City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, it's now 6.32 and I call this regular meeting of the Victoria City Council to order. Please join us in 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.

The first item on our agenda this evening is announcements. First, the city council will review and adopt the proposed maximum property tax levy during its regular meeting on September 14th at 6.30 PM. As a reminder, all city council meetings and workshops are open to the public and held in council chambers at city hall unless otherwise posted. If you plan to attend in person, we encourage you to contact the city clerk in advance. In other announcements, the city offices will be closed Monday, September 7th in observance of Labor Day and will resume normal business hours the following day. Most importantly, please join us for the community open house at the new Victoria Fire Station on Monday, September 21st from 5.30 to 8 p.m. and bring the whole family to tour our brand new fire station. Meet the team and enjoy a variety of free and fun activities. The next item on our agenda is to adopt the final agenda. Council, can I get a motion to adopt the final agenda?

Motion to adopt the final agenda.

We have a motion, can I get a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to the next item is our open forum. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the council on items that are not on tonight's agenda or not part of an active application that will be coming to the council at a future date. No one has registered in advance to speak, but is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the council at this time? Seeing none, we will now move on to our consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are routine administrative and do not require deliberation or housekeeping items that are required by law. They're approved with one vote unless someone requests an item to be considered separately. Ms. Hardy, does staff wish to pull any consent agenda items for a separate discussion and vote this evening?

None from staff, Madam Mayor.

Council, is there anyone? would like to pull an item from consent, or a member of the audience that would like to pull an item from consent agenda. Seeing none, we will entertain a motion for the consent agenda.

Motion to adopt the consent agenda.

We have a motion, can I get a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to our regular agenda. The first item on our regular agenda this evening is item 6.1, which is a request for conditional use permit for Hotel Victoria. This item does contain a public hearing, but before we do that, I will ask city planner Brian McCann to present his agenda report. Mr. McCann, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. Tonight we will be considering a conditional use permit amendment for the Hotel Victoria project. Just a quick highlight of the project for those in the audience who may not be aware of the project or just to refresh your memory. The hotel proposed consists of a 46-unit boutique hotel with various amenities as well as a covered parking garage with 41 stalls. They were previously proposing on-street parking modifications to Steiger Lake Lane and Randy's Way. Overall, the project at the tallest point facing Steiger Lake Lane is five stories, approximately 57 feet in height. with the grade closer to the backside of the Winchester and Rye building being approximately 48 feet in height. So the previous proposal that the applicant had requested is shown in the image on the left. They showed two parking stalls along the south side of Steiger Lake Lane compared to the six that are existing there now. And they also had the parking modifications on Randy's Way as shown here. The site plan that was approved by the City Council after tabling the item at one of their regular meetings included some modifications to the north side of Steiger Lake Lane to gain an additional four stalls here, as well as an additional three parallel stalls on the south side of Steiger Lake Lane here, and one additional stall in front of the building entrance on Randy's Way. After that was approved by the city council, the applicant explored the possibility of completing those improvements further. They reached out to the MCWD who notified them that the project was now over an acre in size, which means they had additional stormwater mitigation requirements, which just aren't feasible for the project due to the site area and proximity to downtown improvements. And then Carver County also had not fully agreed to the extent of the improvements within their property boundaries yet. And then lastly, the retaining wall and parking improvements that were proposed had a significant cost for the applicant, roughly $100,000 per space for those four gain stalls. So, With that being said, if the CUP amendment as requested by the applicant does not move forward tonight, the project overall does result in a net parking loss of four parking stalls. So with that, the proposed amendment for the conditional use permit is to remove condition number 11, highlighted on the screen here, but adding condition 13, which would allow the applicant to provide a fee of $5,000 per parking space with a total of $20,000 for those four spaces to go towards the city's parking fund. to evaluate the parking demand of Hotel Victoria after one year of business operations. So with that, you do need to hold a public hearing this evening. It was properly advertised in the Laconia Patriot and mailed to property owners, as well as posted online and at City Hall. At the time of preparing this presentation, we had received two written comments expressing concerns about less parking downtown and development of the downtown open space. With that, I have a sample motion for consideration. Staff can stand for questions and the applicant is in the audience this evening as well.

Thank you very much, Brian. Again, this item does contain a public hearing for a conditional use permit amendment for Hodel Victoria. I will now open the public hearing. If there is anyone who wishes to speak to this item, please make your way to the podium. Anyone in the audience wishing to speak to this item? And last call. Seeing no one, I will now close the public hearing. Council comments, questions on this item?

My opinion I don't think we should lose this project based on four parking spots We've got a bunch of different things that we're doing right now for parking in the city. We've expanded parking on Steiger and I think we should have this project go forward. It's good for the city It's good for everybody and I don't want to lose it based on four parking spots Also any other questions comments I

Well, there's a couple comments. I share council member Pedersen's belief that we should do what we can to not lose this project. It's a good project. The project itself, though, is under parked by five spaces. That's clear. We're losing four. That's clear. The math is a total of nine. So we're down. And it's adding. parking problems that our residents are saying we're having and they want us to do something about it. We're also a little bit light on details as the amendment of figuring out additional parking demands in a year. Where are we going to... who's gonna remunerate the city, who's gonna figure out what is adequate parking at that time. I think we need a little bit more clarity on that. We've seen comments from community members that the 5,000 parking space up to 20,000 is light, and frankly, we had a commitment to have parking those four spaces built out we should have something that's commensurate with that and then lastly in between our preliminary plot and final plot there was an outlot that was going to be part of the survey that has been taken away And the applicant has said that those are going to be labeled as private parking spaces. I think that that should probably be something that would come back if we're going to move forward with lightening up by four spaces.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. It is my understanding that those two spaces will come back into the public parking. Cool. Anybody confirm or deny that for me?

Mayor and council members, I can address that question. Council member Avansky is correct that between preliminary and final plat, the intent of those parking stalls adjacent to the Winchester and Rye building within this small square as shown on the screen, it's like a stall and a half basically is what it aligns out to on the plat. That is proposed to be retained privately and signed privately by the Winchester and Rye building.

Okay. Okay, I think those should come back into the public parking. I would say that that could be a condition of approval. Is there anyone in the audience that'd like to speak to that? Good evening, welcome. Please state your name for the record.

Matt Paddock, Civil Site Group. Yeah, we're okay with that. That's been in discussions back and forth, and I think it's a preference of management of those stalls. So if the preference is that they be public, the ownership is okay with that. Great, thank you.

So to be clear, we're going to have that outlet that was originally proposed become deeded to the city, correct? Correct.

Thank you. Very good.

Just to be clear, we have always said that we would do those two lots. We just wanted to get credit for them. They're privately owned. And so that was the only condition was that we get credit for those two spots. That was all we asked for.

I don't understand get credit.

They're privately owned and if I'm short two spots and we give you two, then we're not short any spots.

I think the issue is that it was counted towards Winchester and Rise parking requirements and so how can we double dip?

those those two spots were retained privately they weren't part of the parking plan so it they're they're our own private spots and we've always offered those back to the city for the public and we just said when we offer those back for public parking we give the land back to you then we get credit for two spots so that was what was so we're in complete agreement to do that thank you council

Other questions, comments?

Mayor? Yes. If I may, I just have a question, probably a very technical question, I think, for Brian, for staff. So mechanically what we're doing here is we're taking out a condition related to the county needing to approve some parking spaces on the north side of Steiger, taking that out, replacing it with an obligation, as I understand it, to pay for up to four parking spaces at five grand each if we discover after a year of operations that that's warranted. I think that's all clear from your report. Is the determination, I'm not clear about how that determination will get made. Is it the intent of this language that the city decides whether that additional parking is warranted? Does that require a negotiation with the hotel owner? the hotel owner's decision to make? Whose decision is it to make whether the additional parking is needed after a year of operations?

Thank you, Mr. McCann, please.

Yes, City Attorney Vose, that's a good question. My understanding is that it would be these cities' obligation to do further analysis to determine if the Hotel Victoria is the one responsible for any parking complications after one year of business operations.

Right, and then, Mayor, if I could just follow up. So the one year I take it from this language is sort of not one year from tonight. It's one year from some level of operations initiating? Correct. Right, okay, good. Thank you. And then I guess last thing, and I'll be quiet. I take it there is a site plan that reflected the parking improvements The development agreement, the 2B finalized development agreement, and they will be on hand. They are on hand now, or they will be on hand at some point here soon?

Correct. They will be on hand at some point. We don't have a final development agreement yet for this project, so we still have time to incorporate that in the set of approved plans. Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Okay. Very good. So just to be clear, from one year of the opening of Hotel Victoria, the city will re-evaluate the parking and at that time determine whether they need to pay into a parking fund.

