City Council - Regular Meeting

everyone and welcome i will call our bloomington city council meeting to order tonight is monday june 29 2026 thank you to everyone joining us here in the council chambers thanks to everybody watching online we will begin our meeting as we always do if you're able please rise and remove any covering and join me in the pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Once again, thanks to everybody for being here on this warm summer evening. Council, our first order of business is the adoption of our agenda tonight, and it is a very manageable agenda, and I hope we can get through it in a timely and efficient fashion.

I'm looking right at you, Councilmember, that's right.

On our agenda, under introductory items, we have item 2.1. We're going to get an update on the I-494 Corridor Commission and Commuter Services. We've got folks here who are going to speak to us. Welcome. Thank you for being with us. And item 2.2 is our only proclamation of the evening. This is a Pride Month proclamation. Item 3, our consent business. Councilmember Robertson has consent, and we have 16 items on the consent business tonight. We have nothing under item four, our hearings, resolutions and ordinances. Under item five, organizational business, we've got two items to review. Item 5.1 is the Bloomington urban forest master plan, final draft and action plan review. And item 5.2 is a study item. This is regarding minor policy updates for annual miscellaneous issues ordinance. We'll wrap up with our council policy and issue update. And that council, without any additions or changes at your suggestion, is our proposed agenda for tonight. And I will move that agenda as stated. Motion and a second by Councilmember Carter to accept tonight's agenda as stated. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. And this is a good opportunity. I mentioned that Councilmember Rivas is not with us this evening. 2.1 ON OUR AGENDA, THE I-494 CORRIDOR COMMISSION AND COMMUTER SERVICES UPDATE. I WILL CALL YOU FORWARD. I THINK KIM BURGER, OUR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR IS GOING TO KICK US OFF AND THEN WE'LL TURN IT OVER TO MELISSA MADISON, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE I-494 CORRIDOR COMMISSION.

THANKS, MAYOR AND COMMISSION AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU Good evening and remind you that we've been a member of the I-494 quarter commission for a long time and currently the representatives are myself as a staff rep and then council member D'Alessandro serves as the city council representative. So we have the executive director here tonight to give you an update on the work of the organization and also be available for questions if you have them.

MADISON GOOD EVENING WELCOME THANK YOU THANK YOU MAYOR BUSSY AND CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS GOOD EVENING WE WANT TO THANK COUNCIL MEMBER D'ALISANDRO AND KIM BERGERON THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND YOUR GUIDANCE FOR US THIS EVENING MY COLLEAGUES KATE MEREDITH AND MICHELLE LEONARD WHO ARE PICTURED ON THIS FIRST SLIDE ARE HERE WITH US TONIGHT THEY DO THE OUTREACH FOR OUR ORGANIZATION Thank you. So we work jointly with a number of additional cities, Bloomington, Richfield, Edina, Eden Prairie, and Minnetonka to reduce traffic congestion on the 494 corridor and also help address cut through traffic in your cities. And each of our cities pays 60 cents per resident.

Are we able to go back one?

Thank you. And The City of Bloomington's membership dues are 6% of our overall budget, so we are able to provide you a great return on your $55,000 annual investment. There are actually more jobs in our five cities along 494 than there are in both of the two downtowns combined. In fact, people from 85 out of 87 counties in Minnesota use this section of 494 on a daily basis. And the quarter commission takes a supply side and a demand side approach to slowing traffic congestion. 95% of our budget is spent on demand and 5% is spent on supply side projects. Commuter Services, which is an outreach program of the 494 Corridor Commission, was created to influence employers and commuters towards sustainable commute options to slow the growth of traffic congestion and reduce the demand for roads. And Bloomington receives commuter services as part of your membership in the 494 Corridor Commission. We hold over 100 commuter fares with large, medium, and employers, and multi-tenant office buildings in a year. And this slide shows some of the things that we provide for employers, which include displays with the transit routes that serve the employer's location, preferential carpool parking management, which we do for most of the major employers in our five cities, including Normandale Community College. And we hold commuter fairs. lunch and learns, we provide customized communications for employers for their intranet and newsletters, and we enroll employers in transit pass programs, and we also have a deep set of telework and hybrid resources. We started the brand called Twin Cities Telework with some state funding that we received a few years back. And we also push out road construction updates. And here is a representative look at some of the employers and hotels that we work with in Bloomington. And a quote from one of our contacts at the Mall of America, she said, Mall of America has partnered with commuter services for over 20 years and their support has been a valuable resource to our team members. and also a quote from Normandale Lake Office Park. Commuter services has been a trusted resource for our tenants, offering practical solutions and onsite support that make a real difference in daily commutes. Their partnership helps us deliver added value and a better overall experience for the companies we serve. And then a look at the types of things that we can provide and do provide to commuters. That includes ride matching to help people find someone to carpool and vanpool with. Customized transit information with personalized itinerary with the right schedules and two free passes so the person can give it a try. deep set of bicycle commuting resources including maps and tips on biking and traffic and the Minnesota bike laws. We tell people about the guaranteed ride home which we think is one of the best kept secrets in the Twin Cities as far as transportation goes. The Metropolitan Council provides $100 of free taxi or Uber and Lyft rides per year as a safety net for people who use an alternative to driving alone to work. So that way if their child gets sick, or kind of whatever the what if scenario is, they have a safety net to get home. And then we have a deep set of telework and hybrid resources for employers, teleworkers, and managers. And then our resources are available in multiple languages. Over 15,000 Bloomington residents and commuters have requested sustainable commuting resources from us in the past couple of years. After we assist people with customized resources, we do a survey to determine mode shift. And one of the questions is, have you tried the customized information and resources that we helped you with? And 91% report that they did try it. And in fact, on this slide we can see how many people responded by converting from driving alone into using a new mode one day per week, all the way up to five days per week. And we're most impressed with the five day per week conversion from driving alone primarily to now using their new mode five days per week. So 19% equals about one in five people. We have a quote from Normandale Community College. Commuter services has been pivotal in providing free help to students and staff for finding affordable transportation to campus. Students light up when they find out that one of the many hurdles on their academic journey has been removed. And here's a list of community outreach that we've done in the last couple years in Bloomington, I would say the last two years, with Asian Heritage Celebration, the Farmer's Markets, Learning Link Up, Bloomington Pride, Bloomington State of the City, Fair for All through the Creekside Center, Juneteenth, Metro South Adult Basic Education, Traffic Safety Day at the Mall of America, and Welcome to Bloomington New Residence Fairs. And then here's a look at the 35 different multi-family residential properties that we work with in Bloomington. We hosted a Get to Know Bloomington Metro Micro webinar for residents, employers, and commuters which was watched by 70 people and it's still up on our YouTube channel so people can still watch that and we direct people to it in our newsletters. And in an average year, we'll look at our annual results, we are able to convert about 5,700 drive-alone commuters into a sustainable commute mode three or more days per week after they receive assistance from us. And that 5,700 people that we convert... Oh, next slide, please.

Yeah, thank you.

equals an estimated 56 million vehicle miles avoided annually as a direct result of our outreach. And 56 million vehicle miles avoided is 23,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions saved. And it would take over a million mature trees to reduce the same amount of CO2 emissions. And this is my last slide. We're helping the city of Bloomington reach your sustainability and your climate action goals. And so that was just a real quick version of the return on investment for your city. And I'd love to take questions.

Well, thank you. And thanks for the presentation and the information. Some of that is, it's good stuff. And I've heard it for a number of years and it's still good to hear. The number of jobs along the 494 corridor is just an amazing number. You had a slide talking about 95% of your budget is spent on demand projects, demand management, 5% on the supply side. I understand the demand management that's working with companies, that's working with the large apartment buildings and that kind of thing, just working, giving commuters different options. Talk a bit about the supply side projects, because it's not as though you don't build roads. That's not your goal, but what do you mean when you say supply side much?

So actually, Mayor Bussey pays for the lobbyist that lobbies for the quarter commission's high priority transit projects, high priority road projects. And we are now also lobbying for bicycle projects. So this next time around, if you have any bike lane or bike trail type projects that you'd like to see, we'd be most happy to lobby for that.

Very good. Thank you. Council questions, comments?

Thank you very much. I appreciate the focus on climate and sustainability in large part because we know that transportation and then commercial buildings are the two biggest causes of climate challenges for us here in Bloomington and so transportation continues to be the most important thing we can probably be doing in concert with folks like yourself. Is there a... Is there a plan in, as you think about the legislative priorities, as we think about the potential end for this round of 494, you know, commercial or construction to change, when is it up? It's in 2028, right?

2030.

