631. You good, Chris? 6:31. We will uh call call the planning commission meeting to order. First item of business, pledges of allegiance. I alian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Uh I forget. Do we do we have roll call? Um it's on there. I'm going to leave it up to you. All right. Um all members are present. All All current members are present. So uh we'll move forward. Role of planning commissions on the agenda for those who want to read it. Uh next item of business is approval of agenda. Any changes or updates? No. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. I'll second. We have a motion from Brown and a second from Crossland. All those in favor? I I. All those opposed? Motion passes four to zero. Next item on business, consent agenda. Uh the only item on the consent agenda is planning commission minutes from May 1st. All those in favor? Well, make a motion to approve. Motion. I'll second that. A motion from Sergeant and a second from Brown. All those in favor? I I. All those opposed? Motion passes. Four to four to zero. Next item, open form. Uh, open form is limited to public comments. Three minutes for non-aggenda items. Um, is there anyone here for open form? Anyone online for open form? There's nobody online. All right, we will move on. Cruising ahead. Council updates. Item seven. Mr. Mayor. Uh so on the 13th we covered uh a long work session on uh firefighter full-time hiring. You almost have to watch it to get all the detail. A lot of your mic. Sorry. All right. Um the lawn deal easement that was an item we had tabled a couple weeks beforehand. Uh and we um basically left it as is. Uh I think you're you're probably familiar with what that easement is. That's the easement that's split between two property owners in the city. Um it's a lesson on how not to drop an easement. Um, and there was very little we can do to clean it up. Quarterly financial report was unremarkable. We got the uh Bernett's concept planned. Um, and I believe for the most part they had made some adjustments per year suggestions and that's pretty much what we got. And uh I don't think I don't think there was anything that came out of there of and it was it was received well. Um I don't think there were any changes that we were really looking for as I recall. Um yearly audit there was nothing remarkable there. Uh the egg preserve request um that was unremarkable also. And then there was a uh approval of two full-time firefighters that did not pass. That was the end of that meeting. Budget discussion. Again, if you're curious, you might want to watch that because it's it was kind of a lot of all over the place. Um but basically, it boiled down to our capacity this year is eight roughly 8%. uh which means um any spending above eight brings the tax rate up. Any spending below rate eight brings it down. There's a lot of opinions on where we should go with that. Was kind of the first shot at just giving staff an idea of where we want the budget to go. park uh parkway neighborhood infrastructure. Um I think that was more of a discussion on um problems with the road part that we're putting in. Uh French Lake Road moratorum. There was a lot of discussion on what we wanted out of that. Uh, I think Jason got a very loose idea of what we want to do. Um, and then, uh, with some instructions for a council to send in in anything that they were looking for. Dayton Parkway signals, we went through that. Uh the there were a lot of questions about uh the southwest signals um funding questions and the the northeast signals that I think we approved half of that, right? Or we approved basically to go approve the design. Yeah. Go ahead. And then item T was just an update to city code chapter 31 which covers um council meetings which needed a lot of little tweaks. That was it. All right. Any questions for the mayor? Um well kind of to Dennis and Jason, I guess is do you feel like you need any more feedback? Are we good with the the East French Lake Road 113th? Um, I watched that meeting. I guess my only comment would be is I think it's important that you try to figure out what the most efficient design is as far as roadways that allows us to use as much land as possible for development and whether the the property that Oppedan was proposing to develop on is impacted or the other suggestion where 113th extends across those wetlands. Either way, one property is going to get impacted. So, the question becomes is which which way is more efficient to utilize as much land without, you know, having less roads. Sure. That's one thing that I'm kind of would be curious about. Yeah. The thought on our end is it'll be iterative. I mean, we have limitations on road. We have potential connections, but depending on what you want to use the land for is going to dictate what connections should or should And there's really only three options. It seems like there's not a lot of options, right? Yeah. So, yeah, we'll start with layouts of the roads and different configurations and then have folks put in the different land uses that they might fit with each or tell us what tweaks are needed to adjust. So, u I'll mention when the council discussed this, the council had asked for just blank maps to create their own plans with the plan commission like that too. If Jason thinks that feedback would be useful, I think it's can't hurt anything. Sure. Yeah. Okay. We'll provide them to you. Yeah. All right. Anything else? All right. Moving on to item uh 8A variance for uh 11250 East French Lake Road. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the planning commission, uh tonight you're asked to hold a public hearing and consider providing a recommendation to the city council on a variance request at 11250 East French Lake Road uh related to an accessory structure height um proposal that would exceed the um principal dwelling height. Um the site as I mentioned is a zoned A1 agriculture district 4.78 acres in size. um property is lowdensity residential guided. Um the applicant's requesting a variance to uh the accessory structure code related to building height so he could basically replace uh what was existing there prior um for that was an accessory structure that was lost in a fire in September 2024. Um essentially the way that the egg district code section is uh notes that uh the height of the accessory structure can't exceed uh the principal dwelling height and there are no exceptions or to the rule there. Um and in a comparative uh residential zoning district the height is limited to 35 ft by way of conditional use permit or the height of the principal dwelling just outright permitted. though um kind of noted through this process with the property owner going through the building permit um requirements and such uh that there might have been founded a potential discrepancy between how the egg districts are treated for accessory structures versus residential districts. Um the proposed size of the structure that uh the applicant's looking at is a 46x 64 which is 2944 square ft. It' be the exact same building footprint as the accessory structure that was lost in the fire last year. Um just a note uh the accessory structure size limitations in the A1 are based on an impervious surface maximum which is 10% um based on the property size uh being uh over almost 5 acres uh there is 10% of that is roughly uh 20,800 square ft. uh with the proposal um and the existing building footprint that is still there. Uh the impervious surface is not anticipated to increase um and is right roughly around 18,000 square ft in total on the property. Here's an overall um image from I believe this was April 2025 an aerial view. Um, this is the house here with an existing uh access to this footprint here where the structure was. Here's a just for reference, a 2019 street view that shows what the uh footprint to the and basically the what the shed would look like uh if it were to be rebuilt to its existing or previous form. So you can see here the proposal includes 16 foot uh sidewalls with a 14t garage door and a 12ft garage door on the front. Uh just a note in terms of uh residential properties over one acre. the uh accessory structure materials uh for standards in the code are very uh flexible uh where just a standard pull shed as such would be permitted outright. Just a little note on uh how the city measures building heights. Um this is for definition from the zoning ordinance. It's the vertical distance between the lowest elevation where the exterior building wall emerges from the finished grade elevation um pursuant to an improved grading plan and the highest point on the building. Now here when we're looking at pitched roofs, it is the average at the um roof pitch, what would be considered the median height of the building um not necessarily measured to the peak. Um basically to the peak with this proposed accessory structure, the applicant is requesting it be 25 ft 2 in. uh where the uh median roof pitch of that building with the 16 foot sidewalls was about 20 feet 20 and a half feet. Uh the current house at its tallest point from the lowest exposed uh building wall to the median roof pitch is 19 ft. Um and just a note too as you can see on the on this this obviously this measurement did not come from the front. This is a singlestory house with a walk out finish on the back side of it. So um the code doesn't dictate where that height measurement is uh I guess uh found. So the uh assumption is that we would use uh any portion of the um building wall being in terms of determining the maximum height. Here's a table just noting the uh proposed setbacks of the uh the structure does meet all of the requirements and then note on what the deviation from the code standard is uh being requested. Um and then there's the code section there on the requirements for building design on accessory structures and residential districts over one acre. Uh in review of this uh variance request, this was uh kind of a uh a situation where um unbeknownst to the property owner after the fire um by way of code and Minnesota state statute, the property owner is allowed to apply for a building permit uh for a non-conforming structure that has been lost to a fire, which uh deems that 50% or greater of the uh structure was lost. they have 180 days within that time span from the date of the fire to apply for a building permit to um essentially build the existing or the previous non-conformity back to its existing state uh standard. Um this uh 180 days had lapsed uh by the time the property owner had uh reached out to the city uh for this. Um and originally when we were looking through the code found that uh the variance was the only route because of that uh that distinction between residential districts and egg districts for accessory structure height. Um but anyways in reviewing the variance request there is a three-part test that uh variances within the city and statute um dictate to uh allow for such variance. Um, wannavarian should only be permitted when it is in general harmony with the purpose and intent of the city code and consistent with the comprehensive plan. Um, this is a single family residential property. The property is guided for um low density residential. Uh, staff generally believe does not believe that this uh would be in conflict with the comprehensive plan. Um, accessory structures are allowed by uh right in residential and agriculture districts. Um but really the limitation here is that height request. Um the propo the owner the property owner proposes to use the lot or parcel in a reasonable manner not permitted by the zoning ordinance. Uh the proposed use is uh for personal storage of items of the property. Um this is permitted generally within the city. uh and the variance is specific to the height the structure um height really the main limitation or the main uh question that staff brings to or comes to mind in this three-part test is the uh plight or the practical difficulty that is identified uh by the property owner or found through uh review by staff. Um the circumstance in this situation is uh really limited to the or zoning ordinance language and staff's opinion. Um variances are hard to uh to justify when it comes to new construction. Um and as we have mentioned prior in uh other um meetings. Um staff's general recommendation is that if the planning commission finds that uh for the time being if this variance warrants uh if this variance is justified through these uh sections of the three-part test, um staff would really recommend that uh if you do choose to recommend approval that you direct staff to look into that uh potential discrepancy in the zoning ordinance and correct that. Um the baseline recommendation from staff for change language would be to at least mimic what is um the standard in residential districts as this is a egg zoned property. The the principal use of the property is residential and not agriculture. So um I guess and be a quasi residential district in that regard. But uh again that would be staff's general recommendation. The alternative um essentially would be to uh recommend uh denial for this variance request and the city uh staff would come back with an ordinance amendment to still address this and then have the property owner come back for a conditional use permit. Um in in staff's opinion, staff believes that if that is the general direction of the planning commission, we would recommend that this variance gets approved um essentially because a variance in this regard would not be practical um following an ordinance amendment. So we you wouldn't see a request like this um again. So um with that, uh I'm happy to answer any questions and I believe the property owner is here as well. So any questions for staff? Is it an ordinance issue or a zoning issue as far as correcting it? Meaning, if we just zoned it something else, would that solve the problem? I guess something for you staff to think about because I kind of view it as I get it. It's zoned A1. It's a holding district, but if the intention is well, this is going to present challenges whenever it gets developed with the narrow lot width. So, I guess my point is that there's a pretty good chance it might large lot residential for a long long long time. Sure. And to me, it sounds like an appropriate zoning is more appropriate that would allow this to happen then on top of it is what you're saying. Staff did look at that uh question and uh did pose the option to the applicant on if he would want to see his property get reszoned from uh agriculture to residential. Uh the property owner had mentioned to staff that his intention would be to stay in the egg zoning district as a non-conforming lot. Um essentially if he would have been res if he would have requested reszoning to let's say R2 would probably have been the most uh the closest related district. Not that this would be an issue but there would be the only R2 district surrounded by egg and R3 properties. Not that you would consider that spot zoning though. Yeah. Yeah, when egg is a holding zone, I don't consider in this case it's a holding zone. I don't consider it spot zoning. And when we did look at that, uh the R2 district is specifically for properties that do not have access to municipal utilities. This property is currently hooked up to city water and does have the opportunity to connect to city sewer at the time of a failing septic system. Um so that would that was kind of the limitation to the R2 district. Not to say that this 4acre property couldn't have been reszoned to R1. Um but uh it was looked into and this was the the general direction that we had received. Okay. So the ordinance amendment would then be to the egg district. It would