e all right welcome everybody to the April 11th 2024 City viina Planning Commission meeting on behalf of the rest of the Planning Commission we're grateful you're here in person or those tuning in remotely I'll say it every time but your curiosity your participation your feedback is vital as we navigate change together here in Nina specifically regarding the ways in which we'd like to use our land uh on that note your input matters we we collect public input through the city's engagement website betterto together.org we commit to you that everything you've submitted has made its way to us and will be considered as we make recommendations tonight uh regarding two specific matters we have two public hearings on the docket I'll get into that process and what to expect later but uh uh until then uh for those who are tuning in remotely and would like to participate in the public hearings you can get ready now uh by joining the virtual queue and waiting room uh please call the number 312 535 8110 and enter access code 2633 139 0260 the password is 545 four and when you'd like to get in the cutest speak you'll push star three I'll go over that again cuz that's really easy to memorize you'll State your full name and address and you'll have three minutes to speak so uh with that we'll get right into the meeting which starts with a call to order and then roll call commissioner El here commissioner Miranda here commissioner Padia here commissioner Smith here commissioner who here commissioner day here commissioner Borstein here commissioner phelp here commissioner hanaman here chair Bennett here all right next we have the approval of tonight's meeting agenda welcome a motion to approve I move to approve the agenda second all those in favor say I I I so moved next we have the approval of the prior meeting minutes and the special work session minutes for March 27th 20 24 uh motion to approve both items anyone motion to approve both second all those in favor say I I I so moved all right next we have the community comment period of the agenda which is your opportunity for anyone who's here in person to speak about a matter not on to tonight's agenda uh similarly you have three minutes to do so please come forward to one of the podium State your full name address and the light turns green when your time starts when it turns Amber you have 30 seconds left and when it's red ask you to wrap up anyone here for Community comment that would like to speak all right we've had kind of a string of people coming in for that and this is the first time without it for a while so all right next we'll move right on to our public hearing so the first one is a comp of plan Amendment rezoning and subdivision for 5120 5124 Hankerson Avenue uh krie Teague our community development director will present and a little bit about this process uh public hearings uh give the chance for any Resident who'd like to speak on this matter to do so uh staff provides a report to us planning Commissioners based off of the development or applicant proposal staff will provide a presentation based off of that then it'll come back to us for questions back and forth with City staff then we'll give the applicant uh a chance to present have another back and forth and then after that we'll open it up for a public hearing which went over already what that consists of after that it comes back to the Planning Commission we'll deliberate and we'll provide a recommendation for approval or denial of the request and with that Carrie take it away thank you chair members of the commission this property is located right on the edge of the Grand View District just west of City Hall so here is here is Highway 100 uh Jerry's uh located right here so the property is currently zoned single family note across the street is the Wells Fargo bank that has a pcd2 zoning District into the South this purple area is a planned unit development that was the Hankerson town homes that was approved moved 03 years or so ago that's a 8un development the site that we're looking at this evening is currently zoned low or uh guided in the comprehensive plan low density residential note that the property to the South the town homes are guided medium density so the proposal is to extend that Medium density residential area here's a look at the properties today so it's the two single family homes we're looking at you can you can see the Hankerson Town Homes right here the proposal is to tear these two homes down and build two 2unit town homes that would be incorporated into that Hankerson uh Town Home Development to the South here's a look down the street this is the the Wells Fargo bank across the street the applicant did go through a sketch plan this was the the renderings that we looked at and the proposed um how it incorporates into the development not many changes if at all um from the sketch plan so this is a look at the two proposed units here on the right note that the proposed height here is 25 feet a story and a half to step down to the single family home to the north here is a single story building so this would transition into that single family District another rendering so this would be the overall PUD um If This Were to be approved so again the the eight town home units to the South and then the two new structures to the north they would be platting this area so each unit would be located on its own lot lots a little bit larger as you can see um than the town homes to the South so what this request requires for relatively um small project big asks here comprehensive plan amendment to reu that site from low density residential to medium density that allows a density range between 5 to 12 units an acre this is nine units an acre as proposed just this part of the development uh a rezoning from R1 to P20 so it would be incorporated within that existing PUD to the South and then the subdivision so as a comp as there is a comprehensive plan Amendment and a rezoning the city has complete discretion to approve or deny this request so an argument can be made here both for or against so staff has provided the commission with alternatives for approval and denial so primary issues are is the comprehensive plan Amendment reasonable and is the resoning to PUD reasonable staff is supportive of this request so again for the comprehensive plan it would be just extending that Medium density two lots to the north again across the street from the mixed use Center the Grand View District so there's several um goals and policies within the comprehensive plan that this would meet um again it's right on the edge of a commercial uh retail area this would be be seen as a transition into the single family neighborhood um and the single family characteristics that are described in the comprehensive plan um attached in multif family housing should emulate single family housing and its basic architectural elements with pitched roofs articulated facades visible entrances porches balconies taller buildings should step down to provide a height transition and that's exactly what this project does parking to the rear so if we go back to the site plan I didn't note that there is an alley in the back so all these units would take access off of the alley and maintaining that that Community character so the comp plan also talks about missing middle housing um so this town home concept two unit um is a housing stock that the city is short on so middle missing middle housing is a range of house scale building bus with multiple units compatible in scale and form with detached single family homes located in a walkable neighborhood this is again close to that uh commercial node uh let's see I also wanted to note that within the transportation study that was done for Grand View and the Grand View development framework there's talk of either a pedestrian or potentially a street connection at 52nd so here's the site we're looking at to connect into that District doesn't exist today but that's a potential for the future and the added density although small here would support the retail uses in the district we also believe that a PUD is reasonable here on this site so again PE was established to the South and it was found that that development met our are um the purpose and intent of a PUD this was deemed to be an appropriate setting is it transitions from the commercial area into the single family neighborhood um it's an efficient approach to housing to get us that missing middle housing the design is is compatible with surrounding land uses um it's not going to have an impact on public streets and utilities again it's a provides a variety of housing types and the transition um is appropriate so with that again staff has outlined alternatives for approval and denial um findings for both but staff is recommending approval subject to the findings and conditions that are in the staff report and with that I can stand for any questions thanks for standing still for questions anyone questions comments commissioner P um I didn't see anything on B together Dino was there any feedback from the community that we got on Better Together you din I know they had a meeting but yeah there there were a few comments not that many but there were some opposed um didn't like the increase in density and the the multif family creeping into the neighborhood but there were also some that were in support of the project as well little bit of a historical question why did we go on the adjacent lot the handerson property with a PUD versus changing it to a other housing zoning yeah it's a good question we talked about in our um work session earlier this evening we don't really have a this type of zoning that would fit this type of a development especially the the four plexes to the South so um yeah the thought was to put it into a PUD and write the regulations specific for that site so you because that PUD was already established it made sense to just add to that rather than establishing another zoning dist District um R2 for example would be the the two family zoning that may be appropriate just for these two sites Mr Smith thank you um in some of the uh materials the developer provided he talked about um the alleyway in the back and driving and maybe um concerns around in by the Neighbors on on cars speeding on that street uh is there