Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

should we start?

Okay. Welcome to the Village of Cottage Grove Plan Commission on Wednesday, November 12th, 2025. This meeting is being held virtually on um Zoom and also in person at Village Hall and the link to the um Zoom is at the top of the agenda. It is 6:30 so I'll call the meeting to order. We have a quorum and the agenda was properly posted. So we'll stand for 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. Right. This is the public's appearances, public's opportunity to speak. Um, we ask that you keep your comments to three minutes. Um, we'll start with individuals in the room that'd like to give comments and then move to individuals in on Zoom. Anyone in the room that would like to give public comment? Is there anyone on Zoom that would like to give public comment?

Okay. So we'll move to number five. Discuss and consider the minutes from the plan commission meeting on way back on August 13, 2025. And those meeting minutes are linked in the agenda as a PDF. Motion to approve as presented. Second. There's a motion by Alex and a second by JP. Um any discussion or comments on the meeting minutes? All those in favor? I

I opposed. Motion carries. Um so we have first up tonight a concept presentation by Newman Homes for a potential single family residential developments. Invite you up um please use the microphone and um click the little guy on there so that it turns red and so that we can hear you and the individuals on Zoom can hear you.

Thank you. Hi everybody. My name is Steve Delane. I'm the president of Newman Companies. This is my associate, Brian Lingren. Brian's the president of our land development company. And over there is Ryan Fritch, who's the project manager who uh who works with us to develop real estate. So, we're thrilled to be here. Um I can tell you that we've met with um Aaron and and Matt and Josh over the years on a couple projects um in Cottage Grove that we've been um that we've that we've looked into. um always had really positive meetings, have really worked for a long time to try to find the right parcel in Cottage Grove. Think it's a great place to live with a great quality of life. Um and we're, you know, we're a little bit in love with this one that's that's in front of you. So, um um we we're we're we've got a contract to purchase 120 acres that's just to the south and the east of of Corey Ridge. Um, and you know, your comp plan sort of felt right on point with what we were planning to do and what we like to do. Um, it's, uh, we've mapped out a subdivision of a combination of some 70 foot wide lots and some 85 foot wide lots. So, we've got a little different product types in the community. Um, it's 249 lots on 120 acres, which is well within the the range in the comp plan. um kind of seeing home values, you know, hopefully in the five from 500 to 600,000 is sort of our our expectation of what that looks like, which is, you know, I I think there's a great spot in the market today for that sort of a a sweet spot. Um we're sort of the the star of the show was a huge park that we're going to give to Shawn kind of right in the middle of it. um seeing a need for larger park space. I think soccer fields or baseball fields, you know, kind of large movement areas. I think that kind of dominates the the subdivision. I think the name the word park is probably in the name of this subdivision somewhere. Um left some

points of entry at either side in case we want to run traffic through that park. That's going to be up to the parks department to program. Um we have storm water in the south and storm water in the north. As you can see, uh, Mike Hawkins from Snyder put this together, believes it's a very doable plan. I should say that we have not, there's still corn out there, so we've not done physical diligence yet. So, there are some test pits and some borings that we have to do yet. Um, but based on the current grades, um, he thinks we've got adequate adequate room for storm water. Um, and he thinks it's doable. So, we're super excited about it. Uh, one other feature here is in our neighborhoods, we do we when we have over a 100 lots, we love to do an HOA owned and managed pool. So, if you're looking in the corner of that park, um, that that one we're not giving that one to Sean. That's an HOA pool. Uh, he doesn't want it either, by the way. So, that's an HOA pool. So, that's kind of part of the neighborhood. Sort of gives a gives a neighborhood a little bit of a rallying cry. Fun place for kids, get them off their phones, that sort of thing. So, we're here really looking for feedback. Um, like your thoughts on it, get any kind of reactions you have. We've got sort of a short window to to make a decision on this. Um, we don't have a long extended diligence period, so uh, your feedback is important.

Erin, anything to add? I think they covered it well. It does, as they said, uh, meet our comp plan. We are looking for single family out there and the mix of lot sizes is good. Um obviously like the like the park Sean was part of our initial meetings with uh these guys and that's that's what Sean was looking for. Um so I'll let Josh touch on the utilities a little bit um as far as needing a lift station and and that sort of thing. discuss

your mic and I will share. [Music]

So we've discussed the utility side better um with them a little bit and there is some constraints in the site where it drops away from where current gravity sewer can can go. So, you know, if you look at North Lawn Drive and kind of extend out there into into kind of that lot where the park is, some of that can be served by gravity likely is same with school and Molly up in the Cory Ridge development. A little of that might be be able to serve by gravity, but then it kind of starts to fall off. What does that mean? It means that there's probably going to be some sort of a lift station on site that forces it back to one of these these roads and into the gravity sewer. Now, that would be a temporary lift station because we all know that on this side on the east side, there's a there's a larger lift station planned at some point someday. So, the idea would be able to to take that offline in the future as it got extended north. So, kind of plan for the future, but you know, build for today, I would say. And I think it's very very doable on this site. I'm sure Mike agrees. Um, Caulkins as part of this overall development. Another thing we kind of talked about was connections on roads and how you would connect this. Obviously, you see all the the connections back to the existing roadways to the west, but there's also some future connections where we're providing space out to the east and then also to the south just to kind of plan ahead on how other things may develop and and a connection to to Meer Road too as well to be able to use that as another access point into this um this development. So, those are some things we talked about, you know, at our meeting. If there's any questions, I could I could try to answer some of those. open it up to commission members. I'm

just gonna handle a little about the timeline before we get into questions here. Um, as Steve mentioned, we've the property has been on sale for I think over a year. We've had a few contacts over the years, but this is the first group that's come forward with a concept plan. So, this is the first time we're looking at it here at the plan commission. Um, assuming they they want to go forward, uh, the next step would probably be a pre-annexation agreement. That's something that would get approved by the village board, just kind of laying out expectations for various public improvements and things like that. Um, they would submit an annexation petition to the village and department of administration. Um, department of administration has a 30-day review period. After that, the village can act on the annexation. Um, as far as platting and zoning, platting is a two-step process with a preliminary plat, final plat. Um, so those would happen could be as soon as two consecutive meetings if all the drawings and things are ready to go. But, um, few few month process moving forward at least here.

