Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

On to our regular agenda. The first item is item 4.1, which is approving the Planning Commission meeting minutes from August 18th. May I have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Thank you, Commissioner Otterstetter. And can I get a second?

Second.

Second. Commissioner Schauer, thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Moving on. Item 4.2 is consider the sketch plat request for the Kuchenmeister property. Sketch plat review is initial stage of review that the planning commission reviews and considers regarding development proposals. There are no formal actions or recommendations taken by the planning commission at the time of the sketch plat review. The sketch plat review process is intended for the applicant to receive feedback from the planning commission and city council in advance of any necessary preliminary plat or rezoning applications. With that, I'll take it over to City Planner Brian McCann for a staff presentation.

Thank you, Chair and Commissioners. Tonight we are looking at a sketch plat proposal for the Kuchenmeister property. As you highlighted and as the Commission as well, where the sketch plat is the first step in our development process where we give formal feedback to the developer as they start preparing future applications. So, as I mentioned, again, there aren't any approvals or actions to be taken tonight. We're just giving guidance to the applicant as they prepare to move forward. This will be going to the City Council at their regular meeting on September 14th, as well, if you would like to tune in for the City Council's review of their sketch plot request. So for the location and existing conditions, the property is located at 5980 County Road 10 East. It consists of one parcel, about 82 and a half acres in size. It is located north of County Road 10, Angler Boulevard, west of the West Creek Village development. You can see the first phase of it outlined in the GIS photo here. And it is south of the marsh lake hunting club and there's a portion of chaska creek on the north side as well there's also a xl transmission tower and lines that run through the site approximately this direction so a portion of that south side of the property has some transmission line easement within it With this, they are proposing to extend Creekside Lane, which is one of our residential collector roads in town. With this project, they aren't proposing any direct access to 10, and we'll get into that a little bit further. And I just have a note for everyone here that we did receive a revised concept plan, which I'll be showing you tonight. It was too late to publish it in the packet. It will be included with the city council packet. But just if you notice some changes compared to what you reviewed in your packet, that's the reason why. so here is that updated concept plan they are showing 113 single family homes noted between the red and blue areas here on the screen as well as 80 twin homes they are splitting those single family homes between two different types of lots based on width they have the 80 foot wide wide lots highlighted In red, there are 43 of those, and they're all generally located north of Creekside Lane. There's one additional one down here next to the blue homes that you can see. And then they have the 70-foot wide lots shown in the blue. There are 70 of those, and those are generally located south of the extension of Creekside Lane. With this, they are also showing a portion of Red Fox Drive, which is another collector road. So when city staff were evaluating the first concept that was submitted, we realized that an intersection between two local collector roads is likely going to generate a decent amount of traffic, and we want that to be regulated accordingly. So we figured a smaller roundabout was the best way to accomplish that for that intersection of two of our local collectors. And then with that, they have some stub streets shown, one to the south here, and they've provided a potential ghost plot, which I'll talk about a little bit more, as well as a stub to the west adjacent to this property. And then they also have some local street connections to Creekside Lane and Red Fox Drive shown as well. So the ghost flat that was provided, the developer does not intend to develop this portion of the site. We just needed to understand how this site could potentially develop with the possible County Road 10 realignment that is planned for 2029, as well as the impacts from the overhead power line easement. It doesn't leave a lot of room, so we wanted to understand how that property could potentially develop with a medium density designation. So this is just for planning purposes. We do not anticipate this portion to come back anytime soon as part of their project. Then regarding annexation and rezoning, the property is currently within Lake Town Township, so they're subject to annexation approvals from the Lake Town Township Board, the City Council, and then final approval by the Office of Administrative Hearings with the state. If they receive all those approvals, they're automatically rezoned to agricultural per our code. So with that, they