good evening and welcome i'd like to call to order the March 17 2025 meeting of the Oakdale Environmental Management Commission very glad to see each one of you and for those watching welcome we'll begin this evening with our roll call of commissioner members present um
commission staff leazison Hannah Dunn will now be taking role chair Girding present vice Chair Doolittle present commissioner Anderson present commissioner Yang present commissioner Lash present commissioner Fster Maker present commissioner Brendan
great thanks Hannah also joining us tonight in addition to Oakdale's community development staff leaison Hannah Dunn the EMC city's council liaison and Oakdale mayor Kevin Zabul and city staff Max Loi welcome um the next item is to move to our pledge of
allegiance so if we can all rise together [Music] i aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God
indivisible with liberty and justice for all great moving towards approval of tonight's agenda um everybody received a copy prior to the meeting so assuming no amendments or further discussion which I'll hold at the
moment i'd like to ask for approval of the agenda for tonight's March 17th EMC meeting so moved thank you great all in favor of approving tonight's March 17th EMC meeting agenda say I i i
opposed great thank you next up approval of our meeting minutes from our February 10th commission meeting last month um as a reminder that was our annual workshop alongside the full city council leading to a very robust work plan discussion and subsequent EMC meeting these these
were minutes were also sent prior to tonight's meeting is there any discussion around the minutes that we received assuming none hearing none I'd like to ask for a motion to approve the
February 10th 2025 EMC meeting minutes so moved second great all in favor of approving the minutes from our last month's February 10th meeting say I i opposed fantastic thank
you great we'll now move to the public and open forum time in our agenda and invite any community member present to the podium and microphone okay thank you i guess we will close the
super duper public section of our of our meeting um and tonight we're moving to the next section we're pleased to have two presentations one first one from Angie Hong and the second one from Max Lozi to talk about um East Metro Angie from the East Metro Water Resource
Education Program to provide some updates okay you got you all can hear me okay right yeah thanks um and there we go now you can see my slides too i was just giving a dramatic pause so thank you for having me um I
was telling Hannah that our office is actually just down the road from here on the other side of the interchange um so we are neighbors um but wanted to provide updates on some of the water education activities and programming happening in the Oakdale area in
partnership with Washington Conservation District and the local watershed districts in the area this year so just for a little bit of background um the East Metro Water Education Program is a partnership and it is cities wershed
management organizations counties and soil and water conservation districts so you can see Oakdale lights up nice and red um you are one of 16 not red in a bad way red in a good way yes one of 16 uh cities and townships in Washington
County that are part of this partnership and we've been doing this since 2006 so it's going on almost 20 years now this collaborative approach to public engagement and education um but we have more recently expanded to also include
partners in Chicago and Ian County and as well as part of a lower St croy watershed partnership that we have um so some of the most popular things that people in Washington County know about are free site visits through the
Washington Conservation District like anybody can sign up for those and have a conservation staff person come and meet with you and talk about is this native is this invasive how can I plant a rain garden what kinds of grants are available uh you can even get a free design for a planting project there are
kosier grants that are available through the watershed districts um and just kind of this whole world of education and resources and support that's available to people uh we put on a lot of workshops we collaborate with nonprofit organizations like Great River Greening
to do volunteer planting at events um and you know generally just kind of trying to think of all the ways we can to engage the public in helping to protect our water and create connected habitat corridors and the kinds of things that we would like to see
okay so um in particular with the we we just abbreviated to MREP the East Metro Water Education Program um one of the big focal points has been on engaging community residents in planting native landscapes and especially in priority
locations where it helps to create connected habitat corridors for you know perhaps pollinators or for birds or where we can strategically put a rain garden so it's reducing storm water runoff to a polluted lake or river so we do a whole lot of um outreach during the
spring especially it's a lot of workshops and presentations um and I just listed a very few of them that are coming up that were most likely to be of interest to people in Oakdale uh my colleague Lori Maxfield was presenting at the Oakdale Garden Club just two
months ago uh we had a couple of planting for pollinators webinars that are online and anybody can sign up for those on April 12th um we have a new tree stewards program that we're rolling out and we're training in volunteers on
how to plant trees prune trees care for trees and basically they will then be armed with this knowledge and kind of committing to putting in 20 to 25 hours per year of volunteer work in their community uh so we will be hosting two
different uh tree stewards trainings but one of them that's closest to here is coming up at Lake Elmo Regional Park on April 12th um we will be at the Oakdale Ecoair and we'll have some kind of you know fun activity and then the other
thing that has in the past been hosted by Oakdale has now just moved right up the road to Rockpoint Church in Lake Elmo is the landscape revival i'm not sure if any of you have ever been to it before but it what it used to be right out in the parking lot right here um and it just kind of outgrew this space and
had to move to Rockpoint Church there are native plant retailers from all around the area that all come on the same day and set up booths and nonprofit organizations and so people can right around the time they're getting ready to do their landscaping projects they can kind of come and shop from a whole bunch
of retailers all at once and get their plants and then talk to people and get advice and we found that that's really nice because while there are a lot of native plant retailers they tend to be spread out and so that takes away a little bit of the effort for people of having to drive around and visit all of
these different nurseries um so just showing a couple of photos from events that we held over the past year um fun things that you should know about here in Oakdale um the first is that the Washington Conservation District got two
sets of grant funding for this coming year that are for increasing pollinator habitat so one of them is through you may have heard of the lawns to legumes the statewide laws to legumes program um they have one chunk of that known as pollinator pathways and it's for
creating demonstration neighborhoods and we um have funding to create demonstration neighborhoods in five different locations in Washington County one of them is this area that's right on
the east side of Tanner Lake that actually most of that area drains to Battle Creek Lake um even though it's on the the north side of the freeway so within that area we have funding to put in 10 to 15 new planting projects and
