This transcript reflects the City Council meeting held on June 17, 2024. While the provided context notes Nick Lien as Mayor and mentions a 2026 vacancy, the transcript clearly identifies **Joshua Hoy** as the Mayor at the time of the recording and **Nick Lien** as a Councilmember. [0:03] Mayor Joshua Hoy: [Music] we'll call the city council regular [0:49] meeting to order for Monday, June 17th, 2024. Would everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. [1:00] All: 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. [1:23] City Clerk Shirley Buecksler: Call the roll, please. Mayor Hoy? [1:26] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Here. [1:27] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [1:28] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Here. [1:29] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [1:30] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Here. [1:31] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Lien? [1:32] Councilmember Nick Lien: Here. [1:33] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Wilson? [1:34] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Here. [1:35] Mayor Joshua Hoy: All right, any changes to the agenda? Leah, Nick, Holly, no? Katie, Steve? No. I would like to request to add item 7.12, and the item has been added to the online version of our agenda, and this is a donation of $15,000 from the Farmington Fire Relief Association. Thank you. Any other changes, Shirley? Team? All right, seeing none, I would seek a motion to approve the agenda with the addition of item 7-12 to the consent agenda—a donation of $15,000 from the Farmington Fire Relief Association to the city of Farmington. [2:12] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Motion to approve. [2:14] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Second. [2:15] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Motion by Steve, second by Katie. All in favor say aye. [2:18] All: Aye. [2:20] Mayor Joshua Hoy: All right. First item on the agenda under announcements is 5-1, which is the introduction of our regional funding manager. Lynn? [2:28] City Administrator Lynn Gorski: Thank you, Mayor and Council. Tonight we have invited Carrie Kubicek to join us. Carrie is an employee of Southeast Service Cooperative out of Rochester, but we are doing a collaboration with Southeast Service Cooperative with Carrie, and she is working for us part-time. She is here to explain to you what she's doing, but she is the Regional Funding Manager that we have joined with them on. She did start on May 1st. Southeast Service Cooperative works a lot with schools, cities, and counties and offers different kinds of services—professional development, they provide spelling bees for students, STEM programs, all sorts of things. So it was a great collaboration effort that we are doing, and we're excited and we welcome Carrie. [3:19] Carrie Kubicek: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for allowing me some time to introduce myself. I'm just going to go like a half hour if that's okay. [Laughs] So my name is Carrie Kubicek. Regional Funding Manager is the title that I have now. Like Lynn said, I'll be working with both the City of Farmington and the Southeastern Service Cooperative. Just real briefly, I've been at SSC for 20 years, so I'm now a senior employee, which I don't like. We're doing some planning for me and my colleague's 20th anniversary work anniversary, and we are doing a jigsaw puzzle competition. So I truly am a senior employee. I think it used to be happy hours, didn't it, for celebrations? But it will be fun, so I'm excited for that. [3:58] Carrie Kubicek: Lynn kind of told you a little bit about SSC. I've done tons of work there in numerous areas, and a lot of it has been based on some programs that were funded through grants. I've managed those grants, written grants, and administered them. We don't receive funding from the state, so most of our programs are funded through that vehicle of grant funding. Just a few other things: I am so impressed with Farmington, and I'm not just saying that because I'm standing up here, but Kelly took me on a tour of the Rambling River Senior Center and the park and where the new skate park will be and just all these initiatives and programs I think are super exciting. It just seems like a great community to live in. So, I'm very appreciative that I get this opportunity. [4:45] Carrie Kubicek: This past month I've met a number of employees, and I may not remember all of their names yet, but I have gotten involved with grants with the SHIP grant at the Fire Department for lactation stations. John and I are meeting tomorrow to go over things about the Emerald Ash Borer grant and Shade Tree grant that I've learned tons about. Recently, or today, I met with Nate over at the Police Department and we talked about applying for a grant to bring on another peace officer using funding through a program there. So that one will be my first one where I actually get to be here from the start. Very excited to kind of learn the ropes there. Other than that, I live in Rochester, been there about 26 years, and yeah, just really excited to be here. So thank you so much. [5:33] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Awesome. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Nick, any comments or anything to add there? [5:38] Councilmember Nick Lien: Not a lot, just welcome. [5:40] Carrie Kubicek: Thank you. [5:41] Councilmember Nick Lien: It was nice to meet you tonight. We're excited to have you. [5:44] Carrie Kubicek: Thank you. [5:45] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Okay, I think this is really exciting work and it will be interesting to see in the future what kind of funding you can bring to our community through partnering with our staff. So thank you for what you're doing. [5:54] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Yeah, I've thought for a couple years that having a partner to help us with grant writing and collaboration in particular has been valuable, so appreciate you and happy to have you here. And for those that don't know what a Regional Funding Manager does, it's ultimately to find source funding for projects, initiatives, supplemental sources for work that may be approved through our budget or extra projects. The amount of time sometimes this takes, and the specific nature of how grants are not only located, sourced, applied for... the timeframes... we have seen a significant uptick in our ability for our team to go out and source these documents and to get this funding to come in to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It also creates a burden on our team, and when we allocated the position in halftime or part-time to be split, that was the sole intention: to welcome someone to the team to ultimately go out and secure outside financing and funding sources for us to continue to do things. So for those watching, that's what Carrie will be doing, and welcome aboard. We appreciate you and we look forward to all the things you'll bring our way. [7:11] Carrie Kubicek: Thank you. [7:12] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you, ma'am. We appreciate it. Moving on, item six on our agenda is citizen comments. This time is reserved for citizen comments regarding non-agenda items. If there's anyone in attendance wishing to speak, now would be the time. We just ask that those speaking state your name and address, limit