This transcript features a meeting of the **Hastings Planning Commission**. Based on the context provided and the phonetic nuances of the transcription, I have identified the speakers (correcting common transcription errors like "Albert" for "Hallberg" and "Tyken" for "Teiken"). [0:00] **Gino Messina (Chair):** 27th and working on some sound things here we got it all right um for uh second thing we're gonna do is the oath of office with Commissioners um Albert, Peters and McGrath okay thank you [0:06] **John Hinzman (Community Development Director):** Mr. chairman I am going to come over here for a second and Commissioners Peters and Hallberg and McGrath if you could please stand up we're going to do this all together I'll give a few sections of the what you need to repeat and if you repeat that we have our oath of office and you are officially planning Commissioners so if you raise your right hand please I state your name do a firm [0:46] **Commissioners Peters, Hallberg, & McGrath:** that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America the Constitution of the state of Minnesota and the chartering ordinances of the city of Hastings and that well I will and that I will Faithfully discharge the duties of a planning commissioner for the city of Hastings counties of Dakota and Washington state of Minnesota according to the best of my ability and understanding according to the best of my ability and understanding [1:26] **Gino Messina (Chair):** well welcome commissioners [1:33] [Applause] [1:39] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay thanks John commissioner McGrath welcome first meeting it's our first meeting since November um third item is election of chair and vice chair for 2023. John [1:42] **John Hinzman:** yeah I'll give a little brief introduction Mr chairman on this one we do have the positions of chair and vice chair available for the Planning Commission all planning commissions are eligible that have served at least one year so that is everyone here but commissioner McGrath would be eligible to serve we could take the nominations as a group or individually currently we have serving as chair we have Gino Messina and his vice chair Rob Hallberg so I will open the floor up [2:23] **Gino Messina (Chair):** all right commissioner Peters [2:25] **Melanie Peters:** um I'll make a motion to have chair or commissioner Messina as chair and commissioner Hallberg as Vice chair [2:32] **Gino Messina (Chair):** all right Commissioners we have a motion for myself as chair and commissioner Hallberg as Vice chair further second [2:37] **Rachel Swedin:** second [2:40] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay commission Swedin on a second any further discussion all right if not all in favor say aye aye aye opposed all right motion carries and that was for both appointments all right thank you again um next one approval of the minutes from November 14 2022 four months ago any uh any uh concerns or questions comments updates anything from there okay if not we'll go ahead and consider those minutes to be approved all right next up is a public hearing this is for an ordinance Amendment for cannabis and hemp use sale and operations John Hinzman [3:15] **John Hinzman:** all right thank you Mr chairman let me this up for display and I'm going to switch around one more item here oh yeah so Planet Commissioners tonight before you as a public hearing to consider an ordinance Amendment for for cannabis and hemp and a subject that we have been studying here over the last year or so with the help for Public Safety advisory commission as well as our City attorney Corey Land Corey Land can speak much more clearly and much more knowledgeably on the subject than I can so I invited her here tonight to provide some background explanation and what it is that we're looking to have a recommendation on again planning commission's role tonight is to hold a public hearing and to make a recommendation on the potential ordinance change to the zoning code to the city council so at this time I'll call up attorney Land [4:28] **Corey Land (City Attorney):** Mr chair members of the commission first of all invitation to just want to make sure it's extended to attend the fantastic training on Thursday night I know some of you have attended in the past I have new material so it's a new act but I would I would love it if you could come again I think sometimes it's just helpful to continue to hear the information sort of just get your muscle memory on all of these kinds of complicated things that you have to dive into that are so important to your community so I hope and invite you to come on Thursday night I think it starts at 5 30. John has a fabulous dinner provided so trying to entice you and and bribe you a little bit I'm sure we'll have treats too I always I like to have some kind of a we'll have caffeinated products as well as some sugar to keep you awake so I hope you can come moving into proposed cannabis regulations this is a very complicated and controversial topic and so I appreciate the invitation that John extended because it's not something that's easy to try to get your head around in one sitting so I appreciate what we're putting you through tonight you can see in the memo he laid out the history on how this has ended up at your table so there is currently a moratorium in place any cannabis related uses that existed as of the date of adoption of that moratorium were allowed to continue to exist but not expand that's when a moratorium does so no New Uses but and no expansion of existing uses so there are some places in town that are selling it today a few that we're aware of there may be more because this is a very unregulated area right now but there is currently moratorium it does expire towards the end of March so we're intending to have this sort of intersect the final reading by the council intersect with the end of the moratorium so that it can be a seamless transition into what we're proposing so you're as John mentioned your role is the zoning regulations we will also be introducing some licensing regulations to the council when it hits their table so they can look at the two together so first of all what's the difference between all these three things hemp marijuana and cannabis you hear these terms used sometimes it feels interchangeably and so I thought just a little brief I'm not an expert in no sense of any imagination am I an expert on this subject but I know enough to I think explain it to you sort of in layman's terms which is how I understand it cannabis is the plant hemp and marijuana are divide derived from that plant so you don't have the plant you don't have the two products so you have hemp and marijuana out of the cannabis plant science doesn't care about the difference but the law does so hemp versus marijuana science saying it's all from the cannabis plant the law has made a difference between the two and the difference is the level of THC so that is the content of the THC that is derived out of the cannabis plant is what makes the legal difference between hemp and marijuana the higher the THC literally the higher you can get pardon the puns it's really unintentional so the term hemp is used to explain cannabis that the product that is derived from a cannabis plant that has 0.3 percent THC or less why is point three percent sort of the magic number well it was proposed by this scientist Ernest small back in the 70s he studied it he he knew there needed to be a difference between the non-drug species and the drug species and in his expert opinion 0.3 percent felt like the number so he says it is kind of arbitrary but it's more it's an education based on an education and his study of it it felt like kind of the right differentiation between non-drug versus drug it's sort of like a DUI you know 0.12 used to be the legal limit and then they lowered it to 0.10 and then now it's 0.08 so that has over time evolved into sort of 0.08 is the legal limit for being able to drive or if you're over a weight you're considered intoxicating this is the same kind of rule 0.3 percent has withstood or since the 1970s they have never I think the European um in over in Europe they did drop it to 0.2 percent but I think they felt pressure because the rest of the world was still at point three percent so it is it is as of January 1st of 2023 it is at point three percent as far as I know around the world but Dr Ernest small said this I caution that 100 of the groupings within the species is rarely achievable so in the case of the non-drug the sativa version because of the fluctuations in THC content whether it be a seasonal issue the plant may have more or less than three percent uh THC at times so there's also environmental influences on it variations in errors in the sampling method will influence the reported THC levels so even though we say 0.3 THC means it's a hemp related product non-drug over 0.3 percent is a drug the plant is not a perfect way to measure because every plant may have a different level of THC you may intend to produce a plant that has 0.3 percent and it might have more or it might have less so it's not perfect the cannabis strains May produce that that are higher in THC will produce the high and in a medical related cannabis product that's often used for pain management those lower strains in THC but include a can of cannabidiol which is a the CBD version may have some beneficial effects but they don't give you the high so that's often used in the type of CBD products lower THC level that are used for children for medical cannabis for children so the only other difference when you have a THC content is looking at whether one is legal and one is not in 2018 the farm bill came out because you may say well how did these CBD products all of a sudden become so popular 2018 is what was the difference the farm bill made it legal to grow hemp and cannabis containing less than 0.3 percent THC it also made these hemp related products legal federally under the federal law but anything that is more than 0.3 percent THC is illegal under the federal law I know a lot of states have approved it recreational marijuana it's all over the country technically it is still illegal under the federal law so the CBD product as I said has become increasingly popular since 2018 when CBD was legalized the CBD is found again in the cannabis plant so you can have the 0.3 percent or less which is considered hemp the non-drug version or the 0.3 percent or more which is the marijuana version you can have CBD products that are on both sides of that equation so and you will not know the difference looking at the product it's only if it's tested and the THC content is confirmed that you will know whether it is the non-drug version or the drug version it's only again CBD products are only federally legal if they have they say they're derived from the hemp which is the 0.3 or less and they contain and you confirm that they can't contain 0.3 percent or less THC so a lot of these products the CBD products have been grown they started