2030 now. Okay. I keep thinking it's going to happen any day now. I am curious about what the expectation, how have the expectations been revised and regarding what the um the HOV lane that they're or the the bus rapid transit lane that they're putting in into 494 is going to have an impact on the work that you or the numbers that you're proposing here have those have those numbers that came out I don't know in 2023 2024 been revised now that the project is you know halfway and underway or anything like that do you know

As far as MnDOT numbers?

As far as their expectations about ridership and use of the new lane and everything that's supposedly going to cut back on emissions by... REQUIRING MORE MULTI MODE TRANSPORT OR MULTI HOV RELATED TRANSPORT.

YES. I HAVE NOT HEARD OF UPDATED NUMBERS SINCE THEIR INITIAL PROJECTIONS. WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO BEING ABLE TO REWARD MORE PEOPLE FOR CAR POOLING SO THAT THEY CAN USE THOSE LANES AND THAT THERE WOULD BE MORE OF A TRANSIT ADVANTAGE But to answer your question I haven't heard.

No okay. I'm just curious you know the problem with these long-term projects is always that they take a long time and as a result lots of things shift in the market and lots of things change and then the projections don't necessarily keep up with that so if that's something we think we can get to from them at some point That would be great and also I'd love to hear more about what they're proposing they'll give us in terms of incentives so that we can do the education associated with people using that transportation.

So to your point here, MnDOT has set aside a $2.1 million for TDM for the work that we do. We're not expecting to receive all 2.1 million from MnDOT. They have a consultant studying WHO SHOULD GET THE MONEY AND HOW MUCH SHOULD THEY GET. SO WE'RE IN THE MIX. THE 494 QUARTER COMMISSION AND COMMUTER SERVICES ARE IN THE MIX TO RECEIVE MONEY TO HELP WITH THE TDM EDUCATION COMING ALONG WITH THE MIN PASS LANE AND THE FULL CONSTRUCTION PROJECT WITH THE BIKE ADVANTAGES AND THE TRANSIT ADVANTAGES.

VERY GOOD. LOOK FORWARD TO MORE ON THAT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEMBER. COUNCIL, ANYTHING ELSE TO ADD? QUESTIONS? Ms. Madison, thank you for being here with us. Thank you for your work on this, your long-time work on this. I know this has been, you've been at this a while, and so we appreciate it and appreciate the successes that we've seen and the advantages that we see here in the city of Bloomington. So thanks to your staff as well. You did great work and appreciate you being here tonight. Thanks.

Thank you for your long-term membership. We really appreciate that. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Thanks.

Good evening.

Council Item 2.2 on our agenda is our Pride Month Proclamation, and I'm going to head down to the podium. June is, of course, Pride Month in Minnesota and nationwide. And we have a proclamation that we do and happy to read it now. It feels almost like we're a bit late because our Pride celebration was now two weeks ago. I know Twin Cities Pride was just this past weekend. I thought ours was pretty darn good and well done. So I want to offer this Pride Month proclamation. I also want to invite up, as we always do, I know we're going to have somebody, I think Tenzin is going to speak. And so why don't you come on up and anybody else would want to speak and As I read the proclamation, then I'm going to turn the microphone over to you, and off we're going to go. So I'm going to get started here. Pride Month is June 1st through the 30th, 2026, whereas the month of June, 2026, is designated as Pride Month and recognizes the discrimination and violence individuals who identify as two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual, and hereafter we're going to refer to all those as queer, and they are disproportionately subjected to these violence and discrimination, and it raises up and promotes self-affirmation, dignity, equal rights, and increases the visibility of the queer community. And whereas the queer rights movement continues to this day, and while there has been remarkable progress toward acceptance and equality in recent years, members of the queer community in the United States and around the world still face discrimination and violence, so we must remain vigilant and push back against those who seek to roll back our progress. And whereas members of the transgender community, especially the black and brown trans community and trans youth, face increasing levels of inaccessibility, discrimination, hate, and violence that we all must speak out against, and we must take specific actions to protect the full human rights and dignity of the trans community. And whereas the City of Bloomington is committed to being inclusive, equitable, and welcoming of all individuals along the full spectrum of gender identity and sexual orientation, and recognizes that we are enriched by this diversity, including the contributions the queer community has made and continues to make, the City lifts up the queer community by flying the Pride flag in June. and whereas the city of bloomington wants to highlight the efforts of many members of our community who have organized to protect the freedom to read to gather at pride celebrations and have created community in their worksplaces schools and churches their efforts are meaningful and help to create a better safer and more welcoming city and whereas the bloomington pride minnesota organization community members and allies celebrated pride on the east lawn of civic plaza on sunday june 14 2026. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Tim Bussey, Mayor of the City of Bloomington, do hereby proclaim June 2026 as Pride Month and call upon the people of Bloomington to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists and commemorate the courageous individuals who have fought and continue to fight for the rights of queer people dated this 29th day of June 2026. As I said, we celebrated, I think it was our, was it our fifth or sixth annual Pride Month? I THINK FIFTH OR SIXTH. INCREDIBLE SUCCESS. WE HAD A LOT OF PEOPLE THERE. WE HAD A BEAUTIFUL DAY, A GREAT COMMUNITY FEEL, GREAT VIBE ON THE EAST LAWN. IT WAS WITHOUT QUESTION A SUCCESS AND IT HAS TO DO WITH THE PEOPLE WHO PUT IT TOGETHER AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS COMMUNITY WHO SUPPORT THIS IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS. I'M GOING TO TURN THE MICROPHONE OVER TO YOU, DANSON, PLEASE.

THANK YOU, MAYOR BUSSY. GIVE ME A SECOND, PLEASE. All right. Good evening, everyone. My name is Tenzin Gaki, and I'm so happy to accept the Pride Proclamation. Being queer growing up, I wondered, will I be treated differently by my friends and family and community at large? Will I be discriminated when I look for a job? I feared prejudice that is visible and hidden. I worried about my safety daily. However, I have been lucky in life to find love young and be surrounded by supportive family and chosen family. For the last decade, me and my family have called Bloomington home, first as a renter and later as homeowners. As young professionals, we initially chose Bloomington for low cost of living, excellent parks and safety. When it came time to find our forever home, we looked far and wide, but we stayed rooted in Bloomington because of the excellent schools, reasonable price homes, how diverse and welcoming and warm our neighbors are and continue to be. Lastly, I continue to call Bloomington home because of how strong and resilient our community is in spite of the coordinated and ongoing shift in federal policy targeting the LGBTQ plus community. I love that in Bloomington, we chose love and inclusion intentionally. I'm proud of the welcoming community we have built and continue to foster together. Happy Pride, everyone.

to do a picture they gave me plenty of these so everybody gets one Council Item 3 on our agenda is our consent business. Council Member Robertson has our consent agenda tonight. Council Member Robertson.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, it's my understanding that we have a hold for Item 310, is that correct? And Item 3.15, 315, is that correct as well? I'm looking at my colleague. Yes, yep, perfect, thank you. Yeah? Am I getting that incorrect? Oh, is someone holding 312? My apologies, I wasn't informed of that. Oh, sure, that's totally fine. All right, and 312 as well. All right, so I'm not hearing any further holds, correct? Me?

Yes, you typically would hold item 3.1, and that will finish up with that, and then you just give thanks for the donations.

Oh, fabulous. Oh, I didn't know I get to do that. Yay, exciting. Okay, wonderful. All right, well, then, so we've got four holds today, and so not hearing anything else, I would move items 3.2 through 3.9, as well as... Item 3.11, and then items 3.13, 3.14, and 3.16. Second.

Motion by Councilmember Roberts and second by Councilmember Carter to accept tonight's consent business as stated. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Motion carries 6-0. Item 310, why don't we start there? And actually, that is the one that I hold, I held. That is, Council, that's the preliminary and final development plans for the Seagate technology expansion. And I just wanted to call it out and congratulate our friends at Seagate. I mean, this is not a small thing. This is another big expansion here within the city of Bloomington. They're going to add about 64,000 square feet to their semiconductor manufacturing facility. And it completes the trifecta now that between Polar and Skywater and now Seagate are all expanding in response to this growing demand globally for for microtechnology and for chips, basically. And then they do storage equipment at Seagate. It's a big thing. And it really is because of, as I said, the concentration of this industry, basically, in the city of Bloomington. I mean, it's all leftovers from controlled data, but we are in the upper Midwest, basically the hub of the semiconductor industry. And so I wanted to thank and congratulate the folks at Skywater, Polar, and Seagate for the work that they've done. Seagate, it was a long road for them. I know they've gone through a lot, and they're actually... charging into this expansion with an eye on the next expansion as well. So a lot of great things going on with our semiconductor manufacturing business in the city of Bloomington. Just wanted to call them out and congratulate them and thank them for the commitment that they have to Bloomington. And with that, I will move item 310. This is the Seagate Technology Preliminary and Final Development Plans.

Second.

