This transcript features the Hermantown Planning & Zoning Commission meeting. Based on the roll call and the context provided, the primary speaker/leader of the meeting is **Corey Colquist** (acting as Chair in the absence of Joe Peterson). The primary staff presenter is **Eric Johnson** (Community Development Director). [0:00] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** i'd like to welcome everyone to the city of hermantown planning and zoning commission meeting for june 29th it's currently 701 we'll go ahead and start with the roll call of uh this evening's members uh joe peterson not here corey colquist here valerie ollette here samuel clark here beth winslow is not here buckley simmons here dante thomasoni here uh counselor geisler perfect number two uh this evening is an approval of the agenda uh for june 21st um can i get a motion on that please [0:46] **Dante Thomasoni:** [Inaudible] [0:47] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all right thomas sony uh so i don't need a second with that correct all right can i get a second simmons with a second simmons ii all in favor all right all right moving on to item number three um this evening an approval of the minutes from the may 27th i believe yeah may 27th regular meeting minutes can i get a motion on that please [1:08] **Samuel Clark:** uh sam clark i just have one comment on the meeting minutes page four it says i stated i was not impressed with the community response to the initial carlson road option that is not i was impressed with the response i think it was a good community response and i think the hammerhead is a good compromise so just a small clarification but [1:34] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** i was not yep and i feel like the hammerhead is a good good compromise so basically just the the non-impressed is that thank you so i would make a motion to approve with that correction all right um counselor clark with the first can get a second thomas only second thomas sony with the second all in favor all right motion passes number four this evening is a public discussion not seeing anyone here we'll uh move on item number five public hearing [2:20] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** um anyone online i heard a no from the back no oh no okay perfect so we'll move on to number five this evening public hearings all right so number five a is a public let's see an application by paul fitzgerald for a special use permit and a variance for the construction of a 2400 square foot garage to be located 5243 hermantown road the property is located in r3 residential zoning district eric what do you have for us tonight on this [2:54] **Eric Johnson:** great thank you and um i believe you all have your packets in front of us so i don't think we need to have joe on the overhead here but uh this property once again located at 5243 hermantown road this is comprised of two separate parcels it's a large acreage parcel 16.5 acres total the applicant is inherently has pursued uh the combining of these two parcels into one single one uh what the applicant is proposing is a construction of a 40 by 60 foot accessory building with 14 foot sidewalls the building is proposed to be approximately 90 feet from hermantown road there is a site plan in your package which shows that approximate location to the north of that would be essentially the driveway associated with that [3:51] **Eric Johnson:** the garage doors would face towards the north and that driveway the existing location fits within an existing or assuming the proposed location fits with an existing open area on the property you can see on that site plan there is a large wetland complex located to the north of that that is a rationale why the applicant is not moving this building further to the north basically to preserve those wetlands and hence the need for a variance when accessory structures in the r3 district has a front yard requirement of meeting the existing homes setback so in this case that existing home is approximately 220 feet back you see if that accessory structure was in line with that i essentially would put it right in the heart of that wetland area so where they're locating it it stays out of that wetland area as part of it the applicant is would use the existing driveway coming up for hermantown road and then have a little driveway stub located about 120 feet up into his property that would get to the driveway and this particular building here he's not looking for any additional access off of hermantown road and he's indicated that he's going to be keeping the vast majority of those existing trees in place there as well there is another um essentially large accessory structure located on the south side of hermantown road that one's approximately i believe it's about 3 300 square feet so this is something that is least common in this area here uh the nearest residential structure from this proposed building is approximately 300 feet away this structure be used for personal storage only there'd be no building activities allowed for that that concludes my presentation at this point and i'd be happy to answer any questions that members of the commissions might have [5:54] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** thank you very much eric does anyone on the committee have any questions for no eric okay not hearing any i have one quick question can you explain the the pink property line versus so how about the pie shaped piece in between the property line and the hobbytown road is that somebody else [6:10] **Eric Johnson:** that is somebody else's property it's very strange how it uh basically was one of our few roads in the city that curves and uh the property lines are all mostly set up from the grid so that's that was the rationale as well there's two rationales for combining these properties is one you can't have an accessory structure located on its own lot and then secondly by combining them he'd be able to utilize his existing driveway that he has with an access under hermantown road to get to this structure [6:45] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** and then i heard you say that the accessory structure should be located you know equally back with the house but we can't do that but what would this front yard setback here [6:56] **Eric Johnson:** well traditionally with this a residential structure it's 50 feet so this is