Hello. Good evening. I'd like to call the February 5th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting to order. If you could all rise and pledge of allegiance so much. First item on the agenda. Ericson, would
you please take the role? >> Ensley >> here. Trafice >> here. Kuza >> here. >> Zimmer >> here. >> Ike >> here. >> Sweeny >> here. >> Swson >> here. >> Very good. Next item on the agenda is the approval approval of the minutes. Does anyone have any changes to the
January 15th planning commission meetings meeting minutes as always good staff work. We will let it stand as it is. Uh do we have any announcements tonight? Um from Miss Goodro. >> Thank you. Um the only announcement is
the next planning commission meeting is scheduled for March 5th, 2026. The February 19th meeting has been cancelled. Thank you very much. Uh next item on the agenda is uh for the
city of Lakeville and it is Cedar Avenue land use and market analysis and we will have Miss Goodro come up and uh get us started. >> Thank you chair, members of the commission. um community community development staff can't talk today um has been working with a consulting group
TKDA to evaluate land uses along the Cedar Avenue corridor between 185th and 200th. In the 2040 comprehensive plan, this area was identified for um potential BRT from Apple Valley to extend into Lakeville. And with that um
land use was intensified quite a bit. So, if you look at the land use plan, there's special area um or station areas that were called out um and just a lot of intense development um from a mixeduse standpoint, commercial standpoint, as well as higher density
residential. With the BRT no longer included in the 2050 um Met Council imagine 2050 transportation policy plan, we wanted to reassess from a market basis standpoint what ultimately this
land use should be considered for as we look towards preparing our 2050 comprehensive plan. So a market study was done as part of this project and land use analysis. We also met with um several of the larger property owners within the area um who um did concur
with um their proposed land use. We are not proposing making any changes now. We will incorporate these findings into the land use um and comprehensive plan work that we're going to be kicking off very soon this year. No action is required of
the commission um tonight, but we would like to take your input um if you have any questions as well as input. And again, we will include this analysis as we work towards our 2050 update for the next year and a half. I'd like to invite
um Samantha Kennedy McKini um from TKDA. She will go through a presentation and um the study was included in the packet as well. >> Hi, good evening. Thank you for coming and just announce your name for the >> Yeah, thank you. Uh Samantha McKin with
KDA. Uh, thank you for having me tonight. We're excited to present all of the hard work that we've been working over the last few months. So, uh, we got a brief agenda here for the presentation. I want to quickly go over the study purpose and our process of how we've came to our findings,
review some existing conditions that we discovered in the project area, talk about the final concept, and then have any questions you may have. So the purpose of the study really was to provide a vision for what could the market support out here and how can we
help that information align with future comp plan decisions. So in order to achieve that we started with a market analysis. This is one data point. It's not the findings of the entire concept but is it gives us a little bit more insight into if we were to ignore all
regulatory things that need to happen which is obviously your job to make sure you implement uh what could happen out there. what is the market telling us about how could we develop this uh as robust or as quickly as possible. We looked at the existing policies. So we did not ignore your job in this whole
process and then combined them all together, worked with the city staff quite a bit, talked to the property owners and then developed the small area plan in that process. So I want to briefly touch on some of the existing conditions that we discovered because uh the site says a
lot about what uh we can and cannot do out here, right? So there's physical barriers, there's also opportunities that it can provide in that process as well. So starting with transportation and infrastructure, uh this map shows what the existing conditions look like out there. So as you know, Cedar Avenue
is a county-owned roadway that has the highest level of traffic. There are some minor crashes along there, but nothing super concerning from a traffic analysis standpoint. Uh there are some east west connections, but they're relatively limited. So, uh you can see in the center of the site there, there's a
thoroughfare, but it ends um on the edge there. And then at the southern boundary, 200 as well. Those have lower ADT, so lower traffic volume. You'll see a dashed line at the top for 185th Street. That is a county roadway as well. There's a long planned county road
connection to make a better east west connection all the way through. Uh that study has not started with the county, but they are planning to pursue that further. It's worth noting that study has been on the books since 2006. So we don't know exactly what's going to come out of that, but we do know that the county desires to have a stronger east
west connection on the north end of the property boundaries through here. Uh utilities are limited through the area. But we do know through all of the previous efforts that city staff has done to identify how to develop through here that the utilities will need to stub in from the southeast connection of the project area as well.
