Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

e good evening I would like to call the uh Monday February 10th 2025 Eden PR plan and commission meeting to order would everybody stand to help me play say the Pledge of Allegiance please Al to the flag the United States of America stand thank you okay the first item on the agenda is our approval of the agenda Commissioners does anybody have any comments on tonight's agenda if not I'll entertain a motion thank you commissioner Taylor a second second thank you commissioner Grody all in favor say I I opposed anybody abstain motion passes thank you uh next item on the agenda is

the approval of the minutes from the January 27th 2025 meeting that we had anybody have any comments on our minutes from that last meeting minutes from the last meeting thank you commissioner Duncan do I have a second second second from commissioner Kirk all in favor say I I I opposed abstain abstained by commissioner Grody thank you all right we have two public hearings on the agenda today we'll tackle the first one here it's a uh variance number 20252 Boa at 9030 Highpoint Circle it's a request to allow a deck that is 17 ft from the rear property line in the RM 6.5 zoning District city code requires a 20 foot setback um if the applicant is here and would like to say a few words welcome to the podium uh please state your name and address I'm uh Jason harlson homeowner 9030 High Point Circle thank you and we are requesting a variance to uh build a standard siiz deck he currently has a deck that is uh unique to the setback of the property there used to be an outlaw behind this uh property line that he was kind of unaware of uh when he moved in in 2009 it's been from what I can tell uh gone since 2001 um so as a deck builder when I came there to give him an estimate we uh thought we could build a standard siiz deck turn out that we were wrong um so we're not building anything massive we're just trying to build something that uh is conducive to actually utilizing the deck it uh right now is a very irregular shape can't really fit a patio table on it can fit a cafe table on it but that is about it so yes we are asking for a a variance to build into that setb about three three

and a half feet okay U and I do have Jeremy I have no idea how to this okay forgive me I haven't done a PowerPoint since I was in college and no worries just a couple years then right yeah yeah just a couple years ago so uh there's what we're trying to build the gry lons is his existing deck um the deck actually used to go further all the corner of his house until they Reed recently well I shouldn't say recently couple years ago yep um so we're actually making it shorter than it's longest depth at the current moment but it does follow the 20 foot setback so you can see the area that we are trying to build into um here's a property of or a picture of his property the property line on the right there that shows where I kind of assumed this property was given the the meter and the big Shrubbery that looks like what would be a standard edge of property um there's just another picture that shows the the easement line is that right is it set back line set back line thank you um so that the where the 20 ft would be from the outlot which again the out lot is something that he's been maintaining since he's moved in there hasn't been a tra Trail there um realistically looks like part of his backyard which uh um there's a GIS uh my drawing on it shows the 17 foot corner that's kind of in play here and then here's a picture of his existing deck and his backyard which you can see he has a good tree buffer between the neighbors that again kind of makes for not being a city planner if I just walked in his backyard I would assume it was his backyard um so given that that setback

is 20 feet from the outlaw and not what normally looks like his back or edge of his property line that is why we are asking for a variance right thank you very much for your presentation we appreciate it let you know if we have any questions uh Commissioners do you have any questions of the applicant or the builder at this point in time seeing none okay planer Barner would you like to take us through the staff report your gentleman can be seated for a moment thank you yeah thank you chair uh Commissioners uh as the applicant noted we're uh here for a a variance from the rear yard setback the rear yard uh required setback is 20 feet they're asking for 17 ft at the closest location so an encro of three Ines or 3et pardon me um when we review variances it's not a matter of does it look look good or is it just a convenience kind of fix on a situation there are certain criteria that the city must review um and find in order to Grant a variance and those criteria are really in five key areas one is the Improvement or the use consistent with the comprehensive plan the properties used res itially it's guided for residential uses so it's consistent with the comprehensive plan uh another criteria is the Improvement in harmony with the purpose and intent of the ordinance um is the is the overall goal of the ordinance achieved if we Grant the variance and the staff's analysis of this with that Unique Kind of configuration in the backyard with that Outlaw that's kind of for a shared open space within the neighborhood we still achieve those goals of an open space type of separation between the buildings on either side of that out lot so um the purpose and intent of the overall goal of a a rear setback is met

