Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

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

all right we do have a quorum we have uh commissioner molson commissioner commissioner walner commissioner francoeur and commissioner wells as well as myself here today next up we have public comment i do see that we have quite a few people in the room i know that some of you have talked to doug earlier if you are here regarding the oakdale property that is not on the agenda tonight But if you are here to speak, please feel free to come up to the microphone You have three minutes. Is there anybody here for public comment today? All right, please come on up oh You can you come up to the microphone The school district property It's not on the agenda tonight I know there was some information that was going around that said it would be. So if you are here to speak, you are more than welcome to speak, but we won't be discussing it tonight. Is there anybody that wishes to speak for public comment tonight on any matter? All right. Seeing none, then we will move on to approval of the minutes from our July 22nd meeting. Is there a motion?

Commissioner Francoeur?

And Commissioner Wells?

I'll make a motion to approve.

All right. Commissioner Francor? I'll second. Second. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. That motion passes. Next up, we have a public hearing regarding the conditional use permit for 1142 River Place Boulevard. Who is handling this one? Megan, thank you.

Thank you we have in a proposal for an adult disability take care services. The applicant lives at 1142 River place Boulevard and is proposing opening this business in their residence. This property is located in the southwest corner of the city in the RS3 single family residential district. Family daycare for children is a permitted principal use in this district and staff reviewed this proposal as a related use requiring the conditional use approval. Here is a picture of the front of the home. And the applicant provided the sketch of the interior layout of their home. Their business plan is to provide non-medical daycare services for adults with disabilities. They plan to keep standard business hours Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They anticipate a maximum of three to four participants at any one time, and the applicant would be the sole caregiver on site. As the business grows, the applicant was interested in potentially adding more participants and hiring additional caregivers. Applicant is requesting a two-year conditional use permit. The staff recommendation is for approval of the conditional use permit for the proposed daycare business at 1142 River Place Boulevard with the following condition. The family daycare services operate as a home occupation, staff would recommend that a condition be placed on this application that the business similarly has to operate as a home occupation and meet all of the applicable standards that go along with that. One of these standards is that no person other than the members of the family residing on the premises shall be employed or engaged in the home occupation. Staff recommends this be applied to the circumstance as it is a very similar use in similar operational status.

Thank you. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak on this item as part of the public hearing? All right, seeing none, we will move on. Oh, sorry. Okay, go ahead, come on up. And then if you could state your name and your address for the record.

My name is Linda Short. I reside at 1133 River Place Boulevard. And I'd like to know if this permit is in fact a rezoning. No.

This is not a rezoning. Yeah.

So the next question I have is how do you know how many people are going to be cared for?

Megan, do you want to address that?

So with the condition use application, we're approving it as they are proposing it, so they'd have to keep it to under four people. In the past, we've found if there were violations, usually it's surrounding neighbors that would let us know, and then we would take appropriate action following up on that.

Okay, so the only thing that we could do is monitor it?

Correct.

Okay, the next question is, when and if these people move? Does the permit move with them? Or will it remain still applicable for adult daycare after their bond?

If a new person came in and started a new business, they would have to get a new conditional use permit to do that.

Okay, the conditional use permit then indicates that it's just for this property, just for these people, and for fewer than four people that may or may not be related to them.

Correct, yes, and that's why we're stating that it operate as a because there are in our zoning code home occupations that are allowed within the district and one of those is child care, but it didn't spell out adult daycare. That's why we brought this in as a conditional use and just to make sure that the Commission was comfortable with it. And if there would be concerns from the neighborhood that they would be brought up and if there's anything we could address that we could do that.

Thank you. Is there anyone else? Yes, please come on up. Again, if you could state your name and your address for the record.

Good evening.

My name is Zachary Scott. I live at 1128 Dana Lane. I just want to, after listening to it, I just want to voice my opposition to having basically a business being run in a single family neighborhood where houses are going for $500,000 to $650,000 And where does this end when we allow one? How many times does this keep going? That's all I have to say about it. I wish that you would listen, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public that wishes to speak on this public hearing? Alright, seeing none, then I will close out this public hearing and we will move on to potential action on the conditional use permit for 1142 River Place Blvd. Is there a motion? Commissioner Moulton.

I move to approve the conditional use permit for 1142 River Place Boulevard to operate an adult daycare out of their home with the staff comments.

Thank you. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Thank you. Any discussion? Yeah. Alderperson Mannion.

Was the staff recommendation to approve it for two years or to approve it indefinitely?

to approve it for two years as the applicant requested.

And that's the motion reflects that?

I could add that. And if you'd like, if it's a two-year conditional use permit length as requested by the applicant. Thank you.

Is that acceptable? Thank you. Any other discussion? Go ahead, Commissioner Walz.

I'm comfortable with it given the closeness to child care as far as a conditional use. We don't require any kind of hearing or conditional use for child care. Adult care is slightly different, but close enough that I don't feel comfortable adding additional conditions or denying it outright.