And I think if I can, I'll just piggyback on something Aaron said. Um, we're we would be new obviously to Cottage Grove. We're not new to the market. We're not a new entity. Um, we operate primarily in southeast Wisconsin and have been uh branching our developments out into Jefferson County, Shbboen County, all over the place. Our home building entity is called Harbor Homes. So, I'd encourage you if you get a chance to check out Harbor Homes Wisconsin. So, we build about 400 houses in the southeast Wisconsin market. So, on a on a a subdivision like this, when we when we kind of started talking to to Aaron and others about it, you know, this was really appealing. It's it's it's residential. It's right in, you know, it hits our bread and butter of the of the the home style we like to provide to the market. Something that's that's simple. The process is defined. It's a great looking product in a well planned neighborhood in a in a great community. So, we think that this fits us uh very well and and we'd love to be a part of it here in Cottage Grove. So, um something like this where we've got 249 homes planned, uh we'd look to phase it just to kind of get that out there right away. Okay. We would we don't come in and build it all at once. We'd probably be about six phases of infrastructure development would be my estimate. About 40 to 50 um lots a year of infrastructure followed by our home building entity 30 to 40 homes a year. So about an 8yearish uh buildout. So estimate based on kind of home sales prices, it's probably 125 to $130 million of increment within the next decade. So we're we're excited about it. And then in terms of timeline, you'll be back at the village board on Monday because I know we have some additional questions from board members that have already kind of come up. So I just want to make sure that you'll be present for that meeting, too.

We'll open it up to commission members for questions. Go ahead, Alex. Alex always goes first.

I don't have to, but this Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I don't have a lot of It looks really great. No, just a couple questions, simple questions, I guess. So, the park looks great. I think that obviously, as you mentioned, that that whole region seems to be, you know, well suited for something large like that. So just for consideration, you know, parking is going to need to be there because there's going to be other people from other neighborhoods coming in and then with that parking theoretically in the green space probably some of the planning is going to have to be, you know, landscaping buffers from the houses to those parkings, right? So we don't necessarily see other people's cars and things like that. So as you're doing your planning, think through that. I guess the private pool that did catch my eye or the pool area, you mentioned private pool use, HOA. So, is it your concept that it's only this development? Is it an opt-in HOA or is it a Everyone's in

every homeowner would be part of the HOA. Uh we've done them in in most of our neighborhoods that are above a certain size in southeast Wisconsin. We found them to be very popular. Every homeowner gets a a a keypad key code. So, so the entrance is restricted to just the owners. Is there anything else to go covered through the HOA or is it just that just that wreck area? Whatever common area maintenance. So there's, you know, usually a little landscaping. Now we're used to cluster box, mailbox type setup, so they take responsibility for making sure those areas are clear. Um things like that. The bulk of an HOA would be would be the pool in this case.

Yeah, I think I mean different developments, different things. Where I'm at, it's individual mailboxes per house. So it's there's really not any need for a lot lot of that other stuff. Roads are going to be dedicated. So that's okay. Um looks like there's a property or house still at the that end the culde-sac of Meyer like what happens with all that. Yeah. Interesting, right? Um so the plan right now is uh because they are town resident it to keep them connected to the town would be to allow the storm water portion of the development to remain in the town. So that would keep them. Yeah. So they're they would they would not get annexed in. So that's a sho they would sho string into the town.

So we just need to make sure we see that. We we have this in a couple other places in the village and it's doable but has challen not ideal. Yeah. And so I mean I think there's Yeah. Because you wouldn't necessarily connect them to water and sewer if they were in the town. However, we've brought things into the village without immediately connecting them as a requirement. We've graced them. Something to think about how we deal with that parcel. I guess it's more Erin's issue. Good job. Um, thank you.

I have a followup on that then. Um, so we'd have some kind of storm water maintenance agreement with the town. That would require some extra negotiation or um it could be a village owned parcel that is in the town. That makes sense. Most likely how it would unfold. Um, and I had a couple things also. I'm also chair of the parks committee. So, um, you know, sounds like we're coming to see you next week.

All right. Great. I look forward to it. Um, as you know, the neighborhood that's existing, that's being built out now, they didn't have a park dedicated to them, um, approved before I was on the board because I don't know if I would have liked that too much, but um, so I'm thinking about access to the larger park because it's, you know, fairly close to our existing neighborhood park. Um, so the other green spaces between, do you envision like um some kind of bike path connectivity through so you don't have to walk the whole block to get that? That's the idea behind those areas is just as a pedestrian bike, you know, access cross block. You can take a bike. Yeah.

And just as we're talking about the park, just we we were going to as soon as the crops are off, we do some more soil testing. There's a chance we've been, you know, in the north portion that the bedrock might be really shallow where then we kind of flip this plan a little bit and move the park towards that towards the north end. So, we'll dial that in a little bit closer. We're hoping here to have the overall conversation about the need for residential, the overall design, and you know, we're fully uh committed to the park. It's just location may shift a little bit as we evolve.

