“We look at boards and commissions as being really important contributors to the work of the city. They bring a resident perspective that many times staff don't have. The council advises staff and you provide direction to boards and commissions and we think their advice is important to you as well.”

“We have our main six bullet points: COAs, Adina Heritage Landmarks, Heritage Preservation Award, Century Home Program, plan of treatment changes that are upcoming, and comprehensive plan updates. Beyond that, I guess my question for city council is: do we need anything beyond this because this seems like enough for us to handle?”

“I would actually turn it back the other way. You've got three different awards that you hand out. Are they complimentary to each other or is that a lot of work? What's the workload like of having to go out and get nominations?”

“The issue with the heritage preservation board is I think it's a really meaningful award but it's hard. We don't usually get a lot of nominations from the public at large. We've kicked around different ideas in the past few years for trying to get that community outreach. We got a surprise submission kind of at the last second this year which turned out to be great.”

“I don't have any additional questions or ideas. I just say if you get into it and if you find that you guys are struggling in any particular area just raise your hand and then we can help address issues at that point.”

“We hired some new consultants a year and a half ago and they've been great, really stellar. The education component, the consistency, and we've had a lot of turnover this year for commissioners too. Having them there as educators and really helping onboard the new commissioners has been great. I think the way that they explain things in their memos and how they interact with commissioners has been very helpful.”

“The awards were so inspiring and just really a bright spot. I want you all to feel very proud of the work that you've done because for me it was just wonderful to see those reports.”

“Last Thursday we had a conversation about obtainable housing and affordable housing within Edina. One of the questions that we brought was: what can we do about some of the teardowns? Hearing that makes me think—is there an opportunity to expand that definition of what needs to go through review? If we think about mid-century modern or something like that that also has a beautiful impact that today is potentially being torn down, is there that opportunity?”

“There's a cluster of mid-century modern homes over off of Allinger. A community member came in worried that a builder tearing down one house would be the first domino. There are other regulatory actions we could take as a city to slow that process down, but there's economic impact from that. There could be more of a carrot approach here though because mid-century modern is throughout Edina and it is really incredibly well done.”

“Would it be possible to showcase in some way the mid-century modern homes that exist? I live in a four-level split that doesn't look like most four-level splits. My husband and I designed it and everybody comments on how great it is. How could we get other people to do the same thing—to update their homes without tearing them down?”

“Could our committee ever partner with the American Institute of Architects? They have 'Homes by Architects' tours that educate homeowners. Would we advertise or partner with those people so we could showcase mid-century modern homes? There's a resident-driven home tour in Lynnhills where you take applications and set criteria and have a mid-century modern tour of Edina.”

“I just think that you know the residents own their own homes and they get to be proud and talk about it. We can do something that would teach about safety in your house and how to prepare. But just to get people thinking about how do I keep what exists instead of just feeling like if I move into Edina I have to tear down to get what I want.”

“What's possible out there, you know, and maybe we become the Midwest version of what they do in Palm Springs for the Century Modern week.”

“Unlike prior years where we are debating between seven or eight work plan items and then you guys add another one and we have to take it away, we're going for something more simple here mostly because one of the items is enormous and it captures a lot of things. We have three currently: our ordinary meetings, the zoning overhaul, and to deliver that in a way compatible with the kickoff of the comprehensive plan update.”

“We heard from a lot of commissioners and residents about things like: length of meetings, quantity of meetings, duplicate public hearings, quantity of planning commission members being reduced to seven or five, lack of unity between outcomes or recommendations between planning commission and city council, managing meetings more effectively including conduct and conflict, getting questions to staff earlier so they can provide answers offline.”

“With efficiency there's a balance—the tension between quality, quantity, providing more context and engagement opportunities, but also being resourceful and responsible especially with taxpayer dollars. Every hour we run long, every duplicate meeting we have is a huge burden on city staff and resources that cost our city money.”

“I brought it in if anyone wants to listen to the planning commission reviewing a sketch plan from 2021 for a 1.27 acre site. The argument was that there could be 13 condo units on it. This was the Burly site. The argument was this was possible because down the road, not next to it, there was a one-acre site that was part of the development. So the argument is we can combine these two lots even though they are not physically one. It was sort of a mythological site that never existed. We invested time in that both at the planning commission level and at the city council level.”

