i have started the recording and it is seven o'clock all right everybody um i'll uh call the uh march 4th 2021 planning commission meeting to order we'll go through the roll call commissioner wu thank you i think you're muted there meredith my apologies here okay commissioner varenkam here commissioner sholak here and commissioner jacobs i'm here and note that uh with the retirement the resignation of mr dickman uh we are a council or a commission of only four members so everyone is uh here um all right at this point we'll move on to the pledge of allegiance for all those that would like please join us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance 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 okay thank you okay um next the agenda approval anybody got any comments or questions of the agenda looks pretty straightforward not hearing any i'll take a motion to approve the agenda i'll make that motion thank you luck second baron kemp all right all those in favor signal as such through the roll call commissioner wu hi commissioner kam aye commissioner sherlock bye mr jacobs i as well so the agenda is approved for zero all right this moment we'll move on to item four uh and that is open and open forum is an opportunity for the public to address the commission on any issue that they would like that is not already on the agenda that has an open forum so with that being said natalie you have some instructions to give out for those that would like to uh participate in open forum yes so for the open forum if you are joining us with your computer you will on the bottom toolbar to tool bar of your screen there should be a reactions button and you will select the raise your hand function i will call on you to speak and we'll go from there if you're joining by phone it should be nine and then some tablets and mobile devices it may be accessible by opening up the participants tab okay very good do we have any immediate takers i do not see anyone with their hand raised at this time okay give about another 10-15 seconds hey natalie we are talking about cook lake yet right correct steve i will i'll make sure to call on you for that one sorry about that that's okay okay it would appear at this moment that there is no one for open forum uh the chair will take a motion oh no we don't need to uh close the open forum i apologize all right we'll move on to item five the minutes from the february 18th meeting and again february 18th was a couple weeks ago but that was rescheduled uh from the beginning of february so with those minutes in hand i have reviewed does anybody have any questions comments or corrections to the minutes from february 18th i did note i don't believe that in past minutes we received or that we had a a detailed listing of those that spoke in the public hearings i thought that was a nice added feature so natalie i don't know if that was your doing but i liked it it was good who's your chair yes sir i'll make a motion to approve uh minutes as presented in front of us okay i'll second that um all right we'll uh we'll take a roll call vote to uh approve the minutes commissioner wu all right commissioner varian cam hi mr sholak hi commissioner jacobs i and the minutes are approved okay we'll move on to the core of our of our night item six new business um um does anyone have any new business they would like to bring up i don't kendra we don't normally no no mr chair uh no we don't add things to the agenda at that point it's simply this is the gets a little confusing but this is the public comment opportunity for items 6a and 6b right and but it says here on our thing anyone wishing to speak at new business that are not item 6a or 6b and i was a little thrown there we don't normally open it up for public opportunity before our first item so moving on uh item 6a table to the april 1st meeting and kendra you have a presentation for us on that particular item yeah mr chair it's the new zoom meeting process we don't um if it's not a public hearing we take public comments at the beginning of the items but given that there's only really one i i think that's fine um but we have to change the process a little bit um this is a napa request we got a little ahead of ourselves the applicant thought they would be ready in time to be on this agenda so we published in the newspaper in fact they did not they are still incomplete and so at this point there they were hoping to be in tomorrow so they could come back on april and we would republish and read and send notice to the neighbors once they are complete so at this point we just ask you to table it to the april first meeting okay i'll entertain a motion to uh table uh item 6a to the april 1st meeting second shoelock all right uh roll call vote uh chair jacobs i uh commissioner sholak aye commissioner berenkamp aye and commissioner wu hi okay past four nothing that'll be table to our next uh our next meeting all right item 6b um and this is a public hearing for final plat unit development for tavara city file number 20-042 kendra you have another presentation for us i do mr chair this is the final pud plan for tavera which was approved excuse me in june by the council for with a comp plan amen comprehensive plan amendment a rezoning to pud a preliminary platinum pud development plan for the master plan which was 549 units in an estimated eight phases the um since that time the applicant has gone to hennepin county and gotten approval for a lot division to divide the wessel property into a couple of smaller pieces and the northern portion of that split is proposed for the phase one flat so this is the master plan this is hackamore and county road 116. and this is the end of the blue bonnet um cul-de-sac uh horseshoe out to old settlers here so this was approved with a mix of residential units the piece we're talking about tonight is phase one right here just south of the main entry uh for a 33 lot subdivision so this is 66th avenue which exists today will cross 116 and come into the project as horseshoe trail both of these blue circles are property that were owned by the wessel family and uh under contract with lennar phase one is happening right here for the phase one pud that you'll be reviewing tonight what happened is they split this wessel property into a couple of pieces and so the plat will include the north half of the south half of the first wessel property and all of the remainder of the wessel property so this was the south 80 acres that wessel owned split into two and uh this portion becomes the south half of the plot sometimes i don't know if that and some make it more confusing or helpful but in in any case this is the plot the north 80 uh parcel and the north 40 acres of the southern 80 acre parcels coming in off the new horseshoe trail this is for as i said 33 single-family homes would be planted in this phase and three outlets for future subdivision it does include construction of the new horseshoe trail on county road 116 and as part of this application the applicant is requesting approval for grading beyond the plot limits in order to balance the dirt on the site so the grading would be all the way south to hackamore and then basically just north of the new horseshoe trail entrance in order to um accommodate that construction so this um blue box is showing the platte boundaries the red uh cloud is showing the area that would be graded as part of the phase one project no entrance would be off of hackamore with this initial phase only the horseshoe trail entrance down into this neighborhood so as noted in the staff report there were still some outstanding conditions related to the home pallet as i mentioned the design standards were modified as part of the pud and we do have all of the plan drawings from the applicant at least the current home plans and are working with them to finalize the details to ensure that we have an approved home pallet that they can move forward with that meets all of our ordinance standards the city engineers memo included a number of outstanding issues fairly typical issues related to finalizing the stormwater design in this case we also have a stockpile that is outside of the grade one phasing limits just north of the horseshoe road entrance that is being finalized the wetland permits are not yet approved through the wetland conservation act they are under review and they are in process but that could make some minor tweaks to the final engineering drawings i did want to call out uh in the presentation tonight a little bit about natural resources because the commission has raised it on other items so i just wanted to reiterate that as part of this pud the applicant did do uh i think a fairly good job of woodland preservation 52 percent of the of the woodland on site is being preserved and it's broken down in a couple different ways by the areas that are identified as ecologically significant areas and other woodland areas i did note that there is a little bit of a reduction in the ecologically significant area and it appears that that is mostly if not entirely related to a change to the off-road trails along the west boundary that the city directed them to make so the natural resources and the tree preservation which are not required under our ordinance but were part of the pud approval are generally consistent with the final plan and the preliminary plan as you may recall as part of this the commission did require a conservation easement over those with woods that are being preserved and so we are still working through to finalize those documents those will be recorded with the final plaque to protect those areas internal streets as always will be by the developer but the city will design bid and manage the county road 116 improvements with financing from the developer that's consistent with how we've done other projects um i wanted to call out the landscaping plan um just a couple potential driveway tree conflicts on block four that we want them to make sure they're aware of and thinking about as they move forward with selecting house plans but um the engineers memo notes um the need for an irrigation plan uh and maintenance plan and that needs to balance the potable water and the storm water reuse potable meaning drinking water from our our water system and the storm water reuse we want to make sure that those two are working in tandem so we're not pumping um the storm water ponds onto wet grass trying to keep the ponds down and killing the boulevard planting so just a simple technical piece but i wanted to point that out we are taking a look at that uh in your staff report there was an image of the new sign proposed the gateway signage at 116. the architecture of that is consistent with the homes consistent with what we want to see but it appears that the sign may be larger than is allowed a 32 square foot sign area meaning that the tax the box that says tavera is the max allowed so the applicant will need to provide some details with the building permit to ensure compliance and that gateway sign is at the entrance here of horseshoe and 116 with landscaping around it you can see the heavier landscaping around along 116. if you recall they asked for a reduced setback reduced from 100 foot step back to 60 foot which we allow by right provided additional landscaping as specified in the ordinance is provided this does comply and then they've got a nice uh entry feature with boulevard trees that continue along this the street um that serves the homes and there's just a couple of these i mentioned that look a little bit tight that we just want to make sure they're aware of but the landscaping includes evenly spaced trees so we want the trees to stay as shown and if the driveway needs to shift a little let's shift the driveway but the species are selected by blocks so we have sort of a theme along the street which the city supports and again this is the 33 units that are being built in this phase and with that we do recommend approval of the final pud development plan subject to the conditions in the attached draft resolution based on the finding that it is consistent with the approved preliminary plans okay that's the end that is the end great thank you so much well done uh all right at this point we'll open up um we'll open it up to uh oh no i'm sorry this does not get a public hearing no that's a typo in this agenda yep i'm sorry okay um all right well we'll have um we'll have commission discussion questions um i'll uh you know what why don't i start off first here um kendra i was wondering if you could tell me uh and i may have found the answer i just want to confirm in the original um pud preliminary they had 549 homes and i have the breakdown 265 70 80 134. um in the report though i did not see any specific detail of that breakdown for the final pu development plan uh however on sheet 2.01 of 22 it shows the same count would you know that to be true and i i know that you know over a period of years that that count will probably change as we experience with their first development but is is that kind of what they're still targeting it is mr chair uh certainly though uh i think as we go move through the phases you'll recall that um even our staff reports we would update you on sort of what number uh you were on um so so far nothing's changed with phase one nothing has changed yet they're still on track with that 549. yeah well i mean i was comparing i i kept the packet from the preliminary and i noticed there's a couple of road changes and a couple cul-de-sac things that have changed and and and in looking at that i thought well it would probably reason that maybe the number changed but um if if that's i didn't go through and galva's account this on that master plan diagram but um if it does it hasn't changed i i guess that's um that's great news well it hasn't maybe i should clarify the phase one plan is consistent with the preliminary plans expect as they move through because of conditions that the city attached um as well as just some design changes i do expect at the end that final number is not likely to be 5 49 it probably will get modified as we work through the eight yeah so phases yeah well i mean you know it at this point in this particular situation um we're given the final pud plan uh development plan and or phase one at the first phase and so um being that we weren't going to discuss any of the particulars for everything else outside of this i just wanted to make sure you know it'd be different i suppose if if this came in a whole lot different than what they proposed a year ago or almost a year ago i think it was june of last year if i got that right um and and you know and retaining you know pertaining to the balance of this house type versus that house type and you know a bunch of stuff um so i was glad to see that it it materialistically isn't going to change at this junction so that we don't have to talk about things like that so um relative to the grading uh requests so i saw that yeah they're going to have this this pile on the on the north 40 um and i read that it was maybe going to be like 20 feet tall my question is so how long is that pile i mean if we're talking about an eight year development and maybe they're not going to get up there for another three years is that pile is there a time limit to how long that can sit there or is it just there to be used uh over the course of the next couple of years or what's the what's the prognosis of that uh well it is being stockpiled as they it'll go up and down as they move through the site and the phases because again that's there's excess dirt at one point that gets stockpiled and then they use that dirt in a future phase i don't i'm looking at the engineers memo to see if there was more information about that the applicant may be able to comment on that but it will be for for several years the stockpile uh will be there as they work through these initial phases okay um now in the report then it says that traditionally the city does not allow this this grading outside the limits of the plat you know um is this something that maybe we should look at to eliminate so they don't have to make special requests or yeah it's just been a policy issue and because our policy has historically not been to do it we wanted to highlight it for the planning commission and and for the council when we get there uh but in in this case remember with tavara excuse me with ravinia we allowed them to grade outside of the phase that they were final planning in late phases and i think the city engineer is more comfortable um with a developer that we've worked with before that we have a plan that we frankly have done more development in the city that i think we might see this more often you know as we become more experienced in development in the city so it's really a policy from the city engineer and he feels comfortable allowing this plan and you're right you may see more developers that that grade a larger portion of the site in the future okay a small question on uh page three under the transportation transportation section yep uh the developer will construct uh horseshoe uh almost jonas tavares 64th avenue um it says the pat the plat must be revised to comply with the street naming policy so when when this thing is all said and done you street and you see a street sign is it going to say 65th avenue or is it going to say honeysuckle lane no it will say 65th avenue when it's done okay so these honeysuckle uh kiera and tavara are are not official street names correct correct there is a policy option where people can ask to remember we have a grid system that has specific alphabetical names and that's really a public safety kind of a driver that's what kind of made us establish that grid system like minneapolis and other hennepin county systems have but we do allow some flexibility for major parkways or things that developers can request that that may be something that lennar ends up requesting but for now um until otherwise granted they must follow our street naming policy okay all right um um i wanted to uh talk about the natural resources section just briefly on page five the third paragraph um he's talking about uh preserve the wetland or the woodland areas on the perimeter of the site the plans must be re revised to provide tree protection fencing from the grading plans this fencing must be installed before any site work begins is this relatively new we've actually always always as a policy had that we haven't always attached it as a condition um but you've you're familiar that sometimes that means grading happens before that tree fencing gets up and trees come down uh which is what happens well yeah we've well i mean you know nelson you know somebody got happy with the chainsaw and and the trees that were fully intended to be preserved were cut down and exactly and in an area where this was a significant part of a discussion about preserving as many trees and and those that are significant i'm just wondering who's who's going to enforce make sure that fence is up and and and we don't have more field mistakes right so our engineering department our public works department has uh inspectors on site and they will be ensuring and they've been talking about it within their department about how to ensure that those inspections happen before work begins so okay that's our public works department okay all right um another question i had parks and trails on page six um in that first paragraph there is an off-road trail running north and south in this area and this trail coincides with the regional trail planned by rivers park district is that referring to the diamond lake trail yes now i i and i asked that because i know that i've gone on to that website where they're now seeking comments isn't that pretty much still in the unknown development stage because if that goes through i know i made comments that it's running right through you know it's running right through shamrock golf course um across a couple holes and i thought well that's ridiculous so i kind of like is is this a for sure thing or is this well it might it might happen and not that it really matters at this point a good trail in the neighborhood is good i just question whether or not this is really going to be is it a certainty that's going to hook up with this proposed diamond lake trail what i was trying to say is our plan says that trail needs to be there yep it also coincides with a planned trail from three rivers so if you are correct the diamond link trail alignment has not been finalized and that's a good reminder for people i think the comment period may still be open on that trail so planned meant it's just planned by them it may ultimately not be but we've asked them to widen the trail from 8 to 10 feet because then it at least could be used as part of the regional corridor okay all right good thank you that's all i have uh move on commissioner sholak you have any questions comments yes sir thank you on page page two um it says that there there needs to be an approval of basic standards right under preliminary qud development plan uh they establish to establish basic standards when does that when does that happen um that's probably not the best language that's the house standards i was talking about so we'll select a pallet of homes that meet the approval that the council granted uh back in june okay so that will come that'll come before this commission again no okay nope we'll just review the house plans and make sure that the conditions you attached and the council attached are being met so we'll review do you have the mix of architecture that you need do you have the articulation in the building the garage percentages match what was approved that's what i was trying to talk about thank you on page five um three three lines down from the bottom up from the bottom um there is a potential conflict with utilities and landscaping along county road 116. what kind of conflicts are there going to be really whenever we have new utilities going in and new landscaping going in there's