your comment to 5 minutes. The Council will not engage in discussion on your topic, but those issues requiring response will be responded to by the next City Council meeting. We just ask that everyone speaking remain respectful. [7:45] Nathan Ryan: My name is Nathan Ryan, 22390 Cambrian Way in Farmington, Minnesota. Thank you, Mayor and Council, for opening this comment section. I'm here to just speak about the potential rezoning. It's not on your agenda, so it's open for talking about the potential rezoning to the south of the golf course property as well as the school district property. There are many of us that are not in favor of it. I know that it was tabled at the last Planning Commission meeting and Tony used the term "indefinitely," which to most people means forever, but for some reason to him it doesn't; it means at a later date. But I'd just like to just put that out there: not in favor. [8:30] Nathan Ryan: I see that you guys had a special work session. I watch the agenda pretty close so I didn't see that change. I don't know if that happened within the three-day window required by law; I hope that it was, but it seems like that there was another meeting that was canceled and then it became today where I saw that agenda that got pushed out where you're talking about rezoning. And I know that it still needs to go before the Council still, you have a lot of work to do before you can do that, but I definitely think that that is not the place for zoning. I think that the application was done erroneously, and I am here tonight to just remind the Council, especially Mayor Hoy, of what you all said during your election terms—that you're for the people of Farmington. We are the people of Farmington. Those of us that live in that area, we are the people of Farmington. TRACC is not from Farmington; they are just a source to bring in this elusive revenue source known as taxes or to bring down taxes, which is not going to happen. [9:36] Nathan Ryan: And you're already getting another Industrial Park. You're already getting one that you will be talking about on your agenda tonight. So you're already getting one and it's going to bring... the Mayor had said $8 million in tax revenue. So if we've already got one that's going to be over 2 million feet and now you want another one, at what point can you honestly say that we have a spending problem and not a tax revenue problem? If everyone's complaining about how taxes are and how high they are, and you all keep going and hiring folks like this to provide funding and get more funding and more tax base and more tax base, at what point does it stop? And you're doing it to the detriment of your citizens who live, work, play, live here. We're Farmington citizens. Listen to us. Don't listen to TRACC. Don't listen to them and their promises of higher tax revenue, which takes six years in an area that you're rezoning. [10:32] Nathan Ryan: I just want that heard. I want that as on the record as possible. And, you know, I just am just extremely disappointed in Mayor Hoy. I believe that he should be sanctioned for his actions: giving double middle fingers to the residents merely two months after he sat down with them in a work session where he said... his words... "we're going to work hand in hand with you." That is just politician speak. You tell them one thing; you tell the residents of Castle Rock that you're going to serve their best interest and you're going to hold them up as well, and then when you meet with us privately, you give them the devil birds and you say "I don't f***ing care who they are." Listen to us. We do not want mixed-use industrial. I don't care if it's a data center or if it's a made-up term like Tony uses, a "technology park," which does not exist in the city code at all. So those things are wrong and I'm here to hopefully start holding you more accountable, especially you, Mayor, especially you. People don't show up here, you don't listen to them; that's why. We're too busy. We vote and elect you to have our best interest in mind and you're not doing it by creating a mixed-use industrial park on the golf course property or in the school property. [12:05] Nathan Ryan: And if you wanted to serve them better or best, figure out a way for them to get out of their contracts. Rezone the property first, and instead of $50,000 an acre, after that property is rezoned and mixed-use commercial, it's worth 100,000 plus just like you saw, just like you're going to be talking about tonight. How much does that property sell for? The reason it sold for that high amount is because it's already zoned. Everyone's like "oh, it's great for the school district." No, you are cutting your school district short. They might be able to sell that property for $6 million or $10 million, but if they could get $20 million out of that, why wouldn't you allow them to do that? Rezone it first. Go through the proper steps. Go through the proper channels. Get that done first. You're allowing the school district to be sold that property for less than market value because you didn't follow the process. You didn't have them rezone first, and the property would be worth more money if it was already mixed-use commercial. But you're not doing that and that's wrong. It's wrong for the school districts, it's wrong for the people of Farmington, it's wrong for us as residents. I would highly suggest that the other members of the Council—and you were there, Steve, right? Steve was there; he witnessed the Mayor. He witnessed what happened. Why don't you all look into that? I believe that you should be censured and I believe that your actions were wrong. Nathan Ryan, thank you. [13:33] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you for your comments. Anyone else wishing to speak at this time, please? [14:04] Jeff Schuler: My name is Jeff Schuler, I live at 22420 Calico Court. Mayor Hoy, Council, thanks for letting us come up here and speak about unrelated items. I'm not as good of a speaker as Nate; I don't do this for a living. You guys sat there in our neighborhood and said "we don't want to be Lakeville, we don't want to have industrial in the neighborhood." Do it right. You guys have the power, make TRACC spend the money and run their power lines. Don't put us in neighborhoods. Give your neighbors the respect they deserve. This is your community. We vote for you guys, we listen to you, we believe in you for a reason to do the right thing. This is money; it's not the only opportunity you have on the table. It's not the only one that'll come. Let it be done right. Find the correct spot. Respect the people that you're getting the land from and the people that you're putting it next to. I don't know all the laws; I try to say I do, every time I talk I'm "uneducated" or I'm "incorrect" and there's a lot of proof in that. [15:00] Jeff Schuler: So just speaking as a resident and a father and as a neighbor: put them where they should be. It shouldn't be in a backyard. It shouldn't be where the land comes from; those people should have some say, we should have some say. I can't make it through my neighborhood without getting stopped and asked what's going on. People are afraid to come talk here because of who they work for. They're afraid to come talk at the chance of not getting permits later if they speak out against it. They think there's no point in talking about it because it's already done and this is a formality. It shouldn't be the truth. We should