Sure. Yeah. And if it moves farther to the north, like that whole quadrant is a little bit underserved by public parkland. So, I think having access to this large park would really be a great benefit. Um, but yeah, the downside is then it's a little farther away from, you know, the farther reaches of the neighborhood. So, uh, but it gives us so much flexibility to utilize the space, too. Um, but yeah, like those access points. Um, do you have, maybe you don't know this until you start doing soil testing, but an idea of what direction the phasing would occur? The park would be in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. The things that are bordering Cory Ridge are generally all gravity flow and we want the park online as much as you do. So,

sure. Yeah. that's very desirable to to want to live, you know, near a park. So, um, and then the other question I had is about traffic impact. And I know that'll get analyzed further. Um, but some of these intersections, you know, might see on on Main Street there might see additional traffic. So, if we need any, I don't know, retiming of lights or any other I mean, we kind of have turn lanes going in now, but if there's any improvements, you know, that'll come later as we do traffic study, right?

Yeah. I mean, we can I I would say, you know, going into it, you should provide some sort of a traffic analysis at least on what you think the trip generation is going to be. Sometimes for the residential stuff, we don't see it as much as we would for like commercial or high uses. You know, they're not in and out all the time. I anticipate all of those roads are are pretty well established and set up at the intersection of North and Maine um to handle the traffic that they're kind of showing here, especially with the additional connection, the nice connection that you also have south coming out of here. Um if you didn't have that, that maybe be a little bit more of a concern, but there's kind of a nice flow of traffic that could happen.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of different exit points depending on what direction you're going. Um, and then access over to our commerce park with all the businesses there. So, I think um having people close to that is is great, too. Um, yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to seeing more information. So, I appreciate it. Yeah, I think based on a lot of the conversations we've had, sorry, my voice tonight. um in other neighborhoods has been the multiple connections and and making sure that it's not being fed by one source during the entire process. It's it's important to the residents that are currently established there. Um and then yeah, my other questions I think have all been answered.

Go ahead. I have more. I have more. That's okay. Thank you. Um the the town that town piece is perplexing me. Has the neighbor been notified and talked to yet? No.

Okay. And then I guess from Aaron, we have the one sho string I'm thinking about is the the car fixy thing, right? So it's it's comes through wetland. It doesn't come through a road. So does that road who's going to own that road if they're in the town? Where do you think that easement is going to come through? I mean, it's to be determined, but I think the idea is that would probably be preferable for everybody to have the existing road come into the village and be improved to village standards. I think the idea is the light blue storm water area would be

a village owned parcel that remains part of the town. The land to the south of that light blue is uh the Sarah Steel property and she's indicated over the years she doesn't want to develop that, right? Um, so that would remain presumably in the town anyway. So that's where the connection would. Have you talked to the town yet? No. Okay. And another they will have to do a neighborhood meeting prior to submitting with the one neighbor. This is the Yeah. Well, and all the neighbors in Quarry Ridge everywhere else. This is just concept.

No, no, no. Fair. Uh the other question, the other thought I was going thinking through the the layout, the pool being towards the front, that recreation area. Do you think that'll give confusion with some of the old the old the existing neighborhood versus the new neighborhood of who's has it, who doesn't have it? Are they going to be knocking on doors and kind of, oh, this is great, which it looks great, especially since it's right next to the park. You're going to get a lot of foot traffic going past it. Um it's your concept. You may want to consider putting it maybe towards the back, the other side or whatever. But I I I understand there's probably going to be a monument sign there too promoting the area. So, it's a tough call, but just something to consider.

I I appreciate the concern and I did kind of go back and forth on it. It's just it's bit of a source of surprise. It's a reason to move into a neighborhood and you kind of do want it to be like the thing you see when you come into your neighborhood. So, it's it's I'm think I just really like it pulling your neighborhood and seeing your pool. It's gonna be a good focal point for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I do I do share your concern. So, it's it is very close to other people's homes.

If I was a kid, I'd probably any other questions or comments? Well, thank you for coming and we'll see you Monday and I'm sure there'll be additional questions from the Thank you. to the concept presentation by Near and Far Brewing. Um, so Ed and Melissa are here. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you want to present or do you want me to? Um, I can share my screen if that's Well, before we start, uh, I'm Melissa Ratcliffe. I just want to say that I'm here in my personal capacity as a business owner, not as an elected official. Um, and I'm here with my business partner, uh, Ed Ray. Hey, Ron. Ed Ray. U Melissa and I have been on this journey for about two years. And we are, um, two other partners for, um, two investments. One, um, purchased the land, and then, of course, near and far Brewing Company. And then we got Brett with us who's been on his journey with us um due to madness and the patience. And so appreciate you Brett and you want to do a quick introduction.

