Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the February 2nd, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. If all commissioners will please mute your microphone until it is your turn to speak, that would be appreciated. Uh members of the public may join using a PC, Mac, iPad, or iPhone, or Android device. Uh members of the public can access the meeting online at the city's website and the public can ask questions and comments during the meeting by using the link to the virtual meeting to join and submit questions via the online question and answer feature within the meeting. Questions regarding this meeting can also be asked during regular business hours at city hall. If you are a member of the public and wish to speak tonight on a topic, please fill out one of the yellow forms at the back of the chambers and provide that sheet to staff. You'll be called on after the project and reference is presented. Residents viewing online, please add your questions to the Q&A field along with your name and address. With that, we'll call the meeting to order. Um, first off, uh we have one council or one uh commission member who needs to take her oath of office. So, uh, I'd love to present, uh, our student commissioner, Rianne Hilo, uh, to receive the oath from Commissioner Morris.

Ready? Yes. All right. I state your name. Oh, do I do this? Yes. Okay. I, Rian, do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota and the Constitution of the State of Minnesota and that I will faithfully discharge the duties and I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of planning commission member of the office of planning commission honor in the state of Woodbury in the state of Woodbury in the county of Washington in the county Washington. To the best of my judgment and ability. To the best of my jud what? Judgment and ability. To the best of my judgment and ability.

Good job. Thank you. Okay. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Um and with that, uh Dan, can we call the role? Thank you, chair. Sauren Shaw, present. Marcia Kennedy, present. John Colum, here. Stephanie Swanson here. Shay Sebrooks here. Jim Gentiel here. Jacob Guzzk here. Jazelle Parnell here. Rian Ho Holay here.

Chair we have a quorum. Thank you Dan. Uh one item on the agenda this evening uh up for discussion that is country estates second edition preliminary P plat project number 32-2025-0000596 and Gina has the staff report on this project.

Yes. Thank you chair Mary Bert has submitted an application for a preliminary plat to be called country estates second edition. The preliminary plat requests to subdivide the existing approximately 9.3 acre property into three 3acre lots. The project uh property is located east of Woodlane Drive and north of Woodlane Bay. The land is currently zone R2, Single Family Estate District, and is guided as rural estate on the land use plan. In April of 1988, the city council approved the preliminary plat for Country Estates, which subdivided a 26.6 acre property into three lots and established access requirements from Woodlane Bay, a private road. At the following meeting in June of 1988, the city council approved the final plat. One of the lots established with that subdivision is the subject of the application this evening. The applicant is proposing to subdivide a 9.27 acre lot within the R2 single family estate district into three uh new single family lots of at least 3 acres or more. The minimum lot size in the zoning district is 3 acres. The purpose of the R2 district is to allow for lowdensity semi-ural lifestyle on lots to be served with private well and septic systems. No zoning flexibility is requested with this application. If the lots are identified with existing tree canopy coverage as part of the subdivision, no more than 30% of significant trees may be removed without replacement pursuant to city code. In this case, the applicant will only be removing trees within the areas established for home construction, which

falls under this requirement. Access to the lots is provided from Woodlane Drive to Woodlane Bay as shown with the red star on the screen. All lots shall be required to act to be accessed by this private roadway of Woodlane Bay per the original approvals. Woodlane Bay was platted as public rightway with the country estate's final plat and is currently maintained by the existing homeowners association as a private road on top of that public rightway. The engineering department reviewed the roadway with this application and determined that it shall remain a private road due to the cost to upgrade the street to city standards and maintenance implications with the limited driveway frontages. A neighborhood meeting was held on January 7th, 2026 with two residents in attendance and questions focused on timing of the project and the location of the home construction. With that, staff recommends approval of the country estate second edition preliminary plat project number 32-2025-0000595 subject to the conditions found within the staff report. And the applicant is also on hand to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Gina. Uh would the applicant like to add anything additional at this time? Um, if you could please uh just come to the microphone and state your name and address, please. Yeah, I'm I'm Andy Bert uh uh Jack and Mary Bert's son who who uh currently own the property. Um live in Woodbury uh 3600 windmill curve uh in Stonemill Farms. Uh and the plan is to build on lot two as you can see in the diagram there. So we're not doing anything with one and three. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Um we'll let you know if there's any other questions from any commissioners. Thank you.