greater than what we would have as a primary structure in the r3 district [7:01] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** perfect so eric i do have a question there is no access to hermantown road other than going back to his driveway that he currently has [7:11] **Eric Johnson:** that is correct he would use his existing driveway that he has so the way that uh is concerger said that there's this pie shaped lot that's in front of it so um it's the right of way um if you if you look in the aerial you can see almost like a grass that these that have been used once upon a time almost like a grass driveway that that for the most part is on this applicant's property but it appears that he had to go through somebody else's property in the past to get there so this way by just you accessing it from his existing driveway he's not impeding or going onto someone else's property to get to this one [7:45] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** thank you it just looked like there was a dirt driveway going [7:49] **Eric Johnson:** exactly that's what you're picking up in the aerial there yeah [7:53] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** thank you commission members any other questions not hearing any will open the floor for public discussion at 709 i do see that there's one person in the waiting room now or in our chat um if you have any questions certainly state your name and address and you can go ahead and speak [8:20] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all right we'll go ahead and close the public discussion at 709 as well commission members any other thoughts or questions here all right can i get a motion on agenda item 5a go ahead [8:35] **Samuel Clark:** sam clark with a motion to approve agenda item 5a as stated [8:40] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** okay commissioner clark with the first gonna get a second let second what second all in favor all right motion passes agenda item 5b tonight an application by jlg enterprises for rezoning of 40 acre parcel located in the rear of formally addressed 3956 stebner road and is associated with payton acres development the parcel is currently zoned hermantown marketplace with a proposed rezoning to r3 residential eric what do you have for us on this one tonight [9:17] **Eric Johnson:** great thank you and um i'm going to ask mr wicklin in back if possible to uh call up the staff report since we do have somebody in zoom so uh they can see the different graphics that the uh the commission members have if you could work on that when you have a chance and uh just i actually rolled on probably about three and then we'll get to um this particular one so as um actually i'm sorry joe uh go down one more perfect thank you so um like i said now the anybody who's on zoom will be able to see this here as well uh jlg enterprises has been working on this overall almost 70 acre property over the last couple years here um so the first uh front of the half or western portion of the property per se had an existing zoning of r3 obviously that allows for single-family construction which they have been pursuing to date [10:35] **Eric Johnson:** now as they're moving into these new phases associated with the peyton acres property they are now moving into this 40-acre land that is zoned hm hermantown marketplace as well as a land that's uh further to the east there almost all the way to haines as part of the hermantown marketplace zoning it does not allow single-family homes that that was envisioned as multi-family structures apartments etc uh the thought being that um we didn't want to have a single family home placed next to fleet farm it just didn't make sense from a essentially land use standpoint the gilberts have been having extreme good fortune with the development and in sales of lots in this development and they've indicated that they want to keep moving with that single-family residential concept as they have been doing to date here so in order to accomplish that uh we're looking at a rezoning of this 40 acres from the hermantown marketplace to r3 zoning and that would allow the jlg and the gilberts to continue with their single-family housing development as they move to the east staff had discussed initially did we want to revise the hm the hermantown marketplace zoning to allow single-family homes we said no because that would um potentially create some conflicts as i stated earlier that you just don't want a single family home next to a three-story building so uh we discussed this with the gilberts and they thought this was the best option going forward as well is the rezoning of this particular 40 acre parcel so they can continue with the single family homes all right anything else no thank you [12:15] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all right thank you eric uh does anyone on the committee have any questions for eric eric do you know what size the lots are going to be there [12:26] **Eric Johnson:** actually the next thing is going to be the plat for this so uh they are a minimum of a half acre uh to date uh the lots are approaching more like three-quarter acres uh they're fairly large lots under the phase one a and one b and um and it was said that the next item is will be a plat but we needed to look into the zoning first before we looked at a single family development [12:51] **Samuel Clark:** so uh eric i just excuse me just had one uh kind of clarification taking this site and then the site just to the east there's a it's a small portion of it is germantown marketplace it looks like there's a stream or wetlands that go through there joel could you uh go one slide up please [13:16] **Eric Johnson:** yes that is uh that property right there so that what you've seen is the green that's uh keene creek that runs through that adjacent property in what's shown is green that's actually a shoreland overlay area so um so that small the basically the 40 acres next to just to the east would it make sense at all to rezone that to r3 as well if you're doing this just to to keep the marketplace consistent and then the r3 would all basically be consistent i'm not sure what's what's there who owns it or what that process would be but this is my only comment sure exactly that uh that's part of a 110 acre parcel it's made up of i think three or maybe four particular parcels it's owned by northwoods property they