Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

Ready?

Recording in progress.

All right. Welcome to the Village of Cottage Grove Plan Commission meeting on Wednesday, March 11th, 2026. This is a hybrid meeting both virtually on Zoom with the link at the top of the agenda also in person at Village Hall and you can watch on our YouTube channel. It's 6:30 so I'll call the meeting to order. Um we have a quorum and the agenda was properly posted. So we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, we're going to move on to number four, public's appearances. Public's opportunity to speak. So, this is the portion of the meeting where it's the opportunity for community members to share comments or concerns. Um this isn't a dialogue between the commission um and you but um we will make sure that we try and address your questions and comments through our own discussion. So we just ask that everyone be respectful and we'll begin with um individuals who have submitted a request to speak for him and are present tonight to speak um and then open up to the floor to anyone in the room or um joining us via Zoom. If you are here for a public hearing, you can save your comment for that um section. Um otherwise we'll do um all other comments to us uh now. So we do have um several wish to speak forms on items not for the public hearing. Um so Abby McDow, you can just state your name, address, and use a little microphone guy to turn the microphone on. Good evening. My name is Abby McDow and

I am the homeowner at 208 Heather Drive. I'm here to express my concerns regarding the proposed Lenard development. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Currently, the only access to and from our neighborhood is through the intersection at Highway N and Taylor Street. This intersection already experiences congestion and upcoming changes will make traffic conditions even more challenging. First, with the closure of Taylor Prairie School and traffic being redirected to Cottage Grove School, this intersection will become increasingly difficult to navigate, especially during student drop off and pickup times. Plans to separate parent and bus traffic will increase vehicle queuing on Main Street. According to the document titled CGS site plan proposal, the new bus loop alone allows up to 34 additional vehicles to queue on Main Street. This will significantly impact traffic flow and safety, especially for children who are walking to school. Turning on to Main Street from Taylor or Willbridge is difficult as is, and to add to the Q- line will make visibility even worse. Second, there's an agreement that the Amazon delivery vehicles will avoid using Highway N when traveling to and from the warehouse. Questions remain about daily employee traffic. However, my understanding is that the traffic study projected a 20% increase in highway end traffic from employee vehicles alone. How will the delivery agreement be enforced and what measures will address the increased employee traffic? Third, the Cottage Grove Comprehensive Plan states in chapter 5, page 25 under plan neighborhood 7, typical percentage unit breakdown should apply in this neighborhood if a road condition can be a road connection can be made to highway BB. That road connection does not currently exist, making the proposed development inconsistent with the stated plan. Lastly, safety is a serious concern. In

p in the past six months, there have been multiple incidents at this intersection, including a garage fire and a vehicle rollover. If another emergency had occurred at the same time, first responders could have been delayed due to blocked access. This risk is unacceptable for residents. Before moving forward with any new development, it is essential to plan for additional access for an additional access road to ensure safe and efficient traffic flow. Adding substantial traffic to an already congested and vulnerable intersection would only worsen delays, increase safety risks, and negatively impact current residents. Thank you for your time and consideration. All right. Um, next up we have Casey Erinsson. Uh, Casey Erinsson, 721 Crest Haven Drive in Cottage Grove. Uh, good evening everyone. Um, I'm a village resident and a candidate for the village board this spring. So, I'm here first to express some feedback on the LAR development on Ridge Road in the Arowwood neighborhood. Um, I know there are, of course, many residents uh who wanted to speak tonight about it as well. Uh, and I look forward to hearing from all of them. I've also been out talking to neighbors there, so I wanted to convey uh their concerns from the ones I talked to if they weren't able to write or come in tonight. Um, from speaking with a couple dozen households, the overwhelming concern is of course with the increased traffic, especially in light of the existing issues with Taylor Street and Main Street, how it's essentially the only connection there uh to county and and the rest of Cottage Grove. Um, there has, has been said already a recent example that highlighted how limited this access was with the fire on the corner of Taylor that blocked off the street for hours. Um, I've asked several residents how they would feel if this development made a second access road

possible. uh the connection north to Cottage Grove Road County Highway BB and many have expressed that that's what exactly what they've wanted for a long time. So while I recognize that tonight uh no specific action is on the agenda for the plan commission, I would encourage the this commission and the village board if things reach their purview later to keep that critical access in mind as a negotiation point with the developer. Uh similarly, the water sewer lift station on Trillium should be on the table as well considering that it is vastly out ofd with no generator backup and must be replaced and rebuilt in the very near future. It would be prudent of us to see at least see if this development can contribute to that cost in a significant way. We all want healthy growth and that means growth that pays for what it needs. Utility infrastructure and this vital road access especially are exactly what Arowwood needs. So I hope that you keep those two things in mind. Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak?

You have to come up and Yeah. use the microphone.

Thanks. Is it how do you know?

Okay. So, my name is Wendy Frederick. I live at 221 Taylor Street. So, those that don't stop on Foreston um would land in my front yard and it has happened in the past. We've been here 30 years and we had a car almost in our living room. Hence, there are trees planted very unstrategically in our front yard and people always comment that it looks stupid. I'd rather not have a car in my front yard. Being said, the accident on the corner was a horrible accident. Caused traffic to be backed up. The fire caused traffic to be backed up. Um, the problems getting off Taylor Street in the morning are beyond ridiculous. I work one mile from my house at the post office. We leave 20 minutes early. You'd be surprised how many days that we are late to work between school buses and cars backed up seven and eight deep. You can't get off that road. And that's at 7 o'clock in the morning. What's it going to be if you put another 2,000 cars down that road? It needs an access. I was here for the original plan way back in was it 2009, 2011, and that was the stipulation then. That needs to be the stipulation. It is unfair for those of us that have lived here all these years and swear up and down about all the traffic and the speeding. It is not 50 miles an hour on Taylor Street, but people fly down that road. Somebody's gonna get killed. Somebody's pet Well, somebody's pet did get killed at my neighbor's house. So, you know, it just we asked for the traffic study last time and they said, "Oh, it was done, but we never heard about it." And we asked for the original traffic study and nobody

could cough it up. So, really interested in that data. and think it should be addressed more so than worrying about putting another 200 homes down the street. Is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak?

Yep. If you want to come up and use the the microphone and just state your name and address. Yeah, my name is Tina McFaden and I live at 100 Heather Drive and

Oh, there. Yep. Tina McFaden. I live at 100 Heather Drive and I pretty much concur with I I I I concur with everything that everybody has said. Um, I have been here for 30 years, too. Um, I I walk my dog on Taylor, so there is a lot of different traffic and things, but even me getting out um trying to get out at like 10:00 in the morning, there's semitrs coming or, you know, trucks coming um just a lot of traffic. So, I mean, it's just if there's like three deep, it does take at least five minutes or so just to get a clear way to to get out into traffic and things. So, I think that was the big concern is just is the traffic and um that there needs to be a different access code and like Wendy said just back in the original plan. There was a new a different developer back in the PL back in the day that that was I think sort of killed the deal was because there was no access road. So, I I just think that um Taylor cannot handle that and that that's all I have to say. So, thank you. Anyone else in the room? Anyone else on Zoom? You can raise your hand using the react button. Okay. We do have um one wish to speak for him um from someone who's not here. So Matt Hansen at 26 Heather Drive um is a village resident um is against the um Taylor Ridge Road um development due to the um additional traffic just skimming it real quick. um

the housing density inconsistent with the current housing in the area um and um impact to village resources. All right, just double checking one more time if anyone else would like to give public comment for anything that's not in the public hearing tonight. Okay. Um, so we'll move on to discuss and consider the minutes from the plan commission meeting on February 11th. And those meeting minutes are linked in the agenda. Motion to approve is presented. Second. Motion by Alex, second by Don. Any discussion? All those in favor? I

I opposed. Abstain. Motion carries. Um, so we will move on to the public hearing. Um, so it's 6:43. So, we'll start the public hearing. The public's opportunity to provide input regarding a request for um a zoning map amendment change to several parcels from rural holding to planned industrial and a conditional use permit to allow for an indoor commercial um entertainment fitness center and outdoor institutional sports field land use on the same parcels. Um so, we invite the developer um up to um give us an overview. We'll turn it over to staff to provide um some guidance on the staff documents that were included in the packet tonight. Um and then public comment on this topic.

Uh just a procedural question. Uh do you want me to address uh both the amendment and the conditional use permit or do you want to take my comment separately for each item? Uh we can. Erin, is it okay if we or I suppose Rick if you want to weigh in? It's Yeah, it's one hearing for both items. The whole thing. Yeah. So,

sure. Uh my name is uh Jose Dominguez. Uh I'm representing uh Erin Kie. Um I am uh head of architecture design and uh project manager for KI Builders uh who Aaron Ki is owner of. Um and um I uh we are this development we're proposing uh 15,000 square foot indoor uh sports complex facility. Um in addition, we are proposing uh three uh outdoor uh fields that can accommodate uh up to six uh six youth uh baseball fields uh that can be converted into soccer uh lacrosse uh and multi-function uh uses out uh both on indoor and outdoor. Uh we have four uh sand outdoor volleyball courts. Uh youth uh uh splash pad. Um and then we also in the hub of that outdoor fields we have a multi-level concessions where we could uh overlook each of the fields. Um we are uh proposing um just over 800 parking sp uh spaces. Um uh and we are uh currently we the uh site is zoned for rural mixed uh use. Um we're requesting that change to be a planned industrial or PI change. Um the part parcels are located at a commercial park area. Uh the compound highlights this area as a hub uh for community facilities and commercial uh entities. Um it's also stated that fitness facilities are uh specifically listed as the supporting land use for this district uh and

permitted as a conditional use um approval. Um currently the surrounding uh the parcel uh we do have commercial uses. Uh we have PI uh zoning district to the west and south of the parcels. Um the northwest is a planned office district. um and a plan use development. Um we do realize to the east uh there is a rural holding district. Um this is a heavily vegetated area. Um we know we have done it by this area uh within our project that we have to address. Uh we do realize there is residential uh in those areas. Um where we would work with the village to develop a landscaping plan to uh help buffer that even more. Um and we are willing to work with uh the village on that aspect. Uh in regards to the conditional use, um we feel that we're the use is consistent with the uh uses within that uh area. Uh there's it's heavily commercial. uh we have a a realm of uh restaurants uh hospitality uh venues that would only um uh blend well with the facility that we u are are proposing. Um the um location itself again uh it's host to many commercial um uh developments there uh entities. Um we've developed a similar facility uh where we are neighboring single family district. Um this here we realize that uh this is uh more conducive for our facility not only for um restaurant access to the neighbor within the neighboring community but hotel access for any venues or or special events that we host

at our uh uh development. Um we do take serious the impact it has on the community and the local businesses. Um we uh have limited traffic impact um uh by providing large ample uh parking uh area. Uh we will also work with the village to do further parking studies uh and traffic studies for this area. But we feel that um our our typical high peak times for the the center is uh typically an off peak uh hours for the the local businesses in that area. Uh primarily more in the evening uh after 5:00. Um we understand that we're proposing outdoor fields. We're we're mindful of those fields and the light that could generate. Um, we also will work with the village to provide a photometric plan uh to really kind of study the lights uh onto the neighboring properties and how we curb that um as much as possible and then also address the time we utilize those fields uh and kind of limit that to reasonable to ours so we're not impacting those residents. Um again, we're consistent with the land uses around there. Um and um we are um our main entrance uh we are coordin utilizing a dead end street and kind of uh opening that uh um uh that dead end off um and connecting to uh two actually north uh um two dead end streets. uh and um and we think that this would be a tremendous asset for the community um and pretty uh and put a destination point uh for the village of Cottage

Grove. Um and I'll address any questions uh any comments from the board.

