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all right we'll call the meeting to order on behalf of the planning commission like to welcome our residents and viewers to this regular meeting of april 8th 2025 on tonight's agenda we have two public hearings and then we have two discussion items after that uh before we get into the public hearings
we have one housekeeping item that would be the minutes from our march 11th regular meeting are there any additions or corrections to those minutes if not is there a motion i'll make a motion have a motion for approval is there a second second motion and
second all in favor say i i i minutes are approved with that then we'll open up both public hearings at this time we'll take them in order as shown on the agenda the first public hearing is an amendment to a planned unit development agreement for med meadow view preserve and it deals with lot coverage and jared
you're going to take this yes i am thank you chair plankish members uh this request for you tonight is for uh amendment to an existing plan unit development agreement um for the med meadow view preserve uh development uh the applicant is summergate development
and the specific um amendment they are requesting is an increase in lot coverage uh from the maximum of 30% to 40% uh the existing pud agreement outlines uh two deviations from the r1 uh zoning district uh this has reduced
lot size as well as reduced lot width um the 30% lot coverage uh currently is working for traditional two-story homes that they are building out there um but is becoming an issue for builders offering villa style homes um where they have a deeper footprint on the
lot um i've included an example survey of an active permit that we have received um that would be right at this 40% lot coverage um requirement or increase um as you can see on your screen uh the footprint of the house runs a little deeper back on the lot but
it still would uh meet setbacks um in the r1 uh zoning district uh so you can see the lot area on the right is a little over 8,000 square ft and then the total uh lot coverage um would be 3,240 ft uh bringing the total lot coverage to
just shy of 40% um and i would like to note too um i did receive an email earlier today from a homeowner off evston drive um i did put that email into your guys's packet for reference and so the requested action uh
for the planning commission is to recommend the city council approve the attached resolution um amending the pub agreement uh for meadow view preserve all right thank you jared i'm looking for that email is that let me look at let me look
at this i'll look at this while we do it mr tucker are you here you repping representing summergate do you have anything to add to the staff report thank you chair commissioners uh not not really other than um this is a case where we got the subdivision approved
and we didn't have builders identified at that time uh as it turns out we ended up working with a couple of builders and in order to make sure they weren't competing against one another one of the agreements was that one of the builders is a building a certain style home and the other was building another well it
turns out that uh uh the villa style home was one of the ones that brandon anderson was going to put be putting out here and that's where we ran into an issue with the the lot coverage so uh i agree with staff in that a lot of times we're reducing the lot width and area
through some of these puds but then um sometimes the impervious surface coverage or building coverage gets overlooked so uh we're requesting to go to 40% i would also add that the lots that back up to the existing homes to the east they have a much deeper uh
drainage and utility easement it's like 45 ft back there so whereas some of the other lots within the development uh with a larger footprint it might push a little further back toward you know the back of the lot but the ones on the east side along the existing uh where the
existing homes are are much less likely to be able to accommodate a deeper home just because of that increased uh utility easement back there okay mr tucker could you stay available in case there's questions from our audience this is a public hearing are there any comments or questions
regarding um this pud amendment all right if not we'll give an opportunity when the commission's done if you have comments or questions you can we'll certainly come back and ask again start with commissioner tesy yeah uh thank you for bringing this in i mean i appreciate the approach of not
reworking the lot size to accommodate you know different size homes but um we set standards uh for a reason and i'm i'm struggling with um the 40% a little bit and if a homeowner were to purchase
a home on that lot it just very much limits what you can do in that backyard so i just hope individuals who are looking to buy those homes know that there's significant limitation to potentially put in a pool or something of that nature it's going to be very limiting in the backyard
um so i'm having a hard time getting behind this but um i'm interested to hear what the other commission members have to say we'll find out commissioner snowbeck yeah i just always think about you know our wershed area and and the reason why we have green spaces to
absorb that water um so that was my first concern also is the amount of of property that's being covered in the ability for the waterhed to absorb the water um and not put it in the you know sewer system and ship it down the river
um are other communities in the surrounding area are they u building houses with with coverage of 40% of property is that common um or are we just looking to do this in one spot sure so actually we have multiple active developments um in the city right now
that actually or plan unit developments that have an increase um in lot coverage uh vita is one that's i believe is up to 51% um i believe fairhill also increases the lot coverage too there so we have approved these in the past um so i
wouldn't say it's not uncommon uh for this to happen okay and commissioner snowbeck i i will add on to that that uh other communities are looking at doing that as well the trend that we're seeing with new subdivisions is that they want smaller lots but they don't really want
to give up on the size of home um they just don't necessarily want to have the the yard um to maintain um at least that's the trend that we're currently seeing um as jared mentioned uh we have allowed this in other um developments um
even higher than what this uh requirement or this request is this evening um i also want to do mention that it's building coverage it's not necessarily impervious surface coverage so it does not include things like your driveway uh concrete patio it does not
include pools right so um that wouldn't really affect them from being able to put in a pool provided they meet setbacks and things like that now a shed it could potentially impact that okay to that point tony sorry i don't mean to take your time mitch to that point where
we have made exceptions in the past have and maybe it's too new to know have we seen any watershed impact or had any sort of re that i'm aware of okay none that i'm aware of and uh take for instance the fair hill one that's now going
on almost eight years um so yeah i i no we have not seen any issue with that and chair if i if i could jump in to answer the question about the storm water i did check with our engineer and they you know when they run their storm
water calculations to size ponds to be appropriately sized for the capacity that's needed they they assume the entire pad finished pad is is going to be uh covered in addition to driveways and those type of things so they
indicated on these lots that they were assuming at least 40% coverage and how they did their calculations uh so that there would be adequate capacity because that's usually one of the basis for these kind of requirements is just making sure you don't end up with you know too much storm water coming off the
site so they did indicate that that it was the assumptions were that it would be covering that whole pad which is larger than what most of the houses end up being okay jared that was a question i was going to have at my talk he said their engineers
reviewed this has the city engineer reviewed this for storm water um yeah when the first preliminary plat comes through the city engineer um approves it um and so basically what brian was saying that's what their storm water calculations go off of um so yes
our city engineer has um technically approved it based off those building pads that they submit it'd be based off of the storm water report that management report that's provided as part of the final preliminary and final plat um all those
regulations or those capacity type numbers are included within that report that's approved or reviewed and approved by our engineering department and that's and that's what mr tucker saying is showing the larger pads correct okay
mitch do you have any more questions i i i i don't i just it is a concern that um i know i might have i might have to keep thinking about listen to other people's questions yeah thank you
um yeah go a question i had was related to the the email that you shared jared from the homeowner in the area um do you know was this homeowner in a house that's already built in this neighborhood or is it neighboring they
are um directly uh east in troy hill okay um i believe they abut the second edition for me preserve okay they had mentioned w taller wider homes which doesn't really relate to footprint right the taller is vertical the wider you
know obviously might be an option here but um talking about overshadowing neighborhood neighboring properties so that's where i just wanted to understand where they were in relation to and understand the impact to existing homes that are already there if if this did
get approved so the troy hills houses right the ones that are neighboring up against them what sort of impact could we potentially see there correct and i believe a majority of those homes on that side correct me if i'm wrong brian are twotory homes they're not the deeper um villa style uh homes those are on um
the west side of the development okay thank you um yeah i'm i'm kind of in the same in the same thought as as my fellow commissioners here i want to hear a little bit more before final decision so
i'll leave it at that for now sure all right thank you andy you know when and you mentioned a few developments that have um a higher uh coverage than what they're doing but usually we're discussing that at the initial public hearing when the residents are here to
be able to contribute to the public hearing um it's unique when we get a request in the middle of a development starting and and then they're saying "wait a minute." and i remember those public hearings because they were a bit
contentious um we kind of filled up the the chairs out here and and the residents were very good they had a lot of great comments and and we kind of came to a compromise agreement that night mr tucker you probably remember some of that and then after that we had
a little more discussion and then you know we came back to this um and a lot of the discussion that those initial public hearings had to do with uh they wanted to make sure that the houses were of adequate value which