anything that the city could do uh to look into that or or what are your thoughts on on on preventing you know speed bumps something that that would mitigate any kind of speeding uh in that Alleyway yeah that that was notic and noticed um mentioned and some of the feedback on Better Together as well um you know it's very narrow so just narrowing having a narrow Street generally slows traffic not that this is a street but um I don't know if speed bumps might be a way to slow traffic down it might be something we could um explore with our engineering department if that would be something that's useful here any other questions the applicant is we have part of the applicant team here with us this evening but the presenter Steve Banky is online and he'll share his screen and do his presentation that way okay welcome all right turn over to Steve thank you for coming here and providing this proposal thank you very much uh Planning Commission members I am sorry I'm not there it's always been a joy to to be with you and I hope you can hear me right now if I could get a little feedback on that I'll know that the computer is working properly we can hear you good thank you very much um so you probably remember seeing this at sketch plan so I just wanted to kind of run through you know what we uh have elaborated on since then and a little bit about what we heard from the neighbors and and some of the other aspects of this project um so again the project is immediately adjacent to Grand mtown Homes um uh we feel that was a very successful project um you know developed uh relatively quickly um obviously uh it it uh sold up very very quickly I guess when you when you look at it um during this sales period perod for that building and that would have been during uh actually during Co the 2021 2022 Parade of Homes there was a significant amount of uh Edina residents who stopped in to see the project and specifically you know they liked the town home idea but they were really looking for more of a single level type home A Rambler type home and uh when when these two Parcels came available to us we saw an opportunity to fill that that request that need and uh you know basically the people that we're talking to their their home their housing needs have changed they're looking for greater convenience uh modestly less space or less space you know some of these people will probably be moving from significantly larger homes um they look definitely looking for one level living and uh most importantly and and that's really I think a good reason that this project Works in this location is the proximity to Community Services I think we're all aware of what Grand View uh as a as an area brings to the community um we do believe that um you know price points in the beginning in the 800s are affordable for Edina and I need to clarify that you know a lot of these people are moving from homes that are significantly more expensive than that and I think we need to remember that the real estate process when somebody moves especially within the city um it frees up other homes for new homeowners and I think that that trickle down is is obvious uh but it does free up less expensive homes uh for other people to move in it isn't this home specifically or these homes specifically that are are affordable but they do open up other homes in the city for you know affordable homes for new residents um we knowe that the price point for these units is very similar to a number of homes on this block in the adjacent blocks um this is not a number that's out of uh uh you know that doesn't fit in with the these blocks um we did have the neighborhood meeting we we did have approximately 12 uh family groups uh attend uh because of the requirement for 1,00 feet uh there were 200 letters sent out 199 letters sent out and of that 12 people chose to attend um well we did have a little bit of concern from two of the neighbors and they were the immediate immediate neighbors to us uh what was related to us at the meeting generally was positive comments um they liked the existing project they like the idea of you know the transition into the neighborhood um they like the idea of the the buffering uh that that all has happened with Grand View first phase and it also uh I think it's it's pretty obvious that'll happen with this as well um we did note the same comment that uh commissioner Smith mentioned about the alley um we don't feel that the speeding is really the purview of the project while the comments were that it could have been one of the residents of the other building who no longer lives there uh that could have been part of that problem um we're very happy to work with um city um engineering and police department to help with anything that we can do to uh try and dampen down that as a problem going forward I'd like to point out that there was a couple of other issues um during construction that developed and we worked with planning staff and uh the environmental staff on on with those issues and for the most part they've been resolved so um I I think we want to make a point that we do feel like we're we're good neighbors during construction and that we create a neighborhood that is a good neighbor to the neighborhood um we do uh we do see this as a completion of the phase one project um only by virtue of it coming up you know down as a second as a second phase uh there is no contemplating any additional property there's no no one's coming knocking down our door saying Hey by my parcel too you know we want to keep going and no we see this as the end of the Grand View project I wanted to point out that while the staff report talks about access from the alley that is vehicular access just as Grand View one has sidewalks and access from the street and enjoys street parking uh in season of course um these homes also have front doors facing Hankerson and front porches sidewalks that lead down to the street um we do believe that Brookside as a neighbor neighborhood is already medium density while it may be guided and it may be zoned single family and low density the density of this of the area is well over six it's 6.68 I believe units an acre and that density is medium density um we we do notice that there are other neighborhoods in Edina that also are medum density um I think if I could I'm going to pop up a quick uh image here for you so basically this is uh a figure ground relationship map um Grand View Square is in this area um Apartments here Apartments here we're not seeing anything Steve just let you know Steve okay hang on a second I'll try I'll bring it over onto my other screen and see if this will take care of it for me I it asked to share my window there we go how's that looks good okay appreciate think I don't know what I'm looking at quite yet but looks like something okay now you see something anyway um so H 100 is here um uh Vernon uh 50th and Vernon comes down through this area Grand View is this right here the black are the buildings the gray are the roads the white is ground whether it be yards or driveways or um trees or whatever uh the blue of course is water um basically the point that I try to use with a finger ground relationship is you you can kind of see how the density changes you can see how in interlock and we have very very large Lots um across um interlocking from Brookside we have smaller Lots but still less dense when you look at Brookside as a neighborhood you can see how dense these lots are um it's not you know basically a Dina is not a homogeneous City it doesn't have one R1 zoning throughout you do have uh clusters of neighborhoods that were built at different times and those neighborhoods have different densities this is this is the reason that we believe that brooksite is already a medium density neighborhood in a low density comp plan uh and an a R1 zoning um inappropriate but or or inaccurate but perhaps is just how that the zoning was applied when the zoning code was established in 1964 um back then um we are oops I got a different page up here so let me go back to my there we go um we do feel that amending the Pud is the simplest uh resoning at this point mainly because all of the elements that we are meeting already exist within that document while an R2 or pd3 could also apply here with the adjacent PUD uh we do feel it's simpler from a staff standpoint from a neighbor standpoint to Simply uh extend the Pud across this property um we we uh wanted to distinguish uh between town homes and duplexes while these are two unit buildings they are not a duplex a duplex is a single building a single home that is split for two families these are true town homes they are no different than the adjacent parcel um and that's another reason why the PUD um is seems to be more appropriate uh they have uh individual entrances and they have complete separation between buildings um the we do believe that we designed the project to mesh with the P20 PUD that's a Jason um let's see we we do believe also that these buildings are an appropriate transition from the original project into the single family uh we uh observe that missing middle uh comments uh encourage modest densification which this fits the bill exactly um we believe that the density 8.95 is a modest upgrade from the existing 6.69 and it's an increase of one lot in in this area uh we do believe the PUD ordinance criteria are met uh and the individual lots are a uh another point of transition uh into the single family which also enjoy individual Lots um we do understand that the park dedication requirement the additional Park dedic Park dedication due to the additional Lots is is certainly acceptable on an understood U situation uh we do believe Town Homes of this type are a reasonable use here um and we do note that typically the town the Twin Homes I the Twin Homes and duplexes and town homes are all kind of interchangeable here and all those words show up in the ordinances and the reports um I'm trying to use them specifically but you'll find that I'm trying to use them interchangeably a little bit as well but they do provide an excellent buffer for single family which this is it also integrates multif family well into this transitional area transitional because of the uh mixed use at uh Grand View and into the single family development Beyond us um we we