um with that modest encroachment and also with the existing Outlaw that's there um other factors that we review is the is there unique characteristics to this property and are their practical difficulties with the property or with the proposal excuse me with the ordinance that that make reasonable use of the property problematic um the property is unique we don't have a lot of these outlots um with for the atttention of kind of a shared open space often we we tackle that now through a shared easement so the property line may be measured uh in the middle of a trail for example which is where a setback is measured from um but in this situation we use a separate kind of tool we use the outlaw tool here um so that's a unique kind of conf consideration within the city this neighborhood is built under that kind of Promise um but generally in the city we don't handle these type of goals you know shared trails that way anymore practical difficulties I'll will get to that in a moment um preservation of the neighborhood character you look at the Improvement you know the encroachment and does that disrupt or impact negatively the neighborhood and and as the applicant had noted the the rear yard line or the rear property line is somewhat hidden I mean not um formally but it appears that the backyard kind of goes and encroaches into the next next door neighbor's backyard um so I think it's hard to make the justification that the impact uh will have any impact on the neighborhood character because the people that live within the neighborhood have some I don't want to use the word confusion but some um discrepancy in where the property line is so I think it Blends

all well together within that established neighborhood and then lastly we look at is the is the Improvement of reasonable use for the property um and the applicant is proposing a a modest Siz deck it's not a gargantuan sized deck it's it's a modest sized deck that's Square so it's more efficient and it's a relatively minor encroachment into the rear yard setback so um we we believe that from a staff perspective it's a reasonable use a reasonable Improvement on the property um circling back to the Practical difficulties that's often the the thing that differentiate differentiate diff thank you say it either skip that word um what is convenience and what is a practical difficulty and and you try to kind of take a look at that with the scope of the Improvement um yes the uh the deck could shift to um to the side to kind of create more space looking at the uh the side or the the rear pictures provided by the applicant you can kind of see there's a an an entrance to the to the garage space uh just adjacent to the deck uh right next to that wood pile there um you could feasibly move a t or move a a door that can happen what you try to balance though is the scope of the Improvement the need to preserve the character and and goals of the ordinance um and the kind of the scope of the project and shifting a door like that um is pretty is a pretty substantial practical difficulty based on the scope of the project and and what we're really trying to preserve so staff didn't see that as a viable alternative to the variance obviously we don't go around handing variances out as as ever wherever we can try to meet within the

code in this application we feel that the that the proposal proposal does fit with the overall goals of the ordinance and does provide adequate findings for a variance so staff is recommending approval as proposed um the Planning Commission has an option to deny the project as proposed they can approve it with modifications or they can approve it as drafted and staff is recommending uh approval as drafted thank you very much appreciate that Commissioners any questions for planner barnhard before we move to the public hearing seeing none okay this is a public hearing anybody in the audience that wishes to address the commission on this matter may approach the podium at this time seeing none I would uh entertain a motion from the Commissioners to move to close the public hearing thank you commissioner Sherwood second second from commissioner d all in favor of closing the public hearing say I I opposed anybody abstained and the public hearing is closed for this matter okay Commissioners this look fairly straightforward um any comments I agree I think it's pretty straight forward I would recommend that we approve it okay agreed agreed okay anybody wish to uh make a motion uh we have Motion in front of us three different choices that Jeremy outlined Mr chairman Commission Mr Kirk move to approve the variance to allow a deck that is 17 ft from the rear property line in the R1 d13.5 zoning District as represented in the February 10th 2025 staff report thank you we have a motion to approve from commissioner Kirk anybody wish to second that motion second thank you commissioner Taylor all in favor say I I opposed anybody abstain motion passes

