Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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 are three public hearings. If you'd like to speak during community comment or during 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 commenters to state their address. Instead, please fill out a speaker registration card with your address and hand it to Senior Communications Coordinator Lauren Siebenahler before speaking. I'd like to call the meeting to order and ask for a roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson?

Here.

Commissioner Smith?

Here.

Commissioner Bennett here. Commissioner felt here. Commissioner Henneman here. Commissioner Brennan here. Chair Alclare here.

First item of business is to approve the meeting agenda. Is there any comments or additions or is there a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve second. Roll call please.

Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Smith.

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett.

Aye.

Commissioner Felt.

Aye.

Commissioner Henneman. Aye. Commissioner Brennan.

Aye.

Chair Alclair.

Aye. Next item is to approve the meeting minutes from June 24th, 2026. Is there any changes that anyone would like to make or is there a motion to approve the minutes?

Motion to approve the minutes.

Second.

Roll call please.

Commissioner Nelson?

Aye.

Commissioner Smith?

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett?

Aye.

Commissioner Feltz? Aye. Commissioner Henneman? Aye. Commissioner Brennan?

Aye.

Chair Alkiah?

Aye. We've now reached community comment. We'll now hear from residents in person who would like to speak about something not on tonight's agenda or scheduled for a future public hearing. You may speak for up to three minutes. After giving your speaker registration card to Lauren and stating your full name for the record, the green light at your podium will turn on. When you have 30 seconds remaining, the yellow light will turn on, and when you're out of time, the red light will turn on. Is there anyone here who would like to provide community comment? Wow, I thought sure somebody wouldn't group this big alright. We have three public hearings. As I mentioned before. The first. Has to do with the variance at 5401 London Dairy Rd and Addison Lewis will start us out in the conversation.

All right, good evening, chair and commissioners. This is a variance request at 5401 Londonderry Road for a 10.6 foot variance to allow a 64.4 foot setback from the front lot line for an expansion of the second floor where a 75 foot setback is required. The property is located in Northwest Edina in the Parkwood Knowles neighborhood. Here's some images showing the existing two-story house as it is today. The existing home was constructed in 1962. The applicants are proposing a remodel to the house that includes a couple of small additions off of the back of the house, as well as an expansion to the second floor. So here's some of the elevation drawings. You can see the existing front elevation here and how it's changing. You can see this second floor here. So the existing second floor is actually set back about four feet from the lower level. With the remodel, they'll be bringing that second floor forward about four feet, which is what's triggering the variance. So you'll see here, it's gonna be flush with that lower level, be directly over that floor. here's kind of another look at that so you can see the floor plan for the existing second floor the variance is being triggered by the expansion just within this space here it's just coming forward about four feet to be directly over the main level So here's the proposed survey, shows the house at 64.4 feet setback. Again, that's where the lower level already is today. That 75 foot setback, that comes from the established front yard setback requirement based on the established front yard setback on the block. So in this case, it's taking into account the existing setback of two other homes, 5405 Londonderry Road and 5409 Londonderry Road. The average of those two, 5405 is at 90 feet, 5409 is at 60 feet. That's how we get to an average of 75 feet required for the subject property. As I mentioned to you, there's a couple of just additions off of the rear here that comply with all setback requirements and lot coverage requirements. So here's the criteria that we use for reviewing variance requests. All of this analysis is provided in the staff report. In general, staff find that the criteria is met in all cases. I won't read through all of it, but just to kind of summarize, again, that established front yard setback requirement is based on the front yard setback at 5405 and 5409 London Dairy. At the time, 5401... London area was constructed it complied with the setback requirement the house at the original house at 5405 was built at a setback of 60 feet in 1994 that house was Torn down and pushed back an additional 30 feet which changed the front yard setback requirement of 5401 If that had stayed in that same location or not been torn down had 60 feet the front yard setback requirement for 5401 would have stayed at 60 feet so Because it was pushed back 30 feet, that made the existing structure at 5401 non-conforming. Just want to note, too, that pushing the house back at 5405, this lot is obviously quite a bit deeper than the lot at 5401. It's about 350 feet deep compared to the lot at 5401. It's only about 165 feet deep. So that additional setback requirement has a significant burden on 5401. So with that, staff is recommending a motion to approve the variance request based on the findings and subject to the conditions in the staff report. I'll note here too that the applicants are in for building permit. It's already been reviewed by all of the departments. Forestry, engineering have already signed off, so they're complying with all engineering and forestry requirements. So I'd be happy to take any questions. The applicant is here as well.

Thank you, Addison. Does the applicant wish to add to the conversation or just answer any questions? Okay, thank you. So we'll start off with commissioners. Anyone have any questions? Claire?

Just to clarify, Addison, If the first floor was set back and met the setback as it is today, bringing the second floor forward wouldn't require a variance. It's not because it's a second floor, it's because it's bringing it to where the first floor already is.

Correct. I mean, the entire structure is non-conforming with respect to the setback. You can expand a non-conforming structure at its existing setback.

But we view the second floor as at a different setback than the first floor. Correct.

Yep. Yep.

OK. Other questions? Mayor Weather?

And there are only two, three houses on this road that create this. issue in one of them.

Yeah, correct. There's only three houses. So their setback is based on the setback of just these two other houses. Yep.

Any other questions? Yes, Paul. Oh, sorry. I thought you were reaching for the microphone. All right, if there are no other questions, this is a public hearing, so we'll now hear from residents who would like to provide comment on this public hearing, either in person or by phone. To provide comment by phone, please call 312-535-8110. enter access code two six three two five zero five three three four zero seven followed by the password five four five four then press star three on your telephone keypad to indicate that you would like to speak to provide comment in person please first give your speaker registration card to lauren and then the instructions that we already provided will do the rest for you so is there anyone in person who would like to provide public comment Step right up. Thanks for coming.

So we live at 5405 Londonderry Road, which is directly next to 5401. And the previous house had a pitched lower roof. And with the variance, it's going to be, it's taller and then it's also forward. So it is incredibly imposing on our property. And you have to understand there are a number of changes that are being made. So the variance in combination with those creates a really negative experience on our land, which is not something that we had anticipated. We've spoken to the builder, and what we'd really like, and I wrote in comments, hopefully you've read those. What we'd like is to meet the aesthetics of the road. So each one of the houses has a beautiful evergreen buffer between the houses on both sides. The old house had a huge crabapple tree and other trees that created enough of a buffer that looked pretty good. So what we'd like is to have a significant buffer on that side of our land, as is on the other side for the other 5409.

Just to clarify, the addition, as part of the construction, they've added what appears to be a large window well. They're putting bedrooms in the basement. They've poured a concrete foundation for something in that window well that we're not sure of. So our concern is some of the trees, all the trees between us and that lot were removed. We're just asking to put back some kind of natural buffer between us. but not shrubs.

We're looking for something that will give us some softness with some height because otherwise it's very imposing. Our driveway and the pit is about from here to here. I also think it's a safety issue because that is a big pit and it's very close to our driveway. I just feel like there's nothing that's stopping people from, if they were to fall or move back, to fall into that pit.

You're 54?

Correct.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else in the room that would like to speak tonight? All right, Lauren, do we have anybody on the phone?

We do not. So I believe it's safe to proceed.

OK. Is there a motion to close the public hearing?

Move to close the public hearing.

Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Smith.

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett.

Aye.

Commissioner Felt. Aye. Commissioner Hanneman. Aye. Commissioner Brennan.

Aye.

Chair Alki.

Aye. Now it's time for the commission to discuss the variance request. I wonder if we could get up on the screen the picture that has the three lots just so we can ponder the public comment that we just received. Okay, anybody like to start us out? Everybody there?

Thank you Addison for your presentation and thank you for the public comments. I appreciate the remodeling of the existing home and I appreciate kind of keeping the existing foundation and kind of adding to it. This lot is half the size of some of the other lots and so I think it's appropriate use of this lot. I also know it's very difficult when kind of remodels kind of happen close by in construction to happen next to you. I've lived through a couple and they're not always pleasant. But I do think that this was created, they were previously within their they were previously conforming. And so I think this was due to circumstances kind of beyond their control. So I certainly agree with staff on this one. And I think it's an appropriate ask for variance for this.

Thank you, Mayor Rother. Any other comments?

Yeah, I was just going to comment that thank you. Thanks for the presentation and also appreciate the comment. With the wide variance between the two, well, the three properties actually, the 90 feet and the 50 feet foot setback, IT CAUSES THESE THREE TO BE, YOU KNOW, JUST NON-SIMILAR ALL TOGETHER, BUT AGAIN, MY FEELING IS THAT AT 5401, WITH THE BUILDING REALLY NOT MOVING FORWARD, IT'S JUST ADDING A SECOND STORY, OBVIOUSLY MORE WINDOWS, MORE HEIGHT AND WHATNOT, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE IT'S A, IT SHOULD BE ALLOWED, OR AT LEAST I FEEL THAT WAY. improvement to the neighborhood. And I don't know if the tree variance or anything comes into play here, if trees have been removed. I guess that was my one question, though, when the comment was brought up. I guess I could ask staff about that. Madison.

Yep, so there are some trees that are proposed for removal. The ones proposed for removal, I believe, are all considered unprotected by the ordinance and don't require replacement. Like I said, the city forester has already reviewed the permit and approved it, so they are in compliance with the tree preservation ordinance.

Then has, I guess, has construction begun or it was had on a different...

They just submitted the permit for review. So they submitted a building permit and that's where this was caught that this needed a variance.

The window well question is what I'm asking about. The resident at 5405 mentioned there was a large window well. Is that just being proposed or is that in place?

That is proposed. I think they may have gotten a permit for just that part or foundation, yeah.

Okay.

Right.

Yeah, generally, I'm in favor of the approving this. Addison, sorry to have you up and down, but I had one more question. Just for clarity, there's no variance required for the height of the building, is there?

No, it complies with height. OK. Any other questions or comments?

I guess I got a question. In response to the testimony, looking at the plans, it does look like there's at least 10 feet between the edge of the window well and the property line when all is said and done. correct i guess just a question for the builder it does not look like there's any sort of landscape or buffer between that property and it sounded like there used to be could you just speak to what you might be able to do beyond what has been approved met with the neighbors and presented this drawing to them where i've got

shrubbery now around that window well and that was presented to him yesterday and I Don't know if it's appropriate this crabtree that they talked about you can see what they're saying For that this is You can see that we do have that buffered with shrubbery and if you go back to in the packet there is Surveys you can actually look at the corner where that crab tree is. It's got an X on it but that's where the crab tree was and It's in the corner that would be about there.

That crab tree would be right about there.

So it was not over here, it was there.

And it's on the survey.

that you have in the packet. It's got an X through it because it was too close to the foundation and the survey and it had splits and cracks in it and the forester said we could remove it based on the recommendation of the arborist. This property had a complete survey with all the trees listed it's it's on there plus we had a full excuse me we had a full arborist report on all those trees and had those all documented and that was all turned in and the uh was not an inconsequential situation because there's 40 trees on this property and they all have to be on here inventory and that and they are And we have the permit for it that everything that has been done here is correct. As far as that window well that they're talking about, I actually have a foundation permit for this that allowed us to do that work. So that is issued, and I have a building permit for that.

great thanks that's all the questions i had okay thank you for sharing that landscape plan um i mean in addition to what the code is and i mean i support this and then beyond that you know always encourage builders and residents to be good neighbors beyond what the code suggests so if someone finds out shrubs are not enough i mean then the neighboring property owner has the right to you know plan stuff along the property line themselves there's other things that can be done but i'd encourage the people doing the building to have those conversations and accommodate how they can but in general i do support this looks like everything's meeting the standards and that landscape plan is nice, but I do see that there could be a better buffer, but that can be done by either party later.

Thank you. Any other comments? Is there a motion?

I move to approve the variance at 5401 Leonard Air Road as noted in the packet.

Second.

Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Swift.

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett.

Aye.

Commissioner Felt.

Aye.

Commissioner Henneman. Aye. Commissioner Brennan.

Aye.

Chair Alclair.

Aye. So the motion carries and the variance is recommended to be, is approved.

Thank you for coming and participating tonight.

Next item of business is a variance request for 6520 Gleason Court. Chris Acker will introduce this for us.