Looking at the environmental context, uh this tells us a lot about how we could develop maybe a little bit more thoughtfully how we could use the site to develop in a way that meets the city's long-term goals as well. Uh there's some rolling topography out here. So you can see the topography map
on there and the contours. The blue lines show existing waterways or green corridors. So, they're not necessarily like formal creeks, but they're low-lying areas that exist there today. And ideally, we can use these as to our advantage when developing and not have
to completely ruin all of the, you know, the flow that's happening through there as well. So, one of the goals that we developed in the process was to make sure that we saw these as assets in the plans and that we recognized them for being important in development and that we uh respect them as they are.
We also took a look at the development context. So, uh, you know, all around the project area, there have been recent devel, excuse me, developments that have occurred. Um, I'll point out a couple of them. On the north end of the site is Voyager Farms and Glacier Creek. Those have single family and detached town
homes. On the very southeast corner, uh, within the project boundary is Amelia Meadows that has some single family. Uh there's town homes that are sort of on the southern boundary and then a small single family extension on the west side as well. So there's all this pressure kind of happening around our project
area kind of encroaching into it but nothing has formally happened uh other than Amelia Meadows inside of it today. So the market study uh this is important to know for context that this is again just a data point for us. Uh the market study explores what could happen out
here if we were to just let the market take over. So we use that information just to help inform our decisions. It helped guide some of the densities and the placement of the developments. It also gave us an insight to some of the challenges for development out here as well.
So to do that um we want to make sure that it provided a basis solely on the economic and market conditions and then we applied it to the city policies and made a path forward that. So again that provides a guide guidance for us. It does not provide the firm direction only because there are policies that we want
to make sure we align the plan with city vision as well. So I've got some highle overview here. In the report there is the full analysis. So if you wanted to really get into the weeds about what this says that is an appendex that's included in there. Um but the purpose like I said is to
provide guidance to the larger planning efforts. How he did this was that uh he did some site analysis, looked at the same conditions we were looking at, did some demographic and economic analysis, reviewed the competitive market, and then looked at some forecasting and came
up with a summary of recommendations. So, uh with that, the considered uses from the market study for development included single family homes, town homes and twin homes, multif family apartments, residents, I'm sorry, restaurants and retail space, and then other commercial land uses.
Uh from the site analysis perspective, it's important to identify the strengths and weaknesses, right? So from a strength perspective, there's large parcels out here. That's really great for development. That makes it more enticing for developers to come in because they can, you know, package something together. Uh Cedar Avenue is a
really great northwest connection. Uh drawing people from Apple Valley and central Twin Cities area. New housing growth has been really strong in the community. So there's a lot of demand in the city of Lakeville, as you are all intimately aware of. Uh there's also some strong retail districts north of
the project area as well that can help be a draw for certain types of land uses and the employment districts to the south some of the industrial area can be really great too for helping draw people into there to the space and it also is a high daytime employment which is great. Um some of the weaknesses so in the
short term there are no strong east west thoroughares and that's really challenging for development for capturing for specific types of uses. So commercial development likes to have strong connections from other places and so without that strong east west connection yet built with 185th street
it's difficult to capture people to this area specifically from like Farmington to your east. Uh there are some connections that need to be built out in order to do that. There is also a pretty strong retail presence just north of the project area and that is capturing a lot
of the commercial demand in the area right now. Over the long term, the large industrial district and airport to the south may create a physical barrier as well. Sometimes that can limit what can develop in the project area. So all of this information got distilled into this table which gave us
recommendations for how uh we this could develop based off of existing demands and existing conditions. So this is for like the next from from now until 2040 what could happen out here. It is worth noting that none of these scenarios show
a anticipate a full buildout of all of the parcels based off of the existing demand today. Now, that being said, markets change very quickly. What is existing today in five to 10 years could very well change. So, this is the snapshot of what we know right now. Um,
