City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah! Ah, yeah. Good evening everyone.

This room has been used for voting, early voting over the last week, and it appears my gavel has walked away. So including the base, I can't even fake it with something. So we're going to, not metaphorically, we're going to, with great imagination, gavel the meeting. So welcome to the Tuesday, July 14th, 2026 meeting of the Eden Prairie City Council Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States

I tend to feel like all of our city council meetings are significant and in some way fun. I think tonight is particularly enjoyable. We have a lot of special guests here this evening, presentation, proclamation. We haven't had a whole lot of public hearings for new development projects over the last year, especially residential, and we do tonight have what I think is the largest plot of land left in Eden Prairie residential that will be at least in my tenure. So I think that qualifies for an exciting evening. Typical during this time of the meeting for me to read an open podium invitation to our residents. Open podium is an opportunity for Eden Prairie residents to address the city council on issues related to Eden Prairie city government These occur prior to each Council meeting. The Council meetings typically occur the first and the third Tuesday of the month, not during the summer. We just have one meeting. The open podiums occur from 6.30 to 6.55 p.m. 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 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. Getschall, I'll turn it right over to you so you can introduce our first presentation this evening.

Thank you, Mayor, Council Members. On an annual basis, we are pleased to have our two county commissioners that are able to join us to give us an update on what's happening at the county level of government. It takes a little bit of work to get them here at the same time, which is nice. to be able to have that. We have Eden Prairie having two commissioners. Not many cities have two commissioners representing them, and we do. We have Commissioner Debbie Gattel and Heather Edelson, and they are here to give us an update on what is happening in Hennepin County.

Please come forward and please do not share anybody in the room this with anyone outside this room, but we do have the two best county commissioners of the seven member county commission. So again, keep that here in this room, but we are really pleased to have both of you. Thank you for coming.

Thank you for having us.

So I'm Heather Adelson. I represent District 6, which includes a part of Eden Prairie.

I'm Debbie Gotel. I represent District 5, which includes my hometown of Richfield, Bloomington, the southern portion of Eden Prairie, and a small portion of actually southwest Minneapolis. So Hennepin... county usually flies under the radar. Maybe not so much this year because of the hospital, but usually we do. But we're far reaching despite our, we have a lot of investments, we have a lot of impact on our communities, and in Minnesota we're the second largest government of the state. The largest local government unit statewide, and we steward just over $3.1 billion in an annual budget. So if somebody could pull up our slides. Oh yeah, here we got this here.

And commissioners, if you could just move the mic towards you as you speak. I just want to make sure it gets picked up at home.

We'll move back and forth. Yeah, you could move.

Thank you. You like each other a lot.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, so I'll go ahead and start. But just so you know, first slide, here we go. So each of us, District 5, District 6, Eden Prairie is very lucky. They have... two, I think, good commissioners. Commissioner Gattel has definitely, she knows a lot more and she's very much mentoring me in a way, which I very much appreciate. And so we each represent about 190-ish thousand people and there's seven commissioners for Hennepin County, 1.3 million residents. And as Commissioner Gattel said, very much a hidden part of government. And I just, a fun fact really quick, just because I've done, I have 16 cities, 16 is a lot. WE ARE YOUR FAVORITE, TOO, BUT WE WON'T SHARE THAT OUTSIDE OF THIS ROOM. BY FAR. I SAW YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE SURVEY IN BRAVO, BY THE WAY. THAT ACTUALLY WAS A VERY IMPRESSIVE QUALITY OF LIFE SURVEY. YOU GUYS ARE CLEARLY DOING YOUR JOB AS A COUNCIL AND MAYOR. CONGRATS ON THAT. AND YOU HAVE A GREAT CITY MANAGER, WHICH I'M SURE YOU ALL KNOW. And a good police and fire chief, which I see are here. So that's great. All right, so these are the current budget drivers we'll be talking about as we discuss. But health care, as Commissioner Gattel mentioned, HCMC, we were lucky to get funding at the legislature. We really banded together. We wanna thank the cities that were supporting us and talking to people they knew and as well as the other counties which actually supported us across the state. It was from greater Minnesota to urban. Everybody said they wanted to save HCMC and we received 205 million as well as 500 million that will be in an account for the years to come. We do have budget drivers, state and federal shifts, which Commissioner Gattel will talk about some of the federal things that are coming up. We have some unexpected things, unexpected cuts that we are really forecasting into the future. We also know Medicaid is coming up, a lot of different challenges. We know SNAP error rates, which we can talk about later as well, are gonna be challenging. And county service delivery is a struggle when we have budgets that are changing. And so here we have a $3.15 billion budget, as Commissioner Gattel mentioned. What you'll see here is it broken up for the revenue. And a lot of, you'll see right there is 35.4% of the county's budget. And hopefully you guys, this is loud enough. 35.4% of the budget is property taxes. Now you'll also see at the bottom of that chart in the gray and the yellow pie that federal and state, as well as the red, federal and state are making up a large portion of our funding as well. And so when we have fluctuations in our budget, when we've already said it, and we get cuts mid-year, it makes it very challenging for us. I mean, you imagine your own budget. And so we are receiving many different challenges, and we've already had them. So we'll go ahead and go to the next one. I just wanted to spend a moment on expenditures. Oops, where did expenditures go? Oh, there it goes. Okay, so expenditures... And now I'm wondering if we're on the right slide.

Yeah, we were. They reversed.

Were they switched? Okay, well, there goes revenue. You can see what I was talking about. And then here's expenditures. Okay, so expenditures. So health and human services are about 50% of the county's budget. It's... WHY I RAN, I WAS A FORMER THERAPIST BEFORE I WAS ELECTED, THE COUNTY DOES REALLY IMPORTANT WORK AROUND MENTAL HEALTH, AND SO THAT'S A HUGE PART OF THE WORK THAT WE DO, BUT WE ALSO DO A LOT OF PREVENTATIVE HEALTH. SO CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS, IF THEY'RE AT 12% RIGHT NOW, IT'S A PART OF OUR BUDGET, BUT WE'RE GOING TO BE SLOWING THAT DOWN, SO YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SEE A LOT OF CAPITAL INVESTMENTS THIS NEXT YEAR AS WE COME INTO THE NEXT BUDGET CYCLE. WE JUST SIMPLY DON'T HAVE THE FUNDING TO DO IT. Resident services is a small part of our budget, but it's a lot of what people think about the libraries and law, safety and justice. That is a growing need. The jail has an overtime and staffing has always been a challenge. It's continuing to be a challenge. And so into the future and let's go here.

Now that's Commissioner Gattel. So I'm going to give you just a little bit more in depth information on what Commissioner Edelson has already talked about in regards to some of the program areas. that you probably heard about from the state and on the news, and one of them is a snap. And specifically, that SNAP error rate. So first of all, the first cut came in administration, which was $8 million hit. And that's going to be an $8 million hit every year for the county. And that'll also be at the state level. And that's just for administrating the SNAP. So we actually lose people to be able to administer this. So that's a big hit. Then the error rate is how quickly do you get some of these out? How many errors are done on the way? How fast can you get it out? And of course, you must know through all the things that we've gone through after COVID and with Metro surge that we have had an increase in the needs and the applications. And now with the budget cuts from the administration piece of that, we have less or fewer ways to fill those gaps with real people and dollars to hire people to make that happen. We're working on it as hard as we can to make sure people have food security. We've actually allotted more dollars, about $2 2 million just more recently this last year to our food network. So that would be your different food shelves and places like that that give out food to the folks in need. There's a lot of terminated grants, and some of them through FEMA mostly, but not all of them, $2.8 million. And then there are simply some grants that you may also be in the same place that we are that you just decide because the actual guidance is so onerous that you just can't go for the grants and that we would not apply to them because there's no way for us to comply. And so that's what is happening right now. That's at 10.8 million. We are tracking that on a regular basis because we want to make sure that we know what's going on as far as for what we've lost from previous years and how we're going to decide whether we try to make something up or not. So when we look at the actual numbers and the anticipated cuts For just 2027, it's 20 million. You can see that, and it goes all the way down. Then the HUD cuts. That's the supportive services that we have for a lot of people to help them stay in their affordable homes. Our disability community, our seniors, those folks, that's 12 million. And then the Medicaid, which we all know that they're going to be cutting down to that, and that is specifically, and we'll get to it later, It's a slide on the hospital. But this is just us. We use Medicaid a lot for a lot of our folks who are homeless and coming into our system in different avenues. And so that's a huge cut. That's $59 million we're going to have to figure out how to program for. So a lot of things. There's declining payments coming. And there's a lot of Medicaid disenrollment happening because of the new criteria and just people not understanding and getting their paperwork in on time.

And your HCMC, our HCMC hospital has to serve ultimately anyone that shows up at the door, whether they have funding or not. And so that's why every county in the state of Minnesota supported you because if HCMC goes away, they're showing up at their hospital doors and they have to serve them. So, I mean, and this cumulative financial impact is five, if I did my math, 5% of your budget, that's huge. I mean, if we had suddenly had a hit on our budget, 5%, that's a big deal.

Yeah, well, we're going to talk about that in the next slide. So this is about the medical center. For again, Heather already said thank you. I'm saying we're trying to say thank you to everybody who came out and supported and said anything or talked to your representative, your legislators, your health care systems here, because everybody got on board. We were overwhelmed with the great support that we had. Yes, we have a lot of uncompensated care. That's true. And it's a level one trauma center. There are level one trauma centers, but not to the breadth and depth that we have. I mean, to the point where we have people coming from Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Iowa coming here. But we were really happy that we got $755 million to help stabilize the hospital. We lost 300 frontline folks in that whole issue because people were worried about the stability of their job. And so they went someplace else. So we have to replace those people. And it was because of the legislature that we now can do that. It's a lot of work to be done because this is just a funding source for a period of time. It does not stabilize a long-term debt cycle that the hospital will always have, especially with the Medicaid cuts coming. But what we also know is we have a lot of other counties out there who came to our rescue, a lot of other systems that came to our rescue. And the next legislature will be looking to try to stabilize ours. But we will be a big cheering team for all the other rural hospitals and health care systems who also need that same stabilization as we got from the legislature. So please thank your representatives when you see them. I guess I have the next one, too. No, you have the next one.

All right. Okay, so here is what, in Eden Prairie, what the average resident saw with their property taxes. So estimated market value in 2025, if you had $543,000, you saw a shift up to $558,000. You had a 2.8% change. And it goes down from tax value to tax capacity, and tax capacity, as we know, is how much of the pie that... I mean, property tax law is one of the most confusing things at the legislature, but tax capacity is an interesting one. And so overall, what Eden Prairie residents saw as a shift is about a 9% shift. And so that's about $195 on average. So it's important to note that, of course, with the tax, when you look at your market value and that if your value goes up, obviously your taxes are going up a little bit, too. And so that's a challenge, especially in this market. We understand that people's their wages aren't going up. PROPERTY TAXES CANNOT CONTINUE. IF YOU LOOK AT THE TRAJECTORY, AND I HAD ANOTHER SLIDE ON THIS, BUT WE SOMEHOW DIDN'T MAKE IT IN THE STACK. I APOLOGIZE. I DIDN'T REVIEW IT EARLY ENOUGH. IF YOU LOOK AT OUR PROPERTY TAXES AND WHAT HAS HAPPENED OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS, IN 2025, 2026, AS WE LOOK TO 2027, WE HAVE THIS TREND WHERE IT'S CONSTANTLY GOING UP. And the challenge with that is we're talking about the federal budget and where we're impacted. When there's cuts at the federal level, when we don't get funding at the state level, it comes down to what can we do and what do we have to do as a county. And what people don't understand oftentimes is we have mandated core services that we have to do by state and federal law. And so those are no choice. So they might take away the funding, but they're not taking away the requirement that it's something we have to do. And so with that, oh yeah, of course. Can I add one more thing?