Thank you, Chair. Members of the Planning Commission, excuse me, the property owners are at 6520 Gleason Road. They're requesting a 3.8-foot variance to allow a 21.2-foot setback from the rear lot line where the required rear setback is 25 feet. The variance is to allow the construction of 14-foot master... master bedroom addition to the back of their one-story Rambler. So this is the existing property here. The house is set back quite a bit further from the front lot line than some of the neighboring homes. It's a shallower lot than you will see the neighboring home has as well. The property contains a one-story Rambler with an attached garage built in 1975. You can see that there is a significant grade difference from the street side to where the front of the house is. It's been set back 51.9 feet, which is quite deep into the lot, which limits their availability to add an addition into the rear yard. Here is a survey of the existing home, including in that is the addition that is being proposed. It's a 14 foot extension into the rear yard. They would be allowed a 10 foot deep addition, which for the purposes of what they would like to accomplish, which would be a master bedroom with a bath, They wanted to have an additional four feet which then translates into a 3.8 foot rear yard setback. So here are the floor plans. You have the lower level extension and then the main floor bedroom and bathroom. And the elevations into the rear. The house was constructed deep in the lot at a higher elevation than the street and closer to the rear lot line, reducing the rear yard expansion opportunity, which is typically where most expansion opportunity is available on residential property. The plight of the landowner is due to the deep placement of the house plus the shallow rear yard that significantly reduces that opportunity, allowing for only limited improvements. Staff does recommend approval of the requested variance. Approval is based on the findings included in your staff report that the request is in harmony with the general and purpose and intent of the ordinance. The primary purpose and intent is to maintain adequate distance from neighboring properties. The reduction and setback would still provide adequate spacing. The variance is consistent with the comprehensive plan. It will still remain a single family home. The property owner proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by the zoning ordinance given the applicant is proposing to maintain the living space on one level with a minimally encroached setback into their shallow rear yard resulted from a deep front yard setback and having that house further back into the lot. The plight of the landowner is due to circumstances unique to the property not created by the landowner. And the variance will not alter the essential character of their locality. The applicant is offering an addition behind the home with proposed minimal space added to provide adequate bedroom area. And the addition is not visible from the street and will not alter the street view. Approval is subject to the following conditions that the plan submitted at the time of building permit shall be consistent with the plans and survey dates stamped April 8th 2020 8th and compliance with engineering and the tree permit in review There were no Better Together Edina comments received. We have attending Tom Gardner, the home and homeowner, Aaron Virtue from Fox Homes, project developer and coordinator, and Nick Schuman, who's also with Fox Homes. And with that, I will stop and answer any questions you may have.

Does the applicant want to present or just be available for questions? If you would like to present something now would be a good time for it. Got it. All right. All right. Thank you. So we'll start with questions for staff or for the applicant. Anyone have anything? Claire.

Chris. The front yard setback here, they're not adjusting it, but what would the minimum be required to be based on the adjoining property owners?

Well, there's more than just the adjoining that I was showing on AREAL, SO IT WOULD BE CLOSER, IT WOULD PROBABLY BE WITHIN THE RANGE OF MORE 40 FEET, BUT THEY DON'T HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO ADJUST THAT.

CAN YOU SHOW US THE AREAL VIEW OF THE NEIGHBORING LOTS AGAIN?

So the street does curve and it does get closer at some points. This house is a little bit closer. Well, it is closer than this house happens to be further back from a measurement standpoint.

Chris, it looks like 6500 has a deeper, I'm trying to look at the property lines of not just the adjacent neighbors, but the ones behind as well.

Oh, their rear yard?

Yes.

They all have, excuse me, they all have deeper setbacks than the 25 feet. And they also are deeper lots. I should have a larger picture of that.

Other questions? Quincy?

So just curious if you just shift back to the image with the drawing. Yep. So really what's triggering this variance request is, is it the bedroom on the backside of the home? That's four feet beyond where it should be?

Correct. 3.8 feet. Gotcha.

WHAT'S THE CURRENT LENGTH OF THAT? I WANT TO GET A SENSE OF THE SQUARE FOOTAGE DIFFERENCE IF, YOU KNOW, WHAT IT IS HERE NOW AND THEN IF YOU TAKE OFF THE FOUR FEET, WHAT WOULD THE NEW SQUARE FOOTAGE BE? I'M JUST CURIOUS ABOUT THAT.

THE TOTAL SQUARE FOOTAGE?

OF THE BEDROOM, THE EXTENSION. 13 by 25. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's exterior measurements. It's not taking into account the, you know, the depth or the width of the.

Right. Yep. Yep. Got it. The walls.

So it's not interior space.

Okay. All right. All right. That's it. Thank you.

Paul? No real comment here, but this does say Gleason Court, and there is a 6520 Gleason Court, but this is not that. This is Gleason Road.

Thank you.

I'm pretty certain of that. I know this house. But yeah, I guess I feel it's... The lot in the back is quite wooded and quite large. There's a pool back there as well, but there's plenty of room back behind that. It doesn't seem like there's much of an effect on the neighbors. And having heard no other comments, I don't feel, I feel appropriate in approving this too.

Okay. Is there any other questions before we? Okay, so we have a public hearing. So we'll see if there's anybody in the room who wants to comment in a second. But first, I'll just quickly read the instructions for telephone. To provide comment by phone, please call 312-535-8110. Enter access code 26325053407 followed by the password 5454. Then press star 3 on your telephone keypad to indicate you would like to speak. Is there anyone else, anyone in the room who would like to talk about this project tonight? All right. Lauren, anyone on the phone?

There is nobody on the phone yet, but I would recommend we wait another 30 seconds or so and then we can move on.

OK. Will you let us know when 30 seconds are up?

It's been 30 seconds and nobody has joined the call, so I believe it's safe to proceed.

All right, thanks, Lauren. Is there a motion to close the public hearing?

Motion to close.

Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson?

Aye.

Commissioner Smith?

Aye.

Commissioner Felt?

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett?

Aye.

Commissioner Henneman? Aye. Commissioner Brennan?

Aye.

Chair Alkire?

Aye. All right, Commission, any discussion on this? Claire?

Food for thought here. I guess my opinion is I could go either way, defer to staff's recommendation, but we have seen other variance requests that we have denied because we felt that when the homeowner sort of acquired the property, however it was renovated on the inside was sort of That's what they purchased, that's what they inherited, so that just by virtue of wanting to do something different, that didn't automatically grant a variance. I'm thinking of the family that had a very small garage, and somebody had put a bathroom sort of behind the garage, which meant they couldn't go backwards. The only way to expand their garage was to go forward. This residence has room to go, it sounds like a number of feet to go forward if they wanted to expand their footprint. And I didn't hear a compelling argument that the grade or something else of the lot prevented that. So again, I tend to defer to staff's judgment, but I'm just struggling a little bit because it's a, a nice to have for the extra 3.8 feet, not a need to have and not a need to have that sort of constrained in all other directions that they couldn't do something differently. So just feeling like maybe as a commission we should think about that and our consistency in handling these variances.

Thank you. Other comments?

I'M HAPPY TO GO AND CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION WITH CLARE. I'VE DRIVEN THE STREET A LOT AND I'VE DRIVEN IT WHEN MY DAUGHTER WAS GOING TO HIGH SCHOOL. AT THE HIGH SCHOOL. AND IT IS A VERY UNIFORM FRONT STREET EXPERIENCE. You know, I don't necessarily think that kind of adding on to the front would harm this house in any way, but I do appreciate their wanting to be in the back of the quieter side of the house. Once again, it feels like, to me, they could either put it on the back of the quieter side of the house that was bathroom to bathroom, in here on the plans. NOT NECESSARILY PUTTING THE BATHROOM ALL THE WAY ON THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE. SO THERE ARE SOME ECONOMIES OF KIND OF PLUMBING STACKS AND STUFF LIKE THAT. SO I APPRECIATE THEIR SITUATION AND, YOU KNOW, KIND OF APPRECIATE THEIR WANTING TO INVEST IN THEIR EXISTING HOME. So I think like you, on the fence, this side or that side, I'm probably just on the other side.

Thank you. Other comments? Paul?

I was just going to comment that it is a significant hill in the front. I mean, it does slope down quite a bit, a large tree, other factors that may have prevented them from going to the front. But again, I'm just going to bring that up as I know that street and I know that that situation exists there.

Thanks. Jimmy? Jimmy? yeah i totally agree in in general i mean i i support this and part of the fundamental purpose of a variance isn't necessarily can you do something that complies it is is what is proposed consistent with the comp plan does it not be a detriment to the character of the neighborhood is it not a unique situation created by the homeowner and i think for this it's like it's appropriate versus adding on to the front they could get by with a smaller addition but there is this shed in a neighboring property that looks over the property line that it's kind of matching the extent of where to me it seems in harmony with what's going on so Again, I think this is a purpose of a variance. It's do we let someone creep over the laws? And I think this is an appropriate addition, creates functional space. Could they get by with smaller? Yeah, but it's one of those on the line, but in general, I support it. Anyone else?

Quincy. Yeah, I would agree with Commissioner Bennett on this one too. And I think Claire brings up a fair point that we should all think about as well, right? When I look at these variances, I try to look at, you know, I go back in history and I try to think about all the variances that we've seen, and the ones that we agreed to and we decide to move forward, and the ones that we decide to deny. And sometimes it's really split, right? So on the commission, if it's a full commission, it's usually five, four, something like that. And this one could tether either way. I'm leaning more fully approved on this one. just because it's not really encroaching in front of the home it's on the back yes it's it's four feet extra I think I was trying to do the math like 52 square feet extra on a bedroom you know is what they're asking for it doesn't seem too imposing it seems like it's a good use and yeah you know could the homeowner push this in the front of the home potentially but then there's going to be I would guess significant cost difference, right? And we try to factor in, you know, all the economics as well, right? We want to make Edina a place where residents could live in place. They're not building a second story. They're not tearing down the home. They just want to make it more livable and more comfortable to live in, right? And we try to promote that where we can. folks to stay, folks to continue in the community. And so that's what I think about. Obviously, we look at all the rules, and we have a little bit of a discretion. If this was much bigger, pushing really deep into the backyard, then I'll have some concern that, yes, you could get by with something smaller. But that doesn't seem to be too imposing from what I could see. Overall, I would say this is an approval from me. But yeah, we always have to think about the totality of what we decide and try to be fair as possible. Thanks, Quincy.

I'll just add a couple of brief comments. I really appreciate Claire's point, and I think To the extent that we can be truly consistent, I think that's good for the community because we don't want people to come in here and be surprised, at least to the extent that that's possible. I think there's a lot of variance requests that are similar, but so often everyone is different. Yes. And so it's hard to be really consistent in a world where everything is consistently different. for me what's persuasive about this is that the house was built where the house was built and if you're committed to an addition on the back in this situation well you could tear the house down and rebuild it a little bit closer to the front and do what you want to do we're not recommending that and i don't think we'd feel good about recommending that So the house was built where the house was built and also the addition is proposed for the back of the house where literally no one's gonna see it. So I just don't see any impact to be concerned about. Although I think the coaching on consistency is really useful for us as a team. So if there are no other comments, we'll entertain a motion if there is one.

I motion to approve this variance request for the conditions highlighted in the staff report.

Second.

Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Smith.

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett.

Aye.

Commissioner Felt. Aye. Commissioner Henneman. Aye. Commissioner Brennan.

Aye.

Chair Alkire. Aye.

I so the motion carries and the variance is approved. Thanks for coming and congratulations. Our third public hearing tonight is a variance for Saint Stevens Church. At 50th St and Wooddale and Chris Acker will present the project for us.

Thank you. Chair, members of the Planning Commission, the applicant is requesting a 19.8 foot west setback variance and a 19 foot setback variance from the ordinary high water elevation of Minnehaha Creek with the required setback of 50 feet from the creek. The property is St. Stephen's Church, which is located at 4439 50th Street. I think most people are familiar with it. The variance request is for accessibility and safety betterments to St. Stephen's Church. This is a recent survey of the property. The area that's highlighted is the area that is the actual buildable area of the lot. So the site itself is non-conforming in terms of how much property we would allow for a church. And the building itself is very non-conforming in terms of setback and coverage, and it also is within the FEMA floodplain. So there's a lot of challenges that this property faces. In addition to that, the original church was built, I guess I'm not exactly sure. There is some indication, a date around 1938. There were some additions in the 1960s and 1950s. All of the church, the original portion of the church, as well as the additions, predate our current code. They also predate the floodplain study that was done in 1979. So, yes, it's very nonconforming. The church has been looking at doing some improvements that would address the floodplain ordinance as well as trying to update some of the building areas for accessibility purposes. The conundrum that they're in is that The FEMA floodplain ordinance does not allow them to add any additional square footage of buildable area. So they will be removing portions of existing building and then recombining them in an area where they can actually accomplish some of the goals that they need. Here's the modification areas that are illustrated. So you have the building areas in lighter blue. The darker blue areas are existing portions of the building that will be removed, the building footprint. And then the pinkish area is where they would be adding or reconfiguring that area in order to comply with the FEMA floodplain rules of no additional building area. So the areas to be relocated and modified to accomplish the proposed improvements include the existing structure here will be modified. The existing room that's adjacent to, that is by the creek will be removed and that area will be relocated to be used for the accessibility additions. This door will be taken out because currently it is subject to flooding, so they will be addressing that issue as well. So the proposed area of accessibility improvements include some exterior improvements because there are non-accessible areas in the front along Wooddale and the front main entrance and then also here and the southern part near the chapel. So inaccessible areas are the narthex entry, Parish House lower level is accessed by stairs only. There's an inaccessible entry path that has a very steep slope at one to six in the area that is located on the west side. And then within the interior spaces, there are stairs and there have been ramps that have been installed over time that do not meet the ADA requirements. So this is the area of relocation where they're proposing to consolidate all of the building area in order to accomplish their goals. And then this are the renderings of the building improvements. The areas that they'll be consolidating in order to accomplish those interior spaces. that will provide accessible entrances, accessible ways of navigating through the different portions of the building. They will be adding and updating bathrooms and making them accessible, as well as having an adult changing table. They will not be Proposing any new program areas, the modification rearranges existing program areas and provides improved access and circulation, including a larger and safer elevator and in a more central location and provides improved and code-compliant restrooms. staff recommends approval of the requested variances and granted the two variances are just setback variances one for the west side that is actually for uh... the gathering space here in front of that main door the main door that they'll be adding is actually inset further back and then from the back corner of The property which will be actually further inset from an existing non-conforming setback that's currently there and So staff recommends motion to approve the 19.8-foot east setback and 19-foot ordinary high water elevation setback variance request based on the findings and subject to the conditions in the staff report. With that, we did receive three comments through Better Together Edina, all supportive comments. And there are a number of people here from the church who that may be willing to speak. And with that, I will stop answering questions you may have.