Yeah. I am Brett Fzelle with Keller Builders. We've got uh um we're design build commercial builder office in Sun Prairie but all across the state and uh we've been working with near and far on this project for I don't know a few months now and pulled together a lot of good details and and uh concepts that we're looking forward to presenting tonight. and um just jump into it unless you have any comments. Um, so I guess part of the um reason for a brew pub is I'm a resident of Cottage Grove and living here I know that uh this is something that our community does not have and um one part of it too is that it's a community space. We envision it to be a place where people want to come and hang out um and not just drink. It's also it's a brew pub because it's also a restaurant included in there. So, it's more of a family space where neighbors can get together, bring your dogs to there. There'll be a dog area um in a large patio um and also an event space that Brett can get into more about. Um but in Cottage Grove we don't really have event spaces available um with a restaurant connected. So looking at um the space too along Cottage Grove Road that there's not a lot of um maybe development along Cottage Grove Road right now. So, um the area that we're hoping to put it, um being on the bike path and near residential, but also near commercial, um it's all feels like

the right spot. And so, um we we hope you agree and uh looking forward to your feedback. And so, with that,

sure, I can jump into the details of the project. So, uh like Melissa said, this is a a really neat concept to put here in Cottage Grove. uh multi-use facility with restaurant, brewery, event space, tenant space. Um we think it's going to really pull a lot of people to a destination here in Cottage Grove and excited for the project. Um some quick overviews. If you're looking at the site plan here, we opted to put the building on the the east side of the site. um felt that we get the best best way to utilize the space um both for parking for multiple uh businesses as well as being able to utilize the patio space that ideally looks over something that's not another business behind it. Um we do show the the green space for the dog area. We show um 53 parking spaces to utilize access to the all the tenants both near and far and event center and um the future uh tenant space. Um we have not engaged civil yet. So there's a lot of conceptual details here on this plan that are going to get chewed up once we have civil engineering uh spun up on it. Um additional storm water utility locates, all those things that are missing from this plan right now. We are looking at potentially moving that uh we'll call it the southwest entry to the parking lot down to Limmerch Drive. Um that's one of the ideas we're looking at to maybe maximize parking a little more. Um especially when we have to understand if we have to put a new another storm water facility on site too.

Erin, you can jump to the next one. said, "I don't know which one you're going to show next." You want floor plan? Let's go. Floor plan. Yeah. And with it being right next to the storm water pond, too, uh we wanted to maximize having a patio that kind of overlooks something um as opposed to just backs of houses. Um too.

Yeah. Uh the patio was pretty strategically placed in that south side of the building you get a lot of sun. It's tough to sit out at towards the end of the day. Um And it it gave some shelter from the businesses in the road and and a way to both utilize the patio for restaurant restaurant folks uh event space folks and folks that are showing up with their dog and coming to the other business. Uh quick layout on the the floor plan. So to the north area you have your seating for all the uh restaurant bar area. Um obviously patio to the southeast or east side plan east. Um the middle section is our uh commercial kitchen, full service commercial kitchen and the uh attached brewery. So about 1 th00and square feet plus or minus for the brewing space as well um with on-site coolers, on-site brewing equipment. Um stepping down further south on Plant South. We have an initial floor plan layout for potential event space to host everything from I mean you can tell them what what do you want to host but it could be

up to 100 people uh event space so small weddings right or just book clubs um any and anything in between

I think yeah and just to elaborate on that when we started this process we went through some really bad names for the roof hub um mostly from this guy and we landed on the name near and far for several different reasons. Um, but all of them come down to regardless of where you're from, friends near and far. This is a place for you to gather space. Um, it started off as a joke cuz I lived in McFarland. Melissa lived in Cottage Grove and so her and our brewer or my me and the brewer live in McFarland. So, we were the far and she's the near and then I was born in Africa. They were born in America. So, I was the far and they were the near. And then again, the concept of again friends far and near. this is a place for social gathering. And so as we went through this process, we've worked with several different consultants and trying to instill, okay, what's our mission? What's our vision? What do we want this to represent? And part of that keep kept coming back to a sense of community and a sense of a collective body or a collective space for people. And so ultimately we decided that hey, we should absolutely have an event space that the community can utilize. And so that was the thought process behind that. and a dog park because I have two dogs and I love taking my dogs somewhere I can never be here. So, that was my selfish desire, but I think it's I mean, you've got dogs as well. So,

um the And then there's a 2,000 foot tenant space as well um to um be leased out so that there can be another um business like during the day um when it's not see at the brew pub either because that commercial space is lacking in cottage growth too.

Yeah, the tenant space right now we're showing as a white box but we we did lay out a couple toilet rooms to be pretty flexible as far as what the capacity could be for is it a coffee shop, is it a a retail shop, something of that nature. Um but that's remains to be seen um moving forward on what else goes in there. One couple things I want to point out is we put a lot of time and effort and thought into laying out the restaurant versus the brewery section, making the kitchen and the brewery accessible for the uh staff to to easily service events from the the backside with a vestibule that connects everything. Um we do have big bay windows so folks can can look in and see the production of the uh the brewing space. um centrally located uh washrooms to be able to serve all the all the elements of the building. Um on a Friday night when it's booming, there's an event and there's a restaurant full and everybody's having a good time. We wanted to be able to have those centrally accessible. Um and yeah, patio space along all along the east side. Next one would be elevations. That's a really hilly area.

Um, so this is our our concept elevations for the for the building itself. You can see all uh the four directions on here. We've got some again concept materials uh exterior materials placed um utilizing different varying pieces to help people understand which door they're supposed to be coming into, how to how to be steered towards the restaurant, how to best utilize the event space, how to uh best utilize the tenant space. Nothing's final on here, but there are concepts and ideas of what we where we see that think this could go. Okay. And the last one is

um some prelim preliminary uh renderings of the the building itself. Just adding to the elevations, putting some 3D elements to the to the space and starting to help people visualize what um all sides can look like. So with that, any questions or thoughts? Let go first. Um, don't have too much to add. It looks great. I had a comment for Brett that I emailed earlier that they can take a look at. But um,

as far as next steps for this project, it would need site plan approval and then also a conditional use permit for um, the bar function. Anything that's serving alcohol needs a conditional use permit. Um, yeah. Otherwise, I think it's looking really good. Yeah, I would encourage any feedback as well. So, because it is a family space like we would not plan to be open at all, we would I think we were talking about 10 or 11.