be specific to the agriculture districts. Um I just want to make sure there's no other repercussions for the actual egg district parcels. No, actually it would uh offer the opportunity uh for that type of conditional use permit for a structure to exceed the principal dwelling height. um for any egg property within town. Okay. So, I got a question on the the heights and I brought this up in the past because we've had this come up before. Um fairly familiar with the property. I've driven by it several times. Um the pictures from 2019 show the garage is way set back. It's a walk out. Um are we measuring off of an elevation or are we measuring off of ground height? Ground height. uh based on this definition was my Yeah. And and the reason I bring this up is this is something for the the us to consider and us as a city to consider it for the ordinance is this should really be an elevation thing because we don't want that accessory structure to be taller than the principal structure. But if that accessory structure is sunken down five feet, now we're arbitrarily saying, well, you measure from ground height, but really we care about the road or or aesthetics from the road, right? And that's I think that's the intent behind the ordinance and that's that's kind of where I'm leaning on this already. I agree. I you said the the footprint of the building is the same as the height of the same as a previous structure as well. Uh I believe so. Oh, I'm not uh very close. So, you know, yeah. I mean, I live half a block away, right? So, I see this property every day. Um it the way that the the original garage or shed sat it, like uh chair was saying, you it is down a little bit. You can't really see these two structures side by side. as far as is the principal structure and in this proposed shed there's I mean I don't I think the intent of the code is being met as far as trying to you know limit that kind of variation in the height. If these two structures were right next to each other it would be a little bit different than the current situation is now. So, I don't I mean I think that uh the intent is there and I think that um you know looking at a probably a a a tax amendment um ordinance change to address this type of situation as more of a condition use permit is probably the way to go in my opinion. One question I have for the chair on the elevation discussion when defining what how do you how do you measure the building height? Um, I was thinking about this as well when going through this and unfortunately the way that it's defined, I didn't feel that at a staff level I had the latitude to make that distinction um, without bringing this to you. Uh I guess on the opposite end, my question is is that uh if there's significant grade changes where the house is sat low and there are other areas that are high level for an accessory structure on the property, uh would you say that that elevation would still be the limitation where so so the way I would the way I would answer that and and I'm being very pragmatic when I say or pragmatic when I say this. I I think our code works in that regard. if you measure ground elevation to to to height um for something that's sitting higher because we don't want to necessarily limit people. But in a case like where where TJ's got it where the the accessory building sits lower, we should allow them that flexibility to go just a little bit higher if that makes sense. Yeah. Yep. I think it does. I think you're you're kind of creating two circumstances for different situ or one a circumstance for each situation there. And um I think that the the other the other challenge that I was going to raise with this and and I mean I obviously the elevation does not of the accessory structure does not match agricultural well how do I say this? It it's not a barn, right? Um, we have a a fair amount of properties in A1. Um, we have and if our our A1 does not allow you to build a taller structure, I mean, we all know that that barns with haloffs are are much larger than your house. And if we want to inc en encourage as a city to allow that that to to you know be a product that people want you know that people desire. Um, that was something I was going to challenge a little bit of of the way our code is written for agricultural properties is if we're not if we're limiting the height on them, then they can't build that style of uh out building. Yeah. Which is problematic. Mr. Chair, we kind of uh getting into the weeds a little bit here, but when it comes to uh when it comes to egg use buildings, egg strictly used for egg, those by state statute are exempt from building permit review process and otherwise wouldn't have that review opportunity from the zoning standpoint. So, if it was a a barn dedicated to hay storage or something like that, we wouldn't see that. Understood. Um, where I'm going is the perception of the type of city we want to be. And if we want to encourage larger lots with houses that look like old farm houses and and accessory structures that look like old barns, maybe we want to consider amending that for specific types of looks, creating a new zoning district. That was kind of where I was going with it, too. Yeah. is because we have tons of parcels that are zoned A1 that aren't really in agricultural districts and there's been a lot of push to preserve or excuse me to create more rural lots. I think there should be as much push to preserve meaning that you know you have your own little zoning code that allows people to do more with their land especially parcels like this that it's going to be a challenge. So, it's it's probably more on staff than it is the actual ordinance or than what we're seeing tonight. But it was a question that came up in my mind of why are we on an agricultural lot, why are we not allowing them to build a building what they need? Yeah. That they want to use. Yeah. And getting back to your point, the review process won't catch it, but wouldn't they still be in violation of the statute of the ordinance? Uh, not because the agriculture. So, so it exempts them not only from the app process but the ordinances. Correct. Yeah. We wouldn't have the opportunity to do a review of the building until after it was constructed. Get away with all that. It's nothing right or wrong, but it's all the more point that if you have Yeah. larger acre lots that are zoned A1, they should probably be zoned. And if we have to create a new zoning, that's what we have to do. Some kind of residential zone. Yeah. So, or the alternative if if the uh and this isn't an alternative, but the other thing that uh could occur too is instead of mimicking what the residential district standards are for accessory structure height, maybe there's just a flat height standard in the A1 that wouldn't uh necessarily require a conditional use permit. I don't think we have to worry about too many egg buildings being built. It's more the hobby farm type buildings. Yeah, that and that's kind of where I was getting at. So, this deserves a longer conversation, but we're getting outside the scope of the application. All right. So, this is uh a public hearing. The applicant's here. I'm going to open the public hearing at 658. Would the applicant like to come forward? I don't I don't know if there's any questions or if you have anything more to say. No, I don't have any more to say. I think and um dealing with my situation, but I I do agree with kind of the direction you guys are looking at with this other sort of way to zone properties are out there wouldn't be a terrible idea just because there are I think Dayton going forward could be really really unique when it comes to having hobby farms or smaller type. Yeah. Farm area with bigger lots and and a few structures on them. I think it could be a Dayton, you know, used to be some place that never I mean, people didn't even know what it was heard have never heard of it. And where's Dayton? Right. It was by Maple Grove from Between Rogers, blah blah blah. But now it's becoming so known and and it's becoming city, right? We're the city's moving around it and and into it in areas, which is whatever. But, um, I think you could really you could really envision a unique place within the city of of maybe certain areas within Dayton. I I don't know how you would do it, but that that's, you know, cuz I've grown up in Dayton. I lived in Dayton my entire life. So, I to see like a lot of these new houses being so close together is is good. You know, it's not a bad thing, but I really do. Where else do you like out in Orno? Orno would be a great example of bigger lots with, you know, bigger houses and, you know, their property values are so high out there because there's such a it's it's it's just it's a unique area within the city, right? To be able to have some land. So, um, I challenge you guys to, you know, take that up and look at it and see if maybe there's areas that would be a good place for that within our city. So, I care about Dayton. So, that's all I have to say. Other than that, um I appreciate appreciate you guys looking into um this variance for me. It's I'm just trying to get back what I had. That's all that's all it is. So I I had uh I think I had three questions. Um your footprints generally the same. Yeah, it's very close. Yep. Um and so that means it's also same setback from French Lake. Yes. Um Yeah. And then uh I I didn't have my my third one I lost. Yeah. Yeah. The only other question I had is in and Hayden uh addressed it a little bit, but you had no clue about the state statute that would allow you to pull a building permit within 6 months after the destruction. Correct. So, I mean, that's a good practical difficulty in my mind is I mean, ignorance isn't always can't always plead ignorance and try to get away with it. But in this case, it was it was destroyed in September. I I think the last thing on your mind probably was let's get this thing built as as soon as we can. You were dealing with making sure all your possessions were taken care of, uh, demolition, all that stuff, which I don't think happened during the winter, right? So, I I just think the the um timeline of when this happened and when it would made the most sense for you to build it, pull a building permit probably was when you did and when you realized that you should have done it 6 months ago or 3 months ago or whatever it was to not have to go through this process with us tonight. Right. So, correct. I I mean given the fact that it's a one for one are pretty darn close. Uh just replacing what you had there. Uh the setbacks like I said earlier, it's not right up against the street. It's not overbearing. I think if you were to actually stand on the street, you're just kind of taking a glance. I think that house is maybe even looks a little bit taller even or at least the same height, right? If that's what we're discussing tonight. So I I have no problem um approving this variance. And then obviously we'd probably want to look at the staff level to tweak, you know, conditions or whatever might be to make this a condition use permit in the future. But um yeah, for those reasons I I have no problem recommending approval of this variance. Yeah. Any other questions for that? Yeah. No questions. A lot of that was um it it was just the process, the insurance process takes forever and and by the time I actually got, you know, realized that now now I have a a better idea. I had no idea up until when I did apply for the permit like how big I could financially go. Right. Right. Cuz I you details different details that doesn't they don't matter. But it's I didn't have I wasn't able to replace what I had originally like I'm moving things around to make it work right. So, it's not like it's I can just here you go, here's a check and rebuild exactly what you had. It wasn't like that at all. It's like I'm constantly moving and adjusting depending on what you know due to the process. So, that's all it was. Even if you knew about the state statute, it probably would have been really difficult for you to apply for a building permit because you wouldn't have known what you wanted to build at that point within the first 6 months pretty much. I mean, at one point it was way smaller cuz I just don't know. But yeah, you don't want I you know, I was under the understanding a little bit too that not from anybody here at the city, but just from contractors that I know that like don't apply for a permit till you know what size you're going to be. Like do not go in there because if we go in with a smaller one than you end up actually wanting and being approved for later on, it's going to be a problem. If you go bigger, if you you know, smaller is one thing, but if you try to turn around and go bigger, it's going to be like don't don't even attempt to do it. I was like, "Okay, well, I guess then, you know, so there's just whatever." Um, just little small details, but yeah, I it didn't matter anyways because I didn't know what size I could go. So, but yeah, that's all I have for you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Um, this is a public hearing is open. Anyone here would wishing to speak on this item? Thank you. Name and address, please. My name is Tim Zikowski. My address is 11270 East Fish Lake Road, and I share one long border with the property that you're discussing. Um, I've lived in Dayton for 45 years and when and a number of times I've come to hearings to the council to other commission meetings and I spoken up when I thought I had something of significance to say and on behalf of the neighbors. I wanted to talk to you tonight because this is a really interesting hearing. The very first time I went to a hearing and spoke up was about 40 years ago for this property for the owner to put up the pole building that was there before it burned down. And I spoke in favor of the owner putting up the pole barn. Um I've looked at that pole barn before it burned down for 40 years. I saw no problem whatsoever with the height compared to the height of the house. Uh, in fact, the problem I have with the heights are the heights of the new development houses that are much much higher than this pole barn is was and is. Um, that's more of an issue to me than the height of this. Um, and just as for anybody that's not familiar with that area, I did a quick count while I was up and down the road the other day. There's about 18 properties on East Ranch Lake Road between Territorial Road and 117th where this property is located. 14 of those have pole barns. So, this is basically the look of the neighborhood before we had residential housing, the big developments put in. So, I'm only here to to speak in favor of the variance. Hopefully, you guys will feel better about going ahead and giving him a variance for this. Um, and the only other thing I have to say is I just appreciate all the work you guys do on behalf of the city of Dayton. Thank you. Did they need a variance 40 years ago to put that first one? I believe so. Um, and there there was just an issue of at that time he was storing a bunch of equipment out in his yard and wanted to put up the pole barn to store the equipment inside. And I just said, you know what? I'd much rather look at the pole barn than all that equipment stored out in the yard. I I can't remember if the height was an issue at that time. I don't remember that specific issue, but um in terms of the height, as far as I'm concerned, was never a problem. Has never been a problem for the last four years, and I don't expect it to be a problem as long as I live there. