This transcript is from the **Hermantown Planning & Zoning Commission** meeting. The primary speaker is **Corey Kolquist**, the Commission Chair. The staff reports are provided by **Eric Johnson**, the Community Development Director. [0:00] **Corey Kolquist:** Yeah and uh turn the meeting over to you please all right thank you very much uh welcome to the city of hermantown planning and zoning commission meeting for february 18 2021. it's currently 701 in the evening we're going to start this evening's meeting with a roll call of members myself corey colquist here valerie ollette here samuel clark here shannon sweeney jorgensen here beth here buckley simmons here and mr john geisler here thank you everybody second on this [0:45] **Corey Kolquist:** evening's agenda is an approval of the agenda can i get a motion please. **Buckley Simmons:** Simmons with the motion. **Corey Kolquist:** can we get a second is does that include the late addition to new business yes it would okay second all in favor aye passes number three on this evening's agenda is the approval of the minutes from the january 21st 2021 regular meeting i'm assuming everybody's looked at that if there's any changes to be made this will be the time to do that otherwise we'll look for a motion as they're printed [1:33] **Valerie Ouellette:** so move. **Corey Kolquist:** we have a first can we get a second please. **Samuel Clark:** sam clark second. **Corey Kolquist:** thank you for that all in favor aye aye aye motion passes number four this evening is public discussion is there anybody on the line with us this evening that's here to speak about something that's not on this evening's agenda eric we'll look for your guidance on this. **Eric Johnson:** um i believe that everyone here this evening is for uh one of the specific items in front of us this evening. **Corey Kolquist:** i appreciate that thank you moving on to number five these are public hearings this evening 5a is an application by align properties llc for a preliminary and final plan unit development for three townhome units of six total units on a four acre site located at the northeast intersection of hermantown road and levac road the property is located in r3 zoning district eric what do you have for us this evening [2:19] **Eric Johnson:** great thank you very much mr chair um what we have this evening and i'm bringing up a location map right now and there we go i'm assuming everyone can see that at this time. **Corey Kolquist:** yes sir. **Eric Johnson:** great uh what this is it's a planned unit development it's an application by a-line properties llc for preliminary and final planned unit development for a three-town home project unit it's a total of six units it's located on a four acre site located in the northeast intersection of hermantown road and the vac road now what you have up on the screen there is a location map showing where that's at what i'm going to try to do now is get up the same problem from last week i was trying to share the site plan associated with this if i'm not able to do this this is in your packet as well so let's just go with that sorry about that but um [4:07] **Eric Johnson:** so uh what this is as i mentioned previously this is a six unit let's they assume it's three buildings are for a total of six units on an existing 4.1 acre property uh the applicant is proposing to subdivide this into three specific parcels to have each one of these townhomes located on it uh two homes front onto or two buildings front on to hermantown road and draw access from that as well as utilities and the third building would take access off of the vake road that particular building would require the extension of both water and sanitary sewer that exists currently at that intersection within hermantown road as part of this process the city can process uh preliminary and final puds concurrently and that's what we're doing this evening here this property is in an r3 zoning district this project does not fall under the pud moratorium as it does not meet the thresholds associated with that uh the underlying zoning is an r3 which is a one-half or it's a one-half acre minimum slot size essentially for a density of two units per acre now in the case of this there are six lots or six units proposed over 4.1 acres so we are actually under that r3 threshold as it comes to a density standpoint [5:44] **Eric Johnson:** the applicant has located these buildings in a manner that utilizes upland area on the site there is some existing wetland particularly in tracks b and c at the rear portion of the property the applicant is proposing to uh to avoid those for those two tracks and the track a there would just be a small ditch crossing along the bake road and that can be handled through essentially a utility and a driveway permit for that it's pretty straightforward process the the setbacks associated with this the the applicant is proposing a minimum of a 20-foot side yard setback from each side property units b and c are obviously a little bit uh they're approximately 40 feet apart from each other track c is located approximately 20 feet from the adjoining property next door the um each one of the homes is set back 50 feet from the associated roadways which meets the underlying r3 zoning district likewise the minimum rear yard setback greatly exceeds that in our three district which is a 40 feet uh each one of these units is much greater than that for the rear yards that they have associated with it as i had mentioned this property can be subdivided by way of an administrative lot split right now it currently exists as one lot we have the ability to to subdivide this further to create a separate lot for each one of these buildings should the applicant choose to want to be able to sell these properties then at that point we would further subdivide that property into an individual lot for each individual unit so at that point there would be six parcels associated with that if the applicant did chose to choose to go that way we'd be looking at a plat associated with that at that point as i mentioned utilities utilities do exist in hermantown