Anyone else? Commissioner Brancourt?

Thank you. I just would like to put it on the record. I was there today. It's a lovely area. And my concern would be if, in fact, this business or this service, maybe would be a better way to put it, grows over time, my concern would be about the parking in a residential neighborhood, especially since it's very near... Oakdale and it's There isn't a lot of parking available, etc So I just would like to make sure that if this goes forward that that would be a focus of the staff and of the Commission in the future The public hearing is over Anyone else I Did have one question as part of their application.

It said that they had intended to potentially hire on additional staff and But the conditions that our staff has recommended and the motion that was made by Commissioner Moulton says that only members of the family would be employed. That does seem like it would prevent the growth that Commissioner Francoeur is talking about. Is that the intention from staff and with their comments?

That is the intention and was discussed with the applicant. Wonderful.

Thank you. With that, yeah, I'm very comfortable with this. Any other comments? Yeah, Commissioner Molson.

Yeah, I'm comfortable with the limited nature of this business to just the three or four people. If their business grows, I think that it's more appropriate for them to move to a different location.

Agreed. Any other comments? All right. All those in favor of approving the conditional use permit for 1142 River Place Boulevard for two years with staff comments, please say aye. aye any opposed no that motion does pass five to zero thank you um next up we have a final site plan and architectural review for 818 progress avenue and who's handling that one i will be doing that one wonderful thank you switch my computer over here quick

Okay, so this is for 818 Progress Ave. This is the HO Bostrom Company off of Progress Ave. So here's the site. Progress Ave is located just north of Sunset Drive, and it's running, in this case, we're between Century Drive and Prairie Avenue, where the Bostrom site is located on the north side of Progress Ave. Here you can see they have a picture of the current facility that they have. Concrete decorative concrete block and metal panel structure they are posing a 47,000 square foot addition on this main facility and then to the back of the property you can see here on the 2nd parcel they'll be proposing also as a phase 2 a 4,000 square foot just cold storage building along with some additional parking spaces in that area. This property is on two parcels. Total is 6.3 acres in size. It's about 4.5 and 1.7 acres. Bigger one down here, obviously, and the smaller one to the north. The two parcels are under different business entities, but controlled by the same owner. Staff had suggested maybe they'd be a good time to just combine these two parcels into one lot, but because of the two different business entities involved, They don't feel they would not like to pursue that at this time with the design of their proposal. It seems like it can work and they can still meet all the zoning requirements, but they will need to add access easements across this South parcel to get to the North parcel. So that would be a requirement of any before any building permits could be issued. So here's a colored site plan. You can see the white here is the existing parking lot and the existing building. And then in orange would be the proposed addition surrounding the existing facility. And then up on the top, you can see there's some proposed parking as well as another proposed smaller building. With this, there will also be a new stormwater facility added at the far north end, which will handle the runoff from the north property. And then at the south end, there will be also adding a bioretention facility at the front to handle any additional stormwater needs from the addition. So here's a little bigger view of the site plan. To fit it on, it's flipped over, so now north is to the left. but this identifies the parking and here you can kind of see better where those stormwater facilities are at the front and back of the site. Also, the cover letter indicated that dumpsters would be kept to the north of the building, but there doesn't seem to be a location north of the building where they would be keeping those. And then they said once phase two was built, the dumpster enclosures would be at the... The dumpsters would be kept at the... West side of the building to the north, the storage building, but we didn't see a location identified. So we would require that they provide locations on the site plan for where dumpsters will be as well as appropriate enclosures for those dumpsters. And the plan commission design guidelines do call for those to be masonry dumpster enclosures. Here's the grading plan. You can see it somewhat of a level site to start to slope as you get to the back. So they've created that out to make the parking lot appropriate. And then the grading that was done to handle the runoff back to the stormwater pond. And then you can see some of the stormwater utility connections from the building to get to the different runoff areas and into the different facilities. This will be done in two phases, so their first phase would be for the addition on the South building, so that's shown here. This would be phase one and that would be the work for the bioretention in the front of the building as well as the new addition around the building. Again, 47,000 almost 47,000 square feet in size and then also a new driveway coming off of progress going north up into the site. And then. For phase 2, there would be the 4000 square foot addition or new cold storage building along with parking for another 49 vehicles in this area when looking at this and then proposal for additional parking to the north. Should it be needed at a future date? And looking at this, we noticed that the parking did come right up to the building on all sides. So we suggested they use a masonry base on the building. They were proposing it just to be a metal panel building. And just for purposes, the building is set back behind the existing building from progress and also about 750 feet off of progress. So it essentially will not be visible from anywhere. So that's why they were proposing just a metal panel building just to serve their cold storage needs. As far as the photometrics go, they met all the photometrics. There will be a couple of new lights along the building on the addition and then above the new loading dock near the front of the building. But they all LED lights and meet the light maximums at the lot line. Just note that the lights will have to be kept under 4,000 K color temperature per the city guidelines. As far as landscape plan goes with the addition there will be adding several new trees out here in the front of the yard as well as new plantings in the bioretention basin. There's a small patio area off near the main entrance at the front of the building that they'll be getting some new landscaping in and then when you go to the back to the parking lot there will be two landscape islands added in there with trees in each of those islands as well as some trees at the corners of the parking lot. Here's just the floor plan for the building, mostly just large open space for their production needs in the main facility. Again, that's about 46,797 square feet in size. And then here's the elevations for that building. It will be a decorative concrete masonry base with the insulated metal panels above. And that'll match the existing building then. Also, there is a green banding that goes around horizontally through the existing building. That will be continued around this building as well. And we'll have some renderings that'll show that a little more clear. And then they also will be adding clear story windows across the top. They've added those in. Those will show up in the renderings that you'll see in just a moment. Oh, I'm sorry. I've attached the wrong elevation. And then the storage building, as I mentioned before, just a metal panel building. Looks like vertical standing seam metal panels in a whitish color to match the existing building. Again, 750 feet off the road, really not visible from anywhere. There will be four overhead doors into that building and then service doors on each end of it. We didn't like I mentioned note that there was pavement up to the building. We suggested masonry. They've decided they would like to use bollards to protect their building at this location. And then here's the renderings that kind of give you a perspective of what we're looking at. So up on the top left, obviously, is the cold storage building to the rear. This would be the southeast corner of the addition facing out onto Progress Avenue where the new loading stations would be. Here's a larger view. You can see the existing building off to the left of that and then where the new building is. And you can see the clear story windows added in on the top. And they go around down the side too. I can see them here a little more clearly. And then this is another view from Progress Avenue just showing the existing building with the new addition just down a little farther past. And then the overhead, or I mean the loading dock off to the side. So at this time we would recommend final approval for the HO Bostrom project at 818 Progress Ave with all city department comments and concerns to be addressed. Noting that exterior LED lighting shall not exceed 4000 K color temperature. Also we want the dumpster storage location and details required. If there is any new signage with this, sign permits will be required. And then an engineering department concurrence letter is required before building permits are issued.