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Anyone else? Anyone Anyone online? Uh if anybody's online that would like to speak, use the raise your hand function on Zoom. All right. Uh, with that at 7:08, we will close the public hearing. Any further discussion or can we move into a motion? I I echo Jeff's comments about having no concerns about this. I I guess when we get into talking about the access accessory building, you know, heights and sizes again, you know, I question like does it have to be um relegated to the height of the house? You know, when you get these onestory ramblers, you know, it really makes it impossible to build a building that's useful to anybody. So, um we should just have that as part of the conversation, too. And if that's really the right requirement to have. Yeah, I would echo Paul's comments and also Jeff's comment on the hardship related to the six-month rule. Yeah, I think that is a true hardship in this circumstance. Um, with that being said, I'll make a motion to approve the variance for the building height for the accessory building height. I'll second. We have a motion from Brown and a second from Crossland. Just some comments. Do we want the staff to take a look at uh the possibility of changing this over to a condition use permit type of situation or is that going to be more of a future discussion that we'll have kind of all-encompassing about different zoning requirements and perhaps creating a new zoning classification for these types of properties or I know that uh Hayden wanted some direction on that as well. So correct me if I'm wrong. a conditional can you describe a conditional use permit and what that would encompass? Yes. So, a conditional use permit is uh actually through the same timeline process as a variance. Uh however, a conditional use permit essentially allows the planning commission and city council to attach conditions to approval of a use or whatever it may be. um if those conditions are able to be met whatever they may be um conditional use permits are assumed permitted outright um based on those conditions. So that would be the difference. They stay with the property. They run with a land correct. Same as a land interim is when they expire upon should, right? Yeah. Not always. So variances are treated on the property exactly like So if we if we issued a variance today and changed it to a conditional use permit, it would have very little no no impact. But we would have to do some ordinance amendments or something to be able to do a cup. Correct. some delays. Yeah, if the conditional use permit in terms of mimicking what is in the residential districts is something the the planning commission wants us to look into, we can certainly do that. We can also uh take a look at other um surrounding communities that deal with agriculture properties or egg zone properties and uh understand what their limitations are. And we could also bring a a potential option for you to uh not require a conditional use permit, but just set a a standard maximum. Seems to make sense in my mind and proceed with the variance at this point. And if another option presents itself, we don't have to use the variance. That's obviously better. But yep, that's that's where I'm at. Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a motion from Cross uh from Brown and a second from Crossland. All those in favor? I I. All those opposed? Motion passes 4 Z. All right, Mr. Chair, just a note that it'll go to the uh city council on June 24th. Um and the resolution will be drafted for the city council's considerations, including the hardship related to the 180 days um situation. sold. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Uh item 8B, concept plan review for 121st Avenue Rogers Ops. All right. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the planning commission. Tonight, you're asked to review a concept plan uh for a contractor's operation with accessory use outdoor storage uh on a property that's zoned I1 light industrial in the current staging area and guided for industrial. Um the site is located on the corner of uh West French Lake Road and 121st Avenue North. Um the overall site's 8.43 acres and currently is an outlot of the uh Dayton Field 4th edition. Um, previous to me, uh, the site was, uh, approved for a similar use in 2023, um, along with the adjacent property kind of all as one project. Um, that, uh, this specific site never come to fruition in terms of proceeding with construction. Here's a snapshot of the uh, concept plan. Uh the uh applicants are proposing a 26,000 ft² building uh split between 8,000 ft² of office space and 18,000 ft² of warehouse and shop area. Um this is uh for a uh utility contractor um out of uh Clearwater, Minnesota that uh would uh basically build this site and have this uh not necessarily a headquarters, but more of a satellite location for um the existing business. Um employee and customer parking is uh shown up adjacent to 121st Avenue along with uh paved asphalt outdoor storage area um enclosed completely by a uh what has been proposed as an 8ft tall gate um associated with outdoor storage as an accessory use would also require some additional landscaping standards along those uh fence lines. Um, and as you go into the site, actually I think I have a better uh location or page here. Yeah, here we go. Um, so here is a combination of the outdoor storage area essentially bound by this yellow line noting what the drive aisle would be to the back side of the building. Um, there are uh proposed fuel tanks and dumpsters uh stored within the enclosed area. Um, back on this building wall, our garage door is essentially establishing this area as a maneuvering area for the site and then uh a proposed gravel at uh outdoor storage uh location in back to store the uh heavier equipment that is utilized for the business. Here are the elevations for the proposed architecture. The architecture is uh from staff's review and general uh compliance with the I1 district uh standards. Um and that'll essentially uh get reviewed as well during the preliminary plat phase and the building permit phase. Here are the two sides. if you're along that drive aisle that I had referenced adjacent to the outdoor storage would be this area here. Um and then this would be the basically the back area where that maneuver area was on the site plan. It's just an overall site, a view of the site looking south. Directly across the street is the uh I believe it's Capital Partners or now known as uh Invent uh warehouse facility. And the proposed access on this uh concept plan would uh be aligned with the one across the street. That south is to the up. Yep. South. So looking south uh would be up this way. Yep. Okay. Just general view of building setbacks proposed in the concept plan are all in compliance with uh the I1 district standards and same with the parking setbacks as well. Um though I will make a note in the parking setback. There is a um standard within the I1 district that uh states parking areas uh in I1 districts or off-site parking is not allowed to be between the front facade of the building and the street. Um that was something that was found during our review um that uh in staff's opinion has not necessarily been followed whether those are flexibilities by way of PUD. Um, but that would be something that uh staff would uh be interested in taking a further look at to as to understand why that uh condition was established when the I1 district was last amended. Can you say that again? The requirements. Yeah. So, the parking requirements or the parking code for the I1 district does not allow for parking spaces to be located between the front facade of the building and the street. Hm. Yeah, that wasn't discussed when we That must be coming from the separate parking section. It was from Yeah, that that doesn't make sense. And I'm still looking to find out when that was amended and when that was uh adopted, but uh I'd certainly take feedback on that item uh as we go along here. And it doesn't seem practical in most cases or desirable. Yeah. In terms of impervious surface coverage and uh uh maximum building footprint coverage, uh the bold standards are in compliance as proposed by the concept plan. Uh the outdoor storage area is limited to 20% of the net area of the property or 2 acres whichever is less. Um the existing without actually this is including drive aisles that wouldn't be calculated within the outdoor storage area. If there was a drive aisle defined, that area wouldn't be considered part of the outdoor storage area. But, uh, as it's currently shown, there is a at about 14.4% of the net area of the property. just to uh address the outdoor storage. One of the considerations that I wanted to bring forward tonight uh related to discussions with the property um with the applicant rather um is that uh the applicant is looking for uh 35,000 square ft roughly of outdoor storage that is surfaced with gravel rather than uh meeting the code standard for asphalt or concrete. Um the applicant has informed that uh staff that due to the large track equipment uh that would be maneuvering and uh around the site um the practicality of having asphalt uh would uh require constant repair to that area and uh reinforced concrete from uh um my understanding would uh likely make this project not feasible I guess as a as a overall site development. Um, I do do want to note for uh for your consideration that the code does not uh currently offer flexibility to this standard unless by way of a planned unit development or variance. Um, so staff's looking also for general feedback as well as the applicant would be looking for general feedback to that uh standard as well moving forward. Um, and say in practice we do have two similar facilities that have gravel lot. So Ziggler and RDO and I I believe RDO was a PUD. Uh Ziggler was is not. Yep. And they were both in before we addressed the code. I don't think the spirit of the code was to the spirit of the code was more not to have just all gravel outdoor storage when whenever someone came in. So, I I'd be interested to hear the applicant's use on this site to uh just moving along, the uh other note about the outdoor storage location is uh the code section for outdoor storage in the I1 district uh does not allow for outdoor storage as an accessory use when the uh a budding area is guided for residential. Um so when the adjacent property being uh the vacant lot that's guided for a mobile home park expansion um is in the general area of where this outdoor storage would be. Um now uh depending on your perspective of what does a budding mean there is a wetland uh setback in that property along that property line that uh could be considered not a budding. I will note that uh based on this uh application that was provided, we did reach out to the current property owners of that property. Uh they are actually the old owners of the existing mobile home park and uh they have informed us that there is no intentions at this time or in the near future or even in the distant future that they would be looking to expand the existing manufactured home park on this site. It's not the same owner between the undeveloped land and the manufactured housing park right now. That is correct. the uh previous owner sold that uh the existing and kept the the vacant one. Do you have a map showing where that is in relation to the proposed use here? So this is the existing park, the vacant property and then here is the subject property. So I mean it's I think legally it's a budding, right? I mean there's a easement in there but if it's by property or property that it is a budding those two properties are abudding so I think we'd have to take that in consideration in that aspect the same way as a a street right away wouldn't necessarily mean that properties do not abut each other I mean correct this doesn't solve the abuing issue Jeff but this will help maybe put everything in context for you but at one point in time the same property owner that owned that vacant parcel owned the parcel that uh the applicants here as well as the stuff to the north of the road that put it in. Yeah. And even when MTL was approved, which was the building to the south, um I don't believe at that time it was regiduided yet. It got reguided relatively recently, didn't it? Do you mean after the original adoption of the 2040 plan? When we first started talking about this was always guided industrial. At some point in time, it got got reggguided. And uh there are some challenges to the site with wetlands. Yeah. So I Yeah. No, I just you knew the history, right? No, I I don't have any I I think it's a moot point. I think, you know, the development should probably go in there. It's a good site for it. Um I just think we have to find the solution to that requirement or whatever the you know recommendation is as far as building outdoor storage next to properties that are guided for residential. So yeah. Is it Yeah, I mean it can be as simple as is it uh being more specific where you limit it to not allow when adjacent to low density residential or or whatever the I think ultimately it boils down to the screening and the question that we have to ask ourselves on this property is is there enough space and screening and if it is that's important thing to address we can we can probably address that through a PUD. Well, that was the other thing that I was also thinking about was that all outdoor storage proposals require a conditional use permit. Yet, there are set standards within that outdoor storage that uh would have to adhere to aside from any conditions that would be um on that conditional use permit. So maybe it is maybe it does come down to more of a question of whether those um specific standards are needed as a blanket statement on the outdoor storage as an accessory use listing um or if these are should be reviewed on a case-byase basis by way of the conditional use permit. It'll be easier on a case-byase basis because we're not going to think of all the possibilities. Does let's let's keep moving. Uh, does staff have anything more to present? Yes. We can do some more discussion. So, I already made the note about the the parking not being allowed between the front facade and the street edge. Um, the plan does show for a total of 77 parking spaces outside of the enclosed area. Um, just uh for your knowledge, office space requires uh one space per 200 square ft of uh floor area. um requiring 40 for this site and the shop does require one space per 2,000 square feet or the um maximum number of employees on a given shift. Um that could be further determined through the preliminary plat process. We didn't have that information for the concept. Um but uh staff's general understanding is that this would be in compliance with the intention of the ordinance. Um it was noted that the stall dimensions currently do not meet the standard. I believe the the dimensions that uh were provided on the plan were 18 by9. Uh the code does require 20 x 10 with exception to um those parking spaces that allow for an overhang where they can be 18 by10. Um so that would be something that would just get uh worked out within the preliminary plat details. Um we got vague landscaping uh um on the concept plan. I think a more detailed plan will be required and that would include the additional landscaping for the outdoor storage fence area. Um, and I believe that that is uh it was five shrubs per 100 ft of fence and then one tree per 100 ft of fence or something like that. So that would be the addition on top of a standard landscape requirements. Um, measuring the wetland buffer that was shown. uh the existing or the shown buffer on the concept plan does not currently meet the 25 foot wide average. Um now it does meet the minimum 10 ft that you can go. Um but uh they'll have to revise