City Council - Regular Meeting

and don't forget about the Edina Art Fair coming up this weekend. Make sure that you have a chance to try to get down there with friends and family. Before we call the meeting to order, I just want to reemphasize what Director Benarat said, is that we're handling these meetings in a hybrid sort of fashion. We have been all during COVID and since COVID. And post pandemic, we handle these meetings in a way where, as she said, we'll take test 20 in the chambers first from folks that wish to appear before us and either express a comment in the community comment portion of the agenda on a matter of concern to them. Just a reminder that it can't be something that's on the agenda this evening or scheduled for a future public hearing. Otherwise, you're welcome to share your thoughts with the council on a matter of concern to you. And then we've got a couple of public hearings tonight where people can testify either in person or remotely. And here's the call-in information on the screen now, so people should be aware of that because the community comment comes up fairly quickly in the agenda. Having provided that information, I'm gonna call the meeting to order and ask our clerk, Sharon Ellison, to call the roll.

Council member Jackson. Here. Council member Pierce. Here. Council member Risser. Here. Mayor Hovland.

Here. Next is the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thanks, everyone. We have a form of meeting agenda in front of us that's been published in advance of the meeting, so people had an opportunity to see if there was anything of interest to them, and we've got folks here tonight, I think, to testify in the public hearing portion of the agenda. Manager Neal, I'm gonna turn to you, because I think there's an item that you wanted to pull off of the agenda.

Yes, thank you, Your Honor. Staff would propose to take item 6.6, the bag fee policy report, off tonight's agenda and table that to July 21st, where we'll have our subject matter expert available and be able to answer any questions you might have.

All right. Is there a motion to that effect from a council member? So moved.

Second.

Member Pierce moves member Jackson seconds the moving of the bag fee policy report to the July 21, 2026 meeting of the Atlanta City Council. Any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion of stated say aye, aye, opposed carried motions adopted. The bag fee policy report will be moved to July 21, 2026. meeting of the city council. And then back to the agenda with the absence of that particular matter, 6.6. Is there anyone in the council wishes to modify the agenda in any form or fashion or staff? All right, is there a motion to adopt a meeting agenda as proposed with the item 6.6 removed?

So moved.

Second. River Jackson moves the adoption of the agenda as published with the exception of 6 item 6.6 which we just dealt with and member Pierce seconds any further discussion holds in favor of adoption of the meeting agenda say aye aye all those opposed. The agenda is approved with the elimination of item 6.6. And now we're at community comment and we'll take folks as comments in the audience first and. Just a reminder, you've got three minutes and you'll get the yellow warning light and you've got 30 seconds left and as Director Benarod indicated, it would be good if you start thinking about wrapping up your remarks so that we treat everybody here in the same manner and give them the same opportunity to provide their testimony.

Mayor, council members, my name is Ralph Sickert. Manager Neill, thank you for posting a reply to the question I repeated for the third time on May 5th. Thank you because your reply confirms what I've been saying Spending cuts were not the primary reason the 2026 general levy was reduced from 17% to 8%. And what's more, your reply is exactly what I shared on May 5th during the community comment. The 2026 general levy did little to reduce the tax burden on residents as it did not cut spending, but rather shifted the tax to other taxing authorities or kick the can down the road to be paid at a later debt. Member Pierce, your May 5th comment that I've been, and I quote, throwing rocks, chooses to ignore A, in March of last year, long before I made any comments in chambers, I handed you and the mayor an almost exact mirror image of what Mr. Neal just posted to the city website, and B, throughout last summer, I continued to share my thoughts with the entire council that you chose not to engage and continue to portray the levy reduction as having been achieved via cuts in spending, something that Manager Neal's response has now confirmed to be false. Mayor Hovland, your chastisement of my choice to exit chambers following my three minutes flies in the face of your much earlier personal admonishment, i.e. the community comment is not a colloquy. So, pray tell, why would I not choose to leave, especially when in December I offered to meet in person with Member Pierce together with any other member of the council at your convenience? to see if we could find some common ground, an invitation to which neither you, Member Pierce, or Member Jackson chose to reply. Finally, if this council so firmly believes in the process that resulted in the 2026 budget, then residents can look forward to another $1 million added to their utility bills via higher franchise fees, and another $1.8 million added to Edina's $70 million backlog of deferred maintenance, while the council again pushes the bogus message of Edina's low levy. For my part, if that isn't an unsound and unsustainable budget process, I don't know what is. And as for this council comparing my comments to throwing rocks, all I can say is sometimes the truth hurts and eventually you can't duck the truth.

Good evening.

Hi. Taylor Brushwine. I'm on the Edina Transportation Commission, but I'm here as an individual. I'm here to talk about the Wooddale Ab Bike Lanes. I'm in support of those, and especially in support of protected lanes. So I wanted to talk more about what that actually means and why it's important. So what a protected bike lane actually is is really simple. An unprotected bike lane is just paint, nothing else. Whereas a protected bike lane has two things. It has horizontal space, and it has a vertical element. It can be a curb, a concrete barrier, a plastic flex post in its most simple, just something. And it's really important. And the reason it's important is if I asked you if you ran over any paint on the way here, if you drove over any shoulders or bike lanes, There's no way you would know for sure. I probably did. But if I asked you if you had a curb or a barrier, you'd be able to tell me, or you probably shouldn't be driving. So that's why it's important. It also comes with a bunch of benefits. And I want to stress that I'm not speaking anecdotally. These are data proven benefits. And I also want to stress that it's not a different level of treatment that I'm talking about. All the data that I'll show you is moving from the left side of this page to the right side. Only the plastic flex posts, nothing more. So the first is speed reduction. The only way that we're going to reduce speed on our streets is through the design. You saw earlier this year when we reduced the speed limit in our city, speeds went up. It has to come at the design level. Speed limits are just a suggestion. So if you want to reduce the speeds in our streets, here's a data proven example, a data proven opportunity to do so. They've been shown to reduce bike and car crashes up to 50%. You've heard that vulnerable street users, people outside of cars, have been more and more disproportionately affected by traffic violence. If you want to reduce those crashes, here's a data-proven opportunity to do so. Our Climate Action Plan talks about reducing vehicle miles traveled, getting people out of cars to take trips other ways. We also talk about ridership. A lot of people are going to say, no one is biking on Wooddale. I agree. They're right. It's because biking on Wooddale sucks right now. If we want to see increased ridership, if we want to see that reduced VMT, here's a data proven opportunity to do it. None of this happens if the lanes are unprotected. So I understand you're going to be voting on this next meeting. I'm asking you to please don't take a half step. Let's get these benefits. Let's make it all worth it if we go through with it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Birchway.

Thanks.

Are you wanting this too? Yes.

Good evening. Good evening. I'm Jake Vandalist, also on the Transportation Commission, also here in my individual capacity, also speaking on the Wooddale bike lanes. And I want to put this project into the context of Edina's lack of progress in implementing the bike and pedestrian master plan. But first, I'll share a little bit about me and why I care about the Wooddale project. So this is my two girls on our bike. This is called a cargo bike, if you're not familiar. We put 1,000 miles on this last year, mostly riding around Edina. We try to avoid Wooddale at all costs because of the fast traffic and the limited bike infrastructure, but sometimes we have to do it. We have soccer at Pamela Park, and there's no other way around it. But Wooddale is just a larger or a small piece of the larger puzzle. So Edina has made almost no progress implementing the 2018 bike and pedestrian master plan. During the Edina Transportation Commission meeting last week, Andrew Scipioni presented this evidence of how slow we have been to adopt the bike and pedestrian master plan. So as you can see, since 2018, we've built a total of two and a half miles of bikeways and shared use lanes. So that's since the implementation of the master plan in 2018. So at this pace, we would implement all of the bikeways in a mere 100 years and the shared use paths in 31 years. So we need to take a lot quicker action and the Wooddale bike lanes is one way in which we could do that. And we're not only behind on our own goals, but we're also well behind our peer cities. So if you look at the cities that surround us, we're dead last in every category from these two major sources that rank how cities are doing with their bike lanes. So the Lab is the League of American Bicyclists, and the PFB is People for Bikes. So you can see PFB ranks us 36th in Minnesota for bike-friendly score, and we're half of what St. Louis Park is and well below Richfield. And this is a little hard to see with my at-home printer. But the blue lines are bike lanes around us. And the gray is no bike lanes. And the yellow line is the city of Edina. You can see that there's a lot of blue. And then there's a dearth of blue within our city limits. And that's just illustrating everything that I've previously told you. The Wooddale project is just one project. I think city council needs to think very seriously about how to implement the bike and pedestrian master plan going forward and quickly so we can catch up to our peer cities and make biking safer for people like me and my children biking around the city. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fandelus.

Hi, my name is Greta Camps. You guys hear me? yeah i'm also here to talk about the wooddale avenue bike lane i'm here to express my support of a protected bike lane i live there near the street and i use my bike to run errands go to restaurants and visit parks and do activities with my two young kids As my kids get older, I would love to give them the independence to bike to school on their own or bike to friends' houses on their own, but kids will not have that right to independence if streets like Woodtail remain unsafe. I think it's really important to do this the right way, to limit parking and provide a completely protected bike lane. Anyone who has biked on a paint-only lane knows that paint does not provide any amount of safety, especially as cars have only gotten taller, wider, and heavier. If we try to please everyone with a painted bike lane and keeping all the parking, no one will be happy. Cars will be mad that bikes are hogging the road. Bikes will be mad that cars are making them feel unsafe, so they'll go to the sidewalk, and then pedestrians will be mad. So... While I can sympathize with residents not wanting to lose parking on their street, I think we need to see a bigger picture, and I believe safety is more important than personal vehicle storage. Wooddale is a main thoroughfare in this project. If done right with a fully protected lane, would benefit many people, especially our kids. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Camps. Good evening.

Good evening. Sorry, I think I messed that up. Good evening, Mayor and esteemed council. My name is Jay Felds. Unlike my colleagues, I am technically invading from the city of Minneapolis. However, I am also a part of the West Metro Transit Discord group where we are also concerned about Wooddale Avenue. We are concerned about, well, many of the roads, but I'm going to try to approach from a more economical perspective. We have seen over the past year gas prices have gone up, car parts have gone up, computer parts have gone up. Everything is becoming more expensive. So trying to own a car, whether it ends up being gas powered or electrical powered, it's going to become prohibitively expensive. Whereas bicycles right now, whether your normal acoustic bikes, your e-bikes, your mountain bikes, Those will be relatively cheap. And we have the ability to have back seats, cargoes, front and back. Honestly, we need to seriously consider using the bicycle as a potential alternative, not a permanent replacement for everyone. Because I know people still need cars for deliveries and handicap accessibility. but we need more accessible transportation. Bike lanes such as all along the Wooddale Avenue corridor from 50th Street all the way down to Arden Park, and everywhere beyond? It would not only provide more access to our houses of worship, our daycares, our friends' places, but it could also connect us to our neighbors, not just our immediate ones, but further along. What if we want to attend events in St. Louis Park or Minneapolis? What if we want to take a long road trip or bike trip over to Mall of America? Or maybe we need some new furniture from Ikea. We don't necessarily need a car for that, not for every single thing. But as prices are starting to go up, we are going to have to consider saving money through other means. And if we can invest in bike infrastructure, then it'll make things easier for us to connect to everywhere. And also, if you need another incentive, this is more on a personal note, I rode my bike wearing This skirt, full length. If I'm able to pull this off, I'm sure everyone else here can as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Feltz. Yeah, good evening.

Good evening. My name is Will Madry. I've worked full-time in Edina for about two and a half years now. in the Cahill neighborhood next to the Doubletree, but I live in Minneapolis by Painter Park in the Lindale neighborhood. While I don't currently fully e-bike to my office as I opt to take the E line or the orange line down and bike from there, for about a year and a half, I did. And Wooddale Avenue was the most direct and safest way for me to get to Valley View in my approximation at the time, coming off the Chain of Lakes Trail and cutting through the neighborhoods to Wooddale. This was all to get to Valley View, which was the least terrible way to cross 62 via bike. That will change when the Roseland Bridge project is complete, but it will not work as a safe crossing unless there is a safe way to get to that bridge too. Wooddale Avenue is that project, and it's critical for its success. Wooddale Avenue going north was my nightmare. I'd always ride it around rush hour and I dodged close passes, delivery trucks, congestions, and all without any bike lanes other than a useless sharrow. It's partially why I don't bike all the way to work without the bus anymore. I found it's too unpredictable of a route because Wooddale Avenue did not have adequate facilities to be safe. When I do bike all the way to work, I go through Ridgefield. Wooddale deserves a protected bike lane. I prefer the two-way bikeway that puts both directions next to each other replacing car parking and hopefully using some sort of protected bollards to stop cars from coming into the lane. This project is a no-brainer, a feeder route pointed directly at a brand new bridge you guys are already investing in. It's easily accessible via transit from the chain of link trails and it will make Edina accessible to more people around the Metro. please make this investment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Medri.