Thank you. Is there a motion? Yeah, absolutely, if you can come up to the microphone.

description was very very good thank you doug can you state your name for the record i'm mark hertzfeldt with design to construct on n one seven three two one zero one zero northwest passage jackson wisconsin i'm the architect for the project just want to address two quick items so the project is was originally planned as two phases it is the front half and the back half we will do the the addition as two phases as well so we're going to add on this side piece here initially And then this piece will come in about a year or so. So as it relates to the trash enclosure, our goal would be to move the trash that's exposed here and put it directly behind the building before, until we get around to doing this addition here. And then we would build the trash enclosure onto this building as part of that phase. So as it stands right now, we would just like to push everything behind the building so it's not visible from any neighboring properties or progress. And then as it relates to the building towards the back I did Broach the topic of the masonry base with my client. He doesn't have any concern with the durability of it It's not going to get a lot of traffic a little bit of parking from his staff So he would prefer not to have the masonry base on that building as well And then as far as the rest of the staff comments that came out with all the comments have been addressed for the most part with with we addressed them back in July with staff and Everything's under review currently with MSA Engineering and staff to make sure all that stuff is in concurrence.

Wonderful. Thank you. Do we have a motion? Commissioner Wells.

Sorry, while you're up here. So where is the trash enclosure going to finally end up? Did I miss that? So...

The trash enclosure will be built here into this building itself. So we proposed not a masonry, but a fenced enclosure. Because it is so far back from the road, having the masonry on site would be just easier for the fencing.

After phase three, it's still in the building, or?

No, the second phase, when we build the second phase of the building, the trash will then move around from the back of the building and be placed in that enclosure on the site.

So I'm still missing where on site that's going to end up. Because it's not shown on the plans currently.

It is not shown. That is one thing that we'll work through with staff. I just wanted to make sure that our intention is with this first addition that we're proposing right now, our goal is to not build that trash enclosure because it's going to be in the way of the second phase of construction. Thank you.

Thanks. Anyone else? Commissioner Moulton.

I move to approve the final site plan and architectural review for 818 Progress Avenue with all staff comments to be addressed.

Thank you. Is there a second? Commissioner Walner, second. Any additional comments or questions? All right, seeing none, all those in favor of approving the final site plan and architectural review for 818 Progress Avenue with all staff concerns addressed, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No.

Thank you.

Thank you. That motion does pass five to zero. I think it'll show up eventually. All right next up we have the final site plan and architectural review for 23 23 corporate Drive Charlie I believe you're doing this one.

Yep All right, I guess I'll wait for it to show every screen Oh sure

Yep.