is a concern when you you know have an existing house that's nice and a development that's nice like troy hill to the east and just wanted to make sure it was in this situation now they're looking to build bigger houses so they want they need they need it for the lots and we and we can't go back or we could
difficult to go back so really i come down you mentioned brandle was the one that wanted to build these villas in certain areas right um when i first saw this i said boy we're going to cover the whole area with 40% now rather than just a few houses
that want to be villas do you know which lots are are good to build villas on that the pads are there to build is it the walkouts on the west side or what yeah so at this point all the upper lots along i forget the name of the street
i've got it here but all the upper lots are purchased by py and they're primarily doing the two stories that you see out there and then brle has the ones that are wrapping closer down to the the west side along the pond uh phase two um i don't know that brle's going to be a
participant in that that hasn't been finalized but uh we do have john anderson here that represents brandle if you'd like to address any questions to the builder as well john you want to get involved all right so my name is john anderson
i'm here actually for the next item as well but i do do some work with brandle anderson as well and i am aware of this situation and i had conversations with both brian and tony when this first came up here a few weeks back and i've done projects obviously in farmington in the
area before so to start with um py homes is doing a two-story type structure on their lots which are kind of on the east side of the project twostory homes typically have a smaller footprint and the rule that the city of farmington has is a building coverage so if you have a smaller footprint your coverage
percentage is usually smaller and as uh brian mentioned when brandell anderson came in they didn't want to compete directly with py having two different builders in this project they went with the villa style which is typically a onelevel home like you see in the uh the picture there and onele homes typically
have a bigger footprint meaning the the the percentage gets higher now in relation to the development itself and for instance the vita project which i was involved with they did get approved i think it was 50% on their plan and they went with smaller lots through a
pud did a 55 plus neighborhood um i've also been involved with the sapphire lake project with winkl development that was actually an r2 zoning which has a higher percentage um you know coverage than what the r1 district is which is what meadow uh meadow view preserve is
in reality though the lots in meadow view preserve are really not much different than the lot sizes in say sa excuse me sapphire lake but yet the percentages are different so when brandle anderson started looking at this with their onele villas the footprint was bigger they started realizing some
of these lots will not accommodate their floor plans and that's what this uh percent um you know increase came from now i'm also working on a project over in empire right now and in that case there's single family lots similar to this project we have different sizes in
there um the city actually approved the lot coverage up to 50% than that neighborhood as part of that approval um i've also done quite a few projects in lakeville over the years and lakeville has no requirements for lot coverage and impervious surface requirements so you can come in there build as big as house
as you can fit on the pad add pools add driveways different things you know storage sheds and so there are a lot of cities out there that do not even restrict this because they look at it up front as was mentioned with the plumary plat so by doing what we're doing here um all it's going to do if you don't
approve this would decrease the size of the house decrease the value and basically make those lots you know very hard to build you know the types of villa houses that you know brandell anderson wanted to construct on those lots so um most likely they would not be able to move forward with that project
and it's something that has been done in farmington before it's done in other cities like empire lakeville as i said doesn't even have this requirement so i just want to give a perspective from brandal anderson homes on what they're looking for here because we do have you know sales and things in there that we can't move forward with right now unless
this uh you know amendment to the pud is actually approved so and john i appreciate that again it's it's this when we had the public hearing a couple years ago you know and and mr tucker you again i'll go back to this we kind of made a commitment but i
understand you know i mean the this will be a bigger house which usually has a higher value not always but usually um you know my my sense is some commissioners have a problem with
it is there a way to allow half a development to be a a coverage and half not cuz you know i don't want the ones that we made a a commitment to next to troy hill to have a problem but i mean a villa is a nice
house don't get me wrong and i know they're building villas on even smaller lots than 8,000 foot cuz i live in one um so i'm not against this as from a house standpoint it's just the commitment that we made to the residents
to the east a couple years ago but if it comes down to it i would support sending this on to our city council as a favorable recommendation um but i feel bad mr tuker um you were part of that um you can share some of my uh concern to
these residents um if it does go through because you know we made a commitment to them a couple years ago and that's what we usually we live by is that initial commitment that we make to them and now we're changing it mid-stream and i don't like that and brian correct me if i'm wrong but i
think py will have all the lots that back up to the troy that's what he said that's what i'm saying i don't know if it'll affect i know we have one out here a couple from troy um i i don't think it i mean it's the value of the house is going to be more i mean it's going to be a nice house that you're building yeah
it's the i just hope it isn't everyone i hope it's just the ones that walk out on the on the west side um but i don't want other houses or other property owners taking advantage of this and causing issues to some of the existing neighbors out there that's that's my concern okay
but i i again to the commission um we're in a tough spot um and you know we struggle with with summergate a few years ago i know i've been on record and but i'm you know i'm here to support summergate i think they've done a fine job out there i've
viewed your first house and it's a beautiful house out there and if these are something like that i i think they'll be nice houses so can i ask real quick d andy with the with the change from 30 to 40% what
does that turn out to be in realistic square footage roughly ballpark do we know that number charlie or john do you have an answer to that um i calculated on kind of the standard lot out there it ends up being about 800 square f feet if someone went
to that full 40% so it's not an insignificant amount is kind of what i'm thinking 800 square feet in the grand scheme of things isn't a huge amount but if you look at the total project to me
that's that's my first apartment was less than that so yeah and i i think for context too i mean there's what about a dozen to 15 houses out there under construction right now and so far we've had one
that's run into this issue so i i don't want to overstate the idea that you know all of a sudden we're going to have 40 out of the 130 that are going to be looking for this so yeah that's why i looked at staff to see if there's a a reasonable in between where it's not
everything but it's those that that need to but i'm not familiar i have in my 40 years we've never quite done that um it's something i i think we could potentially look at um with the developer if there's specific lots that
they know would be you know for that specific developer um could maybe try to contain it to those specific lots like i said that hasn't been something we've done in the past i haven't seen it either um but i i don't know that it's
something that you can't do it's just something that we haven't done they were doing more developments that are pub related planned unit development type developments and there that there's exceptions to the different parts of the zoning district and that's what's happening here and now we're changing
midstream so and chair if i could one other item just making note of the site plan they have up on the screen but if i understand from staff correctly a deck counts towards the structure setback percentage as well and if you look at that particular layout that's a extra
large deck which you know is not unusual and it's and it's a way that people want to increase the value and the enjoyment of their home but uh keep in mind that that deck you know there's i'm just kind of can't quite read it from here 14 you know that's adding 400 450 ft yeah and i
i spoke to him out there he's i understand the re the rationale i i do don't get me wrong um charlie i i could live with it but i just i don't like the process guys i really don't
but i mean i feel better knowing that it's been engineered to support 40 so the 40% but yeah if initially they might if they came in and said we're billing villas and they're going to be bumping 40 i'd have said okay you know but you
know i just i i can remember residents all over here and they you know i made a promise or we made a promise to them so but um drew i'm looking at you any you're
out in that area can i i didn't mean to put you on the spot but so mr chair members my name is uh scott keller 19286 evenston i'm a troy hill resident for the last 23 years understood everything that was
said tonight and mr chairman i think you hit the nail on the head um the layman's term that comes to mind is bait and switch a little bit right i mean that that might be a little over the top but um i was out there last night uh the the
two two stories that had been built alongside the east facing troy hill development um was a little shocked to find out from uh i called jared this morning the house the houses
on those plots right now are 12 feet apart 12 i stood up on a little dirt mound and took i i have the thumb drive in my pocket i can leave it with you are essentially going to be looking at a
wall of houses in that farm field and that and that's the ones that are staying 30% of the lot size so to correct me if i'm wrong i was not i i i told you mr chairman i wasn't here at the initial uh meetings a couple years
ago the the original developer was kind of basically not demanding but asking for these smaller lot sizes from an r1 from a standard 10,000 square foot lot is that correct and they were granted
that yeah yeah so so now we hear two years later they wanted a smaller lot size now they're looking for a bigger house it just it it smells a little funny to
be honest with you yeah mr kelly you're absolutely right what i've been doing this for a while um things have changed r1 used to be minimum 10,000 square foot lots i mean you'd have 100 foot frontage 150 deep minimum right um things have
changed a lot in the last 25 years most plats that come here and tony correct me if i'm wrong or jared come as puds which they're looking and and people want to utilize available
