Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to this June 4th meeting of the Bloomington Planning Commission. The Planning Commission advises the City Council on development proposals, development standards, long range planning and transportation issues. Some items before the Planning Commission are study items where we will not take formal action. Other items before the Planning Commission are public hearings where we will take public testimony during those items and we do encourage that. You can do so here at City Hall by joining us in the Commission Chambers. You can also do so from home by following the instructions on your screen. ON SOME ITEMS, THE PLANNING COMMISSION HAS FINAL DECISION-MAKING AUTHORITY, WHILE IN OTHER ITEMS, THE CITY COUNCIL WILL MAKE THE FINAL DECISION, AND THE PLANNING COMMISSION ACTS IN AN ADVISORY CAPACITY. THE PLANNING COMMISSION IS MADE UP OF SEVEN VOLUNTEER RESIDENTS OF THE CITY OF BLOOMINGTON. EACH PLANNING COMMISSIONER HAS BEEN SERVED HAS BEEN APPOINTED BY THE CITY COUNCIL TO SERVE A THREE-YEAR TERM WITH A TWO-TERM LIMIT. ALL SEVEN COMMISSIONERS ARE PRESENT THIS EVENING, SO WE DO HAVE A QUORUM. OUR FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS THIS EVENING IS THE PLEDGE OF I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, Item number one this evening is a public hearing. It's for a conditional use permit for a Type 2 home business at 8924 Mount Curve Road. And Mr. Dylan Palmer will be joining us with a staff report.

Good evening, Chairman and Commissioners. Again, Dylan Palmer here to present item number one tonight. This is a type two home business conditional use permit, which is for a dance school located at 8924 Mount Curve Road, which is in West Bloomington. So before we begin, I want to give you a little background on why this is even in front of the Planning Commission. So in Section 21.302.13, we define our home business standards. And in those standards, Dance School is classified as a Type 2 home business. It's explicitly called out in the code. A CUP is required for any Type 2 home business in the R1 Zoning District, which is where this property is at. And in addition to the CUP being required, there's this little clause in there that says the Planning Commission may approve the typed home business activities in accessory buildings or garages if it finds that the proposed activities would not alter the residential character of the neighborhood if performed within the garage. And in this case, the applicant is proposing to hold the dance school inside of a garage. So that's why we're here presenting this tonight. So just a little bit about the site. This is the site 8924 Mount curve Road Closest major road is East East Bush Lake Road. This is just south 80 of 86 Street Next the zoning and the guide plan zoned are one the entire neighborhood around it is also zoned r1 And then it's guided low density residential also surrounded either by low density residential guidance or conservation guidance. I This is the site plan of the home, the gray diamond on the left there, and then the garage where the dance school is proposed to take place on the right, showing the driveway where vehicles will park, and then the student entrance located around the back side of the garage. And then just a note for you, all the streets in this area, there's no public parking allowed on any of the streets in this neighborhood, so they will not be able to have any visitors or students or anybody parking on any of the streets. This is a floor plan of the garage itself, showing the dance floor in the space. They're also proposing to add insulation, heating, air conditioning, and other improvements to make this comfortable for the dance students. We also want to mention that they need to maintain the ability to park one vehicle in an enclosed space. There's nothing in the code that says they must have an enclosed parking space, however they must maintain the ability. And I'll go back here to show you that they did provide us on the left hand side of that garage there where they could potentially expand the garage in the future. They do have room there and they are able, that would be a code complying addition that would give them that enclosed space. And then just some operations about our dance school operations details. No more than eight students at a time, and we did recommend a condition stating that. The classes will be held during the daytime. Again, the garage will be improved to be heated, air conditioned. The applicant who has joined us here tonight is the only employee. And then again, no parking is permitted on the nearby streets. And they have about four or five spaces in the driveway where they can fit visitor vehicles. Staff recommends approval of this application, and if you have any questions, I am here for you now.

Thank you, Mr. Palmer. We'll start with questions for staff. Commissioner White.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. I'M JUST CURIOUS, I DIDN'T NOTICE A RESTROOM ANYWHERE ON THE FACILITY AND I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE IS THAT A REQUIREMENT OF BUSINESSES AT ALL?

CHAIR COOK AND COMMISSIONER WHITE, THERE'S NO EXPLICIT CONDITION OR EXPLICIT REQUIREMENT IN ZONING CODE FOR RESTROOM FOR HOME BUSINESSES. I CAN'T REALLY SPECULATE ON WHY THAT WAS NEVER ADDED INTO THE HOME BUSINESS CODE. HOWEVER, THE APPLICANT CAN SPEAK TO WHERE THEY WOULD NEED TO GO, PRESUMABLY JUST INSIDE OF THE HOME, WHICH IS DIRECTLY ADJACENT TO THE GARAGE.

COMMISSIONER MUNSTER.

THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN. SINCE WE'RE ON THIS PAGE, I'M TRYING TO RECONCILE THE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL WITH THIS FLOOR PLAN. So one of the conditions of approval is, as you mentioned, that there has to be space for one vehicle to park within an enclosed area. So until a future garage addition is built, this would have to be modified to essentially only have half of that floor, correct?

Chair Cookton, Commissioner Munster, that's correct. So what they would have to do is more or less modify I don't know the exact mechanisms of how they would do it, but fold up the dance floor basically to fit one vehicle in the garage. So with these modifications, I believe that it'd be a possibility that they could do that before the garage would have to be built.

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Johnson, anything to add?

YEAH, CHAIR, THANK YOU. IF I CAN JUST ADD A LITTLE BIT OF CONTEXT TO THAT. THE INTENT HERE IS THAT THE APPLICATION IS NOT MAKING THE SITE LEGALLY NON-CONFORMING FOR OUR PARKING REQUIREMENT. THERE'S MANY HOMES IN BLOOMINGTON THAT UTILIZE THEIR GARAGE SPACE FOR A WHOLE WIDE VARIETY OF ACTIVITIES AND USES IN THEM. AND SO THE INTENT HERE IS JUST TO ENSURE THAT THEY'RE NOT CREATING A SITUATION WHERE THEIR PROPERTY IS NOW NON-CONFORMING TO OUR PARKING STANDARD.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FOR STAFF? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Palmer. This is an opportunity for the applicant to speak. If they wish to, please step forward and state your case. Good evening, if you could introduce yourself to us, please.

Hi, my name is Michelle Vahge.

I'm Rob Boggy. She's the star. We don't necessarily have anything particularly to share, but happy to answer any questions.

I think we did have a couple of questions I heard here during the discussion. Anything to comment on as far as the parking space or the restroom usage?

A restroom usage would be in the house. And then parking space, yes, we'd make it so that it would be possible to park a car inside the garage where the dance floor could either be removed or folded up and just put off to the side so we can make room for another car. Great.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Seeing none, there is a sign-in sheet. If you could both sign in for us for the record, please. I'd appreciate it. And thank you for joining us. This is a public hearing, which I will open now. And I'll ask if there's anyone in the chambers who wishes to testify on this item. Seeing no one stepping forward, is there anyone online?

All participants online are staff.

Thank you, Ms. Brown. If there's anyone in the chambers who wishes to testify, you're still welcome to come on up. Come on up to the mic so the people on TV can hear you.

Mark and Mary Schwartz.

We live right across, we're on Lakeview. So we're literally three houses away. Okay. And we support their petition.

Great.

So we're just here as support.

Excellent. And now you get to sign in on the sheet.

Okay.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in the chambers who wishes to testify on this item? Seeing none, I'll look for a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

Second. We have a motion and a second to close this public hearing. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That motion passes 7-0. We'll move into discussion. Commissioner Cunningham.

Thank you, Chair. It seems pretty straightforward to me. I think there's maybe a few home businesses that my wife has sent me to to pick up Facebook Marketplace crafts that are not under a conditional use permit. So I'm thankful to the applicant and staff for working this out and I THINK IT'S A GOOD USE OF SPACE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL. SO I'M IN FAVOR OF THIS.

THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER CUNNINGHAM. COMMISSIONER LENATE.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. I ALSO AM FULLY SUPPORTIVE OF THIS AND ALSO WOULD LIKE TO SAY THAT IT'S NICE TO SEE THAT CLEARLY THEY'VE DONE A LOT OF GROUND WORK WITH THE NEIGHBORS FOR ALL THE SUPPORT WE'VE RECEIVED VIA E-MAIL AND WHATNOT. SO I'M FULLY SUPPORTIVE OF THIS AS WELL.

THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER LINETTE. I REVIEWED THIS ONE AND I DO GET A LITTLE HUNG UP ON THE PART ABOUT WOULD NOT ALTER THE RESIDENTIAL CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD. I DON'T WANT TO BE THE GUY THAT'S NOT ALLOWING HOME BUSINESSES AND WE HAVE AN APPLICANT HERE THAT'S HERE IN GOOD FAITH AND WANTS TO BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR AND ALL OF THOSE THINGS. I BELIEVE THAT 100%. I will say it gave me pause and what concerns me a little bit is that there's no parking on the public streets that's going to take a lot of work for the applicant to make sure that her customers are parking in the driveway and that's that can be tough and if there's not enough room and then there's a fire truck or whatever like we've we've created a problem and so I don't know if I'm for or against it. It's given me pause, but as a planning commission, we do have to take a look at these things with a critical eye and say, are we potentially allowing a problem where if customers are parking on the street, even for a few minutes, if another student in the class needs an ambulance and now the ambulance can't get through, We did that. And so we do have to be careful on these things. And so what I will say is it's giving me some pause. Commissioner Lanai?

I hear you. I think the thing I would say that in the applicant's application that got me around that issue is the fact that the students are all children, and so the driver, if there are cars there, even for a few minutes, that the drivers of the car will be with the car at all times. I don't, it doesn't sound like it's a situation where someone will be parking and leaving their car. And so in a circumstance like that, where an emergency vehicle needs to get through or something like that, by my reading of the application, the driver would be, if not in the car, within feet of the car at any time.

Thank you, Commissioner Lanai. Other thoughts? If not, I would entertain a motion. Commissioner Cunningham.

Having been able to make the required findings, I move to approve a conditional use permit for a type 2 home business dance school located within a garage at 8924 Mount Curve Road, subject to the conditions and code requirements listed in the resolution.

Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second recommending approval. And in fact, I'm going to take a pause here. Okay, we are not recommending approval. We are making approval because the Planning Commission has the final decision on this application. So this motion is to make that final decision. Is there any final discussion? All those in favor of the motion say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That motion passes 7-0. As stated, this is a final decision of the Planning Commission unless an appeal to the City Council is received by 4.30 p.m. on June 9th. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Palmer. We'll move then to item number two, which is also a public hearing for Emerald Parachute LLC at 8200 Grand Avenue South. Mr. Kareem Sherrard is here with the staff report.

Hi, good evening, Chair, Commissioners. I'm here to present a conditional use permit for a cannabis cultivation facility at 8200 Grand Avenue South. The site is located adjacent to the Toro Corporate Campus. This is an overview of the site, where it's located. It's sandwiched in between West 82nd Street and West 83rd Street, towards the south. The proposed location is highlighted in yellow. This is our proposed location of where the cannabis cultivation will be taking place. I do want to note that parking is in compliance in addition to other standards that we have found to be in compliance as well. A little bit of background on cannabis cultivation. I do want to note that city council approved ordinance 2024.2, which established the cannabis cultivation to be attributed to agriculture indoor, which therefore precipitated that when this application came forth, this will be required a conditional use permit. So that's why I'm here before you. And I do want to note that a recent conditional use permit was approved for the same location for a cannabis manufacturing facility. So this would be the second cannabis use, but there is no conflicts that we have noticed and no restrictions on multiple cannabis uses within one building. In terms of the land use guidance and zoning, this is guided industrial and it's zoned I-3 general industry. The proposed floor plan, this is phase one. This is gonna be constructed within two phases. The first phase will have the operations in the upper right-hand corner. And then on phase two, they will have separated, segregated units where things will be manufactured. That's the current layout for the facility. And with that, there is compliance for odor mitigation, which has been a concern, and that has been addressed. The applicants who are here in attendance can speak more to that. Landscaping is in compliance, as well as lighting and trash. So with that, staff, we do recommend approval through the following motion.

Thank you, Mr. Sherrard. We'll begin with questions for staff. Commissioner Linick.

Thank you, Chair. Question for you. Is this the same company that we issued the previous CUP for, or is it a different company altogether?

Right. This is a separate company.

Thank you.

Commissioner White.

Thank you, Chair. I was just curious, and apologies, I read this a couple of days ago, so if it was in there and I had forgotten, I'm just curious about whether there's any concerns or requirements with agricultural zoning around water usage and disposal. I assume if you're cultivating, there's going to be a need to provide water, and I just want to make sure that that's been considered.

I CAN SAY DURING THE PRE-EP DRC MEETING THERE WAS NO CONCERNS THAT WAS RAISED BY THAT DEPARTMENT AND I COULD LET PLANNING MANAGER JOHNSON EXPAND ON THAT.

MR. JOHNSON. I CONCUR OUR UTILITY STAFF DID NOT FLAG IT AS AN ISSUE IN TERMS OF CAPACITY.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FOR STAFF? COMMISSIONER SUMMERS.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. The, so in your presentation, you said odor mitigation has been addressed. Is that the, I'm looking at the project narrative phase odor mitigation strategy, is that what you're referring to, the, like, that's the plan, or?

Right, yes, Commissioner Summers. Odor mitigation strategy will be implemented beginning in phase one and then of course through phase two. So during, at the onset of operations in odor mitigation strategy, which is referenced in the project narrative, that will be implemented before commencement of that use type.

Anything to add, Mr. Johnson? Yeah, thank you, Chair Cookton. If I can add, too, just that those systems are reviewed by our building and inspections division, the building official. So similar to the previous business that was located in this site, that system has to be reviewed by the building official and has people on staff who are familiar with mechanical and order mitigation systems. So they do review that. And then there's also a subsequent application that it be verified that it was installed correctly prior to occupancy and operation. So it's kind of a belt and suspenders type approach with it.

Mr. Schirard, do we have any other cannabis cultivation occurring in Bloomington or is it all other forms of cannabis businesses?

This will be the first one that I'm aware of.

Okay.

Commissioner Summers.

Can you verify for me, including the setbacks, about how far from the houses behind this building, how far away will this building be from those houses?

Yeah, so the location is right about in the rear yards to these buildings, and I would say that the setbacks is just right about in it. So that's why we're definitely encouraging and the auto mitigation strategy that's going to be in place. But that's what the setbacks are.

Mr. Johnson's been feverishly clicking and typing away here.

Yeah, and utilizing GIS, so it's not survey accurate, but a good estimation is that the homes range from somewhere between 80 to 110 feet away from where this tenant space likely exhausts from. So not from the wall of the commercial space, but in kind of the middle of that tenant space area, just judging based on the exchanges or the returns on the roof. So about 100 feet. Please.

Thank you. If this is our first cultivation business, how do we know that the odor mitigation works for this business as opposed to some of the other ones that are, you said building inspector staff is managing?

Mr. Johnson? Yeah, forgive me, Chair. So if Commissioner Summers, the system that they install has to be approved by the building official before they install it. And so typically there's some review back and forth in terms of them getting all the specs of the system that they're proposing, thinking about the space. They go through some calculations on the mechanical side of things. I have no idea how all that works, but I'm just kind of relaying what the process is by the building inspections division. So they would do that same process with this use basically. Yeah.

Mr. Johnson, in your long history here at the city of Bloomington, we've had other odor mitigation requirements, correct? I think I'm recalling a pet daycare facility and maybe other things. Is that correct? This isn't the first.

It's not the first. Chair and commissioners and restaurants is the most frequent use that have installed or deployed odor mitigation systems. And I would say of all the kind of different characteristics or dynamics of things that we review, From land use and development, odor is probably one of the most subjective or varies from person to person who is kind of consuming that odor is you'll get wide ranging opinion. If you have 10 people kind of in the same area, they might experience an odor very differently amongst the 10 of them. And so that's one of the challenges behind odor. Um, kind of this, uh, area of study or this, uh, science, if you will, is just that, um, kind of humans experience it very differently. So, uh, based on the research I've seen, uh, odor mitigation systems have been very effective in, uh, cannabis related businesses. I saw, um, reductions as much, uh, north of 90%. Um, but that's not to say that one individual might experience it differently than others. than just a typical person would. So it's a tricky one, I guess is what I would say. And the same goes for restaurants, you know, fryers, fry oil, hamburgers, all those we get, sometimes get complaints, not too frequently though. Yeah.

Commissioner Cunningham.

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Sherrard, we were talking a lot about city compliance. This is a cannabis business, so it's still subject to essentially the compliance with the OCM at the state level as well, right?

Commissioner Cunningham, that's correct.

Thank you.

