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 um all those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed thank you the emotion carries our next order of business is to adopt the minutes from the august 17th 2021 planning commission meeting commissioners is there a motion to approve the minutes i'll make a motion to approve the minutes thank you is there a second i'll second it thank you um all those in favor say goodbye by saying aye all right thank you the motion carries we are now moving on to our discussion items our first discussion item for our agenda tonight is item 3.1 uh consider a variance for the swimming pool fence enclosure requirements for 64 55 hawks point lane this item does include a public hearing before opening the public hearing i will now turn it over to planning and code enforcement technician isaac peterson for staff presentation isaac thank you mr chair members of the commission as mentioned tonight for your consideration and discussion is a request to consider a variance from the swimming pool fence and closure requirement for the property located at 64 55 hawks point lane the applicant is mr jeff wiggin who joins us this evening he's the property owner of 6455 hawks point lane the subject property is located within the lake minnetonka residential district and shoreland overlay district and the proposal is to construct a swimming pool adjacent to a bluff without the full enclosure of a 5 foot safety fence so as the commission is probably aware city of victoria's zoning code section 18-11 c1 swimming pools states that all underground pools and above-ground pools over 5 000 gallons and or more than two feet deep at any point and over 150 feet square feet in surface area shall be required to be enclosed by a five-foot safety fence all gaps in the fence must be four inches or less and generally the fence must be constructed of corrosion resistant material generally this code is is intended as a safety feature of the city of victoria zoning code to prevent swimming pools from existing as attractive nuisances or attracting people to enter swimming pools so the variant's request proposes to construct a swimming pool seen in front of you here um located adjacent to the home that's being constructed on the property um along with in the green lines before you a partial fence running the course of the western property boundary and then a part of the eastern and northeastern property boundary along a bluff line that exists adjacent to lake minnetonka and the proposed pool itself as you can see with some of the relief here there's a significantly steep slope leading up to the the house and proposed pool location that's enter about 50 to 60 feet in elevation change from lake minnetonka so the fences proposed to wrap around enclose and gate off some stairs that lead down to lake minnetonka and then the remainder of the perimeter would be enclosed by the home itself so the property owner based on their narratives submitted for your review tonight is proposing the variance request based on the following rationale that being there is a unique component of the property in that it contains an existing bluff adjacent to lake minnetonka and the proposed pool location and in order to maintain said bluff and maintain access to the bluff for erosion control and vegetative maintenance a break in the fence is needed um along with the presence of the bluff itself in combination with a five-foot safety fence an auto safety cover along with some security uh systems that are proposed to be in place such as cameras are as safe or safer than just the five foot safety fence by itself so here again is another graphic kind of showing the topography and in sight and situation of the property you see in red is the bluff area along with a proposed pool in green that's kind of boundary need to show that shows that dynamic between the bluff and the pool itself and we can of course come back to this as you see fit so as the commission is aware uh city victoria's zoning code guides the commission acting as the board of adjustments and appeals to grant a variance if it meets the following criteria one being the property owner proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by code the flight of the landowner is due to circumstances unique to the property and not created by the landowner of previous land owners the variants if granted will not alter the essential character of the locality and economic considerations alone do not constitute practical difficulties in the request the board may impose conditions in the granting of variances a condition must be directly related to and must bear a rough proportionality to the impact created by the variants and code also guides the commission that the board of adjustments and appeals will not recommend and the council will not grant variance unless they find the following facts one the strict enforcement or interpretation of the code would result in a practical difficulty or undue hardship inconsistent with the intent of the code there are exceptional or extraordinary circumstances or conditions applicable to the property use or facilities that generally do not apply to other properties in the same district granting if the variants will not adversely affect the public's health welfare and safety and will not be detrimental or injurious to property or improvements in the neighborhood and granting the variants will not allow use which is otherwise not permitted in the zoning district in question so in general as with with all variants requests the commission must find that the plight of the land owners due to circumstances unique to the property and no variance will be granted unless there are exceptional or extraordinary circumstances applicable to the property use or facility that do not apply generally to other properties in the same district staff's assessment in this case natural features such as bluff topography or steep slopes may be used as a rationale to demonstrate that there are circumstances unique to the property and could be considered a hardship um that would restrict the property owner's ability to build in a manner that would otherwise conform to the zoning code in relation to this request the commission should consider whether the placement of the fence adjacent to the bluff and where the proposed locate location of the pool is would adversely affect effect or impact the property owner's ability to maintain the bluff itself as generally bluffs are areas that are guided to be protected by code and the commission should also consider whether the physical properties of the bluff in combination with the pool cover proposed by the applicant and other safety measures are as safe or safer than the five-foot safety fence that would otherwise be required so uh that would do it for staff's presentation the applicant mr wigan is with us this evening and he may want to address the commission um and give some background on his project um other than that there is a public hearing that would be required for the variance itself and all properties within 350 feet of the property were noticed of this evening's public hearing so i'll turn it back to you mr chair and if that could stand for any questions very good thank you very much isaac thank you i will now open the public hearing is there anyone in the chambers this evening who wishes to comment on this item that's it soon um anyone anyone at all okay so hearing no additional public input commissioners may i have a motion to close the public hearing i'll make a motion to close the public hearing thank you uh can i could i have a second i'll second excellent all those in fig favor signify by saying i i uh thank you those opposed um thank you the motion carries and the public hearing is now um is now closed um i will now open the floor for planning commission to discuss commissioners any questions or comments can we go back to the picture where the actual home in the fence and the distance between just apologies for the technical difficulties no worries had you have you looked at looking putting the fence directly behind the pool like into you know just to enclose the pool instead of having it further back back in the bluff i'm just trying to wonder yeah mr wagon if you could come up to the podium yeah and just uh introduce yourself and your address thank you thank you so i'm jeff wiggin i've um i currently live on lake wasserman it's my this will be my third property in victoria so we've enjoyed it here very much um we sought a property in victoria on the lake which as you might imagine is very difficult to come across and had brought out a geotechnical engineer and soil engineers before acquiring the property to answer your question we did look at that the consensus from those that we brought in was that because sorry because there had already been significant erosion um that there needed to be enough space to accommodate potentially large backhoes and dump trucks so rewinding for a second for those that don't know that neighborhood very well the original property owner was was an individual that founded mlt vacations many years ago and was one of the investors originally in sun country airlines they subs unfortunately the gentleman passed away um the wife ended up with the property and sold it to a developer there were two parcels on the lake the other parcel next door um was subsequently developed the original home was on what is now my property and their pool was on the next door property they had a tram down to the lake and it was terrorist with railroad ties my side was never uh there was no erosion control whatsoever so unfortunately some of it was allowed to sort of let go and so now we're kind of left with this this legacy uh that we knew going in would would be a maintenance headache potentially uh and so uh we are um we began last summer by trying to remove some of the invasive buckthorn and replant some structure that will tie the soil together we're we're beginning with 5000 plants and we expect that they'll probably be somewhere around 25 000 plants by the time we're done we looked at boulder walls we looked at all kinds of different options and the consensus was there was no way because of the the height to be able to do that whole 60-foot gap from the lake to the the top of the bluff so vegetation we consulted mndot on kind of what they do the university of minnesota that seemed to be the best option to hold things together so the other thing i think and it's unfortunate because i um laura's not here but laura as it happens is a friend of mine and has i've had her out to the site twice to look at this to give us some advice um on what she thought and there really is no way to climb this hill i know you can't really see it because pictures don't really do it justice but i think certainly isaac has been out there you know the the people that are installing the fence um the person that installed the tram down to the lake uh even the geotechnical engineer i provided letters from them um highlighting the fact that there's really no way unless you're a trained climber and you have equipment there's no way to navigate that it at the top third is at a 70 degree slope so there's there's really no way to climb that so from a life safety perspective and we're sensitive to that my wife and i have two boys that are 9 and 13. so the last thing that we would want is somebody to get into that cool but you'd have to you'd have to come by water take off your life vest have climbing gear to ascend the hill and then get into my my pool that would have the locked cover could buy my security system and if you had a life vest on um one would presume that you