Okay, so this is 2323 corporate drive. This is in the watershed corporate center. Just to the south of West Paul Parkway and the east of center road. This is a very large property. That's right at the intersection of. Corporate drive and executive place. The vast majority of it is. Is wetland area and it does also contain 1 of the regional stormwater ponds for the. for the corporate center. In the southwest corner of the property is a warehouse and office building, which is occupied by Medico Mart. which is a wholesale pharmacy, a pharmacy wholesaler, and they would like to make a 7,200-square-foot addition onto their existing building. So that would extend out to the west of the building towards Corporate Drive, and it would extend to the setback line there. So this is from the original approval for the building from back in 2004. On the right, the colored in brown section is what was built at that time. And then the left is future expansion. So the building that's there now is quite a bit larger than what was there originally. They have expanded over the years, and this will bring it out to that line of what had been envisioned as the potential future expansion at that time, and they have stated that this would be. the last expansion that they could do on this site so the expansion will be partially in the front of the building would be office area and then the rear roughly two-thirds would be warehouse area warehouse expansion They're envisioning a very similar architectural style to what is there currently. So this is a rendering of the proposed expansion. It would be a similar tan-colored brick to what's there now. Here's a photo of the existing front side. You can see it's primarily storefront windows in the office section. And they would be looking to continue that, so they'd be just expanding basically the same architecture, the tan brick, the storefront windows, and the two architectural detail bands, the horizontal bands along the baseline and then up further down. towards the top of the wall. And they have noted the two new mechanical units on the rooftop and that those would both be screened as the existing ones are. So here's the west elevation facing towards Corporate Drive. So those storefront windows in the office area would continue along with the two architectural bands. And then once you get back into the warehouse section, the windows would would stop. On the south side, which faces Executive Place, they are proposing several clear story windows, and they would like to continue that horizontal band around the base. They're not showing the band continuing around the top. There is one that sort of turns the corner of the existing building, and staff would like to just run that detail along just to meet up with the existing building. the existing detail, and the applicants have stated that this wouldn't be an issue. So we would like to just see that minor change. There is an existing generator, which has been added since the review for the most recent expansion on the south side of the building, and the applicants would like that to stay where it is. The building also does have a landscaped berm, which provides some screening from Corporate Drive to the west. And that will have to be moved, removed from its current location. So you can see here that the trees with X's through them are trees that will be removed as well as a couple of transformers along that side of the building. And that berm will be shifted closer towards corporate drive and then new trees and new landscaping will be planted there to replace what's been removed. along the south side of the building those these two boxes that are highlighted in blue are the existing transformer on the rights or the existing generator on the right and then the new location of the transformer and those would both be screened by the by the berm and then also by Trees and by some juniper bushes along the along the berm so staff feels that that screening is sufficient for for those mechanical units So staff recommends approval of final site plan and architecture review for medical Mart at 20 to 23 23 corporate Drive With conditions that they will extend that accent band along the south side of the building To meet up with the one at the existing corner and then engineering department comments will be addressed. I

Thank you. Are there any comments or motions? Commissioner Walner?

I'll make a motion to approve the final site plan and architectural review for Medeco Mart at 2323 Corporate Drive with all staff comments.

Is there a second?

Commissioner Wells? I'll second.

Any additional comments? All right, seeing none, please, we will take a vote on the final site plan and architectural review for 2023 Corporate Drive, Medeco Mart. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion does pass five to zero. And I think it will be on the screen, there we go. Next up, we have the final site plan and architectural review for 500 South Prairie Avenue Ventura Foods. Thane, I believe you are handling this one?

I am.

Thank you.

All right, this is the final site plan and architectural review with a request for relief from landscape requirements for 500 South Prairie Avenue. So the site is here in that same industrial park just south of downtown. It is between Prairie Avenue and Century Drive. The lot is zoned M1 Light Manufacturing. On the left here, you can see the parking lot, which the applicant is seeking landscape requirement relief from. So this is a submitted map showing the area of the parking lot with the exclusion of the landscape islands themselves and the concrete curb that runs between the two. And this map shows the area for those islands with the curb. This is the grading and drainage plan submitted by the applicant. In the engineering review, our engineer reviewer, Josh, noted that there was no significant change from the current grading and drainage. This is the submitted landscape plan showing the existing trees, shrubs, and street trees. And then I circled the parking lot there. The applicants are not proposing any new landscaping. This is a Google Street View image of the North Island and the South. These are photos taken on August 6th. As you can see, the applicants had already removed the parking lot paving and the islands. I would like to note that the concrete curb that was already there has not been removed. These photos were taken on August 20th after the applicants had repaved. I would like to note in this picture on the right that oak tree I believe is on Ventura property. I do not believe it is a street tree. In our code our code lists the landscape island requirements under section 2253 6 It is in the section that it states that parking lots with 30 or more stalls are shall provide landscape islands or peninsulas within the lot totaling not less than 5% of the surfaced area. Landscape islands should be located at the ends of parking rows and aisles, around light poles, signs, existing trees, hydrants, and along entryways. Additionally, each island should not be less than 170 square feet in area and shall contain shrubs, trees, flowers, and similar plantings. So the parking lot area is approximately 25,940 square feet in area. So 5% of that would be roughly 1,300 square feet. The applicant stated that they would like to not rebuild the landscape islands because they made entering, exiting, and navigating the lot difficult. The property has generous green space and mature trees and street trees that line the front of the property. The islands made snow plowing difficult and were often struck. And that the islands held water and caused subgrade damage that required extensive maintenance. So as they were, the previous islands were approximately 1,620 square feet, which is more than the 5% requirement. The applicants could rebuild the parking lot as it was or submit plans showing a new layout with islands meeting the 5% area requirement. The plan commission could approve the site plan and architectural review and waive the landscape requirements. The previous lot had two islands connected by a concrete curb and community development would not require that concrete curb to be rebuilt. The new parking lot shall have a curb on the east side of the lot near Prairie Avenue where there was not one before. And community development would prefer that the islands are landscaped according to city regulations. So staff would recommend approval of the final site plan and architectural review with the following conditions. These conditions are that the applicants shall resubmit site plans and landscape plans showing landscape islands that meet the 5% area requirement and reconstruct the parking lot according to those plans. The parking lot stalls shall be marked and striped according to city standards and regulations. The parking lot shall be curved along its full exterior. And that any comments from our engineer review are addressed.

