Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. For those of you who are able, please stand and follow me in the Pledge of Allegiance, please. I guess I called the meeting to order before that. Sorry about that, everybody. All right, we have an agenda before us tonight. Is there any changes to the agenda as it stands? Or do I have a motion to approve?

Motion to approve the agenda.

Thank you, Commissioner. Do I have a second?

Second. Second.

Motion by Taylor, second by... All those in favor of the agenda, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, sign. All right, motion approved. Minutes from the last meeting from May 11th. Looks like we had our last meeting. If anybody has any changes to the minutes, or I would also look for a motion.

Motion to approve the minutes. I move to approve the following planning commission minutes.

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second. All those in favor by approving the minutes, say aye.

Aye.

Approve, same sign. All right, motion approved for the minutes from May 11th. All right, looks like we have two public hearings before us tonight. We'll start with the Marshall Gardens development. The applicant is requesting approvals necessary to redevelop the property at 9905 Dell Road into 50 single-family residential lots with waivers. We're gonna start with our staff report, then we will ask the applicant and developer to come next, and then we will have the public hearing followed by that. So Jeremy, please start with the staff report.

Thank you, Chair, Commissioners. On the screen shortly will be just a picture of the preliminary plan which summarizes the project. There are a number of requests on the table tonight. One proposing to change the Comprehensive Plan Amendment or have a Comprehensive Plan Amendment to make basically everything north of the bluff line to be low density residential. Low density residential is single family homes with a density of .1 to five units an acre. There's also a rezoning change to change all the property all the developable property from rural to R1 9.5, then basically everything south of the bluff line will be parks and open space. Other requests are the Pillar Runner Platte, which would subdivide the property into 50 single-family homes, or home lots, and then also five out lots. The out lots would likely house, or propose to house, stormwater management, ponds, and features of that. One of the out lots, however, will be out lot E, which is south of the bluff line, and that will be deeded to the city for permanent open space preservation. Also included in the request is a PUD, a PUD concept and PUD with waivers. A number of waivers were requested by the developer. Those waivers include lot area, lot width, front yard setback, and accessory garage or accessory storage area maximums. A bit about those. About 24 of the 50 lots do not meet the minimum 9,500 square feet. Some of them are as small as 8,100 square feet. The average lot size within the development is about, I used to know, about 10,000 square feet, which is greater than the minimum 9,500 square feet. About 24 of the lots do not meet the minimum lot width requirement of 70 feet. Some lots in the corner lot situation or in a cul-de-sac, they have a different requirement, but not all of the lots meet the minimum width requirements. So the applicant is requesting waivers from our strict R1 9.5 zoning district. Also, the developer's requesting waivers from the front yard setback. Front yard setback in the R19.5 zoning district is 30 feet. They're proposing a 25 foot setback. So what this does is it brings the house away from the rear property line. And in this application, the rear property line basically forms the north boundary line of the property and then also forms the bluff line, basically. Some of you may recall project a couple years ago, Marshall Gardens. And Marshall Gardens had a kind of a gardens community space in the northwest corner, had similar ponds along the north property line, but they only had about 15 villa-type homes. The rest of the property was 100-unit condominium building. All of those approvals, with the exception of the comprehensive plan, have expired. The developer walked away from that project, and so the zoning reverted back to rural, the preliminary plan expired, all the PUD amendments and PUDs that we approved have expired. So we're kind of starting over. It's important from a commission standpoint that you're not evaluating this project based on what you liked about the other project, but what is in front of you today, because everything reverted back to the original rural zoning and kind of the configuration of the properties now. So as a little background of the Marshall Gardens project, shortly before the packet went out, we received some comments from the neighborhood, which our public notice process works. We got some comments from the neighborhood and we shared those with you as part of your packet and I'd like to kind of spend a little bit of time of addressing some of those comments and some of those concerns and know that we incorporated many of those issues into our plan review. It's some things though that we obviously can't address all the time. One of the comments that we heard in that written comment was that much of the donated land is undevelopable. It's a steep slope, if you can see on your screens. Preliminary plat shows the 50 single family homes here and then this kind of hatched in area is a portion of the area that will be dedicated to the city as permanent open space. This area is guided currently for parks and open space. It's the same bluff line that was identified during the Marshall Gardens project. But everything basically south of that will be parks and open space. This area is steep slopes. There's some bluffs in that area, because there's a creek at the bottom. There's some pretty intensive vegetation, and developing of that property would not only be very expensive, but it would likely be very impactful to that natural resource. So generally in these situations, the city looks to acquire properties like this, finding that the ability to maintain and manage these type of features is to the community's long-term benefit. And if you look at a city map You'll see a lot of these type of properties are owned by the city. Rarely is a situation where the city pays for them. We look for the developer to give those to us to protect that kind of character that we in Prairie appreciate so much. So it is true much of that area is undevelopable. Not all of it, though. There are some flat areas south. of the creek near Turnbull that could be developed. In fact, the previous development saw some concepts that included houses, large houses in that area, and we wanted that area to be preserved and maintained. That's why we changed the comp plan and that's why we're not supporting any deviation from that. We do get, as I said before, we do get a benefit for acquiring this property as the developer gets a benefit. We see this as an offset with some of the PUDs, the waivers requested. The lot area, lot width, allows the property or the developer to kind of shift the density into the developable area, retaining the kind of more challenging areas for our benefit. So there's an offset there. There was some comment about whether or not the density was accurately calculated. Because only about 13 acres of the area is developable and the rest of it is either right of way or not developable. And that's true. But we do calculate on gross density, which is around 1.5 units an acre. But even applying the amount of density to the developable portion, we're at about 3.6 units an acre. all or both within the guidelines of our comp plan, which talks about low density residential at 0.1 to five units an acre, kind of our lowest density. We heard some also comments about the, I would call it the wall effect. If you look on the preliminary plot here, along the north property line, there's a number of lots that are 55 feet in width, and the preliminary plot shows kind of an idea of a, of a floor plan or a footprint. And you can see there that there's minimal space between the homes from the north through the property to the south. And that's true. There are a reduced distance. Keep in mind that there's no waivers requested from a side yard setback perspective. So they do meet the required 15-foot side door setbacks for both parcels or both sides. So there will be homes visible where there isn't any now. However, what they're asking for isn't out of character for a R1 9.5 zoning district. Along with that, there's a concern with privacy loss. Residents along the north property line, currently there's a farm in their backyard and suddenly there will be houses. And I can see that's a change. However, the separation between these houses and the houses on the north side are actually pretty typical for our R1 zoning districts. Even to the neighborhood to the north, the side yard or the rear yard setbacks, some of them get as short as 75 feet. Most of them, though, are in the 90 to more than 120 feet, which is similar to what you're seeing here. Keep in mind, too, that a lot of these homes, they'll back up to a pond or an existing wetland or another pond. But there is five or six that are right in a row that will be a difference in terms of what you can see from those properties to the north. I can point out too that the developer tried to address this concern through our working with the developer through our process. They've reduced that front yard setback to bring the houses away from the north property line. They've added trees along the north property line, and I'll get to that in a moment. Actually, I'll get to that now. there is no landscaping requirement for single-family residential developments. There is a tree replacement in some situations when trees are removed, but there's not a specific landscaping requirement or screening requirement that we have for single-family residential. You may see that in some of our multifamily projects and our commercial zoning districts where they abut a residential area, but single-family to single-family, we generally do not require screening. The developer though is using some of their tree replacement requirements and putting trees along the north property line here and also along the west property line. The trees do not go all the way across because there is proposed some stormwater infrastructure along that north property line, pipes in the ground to convey stormwater. We generally don't see it a good idea to put trees and vegetation on top of that type of infrastructure because it's always at risk of being removed if we ever have to get in there and maintain that area. So there has been some added, it just doesn't go all the way across. One of the concerns early raised or raised in the comments was there's a missing landscaping plan. There is a landscaping plan, we have received it. It does meet and exceed the requirements from a tree replacement perspective. It just may be when the neighborhood meeting was held, it may not have been fully fleshed out at that time. But we do have a landscaping plan, it's included in your packet. And then lastly, there was a comment about the property value and market impacts. And frankly, we get that comment a lot. There's always that concern. And certainly the city hears that concern about any potential development will negatively impact an existing thriving neighborhood. And we certainly don't wanna hurt that type of scenario. However, we haven't seen the evidence. The city assessor tells me there's really no evidence to support a new development and infill type situation negatively impacting property values. Now obviously, house sales have a number of criteria, a number of kind of variables that impact the house selling price, not all of which are under the control of the city or this development. But there's been development on this property talked about for really last three years in some level, publicly since 2024. And the assessor provided some data in terms of sales in the neighborhood to the north. Of the last eight sales, six of them were greater than the assessed value of the property. and then the two that weren't, one of which was a sale in late spring or early winter that had some other kind of issues associated with that project. Again, there's multiple variables associated with property values. But by and large, throughout the city, development adjacent to, excuse me, property values adjacent to infill developments don't see a negative impact on property values in a direct one-to-one correlation, as may be suggested by some. Just wanted to kind of touch on those comments that we heard. I haven't answered any questions on that, but generally, I'll turn it over to the developer for their presentation. I have some more information on the product that they're being offered, the price points, kind of their evolution of the project, and I'd be happy to answer any questions at any time, really.

