i will now call this meeting to order our first order of business is to adopt the agenda for tonight's meeting commissioners is there a motion to adopt the final agenda i'll make a motion to adopt the final agenda is there a second a second all in favor aye aye any opposed thank you the motion does carry our next order of business is to adopt the minutes from the june 21st 2022 planning commission meeting commissioners is there a motion to approve the minutes make a motion to approve the minutes excellent is there a second i'll second that all those in favor aye any oppose thank you the motion does carry um our first discussion item on our agenda tonight is item 3.1 uh consider amendments to victoria zoning code section 20 off street parking and loading this item does include a public hearing before opening the public hearing i'll now turn it over to planner isaac peterson for staff presentation isaac thank you mr chair members of the commission those that join us here this evening tonight for the commission's consideration for recommendation will be a amendment uh to zoning code section 20 dash or section 20 off street parking and loading um just a little context for for what we're reviewing here so as the commission knows and those in the audience know based on some upcoming multi-family residential proposals staff is recommending consideration of amendment to the residential parking requirements identified within the code as the commission knows there is a discussion held on july 5th to review what a potential ordinance amendment could be with some feedback and direction given by the commission so at that july 5th planning commission meeting staff presented a draft proposal indicating code language requiring one parking space per bedroom for residential developments multi-family residential developments at that meeting the commission provided direction towards consideration of a 1.5 parking space requirement per dwelling unit as opposed to that one space per bedroom requirement along with consideration of additional parking spaces required for units with greater than two bedrooms so just a little high level overview of our additional our existing code requirement for multiple family land uses in the city currently city code requires two spaces per dwelling unit one of the two to be enclosed for multi-family land uses in addition there's provision that with there can be no reduction of that code requirement for straight zoning for residential land uses and additionally um residential land uses within the cbd are required to provide parking space spaces under the ownership of the applicant of a subject property within the cbd so in application we have some local examples of what that two space per dwelling unit parking requirement looks like and really it's conducive towards a suburban model of growth that you see throughout the twin cities here's an example right across the street from us kitty corner from city hall across tiger lake lane where we see some some on surface parking located adjacent to multi-family buildings along with a proportional amount of covered structure parking spaces that's spread over a greater land area um so the the hiccup of what we're identifying with this two-space per dwelling unit parking requirement again it does reflect that traditional suburban multi-family development pattern um obviously constraints are tight and guidance is denser within the city central business district so when we're reviewing these applications um across the board there's a a math problem with the actual land area in the parking that can be required provided on site to support residential uses that are guided within the city staff has reviewed local and market examples of multi-family development and identified that the the successful metric that can be used to support residential development um that deviates from the city's current requirement can be uh accomplished so here are some of those examples and i've also included one of the proposed developments that we'll be hearing later here this evening of course there's multiple examples across the board here none of these cities are exactly victoria and no market city is exactly like victoria but really what we see here and there's a deviation from what was included within your packet for the flats project there's a range of parking on a unit basis that you know ranges from 1.4 1.3 to 1.6 or so parking spaces per dwelling unit that multi-family residential projects are proposing [Music] the local example that we have here and the city doesn't have much historic growth on the multi-family front would be the flats project which provided a ratio of 1.32 parking stalls per dwelling unit so again here's the flats kind of in comparison land area wise to what the current city code guides towards and and what was approved for the flats through a pud with it for that victoria flats project it was an 81 unit apartment building that contained 101 bedrooms and the pud approval for the flats project allowed for one parking space per bedroom as a base requirement with six additional visitor parking spaces adjacent to around the site so that would be a total of 107 resident parking spaces to serve the building there's also 37 public parking spaces co-located on site as it was originally partially a city parking lot initially this parking lot was studied in 2019 at that time through the parking study utilization counts there wasn't a perceived impact to the public parking spaces on site adjacent to the residential land use and it was observed to be underutilized or below 75 percent utilization for all observed hours staff has since our initial conversation here contacted the victoria flats management to discuss the operations of their their parking facilities and what they're observing and some of that feedback that was provided was that the units in the flats the 81 units that are there are 100 occupied currently um and they historically have been occupied anywhere from 90 to 100 percent on average the observation is that there's six to ten cars parked in the lot overnight that's consistent with the approval for the flats project which allowed for 10 surface parking stalls located on the the lot here and then six visitor parking stalls on the north side the observation was also that the six visitor parking spaces are predominantly used on the weekends so moving forward here based on the commission's feedback comment that we've we've heard from the public um the proposed ordinance amendment would provide for 1.5 parking spaces per bedroom for for dwelling sorry that's not struck for dwelling units plus .5 spaces for each unit containing three bedrooms or more the proposed language also does include a provision to allow for the utilization of shared parking as a conditional use permit and i'll touch base on that here as well and then again for consistency proposed amendment to section 20-7 noting the requirements of section 20-6 so the impetus behind the proposed provision to allow for shared parking with these multi-family residential projects is solely to provide a mechanism to promote the development of additional shared parking capacity and spaces through residential redevelopment and development based on what we're seeing and observing and hearing to do so and for uh for a property to to a project to utilize shared parking it would it would be required to be reviewed on an individual review basis um with consideration to a parking demand model or study uh parking management plan and a shared parking agreement with the city so i'm going to i'm going to pull up two examples here of developments that the city or the planning commission city council has looked at or will look at the first that i pull up here is the city's downtown west project we'll go more in depth on this in our next agenda item but i want to show the full scope of the project area and the guidance and the concept plan that that's been guided for this area the highlighted area here we have proposed site phase one of the downtown west project and this concept guidance that has been relayed as the direction for the development of the property proposed a residential facility or apartment project here in the phase one project area with shared parking co-located on the site in the central green area to serve the adjacent land uses such as the apartment building shown on the south here where it says proposed site so moving back this was the the concept vision that was evaluated through a feasibility study with parking metrics to support that the facility would be served um upon review in looking at what our current code is and this project is not being brought forward as a pud to conform with our our straight zoning to accommodate the city's existing parking requirement of two spaces per one dwelling unit about an acre of share of of private parking dedicated solely to the surface or surface lot parking dedicated solely to the building or 93 parking spaces would be needed along with parallel parking spaces that would presumably have to be dedicated to the sole use of this apartment building and then an additional 177 underground private parking stalls would be dedicated to the use of the building so there'll be a total of 292 parking stalls to support a 145 unit apartment building and this is where the comment and the note of the usable land area and the extent in which surface parking would be required to be dedicated solely to the use of a private function is coming into play through this potential proposed ordinance there would be the ability to both serve proposed development while also securing additional shared parking through through redevelopment or development so the proposal that you see before you is the contrast to that that could be accommodated through the proposed ordinance amendment where parallel shared parking stalls would be utilized to support the function of the building along with the utilization of 13 shared parking stalls within the central green area to support the building with the additional 177 underground private parking stalls that are anticipated to be needed for the building this proposal goes above and beyond what the anticipated demand for a residential apartment building would be it really would be a belt and suspenders approach to serving the building and avoiding parking issues in the future on the contrary we have our gannon property concept plan that was recently reviewed by the planning commission and discussed at length by the council and there's been a lot of comment and feedback based on that plan which is a concept plan so at the time of that concept plan proposal 73 residential units or apartment units were proposed on the site the concept plan itself proposed that 93 parking spaces would be proposed to be used or utilized to serve the residential land use on the site which would be 1.27 spaces per dwelling unit so based on the current code requirement 146 parking spaces would be needed to support that residential land use or two spaces per dwelling unit the proposed code requirement which is above what the applicator concept plan proposed proposed would require 110 spaces for the residential land use or 1.5 spaces per dwelling unit for that project and it's been relayed and i'll say it here publicly the utilization of shared parking to serve the residential land uses is not requested by the applicant of that project nor would it be recommended for future consideration by city staff so consideration of utilizing shared parking would be needed to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis on a site-by-site basis due to the density of what is proposed um at that location in the utilization of shared parking and the goal of that project to secure more