road as well as at the intersection of the lake road in hermanntown road [8:03] **Eric Johnson:** the um this property already has existing stubs to it i believe there's two stubs already in place that the current property owner has paid at least a connection or availability fee for one of these properties there uh the one of the other lots we'll just say lot c at this time would incur an additional availability of approximately nineteen thousand eight hundred dollars uh what the city would do is we would split that between the two units so each unit would incur plus or minus ten thousand dollars in availability fees for that uh that unit once again in levitic road that would require the extension of the sewer and water progresses to the north to be able to uh serve that property uh those utilities would be constructed at the expense of the applicant and they would be built to city standards and then eventually turned over to the city as well for our ownership from a stormwater standpoint each census is a residential development of this scale it does not trigger our storm water requirements it will require basically construction based items of silt fencing rock construction entrances etc but will not require any post construction and that's usually the addition of ponds or vegetated swales things like that that once again this falls under the 15 000 square feet of impervious area associated with each lot as i mentioned they access two units will take access off of hermantown road with the other one taking access off of the vague and then wetlands again really no impacts associated with wetlands for this property this does um once again fall under the density of the current r3 zoning with the with this 4.1 acre lot you could have up to eight units or eight lots associated with this uh the applicant this evening is proposing a total of six units so we are under what you would see in an r3 zoning district uh at that point i would be happy to answer any questions that the planning and zoning may have this evening thank you [10:31] **Corey Kolquist:** thank you eric does anybody have any questions for eric this evening on 5a. **Valerie Ouellette:** here in reading the documentation that talked about these um homes being affordable housing do we have any idea what they um marketed at [10:40] **Eric Johnson:** the um i've not seen a specific uh dollar figure at this point uh i'm not quite sure if the applicant mr steven caskey is on the line this evening that he might be able to uh share a little bit more information with that the um i can share with you that uh homes that have been similar to this uh particularly the projects that's been built over at haynes road and morris thomas uh those twin homes have been coming in around 375 to 400 000 each so um it's um it's it's it's less than what we're seeing for traditional single-family homes but uh obviously it's greater than the 271 thousand dollars that st louis county identifies as basically affordable or market rate housing. **Valerie Ouellette:** so just to follow up on that these would be intended for sale and subdivision versus rentals correct [12:14] **Eric Johnson:** uh at this point the applicant has not indicated which and what we do is we uh we guide the uh applicants or developers that they provide individual utilities to each unit so they would have the ability to subdivide this in the future and sell those that they so desire. **John Geissler:** eric this is john if they did that that would require a property line down the party wall right. **Eric Johnson:** that is correct yes and at that point um we would either look at a platform or we may have the ability to still do that from a um an individual administrative lot split just a one lot if it's one night at a time. **John Geissler:** okay thank you [12:44] **Corey Kolquist:** mr members any other questions this evening before we open it up for a public hearing not hearing any we will open it up for a public hearing at 7 14 in the evening is there anybody out there that would like to speak on 5a this evening. **Neil Ronquist:** uh good evening commissioners uh my name is neil ronquist i'm the property owner at 3810 levake road which is which is right north of the planned development i have a couple questions um eric you mentioned some setbacks and i was trying to follow along i didn't catch what would be the setback from the south property line of our property for any of the structures [13:46] **Eric Johnson:** and i'm looking at that document um the applicant has not indicated what that is but based on other drawings it's at least a minimum of 20 feet from your southerly property line to that north line of the building based on the graphic representation that they've provided. **Neil Ronquist:** okay thank you um i have my second question is in regards to utilities and i know i see that dusty is on the line and maybe he can answer this if you guys are unable to um when i purchased the property from the molines my understanding was that our utilities come in off of hermantown road for that serve our residents at 3810 and just curious as to what if any disruptions there will possibly be to our utilities [14:32] **Eric Johnson:** sure with that the um the applicant has drawn the property line between tracks a and b generally to mirror that easement that exists currently on this this property that easement and those utilities will re remain in place uh there is no connection of these buildings to those utilities so there should not be any disruption to your water or sewer on this project or from this project. **Neil Ronquist:** thank you for that third question just a curiosity you mentioned that the drive for one of these is going to be on levake road there is a stop sign obviously at hermantown road and levake some concern on how close that's going to be to that intersection and then also again how close it's going to be potentially to our drive [15:18] **Eric Johnson:** yeah from looking at this that driveway is approximately 230 feet from the center line of the vacant hermantown road st louis county actually will issue the permit for the driveway