Well, I'm gonna start. I say that I'm really excited. Um, and I know a lot of, you know, people who have taken a look at tonight's, um, agenda are also very excited about the potential for a brew pub. Um, I guess you do have the dichotomy of being on Cottage Grove Road. So, I really like that the facade is kind of pulled up towards that bike path and that's what you see and then the parking is more towards the side, but then you have the neighborhood in the back. And I guess wanted to know your thoughts on the residential commercial kind of the integration there and how um residents might be impacted. I guess you just kind of answered it with the um not being open until bar time, which is what 2 am now. I can't stay up that late, but yeah.

Yeah, we have no plans for staying up that late again. Um the kind of our brand identity is a community and a collective family space. Um by no means is this going to be your college bar. Um that's not in line with what we envision for this. And so we think it would be a great addition to the community as well as to the residents. Um whether you're biking or walking your dogs being able to just stop by and not a 2 a.m. party spot. So

and um that to we tried to maximize the space um for parking to make sure that we aren't disrupting the neighbors but we would hope to have a good relationship with our neighbors too and drive there. Um it currently has the dance studio too so it is a little bit of commercial already there. Um so they and the road's going to be end up end up going through as it was planned. Um, so it's going to be a little bit more traffic for those people who are on the dead end currently. Um, but we would work with them to address concerns that they may have to knowing that they're our neighbors and we want everyone to um, feel comfortable and uh, be happy with us being there. So, going back to you're talking a lot about being right on the bike path and, you know, walking and stuff like that. Um, looking at the site plan and I think it would be awesome if there was something off the bike path that went maybe straight to your front door so people don't have to walk through the parking lot to get inside, which is like a huge problem in a lot of places around town. We talked about that uh back and forth. Uh still an option and you know access to the patio to the green space. We've we've obviously moved the dog area multiple times to try and help identify where the best place for that is. Um how people should be accessing both from car from bike. So there's a there's a few other things we're still developing and and that's one we can definitely consider. And um like where we put the bike racks too, like that'll help determine for people like where the where they should put their bikes for accessing um because

we don't want people going on the grass either and um just accessing the patio because then we might not know that they're there for service either. Um so those are things that we're still working out um too. But thank you. It's good to know that we're on the same uh wavelength. Rock, paper, scissors. You got rock paper scissors. Shoot. I'm really I'm going to say I'm really disappointed, but I'm being sarcastic. But inspected. I know. What happened to the the rooftop patio? I know

that was like in So I was going through the notes. I'm like, I know there was a rooftop patio. So I found out you were here in January. The drawing has it. I was like, "Yes, uh, I understand it though." But I guess, yeah, design, all that other type of stuff.

It was a combination of a couple of different things. Um, cost being a driver for it. Um, as I spoke to earlier, part of our identity was again a place for all. And with a rooftop patio, outside of the additional cost that comes with that, you have to talk about accessibility. And part of accessessibility is well we can't say we're inclusive place for all if we don't supply elevators and everything for individuals in wheelchairs. And so I mean there's an option to go with a smaller footprint and offer I think different services or some we just didn't feel comfortable going with that approach. So ultimately um through kind of um advice from a collective of individuals we opted to go with the first level patio for that parkers. I think the outside seating more than makes up for it, but I still wanted to had to give that to you. Um there for us, too.

Yeah, it's okay. It'll be great. It will be um in the drawing. Again, it's still I guess there's still concepts going on there. You know, there's going to be a lot of stuff in and out. I don't see really a delivery door. This is really for you. It's just a comment, something to think about. I mean, we've seen a lot of these places, large garage doors, that type of stuff. You're pretty much surrounding the entire building except for the one southside sort of right there with parking, which is good. However, deliveries could be difficult, especially if you have to change one of your cylinders out, you know, one of the tanks or something like that. That may be

that question every single time. Where's delivery? Where's delivery? Where's delivery? So, if you look um by the south, there's two sets of doors right there. The vestibial right there. The double doors. Yeah. Yes.

So, they'll have to go around the corner and Yeah. Yeah. Just something to something to think about. It's obviously it's a workflow. Just something I noticed. Um rooftop I had HVAC systems rooftop. Um are they going to be are they going to be on the roof? Are they going to be on the ground? Do we need to add screening or anything like that or has that been Yeah, right now we're planning a rooftop with parapit. Okay. And then I guess for the village, who builds the road? There's work going on there right now. Looks like are we building the road? Is somebody building the road? Sewer interceptor project. That's the sewer project. Okay. Cuz who's do we build the road too? Is that already does that fit their timeline? I don't know what's going on with the road.

So the Hamburggs own this property and the rest of the frontage along uh Cottage Grove Road and then they have some future residential lots behind. So like any development they would build the roads. I don't know if Josh has anything. That's all been platted and approved quite a few years ago that Yeah. I just wasn't sure who was built. So it would be it would be the Hamburg or the developer of of the site to build all of that road. We're just putting in the sewer as part of the initial project. Yeah, that connects it all the way down to vio. Okay. Still missed the rooftop. Glad to see it. Thanks. Other comments or questions?