you're making a conscious effort then to to get into my pool without a life vest which i know there's a lot of hypotheticals out there but i think that the the prospect of somebody getting into the pool that way is exceedingly low but we acknowledge the importance of offense which is why we're saying that on the front side on both sides that it's vital that that be there so there's no way for somebody to get up um through the from the lake across the steps because that'll be locked and it'll be locked on both sides of the the home if somebody went um adjacent to the property down the neighbor's property line from the cul-de-sac would they be able to go around the fence on that end i wasn't worried about the lake shore my concern is you know kids are pretty creative you got around and i mean we have a pool we have a cover we have a gate but the thing that i will say is you have to let your pool breathe every day pretty much in the summer and so we're not i mean we don't always sit out there and you know it's important i mean it's going to be open at times that's just why the belt and suspenders is both in play so i'm just only concerned about the sides like is there a way for anyone to access it not from the lake but from the other side sure excellent question thank you so incidentally the the property to the left as we're looking at this they also have a pool and so we actually will share a fence that runs further than what's depicted there um i i i had as crazy as this is with this whole cobot scituate but i had to bring i didn't have to bring i chose to bring in some 18-foot arborvities they had to be trucked in from illinois so that whole side of the house from the the garage all the way to the lake will be solid trees touching in addition to the fats so there's really no way they'd have to um they'd have to ascen or climb over the fence and then get through the trees which are tight together and certainly uh you know the other neighbor has a pool as well on the other side um you would have to go down the steep bluff on on the right side and walk all the way down to the bottom where those stairs are shown and then you'd have to ascend the stairs but then you'd be faced with the locked gate at the top so yeah there's there's no way that a a kid could possibly unless they you know pick the lock or cut the lock or something along those lines there would be no way but that would be i suppose the case in any situation where you had a gate that was locked yeah i mean in the gate i mean people can open the gate that's not i just said stuff i just wondered about getting around on that side and if the arbor bodies came down like because you don't have to keep the heart that's the only thing that concerns me is just to make sure that you know that side is protected i'm i don't think i'm as worried about the other side because of the photography it's this side that might be at risk and i know that you need room for your equipment but you know i don't know what the distance is from the buff step back to the buff line if that's 12 feet if that's eight feet if that's six feet i don't have the architectural drawing to tell me the scale i don't remember exactly what that is um i would say that you know oh you know commissioner murray chair members of the commission the bluff line shown here is approximately 20 feet from the edge of the pool deck and then it'd be 30 feet from the edge of the pool itself so feasibly you could fence the pool and still have 20 to 30 foot for a piece of large equipment is that wrong yeah the problem with it is is that you can't turn around so for example if you bring a dump truck in or if you're bringing in uh equipment to remove like for example i mentioned to isaac i have a tree down um that can't be left on the bank yeah you have to keep it up so i have to get that out and from what the tree people are saying there's to cut it and bring it in yes and then to get it up there and then so they don't want to bring it all the way to the street because it's quite a distance so they're going to want to bring their equipment back there but then there's no way to really turn around because it's fairly narrow so and and i would i guess i would argue that no matter the scenario whether the fence were on the back of the pool and there was no pool deck whatsoever the reality of it is is that somebody still has to ascend the 60-foot cliff and i don't know in in what scenario um it would be easier to get over a up a 60-foot 70-degree cliff than it would be a five-foot fence and that's again we're we're super conscious of the life safety thing that's the last thing that we want to contend with but i know we looked at a property on the woodland cove development minitrista um the developer there had one lot actually two lots that were joining left it was 600 000 to fix the hill that had let go and insurance doesn't cover that they will not cover for a landslide event so it's really up to us to um to maintain that and we're kind of left to our own devices to do that there was in fact some trees on that bluff line that were undercut because the bank is gone so i don't exactly know what we're in for long term but we're going to make every effort from here on out to try to stabilize that i i've cringed throughout this year and a half process wow the construction has gone on because we haven't been able to solidify the bank yet um so all the runoff from the roof ends up in the backyard and then it goes down that hill and and so we're going to fix that with with drainage and move that away from um the pad there but every day i worry about something showing up there and having something happen where part of that hill lets go because all of a sudden that 20 feet becomes 10 feet or whatever it is but so i hope that answers the question so how are you planning on getting the equipment in there so i'm doing the same thing like oh i'm trying to envision like a background the one the one lock gate looks like a double is it an eight foot gate looks like you can open that yeah the intent is to make that uh nominally at least eight feet potentially ten um it's hard to visualize but there's there's a lower garage so they can go to the right side of that right driveway that kind of angles down there and sneak around there and and and get around you know when we laid the house out on the property it was done with that specific purpose in mind because we knew going in that we would have to spend some time and energy and money to maintain that hillside and that after advice from experts i frankly was a little bit shocked when i was told that we'd have to potentially bring backhoes in there but if you think about it the only way to get down if you're scooping trees up or you're trying to to well in fact when the the tram installation people were working there they had to be they had to tie off to the vehicles sitting atop just with their climbing gear because there was no way to to navigate it so whoever's working down there is going to have to it's going to have to tie off to something whether it be a backhoe or a skid loader or whatever it is it happens to truck whatever it is that's up there on the top i guess mike it's just a curious question on why they placed the house where they placed the house i mean the pool was proposed to be a pool there the ordinance has been here forever uh you knew you're gonna have to put a fence on the back side why was it all shifted closer to the street or further away so that you could allow for the fence and sure still be able to get access to it and i guess i mean i haven't been out to the property so i don't know exactly delay but you know why things weren't shifted yeah i mean to be honest i'm not a hundred percent certain of that i will just say that the developer created the pad um and so we sort of worked off of the the pad that was available and and built on i think part of it too was the fact that what we were told is the way that the other house sort of angled toward this property if you kind of look at the the image there um it had to be i guess pulled forward or the the pad was pulled forward so that they it would be more separation i suppose so that's what we were told i'm just saying why didn't it shift even more toward the street the cul-de-sac yeah i guess it's not like you're you know got a setback issue um yeah i guess i i truthfully can't answer that because i wasn't obviously involved in how the development was laid out or how the developer elected to create the pad for the property and if i may commission commissioner kuhn chair members of the commission i believe and although i wasn't around at the time when hawks point was approved part of the grading plan out by the cul-de-sac the slope the relief kind of comes down towards where this house pad currently is you can see right here there's a retaining wall that was called out with the the master grading plan of the development and then on the other side i believe the house itself was compressed by the bluff line that it was facing on the along lake minnetonka and then on the south side as well to kind of squeeze it into that pocket where it's currently shown or at least that's my historical context on how the house came to be in its current shape so if you fence the pool you would essentially lose your deck because you'd have to fence it right up to the pool kind of you might get another three feet or you know a walking path but you would lose your pool deck on the lake side of the pool correct yeah and to put some perspective to it the pool deck on the other side between the house and the pool i think is what by code isn't at 10 feet correct so the commissioner chair members of the commission the setback from the from a structure to another structure is 10 feet in the city of victoria which is why you see that separation between the pool and the house itself just the other deal i mean even if you put in a fence i mean you could still have like a sliding gate you know it wouldn't be one that opens but would slide back and forth that would give you access you know for turning around if you need to or whatever i mean i just don't know that fence doesn't take up that much space and um you know as far as if you need to get equipment back there you're coming around from the other side of the garage um and i mean they put in sliding fences all the you know sliding gates all the time so it's not like you could have two sliding gates back there that wouldn't have to remove the fences they would just slide apart if you need to get into them or or whatever yeah i'm not sure when we had the fence contractor give us options that that wasn't one of the options that they provided i don't know why that is but i would say that again part of the other concern here is um you know obviously you know we'd like for there to be a deck around the pool that was the intent from the beginning and and so if we rewind the clock i had um paul who was attacked at the time with the city of victoria come out and you know this would have been very early in the process before the house plans were even finalized and we walked the property and had these discussions and the intent at the time was to you know verify any concerns that might be there before the final house plan was crafted and the consensus was after having walked the property that there wouldn't be any issues based on his review and so that's how we chartered our path so it's not necessarily a case where we didn't do our due diligence we involved the city from the very beginning before we solidified the house plan i certainly have the emails from paul and um you know we we kind of crafted the strategy um expressed to him how we were