good evening and welcome i am calling to order the monday september 28 2020 planning commission meeting at 6 30 pm tonight's planning commission meeting will be held virtually by using zoom and in person while following social distancing guidelines as vice chair i'll be leading the planning commission meeting tonight and the public is welcome to participate when invited throughout the meeting members of the public may attend this meeting in person or join via onlinezoom if attendants if attendees experience auto audio problems we suggest you leave the meeting and then rejoin this has usually fixed the issue additional instruction and how to participate are posted online at www.burnsvilleminnesota.gov burnsvilleman.gov in the public meeting calendar as usual tonight's meeting is available for viewing on bctv and on the city's website if you are unable to participate this evening and would like to submit public testimony i encourage you to email your comments to city staff or mail your comments directly to city hall you may participate in the meeting tonight online by going to https colon backslash backslash zoom dot us slash join and typing in meeting id 953 4079 once you're logged into the meeting please use the chat feature to tell the moderator which item you'd like to speak to you may also call into the meeting tonight at 651 372 and again enter meeting id 953-4079-1645 for each public hearing i will open up a time when callers may speak to that item and give more instructions your call will be muted until that time comes along please note there may be a slight delay due to the differences in technology if speaking by phone please mute your computer since there may be that delay so now on to the agenda so the first item on the planning meeting commission tonight is adoption agenda do any of the planning commission members have any changes to the agenda i don't see anybody staff do you have any changes tonight's agenda none from staff none from staff good deal so then can i have a motion to adopt agenda i move that we adopt the agenda again commissioner wada moves commissioner roberts seconds and any uh any discussion seeing none all in favor say aye aye anyone oppose not hearing none i think that passed okay let's also consider the approval for the september 14 2020 planning commission meeting we had the minutes that were included in the packet are there anybody that has changes on the commission nobody how about staff no changes from staff no changes all rights well can i get a motion i'll move i have a motion okay motion by commissioner henderson second by commissioner anderson and all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed sounds like it passes so on to number three it's a public hearing for application of prince prince of peace lutheran church for a planned unit development amendment to reduce the parking for the site at 13801 fairview drive and to remove previous pud conditions and approvals related to lots number two and three block one ridge's 12th edition it looks like uh mrs madden you're going to be taking on for today yes thank you good evening planning commissioners uh so um as mr john stated the item before you this evening will be a public hearing uh prince of peace has been and for different planned unit development amendments a number of times over the years so the original planned unit development campus that this church is located on is known as the ridge's pud and it consists of a number of properties in the area prince of peace park nicolette fairview ridges hospital ebenezer the ymca are just to name a few of the main property owners in the area so the prince of peace original building of the church according to records was originally constructed in 1976 um it is on i don't think the laser will work but it is on as you can see in the aerial photo it's on the northern property highlighted in red both in your packet and on the presentation throughout their kind of its time in operation there have been additions to the church building as well as expansions to their parking areas and different flats of the property the most recent was ridge's 12th edition which was done in 2018 where it was planted in order to kind of confirm this lot line change that you can see the southern two lots kind of have a scraggle line and it's based on a different watershed district so uh what's under review tonight uh is related specifically to their parking amounts so the uh three properties within the prince of peace portion of the ridge's pud have had kind of shared parking and um parking has been removed and added over the years as different buildings have been constructed and just through the pud amendment process the request for the planned unit development this evening is so that all of the parking that is required as a minimum amount for the prince of east church is to be accommodated on their the principal lot that their building is located on and to remove the shared parking agreement which was the condition of the 2018 pud from uh their request so it would be rescinding that condition that was requiring that shared parking agreement as well as approving a deviation for a reduction in the total amount of parking spaces that would be the minimum that is required so this would reduce that minimum rate from 733 to 420 spaces so no actual construction or changes are proposed as part of this application it's just related to their approvals for their land use and parking as a whole on this lot also included this in this request is the rescinding of two plan unit developments amendments um from 2018 and from i believe it's from the 2013. from though just the two southern lots and they're trying to prepare those for development ready so um they're actually as part of their three properties if you view them as the three that they own there are 929 parking spaces the minimum required from the last major plan unit development amendment which covered some of these minimums for parking green space impervious surface is 833 spaces the number of spaces that are solely available on the subject lot is 420 spaces and on their current site plan that they've provided as part of this application they are showing that there would be room for some proof of parking spaces of about um let's see 22 spaces yes 22 proof of parking spaces and so you can see those if we zoom in a little bit under the southwest corner of the actual church building there is a space where they could add more and they're not required to as part of this application but they are showing that there is space if they need more um but based on uh the information that has been provided staff is supportive of the deviation based on current church operations and the phasing of services the way that the parking ordinance is set up as you may remember from a recent code change is that parking for a building is calculated based on all the uses in the building as if they were all occurring at the same time so it's based on that maximum occupancy based on the unique situation with a church facility such as this where it's a large membership and there are multiple services as well as different activities during the week not every bit of the space in the building is used at the same time and even on their largest attendance days um the parking spaces would be adequate for those multiple services on those major holidays where there's some kind of maximum attendance for church members and parishioners so the benefits to this pud amendment is that it helps to provide parking that meets demand but is not an oversupply which is a goal in the 2040 comprehensive plan and the proposal does have the support of neighboring property owners within the plan unit development and in the case of prince of peace this is to find a solution to foster some of that redevelopment of the southern two parcels which contain additional parking in that office type of building so again the deviation as part of their plan unit development amendment this evening is a reduction in the minimum amount of required parking and they could at any time choose to increase the number of parking spaces on