that plan accordingly to show that they can meet that 25 ft average across that wetland on the southwest of the property. Here's just a note on the um future applications that the planning commission and city council would expect to see with a proposal like this. Um depending on your conversations today, that could include a variance um for some of these circumstances or it would be uh addressed as an ordinance amendment prior to something like this coming forward. At this time, from our understanding, the applicant has intended that they are not requesting a planned unit development. Um and uh so that is the the direction that we will plan for um for that those flexibilities. So the role of the planning commission is review the concept plan uh discuss it and offer input uh of any desired changes or improvements. Um we did post notice for a public hearing for this and uh sent mailed notice out to uh people property owners within a quarter mile. Um, and just a note, all comments are advisory uh and non-binding and the staff is not asking for any action on this item today. All right. Any questions or clarifications from staff? All right. With that, it is 7:27. I will open the public hearing. Would the applicant like to come forward? Sure. for maybe some questions or clarifications from commission. I'm also going to get pictures of what's in the outdoor store and you can show my name is Tim McShane uh McShane Development. I'm a development consultant uh for the owner here, Mark Mueller with Telkom and also Rogers OP. He can explain that in a moment. Would you like my address? Yeah, please. Uh 6975 Fox Glove Circle, Excelsier, Minnesota. Thank you. Want to do so? Yeah, it' be uh Mark Mueller. Um so my uh the actual owner of the building and the property be my wife, Susan Mueller, but I am the chief executive officer for the company. So I can speak for the company. Um it should it's basically an LLC and then um I am the president of Telecom Construction which would be the construction company that would be utilizing the property. So um my address is uh 24128 uh County Road 160 St. Joseph, Minnesota. Any questions for the [Music] applicants? You know, I guess in general, just maybe it would help Hayden if we threw the site plan up there. Just more in general. So, we've got the outdoor storage up on the the paved outdoor storage up by the entrance. Um, I'm assuming that's going to be more the fleet vehicles and stuff like that we're seeing in here. And then the track machines are what would be going back going back on the gravel and trailers and stuff like that. Yeah, if you I can respond to that, please. Okay. Yeah, the uh when you look in there, we don't have what I consider large equipment. You know, if you go to RDO and you look at any of the track equipment, um the work that we're going to be doing here doesn't require an abundance of that, but it does require it. Um the uh like you can see in there, the dozer size is smaller. So, it' be like if you guys did a roundabout in one of your areas and then we took, you know, one of those quad track plows, which is in there, and you plowed around that, replaced the cables and stuff for the utility companies. A lot of times we'll track that down with a dozer or if we got to dig a trench then we back fill it with that dozer. So they're not you're not into a highway heavy situation. Um the cabs on there are not you know you're not 12 ft in air. It's not a D8 or anything like that. Um, and yes, it be a lot of our most of the trucks that'll be in there would be probably F350, F-150, F250 is kind of the main class in the yard itself. Um, and then uh, so if that answers your question there, then the building would just be used for maintenance of the equipment and office. Maintenance and storage. And storage. Yeah. So it' be shop area. Um there'd be a fair amount of storage inside there too. A fair amount. Is there going to be any storage of like cable stuff that you guys actually install on the site too? And yeah, copper we keep inside. It seems to seems to have its own path someplace. We don't know quite where, but yeah, it disappears. But it's actually kept us quite busy because we replace the stuff they steal between manholes or the aerial stuff they cut down. So it keeps us busy. It's a um a lot of it's fiber reels and those reels are 7 foot and we're proposing an 8ft fence that's screened and like some of our other properties we went with an eight. We have less issues there and 90% of the stuff you can't see really inside that fence when it's screened. And this elevation is up higher too. So most of you know like from uh I guess it's French Lake. I mean, it'd be pretty tough to really see anything up in there. And uh also from the other street. And do you guys have any uh materials storing on site? Gra, any other type of gravel, dirt, uh any kind of like peg gravel, anything like that for your job? Typically not. Um some of it's bagged now. Your your P rock that you put in the pads is bagged. Um, occasionally we might have something there that they load up or whatever and switch from truck to truck, but we're not saving, I guess, what I call batuminous materials around there at all. We're not setting up like a landscape company with big bends. That's not what we do. Of of the commission members, I'm probably most familiar with your guys' operation. You're installing like hand holes that are probably yay big. 30 by 36 is an average size. Yay big. um you know and and then you you got boring equipment that goes between or you're or you're or you're doing an excavation because there's another construction project adjacent and they're going to do the restoration. You're not doing Yeah. We get the cables out of the way so that they could do the road construction projects and and then we do a lot of uh you know we do emergency type work too. Um restoration. car hits a pole, car hits a pedestal, we go out and we fix that stuff in within the community to get uh service back up for everybody's internet. Um is what we do. Um so um is it fair to say with the cable reels, just thinking of outdoor storage here, so you you always just put them on you don't stack them. So it's not seven feet where you potentially go higher. cable reels if if you lay them flat and stack them, which you can do with some of the power cables, but they're they'll overlash in there and then when you flip them up and try and pull it off, it's kind of that mess. Y So, no. So, besides equipment, really nothing's going to be sticking above the fence. No, we got some like bucket trucks, you know, that are, you know, they get up there 12 12 13 ft. But, you know, if they're if they're kept behind that building, I don't know where or how you'd really see them unless you were literally looking in the the front outdoor storage area. Is there anything that's going to be over over the 8ft fence? Uh, I can't remember what we put in the plan there, but um like what you're saying, if you start stacking pallets and uh things like that. Well, yeah. I think of more of uh vehicles or or you know there's back hose or or bucket trucks or anything. No, that the bigger stuff the intent is to be in the back there and then our bigger trucks with the drills that we leave the drill on there but you know we need to back them off once in a while. The the smaller ones had do have a rubber track but the larger ones you can get into a steel track and that's where we got to get off and turn and shift quite a bit back there. That's why we're proposing that area there. And that area there, I wouldn't put gravel in there. I'd put class two. I was wondering, um, you don't have the dust and we have chloride, you know, to keep any of the dust or situations away. So, it's just a better material to use and, uh, we get less potholeing or anything like that with it, too. So I I mean I guess a question I hand here is you know how the commission might address this gravel area in the future. Right. So these guys come back um they get their um the preliminary plat the commission use per outdoor storage and then a request to have a convert some of the outdoor storage to gravel instead of the hard surface requirement. So it's the idea of what do we do when that comes forward. I Hayden I think you hit it on the head. It's either going to be a planning and development or if they don't want to do that then it's either the variance or an amendment to the ordinance to allow that to happen. Right? There's no other option because of the fact that it is in the ordinance that says it has to be hard surface. They're requesting it not to be. So then you come back to the fact, okay, if it's a variance, what are what are those hardships? We just went through a variance request previously here. Uh and and I I mean I think it would be hard to justify in my opinion anyway um approving a variance when it's there's no building on the land. It wasn't a previous situation. This is uh you know request by the owner for a specific reason but it's still not in compliant with the ordinance. So, I I would hate to say that we, you know, that you'd probably have to lean more towards the amendment to the ordinance to allow it. A PUD probably would help with that situation. Uh, a variance, I think, would be the harder of the three to get approved in my opinion anyway. Um, just for those reasons. Um, I understand your situation. And I understand the need for it and the want to not have to dig up or, you know, break down the asphalt material with heavier equipment, especially with the tracking on it. Um, it just the ordinance as it's written right now is just not supportive of of that right now. So, I think and I I think Darren, you mentioned this in the previous conversation, we have to we have to also think about what the intent of the ordinance is, correct? And the intent of the ordinance in my mind on a gravel outdoor storage is is two things. Not to be a nuisance to neighbors with dust and and types of material. I think we can address that. The other one is to not track gravel onto um or out of out of their their parcel. Um I think they're addressing that one significantly with with the way this this property is designed. even if they had a a F350 back there with mud tires on it, it's not going to the gravel is going to be gone before they hit hit uh 121st. Um so I think in my mind that's that the I get what you're saying, Jeeoff. We we do have to address it. I think we also have to think about what the intent of the ordinance is and it's it's to prevent that that gravel from leaving their site. Yeah. I actually asked staff before the meeting um via email what the intent of or what what's the purpose of a hard you know a hard surface outdoor storage requirement right so a lot of some communities it's purely aesthetic we we just don't want to see gravel because after a while it's going to get in landscaping it's going to fall over the streets whatever it is um some communities uh you know understand that outdoor storage you might be storing things that leak and you know that are rusty or that, you know, maybe aren't materials that should be on gravel because of the leeching into the soils type of situation. So, I don't know if if we want uh some of Jason's input on that as well. Um, as far as you know, runoff on this property, how it's going to affect um you know, holding ponds and things of that nature. Um, if there's ways of mitigating that runoff before it gets to those uh or treat it before it gets to those holding ponds. I mean, that's what the holding ponds are there for, too. But um so I guess that was you know that was a question I had too. So you know if the direction of the city really is as the chair was saying hey you know it's it's about the control of the dust and all that stuff too and we find that it's it's going to meet those requirements. I mean that's a little more palatable for me. Um but the ordinance was written for a reason. Y and you know right now the applicants are asking for a a variance to that and we need to have a pretty good rationale to say yes in my opinion from a PUD perspective could this get approved without a variance? Yes. Yeah. Um I'm not against the variance. So that I mean one most important thing you probably guys get on this is the feedback of what we're going to say but more importantly the council even on this to see what direction you should go. I'm not opposed to invariance but I'm much more in favor of a PUB. I'm just it's branches just create headaches and track records and history that sometimes you just want to avoid if you can. Um uh one other thing Jeff to the spirit of the code is part of it is high quality development and I think that this is meeting that criteria all day long. um especially if they're putting class two in over gravel, it's even more. They're just doing what they're doing because of the equipment that they're working with. So, I'll just note for the planning commission, they've seen planned unit developments before, but just wanted to note that there are a couple other additional caveats that come with a planned unit development request, and that is identifying uh some sort of public um improvement or uh public benefit um related to the development proposal. So, that would be something that would kind of have to be worked out between staff and the applicant and the planning commission and city council throughout that process. Um, and as I mentioned before, you know, the the outdoor storage is subject to a conditional use permit regardless. Um, is I'm just posing a question to the planning commission. Is this a is this an instance where a conditional use permit um can kind of hash out those standards for the surfacing requirements rather than just having um a blanket statement. I think it can, but I don't also don't want every applicant to come forward with 100% crap that that would likely be something that may happen and then we have to make a decision all the time. So, um I guess a comment kind of comment and question. Um so, when this project comes through, it's going to require a site plan review. Uh typically with a site plan review, there's a little bit of leeway on the ordinance. So, for example, if if the project requires 100 trees and they can only fit 99, um we're not going to require a variance for one tree. Um so, there there's a little bit of leeway on there where it's practical um for what the applicant is asking for. Um I guess my my question for the applicant is do you need this much gravel? Like how how many track vehicles do you have or do you anticipate having here? Like is the that whole area going to be for track vehicles and maneuvers? No. No. It's, you know, you're going to turn around and unload. Um, yeah, we could sacrifice some of the footage there if that was your wishes. You know, it's really the unloading piece where and then turning to get because, you know, just like, you know, how are we going to get in the shop and not wreck asphalt? Well, we pat it up there, right, is what we do. Pad it up there. But that doesn't work very well unloading and then just getting it in place in nice rows that uh kind of But to answer your question of how many tracks I mean you're you're talking limited four, five, six would be a lot. Mhm. Um cuz that's not you know most of the equipment is staying on a trailer and going back out to work the next day. Sure. So is So is it more of the the the weight of the vehicles or the the tracks themselves that you're the tracks themselves? Yeah, they're just they're rough on but they're not they're not hitting the ground too often is what I'm hearing. Well, they're they're on trailers. They're unloaded. They're back on a trailer or sometimes we just stay on a trailer to be