those can either be on private residential property they could be at one of the city parks that's there it could be at the school um you know or at any of those commercial properties in that area also so we're going to be doing some outreach about that i know
that there is also a couple of the roads in there are slated for uh repaving and road improvements this year so Brett Stolestad from our office has been talking with the city engineer about the opportunity to get curbcut rain gardens potentially installed um and usually
when we've done that we're just putting it out to residents and saying "Hey during the course of this happening if you're willing to have a rain garden you can get one for free." Um and then the wershed district will pay for the cost of getting that installed and then you as the land owner are just agreeing to
take care of it and keep it looking nice um so on that topic though of planting new gardens we also have a grant uh through the habitat enhancement landscape protection i can never quite remember what the P and help is but um
it's to create 12 new larger planting projects around the county and there was some funding specifically earmark to hopefully do a pollinator planting project at Tartan High School um I know that there's construction going on there so we're still kind of waiting to see if that will pan out but that is the hope
and then just always the Ramsey Washington South Washington Valley branch wershed district always have kosher grants available for people to do native gardens and plant ra gardens and do like wetland and shoreline restoration and those can be anywhere
from $500 to $15,000 so it's always available they usually go on a rolling basis throughout the year kind of starting around April until the funds run out in the fall but um we like to pair those with these
lawns to legumes grants to be able to get people a little bit more support if they need it so if you know people that live in that neighborhood you yourself live in that neighborhood spread the word um I just thought it might be interesting to
share this map with you of locations where we have previously done projects in Oakdale so every one of those colorful dots that you see up there on the map 203 of them are locations where we have worked with either the city or a
private land owner and did some kind of conservation project in the past so that's always kind of fun to see the dots um we are also doing a lot of work in particular with shoreline land owners and we have a couple of upcoming
workshops one that is happening this Wednesday where we are talking with shoreline contractors about how to deal with ice heaves there was a lot of ice heaving that happened during the wintertime um I don't know that any of the lakes in Oakdale were big enough to
have experienced that but some of the slightly larger lakes up in northern part of the county it's a big problem um so we're bringing them in and talking about an ecological approach to lake shore management we're going to be doing a shoreline restoration workshop
hands-on outdoors on Whitebeard Lake coming up on May 20th and then we have an online certification program for realators that we developed last year that's just kind of always up there it's on St paul Area Association of Realators um training module and so anybody can
take that and learn about best practices for shoreline um then the other thing is that we have been doing a lot of work with homeowners associations in the past couple of years and they can be a really challenging audience to work with um
just because you have this kind of quasi governmental entity this board that you know nobody wants to be on and they get stuck being on and nobody is really participating in the process um you know of getting you know supporting the board but they are suddenly tasked with
managing storm water on their site a lot of times managing stormwater ponds and um rain gardens and all this green infrastructure without necessarily having the knowledge base that a public works department would um so we have an HOA stormwater leaders course uh the
second one in that series is actually happening tomorrow at our office and we're doing this as a pilot with uh University of Minnesota Extension and Minnesota Crant where we have uh 10 HOA leaders from different communities around the county and they're meeting
with us three times and kind of learning in depth um and this is a continuation of some work we did last year where we did focus groups and surveys with HOA people all around the Twin Cities area um and then something else that if you
haven't ever heard about or joined us for a St corey River workshop on the water we usually every summer do a workshop for local officials like environmental planning commission members and city council members and folks like that where we take people out on the St corey River on a river boat
and have educational presentations and talk about connections between land use and water quality um kind of at the crux of why a lot of the cities participate in EMRP is because they are required to do storm
water education through the MS4 permit and so I send out a monthly email to all of our partners and it will have information in there about things like you know this month it's all about dog poop and this month it's all about sweeping up grass clippings um you know
just short easily packageable information that can be shared on city websites or newsletters um if we have videos we share those and we try to put that out on our platform we did a really big push back in January this year for smart salt education and um we will be
hosting a certification training for municipal staff sometime this fall and we've been doing those in partnership with uh it's now Bolton and Mink and uh MPCA for about 10 or 15 years now um another thing that we do to prevent
storm water pollution is that we engage local community residents to volunteer to adopt storm drains and so this is where you get to look at dots on a map again um so far 94 people in Oakdale have adopted storm drains and there are
25,000 storm drains adopted across Minnesota which yeah I was like that's pretty cool because basically all people are doing is going on a map and they're clicking and they're saying this this storm drain I'm going to take care of it i'm going to go out and I'm going to uh pick up the litter and rake up the schmuka in the spring and all this stuff
so it doesn't go down into the storm drain and get washed into the lakes and rivers so we do that in partnership with Hamlin University and Watershed Partners and we've been doing that since 2019 um and then last but certainly not
least uh we do a lot of work through volunteers and through partnerships with community organizations and nonprofit organizations that's really aimed at trying to build social capacity for environmental change um we're very active in media um putting stuff out
there on Instagram and Tik Tok and you know we've got a blog i write stuff for the local newspapers um but we do also have a cohort of water stewards uh 20 in Washington County right now but we're hoping to get some more trained in in
2026 um so you know people like the tree stewards or the water stewards or the master gardeners um we try to utilize their support and you know those extra hands as much as we can because there's only one me and it's a big county um but
then one special program that I did want to mention and I brought along some flyers so if you know teenagers in your life you could share a flyer with them about it um we are trying out a career explorations program that is going to be
happening in June and it's for rising juniors and seniors we're really hoping to target students from Tartan High School just because it's you know so close to our office but basically they would be coming out for three days for three weeks in a row and just spending