the potential in that corridor of of 10 to 20 feet that things could overlap so what we do is we field install those in a way with our public works department and their contractors to make sure you're not planting a tree on top of a cable or an electrical line okay all right and then um in the i believe it's the engineers section on page uh it would be the fourth third page uh under wetlands and permits um they're they're just when i looked at the maps here there looked like to be an exceptional amount of uh wetlands in this in this subdivision and um uh of course are these homes going to have basements there are a mix of home types so we do have some lookouts some walkouts some slabs and i believe some full basements although to be honest let me look and see if this phase walkouts we only have walkouts and lookouts in this particular phase but i believe there is a section perhaps further south that has some basements okay my concern is i and i it's been a while since i bought a house but are home buyers told of the area are they informed about um wetland status close to their home you know that's really probably a better question for the developer i i hope so um but i i'm not sure what they're told by their realtors because uh until i started serving on this commission i never thought to ask uh before i signed the paper um just a comment i was impressed with the uh the layout of the trees it it harkens back to you know the i think the 1950s tree-lined streets that some of us may have grown up on um and then also on it would be map l1 of 2. and it's it's the landscape plan but i guess you could look at any map of of this particular uh starting area and um someone mentioned just before of um how some of these homes are kind of squeezed into into lots just to just to get them in there but i'm looking at near the center bottom of the diagram and you find house number three just below and to the right of outlot a and i looked at that that home in particular home three um they walk out their back door or they're doing some work on the side of their house and um you've got three three houses sharing a lot line with them and i i know per it wouldn't be my preference to have that and i guess i would i would encourage developers even though they are working on smaller lot layouts but to try to avoid sharing a lot line with three other neighbors if you're you know whatever you're doing planting a garden or grilling out it just seems like a little more thought could go into privacy without the homeowner having to build a fence on on their own property but that's that's it for my comments thank you all right thank you jim uh commissioner wu are you uh do you have any questions or comments yeah i have a question about the utilities along 116 kendra um is it known just how disruptive it could be for the plantings there because i'm thinking about the view as you drive along 116 seeing the back of these houses and it's pretty busy and you know some i guess i wouldn't want to see them putting up a fence because they couldn't do the landscaping yet i would understand it because they because the landscape is there to screen but seeing offences kind of is not what this plan shows so do you know is there any sense of you know is the is the increased amount of landscaping that the that they're going to put in actually at risk of not going in at all no i don't think so this has kind of become a standard condition from the engineering department i am not worried since the main utility i'm trying to look as we're talking for my utility plan but then the primary utilities are on the internal streets there isn't a lot of utility work as you go down 101 there is some at the entry that might conflict with some of the gateway stuff but the the utilities are primarily coming down into horseshoe and then down to the project so i don't think it's at risk it's just as i say it's really become a standard condition from engineering as a safety net thank you yeah i don't have any other questions okay thank you meredith mr bernie camp yeah um floor is yours sir thank you sir um thank you mr chair my mike you both or all of you have done a great job discussing um a lot of my concerns too my big one is this is a pud for the first edition of um trivenia and my big thing is is we we've said it in this meeting and we've heard and seen it before that while the preservation of the trees and those kind of things 52 and such i'd really like to keep a uh a scorecard if it's possible on how well we did on first phase and that affects how much we bend and how much we do on the pud on the other phases we need to hold ourselves accountable if if we're the ones that are policing this um corcoran public works and such and we also need to hold the developer accountable also it'd really be nice to see the trees get marked the tree fence or whatever is going up to protect those trees and uh i just i did i really would like some documentation something done so we make sure we get this right um without a preservation type ordinance or stu and stuff like that and us uh working with the developers um to help them get to where they want to go and stuff we really i think our the plenty commission and i i might be speaking too much for the council and stuff we'd really like to preserve some of these things that we have um the preservation of farmland and stuff is kind of going out the window on this on this development but the preservation of the trees there are significant stands of trees out there and stuff and a lot of money and time has gone into documenting that and doing that and i would like to make sure that we some type of grade some type of uh how did we do on phase one um of the development before we even approve like phase two with pud those kind of things you understand what i'm asking kendra i think i understand i'm not sure um we do have a conservation easement over those tree areas so it should be a hundred percent so um phase one doesn't really have any tree preservation so that one would be easy but i think i know what you're getting at yes i mean if we're going to be if we're going to be excavating those kind of things i i don't see why we can't get the fence out there now to preserve all of the all of the trees and such that we're talking about this thing it's it's a one-time shot and that prevents any dozers excavators or anything from taking out trees that aren't uh aren't part of the plant yes and that is mr uh commissioner is in the conditions that that tree protection fencing needs to be up before the grading starts for exactly that reason but we'll we'll we'll find a way to track that for you in our in the in the uh in the notes and stuff is that up for the entire development or just okay all right i just i wanna we we don't have any meat that we can put to this and such again it's holding ourselves and holding the developer accountable and stuff and uh um we i want to do this right so thank you for the time thanks for listening that's all i've got mr chair all right thank you sir um you know just one comment uh to that dean i think there's probably um a great chance that they're going to probably come pretty close to that i i remember in the preliminary hearing that we had the public hearing if you look at a lot of those tree stands that they're preserving um there there's a high percentage of those are going to remain because they don't make any sense to cut down they're on hillsides or they're on the other side of wetlands and so there there's no there's no value in cutting them down um so unless for some reason they decided you know that hillside for instance on 116 that you see where all the turkeys are yeah there's no sense of cutting those trees down that's just that's that would just be dumb i i just i'm not your point is well taken i'm concerned we have nothing out there to protect this and such and uh i'd really like to get some type of word some type of uh shot across the bottle so to speak that the developers and stuff i'd really like not to start taking down trees just to prevent uh for just to prevent that going forward we've got a lot of developments a lot of land in front of us it would really be nice if we could do some type of preservation prior to we start looking at all these pieces of property and such i don't want to i don't want to see a pete's property that had 25 percent of the property had trees on it when the when the final plaque comes to us they're in a tree in sight kind of deal that's that's what i'm trying to prevent yep yep okay um well i i think um if i could speak for may i speak mr chair yes you may yeah i think um when you're talking about about thank you when you're talking about cutting down trees i think the other aspect to consider too is is just just the traffic of the heavy equipment over the drip line the death to the tree isn't immediate it can happen to up to two years or so later and so while the tree may be standing at the time um there's imminent death and so i'm i'm wondering what kind of account you know we have accountability at the time the building permits pulled and then during um site inspection but is there anything that happens um for some time after the after the building construction activities have ended um such that we're not seeing you know a lot of these trees that were supposed to be made you know kept that there but they actually die from just basically having their roots run over um is there any kind of accountability at that level kendra that happens or not well again we're kind of learning as we go we don't have a tree preservation ordinance so we don't have a lot of the any of those specifics but i think the biggest thing meredith to address that council member wu is to make sure that the tree protection fencing is properly installed properly installed tree protection fencing doesn't wrap around as you know the trunk of the tree it comes out to the drip line for exactly that reason so i think if it's properly installed we should have little damage related to construction materials i won't say it couldn't happen but i think properly installed will will minimize that kind of loss and that's really all we have we don't have a way to go back because it's not an ordinance we don't have a way to go back yeah that would be the most practical thing is just uh make sure the the fence goes far enough off from the trunk so okay any other questions discussion okay is everybody read the resolution um so before we take a vote on it does anybody have any changes or recommendations to the to the well the resolution that we're going to recommend to the city council not you jim okay i don't have i've read through it i don't have any anything to add or subtract from it no changes mr chair yes sir um with that and so i don't have to read all six pages of the resolution i uh vote to recommend um her the way the resolution is written in her notes right now okay do i have a second a second she like a second word okay natalie i'll let you i'll let you choose which one gets the second nomination on that one all right uh roll call vote um commissioner wu all right and this is this is to approve the final planned unit development plan for tavara first edition you voted aye okay all right commissioner hi commissioner sherlock aye commissioner jacobs votes i and the resolution recommendation is approved thank you very much everybody okay um next on the agenda item 6c public hearing rezoning preliminary plat and preliminary pud development plan for cook lake highlands and kendra will lead us off with her presentation please yes thank you mr chair i am you have a 20-some page staff report it's a big project i tried to hit at provide the analysis and that staff report in as concise a manner as possible and i will try the same uh with this presentation um so certainly if i go past things i know you'll ask me questions um so tonight we have a development request for rezoning a preliminary plot and a pud development plan for the property north of county road 10 on the city border i would note that inside this parcel is an exception piece that was carved out for the metropolitan council lift station that's the lift station that serves corcoran sanitary sewer lift station [Music] the applicant has been in front of the council several times in the last couple of years for council informal review of different applications the property is guided mixed residential and zoned mixed residential it is almost entirely in the shoreland overlay district for cook lake there is fema floodplain in the north portion of the site and a high quality maple bass wood forest in the northeast area our comprehensive plant plan also notes a potential rare species which is the blanding's turtle which frankly is a rare species cited in almost all of our projects in town so but it is a potential site for that this is the zoning map again for contacts the red arrow this is the site the blue box is the piece that was carved off by the met council this uh south west corner of the site is not part of the property that three acre roughly parcel is in separate ownership and then to to the south is both lions park and bass like crossing south and to the north is a low density residential and to the west is bass lake crossings which you will remember was downgraded it was re-guided from medium density residential down to low density residential for their pud in 2017. this request is to rezone from the existing mixed-use residential zoning to planned unit development as always we use the underlying zoning as the baseline for evaluation of the pud and within that rm2 zoning district all of the proposed uses are allowed except the assisted living memory care so the apartments and the single family as well as the daycare are allowed uses in that zoning district but i think since people live in an assisted living facility having that in a residential district is not unreasonable it seems to be an appropriate use conceptually in a residential pud remember a pd is a negotiated zoning district what our code says is it's intended to promote more creative development and so the question that we always ask ourselves is are we getting benefits that we would not otherwise get in exchange for pud flexibility that's being requested in order to allow the development and we need to review the development against the ordinance that's in place not the ordinance we wish we had so the staff report does review against the ordinance we have the flexibility is requested for a number of items shoreline standards for minimum lot size including minimum lot width shoreland and rmf 2 district side yard setbacks for the villas and i'll talk about these in a little more detail later shoreland and rmf two district standards for both the apartment and the senior co-op building heights shoreline maximum impervious surface coverage parking stalling and allowing things in the front yard an accessory structure in the co-op front yard and a six-foot fence in the daycare front yard and in exchange for this flexibility the applicant will provide additional landscaping beyond the ordinance minimums provide additional right-of-way for county road 10 improvements and allow that intersection improvement to move ahead which is an intersection improvement that's been planned by the county the city and maple grove this would dedicate a lot for a city booster station for our utility system it would provide easements for both the city and the metropolitan council and access along that east side beyond what would be typically provided as part of a development and would provide a mix of uses that would not otherwise be allowed under the standard zoning and would provide a welcome to corcoran monument sign at the entrance to the city the staff report includes a detailed analysis of the pud standards for the rezoning and in that analysis i've included both uh pros and cons things where we find that you could find that it does meet the pd standards in areas where you might find that perhaps it's not meeting the pud standards for the rezoning the planning commission needs to review those standards when making their recommendation tonight one of the questions that's come up from a couple different places is density density is 9.27 units per acre based on the pre-development density and the way our ordinance is written and the way we've applied this across the board for all other developments it's based on the existing land area minus wetlands and land below the 100 year flood plain and the comprehensive plan says that when you use that formula you should have 8 to 10 units per acre the there's been some discussion from folks i've heard about wanting to use a post development density um but we can't really do that and the reason is because there's so as you know there's so much that changes between this pre preliminary plaque the conditions that we apply on final plat we'd never have a real number for that and i think that's why as a general rule cities don't use that number for the analysis we use the pre-development that is something that the council could decide to change but for today this is the what the ordinance says it's particularly challenging in this case because the zoning district and the pud include uses that don't have dwelling units so everything south of the new road the daycare and the assisted living those don't have units that count against the density range the city uses the hud met council definition of a unit housing unit um and those don't qualify for that so there are some challenges with that and that's something that could be um evaluated with this pud but also for future ordinance amendments this is the pud development plan and i'm just going to spend a little time walking through it just for context so some of the comments we make later will make more sense so this is the development boundary going down to county road 10. this is the maple grove corcoran city boundary this parcel right in the dead center of the site is the met council lift station site you can see the sort of the little outline of the lift station and then there's an access road that the met council obtained an easement for running along here there's a development being planned in maple grove so we have a sub street connecting to that maple grove street and then this east-west road that connects to the as planned to the road in the bass lake crossings development this parcel here is not part of the project it's owned by someone separate the applicant has provided a ghost plant that suggests they would do single-family villas with driveways onto this road staff has concerns about that in principle so we've said let's also plan to have this street continue down here and maybe this would be a townhouse project or something other than single-family homes so they've provided that along the west side are 12 villa homes similar to what is in bass lake crossings as a way to provide a transition and density from that existing development into this project then it steps up to a three-story market rate apartment here four-story applewood co-op which is a senior cooperative building that has a pickleball court in the front yard that we'll talk about later and then down here a daycare which has a fence not only in the front yard but in the front yard setback which is also true of the pickleball court which is concerning and then a memory care unit in this location so the daycare and the memory care have a shared access road here and the apartment and the co-op have a shared access road here and then a cul-de-sac that serves the villas there is a public trail that the applicant is proposing to relocate from behind the units onto the street here and then loop around here generally in the location where the lookout is today a number of private trails that wind through the site for the use of the residents the public trail will continue along the public street down to 10. there's a sidewalk on the south side of that street that will continue and we've included a condition saying that that crosses here now and stops that really needs to continue down to 10 as well hennepin county has a future on-road trail planned along county road 10 and we want to make sure that both the sidewalk and the trail in the future can easily connect into that the gateway sign for the development is shown here and then the applicant has suggested signage for each lot generally in these locations not for the villas but for these other four products as i said there is a mix of uses i didn't highlight the shoreline overlay district on that graphic but it does cover most of the site so that is a lot of the pud flexibility or a fair amount of the puddy flexibility that's being requested this table was in the staff report and the red text highlights where the flexibility from those district standards are being requested again for the villas we're looking for foot they're looking for flexibility from the minimum lot size and minimum lot width they meet the minimum lot size for the rmf ii district but not the shoreline district and the lot with um is smaller than either the rmf ii or the shoreland i would note it is consistent with what's in bas lake crossings and bass like crossing south but again this is in the shoreline district which is kind of what triggers that flexibility the side yard setback they are requesting a five foot side yard setback again just for the villas the other uses all comply the villas is requesting a five-foot setback that is what's in bass lake crossing and bass like crossing south this is potentially an mi product so i think they were looking for the similar use in our single family districts we require 15 feet between units however in the rmf 2 district they require 10 foot side yard setbacks or 20 feet between units and then the maximum building height um the four-story senior co-op comes in at 55 feet and the three-story market rate comes in at 42 both of which exceed the 35-foot standard in our rmf-2 zoning district and the 25-foot standard in the shoreland so that is something that the planning