going to handle the the bluff maintenance did you express to paul that you weren't going to put a fence on the back side and you were going to rely on rely on that bluff or was that a conversation yeah in fact we stood down at the bottom down at the lake and walked that whole thing um so it's hard to see but where the tram goes it was graded at some point what we were told is that that was used when the previous homeowner would use that to get their snowmobiles down to the lake in the winter so that's where the tram goes um and and the stairs so we walked that and you know he agreed and acknowledged that yeah there shouldn't be any concern here there's there's no way that you could climb the hill if the concern is life safety a 60-foot cliff if it provides a far greater encumbrance to get into a pool than a five-foot fence i 100 agree on the left side i think it's just that corner and getting around that corner and so and i can't see it it's really hard not being at the property and going could i get around there does that is that even scalable it might not be yeah i think the bluff provides the adequate safety um what i'm struggling with is it's really nice not having that fence there for you to enjoy the lake view from your pool deck well yeah i understood there is though um on our landscape plan that whole bluff that line will have a hedge on it a low hedge and the reason for that is because number one i don't want somebody to roll off of it a kid or a lawnmower guy or whatever but right in front of that will be a a swale with some brain tile in it because we've got to run the gutter water across the property and down into the ravine on that side and so if you looked at the property right now if you had the advantage of being able to see the property right now the tree line below right so the trees that are planted at the lake level come up probably 10 feet above the top of the bluff so it's not like we're losing a view there so i understand what you're saying i would never want to cut those down because i think number one it would look goofy but number two i we need the canopy uh there to help protect the bluff so we're really sensitive to that piece um commissioner are you referring to the corner on the bluff side the corner you're right isaac you've got it kind of not at the bluff but where you have your fence line ending which the fence along the upper garage and down that one so it's going to end the bluff line there and i don't know you know what the it shows it's obviously a pretty but i don't know if this what's this you know scale of that decline because it two feet and i can i mean kids are amazing when they want to go swimming no that's an excellent point so i just want to make sure that yeah that can't be i mean maybe you pull the fence over to provide some kind of corner but i don't know if that it's when we spoke to the fence contractor i had that very discussion with them um the individuals next door to us don't have any kids yeah but they changed well no no what i was gonna say though is despite that i still wanted protection whether it's a dog or a grandkid or whatever so what we intend to do then is to run the fence over the bluff so like five or six feet past the edge of the bluff does that make sense yep so then you'd have to go down the bluff and around the fence and then back up but there's really no way to do that so but there were so so thus there's no way to get around you can't get around the fence number one number two there's 12-foot arborvitaes that run right out to the edge so um with the fence extending beyond beyond the bluff and the arborvitae is running all the way to the edge there's no way to get around it so um i think that that mitigates that risk of somebody from that adjoining property attempting to get around the fence and in so if we extend the fence out over the bluff so this drawing kind of shows it ending at the bluff line but you're saying that it would actually extend five to whatever i mean i don't know how far you can get it with the because you're going down a hill yep so it's a little challenging there as well but we did talk to the fence people about that and they can put a footing in there um we talked in fact one of the other options that we talked about is what if we put the fence down the bluff and the consensus was that it would be too steep for them to get their footings in but they said we could do it at the corner right there it's hard to see and envision the topography here but on the other side where it crosses the steps the the upper right corner of that lift carriage platform which is elevated lip block um that corner is about eight feet off the ground already and and so we're going to run the fence right up to that corner and so you got a five foot fence there and it's already eight feet off you know it's really steep there as well so there's there's no way the only way somebody could get over that is is if they broke the lock um and so we yeah there's some photos there that i actually was gonna come here i was like i really want to go see the property like i read through this and i was like i have no concept of how to welcome anybody because it is hard to tell it is i would welcome anybody to come over and see and usually your neighbors aren't you know i like that the neighbor next door has a fence but they could always remove it too but they have a pool they do and is their fence right up behind their pool or is it further down the property so they yeah so it's interesting so now they're in the process of i think there's there's they're doing some like an addition to the house the reason that they have the fence where they have it is number one there is this completely terraced with the railroad ties so there's no erosion concern number two they have i think three small dogs and so they wanted to keep them closer into the yard so chair members of the commission i think this image number three probably demonstrates the relief probably the best um so that would be looking from i'm gonna that's kind of the back right right from this roughly where the the platform for the tram is now looking to the west of kind of where that drop is so there's number three essentially viewing it as if you're on the perspective deck of by the tram yes i think that's pretty accurate yeah i think my eyes are not great what's that yeah so that's this is exactly where you were just referring to so so we have since installed the platform and then so just a quick question sure so from where your granite steps are because i agree no one's gonna say i think i'm gonna summit jeff's hill sure yeah nobody's doing it i don't have anything better to do this afternoon so i'm just gonna get i mean that's probably not a realistic um scenario what is realistic is that somebody will say wow these are beautiful granite steps and i think i'm going to try to run up them and then figure out how am i going to leap the fence so are you if it sounds like you're going to have a gate on the stairs and then there's a short section of fence that's going in between that gate and your deck yeah correct correct and that's five feet from the stairs is there anything below that fence to bring you down to the slope so that you don't just have somebody oh coming up underneath the fence yeah so maybe i didn't explain that very well so that five foot fence would go down follow the topography down and it would tie into the post that it ties into the metal post that's supporting the deck that's true into the bluff yes absolutely correct and i should note too that so there's um not enough that i've counted um but there's 87 steps and um i will say that the steps for what it's worth were more expensive than the tram the only reason i put the steps in there well two reasons one is because if the tram ever got what was out of order but incidentally the gentleman that lives the couple that live on the other side um are he's the former well he founded the minneapolis heart institute and so he's all about cardiovascular health and so he's got a set of steps now he does also have a tram but even in his 80s he prefers using the steps so from an exercise perspective it's great but the truth of it is is that since we've owned the property um and since the steps were installed they've probably been used a couple of times the reality of it is is that that fence will remain locked and probably never used um that's gotta hurt yeah we did it does we did have an instance though uh earlier this summer in which the tram stopped in the middle and um that was less than ideal sort of my worst nightmare um and and so i was able fortunately to get a hold of the the uh the company that manufactured that and we figured out a remedy to get down the hill and then they had to come out and service it but those things are not infallible which is why we elected to put the steps in there because gosh if you had to wait a month or something for somebody to come out that would be kind of less than ideal if you couldn't get down to the lake at all the the dock that's down there because of the topography they have to hang the dock and the boat live they have to tether them to the trees so they don't slide down the hill so it's interesting to watch them work they come over with a with a crane on their barge and they lift it up and then they they tie it off on the trees there any other questions have you with your fence contractor discuss the potential for a security spike arrangement at the end of the fence so that because that's your real risk right somebody will grab the pole and kids they'll swing around and then they'll be able to get on the other side of the fence and then come back up i mean i think you've seen over in excelsior how the docks have the spikes that stick out so that people can't get on swing onto the dock and so on to the oh you mean to the dock itself or no not to the dock around your your fence other side your fence corners but if that goes if you extend that say i don't even know whatever's capable five whatever i don't know you've been there so you know what the distance but if that was extended further then they'd be it'd be a little harder but that would be another piece of safety i don't know what this looked like yeah i mean i'm open to anything there it'd be easier to climb down the hill and swim in lake minnetonka trust me that's true absolutely i think absolutely i'm not you know the lake park i'm not worried about it at all i just don't know you know and i'm not even worried about the neighbor because the neighbors know it's there and they have pool and wide they come to yours but it's the kids that maybe don't have the pool down the street or driving up and saying hey let's go see if these are empty houses yeah let's go play school yeah but that's the only thing that concerns me no and i'm in the same camp that's the absolute last thing that i want is there to be i would never want to live with that kind of guilt um so we acknowledge the the importance of offense so there's no issue there um it's it's more making certain that um we have the ability to get the equipment in there when we need to which is probably going to be an ongoing thing at least for the next probably five years we're trying to figure out how to best handle that but i really feel like and even on this side again because of the grade anything from from what would be the east side to the south side would be really difficult to navigate so so you'd be okay with the variance for five years what for the defense as you just needed five years worth of equipment coming back in there to stabilize everything well so what i meant by that is that um for the next five years we're going to