Good evening. My name is Miriam Trepanier. First, I'd like to express my gratitude for your dedicated civic service and the commitment you have consistently demonstrated to our city. Hidana's vision and strategic pillars are established upon the principles of infrastructure protection, addressing community needs, fostering an inclusive and engaged community, and promoting sustainable growth. These core values are precisely why many residents chose to establish themselves and their families in this city. They are certainly high among the reasons my own family chose to reside here. However, I am concerned that the foundation of Edina's reputation as a premier city within our state is increasingly compromised. This concern is reflected in the recent voting records of council members. Investing in the long-term future of our community is always a wise endeavor. As noted in a recent local editorial authored by one of you, We don't just shape the communities we live in, we shape the ones we leave behind. As elected officials, you possess the democratic authority to define Edina's future. Consequently, it is disconcerting when public statements regarding these values are contradicted by subsequent legislative actions on your part. I respectfully request that you remain steadfast in your positions and adhere to the platforms upon which you were elected, regardless of opposition from vocal minority groups spreading misinformation to impede progress and influence the legacy of this administration. My fellow residents and I are occupied with the responsibilities of raising families, caring for grandchildren, enjoying retirement, financially supporting our families, and engaging in community volunteerism. While you may not hear from us as frequently, we remain committed to the established vision of this city for the collective benefit of all citizens. This entails supporting projects that provide broad community value, even if they do not offer immediate personal benefit. We do not have the time nor desire to occupy the council and city's time with non-constructive grievances or engage with local media to incite public uproar. to the city staff. While the efforts made to communicate with the public are noted, it is evident that communication standards must be elevated as current practices are insufficient. I urge you to utilize modern communication mediums to reach our community in a clear and concise manner. It is essential to counteract misinformation by providing transparent, factual information early and often, ensuring such data is easily accessible to the general population. At present, current outreach efforts have only and perhaps inadvertently provided a platform for those seeking to obstruct impactful projects and community progress. Lastly, I don't use Wooddale Avenue. Vote yes on the protected bike lane, please. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Hovland, City Council, Manager Neal. My name is Matt Dahlin. I am a lifelong Edina resident, former vice president of the Parks and Rec Commission, and a current member of the EBA Board of Directors. I'm here tonight on behalf of our volunteer organization and the families we serve here and across Edina. I submitted a detailed email to the mayor, city manager, and council two weeks ago, and tonight I just wanted to take the time to highlight some key points and give some additional context. Courtney Fields is not a standalone facility. It is explicitly named in the Braemar master plan that was approved by the Council in 2018 and backed by an $8.1 million voter referendum in 2022. Braemar Arena, the golf course and golf Dome plus the baseball fields are all part of that same. Unified plan sponsored advertising is permitted in use at every one of those facilities. Currently the baseball fields are the only ones that isn't treated the same way. We are simply asking for consistency within a plan. The community is already voted to invest in. Of the legal questions, the Planning Department has cited Section 361675, which restricts banners, but Section 361677 of the same ordinance explicitly names Braemar Park as a location where sponsor advertising is permitted on scoreboards. and section 361711 codifies that further. A local business can sponsor a scoreboard at Braemar today under existing code, but cannot put its name on a fence banner at the same field. This is just an internal inconsistency and we are asking for a narrow amendment to close it. The EBA is currently a volunteer organization. We are not running a commercial advertising program. We want to help keep Braemar's fields And those people that use them and give them all the benefits that our sponsors can make possible. These are community investments funded by community partners who view this as a donation, not trying to make their marketing opportunity. We proceeded with these banners currently having been advertised, sorry, we proceeded with these banners and currently have been advised that as long as they are temporarily installed, this would be permissible. We sold partnerships and sponsorships to local businesses on that basis. We have tournaments approaching and need resolution. Beyond that, the EBA is actively bidding to host the Minnesota State American Legion Baseball Tournament at Braemar in 2027 or 2028, an event that would bring real visibility and economic activity to Edina. Every other host community offers sponsor recognition at their fields. An unresolved ordinance conflict puts us puts that bit at risk. We are willing to work exclusively with local businesses and maintain a strict policy, nothing political, religious, adult, or controversial. If there are questions about revenue, we are open to a revenue share discussion with the city, though our intent is always to invest any of these funds back into the fields for the whole community to use. We are requesting a narrow amendment to section 361675, and we are ready to work with the city staff on the language. I got less than 30 seconds and I just want to congratulate and wish Manager Neal the best of luck in his retirement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Darlene. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, council members. My name is Matthew Perry, and I am speaking tonight on behalf of all four residential households that live on Pinewood Trail, which has historically been a quiet for residents dead end street. Over the last several months, this quiet has been disrupted by an ongoing parking issue involving employees from the Dinah Family Physicians Clinic. Our street has become their full time clinic parking lot. We are here tonight asking the council to pursue both a near-term remedy and a long-term solution. Collectively, we are disappointed that this has arisen after years of being neighbors to the clinic without this issue occurring. And we're frustrated that the process has not yet produced a workable solution. The concern is not about one vehicle or one isolated incident. The concern is that small residential streets in this city were not designed to absorb commercial parking on an ongoing basis. While our city does have ordinances to prevent this, they are not sufficient in this specific case. To date, we have worked through the normal channels. We contacted city staff, engaged with the traffic and safety process. We've used non-emergency police enforcement when appropriate. Warnings have been given, citations have been issued, and it has not been resolved. So while the traffic and safety department have made some changes to Pinewood Trail, those changes have not improved the situation. Instead, employees have found a way to comply with the letter of the ordinance while continuing the same parking pattern. As a result, and on the recommendation of Nick Baller, we are bringing this issue before the council because we are informed that the recommendation would be for no additional parking restrictions on Pinewood Trail. Respectfully, we are asking the council to not accept this. That recommendation leaves residents dependent on repeated calls to non-emergency police for tire chalking and enforcement, and this is not a sustainable solution for residents, city staff, or law enforcement. So we believe there's a two-part solution. First, add targeted parking restrictions on Pinewood during business hours. This would directly address the weekday parking issue while preserving it for outside business hours. Employees would still have nearby parking options in their own lot and on Sherwood Road. Second, we asked to direct city staff to work with the clinic to address the underlying parking issue. This would include reviewing existing restrictions on the non-residential portion of Sherwood Road. If the clinic needs more practical employee parking, the solution should be found within the commercial corridor rather than shifting the burden onto Pinewood Trail residents. Again, we are not asking for an extreme response. We are asking for a durable, balanced solution. The current recommendation of no changes does not solve the issue residents are experiencing today. Thank you for listening to our perspective.

Yes, thanks, Mr. Perry.

David Frankel, continuing with the biking theme. One thing transportation planners do in Minnesota is they love to plan in the summer, and I think it snows here. I'm an avid all-year biker, and if you think biking down Wooddale in the summer is not a lot of fun, try it in the winter. The city already does a pretty poor job of snow removal on sidewalks. Overloading it with bike lanes, there should be a conscious decision if these new bike lanes will have snow removal in the winter. Because right now, for example, the bike lane on Wooddale is not cleared in the winter of snow, so I end up biking in the traffic lane, which surprises a lot of people and is dangerous. The main reason I came tonight on that biking theme. Yesterday I biked through Fred Richards Park and it shouldn't have been to my surprise, but the heavy equipment working in that park doing their remodel per se are driving over the Nine Mile Creek Trail. In three places you can see the track marks and in one case there's damage to the trail. That trail, I can't speak for Three Rivers Parks, but that trail was not designed for 5 to 10 ton trucks. And there will be permanent damage to that trail, even if it doesn't look like it, from the compression from those heavy vehicles. My impression was the construction of that park would not cross over the trail. The damage is bad enough, but there's a safety issue. You can't have bikers, walkers, going through a park with multi-ton trucks crossing a pedestrian walkway. There's no markings to say be careful. If you go by the Southwest Light Rail, line right now. There's signs all over the place to be careful of trains being tested. There's nothing in that park saying there's heavy equipment working in the park and it may cross the trail, which again I don't believe that was supposed to happen. They should go around with trailers if they need to use heavy equipment on either side of that Also, I was actually asked by some other residents because I've been an avid YouTube user. If you look at Edina issues on YouTube, there are a lot of dead trees in Edina Parks. I mean a lot. A lot of saplings that have been planted in the last few years are dead. There's a lot of trees, for example, in Weber Park, mature trees that are dead. You may remember probably five years ago a large tree fell on a woman in Eden Prairie and killed her on a trail. This can happen anywhere. It can happen in Arden Park. It can happen in Weber Park. These trees need to be cleared out. And from my understanding, the city's forester has asked for more personnel, but he was turned down by the city manager. It isn't a priority. Look at the YouTube channel Edina Issues. See all the trees that are dead, including across the street in Edina Country Club, right on Eden Avenue. There's at least a half dozen fruit trees that are dead. And the vast majority of trees that are dead in Edina, like everywhere else, are ash trees. Ash trees are notorious for the whole tree falling over, not a branch, the whole tree. These trees have to be removed for safety and because they also spread the Dutch elm diseases, not Dutch elm, the emerald ash borer.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Mr. Frankel. Appreciate the thought. Anyone else?

Carol Krieger, talking about the bikes. Three months ago, residents living on Wooddale Avenue received a letter from the city of Edina notifying us that the road surface was going to be replaced between West 50th Street and Valley View Road in 2026. And the city was considering removing the parking lane to create dedicated bike lanes. Feedback was requested through the Better Together Edina webpage and 247 people participated. The overwhelming preponderance, 180 of the 247 respondents, 73% were opposed to eliminating parking on Wooddale Avenue with 54 people, 22% in favor of it. What is telling is that only one person in favor of doing away with parking actually lives on Wooddale Avenue. The premises behind the plan are faulty. Having lived on Wooddale Avenue for 34 years, my wife and I have had a literal front row seat to be able to observe the behavior of both drivers and cyclists. Despite there being a six-foot marked bike lane on the west side of Wooddale Avenue and a seven-foot shared parking lane that functions as a de facto bike lane on the east side, almost all children and teenagers ride on the sidewalk going both north and south. And the City Council appears to be aware of this as well because just last month it modified the Edina City Ordinance to allow electric bicycles on sidewalks. And one of you was quoted in the Edina Sun Current, I prefer you ride on the street, but if you don't feel safe for whatever reason, you can use the sidewalk. Having a dedicated bike lane even with a two-foot buffer is not going to make people feel safer about riding on a street with cars. They will continue to use the sidewalk. As for parked cars creating a safety issue, I can speak from the perspective of being a bicycle commuter myself. I've ridden a bicycle on Wooddale Avenue, probably as much as any resident in Edina, and I consider myself a bike advocate who is certainly in favor of making the city more bicycle friendly. Not once have I ever considered cars parked in the street to make me feel unsafe. Cars driving too fast are what make riding on Wooddale Avenue feel unsafe, not stationary vehicles. The final faulty premise, the most important one, is that the plan fails to take into account the multitude of negative impacts that will unquestionably ensue with removing the parking lane. And these are very well articulated in the many responses on the Better Together Edina survey. And each of you should take the time, as I have, to read through all 247 of these. The concerns that are raised are significant and real, not hypothetical, and they reflect the sentiment of the vast majority of the community. To finish, several years ago Wooddale Avenue was reconfigured in a way that was confusing and so unpopular that a short time later it was changed back to how it was before, and the good news is that the city now has the opportunity to get it right. There's a plan that's been submitted by one of our neighbors, Bill Egan, that takes into account the concerns of all the different stakeholders, those interested in bike safety, as well as those who feel the need to pursue barking. This does not have to be an either-or decision. It can and it should be both. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krueger.

Good evening. Good evening. My name is Anne Cassid and I've been a lifelong member of Edina for 30 years, my husband 50 plus years in the same home on Wooddale Avenue. Mayor Hovland and members of the City Council pertaining to the upcoming vote on Wooddale Avenue bike lanes project, which removes parking from Wooddale Avenue and reconfigures the roadway. I highly recommend a no vote for the following four reasons. which there are many, many more though. One, in 2015, when 54th Street was reconfigured, through numerous meetings with the council members and the mayor, the compromise was to remove all parking from 54th Street with the understanding that parking on Wooddale would remain. Number two, if parking is removed in front of our homes, we would have no parking at all for the many events that occur in the neighborhood and the prior compromise that was agreed upon as null and void. Bike riding is not as prevalent on Wooddale as everybody thinks. There are many, many, many, many routes to take around the community to get from the north and south side of the city. Four, narrowing the lanes of a busy vehicle roadway can cause more congestion, side swipes, and reduce maneuverability for all vehicles on the roadway. I will remind the city planners and the City Council that bike lanes and reconfiguration of Wooddale Ave occurred in 2015. However, not the same as the current proposal, but as a reconfiguration with bike lanes and it was a complete disaster. This entire project offers little benefits for the residents, churches and the Diana Country Club on Wooddale Ave and most likely will negatively impact our property values. Please vote now. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Cassid.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Council, thank you for hearing from me. My name is Brian Mismash. I've lived on Wooddale since 2015. I oppose eliminating parking on Wooddale Avenue. As I read the notification from the city, the proposal to eliminate parking on Wooddale rests on three justifications, safety, equity, and climate. Due to time constraints, I'm just going to cover safety and equity. Wooddale recorded 19 crashes in 10 years. That is fewer than two crashes per year on a heavily used residential street. By any reasonable benchmark, this corridor is already safe. Only one of the crashes involved a bicycle, one in a decade. The existing shared parking bike lane configuration has produced a near zero bike vehicle conflict rate. That is not a problem in search of a solution. It is a street that is working. 13 of the 19 crashes occurred at intersections, not in a parking lane. The dominant collision type is an angle, those are nine of the 19 crashes. It's the classic intersection conflict. A striping change between intersections does nothing about the actual crash pattern. No crash in 10 years was fatal. No crash produced a serious injury. Where the data points, if safety is genuinely the goal, start with the intersections. 68% of the crashes happened there. Now I'd like to cover equity. In one of the supporting documents the city provided with the Wooddale notification, we're told the city runs every action through something called an equity impact review. This review asks three questions. What are the positive impacts and benefits created? Who benefits? What are the negative impacts and burdens created? Who is affected by these? And are there other equity factors to consider? Please hold that framework in mind for a moment and let me tell you how my family ended up on Wooddale Avenue. We moved to Edina in 2015. We wanted a house on a quiet street, but houses on quiet streets are significantly more expensive than houses on busier streets. Sure, this is intuitive to everyone, but for this meeting, I compiled the data. Wooddale runs parallel to Kellogg. Kellogg is the closest comparison to demonstrate the cost difference between a busy and a quiet street. For those unfamiliar with Kellogg, just know that Kellogg and Wooddale run parallel. They are one block apart. The difference is that Kellogg is quieter and more expensive. In fact, when I recently compiled the data on home values, I found that Kellogg, on average, a home is $500,000 more expensive than on Wooddale. Now we're on the city's equity impact review through this lens. Who benefits? Cyclists passing through, primarily. But keep in mind, the existing shared lanes already serves them with a near zero crash rate in 10 years. Who bears the burden? Only Wooddale residents. Wooddale is already less affluent and busier. Our homes are already worth over half a million dollars less than one block away, and the city's plan is to take even more away from this community and these homeowners. In doing this, Edina is pushing a new burden onto a less affluent community with fewer financial options. This is the opposite of equity. I believe I'm out of time, so I'll conclude. Wooddale works for all of us today. Please don't try to fix something that isn't broken. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mishmash.

Good evening, Council Members. My name is Randy Howe. My wife and I have lived on 52nd and Wooddale since 1994. I support Edina's efforts to improve cyclist safety and expand bike infrastructure. I don't believe this is a choice between residents and cyclists. We all want safer streets and a more accessible community. My concern is that the current proposal asks a relatively small group of residents and community institutions to absorb significant burden without clear evidence that eliminating parking is necessary to achieve the city's safety goals. Wooddale serves many different uses and purposes. The on-street parking is used by residents, guests, contractors, service providers, delivery drivers, St. Stephen's Church, and visitors to the Adina Country Club. If that parking is removed, those vehicles won't disappear. They'll simply be pushed onto neighboring streets, shifting congestion and creating new challenges elsewhere. What gives me hope is that a reasonable compromise appears to be available. Based on the width of lower Wooddale between 56th Street and 50th Street, it seems possible to accommodate bike lanes while preserving parking on at least one side of the street. To me, this is the best outcome. Not maximizing a single use, but finding a balanced solution that improves safety while recognizing how the street and neighborhood functions every day. Before making a final decision, I simply ask that you carefully consider the comments submitted by the residents and explore whether a compromise can meet the city's goals without eliminating all on-street parking. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Howell. Anyone else? Address a council on a matter of concern to them. Hey, just turn to online. Nobody online. They all came here tonight. OK, good, that's good. We like to like the live interaction better anyway. Alright, thanks folks for your thoughts on all these issues this evening. Appreciate it. Um? So as our practice is that what we'll do is take all this information and it will be distilled by staff and there'll be some answers posted to some of the concerns that were raised by this Friday on the website. And then the city manager also responds to the Concerns that were raised a couple weeks before at the prior City Council meeting and many renewal from the prior City Council meeting which was actually a month ago. I think now.