brought back out site the next day. Yeah. But when we do need to unload them and Okay. you know, we're not going to use them that week or something. We'll take them off the trailer so we can use the trailer to haul something else, right? I mean, this isn't a situation where they're they're daily driving up and down the the asphalt area on the outdoor storage, right? I mean, it's minimum maneuvers to get them on and off of trailers. I mean, my and and I don't know your guys's operation. I know others. I'm guessing you're probably unloading a track what, three times a week. um depending on how many you have in the crews and what they're doing. But yeah, you're so if 15 times a week if you got five of them, but you're a 100 degree day that thing see the asphalt enough right with with tracks too. So, I get that also and and knowing I mean understanding what else he's got going on and maneuvering maneuvering between deliveries of cable and and other trailers coming in and out. This the larger site gives him more flexibility to to maneuver that. Sure. Versus having a a smaller dedicated area um and close to the shop from how much you have to pat. Yeah. And it was brought up too, you know, you know, the area outside the fence between there and the neighboring properties. Um, I don't have the exact number, but it's somewhere between two and a half and 3 acres of barrier between there. And it's lower, so when we put that 8ft fence up, it'd actually be hard from the other side of that 3 acres to really see in there either. So for the elevation, I think somebody was asking that question. I mean, so so this is a concept plan. So we don't have to give any guidance just comments tonight. I think the track areas one we have from my understanding we have a little bit of concern over but maybe a little reduction in size would wouldn't hurt but um and and material type would be would be good to know when it comes back. Um, I think the other question that came up that Hayden brought up that we should maybe provide a little guidance on is how do people feel about it abuing the residential guided district? I don't think it's a big deal, but I don't fully understand how we need to work with our code and our comp plan to execute it. And because you I think you mentioned there was a little bit of room like well it's budding a wetland and I'm like well how do we interpret this then? So this is a very unique parcel for that too because it's an industrial area that just happens to have one little pot of guided residential next to it. Right. And we approved outdoor storage on it already. Mhm. Now it wasn't to this extent but it was outdoor storage. So I have a couple thoughts on that. There's the applicant brought up good point. I mean this is a large area of buffer that he is leaving between the two. Um albeit some of it is wetland. Um maybe as you look to reduce the the gravel area maybe that little triangle could be reduced and there's a little bit more there. A little sacrifice. Um I have no problem with it. Um this is residential area but it is not a I don't want to discourage our residents who are who live in mobile homes but is not a single family neighborhood. Um it is a it is a more of a multifamily area that you know has tenants not long-term people building houses to to live in. Um, and it's area that's not developed yet today. And and within that three acres, you know, there's probably an acre and a half that's on the outer rim of that y that our tall trees you can't see through. Y don't have any issues either. I mean, whatever needs to be done as far as the comprehensive plan, if it's just a guidance or if it's a suggestion in the the language actually that's that's saying that uh outdoor storage shouldn't be next to is that from the comp plan or is that in the that's the zoning ordinance, but it doesn't it doesn't connect residentially zoned properties. It's focused on land use guidance in the compound. Gotcha. Okay. So I mean currently I believe actually I think this property is now a zone manufactured home park um but uh it not specifically related to the zoning it's the land use now whether if the general intention for the outdoor storage not a budding residential was originally thought that planning commission and city council was thinking well we don't want it against lowdensity single family housing Um, that's not what it says though. That's not what I think it says. Easy to interpret as just residential period. Let's figure out what we need to do. Yeah, currently that's what it is. But that could be a uh a distinction made by way of ordinance amendment for and and I guess seeing the overlay on this with the aerial under underneath. Question for the applicant. I mean, are you intending to leave some of those those trees in those areas or or is that not cut out? Yeah, that'll just stay natural untouched. Yeah. So, yeah. And most of it's already been cleared out, Peter. I don't know if they started with the prior applicant, but they kind of carved it all out already. Understood. But if you compare that image to what he has up there, you can see some of the trees underneath that are are shown in here. Yeah. You're talking these trees, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be So there's no additional clearing. Oh, yeah. I'll just note too that a tree inventory would be uh um a part of the preliminary plat application for our review to understand whether there are any significant or heritage trees proposed to be taken down with this development. That would essentially include uh requirements for minor reforestation, if you will. Yeah. I mean that that would be on my the biggest thing I think on you know there's two areas on this site that seem to make sense that if we need to add more trees to it's it's adjacent to the it it's adjacent to French Lake Road would be the the biggest one in my mind and then the second would be to address the the future expansion of the mobile home park on that side. And I think one thing we could do too is when we put a condition in there for the conditional use permit for the outdoor storage. The condition would maybe be for the asphalt area that's obviously going to be a lot closer the most closest outdoor storage to it is that it is limited to trucks F-150s F350s etc. It's not for parking trailers with equipment on like they're supposed to be parked in the back which I think is what you said you're going to be doing anyway. So, if we could say the outdoor storage is not going to exceed the height of the fence. Yeah. In particular for the for the paved area. The paved area, not not the rear. Yep. Yeah. I'm not sure I understand. You're talking about here. So, I don't I don't care what's parked there as long as it doesn't exceed the I'm more saying as a condition to Yeah. Since we're about Yep. Oh, you mean whatever's stored in that little area there. Yeah. Make it limited to the the trucks. Oh, yeah. They'd be smaller trucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's not a problem, right? Because then it's not much different than a parking lot. That's why it's designed the way it is. Exactly. That's what I was kind of thinking. I'm looking at supervisors and, you know, that type of stuff would, you know, be along that part of the building. Yep. But that could be a condition that we use to help mitigate concerns too. I think however we look at outdoor storage, we always have to make sure we have some flexibility because every property is so different and the neighbors are different and what's being stored is so different, how they want to screen it and all that, right? So whether it's variances or cups, puds, like I I'm going to leave that up to staff to say what the best use is for each property, but we just need flexibility to be able to provide feedback and guidance on how to best manage that. I think in this case, like you guys like go more gravel. I couldn't care less. I mean, it's it's totally fenced in. Um, it's it's far enough away from the street that like Peter was saying, it's the gravel's going to be knocked off before it gets to the road. Like, as long as the dust is controlled and it works for your function, I'm going to be a little different than the rest of my companions up here and say, amount of gravel doesn't bother me at all. Um, what I would have more concerned about is that fence going so far up in front of your building. Um, right up to your entry point. Um, you know, you'll have some kind of gate mechanism there, I'm sure. But, um, that's that's more visible than your building to some extent. Um, I don't know if there's any way to be able to pull that back if that's for like supervisor parking. If it's just essentially more parking, can you just pull that fence back closer to the line of the building? It's up there for security. And what we were trying to do is utilize the piece of property because the green stuff there is really, you know, stuff that we're never going to be able to use anyways cuz it is lower. It's a weird piece of property. So, it keeps it keeps, you know, but I got to have a certain amount of space within that fence to to have it make sense, too, right? Yeah. Um, and that's why we were trying to, you know, we can plant more trees there. We can do some other things. Um, you know, that's uh Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what the fence ordinances are for this part of the city, but you know, usually like in residential, we don't want fences beyond the front of the house, right? There can be a different view of a fence, you know, something a little fancier. What What are the require is it like 80% opacity for screening? Well, when it's related to outdoor storage, it's 100%. It's 100%. So, it has to be I mean, whatever you're achieving 100% opacity. trying to keep everything that would be overnight potentially inside that fence. That's why you see the two different parking areas. The right side would be more like office staff coming and going. And you know, you'd have some supervisors out there too, right? Coming and going. Yeah. I mean, so I understand Paul's concern is that you're creating a wall at that point. It's not really a fence. And so what does that wall look like in relation to the building, right? So Well, it doesn't go to the end of that parking lot. It it ends it ends here, right? You know, so it's just this distance here. Yeah. I think and the parking area there is for the employees that are the field people that come and go, come morning and go. So I and and maybe maybe a concession and I you guys obviously have to refine this and present what works for you. Um just in my mind looking at this, you know, if you could shift that fence uh plan south one parking stall and maybe maybe even shift some of the end parking that's that's on the far west side in in front of your fence if that makes sense. Does what I'm talking about make sense or should I get to shift it up there and show it? I think you're talking you're talking about it here. Yeah, just over here and then maybe shift five more stalls in there and take them out of the end. take some asphalt off the end. And it might be it might if as you guys program this space, it might it might not only be cheaper because you're you're not create you're actually creating less asphalt if you take some out of the west end. Yeah. Take, you know, take some off of here. Move some of these stalls in front of this. Like six stalls is all I'm talking about. And then just bring this gate right over here. Yeah. Right. Yep. Yeah. A little bit, but you're also something to consider. And maybe and maybe that would help your concern, Paul, of pulling it back just a little bit. I think protection of that fence, too. I mean, even if you parking front, you got to do some kind of curb or something to keep it from getting hit, but like that fence is like I can imagine all your employees are coming in with big pickup trucks and like it's going to get hit at some point. So, like, you know, just what's it going to look like and maintenance for it? And you know, even where it cuts across the the front diagonal parking there close to the building, like can a car actually like where seven and 11 are are numbered there for the number of stalls, like how does a car get in and out of that those stalls? You know, the fence actually might need to move to the other side of that aisle in order for a car to back in there a little bit in that green space there. Just move it out. Well, that's not a big deal. I mean, and that's maybe one of my other comments was you have a lot of green space on the the east side inside the storage area. And so to my point of, you know, shifting that fence back, maybe make your your parking space a little bigger on the inside, but throw that green space on the outside. It might just help with aesthetics. Yeah. And think of a cost-effective way, too, to maybe make that part of the fence a little bit more attractive than the rest of it. Okay. um question here. So I'm thinking of for Mark the the area that's identified as outdoor storage in the front. You had mentioned that that's typically going to be more for supervisor vehicles that are traveling. So I'm interpreting this as which which area the in front of the building within the fenced area. Yeah, that's office staff and no in the fenced area. In the fenced area with Yeah, where where Jason's pointing. Yeah, they're Well, it I mean they if we're leaving trucks, I got some trucks. I I keep extra trucks. No, I understand. They crash them a lot. But we're talking about they're they're trucks, not work trucks. You're not going to have a semi. These are pickups. No, that's why the back is for anything larger. Do they need to be screened? I mean, I understand the idea of securing them, but would it make sense, you know, rather than like a chainlink fence with a like a tarp around it of having like a more of a a route iron, you know, 8ft fence security fence? That's Yeah, that's And you're saying pull the sec the storage fence to the basically to the building line. John, I was just trying not to have where anybody can really see in there. You know, the other thing is too when you look at the road there with the trees we're planting across there, in a couple years you're not going to be able to see any of it anyways. Yeah. You know, it'll all be behind there. So, part of the idea I'm thinking if you know, you're you're trying to hide something that doesn't need to be hidden. Yeah. And so, you're you're kind of creating the invitation of, you know, when you're hiding something that people are someone that's looking to steal something wants to look over the fence when they can look through it and see there's nothing there. to get into. Yeah, I can imagine work trucks though are a pretty big target for people looking to steal stuff. There's lots of compartments in those trucks and loose stuff and copper and copper and copper. Yeah. So, John, just so I understand, were you saying keep the fence but don't have it opaque? Yeah. Maybe. So, they were still secure like a rod iron. So, they were still secure, right? Would that would that require an opaque fence somewhere along the building face? Well, I mean that the equipment that's behind the building should be screened. Okay. Um, you know, and I I don't think that's an issue. It's more and the whole west side west facing fence should be screened opaque. It's the right you're talking on on 121st. Yes. It's having a what I think of as a chain link and a a you know a fabric screen across it isn't very attractive when it's in the front yard of a building. Yeah. I just didn't think you maybe want to be able to see in and see a road. There's a lot of different materials you can use to make