I would just add that I'm also glad to see this. Um, this is a corridor right in the middle of town, um, closer to my house than many other establishments. So, um, that is very exciting and right on our bike path. Uh, you know, now we're going to be fully north, south, and east, west with bicycle paths. So, um, I'm really excited that people have a place to go along, you know, added to all the places that you can go along this corridor. So, I think this is an area that, you know, is really exciting to see developed. So, um, I'm I'm excited to continue the, you know, see it go through the process and the next steps. So, um, happy to see you back.

I'm excited for Cottage Grove. So, I live in McFarland and I would say, um, since getting to know Melissa and kind of going about this project, I probably find myself in Cottage Grove and McFarland these days. Um, and I again, I think this is a good community for it. I like the location. Um, and so looking to make this our home and grow collectively. So, thank you all. The one thing I'll just quickly add is um I appreciate you all thinking about that intentionality between um as Jared was mentioning how to get there that so it's not going through the parking lot but also the bike paths as well being right in there having a spot for those bikes in there. So I appreciate you thinking about that and I look forward to seeing how that all comes together. carriers on

one thing I this is really minor but uh something I want to point out is this was at one of Ed's non-negotiable was non-negotiables was putting a tapped water receptacle out to the dog park area too so common water fed to the the area for the dogs so I don't know there's a lot of thought we've put into this over the last few weeks and months And you know, there's still a long way to go on getting everything dialed in, but we think we've got a good good step forward. I think questions that others will have are the timeline. Do you have what is your timeline? When are you opening? Depends who you ask. If you ask me, I would say I wouldn't be opening last year. Yeah.

Um I think part of this process we've had there was contingencies. The interceptor was one piece we had to wait on. And so I think from a plan perspective, we're almost there. The next step for us would be the civil engineering and then I think Yeah. Oh, is it me? I was just gonna say I would hope that we could break ground in spring and be open by the end of the year next year. Yeah, that's just how long the process takes.

Yeah, just to to give a little more detail to that. So, spinning up civil. Um, as far as the meat and potatoes of the the building itself, we're going to dial in all the interior finishes, exterior finishes, um, making sure we're aligned with everything, all the municipal requirements and those type of details. Um, but to echo what Melissa said, ideally breaking ground once frost is out and um, six to eight month build, so somewhere towards the end of the year next year. And we're going to have really good food. We spend a lot of time working with a chef food because groups never have food and so and I'm a foodie. So,

sorry, I have one more quick question. Um, your comment about the outdoor water feature um reminded me where do you envision the entrance to the fence dog area? Yeah. So, we were ideally away from the patio uh southwest like kind of where those two trees are is accessible from that edge um not to spill into the existing patio. There is got to be some delineation and some separation for that. Um it's why you see that the a little more on the event space, the dog area and the patio itself is why you see that um concrete span between the two areas. Um, we want to create a little bit of divisor too for anybody that's booked an event that doesn't want to have people populating their event from the backside. Um, it does we don't want to have folks flowing back and forth and be able to keep the dogs, you know, accessible and yet separated as well. So, um, there is a lot of purpose in how the patio has got some separation there and, um, ideas of of potential little fencing and and things of that to delineate those spaces. We also want everybody to feel comfortable there too

and keep their pets safe.

Well, thank you for coming.

All right, we will move on to discuss. This is just feedback. Yes, this is something we started talking about at the last meeting and then uh some of these issues fed into the field trip that most of us went on um over to Grand View Commons to look at uh how some of these things play out in in real space. Um so one of the first things here was adding or permitting residential alleys currently not allowed in the village. Um, so we'd be looking to permit those in residential districts. Um, we're envisioning that these would be privately owned and maintained by an HOA, not public. Um, we talked with Nick and April from the fire department yesterday. Their main concern was just making sure they're wide enough to get their equipment through and um ensuring that no one's trying to park in the alley and and blocking up some of the space. Uh but otherwise I think we can make that uh work. The street widths. Um so currently the ordinance prescribes a range of potential widths just of the overall pavement but doesn't really break down you know the size of the components within that space. Um so we'd be looking to take the approach of defining the size of the components as opposed to the overall width. Um, we also talked with fire fire department about this and they were generally okay with the 10-ft lanes. Their only concern was um, as you can see on the minor streets, we're we're proposing seven to eight foot for parking. They would like to see the eight just because larger trucks

would be wider and block block some of the uh, drive lane. Um, we'd also like to keep continuing this discussion with public works and uh, Strand to get their takes on some of these things, too. Um, sidewalk width. Most of the new sidewalks that are built in the village are already five feet, but we're just um, wanting to codify that that that's what we want. um multi-use paths. We just want to verify that that's something we can request in lie of a sidewalk. Uh that's already happening in a lot of neighborhoods over in west town along Damascus and areas like that, but um there's really nothing in the ordinance about it right now. um curb radi. So that's you know how big the radius of the curb is around different intersections. Um right now that's not really defined by our ordinance. When the radius is smaller um that makes the crossing distance shorter, so a little bit safer and less time for people to cross. It also tends to slow people down a little bit um as opposed to a a wider turn radius just looks like something you can take at a faster speed. Um so again talking to the fire department fire department about this and they were also okay with this. Again we just want to they have Strand run some analysis with their um turning radius of their vehicles and they're getting a new ladder truck so we might want to run it with that vehicle. Um, so that may impact if there's parking allowed or how close parking can get to the corner and things like that. That was also a concern that um, Kyla had with the snow plows and things like that.

Um, the setbacks I'm just proposing taking that out because that's kind of redundant because the zoning already deals with all of that. So yeah, this is just another iteration of what we started talking about. Looking for a little bit more feedback or any questions you might have before we take the next step with some of the street widths and and things like that to finalize that language. Then we would come back there have to be a public hearing and and all that. Go ahead.