commission will need to evaluate i would note that the shoreline district is not truly a navigable water the height limit in part is you know the view from the lake wanting to keep those structures minimized from people who are enjoying the water cook lake isn't necessarily that kind of a lake if you've been there you know it's kind of a wetland but still it is adopted as part of our ordinance so something to consider i mentioned and pointed out on the map the daycare is requesting approval for a six foot decorative fence in the front yard setback that's their play area the code would allow a four foot fence in the front yard but still needs to meet the setback requirement and and we're comfortable with the six foot fence if it meets that 25 foot front yard setback and it looks like you can kind of clip that corner and make that work so we included that as a recommendation in the draft resolution should you choose to recommend approval we also think that the pickleball court in the front yard between the city's booster station and that co-op is um in the front yard should at least be moved out of the front of the front yard setback we are actually recommending that it be moved out of the front yard meaning it should be shifted over into a side or a rear yard if you review that you note that around that pickleball court up against the street there are some retaining walls that support that pickleball court it just feels like it doesn't fit there like it's being forced into that location and up against the sidewalk up against the street doesn't seem like an ideal place for that type of activity it could be conflicts with vehicles and pedestrians potentially there are a number of retaining walls on the site as i noted in the staff report and they do vary in height from you know the highest point in one wall maybe being four feet and then another wall the high point being ten um but there is a double wall behind the cul-de-sac that essentially results in a 16 to 17 foot high wall um you know our code doesn't limit those wall heights but it does require them to be engineered um we do however require that they be moved out of the cul-de-sac out of the public right-of-way and that's a condition that's included in the engineers memo you may find that the amount of retaining wall inside suggests that perhaps there may be more appropriate uses for this to reduce the retaining wall our new city planner did such a good job mr chair putting this graphic together for you i thought i'd i'd use it but i didn't count the one she counted over in maple grove but this these red lines show the locations of the retaining wall around the pickleball court up between the street and the apartment and over here back here this is the biggest retaining wall here but we've also got retaining walls here and here and again it's not unusual as well as here not unusual to have retaining walls on the site i think i highlighted here simply because of the number and the scale of those was worth calling out and i think for the commission sometimes it's hard to see those on the plan so i wanted to highlight those this is also the area where the fence kind of clips into that setback area so again if you cut that off uh perhaps you can even reduce that wall and then this is where that pivot ball that we were just talking about is retaining walls in and of themselves are not bad at all so something just to evaluate in terms of utilities those services are available as noted by the council lift station and our booster station that are planned and that's really a big benefit of this site is they've already worked with the met council to provide that lift station site and an easement for an access back to that they've worked with the city already to provide some easements and next to that utility easement that the met council has on the east side and additionally they will donate a lot for a city booster station so those are public improvements that are significant benefits that you wouldn't otherwise get in terms of transportation as always they build the roads inside the projects but the county road 10 improvements which are a significant improvement project will be designed bid and managed by the city and the developer will pay for their portion of those county road 10 improvements um this the the um right-of-way that's dedicated for 10 that's required of all projects there is perhaps slightly more right-of-way being dedicated though because of the way the county road 10 realignment works this applicant does have a little bit more right of way that's being required to accommodate that where the two driveways align for the two buildings on the south and the two buildings on the north they're offset and anytime you have offset driveways that's an opportunity for conflict which is a nice way that engineers talk about accidents and so the engineer is really recommending that those driveways be aligned opposite each other if you look at the plan you can see that the plan cannot accommodate that as it's drafted and we have not required that it is not an engineering standard per se but we really would like to see those driveways get realigned and if other conditions result in changes to the site plan and this moves forward we would like them to continue to work on realigning that that is into the engineers memo you won't find that as a condition in the staff report so the the language is a little bit softer in the engineer's memo so these are the two driveways i'm talking about it ideally somehow those would shift so that they align across from each other as opposed to offset like this in the same way that this driveway and this potential future driveway or road and potential future driveway align uh parking uh standards are generally met in terms of number of parking stalls and location however they are requesting some beauty flexibility to allow an 18 foot stall depth rather than 18 and a half and staff has no objection to that request water lots of water water is always a big deal the storm water plants have been submitted and have been reviewed you'll note that the engineer had comments on those so those still need to be finalized the wetland mitigation plan the delineation has been approved but the mitigation plan has not yet been approved it is in process um so that just has to happen with any final plan could come through and the floodplain needs to be clearly shown on the plans again that's in the north uh west and it doesn't really impact anything but we still want to have it clearly shown on the plans as you know our code does not have a tree preservation ordinance tree preservation is not required under the code it is something however that is encouraged and as a result we require people to submit a tree preservation plan with all developments on the right side of the screen you see the tree preservation plan the applicant shows that 11 of the wooded areas are being preserved and that really falls up here in the very north and then within this wetland zone adjacent to cook lake landscaping complies there are a couple of the lots that are a little bit short overall the landscaping exceeds our ordinance requirements but there's a couple of lots that are two trees short on one and four shrubs short on another but again we'd like to see those added but overall they're exceeding the landscaping they did ask for some setback flexibility along county road 10 however and that landscaping is not shown on the plans that does have to be added to the plans we would support the parking reduction from 100 to 50 feet with that additional landscaping as required by section 1060 of the ordinance that's not pud flexibility that's just allowed by the ordinance with the landscaping the building design we just don't have enough information detailed information about the building to ensure compliance at this time but the images do suggest that it will comply with the building design standards generally our code in the southeast district looks for people to provide architecture that's agrarian arts and crafts farmhouse or prairie style and you see some of that with some of these options others are more just standard corporate their corporate standard for design for those individuals and i'm going to show those images on the next slide here but uh i just a note again related to architecture and building design that the building height for the apartment and the co-op do need a flexibility uh to exceed the shoreland and rmf ii districts this is a rendering of a concept for the applewood point condominium the senior co-op not condominium and if you've seen these projects they do a wonderful job i think on the architecture of the buildings there's a lot of interest on on the different elevations they have a lot of windows and porches that add interest so the brick and the mix of siding and stone and things along with the building articulation appears to comply with our ordinance we just don't have enough information about what those materials are the percentage breakdown etc but it does appear to comply and then here's a concept for what their signage might look like again limited to the size in the ordinance this is the apartment the market rate apartment doesn't have a design yet these are some concepts that the applicant provided to give an example of the work that this builder and potential architect do i know these are all showing as four-story buildings but the idea was to provide some sense of architecture these four examples aren't necessarily if they're in a more urban area they don't really reflect the more rural architecture so i think if this were to go ahead we'd want to see a little bit different um design flavor in the southeast district but the materials appear to be consistent with our ordinance standards um oops uh this is not an apartment these are the villas and the examples provided by the architect are mi homes these are just like the homes you see next door so if the project went ahead it's possible that mi would be the builder of the villas and so we'd see similar product as we did next door this is the new horizon daycare example again the mix of materials generally appears to comply with our ordinance requirements signage maybe the signage may not comply we have a pretty restrictive sign ordinance i don't think they'll be allowed this much signage on the building don't have any real details about the freestanding sign but this is a concept for what the new horizons could look like again generally consistent with our standards our southeast district would look for a little more prairie style architecture but but generally consistent and then this is the sweet living assisted living facility again i think it's all concept at this stage this is a similar product to what they've got in other places this one does seem to fall a little bit short in terms of our mix of materials they have good articulation on the building a lot of roof so this one again i think it's a decent start but would probably need to have some revisions in order to comply with our code so we've included conditions to deal with the architecture in the draft resolution for approval should you choose to move there parks and trails parks and trails did review this at their february meeting the request as i noted earlier was a request to move this existing trail which is shown in pink to an on-road trail here coming out and connecting in this general location and the comprehensive plan shows it as an off-road trail that was provided by bass lake crossings as part of their development they obtained an easement from this uh landowner to do so and the applicant is now requesting that they'd be allowed to relocate the planning commission voted four to one not to allow that they recommended that the trail remain where it is if the trail did remain where it is it would impact five lots it's possible it would only impact three homes perhaps um perhaps 11 and 12 the homes could remain on the lots with an easement behind them and so our staff report uh includes in the draft resolution for approval includes the parks commission recommendation which is not to move the trail that would require changes to the plan layout additionally there are good pedestrian connections within this project they've done a nice job the trail follows the north side of the street all the way down to 10. the sidewalk as i said follows the south side of the street we did include a condition saying it does need to connect down to 10. and then if the trail does not relocate we would want to see a sidewalk on the new cul-de-sac within the project itself there are a number of sidewalk and trail connections so that residents can move easily between the public street and the different buildings homes uh within the project and um it appears that the uh from public safety that the fire access lanes um for the buildings are met they will finalize that as the plans or finals but those fire and access lanes particularly those around the co-op can also be used for pedestrians they don't uh hopefully they don't get used often by emergency vehicles and so they're free for pedestrians to use as well and that's part of that internal system uh park dedication in the mixed use or the mixed residential district is 28 of the pre-development area for uh land which would be 5.9 acres of land or cash in loop in this case none of the trails are eligible for park dedication credit um and there's no proposed park so park dedication would be cash in lieu of land with an estimate of about 648 thousand dollars that calculation would be finalized and due at the time the final flat is released this is the plat so we have four lots for the four column big users a large outlot in the back for the wetland area and then the 12 lots proposed for the villas along with some excess land adjacent to this exception parcel and some other small outlaws over here the preliminary plot includes therefore 16 lots and five out lots and in terms of the preliminary plot and does it comply with the subdivision ordinance that's all you're really looking for on the preliminary plot it does not because it needs flexibility and if you grant the flexibility it would be consistent with the ordinance but needs flexibility for the villa lot size it meets the rmf two standards again but not the shoreline that fill a lot with the and the five-yard setbacks for villas where 10 is required in the rmf ii district again it's a it's a significant report um that is my summary you have a high level of discretion in approving a pud and the commission must find that the purpose and intent of the pud as outlined in the ordinance has been met and this is a difficult project to review there are a number of great things about this project it brings some uses that we need into the city it's got some quality architecture but there's also some challenges to the site we have drafted a resolutions that would allow you to recommend approval of the request that include changes that we believe are necessary to meet the city standards and i note that the changes would result in significant site plan changes that trail staying where it is for example is a pretty significant impact on the site however uh you we have also prepared for you a resolution for denial if you believe that the purpose and intent of the pud has not been met so mr chair we do have the applicant here i think it makes sense before we open the public hearing to allow the applicant to do a short presentation but then we should open the public hearing and take public comments i note that all um letters and emails that were received prior to the planning commission packet going out were included in your packet and then any that were received between the packet and and and yesterday were emailed to commissioners so we did receive a number of comments those have been entered into the public record as if they were read into the public record they will all of those comments and any new written comments will also be forwarded to the city council and then the as i said the commission has two options after the public hearing to consider that are included in your packet but mr chair if you if you have questions for me i'd be happy to answer them otherwise i would um pull up the applicant's uh presentation and uh uh share that and allow her to give a summary thank you kendra much appreciated it and you're right difficult things a lot of things to do and i'm sure you and your professional staff uh put a lot of time into this and we appreciate that um and of course you know that when we get going and we start talking and go on and on and on so i'll i i like your recommendation to um let the applicant go ahead and make their presentation before we start uh commission discussion so mr yeah just a quick question we've we've seen things we've seen presentations for this property before why why were they denied do we do we know that uh i don't believe the planning commission has seen any applications on this the council has seen sketch plans and they provided feedback that the applicant used to prepare this plan okay all right thanks okay so who who who do we have that's going to be presenting from the applicant um beth hustad should be raising her hand natalie if you want to watch for her and let her in oh sorry i didn't go according to the plan um i'm here on camera hello uh chair and and commission members i'm beth houstead with truck development thank you kendra very much for um [Music] a thorough presentation and i know there's a lot of information um with this project but um you did a great job so thank you um uh i am the developer and the applicant and yes i just to quickly address the um the previous concept sketches have really been for um for feedback from council and and i have received some some feedback this particular uh proposal before you today is different in that it does have less density it has a an added memory care that wasn't there before but we have proposed a daycare before and we have proposed higher density apartments and actually even a higher density or more units um with the applewood so this is 198 units and some of the projects before the proposals have been much more dense um i am uh have a quick question just to ask you i i've been asked to kind of keep this brief i'd also like to uh one of the our team members from applewood alex hall would like the opportunity to give you a little bit more detail um on the applewood product and and and i i think that would be a nice opportunity tonight if if you all are willing to do that so um okay okay can i just stop here for a second yes what what are we looking at okay great sorry thank you kendra this might this okay so this is my first slide and and the reason it's up is first of all i wanted to just explain to you that i have um been fairly intricately involved in the this particular neighborhood of corcoran in this area and of maple grove i am as a both a real estate broker and a developer i have represented landowners i did represent mi homes in the purchase of rich's acres and the tumi property next door so i am very familiar with the guiding and the uses and i was uh involved in the uh in the original entitlements of the markets at rush creek um so i just wanted to to show you this concept because in 2009 the owners of this property the shomers they actually sent a letter to the city of corcoran accompanied by this sketch plan um they they retained a professional land planner to assist them in preparing a formal written request for a land use change uh prior to the 2030 comprehensive plan update um the it has high density on it it shows high density it shows senior campus it shows medium density and it shows some twin homes medium low density and then actually potentially developing that northwest point that we are proposing to to to leave open um the letter that the that the schomers wrote um referenced the reason some of the reasons for them wanting to re-guide their property to this mixed residential medium density mixed residential was because of the growth in the area so they i think we're all pretty familiar with um i've been in this business a long time i've never seen so many rooftops being developed in one area as i have you know from from highway 55 north here um and then they also referenced the fact that the markets at rush creek was being developed they referenced the the upgrades of both 101 and best lake road and the new intersection and and then they referenced the traffic counts uh projected traffic counts on cassaten which is bass lake road apparently they were projected to be about 14 000 average daily trips a day and i don't know where it's at right now i know that it's increased and then they referenced the amenity the the wetlands the open space and and the the long views um of cook lake and then rush creek golf course um so the 2030 land use guideline was adopted and the schomer property was guided medium density mixed residential um the surrounding properties uh to the to the west oh thank you this so you can see that the slash the orange uh uh and i just really wanted to um make sure everybody understood that that most of the neighbors most of the the adjacent properties around this project are guided in the 2030 guide plan as mixed residential in fact the lions park which is directly to the south of um of this piece is actually mixed use so um i just wanted to kind of reiterate some of what's happened with some of those products um adjacent to the west is the bass lake crossing project that was guided medium density mixed residential it was approved as a pud and down down zoned as as kendra had mentioned to low density and to the southwest across the uh bass lake road is backslide crossing south that was also guided medium density and mixed residential and approved pud zoned low density and i believe industrial for the self storage that was approved there and then the property to the north the chastic and the gear property uh is is currently rural i believe and um guided low density and so the idea was that when we when we left