Commissioner Munster.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to note that this is actually the second indoor agriculture for cannabis that we've seen. We saw one in January on West 86th Street. I think we had the same conversation then regarding odor.

Mr. Johnson, can I get a confirmation on that? In one minute. Okay. Any other questions for staff? We can come back to Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Sherrard. Yes, you're welcome. This is an opportunity for the applicant to come up and speak to their application if they wish. Please step forward. You could introduce yourself to us.

My name is Clarence Rattari. I'm the owner. I would say that smell mitigation has always been a top priority and a concern for me being a grower. So again, just being here in the city and doing it legally doesn't mean for me it goes away. I wouldn't be here if odor mitigation wasn't a thing. And I can just speak to that fact of it.

Great. Thank you. Anything else we should know about your application?

No, I just appreciate the opportunity and the time to be here. So thank you.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Seeing none, thank you, Mr. Vittori.

Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Chair. We did have one additional. You're very sharp, Commissioner Munster. We did have one additional cultivation application at 333 West 86th Street and also a multi-tenant industrial building.

Mr. Johnson, is that one in service or is that still?

It is not in service yet, no.

Okay.

Okay. This is a public hearing, which I will open now. And I'll first ask if there's anyone in the chambers who wishes to testify on this item. Seeing no one stepping forward, Ms. Brown, is there anyone online?

All participants online are staff.

Thank you very much. Final call for anyone in the chambers who wishes to testify on this item. Seeing no one coming forward, I'll look for a motion to close the public hearing.

So moved.

Second. We have a motion and a second to close this public hearing. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 7-0. We'll move to discussion. Commissioner Cunningham.

Thank you, Chair. I'm inclined to follow staff's recommendation here. Zoned correctly, guided correctly. IN COMPLIANCE, SOME GOOD CONDITIONS IN PLACE TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE THROUGHOUT THE LIFE SPAN OF THE BUSINESS. AND I THINK IT'S PUTTING OTHERWISE, WELL, APPARENTLY VACANT INDUSTRIAL SPACE TO USE. SO I'M IN FAVOR OF THIS.

Thank you, Commissioner Cunningham. I, too, am in favor of this. And this comes up fairly frequently on the Planning Commission where there's a bit of an unknown. Like, is the odor mitigation going to work or not? And we're not inclined to doubt an applicant who's come here with an honest application. They say they're going to address it, and we have no reason to think they're lying to us. And they are a business here in the city of Bloomington, and they've earned the benefit of the doubt and our trust. And I will be supporting this application. ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? COMMISSIONER WHITE?

THANK YOU, CHAIR. GENERALLY I SUPPORT THIS AS WELL. I THINK, YOU KNOW, THIS IS AN INCREASING TREND THAT WE'RE SEEING HERE IN BLOOMINGTON AND OTHER COMMUNITIES AROUND MINNESOTA. I WILL JUST SAY THAT I THINK THIS IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN THE OTHER APPLICATION THAT WE SAW IN JANUARY IN THAT IT'S CLOSER TO RESIDENTIAL. I believe the other facility was completely surrounded by commercial and industrial. So, you know, I do think that that is a valid concern to pay a little extra attention to the odor mitigation being so close to residential, but I think it appears that the application is in order and that every effort will be made, and I'm sure we will hear about it if it doesn't work. So I thank the applicant for being diligent.

Unless there's a complaint in the next two weeks, you'll hear about it, and I will not. Commissioner Munster.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I echo what everyone else has said, that I'm generally in support. The zoning is proper. The guidance is proper. If I may, I do have one question. Please. Just to clarify, Mr. Johnson, I'm looking at the list of conditions as they're written on the resolution. And prior to CO is verification of the installation and function. DOES IT HAVE TO BE REPEATED AS AN ONGOING CONDITION OR IS THAT COVERED AS PART OF JUST PROPERTY MAINTENANCE GENERALLY?

YEAH, THANKS FOR THAT QUESTION, CHAIR, COMMISSIONER MUNSTER. WE TYPICALLY WOULDN'T DO AN ANNUAL INSPECTION, FOR EXAMPLE, FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, BUT WHAT WE DO HAVE THE BENEFIT OF IS THAT IF THERE ARE INCREASES IN COMPLAINTS FROM NEIGHBORS, FOR EXAMPLE, WE DO HAVE THE ABILITY TO INSPECT AND THEN OUR evaluate whether or not the system is functioning properly if it's not functioning it was a condition of the conditional use permit and so if they are not uh you know meeting that requirement then certainly it could be a cause for revocation of the cup or some type of code enforcement action um so that would that would kind of be the the backup or insurance policy if you want to frame it that way yep thank you commissioner munster commissioner summers

I feel really hesitant about this application. In many of the other times that we have talked about cannabis, I've been really in support, including the agriculture application from earlier this year. And I'm looking at the land use and zoning to the north, south, east, and west. And we've got foundry, metal manufacturing, plastic manufacturing, and manufacturing landscaping. So I feel like this application is pretty different because those houses are really close to that building. And what feels complicated is that we are witnessing kind of the boom of these businesses, and I am excited about the opportunity to fill those spaces with products that serve people, and people are really excited to provide for the public. And I am, in general, really worried that people who are in the neighborhood might be dealing with something really different than they're used to. And it might also be that I have not had things come back that are issues with odor mitigation. I am feeling into is being a little bit nervous and a little bit worried, but also feeling like staff has provided some of the context as to why the finding was made that the odor mitigation is not just resting on the applicant to decide, but is a partnership between the applicant and the city. So I feel this is a really hesitant support from me. AND, YEAH, I'M JUST NAMING THAT.

THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER SUMMERS. COMMISSIONER RISA.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. I'LL JUST THROW IN MY TWO CENTS HERE AFTER LISTENING TO EVERYBODY. I FULLY SUPPORT THIS APPLICATION BECAUSE I TRUST BOTH THE STATE LICENSING BODY, I THINK THE OPM IT'S CALLED. OCM. OCM, SORRY. OCM. AND THE CITY, OF COURSE, AND EVERYTHING THAT THE CITY DOES. I THINK CONSISTENTLY SO FAR WE'VE VOTED IN SUPPORT OF THIS. I KNOW IT'S A NEW INDUSTRY LEGALLY. AND SO, YEAH, I JUST WANTED TO VOICE THAT AND I DEFINITELY UNDERSTAND COMMISSIONER SUMMER'S CONCERNS. WHEN I DID HEAR YOUR CONCERN, I THINK OF LIKE RESTAURANTS, FOR EXAMPLE, IN ON THE GRAND THAT HAVE APARTMENTS ON TOP OF IT THAT HAVE LIKE DEEP FRYERS AND THEY HAVE ODOR MITIGATION SYSTEM AND RESIDENTIAL RIGHT ON TOP. AND SO I, AGAIN, I TRUST THAT THE LICENSING BODY, THE STATE AND THE CITY WILL ENSURE THAT THE ODOR IS MITIGATED. SO THAT'S MY TWO CENTS. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER. ANY OTHER THOUGHTS? If not, I would entertain a motion. Commissioner Linnaeus.

In case PL20200068, having been able to make the required findings, I move to adopt a resolution approving the conditional use permit for a cannabis cultivation facility at 8200 Grand Avenue South, subject to the conditions and code requirements listed in the resolution.

Is there a second? Second. A motion and a second to adopt a resolution approving this conditional use permit. Any final discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes 7-0. This is a final decision of the Planning Commission unless an appeal is received to City Council by 4.30 p.m. on June 9th. Thank you very much. We'll move then to item number three, which is a study item. The City of Bloomington is the applicant regarding the Urban Forest Master Plan update. Mr. Dave Hansen, Assistant Director for Parks and Natural Resources, is here with us. And I apologize, we have a second speaker who I'm unfamiliar with. If you could introduce yourself as well.

Yes, my name is Dustin Jacobson. I'm the City Forester.

Welcome to you both. And we're happy to have you here at the Planning Commission and excited to hear this presentation. Thank you.

I'm excited to get started here. Thank you for the warm introduction. Look at that. I think I got it. All right. Slideshow from the beginning. Yes, thank you for the warm introduction, Chair and Commissioners. Dustin and I are going to go through a bunch of slides together. We'll take some turns. At the end, we're happy to entertain questions and comments and provide more information and clarity. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dustin.