the full day getting to do all these hands-on what it is that we do for a living so one day would be all about water monitoring and they get to try out the equipment and go and collect water samples and another day learning about erosion control and get to put on a hard hat and a vest and go out and inspect a
construction site and you know on the final day they're going to learn how to fly drones and get to take a little drone home with them yes so um hoping to really seal the deal with that
um but yeah but it it's also that we are wanting to just introduce people or introduce youth to kind of the world of natural resource careers um ones that you might need a college degree for and also ones that you might not need a college degree for because there's kind
of a lot of options and a lot of times students aren't necessarily thinking about that you know so we'd like to try to make connections with them early on um and uh just to share you know one more map with one more set of dots this
is kind of our our plan for 2025 through 2027 all the different locations where we're planning to be doing events or special programming in in the next three years in partnership with everyone so I'm happy to answer questions if you
have any questions or conversation or I can pass around flyers if you want to grab any for those high schoolers you know in your life and if there's more left when they get down to Hannah then she can just have them be available somewhere around here
thank you questions just a There we go that's my contact information too if you need it did you Oh I was going to ask um how many individuals are you looking for for that career exploration program um ideally
around 10 um we want to keep it small enough that it's manageable and um yeah I think 10 was kind of that target number we were looking for oh there's three different ones and I am not I mean I'm going to be helping out a
couple times during the week but uh one of my co-workers Jessica Sahutelli who you can probably see her smiling face on one of those flyers um she's kind of taken lead on it she's a former high school teacher and um you know has a lot of experience working with high school
youth so it's something that we're hoping that will be a fun fun new program to do yeah I think it's interesting that's why I'm asking yep so small enough cohort that hopefully the kids get to know us and we get to know them and don't um you know
it's not so big that they get lost in the shuffle because we are hoping to that you know they could eventually come back and be interns or seasonal staff people for us sometime during college or after college or for the city or for the city or for
the city yes and we Yeah we we will tell them that i know well just a couple of a few handful of comments and and reflections and then um just probably a two-parter question if I can so first off thank you um a lot of resources here i think we love having
the opportunity of intersecting because our work plan as my question is going to lead up to intersects with so many things that and see if I get this right and rep does correctly you've shortened it um and just you just so you know this commission as a volunteer body has
adopted three drains as you may know in Walton Park um I know many of us probably have done that individually i've done three on our corner in our neighborhood and then we are the recipients of a beautiful two-stage or two-year reimburseable grant from both WCD and um Ramsey Washington Metro
Wershed District so speaking to the impact of what we do now impacting generations to come it's happening um so I guess my question really is um is is twofold you know our our work as we've all talked about is never really done in silos we oftenimes think that it is from
a work plan perspective but we're all interconnected and related in terms of the inputs and outcomes that we that we want so thinking about our work plan in general I guess what and the things that you um had aptly noted that are coming up for you in your own
space what barriers often times surface at the intersection of commissions being an extension of your advocacy outreach communication because we are all taking what you share and running it to ground sharing social media posts so from either a residential perspective a
private homeowner or a business um I guess what kind of barriers are you seeing surface and the normal things and then what kinds of things are you seeking support or guidance or counsel from um either city staff or commissions like ours to help kind of either disrupt
those barriers or educate differently or something like that yeah um well I guess the the first challenge that we always find is just how to get the word out and so it makes me so happy to hear that your commission is really proactive on taking those programs and messages and
sharing them um because believe it or not not all cities do um even though they're a part of the Emirate Partnership you know and they pay the annual fee to be in the program and then you know we we send this stuff and it's like is anybody has anybody ever finding this so you know how are how are people finding out about it um so that that's
good to hear one of the challenges that we do encounter is that we're really I wouldn't say really good but we're fairly good at getting at people who are already interested or like a certain kind of people you know people like you
people who are in a garden club people who are in a birding club um and then there's you know all the other people who exist and they're not necessarily opposed to native gardens or trees or but you know they're just not they're not running in the circle and so much of
what we do because we lack the financial resources so much of what we do ends up going through word of mouth and so you know if somebody isn't in that kind of social circle they're not finding out about it and um you know so it's always like how do we get outside of the choir how do we get to you know different
groups of people that we don't already know um and that is also one of the motivations for like hey maybe if we can engage some of these high school youth who aren't already thinking about us you know that helps also to engage their
families or their kind of wider social circles um but I would love to know yeah more about what the commission is planning and because you know what kind of support we can provide if there's anything that you have going on that um
feels like it could use extra technical expertise or um you know like I said there's a there's a lot of different groups that are leveraging volunteers jessica the same one who's running the um high school program she's also filling in the new role kind of new
to us of being a volunteer coordinator and so um you know we can also lean into her a little bit too if there's volunteer events that you're needing help recruiting people for and things like that or just managing the volunteers great
thanks yeah other questions from commission members what what do you think the um biggest uh success that you've had in the last couple years has been um I think that I have seen I mean not
just in the past couple of years but I've been at this for almost 20 years now and the movement of native landscaping has really really grown during that time because I remember when I first started it was a fringe thing and I remember you know the very first
demonstration rain gardens at the county fairgrounds and people we'd actually take them on tours to see them people would you know they they bring the newspaper and they'd be like I saw in the newspaper that you have a rain garden here that I can visit um you know and now they're now they're everywhere the rain gardens are everywhere um you
