This transcript follows the Richfield Planning Commission meeting from June 26th. Based on the context provided and the dialogue within the text, the speakers have been identified as Chair Holmberg Johnson, Commissioners Connelly and Hui, City Planner Sam Crosby, and members of the public. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Calling the June 26th meeting of the Richfield Planning Commission to order. The first thing on the agenda would be the approval of the previous meeting's minutes. Do I have a motion? [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** So moved. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** And a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Seconds. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All in favor of approving the minutes say aye. [00:00] **Commissioners:** Aye. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Opposed? The minutes have been approved. Now is the time in our agenda where we have a period of open meeting, generally an open forum generally addressing things that are not in the scheduled agenda for tonight's meeting. There will be an opportunity for anything on the agenda for discussion and comments about that. Do we have any—Planner Crosby, do we have any emails or phone messages? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** We did not have any emails or phone messages for the open forum, no. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Okay. Is there anyone who would here who would like to address the—oh, you know, I have erred. We do have—you can also leave comments by calling us over the phone at 415-655-0001 with the webinar access code 2634 002 6399 and the password 1234. I erred not saying that before. Is there anyone waiting online or who's called? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** There is not anybody on the line. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Thank you. Is there anyone here who wants to address something not in the regular agenda? All right, we can conclude our open forum. The next thing on the agenda then would be to approve the remainder of the agenda for today's meeting. Do I have a motion? [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** So moved. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** And a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Second. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All in favor please say aye. [00:00] **Commissioners:** Aye. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Opposed? Right, the agenda is approved. The first thing is a public hearing. Do we have a staff report? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Chair and Commissioners, Blossom Time Montessori is before us this evening requesting a conditional use permit to allow a 48-child preschool and daycare occupying approximately one-third of Saint Nicholas Episcopal Church at 7227 Penn Avenue South. The hours of operation would be from 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. 10 parking spaces are required and 54 parking spaces are provided. I must take a moment to make one correction to the staff report. I had written that most of the clientele will be pulling up and dropping off and picking up rather than parking. After visiting their location last week, I learned that this is not the case; due to the very young age of the children, almost all the parents park and walk their child in or out. Staff does not find that this will impact the parameters or conditions of the approval. Blossom Time will have 26 children enrolled but are licensed to expand up to 48 kids. They've recently learned that the Department of Human Services does not require a play structure, only a designated play area. In that play area, they're allowed to use things like play equipment such as balls and hula hoops. Therefore, Blossom Time would like to forego the expense of installing a playground at this time. Instead, they will enclose the play area which will be, as the code requires, set back at least 15 feet from the property lines. Also, I did receive a call from the property owner directly to the south, Roll Painting Company. Nick Roll expressed his regrets for not being able to attend this evening in person and asked that I pass along his comments. He had concerns both about the general lack of the ground's upkeep and the style of the proposed fencing around the play area. In regards to the ground's upkeep, I gave him the contact information for the Code Compliance Officer and assured him that it's a condition of approval that if the daycare's lease is renewed for another year, the parking lot will be striped before the end of next year's construction season. In relation to the fencing, he would like to see the fence be black vinyl coated rather than a raw chain link style in order to help increase the aesthetics along Penn Avenue. Staff finds that the proposed daycare meets the requirements of the zoning code and therefore we are recommending approval of the conditional use permit subject to the conditions listed in the draft resolution before you. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Thank you. Does the commission have any questions for staff? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** I'm sorry, can you say again who was that that wrote those comments in? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Roll Painting is directly the property owner directly to the south of the subject site. [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** Where physically would the play area be on the site? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** The play area is proposed to be on the north side of the building. There's a large open space and it would be located in the southeast corner of that open space, approximately 30 by 30 in size. [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** Is that across from the north parking lot then? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Yes. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** I noticed in the report that they’re legal non-conforming in several areas about parking and so forth. One of them, just thinking about the kind of what we've been talking about and other issues, is that it says we would recommend increased bicycle parking. Would we be able to direct that that be included as a condition if the Planning Commission so desired? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Yes. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All right, if we don't have any other questions in the commission at this time, we can open the public hearing. If you wish to address the commission, please head on over there to the podium, sign in with your name and address, and then now you will give you the opportunity to be heard. [00:00] **Said Pereira (Applicant):** Okay, good evening. My name is Said Pereira. My wife’s seated over there, and Mari and I own the Montessori school. I just wanted to give you a little bit of background relating to what we have been doing and where we have been operating and so on, so you have rough ideas as to who we are and what we do. This particular school was started about a little over 50 years ago by my mother-in-law, my wife's mother. At that time it was located in Bloomington and subsequently we moved to Richfield. She operated the school until about 1990 and at that point she decided to retire. Then my wife and I decided to take over the school. We have been at our current location for roughly 15 years; we were located at Hope Church in Richfield and we had an enrollment of about 75 children in our school. Unfortunately, we had some negotiations with the church with regard to getting our lease extended and that didn't materialize, so we had to find an alternate location. At that point we had a large group of volunteers, mainly our parents, who helped us a great deal in locating the current location and we are trying to move our operation to this new location. So the application is for that particular purpose—oh sorry, for that particular purpose. I don't have any other comments or statements to make unless you have any questions for me. [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Respectfully, sir, you've been doing this for a long time. Do you have any concerns about the new property? [00:00] **Said Pereira (Applicant):** No concerns. However, we would have liked to have a bigger facility. Given we had 75 families using our services, the current location unfortunately cannot accommodate such a large number. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** I know that the search, from our materials, was undertaken pretty quickly to find a location, and we just heard that you are not planning on building play equipment at this time. If you intend to be there for more than a short period of time, is that something you're planning on doing at some point? [00:00] **Said Pereira (Applicant):** So at the time we applied for the application, the church that we will be moving into indicated that they are willing to rent that space to us for a one-year period. That's the period for which they can actually guarantee that we will be there. But subsequently they have come back and said that they are willing to maybe extend it up to three years. So that is the most recent development and so we are kind of exploring the possibility of moving our existing equipment to this new location. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Thank you, sir. Please be sure that you sign in on the book there on the podium. [00:00] **Said Pereira (Applicant):** Oh, sure. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Is there anyone else present who would like to address the commission? If so, please make your way on up. Thank you. [00:00] **Patrick Folks (Public Speaker):** My name is Patrick Folks. I am a parent of many parents here in the audience—pretty much everyone but one person. We are all parents of children that have put our kids, either currently or in the past, through Blossom Time Montessori. We really feel that it is important that we keep Blossom Time Montessori active and a part of the Richfield community. It's been a fabric for the community for well over 15 years. It is a minority/women-owned business and it services a great need. There's no secret that affordable childcare in this country is becoming more and more scarce. Richfield does have a number of facilities, but more recently ones like the Partnership Academy or the Primrose really cater towards really high-end incomes and are not reflective of the overall demographics of Richfield. Ms. Mari has been serving in Richfield for multiple generations. Myself, I've put three children through it. My children have excelled. I've been told by some of the school staff that had come in to observe one of my children that they thought that this daycare was really special and a really good daycare, and they've seen a lot of them. But they assured me that what's going on there is very special. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another daycare that would have a group of parents in mass dedicating our time to helping them find a new place, helping them move, helping them clean. Most parents I know of their daycare, if they said "We had a lease problem, we had to close," they'd probably just go somewhere else. We don't want to do that because we feel very strongly that there is a need for this in the community. There's a need for this in Richfield and I think it's very, very important that we are able to find a solution that works. We went into a lot of work trying to find a new location, toured several facilities. We’d like to keep it here in Richfield since she has served this community for so long. We’d like to continue that. So you know, we ended up where we were and that's a good place. It’s not quite as large as the place that we're coming from, but we know that we can make it a good place. We can make it a good place for surrounding families and make it a good part of the community. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Thank you. Planner Crosby, have we gotten any other emails or calls in the meantime? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Chair Holmberg Johnson, no. There's no one else here wishing to speak. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing. [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** I motion to close the public hearing. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** And a second— [00:00] **Christine Jaskin (Public Speaker):** Oh, apologies! [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** No worries. [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** You better withdraw that... I withdraw my motion. [00:00] **Christine Jaskin (Public Speaker):** Hi, I'm Christine Jaskin. I'm also a parent of a child enrolled at Blossom Time. First of all, I just want to say thank you for being here and thank you Sam for helping to arrange this. As I—I would second everything that Patrick said. I just have a question in terms of the playground equipment going forward. If they decide they want to put a play structure on the property, I understand it's difficult because of the size of the area and then the restriction that it has to be—is it 15 feet from any property lines? Is there any chance to apply for a variance to that code? [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Generally, this isn't a period of questions back and forth, but I can say City staff—if there is any kind of discussion or what potential exceptions or anything—that would go through our City staff and then they would recommend action to the Planning Commission. [00:00] **Christine Jaskin (Public Speaker):** And by City staff, do you mean Sam? [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Yes. [00:00] **Christine Jaskin (Public Speaker):** Okay, cool. Thank you. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All right, anyone else? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** I motion that we close the public hearing. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All those in favor of closing the public hearing please say aye. [00:00] **Commissioners:** Aye. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Opposed? Right, the public hearing has been closed. Any discussion with the Commissioners? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** I have a couple questions for staff. So just to be clear, the property we're talking about is a church, an active church with active services and that sort of thing, correct? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Commissioner Hui, yes that is correct. My understanding is that the only activities on the property are on Sundays and are your typical service. [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Okay. I guess I had some questions about kind of the parking, the non-conformity with bicycle parking and stuff. Just more questions for you—like that's non-conforming for the church currently. For a standalone for like a daycare, I don't see the majority of parents wanting to bring their children via bicycle, though I mean maybe Commissioner Connelly might be the exception in that case. But I'm just wondering about kind of this situation where we have one applicant applying right now and then we kind of as a rider may attach some code stuff for the main primary business that is there right now. How does that work? Are we kind of hamstringing them by potentially telling them that they need to do something now because they're allowing this other business to come in and use the facility? [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Chair, Commissioner Hui, the way that the applicant and the owner have negotiated is that the applicants would be responsible for any improvements that are required by this land use application. And so, because originally it was only a one-year lease, staff was trying to be as understanding of that condition as possible. That is why the parking lot striping is written to give the one-year timeframe. If the commission was so inclined, a bike rack could also be given the same additional time leniency. Also, I have let them know that the city I believe has a bike grant that pays up to 50 percent of installing bike racks, so I've encouraged them to look into that. [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Awesome, thank you. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Well, if we're onto the discussion portion, then as I alluded to earlier, I feel fairly strongly that when we are talking about any type of this sort of land use or improvements, sustainability is an important consideration. The City Council has really moved towards that direction as well. So I think it would be legitimate to insert a requirement that at least parking for at least four bicycle spaces be added to the conditions. [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** Yeah, in general I support adding bicycle parking in line with all of Richfield's requirements and allowing the one-year timeline. I don't want to put a barrier in front of—I have another question, excuse me for City staff. You mentioned in the comment earlier that a neighboring property wanted masking on a fence around the playground. Does the commission have any thoughts on that? Considering the location of the business, which is on the far south side—so there's Roll Painting Company and then there's like almost like half a block of parking and then the church, then another parking lot, and then the play center—it kind of—I think I'd leave it up to the business's discretion on what kind of fence they want to use so long as it's code compliant. I don't have a direct concern; it's like a quarter mile away. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Yeah, I’m with you. Just wanted to make sure we've checked that box. In general, you know, as a parent of small kids, I think it's really cool to see these parents come out and support it where they take their kids. I think they've found a workable solution. [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Chair and Commissioners, it sounds like there might be some consensus for adding the bike rack to the conditions of approval. If so, I would suggest doing that under item E, so that it would be: "The parking lot shall be restriped and bike racks for four bikes shall be installed within one year of the date of approval." [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Is there a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** I second the motion. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Right. All in favor of amending the proposed—before we vote, I was going to ask, does that satisfy kind of your concerns? Like within a year, is that sufficient or not? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Yeah, I think that that is—I think that's legitimate. It ties in with the parking and then where I feel like we're giving—we're empowering them to move forward with the time crunch that they have but still also long-term trying to meet goals. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Any other discussion? All right, all in favor of amending the proposed action to include a one-year requirement to add bike parking the next year if the lease is renewed, all in favor say aye. [00:00] **Commissioners:** Aye. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Opposed? Right, the amendment is adopted. We're back onto the main report then. [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Yes, all right. It's been moved to approve the staff recommended action. Is there a second? [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** Seconds. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All right, any discussion? All right, all in favor of approving the recommended action as amended please say aye. [00:00] **Commissioners:** Aye. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Opposed? All right, that is adopted. All right, Liaison Reports. We are small in number today, but let's see. Community Services Advisory—is that one of us? The City Council, that's one of us? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** Yes Chair, thank you. On June 13th, City Council conducted a work session to discuss improvements to Donaldson Park. The same evening at the regular meeting, they listened to a presentation from Minnesota Parks and Recreation Association and considered Proclamations celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Juneteenth, and Ellison Brothers Garage here in the community. They considered a request to modify and then terminate Best Buy's minimum assessment agreement and considered the approval of the recommended Climate Action Plan. So they were busy. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All right. Housing and Redevelopment is... [silence]. School Board is me. At the last meeting of the Richfield School Board, they reviewed summer programming. They've revamped their summer programming this year and have increased the number of students and staff involved. They also addressed a vacancy; one of the directors is moving out of the district's boundaries and resigned. So they addressed the vacancy. They accepted applications through last week for the vacancy, and they will appoint a temporary replacement until the election in November. And then they looked at—they call them Vision Metrics—kind of a report card of how they're doing on different performance metrics directed by the board. A notable one was staff retention was improved significantly, so that's a good thing for the students in the community if they have stability with their teachers and support staff. Transportation Commission? All right. Chamber of Commerce? I have no reports. Right, and Sustainability... but there has been no minutes posted. All right, Planner Crosby, City Planner report. [00:00] **Sam Crosby (City Planner):** Thank you, Chair and Commissioners. Just two things. The Afghan Halal Supermarket request for site plan approval and parking variance was approved by the City Council at their June 13th meeting. Also, we did conduct interviews for and make an offer for an Assistant Planner position and that has been accepted. So I don't know what the start date is, but we're very excited that we will have somebody to fill Nellie's chair soon. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** It's a big chair to fill; her absence is felt. All right, the next meeting of the Planning Commission is scheduled for July 24th. Is there anything else before we get a motion to adjourn? [00:00] **Commissioner Hui:** I motion that we adjourn. [00:00] **Commissioner Connelly:** I’d like to second that motion. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** All in favor—I ask unanimous consent to skip discussion—all in favor of adjourning please say aye. [00:00] **Commissioners:** Aye. [00:00] **Chair Holmberg Johnson:** Opposed? We stand adjourned.