Sounds good. Okay. Um Gina, are there any yellow sheets or any other questions online for this project? Not at this time, Chair. Okay. Uh at that point, I'll open it up to commissioners uh fellow commissioners for any questions that they have. And we'll start with uh Commissioner Gentiel.

Thank you, Chair. Uh first question is for staff. Uh on the tree removal on page 204, uh it does state 30% of significant trees. Um in the last sentence it goes areas established for home construction. Wondering if we can expand that to driveway, backyard, and septic drain field. Um having no trees in the drain field. So there's going to be a little bit more significant clearing of those trees uh to allow for that. And then item number five, you know, the park dedication shall be satisfied through cash deductions. Is that just each lot has a cash deduction or cash for that?

That's correct. The city code establishes 4,000 uh dollars for park dedication per lot. Got it. Just the tree removal was my only question. Chair. Okay. Thank you. Uh Commissioner, sorry. I'll just address um that is the intent of the requirement. The applicant is only removing um trees within the areas established for home construction. That also includes the septic, the driveway. It's more broad than just the home. Um but our environmental division did look at this and um looked at the areas where the trees were going to be and noted that there were they didn't have concerns with the removals.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Guzik. Thank you, chair. Um, so with the this I guess more of a question for staff with the drainage and utility easements that kind of have laid out, you know, typical 10 foot and 5 foot there. Is there going to be any opportunity to adjust some of those? I see like the drainage from lot two to lot one has some looks like natural drainage that goes across to the neighboring property. So, I'd be concerned that if that were to get blocked one day or that neighbor starts complaining that their water's coming onto their lot and there's no drainage utility easement, it might cause an issue.

You're Are you thinking in this gas pipeline easement area? Uh yeah. So, just like south of the like south of there, like off that drive a little bit further. Yeah, we can we can make sure that our engineering team is doing a detailed review to make sure they don't have any concerns, but um traditionally when there aren't major drainage swailes, the the 10-ft easement is sufficient, but we can double check that.

And then my second question is on the east side of lot three, I don't know if there's a if that's a turnaround from the neighboring property. Um there seems to be some sort of driveway that's kind of coming close to that proposed house. I don't know is that need to be addressed at all before

um so that lot was established prior to this subdivision, but I'm not sure Andy if you have any context on this turnaround here um for the exception lot. Yeah, when the surveyor came out to to to do this survey, they realized that the um that the neighbors we put a little turnaround on on the property basically. Um the lot three uh drawing there for the house is is a proposed or you know potential spot. Um, you know, practically speaking, the only area in lot three that wouldn't be real realistic is kind of that northwest corner. That's a steep hill. Otherwise, it's pretty flat throughout all of that. So, I mean, I would think there'd be plenty of room to kind of move that say southwest of there.

We can work on drafting a condition to memorialize that encroachment or when that needs to go away. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to make sure the city isn't liable for approving the plat when there's an encroachment. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I had. Chair. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Commissioner Kennedy.

Thank you, Chair. Uh my questions are, I think, directed also towards staff. Real quickly, um in the um property description, the map, um under the notes, it says it was um prepared without the benefit of title work, etc. Are there any contingencies there that need to be stated or addressed? I think I know the answer, but are there any contingencies that need to be particularly stated in the approval and considered in the future once those get completed? Does that make sense?

Yeah. Typically, title work would be items recorded against this. They had all of the original approval documents for this, so it's probably just a note from the surveyor. But with the final plat they have to do they have to get title commitment and all of those documents. So that will get taken care of with the final plat that comes under the approval of this I mean under this umbrella. That's correct. Okay. I figured that. One more question. Um the the lot two is the one you'll be intend to build on immediately. Correct.