have that property on the market since there's an unknown use for that that we prefer to keep the zoning as is and if and when that property eventually sells if someone comes forward thinking that r3 is the best use of that we'd probably entertain a rezoning at that point but right now given the um ability to market that property the fullest extent that at least that applicant wants to keep it under the hm zoning [14:40] **Samuel Clark:** okay and just going on with that because the property around this site that we're looking at is our three this wouldn't be considered spot zoning then right [14:48] **Eric Johnson:** no that is correct exactly there's there's existing residential zoning on at least two sides of this and the green that you see above it that is a steubner park right wasn't this just before before yeah exactly there's portions r3 there was some commercial remnants in there as well but for the most part this was r3 as well and that happened i want to say back in 14 i believe is when we created the marketplace [15:18] **Valerie Ollette:** do any other commission members have any comments just one more um is there any potential for commercial buildings to be built on that business part of marketplace if we did not re-zone it [15:32] **Eric Johnson:** yeah right now the hermantown marketplace uh once again you could build i think the height restrictions under here are 45 foot you could build a a small apartment building once again you could build a business a commercial business things like that so uh honestly the rezoning of this to r3 it's more in keeping with the surroundings that exist today okay so um it seems you know from at least a zoning standpoint it it it meets those you know similar zonings around it [16:08] **Valerie Ollette:** yeah and i can see being adjacent to staebner park would be really advantageous for real estate or for residential homes i could see that [16:21] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** anything else all right not hearing anything we will open the floor for public discussion at 7 17. uh if anyone who's on zoom is here to speak please state your name and address for the record [16:47] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all right we'll go ahead and close that at 7 18 commission members any other last thoughts all right can i please get a motion on agenda item 5b [17:05] **Buckley Simmons:** simmons with a motion to approve 5b as stated [17:11] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** simmons with the first can i get a second thomas 22nd thomas only second all in favor all right motion passes moving on to agenda item 5c an application by jail g enterprise for preliminary and final plot 4 an 8 lot and 2 outlot subdivision located at the formerly addressed 39 3956 stebner road the property is located in r3 zoning district eric what do you have for us on this one [17:42] **Eric Johnson:** great thank you uh this is a continuation of the payton acres project um previously phases 1a and 1b had come to the planning commission in city council and had received approvals to date the applicant has constructed most of the infrastructure with phase 1a and is moving into the phase 1b now as well they do have plat approval for that they're just in the process of uh we'll be finalizing that plot here shortly so this is the next uh phase of this development as i mentioned previously jlg has been seeing a at least some very good interest in the purchase of single-family lots and it worked out well that this next phase could come online for two things is eight they're already working on the infrastructure and this is essentially the extent of the sanitary sewer that can serve this area as you move further to the east after this phase you run into a gravity issue that the the topography wants to flow more towards the um the south and the east so this is essentially the last phase coming off a stubner at this point as we had mentioned this is an eight lot subdivision the lots are a minimum of a half acre in size mr wicklund if you could put up the plat associated with that that would be great [19:03] **Eric Johnson:** um there's two outlots associated with this the small outlet outlet a that's where the stormwater pond would be created for this particular development here to handle the um the impervious surface created by the roadways outlaw b is that remainder of the of the site that way actually this is a good drawing in front of us because if you see that bold line associated with outlet b if you just look on the left side of your page and you can see that lighter line that's at 40 acres and that's at least that other piece that 40 acres that we just spoke about so uh this particular phase is half in and half out of that r3 and in the hm so uh by going to the full r3 zoning it allows for um this single family to continue that way the utilities are in the public right-of-way associated with peyton drive those will be continued to be extended towards the east to be able to serve this particular cul-de-sac here future utilities uh will then actually be coming from the bishop woods addition down there in the southeast corner and that would handle uh future phases of this within outlook b there is an interior sidewalk system with the two previous phases that will continue as well to provide that pedestrian connectivity to steubner road and eventually throughout the whole development also and as i mentioned previously uh these lots are all a minimum of one half acre in size basically at least half of these are are greater than that um to date once again they've been creating almost three-quarter acre lots uh associated with that and been really trying to work around the existing topography and some of the mature trees that they've been seeing from the development standpoint that that concludes my presentation i'd be happy to answer any questions [20:56] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** thank you very much eric commission members any questions [21:05] **John Geissler:** that is correct yes but this doesn't quite marry up with what we have in the packet um you're looking at the master plan i believe yeah that they're calling phase four and that's what when this was originally envisioned they were thinking about once again that sanitary sewer that i had spoke to that they could only get one a and one b under the sanitary from stevner and they'd