City Council - Regular Meeting

Joyce is our director of communications and I don't know what, marketing, everything. She's everything. Thank you, Joyce. I know, that's right, you met her. You know everything about her. You know everything about everyone. The Tuesday, June 16th, 2026 meeting of the Eden Prairie City Council is now called to order. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. It's customary during this time of the meeting for me to read an open podium invitation. Open podium is an opportunity for Eden Prairie residents to address the city council on issues related to Eden Prairie city government prior to each council meeting. These council meetings typically occur the first and third Tuesday of each month except in the summer. The open podiums occur from 6.30 to 6.55 right here in the Council Chamber. If you wish to speak at open podium, please do contact the City Manager's Office at 952-949-8412 by noon of the meeting date with your name your address, phone number, and subject matter so we can be better prepared for you. Open Podium is not recorded or televised. If you have questions about Open Podium, please do contact the city manager's office. Mr. Gatcho, it's always fun, I guess is a good word, but certainly enjoyable to have these proclamations and presentations and graduation, so this is a nice evening and it is really, I guess I wanna throw out a compliment to Rick Getschel, because he brought the Citizens Academy here to Eden Prairie. I think you had it in that other town nearby, maybe Hopkins. But anyway, I give him a lot of credit and I know you all, and you can nod right now or smile, but really, I thought it was a pretty cool program. I see all the nods and smiles. And just to have, in the end, hundreds of people out there that really understand our city and government and actually can be ambassadors and advocates for us. So thank all of you. And I'll do that later, too. But thank you, Rick, for all the work you've done with the Academy. And I'll turn it over to you.

Oh, yes. Well, let's.

Well, Mayor, I think this is thanks to our graduates. It's graduation season. It's graduation night. Actually, you know what? No, that applause, that applause is also for Sarah. Sarah was, everyone knows Sarah. Sarah was... Sarah Potter, the administration support specialist helped put a lot of this together and did a lot of the work and a lot of the planning and communicated with everybody and kind of helped keep things going and did a ton of the work, most of the work, almost all the work. And as you said, Mayor, I think this might be the seventh or eighth time that we've done this in Eden Prairie. We had to take a break a few years over COVID. And as you said, you talked about ambassadors. I think a lot of times we talk about building community and community engagement. And I think a lot of times it's really important to talk about the community that you live in, the community that you work in is one in which if you know more about it, And if you learn more about it, you maybe trust it more. And if you volunteer in that community more, which many people do, and get engaged more, that works well. But again, a community where A community that you might be closer to, which we are obviously biased and think the city local government is a community that's closest to all of us, is one that you can really easily get engaged in and get involved in. And all of the people here putting in 20 plus hours in this day and age that we live in over the course of six weeks is about as impressive as it can be with the time that we have that you all did. is something that is hard to do. And the fact that we have classes that we hold to about 25 people each year. So as you said, Mayor, it's about 200 people now over the course of the last eight years. that are willing to do this and um we get a wait we have a wait list and so some of the people that are here tonight have waited a couple years to do this uh because we i think it was too we haven't asked to do this for about two years and as i as as we mentioned it's over a six week period so we cover we kind of cover each department each evening so you have an evening of public works you have an evening of fire you have an evening of police you have an evening of parks you have an evening of community development. You have an evening, the first evening covers administration, city council, so you have an evening where the folks get to take on the role of a council meeting. There was someone that was sitting in the mayor's chair and ran the meeting, and you had council members who kind of had a feel for what it's like to do what you do. We have a public hearing for a land use issue later on tonight up near the C.H. Robinson property. You guys had, what was that, a 3-2 vote? 3-2 vote for a project on Dell and Pioneer Trail for a coffee shop. That's not what's there now, but that's what we talked about that evening. But again, it's kind of a flavor of what the city has to deal with over those six evenings. And also I want to say, It's something our employees love to do. Our employees love to share what we do, and hopefully you saw that, that our employees love to talk about the work that we do. So over the six evenings, you were able to meet a lot of the people in a lot of the departments that do the work, and we love to talk about what we do. I know they do, and they're proud to share what they do as well. So with that, we are, council members are gonna come down. We are, it is June, it's graduation season, right? So we're gonna come down and we're gonna present the diplomas. I'm going to do this in alphabetical order. So as we do this, each individual person is going to come up and they're going to accept their diploma. And if you wish, maybe say a few words into the microphone. And I think part of that too is we're gonna start recruiting new people next year. So it's about maybe thinking about the person that's watching who might wanna do this next year, thinking about if it's worth someone signing up for next year. And also, and I think we said this on the last session that we had in parks, Bring family to graduation. I love seeing the family members. It's also kind of proof that they know where you really were for those six Wednesdays as well, who you were with and what you were doing. But I love seeing family. And so after graduation, there'll be cake and pictures. Several of us have to stay in here and keep with the meeting. But following, just so you know, following the diplomas, you get to leave. So council members, myself, we're going to come on down. We're going to start the ceremony. All right, so we are gonna start with our first graduate. Come on up, Nancy Cass. Where are you, Nancy? She's in the back. Come on up, Nancy. Clap, let's clap for Nancy.

Come through this way. Yup.

You can hand it to her.

I didn't expect to be first up. I would just like to say how fortunate I feel to have been part of this program. It was wonderful. I'm sure everyone's gonna echo that. But I do have to say, getting the opportunity to drive a snowplow is a memory that will stay with me really for the rest of my life. And I appreciate that opportunity as well. So thank you very much.

No, she's good. Next we have Robert Castle.

Well, I'll echo the comments of others and just say that I thought it was a superb program. I thought the content was excellent. The delivery of the content was excellent. Sarah and Rick did a great job in terms of effectuating a wonderful program. I, too, drove a snowplow. If the city's insurer knew that I drove a snowplow, you'd never get it insured again. Thank you very much. Great program.

David Clark.

Well, I had a long speech prepared, and I don't remember a word of it. I just want to say I was very impressed by this series of seminars. Very well presented, and I'm very impressed with the way the city is run. Thank you very much, and I urge anyone who hasn't done this to do it.

All right, next we have Evan Dean.

I'd just like to say thank you so much. Every week was very different but exciting, and I have so much more of an appreciation for how well-run Eden Prairie is, and that's all thanks to you City Council members and everyone working for the City of Eden Prairie. Yeah, truly outstanding. Thank you.

All right, next graduate, Jane Eastland.

I, too, just want to thank Rick and Sarah for such a terrific program, and I am a Happy to say that I'm a very proud resident of Eden Prairie after this series. So thank you.

Next, we have Catherine Fisher.

Thanks to everybody who taught us so many interesting things about this wonderful city in which we live. I would recommend this program to anybody. I just wish that I had all the statistics and the facts that were presented because there were so many really interesting things. And thank you very much.

All right, next graduate, Casey Getzloff.

Yeah, you get...

Hello, I wasn't really planning on talking, but I do want to say we've lived here for about five or six years now. I've been a fan of Union Prairie since I started working here about 10 years ago. I've been a member of the community center, the library, been an election judge. We've walked many of the trails. I was already a fan of the city, but each meeting we had, I was kind of blown away by the people not only teaching us about it, but also seeing it each week. I was more and more blown away and thankful. Still a proud member of Union Prairie and hope to be for a long time. Thank you.

All right, Evgeny Gordeev. So last year, I believe your wife, two years ago, is a graduate, is that? Yeah, Yulia out in the audience was a previous alumni. So you are following in her footsteps.