Thank you. Commissioner Moulton.

Is this 5% requirement, is that the old code?

That is correct. It is the old code requirement.

What does the new code require?

I think it's actually 10% in the new code, or it's either staying the same or increasing slightly.

Okay. For this specific lot, I'm okay with not having the islands based on the shape of the parking lot and getting in and out of it. I do think the striping should be done and it should be curb, but I'll defer to what others think.

Commissioner Wells so um we have the landscaping rules and the parking lot rules for a reason I'm not comfortable just throwing that away because this is a industrial site or because it's Inconvenient I feel like that opens the door to never have any landscaping curbs, I mean I Understand if we're a little bit on the back foot here that the work has already been done and But that's not a requirement I'm prepared to throw away at this point. I understand this is an industrial site. It also is right across from the cemetery. I understand the existing landscaping islands were not doing much. They were just mulch, which is not what we want to see either. But I feel like we do need those islands. That's a requirement we've held up across city, and I'd like to see them here too.

Any other comments? Sure, come on up.

Hey, good evening. I'm Ed Wolock. I'm the site director at Ventura Foods. just wanted to add a little bit of context of the request for the variance so with the landscape islands what we've tried a variety of options over the years we've had shrubs trees a light pole unfortunately what happens is a semi pulls into the lot and then it's too tight for them to turn or turn make that turn and those rear wheels go right across both north and south islands so we've taken out light poles killed shrubs trees which is why we're asking for the variance we have had added signage over the years to try and keep the truck traffic from going in there because they're supposed to go to our south lot but inevitably it happened so for the last at least seven years it's just been mulch because trucks still drive over those landscape islands commissioner francois thank you i'm a little confused i was there today and drove around the parking lot and it seems that it's used for uh car parking or employee parking is that correct correct that's the intended use just south of that is our entrance for the trucks to make pickups so so they make a mistake and take a right into our parking lot and then get stuck and

make the turn and those the rear wheels of their vehicle go over the landscape islands it is supposed to just be for employee parking not for semis is is there something like signage that could dissuade them from doing this because it it seems just from its appearance that it's a parking lot for cars

right and i think it's usually in the early morning they'll make the turn and there's no cars in the lot so they don't see it until they get in we have added signage for no truck traffic and trying to indicate what lot they're supposed to go into but again it's not a lot there's just a couple a year that end up making the turn and then even with just the mulch they'll push all the mud and mulch into the parking lot

You know, I was there. I think your building is attractive. I think it's a nice landscape that regardless of its use, it's an attractive building and makes a statement. So I see that parking lot as an extension of that. So I'm having a little trouble. I support what Commissioner Wells has said about our code and about our enforcement.

Thank you. Any other comments or a motion?

So just... on that i guess i want to see landscape islands i want to see green space in in the sea of asphalt it's not huge but um i guess if at this point it's all been ripped up if there's a different type of island um we're calling for five percent you had more than five percent there if that shape needs to change personally i would think you want to build it higher so that way trucks don't feel like they can go over it that's my thought but um I'd still like to see the greenery there, some kind of landscaping. I guess it's happening early in the morning, but if they're not running over a landscape berm, they're going to be running over someone's bumper. I mean, it serves multiple purposes there, and I'm concerned about the precedent we're setting by saying, you know, it's inconvenient, it causes an issue, we can get away with it. just hear the dealerships are you thinking okay we can bulldoze these because they're they're going to be difficult we can make the same hardship claim did you have a motion

uh... i'd like to hear from trip cut we just wanted a couple items my name's pete mcwasky on the engineering manager there uh... as you can see from the site map here we've got a very large parking lot in the back that requires a lot of heavy equipment to remove all the snow uh... removing the snow in that smaller front office parking lot has been a challenge to the coming there with with very large equipment. It's hard to make that turn. That's one issue that we're trying to resolve by removing the islands. Rod is here from Munson Paving. He's the one that's doing the paving for the project. When we took up the old asphalt, we did see what was going on underneath those islands. And if you want to talk to that.