We're thank you. Um turn it over to Aaron and then we'll allow public comment on this. Guess first just to kind of recap where we are in the process. So the land the current land owner requested annexation last year that was approved. Um there's a pre-annexation agreement that was approved last year uh that lays out various improvements that'll have to happen when this develops. Um that included some water main looping, some street improvements, uh a street connection through the site. Um a traffic study. Um so those are all items that have to be accounted for as we go through the site planning process. So, what we're doing here tonight is just the reasonzoning and the conditional use permit. They'll have to come back at a subsequent meeting for site plan approval. There's a concept plan that they provided just to kind of show the current thinking and how they're laying things out at the moment. That's what's up on the screen now, but that's not what we're approving per se tonight. Um, so Jose covered some of my items here on um the comp plan consistency and uh some of the zoning consistency issues. Um, as far as the reasonzoning, we'd recommend approval of the reszone from rural holding to planned industrial. Um, I think Rick suggested one tweak to the condition that we had in the report. Um we would change that to say the resoning shall only become effective upon the applicant signing a developer agreement with the village. So if that doesn't happen then the land just stays rural holding. Um as far as the conditional use permit um recommend approval with again some conditions. Uh first one again the conditional use permit applies to this business only and would only become effective again when a developer agreement is signed.

um an indoor commercial entertainment land use can include um the serving of alcohol, but this does not automatically provide a liquor license. That's a separate application they'd have to come back to the board for. Um I mentioned an outdoor concessions area. Um that's something that would have to be defined in their liquor license application and approved by the board. uh if there's any kind of outdoor speaker system or anything like that associated with the field, they would have to get an amplified noise permit. Again, that's another separate item that would have to go before the board. Um as I said, the site plan will be reviewed as at a subsequent meeting. Um and the plan will have to meet all the regulations associated with indoor commercial entertainment and outdoor institutional land uses. Uh the applicant shall design outdoor lighting, landscaping, vehicle circulation to minimize impacts on adjacent residential properties. And again, those will all be reviewed at the site plan level. Uh the sixth one, as I mentioned, the pre-anexation agreement. Um the site plan will have to include all the elements of that agreement. Um water main improvements, street improvements, connection through from road to Gaston, uh and a full traffic study. Um then we had a few comments when we met with fire and EMS. Um they appreciated the emergency access off the east end of Gaston there. They had a few concerns about how it kind of works through the site. Um you would have to take the vehicles kind of through through the fields and around the splash pad. I think they'd prefer to see a just a driveway down to the parking lot. I think a previous version had something like that. Um, then there was a staff report from the fire department in the packet as well. Um, Josh, I don't think you guys had a report because again, it's just the zoning and the conditional use permit and a lot of your stuff will come at the

site plan level. Yeah, you mentioned all the site stuff that comes there and few things we didn't talk about, but you mentioned photometrics, storm water, you know, the landscaping buffers and things like that that besides some of the things that were in that pre-annexation agreement. It's just me. Okay, I think I'm going to pause for a second because we're having a little bit some audio difficulties online. They said they're having problems with audio online. Oh, they just

pausing. Thank you.

Do we need to start talking to see if anyone's able to hear us better? We're we're just sitting quiet as they're adjusting the microphones, but I don't know if anyone online can tell if I don't know.

Eric, can you hear us now? probably keep talking. Interesting. Do people?

Yeah. There's no chat. No chats. All right, we're gonna um turn the Zoom off and then turn it back on. was was broken Zoom on somebody's bingo card for this uh this meeting.

We have had other problems with Zoom. We've had I have heard some issues. Could definitely spice things up. Yes.

We'll just give it a couple a minute so other people can log back in. Is Eric back on there? Airplane. Yeah. Yes.

Eric, can you hear us now? Hold on. So, I heard that it's crackling. Is it stillratchling?

He said it's scratchy. He's moving to YouTube. So, I guess the YouTube audio is working really well. The Zoom might not be. Although, we have Kim on. No matter what the speaker, it's still scratchy.

So, weird. We're using the YouTube or Zoom to broadcast to YouTube, right? Should we continue on? Can we continue on? Yeah, we can continue on. Okay. Um, yeah, it's unfortunate, but it it doesn't prevent us from continuing the meeting. All right.

All right. That's the staff report. Um, so we'll open it up to um public comments um for the public hearing and then if you can have a seat and then we'll bring you back um for conversation with the commission. I do have um we did receive one email and the commission has received all of the emails and the wish to speak forms have been forwarded all to you um and into the public record. Um, we did have one from Shelley Oldenberg, who I don't believe is online. Um, but she had a list of, um, concerns, um, which I know or some of them were discussed in, um, in the staff reports, but noise levels, buffering, um, you know, that those types of things. And then she did take um, she followed up with a second email saying that she um, had appreciated a lot of the changes that have already been made. And then we do have one wish to speak form. Um, Casey Erinson. Good evening once again. Let's talk about something truly genuinely positive this time. Um, I was at the many village board meetings last August and September when the sports complex first came to us. Um, I along with dozens of other residents were surprised and disappointed disappointed when half the board voted no at the first agenda. This is a windfall opportunity, an enormous investment for our children, our local businesses, and our tax revenue. Your commission approved it unanimously last year, and since the concept has only improved since, I certainly hope you'll do so again. Um, just to highlight some of the discussion from last year, although Aaron of course said it better than I'm going to, um, this area has been designated for development since 2010. Um it has remained idle uh mostly due to the large hill. So it required a sizable project to justify altering it and that's what we have now. Um it's you

know uh was already designated with some planned office industrial. So the planned industrial fits. Uh the concerns expressed last July were um you know largely traffic related. Uh part of the conditions eventually set with the pre-anexation, however, uh included uh the developer paying for road upgrades to accommodate them as long as as well as the many other things that uh Aaron mentioned. Um the new plan before you today includes multiple access connections to the parking lot. There's updates to the fields um where at least in this concept plan where the ones nearest the fencing face inward to minimize the light and noise issues. Um the others are set further back. The fire department reviewed the plan and had no objections you no major objections only you know the code requirements things about the uh width and height and the capacity. Um the water and sewer connections have already planned per uh Josh at Strand last year. Um so this is this is something that we can do. Um now the benefits of it aren't strictly related to what the this commission considers um at least not at this one tonight but I want to mention some of them nonetheless. Uh this is a project that is not in a tiff district, so we do not need to defer or reimburse any taxes. And it will pay taxes for both the village and the school district. It will bring in jobs, I believe last year they said 7 to 10 full-time and 50 to 100 part-time jobs. Um it will have an incredible positive impact on local restaurants, the hotel, and likely garner interest in bringing in more restaurants, even a second hotel due to the tournaments um that they intend to host. Our own kids will be able to play baseball, softball, volleyball, soccer, and lacrosse apparently as well at a highquality modern facility. Um, there's going to be uh potentially a splash pad, an arcade indoors. This is somewhere kids will want to hang out and have fun. The indoor facilities uh will even be able to host uh dance and gymnastics composition competitions um which is a great synergy with several of our local businesses. Foundations Dance, Jaround

Gymnastics, uh even Infinity Martial Arts could use this space. We almost lost this opportunity last year. You approved it before. It's better than ever. Please approve this again. Let's get a win for Cottage Grove that we can all agree on. Thank you.

Okay. Recording in progress. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Is there anyone else um in the room that would like to give comment for public hearing on the Creed Sports Complex? And I don't know if Zoom is working. Is there anyone on Zoom that would like to give comments for this public hearing? Okay. Okay. Then it's 7:04. We'll close the public hearing.

Sorry. Um, Cindy, I was just going through my email and I believe there was one more wish to speak Melissa Anders or was that was forwarded on to us even though it stated that was actually for village board. For village board. Okay. So, we can ignore that element then for today. Thank you.

Close the public hearing then. All right. We'll invite the developer back up and I'll open it up to um questions from the commission. Thank you for letting me sneak in first. Um uh so again, first I want to say I really do appreciate a lot of the work that you all have put in since last time you came before us. Um it's clear from the redesign the layout the field swap and where the actual sports facilities is with the fields. Um, and then even in your public comments, uh, and in the submissions, uh, taking into consideration those things like the lighting, the sound, uh, etc. in there. So, it's absolutely clear that you've listened to us and the public in there. So, I just want to first say I appreciate that and thank you. Um, one of the comments I have is looking at the plan of operations under hours of operations. I'll give you a moment to catch up. Mhm. Um, kind of mid- page, uh, it says proposed building fac hours for or proposed hours for the building facility, Monday through Sunday, 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. I'm assuming you're not stopping at noon.

Uh, 12 a.m.

Okay. Just wanted to clarify that. Um, I assume that would be both for the building and the gym, correct? Okay. Okay. And the other question I had, sorry my computer is being super super slow. um is can you tell me a little bit or tell us a little bit why you uh decided to move the main intersection off of commerce kind of going down by for those who are watching online kind of by the Oakstone connection in there because I know last time they were talking about like equal um access points in there.

Uh Mary, are you talking about the how we scripted the building down and had that main? Yes. Yeah. U glad you brought that up. um uh primarily is um we recognize that there is heavily uh residential on that size on north of the property. Um and so we decided that we wanted to u utilize uh what the existing businesses are on the south end of the parcel and shift that building down so we can have our main entrance. Um also a lot of the utilities access points are close to that south end of the uh parcel. That's why it made most sense to to accommodate that that shift. U it allows us to um those residentials to the northeast uh to still have that clear view instead of looking behind a building.

Any other questions? JP, that is all I have at the moment. Alex, so many questions. Uh, a lot of it's going to be with me and Aaron, but just to be clear, this is when I think of community center, I think of public use, as in parks and wreck, right? This is this is a this is a business, right? So, if I wanted to have, I don't know, baseball game, the fields are for hire for contract, right? It's not a walk up. Theoretically, there could be. I could just trespass. But there's it's a it's for hire for contract usage. Okay.

So that's just to be clear on that. Um so now I'm going to talk to Aaron a lot, but everyone else can feel jump in. Aaron, the annexation agreement from last year, I went through it. It talks a lot about there's a big section on the water main loop, but I didn't see a section on the road improvement for Gaston Road and you'd mentioned that um in your audio in your verbal briefing to us today about the road improvements. So curb, gutter, the roads narrow um bring up the village. There were two versions. There was one that was approved that I think had the water man and then there was an amended one that was approved with the annexation that added some of the Gast and Road improvements.