shared parking staff would not recommend pursuing that for that project if it advanced the last direction for that concept plan was to review the parking demand receive a parking demand study and do more evaluation of parking for that site to inform what that concept design would be and if potential redevelopment of that site is viable at all so that's that's kind of my uh high level overview mr chair um just a as a comment that this item does require a public hearing um noticed of the published public hearing was included in the july 14th edition of the chan villager there was an error at the time of posting that bumped the required public notice to the july 14 edition of the chan villager from the july 7th edition of the chan villager so to ensure that we're maintaining consistency with the 10-day public hearing notice requirement staff is advising that the comment period for the public hearing remain open until july 25th to allow that extra time for public comment and maintain consistency with the notice period so the planning commission will be required to hear all comments provided during that period and then convene a meeting to review that comment if provided on july 25th at 4 30 or 5 p.m um hear hear the comment and then close the public hearing from there so that mr chair i'll uh turn it back to you and i'll i can stand for any questions very good thank you very much isaac um yes we will we will open a public hearing um a couple of comments concerning the public hearing is that the planning commission i always define us as the research arm for the city council so what we do is all of hopefully all of the research and then present our findings to the city council and then the city council responds responds accordingly so we are here to to make things happen uh within the confines of what we have to work with but one one other one other thing is with the city and all the development that's going on and i define victoria as the the city of lakes city of parks and the city of cars so the uh so the pesky thing is the uh is the cars um is there anyone in chamber this evening who wishes to comment on this item if so uh please speak at the podium and state your name and address please uh mr chair just sorry if you could just to state that the public hearing is now open and then mary can take the wheel yep the public hearing is now occurring thank you planning commissioners for allowing us to speak when we walked over today from our offices it was fun to see that on a tuesday evening the park oh i'm sorry mary mavison and do you want anything else you're right you're saying your address yeah my office is 1750 tower boulevard also have a residential home over at steeger lake 1776. walking on over we saw that the streets and the parking lots were full on a tuesday night and that's very very exciting in the previous parking study that isaac had talked about that was done in 2019 that study was fantastic because it showed how all the different parking lots were really being fully utilized during the peak parking hours like thursdays fridays saturdays they were red or yellow 85 to 100 full during your peak so it's exciting to know that that's working um the question tonight about changing the ordinance to 1.5 or is the question also 1.5 plus at the last planning commission meeting about adding guest parking or 1.5 and the 15 of shared parking or tonight it's talked about the proposed parking so there's a few different things happening the city council at the last meeting they said that they were going to authorize a public parking study to see where we were at today and they went ahead and they authorized that and we're just hoping that before you make an ordinance change that's very significant that we allow that public parking study to happen in the downtown see where we're at um it was done prior to even winchester and rye coming on board we've got a new owner at the victoria house we'd like to find out you know we haven't had that hasn't been open for two years so it'd be nice for this new parking study to get us up to a current um with the new developments that are coming in it looks like the ones that we can see or the the word on the street with the ones that have sales we're going to be looking at 450 to 500 new residents coming in we really and when i say we the business owners the landowners don't feel that we've had enough time to make sure that this ordinance change is right for all of the downtown we don't know maybe for out by the dairy queen might work great you got 13 and a half acres you got room for mistakes um but to shoehorn something in the shared parking in the central business district we're kind of wondering how many shared parking spots do we have how many are full capacity how much more could we put on them are we bleeding the businesses dry of parking that's where we're hoping the shared parking ordinance will help out and excuse me the study of the of the parking just a couple more items and then i'll be done um the current shared parking in the central business district so maybe not out at the flats maybe not out at lightners maybe not out of ka but in the central business district where you want retail offices shops it is at full capacity and i think the parking study will show that it's exceeding its capacity and you need capacity to add more shared parking you have to have capacity we don't think that it's there but we'd like to find out in the parking study we hope for public engagement before you change the ordinance we do want to make sure that we know that on the flats on the example that isaac gave there was one more component to that and that was that the flats were given they used 1.2 million of tip is supposed to go for future downtown parking so that's in addition that's an important point to note we know that the victoria residents are dependent on cars out here because we don't have mass transit so we we know we want to study and take a look at that with this with the parking and we want great success and we're hoping that tonight you don't vote on this ordinance change because we think it has we'd like to study it more we'd like to look at the parking where we're at today there might be different zones within the city that can have shared parking but some areas are already sold out and they've been resold numerous times and so just um in trying to put things together for tonight you know you start diving in and looking at it and trying to analyze um i think more time needs to happen i think that that if something has to happen an exception for ka because you're starting fresh make it an exception but a full ordinance change which is going to have an impact on the entire development of all these residential homes that are coming in are we trying to get more mixed use are we going to be a city of solid residential spots we really need to look at that and the businesses we want to thrive and we want the residents to come in and feel like they can park and we think it just takes more time and we'd like to be part of that thank you very good thank you mary thank you thank you for your input on that thank you for the documentation that you provided us with also is there anyone else that would like to speak on the subject good evening commissioners uh tom warpin uh victoria burrell 7999 victoria drive and i'd just like to second a lot of what mary pointed out tonight with the aspect of the console just putting into a parking study update i was part of the parking study that was done in 2018-19 as a committee member and i think with the changes that have happened the upcoming changes that are going to be happening as mary mentioned there's four or five sites besides the ka site out on the dairy queen property that are looking at apartments besides just the site that um kyle runk has has brought up that is of concern from the standpoint of the existing peak time traffic that happens on that peak times especially in downtown thursday friday saturdays and the idea that our customers are complaining about parking spaces and complaining about maybe not coming back because if they don't if they can't find a parking spot it's tough especially in winter it's one thing to walk around on a nice summer night in the downtown area but when we've got six months of winter and inclement weather it makes it a lot more difficult and so i think it's hugely important that we look at what's being done what what the changes could be and how shared parking works in the central business district versus perhaps on the 13 and a half acres out by the dairy queen location i think that it is important that there is a distinction between downtown central business parking and its and its peak times of overflow and needs than potentially in some of the other areas so i encourage you to again let's see what this parking study can evaluate have more public input on it so that we can deal for the long-term future of of of the city because um it's important to us business people that are here in fighting for our lives after two years of covet and the pandemic which really was not a very good scene in town for us in 2020 we were closed for five months i mean you can't operate a business too long when you're closed half the half of the year so appreciate your input and your thoughts and the idea that we can look forward to see what results we can learn and understand and clarity from an updated parking study thank you very good thank you very much tom appreciate it um yeah and in terms of the um the public hearing that will reconvene uh monday monday afternoon at 4 30 so there there will not be a decision coming out tonight on us at the same time is there anyone else that would like to speak on this thank you uh terry hartman with hartman communities and i between my brother and myself we we own the clock tower building the main street building the notreman building and the lakeside building so we and our my address is 1750 tower boulevard here in victoria um thanks for letting us know that there wouldn't be a decision tonight i mean it's it's helpful to hear what what the other property owners have to say and and i wouldn't want to repeat everything that that they're saying i would like to to add that um you know try to this is a difficult task for you i watched the video of your last meeting and and you were you struggled with this and i think it's a struggle yet to try to do a one-size-fits-all ordinance number because i think it does apply differently to the to the 13 and a half acres where the ka project is going to be proposed and it also applies differently to the victoria flats project which was compared to the uses used as a comparison in this crafting your your formula it's a very different site the the victoria flats property it was proposed in a really low density use existing parking lot and i think what's come out of it is a successful combination of parking spaces not using what you're proposing but something less but it also proposed some additional rebuilding of parking spaces that were on the street they did their own underground spaces and they also built rebuilt a public parking space on the back of it and i don't know that those 39 units in that public parking lot was included in the comparison metric that you're really comparing so it's it does reach almost the two units per two parking spaces per unit that the ordinance required and in addition mary touched on it because i was there the night when we approved it people were concerned about the ratio being reduced but when you added the 1.2 million in tiff 25 of the tiff run goes to the city dedicated to be used for for additional public parking expansion with that i don't know how much of it was completely spent already but as evidence tiger