Yeah. So city staff and Davey Resource Group have been working to develop this data-driven plan that will guide urban forestry for 20 years into the future. So we have a lot of information to share. We'll try to get through it a little quickly, but obviously we can dive into it a little bit at the end if we have any further questions that need to be addressed. Today we'll provide kind of an overview of the process that we did to develop this urban forest master plan and major findings that we did in the process. The Urban Forest Master Plan provides a vision, goals, and recommended actions to support the city's forestry operations for the next 20 years. directly to Bloomington's mission and vision statements. In our community engagement, people name trees as a reason why they love living in Bloomington. It's very much a part of the environment here that people move to our suburb for this amenity that we have. The urban forest master plan process kicked off last winter. The plan was finalized this spring and presented to the council for adoption in the end of June. The planning process directly engaged 231 residents and stakeholders in Bloomington who provided input via a variety of methods. At the February farmer's market, we presented the goals and actions of the draft action plan for community feedback, where we heard overwhelming support. In general, here in Bloomington, the residents understand the value of trees.

Over to me. When we talk about the urban forest, we mean all the trees across Bloomington, both on public and private lands.

So throughout our conversation tonight, when we refer to the urban forest, we're talking about all the trees.

Part of the project, Davey Resource Group completed a urban tree canopy assessment of private and public trees in Bloomington to measure trends in canopy cover citywide. As this slide shows, current citywide tree cover in Bloomington is 35%. And this all was done based on 2023 high resolution aerial data. This image shows that the tree canopy cover varies in Bloomington. The lighter shade is less coverage and the darker shade is Higher coverage, I don't think there's a lot of surprises in there. The lighter shade, the lightest of the lightest shade is the area near Penn and American at 1.5% canopy cover. And then the high shade, the highest or the darkest shaded areas are along Nine Mile Creek, representing 63% tree canopy coverage. To measure change, they went back and they looked at the same data from 2013. And over those years, Bloomington added roughly 390 acres of new tree canopy for a total of about 4.7% increase. What makes this remarkable is this is about the same period that Emerald Ash Borer was discovered in Bloomington and we were losing all of our ash trees during the same time period. So it's a combination of new trees and then of course trees grow. But this canopy analysis measured all of that. Canopy by zoning. The residential land contains about 5,000 acres of tree canopy and has about 2,700 acres of possible additional canopy area. And we'll get into what defines additional canopy area later on. The conservation area, the next bar down, includes our parks and green spaces, whether it's Fish and Wildlife or Three Rivers. That's about 2,400 acres of tree canopy and approximately 800 acres of additional room. You can see the dark green bar in the residential and the conservation areas. I feel like really close, I guess. But that represents the canopy change that we talked about, different in both areas. They also measure the tree canopy specific to street right-of-ways and found out that within the street right-of-ways, the canopy cover is 15% average across the city. This canopy increased by about 95 acres during that same time period, primarily from the growth of existing trees. Tree planting in the right-of-way is very limited in Bloomington. It's prohibited by ordinance, not encouraged, in fact, discouraged at this time. And at the same time, we were actively removing infested ash trees from the right-of-way. Also important to mention is that right-of-way tree canopy includes trees that are planted in the right-of-way, between the right-of-way line and the street. It also included canopy that stretched over that boundary over the street from a private tree that's beyond the right-of-way line, if that makes sense. Dustin's gonna talk about priority tree planting areas.

Yeah, so as part of the tree canopy assessment, they evaluated possible planting areas in Bloomington and categorized by priority level. Possible planting areas included bare soil, grass, low-lying vegetation where there's not currently trees. Obviously, this excludes ball fields and areas that would not be desired. A lot of open area that has other uses that wouldn't be desired. good for trees to be located in. Possible planting areas were prioritized based on the ability to reduce those urban heat islands, capture storm water, improve social equity, human health, and well-being. There are many other benefits that trees provide, but these are the benefits that are easiest to map. possible planting areas were subdivided then into individual planting spaces based on the size of the tree that the area could hold. So large, medium, small, what would fit best into that location. Most planting areas were on private land, totaling about 13% of city land area. Public land and right-of-way containing planting sites totaled about 4% of city land area each. These sites represented maximum planting potential. They should be evaluated closely on the grounds to determine suitability of trees. So this is, you know, possible interference with utilities, corners, you know, sightline issues that could be a potential issue as well. When we look at the priority of these possible planting sites, planting sites on private land and right away are pretty equally distributed across priority levels. So planting sites on public facilities are mostly very low priority for urban heat, stormwater capture, and social equity. You can imagine, obviously, where people are living, the homes, domiciles, that's where you're going to get the most benefit of human health aside from where people are recreating.

Talk a little bit more about Bloomington Street trees or trees that are in the right-of-way. Bloomington did, or Davie Tree on behalf of Bloomington, did a smart tree inventory using a car similar to that with some ground-mounted LIDAR or vehicle-mounted LIDAR. They drove all the streets in Bloomington. They captured 24,000 right-of-way trees growing along our streets. Once again, some of those were in the right-of-way and some were growing into the right-of-way. We'll talk more about that. If you follow that flow chart, YOU'LL SEE THAT AT THE END OF THE EVALUATION, THE INVENTORY IDENTIFIED 56 TREES THAT WERE PICKED OUT OR SELECTED FOR REMOVAL. AND ANOTHER 256 TREES WERE IDENTIFIED FOR PRUNING OR OTHER WORK. THAT'S THE LEVEL OF DATA THAT WAS CAPTURED. PICTURES, GEO LOCATED THEM, AND WE WERE ABLE TO FOLLOW THAT FLOW CHART AND END UP WHERE WE FIELD EVALUATED TREES THAT WERE OUTLIERS AND DETERMINED THAT WAS THE WORK THAT NEEDED TO HAPPEN ON 24,000 TREES IN THE RIGHT-OF-WAY. MORE INFORMATION ON THE SMART TREE INVENTORY. AS THE CAR WENT BY, IT TOOK FIVE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES OF EACH TREE. IT GAVE IT A UNIQUE IDENTIFIER. It gave it its latitude and longitude within a fraction of an inch. It created a digital twin on the right, which we can manipulate and spin around and look at in great detail. It's a super highly technical process that I don't fully understand, but it gives us all kinds of data that will help us make informed decisions going forward. It certainly helped us know what we have out there. We know the precise number of ash trees we have left on the the right of way, we know which trees that need the most work. And better yet, it's a repeatable process, so we can run this scan again in the future and measure change and see what work needs to be done next. I already talked about this. All this data can be used to efficiently plan and direct our limited forestry resources for efficient forest management. As an industry, we're still learning how to apply all of this. Even the people at Davy Tree are learning how to apply and utilize all this information. One of the things that it's going to allow us to do is move from A REACTIVE WAY OF MANAGING THE RIGHT-OF-WAY CANOPY WHERE SOMETHING FAILS, WE GO OUT AND TAKE CARE OF IT. OR WE HAVE TO REGULARLY INSPECT AND LOOK AT THIS. WE CAN RELY ON A SCAN LIKE THIS TO HELP PLAN OUR WORK. WE ARE AMONG A HANDFUL OF COMMUNITIES IN THE UNITED STATES THAT HAVE DONE THIS. THERE'S ONLY ONE OTHER ONE IN MINNESOTA THAT'S DONE IT SO FAR. SO IT'S REALLY NEW EMERGING TECHNOLOGY. Other things that we learned about the right away tree canopy is the makeup of the species that are out there. Unfortunately, a lot of the big players here are not great street trees. Silver maples get really large and can fall apart. They have shallow roots that can heave up sidewalks. Norway maples, blue spruce especially, is prone to wind throw. We know now what's out there. We would not want to duplicate this going forward and look to plant different varieties of trees as we think about planting right-of-way trees in the future. There's a lot of room to optimize right-of-way tree planting and avoid some of these species. Benefits of trees. The inventory and all the data that we collected does calculate the benefits of trees. If you add up all the pieces of that pie, the annual benefits from those categories that just our street trees provide is $183,170. trees you know we all know that trees do a lot of pollution mitigation and stormwater benefits uh... they provide shade and cooling all that stuff that's the good side of this the struggle is like dustin mentioned conflicts with utilities both above and ground below ground sight lines things like that all those planting areas that were identified were identified by space without consideration to the potential conflict. So as we go forward with any street tree planting programs, there has to be a really robust system and process in place for ensuring that each spot is viable. Talked about the makeup of species and now that we know what's out there, diversity and a variety of species is always a key to having resistance to catastrophic events. impacts like some of these pests have brought Dutch elm disease emerald ash borer so adding a diversity out there brings a lot of resilience to the canopy whether it's in a park in the community or on the boulevard part of the plan will be that a complete analysis of Trees that are viable in our climate. And we'll have a long list, Davey will provide, of choices for us to make as we consider replanting. All of the data that was collected in the smart tree inventory was put into an application called SmartTree.

