Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

submitted have been received and read prior to the start of this meeting. You do not need to submit the same feedback in another way. All feedback is considered equally regardless of the way in which it was submitted. Tonight, there's one public hearing. If you would like to speak during community comment or a public hearing, please note that the process has changed. All public commenters should state their name when beginning their remarks, but we no longer require com commenters to state their address. Instead, please fill out a speaker registration card with your address and hand it to senior communications coordiner coordinator Lauren Sevener before speaking. So, with that, I'll call the meeting to order and ask for a roll call.

Commissioner Brennan here. Commissioner Haniman here. Commissioner Day here. Commissioner Just here. Commissioner Smith here. Commissioner Felt here. Commissioner Nelson here. Chair Elkre here. First item of business is to approve the meeting agenda for this evening. Is there a motion for that? Motion to approve the meeting agenda. There second. Uh, okay. Roll call, please. Commissioner Brennan, I. Commissioner Honaman, I. Commissioner Day. I. Commissioner Smith. I. Commissioner Feld. I. Commissioner Nelson. I. Chair Elkar.

I. Next item of business is to approve the meeting minutes from April 29th. Is there a motion or any changes that need to be made? Motion to approve the April 29th meeting minutes. Second. Roll call, please. Commissioner Brennan. I. Commissioner Hanimman. I. Commissioner Day. I. Commissioner Smith. I. Commissioner Felt. Hi. Commissioner Nelson. Hi. Chair Elker.

Hi. Rather than go through the prelude to the community comment, since I don't see anyone in the room who looks like they're ready to make a comment, we might just move beyond that, unless I'm wrong. Anyone in the room for community comment this evening? All right, then we'll move to our first public hearing. Their only public hearing is the zoning ordinance amendment, preliminary reszoning and site plan for 4200 76th Street West, Salvation Army facility. And we believe we've seen a sketch plan for this in January. Uh and Carrie Teague will lead the discussion. Thank you, chair, members of the commission. Um I have a bit of a knee issue going on, so that's the reason I'm sitting over here for the presentation instead of up front tonight. I can only stand for so long. So yes, this is a site that you are familiar with. We did a sketch plan review a couple of uh couple of months back. So, the request is an ordinance amendment resoning site plan uh for Salvation Army. The property is located on 76th Street. The request is to remodel and reuse the existing building on the site. It's about 28,000 square feet in size. 18,000 square feet of the space would be used for the retail portion and about 9,000 square feet for the warehouse and drop off. So the map on the screen is the zoning map and I wanted to highlight here note along 76th along the north side of the street we've got five different zoning classifications within that short block. We've got highdensity residential to the west. So starting from the west and moving to the east, then we've got a singular property that is planned office

district one. We have two planned industrial districts including one of the sites that we're looking at this evening. The purple is a PUD that is the sound multif family residential development. And we've got another individual parcel that's PID. And then on the corner of 76th and France is another planned office district, planned office district two. To the south of this site, we've got primarily the yellow is the planned industrial district and orange planned office district. So despite all of the different zoning districts along this street, this whole area is guided for office residential use. When we look at the land use category um office residential within the comprehensive plan it states that the primary uses are office attached or multif family housing secondary uses being limited retail. You may recall when we did this sketch plan a few months back. It was staff's opinion that a comprehensive plan amendment was needed with this request. This issue came up at the city council and the way staff was viewing it is we were looking at it as lot by lot if it was a secondary the primary uses on one site should just be office or multif family residential our city attorney has advised that we need to look at this o area as a whole and limited retail um is a use that's allowed within that district. So that given the the city attorney is a pine that we don't need a comprehensive plan amendment that that's that changes staff's opinion um drastically on this one. So here's a look at the existing building. Again, it would be um just

remodeled uh for the space. The site plan wouldn't uh necessarily change. This is a similar diagram that we looked at as part of the sketch plan. all of the drop off um donations would be inside the building. There wouldn't be any outside storage. Um you can see um customers would loop around the building, drive through and then out. The only change to the site plan would be landscaping that's added. They're proposing some uh landscaping, some yearround uh evergreen uh plantings along the north lot line. We've got highdensity residential to the north, so that would provide some screening there. and then trees added along the south and east lot lines. That would be a code compliant landscape plan. So, the request here requires a zoning ordinance amendment to allow secondhand stores that exceed 2500 square ft in size in the plan commercial district. So, currently we allow a secondhand store, but they're limited to just 2500 square ft in size. Uh second request is a resoning of the site from planned industrial district to planned commercial and then site plan review. This is the pyramid of discretion that has been given to cities from the League of Minnesota cities just to point out how much discretion that the city has in request like this because there's a zoning ordinance amendment as well as a resoning. We're down in that green area uh area at the bottom of the pyramid where the city does have its most discretion within your staff report. Staff has um included alternatives both for approval and denial of the of this request. So looking at the compliance table, there would be some nonconformities creating the PCD standards are slightly different from the current uh planned industrial district, but they would just