land one for financial reasons two for you know some may say other reasons um environmental things like that but um we're seeing a lot of puds now and smaller lot sizes you don't see a development anymore that's 10,000 square
foot minimum lots um a lot of them are r2 just again to maximize lot coverage and you know maximize building it costs a lot now to to build the infrastructure roads sewer utilities um houses are expensive you know that um i'm not telling you anything else and you know
again if they'd have come in here two years ago and said you know we're thinking about bill and villas um and they're going to hit it you know i probably at that time i would have said okay you know i've seen a lot of those in the last 20 years um and i i'm okay
with that i live i live on a a fairly large villa my wife and i do and our lot is 6,500 um i'm sure we're pushing the the 40 so and we have a deck and i i love the
deck it faces the west um we catch the wind and the summer heat too so i'm telling because i know he's got that's where he's at out there um so i understand where you're coming from and i appreciate you standing up um letting us know what you think thanks for the
time yeah thank you sir all right anybody else want to talk on this any other commissioners got comments or questions i'm going to go around again and just kind of get the feel for the commissioners commissioner tesy um yeah i i just have a hard time supporting
this just based on what we've gone through in the last maybe two years i think hasn't it been um where we started to where we are today so mr snowbeck yeah a little bit of the history lesson gives me a little bit further concerns about the change change of the direction
of the of the plan so yep i'm concerned too commissioner berg yeah i would agree i you know wasn't here a couple years ago when this originally came through either but just knowing that the residents have concerns they were concerned from the beginning and now we're changing after a
decision that was was made in agreement um i don't feel good about this either yeah okay and i'll still reiterate i i don't feel good about it um i still will or would have supported this adjustment because i think we would have done that
two years ago knowing if summergate would have had the builders and they knew what kind of lot houses they were going to build so i i would have supported it i'll leave it at that with that i'd look for a motion this will be a recommendation to well first of all i need a motion to close the public hearing can can i ask one more question
derek go ahead tony what do you believe on this like and both you guys what are your thoughts on on this cuz i mean you're the kind of experts in the area what do you guys i mean you must believe we should go forward with it right that would be our recommendation
okay that's that's okay motion to close the public hearing motion to close the public hearing we have a motion is there a second a second motion second to close a public hearing call the role please rody yes snowback no berg no this is a recommendation to
close the public hearing to close the public hearing call the role again please rody yes snowback yes berg yes tesy yes front of the commission there's a recommendation to our city council um amending a pud agreement for med preserve from 30% to
40% is there a motion a motion we have a motion for a favorable or or unfavorable recommendation unfavorable recommendation we have a motion for unfavorable recommendation to our city council on this is there a second i'll second motion and second any more
discussion if not call the ro please snowback no wait a minute um uh a yes vote would be in favor of unfavorable recommendation a no vote means you do not you're yeah that's so a yes vote
means you're going to support your motion that's why i say that you made the motion yes yep so a yes vote would be you support the motion unfavorable yeah a no means you don't call the roll again please snowback yes berg yes tesy
yes rody no all right thank you all right with that then we'll move to our second public hearing this is a preliminary platin pud for dakota meadows the applicant is distinctive land
development tony you'll take this i will bear with me here all right yes uh this evening we have a application for uh pluminary plat uh for dakota meadows uh as well as a planned
unit development uh as cher rody had mentioned the applicant is distinctive land development llc uh the development is generally located toward the southeast intersection of denmark avenue and 22 20th street west or ash street
and is just south of dakota electric and west of the fairgrounds uh the proposed development is to consist of 134 single family lots uh the plat is again 134 single family lots spread over 43 1/2 acres uh
that equates to a net density of 3.6 dwelling units an acre the property is zoned r2 which is our low medium density residential and allows for a density range between 3 and a half to six dwelling units per acre storm water ponding is located mainly in the center
of the development with smaller ponds to be located in the northeast and southwestern portion of the site a wetland is located along the southern boundary of the development uh minimum lot area proposed with this preliminary plat is 4,261 square ft with an average
lot size of 5,37 minimum lot width in this instance they're looking down to go down to 40 ft in width as far as the proposed setbacks for the development a front yard would
be a 20ft setback standard uh with 25 ft on the sidewalk side so any lot that is adjacent to sidewalk would be uh 5 ft deeper as far as the setback is concerned rear yard set back of 6 feet
sideyard interior of five and 15 ft for sideyard corner setback the plat does contain five outlots labeled a through e outlot a is a combination of storm water facility and wetland outlot b is a remnant parcel
outlot c storm water facility outlot d remnant parcel and the last one outlot e is a combination of trail corridor and storm water facility this is the overall uh site plan or layout um as you can see the road comes
in from denmark with single family around it uh with the storm water ponding in the center and the wetland in the uh southern end uh this just shows the preliminary plat with the the lot areas and widths
and depths as far as building elevations uh these are uh to be um basically slab on grade uh units um they're looking at having four different type of um elevations um
on this uh or within this development the barrett the becker and then the bisque and brookstone as far as access and transportation is concerned with this particular development uh as i had mentioned the access the main access for this
development will come from denmark avenue uh there will be a secondary emergency access uh provided uh this will be at the southern end of the development near the wetland area this access will consist of a 20 foot wide uh enhanced trail section extending from
denor avenue to street c on the east side of the development uh this will have to be gated and closed to motorized vehicles um to the general public i'm sorry that uh is a typo there threw me off uh there will be three stubs provided two
adjacent properties one to the cda property to the north and one to the murphy property to the south and then one in the very northeast corner uh that would provide access eventually up through the turk property into ash street uh all roads within the
development will be public consists of a 60oot ride ofway uh with a 29 foot uh wide roadway uh sidewalks are provided on the south side of street a and west side of street c uh 8 foot wide bumis trails uh
are provided along the northern boundary of the site uh they extend from denmark avenue up to ash street or 220th street west uh the trail does extend uh up to the culde-sac and street b as well uh or from this culde-sac street b to the
emergency access uh trail that runs east and west through the site and then there's also a trail along the right of way of denmark avenue as well uh city will be taking cash in lou uh parkland dedication with this plat uh the park that would service this
development is the westview acres park which is a couple blocks north of this uh area um that making that trail connection to the north is pretty critical with that um just from a accessibility
standpoint to getting to that park the way our park ordinance is written um that would be the the park that would service this site so uh as i had mentioned they are looking to do this as a planned unit development
um and with that uh they are asking for some flexibility or deviations from the code the first one is reducing the minimum lot area to 4261 ft a typical uh would be a 6,000 ft lot uh reducing the minimum lot width to
40 ft versus the typical 60 ft reducing the corner yard set back to 15 feet that's typically a 20 foot setback and then reducing the interior uh interior sideyard setback to 5t versus a typical 6-ft setback and then increasing the
billing coverage percentage for lots to 50% versus the uh 35% typical the action that's requested this evening is to recommend approval of approval of the dakota meadows preliminary plat and planning unit development uh contingent upon the
following and that being the satisfaction of all engineering comments requirements including construction plans for grading storm water and utilities thank you tony mr anderson you're here for all the whole
agenda tonight aren't you uh pretty much yeah good evening uh once again i'm john anderson i'm representing distinctive land development um steve bona from capstone homes is also here they're going to be the sole builder of this project um i'll just try to do a little you know background on the site and kind
of what we're proposing here uh to start with uh this project or this property i should say was previously uh approved for a plumbary plat like two three years ago something like that three years ago and that is since expired we've taken that plan or that plan i should say had uh dirt balance issues which is a big
cost factor in this layout we have high water table out there as other areas of farmington do so what we did is kind of revise it we actually were working with a different builder for a while and looking at doing quite a few town homes on this site um and going down that road
that didn't go it didn't work out we ended up working with capstone and we went to this uh product here which is you know basically a individual lot uh and basically we're building a big pond in the middle of the site which will be you know one of those deep ponds like you see in some of the other
neighborhoods in town so it acts as kind of an amenity to those backyards and we're using that fill and sand to to raise the rest of the site up to make the site work from a dirt balance standpoint so that's the direction we're going with this um the the big thing from uh a phasing standpoint with 134
lots we're looking to do three phases phase one would be 42 lots generally on the western end of the plat where the entrance is in that initial culde-sac next phase would be 46 lots kind of going to the east and getting to that north south street and the last phase would be another 46 lots on that street