Thanks, Chris. Is there anyone from the church who'd like to share some thoughts or just be available for questions? Whatever you prefer. Oh, can you come up and use the microphone so we can record you for posterity?

Hi, thank you. My name is Mary Sue Vorbrich. I am the lay leader, which means I have no professional skills and I'm not paid to do it, but I'm leading up the construction team, the design team at St. Stephen's. And with me here today, I have Father Tom, Cook, who's the rector in layman's terms. So he's like the CEO. Lisa Korsland, who is the head of the vestry, which would be the chair of the board in layman's terms. Several of the people from the architectural firm, Hamill, Green, and Abramson are here, as well as our project manager from Adolphson and Peterson. So I'm happy to answer any questions that I may be answering. BE ABLE TO ANSWER OR IF WE'RE DIALING DOWN INTO ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS, I'M GOING TO HAND THAT OFF TO SOMEBODY ELSE.

GREAT. THANKS FOR COMING. THANKS FOR THE INTRODUCTIONS TOO. SO COMMISSION, QUESTIONS FOR STAFF OR THE APPLICANTS?

FOR THE APPLICANTS OR STAFF. IT WAS A QUESTION ABOUT THE PIECES THAT ARE BEING REMOVED. AND MAYBE CHRIS CAN GO BACK TO THE EXTERIOR IMAGES OF THE AREAS THAT WERE BEING REMOVED. I JUST WANT TO SAY THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE.

THANK YOU FOR TAKING THIS ON.

And specifically, you mentioned that north entrance. You said the canopy only. And I'm bringing this up because I just think it's such a beautiful piece of architecture. So I'm wondering.

Sure. I know a lot more about the Edina city code than I used to. And What is considered structure for purposes of footprint is two walls and a roof, and currently that structure has two walls and a roof, and we are going to make it so it does not have two walls and a roof. So it will still have the door will remain and the cover will remain, but we'll lighten up the structure around it. so it goes from two walls it goes from structure as defined by the code to not structure so the roof comes off and the timbering comes off and for me the roof stays oh the roof stays the timbering comes off the walls on the north on the when you're looking at this picture the left wall is actually solid, as is the wall going into the church. And the left wall will be made, not in transparent, it's not the right word, but it will no longer be solid. And I think that the wall on the right may be lightened up as well. But the entranceway will stay. But it will no longer be a code structure.

Okay. So the existing entrance structure to be modified to canopy only. Wind will be able to go through it. Yes. If there's a big rain, it'll get a little wet. Yes. But that timbering will still stay there? Yes. Okay. The timbering is very important, I think, to that.

Yeah.

Yeah. We like it architecturally, but we needed the square feet to comply with FEMA. Okay. I appreciate that. Sure. Other questions? I'll just stay here in case I can direct it. Yeah.

Sounds good. Other questions? Give me.

All right, just so I'm not making assumptions, because I'm pretty good at those. You know, we don't always have such a tangible other stakeholder in some of these decisions, as evidenced with the Minnehaha Creek and the Watershed District. Can you just kind of enlighten us as to what their concerns were and how you guys are mitigating against those, as well as some of the compromise that has been, I guess, probably negotiated between that party, the city, and you to find an agreeable solution that is a win-win-win.

sure i'm happy to talk to that um actually we didn't have to compromise we had to comply so um the city jessica wilson is in charge and chris and carrie can speak to this of making sure that we comply with fema so that edina stays eligible for flood insurance and so we had to comply we couldn't compromise and so the FEMA according to the FEMA regulations that's why we have the zero foot we cannot increase the footprint but we can move it and in this case we're bettering the creek health by taking structure out of the floodplain we're taking structure away from the creek side and putting it on the other side of the building, if you will. And so that if you have runoff issues and you want Mother Nature to filter the water like the land is supposed to do before it gets to the creek, there's more of that between the church and the creek now. Well, there'll be more after the project than there is currently. Does that help?

yeah it matches my assumption and just i mean in in addition to what the city's setbacks are for historical purposes um to me that's the most important thing to illustrate is being done here as well as meet the goals of the applicant but yeah the watershed district was involved in some of our early meetings as well thank you other questions quincy

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. I'm just curious, you know, you're making a modification to a structure that's pretty old, and in this part of the city, I think it's the Country Club neighborhood, there's usually a lot of aesthetic rules and guidelines for the homes in this region. Just sure, any feedback or insight you got from maybe the Edina Historical Society or any preservation society on making modifications to the church?

Sure, actually, several years ago, the church worked with the Edina Historical Society to assess whether or not the property would be something that could be registered on the historical register, either locally or nationally, and the answer came back no. So it isn't architecturally or historically significant enough to do that. Now having said that, it's beautiful and it's a big piece of Edina's you know, founding and structure. It's been there since 1938. And so aesthetically, there are three main buildings. 1938 is the main church. And then the mid-1950s is the parish house, which is now the office. And then in the 60s is the chapel, which is in this picture on the far right-hand side. and what connects them, so those are beautiful and to us, architecturally significant even if they don't. meet standards for architectural protection. And we will keep that. The stone buildings will stay in place. What we're gonna get rid of is this building in the lower left-hand corner that you see, which kind of looks like a trailer that was tacked on the back. Yeah, it was actually where the vestry used to meet, and we thought maybe the bishop didn't like the vestry. So that's getting removed. And some of the connective work that you see in the upper right-hand corner, that stone walkway is currently what we use as our handicap accessible route to the chapel, but it's all outside. And so that's coming off. And the building behind it, which kind of has some 1960s leaky windows with exterior air conditioning units, that will be replaced by the newer glass section. So we're trying to maintain the three old historic, but we will maintain exactly the three old historical structures, and it's the connective tissue that's gonna be reconstituted.

Just a follow-up question. Thank you for that. I really appreciate the explanation. So just to be clear, the wall with the quote-unquote leaky windows, is that wall going to be torn down?

No. Actually, what's going to happen is it's going to become an internal wall.

Gotcha. Okay.

So the ugly 60s windows and air conditionings will go away, but the wall will stay. The wall will stay. Okay.

I know in the staff report too, just last question here, some of the internal, you know, and you kind of mentioned this, the internal passageways may not have been ADA compliant. Yes. Is part of this making some of this ADA compliant?

Yes. We hope to make the whole thing ADA compliant. And we will do that as far as our funds will take us.

Thank you. Yeah.

Claire?

Claire?

Maybe I misunderstood, and I don't know if you can go back a slide, but there is, I thought, from the chapel towards Wooddale on the southern side closest to the creek, a bridge, a stone bridge. Yeah, there and isn't to the bottom left the same as the top right? It's just different sides of the same.

Yes, that is in the previous slide.

That is the route.

um where you have to go from the outside exactly it's it's part of the route into the chapel wing and the only thing that bridge that bridge was added later to make the chapel wing handicap accessible which not 1930 stone No.

Thank you.

The only 1930s stone is actually on the original church, and it's Platteville limestone. I don't know if this group is familiar with Platteville limestone. It was available for a short period of time, and it's horrible building material. So you would never pick it, but we're keeping it. But the other two buildings have stone that are similar but don't have the same physical PROPERTIES.

SO IS THIS BRIDGE, IS THAT PART OF WHAT WE WERE CALLING THE 1960s ADDITION?

YEAH, THAT'S NOT PLAVETTE LIMESTONE. THAT'S A LATER ADDITION. I THINK IT PROBABLY CAME IN WITH THE CHAPEL. ANYBODY REMEMBER? NO, WE DON'T REMEMBER. BUT IT WOULD HAVE MADE SENSE THAT IT CAME IN WHEN THE CHAPEL WING WAS BUILT.

And my guess is that was part of the trade-off, get rid of this so you have more square footage to build what you would like on the front side.

Actually, we're getting rid of it. It doesn't actually count as very much square footage because a lot of the bridge just has dirt under it. And so it doesn't have two walls and a roof. Okay. So... We're getting rid of it because under the new system, the handicap accessibility will be internal and centralized. And we also wanted to get rid of just lot coverage that we don't need.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, Paul Newhouse, who's the head architect, has something to say to this. Would you like to hear that?

Thank you, Paul.

I just wanted to clarify something that bridge and the storage under it is being counted as structure that is being removed and we'll take credit for it for our addition.

Can I, Paul? Paul? Yeah. But that bridge is redundant if the internal access is there. Right.

It's not needed anymore. It's not safe in the winter. It's hard to keep it so people can traverse on it. So it's going to come down. And everything will go through the new front door, and you'll be able to get everywhere.

Thank you. Thank you.

I just had one question for Chris Chris. Would you just would you mind just repeating the? On the West side, the existing nonconforming setback and the new nonconforming setback. Those two numbers.

So most of the building does maintain the required setback. The new front yard setback is, I believe it's 30.9 feet. And then the other setback request is setback would be 30 feet instead of the required 50 feet from the creek. Is that what you were looking for?

No, on the west side, on the current condition before the project, it's also non-conforming, isn't it?

Yes, yes, you can see this is the required setback and then closer to the street is the existing, fortunately I can't see it on there, but.

Can you move to the floor plan, the proposed floor plan and just.

So this would be the non-conforming setback here for the front of that portion of the building?

And then in the pink below that, there's a little portion of that pink that is part of the nonconforming?

That is going to be coming as part of the new.

Yes. So the nonconforming west elevation is going to be continued with kind of an access, just a little bit of the addition?

With a little bit of the addition, yes. Okay. Yes. and then there will be actually it's a plaza area in front of it and that's really where the setback variance request is coming from okay because that is the closest point the proposed closest point to the west lot line the whole entry the open plaza yes okay yes okay thank you for

If there are no other questions, we'll open it up to the public. This is a public hearing, so before we see if there's anyone in the room who'd like to speak, I'll give the instructions for telephone comment one more time. To provide comment by phone, please call 312-535-8110. enter access code two six three two five zero five three four zero seven followed by the password five four five four then press star three on your telephone keypad to indicate you would like to speak is there anyone in the room who'd like to provide some testimony on this project i don't see anyone lauren anyone on the phone

We do not have anyone who has joined the call, but due to the delay in the broadcast, I recommend we wait 30 seconds.

All right. Thank you. What is the delay? Is it 10 seconds or how long is it?

A minute.

In case we're swearing or something, they can bleep us out.

I don't know if we can do that.

Not tonight.

All right, it's been 30 seconds and nobody has joined the call. I believe it's safe to proceed.

Great, thank you, Lauren. Is there a motion to close public hearing?

Motion to close the public hearing.

Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Smith.

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett.

Aye.

Commissioner Felt.

Aye.

Commissioner Henneman. Aye. Commissioner Brennan.

Aye.

Chair Alkire.

Aye. All right, commissioners, anyone want to weigh in? Who wants to start?

Can I ask about the metal panel stair enclosure and equipment enclosure? Is there some new mechanicals going in or is that an existing rooftop equipment being screened? Just curious.

Yes, thanks for that question. There will be a cooling tower up on the roof, just as there is one now. We're going to put it as far back as we can so that it's least visible possible, but we need to have one up there. And we'll screen it with some sort of metal panel. Sure. We have considered different things like louvers. It needs to breathe. Air needs to get through it, but...

We're gonna try to find a good quality material that is the least visible possible mm-hmm Yeah, I mean buildings need to heat and cool While I have you There's a new stone. Is there a fun stone story where the stone is coming from or what type of stone I

So we're looking at granite for the new stone, for the addition, and it will be panels instead of put up as masonry. So it'll be hung on the walls instead of put up with mortar as masonry. And we're looking at like St. Cloud area where they have lots of stone. It would be compatible with the existing buildings, but not try to match it.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Any comments? Meriwether? Oh, I thought you were saying yes.

