to add only a few seconds of delay to the overall intersection um and then speaking as part of the the volumes that are out there um i believe um any of the roadways we're looking at their south cross is about 6 500 vehicles a day this development based on the traffic studies about adding about 500 vehicles a day to that roadway a typical four-lane divided roadway like south cross has a typical capacity of around 24 to 25 000 vehicles a day so you're definitely way below capacity on that you're looking at 145th up in that area uh we have about 2500 vehicles a day there um we're adding about 500 there so we're looking at 3000 vehicles a day typical capacity that you look at for two-lane roadway um and kind of that you know mix of residential areas anywhere between eight and ten thousand vehicles a day so again we're below that capacity range so again those are the numbers that we're looking at that indicate overall the volume is not reaching anywhere near that capacity and we're still at acceptable levels of service okay thank you very much and i'm gonna ask uh for a little clarification from mr lenson if he's still on the call i wanted to get a little bit uh i guess more detail on the two police calls your question was regarding safety mr lenson and um i i just want to know what the what the concern was were those traffic incidents um actually although there's kind of two things so the incidence of the police were called on those were actually trespassing incidences actually going into the yards from kind of going off of those of the walkways so on the traffic side it was more an issue on that uncontrolled intersection coming up 4200 grand there's been a lot of near misses and there's been a lot more lately of kind of nearest than accidents now um and that's before the rising brand is even done so that was our concerns that i know the math works for adding cars and south across for the 8 am and 5 pm and that right the two peaks of math works and the math works for the controlled intersection at uh kind of 42 in the light there the the problems we're having is when you add the 400 people that grand avenue turn becomes a potential issue and what we're looking for is more just timing to show us that it's fine that i get the math i get the numbers but a six month delay doesn't really cost anything you know it lets the building finish let people get into the building even get half capacity and then you you see a different dynamic that's going to happen these roads that's a perfect time for a study i think when the first study was done uh that there was no um complex there was no senior living complex at that time it was at a development phase um there was no traffic related to that one yet there's no construction traffic either okay thank you mr london yep thank you um and this girl is to follow up on his earlier question about signage does the development like this uh are they required to have some sort of signage notating that it's a private road private access or that they i guess for the the neighborhoods uh you know if they are finding issues with trespass are there you know signage requirements that would alert people that they're leaving this this enclosed community um they're for private roads in burnsville they use a different color street sign than public roads i believe they're brown and then they usually indicate the address range you know for the addresses that are in there for if there's trespassing [Music] or issues where they think that there may be something that planning commission and council could look at is if there should be some fencing privacy fencing installed we have done that in the past working with neighbors you know to look at fencing maybe some additional landscaping for if it's view that's an issue so those things are available for your consideration and would be common to try to address some of those issues for the neighborhood okay before i open it up for any further discussion i just want to make sure that we've heard from everybody who wants to be heard tonight i don't see anybody additional in chambers and i do not have any indication that there's anybody on zoom or on the telephone so at this point at 7 46 i will close the public hearing and open it back up to the commissioners for further questions comments concerns thoughts or otherwise we had this we had this conversation a long time ago deb you were there too and you were there that where when all this started that had be a year and a half ago or whatever was when for 20 years this plot of land was nothing but woods and lakes and i respect neighbors who didn't have anybody around there was no traffic it was quiet it was nice aside from the church that was there there was nothing nothing else there but then we look at progress we look at just the way burnsville has been growing and this prime real estate of where it's located how easy access it is to the highways and things like that of course we're going to have contractors and developers come in looking for places to build and with the new stuff that might be happening with our mall and things like that there's a future involved in all this and all of a sudden neighborhoods that were very quiet are no longer quiet and i can see where that would be a shock to the system to somebody who lives there from a neighborhood standpoint i totally can respect that unfortunately that kind of goes with the territory of living in a city and not in a rural area and i guess i trust more the the staff who are doing the research and doing all of the numbers and checking the balances and everything letting us know as commissioners that if we approve something that yes this is what they're expecting that is going to happen and it should be