would need a rezoning with future requests. It's anticipated that a planned unit development or PUD would be proposed by the applicant with underlying R1 for the single family and R2 for the twin homes. As you're well aware, our planned unit development process is to allow innovative, creative, and flexible development. We get the input to the applicant at sketch plat here. We approve more of the details, the deviations at preliminary plat, and then those are incorporated in an ordinance, which is approved at final plat. Excuse me. So with that, based on the sketch plot that was provided, these are the deviations that staff noted within the most recent concept plan. You can see here the deviations noted in red and underlined. For the minimum lot area, they're proposing reductions to 8,750 square feet for the blue area and 10,400 square feet for the red area. And it's worth noting that these are just the smallest lots being proposed. This doesn't reflect what every lot is going to look like. We just have to account for what the lowest end of the scale is. You'll see some in their plan that are 15,000, 16,000 square feet, but these are just the lowest figures that they're providing. And then regarding minimum lot width, they're requesting a reduction for the homes in the blue area from 80 feet to 70 feet. And then in the minimum lot depth for the blue homes to 125 feet. And then front and rear setback reductions to 25 feet for both the blue and the red areas for both the front and rear setbacks. side yard setbacks they've kept the 10 feet as required and then for the maximum impervious they're proposing 50 for the blue homes and then 40 for the red homes the red homes that are within the shoreland district though it's our understanding that those will likely meet the 25 maximum impervious And then for the twin homes, they're requesting a reduction in the minimum lot size down to 5,720 square feet from 70 to 60, and then reductions in the lot width from 75 feet to 54 feet, and then for those corner lots from 65 feet to 34 feet. And then for the maximum impervious, they're requesting an increase from 35% to 55%. moving on to the comprehensive plan the property is currently guided as shown in the image on the left between a blend of single family and our low density and medium density so our low density district allows between two and a quarter to six units per acre the medium density allows between six to twelve Based on how the project is proposed, the entire project itself comes out about 3.4 units per acre. The single family portions themselves come out to 2.65 and the twin homes come out to 5.67, so not quite enough to hit that medium density threshold of six units per acre minimum. So any future comprehensive plan amendment is anticipated to just re guide this entire parcel as low density and applicable open space areas as shown in green in the image on the left. And then just a note for the playing Commission. Yeah, as you're all aware, as we're approaching our 2050 comprehensive plan, we have to have three and a half units per acre citywide planned for by 2050 per the Metropolitan Council. Right now we're at about 3.4. So changing this orange area to low density would slightly decrease our number. We just have to make up for that as we start planning for 2050. an additional comprehensive plan amendment would be required due to the development decade or the growth phasing map set in our comprehensive plan this property is wasn't planned for development until 2031 to 2040 development decade so the amendment would require bringing that into the 2021 to 2030 development decade Our city engineer evaluated the utility capacity and determined that it would not be an issue for this project just because we have a lot of other areas in the city that were anticipated for development between 2021 and 2030 that have not developed yet. So there is capacity within our system to handle this. And one of the bigger questions from the last time that Pulte had proposed a concept for the Kuchenmeister property was, regarding the location of Red Fox Drive. There's a study that's been conducted. It's nearing final completion about potential locations for Red Fox Drive. And then lastly, a third amendment would be required for this project due to just generally the city's growth. We've had more growth than we originally anticipated when we did the 2040 comprehensive plan in 2018. So our 2020 estimates per our comp plan had us at about 10,000. Our 2025 actual was a population of 12,853 per the Metropolitan Council. Our 2030 estimates were 12,600, so we've already exceeded that as of 2025. So the Metropolitan Council has requested with our amendment for this project that we also increase our 2030-2040 estimates and then accommodate for those within our 2050 plan. So that's in relation to population in regards of household, we had roughly a 700 household uptick that needs to be accounted for. And then for 2040 again, roughly 700 houses that we need to include in our plan amendment. Then for the shoreland overlay district, that is anything within 300 feet of Chaska Creek. So you can see here this line kind of meanders throughout the site there. Lots two through 12 