have to probably listening to the experts we're going to have to probably kill the buckthorn that has been allowed to to take over there and then continually trim the trees that's going to go on in perpetuity i'm just saying that probably over the course the next five years in terms of planting new material we can't do it all at the same time because there would be too much we'd be disturbing the soil too much so we have to do it in sections that they say it probably is going to take i i just i thought you had said that your heavier equipment needs and stuff oh i misunderstood i know and i apologize i probably didn't i didn't probably say that very well it looks like the distance from your deck you're actually pool deck your pavers or whatever you choose to lose and that going to that deck of the tram is about eight foot if you really have an eight foot fence in that so is your heavy equipment going because they're going to have to come down your property line they're not going to be able to go to your neighbors they're going to come in assuming they can get in the 8 foot fence there if you don't have to go to 10 or 12 to get them in or you have a sliding fence even there because i mean i don't know how a backhoe gets in an eight-foot fence they don't yeah and to be honest we have not entirely concluded what that dimension yeah it might be bigger so but that gap there is like 28 feet the big one on the right yeah so you could do something bigger yeah we could do something um perhaps what you're suggesting oops sorry what you're suggesting with some kind of a sliding mechanism or it's however that needs to work um i guess to be honest i've never really measured you're looking at the measurement from the corner i'm thinking the corner of the paver deck too over where you have the tram platform because that's not a big distance that's like 10 feet if this is architecturally correct i don't know if it is yeah and it's not 12. it might not be commissioner murray members of the commission that so this drawing is not yeah scale per se okay and then i guess back track and a point i believe you asked um you know kind of what this dimension is and it kind of sounded like tying the leg of the fence over so for reference the house to the adjacent property line is 10 feet yeah so so tying this over 10 feet would look roughly kind of in line with where the pool deck is shown that's actually not a bad solution if you think about it pull in the fence so if you on the bluff line if you pulled your fence ten feet into the edge of your pool decking so it's not really blocking your view it's not eliminating you know you're not having to put the fence up against the pool and have that and not be able to have a deck it could give you that protection around that corner i don't know without seeing it it's kind of difficult to say and really it just turns the corner you still have to maintain the bluff in that area though that little piece but it's if you're 10 feet in you you know most back hoes have a reach they're not going to be up against the fence i don't know have we given consideration to instead of asking for a variance to remove a fence potentially talk about the variance to the fence material itself and you simply enclose your pool area with glass like you're going to enclose your decks to keep errant i mean you're trying to keep at its core people from more or less wandering into the pool almost unaware maybe at night and because as we well established kids are going to hop up fence to get into a pool your fence as proposed and the bluff your next door neighbors is going to be where kids are going to hop a fence and go into a pool so we we have a we have an ordinance about fences maybe one potential thing to examine is is that railing structure something that could work aesthetically with your design and then we talk about giving you a variance to the material and be able to keep the safety and give you the room for equipment to come in to be able to maintain that bluff and if you if it's it's sitting and looking at views then once your bluff is done then you extend your patio on the other side of the glass fence and drink your beverage of choice from there um so good point i think the um the consensus in in talking to the people that we had out there was it wasn't so much about the view like i say because i can't if you're sitting on the pool deck the trees uh come up higher than that anyway so you can't really i mean it's hard to describe if isaac has been out there there's the the trees come up uh over the top of the the bluff line it's really again more about the maintenance component um and i don't know how many people hi i know the next door on the other side also has a pool um there's several and then the next door people to them have a pool so there's a whole bunch of pools are they all fenced though yeah see there's the tough part i think they're all every neighbor has to fence to know true but i mean i don't want a fence either but i have one to contend with um from a maintenance perspective and that's the only reason that we're really here again well you're putting in a fence you're just because if you just fence the pool deck you would not necessarily need what these other things might be perceived as more of a security fence i mean it's that you're really kind of carding off the bigger area then you're using the bluff as one component of the fence correct yeah and i think from what i've heard there's an acknowledgment that the bluff is a deterrent so if it's really about life safety if that's what it comes down to which i acknowledge i think that's the whole reason that the fence ordinance is there in the first place then um you know thus the reason for the the request for the variants is i i don't think there's any way that somebody climbs that i think we maybe i don't want to speak for anybody else but i think there seems to be an agreement on that it really then comes down to giving ourselves every opportunity whatever that needs to be to ensure that we maintain and it might require you know if if part of that hill lets go um you know it's it's a a major fix with lots of heavy equipment more than a single backhoe and it's dump trucks and it's whatever it is it's going to be required steel and and so um in any time and talking to the fence contractor any time we're removing sections or whatever it just changes the integrity of the fence and that's not really what it was intended for so i guess my ask is if you're willing to consider the fact that the bluff is the deterrent from a view perspective i'm not gaining anything by virtue of uh having the fence there or not there because i i can't the trees come above the bluff line in the first place it really is about protecting um that in investment and um you know to your point mr you know the lot is 1.95 acres and so one would think gosh you know you've got it big enough but if you consider the amount of that portion that is bluff then it it's not nearly as large as one might expect you can't utilize so much of it so and and that uh isaac had mentioned earlier that boulder wall um is a legacy feature that was there um from what i was told the original homeowner put that in and so we never thought about moving it we were just trying to fit the house you know within all the setbacks and and whatnot that were at play so that's kind of how we ended up where we did so um so based on our conversation mr again give us some feedback on what what you take from this from the from the overall discussion from the group sure well number one i appreciate you uh uh all giving me the the time here because i know that there's other things on the agenda and so i'm i'm thankful for that um you know what i guess what i'm hoping to to do is to provide some insight into the little world that we live in or we'll be living in these days and and hopefully an acknowledgement that we're going to make every effort to to try to to maintain that property and keep it in its original condition obviously i've invested interest in that but you know again from a safety perspective the last thing that i want is for that to be an unsafe unstable area for anybody my kid somebody else's kids standing on that bluff or somebody's mowing the grass or whatever the case is so i really want to make every effort um to do anything that is necessary um to keep that in intact they had a small retaining wall at the top um that was in actually one of those photos that that retaining wall has not fallen down the bluff so as you can imagine i'm extremely anxious to try to get ahead of the erosion and water management that exists on that property yeah i mean you know the fact that uh that we will be having some wet years coming up yeah and so that that that certainly does present um one of the one of the observations is i was looking through all of the material it's an sos do you owe me the only numbers that can get through to my phone when it's unclear well one of one of the one of the observations as i was reading through all the material and looking at the information that you had provided and we were in washington dc and the suburban area of washington dc and there's a huge amount of decorative um metal fences with with spikes and and they're they're in all just about every area either within the city or within the uh the suburban dc area so um if that's you know if that's something that can be utilized and um the spikes you mean yeah yeah that's a great point i did inquire that is an option we could certainly put spikes on the tops of those things um it was actually julie's uh thought at the same time i think it was actually greg for the spikes yeah or some kind of protectorate to keep him from swinging around inside oh oh i thought you meant on top of the hole fence yeah on top of the whole fence yeah i mean i'm open to anything with regard to that i i have no issues with any of that here's my take we had a situation similar to this well a little bit different earlier and there was a lot of discussion regarding pool covers and the type of pool cover and how safe those are versus a fence and there's numerous studies out there that an actual pool cover is safer than a fence i take a look at the fencing and what you're doing here in the bluff the intent of the ordinance and while we would be you would be seeking the variance from that ordinance we're not going to have three-year-old stumbling across and popping through here you might get i can't see a 16 year old deciding well these three other houses were going to go jump in their pool they don't have a cover and they're a hell of a lot easier to get to so let's go after this one um so now you got trespassing trespassing 15 and 16 year olds how much can we do to protect you from them um i think the intent and the fact that you are concerned about the topography concerned about the natural resource concerned about the environment is something that we should consider offering the variants on because you could put the fence up and say well we'll see what happens with it we're not going to work on it because in order to work on it we got to pull the fence out we got to pull this shrubbery out we got to pull half the deck out yeah we'll just leave it so that's where i'm coming from with your concern about the actual bluff line and the intent of the safety of the area so i agree yep very good yeah i mean it is it is hours to make it work sure somehow or another either within what has been presented or with some restrictions at the same time so sure we're we're certainly not here to stop anything at the same time but within the parameters any any other any other thoughts on it i you know i get what you're