oh I didn't even noce Brian name tags for for good evening I'm calling the Monday May 28th Planning Commission meeting to order will everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al to the flag of the United States of America to the repu for it stands one nation under God indivisible Li and justice for thank you everyone all right first up on the agenda is the approval of tonight's agenda do I have any requests for changes to the agenda seeing none and entertain a motion to approve so move do I have a second to approve the agenda second all those in favor approving the agenda say I I opposed agenda is approved um next up are the minutes from the meeting held Monday April 8th anyone remembers that meeting do you have concerns about the minutes a while ago no all right entertaining motion to approve the minutes Mr chair I'll move to approve the Planning Commission meeting minutes dated March 25th 2024 all right uh second second all all those in favor approve the minutes say I I I opposed minutes are approved moving on we have two public hearings tonight the first one is for Nexus Innovation Center this is a request for zoning change from office to I 2 on 14.35 acres and a site plan review on 14.35 Acres would the proponent of the project please come forward good evening if you could state your name for the record and tell us about your request good evening my name is Josh budish I'm with Endeavor development I live at 5116 Skyline Drive V Minnesota we have prepared a presentation for tonight perfect we are I have to start by saying it's been a few years since I was last here uh some of you may remember may not all but uh I developed or was part of the development team of uh what is now Lakes Matana Corporate Center in E Prairie so it's just fun to be back next is at Opus Park uh we have updated the name uh to reflect the the location within Opus Park located 6131 Blue Circle Drive in Prairie Minnesota little bit about Endeavor development locally headquartered real estate development Investment Company I'm the founder and principal sole owner started about four years ago since then we've become one of the largest commercial real estate developers in the market uh with over 3 million square feet developed to date mostly here within the Twin Cities but also in uh the De Moine and Milwaukee areas uh some highlights on the project itself the property uh is currently uh a Suburban office campus for American Family Insurance we're proposing a new 186,000 foot facility we call a modern Business Center we can touch on what that means later uh as you know we're requesting a rezone that is consistent with City's comprehensive plan um the location is along Highway 62 Indian Prairie within what most know as Opus Park it's actually served by minetonka sanitary and water as well as uh blue circle and yellow circle being minona roads what we're osing is a what we call a front parked rear loaded modern Business Center building totals a little under 186,000 square ft we are utilizing uh as much of the on-site materials as we possibly can uh we're including infrastructure for electric vehicles preserving trees uh treating storm water on site as required us see you have a robust Landscaping plan uh as well as ample parking to accommodate a variety of uses and achieve the ordinances within the city for the proposed zoning here you see the elevations and exterior material finish key I do believe we have some samples am I right yep um the design of the building is meant to appear uh like a two two story office building uh we do that by having glass uh and what we call Signature materials on both the first floor and second floor uh particularly use of paint glazing on second and first floor creates that two-story appearance uh that is for the front and sides and then the rear we have loading with the variety of colors as well and here you see a rendering um this was generated by our architect Pope um for those of you that are familiar with our project uh by the name of Arbor Lakes Business Park in Maple Grove Nexus at Opus Park is designed to uh expand upon the success we've had within that City and creating what um what's been an award-winning job creating um frankly just a really well-known and successful project that we want to bring to your city here these images are from arber Lakes business park so what you see here are not renderings these are actual photos of what exist today these buildings were built uh between 2021 and 2023 and inside the these are photos of the variety of uses we have planned for the facility so those include but are not limited to office light manufacturing showroom and warehousing and to conclude uh again we're requesting a rezone to I2 this is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and uh as part of our plan we intend to revitalize and underused site um reuse as much of the on-site materials as we possibly can and have this be um the next project within the city that we can all be very proud of so appreciate your consideration thank you any initial questions thank you appreciate it thanks J you take us through the city's report yes just briefly um as the applicant had mentioned it's 18573 3qu foot U kind of flex building uh the floor plans initial floor plans show about 17,000 ft of office and then the balance for warehousing uh the amount of parking up provided on site plus the kind of future conceptual parking provides quite a bit of flexibility in terms of uses um in terms of warehousing