“As a resident that really bothered me and I thought I'll write a letter and this will change surely just pointing this out will bring about change and it didn't. Then as a candidate I ran and I brought up issues with zoning and nothing changed. Then most recently it was frustrating on the 16th—the way something was presented to council meant I couldn't vote in a way that was fully informed.”

“This is an ongoing thing that I do think and I don't know how to deal with it. I can't continue to advocate that we should have information that is thorough and code and statutorily compliant but I'm not getting anywhere and I'm two and a half years into my term. I don't know how to fix that. I can't even know what the cause is—is it that we don't have people who understand the code or is it that there's an unwillingness to do it? I have no idea why.”

“I just had put a cautionary note on this. You get your guidance from the city council. Individual opinions here are important in the scheme of things but they're not the directive of the council. The reason variances exist is because for every general rule there's an exception to the rule and how far do you want to take it. In the context of this conversation we need to be careful about what we're talking about and we get headed in a general direction in terms of guidance and not somebody's specific ideas of the direction we ought to be taking.”

“The small area plans were a creation of the 2018 comprehensive plan and so we've had seven years of that now. I would be interested in a summary from you guys of what that experience was like. It was really difficult I think for all of us to figure out how does a small area plan work in reality. They tried to come up with every twist and turn and put it together but especially the Southdale plan. It's zone four stories but it's a 20-story building—well that's because it's under the Southdale small area plan that's allowed. I would like to have a report back from you guys as to what that experience actually felt like having to implement it.”

“I think that's where I found a lot of the discrepancies between the planning commission and the city council. Did you know is this something that we can make more efficient or less contentious or is it just because it's a conversation is by its nature going to have a lot of 50,000 opinions?”

“Logically it would seem like that would go kind of in line as we collectively develop our goals for the comprehensive plan update. Just revisiting what the last one was like, effectiveness of it, altering it—that seems like we will definitely touch on that.”

“We have no limits on how far variances can go. Other cities do. This lends itself to projects coming forward that some people on planning and some people on council really have a hard time with. When you are allowing a developer or promoting a development that's four times the legal buildable area or a building that is way over the height limit, I think that takes a lot of time and I think it interjects a lot of inefficiencies. I think it'd be great if we could have a cap on how far variances can go.”

“Putting caps on variances—it means that like Bloomington says you can only go 25% over the established setback variance. We don't have any caps at all. You end up with proposals where you might be having two times the legal buildable area or four times the legal buildable area.”

“I don't know that our decisions should align. I don't know if that's the goal. But I want to convince myself that if our code and comp plan, if we collectively agree what we're trying to influence, then yeah then I think decisions would be aligned. But without that I actually watch the planning commission meetings because you guys in my opinion are the SME [subject matter expert]. We're relying on you to be. So I'm listening for Ryan to say 'Well here's something in the code that we should be concerned with.' And I'm like 'Oh yeah that's true maybe I should go look into that.'”

“Start with the outcome we're going for. If these are the products we want to have more of in our marketplace and process says the zoning coverage is causing that issue, then I'm for changing it. But we got to start with what outcome are we after.”

“Don't change something until you know why it was put that way to begin with. So I don't want to just arbitrarily change stuff. It's all right, why did we have this designation? Well that's why we did it back in whatever 19 blah blah blah. We don't need that anymore. And so then to drive this outcome here's the change we're going to recommend.”

“I've often felt like we try to control the market and so we do these things that we think might encourage people to do make a different decision. But what I really think we need to do is have a code and a comp plan that encourages the types of products we want in our market. If that means like for lot coverage like we need to relax that, then that might encourage a developer to be able to actually build a different product that might be more affordable.”

“It's easier today to buy two lots and combine them and build a beautiful house than it is to take a lot that's decent size and build twin homes on it. We already have twin homes in Parkwood. So I think we have to kind of shift and say we really need our city code our comp plan to be done in such a way that it encourages other types of products that we want in our market.”