lake lane was improved with 25 more spaces on top of those numbers and i believe are we using some of that tiff for the steiger lake lane west project or any other parking expansions that you're aware of i'll answer your question but i'll let you finish speak and then we'll come back afterwards so i i don't know that you that the comparison is uh that you're trying to craft this against was exactly right for that victoria flats but it was but it was close i don't i think there's another 39 units that needs to be looked at if you are going to look at the study of that to say does it work or does it not work what's been the experience over the last couple of years and that 1.2 million can't be forgotten about that was dedicated to be used for expansion of public parking and has been used for that for that purpose so again i think you got two different two or three different parts of the city where this where this kind of one-size-fits-all needs to work and and it may be difficult the parking study component of this is a really important thing most of us are concerned not about the ka proposal or anything in the 13 and a half acres we're more concerned about what what the impact is of this shared parking spaces most of our buildings are predicated on the use of that site so when we lose parking spaces our businesses suffer and there's and if that's the case then we have a diminution of value in our buildings it's like an inverse condemnation and that's a pretty serious thing for our values our financing our bankers pretty concerned about about all that so i i won't repeat the rest of what mary and tom have said but i appreciate uh being able to see the parking study as soon as we can so you guys know you're making the right decision as it applies to the downtown properties very good thank you terry appreciate your perspective on history history that's that's involved because there's a fair amount of history that that um we need to truly make the right decision at the same time uh is there anyone else that would like to speak on on the subject mr chair members of the commission tim marco 3340 republic avenue st louis park um i'm a development director for anderson companies and i'm one of the principals of marco mclean development full disclosure we're the next agenda item which directly relates to this agenda item but i thought maybe i could add a couple of uh comments just hearing the public's comments and isaac's reading as well um we share the same parking concerns as the members of the public we want to make sure that our facility has the appropriate amount of parking stalls we don't have the luxury of repositioning our asset once we build an apartment community it's an apartment community if we've underparked it people won't live there right if you don't have enough space to park your cars to live where you want to live you find somewhere else to live so we go through a very specific data driven approach to how many is the appropriate installs especially when we're not downtown minneapolis or st paul connected to the light rail where you can get away with more surface parking because it's abundant right you can park a few blocks away people are okay with that they're familiar with it even in the winter time out here we use and we provided that i believe in our in our traffic memo or parking memo that we put together the ite the industry standard for the demand for parking based on uses uh in addition we use our third-party management company feedback from other apartment communities as well you can look in minnetonka isaac put the list of five or six up there that show the similar demand right i mean what we show is that about one per bedroom is the industry standard uh whether in victoria whether you're in prior lake whether you're in uh minnetonka potentially woodbury uh it seems to match right it's it's proven out by data um other developers communities work in this situation we're asking for more shared parking stalls to meet the potential code of 1.5 plus the 0.5 ride or whatever the specific math was i think one thing that is is like i said worth noting you know we have nothing to gain by shorting parking stalls in victoria right we we will seriously be detrimental to the success of our asset long term uh the one thing i heard and i'd ask isaac to confirm to just maybe bring a little bit of potential comfort to downtown business owners is if the amendment to the ordinance reads that any shared parking is part of a conditional use permit in the future that allows the planning commission the city council to be intentional and deliberate on when that's appropriate and where so if it makes sense out by the dairy queen and the downtown west project that's a certain circumstance if it makes sense downtown in the central central business district that's its own circumstance otherwise you meet the demand you need for the 1.5 and you move forward again based on the ites and our feedback we find that it's about 1.3 ish that's what the math works out to on one per bedroom but thought i'd add those those components in there as part of your consideration and just some feedback for the public based on the comments so thank you very good thank you very much well i mean this is um neighbors that are going to have to figure out how to work together and now is now is the time to do that so that uh so that it does work is there anyone else that would like to speak on this i am scott gates i'm at 4363 wilshire i'm here tonight speaking on behalf of paul carlson who couldn't make it tonight at vixx i mean i pretty much agree with the things that have been set up to this point there's a bigger picture here i think the key point is this is the cart before the horse one and a half 1.3 1.4 might be perfectly reasonable um that's that's another ite standard it's a standard you see in other areas but there's more to that you get into trip generation you get into the dynamics of the area central business district versus surrounding areas those types of things all those things cooperate together to create a bigger scenario and the council as i understand it has identified the need for the data to make those decisions that would be a traffic study last one was done in 2019 as i understand it it sounds like it was potentially done just for victoria flats one of my suggestions was in a meeting we had last week with the developers that an auar is probably appropriate that you look at traffic from uh area-wide picture and how this four to five hundred new residents and probably honestly more on top of that works with each other with the existing residential and with the existing business so again it's a bigger picture that needs to be addressed we're kind of down here at the end game talking about standards and specifications which might be perfectly acceptable but you really need the data to be able to do that um this would be considered an urban style development i think that's been maybe identified versus a suburban style and one of the keys to that typically is walkability so you've got a good walkable community but the missing component to urban style is transit as tim alluded to without transit the kind of urban traffic component goes away in that everybody still has got to have cars and if you've got a car you're going to typically use it most people aren't going to walk from a peripheral project even two three blocks away to get downtown they're gonna it's who we are we're going to get in our cars we're going to go to town so that creates a significant additional impact on the central business district which is an amenity for the entire community um it's as they noted i walked through tonight too there was four or five parking spaces available on a tuesday at six o'clock thursday friday saturday that's a much more difficult scenario um i think this gets down to developing standards as well tim alluded to that as well as i've read it there's some ambiguity for example using shared parking it's like well you can use a portion of that but it doesn't identify what that standard is you can't have a standard that says a portion of because then it's not reproducible there's no certainty you can't treat similarly situated properties differently that's all part of this discussion how you identify what those standards are so the developer can walk in and have some certainty when they design the residents can have some certainty the businesses can plan their businesses accordingly i think and this is more just me maybe but when you're talking about shared parking you know maybe a quick update on what that means who's paying for the shared parking is the developer paying for the shared parking in these cases and then making it available to the community and if so is the community likely to use that shared parking and then i think the last point is is the you know when you get into the tif funding you know how is that going to work how is it going to be allocated i guess one other related traffic point too is in discussing this monarch project which i think everybody was generally in support of they weren't in support of the parking situation with that the intent as i understand it with the tiff is to increase shared parking and it really doesn't do that when you get down to it and work through the numbers when you're talking about parking i'm a developer as well and we always are creative let's just say it's just how it works um when you're a city you don't want to be creative because you have finite demand you have peak demands that you have to work to to accommodate um and maybe one of the last things on that looking at the monarch project is that maybe relates to this discussion you can replace parking with additional parking but they're not always apples for apples currently you have a 45 unit something like that surface parking everybody knows where it is everybody knows how to find it people that come to town even if they're not residents they're visitors they can find that shared parking if you put that shared parking in an underground garage that's part of a residential structure downtown minneapolis and and part of a residential structure that it's as it's presented is multiple levels multiple entrances it's not drive in here drive out there the people that come even the people in town have a hard time understanding that that's shared public parking people that come in from out of town it's even harder yet you know downtown minneapolis they can get away with it because people are used to it again usually single entrances single exits but does that parking have the same value from a use standpoint as a surface parking lot not sand surface is great but anyway those are some of the things to consider i would also encourage that this is a a discussion that is ahead of the game a little bit it would seem far better to get the traffic study and it should be an aur i think with input from the business community residents and the development community um identify the data and then come back and work back through these and see how it all works together thanks very good thank you very much scott is there anyone else that would like to speak on the topic you will have another opportunity on uh on monday afternoon but now is also an opportunity or any additional any additional thoughts that anyone may have really i know you technically need the monday meeting but given what i'm hearing and the desire to have the traffic study that's not going to change between now and now we can't we can't rule on deferring to the parking study for the central business district handle the other development on his own uh chair members of the commission if i may just interject what i'd recommend that the commission do is you've heard public comment i don't believe