have a little bit of impact; what we say should matter. If nobody shows up and nobody says anything, it doesn't matter and it rolls through. There's no mediation, there's no even discussion of it. I'm not even talking about mediation, I'm talking about putting it in the right place. [15:52] Jeff Schuler: This neighborhood has a chance to grow into another neighborhood that can extend to the other neighborhoods that are already planned. This can be an awesome neighborhood. If you pull it up on a map, it's now a small green dot circled by red. Nobody moves their families into the center of a red area. You look at these things, they're color-coded for a reason. Green's good, red's bad. I'm surrounded by red now. Just think about it from those aspects and what you would want in your neighborhood and what you'd want to deal with and explain to your kids and raise your families. And thank you. [16:34] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak? Seeing no additional, we'll move on to item seven, which is our consent agenda. We seek a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended with the addition of item 7-12. [16:49] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Motion to approve. [16:51] Councilmember Nick Lien: Second. [16:52] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Motion by Katie, second by Nick. All in favor say aye. [16:56] All: Aye. [16:57] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Our first item under petitions is 10-1, the petition to rezone properties from mixed-use commercial industrial to Industrial. Tony, you've got this. [17:11] Planning Manager Tony Wippler: All right, thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. Yes, we have received a petition for rezone of properties from MUCI, which is our mixed-use commercial/industrial, to Industrial. It was done by R&L Carriers. They are requesting the rezoning of two parcels; they are legally described as Outlots A and B, Farmington Industrial Park Third Edition. They are at the southeast intersection of 208th Street and Pilot Knob. I have them highlighted or circled in red on the map on the screen. And again, the request is to rezone them from MUCI (mixed-use commercial industrial) to Industrial. [18:03] Tony Wippler: R&L is proposing an expansion to their trucking terminal which is located at 5260 208th Street West. The expansion does include a 76,230 square foot building expansion along with paved surface parking and stormwater facilities. So as you can see on the south end of the building, the new leg of the building would extend to the southwest into the area that would be rezoned. The expansion plans do require the acquisition and combination of Outlots A and B along with Lot 1, Block 1, Farmington Industrial Park Third Edition, and this would be done via plat or subdivision. These would be combined with R&L's existing site located at that 5260 208th Street West address. [18:50] Tony Wippler: The existing site for R&L Carriers along with that Lot 1, Block 1, Farmington Industrial Park Third Edition, are currently zoned Industrial, in which truck terminals are a conditional use. Outlots A and B are the two that are zoned MUCI, and truck terminals are neither permitted nor conditional in that specific zoning district. Therefore, necessitating the zoning request. Planning Commission did review the rezone petition and they did hold a public hearing at its June 11th regular meeting. The Planning Commission did recommend approval of the rezone with a vote of 4-0. The action as requested this evening is to adopt Ordinance 2024-17 amending the Farmington zoning ordinance rezoning the parcels with PID numbers 14-25852-00-010 and 14-25852-00-020 from MUCI to Industrial. Thank you, sir. Any questions? And the applicant representation is here if needed for any questions. [20:14] Austin Watts: Good evening, I'm Austin Watts with Kimley-Horn, 200 South Tryon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina. We're working with our Minneapolis office on this. Tony did an excellent job as always; nothing further to add and I'm just here to answer questions. [20:29] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you, sir. Thank you. Steve, any questions? [20:33] Councilmember Steve Wilson: I do. I am real pleased that R&L Carriers has chosen to expand within Farmington. I thought it was a phenomenal addition that they chose Farmington, and I think they moved over previously from Lakeville. So with the expansion, how do you predict the volume of traffic to look like on 208th as it goes north and south on Pilot? [20:59] Austin Watts: From what I have been told from R&L, with the expansion they're not necessarily adding any large volume of trucks. I think they were talking about adding maybe 10 to 15 total trucks with the expansion. The expansion is needed mainly to move the product inside. [21:18] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Okay, so it's more of stored product? [21:21] Austin Watts: Correct, of existing freight. Maybe a little bit of a bump, but more of it won't be substantial is what I've been told. [21:28] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Okay, that's all I had. [21:30] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Katie? [21:31] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: I don't have any questions. [21:33] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Holly? [21:34] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: No, a very well-explained detail. Looks good. [21:38] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Yeah, the Planning Commission meeting on this was actually really educational. The way he's talking about how the inside of the warehouse... the reason it's expanding is not so much volume of trucks, it's just they have it located by city inside the warehouse and so it's easier for them to just go up to the dock. So that actually talked off a lot of my concerns about the amount of traffic coming out of 208th there. Had you guys given any thought to... Derek had mentioned something about the stormwater pond being a little bit on the large side, or...? [22:09] Austin Watts: That's how we have it sized currently based on the amount of flow that's going towards it as well as some of the off-site run-on that we have to account for. So we'll continue to size that during construction drawings, but it's preliminarily sized currently. [22:25] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Okay. And John, that doesn't tie in at all to your assessment of the stormwater runoff in the industrial park at large, does it? [22:32] Public Works Director John Powell: Mayor and Councilmembers, no, not directly. But coincidentally, a quick update on the industrial park study, which is mostly to the south, the sort of east-southeast portion of the industrial park. We've determined that at a minimum there will be a ditch cleaning project likely from the industrial park all the way through Northern Natural Gas and onto Middle Creek. But we are also trying to identify upstream areas for additional surface storage. The consultant, Barr Engineering, will also be preparing a scope and budget to expand that study to make sure that we don't create any situations adversely because we do have R&L Carriers expanding. We have a parcel to the north on 208th that we'll be developing and we just want to be sure we have a real solid sense of the big picture. But we're not concerned at all with the sizing that