have more than 50% of their lot area within that 300 feet. So those are the ones that would be considered the shoreland lots. They would be subject to those 20,000 square foot minimum lot size, 75 foot minimum lot widths, 25% maximum impervious, and then the applicant would also have to conduct a tier analysis if they are pursuing a residential shoreline plan development to deviate from any of those standards. and that tier analysis would determine their maximum allowable density when we're talking about 11 houses in there that it likely will not be an issue but something we need to verify and then the requested deviation is likely going to be that minimum lot size for this lot 12. they're showing 15 852 square feet and it's a 20 000 square foot minimum We did provide a copy of the sketch plat to our area hydrologist, but they have not provided any comments to the city for consideration. When they submit preliminary plat submittals, we will forward those to the DNR and they will have 30 days to comment as well. Regarding building materials, parking, lighting, and signage, we will need a site plan and building materials application with any future submittals. We require those for any new buildings in town. We will also evaluate their proposed street light locations, make sure that they're adequately lighting public streets. And then if they are proposing any monument signage, we'd like to confirm that that will meet any applicable setbacks as well. So those will all be evaluated with future submittals. And then regarding architecture, parking, generally what they've shown in the images on the left would comply with our residential architectural standards. And then our parking requirement for single family and twin homes is that they have two enclosed stalls per unit based on the renderings in the image on the left. They all have two or three stall garages, so that would meet our requirement. Then for landscaping and tree preservation, the information on the right is what they are required to do, so they need to have 50% development open space. Generally, it looks like they will be close to that, so we'll need verification on the actual open space percentage amount with future submittals. And then they will need to have three trees per dwelling unit, and they will need boulevard trees every 45 feet along city streets and every 35 feet for corner lots, such as lot 29 or 30 or 28 in the image on the top on the left here. And then we require buffers for double and triple fronted lots per our code and also to separate R1 and R2 uses. So those single family homes and those twin homes need to be split up with some landscape buffers. They've shown some in their plan here for consideration by the planning commission and city council. With any buffer or berm, though, we typically require an 8-foot berm per our code. It's required that they do that for scale. I'll talk about what that means and how that would typically impact a project for consideration by the Planning Commission. And then lastly, they'll need to evaluate tree preservation with any future submittals. So if they're removing more than 20% of the existing trees, they need to replant additional trees with their project. So regarding buffers and berms, we haven't talked about this a lot. So I thought a refresher might be helpful for the planning commission and city council. Our code designates buffers. They call them based on like a foot. They say a 15 foot buffer, a 25 foot buffer. That's not actually the width of the berm. That's more like a level. So if you think like a level one buffer requires a certain number of plantings, two, three, four require more plantings than level one. Things like that. But all of our buffers per our code require that eight foot tall berm. Now what that means is every one foot you're going up, you need to go three feet out on each side. So when you have an eight foot tall berm, you've got 24 feet on each side of it. 50 feet, 48 feet to be exact, takes up a lot of land on a development. So the reason for doing those is to reduce noise impacts, buffer those higher travel roads, give some separation for property owners between roads and their properties. Just helps with future noise complaints, also maintenance concerns and financial impacts for property owners in the future. With that, we are taking a closer look at our buffer ordinance right now. So we might have a proposed revision back to the Planning Commission for consideration. But I thought this would be helpful information for tonight's discussion since we would typically require them on those double and triple fronted lots. then looking at the streets i wanted to make this very clear for the plain commission city council as proposed this would be adding 193 homes on creekside lane without an additional public access they plan to utilize west creek villages emergency access in the case of an emergency out here but over the summer playing commission you may have received some complaints from residents in the marsh hollow neighborhood about construction traffic for west creek village coming through creek sideline when this project gets going if they get going this would add additional traffic so we will likely