anyone else wishes to speak you can hold the public hearing or put a pause button on it resume commission discussion the commission can make a recommendation of course you would you know at this evening's meeting however you have to hear all public comment and if you make a recommendation this evening and hear further comment you have to consider that and potentially revoke that recommendation make a new recommendation so you hardly believe that additional comments are going to be yeah let's do this without the study that's that's i guess that's my point correct uh chair members of the commission i think just a couple of points here um for the commission's clarification so the the council did refer staff to pursue updated a parking study specific to the gannon property at their their last meeting on monday and then in addition the city undertaking updated utilization counts of the central business district we have and i'd add that the following point and i believe it may be consistent with the comments that are being presented here this evening if the commission is concerned or wants to discuss concern regarding parking as a whole within the central business district and receive more information you can certainly do that if there is a desire by the commission because we have a second agenda item this evening that relies and there's there's two different outcomes that that could occur from from this discussion as it relates to the the downtown west phase one project the commission could discuss incorporating language within the proposed ordinance to make it site specific to the downtown west project area and we could certainly bring back language that could accommodate that alternatively as it relates to the downtown west phase one project area the alternative would be to accommodate the parking requirement of the city yeah i mean what my recommendation would be if there's an appetite to allow for a reduced parking metric consistent with what's being proposed here this evening to make it site specific to the downtown west area and not necessarily the rest of the central business district noted by the concern brought before you here this evening is downtown west bend rezoned as central business district at this point or is it still ag commissioner pedersen chair members of the commission it's it's zoned within the central business district language could be incorporated within the zoning code to refer to a zone or area within the central business district that a ordinance applies to that's me i think it makes sense to have two central business districts i know that doesn't make a lot of sense but central business district one central business district two and have different language for each then you're going to get into the business district down south uh and 10-11 and what's that considered zoned not south of the railroad tracks yeah i do think it needs a lot more work quite frankly um i think there's been a certain amount of work that's that has been done i think the the uh public input is is you know to me is all important i think there were some very valuable things um i think at this point we we discuss we debate and and and i think it is part correct me if i'm wrong isaac that uh that we are um that we are legally scheduled for the the uh monday afternoon 25th has that been published uh chair members of the commission that was published and noticed uh for this public hearing okay so that we have to hold to no matter what correct yeah okay okay very good um any any other in any other input on this um before monday afternoon um hearing none we will uh we will chair uh members of the commission if i may before you close the item what staff would ask for because we have a potential development that would rely on potential code amendment uh to the ordinance to provide some direction to that end on where to take this next and if there is an appetite to consider that as a separate item or area um yeah providing direction to that end yeah i i think it's you know i mean if if we were in the vicinity of highway 10 and highway 11 uh we would have in in theory about all the parking that we would need in the uh in the central business district of course we don't and and that's a whole nother set of parameters a whole nother uh formula that really has to be put together so um you know i think that's a very very valid point i would think that yeah we would probably look at 13 and a half acres different than [Music] downtown uh area um just because to me they're two different two different areas um you know you get into stuff we haven't talked about which are you know ev spots you know and you start putting uv spots in central business district and you know are those spots restricted to electric vehicles only or are they open to anybody you know and also now you're restricting some more parking spots or electric vehicles that yeah or do you have enough ev spots you know how many uv spots are you going to require per parking lot you know just like handicap you got to require you know so many spots for per size a lot you know what's our requirement going to be on ev requirements and you know are you going to require infrastructure that to be put in that will require half the lot to be at some point ev you know i don't know what the answer is there um but i think yes i agree that we need to wait and see what the parking study says but i think also that thirteen and a half acres is a different animal than a different area than downtown and i would say we could probably move forward as two separate areas however you want to i think it can be done separately if that's what you're looking aren't there already other zoning provisions that are different for the downtown area than they are for other parts of victoria so this wouldn't really be unprecedented uh commissioner shorting chair members of the commission there are various code provisions within zoning districts found throughout the city that differ based on the location um nothing quite like what we're talking about here but you know ranging from the use of different lakes for different things found commonly within the same zoning district you name it um what i would recommend if the consider if the planning commission has an appetite to do it would be to consider revised draft code language noting an area within the downtown west site with a graphic or description of what the allowable area is to consider a revised parking requirement for just that area that would give the opportunity for the commission and council to hear updated utilization counts for the remainder of the central business district i would be supportive of tabling this item going back with another look in a future commission meeting of the language has proposed because from my recollection of our last meeting this doesn't quite hit the mark of where we were going um i mean just on a you know on a quick high level hit the language about plus an additional half space for each unit containing three bedrooms or more i think if that were two bedrooms or more we start to get closer to where we were before but addressing the concept that for the trend of development producing more one bedroom and studio apartments that that would we wanted to lighten up that end of the spectrum on the number of spaces for those units while keeping balance as the number of units or bedrooms per unit increases that we're increasing the parking spaces and i'll feel this as drafted addresses that and i think another concern is that we wanted to get the input of commissioners murray and moore who were were not here tonight and who are not at the last meeting blended with the public comment that we've heard uh i think it's incumbent on our commission to put this aside for the moment come back with a fresh set of look bring into the the topic of the parking study and then we can address the you know the current development and its parking spaces as a separate item and then address the additional question of how do we deal with the shared parking in the central business district and maybe shared parking outside the central business district i feel that that shared parking is really the crux of the hang-up between the business owners and central business district and then multi-family development out what is sort of outside this what we've traditionally felt is a central business district is that a view that shared what's the plan for downtown west development if we don't make departments change i mean is there like a pud process they'd have to go through in order to get it done or does that entail sorry commissioner pedersen chair members of the commission were in almost uncharted waters but there's there's a few different outcomes that the commission could pursue the downtown west phase one proposal relies on this proposed ordinance language so option would would be that the city could the commission and it doesn't sound like there's an appetite to do so could consider recommending approval of the proposed ordinance amendment and the phase one site would conform to the amended code we've discussed briefly specifying the location of a shared parking count to be site-specific to the 13 and a half acres so that's option two option three would be the commission recommend denial of the proposed ordinance amendment tabling the item for a future date would in many ways just be a vote of denial for the 13 and a half acres phase one development because it doesn't conform for the site itself that the commission will be reviewing at our next agenda item the commission could recommend that uh if there is an appetite to conform with that code the commission could recommend that um if there's a comfort level with the parking that was provided on site and staff feels comfortable that site in that situation in that given area will serve that building effectively the commission could consider a recommendation because it would be a break from the code that the the city has on the books consideration of a variance from the existing code to meet the required or meet the parking that's specified on site that would be heard at a later meeting date or denial of the site as a whole or and we'll get into this when we review the project there could be consideration that the public parking spaces that are shown on the development i'll pull it up here be dedicated to the private use of the building or the development as a whole and be platted with the building and not be utilized for shared parking so so are over complicated as a commission that um we do want to we do want to table the amendment um we do want to proceed with with the downtown west and and the and the parking that was proposed with this proposed building we want to hear the proposal and we're very receptive to the parking that is being proposed for it yep barbarians maybe that's the easiest way to do it i don't know but we're amendable we'd like to hear it well worst case scenario not ready to change the the ordinance right no no i was just going to say worst case scenario the green space to the north becomes an entire parking lot to satisfy the parking needs wouldn't that be the worst case scenario that we're trying to avoid uh commissioner pedersen chair members of the commission that is an excellent question okay so as we look at this there is a central green space that's been identified within the concept plan for downtown west and really we'll get into this more in our next agenda item but the driver behind identifying that central green space area was to serve as more shared parking for downtown west as a whole so i mean the catch-22 that we're grappling with and the driver behind considering an ordinance amendment for a project like this and to facilitate a project like this is how do