Yeah, and I see this as a professional in the business. But these islands can cause issues. I've seen it many, many times. There's water intrusion. The water can't get out. The lot is relatively flat. It's what holds water year after year after year. When we took those islands out, it was nothing but mud underneath. As a matter of fact, one of our trucks, when they drove in, they sank. It took, what, two and a half, three hours just to get them out?

And a bulldozer.

And a bulldozer, yeah. So the makeup of this... Parking lot is different in that it's it's relatively flat There is a little bit of pitch on there for water, but it's relatively flat across the board so the I Think what I understand that the need to want these improvements and landscaping But at this point in time you're basically asking them to spend more money to create the same problem That we just tried to correct And that's the issue at hand. I've got another property in Greenbush. It's the same thing. They've got islands that are holding water. It goes underneath the asphalt. And now they're getting sinkholes. I've got a church in Menominee Falls that I did where they spent almost a million dollars on their project. And they insisted on putting islands. And I warned them. I said, this is bad because your property is known to have water problems as it is. As of this point... When it rains, the water goes into those islands and it leaches out. You can literally drive there a day or two or three days after it rains and there's water leaching out of the pavement. I understand the islands. People want to make everything look nice. This is a beautiful property. They've got mature trees. There's a lot of front yard there, but these islands caused a problem, and we saw that right away. When we drove in there, we had a quad truck sink right up to the screws, we call it, and it took hours to get them out. That was the damage that was right over that island, and it spread out throughout the parking lot. Sir, will you state your name for the record rod Hanson?

Thank you Any other comments or emotions Questions Commissioner walls Charlie, can you speak to a timeline because obviously work is already ongoing on this, you know, we're not looking at a proposed new parking lot or proposed solution here yeah so we're kind of backtracking up i don't know if that's thing or if that's what is your question specifically can you speak to a timeline because usually we are we are reviewing plans the work has already been done here i'd like to just understand the background on that a little bit more

Right, I believe it was an inspector or somebody from our engineering division who drove past and noticed that they had already begun tearing up the parking lot. And that is when this process began and they were notified that they would have to go through a review.

If you did approve it with the requirement that they add the islands back in, you could put a deadline, you could include a deadline for when that would be finished too.

Just a comment, just kind of for the commission. I feel kind of either way on this. I agree with Commissioner Wells and Commissioner Francor that this sets a precedent and what happens now if other businesses come back and say, well, we just tore up our parking lot and we got rid of our islands, now what? But I also agree that in this situation, they weren't really serving a purpose. Is there a creative way to add more landscaping somewhere else around the property that kind of um fulfills that need to have that we'll say even five percent we have figured out whatever five percent of the parking lot is and just kind of beautify that area in a different way that isn't an island in the parking lot i know that was just a question but just a discussion commissioner francor

Building on that, you're torn in both ways because there's a logical explanation that you provided about something that's going to fulfill one intention and create another problem. So where that leads me is surely there must be a way to do this that does not result in the water and the mud underneath and the destruction. So I would almost... Parking lot is already laid. I mean, it was there that the surface is done. So my question is, is there a way to fulfill the spirit and the code that we're talking about? That doesn't have the same effect that's been discussed and presented to us. And could we leave that to a discussion between the. The developer and the staff, and if it can't be resolved to bring it back to the plan commission. It just seems to me that there has to be some kind of solution to this to fulfill both things. We want to do what our code says, but at the same time, your explanation challenges what makes common sense. So can we find something in between that and can it be discussed with the staff until it cannot be resolved?

That's what I've been thinking about.

We'll attempt this, but.

All right, go for it.

We're kind of a group of colleagues. Could you bring up the screen that has the motion on it, please?

We're getting real fancy now.

Okay, I would move that the plan commission approves The Pratt Commission approves the paving of the lot at the location and temporarily waives the requirement for the islands to be installed at this time until the type of installation is resolved between the staff and the applicant.

All right, is there a second?

I'm not sure I follow.

All staff comments with a temporary waiver with regard to the islands Do you have a time limit for that waiver or just until it's worked out with staff? What would staff recommend on that one

I think we might want a little more direction as far as what kind of a solution would be appropriate, whether something that's just additional landscaping or whether it would have to be landscape islands that are redesigned or something like that.

I believe the intention of our discussion is the landscape islands, but done in such a way that it doesn't destroy the parking lot under structure. And if that is not possible, that that needs to be brought back here.