Because I think one of the things too is Heather pointed out something about the escalation over the last like three years and such. But what's really been happening is the last 10 years, we have seen the escalation of taxes and then the tax capacity of the businesses industry is going down. And you can see that through the values because buildings downtown are literally selling for pennies on the dollar. We've seen a lot of foreclosures in some of the office buildings and such around here. And so we know that this needs to be fixed. The property tax issue needs a fully review and it needs a full reset so that people can actually afford their property taxes.

I AGREE WITH WHAT COMMISSIONER I AGREE WITH WHAT COMMISSIONER GUTIERREZ SAID. GUTIERREZ SAID. AND FEEL FREE TO INTERRUPT US IF AND FEEL FREE TO INTERRUPT US IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, COUNCIL YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, COUNCIL MEMBERS. MEMBERS. WE OPENED, IT'S ACTUALLY IN WE OPENED, IT'S ACTUALLY IN DECEMBER OF 2025, WE OPENED UP THE DECEMBER OF 2025, WE OPENED UP THE YOUTH CRISIS STABILIZATION YOUTH CRISIS STABILIZATION CENTER, A REALLY EXCITING CENTER, A REALLY EXCITING FACILITY.

15 MILLION FOR THAT.

15 MILLION DOLLARS. WE BROUGHT THIS ON LINE RELATIVELY FAST. 13 BEDS, OTHER COUNCILS HAVE SAID 13 BEDS, 15 MILLION. BUT WHAT PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND ALSO WITH THAT IS JUST THE COMPLEXITIES OF WHEN YOU'RE IN THE CARE OF A YOUNG CHILD. sometimes we were spending over a million per child and sometimes the child was going to have to go out of state because they couldn't get the services here in our state away from their family and so the great news is this is we're getting really good feedback it has great results and we're able to help the family the kids are able to stay home and it's it's really working well I don't know if you have to add anything to that. Okay, all right. And the last one, we got some bridges that are coming up in Eden Prairie. This is very exciting. These are big projects. So you have one right now, the Pioneer Trail Bridge. I'm sure residents aren't loving that replacement, but it's really exciting when you get a bridge replaced. Those are expensive and it's a good investment in the community. It sounds like it should be done this fall. WE HAVE AN EDAM BRIDGE REPLACEMENT THAT WILL BE COMING UP IN EDAM BRIDGE REPLACEMENT THAT WILL BE COMING UP IN 2027. 2027. ARE YOU HAVING CONVERSATIONS ARE YOU HAVING CONVERSATIONS WITH COUNTY STAFF ABOUT THAT? WITH COUNTY STAFF ABOUT THAT? YES. YES.

WE LEARNED ABOUT IT TONIGHT WE LEARNED ABOUT IT TONIGHT AT OUR WORKSHOP.

Oh, good, okay.

Eden Prairie Road, is that the one we're talking about? Correct, Mayor, yes.

Eden Prairie, yeah, over, I think is it the railroad track is right, yeah, perfect, good. All right, so that one's coming up, and so I will pass it back over to Commissioner Gritzel.

So a lot of cities came to me and wanted to chat about cost participation. And we know that cost participation was changed with MnDOT already with cities and counties. And that was a really great conversation for all of us, I think. And cities have come back to us and said, you have all these county roads and everything, and things have just gotten too expensive. And everything costs more. The four plexus costs more. And you look at all the new technology that's in the roads, and those costs have come up. And a lot of it is brought in from overseas, believe it or not. And so there's a lot to this. So a lot of cities came to me and said, we need a better cost sharing participation. It doesn't matter. We still can't do it. And believe it or not, it's just not small cities. It's large cities. Minneapolis, Bloomington, which is one of my large cities, Richfield. So it's the small cities. It's you folks. It's everybody are talking about how do we make this work for the long term. And so city work staff put together some of this. And you guys have gotten a survey. And I'm hopefully responsible. But I also wanted to say that we're looking to see what the impacts are on planning and everything. And I know that we got more transportation dollars. But even in that light of that, it would probably mean that we will slow some projects down if we take on more costs. And we're very willing to do that. My colleagues are all on board with this. But if you'd like to connect with me personally about the process or provide feedback through this, You can certainly do that to me, and it's anonymous through me. And other cities do. I said on the regional council, mayors from other cities come to me, too. So it would be really good for whatever feedback you had about what you think is going to be the most applicable to your city. Because sometimes, too, we don't do it just, we do it differently by city sometimes. Like we have small cities, and we treat them differently than we do larger cities, such a project. I'm looking forward to the feedback and whatever else you can bring my way if you need some help on that. Thanks. The next slide. So this is a fun topic. I always love talking about affordable housing because we do so much work in this area and it's so exciting to see this. Affordable housing creation and housing supports are some of the most important investments we make to increase the quality of life for everyone in Hennepin County. In 2025, we were the primary funder of affordable housing development within the county. We awarded $19.4 million in capital funding to create and preserve affordable housing. We funded 21 projects with 1,339 affordable rental units and 10 projects to create 69 affordable home ownership opportunities. That's a newer program. We spurred six home ownership projects to create 39 affordable home ownership opportunities. And we provided down payment assistance to help with affordability for 28 first time and first generation home buyers. So it's quite an accomplishment. So see, there is good news here too. There's so much work to do in this space, but making a large strides and bringing down the cost of housing and make it more accessible to residents. This is one of the goals we had placed several years ago about how to do more in our community around the affordable housing area. And it's been successful. And now I get to talk about another fun thing. Elevate Hennepin is a resource hub connecting local entrepreneurs to expert advisors at no cost on a wide range of topics. It's just one of the piece of a broader strategy. It's growing in support with entrepreneurs and businesses At every stage, we get more and more every year. Thousands of businesses use Elevate Hennepin, including more than 4,648 entrepreneurs who have accessed over 61,000 hours of no-cost, one-on-one advising cohort learning opportunities. 345 of businesses have launched as a result of these efforts with around 53 million in facilitated financing. So this isn't just for those startup entrepreneurs. These are for some of your companies too who are at a point where they really want to grow and they don't know how to get to that next step and they want to grow. We also provide those kinds of service, several stepping services to how do you write a business plan all the way up? How do you expand a business that is just busting at the seams? We want to make sure that our small businesses are family owned and partnerships here really thrive and grow in our communities. And we think this is the best bet and the best way to spend our dollars right now. I mean, we offer services from how do you design your website and we'll help them with that. to lawyers on how do you set up permits. We'll help them talk to the cities to make sure they have everything correct. We do all the different kinds of things. Lawyers to go through all the kinds of paperwork and set up the corporations. So it's a worthwhile program and I'm hoping that a lot of your folks, I know some of them are taking advantage because I've seen some Eden Prairie businesses there. So congratulations on those. This is about the police embedded social workers. You know, we want to try to improve the continuing service and residents. Heather already talked about the great new clinic that we opened up for youth and everything. But we need to do more for our residents in the mental health space. And so it's crucial. that the police interactions have something more than just a police interaction. And we noted many years ago, about 10 years ago, that the police officers were coming and saying, I'm not a social worker. This is not work that I could be doing. So starting in 2019, the police-embedded social worker program has become an essential new response method, serving all municipalities in Hennepin County with nearly 50 social workers now. That's a large increase from before. In 2025 alone, Eden Prairie Police made 485 referrals to the embedded social workers, with 488 total linkages to a range of social services. Through May 31st of this year, Eden Prairie has made 205 referrals to the program and 185 linkages to mental health, drug treatment, housing, and employment services. So Hennepin County just kicked off to the One Two Tree campaign this year to help spread awareness about the importance of planting trees to support prettier neighborhoods, cooler yards, and overall healthier communities. At Hennepin, our goal is one million trees by 2030 in collaboration with our local partners. And so I have an update this year. We talked about it last year. We estimate that 636,033 trees will have been planted in 2022, from 2022 to 2026. Some of the really great things I wanna highlight in the programs are the $400,000 available to the Healthy Tree Canopy Grant Program annually to cities, school districts, affordable housing providers, and non-profits, with up to 50,000 available to cities. If you're interested in that, please contact our offices and we'll help you with that. We started offering this opportunity for cities to purchase trees from the Hennepin County to take advantage of our wholesale prices. We have a nursery bed where we grow them for our cities so that they can pick them up in the spring, you call in the winter. Cities purchased 343 trees and 1,400 seedlings from us in 2026 alone. So come back for more, we'll have more. And now it's time for questions and discussion, what you folks want to hear about.

Council, anything? I just want to say One of my key words I think ever since I've been mayor is partnership. And you all are exemplary with partnering with us. And I love having your phone numbers. I'm sure all of these people do too. And you respond, you pick up the phone. So thank you for that partnership. And it's been a great benefit to Eden Prairie. So we appreciate very much both of you. Council, anything?

Thank you. You make our jobs easier, too. You guys are good to work with.

Likewise.

It's good to see all of you.

I'm going to give you just a heads up, because in the committee in a couple of weeks, I just learned, Heather and I did, we voted on this today about the equipment grants for Eden Prairie School District. We're giving you just over $9,600, a purchase of two all-terrain wheelchairs to help youth navigate a variety of outdoor surfaces, including trails, grass, sand, snow, and uneven terrain. It's gonna serve 709 of your residents.

Very cool, thank you. Congratulations. Have a nice evening, thank you so much. All right, second report, Mr. Getro, the green line extension. I just have to say that Chamber of Commerce gave me a question today that they really wanna know a date, so you may not be able to give us one tonight, but I'm giving you a heads up, so Mr. Getro, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Yes, I look out in the audience, and there's quite a few. I think the entire staff is here. I look out. I see the transit general manager. I see our Met Council representative. I see the project director. I see the Met Council transit police chief. I'm not sure who's coming up first. But either way, Mayor, Council, we have an update on the Green Line extension. As you said, we have quite a few people here. We are excited to hear where things are at. Dr. Carter, welcome.

Well, I'll take that. You know, when I was in the Navy, when they asked for volunteers, everybody stepped back. I usually step forward, so glad to be here. I spent a lot of time in Eden Prairie, even though I live in Etonka. And I'm honored to follow two amazing Hennepin County commissioners, Heather Edelson from District 6 and Debbie Gotel from District 5. And I want to say thanks to them for their amazing partnerships.

Dr. Carter, you're probably going to do this, but introduce your position and role.