the site but this would just cement in the findings the the number of required minimums so with every uh plan unit development amendment that occurs in this particular when most puds in particular this one we go back to the development of the site and the minimums that were provided in that 24 plan unit development amendment so this was a larger scale amendment compared to some of the ones that the commission sees so this was to facilitate some of that future development on the site and it established campus-wide standards for these three lots and so that's related to green space parking and impervious so because of the proposed um proof of parking uh those charts were adjusted in order to account for if that was ever installed just so that it was covered as far as part of the plan unit development charts um even with those changes in impervious and green space they would still be well within the standards that were described in that 20 2004 amendment so there are no issues with the from the planning considerations standpoint um so staff is recommending approval of this application um subject to three conditions the first condition is related to removing uh condition number two b from that 2018 plan unit development amendment which required that there be a cross access and parking agreement so by request of the applicant this condition is to be rescinded as part of this new plan unit development amendment the second and third conditions are related to rescinding pud approvals from the 2018 pud and a 2013 pud related specifically to the southern two lots that are owned by prince of peace currently but which they are trying to prepare for redevelopment so the previous plenum development will remain in effect for the principal lot which contains the main prince of peace building it's just from those southern two lots and again this application is a public hearing this evening i can stand for questions we do have a representative from the applicant group that has planned to attend this evening virtually and can't answer questions if needed but i'm of course here in person thank you thank you ms mann any questions from the commissioners i have a question commissioner what uh what does proof of parking mean proof of parking is a parking tool in our zoning ordinance which allows for a reduction in parking and when we apply it to a building permit it would be a reduction in the required parking so long as they can show on a site plan where the parking could be installed if necessary so in this case it's not going to necessarily be applied in the same way because we're not um grant we're granting a deviation it's not a building permit um but they're showing that there is additional room for parking on-site if it became necessary for their operations despite what they've shown which says that the parking that is currently provided is sufficient okay thank you any other question i'm not seeing any uh would the applicant like to speak or should we do the public hearing first uh he indicated today that he was available if needed but he was not planning to speak unless asked to okay great the only question i would have is is if that maximum capacity now maximum capacity if there are what is the number of parking spaces that they maximally use in the last five years is this really going to be an issue so as part of their narrative letter which was included in your packet if you'll give me just a moment to pull that up they indicated that according to their church attendance records and they did provide the pre-koba 19 numbers from their 2019 services um the largest church service attendance was 435 total persons so that's not vehicles that's individuals great okay that's what i thought appreciate that um with that i would like to open up the public hearing if there's anybody online or on zoom uh if you want to raise your hand you're supposed to hit the nine button and that will raise your hand if you're on the phone otherwise on zoom just let us know that you would like to speak to this and if if you begin to speak you hit six and it will allow you to speak at that i'm going to open up the public hearing at 6 4. good evening nick nick munson here can the commission hear me yes we can hear you good evening all uh as sarah mentioned i'm i'm counsel for prince of peace and i've been working with them and sarah and deb and other members of the city of burnsville staff through this process and um at this point we just want to first and foremost thank everyone for their cooperation and their assistance there's been questions and answers throughout this process and everyone's just been extremely helpful and so this evening my intent was to join make myself available to the extent there was any questions about the application um that weren't covered in sarah's write-up but otherwise i think the write-up covers you know essentially what we're trying to accomplish here so with that if the commission has questions for me i'm happy to entertain those otherwise i will go back on mute great thank you commissioner do you have any questions for the representative it doesn't look like anybody has the questions but i really appreciate you joining us tonight and being available for questions if we had them that is great is there anybody else on the phone to speak to this issue anybody on the zoo okay doesn't look like anybody so i will close the public hearing at 6 46 and i'm gonna turn it over to the commissioners commissioners uh any discussion on this yeah commissioner roberts um actually mine is more of a comment not a question um it was nice to read in the packet that they reached out to the neighbors and knowing that their main neighbors the hospital and the aberdeenshire facility and things like that are all on board and they've had a relationship for a long long time and i know that's one of the things that this commission looks at a lot is what the neighbors are thinking about what's going to happen and going forward with this i didn't see any red flags at all so i think it was it was done very well by staff and everything kind of cut the bases right down to where it sounded really good so nice job any other commissioners no it doesn't look like anybody do i get a motion yes commissioner roberts i would like to make a motion that the planning commission um send this for approval to the city council for the application of prince of peace solution church for a planned unit development beauty amendment to reduce parking for the site at 13801 fairview drive and to remove previous pud conditions and approvals related to lots two and three block one ridges twelfth edition uh subject to the following three conditions that are listed okay i have a motion do i have a second i'll second okay commissioner roberts motioned and commissioner henderson seconded any discussion seeing none i'll bring it up to a vote all in favor say aye anyone opposed hearing none it was a unanimous decision great thank you and thank you for prince of peace for joining us again we really appreciate taking the time to be there to answer our questions with that we'll move on to the next agenda item and that is a public hearing for the application of the city of burnsville for an ordinance amendment to title 10 zoning chapter 7 general provisions section 52 of the burnsville city code to incorporate changes related to accessory accessory dwelling units it looks like ms dean the assistant community developer director will be giving the presentation tonight and go ahead ms dean thank you vice chair john so i'm just going to go over just a little bit of information on on what started the proposal that's before you tonight so we did have a recent request through a building permit for an accessory dwelling unit to be located on an r1 single family zone property and we do allow accessory dwelling units now in our r1 and our r1as zone properties there are some requirements when you look at our city code on either limitations or specific requirements in order to qualify to have one one of those being if you are are if you are on an r1 zone property then your lot size in order to have a detached