Is it after one year? Are we saying after one year?

After one year that they will pay into a fund at that point in time. Okay. Okay.

I just have a couple. Yeah, Council Member Roberts, please. I mean, I guess I would echo Council Member Pedersen and Council Member Vanske, right? Like, I think we all want this project to move forward. It'll be great for our downtown. It'll be great for our businesses. It's a needed amenity. I agree with Council Member Avansky, right, that we, you know, I think reasonable people can debate whether there is a parking problem downtown. I don't think there's much debate, though, about the issues tend to be the proximity, right? And obviously the spots we're losing are prime spots in the heart of our downtown. So I just had a couple of questions to council member Vansky's point that we've gotten some emails about, you know, 20,000 seems a little light, the 5,000. The developer, you know, you guys were willing to pay a certain amount, right? I know the change in the parking that we uh... the change in the parking ended up being much more expensive than anticipated and obviously we have uh... the watershed district issues with that but i'm just wondering like you are obviously willing to pay a certain amount to change that parking and this i guess is a question for uh... attorney bose is that you know could we could we say i mean are we handicapped by the five thousand per parking spot or could we say we want a different amount of money to go towards that so that if an opportunity arises to create more parking, we have more in our balance to put towards it.

Yeah, Mayor and Council, my recollection is, I'm looking over at Brian, is that the five thousand per parking space is a supported by study number now that study i think is not current it's not particularly new so whether that's reflects approximate value of downtown parking i can't speak to but i mean i think that number isn't sort of just pulled out of the air that is connected to some work that the city has done in the past and So I'm not going to tell you you couldn't pick a different number, but certainly that's the most obvious number to pick, and I think it's been used on some other developments. So it's probably the safest ground for the city to be on.

I guess my only point was that they were willing to pay a certain amount to fix the parking to add those four spots that we were missing previously, so would they be willing to put that amount of money towards, if we determine, it could be the year thing again, right? So that's kind of what I was thinking.

Yeah, Mayor and Council, I think maybe the point you're making is that the cost of the proposed improvements, the north side parking spaces likely exceeds the 20 grand. I think that may be the point you're making. Yes. I don't know those facts, but that sounds right to me.

And then the last thing is I'm just curious, and this may be a question for Mary. I'm just wondering if there's an opportunity that, you know, obviously we hope the hotel is very successful and is full to the gills every night, right?

But I'm sure there will be times where it's not.

and I don't know how this would work from a management standpoint, but whether in the morning you're like, okay, we're not gonna be full. I don't know if reservations will ask, are you bringing a car type thing? But if there's spaces in the underground parking spot, I'm wondering if, there's an opportunity to say the valet would be potentially open for public use. Again, I don't know how that would work from a management standpoint, but I'm just trying to think outside the box of finding more parking.

Thank you, Council Member Chad. I think one of the things, the hotel, we're actually paying for all of this underground, so we're not getting any tax increment financing. Sure. I think one of the things that will happen with the expanded tax increment financing district is that this hotel project will bring property taxes that will be in the district that is dedicated towards parking. And so that is going to go to the city to be able to hopefully improve the parking lot behind the Gannon site and be able to move forward with the tax increment financing that's being provided by the hotel. So if we give two spots that we're giving that we privately own, we're two spots short at that point. And so I certainly would hope that the city council would see it wise for a group that did not ask for any tax increment financing to know that this is going to help by probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.5 million that we are providing for parking.

Sure.

But no, the piece underneath, the private piece, that will go for the hotel. And the hotel is looked to be, you're absolutely correct, it's not going to be full all the time. All the projections are done at 65%. The max projections are done at 70% for occupancy. But that is tied to the whole funding of the hotel that those spaces will be available. So there's other pieces that go with this. Thank you. Thank you.

And then I guess, to her point, my last comment was gonna be, it's not necessarily the reason to okay this, but yes, if the hotel doesn't get built, that increment that we're hoping to get from the expanded TIF district is not gonna be what we expected, which then obviously reduces the money that is available to help parking.

Okay, anything?

Let's be careful not to conflate the property taxes that will be paid in terms of TIF. There's been nothing that has been authorized to recapture that, so we can't sit around and count money towards parking that doesn't exist yet. That said, where we stand is we're losing four spots. We are going to have to pay to have the study to figure out if we have a parking problem. And then if we have a parking problem, the proposal here is a remuneration of a max of $20,000. So again, we would like this project to move forward. But as it stands, I don't think we have a fair deal for the city of Victoria with respect to this. the spots are there today so that the two get deeded in an outlot was something that was contemplated with this project for its onset later taken off and we found it acceptable to do that because we knew we were getting a build out on Steiger Lake Lane so I think that we need to be good stewards and make the the best deal possible for the residents of Victoria and for the and for the project that's in front of us.

Very good. All right. Any other comments, questions? Seeing none, I will now entertain a motion.

Make a motion to adopt the resolution amending the conditional use permit for Hotel Victoria.

I have a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Opposed.

Motion carries. Moving on to item 6.2 is also a public hearing for an easement vacation for Enclave at Huntersbrook. Presenting on that item this evening is city planner Brian McCann. Mr. McCann, back to you.

Thank you, mayor and council members. Tonight we are considering an easement vacation for the Enclave at Huntersbrook development. You may recall that was a 13 home single lot, or single family development as part of the West Creek Village project. with that they are proposing to develop on a portion of Outlot a from West Creek Village first edition that Outlot had drainage and utility easement over it that wasn't vacated as part of the development approvals for enclave at hunters Brooks so That would need to be vacated for them to develop on the site and then easements are planned to be re-established when the enclave at hunters Brook Platte is recorded so So very basic formality here is outlot A shown on the screen, the area highlighting the easement that would be vacated if the city council chooses to do so tonight. And then outlot D in the enclave at Huntersbrook Final Platte would reestablish those easements over applicable wetlands and stormwater ponds. So with that, this does require a public hearing. It was noticed in two consecutive editions of the Waconia Patriot as required by state statute. It was also mailed to property owners and published on the city's website and at city hall. We have not received any comments regarding this item. And lastly, I have a sample motion for you on the screen. The applicant wasn't able to make it to the meeting tonight, but I can stand for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. McCann. This is a public hearing. I will now open up this public hearing. If anyone in the audience wishes to speak to this item, please step forward. Again, if there's anyone in the audience wishing to speak to this item, please step forward. And last call. Seeing no one, I will now close the public hearing and open it up for council discussion. Council, any discussion on this item this evening? Seeing none, I will now entertain a motion.

Motion to adopt the resolution vacating a drainage and utility easement on Outlot A in West Creek Village.

We have a motion. Can I get a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next item on our agenda, item 6.3, a resolution accepting bids and awarding a contract for the Duck Trail Rehabilitation Project. Presenting on that item this evening is our Assistant City Engineer, Amanda Meyer. Miss Meyer, we'll let you get organized there, and then once you do, welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. Okay, so as mentioned, next item before you on the agenda is the proposed bid award for the Duck Trail Rehabilitation Project. This is not something that was previously in your CIP, which is why you see it on your regular agenda instead of consent agenda. Location of this project is between the Amber Gate and Watermark South development. There's actually two pieces. So there's the boardwalk, which is highlighted in the pink rectangle. And then the green line is the trail piece, my nice squiggly green line, if you will. So ultimately connecting, like I said, Ambergate and Watermark South. So a little bit of background. In 2025, Minnehaha Creek Watershed District began their East Auburn Wetland Project, which included reconstructing the boardwalk connecting these two neighborhoods. The previous boardwalk was 10 feet wide, no railing, and quite a bit of vegetation below the boardwalk. What exists today is an eight foot wide boardwalk, no railing. And as you can see, as that vegetation was removed, staff really noticed the steep drop off of the edge of the boardwalk down to the ground below and identified the need to add a railing. So we did look at a change order with this project for a proposed railing. It ultimately didn't feel like the right branding that the city is going for. So we did pull that out of the MCWD's project and decided to include it with the duck trail rehabilitation project. Duck Trail has been identified previously by Public Works as needing some maintenance. You can see the picture on the screen on the right hand side. Those are roots, willow roots popping out in the trail. There's a lot of cracking, some raveling. The pavement's really reached the end of its useful life. And this trail was being utilized as the access for the boardwalk project. So the trail was identified as needing work, but really wanted to wait until the boardwalk project was completed, contractor was done mobbing in, and then take care of replacing the trail. So as we look at the proposed improvements, this is the sort of custom railing that was designed for this project to allow for more of some City of Victoria branding. You can see the grass or cattail type design that you see out of City Hall behind us. and then the oars kind of helping bring in more City of Victoria. This boardwalk railing encompasses both wood and metal elements to try and bring some uniqueness. This, I believe, would be the first railing on a boardwalk in our community, so kind of a unique opportunity. As it relates to the proposed trail improvements, the red section would be a full reconstruction of that trail and also looking at adding in a root barrier to try and help mitigate those willow roots popping into the subgrade of the trail and popping up into the pavement. And then the green section is just a pavement replacement. We haven't noticed any of those willow roots out in that area, so really just managing the pavement of that. section of trail. We did receive bids about a week and a half ago. The lowest responsible bidder is Husky Construction. You can see their bid on the screen before you. Engineer's estimate was about 212,000. So as I mentioned, this was not in the CIP. Back in April, council did approve a reallocation of about $175,000 to be put towards this project and is added into the 60,000 of trail maintenance that is generally set aside annually for trail maintenance. So that's what's being proposed to help fund this project. So with that, there is a recommended motion for you on the screen, and if you have any questions, I'm here.