those are existing conditions. uh no change um existing in terms um no change with the with the proposed building in in terms of parking stalls. They would be code compliant. Um a parking study was done and determined that actually our code required stalls. Um the demand for this use would be uh less than what's actually required by code. In terms of our floor area ratio requirements, this would be well under the code requirement of 1.5 at three. Building coverage is slightly exceeds the the 30% standard, but again, no addition to the building. It's would be an existing condition. Primary issues to consider. Um first, is the zoning ordinance amendment reasonable? And is the proposed reszoning to PCD2 reasonable? So staff is in support of this request. Um, first going through the zoning ordinance amendment. Again, secondhand stores are currently allowed in the in the PCD zoning districts at a limited scale. Uh, secondhand stores like Salvation Army or Goodwill. They really function the same as any other retail use. And that beared out. We did a little bit of a a study of adjacent cities. Eden Prairie, St. Louis Park, Richfield, and Bloomington all allow secondhand stores in their commercial zoning districts. they don't differentiate between um new and secondhand retail and I think if we expanded that search that would likely be the case as well with other cities. Uh pawn shops would be continued uh to be prohibited. So staff is in support of the ordinance amendment. In terms of the reszoning uh we find that the uh the zone the reasonzoning criteria would be uh would be met. The reasonzoning would not be detrimental to properties surrounding the site. Again, the site plan and building would not change. The landscaping would be added to enhance

the site. There are several uses on 76 that are similar to retail. All of the uses along that street again are allowed within the comprehensive plan. The the planned industrial and planned office districts uses are allowed in both of those districts. Like an office use is allowed in both districts. We also have a health club um just to the south of the site. The fire station is to the south and there's also a bank along the street. So, the use is is generally consistent with with the area and it wouldn't uh result in an overly intensive land use. A traffic study was done by Stantech and Associates and the conclusion was there's no improvements needed to any of the adjacent roadways. Ed Terhar is with us this evening um virtually per our our usual standards with having Ed to answer any questions that you might have in regard to the traffic study. So with that staff is recommending approval of both the ordinance amend well the three the three requests the ordinance amendment the resoning and the site plan. So we would recommend that uh you recommend the council approve that. Uh with us this evening we have Tom Canfield from Salvation Army and Joe Becker and Ted Carlson from uh Carlson Companies. And with that I will ask them to um step forward. They don't have a formal presentation but just to introduce their team and then we can answer any questions you have following that.

Good evening. As Carrie alluded to, I'm Joe Becker with Carlson Partners. Um we're here again with the Salvation Army to kind of officially present the proposal um that we were here back in January kind of just discussing via sketch plan. Um I'll keep this brief because Carrie covered a lot of the points. Um and really I just want to add a few more um beyond that. You know, at its core, our request is just about adapting an underutilized and currently vacant industrial building um to better serve present- day community needs. And second to that, it's a donationbased operation that's diverting usable goods from landfills um with 100% of proceeds supporting the Salvation Army's uh nonprofit mission. Um thank you for hearing from us. Um and Tom and I are here uh to answer any questions uh that you guys may have for us.

All right. Thank you very much and thanks for coming again tonight. Any questions from the commission to start us off will be Merryweather. Can I ask you about um so the drop off is going to be in entirely inside, right? Fully enclosed. Yes, fully enclosed. Okay. And the waste and recycling is going to be inside that same area. Yeah. So, well, Tom, can you kind of explain the typical waste process? Sure.

We would um recycle all clothing, metal, anything that uh would be deemed recyclable or garbage inside the building. Okay. And then uh we use our own transportation to remove garbage from the building. And um we have a contract with a garbage hauler that takes that away. Okay. And then um you have a system where you move goods from store to store, right?

In some cases. So we have stores in the metro area that aren't supported with enough donations. And so, um, for instance, if there's a location that has more than they can handle, they could end in a end up in a different community. Um, we also have an e-commerce store and so we'd be looking for e-commerce items that we would transport to our e-commerce uh production area. When we studied Edina, the data that we got was from our pickups in Adina. Um, and forgive me, I don't have the exact figures, but it was in the tens of thousands of pickups that were done over a a period of time. And that's how we study to find good locations to go to so that we don't have to send diesel trucks in. We can have people come and drop off at their convenience at our location. So, we expect to be um to have many donations and we would hope to leave all of those donations in the Adina location other than what would be deemed necessary to sell online.

So, what would you kind of estimate um you know trucks coming in or going out or trailers? One truck a day. Yep. A a semi-trail or No, a 20 foot box truck. 20 foot box. And it comes and goes. It could also park behind the building. I'm I'm sorry. It could also park behind the building. Does it come and go every day or does it

It comes uh in that location, I would expect based on our current schedule would show up about 1:00. It would drop off whatever the store needed um in, you know, production supplies and it would take out whatever the store needed to have removed from the back room and drive back to Minneapolis and that would happen one time a day and they'd be there for approximately 45 minutes. Okay. And then the um garbage pickup, is that as needed or is it once a week? It's on that same truck. On that same truck, you do everything on that truck. Everything right there. Okay. And then handle it somewhere else.