we secure more shared public parking spaces if we believe it works is the right direction to identify we need this as a shared or a private parking lot to support a development like this or is there a function and an ability in a read or development proposal like this where shared parking can be used for both the public good and to serve an adjacent building site you know i i would tend to agree there's there's a million ways to to skin a cat here and each site is completely unique and different one of the benefits to the design of an area like this is that there have been traffic studies done there has been feasibility studies done and there has been parking design and counts done for redevelopment of this size and proportion to ensure that the infrastructure such as parking that's designed in conjunction with the building site um serves the building appropriately so so we'll talk about that in depth later i guess uh to sum up what i'm hearing from the commission there is not an appetite to or there's an appetite to table consideration of an ordinance amendment um and then um for the upcoming agenda item we'll discuss the parking in a little bit more in depth and we have the engineer here with us this evening and the applicants that can discuss it um potentially consideration of a uh a variance in conjunction with the development does that is that accurate that's accurate are we in agreement on that any opposed yes yep that's how we'll proceed you can uh chair members of the commission you could move to table the item um until uh is there um is there a motion to table july 25th presumably the next time to discuss it you could table it until july 25th which we have scheduled to discuss it irregardless of the outcome of this evening tablet until july 25th at 4 30. is there uh so i'll make a motion to to table this uh agenda item to the july 25th and then with a view to uh incorporate the potential draft languages that we discussed is there a second to that my second time all those in favor those opposed motion does carry thank you um our next discussion item on our agenda tonight is item 3.2 uh consider preliminary plant conditional use permit applications and site plan approval for anderson companies proposed downtown west multifamily residential development this item does include a public hearing before we open the public hearing i will now turn it over to planner isaac peterson for a staff presentation isaac thank you chair members of the commission before we go on did we properly close the public area uh well still monday commissioner of answers or is there a motion to table it also closed the public uh commissioner ovansky chair members of the commission so you're not actually closing the public hearing rather it's remaining open until july 25th anyone wishing to supply further comment between now and that time can certainly do so um i have not experienced this in my young planning career although it's not an uncommon thing um unfortunately occasions arise where there isn't a uh appropriate notice or the uh there's a failure to notice by the appropriate agency that wasn't city related so i hope that it has to be done right correctly no all right chair members of the commission so our second agenda item here this evening is preliminary plat conditional use permit and site plan consideration for anderson company's proposed downtown west multi-family residential development so just highlighting where we're looking here and i would guess that most folks in the room and the commission and uh many of us involved are familiar with this site so um the downtown west area includes two parcels uh the west on steiger lake laying on the furthest extent of uh the city's central business district we see county road 11 here highway 5 we say over by the dairy queen because gary queen's right here and we're looking at the city-owned property noted in orange here and then the boyer property noted in blue here so in in totality this downtown west area is 14.17 acres in size and tonight what we're going to be reviewing is a proposed 145 unit multi-family apartment building on 2.13 acres of this site so just kind of running through the timeline here and some of it's almost as old as me but currently the city owns 13.5 acres 13.53 acres it's the orange parcel that i noted west of downtown that's referred to as the downtown west uh property or the 13 and a half acre piece that prod property was acquired as part of a land swap with three rivers park district in the early 2000s and really since 2006 the city has been going through a constant evaluation for potential development of of the property um to really serve as an extension of the existing downtown central business district uh core area so in 2016 the city council adopted a downtown master plan which guided the 13 half acres as a extension of the mixed-use nature downtown here that would incorporate commercial office and retail and residential uses throughout the site's total area so so moving on from there in 2020 or january of 2020 the city council authorized infrastructure feasibility study to review potential street alignments site grading access storm water management trail and sidewalk alignments public utility extensions along with providing recommendation on the site's you know project phasing to review development for the site as a whole over time so coming out of that feasibility study there was a concept plan that was noted that identified several or a few different project phase areas and really coming off of steiger lake lane here indicating the desire to relocate steiger lake lane through the property to county road 11 to facilitate development incorporate storm water elements incorporate quite a bit of shared public parking throughout the site to really serve the site and function from a fresh start and knowing where we're going so moving from that feasibility study in october of 2021 the city council authorized a preliminary development agreement with kraus anderson on the proposed phase one project area portion of downtown west that phase one project area included the construction of a market rate apartment building as well as public amenities such as central green space that we just discussed storm water features to serve the site and initiate site development along with roadways and utility infrastructures to serve the site so moving from that the concept plan and that feasibility study was then refined to align with potential development it's pretty close to what the feasibility study noted but but it noted that the phase one area here is generally shown in red in the outlined area and then the the future development of the site as a whole so we're looking at the uh the phase one portion of the site noted in red here so in may of 2022 the preliminary development agreement was assigned by kraus anderson to anderson companies to bring that same project forward and bring a development application forward so currently what we're reviewing here tonight is anderson companies submittal of the preliminary platt application along with conditional use permanent applications for consideration by the planning commission and city council to kick off the development of of downtown west with a 145 unit market rate apartment development located on the property so again this is the project area and building that's that's being reviewed here tonight as it relates to the concept plan that was anticipated so currently and i'm sure we've all driven past the development of the property area the city-owned property is shown here and really it exists as an as open space it was a part of three rivers at one point um it's a field with with trees kind of sparsely populated out there there's no structures located on the city property currently and then the boyer property which is shown within the application here this evening contains a single family home it's historically been rented out as a single family rental along with two outbuildings so currently the within the 2040 comp plan the area is guided as downtown mixed use and that downtown makes use guidance supports a continuation of the mix of uses within the cbd including residential smaller scale retail office buildings and other uses coalescing together in the same area the residential density guidance for the downtown mixed use area is 24 to 75 units per acre the proposal here this evening is 68.3 residential units per acre as proposed currently the property is zoned within the cbd central business district residential land uses within the central business district require consideration as a conditional use in addition building heights are restricted within the central business district 35 feet unless a conditional use permit is is granted to exceed that requirement um so that's also the request here before you this this evening um which notes a in the building that we're looking at is 44 feet in height um so the uh lots and lots shown here uh for the preliminary plat note that the two properties would be combined and redivided into a lot one block one which would be proposed for the development of the apartment building that's proposed outlot b which would be retained by the city to facilitate stormwater and right-of-way street improvements infrastructure improvements within the lot and outlaw a which would be retained by the city to facilitate future development for the envision downtown west project so the plat looks like this we can see the dashed line of the boyer property so this lot one block one would serve the apartment building outlot b would serve that central green area and the storm water ponding to serve the site and then outlet a would be retained for future development noted within the concept plan so with respect to the site plan that's before you this evening the building shape is pretty consistent with the concept plan that's plans that have been reviewed leading to this point it's located immediately adjacent to stagger lake lane and would be served by steiger lake lane and future expansion of steiger lake lane in the structure again next to stagger lake lane we're looking at 145 units within the apartment building which consists of one bedroom and studio units 104 of them 38 two-bedroom units and four three-bedroom units for a total of 192 bedrooms located within the project structure area so again the structure that's being proposed before you this evening is 44 feet in height or four stories it includes one level of underground parking the residential use and units are proposed on floors one through four with respect to the design of the building and the rendering that you see before you hear this evening is the initial elevations of what's proposed um the materials and colors used on the elevations of the structure appear to be consistent with the city's guidance and design standards for projects and buildings within this central business district it does include articulation on on all sides to break up the massing in addition there's the use of neutral tone paneling with consideration of the park district that that's behind the property to minimize the visual effect of the building along with brick black metal cornice material and and stone on the corners with respect to access the again the site's proposed to be served to enter a underground parking ramp to serve the building from stagger lake lane shown here um and then in addition the pedestrian entrance and kind of uh anchor of the building um and amenity areas uh at the ground level is is proposed to be located off the central green from steiger lake to be developed with the downtown west phase one project so we just talked about parking and let's talk about it again [Laughter] for this project as we're looking at here tonight so included within