be receiving additional complaints we would like another access to be added obviously but it's just not feasible due to site conditions. So the property owners to the West have not agreed to any connections to County Road 10. Neither has the property owner to the South. It's their private property, so it's up to them if an access goes through their property or not. And then the Marsh Lake Hunt Club is to the north, and they also do not want any streets running through their property as well. So access is restricted for this site. Just for area context, you can see here this – blue line is the only way to get through here so you got to take creekside lane all the way down to get to game farm road to get to county road 11. we anticipate that when red fox drive develops in the future that that will be the primary access point to county road 10 here but the timing for that is unknown so in the meantime we're going to be potentially adding 193 additional homes with that single public access point Additionally, I should highlight that the reason why an additional reason why an access wouldn't work here is because of access restrictions by the county. So they count the railroad as an access and we've heard that they want at least a quarter mile up to a half mile spacing on County Road 10. This is only a couple hundred feet in this distance, so they wouldn't allow any access here, maybe even not here. So we really do anticipate Red Fox Drive to be that future connection. with that i've flipped the image here just so i can zoom in and highlight a little bit more the trails are highlighted in purple they're showing trails on both sides of red fox drive and creekside lane as required and then they are showing sidewalks along both of the sides of the road for the twin homes and then on one side of the street for a majority of the single-family homes. There are some portions where they have sidewalks on both sides of the street, like you can see here on my cursor or here. It's up to the Planning Commission and City Council if they want to request that The applicant provides sidewalks on both sides. The reason that they are not showing both is the site is getting pretty congested already with collector right-of-way, adding berms and buffers, things like that. So just additional information for the Planning Commission to consider to guide discussion tonight. then looking at parkland dedication our requirements per our code and our fee schedule would result in just over eight hundred thousand dollars of park dedication or about eight acres of land they are proposing a roughly third acre private park this is because the marsh hollow park and the huntersbrook park are about a half mile away from this site which is our typical park search area distance. So we did not feel that a full park was necessary here. We also need funding for some of our parks, which we haven't been able to develop yet, such as Marsh Hollow, Huntersbrook, and Brookmore. So in this scenario, the Parks and Recreation Committee did recommend cash fee in lieu of land. And then with that trails can be deducted from that amount. So those trails that they're providing on Creekside Lane and Red Fox Drive will grant them a little bit of a reduction. Then regarding wetlands, stormwater management, and site utilities, it's subject to the Carver County Watershed Management Organization's rules and regulations. There are a few small wetlands on the site, I believe, so any impacts to those will be up to the applicant to mitigate with the CCWMO. Any additional wetlands or buffers that they're planning to retain, stormwater ponds, things like that, those will all have to be placed in outlots deeded to the city. You can see they have quite a few stormwater management ponds proposed throughout the development. That's what those notes are for SWM. And then for site utilities, they're proposed to come from the extension of Creekside Lane and the local road from the West Creek Village development to the east. And then those would go throughout the site and connect to that future Red Fox Drive as well. and then in the staff report based on previous reports this was a potential search area for a future water treatment plant we don't anticipate that to occur with this project as we start looking at our 2050 comprehensive plan we'll start diving deeper into a potential second location for a water treatment plant but we do not anticipate that to come with this project so with that i have some questions on the screen to help guide the discussion if needed these were included in your packet as well and then just to highlight next step for anyone watching at home tonight the city council will review this at the regular meeting on september fourteenth uh... they likely will not open that up for public comments uh... to be discussed if the applicant does receive favorable feedback they'll move forward with preliminary plats middles that will require a public hearing so anyone who wants to comment on the request can do so at that time with that i do not have anything else and we have some representatives of the application in the audience tonight if you have any questions thank you brian does the applicant wish to speak