Yes. Yeah. We have a a a flow center in Minneapolis where we handle all do our bailing. We wouldn't be bailing there. We wouldn't be doing any of the recycling there. We'd just be removing it, getting it to our main center for recycling. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Anyone else? Claire,

um can you share a little bit about how the parking lot is getting sort of restriped as the image that we see currently the left hand side is actually the parking lot of the adjacent property and just the green and the red arrows are nice but um often people don't follow perfect um methods of cir circulating in a parking um in a parking circumstance. So just wondering what kind of conversations you might have had next door how we're going to sort of um reconfigure or restripe the parking lot to just make sure that um traffic can move about safely. Yeah, the main amount of striping is going to be on our property line. And then ultimately with the roundabout curves and the signage that we'll have, um we're fairly confident that we won't have any issues.

There would be a a like a sign. Yeah. Yeah. Some signage. Yeah. That answer your question? Do you own both buildings? We do not own the building. We represent the Salvation Army. Okay. Um, yes. Are there other questions? Claire, was that Do you have anything else? And there's a crossaxis easement existing between the two properties. There is. Okay. Yes.

Yep. I guess I would just um as you continue to refine the design challenge you to think of um whether that's with medians at the end of the parking lot and some vegetation or just I see a lot of potential conflicts and people maybe trying to cut across from the other property and then um some pinch points. So I just look at more visual cues that you can give people to flow of traffic safely um as people also then go in and out of the retail component. Yeah, absolutely. We The parking lot does get a pretty striping and painting and there's lots of arrows. Um, typical with all of the Salvation Army Goodwill stores.

Quincy all

Yeah, thank you. You know, just to follow up on that question, um I've used uh not Salvation Army, but I think that location in in St. Louis Park, um right next to Lifetime uh forgot the name of it right now is blanking on me. Goodwill. Sorry. Yes, thank you. Goodwill. And sometimes the queuing uh during the week is is is crazy, right? um you want to get to the gym, but that queue wraps all the way around the building. And once you get into that space, you cannot get out. You have to stay there until you get through the uh the uh Goodwill. In this diagram here, I could see where the queueing would make sense cuz you want the longer path for cars to queue. But if you're parked in that back parking lot and you want to get out and there's a queue there, how do you how do you plan on getting cars out? um you know uh from the back lot which was on the north side of the building there's a queue. How do you plan to get vehicles out if they have to get out?

Thank you for the question. Uh our it is our intention to sign all the back parking lot spaces as employee parking only and having all of our customers in front of the building. It was uh uh something that we had discussed when we originally looked at the parking lot. And um our feeling is we have two shifts uh that run anywhere from 8 to 6 hours at a time. And if employees back there are in need to get out and cars are stacked, we would use employees to help direct that traffic out.

Thank you. Um what what are your thoughts on how many employees or how much stalls you think you're going to use up um on a full production day fully staffed? Do you think it's going to be like 20 employees that parked in the in the in the lot or or or less than that?

It'll be less than that. Currently, we have about 20 to 30% of our employees who drive to work. Most actually use public transportation. We'll have a total of 21 employees uh staffed in this location, but not all 21 will be working at the same time. We expect to have between eight and 10 in our busiest times. So, we'd be really looking at four to five cars. Thank you. You're welcome,

Joe. Thanks. I'm new to the planning commission. I think you guys were here in January and I did watch it online uh in an attempt to do some homework. Um this question might be for Carrie. Um if it moves from PID to PCD, this is probably something I could have uh researched myself, but are there any hypothetical uses that would be no longer permitted? Moving away from P to PCD. Uh yes, it would be the light industrial type uses. Offices are still allowed in the commercial district. So it would be those industrial type uses that would not be allowed now.

No longer be allowed. Okay. Okay. It's all ahead.

Brian for Carrie. Um, so looking at PCD1 and all the different primary uses that are listed out in there, it seems like there was it was intentional. It's, you know, odd that there's, I guess it was pointed out in the packet that we think it odd that there's language in here that you wouldn't exceed 2500 square feet of gross floor area for secondhand stores, but that actually exists for a lot of primary uses in PCD1. So why would we essentially just strike it just for this property here alone? Like that seems odd to me that we would one property, one use, we would get rid of that requirement if it was built built into the structure of PCD1 and the intent of PC1 was to keep these uses more limited in size.

Yeah. So the the the PCD1 standards follow through for all the zoning districts. So it would be for PCD 1,2 and three. Um, if you wanted to separate it to just allow those smaller uses in PCD1, we could amend the code that way as well. So, it's just PCD2 um, PCD3. Can you say that in terms of it carrying through the different PCD districts? which I know usually a lot PC2 3 will say that it allows a lot of the primary uses that PCD1 do. So carrying through what do you exact uh just maybe explain that a little differently.

Yeah. So for this you could just leave the PCD1 standard as it is.

And then in PCD2 we could add it as the proposed language talks about where there's not the size limitation. So the size limit would stay in PCD 1 and the size limitation would go away in PCD 2 or three. You could make that recommendation to the city council as well. If you're not comfortable with having this type of use in the 44th and France um area, it would include Valley View, Wooddale, you know, our PCD1 zoning districts. There's not a lot of opportunity to have a large site within those zoning districts, but is it could be possible?

Yeah, I just was trying to think through the ramifications, you know, changing the code just for the for the one for the one property and then how that could affect other things later on. Um, so, okay. Thanks. Anyone else with question? So 44th in France and Wooddale and Valley View are PCD1 and this area is plan commercial. The reasonzoning that's proposed would be plan commercial two. Plan plan commercial too.