in 2018 you saw a lot of these paper clothing textiles Plastics non-angestable type products so it was the topicals they can't excuse me the candles the creams the oils the clothes these are what first came out now there was sort of this other Market of edibles but nobody really knew what they were what they were doing or where they were selling then fast forward to 2022 and the Minnesota Legislature slipped into one of the biggest Omnibus bills you can imagine on page probably you know 487 legalized edible CBD so it's anything with the 0.3 percent or less and it's not three percent sorry it's point three percent that's a typo on the screen and an edible product under the law is any product that has tended to be eaten or consumed as a beverage by humans contains a cannabinoid in combination with food so it's the edible CBD point three percent or less THC again Minnesota law did not have any other regulations around it it just legalized it they don't license it they don't require registration of it there's no real statutory state agency that's overseeing it there's no testing of products before they hit the market it is legal with certain restrictions so there's a bunch of rules around how it has to we'll call them performance standards about how it has to look once it's on the shelf and how it can be sold and who it can be sold to but they don't test it they don't regulate it they don't know who's selling it and there's no clear enforcement mechanism so it can't contain the likelihood or the likeness of a cartoon character it can't be modeled after a brand of products that is consumed or marketed to children it cannot be applied to an existing candy or snack food product that exists it must be packaged or it may not be packaged in a way that resembles any available food product it has to have a pre-packaged container including its child resistant and tamper evident and the labeling must say that there's a limit of five milligrams THC per serving and 50 milligrams per package so those are the packaging requirements what do they really look like they look like this you can Google edible CBD products and this is exactly what you will see how that complies with the Minnesota state law I do not know and as you can see now this these are not necessarily sold in Minnesota but I do know there are many many stores that are not following the labeling and packaging requirements the gummy bear package shows that this is 25 milligrams of CBD per gummy so you have to cut that gummy into five pieces and that's a serving the one on the right is 30 milligrams per gummy so those would not be legal in Minnesota the beverages that are CBD infused beverages again this is how this is fine they can be packaged like this the five milligrams is one serving that's fine two and a half milligrams per serving is fine the 10 milligrams per serving and about the can on the right that would be then two servings the law does prohibit the sales to anyone under 21. and age the alcohol gambling enforcement agency has said that these cannot be sold in liquor stores they have some regulations around what kind of food products can be sold in liquor stores and has to be a product that can be added to liquor these cannot be added to liquor they are actually the product and they so they cannot be sold in liquor stores under the law again since there are no regulations cities can Zone them and license them for these CBD edible products so that's why we're bringing them forward to you now there is proposed legislation right now that is making its way through the many many groups and hearings that it has to and it is for adult use cannabis and I bring this to your attention because all of this might be for nothing depending on what happens with the law current legislation says that they will not allow the city's local regulation of Licensing that the state will completely Encompass all licensing of all of these cannabis uses there is one version of the proposed legislation that says that the cities might be allowed to register these types of uses but still not license them it will not allow cities to prohibit any of these uses in their communities it does provide for complete state regulations of adult use cannabis including testing licensing and enforcing and there will be an agency created to do that it does allow local control for zoning which is why the ordinance that is in front of you as someone put it why does this feel like a licensing ordinance because I don't know that licensing is going to withstand once the legislation if it is approved this session I don't think licensing will be allowed to uh to have local control for but zoning we can and so I'm hoping that some of the zoning Provisions Will Survive so that's why everything is packed into the zoning ordinance it's also in the licensing ordinance these are very similar ordinances but I need to have it in zoning if you like all of these regulations in order to if the state will allow us to regulate it at all so what is this ordinance look like we're trying to regulate all kinds of cannabis uses whether we know about them or not today whether they're legal or not today so the definitions include some of those that are in the proposed legislation at the state level including adult related adult use cannabis so it's it does include the over point three percent THC type products and then all of these different kinds of uses so farming manufacturing testing wholesale retail the delivery whether it be um you know internet sales or any other kinds of delivery methods as well as medical marijuana so those are all of the uses that we can regulate through zoning the definition of a cannabis business is anybody that is you is is performing a cannabis related service so it's the cultivator manufacturer retailer wholesaler transporter testing facility event organizer delivery service edible retailer medical cultivator medical processor medical retailer of any kind of cannabis product so it's broad I tried to include everything that again exists today and may exist tomorrow and then the cannabinoid product is any of these things so it's the cannabis concentrate a product infused with it any other product that has the cannabis concentrate or any artificially derived cannabinoids or the adult use cannabinoid which is coming down the pipeline or the edible cannabinoid products which exist today or the medical so again including all of the uses today the products today and the uses potentially tomorrow so what are we talking about where are we putting these uses farming related so I just generically call them farming so that's the cultivating where are they where's the grow operation going to happen obviously in your AG District I'm proposing it as a conditional use that you have to have a hundred contiguous Acres you have to be licensed by the state which is a regulation today in order to grow you do have to have a license by the state not for the over point three percent but for the under 0.3 percent and no retail sales allowed on site so those are the regulations again that we're throwing out there for the farm related uses the retail we're proposing that they would be by conditional use in the C3 and the C4 commercial districts and then they would also have to comply with all the performance standards which we've outlined in a later section the manufacturing testing in wholesale which I will warn you can smell really bad if you don't have the proper odor mitigation uh type equipment the facility will stink and it smells like a skunk now I have been very successful in putting some fantastic odor mitigation measures in the medical marijuana facility that is located in Cottage Grove and because of that that place has never ever had an odor complaint so I'm cautiously optimistic that if one wanted to locate in your industrial park we could put similar measures in place that would make it be a good neighbor but we are proposing it to be a conditional use in the industrial park and then again we can address those order mitigation issues if one use were to come in front of you and we can put those conditions on it so what are the performance standards for the retail uses again I know these look a lot like a licensing type scheme but again to try to survive whatever the legislature is going to do if they say you can't regulate these by licensing we need to have them in the zoning ordinance because what they have said so far is you can put zoning regulations as long as you're only regulating time place and manner restrictions so we've already discussed the place because we put them in the right zoning District so these are kind of time and manner type restrictions so the business must require proof of age and have signage of the age so you have to be over 21. the products have to comply with whatever labeling and packaging requirements at the end of the day we know what they are today but we don't know what those labeling and packaging requirements are going to be tomorrow hours of operation between 8 AM and 10 pm products must be behind a counter in a case in no way can the customer directly access any of the products it has to have clerk interaction there must be a security plan as I said these are federally illegal operations many of them cannot get Bank financing and they are operate on a cash business and so it's very important that we have them talking with our police chief to make sure that they have appropriate security measures in place and then they have to comply with our compliance checks where we would do compliance checks just like we do on liquor establishments and tobacco establishments we would not allow obviously anyone to purchase use or possess if they're under 21 clerks must also be 21 this is similar to The Tobacco requirements no product can this is a little tricky no product can contain more than 0.3 THC why did we put that in there because if the legislature flips we want to have time to adjust and say wait a minute we knew these were going to be 0.3 or less THC products in these particular zoning districts if you're going to say that we can now allow recreational marijuana we may need to rethink where they go so it's hopeful that this will be a little stop Gap to give you time to pause look and see where you want the recreational the point three percent or more products to be sold we're not going to be able to prohibit them but you might want to Pivot and say maybe the C3 and C4 not the right zoning districts maybe they are maybe you want to expand it maybe it hasn't been a problem but it just gives you the ability to pause again they would not be allowed to be sold by vending machine because that would not require clerk interaction no Mobile sales so they couldn't be at special events they couldn't be sold by the the transient merchants or the Peddlers and they would not allowed to be uh not could not be sold at liquor stores or bars so your focus is on the uses the districts the performance standards to see if you think those are appropriate and then make your recommendation to the council after having