that is a county road so the developer will have to work with them generally st louis county likes to see any sort of these driveways as far as possible away from intersections so i envision it would be pretty similar to what is shown here in this drawing here because we still want to maintain that minimum of a 20-foot setback off of your southerly property line yet to create this driveway as far as possible from that intersection as it relates to your driveway right now i would have to look a little bit further on an aerial and um i'm able to do that but it's going to take me a couple moments to answer that question so um maybe if there's any other questions from the public we can go to those and then i'll come back they answer that question here shortly [16:49] **Neil Ronquist:** query sir the only other item the only other item i have uh would be um just to uh indicate a concern for the value of our property going forward based on what's being proposed here and the potential that these could end up being rental units or affordable rate housing that isn't a real good fit with our uh our home and what our appraised value is at so i would just echo that that is a concern that i have uh with this project thank you for that sir any other questions no thanks for the opportunity. **Eric Johnson:** eric it looks like his driveway comes in pretty close to the center of his lot it does i'm showing about plus or minus 180 feet between the two driveways [17:44] **Corey Kolquist:** okay uh anybody else want to speak on 5a this evening. **John Geissler:** mr uh chair this is john i if there's no other public i have a question for eric the utilities that serve mr ronquist house are they public or are private service lines. **Eric Johnson:** those are private. **John Geissler:** and who have i guess i'm sorry who has the easement. **Eric Johnson:** the easement is actually for the you know i'm going to back up a little bit and i may ask mr moline to add into this but a number of years ago this property as well as mr ronquist were all one parcel and at that time the utilities were being for that property mr ronquist home were drawn from hermantown road when that home was built and and the property created at that time that's when the easement was put in place for these private utilities traditionally that's not how we like to try to do things to try to avoid those uh but unfortunately that is something which had happened in the past so um these are private utilities running to mr ronquist's home by way of that easement [19:16] **John Geissler:** and does that give him the right to go on that private property and dig it up if need be. **Eric Johnson:** uh if he ever has to maintain those they have the ability to get in there if they have to yes. **John Geissler:** okay okay would they run into any issues with all the wetlands that looks like they run over there would be if those lines ever had to be worked on uh there would be some temporary wetland impacts but traditionally when you get into utilities those are those are generally allowed quite easily because you're able to restore those after the fact. **John Geissler:** got it thank you okay thank you that was just my question that just seemed a little that's not standard right they have public or private lines going over somebody else's property [20:01] **Eric Johnson:** that is correct that that is not standard and that's something that we definitely try to avoid but the new line that would go service that that twin home on levak those those are going to be turned over to the city. **John Geissler:** yes that is correct those will be done uh either in the bake road or potentially within the right-of-way area and those will be turned over to the city if for some reason those are uh those lines happen to be onto the private property the city would require an easement associated with those. **John Geissler:** okay i guess i just have one more question is mr ronquist curb stop on the bake road [20:48] **Eric Johnson:** i don't believe so i think he takes both water and sewer from hermantown road. **John Geissler:** from hermantown so the curb stops way over on hermantown okay. **Eric Johnson:** that's correct yes. **John Geissler:** okay yeah [21:08] **Corey Kolquist:** any other questions or comments this evening not hearing yeti we'll close the public hearing now at 7 22 commission members any other questions or comments i don't believe i have any we will look for a motion this evening on 5 8. **Valerie Ouellette:** this is valerie ouellette i would move to approve the request on 5a. **Corey Kolquist:** thank you very much valerie can we get a second [22:11] **Corey Kolquist:** not hearing any i will second uh approval of 5a all in favor this evening. **Commissioners:** hi hi hi. **Corey Kolquist:** anybody against. **Samuel Clark:** sam clark no. **Corey Kolquist:** we have everybody in favor and one against i believe that's enough to pass is that correct eric. **Eric Johnson:** yes that is correct was there a vote from all members i didn't i didn't hear that everybody still on the line maybe everyone can say their name and state their their answer one more time we can go down the list. **Joe Peterson:** my name is joe peterson i'm in favor. **Corey Kolquist:** mr colquest in favor. **Valerie Ouellette:** valerie ouellette in favor. **Samuel Clark:** samuel clarke i'm a no. **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** shannon sweeney jorgensen no. **Corey Kolquist:** beth winslow. **Beth Winslow:** [unclear]. **Corey Kolquist:** not hearing beth on the line buckley simmons. **Buckley Simmons:** simmons in favor. **Corey Kolquist:** and mr geisler we might need you actually i think no you've got the whole contingent there i think it's four right oh uh beth um westloff i believe are you for or against it. **Beth Winslow:** i'm for it it's okay thank you. **Corey Kolquist:** okay looks like the motion passes. **Eric Johnson:** great thank you this will go to the march first city council meeting for uh their ultimate approval for this thank you. **Corey Kolquist:** perfect thank you very much [24:20] **Corey