Treekeeper.

That was going too fast. Treekeeper software, which is, here's a screenshot of it right there. Part of this can be made into a public dashboard so residents can view trees and we can share a little bit of information like is clicked on there on the right hand side. People can learn about the trees in their neighborhood or maybe the tree in their yard. On the back side, We can track all our inventory and manage it. We can manage work orders and workflow through this system and keep track of the whole urban forest. All those ecosystem services and benefits are also calculated in this application and could be put on a public-facing dashboard as like a side panel to show the value that trees are providing.

Forestry operations. Compared to more than 500 U.S. cities, Bloomington has fewer full-time equivalent staff members that conduct tree care. Tree care is most reactive in response. I kind of mentioned that before. We respond to emergencies, branches down, complaints, right-of-way encroachments reported to us. In recent years, most tree care conducted by parks has been removal due to EAB or emerald ash borer. In the future, we're expecting to see these numbers decrease as EAB moves through. Similar to 2025, if Parks is able to redirect those resources into tree pruning, that will help better care for our public trees preventatively. So doing some of that pruning ahead of time, identifying weak branch attachments and such will weed out some of those problems and storm events cleaning up afterwards. Park expenditures track with tree activities. Over the past three years, 77% of parks forestry expenditures have gone to tree and stump removal. Fluctuations can vary depending on plowing or changes in EAB activity. You know, we have a very snowy winter and we're doing a lot of plow events. We all chip in to do those types of things, and so that decreases the amount of tree maintenance that we're able to do. As well as, obviously, when we have a surge in disease decline, then we have to sort of bump up the resources that we're putting into removal. Among 463 US cities, including Midwest cities and cities of similar size to Bloomington, parks forestry expenditures were below average in 2023 and 2025. So in between there, the 2024 budget, we actually came in about average, and that was a high point for us. So when we were at our leanest, struggling to do as much as we possibly can, that's about when we reached our average expenditure amongst other cities. In 2025, 0.52% of the total municipal budget to be $1.26 million for all forestry activities by street and park maintenance. There's a lot of public demand for forestry consultation from the city. I can testify to that personally. Most of these are about right away and private trees. So public request percentages are for 2023 and 2025. Bloomington's tree ordinances date back to the 1950s, 60s, 70s. These are some key areas of misalignment between written code and current practice. Resolving these issues include updating code, changing practice, or a combination of both. Obviously, we have to respond to certain things, and kind of over time, I think we've tried to make things happen for what Bloomington residents request, and getting those in alignment with what our code would be would be extremely helpful.

So after all of the engagement and data collection, we came up, narrowed in on some action plan goals. So number one, staffing and resources needed along with future data collection to ensure sustainable maintenance practices will equal better trees at a lower ultimate cost. Increased planting on private property and adjacent right away is a way to support private tree stewardship. Aligning, Dustin just talked about aligning policies and practices, right away planting. How we approach private trees. Our emergency response plan needs to be reviewed. A pest emergency plan needs to be reviewed. There's tree preservation codes out there. Tree protection, protection for public trees has not been updated since the 60s. Aligning urban forestry with community goals. So establish goals for equitable canopy growth. Measure the canopy every five to 10 years doing canopy analysis and a right away tree inventory. And then with the priority planting areas, invest in planting where it makes the most difference. Increase the resilience of the urban forestry. I talked about that. Increase diversity. Make the public aware of the importance of this. Share this plan with the public. That's all part of that. And expand forestry partnerships. That includes with local groups, volunteer groups, community partners, watershed districts, energy companies.

Hennepin County.

Hennepin County. We have a lot of partners out there that we work with on trees. In the way of policy discussion that we had with the city council, we talked about right away tree program. We offered up those five different options. Number five being like a full service municipal program like Minneapolis has where trees are actively planted, maintained, taken care of by the community down to the status quo where we would maintain the existing trees and and discourage planting on the boulevard. The council's feedback was generally around two and three, so four, like a targeted city-wide program, but start small with a permit process. That would involve us, or require us to develop that plan. Sort of way of finding the viable spots and weeding those out that would be full of conflicts with utilities And then the city's role on private property So EAB has changed from a pest that can be managed to something that is no longer manageable and frankly, it's a dead tree problem. So we have backed off on managing EAB on private property in the same way that we did Dutch elm disease. Couple of reasons, we weren't able to cover the city completely equitably with the staffing that we had. We're no longer managing a pest. We do still offer a contractor and a way that we can help residents hire somebody and make payments on that. But we've ceased marking them actively on private property or scouting for it. It has freed up some time for all those inspections and things that we've done. I lost my spot here. As far as private property, we'll continue to offer the tree sale. We can look at making enhancements to that. We will look at how we interact with right away trees on private property or adjacent to private property. Right now the code says that those trees are the responsibility of the adjacent property owner and it's a mix of who takes care of them. Overall, the city council's in favor of an equitable and consistent approach to managing these private trees going forward. And one of the things that came through loud and clear, and other communities do this really well, is provide resources to residents to help them manage their trees, to show who's responsible for what the responsibility is of owning a tree. How to navigate problem trees. We are often called out to evaluate and provide opinion on private trees by one neighbor over the other. And that's just a place the city doesn't want to be. We don't want to be. making judgments on private trees. We don't have the staff to do that. We don't have the ability to do a thorough enough inspection. So there's ways of navigating that homeowner to homeowner. So we intend to provide resources available to residents to help them navigate problem trees. I think that might be the end. Yeah. So the next steps, our final design draft is being done right now. We do have a steering committee that we need to get back with and provide a similar update like we just gave you. We're going to go to the Park Commission next week, actually, and then the City Council at the end of the month for final approval.

With that, I think...

That's the end of the slides, so happy to entertain questions.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Hanson and Mr. Jacobson. Great presentation. I'm sure we have questions. I'll start with a question. As the Nine Mile Creek work has been occurring, I haven't followed it super closely, but one thing I do recall hearing about is that we perhaps overtreed and we're thinning out parts of the Nine Mile Creek. Can you talk about being overtreed and is that an issue in other parts of the city?

Yeah, great question, Chair. Thank you for asking that. When you're talking, when the context of the trees that we're talking about and have inventoried and are managing, they would be in the developed part of parkland. They would be in people's yards. We have also natural areas like the creek corridor, like the river bluff, certain other large parks that we have have wooded natural areas. Those are managed under a different plan. So we have a separate plan for managing 1,000 or 1,100 acres of river bottom property. And then we have a natural resources prioritization plan that guides us on all the parkland that's outside of the river. What has happened in the natural ecosystem over the years, generations, decades, is the lack of a disturbance regime that used to be there and be present that would keep certain species in check that's one thing so think of fire or large grazing animals they were always a key to keeping everything in equilibrium so we've eliminated that we don't allow wildfire to go through our woods anymore the grazing animals that had the largest impact are gone and then you combine that with invasive species like buckthorn You end up with like this really thick, thick canopy. And what has happened is the desirable native vegetation is suppressed from all the shade. Also, some of the keystone tree species like bur oak, really long-lived tree. There's a great population of it, like a remarkable population of it in the creek valley. their regeneration is suppressed by all of this. So when we talk about the Nine Mile Creek project and various tree thinning percentages, it's about opening that canopy up to get sunlight down to the ground to create better vegetation. So in that case, those might be fine trees, but they're in the wrong spot. And that sort of right tree in the right place kind of runs through our entire plan from end to end. So when we talk about the Nine Mile Creek restoration, some of those target plant communities are oak savanna. Some of those target plant communities are oak woodlands or hardwood forest. Oh. Sorry. So all of that will require some form of mechanical tree removal in general. Great. Thank you.

Thank you for the thorough answer. Other questions for staff? Commissioner Issa.

Thank you, Chair. And thank you for the detailed answer. SLIDES AND PRESENTATION. MY QUESTION IS IN REGARDS TO THE ACTION PLAN GOALS, NUMBER TWO WHERE IT'S DATED TO SUPPORT PRIVATE TREE OWNERSHIP. IF YOU COULD DIVE A LITTLE MORE INTO THAT AND MAYBE YOU DID WITH THE SLIDE ON THE CITY ROLE ON PRIVATE PROPERTY. I THINK IT WAS 2A. THAT MAY HAVE ANSWERED IT.

kind of your thoughts on how or if you could explain that further yeah thank you for the clear the question chair commissioner um i didn't go into a lot of detail on support of private tree ownership i mentioned things like resources for private property um to help residents uh understand their trees and deal with issues. Part of this plan is also a proposal to license tree contractors. So we would have a list of already vetted tree contractors that people could rely on to do their work. Continue the tree sale, perhaps enhance the tree sale, and enhance tree sale so a more subsidized tree available as a tree sale could be a way that we target those prioritized neighborhoods, those kinds of things.