Jimmy. All right. Well, you know, I had to tube by just to get a good look at this. Yeah, I mentioned the Creek and the Watershed District earlier, because I feel like aside from the applicant, they are the most prominent stakeholder besides us as a city. And just for some context, And I'm glad you clarified with compliance. Thou shall comply. And it's important, but what you guys are doing and what I want to acknowledge and like elevate is the removal of structure in the floodway and floodplain. And just some context for what that means is in terms of the goals of the watershed district and neighbors along the creek is when the creek floods, Every cubic yard or whatever you take out of the floodway or floodplain is allowing extra flood storage so that is bringing water potentially outside of people's basements and providing a spot for it so anytime a structure or a improvement can be made where we in increase the capacity of the floodway or floodplain is a win that we should celebrate so while you're complying i mean it's going above where this thing is going to flood and where storage is needed so that's a good thing and that helps the creek health as well as all the neighbors along the creek. So I don't think you can understate the importance of that move alone. And then the weird thing about this is where the footprint is added outside of the floodplain and floodway, you know, doesn't match I mean, it doesn't comply with our setbacks, yet there is a structure behind it closer to the creek. So it's this weird anomaly. And that's an okay thing in situations like this where we have an old historic piece of the community that's still intact and still used and relevant where people built things close to the water back in the day. Some of the things and some of the things people did to the creek way, cutting ditches, straightening the creek where it wants to meander. The watershed district and the city want to improve that situation like we've done at Arden Park to add meanders, restore the creek to its natural, rhythm and flow and in areas where things were built next to it like does it still work and there is always going to be this tension where we have a historic usable structure right along a waterway that doesn't comply and it doesn't mean that if they want to do something we should have them tear the whole thing down and rebuild in a com in a com in a way that complies it's are they doing something that's reasonable and you know a win-win or a net win for the watershed district the city as well as the applicants goals and i think what they're doing here the stuff that they're sharing and not sharing i mean like bringing the creek more into view from the church and Creating a safe and improved situation is awesome. HGA is an awesome architect. I think this is going to be just a win-win win for the community. And, you know, if you're canoeing the creek and, like, recreating on it, you know, it's a fun thing to have something nice like that there. And in other areas where the watershed district or the city can use land and remeander the creek, you know that's a win but this is a different situation and i think what is being proposed is very tasteful and responsible and compliant and fully supported thank you very rather

Thank you. Thanks for being here. I do appreciate that this addition is bringing inside all of those accessibility issues and I think it's a very kind of thoughtful addition and I appreciate all the thought and effort that went into kind of studying the existing structure and deciding what you could or couldn't do. REALLY LIKE THAT YOU, THE INFORMATION I GOT ABOUT THAT NORTH ENTRY BECAUSE THAT IS SO CHARMING. I'M GLAD THAT IT'S STILL THERE. AND SO I THINK THIS IS A REALLY THOUGHTFUL TASTE ADDITION AND IT'S A GOOD THING FOR THE COMMUNITY TO BE TOGETHER. SO I APPRECIATE THE GATHERING AND THE BEING ABLE TO TRANSITION ACCESSIBLY ALL TOGETHER. SO I'M IN FAVOR OF THIS TOO.

THANK YOU. Thanks for being here and thanks for your comments and for thoughtfully thinking through this project. Obviously, a lot of work has gone into it thus far. My really only comments is that the footprint is moving away from the floodplain, which is a good thing. IT'S A GOOD THING FOR EVERYTHING INVOLVED. I THOUGHT IT WAS SORT OF INTERESTING THAT WE DIDN'T TALK ABOUT PARKING AT ALL BECAUSE WE TALK ABOUT PARKING AND ALL THESE THINGS, BUT THERE IS NO PARKING, SO I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO BRING IT UP, BUT I JUST DID. SO, YEAH, THANK YOU FOR THE THOUGHT THAT YOU PUT INTO IT ALREADY, AND IT LOOKS LIKE A VERY NICE ADDITION TO THE PROPERTY. THAT'S IT.

Sure. For the amount of churches in the city, to the amount of homes, we do get quite a few church requests. I can remember some churches wanting to build apartments, sell off land, build a daycare, build a drive aisle, signage issues. This one seems like the easiest one of all the church requests that we get. You know, we're certainly moving the massing away from the floodplain. So as Commissioner Bennett was pointing out, I think that's a very positive thing. And we always want to comply with those kinds of rules. I was really surprised that the Edina Historical Society didn't say, hey, you know, this is something that you can't change because it's a historical building, but you guys have the ability to do it, which is good because it seems like you're making a lot of changes to make it more accessible for your members. And so, you know, it's a great project. It looks like it's very useful and beneficial. It's not encroaching on the floodplain, and it has some quote-unquote grandfathered-in type variances, right? So whenever we have old buildings wanting to make changes to upgrade, we always run into, what's the new code that they have to comply with? And so I think what you guys are trying to do is really helpful So I'm really in favor of it. I think it's a good addition, and I think it makes sense what you guys are trying to do.

thanks quincy i guess the only thing i would add is just that i'm so delighted to learn that saint stephens has the both the will and the capacity to maintain and even improve this beautiful old building because i know it costs a lot of money but we live just south of your church and i go by there in my car or walking probably three to five times a day and it's just such a beautiful and it's gonna be great to have that continue as part of our community. So thanks for all of you for being here. If there are any other comments, we'd have that now or a motion.

I would make a motion. Motion to approve the variance request based on the findings and subjects to the conditions listed in the staff report.

Second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Smith.

Aye.

Commissioner Bennett.

Aye.

Commissioner Felt?

Aye.

Commissioner Hanneman? Aye. Commissioner Brennan?

Aye.

Chair Alcoyer?

Aye. Motion carries. Congratulations and thanks so much for taking the time to join us tonight. All right. We have two sketch plan reviews tonight. First one is for 7600 France Avenue. And Carrie Teague will introduce the subject for us.

Thank you, Chair, members of the Planning Commission. This first sketch plan is located at 7600 France. This is in the greater Southdale district on the west side of France at the intersection of 76th and France. The slide on the screen here indicates the property is owned planned office district one and is guided in our comprehensive plan for office and residential uses. Here's a look at the existing site. There's a seven story office building on the site and you can see the sea of parking around it. What the applicant would like to do is subdivide the property. They didn't draw lot lines on the sketch plan, but they would like to subdivide to create four lots. So each one of these three new buildings is a financial institution, so they would be on their own site. Each building would be 5,000 square feet. The existing building, of course, would remain. This next series of slides just indicates what the buildings would look like. So we're seeing this is France Avenue right here, 76th, and the three new financial institutions. One thing I want to point out is they've located the drive-through aisles away from France Avenue to try to create that 50 foot buffer that we look for. Just want to indicate that there is a drive aisle within the 50 foot setback. It meets our code requirement for a driveway, which you can have those up to 20 feet. And there also is some parking stalls within that 50 foot setback. That 50 foot setback is for buildings. So drive aisles and parking stalls can encroach. So just to move through different angles of the project. When we look at our zoning ordinance compliance table here, there would be variances involved because the intent here is to sell off individual lots to different financial institutions. If this was a unified development, all held in common ownership, we would not need setbacks from those internal lot lines. Even if there were lot lines drawn here, if they were all held in common ownership, our code doesn't require those setbacks. What's recognized on properties that are zoned the same and held in common ownership, only the perimeter setbacks apply and not the interior. But the intent here is to sell those off, so our code requires a 10-foot setback, a green space setback between drive aisles and the lot lines. So we would look for those islands along each of those lot lines. And if they still proposed as we're seeing on the screen, variances would be involved. The site would be slightly short parked compared to our code overall. We would look at, again, if they're sold individually, each site would require 17 parking stalls. So there may be some variances there, because each lot it doesn't look like would have 17 stalls on it. So there would be some cross access and parking easements on the site. In terms of floor area ratio, overall the project would comply, but again if we look at individual lots, potentially those could exceed. So there would likely be some variances as part of any formal application. So a formal request would require a subdivision to establish those three new lots, site plan review, variances for parking, the shared parking, and internal drive aisle and parking area setbacks. So areas of focus for your discussion after the two presentations could be on the requirements again for the separate ownership and providing that green space setback separation between each lot and the parking variances. I will stop there. Michael Margulies is here representing the property owner, and he has a presentation as well. And then we can take your questions after that.

Sounds good. Thank you.

I know I opened it for you.

Yeah.

Thank you, Kerry. Commissioners, my name is Michael Margulies. I'm with Newton Res LLC. I'm a project manager assisting the owner of the property, which is Eden Prairie Holdings. Our goal is to develop these three lots in a manner that does not require... VARIANCES AND WE WILL ADAPT OUR SITE PLAN AS BEST WE CAN TO ACHIEVE THAT GOAL. WE CAN FUNCTIONALLY MAKE THE BUILDINGS SMALLER IF WE HAVE TO. WE CAN REDUCE SOME OF THE WE CAN REDUCE ONE OF THE SIZE OF THE PROJECT TO TWO BUILDINGS AS OPPOSED TO ONE. EXCUSE ME, TWO BUILDINGS AS OPPOSED TO THREE. AND TRY TO RESPECT THE the setback issues that are required. We envision that there will be a cross-parking easement that will support the property. Beyond that, what I have is the, I'll try to answer any questions you have or provide you additional information.

Thank you very much. Anyone like to start? Barry Weather?

I have questions for staff. So this site is seven acres and the Macy's site is eight acres?

I'm sorry, which site?

Macy's site.

Yeah, yeah, that's about right, correct.

Right, I'm studying that as well. And across the street, the Ryan project at 78. No, the 70th in France? Is it called the final? Yes. That site's about five acres? Sounds right. Okay. And this is all in the Southdale, this is part of the very southern part of that. Okay. And part of that, the comp plan expresses a desire to break down larger parcels and to... Correct. Okay. And to create more of a friendly street grid. And then... So this, it's zoned POD 1, which includes office, clinic, and select financial institutions, and the comp plan, it's guided, office, residential, that was in our packet. But my understanding is drive-throughs are only allowed in a PUD process?

No, they're a permitted use in this zoning district.

IN OUR CURRENT ZONING, CORRECT. OKAY, THANK YOU.

I'M SORRY, TO CLARIFY, THIS IS OR IS NOT PART INCLUDED IN THIS SOUTHDALE COMPREHENSIVE DESIGN GUIDE?

IT IS. OKAY.

OTHER QUESTIONS? Or comments? Quincy.

Thank you for the presentation. I appreciate breaking up this lot. I know that, for example, the Southdale lot in the corners, you know, there's that one corner which is a shake shack, I think. On the other side is like a hotel. So I think using the corners as opportunities to generate more business activity makes sense. And I'm guessing that's kind of some of the reasoning here. One of the design guidelines for Southdale is to create a street room, is what they call it, where you want to feel like you're driving down France Avenue and all the massing is closer to France and the cars on the other side. And I think you're trying to achieve that here. You're bringing the buildings, at least in these renderings, closer to France Avenue, and you're pushing the parking behind. And I think that's a good thing. We don't want to just see a sea of cars going up France. We want to see the buildings closer. And ideally, you want to have the buildings with 75%, I think, fenestration, like glass for the street room type concept. But I think you also mentioned too that you're open to the idea of, you know, not breaking this up into three separate parcels but maybe even just two. If you were to do that, just share just some of your thoughts on which two and would you have any discretion on what goes there or is it pretty much to the person that you sell them to would have the discretion of what they build there? Thank you, Commissioner Smith.

We have some discretion as to who the users would be. The users that appear to be most interested are banks and credit unions at this point. In fact, we have expressions of interest from several of them, and they don't have any objection to being combined with other banks and credit unions on the same place. So I would expect that if we reduced the size or changed the number of lots, we would probably keep the same use. We will adhere to the design standards that are required, the glass coverage, locating the buildings next to France Avenue, and following through on those design standards. probably before we would eliminate a building, we would explore seeing if we can make these buildings compliant by making them slightly smaller. There's no magic number at 5,000. They just wouldn't be more than 5,000 square feet. We don't have a minimum amount size or a minimum building size here. Correct. So I think what we would do to try and achieve the... THE SETBACK ISSUE AND WITHOUT HAVING TO RESORT TO AN ORDINANCE IS TO PROBABLY MAKE ONE OR MORE OF THE BUILDINGS SMALLER, IF THAT WAS THE DESIRE OF THE CITY.

THANK YOU.

CHAIR, CAN I?

YES, PLEASE.

WHEN WE'RE IN THE SKETCH PLAN REVIEW, I CAN JUST GO AHEAD AND GIVE COMMENTS. OKAY. THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE TONIGHT. YOU KNOW, THE SOUTH DELT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN WANTS TO KIND OF BREAK DOWN SOME OF THESE SUPERBLOCKS AND PROVIDE THIS DENSER KIND OF STREET GRID THAT COMMISSIONER SMITH WAS TALKING ABOUT. AND SIMILAR TO THE MESI SITE, WE SPLIT THAT EIGHT ACRE SITE UP INTO ROUGHLY FOUR EQUAL PARCELS, ABOUT TWO ACRES EACH. AND SO SIMILAR, AND WE ALSO WANT TO CREATE PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY So, you know, for me to kind of think through some of this or give you some feedback of what I might like to see here would be more like four equal-sized parcels with a cross-axis, especially north-south on here, so people wouldn't have to go all the way around the massive block to kind of navigate the site. And I would actually, rather than kind of making B, C, and D smaller, make the two buildings on France Avenue actually larger. Because I think that would make for a more WE ALSO KIND OF WANT TO MAKE THIS AREA MORE DENSE THAN IT IS NOW. I DON'T KNOW IF WE HAVE GUIDELINES FOR OFFICE OR RESIDENTIAL BUT I KNOW FOR OUR OFFICES BUT FOR RESIDENTIAL WE WANT TO MAKE THESE IN THIS AREA CARRY UP TO 60 UNITS AN ACRE.

I believe on this side of France, it's between 20 to 75.

So half as dense as the Macy's site. Yeah. And for me, I'm thinking of that in terms of scale and not necessarily residential units. So the Macy's, we're considering seven-story, eight-story buildings there and You know, and A is a several-story building, so I would like to make them more uniform and kind of make a street, at least a street access in the north-south direction. I know you can't make an access onto France Avenue, but it'd be nice if there was other ways to kind of navigate this. I see that you have access out to the back. There's a road out the back. Would it be... interesting to make a couple of more street grids in there.

TO PIGGYBACK OFF OF WHAT COMMISSIONER FELT JUST MENTIONED, IT'S A BUILDING WITH A SEA OF PARKING LOT AND THE SOLUTION IS THREE SMALLER BUILDINGS THAT ARE DRIVE THROUGHS. TO ME THAT CONTINUES TO FAVOR VEHICULAR TRAFFIC SORT OF AT THE EXPENSE OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND SPACE AND Yeah, I would lean more heavily towards larger densification of B, C, and D if that meant we're reducing parking and it meant a better experience for users in general, not just the cars.