Thanks, Sarah and Rick, to some extent. Yeah. I still remember the first day when we were working out here, if we're going to have the coffee shop or not. So Prairie and the Berry was a big hit. We still remember it. Overall, grateful that live in the city and feeling that we're in good hands so that we can live longer, work harder, dream bigger. Go Eden Prairie.

Yes, that was definitely a selling point for the coffee shop. Joe Gutman, next graduate.

Thank you Sarah, Rick, and Council for giving the city residents an opportunity like this. It was eye-opening and thank you for all the department heads that shared their time and their resources so we could learn and like some of the other people said is that we're in very good hands and very impressed with the city and how it makes it look effortlessly well we know that every day there are like a duck as calm on top but turning underneath so thanks again

David Holm, next graduate.

We'll talk later.

So I have a friend who I see every morning. We work out together five o'clock in the morning. He sold his business and he's driven a school bus in Eden Prairie for 21 years. He said, I've seen every division, every part of Eden Prairie. And he said, this is the finest city government in America. And I go on record as saying that too. I'm a guy who would go to the tap, turn on the water and never think about where does it come from. Went to the water treatment facility, I was blown away by it. So, and also just to say the whole culture of all of the people who work in this community, lead it, serve it, it's amazing. It's all joyous. People love to come to work. I could sense that and feel it. So thank you for the privilege of being a part.

Next graduate, Deborah Hudek-Ruhl.

I'd like to say thank you. And it was truly gratifying to see the care, the quality, and the pride everyone puts into our city. Thank you.

Steven Jensen.

This was a fantastic time and thank you very much for all the extra help that you guys gave me. So thank you very much.

All right, next graduate, Chris Johnson.

You know, it's so easy to take for granted the city government, but really, with a course like this, you really get an opportunity to see it from the inside and learn a lot about it. And we understand we have such a well-organized YOU KNOW, WELL EQUIPPED, WELL STAFFED ORGANIZATION TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY, AND IT'S QUITE FANTASTIC. FURTHER, WE GOT TO MEET EVERYBODY, YOU KNOW, THAT IS PART OF YOUR GROUP, AND THOSE KEY RESOURCES REALLY CONTRIBUTE A LOT, TOO. IT REALLY SETS IT APART AS WELL, TOO. SO THAT WAS QUITE SOMETHING THAT I LIKE TO, I WAS GRATEFUL OF THE OPPORTUNITY, AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH. APPRECIATE IT VERY MUCH. I HAPPEN TO BE THE MAYOR FOR THE COUNCIL MEETING. I just want to let you know I'm not going to be running for election. Thank you. GREG LAMOND.

Sarah Potter told me something. She said working with the mayor and Rick is kind of like a filibuster mixed with a dental procedure without anesthesia. Just kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding. Just kidding. It was a wonderful program. I was really struck with the enthusiasm with which all the employees go about their work. Who knew there was so much to be excited about over water treatment, but everyone Everyone was absolutely enthused about where they work, what they're doing and for whom they do it for. And it was really refreshing and was really enjoyable and really had a good time and proud to be an Eden Prairie resident. Thank you.

All right, Pat Nash, come on up.

It was fun to see how committed, how enthused, and how knowledgeable the staff was. It made it easy to understand why Eden Prairie is not only the best place to live, also why it consistently gets awards for being the best place to work. So thank you for this opportunity.

Next graduate, Troy Parrish.

Thanks. So 20 years ago when I met my wife, we lived out in Washington, D.C., and she was from this place called Eden Prairie. And it was winning awards for best place to live. And we kind of just would laugh, like, yeah, that sounds nice, but it's really... It's a great place to live and we've lived here for about 14 years and going through this program really taught me all the good work that goes into making it the best place to live. So thanks everyone for all the work they do and I'm happy to be an Eden Prairie resident.

Come on up, Chuck Salloway.

This is a very well-run program. It was very enjoyable, and I thought the highlight was going to be meeting the city manager, but The snowplow, I'm sorry, Rick, the snowplow beat you out.

One of my highlights was meeting the uncle of a very, very famous basketball player. Our next graduate is Lindsey Schlangen.

I just want to say thank you for the opportunity. Thank you to Rick and Sarah. Sarah, thank you for making me wait a year so that I didn't miss any of the sessions. They were amazing, each and every one of them. I wouldn't have wanted to miss one. Thank you to all the department heads for taking the time out of their day to plan something really engaging and interesting for us. There were so many facts that I brought home to my husband and to my neighbors. And I feel like I'm just so much more knowledgeable now. And it's amazing how much every day we interact with what the city provides for us. And to understand that better, I would encourage anybody to do this program. Thank you.

Christy Schmidt.

I thought this was a wonderful opportunity. I thought the behind the scenes activities were both fun and educational. I'd encourage anyone to do this. It was well planned, well organized, and a lot of fun. Thank you.

Lisa, Lisa Smith-Baker.

I'm sorry, I'm a hugger. I don't know what more I can say that everyone else has said, but I know I feel grateful and blessed that I live here, that I was able to do this program. I came the first night and said, wow, this is great. And then I came the next night and I said, no, this is great. And then I just had the best time. I took a lot of notes. I'm an accountant, so I took notes. I feel like I am going to be a better election judge for doing this, and I definitely am going to continue to do more with the city that I enjoy living here so much. I've been here for almost 40 years. I can't believe I didn't do this before. So thank you very much. And I'm glad I got to meet all of you.

Next graduate, Lowell Suby.

Everyone else has said it so well, I'm just gonna say ditto.

Mike Thomas.

So I was fortunate enough to get the Academy 2 for this year. I got the Police Academy last fall and the City Academy this spring. And I'll tell you, both of them are fantastic. One of the things though I want to criticize this session for is I don't see any homework, any tests, any skill development. So I'm not sure this is really a graduation, Rick. But that aside, I really do appreciate everything you guys did. The thing I was most impressed by was the people. And I know that starts at the top with Ron and the city council hiring Rick, who hires all the other people. And everybody was professional and highly skilled and highly experienced and really nice people. So I really appreciate that. And it was a fantastic experience. Thanks very much.

Mari Verdugo.

Yeah, I just want to say a big thank you to Sarah and Rick and all of those who made this program possible. I was really impressed by the hard work that goes into making Eden Prairie feel like home for me and for many. And this program has really motivated me to try to become more engaged and give back to the community of Eden Prairie. So thank you so much.

All right, our last graduate. And one thing too, and I thought about this, everybody is here tonight except for one person, Melissa Chapman. So shout out to her. And I think she said at Parks Night, she's out of the country. And if you're doing Facebook Live, I'm watching the council meeting. So we have your diploma, Melissa. And also, you guys had such awesome attendance. We had 25 people, and a few of you missed one session here or there, but you were so committed. So thank you. Final graduate, come on up, Betsy Woods.

I don't generally like the use of this word, but I think that what I can say is this class was amazing. Sarah and Rick, we can tell the amount of hard work that you put into it. And I agree with Nancy, driving the snowplow was the best, but a close runner up was wearing all of the fire equipment head to toe. I put my head down and I didn't think I was gonna be able to get it back up, so. I have a lot of respect for them, but thank you so much. This was a great opportunity.

So a final round of applause for all of our graduating class. And Mike, I am sorry we did not quiz you, test you, drill you, but even though none of that happened, you still get a graduation picture and you still get a graduation cake. So you all, unless you want to watch the meeting of which you still can go home and watch taped following the meeting, you can all proceed out toward graduation cake and pictures and thank you all for coming.

Thank you, everyone. That's really nice of you to have gone through this. And you have to, statute says we can't give you any swag gifts, so all your shirts just leave at the door back there. All right. No, I appreciate all of you, really, truly. And I hope to run across, we all hope to run across many of you volunteering across the city. So have a nice party downstairs. Okay.