it okay. Yeah, we that check them out because there might be something that is a good compromise. There's no issue with that. Like I said, there's going to be plenty of I just think that fence that was put up along Zanzibar right up against the road. Yeah, you don't want that being desirable or undesirable. Undesirable. And this is set back a little bit, but it's still a fence in the front yard. Yeah. and and you know which I your your business has to to run but I also fences in the front yard bother me a little bit. Yeah. I think the more you can make the property is challenging so I get it. It is challenging. Yeah. Yeah. Any We covered parking, we covered buffer, we covered gravel. Any other feedback for the applicant at this point? Looks like the building's being designed for four tenants. Is that like future proofing? Yeah, that's future just a multi-tenant flexibility for 10 15 years down the road. Yeah. Yep. Basically, and just the point, but the CUP for outdoor storage are run with the property. So, if you ever sell it, just FYI, an owner might have to comply with whatever the code is at that time for outdoor storage. Mhm. Well, they'd have to comply with the the specific conditions that are imposed on the condition use lease permit, right? So, there might be very specific conditions we impose for you and your business. Uh, the next owner won't have to apply because they're going to have to apply for a new CUP, but which might mean different standards. They wouldn't need they wouldn't need to apply for a new CU unless they're enlarging it or changing it in some manner that would require that. So, right. So they to change it. Yeah. But otherwise they wouldn't have to. Yeah. The big condition might be like for example say they don't have tracked vehicles and the condition is that the gravel storage is used mainly for tracked vehicles. Right. I could see a condition of approval being that the gravel area should be used, you know, primarily for the track vehicles or something along those lines. I would I mean I can if you want to recommend downsizing it some maybe 10% or something too. I mean I'll do it if that's what you want. Yeah, I think it's more about how we worked with the code to make it work. I would I guess maybe the feedback on that is to work with staff to come up with the conditions that you guys that would work for you guys right now and and to somewhat future proof it for our big goal is you know working with Tim and and the architects and the engineers is trying to design something that you really don't know it's a construction company by driving by you know because if you look at you know I I understand you know the building, you know, we're putting the extra in to make sure it has that look and is as nice or nicer than the, you know, adjoining buildings. And uh, you know, we're trying to avoid, you know, where you get situations where it's visible for big trucks running around and big shed doors open all day and all, you know, all that type of stuff that's going on. I think we, you know, they've done good in coaching me on designing something that eliminates probably 95% of that. Can we keep the back the same size as shown and just push some of the parking that's up front back so we can move that fence? Right. So, instead of taking that triangle out of the bottom storage area, keep that. Move some of use some of that truck parking into the back and reduce the fence in the front. something to consider when you're finalizing site plan. Mark, do you understand what he's saying? Yeah. I guess a question for staff, and this is totally on you guys, too, but if they're keeping fleet vehicles out front overnight, does that need to be enclosed for our outdoor storage? Enclosed? No. So, fleet vehicle. So, it becomes outdoor storage. it it's outdoor storage still, but it does not need to be enclosed because the because of what it is or um it's a CP for outdoor storage. So, I I don't know. I guess my interpretation of outdoor storage probably would not include parking spaces dedicated for employee purposes. Um, and that would probably include uh the vehicles, the fleet vehicles for the company. I guess that would be my interpretation is that that might not even be considered. I would I would say, you know, normal passenger types of vehicles. So, if it's the F-150s, 250s, 350s that are equipped for for this business that even if they have a boom on them or whatever it is, um I I've seen ordinances that do allow that, but then also have to take those parking stalls into consideration to be an additional to the minimum code requirements for the the regular performance of that property. Right? So, if you have a fleet of vehicles that are all the same, they could park not included as the outdoor storage area that need to be fenced and screened and all that, but if they're taking up parking, then those are not included in the overall parking requirements of the remainder. But I think we could work through that through the CU. Yeah. And you know that when I line up the extra trucks or whatever um that we need or say they're not going to be used for a little bit, you know, you got a concern of catalytic converters stolen. I mean, we go through, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So, I got to try and protect those that situation. And it happens really fast, really quick. Yeah, on video they're good at rolling all the way through the lot and never stand up and roll from truck to truck to truck and they drag that stuff out of there. It's so I got to I need to protect that asset. Yeah. I'm not telling you to park your trucks outside the fence. I get it. But I'm just saying whatever we can do to pull that fence into the property farther. Yeah. And what I'm trying to avoid what you know some people give a you know a yard and then all of a sudden the uh field employees all a sudden park inside the yard and it's right kind of a mess of what you maybe don't want. And what I'm trying to do is just do it the right way and put them out there so they can come and go freely and uh not be storing cars out there. And keep in mind, some of my questions are to also futureproof things that come forward, right? Someone might be coming forward or some of our questions, I should even say, someone might be coming forward and with a very similar development, but they don't care about their fleet. So, I'm asking that question of the staff in case someone's educating themselves. Oh, not to challenge you guys. Yeah. So, Gotcha. Yeah. No, I didn't take it that as a challenge. Anything else for the applicant? Good. All right. Yeah, I'm good. Do you guys have any questions for us? You feel like you got everything answered? No, I think we got some good answers. You want them here? Correct. Absolutely. I'm on for it. We got good workingass employees, you know. Are you moving your business here or are you expanding? We're ex Well, we're I we have part of the Blaine operation. I'd like to move here. We have a lot of the work is is c is on this side of the metro. Um you you know you got some of the um fiber companies coming into the communities and expanding and there's grants and different things and a lot of them are our customers. So I give a better customer service at the same time which allows them if I'm in the area better service for um their customers um quicker response all those sort of things. Well, you save on transportation and you're also going to create what? 80 jobs is Yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, if uh driving from Clear Water doesn't make any sense to the West Metro, it's just a waste of fuel for everybody. And the traffic's bad enough already, you know, without putting another 80 trucks out there, right? Yeah. So, but I I like the community. Um like the the older gentleman said earlier been in the community. I haven't lived here, but I've worked in this area um all my life. So, I've been out plowing service drops to homes in the area and different things, too. So, but uh it is a nice area, well respected. So, we we'd like to contribute to that community. Sounds great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you all. All right. Uh this is a public hearing. We did open it. Uh, anyone here for the public hearing on this item? Anyone online? Uh, if you'd like to speak during this public hearing, feel free to use the raise your hand function on Zoom. N. All right. With that, we will close the public hearing at 8:09. Uh, no motions needed. So, we'll move on to uh Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Item 8 8 C interchange business center preliminary site plan too far. Okay. Uh so again, this is a Dayton Interchange Business Center, a preliminary plan and site plan review. Uh the project is located on I'm going to refer to Well, I'm going to say Territorial Road, but it's Territorial Road west of County Road 81. Uh so the nearest intersection would be Territorial Road and is it is it Holly Holly or D Parkway? Holly and Territorial there. I'll have a better kind of oversized map. Um the project is proposing to subdivide two lots into one 14 acre lot and to construct a 126,000 square foot office warehouse. Uh this is a speculative building. Uh the property zone I I light industrial. Uh critical issues with this is trailer storage along county road 81 is prohibited. Um the building design and then uh landscaping standards. Yes. You didn't mean trailer storage was prohibited. You meant dock doors were or not sure. I I'll say there's an error in the staff report um that refers to dock storage and and I've got to I'm struggling to find this in the ordinance exactly. Um I believe and I've not found this is that there there we don't allow or the intention is not to allow dock storage adjacent to arterial roadways which includes county road 81. Dock doors. I think it's dock door specific more so to the trailers in front of dock doors because that becomes outdoor storage once it exceeds a certain size. So it's kind of a convoluted way of of getting there. Um but the end product is that there's more outdoor storage than what the code allows. Um so the question is is do you want to allow it on 81 or push it to the front of the building on territorial? And it it's kind of subjective to what the plan commission, what the council wants and what you want to see or what you want to hide. Um, this project was previously approved in 2022. Um, the project was not built because the the market shifted and so the the owner just kind of took a pause onto it. The market has improved and so they'd like to move on with the project. Um although previous approvals have expired, so we're kind of starting the process over again. Uh the 2022 approved project did have the building um where the building faced County Road 81 and the dock doors were facing Territorial. The new plan for 2024 flips the building where the building faces Territorial Road and the dock doors face county road 81. Um so within the the uh dock doors and in the uh packet there is are elevation drawings. Um there's a and I don't remember what the number is but there are dock doors and as well as knockout doors or knockout walls. So those walls can be knocked out to create additional dock doors and I believe the total number I want to say it was like 44 if I remember correctly. I have to look at the plan again. Um and then there's an addition of parking for 14 um trailers that are highlighted in yellow. So the overall question is um is it appropriate or not appropriate to have trailer storage along County Road 81? Keep in mind that in between County Road 81 and the trailer storage there's a railroad rightway. So uh the distance varies a little bit. So, the distance from the paved portion of the road uh to I I believe it's this area of the trailer storage is around 250 ft at at a minimum and then it gets wider as you go north and west. Um for reference, these are panoramic views. Um this site here is roughly where the building would be shown. So, the idea is you do have existing trees along the railroad. uh right away that screens the property on the south side. For reference, this is the um turbine pro building or or the opus building which was approved with dock doors and trailer storage facing 81. Uh so just for reference the question is um you with uh the opus building is this what you were thinking it would be or is this something that you would not want to repeat with the um this canal building? Um, this is an overall reference of projects that are more recently built, uh, but don't show up on aerial photos. So, again, this is the subject property for the Scanel site. This is the Opus property. And then we have, um, Quick Trip here that's currently under construction. And then the yard to the south is U Sembstone. Um, across the road you there is the 13th Avenue industrial area and then uh the uh struggling with names here. Uh I'll get Stenley uh the Stenley property which is guided as mixed use. Uh we've had proposals both for multifamily as well as industrial uses. So when you think of you know what who is looking or facing this property it could be residential or it could be industrial. Um if you you want to go through these critical issues one by one or do you want me to go through all this and then come back again? I'll I'll summarize this and tell you this is exciting stuff. Um with industrial projects and and business projects there's kind of a laundry list of items. So in this case when we're talking about the design of the building um the architecture the design is required to meet uh three of the following seven items. And the check marks on here are what uh staff believes the building meets, but it's subjective to what how we interpret it. Um so staff is looking for confirmation from the planning commission if you agree with this or not. Um and I'll come back to this in more detail again. And then three is landscaping standards. Um the project meets landscaping standards other than the uh ornamental trees are missing. So the code does require certain number of ornamental trees uh based on the property size. In this case it's 92 trees. Um there is sufficient space to meet it or to plant those. It's just a question of where. So again with the critical areas the first one is trailer storage or outdoor storage. We've already approved Opus with trailer parking and dock doors facing the intersection of Dayton Parkway and 81. So I don't see any difference here where we've got kind of even tucked in behind it a little bit. Um I don't have a problem with the shift. I mean, the front of the building facing the primary entry road makes sense to me from a flow standpoint and safety of pedestrian cars. Um, not mixing with the tractor trailers as much either. So, um, they can come in and get to their parking right away. So, I don't have a problem with orientation in the building. I I'd be curious to hear from the applicant, but just looking at the building, I think that the utility and functionality of the building's improved by how they presented at this time versus the other way. So, I'd echo Paul's comments why I don't have a problem with it. Um, I'd also add to I don't know if Paul mentioned it, but there's a railroad track that separates us between 812. That's going to always be some sort of overgrown vegetation that acts as a buffer. That's true. I mean, I I'll echo both those. I think the flow of the the interior flow of the of the property works better with the front of the building facing territorial. Um, personally, I'm not 100% enamored with the the trailer uh parking. Uh I understand the dock door need to be facing 81. Uh the trailer spaces being that close. I I there's no other real place for them on the property. Uh perhaps