If I could, I think I want to ask a clarifying question because I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what you're looking for feedback for and I want to make sure that you leave having heard the right sort of feedback because you say that your preference is to put together a project that doesn't use variances. That's correct. So there's really no need for us to provide feedback on interior lot line setbacks because that's not the direction you're going to head or do you want to have feedback on interior lot line setbacks?

I'm interested in what your point of view is, but what I think we intend to do is to work with staff to make sure that we develop a site plan that conforms with the setbacks, which would not result in requiring a variance.

Okay, so that's different from the drawing that we're looking at, right?

We would adjust to that.

And would you be trying to avoid parking variances also? Yes. Okay.

And I think we could accomplish that through a cross easement.

THEY ARE A LITTLE BIT SHORT PART. SO I BELIEVE OVERALL, UNLESS SOME OF THE, YOU KNOW, REDUCED TO TWO BUILDINGS, SQUARE FOOTAGE REDUCTION.

SO THAT LEADS TO A QUESTION FOR YOU, KERRY. PROBABLY LAST YEAR OR MAYBE EARLIER THIS YEAR WE HAD THE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE RESTAURANT AT 50TH AND FRANCE AND SOME CROSS PARKING WITH THE BANK JUST TO THE SOUTH OF IT ON FRANCE AVENUE AND THERE WERE SOME REQUIREMENTS. WHAT WERE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CITY TO IMPROVE PARKING ON A DIFFERENT PARCEL?

Yeah, when we do shared parking arrangements, we typically want to see that the site where they're sharing the parking is compliant and they have enough spaces. With that particular one, my recollection is they weren't relying on those spaces, but they were available for customers.

Right. But hypothetically here, like building D would need to be an official easement, wouldn't it, for parking on an adjacent parcel? Yes. Yeah, there would have to be shared parking and access easements.

It would go with the deed, so it would live forever. Right. Okay. Commissioner if this Just to address that because the property is owned singularly by by one by one owner at this point We could prior to creating or at the time of the subdivision created to create a cross parking easement by declaration And and give each space the parking spots as it needs The building a We are technically under-parked, I think minimally, but practically we are not. Building A does not use these parking spots anywhere near to what the code originally contemplated back when this code was created.

I presume there's parking underneath Building A as well? Yes, that carry that goes into the count.

I would assume I was not aware of so I did not include that in that okay I have to I'll have to verify what parking is still available under under that building a Couple more comments if I can go ahead

The one thing I'd like to see is, it looks like the sidewalk was kind of redone. I don't know if that's the city, the county, or the property owner here, but on the northern half of along France Avenue there, about a third of it, but then the rest of it bumps back out to be right on the curb. And France is too busy of a road to have a sidewalk right along the curb. So if some development does occur along here, I would encourage that, just a comment, to encourage that sidewalk to bump back out and give it a little boulevard between the 60 mile an hour cars and the sidewalk. I know it's 40, 45 down there, but... And then just another comment again about densification perhaps. I don't have a huge problem with the individual buildings like that, but I know that doesn't really follow the guideline. Did you look at any other buildings? Do you look at anything in the northwest corner there closer to the entrance or are you running, you're probably running a little short on parking, so you probably didn't. That was my only other comment. Put some more along that road, but. But.

Other comments, questions?

Jimmy. It's just simple one and maybe it was answered or addressed, but were I mean, where you prevent presented with the. Greater Southdale area plan as well as the design experience guidelines.

Yes.

Okay. And I mean, just from my purview and just general comments, from what I'm seeing, this doesn't really match anything at all in terms of what we're trying to drive redevelopment and getting developers on the same page with the visions of the city and its constituents. I mean, what I'm seeing is It's a suburban concept infill where we're putting drive-throughs in a sea of parking with still keeping a sea of parking. And even on those peripheral areas, we're scooching into those with more parking and drive-throughs. Just fundamentally, if the goal is to do stuff that is making improvements to the property that comply. There's not much we can do. I'd encourage you to do that, but I've also seen the name that's behind the ownership group here. There's people involved that have done some pretty bold redevelopments in the city you know and this seems like a safe you know steady money making um decision but i urge just a more bold creative eye to like help re-envision this whole area we're right by centennial lakes right by the nine mile creek trail we have we're asking these developers and redevelopers to really like help achieve the vision of the greater Southdale plan as well as the design framework. And it starts with kind of what Meriwether said of breaking up the super blocks, making defined quadrants, how do we make this a walkable place, not one focused on vehicles. So although I understand what you're doing from a business perspective and an incremental change, I guess I would just urge you guys to be a little more bold in trying to present something that could wow us into the future versus I guess something a little more predictable like this. So I just have too many comments because it's just kind of, it's not matching what we hope to see, but I understand where you're coming from if you're not really doing anything with building A and trying to incrementally improve the property. It's better than what is there, but I'd encourage with you and the ownership entity, you know, who've done some pretty big wow factors around town, like maybe if not now, but one day do something awesome here in Edina or something right on the site. I'll just leave it at that. Thank you.

Anyone else? Claire.

mean to to jimmy's comment there if d was a a restaurant right and then you're having the cross easement for parking with an office building even that incremental step feels more exciting than this three drive-through banks in a sea of parking Yeah. It just doesn't feel inspired by the guidelines and the direction.

A clarifying question and then I have a couple of comments. if this were to become fact with three banks that would the zoning wouldn't allow uh retail or a culver say correct okay i guess my main struggle is that i have a hard time reacting to a picture that's not really what you want to do and i i think we'd have a better conversation if we were talking about a project that looked like what you say your objectives were as far as trying to get through a project with no variances. I think we'd be able to have a more productive conversation if we were reacting to that rather than a hypothetical. And then just some thoughts reacting to some fellow commissioners. There are a couple of things that make me less I I empathize with all of the comments so far, but this is. Just a little bit north of 494 and it is just a little bit north of. Probably the least safe pedestrian environment in the city down by Perkins.

Realizing that's probably not in the diner, is it? Is it is part of the diner OK?

So I'm wondering whether, because When I think about the Southdale District, rightly or wrongly, I'm focused on between France and New York, and it's a self-enclosed geography. And the fact, that's not technically correct if you look at a map, but the way we live today, that is pretty correct, because there is a very real divider along France Avenue. So what does that mean? Does that mean that next time we do a comprehensive plan, we should have central southdale and perimeter southdale in different guidelines i'm not recommending that but i i feel like the world is different enough on either side of france avenue that we might be able to contemplate something different on either side someday totally agree it doesn't fit the the current standards as they exist today um not categorically opposed to drive-throughs in a place like this but i agree that it's not what we say we want when we make a comprehensive plan so i guess my recommendation would be to take the feedback you've gotten tonight make some new drawings that fit with what you really think you want to do with the property and we can talk about it again if that makes sense do you care or mary whether something else

Just one addition to that. The most densely populated places in Edina are France Avenue, York Avenue, and Park Lawn as it extends west of France and east of France. Park Lawn is one of the densest. HAS THE MOST PEOPLE LIVING THERE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN A DINOSAUR. WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THE PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY AND I UNDERSTAND IT'S ON THE SOUTH SIDE ON THE EDGE BUT, YOU KNOW, WHEN WE TALK ABOUT PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY, I DO WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE KIND OF KEEP TAKING STEPS FORWARD AND MAKING THIS PLACE PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY.

Any other comments? All right. Thank you very much for coming tonight.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. All right. We have another sketch plan review, this time for Macy's Furniture Store site, 7235 France Avenue. And Kerry will start off the discussion.

Okay, thank you, Chair. Members of the Commission, I believe you're all familiar with this site, the old Macy's Furniture Store site. The PUD planned unit development zoning was created on this site a little over a year ago. You're seeing the zoning map on the city. Again, this is in the Greater Southdale District on the east side of France. Guided in our comprehensive plan for community activity center, this is our most dense area of development anticipated in the city. Again, the residential density here is contemplated up to 150 units an acre. Aerial shot of the site or when the furniture store was there with the sea of parking. The slide on the screen is the approved development plan for the site. The site that we're looking at this evening is the northwest lot located right here. What the applicant is proposing here is, so what was approved on this site was a seven-story, 124-unit apartment that had 13,000 square feet of office and 6,000 square feet of retail. The proposal is a larger footprint. It's still seven stories in height. The number of units increases to 138. The retail space is slightly larger, just over 7,000 square feet. And they've eliminated the office element. So the expansion essentially accommodates a larger housing. This would be a 55 plus development. You note that the footprint's gotten bigger, so the east-west promenade shifts to the south slightly. Here's a side-by-side comparison. This is the previously approved western lots, and then this is what's proposed this evening. So note that the south lot would get smaller. And here, this is a look at how it ties into the overall development. And you recall that the council made the decision not to do the underpass, so we're just connecting along France there. So when we look at the zoning ordinance compliance table, again, this is for the overall development. They would be code compliant. We believe with the floor area ratio, with the decrease in the building to the south, that's something we would take a closer look at as part of a formal application. The FAR just for this site goes from 2.5 to 3.5 larger buildings. So the request would require, with a formal application, a zoning ordinance amendment to accommodate the proposed change, the overall development plan that gets incorporated right into the ordinance so the city has some discretion there. A site plan review, as I mentioned, the revised overall development plan for the PUD. So areas of focus for the Planning Commission could be the scale of the building, you know, it somewhat blocks that building, the apartments that will be constructed to the east. The applicant has some slides that'll show that, some massing diagrams. And then that realignment of the east-west pedestrian pathway. So I will stop there, and the development team has a presentation to make, and then we can answer your questions after.

Thank you.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. Thanks for being here later tonight. As Carrie pulls up the slides, I think a couple... Additional points of context I would point out on the plan, and again, just for introductions, I'll back up. I'm Evan Doran, I'm the CEO of the Doran Group. We're the proposed developer partner with Enclave, who has a representative here tonight, Ben Landhauser. We also have folks from our development team, Jeremy Edwards and Aiden Sagana are here, and team members from our architectural team, Emily Gunner and Molly Fubalon are also here as well. So thinking a little bit about sort of just demographics for a moment, you may recall that the full east side of this site is essentially market rate housing. And so we had been in discussions with Enclave about introducing a slightly differentiated housing product here. As Kerry noted, the original building on this site, the Northwest Parcel, was 124 units, seven stories, plus roughly 13,000 square feet of office and kind of a second story. And then the ground floor was a mix of retail, shelter parking, and some amenity space. And so acknowledging that maybe there was a more limited office demand than maybe was originally envisioned, we felt that it was appropriate to consider an alternative use, which was an age-restricted product. So 55-plus community here. I think Commissioner Smith made the point earlier that it's part of this group's mission to sort of keep folks in community, and we view that this is a part of that as well by providing a slightly differentiated product for folks on the older end of the spectrum. age spectrum. And so I think in terms of context of the site, as we get into comments, a couple of things I'll just try to explain the reasoning behind and then would love to take your feedback and comments as well. The building is growing slightly larger north to south for a couple of reasons. It retains essentially the western and northern and eastern boundaries and property lines. So pretty much those three sides really don't change really at all. The growth to the south is driven kind of primarily by two reasons. One of which was, in our opinion candidly, the original building was under-parked. It required essentially sort of shared parking amongst some of the other buildings. And so we've tried to maintain and include all the parking necessary for both the residential uses and the commercial uses. in our footprint. And so that would leave essentially two underground levels of residential parking for the building residents, as well as around 40 stalls that would be sheltered in a garage accessible off this sort of central north-south corridor here, but to service the anticipated retail, which is around 7,500 square feet. We envision that being likely two to three different retail users. It's too early to sort of tell exactly what those will be. But they would be served by the parking in the building. So that is one reason that the building shifts south. The other reason is that the demographic we're talking about, the age-restricted demographic or those folks 55 and older, typically are coming oftentimes from a house that they've been in for potentially many years. They're predominantly looking for and interested in larger units. That's true with the developments that Amira Bloomington, for example, Avedor and Edina and other market comps in the sort of broader metro. So they're looking for larger two bedroom units, two bedroom plus den units, one bedroom plus den units. And what that does is sort of pushes and sort of pulls our our floor plans more laterally and sort of linearly and requires a little bit more of that of that frontage, that glass frontage to provide the units that ultimately will we think will sell the best or rent the best. The building does include 10% of affordable units at 50% so we're accommodating that as well. And so ultimately that is what the driving reasons to sort of flip flop essentially the northwest and southwest parcels. So what you'll see in the packet and I can sort of You all can see this, right? I don't know if you can see the mouse. You can see that, right? Essentially the, I'll go to the comparison here momentarily. So this east-west promenade retains the same depth. It's still 60 feet across, but it moves essentially onto the southwest parcel, which does have the effect of shrinking the southwest parcel. We still think there's plenty of viable uses for that parcel, including various density and multi-story uses. But ultimately, it will retain that sort of through-fair east-west, fully from France all the way to the south. the promenade walking path to the east. And so, like I said, flips the promenade from the northwest side to the southwest side and allows us to sort of retain the building area that we would be looking for to get the kind of unit count necessary to make the project all work with the affordable housing and the retail components as well. We had heard feedback as well that the original plan included retail. I think that was an important element that the city including this commission and the council had looked at wanting to maintain some level of France Avenue activity. So we've retained that as well. I'm gonna bounce around here a little bit, so forgive me. But this first floor parking is something that I think was not included in Kerry's presentation, but gives you an idea of how the general thinking about programming would work on the first floor. So again, north and east sort of parking and driveway access is essentially retained with the same sort of trash and delivery nodes that were existing on the previous earlier approved building. But what we do have here is a slight increase in the amenity space As well as an increase in the retail space on the France Avenue side and what we're trying to do as well as mimic what enclave is planning which is First floor sort of accessible walkout units essentially to maintain that sort of access to the promenade and And so it does ultimately grant more parking in this floor, roughly 40 stalls. And again, the access to the lower level garages would be specifically for residents sort of off of this northeast corner. The other piece I would just share with you briefly, and we can talk a little bit about some of the units and kind of why the sizing is that I mentioned earlier, but we did just some high-level massing. Again, for us, it's a little premature to know kind of materiality. We'll obviously probably be looking to stay within the sort of broader context of the existing enclave approvals, but probably slightly deviate in terms of kind of formal materials, or at least just coloring and that kind of thing to distinguish the buildings a bit. But substantially speaking, the massing is fairly similar. I think from this angle, which again is sort of on the northwest side, essentially across from France, where the setting apartment is currently under construction, gives you a flavor of how the building would look. Again, not substantially dissimilar from the existing approved building, just again stretches further south. And I think the one other comment I would make as well is we also took a look at how this would look from the promenade's perspective. And I think, you know, to me it's sort of six one half dozen, which way the rendering or which way the promenade sort of view angle goes. It depends on obviously which way you're traveling down France, if you're in a vehicle, or if you're a pedestrian, which way you're traversing from the site east to west. But without the connection to the now I guess, deceased bridge or pedestrian walkway. I think there's a nice continuation that we're proposing from France to the other end of the building, which again, you sort of see a bit of a sneak peek of the enclave buildings that they are working on further east. So with that, I guess I will pause and see if there are any questions for myself or the team that's here or from staff.