Thank you, Jeremy. Are there any questions for Jeremy from the commissioners at this point? Otherwise, I will turn it over to the developer. All right, having none, Commissioner Farr. Chair, may I?

Sorry, just a few clarifications, Jeremy. I think I heard you write on a couple points, but I just wanted to make sure. Comprehensive guide plan change. Our land use plan, at least in 2040, has this whole property guided as low density residential, right?

It did, yes, Chair. It originally was low density residential. We changed it for the Marshall Gardens project.

Understood.

And when the Met Council reviews a comp plan amendment, they do not approve it with conditions. So they approved the change to medium density residential. And so that's what it is guided now. But this does, to your point, revert it back to what we originally had it in 2040.

And before our 2040 guide plan, historically, has it always been guided?

I believe it's always been low-density residential or ag. Okay, all right.

So there's no surprise that it has been forecast that it's residential development?

No, as far as I know, it's been low density residential up until two years ago when we changed it for Marshall Gardens.

All right, great. And then going back to your comment about the wall, the perceived wall from the north property owners looking in to the south here, if I understood your comment right, that there's no side yard setback variants requested, so those are standard side yard setbacks between the homes, right?

That's correct, for the R1 9.5 zoning.

But there's a lot with variants for a little bit tighter width lots.

Yes.

So I counted 18 lots across that north property line, so that means that there's 18 regularly sized side yard setbacks. on both sides of the home. If we didn't grant the waiver for the narrower lot size, there would be fewer lots along that north property line. Instead of 18, there might be 12 or something like that if they were larger lots. So then there would only be 12 normal-sized side yard setbacks. Is my thinking right?

Yeah, if you reduced or did not support the waiver from the lot width, in theory, yes, the lots would be wider and less than that.

So it may have been accidental, but it appears to me as though we're offering those neighbors more visibility between homes having more lots with standard side yard setbacks than fewer lots with standard side yard setbacks. We're accumulating more open space by having more lots.

That's a hard question for me to answer. I would imagine that the lots were bigger, you'd have bigger houses. And therefore, you may have less openings between I mean, the house, the mass of the house would be bigger and therefore would maybe be negatively impactful from a visibility standpoint.

Right. I understand your point, yeah. From negative space standpoint, though, between the houses, it sounds like we're getting more negative space. We're mandating more negative space because there's... True, there's more side yard setbacks. Yeah, okay, all right. I just wanted to make sure I understood that math, okay. Thank you. Appreciate it, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Farr. Any other questions for Jeremy? Otherwise, I'll turn it over to the developer. All right. Will the applicant and the developer please come forward, state your name and address for the record?

