[0:00] **[Music]** [1:08] **Councilmembers:** 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. [1:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, moving to roll call, please. [1:18] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Here. [1:19] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Here. [1:20] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Here. [1:21] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Here. [1:22] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Here. [1:23] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, moving on to item number three. Citizens' comments is an opportunity for citizens to address this Council about issues. If you have an issue, you can come up and state your name and address. You have three minutes. If you are here for an item that's on the agenda later, we typically will have a public comment so you don't have to come up now. Okay, sir. [2:25] **Dan Griggsby:** My name is Dan Griggsby. I live at 8315 177th Street West. Mr. Mayor, city council members and staff, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. As my visual aids clearly indicate, I'm here to speak with you about businesses illegally advertising on the public right-of-way. Chapter 23 of the Lakeville city code says that the city finds, quote, "exterior signs have a substantial impact on the character and quality of the environment," and in establishing an ordinance to police them, says that you intend to regulate the signs to, quote, "maintain, enhance and improve the aesthetic environment of the City by preventing visual clutter that is harmful to the appearance of the community." The code specifically prohibits placing signs in the public right-of-way. It states only those signs installed at the direction of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Dakota County, and the City of Lakeville shall be located within the public right-of-way. Yet yesterday, I collected the 102 signs that you see here before you in less than an hour. I did all of this within a couple of miles of my home, entirely in Lakeville and entirely in city streets. I've collected illegally posted signs—councilwoman, thank you—I've collected illegally posted signs since the spring, done it 10 times. Each time I fill my trunk with 100 signs, that's a thousand signs this year. [3:57] **Dan Griggsby:** And that's just a small part of Lakeville. According to the Lakeville comprehensive land use plan, neighborhoods and parks and the places that people live, excluding the rural areas, make up about a third of Lakeville. So the back-of-the-envelope math says that at any moment, thousands of signs clutter our intersections and our parks, and they're illegal. And the code provides for both enforcement and penalties for violating it. It says the City reserves the right to require the removal at the owner's expense when the requirements of this chapter are not completely followed or adhered to, and it stipulates that any person who violates, disobeys, omits, neglects, or refuses to comply with this chapter, or resists the enforcement of any of the provisions of this chapter, shall upon conviction thereof be fined or penalized not more than a maximum level established by state misdemeanors. Well, I've contacted some of the worst offenders informing them that they're violating the law and asking them to stop posting them. Most of them have continued to do so despite knowing that it's illegal. At a minimum—excuse me—I firmly but respectfully ask you to enforce the law, the responsibility of which lies with the zoning administrator. At a minimum, the city should identify those who are posting the signs, notify them that they are in violation of the law, provide a grace period—we don't have to be monsters about this—in order to let them remove them, and I'd say a month would be reasonable, and then issue penalties with enough teeth to discourage further violations. [5:30] **Dan Griggsby:** The Minnesota state statute that sets the maximum for a misdemeanor offense is $1,000, and that's in line with what I'm seeing in other states. So that is enough to provide teeth and then pursue those who don't pay. So I wrote to the council earlier this year about this, and only Dan responded, and I thank you for that, Councilman Wolter. Given the proliferation of signs since, I can only assume that this hasn't been taken up. So I hope you will begin and then continuously enforce the code because it's the right thing to do. But if you don't, with sadness and regret, in accordance with chapter 586 of the Minnesota statutes, I will file a writ of mandamus asking for the courts to compel the city to do so. There's an established, a well-established practice in Minnesota case law that requires cities to enforce their own zoning laws. I don't want it to come to it, and it would be disruptive not only of the staff but also of the mayor and the council because all of you have responsibilities. I'll close just by giving a few suggestions about how you might update the ordinance. In their advice to municipalities, the league of Minnesota cities differentiates between commercial and non-commercial speech. Updating the code to allow some leeway for non-commercial organizations like the Scouts or the Knights of Columbus that enrich the community would be well considered. Additionally, I think having a carve-out for things like garage sales when citizens themselves are hosting these things—they're good at picking them up. And finally, my last ask is Lawn Doctor, for example, who I contacted, has placed more signs in Lakeville than anyone else, and yet they marched in the Pan-O-Prog parades. So my last request is that you deny entry to companies that violate this ordinance. So thank you, and I'll clear my mess. [7:13] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thanks very much. Thanks, appreciate you coming in and we will— [7:14] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Mayor? Yeah, I just wanted to make a comment for the audience that I wasn't trying to be rude. I was asking the attorney a question whether it was legal for a citizen to be picking up signs in the community. So that is—is it probably not okay? So you're not enforcing and I and I get in trouble for doing so? Mayor, I'm not trying to argue with—yeah, I just wanted to allow the citizens to know that I wasn't trying to be rude. I was just trying to get clarification on an issue. [7:53] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thank you. Any other citizen comments this evening? [8:25] **Bob Erickson:** Good evening. I'm Bob Erickson, 19081 Indel Drive. That's within the Trevor on the Greenway neighborhood which adjoins Ipava Avenue. Good evening Mayor Hellier and council members and Administrator Miller. Thanks for providing me this opportunity to share my interest in maintaining a quality design feature for Ipava Avenue. I provided you a handout this evening which has the two photos. The top photo represents the embossed color concrete median design feature. As a member of our HOA board, I observed during the 2023 Ipava construction improvement project, this section—median section—had been removed and replaced, maintaining the long-standing median design feature. As a side note, there are over miles of city and county roads within Lakeville—by the way, that would be 185, Kenrick, Ipava, Dodd Boulevard, Highview Avenue—and that feature is prominent in all of those roads and streets. More recently, I observed the embossed color concrete median being removed and replaced with a standard concrete, and I've shared that photo with you, and that's part of the 2024 Ipava Avenue improvement project. As a side note, this design was established more than 20 years ago and has been used as recently as when the Dodd Boulevard project was undertaken. Also included with this design element colored median has landscaping, landscape plantings, boulevard trees, just to name a few of the aesthetic features and traffic calming elements that go with this design. The Institute of Transportation Engineers, Federal Highway Administration, and MnDOT all recognize the value of these traffic calming features. Please consider maintaining these existing Lakeville infrastructure