As well as, I mean, sorry to expand on it too, just a lot of the stuff too I think about is just hiring the proper arborist company. You know, where do I go to? Like we mentioned, kind of some other cities have a little more how-to guidelines on their sites. Where do I look? What do I look for? Insurance requirements that type of thing trees in the law You know in terms of dealing with a with a neighbor that has some sort of a tree issue that you'd like addressed How do I how do I talk to them about this type of thing? So that they have the resources they need to kind of get through that without our intervention But can proceed through it more comfortably Commissioner

Thank you, Chair. And this is a 100% personally motivated question. This morning I was playing golf at Highland Greens and where obviously there were a ton of trees removed. How does it work when you interface with Three Rivers or the county when it's their land? Do they come to you and say, like, these are the 30 trees we want to plant? Does it fit into your plan? Or do they come to you and say, what 30 trees should we plant to fit into your plan? How does that work? That's the first question. And the second question is, Are there, is timing of, like if all the 30 trees are planted at the same time, the likelihood that they would, and they're the same species, that they would all hit the end of their life at the third year at the same period, is that factored in also? If you can talk a little bit about sort of how those decisions are made.

Do you want to take the Highland portion first? Thank you for the question, Chair and Commissioner. So Three Rivers also does this really well. They don't consult with us on what they're doing on their property, but they have their own plan and they are, I would say they're ahead of us in some of this natural resources planning. I do know that at Highland specifically, those were all ash trees. When they took it over, all those ash trees were in really, really rough shape. So they didn't really have an opportunity to do what we have called staged removal, which we've been doing since 2012, since it was discovered in St. Paul. We would go out and actively look for ash trees and parts that weren't doing well. and remove those here and there without, as minimally disruptive as possible. And we'd also do some pre-planting. I know Three Rivers wasn't able to do that at Highlands, so that was a big change.

And I know I just kind of unofficially piped in a little bit just when they were removing all of those to, you know, you're planting additional trees in here after these come out, correct? And, you know, just kind of nudge, nudge. And they certainly took those steps as well. I think it's obviously in their best interest to do that. um we've done that like david mentioned uh through the years of our kind of preemptive planting as well so we're you know likely we're going to end up with a little bit of a a cohort of similar ages over this last 10 years the benefits though is that we do have such a wide diversity of trees that we've been planting so obviously we're going to have some trees that are going to On the faster growth rate, they're going to capture that kind of main overstory role quicker. But then as those other species fill in behind it with varying levels of age, longevity expected out of them. I think we'll still be okay. I think if we were planting all of the same thing and we did have all the same growth rates, same longevity, we'd be in a much more difficult situation at that 60, 70-year mark, which tends to kind of see things slowing down.

Question. When the city removes ash trees, is it a one-for-one replacement? Are we always replacing that tree, or how does that work?

We do our best. Yeah. So obviously a lot of our removals have been in right of ways. The difficulty in being that we can't replant directly back in the right of way due to ordinance. But we basically were doing one-to-one within our park system as best we could in those open spaces that we identified that wouldn't conflict with ball fields and other uses. And we actually stayed pretty close to that one-to-one ratio. It started slipping a little bit, but obviously you just start running out of space in our park system that we, you know... we'd be planting on top of each other or not able to trim around and kind of conflicting with other uses if we were to stick with the one-to-one for that.

Thank you. Commissioner Cunningham.

Thank you, Chair. Two very not related questions, so I'll break them up fully. On the pest page you guys had, do we have spotted lanternflies in Minnesota yet? I know they're close.

Not that I've heard. Also worried the council a little bit, seeing those numbers and, uh, you know, that's, those are meant to just kind of represent, uh, the potentials. Um, you know, uh, longhorn beetle is another one of those that's, uh, you know, could potentially affect a lot of different varieties of trees. Um, But encouraging numbers that we've seen in places where that has happened, they've been able to really hone in on where it's located and control it. So some of that, those pests are better able to be managed as well. And certainly, like I wanted to point out too in this as well, The benefits of having sort of the survey that we've done and species counts is that we're now we would be able to proactively go after these species that would be identified. So a pest that goes after birch trees that now we have a full system that I can map out where birch trees are. We can go out and inspect them. on a targeted basis looking for that type of pest if it is found in Minnesota. Yeah. Yeah, emerald ash borer has been enough for me. I could go till retirement if I don't have to deal with another big one like that.

Second question, unrelated. One of the goals of this was to promote private tree development ownership. Can you talk a little bit about the, annual plant sale for those that don't read the spring Bloomington briefings. And then has there been any consideration given to expanding the marketing of that program?

Yes. Um, what I'll say is, uh, we've had, we've had great success with it over the years. Uh, kind of how we've operated. Originally we were doing more of a system, uh, you know, ordering the trees, we get them wholesale. Uh, we package them up. We, you know, manage the orders for residents to come pick up on a event, you know, kind of relating to Arbor Day celebrations. During COVID, we actually moved to doing deliveries and with overwhelming success doing that. So now we are definitely kind of, I think we've found that's certainly a great opportunity to get that done in a shorter timeframe. It's very efficient. I think resident satisfaction with it has been pretty well received. You know, my goal would be to add more diversity to the offerings and try to, you know, expand out different things. I think the challenge is that, you know, that staffing internally, that capability to move that type of product. You know, the... infrastructure necessary to to increase too much beyond kind of what what the levels we are right now i've certainly looked at what some other cities do and making partnerships with other groups you know like we've mentioned like tree trust and groups like that too that they actually will partner with other cities to offer both a spring and a fall tree sale operation so that's Definitely on my radar screen for how we can kind of manage this and, you know, bite-size pieces that we can manage and increase our capability. Thank you.

Commissioner Munster.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Excuse me. So first off, I just want to say I absolutely love that you all are tracking trees as assets. That way you can follow the maintenance sort of through their life cycle and know what's going on. Amazing. I have two questions. So for the permit process that could potentially happen, would that include both planting and removal permitting?

um chair commissioner yes so i i didn't look at it that way But if we are going to be making investments in right-of-way trees, then we would probably need to – that goes to the tree protection part of it. So it all predicates on whether they become officially public trees or not. We've looked at a variety of approaches from other communities. Some communities require a permit to do any work on a boulevard tree. We just don't know exactly where we're going to land on that. I can see pros and cons of all of it. Certainly, I think the most important thing is how do we come down on that tree ownership and true responsibility of the right-of-way trees.

My second question was in terms of resources that will be provided. You talked a lot about how to deal with existing trees, how to deal with problematic trees. Is there a sort of forward-looking goal of putting information out there for right tree, right place? So instead of going to Menards and finding one that looks cute, you actually find the right one.

Yes, another great chair, commissioner. Great point, I should have mentioned that. Yes, that is definitely an important part of the resources we would offer. And they're readily available. We just have to put them in a place where everybody can find them. Like the University of Minnesota puts out all kinds of information on these topics that would be really useful. Our job is just to gather it up and make it readily available.

I WOULD SAY THAT ALSO WOULD BE MY INTENT WITH PERMITTING PROCESS. I THINK THAT WOULD BE A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO JUMP IN. you know, somebody was suggesting this is what I want to plant, but then we can kind of work with them and, you know, potentially direct them towards maybe a more, a better fitting species for that location. So if there were to be utility interference or something, we can plant something smaller or maybe less labor or interference prone, I should say.

Mr. Johnson, anything to add? Yeah, if I can add to that, just a perspective from the development side is that we do have a supplemental landscaping guidebook, which provides a whole series of recommendations around species. It's not the most accessible document for residents, I would say, probably. So we definitely could develop more of those resources. But if I can share one anecdote just about kind of looking over the spectrum of my tenure here in Bloomington, more of the landscape architects and designers who are doing design work for development are the amount of natives and species that are more appropriate for this location and our climate here has really increased, and I would say in the last five years. So I'm seeing it on the design side where there's much more emphasis on native species. Commissioner White?