know there's so many schools and churches and just all sorts of places that are putting in native gardens so that's exciting um and it seems like nobody has a look of confusion on their face anymore when I talk about it they're usually nodding like "Oh yeah i have an example in my yard or at my
neighbor's yard that's that's that's a noticeable change are there spots to find uh information or like resources on like more technical information on these things if we wanted
to like create our own little infographic type things just to put out there you know sure like on just uh a specific one of the topics just any of the statistics or anything like that as far as things that you've already like
installed or you know kind of information that's in this packet kind okay yeah um so like that map that I showed you of the like where all the conservation projects were in Oakdale that is on the Washington Conservation
District website which is mnwcd.org um and we do have a lot of other technical resources there um that one is actually like the full map shows all of the county and it's got all sorts of layers that can be turned on and off um but we do also list all of our events
on there if there's upcoming events um you know there's a tree sale that happens every year and people come and pick them up at the end of April so we're coming up on that most of the trees are sold out by now but there are a couple species that are still remaining um but yeah so that that's
kind of a technical resource for native plantings bluethumb.org is a really great technical resource and they are affiliated with the lawns to legumes program but they also just have a lot a lot of resources on where are native
plant nurseries um you know online courses and modules that you can take um you know who are the local partners in our area and they have um a lot of stuff there too yeah awesome is that something you'd encourage then like or does it need to go through an official channel
or something like that nope okay oh sweet spread the love um and just when I was thinking of Blue Thumb it made me think also container gardens um because they do have a couple of planting designs for container gardens which is something that um we'd
like to be able to share that and have more of those at rental properties mobile home parks senior senior living you know just places where people are interested in being able to do something um but they don't necessarily have that they can be learning in mhm a related random that's a two R uh
follow-up question regarding the um the metrics on the page do you know and this might be more of a question for Lauri um W Washington Conservation District but do you know how often they update this data it looks like it's a G GIS poll but
it's a it is um I want to say continually updated but it's also so basically we have this monster database which is it's like a machine and people request a site visit and you know that
information gets in there and then as our staff starts following up and they start doing projects it's tracking the progress and then once the project is actually completed then the metrics will show up on the BMP database that will have things like what size was the
planting project did it have a phosphorus reduction um was there like a sediment reduction because there's also really big projects that are on there things like um stabilizing an eroding ravine at a farm field uh so a little rain garden might not have that big of an impact but those ones have like a
really big impact and then with the layers you can do calculations too you can just show all the dots that are in one watershed and be able to demonstrate like how much of a pollution reduction impact we had for particular stream or
particular lake so we do that also when we're working with the wershed districts on you know trying to clean up an impaired water body that kind of thing okay there questions comments well we have two words again and thank you that was wonder that was wonderful
yeah thank you Angie thanks all right i think next up we have our presentation from C um city staff Max some zoning ordinances zoning
ordinances okay thanks good evening and thank you environmental management commissioners i'm excited to be here tonight with one of my favorite topics if you can believe that um yep um so tonight we've got the zoning
and subdivision code update uh my intent here is for the to inform you about what we've taken so far on this project and then to also let this be an open conversation with any questions you might have fully understand that a lot of the sections in this part of the code uh for the city code are parts that the
environmental management commission might not run into as much as say the planning commission um so please stop me at any point if I'm using any jargon or if there's a concept or policy you have questions regarding just a little background on this project um our goal
here is mainly to evaluate the zoning and subdivision code ordinance and diagnose existing issues um zoning um for those who aren't familiar uh breaks down what is allowed in the city of Oakdale based on where the land is and the different standards that the uses on
the land need to meet and subdivision uh concerns how land is divided um the city hired HKGI a Twin Cities based planning and urban design firm to help us out with this project and in terms of everything we're looking at um it's quite a bit hundreds of pages but just
to sum it up we have the zoning chapter which just some selections include zoning districts planned unit developments which I'll talk about a little bit later um building standards which includes designs parking screening and fences and other components zoning
administration so our process procedures due process etc um signs and definitions subdivisions uh which is a separate chapter trees um just the tree preservation component the rest we're not touching and leaving to the city forester and then planning and
development which is mainly about the planning commission so a few things on the objectives here our main goal is to make it easier to use and modernize the zoning code um as you might know we have quite a bit of development applications
and growth in the city for anyone on the development bus tour and the last time we touched the code in um entirety was 2008 and quite a few things have changed since then um we're also looking to align the code with any of the plans we've done in recent years bike and pedestrian plan make it easier to
implement bike and pedestrian infrastructure ensure that everything is legal with our state statutes and federal laws and different court rulings and then facilitate any redevelopment and development goals so we started this last March um most of
the time is writing the code um it's a pretty complex project um we are currently in the midst of getting the um first the draft ready for legal review so that we can take it back to our commissions and the city council and get some input on some other policy
components and looking to adopt ideally in June of 2025 and so tonight um I just want to highlight some portions of the code that I think the EMC might be interested in and if there's any other things maybe you read in a planning article or
something there's a chance that we might also be looking at it as a part of the code update so feel free to let me know um specific topics include zoning districts parking and landscaping and trees so diving into zoning districts um just
for a little context there are currently 14 districts in the city of Oakdale six of which are residential six are commercial and two are infrastructure or open space districts which include wetland and tower there's also planned
unit developments um which I'll explain a bit more in detail later and two overlay districts shoreland and floodplane which we're not touching so residential districts um comprise most of the uses in the city uh