Right. And that was a question I had earlier too about how to protect our kind of neighborhood nodes. Um, and I think you're right. There's not room or space and I think the expense would be extreme. It'd be difficult to get those in these neighborhood nodes, but it is something to consider. Anyone else? I got a couple. I think they're all for Carrie. So, it's I think it's true that there's a as you mentioned, there's a variety of districts in this area already. a lot of zoning a variety of different zoning districts in this area, but it seems that the vast majority of them are uses that are allowed in P because they're POD. Correct.

So, so would you agree that this is a little bit unique in that perspective? Yes, I would agree. Yeah, we're needing to create a a new zoning district to accommodate.

Okay. And I I I grant what it said in the deck about this not being a big box retailer, but it is pretty big. Um I mean 18,000 square feet, a full-size basketball court's about 4,500 square feet. This is four basketball courts of retail space. So, it's not a small nichy boutique, it's a big retail space. Um, and I know from my prior work that say a tractor supply is about 20,000 square feet of retail. Seems like, not to say they would, but it seems like if we were to reszone to PCD2, once Salvation Army is done with it, a tractor supply could come in and build a store there. Retail business. Okay. So, so there there are some downstream effects that come with reszoning like this. And do you think as a as a matter of kind of a slippery slope argument, I'm interested if others on the commission have a point of view about this, too. If we approve this reszone to PCD2, I wonder if other developers or other owners of some mature buildings in this area that are currently zoned PID might say, "Hey, PCD is an option. I didn't realize that." Seems like that could be the case. And they would they'd have to come before us because it would be a reszone. But that does seem to set a precedent even if an informal one. And then on the office residential, I know we're not voting on that, but I'm

just trying to understand because last time we saw this in January, it was we were going to have to change the uh it was a allowed secondary use in office residential, right?

That was one of the options. Yes. Yeah. So what we are now to understand is that on your can we look at that slide where it had the do you still have that slide? The land use map and site location that showed the comprehensive plan descriptions the map that was in the Yeah, that one. So, what I'm understanding is that the city attorney says that a secondary use doesn't mean secondary within a parcel. It means secondary within an area. So, that means a certain amount of parcels in that it looks like lavender here. There's a certain amount of parcels in that lavender area can be retail rather than a certain amount of each parcel being retail. So some parcels can be entirely retail. Now is that just in this how big a pool are we talking about? Is it within a quarter of a mile? Because there's a lot of parcels there that are lavender. Is it just those parcels or is it all office residential in the city? And what is when does it become a primary use? Yeah, I guess that that's for the you all to make on a case-byase basis. You know, um if we had a run on people requesting commercial zoning um within this area, you know, the city has discretion to say no to that. So, what that fine line is, I'm not sure where you would draw it, but you would look at each one on a case-by case basis. The O district extends further up north there. There's a lot on the west side of France.

There's some along 169. There's some on the Yeah, there's some on the east side of Cahill, right? Which Yeah, you can see some

which you would say, well, maybe some of that maybe I should be thinking about building a store there. Okay. Commissioner, can I just open Ted Carlson of uh Carlson Partners, thank you, Director Teague and commissioners. Um I think as you know, we tried to put this together and work with staff to give it a lot of thought about how we protect the city from some of the things you've raised here tonight. And if I'm not mistaken, Carrie, the word secondhand stores would be added to the code. Correct.

Uh not added to the code. It's just the the size limitation would go away. So, the size limitation, but um I think previously what the limiting factor was secondhand stores not exceeding 2500 square ft. So, we thought that that was pretty exclusionary because there's really nowhere in the city that we could go, right? Mhm. So I think for us as we think about it, the limiter for the city is this is um secondhand stores still excluding spawn shop pawn shops. So it's almost like a limiter on what frankly this is referring to. The change is just referring to secondhand stores is how we see it as an occupant.

Okay. Thank you. Mhm. And then one of one other question, Carrie, on that. I didn't have a chance to look at it this afternoon, but it seems like in other um districts on our comprehensive plan, there are primary uses and secondary uses. Uh in addition to office residential, have we looked I mean, I'm assuming this logic would apply to other comprehensive plan land designations. It would.

Have we looked at other secondary uses and see what kind of can of worms were opening up here? Seems like there could be a lot of secondary uses which I mean I have to say I always thought it was a secondary use within a parcel. And if it's not within a parcel, if it's within a city or an area, seems like we should define that. And it also seems like we should make sure we're not Yes. more with that. So, I think that's something that we need to tighten up with this comprehensive plan um amendment that's coming up because that was that was my interpretation of of how that secondary use um was interpreted.

Okay. Any other questions from the commission before we open up the to the public? Mayor Weather. Uh just one point. I did a quick search on the definition of big box. Yeah. And it's 50,000 square feet plus.