saying christian i have a pool and the pool covers open a lot and if the fence wasn't there people could wander into the pool because you don't keep your pool covered all the time in the summer you have it open you have to open it for breathing you have to open it to clean it and you're not always out there there's not a regulation in the city of victoria that if i have my automatic pool cover on i have to not be i have to be there so and we have cameras and and you know something could happen anywhere i don't think we can prevent everything i think for me to to be a yes vote in this would need some kind of protection on that corner and i don't i'm open to what that is i think whatever is reasonable but or to be able to have someone who has seen it and isaac you've been there if there's no way to scale around that bluff then let me know and i mean just around this corner and you can scale the fence around that side of the bluff i don't know what other fence is going to deter you yeah so going right i'm going right over the lots if there's something i'm missing and i might be i'm just saying if you can go around that then then you can go around it if you can't go around it then it's not a concern but without seeing you know because i would assume the topography where you have it shown it's flat up until that pace so it would be no different than me swinging around you know any corner at that point if it's flat now if it goes you know 10 feet down in the next three feet then it's not you know somebody's probably not going to jump over and risk their life to get over the bluff and i just don't know what that looks like commissioner murray mr chair members of the commission i would say having walked out here with jeff pretty extensively um to accommodate that if that's something the commission wanted to reflect on and add a condition to staff would probably recommend extending the fence not towards the bluff just because with the challenge of maintaining the fence and the bluff itself and to avoid tearing it up whenever that fence needed to be replaced would be to tie it in six to ten feet along the corner to have kind of a dog light coming in but it is significantly steep up there um can't say me and jeff raced up the side of the slope here because probably neither of us would get up too far i thought you said that one of the posts were going to go over to the bluff where it starts to go down so isn't that meeting the the that's what you had mentioned it's just not really shown on the drawing yeah that's why i don't it's hard for me to understand it from the drawing i'm just trying to work the two out even if you went 10 feet this way you know with the dog leg input spikes that greg was talking about because i'm just thinking you know you have a teenager and if they're running like this they're just gonna climb it step until they get to the end well now all of a sudden they're at the end and they can't if they have something you know they can't swing around sure yeah i agree right i i feel like a dog leg makes it easier to swing around because you have something horizontal that kind of works i think so too within straight line the degree of deterrence that's exactly it my fellow commissioners know that i grew up in the city of chicago so getting around it is part of your dna um so any kind of spikes or things to deter just coming around is that that's where your safety to me that's where your safety issue is nobody's coming up the bluff unless they're really intoxicated on something the stairs to me seem like your place of your point of entry so sure having that area secured to your lift so that somebody can't really like if they get on the other side of your lift towards the lakeside they're in serious peril of falling yeah they won't do that and i my safety concerns are probably alleviated with just figuring out where how to secure those termination points of the fence i would be happy to work with the the city or the planning commission to oh i'm sorry go ahead i was just going to jump in i think i'm piggybacking on what you're going to say mr wigan but i might recommend if the council excuse me commission is leaning towards granting the various variants and looking for a condition just perhaps indicating enhanced safety requirements on the western corner as approved by staff or as reviewed and approved by staff that then allows a little bit of flexibility for grease the last pole yeah there you go they won't or electrified they won't be able to grab onto anything [Laughter] together exactly what is that is it an extension down is it spikes coming out as a combination of the two but i think this from the staff perspective i think we know what the commission is looking to see there so we can probably leave that condition a little more general just indicate some enhanced safety condition yeah and that might add some comfort to the adjoining homeowner on the other side that somebody can't sneak around and get into their pool potentially from my side right you said you have a 13 year old and a nine-year-old mr ricketts i'm sorry you have a 13 year old and a nine-year-old i do yes they will become an 18 year old and a yes 14 year old so they will they will endeavor to go to your neighbors just as easily yeah and that maybe you might be doing yourself a favor by having something there yeah so i'd be invited over yeah right right yeah i you know i don't see that as any kind of an insurmountable i think that there's uh there's a way to solve that there and i admittedly didn't probably do a very good job of i was kind of rushed because because isaac was like could you get us a sketch i haven't sketched anything for a long time so i apologize that it's not the scale and like that's okay i did the best i could but i did not do a very good job of showing what that would look like but i did have the conversation um with the fence contractor and there is a way to to find the solution for that whether it be spikes or extending it out i'd be happy to work with isaac or whomever i still have somewhat of a concern of over by your lift carriage yes and trying to figure out a fencing solution that secures in between your stairs the deck the lift and then perhaps maybe even a short section of something on the other side of your lift carriage so that this where you have the galvanized pole pounded in so that there isn't something that makes it easy to come up the steps and across that you know yeah so that platform will have a glass rail on all sides okay and then it you don't really see it there but the the the carriage actually lines up within a quarter inch of the platform so it comes up there's a little little step on the platform on the carriage the cart thing so it lines up really close to that wood um that you see there so that gap that you see there between the the carriage rail and it's more underneath i think is what you're concerned about underneath it and trying to get up here correct yeah so um that's particularly steep right there so um i'm i think on the side you kind of you can't see we could certainly run the fence and intend to run the fence in a way that there's no way so that would be something else that i i could work with isaac on to ensure that there's no gap there if if that's the concern i'd be happy to do that i think that would be something we could do i would i would call for a motion with the with the issues that we have discussed uh put into that motion would you like to do that julie no i would not i'll i'll give it a try i make a motion to approve the fence variants for 6455 hawks point lane subject to working with the city on protecting the perimeter fence on the western side and also by the platform excellent excellent do i have a second i'll second real good um all of those in in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye those opposed the motion carries thank you very good thank you sir thanks so much for your time i really appreciate it thank you thank you for your presentations at the same time i think the you know the security cameras um that's a that's well thought out obviously and um and being able to connect to your to your iphone um that's a good it's a good um good thought so thank you again thank you i appreciate everything else anything else thank you appreciate it thank you thank you i wish the capitol police had as lengthy of a conversation i'll protect our cats they're not paid as well the the second item of discussion is item 3.2 an amendment to zoning code section 22-s shoreline district regulations this item is also a public hearing before the public hearing i will turn turn it over to community and economic development director mr marty dole for staff presentation thank you chair members of the commission yes i do have a very brief presentation and then we'll turn it back over to you for the public hearing and discussion we are here to talk about an amendment to the shoreline district regulations ordinance just a little bit of background as you'll recall after several months of discussion we worked through an ordinance in november 9th 2020 which was approved by the city council revising those shoreline district regulations on may 4th of this year and it was coincided with the recent development of the huntersbrook property the dnr sent a letter that was included in your background packet that asked for the addition of the chaska creek tributary to the city's list of classified tributaries within the ordinance so from that letter staff had discussions with the um dnr and under the um thought that we want to make sure we get every lake and tributary that's in our growth area included in the list so we don't have to come back and amend this ordinance each time a new development is brought into place so another tributary was identified so as you saw in your background packet there are actually two tributaries in the growth area that are being recommended to be amended to the ordinance list so we did provide that amended ordinance you saw the draft in your background packet which included those two tributaries added to the table sent that to the dnr and they did provide their conditional approval of that ordinance amendment on august 25th of this year so again those two tributaries are the chaska creek tributary and then as well as an unnamed tributary that's a little farther west in the growth area you can see we are proposing to add those as numbers 13 and 14 to the table of tributaries and also as was included in your background packet you can see the location of these two tributaries um the chassis creek which cuts through the huntersbrook area and continues west west into the city's growth area as well as the unnamed tributary that is to be added to the list as well on the far west side should be noted and it was included in your background packet that the addition of these two tributaries should have no impact on any of the previously approved developments um those that are in that area including the rolling hill south which is in the south part of this parcel where chaska creek cuts through are adhering to the shoreland requirements related to tributaries so no impacts um also noted that these um the city's shoreland regulations won't come into play on any of these parcels within the growth area until such time they are annexed into the city we really are just trying to make sure our list is um inclusive of all of those shoreline areas so we don't have to amend it each time at development so with that staff is recommending pursuant to that dnr request that the planning commission recommend adoption of the attached ordinance amending section 22-4 shoreline classification and land uses of the victoria zoning