Motion and a second by Councilmember Robertson to accept item 3.10 on tonight's consent business. No further discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Why don't we go then to item 312. Councilmember D'Alessandro?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I had a quick question. I didn't see in the documentation I know that we saw notices that there was a meeting with the residents and one of the issues was addressed was parking concerns. We heard about that tonight. This is getting an underground parking lot. Do we know how many spaces that underground facility is going to have?

Mayor, Councilmember, if you'll indulge, I'll ask our planning manager, Nick Johnson, to come forward and clarify that for us. Sure.

Thanks. Mr. Johnson, and I see Mr. Kanase moving quickly as well. What do we have for on-site underground parking?

Seagate, right? Or no, we're talking about Olive Isle? Yeah.

Adora.

Adora.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Hi. Good evening, Mayor and City Councilmembers. So the proposal currently calls for 66 underground parking spaces.

Okay. Correct. So that's a net benefit to the community in terms of parking spaces. I just wanted to make sure we had that on the record because I didn't see it in any of the documentation that we were doing that. So 52 units, 66 parking spaces.

Correct.

Very good. That's all. I just wanted to make sure that was clear to everybody. Very good. I can move this then. Please. So I'll move to adopt a resolution supporting tax increment financing assistance for the Adora affordable housing project. Second.

Motion by council member D'Alessandro, second by council member Robertson to accept item 3.12 on tonight's consent business. Any additional discussion? Ms. Manderscheid?

Mayor and council members, there's two motions, two parts to this. So just to make sure that everybody understands, there's the resolution in support of TIF and then also execution of the letter of intent to purchase.

I think the motion was to accept item 312.

I wrote it I specifically only did the first part because I thought we'd have to vote separately but can I vote them together? Oh then I will restate sorry my bad. Okay I move to adopt a resolution supporting tax increment finance assistance for the Adore affordable housing project and to authorize an execution of a letter of intent to purchase between the city and J.O. companies.

Second. Very good. Now, Council Member D'Alessandro with the motion. Council Member Robertson with the second for item 312. No further council discussion on this. Thank you for the clarification, Ms. Mandershed. Appreciate that. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Item 3.15. Who wants to take this one on? Council Member Nelson.

No, you go ahead. You start.

Mayor, I'll just start with a simple request. I'd like more information. Some interesting questions were raised earlier tonight in the listening session I don't know the answer right, wrong, or whatever, but I'd just like a little bit more time on this one. I know we've already extended one week, if I recall, from our – or two weeks, sorry. If I recall from our last meeting, we had early August statutory deadline to make a decision. I just want to get to the bottom of this, like, garage thing and the setbacks. What's the front? What's the side? Staff has done a really nice job of kind of outlining things, but I'd just like to – maybe have further conversations so we all totally understand. From my understanding, it's kind of a confusing house. And so I appreciate the work staff is doing on that. And that's my request.

Very good. Are there any questions you could ask tonight that you would like answered? Or even if you did, are you thinking you would like to...

I could, but, you know, if I did, and we can get into it if you prefer, but I have like building home questions on the definition of habitable space within the building code. The exclusion of, there's exclusions for hallways and for mechanical rooms, but could you consider that the entire habitable space, that thousand square feet or whatever is under there, Yeah, the building code would define habitable space at a certain height, I believe seven feet or so. You know, I don't know what the height is. I don't have information on that. You know, we have in our own ordinances and codes, something about connections to water. Well, if there are mechanicals in there, I mean, I don't know if there's a water heater in there. If there is, it's connected to water. And then that says that it might be you know, living space or, you know, that sort of thing. So there's a lot of details. I'm happy to go into them, but I think it might just be easier and save us and the public time to go into those later. So those are some of my just very detailed that are, from my experience, difficult to do from here.

Very good. I appreciate that, council member. And I fully agree. If we want to pull this off until our next council meeting, we can lay this over and do this. I would ask council, put your questions together. I mean, read through it because we've seen that we've got a couple of staff reports that came out over the weekend. Perhaps you didn't get a chance to look at them. Just go through those a little bit. Mr. Walker, you had something you just wanted to bring?

Just that mayor, members of council fully appreciate the will to hold it and that's fine. We'll work with you to get those answers. I just want to say at a very high level, staff, as the mayor mentioned, we have a memo for you that was sent Friday. Staff's done some investigation on this. DATING BACK TO 1977 WITH THE SITE PLAN, THIS AREA HAS BEEN facility building has been labeled as a garage. Most recently, as April of this year, the structure had a fire. They applied for permits to rehabilitate the space. Staff made clear to them at that point in time because some questions were raised about converting the space, the measures that would need to be taken to make it livable space. The applicant was not interested in pursuing that. And then as recently as Friday, we were in contact with legal counsel for the owner who's confirmed that beyond the structural fixes because of the fire and painting, no additional modifications have been made that would make this property livable.

All right, so a lot of moving parts here. It will back it off until our next meeting, which wouldn't be until the 20th of July. So, because we don't have one on the 13th. And get a couple weeks off, folks. So Council Member Nelson, would you like to make the motion to lay over item 3.15 until our July 20th meeting of the City Council?

Yeah. I move to table this until the 15th of July. No, the 20th.

Second.

20th. How about 20th?

The 20th of July, yes. 17th. The 20th. I don't know, second. 20th. Motion by Council Member Nielsen, second by Council Member Lohman to table this item, item 3.15, until the 20th of July, our next council meeting. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. We will do that, and we will continue the conversation on this. And we will wrap up item 3.1. Council Member Robertson, the resolution to accept donations.

Thank you, Mayor. Just to confirm, would you like me to read the resolution or just thank all of the donors?

Typically what we do within the packet, there are a list of some of the major donations that came in and basically to express some thanks to the folks who have made those and maybe pick out a couple to call out in particular.

Fabulous. Thank you so much. I will do just that. Yes, I'm excited that I get to do this. We are very lucky as a city to have received a number of very generous donations from a number of different donors, including Normandale Community College, Bundles of Love, the League of Women Voters of Bloomington. Mall of America, the Bloomington Leadership Program cohort, the Walmart donation, as well as a number of private donors. We thank them very, very much. Thank you for your dedication to keeping Bloomington a wonderful place. And with that, I would move item 3.1. Second.

Motion by Councilmember Roberts and second by Councilmember Carter to accept the donations as listed in item 3.1 and to, of course, direct staff to write the appropriate thank you letters to those folks who made those donations. Yes, please, thank you. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you very much, Councilmember Robertson. As I mentioned, when we went through the agenda, council, we have nothing under hearings, resolutions, and ordinances this evening. We will move right on to organizational business in item 5.1. This is a review of the Bloomington Urban Forest Master Plan Final Draft and Action Plan Review. Rene Clark, our Deputy Director of Parks, and Dave Hanson, our Guru of Trees. I'm not exactly sure what Dave's title is, but he's up as well.

Dave, our Assistant Director of Parks and Natural Resources.

All that works. Good evening. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council, and we also have in the audience Gail Nozell from Davey Tree who supported us on this plan. So we are here tonight to present the final draft urban forest master plan. And if you recall we were here on March 9th with the draft plan and we reviewed the technical components of that plan as well as had a policy discussion largely focused on right away trees. Tonight we're here to present the final recommendations of the plan which were pretty detailed in your packet and also in the plan that we provided. and then request your final approval and adoption. The Urban Forest Master Plan provides a data-driven roadmap needed for long-term planning and investment. We move towards proactive management with this program. We have recommendations for private tree management, policy updates, and provide overall enhanced resiliency through this analysis. Why the urban forest matters. Trees are assets that provide environmental, economic, and community benefits for Bloomington residents. Protecting and growing the urban forest is an investment in the community. The key findings are that the canopy across Bloomington is uneven, and this plan provides a data-driven direction and resources where they will make the most difference. Last time when we were here, we talked about how a right-of-way tree program could help in that regard. Another interesting fact, the tree canopy here grew 5% during the 10-year study, which is really remarkable considering we had emerald ash borer during this time. Comparisons indicate that we are under-investing when it comes to staff and overall budget in our urban forest. The plan provides six strategic goals, and then key to-dos within each of those goals, and Dave will review some of those recommendations tonight.