Ms. Meyer, thank you. I have been on this boardwalk, and it is very nerve-wracking that there's not a railing on it.

Without a railing, yeah.

It makes me very nervous, so I'm excited to see this, and it's a lovely railing besides. All right, with that, any questions, council? All right, seeing no questions, I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution accepting bids and awarding a contract for the duck trail rehabilitation project.

We have a motion. Can I get a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We are now moving on to item 6.4, which is a preliminary plat review for Astoria. Astoria Victoria did I see is that real Astoria Victoria it rhymes Presenting this evening is city planner Brian McCann. I've seen that name a number of times and I can't believe I didn't realize that till right now All right, mr. McCann now that I have become fully aware Thank You mayor and council members.

Yes Probably adding to the confusion is that at sketch planet was Astoria Lake Town and so now it's a story of Victoria.

Okay, so

So we are.

This is Ebenezer, yes.

Yep, from Ebenezer Development, you are correct.

Got it.

We are in the middle phase here of the development process, the preliminary plat. This is where the applicant provides detailed plans and applications, and we do all of our in-depth analysis and research, and then where they get their major entitlements, if they're asking for those, such as PUDs, CUPs, or variances. We have four requests in front of us this evening from the applicant for preliminary plat a comprehensive plan amendment a preliminary planned unit development rezoning the final PUD rezoning would come with the final plat if City Council agrees with the proposed deviations tonight and Then the site plan and building materials requests as their final application this evening. I So regarding the location and existing conditions, the property is at 2285 Arboretum Boulevard. The property consists of four parcels. This is the main large one here, about 48 acres, I think. And then between the other three parcels outlined here is another 10 or so acres. there are two existing single-family homes currently there's one shown here at the end of sky drive and then there's another one uh... down in the woods here with that access to highway five as shown uh... that is proposed to go away with this project there's also significant woodland and wetland coverage on the site with uh... A six mile creek that connects to Lake Auburn to the north and Carl Cray Lake down to the southwest off screen here. This is also the site of the former Amira project. If you're familiar with that, that was the previous 147 unit proposal for senior apartments, age restricted 55 plus. The proposed preliminary plot in front of you this evening consists of a 76-unit cooperative senior housing apartment building, so about half the size of what was previously approved with the Amira project. They're also showing six townhome units that would be part of the cooperative, and then two single-family homes that would be not age-restricted, just market-rate single-family homes. And then with that, they are proposing 140 parking stalls with the project at Preliminary Platte. At Sketch Platte, they were proposing 167, but Planning Commission had requested some reductions in parking because senior housing doesn't need as much parking as a typical apartment building. And then they also were looking for creative ways to try to reduce the impervious out on this project. And then with that, they have the main access being from SkyDrive. MnDOT was contacted regarding this, and Kara's going to highlight some of those comments that came back from MnDOT later. Moving on to the zoning and rezoning request. It's currently zoned plan unit development with underlying central business district. That's from the AMERA proposal. They received rezoning approvals at the time of their preliminary plat. So we would be rezoning it to plan unit development, a different plan unit development with underlying R4 high density residential. The reason for doing that is partly because of the density, which I'll get into with the comprehensive plan amendment piece. But with the plan new development process, as you're well aware, input is provided at sketch plat and then we approve more of the details at preliminary plat and then the final ordinance comes with final plat. And the purpose of the PUD is to allow innovative, creative, and flexible development that is sensitive to environmental factors such as the one seen in this project this evening. So with that, they are proposing some deviations for each of the three products that they have with this project. For the single family homes, they are requesting to reduce the rear setback from 30 feet to 10 feet. That's because we require wetlands and wetland buffers to be applied within outlots that are deeded to the city. So you'll see a larger reduction here compared to some of the other standards because we are retaining more of the backyard with the single family homes with this buffer than we typically would see with a single family home. So that's the reason for that reduction. And then also just some of our shoreland requirements. We have a 20,000 square foot lot size and a 25% maximum impervious. Based on the reduced backyard for those homes, they're requesting 13,000 square feet minimum lot size and 35% impervious, which is our standard R1 anyway. And then moving on to the townhomes, they're requesting a slight reduction in the front setback from 25 to 24 feet, and then a reduction in side setbacks for building separations, what's required in code, but we evaluate lot line as well. So 15 feet is the standard in code, but they're requesting nine feet to the closest lot line. And then for the rear setback, a similar scenario. It's 25 feet, but they would need 20 feet for the townhomes as proposed. And then the deviations for the high density project, a maximum impervious of 50% instead of 25% as outlined in the shoreland overlay district. You may recall that the central business district is allowed up to 80% impervious insure land with that rezoning from central business district to our four. All other residential projects have to meet 25% regardless of if it's a single family home or an apartment building. So we figured this was a good halfway in between point from what was previously approved with the Amira project to a slightly less dense project here. And then additionally, the R4 district allows a maximum building height of 55 feet. They are proposing to go up to 60 feet as measured from the lowest grade up to the midpoint of the peak of the project. With a lot of high density projects, you'll get the flat roof. The project, as you'll see in a few slides here, has more of a peaked roof, so we have to measure higher. So overall, it looks higher, but it's still just a four-story structure, which I'll get into that more later. And then the Comprehensive Plan Amendment, it's currently guided in our 2040 plan as a mix of downtown, mixed-use, open space, and park. That was also from the previous AMIRA proposal. They are requesting to change that downtown mixed use area to high density residential as shown in the image on the left. And then all of the residential uses that they are proposing with this project comply with our comp plan and the allowed uses of the high density district. Then for the shoreland overlay district, it's within 1,000 feet of Six Mile Creek and Auburn Lake. A residential shoreland PUD was evaluated for this project in case they needed to apply for that as part of their rezoning, which they will for the shoreland components that I highlighted a few slides ago, the deviations for shoreland requirements. But they are generally compliant with the 100-foot building setback, the 50% open space, and they are meeting the exact number of maximum allowed units with their project that they could do based on the tier analysis that was conducted. So they are subject to that 25% maximum impervious that I highlighted. They're proposing 50% for the main cooperative lot and 35% for the single family homes requiring that RSPUD. We did provide the plans to our DNR area hydrologist, but they did not provide any comments for consideration by the planning commissioner or city council.

So does that mean they won't have any or could they still come back with comments?

They are subject to 30 days from receiving the comments. They did not reply within that timeline. I've had other correspondence with our DNR area hydrologist, so they just chose not to comment on that request. So here are some renderings of the structure. As I mentioned, our typical high density projects, you'll see more of this flat roof as shown in the middle here. They have some end posts, I guess you could call them, with that peak design where we have to measure a little bit higher than typical. So that's where that 60 foot height requirement comes in. And then generally the exterior materials that they're proposing meet our residential requirements for the high density project and the town homes. There's also sufficient street light being provided on the public cul-de-sac and we didn't note any plans within the plans for a monument sign. Only one wall sign which is located near the entrance highlighted with my cursor on the screen. So in case they did have any plans, we would evaluate those with separate building permits for any additional building or monument signage. Then looking at landscaping and tree preservation, generally they're meeting a lot of our requirements for open space, minimum plantings, foundation plantings. The two pieces that we took a closer look at are regarding buffers. We typically require them between separate zoning districts. So if you got your R1 low density, your typical single family, and you've got an R4, higher density, an apartment building, townhomes, we would typically require a buffer between there with a eight foot tall berm at a three to one slope, which takes up a pretty good chunk of land. So you would see that here as shown in the image on the left. There just isn't sufficient space for the applicant to do that, so they're requesting to include additional plantings without doing the berm itself. And then on Highway 5 is another area where we would typically see our largest style of berm just to help separate the traffic from the high density project here for noise sites, things like that. There are utilities within this area, and they are trying to line this area with as many trees and shrubs as possible to help mitigate some of those concerns, but that is another deviation that city council should consider tonight. Other than that, they're providing the appropriate types and locations of boulevard trees along the public cul-de-sac, and they are meeting their minimum replacement obligations per our tree preservation ordinance. Then for streets and parking, as I mentioned, they're extending a small portion for public cul-de-sac for Sky Drive, which the two single-family homes would access, and then a private driveway extending from that cul-de-sac for the remainder of the cooperative site. Our code requires one parking space for every dwelling unit plus one space for every five dwelling units for senior housing projects. That would result in about 92 parking spaces for this project. They're proposing 140 so they're exceeding that minimum requirement. 100 of those stalls will be underground and then 40 of them would be within the surface parking lot as shown on the images on the left.