concur with the planning report we we do believe that we meet the requirements for an approval here uh we concur with the engineering report uh the requests of the engineering department Department are reasonable and consistent with what they provided us with Grand View and what was executed there we concur with the report of the U housing development manager Stephanie hackinson for the uh for the uh Redevelopment uh her report we feel discusses how this project fits into the character of Edina very well and how it actually helps benefit Edina um and we wish to request that the Planning Commission you know review and and respect the staff's opinions in this matter uh with that I will stand well actually I'm sitting but I will stand for questions from you and I uh look forward to hearing from you thanks a lot Steve um yeah you probably didn't know but we had a work session before this and the city's undergoing a zoning audit so a lot of your history and kind of commentary was basically just talked about before I'm sure you were just listening and taking notes but anyways appreciate the good presentation and welcome other Commissioners for any questions that you may have for Steve okay yeah hi Steve um thank you again for your presentation um I know in sort of common parlament duplex town homes Twin Homes uh are interchangeable but you did note I think distinctly that there is some distinction between a duplex and a town home and I just wondered if you could clarify that sure a duplex is a single building that is uh meant for two families the separation requirements between those two dwelling units is it's a single one hour wall uh town homes are typically created on individual lots and each unit while appearing attached actually is a standalone house they have their own party wall at the property line so the property if if you're looking through the property line area you actually have two individual 1hour separation walls so that each unit is separate totally separate from the adjacent that's the distinction between duplexes and any town home in this case we're presenting a 2unit town home and that is why I wanted to make that pretty clear thank you yeah commissioner El thanks thanks for the presentation um I wonder if you could just say a few more words about why you didn't just build a third building that looks like the other two that are just to the south of it it seems like I mean you're trying to put together a different like single level living so it's a different outcome I see but were there other reasons of just the way that site works for the kind of building you're proposing I I think the biggest reason was the trans transition to single family you know while while we had grade helping us in the first project um basically the north building of the fourplexes is lower than the adjacent single family home the 5124 anerson um that gave us a height Advantage between the height of the original building and and that lot uh as we continue up the road we are basically leveling out flattening out henerson itself is has come uphill and is now starting to flatten out um we do see that the ram the the Rambler style units are better transition um then ALS and also we also had the the considerable feedback I mean and honestly we get this in many many municipalities but the considerable feedback from Edina residents looking for a one Lev living um type of a type of a unit type of a home the previous development was narrower and the units are are were didn't have the ability to incorporate a single a main floor bedroom let alone a master bedroom or a bedroom suite on the main floor so we kind of stepped back and looked at what would allow us to you know create a viable product in within that framework for those potential clients great thank you any other questions all right we'll save comments nice work save comments for our deliberation period after the public hearing but thank you for the oh you got commissioner Bor you got it all right um so do you mind just one of the kind of CR not criteria um factors to consider here is the affordability of the housing um you know there was an affordable housing report it's one of the criteria that can weigh weigh on whether resoning to PUD makes sense you mentioned that you thought um these would be affordable for udina do you mind elaborating a I mean I was actually just a little struck by the $800,000 plus price tag for a400 foot unit but like what about these seem affordable or seem affordable to you from from the perspective of you ding it sure um Let me let me give you a little bit of background here on how affordability works these days because I think we can all agree that there isn't a lot of entrylevel homes being built anywhere entry-level meaning you know 200 300,000 I mean typical entry level homes anywhere in the Metro are usually starting in the 300s if not mid to high 300s if not 400,000 um land costs material costs labor costs have all gone up since you know even when we started the other project before that uh Co did a number on the industry and continues to beyond that the land costs are a big factor in pricing um when we buy a property in Edina we are buying it uh we have to develop it it's not a ready it's not ready to build we may need to remove a structure we may need to correct soils we may we will need to update utilities city of Edina engineering requires us to update the sewer and replace a water line generally the city is looking ahead and is trying to provide connections to the utilities in the city of Edina that's appropriate for a new home nothing wrong with that but it does cost money we also have a cost involved in meeting um runoff requirements storm water management those kinds of things a lot of that was not done when these original buildings were built so we are now having to come in and we are creating retention areas in this case they're hidden they're under the front yard they're underground we did the same thing on the adjacent property um but we are helping to manage um the runoff for our our piece here going forward with the city of Edina that has a cost as well um just so you got a handle on some of this between the sewer improvements water improvements in the retention area for Grand View phase one we spent more than $250,000 for eight units buide that out and it's you know there's that's there's a cost there that is directly applied to the land side of each of those units um beyond that of course like I I sort of animated at you also have the you know materials and labor costs have all gone up nothing seems to be going down these days um affordability in Nina I'm using it relative to the observation that Stephanie made if if these two homes did not exist in this area they could you know where we have where we're looking to make a a project out of it they could be torn down and it happens on many other Lots in udina and replaced with a home in you know generally 1.2 1.5 1.8 million range um compared to that $ 800,000 is Affordable in my eyes and I think if you you know if you take the extension of the movement of Edina residents from their existing homes to these that you do end up seeing the freeing up of truly affordable homes elsewhere in the city you know if this person is moving from um you know from uh conquer or you know some of those areas over on the other side of Edina for example there are homes over there that they could be moving out of and that are definitely more affordable and that whole process of of that movement is to me what helps create you know that affordability yeah welcome you can introduce yourself I know you're part of the applicant team Paul D Steve I think they wanted to clarify the 1438 Square ft on the main floor commissioner will Warstein um that's just the first floor square footage so the opening the beginning price would be less than 300 if they only take the first floor finished the lower level adds another 1149 Square ft for a total of 2587 so that that entry level just finishing the the main floor we could have a much more um if you want to call it affordable price yeah modestly and these are all um I was the president of the last HOA there and some of the residents that bought from me well I'm the president until we get 75% um occupancy of of owner occupied and then I turn it over to them so this will be included in with that HOA for snow plowing lawn care and things that this age group is looking for and they want to get out of their uh single family homes that they've been taken care of and living in a Dina like I do a lot of my neighbors are looking at these and they don't want that maintenance anymore so I didn't want to interrupt you Steve but I thought I should add that to no that's helpful I I appreciate the context yeah y thank you very much Paul I agree okay the is the issue of the basement additional square footage I did miss thank you sorry you said this would be part of an HOA right pardon me this this development would be part of an HOA yes okay this will be do you mind me asking what what the hoe fee is per month 390 yeah just curious what is it though 450 450 they yeah 450 I have another one that I'm president of that one's 390 this one is is 450 okay any other questions well thank you guys for the presentation uh stick around obviously uh we will open this up to a public hearing now and we'll do so I'll we'll get uh I get get give people a chance who are tuning in remotely to jump into the virtual Q again um if you've been there already waiting thank you if not uh there's quite a bit of instruction so pay attention call the following number yeah it's on the screen 312 53511 0 then enter the access code 2633 139 0260 then we have a password of 5454 and press star three to indicate an interest in speaking so hopefully you got all that it's a lot uh meanwhile we will open it to people who are here in person uh that would like to testify please come up to Podium you got three minutes State your full name address and let you know when your time's up thank you hello thank you uh my name is Ryan Beckman I live at 5146 henerson one of the uh previous Town Homes uh I felt compelled to say for transparency as a board member of the existing HOA our board has decided not to initially include this development in our existing HOA to what Paul just said uh we are