We'd like to start. Actually, before we could do that, a clarifying question, just the general state of play. The Southwest building is not under your control.

Correct.

And it's under the control of Enclave? That's right. And is there any way to know what might happen in that space or what's feasible in that space? Because it does look quite small.

I would say I don't want to speak for Enclave. I know that they're working on a number of potential alternatives. They will retain the opportunity and obligation to sort of redevelop that space. We've had multiple lengthy conversations about making sure that the Promenade itself remains an integral part of the site, so that will remain while the location changes, it will remain otherwise untouched, with the probable exception of revising the far western edge, which was formerly going to connect to the bridge or the underpass, and now will sort of just end at France Avenue. And so I think the Most helpful slide here is, again, the comparison slide, which effectively demonstrates that the previous Northwest building was roughly 120 feet north to south depth, and the existing new Southwest building, especially now that there's been some changes to the stormwater detention pond, ranges in depth from around 115 to around 120 feet as well. So the buildable pad area is roughly the same. But again, we've just sort of flipped it from north to the south parcel, if that makes sense.

Yes, thanks. Okay, Quincy, go ahead. Sorry. No, I think you asked the exact question I was going to ask.

Yes, what's going to happen to that south building and what should go in there? So let me think of a different question. I'll get back to you.

I was just going to say, why... It seems like it would almost been easier just to keep the, instead of buying the Northwest site, to buy the Southwest site and keep it the same, but you didn't, so.

Yeah, I think that's a fair question. I think we went kind of round and round about what the different opportunities were. And at the time we began the conversations, we've looked at, we've candidly looked at almost every part of this puzzle. But I think Enclave certainly has a lot of interest in continuing to develop the east side into the market rate housing. that they're working on. And I think the Southwest parcel has kind of gone through the most evolution from its previous approved iteration, which was at the time sort of a multi-story kind of high-rise building with condos and office towers. our office space. And so I think there was, again, not speaking for Enclave here, but appetite to potentially explore how that could still come together or work or whatever. So we elected to move forward with the Northwest parcel here.

Okay. So then as I'm looking at this, there'd be an underground, there'd be one level below grade or two levels below grade. There'd be one level of retail in the front along France, a couple of units on the south end, and then parking generally throughout the rest. Above that, I would guess where those little cutouts are would be amenity decks or something like that for the rest of the units.

That's right, yeah. The vision would be that we'd have sort of almost a split amenity feature. Again, a little preliminary, but amenity space to the south, likely sort of a pool or something like that on the deck, and then potentially some sort of garden space or something like that on the north side on the L2 level, which would be residential and some additional amenities as well.

Right, okay.

questions oh sorry so i guess my concern and it's as much a comment and question together right now the macy's parking lot serves very much as overflow public parking for uh the retail parcel to the south I would argue that you might go have gone from under parked to over park now we have 1.8 if I did the math right stalls per unit. 40 public in that building. We could give positive feedback here, but I guess I'm looking at you, Carrie, because they've shifted the buildings. They've also shifted where parking opportunities are for other people. And I guess I would just, as an aside, say, Underground parking for your affordable units that you charge ceases to make it in a viable affordable option. So if we're putting 1.8 stalls per unit, I would strongly encourage the developer to. Figure out how to make parking available to those units because other ways they will take some of those spaces. It's in the public and we have now just continued to remove parking for anyone else in that area.

Carrie, can I jump in really quickly just to comment on that? Yeah, so the affordable units will have free parking allocated to their respective unit types. And then a point taken on the parking, again, a little bit of the nuance here is the demographic unit mix. So because of the propensity for this demographic to want the larger units, particularly the two-bedroom units, it does skew sort of parking per stall that we might otherwise see in a market rate building being slightly lower because there is that higher demand for the two bedroom units. It's sort of.

Very familiar. Yeah. The last decade in senior housing.

Okay, great.

We think it's great and people want two stalls. They don't all need two stalls because your average age is over 70 in a 55 plus building. And I certainly sitting on this side don't want to sacrifice public available units for all of the amenities in the area and I just I'm not quite sure how to think about it because feedback on this component now outside of the PUD we're going to hamstring this southern parcel and so when they come with whatever the design is we've sort of we've just shifted where the parking was and who has availability to it, and maybe in a way that doesn't behoove the public.

Excuse me. Yeah, that's an excellent point. We're going to need to know we're gonna need to look at the parking overall, including that site as part of a formal application, including the site to the south, to make sure that there is enough parking to

But will we get that opportunity anymore if we're approving each of the buildings sort of separately? Do they have to come back or is it just sort of last one in the door?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think for the approval for this northwest site, we're going to need some answers on the southwest as well in regards to the parking. So we'll have to work through that with the formal application. Sounds good. Thank you.

Other questions, comments? Jimmy.

Not quite ready fully, but maybe same question I asked the prior applicant, but were you guys presented with the South Delia guidelines and the design experience guidelines?

We were.

I guess your last image that you shown like in the presentation as you're looking down the promenade there, I think that's. guess a good example for some of my feedback in terms of the the shape and the experience around the building i mean as you know from reading through that the buildings to have four corners so i like that you guys have activated the west side with retail have an amenity space and have walk-up units i think that's great but just in terms of the design experience guidelines on all four sides of those buildings especially if there's going to be kind of like a promenade is to step the building back and so i guess what i would like to see you know for the know official proposal is how you can tighten the building maybe i don't know like i'm okay with it not being a perfect grid as long as there's interest and there's a logical connection east to west throughout all four parcels but if that podium remains the same it's to see the building step back there so then it becomes more at that pedestrian scale which is kind of the cornerstone of the design experience guidelines and a lot of the other stuff in there i mean there's one graphic specifically that just kind of shows what i'd like to see because everyone's walked through an experience like that where you have tall buildings potentially on both sides and no matter how you dress up the the first level it's kind of ominous you're in shadows etc so one other point of feedback depending on how much you'd be willing to kind of shuffle things on the first level is To me, it seems like you could benefit from expanding the retail on that northwest corner a little more to the east, people driving south down France, because there's no building there and it doesn't seem like anything's going to change. I think that vantage point to the retail along the north side of the building, it'd be nice to see something larger there where you could... Just provide more retail space and maybe that allows you to shuffle or move around where you have the entrance to the parking ramp for the residents or even for the surface level parking. But in general, I'd like to see a taller, more slender building relative to the podium to just give a little more. Variety of design compared to all the neighboring buildings which are similar in size and scale and shape. I know it's shaped like an H once you get above it, but. i think just with it going to the extent of the podium that just doesn't quite match those design experience guidelines as you walk around the building especially for that central promenade which i think to me that would be the most important side of the building to step back from I mean, I might have some more comments. I wasn't fully ready, but in terms of just general scale, I'm okay with these being different. At first, when I was looking at it, it looked like the Central Promenade just doesn't match enough, and so I can't tell where, like, there's gonna be a crossing or crosswalk, so as long as that matches well to the northeast and southeast parcels to the east, like, I'm okay with that. uh and then that that to me just gives a little more character for that southwest building to be a little more slender and taller and i think that's okay like i'd rather things look a little different than just four seven or five to seven story blocks every everywhere so uh and then in terms of the sidewalk i just I'd pull it farther from France with how you do your landscaping plans. I think some of the nice stuff we see is kind of like two landscape rows on either side of the sidewalk or even like two rows where the sidewalk is closer to the building, you know, where it's kind of like that street front feel where you're walking by closer to the building. I just encourage the sidewalk to move farther from the street.

Thank you, Commissioner, if I can just make a couple of comments on that really quickly. One one thing on the sidewalk piece, which is totally point taken. And we did want to try to retain the original plan, which had an outdoor patio seating element under the presumption that that could be a restaurant of some type. And so, you know, I think that'll evolve over time as we actually fill those spaces, whether that's a restaurant or F&B user. on the north side or on the south side. But I think we're looking to retain some sort of food user in this building. And I think that that outdoor patio space vis-a-vis the sort of sidewalk will probably Tom Ozden- evolve or time, I will also just just say on the sort of facade kind of setback question and comment I think that's a good comment, I think what we were trying to do and would love your feedback on is recognize that the buildings to the east. Tom Ozden- are sort of twins in a way they're kind of you shaped buildings with internal courtyards essentially in kind of the middle on either side and create this sort of. large kind of a ring. But I think in our view, driving predominantly from France, coming from the north, because I think that coming from the south will presumably be blocked in some cases by the future southwest building, but to provide a little bit of relief kind of along this whole section by creating that sort of internal courtyard so that it isn't just essentially four or kind of two large facade masses. And so that to us felt a little bit more appropriate to come down. And because you have the sort of wide open parking of Byerly's, assuming that there's not like a credit union in there at some point in the future, that there is some visual difference in that respect. So.

Yeah, I appreciate the comments. And I guess the question back to you, did you guys consider, I mean, like a different shape or let's say that the h is maybe more favored to a larger south facing courtyard and a smaller north facing courtyard just thinking in in terms of the north side is just going to pretty much be in shadow and darkness all year long and yeah and looking at lungs where i mean maybe maybe that just Adds some of that interest, but could allow you to. Step things back differently. In general, I like the H shape, but I just I'd like to see it. Pushed in, especially from the South side. So whether it's shrinking that North, you know courtyard quite a bit like what? What is the goal with that one? Does it really need to be the same size as the South one? Or can that South one just grow and then that one is more of? I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT COULD BE, BUT I'D LIKE TO SEE.

I APPRECIATE THAT. THANK YOU. IT'S SOMETHING WE CAN LOOK AT, CERTAINLY.

MAYOR RUTHER?

YEAH, I WANTED TO FOLLOW JIMMY, BECAUSE I WAS THINKING DIFFERENTLY ON SOME THINGS, BUT ALONG THE SAME LINES ON OTHERS. YOU KNOW, ACROSS THE STREET, THE SOUTHERN PARCEL HAS It's skin is up right now in the storefront with 75% glass. Just looks like a continuous space. It will be different spaces, but it all reads as one. And it'd be nice if that could happen here too, that it could all read as one. And to go along with the sidewalk comment, if it does read as one and if there's a lot of activity there, people like to look in windows. The sidewalk would love to be kind of closer to the you know, where they could go in rather than France Avenue. I think I would prefer to kind of see where I was going in. But for me in terms of the placement, prior to this, the access was kind of perpendicular the way the promenade is now and going all the way through the project on the west side of the street. So it had an access that went all the way through and it had this kind of beautiful promenade piece where you could see several blocks. I mean you can see from the pond on the West all the way through the promenade so you can see all of that. So that's not there now. It did bother me before that it skewed the orthogonality of this site and now when I see that promenade shoved down and when you and we can go back to that 3D image looking at France through the promenade. So rather than being able to see through to the promenade, now you see a residential building back there. And you don't see, and it's just this rendering, I'm sorry, you probably didn't have time to kind of do that, but you don't see the promenade, you see a sidewalk with green plants on either side.

Yeah, it's not, just to be clear, it's not an exact representation of the Promenade. I get it.