as as the applicant mentioned could be warehousing manufacturing offices or any real combination of that so we're excited about that flexibility afforded on the site the project has been developed to meet all of the city uh code standards in terms of the I2 zoning District um building materials um roof articulation facade articulation um parking requirements Landscaping requirements all designed to to meet the the requirements of the city code without requiring waivers um and so there there's not a lot to add in terms of kind of discussion points uh it does meet the city code requirements we're confident that if you notice the back page of the memo there's there's a page or so of of of changes to be made before the city council reviews the project later this later next month we're confident that we can get all those ironed out before that meeting so there's real no issues from a staff perspective in terms of recommending approval um as noted by the applicant um utilities and access will come from minetonka so minetonka will issue the building permit excuse me utility permit for connections from that City and also um any improvements in the right of way one of the comments that they had made earlier was uh the trail along the north side of the property is shown as a site as a sidewalk in some plans um that should be shown as a sidewalk to to comply with their requirements and they also would like to work continue to work with the applicant on kind of addressing some of their way finding goals that they have for the Opus Business Park and we're confident that that will be done before um final approval um as I said before staff is recommending approval of this project um with no waivers shown or identified um and be happy to answer any questions great any thank you any questions for the city very very very briefly thank you um I'm looking at on your list of things to do before the um city council meeting lmnn on page8 N of that document are are all asking them to do something are you asking that they be required or that they please move the hydrant it's it's very nice language the tone of our language in the memo doesn't necessarily negate the requirement um the for example L is the cash payment for tree replacement that's a city code ordinance that's not a variable oh I was looking at L please move all hydrants to the building side of the parking lot oh I'm sorry I was looking at a different L the other one yeah sorry but I get your point yeah other questions question commissioner Taylor step um So currently in Eden Perry Jeremy how many warehouses are we currently have in Eden Perry I don't have a number of exact warehouses um we have from a from the assessing Department we C categorize industrial uses as warehousing office um manufacturing kind of all jumbled together so I don't have a number of specific just warehousing we find most warehousing businesses in Eden Prairie are a combination of of warehousing in another use okay and and I know this project is more built design on you don't there's no occupants yet or anyone signed up to occupy the space so it's kind of build it they will come um of the current warehouses we have or the the top three what what type of occupancy do we have with those warehouses currently I believe the vast majority of our industrial space again I don't have a a breakdown for just warehousing um but the vast majority of our where our industrial space is occupied there's maybe three or four buildings completely vacant um in the industrial classification um and the the the rest of them are occupied or at least mostly occupied thank you other questions for the city I have a question Mr chair just for the uh drawings I didn't see any loading docks are there expect I assume there's loading docks for light industrial there yes on the north side of the building is that's that's where the loading dock doors will be I I drove by there earlier and it's I know it's a oneway road and logistically I don't know how that would look like with semis going through there I haven't seen too many semis drive through there obviously they don't come when I drive by but are there any concerns with with it being a one way and being able to get in there getting out no not from an access perspective okay Mr chair yeah commission F yeah U add me on to the maybe the one-way traffic thing the center driveway that's there now you're widening it address this to staff is that um driveway with meeting City standards it looks like extra wide and I'm not sure if it needed to be extra wide for any particular reason I believe that that has not been identified as something that does not beat the code um and is likely necessary for the Turning movements if you look on the site plan on the screen the extreme West Drive and this extreme East Drive um while not dedicated solely for uh for V personal vehicles that's um the likely entrance for those type of vehicles and then the truck would be from from the center yep but I could certainly defer that to the applicant okay maybe later if they come up they can address that that's fine and then um do you have to make any parking assumptions for a potential second floor mezzanine notice in their design and at their Arbor Lakes facility they have some two-story mezzanines in their Corner offices and they're accommodating with some second floor Windows designs I'm okay with the parking as it is but I was just curious if you have to take that into account we did not in this situation um we