Yep. I think that's I think that's understood. Also, there's also a small box category which is like 20,000 plus. I don't remember the numbers, but Tractor Supply was always a small box. Container Store is a small box. They're about 20,000 square feet. So, I mean there's some decent national retailers that are Aldi groceries different. Anyway, any other questions? Quincy? Yeah, Director T, if you don't mind sharing the other map where you had the PCD. Uh, yep. Just want to take a quick peek here. What's the material difference between PCD 2 and one? I know PCD1 has the restriction of the 2500 square f feet for the secondary uses, but what's the material difference between that and PCD2

just in it's quite a long list as you know as we've been going through the with the zoning ordinance update there's a long list of uses and many of them outdated but in general it's lesser intensive uses are allowed in the PCD1 PCD2 gets a little more intense and then three um the most intense and that's that's the great that's the Southdale Southdale site itself Galleria PCD2 is 50th in France uh the Grand View district so some of those little bigger um commercial areas and then the smaller neighborhood nodes that's the PCD1 district so one idea that we were just chatting about was to leave PCD1 as is but maybe make an adjustment to PCD2 that would make the retail secondary usage more than 2500 square feet seems to be a nice way to maintain that PC PCD1 option while making PCD2 a bit more on a grander scale. Is that something that we could also present and discuss?

Yep, you could make that recommendation. Okay, thank you. I have a a followup looking at the parcel immediately adjacent that's also planned industrial fine replacement meditation place a day spa I guess if there's concern about adjusting the commercial districts is there a different way to think about the the amendment going into the uh P district instead.

I think the concern there was if we were to allow secondhand stores within the entirety of the planned industrial district, someone might come forward with the argument that a secondhand store is really no different than any other retail store. So, I could have why can't I have retail within the industrial district as well? So kind of avoiding that can of worms.

I mean that feels like the reverse of the chocolate mousse conversation. You know, they were primarily making something and they wanted to sell a little bit of it. Here they're primarily I mean their business is gathering, sorting, collecting and then they sell some. Is that really you guys would know? Is that really a concern that people might want to come and do retail inside of the industrial if we made an exception? Okay. Yeah.

All right. I think we'll since this is a public hearing, we'll now hear from residents who would like to provide comment either in person or by phone. I don't see anyone who wants to provide comment in person. So, we'll be clear about the phone instructions. To provide comment by phone, please call 312-5358110. Enter access code 280-7098856 followed by the password 5454. Then press star three on your telephone keypad to indicate that you would like to speak. You'll have 30 seconds uh to Excuse me. You'll have three minutes to provide your comments online. Lauren, is there anyone on the phone who'd like to provide comment?

There is nobody on the phone right now, but I recommend we wait another 30 seconds um to see if anyone joins. All right. It has been 1 minute and nobody has joined our call. So, I believe it's safe to proceed. All right. Is there a motion to close public hearing? Motion to close public hearing. Second.

A roll call, please. Commissioner Brennan, I. Commissioner Honaman, I. Commissioner Day, I. Commissioner Smith, I. Commissioner Felt, I. Chair Elkar, I. All right, Commission. So, now it's time to deliberate. Would anyone like to start us off? Also, if you have other questions, you can ask more questions. Can I ask how long the building's been vacant? Last months. Thank you,

Mayor. Brother,

I'll pony up. Um I think in the past some of the reasons for limiting um thrift stores in the area was um traffic issues, logistic issues, trucks coming in and out, um drop off locations, storage of materials, people dropping off things outside and um waste or recycling or you know and I think they've taken care of all of these issues. You know, they've got a plan. They've got indoor drop off. Um there's only going to be one truck a day. Um garbage is in the same truck except for um other garbage pickup. So, I do know that there's a lot of thrift stores around us. The one that Quincy Commissioner Smith was referring to was in St. Louis Park. There's ones in Eden Prairie and Richfield and all around us and and none here. Um, and I know there's some communities like Burnsville has um probably 20 thrift stores or so. And so I don't I don't see why we're shipping all of these things out and not taking care of them here. Um, I think thrifting is a really good pastime. um it's kind of closing the recycling loop and I think if we have a variety of shopping experiences in South Dell um that it's good. Um I know that thrifting especially for um some people young people especially allows them to try on um styles and that they wouldn't necessarily have access to

otherwise. Um, so I think they've taken care of a lot of the logistic issues. Um, I see it as a bit of a a green issue. Um, how to take care of some of the stuff in our in our um community and I also think it like adds to the shopping experience in this district. My thoughts.

Anyone else? Sure, I could certainly chime in here. So, from a site plan perspective, I think I think this is a a good use of a building that's that's functional. Uh you're giving it new life. Um I was initially concerned with the movement of vehicles through the site, especially when it curves around in the back and having some kind of congestion for for cars to come out. Um, I've certainly experienced that at some of the other uh uh thrift store locations. Um, like in St. Louis Park, that has certainly been a challenge. Um, but if the business operation is one where you could have your employees uh work, I mean, park in the back lot, then it's just the customers moving through, then it shouldn't be an issue and they won't be trapped because you'll have those different shifts that you could manage that through. So, I think from a site plan perspective, I think it looks and makes sense. You'll make some upgrades to the the facade a little bit, the trees, you know, all those things that we that we read about. So, I think that feels good to me. Of course now uh as we look at you know changing the zoning uh we al we always have to think about the knock-on effects like what would come after you know what precedent does it does it certainly set um the idea that we have you know PCD 1 2 and three with increasing levels of intensity I think if we want to maintain the smaller retail secondary use footprint I would keep the PCD one the team, but I would consider and recommend that we make a change to PCD2 that would have uh a much larger, you know, maybe remove that restriction on secondary use retail