a public hearing tonight so I did not make much of this up I did look up I have my sources from from the internet you know Dr Google is pretty reliable I did vet a lot of the information with multiple sources just to make sure I wasn't making stuff up but so just so you know so I'll turn it back to some of the performance standards to see what you think of them and and more than happy to answer questions from you [25:39] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay thank you Corey appreciate it um one quick question we say no bars does that include restaurants that have a bar in them how does that [25:50] **Corey Land:** any on sale liquor license so if it's a restaurant that has an on sale liquor license they would not be allowed to sell these products okay [25:58] **Gino Messina (Chair):** Commissioners I'll open up to any questions I actually did see the city council meeting where you introduced this several months back so I was kind of ready for it and I know there's a lot of good questions there that were answered so I'll go ahead and defer to my fellow Commissioners for any questions Mr Teiken [26:15] **John Teiken:** thank you Mr chair uh a couple couple questions so first of all is there any chance that what we're doing tonight could be considered licensing get challenged it [26:27] **Corey Land:** I would consider these manner restrictions so I think you know again many of them we can say you know sales between 8 AM and 10 p.m that's the manner in which they're being sold so I think we can justify many of these uh requirements the only one that again I think is is perhaps suspect is the no product that's more than 0.3 THC again because the legislature may may say you can't limit that [27:00] **John Teiken:** okay um how does this compare with alcohol standards from alcohol Stores [27:06] **Corey Land:** um it's more it's closer to Tobacco you know with the products being behind a counter having to have clerk interaction clerks have to be 21. so this is a lot of these ordinances are mirrored after tobacco ordinances [27:23] **John Teiken:** okay um actually that answers my other question so that's all I have for now thank you Mr chair [27:26] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay thank you commissioner Hallberg [27:29] **Rob Hallberg:** so my question about the it has to comply with labeling and packaging requirements and also compliance checks who's going to be doing the compliance checks is that local police [27:42] **Corey Land:** we believe all enforcement I mean we treat it just like tobacco and liquor so the enforcement would be done by the local police department [27:52] **Rob Hallberg:** okay is there a reason be about the 8 A.M to 10 P.M [27:57] **Corey Land:** um again trying to mirror it after tobacco stores I think there are limits of hours of operation on on many of uh in many cities so just try to keep it in daytime hours again it's a lot of it is the security issue they're not consuming on site so it's not like they need to be open like a bar yeah right so it's it is intended to keep it kind of during the the daytime typical hours [28:49] **Rob Hallberg:** okay thank you [28:55] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay commissioner Peters [28:57] **Melanie Peters:** I was curious um what other cities are are doing and if this proposed ordinance is reflective of any local communities or what the feedback has been from other cities that have maybe already adopted an ordinance a zoning related ordinance on this [29:13] **Corey Land:** I can tell you cities are all over the place on regulations I do represent several other cities in Washington County and the zoning ordinance regulations are much skinnier because we weren't at the time they've they adopted them last fall and so the we didn't know what the legislature was going to do and now that we know this proposed legislation is coming I'm trying to be proactive and so I I'm actually adjusting one of the other ordinances now in one of the other communities again to try to get ahead if that's even possible I feel like I'm throwing a dart at it you know in the dark but if possible to try to to put some regulations in place so at least the legislature could see what you were thinking and maybe it would be upheld or a court of law and for that matter so you can see you know this is what we intended to do this is why we needed we felt a need to regulate it in this way so that it would be upheld [30:19] **Melanie Peters:** out of curiosity were we able to determine a breakdown in both the C3 and the C4 districts as to what or how many businesses are currently selling CBD products [30:28] **John Hinzman:** yeah I maybe have attorney Land I think it's four or five right now they're not that are in operation selling they are all within with the C3 or the C4 District total total yeah so the C3 and the C4 District in general is downtown Vermillion Street Highway 55 it's most of the commercial districts other than some of the new buildings in the downtown area Auto Sale areas and there's a few smaller C1 areas on 55 but it's a pretty encompassing area of commercial districts [31:07] **Corey Land:** okay now the one thing I might point out that is not in your ordinance that is in many many other cities ordinances and actually is in the proposed legislation that would be allowed for zoning regulations is distance from certain other uses like schools parks and playgrounds now the I think both the PSAC committee as well as the Public Safety Committee of the council looked at that factor and although PSAC recommended it I can't remember if they one of them recommended it but the the committee the council did not feel that that was necessary it certainly is something that you could add if you felt like it was important but most of the other communities do have some kind of a distance from whether it's daycare schools Parks playgrounds places that involve children [32:00] **Melanie Peters:** yeah that was not put in this current one correct [32:03] **Corey Land:** and the proposed legislation says you can have a distance of up to a thousand feet so that would be your max anyway it will if the law passes right [32:06] **John Hinzman:** so we could uh make that as a condition of approval of the proposed ordinance yeah Commissioners would be uh yeah if a commissioner wanted to amend the ordinance uh we can look at amendments too that is part of the recommendation process here too and also Mr chairman just a reminder too that this is a public hearing so if you want to open that up we can do that at day and time [32:15] **Gino Messina (Chair):** let's do that real quick yeah I almost forgot there's a lot of information there yeah we'll go ahead and open up the public hearing and do we have anybody on Zoom I do see one person on Zoom I will see if I see a hand raised if the person on Zoom wishes to address the Planning Commission please use the raised hand button I'm not seeing anything there okay do we have anybody present here would like to speak nope okay I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and now open it back up to uh questions for Commissioners there we go commissioner Peters [32:52] **Melanie Peters:** um so one of the things mentioned with um the industrial zone is just the smell and that you're able to put some things in about you know just that smell sort of mitigation I maybe I missed it but I don't see that in here and if it's conditional use that would kind of leave it up to you know who the Planning Commission in the city council at the time is that something that should be in here if that's important [33:31] **Corey Land:** yep your honor members your honor listen to me your honor is here she is here Mr chair members of the commission uh I thought about putting the odor mitigation requirements in there and there were just so many it really felt like it could be case specific based on the application how close the neighbors are you know whether it's um you know you have an immediate neighbor you have some distance between because in in fact in Cottage Grove that particular user bought a significant amount of land and has a very big buffer zone so even though we did put a very robust mitigation plan in place I'm not sure it would have been absolutely necessary given the distance from their neighbors so it really I thought it could be a case-by-case basis and at least I have some kind of Technology you know information that we can bring in and and apply if we need it [34:25] **John Hinzman:** and then this might be a question you know for you but are there any other like sort of nuisance ordinances that would cover that if if something came for it as a conditional use is there other or are there other ordinances that would you know allow a Planning Commission not to subjectively but very objectively like put in place sure in very general terms we do have nuisance Provisions within the city code relating to noise and smell and other types of nuisances so we Define them generally we don't get into any various anything very specific about what they are but just what the results might be and the impact in other individuals but certainly within a special use permit that we would be reviewing by the commission we're able to add those types of performance standards to ensure that those do not become problematic [35:23] **John Teiken:** thank you Mr chair a couple more questions I have um spoke of distances to other things what other ordinances do we have as far as distance as alcohol [35:36] **Corey Land:** um that's a great question I'm not sure if you have um a performance or yeah those kinds of distance requirements between sometimes it's between existing uses too so you don't want to have two cannabis related uses too close together either um but I don't know if you have those kinds of regulations in place now [35:54] **John Hinzman:** yeah I can think I believe we have some distance requirements under our adult use ordinance but I don't think we do for anything else related to alcohol or tobacco [36:02] **John Teiken:** no because I mean when I looked at this I originally kind of compared it to alcohol sales but it's kind of alcohol and tobacco a mixture of both but I think you know we should treat it the same as we do those other businesses regardless of you know the medium for the effect um my other question I wrote down is there any obviously they can't sell all calls or anything else they can't sell in that short so it's pretty much whatever they want any any retail store other than a place that has non-sell or off sale license any retail that's in the C3 or C4 business districts could sell to Walgreens a small yep a small kiosk or the entire store okay I saw it I mean honestly if we're not treating any anybody else I really don't see the need to put distances so that's all I have for now thank you [36:55] **Gino Messina (Chair):** you're welcome commissioner Swedin [36:59] **Rachel Swedin:** um could you expand a little bit on the I I noticed that um so it's C3 by C4 District by special use could you expand