Good evening, I'm Steve Schweders, owner of Wooddale Builders. And good evening to all commission members, and thank you, Jeremy, for the presentation. Wooddale's been around for 40, 51 years, first of all, but we've done a lot of stuff here in Eaton Prairie. Not just of late, but this is probably going to be close to our last project in this development, or this area, and we're calling it Wooddale. Marshall Farms, so we're excited about it. I think that we had a great neighborhood meeting too with the neighbors and I am meeting with them in a week or so on a Sunday afternoon to talk about tree removal and screening and so forth and so on. So I've dealt with issues like this in the past and we will definitely address this in this particular case. We are doing 50 units there. There's a multi, there's a combination of products. We're doing single family. We're doing a villa-style product, which I think is hugely important to Eaton Prairie. I've done several others of late, and they've been hugely successful. I think affordability is also always a question. So to make lots bigger in addressing Ed's comments, You know, just to be bigger, we did Stable Path. You know, we had certain setbacks and stuff, and I don't think it looked congested by any means, but it was affordable, and they sold quickly. We did Highland Oaks, which was way higher end, you know, product line. and we were able to get high numbers, where I think in this case, we're concerned about the flatness, non-walkout, affordability, so we're trying to keep, you know, a lid on the price points too. Dan from Sather Berkwist is here this evening. He's gonna talk about the development and then I've got two of the builders, McDonald and Johnson Ryland are here this evening to talk about their product lines. So I think that's very important and I'll talk about numbers and stuff a little bit, cost. Other than that, thank you for everything and we'll go from there.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Dan Schmidt. I'm the civil engineer on the project, and we've been working with city staff for four to six months on this project, and everything has gone pretty well. City staff has been super supportive and helpful. As far as the engineering portion of the project, sanitary sewer is pretty straightforward. There's access on Dell Road and on Canopy. Water, the same, Dell Road and Canopy, so it's served well. Our stormwater design meets the four main criteria for this, rate control, volume control, suspended solids, and phosphorus removal, so we meet all those requirements. As far as the watershed goes, we've submitted to them six weeks ago and been through two reviews and we're down to three or four comments and working through those right now. Comparing this project to the Marshall Gardens project, they had 115 total units. We're at 50 total units, 22 of which we're calling the single family, and they're the bigger, wider lots, and the 28 villas, we've been calling them villas, but they're technically single family, I believe, too, but they're 55 feet wide. The trips per day from the site are going to be cut by 45% or 45% fewer. EV ready garages are pretty similar to what was on the original Marshall Gardens project. We also do pretty much the same thing with conductivity with the trails to the park to the east and the neighborhoods to the west and north. And as far as the density on the project goes, we're a lot closer to the original guidance for the property after it was re-guided for the higher density. As you can see here, we got the two different product types that the kind of the orangish color on top is what we're calling the villas, the 55 foot wide lots. The lots on the south side of the road and west side of the road there are both single family homes, some to be built by McDonald and some to be built by Johnson Ryland. Jeremy described the waivers that we're looking for. Most of the waivers are to make it allowable to do the villa projects. The villa lot width and area, Yeah, it's down to approximately 68 feet. We're also seeking a front yard setback waiver that goes from 30 to 25 feet, which allows for enough parking without being in the right of way or over the sidewalk and increasing some backyard space. Garage flexibility, Paul Ryland will discuss that when he's up here after me. And the single family lot areas, there's just a couple lots that are under the minimum lot area of 95,000 square feet, and that has to do with the city requested a strip of land 10 or 20 feet between the bluff and the bluff setback, and we did that. Okay, here's the landscape plan. You can see on here that we plan to have a nice entrance monument to greet the people coming home, and the sidewalks, you can see here on every road has a sidewalk, so it creates conductivity to the park area. And here's a copy of the landscape plan. You can see that we have one tree in the front yard of every home. And we've also, after meeting with the neighbors to the north, they requested more screening and we increased the screening by 50% after that meeting. So as you can see, it's well screened to the property to the north. And from here out, Paul Ryland from Ryland Johnson Homes will do the neighborhood meeting recap.

Thank you.

My name is Paul Ryland with Johnson Ryland Builders. This is David Remick with McDonald Construction. So we are both running companies that have been around for quite a long time. Maybe you're familiar with our products. So I'm going to jump into the Villa products. So as we shared, we'll be building the Villas and half the single family. Perfect, thank you. On this one, I'm showing a three-car garage on the top left. The bottom right is the more, I think there's only five of the lots where we can do three-car due to the width and that sort of thing. Most of them will be two-car. Dan mentioned the garage. So we've asked for a waiver to go to 9% on the garages. Our target, these are not age-restricted, but our target market for the villas are empty nesters or people that are fully retired or even older 70s, 80s, that's who we're selling mostly. These homes are slab on grade. Everything is wheelchair friendly on one level. And then we do have optional second story space. It would be interesting to see how many people choose that. In most of our neighborhoods, we don't see people doing second stories, square footage. But we felt that would be important for this product. With the second story square footage, we can go up to five bedrooms. We can go over 3,000 square feet. We will have optional elevators if we do have customers that want the second story space and have some disability. And then I will point out just on the slide, it was mentioned, but this particular point, the lot depth, there's a lot about lot width. The lot depth on most of these lots are 150 feet. And that's actually quite a bit deeper than most neighborhoods that we're going into today are maybe 130, 140. So even though lots may be narrow, they are actually quite deep. And it gives us a lot of flexibility, backyards and things like that. So Dave, why don't you jump up?

All right, thank you, Paul. Yes, we're gonna be involved with the single-family homes, the non-slab-on-grade part of the neighborhood. And McDonald has a couple of other neighborhoods in Eden Prairie where we built new construction Similarly sized lots to this one is Johnson Ridge and the other is Purgatory Creek. Both of those have seen you know strong response positively just based on you know a lot of people who are buying them are actually Eden Prairie residents relocating. Similar to Paul's comments We expect to do a mix of rambler and two-story. So our ramblers will have a basement, but that's a floor plan and a design that a lot of clients are looking for these days, because a lot of them are those young empty nesters, and they've been in their existing home for quite a period of time, and they're looking for something that allows either main-level living lower maintenance, newer construction, modern mechanicals, and all of those things. But we also do see a mix of growing families that need the two-story space, and Eden Prairie's a very attractive community for a number of reasons of why they would look here. So what we expect is floor plans that'll be probably starting out at around high 3,000, 4,000 square feet. Some could get quite a bit bigger depending upon the spaces that are built on the second level. And we would expect that extra space in the back would probably be purposed as just space to enjoy, whether it's patios, pools, what have you. This is an example of one of our single family home models. As you can see, we're able to fit three cars, a garage, because again, most of these homeowners, they may have teenage or adult children and have the need for the third vehicle or just additional storage that the third stall provides. And even though there's no second story here, we do try to make, you know, make sure that there's some visual interest on the side of the house where there's the garage that is located. Again, this is a typical 4,000 square foot plan, and we have the open spaces that people are looking to build these days with lots of opportunities to take advantage of what the backyard represents, whether that's porches, sunrooms, patios, fire pits, all of those things.

So, with the single-family homes, we will, you know, our products on the 500-foot level look fairly similar, but we try to vary the architecture. And so, right now, our plan is to, he's looking at building a one-story home on the single-family lots. I'm looking to build a two-story home. This happens to be our fall parade house in Chaska. that we sold back in December. And then this is actually the plan that we're currently working on for the model home. And as David said, a growing family. This home is over 6,000 square feet. And the idea is a large family. And what we're seeing in many other communities nearby on the west side and the northwest side you're seeing a lot of neighborhoods that are seeing homes like this. And they also have amenities such as sport courts. And this one happens to show a four-car garage. And that's probably something we might see in 50% or less of the homes in the neighborhood. I would guess 25% of the homes, but we'll just see how the demand works with that. And then David, you're the expert on Greenpath.