Is there any reason why they want to exceed that parking requirement?

Mayor and council members, that's a good question. I'm sure there's some sort of market analysis that the applicant might be willing to get into later. Perfect. And then looking at the pedestrian connections, they have a public sidewalk along Sky Drive as required. They are also showing pedestrian sidewalks throughout the entire site noted in the red and blue in the images on the left. We are assuming both of those would be private. From what we've heard from the applicant, it will likely be up to the cooperative owners if they want to allow any residents, public residents, to walk through their site, especially if the Lake Minnetonka Regional Trail develops in the future and this might be a quicker route for some of those residents in the Lake Bridge neighborhood to the west. So we're assuming it's private right now, but there's the possibility that the cooperative owners would allow public access on these sidewalks. then regarding parkland dedication that lake minnetonka regional trail corridor that i mentioned astoria for their project is required just under an acre of parkland dedication but they are proposing to dedicate about seven acres of parkland to the city this entire stretch of the lmrt corridor which greatly exceeds their minimum requirement. And then it's just worth noting the city isn't asking them to develop the trail section at this time or to acquire other properties outside of the scope of their project. It's not something that we can do per state statute. So we're just limited to accepting the land in this case. And with that, I will pass it over to Kara for a few minutes.

Miss Guerin, welcome. Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. I guess we're happy to report that we did receive comments from MnDOT between the Planning Commission meeting and today, so that... I guess was progress from being able to actually speak to MnDOT comments compared to at the Planning Commission meeting where we just had to say we had no comments. But first relating to access to Highway 5, the comments did continue to state that additional access to Highway 5 would not be supported by MnDOT and that Lakes Parkway So using Sky Drive to access Lakes Parkway to access this parcel is sufficient for the project, which is consistent with what they said at the time of the Amir project as well. What we wanted to talk about in a little bit more detail relative to their comments is they did note that sufficient right of way in there initial review and sufficient right away would be available for trail on the south side of highway five so i did just want to speak to that relative to a little bit of history relating to trails along highway five so and for quite some time dating back a while ago uh... the city decided to prioritize the lake minnetonka regional trail connection for lake bridge as being the primary means for connecting the lake bridge neighborhood to highway five so even with the astoria project uh... there wasn't an emphasis on planning for a trail on the south side of highway five The north side of Highway 5 was a question some number of years ago. The Auburn neighborhood had asked the question about how do we get a trail along Highway 5 so I can speak specifically to the north side as an area that we did look at a little bit more closely. And then just with the questions being raised recently, I have looked at the corridor briefly relative to the south side and while the right-of-way is a bit wide through there what I can tell you is that from a constructability perspective at least just with a brief look on the south side and from what we looked at on the north side it would be Likely fairly expensive to construct a trail along highway five So if you pay attention at all when you drive west past the roundabout There's guardrail on both sides of the road the reason that guardrail exists is because there's steep slopes and wetlands on either side and then We also have six mile Creek. So the way trails work in MnDOT right away the city could pursue constructing a trail along highway five or require the developer to pursue constructing a trail on highway five but that does come uh... as a city expense so not something that uh... we would just ask them in that to out of the kindness of their hearts go build long-range plans for highway five do show a trail on the north side of highway five we anticipate that will continue to exist in the comprehensive plan In terms of plans to widen Highway 5, in the 2040 comprehensive plan, we weren't seeing the need for the four lane to continue past the roundabout. That'll get revisited with the 2050 comprehensive plan to see if the traffic projections call for that. We do see a lot of traffic drop off at 11 north and 11 south. That's why we weren't, in the 2040 plan, seeing the need for the four lane. There isn't a plan to expand or reconstruct five beyond the roundabout. It's a very long way of saying I don't know at what point we would see that reconstructed. So the Lake Minnetonka Regional Trail has been communicated to me for the last 20-some years as the priority for the trail corridor. So that's what we've continued to work on. if the council wanted us to take a look at the south side of highway five just to confirm what my drive-by thoughts were about the ability to fit a trail along that corridor uh... certainly would be within the council's authority to suggest a condition be included that uh... we ask the applicants engineer to take a look at uh... the south side of the road to confirm what the challenges might be to construct a trail along the south side of the corridor.

So even if there were room and the ability, we don't have the funding to construct a trail at this point?

That would be the next piece of the puzzle that we would need to work through and then how that fits into the other trail prioritization that we have in the city. Just another thing worth noting is that the assistant city manager in charge of parks and trails and I do have a meeting coming up with Carver County Parks staff Next week, I think it might be and we are also gonna chat with them We're comparing trail prioritization between the city and the county and we want to see where the extension of the Lake Minnetonka regional trail Corridor fits in their try trail prioritization. I also chatted with Brian a bit about We move into the comprehensive plan process. We probably need to be talking about what the next steps are to move that forward We've talked about the fact that we don't have control over all of the property But with obtaining this piece it's maybe time to understand what it how much property do we actually need to build a trail is there an opportunity to put a boardwalk in to the north of the property that we don't own through the wetland process, through the wetland that just exists north of the land that we don't own. Certainly, this has been a priority for the Park and Rec Committee forever, Councils forever, and the neighbors forever. Maybe we should be thinking about what the next steps need to be in order to move that closer to reality, assuming this development moves forward and we get actual control over the land associated with Astoria. And I'm going to just check. Did I miss anything?

Would think that those would be reasonable next steps to take you know that right now that Lake Minnetonka regional trail kind of terminates right here because we don't have control of any land to further it, but it is a incredible regional asset and it would behoove us to find out what that would take to continue on with that trail. So I think all that information is good and we'll probably undertake that when we do the 2050 plan or would that be a separate exercise?

Our thought was to first chat with the county about what their thoughts are as the next step and then the 2050 comprehensive plan is underway so that gives us a great opportunity to have that conversation. And then just to touch on wetland stormwater management and site utilities. So sanitary sewer and water is available right adjacent to the property. So those utilities were extended adjacent to this parcel in easements that were actually granted by the property owner at the time of the lake bridge development. So those will be connected to serve all of these properties. And then from a stormwater management perspective, this property is subject to Manioc Creek Watershed District rules. And so once they have preliminary plat approval in hand, assuming that approval comes forward, the developer will be working with Manioc Creek Watershed District to obtain all the necessary permits They are proposing an underground stormwater management system like we've been seeing on the Downtown West project. In the case of this development, because this is a private street, dissimilar from what we typically see in a single family residential neighborhood, this system will be privately maintained. So that will require a maintenance agreement that the watershed district will require but will also be making sure that that happens so that we can ensure that it gets properly maintained over time there were some questions about uh... some of these things that the planning commission just with the proximity of this development of the wetlands into six mile creek Of course, this is a part of the Minneapolis Creek Watershed District's focal geography area, so they will be applying their rules as they always do, but it is a part of the system that the district's very familiar with, so that will go through that process to have all those protections put in place.

so a public hearing was held with the planning commission at their regular meeting last tuesday we did receive two written comments ahead of time which were included with the council case this evening stating opposition of another high density development project in victoria while also raising concerns about increased traffic on lakes parkway and potential wetland impacts We also did receive one additional comment. This was long before the public hearing or even before we received preliminary plans that one of our playing commissioners had requested be included with the packet since it came from them. So that was also provided to you this evening. And then we also did receive one additional comment after the public hearing was held this past Tuesday. Just to highlight all correspondence has been provided to the City Council for your consideration this evening. And then also we did have two individuals that spoke during the public hearing at the Planning Commission meeting. The Planning Commission ended up asking questions about the previous traffic study that was conducted with the Amira project. as well as the MCWD review process, also highlighting potential trail locations, as Kara just discussed, and then asking if MnDOT had provided comments at that point, which they had not, but we have them now, and then also asking questions about the increase in the building height and the other proposed PUD deviations. they did end up recommending approval with a 5-0 vote with one abstention by that plane commissioner who had so many comments for your consideration With that, I have some proposed conditions of approval for your consideration that were included with the resolution in your packet this evening, and I have two sample motions for you. I will note that number two does need a super majority because that is a comprehensive plan amendment. With that, I can stand for any questions, and there is a representative of the application in the audience tonight.