accessory dwelling unit your lot size needs to be a minimum of one acre in in square footage so that's one acre in in size square footage equivalent is 43 560 square feet the particular request was for a lot under that approximately 13 000 square feet so that was one kind of red flag when we looked at the building permit for review the other item that came into question was the lot or was the size of the unit there is a maximum size of the unit a percentage requirement which would be the equivalent to 569 square feet for this particular property and the request was for up to 704 square feet the when reviewing the building permit the planner that was reviewing the proposal notified the applicant that in their particular case a detached dwelling unit of and of that size would not be allowed per the current city ordinance and that an option would be to do an attached accessory dwelling unit meeting the criteria the particular building permit applicant wanted to see if perhaps the ordinance could be changed to accommodate for their proposal and so in august i went before the city council to kind of gauge their temperature typically we would present this at a work session as a sketch plan to see if there's appetite to change the ordinance or not on any particular subject and so posed the question to see if council would be open to various options and i think i threw out five different options and what it came down to i'll kind of jump in ahead but this is the example of the proposal that the building permit applicant had requested and so what it came down to um was the um city council was in favor of making changes to our ordinance to allow detached accessory dwelling units on all r1 and r1a lots no matter what the size and that the principal building or i'm sorry the accessory dwelling unit could be up to 50 of the size of the principal building so this would allow the particular person with a building permit application to build this accessory dwelling structure and then in the background your background in the city council's background just kind of going back in my presentation but this was something that was studied pretty heavily over almost a year-long process it was first kicked off just a little history at a city council meeting all day work session in 2017 where the city council directed city staff to take a look at temporary health care units and accessory dwelling units and so the direction was to go through a governance process so we did that i did that through a white paper which evaluated our market cities minneapolis and st paul some other surrounding cities that aren't part of our market cities but other twin cities locations as well as locations throughout the country so there was an example in california and the pacific northwest and on the east coast a couple of examples were provided just so that the council could have you know all the information that they needed we also brought in as part of that process expert testimony so there were people that lived in tiny homes that came and spoke there were people that are part of the real estate community developers that are looking at multi-generational housing and incorporating that into their their new floor plans and then there's some council dialogue and ultimately the city council and through the planning commission process um decided on a set of ordinance criteria which eventually was implemented in our city code and largely it was mod the direction at the time was largely modeled after eagan's ordinance and um eventually in 2018 that was approved and then again as you can see on the slide in august 2020 we did receive direction from city council to make to make these changes so that is what is in your packet tonight um specifically mentioning the maximum size and then allowance of detached units on all r1 and r1a lots there is a red line of that version of that specific direction from our city council that we would like you to act upon staff does recommend approval to the city council as the ordinance is drafted in your packet certainly if there are any questions i'd be more than happy to stand i did receive a phone call this evening about one of the items in this existing ordinance as it pertains to park dedication fees that was something that city council did not give us direction on i'm changing as part of the current ordinance we do require that park dedication fees are paid to the due to the intensification of the land use adding an additional accessory dwelling unit does intensify the property therefore at the time that this was originally approved that was included in the ordinance as well as any sewer and water connection type fees utility fees um there i believe there may be somebody from the public that would like to speak at the public hearing portion as well but more than happy to stand for any additional questions great thank you miss dean commissioner has any questions commissioner wad so what what is the park dedication fee or for example what is how much is that for single family for the um the one accessory dwelling unit it's approximately twenty six hundred dollars and that would be payable at time of building permit and there's in and then there's increased sewer and water accessibility fees as well um can i can you kind of run down what the what the fees are or or you or you don't know i don't have those fees prepared i'm sorry okay okay any other questions commissioner anderson um i'm just kind of kind of curious um is there any concern with the idea that it's kind of almost like turning a single family home into a multi-family lot i guess like that is is that an issue that people would have i don't know if anything particular about the specific house we were talking about here if their neighbors had any insight into it or if it's just i thought um so if i may answer based off of the um cannot be larger than 50 of the principal dwelling unit our city attorney felt that that was still in keeping with not being a duplex or a multi-um multi-family type property because it would be subordinate to the principal structure it as far as neighboring concerns um because this is just through building permit no notification is required as it would for a variance or planning development type of request so for this particular property no notification the only notification for the particular ordinance change is through the newspaper um and that would just be standard procedure for ordinance change so this would be this is any change would be a city-wide change of course the um the applicant that came before us for the building permit benefits from that but it would be a city-wide change overall any other questions i have a couple more questions go ahead commissioner do you know off the top of your head what what's this like the rear what are the setbacks for a typical r1 property uh rear yards side yard i know it's 10 feet rear yard setback is so it would be for the accessory dwelling or accessory structure setbacks would prevail um for this maybe sarah can answer she i think i can do it so i think for accessory structures so the rear step back should be eight feet and this side is five feet for the principal structure you are right that the side is ten and the rear is thirty okay so the accessory dwelling unit could be eight feet from the neighbor's property line in the backyard just to just kind of get a sense for what's being considered that's correct okay thank you did you have any more questions commissioner what uh you said i do but i just can't think of what they are right now so okay thank you all right i do have a couple questions um this so when i watched the video from 2017 it looked like there was a little bit of back and forth the city council has that been resolved now are they solidly behind this proposal with the adus and the tiny homes um so if i i may answer that um at the time the council makeup was a little different um the council member gosh i'm blanking on his name i'm so sorry kaufman coughlin coughlin yes um was on the council at the time and and council member workman was on the planning commission at the time um so the council