Hold this. Oh, yeah.

Council, I think we can move ahead while they're exiting. We have a few housekeeping items here. Any items to add to the agenda tonight? Anyone, council member reports? Rick, anything? Nothing? Okay, is there a motion to approve the agenda?

I'll move to approve the agenda.

Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, okay. The following city council minutes, both of them on Tuesday, May 19th, the workshop and the council meeting, any concerns about either one of them? Any edits, any comments you want to make about it? If not, is there a motion to approve both the workshop and the council meeting minutes from May 19th? Somebody.

I'll move to approve the following city council minutes. City council workshop held Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. And the city council meeting held Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. Sorry about that.

Is there a second? I butted in on you. Is there a second? Okay, there is. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right, moving on to the consent calendar. Again, very important item. Simply more housekeeping in the sense that they generally don't need further discussion. However... You as council members can request one of them be pulled off for discussion and or even voted on separately. Any concerns about A through X on the consent calendar? If not, is there a motion to approve items A through X on the consent calendar?

Move to approve item A to X on consent calendar. Second.

Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All right. Mr. Gaccio, we do have two public hearings, I believe, this evening. The first one Eyes on Prairie Bluff Commons, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. Yes, we do have a development project here. We have Prairie Bluff Commons. We have the applicant is requesting approval to redevelop property at 14800 Charleston Road and the vacant parcel to its northwest. Together, the two parcels total 20.41 acres. And on one of those parcels there is an office building, that's been an office building, C.H. Robinson office building for nearly 20 years that is vacant. And the applicant is proposing to redevelop the site into 90 owner occupied town homes and 16 single family lots. The applicant is proposing to develop 67 town homes and there would be 182 units. As you can see in the packet involved in the approval, you have a comprehensive plan amendment and then you have a planned unit development concept review and then a couple of readings related to rezonings and waivers related to lot sizes and setbacks. The Planning Commission reviewed the project and recommended approval eight to zero at their May 11th meeting. The applicant is here to walk you through their project. Staff is able to answer any questions that you have and then there's obviously a public hearing related to the project. You have also at your desk a resident providing some written material before the meeting as well. So if the applicant wants to come forward, yes, I can. No, that's for me to prompt too. So you can come on up.

Give your name and company you work for, address.

Good evening, Mayor Case and members of council. My name's Josh Metzer with Lenar, Minnesota. We're at 16355-367 North in Plymouth. Do we have a clicker for the? All right, this was not working at Planning Commission, so let's give it a go. I also want to thank city staff for, I'll say, putting us through the ringer. We first applied back in, I think it was October, so we've been at this one for a while, but we believe that we definitely have ended up with a better project than we started with, so thank you, city staff, for that. So we're excited to be here with a unique opportunity here at Eden Prairie, not only a rare opportunity new residential, relative to what we're used to, new residential in Eden Prairie, but also the state of the site, what we're converting from. So here's a look at the site plan. Existing on the site is the CH Robinson, one of the CH Robinson office buildings right at the northwest corner of Flying Cloud Drive and Charleston Road. The building that we're proposing to build on is currently vacant, so there is a proposal to demo that building And then the northwest part of the site here is a vacant site, also owned by C.H. Robinson, was previously proposed for office building use. That did not move forward. The C.H. Robinson building to the northeast of us there will be remaining. Also the C.H. Robinson across Charleston is to remain. We have the airport to the north of us. We have Hennepin Village to the west and Flying Cloud Drive the Prairie Bluff Conservation Area and the River Valley to the south. What you're seeing in yellow, that's our proposed townhome product. And in the burgundy, maroonish, that's our villa product. You can kind of see here, it might be a little tough, but You've got the landscaping. We've got quite a bit of buffering along Charleston, both sections of Charleston, along Liatris. We do have quite a bit of buffering between the existing, to remain, C.H. Robinson building and our town homes. And then kind of on the, just along Charleston, on the southeast corner, you can see some existing trees that will be remaining. We're happy we're going to be able to preserve those, give a nice buffer from the intersection there. And then also on the west, there's quite a bit of existing ponding and a lot of trees and kind of a ravine area that we're going to be able to maintain as a nice existing buffer. So that is a look at our plan. Given our proximity to the airport, we will have the window glazing to provide noise attenuation to, I forget what the exact decibel level is required by code, but our windows will be designed for that. All right, here's a look at some of the proposed homes. The top three pictures are renderings of our Liberty Townhome product. That is, each of these will have a three bedroom layout, two story. They'll be starting in about the $430s and going up from there depending on if it's an end unit versus interior. And there's different options for different finishes that they can choose that'll determine where that price might go. The bottom four photos are the Villa product. These are just examples of what we have various, various different elevations and color packages. These are, depending on the layout, two or three bedrooms. and we're gonna start those at about the upper fives, and they'll go up from there again. These will have basements, but they have the option to finish or not, and finish the basement or not, so the price could go up from 575, depending on their finishes. The villas are intended to be H-targeted, so that's part of our plan here. The entire community will be HOA, It's all owner-occupied, but it's HOA-maintained, so snow removal, landscaping, all covered by the HOA.

Including the villas?

Correct, yep. All the villas and townhomes will have EV-ready garage for electric vehicles. The villas will be solar ready, so they'll be set up if people want to add solar panels to the rooftop, they can. We're not going to be able to do that for the townhomes for a few reasons. One of them is we don't have enough space on each rooftop, which are only 25, each unit is only 25 feet wide. And then you have various vents coming through the rooftop. So there's not the required, I think it's 150 square feet. Don't quote me on that number, but I know that we're We don't have that square footage available. Also, because these are owner-occupied, but also maintained by the HOA, the exterior of the buildings are maintained by the HOA, so if there would come a time to have to re-roof or do any improvements on the rooftops, you're gonna run into a situation where some units might have solar panels and some won't. That'll be an issue for the HOA. And also, we believe that the, putting any, you know, penetrating that roof with any sort of improvements for solar paneling would void the warranty on the roof for those owners. So those are some reasons why we're not able to do solar on the townhomes. Here's a look at the open space plan. The darker green are kind of common active open space areas. Starting on the south, you've got kind of a smaller open space area that's gonna be serve as an overlook of the river valley for our residents. It's gonna have a gazebo and some benches planned there. Also a trail connection to the trail that runs through the conservation area there. Working north, if you follow the trails in orange, we'll get up to the center area and kind of that rectangular area you see, there'll be a tot lot playground. Next to that, a paved area with picnic tables and a grill. So kind of a gathering area for that. Working a little bit west, that open space area, that's intended to be kind of a flat open space area. We're not gonna put many trees there. We will have trees around the perimeter of it, but we'll leave it open in the middle, meant to be kind of an open play field or gathering area. And then further west, we're proposing a dog park on the backside there. So these are all some of the things that we weren't originally showing in working with city staff. We're adding elements over time and we think it's worked out to a very nice plan here. The mint green that you're seeing is common open space. So that's, again, it's owned by the HOA, meant to be more of passive lawn area. So, of course, residents will use it as any resident would a small yard around themselves. And then we're also gonna have park benches here where the trail comes down from Hennepin Village there to the west. We'll have a couple benches at the convergence of the trails. And what you're looking at here are some images of that area. The middle picture on the left there, that's a shot from that amenity area looking west. The bottom left is a shot of the amenity area looking up towards Hennepin Village. So you can see there's already a lot of existing buffering. You can barely make out one of the Hennepin Village townhome rooftops there in that bottom left picture. And then the bottom right picture, that is looking south towards the ponding area and then the river valley beyond. Here are some cross sections. So if you can see on the site plan on the top right, you've got an A cross section, a B, and then a C. So as we work from top to bottom, that is A, looking at the Hennepin Village townhomes on the left side and where our proposed townhomes on the right. Same thing with the second one down, that's cross section B. Quite an elevation change there. I think our, I can't quite see it, but I think that the top one, we're at about 275 feet of separation. The middle, the B cross section where I think we're at about 350 feet of separation. And then the bottom one is a cross section of Charleston to show our proposed community with the existing C.H. Robinson building across Charleston. Here's our look at our phasing plan. We've got phase one in blue, phase two in pink, and phase three in yellow. The hope is that if things go as planned here with council and with the second reading, that we'll begin grading here second half of the summer. Probably with the demo of the building, which we already have a contractor signed up for, hopefully we can get that process started. and get that down in enough time to get some grading done, but probably not all. So the west half of the site will probably finish upgrading next year. And then utility and street construction, we're hoping to at least get some started here this fall so that we can at least get one model townhome building started and complete that through the winter, maybe even a couple other buildings. And then next spring, hopefully have the model open for sales and continue on with phase one. And then we'll continue to phase two next year in 2027. Full build out of the site. Depending on market conditions, of course, we're thinking five to six years for full build out and sales of the entire community.