going to the south uh the timing of that we're looking to you know get out there uh get approvals going here and if everything goes as planned hopefully having dirt being moved out there you know sometime in may and having streets paved later this summer with building uh on houses starting up in the late summer
early fall time period so uh our grading phasing would probably do grading overall in the whole site in two different phases roughly half this year and half in phase two and then phase three would have the grading done by the time we get into that and um basically go from there uh as far as uh you know
the the site itself or you know the homes itself um steve can talk to that from what they're looking to do if you have specific questions on that uh we do provide access to the north of the cda site right now they have a temporary access off denmark which will go away uh
once our roadway stubbed into their property which was kind of planned when they went through their pling process a year or so ago and now that we're here um this would take place one thing i'd like to say is in the original plat there was three parcels involved in that original permanent plat as the the current property owner purchased this
land they realized there was a fourth parcel and that was kind of a 2 and a half acre parcel up on the very northeast side that's the parcel that gave access all the way up to uh 220th street or ash avenue i guess ash street i should say um so that does run all the
way along the railroad tracks there and currently that is where the trail is being proposed to run basically from denmark avenue through our site all the way up there now longterm that poses some challenge with that location um we are going to obviously phase this trail
in uh there something you know we've talked with staff about but that area is wooded right now all the way along the railroad tracks and there's also kind of a drainage ditch that kind of in in that location if that trail was to be put there all those trees get cleared away which is really the natural buffer with
the railroad track there and that drainage that needs to be figured out how that drainage will work now obviously that'll be a future phase up along the railroad tracks so we don't necessarily need to worry about the long-term construction of that in phase one the bigger issue that we want to talk about tonight is a trail in the
north property line you know we had proposed at one time with staff doing a larger sidewalk within the project on the i think it's street a the east west one and then had not having that trail along the north property line and that would still continue to give access and
as i guess it's the turk property would develop at some point in the future we'd probably have a better way to relocate that and get that through there um i know steve could probably talk about you know from a housing standpoint um you know his thoughts on where they see that trail but um and i don't know if there's
a way to throw the map up there just so everyone's aware of where i'm talking but the trail is through here yeah through there it's not so bad as you get further to the east but up along the kind of western side you know adjacent to the you know
we got dakota electric's uh facility there and then the the town home site that's adjacent to us as well um you know we'd like to put some additional screening in there like pine trees and things of that nature with that trail we limit the ability to do that and we we'd
like to propose doing a larger sidewalk through the the street itself as it goes to the north and then at that point a trail could be you know rerouted you know along that eastern's property and up to 220 street in that park in that area um i don't know steve do you want to talk now on some things or do you
want to wait for questions or i'm sure okay good evening members of the planning commission i'm steve bono with capstone homes um we're working with uh john on this property um and i just wanted to say a couple things about the housing
type in case you're not familiar with it um capstone homes is a pretty large builder uh we're building communities all over the twin cities we develop them as well um we have this type of housing that we're showing tonight if you uh are interested in touring you'll be able to
see um it in a number of communities we're building it in uh andover st michael ramsey um elk river uh wisconsin we're actually putting it in sou cottage grove sou falls uh south dakota as well cottage
grove is probably the closest place um it's been very well received by the city i'd encourage you if you have any questions to contact uh city staff at cottage grove too we built a neighborhood there called settler's bluff and uh it was 150 of these town homes so it was very similar to this
style of community and size you you what kind of homes are these you said town homes um no single family homes single family okay sorry sorry i i may be misunderstood no i might have said the wrong thing did i say that yeah i'm sorry single family homes okay thank you and so it's at settller's bluff if you
want to tour it you'll see they're single family homes and then um the city did respond really well to it they uh this was one of the first large neighborhoods that we created and afterwards it was so successful at the city and with sales that we they
approved another one which is where the mississippi dunes golf course um is now being redeveloped and we're doing 180 more of them and so um it does hit it hits a price point that's really needed in the twin cities right now when we build uh basements on single family
homes those homes are now starting and we build all single family homes as well but those price points are starting at nearly $500,000 for like a multilevel split entry style home that's what we're building and this is a price point that
you know you can get in in the high 3s into like the 435 range and um and it's been i think the cities have looked at it as a nice alter i had town homes in my mind because it's a nice alternative to attached town homes like john was
saying on pieces of property um where it's zoned or it the zoning could allow for attached town homes they're saying "hey this uh single family product is amazing it acts really nice street appeal curb appeal and the market is
really uh they're loving it and uh just proven by sales but in all the cities that we're building in um we've never had any negative feedback and so i just wanted to mention a couple things about that um and then i just on john's comments on on the trail on the north
side we love trails trails give uh it's one of the first things that we'll put in in a community as well and i think the geometry of this neighborhood is uh is tight and it's restricted but so what's going to happen with so we have the trail loop on the south side that
you can see on the south side of the pond and then there's going going to be plenty of pedestrian traffic and the connection to the park on the northeast with the sidewalks and then the trail there could be a short segment of trail to the northeast but that trail on the north is right in the backyards of these houses
there is it's very limited back there and i think um it's a it creates a very difficult situation for single family homes i guess is what it comes down to and the the walkability without that trail is going to be in our opinion is going to
be very good especially at the trail we have a loop system plus we can get to the park to the northeast so i just wanted to mention that as well and i have if you have any questions about what we do or these other sites them here as well so thank you thank you
and i just have a a couple more quick comments um these lots are just so you know are very similar to the vita site that i worked on from a size standpoint and also the vermillion uh commons lar project they have that last phase which is a similar you know villa type of
product so it's something that has been done in farmington before um you know it is it is a popular type of you know residential structure right now and one other thing that steve didn't mention that we will be doing or that capstone will be doing as you go down the road from a visibility standpoint they
actually stagger their houses and they have it set up in a design standpoint where every house is up to 5t difference so one will be here the next one will be 2 and 1/2 ft the next one will be five the next one will be two and a half so it gives the appearance of a you know more of a meandering look especially when you got some of these streets that
are a little more straight so that is done for a a particular purpose to help the streetscape of this neighborhood so it's something that capstone does and and we you know will be incorporating as part of the overall you know approval of this project so good so if you have any other questions i guess i can answer
them as well i'm sure there'll be more all right stay available this is a public hearing has anybody got comments or questions regarding this preliminary plat if not commissioner snowc just a clarifying question on that the path that you're talking about on that
north side you're saying it's it's not a good fit there but will will you have that path there or will you are you talking about not having a path on that north side i'm just a little confused on your explanation so what we had proposed to the staff was we would do a larger than a normal sidewalk along that east
west road until we get over to that eastern part of the property and then we'd somehow tie that into a trail which would eventually extend further north up to 220th street there um so then it's not behind the houses it then it wouldn't be behind the houses there because you know with this property you
you have there's some challenges you know you've got the rail the railroad line on the east side you got dakota electric and they're basically outdoor storage area on the north and and then you got the the existing town homes that are being constructed right now on the kind of northwest side there which you
know obviously that's new residential so that's not as bad but the dakota electric site i'll be honest it's not pretty to look at necessarily so we're trying to do some extra screening in that area and there is a little um kind of little little larger area up in the one area there but we're our proposal
was to do that so we just wanted to bring that out we will putting trail along the denmark avenue which ties into the trail that'll go along the north side of the wetland south side of the pond and that'll connect in and long term um that's being kind of beefed up for emergency access uh purposes to the
back end of that development if something would happen up further in the project so and the city staff is supportive of the idea of coming through the sidewalks and then connecting up on the once you get to the outside of it uh staff was supportive of the trail in the location that's shown on the the
pluminary plat um that's where our park master plan shows trails in this particular location um and that was the recommendation from our park and rec department was to keep the trail on that northern end
okay commissioner bar um yeah just a couple questions i was going to ask about the trail too so i'm glad you asked about the mix now mitch what do you have an approximate square footage for the house plans that you plan on putting on here roughly show