a little bit on um I guess why we would need to have it by special use [37:12] **Corey Land:** well again I think it relates to uh where it's going to be located in the C3 and C3 C4 business districts whether it's adjacent to residential uses or a park or playground if you're not going to put distance requirements in there there might be some screening there might be again additional security measures that might be appropriate I always like to have these kinds of I like to start conservatively with these uses if they turn out not to be a problem and someday you decide to make it a permitted use great I would rather start cautiously and then see how it plays out in the end as opposed to being less restrictive in the beginning and then finding out there's an issue and you can't deal with it so you know a conditional use at least gives you a lens to look at it maybe there are no conditions that need to be put on it but it gives you the opportunity to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis [38:15] **Rachel Swedin:** sure so it kind of leaves it up to us to you know see how restrictive we want to be yeah Case by case I guess I just um I have family from Michigan so the experiences that Michigan has had with their own you know process surrounding this issue in the past so many years just um what I've seen and heard from folks in towns of Michigan it's actually really interesting because um as this sort of use is expanded and become more common the the cities that have you know gotten ahead of it and had good processes in place have had an easier time the cities that have been more restrictive of actually causes themselves more issues in other ways because they're so restrictive there's a pretty big demand for this sort of thing as it becomes legal so the traffic issues the law enforcement issues just the amount of people you have going to the very few locations that they allow end up causing more issues than the actual allowance of you know sales and use so just something to keep in mind as we move forward but I think this seems to cover it and we'll take it as we go thank you [38:45] **Gino Messina (Chair):** commissioner Peters [38:46] **Melanie Peters:** um you noted that or I thought one of you noted that there are currently um maybe some businesses that are C1 that are selling the is that accurate [38:58] **John Hinzman:** commissioner I don't believe there's any businesses in this in the C1 District all the businesses that are that are selling right now before the moratorium or either C3 or C4 Zone [39:10] **Melanie Peters:** oh okay I was just curious like what would happen to those to those businesses because this I wasn't seeing a pathway for them to continue to sell but if that's not the issue then [39:20] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay your opinion what's the one factor that would push this over into a license category I'm kind of curious as to what the legal opinion on that is or what your legal opinion is on that [39:30] **Corey Land:** what keeps it from being a license in zoning your only mechanism uh is to hold another public hearing to revoke so if there are violations of any of the conditions that you were to put on it or any violations of your performance standards we certainly have administrative citations now which are helpful to try to get the attention of of these businesses but if you would have to literally bring a hearing or the council would to revoke a conditional use permit and that's a land use right as opposed to a license which the council can again they have to have a hearing it's not a public hearing and you're not taking away somebody's land use so there are differences um and I think the the zoning regulations are much allow them much more entitlement because it runs with the land so a license doesn't you if you go out of business or that license is gone [40:19] **Gino Messina (Chair):** sure okay thank you very helpful Commissioners any other questions okay if there's no questions do I have a motion on the table commissioner Teiken [41:30] **John Teiken:** thank you Mr chair first of all thank you that was very helpful and I learned more than I really probably needed to know but now I understand all this because I have no idea I had no clue before what uh the difference between CBC and all this or CBD and all the other things were but so thank you for that um and as I looked at this I I really it was a we do it for alcohol we do it for tobacco this seems like a good good way to kind of track what's going on and still allow people to do what they what they are illegally entitled to do so um I move that the Planning Commission recommended approval for the ordinance Amendment cannabis and hemp use sales and operations [42:15] **Gino Messina (Chair):** all right commissioner Teiken and motion do I have a second oh second commissioner Hallberg got a second uh any further discussion I do agree Corey thank you very much excellent presentation very well put together easy to understand easy to follow thank you no further discussion all right all in favor say aye aye aye opposed that motion carries okay okay and the recommendation from the Planning Commission will go forward to the City Council next week on March 6th where they'll be conducting a first reading which is generally a consent agenda item and then action by the city council would occur on March 20th thank you thanks John all right next item thanks Corey appreciate it next item uh concept plan review for Walden at Hastings and [43:11] **John Hinzman:** plenty Commissioners as you know we've had some conceptual plans available for what's being termed Walden at Hastings which is a concept plan for the development of about 71 Acres located generally at 316 and Michael Avenue so tonight what we're conducting is what we term a concept plan review which is an opportunity for the developer to share the concept of the project for you and to offers a preliminary guidance essentially kick the tires a little bit on this development there is no formal action related to this tonight there will be several formal actions that will take place in the future as this project moves along there is also a companion item related to this called the annexation of the land which is something that is is handled directly by the city council that is the incorporation of this land from Martian Township into the city of Hastings that is an item that the city council reviewed held a public hearing on in 2021 with a former concept plan table that item at that time gave the direction that when a new developer and A New Concept plan was developed that they would re-look at that issue so long story short they are going to be looking at the annexation requests coming up next week and March 6th but prior to that we wanted to have the opportunity for the Planning Commission to be able to review this item because they will be looking at detailed items of this as it goes forward going forward from here there will be an environmental assessment worksheet that will be completed because of the the number of units that are part of this development that includes things such as environmental concerns traffic concerns noise pollution those types of items so there's a checklist of items that will need to be conducted and that review would move forward and then we have this specific land use entitlements the preliminary and final plot the site plan the rezoning the land use changes all that that officially would be done I will preface this by saying when we the council takes a look at the annexation next week there all they are doing at the that point is physically changing the boundary of the city of Hastings to include this property property would still be zoned Ag and that change would have to take place later on with public hearings that would take place before the Planning Commission city council so with that being said I want to turn it over to the development team here we have Rick Harrison of Rick Harrison site design Rick has has tremendous experience in designing subdivisions some Innovative items that he puts into subdivisions which we'll share with you tonight and then we have the development team from Land Equity over here we've got Chris Beadle and then we've got Jeff so we will turn it over to Rick at this point and we'll go over there [45:32] **Rick Harrison (Rick Harrison Site Design):** thank you and I look forward to being in front of new Planning Commission members um so what we do is is we kind of teach people the ideas and the concepts behind the plans that we design and and that's what this presentation is going to be about that one of the big things that home buyers today they want is walkability and what we found when designing neighborhoods is you really can't create truly walkable neighborhoods if you designing the streets and then the Lots the walks end up being just parallel to the street in the afterthought so we've got a 70 Acres 71 Acres but 53 of it is buildable the rest of it is low lands or Coulee in The Preserve and it's flat there's an advantage to a flat site and that is the trails and the walks are very easily walkable you know walking up and down slopes and so we determined a destination on the southeast part of the site where we put a park and then the Northwest part of the site would connect to the existing trail system there would probably be another Trail along great River Road as instead of putting it in the road maybe we could bring it swing it into the developmental so it'd be a lot more pleasant so the thing about a straight trail that I like is the site is organic in other words it's mostly free-flowing in the design but when you put a straight element like a trail you could see right through where that trail is going to lead no matter how you hit that trail you know where it's both ends and you'll be able to see that and what I'd like is you could put small trees easily planted at the beginning 20 years later they become a canopy and they've become a feature that'll be there for a very very long time so at various forms of Housing and the secondary walks all tied to this trail system it becomes the theme of the neighborhood and this is very very um similar to all the developments that we design and then that trail eventually leads towards the end which would be Park overlooking the Coulee at the edge so the various forms of housing is all connected so our drivability every street maintains flow so as you enter there's we we don't have a lot of stops and turns and that allows people to drive easily through the neighborhood and also any T intersections are on the outside of a curve to help with sight distances in higher traffic area pedestrians cross it one way so it's a little bit safer and that's also very typical of all of our designs and you'll see we've done about 1600 of these neighborhoods and 48 states and 16 Nations now it all came down to about 30 years ago we discovered a new geometric model for growth and uh that we call that coving in the neighborhoods that we design we discovered that if you