Well, that's my next step. Okay. And just to restate, my name is Tyrone Ellis Carter, and I represent District 3 on the Metro Council, which includes the city of Eden Prairie. And I'm honored, as I said before, I'm honored to be here today. Each time I talk about this project, It feels like a major milestone, and today is no different. We are moving as an organization from construction mode to opening of this line in 2027. Tonight, you'll hear from Leslie, Chief Dossif, Brian, and Jim about everything Eden Prairie has to look forward to as we get ready to launch this line. These are leaders I trust for their incredible depth of expertise across so many topics. and are here tonight to address any questions you may have. As we look forward to this project, I'm struck by just how much Eden Prairie has worked to prepare for this momentous launch. At a recent event celebrating the restored access to the rails featuring Mayor Case, as well as other corridor leaders, our chair, Robin Hutchinson, noted the excitement about all the transit options residents will soon have for getting around the area. I have already started to imagine the day when you will be able to hop on a quick train, ride to have lunch with a friend, and go to a Vikings game or head to work in St. Paul, St. Louis Park, or right here in Eden Prairie. It's encouraging to see the positive reactions that we're hearing from the community to the opening of this amazing project. And with that, I'm going to hand it back to Leslie and her team to do their presentation. And thanks again for welcoming us to this event today.

Thank you, Dr. Carter, for representing us on the Metropolitan Council. We appreciate this.

It's always an honor. Thank you.

ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, GOOD EVENING. GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS LESLIE. MY NAME IS LESLIE. I SERVE AS THE GENERAL MANAGER I SERVE AS THE GENERAL MANAGER FOR METRO TRANSIT. FOR METRO TRANSIT. THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEMBER CARTER THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEMBER CARTER FOR KICKING US OFF THIS FOR KICKING US OFF THIS EVENING. EVENING. WE ARE VERY THANKFUL THAT YOU WE ARE VERY THANKFUL THAT YOU ARE MAKING TIME FOR US ON YOUR ARE MAKING TIME FOR US ON YOUR AGENDA THIS EVENING TO PROVIDE AGENDA THIS EVENING TO PROVIDE AN UPDATE ON GREENLINE AN UPDATE ON GREENLINE EXTENSION. EXTENSION. AS DR available to answer questions and listen and learn from the discussion as well. But I will get us started. We'll provide a brief update on who we are as Metro Transit, what we're focused on, and then really dive into a status update on the project, including all the work happening across Metro Transit. to prepare for a successful launch. And of course, we'll be happy to take questions at the end as well. As we start this discussion, I wanted to ground us in Metro Transit Forward. At Metro Transit, this is our shared strategic framework that guides our work, We developed this document through engaging our employees, our riders, community, and it really distills what we are focused on. It includes our mission statement. We connect people, strengthen communities, and improve lives by delivering high-quality public transportation. It includes our three strategic priorities, employees, experience, and service that really anchors and guides our work. For 2026, we're focused on three main areas or goals, building ridership, increasing satisfaction, and particularly pertinent to tonight's discussion, preparing for a flawless Green Line Extension launch in 2027. And I'll just note, we did choose that word flawless intentionally because we know this project is a long time coming. There are many leaders across our region, including in Eden Prairie, past and present, who have been partners in making this project happen. And we are really looking forward to being able to launch it next year. Not to keep you in suspense, but we do not have a date to share tonight. We can talk a little bit more about the process for setting a date. But we know the expectations are rightfully very high, and we are preparing ourselves to deliver it flawlessly. And that's the information we'll share with you this evening. Just a little bit of background about Metro Transit. First though, Metro Transit is the largest public transit provider in the Twin Cities region. We serve over 60 communities across about six counties. We have over 3,500 employees at our organization. In 2025, we delivered just over 50 million rides And as the pie chart on this slide shows, people take transit for a variety of travel needs, certainly work, school, errands are all part of that, entertainment, leisure, getting to medical appointments. So we are focused at Metro Transit in developing and supporting a transit system that can serve a variety of trip purposes, knowing that transit is a lifeline to many in our community. A little bit more about us. We operate two light rail lines, eight bus rapid transit lines, over 60 local bus routes, 27 express bus routes, and five metro micro zones, which is a contracted service that provides on-demand transit within dedicated zones. And at this stage, I would like to hand it over to Project Director Jim Alexander to provide the project update.

Nice to see you again, Mr. Alexander. I will say that when you started this project many years ago, you had a complete full head of hair. So I think you've lost just a lot of stress, but you have handled it so well. And we really do appreciate the constant stability, whatever you've given to this project through the years, because you've taken a lot of heat. So we appreciate you.

Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I really appreciate that. And Council Members, I'm happy to be here tonight to talk about the finish line on this project. I've been before you many times talking about just the challenges we've had. And, you know, it's all past and we're going to get to the finish line. So just a little bit about the date. We will be identifying a date later this fall. And we're getting things prepped, as Leslie indicated. We're looking to have a flawless opening. We want to make sure things are right. And we're undergoing a lot of testing. I know it looks kind of quiet here in Eden Prairie right now. A lot of activity on the east end and particularly in Minneapolis. I'll talk about that in a moment. So 14 and a half miles all told on the project and 16 stations. You can see the numbers here. One thing I want to point out, $3.3 billion of development. That's 2011 through 2024 permitted. We were seeing a lot of things in Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, St. Louis Park in Minneapolis and Hopkins. A lot of development going around the station is very encouraging. So testing, we have thousands of devices out on the line, and we need to make sure all those devices are working with each other and communicating back to our Rail Control Center in Minneapolis and our Franklin facility. And it takes time to do that. Over 7,500 tests are being checked out with all those devices. Part of that is a phase one I'll talk about in Eden Prairie going to St. Louis Park. We're also doing over 1,500 different scenarios of running the vehicles to make sure every scenario back and forth is working properly. And after we're done with our efforts with our contractor doing system integration testing, we'll be handing over to operations and they will be doing their own testing and get familiarization with the line. So it does take time. It isn't necessarily like a bus where you can just start the engine and head out on the road. We have to make sure that this is working very well in concert with each other. So in terms of the system integration testing, the red dashed area, that's what we were testing. We started that back in July of last year. We finished up the testing in June. That's why you see it's not so busy down here in Eden Prairie. And we are now testing up in that green area in Minneapolis from Target Field, our main line out to Bryn Mawr Station. And we're looking to wrap that up later this summer and then head to the full band from A to B out to Southwest to Target. And that'll be concluding later this fall here. And so, as I indicated, a lot of testing to be done. We need to make sure this system is safe and reliable. And as I indicated, we'll be handing it over to our operations folks. Brian Funk will be up here, our Chief Operating Officer, to talk a little bit about the hiring. And I just wanna just maybe take a moment to extend my appreciation for working with the City of Union Prairie, particularly with the Public Works Director, Robert Ellison. We've had a very good relationship. And I think I'm really, really proud of that relationship that I think we've done a good thing down here. So I'll hand it off to Brian here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jim and Mr. Mayor, council members, staff. It's really good to be here. So again, my name is Brian Funk. I serve as deputy general manager and chief operating officer for Metro Transit. I've been with the organization for about 24 years. And so I'm really excited about our next milestone in this upcoming flawless opening. So as Jim talked about, our teams are working hand in glove and really working on completing the testing that's essential to make sure that we're ready for our operations. What that means is going to then be a handoff to us, as he described. And so I've had the fortune of being in some different roles as we've done this for back to the original Hiawatha or Blue Line, our Central Corridor Green Line, and really looking forward in this role to make sure that our team is set up for success. And so in order to do that, we need to bring on board a strong group of professionals to be able to deliver that service. As much as our general manager, Jim, myself, and the chief are going to be able to give you some of the highlights, the executing day in and day out is really on our frontline staff. And so we want to make sure that we're hiring the right people, we're giving them the training and setting them up for success. And so we're confident that we're doing that. What you'll see here is that in addition to train operators and maintenance staff, we're also onboarding a number of TRIP agents. TRIP stands for the Transit Rider Investment Program. That came out of 2023 legislation. The chief will talk a little bit more about that, but they're an onboard element to ensure that our riders and the public have a really good experience. We're in the process of filling about 260 total positions. All told, we're making really good progress right now. I'm very happy about kind of our status. We have another major capital project this summer over in Minneapolis for our blue line. But we're able to get out on this line, do a lot of the training, and continue to bring people on board. So one of the key areas that most people wonder about and have been asking us about has been the train operators. And really happy to say that, including people who are currently in the instruction phase, we're within about five people of where we want to be to get ready for revenue service. highly confident across all of these areas that as Jim hands it over to us, we'll be in really good shape. So these numbers are a little bit out of date, but what you can see here is that, you know, I mentioned that the train operators are just second up from the bottom. But in all areas, we're looking really strong. The indicators are a measure of how close we are to budget, not certainly what keeps me up at night or a projection on our ability to succeed. In each of these areas, as I think I've emphasized a few times, we have the management position who management positions are filled. People are ready to go. We have trainers who are waiting our new employees to come on. And so now for the rest of this year, we're going to be kind of in that just in time hiring to get everyone prepared to hit the flawless opening. So I'll certainly be able to stay around for questions. The last thing I did want to make sure to mention is that we'll be co-located with Southwest Transit at the Southwest Station. Our team, along with the Southwest Transit team, are coordinating to make sure that we're on the same page MY COUNTERPART, ERICA, WITH SOUTHWEST TRANSIT IS SOMEBODY THAT WE'RE MAKING SURE THAT WE HAVE MEETINGS SET UP TO MAKE SURE THAT THERE'S EVERYBODY ON THE SAME PAGE. AND SO JUST WANTED TO PROVIDE THIS GROUP ASSURANCE THAT WE'RE WORKING HAND IN GLOVE. SO WITH THAT, I'LL HAND IT OVER TO CHIEF DOTSETH.

THANK YOU.