okay the one or two offsets of a trespasses stuff like this i don't know if we can really have any control over that but in regards to what we're given from these staff and all the people that go beyond and behind the scenes that are doing all their work and all their diligence to give us the information that we have and the presentations that these guys give and all of the the positives that come from something like this and the way it's going to be put together it's hard to take just one or two little offs and delay everything and change everything this is just me personally i'm talking on this right now um i think it's a beautiful project i mean the the standard's high for who's going to be here and what's going to happen it's private the road going into it is private things like that are going to come into play so i very much respect from a burnsville resident the neighborhood aspect for 20 years was very quiet and i'm sorry to say that times change and things start to get developed and now it's not going to be as quiet but the places that are being built here aren't shacks these are beautiful buildings the opportunity with what they have going on for the senior everything that's going on is beautiful and they're doing it doing it right the way that they're doing they're excavating and everything i feel is they're doing their diligence these are four hundred thousand dollar homes that are yeah these are this isn't low income housing that is gonna be a hundred thousand dollars each this is this is some serious stuff these are going to be beautiful and the people that are going to live there are going to spend money in burnsville they're going to become neighbors and i can't imagine them not respecting where they live you know that's kind of where i'm coming from you can't build individual homes there there's just no room for it you can't put in streets and do everything this is the optimal thing to do so unfortunately this is progress and this is what happens here and thank you staff for giving us all the information we need to make decisions on this stuff because it really does help one man's perspective yes that's it that's it yep thank you yeah thank you deb for an excellent presentation on a very complex project with a lot of uh you know conditions um and thank you to the applicant for you know working with the city to kind of figure out how to make all this work and i just wanted to say i personally i don't have a problem with the two uh separation issue and part of my thinking is that you know like the hottest neighborhood in minneapolis is linden hills and all those houses are 10 feet apart you know they have five foot setbacks on a 40-foot lot um and so you know i don't that's one reason i don't have a problem with the building set the sep building separation the other one is that you know these are three and four unit buildings where the separation between unit is zero and so um i think that's something that that is not a problem for me and i'd say similarly with the street setback i don't i don't have that big of an issue with the street setback that's all i am thank you commissioner john i i agree with the other two commissioners comments i do have reservations however is is in the flood plain in the the water tables and things like that but if if ms lloyd could speak is there any concerns for that on on your end uh commissioners good evening um with the regional pond work that will be done that will help with some of that compensatory flood storage so again that project that the city is initiating that sounds like has initiated and with some public comment will be available next month within the project going forward next year will will help with some of that okay but there's no concerns of we're selling land that is really swamp or anything on those lines okay great outside of that that was my biggest fear uh traffic i understand that and i think the biggest concern is is 35e and 35w how much traffic is going to be backing up as they you know build out that area but again that's going to be something that we're going to have to correct as we go along because whether we like it or not these lands are going to be filled in that's just that's just what commissioner roberts was getting at this just the way cities work and that's where we're at so i'm in agreement with all the other commissioners that i think these properties are going to be beautiful and i think it's i really appreciate you coming into burnsville um you said this is your first property in minnesota or one of the first i'm sorry one of the first properties in minnesota no i think this would be our sixth or the seventh oh then never mind seven seven okay yes and then four more on the hopper so we're here to stay thank you i agree with everything that's been said uh as far as what i have to say about it i have um you know very strong recollections of our conversations about the traffic study uh just under two years ago and i remember talking about the safety and the vehicle numbers at that time um and i for me nothing's changed it's still the same project it's still the overall three phases plus the senior complex near the church that have all been uh you know diligently considered in that study um as far as the trespassing issues i mean i just personally i am concerned by that a little bit um but i i also recall that with phase one there was a lot of talk about keeping a certain uh amount of coverage with the trees and the and the buffer between the projects and the existing homes and so i think the developers you know to date have have tried to honor that with this particular project i don't see i don't see there being issues i think that the development is set significantly