not taking them on immediately uh and then also we have had 10 individual owners throughout our history in these eight units in personal conversations with eight of those 10 homeowners none of them were previous Edina residents so these are not necessarily opening up Edina homes uh by the new people that move in just anecdotally from what we've had in our existing building thank you thanks all right yep welcome full name address and yeah if yeah staff can help you there should be a logo right there in the center of the table filming filming a screen is you know has variable results so okay hi I'm Beth Johnson I live at 52 12 Bedford and this is my first time at a Planning Commission or any council meeting so uh obviously still trying to understand the technology but uh the re but first of all I do want to say thank you for your service to the city I I know that being a member of the Planning Commission is is not an easy job um but I think the the reason that I felt compelled to come here tonight was really just because I guess 10 year or about 10 years ago now I was able to buy my first house in Indina uh in this neighborhood and I feel like this project is taking away that ability for others too and then also on top of that I I have concerns about the I guess incremental unplanned for development that's continuing and like I understand that the applicant mentioned well this is the last project on hankers and how do we know that and what sort of dangerous president does this said and then I think third of all like when I was trying to wrap my head around this and I and I read some of the the reports around the the development I felt very concerned about the transparency or I guess om or I guess key omissions of critical information that I think is important for you guys to be able to make your recommendation appropriately and so that if if you'll let me I do want to go through a couple things that at least were concerns of mine in terms of how this aligns with the code and also the comprehensive plan and so I'll start with just I mean obviously this is a direct excerpt from the code in terms of the applicability or criteria uh that's important or that is is used for resoning to to PUD um and I'll walk through each of these I think one of the first key distinctions I do want to make is that and and this is for this first bullet point here around uses I know that the applicant didn't mention he already thinks that it's this is medium density residential housing but as as it shows here from this excerpt from the code or excuse me from the comprehensive plan uh land in cities is first categorized by how it's used and second secondarily by the scale and intensity of that use and so when I look at this this is currently obviously guided as as low density residential and when I look at the uses of it single family residential neighborhoods it's exactly it like medium density according to the use in the the plan is is applies to attach housing that's not what most of this neighborhood is so I just wanted to make that key distinction first and then in terms of when I do look at I guess this first criteria in terms of Eligibility around is around you know whether the the proposed site is designated for more than one use which we all know is not applicable here it's just single use but but that will be important in my last point so just remember that uh secondly here in terms of uh the in terms of four single use land types it has to be consistent with the uh with the comprehensive plan and when I look at the comprehensive plan this is where I really had a hard time wrapping my head around it because when I look at this comprehensive plan says you know zero units of medium density housing is is needed and then when I look at also some of these existing or projected housing needs it looks like housing for family with children's and first-time home buyers smaller housing types and uh as well as as um and and then also I highlight here in terms of you know while housing and any D is obviously um is yeah just try to wrap up okay thanks so okay but I think and I can send you this if it would be helpful for for your consideration but I think the key or like one of the key things to mention here though and I think it's also even important for how the the last development got approved is when I look at this last criteria here in terms of setback regulations building coverage and floor area of the most closely conventional zoning district is considered presumbly appropriate but may be departed from to accomplish the purpose and intent of subsection B1 and subsection B1 as I show here applies to uh sites that are designated for more than one use so I think one of the key questions and key things that I I would ask you guys to consider is whether those set back building coverage and far ratios can be departed from since there's only one land use um and then finally this shows that it this does not meet any of the setback requirements of any of the conventional zoning districts along with the building coverage requirements thank you very much sorry to cut you off you prepared a lot but we just give three minutes to each person so thank you so much for coming in yeah please come forward got three minutes full name address oh I won't be that long uh my name is Jim poy I live at 5148 Hankerson I'm also in that new Grand View uh U building that's been built uh I am the President of that Association um I think it's gone rather seamlessly the transition of all of us folks that live there uh I'm getting the appearance from some of the comments that people are saying that they seem to be concerned about the type of person that might be living in these homes and whether they can afford them and whether they're families that might possibly live in there and uh I can tell you there's some diversity of the people that do live in our place I'm a retired guy uh Ryan and his wife work uh two doors down from him as a family with two children uh so there's a variety of different people that do live in those buildings um I also wanted to briefly mention um the concerns about traffic in the back of the alley there um I drive down that alley every day at different times of the day morning noon and night and uh I think probably 90% of the times that I go down that alley I'm the only car in that alley so I don't see that there's a traffic problem um or a speeding problem either but if you did want to put in speed bumps of something like that I think that that might be a nice suggestion that would slow down things going through the alleyway there um I approve of the project I think da is a very good Builder uh they're local they're from Edina um they're not a national Builder and they build respectful good quality homes for residential people to be able to move in of all different types of people so and my comment was on the better uh Ed website as well okay thank you very much appreciate you coming here anyone else who's here in person I'd like to testify please come forward berer okay we'll move to the virtual queue I know we've given it almost 10 minutes for someone to be ready to speak is there anyone in the the waiting room no there is nobody in the waiting room well we've given it plenty of time for someone to jump in I guess i' offer up if anyone wants a motion to close a public hearing make a motion to close the public hearing second all those in favor say I I the public hearing is closed so now we'll take it back to the Planning Commission thank you for all your comments both on Better Together as well as in person and uh staff and the Pres presenters for sharing your feedback uh I guess we could just go down the row or if someone has comments they'd like to share right away open it up yeah Comm day okay um so I guess looking at this project there's to me there's a lot of pros and cons associated with it um so you know there's we've gone over the pros I think our residents helped cover the cons but if I I'll recap at least from my perspective um so with this project obviously we'd see increased density you know we talk about the in Middle um the need to increase the variety of housing I think this project is in a good location for that type of development um you know so you know the letter from uh from Stephanie pointed out right you know fits in with terms of like getting more housing stock increasing the variety Etc right so that's that's all I think very good um from a con perspective right it also pointed out in in that same letter from Stephanie was that we are tearing down two moderately priced affordable homes in ad in order to replace them with you know much more expensive housing stock though it would be subdivided um and when I think about the loss of that those affordable moderately sized houses um right it to me it's it actually you know I started the comments because uh it hits home personally uh as my I've been a resident of a din for almost three years now and when I moved into a Dina I moved into basically a house very much like the two that are existing on this plot of land today uh my house was built in 1957 these hous was built in the 50s I did see a note and hear from the applicant about how much maintenance houses from the ' 50s require I can personally attest to that uh it's a lot um but it was you know basically the price level that my wife and I could afford moving into the city for the first time um I can speak for a lot of my peers and say that this basically the these types of houses right now are in high demand just as we have much in high demand right this middle missing middle for seniors um this variety of housing right so there's a lot of demand obviously from the community for this type of housing but there's a lot of demand from the community for the housing stock that exists on this plot of land today uh you know another friend of mine bought a house because he could this what he could afford was built in 1937 you know $300,000 house he his PL of land could maybe have been similar thing could have happened here you know he drills into the walls then there's newspaper for insulation but again that's what we that's what some people can afford in order to move into a Dina for the first time uh and you know also so I'm going to go on I'm going to keep doing anecdotal things here for a