While you've got that slide up, if I could just ask one clarifying question. Because I missed the phase one, two, and three in my packet. The road that's in phase three that goes towards Plumstone, I think I'm saying that correctly, If that's phase three, are all the roads put in right away even though you won't build there, or will phase one and two only be able to exit east to get out to Charleston to get out?

Right, the plan for now is for phases one and two to exit to the east on existing.

Because there will be no road to the west until phase three is built.

That's the plan. Okay, thank you. And so that's about it. If I missed anything, we can... It might come up in questions, but again, we're excited to be here and happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Council, this will be a public hearing, so you have the option to ask any question you want later on, or if there's something right now that's pressing because we have our proponent right here, is there something you'd like to know right now before we go into a public hearing?

I can wait.

You can wait, okay. Stay nearby. Thank you. Mr. Gatcho, then it's fine for us right now to move into public hearing. All right. To our residents sitting in the audience today, so this is a public hearing. Is there anyone in the audience this evening wishing to address the Council on this proposal? Let me get the exact name, sorry.

Oh, yep, just hang on just a second, sorry.

On the Prairie Bluff Commons, I just was blanking on the name. Is there anyone in the audience wishing to address the Council?

Yes.

Please come forward. Give your name and your address.

My name is Vicki Peller Price.

Pull the mic down, Vicki, just so we can get a good... Oh, you can't hear me?

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. My name is Vicki Peller Price. I've lived in Hennepin Village for 21 years. I pretty much know the lay of the land there and what happens there. you know, as far as how one gets around, which is very important. So I did send everyone a document. Did you get it? Yeah. So it should be pretty clear. Would you like me to read it?

I think we can read it. If you just want to highlight the key points.

Okay. Well, I think basically one of my most concerns about using Liatris Lane as a way for them to get around. And I think that basically something that not a lot of people know, but because I've been there for a really long time, is that Liatris Lane is ends right at Gate J of Charleston Road, on Charleston Road. So if you've ever been to any of the Flying Cloud Airport events, that area can get absolutely crazy with traffic. And it gets traffic anyway. But basically, what I've suggested is that there's a lot of ways that the new development can basically access Charleston at two different points, closer to, you know, C.H. Robinson and then farther away without using Liatris. Liatris is pretty much, you know, you could go to another street, I think it's Plumstone or something like that. But most of the residents that live on the other side that are going to be closer to this new community and also back up to that new community, they use Liatris. I mean, you can't believe the amount of traffic. So that's very concerning, I think, for everyone. And I've talked to a lot of neighbors, and they agree on that. It's not that we disagree with what's happening, with building a new community. It's not about that. It's about, as I said in here, the safety and the traffic concerns. I mean, there's going to be a lot of traffic on a really narrow Charleston road. And it's not long. I see it as kind of one of the most important issues. And I've written that in there. I don't want to reiterate what you can already see. That's why I wrote it up for you, so that I didn't have to go on and on about it. But it is about safety, about kids that are biking, and they're walking, and there's dogs, and they're all walking down Liatris. and I just think it's a really bad idea and I know that ASSOCIA is against it and most neighbors are against it for safety. So the new community sounds wonderful, beautiful and a lot of his ideas, I love them but I'm talking about smart safety here and the consideration that I know because I've lived there for 21 years.

Thank you, Vicki. Appreciate you coming forward.

Okay, thank you.

Is there anyone else in the audience wishing to address the Council this evening? I feel like I should ask that three times like at a convention or something. Well, Council, why don't we make a motion to close the public hearing only and then we'll discuss and then we can talk about the other bullet points in the motions. Is there someone that would make a motion to close the public hearing?

I make a motion to close the public hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. public hearing portion of this is closed. All right, council. Let's chat about any, well, first let me ask you, did you have any questions of the proponent that you'd like to ask?

I have one.

Lisa, go ahead. Do you want Tim to come forward? Sure. Please come forward.

I think since we're looking at a residential development near an active airport, we have an obligation to think about sound standards, and you said that the windows were going to be glazed. Is that double pane, triple pane? What does that mean? I'm not familiar.

I don't know. It's your standard window, I believe, but it has a glazing on it that keeps sound out. If you want, we could send the specs on that to city staff and they could share them. But I know it's been done. We had a couple of communities by the Blaine Municipal Airport where we had to do the same thing. So this isn't our first time that we've built near an airport and had to glaze the windows for sound attenuation on the inside of the home. And the residents are required to sign a disclosure stating that they're near an airport and they understand this so that we can demonstrate to them that.

Lisa, do you want Robert maybe to just express, well,

Julie.

Do you want Julie to express that we know, we're familiar with this?

Mayor, members of the Council, the development agreement will include language that requires windows of a certain standard to be installed on the units in order to mitigate the noise from the airport. And as he mentioned, there is also a disclosure that the residents are required to sign.

Yeah, okay. Thank you, Julie. Thank you so much. But also, I just have one more about the design. Will they be able to upgrade, let's see, are there upgrades available for noise reduction if they want to, you know, for additional cost?

Or is it?

I don't, not that our builder offered. Of course, on their own, they'd be able to, on the interior of the home, not on the exterior, but on the interior.

I'm just concerned. I know people are signing and they know they're moving near an airport, but still it's, you know, the reality of living close by one may be different from what they think, so.

It's fair. Council Member Narayan.

Thank you. I was wondering, did you have a neighborhood meeting and what was the feedback?

We did have a neighborhood meeting. We actually sent out, I think it was 424 notices. Surprisingly, we had five households come to the meeting. It was here at City Hall. Feedback was some concerns with traffic, curious about trail usage, trail connections, whether or not we were going to be offering any open space areas or amenities. Those are the big highlights. There was actually three of the five that came were also seeking information. on the community of possible interest to purchase.

So. And I guess we have done a traffic study, right Robert? And staff is okay with that as well.

Robert, unless you want Julie to take this one too.

Or Judy, I don't know.