and use that instead, you know, um so that we have the option to keep PCD1 as it is, but then we could make PCD2 more in line with what we would expect from a few of the neighborhood nodes that that actually use it. Um, so that'll be my recommendation. I think overall the use the location makes sense. I think we had some Green Drop and a couple other retail thrift retails like this come through and it just didn't seem like it fit where they were planning to go. But this one seems like it fits this this area pretty well. Um so my my leaning right now is to recommend yes on this. So then we we focus on using the PCD2 designation as the one we want to adjust. So

any other comments Brian?

Yeah. So maybe I'll raise a discussion point um that we can deliberate on. So the first part of this would be kind of what you brought up on the comprehensive plan and primary versus secondary uses. Um, and if we seek to answer that question and look at how, you know, how we proceed with this, really, the fact that it's a uh Salvation Army is kind of irrelevant. It's a retail use. It doesn't really matter if that's a Salvation Army. Um, so that really shouldn't factor into our overall decision-m. The question then would be is right are we comfortable with making a secondary use sort of encroach into this area when there's not necessarily similar uses in the area. Um and does 18,000 ft of retail and 9,000 square ft of warehouse meet what we would see as the barrier of I guess would it meet the definition of limited retail? Now, our comprehensive plan is deliberately vague in that language because we will rely on our zoning code to put numerical restrictions on things, but then obviously it's our to our discretion to have that debate. So, um in the area next to a housing development across from a fire station and a gym and next to more houses is this limited retail. And if Salvation Army doesn't make it and a tractor supply store comes in, is that limited retail? So interested to hear other people's thoughts on that.

I guess I would um respectfully disagree that that secondhand stores are the same as regular retail, I think there's a reason they're called out in our code. So I think the fact that it is the Salvation Army and that it is a secondhand store and that as part of that business model is a mechanical right servicing of taking product from the community and doing more with it. Um Target doesn't do that. They get and then they understand. So in my mind there there is a a nuance there and um

but there's not that nuance doesn't exist in the zone, right? Changing the zone to a retail use to a commercial use, right? Yes, we're doing like you can make that distinction now with it being a Salvation Army, but again two years from now, three years from now, it may not be. Right? So that's that's what you need to consider too, not just today because it because it becomes spot zoning in in a way if you put a different retail use here that's maybe not. But would you think of a different retail use that has no warehouse component exactly the same as you would think of this circumstance?

I don't understand. I'm not sure. I don't know why we're picking on Tractor Supply, but if Tractor Supply wants to come in, gut the building, and do all tractors, to me, that's it's a different business model. That's a different category than a secondhand store with a warehouse.

I I agree. Right. But that's I'm not meant to play the role of or like I'm not supposed to make this distinction based on just this proposal coming in front of me today, just this company. It's the broader question of reszoning to PCD2 if that's appropriate for this parcel of land. Not just reszoning because of Salvation Army, but reszoning just that personal in in general. So at 50th in France, there is the Fifth Avenue, Fashion Avenue, Fashion Avenue, which is on the France side. And it's bigger than 25 minutes, is it?

For sure. I thought it was like twice the size of my house, which is close. But um and then on the Minneapolis side, there's consignment and that is that is PCD2. Um but it's also an area where there are smaller stores. So like secondhand stores are kind of part of our fabric of you know what even though it's on one side of the a dinina, we consider kind of our downtown area. Um, you know, so this is an area with larger buildings in it. So I don't I don't understand really why we're kind of limiting um the size of a secondhand store in this area where there are much larger buildings than 50th in France or 44th. I just want to comment. I feel like some of the discussion is or we've maybe insinuated that we're purposely limiting the size of secondhand stores, but that size limit exists for many other uses in in PCD1, right? So, it's not nobody's picking on secondhand stores. I mean, there's paint and wallpaper, personal apparel, sporting campy goods stores, and everything. So,

size limitations, the 2500 square f feet of gross floor area is called out for many uses in the PCD1. So I I'm just saying it's not like fair, right? Well, that's one of the reasons we're considering limiting it in PCD1 or and not allowing it in PCD1 and allowing it in PCD2 and three. Grand View and 50th in France are PCD2.

Yep. So I think there's two two issues for you to consider here. It's the our secondhand stores at any size reasonable in the PCD 2 and three district. It sounds like we want to keep PCD1 the same. And then second issue is is the reasonzoning appropriate because if we resone it to PCD2, any commercial use allowed in the PCD2 district is now allowed on this site.

Other comments, Quincy? Yeah, just a quick uh comment here. Is there any PCD2 uh businesses that we would not want in this location?

You mean in on this one parcel?

Yes. So reason why I asked that is to director Teague's point, if we do allow it for PCD2, then any type of PCD2 uh would be allowed in this location. The only thing that we are really trying to adjust here is the size, right? We could say the size of the secondary use could be unlimited or we could put a restriction on it, put a a cap on it. Putting a cap on it seems like we'd be doing it specifically for this business. uh and maybe not considering all the other businesses that might use PCD2. So just thinking down the road here with are we comfortable with any PCD2 being allowed if we do take that path on this site?