Well, we we canceled our May 19th meeting. So I don't have anything to respond to tonight. All right, but and the other ones we were caught up at that point.

Okay, you were caught up. Okay. I thought because we missed the 19th that there was things that you should have reported on the 19th. All right. Yes.

So thank you, Mr. Mayor. With the Edina Baseball Association, that sounds like it needs some action on the City Council part to fix that. Based on, I remember the email, I'm glad Mr. Dahling came in. I read his email and it was a lot of information. I'd like to see a solution to that proposed. So if you want input from us immediately, I think that it just makes sense to have the same rules apply TO THE HOCKEY AS TO THE BASEBALL ASSOCIATION. SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE PROCESS IS, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THAT RESOLVED EQUITABLY.

WE'LL MEET WITH THE CITY ATTORNEY AND GO OVER THE PROCESS WITH HIM.

GREAT, THANK YOU.

YEAH, I THINK YOU SAID IT WAS SECTION 36-6-175 THAT WE NEED TO TAKE A LOOK AT. SO, YEAH, TAKE A LOOK AT THAT. ANYBODY ELSE HAVE ANYTHING? OKAY, GOOD. ALL RIGHT, LET'S MOVE ON THEN. Yeah, folks, if folks don't want to stick around, they don't have to certainly. It's out of the leaf. So we've got a little recognition we get with the portion of the agenda is called special recognitions presentations and we usually have several things on there tonight. We have one thing on there. Oh, didn't we do that already? Oh OK, alright. All right, I guess I got thrown off by 6.6. So we've got the consent agenda and we've eliminated 6.6. Is there anyone else who wishes to remove any item on the consent agenda other than 6.6, which we dealt with previously? All right, is there a motion to adopt the items on the consent agenda with the exception of item 6.6?

So moved. I second.

Councilmember Jackson moves, Councilmember Agnew seconds the adoption of the items on the consent agenda in a single motion with the exception of item 6.6, which we dealt with earlier. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adopting the items on the consent agenda in a single motion with the exception of item 6.6 say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Carried. All those items on the consent agenda are adopted. And thanks for that. And then we'll go to special recognitions and presentations. And we've got one matter tonight to deal with. Our city manager has been serving on the board over at the League of Minnesota Cities. And where's Luke? There he is in the back. Luke Fisher is the executive director of the Minnesota League of Minnesota Cities, and I think he has his board president with him as well, who is used to the city council business. He's on the city council in West St. Paul. Yeah, it is a busy night here at the United. And and those folks are here to recognize our city manager Scott Neal for service on the on the board. So of course look welcome.

Thank you so much Mr Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Luke Fisher and executive director at the League of Minnesota cities. As the mayor mentioned, I'm joined by our board president, my colleague and friend Wendy Berry, who's a city council member in West Saint Paul. We're here tonight, as the mayor mentioned, to recognize Scott for his contributions to our board, but I always think it's helpful to know who the recognition is coming from, right? Certainly you all know us well, you're close partners and friends of ours, but everybody in the room and watching at home doesn't maybe know who the league is, and that's important context, I think, from my perspective. So the League of Minnesota Cities is an association that represents 842 of the state's 856 cities. Our largest member is the city of Minneapolis with a population of 425,000 people and our smallest member is the city of Barrie. Do you have any guesses on Barrie's population? 102? 10. 10. Any other guesses? All right, if we're playing Price is Right rules, the mayor wins. Barrie has a population of just 19 people. And as an organization, we've got this obligation and opportunity to provide services to cities like Minneapolis, Edina, and Barrie, and all points in between. And that's something that we take really seriously. To do that, we're guided by a 19-member board of directors that is comprised of local elected and appointed officials from across the state that care deeply about things that are happening in our state that impact cities. You don't have to be from Edina to have some empathy for what's going on in Berry, or you don't have to be from West St. Paul to understand the Minneapolis issue, right? These things are all common to us all, and we share a lot of challenges together as city leaders. When we think about what we do as an organization, we represent you at the state capitol. We've got 175 legislative policies that are developed by 250 city officials that come together every year to make sure we're aligned to our member needs. We see about 3,000 people every year at a training conference or event. We handle about 9,000 insurance claims every year on behalf of our members. So that means in the very best of times and in the very worst of times, we get to see what good local leadership looks like. And Scott Neal certainly is one of the very best of the best. Now I've known Scott for a long time. I was an intern for Scott when I was in my undergrad and he was the city manager in Eden Prairie. And so I know what a tremendous person of character he is. But I asked around the office, just so it didn't sound like just a former intern saying nice things about you, Scott, about what folks thought about you. And these are some comments from our board and some comments from our staff. They said, Scott is thoughtful and he's always a big picture thinker. He's known for his ethics and commitment to neutrality that came from city manager types. He's respected for always developing the next generation of leaders and certainly the Adana Fellows Program is something that I know is like a keystone feature of what it means to be an Adana City employee. He sought after as a resource for good and proper council manager relations. When people in the state are working on developing good relationships with their city councils, they call Scott Neal for advice. And this one's mine, and it's true. He's just simply the best. So Scott, on behalf of all of our staff at the League of Minnesota Cities, 115 people that work on your behalf, thank you so much for everything that you've done for us during your service. I'm going to turn it over to Wendy Berry now.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. And President Berry, welcome. Nice to have you here.

Thank you. Thanks for being here. I'm Wendy Berry, Council Member from West St. Paul and the President of the League's Board of Directors. I'm honored to be here tonight, and it was great to be on this side of the public comments, but in West St. Paul, we've heard parking, safe bike lanes, baseball relationships with the city, all those things. I was like, yeah, yeah, let's do it. So it's the same, just like Luke said, no matter what the city. And thank you to the city council and mayor for sharing Scott with the league for the past few years, and the city staff too. I know we take him away a lot, and it's for a good reason. So appreciate you filling in the gaps when he hasn't been here. Throughout his time on the board, Scott has brought a thoughtful and steady perspective to discussions. He's known for asking the right questions at the right time. His insight and experience have strengthened the board's work in meaningful ways. I think the council city manager perspective is another one. There's council members and there's appointed folks on the board, and I think Scott is one of those examples of letting us council people get our stuff out and then say, okay, but really. But in a very respectful way, and I've learned a lot from Scott over the past few years. I'm just grateful that he's been on the board in my time here, too. But in addition to his service on the board, Scott has served on the league's municipal amicus program committee, which helps the league determine when to participate in appellate court cases and issues important to Minnesota cities. We are grateful for the steady perspective he has brought to the work. Scott's exemplary leadership and willingness to thoughtfully engage in complex issues that made him a valued member of the board. And we are grateful for his contributions and service. Thank you so much, Scott. It's been a pleasure serving with you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Would you stick around for just a moment? I think I'd like to come down with the council and have a photo taken with Scott. Yeah, thanks.

You're cool.

Thank you for having me. Thanks, Luke.

Mayor, if I may. I just wanted to tell you, and I know they can hear me out there too, so it's really an honor to have this opportunity to be on the board and work directly with people from all over the state on common issues. you noted that council member barry indicated some of some of the issues we're talking about tonight they're talking about in west st paul and when you get together with your colleagues board colleagues from around the state they're all talking about similar issues so it's been fun to work with them and to represent edina and the west metro on the board thanks

Yeah, thanks and thanks for your service on the. League board, you know it's it's an important responsibility as you think about cities throughout the state of Minnesota of all sizes and shapes and issues.

So thanks for serving.

OK, I think I mentioned earlier we've got a couple of public hearings this evening in the first one. involves 4276th Street West, the so-called Salvation Army project, and Carrie Teague, our Community Development Director, is gonna introduce the topic, and then we've got the developers here, Ted Carlson and Joe Backer from Carlson Partners, and also the Salvation Army is here as well, and welcome back. Go ahead, Director Teague.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the City Council. A project that you're familiar with is they did go through a sketch plan a few months back. The property is located at 4276 Street West. It is just west of France Avenue on 76th. The graphic on the screen here is a zoning map, and I would highlight that this block of 76th You can see we've got five different zoning districts. We've got a higher density residential in blue, property zoned office, a couple of planned industrial districts. The purple here is the Aon Affordable Housing Project. It's a PUD. Another PID district and a planned office district. This site is guided in our comprehensive plan for office residential in pink. Part of the comprehensive plan description of this district talks about having a variety of zoning districts within the office residential land use category in the comprehensive plan. So here's a description. Primary uses include office, multifamily residential, and limited retail. Here's a look at the existing building on the site. The proposal here is for the Salvation Army to reuse the existing building, so no additions to it. The existing parking lot would remain the same. They would beef up the landscaping. Here's a look at the site plan. You can see they would use 18,000 square feet of the building for retail. The warehouse would be about a little over 9,000 square feet. You can see the circulation pattern here on the site. So all of the drop off and storage of the retail goods for sale would take place inside the building. So there's no outside storage as part of this request. Here's a look at the proposed landscape plan. So they would add landscaping that doesn't exist today in the back, add trees along the east lot line and along 76th Street. This parking is shared with the property to the west. So this request requires a zoning ordinance amendment that would allow secondhand stores to exceed 2,500 square feet in the planned commercial district. So the way the ordinance reads today, you can have a secondhand store, but it can't exceed 2,500 square feet in size. Rezoning from PID, the current zoning industrial, to planned commercial district two and a site plan review. This is the pyramid of discretion that we look at on our land use applications. The area down in green at the bottom indicates a project that the city has complete discretion or discretion to approve or deny. In this case, it's a rezoning and an ordinance amendment, so you do have discretion to approve or deny this project. That said, staff has also outlined options for the council to consider in the staff report for approval and denial. Here's a look at the zoning ordinance compliance table with the PCD2 district. This project would be code compliant with setbacks, parking stalls, floor area ratio requirement. One thing I would highlight here is the building coverage is currently 32% in existing conditions, so that does exceed our ordinance. So primary issues, is the zoning ordinance amendment reasonable and is the proposed rezoning to PCD2 reasonable? In this case, staff and the Planning Commission are recommending approval of both. With the zoning ordinance amendment, The Planning Commission and staff supports this completely, recommended that within the PCD1 district that the maximum 2,500 square foot limitation remain in place and that the ordinance be amended for the PCD2 and PCD3 district would... there would be no size limitation in those two zoning districts. The PCD1 district, that's our smaller commercial nodes, 44th in France, 54th in France.

Intend to do and what we like to do is what we do in every other community that we go to, which is serve that community. And we serve the community through having a place where people can bring their unused items, the items they no longer wish to have online.

Okay. All right, very good.

Council Members, I... Along Vernon, a boulevard-style sidewalk would be required as part of this, and one of the conditions, should the Council approve the project, is to connect the sidewalk to the existing sidewalk just to the north. They have done a photometric plan and demonstrated that it would be code compliant. It would be at the little opening in the fence would be 0.2 and then zero all along the north lot line. The code requires up to 0.5, so it's well within that. They have indicated during the night they would dim those lights a little bit. This is a look at the zoning ordinance compliance table. So note that the canopy, the pump islands, the parking lot setbacks, the required setback from residential use, and parking lot setback from building. Variance is required for all of those. So this is that graphic that I talked about before. So the patio to the north of the building, they're proposing a two-foot setback. Variance is needed there. The canopy setback and the parking lot There is existing pavement here, but they would be expanding that. That's a zero setback, so variance there as well. Again, the canopy setback and the parking lot would have a 10-foot setback from Vernon, so variance needed there. The mechanical equipment would be set back 13 feet, another variance. And the code requires a sidewalk in between a building to a parking area of 10 feet. The existing condition is six feet in this area, two feet in this area, and again, six feet. So variances are needed for all of those things. We've talked about this with other projects. The triangle, that's the buildable area on the site. So given the small size and shape of the site, there's really nothing that can be done on this site without the need for variances. So two primary issues, is the Comprehensive Plan reasonable and are the proposed variances justified? Again, this is a project where the Planning Commission is also recommending approval along with staff. We believe that the Comprehensive Plan is reasonable in that this site has been a commercial property for over 50 years. The amendment is reasonable given the consistency and the use from auto repair and gas over the years to an electric vehicle charging station and re-zoning or amending the comp plan would then bring the site into compliance with the zoning for the site. Again, the existing use is a permitted use, and a neighborhood node would accommodate this small-scale commercial use. The proposal would be supported by existing roads. Traffic study, again, was done by Mr. Terhar, who's on the call again with us this evening and can answer any questions in that regard. We also believe that the variances are justified. Again, it's a reasonable use. It's similar to the uses that have occurred on the property for over 50 years. The closest residential structure would be enhanced with the landscaping by the fence and the landscaping that's added. Practical difficulties include the small size of the lot, the irregular shape of the lot, and the two roadway frontages that require an increased setback on the north and south sides. Again, it would be difficult to do anything on this site without the need of a variance. And the proposal would be an improvement over the existing conditions of the site So with that again staff and the Planning Commission are recommending approval subject to the findings and conditions that are outlined in the staff report and the resolution There are there is an alternative for denial that those findings are also included in the staff report Should the council go that direction? So with that I can stop there The applicants are here to make a presentation as well. I can answer any questions or they could come up and give their presentation and we could take all the questions.

Let's check on questions for you first. Sure. Yeah, we'll start here. Council Member Jackson.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. How did the Planning Commission vote on this?

Yeah, so the comprehensive plan amendment was unanimous and the rezoning with the site plan and variances, I believe the vote was seven to two.

Thank you. I think it was, was it seven to two? Okay, yeah, that's right. Sorry about that. I asked a question during the sketch plan, and if I could have the slides, I've submitted some images that I'd like to have pulled up. Okay, thank you. And I don't know if we can get it, so there we go, perfect. When I look at our city code section 24 dash 130 standards and guidelines, curb cuts on collector streets, it appears pretty straightforward that you know the goal is the number of driveways intersecting a street designated as a collector or arterial by the comprehensive plan shall be limited to those driveways essential for adequate access. And my understanding is this is an arterial. And it's listed as an arterial in the comp plan. Is that true?