minute so pardon my pardon me um but the first time that I went to an open streets uh meeting in in Dina and talked to the mayor and and residents the question I asked mayor as I said how is there a way that we can prevent developers coming into a Dina and taking single family moderately priced houses like the one I just purchased and tearing them down in order to build much more expensive housing right and there was kind of a uh it depends right we have programs in andina to try to maintain housing stock uh the city can buy houses I believe and try to make them available to to new families and whatnot in order to prevent this type of scenario from happening um but it's on the top of mine for a lot of people my age right there's much there's huge competition for these types of houses even though they require a lot of Maintenance a lot of us are learning how to do that and again I test to it it does require quite a bit of work um but this is I mean they are great homes like I my house yes it required some updates to the carpet insulation Etc but I I love my house so you know coming back to my article at hand like I said there's a lot of pros and cons here uh I'm a so I'm really kind of torn in terms of the loss of the moderately you know moderately sized moderately price houses with these Pros that we see with increased anding missing midle so what really comes down to is the ask and the lift for the comprehensive plan Amendment and change um and you know I'm certainly curious to hear what the other Commissioners have to say about this but you know as we talked about PUD use I know we are trying trying to get rely on it less should I say um and as our resident that came up and spoke pointed out right we we try to use PUD it was originally intended for something that has more than one principal land use mixed mixed use not really just little tiny tiny single lot sizes that we want to just be able to do whatever we want that don't meet the existing zoning requirements we don't meet setback requirements that you know apply for any of the current residential units Etc um so it to me this is it's a big ask and so I I struggle I think I think it's right now it's a big ask but I'm willing to hear more from my fellow Commissioners and again wanted to provide that personal perspective as we as we let off this discussion thanks a lot commissioner hanaman um thanks um I guess I look at uh what the developer has done here as a phenomenal gift to us because it is an affordable property absolutely I bought into a Dina 14 years ago but the e in in a house very similar to this um but the economy has changed the world has changed and we can only control or uh impact so much of that this house could go on the market tomorrow it could be torn down and put a $1.2 million home and there would be nothing that we could do to to stop that but we have the opportunity to take these two homes that could be flipped and turn them into these duplexes um work as I work in Senior Living I can't even tell you what the demand is for single level living for accessible living um and land prices make it very challenging to take the square footage to do that so I'm very excited that we're able to take these two properties that could be something even less affordable $800,000 is not great in terms of my definition of affordability but it is within the scope of what we see in the city and um I I think it's fabulous and I'm excited that we have the option to create in this location more density um and single family or single level living so thank you very much may maybe just stick to the side commissioner felt sure I um I feel like I've in the same place I was last September um when you came forward with this completely understand right the right that you can the owners of these homes can tear them down and build a much larger house I think it'd be more like 1.6 1.8 than 1.2 um to make all the costs work out because the cost of the land is significant and they've got to um build on top of that um you know so having four houses instead of two it helps with um our housing needs I think it's a housing types that's necessary um we do have the Grand View area plan just extending that Grand View area plan a little bit makes sense you know we're talking about areas of potential change and this is one of them which we're talking about but once again it's like we're talking about changing our one zoning and I understand the fear about coming in and changing our one zoning um you know there's a lot there's a lot of talk right now about about how we can um deal with our housing issues but I think there's also a lot of fear about [Music] um about people losing their um there single family housing so I'm I'm torn on this one commissioner Bor thank you not to repeat what others have said there's yeah there's some tension in this one for me too I think remember there's two different asks there's amending the comprehensive plan and separately rezoning the parcels and I think it's important to think about whether both of those asks makes sense um like you both like I think like everybody said I I think allowing greater density in this area may make sense um in general just because of its proximity to other types of land uses um whether amending the plan to just guide this one small spot to that makes sense is sort of an a more open question I think the thing I struggled with more on this one is the request sorry the request to rezone this to PUD um including because we've talked about trying to dial back the use of PUD and because this doesn't really strike me as the type of uh it like when I read through the criteria for what of the criterial for a Pew this doesn't seem to fit that to me so like for example when I was looking through the criteria in the staff report um I was kind of just asking myself like yes or no are these criteria met do we need to reone to PUD to bring um this development in line with the comp plan we don't need to because it's currently in line with the comp plan if we changed the comp plan then there'd be attention um but anyway so that's not really met here um does rezoning to PUD promote creativity and efficiency in land use maybe a little bit um here I think I think the applicant spoke to that somewhat although not to the degree that we usually see when we talk about puds and the type of creativity and efficiency that we're bringing to Unique sites when we when we've used that in other context does it allow for improved site design uh like better Design Elements pedestrian connections I don't think not really I think this is too small to really um make meaningful changes in that regard um are we do we need to rezone the Pud to ensure high quality design I don't think so um does it improve Street efficiencies that I don't not really um preserve site characteristics like natural characteristics I think these are just flat pieces of land so maybe not um not like we've seen with other projects where there's something really unique about the site that we're trying to preserve um does it allow for mixing of land uses no um you know encourage affordable housing uh we talked about that not being true I think the people that move into this are probably going to be selling more expensive homes and freeing up more expensive units elsewhere in the Metro um and then does it facilitate transitions you I think we've already talked about that so just on the P the Pud piece is the piece that I'm struggling with because it just doesn't seem like this is the type of situation where we'd reason own to PUD um even though I'm super supportive of high quality projects like this would be and uh greater density in these types of areas thank you looking this way commissioner Aly to followup to uh commissioner bornstein's point I have a question for Carrie if I could so what would what would be an option to PUD if as a hypothetical one like the project but not the the zoning change uh the option would be to rezone to R2 which allows two family dwelling units there would be variances for setback for lot size for both Lots well really yeah both Lots you need at least 15,000 square foot feet for a to put a duplex on both of these are just under 10,000 square fet so it would be a different zoning category um with a with several variances includ could be lot coverage as well um part of staff's recommendation here is because we've already established a PUD to the South if this were included as part of that original development it it seemed to fit and to create another zoning District in the middle of the block it just see seemed to make more sense to just add to the existing PUD and we didn't do R2 for the the prior project why correct those were four unit building so that wouldn't have been allowed right okay thank you previously before these were built there was a five unit apartment on the site um so just none yet no comments just St yeah commissioner Miranda yeah you do smile [Laughter] so um I mean as for you know so there was talk about among Commissioners among about uh revising the comp plan versus uh revising uh the zoning and um my understanding is that we have to revise the comp plan if we res do the zoning so um they go hand inand because the comp plan is the is the pattern and the zoning is the implementation so you'd have to have both um I am uh well let me cover something else so um we had a work session before this meeting and we talked about some of the limitations that we have uh within our zoning code and um you know we're trying to fix that we're in the process of trying toix fix that so we're working with Consultants to do that and it's something the city council wants and so but we don't have those tools today and so the only real tool we have is is a PUD um so and I think pretty much everybody agrees that P PUD is not something that we want to use all the time and certainly not going forward as a as a Planning and Zoning tool um but it's all we have today and this proposal is here before us today not not 10 years from now um so I'm pretty much okay with it in the sense that you know it's kind of our main tool at this point because the city council historically has wanted to use PUD to control each property very distinctly um secondly the property next to it made by the same developer just a couple years ago um is also a