We allow any PCD2 at 50th in France or in Grand View. So I don't and I think any use on the site, whoever puts the store in there would want it to be a viable operation. They would want to have customers. So I don't think a tractor supply for tractor supply would go in here because I don't think a lot of tractors are being sold unless they did their small unit tractors. It's like a home It's like a Home Depot. It's not just tractors, but Okay. Okay. Different story maybe. Okay. That's a that's a but a hardware store would be great down there.

Be great. I

mean, this is this is my my struggle is that in the comp plan, it's guided office residential, which is supposed to be a transitional area between highintensity districts and residential. And the uses primary or secondary are sort of that transitional. I'm lacking a better word. This seems like a good transitional business. I don't if if if a hardware store wanted to come, we'll stop picking on Tractor Supply by name. Like to me, that feels like a great step from uh housing and industrial and office. It's where people live, work, um I would think that would be a great use of the space. And if that comes under the retail, like I wouldn't find that a problematic use. I haven't to um Commissioner Quincy's um comment. I don't know all of them by heart, but I I'm not aware of one that I would not want in this area. So, if if it helps, the entire building couldn't be used for retail part of it. We've got the 9,000 plus square feet of warehouse that only generates the need for five parking stalls. So if you just take the retail, the 18,000 square feet, 74 stalls are are required. So a retail business couldn't move in there and use all 28,000 square ft without a parking variance. So it's it's limited in in size basically to the 18 to 20,000 square feet

with the current building. The current building, but the building could be torn down, right? other comments. I've got a few. Um, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Quincy.

Just to think through this a little bit more here because you made me think about something, Director Tigga. So, when we say primary and secondary uses, right, it's it's dual use. There's a warehouse component and then there's a commercial component, right? Even though the commercial component is secondhand, it's still somewhat commercial, right? You set up to take out your credit card and purchase goods. Um, would we consider primary and secondary based on size? So, like if let's just say the commercial side was smaller and the warehouse side was bigger, then is that like a better fit for secondary use than how it's structured today where the commercial side is much bigger than the than the warehouse size? commission.

Yeah. Yes. So the primary and secondary uses that's comes from the comprehensive plan in terms of determining the uses allowed on the site. That would be the the zoning. To me, I've always interpreted the primary use as the majority of the square footage. The secondary use would be the lesser of the square footage.

I'll add a couple comments. I love the adaptive reuse part of this. I would um I find the ability to support uh Salvation Army's work attractive in this project. I'm all for vintage and adina. I think the $2,500 square foot limitation. Removing that in PCD 1, two, and three is an easy yes for me. I'm very concerned about the reszone from uh P to PCD. As I said before, the variety of we do have a variety of uses in this area, but the vast majority of them are already allowed in P. So it's not like this this is a unique thing. It's not well we already we already changed a bunch of things around it so it's why not change this too. Most of the stuff around it is allowed in P. This is not. So it is different. I always wonder so I'm I'm concerned about I'm also concerned about what precedent we would be setting and I'm thinking you know would we do the same for a different applicant or for the parcels on either side of this parcel today if it was really a great idea why not have three parcels PCD instead of one um and I'm I'm not sure I'm I don't think I would agree to that and finally I know we're not voting on the comp plan because we don't need to avent amend it. But I'm really concerned about that. I I feel like there's some I feel like we're sending a signal that any office residential parcel in the city make a pitch to make a PCD any of them because you can do that now. And I'm and I'm also concerned as I

mentioned before I'm also concerned about the secondary uses in others categories besides O that I'm not sure this is a big change that we're making now and I'm not sure we completely understand it. Maybe we do but we ought to make sure we understand it. I think it would be worthy to discuss how we would measure a secondary use. Maybe it's not just square footage. Um you know

totally agree. I I don't know what the definition is. We ought to have a definition for sure. Um because right now we're kind of in a I feel like we're in a very awkward place with this change in conventional wisdom. Or maybe that's the best thing to call it, conventional wisdom. But what maybe all of us thought was before, well, it's not that. And maybe all the developers and property owners thought that too. And now this is possibly very different. But we're not voting on that tonight. That's just um it's a it's an excellent point and something that we need to be mindful of here in the next year to two with the comprehensive plan. So we need to be specific on that for those very reasons.

Yeah. I mean we it kind of adds a first mover element in our in our planning which we've never had before. Like there's a benefit to being the first one because if if first mover

like if if you're the first one to the table to convert an O to a retail use then you're good but maybe the second one's a little more risky. The third one's even more risky than that and I don't think we have anything in our zoning like that. But that's a question for a different day maybe. Any other uh comments before we vote? I would suggest let's uh if you'll indulge me for just a second I would suggest two votes. First one on the zoning amendment to allow 2500 plus retail and a second on the proposed zoning change to PCD PCD2 in the site plan because I think someone might want to approve one and not the other. So is that a is that agreeable? Could you say that again?