oftentimes we find that the housing isn't super well defined in the existing code and the different uses are cumulative so single family is allowed in the same district where we allow very high density apartments um and there's some inconsistencies with
the comp plan uh generally when we're working on the residential component of the code we're looking to put things into tables so that it's easier to see exactly what's allowed where you live um what the standards are and then align the uses with any state statutes and
then streamline some things open up some other uses as well moving on to business or commercial districts um half of these districts really aren't used much at all um Gateway uh which is one of our districts
that just comprises the northwest corner of 494 uh694 and I94 um is just four parcels um limited business is two or three parcels and C1 is just a handful of parcels uh that are
mainly gas stations um generally each of these business districts lists what's allowed individually um some there are some pretty unusual and specific ones laid out music sheet stores dance halls um things that might not be super common
anymore or maybe we can better just define that as goods and services or something more simple so we're looking to simplify that create tables to see exactly what's allowed you can just look up your address and see what's permitted in the district
um looking to make sure that we have appropriate standards for each use and considering um some additional standards and for industrial buildings for infrastructure um we're a little bit unusual in this regard um so
cell towers or radio towers have to be their own specific parcel of land whereas in most cities that's just allowed as part say part of an industrial district um so we're wrapping that into one district to try to simplify things and then wetlands we're looking
at using as an overlay district instead of having a parcel zoned as a wetland since wetlands don't follow nice clean lines um like a lot of our residential parcels do so planned unit developments are a
special kind of zoning district um which is pretty common in Oakdale it can be for either residential commercial or a mix of uses and it often involves um a developer in the city negotiating and getting a giving a little bit of zoning
flexibility in exchange for maybe some features the city might want to see um so 29% of the land is currently zoned PUB uh a lot of it there just weren't standards that were considered back when
they were developed it was just an agreement the houses were built and it was left at that so there are portions of the city where it's a bit of a gray zone of say someone wants to add on to their house or um install a greenhouse it's it's unclear exactly what's
actually allowed there uh we were considering reducing the minimum lot area for a PUD and then um making sure that there's just more standards in general for PUDS to follow um for reference there are some planned
unit developments um that the city develop came up with the standards for itself and serve as sort of special districts including the Helmo station bus rapid transit oriented district and the Greenway station as well as the
Tartan Crossing area which is by in entails the area by HY where the Oakdale Mall used to be um we're not touching those at all so I just wanted to go through we're sort of trying to combine these to the best of our ability help streamline and
simplify things so R2 and R3 are almost identical um zoning districts that's low density and lowdensity housing um which are just becoming one lowdensity housing district we're combining um neighborhood
commercial and community commercial into one zoning district we are adding a mixeduse district um to allow for more um walkable areas where you can combine businesses and residential um components
um as well as um combining the gateway district and limited business into employment zoning so I think corporate campuses or office and renaming some others and uh making wetland a overlay
district and just making tower part of industrial um some of the changes that apply to residential areas uh which might be of interest currently no changes to the R1 lowest density district which comprises
less than 10% of the residential land in the city um the R2 district we will allow or are proposing to allow um two dwellings town houses and courtyard cottages a courtyard cottage is sort of a newer um housing type that we haven't
seen much of in Minnesota uh but our consultant brought up as might be a good fit it's essentially a few smaller uh single family houses that might be a bit closer together and are surrounded by a shared garden or courtyard space we're also adding that use to the R4 district
and for our highdensity R5 district um we're removing duplexes and single family units um just to keep that more focused on highdensity multif family i want to talk a bit about parking because that's somewhere where we're proposing a good chunk of
changes um we find a lot of the time that the current parking requirements exceed a lot of the needs of the community and are higher than other cities um we're looking to consolidate the requirements make them easier to follow um and put them into a table
that's where you can look up the use and thus how much parking is allowed generally we're looking at reducing minimum space counts across the board um making it so that less pavement overall is required for each development and it
focuses more on which parking um which uses actually need that much parking and then simplifying how it's calculated right now the zoning code um requires parking to be calculated in many cases for things that we won't have the
information for after a year or two for example a lot of industrial properties are calculated based on the number of employees the amount of employees in any given industrial zone is significantly lower than it has been in the past and
that changes from month to month even so uh it can be challenging in the future when someone wants to reuse that property for us to know what's going on then so just kind of a fun question if there's um any uses in the city you
think are particularly overparked or underparked um feel free to share those and we can make sure that it's lining up with our current parking standards um I know we've heard before that a lot of the the large grocery stores some of
that parking never exceeds more than a third of the people parking there um movie theaters industrial offices often times don't don't reach anywhere near even half of the amount of parking mhm
feel free to chip in if there's any other doc 86 is uh that's pretty excessive that's the old movie theater lot that's ridiculous yeah we actually made a special category just to reduce that parking and it's still quite a bit
um so we are looking into reducing that one quite a bit as well ideally there are actually two commercial sites attached to that home furniture um we we're hopeful one of them will be a restaurant or bar eventually and that might lead to a little bit more parking
demand but it's probably it's pretty excessive at points as well so landscaping and trees um generally we're looking to consolidate and clarify the standards um there's currently two different
landscaping standard sections and they overlap a bit and it's confusing and the way that ordinances work is whichever one is more um strict you just follow that one anyway um so we have two really right now where we're not following one
um we're looking um I should change that we're not so much adjusting the tree count as changing how it could be calculated because we want to make sure we're not reducing standards for landscaping but sometimes the right now it's based on the term landscaped green