PUD and um you know you don't want you know one thing you want to avoid with with zoning and planning is to have spot zoning right so and that's part of the reason why you have a comprehensive plan because you want to lay out contiguous areas and what we're doing here is extending an area so it is contiguous and so that makes a lot of sense to me so you know if if this were you know two blocks away I think it would be a terrible idea you know I don't think we want to just you know willy-nilly change zoning within our city that's not really what zoning is about and it's not what uh comprehensive planning is about um but when you're extending an area uh you know two lots um that's contiguous with the existing one um in an area that uh you know as uh commissioner felt said is you know at the edge of an existing small area planned guide guided area um that's you know planned for more density and it's adjacent to a county road I mean this is a place and where there's Transit I mean if you're going to add density this is the area where you want to add it right you don't want to go into the middle of some single family zoned neighborhood uh like Parkwood nles for example and like stick you know duplexes or Towers or whatever there right that doesn't make sense but here you're just extending literally by two lots um something and as as uh Carrie said you know there was a five unit apartment building adjacent to it so um it's all very methodical it's all very logical we have a housing problem in our city we have a housing problem in our region we have a housing problem in our country um if you so I don't know why and I love our our affordable housing uh director but I don't know why we bring up the topic of affordable housing in terms of single family homes because when people talk about affordable housing they're not talking about single family homes right you're not saving anything or making anything affordable by Saving an old house house on a large piece of prop a relatively large piece of property where you could build more density um that's not affordable housing that's not the goal of what you're trying to do with affordable housing so if you keep that as single family homes for example I mean that's fine in a region that's not growing right so if a din were stagnant I mean you know we could say oh well we're not getting more owners we just need to make the housing that we have affordable for the people who live here then maybe I could see that but we're growing and the region is growing and we have this huge need for housing and so what happens if we don't build it here then two of those families that would move in have to move further out meaning they have to drive further in so whatever neighborhoods they're passing on the way in they're adding to congestion to those neighborhoods so they're actually making it by by not increasing the density you're making housing worse you're making Transportation worse you're making climate change change worse you're making Equity worse you're making everything worse by leaving things the way they are it sounds comfortable to keep things the way they are but we live a world where we have 10 consecutive months of record temperatures um we have to do things differently now than we've done them in the past and you know again you know nobody's advocating for putting a five-story tower right here right we're like literally just doubling the size of the properties the housing physically is No taller than the than the adjacent housing so um for all these reasons I think this seems very very appropriate and and I know change is scary and I know you know nobody likes change um especially as we get older or whatever right but but some change we have to do in order to save you know our planet and our community for the people who are going to move here in the future for the the children and the grandchildren or people people who move in from other neighborhoods or other cities um we need to provide more housing and I think this is a very very gentle way there there's one um uh architect who calls um uh Missing middle housing gentle density because you're you're just you're just barely increasing the density right you're not putting you know I mean there was a proposal at one point in Grand View to have an 11 Story Tower right and that would be like totally inappropriate even in even in the densest part of that neighborhood um but when you're adding one unit of housing to a piece of property you know it's not really going to materially affect anything I mean I don't know with the with the with those horrible people who have moved into the neighborhood I mean has anything really change in the neighborhood you know it it doesn't seem like it has so for all these reasons I think this seems like a very reasonable proposal and it matches our comprehensive plan and it um this is the best zoning tool we have I believe to do this thank you thank you all right commissioner Pia good luck um with all due respect um so as I said in September uh when you were here last I thought that uh this request was Heavy lift from a comprehensive plan point of view um and I I consider the same for uh rezoning as well the p resoning intent as commissioner Bornstein mentioned is to promote a more creative and efficient approach to land use I do not think that that is what's being fulfilled here um you talked about um the missing middle and the fact that these are going to cost um in the 800,000 which I'm assuming is probably the upper 800,000 by the time we get around to all the expenses that you alluded to I think in terms of design it might satisfy the missing middle but not in terms of price the median home value in Idina in 2023 which would be the tax value in 2024 is 696,000 600 so if you're coming in at close to $200,000 above that for a single unit I don't see that as satisfying the missing middle at all the median home price in Eden Prairie is 5 36 400 in St Louis Park it's 373,000 so um I'm not seeing pricewise missing middle um being addressed um the Assumption you're making about this being built for E Diner residents I think is um uh a misguided assumption as Ryan um testified um I think that you're you're doing a little bit of talking out of both sides because um on the one hand there are so many things that you mentioned that are good about this design this building this location um and I agree it's in a great neighborhood I spent a lot of time walking the whole neighborhood um the other day and there's there's so much there there's so much to take advantage of um that I think it begs the question why not build more um and again I think that that clashes with com with the the comprehensive plan Amendment um I think if there's so much to be done there and this is such um um a vital neighborhood full of potential and full of offerings then um there could be more done here if we're going to the trouble of doing these kind of resoning and an amendment so at the end of the day I do not think uh a PUD or resoning is um is reasonable nor do I think a comprehensive plan is um amendment is reasonable and I think this project completely lacks imagination in terms of what this city needs and what can be done in terms of all of our housing needs thank you commissioner Smith all right uh I think this is a tough one definitely for the reasons that I've heard here so far um I do agree with commissioner Miranda's point of view um that you know this seems to fit this area if I were to think about what's a higher density type development in thisf specific area this would seem to fit that nicely um I appreciate staff's recommendations what they shared and how they approached it and the different zoning tools that they looked at and which one was the most effective one I think that makes sense um the two concerns of course is you know just the price um I think the price is is is significant um but if I step away from that and think about the alternatives the alternative would be uh a more expensive ton rebuild which is happening everywhere and that is that is absolutely pricing people out of the city at least this one you have you have a shot um so I see it from that perspective from price and and agree with the points regarding affordability this is not so much about affordability per se it's more of how do we we create Housing Opportunity that that that's not the 1.2 but something that we know we can't find the $400,000 homes anymore now the question on zoning is is where I think the sticky point is uh and you know amending the comprehensive plan and and and and resoning that definitely we've used PUD quite a bit uh for big projects and not so much for these smaller projects and we certainly want to get away from doing that and so we're as a city looking forward to how do we upgrade our zoning to match the comprehensive plan and we're actively working with consultants and teams to get there um and so I know that's going to be addressed in the future and however the tools that we have now uh puds what we what we have and and and this opportunity I think is a decent opportunity we're extending a p that already here it's a transition everything again in the staff report seems to make sense so unless I hear something differently I I'm I'm falling on the side of approval on this one because I think it it makes sense with the knowledge that we would be upgrading our our zoning to match comprehensive plans in the future um but for right now this opportunity seems like it fits this this area well from a location proximity uh transition density all these key components so I'm kind of leaning positive on this one onless something jumps out at me that says um no worry I won't jump out of my chair at you uh commissioner elare thanks Quincy this is a lot harder than I thought it would be this afternoon because when I was going through the materials last night and this afternoon it seemed pretty easy to me but it's one of the reasons I really appreciate getting together and having the discussion and hearing other Commissioners thoughts is because there were a several things that I had hadn't really probably considered enough I mean I would I think it'd be a happier person if we didn't need a comprehensive plan and a rezoning and and all of the requirements to get this project done and I think in the