THANKS, BRIAN. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. My name is Joe Dotseth, and I have the honor and privilege to serve as the Chief of Police at the Metro Transit Police Department. Our Safety Security Action Plan really is our overall plan on how we address safety on the transit system. This is my 25th year in law enforcement, 22 of those years I've been at Metro Transit. And really before how we were policing the transit system, before the safety and security action plan, it was just the police department primarily that was responsible for public safety. And really what the safety and security action plan did, the program's four years old, we launched this program under the direction of the general manager And we came up with a plan, and it came up with a plan of really what I call a whole community approach to public safety. So how we started policing the transit system, all these action items that are in the safety security action plan, It's all of us, right? It's the police department. It's public works. It's operations. In all these action items, everybody has the piece of the puzzle. And that's really how we changed the game and how safety has improved on the transit system. Safety has greatly improved over the last couple of years on the transit system. And one of those main reasons is this layered approach on the system. So when you think about everybody that's out on the transit system right now and when Green Line Extension opens up, these are all of the things that you will be seeing on the system. You'll be seeing our police officers out there. Our police officer hiring rates were the highest since 2021. Our trip agents, which are very important. They're out there checking fares, right? They're also helping people wave fine. They're in those blue uniforms. Our community service officers, they're in gray uniforms. That's really our cadet program at the police department, and that's our pathway to policing. WE JUST LAST MONTH CELEBRATED, WE HAVE 49 COMMUNITY SERVICE OFFICERS, AND THAT'S OUR OFFICERS, AGAIN, THEY'RE IN SCHOOL RIGHT NOW AND THEY'RE TRAINED TO BE POLICE OFFICERS, AND THAT'S REALLY WHAT'S BUILDING BACK THE POLICE DEPARTMENT TO GET OUR STAFFING UP TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL IT IS. Our CSOs are actually out on the system as well, right? So along with the police officers, the trip agents, our CSOs are out on the system engaging with customers. I love that photo up there. That is what we do. We interact. We say hi to people. This I like. I love that photo up there. Our supplemental security is very important as well. They provide that visible presence at station locations. We currently have supplemental security at 16 locations. As Green Line Extension opens up, we're evaluating the program, we're thinking about where potentially more supplemental security would be along the Green Line Extension. Our community outreach services, Community Outreach Services, that's really our program of providing services to people on the system, right? And so that could be social workers, we're partnering with an agency that is gonna be out on the system connecting people to services. It's very, very important. And our Real-Time Information Center, It's at our police department headquarters in Minneapolis. And we have full-time operators that are watching all the cameras in the entire system right from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. right now. So it's a big deal. That layer presence is such a big deal on the system. And that is what we're hearing at a consistent basis, right? People that left the system a couple years ago that are returning to the system, we hear this all the time about the system so much better, crime numbers are way down, right? Our officer proactivity number is at the highest record levels it's ever been. And all of this is what you all can expect when Green Line Extension opens up. Public safety update went specifically to Green Line Extension. You know, I heard, you know, the mayor talk about it when the commissioners were up here. Partnerships do matter. It matters to all of us. Our relationships matter, right? They matter, they matter, they matter. And our relationship with Eden Prairie Police Department, with Chief Sackett, and many of the officers that are out here, we have a relationship. I've known Chief Sackett for over 10 years. We've been working on really what this plan looks like since the summer of 2024. This isn't something that we're just throwing together. These partnerships and the collaboration between us and the city are very, very important. I just met the fire chief as well, and I know we're working with our emergency management and Metro Transit and the police department too of really being good partners. And I say this all the time when we are going out to areas that we haven't really been at, right, and we're introducing ourselves. You're gaining all of the Metro Transit Police Department resources. We're one of the largest resources, we're one of the largest agencies in the entire region, and you are getting access to all of that. Our Homeless Action Team, our Crash Recon Teams, our service approach, all that is very, very important and you're gaining all that. So when we start thinking about the line opening up and as we develop plans, we work together, we are gonna be alongside the city and the police department and the residents to ensure this is successful. We're also looking for a police substation along the line. We haven't identified exactly what that looks like, but I know in my experience in my time at Metro Transit that we need to have a physical presence along the line. So I'm hoping by the end of the year we can actually identify a location and really have officers stationed out of there. We went back to what we call beat model policing, right? We have officers on beats throughout the entire system. Actually, this last week, or two weeks ago, we launched first ever beat in Brooklyn Center, so we're gonna be launching that. You'll see some more media updates about that later in the week, but we know we need to have officers stationed out here to learn the community, to learn what you all expect, and that is certainly what we're planning. I know we're also working on joint powers agreements and refreshing what all those agreements look like. And then I talked about the supplemental security plan too. You know, our approach to policing at Metro Transit Police really comes down to three tenets, right? It's our whole community approach to public safety, which I talked about. It's our policing as a service. Transit police do way more than issue citations and make arrests. We provide a service, right? We understand that. So when we're out connecting with community and we're interacting, we want to provide that service. We're a very service-oriented police department. And then really building back this police department, one of the initiatives that I've had is really empowering the workforce, right? We have a 90% retention rate. Our first year retention rate is at 95%. We are not seeing officers leave our organization. In fact, we took down our community service officer posting as we have a wait list to get in. Like, we are on the right track of being a strong, successful police department. And then along with just us providing service, we wanted to ensure that we had the right person connecting with you all. So we just didn't pick anybody at the police department. And lots of times, I'm sure everybody in this room knows, when you're planning initiatives, lots of times you'll have your primary duties and then you'll assign another duty. Well, we can't do that with Green Line Extension. So this is so important to us that we assigned a full-time captain to Green Line Extension. And Captain Dietz is here today. There, she's waving in the back. Captain Dietz is really an expert at building relationships. She understands, she has relationships with All of the public safety agencies along the extension here in Cap and Dietz will be visible, will be the point of contact really for all things Green Line Extension. So I'm super excited to talk about that. And we're doing community outreach events too, Cap and Dietz. I think we're going to Raspberry Festival in Hopkins next weekend for the first time ever. So we're excited if there's events that we need to come out to the city here, please let us know and we'll be there. But that's important to us. Reporting problems, there's going to be several ways to report issues. When the line opens up, you'll see our general customer service number there, 373-3333. People call that all the time. Our text for safety is really important, and so that is out on the vehicles right now. When you text that number, you actually get somebody in our dispatch center in Minneapolis. They usually respond under a minute, right? You get a real person. It's no bot. They're actually texting back to you, so that's really important. And then we have these QR codes out there, too, for facilities if you need to report issues on facilities. Before I turn it over back to the general manager, again, I just really appreciate the opportunity to come out here and give a brief update. And as things progress and you want more updates from the police department or you want myself or Captain Dietz to come back out, we'll work with Chief Sackett and do that. But really, we... REALLY, REALLY MEAN THAT WE ARE TRUE PARTNERS HERE AND WE CARE ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF THE LINE. WE WANT TO BE SUCCESSFUL JUST LIKE YOU ALL WANTED TO BE SUCCESSFUL AND WE WOULD CERTAINLY BE GOOD PARTNERS WITH YOU. SO WITH THAT, I'LL TURN IT OVER TO THE GENERAL MANAGER.

CHIEF, THANK YOU. I JUST WANT TO SAY SOMETHING, TOO, THAT I'VE HEARD NOTHING BUT POSITIVE, GOOD THINGS ABOUT YOU FROM OUR POLICE DEPARTMENT AND OUR CHIEF. SO KUDOS TO YOU. AND I WOULD SAY, YOU KNOW, of any, very few residents really come to us much, because it's just not been running yet, to talk about the Green Line extension. The few that do, I would say the fear piece of safety comes to the forefront often. And when I chatted with you at the ribbon cutting of the trail that extended along the line, what now, I don't know, a month or two, something, time flies, And I was just so impressed you assured me that you will be right on top of that. And we just wanna make sure the first month, two months, three months, six months, a year of this operation of the Green Line really does go flawless and smooth. And if there are issues, we'll face them. And I've been assured by our police department that we will face them along in partnership with you and you will as well. And so I feel very confident that we'll have a successful implementation and that the safety piece WILL BE MUCH, MUCH BIGGER IN FEAR THAN ANY TYPE OF REALITY. SO THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU'VE PUT FORETHOUGHT INTO THAT AND I LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. APPRECIATE THAT.

MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS, I'LL CLOSE OUT OUR REMAINING SLIDES AND REALLY BUILDING ON THE INFORMATION CHIEF DOTS HAS SHARED, WE CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW CENTRAL SAFETY IS TO EVERYTHING WE DO AND WE KNOW THAT PEOPLE are not going to ride our system. They're not going to come work on our system if they don't feel safe. And so I do appreciate the opportunity to share work underway with you this evening. And also wanted to mention that in addition to our police department, our safety department is working closely with Eden Prairie Police and Fire and other jurisdictions throughout the corridor and really throughout the system to ensure that we are well coordinated, prepared to respond to any emergency. A few examples on the slides here about that safety coordination. We are really focused as we're preparing for launch on making people aware of safety around tracks. A lot of information that when people see tracks, they need to think trains. And we do have test trains out on the system. So that's been a focus of a lot of our communication and engagement. Our safety department and particularly our emergency management lead is convening police and fire departments throughout the corridor to make sure there's opportunities for familiarization exercises and of course for many years there's been quarterly meetings of the light rail fire and safety or fire and life safety committee. And just a few final comments. I think one theme I hope you're hearing throughout our presentations is the importance of collaboration and partnerships to us. And that's part of why we wanted to be here tonight, to be able to share an update, but really to continue to foster a strong relationship relationship and approach of partnership as we get ready to launch. We have our staff out at events throughout the summer. There's just a few examples on this slide, both recent and upcoming events here in Eden Prairie. And I think my final slide will include information on how to contact our outreach staff if there are additional events or additional opportunities you want to make sure we're plugging into. I ALSO WANTED TO MENTION THAT WE KNOW WITH THE GREENLINE EXTENSION OPENING, WE MAY HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO ATTRACT NEW RIDERS, BUT RIDING TRANSIT CAN BE INTIMIDATING IF IT'S NOT SOMETHING YOU ALREADY DO. SO WE DO OFFER SUPPORT TO FAMILIARIZE NEW RIDERS WITH OUR SYSTEM. THERE'S A LOT OF INFORMATION ONLINE AND OUR OUTREACH STAFF AS WELL CAN PROVIDE HOW TO RIDE tutorials, and this is an area we're looking to make sure we're really getting the word out and being accessible for people who are interested in perhaps trying transit for the first time. A few more resources and contacts. This is more of the detail of how you can plan a trip, how you can contact staff for assistance, especially if you're new to transit and not quite sure where to start. And then this is that slide I mentioned a moment ago with our outreach lead, David Davies. He's an excellent first point of contact. Of course, any of us who presented tonight would always be more than happy to talk further with you, provide additional information, or answer questions. But with that, Mr. Mayor, happy to stand for questions. Any of us who spoke this evening would be more than willing to address anything that's on your mind.

maybe because of time we all know how to get a hold of you and in terms of council members we can reach out to you. I just want to say that this was a little bit longer presentation than maybe what we commonly hear but so critically important and you haven't been here for a while and knowing that it's coming next year and knowing that we got a whole lot of answers for our residents tonight. So I really appreciate every single one of you that presented this evening and it was critical to hear from. So thank you so much. And we look forward to whenever the date is. In fact, we look forward to the date when you tell us when the date is going to be, which somewhere up in that springtime of 27 would be a great time to have it open up. So I'm just saying.

No, thank you very much. We appreciate the time tonight.

Mr. Getschel, can I move right into it? Do you want to say anything about PeopleFest or should I just go right in? Feel free, Mayor. Okay, just that PeopleFest is a great event. We have many events in Eden Prairie from 4th of July, Schooner Days. Some of them are city-sponsored, some are not, but PeopleFest is. We actually have the person that named PeopleFest sitting up here on the council. I won't say PG, his name, but no, thank you. That's a great name. PeopleFest is coming up. It's the time that we really celebrate the wonderful diversity of our community. And I'd like to read a proclamation declaring it PeopleFest week. Whereas Eden Prairie is a community composed of people from many backgrounds, races, ethnicities, abilities, and identities. and whereas we are a city that is committed to the promotion of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and whereas our community is more vibrant because of our diversity, and whereas cultural sharing leads to greater understanding and appreciation, and whereas PeopleFest, a community celebration of culture, is an annual week-long celebration that honors and celebrates the range of traditions that tell the rich story of our community, And whereas People Fest offers many free opportunities to experience culture through stories and food and music and dance and visual art and more. And whereas the celebration's main event is the People Fest party from 3 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, July 26th at Central Middle School. And whereas the PeopleFest party includes live music, dance performances, demonstrations, art experiences, as well as booths with a variety of cultural and educational organizations sharing their stories, activities, and outreach. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Eden Prairie City Council encourages everyone to take part in this community celebration of culture. And further, the Eden Prairie City Council does hereby proclaim July 26th through July 31, 2026, as PeopleFest Week in Eden Prairie. Ronald E. Case, Mayor, on behalf of Kathy Nelson, Mark Freiberg, P. Gina Ryan, and Lisa Toomey. All right, Mr. Getsho, I'll just turn maybe right over to Dr. Markle. Yes. Mark, yep, yes. Take it away.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Case and Council. Tonight, we wanna recognize the quarterly donations that we've received in the Parks and Recreation Department. And all the donations that we receive, we utilize to enhance the events that we put on and special programs. A lot of times that free are no cost. So the following organizations and amounts we want to honor tonight. The first one is Aspen Estates Luxury Memory Care. They donated $150 for our senior center programs. shields generously donated a thousand dollars for our hometown celebration over july 3rd and 4th j.a price donated a thousand dollars for our hometown celebration brady and credit union was our presenting sponsor that donated ten thousand dollars to our hometown celebration and t fiber was back again this year um and generously gave seventy five hundred dollars so our total donation amount this quarter was nineteen thousand six hundred and fifty dollars And just a huge shout out to everyone that is supportive of the work we do to really bring community together for special events and programs. So thank you.