features. As a side note again, I've spoken with the assistant city engineer and Public Works director. Lakeville should be proud of the traffic calming elements; it's one of the only communities in Dakota County that exhibits that and uses that in their design features. More recent traffic calming elements or features are our landscaped roundabouts, which are just spectacular and serve a useful purpose in calming the traffic as they use those transportation features. Also the school speed zones. Thanks for considering maintaining the median design feature that was brought to the community some 20 years ago. [11:32] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Mr. Erickson, we'll follow up. Any other public comment? Okay, moving on to item number four, additional agenda information. Mr. Miller. [11:35] **Justin Miller (City Administrator):** Mayor and Council, there's a revised item at your desk. It's for item 6O; it's a change order project down on County Road 70. The change there is just simply in the dates; it's not anything other substantive than that. [12:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay. And then moving on to item 5A, presentation. And we'll have a presentation from Bridget Powers about the Taste of Lakeville. Good evening and welcome. [12:20] **Bridget Powers:** Good evening, thank you for having me. I am Bridget Powers, the chair of the Taste this year, and I'm just going to give you a quick summary of what we have planned for this year so far. As far as sponsorship goes, we've raised over $43,000 with 28 sponsors. We also have in-kind sponsors such as Helm Electric, Midwest Fence, people that just donate materials and labor for us, and we have raised over $40,000 with that as well. And you know, the nice thing about everything we raise is it goes back into the community and into the international community to help others. Food vendors so far, we have four food trucks and another 32 food vendors that will be at the event. We have a roving selfie photo booth that will be there this year. We're also going to add a couple bean bag toss just for something for some of the people to do while they're there; that's something new this year. We are going to have the same band, Branded: Hot Country. They were very popular last year and I thought they did a good job, you know, pleasing everyone. We will again have the pull-tab booth, and we have received the temporary gambling license for that. We're going to be having bucket drawings for this year. We added a Vikings ticket game—so the December 19th Monday night Viking versus Bears, we will be doing a bucket raffle for that. We will also be raffling off a Traeger grill and then another package which will be alcohol and gift cards. So we're just going to have three different bucket raffles this year. One thing we added on the request of people last year was, as people are coming to the event, we are asking them to bring a donation to 360 Communities in the form of either food or personal hygiene items. And then for everyone that brings a donation, we will give them a ticket they can put in a separate bucket raffle and we will be giving them State Fair tickets. We are also new this year; we're going to have inside the Lakeville Art Center 12 to 15 of the nonprofits that we support both internationally and locally, and they'll have an opportunity—just because a lot of people don't know what Rotary does and what we support—so we think this is a good way to give them some extra exposure that they'll be able to answer questions for people or people can just see the types of things that we support in Rotary. The event is next Thursday, August 15th, from 5:00 to 9:00. Any questions? [15:19] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** How can people get tickets? [15:22] **Bridget Powers:** The tickets—good question—tickets can be on the tasteoflakeville.mn. We also have them at—Lakeview Bank has actual hard copy tickets. The Lakeville liquor stores have tickets, and then some, I believe Ace Hardware, but I'm not sure. They said they would do it but again, if you're buying from a different business, you have to pay cash so they can keep that separate from their own retail funds. One thing to note that if you buy online, there is a $6 service charge. If you buy from one of the Rotary members, there is not. So that's just a little incentive to get to know your fellow Rotary members. [15:53] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Other questions? Thank you, we're looking forward to it. Thank you, have a good week. Okay, moving on to our next item, our Public Works quarter report, and I'll turn over to Mr. Oehme. [16:21] **Paul Oehme (Public Works Director):** All right. Good evening, Mayor, City Council members. This is the second quarter report for Public Works. So start off with a couple County projects that we're currently partnering with and working on. The Dodd Boulevard street reconstruction project, that's ongoing right now. We're making great progress there. The first stage of the project—that section of road from Flagstaff Avenue to Pilot Knob Road—that's anticipated to be open end of August here, about the week of August 23rd, I think. So that section will be open to traffic here very soon. The second stage from Cedar Avenue to Flagstaff, that's our last stage and that's going to be anticipated to be opened mid-October. So this is a joint project again between the County and the City. We're urbanizing the rural section road here, putting curb and gutter and storm sewer on, putting trails on both sides of the road, and eventually this County road is going to be turned over to the City for operations and maintenance in the future after the project is complete. The second project, the County road overlay project, the annual project they have—this year it's going to be on County Road 70 from about Kenrick to the west County limits. This project includes replacing of some damaged curb and gutter, some storm sewer improvements, and then mill and overlay of that corridor, that County road. And this project is anticipated to start right around September 5th. [17:54] **Paul Oehme:** Then moving on to some of our street projects that we have currently under construction. Our collector road improvement project: Ipava Avenue from 185th down to 192nd Street, Indiana from Ipava to Dodd Boulevard, 175th Street on the west side of Ipava is under construction at this time. Ipava Avenue was just reclaimed this Friday and Saturday; we're getting ready for paving on that section of roadway. The Indiana westbound traffic is currently closed at this time, but we're anticipating to open that section of road at the end of the week here, and we're anticipating—we're working towards having all the roads open to traffic or through traffic by the end of the month here. Then for a street reconstruction project, this is about four and a half miles worth of streets we're currently working on for improvement. This project is about 40% complete. This project is delayed a little bit because due to the weather there, but we're making some good progress on the project. We are anticipating the project to be complete end of September or early October. For our surface seal project this year, we're going to be surface sealing about 30 miles of streets. This project will start this week; it's about two weeks worth of work. And this again, the surface seal is the penetrator; it seals the roads and extends the life of our roadway systems. [19:27] **Paul Oehme:** Moving on to the Street Division, we've been having a busy year this year. One of the major operations was helping out with Pan-O-Prog with traffic control, maintenance, and operations during the festival. We've been removing a lot of Emerald Ash Borer trees from parks and the right-of-way within the community, and lots of patching and sign replacements this summer so far. The Street Division and also the Utility Division did assist with Waterville with their flood mitigation efforts this year at the end of June. We sent down a few folks to help out with that operation. This was a joint operation between a lot of communities, not just in Dakota County but in the state as well. This operation was through