All right, thank you, Renee. Mayor, council. Among the short-term recommendations are evaluate the staffing and budget needs associated with a more proactive approach to managing our urban forest, as well as the right-of-way tree planting programs that we talked about earlier. We plan to use the priority planting data to make the most impact with our investments, foster relationships with regional forestry partners, including the county, watersheds, nonprofits like Tree Trust, and the utility companies like Xcel. Some of the long-term recommendations include using our inventory data to plan for and set goals around resiliency, future climate change, and potential pest threats. We'll also reevaluate the tree canopy and right away inventory to include smart tree data on our park trees. And then per a recommendation at our last time here was to look at using the condition ratings of all of our trees to come up with an index and measure that against past performance similar to how we manage pavement condition indexes. Little bit more detail about a right-of-way tree planting permit The existing city ordinance as it is does allow us to grant a permit to plant a tree in the right-of-way We just don't have the process in place right now to do that So we need to develop a process that takes into all the considerations of a right-of-way tree And all the potential conflicts that can have with internal stakeholders to find the right tree in the right location and for residents to plant. We've been surveying other cities to learn about their permit processes for size requirements, the effort that it takes to manage such a thing. And we've also gotten input that calling it a permit might not be the most inviting thing. So we're looking for a catchy name because this is a service and we want people to be attracted to it. So we tossed around right of way application or something like that. There we go. As far as forestry operations go, we learned that compared to nationally, Bloomington is understaffed. While we have 12 staff on the team that does tree work, when you total up all their FTEs at the end of the year, that equals six full-time equivalents, which is about 1.4 below our peer cities that we're compared to. Another metric that we used was as a percentage of the overall municipal budget. Bloomington falls a little short, an investment in urban forestry compared to other cities. So even at its peak in 2024, we're at 59% of our overall budget compared with 2020. THE OTHER MIDWESTERN COMMUNITIES THAT WERE UP TO 67%. AND THEN ANOTHER DETAIL IN THAT IS MOST OF THOSE EXPENSES IN THE YEAR 2024-23 WERE RELATED TO REMOVING TREES DUE TO EMERALD ASHBORN AND NO OTHER PROACTIVE MANAGEMENT.

I don't want to interrupt. I just want to correct. I just want to make sure in 2024 was 0.59%, not 59%. Yes. 0.59. That would be quite the investment. Yes. Details matter. We're not asking for 59% of the budget.

We could get a lot of stuff done. Thank you for that correction, Mayor. The upper graph is the tool that we've used to manage EAB since we started dealing with it in 2014. As it shows, we're winding down. We now have all this really concrete inventory data that says we have 717 ash trees left on public property. That's down from 8,500 when we started this deal. So the good news is that we're nearing the end of this and you will see costs for managing EAB drop off sharply in the coming years budget-wise. I am going to skip ahead one more slide and then we'll come back to that because it's more in context. Just to talk a little bit about natural areas, this plan recommends that the two, the Urban Forest Master Plan recommends that the two plans that are listed here continue to manage our natural areas. This is a key implementation challenge to balance efforts to increase tree canopy with ecological restoration needs throughout our natural areas. In some natural areas, restoration requires selective tree thinning to mimic the historic influence of fire and grazing. While increasing tree canopy can be desirable in developed areas, some natural communities such as oak savannas or woodlands depend on open growing conditions with fewer trees. Restoring these systems may require removing invasives and thinning the dense forest cover to allow sunlight to reach the native grasses, wildflowers, and young oak trees. Although these actions can temporarily reduce canopy cover, they improve ecosystem health, biodiversity, resilience, and long-term sustainability. Success requires evaluating canopy goals alongside ecological function and recognizing that the right number of trees varies depending on the landscape and management objectives. I'll go back to that one. Implementation elements. Well, first of all, we want to focus resources where canopy needs and community benefits are greatest. Use the data that we have to drive planting efforts. align our planting efforts with equity, climate infrastructure goals, like coordination with the Climate Action Plan, coordinating with engineering on their PMP projects. We need to look at our ordinances and update them. Many of those are old, going back to the 1950s and 60s when Bloomington had just become a city and no longer a village. So we need to look at our right-of-way planting program, responsibilities for ownership of those trees, our private tree management practices, review our emergency plan, and then some zoning and development rules to make sure that we're all updated. We'll continue to engage residents, businesses, partners, community organizations, and then finally measure progress. In the near term, we will use the plan benchmarking data to show resource gaps with service level directions that we receive from yourselves. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you. There. Now we're back on track, maybe. There you go. All right. Thank you, Renee. We'll use a treekeeper software to manage all that tree data. We can use it to track our work, to issue work orders, to record the condition of the trees. It has a public-facing dashboard that residents can use to learn about the trees in the city of Bloomington as well as see the ecosystem benefits of those. make needed policy and ordinance and changes and then develop helpful resources for residents so tip sheets on how to hire a contractor tip sheets on how to deal with problem trees as well as problem neighbors and their trees to be honest with you and then resources to help them decide what trees go in the right places Midterm based on a City Council direction will use that priority planting data to explore a city-led right-of-way tree planting program in the high priority neighborhoods in Bloomington And longer term we need to reassess measure success and evaluate overall program performance There we go. Increased tree canopy where it is needed most will create healthier parks, natural areas, and neighborhoods, greater resilience to pests, disease, climate change, improved environmental and community benefits, all while reducing emergency calls with more proactive management of our forests. The urban forestry plan is not a single project. It is a long term commitment to managing this part of Bloomington's green infrastructure for future generations. And with that. We have time for questions.

Well, thank you. We've been talking about this for a while, and I really appreciate where we are right now. I think it's a strong plan. I think it takes into account a lot of what we've been talking about and is certainly forward-looking. So thank you for your work on this, and thanks for the thoughtfulness that went into it because I think it reflects, as I said, where we are as a city. Council, comments on this, questions?

Councilmember Carter. So I very much enjoyed reading through this and it makes me very excited. And so I know we have hard work ahead of us in our budget decision making, but I really hope that we can find ways to move this forward meaningfully. Um, and I think, I guess one comment I do want to make before I ask some questions, um, Whenever you talk to people in Bloomington about what's like their most favorite thing about living in Bloomington, it doesn't matter what side of city they live on, what their political background is or their preferences, whatever. Everybody loves our trees, our parks, the green space. And so I think prioritizing this makes a lot of sense. A really quick question. I did think it was very interesting that tree growth had, or we saw tree growth. Do we know what that, what we can contribute that to?

Yes, thank you for the question, Mayor, Council Member Carter. Well, trees grow. So for starters, like the trees took care of a lot of that themselves. But I would attribute our citywide Arbor Day tree sale, some of the efforts we use to plant trees. And we really tried to be proactive when we did our ash removals in parks anyway. And wherever possible, we would preemptively plant where there was room. So a lot of different factors, but.

Well, I also appreciated, I think I read the map right, that a lot of that growth was in the underserved areas of Bloomington. So I think that was great. And then obviously there's a lot of conversation right now with the Nine Mile Creek project and the Oak Savannah. I mean, you kind of spoke to this, but does this, does that project align well with what these recommendations are saying? Is there any conflict there? And then if people want to see examples of oak savanna restoration in Bloomington that's already underway, are there parks that they could go to to see that?

Yeah, thank you for the second question. Well, second part first. Yes, we have some sites that are already restored. One that's pretty easy to get to is right behind the ice gardens. That was a joint project with Bloomington Neighbors Nurturing Nature and city staff to do directly behind the ice gardens there. And then city staff is working on another project towards France Avenue, kind of in the same spot with Great River Greening. The stuff behind the ice gardens has had a few years of establishment, so you'll see more of the beneficial ground cover than you would over in the other one that Great River Greening is just working on now. And then we have a history of doing this in the river bottoms. So if you start at Parker's Picnic area and walk west towards Hopkins Road, you'll see a variety of restoration projects that we've done, and a lot of them would be oak savanna type restorations and that much of an opening, and then also some oak woodlands.

Thank you. I wanted to ask that question because I've been to the Parker's picnic. I went with the sustainability commission on a tour of the Parker's picnic area and I was, it was remarkable just how beautiful it was. And there was a stark difference from where the restoration area was to where it stopped. And the other area was beautiful too, but to see the light kind of shining through the trees, to see everything growing and not covered in buckthorn was just, it was really beautiful and amazing. And so I do encourage people who have questions and concerns, which I understand why they do, to also check out the areas of the city where we've done this work and see what it looks like that it's not just a couple of oak trees scattered, that there's a lot more diversity.

And I can take a shot at your first question too, and is this plan in conflict with that kind of design? And no, it isn't. This plan is really directed at developed parkland, developed residential area, And those other plans will guide us as we manage the natural areas like Parker's Picnic area and so on.

Thank you.

Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Hi, folks. So as with any time we have these large efforts, we get a lot of information and then it takes us like ten years to actually like develop everything that we need to do and everything. So what I want to understand is um are the are the are the one to three year three to five year plans that you have here a function of like what how much how much of the climate action associate orientation of this how much of the the mitigation of climate change, et cetera, is going into determining what you are prioritizing in years one through five. Because I think that obviously staffing is a thing and I get all that, but I want to be sure that we're actually combining those two elements, right? This is a good plan. This makes a lot of sense. In a vacuum, it probably could go off one, two, three, four, five. It's not in a vacuum. It's with all these other things that are going on. So I'm curious about how you might think about either one, reviewing those in light of that, or how do you come back to us on a regular interval and make changes as the climate action plan and or climate change impact this study? Because obviously we can't, it's a living, breathing thing, regardless of what this says today. Yeah.