certainly could but what would trigger if you look at a mezzanine is that may impact the FL ratio MH which um I don't know what there there's a cap of that that doesn't allow for waiver um and I think we're pretty close to that so that's why we're not anticipating a second floor mesine at this stage you're not okay we're not all right would there be a separate process that they would have to go through if they found a tenant perhaps uh especially if it triggers a waiver from a FL Ratio or or something like that all right all right thanks Mr chair give dun um just a couple questions actually I have three of them pretty easy though um so generally are these type of conditions being this is my second meeting is it co is it common for this type of or this many of conditions to be necessary before it goes to the city council not typically uh the typically the these most of these are are kind of worked out through the the development review process and you get a pretty clean project um we're sensitive to the timing here uh and trying to hit certain council meeting um schedules and so that's why we're a little bit more receptive to work in progress type of situation if these were any debatable questions or de debatable comments um or the applicant didn't agree to anything we'd have probably a different reaction okay thank you um the second question I have is regarding minat tanka's comments I think I read in the report that they were attached but I didn't see them in the packet uh unless I miss them just looking at the access as you me as you mentioned um would that be the city of minat tonka's access guidelines and their driveway requirements because it's accessing a minetonka road or would that be something that Eden Prairie has comment on I guess I'm just curious what their com comments are in regards to changing the access it would be uh their requirements because it's worked within their right of way uh in terms of with um they did not comment on the driveway with they've commented on um this the trail question and improvements or Landscaping within the rideway they had some comments there and apologize for not including that the packet if if it wasn't in there um but their comments were related to those those type of issues not the number of accesses here okay so we would assume that they meet the access guidelines or they didn't have any concerns about changing the access from two to three that would be the Assumption yes okay last question I promise um I think this is a very attractive building um very fond of the Arbor Lakes development um I'm curious though how the painting Works can you describe that or have the applicant describe that about how the painting Works in conjunction with the window maybe I'm just not clear on is there painting that looks like a window but it's not really a window right correct can I get the do you want to see the yeah that' be great yeah we able to pull that up yeah yeah so let's start with the paint samples on the right you have Pavilion beige and I believe it's iron or I call it charcoal so we use that charcoal paint to look like glass from afar so when you look on the left side under elevations I wish I could zoom in but that charcoal color is what you're seeing that is paint okay and the gray is the window correct correct so on the best way to decipher between the two is if you look at the glass at the main entrances that's kind of a light blue clearish that's your glass color yep and then your darker color is your charcoal colored paint okay so what's happened in Maple Grove is from afar and actually from very close in it really does appear uh like it's really an extension of the glass it's meant to trick the eye that's what we're aiming to do and you're actually painting the the stone type material uh it's it's smooth concrete concrete okay y okay very good thank you I wanted to address it because there was a member of city council who uh this is in Maple Grove who came back later so I'm glad you brought that I appreciate that it's very attractive looking thank you thank you chair any other questions for okay this is a public hearing if anyone would like to come forward and speak for against this project please do so now not seeing any entertaining motion to close the public hearing so move all right uh do I have a second to close the public hearing second second everyone in favor close public hearing say I I opposed public hearing is closed any further discussion on this request Mr chair yeah I like the project a lot I think it's welld designed um it's certainly a change in use um it it's a topographically very challenging site I don't know if you drove past it but there's a significant grade change from one side to the other and uh made it difficult to do some civil engineering on it I know with drainage and and topography and fitting in our ponds and everything like that so given the program I think they nestled it in there fairly well if this would have probably been a brand new raw site you know I think we would have scratched our head a little bit more but any Redevelopment on this site would have the same trouble whether it was multiple buildings or or one building so I think they did good good job with it Mr chair yes commission yeah I would agree with commissioner far it's a very good project very good timing the industrial Market is still very hot so I think it's a excellent design and um I'm in favor of it any further comments or is someone or discussion or someone want to