makeup is different as far as the you know where the votes i guess play um i can say as a majority they were all always in favor of some type of accessory dwelling unit um i think at the time if i can recall council member coughlin was pretty adamant on kind of the size and really wanted to follow egan's model and i think you know consensus that we saw in august of this year was they're open to being a little more flexible and that was the majority okay and is there any other neighboring cities in the market research that would be at 50 percent like this one is or would we be the largest in these type of units yeah i you know to be honest with you i haven't done a rerun of um the of the accessory dwelling unit standards to date um since that research that was done in 2017-2018 i don't recall that anyone was necessarily that large other cities did have caps on things like percentage of lot size maybe a conditional use permit was required as part of their review so that um there there was a little more um you know if perhaps they proposed something that that was maybe too close in in the city's view to a property line that some mitigation standards could be placed for example let's say somebody wants to put an adu close to a rear property line while maybe that particular city would say you need to plant a row of evergreens between the structure and your neighbor so i mean there's i'm sure if we went back and looked back you know a number of different combinations that one could come to but no i can't recall if that 50 number or not i apologize no no worries the last question i had was uh are there a lot of applicants for having an adu added or is the one you cited the only one we've had so far there have been more than multiple so um this particular request was the first one that we've had for a detached accessory dwelling unit um that would meet the i would say the official city code adu standards um what i mean by that we do allow what i would call multi-generational type living or if someone wanted to convert their basement into living space where they have a kitchen and maybe a renter down below we would allow that as long as there's no physical firewall separation between the two so you still have to have access between the two units and we would allow that just buy right through a building permit so we have had some of those where people will you know convert some living space or add you know maybe an addition and have that kind of pass-through area this would be the first official accessory dwelling unit application we did i believe just received one right after this for a detached accessory dwelling unit as well but i believe that metal meets the lot size so we've got i would say two on the books that are making their way through um the process now great commissioner waddy second chance good all right with that i will uh open the public hearing it looks like it's 703 and it looks like we it doesn't look like we have anybody on the phone from what i could tell or on zoom but we do have somebody in person please go ahead and uh walk up to the microphone i need your name and address it's christine with a k k-r-i-s-t-i-n-e w-i-e-s-e and it's 13605 wellington crescent burnsville 5 337. thank you miss weeks go ahead yes um well my husband i had addressed and he was the applicant for the adu and uh i could not be here today but um what we respectfully like is a discussion regarding the feasibility of waiving the park and wreck fee given the that that this adu application is very unique and that this generally would apply to commercial ventures not on private residential properties we have also planted 15 trees has have done landscaping and have passed the the erosion inspection so it's something that we we think that really isn't applicable to this particular application okay do you know what those fees are you know um we um were informed it was a twenty six hundred dollar fee you know and part of our purpose with the business is to keep fees as low as possible for people that are looking usually to adding a granny flat or you know a um an additional dwelling for specific reasons that may already the goal would be cost-saving and this might be a bit more prohibited because it sounds like there are more fees that may be in the works that you outlined that you know have not been identified yet so that's our concern is that um this already seems a bit prohibited um for this type of application thank you any questions for mrs commissioner laud hi thanks for coming in um this is you're proposing to put this on your own that's right our residents in burnsville and you mentioned you want to keep fees low is this like is this um is this like a business where you're going to be you are potentially doing this for other people too or well right my husband does have this is his potential business that this would be our model but this would be a living model that we would be able to use and to that would be part of the selling point because we also wanted to keep the business in burnsville and um but it would not be um you know it would be something that would be appointment only that wouldn't be you know high traffic type business it could be virtual also with our website so um so you're not necessarily going to have a tenant there if it's a model that you're right exactly okay i'm just getting a better understanding of of the situation right i mean there is potential that we had discussed as his parents are in a nursing home right now and we're not able to move them with the coping um but but our his goal um essentially has been to create a business that would can be built on site or mold and i think he outlined that at the last meeting so um is there a sewer connection from the unit to the house um one could be installed or they can have a septic system you know a tank uh version okay so yeah that can be pumped out or so it could be done with either you'd have a separate if you weren't connected this to the house's water and sewer then you'd have a separate water and waste system for the unit well the water would need to be um but the sewer itself could be contained okay so yeah you do have to have a water connection right right we wouldn't have a well yeah okay any other questions questions okay thank you miss sweets hi thank you appreciate your time and coming in and with that anybody else and doesn't look like it i'll close the public hearing at 707. and i'm going to open it up to the commission for any discussion commissioners yeah commissioner robertson i guess this is a question for regina that um her request to have the fees waived and that's more of a variance type thing isn't it and that's not something we can just say wave a wand it's gone um so for the particular building permit application uh the planning commission cannot waive any type of fees that's what i thought now um when you're looking at the ordinance and making recommendations for changes there is a line item that does talk about and i'll get this specifically see um the line item says the addition of an adu is considered an intensification of land use park dedication fees shall be collected for each adu and any additional utility connection fees shall be collected generally at time of building permit issuance so if a commission as a whole you felt because it talks about intensification of land use if you felt that this should not be at the charge city-wide for all of the adu applications that we received and you want to propose a recommendation to city council on that since it's not redlined if you want to bring that up as part of your recommendation you can certainly do that i do want to provide just as i have a little time here point of clarification um on a statement made by the um public testimony um in burnsville for the accessory dwelling units if you're in an r1 zone property you do need to be hooked up to city services sewer and water facilities if you're an r1a that's a little different but and then of course if they're building this to be placed in other cities obviously those rules and requirements would be different in r1a would be the larger lots