set the homes further back in a certain pattern and set the streets a certain way we could reduce the street length in a development typically 25 percent everyone's different this one's probably more like 15 percent but when you could reduce its the streets 25 percent to maintain density you have a lot more space for people and it's a different geometric model than looking at everything at the minimums and creating cookie cutter I'm not going to go into a big diatribes and how that works we have a book I'm glad to share with all of you um the typical pattern of growth when you look at your minimum setbacks your minimum this your minimum that is the engineer will typically lay it out and squeeze every possible unit it does maximize density but it also maximizes of Street length so this other pattern will in this case it increase the lot size by 40 percent uh it lost two units it's almost the same density streets went down by 42 percent and you end up with a spectacular neighborhood now that one we designed 25 years ago it's still spectacular today here's another example of of how minimums work when you look at a cul-de-sac and you have your 60-foot radius of Minnesota and then you put your homes at 25 foot setback you're only going to get you know four homes or so and then you get this massive of concrete that you know snowplow operator is going to take out the mailboxes and put it right back in all your driveways and then a sidewalk to nowhere so what if we just made everything bigger it's unintuitive if you make things bigger you're you would say you're going to lose but not necessarily this what we discovered so if you go one way with that street which people are going to drive anyhow um you're you'll have less pavement you pick up a park in the middle you the walk and go to through the neighborhood it could be an also alternate emergency vehicle and the snow is pushed into the island instead of everybody's driveways so when you look at the number you have double the amount of Premium Lots so you need less cul-de-sacs to have more premium Lots you don't need to fill up the site with cul-de-sacs less impervious surface and it's the exact same density now how is that possible when you think about it the standard cul-de-sac produces a very pie shaped lot by making everything bigger we have less waste so we run with the numbers and then we find out the optimum this is very unusual because of those 1600 neighborhoods maybe 10 of them are life cycle so I want to talk a little bit about life cycle it provides for housing for every stage of life first time home renter buyer and and then through the whole pattern that's life cycle I only have one other in Minnesota right now and that's in Maple Lake uh going through the approval process um it expands the choices far beyond a typical subdivision this person's building apartments this buildings persons building duplexes it has pretty much all of it and so it's creating more of a holistic solution and and the reason you don't see them as developers um you know they're a single family developer or they're a apartment developer that's what they're going to have well this Development Group this is their dream and it's the proper thing to do it's an association maintained community so everything's Association maintained phase one is approximate that changes a little bit if we bring in the apartments in right away and the different users but this is approximate phase one I want to talk a little bit about reverse transitional zoning this is another thing we discovered the typical Suburbans only will put the highest density lowest price housing along all of the arterials and then you'd go to the next price point the next price point and who gets the great views the only people with money which is the least density along the best view so you put the most people along the most noise and that's not really functional so we reverse that so we want a low density feel at the entrance is not a high density feel so the development looks and feels lower density than it is and we don't have a finite straight line between this use and that use so it Blends more so we have the apartments in the back those units have the most people overlooking the open space and it puts it far away from the highway so you wouldn't even see that building from the highway and the neighbors typically that would be at the entrances of a development that's how traditional zoning goes we would rather see the most people along in the best place so you've got the open space on one side we have proposed ponds on the other side of the building so each side of the building has fairly decent views and and so this is uh the logic behind this reversing of the transitionals only we we started doing that about 20 years ago it just makes common sense the transitional zoning comes from Levittown from the 1940s and you know pretty just boilerplate but you know it just it just didn't make sense to us um the apartments would be of course your first time renters and your your younger people moving out for the first time we have rear loaded where the parking is in the rear with a private Lane Townhomes Road type Townhomes very common now in the Twin Cities so the back of the the town home you would normally think is the back is a porch and it's really the front you're parking in the back so you have a much more attractive what you would think is the the front is the back side and that is what's along the highway along with extra setback and open space to give it a more attractive feel now I used and I modified the architecture a little bit I just took a polti unit I just put those on there so that's what I use for the graphics and and I try to give this a little bit of a modern Farmhouse Flair the who's going to be in the town homes young couples getting started they might move up to the Twin Homes once they have kids their first you know house type home and that's along the single family homes to the north and so that forms a buffer but you could see that extra setback is different for a twin home product at the entrances we're not squeezing anything close to the street we want that open feel almost like a anti-subdivision field it's our first impression and then as we get into the development it squeezes down uh so that would be the next age up active adult that would be me and and uh that would be uh quads duplexes there's more of a apartment type building for a higher density in there but that would be themed for active adult one level well we do have this uh that buildings tied in with it too um and and so this is what that would look like and these are patterned after units that they're building here in the Twin Cities um actually most of all these units are actual units that they're building elsewhere and as we evolve this and we have the users we'll hone that down but um you know we wanted to use mostly standard units that are are being built today and and try to theme this with like a modern Farmhouse type theme so that the neighborhood's more uh congruent but the big thing is you'll see in any of these units is it's The View when you're out the window what are you viewing you know we're trying to avoid looking directly into your neighbor with these angles and things like that so we'll be working with different users to make sure that they take advantage of the views that the site plan offers Assisted Living that's where I'm going next and uh I got about 10 years and that's uh the the final transition and so we've got some units there and that's in that first phase area and then that follows up with a single family in that coved area which is patterned after these neighborhoods that are being built in the Twin Cities like Watermark and I forget their name it's at the watermark owns them and that's what these units are they're single family rental and uh these units are very similar to The Watermark units and they're very you know they're modern Farmhouse are very cute units um very big demand for it but you could see that feeling of space that we have the South uh corner is low so we're proposing some ponds and a bridge over into the development and you can see the Meandering walks those walks are set in easements as they leave the uh right away so there's still public walks and um they're beautiful just like Lake of the Isles and the Twin Cities you know hundreds some odd years ago they laid in all the Meandering walks it adds a lot of character so everything is individual and so that's that's what we have there there's a dog park that you could see and there's different amenities along along the walk as far as the view sheds when you have a home that's exactly parallel to the home next to you and let's say the minimums are 100 or 110 feet or whatever your minimums are that's your view when you put the homes on an angle to each other The View out the window expands so that's what we mean by view sheds is laying this out in a way that when you look out the window you have the perception of more space than there actually is kind of like a higher ceiling makes the room look bigger same type of thing walkability all the walks lead to the trails and walks are pulled away from the intersections where possible we feel that safer we've been doing that for 20 years and again the walks all lead to the main trail now this other Meandering walk that's parallel to the road I would recommend that be the extension of the park system we put that in the easement the existing Trail to be and get a lot more attractive instead of putting it right on the highway like the others decorative ponds are there the trailhead Park dog park pickleball we haven't met with the parks department yet so we don't know whether these amenities are City or private and the very last thing that we do in design the very very last thing is a lot lines so when we design we we design it in a way where the lot lines are gonna comply with minimums but when you do your streets and then your laps the prescribed steps in your ordinances you're going to get a subdivision and all those other thoughts and features they're going to be bypassed so that's why we do this these methods that we've developed a low impact when you look at the total 54 acres and every man-made item or 34.5 percent impervious surface so it's a pretty efficient development that means 65 percent of the site is organic that's what that means um we met with the neighbors we're putting a screening wall at the end of that drive and then we're putting a 30 foot wide landscape buffer we had a neighborhood meeting and uh I didn't get hit with too much food thrown at me but uh we we came out uh you know with every Everybody agreeing that we'll build the berm and we had the engineers guide us with their Landscape Architects so it would look a bit like that and that's my presentation and um if you have any questions but I wanted to explain the logic behind what we were doing so not just this is this minimum this is that minimum [1:04:13] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay thank you so Commissioner of this