Okay. So you said something I'm reading through the I'm talking about the I'm thinking about the alleyways in the beginning and so uh in blue it says privately owned and maintained alleys may be permitted in residential districts. So, in your narrative, you were just talking, you mentioned HOA, right? And so, I grew up in just outside of Philadelphia. We had row homes, now they call them town homes, you know, and it wasn't there was no HOA, right?

They didn't know how to spell it where I grew up. So, the the owner just shoveled it or didn't shovel it or whatever, and it was always the fun feud. So, just thinking about the cost, you know, we're trying to reduce cost of ownership, reduce cost of living, trying to reduce those extra things. Is it your intent that that language that it it will be HOA maintained? Someone has to do it regardless or is it is there a mechanism that you're saying, hey, this alleyway is it's privately owned. The owner still has to, you know, it's resp they're responsible for it, but it's it's kind of a right of way like a sidewalk, right? Like there's no HOA that covers my sidewalk, but I have to shovel it and clear it for the safety of the neighborhood. What's what's the language is a little vague because you you said HOA it doesn't say HOA but it's what's your thoughts through that?

Um I think it's definitely better if it's an HOA then it definitely gets done and you don't have the one person in the middle blocking the alley when they're not clearing it. Um, so in the the examples that I've seen in the area where they are private, it is an HOA thing. There are also examples where they're public. I know Kylo doesn't want that. Um, nobody really wants us to be plowing plowing alleys, but um, I think that's a good point. And we could add HOA language in there. Yeah. I mean, I think there's got to be just sort of a mechanism for I mean, I think it's it's something to consider,

right? because we were trying to help reduce costs and you know just thinking about all the work that the village has been doing over the years. It's it's another thing, you know, I think this the group that we talked to earlier today, you know, in HOA for their their pool and stuff, you know, a lot of the apartment buildings have those amenities. They just sort of bake it into the rent, right? It's it's there, but it's they call it rent. You know, it's kind of one of the items in there. So, anything we do to help, you know, and if the owner's capable, they should just take care of it. I don't know. But that's a good point. We can put a little more thought into that for for next time. Not nothing on anything else. Thanks.

I do have one quick clarifying question. Um, regarding the multi-use paths, we state that the changes um dedic shall be dedicated to the village. I just want to clarify exactly what that means in there. Does that mean that the like if it's in lie of a sidewalk the village is in charge of maintaining that like snow renewal removal and other things or is that still fallen on the homeowner? Um, so right now the multi-use paths that are in the village are maintained by um I don't know if it's Sean's guys that are plowing those or public works but um yeah those those are done publicly whereas the sidewalks are still done by the individual property owners. So then kind of the follow question is, is that still something that our department would be willing to continue to maintain or is this one of those things that we need to build in some wiggle room in there? Because when it says dedicated to means I can make the assumption that that means that the village will be maintaining that from here on out whenever we do that.

Right. It will be in the rightway, right? you'll you'll reconstruct it someday just like you would a sidewalk if it was damaged. And then the snow removal sides se kind of a separate thing. I don't know, Rick, if you've seen ordinances where they've ever kind of listed snow removal and what when and where they do it and where they don't.

Yeah. So, typically sidewalks um like snow removal is the the property owner with the multi-use path. Like I've seen ordinances basically saying if it's five feet or less it's the property owner. If it's five feet or more the village is responsible for it just because sidewalks it's sort of a standard item that people do. But if it's a multi-use path that's bigger it's more area for snow removal. So I've seen a delineation like that typically. So in that text you're saying that the multi-use paths are 10 feet wide unless otherwise approved. So there's a there's a catch all but you're you're generally pointing to 10 feet and I think that is that what's in front of glacial drumland. Is that 10 feet or is that eight?

Feels like eight. I don't know for sure. I typically path you'll see now is 10. The minimum used to be eight, but recently they've kind of shiftd guidance to 10 with kind of a max side of 12 um that you'll see in places. I would say holistically, especially in this county, 10 is a pretty pretty common number for the path, but you will see some paths that are older that are 8 feet wide. That that used to be something in the past.

I think the path by my house is eight, but it is allowed to remove the snow on it. I've done it. It takes at least six passes with my snow blower to do it. Um, the other comment that I had was, uh, it was very helpful to go on that field trip and visualizing some of these things that we're talking about here because it's one thing to see it on paper, but I think it was really helpful. So, I'm really glad that we did that.

Yeah. Especially when it came to the different street widths and the traffic calming that's associated with them. I I think that's useful in new neighborhoods to keep the drag racing to a minimum. Um and then the um I I do like the alleys too and having kind of the the green space in the front is a nice look. We'll have to start planning an annual plan commission field trip go a different neighborhood every year. Good. Yeah. Any other comments? Well, we can reciprocate that, too. And you know, some of our stuff that we've done would be interesting to have some other people come out so we can share feedback. But

yeah, we we actually, excuse me, had a group from Little Rock, Arkansas that came up about a month or so ago. They were spent one day in Madison and then a half day here and a half day in Sun Prairie. So, all right. Should we move on? can discuss the village board's direction to reconsider zoning all the parcels listed there from a planned business to central business. Again, feedback only. Yeah. So, this started with a memo from Chris over there and you can join us if you want. Yeah, Chris, you're welcome to have a seat at the the front.

