Just a few seconds. To order. Welcome to the August 5th, 2026 meeting of the Plymouth Planning Commission. We will now rise and say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Again, welcome to the Planning Commission meeting. The Planning commissioners are Plymouth citizen volunteers who serve at the pleasure of the Mayor and City Council. The map in front of you shows where we live and what districts of the city we represent. Any actions we take tonight will be in the form of a recommendation to the City Council, and the City Council makes all final decisions on matters that come before us. I’d like to introduce the staff with us tonight. We have Sean Drill, senior planner. Next to me is Lori Summers, senior manager, and our city Council liaison. Julie Poynter is with us as well. Julie. The first item on the agenda is the public forum. This is the part of the agenda agenda designed to allow anyone to speak before the Planning Commission on a matter not otherwise on the agenda. We will allow 15 minutes for the public forum. Is there anyone who wishes to speak on a matter not otherwise on the agenda? Please step forward. Please state your name and your.. My name is Anika Calhoun and I have handouts. Is this, um. Excuse me. Anika, is this on the matter? That’s a public hearing tonight. No. Okay. Is this open form? Right? Yep. No, that’s okay. I’m sorry. I just want. To. Lori and Sean have received far too many emails from. Me in recent days. Uh, my name is Anika Calhoun. My family and I have lived in Plymouth for a little over seven years now. I’m a wife. I’m a mom of two little boys and two rescue mutts, a Cub Scout volunteer and a member of the Mount Olivet Lutheran Church, and I work as a quality manager for Hennepin County Public Health. My family and I work pretty hard to be good neighbors and good citizens. We’re pretty involved. We clear snow from the hydrants, we keep drains open, we pick up litter. We also try to live as sustainably and as we can. We support pollinators and we try to grow our own food. In May, we received a fencing violation from the city based on a complaint of someone in our community, our neighborhood. And I was really shocked. The language that I found in our city ordinances around fencing felt more like a homeowner’s association rules than a city. Uh, but as I tried to understand the options before us, I really became more concerned. More than just concerned for our own fencing, but also the impact it might the current ordinance might have. And other members of our community. I want to ask a simple question is what is the primary purpose of Plymouth’s fencing ordinances and codes? From my reading, it appears that we are focused on aesthetics and property values. But I ask you to consider, should aesthetics outweigh children’s safety while playing in their own yard? Should they outweigh the ability to create a pollinator habitat, most especially for our endangered rusty patch? Bumblebees? Should one resident’s opinion in our neighborhood outweigh the opinions of many neighbors who have enjoyed our gardens, spent time in our yard, their kids have played with our kids and our yard, and received plants and seedlings from us, or asked where we bought our affordable fencing, which is not compliant. Many homes across the city unintentionally have fencing code violations. I know that we were selected for this violation because of complaint, yet we have invested years of sweat and savings into improving our property, contributing to this community. And when we received a letter from the city’s lawyer threatening a punishment of a thousand dollars fine or 90 days in jail over a fence that simply isn’t considered architectural quality, I was shocked. The materials that are permitted permitted in the handout I showed, I shared with you. There’s the compliant ones and the non-compliant ones. You will see that the ones that are not compliant are the more affordable options. I know that there are many affluent members of our community. I am not one of them. We scrimped and saved to fence in our backyard to make it safe, and we just paid it off and we tried to have no dig. Easy and easy out fencing for our dogs and our kids to play in our front yard, and for us to spend time. And we got trees, fruit trees from the city, tree and shrub sale. And over the years there’s been deer and rabbits, and we’ve tried every type of chemical, organic chemicals to and hair and all of these tricks and homemade solutions to try to keep deer and rabbits away from our apple trees and our fruits and our pollinators. And nothing has worked. And this year we finally got our apple trees to recover. After three years, and we finally got apples growing. And then we were told to take down the fence that kept the deer away. It’s recommended that you have an eight foot fence to keep deer off your trees. We had a six foot fence that was made of hardware, cloth and tee posts which are not allowable here. For us, height does matter because we live right on a wetlands and a wildlife corridor. So we have many, many wildlife visitors and without fencing we cannot protect those plants and trees. And without fencing in our front yard. My family cannot make use of our front yard. We cannot play. We cannot recreate. We our our front yard will be useless to us. So this cross, this process has been incredibly stressful for my family and I. I want to thank Lori and Sean for your patience and your many responses. Very quick responses and Council member Julie Posner for coming and visiting our our gardens. Um, I want to thank all of you for listening to me, but I really do believe the fencing ordinance, as it is unintentionally excludes less affluent family members in our families, in our community, and it limits our ability to recreate safely in our own yards and reduces opportunities for environmental stewardship, which I believe are values of the city. So my request is simple that when our fencing variance comes before this body in the coming months, that you grant us our variance so we may continue to protect our gardens, the food that we grow, maintain a pollinator habitat, and keep our children safe. And please consider whether the current city codes and ordinances really reflect the values that Plymouth states are important to us now. Sustainability, community and accessibility for all of our residents. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Um, when a matter does come before the city, the Planning Commission as a variance, the staff typically provides us with background for the ordinance. And likewise, when ordinance changes are proposed, we ask the city to provide us with that background. And so in both both cases, we will take note of your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, the next item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Does anyone have any additions or subtractions from tonight’s agenda? If not, I’ll take a motion to approve. Uh, Mr. Chair, move to approve the agenda. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Say no. Motion carries the agendas. Approved. Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. We have one item on the consent agenda, which is approval of the July 15th, 2026 minutes. These matters are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion. Is there anyone who wishes to move this item from the consent agenda? Anyone in the audience wishing to move it from the consent agenda? If not, I will take a motion to approve. A motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye aye. Opposed? Say no. The motion carries. The consent agenda is approved. The next item on the agenda is a public hearing for the preliminary plat and final plat to subdivide property located at 1300 Harbor Lane into two single family lots. When we have a public hearing, we follow the following process. Staff will provide us with a report on the item and the commissioners will have an opportunity to ask questions of staff. We will then invite the applicant to come forward and make any presentation. The applicant wishes to make, and answer any questions that we may have. We will then open the public hearing for public comment. Uh, during the public comment period, we will not enter into a dialogue with any members, but we will take note of any questions that come before us in attempt to answer those questions. Following the close of the public hearing. With that background, then the commissioners will take action as we deem appropriate. Uh, with that background, I’ll ask Sandra to provide us with the staff report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And members of the Commission. Yes. This is item 5.1 on the agenda. It’s. I’ll give a very brief presentation. Um, this is a request. Uh, Saether Bergquist is the applicant. It’s preliminary and final plat for property at 1300 Harbor Lane in Ward two. Um, here is the location map. It’s located at the northeast corner of 13th Avenue and Harbor Lane, and it’s about 0.86 acres zoned RSF one. All of the surrounding properties are also single family homes are SF one. Um. Here’s an aerial photo of the map. You can see the existing home located here and a detached garage that would remain, and then a new lot line would go between, uh, right about in this location and a new home would be constructed in the east portion of the site. Um, again, a request to subdivide this site into two single family lots. Um, our SF zoning requires a minimum lot size of 18,500ft and a minimum lot width of 110ft. Lot one, which would be the West lot, would contain 18,791ft and would be 141ft wide. And lot two, um, where the new home would go would contain 18,785ft and would be 133ft wide. Um, with that, we find that both lots would exceed the SF one standards. There are no variances being requested, and a development contract would not be required for this final plat because there would be no need for any public improvements with that, um staff is recommending approval of this subdivision and I can stand for any questions you may have of city staff. Thank you John. Any questions for staff at this time? Commissioner Anderson? Uh, a couple of questions. More curiosity. Than anything. Um, why is the existing home have an address on Harbor when its driveway comes out onto 13th? Um, Mr. Chair, commissioners, I am stumped. I don’t know the answer to that. Yes. Um, it’s a little background. The house was built, I believe, around 1918, and the street names were completely different under the previous platting. So not sure. Okay. So then there’s also a jog in the road there on 13th. Yes. Ten feet. What’s what’s with that? So the idea of that was it was part of this where Harbor Lane comes up here used to be called Parker Street. It came up like this and went around. So it was part of that planning way back when. So, um, and as a sidebar, um, because of that and the street, uh, curb is right about here, the developer would be providing a ten foot wide, um, public street permanent easement along this area right through here. And that’s addressed in the resolution as well. Thank you. Any further questions for staff at this time? Commissioner Olson? Uh, my question is curiosity. Also, um, since there isn’t a variance and it seems to be compliant with zoning, um, what? Why are we looking at it? Uh, Mr. Chair, commissioners, um, the state statute requires that anytime you plant property, um, the Planning Commission conduct a public hearing and notified neighbors and so on. So that’s what this process is for. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Uh, hearing no further questions from the commissioners at this time, I’ll ask the applicant to step forward, make any presentation you’d like to make, and, uh, stand for any questions, please state your name. Dave Garner and I don’t have a lot to add to it. I guess, to what Sean had to say. But, yeah, it’s kind of a conforming live. We’re splitting off the house. At one time we looked at it to do two lots. The house is, you know, been all redone and pretty nice. My son’s going to purchase a house and then we’re gonna do a spec house, probably on the lot next door. They’re building company. Okay. Any questions for the applicant hearing? None. Uh. Thank you. Please stand by in case we have additional questions later on. Thank you. I will. No, and I’ll open the public hearing. Public hearing is open. Is anyone wish to speak on this matter? Seeing no one coming forward, I will close the public hearing. Uh, so we have a application in front of us. Are there any further comments or questions from the commissioners? If not, I would be happy to entertain a motion. Commissioner. Commissioner. I motion to approve a resolution to the City Council to approve preliminary plat and final plat for, say three. Berquist to subdivide 1300 Harbor Lane into two single family lots 2026040. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? If not, we’ll take a roll call. Vote. Hansen I. Fowler I. Olson I Marc-Andre I Anderson. I and chair. I. So the motion passes. It’s a recommendation to the city council to approve this subdivision. Um that will be heard I think, on August 25th. Correct. Uh, but that may change based upon other agenda items. So stay in touch with staff just in case that happens. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, is there any new business? Any updates from staff? Uh, no real updates. Uh, the last city council meeting on July 28th. The last items you, uh, reviewed passed the city council, and we will have a meeting on August 19th. Okay. With that, uh, the