I can take a first stab at that response. And we will be partnering with our colleagues on the climate action team on climate action plan on those teams. Like you saw with the park master plan, these are living documents and we do come back to further refine and update The things we're talking about, particularly in these first three years, are things that we've been flushing out over the last two years as needs with staff, and are really teed up to begin as work plan items as soon as next year. The policy updates we've talked about with our teams, what goes into a right-of-way tree program, both on right-of-way and private property, things that we have ready for work plan items. Longer term as... We look at those things they are more aligned with climate action plan what goals what priorities and we will sync with those and you'll hear more updates and. be sure to reflect how these are merging together as that plan moves forward.

Okay that's great I appreciate that and then the other thing I had was the you mentioned private property so I think somewhere in the study and I apologize I don't know exactly what not like line it was on there was something like of the of the trees that were manageable or something to that effect there were like 26,000 were on private property only 10,000 were on public land or something to that effect. So when we think about the requirement for private citizens and property owners to participate in this plan, What are you suspecting the incentivizing needs to be? And when we think about what our budget considerations will be, how much of that budget will be in incentivizing the behavioral changes or the action that we want to take on these private lands?

Mm-hmm. I'll take an answer to that. Thank you for the question, Council Member D'Alessandro. You're right. So 60% of our available acres and tree planting opportunities in the city is on private property. So there's more room for improvement there than there is on right-of-way and parkland combined. So things like the tree sale we've thought about and we did this a few years ago where we offered a more subsidized tree and we offered those in specific neighborhoods under a program called Neighborhood Initiatives maybe. years ago and there was some success there and that might have been reflected in some of the canopy improvement and selected neighborhoods so I can see us offering different opportunities like that I think education and outreach to neighborhoods with help on that and then also maybe partnering with some of these nonprofits like Tree Trust or B Triple N or other ones like that to help assist people with planting trees and taking care of them.

I think about that because, you know, trees take a while to get stuck, right? And that means they need to know that they're going to water it regularly. They're going to know how to do the little donut and all the things, right? And so it's not just go buy a tree and put it in the ground. There's more to it than that. And I worry about the fact that we... we may not be thinking about that or we should be thinking about that as like a sustainable practice over the course of now that we're in two year budget cycles and things of that nature that we actually plan ahead for those kinds of things so anything you can give us to understand what that's going to look like you know two four six years down the road if you want to do an education program then we have to follow it up with making sure all those trees we invested in are maintained so they actually stick and grow and mature right okay i appreciate it thank you really fun i have only scratched the surface i'm sure there'll be more questions appreciate it thank you councilmember thank you others all right thank you both very much i appreciate it

Council, we've heard item 5.1, I would look for action. Specifically, I'd look for a motion to approve and adopt the Urban Forestry Master Plan and to direct staff to take all action consistent with its recommendations and any official direction given on the record by the City Council.

So moved.

Second. Motion by Council Member Robertson, second by Council Member Kite. Lohman, thank you. Yeah, one of them. Council Member Lohman with the second to approve and adopt the Urban Forest Master Plan. No further council discussion on this? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you much. And thank you to your staff for the work that they put in, and thanks to our consultants who led us through all of this. Well done. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. Item 5.2, Council, a study item. This is regarding minor policy updates for our annual Miscellaneous Issues Ordinance. Mr. Dakota Castenday is here. for this very exciting item.

Yeah, good evening, Mayor and Council. So yeah, here on a study item just to kind of talk about six minor policy updates that we were considering for this year's Miscellaneous Issues Ordinance. So just as a reminder for Council and then for the benefit of the public watching, every year staff review our zoning code to correct any grammatical errors, we call these cleanup items, and then look to see if there's any further clarification needed on policies that we would consider kind of a relatively small scale change and call those a minor policy update. So those are typically things that we're already doing and just wanting to further memorialize. They don't really require a lot of staff time or research, so They don't necessarily warrant a separate project on the Planning Commission work plan every year. And just as an efficiency measure, we compile all of these items into one ordinance for the Planning Commission and City Council to review. So we'd bring that later this fall. We have 16 cleanup items and six minor policy updates that we were looking at in this year's ordinance and then tonight just talking about those six minor policy updates. Just as a kind of timeline and kind of the process a little bit, you know, we collect ideas from staff who are in the code every day and come across things that might need to be corrected. So we're collecting that feedback all throughout the year. And then our planning division leadership meet with our legal staff to finalize that list and determine kind of what warrants a minor policy and kind of what's a more grammatical cleanup to get on the same page. then our planning division staff kind of research and draft those concepts so we bring them to a study session for your feedback and kind of direction on whether or not to bring it in a formal ordinance or not and then if if you so choose we'd anticipate kind of later this September to bring that back in a public hearing So just as some examples of a cleanup item, correcting in, for example, it's correcting an incorrect code reference in our home business code section or adding like two or three words to our limited use definition to just kind of further clarify what we mean. Those are the kinds of things. So we don't typically bring those to you all in a study session and just kind of present that in the final ordinance. And then tonight, these kind of six minor policy updates. So each one of them is pretty unrelated from one another. So it's probably easiest if we just take it one at a time. So I can kind of just give some of the context and then really these first three, we have like a specific discussion question and then the other three are pretty general, more of like, do you like this direction? Do you not like this direction? Do you want us to move forward or not? Just kind of more of a general temperature check. So the first item tonight relates to requiring odor control standards for cannabis businesses. So The city has added an odor mitigation condition on all our conditional use permits that have come through for cannabis cultivation and manufacturing uses, particularly when they are within a certain distance of a residential neighborhood. And this is similar how we approach it to restaurants and other things. So while odor can never be fully removed, we have tried to get odors mitigated as best as they can. And so staff just believe it's kind of best practice to, if something we're kind of very consistently putting as a condition on a conditional use permit, to formalize that into our code to just help set that expectation for applicants around all of the different requirements and then this also just helps to support if in the future any kind of conditional use would become a permitted use in the future we still have this kind of requirement there to cover when we don't have that extra step of a conditional use permit to require THINGS. SO REALLY WHAT THIS PROPOSED AMENDMENT WOULD DO IS TO REQUIRE ODOR MITIGATION FOR ANY CANNABIS BUSINESS THAT'S WITHIN 150 FEET OF A PROPERTY USED AND ZONED RESIDENTIALLY AND THIS MIMICS HOW WE TREAT THIS FOR RESTAURANTS AND OTHER USES AS WELL. And again, would just help clarify that a permitted cannabis use, not just a conditional cannabis use would be required to have odor mitigation when near residential property. So really the question, the way it's phrased here is for any cannabis business, and that would include retail. Typically retail doesn't have odors like that, and so we've just added this condition on the cultivation and manufacturing. But I think for just ease of like reading the code, we put cannabis businesses here. But I think we were just kind of posing this question to the Planning Commission, City Council, if you're kind of okay with this direction of adding the 150 feet. And then should that just apply to all cannabis businesses or really just focusing on those more industrial uses where there are odors?

Council questions, comments? Council Member Nelson?

Thank you, Mayor. What is our existing, not setback, but distance between a cannabis facility and a residential property? Because I thought we had distances from like schools, daycares, things of that nature. Do we have a distance between residential or existing?

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember Nelson. So there's not a specific buffer from residential like there is for schools or Um, I think it's like areas where children can congregate, so like parks and things. So then if a business kind of meets all of those buffers, is outside of all of those buffers, and is in a commercial or industrial zoning district where it may be allowed, it just has to meet then the setbacks of that zoning district from the property line, but there's not an additional buffer from residential neighborhoods.

And my last question on this one, when you say as measured from the location, Do you specifically mean where it's vented? Because it says where cannabis related odor is exhausted. So do you mean specifically where on the plan it comes through the building structure to be vented or is this from a property line or from the building or something of that nature?

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember Nelson, it's from where it would be exhausted from the building. So wherever that kind of exhaust pipe or whatever it might be on the building. And we kind of set it up that way to just, I think, have something a little bit more specific to measure from. Typically, we'll get that level of detail through the building permit and those application processes. so it's measured from there then to the nearest wall of a residential dwelling so it doesn't actually it's not related to the actual like property line or setback there it's from kind of where it's exhausted in the building to then the nearest residential like dwelling

Mayor just quick follow-up and I don't need a full explanation is is that the same that we had handle order order from restaurants it is okay yeah thank you yep that's all I need Councilmember Robertson and Councilmember D'Alessandro

Thank you, Mayor. Excuse me. And I don't know if you can answer this question, but thank you so much for trying in advance. Does staff anticipate there being any reason why it would be more beneficial to have this 150 feet requirement apply to all cannabis businesses, retail included? Or does staff anticipate that it would be easier for retail to be excised from that requirement?