Okay. I didn't find that in the the one I pulled was from the meeting where it was discussed. The meeting minutes I guess didn't have it or I couldn't find it. Okay. So, there's a way we can get a copy of that. That would probably be helpful. and and with a subsequent development agreement, it's going to cover any it's going to cover all the public improvements um more in detail, I guess. So,

and I think it's important to have that covered in ready. That's where I was like, okay, we have a document, the one that I have, which is wrong, which is why I'm asking questions. So, perfect. So, if we can have that as maybe part of the packet there as well. Um, in the beginning of your letter, um, the first page, the applicant is also seeking conditional use permit to operate indoor and outdoor commercial entertainment and and indoor institutional land uses. Um, outdoor commercial entertainment or sorry, only refers to indoor commercial entertainment. or is that just a myth?

It was basically referenced in the one condition that pointed out that if they do seek a liquor license for the outdoor area, they would have to make that part of their liquor license and define it there. So, we would come back for an additional conditional use for outdoor. No, the the outdoor components are basically falling under that outdoor institutional use like the uh fields and are you talking specifically about the liquor license? Are you talking? Oh, it's in the um the outdoor institutional is in the the discuss and consider

but but his the letter begins it says we're the applicant is seeking indoor and outdoor commercial entertainment and outdoor institutional but the recommendation only refers to indoor commercial entertainment. So we're missing the outdoor commercial entertainment. Um, no. I think I was trying to explain there's there are outdoor components to it, but that's not that's not what they're seeing. It's the indoor and the outdoor institutional area.

So, and I guess in the letter you talk a lot about the outdoor the indoor commercial entertainment, but you really don't give us a lot of guidance around what indoor commercial I'm sorry, what the um indoor institutional description is. Um, so that's section 32549 C. How why didn't you give us more information on what indoor institutional description is? So it's the outdoor institutional is what? Outdoor. Yeah. Um, you're right. I told you we're going to have a conversation. Sure. Um, because there's

Yeah, I could have added that. Uh, the buffer yard is the same as it is for the indoor use. So that doesn't really change. I think the other relevant item is that any recreation areas like the fields have to be at least 50 ft from a residentially zoned property which I believe they're accomplishing in their plan but we'll look at that again in the final site plan version

but when it comes to outdoor commercial entertainment so we're doing indoor commercial entertainment which is um it has the buffer says 150 no customer entrance shall be 150 ft blah blah blah the outdoor commercial entertainment, which is mentioned at the beginning of the letter, activity areas shall not be located closer than 300 ft from a residentially zoned property. So, that's where I kind of like got lost in your memo a little bit where we're talking about Got to go slow because I'll I'll mess it up myself. Outdoor commercial entertainment. That's that's where you started your conversation with us in your letter. it drops off and and outdoor commercial entertainment makes sense to me because because that's kind of what it is, right? Such activities that have potential to be associated with nuisances related to noise, light, dust, trash, late operating hours. Examples of such land use are indoor commercial oh sorry outdoor got to read the words outdoor commercial swimming pools driving ranges miniature golf facilities amusement parks drive-in theaters go-karts tracks and racetracks where the outdoor institutional description is

talks about cemeteries um quiet things golf courses which is you know can be busy but we know people are spread out that's not a dense it's defin definitely a sports structure over baseball swimming pool and it talks about a tennis court. So there outdoor commercial entertainment really does seem to fit which is what you started talking about.

Yeah, I think I would still argue the the fields would be part of the outdoor institutional. I think you can make the argument that the concession area could be the outdoor commercial entertainment which I believe still is the 300 ft from the residential properties but we can again check that at the site plan approval.

Well I mean in where you where the recommend the number eight where it says outdoor recreational institution you have bracket sports fields but I don't see sports fields listed as a component in outdoor institutional description. I think it fits more with outdoor commercial entertainment. So, I guess I still don't I'm going to get lost on that. That's It's not Anyway, I guess just for everyone else to sort of see it if you want to go through it. It's It's complicated yet it's important. And that's why I bring this one up. Um outdoor institutional description is is very light. privately held and it's not in the letter. That's the other issue. That's why I chased it. Um outdoor institutional land uses include public and private cemeteries, privately held permanently protected green spaces, country clubs, non-public golf courses, and similar land uses. Again, I think non-dense sports things is the only thing that I can see there. Not a sports field. Um shall be located with primary vehicular access and a collector, you know, main street. talks about streets. Uh provide off- streetet passenger loading, which this does. All structures and actively used outdoor recreational areas shall be located a minimum of 50 ft from any residentially zoned property. You mentioned that facilities using night lighting and adjoining residential zone properties shall install and continually maintain buffered with minimum capacity of 6.06. um said buffer yard should be located at the property line blah blah blah his words. However, outdoor commercial entertainment really goes into some more regulations and details, right? Activity shall not be located closer than 300 ft to residentially zoned property. Activity areas, including moving driving

streets, shall not be visible from any residential zone property. Parking requirements, one space for every three persons at the maximum capacity of the establishment. I really feel like this does fit outdoor commercial entertainment which is what you initially talked about. Um I'll move on. Can we can we stay in that for just a second before we move off? Um under land use regulations. Yep.

Um 32549 detailed land use description regulations. There's institutional land uses and part one is talks about passive outdoor public recreation and then part two active outdoor public recreation description and active outdoor public recreational land uses include all recreational land uses located on public property that involve active recreational activities including play courts, tennis courts, basketball courts, playfields such as bond diamonds, football fields, soccer fields, tot lots, outdoor swimming pools, swim beach areas, fitness courts, public golf courses, similar land use and then underneath goes on regular ations um using night lighting u minimum opacity of 6 with buffer yard. Um and then all structures and active areas shall be located minimum of 50 ft from any residentially zoned property and parks greater than 1 acre in size. And it continues to to go on to add some um structures and active recreational areas located less than 40 ft from residentially zoned property shall have a landscaping buffer with 6 opacity rating. I mean, so that that clearly lays out playfields such as ball diamonds, football fields, you know, I think that's and that's under institutional land uses. If you search for field in our um in our zoning uh 325-49

C uh C institutional land uses. Yep.

Yeah. And I think it does fit, but I also think there's a component of of outdoor commercial entertainment, which this is this is a it's a commercial property. Um, it seems to fit and it's it starts off, I think, correctly. Um, a good comment. Thanks for Yeah, I mean that's that's that's what we need is good conversation through this. Um the planned industrial change. One of the sentences in PI is uh in ensuring to residential development, no development within this district shall take direct access to local residential street or residential collector street. And I I don't know the answer. So that caught my eye. So, is East Gaston Road in that section, is that considered a residential street?

Guess I would turn that over to Josh. I think I would consider Burb and the entrance to the south um commercial for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The entrance to the south would be commercial. I mean the functioning of the street to the north. I don't know what the classification maps are or what Kyla would have to answer that and what what our street classifications are. I mean we I mean it' be commercial just west of just west of that access on Gaston but whether it you know you're talking about like where summits um Yep. Yeah. there's an end like where it was industrial Johnson Health Tech

and then it moves in then it narrows down right and turns into like residential and I just I bring that up because part of our job is to make sure we're not violating other ordinances and that things are tidy and if we need to fix something prior to aligning things we should make sure we're fixed and not have hazard fixed to the ordinance or fixed to the street fix the street or whatever that was already that's part of that annexation agreement where we require them to urbanize it and fix to that the title of the street is it residential? I'll go back to the question then. Is is that section of the street considered residential? Yeah, I don't know that off the top of my head. It has that would be in your village classification maps and I don't I don't know each

I would presume it would change when when or if a development's approved. I mean the plan already identifies the area as industrial. So once the predominant use of the area is industrial it would switch to an industrial road. Okay. I think we need to make sure that's Yeah, that's tightened up. Yeah. Okay, cool.

Yeah. and the rest of the rest of my printouts here around those ordinances um around institutional land use and also the uh I think I think we should include outdoor commercial because it fits it fits with what with this is a commercial property. It's not it's not a park unfortunately, you know. Unfortunately unfortunately fortunately fortunately it's a business um and it's it's a commercial space and I think we need to include outdoor commercial entertainment. Erin, can you maybe speak to that?

Um it's ultimately up to you guys. Um, like I said, I think I thought the fields and things like that fell closer under to the uh outdoor institutional like section Heidi was referring to. I think you can make the argument that the concession area could fall under commercial entertainment, the outdoor commercial entertainment. Um, if we make that part of the approval, we can specify that that area has to be the 300 ft away from the residential property.

Um, thoughts from the developer on this. Well, I mean, I think uh um as the board member had pointed out, there is an ancillary um um definition within that uh institution land use um of the um outdoor institutional land that the um uh the village has classified. So they have that. Um but we are yes we are a business but however um this is a sports facility uh not only for um uh u recreational sports um but also for training facility but also for uh physical therapy. Um those uses are an instit as part of an institution of through the create LLC. So um I think we fit into that definition and have that ancillary the fields are ancillary part of our main function of the indoor uh sports facility. So um but um and I I think I have to agree with the board member that that uh that is u that's why that point in the code of zoning is part of uh the ancillary uh part of the um outdoor um institutional

I think it's I think it's a part of it it's a good comment thank you the institutional to me still means it's going to be the wrong word but it means it's it's government. It's it's the institution. It's the village itself. P you know C part one passive outdoor public recreational description passive out because it reads into the Heidi words there right um land uses include uh on public property involve passive recreational activities such as arborum national wildlife areas hiking trails bike trails cross country trails um C number two active outdoor public recreational description active outdoor area I'm going to skip ahead such lands include play courts such as tennis courts basketball courts play fields, uh, trot lots, trot tot lots, tot lots, indoor outdoor swimming pools, swimming beach areas, fitness, public golf courses, and similar uses. As we talked in the beginning, this isn't this isn't for the public. This is a commercial property and I think institutional plays a component. However, this is a commercial property and that's where I'm at. I'm stuck at outdoor outdoor commercial entertainment,

if I could say. So I mean all those uses that you listed uh golf golf courts uh play fields are in a heavier residential setting than what we are proposing here. I mean you have outdoor uh fields that are next to single family residential fields. You have golf courses that facilitate homes on the golf course itself. Um we're proposing something that is similar to those community functions um that um is less residential and it's highly commercial within our and basically on three sides of our our facility. I'm going to let Rick jump in real quick.

Yeah. So I guess what I'll say on the institutional piece, it doesn't differentiate between public or private ownership or whether it's like for commercial purpose. So it's strictly listing the the land uses that are qualify as like the active um institutional uses. It's one other thing I I'll mention is there is case law that says like if you have an ambiguous zoning ordinance, you have to interpret it in the favor of free use of property. So if there are two possible definitions or two reasonable interpretations of an ordinance, we have to interpret it in favor of the property owner. And I'm okay with the outdoor institutional. I just think we need to have indoor outdoor commercial as well. I don't know that I mean I get it. It's there. But I'm no I don't know why we're excluding outdoor commercial because it's that's what this is. It's an outdoor commercial business, right? If they build the outside stuff first, which I don't know how you do it, but small little tent and they check registrations. It's an outdoor commercial area, right? the the ordinance specifically just lists like the uses though it's not looking at the intent of the uses whether it's forprofit or not profit. So, the fact that it lists the ball fields specifically in the outdoor institution, that I think would lean more towards in favor of the the ball fields specifically being the institutional, but there may be commercial elements to other things like Aaron was saying with the commercial with the uh concession stand.