Yeah, and I could maybe provide some highlights from that traffic report for the City Council. So looking at this development that's proposed, it generates about 89 vehicles in the AM peak, and that'd be 89 vehicles coming in and out. And then during the PM peak, it's about 100 vehicles in and out. And I just maybe provide some context because the previous proposal that was approved, the office building for this site generated about three times that amount of traffic. So this is a substantial decrease in the total volume. Now going back to those a.m. and p.m. peaks. So it was 89 for the a.m. peak, 100 for the p.m. peak. That split about 70% going out towards the east because that's more access to the north, to the south, and to the east. The other 30% would be exiting and entering off Liatris. So when you break that down, that adds about 27 vehicles on Liatris for the AM peak, and that's in and out, and it's 23 vehicles, excuse me, 30 vehicles in the PM peak. So that's the added traffic on Liatris, which seems to be the primary concern for the existing neighborhood. Now, to explain the volume of traffic that we currently have without this development on Liatris, we're sitting at about 109 vehicles in the AM peak currently. So again, we'd be adding 27 vehicles to that 109. So it's a relatively small increase for an intersection that has plenty of capacity. And then again, in the PM peak, you have 123 vehicles in and out, you're adding 30. So again, relatively small increase. What that means when you run the level of service analysis, all of these intersections operate at a level of A or better under current conditions, and they continue to operate under A for the proposed development. So we don't see any concerns with traffic. Maybe just to hit on an alternate access location that doesn't use Liatris that maybe goes back out to Charleston That it was something that was looked at that maybe some of the issues that that creates is if you try to use that existing driveway that CH Robinson has about center of the property between Liatris and the existing East exit If you were to run neighborhood traffic through their entire parking lot, it's kind of a bad situation you're creating. You don't wanna introduce more traffic where you have people backing and entering. And you would really need to do that if you had to use that access because you wouldn't want to push all that traffic right up to the neck of the intersection, force them to do a 90 degree in, 90 degree out with all those movements. So it didn't seem like it was a feasible option. But then if we looked at, well, could you find a different location for a new access point just for the neighborhood, you start crowding Liatris and the queue and storage length that they have for that and then also creating conflicts with the existing C.H. Robinson. There would be too many access points and too short of a distance. We felt that would just create issues. And because the level of service and the low delay and queuing with the proposal of the access on Leitris wasn't creating an issue, we felt that was the best option of all those reviewed. So just maybe wanted to highlight some of those recommendations from the traffic report. I'm so glad I asked you that question.

Hey, Robert, if the C.H. Robinson building in the north that's staying in the northeast corner there, if someday that parcel develops, which is possible, I mean, with what's happening to office buildings today, that development would likely force some kind of a new exit onto Charleston, which all these two, and we can't wait for that. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying that you're not going to add another 80 homes in there and they're not gonna be feeding into, they're gonna create their own access point and others will feed into that.

Yeah, I suspect if that redevelops as residential, that access would stay and there would be a street that would probably run all the way down to the street that's being built with this development. So I think it would be beneficial for all parties involved when that day comes.

I was down there driving around the whole area today and it is, and I've been down you know, over the years quite a bit to Liatris. And it is a public road. Same with the Plumstone Drive for a portion of it, is meaning that the City of Eden Prairie owns and maintains this road. Not that private developments can keep other cars off their roads. I mean, I suppose I don't even know the technicality legally to become a bear path, but anyway, private roads can be driven on too by others, but particularly city public roads. The other thing is when Liatris is coming down morning or evening and taking a left, you're looking, well, there might be cars coming from the left, right, coming home in the evening, but if you're looking to the right, Obviously, C.H. Robinson people going home, though many of them probably jump on to Flying Cloud Drive, but the level of constant traffic is less than at a normal intersection. I mean, you've got, your numbers were, you had them there, whatever you just said, I forget, 109. and then 123, I mean, it's not a lot to be dealing with at that intersection. I think it can handle it. I do feel positive, I guess. I didn't realize with the phasing. Phase one and phase two people will not be able to get in the habit of going west. Their in and out will be going east onto Charleston. That's the way they'll live for two to three to four years. Yeah, when a new entrance gets put in, they may try it, but if there's traffic down there or there's queuing, they're going to go right back to their normal path that they've developed. So I really, in fact, the development that's there now at Hennepin Village, as you've stated, we'll hardly realize they're there if they're all not even connected for the first two to three years. Is that fair to say? Yeah, so there won't be any impact at all for two to three years. And by the time there is impact, if phase three gets built five years down the road, again, habits will have been formed and who knows by that point the other building won't be coming for development at that point and suddenly we have this other entrance. Council Member Dorian.

I have two more points. Thank you. So the next one is, a few years ago when the developers come here and we ask for solar ready, they have not even thought of it. So my question, this one is one of these things. Four-year townhomes, have you considered putting solar roofing and give them pre-built solar roofed townhomes, and some of them not, and so that way, not like two residents in same building, right? Both of them are fully solar roof. I'm just wondering, have you thought of that idea?

Not here in the Minnesota market. Perhaps it's something that is considered in our southwest or southern markets, but not here in Minnesota. That's not something that's been considered to this point.

And you have not heard that idea before from anywhere else? Anybody else building that solar ready up front?

Not for Lennar, no. And not here locally in the two cities that I'm aware of.

Okay. And the last one is actually a compliment. Thank you for putting the EV ready so that the residents don't have to spend $5,000, $6,000 to have an EV car. Thank you. Yep.

Kathy. You talked a lot about a homeowner association being responsible, how this neighborhood looks and has a certain amount of responsibilities. And what will the residents have, can they come back to you or whatever if their homeowner association doesn't really do its work or greatly increases the price?

Well, we have on our internal staff, we have two HOA managers that work with the HOA members until it's taken over fully by the HOA, you know, it's taken over by the residents. We also have management companies that manage each HOA. So our HOA managers stay in contact with the HOA property management company for budgeting and for annual votes, things like that. So we do have two staff members full-time. That's their full focus.

Okay, so you don't get the situation that, in fact, they just say nobody really wants to do this, and so they just stop doing it, like I've seen over many years in associations and sometimes Edenbury, sometimes other suburbs. so you make sure that doesn't happen?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we have covenants, we have bylaws and articles of incorporation that, you know, include and call out each of these amenities that are for the community. In my experience with Lennar, we haven't had any issues where the HOA, you know, turns up their hands and say, we're done with taking care of these amenities. It's really not an option for them. It's kind of written into the rules of the community.

All right, thank you.

Mark, anything? The only thing I wanted to add, Unless, I guess I don't want to keep, well, you can stay standing. Sure. But you can go sit down as well. We got a letter from John Miller. This was back, I think, before planning. And I just wanted to, this is the HOA Association president for the entire, all the different, I think, HOAs put together, I believe. And he's over all of it. And just a couple of concerns he had raised and got raised in our packet. Traffic concerns, of course. The conservation area that, by the way, is beautiful. I mean, I stopped up there again today. There's five parking spots. Association's a little bit, and that's Eden Prairie owned, demands a park of ours. And it's public area up there, so anyone can go. But association's a little bit concerned about different cars parked. And we'll just have to address that as we have the last 20 years if we've needed to. And by the way, all the intrusion down onto the bluff, which was occurring with wedding pictures, And I'm sure there are people up there, if anyone's listening from Hennepin Village, don't say, you're wrong about that. I'm just saying the negative damage impact is not there like it was four, five, six years ago. I didn't see any footsteps. I didn't see any grass knocked over. Our fence is working, I think, really well. It's really good signage. So I was really pleased to see that. Anyway, there was some concern from John Miller on that. Playground pool area, just concerned that people would maybe infringe and go over and use it somehow. I think that's an internal problem they would have to deal with. So in general, his letter was quite positive, as Vicky's was, that in general we knew something was going to go in there. Most people living there are just a little bit concerned about Liatris, and I understand that. I feel comfortable tonight based on what Roberts talked about and Julie, Julie, and the fact that it's gonna be phased. So with that, Councilor, any other comments or questions or are you ready to vote?