the open space to on the northwest corner of the site not only did it did is it um serving up a ponding area preserving some trees but it left a view corridor and a view a view shed for very similar to what basslight crossings did adjacent to it so it sort of continued that same open view corridor and then it also serves as a nice transition to the low density residential to the north um again i mentioned that the the property directly to the south of our project is guided mixed use and um and that is the lions park and adjacent in maple grove directly to the east is um where we are making a connection into maple grove both via an off-road trail which i'd like to talk about briefly but also um our 73rd will turn will be their 74th so we are um we are making that connection so that they can also come out and use the intersection uh at best at brockton lane um and then you know i think everybody knows that there's mixed uh use that the the markets at rush creek was a mixed-use project there's a there's a four-story uh along county road 10 a four-story senior havenwood continuum of care product there um there is also uh medium density and high density housing lennar has some medium density townhouses adjacent kitty corner to us and then some apartments so i think that was probably the idea when this property was guided originally guided mixed residential and medium density so we do have a significant amount of adjacent properties and properties across the street that have been guided and approved as mixed residential and medium density and again kendra you did a great job of explaining but i'd like to just reiterate that we do have a fair amount of public benefit that we i i call i call it um i think i've mentioned it maybe in my in my narrative but we do have pinching points on this site and there are several of them and um one of them being the lift station that does also benefit future development and corridor development for the greater community of corcoran um we have easements 15 uh feet of easements for the city for utilities and 15 feet of easements for met council that that combined there is a 30 foot easement along the east property line um and then and then the intersection and the cassat 10 and uh kendra did mention that also it is about an additional in i think originally it's 40 feet but we were required to give an additional 20 feet along that corridor uh in order to resolve the a curve in the road that they find to be a safety issue a safety concern on cassatt 10. so we felt that that also was you know a benefit to the community because it will provide for future development and corridor development and upgrade transportation corridors so um and and then i think that i'd like to just briefly talk about the trail i did not understand that the off-road was as important to everybody as i i've you know very quickly learned um at the time we did give mi homes they wrote a letter to me uh an email and i did pass that on to staff that you know i had we had given them an easement because we were trying to be collaborative and cooperative and i said to john or am i homes at the time you know we're going to have a we might have to move that trail and at the time i didn't think it was going to take us so long to get to this and there wouldn't be people living there um i i did um i i was just hopeful we could we could adjust it but it really did come into our site fairly significantly in order to avoid the wetland um my thoughts are there might be a solution if we were to um allow or if the city were to allow there there is a 25 foot buffer around all of this wetland that we have and the 25 feet is developable property it's not wetlands it's a it's a wetland buffer but it is usable property and my suggestion would be to consider um slight that the trail would still be in the back of these houses it would still be off-road it would be in the back of the excuse me the properties uh it would not be in the way of the pads um so that would be um a possibility and um so i just wanted to make that suggestion the other comment that i wanted to make about the trails is that we and kendra had mentioned that they were private but we are proposing that they be public and that they be off-road and they be for the community and that trail um starts kendra in the northwest corner uh at the mi uh right there and then runs along the back side of the multi-family and then on to the what is required as a fire a 20-foot fire lane around the um the united properties uh applewood building and what we've also done is then would like to connect it into an off-road trail that maple grove has just finally approved this past week for the adjacent property and then that would run along also along cook lake and it would just continue into maple grove but it would be a really nice trail system that everybody could use so that is something that we are proposing um it does has taken a little bit of collaboration and cooperation i i met with i've been meeting with for several months probably a year now with met council in order to make sure that we uh have uh easement language and that we can cooperate and collaborate on the use and maintenance of that uh 20 foot fire lane because they need access uh to the lift station so we're all trying to work together so that we don't have um you know that we that we kind of multi-use and multi-purpose uh some of this bituminous roadway and fire lane so that's been it's been a good effort and i think we've made some progress so um but that said i i think um i just wanted sort of to conclude to say that i think that um that our design for cook lake uh highlands addresses multiple elements which are consistent and align well with the framework uh and the guidelines and the goals of the corcoran 2040 land use plan and i i've looked at it i've studied it and i think um that our site is addressing a significant amount of what the city is trying to accomplish in their in their land use plan um we are asking for some things but we are also being um like i said pinched kind of from every angle so we're we're trying to do the best um with the cost of our infrastructure and the cost that that we're kind of being strapped with on this site so um with that said i i i think there was a one comment that i wanted to address about about the difficulty of this site i think one person may have misunderstood that uh i that i may have said that it wasn't a single family wasn't viable on this site because it was too difficult that's not what i meant what i meant was that it's difficult to put single-family homes on this site in this location because of the distance of the schools and most families that live in single-family homes want to be able to be near the schools and the school district um you know that their children will go to and this the high school is nine miles away the rockford high school so that's that um is it's another challenging element of this site um so i i am i'm here for for questions i i also i'm just hoping that um that we can have an opportunity once you do have a public hearing to be able to respond and i i would appreciate that very much at this time i'd like to introduce alex hall with united properties alex uh good evening i apologize i was supposed to wave i can everyone hear me yes yes we can okay all right uh well uh good evening uh mr chair and rest of the planning commissioners um and thank you kendra for the uh for the overview i just wanted to spend um a few minutes and i'll go quickly i know it's been a long evening here just giving you a little background on um our appwood point uh co-ops because it is a little bit of a different type of housing and i'm not going to assume that everyone is familiar with that um i don't know uh kendra if you had the slide presentation that kind of started with the app would point yep exactly so if we could click through uh to the next slide um united properties uh uh for those of you that are not familiar with us we've been in business since uh for about a hundred years now and my uh senior housing group uh develops three types of senior housing uh properties one is uh our cherrywood point which is our assisted living brand the point uh which is a 55 plus rental and then our app would point which is our most popular and that is our senior co-op and that's what we're proposing uh and working with beth on for this site the next slide so as you can see around the twin cities here uh we've developed uh to date about 16 uh senior co-ops um two of which are uh are just um to the east over in maple grove those would be the two closest and then a little bit further north we've developed a couple up in champlain all of these are 100 uh sold out uh with no vacancies and then we're uh we're pursuing we're selling uh three additional ones right now as well as looking at this uh this corcoran site uh next slide um so just to give you a little background on what a co-op is it is for sale housing i think it's important to note that um that it isn't rental in fact the bylaws uh prohibit renting so it's owner occupied one owner has to be 62 or over and what we offer what makes it different than a condo a condominium is in in a condo you go out and and obtain your own financing with a senior co-op we get a master mortgage so it's a hud guaranteed or insured master mortgage and then what we do it's a 40-year master mortgage which helps keep the monthly costs down helps make it relatively affordable and we offer four equity tiers so you come in and pick from the low point 20 percent down on up to 80 percent down and then the balance comes out of that hud master mortgage it's a two percent annual fixed appreciation so it's not market uh it doesn't uh necessarily um fluctuate uh with the market but stays very predictable at that two percent fixed depreciation so someone on a waiting list for example knows what that unit uh will sell for you know three five years down the road and then all of our apwood point communities are professionally managed some of the benefits that uh we feel uh that a co-op brings to a city and we sell we really say it helps keep a youthful uh city uh because it it offers an option it's another housing option uh for a city and and uh you know it's it's uh we found that uh you'll have citizens that are residents who have lived in your community for many many years and they want to stay in in that community that's where they've raised their families that's where their friends are and um and and if you don't offer them a good quality option then they tend to stay in their homes longer than they might normally choose and and so we find that that a co-op is typically going to pull 60 percent of its occupant occupants from within a five mile radius that's going to free up homes uh within that primary market area newer families come in with school-age kids and and then ultimately that adds to the tax base through the housing itself as well as potential reinvestment into sold single-family homes next slide um traffic i know is always a big one uh a big discussion point and uh we have had to do traffic studies uh for just about every senior co-op that we have developed and and so we do have some very good history on on the product and it's a very low traffic uh generator um uh we the studies indicate uh less than four uh 3.7 uh trips per day for a senior co-op the seniors don't need to leave during peak rush hours so they avoid those peak hours and if you compare that to apartments condos or single family homes you can see that the trips per day are a lot less than any of the multi-family alternatives when you look at an apartment or a condo and this is really what we're addressing here um and it's worth pointing out that we've been operating in the last 20 years uh with this 70 plus demographic growing at a 75 uh clip and when you look at the next 25 years this demographic is is really exploding and we're looking at uh projected 125 percent growth in the senior population and so this is just one um good uh alternative to provide that housing for the seniors we did do a market study specifically uh looking at a five year five mile radius of this site here in corcoran and um and what came up in the study was that in in the five mile radius we've seen a just under a 25 percent growth uh in in overall uh households uh within the five mile radius but uh a an increase of um almost 120 percent in in the senior segment and and so these seniors are going to be looking for alternatives and in the case of a co-op what we're able to offer is is that sense of community unlike town homes or other low maintenance housing options next slide um so what we're uh what we're proposing here is 100 market uh rate co-op units um i i shouldn't say uh market rate they're actually a a a a fixed equity rate cooperative unit we'll have 14 home styles ranging in size from just under 1300 square feet up to the largest unit at about 1900 another differentiator between this and a condo is the uh are the extensive common areas in a condo you typically have an elevator lobby and maybe one party room that you can rent in any in these uh co-ops we have very extensive uh common areas a great room that will uh seat uh the the majority of the uh of the uh residents common area library club room um and then we do include down in the lower level a hobby shop as well there's one underground um parking space for each unit and in this case we'll be exceeding the required parking ratio here at 1.9 units or stalls per unit here is an overview of the co-op here and i think it's worth pointing out first of all we have removed that pickleball uh court so i know that's something that kendra brought up and and we looked at this uh last week with our architect and i would agree completely that we like the idea of putting a pickleball court in but we just don't have the room here the grades uh tend to drop off to the northeast or you enter that lift station and and this site just is not an ideal site for a pickleball court so that's going to be eliminated but i think what's worth noting here is um i i know there was some references or at least one reference to the cork to the champlain co-op that that we built um and talking about the size or mass of that co-op and and that sits on a long rectangular uh site and and so what you tend to see is the entire co-op as you drive by and and really the advantage of the beauty of this layout uh with this u-shaped um co-op is uh when you look from the really any direction you're just seeing a piece of the co-op as you can see when you're on bass lake road looking north for the most part you're just going to see that smaller east-west wing and um and when you're looking from the west to the east really you're going to be seeing the ends of these wings and then the inner courtyard so with the design i i feel pretty strongly that it minimizes uh kind of the mass of the um of the project uh next slide uh here we took a a look at this this is working with the current architect the design we're pursuing which we feel is is very attractive uh next slide um here is maple grove in fact this is arbor lakes the last uh the latest co-op that's been open for just over a year this is a shot of the interior of of the maple grove co-op the next slide uh some exterior shots this one in fact is champlain and egan eagan in the upper right champlain uh which just opened um about two years ago and i think that's it one last uh thing to note um there there is some confusion i think when we look at some of the other senior communities like havenwood that's an assisted living project that is not in any way competitive with what we're doing here ours is a for sale independent with no services where that's a a rental with services so um we have uh just for your information uh within a five mile uh or a six mile i should say radius there are four existing co-ops uh just over 300 units and out of those 300 units there's only one uh unit available so great great demand for the product so with that thank you very much for your time and at any point i will be available for questions great thank you alex and beth great presentations and and we sure appreciate you uh taking the time to um to share those those insights with us um uh so at this point um what we're going to do is we're going to open up the public hearing and natalie can give everybody instructions on how to get in line to speak if i may before we begin that i know that there's uh um there there were a number of emails uh i was on the site yesterday talked to a a couple of couples that were out walking on the trail and and it seems to me that there are a lot of common uh themes to what some of the concerns might be relative to this project and in the best interest of time and whatnot if if you are um if you hears of someone that has addressed that issue um and it is the same as yours if you would maybe be so kind to to let it just stand on the record after the public comment section our professional staff will have an opportunity to address your questions and to the extent that our applicant can we will do that for those questions that we cannot answer at this point there will certainly be a follow-up after that but um if er you know if 20 people want to tell us the same thing um it's not going to do much as far as add value to the discussion so but if you really feel uh the urge to speak by all means we're going to give you that opportunity so uh natalie if you would move forward uh with instructions for the public hearing i'd appreciate it thank you mr chair so uh if you would like to participate in the public hearing i ask that you raise your utilize the raise your hand function if you're joining us by phone this can be done by pressing star 9 if you're joining us via computer if you scroll over the bottom of your screen there should be a toolbar with the reactions option and you'll should be able to access ray's hand through that and then i've also heard that some tablets and mobile devices you can only access it by opening the participants tab we will ask you to state your name and address for the record and ask for a five minute time limit per speaker so we already have some hands raised we will start with steve mueller i will request to unmute you right now and i'll take care of lowering your hand mr mueller okay can you hear me yes go ahead and state your name and address please my name is steve mueller i live at seven four seven fur lane and thank you natalie and thank you to the commission for the opportunity to speak i'm fortunate to be able to speak and i appreciate the opportunity to be the first neighbor to speak after beth husted's presentation because i'm a homeowner in bass lake crossing and i probably can summarize the thoughts of the vast majority of the neighborhood on both sides of bass lake road we basically have four major concerns and one practical and viable suggestion we will have 149 single-family homes between both sides of bass lake grove therefore the development of cook lake highlands and its impact is extremely important to our homes and neighborhood the consensus in the neighborhood is primarily four major areas of concern number one we suggest no rezoning to achieve more units from the current mixed residential this would include any rezoning to commercial for the daycare and memory care either leave it as mixed residential or you could even follow mni homes example and rezoned downward for the single family homes our second concern is interesting because we just revised this two days ago after we read page 87 of the planning commission packet we originally were going to suggest limiting the applewood point senior co-op to the zoning maximum height of three stories from the proposed four stories however this property as you now know includes a shoreland overlay district from cook lake with the applicable zoning in section 1050.20 of the city code the shoreline overlay standards limit the maximum building height to 25 feet therefore even a three-story applewood would be too tall no building should be over two stories number three it appears a rental department should not be in this proposal based on the long-term vision and the city comprehensive plans ron thomas the former mayor said last fall the rental apartments are designated to be in the corcoran town center development if you read page 46 and the 2040 comprehensive plan you will find clearly defined zoning definitions of mixed residential versus mixed use as in the 200 acre corcoran town center development therefore based on the city's vision the city's 20 40 comprehensive plans and the mixed residential zoning definition cook lake highland should be a 100 percent ownership look at page 46 of the 2040 comp plan under the definition of mixed residential zoning you will not find the word apartments and here's our last concern we would like to keep our existing two-year asphalt trail without removal revision or relocation kendrick talked earlier about the pod pro proposal to relocate the trail and as you know trek development already did go to the parks and trails meeting on february 18th trying to remove eight hundred feet of his existing trail and relocated 80 percent of the commission rejected the proposal one final thought trek development proposes 198 total units azarene and beth houstead's letter either in the planning packet or the parks and trail packet she talks about 20 buildable acres 20 net buildable acres but when she discusses it she conveniently and erroneously includes the commercial daycare and memory care acreage so subtract that out and you have an incredible 198 units and just net 15 net buildable acres comparing apples to apples they propose 198 units plus a day care plus a memory care and only 27 total acres basset crossing has only 95 units and 53 total acres so cook lake highlands would have over twice the units plus a day care plus a memory care and half the total acreage yes twice the units plus a day care plus a memory care and half the total acreage so here's our suggestion as a viable suggestion it