And one thing I just may uh mean this is a permitted use in the PI zoning district. So uh based on a commercial or conditional use um you know those are um when you have a conditional use you have more control over that condition conditional use because this board provides um uh requirements on upon approval. So, you know, as a permitted use, the zoning for that area recognizes that this could be a this is a permitted use, but um you know, you have some limitations and you have some control for the village.

Okay. So, we've kind of lumped seven and eight together. So, the um first discuss and consider that we have is the um change from rural holding to planned industrial. Any comments on the I think so.

I only for that one. I just I'll have a it's not a condition. There's um in Erin's recommend staff recommendations. That's the permit side PI restor. The only thing is we I think we should double check the street conforms to PI for that extra outlet, but I don't think that's a I wouldn't necessarily make that a condition, but just just a note to staff. Make sure we're tidy on that. Thank you.

Discuss and consider. It's a lot of reading. I was hoping you would do it. Otherwise, I can do it. No, I I'll figure it out. You don't have to read the whole thing, but Okay. Uh number seven, uh recommend a motion to approve the uh zoning map amendment for the parcels listed in the agenda from rural Holdings to planned industrial. Second, right? Yeah. With staff recommendations. Thank you. Amended for that. All right.

Sorry, one more quick clarification on that. that also staff recommendations includes the change that Aaron provided uh regarding um signing of a development agreement instead of I think it would be both. It's in here. Oh, that's the second one. Both. Yeah, both conditions. So, it's closing on the property and uh executing the development agreement which is part of the is that the second? That's the second one. Sorry, I'm confused. The only staff condition with the PI recommendation is zoning shall become effective upon the applicant closing on the property. Yes, the only and to add the development agreement condition to that one. So the reasoning Okay. So amended then amended to include the the uh

Yeah. You okay with that? Okay. You got that? Yeah. All right. There's a motion and a second. Any other discussion on the the reszone? Otherwise, all those in favor? I I I

opposed abstain. Motion carries. All right. And now we have the discuss and the consider for the cup. Um as we have been discussing. Uh I'm just going to let you know. I'm just going to be stuck because I think it really should have I think we should include outdoor commercial entertainment. So I'm I'm just going to be stuck. I'll just let you guys know that right now on approving it as it's written because I I think I was stuck until um Rick clarified. So I'm now unstuck on it. How are you unstuck? I Rick, do you want to repeat your answer?

I mean I I get I because where I'm at is I I indoor commercial and outdoor slowly now.

So I'm outdoor institutional is there. I I those words are there and we have conflicting ordinances to a point right sort of they're overlapping they're not conflicting wrong word they're overlapping but the commercial I mean number eight is indoor and then right after it says outdoor and that's exactly what I see is happening in this property these two tickets go ahead sorry I I I'm not stuck on it um so I think yeah indoor commercial entertainment fitness center the building that they're constructing um outdoor institutional covers all of the land use sports field um that they've presented

is if we reference the outdoor commercial and applied it to the concession area would that unstick you I guess that was my next is it it's the concession area that you feel should be outdoor commercial entertainment

well I mean the whole thing examples of such land use include include outdoor store, commercial swimming pools, driving ranges, miniature golf facilities, amusement parks, drive-in theaters, go-kart tracks, and racetracks. It actually doesn't mention food service. So, all the all the food, all the liquor license, none of that's really on the table, and we shouldn't even talk about it because it's not part of this. It comes later, right? I mean, it's we're not proving those things. So, this is saying, "Hey, we're doing some outside stuff and and there's it's only three other things that are in there." Well, A and there's three and then B, parking requirements. It feels like that tidies more around what we're doing over indoor institutional description which sorry outdoor institutional description outdoor institutional description land uses include public and private cemeteries, privately held permanently protected green spaces, country club, non-public golf courses, similar land uses. That's where I'm stuck.

I guess I think what's being presented, you know, what based on what Rick said does fit within what is um being proposed, the outdoor institutional.

Heidi, go ahead. The outdoor institutional calls out specifically ball fields, which is I think what um makes me want to make the motion to approve the conditional use permit to allow indoor commercial entertainment, fitness center, outdoor, institutional, sports fields, land use on the parcels listed uh with staff conditions. I'll second that. Yeah, there's a motion in a second. Any more discussion on this? Just make sure that also includes the fire department's report. Yep. Yeah. You'd like to just to specify those are kind of new now. Yeah, I'm okay with specifying that. Yes.

And I just want to echo you know what JP said. Thank you for coming back with you know recommended changes and I think you know all of my questions happen you know traffic impact analysis and all of the different um you know steps that come with the site plan. I'm looking forward to seeing that. So thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. All right. On the motion, all those in favor I opposed. I

abstain. Motion carries. All right. We're going to move on to number nine, which we do not need on the agenda tonight. Um that was um left on there. Um and we do not need to discuss it. Um so we'll strike that from the agenda and move on to number 10. Um so this is a discuss and consider request from um MGSC for an approval of a site plan amendment um for this paved bus loop um around the existing school building which refers to CGS um or Cottage Grove School. So, I don't know if someone from the school district is here. You can feel free to have a seat and you'll just push the little man speaking or woman or individual. Um, and then you can share the microphone too just so we can hear you. Um, I'm Anna Blake with Point of Beginning, the civil engineer on the project.

I'm Bill Miller, buildings and grounds director for Manona Grove School District.

Um, so the proposed project just consists of constructing a new bus loop around the existing elementary school building. We are proposing some extra sidewalk connections to kind of have a connectivity around the entire building. The concrete walk that is currently in the front that splits both parking lots will be chopped off at the end and expanded to 10 ft wide. And this will allow for um parent drop off to kind of loop around and use both um parking lots because currently they are limited to the one parking lot and then buses are limited to the other. Um, so this will just kind of split bus and parent drop off, which will allow for more stacking within the existing parking lots for parents. And then the buses will have their own designated drop off as well. Erin, I'll let you run through your um staff memo. Sure. Recommending approval. Um, a lot of the uh conditions are related to the engineering. So, I'll turn that over to Josh. But, um, there were also some comments from the fire department regarding the width of the bus loop. For it to be a fire lane, it needs to be 20 feet all the way around. Um, they did indicate there may be some alternatives to that, such as adding a hydrant or something like that. So you could we can get you guys in touch and kind of work work on that aspect of it. Um and then did look like there was some new lighting on the bus loop. We would need to see a phototric plan and lighting cut sheets of what um is proposed there. But I can turn it over to Josh for his comments.

Yeah, we had a kind of a staff memo um letter as well and comments uh overall on the on the plan. Um, a couple of the bigger items that, you know, I wanted to discuss with this group tonight and just to see, you know, what the plan commission's thoughts are is is just kind of the way this circulates and the way this operates, right? It's going to be a little bit different um than what it is today. And and if if I misspeak on what the intention is, please help me because um I know we asked for some additional information and I just wanted to make sure we understand it completely. So, right now um you can enter the site on the south end, I believe, is where parents drop off. The north end is where the buses loop in, if I have that correct, right today on the existing kind of site plan. And when you're when you enter that south parking lot, you can take lefts and right in as parents drop off. And I guess what the proposal is and what the school district would like to do is they would like to limit it where you can only turn right in to the south parking lot and then turn right out on the on the north end. Um, that will change people's drop off habits, right? So a lot of the people coming from the north and I kind of described this would have to go probably over to Ali Street and run down Ali Street to the intersection that we were people were here talking about wellbridge Taylor make a left out of that to then come back to the north and and right turn into the parking lot. Um that can be done. It's just going to create different movements and congestion in other places. So, it's it is hard to move the congestion and the peak congestion that the school district has and will continue to have um because it's such a small window of traffic, right? And it will just you likely push to a different location. It just tends to um at at at school districts. I get what they're trying to do because they're providing extra queuing within the parking lot, which is really smart, and they're trying to get the buses around. So, they're trying to provide for this extra storage. Um, I guess my

question starts is is do we want to shift that traffic to to Ali and what was the reason not to just allow the south interests to stay open but allow lefts in and rights in so there was there a reason for that and I just just out of clarification for myself I would say the biggest issue is just with with the amount of traffic that time of day especially for the pickups at the end of the day anybody making the left turns out of there really just adds to the congestion question and the waiting time frame for anybody to get out and keep that flow moving and then just the additional risk of somebody making a left turn onto a busy road. Sure. I mean that's what that they're doing it today, but you would like to eliminate the left turns.

And you're talking about specifically out or in? I guess my question was in in the morning. You won't allow the left in. You're only going to allow the right in. But the access stays exactly the way it is. So could somebody turn left in? What's limiting anybody from not turning left in? Because nothing changes at the access point.

Right. So really other than signage, there'd be nothing preventing somebody from from going in there from an actual traffic flow perspective. Um I just think bas basically that kind of keeps them coming in from the south end. So there's no, you know, co-mingling with the buses trying to make the left turn in, you know, depending on timing there. So I think just overall that kind of aids to a degree to keep traffic flowing both directions. Yeah. Kind of alleviate a little bit of the backing up where we've gone.

So I had I sat in the like all hands-on deck meeting that we had I think in the fall, right? Yeah. Um, and the idea is is trying to get as many people off the road as possible, which is why having that queue you come in and then you have that additional not only the current drop off loop, but then you have the the current bus loop is the additional to kind of get those additional cars off the road. And then you're right now there is you're not supposed to turn left coming out after you drop your child off. You're supposed to turn right.

You're supposed to turn right. And so there's a sign up there now. the school district does a good job and I know that they've talked a lot about how they're going to communicate this out to parents. There's videos, there's staff that stand out there. You know, the principal stands out there. Um I know our police chief said that there were extra patrols at the beginning of the school year and it's going to take the community, you know, a period of an adjustment to learn what they can and can't do. But the idea is like, yeah, we don't want that line of cars going from, you know, the entrance all the way back down to the intersection. We want them to be kind of tucked in and then turning in more space to to drop their kids off,

right? I mean, I guess I guess the majority of our backups, you know, come from are are heading north, but, you know, kind of during that peak traffic, there can be cars for a brief period that line up nearly to that intersection waiting to try and make that left turn. So, that would just kind of keep them moving. But we don't want to switch the access points to only allow left rights in. So like there's things you can do at the access so you don't allow a left in. You only like physically change the access point so you can only get in right because you make it they bump it out different and you make the curb awkward to go in. But do we want to allow off peak traffic to turn in however they want and maybe maybe that is the case and you leave it the way they are. You know I I'm just kind of throwing these kind of thoughts out there as I was looking.