reminder this is just a discussion only no approval is being made tonight no decisions being made tonight um I was at the neighborhood meeting so I had a preview of this as was commissioner Swedin John was there commissioner McGrath you weren't here when we saw the original proposal last year um so just a little background on it the original proposal was 160 single family lots if I'm not mistaken the developer backed out of it so imagine when I saw this for the first time and we were at three times the amount so I was all on board with 160 and then I saw this and so it's a lot to digest a lot to think about um so here we are so preliminary discussion first commissioner McGrath go ahead [1:05:07] **Missy McGrath:** is the proposed land I suspect it's it's somebody that owns that private land that's private land owners now or what is the land use [1:05:21] **John Hinzman:** no John can expand on that a little bit yeah sure the yeah the land right now is owned privately it uh Best Development Company that owns the property land Equity has a purchase agreement to purchase that property and then to develop it so they're working on their entitlements for what the city would allow them to do then they would presumably purchase finalize the purchase of that property then we'd come forward with the development [1:06:12] **Missy McGrath:** okay thanks John [1:06:15] **Gino Messina (Chair):** Commissioners any other commissioner Teiken [1:06:17] **John Teiken:** um you mentioned Watermark is that in Inver Grove Heights [1:06:22] **Rick Harrison:** yeah yeah new new uh Community they're putting in now yeah um I forget what they call it um it's right across from the holiday [1:06:33] **John Teiken:** yeah I learned a lot I I don't I have a development of my own that Watermark was going to go into so I learned a lot about the process and everything they do a good job um and then I know that was some 3D gamer VR thing that you came up with 30 years ago or 20 years yeah whatever you mean this thing yeah right well I saw when you're going through your little planning thing that was up there but um the ponds I mean they would be styled to prevent sediment and all that John I'm looking at you [1:07:05] **John Hinzman:** correct yeah the they would be designed to meet our stormwater requirements which would be for sediment control and rate control [1:07:15] **John Teiken:** okay they may design them in a certain manner in which they may retain water they may not maintain water but our foremost requirement would be from a stormwater management standpoint and then they're free to add other features to them as they see fit [1:07:29] **John Teiken:** okay and then I know you had like pickleball and dog park but is there any Community buildings as part of this or like a Community Hall where people get together [1:07:44] **Rick Harrison:** fine we have yet to talk to you other than informally the director of apartment so do you want me to go up to the yeah but you want them to come up yeah a little bit because everybody can hear your conversation people at home can't hear yeah thank you [1:08:18] **Chris Beadle (Land Equity):** additional impressions for you um you said I wasn't expecting to speak tonight so I went to where my Canadian tuxedo at any rate to answer your question again is there going to be any Community private Community things involved which would be like a swimming pool or workout area that you'll see in some of the bill to rent neighborhoods which is kind of a new term for a lot of people built to rent not built on but built to rent we're a whole Community is designed as a rental and it's the best investment pretty much worldwide that every large hedge fund wants but there's where are you going to find a 100 lot development that has no nobody in it you know the benefits are are tremendous for the city and for it's what people want we talk about demographics you know for a project like this I didn't learn I just learned this recently I always thought you know the largest demographic in American history would have been Baby Boomers which I am part of so it's my dad so it doesn't actually mean anything how can my dad be a baby boomer and myself it doesn't add up right there's no like agency that creates these things as Pop Culture but I just found out there a little Millennials are the actually new largest generation that we have in America ever and number two is Baby Boomers and this built around happens to appeal to both those two different cultures um not everybody's American dream is home ownership anymore that's the way it was for Baby Boomers but now that they've lived that American Dream they don't want a mother lawn anymore you know they don't want to do all that they want to be able to have the freedom to travel and to do all kinds of things Millennials you know God bless them have a whole new idea there there's many differentiations between any generation but Millennials I I believe 30 percent say they'll never own a house we talk about the American dream for a millennial you know you look at 2008 American dream was a nightmare for them you know their house was uh foreclosed on if they're like a lot of people and Mom and Dad were fighting and they had to move to a new school and that was not so they've grown up different than a lot of us have anyways the goal for our city is to provide housing for everybody and life cycle housing does that we talked to you mentioned you know a little bit about density that project that was before us is the exact same house exact same lot size over 154 Lots or whatever I would have took five to six years to finish and you would have been taking care of just one demographic of this city that's it and you know I think much of our culture you know if you look at social media and people blame social media and it's part of it but you know if you have any disagreement with anybody or you know you're you're a horrible person in there you know I try not to avoid social media because it's just so visual I think a lot of it has to do with traditional zoning and that we put a certain income we only grow up around people we know that are exactly like us they're the same family style they're the same income right we don't know each other that's why we don't get along as much life cycle housing Embraces the connection between people it doesn't matter your income or age you know it uh we try to supply housing for everybody maybe we understand each other a little bit better in the end um that's a long answer for a Community Development thing uh in a community uh swimming pool however that's some of the background and we didn't we're told not to speak too long tonight and I respect that first of all thank you uh for doing what I had was you said there might be up to five different owners say that again sir [1:12:15] **John Teiken:** I thought you said when you were sitting down there might be up to five different owners of the final owners of the different projects so like the apartment building might have on [1:12:21] **Chris Beadle:** absolutely because you know so it won't be managed by the same there'd be different management there'd be one overall management and we can talk about that more in the future with uh the uh the big presentation yep there's a one General overall you know uh Community uh agreement and then there's individual ones within that yeah and then the last question I have was by putting the high density at the back what's that traffic pattern look like [1:12:35] **Rick Harrison:** oh I I I can answer that um single family homes are going to have the highest number of trips and apartments are going to be and especially seniors it's going to be a low number of trips so um I don't see a big traffic situation we've done these before um it's not like uh a city or Urban densities that we're proposing on us it's one building [1:13:00] **John Teiken:** do you have any of these in Minnesota built yet sounds like you have one going through the process [1:13:07] **Chris Beadle:** you know there's individual neighborhoods but not together it's Nationwide being embraced by every side of the aisle uh as the way to go we don't have there's a I could talk about why their housing crisis and why we don't have this but that's a long discussion I again don't want to get into it tonight but um in terms of flow you know we were not we're not required to bring in a second entrance we did that on our own unlike the first developer that's expensive that also you know that caused the housing traffic study but it makes sense to have I think and so we try to get ahead of it we're not if they've done right there's plenty of money you know in this business in the right Market um where we don't have to put in the bare minimums to make it work and so we try to go up front which is maybe not always the best idea in terms of negotiation is to do everything right in the beginning that's how we choosing to do it and so [1:14:14] **Rick Harrison:** yeah I can uh answer a little bit the uh about the life cycle neighborhood uh we've got one right now at 70 acres in Maple Lake that's going through the process and we have a lot of larger developments much larger it has every housing type like a master plan community but it's so rare to get a developer that we work for as a planner it has a compact site that's willing to do every different level because to their credit Jeff's credit and Chris um they it'll be easier for them to just say we're going to do all single family and here's your Builder and so the process is more difficult but the end solution is a much better solution you just don't see people doing this well [1:15:15] **John Teiken:** and Mr that's that's my thing is when I saw like you did I'm like whoa what is going on here but I hear your concept I like the sound of it but it'd be nice to see it in or hear from people where you've actually built in what that looks like so I think you know when something like this comes back to us it is such different from the normal planning standards that it'd be nice to like talk to people [1:15:39] **Rick Harrison:** I could tell you a similar uh like Boulder ponds in Lake Elmo you've got empty nester housing you've got family housing and then you've got a senior building in there but it's not truly life cycle we have Apartments we have Apartments twins neighborhood so we have some that are mixed uh poltis Prior Lake development as town homes and Twin Homes and single family both of those are all built out both of them to me it's the concept too right where it's like you designed it or all different views and we kind of have these different layouts the cul-de-sacs are different it's just not what we're comfortable with because it's not the way we've seen being built for Generations right we understand that so it's new and it's just I can hear from somebody and not be the guinea pig and Hastings of like this I I can give similar but this has taken it to the next level so this is something new that one in the another one that you're going through the concept building I guess one