Before I ask for a motion, just to say again, I say this every time when we are talking about donations, we do a lot with city tax dollars. We just can't do it all. So these donations really help stretch our city tax dollars. So thank you, thank you, thank you. So council, is there a motion to adopt the resolution?

I'll move to adopt a resolution accepting multiple spring 2026 donations to Parks and Recreation.

Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, moving to the agenda. Is there any items to add from council member reports? If not, is there a motion to accept the agenda as presented?

Move to approve the agenda.

Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, all right. We have two minutes from June 16th, the workshop and the meeting. Any edits, any concerns, comments when you read them that you wanted to change anything? If not, is there a motion to approve both minutes?

Move to approve the following city council minutes. City Council Workshop held Tuesday, June 16, 2026. And City Council Meeting held Tuesday, June 16, 2026.

So second.

Second.

Any further discussion? All those in favour say aye. Aye. All right, the Consent Calendar A through N, the list of Very important, but nonetheless not needing further, usually not needing further discussion. Any items any of you wish to pull from the consent calendar to discuss separately, even vote on separately? If not, is there a motion to approve the consent calendar A to N?

I move to approve items A to N on the consent calendar.

Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. We are down to our three public hearing meetings this evening. Three, right? Yes. You're getting me funny. Absolutely. Mr. Gatcho.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, Mayor, Council. First public hearing, Marshall Farms. You have before you several approvals related to this. First, comprehensive plan amendment from medium density residential housing. to low density residential. Actually, probably that's related to, you had Marshall Farms before you previously, you had a previous approval of a project that had, a hundred units of housing. So this may be covered in the presentation, but this is a different project that's before you that obviously changes the density. Planned unit development concept review for 32 acres with waivers and a rezoning from rural to parks and open space on a portion of the property as well. The applicant is proposing to develop the 32-acre Marshall Farm property at 9905 Dell and 250 single-family residential lots, including an extension of Crestwood Terrace with utilities and five outlots. One of the outlots is about 13 acres on the south half of the property, and that outlot will be deeded to the city for natural resource preservation. The Planning Commission recommended, voted 8-0, to recommend approval to the city council at their June 8th meeting. The applicant is here to provide an overview of the project, to walk you through their project. The staff and the applicant can answer any questions that the council has as well. And obviously you have a public hearing for this project, similar to what the planning commission had.

Mr. Sweeters, I think you're up. name and maybe address, company you represent, and social security number, the whole thing.

Evening, Mayor, council members, staff. I'm Steve from Wooddale Builders, owner. Been around for a long time. Done a lot of great things at Eaton Prairie, so I'm proud to be hopefully developing the last piece here. I also brought Dan from Sather-Burquist, who is our engineer. We'll be talking about the development. Also brought two of the builders that are going to also participate in development So they're also known here in Eaton Prairie McDonald construction and Johnson Ryland So they bring a lot to the table so architecturally and things so it's going to be an interesting development and Higher end, villas, empty nester type product, and single family along the bluff. So with that, I will let them take it from there. Thank you.

You also brought your daughter, who I happen to have as a sixth grade student, some years ago. We'll just leave it at that. You haven't changed. Well, you have since you were 12, but I mean, I can still recognize you. I haven't changed at all, I'm sure, in 19 years or something.

I will brag a little bit. We're proud to have her on board at Wooddale for the last year. She's been amazing. That's great. Thank you. You bet.

Next up.

Hi, I'm Dave Remick with McDonald Construction Partners. We build single family homes all over the Metro. We have two current neighborhoods active in Eden Prairie. One's at Johnson Ridge, which is six homes. The second one is at Purgatory Creek, which is seven lots. We're under construction on four homes there. So we know and like the city very much.

Hi, I'm Paul Ryland with Johnson Ryland Builders, and we have been a family builder. My dad started building in the early 1970s and started and did a lot of work in West Bloomington and some in Eden Prairie. And we're based actually south of the river, but we're excited to be working here in Eden Prairie.

Great.

Is our presentation going to be put up there? Okay, thank you. So this is, in this project, we have one developer, which is Mr. Schweders, and his company called Marshall Farms LLC, and then there's two builders. So should I cover all these things or just kind of go through it quickly? You've seen the presentation from the Planning Commission, so if it's okay, I'll hit the highlights.

Would that be okay? If we have more questions, we can ask you, but yeah. Sounds great.

ALL RIGHT. SO THESE THINGS HERE ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE 2024 PROPOSAL WHICH WAS ACTUALLY CALLED MARSHALL GARDENS AND WAS A VERY DIFFERENT PROPOSAL AND THEN TODAY'S PRESENTATION IN 2026. SO WE ALREADY TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE DECREASE IN DENSITY, THE DIFFERENCE IN THE PRODUCT TYPES. AND SO THIS IS THE FIRST SLIDE. THE SECOND SLIDE SHOWS YOU THE PLAT. AND SO IN THE YELLOW COLOR ARE 28 VILLA HOMES. AND REALLY A VILLA IS A SINGLE FAMILY HOME. THE DIFFERENCE BEING THAT THEY'RE NARROWER AND IN SOME CASES ACTUALLY DEEPER, THE LOTS ARE IN THE HOMES. This area is actually very flat, so we're proposing to build slab-on-grade homes, and then they will also have a limited HOA for lawn and snow care, so they're ideal for retired people who might have a second home, but they are, in fact, wheelchair-friendly as well, and they are not age-restricted. We also are offering optional second-story space, so the homes can... THEN EXCEED 3,000 SQUARE FEET AND HAVE ADDITIONAL STORAGE SPACE FOR STUFF. EVERYBODY HAS STUFF. AND SO THAT'S THE VILLA STYLE. AND THEN MCDONALD AND JOHNSON ISLAND ARE SHARING THE 22 SINGLE FAMILY HOMES AND THAT'S THE OTHER COLOR COATING SHOWS OUR PROJECTION FOR WHICH WILL BE EACH BUILDER ON THOSE. The single-family homes will be larger and more custom. And then they'll all have basements. So that's the principal difference between the two products. As a side note, we are finding it interesting that a lot of the people that are coming out, including current Eden Prairie residents, are trying to figure out which product that they fit best in. A lot of them can actually afford both products. They're just trying to figure out where they're a better fit. So requested waivers and deviations fall in several categories. One is lot width in areas, front setback, AND THE GARAGE FLEXIBILITY. BUT IT'S REALLY VERY SIMILAR IN MANY WAYS TO WHAT IS THE CURRENT CODE. SO WE DON'T FEEL THAT THERE'S A LOT AND THE PLANNING COMMISSION SUPPORTED OUR WAIVERS AND DEVIATIONS. AND THEN LANDSCAPE AND NATURAL PRESERVATION. SO YOU CAN SEE A BEAUTIFUL MONUMENT THAT WE'RE PLANNING ON THE TOP. The slide that is in the bottom left is one of the things that I'm really excited about, which is your project, which is the extension of Dell Road and an eight foot wide asphalt trail being able to bring residents safely down to Flying Cloud Drive. And I've seen children traversing this in bicycles, and I, at the same moment in time, seen garbage trucks flying up the hills. Pardon the expression. So I'm excited about the safety in that. I know at the previous meeting there was talk about the preservation area, the 13 acres that's being folded in, and so opportunities for the city to be able to have residents of our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods utilize that space. Those nature areas, it's pretty exciting to see that happen. So I'm sorry, my eyes are not so good, but I'm just trying to read the slide. So 13 acres, we talked about that just now. Existing tree inventory. So there's a lot of trees that are being saved, especially in the bluff area of the neighborhood. I'M SURE IT'S BEEN BROUGHT UP, BUT THERE ARE A LOT OF ASH TREES THAT NEED TO BE DISPOSED OF. THE DEVELOPER'S BEEN WORKING WITH THE SIX NEIGHBORS TO THE NORTH AND THEN SEVERAL OTHERS, AND THEN ALSO THE CITY OUT LOT, WHICH IS ALL ALONG THE NORTH AREA THERE, AND THEY'VE MET WITH THEM, IDENTIFIED ASH TREES AND OTHER TREES THAT CAN BE REMOVED. SO THAT'S ALL GOING TO HAPPEN, THAT WOULD BE ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS THAT HAPPENS AS THE DEVELOPMENT GOES FORWARD. AND THEN THIS PLAN SHOWS THE TREES THAT WE'RE PLANTING BACK AND I CAN ASSURE YOU THIS IS THE MINIMUM. THESE ARE THE TREES THAT THE DEVELOPER IS PUTTING BACK AND THEN FRONT BOULEVARD TREES WHICH IS NOT PART OF YOUR CODE. THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE'VE AGREED TO DO. And then this is the minimum too. So as builders, McDonald and Johnson Ryland will be doing part of our design for each home. We'll include landscape design, site planning, and more trees, more landscaping. I'm probably talking too much, I'll move on. Neighborhood meeting recap, we had a very well-attended neighborhood meeting prior to going to Planning Commission, and there's a lot of interest from the neighborhood, mostly positive, and so any questions about that, I'm gonna ask in the end. I'll talk just a real quick minute about our construction company. As I mentioned, we have over 50 years experience, and it's kind of fun, the good parts about a family business. So you see in the photograph my dad in the middle, who's retired actually, and then my two identical twin brothers, and they share one brain, so that's a whole other story. And we do custom home building. It's very unique construction. Every time we build a model home, we try to do it a little bit different. And David, I'd like you to talk about your company. Sure.

McDonald Construction has been around for almost 50 years. We build all over the metro from Stillwater to Victoria. Our offices are in Burnsville, and we have neighborhoods to the north as well. And we have a dedicated team, and I think the product we put out there fits well with what people in Eden Prairie are looking for.

You wanna talk about this?

Sure. The other thing that's becoming more and more standard, first of all, Minnesota code is generally very energy efficient, just to start with. There's also something that, there's a Green Path Builder program that's part of Housing's First program, which is a step up from that. That includes garages that are EV ready for a charging capability to be added, depending upon the vehicle or whatever they're looking to charge. We also make, if the site allows it for the home placement for it to be solar ready, so if somebody wants to add that later, it's a very cost effective way to prep the home for that, if the future homeowner desires to do that. And then the materials that we use, whether it's windows, doors, insulation, the homes are very energy efficient and we do get each of our homes rated so we can give an official hers score which is the energy efficiency of the house and we all of our homes are generally quite above average on that but there's we have options if that's something that's very important to the home or that's where the custom part comes in if they want to do triple pane windows or you know do the whole house and close cell phone insulation we we can do that and meet people where they want to be there

Yeah, and actually, just a side note, David's company, McDonald, won a Reggie Award for Green Path, so we actually are doing it. Question and answers?