make a motion Mr chair I would move uh to make a motion to recommend approval for the zoning change from office to I2 and sight plan review both on the 14.35 Acres as represented in the May 28th 20 24 staff report all right I have a motion from commissioner Duncan do I have a second second second from commissioner Weber all those in favor say I I proposed would anyone like to abstain okay great thank you looks great thanks for sending no waivers too made it easy for us all right uh one more public hearing this evening this is a code Amendment Landscaping in the RM 2.5 zoning District request for amendment to city code chapter 11 section 11.42 subdivision five Jeremy will you be walking us through this yes I will um I had a presentation but my computer just stopped so that's going to be interesting um just briefly um in the last seven years or so um the city has approved eight different um projects in the RM 2.5 zoning district and the RM 2.5 zoning district is our zoning District primarily or that most of our attached family projects kind of live um the Condominiums the apartment buildings those sort of things so the last seven years we've had eight of those six of those uh have received waivers or requested and received waivers for landscaping because they didn't meet the the Landscaping requirements I going to pause for a second there's a difference between the Landscaping requirements based on the building and the Landscaping requirements or the tree replacement requirements they're they're two separate things um the Landscaping requirements for a building are based on the size of the building so the bigger the building the more Landscaping you have we just saw the Nexus Innovation Center or whatever they're calling it today um that had quite a bit of landscaping requirements because it's a large building in the uh RM 2.5 in our attached family projects in certain situations the building is not too big for the site but there was not a lot of space to put trees uh trees require quite a bit of of surface area um to be successful and healthy throughout the their life um and so in those those projects we um we granted waivers reducing the amount of of landscaping required on that property from a code perspective six or 75% of those projects of those six projects that we granted waivers five of them had a floor a ratio of Greater of one or greater which means that the the floor area of that project was at a ratio of it was larger than basically the size the size of the site um and so that Trend kind of got us thinking about what should we do to a code to um to maybe address the concern that we just removing or waving our Landscaping requirements and so what we've done is taking a look at those those projects which I've summarized in the memo uh what we're proposing is an ordinance amendment that when you're in the RM 2.5 zoning district and your project is um has a floor area ratio greater than one um up to 50% of the caliper inch requirement can be used by sh can be used for shrubbery or perennials or or flower bits you know we're trying to do is in inject some color texture variety and our Landscaping um plans while not kind of giving away all of the requirements in terms of our Landscaping um so what this ordinance does is allows um that flexibility um on these specific projects with the hope of these projects can maybe meet the Landscaping requirements on site while also supporting the overall kind of design guidelines that we have in place in terms of landscaping excuse me where we're looking for like I said before color texture a variety of materials um seasonal um interest throughout the year um again from color texture um and so we think that this change to the code allows that flexibility to help further our goals kind of moving forward without um compromising the overall kind of goal of our Landscaping requirements it's not a we don't have a lot of projects as I said before we have what eight in the last seven years but there's enough to notice a trend and we want to try to remove barriers to development and Redevelopment and also kind of overall supporting our our vision for for what we're looking at as a city so with that staff is recommending uh approval of a of a of a text amendment that would change or allow some flexibility from the RM excuse me from the Landscaping the RM 2.5 zoning District uh in certain situations okay and you said six of the last eight had a waiver request um in last seven years we had eight projects six of those projects received waivers for landscaping thanks questions for the city Mr chair commissioner questions or comments or both either or okay thanks uh couple thoughts I noticed that uh the metric that you said where we compute Landscaping requirements is both for tree preservation but then also based on the floor area of the project basically the floor area ratio and you know Landscaping in general is very relative to the building's image on the first two stories let's just say if we're to four-story versus a five story there's no difference to what happens to the landscape visual you just see see more building climbing up to the clouds so I'm wondering if the the the basis of requirements should be more on just the floor area the base floor area as we call it not the floor area ratio because the height provides a variable that really doesn't impact what we're trying to regulate here which is the landscaping and I want I don't want to put a tumble on this but that that just seems