I believe that's correct.

Yes, thank you. And it says when properties adjoin more than one street, which this property does, driveways shall be restricted if possible to the street with the lower volume of traffic. The following addition or additional restrictions apply to lots in the R1 district and R2 district. And when I brought this up at the sketch plan, I did note that you know in what does in mean it doesn't say surrounded by, but you can see it is. A lot of R1 and R2 around that parcel. So is that in and in the case where it is considered in no driveway shall intersect with the street designated in the comprehensive plan as an arterial and I haven't received any feedback from staff on this concern that I raised back during the sketch plan review.

Yeah, I can answer that question. Member Risser. Yes, that is what the city code says, but we have to keep in mind that Vernon Ave is operated and managed by Hennepin County, so any access or lane widths or operations is really governed by their driveway or access guidelines. So in this case that code doesn't apply to Vernon Ave.

The code does not apply to any collector or arterial road in Edina.

No, just this one that's controlled by Hennepin County. Okay. You have to meet their access.

Has Hennepin County been informed about this proposed project?

They have and they have no concerns with these driveways as they've been since 1972 or as part of this submittal.

Okay, and my understanding of this ordinance is that the whole idea is you can have a process for making a road safer. And as development happens, the logic and the fact that this has been in our comp plan is guided toward multifamily. makes it seem as if the logical thing to do would be to cut off the access from Vernon, eliminate those conflict points, and then have access solely off of Eden Prairie Road. And you don't need to comment on that, but it seems like that would be a logical course of action. Could I have the next slide? Okay, and I did want to bring this in because this is from our recently adopted safe and equitable mobility action plan, and I have added the blue arrows. Those arrows point to 6016 Vernon, the site we're looking at tonight. It also points to 4404 Valley View Rd, which was another gas station site, so it is 0.27 acres in size and also a triangularly shaped lot. Can we go to the next slide? But you can see those are designated as high-injury areas. This is just one. And actually, since the time I have served on council, this is the fifth project that has come before me because we had the green drop, we had the first pizza plan, we had the second pizza plan, we had the 20-unit memory care, and now we have this. So I have been serving... three years, five months, and two days, and we've had this many projects. This by far was the one that really demonstrates with these former gas station sites here in Edina, we're really taking an approach that is thinking way outside the box. And I did actually track down a dissertation that this individual who specializes in urban planning did on what happens with leftover gas station sites. And I talked about that in one of these earlier reviews, but nobody is pushing it to this extent. And I can't help but think that in a way, this is... Like the tunnel under France that was also it was a tunnel, but it was two separate bridges. There's a paradox here and there's a paradox when we say nothing can be built here. But let's do this. And it just it seems like there's a real powerful disconnect. So thank you for showing that I do believe I've got another slide here. You can see the buildable area that was shown for the Keys site. And then here's the buildable area and the development that happened at the 4404 site, which is, again, in my neighborhood. And you can see you've got two double dwelling units. in terms of our code, it's a site that is not large enough for just one double dwelling unit. And so the legal buildable area for the westernmost unit is very small. It looks like it's about a tenth the size of the entire building footprint. And I feel like as we continue to push and to really encourage a lot of building on these very small irregularly shaped lots we're opening up a pandora's box and a lot of issues that really are quite problematic and particularly i'm very concerned about safety what happened here at valley view again this was a corner lot and so i guess you don't have to close that off you can keep it uh... which they did you know and not Going along Oakland and limiting access off of that. And so now we have a situation where we have a very short driveway and if we can go to my last slide. This is what it looked like a couple weeks ago. And that dumpster remains. It was emptied, but it was kept in the same position, so it continues to block the sidewalk. And so you've got a car coming out of the driveway or a truck, and they can't even see if there's a kid whipping down the sidewalk on a bike, which there are a lot of kids in this area who are trying to get to Pamela Park or trying to get to a school or something like that. You know I I feel like we're really pushing what is being done on these very small irregularly shaped lots across the street is view 44. It when it was being developed. It was described and it was described in the test staff report that it wasn't the fault of the developer that it was a small irregularly shaped lot. And then it was granted an easement into the public right away. And so now you've got the sidewalk where you can't step away from the road. You have to step toward the road and it's a very narrow sidewalk. So I have a lot of concerns about this project. Thank you and thank you for showing those images.

The questions for director T yes, also repairs.

Thanks Mister mayor. So if you could bring up the zoning ordinance compliance table. And so as I've been thinking about this, I'm not sure I'm interpreting standard versus proposed with the right construct. So I walk by that site quite a bit. We live in Highlands. And so when I think about it, I don't think about this being a vacant lot, and then there's a plan to build. a building with a waiting room, so I don't think about it that way. If it were that scenario, then the setbacks would make sense to me, because in my mind I visualize we're building this building, and that's where the setback would be, but when you walk by there, there's an existing building there today. And so I try to rationalize that with what's proposed. And I'll just give one example, but then hopefully you'll be able to kind of talk me through it. When we say the pump island setback is 20 feet and the proposed is zero feet, I assume a pump island is where you would typically get gas from. And so that's, I'm trying to understand the proposed, why there's a variance that's required for what's going in and what's the intent behind it. Does that make sense?

It does. It does. So the pump islands here highlighted in the orange, so that's new to the site. And they're required the same setback as a structure. So they're proposing those canopies to be at a setback of zero feet.

So the canopy, we're saying that that is the equivalent of an old gas pump island?

Yes.

Okay, so we're equating those two things, okay.

Yep. There is existing parking up here, but they're expanding that. And again, that was the zero setback. So because they're expanding it, that's where the variance kicks in there.

And how is it being expanded? Oh, I don't have an existing... Because in my mind, when I walk by there, there's parking there today. And so I just... Think this is going in the same parking stall. That's there today and clearly you're saying it's not it's Generally in that same spot, but it is getting wider. Why do you know by how much?

wider or deeper Wider not closer to the lot line. I believe in this area here. I can I can do some calculations I

Okay, but you may have just answered my question. So if I walk past there and there is a parking stall, you're saying these are getting wider, not closer to the lot line? Correct. Okay. Okay. And then the existing building. So when member Risser talks about the triangle and the buildable, we're really not building anything. Correct. It's existing today.

Yep. So there's no variances for the existing building that's staying the same.

Okay.

The mechanical equipment is new. So that's the reason for the variance there. And because they're redoing the entire parking lot, we included that sidewalk around the building.

And so the six, two and six are for the sidewalk variance. Correct. That's okay. All right, and then the last one is the two up front along Vernon. Oh, the patio.

Yep, that's for the patio here.

And then the last one, the two pump islands, I guess. Correct. Up front. And so that variance is, it's supposed to be 20 feet from the road. That's what the standard would be. No, yeah, 20 feet from the road.

Right, so the canopy and the pump islands are new.

But it's zero. No, it's 10.

In this area, that's 10 feet here.

So is the, is that, that's Vernon, isn't it?

This is Vernon down here, yeah. It's along the north lot line where it's zero.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, so that one kind of, that one throws me, I'm just, that's why I'm just reading this wrong. I was reading the third, go back to the compliance table. I was reading pump islands again, because those are two pump islands. That's Vernon's turned around. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I think that's it. So that those answer my, my questions.

Thank you. Could I ask you a question? So were you thinking about this site in relative relativity to the old Kevin Keyes site? Yeah, so was Kevin Keyes site in compliance with the compliance table or? They were in there roughly the same footprint as what's proposed here.

Correct.

Yeah, the building's not going to... Go back to the picture, though. Yep.

So the building doesn't meet the required setbacks. Again, the parking aisles, islands here need a 20-foot setback, and there are 10 today. And then all along that north lot line, basically a zero setback.

And that's where they are today.

That's where they are today.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so that's what I'm trying to, well, is it a, do we need a variance for that if that's where it is today? But I understand what you're describing. Thank you.

Would you remind me again, if somebody came along with another gas station or a car wash or wanted to have a motorcycle repair shop, what's allowed under the existing zoning code?

Yep, so an automobile repair shop is allowed, a car wash is allowed, and a gas station. So if somebody wanted to come in and do automobile repair out of the existing building and do nothing to the site, that would be a permitted use today. But we still have this conflict with the comprehensive plan that we should shore up at some time, at some point.

Yeah, OK. Yeah, thanks for that reminder. Other questions for Director Teague at this point in time. OK, we've got some of the folks here from I want to call it Iona, but it's Ayana I think. And you've got a team of folks here from North Carolina. And I think they've been with us before, or at least in part. I don't know if all of them have been here before. We had the sketch plan, and it looks like Declan Wilkerson is going to do the presentation.

Yes, sir. That's me. Good to be back with you guys this evening. I'll let Andreas begin the presentation, but, yes, sir, I'll be jumping in.

Thank you so much. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. Fantastic to see you guys again, and thank you for the community for showing up. I'm a big lover of being involved in your community and your government, large and small. regardless of opposition or for us, I'm glad everybody showed up to voice their opinion. So to jump right into it, we're with Ayanna. I'm the site development manager for this project. With me today, I have our site designer, or as Mary, you say, our crackpot architect, and I have our engineer with Kim Lee Horn here today. And we all know why we're here, so we're gonna just go a little bit quickly through our presentation, and we're ready to answer any questions from the public here. How do I click through? It was on the keyboard, I think.

All right. And Berrios, would you give us your last name again, please? My name is Andres Villacres.

Okay. So IANA, we were founded by the eight major automakers you see on the screen, BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes, Stellantis, and Toyota. Currently, we boast 115 sites live across the country with around 80 in active construction now. Locally to Minnesota, we have Blaine, White Bear Lake, Leno Lakes, Oakdale, and Brooklyn Park live. So if you guys ever want to go check out one of our sites, please feel free to go there. This is our high-level network map as we're expanding quickly across the country. Our OEMs, auto manufacturers, are very interested in building a high-speed charging network in order to get more EVs on the road for the future. And that's what we pride ourselves on building. We're building for the future here. This site in particular, Nadina, will feature seven dual port chargers. So that means 14 cards can charge at our site at a level three. Level three meaning you can charge from zero to 80% in about half an hour and to full within an hour. Again, weather depending or age of battery. This particular site in Edina will feature a customer lounge, 24-7 restrooms, and then we're partnering with Amazon to have a J.W.O. Just Walk Out store, and this would offer convenience items such as drinks, snacks, and whatnot. And I did want to skip over here and then show our updated site plan that has changed since we've last met. So our biggest changes we made is we deleted the sidewalk running all along behind the chargers, and we only left the path for our ADA accessible stall to avoid our ADA people from going behind cars. They can just wrap around and go and connect to that sidewalk that we're building in front of the store. and we're still keeping sidewalk connection from the neighborhood on Paper East to then connect down to Vernon, and like Kerry said, we will build a sidewalk connecting up to the point of the triangle as a service to the community. Next here, we really pride ourselves on the quality of our chargers. They're made here in Stateside in Wisconsin, and they're 400kW Alpetronic. offering our mini canopy solution. And to address any signage concerns, our mini canopies will look like this. They will not have any additional signage besides what Kerry showed on the screen earlier. Going down here, this is our photometric. Again, to alleviate any concerns from the community and the neighborhood, we've made a valiant effort here to ensure the canopies are angled up and point down. It's LED shielded lighting pointing down and as long as there's nobody there during nighttime hours, we will program them to dim to 50%. Even at full brightness though, you can see along the perimeter, we're still meeting that zero foot candle light bleed. and going through our landscaping plan. And this is another change we've made that wasn't updated with the rendering. We've switched over to this fence, completely closed off, so to avoid any concerns with any lights from cars that might be around at night. And with additional landscaping along the back with trees we will be planting. So it takes care of any light pollution, hopefully any lighting concerns from the public. As well as with sound, the chargers charge at about a 50 decibel, and if all seven are active at once, it will only go up to around 68 decibels. So probably around the sound of this conversation right now, and it bleeds out as you step her foot as you walk further away. I'll move along with the presentation. Maybe, seems to be stuck. Apologies.

Thank you.

Those are the high level site details. Now going into the design of the site, I'd like to hand it over to my site designer, Declan, to walk over, to talk over the canopy specific and what the building amenity will provide for the community.

All right, thank you, Mr. Backers.

Uh, good evening mayor and council members. Uh, nice to be with you again. Um, kind of like Andreas was just mentioning, this is a, a, you know, construction level drawing, um, that kind of highlights, um, and a bit more detail what we plan to do with our canopies. You can see, especially from that side elevation view at the top, um, just kind of where the light would be, um, directed towards, um, and the light kind of light bar that wraps around, um, The oval shaped canopy is also kind of recessed up in there. So yeah, just doing everything we can to minimize light bleed. Moving forward a little bit more. A lot of the stuff you guys have heard in past presentations. So can I just... That'll be helpful for all of us. So, yeah, the impact we're looking for, you know, quick construction. We pride ourselves on Iona speed, you know, and that's from the design phase to the permitting phase to the construction phase. We like to do things quickly, efficiently and, you know, minimize impact and disruption to surrounding communities as much as possible. We've also talked before about connecting to the surrounding community as best as we can, and that's seen in the form of a new sidewalk along Vernon Avenue for pedestrians and cyclists alike, and then a piece of new sidewalk along Eden Prairie Road for further neighborhood connection, something that we've been exploring. And then the visual impact, we talked about landscaping. All landscaping will adhere to the city's CITIES CODE MINIMUM IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 36, ZONING OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES. LIKE ANDREA SHOWED, WE HAVE AN UPDATED LANDSCAPE PLAN, BUT OF COURSE STILL WILLING TO TALK THROUGH OPTIONS AND FIGURE OUT WHAT WE CAN AND CAN'T DO FOR THE SURROUNDING RESIDENTS. Again, we've seen these pictures before, but just to kind of refresh, this is a slightly outdated rendering now. You can see, as Andreas called out before, this older rendering shows the fence in the back with kind of slats with a little gap in between. The last time I was here, that was called out. And, you know, we've actually specced a fence that would have those slats with no gap in between. Again, just doing everything we can to minimize light bleed from the canopies that kind of face that way, as well as, you know, headlights of parked cars at night. again here this image you've seen before some of the things that I'd like to point out kind of like I just mentioned you know the trees along Vernon Ave the shrubs along Vernon Ave all these things are kind of for visual representation at this stage we'd be happy to talk about you know the trees are too tall or too short too close together too far apart you know we're willing to work with you guys at that that level. Here's our nighttime rendering. Again, Andres had already pointed out that the canopies will, you know, dim to 50%. And then when a car pulls up at night, you know, light backups only on that canopy.

Is that representation supposed to be at 50% or at typical nighttime lighting before you go to 50?

Um, I believe that this one was one of the first passes.

This one might be more typical lighting to answer your question.