Very good, thank you, Mr. McCann. Council, questions for Mr. McCann first.

I have a question for you, Mr. McCann. On the Lake Bridge subdivision, is there berming between that subdivision and Iowa 5?

Correct. There is.

There is.

Yes. I can work on getting something pulled up in the background to show you, and I can take other questions in the meantime, too.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Oh, I got a bunch. Council Member Pedersen, let's hear him. So as I'm watching the Planning Commission meeting, this seems to me like a hybrid between an R4 and a CBD district. From my viewpoint and my understanding, if this maintains CBD level, we wouldn't be worrying about any of the PUD requests regarding impermeable surface and things like that. Correct or am I wrong?

Mayor and Council Member Pedersen, that's correct. With our central business district, we have almost no setback requirements. We have a higher impervious surface allowance. So when the Amira project came in with a similar design and similar requests, they did not have as many deviations proposed.

So we're moving it to an R4 basically as an administrative piece to satisfy the Met Council's requirements. I know that's being pretty blunt, but that was kind of my feel on it.

Mayor and council member, basically we're talking about a reduction in about half the units that was previously approved with the Ermir project, which is forcing that rezoning, which is forcing us to evaluate it differently than how it was previously approved. So yeah, it all has to go back to that density requirement. They couldn't meet the project's minimum requirement of 24 units per acre. They're at about 17 units per acre right now. So that's driving the R4 rezoning.

Okay, that's what I thought. As far as the berms are concerned, I do like berming within the city and especially along a highway like that. Is there any chance to drop the eight foot requirement and have them be like five feet or is there still just not enough space for something of that size?

Mayor and council members, I'm going to look to the only engineer I see in the audience to see if he has any insight on that, possibly. No. No, unfortunately not.

I mean, this is preliminary plat. So it's like we've gone from the napkin sketch to, OK, this is now kind of serious. We're at 50% here. Give me some ideas and some things that we might be able to do. I was also looking at the peaks being 60 feet. Can we drop those a few feet, or is that not possible? If we're constructing a berm along Highway 5, At any height with trees is there any even room to build a public sidewalk there? I was like I don't think so and then obviously there's a lot of there's a groundswell of support for the LRT So I'm glad to hear that we're meeting with Carver County And I think we should get the Minnehaha Creek watershed district in they build all those beautiful um, pathways around all the water features. So if we can get something moving with them, I think it's imperative to do that. Um, my other question was the reason that one person abstained was due to the fact that he had provided public comment. Is that right?

Marion council member person. Yes, that's correct.

I just wanted to make sure I got that right. Um, That's it for me for now. Anyway. Okay. Do you want to talk about the picture you have in front of us?

Yes. So this is an example of the berm adjacent to the Lake Bridge neighborhood right now along principal arterial roadways per our plan. So our higher designated roads, Highway 5, Highway 7 in town, that's where we require our largest berm. Largest meaning in terms of the number of plantings they have to provide. The size of the berm generally remains the same per our code. They're required to do eight feet tall at three to one slope. Now what that means is that every one foot that you go up, you need to go three feet out. So when you're talking about an eight foot berm, it's more like a 50 foot wide area with that berm in between with a certain number of plantings on top. So this is that highest level of the berm that we would require if we were going to require it for This project it would still be a 50 foot tall berm. It would just yes wide. Thank you 50 foot wide berm it would just be heavily planted because it happens to be along a state highway I don't know if that answers your question if there's significant or sufficient room for a Sidewalk to be incorporated still with that or how drastically that could affect the proposal I would guess it would eat up a significant portion of the parking lot that they're showing in their plan But I do not have exact measurements on hand unfortunately I

So Brian, did you say that there's more parking that's being proposed than required necessary?

Mayor and council members. That's correct. So their requirement is 92 spaces. They're showing 140, um, a hundred underground 40 on the surface. So if they only did the underground, they would still be meeting their requirements, but I'm sure they would want some surface level parking for various reasons.

Okay. I know we have a developer here who can speak to that. So would you please come on up? Let's talk. Please state your name for the record.

You got Josh Cowman with LEAP Development and Astoria Cooperatives. I will clarify just to confuse things further since there's so many so many things we're discussing. It is intended to be Astoria Lake Town to avoid the Amelia Bedelia situation pointed out earlier. So it is Astoria Lake Town. I wanted to clarify that. A couple of other points to clarify, and then we can get into some more questions. So on the Birmingham, we're obviously not opposed to Birmingham. We will have residents living in the building. The issue is it's just space. As odd as it is to say, when you've got a 48-acre parcel, that Birmingham would would significantly reduce the ability to build the project. And so our intention of responding to that is by doing some heavy landscaping to provide screening from the highway for the cooperative owner occupants. So that has been considered by civil site group. And we continue to look at different ways of screening and beautifying the site. To council members Peterson's question, Basically, we weren't dense enough to stick with the existing zoning that was in place for the Amira project. And because it's a for sale project, we wanted it to be successful. And so we had no choice but to reduce the number of units that we were proposing. Because we know had we been able to keep it, a lot of the things that we're requesting tonight would not have been required. But as it is a for sale product, we wanted it to be successful. And the market demands were such for 76 unit, as well as the six villa units that we're proposing as well. Um, Other questions? I know there's things I missed.

Parking. Talk to us about that.

Yeah, great. So we actually did reduce parking from when we were in front of you for Sketch Plat. I think that was self-guided. I felt like we were over-parked. I still feel like maybe we could afford to reduce some spaces. What we did in this plan, I think it's reflected, Brian, was got rid of almost all of our head-in parking that parks towards the units themselves on first floor. So we were... I mean, I think we reduced 30-some spaces, perhaps, because that was double-loaded originally. And so we've got some more green space buffer, which reduced some of that impervious request of ours. I think we would be open to reducing a bit further, again, Cooperatives, by their nature, don't have a lot of employees, full-time equivalents. Generally, it's about three. And so those spaces are for those folks that don't have a second parking stall underneath the building. So there's 76 units within the building. There's 100 underground. Every shareholder will get a parking space, plus there will be some on a first-come, first-served basis. They pay a monthly carrying charge to have that extra space. Some folks don't want to pay that extra. cover charge, but still need a place for a second vehicle. And so that's where those 40 exterior stalls come in.

So I trust that you've done some math on how this works in other places and found you probably need that many.

I think we could reduce further, actually, based on our sort of counts for what we typically see. I mean, unfortunately, we can't move them. If I could pick up four spaces and move them to your downtown, then we'd all be happy. I would love it if you could do that. You would be a hero to a lot of people. I do think a reduction of five additional spaces would not hurt our programming, if that was the direction that Council chose.

I'm wondering if that type of reduction would help us overall, though, or if we're thinking more of a sizable reduction to really move the needle, if you will. Sure. I don't know.

You know, I think from my perspective, I worry about the impervious thing. This is such a unique property, and it isn't buildable on all of those acres. There's only a few acres on this big property that is buildable. And so, you know, I don't know that the five spaces or whatever is, to your point, move the needle. on anything, but again, you guys have done this before and kinda know what that co-op looks like and how that's different from other maybe rental products or homeowner products.

Yeah, typically a project of this size in other communities we've worked in would require more than the 90s, is it 96 or 92? 92. And so I do think that your codes are pretty well in line for senior housing. Oftentimes we're met with two parking spaces per unit or a parking space per bedroom, and that can become, you know, That looks like a mall. And so that's certainly not what we're after. We want as much green space as possible. And so I threw out five more as a juxtaposition of the discussion with the downtown. I think we could talk with Brian and see that if a further reduction was possible, we would certainly be open to it. Helps our impervious, reduces cost. Just want to make sure that we aren't going so far as to not provide the parking that the future owners would need.

Well, future owners, and then are you thinking visitors parking in those spots? Yeah, absolutely.

Those are visitor spots as well.

Okay, got it.

Yep. And I think we're getting a fair amount of pushback from other members of the community about the compromising of the wetlands in this area. So, I mean, I think it is fair to pay deference to this impervious, like we're talking about. I'll give you by way of a little bit of reference that I do sort of bring maybe bias isn't the right word, but I'm familiar with the co-op products. My mother, bless her heart, just lived in one up until recently. And so the seeing... the traffic that actually happens in real life is a good experience for me with respect to this because the, and certainly the units in her complex are much greater than what you're putting here. and I have been there at all hours of the day from early morning coffee to sleepy time at night, and there is not the amount of traffic in these developments that you would think. To me, the seemingly thing I'm cognizant of with respect to this is that we may very well have an ambulance there every single day of the week because somebody could have some medical emergency and something like that. With respect to if we shrink parking we would want to make sure that there's enough turnaround for them to get in and out and position Themselves because that they will be there Yeah, absolutely.