in the concept has senior uh and departments so it's a true life cycle you've got the first time home buyers you got the last okay the last buyer so it goes through life cycle but it is really rare on a small 50 or 70 acre piece of land you have a developer willing to do that because it's a whole lot easier for them to say hey I get it I get it [1:17:07] **Chris Beadle:** well there's another Factor too I've been doing this you know this is a weird business that I'm in and old kids you know think well when I get older I want to be you know land developer they probably don't say Planning Commission or either a city a city platter but they certainly don't say land developer and there's a business that you're mentored in and that's how you get in there's no College course we're not overseen by any association no licensing unusual business and developers are one horse ponies well you know it's they're either residential for sale they're built to rent they're senior or they're multi-family I've done all of it I started when I was 24 and I I've done 105 projects and this 106 tonight um so it because of that background I'm comfortable to do all these things the housing crisis that you've read about you've talked about it's real it's worse than it's getting worse all the time this interest rate doubling in six months people are still aging you know they're not buying but their life is changing Millennials are thinking about getting married and having kids they're going to be having a housing change necessary soon baby boomers are also looking at a change soon now so as the interest rate has stopped residential development pretty almost completely we haven't changed we're still evolving and so it's just getting worse not better and so this is addressing that and the league of Minnesota cities supports this kind of housing but it's rare because again if you'd have to get five different developers typically to do this and we we don't get along with each other that well to begin with and so we don't even hardly know each other [1:18:38] **Rick Harrison:** so I I could also add in my neighborhood I'm in St Louis Park life cycle we have Jones Harrison where my in-laws passed away in Jones Harrison Senior Housing walking distance from ours walking distance to Apartments walking distance to parks that's really the ideal and the city to be walking distance between all those and and I Jeff knows I I have a small little 520 acre piece of land in Rochester in the city of Rochester and that'll be life cycle but by the time that gets built out I'm going to be 95 years old so I'm going to be in that senior building so it's different it's it's it you know it's it's this is a a compact enough to where it would happen fairly quick and and you can walk it's not like my development a mile down the street is going to be the senior it's and and the nice thing when we had my in-laws in Jones Harrison is we could walk to visit them yeah it's like that and that's a oh yeah I just want to get some additional questions that I I was at the neighborhood meeting so okay yes we're gonna have plenty more time for a decision on absolutely I just want to make sure we get to all the questions in a reasonable amount of time because we do have people who are also tuning in [1:20:06] **Gino Messina (Chair):** Melanie Peters go ahead theme [1:20:10] **Melanie Peters:** sure uh my questions are around the apartment complex and the assisted living about roughly how many units in each [1:20:18] **Chris Beadle:** it was depends on what part of this [1:20:25] **Melanie Peters:** so is that the Assisted Living though or is that including the department [1:20:31] **Chris Beadle:** everyone said the Assisted Living there's a 55 plus apartment and assisted so there's two different buildings we have a senior campus that you would have okay senior living incorporates Independent Living oh right Assisted Living Memory Care are all parts of it they're they're identified as separate neighborhoods in this but they're really one senior campus for us [1:21:10] **Melanie Peters:** okay perfect thank you [1:21:14] **Melanie Peters:** um I have two questions um when you reference this as a a covid coved that's a tricky word that's a we don't want to be associated with gold yeah but when you reference that and I understand that's um with the use of the the streets and not having as much length to the streets as needed or as previous um models I just wondered if some of these communities if they're car dependent communities like Hastings is because that Community I I appreciate all the walking space in Green Space and I really do like the thoughtfulness of the design but realistically the walking can only take place within that area there's really not a lot that's close anyone living there will need cars and thinking about like the Twin Homes and the town homes it's likely to be multiple cars how do you see all of those Vehicles being able to park [1:22:15] **Rick Harrison:** all right I'll answer that when you look at Cove development I don't know if you notice how long those driveways are most homes are going to have two maybe some even three-car garages but there's a lot more parking in a Cove development because we're not right up against the street then there's the public streets they could have on-street parking and we have guest parking and there's parking underneath the the apartments underneath and though so compared to most modern subdivisions we probably have more a percentage more parking [1:23:14] **Melanie Peters:** and then the the streets it's hard to tell because I know it's not an official um plan yet but the streets seemed narrower than or maybe that's what I heard so then when there's snow removal then would that eliminate any kind of street parking if there's you know like right if you think about right now and we've had all this snow yeah um even in town here some of the streets that normally you can park on both sides they're slowly narrowing do you see that as being an issue that would eliminate street parking [1:23:45] **Rick Harrison:** the public streets are uh standard Street sections that we're using today the private Lanes in the back there's no parking in those Lanes they would have guest parking so they're they are narrow because we want them narrow because they're they're really a wide alley [1:23:59] **Melanie Peters:** okay um and then my my other question um you know you noted that because this is a different kind of of style and um you noted that there are 1600 similar developments around the the world I was just curious if you ran into any issues where maybe one or more of those developments failed for any reason and were redeveloped in a different way and I was just wondering if that's the case what caused them to fail like what what lessons were learned from those situations that could be applied to this situation [1:24:28] **Rick Harrison:** uh the only uh I am not aware of any that failed and early on when we were doing this we would revisit with the cities revisit the neighbors interview the neighbors to see how things were going we're always evolving um I'm there was only one instance that um I ever heard of that there were no homes built in a neighborhood and that was Dr Horton they said they would not build on a project we did in Hampton Hammond Louisiana it's actually city of Robert and I said well that never happened and I looked at development all the streets were in there in the homes and so I looked it up there was a dispute because they built it without environmental impacts and the Army Corps of the army said we use that site for Armament testing and there's unexploded bombs underneath there and you're not building any homes in 10 years and two million dollars in legal fees later DR Horton ended up building all the lots and it sold out today that's the closest I have ever heard of a development we did that failed we have 1600 I'd like to tell people we have been hired by 300 developers in their 1600 developments so if it didn't work the first time they wouldn't come back but I could tell you early on we had no architectural control back in the days no walk requirements none of that and I could tell you that our design methods were used by developers who wanted to do a cheap job and they looked at the pavement savings there's more money in their pocket and I started realizing that our name was on some pretty ugly development because of the homes and the requirements and we stopped working for those clients we that was about 20 years ago and and but we so I I can't say that we have all our early work we've got better looking ugly development and so it taught us a big lesson our name was on it and ever since then we're very careful who we work for because we can't create a movement if it's not better and that's what we're trying to do [1:27:00] **Chris Beadle:** I could speak to this project for a minute because I value your time on a Monday night it's hard to do um I've never had a project fail other than the crash which everybody failed every and if they said they didn't they're lying um this project we wouldn't build a road if unless it was pre-sold period we don't speculate anymore as to let's put this in and see if anyone buys it there's too much at stake and so it cannot fail okay you've got to come up importance is why we came up with this concept was more specifically because of old people get put into homes and there may be you know 20 or 30 months we don't like to be called old people yeah yeah right good point anyway but a lot of times you put them in a home and you might see them once a week or once a month because you get busy like Jeff he lives in in uh New Richmond he's got to get his son to to soccer in Maple Grove and his mom lives 30 minutes from there we'd love to bring his mom to the soccer games but that's an extra 30 miles there 30 miles back 30 miles there to drop her off and back it's just too much driving so unfortunately old people don't get involved in things and you know how to kill an old person and stick them next to another 90 year old person that carrots fall out of their mouth they have nothing to do they have no life it's like why are we doing this to our old people other cultures don't do this so we're like why don't we put these inside of the developments where people can live by them I mean if you have a a mom and dad who drive across the country and move to LA where they don't want to be to live next to their kids and grandkids because they want to see them you think in the end of their life they want to be stuck in a home they don't so that's how we started it was trying to come up to that concept so and we're passionate about the senior thing because we're living here I'm older and my mom is still alive and what he's referring to is I'm not a bad person I love my mom but it is you know to have her go to one of my son's football on that soccer [1:28:58] **Gino Messina (Chair):** well I just want I just I need to bring I just need to bring it back in a little bit all right it sounds good we're here for the