have to go on to phase two to grab it from there but as it turns out they do have a little bit more uh fall and so they essentially flip-flopped the the two and the four that way so their next phase after this will have to be coming basically off that phase two and honestly too that's one of the rationales where they're calling this 1a1 b1c so so they just keep developing the flats the pieces as they move along [22:07] **Eric Johnson:** pieces as they move along that gives them a little less exposure from a financial standpoint uh they do have financial uh sureties in place at least two on as far as phase 1a how it works out is with the development agreement for each one of these phases uh that provides the option of one of two things if they want to have the city sign off on the plat they have to provide a letter of credit for all infrastructure storm water as well as paving etc if they prefer to start development of the of the utilities first and not finalize the plat the only thing they have to require is a letter of credit for the storm water so that's what that's how they've started each one of these and the same thing that's something that the city has changed to help out developers not carry excessively large letters of credits as they move forward [23:09] **John Geissler:** what's the requirement for the road paving stop you know getting the road paid as far as a timeline or for [23:18] **Eric Johnson:** so it'll be um it's one of two things there's not a specific timeline i can't give a specific date however if they want to finalize this plat they actually give us some mylars for the city to sign they either have to a pave it or b provide the letter of credit for it so there are mechanisms in place before the city will sign work with them x number of dates that way actually when the development agreement that's what we will tie down those dates uh i believe i've been just working on the development agreement i think i have a date of october 23 for uh to have that paid exactly uh that um the development agreement actually goes straight to city council and i anticipate that you'll see that on july 8th july 17th [24:06] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** eric for clarification because it's not it doesn't look like it's right in the package did you say phase four would be phase one c [24:14] **Eric Johnson:** yes that is correct if you're looking at the master plan it's not exactly the same no it's the same idea that this is the third cul-de-sac associated with the development that way so they for that part they've been generally mirroring the master plan that had been envisioned i think this is from 18 or 19 to tell you the truth [24:32] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** okay thank you eric what happens with the outlaw day that's you mentioned that's where their stormwater pond's going to go [24:41] **Eric Johnson:** yeah they forfeit that turn it over to the city was that they turned it over to the city for our ownership um back in phase one eight if you ever go through that development as you enter uh payton drive there's a stormwater pond on the northern portion uh they did turn that over to the city uh within the last couple months here so the city uh is now becomes the ownership owner of those outlets and is responsible for the maintenance of those ponds we found in the single family developments that works out much better because rather than going in and assessing 50 different property owners it's easier just to take ownership now it kind of viewed as as buying a new car versus it used is when we get the stormwater ponds right at the beginning we know that's the best condition in the past we've received some of these uh stormwater ponds much later down the road and the city immediately has to go in and do quite a bit of work to get the silt out of there etc so we prefer to get the ownership of these bonds at the very beginning and then we can control the maintenance from there [25:46] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** okay and then with outlaw b how many more times can they just keep coming back and [25:52] **Eric Johnson:** yep and that's why that is mr geisser it referenced the plan here that that's the the plat the master plan is that basically for the it provides kind of a road map of these future phases in development associated with it so we knew that for the master plan there'd be connection on stepner there'd be connection down there on um uh oak ridge drive to the um in the southeast corner there and then essentially that that looping road attached to it um so as mr guy sort of talked about as well this method of planning smaller pieces has been more the preference of developers because once again you don't expose yourself by bringing 20 or 30 lots to market and hence creating the infrastructure associated with that in the past there's been a couple developments back on a say in 0708 that did that essentially develop the whole thing there's an economic downturn and developers on the hook for for hundreds of thousands of dollars in infant structure costs this way that once again the developer can control their infrastructure costs a bit more and then you know have more of an orderly progression throughout the development thank you [27:24] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** members any other questions for eric not hearing any we will open the florida public discussion at 7 28. is anyone on zoom that would like to speak on this once again if you state your name and the address for a record [27:46] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** not hearing any comments we'll go ahead and close the public discussion at 7 29. commission members any other thoughts can i get a motion or can i please get a motion on agenda item 5c [28:04] **Valerie Ollette:** well that i would move to approve agenda item 5c as written [28:13] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all out with the first can i get a second [28:15] **Samuel Clark:** sam clark with a second [28:17] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** sam clark with the second all in favor right motion passes moving on to number six continuing business anything for us there [28:28] **Eric Johnson:** not a continuing business no [28:31] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all right number seven new business [28:35] **Eric Johnson:** uh just more of an update uh the city at last night's city council meeting and i apologize if mr geiser is going to add this um uh city council did approve uh hkgi hoisington kogler out of the twin cities for a comprehensive master plan they anticipate starting that probably within the next couple weeks here part of that will be a basically a task force for last to better words made up of different city residents as well as members of boards and planning commissions and city council that way staff right now is um starting to look into that we anticipate probably anywhere from eight to twelve people on this this guiding board that way as part of the process that does not include any staff members associated with it so um i can see in the next couple weeks that uh the planning commission or this siemens city staff would be looking for one maybe two representatives off planning and zoning to uh be part of that um that task force or that guiding board that way so if you have any interest uh please feel free to um maybe to shoot me an email or call and i can chat further with you that way [29:54] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** there will be plenty of other public meetings as well [29:57] **Eric Johnson:** yes there will be both public discussion on putting together a comprehensive plan [30:00] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** what do they figure the time commitment for that will be [30:03] **Eric Johnson:** looking back i want to say there's at least six potential these task force meetings that way the whole process is over the course of about 18 months and um it's a little bit more um front driven as far as some of these meetings and then after that you maybe fall into more of a quarterly type of aspect that way [30:26] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** okay perfect thank you um item number eight communications there's none all right item number nine commission member reports uh myself no report uh valerie roulette no report samuel clarke [30:48] **Samuel Clark:** uh i know this isn't really a report but i was talking to john i was on the city council meeting yesterday john geisler and uh i was even kind of confused at one point on what the the city council and the the public were discussing in terms of the uh zirin development and the carlson road so maybe just uh when it comes back to planning and zoning or just in the future just explicitly stating what this the city is recommending and what the public is reviewing because i think it was kind of a combination of what we first looked at what we looked at planning a zoning commission with the trail to carter to johnson road and we're going more towards morris thomas and just carlson road trail so just my two cents sitting on the the ipad watching on zoom so [31:40] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all right thank you uh luckily simmons no report dante thomas sony report and counselor geisler [31:54] **John Geissler:** a little bit what sam was talking about was the zirin development that we had in front of us a couple yeah i guess it was last month with the hammerhead and so the this body you guys passed the hammerhead with no other no trail uh not paving you know or not not paving the trail to johnson or not building up the gravel base for the uh for the rest of it as was discussed uh the council looked at it like there should be some public benefit for this pud remember all of the work we did on the pud and you know part of that is the public benefit uh jay zirin thinks the public benefit is the city's getting this uh 16 acres or whatever it is in the land swap that we can put the trail on to us the city council it wasn't really all that much of a benefit he's getting several buildable lots with the land swap that he can sell for you know quite a bit of money so the city council put up uh coming in on it or uh you know uh asked for him or told him to get approved you know for approval we're going to want him to build the trail just from the hammerhead to the johnson road paved gate so that it would suffice as pedestrian access and as that secondary emergency egress there were several members of the neighborhood there and they didn't really think it was necessary but i think they just don't want people coming down their road um but uh and then jay got up and said the same thing he told this body was i you know i should have to build it for a lot of reasons and you know there was talk about grants and whatnot but you know if there's ever a grant awarded it would pay for the trunk of this of this trail but not what this little spur would be so the city council voted to uh impose on the developer to build that stretch of trail from the hammerhead to the johnson road and air queued 70 or 90 000 was the estimate for that so it's not you know he said it's gonna put him out it's not gonna make the project viable but you know i think i think otherwise and i think he'll hopefully continue and proceed along that line so but that was the council's rationale uh we had one counselor missing last night uh the vote was three to one the mayor did not he just he didn't want the development of being frustrated the whole thing and he said he was going to vote against it no matter what so the three other councilors voted for it and the mayor voted it down so anyway so now back in his court that was just the uh preliminary flat and uh so he has to come back and do the final flat so we'll we'll see what we do [34:42] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** could you just refresh my memory how how long is that approximately [34:48] **John Geissler:** 350 feet football field [35:01] **Eric Johnson:** remember he was going to clear it and grab it and needed to put his was it water water water he was putting a water line down it anyway so there's significant amount of costs already incurred by him doing that clearing grabbing excavating he has to backfill that with good granular material so the added cost is really the the paved trail and the gate so that's i think that's all for me [35:36] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** all right perfect all right lastly can i get a motion to adjourn [35:43] **Buckley Simmons:** simmons with a motion to adjourn [35:47] **Chair (Corey Colquist):** simmons was the first gonna get a second second thomas only second all in favor hi hi all right thank you guys