No, I understand now. I think yeah the idea is is like education and this is you know the rule during the 8 minutes in the morning and the 8 minutes in the afternoon. Um but then it's um the uh it probably more like half an hour. Yeah, I can imagine it's I'm going by Dr. Frederick was out there with the stopwatch and they timed the queue. Um and so I mean that's the data that they gave me. I live in the area. I have dropped my child off for the last I walked her school for, you know, I spent four years walking to school. I understand the the traffic flow, but I think like basketball practice at night, they can turn in,

but they can you can turn left and right in, but it's really that the the critical periods where you've got, you know, everyone trying to get their child to school.

Y Okay, so that was one of the big comments to just understand and we all understand that traffic's going to shift and have to move and it's hard to solve the school traffic. it's it's going to be there and and we're trying to to better that and maybe we leave the access points the way they are because it allows for lefts in and and other movements at different times and it's going to be a communication thing with the school district to get the traffic to flow right and I get that that happens at a lot of districts. Um, one other thing with with the access and I'm going to share um here. Is that okay, Lisa? Yeah. It won't let me share. Here we go. Is the joint axis on the north. So, I I like how you're bringing buses in and you're trying to separate them from cars. Um, but the axis gets really large over here. So, it's 55 feet plus. And then there's a sidewalk that comes out and it kind of shows a a ped ramp and the sidewalk in the middle of this access. It's going to be very awkward for students when you have what would be a bus entrance, a vehicle entrance, and a sidewalk kind of in between them meeting. I think what would be preferred would be that everybody comes in this entrance and then the buses peel off

so that you're not creating a bunch of confusion at the entrance. You could still allow, let me let me draw this on you. You'd still only allow the vehicles to come out and you'd arrow and stripe it, but the buses would come in and when the buses come in, I drew in green here just as I was waiting this little bump out and then they go this way. So, they still Oops. They still would get separated. There still would be this separation, but it wouldn't be happening at the access point. It would be happening just inside the parking lot. And maybe there's another solution to that, but it is complicated when everybody tries to be out there and make other movements in and out of an access because you're telling these vehicles to turn right and the buses are turning in front of them left into that into that um into their own access. So, it's going to be a little bit confusing for vehicles to do that.

I would say my thought too is, you know, before any of the students are released, the buses are already there and lined up. So we wouldn't really have them turning left in onto that road while parents are trying to make that right out. So I don't I think from a timing standpoint that we wouldn't really have that intersection issue. What about it? What about in the morning? In the mornings that everybody's getting there at different times. Buses are coming in at different times. That can be a little more unpredictable.

Yeah. I let let out is easy. I I agree. Like buses stage up, they're out. Not a big deal. It's the morning when everybody's transitioning and nothing's timed. It's all random that it becomes, I think, difficult. And then you have walkers that are in the middle of the two. A pet has to come up and be in the middle of when buses are turning and people are accessing. I would shift the sidewalk to the outside to the north so that they're away from the access altogether, which would kind of be up in this area. I know.

Our big complication with shifting that walkway to the north of that bus loop is then we would we would lose that queueing because that's kind of where we would have um the pickups taking place. So, we would want to utilize that whole outer perimeter to gain that 71 um car queuing. This this area here you're saying that I'm trying to like circle, you still want, you know, a couple Q cars there or something. Right.

Right. So the ones closest to the what would be the northwest there would be kind of where they're loading. So you know whoever whoever's releasing the kids basically they look at the name placards radio those kids are released to their car. That way we're not you know calling kids that are or to their cars that are several back and kind of leaprogging each other. So that would be my concern with moving that to the north. So the other you're making me think which is Thank you. This is this is very unconventional the way it's set up.

I think there's I think there's a couple things. The driveway entrance I think we we don't have ordinances around it but I think we really refrain from two driveways right next to each other because of the confusion. You're going to have a car go down that bus ramp. this is going to happen and it's going to be like h second thing you're going to have just I'm a little kid and you have the little ones right and so I don't know how munchkin they are but now you have them walking down a sidewalk with thing big metal objects going on both sides of you which is the current situation too yeah the both sides of us that little walkway you have the buses on one side and you've got the cars on the other holy smokes we could we could build a better mousetrap here this this is an opportunity to fix some of We can give the kids of Cottage Grove a lot of credit. They're very good at it. I think Yeah,

but you're right. The um but I think it's just an opportunity to fix that if we can not do that. Right. So, right now they come you drop off at the end of the sidewalk and they walk down and then either go up and around the school to the playground or they go into the gym if it's raining. Um sidewalk between the two. Yeah.

So, current currently the southern portion of the parking lot is strictly for car drop off. So, what they do is they wrap around to the the west side of that center dividing walk. That's where they're released. They go down that center walkway and then enter the building. Um, and then buses are along the existing north side of the lot of the northern lot. They kind of line up along the sidewalks there. So, we're kind of in a similar scenario as it says. So

I guess you know what Josh brings up is a concern of mine and having the the buses come in while the parents are turning out. Buses are coming in like this or like that and parents are trying to only can turn out. So I think the plan is right out of here. The buses will be coming from do they are they coming from both directions or were they all going to the bus company going to be coming cuz was it going to be like the they were coming up from the north turning in and then coming and then exiting out the south and then going back to Nelson's.

And the buses can turn left in, right? You're allowing the bus to turn left in or Yeah, the buses would turn left in. Yeah, that's where the conflicts happen. So, I guess one other kind of point of clarification here is un in the mornings under this new looping structure between the two parking lots. Where are you going to have the the drop off point? Cuz right now it's kind of turned up right by the gym going down in there. It's kind of where the normal car drop off is for this. Is it going to be further on into the north parking lot and then Right.

Okay. So, is that going to drop off going to go up pretty much close to the intersection we've been talking about or is it

Right. So, so if you're looking at at the overlay here, that would be the northwest where that sidewalk ends near kind of that bus entrance we call it. So, that's kind of where they would drop off. Then students would follow that walk back to the building. And then then that center divider that's currently used for students to walk out and get into the parents' cars, that would be widened, but that would not really be a loading zone. That's more or less a separation to allow us to have more queuing for the cars and widening that out so they have more space to to make that turn as they wrap around. Okay. And

so just just to clarify this blue and this red line, right? This is the circulation plan are opposite on they're on the opposite sides. Like red turns here, blue turns here in front of red. And then the kids, while I agree with Cindy, have to go in the middle here. They have to do it between two driveways where before they had to do it between no driveways. They would just come in through here, right? I think no. Or they go south through here. But again, they're not they're not in the middle of the driveway. They're out They're on the outside of the driveway. So, it's just it's it's I'm not saying it won't work because I'm you're going to have a lot of stuff going on there. It's just a little it's a little dangerous.

Yeah. Because they would be on the outside of the car drive and then, you know, we wouldn't really have that with drop offs because that would be in the back side of the building. So other than a handful of students potentially on foot coming that direction, there would be limited foot traffic from students that way, right? So whatever people are walking to school, I guess from that that direction.

The rationale for having the queuing coming from like the Taylor Wield bridge and then turning in and then exiting to the north. Is it because we don't the school district doesn't want the left turn in like if we were to have buses and cars coming into the same loop in the same direction? You're saying if we were to allow cars to come in, make a left turn in Yeah.

on the on the north side. Yeah. Um like if they were if everyone was coming in the same direction. I mean the idea is is get off the road. You got 71 car in the in the site and then leave going south and that way the bus like the buses are coming in and the car everyone's going in the same direction in the same loop. Um, I think we had reasons why we wanted the right in, right out.

I think a lot of it just came to that being a shorter stretch between, say, the the entrances here and the intersection with Cottage Grove Road. And we had more of a turn lane where cars could be off to the side as they work to get into their queuing spot in the lot without slowing down traffic coming the other direction. And was it too hard for the bus to turn in on a right turn to get into the bus lane from coming from the south? So it it definitely makes it tighter there. Mhm. And what

I think just from the safety's standpoint, they prefer taking the right just which probably isn't in our like realm of plan commission to tell the school districts how to um what if you do it opposite and you just have them all enter like you're you're going the right direction, Cindy, of I think you were saying everybody enter up here. So these people come all the way up. It gives you more queuing to the south as well and they enter here when the buses are entering. So they can both enter right and they just go the opposite way and then they have to take a right out this way. It's just opposite.

So you actually I was going to ask that question, but then my one concern is now you're going to have an intersection where you have all these cars potentially queued to the south of that exit point. And so now someone to leave right turn only because we don't want left. Y now they have to traverse a lane of cars on top of watching all that traffic. That is a big potential for an accident that happened there and I'm concerned about that. It's tough.

I don't have a silver bullet for you tonight. I'm not totally sure what we're approving because of the conversation now. I'm just wondering if anybody's thought of any other options. And I I apologize, Cindy. I haven't been at the beginning of this either, you know, to understand what the school district and everybody.

But I think you you're you're bringing up a really valid point when you're talking about the out in with the buses and the two like dual roads there and being on like kind of opposite sides. I was thinking I could try to solve that if I tried to narrow this down and and and not put this axis here, but allow them to come in. Yes, you're going to lose three or so cues for like drop off of parents and then let them come in so that everybody kind of enters at one point and try to square it all up. And I'm not saying this is the solution. I was just I mean Erin, you and I talked about that kind of into this is how do we try to combine them somehow within the lot and not at that access point. And I get it. It probably hurts a little bit of the circulation and takes away a few drop off spots, but so okay. Um, one one thought and I again I don't know if this was in our purview but if the concern what I'm hearing the big concerns right now is going traffic flow make sure we have the appropriate uh queueing in there hence the lots but then when we get to the northern part of the lot is that intersection between cars and buses and then you the potential of walkers in there and that's the main challenge in front of Naturally, without completely redesigning this, what if there was we turn it into a little bit more of a controlled intersection where we have someone I'm not saying that whether it's the police or etc. out there that in action in essence directs traffic at the times when those buses come through. Yes, it's going to potentially slow down traffic going both ways, but then by doing that, having that a lot more controlled, someone kind of controlling the traffic, that removes the danger from the kind of crossover for all modes of transportation.

Might it also be possible to for the walkers coming from the north to just have an additional path on the north side of where the buses are driving and then they can have a much more controlled crossing further down the lot where the the bus drivers know there are going to be students crossing there. Then they're avoiding the sidewalks. You could terminate this. You could terminate the sidewalk at the end of the parking lot where parents are dropping off. So, it's really only used for students who are walking back to the building and then the sidewalk off of um and just goes north of the bus lane.

We recommend that if you keep it this way, yeah, in our letter that you that you shouldn't bring the the peds out at that spot regardless if you keep it like this. We would suggest exactly what you said in our letter of keeping the sidewalk on the north side to make that connection and then cross them over somewhere further down the line when you get closer to the building, you know, so the buses can see them as they walk across walk across just that small bus lane. That's only going in one direction, too, which is nice. They just have to look.