correct typically r1a is your larger two acre minimum lot size in southwest burnsville where those properties are still um some do have septic any other comments discussion uh commissioner watt i you know i i do have i i mean i think it's a kind of increasing the density of the housing i think is an important goal um and i do struggle with the fees um you know to build something like this in your backyard it's i mean it's a house and so it's a you know it's a pretty significant investment um to build something something like that on your property so it's you know whether we have a you know development fee or not that's that's not going to be why these things happen or don't happen but it's it's uh you know we've looked at a few of these in our own in my own business and people like to talk about them but they don't that we don't build them because they're expensive um but i think it's a great i mean i think more opportunities to increase density i think would help the housing stock of the city and and and i think that's something we need to talk more about commissioner anderson curiosity i mean all right um so this has the potential to increase the number of people that are on like a single lot does that change the property taxes that they would then be having to pay so in theory having an additional structure could add value to one's property therefore increasing their property taxes absolutely i'm just kind of curious about that it would still it would still be considered one law it would not be a separate lot that would be taxed not a separate property identification number you know it wouldn't be a separate lot of record it would all be under one one property and i follow dude that uh fee that we were talking about is that just for what was the the exact reasoning for the fee again so it's a park dedication fee um and it goes towards new trails to help pay for new equipment like play structures anything new in our parks or for a new park what was what was triggering the the reason for that fee um for this the particular person that spoke tonight or for the um just in general yeah yep um so the view was that this is an intensification of um of the land use that um you're adding more potentially more people to a property um and potentially more impact to our park system how much does that fee for just if they just had a a lot there that they were going to build a house on just unfortunately i don't have that ex that information those fees are typically calculated through our engineering department and unfortunately we don't have our city engineer here today to get them more thorough i can certainly provide you with that information after that i didn't know how if it was similar amounts or if it was like the same amount stuff that's the same amount just for adding unless you happen to know sarah so if i can interrupt so this i believe and we can correct this after the meeting if needed but that for a single family home that is a flat fee and that 2600 would apply in the case of a new single family home as well but it is triggered by a plaque typically so it's by adding those units and doing a subdivision of land so you have also seen on these residential apartment buildings that get approved there are park dedication fees that are required as part of that and it's triggered by the planning process which cements that intensification of land use but in the case of those larger scale developments it's a formula based on the number of units so the justification for why it was included as part of our accessory dwelling unit ordinance initially was because of the calculation based on the number of units and this is um by definition adding an additional dwelling unit okay uh if i might chime in um thank you usually the developer that's paying the park dedication fee and they because it's the developer that does the plant uh planning of a property right and so it seems it seems kind of off to that somebody who has a single family house and they want to you know put in a adu for their for whatever reason um that they would have to pay these fees as if they were a developer especially if the fee is the same as the original you know whoever developed that house on that lot has already paid a park dedication fee that's that's my take on it any other mr anderson um the commissioner wad but don't you think in a situation like this the homeowner is somewhat of the developer yes they are developing their property they are developing to add an accessory structure yeah so they are going to be adding more people to that piece of property so more people equals more use on trails on you know park equipment whatever it may be so there's more wear and tear so you need to have that additional monies to help with the upkeep no that i mean you have a point i i um yeah no that's that's i it's i'm i'm unclear on what what the right answer is but um i i think of you know part of it is you think of somebody that's building a 100 unit apartment building and you know they're going to make money building 100 unit apartment building it's the person that's building an adu in their backyard most likely is not going to get their investment back you know the cost generally the cost of building that house behind your house is is is so high that you you can't get it back in rent and you can't you know it doesn't make financial sense for people to to do this otherwise we'd be seeing it happen quite quite a bit um but that's their decision that's true yeah but it's right it's but it's not it's a decision not motivated by profit i guess what i'm getting at it's more out of a need or you know there's a lot of reasons to build an adu behind your house but um it work i think the current state of our real estate market it's you're not doing it as a isn't it you know as an investment or so christian anderson i was going to say that a kind of a counter argument to that would be that fee is the same regardless of the size of the family that moves into that house i mean you can have you know two people who move into a house that has four bedrooms they don't have to use all of those bedrooms but compare that to somebody who has eight kids and that's the same fee that they're paying and those kids are gonna use those just as much but uh i don't know i i can see both sides of the argument definitely because uh you know it is important to continue to fund our park services uh but then again like uh you're saying kind of like they're they're hitting the person twice and the first one was the developer who paid it now it's it's out of their pocket it's gonna be kind of hard when you're trying to sell that house you gotta find a specific person who wants to buy not only your house but that additional unit that you have on there so that's it's not generally like you're saying profit driven why they would do that but on that note it could also be somebody building an airbnb in the backyard too that's true at the same time so it could be profit generating i guess it all depends any other comments oh i could probably chime in commission roberts i guess i'm looking at it as you know our city is is a business being run and we can't run it on nothing and if there is a fee to do this type of procedure and build this in your backyard um and the staff comes up with this number based on what they think it should be it's a flat type thing um i would understand that in some situations if somebody's trying to do this for a grandmother you know and they want to keep the cost down they don't have a lot of money where i can look at that situation but then there's going to be 10 other instances that are going to say the opposite and there's going to be a multiple amount of people and there is going to be some use and all that so for us to try to figure out the best for both worlds might be pretty hard my take on this is i'm not an expert on who's going to move into these and what kind of money they're going to make or not make but i always look at the fact that the research that our staff has done has given us the indication that this is something that we need and that's something my understanding didn't