1650 West 82nd Street, Bloomington, Minnesota. Thank you, Brian, for the robust review of our submittal. Pulte was before this commission in 2024, and you gave us some really good insight back then. And we took that feedback to heart, and we made quite a few changes. But I think the biggest change we made was eliminating the townhomes that were proposed two years ago and replacing them with a single level Product for move down buyers. We keep hearing that that's a desire of the city. And so we're happy to provide that on site So with that I'm happy to stand for any questions.

Thank you Thank you, let's see Commissioners any questions comments?

Couple of comments like mostly for Ryan as you guys consider this or just to go on the record I think the park is a little disappointing. I think if we're the city of like some parks we should have more Park not A cash instead of it. It's a lot of family units there that I'm a father of three if I didn't have a park to go to they pull my hair out and So, would highly encourage more parks, but I'll also defer to the park commission. The impervious, can you go back to that, Brian? So like, I'm reading that right, we're looking at 50% and 40%, that seems really high. Do we have like an estimate of how many homes are gonna fall in that?

So impervious, Commissioner Krotz, is a little bit more, it's different than lot area. It's, per the PUD, it'll be blanket allowed for any of those homes within the blue area. So if we're looking at this, all of these would be allowed 40% impervious if they wanted to get to that level, whereas the minimum lot size is locked in based on the size of your home. or the size of your property, I should say. So we have similar developments who have gone up to 40, 50, 55%. The Huntersbrook development, for example, they have smaller lots, I think, than generally what is being proposed here, but they were allowed to go up to 55% maximum impervious just to cover that.

Yeah, I think that's what I was trying to walk in my head and remember back the last couple years I've been on this planning commission. It seems like they've done a better job of keeping the lots closer to what the thing is. They're like 8,000. I don't remember the number. But they're bigger lots, but also the impervious has gone up, which means you have more structure on the lot. So if our guidance from the city is to say 35% at 10,000 feet, quick math, that's 35,000 square feet. impervious like I guess my question is like are we now how does that shake out with the rest of what we've done I just wanna make sure we're staying in line and not allowing too much impervious I mean the whole idea again is to keep green space you know waste water whatever runoff all the stuff but sure And you don't have to answer that today. I know this is just a feedback session. We're not voting on anything.

Chair and commissioners, to give you an idea that's been used for one other development recently that I know of, they actually listed the certain lots and what their impervious maximums were. So say you have some larger lots in the blue area, maybe they're subject to the 40%, and then everything else is subject to the standard 35%.

And then once that goes through, I'm trying to remember, so like Board of Operations, once it goes through the PUD, they develop it, does the owner then also get to inherit that 50% impervious?

Correct, yeah. So even if the property changes hands, that PUD stays in place. Whatever you guys are granting for impervious now is what the lot gets for the rest of time.

I'll just add on to that. I think that... the listing with lot size all the way down each lot what impervious how much its minimum over so we can kind of see generally and then total on this on the parcel I think the impervious is is too high I just don't like all the exceptions to be honest across the board everything looks like an exception deviations throughout and then the density looks I mean compared with all the high density we're putting in Victoria right now, the two apartments and all the availability, just adding more high density. So in general, that's my comment.

I agree. The last one I have, and then I'll try to be quiet. Don't be quiet. We want more. I think the... I think the last big concern I have is the collector roads. I think that's, to me, it's a non-starter. That's a lot of traffic. I mean, like, especially like, again, I'm in school mode with three kids. I'm looking at all the buses going up and down Red Fox today. Even just throwing like extra buses there, and it's not just one bus for one school district. You have other school districts that come in. So you've got bus traffic, you've got everybody going to and from work, and it's not just this lot, right? Everybody from this lot has to go to the next one, and then it compounds the issue going out. Like when you showed that Baker view of, the three yeah this guy like that's a lot of extra traffic going in and out of what we consider to be family friendly neighborhoods um you know we had this conversation with the other the marsh hollow one or whatever was next to it of adding extra trail because we're we're concerned about letting kids out to play and not get have to worry about the parents having to worry about getting hit by a car right To me, it's almost a non-starter if we can't get actual stuff. And the fact that this already wasn't selected for development until, I don't remember what you said, 2030 or whatever it was. I know we're all excited, and this is nothing against you guys, but if that was the plan originally, maybe we should just slow down and wait until we're ready to build roads there. But again, that's just me sitting here thinking I'm a very practical, simple man.

I'd like to echo that too because not only is that the only way for those neighborhoods, also for Huntersbrook, if anybody wants to turn left on County Road 11, you, everybody in all neighborhoods have to take that one road. So it does get congested very fast.