But, you know, so not only is this one bigger, but now the other one's smaller, and you can't see through your block by a residential building. So I think the orthogonality of this, and especially this is a third space. This is a place where people can gather. It's 60 feet wide. There's no cars on it. except for right in the middle. So it is a place for people to be other than in their workspaces or in their home spaces, a place for them to kind of gather outside. And for those, because the exterior of the lot is, the big lot is irregular with the streets, I think it's, to have it orthogonal would really kind of make this space, this third space, really sing. And when I saw this. North, south, east, west, perpendicular, square. Like if you draw a square and bisect it. So for me, having that promenade go straight through, if you look at the site plan with all four buildings on it, those corners of the northwest and the southwest NEED TO MATCH THE CORNERS OF THE BUILDINGS ON THE EAST SIDE. SO TO JUST PUSH THIS TO THE SOUTH REALLY TO ME. Yeah, kills that problem kills the delight in that promenade being able to see that Vista because you could see you'll be able to see green on the West side of France Ave because there's some trees on the other side of the stormwater plan and you can see the trees on the promenade. And so I think that would be a beautiful thing to kind of maintain here. Um?

if I may, Commissioner Felt, appreciate the comments. I think one thing I would just note, and we can certainly come with some additional graphical representation of this, but the existing plan, PUD plan, which is here on the left on the screen, the building to the east, the Enclave Market Rate building, essentially extends to about here, roughly to the edge of where this sort of walk path exists in the current plan. And so it has an offset in the current PUD. And so I think as we were thinking about, and I think the point you made about connecting sort of across France is a good one, but I think

And the reason for that was because it continued all the way across France. So those buildings had a view corridor from the west side of France to the promenade. And because it was aligning with the buildings over there. So now that that's not happening, I think we, you know, if we could at least try and have that view corridor from France to the Promenade would be important. From France Avenue, right through the middle, from France Avenue to the promenade, that 60 feet be aligned so you can have that view corridor all the way through. And I know they were skewed before, but it was skewed for a reason across. all of the sites so it could line up with what we were doing across the street. Those got there first, right? And so that's the way it was. I mean, I think it's sad that Enclave doesn't have all of this. So it's kind of tough to see this. And there were some exciting images through that. So it's kind of hard to, yeah. But I do think, once again, that pedestrian connection and that friendlier connection important to the Southdale area plan, and so I think being able to see if you're going down France and you got that quick view and it and you just that 60 feet all the way through to the promenade. For me is important. At that.

Thank you. Other comments.

Quincy Yeah, just a quick question. The reason why the building is pushing more south, is it because you're trying to achieve more square footage, ultimately?

I wouldn't say it's driven by square footage. Just for square footage's sake, it's about trying to create the unit mix that works for this clientele. And so that requires a bit more window and kind of glass frontage, which ultimately drove some of the H-shaped decision-making, because it actually gives us more frontage to have these sort of two nooks in the building, as opposed to one big U. And so that was one of the primary drivers, and then again, the other one being the unit mix, skewing to the two beds required more parking on a per-unit basis, because there's more two beds, ergo more... more two-bed, two-car units, despite the comment, which is true, that they're not necessarily all required by the users. But nonetheless, the point is that the parking was also part of driving that underground garage component, if that makes sense. So that was sort of the two, the combined elements that created that square footage increase.

I'm just wondering if for this commission, to Marybeth's point, you know, getting the sight lines to go from France all the way to the promenade, if the building was more north, would we be willing to go more height? So if the building went up a floor or two, so you could push it more north, if you could maintain those sight lines, if that would be a thing that would make any sense.

I do know that There was a lot of feedback from the public. I'm completely fine with it getting more dense. I just know that that's going to be a tough call through council because council get a lot of feedback.

If I may, I think one comment, too, on the orthogonalness of these sight lines is that the trade-off became either we reduced the continuousness of the sight lines from across France Avenue, where the setting and the Craftsman office building are, Or we had our building, which actually aligns more, like if you were to draw a straight line east to west, the promenade where it sits in our proposal actually aligns more with the existing eastern portion of the promenade. So this line, sort of east-west, is actually more aligned than what was existing previously. But it doesn't give you the sight line to the setting on France piece.

And here's the thing. Now I'm going to get all kind of like collegiate on you. So if you like go in a quad in a campus or like the National Mall and all the buildings are, you know, straight down one side or the other, you have this feeling of space. even though you're outside, the walls kind of continue. And so I guess what happens for me with this is it diminishes the value of that outdoor space when they're all jumbled around like this. And not that the alignment before was great. I mean, but so I'm just saying, We lost one and now we're just throwing out the, to at least make this third space. cohesive and feel good as an outdoor space. I mean, I know it doesn't, you know, the building is important to you, but there was a PUD on this, and it was about doing a space for the public, and now it feels like that public space is been trashed. So that's my feeling on this. I would not, if you came back with a building that did this, I would not support it. I'm letting you know.

Claire.

Just one more small comment, I guess sort of in continuation of this emphasis on the public space and setting back and your H versus your U. I appreciate the comment. I don't think anyone wants to look north. I think both the pool or a garden would sort of fail on the north side of a building and also then it's just right over the parking.

It just hasn't been massaged yet enough to share. So we do envision an amenity space on the second floor, potentially a two-story lobby or some sort of activation in the plan view here in the southeast corner of the building to allow for the primary entrance, the mailroom, offices, you know, the kind of, like, most publicly accessible elements, but then additional resident amenity space on the second floor tied to whatever is happening in the south sort of deck, pool, et cetera. And so I think our vision would be that it would be active on essentially this entirety of the south face from the retail through the townhome style units all the way to this amenity sort of space on the two stories.

But your lobby's only going to be attended Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, or some sort of very, that lobby will become an unactive space outside of business hours. And so that's the northern part of this purple amenity space. That is seems to me to be in excess of two or three offices and a lobby. If those you could get some more parking there. If you use that as parking and made the amenity space, whatever you deem you need on upper floors. I also think. If you have too much lobby amenity space for the residents on that first floor again, it is not. Engaging with the public and even your staff won't be there. Outside of business hours, so was just encouraging a different usage of that. South East corner.

Thank you.

And your comment made me think about moving amenity space up. The views here, Fred Richards Park is happening in the west, and we've got the promenade in the east. And the promenade is really charming to walk all the way up and down. And I did that once, and all of a sudden I realized, This is a great place to live. You can walk to every grocery store. There's several grocery stores.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. That looking west at the Fred Richards Park, when you're talking about your H shape, that's where I want to, and I don't know about... Noise on France, but boy that view when you're talking about the mini moving it up up to the top. I was like that'd be a great view.

I mean where the word lobby is like if that was a walk up unit, that's. Primo real estate in my mind to be able to engage with the promenade and you can start to see eastward towards Centennial so. Not trying to put my developer hat on, but I think you might be able to solve some other problems if. We reconfigured that purple block.

Thank you, thank you for listening.

Of course it's over here for.

Joe. I'm gonna change the subject a little bit. Thanks for being here, Evan. Floor area ratio hasn't come up yet, I don't think, in any meaningful way. I was talking to a fellow commissioner before this meeting and I get stuck on as a sketch plan review an opportunity for commissioners to share our own thoughts about a project or try and look into a crystal ball and anticipate what council will say. And I don't know the answer yet. But on that note, i mean it's bold with an asterisk next to it floor area ratio is 3.5 this is a complex puzzle as you noted um maybe this is just some mechanics that get worked out between the two developers uh thus far in city staff but i'm almost opening it up to other commissioners too or carrie as well like Does a formal application come in for this PUD and then require a site plan for the southwest quadrant showing a floor area ratio of less than 3.5 and then you average it out and it's under three. Or is the angle to ask just for a variance on the site? I mean, frankly, three doesn't seem super high for how France feels in the sense that France feels denser than a floor area ratio of three. But I don't know. I don't know if any commissioners or Kerry or Mr. Doran want to chime in on that.

Yeah, I can take a shot at it. So the code requires a 2.5 for the entire PUD. So as part of this next phase, we'll need to know exactly, basically we'll run the square footages of this project, the two that are being built, and then that'll leave what's ever left over for that other site. And if they want more square footage on that site, Then we do there we have to change the code so that would be an ordinance amendment there rather than the variance that kind of the same thing, but that's the way I'm looking at it at least today.

Kind of two paths then, either a variance slash code change, the PUD, or whatever the last site to put a shovel in the ground just gets what they get for square footage?

Yeah, we're gonna need to know what's happening on that southwest parcel as part of a formal application. This is an integrated PUD, so I think we're gonna need more detail.

Yeah, I mean, it's a complex project. I'm just thinking about shared utilities and all that fun stuff. And is there a shared stormwater management and things like that? Evan is nodding. But yeah, I just thought that would be a topic worth bringing up at least. I don't know if anyone else wants to chime in on the FAR, but yeah.

I feel the same way about parking.

Yeah, I mean, we kind of touched on it with parking. Sure. Yeah. So, Jimmy.

carrie what is allowed i mean typically as we look back over the years you know the west side of france is the side of france that gets the most heat in terms of height density and it seems like the east side is more liberally applied even being right on france what's allowed right there and then what i mean what have we seen historically that got approvals or positive sketch plan feedback

I think the biggest difference in the two is that retail is more allowed everywhere on that east side of France, where it's not on the west side. That's opening up a little more over time. We've had some rezonings on that side. But the west is more office and residential, as it's guided in the comprehensive plan today. There's some limited retail opportunities in that area, but between France and York is where we anticipate really all uses are allowed with the exception of industrial at higher densities.

In terms of height though along France,

Oh right, yeah, the height on the west side is essentially four stories is the max there. We've gone over that with some PUDs, and then there's the Southdale Office Center where there's the existing buildings that are taller.

So I don't know, I feel like in terms of, as I've thought about the feedback and heard stuff here, I think one logical and maybe not so heavy of a lift of a change would be, you know, instead of, this is a one level podium, basically, what you're showing.

Excluding the below grade, yeah, one level on grade podium.

so i mean what i'm just thinking in terms of meeting the design experience guidelines where you know retail in general is guided for you know 20 feet of height i would i would think you know a two-story podium would achieve some of these things where maybe you can shift this building even one column bay north squeeze it to get an extra level and have you know two levels of walk-ups you know achieve your two-level amenity leasing area and then again to do that I'd expect to, you know, like you'd want to regain some of that retail, which again goes to my original idea of, you know, extending some of that retail on the north side, because you really do have visibility where, you know, maybe that use is more of a longer east-west tenant space, so they do get frontage on France, but also more... more window and space on the north side of the building, which would be more visible. I feel like you could go up a story or two to achieve what you might lose unit-wise, whether it's a column bay or maybe it's even two, where that H just condenses a little more, but still maintains some of your design aesthetic and goals. But I am seeing what Commissioner Felt's bringing up and I think what's changed is there isn't a connection across France now with this development that was always on the table. I'm trying to think of who's going to go down here and face a dead end at France with the building in front of them, to her point. something does feel off about that where i feel like it's going to feel like a private kind of amenity courtyard for the users of the building and not the public unless of course you activate with that corner restaurant but not knowing exactly what's going to happen there it's hard to like just hope for the best so i think that's where we can just rely on a little more consistent design across i think even one column bay then makes those like match exactly It complicates maybe the agreement with who's providing that promenade and when, but that can be a shared easement in agreement, I'm sure. But yeah, and then I guess the other obvious thing I saw after this was I think the east side of the building needs to come in or do something. There's no sidewalk on the side of the road there. uh so just for someone walking around the building you know we wouldn't want them to cross the street right there's something missing there on the east side of the building so just clean that up i don't see like a sidewalk to do a full perimeter Oh, yeah, and I don't know. Yeah, I don't really mind that as long as there's sidewalks on all sides of the buildings.

I guess what I was saying is I thought that the road behind these two buildings, essentially to the east, is, for all intents and purposes, pedestrian only. Outside of the cars turning into the parking entrance and any vehicle coming where it says trash pickup and we were going to protect people walking down the promenade by having. Right, the raised kind of crosswalk rumbly things. So that it really protected anyone going West to East across that new local street creative name there, but that

Yeah, it looks like it's a road, though. So you'd essentially access both of the north buildings from the north and the two south buildings from the south and not... But that's not what's planned, right? That's not what's shown here.

I think, just to clarify, the current plan, the existing PUD plan, Kerry, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe the current existing PUD assumes a fully accessible road. There may be raised crosswalk elements in the Promenade area, but this road is fully vehicular accessible from north to south, including out to France via this Gallagher Drive element.

Then did we lose the sidewalk?

And I'm okay with that because, right? Oh, sorry. I'm okay with that because it does allow additional interior streets. But to what you brought up, and I appreciate that, because once again, the pedestrians knew that they could walk down that promenade, and we did talk about that whole piece being raised. And so the cars knew that they were on the road, they went up on a six-inch bump, and they had to be careful because they were...

like in the middle of the pedestrians and then they went back down into their drive aisle we did talk about i know i don't think that got approved though that's not oh a piece of the develop anyways just to continue and finish my comments east side have a sidewalk along the building face and then i guess a question back to you just in terms of how you laid it out and getting retail users closer to the retail was there a reason to have it like east loaded or east access versus you know turning right off of france and going right in the north side of the building Just out of curiosity, it looks like you have both entrances in one location, which to me is efficient, but why there?