Okay. And there uh because of the intent of the lots of dividing those up is to build houses. We don't have to approve what uh at a time when they decide to put houses on lot one and lot three. It doesn't have to come back to us for approval. Is that correct? Correct. They would just obtain a building permit. Okay, that's what I figured. And drainage and trees were my other two questions and those were covered. That's all I have. Chair. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Swanson. Everybody's already hit my questions. Let's move on. Commissioner Sha.

Thank you, Sher. So, um, you know, I'm looking at this picture view and so the the current lot, the 9ome acres, it doesn't have any houses on it. Correct. Correct. So, it's it's actually empty. Correct. So, all three houses that are proposed to be built are actually new going onto the lot. Correct. Correct. There would only be one home at this time with the two other lots reserved for future if they so chose. Okay. Okay. That's that's the only question I had. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Sebrooks.

Thank you, Chair. Um I believe my question is uh more geared towards staff, too. And this might be just um educating me a little bit. Uh, but I did note that the Woodlane Bay is a a private road um with a public rightway. And so I'm curious as to I'm not familiar with this with the private roadway and and the city code around it, but it's safe to assume that um it would be wide enough for emergency services to exit, enter.

Yeah, that's correct. It was designed more to a rural section at the time that the plat went forward. However, um we reserved the right to m have it be public right away if it needed to be expanded due to a significant density increase driveways, but it has been operating as a private drive with emergency vehicle services for about 35 years. So, it's it's sufficient. I thought I would assume the most, but thank you. I appreciate that. No further questions. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Parnell,

thank you. Um, I have no questions at this time. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Holay. You guys stole all my questions from, so yeah, everything has been answered. Outstanding. Thank you. Um, just a couple of, uh, I guess just clarifying questions for me. Um, maybe start with staff. Um the zoning was what? There was no zoning changes with this. Is that correct? These will stay rural estates. Correct. Just go from one plat to three plats in the same zoning. Correct.

And looking at the comprehensive plan, I would assume this area of Woodbury obviously right on the border, the southern border with Cottage Grove. There'd be no plan to know in other discussions in the past, we've talked about city services eventually coming to certain parts of Woodbury that are just under undeveloped at this point, but we would think this area would stay uh would not would stay on septic uh and well and not have city utility services for some period of time.

That's correct. That is an item we look at through the comprehensive plan process on whether um any of those areas on the border can be served with Cottage Grove. We work with them to determine if there's capacity to serve and provide those uh services. This area was not identified to be able to be serviced um by Cottage Grove. And so it remains as rural estate. And so we're talking about uh the potential construction of the of these lots. I'm assuming we have specific construction codes for rural state that's covers the type of housing and the setbacks and all those. They wouldn't have that'll all be incorporated into whatever the final plat would be for each of these lots.

That's correct. They have increased setbacks for these types of lots. Great. Um, and then I was just curious for the houses that are on the west side of Woodlane Drive, are those on city utilities or are those on well and septic? They are on Well and Septic. Okay. Okay. Um, and then for the applicant, I assuming your intent is to you're going to maintain ownership of all three plat um or are you planning to sell those? Uh, no. My my parents will will own lot one and three uh and I'll just own lot two.

Okay. And they own all the land north of there and then they live just south of there too. So thankfully they're not going to sell any of it. And I have three brothers so they could be likely neighbors someday. So that's could be a family compound at some point. That's yeah that's their my parents goal but we'll see how that plays out. Understood. Yeah. So, but it's it's pretty land. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um I don't have any other questions at this point. Um were there any other questions that came in from the public?

No, but it looks like Eric has a condition drafted for our consideration on the driveway encroachment. Thank you, Gina. The condition draft will be prior to the release of the final plat for recording. Either a private encroachment agreement shall be executed for the existing turnaround on lot three or the turnaround shall be removed. Great. Okay. Um that Commissioner Guz, does that work for you as far as the language you're looking for there? Perfect.