the mutual aid agreement that we have through the state. Moving on to Utilities, this is a graph showing the water production that we have so far this year. We're down 30% from this year versus last year; this can be attributed to, you know, the wet year that we have. A couple projects from the Utility Division that we're working on: repainting the central maintenance facility water tower off of 179th Street. That project did start last week with the containment system putting that up. This week, we're going to be starting to remove the paint from the tower and some interior work as well. And the project is anticipated to be complete first week in October. The new Well 23, which is being constructed on 190th Street, is going pretty good. We are wrapping up our drilling operations at this time. After the drilling operations, we're going to be test-pumping the well, and then after that this fall, we're going to be getting going on the site work, restoration, and installing the pump, electrical panels and buildings, and those type of things and getting it ready for operation. So this project will be substantially complete in the spring of 2025. [21:45] **Paul Oehme:** The sewer lining project that is currently taking place in downtown right now is wrapping up. We did line a 30-inch and 42-inch large diameter sanitary sewer system that runs through our community. This is a trunk main that services a large portion of our community. We did identify some infiltration and some deterioration of the pipe, so we wanted to line that just to eliminate some of that infiltration and potentially future failures of that pipe. This project will be complete by the end of the week. The city did receive a grant from the Met Council this year, earlier this year, for a water efficiency rebate program. So we're using this money for replacement of inefficient toilets, irrigation controllers, irrigation sprinkler systems that the residents have that they'd like to upgrade. You can check out our website and check out the rebate program for more information. [23:05] **Paul Oehme:** Then moving on to Environmental Services. One of the bigger projects that we're working on this year was the East Lake invasive fish removal program. This is a partnership between Vermillion River Watershed, Dakota County, and the City. We did receive a grant a little over $37,000 for this project. We did put in a fish barrier at the outlet of the lake to stop migrating rough fish from entering the lake, and this summer in spring, we removed carp and other rough fish from the lake, and we're planning to do that in 2025 again. This project is again to reduce the phosphorus loadings in the lake, improve the habitat for native fishes, and then also enhance the recreational abundance of the lake and the watershed. [24:03] **Paul Oehme:** Then moving on to Forestry. Forestry has been very busy with the Emerald Ash Borer infestation. We just removed 91 stumps from our right-of-way. These trees were taken down this year and last winter, and we still have a bunch more to go here. But we did inject 836 trees this year for Emerald Ash Borer to try to protect some of those trees; that's down 186 trees from what we did in 2022. And then we're going to again be doing a survey this summer and looking at trees for removal in the fall and winter for Emerald Ash Borer. We are partnering with our local residents to help them address their Emerald Ash Borer trees on their property. To date, through the ordinance, we've removed 185 trees from private properties. The property owner has removed those trees; we're just helping facilitate that and partnering with the property owners on that. We're going to be doing another survey again in this fall or August to identify additional trees and work with property owners on removing those trees. Rainbow Tree Care does still provide residents with a bulk rate discount for treating ash trees on their property that property owners would like to treat and help protect from the Emerald Ash Borer, so you can check our City website for that as well. [25:34] **Paul Oehme:** A little update on the Emerald Ash Borer grants that we received in 2022. We did receive almost $100,000 for Emerald Ash Borer tree removal and replanting. That grant has now been completed; we're working on final paperwork with the DNR for that project. In 2023, earlier this year actually, we were notified about a $338,000 grant that we received for removal and replanting of ash or replanting of trees in parks. So we're working on that grant right now. We're going to be starting to remove some trees this fall in conjunction with that program or that grant. This is a three-year grant, so it'll be divided up about evenly, a third a third a third for the next three years for that grant money. So it will be a lot of trees that will be removed and replaced in our parks. [26:20] **Paul Oehme:** And then additionally, Forestry has been working on a lot of construction projects making sure that the contractor is putting in trees correctly for the longevity of those trees, removing trees that may have fallen in our out-lots or next to private property owners that may cause damage or safety issues. We're working on a bunch of those trees right now. And then also lastly, the Facilities Division. We did receive a grant from Dakota County CDA for the upgrade of service windows at the City Hall here. There were three service windows that we upgraded. This was 100% funded by the CDA. The project was to address the ADA deficiencies at those windows and then also address some security concerns as well. So that project is substantially complete now. And with that, that's my update. If I have any questions, I'll stand for you. [27:42] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** I have two different topics of questions because your report always encompasses a lot of information. The first thought that just crossed my mind is when you were talking about the County Road 70 and that's not going to start till September. Do we notify the bus company on projects that are going to be problematic for them for getting students, etc.? [27:53] **Paul Oehme:** Correct. Yeah, good question. So yeah, we do work with the County on any notifications that may impact the traveling public, especially the bus systems—the bus companies and the school districts—and let them know that this project's coming up and make sure that they're aware of any impacts that may take place because of the project. Now there, I don't think there's going to be any detours with this project, but we'll let them know that there's going to be maybe some slowdowns and some issues getting through that corridor in the future. [28:38] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Right. Then the other thing is that, going to the signs that are getting replaced in the city, my question to you is: can we partner with Dakota County? Dakota County is so huge that they probably don't even realize that some of their signs are fading out, etc. Is there a way for us to partner with them in that we can replace some of those signs for them and charge them, or how do we notify them that some of their signs are faded out? [28:43] **Paul Oehme:** So every agency is supposed to complete a survey, I think it's every three years, making sure that their signs—the retro-reflectivity is up to standards. So the County should have a policy on that. I don't know exactly what their policy is, but if there's any specific signs that you see that should be replaced that you think, we can always let them know about those signs. But I'll keep an eye on that as well too. [29:25] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Well, I just didn't know—so what is our process in early spring to determine which signs are going to be replaced over the summer? [29:32] **Paul Oehme:** Yeah, so we do a survey, break out our city. A survey is where we drive around and look at all the signs within our community and we look at how reflective those signs are. We have a database through Cartegraph that identifies how old every sign is within our community. So based on that, we have an idea of how old those signs are, how good the reflectivity is. But we go around and physically