change that was there before correct i mean of all the list of stuff that's on here we've got red lines through certain things and basically what we're changing is the size of the building and the size of a lot you can do it on if i'm a help answer and so at the city council meeting the council gave specific direction on the two items related to the um the maximum 50 percent and then the allowance of the detached on onto any r1 or r1a lot regardless of the size there was some discussion from the city council that or comments i should say that there was some leaning towards wanting to make some other changes to the ordinance but that would be saved for later alluding to we will be doing a large scale city code update process not only looking at this title but through the entire city code and maybe some indication that some additional changes would be made but at that specific meeting just those two right and we're looking at the specific red indications that are on this not the whole document if we want to give a suggestion of line 20 and want to send that to the city council we're allowed to do that correct but that sounds like that's something that could be looked at in the future once we complete what we're supposed to do today that's correct as well okay i mean either way you could give him recommendation tonight or that's something that can be looked at in the future without specific evidence knowing how this is going to roll out you know i mean it could be something that changed down the road it could but as of right now i was looking at this as the we're looking at the red line changes right now specifically okay and that's a fair point thank you commissioner roberts for setting us straight just i just so any discussion on the 50 or the less than acre size lot personally i'm a little bit concerned about the 50 percent uh proper the size of it um of the main dwelling unit nobody else has a issue with that at all it's really hard question anderson that's the square footage of the the main dwelling like if it's two three levels just all of it and you can have a pretty sizable tiny home that's not so tiny but that's my concern but all of a sudden you know we have multi units in one small lot you know it's not acre size anymore right but doesn't other things come into play um impervious service all these other rules and regulations that they have to follow as well so it doesn't necessarily can be up 50 percent correct because there's other things that they have to follow so they still um an applicant still would have to meet the setback requirements if they're in shoreland that's where a maximum impervious surface would come into play there are some changes that will be coming related to watershed district depending on which watershed district you're in may have some specific impervious surface maximums that's not quite out yet but could you know certainly today if someone want to their if their principal structure if they wanted to build out to the setbacks like technically they could you could have a what some people would call a mcmansion back in the day um you know occupying all corners and but that's typically you don't see that happening just as an example i mean somebody i forget which commissioner asked how many applications have we received for accessory dwelling units and in the past couple of years two that um in a town of you know 65 000 people um it's not it's at this point in time it's not going to be the norm now you see that out in other states for sure that it it is starting to become the norm but i think it'll you know be a while before minnesota um catches up i guess to our coasts and when you say add you doesn't necessarily mean a tiny house either it could be a shed could be a garage just something that's attached correct i suppose the dwelling word in there would make it more of a living space i take back my question commissioner anderson i just had a curiosity can they can people ask to have multiple accessory dwelling units on their property or is there like a one limit maximum of one okay just checking commissioner roberts um just to help you out i mean if you think of the of a lot size and you have a building and you're trying to do 50 of that being able to actually do that on that lot might be impossible because it's just as you get a bigger main building that other building can't fit so i don't know if we're going to have a a big problem with that uh tiny houses um you can't have anything on wheels that doesn't count it has to be a permanent structure yes of a foundation so things like those you can't put five or six i mean i don't think we're looking at that you know there's a 300 square foot minimum you know things like that so there's a lot of things on here that are going to prevent people from doing this unless it's a perfect storm that it all fits into play i think this is making things easier for staff and a little bit more clear for people percentage-wise and stuff i could see this being manipulated down the road i really could but once we get some things in place then we can go forward they're changing this based on things that are happening now so i looked at it from a different standard point of view of i went through about four different scenarios in my head why someone would want to build something like that and they're all different so those are very good points thank you any other commissioners have a comment discussion all right well with that we can look to get a motion anybody have a motion to make commissioner roberts is um i guess from the standpoint of emotion um it's pretty simplistic i guess uh we recommend to the city council from the planning commission to approve the proposed ordinance amendment is drafted correct yeah um if you choose that was your recommendation that staff's recommendation okay yeah yeah well it sounds like mr roberts made a motion any second commissioner henderson seconds any discussion on the motion see no discussion i will call for a vote all in favor say aye hi anyone oppose sounds like the eyes have it that's an eye for me as well commissioner timmerman of stains and with that we'll move on to our next item and that is the 2020 work plan landscaping ordinance discussion sarah madden will be the city planner will be presenting the item overview and of the background report where's matt thank you commissioner john um so i'm just going to give a quick introduction into the topic and then the um kind of some main overview of the research that was done will be presented by albert cias from northwest associated consultants he's in our consultant pool and he's helped us out on this topic so on the 2020 planning commission work plan there were two items related to landscaping to look into for possible changes so those are building perimeter landscaping that item was added to the planning commission work plan based on some discussion at the planning commission level by a former planning commissioner who just expressed some interest in what we could do to expand building perimeter landscaping to be more inclusive based on some deviations that had come before on previous applications the next item was put there by staff and so that's landscaping requirements in open space on large parcels and that was related to both planning items that came to the commission and council as well as some building permits where there was some back and forth with the landscape architect or the developer of the property so you may remember in the last couple of years most recently the fire station property where there was some landscaping deviations granted due to the tree preservation on the lot as well as the slope of the lot um about a year or so ago there was an industrial equities office warehouse cup invariants where there were landscaping variances granted to the number of shrubs and trees to be installed on the lot based on the steep slopes of the property so we had kind of seen these recurring themes and put it on the work plan to look into which some of the research into our ordinance and into our market cities um as well as some recommendations were put together by