I believe so. Um, but this one you can see kind of in the far back, um, where there's not a car, um, that canopy lights is completely off. So it was supposed to kind of just show, um, that we can work with it. Um, but again, yeah, this one was designed with a full light capacity in mind. Um, And then again, yeah, just look at the floor plan. Like Andreas mentioned, we're proposing the Amazon Just Walkout convenience store, a customer lounge that's 24-7, restrooms, some small arcade games that would be free to, you know, ionic customers and the public alike, and then a little coffee bar area that would also be free. And I think we've since, again, we've had an updated drawing since then, but we're proposing also a code compliant water fountain as well. Moving forward again, just to look at some more technical details of the building elevations that we've talked about before. And then, yeah, just to touch again, you know, C-Store powered by Amazon Just Walkout technology. It's completely autonomous and open 24-7. The lounge, free access to the customer lounge from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. And then will require QR code access after hours and is equipped with free Wi-Fi as well. And then, like I just touched on, we're proposing the addition of a coffee niche, a water fountain, and then those few arcade games as well. And then this is just a look at one of our very first projects. It's actually relevant to speak about because, you know, Council Member Risser, you just brought up, you know, what do people do with old gas stations? This was actually a 100-year-old gas station in Apex, North Carolina that we retrofitted in a very similar way to what we would be proposing to do here. This is an inside look at the lounge. You can see the arcade game there on the wall. And then back through the window out to the chargers. This is a site in Garner. Again, another example of a reused gas station. And then here's the interior of that building and you can see a little bit more. We have our water fountains there on the side, the customer lounge area, and then the Amazon Just Walkout convenience store. behind the glass there. A few more operational details to touch on. I talked about it before, but the 24-7 surveillance will of course be applied here with internal and external cameras as needed. The daily monitoring of site issues Um, and we'll have the ability to engage third party security and, um, if absolutely necessary law enforcement as well, um, you know, free access to the customer lounge. Um, and then for upkeep, uh, we hire a local facilities maintenance contractor, um, and we can do daily visits to clean the building, remove trash and provide formal reports, um, back to us that kind of tell us what is, um, what's working, what's not working, what we need to, um, address. Um, And then here's another site in Houston kind of just shows again what we what we're aiming to do here. And then this is one of our standard sites that Andres alluded to earlier. We have standard sites throughout the state of Minnesota and in the Minneapolis area. And that's a look at one of our more standard sites just to get a feel for who we are, our branding, our image and what we like to provide. And again, this one in Fruita, Colorado. And yeah, that brings us to the end, and we'd be happy to field any questions that you may have for us.

Thank you, Declan. Thank you, Mr. Wilkerson. Questions? Yeah. Member Risser, go ahead.

When I look at the sites that you mentioned, Brooklyn Park, Oakdale, it looks like they're paired with Hy-Vees. Are there any other sites that you have where they're surrounded entirely by residential?

Uh, no, ma'am. Not at this time. No. In other states, perhaps. But in the state of Minnesota, no, ma'am. This one is definitely an anomaly for us, as I'm sure it has been for you guys. But yeah, the Minnesota sites, we do have a partnership with Hy-Vee, which is the ones that you're talking about.

And from my own experience, I drove with a friend to Chicago and back in her Tesla. And we strategically stopped at grocery stores was where we stopped. And it timed out just absolutely beautifully. You get out, you walk around, you go shopping. Are you at all concerned that people, what's the draw to go to a place that is basically in, which is in an entirely residential neighborhood?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a good question. Were you going to speak to that?

Sure. We're off a major highway. And again, the draw would be we want to provide a different customer experience. Yes, partnering with Hy-Vee, we love our standard sites. We love our plus sites like this. We love them all the same, like as you love your children, right? And we just want to offer different types of experiences here in this location in Edina. Instead of Hy-Vee being the tractor and weeping the bonus, Ion is the bonus. And then you have the convenience store to stock up, refill yourself with energy drinks, normal drinks, snacks, lounge to wait for your car to charge, and then you can drive away. So focusing from instead of being accessory use, we're the main driver of bringing people to our site.

The questions yes, yes, the rejection.

So 2 questions one when you said you change that sidewalk that goes from the accessibility the handicap Mark spot. And then to the building is that is there a fence that runs along that to the North.

Yes, we will have a fence covering the ADA path. I know the community through Better Edina had some feedback so that's why we ended up deleting that whole sidewalk and the only connection point will be fenced and the landscaping will be in front of that sidewalk and our ADA path will lead that way into the sidewalk.

Terrific. Thank you. And then with the QR code after hours, how do you get the QR code? Do you charge to get it or what is the, I guess the concern is, you know, if you just buy a candy bar, then people can go and spend the night there. What's the QR code represent?

Good question. And the QR code is the reason we implemented that to avoid that type of situation. So to get into the building after hours, you need to scan the QR code. It'll send you a text to your phone. You do a quick sign up. So first name, last name, phone number, email, so we can keep track. So if we have any bad actors, we can essentially ban them from ever entering again if we ever run into that situation. So the QR code grants you access to the building, access to the restroom. And again, this is human monitored. We have an ingrown system back home. in Durham, North Carolina that monitors our sites with a very technologically advanced team, actually really proud of what they've built here. So yeah, and we notice any abnormalities, like somebody can scan into the QR code and use the restroom. They've been in there for, hopefully it doesn't get to this point, but if they've been in there for three hours, like, okay, do we need to raise a flag, call in some help, go check on them. So we monitor the people that go in to avoid any bad actors or people staying there overnight and just to avoid loitering because, yes, we want you to come enjoy the amenities but also leave room for others to come in and out, you know.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Councilmember Agnew.

Thank you. I think that this was discussed at the Planning Commission meeting, but I wanted to get clarification on the number of users you expect per day. Sure. Is that something that you've been able to estimate? Of course.

Of course. And we've pulled some data from, I'll pull up Houston, Texas, and large metro area. Our peak a.m. and p.m. average hours range around 13 drivers coming in at peak hours. So we anticipate pretty lower utilization, significantly lower than a gas station, but for Houston metro being one of our highly used sites, that's still pretty good, having 13 at the peak a.m. and p.m. hours.

Okay, and I asked because I may have misheard on the Planning Commission, but it sounded like maybe the total per day was 10 users, and I felt like that was probably pretty low. But then the traffic study on their estimate, I captured 86 trips. Does 86 then, if I look at a full 24-hour period, feel more accurate?

THAT WOULD BE ON THE HIGH END AND ESPECIALLY FOR A METRO AREA AND THEN IF THE COUNCILMEMBER WOULD LIKE FURTHER DATA AFTER THIS MEETING, WE'LL BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO PROVIDE THAT. BUT ON A VERY GOOD DAY, HIGHLY TRAFFIC DAY, THAT'S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE. BUT WE ANTICIPATE, AGAIN, A.M. PEAK, P.M. PEAK HOURS TO BE AROUND 13 AND THEN SCOUTED THROUGHOUT THE DAY. SO THAT WOULD BE ON THE HIGH END BUT MOST LIKELY A LITTLE LOWER.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

Mr. Teague, we talked about Ed Terhar having done a traffic study, but you didn't comment on what the outcome of the study was, I don't think.

Oh, yes. The outcome, similar to the last project, that he found that no improvements needed to be made to the adjacent roadways, that the roadways would support the project.

The volumes of traffic in and out of there would be, what, equivalent, greater than, less than what was happening with Kevin Keys? You know that?

I don't know that that could be a question, Mr. Terhaar might know that.

Any other questions?

Yes, I'm here again.

Mr. Terhaar, are you there?

Yeah, I am here, can you hear me?

Yeah, we can.

Typically those numbers for this proposed project would be significantly lower than a gas station. Even a smaller gas station would have higher volumes.

Say that again, I think you kind of cut in and out there.

Sure, a typical gas station would be much higher than what we're anticipating for this site.

And what about an auto repair facility?

Not a repair facility would be why they still had gas pumps, I believe, so it was.

They didn't have gas pumps. They did not have gas.

It was just a straight out of a repair facility would probably be similar to this. You know that you don't have a lot of vehicles coming in and out or in the peak hour, but it will probably be similar.

OK. Well, why don't you take a look at some data that you've got available there? Why we're having a public hearing on this matter?

All right, any other questions for the applicant at this point in time?

All right, why don't you gentlemen sit down, please? And we're going to open this up for public testimony. We don't need anything further from you at this point in time. Thank you. All right, this is a public hearing matter, and I'm going to open it up now for a public testimony. Keep in mind the three-minute rule, so-called three-minute rule, and you'll see a yellow light when you've got about 30 seconds left, and you can... think about wrapping up your comments and we'll treat everybody the same that way if we are careful about observing the clock here. So feel free to come forward. And you don't have to give us your address, just your name.

I do have one visual aid for you. Matthew Pepper, 6004 Eden Prairie Road. You've seen me up here before, very involved with the local neighbors advocating On the site, we've always been here. I've been up here before to say we really want residential, but really what we want is something that fits in the neighborhood. And this site achieves that. But it does more than that. I'd say that it does three important things for the neighborhood and for the community. The first is it makes EV ownership more reasonable. I don't think we're just going to be pulling in folks from the highway, we're going to be pulling in, on our street there are three large condo buildings, or two condos in one apartment, 60 units, and this site will make EV ownership more attainable for those individuals. Mr. Teague talked about duplexes. A lot of those folks are renters. So renters and folks in condos and apartments that live in the western metro will have EV ownership much more available to them because of the site. Second, I wouldn't discount the convenience factor. I love the water fountain. This is not the gathering space that we sort of really wanted, but folks biking by are going to stop for a Gatorade, fill up their water. And my seven-year-old wants to take his friends across the street and get a candy bar. So that convenience factor I would not discount. And third, this group has been very engaged with the local neighbors. The changes that you've seen here is directly based on some feedback that we provided them. We did go to, I don't know if anybody here has actually been, is this, can I show it? Here we go. to a site. This is White Bear Lake. You see the Edina Green. It was very well kept. There were still suds in the window washer. You go to a gas station, sometimes there's not suds. If it was recently changed, there were suds there. And my wife said, I love these colors. It looks cool. This is one of those sites that's going to be winning awards because of this conversion. We did charge. The stuff worked flawlessly. It was a great site. So I'm excited about having them as neighbors. I'd encourage you to support this. I also want to thank you. I know a lot of you have worked through this process in order to find a solution. I think this is the right solution for the neighborhood and would encourage you to support it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Tripper.

Good evening, David Littlehouse, 5823 Vernon Lane. Mayor Hovland, council members, thank you for this opportunity to speak in opposition to the proposal to amend the comprehensive plan and grant many variances at 6016 Vernon Avenue. They want to have 14 stalls and there would be a lounge. And they're insistent that the lounge be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and we'll get to that in just a moment. My focus, though, is more on, not on whether electric vehicles are good or bad, but on a couple of the legal problems that this proposal faces. The first major problem is it's not zoned for this. It's not zoned for this. PCD4 sub-district says you may have the following permissive uses. Automobile service centers, this is not that. It's not gonna be repairing vehicles. Two car washes, there's no car wash here. And three gas stations. What does gas station mean? Station where you get gas. And that's not just the plain language. When you look at the accessory uses in PCD4, you can have gasoline sales accessory to a car wash. Gas, gasoline. Now maybe there's some creative argument that if it were hydrogen or liquid propane or whatever, it would be a permissible use. It's not a permissible use. This is not a gasoline station. The second problem here is the comprehensive plan. This comprehensive plan has been in place vis-a-vis this property for a long time. And why is that? Because it was guiding you, your predecessors, guiding their successors when a redevelopment occurred to guide it toward residential. And instead we've got this one anomaly sitting on Vernon Avenue, and there is no commercial development within one mile of it anyway, the entire radius. And is the commercial development in a residential neighborhood that was guided to be residential now going to be the modern equivalent of a gas station with a lounge that's open 24-7 a day? It's your comprehensive plan. Don't spot comprehensive plan. And then if you do that though, you change the comprehensive plan, the proposal is change it to a neighborhood node. This is not a neighborhood node. It's one property. A node is a bunch of buildings that come together that provide a service for neighborhoods, like 44th and France, cited in the comprehensive plan. This is one building, it is not a node. So even if you decide to change it, you cannot, I think, fairly intellectually change it to a node. And then finally, if it wasn't owed, it'd be for the neighborhood, wouldn't it? It'd be for pedestrians and shopping and things like that. Here we've got an unstaffed lounge. They're apparently going to monitor it by cameras. May I have one more minute, Mr. Mayor?

No, you can't. You've gotta wrap up your comments, please. All right. You gotta treat everybody the same.

To wrap up, it would be an unstaffed lounge, 24-7, and there are dangers in that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Greetings, Mr. Mayor and the council. She's going to ask you to just write. Hold on a moment.

She's going to ask you to follow the card. Just put your name down.

Does anyone else need a card?

Here we are again. I know you've been here many times. And give us your name again, please.

Give us your name again, please.

Bob Melander. Thank you. Here we are again. Five times we've been going through this. Julie mentioned this. It's getting tiring. And those of us who live in the neighborhood are really irritated at looking at this old building that's just sitting there. We're anxious to have something come in. We know for a fact that it's not... uh... feasible or economic for anybody to build any homes which we would really love uh... townhomes or anything that's just not practical for that so we certainly feel that this is of all the up all that proposals that have come forth, this is certainly the best one we have to go with. I don't see any problems with any of the variances and all those things you've been talking about. Looks to me like it's a perfect application. And we'd all like to put this whole subject to bed. So I certainly hope that you vote yes on this. Thank you.

Yes, thanks for being here this evening.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is CJ Cashman and I live at 5820 Vernon Lane, about a block or so from the proposed charging station. I am here tonight to respectfully ask the council to not deny the variance tonight. I don't think it's about the electric vehicles. It's a question of whether this is the right use in this location. And I think more importantly, whether it benefits the surrounding neighborhood. I think that's the key point really to really consider. I did a little poking around and the information I found regarding EV charging indicates that more than 80% of single family homeowners charge their vehicles at home. The reality is that most residents in this neighborhood live in single family homes and already can charge their vehicles. For those who don't yet have a home charge set up, Xcel Energy offers rebate programs to help offset the costs. of installing these level two charging equipment. As a result, the people who live here in this primary residential neighborhood are simply not gonna be the primary users of this facility. And finally, a little bit about what's mentioned earlier, you know, when I heard neighborhood node, you know, we all wanna live next to 44th and France and at these nodes. I would rather be a gas station. I would rather be a car wash because it's something in my neighborhood I actually can use. The zero setback concerns me on the backside for people that live on the north side. If it's supposed to be set up 20 feet setback and now it's going to be zero to the lot line, I think that's a concern. I think public charging stations make the most sense in highly visible public locations, how we talked earlier next to like Hy-Vees, near shopping, dining, entertainment, major traveling corridors, places where people naturally spend time while their vehicles charge. In fact, when I looked online this afternoon, I counted 15 public charging stations within a 10-minute drive of this location. Availability is not a concern here. The question before you is whether the neighborhood should absorb the impacts of this project, including additional lighting, equipment, traffic, and noise. When the benefit is not with my neighbors, we're not gonna be the ones that benefit from this, but largely the benefits gonna come directly elsewhere. So I think the answer should be no. I respectfully ask you to vote no on the variance. Thank you for your time.