number was it shows it's not it's not on there uh commissioner these house plans range we have uh the smallest version is about uh 15-,600 ft² and the largest version is about 2500 square feet okay
and given the current planning right now how much between homes space distance would you anticipate between houses yep the side setback five they're proposing five foot setbacks so you would have 10
if they go up to that five foot setback you'd have 10 ft in between okay okay and so with this with this product where i mentioned these other cities that is what we're doing uh and so if you choose to go look you'll see what what that feels like okay okay um yeah i guess the
only other question i had and tony this is maybe more for you is around the the cashl for the park was there a reasoning behind doing the cashing l versus an actual park in this area because knowing that area pretty well there isn't much down there for the way our park
ordinance is written is that we uh and it's a relatively new um updated ordinance is that um we've identified parks within a certain distance okay um this falls within that acceptable
distance of the westview acres park therefore we're not looking to acquire additional park land okay yep nope that makes sense that that works for me okay yeah i think that's all i have for now commissioner tesy um i'm not super comfortable with the the setbacks um not
meeting the typicals so that's surprising to me actually but um i'm interested to learn more about the settlers bluff and cottage grove and you're saying that these lot sizes are very similar yes commissioner they're the same so
it's a 40ft lot okay and it's a 30-foot product so the product is 30 feet wide the lot is 40 feet wide and there is it's five foot side setbacks yeah it just seems really tight and i'm just was wondering if there's any way we could improve that a little bit but um the
other question i have is with regard to the railroad track and the homes that butt up against that is there any sort of burm or screening planned uh there's no bm planned because of the grades and getting drainage and everything but there is screening planned um there is a
landscape plan that was submitted i did look at that i mean it's a couple of trees yeah so there'll be some trees that'll be put back there so that is what's being proposed that's all i have all right thank you commissioner could i say one thing about that so you're talking about uh the
tightness or the you know how close these houses are together when we came up with this product instead of we had as a company we're looking at either attached town homes or a smaller single family home and so when we have the
reason that we think it's a good fit and and i think that we've been given positive feedback on it is that these other cities they have the choice you can either do attached town homes at probably twice the density but if you're going to go to detached and it's going
to be a single family um product then you're going to have to have it tighter than a single a standard sing you know a large traditional single family home and lot and that's where i think the difference is so yes it is tighter um
but given that it's not an r1 zoning and it's not guided for that um that's where we see it's been successful okay and just uh one more comment on that trail because that trail on that north side is problematic for us we're just hopeful we can have that conversation with you
tonight i was asking john about how the park and wreck i don't know all the background of it so you'll have to correct me if i get anything wrong here but if when we were when he was originally proposing it if it was attached town homes when it's attached town homes instead of single family
like here if that was attached town homes because this is where the trail is you can see how tight it is um we we when we when we build attached town homes can get away with putting a trail right behind the unit it works
it's common area it's expected it's expected and now when it's single family you have no privacy you have your your you have the roadway in the front and the back and if we had more space on this overall property to work with i'm sure we'd be able to spread it out more but that's just kind of the
circumstances thank you um sorry one other question with regard to the railroad track any plan for additional sound insulation in those homes that but up to the railroad track not we have not considered that at this time and in mississippi dunes it's called
mississippi landing in cottage grove we also back up to a railroad track exactly like this and um it was never brought up we had not um it's not a high-speed rail system it is probably similar to this where it's about the same amount of uh
trains that go by but we have not done that the so we have one side that backs up to the railroad tracks and then the other side backing up to the tight trail is sort of the other is what it is but okay all right that's
it i'm i'm going to come back to the railroad tracks okay yep you know me yep i'm going to start just with an explanation first and tony read it at the end and again i i mentioned in our last public hearing that a lot of the
plats we get now are puds and and this is what i was referring to and this was for an r2 that last one happened to be an r1 but and tony used the the term flexibility request which means modifications in my book um and so you
see the different modifications that a pub asks for that's what farmington and and a lot or most cities have been dealing with lately so this it's not uncommon i just want you to let you know that actually i'm familiar with this property i didn't realize that it went
all the way to to ash or 220th i really didn't um and for a little history years ago um it was actually a request in here for a commercial site cuz there used to be a railroad stub that used to go right through there
right right on that curve uh uh railroad line and they were going to do i i think at the time and tony maybe you remember if you were around then it i don't know that i was around i think it was the um playground out out out big playground equipment and it never did come through
and but they were going to utilize the railroad spur and all that but so i'm glad it's being used i am familiar because i worked in that vicinity for a lot of years um as far as the plat um and i used to hunt back there wet so i i
understand all the dirt work you got to do and slab on grades and that's reasonable but you know we've been dealing with smaller lots like this for years i'm not uncomfortable with that um and i'll go back to what christa was
saying you know um you don't you're concerned about privacy with the with the uh trail in the backyards and i agree with you i wouldn't want a trail in my backyard when i'm sitting out on the the back deck or patio or even the backyard and people walking by and i mean i get them all the time in the
front yard um so you know if that's an option we could possibly look at that cuz i agree with it but i'm in a development now that the train goes through and and boy the residents that are right next to the tracks they sure have a heartache and that noise and and
yeah they stop there and it's kind of a sighting place for railroads but there's a lot of trains that go down those tracks each and every day um if there's something you could do to as christa was alluding to to mitigate um some of the inconvenience i mean you guys will be
here at the beginning but you know when that phase because that's phase three if i understand it right you know you're going to be almost out of here and then you you know then the city's going to hear about because the city heard about the residents where i live too and they
just don't like that train noise and and i we just had another platin here and we're going to have it again later tonight that butts up to the railroad tracks on the north side and and we talked the same thing with him last month and we'll talked the same thing again to him tonight but i don't have a
problem with this plat i think it's fine i think it'll work i think the uh pub is listed the things that you know the the flexible requests or the modifications are fine um the smaller lots the you know the width between the houses that's just the way things are going um tony if
i kind of agree with some of the commissioners and the developer if the staff and the park and wreck could maybe look at modifying that trail in the back um and then the other question i got is are you comfortable with the preliminary
plat going through without is maybe i'll ask a question is a park and wreck comfortable with the preliminary plat going through without what's known to go to the north with the trail system um i can tell you that the the park and rec director would like to see that
trail continue on the north end um we can certainly work with the developer and the park and recck commission um to try to come to some sort of consensus one way or the other prior to the initial final plat i would appreciate that and i'll tell you westview park is
a bit of a john for these people too so i mean that's okay it's right at the it's right at the edge of the acceptable distance so so that's and i again i'm comfortable with it i understand they got to be slab on grade
um i don't the other questions let me see um yeah i i didn't realize that that went through and i know where the turk property is too and i don't know what their plans are but that's that a-frame right yeah it is yeah yeah and the other
one i had was again the railroads cuz chris and i seem to get that every every meeting so again i would i would support sending this on as long as again as tony mentioned he works with the developer and the park and wreck again to see if there can't be some kind
of conclusion to it um i almost like it that if you have some kind of buffer with some of those industrial at least the one to the north and whatever that may be in the future maybe they got room then to do the buffer and do the trees and yeah what i
would suggest then uh mr chair is if this does get a favorable recommendation to move forward it's maybe adding a second condition that we work with the developer and park and rec commission regarding that trail location
okay prior to submittal of the initial final plat yeah that'd be all right gone steve you got anything else um just uh one thing i was going to ask your neighborhood where the trains are what
what did they do in that neighborhood for screening was it just some trees too or what was there do you know it's a bm they do have a burm uh with some plantings on the top um i think in hindsight it probably
wasn't enough um that is a active track um and it's not a quiet zone so they idle there's a dual track too that where they sit and idle um and rest so then you have the up yeah
um so that's also um a problem too but yeah and i mean with ash street being where it's located just north of here they are going to blow the horn right as the trains go by the development yeah so i mean we're glad we have the railroad going through our community but these are things that at least from the
commission and from our city council side and staff side we want to work in the front of if we can try to remedy them before it becomes a resident issue yep and we have looked at all this stuff and we understand you know the concerns with that and that's part of the reason