congratulations get your variance all right we have our second public hearing now it's for the highway 5 Business Center it's a request for zoning District change from I General to flex service on 3.98 Acres a site plan review on 3.98 acres and a preliminary plat combining several tracks into one lot on 3.98 acres is the applicant here would you like to give us a short presentation please address the podium and give us your name and your company hello everyone my name is Evan Matson my address is 5800 American Boulevard West excited to be here today representing the applicant thank you should work okay um am I gonna be able to hit next on the slides yeah it should work awesome okay so I'm here to talk to you about Highway 5 Business Center um it's a new development that we are proposing and are excited to present today but before we do that a little bit about Endeavor the applicant we are a local developer we were founded in 2019 we've had a lot of projects throughout the metropolitan area as well as Iowa and De Moine we were here recently for another project Nexus at Opus Park so if you've seen me in the crowd before I'm now excited to be up in front of you uh to summarize and highlight what we're here today to discuss um we acquired a property from mot in September of 2024 this was formerly rightaway property mindt acquired the property while they were developing Highway 5 and the 212 exchange there so that happened around 1998 and mot has owned at sunen we're proposing to develop a new 51,9 66,000 square foot modern Business

Center we're excited about the project the size of it um it's a perspect it's a um spective project at this point we are requesting a reone to flex service after the property was acquired from mind do it was right away and then it defaulted back to I which was the former zoning we are resoning to flex service to make it consistent with the aspired 2040 plan um and then because we acquired it from indot we are proposing to Plat the property because it was formly right away and does not have a platting right now so here is the project location it's a 3.9 Acre Site it's currently Jone zoned as I which was the former Zoning for the property there used to be two smaller industrial buildings on the site as well as a temporary concrete plant that um really comprised of the property uh but for the past 20 years it was right away and as I mentioned previously we're proposing to reone to flex service which is a newer zoning type uh you can see in the upper right hand corner of that image that whole area is guided for Flex service so here is our site plan it's a 51,000 ft single entrance building there's a lot of you can't see it on this plan but there is topography which is why we moved bunch of items around and really settled in on this site plan to to maximize our our coverage as well as create the best product overall for prospective tenants in the area our ponding is on the East and the primary entrance is on the west here are the elevations for the project it features three complimentary paint tones uh a cream a tan as well as a charcoal color there is a stone veneer

uh you can see the stone columns that accent the facade as well as uh glazing and metals that are of Bronze finish here is a rendering from the West this is a similar project uh you may have seen these images in the past but this design here for our property was inspired in part by these images here and we really feel like these do a nice job of characterizing the Finish as you can see it's a different design with multiple entrances on this property and our property only feature one entrance but it gives you a good understanding of the end Finish of the property these are interior images uh as I mentioned it's a spective project this point so there's not a tenant in hand but this is character images of what we would anticipate once the building has a tenant and to summarize we are requesting a reone to flex service the flex service zoning is consistent with the comprehensive plan uh prary a preliminary plat is requested because the property was reclaimed from indot and is not currently ploted and we're looking to uh transform the property that's now vacant into a modern Business Center and we're excited about that and what it's going to bring to the city of Edan Prairie so with that I'd welcome any questions thank you Evan um before I ask the other Commissioners just a really quick one for me the last time you guys were in uh I think it was up in North Eden Prairie you designed the building high enough to accommodate a potential future mezzanine yeah same thing here and if so what would you do with the parking I'm excited about that question I almost I almost brought it up in the presentation because I knew was coming um at this point it's um it's designed to accommodate a mezanine um similar to our other project the specul portion of it um at this time we're not sure if we would necessarily need that because we're not sure who the end user would be