some of those trees that are missing could help uh buffer that area too uh with some screening. Um I I get the fact that it's, you know, against the railroad rightway that's going to have that natural overgrowth which is going to help with uh screening as we see here uh in the current situations for these new buildings too. So um yeah, not saying that I'm I'm not supportive. It's just it's not the best place for me anyway for that trailer storage, but I think there's no other great place on the property for it. So, wonder if it just shifts left in the plan and swaps with that storm water retention area. Just it gets deeper into that triangle or you can get more landscaping on the other side of it or something. But I'm not overly concerned about it. So if so again it' be mo sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh shifting the trailer storage to the left and then moving the storm water pond to the right. Yeah. Were there any um topographical needs for having the storage pond there as far as elevation changes or anything like that? Is it the natural low spot or Yeah, it's the convenient spot. I guess we haven't looked close enough to see if it could be shifted or not, but that is the natural way that we would I mean shifting it over 20 ft or 50 ft or whatever it is, it's not going to make a huge difference with people flying by on 81, you know. So I mean the only other consideration is the use across the street for future use but there's enough buffer I think between whatever development happens there 81 the tree all the natural trees that are there anyway uh with the railroad too I think it's not going to be a critical issue plus the fact we have you know opus right next door so despite we have opus next door and we have cubes where cubes you can see the dock doors for days. I I am against that that aspect to begin with. Um I think we did ourselves wrong in in those two and three wrongs don't or two wrongs doesn't mean we should keep going down that path. Um, I understand I understand the flow and the functionality. Uh, but from a pedestrian access, this is not something where people are coming and going all day long. It's they're coming in in the morning, leaving at night. Probably not the same times the trucks are leaving because they're probably the same people leaving with the trucks. Um, as it relates to this the parking, I think we should shift that as far to the east as we or the west as we can to provide that additional buffer um between the the rail rightway. I mean that that last two stalls well the last stall is as almost as close to the property line as we can get. Um, I think we we you know, even if you can shift it a stall or two to the the left would help a tremendous amount. Um, I didn't look at the types of trees being planted in here. I will say that some of the trees that have been planted at Cubes or at Opus and are starting to grow start to help. Um, if you've driven 81 this year, um, they did go through and clear everything. So it is very visible right now um along the railroad. Yep. Um that was pretty recent. Um and so a lot of that is is very clear from what these pictures show. Um I I have mixed opinions on it. I mean I get the functionality from a business user. I get we did it next door for for the other development. But just because we did something one way doesn't mean we should. But could I could I ask a question of staff? So the the what is the rule for is it abuing any right ofway or is it abudding a street right ofway or material? So generally 81 would be the um generally it'd be county road 81. I 94. Um I believe uh Dayton River Road. I'm not sure if there's other. So the technical question is does this property abut 81 right away? Technical answer is no. You got rail track railro track. Right. So, I mean, there's I mean, if the property owner has a right to build as they want to build and it's technically not in violation of the ordinance because of the fact that you're not technically budding that arterial roadway, you have that railroad rightway in between both of them. I'd be hardressed to tell him that he can't do what he wants to do as proposed tonight, regardless of what it looks like or anything else. I mean, that's just that's just the letter of the law at that point in my opinion. I don't know. We don't have our city attorney here either, but I maybe we we get some direction from from our city attorney on that as well. If there's enough Yeah. If there's enough push back to flip it back the other way either by the planning commission or council, I think that we should get some interpretation on that because is there cons is there any consensus with the planning commission that you have, you know, no opposition to having the trailers facing on the 81 or the railroad tracks. Like if there's a consensus, then it doesn't matter. I'm okay with the design printed presented tonight. I think I agree that if we can shift some of those trailer stalls that helps. Okay. But that's my opinion. I agree. I mean I I'd have to agree just because it's not technically budding the Conu roadway uh right ofway unfortunately. I mean that's that's how it is. Would I rather see the front of the building facing Kroan? Probably. But in this case, um I think we have to take it as is presented and and go with that. Um making some of those we we could see how uh shifting those uh trailer spaces to the whatever left on the map is north. Is that north? North whatever it is technically. Um push it further into that corner to create more of that buffer. Um, you know, um, Peter was correct that that that corner is almost as close to the proper line as you could get. I think shifting it over is going to help provide at least a little bit if it works with their storm water management. I I will um I will go opposite the rest of the commission on on if if we or if we're aboting 81 right away. I mean, I think the way that was when we think about the intent of the ordinance and what what it entails, I think the railroad running through on 81, it parallels 81 the entire length of the city. Um, so the intent of not abuing 81 is part of that. If if we had a um, so that that's that's where I'm going to go on that one. Um, you know, if we could if there's a way to eliminate the trailer parking on the the I'll call it the north side. um and landscape that and help help with the landscape prevention or landscape um screening of these. I could concede to allowing this to move forward. I do have a a small heartburn with the the pinch point between uh John, if you move your cursor right, uh there's there's a point where there's no landscaping at all. um abuing the railroad tracks. Um so this doesn't show up on the screen that there are trees and that shows up there, but okay, further to the right right there. This is the storm water. Nope. Between the storm water pond and what the triangle you were just pushing. Yep. That that portion of it um is the portion that I have have some heartburn with as well. But there's not much we can do there from a a sight side, right? We're limited on a land and flow and circulation up where the parking stalls are. We can there I think there's some some room to to move that those parking stalls around a little bit. Even if it, like I said, if it's one or two, it would help um to get another tree in up there. But that that area I just wanted to point out another area of of concern of mine. So I I might be in the minority on that, but that's okay. Um okay. So the second issue I had was on building design and again what what I'm looking for is either uh an agreement or disagreement with staff's interpretation. So um again with the design elements the building design must include architectural interest through the use of a minimum of three of the following elements. So the first is accent materials. So the question I have for the the commission is are there accent materials or are there enough accent materials? shades of gray. Uh I mean is accent material different colors of concrete? I mean because that's all they're doing here, right? Is painting concrete. Um as far as you know, I mean there's there weren't renderings or there's Well, pre Well, there's the one in the end packet, I guess. Do those guidelines specify types of accent materials that might be acceptable panels? And they're using metal panels at the entry. I can come back to that. Yeah. No, I mean I think it meets that. You think it meets it? Okay. If commission agrees. I got to disagree with the architect. Yeah, I'm okay with that one. So, the second item is a visually pleasing front entry that in addition a door shall be accented a minimum of 150 square ft around the door entrance for single occupancy buildings and minimum 300 square ft uh total for the front of multi-tenant buildings. Um so this is in this could be a multi-tenant or a single tenant. I mean there's flexibility with it. Um, I'll say I've not measured the width if it's 150 feet or 300 feet. It's um, you know, it it looks like there is visual separation. It's not just a a big shoe box. I'd agree. Okay. Uh, item three and I don't this doesn't mean it is 25% window coverage. Uh, item four is contrasting yet complimentary material colors. So, uh, color scheme is, uh, gray scale, different shades. Mhm. Okay. And that's three out of the seven items. So, if there's, you know, if there are other items that you would like to require, you have the option of doing that. I I think maybe the one that I would entertain with the the commission at least the renderings showing what appears to be a white door on the the garage door side. I don't have that on the screen, but um Okay. Yeah, they depict it as white. Do I mean a gray? They're not white. Yeah, that'd be Yeah. So, you're just saying you'd like the garage doors to be a cont or a similar color to the rest of the building. Is that accurate? It I'm throwing it out there, seeing if the architecture agrees. I don't know. Actually, your drawings do say pre-finished white overhead doss. It'd be shocking if a dock door was white. It would not maintain itself. very well. So, um my thought is more if we're having dock doors on on that side, just have them blend in. Yeah, that would make sense. It would help with the elevation to just paint trees on them. Have them the same color. Camel. Um, so you'd like the dock doors to be the same color as the walls or a similar color? I'm even fine with a contrast, but maybe not introduce a new color. Pick one of the colors on the elevation that are shown besides white. I'd say the primary color, right? I mean, they're the 75% of the loading do side is all the same color pre-cast, so that should match that. gray. Okay. Yeah, there's different color gray. So, PG142. Just kidding. Okay. Um, other requirements, uh, all principal buildings shall have an entry on a street. Uh, so being that this building faces territorial and the front doors are on territorial that meets it. Uh, item two is building shall provide a base and a top to their architecture. Um, the top being I don't remember my architectural uh like the coping middle but that's not right. Yeah. Um so there is a top and then there is a bottom behind um essentially this line. So does the commission agree? This is in line with all other manufacturing buildings, industrial buildings that we would see. Sure. Okay. Then the two items that I don't believe that it meets is uh item three, the tops of the building shall be articulated, minimize the box like image. Um everything is the same elevation in the building. Looks like there's a slight increase on the on the front side. It looks like there's very slight increases. Okay. And then four, buildings shall be architecturally unique and shall not be of a corporate architecture including roof patterns, corporate colors, architectural elements and similar treatments. Anything else related to uh the building design? And then third item is landscaping and in which I I don't know why this is missing but it just needs ornamental trees. Um again this is a uh we're looking for recommendation for approval for preliminary plant and site plan review and it is a public hearing. All right I guess with that it's a public hearing at 8:35 we will open the public hearing. Would the applicant like to come forward as the first Good evening, mayor, commissioners, staff. Thank you. Long night, huh? This a short one. Well, I've been here longer, but uh I've been doing this a long time, but yeah, thanks for your efforts. It's a it's a important job. Um Scott Mo, I'm with Scanel Properties. I live at 9857 Aquilla Road spelled Aqu U I L A Road in Bloomington. Um, we covered a lot there. Where would you like to start? Um, I think a good place to start was just give us your thought process around switching the building from one orientation to the other. Yeah. Um, first of all, we're trying to stay consistent with the Opus building next door to create that drive visibility and and uh we think it's a a more visually attractive location for tenants to come off the road and have their offices right there versus buried kind of behind and and not exposed. Um, so it gives more visibility, better access. They don't have to drive around the building to go in. They come right off the street. It just makes more sense. And quite frankly, um, by switching the business allows us to, uh, eliminate some ret retaining walls, which are quite expensive. And this build, this site requires a lot of it already and still does, but we're able to eliminate some of it. And respectfully, this is a very industrial area. Okay? I mean, we're not talking about a lot of high-end single family homes around here. Uh you're talking about probably the average speed is 55 miles an hour going both ways by there. Yeah. There's there's railroad tracks there. There's vegetation there. There and and a precedent has been set. We we'd like to not be at a competitive advantage disadvantage with our neighboring Opus building. So we'd like to meet that as well. Um we have no problem sliding over. I I'm not We probably just put the trailer storage in the middle cuz it, you know, logistically it splits, but I don't think we'd have any problem sliding over if there's not some terrain or topical issue in the way. And I don't think there is, but we'd certainly change it. But and and then to to address the pinch point thing, we can put some landscaping in there and and hide that up a little bit. That that's fair and reasonable. Um, and the other thing is, and I don't want to start rumors or anything, but I thought you guys might find this a little bit interesting, um, is if someday the Simstone site gets um, redeveloped. We're not talking to some, they're not interested in selling. Anybody's listening, don't start rumors, okay? But someday that's probably going to be a redevelopment site. It seems like it'd be ripe for it at some point in time. And so that site would likely design up something like that if it be if it stays industrial. And by doing this, we we've kept all the truck courtyards inside. And we've kept that street frontage facing the street frontage of our building, which would be at the top of the page. If you're looking at it, it's across the street from those three buildings. So if if you're looking 5 10 well probably 10 20 30 years down the road this gets redeveloped it makes sense to have the buildings all facing into territorial as it gets developed and so that isn't the major reason to go with this but it's if you're thinking down the road it's not a bad thought. Um that's that's about it for that. Um, we spent a small fortune having these buildings designed by professional architects. And you know, you kind of get into a beauty design the beholder