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember Robertson. Yeah, I think from a staff perspective, we would prefer it just on cultivation and manufacturing uses and to exclude retail, just because there aren't typically like odors like that outside of the building at a retail space. But I think, yeah, just for the purposes of this discussion and kind of clarity of reading this in the discussion, we just put all cannabis businesses, but staff would recommend wanting just for cultivation and manufacturing.

Perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

And for the record, I would agree with that completely. I don't know why we'd limit retail when there's no odor coming out of retail. It's not like a restaurant. It's a store. Councilmember D'Alessandro.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have one use case that might apply. This is what I wanted to ask about. Thanks for being here. I don't know if this is allowed in Bloomington, so maybe I'm wrong about this, but if you are in a dispensary and you smoke inside That which you can do. And for example, if you have a tobacco place, you have people who are smoking inside the tobacco place, there's oftentimes a humidor and a cigar lounge and that kind of thing. I would think in that kind of a retail establishment where smoking is permitted, you might want this exhaust.

So that would be the one retail example that I thought of when I went through this.

Don't disagree with you.

Okay.

So to me, I think generally speaking, it's cultivation manufacturing. But if you are allowing smoking on premise as part of your retail dispensary, I think you would also then, my opinion would be you'd need to meet this requirement.

Okay. Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember D'Alessandro, I appreciate that input, because if you partake on-site like that, I believe in most cases it would be then considered a cannabis mezzo-business or cannabis micro-business, which would be different than a cannabis retailer. So I think that's only allowed in our TI zoning district, for example, so it's pretty limited to some areas along that.

lindale but um good to just we could probably cover that as part of the activation and manufacturing too so in case in case it needs to be explicit in that particular area then yeah thanks appreciate it yeah thanks anything else council so based on the conversations we had thumbs up to to move forward and then adjust based on the conversation we've had yeah thumbs up

Okay.

Onward. All right. Our second one is about establishing use allowances in a definition for car detailing. So under our current zoning code, a car detailing business would just be considered a car wash. Car washes right now are conditionally permitted in some commercial districts, and then it's only a conditional use in I-3s when along a collector or arterial street. So there's just very limited locations where a car wash is allowed. And so there's been a couple of instances where staff felt like a car detailing business was an appropriate kind of reuse of a commercial or industrial space, but it was not permitted. And so the applicant could not pursue that use. So with this proposed amendment, staff believe a distinction could be made between a kind of a more traditional commercial car wash that's more on kind of automated mechanical Uses has the dryers and different kinds of technology versus car detailing is usually done within kind of a garage Space or some kind of interior space and a lot of that cosmetic cleaning and things is happening by hand and then one of the other key differences Here is that car washes typically have more of a high volume vehicle throughput where a car detailing use is typically a pretty low volume in an appointment based kind of cosmetic service, so on this map just kind of shows or in this like proposal we would propose that car detailing be permitted in B 2 I 1 I 2 and I 3 and so those areas then are kind of shaded in black here so it would be permitted in industrial areas just north of Civic Plaza here some industrial and commercial areas along Lindale and However, they would be outside of those priority nodes that were identified in the Lindale Avenue suburban retrofit plan. And then there's a few pockets along American Boulevard and kind of West Old Shakopee Road where that could then be permitted. So really just, again, kind of getting a temperature check or if you feel like these four zoning districts could be feel appropriate for car detailing use. That's council.

Council Member Nelson.

Thanks, Mayor. In general, I think this makes sense. I just had the question about mobile car detailing, how that applies. I have a wonderful daughter who took out the groceries from her car one time, except for the milk. And so we hired a service that came to our house, and they used ozone and all sorts of crazy stuff, like Is that permitted? Did my daughter? I didn't do it. Did my daughter do something wrong?

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember Nelson, in some of those cases, that would be more, I guess, probably fall more under some of our home business requirements there. I'm not aware of any additional licensing that provider would need at this city. And then because it's more mobile, it wouldn't necessarily... be under this kind of definition there. I don't know if Planning Manager Johnson has any other kind of feedback, but I think that is separate and then is kind of handled through some other areas of code.

Mr. Johnson. I don't want to see that smell or that aroma from the milk. No, there's a large bucket of mobile services that people offer nowadays that the code is just generally silent on. I mean, if I crack my windshield, I can invite a repairman to come do my windshield here while I work at Civic Plaza and some of those things the code is just silent so unless they create kind of you know nuisance characteristics we generally don't regulate those things yeah thanks others okay yeah

All right. I've been told I can't do thumbs up but nodding heads are we okay?

Real quick on the map if I may Mr. Mayor. The black area that you've got there that's the Lindale retrofit section is that or is that the I2A1A2A3?

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember D'Alessandro, this map would include all four of those zoning districts. So, but yeah, primarily where you see kind of just east of 35W, that would be along Lindale. Again, kind of outside of those like priority nodes that are more of like a B4 kind of mixed use zoning district would not be allowed there. But in some of the more industrial areas, kind of just a block or two off of Lindale. Okay.

So just to be clear, there are four colors on the map. Each of them represent B2, I2, I1, and I3, but you don't give us the key.

So that's okay.

Just making sure I'm reading the map correctly.

Yeah. The map is like pretty small and on our existing map, like it's a shade of blue that you can't even decipher from like the scale. So I just kind of highlighted it.

Everything that's got a color is the area we're talking about, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you're asking, is there any part of this colored area that we don't think belongs?

Yeah, correct. Yeah, yeah. Are we good? Moving this one forward as well?

I think so.

All right. Yeah, then the next item relates to window requirement exception. So this one had a little bit more discussion at Planning Commission. So I just want to kind of make sure everyone's on the same page because it is kind of a nuanced rule in our code. So currently in three zoning districts in the B4, C5, LX zoning districts, On the primary facade of the building, there is a code requirement that at least 50% of the first floor, essentially it's the facade from two feet to 10 feet, so essentially the ground level or first floor of a building, it's required that at least 50% of that be transparent windows. However, in cases where a property wants to provide their kind of loading, storage, or back-of-house operations, and there's really no other place for them to go, and that ends up being on the primary facade, they can get an exception to the transparent windows if they provide at least two different kinds of embellishments of an equal area. And so it's currently, the current policy is kind of an all or nothing approach that they could get the exception for. What we had kind of got direction from planning commission, this got brought up through the arts incentive ordinance that came through earlier this year. and Planning Commission wanted us to look at it. So what we kind of presented to them was to not do an all or nothing approach, but to say that at a minimum, 25% of the primary facade has to be transparent windows and cannot be substituted. There wasn't really consensus from the Planning Commission on that direction. and kind of an acknowledgement of them wanting to just get rid of the exceptional together. And so staff had some concern with that approach just given it's kind of nice to have some flexibility built into the code like this because we just never know what the scenario might be where they just practically can't provide 50% transparent windows on the primary facade. So we would envision a lot more kind of flexibility requests through kind of a plan development. if this were to be removed anyway and so I think for just helping set expectations for applicants wanting to have some standard in the code so just kind of based on that planning commission feedback you know it just seemed like there was probably a little bit more work on our end to come to something so we would recommend no action at this time and just kind of leave it the way it is and not pursue a change but still wanted to bring that to the council to see if you had any feedback, whether you kind of agreed with planning commission, are okay not bringing something forward at this time. Just wanted to kind of get a temperature check again.

Thank you. Yep. I mean, my thought, council, is if it's not fully baked, I think, yes, keep, and that wasn't a cannabis joke, just so we're clear. uh i would say yes bring it back when when you have a bit more conversation on this but i do like the idea of the flexibility and and the consideration project by project but uh i until i think we have something um in a little more salad i think to to delay this one agreement there council

all right okay sounds good thank you um so then the fourth one uh is just clarifying the applicability of our tree preservation standards in our single family zoning district so this was kind of following our missing middle housing ordinance earlier this year kind of just missed one area that could use a little bit further clarification around tree preservation So currently in the code that it requires preservation and replanting of trees for any plat that's related to single family and two family residential development. And currently the code is just unclear on how plats of these new missing middle housing types should be addressed in the policy, particularly when they could be in the R1 zoning district. And so this proposed ordinance would clarify that plats for all residential lots, including three-family, detached townhouse, and cottage court dwellings in the R1, R1A, and RS1 zoning districts would be required to follow our tree preservation standards.

So this basically just catches up with the missing middle changes that we made earlier this year.

Yep, yeah. It was just one area that kind of slipped through the cracks a little bit to clarify.

Other thoughts, Council? Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's good sense there.