and with that, these are the recommendations that our market analysis came up with for how to look at land use through here. So single family homes and detached town homes were grouped together at about three units per acre. And you can see what the anticipated um
capacity would be for buildout there. Uh along with detach attached town homes and twin homes at six units per acre, apartments about roughly 25 units per acre, restaurants and retail at 10,000 and office and medical at 10,000 square feet as well. You'll note that restaurant, retail, office and medical
show very small acreages. So from 20 to 25 to 2030 for restaurants, one to one and a half acres. That's pretty small, right? Uh five acres maybe in the long run. So uh if that's a desire to include in this area, there's some things that
would likely need to happen from some of these connections in order to help make that more desirable. So from here, uh there were some recommendations that were made about how to apply this to the land use plan. And so overall residential is really well situated here. If you kind of zoom out
from the project area, there's a lot of single family and town homes developing all around this. It's likely that you'd anticipate that happening uh in this as well. Several new rental property projects have been built in Lakeville as well and so there's an increase of overall supply. Um but absorption has been
strong too which is really great. Restaurant and retail based on the traffic counts and site characteristics retail would work well at all the parcels immediately adjacent to Cedar Avenue. So access is important for those developments and so that would should be taken into consideration. Um but without the overall east west connection to help
drive people there, it's going to be relatively limited today. And then the office medical and industrial um is slow, but we do know that there have been recent developments in Lakeville, so there is a demand out here. Um so we're not anticipating a lot of it, but that is something that could still be
viable out here. So with all that, um there were some again some more guidance provided and so we want to focus development for on single family and residential projects closer but not immediately adjacent to the Cedar Avenue project. So, let's let the areas closest to Cedar that are going to be prime for
those types of uses um be called out for those. We want to cluster high density development and town homes near major intersections. And then as housing affordability continues to drive household decisions, provide flexibility to pivot the dense housing options. So
that includes considering both for sale properties and also rental properties. uh we want to set aside immediate adjacent um immediate parcel parcels immediately adjacent to major intersections for retail development like I said and then carefully consider uh the impacts of the planned 185th
extension too. So knowing that is a plan connection there's some opportunity here we can we're talking about long range planning plan for that as well. So we know what the existing constraints are but we can also use some of these new opportunities to help guide some of those decisions in that process. So the next to this phase, how we look
at the city policies and what your land use is telling us and how we can combine it all together. So for the land use designations, we took a look at your 2040 comp plan. We understand that you're about to embark on a new comprehensive plan. So we wanted to provide some flexibility. We didn't want
to behold anything strictly to your existing categories knowing that you have a lot of categories. So we tried to align our recommendations based off of the densities that were outlined in the market analysis but then reference them to your comprehensive plan. So you can
see that the low to medium density we have about four to five uh dwellings per acre. Medium to high density about 5 to9 quarter mixed use is currently 26 to 45. And then we have some anticipated uses. So the recommendations we're showing is really intended on uses and trying not
to tie them to categories knowing that you're about to make a major change to your comprehensive plan at least an update. So all that these were the uses that we uh used and the recommendations for the land use part of this and so single
family homes and detached town homes. We did about three units per acre, attached town homes and twin homes, six apartments at 25. And then we didn't give a density requirement or a density for restaurant and retail and office and medical knowing that the absorption is considered to be on the lower side in the immediate future. But we did want to
address that there's opportunities to include that and we lumped those together when looking at our final plan. The exciting part, what does this all look like? What is it going to look like? So, in order to get here, uh we did all this data collection. We worked with city staff. Uh did a lot of
analysis about what this all means. Made some adjustments. And then we had a design ch. So, we had uh staff from different departments. Parks was there. We had engineering planning. Um, and we we had we played with the densities and tried to figure out how do we want to align these things to fit with all the
long-term city goals. And so we uh came up with a lot of different concepts. We actually broke out into two small groups and we're pretty surprised at how aligned both of them were. And then from there we came and made a concept and then presented them to the major property owners.