why we came up with this you know layout you know with these lots it's it's obviously we take into account the dirt balance and things like that we have to have a pond big enough to make this site work from an economic standpoint and secondly we've also that's why we've talked with steve um about the the price
point of where this house will be versus you know if we tried to come in and put in an $800,000 single family home it's not going to sell you know it's just through the location so um that's why we're doing what we're doing in this in this location to to make something that can work and it's we're fine with the
housing we're fine with everything at least i am um you know just get some of those um they're more park and wreck than they are but i mean the park and gives you know their recommendation to the council and then we look at it on the plat give our recommendation to the council and we just want to make sure
everybody's on the same page before we go into final and i think we're okay you know i don't know what you guys do from a disclosure standpoint to potential buyers but that all that stuff would be notified of it and sure um be aware you know prior to
buying the property obviously so anything else from our audience anything else from the commission is commission ready to close a public hearing if they are i'll look for a motion to close a public hearing i'll make a motion we have a motion is there a second second motion in a second to
close a public hearing call the roles please snowback yes bird yes pesky yes rody yes in front of the commission then is a recommendation to our city council on the dakota meadows plenary plat and pud contingent upon two contingencies
the satisfaction of all engineering comments requirements and two what we just talked about the developer and the park and wreck um come to some kind of agreement on the trail location on the on the what i'll call the north side of the property is there anything else the
commission wanted to add staff comfortable with that yes sir all right then i'd look for a motion on the recommendation to our city council i'll make a favorable motion have a motion for a favorable recommendation with the two contingencies is there a second
second motion in second any more discussion if not call the role please berg yes tesy yes rody yes snow yes all right thank you gentlemen thank you all right with that then we're going to go into our discussion items the first
discussion items uh we've been working on a uh draft beekeeping ordinance and this is again a discussion only you going to take it from there thank you chair planning commission members uh yes as you mentioned um we've been working on uh drafting a potential
beekeeping ordinance um since last fall um earlier this year uh staff um brought back a bit of a comparison chart of surrounding communities and um kind of the ordinance requirements um that those communities have um so tonight uh we do
have a draft ordinance uh for the commission's review um the attached draft ordinance is modeled after feedback uh from the planning commission and the ordinance from the city of egan um highlights of this ordinance include a definition section um an administrative permit to be approved by
staff uh education requirements including proof of completion of a beekeeping basics course or three or more years of beekeeping experience um only allowed to be in the rear yard um setbacks of 20 ft from lot lines and then 30 ft from adjacent decks patios
swimming pools or other outdoor living space um on adjacent properties um a flyway barrier is required if kept within 25 ft of a lot line or 35 ft from any of those adjacent um decks patios swimming pools or other outdoor living spaces um this barrier must run parallel
to the lot line for at least 10 ft in both directions in front of the hive entrance um inspections will be required upon issuance of the permit and each time a renewal permit is received um hives shall be kept in good condition colonies shall be continuously managed to prevent swarming and then on
termination permits will be terminated if expired and no renewal permit was received a violation of the ordinance or per or permit is occurring um a failure to allow an inspection or transfer of ownership of the property and then lastly if a public nuisance is occurring
um hives that aren't removed after a permit is terminated uh will be deemed a public nuisance and may be abated by the city if um the property owner refuses to remove uh the hive uh so staff is requesting um feedback uh from the planning commission
on attached draft ordinance including any additions or edits um we do have nick uh i guess we'll hear our resident beekeeping expert here to provide uh feedback as well too um so with that i welcome any comments or edits can i open
it up to our expert first mr gessel would you like to address the commission have you had an opportunity to review this i i have thank you nick kessle 1981 dearbrook path uh i had the opportunity to review both the draft ordinance i made some suggestions along the way um
as well as i watched your guys' last meeting and so uh kind of wellversed in where you guys are at um there is uh probably one particular thing from uh my suggestion as to where you landed today um and that is related to and i'll use
the examples before me um lots that abut that are either vacant water or agricultural we live in a unique community where all of our communities are being built around ponds agricultural space and things of the like um i think we're missing
potentially an opportunity to allow uh closer abutment to those vacant spaces that allow for more space in the yard and further space away from your neighbors i'll use my home as an example i have a large pond in the backyard i can move my hive further from my neighbors if i'm allowed to move closer
to that pond as an example um and so just something to consider with overall placement um the only other piece that i would also ask is related to the flyaway barrier i want to make sure there's not or ask are there competing
ordinances is there any ordinance related to fence construction that's going to prevent the construction of a flyaway barrier because it's going to look weird um just use me if i have it 20 feet from either side and then i have a 20 foot fence in the middle of my
yard just something to potentially think about and i don't know what the ordinance are on fencing today so that may compete okay those are my two questions can i ask you a favor can you stand there in case we got questions
and absolutely staff has questions you don't mind it bear with our commission expert commissioner berg um i i would like to hear a little bit more about what you mean when you say that the 20 ft from each side and then the
weirdness of a 20 foot fence in the middle so if i'm 20 foot from the lot line my lot size is 75 ft wide right if i'm in 20 feet from my neighbors and potentially 30 feet from their deck i'm nearly square in the middle of my
backyard uh and then i'm going to construct a fence 10 feet either direction in the middle of my backyard i i just i understand the reason for that particular statement uh the functionality of it though doesn't
compute like it just it wouldn't be functional to even make sense so if if you can't meet those requirements um i i would i would assume there's there's got to be some other way to look at that um because you're going to have competing complaints then that your
neighbors building a fence in the middle of their backyard understood would we have any sort of opportunity for a variance request with this ordinance um pertaining to fencing requirements so in the situation that he's describing
would we have the option to request a variance so if a homeowner was in that scenario how would they go about requesting a variance to the ordinance for that strange property situation that that might occur on sure just to make
sure i'm understanding correctly you're referring to the fence or the setback from the pond not the pond the fence right so if if he is 20 ft from each property line and then now because of the flyway portion has to build a fence in the middle of the yard right sure
then how would we get around that type of situation sure would we just deny the request altogether or is there a variance opportunity we i would rather try to address it in the ordinance versus trying to do it as
individual variances okay um so i mean if there's an opportunity for us to try to massage this to make that more palatable i'd rather do that versus us approving an ordinance and then two months later we're approving a variance
or asking for a variance um i'd rather not do that um so maybe we can work with um mr gastel to maybe try to find something that's maybe a little more palatable
i do want to point out too that um we'd be supportive of let's say the property already has a six-foot privacy fence around their lot lines that they're satisfied with the barrier requirements already because no matter what to get to that adjacent property the bees are
going to have to go up no matter what so um i guess there might be a little confusion that i don't think we would require the barrier to be right next to the bees maybe in certain cases if the home like i said already has that privacy fence on their lot line then they would be good
to be functional just to be clear it has to be within six feet of the front entrance of the hive to be functional to serve as a flyaway barrier otherwise it's just a fence and it it'll keep people away um but it doesn't serve the function of a flyaway barrier at
that point um one suggestion may be rather than requiring the wall to extend 10 feet on either side you instead amend the ordinance to uh surround the hive and by surround the hive and other ordinance that means cover three sides
um so essentially you would have a an l co v or a c that the bees would have to they can't go left or right they have to go up and then that serves the same function uh as a flyaway barrier you're forcing that upward motion versus outward
so you you as an expert or you know just a keeper you okay you you'd be more comfortable with that than when was proposed and because that seems like it's a lot much more doable uh you know there's there's pre-built shed structures things like that that are
commercially available for that reason um and they're a lot less of an eyesore okay i'll be like i want to keep bees but if my neighbor did that and put up the fence i i wouldn't be supportive okay uh so i just i look at it from both sides of the fence trying to be fair
we're trying to too um again this is a draft we're this isn't anything that we're ready to send to our council yep and so we're trying to get everybody's input as we can jared did you understand i finally understood it now when he explained it with the three side and
it's got to be within six feet so i mean a little more detail other communities may not be that detailed but are you fine with that or at least consider it and then research a little more i yeah i'd be supportive of that i think um yeah since this is a new thing i
think that would be you know a little more stringent on it and we could definitely yeah so too um might as well do that right off the bat then you know not be less again what i mentioned to the commission is start here and we can always move it there but if we don't
start there we're going to wish we would have i think at some point all right andy i'm sorry i cut you off no no you're good i i think those are my big questions so i'm good yeah christa uh yeah i i think this looks good i appreciate all the work and education