area which isn't defined and we want to consider recalculating or changing how that's calculated or at least better define it so that it's say defined as the area where impervious surfaces are required in a given development or something similar just to make sure no
one's challenging on the challenging us on that um tree preservation if you're familiar um whenever a new development goes into Oakdale if there are existing trees on site they're allowed to remove a small
amount by right and then the remainder of the trees um need to be replaced usually on a 2:1 or something similar schedule uh in order so that when a new development comes in we'll at least get that tree canopy back in the future
um we find that this is our trickiest part of the code to understand um right now there are three scenarios where it kicks in um grading grading is pretty well defined um building and development
neither of which are defined and whether or not building and development are the same or if they stack on top of each other we we have trouble figuring that out so we're proposing some new um criteria so anytime we have a major
residential subdivision we'd want to make sure those trees are replaced um anytime a new uh commercial industrial institutional or multif family project comes in uh we require what's called a site plan so we would
make sure it's implemented there as well grading we're going to keep um new principal buildings what that is is a principal building is the main building on any given lot um so if you live in a single family house your your house is
the primary uh building and your garage is accessory so if there happens to be an empty lot or you knock down your house and build a new one we'd want to make sure tree preservation comes in and then if we remove more than I think we're proposing 25 or 30% of trees on an
undeveloped parcel um then those be replaced just to prevent a developer from clear cutting a empty parcel or something like that down the line and then that way they don't have to pay it in the future u we want to make sure
that we're covering that scenario so that is a summary of hundreds of pages of code and there's a there's a lot of material that I'm not covering and I realize I likely spoken a good bit of jargon there so I really do want to
open it up for questions or any comments or policy questions etc yeah I have a question so for the wetland districts I know you're turning them into overlays but is there the existing water uh wetland districts are they all being changed to like R1 like the open
district or is that a case- by case basis for that yeah we admittedly we still need to check with our legal department on some of that um the Minnesota state wetland laws are actually more um aggressive than our wetland district sure um so whether or
not it's an overlay or it's removed the protection would still be in place um because that ordinance was written quite a long time ago um there are some components of it that um we need to patch up including giving ourselves the
ability to delineate wetlands which just wouldn't that's not how the process is followed um today um I just want to better understand the word because you kept using the word replace right when it comes to tree
preservation replace what I know what replace mean but when you say replace that means replace it within the same area or with like within the same lot mhm yeah so generally we would be looking to replace it within the same
lot or development or at least nearby um at least that would be for the applicant uh we've structured it where that would be financially probably the best option um we are going to put in something that
would allow it to be put in a nearby park or collect a fee in loo if it's last case scenario um but generally we would look for it to be replaced on site to mitigate the loss of that tree to its localized impact if possible
there's been a lot of um talk about the the Tanner's redevelopment so is that a candidate for the emerging MX misuse designation or is that something entirely different just kind of trying to think about how we should think about how to think about that
oh I appreciate that i think the Tanner's Lake development would be a great candidate if we were doing it um like a year in the future after we've adopted this because we don't have a mixeduse district now um we were kind of held back by the zoning for that project
and uh we ended up working with a consultant to draft a brand new planned unit development um just in that that style of development isn't considered in our code right now and ideally after we adopt this it would be thanks
why aren't um you mentioned there are six business districts why aren't three of them being used very much so so as I answer that I I want to preface that some of this might be speculation as you know we we some of
these districts we adopted when we formed as a city in 1974 and they've been added to removed reszoned merged over the years and finding the intention behind it can be like a needle in a hay stack especially when recordeping wasn't
as great um the gateway district uh is intended to create sort of a gateway use for that parcel off of 94 and 694 create something big and flashy and exciting so
that's the intentionality with that district and we're trying to keep that intentionality there um with limited business i will be honest we've looked at the commercial district and compared that one and we're not sure we can't find
documentation um it's possible it used to be more different and it was loosened up over the years um sometimes it's just a matter of being hard to hard to tell after a long time period of time
thinking ahead a little bit also um well first thank you for all of this my goodness and I just generally grateful as a commission to have the opportunity to have line of sight and awareness in terms of process and where we intersect and what kind of counsel or thoughts you
want us to muse over on this um do you have a general timeline in terms of what we would expect to see next as we also plan for our next commission meeting in May yeah I can I can give a general um timeline i do want to preface that things can come up with zoning code
updates but uh right now we're looking at getting our first legal draft done and ideally getting it back miday or midappril in which case we would take it to the city council and planning commission in which case the uh text would become available and I'd be happy
to share that with Hannah once it's available so that that can be sent on to the EMC um and then we'll go ideally in June look to adopt in which case the text will be available and we'd welcome any input we're also working on creating
a map that shows the zoning districts as they are now and how they're changing and it'll have some text if you click on your house or a parcel you know and in a few sentences um try to say what that actually means for you um so we're looking to have that tool up uh around
the time that we take it for um initial input to the city council and planning commission thanks any other thoughts comments great great thank you very much Max yeah thanks very much thanks environmental management commissioners and again feel
free to reach out to myself or Hannah if you have additional questions with this all right well moving on uh to the next section of our meeting tonight we have our EMC commission review starting with I think
uh old business from last month beginning with a recap and status update of our upcoming ecoair yes next month hannah do you want to provide a update yes absolutely we are just over a month away from the ecoair um things are really starting to take shape um in your
memo there's a ton of new information um the food truck is confirmed that's normally the one that's at our farmers market so they will be there um delicious food um recreation department is still um finalizing some family-friendly activities but um you