Yep. I don't think we're going to solve this tonight. Um I live off of Taylor Street. I've got a granddaughter that I pick up on occasion at Taylor Prairie. You can have the no right turn and people still turn left out. Doesn't matter. You can have eight signs and they're still going to try to turn left and then trying to turn left into Cottage Grove School. That's been backed up where you'll sit at a dead stop for more than five minutes and you can't get around them. There might be a big truck or something. There's no way to get around it. So, you can't really go left in the Cottage Grove School. And somehow we got to figure out how to get more of the cars off of and and into that parking lot. Even at 71, that's you're going to have to loop them or some something. We can't The math isn't adding up. There's going to be more people, you know, even at Taylor Prairie, they run out, you know, onto the road if in the afternoon if you don't get there on time. Um, it's a little better in the morning because people stagger, but in the afternoon it's it's a nightmare and that's going to be the same thing in the afternoon at Cottage Grove School and we're going to, you know, we're going to run them down to hydrate. You know, it's going to be that far. It's I'm being a little facicious there, but we got to try to get as many cars off of N as possible somehow. You know, otherwise we are going to be backed up past Taylor Street in Wheelbridge and then right, you got the point where people are going to go around Ali in Wheelbridge. I've done that to try to get get home. Um, you know, trying to get down Taylor Street. So, I think the school district and the village engineer need to go back to square one and kind of take some of this

input and kind of relook at this and come back with some better options. the for for those of you that drop kids off at the school. I guess a question I would have is we're not allowing lefts in. But how how hard is it to take a left in off of Maine versus going around an alley and then trying to take a left out of Taylor while there's a bunch of queue traffic and you got two directions of traffic coming up and over that hill. I don't think it's going to be easier. I think it's going to be tougher. And that's just that's an opinion. This is just a tough that's an opinion though. That's just an opinion. I think it's going to be tougher.

Well, we want to make it better and I mean there's the we have to accommodate the school district in some way and we have to come up with you know the best. It's not going to be a perfect solution. We have to come up with a good solution. Um, and I know there's been, you know, we've been talking about this with the school district and have had meetings for the last, you know, several months and the engineers have obviously put work in to try and make this the best um, plan possible. My, and I know we've tal we've talked to about in one way out the other, what kind of signs there would be, what kind of education could happen. My concern though is this top um bus and queuing line. You I don't think you're not we're not going to accomplish getting every single car off the road. Um but we need to try and get as many as we can off. Um my concern then too is you know how long is that queuing line going to be on the road? Um there's other things the school district can do and encouraging busing is definitely one of those. the more kids that take the bus, the less cars we have, encouraging walking and biking. Um,

I do know that's something that they're looking at to try and encourage bus ridership and, you know, looking at their bias program and how they can adapt that, make any changes to encourage that because that certainly works in our favor. Um, without a doubt, we will would still have some cars queuing on Cottage Grove or on uh Main Street there. That's certainly not going to change. Um, is the queuing line going to go all the way down and block the intersection at Taylor and Wheel Bridge? like do we I mean

what I don't know if anyone knows that answer but then that's a that's a traffic concern that I have and then that makes that intersection that much harder for the the neighborhoods and during that time period but also then is an increased you know danger because there are people then turning left onto end and if you got a line of cars they're queuing you can't see around them and then I feel like that's a hazard. It was determined there was room for 34 um cars for queuing along basically coming from Taylor Road to the southern parking lot entrance with the school

plus the 71 in the 71 in the lot itself. Um so right now if nothing changed um the the total amount that we anticipate would be potentially 134 cars. Um, are they all going to be there at the exact same time? Every one of them? Probably not. But you certainly would have some queuing on the streets. Um, I think

the afternoon's going to be the biggest challenge. That's when you're going to have a more, you know, that's when we're going to exceed and end up past Taylor Street. You know, the morning is a little bit spread out and I, you know, but I in the afternoon that's that's going to be the the tough one. I think the morning is going to be the toughest for the buses in queuing outs at that on that top concern and agree the afternoon is going to be the problem then down at the queueing line that's going to go down in I had a question about the queueing um south of the school entrance. So right now on Main Street we have like a dashed line in front of the school and that's where you go to queue to turn in. Um but south of the school in front of the church and then down to the residences that's there's parking allowed there and so then are you queuing in the parking area? Does the village need to remove that striping for parking and allow no parking in front of those houses or maybe no parking between certain hours? you know, 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 to 3:30 in the afternoon or something along those lines to kind of make sure that there's room to queue that's not in the driving traffic lane or something. I I guess that's kind of where my how does the village play into making sure this is safe as possible.

Parking restrictions isn't a bad idea, Heidi, on some of this.

And maybe those will have to be altered as you kind of implement it, too, right? When you discover, hey, we need a little more here or there. Um but that would be a good another good solution I think is part of this. I mean moving beyond that we had some other we had some other just stuff on grading some of the other stuff where the bus drop off in the back. I mean they have obviously very challenging slopes to work with here. So there's some ADA issues in a few areas that you just might want to address or kind of look at a little bit closer. Um, and then uh there's a little bit of storm water stuff. But otherwise, the biggest comments I had in here and and and I'm sorry on the phototrics once uh we see those to make sure the photometrics work was the biggest comments were just the traffic related and I just wanted to have a conversation with everybody. Yeah, I mean I'm not saying that they can't get this to work, but it's it still has its still has its functionality issues, right? So, um just something to point out, I guess, when I when I looked at it right away. On the other hand, doing not approving and not doing anything is going to make things a lot worse.

Yeah. I mean, we looked at a number of options. This this got us the most queuing within that lot. Um, you know, we had looked at doing the opposite. Can we fit more cars where we have the proposed bus lane? Because that looks like a pretty long stretch, but we did not gain anything from there. So, I mean, it's it's not a perfect solution, but I think that's going to get us the best traffic flow and most cars off the street that we're able to with that property.

Can you talk a little bit about the emergency service access then? I know that the backside it's the the right width for, you know, what the fire department was requiring to make it an emergency lane. Um, can do you are you able to create that with the entire length? Yeah. Okay. Even on the south side because I know that that is where it's it's much tighter and we'd be looking for 20 foot width to kind of meet those requirements is my understanding. And I think it's 18 on or 17 on one and 15 on another something like that. Right. Okay.

Yeah. I I so I think the only thing that I would highly suggest from this group if like Cindy like you're saying if this is the best we have would probably say let's not just connect the peds where those two access points are. Let's not promote somebody to walk down to this point and be between potentially um you know come out on a sidewalk here on another sidewalk between two axis that are right together like that. I would try to maybe separate that and get that on the north if grading, you know, or just not allow an access over there. Make them cross all the way and go south and come in there then and and just, you know, make sure that they aren't, you know, right there at that point. That's probably the most unusual thing I would say.

I'm Jim Lundberg with Point to Begin Civil Engineer. Um, can you stay by the microphone? I want to point at the screen or take the microphone. Oh, carry it. Carry it by the base, please. Perfect. Thank you. Um, I haven't run this by the district yet, so forgive me, but um I'm wondering if if you can pan out just a little bit to that center island. You want me to go to further south or is that good?

Uh, that should that should be fine. Perfect. I'm wondering if the traffic flow could take a left and go to the south entrance and exit there in lie of taking a right here. That circulation could continue through and come as long as we had enough room here for for that traffic to make the turn around the the center island and have the vehicles come down to the south and exit the south driveway. Right. So, it's a right in, right out at the south driveway. Eliminate the north driveway. Maybe even allow yourself to queue up some more vehicles along that one side.

Um, so I think what you're saying is instead of this red line, maybe you eat a little more out of this here,

of this island here, and then you, and I'm sorry if everybody can't see this. I'm trying to draw as I go. These guys come back and circulate down and come back out this entrance where they came in, but they only can turn right out there, right? And in other parts of the day, everybody can turn in and out of that entrance, left, right, whatever. You would you would allow full access. So, that's not a bad idea. Plus, you get more queuing within your parking lot and off the street, and you eliminate that conflict above with with buses and everything else. That would still be gated then on the north side, right? Soling the buses could use unit use it during a different time. It's good. That's a that's a good suggestion just off the cuff.

So, oh, sorry. No. Okay. Um, so again, I should have clarified this from the beginning. I'm saying all my comments here are also pulling from my personal experience as a parent who has had three, yeah, three kids going through couch girl school. Um and well soon to be three including the one that's going to be going into this joint here um and has walked and gone through Taylor Street that Wilbridge Taylor Street intersection includ walking across N street to get or N and to get up to CG girl school. Um, one thing that I was kind of looking for in kind of diving through is back in the school board November 11th meeting, they gave us capacity of the number of students that are going to be there with enrollment projections. And so I just want to make that comment out there to kind of keep in mind um roughly what we could anticipate in terms of car traffic. Looking at the next five-year enrollment projections there, it ranges from next year at the highest at 459 going all the way down to 428. So I put this in context then if we hadund how many were Q on the old design without this extension? It was like 10 and something

total total car drop offs. Yep. 134. So 134 car drop offs between the lot going down to on N correct or is it 134 just in the lot? You're saying fortal so we would scenario is your mic on? Sorry.

Thank you. So, we would have room for 71 cars in the lot for queuing with the original concept. And we have room for an additional 34 um along Main Street going from Taylor up to the south entrance.

Okay, thank you. So, 71 within the the lot plus the additional ones in there. So that almost gets us to about a quarter of the student body that would be attending the school would have a place to queue. And I don't know if we have exactly how much students are would be busing in there, rough projections in there, but I would suspect that it's probably close to halfish, if not more than that. So, since I'm all about making data informed decisions, I think keeping all this in mind and if we make these changes, we should be in a better spot. We have enough space to potentially accommodate the car traffic that's coming in there with the queueing. It does give us some leverage in terms of right turn, right out and not have that left in there. So, I think we're actually in a decent spot for this. with this kind of newer suggestion you're saying.

I do like this looping back down to the south to have the right in right out too because that does alleviate a lot of the things that we've been working through. Our biggest concerns in there. Totally.

Um the one challenge I guess is I don't know how much more queuing we will get because of the drop off being kind assume still on that north side next to the lot in there. I don't like having a drop off kind of right next to to the road, the multi-use path in there. I would much rather have that safe path, have them get closer to the school, go in there, especially knowing how um the current staff monitor that lot and kind of maintain that same process where they have multiple um individuals um kind of helping direct students, ensuring they don't go into the parking lot in there. Um, but still even so after one has dropped off now you have a few more space in there. So you still have that queueing a little bit in there. So I'm liking where we're going with this.

If we do it this way, do you need any type of additional engineering for the bus lane? How I think Josh is listening to me. Sorry, Aaron was saying something to me too. Go ahead with the question. If we if you um could if you could do it this way, would you need any type of additional engineering up top?

You're probably just going to alter the way this probably looks up here, right? Like you're going to some of this is going to go away. This is going to, you know, get so that it can accommodate buses in and out. So, it might look a little bit different. And then the sidewalk could potentially stay on that side because it won't be between two like access points. So, have to kind of fit that in. Um Aaron was talking to me before is if we're going to do this method where you loop all the way around and loop back down, are we sure we don't want to reverse it? That way you're forcing people to come in and go the other way and then get closer to this drop off. So they are utilizing that space and they're stacking up, you know, in a different direction. And I don't know if that's right or not. They probably you probably have to kind of consider that. Um the the only negative to that that I see is it's kind of uh it's atypical on the side of the vehicle that they would be dropping or picking up.