appears that the entire development can be rezoned downward to single-family homes or otherwise create a smooth transition from bass lake crossing with single-family homes followed by two-story townhouses so in summary we advocate no rezoning comply with the shoreline overlay standard which mandates no building taller than two stories no apartments and please leave our existing trail just as it is and reiterating a practical solution is either all single-family homes or otherwise transition from bass lake crossing with single-family homes followed by two-story town homes we would hope that bethesda of trek development will consider the changes and comments so that she can proactively move forward and develop her cook lake highlands thank you again for letting me speak okay mr mueller thank you very much um um natalie yes we have uh one more speaker raising their hand at this time lynn alberts i'll request that you're unmuted and go ahead and state your name and address for the record when you're ready lynn you are muted okay can you hear me now yes okay my name is lynn alberts and i live at 7490 furlane and you've you've already got a copy of my letter but i would just like to give you a little history on what originally happened when i looked to purchase this land in 2018 this 27 acres was zoned rsf3 single family and two family residential basically if you go back and read the letter the city of maple grove made a mistake on their official zoning map so all the homeowners based up they faced their position on that 27 acres being single family and two family residential mr alberts mr alberts yes yeah say maybe you can let's just back up for a quick second and clarify you said that you said that maple grove made an error on there corcoran corcoran okay all right so you can read the letter i just want to make sure everybody reads this letter because basically corcoran made a mistake on the official zoning map that official zoning map in the 2040 plan still shows rsf 3 for that 27 acres okay the also i would like to say their proposal is a new horizon day care center there's currently two day care centers within a quarter of a mile of this location so i'm just wondering why they would need another daycare location are also the hampton memory care havenwood is within a quarter of a miler and i call them they also have a memory care unit so i'm not sure what the purpose of having that would be my concern is if the city allows these two parcels to be brazilian commercial what would be built on the three acres at the entrance of basset crossing the other item i have is the comp plan states that we're in the shoreline overland district the the 2040 plan states on page 46 residential development within or adjacent to environmentally sensitive areas will be guided as low density residential to reduce the development impacts to these areas cook lake is classified as a natural environment lake which has a highest level of environmental protection in the shoreline incidents only 11 percent of the woodland area is being preserved the last item i would like to talk about is if on the on the cook lake highlands the property next to it uh to the east in maple grove it's the development's called edge water on cook lake this property is similar to cook lake highlands it has a total of 27 gross acres has a net acres of 19.05 they are proposing a total of 58 single-family houses this equates to three units per acre and basic crossing also has three acres per unit so basically you're trying to jam all this the high density between two properties that are at three units per acre i guess i would like to say if you look at this development as the interest of corcoran is this what you want people to see when they first enter the city of corcoran thank you for letting me call thank you mr alberts uh and again uh after this uh hopefully maybe um uh our professional staff can address uh some of your uh some of your questions directly okay natalie yeah i'm sorry yes dean just real quick i just i want to make it just a general straight statement we're not trying to cram or do anything um against anybody that lives in corcoran we are reviewing this property and possibly looking at going to a pud we are not jamming cramming we are not doing anything we are listening very intensely we are all residents of corcoran we're all volunteers on this commission so it just i get a little a little upset when when folks start talking we're gonna cram and we're gonna do stuff we aren't doing that we will not okay thank you thank you sir all right natalie do we have a uh a third yes uh so i do have someone raising their hand uh the screen name is al bolin i will request that you are unmuted oh she unmuted herself or he or she and go ahead and state your name and address for the record hi my name is lori bolen i am a resident of bass lake crossing my address is 19336 74th avenue and you know i just want to go on record saying you know i i am for development i want everybody to have safe places to live i want our community to be a community that is attractive and a place for everybody right now i'm my one of my main concerns is if we add more housing more high-density housing what is the traffic going to be like on bass lake road right now it's it's already getting horrendous trying to get when i try to leave to go to work or come home and i'm fearful that adding that much more we've already got a lot of apartments being built we've got the um senior housing on the corner of bath lake road and 101 and i'm i'm just fearful of what adding even more is going to do to to the road system thank you okay thank you miss boland natalie i'm not seeing anyone else raise their hand at this time we might want to give it a couple of seconds sure all right i'm seeing someone clap and when this happened last meeting that meant they were trying to raise their hand so let me figure out who's clapping one second okay i'm assuming it's michael go ahead and save your name and address for the record michael schumer i live at 7724 uh park but the uh the land that we're talking about with shomer land and just so people understand the old farm place that's east of this property which was which was the shomer land uh uh the city maple grove they basically told them because of the problem that they had with their water that they could only have single-family homes homes right there not so there's no reason uh they wanted to go a little bit higher density and that stuff and and they actually could have as far as with the land wise and that stuff but but the city wouldn't let them so because of this notion that that you're putting something in the middle that's way bigger than the properties on both sides i mean to me this is a plus uh the the counter row 10 is going to be a four-lane highway for the woman that was worried about traffic it's basically coming i've lived on the farm from birth and i'm 74 years old now and and if you want to see changes i've seen a lot of changes in that in that time and you know maybe good or bad whatever you want to call it and that stuff and that but it's not going to stay the same and i think with what the property is going to be right there and then if someone takes a look at you say you wow we're coming into corker and you look at that development look at the uh the units right there and that uh you know i don't i i don't think this is going to hurt the homes to the east or to the west and all that stuff and it's got nothing to do with it i don't know i don't know you know sometimes people hate a little bit of a change in that but we've been working this property for sale since 2009 when everything was still pretty bad with with the downplay in the in the in the the economy and everything and uh beth houston has been working with the city with many different plans over the years you have to basically accommodate with what some of corcoran wants and as far as i'm concerned that this is a beautiful plant if you take a look at it i i don't know how anybody can say it doesn't look good anyway anyway that's my two cents thank you thank you mr schumer um and then i don't see any raised hands at this time oh let me see uh jerry tucker is clapping so i'm gonna request that he'd be unmuted and go ahead and state your name and address for the record thank you natalie i don't have the hands up function on my zoom so i had to clap my name is jerry tucker i live at seven four zero two furlane fur lane in corcoran mr chairman commissioners kendra miss used that mr hall thank you for taking time to listen to me tonight i have questions but before i get to questions i want to state i'm not opposed to development either as long as it's the right kind of development and i don't think this is one of them secondly i am ambivalent about the trail so whether or not it gets moved is immaterial to me because i would suggest that miss houston sit down with commissioners and some of the best lake crossing in some residents and some of the city officials and let's talk this out i've known since i first looked at my property and oh by the way if you look at your maps in your in your packet i'm the infamous lot 16 that sits right next to 74th avenue and has the trail running around my house and so i i would argue with even with my neighbors that my property is going to be the most affected by this development whether it's noise congest congestion dirt traffic whatever the case may be but i'm not opposed to development if it's the right kind of development and this is not clearly to me not the right kind of development but i will trust your judgment as far as what needs to be done now questions i'd like to know who the builder is that's going to build these these uh villas uh because i'm i'm my main concern is uh property value if the if it's houston selects a builder that slaps in some 250 000 town homes you know that's going to have a negative effect on my property value and and to my knowledge mni homes is not going to be the builder of these and so i'd like to know who is and i'd also like to know what the suggestions are as far as shared costs of a shared access intersection if if ms houston is referring to 75th or 74th and furlane i'm sorry it's her development let her pay for the cost of a shared access intersection i shouldn't have to do that and and would be not upset if i had to so those are my two big questions and other people from the neighborhood have said the other things that i was interested in saying so i'll just say thank you and be quiet okay mr tucker thank you very much um um okay i see a thumbs up we're getting creative with our our hand raising so uh looks like sm zappa go ahead and state your name and address for the record hi this is sue zappa thank you for listening to me i live at 7482 furley um i had been the one that has talked a lot about the trails that are existing currently for neighborhood but i did notice and maybe this question is addressed more at alex at this point when i looked at the applewood point fire lane behind this building beth had said that that would be used also as public trails well i noticed that on one of his drawings there it said chain link fence chain link gate excuse me and i'm not into leaping over fences or gates to go on a walk and so that has me concerned about what really is going to happen there the other thing is with the number of units they've got there this is probably for the planning commission do we have a fire department that can handle that amount of new units right now so i guess a question this to alex and just the comments about our fire department services thank you thank you mrs zappa um i'm sure there's probably an answer for some of those questions that can be addressed as soon as the public hearing is closed so okay natalie anybody else yep ron nelson uh go ahead and state your name and address for the record perfect yeah ron nelson uh my address is 7451 hickory lane in corcoran a new resident to the area and i just had a comment and a question i guess my comment is about the park commission and the height requirement i think that should be considered an out of the box reason to reject the the issue uh outstanding and then i guess my question is along the lines of property values of course we're always concerned about that as residents who have built a new home and come into the area i don't know what the average selling price would be of the co-ops or if there's a comparison to some previously built co-ops but that would be a concern if those co-ops are 150 000 co-ops that's certainly going to have a dramatic effect on the values of properties and the desired for somebody who wants to buy a half million dollar house to be right next to a hundred thousand dollar co-op so that's my question thank you for the opportunity okay mr nelson thank you um and i don't see anyone raising their hand at this time can wait a couple more seconds though so far a pretty uh pretty wide range of of of questions i haven't heard a lot of redundancy so agreed i a lot of curiosity and and uh questions out there so that's good mr chair yes sir um just real quick i want to thank everybody that talked um keeping it precise and limited and stuff and non-repetitive and if there's no other people raising their hands natalie i would make a motion to close a public hearing no one's raising their hand or uh doing other emoticons so okay we have a motion to close the public hearing do i have a second i'll second it okay uh all those in favor of closing the public hearing please notify by if i call your name on the roll call vote uh commissioner wu hi commissioner varenkamp hi commissioner hi and commissioner jacobs i as well this public hearing is now closed all right um kendra um i i i of course i'm going to give you the first uh swing at answering as many of those as you care to uh as you're prepared to um and then if there are some that are i mean like that last question the value of the co-op units i i had it as a question but if there's uh some of those things that are left better for the developer to uh to answer then after you completed we'll give the developer a chance to answer those unanswered questions so yes i think both the first two speakers had a statement about rezoning to commercial and i just want to clarify we're not rezoning to commercial the daycare is allowed in the rmf 2 district the assisted living is not but would be appropriate in a pud because people do live there it's a residential zoning district in my opinion and so the rezoning is actually to pud pud is a zoning district so no re-guiding is required because the uses are all allowed in the residential district the rmf2 district so it's a rezoning to planned unit development or pud there was a question about traffic on bass lake road our city engineer has reviewed that as has hennepin county and uh there are road improvements required at the intersection but that the traffic volumes are consistent with this um what with what this road is intended to carry um kendra kendrick just real quick so those road improvements we're talking about just lanes right but we're not talking about signals um there is a long term there is a traffic signal i do not believe and beth can correct me if i'm wrong i don't believe this signal is part of this um improvement i think this improvement is just the turn lanes um uh being built with this project okay i was actually looking for the there was a feasibility stun study done for beth's project [Music] at some point in the past and i don't i'm having trouble putting my hands on that but i can confirm that before the council meeting i think it's just the churn lanes there was a question about um who is the builder of the villas um and i'm gonna i think the developer should answer that i'm not certain if somebody's under contract or not so i don't want to say for certain there was a question about who's paying for the intersection again that is the developer the city is not paying for that the city will design it bid it and manage it but the developer will pay all those costs including the city staff time um there was a question about the fire lane that slash access lane so on the east side of the property there's an existing road that the met council built to access the lift station and if this project proceeds the the met council will allow this developer to also use that as a fire lane and then extend it around the north side of applewood point so it'd be a 20-foot wide fire lane for emergency vehicles the question was um why would it why is there a gate there the reason there's a gate there is when the road is that big we do not want random vehicles driving back there so we always use some sort of a block whether it's a gate a fence or bollards that would that would stop people from going back there obviously bollards don't work because we need vehicles to go back there so the gate is planned to protect access back there but would still allow pedestrian access on the sides or a different method to get through that gate so pedestrian access would be allowed can the fire department handle it yes the fire department reviews all applications the fire department as part of our public safety committee has reviewed this and they do have the equipment to manage this project and the size of project there were two questions about property values and mr chair maybe i'll leave those to you as the resident expert but but um i think that was it property values and who's the builder of the villa in addition to a lot of relevant comments about um the impact of the project okay great thank you um uh let's see um miss houstead or mr hall you uh there was a couple questions there that that maybe you might be more appropriate to answer it's up to you if you would like to uh try to answer one of them i think mr hall was what are the values i think someone threw out there a hundred thousand dollars for the unit i i would find that probably to be uh too low um but uh uh there is that and then um you know the the the developer for the town homes uh miss houstad but uh please uh feel free to answer any of those questions if you can i'd be happy to feel the first one alex hall with united properties on the value these would start uh the smallest units are probably going to be in the just under 400 000 range so i think 395 thousand dollars is um would be on the lower end uh on up to about 580 000 and i i'm calculating our average sized home which would be a little over 1500 square feet would be um about 425 000 and that's before residents add upgrades we do offer upgrades and we find on average residents add about twenty thousand dollars worth of upgrades on top of that so your largest units would be pushing six hundred thousand dollars and those are comparable uh to uh given uh the uh increase in in cost of construction uh comparable to um our latest uh maple grove co-op which again was sold out prior to the completion of construction okay so mr hall then maybe just to fill out the other half of some of my notes so um what you're saying then is that if if i buy a interest at a rate of just five hundred thousand dollars the co-op guarantees a two percent appreciation rate per year on that 500 000 uh that's a good question um they don't guarantee it uh because we're not uh immune from uh market downturns so at some point you need a willing buyer to come in and buy your share and um or your membership and uh so if uh if if for instance there was a really significant downturn in the housing market you may not get the full two percent appreciation but looking back uh on the history of all 15 of our uh co-ops that's only happened uh to the best of our knowledge once and that was back in that kind of 2008 downturn and uh in no case even in the even during that downturn no one lost any of their equity um some people chose to uh sell without gaining the full uh two percent appreciation but um but no one lost any of the equity that they put into their home okay no mr hall as long as i got you on the phone sure um i i that that part where you were talking about tax revenue to the schools now the way i took it was that seniors now this is a building that where one of the one of the owners has to be 62 or over most likely or a good share of them would have kids in the public school system which i assume be k-12 and that by the fact that they had those they generate tax revenue for the school no um not specific to the to the co-op uh the point that i was uh trying to make there and and i was uh flying through this so i may have misspoke was um where we see it as a benefit to school systems and a benefit to the cities are that that the folks that move into the co-op uh typically move out these aren't renters moving into the co-op they're homeowners they move out of those single-family homes uh where they no longer have kids and and then that the the families that backfill or purchase those homes from the seniors often bring school-aged children uh in into those communities and and so it's it's kind of a causer and an effect but um uh and and so that was the linkage that i was uh talking about if that makes sense yeah well i mean it does you know we i know that here you know over the years we talk about life cycle housing right in corker and and uh but uh of course i you know whether you have senior co-ops or single families uh they all have a market value unless they qualify under some sort of exemption they all generate tax revenue that's right uh for for you know for the school district so i i just wanted some clarity there um and it's not maybe that you they that you didn't explain it right because i was reading off the i might just have misunderstood justice um okay great uh is there any other questions mr hall uh from uh the public hearing that you'd like to address right off the top of your head um one thing worth mentioning uh we i have built in the shoreland um uh district in fact both of my uh both of my developments up in uh in uh in in chaplain uh which are both uh i i think two beautiful developments up there are right on the