Thanks for scheduling.

Excuse me. Mayor and council people, thank you very much for giving your concerted effort to try to find out what to do with this very peculiar piece of property. It's been, as you said, five iterations of this and I've heard people say that... Give us your name, too, please. Oh, I'm sorry, Pam Allen. I always forget that. Five iterations, and then they say, well, we shouldn't do this. But the question then becomes, if not this, what? I haven't heard a good proposal of what to do instead of this. For all the things that we've had to take a look at for the last... How many years? This is the least impactful as far as being intrusive on the neighborhood. It is of use in the neighborhood and there won't be a lot of traffic, certainly won't be having a pizza place with a patio on top with liquor and lights and so forth. It's, I think, really the best opportunity for us to find a workable solution for this very odd piece of property. Certainly, we'd all like to have fountains and a little kid play area or something. That's not going to happen. So of the alternatives available, I think this is an excellent choice, and I hope you vote for it. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Allen. Good evening, Mayor and council members.

My name is Ron Weber, and I live at 5821 Vernon Lane. A lot of the points that I would have made have already been made. Just a couple more that I would like to focus on. If you were to exclude the key property from the area, 100% of that entire area is homeowner responsibility, homeowner area. And as a result of that, I would suggest that the city council and the city of Edina consider the eminent domain, that particular property, It does not, if you were to have a plan before you today to build a new commercial property there, you probably would not agree with it because the site does not permit much of a commercial property and it's already a residential property. So I would encourage that be given consideration because A, it's an out of date, commercial property in today's environment. 50 or 60 years ago, it was appropriate. 50 or 60 years ago, that gas station was probably a rural location to today's Edina vibrant community. I've lived here for 40 years. That particular site does not bring any vibrancy to that location whatsoever, or is it needed by the populace in that immediate area? Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Weber.

Hello again, Janie Weston. It's a lovely evening. You guys are from North Carolina, aren't ya? You ever been here in January? Had to shovel a lot of snow? Okay, so with the layout of what I was seeing tonight, further setback to the north, where are you gonna put snow that you have to, by code, has to stay on your property? That's a question I'm asking. The ADA sidewalk that goes off of your property, who's going to clear the snow on that sidewalk? Is that going to be the city's responsibility because it's in the right of way for Eden Prairie Road? Don't know. I'm just throwing this out here. If I lived on Bernie Circle, which is the cul-de-sac to the south, on the south side of Vernon, I would not like having lights on no matter how much you say they're gonna be dimmed, 24-7. I was just looking at Street View on my phone, and there are windows on two of those houses that will be affected. One of them, probably a bedroom upstairs, another house window perhaps. That will be a problem. It would be for me, I know I would not sleep very well if I lived in either of those houses. There's a six foot height limit on fence height, so, If this gets an okay, enough votes to pass tonight, I think something that should also be required is tall, skinny columnar arborvitaes on the south side of Vernon so that those two homeowners on Burney Circle are not kept up at night because 24-7 lights are light and they don't help you sleep. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Weston. Anyone else? Yes, sir.

Just a quick note.

Everyone's been articulate already, but I just wanted to point out two things. I'm Roger Conlon. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Roger. Delegates. gentlemen here, they did emphasize the customer experience. But one of our speakers was emphasizing that we need to consider the residents' experience of having this new facility. So from a qualitative standpoint, this site really has a problem when you consider that going forward over the next 10, 15 years, we're gonna be looking at more and more traffic, more and more density of people needing to get from outside from 62, which 62 is gonna be expanded. So you can imagine that this does become a very busy place. And we have the gentleman who does these traffic studies. We need to project the study as to what this is going to look like five, 10, 15 years from now. Kevin Keys was at that facility. I walked by there, by the way, every morning. I walked my dog by. I used to watch and wave to Kevin Keys. And he had hardly any traffic. He had maybe three, four, five at most a day. And he would repair the cars. It was his hobby. It was more of a hobby than a job. And he was part of our community. He was a wonderful man. And we need to distinguish that with having a commercial entity come into our neighborhood serving people outside our neighborhood. from all over the world, right? And then they do mention bad actors. And that's true, that is a concern. And they're not gonna be our actors. So to me, it's a quality of life issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Connolly.

I'll have to throw it on right after the talk. Good evening, Michael Cashman. I live at 5820 Vernon Lane. What we've heard tonight from the presenters and from Mr. Teague is that this is the best of the worst alternatives. And just because it's the best of the worst alternatives doesn't make it appropriate. Mr. Teague said that we have to amend the code to provide for a community node that serves the neighborhood. We've heard traffic studies, but there's been no evidence presented whatsoever that this benefits the community, benefits the neighborhood. Everything that you've heard, everything that you've been presented with shows that there is no benefit or minimal benefit to the neighborhood. This proposal is a bad idea. It should be rejected. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cashman.

Hi, my name's Corinne Reed, and this is probably about, I don't know, was it 10th time I had to come up here? Because for each time we do planning commission and the board. I've lived in Edina at our house on Eden Prairie Road for almost 30 years. It's been a quiet place, and we really love it. It's home for our family of four. I ask you to support this as an option, having been through all the other options and the reality of this property and what is affordable and what can be done. It checks a lot of boxes for our family and our neighborhood, I believe. It's gonna be a quiet place. The cars are quiet. There is no rooftop deck and we were very worried in the past about alcohol being served or loud crowds after 910 o'clock. People are going to come in here and they're very quiet cars and either when I've gone driven past charging stations, I've been watching him lately and they're either sitting quietly in their car or they're quietly out of their car. in the location in this case, they'd be inside the building. we are not as a family worried about the safety we accept the 24-7 security and with the change on the fence and the gates I think that improves our security in the neighborhood also the other safety thing that I like is that there's not overflow parking on the Eden Prairie Road which was a concern with past constructions people will be just coming and through Vernon to this property. We think it's a benefit to the property to have it in well-repaired, well-kept business, and that's a positive for our neighborhood. and we're looking forward to having a nice, good, well-kept, quiet neighbor, which we feel this would be. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Ms. Reid.

Good evening, Mary Mealander. I've been up here about every time, every proposal that you've had for this project. This is the best that I can think of. Besides, what's the alternative? It's a funny piece of property. And I don't have an EV. I'm not sure I'll use it. But maybe I will in the future have one. And it would be very convenient to use it. So I'm hoping that you will say yes to this. have something finally done with this piece of property. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Melander. Anyone else? Okay, how about online? Do we have anybody that wants to testify that's online? We've been asked to think about making a decision on this case tonight, so what I'm thinking is that we should close the public hearing and then ask questions.

And I think that would be a good sequence for it.

Is there a motion to close the public hearing in this matter?

So moved.

Second. a motion second to close the public hearing in this matter motion by member jackson second by member pierce any further discussion all those in favor of closing the public hearing say aye aye opposed carried the public hearing is closed let's go back through some of these issues that were raised by concerned residents um kind of going in reverse order uh somebody want to address snow removal Maybe the engineer, not the guy from North Carolina.

I imagine you're here to allow him to introduce himself.

Can you guys all hear me? Hi, my name is Vince Barker. I'm with Kimley Horn. We work with Iona. I am actually local. I live in Southwest Minneapolis, so I'm very familiar with snow removal. There are additional parking stalls on the southwest corner of the property. And those two stalls would be used for snow storage in the winter as well. The boulevards would be used for snow removal of the existing sidewalk along Vernon, so that has been factored into our design.

OK, alright, thank you for that. Turn to our city attorney. This is a. These are tough questions here. When the former Supreme Court Justice is standing in front of telling you that you got that you got the legal. You got legal problems. I don't think we do, but I want to hear it from you. His first question Ray raised was the proposal of the proposed zoning appropriate.

Well, I think the council has, is the proposed zoning appropriate? So I think the question that Justice Lillehaug raised was, is this a gas station or does this fit the definition of gas station? I think Director Teague has some information on that and I can jump in and clarify as necessary.

Yes, so our code defines gas station as a principal building and its accessory structures used for the sale of motor fuels and oils. So it was staff's determination that motor fuels, electricity is defined as an alternative motor fuel for transportation. So we believe it's a permitted use.

Were you gonna supplement that?

Well, I think that's a legitimate position to take. I mean, it's not gasoline, obviously. We can all acknowledge that and agree with that. But electricity has become a motor fuel for electric vehicles. So I think it's similar to the modern version of a gas station or motor fuel station.

And how about the neighborhood node question that was raised? meet the definition of a true neighborhood node?

Yeah, we don't have a true definition of neighborhood node. It doesn't specifically say a group of buildings. It talks about, let's see, I can get out the language. The land use description of a neighborhood node is, in general, small to moderate scale commercial, residential, or mixed use buildings serving primarily the adjacent neighborhoods. It does say buildings. It's not ideal. It's the smallest land use category that we have in the comprehensive plan. You may recall some of the other projects that were proposed. I believe it was Green Drop. We proposed a different land use, a new land use category in the comprehensive plan, neighborhood commercial. Just a different name, but it was, again, just allowing small-scale neighborhood use.

So you're comfortable with the zoning designation or the neighborhood node designation?

Yeah, the definite we don't define neighborhood node again. It was just the smallest commercial. Land use category that we had available so we felt comfortable with that.

Mayor, I don't know if it's a legal conclusion, but I think several people, including the first gentleman, pointed out that there's a number of apartment buildings and condo buildings right on this same, to the north on Eden Prairie Road, which are not single-family homes, which presumably do not have chargers in their single-family homes, and it sounded like there was a lot of potential interest from those folks to use this. So, I mean, no one's suggesting it will solely serve the neighborhood, but I think it will serve some people in the neighborhood for certain.

No, I think Mr Pepper has lived there for quite some time and owns one of the condominium units. And certainly knows has been instrumental every one of these. Reviews of every single application that we've looked at so I. I trust his his comments. Mr Conlon was concerned about a commercial entity coming into the neighborhood, but we've already got a commercial designation and entity in that neighborhood in there for 50 years out of business right now, but. I think as you pointed out earlier, if somebody wanted to come in and operate a gas station there right now, they could. If they want to come in and build a car wash, they could.

Yeah, it would just be auto repair if they utilize the existing building. If someone were to do a gas station, because we haven't had a gas station there, they would need variances again for the pump islands, those types of uses.

But under the existing zoning, those are possible uses?

They are permitted uses, correct.

The variance issue aside? Correct, yes. Okay. I'm sure I missed some other questions that came up and other council members may have some. Council Member Pierce.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to follow up on the potential legal issues, I would prefer that we be more confident in our answers for that. I guess my One question is, would you be more confident if you took more time to study these questions? Or are you fairly certain that we'd be OK moving forward? Because my second question is, if we're wrong, what are the consequences?

Well, so I think the way that you could address this would be I guess to clarify the code staff is kind of Determining that this meets the definition of a gas station because that includes the sale of motor fuel, you know if you wanted to amend The code to specifically call out, you know, EV charging stations as a form of gas station. That would be one option for that and What would be the potential consequences? If you approve this, someone could challenge it and argue that it doesn't comply with zoning.

And if that were the case, just thinking about the pyramid, we can actually go through and resolve that as a council.

Yeah, you have the option to amend the zoning code.

To amend the code. Okay.

Okay.

So that was one. And then I had a couple of questions for the owners. I guess a statement. And so, as I mentioned, I walk by there. I don't live there. But if I did, I think I said this the first time you guys were here, I like the design, but I don't wanna see it and I don't wanna hear it. And so if I had lived there, I'd be the same. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see it. And so that to me means probably three things. One, you adjust it for adding the fencing so when cars drive in that the car lights don't go into the neighborhood to the canopy, so the down lighting, I'm still not sure what 50% is and why we need 50%. And so I appreciate that if there are no vehicles there, I think there are no lights on the canopy or it's very dim. One of the, I guess that's a question, but that's what I think I saw in the picture you gave.

Uh, yes, sir. Um, I mean 50%, 25%. I mean, we're, we're open to, you know, discussing and working out what the appropriate level would be. Um, I guess what comes to mind for me is like 0% like that, i guess for our customers you know who might be passing through at night and need to charge like that suggests that we're closed um so we don't really want to give off the you know the impression that we're closed um but you know certainly if and like andreas was saying before this stuff is programmable so if you know we went at 50 and there was still too much and people complained about i mean we can we can drop it from there for sure

Well, I guess I'm referring to, though, in your presentation, you showed three stalls that had light and one that had no car in it and no light was on. And I thought you said the purpose of that was to show

stall an empty stall with no light on yes so just just explain that yeah that was that was like um kind of an older preliminary rendering um when we were still playing with the idea of at night you know when cars are there 100 lighting and when there was no cars there zero um that since has gone to like 50 got it yes so that one's not zero but some form of lighting so

yes customers know that you're open sure yes sir absolutely okay and then the third one uh for me i don't know what you do about this would be noise um and so the the um i people coming in the charge with their radios on you know cranking the tunes or whatever i don't i wouldn't want that either so that's what i mean but i don't want to see it I don't want to hear it. I understand the decibels for charging. But as you mentioned, that noise dissipates the further you get from the center of the source. And so signage, things like that, to just say respect the neighborhood, no radios or whatever, no loud music. How are we addressing that? You got some ideas, okay?

Thank you, Council Member Pearce. Thank you for your feedback. And again, I'll just go over the real quick to address the sound issue with the chargers themselves. One charger is 52 decibels, which is your electric toothbrush sound. Two chargers going on at the same time, a coffee machine. Again, and that's 55 decibels. And all chargers were going off at 60.5 decibels, which is background noise or normal conversation. So the chargers... Would sound like there's just people chatting and talking. And of course, kind of like a gas station or you go to a fueling station, we can 100% prevent anything, just full transparency, right? But to your point, we can add signage, respect our neighborhoods, respect that neighborhood. And there's any neighborhood sound ordinances, we could do some research on that. And just, we can post signage and communicate to our customers what, hey guys, be chill, you know. Something else too to keep in mind is with that additional fencing we switched over to, no more silts in it, less sound escapes. The entire neighborhood on Paper North is being, we're adding landscaping, right? So with that additional fencing, with additional landscaping, and with the charger level, even if all seven went off being around 60 decibels, we're hoping this will take care of any concerns about any noise that could be heard from the station itself. But yes, we will add additional branding and additional signage to the site of be respectful to your neighbors. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Agnew.