um we've identified a couple of areas um on the site that um are proof of parking areas now but could be built out to accommodate the variety of different office versus Warehouse uses um so we feel like we have the capabilities to that if that were to be of interest to prospective tenant but at this time we don't have any plans to okay thank you Commissioners any questions of the applicant at this point in time got a question commission commissioner Taylor so do you anticipate when you decide to rent it out or lease it out to being one own one business or two or yeah what's your thoughts yeah so if I could share the screen again um the elevation on the west really lends it to being a single tenant building um we feel like the size of the building at 50,000 square feet um it's really a good size for users in this market and a space they'll be really sought after um so it would be most likely a single tenant but um until it's leased up it's it's hard to exactly say okay thank you okay thanks a lot yeah appreciate that Mr barnhard would you take us through the staff report please sure chair uh Commissioners just briefly um has Evan shared um looking for site plan and pimer plat approval uh for about a 52,000 foot building um no tenant has been identified yet um the building is is U basically identical to but smaller than the Nexus 2 building that was just approved last month and the Nexus One building um that was reviewed vied last summer um this building in site was designed with the goal of of not requiring any waivers and they were successful in doing that uh the building meets the required setbacks uh required

number of parking spaces required Landscaping um materials all of those standards that are included in our Flex service zoning District um are met with this uh with this project should note that this is our first flex service Zone uh that we're creating we created The Zone uh zoning District last summer or summer before uh this will be the first project that incorporates that standard um this building being on Highway 5 does have the luxury of being uh of having commercial as a commercial use in it so there's a wider range of uses available for this building rather than just industrial um one of the things that we we looked at carefully through this review process um was the U perception or perceived imp on the streetscape of Highway 5 um while the building does meet the setbacks on all four sides it's it's suround an all four sides by uh by streets um it will be very visually prominent building we want to make sure that the the Planning Commission and the public understand that there's going to be a change in the character in that area um the trees will be removed and this relatively tall building will be will be placed there and it as I said before meets the design standards and the Landscaping requirements it just will be a difference uh in that area um and sometimes that's hard to visualize so what we did is is part of our staff report we put in some kind of similar buildings to try to demonstrate the height or the setback or the mass of of a building adjacent to some of our already existing projects we're not recommending any changes necessarily to the project we just want to make sure that the public understands that there's going to be a change in this area um so 74 it meets the Landscaping Building Material all those requirements um one of the things we did try to look at um carefully was the screening of the doct

doors let see if I can borrow one of the applicants pictures um on the on the east side of the building is where the loading dock area will be and that will be Vis visually prominent for westbound Travelers on Highway 5 uh it's unavoidable due to the Topography of the site and where the storm water wants to go and wants to go downhill so the infiltration Basin will be on the extreme East portion of the of the property there will be a retaining wall and then there'll be the roof or excuse me there will be the loading parking area and that will be um visually observable uh the applicant recognizing recognizing that uh issue or that concern has has attempted to to provide a landscaping plan that minimizes or or blunts that impact as much as practical uh there'll be uh some some trees along the infiltration Basin and then there'll be larger U there'll be a mix of trees at the kind of Southeast corner of the building near that retaining wall um and those trees will be the larger of the options that the applicant has proposed here to try to get some immediate buffer immediate separation there um so recognizing that that might be a comment we try to address that through the the site plan review process um parking uh as the applicant mentioned we don't necessarily know yet what the use will be um so we're anticipating a mix of office and warehousing uses excuse me depending on what that use configuration is or or distribution we'll have to analyze the parking for that use when that interior building permit cames in comes in but the applicant has identified the parking based on what they believe that the likely use uh distribution will be so that does meet the code requirements and will continue to review any changes as they come through in terms of internal uh tenant space lease outs um staff is

recommending approval of the project as proposed I stand ready for any questions thank you Jeremy appreciate that Commissioners questions of planner at this point in time I just have a couple quick ones Jeremy um on the uh preliminary plat or all the site plans for that matter um apparently the property line is setback quite a ways from both Venture Lane and Wallace Road uh differing from the other side of venture Road and Wallace Road why is the right of way not symmetrical and really burdening this site more than the opposite side of the road the um the the developer is proposing to develop what they purchased from mindat so that's where the boundary line was when when mot owned the property we have not explored vacating or a adjusting Venture Lane uh the RightWay there because the Venture Lane RightWay is our RightWay is that what your questioning is yeah it it it seems uh excessive in terms of City standards and I didn't know if there was some plan to expand both of those roads or if it was just um yeah if if it's just historical I didn't know if there was going to be an effort to try and capture some usable portion of the property back and lose some RightWay if that's warranted or not we we have not proposed you know removing or vacating portions of the rideway however we did recognize that that rideway is wider than in other areas so along Venture Lane the uh the easement typically we have a 10- foot easement adjacent public right of way uh and that's for small utilities um water sewer utilities that may need portions outside of the rideway in that situation where we normally require 10 feet we reduce that to 5 feet to provide uh a little bit more space for landscaping and and recognizing that we don't need all that