north associated consultants so the goals of this um work plan item were for staff and our consultant to look into the areas of the ordinance where we are seeing land use approvals related to landscaping plans research some adjustments inquire with the standards that exist within our market cities and then look at how we can provide some flexibility in applying these standards because we have a very extensive and detailed landscaping ordinance um so with that actually i will turn it over to al good evening everyone i'm al brexius first of all i'd like to tell you that you have a very elaborate and detailed landscape coordinates so just starting with that in examining the the required minimum number of trees and shrubs that are required you have this diversity component that stipulates that uh three out of four uh three out of the four items have to be addressed and that would overstory trees ornamental trees evergreen trees and deciduous trees or shrubs this is this is calculated based on an open area well there's no definition of open area in your ordinance it's generally been applied to the lot area minus the building and hardcover sidewalks parking lots so that issue becomes an area of concern from the standpoint just a number of shrubs and and packing them in as as tightly as possible the other element that you look at is that when you apply each of the thirds you start with open space calculation on a gross area so if you look at page two of a report you see that in the case of ir iret you the open space is used to calculate each one of the the various components resulting in a fairly large number the other thing that you have to should be aware of is that the landscaping that is required for buffer yards where a industry or commercial but to a residential area that is not used to meet the count additionally your landscaping for for uh parking lots both the screening at the perimeter and the interior landscaping is not uh is not credited against that total count so you you're doubling up on landscaping for buffer yards your parking lot and then you're doing the total count based on everything else in looking at those we looked at a number of other cities and found out that a lot of them have this open this requirement but they calculate it differently a number of cities like rapids bloomington offer a requirement based on open area in the case of bloomington they do they do define open area and subtract out a number of elements that go beyond just what the general application in burnsville is some of them some of the communities do a tree shrub count based on linear feed of the right level a lot some of them base it on the square footage of the gross floor area and some on building value in my by examination of this i would never recommend basically on the the force floor space of the building or the building value because it really has nothing to physically relate to the lot and it it's just becomes a number issue in looking at uh the other provisions other things that you've granted flexibility on is you you do mandate a woodland protection where they you have significant trees but those areas are not also subtracted out of your your open area so in some cases where you in the past you've given flexibility where opens or woodland preservation was a pretty a predominant component of your site design other areas that you've considered for flexibility in the past but not specifically mentioned are steep slopes where slow preservation was was preferred you also have some other provisions such as mandatory green space for your commercial and residential properties in our examination of this we believe that one of the things that you could give as far as considerations is defining what you are going to apply open space to and in considering that you have to also consider where these plants can be can be placed on the lot some of the other considerations that we're suggesting is stormwater ponds uh being subtracted wetlands where any kind of infill or or treatment within the wetland boundary should be subtracted out where we have pipeline and overhead easements originally we suggested that this be any easement but city staff said which should specifically apply to where we have a underground utility in place or an overhead that may prevent any planting of any size or either below the surface or into an overhead line should be subtracted the wetland or the woodland preservation areas if it's a mandatory woodland preservation area that should those trees should be counted as part of the overall landscape requirements the buffer yard landscaping and then one of the other elements that i suggested was if we're doing an approved uh building expansion where we have a phase development should we be requiring that area where the building is going to expand to provide additional landscaping you don't want to have a landscaping just to be removed with subsequent faces so those were some of the suggestions that we looked at and we've discussed with staff with regard to perimeter planting some of the things that we did is we went through dakota county gis and looked at a number of sites we feel that the perimeter planting at 50 can work in industrial and multiple family but when we start looking at our commercial sites it becomes much more complicated when the rear of the property and the front of the property is used for parking loading receipt of goods etc and some of the suggestions that we offered is that we could reduce that percentage from 50 percent to maybe 30 percent but also offer an opportunity to even reduce that further if they did a architectural or aesthetic design component which is one of your alternative landscape signs plaza areas seating areas planters rather than uh just shrubs and plants so in the considerations that we put together here and tonight we're not asking you to make any motion we're just looking for any further alterations to what we're suggesting then we can hold a public hearing in in october and give this consideration but what we're recommending is part of our plan is we believe that your parking lot landscaping your buffer yards most of the details in your plan don't need any modification we're suggesting that uh plant as part of plant diversity we define open area as calculating the total lot minus storm water ponds wetlands utility easements with pipelines and overhead transmission lines steep slopes in excess of 12 percent woodland preservation areas with significant trees and the way we would calculate that is if it's a area it would be calculated based on a dimension that followed the tree canopy perimeters so that plantings or any disturbance there could compromise the tree the other elements we have are naturally the building parking areas loading areas and sidewalks and other imperfect surfaces and then with in review of the perimeter planting what we're suggesting is that we leave multiple family office clinics day cares restaurants at 50 but allow them to have a reduction where we have uh an aesthetic design component as an alternative you already allow that for restaurants that have patios so i think this would be consistent with that practice and then in commercial retail sales on-site on-site service businesses and shopping centers our recommendation is to look at a 30 perimeter planting and still allow for that exception where we have uh the aesthetic design component outlined in your alternative landscape options in this respect some of the other cities have or recognize that their their planting totals result in overcrowding and they've made provisions for a cash contribution in lieu of plantings that's not something i would recommend because i don't think it relates to the individual site and i don't think you know that where's that money going to be i think it's i think it's a impact fee that is not justified are there any questions any questions commissioners commissioner wad um you mentioned reduction for aesthetic design component who who evaluates the aesthetic design component what process is that currently currently the way it's evaluated under alternative designs it's it's