mississippi river and um and and fell within that same uh restriction and working with the city uh uh one of those um uh ended up well they both in fact ended up being a partial five story uh facing the river and and then four story on on the back side so um and and so we we have worked with cities uh within that uh shoreline uh district and i did just want to point that out and um uh you know i feel that uh that really beth has done a a great job taking what is going to be the tallest uh or proposed to be the tallest uh part of the development and and and and locating that as far away from i think there's a great transition from the single family homes to the west uh on up to as you travel northeast uh to the larger co-op and and not only is it situated uh really uh far to the east of those homes but also north uh from bass lake road so um i i think everything transitions very nicely and and it would be our intent to work with the city on uh choosing uh exterior materials that the city is happy with and that will complement and and make for a nice uh entrance uh into corcoran from maple grove so okay great thank you thank you very much miss houston do you have any answers you can provide uh most specifically the question about who's gonna build yeah i can do that um there's a couple there were actually three items that are four items and that i thought i could answer and one is yes the builder we are in discussions with mi homes that is why we were uh in the presentation that kendra um put up on the screen those were mi homes products and they uh provided those to me uh to share with you tonight so um could it possibly be somebody else um yes that's possible it's always possible but um i would say that i've been in this business for 35 years and i have i think my history would show that the single-family neighborhoods that i've built have been of high quality and had good builders in them so i like to work with um quality builders too so um i would i would assure you that would be um then the the comment about the the project to the east in maple grove we are um collaborating with that developer and i can i i um have been uh very involved uh initially with that those are all my clients land owners over there and i would say to you that that project has been approved uh final plot 59 uh 45 foot single family lots for rent single family homes so that developer is um very aware of what we're doing here with the applewood and um they are uh absolutely fine with it so um that has been important too that we we communicate with that neighbor um [Music] so you said that there's 59 homes on 45 foot wide lots yes and they're and they're all rentals for rent luxury single-family homes have you yeah yep all right i just want to clarify that i heard it right i know he did um and then the other comment was there was a comment a question maybe about a shared intersection relate relative to their best lake crossings and um i think that was just a misunderstanding i do not have any shared intersection with them we you know both kendra and i maybe did mention that there is a connection that we need to make um to their street uh but that was a requirement and so that the traffic flows uh and there's also a connection that we need to make on the maple grove side too um and then kendra i have a one i have a question for you could you put up the um the the slide that is of the cross section and you had it up at the end of my comfort at the end of my presentation and and then alex um we introduced alex and i missed it so it was the cross section i think it's probably the fourth or fifth slide if the chair has no objection i can share my screen again um i'm sure there if there's a benefit to the commission for seeing it i i mean was it not in the original packet is there a reason why it's just a part of my presentation and it's a height uh it explains the heights of the products and it shows a cross section from the neighborhood showing them the distances and then the heights of the buildings i think it's helpful but i'm that's fine i can i don't need to do it if you don't want me to well no i i'm i'm curious to see it i yeah it was not in the packet usually we we get these kinds of things in in the normal packets so i just and i apologize it was one of those things that i literally got this afternoon or this morning so we've been working on it and so to the left at the top um on the num just above the number one there yes thank you that is um the basslight crossings uh homes and uh and then the the home the two story or the one and a half story uh kendra after the there you go that is the property line though right thank you yes that's the property line thanks and this is the our single family villa homes and it's um it's about at the sixth house on fur lane so this is about where the cross section hits and so it's looking across um and it's showing elevations at that point and then the apartment building which is about approximately 256 feet uh away from the bass like crossing home so it's about a football field away and then it shows up i don't know if you can see it it shows the the applewood and that's you know another 478 feet away and the reason that it is that distance is is is it's the it's again like alex mentioned the way that the buildings are designed there actually is that kind of separation between them um and that's about the applewood building is about three football fields away from the basslight crossings homes so that just gives you an idea of the distance and then the the section below what i did is i asked um am i homes to give me i've done another project with them where we have the townhouses the three-story townhouses and i asked them to send me the elevation of them and the height and uh they are actually taller than if we were to do and again i'm not saying that we would or that we're proposing it i think the builder of the apartments of the owner of the apartments would be willing to do either a hip or a pitch roof or a flat roof but if it were flat it would actually be shorter than a three-story townhome built by mi homes and um i just thought that would be helpful and and actually the apartments the flat roof apartment is a 35 feet not 42. it's 35 feet high so if that helps okay okay so um i'm sorry i was looking here and so the proposed two-story town homes they're not proposed i'm just showing i'm showing a three-story town home relative to a three-story apartment building because people are mentioning you know why aren't you doing town homes and and and the height would be different and it really wouldn't it would actually potentially be as tall or taller than than a flat rough apartment building that is that is a an actual product that is being built by mi homes okay but if it's smaller it's it would depend on how many units it would be they might do you know six eight ten units in that in one swoop and then they'd do another six eight ten units something like that depending on the project i'm i just was you know there's been so much concern and discussion about height that i wanted to give some sort of an idea to people of what the actual heights will be okay all right is that uh is that it then uh we appreciate that any other mr chair yeah um i did want to clarify i did was able to find that feasibility study the traffic improvements on 10 are turn lane improvements does not currently include a traffic signal okay just to clarify that and then um in terms of the property value questions um i am not aware of a study that would show that this type of product next door to a single family product would reduce existing property values are you uh in your days as an assessor of mr chair familiar with anything to that effect uh well i think based upon the what what the transformation of of that view that those people along that trail are going to have is going to be fairly significant um but is it necessarily going to um impact their value i i can't think of a case where i know that that's an automatic i i just i i don't know that and i i would be amiss to to suggest that so i'll leave that one as is but thank you though for checking up on that other one yeah okay um all right so uh is that it for the uh public hearing answers that we can provide at this time i believe uh if there's anybody out there that spoke uh that still has a question or it did not get answered here by all means we encourage you to contact our professional staff at city hall and they will they'll do whatever they can for you trust me so all right at that point let's move on to our commission uh discussion and questions does anybody have a burning desire to start otherwise i'd be glad to but please raise your hand if you'd like to dean jim meredith mr chair yes sir my my my main concern is the height of these buildings and such and being along that cook lake and those kind of things um one of the residents brought up the fact that 25 feet is the highest kendrick can you shed some light on that subject as far as height of these buildings and how they can go this high by being along the shoreline like this mr uh chair commissioner the shoreline ordinance does have a 25 foot height limit in in the shoreland overlay district um as i said the i believe the intent of that is to sort of minimize the view from people on the lake looking onto the shoreline this is not a really truly a lake that gets a lot of lake activity right i believe that's the intent i will tell you as a point of reference the rush creek reserve project also has a significant portion of land in the shoreline district they did get variance from the shoreland height limit it is not unusual for communities um to look at setbacks and other things so it is possible to get flexibility from that but the standard is a 25 foot height in that shoreland overlay district and then the other question that i had is uh child care in the middle of a 60-plus community like this why a child care there what what what are what what's what's going on just i can't speak this looks like a big thumb sitting there i can't speak to the developer's motivation for for the tenants what i will tell you is we had a client that was a continuum of care facility senior facility in stillwater and they actively searched for land that was either near a daycare or a school and they have a daycare in their building because they like to do uh joint activities uh you know foster grandparent kind of stuff but the i'm not sure why but i will say that daycares are allowed in residential neighborhoods simply because that often drives the need this neighborhood probably wouldn't but i just i'm i'm again trying to make sense of of changing this designation of this property to accommodate this thing and i don't know if i can and now it makes a little bit of sense at daycare um joining in with uh the older residents and stuff joint activities those kind of things that that does kind of make sense but again i'm still struggling with uh with this whole idea so that's all i've got mr chair thank you thank you kendra okay uh thank you um all right um commissioner wu uh you have the floor if you'd still care too um please let me know if the sound quality my internet connection is very temperamental so i'm going to keep the camera off um i feel that the primary zoning uh the rmf 2 could provide the variety of housing types that would um offer just as much as rezoning to a pud for this specific proposal offers and i think that we could get the quality of the development that we're looking for with the current zoning without rezoning to a pud and we could get it without the extensive flexibilities that this pud is requesting um i find that when i look at the site plan it's just overwhelmingly hard surface it appears to be buildings on islands of grass with mostly hard surface and that's not surprising considering the density and the amount of buildable land that exists because of the shawl and overlay and i think that that results in all of the flexibilities that are being requested here so to me it points to the fact that this is a wholly unsuitable site for this type of development but don't get me wrong i absolutely support the kind of housing that allows corcoran seniors to stay in corcoran but i don't believe this is the right side and i think that all the flexibilities that are being sought to make this site work are evidence of that i think the amount of impervious surface requirement that they're needing is again evidence that they just don't have enough land here to support the density that they're trying to put on this property i did look at the you know it's noted that the surrounding areas are all either single family or mixed use and then the single family of maple grove and i really feel contextually this development is the wrong fit um i think that the height is an issue as i said the amount of impervious surface is an issue and i think that the large um pond that is needed to cope with the impervious surface that's created from all the parking it has pretty much taken out most of the trees that were on this site and that is a huge concern especially when the the the site that maple grove has they've got about four acres of open land that they're that they're going to keep and they're still going to have housing so i am just feel that this proposal is not appropriate for this for this site thanks okay meredith um thank you very much jim you want to flip a coin who goes next okay why don't you go ahead sir all right uh thank you to uh to miss houston and uh mr hall um i really like the senior housing plan i've got a mother who's 91 years old and i think she would really like uh a living situation like that i like the design and layout of it the amenities that go with it i do mr mr hall made a comment about the majority of residents come from a five mile area around the new uh senior housing project and um that may be true for um for a an urban situation but uh my immediate thought was will farm folks who have lived on farms or at least three to five acres and they've lived there for 30 to 50 years would they be interested in this type of communal living that's um that's kind of a shock socially for them um overall i i believe i i agree with uh commissioner wu that overall the applicants are asking for just too many exceptions too many exemptions too many flexibilities i don't support rezoning i believe there are better places in the city of corcoran to build it i am concerned about the traffic uh now that the hyvee has opened and the other projects have started to build up in that area i do believe and maybe it's being a reserve officer in me or something but um it you can really tell the congestion that has has boomed in that area just so far as of today and then to add i don't know a couple of hundred uh i think it's 200 plus parking spaces for all of the the all everything in this complex um i just uh i think it's too much for that area uh i'm also impressed by the number of letters that we've gotten from the the neighbors of this project uh they're they're corcoran residents they're our neighbors and who oppose this project and i couldn't help thinking well they were there first most of the time i'm not going to approve or recommend putting something like this in somebody else's backyard if i wouldn't want it in mine and so i i can't i can't support this this project thank you all right thank you commissioner sholak um um well um let me uh i just want to start by asking a couple questions kendra um in some of the comments and discussion and the letters um about this public versus private trail i find to be somewhat interesting because what i was not clear about in the materials and and i don't i don't direct that at you who uh per se uh was that what was the alternative here i i was taking some guesses now this uh i heard now that maybe that that road around uh the fire road might be open but there but there was some discussion about the public versus private and um you know there was some maybe some confusion on some of the homeowners part uh or maybe it's real that you know if they rerouted the trail it dumped them into a cul-de-sac and that they were not going to i somehow they'd have to get down back to their neighborhood if that was the sidewalk that would take them back down towards 10 to that road you know that's fine but then there was a distinction that the trail going east was private so it got me thinking about well the hoa for bass lake owns that trail uh that's currently in existence so no no so um the trail that exists today was dedicated and built by the developer of bass lake crossings and it was dedicated to the city of corcoran that's a public trail oh it is yes oh okay because oh um because i i thought there were some comments made by you know how can m and i negotiate you know there was maybe some misconceptions that m and i was negotiating to give up that trail uh to the developer here um and how could they do that since the hoa owned it so that was all completely just wrong information yes mr chair i i think the um the what beth was saying is when the shomers gave sold the land or gave the land to mi homes to allow that trail to go off of the basket crossings property onto the shomer property at the time they had a gentleman's agreement so to speak that maybe if something came in they'd adjust that trail but the trail has been dedicated to the city the city would have to vacate that trail easement in order to allow it to be moved and the parks commission is not recommending that so again the comprehensive plan showed a city trail and mi homes built a portion of that that exists today as part of their project but it was deeded to the city at the city trail okay and again i think maybe there might be some misunderstanding with some of the residents over there and including myself uh well again when i walked that site yesterday uh i had some conversations with and trust me they're not kidding when they say they use that trail i saw three couples use it um just in the one the the short time that i was there on that trail i had nice discussions with them but um i think maybe we were under the impression that if the developer here wanted to wanted to take back that trail they had every right to do so um and obviously we were wrong but that's neither here nor there so um okay maybe just to finish that thought um i'm going to share my screen just quickly just to kind of make sure everybody's on the same page um so this pink line is the existing trail and again this is a public trail off-road trail and what the developer would do would be dedicate what they're proposing is to make this a public trail along the street not a sidewalk a wider bituminous trail that comes up here and then would connect and eliminate this portion of the off-road trail the parks commission said no to that but again that is a public trail and this would be a public trail and then there'd be private connections here and the difference being who maintains the trail the city or the developer okay great thank you um um i wanted to now regarding um because this kind of goes into a couple different areas that i had concerned about and again when i walked that trail yesterday eye-opening experience only from the sense that the materials that i spent hours looking at gave me no preparation at all for what i actually saw out there um and i speak only to the natural attributes of walking that trail and and the differences between the subject parcel and the and the parcels of of uh the the uh land and whatnot that exists over there at at bass lake and so when you walk that trail you'll notice that there are that there is a hill and most of the people along that look up east look out east back up to that trail and that wetland they see a hill now clarification because unfortunately um my eyes and my in this thing here i can't see um some of the finer details of the of the maps that we get but um in looking at the site and this kind of goes back to some of the questions that we've had before and comments and and i think uh commissioner dickman recently wrote it in some notes uh regarding our planning commission goals for 2021 and that is if we have significant areas are we going to treat it as such are they significant or are they not now i understand the shoreline overlay district but this has been designated as a significant natural area now it's i understand the turtle i didn't even know what the what that uh reference to a species of animal but as i looked at the website or the the site plan i was shocked at the demolition at the uh at the uh deforestation now um the applicant says that they're preserving 11 of the site and i think that's an error um if you look at the very northern part of that site there's at least 90 feet from the property line down to the existing tree line there's not a single tree there and i was i walked it yesterday because i went over the hill to see um to see the pond and there's no trees there so i don't think there's anything being saved there's nothing there to be safe you can see it on google earth um and so literally in looking at what they're cutting down they'll cut down every single tree in the place and that's tell me i'm different i'd love to be wrong by five trees but i'm not the way the way they planned it out so we're going to be looking at a complete deforestation of that site in addition and based on that diagram confirmed it to me uh that the side view they're literally then going to be taking out that entire hillside and so whereas the people in bass lake now this is just one issue but you know they have a natural barrier they have a hill and they have trees so assuming that you weren't going to take out that hill and cut down every single tree in the lot you can probably do very well with a potential you know three-story apartment building or and or the the um the co-op but by drastically changing uh the topographical features of that site is going to make a whole world of difference i don't think anybody really is anticipating at this point um so again either