issue here on colors and this and that, but we believe we've met all the architectural requirements as set forth by the city. We sure as hell spent a lot of money to get that done that way. So, I I think it does. Um, you know, would you put the different color scheme on there? Maybe yes, maybe no. H1, you probably have a different opinion on that just like your house colors. But I think we met all the architectural design. We do this stuff all over the country. We're the largest privately held developer in the country. We got 40 we got 40 projects going on in 30 states. So we we do this all day and we know we have to comply. So we intend to. Um what else can I answer? Can you can we go to one of the site plans? Can you just talk through maybe the the site plan of what was and what is the retain walls just that wasn't something that I picked up on when I was reviewing these. So, it' just be helpful to know kind of where where the retaining walls are. Yeah, it can't hold me to this. Okay. I have a Should I get them kind of point to? Yeah, that would be helpful. Um uh as in in the the the plan we're trying to get accepted, there's retaining walls up on the high side here and there's some retaining walls back in here. And on on the plan from before, um there was a lot more retaining walls up in here. And I couldn't address it a whole lot more than that right now because uh my my partner in this project is a civil engineer by education. So he's taken care of most of that stuff. So I I wouldn't want to go on record with too much more than that. It's just that we were able to reduce it enough to make it worthwhile, but that wasn't our primary motivation. It was just kind of a benefit of turning it and we'll take a little money savings if we can. I I mean I I think it's fair to reason. I mean public projects look at reducing everything in retaining walls are a big cost. So I know that. Yeah, this one's really expensive how it's set up and just uh um and now that you mentioned, I mean, the building did shift quite a bit, so I can see why it would have been longer in the first one. Yeah, it was just just helpful to point that out. Yeah. A question I have, Scott, and it's a little related to your project, but I think it's a bigger question since you're up here, and I know you guys do a ton of industrial development, um, is this building's only 180 ft deep. Generally, people prefer a little bit larger depth. Obviously, your site is what it is, and one of the things that our city is tasked with is another development across the street, and we've gotten some push back that, you know, they really want the building to be 300 ft deep. That's why we can't run a road by it. What makes a 180 foot building work? Is it Yeah, this this building is designed to house smaller tenants. Um, you know, for example, it might be the custom cabinet maker that's going to, you know, build cabinets for the housing market in the area. Or it could be the HBAC mechanical contractor. And a lot of those guys like to have drive-ins. We're going to have some drive-in doors back there as well. And this is just designed it to be a smaller tenant type building 10 20,000 ft versus completely apples and or say that cubes building that's that's meant for the for the big guys. We do that kind of stuff all over the we just finished a 5 million square foot building for Amazon in Connecticut. 5 million ft 5 1 million square foot stories property. Yeah. So I mean we do a lot of that cubes big box stuff too but this is just a different market um thing. We think it's a niche that's going to lease quite well because there isn't a lot of that com that that type of property up here. Even Opus doesn't quite um work as well for that cuz it's a little bigger, deeper building. They don't divide. If you go to 10,000 ft in their building, you're going to get a bowling alley um or a rifle range we like to say. So, um it's it's just a different building that that kind of we think's got a nice little niche to it. Smaller shallower base. Thank you. I really don't have much more. I don't have any more questions, Jeff. No, good. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Is there anyone online? I don't see anyone else here. So, um, feel free to use the raise your hand function if you'd like to speak. All right. With that, not seeing anything with that at 8:44, we will close the public hearing. Uh, any further discussion? I I think it was from my mind it was helpful. I'll just call out to the applicant. It was it was helpful to see a a potential for across the road. Um, and maybe not necessarily change my opinion, but help me understand what flipping it does. Um, you should have put your building in here though. Shouldn't have cut it off. But it was it was You should You should have put You should have had your property in here. Well, we could see it. Actually, we should have. Yeah. Uh, you're right. It was It was helpful to see what it could what it could be. And that I think I think just I echo what I said earlier is you know these little things help help uh help inform us on making decisions and how we move forward. It might not change my opinion on how that parking should be but might change my opinion on the [Applause] project. Yeah. If there is no more discussion and we can obviously have discussion after I make the motion, but I'm going to make a motion to approve the preliminary plat and site plan as presented. I'll second that. We have a motion from Brown and a second from Sergeant. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I I All those opposed? Motion passes 4 Z for clarity for my purposes the motion is fine with the trailer storage facing 81 and the building as designed as presented. Okay. I mean if we can still work with the applicant to try to shift that trailer parking. That's that's the only thing I would add. Yes. Yeah. If we can shift that trailer parking if the motioner and the second agree. Well, I don't I don't really want to necessarily make it a requirement. I want staff to work with them and then it goes to council. So, I don't want to make that a requirement on the motion. We can do that. Yeah. Yeah. It might be that it doesn't work with storm water retention there as well. So, Yep. All right. Item uh 11, notice and announcements. Notices and announcements. Most exciting part of the week. Um okay, staff updates. Uh it's exciting weekend in Dayton. We have our citywide uh garage sales. I don't know if any of you guys are participating. Um I think last meeting I mentioned that this is a great opportunity to sell your previously used or gently used plan commission packets. Um we are asking that all participants would register with the city. So the reason being is then we have on our website uh for anyone that's looking for garage sales of where those when what dates you're having your sale and and what it is that you're offering. So um I believe this is the first time we've had it a garage sale organized. So we'll we'll see how that works. Uh family fun night. So, June 12th, 5 to 8:00 p.m. Uh, that is what next Thursday. So, LC Stevens Park will have the Teddy Bear Band. Uh, it's a great night. Uh, starting at 6:15 p.m. Uh, related to LC Stevens Park, we have a LC Stevens master plan update. So, we uh the council had appointed appointed a steering committee. Uh generally speaking there it's an eight member committee with one person representing the council in each of the advisory commissions as well as two two staff members. Um we've the committee has met once uh kind of the next step is to develop a survey or community survey that's based on the web of what it is that you how do you use the park and what would you like to use the park for. Um so this will go out sometime this summer. I I don't know what the date will be. Um and then we're looking for just kind of feedback from uh groups of communities. So, for example, uh the River Hills HOA as one example or other neighborhood HOAs, uh 13th Avenue and East French Lake Road moratorum. So, I as I believe the commission is aware, the council did adopt a moratorum for this area. The intention is to develop two concept plans for land use and road uh roadway corridors and then to refine that into a preferred um concept. So the main issue with this is uh where is the east west corridor going to be? Is it going to be extending 13th Avenue to East French Lake Road as it is or creating a new road uh to the north? And then what is the land use? Uh the mo highest and best use of the land um I'll say east of this wetland complex. So I will send out the commission kind of a blank map if you'd all like to draw different versions on them and and send them back to me. That'd be greatly appreciated would help uh Jason and his team at Stantech that's creating the concept plan. Um, other concept plans. The EDA is reviewing concept plans for the uh redevelopment of a portion of the old village. Uh, the EDA did purchase uh 1acre site. Um, generally south of Robinson Street and east of the Crow River. Um we've had uh three concept plans developed for uh one having an event center venues, two having a a brewery or an outfitter and three having a flex space. And the EDA did review this at their May meeting and gave staff direction to develop a fourth option of just looking at um essentially a smaller footprint on that development area. Um, so this will EDA will talk about it again in June and I would suspect uh this will likely go to the council and to the planning commission if if of it. I'm assuming that there's going to be interest in this from the commission. John, yep. Take it this is the property that is not under control of the EDA yet. Correct. So these are um well so the the area that the EDA owns is this um L-shaped property, right? And we have three concept plans that looked at if the city were to acquire uh the neighboring property, what could it do with it or can it live without it. Okay. Is the river directly to the west of the question mark? This is the Crow River. Got it. That's what I was thinking. Okay. And the DNR boat launch is on the other side of the road here. And I I know this is small to see, but fits on one slide. Are there flood plane concerns because that's going to dictate uses big time when you can't get insurance. The majority of what improvements you put on it? Yes. So, the majority of the property is within the 100red-year flood plane. There would have to be some mitigation to to make it work. So mitigation has bringing in fill to to bring up the elevation of the building and lowering it elsewhere to provide the same amount of flood plane. What was that last sentence you just said? Lowering it elsewhere to Yeah. So I I like to use the analogy of a bathtub. So you get in the bathtub and the water rises. So you there's no dirt anywhere else. So you got to truck it in. You could dig out the crow. You dig out the crow. So if you bring fill in, you've got to decrease it elsewhere to to maintain the same uh volume of water. I think the question that everyone needs to be thinking about when you're dealing with a 1.2 acre site, no matter what you put there, is where is everyone going to park? Yep. Because there's a small site. Yeah. It's hard to see, but the gray area on each of these is a parking lot outside of the property. Inside of the That's assuming you control the X, though. Correct. Got it. Correct. Okay. So, I'll likely have more detail at the next plan commission meeting. Um other things it as commission for commissioners may know there's a vacancy in the fifth seat. So uh we are looking at filling this. Um I've got a a deadline of Monday, June 16th for applications. I've received one so far. Um again, this is for uh what was I'm going to say convenient about Nick's resignation is that his term expires um at the end of June. So um whether he had resigned or not, he would have had to reapply. Uh we also have a recent resignation on the EDA. So there is an opening on the EDA as well. If if you have anyone that you can think of that would be appropriate for either of these, please reach out to them and encourage them to apply. So I have a question regarding the planning commission. So is it uh ordinance that they have to be residents? Yes. Okay. Has the city ever considered allowing business owners to be on the planning commission? Um, not only if they're residents of Dayton. So, they have to be residents no matter what. Yes. Okay. So, I mean, something potentially to consider is if you know, we we are we do have business owners that have uh, you know, good ideas of what potentially you know, Dayton could grow into. And it's sometimes it's really good to get that perspective. I understand completely the the rationale to have residents for sure. Um maybe just in the future maybe limiting, you know, up to one non-resident as long as they're a business owner in the city type of thing. But it's it's good to have some of that outdoor outside perspective at times. You know, someone operating a business in the city. The EDA you do not have to be a date resident. So, we have a number of EDA members that are business owners in Dayton but do not live here. Um, so that is an option. The EDA uh theoretically will review all the same plans that the commission reviews if they're business related. Does the EDA allow residents that are non-b businessiness owners? Yes. Two. So, as long as they have some type of business background or knowledge, right? So anyway, I would hope anybody drive by this sometimes. Uh so again, the the staff's intention is to leave these open for at least a month um in between the time the council accepts a resignation and the time that they point a replacement. Uh for planning commission, the deadline would be June Monday, June 16th. And then for the EDA, it's Monday, July 16th. um population estimates. So, we received uh population estimates from the Met Council for 2024. Uh so, again, these are a year old. Um Dayton's 2024 population estimate is 10,784. I'm just going to round it to 11,000. Um, and then within the 2020 to 2024 population change, uh, we've added about 35, well, 3,572 resins, so I'm just going to say round it up to 3600. Uh, you compare that to, and we're here down in the red. Uh, the pink bars are um our neighboring cities for Cork, Maple Grove, and Rogers. So, as you can see where the lines line up, we're added the most residents out of any city in Henipin County other than Minneapolis. I'd encourage you when you contrast households is to look at our building permit activity from like that period to see how it lines up with their forecast too. Yeah. For households. That's probably my last Oh, no. I do have one more. Our next meeting is going to be on July 3rd. Do you all are you all planning on being here? I guess let me let me pose this question. Do we have an I'm assuming so, but do we have enough stuff for a July meeting? We have three items so far. Okay. I I will not be here July 3rd. Would you like to move it? I mean, yes. Personally, I think it makes sense to move it from everyone's perspective. Applicants. Yeah. I think anybody coming here would rather be somewhere else rather than sitting at a planning commission meeting until 9:00 at night. My preference would be to push it to the 10th. I'd agree. Agree. Okay. July 10th. Good night. All right. Make a motion to adjurnn. Uh the one community event you missed, John, was the Dayton car show starting tomorrow night, LC Stevens Park. So, another LC Stevens. There we go. Okay. Item. And I will I should be there in my my old Jeep. How old is it? 51. Nice. I'll second the motion to adjurnn. All right, we have a motion and a second to adjurnn. All those in favor? I I. Motion passes 5-0. Uh, meeting ends at 8:59.