Sure, so we will we're a green path map builder and First of all codes in Minnesota are generally very energy efficient So what we build to as the standards produces a very energy efficient home We will have EV charger capability already where you just have a separate Board so you'll just be able to whatever charger you need put in there Everybody can upgrade if they want from an insulation standpoint or triple pane windows we offer all of those But generally our base starts at a very energy efficient home where we have a very high HERS score that's above average for the area. I think Paul or Johnson Ryland, very similar. So these will be at the base very efficient homes.

David won a Reggie Award for GreenPath. So that concludes our presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that. Are there any questions from the commissioners for the applicant? All right, hearing none, we will then, thank you for your comments, we will then open the public hearing. So we have a public hearing before us for this project. It looks like I do have some people who have signed in, but I only have one person who has indicated they wish to speak. Richard Coppe, if you could come to the podium please. Say and spell your name and your address for the record please.

Thank you. Thank you. My name is Richard Coppe. I live at 9872 Crestwood Terrace, literally across the street from the project about a block over. My wife and I moved here from Minnetonka to Eden Prairie about six, seven years ago. We love the community. We picked the right place. There's no question that Eden Prairie has got one of the just great communities to live in. We hope to live here many, many more years. This neighborhood we live in, this seems to be the last major part, I think, as I see it, of the neighborhood to complete. We went through the public hearing, a few of the hearings and meetings last year with the previous project that was presented. I don't know quite what happened, why it fell apart, the one that we have on the table tonight, I think I'm real happy with it. Most of the neighbors I talk with are real happy with it. It seems to me to be more fitting of the beautiful land that they're developing. So I'm not here to complain about the project. I'm here to embrace it. But I am here to say this, and that is the city of Eden Prairie, I think, needs to use this impetus as a way to finish out this neighborhood. And I don't see that happening. I see this project as one small part of this neighborhood. And it's sort of like the little bit of development that happened a couple years ago on the north end of Crestwood Park, right by Stable Pathway or whatever that street is called. You had 17 homes that were built up there, and that's all they did. They put those homes in, nothing else happened. I think we could embrace this whole neighborhood, Dale Road being the biggest part of it, and try to, as a city, try to finish out our neighborhood with landscaping, new trailways and sidewalks, Better street system. Del Road from Highway 212 to Flying Cloud Drive is pretty much unobstructed. It's got one signal light, as you know, at Pioneer Road. And my wife and I walk our dogs all the time on Del Road. We see people going down Del Road 35, 40, 45 miles per hour. Occasionally you have a speed sign out there showing people what they're doing, but it doesn't stop anybody. And so I think now is the time to look at that. What should we be doing? And one of the things that I think we could look at is maybe a roundabout at maybe by Crestwood Park someplace, maybe right here with this project we're looking at. Roundabouts are used all over the metro by many, many cities. And they are not necessarily stopping traffic, they're not stop sign situations, but they are controlling speeds to a better degree. And so I think something like that could be used along Del Road between Pioneer Road and Flying Cloud Drive. When you put that gravel roadway that's in place right now into pavement and put curb and gutter all the way down to Flying Cloud Drive, you're gonna have a lot more people taking that shortcut and using that. So I think it's going to be, I read the traffic study that the city did and I respect the numbers that were in the study, but I think it might even be bigger than you might expect because right now the detour that exists because of Pioneer Road, as you know, the bridge is out and there's a lot of cars going down Dale Road to go to Flying Cloud Drive and over towards 101. just to get around that bridge that's out. And that's with the gravel roadway in place. What's gonna happen when you pave that and you now have added 50 or more homes in this neighborhood with no stop signs, no speed control, nothing on Del Road. So I'd like to see that looked at by the city to a higher degree. A landscape plan for Del Road. If you look at Del Road from 212, all the way down to this development. It's a varied landscape plan. On the west side, you have almost nothing, if you look at the Delrode facility. On the east side, you have a huge amount of evergreen type product. And it looks really, really nice. And then as you get down into the Crestwood Park area by this development, You have nothing again. Now, I know in this development they have a landscape plan. I think it could go even further. I think the city could almost make this into a parkway like you do up by Bear Path. So I think that could certainly be part of a bigger picture here. And then my last comment is about this trail system. When we moved into our house, we had the city come in one day, four or five years ago now, and put stakes in our backyard by the creek, by Riley Creek, showing the right-of-way that they had acquired. And so I asked the person, why are you doing this? And he said, well, someday they'll build a trail back here. Well, that's been five years, and here you've got more land, you've acquired a whole bunch of land that you're showing on the screen tonight. as part of this project that, of course, will someday, I'm assuming, be part of a park system or a trail system all the way over to, for example, Lake Riley. But I don't hear any talk about that. I don't know why that can't be also brought up as part of what's going on here because this is more, in my mind, than just a 50-lot subdivision project. You're developing the last major part of this neighborhood. Let's put it all together and make it into one major package that could be brought forward at the same time, at least planned so we have an idea how many years down the road will it be before a trail system is done along Riley Creek to tie our parks together. Right now, there's nothing there. It's a beautiful piece of land. You have a lot of right-of-way, but nothing's been developed. I THINK THAT'S GENERALLY MY COMMENTS. I LIKE THE PROJECT. I'M JUST ADDING, I'M ASKING THE CITY PEOPLE HERE TO LOOK FURTHER THAN THIS PROJECT AND THINK ABOUT THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD AREA. WHAT COULD WE BE DOING BETTER? AND I HOPE THAT MY COMMENTS CAN BE EMBRACED IN SOME WAY AND WE CAN HAVE MORE PUBLIC MEETINGS TALKING ABOUT TRAIL SYSTEMS AND ABOUT LANDSCAPING PLANS. more than what we're seeing tonight. So thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else that's wishing to speak? All right, I'll ask you, Mr. in the white shirt, please come forward, state your name and address for the record.

My name's Larry Erickson. I live at 9752 Laforte, kind of in the northeast corner there, close to that small pond up there. I think the developer's doing a great job. I don't really have any negative comments from that respect. I guess my comment would be there's a lot of dead trees along that tree line there. On our property, it's kind of a screwy lot line. And if you look at the tree line, it looks like it's on our property, but it's actually on the city's property, the way the property line runs. It's kind of an out lot there for that pond. So I don't know if the city can do some horse trading with the developer, take some of those trees out. They're dead, they are very unsightly. In fact, from a developer standpoint, I mean, it'd be hard to sell those lots of those dead trees there. I don't know. I guess that's my only comment.