That's a good point. Yeah. It' be on the driver's side. So Yep. which would be different. You like to let them off on the other side.

Yeah. I I I like I like the only one access like a bus only and the vehicles and it separates everybody. Um it it makes it cleaner for now the bus is turning in. It makes it cleaner for the cars turning out and in. Um it may even make it may even be more intuitive to the drivers um once they get used to it and how it works. And then like like I said when it's not peak period I can see a lot of people taking lefts in and out of that access just because it will be a lot easier. Um so it doesn't limit you also for a full access there when you're not doing this 30 minutes of drop off and pickup in the morning and at night. So,

what about the buses leaving and the queueing on I feel like we already talked about this um on the south here. Um so the buses I mean in the afternoon you've got well in the morning they're coming dropping the kids off and then they're going to be turning south and going back to Nelson's.

Um and that's going to be kind of like on a rolling basis. Um, and again, we talked to how like parents are coming in at different times, too. So, like maybe that queue isn't going to be too bad, but in the afternoon, all the buses are going to be lined up. All the parents are lined up and then they get distributed to where they're supposed to go. And now we've got the queuing line that's been on sitting there and you've got the buses that need to leave to go to the neighborhoods. What is that? Um, what kind of risks might be in that area? I think there's a chance that you get some cars stacked up along there and the buses have to kind of be like, "Please let me out.

Please let me out." But now, if you go with this other thing, you do have this extra green space that maybe parents will start to stage in as pickup because it's available, right? Like that green line is now parking along that side or you think that has to free flow through? So, you're going to need a way to get the kids over there. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, the kids are going to have to come out the gym and they're going to have to walk all the way around to get to car number one, right? Yep. But, I mean, they're radioed and it's Yeah. Yeah. That that is a good point. Yeah.

I will say much of our um congestion clears out. It's most of the cars currently for um student pickup are all out at the lot and it's cleared by 3:00 and school dismisses at 2:50. Our biggest problem, you know, with with the backing up is early arrivals and and it's that stagnant point where nobody's flowing. So, I don't have too many concerns about the buses leaving because by the time they dismiss, load up, a lot of that has dispersed. Yeah, there's that 10-minute time frame again.

I just think 1.6 $1.3 million for 10 minutes. You can get another crossing guard for that. Um, I mean it does it it solves it improves the sites in general with the emergency access in the back. Yeah, it Yeah, big time. Um, and makes it, you know, the whole site a lot safer for for everyone that's, you know, working and going to school there. Um, yeah, it's just a tough I mean, there's this tough site. It is what it is. We need to make it the best that we possibly can. Um, I only have two things. Sorry. Go ahead.

Sorry, I'll be quick. The I think you were talking about the bus exiting and I think that was really interesting where we're going to it looks like we're letting the buses turn left to go to Nelson as you mentioned. However, cars can't turn left. So, I think that's going to be conflicting and I think that creates an issue which is you're there now so it's not like nearly there. The only other question lane though so like you should know like if you're a car you go this way, if you're a bus go that way. You can you're special. Will you go anywhere? Um, from the Strang, we talked a lot about the north side. Do we have any lot line issues on the south side? Have the neighbors been contacted. Um, how does that look from a lot line or um the buffer?

I mean, you're tight on the you're tight on that side. They're tight on that side today. They're showing a retaining wall. Um, we suggested some silt fence along there. One, there's a little bit of gray, but two, just to kind of keep that barrier at during construction from from those sites. But they it's they are all within their site. They just will be constructing a retaining wall to kind of fill all that in. I don't know about the neighbors being contacted. Erin, that's just a question. And then I think there's a fence there now. So it's not like it's not. So that delineation's there, but as long as we're not encro encroaching on the buffer, there's usually setbacks.

And are we not are we sure we're not encroaching on any setbacks there before we move to an approval? I didn't see a setback issue there, but Erin, did you look at that e? I I did not see one as far as we're not doing any building difference. It's just the road itself. And I think you calculated for the impervious storm rating and all that stuff. So, yeah, I don't Yeah, I don't know if I know the full dimension there. I don't know that we had the engineering drawings like you had in our packet. I kept clicking around. I can't Maybe they were there, but I didn't see that. Did anyone else see those? Was that or was it just me? Okay.

I mean, maybe that's a condition. I would just check that and make sure that the dimensions, you know, that that full setback is correct with the addition of the road being widened. Widened. Yep. Then it all fits. Yeah, there's something there now, but it definitely And then they're talking, you know, they're going to move the dumpsters. So, I guess the dumpster guy gets a clicker to open the gate or something. I don't know how that works, but hope they figure it out. That's that's their problem. What exactly are we approving? So, like there's a lot of options and and I I love the idea. I think I think it's great. It's a safety issue. If they want to spend the money, that's on them. That's a different conversation, not for us. What are we approving?

Okay, so this is approval of the um site plan amendments with the addition of the paved bus loop around the existing school building um with associated improvements in the existing parking lots. Um, so I guess the question would be, do you want them to come back with a more detailed concept with like the the green line or I guess you could theoretically conditionally approve it with that option. They would just have to provide the additional detail. But um I don't want to have them come back. If they're come back, they're coming back. Yeah, they're not coming back. Let's be done. That's what I would Sorry.

Um, so I guess the question is could it be is the engineering or like the the new layout going to be ready in time for the board meeting next week? And I guess maybe the board would be ready to approve it if if it's not if it's just an updated concept. But the plan commission is comfortable that you could move forward tonight with the understanding like your approval is on the sort of updated concept. Yeah. And I think I think if staff double checks I don't I don't think there is an ordinance for it but that double entrance I know we've had it with other properties that we looked at before where we want roads to face other roads and not offset and things next to each other generally is

we haven't upon but I don't know that how detail we restrict it as far as language and ordinances. The ordinance has a 24 foot opening really this is kind of all one opening on the north side which is like 55 ft. So these may be a little larger than 24. I think that original one up north might be closer to 30 some. So how do we trigger that? Because I think it's it's good to move it forward, but I don't want to make sure the questions get answered by staff later on. So

if we move the access or eliminate that access, we won't have that issue up on the north side. You'll just have a bus only entrance and then just a self entrance that's car only right in right out during the during the peak times full access during the others. But it's not an engineering to your point of the original left where you started with your conversation with the road left only. There's no engineering control. It's it's somebody putting cones out. Yeah. I mean it's and doing it. That's the hard part. M you I just don't want us to be set up for like hey right some because the what we do today is what the next developer comes in and says hey you did it over there so I want to just make sure

I think it's okay I just wanted everybody to know that you can turn left out there and it will happen and you will see it and people and during off peaks it will happen it's they're not restricting that it's just going to be an operational thing the right in right out definitely when they have these pickup and drop offs and they they have the it sounds like my question initially was you guys have that you have the manpower the people power to get that done, right? And and to and to try to enforce it. And it takes time. Cindy Cindy said that it takes time at the beginning of the year and, you know, to get people educated on how it works. Yeah. Our our principal there has put in a lot of time, especially at the beginning of the year. He puts together videos. He's on foot out there, you know, every single morning. Yes.

There there's always a few who try, but he quickly corrals them and gets them into the proper routine. And it's worked. worked just about as well as it can given our current situation and that might very well be just an all hands-on deck collaboration to make sure that we can educate the best that we can to make this work the best. Um okay for so as far as the moving this forward um we could approve it with the with staff conditions and with the engineering discussion um that we had tonight and

yeah the zero the south uh lot line double check and then the the north entrance uh review I'd like us to also evaluate that parking then on Main Street south of the school and to tailor if we can. I don't know if that's just staff direction or if you want that part of the motion, but I like to see that part of kind of the official I don't want to drag things out, but I do want to make one other comment.

Go ahead. because the village has, you know, this may seem like we're being difficult or something, but I I think we can agree that we all want to make this as safe as possible and we have taken a lot of steps to help alleviate the pedestrian safety there with the new RFB, um crossing across Main Street, um additional bike path improvements in the village to help making walkability to the schools and, you know, across the village better. So, um, I think that, you know, we're trying to do our part to help make this safe, too. So, I I do want to convey that because I know this has been a very lengthy conversation in a lot of detail, but I think that we've taken a lot of steps, too, and and you guys are doing a lot of work also. So, I I just wanted to convey that to you is representing the school today. Sorry, quick discussion on your first comment, Heidi, about the um the parking further down on the southern part of Main Street there. I don't know if that's a worthwhile condition for this because it's not in the school district's control. This more of a village element. So, that's my one concern like I don't want to block this because it's a village issue. this is more of a staff direction that we should examine that.

Sure. But if it does cost us money to restrict parking or change the striping like you know that's where I think we need to figure out you know the the impact of the changing the site plan might be impacting that but you know I'm not sure what the cost of that is to put up parking sign. So you know I guess we don't want to nickel dime things but also you know it's due to the site plan change perhaps. Rick, were you gonna say something?

Uh, yeah. I was just going to agree that we couldn't say like impose a no parking restriction, but on our end, we can do what we need to, but the cost thing, that's a valid consideration. So, if there are costs on there, depending what they are, that might be something we want the applicant to to cover. All right. This is a discuss and consider. So, what I'm sorry, one more element. So, what I'm hearing that's Rick, feel free to correct me here, that it's worthwhile to maintain Heidi's motion with that kind of additional um element about the parking.

Yes. I don't view the parking though as like a condition of the approval. It's more of just direction to staff to um and if there are costs involved, we can hopefully try to address that at the next board meeting. I haven't made a motion yet. I was like, do you would you like to make the motion? Alex looks like he's ready, though. No.

Oh. Um, let's see if I can capture this. Uh, well, I would move to approve the site plan amendment, the addition of the paved bus loop around Cottage Grove Elementary School building with the associated improvements in the existing parking lot with the engineer with the parking lot discussion tonight. We shorten that island peninsula. It's a peninsula. Peninsula. Uh, and give staff direction to find the parking south of the school site.

Is that Did I capture everything? The I just had the south lot line and the south lot line. Sorry. Yes. And along with other staff conditions and staff conditions. Second. All right. Motion in a second. You got that, Lisa? All right. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I I opposed abstain. Motion carries. Thank you for coming tonight. Probably see you next week then. Thank you.

Um all right. It is 8:31. So, I'll open a public hearing for the public's opportunity to provide input regarding a request from Toby's Body Shop for approval of a zoning text amendment to allow an outdoor display land use in a PI planned industrial district and for a conditional use permit for an outdoor display land use auto sales. Is anyone from Toby's here? Uh, Eric online is the architect. So, I guess we'll see if Zoom is working on his end. Eric, you should be able to unmute if you can hear us.

Okay. Yeah. If you want to kind of run us through um your application. Can you sing that again, please?

Eric, we're having a hard time hearing you at the moment. Is he speaking? So, same on my end. I don't know that my connection is that great. Oh, that's a lot better. Yeah, we can hear you now. Okay. Um,

who's sharing that? So I guess what we're proposing what here is basically an an amendment or a change to the the requirement for the planned industrial area to grandfather um well to to make the grandfathered use I guess permanent and then add the auto sales use as well. Um, with that, I guess I can explain a little bit of the project. I don't know if you have the ability to pull up the project drawings. She A101.