code and with that i will turn it back to you chair for the public hearing very good thank you very much marty um i will now open uh the public hearing is there anyone in the chambers this evening who wishes to comment on this item yep please state your your name and address sir stock one zero one zero zero victoria drive chaska i have just one question i have time to call marty instructed to marty what basically are going to be the differences from what is existing in what the dnr you know we have the other solid parcel yet how's that going to affect that i guess that's the big question yeah and just a little background um so dave and chair members of the commission so the way that the shoreline district works as you all will recall from our last year discussion any land within a thousand feet of a classified lake is considered a shoreland district and then that land within 300 feet of a river or tributary is considered a shoreline district so when we're looking at these tributaries we're talking an area of 300 feet on either side would be considered part of the shoreland district in a lot of instances there's wetland delineated wetland along those creek i know the chassis creek specifically there's a lot of delineated wetland that eats up quite a bit of that 300 feet anyway which makes that whole area undevelopable just based on wetland but in instances like the welter property to the south of your property the only requirement they really had to meet was any of the development within that 300 feet radius they had to make sure that 50 of that was maintained as open space so they were still able to they've got houses and building pads that are within that 300 foot area they just had to make sure that 50 of that whole area is maintained as open space so that's basically hard cover correct you know what you're cracking yep correct and that's really the only impact that i can foresee with the tributary being added to the last larger lots and it doesn't really affect you're more it's more pertaining to the cluster development or you know right and really only within that 300 feet so the rest of the property outside of that 300 feet the shoreline ordinances would not be would not come into play and tributaries and rivers do not have their own um lot regulations like those shoreline districts that are from a lake they default to the underlying zoning so whether that be r1 or a pud or whatever that ends up being okay so it's minimal correct pretty much otherwise following in line as to what you guys were requiring from the path correct correct thank you very good thank you sir appreciate it is there anyone else in the chambers okay um hearing no additional public input commissioners uh may i have a motion to close the public hearing i'll make a motion to close the public hearing is there a second second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed the motion carries thank you very much uh i will now open the floor to planning commission to discuss commissioners any questions or comments i just have one for marty if i could the uh has the city's council reviewed the adding of tributaries that are not within the legal boundaries of the city and have they given us opinion that it's okay i mean i i get that you're saying this is somewhat of a housekeeping item so that we don't have to do it going forward and that's a smart use of resources i'm just questioning from the the legal perspective of having an ordinance within the city's ordinance book that covers an area that is not within the city's legal boundaries at present time commissioner vance the chair members of the commission yes um as part of our ordinance update process when we updated the entire section on the shoreline district regulations last year that was part of the discussion we actually do currently have other tributaries and other lakes that are not within our boundaries that are included in the list in fact if i can speak frankly i was a little bit um frustrated when this came through because we had asked multiple times to have them all listed so we wouldn't have to come back and do this again but there is a caveat within the ordinance that states that these you know that the lakes and tributaries are only governed by this ordinance once that land area is within the city so the city attorney has okayed that city council had previously approved the ordinance which included some of those areas so uh does not seem to be an issue thank you for clearing that clarifying that for members of the commission that we're now you're welcome thank you very good uh any other any other thoughts any comments on the um on the issue uh hearing then um i would call for a motion i move that we recommend the city council adopt ordinance amending section 22-4 the shoreline classification and land uses of the victoria zoning code as presented thank you julie excellent thank you um all those in favor signify by saying hi those opposed thank you the motion carries um our final discussion item is item 3.3 residential zoning district discussion this item is for discussion only i will now turn it over to community and economic development director mr marty dole for staff presentation thank you chair members of the commission yes as we've been talking about since we drafted our work plan earlier this year the item on our residential zoning districts and pud is one that is a topic of discussion for the planning commission to thoroughly review um and and provide any recommendations in the future of potential changes or amendments to any of those ordinances uh as staff was preparing this presentation for this evening it became very apparent that there is enough material in these areas that it's going to encompass more than one meeting so our intention is to have this as an agenda topic for each of our upcoming meetings for the next three four five however long it takes to get us through all of the different areas and really what my intention would be is to provide some background and provide some initial staff um things that staff have identified in these areas to just start getting the gears turning and people thinking about it obviously we can have some discussion on some of those areas there's likely going to be questions or additional information that the planning commission would like to see related to these areas so we'll be taking notes on those things so we can bring those things back uh forward in the future so really no decisions needed at this time not even necessarily a a clear direction at this point because we'll be reviewing this in pieces and then trying to tie it all back together and having that more in-depth discussion um at a later date so with that i will jump into the presentation so as was included in your background packet just a little bit of an overview of our zoning districts our residential zoning districts so in 2017 the city council established the residential zoning districts that are noted on your screen there was an r1 low density residential r2 single family residential r3 medium density residential r4 high density residential and lmr which is lake minnetonka residential once those were put in place it was determined shortly after that by planning staff at the time in the planning commission and city council that the r1 and r2 districts were just too similar both essentially had become single-family low-density zoning districts and in fact that it it came to a point and again this predates both isaac and myself but it came to a point where when development was coming in in the city's growth area and was looking for rezoning from ag it became kind of a dealer's choice as to what zoning they wanted to take r1 or r2 r2 being much less restrictive smaller lots smaller setbacks that was the zoning that was chosen at the time and the planning commission the city council decided that wasn't necessarily what they wanted the r2 district to be so in june of 2019 that r2 district was changed and some other minor amendments were made to the zoning district so the districts that are currently in place as of june 2019 are r1 low density residential that's our single family zoning district our two two family residential which is really just for two family or duplex type homes our three multi family residential which allows town homes semi-detached and multi-family homes as principal use are for high density residential which would include townhomes row homes and multi-family and then of course the lmr which is the single family area around the lake minnetonka shoreland district so this map as well as a link to a digital map was included in your background packet this one's a little difficult to see but as you can note a large majority of victoria is zoned as r1 many of those r1 zoning districts have pud overlays as we know this is our lmr district up here in the orange you can see a few spot parcels that are darker orange those would be zoned r3 the red is our commercial business district blue is the one industrial parcel industrial zoned parcel that we have and then these lighter orange in this area um are the r2 single family zone districts that were approved in that time between 2017 and 2019 before the r2 district was changed and then the green areas are um egg zoned most of the park land so three rivers park district and arboretum is zoned egg and then there are a few um remaining remnant egg zoned parcels within the city so as i mentioned at the beginning i just want to spend a little bit of time talking about both of these two districts first is the r1 permitted principal uses so these would be the types of uses that would be allowed in an r1 zone district without any conditional use permit or any additional approvals that of course includes single family dwellings that include state licensed residential group homes serving six or fewer persons municipal facilities and city parks places of worship utility services schools nursing homes retirement communities and care facilities day care centers and then golf courses country clubs clubhouses swimming pools etc private recreational businesses of at least one half acre in size along with those principal uses the r1 district allows a list of permitted accessory uses those include one detached garage that cannot exceed 900 square feet an accessory storage shed not to exceed 900 square feet greenhouses not to exceed 900 square feet privately owned recreational facilities such as swimming pools sports courts tennis courts home occupations temporary buildings needed for construction solar collectors docks and patios and detached decks in addition r1 does list two conditional uses so in order for a use to be allowed in a zoning district as a conditional use it does need to be listed as a conditional use in the ordinance for r1 that includes commercial use antenna towers on city owned buildings or structures as well as accessory dwelling units so moving on to our two permitted uses you'll see um very similar language but a little bit different so our two permitted principal uses includes those single-family dwellings that were approved prior to june 10th 2019 and as i mentioned we do have a few developments that used that zoning at the time now currently the only permitted housing use or residential use would be the two family dwellings and then similar to r1 this district also allows state licensed residential group homes municipal facilities places of worship utility services schools nursing homes daycare centers and those private recreational businesses permitted accessory uses are identical to the r1 permitted accessory uses with the exception of the size of the detached garage storage shed and greenhouse is reduced to 600 square feet and