I just have one more. Sure. I appreciate that a lot of the trees are remaining.

Yes, and if you've driven down there, there aren't a lot of trees there, because the whole center of the cleared off area, there's not a tree there. But yeah, I think the buffers between the new development and the former development, particularly to the south, are amazing. So yeah, this is, I think, a really nice project. Vicki, nope, out of order. Sorry, we've closed the public hearing. You can ask him when we're done with the meeting. I'm sorry, but thank you so much. I appreciate your cooperation there. So, council, anything else? If not, is there someone that would make a motion? We've already closed the public hearing, so go to second bullet.

I'll move to adopt a resolution for a comprehensive plan amendment from office to medium density residential on 23.59 acres and from office to low density residential on 4.82 acres and adopt a resolution for a plan unit development concept plan review on 28.41 acres and approve the first reading of an ordinance for a plan unit development district review with waivers on 28.41 acres and a zoning district change from office to RM-6.5 on 23.59 acres and from office to R1-9.5 on 4.82 acres and adopt a resolution for preliminary plat of 28.41 acres into 166 lots for the townhome units, 16 lots for the single family units and nine lots for common open space, and eight out lots, and adopt a resolution for findings of fact in support of park dedication fees and direct staff to prepare a development agreement for Prairie Bluff Commons incorporating staff and council conditions. That was a long one.

Any further discussion? Ready to vote? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimous. All right, welcome. Congratulations.

Take care.

All right, let's move on then to our second public hearing of the evening, Mr. Gaccio.

Mayor and council, thank you. Data centers, first reading of an ordinance, adding new language in our zoning code regulating data centers. You may recall, I think probably scattered throughout some recent workshops where we've been discussing probably a lot of different development projects and development sites and... issues related to development. We've kind of talked in probably indirectly and probably in small conversations about data centers, bits and pieces at workshops. And so now we are bringing forward at a council meeting via the planning commission language to further define data centers in our code, which it is currently not. Probably goes without saying, this is a very hot topic. in the state of Minnesota and the country. Julie has a presentation, so she actually has a presentation to walk through prior to questions and a public hearing. Great, Julie.

Mayor, members of the council, as Mr. Gatcho mentioned, we are back before you this evening with a draft code amendment based on direction from the council to come back with some language to address data centers. As also mentioned, this is very much an emerging land use that a lot of cities are addressing right now. Our zoning ordinance currently does not address it. And I would like to share that this amendment is really the city being proactive to have some language in our ordinance that would provide direction, communicate to anybody interested in a potential data center in Eden Prairie what the city's expectations would be. And I'll spend some time going through that this evening. To date, the city has not received any inquiries about potential data centers, nor have we received any applications, obviously. So the first thing that we want to talk about is kind of why amend the city code. As mentioned, this is a little bit of a hot topic. Our zoning ordinance does not address data centers. It's not a defined term. There are no performance standards or regulations in place for them. It is a, as Mr. Gitchell mentioned, a hot topic that a lot of cities are dealing with, and along with that hot topic comes concerns about impacts to noise, impacts to the water table, electrical impacts, and the city's not in a position where we can prohibit this use, so we're being proactive in saying where do we want this use to locate if we do receive any inquiries. Now, Eden Prairie is not in the same situation that a lot of other communities are. We just don't have the raw land available for a company to come in and build one of the you know, mega-sized data centers. But we do have a handful of properties in our industrial and office areas that maybe are aging out a little bit, aren't meeting that industry standard for what that building was originally intended to be used for. And so could we get a request that would talk about repurposing some of those buildings into a smaller scale data center? That's entirely possible. So we want to be proactive and communicate what we're looking for in terms of being able to mitigate those impacts. So in the draft ordinance, we want to address what are the appropriate locations for a data center? How could we merge this potential use with our climate action plan? and our sustainability priorities that the city worked so hard to integrate into our development projects? How do we mitigate impacts to any neighboring properties, use of water, and other renewable energy sources? So the ordinance defines data centers and it calls out in that definition that it is the storage management use of digital data as a primary function of that facility. So for instance, here at City Hall, we have a server room downstairs. That server room would not meet that definition because it's not the primary use of that building. And so it would address all of those businesses in town that are similarly situated to city offices. It also, in the draft ordinance, identifies that the appropriate location would be the I-General zoning district. And we'll get into a little bit more detail about the I-General in future slides, but of the industrial zoning districts that the city has, the I-General is the one that has been in place intended to serve those uses that are more intensive. So think outdoor storage, larger sites, more impactful uses based on the concerns that come along with data centers that seem to be an appropriate fit for a location. And it also establishes standards and information that would have to be provided along with any data center application. So this graphic depicts the entire city from a zoning standpoint. As you can see, there are three main areas in the city That have I general zone property so the I general here along the city's north boundary just south of 62 there are some parcels along Highway 5 as well and then also down along flying cloud drive so again those are areas that in support more intensive industrial types of uses and they're located throughout the city and Some of the performance standards that are included in the code amendment include a 700 foot buffer from any residential use. That would be measured from property line to property line. That 700 foot buffer also would apply to any mechanical equipment. So think about any coolers or generators that might be outside of the primary building that is the data center. Those would also have to be 700 feet from any right of way. or any residential use. The data center would be required to connect to and use city water in order to address water usage. And because the data center world, if you will, is a bit of an emerging land use and technology is always changing. We didn't want to be in our draft ordinance too prescriptive as to what those requirements would be. We wanted to be nimble and be able to react to the specificity of whatever comes in with that development application. So we would be receiving reports or information about how the data center would impact noise. how it would impact land use and adjacent properties, any environmental impacts and community impacts. So thinking about things like emergency services, solid waste, things of that sort. And then also impacts to the city's climate action plan because we wanna make sure that we continue to move those goals forward as well in terms of meeting the recommendations and actions that come out of that. Sustainability measures would also be required as a part of the overall data center plan, including compliance with at least one sustainable design or green building standard design, energy demand and utility capacity, 70% of the usable roof space would have to be provided for onsite solar within six months of occupancy of that data center. The water usage would have to be a closed loop system so that they were essentially recycling that water rather than continuing to draw down from the city's water, as well as any generators would have to be Tier 4, which would limit the air pollution that would be generated or impacted as a part of that. So the ordinance would require all of this information to come in, these performance standards to be met, and city staff and or the council would have the opportunity to impose conditions or requirements that would mitigate any concerns that come out of the specific use that is in front of the city at that time. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Judy, a question. Since we have airport, should we put some restriction regard to the airport, how close to the airport or not? Do we have any concern related to that?

Mayor, members of the council, in the research that we did, we didn't see any impact in terms of the airport. We, of course, do have a joint airport zoning ordinance that already addresses the primary concerns of the ordinance, which is obviously height, protection of airspace, those types of things. But we hadn't proposed anything beyond that. Okay, thank you.

Mayor, I'd like to just toss a question up. This is not directed right at you. It's anyone that knows the answer to this. How did these data centers all of a sudden become such a hot topic after being dormant? I mean, no one even heard of them, okay? And I guess I'm not wise enough to know the answer to that. Yeah. Okay, that's a broad answer. I mean, that's what I suspect, but it's like, well, AI just was building upon, but it just seemed like these data centers just all of a sudden, boom, and now they're the hottest topic in so many communities. Okay, I can tell by your kind of agreeing, yeah, they kind of got hot.