Okay, sounds good. All right, and then the fifth one, this kind of came from our commercial vehicle trailer ordinance earlier this year, so I don't mean to bring this back and not trying to open a whole can of worms, but one of the changes on there was kind of recommended from our environmental health staff that unfortunately just kind of, again, kind of got missed in the final ordinance. So the... Policy before the change was that a trailer could be parked on grass in a side or rear yard as long as it met certain setbacks. And that's how we approach recreational vehicles or RVs right now. This ordinance that got adopted changed it that if it was going to be in the side yard, it had to be on a legal driveway. and so environmental health staff are recommending we go back to the old approach to just allow trailers again in the side yard whether it's on a driveway or grass as long as it's meeting the setback so it has to have at least a five foot setback from um kind of that side yard and then a minimum of 30 feet from any rear side yard that might abut a street and so again this would just match what our um we currently do for rvs and so this is just kind of a visual representation from our RV handout to kind of show where those setbacks would be. And I guess I'll note too, if the trailer is parked on the driveway in front of the house, it can't extend more than eight feet in front of the house as well, which is what we currently kind of regulate for RVs too. So someone couldn't just kind of have it up in their front yard. If it was in the front yard, it'd have to be on a driveway and only a maximum of eight feet in front of the house. So really trying to encourage it in the side and rear yard of a property.

Thoughts, Council? So basically matching the trailers up with the RV requirements. Everybody cool with that?

All right, I think we're good. Sounds good. And then the last one here is just around adding application content requirements for our rezoning applications. So as you know, the City Council and Planning Commission have more discretion in a rezoning application compared to other land use applications. So we've often just had very limited content requirements or findings in our zoning code. And so we just staff anticipate there could be potential for more rezoning applications kind of related to missing middle housing projects or other things. And so we just wanted to establish some application material requirements just to, again, ensure kind of clear expectations for applicants. So what we propose here is the application form, an application fee, and a written narrative. And then if the rezoning is associated with a final site and building plan, which they typically are, we want to kind of package that all together. Then they have to also then submit the site plan or all those other things that are required with a final site and building plan. So this is how we already do it and what we direct applicants to provide in a rezoning application, but it's just never actually been like kind of written in code. So this would just be an opportunity to have us to point to something in code if someone were to push back on requirements. All right. I'll send this one, council.

Anything jump out? Again, pretty practical stuff, so I think it makes sense. Okay. Yeah. Sounds great. I'm sorry. We do have a couple. Council Member Nelson and Council Member Robertson.

Does codifying this as opposed to a practice provide any concerns for staff in terms of maybe they want to modify, and if they wanted to sort of modify that process as part of, you know, they're going through an internal review, this would at some point in the future be maybe – restrictive to them instead of just changing a process, they would have to come back to the council to change an ordinance.

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember Nelson, yeah, I appreciate that comment. And that was something we did consider. It's just currently our practice has been, like, in our zoning code, we do outline the content requirements for an application. So we do that for conditional use permits, final assembly plans. So if we wanted to go a direction or could determine eventually if we wanted to make that more of an application, INTERNAL POLICY VERSUS IN THE CODE, WE COULD DO THAT, BUT WE KIND OF JUST DID THIS TO MIMIC HOW WE'VE APPROACHED THAT HISTORICALLY IN OUR ZONING CODE.

YEAH.

COUNCIL MEMBER ROBERTSON.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. SO I HAVE A QUESTION. I KNOW THAT THERE WAS A RESIDENT THAT HAD BEEN LOOKING TO PARK SOME TREE TRIMMING EQUIPMENT THAT HE USED FOR HIS OWN BUSINESS THAT HE OWNED AT HIS HOME. WOULD THIS IMPACT THAT AT ALL? My apologies for the lack of details. I'm sorry, that's a very open-ended question.

Yeah, Mayor, Councilmember Robertson, I don't believe it would if they were just doing something at their property or if it was just equipment or something they were selling. That wouldn't really apply here or require that property to be rezoned from a residential property.

Councilmember Robertson, were you referring to the previous thing we talked about, the previous item about trailer parking?

Yes, I was. Thank you so much. Sorry about that. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah.

So, yeah. So then in relation to trailers, if someone had like some equipment kind of placed out in their front yard. Yeah, that would be a good question. I guess I don't want to speak for environmental health on how they've kind of interpreted and enforced some of that. Um, but I guess if it was on a trailer, that would be pretty clear that the trailer can't be, if we, when we, if we would adopt our kind of proposal that it wouldn't be allowed within, um, in the front yard like that. So, yeah, sorry. No, no, no, not at all. My apologies.

No, thank you. I'm sorry to throw that at you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Mr. Johnson, anything to add on that one?

Thank you, Mayor.

So getting back to the commercial vehicle ordinance, at that time, a neighbor or resident did present that piece of equipment, wondering if that ordinance would authorize that to be parked at their home. That ordinance did not authorize that. And the reason being is that that equipment did not meet our definition. of a commercial trailer. And so at that time there was limited discussion from the council about whether or not there'd be consensus to allow that kind of equipment. The slippery slope aspect of that is that we do regulate skid steers, front end loaders, backhoes, other type of construction equipment. I know that equipment was a little bit less tall and maybe less visual. IMPACT THAN SOME OTHER TYPES OF CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT. BUT JUST TO BE CLEAR, IF WE WANTED TO MOVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT FORWARD, I THINK IT WOULD TAKE AMENDING THE COMMERCIAL VEHICLE ORDINANCE TO ALLOW CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT BEING PARKED SUBJECT TO SOME CERTAIN SIZE LIMITATIONS OR WHATNOT. BUT WHEN WE WALKED AWAY FROM THAT EXERCISE, WE JUST DIDN'T BELIEVE WE HAD CONSENSUS OF THE COUNCIL TO MAKE ANY ADDITIONAL CHANGES RELATED TO THAT. SO JUST WANTED TO BE CLEAR.

PERFECT. THANK YOU.

COUNCIL MEMBER DEL

I had an item on the one we were on before we went back, if that's okay.

Could we jump up to the next one, the final one? Yeah. There it is, that one. Yeah, back to their rezoning.

Thank you, appreciate that. So I wanted to just double check. I'm assuming this is true, but it says complete description of the purpose and the purpose of their zoning, so on and so forth. Do we give them a form to fill out there? Is it standard what we give them as opposed to I can make it up and give it to you and then you have to figure out whether or not I gave you all the information that you needed?

Yeah, Mayor, Council Member D'Alessandro, for that requirement, we don't have a specific form for them. We just require some kind of written narrative about the project and why they, in this case, would be requesting a rezoning. So we do that for all our applications. So it's just we kind of work back and forth with the applicant to make sure they're providing enough detail kind of information. Usually it's a paragraph or just a couple bullet points on kind of that.

And it's intentionally left open-ended so that you can kind of get the gist of it without having to go through some kind of a form.

Okay. Yeah, that's correct. Yep. Great. Anything else, Council?

Council Member Lohman. Just want to comment on what a nice job that was done, you know, putting this together. And I really like your shirt. It's sharp.

Sounds good. Council Member Nelson.

You seem surprised. After eight years, I don't know why. I know it wasn't on here, and it may not be a good practice, but I did have one other thing that might fit in there. We had earlier someone who had asked about siding materials on a detached garage, and there is... in that significant amount of ambiguity about what consistent or complimentary means within that is that an item that we could at least look at for getting cleaned up because you know I can put brick on the front of my house and then lap siding on my garage because I ran out of money or whatever reason but you apparently can't unless the city through their discretion determines that it's complimentary or something like that. My concern is it puts staff in a bad position to have to make a judgment call that then someone's going to come and say to the council or planning and contest. think you guys would know my the direction i would prefer to go but the biggest thing is i just want you guys to have that consistency if it isn't the direction that i'd want to go on it in terms of the flexibility and you know kind of the permissive nature of letting people do what they want with their property that that's fine just give staff the ability to say, hey, here's the rule. Like you were talking about earlier, we can point to this rule, and that's why it is. I mean, we could change the rule, and as far as I can tell, that takes three to ten years to change a rule in a city. So... I just don't know if that's an easy cleanup.

Yeah, if I can speak on this one, this one does animate me a bit. So yes, we share a distaste for regulations that are subjective or put staff in that position. And I will say staff is put in a bad position on some of those regulations. I think what would be helpful for us to know is that there's a lot of these pre-made sheds and products. Nowadays, they're even at Costco, at the Home Depot and whatnot. What we would like to know is, are these products acceptable as accessory structures in Bloomington? and you're going to get a lot of different opinions on whether they're acceptable because frankly the current language is difficult to enforce and interpret we interpret that those structures don't meet our standards and it's not just for aesthetic appearances for durability but they're very widely available and residents do want to install them so we do think that this is a ordinance that does need looking at so i appreciate the comment

maybe keep it on the list of potential work plan issues. It seems a little bit bigger at this point, but I, I've been concerned about just that subjective nature of it. And I mean, people get, People get upset about that because their subjective opinion of what they want is much different.