Yeah, obviously we require islands and parking lots all across the city. Um, and this isn't necessarily an issue everywhere. Um, so there must be a way to accomplish what we're trying to accomplish with the 5%. I think is maybe what we're getting at commissioner Frank or not to speak for you. Okay.

Um, so it's not Charlie, it's not a matter of saying, okay. the island requirement is being fulfilled by a couple of trees in a different part of the property that is not the intention of the motion so just to clarify you'd be interested in maybe islands in different locations within this parking lot Yeah, or is this an option potential solution?

They wouldn't necessarily have to be at the same locations at the front and back ends of the lot or the entrance and exits. But at. It could be spread out like in a typical parking lot with maybe a smaller islands and coupled spots.

Yeah, my understanding was that we're looking for 5% area of the parking lot to be landscaping. Islands are the traditional way to do that. I would like to see us. hit the spirit of that by having 5% of the parking lot, the parking lot area, that large half racetrack as landscape. If they're peninsulas instead of islands, I'm great with that, but break up that large piece of asphalt into something more approachable would be my desire.

And working with staff within 60 days? All right. So we have a motion. I don't know if we actually got a second on that one.

I'll second.

All right. Commissioner Walner seconds. Is there any additional comments?

Is staff clear what we're looking for?

Are you guys clear? Everybody's good?

I believe you're clear.

Excellent. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the final site plan and architectural review for 500 South Prairie Avenue with all comments addressed as well as working with staff over the next 60 days to come up with a 5% solution for landscaping, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion does pass.

And if the solution is not found, they'll bring it back here?

Yes.

Okay.

All right. Anything else? All right. Then the last item that we have tonight is the final site plan and architectural review for 809 Phillip Drive, the Gund Company. Charlie? Charlie?

All right. 809 Phillip Drive is a large manufacturing property just to the north of Ventura Foods in south of College Avenue and west of Prairie Avenue. and it is currently the location of a facility of the Gund Company. This is the current building and the adjacent property to the West, which currently does not have any building on it. The applicants would like to build a large 110,000 square foot addition onto that West property. So here's the rendering that they provided of the addition. And then this is another rendering showing the addition along with the existing building. So this is looking from the north, from Phillip Drive. The existing building is on the left. You can see there are a couple of office wings at the north end. And then the majority of that existing building is the manufacturing space. And the new proposed building would be two wings, one which would connect to the existing building and then another one further to the west. So here's the certified survey map, which would combine the two properties into one 10-acre site. That was approved by the plan commission at the July meeting and then approved by the council on August 4th So that just needs to be recorded at the county register of deeds before it goes into effect and that will need to be done Before building permits can be issued um in addition to reviewing the certified survey map the plan commission did also review conceptual plans for this edition and as well as a small addition onto the existing building earlier this year So here's the site plan for the addition. Again, that would be two wings. This may be done in two phases or it may be done all at once. The smaller of the two wings of the addition, which would connect to the existing building, which would be taken up by warehouse space. And then the larger section will be office, closer to Phillip Drive, and then the majority in the rear will be a new manufacturing space. So again, here's a rendering of that front section of the building. The section that's set back a little farther where the new warehouse space will be will be white concrete masonry panels. With clear story windows and that will continue along the side elevation facing towards the existing building On the front side where the office section will be They do have a stripe and window pattern which will continue along that hole that whole front elevation And then have a large corner section as well in the rear NOW, THEY'RE SHOWING A VERY SIMILAR WHITE CONCRETE MASONRY PANELING WITH THE CLEAR STORY WINDOWS, AND THAT'S FACING THE EXISTING MANUFACTURING PROPERTIES IN THE SURROUNDING AREA. AND THEN THE WEST SIDE, WHICH IS ALSO FACING NEIGHBORING MANUFACTURING PROPERTIES, WOULD JUST BE THE WHITE PANELS, AND THEY DO NOT HAVE THE CLEAR STORY WINDOWS CONTINUING ALONG THAT SIDE. So here's just a photo of those neighboring properties. You can see there's a tree line, and then there's similar uses. The city's water treatment facility is in the distance on the other side of the street. Century Drive. And then facing to the south, again, that similar style of buildings on neighboring properties. And this is the existing west side of the building, which will look very similar, which looks similar to what the proposed west side of the addition would look like. They will be removing some existing parking spaces along that west side of the existing building, but then they'll be adding a number of spaces to the front and then in between the new building in the addition and they do have landscape islands there. And then on the rear, they will be adding spaces as well. That comes to about 125 parking spaces total. And they had, I believe it was 115 employees at the largest shift. So they'll be with the two buildings, new employees for the two buildings. So they will be meeting the parking requirements. They have existing trash storage, which is not in any kind of an enclosure, but is kind of extending off the rear of the existing building. And they would like to leave that as it is without an enclosure. As you can see, it is a very sheltered location. The only real visibility is the recycling center immediately to the east. From the overhead, you can see it's several hundred feet back from Phillip Drive, so it's not visible at all from there or from Prairie Avenue. The new building will extend a little farther back from the end of the current building, so it'll be even more screened than it is. So they would like to leave that as it is with no screening, and they've said they may add some additional mechanical units to that rear area as well in the future, and they would like those to be left unscreened as well. Going to the landscape plan again, they are showing landscaping in the islands along that front portion of the parking lot. And then in landscape berm along Phillip Drive. uh the front section of that landscape berm will extend to about 10 feet from from the property line there the code does require a 25 foot setback but allows the planning commission to uh to grant an exception in in cases where there is uh significant landscaping uh along the along those uh street right of ways So they do have that shown there. They are also, there's a note to preserve the existing landscaping to the east where there's the existing driveway as much as possible. So this is the existing tree line there. Some of these trees will inevitably need to be removed, but they are proposing to preserve as many of those as they can. Along the south side of the property, where it narrows a little bit, they will be locating their stormwater ponds, and they are showing a number of new trees there as well. They have shown a potential future driveway to connect with Prolac GE to the south, but for now that would just be ceded. With grass, it may be installed in the future, and additional approvals by most likely the Board of Public Works and the Council would be required at that time. But again, they will not be doing that right now. They have also provided a lighting plan for the property. It's primarily lighting on the building itself with a couple of lights on poles in the parking area. This does meet all of the city standards, but they have not called out the color temperature. So staff just wanted to note that all of this new lighting will have to have a color temperature not exceeding 4,000 K. so staff recommends approval of final stipend and architectural review for the gun company's edition at 889 phillip drive uh with conditions that the uh the color temperature for the lighting won't exceed 4 000 k uh the certified survey map on combining the two properties needs to be recorded prior to the issuance of building permits and engineering department comments will be addressed thank you are there any comments questions motions