know Angie said that they will have uh likely a a family activity at their booth master Gardeners have said um that their milkweed monarchs and pollinators team will have um some fun activities uh and then I'm still trying to see if Gateway Cycle might be interested in the
bike uh repair clinic or if the Oakdale Library i've reached out to both of them um but nothing's nothing's confirmed or taken shape quite yet um but I'll continue trying to um get get more activities in that space um and then
promotion plan uh our comm community our communication specialist is back from leave um so there's been um an event created on Facebook and we'll continue throughout the next month and a half to to push it on social media um the um a flyer has been created i will be sending
that out shortly um to the EMC you can share it on social media you can share it with friends um I can print some off for you if you if you'd like hard copies um to just spread the word uh the Suburban Community Channel's presence has been requested i'm not sure if they're able to make it but they were at our little Brook Commons grand opening
they're at lots of city events and they make really lovely short videos that capture the day um and then you know I listened back to the minutes wrote down all the ideas that you came up with at the February meeting so we're looking into some of those to see if we can incorporate them into the communications plan as well and then we have over 15
vendors confirmed some will have multiple tables so hopefully that space starts to really fill out um we've got every we've got a whole variety we've got some energy efficiency home energy vendors we've got lots of native landscape pollinator uh vendors um Merit
Chevrolet they'll have an EV um they'll have a table but they'll also have an EV in the parking lot if people want to take a look at it it won't be a ride and drive component but it'll just be there if people have got questions um solar uh pollinators yeah it's we
kind of hit all the different sections when we started brainstorming vendors um months ago so that's really taking shape um and then the expectation is that commissioners are there to help um I don't have specific assignments quite
yet but I'll as as things start to um kind of we start to get them finalized I can send those out just via email or we can always just kind of figure it out the day of um but setup should be starting around 8:00 a.m uh and then tear down should be wrapping up by 2 p.m um so please let me know if you're only
able to make it for a portion of the day um we'd love to have you there the whole day just to kind of help help it move along are there any questions or comments looks good i sense a theme tonight but a comment again of thank you like we always wonder
how to help and we're always here to help and it's just it's I don't know if it's a last minute Minnesota thing we're just it always comes together at the last minute but I know that's not that's not due to anything that's been not happening or happening at the city level so it's just vendor commitments and participation and communications it's
always a 30 to 40 or 45 day window I've found in planning events so thanks for doing it this is very exciting so happy to be there yeah any other questions or comments for that one
great all right thanks Hannah no moving to new business i guess another update from Hannah our I guess regarding our 2025 fall cleanup event yes yeah I'll recap um the 2024 event it was um a fantastic day really successful we had
over 300 cars come through weather was a little uh iffy at some at some points kind of cold and windy but that didn't stop people from coming and dropping off um their waste uh we had four different vendors there with Tennis Sanitation they were collecting general trash small engines appliances and then Dynamic Life
Cycle Innovations they were the electronics vendor um that was kind of a partnership with Washington County they covered the cost of Dynamic to be there and then Dynamic was the ones who were actually taking and recycling the electronics second Chance Recycling um
that's a really awesome uh group that organization that takes mattresses and actually breaks them down and recycles them i think um we collected 69 mattresses and 96 were actually recycled and only 4% were landfilled so uh that's another really great partnership between
Ramsey Washington uh recycling and energy center and um and second chance so they offered discounts so um the R& covered most of the costs for labor transportation recycling and then um the city was only responsible for $10 per
item and then ME met Metropolitan Mosquito Control District they picked up the tires for free um so those vendors really made the event possible um the the attachment is the flyer from 2024 if you're kind of curious um what the prices were um and then the table in the
me memo really breaks down how much we actually collected which was it was quite a bit so um that all you know we kind of kept it out of the landfill moved it to you know what we could kept it out of the landfill and then moved it in the right in the right waist stream so um with the success of 2024 council
is on board to have an event in 2025 and have annual events going forward so the date for this year is Saturday September 20th same time frame 9:00 a.m um to 1:00 p.m it'll again be at the current public works campus um just down the road um same vendors pretty much will be there
we do have a different um small engines vendor um keeps keeps them out of landfill refurbishes uh the small engines are there any questions we're still quite a few months away but we're already starting to plan for that event
just to I guess point of clarity did we have any type of specific small engine partner at 2024 event tennis took them oh tennis did okay tennis took them okay okay but this uh this the Pete Small Engines
that's who's that's who Maplewood uses um so they reached out and um we're going to go with this person this vendor given budgets are we anticipating roughly the same amount of fee structure yes um council when we went back uh
January they were supportive of keeping the fees similar um we kind of have to see what the vendors like tennis if they raise their prices um it might be possible that we raise ours just a little bit um but they're going to be very comparable that was that was council's
direction there comments for cleanup i have my list ready great thanks again well next up I think we move to staff commissioner and council leases on updates and I think first up we have a review of our 2025
editorial calendar and always in coordination and support from Oakdale's comms and communications department um if you'd like to walk us through what's in front of us and we can provide some insight yes thanks so first staff please update just to walk through the editorial calendar and then I have um
just one general community development update um so using uh the conversation about the editorial calendar at the February meeting I kind of reworked some things um a lot of great suggestions from commissioners um so looking ahead
April ecofair will be um the main focus May um it was one of the commissioners ideas to move water conservation to that month we're also going to keep walk bicycling and walking in that month too because that's when national bike month is and bike to work week so um it'll be
kind of a a dual theme that month uh June um renewable energy and energy efficiency i think June last year had been renewable energy and now we just kind of added energy efficiency it'll be good time to get people thinking about things that they can do in their home before it gets cold or even ways to make
your home more energy efficient during the summer july is still going plastic free uh just because it's plastic free July and there's just a lot of good um resources and um momentum in that month for that theme august again miscellaneous just whatever is timely