subject to review i had to get that provision out i could actually answer that so um there are in the landscaping ordinance it does list a few examples of aesthetic design components that are um like plazas and things similar to that but then it does say or other options is reviewed by the development review committee so that phrase is used frequently in the zoning ordinance and essentially what that means is we do have a development review committee of staff building engineering fire natural resources forestry planning we are the chair of that committee and and we meet bi-weekly to go over both building permits and our current active land use applications that come before the planning commission so it is a staff-led committee that evaluates it if it gets to that point but typically it lists a few of those aesthetic design options within the zoning ordinance that that they could provide as an example great so it gets reviewed that's right it gets reviewed thanks a good question any questions or more discussion mr timmerman uh i'm curious what uh i guess when the the bulk of this ordinance was established um it looks like there's some citations of 1980s some changes in 2012 i guess you know this is such a thorough ordinance i'm curious the purpose for many of the the existing ordinances and kind of the backstory a little bit too before we make any dramatic changes i think i think you know a lot of times as a city becomes or evolves becoming more fully developed i've had other clients that had a green space require mandatory green space requirements you know 30 or 40 percent uh and as they developed and they wanted their businesses to grow in place they re-examined that that green space as potential building envelopes and moved away from it i think you're looking at an evolution of what's occurring here a couple of things that i was sensitive to in looking at this is that i think you want to look at where existing businesses specifically specifically industries have the opportunity to grow in place and expand its in re so you can have that retention one of the things i suggested is that if you have a phase development plan would you require the landscaping against that expansion area against the building envelope i think we're comfortable with what we're suggesting right now but i think any time you have uh ordinances out that are you know 1980s evolving through the years your your goals are going to change your your the physical opportunities within each site is going to be different uh you're going to have maturing businesses that are going to look at what they're going to do next and the other element that i look at is of the diversity count is while most of the market cities have this it's not necessarily related to site design it just gives you a number account based on you use open space other user perimeter and it's really not necessarily directed at at the areas that you really need the landscaping from a utility standpoint the other element that i thought was was extraordinary is that you have a fairly detailed buffer yard requirement as far as opacity height design everything where you have these but regardless of how number of planning it takes to get there you still have to provide the other planting and the area you're putting these the buffer yard in is still calculated against your open space so you're doubling up and doubling up same holds true for your landscape plan for your parking lots your i think i wouldn't change anything related to that but i would at least give the businesses or the developer the opportunity to have those counted against your total lot count because they serve both a utility function as well as a static function and probably the areas that you most want to give attention to but as far as the total history i don't have the total history since 80 but i i know that we have served in the past and some of that language that we're changing is probably some of the stuff that we offered back then something i liked in the in the whole uh background is uh as i was reading it i was thinking well what is an open space or you know why you know what what defines it and things and as i got further down the report there was listed so i think a lot of the recommendations you made made a lot of sense uh i don't think there was anything i could see that would jump out at me and say well that's that's not right or hopefully you would disagree with that yeah otherwise we'd be a lost leader yeah especially when you talk about doubling up with the buffer areas that i mean it's just a language thing probably more than anything um one thing you it was called a story tree or a one-story tree overstory tree overstory tree what does that exactly mean overstory are generally treated as your shade trees your elms your ash those type ornamental trees are going to be a shorter performing a different function and so you have different categories that are established and you also have a list of plantings that or tree species that you have preferred that fit within these different categories basically okay thank you commission or chair temperament um i noticed that a couple other cities have limitations on species do you have any recommendations on that with ash issues or any other types of actually i i i will leave that to your your city forester as far as those alternatives a number of my cities have a list of prohibited trees because of different uh hardiness and and disease components and i can certainly provide that but i don't think it's going to be anything different than what you're already implementing uh so to interject our city forester does have a packet list that he provides um when requested that does list all of the trees that we will not accept oh yeah so we review that when we review landscaping proposals that come before you i get to believe that you probably have everything related to landscaping you could possibly have based on what the the heat reduction thing is was specifically unique to you and i think that's a great idea though i just and that was the one trees that were counted with the total tree count others weren't i didn't realize we had a city forester so i learned something new today any other discussion commissioners just a comment i mean this this commission has always been um green friendly for lack of words and and there's certain people on this commission that take it really to heart so looking at what you guys were proposing and bringing us up to speed in 2020 and how the changes are going to react to architecture and things like that and other alternatives that we didn't have back in the day that we do have now it looked very promising so keeping in mind the green space that we love to have and having that still available plus what's going on was nice to read up i'm not an expert on this stuff but it wasn't by the end of when i got to it i felt pretty good about it so thanks for the efforts you're putting on this too thank you any other comments or discussions if you have any other changes or suggestions as you look at this you can please give them the staff and we'll have them ready for you when we take this to public hearing perfect thank you and that was for informational and educational purposes and official action is required and we'll move on to updates any updates commissioners seeing non-staff uh yes so your october 12th planning commission meeting will be cancelled so the next time we'll see you will be the second meeting in october i believe it's the 26th but i'm not looking at a calendar so right now so um on that we will definitely or we are planning to have the proposed um ordinance ready for public hearing on that days the other items we don't have submitted yet so i can't get you any additional information but yes your next meeting on october 12th will be will be canceled and those are my updates great it looks like the next item on our agenda is adjournment do i have a motion i'll move commissioner henderson moves any one second second commissioner a lot of seconds all in favor say hi anyone oppose that completes it we're all done thank you for joining us tonight you