inspect those signs, and if necessary, we mark them down for replacement in the spring. And again, we survey about a fourth of the city every year. [30:11] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** And I know that that keeps you busy to be able to, you know, do that, but I think it would be helpful if you just even had a side tab that said, "We noticed these signs as we were doing our survey," and notify the County. [30:25] **Paul Oehme:** Okay, yep. We'll keep that in mind. Thank you. [30:43] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I had one question on the paving seal there. It looked like around Crystal Lake you're going to do pavement sealing, but they're also doing the lift station. Are we going to time that together? [30:52] **Paul Oehme:** Yep, we will definitely. It's a good point, yeah. I'll make sure to look at that. [30:56] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Awesome. Thank you. All right, moving on to the consent agenda. Any items to highlight, Mr. Miller? [31:02] **Justin Miller (City Administrator):** Thank you, Mayor and Council. A couple tonight. Items 6E, F, and G are all temporary liquor licenses for different events that are going on across the city. And then items H, M, and T are all related to the development of Grand Prairie Park and installation of different facilities that are going along with that. [31:37] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Okay, very good. Any item that anyone else in the council wants to highlight? Yeah, I'd just like to—I don't want to pull it out—I want to highlight item I, which was the amendment to the rental registration ordinance. I just want to say thanks to City staff. Since we approved that ordinance, you have a system in place, we're getting registrations, it's real easy to understand, and then you caught an issue and corrected that. So I just want to say kudos. That's an important ordinance that will allow us to work with our rental housing, both multi-housing and rental housing that occurs in single-family neighborhoods. So thank you. [31:59] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Very good. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? [32:02] **Councilmember John Bermel:** I'll move. [32:03] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Second. [32:04] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion about the consent agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. [32:10] **Councilmembers:** Aye. [32:11] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Opposed? Okay, consent agenda passes. We'll now move on to item seven, Sundance Lakeville Second Edition. Ryan, are you going to go first for the applicant? [32:38] **Ryan Syler (Timberland Partners):** Okay, good evening. Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Ryan Syler, Vice President of Development with Timberland Partners. Probably no stranger at this point; I've been here a few times. Here in late fall 2023 as part of the rezoning and replatting of the property. So after working with the City and staff and working through the plan, here tonight to request approval of the preliminary plat and the conditional use permit for Sundance. I'll try to keep it brief. I know Mr. Dempsey is going to give a longer staff report, but I'll just try to go through the highlights here. The site is 4.74 acres, 176 total units—167 stacked-flat townhomes and nine single-family rentals. A 5,000-square-foot clubhouse fronting 162nd, and then that'll contain our fitness center, yoga studio, club room. We'll have on-site management and leasing, outdoor pool, dog park, pet spa. That rendering you're looking at is an actual rendering of what the project will look like. So consistent with City standards requiring brick and Class A finishes. This is an aerial of the site looking from the southwest across the site to the northeast. See the nine single-family homes and the 3 acres on the northwest corner there. Clubhouse along County Road 46 and then the townhomes. And then the 32-foot private road with the public easement kind of cutting across from Kendall to Buck Hill Road. And then Davis Medical's recently approved buildings there on the corner. Not here really to re-argue the use of the property or whether it's appropriate or not—we dealt with that in November—but just to kind of give you an idea of the quality of the development and some demographics. One, two, and three-bedroom townhomes with rents ranging from $1,800 on the one-bedrooms to $2,700 on the three-bedrooms, and then the single-family rentals from $2,900 to $3,900. 100% market rate project, no subsidy involved and no request or ask from the City for anything. [35:40] **Ryan Syler:** These are actual photos from existing projects. The one on the left is a project that's been completed in Omaha, Nebraska. The one on the right is a clubhouse that we completed of a Sundance project in Dallas. Nice finishes, well-thought-out. And as I showed on the rendering, the project in Lakeville would actually have more brick and more quality finishes on the exterior than the Omaha project. This is an existing deal here in Woodbury. I just brought this up for a couple reasons. I think probably the private roadway with the public easement might drive some questions tonight. What's proposed in Lakeville is a 32-foot road. This is Woodbury. I don't know if you can tell, but in the back left corner of the photo, there's a large senior multi-family housing deal that actually connects to the road network through the Sundance project. And then there's a townhome community off-screen to the right that actually connects through. So this was purposely connected to the city street grid in Woodbury, and those neighborhoods have the ability to access through this. This road that you're looking at is 24 feet wide compared to 32 proposed in Lakeville. This is a deal we recently finished in Omaha. I put this up here for the same reason. These two main roads you see through the project connected two single-family neighborhoods. The City of Omaha required that we connect to the city grid. Those roads in Omaha are 25 feet wide, and that is kind of a like-scenario to what we're looking at. These dump onto a main arterial road, which then dump onto the freeway system which you could see on the right of your screen. [37:12] **Ryan Syler:** Some key points tonight: the site was rezoned in 2023 for the contemplated uses. It was actually down-zoned, as you remember. Previously it was commercial—had the ability to put something with much higher density, much higher traffic on the site. We looked at the traffic of those potential uses—if it would have been a grocery store or fast food, it could have generated 5,000 to 10,000 more daily trips than what this project is anticipated to generate. The project conforms with all the current code requirements. It meets or exceeds the setback requirements, exceeds the parking requirements by over 40 stalls. It's well below the maximum height limitation by about 17 feet based on what the current code would allow. Since the Planning Commission meeting a few weeks ago, we've resubmitted plans to the City that show additional screening to the neighboring properties and we've also added a six-foot privacy fence all around the northern and western boundaries of the site. So basically anything that's touching a residential single-family home will have a privacy fence. We're not requesting any state, county, or city subsidy. We feel it's a good land-use transition especially compared to—you know, you could go up to 48 feet here. Like I said, we're 17 feet below what could be built here. It's a nice transition from single-family to two-story multi-family to then the commercial along County Road 46. [38:43] **Ryan Syler:** The private roadway with public easement—I just want to make it very clear, and I'm sure it'll come up, that the City is a party to this agreement. So this isn't just something that's "nice to have." The City's an actual party on this agreement. We are welcome to all enforcement rights—that means no parking or anything the City would like to enforce. This is for the benefit of not just the City but for us. There were some questions at the Planning Commission about setbacks from the road, so we pulled that information. 28 feet to the nearest unit entry. I will say that there are some garages that are closer to the street, but they're garage units and I think the closest one is about 16 feet from the roadway. But the closest unit entry is 28 feet. And then building 2 is 47 to 62 feet for the unit entries off that street. And then building 3 is about 27 feet off the street. So I think the traffic and engineering reports in the packet support the layout. They support the 32-foot-wide street, both in terms of limiting the ability for on-street parking—and we will post no-parking signs on the street—and then also any wider streets, my understanding backed by our traffic professionals is that streets like this constrict and deter speeding. So complementary uses with the medical and then a locally based ownership and development team. All the team members are local. We're based in Bloomington; we will develop, own, and manage this property for the long term. We plan on being neighbors here for a long, long time. Architects are locally based, as is our civil engineer. And RT Residential, part of the Tradition companies—everyone in Lakeville is pretty familiar with them. They have a great reputation for building quality product and we're excited to partner with them on this. Apologize for taking up as much time as I did, and I'll turn it over to any questions or Mr. Dempsey. [41:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any questions before moving on? Okay, Mr. Dempsey. [41:42] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. The request from Timberland Partners is the construction of 167 stacked-flat townhome units. The preliminary plat is what's being considered tonight together with the conditional use permit. So the preliminary plat proposes 13 townhome buildings on one lot. There's a clubhouse proposed, nine single-family residential lots, and the acreage is just under 16. The property is located at Buck Hill Road, north of 162nd Street (which is County Road 46) and Kendall Drive to the west. A conditional use permit is required to allow the multiple townhome buildings on a single parcel. A little bit of background: in 2022, Timberland Partners had requested a comprehensive plan amendment to allow rezoning of the property to M1 mixed-use district. This would have allowed 188 townhome units and nine single-family lots on the entire 18-acre property. The City Council chose not to support that request. Some of the comments that were raised had to do with the number of units on the property—the density for the entire property—and then also the impact of the commercial zoning, which would have eliminated all the commercial zoning on the property. So the developer has now submitted this revised plan. It's 167 units and the same single-family lots of nine, and then a 3-acre commercial property which was recently approved by the City Council—the two medical buildings. That was approved on July 1st. So they did resubmit the plans and that's what we have before us this evening. [43:40] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** There was a traffic study that was done for this project at the request of City staff to get an understanding of the traffic movements and impact to the surrounding neighborhoods, to get an idea of the daily traffic coming through and accessing to and from County Road 46. This was the original plan that was submitted and not supported by the City in 2022. At this point, this is the current zoning of the property. The purple represents the proposed development area today, as well as the green area for the single-family homes and the commercial area down the southeast corner of the property. This is an aerial view of the site. This area here represents the first edition which is the medical buildings. The larger outline is the property we're talking about this evening. This property did actually go on the other side of Kendall Drive. Kendall Drive was constructed in the 2004 vicinity time frame. That was constructed as a roadway easement. Kendall Drive would be dedicated now as road right-of-way. To the north is the City of Burnsville city limits. To the east is commercial zoning; this remains an undeveloped commercial property. This neighborhood to the north was constructed sometime I believe in the early '80s and the Strand edition was just a few years after the year 2000. [45:33] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** This is a layout of the property. It shows 13 townhome buildings with this preliminary plat. There's various sized buildings that range between 11 and 16 units within this development. There's a clubhouse property that's located in this corner here. A private drive is proposed to divide the property north and south to allow east and west traffic between Kendall Drive to and from Buck Hill Road. There'll be no access directly from this development onto County Road 46. This is the site plan; it shows the building layouts. You'll see that there's three private road accesses onto the private street for the townhomes. There's a single driveway that will serve the two parking lots for the medical building development. And then access to Kendall Drive, and that's also going to be the access to the single-family homes. This is an up-close view from Buck Hill Road here on the far right. The location of the buildings—approximately 22 feet for building 3. You get to building 2, it's just over 20 feet. Going further west past this driveway, building 1 has 12 units and is approximately 13 feet from the private street edge. The clubhouse is in this location here. One of the comments raised by the Planning Commission was concerns about access or crossing locations across the street here to the clubhouse area and park area. City staff is going to be working with the developer on determining the best location and the means of providing safe, visible crossing locations. [47:52] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** The architectural design: this is a 12-unit building; it shows primarily the main access points to the garages from the sides. This represents the front and rear views of the building. This is the clubhouse building. One of the comments that was raised by the neighborhoods to the north in the City of Burnsville—these single-family residences—was a concern about landscape screening and the potential of residents from this development trespassing into the neighborhood. Also, there's a transmission line easement that runs north, east, and west through the north end of the property. City staff had comments from Great River Energy, which owns that transmission line and the easement, and they had concerns about some of the tall trees that were being proposed. This landscape plan here represents an amendment to that plan. There are some spruce trees that are located in this area outside of the easement, and there's a large number of arborvitae trees which are cedar trees that tend not to grow as high, and if they need to be trimmed, they can be trimmed fairly easily. The developer is also proposing a six-foot solid fence along the north property line. It doesn't show on this drawing, but it also continues to the single-family homes further to the west. [49:25] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** One of the topics in this discussion was the proposed private street. The question did arise: do we have a similar street everywhere in Lakeville? Not similar necessarily in residential design, but a private street that allows access from one neighborhood to a large collector street? There are some other parts of the city that are similar to this, but this one is one of the first ones I recall. About year 2000 or so, this private street was extended from Idelia Avenue. Google Maps shows it as Idelia Avenue, but this is a private drive that comes across Heritage Drive south of 202nd Street. Sometimes the City will come through with a plow, but it's typically maintained by the developer or the owner of the property. There was a traffic study that was done, as I mentioned. The proposed layout has determined that the service level—the function level of the street—will remain through future years rating from an A level to C level. If you have questions regarding what those mean, traffic engineers are present. But the study determined that it's minimal impact to the number of vehicles on the streets as they're designed. The Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Committee did meet and they recommended additional landscape screening to the north and west. The developer did respond to that—he provided a fence along that boundary. [51:30] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** An important part of the discussion was also the result of the Dakota County Plat Commission making the determination that Kendall Drive could sometime in the future be restricted from its current full access—because the ability to make left turns from Kendall onto County Road 46 may be restricted if the County determines there's warrants in the future for doing that. The traffic study went all the way out to 2040 and determined that it's not likely that there'll be enough traffic through that period of time, and not with this development, to require that restricted left-turn movement out onto County Road 46 from Kendall. The County has identified it as a possibility, which is typical with their development reviews. It's not part of this project that that access would be eliminated. If the left-turn movements are restricted by the County, then the traveling public would then be forced either to go through to the private drive to Buck Hill Road or turn right to County Road 5 and do a U-turn to go eastbound on County Road 46. So the Planning Commission held a public hearing July 18th; they did recommend approval of the preliminary plat and also the conditional use permit with 12 stipulations. Stipulation 12 does stipulate no parking be allowed on the private street and that would also require signage for such. I'll take any questions. [53:16] **Councilmember John Bermel:** In terms of the private road, how is that going to be designated or named or identified? Is it going to sound like a regular City street? [53:23] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** Commissioner—Councilman Bermel, thank you. The street will look like a public street. It'll be a 32-foot-wide street, which is a common local street, and it will not have parking so it'll look like a wider street. It will have no driveways coming out onto that street except for the townhome area and the commercial area to the south. It will probably be named 161st Street. I don't know about the signage for that, whether they'll have a different design, but it will look like a public street and it'll be named as a public street. You know, that's the purpose of that access—to this area being not addressed off of Buck Hill Road or Kendall Avenue. We thought it was wise to have that as a named street. [54:03] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Thank you. [54:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** One of the concerns that kept coming up at the Planning Commission meeting was in regard to an agreement about authority and power in terms of maintenance and enforcement and easements. But I guess in terms of maintenance, is there a reason why we haven't been able or shouldn't have an agreement before this is approved as opposed to—because it sounds like the plan is to formalize this agreement after this plat is finalized. Is there a reason why that has to happen in that order? [54:55] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** The agreement is an easement that is being dedicated to the City, and the City will not have to formally approve it—meaning the City Council. City staff did work with the draft of the easement with the assistance of the City Attorney, Public Works, and Community Development, and we have drafted that easement. And the easement that we had drafted is for the commercial portion of this roadway. We have not drafted the one for Sundance Lakeville Second Edition. We could have that ready for the final plat consideration of the City Council with the development contract, but at this point we have not. [55:36] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Sure. I imagine that will look similar to what's already in place? [55:40] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** Yes, it will include language regarding public access across the roadway, pedestrian access to the sidewalks, expectations on maintenance. Maintenance is to follow the City's program and the calendar for certain services—certain conditions of the roadway to take action for repair, etc. And the City will have some enforcement over that. Details beyond that I would defer to the City Attorney to comment. [56:21] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Sure, and that timeline is helpful to me. And I think, certainly as we get to that final plat, I think that agreement would help ease concerns about how this is going to maintain access and maintenance throughout time. So thank you. [56:56] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** I just have a comment. I know there's really nothing you can do about this, Mr. Dempsey, but the one thing that's the biggest pet peeve of mine personally just as a citizen is creating a road system where that forces you to make U-turns. And so, you know, I can see it when somebody misses that they don't realize that the freeway is going to be only on their right or only on their left type of thing so they need to get to the next light to be able to make the U-turn. But when you're actually forcing citizens to make a U-turn because that's their only means to be able to get someplace, it's just a huge pet peeve. And I don't know that there's anything we can do about it, but I don't like it when it happens on Dodd, you know, that you were forced to make U-turns to be able to get someplace. It just—especially when it's higher traffic like County Road 5, County Road 46—these things that are heavily traveled, it causes issues and it just doesn't make for a very pleasant drive. But that's kind of a pet peeve. And then the other thing is that I'm going to assume that because the private road will be north of 162nd, that if you're going to number it that it would get lower. Just an assumption on my part. I literally live on 164th, so it just keeps getting lower as it gets to 160th. But 160th sometimes is considered 162nd. So you know, it is the goofiest—County Road 46 is goofy when it comes to trying to figure out if you're on 160th or if you're on 162nd. So I get that it might be nice just to have a named street instead. Because for me personally, if I'm lost someplace, I'm looking at those numbers trying to determine, "How do I get myself out of the situation before ending up totally lost?" [58:54] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** If I could, Councilperson Volk. This is 158th I believe up here to the north. This is 162nd at County Road 46 here. County Road 46 turns to 160th Street near Crystal Lake Golf Course area in Ipava because of the curve. But this would be 162nd, 161st, and then the next numbered street would be 158th. So it does fall within the County's grid. [59:36] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** All right, well it's just a little confusing. [59:38] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** Oh yeah, it's a lot less confusing than coming up with the named street alphabet. [1:00:03] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Another quick question about the northern boundary. I really appreciated the responsiveness to the privacy fence that the neighbors were looking for and the additional landscaping. The concern I didn't quite understand—and maybe you can help me understand what the resident was looking for, as well as maybe how that was addressed—was about the power lines. Was it about the existing trees or the future trees and how those are going to potentially mesh with the power lines? [1:00:23] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** Yeah, it was a long presentation but I think the two things that were of concern—excuse me—was the loss of the existing natural growth of trees along that area that the power company had been trimming but not removed, which is on this property. Those being removed and replaced with smaller trees. That issue, as well as some of the elevation issues concerning the elevation of these properties to the elevation of this property. I think these are slightly somewhat higher. And then the possibility of people trespassing. And the person that did make that presentation is here this evening. [1:01:31] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** So just to be clear, the existing mature growth will need to be removed for this project, but it will be replaced with this landscaping plan? [1:01:36] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** That's correct. [1:01:39] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Gotcha. All right, thank you. [1:01:41] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Another quick question about the clubhouse access. One of the concerns that I've heard is townhomes are across the street from the clubhouse. Kids live in a townhome, kids are going to want to go to the clubhouse. There's a pedestrian walkway on the sidewalk that'll be built but that's right at the intersection with Kendall. Are there any plans for any kind of a crossing closer to the clubhouse? [1:02:18] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** We haven't had that discussion yet—exactly where that crossing would be. Between this intersection at Kendall, or near this driveway, or in this location here. Typically you don't want to have those on corners; it could potentially be in this location. But that's something we haven't determined. But we did indicate that City staff would work with the developer to find a safe location for that crossing so it's clearly marked for people that are coming east and west on the private street. It'll be a designated crosswalk is what was discussed. [1:03:00] **Ryan Syler (Timberland Partners):** This is more of a developer question. That clubhouse—it's not a playground, so it's not as though children are going across the street in the same way. Is this clubhouse open access? Can you just go into the pool without an ID? Is the building just freely available or generally speaking are children going to be with parents? Yeah, so thank you. Generally speaking, it'll be on a card system both to get into the clubhouse and then also through the gate to get into the pool for safety reasons. So it's meant for the residents and it's locked on purpose unless you have card access to unlock the gates. I do think that has an impact on the type of traffic that's coming across, but yeah, I don't see—there's nothing over there just to draw kids over there to play, so to speak. [1:03:33] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Thank you. [1:03:36] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** I—it's not a public hearing but I'm going to open it up to public comments. You have up to three minutes; I'm going to really hold you to that. State your name and address for the record. [1:04:09] **Tara Wear:** Hi Mayor, hi Council. I'm Tara Wear at 15939 Kendall Circle. You can see I'm in that cul-de-sac kind of directly left of Sundance. I appreciate a lot of my concerns have been addressed by the developer and by the city planner and some of your questions, so I really appreciate that. The unfortunate obstacle here is that the County is eventually going to prevent us from taking that quick left to get on to Interstate 35. Otherwise this development looks beautiful; it's going to be gorgeous, better than all of the junk trees there now. And we expected it to be developed. It's just the private road thing. I feel like when our subdivision was developed, they punched through Dupont—that's a public road. They let all those people come through this area. So all those people are now going to be going through this private road. We already have problems on Dupont with speed and actually stopping at the stop sign, and so those people are going to be the same offenders through this private road. I did send you guys a handout and I got lost on the way to the new Goodwill and I encountered this Keystone Avenue, which has some townhouses and then some rentals and they required an 80-foot public right-of-way in between that. That's that second picture. You notice when you're driving on that street it's nice and wide, feels safe. It doesn't feel like someone's going to come shooting out of the yard and dogs aren't going to be running across the road. It just feels a lot safer for both existing residents and the new residents if this were to be a public road. [1:06:29] **Tara Wear:** And then a couple of the other concerns that we haven't talked about yet tonight would be: the City can't tag and tow for enforcing no-parking. So if a big moving truck is parked on that street, who do we call? The City can't tag and tow. Same with speeding. And like I said, the Dupont problem is just going to be escalated to this road and the City can't do anything about it. And I for one, like Ms. Volk said, I will be taking Five and doing a U-turn. I do not feel comfortable driving through this neighborhood; it just feels too confined and too unlike a regular subdivision. I feel like I'm invading their privacy going through their little neighborhood. And then the last thing would be inconsistent snow removal. We all know you look out the window in the morning to see if the City's come through to see if you can get to the County road. So I'll look out my window—the City will come through—and if I were to go through that subdivision, it might not be plowed. That's a factor. Those are all my points. Thank you for your time. [1:07:35] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thank you. I think your points are well taken for our agreement on the road. Other comments? [1:07:40] **Sam Hos:** Sam Hos, 15729 Bryant Avenue Court. Good evening, Mayor, council members. Yeah, I came here tonight, I'm one of the members to the north of the property and I did like the mention of the privacy fence and squeezing the pine trees in there. I hope it works out well. I do want to speak for my neighbor just to the east of me right here, the Samuelsons. They are at the lowest point here on the property, and it does look like from the topology lines that I could glean that it will be built up—not much, maybe about four to five feet there. And so I'd like to speak on their behalf since they're out of town saying that they already have a six-foot fence, but as it slopes down, it seems like they're still going to see a majority of the building there at least until maybe the pine trees grow in. Ideally, I think for my side, you know, 8 to 12 feet would be preferred, but it's still—I'm liking what I'm seeing there. But definitely for these guys—I remember Neil talking about if he could build a 20-foot fence he would, just to be able to have that screening because they have the pool there in the back and everything. This whole hill dips down significantly from about 18 feet to about 1 foot in that topology view there. That's all I really have. Thank you very much for your time. [1:09:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Thank you, Mr. Hos. Anybody else? I do know there's one person online. Mr. Miller? Chelsea, if you'd like to go ahead. [1:09:47] **Chelsea V. (Online):** Hello Mr. Mayor and the City Council. Can you hear me? [1:09:55] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Yep. [1:10:01] **Chelsea V. (Online):** My name is Chelsea V. I live at 15956 Kendall Drive and my property backs up to this land. I do appreciate the developer deciding to put privacy fences along the north and the west residential area. My other concern that I can back up with my residents is making that U-turn, like Ms. Volk said—forcing us to do that. And the amount of traffic that will be coming from that development. If Buck Hill Road is backed up in the wintertime due to the ski hill and everything, they'll be coming down that private drive and trying to come through Dupont and up out to Five. So my concern with that is the traffic. I do have a question about the sidewalks because they're currently not on the development plan. I learned that the sidewalks will be continued all the way down Kendall too. My question is: what's going to happen with the current landscaping and trees that are there? I have several trees in my front yard that are right up in that easement. I don't want to be charged to have to take them out. Question with that. And then lastly, I just wanted to point out that I looked for the findings of fact for the 2040 Comprehensive Plan for Lakeville. In that comprehensive plan, it states at District 1 that we have the opportunities for targeting development of high-density residential dwellings and mixed-use will be considered within the transit node of a half-mile of existing—this proposed development is one mile from the Metro Transit Kenrick Avenue. Does this meet that comprehensive plan? Okay, thank you. Those are my thoughts. [1:12:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Okay, thank you. Mr. Dempsey, if you could just answer the questions related to sidewalks and then also just overall on landscaping near Indale if you please. [1:12:20] **Frank Dempsey (City Staff):** Mr. Mayor, I'm familiar with the situation regarding the sidewalk extension in to the point that there are existing trees along that sidewalk route on both of those parcels before Dupont Avenue. The City Engineering Division has been involved in the design work of that. I don't know exactly what that impact will be, but given the line of the sidewalk, it's likely to include removal of some of those trees. I think if Chelsea—I do recall speaking with you at the Planning Commission public hearing—you might want to speak with Zach Johnson, our City Engineer, regarding that question. They've been working on that potential sidewalk extension design. [1:13:30] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any other public comments about the project? Okay, seeing none. Council, any further discussion, questions, or a motion? [1:13:46] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The private road issue was the big concern for me and I want to thank Mr. Dempsey today for helping me put that in perspective in terms of the dimensions of it and such, and also Ms. Wear for your material too—I thought that was very helpful. As I think discussed at the last—the approval of the commercial buildings—I was concerned about that Plat Commission issue as well and was pleased to hear that that's not imminent with the construction of this project. So I feel like those issues have been addressed. One of my big concerns would be if we are using that private road as the only way for people to get onto eastern County Road 46, at least that's not the case right now. So again, thanks to staff for helping putting that in perspective. [1:14:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Going off that, I think it was helpful to know that this development is not increasing the traffic to the point that's causing a trigger for that closure. I think of this part of town as fairly developed, so in my mind I'm thinking that that closure is not imminent because the growth is not that extensive in this part of town unless there's complete reconstruction of neighborhoods into higher-density housing. That's just a personal observation, but it sounds like it's not foreseen for at least 2040. And I don't see immense growth in that time in this part of town either. So I'm thinking maybe even this intersection may not need to close. But until that point, we've got a plan for creating an agreement before the final plat submission, which is helpful. And that'll be in place well before a potential closure in the future. So with that, I think the developer came to the table with answers to many of the concerns that we had. Of course, with anything going from woods to a development in your backyard, it is not what many people want. But we all know that this is a property that was going to be developed, and I think the product is going to be high-quality and these residents are going to be a great addition to our community. So just thanks to the staff and developers and our residents for making this a better project as we went. I'm ready for a motion unless others have comments. [1:16:51] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** I just want to make a comment. As you guys were talking and I was thinking about this, this has been a couple-year-long process and I really like the point that we have the development at now. But I really want to encourage and say thank you to the citizens that came and spoke at the Planning Commission meetings. I saw every one of those comments. This is really how this gets done. And I agree the developer has been really responsive to the questions that have been asked and to the concerns that have been raised. I'm in full agreement with the County Road 46 issue. At first it seemed like that was imminent and now it's more like it could be a few years or many years. So I feel good about the design of the project and the feedback that we've gotten to get to this point. [1:17:45] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Just one small comment. You know, I am pleased with who the developer is, the companies that are going into this to be able to make it a good product. I happen to live over in the area around the bowling alley in a very old neighborhood; my house was built in like '75. So we watched the bowling alley go up. Well before that, the golf dome that is now a church. You know, with the bowling alley came McDonald's and the memory care unit—all these things were commercial backed up to old neighborhoods. However, the fears that we had as citizens when these things were going up—worrying about what was going to come into our neighborhood, etc.—have not come to pass, thank goodness. And I'll knock on wood on that one. The companies have done a really good job of making sure that they have blocked off, like this privacy fence that's going to take place. So I think that everybody does the best that they can to be able to take care of the concerns of some of the older neighborhoods. And sometimes it just happens to be that you've got residential coming right up against commercial, and I think they're doing a good job of trying to transition the both. So I'm comfortable with how things have moved forward and I'm very comfortable with how they listened to the neighborhoods and try to accommodate their needs. [1:20:00] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Mayor, I move to approve: 1) the preliminary plat of Sundance Lakeville Second Edition; 2) a conditional use permit to allow more than one multi-family principal building on one lot; and 3) adopt findings of fact. [1:20:13] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Second. [1:20:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Any further discussion? I just would like to add, you know, we had a very robust Planning Commission meeting—I watched that. I'm grateful for the residents and neighbors that weighed in, but also I'm pleased to hear from the developers that a lot of the things that were brought up were addressed. So I appreciate the willingness of the neighbors and the developers to do that. With that, I will take roll call please. [1:20:45] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Aye. [1:20:46] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** Aye. [1:20:47] **Councilmember Joshua Lee:** Aye. [1:20:48] **Councilmember Michelle Volk:** Aye. [1:20:49] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** Aye. [1:20:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** The motion passes. Thank you. We'll now move on to items eight and nine, unfinished and new business. Seeing none. Next announcements: our next City Council meeting is Monday, August 19th right here at City Hall. Our next work session is Monday, August 26th. And just a reminder, tomorrow night is National Night Out. And if you go to the City's website, you can find the closest neighborhood gathering and hope to see you around town. And with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. [1:21:28] **Councilmember Dan Wolter:** So moved. [1:21:29] **Councilmember John Bermel:** Second. [1:21:30] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** All those in favor say aye. [1:21:31] **Councilmembers:** Aye. [1:21:32] **Mayor Luke Hellier:** We are adjourned. [1:21:39] **[Music]**