Thank you for your comments. All right, sir, please come forward in the blue shirt. We'll have staff address any questions after we conclude the public hearing.

Hi, I'm Daniel McNitt, M-C-N-I-T-T. Address is 9719 Geisler Road. I have three points. The first one is From the reduction of property value and house sales, Jeremy, when you said that you didn't have data that represents a reduction of price, 9724, a house just directly across from mine, and then 9748, two houses down, they should have sold, the house should have sold for 875,000. The final price was 797,000. So a reduction of $78,000, asking why that was. Half of that was because the increased in homes, the density, the reduction of landscaping, That's not why they moved here, all of these things. And the people that were buying the houses didn't want to come into a neighborhood that's already gonna be overpopulated. So those two houses would be a good examples of houses that reduced value directly correlating to this project. The second point that I would like to bring out is if we brought up the map again, there was, as Jeremy said, there's several different points that we created a letter and we brought in, there were six points in the letter. They include the majority of the points that Jeremy brought up would be covered in that letter. And if we looked at that, and besides going into the minutia or into the detail, one of the things that could actually fix that northern property line easily would be shift the pond on the left-hand side to the north or shift that pond that's in the middle more towards the north. And what that'll do is, Mr. Farr, when you mentioned the, if the waiver is approved, the reduction of lot size versus the higher density, 22 houses versus 12 houses, The negative space is absolutely, that is a point, that's a valid point. But when you reduce the houses to a 12 count, what that's going to do is actually open up a feel, the feeling of more space. It's going to have the feeling, the neighborhood's going to have a feeling of a wider space to go through than it would be a thick house right next to each other, less room to maneuver through, more traffic, more people, all of those type of things. So when we did talk about a lot size waiver, and you mentioned the negative space, I think If we shifted that around, that will still allow the waiver to be approved for a smaller lot size, but then that will also open that northern wall of houses up that Jeremy mentioned and still give everybody, the builders, the count of houses, the look and feel of the suburban size placement and kind of appease the houses that are on that northern side. And then the third point that I was going to bring up When we talk about, and the other gentleman mentioned traffic, he mentioned speeds, he mentioned an overpopulation or an overdensity on the Dill Road. And I think that kind of goes back to that second point. If that waiver is approved and 22 houses are allowed to go in there and the additional houses are allowed to go through, that's gonna increase that traffic. So if the waiver is not approved, the houses are reduced, That's going to appease traffic going down Del Road. That's going to appease that open value or the open feel, look and feel to the homes. And it's going to give that a broader sense of community as opposed to a dense, overpopulated size.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else that's wishing to speak?

All right. There's one person in the back.

Oh, yes, please come forward. I'm sorry, I could not see your hand. You can state your name and address for the record, please.

Sure, Barb Hamilton-Susted. I'm at 9711 Geisler Road. I want to agree with pretty much everything that Daniel was talking about, so I won't go through that again. I do want to reiterate, though, the issue of the wall effect. If you look out where I live, it is right on that northern end. And as it was mentioned, there's like six or seven homes that are directly impacted. and unfortunately I'm one of them. So as you look out, it is just a wall of buildings that's being planned. And I understand that length versus depth kind of gets past the minimum quantity, but is this really a neighborhood where we're looking for the minimum viable product here? And it just allows us to, or allows the builder to put in more condensed homes, kind of that shotgun style. I don't think it's a good look. It's not good for our home values, and it's certainly not good from a privacy perspective. The home values that we were talking about, I bought my home two years ago at 185. The average for even Eden Prairie right now is 202. The house right across just sold for 158 a square foot, and the one two doors down was 170. it is dropping and that's something that's a precedent that will be used for future sales that we will not recover from very quickly. The last point is the affordability was mentioned. Is this affordable housing now? Price points were not mentioned. So I would really like to understand, because especially from a pricing perspective, I think we have a real risk, especially when you're looking at 158 versus 185 just two years ago, and 202, which is the current average in Eden Prairie. And I...

Having been a resident for all of two years, I'd like to preserve my value and my aesthetic if I can. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right, anyone else wishing to speak, please raise your hand or come to the podium. All right, I don't think I see any. With that, I will look for a motion to close the public hearing.

Move to close the public hearing.

All right, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. All right, we have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Our public hearing is now closed. Thank you everyone for your comments. There were a few things that I think we should address before I ask the commissioners if they have any comments or questions. Jeremy, I don't know if you wanna take some of these, but look at the The comments from Mr. Coppe, generally I think those could be addressed in the comprehensive planning process. The question about dead trees from Mr. Erickson, Jeremy, is that something you would be willing to address if that's being addressed in the development? Any of the dead trees?

Excuse me, yes. Certainly shared that comment with our Parks and Public Works departments, because there's kind of a wetland stormwater pond to the north of the site that the city does own, so we can share that information with them. It may already be on their radar, Matt, probably answer that.

Madam Chair, members of the Commission, we are currently working with the developer. As Jeremy mentioned with that wetland, we can't access it from the north. So really the only way to access those is from the Marshall Farms property. So as they're going through doing kind of their grading tree removal, that our crew will be out there removing those dead trees on that lot.

Very good, thank you, thank you. I think I'm gonna leave the lot with discussion for last. Affordability was a question that came up just recently, and I know it was also in the presentation. I think that it would be fair to ask the applicant and the developer to just talk about What are your price points? I know I've seen some of that in the presentation, but if you could come forward and address the price points for the project from a dollar perspective, that would be appreciative.

Thank you. So it was on the slides, but I realize from the back of the room it's probably not legible. So the villas, first of all, these are custom homes. So if we have a basic floor plan, we have our lot values. So we're saying the villas would start in the 900 range, and that would be a single level. The second story would add several hundred thousand dollars to add to the second level. And then the single family homes, the lot values are much higher. So those would start from the middle million range. And I would expect some of those to break two million.

If I could clarify, just from my perspective, does that include the lot as well as the structure?

So this would be turnkey lot house landscape.

Very good.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you. Is that it?

I think so, for now. Yeah, thank you. All right, now I'll turn it over to the commissioners for comments, questions, discussion.

Madam Commissioner, just a quick question for Jeremy. The waiver for the front yard setback, is that going to be for only the houses that are on the north, or is that waiver for all of the units as part of the project?

Madam Chair, Commissioners, it is currently for all the properties within the subdivision. It has the biggest impact from the properties to the north and those to the south. But in reality, it adds more private space for all of the parcels.

Anyone else?