Thank you Chair. I have a question but I just want to say big fan, huge. I love the Bloomington tree sale. I have bought I think four trees and planted it and in spite of my inability to read the perfectly clear directions you sent the first year the tree is still alive. So thank you. I wanted to just talk or ask you a little bit about climate change. I think you know that the information that we've been seeing come out from the state climatologist is that by 2050, our climate is going to look more like about two to 300 miles to the south. And I'm curious about what impact you might see on the tree cover because of that and what you might be doing to adapt.

Absolutely. I can jump into that one. Um, that it's been kind of a forefront in my, my views actually over the last 10 years, really, um, and some of our species selection, uh, sort of our choices that we've done in our park system, um, that I've had the leeway to do some of those, um, additions that would, you species that you know kind of had been dribbled out like yeah we can we have urban heat island already we have the potential you know being in the metro area gives us a certain protection where we can be maybe a little more adventurous with some of our species Not as adventurous enough that I'm willing to, like, quite put them on to the tree sale in case they fail. But a lot of that has been happening. In case you followed, well, maybe the story's coming out. I'm jumping ahead of it. But we did plant... Three chinquapin oaks, three northern pecans, and three black gum trees, actually on the far east side of the plaza here, and three kind of towards the entrances by the police station. Um, and so far they are looking fantastic. Um, we've been doing a lot of things that, you know, we kind of watch to see how they make it through the winter. Can they survive some of this? Um, but that has been a big part in kind of looking at sort of those climate modeling goals. So even on the more conservative side, um, we're seeing a lot of those species that we have a greater ability to plant, um, And so part of it is sort of the buzzword is maybe assisted migration. So some of these trees and species that are to the south are expected to move north because of the climate changing. So we're sort of just helping that along. So we keep that sort of canopy growth happening in advance. But a lot of it too is going into sort of our, what we exist in, Some of the burr oaks that have survived over the last 250, 300 years in Nine Mile Creek have seen consistent climate changes over that 250, 300 years. They could potentially have the genetic stock. that would make them better adaptable even to that future climate change. So you're thinking just a plasticity in survival, what they're able to do. So we're kind of keeping those benefits that we have of the existing trees we have and sort of their flexibility in that old growth and bringing in certain new species that can supplement.

Commissioner Linne.

Thank you, Chair. This has been really interesting. And I'll just make a plug for on the information sharing. So my side, one of my many side hustles is I work at Bachman's. And like a lot of people who come in to buy plants, shrubs, trees, etc. They're really looking to the people working at Gertons, Bachman's, wherever. for recommendations on what's going to succeed. I think if there are things, for example, where the city would like to see more of a certain variety planted or less of a certain variety, there's probably some utility in sharing that with the big tree sellers in the community as well. Because I would say, in my experience, 85% of the customers don't have a specific tree in mind. They come in saying, I want to plant a tree in my yard, and I want it to succeed, and I want it to be low maintenance, and here's what I'm working with. And so I think if there are things that would be useful, particularly for the big nurseries, to know what it is the city is particularly interested in in particular areas.

Absolutely. I'd love to comment on that, Commissioner. That's also a problem that we deal with. Obviously, we have to receive our products from nursery growers as well. And what I'll tell you, certainly in the last five years and in the last two, especially since the USDA has come out with some of those recommendations and you know, our climate change predictions. I've actually heard from a number of growers, you know, what are you looking for? What are you trying to do? Some of it is even in projects that we've been doing internally with the city, Bryant Park, pushing, you know, can we supply some more of these sweet gum trees into the landscape where some of these landscapers have to then import them from Illinois, and they're looking across different regions for some of the supply for that. And as we build that sort of base where people are requesting it, those nurseries are going to follow. And I think that's kind of... part that we can work on together and getting, you know, the whole industry kind of growing with it. Because obviously the nurseries are going to grow what they can sell. And I think as we can develop stuff that's going to succeed, it helps all of us.

Mr. Johnson, if I could bring it back to planning for a bit here. So can you, for the folks at home, just speak a little bit to when we have a new development application that comes before the Planning Commission, we require some form of tree planting along with that application, correct?

Correct your cooked and so what they have to provide us is a landscape plan that demonstrates compliance with our quantity Or our amounts of trees and shrubs and sometimes perennial grasses that our code requires and so they provide that plan for upfront review and then before they get a building permit that plan gets approved and then Before they get the certificate of occupancy unless it's in the middle of winter all that material has to be installed and staff performs an initial inspection and And then one year later, typically, or at least one following one winter and one summer, kind of the most abrasive parts of the year for the new plant materials. We perform a second inspection to make sure the material has survived that period of time. And then the city also collects a financial surety. say the developer walks away from the project or is not to be heard from again, we have some financial resources we can use to fulfill whatever plantings that were not installed to get that done. So that's generally how our process works.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Not to put our park staff on the spot here, but are we doing enough? Could the Planning Commission be doing more to support trees with new development?

well i don't know thank you for the great question chair um i don't nick is a great resource for us um and i think we work really well together um i'll have to think about how the commission could help out in the future certainly supporting this initiative and um is a long way for that we're not asking for any kind of action tonight But we appreciate support within the organization and out in the community.

We have taken some swipes, too, in our ordinance to kind of address some additional plant materials, too. I think, you know, some of the wording and definitions for, like, some of the species recommendations is, you know, kind of tough to get, you know, that broader palette of some of those species that we'd like to see, maybe, that are maybe a little more on the fringe. I think... You know, attempting to make wording where it allows that flexibility of, you know, beneficial species that might not be native. But it's a tight, tight rope to try to walk there. So obviously we don't want to have another... you know, encouraging buckthorn hedges type of situation that we're encouraging plant material that's, you know, if it's not native, it's not invasive and it's not going to be a problem in the future.

Anything to add, Mr. Johnson? Yeah, thank you. One thing I was going to share from a policy perspective, that one thing that is in tension or that we do navigate a little bit, well, two things. One is when you're trying to promote more compact urban infill development, it means more impervious surface typically and less area for landscaping. So that's something that we're kind of monitoring and can be in tension at times. Another thing is just fire protection and public safety. If there's a lot of trees and plant material in between buildings, sometimes the fire department raises some concern or wants to review those plans to make sure they can navigate that plant material and effectively help people. So these are the things we're looking at. On the constrained site piece, we do have an option to pay a fee in lieu of in our code if you can't get all the material in on site, but we very rarely use it. Our preference is always to get all the plant material in that site. I think one of the only times in my tenure that we used that was for the XL substation at Nicollet and American because you can't plant trees in an electrical substation for legitimate reasons. BUT, YEAH, WE'RE STILL THINKING ABOUT OUR LANDSCAPING POLICIES AND HOW KIND OF MORE URBAN DEVELOPMENT INTERACTS WITH THAT, SO.

JUST A SIDE THOUGHT ON THAT, MR. JOHNSON, WE HAVE A VERY LARGE SHOPPING MALL ON THE EAST SIDE OF BLOOMINGTON WHERE I IMAGINE IT'S HARD TO GET A amount of trees that would normally be satisfactory to us. And there's potentially additions on to that mall. How do we how do we handle Mall of America and getting a decent amount of trees out there with a huge impervious surface like that?

Thank you. That's a good question. I am a little bit going on the fly here, but to a certain extent, I believe they are mostly compliant with a lot of our plant material requirements because they do have such densely planted perimeter areas and on portions of their site. Any new development areas, for example, when the water park project came through for its development entitlements a few years ago, that has since expired. But they did provide us landscape plans that would have been compliant with our code. So it is possible to still be in compliance, even with more dense development that has a lot of impervious surface. You just have to be thoughtful and have good designers kind of fitting all those puzzle pieces together. Yeah, I like trees too, so sometimes I have to go back and forth with other folks who would rather see some other design solutions on some sites.

No, thank you, and I don't mean to pick on our partners at Mall of America. They do a great job, and it's great to hear they're at least close, if not in compliance with what we would expect. That's wonderful. Any other thoughts, Commissioner Risa?

Thank you, Chair. Well, we're here on the policy side. I should throw in there. On the chart or the slide that showed kind of the five different options, just thinking ahead of policy. Was it street trees? I think four was like a citywide option. Five was. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep, yep.

I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS THE BEST TIME DURING THIS QUESTION OR IF IT'S FOR A DISCUSSION, BUT I JUST WANTED TO SAY I DEFINITELY SUPPORT MORE OF THE FOUR OR FIVE, FIVE IF FEASIBLE, BUT MORE LEANING TOWARDS FOUR BECAUSE I BELIEVE IT'S AN INVESTMENT, LONG-TERM INVESTMENT ON, YOU KNOW, HEALTH, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND SO I GUESS IT WASN'T A QUESTION, BUT, YEAH. THANK YOU.