Yeah. Could you explain that please? First one would be uh a motion to approving approve the zoning ordinance amendment to allow um secondhand retail of 2500 square f feet or more or more than 2500 square feet in PCD in planned commercial districts. If somebody wants to not have PCD1 in there, that's fine, too. If we want to limit it to PCD 2 and three to get to yes, that's totally fine. That would be one vote, though. Then the second one would be the zoning change to P the resoning to PCD2 and the site plan. Is that okay, Carrie? Yes. Yeah. The reasoning and site plan could go together.

Okay. So, if that's agreeable to the commission, I I think we're ready. I think we're ready to entertain a motion. I would I would clarify that maybe we allow greater than 2500 square feet in PCD 2 and three. Okay. and make that clear as the first vote. I I agree with that. Say that's different. Right. So that's he his motion proposal was to strike it from all. Right. And yours would be So if you motion So are you motioning to for that then? Yes. Yes. I will I will motion to

Before you do that, so if the sense of the group is that's where we want to go, then that's probably the most efficient way to go about it. So people are nodding their heads. The only reason that would be a bad idea is if somebody really wanted to do PCD1 also. So nobody seems psyched about that. Go ahead. Yep. So I would motion that we change the zoning to remove the 2500 ft restriction on PCD 213. Uh that's my first motion. We clarify that that's solely for secondhand stores because that's that's how it carries through the the ordinance. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for secondhand stores.

I'd second that motion. So, we have a motion and a second. We have a roll call, please. Commissioner Brennan, I. Commissioner Henman, I. Commissioner Day, I. Commissioner Smith, I. Commissioner Felt, I. Chair Elky, I. Motion carries unanimously. Now we'll entertain a second motion on the reszone and the site plan. Could I just could we just talk about that for a quick second? Of course.

If we combine the resoning and the site plan, um I know director T was saying that that's that's okay to do, but do do you want to do that at the together? The site plan I'm I'm okay with, but I know you had some concerns with the reasonzoning. Well, if there's anybody who has a different take on the reszone and the site plan, then we would want to have two votes. Well, we don't want to approve a site plan if the resoning fails. No, I was thinking the other way around, though. You could approve the reszone and not the site plan. Technically, not saying anybody would, but you could. That's it. Let's try it with Let's try it with them combined, unless you have an objection.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that that totally makes sense. If there's no objections there, then then we should com combine them together. Okay. So, somebody want to take a stab at it? Oh, you want me to do it? Yeah. Okay.

Uh, so we're looking for a motion to uh approve Oh, it's not worded right. approve a uh the proposed resoning to PCD2 from PID4. Here we go. 4276th Street West and the associated site plan. Is there a move a motion? Is anybody's going to So move that second. It hasn't been moved yet. I was just I was asking for a motion to that effect because nobody else wanted motion to that effect. All right. Is there a second?

Second. Excellent. Any other discussion? Roll call, please. Could I clarify because I think I missed it. Did that include the site plan? It did. It did. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Brennan. I. Commissioner Henman. I. Commissioner Day. Nay. Commissioner Smith I. Commissioner Felt I. Chair Elkre.

Nay. So that was a four to two if I did the math right. So it passes. Congratulations. Thanks for joining us tonight. All right. We're uh we have no reports and recommendations tonight. So we're here for chair and member comments. Does anyone have a comment to make? Claire wants to comment on her 5 a.m. flight. I can make a comment. That's okay. Yes.

Uh so, as you guys know, uh myself and Commissioner Padilla, we've we've been still collaborating on getting feedback from food truck vendors on just their thoughts, their experiences. We had really good conversations so far with city leaders. Um, I know Director Teague, we we we have a meeting out to connect with, uh, you um, uh, St. Louis, no, uh, Hopkins just had a food truck festival. I think it was on Saturday. And so there were like 50 food trucks there. And so we're trying to engage them. You know, we got their contact, some of their contact information, and we've been sending out surveys and we're getting some feedback. So the progress is a little bit slow. We're hoping to be further along than we are right now, but we're still collecting feedback um small numbers of of of survey data points and hopefully we'll continue doing that um through through the rest of this year. But it's an active project and we're still collecting feedback. So if there's any food truck vendors that are interested in sharing their thoughts, they can certainly reach out to us and we'll connect with them.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right, Carrie, staff comments.

All right, I do have a few here. Uh, so I may have mentioned earlier the May 19th city council meeting has been cancelled and so as a result of that, the council hasn't taken action yet on the EV charging station. That will be rescheduled for June 2nd. It will go along with this request also the Salvation Army. And also the another previous um um item that the planning commission made recommendation on was that parking ordinance at 50th in France that also was scheduled for the 19th. So that one instead of having all three of those on the same agenda, we're going to delay that one to the second meeting in June for city council just for agenda management. Um, so those three things uh should all come to a conclusion in June. I also want to highlight that your next meeting is Thursday, May 28th. There's a holiday on Wednesday, so it's bumped to the Thursday. We are going to have a work session that evening. Our our with Zone Co. They're going to be here in person. Uh, so that should be a good one. And I believe we have a couple of variances. So we will have a a regular meeting that night as well. And that is it for me.

Great. Thank you Carrie. I think you told me that we don't need a roll call for adjournment. Is that right? So is there a motion? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I. Meeting adjourned. What kind of away with us.