Madam Chair? Oh, sorry.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Okay, as we should always judge this project on its own merits, I can't help but to compare it to the prior application that we had approved. Regarding the street system configuration, am I right to recall that off of Dell Road, whether they had the name Crestwood Terrace or not, coming off of Dell leading to the east, that was pretty much a through route without an intersection all the way curving up to that canopy trail stub leading to La Foray.

Is that right? Yeah, Crestwood was originally looping or connecting between its intersection of Dell and LaFerrari or Canopy on the northeast corner. That was the only public street in the proposed subdivision at the time. The rest of it were private drives.

So I thought this was an improvement in that Crestwood Trail then comes and it intersects with streets, you have to make a left and a right onto Canopy Trail before proceeding northbound back into the neighborhood where these neighbors are right here. So that little frustrated traffic pattern I think is a benefit to the neighbors to the north and I don't know if staff has a comment about that being beneficial in terms of traffic flows or counts or anything like that. Not that there's a lot of people there, but I thought that was a benefit that was comparable. And I just want to just personally go back to this wall comment. And it's debatable different ways based on your perspective, I know. But there was kind of a wall comment on the last development opportunity that came in front of us. But the wall was actually on the south side along the bluff with this larger, they were almost three stories of construction there. Whereas now, if one was to turn the villas into single family lots, like what the developer is proposing on the south part of this application, there would be more opportunities for, like Jeremy said, larger homes and more two story homes. So I think the volume of the house and the additional height of the house and the roof up against the neighbors to the north would be visually more impactful massively than the single story on slab villas that they have proposed. while some villas could go two stories, I think that your opportunity for visual impact is less with the villa concept than having this development be the entire larger lot, larger two-story home with larger roof design solutions. So that's my perspective on it, buy that or not, but I just wanted to throw that out there. That's all for now, Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Go ahead, Commissioner Kirk.

Yeah, two points. One is, I'm going to put our city engineer on the spot a little bit. There were several comments about Del Road, and I drive Del Road relatively often. frequently and understand there's some issues. So could you just give us a very quick overview on the city's perspective on Dell and what may or may not need to be done or what's in the plans for to be done in the future?

Sure. Chair and commissioners, so we do have a future city roadway project that will improve the gravel section of Del Road. It'll happen in conjunction with this development. So to speak to the distance at which Del Road goes that doesn't have a stop sign or stoplight, it's this section to the south, south of Pioneer Trail is about the same distance as it is from Pioneer Trail north to 212, where you also run into stop signs. The difference being that this has a little more curves, it's gonna be a little more natural as you get down towards Flying Cloud Drive. We do have to design Del Road to be a 30 mile an hour state aid street. And I'll just point out too that it is a state aid. The functional class of Del Road is different than the city streets that are being proposed tonight. So that means it carries more traffic, more volume. This is where people collect to go north and south in different spaces. So it requires a different design. But that is in our plan to do that, connect that from basically Crestwood Terrace down to Flying Cloud Drive. in a manner that won't really promote higher speeds, just because of the nature of how that del road, if you've ever driven the gravel road, obviously you don't go very fast through that section. But so we're keeping, the intent of our project is really to keep the same look and design and feel of how you go down that bluff section as safely as you can. So in order to not promote a straight shot where people can gain speed, so. But yeah, the idea of adding some traffic control or something in the middle of Del Road was not something we were in favor of as far as this intersection goes or adding another roundabout somewhere in the middle of Del Road.

Thank you. Anyone else? Madam Chair. Madam Chair. Commissioner Taylor.

So it sounded like there was a meeting held with the neighbors in reference to the wall effect on the north end and the decision was made that there was gonna be some additional trees or screening planted. Do we have any idea what percentage of the trees would be evergreen species for kind of a year round screening?

I believe that would be mentioned in the landscaping plan, but otherwise I would ask the applicant to come forward answer that question if staff is not able to find that quickly?

Yes, it is in the landscape plan, and I might need a second if you'd like me to... Oh, there it is, it's on the landscape plan there. We summarize these by the entire site. It doesn't break it down just to that north line, but 19 Black Hill spruce, 13 Norway spruce, a lot of maples. Yeah, but it's in the landscape plan, and it appears if I look at the symbols, one, two, three, four, five, six, probably eight, Evergreen trees.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

The other question I have is, if possible, would there be, could there be plans to plant more evergreens versus what is recommended or what you're recommending? Just to help with that private fencing aspect.

I'M NOT THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT, AND THE DIRECTION WE GAVE THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WAS TO PROVIDE AS MUCH SCREENING AS POSSIBLE, AND THIS IS WHAT WE CAME UP WITH. IF YOU WANT TO APPLY DIRECTION FOR MORE SPRUCE OR PINE TREES, WE CAN GO WITH THAT.

OKAY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS.

IT WOULD BE A GOOD DISCUSSION, I GUESS, AT ANOTHER NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING, THAT'S THE PLAN, IT SOUNDS LIKE.

Yes, we will address those issues. It's as important for those people to have screening to us as we need to have screening to them. So in this meeting, we're gonna happen in a week or so. We're gonna talk about all the trees that are gonna get removed. We'll work with the neighbors so they have access. So they're gonna have to pay for their dead trees, but we'll take them down and it's gonna be way more cost effective. And if people wanna add some more trees, we'll add. I'm not opposed to adding more trees, and we'll work that out with our builders as well. But till I get out there and see some things, this is gonna be a big thing, which it has been in other developments as well. But yeah, thank you. And yes, we're going to do a lot of evergreens. Are the screening trees, you know, staggered in there so that there is screening during the winter months, which we have too much six months out of the year.

Thank you. Commissioner Taylor, if I just may comment to that. My opinion is that, as staff has mentioned already, you're generally screening like-for-like zoning projects. which is typically not always necessary if you're screening the same type of zoning from each other, single family to single family. In my opinion, I don't know that all of that screening is personally necessary, and I know that they have already increased the amount of screening to create a barrier from essentially the same type of zoning, personal opinion of mine. I'm not sure how the other commissioners feel about that.

Other? Madam Chair, I would underscore that comment. I was gonna make that point myself, that we are typically talking about transitions on a lot of our projects between different zones that merit buffering and or screening. and this is single family to single family, and it's not a requirement of the city code. This is a neighborhood. You're gonna be friends with these people in your backyard. You're gonna be playing games with them, borrowing a cup of sugar, and we're not trying to build neighborhood walls with fences and tree thickets to separate you folks from them. It's all us.

Appreciate that. Anyone else have any other comments?