“You do this forecast to say 'All right if we do that we might get more ADUs or whatever do we want that as an outcome?' Yeah that feels pretty good right and then we move forward with that. But I think that has to be a part of what we look at and we can't wait until two years from now to have that conversation about well what kind of products do we really want in our community.”

“I would say you know just with our three big goals, one of which we have to have those meetings, I'd say if we address these even mildly successfully, you know a lot of your concerns go away. I also think to your point with you know vision, getting back to the purpose and what mayor Hwood mentioned of you know the vision of Edina, you know that's like the root why.”

“In cities where they're trying to revitalize their industrial area they will have kind of a tourist component to it. The example was a purse making industry where they would have the leather toolers and everything and they'd have a glass window so you could come and watch the process for how these products were made and then you would have a little gift store there as well. Our zone industrial zoning code doesn't allow that.”

“The trend in industrial zones especially for economic development is to allow the public to sort of come in and participate on some level with the industrial process.”

“We're comfortable with that in Edina at the staff level but you talk to people at conferences or whatever other cities and they're like 'How can you possibly do that? Planning is in charge of physical changes not functional changes.' And if the Drooling Moose can do it, you know why are we not announcing to every business hey who's in the industrial zone go for it?”

“In past meetings with you guys we've talked about training as to what, and I know I went through that when I was first elected. I don't know the last time you guys went through planning commission training. I think it seems like a year ago we had talked about it. We try to do at least one a year. We had a whole bunch from the APA that they all were able to do on their own. I don't think everyone did it but that seems to be a common thread—basically just adequate training.”

“This is kind of that balance of efficiency. We're a recommendation body to you but we ought to be very well trained on code and planning so that the outcomes ought to be a little more united just in general as you rely on us to kind of be stewards and expert experts in that field. I don't think there could be too much of it. We haven't ever got to that point.”

“I think part of the training is to understand the advisory role right? So you guys get technical and we get political. You know basically because I think that would help with the focus and stuff. Because we have to take into account other things besides the technical analysis but it's nice to be able to rely on you guys having really done that deep dive into the technical analysis.”

“I love ASA Bay so I'd like to see the sign, you know I'm in support of that. I do want to just wrap up like our stuff if you guys have anything else.”

“I'm at home watching planning commission and my wife is working, I don't have headphones on, and she goes 'What is that?' And I said 'Well that's the planning commission they're talking.' It was a 5516, it was that one when you guys were looking at that burning property and she goes 'Why does everybody talk so much?' And I said 'Well you know everybody wants to express their opinion.' Um and so it made me think about this one point: What if it's not necessarily process but it's the planning commission culture where we have a culture even like it could be on city council as well but we have this culture where it doesn't feel like we're doing our job unless we pontificate and if you're saying the same thing that somebody else has said then maybe it doesn't need to be said right?”

“I just wondered for us is there something from a cultural standpoint, operating principles that kind of thing, that we could lean into that has nothing to do with the structure of a commission or the code or the comp plan right? That's just all how we work more efficiently together.”

“As we're going through and doing some of these like zoning overhauls and trying to make our language more digestible readable, I understand we're probably going to be working with a consultant like we usually do, but we should also try and leverage AI as much as we can because literally you pop that into it and you're like 'Hey make this easier to comprehend or take this from an 83-page document on parking minimums and like make it realistically one page and it will do that.' And then you like use your human brains to review and analyze and make sure that like it still carries forward.”

“I used it for drafting up an ordinance recently because I was just like hey what do other cities do within the leaf blower gas leaf blower space? And there's like deep research that you can have it do where it will go and find every other city with 50,000 approximately people and they have a gas leaf blower ordinance and it pulls it all together and here's the feedback that they got when they were going through it.”

“I think as long as there's a lot of wisdom involved in interpreting that because I think if there's not a deep history or a knowledge of your community and the way different people kind of interact, then I think it's not a good use. Country Club and Parkwood Nolles are very different in a lot of ways and the AI is not going to have that nuance. I'm not suggesting using it in a silo. It's pairing it with the intelligence of people that we have here along with a consultant.”