Yeah, Erin's going to pull that up for us. I made Oh, yep. Okay. So, that's the that's the site plan. I we'll start there then. Um so, with the site plan in we are we're basically adding a a paved area um to make room for the auto sales function. There is a retention pond on the west end of the site. it would be inadequate if we add the paving to the front and so we would be adding pvious pavement um in that L-shaped area. However, when I talked to the civil engineer on the project, she recommended basically taking up all of the paving and allowing for just a rectal linear parking lot of all pvious paving because that would just be easier to construct. But it kind of cover the same area, just more pvious paving. And then the at the bottom of the backwards L there, that's the addition. That's that's adding um office space and break room and kind of shifting that function out of the existing space and making more room for a lobby sales area.

So that that's pretty much all I have in explaining the project. I don't if you have any questions. I'm I'm open. Okay. Um Erin, do you want to go over your staff memo?

Um so as Eric explained, there's three three different approvals you'd be looking for. The first one is an amendment to the zoning ordinance. Um, so Toby brought this forward a couple years ago and we talked about it a little bit at that time. Um, that he was hoping to be able to sell cars here and I think at that point there wasn't really any concern about that. Um, so the zoning amendment, zoning text amendment would add um outdoor display which would be the sales and vehicle repair um as permitted uses in the planned industrial district. the outdoor display would be a conditional use. Um, and I I think both of those make sense and we'd recommend approving uh the language that was provided. Uh, the second element then would be the conditional use permit which would be for that outdoor display auto sales use. Um, recommend a few conditions on that. The first one just the typical statement that this applies to this business at this location only. Uh the second one that um there wouldn't be any penants, banners, lights, other attentiongrabbing, used car lot kind of things here. Uh just what's specifically allowed under the sign ordinance. Um and we would like to see the front space striped and the cars that are for sale in the actual parking spaces. Um and as far as the site plan, we'd recommend approval of that with a few conditions. again striping that front area. Um, parking spaces within 6 and 1/2 ft of a lot line need to either have a curb or a tire bumper. Um, it looks like that might come into play on the norththeast corner of the new parking area. Uh, so the applicant can verify that. Uh, we'd like them to verify the size of the

parking spaces uh just to make sure that's within our ordinance. Uh because they're adding pavement, they'll have to add some landscaping, so we'll need to see a landscaping plan. Um they'll skip to the last one. Um I know Toby's is working with the fire department on some code issues and it sounds like they've resolved a lot of it, but um the fire department did ask that they clean the rest of them up before we issue a building permit. Um and then five and six relate to the previous paving. Uh number five was uh we would need some soil boring data and construction details just to ensure that it all would work properly. And then a storm water maintenance agreement for the pavement. Um Josh could probably explain this better than I can, but if you don't maintain previous pavement, it doesn't stay pvious. It becomes impervious. So we just need a way to guarantee that's going to happen. similar to a maintenance agreement that we'd have for somebody's biobasin or other stuff on their site that would be recorded with the property so it would be maintained.

So for the public hearing we did receive um one email in support of um the conditional use permit and everyone on the commission received that email. So is there any other comments from anyone at Village Hall? Is there anyone online that would like to speak during the public hearing for this item? All right, we'll close the public hearing. It's 8:39. Um, and we will move on to the discuss and the consider the request for the zoning amendments um is up first. Can I go first?

Okay, thank you. Um, so in May of last year, we approved the parking lot update and expansion. And at that point, I think it was imper, it was pvious. Pervious impervious, it was regular asphalt, whatever. Didn't let water go through. So now we're changing that to a soak through parking lot. Remember the details? I'm guessing it was approved on the condition that they double checked the storm water and it sounds like when they did it, the pond was not big enough. So now they have to do the impervious.

So I think back to when Align Energy wanted to build that substation and they ran into the same sort of barrier. However, none of their property is really paved. It's stone. And I brought that up and saying, "Hey, we can it's stone. It flows through. It literally is rock. Um it's not paved." And that didn't count. We weren't able to do it then. So why are we able to do it now? So it's different. Yeah. So go for it. Yeah. Yeah. Why is it? Why now?

So like a paved gravel uh I'm sorry, like gravel like they would have a lot of that gravel has fines in it, right? You go over a gravel road and it's kind of compact and it's tight. If you've ever seen it rain hard on a gravel road, while there is some infiltration, there's not a lot. Um it wasn't gravel road. It was the rock around the substation. And I've worked in substations. I mean, I know and it was their access. It was their access spots and all their other stuff. I mean, they had a decent amount of gravel in there just to access that site. But even the rock inside the fence yard, we denied that as pvious.

Don't remember that. But yeah. Yeah. I just knew that they they needed some as part of their overall impervious area. So, driveways and that doesn't count. The way this is different is it'll have open graded stone underneath and pious impervious through the asphalt. So everything continues to drain down into sub layers where it's stored and then potentially drained after. I think it's a great innovation. I mean, there's no reason why we shouldn't. So it's a little different. You get different credits for the DNR. Yeah. Because of that, the pavers keep you from smashing down the gravel, right? And condensing. Yeah. Is that what it is? It's going to be like a paver with a hole in the middle.

You know, they never specified if it was going to be pa It could be three things. It could be pavers, it could be asphalt, or it could be por concrete. All three of them work. And then how do we verify it's what you want? That was one of the conditions that they have to provide that for Josh to sign off. And then you know depending on the soil layers, right? If there's sand underneath it and it can drain through in a way they don't have to put much stone and it's clear stone. It's open stone. There won't be any fines in it. It's all like the same size, right? Sort of thing. But if there's clay under it, it's going to be a lot larger of a layer so it can store the storm water and then drain it through drain tile back into the storm system. That's why you have to kind of know the underlying soils at the same time. Maybe we'll do a field trip when it's installed. Yeah, it'd be cool. All right, other comments.

Second just to confirm this is about the change in the ordinance. So, we'll do number 12 first. Um, approval of the zoning. I would make motion to approve the request from Toby Toby's body shop for approval of a zoning text amendment to allow an outdoor display land use in the PI planned industrial district with staff conditions. Second that. Right. There's a motion in a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. All right. Then we have um the cup.

Okay. Okay, I'll make a motion to discuss or to recommend approval from Toad's Body Shop for approval of a conditional use permit for an outdoor display land use with all the staff conditions. And I'll second. All right. Motion in a second. Any other discussion here? All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. And now the um request for the site plan amendments.

I'll make a motion to recommend approval of the request from Toby Toby's body shop for approval of site plan amendment uh with staff conditions including the new fire report. Second that. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. All right. So, we're going to move on to number 15, a concept presentation from LAR for a potential 162 unit single family home development um on Ridge Road. So, for feedback only, no action taken.

So, I emailed with them this morning and they were looking forward to being here, but I don't see them in the room or online at the moment. Um it's hard to have a discussion on um if the uh group isn't here to present to us. I think you know we do have um you take everyone's comments very seriously. Um and you know I pulled all the you know the documents from it goes back to 2004 um to kind of take a look at um you know when this does come up again there are points for to address you know all of the concerns and we we do need data to move forward on and anything that gets proposed over there. Um and so when they do come with a presentation, you know, that's feedback and we have the long list that we will be giving to them and even um they they'll have access to hopefully maybe the video tonight and we'll be able to um to take a look at the the preliminary feedback too. I don't think the fact I mean it's been in the comp plan forever and you know the original the very original plan was a good plan and this one's even a lot less homes than any other plan but the fact remains that traffic and trying to get a road through to

BB otherwise just it's going to be a mess. I mean, we just talked about the school, you know, so it's going to be a mess on top of a mess. So, somehow we got to get a road through there. Yeah. And that that kind of held up the original plan, which was a great plan. I guess quick question for Aaron. um for the public. Can you please uh explain when um in the approval process when we would require the developer to provide the traffic study?

I would say with the preliminary plat that would be the first approval they're seeking. So they would present the concept then they are required to do neighborhood plan well concept to both plan commission and board. uh then they would do a neighborhood meeting then they can submit for the preliminary plat and that's where we would be looking for that kind of data.

Yeah. And I guess just an additional comment on that. I think, you know, if this were to move forward in some capacity, it'd be somewhat of a similar concept to the sports complex where we put in the agreement that they have to do a traffic impact analysis and any road improvements that are attributable to them, like existing improvements that need to be made, they have to pay pay their proportionate share. So, I mean, let's just say that an intersection improvement has to be done at Taylor and N. We would require them to pay their proportional share of that for the traffic generated. It's a little bit trickier on the north connection. Um, so we can't require them to build a road over land they don't own, but there may be other avenues that the village could approach for that. So again, I just want to say that publicly to re uh sure um residents and those who have spoke that at some point in time like due to our process, a traffic study will be required in there and so we'll be able to use that to help make an data informed decision at some point in the approval process in there.

Yeah. I think it's just important to remember too, we don't have an actual application. This was just a they wanted to come to provide a concept. So there's nothing formal for anyone to evaluate or provide any sort of analysis at this point. Um it's all very preliminary. So if an application actually does come forward, that's where it's going to trigger sort of more of the actual analysis that all the the village has to do. Okay.

Yeah. one of at uh when it came came the first time, one of the things was to acquire the house on the north east side of uh Taylor Street and that would that's pretty close to the road right now. And and they would widen that road and make some additional turn lanes and stuff there. And there was other discussions of what to do with that intersection u the first time around, but that that's as far as it got. read all of the comments from before and we're having the same conversations. Right. Right. Exactly.

But we were gonna we'll work hard to make sure that it goes through the proper process and we're asking the right questions at the right time and getting the right data. The problem with the technically the developer is like something different. So, so we'll have the the question from the So, they didn't have a microphone. I apologize. The So, the question from um the res technically should they'll be having discussion. How do they come back? How do they Yeah. How do they come back? They will put in for the next plan commission if they choose to go that direction. We Yes. No special

which is the question I would have to but thank you for asking question. The only Thank you. Um the only while I'm on um you know I still think we're missing that they call it affordable housing and we you know that starter home price range. This is this is upper 400s is what they're showing um you know into the 500s and I it's good additions for sure. Um however it's not we need starter homes and that's something that we've struggled with as a group and as a community for 10 20 all the years now. So that's just just putting that out there. same comments that you read them before. It's in there. So, it's also Yeah. not our plan commission responsibility to dictate, you know.

Yeah. Unless the unless the board wants to subsidize have a program to subsidize housing. Um, and Alex, I can take that back to the board if you are interested in, you know, that's a board discussion for incentivizing. Well, well, it was it was a presentation. What do we think? And that's what I think. But you're right. From a from a plan commission, we judge on the ordinances and statutes, and that's where we move forward on. Yep. I also say that conversations also have happen as part of the housing chapter uh update as well and so that will eventually feed back into the comprehensive plan and with the village board discussion.

Thanks. All right. Future agenda items maybe we'll have a concept plan but it will be posted you know the Friday before the plan commissioner. Um otherwise we'll move on to number 17. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Motion and second. Non debatable. All those in favor? Bye. All right. Thank you.