Okay, great. Um then I think staff would be looking for a recommendation. I move to approve project number 32-2025-0000596 with the added condition about the driveway encroachment. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All of those in favor uh signal by saying I I I. Any opposed? Okay. The uh recommendation will go to uh city council and will be part of the public hearing at city council on February 11th. Congratulations. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks everybody.

Okay. Next item on the agenda is uh is our council report. Council member Morris

Wilder up two to nothing. Is that is that what you were looking at? Oh yeah. Sorry. Thank you, Chair. Um just a couple of things. The city council met last week for our first um first big well second meeting of the year, but we did approve in the workshop last last um Wednesday a decently sized change to the budget process for the council and I know um all the commissioners are very involved in the city and so I thought I'd throw this at you but we u extended out in in Has anybody ever attended the workshop meeting in September for for the budget. If any of you dialed in to the 9 and 1/2 hours or whatever it takes,

not 9 and a half hours, but I have dialed in.

Yeah, it it's a long one. And so there's an intent to uh not make it 9 and 1/2 hours. Um even though we love keeping staff up late at night uh for that. It is a lot to go through and so we approved a change that's going to essentially put a couple of more check-ins with the council throughout the year that extends that budget process. mainly the one that we're going to do in July uh that will start in July where we start approving chunks of the budget instead of trying to do it all in one sitting u mainly the CIP or the the capital investment uh plan and projects will be done ahead of that budget workshop and because that's a large chunk of the budget we'll also do all of the enterprise funds storm water uh the lighting fund storm water what are some other enterprise funds

eco Yeah. So, Eagle Valley Golf Course and the Sports Center, Fairview Min Health, Fairview Sports Center, all those other those non-general funds. Uh we'll we'll work through those budgets ahead of schedule. Why I wanted to bring that up is we start in April, we start reviewing the CIP, the uh capital investment plans in April to start looking through the actual projects. So, anybody listening and or those of you that are interested that don't wait until September to start talking to us about the budget because it l literally will start in April and then work out through April through September before we approve in December. But, um, a rather significant change for versus the marathon meetings that we have in September. We've made absolutely no promises to staff that we'll be any faster in September. Um, it just means more in-depth into the general fund is all that really means. You're welcome. It's your birthday present. Uh, next is the uh February 26th is the state of the city. That's at Central Park this year by hosted by the mayor uh in the Woodlands room. So, if you want to dial in, you can watch that or join us. I'm sure that there'll be cupcakes. But uh always good to hear from the uh from the mayor on what's going on in the city and what's going to be going on this coming year as we head into another busy construction season and uh and a lot of big projects in front of the city. So other than that, um our upcoming upcoming workshop here in the next couple of workshops will review the community survey which was done in December. Um and we'll review those results which is really going to head into a lot of where we push the budget and where the budget pushes us as well as some of our strategic initiatives that we'll take a look at this year before we go into next year. So a lot going on. Um it's a quiet January and February, but we hit it hard in in April, March and April. So, any questions? I'll be here.

Thank you, Council Member Morris. Um, next up on the agenda, we will uh move to approve the minutes from January 12th, 2026 meeting. Everybody should have a draft in front of them. Does anybody have any edits to the minutes from that meeting? I have just one selfishly on page three. They misspelled my first name. So that's all I found. Chair. Oh, on on the uh motion to second. Yes. Uhhuh. Okay. There's one error on the first page. Uh Chair Shannon Olsen.

I had that in my notes. I was as much as I would have been thrilled for Chair Olsson to call the meeting to order, she didn't get a chance to, unfortunately. any other uh suggestion suggested or edits to the minutes? Yes, I'm looking on for the page Oh, page seven. They misspelled my name. Um it's just one ele. Okay. In the third third paragraph, Commissioner Berno. Okay. Okay.

Just check to see if I'm present. Any other uh any other suggested edits? Seeing none, we'll be looking for a motion to approve these minutes with the suggested edits. I move to approve the January 12, 2026 meeting uh minutes with the suggested edits. And we have a second. Second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. The minutes are adopted. And with that the public meeting is adjourned.