spirit of our conversation from the work session it would be nice if we had zoning that better reflected what we're really trying to achieve in the city and but we don't um in a sense this project doesn't fit the comprehensive plan but in important ways it does uh it promotes diversity in our housing stock it increases the quantity in our housing stock with gentle density uh it allows Aging in place in the in the product that the developer the applicant is planning to build which is rare and important in our city it also has some features that we have tended to like as a Planning Commission like garages in the back instead of the front um it's a pleasant looking building from the street so I think it'll add to the visual appeal of that area and overall for me I'm interested in supporting the project and doing what we need to do to get it done I really what liked what commissioner felt said about sing R1 zoning and how we need to be cautious with that that's not the word you used but that's sentiment and I think you're completely right about that we need to be very cautious and purposeful and how we whenever we consider going from R1 to anything else but I think we've done a good job tonight considering that and we only would want to do that if there's a good reason that accomplishes something important for our City I think this I think this fits that so I'm I'm I want to support this the only other thing I want to say and it's not a not a message for the applicant so much as for the city and for us is if we want to talk about this area on the other side of Vernon as close to Commercial Services um we need to remember that to get to those Commercial Services you have to cross four lanes of busy traffic with not particularly great sidewalks and even though a poor golfer like me could hit a nine iron from this proposed spot to the front door of Jerry's grocery store to walk there is more than a quarter mile to go down Vernon to cross it Eden where there's a crosswalk cross to the other side walk back to the front door Jerry is it's 600600 feet so I think it's a great location but we have a long way to go to really make that accessible to the to the commercial services that are literally a stone throw away so that's just a comment for us as we continue in in that area so thank you those are my comments thank you yeah commissioner day so just a couple quick things to add as we've gone around the table so I heard it reiterated multiple times that somebody could tear these down and build uh much more expensive housing stock but you know I will point out that verywell could not happen as well we keep H I feel like we've hammered on that a few times uh there are a lot of people that would buy this lot and not tear it down so to say that we're doing some good greater good by making sure that somebody doesn't do that I don't necessarily buy into that idea um the comment about the Pud zoning and expanding it by two lots right we've created the momentum here um I thought it was a bad I think the previous decision was a bad one and that one bad decision doesn't necessitate another uh just because we've done it on the in the parcel next door it doesn't mean that we have to do it here I know that it fits but we've created the situation for ourselves um and now you know as we dive into the the Pud discussion and it really came up as Commissioners Pia and Borstein pointed out all right as they as they discuss this if I think about the development that was proposed across the street uh the off office building that has not gone forward but when that was that was proposed to us several months ago right what were we getting from the Pud at that time we're getting Sustainable Building Materials we are getting affordable housing we're getting much greater density in that area we're getting a park and we were potentially getting a restaurant on the bottom here we're proposing a PUD simply because we want to build bigger than the setbacks require for an R2 District it's not quite the same give and take from a city standpoint and of how why we develop PUD in the first place we a lot of times we say we do puds for affordable housing um of course obviously this isn't in any way what if we discussed affordable yes it's increasing density but to again to me it it really doesn't meet you know we PUD should have some a little bit at least some discretion to it right we should be getting a little bit more than just breaking one unit in one house into two uh similarly priced you know expens more up toate units so other comments I can share a few that if there's any that have been left unsaid uh great discussion commissioner elare summed it up very well hitting both sides kind of and maybe capturing where I ultimately fall um you know one there's a few points to think about when considering building any type of missing middle housing or even single family homes to build something new any DIN is inherently not going to be affordable I mean most of the missing middle if you build it there is the cost to the land I mean they walk through it so I mean just in general to build anything new is going to be above the medium price range for literally anything that we do especially when you scale the density down the closer you get to one home it's can be even more expensive so the point of missing middle housing isn't necessarily to provide something more affordable right then it's to provide that increase in variety of housing stock so ultimately you have that throughout your community and later so I mean I picture if I walked down this neighborhood in 25 years you know and this was built and now it's 25 years old and you have the other Town Homes there it would feel like a very very logical incremental nice transition into the single family homes around it and right at your front door across the street isn't other single family homes it's a busy road and a bunch of Commercial Services so this is a very distinct and unique lot and opportunity that's like On The Fringe of a neighborhood so I can see there's this tension of do we keep it the same or do we allow for some of that transition and I know when we you know approved the comprehensive well the comprehensive Plan update you know it was like hands off the single family neighborhoods it was focused on the small area plans I think you have to look at this area as being pretty close and in consideration of that small area plan because it benefits from that small area directly you can walk to it so I think the tool by which we support this or deny it isn't as important to me because if this were not a comprehensive plan Amendment but was instead of rezoning with a bunch of variances I think I'd still support it and when the developer was here in September they asked for that type of guidance from us what they should do they're thinking PUD because it made sense staff kind of guided them toward it and I think because there is that one right next to it and it can merge into it that seems like the better tool to use um but in general it is just a gentle bump in density and the scale the quality of what they will build will be just a gentle bump in that experience in that neighborhood I'm sympathetic to the comments about an increase in traffic in an alley way that didn't have that before so I mean maybe that is something the city could look at when we start adding density to Alley and which does add vehicles and more traffic although incrementally maybe there are traffic calming measures that could be added like a speed bump mid mid block or something I think maybe that's something the city could do Beyond this and um at least help assuage some of those concerns many neighbors shared about you know there's more cars people are speeding through there and it didn't happen before I don't know if that's true or not but if it were that this would bring a lot of stress to add more people there so if we could slow those people in the alleyway down that'd be a great benefit um one other point I just wanted to make because it was brought up in this meeting like it was the last and and even the the original hankers and down homes is the potential connection or crossing at 502 I I just I want to be on the record again saying I think a vehicular Crossing there would be an absolute abolutely horrible idea and shouldn't be a part of this discussion in any way um but to commissioner aly's point that Transportation plan was drafted almost 10 years ago so there's short and medium-term things that were expected to be done to get people s more safely across that road that haven't been done so hopefully this is another reminder to get you know some better protected Crossings until the county gets their act together to you know give us some funding and get a better roadway version of Vernon that's planned and if people aren't aware it includes shrinking Vernon to one lane of traffic in both directions with bigger boulevards protective bike lanes and um uh sidewalks there is not a sidewalk in front of Jerry's on Vernon it's crazy to think about it's like a brick one foot pathway so there's a lot of opportunity that the city has to respond to an increase in density like this that I would expect the city to start acting if we're going to start accommodating this but that's what I have for comments any others sure yeah just to that last Point um I know the engineering department has put together a proposal um they tried to get funding for it but I don't think they got funding for it but they were going to try to do just that that was I think they tried last year as like the Grand View beautification project and instead they got the funding for the diverging diamond other story uh on that note anyone willing to make a vot a motion or further discussion motion to approve I'll second let's do a roll call vote starting over at commissioner elire i i n I I no he I I 63 63 the motion to recommend approval has been approved so this will go to the city council correct uh which what's the agenda or what what date is it it will be their first meeting in May okay I don't have my calendar in front of me well thank you very much for the presentation good luck with the project and hope the neighbors and everyone stays connected as this goes forward thank you all right moving on to the next public hear yep you bet oh