Yeah, I'll just state an overall opinion on the project. This has been, I mean, any major development's a big deal. And it's particularly a big deal to people who live close to it. I think we've actually gone through two iterations on this project, in a sense. And so we've visited a lot of these issues twice now over a couple of years. And personally, having gone through all of that, I think the outcome here is a pretty good one. I think the thing that we talked about earlier that maybe needs to be brought up a little bit more is we've dropped the density significantly in this area. What was the number? 45% less traffic in this area. That's, you know, that's good. I mean, that is good. One of the things that we need to do here on the Planning Commission is, to me, is listen to three major or represent three major groups inside the city. One are the individual citizens, the people who live in an area and are speaking like you're speaking at this public hearing. The second one is the city has regulations, ordinances, guidelines, all those things that we have to guide developers to build in a way that the city would like to see Eden Prairie build. So we need to represent that. And then lastly, there is somebody who owns this property, and the property owners have rights as well. So we need to balance all of those things. And actually, I'm pretty comfortable that this is a reasonably good balance and moving in the right direction for the city. So I'm supportive of... of moving forward on this.

Thank you, Commissioner. Any other comments before I add mine? I think that as both commissioners have indicated, I think this does look like a fairly good development. I appreciate all of the work that's gone into this, especially from the development that we have looked at a couple years back. I do think this is a very good improvement. I will say I'm not the biggest fan about the lot with waivers that is essentially crowding a lot of those homes on that north side, just from the environmental standpoint of the area that this is in. The properties and the lots that are in the south side look to be more favorable for this type of development. Having said that, that's not gonna hinder me from voting against this project because I do think it is very well done. But I will say that the lot with waivers are not something that I am a big fan of. Other than that, I would look for a motion for action on this development.

Madam Chair, move to recommend approval to amend the city code, sorry, wrong one. Thank you. Move to recommend approval for the guide plan change, PUD concept review, PUD district review, zone change, and preliminary plat as recommended by the staff and represented in the June 8th, 2026 staff report.

All right, I have a motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

Who was that? Thank you. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? All right, motion carries. Thank you. Good luck to you at the council meeting. Thank you. All right, moving on, we have another item on our agenda tonight, which is a city code amendment for data centers. Cities requesting approval amending our chapter 11 city code relative to the definition and regulation of data centers. Before I turn it over to Jeremy for an overview on this, I would just like to say, considering my place of employment being Xcel Energy, which is a a big advocate in data center, I'm going to abstain from voting. However, I would stay involved in this discussion. Turning that over to Jeremy for staff report.

Thank you, Chair, Commissioners. The next item, as described, is a code amendment that would regulate data centers here in town. You may have heard in the news recently, a lot of cities are getting some feedback from their neighbors or their residents about the desire to put data centers.

One moment. Can we have someone close the door, please? Thank you, Carter.

Other cities are getting feedback from their residents about data centers and the potential impacts to those and that Eden Prairie is no different. So trying to get ahead of the issue, trying to establish some reasonable regulations that would protect the city and its residents. from this potentially harmful use. The city put together an ordinance that defines data centers and puts reasonable restrictions and regulations on them so that we can't prohibit data centers. They're allowed in town based on our ordinance. We're recommending that they be located in our IGEN zoning district. There's about 21 properties here in town that are zoned IGEN currently. Obviously, any property owner can elect to rezone property to any different zoning district, as we saw just earlier today. But the ordinance that we put in place tries to identify reasonable regulations for data centres. So what we've done is define what a data centre is. A data centre is a standalone business, basically, that serves serves the management and maintenance of information. This is not your server room in every office building in town. This is a standalone business separate from those kind of ancillary uses. As you know, we have a data center here downtown, or downstairs, just our server rooms. So we identify those, we allow those in the IGEN zoning district, and then we put some specific standards associated with data centers in the IGEN zoning district to help protect the public interest. Some of those standards include a minimum proximity to residential zoning or residentially used property of 700 feet. We also propose a minimum proximity to residential for the mechanical kind of aspect of the business. As you know, sometimes data centers may generate quite a bit of noise from the generators being run or the cooling software, or cooling mechanics, because they generate often a lot of heat. They also use, in some instances, a lot of electricity and a lot of water, and so we put some parameters in place to help mitigate those issues, those concerns. As I said before, a lot of cities are getting some feedback from their residents and Indian Prairie is no different. A lot of that feedback is based on maybe a perception or not necessarily based on that particular application. And so how we framed it is we're looking for information. So if you meet the zoning district requirement, if you meet the proximity requirement and you choose to submit for a building permit or more than likely a site plan approval, we're asking for some basic submittal information. How is your water being used? Are you connected to city water? Is it a closed-loop cooling system? How does the electric infrastructure impact this use? criteria that we've put into place that help us understand the use and then make sure that we can mitigate those negative impacts. Rather than just automatically just requiring certain requirements or certain standards, we take the approach of we wanna learn and basically mitigate those impacts. So, like I said before, the major issues we hear from a government standpoint are the noise, the water impact, and the electrical grid impacts. We propose locating in specific zoning districts, the IGEN, and look for separation from residential uses. That kind of addresses the noise issue. The water impact, we're looking for recycled or closed-loop cooling. Often, data centers we've seen use a lot of water and may impact our aquifer, which impacts the whole city and every other city that uses the same aquifer. So we look to recycle that water without depleting that resource. Same thing with electrical grid. We want to see that you're using our renewable opportunities, solar, wind, other kind of opportunities for electric, because obviously they use quite a bit of electricity. And as I said before, we're looking for some specific information as a part of that application. Again, taking the approach that help us learn about the project so we can inform better plans and reactions to that potential use. As I said before, there's 21 IGEN parcels. Generally, those are located in areas that support outdoor storage. They're usually or often larger sites, and they may have more intensive impacts, which kind of speaks a bit to the data centers. So, as I said before, 21 zoning districts, excuse me, 21 properties that are zoned IGEN are scattered kind of throughout town. There's one south of the airport off of Flying Cloud Drive. There's about five near Fuller and Venture Lane area. That's one more closely in town. On your screen here, you can see that area. There's a transmission kind of facility here off of Venture Lane. There's a smaller remnant here, and then there's three lots off of Fuller and West 79th. Those are areas that could conceivably have a data center. although some of them may kind of touch that residential threshold. And then also we have, on the north side of town, we have Industrial Drive, which is kind of our older industrial area, and some of those may be feasible for residential use, or may be feasible because they are way outside of the 700 feet. So we're allowing data centers, we're not prohibiting them, but we're putting reasonable restrictions in place that help mitigate some concerns that the city has. With that, I'd be happy to answer questions, but we're recommending approval of the ordinance as drafted.

Thank you, Jeremy, for that staff overview. Are there any questions for staff? Otherwise, I'd open it up to the public hearing.

Madam Chair, I got it.