Thank you. I don't have any specific questions, but I think I'm ready to share some of my overall thoughts. And first, I just want to thank you all for one, your desire to invest into our community and two, for the investment that you've already made. It's clear that a lot of thought and energy went into this and just really want to thank you for that. You know, we've had a couple of different like similar gas stations slash charging stations come across our kind of docket recently. And I would have loved to see something more like this at the Lincoln and Londonderry area, which is where we're talking about a quick trip. which personally I do want us to get away from a gas station, which is why I love the idea of like a purely electric type facility. And what I really liked about combining that with a Quick Trip is Quick Trip has like a really great, I'll just say, following of people that love the food and kind of that community aspect of it. But this isn't on a highway. And I think that's where one of my main concerns is, is I don't know that this belongs here. I'm comfortable with this site remaining commercial use, but it's something that I want to be directly beneficial for the neighborhoods. And I know that there might be some disagreement about what that means. It sounds like with the condos right there, there could be benefit. But when I think of a neighborhood node or driving benefit to the neighborhood, I want it to be something that more people are excited about. And I also think about when we've had previous proposals, we've said community gathering location where people are coming together and spending time. or where are our high school students working over the summer? What is that community draw? And so I go back to, I'm not opposed to charging, but I think that this pairing of an unstaffed site doesn't quite resonate with that community gathering location that I wanna see. Even as we have folks, I think it was Mr. Pepper referenced wanting his, might forget the age, seven year old son to go across the street for a candy bar. I think that's the kind of story that resonates with what I'm looking for. But my hesitation comes in and I'm like, will the kid have a smartphone? Would my kid have a smartphone that they're able to buy a candy bar with? Or what does that actual experience look like? And would I feel comfortable sending my six and a half year old without staff being there? And so that's where some of the hesitations from me come from. And I think, again, just reiterating, if we're taking this step of a comprehensive plan amendment to make this a neighborhood node, I want it to feel more like the neighborhood know that's right across from my street. I was leaving the other day. We were all going to Town Hall, and the neighbors across the street were also leaving their house at the same time. And I was like, oh, are you going to Snuffy's or Town Hall? And it's the community you just see go towards, gravitate towards these places within our community. And I don't feel that here. So for those reasons, I'm not supportive of this tonight. Thank you.

What's the number of objections?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I think what summarized it for me was that this is a workable solution for an odd piece of property. I thought that really said it perfectly. I want to talk a little bit about my concept of what the neighborhood is. I don't think it's just the adjacent properties. If you come down Vernon and where it meets with Gleason and goes then to the west and then curves up as Lincoln Drive, there's lots of multifamily housing there. And that multifamily housing is old. It's not outfitted for electric chargers. So does it serve the neighborhood? Well, if you're just talking about adjacent properties that's small, although we do have the condominiums and apartments to the west, the whole area, and then you come up and there's the loading. And if you are living in an apartment and you have to charge your vehicle, Sure, you can drive 15 minutes or something, but this is right there in the area, and you can charge your car quickly in a clean area. I think the opposition falls in two complete opposite camps. One is we want a restaurant there, and that was the initial proposal, and we had 50-50, 50% no and 50% yes, and it was a very long and contentious public hearing. I know there are people who want something more, just like member Agnew. Then there are the people who say, I just want residential here. Well, you have a little tiny house that you could build there. If we wanted a tiny house, you'd still have to pay the current owners a lot of money for that piece of property. I don't think they would donate it to Habitat for a tiny house. It's not happening. We have to have something that is going to generate some revenue here. We don't have to, but otherwise, then I think the eminent domain was mentioned. Well, it's going to be eminent domain by zoning if we don't ever zone anything here. If we just wait and wait and wait for this tiny house to appear, that takes away value from the piece of property. I think this is a very smart solution. I really appreciate IANA working with the neighborhood to adjust to it, and I'm in favor.

Thank you. Member Roeser?

I would like to talk about the point in Justice Little Hogs letter that he sent the 4th point. And we did receive a letter from him. Is that there are multiple setback variances to be granted and this says under and I'm not an attorney. I don't know anyway. Anyway, under Minnesota law, variances may be granted only when they are consistent with the comprehensive plan. And. The node that was mentioned neighborhood node it was the reference was not to a single teeny tiny parcel it's now I can't remember what neighborhood was reference, but it was where there are other commercial entities and so I really I think I'd like to have our attorney way in on that point.

So if the council does not approve the comprehensive plan, I would agree the variances would not be consistent with the comprehensive plan. But if you were to amend it to allow commercial uses, then the use would be consistent with the comprehensive plan.

So it's kind of cart before and we've heard this before that we can grant a variance and rewrite our code so that it syncs up and that is something I wrestle with and find it hard to understand. Can we go to the image that shows the zoning? The zoning map, yeah. Thank you. Okay, I keep thinking about this, and at an earlier review, and actually, you know, some people ask, so maybe I've been here 10 times because of the planning commission, and there's been six projects. I've only been here for five of them. But you see that little tiny .3-acre, triangularly-shaped lot, and it stands out. It's a spot, okay? And we are thinking... Of amending our comprehensive plan. So that we can continue to have this used in a way that is different than all of the surrounding property because it's possible that somewhere and and here's where it gets a little experimental because Iona. may have a site somewhere in Georgia that is similar, where there is this one, you know fueling station in a sea of residential. We don't know if it actually exists. We are charting a new course here to see if it can succeed and not be the accessory use that it is with a Hy-Vee store but become the primary use and somehow carry this enterprise. And so we're going to amend our comprehensive plan for this. And the whole reason residential is not feasible is because the parcel sold for nine hundred thousand dollars in october of twenty twenty one i feel like what we see happening here and it's so frustrating and i feel for the residents and I went through this in my neighborhood. I believe it was something like $800,000 was paid for that tiny Burley site and we saw project after project. There was a proposed 13 unit apartment complex that was supposed to go on that site and. The staff report said it wasn't a .27 acre site. It was a 1.27 acre site and the argument was. That conceptually it was connected to a one acre site across the street and down the block. i think when we look at these sites and we look at the history and that was going on back in 2021 so i can understand why someone might think hey this is a good idea if we can do it if this is how it's being treated in the wooddale valley view neighborhood hey it could work here i don't know but i feel like if we move with this we're presenting a situation an opportunity that we really should not be presenting and this is backwards this is like tail wagging the dog. You know, and this is not the way we should be doing land use, so I. Understand member Agnew's concerns. I share those as well, but for me this is about process and this is not a sustainable way to approach land use. When I ran for office I was so frustrated and I talked about bespoke zoning and what we have is bespoke zip land use and it's just. It doesn't make sense to me. Thank you.

Councilmember Pierce. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to start with, wow, there's a lot going on here. I think I'm going to start with We have to face reality for what it is, not for what we wish it to be. And so this is a challenging piece of property. I asked a couple of very pointed questions because there are two hurdles for me that I have to get over. One, the justice talked about. So I don't want to do anything that's illegal at all. And so I don't even want there to be any assumption that this even looks like it could be illegal. And so that's why I asked the questions that I asked. Because I think that that does matter. And so if there are, once we get over that hurdle, the second thing for me is we can't stick the process just for the sake of sticking the process. and I've said this before, we are the council. We have the discretion to make these decisions. And so I have to ask myself the question, then why would we make a decision to do this versus something else? And so that's kind of that's where I'm I'm sitting now and sitting next to my mate My City Council mate here. I agree with member Agnew of the five proposals the only one that I Like did not like Was the first one that one was tough for me to get over those hurdles the pizza shop I thought the pizza shop was a great option. We live, like I mentioned, we live in Highlands. We would have walked to the pizza station from Merritt Circle. We do that every Friday, we eat pizza. And so we would have done that. That felt good to me. But to approve that caused the same two issues that we just talked about, right? We'd have the same land use question. There is a series of variances that we would have to have gone through for that as well. And so the reality is whatever we put there, unless, and I'm not even sure if this is true, so you can check me on this, unless Someone wants to open a two-stall repair shop and that's it. All they're going to do is paint the building blue versus yellow. I think we could do that and not require variances or it even sounded like we still might have to do variances in that case too. But I think that's the only option where there would be no variances. Yes, that's correct, just yes. And we're not gonna get that. And so to me that, leads me to think of this particular option, I would certainly have loved to have had the pizza place. I don't even know if the neighbors all like that option. We had one of the biggest issues there was the smell. And I suppose if I had lived there, I wouldn't want to smell pizza 24-7 either. But with that proposal, we were trying to think about, well, what are ways that we could mitigate those challenges as well? And so now we have an option that's using the exact same building that's there today. There's no food smells. The traffic is calm. I'll just use that term. It's not a gathering space the way that the pizza station would have been. But if the lighting, the noise, if we can deal with those challenges and if it can fit in the neighborhood and I don't have to see it or hear it when I drive by it, relatively speaking, then I think it could be a good fit for this location. And so I would support it because I feel like I can get over those first two hurdles that I talked about. And I think I don't, there's two other things I just mentioned. I don't, I get the point when we say the cost of the land was whatever it was, a million dollars, 900,000 or whatever. I personally don't think about that. I think about, well, this is a project that's come before us, and I try to make the best decision for that particular project. I don't think about who's selling the land. Is this the best thing we could get for a million dollars? I'm not thinking about it in that way. I think this project, if I look at everything that we've had before, I don't know what else could come. But I do feel like I would feel, I can feel good about walking by this site. And so I think it's a good use of the land as long as we are able to get over those first two hurdles.

Thank you member Pierce. Before I make my comments, let's go back to this comp plan amendment because I think in the. In the materials that you gave us for the meeting, it indicates that the action will be by simple majority, but there's two things that we have to do here, and the first thing is the comprehensive plan amendment. That's a four-fifths vote required there. And so what the proposed comp plan change is, the comp plan amendment was to go from, I think, mid-density residential to neighborhood note. So talk to us again a little bit about what If somebody were to say, okay, I'm comfortable with the definition of neighborhood node better than mid-density residential because we know that doesn't work. We've tried to get housing on that site, but I don't like this project because the future use might still be consistent with neighborhood nodes. Talk a little bit more again about neighborhood nodes.

Yeah, you could still deny this particular request as based on the findings in the staff report, it's the size of the variances, it's not consistent with the neighborhood. So yeah, if the comprehensive plan amendment fails, doesn't get four votes, you wouldn't want to approve obviously the site plan and variances.

That's not what, that didn't articulate my question very well. Well, I'm thinking about the reverse. Somebody could potentially vote for the comp plan amendment, but not vote for the project, not vote for the site plan, all right? Because a potential future use could be neighborhood node, and neighborhood node meets their expectations of what they wanted to see for the property. So talk about neighborhood node again. That's what I'm asking you to talk about. If the comprehensive plan were amended to neighborhood node, What would that mean?

Yes, it would mean that it would be guided for, again, it's the description of the land uses. In general, small to moderate scale commercial, residential, or mixed use buildings serving primarily the adjacent neighborhoods. Primary uses encouraged are neighborhood serving retail and services, offices, studios, institutional, and residential.

Okay. So for me, as also having been one of the people on the council, not just member Risser, who's gone through five iterations of this, I've developed a real sensitivity. It's kind of a concentric sensitivity to the immediate neighborhood versus the broader neighborhood because as we've gone through these projects, especially ones involving food, the immediate neighborhood was most opposed to it. And the further you got away, the more people liked the idea of having a place they could come to to gather and get something to eat. And so that was kind of the tension that I saw early on. And I came to the conclusion that I was most immediately concerned about the near neighborhood, which would be Eden Prairie Road folks, kind of to the north. Because the way I go about looking at things is, Is is a project good for the whole city and then balance that against whether or not there could be an adverse impact on the neighborhood that would outweigh the benefits to the city overall? And so the conclusion I came to on those early projects was. Yeah, it would be an adverse impact on the immediate neighborhood to have those two versions I think of food and then that green thumb thing I just thought was a total, whatever that recycling thing was. So, as I said, that's created some great sensitivity for me for the immediate neighborhood and the immediate neighborhood has been very articulate and vocal in what they like and what they don't like. They're not worn out by this process. They're far from it. They're as engaged as you could possibly be, and they're very articulate. And so are the people in the broader neighborhood, which would include Vernon Lane. You get a little bit further over there in the old Vernon, and it's a beautiful neighborhood, but it's not right there. And so for me, I continue to be most sensitive to the immediate neighborhood. that stands the most immediate benefit or impact. And in this situation, the voices in the immediate neighborhood for me have been the most compelling in thinking about this project meeting their expectations on a quiet neighborhood, no traffic on Eden Prairie Road. They can work with the company to get the lights to the level that they want them to be at night. And so I'm fully supportive of this project, even though would I like something, would I have preferred housing there? Yeah, I think we all would have, but it just didn't work. You can get into these conversations like member Richard. I don't agree at all on how to use these crazy looking parcels. You know, I feel like what happened in her neighborhood was made her neighborhood better. She thinks it made it worse. So it forked got townhouses on a small piece of property where there was something that wasn't so good there before. Anyway, different views of the world. So. I'm in favor of the project and I'm in favor of the comp plan amendment to change to a neighborhood node designation because depending on whether or not we agree on whether this project should, the site plan should be approved, it seems to me that neighborhood node is still a pretty good designation for a change in the comp plan from medium density residential. So a person could vote for, A change in the comp plan and vote against the rezoning or the site plan and and maybe would project would fail. Maybe it would pass. I don't know. I don't know where people's votes are, but I just point that out as a possibility. And we're going to vote on the comp plan first. And if we don't give four fifths vote on the comp plan change, then we don't even have to talk about the next step, which is the site plan approval, because we don't have the change that we need in the comp plan to guide the whole thing.

So, let's, let's enter. Mayor, just one point on that. You still, there is, there'll still be an application pending, so you still have to take action on it, but you would have to deny it because it would not, if you don't approve the compliment. We just can't ignore it.

Yeah, you can't ignore it, so you just have to deny it.

It's destined for failure because it doesn't fit the zoning, so it's got to, but it's still got to be acted on. Correct. Yep.

Mayor?

Yeah, Councilmember Agnew.

Thank you. Is there then value in switching the two? Like if we voted first on the site plan, would we then therefore not need to vote on the comprehensive plan amendment if it didn't pass or we still need to vote on both?

OK, you need to vote on both, yes.

So. Resolution 2026 dash 28 is the comprehensive plan amendment. And that amendment would change the comprehensive plan from MDR medium density residential to neighborhood node. Let's see where we go on that and then that'll. Determine the fates of this. fifth iteration of a project at this site.