R&L has shown in the plans now. [23:36] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Okay, perfect. Thank you. That's all I have. Well, first, I think it's a great indication of specifically a transportation company that fights the narrative that we're too far from a major interstate is reinvesting significant dollars into a substantial addition to help refute that narrative. My question is maybe a little bit more downstream and it refers to the construction process. There is a fair amount of elevation change, just there's some mounding on the property. Do you know offhand... is most of that going to stay on site or is there a thought that that has to be transported offsite? [24:19] Austin Watts: Generally, we grade these so that they, as best as possible, balance, because bringing dirt on or off is expensive. So we'll do our best to make it balance. I think there is some mounding on, but I believe that we actually needed some dirt. So ultimately at the end of the day, we're going to do our best to not import or export. [24:42] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Okay, cool. I appreciate that. I don't have any other questions. I think it's a, again, great indication of more things to come, so thank you for being here. [24:49] Austin Watts: Thank you. [24:50] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Mayor, you actually brought up a point that reminded me of something else. Kelly, is our extension... is our partnership with Dakota County to expand the trail to the east side started 50 or north of 50... it would start at 50 up to 195th Street, the trail? [25:05] John Powell: Yep, that's still in preliminary design right now. [25:08] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Okay. So right-of-way setbacks? [25:10] Tony Wippler: Yeah, so we have appropriate setback for that without issue. There's appropriate right-of-way in that location to accommodate that, correct. [25:17] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Okay, cool. All right, with that, I would seek a motion to approve the adopted ordinance as presented. [25:25] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Motion to approve. [25:27] Councilmember Nick Lien: Second. [25:28] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Motion by Holly, second by Nick. Call the roll, please. [25:31] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [25:32] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Yes. [25:33] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [25:34] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Yes. [25:35] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Lien? [25:36] Councilmember Nick Lien: Yes. [25:37] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Wilson? [25:38] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Yes. [25:39] Shirley Buecksler: Mayor Hoy? [25:40] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Yes. All right. Next item is 10-2, which is the Vermillion Commons Fourth Edition preliminary plat and planned unit development. Tony. [26:01] Tony Wippler: Thank you, sir. Yes, Lennar is requesting the review of the preliminary plat and planned unit development for Vermillion Commons Fourth Edition. This development is located to the west of the Vermillion Commons townhome development located at the intersection of 220th Street West and Denmark Avenue. The proposed development is to consist of a total of 134 residential units. The breakdown of those units consists of 68 single-family lots and 66 townhome lots, and would have a net density of 6.6 units per acre. Single-family lots would be on the north and west side of the development with the townhomes located towards the southeast corner of the site. Storm ponding is located on the west side of the development adjacent to the Dakota County Conservation Area. [26:54] Tony Wippler: Minimum lot area proposed for the single-family is 4,800 square feet with an average lot size for the single-family of 6,198 square feet. Minimum single-family lot width of 40 feet and a minimum single-family lot depth of 120 feet. As far as setbacks proposed for the single-family: the front yard setback of 25 feet, side yard interior 6 feet, side yard corner 20 feet, and rear yard 25 feet. The townhome setback from the private roadway will be 25 feet. The plat does contain five outlots, which are labeled A through E. Outlot A will be dedicated as Parkland with the final plat and consists of an acre and a half. Outlot B is 4.1 acres and will contain stormwater ponding. Outlot C is 1.36 and that contains the private roads within the townhome portion. Outlots D and E are 2.9 acres and are common area for the townhomes. [27:48] Tony Wippler: This is a copy of the preliminary plat. As you can see, the single families are on the north end and west, with the townhomes again being in that southeast quadrant of the development. There will be three access points to this development: Lilac Drive and 218th Street West will both be extended from the east, and Poppy Drive will connect with 220th Street West on the south side of the development. The public roads are shown with the 60-foot right-of-way and 32-foot wide roadway. The private roads within the townhome portion of the development are proposed to be 24 feet in width and will be required to be signed "no on-street parking." The 24 feet is 2 feet less than what we typically require for private roads; we have talked that through with both Fire and Engineering and they are comfortable with the 24 feet, provided again that they're marked as "no parking." [28:47] Tony Wippler: The townhome dwellings are required to provide two off-street parking stalls per unit. Each unit will provide a double car garage. Additionally, the townhome driveways will have that 25-foot setback, so there will be an area within the driveway to park. Additionally, they are proposing 26 additional visitor parking stalls proposed throughout the townhome development that are just off of the private streets. So it's meeting all the requirements for off-street parking. As I previously mentioned, there will be a 1.5-acre park proposed on the north end of the development that's labeled Outlot A; that will actually tie into area that we are acquiring with Vermillion Commons to the east for a larger park area. Sidewalks are proposed on the west side of Lilac Drive, south side of 218th Street West, and on the east side of Poppy Drive. I do want to mention that Dakota County does have a 12-foot wide trail drainage and utility easement which was granted a couple of years back that runs along the west side of the site adjacent to where the ponding would be and on the north side of the property. So that easement will have to be shown on the final plat, and eventually a trail will go in there and connect into the Greenway system for the County. [30:17] Tony Wippler: As far as the planned unit development, the subject property is currently zoned R-3 Medium Density Residential and proposed to be rezoned to R-3 PUD. The proposed deviations include: allowing the single-family dwellings within the R-3 zone; reducing the minimum lot area for single-family lots to 4,800 square feet; reducing minimum lot width for single-family lots to 40 feet; increasing the minimum front yard setback for single-family lots to 25 feet; increasing rear yard setback for single-family lots to 25 feet; increasing the maximum lot building coverage for single-family lots to 45%; the allowance of private streets