We actually considered that not only emergency vehicles but fire as well with the hammerhead for their turnaround and then also the the cul-de-sac as well, but yeah, thanks for sharing.

I think it's worth some research on if we can lower the parking and make it at least look at it considerably to just see if it's possible. I think that would be a good step. I'm not too concerned about the height. I love the unit count, by the way. The height, because it's more on the point, my understanding, so you're still four stories, right? If you're talking the low grade and you're at the point, I'm not too concerned about the 60 feet.

Yeah, Council Member Reif, I share your view that the height certainly gives me less heartburn. I think we want a good aesthetic to come out here. We don't want to compromise their architectural quality just because we're trying to reach a number. There is a lot of open space here, and it does feel like we have some room to have some soaring features. And, you know, honestly, this is in... I mean, this has sort of like the farm barn aesthetic to it that fits in with the character of this part of the community. I think that trying to make it look too much like an urban setting is counterproductive on this site. Agreed.

One of the other things we talked about was that sidewalk allowing the public to see if there would be a way to cut through there. I'm not sure how that would work, but I would encourage you to keep that in mind as we continue to develop this. We talked about that Lake Minnetonka Regional Trail is just a real priority for us. and we want to be able to continue that west if possible, and I know it gets in on your space, but we would love it if you would do that.

Yeah, just to address that, we would be allies in those discussions. We've talked with Brian as well, and I think that from our understanding, Minnehaha Creek Watershed District would also be interested or someone we should bring to the table i know that they often have funding sources as well so it is a big project it's a big undertaking um but we more than anybody with the dedication of that many acres would love to see it move forward if there's a path at all pun intended to see that to be able to connect not only our residents but also the the lake bridge neighborhood as well to the downtown great thank you for being a willing partner in that is the i mean just from like

you know, seeing the red line go around the building. I'm assuming because of the wetlands and stuff, like, you can't move the... the trail out or the site out a little bit farther so you could have like property?

Yeah, it is not fenced, not gated. But you're right. There's only so many places you can build on that site with the wetland delineation. And so that reflects that edge of that boundary of us being able to do that. The blue does reflect our plan to build to connect to the hopeful future regional trail. And then I think there was another comment, too, that I just wanted to address publicly, and that related to environmental. So as part of our financing, we do have to do environmental studies. And so we have a draft phase one report. And in fact, they are going to be out on site starting tomorrow for, I think, the balance of the week to kind of wrap up some cultural evaluations that they're finishing up there for our financing. So we do have a phase one environmental study that's complete. They're just finishing it so they can take it out of draft form and then that would be a document that we can share as well I know there was some express there's some concern about that as well And then also I did want to say thank you for the comments about the architecture because that's certainly intentional for us It's a bit of a brand Standard to to vary the heights and not just be a straight straight box a four-story building without peaks and so that's Scandinavian modern Architecture is what we're going for

And remind me, those town homes are also part of the co-op as well.

It's just a different product than the... Yeah, correct, which is why we felt good about reducing some of those side yard setbacks because they're no different than any of the other units in the 76 unit building. They're part of the same co-op.

Got it.

Thank you.

So to be... I just want... I'm sorry.

Go ahead. What... You know, this is a different product, that being that it's, you know, a co-op. What is the typical age that you see in these compared to, you know, a senior? Like, do you see a big difference in these?

Yeah, there really is a big difference. So we have also, in my experience, developed market rate senior housing, or not really dissimilar to the Amira project that was proposed. And in our... senior living market rate rental communities. This is independent. We were seeing average ages in the mid to upper 80s. And oftentimes with the senior cooperative ownership model, we're seeing at most recent data check, it was around 71 was the average age in the co-op.

That's member Vance.

So to be clear, do you plan as part of your development to construct that trail to get to these outlets?

Assuming we're able to figure out a path Yeah, our plan inside of the development is to have a portion of the trail come What would be? Planned south or actually south correct. I'm not turned around Yes, that is in our development plan okay, so you you will then have to bridge the creek Part part of the construction type will be boardwalk for ours as well, okay?

So I'm kind of thinking a little bit maybe I don't know if this is truly outside the box, but the outlots, like Outlot C, for instance, that will become the city of Victoria in this project, correct? Correct. So Council, perhaps one of the things we could ask staff to consider is, hey, it's going to take a long time to get this turned into a regional trail. That's clear. There's private property that the owners don't want to give that up. However, I see an opportunity here in that perhaps we could have community gardens built in these out lots in the interim while life works its way to that point. What would be better than to have the residents of this project be able to use that? To grow fresh vegetables etc and even have you know if we have good neighbors from Lake bridge come over and use a product that is really just Enormously popular within the city Makes a lot of sense Other questions comments

All right, seeing none, we do have.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. We have a couple of sample motions up here. So with that, I will entertain a first motion.

Motion to adopt the resolution approving the preliminary planned unit development and site plan and building materials request for Astoria, Victoria.

Thank you very much. Do we need to take those individually or is that okay as one motion?

That is okay as one motion.

Okay, very good. We're going to call that Lake Town Astoria. That's a friendly amendment to avoid the Amelia Bedelia, which I really think is cute. All right. We have a motion. Can I get a second? We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. And with that, I will entertain the second motion.

moved to adopt the resolution authorizing submittal of a comprehensive plan amendment to the Metropolitan Council.

We have a motion. Can I get a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Next item on our agenda this evening, item 6.5, is a preliminary plat for Downtown West, fourth addition. Mr. McCann, you're earning your salary again this evening.

Thank you, mayor and council members. Again, we are at the preliminary plat stage with the application in front of you this evening for downtown West fourth edition, where the major entitlements are granted and we do a lot of the in-depth review of their plans. So we have three requests from them this evening. The first one being the preliminary plat. Secondly, being a conditional use permit request for three different conditional uses. And then lastly, a site plan and building materials request. So the location and existing conditions, it's located at 2120 Arboretum Boulevard, which is a single parcel just under an acre in size. It currently consists of the vacant former Dairy Queen building and has 37 parking stalls on the site. It's adjacent to the future Downtown West Master Development and the daycare property just to the north. And then The property has two access points right now. There's one currently on Victoria Drive, County Road 11, and then there's one on Highway 5 as well. And the site as it sits today is about 67% impervious. So this is the preliminary plat that was submitted for consideration. It shows an extension of that main street from the downtown west development to the east. They are showing two lots with this proposal, one for each building. The western lot would have the drive-through and is anticipated to be some sort of coffee drive-through user, and then the second building would be within lot two here, and that is anticipated to be a grab-and-go food-style building as well. And then both lots would have parking included in front of the building that would be within their property boundaries, which would be privately maintained by those building owners.

Mr. McCann, the second, that lot two does not have a drive-through, just lot one. Correct. Is that correct? Thank you.