Building up on that, because it was meant to be developed later, the roads were supposed to be there to be able to come in and out, and now we don't have an access from Red Fox Drive, right? So that's the main reason, I think. So you're trying to develop something in the middle of nowhere with no access, and that is a problem.

So, Brian, has there been a traffic study of any sort to help us really understand what the impact will be to these neighborhoods?

Chair and Commissioner Otterstar, there has not. If you think it would be beneficial, you can certainly request that the applicant do so with any future submittals.

I think that really is the key issue. We're all zeroing in on that. And for me, like the other commissioners, as you've heard, The obvious concern is traffic flow until the additional collector roads are built so that we can have safe and relatively sane access out of this neighborhood. I will credit Pulte. I think this is the third sketch plot we've seen. I think it's far and away the best of the three that we have seen. I too initially paused when I saw the higher impervious, and I don't know if there's anything that can be done with that. On the berm, eight foot to three foot, I don't know what the right number is. I do think some separation, whether it's by denser plantings or additional berm, would be really useful between those areas. I candidly am not concerned about not having sidewalks on either side of the road in some of the areas. I think the initial proposal was for uh at least in the red area to have it only on one side of the street anyway so i think i think that's already been improved a last question for brian since we are somewhat ahead of the comprehensive plan time frame are we going to have adequate sewer water utilities for this area including water treatment

Chair and Commissioner, yes. We evaluated, or I guess I should say the city engineer evaluated, utilities for this project in terms of our development decade between 2021 and 2030. We're not nearly as close to development for 2030 as we originally thought we were going to be, so the utility capacity is not an issue based on my understanding.

How is that possible if we've already exceeded the estimates, how have we not exceeded capacity? I'm not sure I follow that.

Yeah, that's a great question. So some of the projects that we've had come in have been higher than our minimum, which is two and a quarter. So when the Metropolitan Council looks at density, they're typically accounting for the lower end of the scale when we have projects that are coming in. Generally over two and a quarter, and those projects are on a larger scale. It's adding more houses, higher density than the minimum. So it's just we could be at the very bottom, but we're not with the projects that are coming through. So more houses, more population, but. in terms of the total developable area that we had planned for per decade we still have a lot of area left for additional context the south growth area with all the commercial and industrial that's within our 2021 to 2030 development decade but that's not residential so that doesn't count towards it so it's more on the commercial side correct okay

Is there any review by emergency services? The fire department on access, especially as we look at sharing that other emergency access road from the adjacent development?

Yes, chairing commissioners are fire chief did review this as well as our deputy fire chief and they stated that they were comfortable with the emergency access at West Creek Village to serve this property in the event of an emergency.

One more question, on the shoreland side, the 25% impervious requirement, what portion of those lots meet that requirement in this plan?

chairing commissioners uh that's one thing we're going to ask for additional clarification on as we get closer to preliminary plats and middles the minimum lot size within these shoreland areas is that 15 852 a lot of these are much higher than that this lot 11 goes all the way up to 27 603 square feet Um, we anticipate that they're going to be meeting that 25% requirement, but we want confirmation as they start getting closer.

So you think on the whole property or just, uh, in this, in this area or what?

On a site by site basis. That's what we count impervious for. So a lot two needs to meet 25%, three, four, five, all the way down to 12. All of these are subject to 25% maximum. If we are talking about, um, All of the shoreland area in general, they're not proposing to do anything here or up here. I'm confident on a development scale for that section, they would be under that 25%. Yeah.

I think I have a similar concern that once it's saved,

40% because of the layout and one was over then everybody can go to 40% Yeah, like a lot six seven eight in the middle there all of a sudden like They wanted to for like three pools and I mean it just like seems impractical to allow that To be consistent for their neighbors And the setbacks are the setbacks from the creek and

No, the setbacks are measured from the lot lines. I mean, is there is there a required? setback from the creek there is uh it's a hundred feet uh you can see right here this dash line it's pretty faint it's a yellow dash line here they have an arrow showing the 100 foot measurement it might even be 150 actually i can't recall off the top of my head um either way all the structures that they've proposed uh should be outside of that 100 foot setback requirement got it thank you

so question on the south side of the property i guess it's not technically this property but um for highway 11 i know they're looking at redoing all of that do we have an estimate of when they're going to start redoing that and what their plans are yet

Chair and commissioners, the County Road 11 project is tentatively scheduled for 2028. They've had a couple open houses recently. They're likely gearing up for another one if anyone's curious about the proposed improvements along 11. I think they've planned a final design, but I don't wanna speak to it unless I'm 100% confident on that.