space okay all right great and uh usually on a site plan review we'll get a site lighting plan with site photometrics we didn't this time um just in the staff report we saw something about a couple light poles and the Western parking lot for cars but then there'd be wall packs wall mounted lights around the other three sides yes okay so yep yep you were talking about the the views coming westbound Highway towards that loading dock area I'm just concerned that if they're trying to throw light out from the top of the wall to cover that entire 12 foot loading dock that those wall lights might provide some glare for oncoming traffic on Westbound 5 is that a concern of anybody's it it wasn't urr first let me apologize for not providing the photometric plan we did receive one as part of our review and that's one of the things that we review to make sure that the photometric plan meets the requirement which basically states that can be measurable lights beyond the property line right um measurable light is different than glare or the ability to see the light and so that's something that we can certainly put into the development agreement in terms of glare um because the road bed at least portions of Highway 5 is higher than the the parking lot level um we can certainly do that uh and um with your comment I I can certainly add that to the development agreement but the photometric plan wouldn't necessarily illustrate the potential for glare there either so that's why we're comfortable with the photometric plan but we could put some additional protection in the development agreement thank you for that appreciate that commers any more questions of planner got a question yep commission Taylor Jeremy from a sustainability standpoint I saw in the briefing that there was plans for future solar panel to be installed or will they be installed um at the beginning or the

during the construction for solar panel energy sure uh chair Commissioners um my understanding is that the applicant and they can certainly speak to this is they they designed their buildings for that potential should their tenants want that but they don't usually start off with adding those the solar panels there are um I believe um some EV ready kind of conduit that's that's being placed for the potential tenants but uh from a solar power perspective they're just providing the accommodation for that they're not list they're not doing it initially okay this is a public hearing if anybody in the audience wishes to address the commission please step forward now seeing none I'll take a motion from commissioner to close the public hearing so move second thank you commissioner Grody and second from commissioner Duncan I heard all in favor of closing the public hearing say I I I opposed epain public hearing is closed Commissioners what do you think about this project commission Grody how how old is our standard of that allows for two EV charging stations in this size parking area is and does that have to be increased at some point in the near future seems to me we have a lot more EVS driving around town than we used to chair Commissioners that's a good question I don't know that when that that standard was created there there's a couple things that play here though um one we have a requirement when there's a PUD that there's a minimum amount of spaces I think it's a percentage um and in this situation the applicant is electing to provide some it's not a requirement um I don't know when that that standard originally start started

but my understanding is and this goes with all B all businesses is that they can elect to add more EV charging stalls as their needs warrant U so there's no prohibition against that um there's a minor site plan process that we look at make sure that the uh the Transformers and and things like that meet but um they can certainly add more but I I don't I don't have a requirement for additional I was just curious about the history sure thank you commissioner SI Jimmy I have a question I was I drove out there on Sunday and I noticed that only way in and out is either through Venture lane or through Martin Drive up through Mitchell Road especially when they exit so seeing the loading dock is on the east side of the building do anticipate most of those big semi- trucks entering and and exiting through Mitchell Road as opposed to venture Lane I think U I don't know if our traffic study went into that level detail but um I'm looking at the city engineer and perhaps he can answer any questions they didn't go into that level of detail to analyze percents of trucks but it did it did distribute the trips basically 5050 50% going west to venture over to Highway 5 to that signal and then 50% going to uh Martin or Wallace and then it splits again there too I would anticipate it's going to go over you know just like the breakdown you know 5 10% of those vehicles are probably trucks and they're going to go in that distribution so uh you know 20% of them might go all the way to all the way to Mitchell um but the majority are probably going to get on five or 212 going one of those two directions from from Wallace so thank you just following up on commissioner grod's question about EV um could you remind our commission about the