So here is the site plan that was provided. You can see the western building with the drive-through. That drive-through has capacity for up to 15 vehicles, and then the second building here located centrally without a drive-through, but does have some on-street parking as well. The western building is 1,900 square feet in size, and then the central building is 2,300 square feet in size. Outdoor dining areas are shown on both of the concepts for these buildings, and then they have 40 on-street parking stalls proposed throughout the project here along that extension of Main Street. Their primary access point would be a right in right out at County Road 11 and then they would remove that existing access to Highway 5 that is there currently. For zoning and the comprehensive plan, it's currently zoned central business district and guided downtown makes use in our 2040 comprehensive plan. The commercial uses that are being proposed comply with our zoning and our comp plan. The two items that require conditional use permits though are those drive-throughs and the permanent outdoor dining areas as shown on the site plan image prior. This project is also within the Shoreland Overlay District because it's within 1,000 feet of Auburn Lake. Commercial uses in the Shoreland District also require a conditional use permit, so those are the three uses requiring a conditional use permit for consideration this evening. they are also subject to the maximum 80 impervious of the shoreland for our central business district their current proposal is at about 77.8 so they are compliant and there is no variance required for that The conditional use permits that are being requested tonight are compliant with our general standards as outlined in our code. We also have a separate section requiring specialized conditional use permit requirements for certain uses. One of those is for drive-throughs. We evaluated the three requirements listed in code for that. They are compliant with all three. They don't have any structures or parking with any 100 feet of a residential zoning district. They also have the minimum 150 feet of street frontage with two access points and a landscaped front yard for the project. Looking at their building materials, their proposal does comply with our elevated design standards of the Central Business District. They're providing variations of the building facades, enhanced building entries, and high quality exterior materials, including aluminum storefront, composite wood, corrugated metal panels, and standing seam metal roofing. This is the central building, the lot two building that was shown in previous site plans. And then this is the lot one building with the drive through exit for reference. Moving on to lighting and signage, their sketch plot previously proposed a monument sign. They weren't able to make that work with the reorientation of the western building, so that has since been removed. They are showing signage for the two buildings, which will require building permits with future submittals. And then they also have not finalized the lighting plan yet. That's being incorporated with the remainder of the downtown West plans. We want to make sure that there's a cohesive lighting plan for this entire area. But we anticipate that what they are providing is going to be sufficient since they are showing eight streetlights in proximity to that extension of Main Street. Then looking at landscaping and tree preservation, they are showing plantings around the proximity of the site. As you can see in the image on the left, they also have extensive shrub and perennial plantings. They have a portion of native seed on the south side adjacent to Highway 5, which one of our planning commissioners was very excited about and hoping to maintain that for this project. or keep that in the area for this project, not for staff to maintain, just for clarification. And then the Central Business District is exempt from open space and minimum planting requirements. The only area that this does not meet the intent of the code is for 100% of those existing trees being removed. There are four trees on the site currently. that would need to be removed for this project. They're trying their best to include tree plantings where it makes sense, but they aren't able to meet the full obligation. Similar to the Downtown West development, the intent is to develop a urban environment that's not oversaturated with trees, so they're trying to be smart with the plantings with this project. And then looking at parking and drive aisles, they are showing a 26 foot wide drive aisle as required by code with the two proposed restaurant style uses. Our code requires 18 spaces per 1,000 square feet. That comes out to be a required 77 parking stalls per our code. They are proposing 40 parking stalls with this project. In our code, a 50% reduction can be granted. We think that this would be a reasonable solution for this due to the offsetting uses. Your coffee users in the Western Building will be primarily there from 6 to 10 in the morning. And then you'll have your lunch and dinner uses. So these 40 stalls could be shared between the two users and meet their parking capacity requirements. And then additionally, this building shown, Retail Building E, as part of the Downtown West development, was previously going to be a drive-thru that's since anticipated to be converted to a retail building, which has a much less parking requirement. So some of the capacity from this area or even over here could accompany these two uses as well. Then looking at pedestrian connections, they are showing sidewalk throughout the site as seen in yellow on the screen with connections to the trail along County Road 11 and Highway 5. They also have those portions of the outdoor dining as well within that sidewalk area. Then looking at park dedication, any commercial project per our code that's less than an acre in size is not required to dedicate any park land or fee in lieu of land. So we do not anticipate any dedication with this phase of the downtown west development. They are providing the central green and the public plaza as part of the downtown west development though. So there are amenities nearby. And then I will pass it over to Kara for a bit.

Miss Garen, welcome back. Thank you, Mayor, members of the City Council. Same as what we talked about on the last development, this development is also subject to Minneapolis Creek Watershed District rules and regulations. They are, once again, proposing... Underground stormwater management for this area as well Which is consistent with what has been provided with the other parts of the downtown West development they will need a permit from MnDOT to connect to the Storm sewer system that was constructed within the highway 5 project. Otherwise water is being extended from the existing water system that is in The area and then sanitary sewer is being provided by the sanitary sewer stub that thankfully we put in in the right location and right elevation During the construction of the highway 5 and 11 project that thankfully Matt Pavic was able to get information to us before we finished the sanitary sewer and paved a road so that was a nice change order to make sure that we had in place before Moving on, what I wanted to talk a bit about was just how this site fits into transportation improvements that have been completed within the area. Brian touched on it briefly that access to the site is going to be from the new Main Street and then a right in, right out. access on a county road 11. I was happy to be able to show what it looks like today with the completed improvements. I did want to at least note for the city council that we have not received official comments from Carver County on the preliminary plat. It has been communicated to me that county staff is concerned about the right in right out on County Road 11. And what that's coming from is a historical perspective from the county that. in the county's vision for the corridor and this access would be eliminated and access to this development would be solely from within the thirteen and a half acres that has been something that historically was discussed with city staff over time i think in those previous conversations i don't think the city staff which would be not me, but community development staff didn't envision that we would have an opportunity for these types of uses in this location. And so from my understanding from the development team and the community development team for the types of uses that are being proposed here, this type of access is really critical. for the success of the uses here. The county isn't in a position to not allow the access to exist because it exists today. So they don't have the ability to say no. I have had the city, the traffic engineering team that worked on the Highway 5 and 11 project take a look at it They haven't flagged any sight distance concerns or any real safety concerns that I feel compelled to communicate to you, but I did need to at least note that concern from the county for the council's information. Secondly, the other piece of the puzzle that has come up that I've been trying to figure out how to communicate in English and not traffic engineering speak is that we've been carrying a comment through the sketch plat review and through the preliminary plat review about the potential need, and I guess I'll go back here, for the need to dedicate additional right-of-way in this corner. for some future use and we were waiting to see if MnDOT was going to make that request in their comment letter and they did not. So MnDOT hasn't specifically requested that additional right-of-way be dedicated for a future need on Highway 5. Where that was coming from in our comment letters is when we were working on the roundabout project what the engineering team identified is a Potential need when the corridor gets converted to four lane would be to have a free Separated right turn lane on the roundabout so that when you're going Westbound and making the northbound movement that you would like have a median separating you from the traffic that's going through SO IF THAT WERE TO BE SOMETHING THAT THE CITY REQUESTED, IT WOULD HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON THIS SITE. SO THE DEVELOPMENT WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO PROCEED AS HAS BEEN ENVISIONED. IF YOU PICTURE NEEDING TO ADD LIKE A WHOLE OTHER RIGHT TURN LANE AND A MEDIAN IN THIS AREA, SO YOU HAVE THE TRAIL OVER HERE, EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE TO ESSENTIALLY BE PUSHED OUT, WHAT DID WE THINK, MATT, 10, 15 FEET. uh... which again would impact the viability of the development for the developers so this certainly wasn't something that the developer was interested in being able to accommodate they wouldn't be able to move forward with what they have envisioned for the site so what i was trying to figure out was how to communicate what that means so this is the intersection of uh... sixty one and uh... creek road that goes up the hill by one oh one So you have a four lane that comes into a roundabout and you have a right turn lane going north into a two lane situation and a two lane situation on the other side. So when you're coming into that roundabout, you need to make a decision before you get to the roundabout which lane you need to be in. So are you going to be in the left lane going through the roundabout or are you going to be in the right lane to go north towards Minnetrista? that's the condition of what this would look like under a four lane so the next thing i had to do was then ask our traffic engineers to take a look at in this situation are we going to be causing a problem for the city down the road when the four lane comes in by not having that free right turn lane so we did some additional traffic analysis and basically what they concluded is in twenty forty five when the light turns green Victoria Drive by Floyd's, there'll be like a pack of cars that comes through and gets to this intersection. And we might start to see a backup when that pack of cars has to get in their correct lane out towards the bridge. I did not identify that to be a big concern for me. So as I sit here today, I'm not recommending that you scratch the community development department's vision or the developer's vision for this intersection and this plan development, but did want to flag it for you in case we're back here in two years. talking about the four lane and i'm saying we don't have enough room for a free right turn lane so that comment that has been in my comment letter repeatedly as it's coming through is going to go away think i explained it in english i got it council my feeling is that there's an ample amount of time to make that decision and with the right amount of signage and pavement painting

It's not like you have to make the decision before the bridge, and you could, so it feels like there's enough space to get that done.

Correct. They even looked at the turn lane length that they would need in order to make that transition and concluded there was enough distance from the bridge.

For people to think it through, make a choice, and be in the right spot. Yeah.

And again, the only time of day that they saw that concern was when the light turns green in the PM peak and that herd of traffic is moving through. They did not identify a concern under normal conditions.

In 19 years.

Correct. These are the types of things that I worry about, quite frankly, all the time. But... Normally I don't have to convey it to you, but I've been repeating the comment for several months now. So needed to explain it publicly. Got it. Okay, great.

We got it. We're smart. We can learn these things.

Perfect. Then a public hearing was held during the Planning Commission meeting last Tuesday. It was properly noticed and duly held. We did not receive any comments, either written or provided during the Planning Commission public hearing that evening. They discussed that native grass area, like I mentioned, as well as the proposed restaurant uses and parking. well as Main Street sight lines for vehicles and pedestrians and they also Ended up recommending approval with a 6-0 vote With that I have some proposed conditions of approval that were included in the resolution in your packet this evening I highlighted the first two just because those are atypical then our standard boilerplate conditions that we usually have the first one is for those conditional use permit approvals for those three conditional uses i highlighted earlier in my presentation and then secondly granting that 50 parking reduction for those offsetting uses between the two buildings And then I did include a caveat that if the use is changed in the future, the conditional use permit needs to be reevaluated again to make sure the incoming user is compliant with the parking requirements. So with that, I have one sample motion for you to consider this evening. Staff can stand for any questions you have, and there are representatives of the application in the audience as well.