As part of that process during the design cheret, we wanted to create um a design framework and this is really to send a signal to developers about the long-term goals of the city and how we can uh make sure that you know there's flexibility that happens with these to make sure that we capture the really key
important parts. And so, uh one of the primary things that came out was to balance community needs. We didn't want to focus all of one intense use in one location. This is a really large area and so we wanted to balance it throughout the project area. Enhance multimodal connectivity. Develop strong
east west connections. Provide flexibility in land use. Embrace and protect those green space corridors. So those low-lying areas. Develop complete neighborhoods. So the idea that again we're not focusing all of the intense use in one spot. And then support the Envision Lakeville and economic
development strategic plan as well. So on the right you can see what is the final plan here. Um, I'll start from the transportation network. So, you can see Cedar Avenue there. Everything that is solid line is an existing roadway. Everything that is dashed is one that we're looking to make a connection. Um,
we weren't exploring all of the, you know, inner workings of exactly how people get in and out of neighborhoods, but trying to figure out exactly how do we get through and to the site. Dakota County limits access to Cedar Avenue every half mile. So, we know we can get another crossing um about halfway through. So you can see the existing one
and then the second one added there. And then um we wanted to connect into the existing developments as well. So we want a well-connected community and use those into those existing neighborhoods. You're also going to see the 85th Street connection there. We're hoping that continues all the way down and that that
we can see that through to help support some different types of development out here. From a land use perspective, uh the red represents higher density, I'm sorry, commercial uses. The darker orange uh we're calling apartments. The
darker yellow would be attached town homes or twin homes. And then the lighter yellow represents single family. Um so at the major intersections, you can see we've tried to spread out the commercial uses. Again, that would include potentially some office space.
Um to the major intersections close to Cedar Avenue, we also placed a pocket at the north end there. if I can point. No, maybe I can the north end up here as well. So, if there is going to be this extension from 85th Street, we want to take advantage of that and preserve some
space for some of that commercial use and hope hopefully we can capture some of that commercial demand that's happening north of here up in that area as well. Uh we tried to balance it both on the east and west side of the of Cedar Avenue as well. The higher density apartments are uh throughout at higher
density uh our higher intersections as well. So, you can see those supported with the commercial uses. Those are great neighboring uses to those commercial cores rather than like a single family residential place. We have the park at the north here, Grand Perry Park, too. Um the apartments and the commercial use, uh we thought that would
be a great support to that space as well. We are calling out basically the rest of the site then to be twin homes, attached twin homes and town homes and single family housing. Again, we're not expecting a total absorption to happen through this entire area, but we did want to provide some guidance of where
we think things likely will go. Uh, and then we're also showing those green corridors remaining in place as well. So, the intent behind that is that we would have developments use those as an asset. We preserve the natural drainage that's happening throughout here, uh, and let things kind of develop around. We've also identified a few transitional
zones. So, you know, we talk about complete neighborhoods. if we wanted to have like a small daycare or something mixed into these spaces, that's a that's a great use next to to to residential homes. And so, we wanted to provide a little bit of flexibility about how we approach that. And also know that there's a lot of developments where
you'll have a pocket of maybe twin homes next to single family and there's some transitions from major roadways down to maybe a little bit more single family spaces. So, uh we also wanted to look at how to phase this. where do we think it's likely going to develop first and what
do those buildouts potentially look like? So, you can see on the right a graphic that shows that movement that we know based off of existing utilities is likely going to occur for development. So, this like this area will likely need to develop first in order to make some
critical connections into Amelia Meadows and then it'll probably loop around down below as well. Um on the left here we've got a few tables that show what the average density is for those spaces or for the buildout space stop of the absorption rates as well. So um the
first couple are for 4.5 total average net density and then um the final buildout being higher with uh a little bit more intense use there. It's a lot of information. I tend to talk really fast. Do you have any questions,
commissioners? It's open for questions if you'd like to ask Miss McKini. >> Madam Chair, >> Commissioner Kuza, >> just wanted to thank you uh for your work and city staff for their work. I mean, one of the things that we do as a
city is we constantly adjust and um you know, I was on the planning commission when we did the last comp plan and you know, you have to make the decisions based on you know, what other units of government say and um you know that the
red line is is not coming down this way anymore and you know, you respond to market conditions, but I'm I'm really appreciate the city staff for being like proactive and of this ahead of as we head into the next comp plan on um kind of this largest area of our city that is
is undeveloped and and you know making the best plans with um you know both what we want to see as the city and develop but also like what will the market bear so I appreciate all the work that you put into this >> madam chair
>> yes please commissioner Um yes, Miss McKini, the question I have I I noticed that there are uh a range from low to high density. Um is it is it from your data is it historically true that high
density equals affordability? >> Yeah. Uh thank you chair and commissioners for the question. Um it's, you know, I'm not a developer, so I don't I'm not writing proformas every day. Um I do know that the rental
market's very strong and that can be an opportunity for um you know, lower income developments. Um but it tend depending just really depends on funding sources and potential city participation. Um, it can really vary quite a bit, but
t higher densities tend to make it easier to make the math work. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments? >> Madam Chair, >> go ahead, Commissioner Spencer. >> Just out of curiosity, um, I know we talked about looking at, you know,
Dakota County's transportation plans and our infrastructure plans, those types of things. I'm curious since this does abut Farmington um did we look at Farmington's planning or what they're considering with their future comp plan as well to kind of think about how this all meshes up with what they're doing there.