And that same for 10, right? So on that south side, because that's where they're saying we can't have any access to it.

Correct. County Road 10 is planned for 2029. So they would do 11 here on the right side of your screen in 28, and then they would do 10 in 2029.

I have a question for the applicant. You guys are comfortable developing with a couple of roads to nowhere, given the owners on the west side and south not engaging, it sounds like, in discussion?

We are. Yep. We're comfortable with the access that is provided right now. We expect about a three-year sales pace. So ideally, we'd start construction in the spring of 27, and then several months of construction I'd say closeout would be 2 1⁄2 to 3 years after the project is done. So by that time, that'll take us into the 28, 29, and beyond timeframe where some of those road studies will be completed. So we're comfortable with where the situation is today. Got it. Thank you.

Further discussion, commissioners?

My other thought, I'm just thinking of all the construction on 10, just because I have gone to one of the meetings in the past, and I know they were wanting to straighten out 10. Would that intersect on the...

south was that southwest corner one of those maps has it on there yeah um so chair and commissioner shower you can kind of see it here in the bottom left image it says future county road 10 realignment it's probably a little bit better to see on this image these black dashed lines that you see would be the right-of-way width for the project if they were to straighten out county Road 10, they're still considering alternatives right now, so they haven't committed to this design. It could remain in its current curvature, but we did ask for the applicant to consider that as part of their project.

Yeah, because then my other thought would be making sure that we have a berm on that section and that it is going to be tall enough for noise mitigation, just because I'm sure those speeds are going to be pretty high right there, and I don't want that to interfere with people's livelihoods.

And would that rerouting of 10 allow for access to this site?

showers comment first sorry just to say um based on the site design right now with where they're showing the stormwater ponds within the overhead power easements it might not be possible for them to do a berm on their site with this project on that end whatever happens with this property to the south maybe there's potential to do that with any project that happens there so i'll leave that a little bit open-ended

um and then commissioner graham for your question i'm sorry can you repeat it i guess i was just looking at the rerouting and where that um easement would be it seems like it might be possible to provide access to this from 10. i mean it

Yes to answer your question this access would likely not meet the county's spacing requirement but this potentially could let's say this realignment goes through and they have a straight shot here, the applicant could potentially consider a connection there, but we're dealing with a little bit of unknowns right now. We just aren't sure if that road is gonna be realigned or not.

We don't know the timeline on that decision from the county?

Would likely be within the next year. If not sooner, most likely sooner. The access points in the sketch plan are set for lots though. right yeah it's not good yeah so if for example commissioner shower if you wanted um them to put the berm in now on the south side they would need to relocate their ponds they would need to talk with excel about potentially getting a berm within their easement from what i've heard they they're not typically open to that they're okay with roads and ponds but not typically landscaping So that's something they would have to look at. And then they would also have to redesign their roads based on an unknown. And if this road never realigns, then we might just have a road to nowhere, potentially. Just things to consider.

There's a huge power transmission structure there, too, in the corner. You can't see it here, but in the bottom left corner, Between the left blue box and the right blue box, there's a, I don't know how big those things are, 85-foot power tower carrying the lines through.

I just already see in 10 years after these houses are put in, there's going to be a noise complaint, and they're going to want one of those noise walls and studies, and it's just going to cost the city more money in the future. So if we can mitigate that ahead of time, if we see this is probably gonna be a problem. Because that's also just the main way to get over to Waconia and all of Waconia's expansion that they're doing. So the traffic is gonna get a whole lot worse right there and noise is gonna get worse over the next 10 years. Otherwise, I do like the plan. It is much better than previous years. This is no bad comments on you guys. Good job on working really hard, I will say that.