further back from the existing homes um than what we've looked at previously like i said i don't necessarily love the idea of living 11 feet from my neighbor but at the same time the amenities that are on this property like every home's front facing a lake or a pond that potentially could be used as a community resource um i i think that's unique in our city i also remember conversations about best practices for city development and this property previously was zoned for commercial and the traffic studies that we looked at two years ago actually identified that traffic would likely be greater in some circumstances if some type of clinic were built or you know something that has all-day traffic from uh customers or clients um so i don't know there to me there's there's a lot of benefits this project i think it's nice i like the product um short of the fact i i don't want to be 11 feet from my neighbor but i'll stop saying that um i frankly i can live with the deviation there um that has been presented or or removed that recommendation i know that um you know we've we've kind of talked about that already but i just want to make sure before we open this up for emotion that the people are on board with removing those uh particular requirements the 11 feet between buildings and then i believe it was the the 20 feet from the private street curb some people don't like living in a rambler if you're going to buy this you know you're 11 feet from your no i i i totally i know where you're coming from but for the people i know that do live in town homes they don't mind yeah no and and i i see the benefits of it i think that they're there because they don't want to mow yeah that is a good idea you're 11 feet from your neighbor if you're on an end unit if you're in a middle unit you're on my end i was just worried a concern because staff had a question about it however if if there's no safety issues if it's all just you know whether or not the neighbor's noise and air and light is you know it then i'm fine with it it's like like you guys said it's it's what you buy yeah you know what you're getting when you go into it so are there any further comments or questions and if not i think we're ready for a mention commissioners um i'd like to make a motion that the planning commission recommend to the city council approval of the application of weekly homes llc for development stage planning unit development floodplain conditional use permit to allow work in the flood plain of north twin lake shoreland cup for impervious service coverage shoreline variants for lakeshore setbacks preliminary and final plat of a 52 unit residential townhome plat to be known as twin lakes residential second edition subject to the following and deb excluding the first two that would make it 18 conditions that's correct okay i'd like to exclude the first two just take them off there and then the following 18 conditions going from number three to number 20. thank you commissioner i'll second the motion seconds any further discussion mr john do we need to uh well traffic studies already been done correct i just want to these fine people came in people got on the call i just want to address their issues as well as long as there's a traffic study being done and and we are looking for traffic issues going forward i don't know if it's something we need to add to the motion or not it's just a thing that popped in my head but i'm assuming i don't want to add anything so so that was just a comment it's just a comment thank you commissioner all right all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay and the motion carries thank you very much all right that is the meat potatoes of the agenda tonight and i will move to any updates planning commissioners do you have any updates staff any updates uh no updates just wanted to let people know that this item will go to the city council um next week on tuesday evening and that's the twenty second and the city council meeting starts at 5 30 pm thank you all thank you thank you have a good day all right thank you finally as a reminder members of the public can submit additional public comment related to the items on this evening's agenda until 4 30 pm on friday september 18 2020 the comments will be included with the city council background for consideration and if there's nothing else i would entertain a motion to adjourn i apologize before we do that that's okay i just wanted to let you guys know so your next planning commission meeting is going to be monday september 28th uh right now it looks like we're going to have two items on that agenda so there will be a planned unit development amendment for prince of peace church and they are amending their planning development to work out some parking changes to their lots in their area and then we will have a discussion item from a planning commission work plan related to the landscaping ordinance so we will have one of our planning consultants come in and kind of give an overview of some of the research that they've been doing for staff on some possible landscaping suggestions and those potentially dates an ordinance amendment for accessory dwelling units potentially and another ordinance amendment related to our accessory dwelling units so i'm not sure if you have been watching some of the recent city council meetings and there was a discussion based item on one of their agendas where they have directed staff to prepare an ordinance amendment thank you very good thank you commissioner roberts with nothing else to be said i move to adjourn second commissioner henderson seconds all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed and the motion carries we are adjourned thank you thank you great thanks guys you