your background packet was a parking demand study that staff requested required for the review of the project through that parking demand study and reviewing the land use the location and where it is 1.33 parking spaces were identified as necessary and needed to accommodate the parking demand of the building itself 1.33 parking spaces per unit in the context of this building would be 194 total parking spaces currently what is proposed is 177 structured parking spaces beneath the building and there's a request to utilize 43 of the 83 shared parking spaces that are proposed to be constructed through the development of the downtown west phase one project that 43 count would be to get to a 1.5 spaces per dwelling unit count to to serve the site and go above and beyond what's anticipated to be needed and again conform with the the amendment that was proposed again the staff feels comfortable with the parking demand study that was proposed and based on the proximity of the area the site location not being within the core central business district um utilization of the public spaces or the parallel parking spaces that are shown next to the building due to their proximity and location that we're looking at here the demand for utilization of those spaces because there's no anticipated commercial development located in this area it's highway 5. it makes sense to serve the site through that so as we as we discussed and and as we're looking at that some of the feedback from the commission and the discussion here this evening um that staff will be requesting is if there's an appetite to to do this discussing um what that looks like and what what the anticipated requirement should be to serve this property and this project moving forward with respect to utilities and storm water sewer and water services are anticipated to be served from steeler lake lane through utility extensions that um are created through the steiger lake phase one project that was recently approved by council um and storm water from for the serving the building and runoff is proposed to be collected by a stormwater pond located towards the entrance of the downtown west site um and really that infrastructure is proposed to serve the property as a whole and lastly the property is located within the minnehaha creek watershed district there's been ongoing coordination and activity together to ensure that the site as a whole and this project area is meeting the mark and that's all trending positively so again staff is supportive of the proposed downtown west phase one preliminary plat conditional use permanent site plan applications we do have some recommended conditions of approval one being that the applicant shall enter into a development agreement with the city for the development of improvements prior to or concurrent with final plant approval subject to the review of the city attorney and approval of the city council that the applicant shall enter into a purchase agreement for the city-owned land proposed for the development subject to the review of the city attorney and approval by the city council that the final plat and related proposed subdivision of all existing parcels be approved by the city council prior to the con requested conditional use permits taking effect that the site plan and building materials be approved by the city council prior to the conditional use permit taking effect that the applicants submit a parking management plan and enter into a shared parking agreement if shared parking spaces are utilized on the site subject to the review of city staff and approval of the city council that a building permit be obtained prior to proceeding with building construction and all improvements comply with applicable building codes and lastly that sign permits be obtained prior to the building's construction or installation of signage so i would i would add and this can be dependent on what's discussed here this evening by the commission and others if there's a desire to consider the parking proposed on the site that it be considered or a recommended condition of approval be added for consideration of a variance to address parking on the proposed development site so again much like our public hearing mr chair members of the planning commission notice for this evening's public hearing was published in the july 14th edition of the chan villager similarly to our last item to maintain that and maintain consistency with the 10-day public hearing notice requirement the comment period for the public hearing must remain open until july 25th and the planning commission must hear all comments between that period and convene a special meeting at the same time on the 25th uh to consider that comment and close the public hearing at that time so with that i can stand for any questions mr chair members of the commission we also have our development team here with us this evening that that would be happy to answer any questions that you have and talk through the proposed uh project very good thank you very much isaac i will now open the public hearing is there anyone that would like to speak on the on the proposal um it's a public input if there's someone that would like to speak on the proposal if not we'll i'll close the uh pause the public hearing until july 25th sorry mr chair yup pause it until the 25th okay very good um i'll now open the floor to uh planning commission to discuss commissioners any questions a question for the developer so you you've done the parking study and say we grant the variance but you do have to remember you can't walk to a grocery store you can't walk to a your favorite beverage store you can't walk to the dairy queen that's a plus so in your in some of the other examples either bus service or i assume there's some walkability so but if we go with the 1.5 and then you encounter issues with rentability or attendance at tenants complaining about parking what would your course of action be chair members the blank commission thank you for hearing us tonight um let's get right into it we can do more of a formal presentation didn't know how you want to hear from us i know we've uh been together for a couple years now so hopefully we don't want to be redundant uh great question we can do a little bit more color in context too as it pertains specifically to our site and maybe kind of historically how we get to our parking metrics because you're you're exactly right the the consequence and the outcome is unforgiving um there is no building additional parking you know the the entire the the two years of planning and the architectural and everything that goes into it is is fundamentally uh built around parking when we start to evaluate a site and it's all very case by case by case centric the first thing we do is appropriately size the parking and then we so then we facilitate okay is this project going to work based on how we can park it feasibly or is it not and more times than not it's a project that doesn't work because of constraints because of landings because of land availability um and and if it does not work for the parking then we kind of move on this particular case just a little bit more history and i'll ramble for a minute it's been interesting because we've been working in tandem with the vision that the city and the staff have had and really trying to fit into the fabric of that vision of the master plan that we believed in so and we do believe in it and so we wanted to everything we've been doing for the last couple years has been designing a site and sizing it and parking it so it fits into the character of that master plan that ultimately fits into the character and um you know emphasizes the natural beauty and activates the reserve and starts to bring some life to that side of downtown and if done if done right maybe not in the dead of winter but on a nice night like tonight we can get lucky enough where we're close enough to downtown where we bring people in to downtown to utilize uh the local businesses and establishments without necessarily needing that car right we're not going to rely on that and from our perspective in the economics of of of how we evaluate it we're much more dispassionate than that so what we'll do is we'll start with iet data and technical manuals we don't rely on that where we generally go first is to look at our own portfolio and we have thousands of units within you know core urban some right on light rail some right on brt lines we're starting to get all this really good predicate data on how do we actually park these where are we under parked where are we over parked how are they actually living are we losing did we over park it how are the tod being utilized you might be kind of surprised to know that it the tod does not relieve a lot of parking for us because it seems intuitively it would but there are safety concerns with that there are so you can't really rely on that either so we'll always err on the side of being conservative and providing more parking as opposed to less so when we started evaluating this when we kind of took all those factors into the mix it is a very auto-centric site so we can't go low on parking but we also know that um when we look at our port for our portfolio and how it's utilized parking wise and we look at kind of our third party property management group as a national group they have about 55 000 units and we'll ask them to start evaluating across their portfolio what we're seeing in trends in midwestern you know suburban or quasi-suburban type deals and so some of that or some of those that narrative was put in the uh the study so i think it's there kind of for your reading and informed that way but a long long way of saying if we under park it we're we're not doing well and so i would say we are not creative at all when it comes to parking we are very intentional when it comes to parking and i think the reason we're okay with that condition of having those parallel stalls along the road which is not ideal for our residents either right i mean i don't think they'd be utilized in a from a public benefit standpoint from infrastructure that's already going in so that infrastructure's going to be there right just to open the master plan up and so it's a nice utilization of that infrastructure investment i don't think there's gonna be a lot of public parking there right but i don't honestly think there's gonna be a lot of our resident parking there either because that wouldn't be an ideal condition i think for us kind of the perfect condition except for some high peak you know high traffic nights and weekend type stuff with a few visitor stalls is going to be about what what we have found where the traffic study or the technical analysis coming in what our portfolio is telling us in kind of the current environment and what our our operator our national operator is kind of telling us in that 1.3 range right one per bedroom and really what you find is and i'm gonna get really technical now it is truly kind of one per bedroom about 10 10 or less of our one bedroom units will have uh you know more than one resident living in it so it's it's pretty minimalist as far as seeing you don't see a lot of uh potential for a secondary car in the studios or the one bedroom so that's a pretty you know in less it's pretty correlate correlating there in the larger units in the two bedrooms we're seeing about 25 of those two bedroom units will be utilized by a single occupant and so we kind of again try to be careful with that and and basically anticipate every bedroom gets a car so that that essentially says every two bedroom is going to have two cars associated with it right just to be a little bit conservative there but our our internal data tells us a little bit differently