Commissioner's final thoughts?

Yeah, I have your same concern about the park. It'd be nice if it were actually a public park that everyone in the town could use. And it seems like if you guys would want to dedicate it as a public park, then that would also serve the parkland dedication, like go toward that. So it seems kind of nice just to make it public. But if the city doesn't want to take it, couldn't it still count toward parkland dedication anyway? And couldn't it still be made public, just maintained privately?

Chair and Commissioner Claude, per our code, private improvements cannot count towards park dedication. So if they were providing a larger public park that could be accounted for park dedication, As I mentioned, we do have two planned community parks within a half mile of this project. So if we plan for a third, that means we need additional funding to plan for that third park when we're already trying to plan for three more. Just some additional context for the group that possibly a public park may not be warranted here.

But for clarity, then, does private here mean just they maintain it, but it is publicly accessible to everyone in the town? Or does it mean they maintain it and it is not accessible to everyone? The latter.

So it would be owned, maintained, used by only the private residents of that development.

So if it was owned, maintained, and used by everyone, but maintained by them, would it count toward parkland dedication?

At that point, it would be a public park because then anyone could use it. The general public could use it.

Okay.

So that's a suggestion I might have because that... Just some additional context. We're not in the business of doing maintenance on tot lots anymore for developments. We really only take park dedication for the larger acreage parks. It's... it's a burden on our public works to go out and maintain these third or quarter acre, half acre parks to get crews out there to do the regular maintenance. So for park dedication purposes, we typically only accept the larger acreage public parks.

Also, I'd noticed that on your deviations page from the city code, Like a lot of the red items on this page are for the single family zoning, like the R1, not so many for R2. But I noticed there was a date cut off for R2 beyond which R2 couldn't have single family homes in it. So if the city council wanted to, they could get rid of that date cut off for R2 and allow R2 to have single family homes and then zone this entire thing R2.

yep that's a potential alternative that they could consider as well um whatever if they do end up going that route my recommendation would just be they match the standards for a single family in our one just so we have consistency across our districts that would allow for fewer variances here what would that do to our um oh my gosh the density per unit an acre It wouldn't have any effect on that. Um, so the density is a comprehensive plan amendment issue, um, which is separate from zoning. Zoning is how we guide the lane currently to say what can be allowed on the land. Um, the comprehensive plan is really for development, um, and looking at new development density. So it wouldn't have any impact on our zoning. or zoning would not have any impact on our density, I should say.

Commissioner's final thoughts.

There's a buffer that's required between R1 and R2. It seems like, I don't know, buffers, it seems like their intended purpose is to prevent traffic noise, but there's no real traffic noise difference between R1 and R2 is there, so I don't know, the city might consider getting rid of that rule.

Chair and commissioners, the requirement there is between zoning districts. I agree with that. When we're talking about single family and twin homes, there's not a huge difference in them. The reason for having buffers between different zoning districts is to kind of have a clear delineation, separate uses. um, you know, single family townhomes, high density projects, um, also mitigate for any additional noise traffic between higher traffic development. So, um, in terms of single family and twin homes, there's not that much of a difference, but based on our code, they're in separate zoning districts, which is requiring that buffer. So that's one that playing commission and city council could consider a deviation for if they're interested in doing so.

Thank you. Good discussion. Can we move on to Section 5? Okay. Hearing no more questions or comments. On to reports and emerging issues. Any reports from staff?

The only update that I have for the Planning Commission is that we are canceling our September 15th meeting. I sent that email out to you all this evening, so our next regular meeting will be on Tuesday, October 6th. Otherwise, no updates from staff. Thank you.

Commissioners, any reports or updates, comments, questions, concerns? Great. No more items this evening, so could I get a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Thank you. Commissioner, can I second? Second. And a second. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you. Motion carries. Meeting adjourned.