i've received on bees and beekeeping um i agree with your comment though based on the way your yard is set up and the setbacks and you have like a natural buffer behind your home with a pond i i don't know if there's a way to word it that if if you have that condition you could actually set it to the property
line where there's nothing behind you um but wetland of a distance i don't i don't know if there's a way we can reward that or add that but similar language in surrounding areas classifies it as an empty agricultural or watershed
that exactly so i don't know if there's a way we could add that definitely think there's language we could come up with to provide an exemption from that specific lot line set back that type of lot line yeah because i mean i get when you've got a home yeah behind you you're
gonna have to basically set it set it in the center of your yard but if there's nothing behind you that makes sense so well then it it allows for me to get further away from my neighbors exactly and that's good and i understand land can be developed not a pond behind you but land agriculture land to the side or
behind can be developed so you know at some point you that may end up being moved correct if if and when it's developed just so that if we address that sure and i know there is language in other communities that address undeveloped land and that when it does
get developed then the permit has to come into compliance okay um with it um that's also language too that we can look at adding for undeveloped land rather than like a storm water pond that's just logical i probably didn't need to say it but okay anything else no
and thank you those are two questions i had so i appreciate your work and i'm excited to see it one just interesting question removal um similar to you and i worked out is there what is considered a satisfactory
removal period um and is there a way to insert that language as well because removal uh i think originally i had seen 5 days which is uh not possible to make plans and so can could we please add something in related to a satisfactory
removal period has to be within two weeks 30 days something along those lines so that like in my particular situation when you first reached out to me last fall um to have it gone in 24 or 48 hours for this type of thing just isn't possible uh so what's what could
be added that was reasonable because you had to find a place to put it is that correct i just can't get rid of it and move it somewhere else you have to make you have to like i had to reach out to the community i ended up connecting with brand farms and moving out there um but i got lucky uh and so there's going to
be a lot of people that are potentially in a pinch of removal uh and i just i think we'd miss the boat if we just said removal in general and then you have an upset day that requires it gone within 48 hours and it's just it's not feasible
sure um so i did want to mention too we before we brought this ordinance we had the city attorney's office look over it first before we wanted to bring something official to you guys um this was something or this language was added the 5 days permit termination that's
definitely something i can reach back out to them on that and see if we can add more flexibility on that um time frame for removal um but that was something that the city's attorney's office um added in there to that
ordinance was the 5 days to remove yeah i think we can work on that yeah is there any other similar related to animal removal be it farm animals stuff like that that you could duplicate uh not specifically
no think of off the top of my head but we can certainly look into that though sure just trying to keep things uniform this actually might be more difficult than a farm animal to remove i think you know if you got a whole bunch of hives to move try to find a home for
them mhm it it won't be easy i wouldn't think but yeah yeah it's it's not uh you know it's a unique hobby uh fortunately there's a lot more beekeepers in farmington than you would uh anticipate or even know about i don't know uh and so there's actually some large
commercial farms within our city limits that exist today uh that do keep bees um and so uh you know to to that point you know we have a unique situation where if you you know know and have mentors in the area you can figure something out
but uh you know there's ultimately going to be a pinch for somebody that's not connected in the community um to be able to do something like that so just trying to be considerate to potential future issues got to rely on the buzz in your
community exactly right don't let your head couple other questions you guys asked why two hives uh in your last meeting two hives is uh for symmetrical nature of beekeeping uh so you understand if one hive is ill versus the other it's just good beekeeping practice
you have something to measure against uh so you look at collection things of that nature um there was also a question about bees in the winter bees largely hibernate during the winter uh they will still maintain and clean their hive but they don't leave the hive very much um you can certainly bring them inside like
you had stated um or uh there are several examples of ways to maintain them outdoors but for the large majority of the minnesota year uh the bees are you know hibernating or or living within their hive themsself and so this really becomes a four or five month issue uh of
the year probably even less um so things to consider as far as overall impact uh there was also a statement in there related to nucleus nucleus is how you bring your bees home um and or foster additional hive expansion so if you have a hive die you can split a hive and
start at what's called a nucleus colony that's why that's also written within the ordinance those things are related to just overall good beekeeping standards um and i think that was the majority of your guys's question but um i did also offer to jared uh to bring in some things uh if you guys had continued
curiosity um i can obviously do a showand tell session for you guys as well so depending on what you guys want to learn uh and or what you want to do i'm certainly here for it um if you offered can i a thought doesn't
have to do it but when we have the public hearing for the ordinance you know that's usually when it's if we get residents here you know if you could be around for that if we can try to work around your schedule um and it's just something that uh um
you're well spoken on it uh you know a lot about it um and if it's a show and tell we're not going to move it out of the room here and i don't don't know if i want to call any of bees in here but i bring an empty one okay um but that our residents may have some comments or
questions for you too sure so we appreciate it and i again the commission's asked the great questions jared's done a great job putting it together working with you and we again as a resident certainly appreciate your commitment and help with this and uh we
wish you well and um i guess i at this point i just suggest staff keep working on it come up with the final one and we'll go from there incorporate what mr guess and the commissioners mentioned tonight and we'll look at it then
perfect we'll do all right thank you yeah thank you very much all right we'll move into our last discussion item this is harris property concept plan um lenar and mr trosky's with us again you must like this
community good glad to have you here all right all right uh yes lenar is requesting the review of a revised uh concept plan uh for the property generally known as the harris property
uh as the commission will recall at the last month's uh meeting you did uh review a previously uh submitted site plan the property is located directly south of the meadow subdivision uh consists of two parcels um totaling uh
153 acres uh these two parcels were annexed in 2022 as part of the incorporation of empire township as a city uh the parcels contain approximately 20 acres of wetland and 3 acres of flood plane from the north pre
tributary uh the site is bisected by two natural gas pipelines and the union pacific rail line is adjacent to the east side of this site as well uh this is just a overall uh picture of the concept plan as submitted by
lenar uh the concept plan shows a total of 297 single family lots lot widths range from 55 ft wide up to 75 ft and the breakdown is uh there's 168 of the 55 foot wide lots 124 of the 65 and then
five of the 75 foot wide lots which are technically shoreland lots uh the minimum lot depth proposed is 120 ft proposed setbacks front yard setback of 20 side interior six side corner 20 and
rear yard setback of six uh as i had mentioned at uh the last meeting in march the five lots shown in the shoreland of the north creek tributary these five lots are required to have minimum lot width of 75 ft and impervious surface coverage on these
lots cannot exceed 25% of the lot area and as i mentioned last week that's impervious surface not building coverage so that takes into account everything from driveways to concrete patios all of that so it is a little different than
our typical requirement of building coverage so it is much more restrictive uh as far as the comprehensive plan and zoning again this is all review from last month but i feel it's important to to go through it again uh the properties are zoned and
comprehensively guided agricultural uh reszone of the properties to an r2 uh zoning which is our low medium density residential would be required uh the development would also be processed as a pod to address the 55 55 foot wide lots
uh typically those would be a 60 foot wide uh standard comprehensive plan amendment would also be required uh there would be three basic three basic amendments that would be required land use guidance change from agricultural to low medium
density residential uh incorporate the properties within the the musa or metropolitan urban service area and the last one is to place the properties within a development staging time frame of 2020 to 2030 as far as parks and trails uh this
revised concept does have a 11 11.8 acre park in the northwest corner of the concept plan uh that's the acceptable location um that the park and recck commission has found for uh this uh site um a trail corridor will have to
be provided as part of this development for the county greenway uh the city is currently working with dakota county on a preferred alignment uh for the greenway trails uh through this area uh the location of the trail may impact the the overall layout of this site um but
that's something we will work with um the developer and the county if this moves forward transportation uh the plan shows the extension of both delwood avenue and dearbrook path south uh from the mystic miles neighborhood uh diamond path will
also need to be extended south uh and connect into this development uh the concept plan does show three road stubs to the west that would eventually extend out to diamond path uh staff is suggesting that uh at least two of the
two of these three stubs would need to be extended to connect into diamond path um as i mentioned last month uh this would help ensure circulation in and out of this development uh and provides adequate means of access from emergency