Kolquist:** moving on to 5b we have an application this evening by dustin and holly moline for a subdivision to create a 5.75 acre parcel accessed by way of a flag lot of 30 foot width at 38 20 to be determined levitek road parcel number 395.00107812 the property is located in r3 zoning district eric what do you have for us on this one [25:11] **Eric Johnson:** great thank you and i will attempt to share my screen if i'm having an issue with that i'll ask you to look at your packets as well i'm having issues still so we're going to go on from this so i'll ask you to reference your packets uh this is a 10 acre property that's just on the north side of mr ronquist that we had spoken about here both items b and c are related this evening uh what we're hearing first in front of us is the variance application for this property the variance is for the ability to create two flag lots on this particular piece of property i will ask the members of the commission to look at the second page it's also titled location map but it has an aerial photo along with a plot or lots but associated with that and i will attempt to explain why we're seeking a or looking at a variance this evening here uh the location of the vac road does not follow our typical grid it actually starts to bend to the north and west in this section of the city here as a result the vague road bisects what's known as the dody property they're labeled as the doty property so there is a small triangular piece of land that's owned by the dodis that is on the east side of the vape road what that does is it puts into question the available frontage for this um existing 10 acre lot here the the owners of the property dusty and holly moline have engaged both the surveyor as well as professional attorneys services to look into this it was both of those people's opinions that this property did have adequate frontage along levate road for the ability to subdivide this property and still maintain our minimum of 100 feet of frontage along a roadway [28:15] **Eric Johnson:** city staff along with our city attorney also have looked into this and it was the direction of our city attorney that in order to prevent any issues in the future from a access standpoint that the city should support a second flag lot for this there is approximately 61 feet that touches down and physically touches down on levak road on the southern portion of this property so by creating two points where there's a 30 foot of frontage onto the vape road it meets the spirit and requirements of the flag lot a flag lot has a minimum of a 30 foot frontage on a public roadway that would allow this property to be subdivided into two lots with each lot having that 30 foot frontage onto the bake road once again this was the opinion of the city's attorney that this was the cleanest way to potentially um not have any um questions of ownership or access to that track b associated with this property and that was the rationale for this this or this variance request today to form a second flag lot the ordinance the way it's written only allows for the creation of a single flag lot from a property but in this case the extenuating circumstances are the uh route of the vake road once again which which strays from the traditional grid and has created this uh this triangular piece of the doty property that's on the east side so uh that's essentially the uh the rationale behind this variance request that uh at least from a city staff staff standpoint and the city attorney we both support it's a little bit of a strange circumstance if you look at this property it has well over 733 feet of length that generally parallels the lake per the r3 zoning ordinance this could easily be split into multiple lots but once again due to the location and the curvature of the bake road it really minimizes what can happen on this particular property and in this case the applicant the maleens are just looking to create two lots total out of this two lots of approximately uh five five acres plus of each one i hope that answers or can portray what we're trying to accomplish this evening i'd be more than welcome to answer your questions from planning and zoning [30:31] **Corey Kolquist:** for this one i've got a couple are there public utilities for any of these lots that are being created. **Eric Johnson:** and that's if we if we did not consider what's hap what we just approved a few moments ago the utilities are well over 400 feet away from the existing utilities in levite road as part of the development if it goes forward for the pud those utilities could be as close as to 100 feet away from these particular two lots but it comes into question the timing of both projects it's my understanding from speaking to mr moline that tract a is in the process of being would be closed upon sometime here in early march with the potential of them wanting to construct a home uh sometime this spring or summer whereas they might not meet the timelines associated with that pud to the south so at this point the malians at least are looking at the site from a sanitary and a wells excuse me from a septic and a well standpoint. **Corey Kolquist:** gotcha so essentially by making these two flag loss this evening we're going to limit this 11 parcel 11 acre parcel to having two single family homes on it [32:03] **Eric Johnson:** that is correct yes rather than letting somebody somebody could in theory come up the lake road here in the next year or two and they could have bought this and they could have punched in a cul-de-sac and had 10 lots that is correct as well i believe that the malenes have at least had an initial conversation with the owner of the doty's property trying to purchase that rectangle or assuming that triangle but have not been successful and um maybe if the maleness wanted to add to that during the public comment they could further expound on that. **Corey Kolquist:** perfect okay i think those were my two questions commission members any questions for eric this evening before we have a public hearing [32:51] **Corey Kolquist:** eric question uh commissioner kolklist here why is this considered two flag lots i guess i'm kind of missing that is that because of how small that entry is because normally we would end up with two lots when we split. **Eric Johnson:** yep that that's exactly right if they said you look at this it seems like an odd it's not what we traditionally have seen as a flag lot where we traditionally have that pole and then the actual flag portion what we're just how this is defined as a flag lot is each lot has a 30 foot touchdown point on the vake road and that's defining it as a flag in that case it does not have the full 100 feet of frontage along uh levake road and once again just for um to prevent any uh issues in the future this is the least the best way we thought to move forward with this and still allow this lot to split. **Corey Kolquist:** okay no that makes sense and then the second question would be are there any wetlands that would you know make these entrances even smaller than they currently are. **Eric Johnson:** uh no there are some wetlands on the site but they're further over to the east uh there is unfortunately an existing stand of trees that uh will be quite a bit affected uh with this but no wetlands. **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** thank you can you hear me can you hear me yes um my question is on the track b and well tract a we don't have the the depth that's why the flagship is going to be i mean the width on the roadway that's going to be allowed with the variants but on track b if so if they can at some point buy the dody's parcel that can be developed [34:55] **Eric Johnson:** i'll rephrase your question because you're breaking up there at the end a little bit so the question is if the owner of track b was able to buy that triangular sheep shaped piece from the dhotis could that lot further subdivide in the future the answer to that is yes because at that point they would have additional frontage along that roadway uh i believe at that point they would have almost 200 feet by that route so there could be an additional split with that so there could be that possibility but not on track a will attract a be able to be subdivided. **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** no track day will remain as it is okay that's my concern okay good okay [35:41] **Corey Kolquist:** commission members any more questions this evening not hearing any right now we will open it up for a public discussion at 7 37 pm is there anybody out there that would like to speak to us this evening on this application which is 5b. **Bob Kanuit:** this is bob canuet i represent mr moline and mrs moline and i just wanted a kind of a clarification from eric if possible one of the recommendations or conditions if the variance is granted is that the new if it says if the new flag lots are able to utilize city sanitary sewer and water services and pay all applicable fees is the intent of that to get the property owner to agree uh that sanitary sewer and water can be extended up to that property to his property because that's not what he's contemplating at all uh we have an interested party very interested party that as eric said wants to build a house there and they're fully ready to construct that residence with well and septic and don't want to be blindsided with a large special assessment down the road if that's the case so we just want to clarify uh that that the condition is not that that the marines are agreeing to any sort of sewer extension water extension or special assessment of any sort [37:44] **Eric Johnson:** and that's what we included that language if the once again it's a timing issue particularly for tract a that my understanding is that track day is going to be built on well before any work happens on this previous pud and so at that point the timing would not work and it would be a well inseptic site what the city does in instances where new mains have to be constructed is in this whole area and mr geisler might be able to help out a little bit but i believe it was a 4 420 i'm trying to remember the name of the assessment the way it was but anyway the way it's set up is if there's ex if the property has the ability to directly tie into this previous sanitary sewer work there was an assessment of approximately nineteen thousand two hundred dollars in the case of rolling back to that pud that building on the vape road that takes frontage off the bake road is that work that's built by the developer is in lieu of that availability fee or assessment so in the case of tract a if timing worked out and tracked a says oh i have sanitary and sewer 100 feet away their cost would be extending that line there wouldn't be an additional 19 000 plus it's the cost of doing that construction work so what we've been finding is at that point it's almost a wash between the the cost of having extending us as city services versus having a well and a septic so we wanted to include language if they ever you know there are other fees there's caf fees there's um hookup fees etc that those those still apply if they hook into the city system. **Bob Kanuit:** okay so that's the intention as hookup fees and things like that if if the property owner decides they want to be on the system they would be agreeing to pay those hook up type fees. **Eric Johnson:** correct yes exactly and once again that extension of the 100 feet to get from that pud would be at their cost as well. **Bob Kanuit:** understood um [40:04] **Valerie Ouellette:** this is valerie again um if you could just clarify for me or educate me is it not true that the city of hermantown prefers to have new construction hooked into the city utilities versus well in septic. **Eric Johnson:** the um where we have the ability that's what we try to do um once again in this case it's my understanding that um i believe there's some rock issues as well along the vake road as you head north and that's why there were some issues why this sanitary never been extended in in the past is there some issues that um associated with that um at the end of the day if a property does go too well and septic it's a hundred percent of the owners upkeep at that point as opposed to any city costs with it. **Valerie Ouellette:** isn't there a distance uh if you're so far away from the municipal utilities you do not have to connect and you can opt out and build your own well and septic [41:38] **Eric Johnson:** correct yes that is correct i believe that distance is 600 and it's my understanding where these people are going to locate that home uh once again if they if discounting this pud that they'd be greater than that 600 feet. **John Geissler:** correct also that sewer project was 442 i think was the number. **Eric Johnson:** thank you very much i know i knew it started with a four yeah. **Neil Ronquist:** chair this is mr ronquist again uh eric is it possible could you hold up the the uh map of this uh since it was we didn't get a map in our packet that we received up to the camera. **Eric Johnson:** okay so track attract a w that's being referred to as the southern one okay. **Neil Ronquist:** yep that's correct. **Eric Johnson:** okay b being here okay. **Neil Ronquist:** and your property is right here got it okay thank you i just wanted to have orientation [42:31] **Neil Ronquist:** sure i just would offer a comment as a the owner uh directly uh next to this uh i believe what the molines have proposed here is a suitable and neighborhood uh conf conforms with the existing neighborhood if you will so i appreciate their efforts to uh build their develop what they have planned and so i would i'd be in support of this one. **Corey Kolquist:** thank you very much for that sir any other questions or comments on 5b this evening anybody out there that wants to talk on this eric anybody else in the waiting room or anything like that. **Eric Johnson:** i just did admit uh another gentleman i believe he is the surveyor for the molines on this property so do you have any input this evening on this application 5b. **Surveyor:** ah no i missed on if you have questions on any of that on why the layout we've done a bunch of different ones um you know that was just here to answer questions for you guys if you had anything. **Corey Kolquist:** person did not i kind of like the way it was laid out that way the driveway doesn't have to parallel the southern property so far like a normal flag lot [44:04] **Corey Kolquist:** yeah any other comments from any other commission members for this gentleman thank you sir i'm not hearing any not hearing any other questions or comments i'll close the public hearing at 7 45 p.m for 5b commission members it's your last chance for any questions for eric or the surveyor or the neighbor not hearing any we will look for a motion on 5b this evening a variance application for the creation of a second flag lot. **Corey Kolquist:** mr chair this is commissioner colquist uh i move to approve agenda item 5b as stated. **Corey Kolquist:** thank you sir can we get a second. **Samuel Clark:** Clark second. **Corey Kolquist:** all in favor hi hi hi anybody opposed not hearing anybody opposed motion passes moving on to 5c this evening [45:28] **Corey Kolquist:** the 5c is a subdivision application to create a flag run in an r3 zoning district uh since it's been parallel with the 5b this evening eric do you have anything new for us on this one. **Eric Johnson:** no nothing more this is just following procedure first we wanted to at least get to the variance if there was support for the the two flag lots and now this is just finalizing it with the um the subdivision of that flag lot. **Corey Kolquist:** i appreciate that commission members any other further questions for eric. **John Geissler:** this is john i just have something to point out that on this last drawing in the packet you'll see where that easement is noted on that other that other project that we previously approved but that would be the the easement i'm assuming that's the easement of the utilities that goes to mr ronquist house. **Eric Johnson:** that is correct yes. **John Geissler:** okay thank you mr geisler [46:14] **Corey Kolquist:** and the spirit of doing things right will you open up the public hearing at 7 47 p.m is there anybody out there i'd like to speak on 5c this evening not hearing any we will close the public hearing at 7 47 p.m as well commission members final chance to ask any questions not hearing any we will look for a motion on 5c this evening mr chair commissioner colquist i move to approve agenda item 5c as stated. **Corey Kolquist:** thank you mr colaquist can we get a second. **Samuel Clark:** Clark second. **Corey Kolquist:** thank you very much all in favor of 5c this evening hi hi hi anybody opposed to 5c this evening not hearing any 5c passes thank you very much for that moving on to number six continuing business i don't believe we have any this evening. **Eric Johnson:** that's correct [47:55] **Corey Kolquist:** number seven we do have some new business though i did print off the document you sent us eric. **Eric Johnson:** great thank you very much uh before i get into that i'm just going to give a quick update on the city's pud moratorium and the survey that i believe all of you have received here as well we've extended the time to submit these surveys till the end of this week as of monday morning we had 65 respondents so far and uh just trying to uh to get as much information back in as possible so um we'll be closing that on sunday i'm going to be meeting with ardc who's a consultant on this uh next week to discuss this further they're looking at 10 different communities that have similarities to hermantown and to see how these other cities address the idea of puds or multi-family housing within traditional r3 neighborhoods i'm anticipating giving a much further update on this at the march agenda possibly even a uh a presentation by the ardc at that point so just wanted to keep everyone appraised of that thank you very much [49:15] **Corey Kolquist:** uh you're welcome. **Eric Johnson:** uh the second item here that i forwarded to you and thank you all i i apologize the late sending here but this is something that staff really just finalized late this morning here but um um myself along with the city attorney and other staff members have been looking at a policy within our city of hermanntown um essentially work that this you know handbook that the staff utilizes in this case it's a procedure for approvals and denials and uh we will be sharing this with city council here as well it's a it's a good document that helps out for some of our new members that we have here in planning and zoning as well as the ones that have been here for a while the um what we have here is it outlines there's i believe this we have 14 different items associated with this and it lays out procedural processes for different type of applications [50:14] **Eric Johnson:** you as planning and zoning commission members it's your essentially your task or your role to hear and review applications as they come through and review the in the reports that staff prepares and then at at this meeting the pnz meetings you either make approvals or denials you take some sort of action or you make you offer recommendations which go on to the city council now in the case of for planning and zoning your role is to either approve or deny variances cidp's which is a commercial industrial development permit and flag lot splits now in the case of variances like this evening there was an application that had another item tied to it so you as planning and zoning per ordinance have the ability to act as the board of appeals in this case now if that variance had come forward stand alone that would have gone to the board of appeals instead but once again since it was also tied to that flag that application the planning and zoning events becomes the board of appeals at that point as far as the planning and zoning you will make recommendations as far as special use permits plats planning developments wetland replacement plans and rezoning applications you would either make a recommendation to approve it to the city council or you'd recommend that the city council denies it that the city council at the end of the day is the acting board or the mechanism to make the final determination on these sort of applications [51:58] **Eric Johnson:** uh so this is once again we're going to be sharing this also with city council as well as board of appeal members as well so that all the boards and commissions as well city council are aware of the the process and the hierarchy associated with each one of these uh what this further outlines then is if there are uh cases of denial even from a city council standard plan standpoint or the staff standpoint this is what mechanisms exist for an applicant to be able to appeal that process if there was a denial of one of those items that the pnz once again approves their denies or if staff denies a a an application administratively an applicant has the ability to appeal that decision to the board of appeals and ultimately that can be appealed to the city council as well furthermore a board of appeals decision and there's a number of different uh items in here that lays out the processes associated with it [53:18] **Eric Johnson:** if a applicant wishes to make an appeal it speaks about how they go about that process uh the filing of a formal application with the city clerk how this has to be noticed and the the time frames associated with these different appeals as well so um really i wanted to get the information in front of this group here so they understand once again as a planning and zoning their approvals and denials ability ability as well as a recommendation ability i'd like to call out item number and i'm sorry i'm looking for it here again here item number six says if a body denies a request it must provide the applicant in writing a statement of the reasons for the denial so that the written that statement is not adopted at the same time as a denial it must be adopted at the next meeting so in the case of city council making the denial of an application either there have to be the written response at that time or at the next meeting that written response has to happen and it's read into the record at that point so what this um this document is taken from minnesota statutes as well as our own zoning ordinance as well as information from the league of minnesota cities on how to go about review processes and to review and either approve or deny applications as such i'd be happy to answer any questions or even talk about this further at our next meeting if any of the board members want to look at this a little bit further [55:14] **Corey Kolquist:** two sixes here you have two sixes. **Eric Johnson:** i do look at that we'll take the the second being number seven there within ten days that should be number seven and redo my language from there thank you for that. **Corey Kolquist:** that sounds like it'll be a really helpful tool for some of us newer folks here appreciate you doing that [55:35] **Eric Johnson:** yeah we hope that between documents like this as well as the um the pud work that we're conducting right now that it helps answer any questions both from planning and zoning as well as city council as well to uh help establish a a little bit more set of um guidelines etc and some rationale to help all these different boards and committees make their decisions [56:14] **Corey Kolquist:** anybody have any other questions for eric on this new document this evening not hearing any we'll move on from number seven this evening we'll move on to number eight which is communications i'm not seeing i think i for some reason there's a chat i got a chat icon here i think someone asked a question. **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** yeah that was me how was the audience for the survey determined who was invited [57:02] **Eric Johnson:** what the city did we're running a couple different surveys right now we have a community-wide survey for our recreation initiative that's uh that's gone on to the entire city of hermantown uh in the case of this pud survey this went out what the city did is looked at people who've attended past meetings particularly pod meetings in the case of the pillars of the arbors people that have been more vocal residents within our community city reached out to those people and asked for some recommendations that they could suggest other residents that this app this uh survey could be sent out to uh this survey was sent to city council members planning and zoning members uh a handful of local real estate professionals uh developers as well as um as well as residents as well i think approximately 35 of the people uh of this were were residents and um you know outside those other things that i had indicated that way but we're looking for a good cross-section of people particularly since this this moratorium particularly pertained to the r3 zoning district it was very site-specific that way as opposed to a community-wide so that's why we were looking at a tighter parameter of survey participants associated with this [58:31] **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** how many total surveys went out. **Eric Johnson:** i believe is almost 60. **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** okay is there any plan to once we have the results of that particular survey to extend it further to additional residents. **Eric Johnson:** at this point there's not what i've seen is we've had a very good cross-section of respondents to this both people for this and people overwhelmingly against it as well but what we will do is um we are utilized all these answers not only from graph standpoint but their written comments and we will share those with the planning and zoning at this next meeting as well so you can also see those as i said that this did go out to some almost community resident leaders that had organized some um quite a bit of community involvement in the past couple years and sydney utilized uh those two or three people as points for them to identify further people that we should send this out to so once again we we've made a good effort to uh one include people that good stakeholders associated with this and not just send this out to city staff or developers [59:58] **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** can you clarify for me the uh percentage the rate that uh return that you've got on it you cut out on my audio it was something that ended in five i'm sorry. **Eric Johnson:** we've had about 65 back so far. **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** thank you. **Eric Johnson:** yep and this this uh the survey if you didn't know already you have the ability to remain anonymous so um just to be able to uh get people's their thoughts without um you know having to identify themselves [1:00:11] **Samuel Clark:** yeah sam clark here i i guess uh and going forward i know we'll have public discussion so that's where most of this will come out for anyone but i guess i would just have a concern that approximately 20 people or residents of hermantown would take part in this survey of a population of ten thousand. **Eric Johnson:** and there will be at least two public meetings associated with this as well sam both at a planning and zoning as well as a city council standpoint so there are it's my understanding too that this the consultant will take the survey results and use those as their recommendation standard. **Eric Johnson:** correct that's part of it they're also looking at like i said 10 similar communities they're looking at how they address the idea of planned unit developments and it's particularly more the higher density plan unit developments is what's uh really been the question in these r3 zoning districts as i sure heard before planning our planning development right now is a very open-ended ordinance that we have and the use of the term that we're trying to define the edges of the box associated with this pud not only from boards and commission standpoint but also from a developer standpoint so they at least have an understanding of some of the parameters the accepted parameters to work within is right now the way it's written um there's a lot of a lot of flexibility in what can and can be done in a pud [1:02:13] **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** since we are new is there are there some documents that we can catch up on on the pud thing so far. **Eric Johnson:** i um i'll take that as there's um i'd probably say there's probably three or four applications that are probably really best to review to kind of get a history associated with it and uh what i can do is um i'll find the staff reports associated with those as well as uh look at city council minutes and send those out to the whole p and z once again to help as a refresher to some of you but for the new people to at least understand some of the you know the rationale behind this. **Samuel Clark:** you've also sent out eric a helpful document in the past uh just overviewing the pud process. **Eric Johnson:** yeah that's a great thank you sam i will submit extend that out as well thank you [1:03:42] **Corey Kolquist:** any other questions or comments for eric on this this evening not hearing me we'll move on uh we're at number eight communications i'm not seeing any this evening. **Eric Johnson:** that is correct. **Corey Kolquist:** number nine commission member reports uh myself i have nothing mr colquest no report. **Valerie Ouellette:** valerie ouellette no report. **Samuel Clark:** samuel clarke no report. **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** shannon sweeney jorgensen no report. **Beth Winslow:** beth winslow sorry beth i can't hear you no report thank you very much. **Buckley Simmons:** buckley simmons no report. **John Geissler:** and consular geisler i can't hear john either sorry mute uh no report thank you sir. **Corey Kolquist:** well with that being said we look for a motion to adjourn [1:04:45] **Shannon Sweeney Jorgensen:** come on guys somebody i'll make the motion to adjourn. **Corey Kolquist:** can we get a second. **Corey Kolquist:** Kolquist with a second thank you very much all in favor hi hi hi hi we're going to close the meeting at 806 pm thank you very much everybody have a great evening. **Eric Johnson:** thanks everyone see you next time thanks y'all i appreciate your input thank you thank you good night