different levels of preparedness that we have in our ordinance for Eevee or is that not just tumbling off the tip of your tongue that was not sure that there would be a quiz I'm sorry I'm sorry but I I do recall that there's a Eevee ready and then again I forget the other phrase but I know that there's different levels of uh preparedness there is um and going enough memory now but there is the conduit is provided so that you could you could put the wire in relatively easy um there is the the wiring and the conduit and the the electrical box is sized appropriately to add EV circuits and then there's the whole the EV charger installed and all the conduit and all the piping and all of all the wiring is installed ready to go um you just need to plug in basically so those are the three and my understanding is with this project they're providing at least that conduit to to support those spaces okay all right so the electrical service size I'm going to look to the applicant um the electrical service size has not been uh taken into account to provide Power in the future if someone does request EV charging stations thanks no problem um so I can talk a little bit about that um so to describe the electrical service for this property it's uh 16 1600 amp service which is quite large for a building of this size um typically it's about 2,000 amps per um 100,000 sare feet is typically what our projects are spec out to so we're a little bit over our our standard metric so we're confident that we'll have sufficient amount of electrical capacity for the Chargers as well as if the prospective tenant wants to install additional Chargers thank you yeah appreciate

that any other comments well personally I think this project is an exemplary uh test case on uh this new flex Service District and uh the site is challenging uh because of its Frontage on multiple streets um uh looks like they're taking down all those trees and taking care of it with the cash andl of policy as well as adding additional Landscaping um the foresighted architecture was for a project like this is almost unheard of so I think they did a excellent job with the design um as well as staying away from any variances so um I support this project wholeheartedly I I I do too but I'd like to add a comment um it's interesting because I think a lot of the focus particularly Jeremy that you mentioned is getting people used to some changes and and it was interesting I drove drove down um Highway uh Eden Prairie Road to 25 and For the First Time The Car Wash there was lit and had those those vertical lights along um Eden Prairie Road there and and I I looked at that and I and I was in a sense surprised by it but what what it it came what the thoughts came to me is Eden prairies evolving and I think the physical presence of this building and I agree with the other comments I think it's very well done I think the homework's been done I think the developer has a good reputation for putting together a NIC looking building with all of you know just all of the

right things and I think the forethought that was put into it by your department Jeremy to look at comparative buildings around Eden Prairie and and frankly there might need be a little bit for all of us to to reference that that homework saying Eden Prairie is changing a little bit but you know that's the evolution of of the the city and I think this location is a very logical location to have that Evolution occur so I'm uh like my colleagues here are I'm very supportive of the project and I think the right kind kind of homework has been done so that it will be an a good addition to the community even though it may raise some ibrows the first time people see thank you commissioner Kirk commissioner groy have we heard anything from any of the residential neighborhoods to the West chair Commissioners no we received no written comment for or against the project um and the the uh mailing distribution list did go into that neighborhood to the West there yeah and the prop Shop's not going to object I don't think we did not receive anything from them I would just commend the applicant and agree with the sentiments that you have also expressed and it's very well done uh without any waivers too I think that's great thank you commissioner Duncan sounds positive I would entertain a motion if if we're uh to that point I'll make a motion um I will move to recommend approval for zoning District change site plan review and

preliminary plat all on 3.9 Acres as represented in the February 20 February 10th 2025 staff report thank you commissioner Duncan we have a motion do I have a second second thank you commissioner Grody all in favor say I I I opposed anybody like to abstain motion passes unanimously congratulations look forward on this wonderful project okay those are the two public hearings we've had this evening uh planner reports Mr barnhard nothing new tonight okay uh member reports hearing none I'll take a motion for gerit motion to thank you