services and and also divert some of the traffic from going directly through the mystic meadows uh development uh the road configuration has been changed uh from the concept plan that the commission reviewed last month uh those changes include the
northeast portion of the development was uh fairly isolated in that previous uh concept plan uh this revised plan now shows an east west connection across the wetlands um along with a southern access into this area as well and then the
other significant change is uh in regards to deerbrook path uh if you recall uh in the previous concept the dearbrook path was basically a through street all the way through this development to the southern boundary uh
with this proposed um revised site plan uh deerbrook does get extended south but then makes a 90° turn uh towards the west uh and would eventually connect into diamond path so uh they did uh revise that uh as part of
the the comments that they did here last month uh the action that's requested this evening is just to review the the revised site plan provide any feedback to staff and the developer regarding that site plan so mr troski is back with us you have
anything to add to the staff report thanks tony steve drosski linar good to be back feels like we're here once a month which i like so we really took your comments to heart last month it's a very challenging site as you can see it's very chopped up into little
segments there so it it was kind of challenging for us to work with our engineer to figure out something that would provide a yield that makes the project move forward but also take into account the great feedback that we got last month so before you is what we've
come up with happy to take comments or questions tony did a great job kind of going over the changes i'd like to keep it on screen so we can kind of digest it i think what we heard or what i heard most last month was that we didn't want
that long straight north south street that people could use as a racetrack heading north that was my main takeaway so what we tried to do was say how can we have north south connectivity but eliminate that racetrack as as it was called so that's how we came up with the
90 degree bend there to the west and then may i approach this it's hard to talk a math about a map to it so we had this one come down so there's a t there and then up in mystic meadows there's a t right there so people are going to
have to wiggle and waggle and jog to go up that way so our hope is they just go straight out that street right there which i think is the hope of the commission and the neighbors to the north another item that we took really to heart was the lack of connectivity here in the northeast and the southeast
so what we try to do is create a road that can kind of go around the whole thing now it's challenging because we have wetlands we have two pipelines we have a whole bunch of things that we have to work for that's why you see it kind of go back
and forth like that but we think this provides much greater connectivity through the site so like we always tell commissions and councils we're learning too as we go through this it really takes you know our engineers our folks at lar and then the city folks who who
live and breathe this area every day to make a project successful so happy to take any initial feedback you have on the plan well thank you and thank you for modifying it did it uh quicker than i had anticipated but i appreciate that um
atson tonight is commissioner windshuttle he had a lot of comments on it i uh you know we'll miss his comments but we'll start with commissioner tesy yeah i think uh thank you for going back and listening to our comments and applying those comments to this new
revised plan i appreciate it uh i think it's a huge improvement over what we saw last month um taking dearbrook that that main if we're going to call it a racetrack or a raceway so to speak um and and really kind of forcing it to make a turn what i love about this is
there's kind of this ring road that kind of goes throughout the community and it creates little hubs of neighborhoods like in the northeast and then in the souththeast and then in the south so i i really enjoy this and based on
um the packet as far as the roads or the connector roads to diamond path we're saying that there's two correct that is staff's recommendation correct and then it would i mean i'm assuming most likely it would be that north um
and then middle connector to diamond path is what that would be the most logical most logical you show us on the map what she's saying what you will what you guys point i i mean that's what i envisioning right and the third one will be there stubbed
for eventually somewhere down the future yeah so it's further south but diamond path is that collector it should have been it's engineered to be that collector of significant vehicle traffic so i like this new plan a lot so
tony can i ask you a question about diamond path yes sir are you familiar with the that road and where it may come out at some point in the future i am can you explain that yes uh the plan is is that that road would extend south and
connect into uh aken road just north of the uh bridge yeah um and then aken road at least back in the day if you will uh aken road would be culde-saced off at
that and um but that's at least what was planned years ago so i think you just called me old old cuz i remember that that's i was here when that discussion was had too so that is exactly aging myself that is what i recall also yeah
you're getting there would that be would that be east of the lutheran church there it would be south yeah just south coming in yeah right there yeah yeah it' be that curve right in there though andy yeah right there y just south of the lutheran yep yeah it would curve in and
connect into aken okay all right sorry about that chris did you have anything else that was it and that new the new connector road up by um the north eastern part that's a feasible road to go through the wetlands there and that's going to be i mean that's really nice
it's going to connect where it wasn't before i mean there would end up having to be some wetland mitigation done as part of that but boy that's a great addition i think so appreciate you adding that in there because it it connects everything it connects the flow of the whole community but other other than that i have no questions thank you
andy yeah i i would just be echoing my fellow commissioners here i i really like the the changes you've made i think it addresses a lot of the concerns that we had last time um so yeah i i like what you've done here yeah steve you you listened i appreciate
that um again bill had a lot of concerns you addressed that with that road on the northeast corner there and getting all those residents out in a timely manner um i'll ask you the same question i asked you last month with the staff
recommendations is this project feasible i'd respectfully request that we have one road out to diamond path and i ask you with the staff recommendations is this plat feasible i can't answer that because i i really think they're they're digging in pretty deep on that so i'm
just letting you know ahead of time so there's a couple issues as to why i can't answer that okay as i stand here you don't need to then okay all right i don't i don't want to put you on the spot i'm just again um i'd like the commission to know if you if you'd let me oh that's fine if you want to i
didn't i thought maybe you would just pull it out of you no no this is you know this is an open dialogue we don't want to keep things secret we need your approval uh you know to move forward so why not be open and honest about the conversation so the first is we have
authority or rights from the neighboring property owner to acquire one right of way we have that i i don't know if it's under contract or or whatnot but we don't have two so i can't commit to we have an agreement land that you know we may not have the ability to acquire the
second thing is there's a significant financial cost to building road that you can't sell houses on and so when you have a road of say 1.2 1.3 million dollars per segment going out there that's a significant cost and then you
have to spread that out through all the other homes in the community so doing one of them i think we can pencil it out i know we can pencil it out doing two of them i'm not the the person that makes that decision so
i'd welcome a conversation with tony and staff i i think i'm getting the general feeling of how that's going to go so you know i'd have to take this back to to the office and and talk to the folks about how we can make it work okay and i
didn't mean to put you on the spot i apologize for that if i did not at all um i you know i think it's a reasonable plat um again this is a concept plan so we'd be looking for a preliminary and some of those things will have to get worked out then at that point okay so i
timing on this we need a comprehensive plan amendment we need an eaw review longer than we'd like yeah and the comp plans will take a little bit of time too so yep well and typically the m council won't review a comprehensive plan amendment if
there's an environmental review underway on a property so so we're talking months down the road yes sir yeah okay and that's fine i it gives you time i appreciate you being uh quick if uh commissioner winshuttle has anything he'll comment sign of significance he'll write them through staff and they'll get
them to you okay were you going to ask about the trains oh yeah yeah i left it for you that's a theme tonight you start i i thought we addressed it last meeting again excuse me we have a a railroad on
the east side of your property and you were in the discussion that we had an hour ago on that and you know we have again we're glad the railroad goes to our community but when we have a plat that butts up against it we need to protect the future residents and i know our city council would want to do the
same thing so have you do you have a plan for the the lots on the east side of your project we do uh what we've done with this i think i mentioned last month is we pushed everything to the west 100 ft to give a little bit more
breathing room and then i'm not a building a construction expert but there's certain types of glass that are sound dampening and we've used that in several communities around the area so that's certainly on the table
okay we'll raise it i'm sure uh with commissioner tesy and and if you know she reminds me i but if i remember then we'll bring it up again at preliminary and final so all right so and it'll be a few months so i'll i'll forget by then but yeah remember all right anything
else from the commission anything else from staff on this i have nothing sir steve we appreciate it good luck and uh we'll wait to hear back through when you get done with the environmental and when we start seeing the comp plans okay can't get rid of me i'll be back all right that concludes our agenda was
there anything else from staff nothing nothing from you anything else from the commission no if not i'll remind our residents and viewers our next regular meeting is may 13th and with that i'd look for a motion to adjurnn i'll make a motion have a motion is there a second a second motion and second all in favor
say i i we're officially adjourned thank you everybody [Music]
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