>> Yeah, thank you for the question. So, we did not have a meeting with uh Farmington to discuss what their long-term plans were, but we did know that the connection to Farmington would likely come from the 185th Street connection. Uh, but we didn't have a separate meeting with them to talk about
what their land use intentions were on their side. >> Swson looks like he has a followup. >> I'm on the spot. I I don't have a followup to that that question. I do have a different question if I may. >> Um, other question. Um just I know this
is very early and looking at you know potential of where different everything can be. Um I know one of the things we've gotten some feedback on the past with commercial development in particular um was just I'll say some of the topographic sighting of them and just making sure that where we're
placing some of these commercial um zoning districts mesh up with what some of our retail and commercial properties are actually looking for and make sure those conversations happen as we move forward. Again, we're super early here, but just want to make sure that doesn't get missed. >> Yeah. No, that's a really great point.
Uh we tried to situate them far away from those low draining areas, but we were taking a pretty macro scale scale at it. Um but yeah, no, that's a great point, >> Madam Chair. >> Commissioner, >> as as you drive down Cedar Avenue and through that corridor, there are several areas. You'll notice Cedar Avenue is
highly elevated above what the adjacent land is right now. And so that's part of why I bring that concern up today. I appreciate your comment on commercial because we have very limited commercial uh areas
left and so developing commercial zones I think is very important for uh fiscal concerns for the city. So I'd probably want to see more commercial if possible. Anyone else? Thank you so much. We appreciate your
time, Miss McKini. Thank you so much. >> The next item on the agenda is uh consideration of the amendments to title 11 zoning of the city code relating to requirements of renting of rooms. >> Yes, please present us with this
information. Miss Goodro. >> Thank you. So, um, this year, um, in two different work sessions, July and December, the city council has discussed creating an or a very specific ordinance within the city code to deal with short-term rentals. Right now, the
zoning ordinances touches on it in a light way by allowing renting of rooms as an administrative permit within most of the residential districts. So, everything that's considered single family and medium density. um it's not
included in the high density districts. Um within that it limits how a unit may be rented um requires off- streetet parking but really doesn't include any other standards. So what the council directed staff to do is to create a
separate one-compassing ordinance to deal with short-term rentals like we did with the rental registration. The rental registration is included in title N which is part of the city code. It's within the building regulations portion of the city code. And so this ordinance
dealing with short-term rentals will also be located in title nine. So with that, we need to remove renting of rooms within the zoning ordinance within all of those sections between, you know, the
R1 all the way through. um to take that out so that we have one sole spot for reference for short-term rentals within the city code. The city code is only reviewed by the city council. So, your
action tonight is to deal with taking out the reference of renting of rooms within the residential districts. I hope that makes sense. For your benefit, the short-term rental ordinance is more robust. It will require a annual permit
and a renewal. It does that ordinance does include occupancy standards, parking requirements, and enforcement language. And it also sets a maximum of two short-term rental permits per person or entity. Um, so again, while you're not reviewing
the short-term rental ordinance, we do need um public hearing and action by the planning commission to take out that reference so that we can move forward. Then on February 17th, the city council will adopt hopefully adopt the short-term rental ordinance, then adopt
this ordinance to take out that reference, and then adopt a res a resolution to add the fee. Um the fee will be $100 for the initial permit. It'll be an administrative review. We'll review it in house in the community development department and then a $50
renewal. So I hope that makes sense what we're asking of you tonight. Um it is an ordinance amendment so it would require a public hearing. give us your input and if there's nobody >> doesn't look like there's anybody >> madam chair uh seeing no one come
forward I move to close the public hearing second >> all right there's a motion in a second all those in favor of closing the public hearing please say I >> all opposed Public hearing is now closed. Excuse me, sir. We just closed the