Go ahead, Commissioner Taylor.

Listening to the data center conversation, I'm going to also have to abstain because of the current employer I'm with, which is Mortenson. I'm going to have to sustain from voting as well.

Thank you. Commissioner Grody.

I was just curious, Jeremy, we had any inquiries from anybody who wanted to build a data center?

Chair, commissioners, no. We have not had any inquiries. We have not had any applications. We're really just trying to get ahead of that question so we know what to tell people.

Commissioner Farr.

Madam Chair, my only question, Jeremy, and I'm glad you wrote this ordinance. I think it's great, addresses an issue before it becomes an issue, so I'm supportive of this. My only question was, it looks like we're trying to control noise from this by incorporating a metric of distance, 700 feet. I just wanna make sure it's not contradictory with something we may have in our nuisance ordinance about noise with the metric of decibels instead. So I don't want something really, really loud 700 feet away that satisfies the 700 feet, but all of a sudden potentially would have a conflict with the nuisance ordinance.

Sure. Chair, commissioners, that's a good question, a good point. There's a number of nuisance kind of criteria in our code. This does not supersede those. It doesn't give you the ability or a data center user to just ignore that nuisance requirement because they meet the 700 feet. This is kind of in addition to those other requirements. There's a noise level at the receiving zoning district max. There is vibration issues, there's smoke. Not that I know of a lot of death centers that generate a lot of smoke, but there's those other kind of criteria already in place. So this is in addition to that.

Okay, thank you.

Any other comments? Otherwise, I will open the public hearing. All right, anyone that wants to speak, please come forward, state your name and address for the record.

Again, Daniel McNitt. Sorry, and I wanted to catch that, but this is also I built data centers for seven years within the military and then post-military. The only concerns that I would have, Jeremy, and I love that you guys are getting ahead of this. This is amazing. And I heard when you said that you're getting ahead of the problem. I'm very excited about this. Now, the questions I was going to ask is the total cost of ownership when you look at a data center and the scalability. Right. So it's not just while it's being occupied. What happens to that space when it's emptied after the fact? The other things that you may or may not have taken into consideration is if there's a flash flood or fire, what is that going to do the impact? I saw there was one slide that you mentioned the scalability of the city support around it. I think it was one of the slides. Right. Is there going to be the fire department, if there's an emergency, if there's a situation there and police have to come on site, does the city have the infrastructure to scale and support a large data center within the city limits? And so it's not the noise, the water, the electricity, right? Those are standard things to take into consideration when you have a data center. But it's that ripple effect, it's that external pieces that really impact the city when you're looking at the ecosystem of how the city is set up. And so that was gonna be my only point of, I love how you're getting ahead of it. I love that you are having that conversation now. And it would just be, if you could extend that purview, that view to encapsulate those not very high impact items, but they're definitely in that sphere of influence.

Thank you for your comments. All right, seeing no other person in the audience, I would ask for a motion to close the public hearing, please. So moved. All right, we have a motion, and do we have a second?

Second.

Second. All those in favor to close the public hearing, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? All right, public hearing is closed. Other comments from the commissioners? Jeremy, go ahead.

If I may comment on the residents' comments, and I appreciate you bringing them up because I kind of glossed over it, but when I spoke about requiring additional information, that's exactly what we're trying to achieve. We're asking for information and that potential user's impact on the adjacent land uses, noise, the community impacts which include emergency services, solid waste management, impacts to schools if there is any. We're looking for that type of information at the time of application so we can make an informed decision on appropriate conditions on a potential permit or use. I appreciate that comment. That's exactly why we're asking for additional information. Rather than just try to anticipate what they are, we want to be specific to what that potential user is.

I appreciate that. I think relative to is the size of data centers that could potentially locate here in Eden Prairie versus other communities that are having concerns, I'll say, around the size of them and the property that's out there. Any other comments?

Yeah, Madam Chair. So question, Jeremy, I know other communities nearby are dealing with some of these same issues. Is there anything that additional you're learning from those communities and or I assume the process will continue to expand as far as other restrictions or things that might change in the future. So what are the next steps after we vote on this particular plan?

So, assuming you make a positive recommendation and the council approves an ordinance, we'd have this in place, we'd have an ordinance on the books, and a potential data center user would inquire about what our regulations are, we would have information to share with them, and then we could work, if they meet those criteria, you know, location and zoning district, we can work with them on meeting the other kind of the performance goals and standards associated with this ordinance. So we have information that's been vetted by the community and we can share that with potential users. But like I said, we haven't gotten any applications yet. And most of what you're hearing in the news the Chair's comment is most of them are the much bigger ones. We just don't have that type of land available. So you're likely not to see the huge one, but I think you can see medium size or some small ones based on the lots that are available. Thank you.

Any other comments? All right, I would look for a motion. Action on this?

I'll move to recommend approval to amend the city code chapter 11 relative to definition and regulation of data centers as recommended by staff and represented in the June 8th, 2026 staff report.

Thank you, Commissioner Grody. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Vice Commissioner Palmisano. Any discussion before we take a vote? All right, those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Abstained. Thank you, motion carries. Thank you commissioners for that. All right, planning report. Anything from staff comprehensive plan update?

Yes, just a quick verbal update. We have started our 2050 comprehensive planning process. Just two weeks ago, it seems like we finished the 2040 comprehensive plan, or frankly, you did, I wasn't here yet. So we've started that process. Our goal is to submit it to the Met Council in December of 2027. This update is not a complete rewrite of our comp plan like it was last time. Some of you maybe remember multiple meetings and a lot of outreach to rewrite the comp plan. We are not looking to do that. More of an update to reflect changes in market, changes in community goals and expectations, and also to reflect changes imposed by the state and Met Council. So not a complete rewrite, just adjusting based on changes. I say that we're rewriting it in-house. There will be, we've hired a consultant to do the housing study, to do a housing study that'll help us inform the housing chapter. And there's also, some of the other departments have engaged with consultants, transportation for example, to help with that work. In terms of outreach or interaction with the Planning Commission, the next likely interaction will be in October where there will be a Council workshop where we invite the Planning Commission to the Council workshop to kind of give an update of where we're at. What we're doing now as staff is kind of reviewing each chapter from the 2040 plan. and then identifying areas that we need to make adjustments to, to reflect my council requirements, or some things just don't make sense anymore, to make some adjustments. So that's where we're at now, and you'll see some kind of input and information on that in October. So kind of keep that in your calendars October 6th. That's all I have, just wanted to kind of give you an update on that.

Wonderful, thank you for that update. Anything else from the commissioners? All right, I'd look for a motion to adjourn this meeting.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone.