This transcript is from a **Planning Commission** meeting. While the provided list of city officials includes some staff, the Planning Commission members present (Mike, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Hammer, Glenn Lindell, Mr. Christensen, and Mr. Matson) are identified through the roll call and dialogue within the transcript itself. [2:09] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** meeting of march 8th 2021 call to order i'm here mr duncan here mr hammer here mr g lindell here mr christensen and mr matson here full house approval of the agenda [2:40] **Mr. Duncan:** i move to approve the agenda [2:44] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** motion's been made [2:45] **Glenn Lindell:** i'll second it [2:46] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** and seconded by was it glenn yep um all in favor aye opposed moving along approved the minutes january 11th 2021 any additions or corrections hearing none hoping for a motion [2:55] **Glenn Lindell:** i so move [2:57] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** glenn makes the motion [2:58] **Mr. Duncan:** all second [2:59] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** and mr duncan seconds it all in favor uh appointment of a planning commission chair i uh [3:18] **Mr. Duncan:** i would like to make a motion to uh reappoint mike as chair [3:24] **Mr. Hammer:** i'll second that [3:25] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** thanks a lot guys with you motion's been made and seconded to uh continue mr daniels as a planning commission chair all in favor aye opposed uh what do we got here public input anybody here this evening any citizens that would like to speak to an issue or anything on the agenda [3:46] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** hearing none hearing none we'll pass along public hearing opened at uh all right 6 30 6 31 variants of christensen's and son trucking incorporated at 700 cannon industrial boulevard the proposed variance would allow for property visibility of a sign that is being installed in an area well below grade is there anybody here from the public that would like to address this issue i'll give you three minutes anyone first come first serve [4:33] **Daniel (Applicant):** my name is daniel okay uh the reason that we're looking to go with a higher sign because it's in that little ditch there off the highway and maximum allowed in that area [5:03] somewhere around that 15 foot height okay [5:18] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** any questions commission [5:27] anybody else here this evening for this particular public hearing no any further discussion no well let's close the public hearing and move on to discussion items regulate excuse me resolution 2021 variants of the christian and son trucking incorporated at 700 cannon industrial boulevard comments questions anybody discussion i don't have any problem with it i uh [6:06] **Mr. Duncan:** i'll make a motion to uh approve the resolution [6:14] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** mr duncan's made a motion [6:15] and bruce mr hammer has seconded that motion all in favor aye opposed hearing none will move to be defining in previous service surface [6:32] definition thank you guys thank you what do we want to discuss with that um [6:38] **Neil (Public Works):** mike in the ordinance we have two separate areas and you'll see those highlighted in your packet there's kind of conflicting information there and we would like to know how the planning commission stands as far as what they would like impervious surface definition to be the first one you'll see um gravel or rock surfaces should be counted as 50 impervious a little farther back [7:23] it gives a more defined explanation of what impervious would be and it doesn't match up with the first explanation [7:42] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** neil do you have more input on that being a public works guy is there anything in particular that we need to address this is for discussion tonight okay um [7:56] **Neil (Public Works):** what we got going on is they conflict and if you wanted to use gravel as impervious surface according to our code you're allowed to do that and then you move one more page and and then you're all as far as surfacing um it says all areas intended to be utilized for parking space and driveway shall be serviced with impervious surface and you flip the page and it goes into uh pituminous so we're we're [8:31] having people say well we can put gravel down if we want or we look at this one we say no you got to put blacktop down so we kind of want to get some clarification and work through the process to uh um make sure that when people come in and they they're going to build a new building that they uh get the right information correct that's all and we do have some current questions on that with some buildings that are going up so um it would be nice to one example was canon cannon bells the the new cheese place are going to leave there's gravel well and then we got another one coming right across the road that's called [9:17] volumetrics they're going to put up a new building and what do they want to do they want to they want to do gravel they want to do gravel also because across the road now the folks that just left here they paved their whole parking lot so we need to be consistent without because you know somebody may want to come in and do gravel where they really should be doing blacktop and and one of the things to look at is is your stormwater management plan also is when you're you're dragging rock around and and it's running down your storm drains it really should be blacktopped but we're conflicting in here and there some of the folks are getting by with [10:04] gravel well when you get gully washers you know what happens uh that stuff ends up filling in your storm water ponds and and tracking out in the streets and and whatnot so what i would suggest we don't have to decide tonight by any means but i would like you to review the information that you got in front of you and we can talk about it at the next meeting but we should get them to match i guess [10:43] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** without doing a little bit more research on this i can see a difference between a large corporate parking lot as opposed to a commercial [10:49] business that's nothing more than a approach there's going to be a huge cost difference yeah take the the one we had the public hearing for tonight christensen's um i mean that's all gravel out well it's not all gravel but a great deal of it is so how would we define that [11:15] **Neil (Public Works):** they paved theirs but yeah they they paved it all yeah [11:18] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** since this morning no no they've got it no no it's a lot of it's gravel and i know there's cut there's concrete running down where dolly's down but the rest of that's all gravel when you come into the business there's there's a substantial amount of bituminous but the backlot there to the north that that's still all gravel [11:36] class 5. pretty much the whole north half [11:43] **Glenn Lindell:** i tend to wonder about runoff when you've got gravel it's sinking in when you've got paige you've got oil with recent runoff [12:06] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** has public works been involved with any of this [12:08] **Neil (Public Works):** not yet i know their opinions without filling up their storm water ponds you know once we take them over there are it's our job to to clean them out once they get filled up right and uh they don't fill up as fast uh when you got bituminous [12:30] **Glenn Lindell:** yeah well not with lime and sediment but maybe other articles right [12:34] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** no there isn't any storm sewers out there is there are they um [12:38] **Neil (Public Works):** if you look we'll just use cannon bells as as an example they have one really small one you can't hardly even see it to be on the industrial side not on holiday but the industrial [12:55] road okay boulevard boulevard yeah um and it's long and narrow and if you look at it it's kind of hard to see but that's what they needed to put into to cover that lot oh yeah they they do their own and now when volumetrics builds theirs they'll have to put in their own little it'll be small but it's just what you got to do is you got to hold back the water the same as before so any impervious surface that you have you have to hold that water for as long as it was when it's when it was pervious okay so while i uh [13:40] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** to me impervious means blacktop or cement and i think that's what should be eventually when we get done with this uh you know the the gravel i understand the cost factors involved there but we know like with well with carsten that we just you know those trucks big trucks you don't want them on that gravel you want them on because they're going to drag it out in the public roads exactly i have to clean it right right they also have the sediment issues and in the drain yeah drain pipe yeah [14:26] **Mr. Hammer:** does the city engineer have to approve these parking areas [14:30] **Neil (Public Works):** yes so what's i would depend a lot on the city engineer on on what they would say about the specific where the parking area is some areas are subject to more water erosion problems and others and they would and you'd also be able to tie it in with what the city system already handled if it looks like it's going to be an issue i mean if it's better to go but you know with car or concrete than gravel he would be a big influence on that but but i think as a general policy [15:12] we would like to set it one way if there are unusual circumstances then maybe we can look at a variance to deal with that situation but it'd be easier for people coming in going okay yeah i know i've got to do this [15:27] **Glenn Lindell:** would size of a parking area then be a variable that you'd want to include i mean if somebody's going to have a parking lot for 50 people it's going to be different than a parking lot for 10 cars and we already have [15:43] **Neil (Public Works):** and and i think our engineer would tell it yeah tell us that's what i would count on the engineer to help us out with usually in our zoning codes the zoning codes are are wrote according to the zones not so much the size i mean [15:58] if you the the codes are wrote according to the zones the zoning yeah if you go by size you're going to really have a lengthy ordinance and we already have a pretty lengthy ordinance yeah well there's also the issue of dust which what's that [16:29] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** i see there's also the issue with dust with the gravel there always is yeah yeah right and will they they spray it down that kind of thing to chloride and yes it keeps the dust down but when the water comes it makes it ten times as wet so now you've got mud that's getting get dragged out out onto the highway right yeah when we got then as a city we got that extra cost of cleaning [16:44] the roads a little more well i guess we could further research this but as far as i am at this point i'd say let's go with the bituminous and the concrete it just gets to be too much of it especially in the new industrial park you know it keeps keeps if it keeps going on with this gravel we're going to have a larger issue yeah right yeah [17:20] **Mr. Christensen:** we can't do anything about the ones that have already been [17:23] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** no that'd be grandfathered in correct [17:25] **Neil (Public Works):** grandfathered didn't but like with the cannon bells but if we can get something done before willametrix finalizes their stuff we're getting pretty much past that [17:31] pretty already for future ones yeah that could be a real issue there because of their height in accordance to the street and the curb with that downhill that could be a big problem yeah so if you just uh take a look at it and we'll keep it on the unfinished business for next meeting [17:58] **Mr. Matson:** are there are there other surfaces that maybe i'm just not aware of that that besides concrete and tar are there other surfaces that can be laid paving stones if [18:27] **Neil (Public Works):** usually it's either bituminous concrete or gravel is a 99 so those are the only three there are only three you'll normally see in minnesota yeah pretty small well right right because yeah [18:49] shaving stones huh [19:12] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** i think we'd want to keep it pretty basic if you want to spend more money because obviously the platoonists and the concrete would be the cheapest well they used to have brick you know yeah i put them down i don't think many people can afford them so i'm just curious what you you know what let's uh let's move along to c then a little discussion on uh maximum sign heights in i2 and oops i2 district i1 and oh i gotta put my glasses on no it's oh it says i'd like to see those raised to match the maximum sign heights and the b1 and [19:35] the b2 which are now at 25 feet and in the i1 and i2 they are in 10 feet maximum i think 25 feet across the board would be a lot more workable for most people like again a lot more simple and if for some reason we need a variance some special reason we can always still do that yeah it makes sense to keep it simple if there's a hardship that comes along or you just address it as it appears exactly yeah really you're dealing with height here is that your biggest concern yes yeah so okay [20:21] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** just another this is another issue up for discussion another discussion item yep okay okay we'll research that any other discussion uh by the commission this evening [20:31] **Mr. Duncan:** so do you want like a motion on that should we make a motion [20:34] **Neil (Public Works):** and we can use it we can move this to the next meeting and and deal with both of them at the same time if we're going to uh change one or change both of them then we can bring it all at once to the council yeah so do that in april [21:03] **Mr. Hammer:** do you want to consider illumination um with sein height what's that [21:07] **Neil (Public Works):** illuminate that's a that's a completely different part of the ordinance that kind of falls under something different um i mean the sign ordinance itself is actually pretty lengthy and it covers a lot of different things i'd prefer not to include that in with this i would just like to include the height if we could yeah find a starting point and go from there yeah exactly addressed each issue [21:38] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** no further discretion discussion uh motion to adjourn [21:42] **Mr. Duncan:** so moved [21:43] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** motion has been made by mr duncan to adjourn is there a second [21:46] **Glenn Lindell:** second [21:47] **Mike Daniels (Chair):** glenn made the second all in favor all [21:56] right