Very good. Thank you, Mr. McCann. And council, questions, comments?

I have a comment on... Council Member Evanski.

Let's hear it.

I'm not in love with the name Main Street for here. I don't think that this speaks as a Main Street. This does, however, anchor this site to the broader overall downtown west. So... feel like a more appropriate name might be anchor, perhaps way anchor tears, anchor something so that it just does not speak main street to me. Mr. Runk.

I think council member Evanski would like a road named after him.

Yes.

I was just going to say Evanski way.

People would spell it wrong.

So main street, of course, uh, we wanted that. I think collectively all agreed on, uh, in downtown west. because Main Street wasn't taken, and this happens to connect with Main Street with the new retail buildings surrounding it. So that's the only reason why it's at this point Main Street.

All right. Other questions or comments?

My only concern was the future use of the building to the east and if that became a pancake house or something like that, but with the conditional use permit as defined, as Brian put it, I don't have any problems with it. Okay.

The comment on the drive-through. I understand the two lanes, in a sense. Is there anything in the middle of those lanes?

uh... right now i can't disclose of the coffee users doing there design work that takes what this is a background and puts in likely i think it way too Telecom stations, you know, the video boards. Kind of separated. It's going to be separated that way.

So there'll probably be a median in between.

I believe so, yeah.

So we're not all bumping up against each other.

Yeah, so they might have slight tweaks to what exactly that is with how they queue and everything, but that's what's happening right now.

Got it. Thank you.

On part of the pun, would having a drive-through window on the building to the east be problematic and create a, quote, food fight? In this space here.

Yeah, so we had to make a decision, fork in the road, that we had to have all, the only drive-through would be the west building, not the east building. We tried to test fit, this was the tent version of this site plan we worked on with the city staff. We tried to accommodate both, because there's more tenants that want drive-throughs, but we had to make a decision, so we chose the coffee building as the drive-through. Thank you.

Any other questions, comments? All right, seeing none, I will entertain a motion.

Motion to adopt the resolution approving the preliminary plat conditional use permit and site plan and building materials requests for downtown west fourth additions with staff conditions with additional conditions.

We have a motion. Can I get a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. We are moving on. We are item 6.6 is a conditional use permit request for illuminated commercial signs for Harland, a new restaurant. Presenting on that this evening is the very patient Travis Briarley. Mr. Briarley, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. As pointed out, we had an application for an illuminated sign at Harland, which is right downtown Harland. And it was approximately a single internal illuminated sign. Halo, as we've seen before, prior applications being about 52 square feet. The application does have a 60-day deadline for council action by September 27th. We did all the proper notice as well as mailing to everybody within 350 feet. And we did conduct a public hearing during the planning commission on August 18th where no comments were received and there was unanimous recommendation from the planning commission for approval. The location for the sign is gonna be at 1715 Steiger Lake Lane, so right next to Vicks. The sign is gonna be facing north toward Steiger Lake Lane with the building on the south. It is a single sign as far as when we look at it from a zoning perspective. And it'll simply just say Harlan, which will be the illuminated part, and then Chicken and Fish will also be included with it. The proposed conditions are the same conditions which have been used for the prior illuminated signs that we've looked at, including non-working lights being fixed or repaired within 30 days of notice that they've been broken to keep a uniform look. Also making sure we take care of safety aspects as well as making sure that it's not another light source for illumination in the downtown area to keep light pollution low. And with that, I have a proposed motion on the screen.

Very good. Any questions, comments?

So just a quick question. So the Harlan part will be eliminated, the chicken and fish will not? Is that?

Council Member, that is my understanding, yes.

Okay. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion.

Motion to adopt resolution granting conditional use permit for illuminated commercial sign for Harland at 1715 Steiger Lake Lane.

We have a motion. Can I get a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Next up is another conditional use permit request for illuminated commercial signs for upstream financial advisors. Again, Mr. Briarley, welcome back.

Mayor, council, the second application is for a similar sign. This is for two halo illuminated commercial signs, approximately 48 square feet each. And it went through the same process as the Harlan sign with a 60-day notice to be done by September 27th. In addition, it went to public hearing at last week's planning commission meeting where there was no comments received and there was unanimous recommendation for approval by the planning commission. For the two signs, what they're looking at is taking over the Tassie baby and child space. So the two signs are shown with the stars on here, one facing Victoria Drive and then one facing into the privately owned parking lot on the south side of the tower building. Just to kind of give an idea of what that would look like, this is the look from Victoria Drive. Currently, there's the TASI sign. It's approximately the same size as what upstream financial advisors are proposing. Additionally to that, on the parking lot side, the TASI sign would be removed, and then the upstream financial signs would be placed over the 107 suite instead of the 108 suite, which TASI had previously occupied. Other conditions, it's the same conditions that we just discussed with the Harlan Chicken and Fish sign, as well as the prior ones. And with that, I have a motion and stand for any questions.

Very good. Thank you. Council, any questions, comments on this one?

Similar question to Council Member Avansky's on the last one. Is Upstream and Financial Advisors, are they both illuminated or not?

Council Member, this will be a full illumination for the sign. Full illumination. Yes.

Got it.

And that TASI sign will be removed, but the upstream sign is actually gonna be located right where it's shown. So there's not gonna be any sign above those.

Mayor, that is my understanding.

Very good, thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion.

Motion to adopt a resolution granting a conditional use permit for illuminated commercial signs for upstream financial advisors at 1750 Tower Boulevard, Suites 107 and 108.

We have a motion. Can I get a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. There are no more items on our regular agenda this evening, counsel, so we're moving on to reports and emerging issues. Attorney Volz, you're up first.

Mayor, council, I have nothing to report.

Ms. Hardy, anything from staff? None from staff, Madam Mayor. How about anything from the council?

I would just, Ms. Hardy, residents have probably seen or heard the work being done on the water tower. I'm just curious if you can give an update on the work being done and then timeline for completion.

I'm gonna pull. Sorry, putting you on the spot. Give me 30 seconds to pull some information.

I had two people ask about it this weekend, so I'm well-versed. I'm going on the website and sending that on via text message mid-fall.

30 seconds here.

I wanna make sure I'm up to date on all the things.

Okay. I'm just bringing it up on our website. Just for transparency purposes, we do have some information on our website if anybody is interested in learning more or seeing more details on this. So we started that project on August 3rd. I'm looking for the timeline. Right now, our water tower is empty, and so people may be experiencing some fluctuations with water pressure. So we just encourage people that if you're experiencing that, just let us know so we can make sure that there isn't anything additional going on. But the work that is being done is to remove kind of the old coating to do the inspection of the seal to make sure that that's... Intact and to make any necessary repairs. We'll be doing some protective coating layers that will Protect our strict water drinking standards and then when we're done with all of that I'll call it mechanical or technical work or then what we're gonna do is repaint it and then that should last another 20 or 25 years so I'm not sure if we have a completion date on it, so I might have to come back, circle back with that. But I think, if I recall correctly, I think it's early fall.

Awesome. Weather permitting.

Weather permitting.

Yeah, it's gonna start raining now. I thought the water pressure was due to kids home this summer.

It's not. Now all the kids are going back and everybody's gonna get back their water pressure.

All right, anything else from council? I got one thing for you. Yes, Council Member Pedersen, please. Many of you know I'm involved with the League of Minnesota Cities, and of course I raised my hand when they were talking about the data practices number eight, which is law enforcement technologies. Many of the members felt that it was too light and soft, and they wanted something, they wanted us to contribute and put together a more strict policy. By no means are these the City of Victoria's viewpoints. I simply went and gleaned a bunch of information off of other municipalities, put a pile of them together, sent them off for legal review and for the other folks that are within the committee. Now, where this does come to where it might affect us is that the league may be taking a stricter stance on facial recognition software and on flock cameras or ALPRs. At that point in time, we may want to consider revising our policy stance on some of the law enforcement technologies. But none of that's happened yet. We haven't even voted on anything yet or recommended anything, but just wanted to make you guys aware of it. And if you want to contribute something, I'm all ears.

Very good. Thank you. Anything else?

I would just say if people haven't been able to drive by the new fire station, they should because it's looking great. It was lit up the other day and it was pretty impressive at night. So excited for the open house. Yeah, same.

All right, members of the council, there are no more items to come before the council this evening, so I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn.

We got a motion.

Second.