Council, anything at this point, we can always, after the public hearing, ask additional questions. Up to you. Okay, going forward. Okay, I think we're good for now, and we'll call you back up if we have something.

Thank you.

Is that the end of the formal presentation, or is there more? You sure? Because we have time. Please feel free. I'm seeing both. I'm seeing no and please. Name and company and where you live.

My name is Dan Schmidt. I'm with Sather Berquist. I'm a civil engineer on a survey on the project. I live in Maple Grove. Been working with Jeremy Barnhart and Carter Schultz and they've been more than helpful and pretty straightforward for utilities and biggest challenge on the site was the bluff and we've worked with city and the watershed to protect the bluff and we have a conditional approval from the watershed already so we're ready to go and I'll be here to answer any questions if you have any.

Great, thank you. So with that, we might call any of you back up, but I think we'll go ahead and have the public hearing. Council, that's fine, I'm assuming. So anyone, not everyone, you don't all have to come up, anyone in the audience who wishes to speak and address the Council on this Marshall Farms project, please come forward and give your name and your address.

Hi, Daniel McNett, 9719 Geisel Road. I'm one of the residents from the northern side. Is there a way that we could bring that slide back up? Where that we protect it?

With the flat map or the, yeah. So, right, so, that's perfect right there.

So first off, thank you for having me up here. Thank you for Mr. Mayor, council staff. I'm here on behalf of some of the residents that are not able to make it. We are the sect that had some issues with the project. The project looks great overall. The biggest concern that we have is on that northern bluff, which is, related to the density and the layout itself. This concerns the waiver for the narrower lots. So if we were gonna pan out, what we would see is the houses that are on the northern side, each of these lots, there's three lots per one house on the northern side. So when we look at that, this by in and of itself looks very appealing, but when you start panning out to the greater community, That's where the concern comes from. It's the inconsistency with the character of the neighborhood. So when you pan out, you will see that there's the 11 houses on top, and then there's 28 houses down below. So that creates a barrier of houses, and that's that wall of houses is what our biggest concern is. There's talk about trees, there's talk about traffic, but the biggest concern from the residents that I was able to work with and chat with is that waiver. So the call to action here is if you could reconsider or reevaluate the approval of the narrow lot waiver. Because that would bring it down from the 27 houses down to about 13. And that would be more in line with the rest of the character. If we want statistics, the way that it's already proposed right now, there's been four houses that sold in the last four months. There are seven houses that sold in the last nine months. And each of those property values have dropped 10,000, 30,000, 40,000. house that just sold in April was down $65,000. And the biggest concern, hey, what is the issue? Why did you, first off, what did you accept? But why did you offer so little? And the response was, well, because of the projects that are going on, all of the density that's coming on, right? So if you talk to the three neighbors on our lot on Geisler, that would be their answer. So my request, call to action, is to reconsider the approval of that waiver for the narrower lot.

Great, thank you. Thanks for coming in. Anyone else? Please come forward. Name and address.

GOOD EVENING. I'M RICHARD COPPY. I LIVE AT 9872 CRESTWOOD TERRACE, JUST ABOUT A BLOCK TO THE WEST OF THE PROJECT AREA. I'VE BEEN FOLLOWING THE PROJECT NOW FOR ABOUT 18 MONTHS. STARTED WITH THE PREVIOUS DEVELOPER THAT SOMEHOW IT DIDN'T MAKE IT OR DIDN'T HAPPEN. FROM WHAT I SEE OF THE MEETINGS I'VE BEEN AT WITH THE CURRENT PROJECT AND FROM WHAT I'VE HEARD FROM MY FELLOW NEIGHBORS, THIS PROJECT IS LOOKING REALLY GOOD. I THINK MOST OF US LIKE IT BETTER THAN WHAT WE SAW IN THE FIRST ONE THAT WAS APPROVED. SO THAT'S THE PROJECT. IN TERMS OF WHAT YOU'RE HEARING TONIGHT, THAT'S THE PROJECT IN GENERAL. MY PERSONAL CONCERN AND SOME OF MY NEIGHBOR'S CONCERNS RELATE TO DELL ROAD. SO I'D JUST LIKE TO JUST BRING UP A COUPLE OF ITEMS. I KNOW THE PUBLIC HEARING IS ABOUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE WITH THE HOUSING COMING IN, BUT I THINK DELL ROAD IS GOING TO BE IMPACTED very to a very extreme condition because right now I think all of you are aware you have a gravel roadway out there in fact with the bridge closure on pioneer road it's a very traveled gravel roadway so that's going to change I haven't I've been at all the meetings in the last 18 months as you've held and I've heard very little discussion about when the road's gonna be done, how it's gonna be done in terms of all of the design features. I'd like to understand what kind of traffic control you might be looking at. I brought up in the past maybe the possibility of a traffic island at the intersection of this new development to kind of control some of the new traffic that's gonna be coming down Del Road from Pioneer Road. going down to Flying Cloud Drive and vice versa. I'd like to know what you are expecting with the landscaping on Del Road. Right now, Del Road, as you come from 212 and move to the south and go all the way down to Flying Cloud Drive, it's a really nice residential roadway. When we moved here about six or seven years ago, We were very impressed by Delrode in terms of how it looks as you drive down the roadway. Well, you're going to take down a lot of those trees. You're going to take down a lot of what's there right now when this new project comes about. And the developer can't be expected to do it all. So I'd like to know what the city is going to do with Delrode. Trail design. I SAW A PICTURE ON YOUR SCREEN TONIGHT, FIRST TIME WE'VE SEEN IT, OF AN EIGHT-FOOT WIDE BETUMENOUS TRAIL, I ASSUME ALONG THE EAST OR WEST SIDE OF DELL ROAD. IT WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW WHAT YOUR PLAN IS FOR DELL ROAD, FOR TRAILS. I HAVEN'T SEEN, I'VE BEEN AT ALL THE MEETINGS, I HAVEN'T SEEN THAT LAID OUT REAL THOROUGHLY SO WE'D UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING TO BE HAPPENING. along Del Road, people use that roadway and that trail system that's out there very heavily. And I sure hope we are gonna continue it all the way down to Flying Cloud Drive. The trail itself along Riley Creek, in our backyard, we live on Riley Creek, in our backyard, the city has put signs up showing where they have right of way. It's understandable. But what's gonna happen with all that right away? You're accumulating. I know you plan on putting a trail back there. When is that gonna happen? Be nice to know when the plan is for that. I suspect you'll have another hearing down the road on that kind of a project, but when you come and hear about all that's going on here, it would be nice to have a feeling from the city as to what's gonna happen with the trail systems in that area. One concern I have about the trail that I haven't heard addressed is as you come down Del Road in the gravel area right now, you're dropping down probably about 30 feet of elevation, maybe even 40 feet of elevation. And if you do plan a trail crossing for Riley Creek, it's going to be a trail crossing that's going to be dangerous. So I think that should be looked at real carefully. Maybe that, as you put the bridge over Riley Creek, maybe you should think about having the trail run through that underpass. I haven't heard any discussion on that. And lastly, the landscaping of Dale Road. I mentioned it earlier in my comments. I really hope you look at that because DELL ROAD IS A MAJOR ROADWAY IN THIS AREA, AND IT LOOKS SO NICE RIGHT NOW AS YOU COME FROM 212 MOVING SOUTH. SO I HOPE THE CITY, NOT JUST THIS DEVELOPMENT, BUT IN DELL ROAD IN PARTICULAR, ALL THE WAY FROM PIONEER ROAD DOWN TO FLYING CLOUD DRIVE, I HOPE YOU LOOK AT THAT LANDSCAPING DESIGN. I THINK THAT REALLY MAKES AN IMPACT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. IN THE SENSE THAT THIS PROJECT was a major funding contributor to the Del Road project, it's connected, but in the sense that the actual Del Road project is not connected to this project, that being said, Robert, do you want to just briefly respond to landscaping, trail, tree loss, and maybe do make it short, because it's really not part of this development approval tonight.

Yeah, certainly, Mayor. So first thing I would say is that we'd be more than happy to have our engineering staff working on the project to meet with Richard. I know we've had a couple of neighborhood meetings over the years, our previous city engineer, Rod Rue, and our current city engineer, Carter Schulze, but we'd be happy to sit down with you and go over those design details. I will say that the Del Road project is gonna happen simultaneously with this development. If this development doesn't happen, the Del Road project doesn't happen, but assuming everything goes forward as expected, we would start that project sometime over the winter, maybe even as early as this fall. Project will be a two-lane roadway, so we're not expanding the road to be three, four, five lanes. It'll stay a two-lane roadway just like it is to the north of this development. We're gonna soften some of the vertical and horizontal curves so that it'll be a little bit easier to traverse. I still have steep grade coming down to Riley Creek. There's nothing we can really do about that, but we will have a larger, wider, box culvert bridge going over the creek. It'll have plenty of room for an eight foot wide path. It'll have a large boulevard between the road and the path, so there's that separation for the pedestrian and bicyclist. It will be on the east side, or excuse me, the west side of Dell Road, and then connect with the existing trail that you have down at Flying Cloud Drive. Design speed is 30 mile per hour, as we're looking at a 30 mile per hour roadway through there. As far as the landscaping, it'll be your standard landscaping that we see, so it'll have green space. We're doing a lot of native plantings along the hillside. There's a lot of dirt that'll have to be moved, so we'll revegetate with native, drought-tolerant-type species. There'll be a number of trees that are being planted. As far as the level of landscaping that you see, I wanna say in front of Bear Path Community, I will note that that was done with the Bear Path development, and the Bear Path HOA does all the maintenance. They irrigate that. They have a maintenance crew that does all the maintenance of the green spaces. They did all the tree planting that was out there, so that was done at the request of the Bear Path neighborhood. Otherwise, it probably wouldn't have been done. That's a higher level of landscaping than we generally see within the right-of-way area. That's more of a park-like setting, but that was done at their request, and because they do pay for that and have taken on that maintenance responsibility, it is a little bit higher than what you typically see along a four or five lane roadway. But there will be green space. This is not going to be only asphalt and concrete when it's all said and done. There's a lot of native plantings that are going to go in, so you're going to see more of a prairie-type restoration along the hillsides as we revegetate some of the slope grading that's done with the Del Road project. But I'd be happy to sit down with you, Richard, if you'd like to maybe reach out after this meeting. We can schedule time to do that.

Anyone else in the audience this evening wishing to address the council on this Marshall Farms project? All right, council, why don't we go ahead and close the public hearing, make some comments, ask any more additional questions. So is there a motion to close the public hearing?

I'll move to close the public hearing and adopt a resolution improving a comprehensive.

Just close.

Just close the public hearing.

Oh, yeah, I'll move to close the public hearing. Second.