and the reduced width of those private streets to 24 feet. Planning Commission again reviewed this at their June 11th regular meeting and held a public hearing. The Planning Commission did recommend approval of the preliminary plan and planned unit development with a vote of 4-0. The action requested tonight is to adopt Resolution Number 2024-53 approving the preliminary plat and planned unit development of Vermillion Commons Fourth Edition, contingent upon the satisfaction of all engineering comments and requirements, including construction plans for grading, stormwater, and utilities. Thank you, sir. And we have a representative from the developer here. [31:53] Steve Troskey: Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Steve Troskey with Lennar. Tony did a great job with a detailed review of this proposed community. Lennar's had great success in Farmington. We're excited to be here, we're happy to be here. Thank you for your previous work with us, and we look forward to this community and more communities. Happy to answer any questions you have about Vermillion Commons Fourth. [32:15] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you, sir. Nick? [32:17] Councilmember Nick Lien: Just a couple. I guess you probably haven't had enough time to mull on the questions asked by the one resident about the fencing or any of that stuff? Probably a little too early then—that comes all in between this and final, I assume then, right? [32:32] Steve Troskey: Last week we spoke with our engineer and we're happy to provide some landscaping, some trees. So we're going to work with our engineer's landscape architect to find a suitable tree to alleviate that concern. [32:45] Councilmember Nick Lien: Okay, thank you. That was a bit of an odd one. I guess my next one is: 32 foot on a road, is that fairly standard, or wider than a normal road, or narrower? [32:56] John Powell: Mayor and Councilmembers, a 32-foot wide road is very standard. [33:02] Councilmember Nick Lien: And that has no parking restrictions on it typically? My angle where I'm going with this is this is very similar in layout to something I've talked about before with 206th and the Middle Creek townhouses and how it also has no private drive parking basically. So everyone parks on 206th except for in the winter, and it does cause a little bit of a bottleneck coming through there because the roads are a little bit narrow and they're parking on both sides of the street. And what people are doing is parking out there so that they don't have to drive through their private drives to get to the public street and go out. So they just run across the street to the public road and get in and leave. Is there any thought to at least doing one-sided parking here to address those kind of things? And then in a similar thing, say in my neighborhood, where these kind of things seem to be happening with the private drives next to a public road... it's maybe a question this way. [34:14] Steve Troskey: Great question, thank you. If Tony can go back to the community layout for me... thanks. So I know it's pretty small, the driveways aren't shown on there, but you see all those rectangles? Those on the north and the west are all the single-family homes. There's going to be a significant number of driveways, and each driveway is required to have two parking spots, and that is on the private side, not crossing a sidewalk. So we're going to have ample parking for the residents. If you look on the right side, or the east side, of that north-south road there, there's eight single-family homes and behind those are the townhomes. So for people parking on the street and scooting across the grass, they're going to have to go past people's houses, and then there's a stormwater drainage basin there, and then they'll get to their home. So I don't think that's going to happen in reality. You have more experience here than I do. We would like to keep it two-sided parking just for visitors and guests of the community, but there will be 26 visitor spots within the townhome units. But happy to continue that conversation with Engineering if needed. [35:36] Councilmember Nick Lien: It's definitely the townhouses that I worry about more than the single-family driveways. I guess, like I said, it's just the kind of thing where I think you're picking one or the other: would you rather have more parking or be able to drive kind of safely through the street? I guess just be open to the consideration if you could, because I know like I said, this is stemming mostly from the complaints that I get about the street by my house that has a similar setup and everyone asks me every day, "Can you please do single-sided parking here?" So that's my only question. [35:48] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: I have no questions at this time. Actually, I watched the Planning Commission meeting and Nick brought up probably the one thing that I was questioning, which was whether or not there was going to be ample visitor parking. But I don't have anything else, thank you. [36:20] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: No, no questions for me. [36:24] Councilmember Steve Wilson: So the 4,800 square feet for the single-family, that's on the much smaller side than our standard. And just kind of curious, is that kind of just a market trend? I mean, obviously the R-1 zoning that is in large areas of Farmington today is in the 9,000 to 14,000 square foot range. Is that smaller lot size pad what consumers today are looking for? [36:58] Steve Troskey: Great question again. So we're looking to build an attainable product here. We've had great success with the previous Vermillion Commons, and this is the first Vermillion Commons edition that's going to have the single-family, correct? And we want to keep the price point attainable as I said. So the narrower that we can make lots, the more lots that we can put on there, the more homeowners we can get into the community. If we widen those out, the price of the home gets more expensive. So these will be slab-on-grade villa homes; there's going to be a mix of one-story and two-story, no basement. And so we've designed this again to be a product that consumers can reach—something that's missing in the market—and that's why we have the request for narrower lots, to really reduce the price point to be quite honest. [37:55] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Yeah, so I think you answered my question. So the market is basically saying we're okay having a smaller lot size as long as we can find a home that works for our family. [38:05] Steve Troskey: Exactly. We've gone out to previous editions and we've talked to some homeowners out there at the townhome units and they're just so excited to be able to acquire ownership of a property. And we want to keep that, we want to continue that. [38:19] Councilmember Steve Wilson: All right, thank you. [38:21] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Would it be safe to say that you were surprised at the demand in the previous editions? [38:26] Steve Troskey: Yes. [38:28] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Okay, I thought so because it's clear that there is a missing segment of housing within the diverse makeup, or lack of diverse makeup, we have across the community, and you have very much filled that need. I'm curious... not a question for now... I'm curious to learn how many of them are current residents that are moving within the