I'm grinning because Council Member Narayan seems anxious to answer the question.

Well, I think, Mark, one of the reason is the old days data centers kind of dispersed around different places. The capacity, they didn't need that much. And today, like Amazon and other people, putting very large scale data center. So that's the scary part. because that consumes so much energy, so much potentially pollution, and water, like Judy said, is very important. Recycling that water rather than those concern bring it up. Like in our ordinance, if you have a smaller data center, that's probably okay. There's nothing changed. But if you have somebody like Facebook or Amazon or Google come and put you know, 200,000 square feet of Terrace Center Plus, the heat produced all days on a small chip versus today, it's a lot higher. So the cooling requirement a lot more. So the whole technology, Everything changed.

So everything basically got supersized real fast. Yeah. That's what I suspected. And you're talking 200,000 square feet. That's a big, big area. So I can see where that can kind of heat up things real quick.

I think it's just, I think somewhere in local, one of the cities, they're putting Facebook or Amazon, putting huge. Rosemont. Rosemont, yeah, huge data center.

I just have one quick question. They will not be able to drill their own wells, correct?

Mayor, members of the council, the way the ordinance is written, they would be required to connect to city sewer and water, or city water, excuse me.

Okay.

A week ago, Monday, at the Regional Council of Mayors, they had, is it Mortenson? Is that the big construction firm? They had one of their executives that specializes in building data centers. And he came and he said, look, I'm agnostic. I'm just talking about the facts of building data centers. But he made a couple interesting comments and he said that Water usage and electricity, which we're always concerned about with these big data centers, are inverse to each other. So if you want to decrease your water usage, it's going to take more electricity to circulate water to cool it. If you want to decrease your electricity, it's going to take more water probably pumping up. So they're inverse. So when people try to get both, they don't. They end up splitting the difference. And he also talked about many of these large data centers are looking at serial data centers. So they're going into like Minneapolis and they're finding five, six older buildings and converting the five or six older buildings and then connecting them. So there's a grid system problem there. And then Mark, to your point, I read that within 10 years, 50% of all electric usage in the United States of America will be data centers. That's how fast AI is just absolutely exploding. And because the power that will be needed, and again, other countries are scrambling fast, China, whatever, to do this, and so it's not a question of America deciding to do it or not. We're going to, the question is where. And you can't always just put them somewhere out in the desert that doesn't work because of grid systems. You want them close to where they'll be needed. I think this is smart to proactively get ahead of it. I think, I guess we're lucky that we don't have the massive amount of land that, you know, some of our cities south of us, Prior Lake and Lakeville and Rosemont and Rosemont's taking the UMORE site. that the university owned out on 42, which is, what is it, five square mile? I don't even know, it's huge. And they're utilizing that. They have a moratorium going forward, but they've approved their large 200,000 or whatever square foot data center down there. I guess it does produce some tax benefits, it does. It doesn't produce as many employees as what we would probably like for that square footage, but there are jobs there. Anyway, we're smart and we're lucky. So thank you for going ahead and doing this. This is a public, stay maybe there in case we get questions here, but this is a public hearing on this ordinance code amendment. So is there anyone in the audience wishing to address the council this evening on this first reading of an ordinance code amendment related to data centers? Well, if you're speaking, you've got to come up to the mic and give your name and your address and identify yourself. You just can't yell out from the audience. We don't pick you up. Pull the mic down in front of you there. Okay. Name, address.

Oh, my God, that's so loud. My name is Vicki Peller Price and I live at 15487 June Grass Lane for 21 years. And by the way, it's near the airport. The airport never bothers. The bothering is the vehicles.

Vicki, data centers.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

I've been reading a lot about that, and it seems to be Americans are not happy about data centers being near their communities. AND YOU KNOW, IT'S BASICALLY JUST EVERYTHING, YOU KNOW, SOCIAL MEDIA AND ALL THE DIFFERENT BUSINESSES AND ALL THE STUFF THAT, YOU KNOW, I CERTAINLY NEVER GREW UP WITH, BEING THAT I AM, I SHOULDN'T TELL YOU HOW OLD I AM.

YOU'RE ON TV, GO AHEAD. VICKI, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING RELATING TO OUR ORDINANCE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE US TO KNOW?

the one prohibiting?

The ordinance that we're about to vote on right now. Do you have a thought that you'd like to address the council on this new ordinance proposal?

Well, you know, I was caught up pretty much with having, in other words, there's no, it's about data centers. and there's no room for data centers in our area. Is that what we're talking about?

Not exactly, but if you don't have anything directly related to the ordinance, you can contact us later and share any of your feelings.

Yeah, I don't think I wanna make a statement about it now, but I certainly think that you're probably going to, whatever you're gonna do, I'm probably gonna agree with that.

Okay, thank you.

If it involves data centers.

We're what? Yes. Yes, I didn't hear that, but they said it's a yes, so thank you. Yeah, okay. Yes, well, let me just, should I finish the public hearing, though? or did you have a question related?

Usually we wait till after the closing.

All right, fine, that's fine.

Is there anyone else in the audience wishing to address the Council this evening on this ordinance proposal? If not, why don't we close the public hearing then? Make a motion to close it. Close the public hearing. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, Council Member Nelson.

Yes. Eden Prairie has wonderful water and we take our drinking water from it and everything else. In here you had talked some about they had to recycle water and such, but can we limit how much total they can take out of it at any given year?

Mayor, members of the council, I think Robert would be able to answer that question.

So no, there would be no prohibitions on maximum amount of water used. We are doing, you know, it's effectively creating a ban for drilling a new well, and maybe just to take a minute to explain a little bit about that, because in doing some research, I found that there are a number of communities in the metro who currently have those prohibitions in place for all development, not just data centers, but single family even, if city services are available to the lot. And so just to point that out, Apple Valley, Blaine, Burnsville, Crystal, Shakopee, Woodbury, Maple Grove are a handful of cities that have a ban for new well drilling in place today. So we're effectively doing that here. We're requiring that they hook up to city water. Now what that's gonna do, again, the mayor brought up, there's this continuum. You either use electricity to cool or you use water to cool. And it's an economics decision. If the water is more expensive than the electricity, then they'll use electricity. If electricity is more expensive than water, they'll go with that option. By making them connect to city water, if they're a large water user, they're automatically gonna go into our highest tier of water. So that takes the economics of using city water out of the equation, unless they wanna use a geothermal system, which is effectively taking the water out and putting it back in the aquifer or they recycle it somehow. So that would limit the amount of water they use. They just have to be more creative on how they do that. and it'd be a little bit more cost for putting in a system like that, but they could still do it. And it would keep their water use down. And the other thing is if you're pushing them to the electrical grid where here Xcel Energy has a very clean grid system right now because they have a lot of renewable energy that they're using. So again, if they do go with that option, that helps our climate action plan because they're not using any other type of an energy to do cooling. But to answer your question, no, there would be no limits on the amount of water that they could use, but because the pricing would be cost-prohibitive, they wouldn't want to use an exorbitant amount of water. They'd want to try to combine different methods for cooling.

Council Member Narayan.

Yeah, I just want to clarify. When I was a state, I was responsible for 24 data centers, I think. All of them doesn't have to use water either. just like air conditioning. It's just cooling a lot of other ways they do cooling water, maybe one of the way. The second point I was gonna make is the data center is nothing negative, but we will get, they need to have very high speed broadband fiber connectivity to those site because end of the day, they have to put the data out and data coming in. that's probably a positive side of it. So electricity more important, I think, than the water. My concern will be the use of electricity. And they typically ask for dual feed, two different, you know, all that. And I don't know how, that should not environmentally affect us either, I don't think. Thank you.