public hearing. He has something else he'd like to talk about that would have been um during prior to the meeting. I'll leave it up to you, chair, if you want to allow him to speak once we get through this item. Okay, we'll give that some consideration
while we get through this item. >> Yes. All right. So, the public hearing is now closed and now we're open to uh planning commissioner comments. And Miss Goodro, does this mean we're taking away some of our allimp important power because it's
not going to be in our jurisdiction anymore? >> Madam Chair, I would not look at it that way. Um albeit albeit it's not in the zoning ordinance. Um it's in the city code. um having a centralized ordinance
for short-term rentals. Um staff believes and council believes that's more appropriate. Um it's worked very well for us for the rental registration. We will get information on our website as to, you know, rolling this out. We'll
have to um do some social media and information our newsletter. We don't believe we have a lot of short-term rentals in the community. And the council was very intentional. It's still having a lot of limitations so that we, you know, the end result isn't in a
whole bunch of short-term rentals, but having some tight guidance for when someone does choose that route. So, I wouldn't look at it that way. Um, it was an administrative permit anyhow, renting your room. So, it wasn't anything that this body had perview over.
>> I have one followup since I have the microphone. I get to do this. Um, does this mean like VR? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. I should have clarified that. Yep. >> Yep. Yep. Okay. Commissioner CL, >> um, one question for for Miss Good Road.
Uh, can you like just for the anyone that might be watching this define like what the city considers shortterm? >> I can read you the definition we came up with.
Short-term rental is a dwelling unit which is the primary residence of a household in which temporary lodging in all or part of the dwelling unit is offered for renumeration. So you can you know VBO what's the other
one? Um >> Airbnb. >> Thank you. Um you know you can rent your house, you can rent a room. Um we have been in contact with um folks at Airbnb. um they will assist in rolling out this
information. Um we haven't quite figured out exactly how it's all going to get rolled out, kind of taking it step by step, but um it's a pretty solid ordinance. We did our research. >> Um yeah, I just I appreciate the work. I think um you know, I'm sure everyone
does like I do and just peruse the city code and you know, but um I I think for for the public and for those that might be interested providing short-term rentals at their property. It's great that we have everything in a centralized location. So, you don't read something
here and then you miss something in another chapter and, you know, you don't have all the the complete information. So, I really appreciate the city's uh staff's work and kind of collecting everything together. So, thank you,
>> commissioners. Other questions? Madam Chair, >> Commissioner Swinson, >> I think I'd just add to that that our action we're taking here today is at the request of city council essentially that they're looking to make these changes and modifications. And I'll also point out that these don't go into effect until city council actually acts on it.
So we're not removing regulation before a new regulation comes into place and does that. We're just making our advisory opinion on that to city council. >> Excellent point, >> Miss Goodro. This is going to occur at the next council meeting.
questions. Thank you, Miss Kard. Looks like we might be ready for motion. >> Madam Chair, >> Commissioner Swanson, >> move to recommend a city council approval of the ordinance amendment to title 11 zoning of the city code
relating to requirements for renting of rooms. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Miss Eric, will you please take the role? >> Travis, >> I >> loa >> I. >> Zimmer >> I. >> Ike. >> Hi. >> Swainy. >> I. >> Swson.
>> I. >> Tinsley. >> I. >> Thank you so much. Looks like you have your marching orders. Um, it's unusual to have someone come up and just speak on something. I'm you've
not been presented with this. So, >> Madam Chair, I think um Um, traditionally the city council has a public comment period before their their meetings and generally for this body our public comments are listed to posted agenda items.
>> Okay. All right. So, um, from there I don't know if we have any staff notices. >> We'll go to council. >> Perfect. >> Thank you. >> I have no other notices. >> Okay. Just remember that the um planning commission meeting on the 19th is
canceled and then our next one is uh March 5th. >> Okay. Uh so with that we are adjourned.