community and how many of them are coming in from the outside. But my question specifically here is: in the previous editions, are the private roads... are there any other private roads in the previous first, second, third? [38:53] Steve Troskey: Yes, there are. [38:55] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Are they consistent at the 24 feet? [38:56] Steve Troskey: They're actually at 26. [38:57] Mayor Joshua Hoy: At 26. So that leads into my question: 24 feet for a townhome specifically on trash day when they're not in your driveway, they're sitting on the curb basically at the road. A full-size truck can't back out of a driveway without having impediments, right? Is there that big of a difference between maintaining the 26 feet versus reducing to the 24? Did it change the occupancy and the sizing of the townhomes around these private drives? [39:35] Steve Troskey: So this will be maintained by an HOA for the townhome community just like the previous editions. When we look at a map and we have our setback requirements and then we have our required 25-foot drive requirements and then the width of the units themselves, the two feet... if you look there's four, potentially five little wings there, and so that's 24 feet that we need to take from somewhere else. So we can either take that from the home itself, the actual building, or we can take it from the driveway, or we can ask for a reduced setback. And so in this case we've decided to ask for a reduction of the width. It will be private; we've agreed to sign it "no parking" as Tony mentioned. So that's a little backstory. I need to correct myself: you asked if we were surprised at the demand. The due diligence people at my office would say "no," they would say they are surprised at the speed of which they fill, not the overall demand. [40:53] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Correct. I know where you're going with that. So if you're watching out there, that's fair. I just... it's one of those things where: law of unintended consequences, right? Like it all looks good, it all sounds good, but the people that end up buying there, they don't realize till the first trash day or the first backing out, or the first time they take their crew cab 6.5-foot box and try to back out and go "I can't quite maneuver around." Two feet doesn't seem like much but it does end up being a big difference. And so I guess I'm not asking to go back and redo your preliminary plat if you've done the due diligence and our team says we're comfortable with it, then I'm comfortable moving forward. But I just again want to make the point that it has been looked at and considered. [41:40] Steve Troskey: Well, we do have to come back for final plat before any shovels would go into the ground and so we can talk to our engineering team and the city staff about the possibility of doing that. I don't have the plans in front of me to comment either way, but it's a conversation I promise we'll have. [41:56] Mayor Joshua Hoy: I appreciate that very much. So if there's nothing else to add, we would then seek a motion to approve the adopted resolution as presented. [42:15] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Motion. [42:16] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Second. [42:17] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Motion by Holly, second by Katie. Call the roll, please. [42:20] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [42:21] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Yes. [42:22] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [42:23] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Yes. [42:24] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Lien? [42:25] Councilmember Nick Lien: Yes. [42:26] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Wilson? [42:27] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Yes. [42:28] Shirley Buecksler: Mayor Hoy? [42:29] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Yes. Thank you, sir, we appreciate it. All right, item 12-1 under new business is a resolution about an AUAR. [42:47] Community and Economic Development Director Deanna Kuennen: If we all recall, last week we had our consultant from WSB come in and talk about what AUARs are, what they're not, what they do, and the process. We had actually hired WSB back in March and brought that action to the Council because we were anticipating that there's going to be potential development of a large scale happening throughout the community and we wanted to be prepared to process the AUARs and have the ability to make sure that a very regulated process that's defined by Minnesota rules was followed. And so we've always talked about two sites, and today we're talking about Farmington West. [43:40] Deanna Kuennen: An AUAR, just to remind everybody, it is an environmental review process. It looks at the potential environmental impacts of anticipated development scenarios within geographically defined areas, and again, it's regulated by statutes. What you can see on the screen here is the process that is in all of the Minnesota EQB documents. It's a very lengthy process with multiple steps, and tonight we're talking about step one. So the Farmington area—or the Farmington West AUAR area—it consists of six parcels located on the west side of town. It's about 329 acres located at the northwest corner of Pilot Knob and County Road 50, as shown here on the map. This AUAR will analyze the potential impacts and identify mitigation measures, which is what an AUAR does, associated with Technology Park uses or Industrial Park uses. [44:45] Deanna Kuennen: As I mentioned, we are at the start of this AUAR process. The previous step involved a scoping document that was prepared and distributed. The comment period for that scoping document ended in May, on May 16th to be specific. What that entailed was the document being sent out to the state agencies and them commenting on the scope, and then their comments get incorporated into the final order, which is what we're talking about tonight. So tonight the RGU, which is the Responsible Government Unit, which is the City Council, is asked to make a finding that the scoping document which was included in your packet is adequate and then adopt the final order via Resolution 2024-51. What that does is it starts this process. So the request before Council tonight is: after reviewing the document that was included in your packet, we're asking the Council to consider approving Resolution 2024-51 which adopts the final order of record of decision for an AUAR for the Farmington West Industrial Project, and we start that whole process. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. [45:39] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you, ma'am. Steve? [45:41] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Deanna, there's a land owner... you have one of the maps up right there... there's a land owner that you notice during the winter and don't notice as much during the summer months along 210th. And that property owner... so that property owner has been fully made aware the entire time of what's going on, correct? Or... [46:11] Deanna Kuennen: Yes, so of this being a study area? Absolutely. And these six parcels are included and those conversations have taken place by the potential developer, and that's how they have identified this area. [46:21] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Okay, so the developer had talked to the individual within the study area prior to commencement? [46:25] Deanna Kuennen: Correct. And again, it's just a study. [46:28] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Yep, thank you. [46:33] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Katie? [46:34] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: I've been back for two weeks and I've learned a lot about AUARs. No, I don't have any further questions for you. Thank you for pulling this together. [46:44] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Holly? [46:45] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: No questions. [46:47] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Nick? [46:48] Councilmember Nick Lien: Nothing for me. [46:50] Mayor Joshua Hoy: I was pleasantly surprised to see the detail that we received for input to be added to the scope for the study. I had an idea of certain things that I thought were going to come up, but the specific detail that the request that we received to be added to the scope was... it was good to know that things were not being overlooked, right? That it wasn't just "watch out for the water" or "watch out for wildlife"; they noted specific species. And just that attention to detail, I think, speaks volumes as to why the study takes as long as it does because there are a lot of compelling factors to consider when looking at the intended use of a parcel specifically of this size in an area that has been predominantly agricultural or green space. So I too was learning quite a bit in the 78 pages that are there, but thank you to the team for putting that together and doing it within the guidelines that are prescribed by statute. So I appreciate that. [48:01] Deanna Kuennen: I think every agency that is involved in an AUAR process, they take their roles very seriously. And these processes are established and regulated by the Minnesota rules so that they're applied equally across the board and so that all of these are looking at the same things and have the same level of review associated with them. And so, you know, that's what these agencies do, and that's the value and the importance of these documents: not only do each one of these agencies review on it, comment on it, we can analyze the impacts, but we can also talk about the mitigation. [48:42] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Absolutely, I appreciate that. We look for a motion to approve Resolution 2024-51 adopting a final order and record of decision for an Alternative Urban Areawide Review for Farmington West. [48:58] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Motion to approve. [48:59] Councilmember Nick Lien: Second. [49:00] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Motion by Katie, second by Nick. Call the roll, please. [49:03] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [49:04] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Yes. [49:05] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Bernatz? [49:06] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Yes. [49:07] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Lien? [49:08] Councilmember Nick Lien: Yes. [49:09] Shirley Buecksler: Councilmember Wilson? [49:10] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Yes. [49:11] Shirley Buecksler: Mayor Hoy? [49:12] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Yes. Thank you, ma'am. All right, round table. Nick? [49:25] Councilmember Nick Lien: Great to start. Welcome to Carrie, she stepped out. But also Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. That's all. [49:33] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Thank you. He really did that; he stole my round table. I did kind of poach that, I'm not going to lie. [Laughs] Thank you. Please be safe this week with all the activities. Thank you. [49:46] Mayor Joshua Hoy: It's Dew Days week! Events start tomorrow. Farmingtonmn.com is where you can find all of the information. Rain or shine, I think most everything is going to be happening. And this is something that, for those that do not know, a volunteer committee puts on. This is not this group of individuals sitting here putting on Dew Days this year, but a whole bunch of residents that care very deeply for the Farmington community and have worked tirelessly, I can promise you, for probably the last nine months to bring you a great festival. So if you are around, please come out even if it's for just a couple of hours or if it's the whole week or the whole weekend. It'll be a great time, I'm sure. Thank you. Katie? [50:47] Councilmember Katie Bernatz: Yeah, I wanted to say... I mean, having been back for the last couple weeks, I'm reminded of how amazing the staff here is at City Hall and how helpful you all have been and re-onboarding me with everything that's going on. And I am continuously impressed by all of your hard work and the dedication you put into prepping for every one of these meetings. So I appreciate all of you and keep it up. [51:14] Councilmember Steve Wilson: So every meeting, we at the Council... and actually this is of course on the public part as well... but Happy Harry's has a program where they give 10% of their... you can point out that you'd like to have 10% of the profits donated back to the Rambling River Center. And my mom desperately needed a lift chair for her residence. And so, purchased a chair at Happy Harry's, was happy to donate to the program. Chair got delivered beautifully, the old chair got hauled out, and I'm just really appreciative of businesses like that in our community that support the senior center and support so many other great things that we have going on. So thank you. [51:44] City Administrator Lynn Gorski: I have nothing tonight, thanks. [51:46] City Clerk Shirley Buecksler: It's time to start talking about absentee voting again. For the State Primary in August, absentee voting starts a week from Friday, on June 28th. Any residents living within the Farmington city limits can vote by absentee at Farmington City Hall or at any Dakota County office, or if they'd wish to apply online they can go to mnvotes.org. And also on your consent agenda you approved Sue Bastian hired as a temporary election assistant; she's going to be a great addition. So thank you. [52:23] Mayor Joshua Hoy: And just some clarification: for those that have a Farmington address but do not live within the municipal boundary of the City of Farmington, you can go to either the Secretary of State or to the County's website, enter in your address and get your polling location. I know that's an issue every year. [52:38] Shirley Buecksler: Yep. And if you actually live in Lakeville but have a Farmington address, you vote in Lakeville. If you live in a township, you vote either at the township or the county depending on where that voting is done. Thank you, ma'am. [52:50] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you. Julie? [52:52] Julie (Staff): I have nothing tonight. [53:07] Deanna Kuennen: Well, I promised the Mayor and Council that every opportunity I was given I would put the reminder out there that on July 16th at 8:00 here at City Hall, we will be hosting our first small business resource fair. So invitations will be going out to the list of small businesses that we have, but definitely spread the word. The purpose behind this resource fair is to make sure our existing small businesses understand the variety of resources and agencies that are available to help them with