You put your memo in the packet, so you're you're legit. Um, basically just looking at the parcels over on the northeast corner of Ann and BB. Um, the village owns the parcel on the corner and the two uh sort of light industrial uh buildings. We're seeking the purchase of the others to create one contiguous um redevelopment site. Um the purpose of the resoning would be to ensure that any parcels that we don't acquire if they do redevelop would redevelop as something compatible with what the village wants to do on on their parcels. Uh this would be consistent with the comp plan. Um basically just getting feedback at this point. The next step would be to reach out to the property owners and explain why we'd be doing this. Um and then we would draft up the language and bring it in with a public hearing and all that. But Chris, I don't know if there's anything you wanted to elaborate on.

Uh not really too much. Um just one of the things that I hear a lot as a village trustee and um I know it's something that like the chambers identified as well is um a lack of a dedicated downtown area. Um, so this is just kind of a first step to starting that process. Um, just so that we have an area in the village that's going to be dedicated to something like that. So we can, you know, we we're not we're being proactive instead of waiting until we get all these parcels purchased and and then doing something then.

Yeah. This so this was originally presented by Chris at the village board. Now it's coming to plan commission. So, we've we've seen it and given our opinions on it, but yeah, if this is a priority of the village board to kind of redevelop and um and work on this area, it's the first step. Thoughts from the non board members?

I love it. Yeah. No, I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good to good to get ahead of, you know, any type of sales or whatever that would be going on and just um yeah, have it be zoned in a way that's going to make it uh easier to turn it into a reasonable downtown.

Who who owns it all now? Is it a mix? We own some of it and it's three of them and then they're private homeowners owning the rest. So, is the intent that the village will own all of it or eventually it'll be turned over be kind of like the business park. It's it's going to be sold and then a developer would build the downtown field. It's might be a little sensitive because of um potential negotiations, but the village is trying to acquire all properties

in that corner. What would typically happen in that scenario if the municipality puts a chunk of land together, they would put out an RFP to developers and um they would submit proposals for what they would do with the land and we could pick one to sell the land to. Yeah, we wanted to decide what happens with that before we sell the land, not sell the land and let someone else do whatever they want with it. And I think it's also important to um say that there is one parcel in here that is most of it's in a TID, but there's one parcel that's not in a TID. So we can acquire most of it ourselves. The other one would be a little trickier.

So are we becoming developers? I think we got to be careful, right? We build a plan. We This is the struggle we do all the time. There's a struggle on the board. It's a struggle for plan commission, too. There's a there's a comprehensive plan. This is the ideas of what we want to grow that steers developers residential commercial industry otherwise but I think we also want to be careful that we're the government I guess and we're not we should are we in the developing business then does this how does that say we are trying to facilitate development that we desire at a at a key location and I think it's unique in that the village board will have a lot more control over what goes there what looks like

I think the intent is to have a little more control over aesthetics and what it looks like. We're not going to say this has to be a Taco Bell and and apartments and you need a Cinnabon in there too or something like that. That's not what we're going to do.

I mean, the tough part with the industrial park like where we own that land, like we bought it way back when, pennies on the dollar for what it's worth today. And a lot of the negotiations got held up in like the price of the dirt, right? We know Cottage Grove, the price of the dirt is super expensive. This area is going to be it's already developed. We're acquiring the property at the value we're getting it at now. So, there's a lot of development that wanted to come in to up at the north end there. And, you know, I I was like, let's just give them the land because we'll reap the benefits of the industry. We've already reaped, you know, the land. Just sell it for what we paid for it, not the current value. So, just with caution, I think it's good. It's good, right? I mean, we want to develop. I think there's there's a lot of you know I've heard things nothing formal you know village halls and we're building and needs some attention and all these other types of ideas and I think that's it's good to have that plan but I think it's also good to be very transparent as to what you're trying to do just so you don't get we don't get stuck as like a a developer in competition and I think that's the other piece we don't want to be in competition with the developers there's that very fine line with uh the different companies and I had challenges with person like I just yeah and I'll even mention it Ruda Bush I think was the helping us with the property up there however they had beautiful property that was built out on femorrite or somewhere just empty vacant so it's just like I I know they're going to take people over there with properties ready to go you can move in within 30 days or you can build within 24 months right so all looks really good but um just a little bit of caution it's also good to see that it's it's part of that tax district too so it really kind of lends itself self to what you're trying to do. So, it's a it's it's a tough balance. So, I appreciate what you're trying to work through here. Thanks.

And I think I was uh um as what Renee said at the meeting as well is we're trying to what we would like to see is something replicating what Oldtown looks like. Kind of a more of a small town feel of building versus, you know, a setback building with a big parking lot in front.

And that's why reszoning to central business Yeah, I was just going to mention the whole parking element in there as well. So, you beat me to it, but um I really do like that because it it that is such a a busy intersection, too. So, controlling that flow a little bit for parking, having that design a little bit more. It also helps with the safety element of that intersection knowing that we also have kids crossing at the intersection as well. So like really thinking through all those elements down the road. Um I think it makes sense to move forward that way to go with the vision but also for other elements as well.

And the bank across the street is is zoned central business as well. So, if our intent is to sort of redevelop that whole intersection, at some point that intersection, we're going to have to do something about it to make it easier to walk across. So, future discussion, any other comments,

future agenda items? Um, so we'll we'll continue with the two ordinance items that were on the agenda tonight. I guess we'll see if um Newman Homes or the Brew Pub are are ready for next month. I have some drawing to do to get to that point. And um I did hear from Toby's Auto again. We heard from them back in the summer. Uh they might be ready to do something in December. So, right. Otherwise, number 11. Motion to adjurnn. And I'll second. It's a motion, a second. Non-debatable. All those in favor? I I thank you.