WE LOOK FORWARD TO LEARNING FOR COUNCIL AND HAVING YOUR SAY ON THAT.

certainly appreciate that too I think in our presentation to the council that was widely discussed too and we brought in a lot of numbers in our study that Davey did in terms of kind of what the cost would be to provide that level of service and I think that's kind of why we ended up in the four position to do like walk it out a little slowly and kind of versus the big dive into the sort of the Cadillac program of, you know, birth to death care of the trees and such.

Commissioner Munster.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And this is, again, on sort of the policy front. And for Mr. Johnson, more so than you folks, I'm sorry. When a new development comes in, the landscaping requirements, do we just allow the landscape architect to propose whatever they want, or is there anything in our code that says X percent has to be native or beneficial, or you're limited to certain species or anything like that?

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Chair and Commissioner Munster. It's not a requirement in code, but this kind of supplemental policy or landscaping policy document I mentioned, it's more guidelines than hard and fast rules, but it talks about what types of trees should be along the perimeters of sites or in parking lots. And what Dustin was talking about, actually our first collaboration was identifying the native species that fit well or are salt tolerant or those types of things. So, no, there's nothing in code that says it has to be a certain percentage of natives. We did make an amendment to our code some years ago that brought in perennials, and the intent of that was to try and encourage more natives, so giving them credit because it's, you know, technically it's not the equivalent to a full-size shrub. And so that was one adaptation we made some years ago. But I think that that's certainly a potential area to explore in the future is whether or not you just want to get more aggressive with some of those things. Another thing that some cities do, we don't typically do it here unless we see, unless the planners kind of flag a problem on a landscape plan. We don't typically seek advice or review or guidance from our natural resource staff. And the reason being is that it's just they don't have, they're at capacity with all the things that they're already doing, frankly. So we can't have them review every landscape plan that comes before us. But if we see something that looks a little bit funky or fishy in those instances, we would have them look. And they do review tree preservation plans. They do specifically do that. But no, I think it would be an area of opportunity to look at how we specify our planting requirements in terms by species in the future.

If I could just add a final thought to that. If we can put a pin in that for a work plan in the next two. Sure, yeah.

Other questions for staff? Seeing none, Mr. Hanson, Mr. Jacobson, great presentation. Come back and see us anytime.

All right. Come back and see us anytime. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, thank you. ALL RIGHT. ITEM NUMBER FOUR THIS EVENING IS THE CONSIDERATION OF THE DRAFT PLANNING MEETING SYNOPSES FROM MAY 7th AND MAY 21st. WE'LL START WITH MAY 7th, 2026. COMMISSIONER CUNNINGHAM.

BEFORE I MAKE THIS MOTION, MAY 21ST WE HAD SOME ABSENT COMMISSIONERS. DID WE HAVE ANY OTHER ABSENCES ON THE 7TH?

WE DID NOT.

ALL RIGHT. I MOVE TO ADOPT THE PLANNING COMMISSIONING MEETING SYNOPSIS FOR MAY 7TH, 2026 AS POSTED IN THE PACKET. SECOND.

Motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes from May 7th, 2026. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That motion passes 7-0. We'll move on to May 21st. With that, Commissioners Lanai and Munster were absent. Commissioner Cunningham.

I move to approve the Planning Commission meeting synopsis for May 21st, 2026 as posted in the packet.

Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second for May 21st. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Abstain. That motion passes 5-0 with two abstinations. Our final item this evening, item number five, the City of Bloomington Policies and Planning Commission Issues Update. Mr. Johnson.

Thank you, Chair Cookton. I'll preview the next two upcoming Planning Commission meetings. The next one is on June 18th. There's one public hearing, preliminary and final development plans for an expansion at the Seagate Technology Campus. They're proposing a two-story, about 70,000 square foot addition to their Innovation and Technology Campus at 7850 Nord Avenue South and 7801 Computer Avenue South. It's along the border of Edina and Bloomington there in the northwest part of the city. THERE'S A STUDY ITEM ON THE REVIEW OF MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL PERFORMANCE STANDARDS IN THE ZONING CODE. THIS IS A WORK PLAN ITEM. AND THEN FINALLY THERE'S A STUDY ITEM PLAN TO REVIEW THE MINOR POLICY AMENDMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE MISCELLANEOUS ISSUES ORDINANCE PROCESS THAT WE DO EVERY YEAR. Looking ahead to July 9th, the meeting will start with the oath of office for newly appointed commissioners starting their new terms. The second item on the July 9th meeting is a rezoning final site and building plans and a type 3 preliminary and final plat to redevelop six single-family residential lots into 33 townhomes at East 86th Street and 16th Avenue South, approximately. And then the third item planned for that agenda is a conditional use permit for cannabis manufacturing at 300 West 83rd Street, an industrial site. Other updates I can share for you this evening is that the public engagement continues for the Bloomington 2050 comprehensive plan and will be out and about at a few events upcoming out in the community at the June 6th Farmers Market. For those that don't know, the Farmers Market has started here in Civic Plaza. They have a market on Wednesday evenings and Saturdays. And so they will be planning staff will be attending the June 6th farmers market tabling for the comp plan and then tabling at Bloomington pride That's on June 14th and then tabling at Juneteenth which is here at Civic Plaza on June the 20th and then on the city's Bloomington 2050 website there's also an online survey that Dakota and other staff laser focused on the comp plan are encouraging everyone to take and TO TRY AND JUST GET AS MUCH ENGAGEMENT GOING AS POSSIBLE. AND THEN MY SECOND UPDATE IS THAT THE CITY COUNCIL APPOINTED MADELINE SUMMERS TO FULFILL HER TECHNICALLY HER FIRST TERM TERM ZERO LAST TIME. SO AND THAT WOULD RUN FROM JULY 2026 THROUGH JUNE OF 2029. And then a new member, the city council appointed Robert Coleman, who's spoken before the planning commission a number of different times and has expressed interest in serving on the board. So he will take the place of planning chair Cookton. And so the same length of term from July 2026 through June 2029. So they took that action at the June 1st City Council meeting. And then finally, my final update is just that Darlene Navarro, planner on our staff, who's been on the Bloomington team in various roles for a little over five years, She took a new job with Ramsey County as a planning analyst to work more on housing-focused tasks and projects, so I'm sorry to lose her to Ramsey County. She's been a great member of our team and has added a lot of different value on a number of different projects, served in the building inspections team, planning, and the city's HRA, and so she's contributed a lot to community development over that five-year period, and I just want to wish her well and thank her for all the work that she's done on behalf of the planning division and community development department. So those are my updates for this evening.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Just a note on our new commissioners. I was pleased to sit in on the review board of those applications. And if anyone wonders at home, do existing commissioners just get automatically reappointed? And I can assure you that is not the case. And Commissioner Summers is well deserving of her seat being retained here on the Planning Commission. Congratulations to you. And Mr. Coleman is also well deserved of a seat on this board. And I trust he will serve the city well. And for those who did not make an appointment to the Planning Commission, we had a lot of really good applicants before us. And I know people, it takes multiple times to get on the Planning Commission. That's not uncommon at all. And so for those who are disappointed they were not appointed this time, I certainly encourage you to keep trying because I'm telling you there were more people in that room I would have appointed if we had more seats. And so it wasn't a lack of qualification. It was a lack of opportunity. AND SO THERE WILL BE MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO COME. AND SO I ENCOURAGE THOSE WHO DIDN'T MAKE THE CUT THIS TIME TO CONTINUE TO APPLY TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION. THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR COMMISSIONERS TO ADDRESS ANY ITEMS THAT WERE NOT ON THIS EVENING'S AGENDA. IS THERE ANY MISCELLANEOUS ISSUES? COMMISSIONER RISA.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. I JUST WANTED TO ALSO THANK MS. NAVARRO. LONG BEFORE I WAS EVEN ON THE PLANNING COMMISSION SHE WOULD ALWAYS ANSWER MY QUESTIONS. I THINK SHE WAS IN INSPECTIONS OR ENVIRONMENTAL. Thank you for watching this.

She will be missed. Mr. Johnson. Chair Cook, I did forget one item. I usually email you all to update you on City Council actions on items that were before you. Gallery Apartments at 7900 Xerxes was approved by the City Council on June 1st as well. So just an update there. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Any other miscellaneous items this evening? Seeing none, that concludes this June 4th meeting of the Bloomington Planning Commission. Good night.