we're gonna keep this as a significant area uh or we're not we're gonna allow this whole thing to be bulldozed uh and cut down um i i have an objection to that that kind of uh development plan for this site and so again if i'm wrong in my understanding of what the excavation of this site is going to be as far as elevation you know please speak up um but that's the way i kind of see it as i walked out there and again based on that that that um that slide that was shown to us here by miss houstad it clearly shows that that the existing neighborhood and the proposed are going to be right on the same level um there wasn't a lot of discussion about the road alignment except for in kendra's a presentation it was noted i understand that there's no requirement for it but if we're talking about rerouting a trail that includes all these people from these other two neighborhoods and it's going to go around the co-op and then they're going to have to that they will be now intermixing on that road to go back to their neighborhood i think it's important that we try to make that as safe as we possibly can and and so um i'm there on that i have no doubt to not uh believe ms shustad when she is i believe she's very sincere about wanting to work with people and to redo this trail with that being said though because it is a significant issue with the existing uh neighbors it was an issue with the plan or the parks and trail commission i am not in any position to to just assume that well this will be taken care of that will work this and we'll figure it out given that we got an access road that we don't know that they have access to and everything else these are questions that without certainty i would hate to make that mistake if it doesn't actually happen in place um i think uh commissioner wu hit upon it um and looking at this thing from the the what we're giving up for the pdu and what we're getting back um hard to put a value on the booster uh site um hard to you know i i know that they have the issue with the met council site you know that that's kind of in the middle it's unfortunate um but that's already existing i don't know that there's any you know i don't know that there's any value to say that well we have this and therefore it's it somehow weighs out you know helps even out that scale of the benefit versus the pud granting and so i i agree that i think there's a lot more being given up by the city to grant this pud i do believe uh in a lot of the same things that were said earlier and to be more specific um you know when you go to the resolutions so the resolution to deny the request there are there are seven items and you know item one i would agree that that the project is too dense for the area item two um the yeah the applicant is seeking extensive flexibility for this um and uh i i think it's a lot to be to be given for it given that it is in an overland district or shoreland district item three [Music] the benefits i just spoke about do not balance four and five i didn't have any disagreement with that item six [Music] given the magnitudes of the buildings and proximity to adjacent properties will have an undo an adverse impact on the reasonable enjoyment of the neighborhood property and again just taking a walk down that trail and trying to envision what that is i can see that um um [Music] and again yeah i think you have to put in there um you know the loss of the trail and the grain and item seven um i i agree with also i i think that there's there's every reason to expect that a as good a quality now would that be i mean i like the idea just like gm and everyone else i think it's a great product mix maybe just simply the wrong site um but um when you look at it and and you say in in number seven that it has not been sufficiently demonstrated how the aesthetics of the site have been substantially enhanced and i added in my own notes or preserved um i think that there's maybe a different place for this type of development and and i i went back initially as part of my thinking you know i've spent a lot of years uh going through this planning state and it was made very clear by the residents of the city and by this past city councils and past members of the planning commission and everybody else that spent many many many hours developing plans and expectations here and it was always the belief that that entrance off of 10 from for the city should be uh rural in nature and that it should be i i for lack of a better word a soft uh entrance um i think that this kind of goes against that and and i think it would be a betrayal to what our vision and what those goals were there's a reason why that was zoned the way it is uh it was not let's make it a pud and put in commercial and and all this and that um i know that there's only the the one parcel but uh this is this was not the vision and and i think uh even though that's is not directly related here as as part of the resolution um i'm gonna i'm gonna give it its due uh respect to all the work that everybody else did and and say that yeah it's worth saving uh some of the characteristics of that neighborhood or that piece of land and it's worth uh making sure that the entrance to our city is as as what everybody expected and and put into place what it wanted it to be so with that i am done as well um so why don't we start again go around the loop if there's any more comments or questions um commissioner varenkamp i've got nothing other than meredith jim and you dean thanks for uh kind of collectively uh straightening out the thoughts in my head it just doesn't seem to belong in this area this type of uh development and stuff and uh i think we've you said it really well dean um we owe it to everybody in town um to be responsible and do things the right way and this just it's a great plan it's a great thing it's just not in the right place so that's all i have thank you okay uh mr shellac you gotta have you you got any other follow-up questions or discussion just another two cents i've you know we've heard uh tonight again from developers who talk about the the view coming into our city and um what an impressive uh way to to come into the city to see these but um i don't know if necessarily two and three-story buildings are the the the wow factor that people are going to say wow we're in corcoran now um just the opposite i think the more serenity the more farmland the more wetlands that we have uh i think that will be the continue to be the wow factor for the city of corcoran for people to say wow we're we're out in the country now and uh we're um you know i just don't like to be uh trying to uh the attempt to convince us what our city should look like at its at its portals so thank you i i would agree and i think it goes back to you know that you're going to take out that hill and you know i mean look at our look at our developments already you know you could i i was looking at the other development uh tavara today and i'm trying to determine from one end of that development to the other i don't think that thing drops more than 10 feet you know and yet when you look at it now it has rolling hills and stuff and that's what you expect for a a rural type of setting uh but to come in and cut down all the trees and then flatten it there's nothing rural about that characteristic at all and and uh so yeah all right uh commissioner wu um do you have any follow-up questions or discussions no i'm i'm ready to make a motion okay um now before you do um i you all read um you you all read the the the options that we have correct so absolutely okay are are you talking about making a resolution to deny the request correct i'll make a motion to deny the request for resigning right meredith let me just maybe this would be better to do it this way there there are there are two um oh you know what that's on the other project i'm sorry got a little ahead of myself um okay please go ahead meredith yeah i'll make a motion to a resolution to deny the request for re-zoning preliminary plat and preliminary pud plan as written second darren kim okay um all right um we'll now take a vote to deny the request through a vote uh commissioner jacobs i commissioner varenkamp aye aye commissioner sholak aye and commissioner wu hi okay um okay well i you know with that being said uh certainly there's a lot of work that's been done by a lot of people on both sides from the city uh from the developer um there's it's certainly not to say that there's not maybe some changes that can be done uh to to keep this thing alive but uh we wish everybody the best as they uh continue on so um this will go to the city council kendra um march 25th um so i i wish you luck with the uh city council and um you you you never know they they may have uh they may have a difference of opinion than the uh commission so so ultimately up to them so thank you very much everybody um and uh does anybody does anybody need a break you guys want to take five ten minutes we've been at this for three and a quarter hours yes sir five minute break okay thank you um it is now well we'll just call it uh 10 15. we'll be back here we'll resume at 10 20. thank you sir thank you um oh that's not true i did coach football uh my son's uh football team and and and uh with another father we were actually really good at that that was a much better experience all right we ready to go back into session all right all right so all right so we are okay so we are on item 6d uh this is a public hearing for an interim use permit for a conditional use permit for building height for a detail shop at 23 405 county road 30 and kendra uh you are you are up please uh uh please present thank you mr chair um this this is on county road south side of county road 30 the property is guided rural service commercial and zoned rural commercial there are two requests two related requests an interim use permit or an iup for a conditional home occupation license to operate a detail shop in a new accessory building the applicant indicates in his materials that he details rv's large recreational vehicles and or would like to do that in this new accessory building a commercial greenhouse was approved on this site back in 2004 and operated on this site up close to the road actually i think if you were out there you may see some of the remnants of that facility operated for many years on the site no longer uh the landowner has changed and no longer operates that greenhouse on site the second request is a conditional use permit to exceed the accessory building sidewall height now this is something in our accessory building that comes up and sometimes is confusing the the variance or the increase to the height is not a variance it's a conditional use permit which is a lower threshold for approval this is the site county road 19 and county road 30 and this image i debated about because it shows this possible wetland here but you can see the house is built here in the driveway we do not believe it's a wetland after reviewing with engineering staff the greenhouse used to operate up here by the road the new accessory building would operate in this area here and then there's an existing shed or something back on the south lot line directly to the south here with the vehicles this is dobazinski's operation so they've got bus storage and commercial contractors yard and office space this is the parcel that we're talking about you can see it's surrounded by this area that's planned for rural commercial uses this is intended for businesses to grow out of home occupations uh before they might move into a true commercial zone and for occupations that excuse me businesses that are like contractors yards things that might have a more outside storage or more intense uses this is the site plan again this large parking area was related to the former greenhouse so this gravel area is wide at the entrance and that's why that's there but the house is here the new storage shed would be here it exceeds the setback requirements for the district but there is this shed here that we'll talk about a little bit will need to be removed in order to comply with the square footage requirements of the site and the existing septic sites are in the back of the lot the home occupation would operate in the new garage and any home occupation that operates in an accessory building triggers a conditional home occupation license which is processed as an interim use permit the new accessory building would be 2 400 square feet the ordinance would allow 24 9 on this site and again we talked about this last month that's the footprint of the building the existing shed is 275 square feet that would take them over the limit so that would need to be removed from the site in order to comply with the size limits in this for this lot the building plans were included in your packet the applicant's architect did not detail the the plans per our code so it shows an 18 foot wall height but we really measure sidewall from the bottom of the eave to the ground so i suspect it's slightly less than 18 but essentially it's an 18 foot sidewall for accessory buildings we measure sidewall height as opposed to building height building height would be measured to the midpoint of the roof line which would be about 23 feet high under that definition but again for accessory buildings we use sidewall the commercial rural commercial zoning district for buildings like dobazinski's to the south allows a 35 foot height limit this is limited because it's not the principal building it's the accessory building and accessory buildings are limited uh by sidewall height so that triggers the cup and the cup standards for conditional use permit standards for exceeding the building height is is it in conformance with the zoning city zoning regulations and it is is it uh does the survey show all existing structures on site it does and then does it comply with the seven standard conditional use permit criteria and as outlined in the staff report we believe that it does meet those standards there's a 100 foot setback required from county road 30 a 50-foot setback from residential properties and a 20-foot setback from all other property lines this proposed building would exceed all of those requirements the closest setback is a 70-foot setback from the east lot line the other lot lines are all more than 200 feet away private utilities as i showed you the septic site is a providing act service to the home the applicant's plans do not show a bathroom facility in this building or any water service if that is required they would be required to get any building permits architecture for accessory buildings is different than other buildings in our different zoning districts it does require 12-inch eaves and 24-inch overhangs for that taller sidewall height their buildings generally sort of look close but will those dimensions will need to be dimensions on the planned on the plans and will need to comply architecture the new building will be lp lap siding or hardy board uh sighting with board and bat and trim and asphalt shingles it's getting late i'm sorry i'm here talking the color of the building would be taupe with white trim to match the house the house has white and green trim this is the building plan it is lap siding it does have trim around the windows it does have dormer windows on the front to break up the building but it is a fairly plain building it is well hidden from the street by the existing vegetation and the setbacks the board and batten trim on the side elevations helps break that mass up there and the planning commission could talk about that but again our accessory building standards are simply that it matches or is compatible with the existing structure the second application is for the home occupation so the home occupation as proposed would operate out of that building and all home occupations require a conditional home occupation license which is processed as an interim use permit and we do that because a conditional use permit runs with the land but an interim use permit has a sunset clause or a trigger when it ends and the home occupations are tied to this business for this person on this property so if he moved somebody couldn't come in and continue to operate that business they'd need to come back for a new home occupation license the conditional home occupation license does have six standards as well that um this business uh will be uh um compatible generally with the existing neighborhood again the existing neighborhood plan for commercial development and there's large setbacks there's a commercial business operating directly to the south we have an application for a new commercial business directly to the north and staff finds generally that the conditional permit home occupation permit standards have been met the applicant has indicated they have no employees that don't live in the home which is a standard uh there are limited customer visits uh about eight a month he says the um home occupation needs to operate entirely in the building typically and so with this type of an occupation as you imagine you bring your rv or your fifth wheel here to be detailed you're parking it potentially outside the garage until he's home to pick it up and put it in the garage and detail it so one of the conditions condition number two limits the number of vehicles awaiting service or waiting pickup to two is our proposal two at a time can be stored outside um which would allow drop off pick up and that the plans need to be revised to show that drop up drop off pickup parking area we find that the site is well screened with the existing vegetation and that the fact that the business will operate indoors will limit any noise impacts from vacuums or hoses or those kinds of things so we also added a condition although it's not proposed there's no mezzanine or terrace in the building plans no living spaces permitted in this building a separate home occupation permit would need to be applied for for that so again all of the 12 home occupation standards we find have been met and we do note again that sunset clause and we've included two conditions to trigger that sunset clause including a three-year review period uh that is standard for all of our home occupations we recheck all of them in three years to make sure a they're still operating and b they're still in compliance with their approvals this is a public hearing for both the conditional use permit and the interim use permit for the conditional home occupation license we do recommend that the planning commission open the public hearing take comments and then move to recommend approval of the request okay great thank you kendra um okay uh at this uh time natalie um let's open up the public hearing and uh um let us know if there's anybody online thank you mr chair members of the public if you would like to speak if you're joining us by phone please press star 9 now or if you're on your computer the bottom toolbar will have the reactions option you should be able to raise your hand that way or sometimes it's in the participants tab for mobile devices and if all else fails just try to do something and i will be on the lookout for hands clapping and thumbs up wow yeah i don't see anything currently so we can wait a few more seconds but i don't see any action and there's still nothing at this time uh well i'll make a motion to close the public hearing do i have a second second camera all right uh please signify uh your vote to commissioner varenkamp hi all right commissioner jacobs aye mr schulack aye mr woo hi [Music] all right the public hearing is now closed the commission uh discussions and questions meredith you want to lead us off please yeah um i noticed in the resolution item number six it discusses an upholstery workshop from an existing garage and i'm wondering if that's a if that's correct because i didn't see discussion of a upholstery workshop or a garage no that is not correct that is a mistake it should be um operate a detailed business in a new garage all right to go along with that um it's actually you gotta look at six uh 6b and it says there is nothing to indicate that the use of the existing accessory building and i would assume again we're not talking about an existing i probably language leftover maybe from a previous previous one so yeah i had 6a and 6b as needing to revise thank you meredith meredith please continue if you yeah or anything else i don't have any other questions thanks tom okay no i um i couldn't find anything to uh to ask questions about or anything um it helps that it's a very large property and um my thought was um the loudest tool he may be working with is a vacuum cleaner and so i really i don't see any uh neighbors uh complaining about it or something like that so thank you okay mr varenkamp yeah mr chair um natalie or kendra is the applicant on with us i i'm not sure there's a couple phone numbers i'm not sure i did send we did send the packet and i i guess my question is a detail shop while we talk about vacuums um detailing a motorhome and such can include an air hose um air guns buffers all those things um i find it hard he's not going to have running water in this shop um and then also obviously running water a floor drain which that's a whole nother thing if if if i'm not correct kendra let me know but a floor drain it has to be appropriately drained it has to be taken someplace it just can't go into the ground kind of deal none of those things are gonna happen is that right i i do not see water on the plans that's why i noted that it does need permits i'm with you i find that hard to believe same as it's even a restroom too it's going to be heated it's going to be warm i'm i'm concerned that there is going to be other things i i have no problem doing this on this property and such it just i think it might be a little incomplete it's just not going to be a pole shed with lights in to detail and stuff it's obviously is going to need heat probably running water i don't see him washing outside then pulling it in to dry it in detail and stuff