zoning and planning portion all right this particular this particular um yeah thing we're not here to this the concept is already out there so I'm not worried about the details of the concept and and so forth and so on my my main things that I'm going to be watching going forward I don't need answers tonight but my main things watching going forward is 316 Highway 316 is not ready for this kind of development I can tell you that right now I took five minutes to take a left turn the other day uh from leaving from coburns all because traffic is a little slow and it's one lane uh we got Highway 61 being rebuilt in 2027. definitely a factor because that's going to affect the comprehensive plan it's going to affect Hastings tremendously so I got to figure out how this is going to fit into that so that's that's in the back of my mind as well third Market I know that today you you know 400 some odd rentals seems like a great concept two years three years ago when we approved two developments so did those developments well guess what happened construction costs went up interest rate shot up um the price of the houses shot up and guess what they're not sold that okay so now hold on okay so now we got a lot of empty lots yes back my mind is we fast forward to two or three years from now from a Planning and Zoning perspective and I say hey we just went to a medium density from a low density and now guess what we have all these rental units now ready to go and nobody's renting them what's the plan what's the alternative I don't need to know that tonight I understand it's going to be in the back of my mind thank you Lord a lot of those questions are actually in this report already I just wanted to highlight those questions from zoning and planning perspective the concept is ambitious I'll I'll say it it's ambitious um but for that area it's so drastically different than where it's abutting to we're going from a low density to a medium density to whoa okay um so those are the things that we are looking at from a Planning Commission perspective the concept we get the concept we get the age in place we get the life cycle we get the housing we get the you know grow here grow here live here here parents here you only have to walk five minutes we got all that um but from a planning perspective what we're looking at is does it make sense for her to go from a low density to a medium density and is this in the plan is will this work based on what we know is coming down the road in three to four years for our city which is a huge change I mean Highway 61 I just watched that the other night that will change the city like you have never seen before and right now 316 is not designed for a potential of 1200 to 1300 more cars coming onto it regardless of what the modeling is I drive it so I know I come back from Red Wing we slow down it takes me 10 minutes just to get what used to take me three minutes so there's a lot of things in the planning part of it that are more than just the concept itself so that's kind of where I am on it um as far I don't need I don't need to thank you thank you for that but you guys that's what we're going to be looking at going forward as we move forward not the concept itself per se yes you have a lot of things to hammer out I saw it in the report thank you there was like 20 different questions in there that are really good questions and I think a lot of the residents have questions about that but the question we take up here is the Planning Commission is does it fit does it make sense not you know we're not looking at the concept quite yet I'm just looking at it does it even make sense for this particular area understood going forward that's what I'm looking at and so I know you kind of came back at the 160 versus 400 plus but then of course that's 160 units of which maybe a two cars per unit that's maybe whatever now you've got 460 some odd units and seniors do drive by the way okay of course and old people like me do drive right um and so yeah you know yeah so I got to think about it there's a lot to understand very early in the process so um yeah that's where I am on that with my mindset so I want to get my other fellow Commissioners do you have any other things to note for John or regarding your where you are what you're thinking nope okay so we have a lot of things today I mean it's very early in the process but we'll see if I may say look forward to addressing all those things legitimate questions there's a traffic study being done um I don't think you can do a more intense and more detailed one I don't think we mentioned earlier and so I look forward to addressing each and every one of those [1:34:09] **John Hinzman:** yeah so that's where I am on that so it's really early in the process I mean everybody thinks it's the concept is ambitious for sure but uh yeah the infrastructure I don't know if the infrastructure is there to be honest with you at this point so that's just my only concern and so yes understood yeah so Commissioners any other questions and I'm assuming we have additional meetings I mean this is John can you kind of outline where we are in the future in the outline of the process of where we are in the Turning of dirt for homes uh I'll say beginning and we're about there at this point uh very towards the beginning city council will review the annexation request which will be the land coming into the city as agricultural no changes to that after the environmental assessment takes place by the developer which will occur after that annexation then there'll be applications coming forward to us to change the land use of the property the comprehensive plan changing it from low to mid density and rezoning of the property and then potentially some of the plats and site plans that will either come at that time or perhaps separately so there'll be more and more detail that comes forward on this the environmental assessment will provide us some details pertaining to impacts on it which may answer some of the questions you have pertaining to the transportation end of things which seems to be a pretty consistent concern among folks one thing I will add to that Mr chair too is with these different aspects of approvals they will be prefaced by public hearings that will be sent out mailed out to individuals within 350 feet so the same people that were notified of the neighborhood meeting and of the notice that I sent out pertaining to tonight and the city council action coming up on the 6th there'll be public hearings that will take place at those different aspects of approvals that come up in the future [1:35:41] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay thanks yeah and I like the addition of the berm but you know a berm is just a it's just an aesthetic item you have to I have to think about the residents and what they're going to experience once if something were this to be this high density would be built just south of their property it's not just a berm covering what they see it's the experience they have using the Highway 316 gaining access to their property from the back because I had to drive it I couldn't get back there because of the snow but I did drive as close as I possibly could to I wanted to see some of the things that they mentioned at the neighborhood meeting um and so that's going to drastically change some of their experience that's how they enjoy their property regardless of whether they put a berm or a fence or whatever it might be I do know from an overhead view and I drove back there so I was able to kind of see visually what they were talking about because I had a really hard time figuring out some of those residents that back up and of course we've got two or three houses on the other end of it too that are I mean right smack dab in the middle of this that's always the case in every development right you never have a one sitting all by itself on an Islands right exactly so there's a lot of moving parts to this the concept itself I think is ambitious I don't think anybody up here disagrees that it's it's Unique but we have to really think from a Planning and Zoning perspective as to whether it fits or not at its current at its current design for this property that's what our purview is here and we're going to have city council do their thing with the annexation and we're going to let City staff do their thing with making sure that everything is is done on it and then make our decision at that point we're looking forward to having these discussions in the future so I want to welcome the new members tonight uh you know I've done a lot of these Monday nights we get paid for it it's hard you know when you work all day and it came about 10 30 11 30 and when the market is busy there's five of these projects going at night and so thank you for and the assistant members yeah and there will be other opportunities other public hearings right John at least a minimum of give me an idea two three two or three yeah right so there'll be at least two or three more opportunities for public hearings where people will be able to appear in front of us and in front of City Council throughout this process as well so again very early so I'm sorry I didn't mean to take up everybody's time here I just want to make sure that we can we wrap it up in a nice package so any other questions commissioners no okay all right so again this was discussion only no further anything John do you have any further [1:37:59] **John Hinzman:** yeah as far as uh other business tonight I am working on a couple of ordinance amendments that will either land at the next commission meeting or the one following that putting together a solar ordinance and also uh some other changes related to escrows and fees so I'm working on both those my preference would be to have be both at the save meeting instead of having one and then one two weeks later so if I could do both at the same time in two weeks great but if not it'll it'll be a month out from there and that's uh the other question tonight too I think came up from City attorney land we are holding a training session for Commissioners coming up on Thursday we had a similar session about a year ago I think that Corey conducted for the Planning Commission here so I extended the invitation to new Commissioners but certainly if if you want to come let me know you're certainly welcome but I understood that you were a part of this a year ago so what time is so that is at 5 30 on Thursday here here in the conference room yep upstairs in the community room yep yeah but if you are gonna if you're gonna attend please let me know I just get taken in food orders make sure I got enough [1:38:45] **Gino Messina (Chair):** okay Commissioners any other announcements business nope all right if not I'll take a motion to adjourn [1:38:52] **Melanie Peters:** Mr chair I like the motion to adjourn [1:39:15] **Gino Messina (Chair):** motion to adjourn second second [1:39:24] **John Teiken:** second [1:39:31] **Gino Messina (Chair):** all in favor say aye aye aye opposed adjourned [1:39:39] [Meeting Ends]