All right, then I will make the motion to approve the final site plan and architectural review for the Gund Company at 809 Phillip Drive with the conditions as listed from staff.

Do we have any comments from the public on this one?

I mean, there's no public hearing.

Is there anybody from Gund Company? Yeah, we generally just take comments on all the questions.

Sure, yeah, come on up.

I don't know if we're doing that anymore.

Good evening, John Coots, PO Box 7, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. I'm with MSI General. We did the submittal on the behalf of the gun company. I think Charlie laid out the project pretty well, so if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer. We did take the comments from the Planning Commission a few months ago on the architecture, tried to update everything accordingly, and we're excited to get the project started.

Thank you. So there was a motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Commissioner Wells seconds. Is there any additional comments or questions? All right.

No, it looks great. Thanks for your investment in our community. Yes. Thank you.

All right. If there are no additional comments, all those in favor of approving the final site plan and architectural review for 809 Phillip Drive with staff comments, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. All right. That passes five to zero. Thank you very much. Anything else from staff? I will take that.

Oh, God actually. Yeah. For community development director report. Yes. September 1st is fast approaching and that's when we'll be implementing our new zoning code. So, our next September meeting, we'll have that zoning code in effect. We chose to do it in September just because historically that's one of our lowest number of agenda items typically. These August and September meetings get a little smaller before it ramps up for the next year. But because the application timeframe for those September meetings is in August, there may be a chance that some of the applicants may have stuff on the old zoning code or the new one. We gave them a choice of which way to go. So we'll make that very clear when we do our presentations next week, depending on what the item is. But just wanted to give you a heads up that we will be using the new zoning code going forward.

Very exciting stuff. All right. Anything else? All right. Then if there are no objections, we are adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. So when you called out and said, hey, it doesn't look like that, what's the setback required? There's smoke. I've heard that people are using River Place as a custom. I've heard that people from the industrial part of the country that use River Place as well. True, true. Whatever they are. River Place, they accept it. Right. I think the expectation is. Apparently a lot of people cut through. I find that hard to believe. I think that neighborhood is a horrible maze.

There are definitely people who are agitating. I do not know. I do know that there was someone...

because I keep getting calls for Alderman Marion. But that's fine. So, yes, I do know that. I want the project. ... ... ... ... ... ... and put some pressure. I talked to Ron at length last night at the finance committee. Ron doesn't really care. Ron said we would like some kind of

Still some outside light coming in through the window. We'll be okay. For a little while. Ron wasn't as adamant anymore about having to have that.

By the time I talked to Ron, it was the end of the financial And I was already kind of put off by my conversation with Fire Chief. So I kind of vented on Ron a little bit.

That's good for Ron.

And Melissa was there as well. He chose to not quite mean too much. But I think Park Rec is probably more amenable to, they'd like to see some access from the Oakdale side, but they don't really have- How they can get access to that from the Oakdale side, because their site is nowhere near Oakdale, without a street, I guess. Well, presumably, if a development happens, there's going to be roads into the development. I mean, part of the second phase of that If it's not a street, it's going to be a driveway. Townhouse apartments that go right alongside that side of the park. So, you know, the