but i think safe and then the three bedrooms are generally uh almost always a two a two car occupant or two car utilized uh um uh unit and of which we have i think four here to provide a you know a little bit of diversity in that housing type and offered so we're we wouldn't be in front of you if we felt like we were in any way under park because we do have that space i mean surface parking is not hard to erect right we could continue we could have advocated early on in design to continue kind of eating into that green space we love that green space we want to you know potentially participate in activating it programming it doing farmers markets can we talk about a splash pad out there you know some of these kind of things to bring life to that so we want that as some momentum and a nice amenity for the overall master plan but there is that opportunity we could have advocated for and i i can stand here before you right now and say that we don't seeing a sea of parking in that that probably would be very underutilized i think would be a disappointing outcome but it's always we always have that opportunity right i mean we can always pave over it so that's i guess that's what i'm saying you you could expand into that if you had to it would be the cities and you're not seeing with the rents are going up dramatically and i know there's issues of rent control in st paul or whatever but you're more knowledgeable than me so you haven't seen any kind of trend where rents go up significantly and you're going to have two people in a in a one bedroom with two cars you haven't seen any trends like that no it's not substantial yeah better okay no or a studio we haven't well the studio you kind of get but one you know one one bedroom you you could have two people generally go without a car before they'll take on a roommate in a smaller unit honestly but you know every site is different sure yeah i think that's more prevalent downtown still right if you're gonna bunk up with someone you're young enough to not mind doing that i think you know we didn't get a chance i mean we didn't come forward during the public uh commentary section but we certainly can go through some of our images and talk more about kind of how we got to where we got to uh if you're interested in doing that but i think that that potential roommate scenario coming as rents continue to increase is certainly more of a core downtown concern where you're seeing rents in the three thousand plus dollar range they're just an affordable one the benefit of being further out in the suburbs is we don't have rents that high we're still uh achievable and attainable to a larger group of folks okay so you're uh you're you're marketing it uh renters by choice is is one of them and then empty nesters at at the same time um what what sort of what sort of price point um on you know for example a two-bedroom yeah i might i can jump in right there i mean so basically when we when we first started looking at victoria what 2018 three years ago now 2019 uh we identified exactly uh chair the the demographic that you pointed out right 2040 comp plan helped us show that there was a smaller amount of population for the young folks renters at will hunters by choice and then potentially that 55 plus age range our project is a market rate deal rents will be almost uh identical competitive to the current rents at the victoria flats a two-bedroom uh rent would range honestly we haven't finalized exactly where it is because the rents won't be finalized until the project is built in 18 months or so but right now we're uh rents range anywhere from 1350 on the smallest end and up to 26.50 plus if you're up on a three bedroom up in the corner overlooking steeger lake uh you know essentially right there okay very good isaac can you pull up the parking so on the proposed parking um you got one yeah parking on one side of the street um in the green space i'm gonna say to the northwest um why wouldn't you add like a double parking area on that other on this northwest side or i could i can ask answer that uh commissioner chair members of the commission i i think it speaks to what was envisioned for this area and the lack of parking um they're they're showing spaces immediately adjacent to the building in part because this is really the only building as we look at this area that would commonly use these parking spaces based on the development it's slightly detached from the future area of downtown west and then there's the power sports building to the south so it's it's shown on one side of stagger lake lane through the project uh proposal here this evening on the remainder of the central green area and the expansion part of the thought was there's added shared parking within that area and if i jump back here and looking at the concept plan as a whole coming down the line um resulting from potential development on this site there's identification for uh future buildings four and seven on the other side of the of this central green stormwater area so the thought was if the city is to provide shared parking through the feasibility study and infrastructure that shown on this concept plan that was uh recognized maintaining the ability to have available shared public parking in those areas is necessary and avoiding a situation where it's chewed up by any one particular land use in downtown west does that answer your question no long-winded answer i'm just trying to find more parking in the green space but not pave the whole you know green space area because we paved that whole green space area i think we're going to run into hardcover issues with the middlewash yeah watershed district what when i don't know are they i mean i assume they're still required some sort of hardcover requirements or is a central business business district completely exempt from hardcover i don't you know versus yeah um but i'm just in that c-shape um if you take your mouse just a little bit north or right there why wouldn't you put another role parking gotcha in that area just which would give you another dozen spots or whatever which would be a little bit more additional parking for the common area but not fill in that whole green space um commissioner chair members of the commission i could probably speak to that a bit there's actually a pretty significant grade change from the top elevation of this central green area that's shown leading down to get out there this central green parking space concept is subject to change and really it's subject to change because presumably the city would control that central green space area so based on the comments that are provided if it's to be shared parking if if more parking is deemed necessary in that area the layout of the spaces that are shown here could change and that's been evaluated i would say this is uh there's been opportunity discussed to um bring out in a different shape of parking uh coming out further and more linear along either side of the buildings with the ability to do expandable parking so there could be x amount of quantity shown on day one if there's the need to expand public parking on that site it could be potentially doubled um by by increasing a row um and there's been you know the incorporation of permeable pavers in that area explored to meet that we're not concerned about the the storm water requirement per se i believe it's 80 in the central business district and it is more or less an open space but um yeah another long-winded answer we would certainly be supportive of expanding the parking along the front of the building if that was explored could you uh could you give us an overview of the vision for your your vision for the next phases of this 13.5 yeah you want me to go sure so you want to go back to the master plan component although we don't have any current uh activity on any of these parcels we are excited about us this project the first phase being the catalyst and getting the infrastructure in uh and driving additional traffic out there certainly my background primarily is in commercial and retail uh real estate and development being along five as you see the larger building with the kind of bump out there adjacent to the ponds uh that wants to be the retail node honestly uh he and i have talked a little bit more about if you're familiar with the the total wine and uh and and uh lake winds co-op in chanhassen that smaller development that's got a little bit larger of an anchor and then a smaller kind of you know access drive pier uh um component that kind of brings the traffic into more of the surface lot uh what it does is a nice job of kind of shielding some of those surface stalls from the road so you get the the look of larger density up along the main highways but then you get to what the retailers need we've been we've been working like dogs to try and get a retailer a grocery store out here since the origin of the project as recently as uh monday the answer has still been uh not yet so uh if we do we'll see us very quickly but hopefully that is the case that something comes in here and it drives additional traffic we've talked with city staff about some additional potential retail interest in a smaller shop scale smaller bays strip mall capacity potentially of need out there i do think that that main access drive that comes in uh will liken itself as you're going into that larger anchor development whether it's a mixed use large scale you know five stories on top of one or something smaller like a two-story kind of like i referenced in the chanhassen project uh tbd i do think that as you go along the contour of steeger and as it's shown kind of in the row houses and then the l-shaped building back towards the preserve that is where i think we would naturally put the housing projects anyways and that's how it's designated this way um i think that will probably be common i can't speak jen you could probably speak better or isaac as well as to what other developers or interests has been we know some other folks that have been interested in potentially kicking tires so my guess is that as these things become more real those phone calls will increase uh pretty significantly of course we'd love to be involved in all of it but first step first sure can we take you back a little bit on the parking the there is a gap of your 177 this could be physical spaces within the building and then this 43 units that we've come up with through filled presumably through street or parallel parking and this green space and that that gap is predicated on the ordnance revision that was proposed so well we've been talking here i've done some quick and dirty math and hopefully my arithmetic works out well with the vision of one and a half units for one and a half spaces for the units that are one bedroom or less two units for a two bedroom and then a half unit for essentially the three units so or in other words um i'm coming up with a number of 242 spaces versus the 220 of the ordinance that's proposed so i i feel that what we're seeing is because we spent a very pretty fair amount of time as we all observed from our last meeting about how are we going to right size this ordinance revision should we do it and i think we feel that the current ordinance is a little bit heavy on parking spaces and a little bit perhaps punitive to development my proposal i think gets you in a good middle ground and it so my view is that we we have about a 22 unit risk factor between what i recommended and the 220 and the size of the gap accordingly so do we feel that in this green space would there be enough room to get another 22 units in there comfortably so that that would seem to be the development risk to the city because once this is done and that size then it's wrong if i'm hearing things correctly hey it sounds like the city's problem to address that parking problem correct well we would certainly suffer punitive damage as well right i mean we wouldn't be leasing spaces which would drive the demand down so the demand for the parking would match the leasing of the apartment so yeah i agree we're trying to get to 100 but we'd be at 82 yeah and hemorrhaging money and be in a bad spot i mean it just it feels like yes i i don't disagree with that statement um but it is a lag effect right it does take a while for that to flush its way out between the aggravation factor and saying i'm moving out of here and you know the real problem that is at hand that people can't park so uh i mean i think if if if there is you know like some buy-in on this risk which i feel is like 22 units do we have space where we just have the single row of um diagonal parking that faces the the carver park reserve i mean i can't point it out but i mean i guess isaac yeah right there i mean would we feel that there's enough room in there to um not to expand that to put a few more spaces in there and not really compromise the green space not compromise the project not create too difficult of a barrier uh commissioner vansky chair members of the commission it's the use of that green space is based on what the city's consensus is for what that should be um i believe and i haven't i won't pretend to have been here for the whole visioning of that but as tim mentioned there's been contemplation of you know veterans park doing splash pad whatever through there but really the driver was to try to preserve that space so if there's an identified need that hey we need more parking in this space there's certainly the ability to do that it may change what the long-term use of the space is that could be evaluated if there's an identification that hey we think half of these spaces on one side will primarily be used just by the physical nature of where they are dedicating that to one side of the development and whatever is on the north side here going to the north side of the development i think there's certainly potential to review what that could look like and identify what that is um in looking at the the city's review of of what's desired and anticipated and envisioned there and what makes sense for the adjacent development so to answer your question yes it it my impression is that it should be in the parking that's located on there should should serve uh the adjacent development and any public function that's desired on that site so identifying what that is is needed may i add a comment uh mr chair commission members uh so just brainstorming here the the one-way traffic that's shown in the the sea area uh is necessary when you have two uh spines of parking right so um nobody goes back out the in at the single spine level potentially speak out of turn engineer uh and isaac and city staff maybe we make those 90 degree stalls you probably get two or three more in that top spine we would be open to and maybe this is all hypothetical if there is in fact a traffic problem or a parking problem in the future um we could expand the parking along the side of the building that's closest to ours and what we looked at before and i don't remember uh katie from kimberly horn but we could get this information back to city staff where it's parallel in front of the kind of main access point we could look at adding pull installs there i think there was a net positive when we looked at that before but we were a little bit more concerned about backing up into traffic on that side of steeger as it goes into into into the major portion the rest of the master plan development but in that scenario off the top of my head maybe we could get another 15 or so and we could certainly do that math and figure out if we're close enough to that 22 you know i guess we still feel like that's a lot but if that ends up being the number that you know commission and council go forward with we can figure out a way potentially on how close we can get so we can actually quantify as you said uh commissioner vansky what that city risk is from a parking perspective and it doesn't need to be implemented today but from a development standpoint you know if push came to shove that'd be at least a nice option for us if if we did get into a scenario where everybody got a roommate that we had the opportunity to uh to expand that parking well you don't want to take all the green space isn't that where people are going to walk their dogs uh uh right here yeah i think i want to walk back we've got this nice big dog park on the back too and where's their look action and so got it lake sparks cars and dogs yeah that's right yeah so this is a photo this is part of our earlier uh opportunity we missed to jump up during the public commentary to kind of talk through some of the vision for the project this what we wanted to do as part of our early vision is is try and connect indoor and outdoor and grasp the natural uh activities the outdoor activities that that victoria offers and connect them back to apartment living we've got nice big windows that we would do in a downtown project to bring in a lot of natural light uh we've got a nice pool that overlooks the lake uh lots of different seating options indoor outdoor space on the kind of far right side with that white and gray checkerboard that's the fitness that comes in and out some grilling stations a pickleball court uh on there as well and and the dog park down on the kind of bottom left there just a fenced in area that's a dog run the one thing that mark mentioned too is our management company does a really really nice job we've got other projects we can share examples of incorporating local businesses and local residents into the project so although the building you know opens up to the city or to the street and the amenity profile opens up to the lake there's ways to create opportunities for folks to come in whether it's a pickleball tournament whether it's on the front side there's kind of a pre-function space that has a patio on the front that's right next to the green so you could have some additional shades sitting there you could bring in we could do wine tastings we can do pet grooming it's a benefit for the residents it's better for the community members the citizens to come in and create that indoor outdoor space this is a nice development and i don't and i can't speak for everyone but i don't think any one of us want to not see this move forward due to eight or ten parking spaces right i think this would be a nice addition to our community we are here to make it work somehow or another within the confines any other any other thoughts on the any other discussion items the hearing none i would ask for a motion we allowed to do a motion with the public hearing still open uh commissioner patterson chair members of the commission you are certainly allowed to make a recommendation at tonight's meeting well we will come back yeah and you know barring any significant comments or whatever comments provided you then be able to either make a new recommendation or just acknowledge that the wrecking recommendation still stands i guess one point of clarification on this project if the commission is to recommend approval or denial simply stating any additional recommended conditions of approval would be helpful particularly as it relates to the parking discussion just so we're all jiving on the same page so recommending with the recommendation of a variance to the cbds parking ordinance of 2.0 spots per unit or bedroom commissioner pedersen chair members of the commission i think if that was the desire of the commission you would note with the added condition of approval that the project and site receive a variance to be heard prior to final plat approval at which point a variant would either be approved or denied based on what is proposed at that time in the rationale at that time that's what i would be comfortable with because doing a full parking examination which some of our current business leaders want done for an ordinance change and i'm in total agreement with them is going to take a lot longer and will push this project out i mean what is that parking evaluation going to take three months ooh commissioner pedersen chair members of the commission i would anticipate depending on the scope of whatever parking study is identified utilization counts all that jazz for the greater central business district um we're looking at probably six months to a year just for public engagement um through that mr wartman knows i i can't remember how long the last one took i would say 12 months so yeah it would be a long long i mean that's the timeline we're looking at before we would have a comfortable city ordinance change with support from our current business owners um i think you know moving this forward with a recommendation for a variance is kind of the only way to go are we in agreement with that yes any opposed no i guess that was a motion it sounds like you guys will not emotionally recognize the recommendation of emotion or possible consideration and and the motion will occur uh monday got it at the close of the public hearing um very good very good thank you very much gentlemen appreciate it thank you miscellaneous items um is there a review does anyone have a review of city council meeting hearing none um i'll be at the next city council meeting so that'll be taken care of um we have a we have a conflict on our august 2nd planning commission meeting which is national night out or night to unite so um we'll have to address that uh chair members of the commission i may recommend just because we're bumping up a meeting for july 25th if the commission was so obliged we have no active permits unless a discussion item was desired for the commission to review to take a break on that august 2nd meeting and potentially not have a meeting on august 2nd i know you guys have been hard at work this summer with a lot of active development and everything going so the choice is yours otherwise we can always find something to bring in chat through sounds good makes sense um the the other item that i agented down here was uh dana hardy's uh response to victoria akers did everyone see the um the response that she had yes yeah so um chair members of the commission if i may just uh project to the public there's a recent inquiry about the status of the victoria acres project inquiring if there had been any activity or development on the victoria acres vision the answer to that question is no there has been no discussion about advancing that project or any update beyond what was presented in march so just to note that at the meeting so is the project dead no action at this time that's different than dead rusty um staff any um any closing thoughts statements i i have one closing thought for the chair and members of the commission this is actually jen brewington's first planning commission meeting jen joins us it's been with the city for feels like longer than a month but about a month and she's seen a lot of action and activity in that time period but just uh an introduction to those who haven't met jen and jen's been meeting a lot of people in the community but what a fun first meeting excellent looking forward to working with you thank you well welcome jim thank you thanks for not this disorderly [Laughter] um commissioners any any other thoughts any concerns any issues i mean we have to have one or two don't we um any other final items if not i would um i would call for a motion to adjourn i'll make a motion do it during is there a second i'll second that motion all those in favor aye aye any opposed we are officially adjourned thank you very much thank you you