All right, there's a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. I oppose, all right. I'm gonna speak first, but I want any of you to speak at some point as well. It is interesting, we've studied this land and walked it, especially because of the last approved project a lot. And of course, I knew George Amiebel and I was out there many times on the farm and it is beautiful and it is to my knowledge I think the last this large parcel residential parcel that at least probably in our time on the council that we'll get the opportunity to to weigh and then potentially approve. At one time I thought, you know, I don't want to take this incredible parcel and just lay out all these half acre lots and be done. I often said 50 homes. I think I'll retract that because I think this is a really nice project and they did, I think, a great job laying it out. I will say regarding the numbers of homes that get lined up. So I've been at this for 30 years and as we've changed in our city from five acre lots in the 60s to half acre lots everywhere throughout the 80s to quarter acre lots in the 90s, because of the changing dynamics of needing to build more houses, right, and to actualize the value of land, which is a constitutional right across this nation, we have ended up, therefore, when you've got these infill lots, and you've done several of these five acre, 10 acre infill lots, you end up putting smaller lots next to these half acre lots or these larger lots. I don't know if you're half acre up there, but it just happens, it does. And we've done that everywhere across the city. I will say there's only four lots of the 18 new ones. Sorry, let me say this right. Of the 18 new lots that are across the northern border, only four of the existing lots are going to actually border new lots, now the rest have wetlands or nirt ponds or something in between them. So four out of the 13 lots that are there are going to border lots among the 18. That's still significant, I get it for those four, maybe you're one of them, I'm not sure. But nonetheless, these, I mean, across the state of 65,000, that's pretty good as we transition these new developments. I also think that if you put larger width lots in, builders will build houses up to the setbacks. So if the setbacks are 15 feet or whatever they are, they're going to fill all that space. You'll actually have more house to look at if you put 10 lots in there with really big houses and wide houses and you do this. You still have more neighbors on the south side. I get that. So I appreciate that. One more comment I want to respond to. In all the years I've been doing this, we always hear from the existing homeowners, my lot values are going to drop, especially if a road construction project gets happening right on their border, but especially this new land development like this. There's research out there, and I've heard this over 30 years, a whole bunch. In the first to second year of a project, sometimes, not all the time, house prices drop. It's just all the construction going on, all the change. People don't know what is going to happen. But after the third or fourth or fifth year, they rebound pretty quickly and then they're on their way. I mean, so I don't think there's any, if houses have dropped, and by the way, houses have dropped across the entire city from my realtor friends. I don't know what it's down, 5% or something, but sale prices are down. That could be a lot of what you're experiencing, not the fear, even though they might say, I get that. So I'm sensitive to that, but We can't not approve projects knowing that in 5, 10, 15 years, this is probably a boon to the houses that are on the north side. It might not be for the next year. It might be even hard to sell when there's all this construction going on and noise, construction traffic, whatever that happens. All right. Council, comments, thoughts, questions? Council Member Toomey.

I do have a question about the pricing of the villas. How much are these, do you imagine them going for?

Council Member Toomey, these are custom homes, and so we can size them down to hit someone's budget. But our model home is showing about 2,100 square feet on the main floor and within with about 250 square feet of garage storage space through a stairway going up over the garage. So that would be right now our base product. The lot values start in the low threes. So the total purchase price, including landscaping, turnkey, would be somewhere in the 900 range. And then adding second story space, they might add only several hundred square feet or they might add a thousand square feet. So that could push the price points up another two, three, 400,000. It's market driven. These are not prescribed homes. They are one at a time designed and custom unique homes. So the goal is that in the end, that people will not say I live in a villa, but that I just simply live in Marshall Farms. That there's not a strict, there's not a real difference between the way that the homes are, the villa homes and the single families look and or are appealing. Yes, they will be narrower generally, but hopefully the architecture will be of a similar standard and appeal.

Thank you.

Others? Council Member Nelson.

Yeah, there was some talk about solar, or at least being ready for solar and such, which I approve of. But are you going to be also encouraging people to start with solar? As you build the home, you'll add that into it as you build. Is that envisioned being done or just the homeowner might have to do this later?

Interesting question so first of all the city has the city staff has Told us that we have to put ev you know in the garage It can't just be something that's like a remodeling, but it's actually like roughed and ready to go. I'm just one point on that and The interesting thing about solar in our climate, we don't have some of the products available such as like Tesla panels that you might see in warmer climates because of snow and ice. The type of panels that we have available in this state are panels that are installed after the roof is installed. And so there's very little benefit to putting the panels up right now. We, as David explained, we will have them ready to go. We'll have circuitry and connections ready to go for them, but they can actually be added at any time without difficulty. The one thing that wasn't mentioned that I will say that I think is a new thing, most neighborhoods over time had restricted the use of solar panels on the fronts of homes to even the sides of the homes and only the back of the homes. And I think that's something that we wrestled with our attorney over, actually, because he was thinking that that's what we wanted. And I had to tell him several times, no, we will allow solar panels to be on the front of homes as well. That might be the sunnier side of the home. So we're doing everything we can to encourage that. We're not going to dictate that someone would have to have that. But I will say, furthermore, I was a real estate agent for many years, and I have realtor friends as a result. And it is interesting, people are starting to recognize the value of building solar panels into the project up front and putting that, for example, in a mortgage and that The cost savings of having it in a mortgage versus paying a utility bill are probably pretty similar. Even if that client customer is not as concerned about the environment, it actually could affect their pocketbook. So we will be talking about that. I appreciate the challenge, and we'll get better at it as we go.

So what you are going to allow it from? Anybody who wants to put them on in the beginning? It wasn't clear was whether you had to do it later You would be putting could put it on you know from as the building is built It will be an option that they can select right away. Okay. Well. That's that's great. I know I

Just to clarify, the houses will all be built so it's ready if they want to do it at the time of initial construction or later on. And that's the important part is later on, it's their choice. But the house is ready.

That's fine because sometimes there are not those things built or the house was built before solar got big. And having solar myself, I know what that can do for a home. But Sometimes you can't get it unless it's built ready for it. So yours will be built ready. That's what I wanted.

We appreciate that. That exceeds our city mandated, as you know, expectations and also our council's expectations it exceeds because we all want it. Everyone up here really would love to see solar across the city. We're not to the point as a Council directing staff to direct developers to mandate. We haven't put it into our code. So you all are coming in really above and beyond. So thank you, appreciate that. I'm so sorry we did close the public hearing, but afterwards do come up, chat with us please. Council, any other further questions, comments?

Just a comment. I think I'm really glad you saw already approach and thanks to the staff and thank you.

Yeah.

We appreciate that. That question would have brought up here if you had not decided to do that. So thank you.

All right. You may sit down. Thank you so much. So Council, unless you have questions, Well, we could still have conversations, still ask questions, even after someone makes the motion. So since you already started, Lisa, would you like to continue with the next, what, seven bullet points there and read the motion?

Sure. Okay, so the public hearing's closed. Public hearing's closed. Adopt a resolution approving a comprehensive plan amendment from medium density residential to low density residential on 8.69 acres and adopt resolution approving a planned unit development concept plan review on 32.13 acres and approve the first reading of an ordinance for a planned unit development district review with waivers on 32.13 acres and zoning district change from rural R1-9.5 on 17.84 acres and from rural to parks and open space on 14.29 acres and adopt a resolution approving a preliminary plat of 32.13 acres on 50 lots and five out lots and adopt a resolution for findings of fact in support of park dedication fees and authorize the issuance of an early land alteration permit for Marshall Farms at the request of the developer subject to the conditions outlined in the permit and direct staff to prepare a development agreement incorporating staff and commission recommendations and council conditions.

Is there a second? Second. Before we vote, I just want to say a compliment and underscore two parts I read in the packet. Many of you know I'm, and many of us up here on this Council, if not all of us, are very much in support of historical preservation, heritage preservation, and this is our, there's a Pica farm and a couple other farms I realize out there, but this is our last in, large intact farm function and working farm. So important to document. So I noted in there that you have, that the developers agreed to photo documentation of the buildings and the surrounding farm area by our historic heritage preservation staff person, along with the HPC, thank you. I saw that you named the street after Mabel, I think that's really cool, if that's going to stay. I wish George, I was looking in there, I see the other two streets are connected to already intact streets, so there is no other street. If you can get George somewhere, I don't know, put a kiosk or name a little nerp pond after George, but I just think it would be pretty cool to honor George and Mabel Marshall. They'd been there for decades and they have all their children around and a couple of them still run the Marshall Farm Market. So just a thought. Thank you, thank you though for your attention already to heritage preservation. So with that, anything else? Are we ready to vote? All those in favor say aye. Aye. I oppose, it passes unanimous 5-0. Mr. Sweeters, welcome again to Eden Prairie and all the rest of you. Thank you for a good presentation and we'll wish you the best. Nice to see you, Brooke. Oh, you're so kind. You were my favorite student.

Wait, can I say, no.

Except for, yeah, some of the others I also said that to. But anyway, okay. We are ready to move on, Mr. Getro, to our second public hearing.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. 11609 Leona Road. First reading. of a planned unit development as well. Another actual, this is a retail development. Part of this has been before you as well. This is a phase two of a redevelopment project. The previous phase was a demolition and remodel of the office depot into a Planet Fitness on Leona Road and underground storm water management in the parking lot. That was phase one. Also at that time, you approved a Starbucks That project is not moving forward. So what's before you tonight instead of the Starbucks is a new drive-through Shake Shack in the northwest corner of that site. And additionally, a new Valvoline instant oil change in the northeast corner of the site. So the developer would be platting the property for those two retail uses in that parking lot. The Planning Commission voted 7-0 to recommend the project at their June 22nd meeting. And the applicant is here to present those plans. And then you would have a public hearing for that PUD and the preliminary plat for that development on the 3.44 acres.

If the proponents here please come forward, name and address, company you work for.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Matthew Langham. I am with Kimley Horn. We're at 11669 Singletree Lane in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. And I'm here on behalf of the applicant. So we have a presentation. So thank you, Rick, for explaining the project. Our project is located at 11609 Leonia Road. We have been here before for the phase one of the project for the Planet Fitness and the Starbucks. Unfortunately, Starbucks fell through. So we're moving forward with a now Shake Shack and a Valvoline. So this is where we're located at the corner of Flying Cloud and Leonia Road. So this was the original building, the office depot. Since last year it has been converted to a new Planet Fitness building that is complete and constructed and is currently in operations. So that was the phase one, so this is current aerial. This was the phase one existing parking and then the realignment of the parking. So currently shown is the proposed site plan. So the Shake Shack building is going to be in the north IT'S GOING TO HAVE A DRIVE THROUGH ON THAT NORTH SIDE THAT WRAPS AROUND ON THE EAST SIDE. THERE'S GOING TO BE A SMALL PATIO, KIND OF A PULL AHEAD AREA FOR VEHICLES TO PULL AHEAD IF THEY USE THE DRIVE THROUGH AND THERE'S A LITTLE BIT OF A DELAY AND THEN ASSOCIATED PARKING WITH THE BUILDING. on the east side of the parcel is going to be a Valvoline oil change. So that's just going to be one of those quick change oil uses. With associated parking, I think there's 11 parking stalls on the west side of the building. And then in between the two, there's going to be just parking that will be used for the Planet Fitness. So additional parking for the Planet Fitness. Moving forward. So this is the Shake Shack elevations. The Shake Shack architect has been working really closely with the city to make sure that the elevations and materials meet the standards. So I think these are the most updated elevations for the building. So that's the Shake Shack. This is a rendering of the building, what the building would look like in that location. This is the Valvoline elevations. and then the Valvoline renderings. So we are still looking to meet the sustainability that the city has. So we currently have an above ground stormwater management system to the west of our property, as well as the below ground stormwater system that was placed during phase one of the project. The two stormwater components in junction both provide irrigation reuse, stormwater rate control, water quality control, and quantity controls. We've improved pedestrian and bicycle connectivity through the site, through sidewalks and pathways, enhanced the landscaping in the area to compare with the removed trees during phase one and phase two to either provide enough trees on the site or pay in lieu of for the city reimbursement plan for the trees that aren't planted. There will be EV charging stations at the Shake Shack building, building material reuse, and then reduction overall to impervious surface. So yes, that's the project presentation, so I'm here to answer questions.