then the conditional uses in this r2 district are the same as r1 antenna towers on city facilities and accessory dwelling units martian just for a quick sec on on r2 number four the municipal facilities is the mission of city park just something that didn't get transferred over from um is that different i can't state that for certain if that was a typo on my part or if it's not noted in the ordinance that way but it is one of the things that i noted in your background and we'll get to in this presentation there's a lot of inconsistencies between language between these two districts which is one of the low-hanging fruit that i think we'll want to work on fixing as we move forward um but i can't recall off the top do you have it pulled up if it yeah so it does just list municipal facilities in the ordinance r2 this is on your cleanup test that's on the on the cleanup list yeah there there are a number of inconsistencies that shouldn't at least in my opinion be inconsistent okay so within the size of the golf courses in acreage be something that's also on that i think that's something that we as a group will want to talk about um that are those sizes appropriate that's where i'm getting into now next is the bulk regulations which speaks to the sizes and setbacks and i think that'll be part of what this commission will want to discuss in further detail is are those bulk regulations adequate appropriate that sort of thing so moving on to our bulk regulations the r1 single family home bulk regulations this is one that this commission has um likely seen or heard us talk about quite a bit it's kind of our base standard for r1 single family zoning that includes a minimum lot area of 12 000 square feet a width of 80 feet depth of 130 feet 30 foot front and rear yard setbacks 10 foot side yard setbacks each side max impervious surface of 35 percent a max height of 35 feet and a minimum floor area of 1800 square feet moving into some of those other principal uses you'll note that most of them include a 30 foot front yard setback and a 35 foot rear yard setback with the exception of the private recreation business or association use this would be like the clubhouse that the hunters brook development had proposed would be working under that private recreation business or association use setbacks um the side yard setbacks for these other principal uses are 25 feet total with one side being 15 feet you can see the impervious surface maximum is a little all over the place ranging from 30 to 70 percent depending on the use and then max height is uh differs from 35 to 40 feet for those other principal uses um the accessory uses also include bulk regulations this is something that isaac reviews frequently in developments and when zoning permits come in for things such as detached garages and sheds so all of these items have a 45-foot front yard setback with the exception of temporary construction buildings and solar collectors rear yard setbacks for these accessory structures is 10 feet across the board which is relatively standard the side yard setback for each of these is six feet each side with the exception of patio or detached deck is five feet each side which probably should be six feet since we require a six foot drainage and utility easement so another um thing that i've got on my checklist and then the garages storage sheds and greenhouses do have a maximum height associated with them as well as the solar collector i didn't include it in this table but the solar collectors um if they are ground mounted they can be 14 feet high otherwise they can't be higher if they're roof mounted they can't go higher than the 35 foot principal structure um height so moving on to r2 so um i did include we still have it in our ordinance because there are lots that are under this r2 single family zoning that we need to um make sure we are aware of what those setbacks and things are but the single family zoning that was in place from 2017 to 2019 allowed minimum lot areas of 7 500 square feet minimum lot widths of 60 feet depths of 115 feet front yard setbacks of 25 feet rear yard setbacks 30 feet side yard setbacks of 8 feet each side a maximum impervious surface of 40 percent and then a max height of 35 feet with a minimum floor area of 1400 square feet so you can see as i referenced earlier when we were in the situation of choosier zoning this was typically the zoning that was picked for for rezoning currently two family homes as i mentioned duplexes are allowed in r2 districts those bulk regulations are 10 000 square feet a minimum lot area uh minimum lot width of 50 feet depth of 110 front of 25 rear 30 10 foot each side side yard set back 45 impervious surface max a 35 foot height and then a 1200 square foot per unit minimum floor area so 24 hundred square feet per building per duplex r2 the same bulk regulations are included with again as i mentioned to commissioner avansky some inconsistencies related to front yard setbacks rear yard side yard impervious surface max heights that i at least preliminarily am not finding a good reason as to why we'd want those to be different in r1 or r2 for example this indicates a 35 foot each side um side yard setback so a 70 foot building separation versus a 25 foot in r1 so those are some of the things that we've we've got on our list to take a look at um and then similar accessory uses same concept some of the side yard setbacks are inconsistent you'll notice a few additional five yard five foot side yard setbacks in the r2 district but otherwise all of the other regulations are identical to the r1 accessory use regulations um so then just as a point of comparison as we're we're looking at these um minimum requirements i did put together a table i also included this in your background packet of some of the um either in application or recently approved pud bulk regulations just to get an idea of where some of these recent developments i think i went back five years and i did only include those that came under pud where they're falling so the shores of marsh lake which you all um recently approved preliminary plat for they have a 10 000 square foot minimum lot area 65 foot width 160 foot depth 25 foot front yard setback 30 rear seven and a half each side and five thousand square feet the rolling hills south property which as we indicated is really being proposed as those smaller villa lot so you'll see quite a reduction resulting in increased density of those lot areas and widths um and then the hunter's brook obviously had three different housing types some of those a little closer to the uh shores of marsh lake pud some of those closer to the villa product from rolling hills south all varying slightly in different areas and then madeline trail is another recently approved development with 8 65 square feet minimum lot area 68 foot wide lots 130 depth 30 front and rear and 9 foot side yard setbacks so you can just see kind of the variation in just these developments that have been approved in the last year and then the next table um also indicates uh some of those developments going back three four five years some of the lake town developments uh waterford landing whispering hills um and where those came into play so as i mentioned staff has identified a few things just to draw to the commission's attention i'm sure you again will have other questions or things we'll want to add to our ticker list of things we want to look at and talk about but just some of our observations are of course first and foremost are the current permitted and conditional uses adequate and accurate within those residential districts are the bulk regulations for those permitted and conditional uses and accessory uses as well adequate are they where we want them to be one note and staff has brought this up previously is that currently our single family medium density which our comp plan identifies medium density is 6 to 12 units per acre it's not achievable under our r1 or r2 zoning and it must rely on pud so question for the commission is that adequate is that it certainly is a way to achieve that medium density or should the city try to incorporate achievable medium density into a zoning district um are there ways to incentivize affordable housing knowing that that is a high priority both of this commission in the city council for example our flo floor area minimums too high um you know one idea we've tossed around internally is allowing increased density if homes are smaller so setting a floor area max for some of those but again just spitballing some thoughts as i mentioned previously the bulk regulation tables are inconsistent with permitted uses and they should be updated for clarity um as well as some of those inconsistencies with those non-housing permitted uses between r1 and r2 for example a nursing home has a max height of 40 feet in r1 but only 35 feet and r2 those types of things another note accessory dwelling units are a conditional use in both districts but we really do lack clear definition and any bulk regulations setbacks and things related with adus so something that should likely be added to the ordinance and then um one that we do get calls and questions about occasionally especially in the pandemic home occupations are a permitted use in both of those districts but again they're really not well defined as to what constitutes a home occupation and if there are any um conditions or regulations related to that and that uh chair concludes my presentation and i will turn it over for some discussion as i mentioned we're not necessarily looking for specific direction this evening but thoughts ideas initial feedback things you'd like us to bring back in the future related to this topic very good thank you marty um so when i read through the packet i said so here's my homework is to go through go through the packet and and break it down and you know see what see what truly makes sense at the same time uh thoughts no i mean i i share your perspective there's good discussion items i think it sounds like your approach is we're going to lay these things out in pieces and bring them all together and say this is our agreed-upon discussion items and tick through those so we can get it distilled down to where we achieve consistency and we try to target goals and objectives i think that's accurate i guess the other item i would have is not that we need to copycat anybody but what are other cities setbacks ordinances i mean just what are we competing against i guess is probably a bigger you know if they can go to chaska or chan or laconia you know we want to not that that ties us to it but i mean that's that's a great point because we're in a very competitive market at the same time and what is what is our competitors doing yeah right and i think we have to take a balanced approach and saying you know what does our community want versus what is a competitive pressure there may be a competitive pressure but that may not be palatable to how we've chosen to develop and grow victorious right and so we may have to say we're we're willing to forego certain opportunities to maintain a consistency and a vision that has been laid out by our residents and city council well i agree with that that the whole affordable housing thing ties into that right absolutely i mean part of it's the price of land uh part of it is that what our community wants uh obviously we're trying to get a better tax base bring an industry but even if you did all that would that happen um how much of our not just our zoning requirements but then our other building requirements are building fees uh you know you got to put sod down you can put x number of trees in i mean there's a lot of other things