Mr. Mayor, I have a question. If it's neighborhood node, housing is an acceptable option, correct? Correct. Okay, thank you. I thought I heard him say that too. Yeah, thank you, but that's a good question. Just need to remind her.

Yeah, so is there a motion to adopt resolution 2026-28, which was the comprehensive plan amendment, which would change the comprehensive plan designation from MDR, medium density residential, to neighborhood node?

So moved.

Second. All right, we've got a motion and a second to change the comprehensive plan, amend it to change the density from medium density residential to neighborhood node for this particular site. Any further discussion on that? Yes, in fact, let me point out first was member Jackson made the motion member appear seconded it. Now I'm going to go for discussion to member Agnew.

Thank you. I have a just a clarifying question. From like policy or practice wise. So if we. Approve this, but were to deny the site plan. The comprehensive plan would still be updated. Is that correct?

That's correct. Just to be clear on the votes, the comprehensive plan vote requires four approving. The site plan with variances requires three votes.

Thank you. And the next question then, if the comprehensive plan amendment is not approved tonight, what are potential ramifications of that for other projects? If there's another project that was asking to update this to a neighborhood node, would that impact that or would we vote on that again at that point in time?

Yeah, you would vote on that again at that time.

Is there any... one-year process or any kind of limit on when this particular question could be posed to our body again?

Yes, so if this project were to fail this evening, they would have to wait one year to come back and ask for the same request. Stationed pizza was denied a little over a year ago. That year I believe is up so they could come back and and make the same request.

Okay. Thank you So the the one-year limit is tied to the applicant It is not tied to any of the decisions that we're making as a council. Correct. Thank you.

It's it's tied to the particular application From that applicant. Yeah

Any other questions or comment? All right. All those in favor of approving the comprehensive plan amendment say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Nay.

Comprehensive plan amendment fails. All right. Resolution 2026-29. is the site plan and variances proposal for the IANA rechargery. And is there a motion to adopt resolution 2026-29?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to deny resolution 2026-29. Okay. I will second that.

All right, we've got a motion and a second to deny Resolution 2026-29, which would be the site plan and variances approval for the old Kevin Keefe site, the Iona rechargery matter.

Mayor, just so I'm totally clear before you vote, if this is a motion to deny, then a vote in favor would be in favor of denial. Is that the way it's structured? Right. Okay, I want to make sure that was clear before the vote.

That's the way I interpreted the motion from Member Jackson. Okay, thanks. Just wanted to make sure.

Yeah, she's...

Moving to have us deny the site plan and variances. All right, any further discussion on that one? All those in favor of denying the site plan and variances embodied in resolution 2026-29 say aye. Aye. Opposed, aye. Resolution's denied, project is denied. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming up.

Thank you, everybody, for your time.

We appreciate it. Well, maybe Station Pizza will come back with a drive-in. We're up here with a takeout. Yeah. That was a better way to handle it was with a denial. leave, please do so. Otherwise, yeah, here's the door is going to close. It's a little noisy out there. Next matter before us is Resolution 2026-30, which accepts donations on behalf of the city. Is there a motion to adopt that resolution?

So moved. Second.

Motion by Member Jackson. Second by Member Pierce to adopt Resolution 2026-30, accepting donations on behalf of the city. Any further discussion? All those in favor of adoption of resolution 2026-30 say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carried. The resolution is adopted. This reporting period, we've got all donations were to the Park and Rec Department. Matt and Jennifer Wilson, $350 for a tree donation. Thank you very much. And then three bench donations, Bruce and Diane Kirking, Jonathan Gross, and Anne Kraft, all $3,200 donations for benches, memorial benches. So thanks to all of those folks in our community for those donations and those memories from loved ones. And next we got a report from Sharon Allison, excuse me. This is an item report regarding the recommendation to limit in-person primary election voting to the 18-day early voting period that would, I think, correlate with what's happened at the legislature.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, Mayor, Council Members. This request tonight is for you to consider, based on historical voter usage trends, projected cost savings, staffing considerations, and operational impacts, I recommend that you consider approving limiting in-person primary election voting at City Hall to the statutory 18-day early voting period. This request is based solely on a new legislation that was passed this session, HF 4240. And this gives cities the option of approving to have elections for the full 46 days of voting or to have elections for the first 28 days or the last 18 days. My recommendation to you is to approve for the primary only to have 18 days of voting rather than going for the full 46 days. My recommendation is based solely on the data that we have in the past four years. We have collected enough data to show that Voting patterns have really changed. We are seeing a higher turnout of voters who do prefer to vote at City Hall. However, for the primary, it is generally a much lower turnout. Even though in Edina, we do have a higher turnout in general, 75 to 85% of voters generally turn out for the general election. But looking at the data for the primary, it's a much lower turnout that we're seeing. So based in that data set that we have, my recommendation is that we consider being open only for those 18 days of early voting. One thing that I want to specify, too, is that as part of the law, there were two categories of voting that was created. One is absentee voting. So day one through day 28 is considered to be absentee voting. the 18 days after is considered to be early voting. And so those two distinct categories are now in place and the idea behind that is to somewhat mimic what is happening on election day during those 18 days of voting. Another thing I wanted to point out too is that even though we would only be open for 18 days, this is not taking away anybody's option or desire to vote. There still will be plenty of options for voters to vote outside of those, or if those first 28 days were removed. Voters will still be able to vote by requesting a ballot by mail, a stamped envelope comes with them to their house, they can vote at home, and they can mail that right back to the county. If they would like, they can request that ballot by mail, they can vote at home, they can drop off that voted ballot here at City Hall, and we would get that transported to Hennepin County in a safe manner. The only thing is that for those who generally would vote between those first 28 days, they would need to make a new plan. And the new plan might be come to City Hall during those 18 days, or another plan might be go to your polling place. That is always an option to go to the polling place. And one thing I wanted to point out too is that when you vote on election day, your employer is required to give you a couple hours time off to vote. That is not an option that is available during the absentee voting period. So with that, I can stand for any questions you have. Thank you.

So my question is really around thinking about that first 28 days that we're considering removing. And I know that there's been a lot of dialogue at the national level about iterations or changes to voting. My concern is, like right now, I feel very confident in us moving forward with this change. I think that it makes sense. Absentee voting is still something that's widely available here in Minnesota. They can still come and do the 18 days of early voting. I think that there are enough other options that still make voting just as accessible. My concern comes into if there are changes then at the federal level that make absentee voting less accessible, what levers we might have then, like are we putting ourselves in a position where we then are subject to those harsher kind of constraints and therefore maybe shouldn't do this to keep our options open? But I don't know if you've thought about that layer of it.

I haven't thought about that layer, but just so that you know, you would be making that decision only for the 2026 primary. You're not locked in year over year. You can always change to 428, for example. If we decided that we're seeing that there will be an expected higher turnout for the primary, then we can go back to being open for the 46 days. So I'm not sure how a federal decision would impact us locally, but we're not locked in for the 28th election cycle, for example.

Thank you very much. That helps.

Other questions? Yes, Councilmember Jackson.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have two questions. First of all, this was legislation that was passed this year in 2026, correct? Correct. Okay, so it was fully vetted at the legislature, lots of testimony and witnesses, and it passed a divided legislature. So sort of what we used to dream about was election reform that was bipartisan. Yes. So thank you. My second question is, is there a witness requirement for a mail-in ballot?

Yes. So that would be the one potential disadvantage if somebody is living alone. But that has always existed, right? For anyone who's living alone and who wants to vote at home, they would need to go find a neighbor, for example, who could be their witness.

And if they were to come to City Hall, could they ask a city employee to be a witness?

As long as you're bringing in their ballot with them.

Yes, they bring in their ballot just like they would go to their neighbor's house. Somebody here could help them witness it. Because if I remember correctly, I did the vote by paper and it was just like doing it at home, only you're doing it right here. It really wasn't any difference except that the city, the election judge could witness it. So if somebody really needs a witness, they can come here and we'll find a witness for them. Okay, wonderful. Thank you.

Anybody else? No? Okay. So in summary form, this affects the primary only?

Correct.

This particular year?

Correct.

And as Member Jackson points out, consistent with what was done on a bipartisan basis at the legislature?

Yes, correct.

Nothing to do with the general election?

I'm not recommending this for the general because with the general, we do see a higher turnout of voters. And if I... If this was done for the general, we would be shifting during those first 28 days of voting, we would be shifting approximately 3,000 voters over to the 18 days, and that would be on top of nearly 11,000 voters. So we would end up processing 15,000 voters approximately in City Hall during those last 18 days. That would be crushing. So I'm not recommending that for the general.

Okay. All right, very good. Council Member Peirce, did you have a question? Okay. All right, so the, Motion would be to approve limiting the in-person primary election voting at City Hall for 2026 for the statutory 18-day early voting period. I guess you say beginning with the 2026 primary election. Correct, Mr. Mayor. It'll cover this year. If we change our mind, we can do so next year. Yes. Okay. Is there a motion to that effect?

So moved. Second.

member Agnew moves, member Pierce seconds, approving limiting in-person primary election voting at City Hall in Edina for the statutory 18-day early voting period beginning with the 2026 primary election. Any further discussion?

Yes. I'd like to amend that. Um approving limiting in person primary election voting at City Hall for the statutory 18 day early voting period for the 2026 primary election. I I don't want. I don't like that beginning with getting for the instead of beginning with say for the 2026 primary election. That means it's just a one time only. Change and we don't have to come back and change it back for the general election. You know, if your clerk, Allison gets hit by a bus and we forget, we don't want to be stuck with that for the general election.

Make her in the second or comfortable with that. So the the motion be to approve limiting in person primary election voting at City Hall for the statutory 18 day early voting period for the 2026 primary election.

Yes, thank you.

Any further discussion? All those in favor of the adoption of the motion as stated, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carried? That motion's adopted and that'll be the process in place for the 2026 primary election only. And then we've got a quarterly financial update.

I don't know if you're gonna handle that.

Yeah, thank you, Your Honor.

That's part of my report. Generally, we include this report as in the council packet. Things are looking good on both the revenue side and the expense side in the first quarter of 2026. TWO OTHER ITEMS THAT WERE NOT PART OF MY REPORT TONIGHT. ONE IS TO LET YOU KNOW WE HAVE A JOINT MEETING WITH THE SCHOOL BOARD SCHEDULED FOR JULY 21ST FROM 5 TO 7 P.M. THE SCHOOL BOARD AND THE COUNCIL WILL DISCUSS EARLY CHILDHOOD KIND OF BIRTH TO K EDUCATION AND CARE OPTIONS AND REALLY REVOLVING AROUND FACILITIES. they have some wishes for a new facility in town they want our support for it and they want us to help them and so we want to have a discussion about that and so we'll do that here in in city hall and it will substitute for your work session so five to seven so half an hour early and we'll be upstairs the other item was we heard uh quite a bit about wooddale avenue bike lanes tonight and uh one of the things that we one of the uh calendar items we wanted to correct is that we had originally planned to have that in front of the council on on june 16th but that has shifted we have some issues with i think is it xl or center point one of the major utilities is not going to be ready to move forward with the with the project preparation for that road for this year so this this decision is pushed back to July 21st but something is going to happen something needs to happen to that road surface this year there is a plan for resurfacing and this is a part this is the time if you if people have a wish to to make this different this is the time to express it but we'll need a decision from you on that night so we can't it back to the Transportation Commission or appoint a citizen task force or something. We're going to have to have a decision that evening so that we can keep the project moving forward for this year. That's all I got.

Alright, I'm very sure anything for us tonight.

I can't believe it's June and the United Art Fair is starting so gotta mention that starts on Friday.

yes thank you so this morning the application for our new city manager went live and or yesterday i believe um and so the application period is open until june 29th you can find it at ddahumanresources.com and i encourage people to to take a look at it um i think we the profile is is really comprehensive and filling it out. Manager Neal, my goodness, you do a lot. It's almost superhuman. So hopefully we can find a replacement for you. But it was very comprehensive. And I thought it was really nicely done by DDA and with input from Member Pierce as well. So that's the main announcement I have. I heard from a resident they really like the Facebook posts on the Braemar reconstruction. And she said, make sure and say something. It's really nicely done to our communications staff. We were at Edina U. Remember, Pierce and I were. And remember, I knew we were here. No, it was just the two of us. OK. And we got to work with the graduation of that organization. If you haven't done Edina U and you are interested in city government, next year, sign up. People just loved it. They had a great time. And I want to thank the staff for putting that on and this lovely community engagement activity. I did walk with the mayor and we walked around Roslyn Park and boy, it's going to be a lot of really neat stuff when it's done. I'm I want it to be done, but it's it was fun. So thanks for the folks who came out.

Thanks for doing that. All right, member Pierce. From me tonight.

Thank you. So I know we have talked a couple of times that various. proposals that we've had in front of us, that one of the things that I've heard from residents is kind of the cost of childcare and the availability of childcare. And I think right now there's really three things that I hear about the most. One, cost and availability of childcare for that birth to kindergarten. I also hear from a lot of parents who speak about the availability of the after school care during the school year. And then the third, something that's been I think more top of mind for parents over the last couple of months is kind of just like the mental toll of figuring out the summer care for when school is not in session. So it was because of kind of all of these conversations that I've been having that I reached out to Manager Neal and just asked to understand and potentially collaborate with the school board. So just wanted to thank you for driving that discussion. And then I'm also going to be meeting with a couple of representatives just to understand too what might be happening at the state level that we can then take back to this community as well.

thank you for that and i'm excited for that conversation on july 21st good um art fair good catch on that and uh mention it again mentioning it again uh all weekend long i think it starts on friday uh and then also on friday is a blood drive that's underway um and it will be held out at Memorial Blood Center will be out at Lifetime Fitness at Southdale on Friday. Looking for qualified donors to donate blood. There's a shortage apparently in Minnesota and we need to be mindful of that. So folks in a general audience that might be watching the meeting, keep that in mind. If you're willing to go over and donate blood on Friday, you can do it at Lifetime. or near lifetime. The mobile unit will be there and then we talked about this. I think earlier maybe remember Jackson talked about it and that is grooves and food. One of the big community builder events that started last year ran through every Tuesday night in June and they started again tonight. Of course we couldn't be there because of City Council. But I think both of us will be there next week and then not be able to be there the following week and then the last week. But for those of you that haven't been out to Centennial Lakes on a Tuesday night for that grooves and food in June, you gotta get out there. People are loving it. And it's just a great community builder, as I said earlier. So that's it for me. Anybody else that prompt them for anything else? Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved to 2nd.

Member Jackson moves member Agnew seconds, a motion to adjourn the meeting of the City Council this Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 at 1046 PM. Any further discussion? All those in favor of German say aye, aye, opposed. Carry no nays. We stand adjourned.