I agree. Okay. Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Mr. Cassidy, thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate your feedback tonight. Stay cool in the warm weather, and then we'll be back in September probably with public hearings and formal ordinance.

Sounds good. Thank you. Also, our final item tonight is the council policy and issue updates. I'll kick it off with a review of our listening session we had earlier this evening. We had six speakers. Mr. John Hickman talked about the Nine Mile Creek work that's underway right now and offered suggestions and ideas about how to better engage the community in terms of what's going on and how we inform and get that feedback and so on. John offered some good suggestions, and I think staff was taking some copious notes, so we'll see. I'd like to see that move forward. Dana Sembalnik talked about the Adora Apartments project proposal. She talked about a number of concerns in the neighborhood about that, from parking to traffic to lack of green space and so on. The proposal there, the Adora Apartments project, is literally at the starting line, and so we've got a lot of work to do on that, and we'll, I know, keep the community involved and be listening to the community as we move forward on that project. Chris Wickland... brought forward what I thought was a new one for us, a new one that I had heard about a neighbor with a high-frequency pest deterrent system that is affecting both her family and her pets. And so staff is going to look into this one because this was brand new to me, and I'm not sure exactly what we have on the books to address this, and we will certainly work with Ms. Wickland and the neighbors to try and figure out a solution there. Both Mark Hanson and Kevin Johnson spoke about the Amden Ridge Drive development, the Olive Isle addition. I think it goes by a couple of different names. And their concerns about that possibility of The lot separation and turning that into a separate lot and setbacks, a lot that we talked about earlier. And as we talked about, we were going to pull it off until the 20th of July and bring it back and get some more questions answered to this, to the questions that we had. And Sally Ness spoke about the Smith Park Shared Use Agreement. That is what we had, another good, successful listening session. We had a full house, and thank you to everybody who came out. The only other item that I want to bring forward, Council, so a couple weeks back we had Pride. Last week we had Juneteenth. We've got Summer Fed coming up. The Farmer's Market is underway. I think the Wednesday concert series starts in a week or so. Bottom line to our neighbors, to everybody in this community, get out and enjoy your community. Despite the current external sauna that we've got going, it's the best time of year in Minnesota, and it's a great opportunity to get out and meet your neighbors and enjoy and take advantage of all this city has to offer. So get outside and enjoy it, because before you know it, it's going to be gone. So that's what I have. Mr. Walker.

Oh, yeah. Good evening, Mayor, members of council. A couple updates for you this evening. I want to remind you and the community that early voting has now opened here at Civic Plaza. That's open through August 10th, 8 a.m. to 4.30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Then there will be special hours on Saturday, August 8th, when they will be open 9 to 3, and Monday, August 10th until 5. Again, here at Civic Plaza, there's also two curbside voting spots. I went and secret shopped this today, did a little voting myself. It's fast, it's friendly, it's easy. So encourage folks to come take advantage of that. Just want to make sure I'm out ahead in case there's any worries or concerns. The Bloomington Family Aquatic Center was closed yesterday. It has nothing to do with leaking at the pool. A car hit a utility pole and took power out. Our park maintenance staff and Xcel Energy worked through the night to get power restored, and we were back open today, and I'm sure there's a lot of happy parents. You know, it was mentioned several times tonight, and I know the council's been getting a lot of emails about Nine Mile Creek, I just want to encourage our community, go out and take a look at the Bloomington Forward website. We've added some new content in the last week. There's a new video that talks about the science behind the restoration, what the project deliverables are. So it really goes into the why and the how come behind that. We've also updated our frequently asked questions. We've also put previous council updates on there as well so people can see the lineage of how this project came to fruition and all the updates that have been shared. So good information there. I understand this is a project that people care deeply about and they should, and we'll continue communicating with folks about that. And the last thing I want to add is just to our city staff who are out there working in this heat, I'm in convenience for about 30 seconds, walking in each day. A lot of our folks are out working eight or 12 hour shifts in this weather. And I want to thank them for the work that they're doing to continue serving our community.

Agreed, Mr. Walker, and thanks for that shout-out for our city staff. And agreed, take care of yourselves out there also. Be safe because it's nothing to mess around with. And that poor pool is just cursed. The pool is cursed. But it is open, which is good news. Anything else to add, Council? Council Member Robertson.

Thank you, Mayor, and yay for the pool. I know my kid is going to be very, very happy that it's back or that it's running and it's not down for the count. I just wanted to add really quickly that last week, Mr. Walker, Councilmember Rivas, and I were able to attend the League of Minnesota Cities Annual Conference in Rochester. It was a really great event, lots of good networking. We had really great education sessions, and it was a really great use of our time. I'm really grateful for the opportunity and just wanted to make note of that.

Good. And thank you for representing Bloomington there because I know they certainly appreciate it when Bloomington participates and is part of this. So well done. Thank you. Council Member D'Alessandro.

Mr. Mayor I have two items. The first one is related to a conversation that we had with a resident a couple of weeks ago. I do not know the history and whether or not this was ever thought of but something that we might want to consider is why don't we have dedicated park zoning? I've just kind of been curious about that since it was brought up a couple weeks ago. not that we should make every single possible thing zoned in that area but would it make sense to us for us to have a dedicated park zone considering it's done in lots of other cities and we've just never done it I know there's pros and cons to it and all but if we could kind of maybe get a study item underway whenever the work plan allows for it for us to look into why we don't have a zoning district for parkland I think that would be very interesting to know It does do, you know, when we want to designate it as park, like, I mean, I think we're all committed that we're never going to change that. And I'm not saying we would never change it, but maybe there's places where we want to leave it open versus places where we want to close it down and that kind of thing. So I know there's legal implications and there's all that stuff, but I think it would be worth us looking into if anybody has any objections with that. And I don't mean like urgently, but like in the next work plan cycle. Any reason? Okay, great. The second thing is, That's the... I commiserate, find your way through considering. And I know in the wintertime especially is ridiculous to try to plow snow there and everything else. Is there opportunity for us to look at a couple of different things? Again, don't know if historically we've done this and we've already turned it down. But like, why wouldn't we permit a section like an area like that where residents can get priority and we give the enforcement capacity a little bit more oomph? Why wouldn't we maybe, you know, if there are going to be regular large trucks or whatever in that neighborhood because there's residents there, why wouldn't we figure out how to permit those so that we know that they're supposed to be there versus the ones that aren't, you know? things of that nature in these really kind of tight areas where we're continuing to drive density I mean most cities of a certain density end up with like residential parking permits and other things like that and it's not because they're bad ideas it's because they're trying to prioritize resident benefit and so I don't know what we can and can't do there but it was another area where I do really want to appreciate they're not wrong. That is a terrible place in the world in our city to try to maneuver it really and anecdotally and firsthand information it is and so while I approved it because of that into their plan which is great right does not necessarily solve the overall problem that's been really lurking around there for decades now. So I don't know, can we think about something specifically?

That's a good suggestion at least. It doesn't hurt to look into it and try and figure out what the pros and cons might be and to consider it.

Yeah, I think they're onto something. I don't know what the right answer is, but that's definitely an area of challenge in our community. And there's great housing there. I mean, affordable housing there, good people there and everything. And I think they're just asking for some help. Yeah. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Anything else, counsel?

councilmember nelson thank you i just wanted to follow up on councilmember d'alessandro's thing about the um the parking in that area and particularly the like semi trucks because there are dedicated facilities to park your semi truck um the old uh ames construction facility right behind my personal office uh was turned into one and You know, people come in with their car, and they leave with their truck, and then they come back from their routes, and they park their truck there. There's one right along the freeway going into Burnsville in, you know, the dump district. I only say that because I got, like, three dumps, but... And they're building one much larger. But that's a different story. So anyways, I mean, I just... if there's something we can do on greater enforcement of that because there are options honestly for that and you know it should not be parked on the street there in that size so that may help mitigate some of the issues there in that area if we're actually seeing that problem so just you know sometimes people would rather park their work vehicles in their driveway and park their which I'm not against the vehicles, I've made that clear, but their work equipment, and they would like to park their work equipment, which I would consider a semi-truck work equipment, as opposed to just paying the normal and routine business costs of having it parked where it should be. So just adding on. Good suggestions. Thank you.

Anything else, counsel? We have reached the end of our agenda, council. I would look for a motion to adjourn tonight.

So moved.

Motion by council member Robertson, second by council member D'Alessandro to adjourn this evening. No further council discussion on this. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you much for the discussion, council. Thank you to staff for your work. Thanks to all the public who participated this evening. Everybody have a great week. We'll see you at Summerfest this weekend.