that could really influence affordable housing not just the zoning piece of it and it may be prudent to assign that to a zone but we need to be careful so that it doesn't get abused by future commissions and councils that oh r2 is like where we're going to create the bad part of town so i mean we need to be cognizant why do we give it all away with puds i guess that might be the other question we have all these we have that's one of the things when the the one councilman going through the the two uh the marsh lake and the other one at the seven and a half foot side yard setback that we all talk about as being not ideal not the best not the preferred but yet we continue to approve these and it sounds looks like in the past for the most part they held at eight uh good or bad but if the rule is ten and there's only one that was ten in the last five years i think that's the concern because if i'm a developer and i'm looking at this i'm like well i'm gonna ask for seven and a half but when's the time where the developer comes and asks for five well it's ten minutes from now if we keep approving seven and a half affordable housing might need three i don't know um typical affordable housing is gonna be in a multi-family setting so you can have yes i mean it's rare to have it in any other format so just because of land cost i mean so it will be likely in a more dense area of town where that would be permitted and of course that does get to the point what is affordable housing well it's defined by the met council and i think the met council is the group that has some parameters on cities and what we need to have within our city and and that ties to funding correct yeah that that's correct uh commissioner moore provide members of the commission there um there there is a equation that the met council defines i want to say if you are and and that's what makes affordable housing different for every individual because if you're spending less than 30 percent of your annual income don't quote me on 30 but that seems to stick in my head then on your monthly payments then that is affordable to you um so i think that's another part of this broader discussion is that um affordable housing doesn't necessarily mean um you know voucher provided a housing that sort of thing it's really you know we we try to think of it as workforce housing can the teachers can the first responders can the service industry folks afford to affordably afford to live in our community there's actually another entire sector of senior affordable because when you think of someone who's getting more of a fixed income because what they do is they look at the median income in this county which is quite high so even an affordable and it's either 30 40 50 or even up to 60 so there's different levels of affordability it would be interesting to see what the met council is looking for for victoria to have his ratios i don't know what that is and it may be that we might be wise to use standardized affordable housing terminology such as things that are based on area median income and then for what marty's talking about you know we would like our public schoolworks employees to be able to live in the city that to me is less affordable but rather the term accessible and so we drive affordable and accessible and try to strike a balance from that perspective but it is it's true like if you work here it'd be nice to live here absolutely there's so many places to work here it's in your house what's a working wage right question um my first thoughts are between r1 and r2 there isn't a huge amount of difference and is there an opportunity to create something with one or the other i mean to me it looked like r2 had all the same rules as r1 it just you could have 7 500 square feet instead of 12 000 square feet is there an opportunity to manipulate or to work with it's wrong word to tweak r2 so that it would be advantageous for something like affordable housing or more affordable housing or something along those lines uh commissioner pedersen chair members of the commission those are certainly things that we isaac and i have talked about internally again just very pre-cooked ideas not necessarily ready for prime time but there's there's different ways of achieving that um one example would be our comp plan does identify land areas in our growth area that are for medium density housing so there's an opportunity that you could have an r2 district that it makes medium density achievable and it's only allowable in those areas that are identified for medium density so it takes away a little bit of that dealer's choice so you're not going to get those lower regulations or restrictions in the r1 or the single family low density housing areas another idea that i've alluded to actually isaac's idea was is there an opportunity to set a maximum floor area um requirement so houses can if you're going to use smaller lots smaller widths um you are maxed out on how big the house you can build is on those lots so you're going to be able to achieve greater density but we're going to cap where how big that house on that lot can be so just some of the things we've we've talked about internally as we start moving through forward with this process and this and this process we would like to have pretty much printer ready when um you know there there's nothing specifically driving a timeline on this as i mentioned i'm expecting it's going to take us at least four meetings just to kind of get through the background of this so we're probably talking through october and then i imagine we'll have quite a few just more in-depth discussion sessions so um you know i'd be surprised if we get something done before the end of the year um it's probably more likely a six-month process hopefully not as long as shoreland ordinance but if it needs to be then that's okay too well it's all in the detail isn't it well i guess we're counting on you guys to take help take us through some smaller bites right yeah to conclude pieces of it yeah and just as a little bit of foresight into what i'm thinking so um we provided a little bit of background here for the r1 and r2 i think at the next meeting we'll talk a little bit more on the the higher density districts the r3 and r4 um just to give you a similar background as to what we're looking at kind of point out some of the things that we observe in the code that probably need to be updated then i think we'll spend at least one session just on pud i'm just talking about the pud ordinance and and what that entails too so potentially three more background meetings and then coming back at the next meeting after that with compiling some of this and bringing some of that more information forward very good thank you any other you know the thoughts on the topic um with that we will close this item out um moving on to miscellaneous um a productive meeting tonight a good meeting um and it is all about the detail isn't it and um and the presentation that that um that jeff wagon uh provided was was an awful lot of detail and um we you know that's how we're going to get to an agreement on that so i was i was quite um quite impressed uh quite impressed with that um and it's all about the detail it's all about the questions um at the same time too so um um anything anything additional from staff uh yes chair one note and i will send an email about this tomorrow but if everyone can if you're available hold your calendars for 5 p.m on monday november 8th we are planning or hoping to do a joint workshop with the planning commission and the city council were intending to bring in and this is something the city did a few years back but bring in a panel from the urban land institute to have a discussion on um specifically related to affordable workforce housing options and opportunities um and innovative ways that cities can try to attract these types of development so the the previous panel ul i did one of these panels prior to my arrival but it sounds like it was really well received good information they actually bring in industry experts developers from different areas to talk from their perspective about the challenges and and things that cities can do to help attract those types of things so as i mentioned i'll send out an email reminder tomorrow but if you can uh if you're available try to hold november 8th 5 p.m for that joint workshop excellent thank you um and uh terry has a presentation on the previous on the august the 23rd city council meeting some announcements they made it looks like they're reviewing some tax levy information on september 13th capital project bus tour on september 20th maybe the school district's coming in to talk about a potential fall referendum it's also on the 13th from this market to the end of september open forum lady talked about ovarian cancer this is ovarian cancer month color is teal she was a ovarian cancer survivor no early test for it so she was bringing awareness to that a lady talked about predatory ordinance how they have a task force established looking at state support for ankle monitoring they're doing some back to school stuff working with school teachers and guidance counselors just making sure they're prepared and how to have a safe trick or treat the consent agenda was adopted they did approve the shores of marsh lake again comments on the 7.5 setback the rolling hills south again doesn't help affordable housing uh had some real back and forth on kind of the whole rental uh shift yep uh so i think they were kind of as intrigued by that as we were and then we talk about affordable housing but they bring up gee i wish it had a three-car garage which or maybe it was i wish i had a three-car garage but i think was his point um the expectations and then there was quite a bit of discussion on the wasserman lake preserve the the trail not being ada compliant which was over three million dollars so it seems hard to believe that wouldn't have been specified they talked about like an all-terrain wheelchair putting down some grates but ultimately they approved spending 134 000 uh getting it out of either the trails fund or the park fund uh to make that uh compliant and portion of it already is it was extending the ada compliance out further uh alyssa was there gave some update on the water conservation they talked about neighborhood growth 16 1 670 new neighbors i've come here a total pop of 10 546 11 new acres of parkland 243 acres annexed into the city how the city responded to covid with work from home more online services the opportunity for some hands-on cpr i think through the fire department uh some budget discussions but for the most part that was that was it good good yeah and well affordable housing and then i got into affordable housing affordable housing i think even laura's name got mentioned now it's it's my understanding that a bulk of the city council watches the planning commission meeting at the same time so they're they're pretty much up to speed on what what has transpired and but the uh but the rental homes intriguing i mean it was very genuinely intriguing so um they i guess their conclusion was the same as as our conclusion i think disappointment that the rental rates weren't more affordable yes yeah yeah fifty thousand dollars a year and just rent and then of course everything else that's associated with it so um any any other any other thoughts on it hearing none um i would um i would ask for a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn is there a second i'll second it excellent very good thank you uh all of those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed thank you the motion carries the meeting is adjourned thank you again thanks everybody