their own business growth or development goals. And just having that information in one place at one time in a no-pressure setting is our hope that people find value in it and maybe walk away with some ideas or some contact information for people who can help them achieve whatever it is they're looking to do. So July 16th here at City Hall. [53:59] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you. John? [54:00] John Powell: Thank you, Mayor. McKenna Rhine started as our Water Resources Specialist a week ago today. She hit the ground running. Given her background with MPCA and stormwater permits, she is deep into our draft MS4 permit, reviewing every aspect of it. And we're really happy to have her on board and she's, I'm sure, going to work out just very well. Thank you, sir. [54:32] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Kelly? [54:33] Kelly (Parks & Rec): Good evening, Mayor and Council. Unfortunately, there will be no Open Door food pop-up pantry at the Rambling River Center tomorrow due to the predicted forecast of rain, so that has been cancelled. They will be here in July. As Councilmember Bernatz said, Dew Days is this weekend. Parks and Recreation does a number of programs starting with the Dew Run on Saturday morning. You can still register online today or in person on Saturday; first race starts at 8:00 a.m. Bike auction Saturday under the big tent; viewing at 11:00 a.m., live bidding with an auctioneer starts at 11:30. I saw some of the bikes today; there's actually an e-bike there which was pretty nice. We need to follow up with the police to see if that might be someone who wants it back, but there are some nice bikes. So if you're in the market for a bike... yeah, a nice e-bike, probably a $2,000 bike that may be up for auction on Saturday, just needs a battery. And then, Police Chief Siem is a "Kiss the Pig" contest candidate. Still time to vote with your hopefully bills or credit card. He's one of five candidates, so we'd love to see him kiss Betty on Saturday at 4:00 under the big tent. And if you have not seen Betty... I don't think he wants to kiss her, she is very homely. [55:45] Mayor Joshua Hoy: As compared to a non-homely looking pig? [Laughs] Yeah, okay. [55:51] Kelly: Yeah, so please come out and support park and rec programs and all the other awesome events this weekend. Awesome. [56:05] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you. Kim? [56:06] Finance Director Kim Sommerland: I am happy to report that we are finalizing our audit, the 2023 financials, and so MMKR should be here at the next meeting to present that information to the Council. And we are beginning our internal budget discussions starting tomorrow. [56:18] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Thank you. Chief? [56:19] Fire Chief Matthew Price: So we did take ownership of our tender. It's in. We've done a week's worth of training. We're waiting on some major equipment to actually put it in service before our old tender goes down the road. [56:32] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Is the tender ceremony still scheduled for tomorrow night, or is not? [56:36] Matthew Price: Um, we have two drop tanks that we have to have in order to put water in that are still not here. We were hoping that it would be... they were supposed to be here last week. We ordered blue, so they actually have to make a blue tarp which they evidently don't have blue drop tanks anywhere. So that's why it's a little bit of a hold up. [56:55] Mayor Joshua Hoy: All right, thank you, sir. Chief? [56:56] Police Chief Nate Siem: I would like to echo a couple of comments that have already been made. Dew Days is this weekend. I'll stress a little bit of the safety piece: there will be hundreds if not thousands of pedestrians walking around downtown at all hours of the day and night, so please be careful as you're driving around in the general area. There will be a lot more pedestrians than we're used to seeing. Drink responsibly, have a plan to get home safely. Kelly was correct, I do not have a great huge burning desire to kiss a pig, but I will bring up two points. Number one: the jokes just simply write themselves. And number two: they do, you were all thinking it, I just said it. And number two: all of the money, whether you vote for me or any of the other four candidates—there are four other candidates—all goes to a fantastic cause. It goes to the Rambling River Center, so vote early and vote often. [57:51] Mayor Joshua Hoy: I love it. Early voting has been open for weeks, right? I like it. So Dew Days, big week, there's a lot of events. The Medallion Hunt started already. Technically Thursday night is kind of the real big kickoff for events downtown, but there's a lot of stuff scheduled between Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and culminating with the parade on Sunday. The one event for me personally that I think often gets missed and it's a great opportunity is the Ambassador Coronation. The Ambassador Coronation is tomorrow night at Homestead Community Church; starts at 6:30, normally runs about an hour, can run upwards of 75 minutes. Mind you that these are young women every year that raise their hand to go out as ambassadors for the greater Farmington community. They go to dozens of parades... I don't know how many events they go to... 30, 40, 50 events. They basically work in this position all year long from coronation all the way through the end of their season. [59:08] Mayor Joshua Hoy: I mean, the amount of time that they spend... it's another sport, it's another activity, but it is all about spreading awareness and the good aspects of the Farmington area. And I know that this event gets missed because every year it could be three times the amount of attendance. It's great to see parents and supporters of these young women doing this, but it'd be great to see the Farmington community show up for them because they are showing up for us week in and week out for several months out of the year. So if you don't have plans tomorrow night, go to Homestead Community Church at 6:30. It's some of the best 60 to 75 minutes you'll have because there is so much pride in these women and what they do. And again, they are ambassadors for a reason; they're not called princesses. So if you do anything, please attend that event. [1:00:01] Mayor Joshua Hoy: To Chief's point, safety: there's a lot of stuff going on downtown. Please be responsible not only of property but of other people. Knock on wood, we've had some pretty decent years; let's continue that and be the respectful people that I know that we can be. Support your businesses when you're downtown, do all the things, have fun, but be responsible. There's something for everyone, and if you find there's not something for you, then feel free to raise your hand and step forward to the committee because I know that they are not turning volunteers away. There's always a need to add more people to help make all these amazing opportunities and events happen. So please, if you don't see something you like, raise your hand and step forward for next year because I'm sure they will take it. With that, I look for motion to adjourn. [1:00:43] Councilmember Steve Wilson: Motion to adjourn. [1:00:44] Councilmember Holly Bernatz: Second. [1:00:46] Mayor Joshua Hoy: Motion by Steve, second by Holly. All in favor say aye. [1:00:49] All: Aye. [1:00:50] Mayor Joshua Hoy: We are adjourned at 8:00. [1:00:51] [Music]