Just curious. Mostly it was driven by we were trying to respect kind of the existing essentially curb and sidewalk infrastructure of the existing PUD. Okay. So we were trying to respect kind of that. I mean, again, essentially like Beyond the extension of this existing PUD-approved building to the south, all the elements on the west, north, and east side are functionally the same in our proposal. So sidewalk access points, curb cuts, and access lanes, like the drop-off pickup trash elements, are essentially all replicated in the new plan, if that makes sense.

okay yeah and i and i guess i just i i'd be open to those changing if you had a you know more logic to that but it seems like that north side of the road just with the parking lot north of there there's going to be a lot of traffic so to enter the building on that north side you know, both for a resident as well as a guest. One, it gets you quicker to the retail, which almost always those retail users appreciate. And then two, it would eliminate a curb cut with traffic coming in and out of the building on the east side, which I guess would help pronounce you know that north-south pedestrian sidewalk that's missing there just would be less interruption within that so like if it makes sense with your design or it doesn't i i don't personally see a need to stick to the pud from like an access into the building perspective if you have a better reason to do it a different way sure yeah that's great and can i ask a clarifying question before we um just want to make sure i have my notes right were you suggesting when you were talking about the

the raising of the podium to be a two-story podium. Was that what you were suggesting? Yeah, thank you. I'm just trying to sort of square the sort of pedestrian elements with the two-story podium. And I want to make sure that we're capturing the right feedback from kind of multiple parties.

yeah yeah so the i mean the design experience guidelines has kind of a clear you know 20 foot for you know the first level of most buildings along and in this greater southdale area so to have two level podium you know each 10 foot levels that would allow you know your retail to be that 20 foot tall along the west and northwest corner But then you could separate that along the promenade with two levels of walk up. We're not walk up units, but a walk up unit that might look like two levels, but it's access from inside with balconies or whatever. And then allow you to kind of more logically tie into a two level. lobby or amenity like you mentioned and then to me a two-level podium kind of matches some of the design aesthetic that we want to see and then it steps back but if you could move a column bay to the north from the south side and still step back just a little bit. I mean, the design experience guidelines shows quite a bit of a step. Isn't it another 20 feet? I don't know if we need to see something that exaggerated, but just something that um it those guidelines were developed with a lot of input and um a lot i mean a lot of buy-in from a number of people so that 20 foot was kind of like the magical number but that might allow you to get a little more density spread out and then get an extra level on top of the building, but.

Just for clarification, within this PUD, that first floor was reduced to 15 feet, so there's not a 20-foot requirement on this site, it's 15.

Yeah, and I guess I'm just, like, since this has changed, I mean, if this building fit the original footprint, I won't really have as much of a concern, but since it's getting bigger, let's do something more logical. it's not retail the whole like all four sides like you could have 20 foot for just the retail but it's two 10 foot levels that's a common thing you see and yep very rather did you have something else it is there the raised area the shaded and the um

I'm sorry, I did that again. I was back to the pedestrian, continuing the pedestrian crosswalk all the way through the promenade. And it is there very slightly in the new plan, but it was lopped off and shifted down. If that makes sense. You can see the light gray and the medium gray areas, right? Yeah. That was the whole kind of the six inch speed bump. I did it all the way across that. So the pedestrians were, I do those on bikes and I love them. I feel like I'm more visible when I'm on the bike and I got six more inches. I'm like, cars can see me now.

Basketball players.

YEAH. ANYONE ELSE? OKAY. JUST A CLARIFYING QUESTION. SO IT'S YOUR UNDERSTANDING THAT ACCESS TO PARKING WILL COME FROM THE NORTH AND SOUTH ON THE NEW LOCAL STREET, ON THE NEW NORTH SOUTH LOCAL STREET YOU'LL BE ABLE TO GET THERE FROM THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM?

THAT'S OUR UNDERSTANDING. OKAY. THAT WAS OUR UNDERSTANDING TOO.

MAYBE TOO SOON FOR THIS, BUT IS YOUR, ARE YOU In the prior project, I think it was understood that moving vehicles and trash trucks and whatnot would be going into the structure parking. Is that kind of what you're thinking too?

I think that's partially. I mean, I think the original plan, I believe, had staging for trash, obviously, outside, which is what I think is represented in this original PUD. kind of bump out area. But we would be planning to take trash out of the building on trash days for pickup, but otherwise it would be staged internally.

Okay. Delivery vehicles and moving vehicles. I'm sorry, did I say trash trucks? I meant delivery and moving. So it would be inside or outside?

I think, yeah, it's effectively both here. Let's see if I can go back. I mean, we have staged essentially... Trash pickup here, again, replicating. Point heard that we could move that around. And then delivery and sort of move-in zone. This was primarily driven by having accessibility to the retail, having an ability for a service truck or food truck or whatever to be able to come and deliver their supplies in this curb cut.

Okay, thank you. And last thing, what... how would you contrast the features or amenities between market rate and 55 plus? I mean, what's, are there two or three really significant differences in the offerings or is it just a.

Commissioner Hanneman may have ideas. I would say.

The cliff notes version.

Yeah, the cliff notes is, There's maybe slightly differentiated features in that like 55 plus, like some senior buildings might have things like a craft room or dedicated sort of other spaces. But I think one of the key differentiators more so to market rate is that there's an emphasis on programming and sort of club life for lack of a better term. Having book clubs and running clubs and all those different things that typically a programming element is much more reduced if it exists at all in a market rate environment. I think the active adult space, separate from senior, which often has full food and beverage service, on-site potentially medical, skilled nursing. Obviously, if you have sort of memory care facilities, that's an entirely different animal. But the active adult sort of sits between, where there is not on-site skilled medical, typically not on-site F&B, but potentially a different elevated amenity package and the programming element that differentiates it from the market rate.

Okay, thank you. And can you go back to that page that we've been looking at so much that has all four parcels, all four areas? Yeah, I think we're wrapping up. Yeah. You've heard a lot about the continuity of the Central Promenade. And for me, I have a really hard time. I don't... I don't like the way it looks in here because I can't, as so many others have already said, I look at this and I no longer have confidence that it's going to provide the continuity between France and the promenade, what we have called the promenade to the east, as it did before. And yet I can't see a before and after. It's just because you're saying that it's not as big a change as it was before. And you may be right, but I don't have the pages from a year ago or whenever that was. So I had just a thought for presentations and discussions in the future. A really straightforward before and after would be helpful just so we can see it, so we can be comforted that, oh, it's not that big a deal, not as big a change as it seems like it is. And then I think one of the things I find unsettling about this particular image is that the section to the east between the northeast and the southeast buildings is just a green blob. And I have a feeling that even if the shift is going to be OK, that we're going to have to pay some attention in the landscaping and design to make sure it's continuous and make sure there's continuity, even if there's a jog in it. So I know that's not what you came here to talk about. You didn't come here to talk about the section to the east. but we just spent so much time as a group on this whenever that was on the bike lane going on the southern side of the parcel on the prominent going through the middle that i think it's understandable to be concerned about preserving all the the great community benefits that we saw at that time and make sure it's still being delivered in the new project So you heard enough about it. I'm sure you knew that was something that you wanted to continue to work on in the future, but I just wanted to foot stop that because I think that's the most important thing that I've heard you talk about tonight.

If it's helpful, if I had the approved plan in my presentation, I could call that up if you want to take a look at the approved alignment of the promenade.

Isn't that what we're looking at?

But it doesn't go to the one to the right. I don't know that we need to go back there right now because it's not 10 o'clock, but that's... Just a thought.

So if there isn't just one last thought as you finalize I remember there was lots of comments on better together concerned about the new local street and how it connects to Gallagher and people cutting through. I think that was why maybe at the time we spent so much. Time talking about while the buildings north of the Central Promenade accessing from the North versus South. Maybe we did not for code fire legal. Whatever reasons completely block it off, but I do remember that there was a strong group of neighborhood folks who had concern about that road becoming a cut through essentially. For whatever that's worth.

Thank you. Thanks for coming tonight. I hope we got some good feedback and is that it for everybody?

Thank you all.

Thanks very much. All right. Chair and member comments. I don't have any comments tonight. Do any members have comments tonight? I do. All? Yeah.

I wanted to bring something up that we've kind of talked about a little bit here and there about the lack of development opportunity in the western half of Edina, western fifth of Edina. And I don't know if any specific thing has been done yet. I mean, has the council taken any action on the lack of sewer capacity or anything, or have they decided to, I mean, is there a moratorium or any kind of... Because I mean, my feeling is that basically, I mean, we've talked about it. We can't do anything in basically from the school up to London, not London area, but the, is it London area? Yeah, and that whole area up there where we're trying to get some things done before. I just wrote this thing out. I'll just say it just because I... put it together but um and i don't know if it's 10 years before anything can be done but i kind of feel like it's going to take at least that long but as a planning commissioner we're dedicated to fostering smart growth and providing vibrant opportunities across our entire community however and this is where i'm not sure if it's current decision or not but deferring addressing the sewer capacity issues in the western fifth of our city for another X number of years creates a critical roadblock to doing that. Because planning and construction will likely take, once we get to the point of doing, saying we're going to do something, it'll take another decade or so for that to happen. We're kind of putting a freeze on development in a fifth of our community, and that concerns me. I mean, I know some people really don't, in that area, don't want development in that area, but... JUST SAYING NOTHING HAD BEEN DONE WITH ANY OF THAT LAND THAT'S SITTING OVER THERE SEEMS, YOU KNOW, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT DOING, YOU KNOW, significant development in the Southdale area. It just seems, it seems like it'd be interesting for us to, I just wanted to go on record as saying I would like the city council to take a look at that and actually, you know, we're looking at putting a $20 million tunnel underneath France if it's gonna take $20 million to upgrade the infrastructure so we can have developable land or changes in development sooner than 20 years from now, that might be something somebody wants to look at. And I don't know if that starts at the Planning Commission or not.

i appreciate that it's been something that's been a topic for i think almost a decade since that one apartment building was loaded is that the name of it um i think that went in 15 or 16 ish maybe 17. that long ago it could be but uh so it's it's an issue that we've known about um for a while so thank you for going on record

Well, I think I've heard some from some community members too, and it is my understanding that school is looking at doing something more and there's no opportunity for them to do anything. And I don't think they have, you know, 20, $30 million to add on to their to be able to correct the whole situation for the city. So I don't know whose responsibility it is, but again, if we can't maintain or have our infrastructure available for our residents and our businesses, I guess I just feel that's not right.

Carrie, isn't that fair game for a comp plan?

It's in the Lincoln and Londonderry small area plan.

It's highlighted there.

The council is aware.

It's in the comp plan currently. Is it? The comp plan does currently call for more density on that side of the city in certain areas, but we couldn't, a developer couldn't execute on that because the sewer capacity.

Right, but I'm saying isn't there a capital plan section somewhere in the comp plan that says, okay, here's what we need to focus on.

That particular project is not in it, but the council is aware of it. It's a huge price ticket on that. How huge? Is it like $100 million? I don't think it's $100.

It's $20 million plus. Just like a tunnel. Okay.

All right, thank you, Paul.

That was my comment for the week. Anyone else? Staff comments?

Yeah, just to update you on some council actions, this goes back to June, but the parking ordinance, you recall the recommendation on that, the council did approve that. The 50th in France, yep, parking ordinance amendment. And then the Salvation Army project was also approved. And I don't recall because I believe we didn't meet the first meeting in June, whether I've given you an update on the EV charging station, you've probably heard that that did not pass, it failed on a three to two vote. And I've not heard any, nobody has approached staff with any new proposals as of yet.

That's it.

yeah um just want to say it it's nice to see a number of things on an agenda again and you know renewed interests and development along france i mentioned the design experience guideline and south hill thing and i want to bring that up again because typically when we see stuff especially for a sketch plan those documents and graphics and examples are usually used. I actually couldn't find the Southdale design experience guidelines anywhere anymore, and the link to it doesn't exist. Just in terms of getting the community aware of these plans, I know they got, I think, adopted into the comp plan after, because, well, the Southdale The Greater Southdale plan is an appendix in the plan, and it references that as a separate document. But I mean, if that's what we're trying to hold people to, and that's what the community came together for, until it changes, I feel like we need to hold people, one, either accountable to it, or two, have it out there so people can more easily reference it. I was trying to pull it up. I'm like, wait, I have it saved somewhere else, but why can't I find it?

Yeah, it might be victim to the accessibility requirements to make that document accessible is an issue. It's something that we're working on. So maybe things like that will reappear. BUT WE DO GIVE IT TO THE DEVELOPERS THAT ARE AWARE OF IT. LIKE WITH THE PROJECT THAT YOU REVIEWED THIS EVENING, THAT'S NOT A P.U.D. AND REALLY THAT WAS A TOOL TO USE THE GIVE AND GET AND TO TRY TO ACCOMPLISH THE GOALS OF THE CITY. WITH THIS PROJECT, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE SAYING THEY WANT IT TO BE CODE COMPLIANT. So they're aware of it, but they didn't really use it other than on the France side with the 50-foot setbacks.

The initial plans had the drive-throughs on France, so they did some revisions to address the guidelines, but... Yeah, and I'm referring to both, because that one just clearly didn't apply, but then even the east side, like, again, with those street rooms, like, I mean... I'm not aware that we're trying to abandon the vision and like that area plan or the Southdale district plan really does. It references those guidelines like 30 times, you know, like follow these, follow these. And that's what we're hoping to see unfold. So, I mean, it'd be easier for developers, like again, like I always reference that Grandview development framework, that one page, there's like certain graphics, like, we want to see this in general for the public realm and that would just make a lot of these sketch plans easier and kind of the whole purpose of them And I know, I don't know, I just, I know with this accessibility thing, it just seems harder to find stuff, even though it should be easier to find stuff with AI and everything else. So I just wanted to bring it up and like, it's exciting to see some things coming back to the table and renewed interest. It'd be nice if some of them were just more compatible with our vision, so. Yeah, that's it, thank you.