relevant um September is also staying the same with electric vehicles it's National Electric Drive Month um October um I kept as energy efficiency as well um as maybe just another fall push for um you know winterizing your home
thinking about energy efficiency november's reuse and recycling might be a good time to promote a lot of the different Washington County recycling campaigns food scraps pickup um there's America Recycles Day November 15th so um that's
going I think that was the theme for the for 2024 as well and then December low waste holidays is always just a good reminder to people to try and reduce waste um during those times and then ongoing content through the year i added at the bottom just promotion of the food scraps pickup program that's just always something we're going to pro promote and
then just general sustainability that had been a suggestion for a theme um but I think again we can just weave it in throughout the entire year any questions just a comment you did change it up the
the flow seems more It seems more robust and comprehensive and now it's all the way through December thank you oh yes it's great any other comments from commissioners questions okay thanks again thank you then general
community development updates before I forget yes um Gold Line opens this weekend um 4 days 8 hours 48 minutes and 40 seconds is the most recent countdown on their website i'm sorry i apologize you have a countdown clock they have a
countdown clock got it um I just have their site up um there's all sorts of opening day activities so if you wanted to participate um just Google Metro Transit Gold Line you go to their web page and it's pretty much the first link right at the top um there's ribbon cutting um there's a ceremonial first
ride leaves the Woodlane Park and Ride at 10:45 um for from Saturday March 22nd to Friday March 28th there's free line free rides on the Gold Line so good time to take advantage of just just take a little trip on the Gold Line with you know no particular destination um see
what it's all about and then um at at the Woodlane Park and Ride and then I believe at Sunray there's um all sorts of events going on kids Art Table um the meet Metro you can meet the Metro Transit mascot Skip Traffic um I didn't know they had a mascot but could be a
good opportunity to um check it out uh who named that one like the snowplow all right so there's food trucks there's hot chocolate cookie cart um could be a really fun opportunity if you've got nothing going on so just wanted to share that um but that's all on their website so if you just Google
Metroransit Gold Line you can find all of that and keep track of the countdown if you'd like that's that's the big update all right well thanks guess moving on um commissioner updates anyone of you have fun things
happening like to share with this group time starts now just a plug again for the uh Ramsey Washington Metro watershed uh program uh they're not definitely not a reimburseable grant and then one and done they also have
maintenance and ongoing grant so if anybody's considering how am I going to actually steward and care for this beyond what's in the scope of the agreement and all the stuff that you normally do as caring for natives and rain gardens and swailes and everything they can help so just to say it's not not one and done there's ongoing
maintenance grants that you can apply for so FYI yep all right well Mr mayor we'd like to invite you our EMC city council leaison to present the floor is yours thank you
everybody um staff pretty much took all of my updates which is pretty great i'm not mad about that you have a countdown clock many probably the the gold my gold line countdown clock has been eight years so we are very excited um to see not only
that project come to fruition but all of the the development and infrastructure improvements around that project um you know here in Oakdale obviously without the bus rapid transit line things like replacing the four street bridge which was woefully inadequate and unsafe um
and the construction of the new Helmo Beenberg bridge would very likes to say be Helmo but our name first um things like that wouldn't happen without um this this gold line project so um even if you know residents aren't utilizing
mass transit there are still benefits that they can enjoy um throughout our community which is very exciting even you know new bridges all the way down the line from from Woodbury all the way to St paul so it is a pretty exciting time we encourage our our residents to come check out the the ribbon cutting
events on Saturday the community celebrations and just hop on the bus check it out um they're they're going to be pretty cool so um and it's a nice way to see what's going on in other communities along the route as well so we hope everybody takes advantage of that um in terms of what council has
been working on you know Max uh did a great job the the planning and zoning update has been a pretty big lift on our plate uh for the last well year um recognizing that our community is changing the things like parking mandates have really changed in terms of
how consumers interact with you know commercial spaces um Commissioner Brennan you brought up home furniture you know that was uh reducing their parking minimums was probably the first one we did a handful of years ago that really started opening our eyes to say you know consumers are interacting with
businesses differently than they ever have before then we had COVID where people were driving up to get their groceries obviously that changes um our behavior as local government as well so um all of these plans are kind of coming together at the same time which is pretty exciting you know add in things
like the the park system plan update um council is starting to look at numbers associated with a lot of those ideas that came from our community so that's rolling right along we're getting close to finalizing that the bike and ped plan which I think all of our city commissions worked on
2023 24 Hannah I'm looking at you it was adopted in 2023 and had it been kind of a multi-year process so you know it it seems like we have a lot of these planning conversations taking place but for a community that is growing um a
community that is now 50 years old we are relooking at our infrastructure needs as a city but also as a region so all of these things are kind of coming to a head all at the same time so it's kind of exciting um otherwise the the big thing that's going on right now is we're just gearing up for a very big
summer infrastructure season so from the annual street improvement program which will be taking place south of Seventh Street west of Hadley kind of in the the Tanner Lake around Greenway area um we're repainting a water tower the one
west of 694 that's always a big and very expensive endeavor but it hasn't been done for 25 years um also looking at our routine park improvements we have that going on as well so a lot of those infrastructure programs or projects are taking place this summer so there will
be some disruption there will be some detours we appreciate everybody's patience but the work has to get done so um that's always um something to look forward to as spring turns to summer other than that I'm happy to answer any questions nothing all righty thanks everybody
thank you well I think this brings us to the end of our agenda for the evening our next meeting uh the EMC will occur on Monday May 19th at 7 p.m in council chambers u there is no further discussion I'd like
to call for a motion to adjourn tonight's um meeting of the EMC so moved second awesome all in favor of adjournment of this meeting say I opposed great meeting
adjourned thanks everyone thank you