like a a better uh uh metric to use again because we're looking at it in site plan form three-dimensionally again that Height's the variable here that just doesn't make its way into landscape in my opinion um not that I don't go along with this because I think it's a good idea um my second comment is we come across projects like tonight and I think a fair amount of them that have come through our commission in the last few years do have just by virtue of the property some undisturbed preserved area off to the side I don't know if you noticed on tonight's site plan there was that large acreage further west that wasn't Disturbed with the American family project and they're not disturbing it either it's topographically challenging um you know we saw that when the school district came through with the unfe project a couple months ago and so it seems like there's a fair amount of those and I don't know if it's fair to give away the show and I don't I'm not saying we are giving away the show by counting all of those larger trees that are in that stand that Forest that's out there and we don't want a naked building just because they've met the criteria up on the hill you know what I mean we need to distribute the required landscaping around the building regardless of whether they saved an acre and a half off to the side that's really nice looking so I just want to infuse those two thoughts into this process and see if that has any traction CH so maybe take the first question or the first comment first sure um we we chose flary ratio because the examples that we identified um all of them were more than one story buildings and so you're you're correct in the sense that the the amount of usable space to put Landscaping was the same the requirement for landscaping was much greater than if it was a single level or a two twostory building just because as you get more um and so they had in in theory they have more space or they have the same amount of space to put less Landscaping on a one or two story building whereas you have a three or four story building you have much you have the same amount of space you have a much greater Landscaping requirement and that's what we found in those examples um and so that's why we went with over overall floor ratio versus a base area ratio um just based on our experience we can certainly continue to monitor it but we didn't see that as a problem because um we didn't see that pattern of of waivers in the past it across all zoning districts we really just examined the uh RM 2.5 zoning District uh to address your second question which was like the Nexus building for example they had let's say an acre acre a half of space that they didn't touch there's heavily landscaped heavily vegetated forested they're not touching that area um we don't see it happening where they tear down existing trees to put more trees in um we could examine whether or not existing tree stands could help address a landscaping component um I know we do that in the the Tod zoning District um but we can certainly look look and see if that should expand beyond the Tod zoning District you know where where where the existing Landscaping provides a credit for example right of of the Landscaping requirements sure sure maybe my question could be more pointed could they get enough credit for an acre acre and a half of forest to uh eliminate any requirement for perimeter plantings I currently no and I don't think we want to go there to your point is we don't want all the Landscaping tucked into one corner out of the way and you have a bar in sight that's exactly what I was concerned about so that's why there's the two U two requirements of tree preservation in the Landscaping requirement and in our um the the design guidelines from a landscaping perspective do look at or look for landscaping kind of scattered uh in a logical manner throughout the site not just picked and choose um you know in the backyard or something like that sure sure thank you other questions or comments right this is a public hearing if anyone would like to come forward and speak for against this code Amendment please do so now seeing done I'd entertain a motion to close the public hearing motion to close the public he motion to close do I have a second second and a second all those in favor close and public public hearing say I opposed public hearings closed further discussion on this request Mr chair I would just comment that I think that these seven items are pretty creative and give options for being flexible and allowing uh variation of trees versus Shrubbery so I would be in favor of it thank you commissioner Duncan not seeing any burning discussion or concerns would someone like to make a motion I will make a motion to recommend approval to amend code Amendment Landscaping in the RM 2.5 zoning District as represented in the May 28 2024 staff report all right a motion from commissioner Weber do I have a second second second from commissioner grot all those in favor say I I opposed would anyone like to abstain okay thank you walking us through that uh Jeremy do have any planners reports tonight not not tonight any members reports would anyone like to make a motion that there requires a game five so move seconded second all right all those in favor all right all right motion to close the adjourn the meeting oh motion all right do I have a second I'll second that all right all those in favor to the meeting say hi hi hi we're Jour thanks everyone thank you thank you e