Council, are you ready to vote on this proposed city amendment?

I can continue. Approve the first reading of ordinance for a code amendment related to data centers.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you, Julie, for bringing this to working, getting your team to work on it and bringing it back to us. All right, payment of claims. Any items on the payment of claims expenses to ask more questions about? If not, is there a motion to approve the payment of claims as submitted? I move to approve the payment of claims as submitted. Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? I'll go to roll call. I know, I know, I'm getting there. Okay, roll call.

Councilmember Freiburg?

Aye.

Councilmember Narayan? Aye. Councilmember Nelson? Aye. Councilmember Toomey? Aye. Mayor Case? Aye.

All right, Mr. Gheccio, students on commission appointments.

Students on commissions. Very, it's astounding, every single year we get more applications than we have room for. And I say that because, A lot of cities can't say that. And you know that, Mayor, because we've talked to other mayors in cities, and many of them ask us, how do you get this program going? How do you get so many high school students, any high school, any... student in Eden Prairie, because it can be, you can go, you don't necessarily have to go to Eden Prairie High School. You can go to other high schools that are not in Eden Prairie, but you have to be a student in Eden Prairie to sign up to be a student commissioner on, as you will hear from the council members, on all commissions but planning. And we're lucky. We had 47 applications that we received this year. And what we have done is provide more resources ability for the seniors to be on a commission because in future years we could ask the juniors to come back as seniors to be on our commissions. So we have screened those applications and we have brought them forward for the various commissions for the council members to appoint. And again, I think as recently as the banquet, you saw our students in action, some of the work that they do. It's not just a matter of show up at a commission and sit in the background. Our other commission members get them involved. As I mentioned at the banquet, they produced a video And we played that video at our banquet as it relates to the Heritage Preservation Commission. So the ask here is to appoint the terms for the student commissioners from September of 2026 through May of 2027.

Thank you. No, I'm so proud of our student volunteers. And you are right, other communities, struggle sometimes even getting any students on commissions and they look at me and I'm like we have to sadly turn some way a lot of it's our partnership with the school district and Dr. Josh Swanson who I is always so supportive and I just appreciate his involvement in this too. Council let's start with Lisa and can we just there's five and and all the names are All of the sections have some difficult names. We will do our best. I so apologize to anybody if we do massacre a name. I really appreciate, it looks like Sarah or somebody did phonetic spelling for us. So as long as we can read phonetic spelling well. So Lisa, would you start with that? And then we'll do all the five motions and then we'll vote at the end on all of them. Okay, Lisa, Flying Cloud Airport.

Thank you, Sarah, for doing that. So I move to appoint to the Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission, Brayton Bonner, Sheikha Mandraker, Liam Kramer, Nitesha Umeen, Ghia Nair, and Majada Ahmed.

Okay, PG. Heritage, HPC.

Appoint to Heritage Preservation Commission, Gensley McQuillan. Ivan Ebert, Mehta Kanjam, Vendree Bakchai, Aisha Alam.

Okay, I'll go to the next one. Appoint to the Human Rights and Diversity Commission, Ghatrika Rawella, Safiya Mohammed, Roshi Eni, Siri Buchigari, Angela Luwayaralei, there's a lot of syllables in there, Raya Atanwill, and Iqra Ibrahim.

Point to the Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources Commission. Lila Stridger, Bryce Denison, Alex Hoyt, John Melcher, Rwanda Warsome, Kai Schmidt, and Seth Gillian.

Mark. A point to the Sustainability Commission. Yash Gupta, Hamaji Gunturi, Avini Muheshwari, Rose Wicks, Fafana Risha Lobo, John C. Sendakumar, Arav Gupta, and Apshita Tiwari.

Is there a second to all those motions?

Second. Second. Second.

Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All right. Lisa, did you want to say something?

No, I'm good. Okay.

All right. No reports of council members or city manager. Moving on down to reports of park and recreation director, Dr. Markle. July 3rd and 4th coming up fast, isn't that amazing? Crazy time.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I wanted to just take a few minutes and share with you all the fun festivities that we have planned for the July 3rd and 4th hometown celebration. which will be the 250th birthday of our country. And starting on July 3rd, which is our Sparkle Fest festivities, we'll be out at Round Lake Park from 6 p.m. to 10.30. We'll be starting the evening with a patriotic concert with the Eden Prairie Community Band. We'll also have a color guard and a wreath laying ceremony. Different this year, we'll have our large entertainment stage both nights, and we'll have family-friendly entertainment on the 3rd with a band called Griffin Griffin. We'll have a kids DJ and a dance party. We'll have over 20 food trucks, and to highlight some of the new foods coming, Mi Pueblo will have their new truck, gray duck concessions, and the soda fountain. We'll have a World Cup viewing screen for people to watch kind of some of the final games of the World Cup. We'll have inflatables, bingo, arts and craft, lawn games. We'll have tabling with several of our sponsors and community partners. We'll have a sensory-friendly area and activities throughout the night. And then we'll have a festive drone show with 200 drones once it gets dark.

Lisa, 200 drones. 200 drones.

200 drones. Thank you.

Yeah.

And then on July 4th itself, back out at Round Lake Park from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m., at the large entertainment stage, we'll have Triple Fiddle, Frankie Torres, and the Free and Easy Band. Again, we'll have over 20 food trucks, a few different ones out there that night. New ones include Ben & Jerry's, Brown Chicken, Brown Cow, and one of our favorites, which is Bad Rooster. Fun. The World Cup viewing screen will also have a beer garden, really both nights. And then something special, we'll have the T-6 Thunder group, which is an aircraft formation team, do an aerial flyover with T-36 and T-6 aircraft, which are vintage planes, so that will be fun. And then our fireworks show will start approximately 10 p.m. And then kind of some new transportation options so we can make it a little easier to get people to and from the site and accommodate more people. We'll have a bike corral this year. So if people want to bike to the site, we'll have a space for you to safely store your bike. And we do encourage people to wear their bike helmets. And also think about having lights on your bike if you're leaving after dark, primarily after fireworks. And then just on the July 4th, we'll have a bus shuttle from Southwest Transit from their station on Technology Drive. And so starting at 345, it will be running every 30 minutes. We'll have a shuttle to the site. We'll pause the shuttle during fireworks. And then after, we'll have six buses. They're ready to take people back. And so it may take a little while. For the return shuttle after that first load, but we will still have music after fireworks in our additional hour So if people have to wait for the second round of bus shuttles, I will have entertainment and food there as well And so all the event details and the precise timing ever everything can be found on the city website at Eden Prairie MN gov slash 4th of July And I really want to give a special thanks and shout out to our sponsors. We have really generous community members step up the Viridian Credit Union, which is being constructed and opening soon. They are our title sponsor. T-Fiber is back again this year. They're our presenting sponsor. And then we also have J.A. Price Agency, Southwest Transit with their in-kind donation of staff and bus time on a holiday, which is tremendous. Shields, Wall Trends, and Lions Taps. So just again, a huge thank you to everyone that's supporting this event. Should be wonderful. We're excited.

Thank you to you and also your wonderful staff. It is an amazing evening and it's really great for Eden Prairie residents to experience what a great city we have. It's also great, however many, a fourth of people that come in from other cities to experience the Eden Prairie mystique. Maybe they'll want to move here and live here. All right. Is there anything else to come before the Council this evening, Mr. Getschow? Mayor, we have nothing else to bring to you. Is there a motion to adjourn this meeting? I move to adjourn the City Council meeting. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed to this meeting is adjourned.