I've got one, but I'll let you go first. No, you go first. Nope, you go first.

Just about the parking lot.

That's what I was gonna ask about the parking.

I don't like that parking lot, I'm so sorry. It's got all the islands in it, you know what I'm saying? When you first come in off of Leona, I think everybody hits that curb. I've done it a million times. If you go to take a right towards Caribou,

Yeah, so we are meeting the minimum requirements for the city. So that is just the city standard that we are meeting for the design. So just due to the sizing and the location of everything, parking islands are required by the city. So throughout the parking area, there's just parking islands. And then that throat to the main site, that's just to provide conflict with the Shake Shack drive-thru. So if you did open that up, the Shake Shack drive-thru would be affected. And they need that for the operational purposes.

So you can't make that any wider?

It almost looks like it's being improved, though, from what it is because it's forcing the traffic to come deep into it. Now you go up here and you hit the curb, I think. It is a slightly different pattern. You just hit curbs all over the parking lot. And the radius, I think. Let's go ahead and let our staff go at it here.

Yeah, Mayor and Councilmember Toomey, so the existing island that is there today that you drive into as soon as you come into the site, that is being removed. So that hazard will no longer exist when the improvements are made.

Chris will be much happier after the car's not all battered every time you hit curbs. I HAD A QUESTION ABOUT PARKING ITSELF AND I WAS READING BASED ON 2.5 OR WHATEVER PER WHAT TABLE OR PERSON IN THE RESTAURANT, WHATEVER. SO 24 PARKING SPOTS FOR SHAKE SHACK AND I GUESS I'LL ASK STAFF, DOES, I'M JUST THINKING LIKE OTHER FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS IN THE CITY, IS 24 ENOUGH, IS IT COMPARABLE FOR WHAT WE'RE USED TO IN ELSEWHERE?

Mayor, members of the council, so the 24 parking cells provided on Shake Shack site do meet the requirements. And based on other sites, especially with other food delivery, Uber and things like that, drive-through, we have seen that be sufficient in those locations. In addition, there is overflow parking. in terms of there would be cross parking and access with the Planet Fitness site and the Velvaline site. So if you were going out there and you maybe weren't lucky enough to get in one of those first 24 stalls on Shake Shack site, you'd be able to park anywhere on the Planet Fitness site as well because they do have that cross parking.

So it looks like the 30 that were mentioned, you mentioned when you presented as being part of the Planet Fitness site, But they're new to the planet. Well, I guess they are there now, kind of. But that is part of this new development. Why would it be given over to Planet Fitness? And do we have history that says Planet Fitness needs more? And if not, why wouldn't we dedicate at least the first row there? Well, I understand. You're saying if they're open, they're going to park there. So I guess that works. But it just seems like the 30 in the middle, unless we know that Planet Fitness needs it, almost, I'm surprised it wasn't like, hey, this is Shake Shack, can definitely use those. I know you're saying that, but I mean, dedicated to them.

Mayor, members of the council, 140 stalls are proposed on the entire site. City code only requires 127 over all three uses. So, When you look at it in total, it is over-parked, and it does have that cross parking. I understand that on the other side of that driveway, it's not necessarily immediately available or accessible to the Shake Shack, but there would be connection via the sidewalk in order to get pedestrians from that location to the Shake Shack.

You've answered the question with the 140 versus 127, so thank you. Let's see. I don't want to cut you off. Is your basic presentation, the beginning part, done? And we can then open it up as a public hearing and we can continue to ask additional questions. Councillor, are you okay with moving right to the public hearing? We have two other opportunities to raise questions. Mark, you're okay with this? Okay, this is a public hearing. Anyone in the audience wishing to address the Council on this? What are we titling it, the Todd Development, or the project with Shake Shack and Valvoline? Okay, seeing none, if it's okay with you, I think, I think it's fairly straightforward. Why don't we go ahead and make the entire motion. Is that fine? Close the public hearing and also the other four bullet points and then we'll have any further discussion. Is that fine? Go.

So close all the way through?

Do it all, yep.

Close the public hearing. I move to close the public hearing and adopt a resolution for plan unit development concept plan review on 3.44 acres and approve the first reading of the ordinance for a district review with waiver on 3.44 acres and adopt a resolution for preliminary plot of three lots and one out lot on 3.44 acres and direct staff to prepare an addendum to develop agreement incorporating staff and commission recommendations and council conditions.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, council, any further discussion, questions you have, any comments? I think it's fairly straightforward. And we've reviewed this site a lot, so.

And the sign might go, the old sign that still stands there by the liquor store, the framework of that site. Oh, yes. That's gonna go, right?

It must because I think it's on this Valvoline site. Yes, that's correct. We'll make sure it does for you, Mark. We'll get Rick and me out there and we'll start with our pickaxes or whatever. All right, with that then, we've made the motion, seconded, discussion is over. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? It passes unanimous, welcome. I look forward to... Well, Valvoline also, but Shake Shack. You don't eat it. I like eating. You don't eat it, Valvoline.

Okay.

All right, Mr. Gretchel, we have our third public hearing, which... it seems incredibly important, but seems a little housekeeping perfunctory. So go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, this is a zoning district change from public R1, public to R1-22. So in that sense, it's a public hearing. because it's a zoning district change. But if you read through the packet and you read through the information, that's due to a discovery that city staff found when someone was looking to do an improvement on a property, a residential property that had been probably mistakenly zoned public when it should have been zoned residential. So that's really the main reason that it's before you tonight. So you have a single family home located on 6345 Eden Prairie Road. And so you have a rezoning, but there are no, as you see in the packet, and I think this came up at Planning Commission, because... You notice on the site that there might be a development sign there, but there is no real proposed development there, and there are no proposed changes currently to the use of the property. It's just, like you said, Mayor, kind of a fix to the zoning to go from public to R-122 because there is a residential home on the property.

And if... you know, fear is a powerful emotion, but if someday some owner of this property wished to subdivide it and tear the house down and put two homes in or something, it would have to come back before the council. It would be a public hearing. and it would have to meet the zone that we're going to put on it, which likely will limit it to two homes on that site, and that would be decades from now, or even that, whatever. So tonight it's simply really cleaning up an administrative error, which we can chat later about how the heck did that happen decades ago, but whatever, interesting. So, yes. Council, are you okay if I have a quick public, it doesn't have to be quick, but a public hearing on this? This is a public hearing. Anyone in the audience wishing to address us on this ordinance zoning district change? Okay, come forward. Name and address and...

Magno Ortiz, 6345 Eden Prairie Road. Hi, Lisa, or yeah, Julie, I'm sorry. I am the developer and I make construction, which is a construction company that's doing the upgrades to the property. And I'm also the owner of the property. Just want to introduce myself and just say that that I'm doing the upgrades. Like you said, I don't know why it was zoned public when it should have been residential. When I purchased the property, I didn't know it was zoned public. But if you guys have any questions.

I don't think so, I really do think it's pretty straightforward, so. Yeah, I think so. But now that you came forward, I do have, no I'm just kidding.

Just throw everything over. It was pretty easy. But yeah. No, it sounds good. But I think it just came up because I wanna do a deck on the back and for some reason it wasn't allowed.

That's what I understand, yeah.

Sounds good.

We'll fix this for you. All right, perfect. So council, if you wanna go ahead and close the public hearing and just go ahead and approve the first, or make the motion.

to close the public hearing and approve the first reading of an ordinance for a zoning district change from public R1-22 on 1.22 acres. Is there a second?

Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, opposed. All right, 5-0, you got your zoning ordinance change here. You're no longer public. We don't own your land anymore. All right, you bet. Okay, moving on to payment of claims, the list of all the individual expenses that we've incurred since our last meeting. Council, any items on that list, pages long, that you wish to learn more about or question? If not, is there a motion to approve payment of claims?

I move to approve the payment of claims as submitted. Would you like to second?

Yeah, second please.

Roll call.

Council Member Freyberg.

Aye.

Council Member Narayan. Yeah, aye. Council Member Nelson. Aye. Council Member Toomey. Aye.

I like the yep, but I'll go aye. Mr. Gatcho, is there anything else to come before the council this evening?

Mayor, I'll just mention, because you talk about summer schedule, the next meeting will be August 18th. So that would be the third Tuesday in August.

Okay.

And then you get into September and then we'll have the first and third Tuesday in September and October. So we'll be back on the regular schedule.

So I didn't put this as a council agenda item. If you're okay with, I don't know what they call it, mayor's prerogative or something. I just want to say, 4th of July, our staff were amazing for multiple reasons. But the 3rd and the 4th, we had two straight nights. And with, of course, getting hit with a storm from 7.30 to 8.30. But our public safety, police and fire and all of our parks and recreation staff, and all of our volunteers were absolutely phenomenal. And I received... Tons of compliments on behalf of our police, fire, park and rec volunteers. And the fact that the police had to, I'm going to make some numbers up. Anyone can, I don't, I don't have exactly any idea if I'm right, but I think I'm close. Try to question me, but I think that we had maybe four to five, 6,000 people there in the area of the band concert, whatever around the, you know, 7.30 time when the storm hit. I think we emptied out down to a couple thousand. I think we grew back to seven or 8,000. All that occurred. Our police had, thousands of cars leaving and coming almost simultaneously. And you all did unbelievably spectacularly. And I got to visit briefly. I know Mark, you were in there for a while in the command center, a brand new $1.2 million grant from the federal government. Thank you, Senator Amy Klobuchar. I got the chance to go in there and to watch from our drones in the sky, and watch the action going on on three or four or five television screens and see the way that our police officers in charge were operating was just wow. I mean, just a wow. So thank you to our staff. Yes, Council Member Freiberg.

I'll just piggyback that. You're right, I had an opportunity to see the command center in action. Oh my goodness. And in the professionalism of the police and the fire, I mean, they were all serious. They were all zoned in, they were all serious, and that is an amazing, amazing tool for them. In a lot of ways, that's the first time it was really fired up to basically see what it could do.

You could argue emergency, because what we were going through could have been really catastrophic. I just thank you, Amy, for, I mean, oh my gosh, the work that you and your team did. And then chief, both chiefs, thank you. You were so busy, both of you, the whole evening. And our police department, thank you. Over here, our officer, thank you. I mean, they're just incredible. I was so proud. I mean, it's just really amazing. So Mr. Gatcho, I know that you're at the top of the org chart and you're responsible for this so much. So, all right. With that, is there a motion to adjourn?

Moved to adjourn the city council meeting tonight.

Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? I have no gavel, I have no thing to bang, but this meeting is adjourned.