just those are concerns again as long as they're noted um down the road and and we have to obviously go in and improve um the building and those kind of things would it have to come back to us if any of those things change um i'm sorry is is that it dean that's what those are my concerns yeah okay great thank you um i i just have a couple uh quick questions as well um kendra on the resolution 7d and no person shall be employed at or report to the home site location who does not reside in the dwelling unit now i'm assuming that the difference between this and the sherbert property across the street is that this this is going to be occupied the house as their primary residence correct this this he does own the house and live in the house and this truly is a home occupation uh the sherbert property across the street rezoned to the same rural commercial zoning district and uh was doing that so that they could convert the home to a office okay um and i i know it's been a while since we've received one of these but i i just found that interesting because there's something that's telling me that we have had you know i like the dog kennel you know they they have they live there on site and they have the dog kennel but they have employees um aren't they under the same ordinance but how what i mean what is the difference i mean because i guess when i saw this a detailing shop i kind of thought oh okay well i'm sure we're going to be talking about hours of operation and bathrooms and and parking spaces and everything else but it just flat out said that you don't get any employees and i i found that odd because i think it's one of the first times i've seen that maybe that these these film occupations come up and there's not an employee component to it well uh mr chair i think the one you're thinking of is the pep barn [Music] dog kennel and that was different because the zoning district it was in allowed kennels as a commercial use and also allowed home occupations so it's kind of weird and we brought that to the council as a policy question is how do you want to deal with this because he does want to have employees and that we processed it as a conditional use permit so that he could have employees the other dog kennels that we did a few years ago in the rural area did not have employees if you remember i forget where that there was a woman that came in for a dog kennel and i forget where she's at on bech told maybe um but she did not have employees so that is actually written in the ordinance that that there are no employees other than the folks who live in the house okay all right that was what was different about the pep barn is that was a commercial kennel which was treated differently under the ordinance okay um the the last thing was and i was surprised that no one else mentioned it or questioned it but so in this district we have a height limitation of 10 feet but within the zoning district we have uh a height an overall height restriction of 35 feet so my question is do we have some sort of conceptual conflict here i mean yeah why why why would we have a 10 foot wall height restriction and yet then say that your building could be 25 feet what were they going to do with that extra 25 feet before they exceeded the wall height if there was no request like these these folks are asking for 18 feet you know and i get it if you're going to move a motor home in and out but i'm just kind of i'm trying to work this out in my head that you're never going to get to 35 feet unless you have really it seems like the the limitation in the district doesn't fit with the wall height maximum without getting without having to go through uh uh as a cup so there's two competing interests this is a residential use in a commercial district it's an existing legal non-conf the house is an existing legal non-conforming use in the rural commercial district so the site is treated as a residential use and the building height for residential uses is subject to the sidewall height limit in commercial districts accessory buildings are not subject to the same sidewall because it's a commercial district in most of the commercial districts they're part of the business operation and limited by the building height does that make sense well i mean i get that but he has to get he has to get um you know uh an interim use permit now that's for the the home occupation but he has to get the conditional use permit to exceed the building height for the property and it's not the building height he's exceeding it's the wall height true that's yes okay and the wall height maximum kendra that's wall height per story no sidewall sized is measured from the base of the structure to the bottom of the eave on the exterior wall so sidewall height is tied specifically to the accessory yeah so again i'm just so it's from great it's never it's not cred it's not relative to the number of it's not tied to the story it's always from the grade point to the underside of the soffit correct so that would be a really weird looking building to have a 10 foot sidewall height but a maximum height of what was it 35 35 feet well that so meredith that's exactly what i'm saying we we have a building height we have a building height standard that can't be exceeded but if you get anywhere close to it i mean this guy is still going to be 10 feet away at 25 feet he's still 10 feet away um but but because he's got to go above 10 feet he has to get a conditional use permit and i'm just saying wouldn't it be maybe more appropriate to say in this zoning district for an accessory building maybe the wall height can't exceed 18 feet and then they wouldn't have to go through the conditional use permit and and then and then maybe now you really got to be concerned about the the building height if that makes sense well mr chair staff has re-looking at the accessory structure ordinances on our ordnance update list you guys haven't mentioned it before but we've had it on our list for quite some time so i can only tell you what it says today and that's how we measure it i don't necessarily disagree that we might want to think about um some other uh things i'm not gonna and that and that was my comment well that would be an agricultural and there and there aren't any real standards for that you know so yeah i'm still residential yeah so i mean it was just something i got thinking about it's like well something doesn't quite uh quite a wash there um really nice hair loss yeah exactly um and then oh i asked about the employees um so i that that's all i had uh for uh for questions or comments so around the horn again anybody else have any uh questions or comments or discussion one one other thing that i i saw here on the second time looking at it on the um the landscape map or site plan or bill bruggeman it shows the proposed pole barn there and we've also got a gravel surface from the road with a parking area up front and then leading all the way to the existing point he doesn't show that um connecting to the the gravel part connecting to the proposed pole barn so i don't know if we get into that minutia uh or what he's planning to do with that or if there are any types of rules but i just i notice that they don't connect good point jim yeah i don't i mean i i know that the that the recommendation and the resolution requires to show two parking spots but does it does it dictate what kind of surface those parking spots have to be on or where they have to be located relative to the building uh no but um we could modify that language it's certainly subject to staff review so my thought was that when he comes in and shows us how that's going to fit in there we'll be able to review it for compliance with setbacks but gravel parking is permitted in this district okay gravel parking now given that the uh and i remember that the that the green greenhouse sales and their parking was there in that parking lot closest to county road 30 are is is this as it's written up would it be okay for him to park the two uh units in you know waiting to be fixed would it be okay for him to park the two units there or do we want to put a restriction or some i mean because that doesn't have that does not have as much coverage as screening obviously if we said well you got to put a gravel parking lot over here by your pole building and that's where you can park your your customers vehicles instead of right along county road 30. that would be a great addition and a draft resolution change yeah but and also he's on we don't want to see it up by the road right also it looks like he's only going to have one bay to work on one rv at a time if i'm just one garage that's what it looks like now if you want to add a second door and put two in there i i don't think it would change anything to anything to do here right right okay well i would uh dean what what do you think about the parking situation uh by the building versus uh on county road 30. yeah i'd i'd rather have it by the building too i think meredith said it best we don't we don't need it being seen from the road kind of deal and uh i i just there's a bunch of questions again that i bring up the the water in the building the heat in the building obviously the parking outside the building and such just i i trust that staff is going to address all of those questions before it comes in front of the council okay all right so obviously the obvious obviously they're doing recreational vehicles and stuff if he's doing motorhomes i mean he's going to have to have an eight to ten ten inch gravel base of a driveway to be able to handle that they're gonna have some permanent yard fixtures at some point when they sink so there's going to be a significant amount of work to be done to be doing this and then the gyms point to the the one bay um it's a pretty big building for doing one vehicle at a time and he might want to have it drive through a door on both sides to drive it through don't know if he can make a corner and then be able to back a camper out just all those questions are in my mind right now but i'm not going to stand in the way of recommending it just there's a little bit of work to be done before it goes to council okay uh well kendra i'm trying to uh i'm trying to find in the resolution where it says it's limited to two parking spots thinking that might be the best spot yes mr chair uh condition number four uh the applicant must provide an updated site plan showing the location of the parking for the vehicles during drop for vehicles during drop-off and pickup and you could add at the center the end of that sentence the words adjacent to the new garage and then the second sentence says no more than two vehicles related to the business shall be stored outside of the accessory building at any time okay okay so that would just be a modification of item four yes mr chair you could also modify that if you wanted to specify and the uh drive way must connect to the overhead door in the garage or something to that effect to address commissioner shulock's comment or you can make that a new number five as well okay well i mean the engineers report doesn't uh okay so it doesn't have anything specific to parking surface materials or anything so um well uh you know kendra um i mean you you get the gist of of what we'd like to add we we'd like to make the the recommendation to the city council that in addition to what is stated in the motion add another item that we'd like to see a gravel lot and the two vehicle limit parked beyond the front gate or the front entrance of the property towards their their their business uh accessory structure and so if everybody's comfortable that we can we can let professional staff work out the language for that for the city council everybody agree with that yes okay all right well uh any other further discussion questions changes alterations okay i'll accept a motion to approve the resolution as amended for the conditional use permit and the interim use permit still moved shulac second fare kim okay we have a second a roll call vote uh to approve uh commissioner jacobs mr chair just to clarify approved with those two edits uh by staff is that the motion yes yes yes yeah i think i said as amended yep um so um uh commissioner jacobs aye commissioner sholek aye mr varenkamp bye fisher wu okay uh the recommendation uh is approved for nothing thank you everybody for that and uh you know i'm i'm looking at retirement options so if i get myself an rv i might have to go up and talk with this young man and find out how i can make it me special okay um all right i believe we are on item number seven then reports and information so 7a planning project update does anybody have any question of our professional staff on the project in the pipelines you know kendra uh maybe um what just what what can we expect for next month that you know of for sure at this point well we tentatively have the napa item that you tabled earlier okay but i do not have a complete application yet and their deadline is tuesday next week okay now they're they're not talking about i didn't look it up where the site was but are they talking about on the site they're currently at no the news site is on the old liquor store site they would purchase that property and build a brand new store i thought there was a concrete place there they're renting the space concrete science has their main building down on the other end of the industrial park and they are renting some storage space in the liquor store right now but that would go away okay i got it all right yeah so potentially you have that napa new site plan conditional use permit and setback variants if that is complete you also have scheduled a variance for a setback variant for a four season porch and deck in ravinia and i think those are the only two scheduled items okay all right well um thank you um jesse can i ask a question how are we already getting a variance request from rivenia on a porch and a side yard setback somebody's got some big dreams down there goodness gracious [Music] hey you know i i was riding up with my friend up snowmobiling on our trip last week and he was telling me about his neighbor at the lake up north near alexandria and you know you you you know i always think about shoreline and this 200 feet kendra you you have a cabin on the lake and the idea that you could build anything you know closer than 200 feet to the lake is impossible without you know well uh my friend's neighbor is going to convert a deck uh that's already within the 200 feet it's been there forever but he's going to convert that to a four season porch and i could not i could not wrap my head around how they were going to allow him to do this you know but apparently you know without setting precedence because and you know my friends on the uh he's on the the lakeshore you know association and i'm just like aren't you afraid then all of a sudden everybody is going to all of a sudden want to put horses and porsches yeah on the front of their cabins towards the lake i mean once once you've done it to that guy said i know we tried to be sensitive to that here uh but i don't know so i guess it happens but kendra being the expert that you are you probably did it and you got around it didn't you you can talk about my cabin and potential shoreland variances at another time i'd be happy to share my experiences with county with y'all yeah 200 you can get 200 feet as long as you measure it at a different angle straight on probably isn't there but [Laughter] all right um okay if there's nothing else there let's move on to item 7b city council report uh councillor nichols i believe greetings commissioner there he is okay how are you tonight i'm doing very well how are you all well you know we well today we we'd like to keep these under four hours but i just seem to be having a problem doing this lately so i won't take up too much of your time then i'll at least get you under four and a half if we can okay so for update uh we did have a request from right-handed table their request to put in their substation while they make revisions taking into account the observations that you folks all had as well as feedback from the residents so i think the council is looking forward to seeing that one come back uh looks like the end of april is what's currently planned my understanding is that uh if they decide to do a different portion of the site they would have to resubmit altogether so you might see it again depending on what the scope of their changes are um council decided to deny the variance request that nate planning commission decided we reviewed a concept from egg sherber and his 55 it apparently is going to if it proceeds be a sort of a commercial storage for uh craftspeople largely he has i think four other similar properties the primary concern that council raised was it is adjacent to some resident property so we expressed cons they take all due care to make sure there's proper screening if they i want to proceed um there was something about future planning on residential zoning and ordinance updates this was one of the council's primary policy goals coming up for 2021 the initial stages are going to be one-on-one sessions and interviews with planning staff just to get a sense for each of the counselors and their ideas and following on to that we're intending to do work sessions at least one of which would including commission to get your input on the topics that we identify so i think we're all looking forward to seeing some significant improvements in a lot of the areas that we've been discussing over the past several months and i'm excited to partner with all of you to get that stuff done uh we approved meredith wu welcome back to come back for another term uh many kind things were said so if you didn't get a chance to hear them i recommend going back and listening um we do need to still do a resolution honoring jeff dickman so i put in a bug in brad's ear if he hasn't already thought of it make sure that we don't forget about jeff uh and then we also reappointed val nibo and judy's trailer of the parks and trails commission so they will remain on until 2024 great i you know i know val i've known her for about as long as i've lived here and i know she's she's been quite involved uh in a lot of the city uh stuff especially related to parks and rec she's a she's a great asset to have so it's good to see and she clearly makes it fun to be on that commission you can tell get that right um okay great well any questions uh for our city councilor mr chair yes not so much a question but maybe to add on if the council continues forward with the residential design or the residential ordinance updates after the first work session we had potentially um council member nichols we had potentially an april 22nd joint meeting with the planning commission so i i just wanted to put a bug in the planning commission's ear that that is in our draft schedule that would be a five typically i think you do 5 30 meetings before the council meeting um so maybe pencil that in on your calendars and we will follow up uh after the council's march 25th work session now i can only say this much uh if we're going to have a work session you know this is the planning commission i would suggest we do sunday morning pancake breakfast somewhere and give ourselves about six hours because if we do it at 5 30 before a city council meeting good luck we may need additional time okay but that's good we may decide that it makes sense to add more sessions too depending on the end scope so we'll pencil that and i'll let it grow as it needs to that was april 22nd okay great okay uh well thank you uh counselor nichols uh and uh thank you to all of our city council they're all in attendance uh tonight and uh we sure do again appreciate your interest firsthand of what we have done here tonight and it probably will bring a lot of clarity versus the reports that you might have received in the past so again we appreciate your your proactive involvement in in the work of the planning commission um okay well uh 7c other business i don't know of any um i well i i will just let you know so um brad and i just collaborated a little bit here uh to kind of polish up the 20-21 commission plans that we'll be presenting to the city council next thursday i believe on the 11th um and of course one of those is that we we do uh want to engage in more work sessions to address these issues because i you know we don't do that very often but i i think we have so many ideas in our heads and and to be able to tap into some other resources i think we could actually you know um get through some some stuff to help clarify and and help things run better so i really look forward to doing that and that again i think will be presented on the 11th um okay any other business all right um how about uh item eight uh commissioner liaison calendar so i am up for uh looks like april 8th and then we have commercial sholak and then uh mr varenkamp and then uh commissioner wu uh through the end of may does anybody foresee any conflicts with that nope okay well then we'll leave it as is um great well i'll uh i'll make a motion to adjourn this meeting do i have a second second okay great um all right well i'll do the roll call vote um commissioner jacobs i vote i to adjourn mr schulack all right mr baron cam all right commissioner wu hi okay um this meeting isn't adjourned and again thank you very much for everybody for all their hard work and time and um enjoy the weekend it sounds like the golf courses might even open up i'm i'm gonna dust off my clubs already so and thank you kendra all right thanks kendra kendra all right see everybody oh um yeah natalie thanks again uh for running the phones and uh we hope to talk to you again in the future and uh and thank you for sending me all that information um as i look through it i did have some of it um i could have just looked harder but uh again thank you so much for for your added work on that oh of course not a problem okay all right everybody hi farewell goodnight be good good night