yeah there you are Steve thanks all right next public hearing wow we're actually kind of close to our agenda time which never happens we're early that's uh that's not normal only I know all right let's go so we got a site plan with variances and a subdivision request for Edina and addonics at 7300 Metro Boulevard we saw this in a version of a sketch plan more recently uh same process as the last one with with this public hearing uh Carrie will present we'll ask some questions turn over to the development team to present followed by some questions open it up to a public hearing and then we'll close that public hearing hearing and deliberate again with that Carrie take it away thanks testing there we go okay thank you chair members of the commission so this site is located in the kill office in industrial area the property is zoned planned office District it is guided for office use in the comprehensive plan existing on the site today is about 110,000 foot office building as you see in the picture here and the proposal is to build a 6,000 square foot uh dental office in the corner they did go through sketch plan as mentioned uh the main topic of conversation both at Planning Commission and city council was the parking in the front and could they do anything to bring the building up and not have that parking in front where uh patients would have to cross that in order to get to the building so they have done that they've adjusted they've moved the building up a little bit um have the parking along the side so customers patients can just access the sidewalk along the building the main entrance is located right here in doing that um they wanted to maintain the drive aisle so in doing that they've shifted the building 10 ft to the South so they're asking for a 10 foot sidey yard setback variants right here in order to accommodate that shift toward the street and then still maintaining that existing drive a pattern a look at the building you can see the entrance with the large glass and windows another view so the request is a site plan review couple of variances first for the first floor ceiling height from 20 ft to 10 ft and then that sidey yard setback as mentioned there also proposing a subdivision in order to split this off um to be sold as a separate parcel so review of the site plan again it's it's code compliant with the with those two exceptions it meets the floor area ratio requirement um parking both as a combined use um for the site and the the dental office itself building materials will be um would be a stone with the metal panels and the large Windows the plat itself here is the subdivision to establish that new lot with the subdivision there is a park dedication required here it's 4,900 uh dollar primary issue is are the variances justified in this case staff believes that the variance criteria is met um the intent of that sidey setback is to provide adequate separation between buildings so the closest building um yeah this shows it so the location of the the the new office building would be right here and you see the closest building to the site is set quite a quite a bit back from a Metro Boulevard and it's about 70 feet from that nearest lot line um so there's plenty of separation between the buildings so staff beli that the variance is reasonable and again it's accommodating the shift of the building up to the street so there's not no parking in the middle uh the uses are consistent with the comprehensive plan um in regard to that 20 foot ceiling height this is the one that we're working on the Cod amendment to have isolate that regulation to the Southdale District as was originally attended There's No 20ft Ceilings um within this area so it would with a single story building um be somewhat out of place there was a traffic and parking study concluded and the conclusion is that there would be minimal impact to the roadways and there is adequate parking I believe Ed terar is with us should there be any questions on that on that in regard to that that study so with that staff is recommending approval of the site plan the variances and the subdivision and I can stand for questions thank you Carrie great succinct presentation any one yeah commissioner Al uh this more of a clarification but I just wanted to confirm you on one of the pictures you were talking about how the side yard setback on that line is 70 feet from the nearest building let's see it was the South Side yes this the where the where the where was going from 20 ft to 10 ft side yard set back right is 10 ft but the separation between the two buildings would be 70 ft and it appeared that the part of the adjacent lot that it is being that it is encroaching is yet another surface parking lot so it's correct yeah wouldn't doesn't seem like a big crisis right okay thank you thank you commissioner Smith yeah thanks director Teague uh if you could go to the image where you showed uh just the rendering at the front of the building uh I think you passed it Yep this one um so when we say that the height is 20 ft I can see that there's two different heights right there's the height of the glass entryway area and then the rest of the building I'm assuming that the 10 ft is really the rest of the building but this entryway area would be maybe like 15 ft could you just talk more about how we determine height in this scenario correct yeah the height variance is for the lower port portion um I don't know the I'm sure the applicant knows the exact height of that um but it's in that 15 to probably in that 15 range yeah I'm Chris White House I'm the architect with djr architecture that portion in there would actually be uh 20 feet or slightly more on the high it's also pitched a little bit for drainage so that part it was kind of we're trying to work with um the the recommendation and it's just Pleasant to have a large um you know a large space when you first walk in that' be the waiting area in the entryway but yes the rest of the building is what we're talking about for the variants on that portion thank you they do have a materials board if any if the if the commission is interested in seeing that one thing I I didn't mention in the presentation the the City's pedestrian plan does call for a sidewalk here but in speaking with engineering when this roadway is um improved in the in the future there's adequate room within that right of way to still have a Boulevard style sidewalk and provide the sidewalk by narrowing the road there's the right of way is quite large here so they didn't feel it necessary to get any easements at this time that that can all be accomplished within the right of way any other questions or follow that yeah commissioner Han can you talk to me about the Landscaping I was just confused reading the note about it's a parking lot currently right it is correct so when we talk about the number of overstory trees it's before the lot is subdivided yeah we look at the site as a whole so not sure if I have a Graphic that shows all of the trees but we we add up all of the trees on the site including the ones they're proposing here and So based in the the number of trees that's required is based on the perimeter of the entire site one tree per every 40 ft so with this one based on that perimeter 48 overstory trees are required and existing and proposed there would be 58 on the site so it it's in compliance with our landscape regulation so how does that work now that this would be a if was approved would be a standalone parcel does the trees within that parcel um comply or how does that get thought about yeah we look at it as a tract you know it's the it's the same zoning District so for purposes of calculating trees Flor area ratio parking requirements we look at the site as a whole so should trees die in the future on this site they'd be required to be replaced typically we're lucky here in Idina Property Owners when their trees and Commercial areas die they replace them on their own otherwise it's on a complaint basis thanks commissioner D just question around the boulevard Improvement um when is that projected to take place what's the timeline for that that that would be as part of a building permit for the building so they would do all the the grading and Landscaping at that time okay so sorry maybe I misunderstood I thought that there was a city project to for Metro Boulevard right yes I don't have the timing for when that's going to occur um but there is a sidewalk planned within the pedestrian plan so I sorry I don't have a year for yeah I just was trying to establish a gap in time potentially between then if there's no sidewalk built there with this plan how soon would we get a sidewalk there as part of the overall Metro Boulevard Improvement kind of thing that's why I asked the question but yeah that's the part of the issues with this the kill District here is we're lacking for sidewalks yes any other questions all right well welcome the applicant team up if you have a presentation introduce yourself address all that good stuff we got a material board those always help thank you chair Bennett and um the commission and of course director Teague um think he covered it Carrie covered it really well um I'm Ben krisn with the development team um this is Chris White House the architect the designer and um yeah I think we covered most of mostly just want to ask um answer questions for you and maybe Chris you want to walk through your your materials board if that's P it up we can't see it now sure we're not that tall like you yeah should be relatively uh self-explanatory once you're have the rendering up here um we're going with this is the gray stone for the majority of the building um changing to uh this lighter tan colored Stone under the windows there this is a aluminum uh it's a fux wood looking thing longboard or similar uh that's the the dark part up above and then the um storefront windows and uh the accent metal would be this dark Browns as you see up here and uh one of the other requirements um if you can go back to the yeah this um the facade that faces uh Metro Boulevard had to be 75% glass and we did hit that number so did you want to talk about anything else about the building um I know that so there was a lot of discussion last time about the um safety aspect and I just want to maybe touch a little bit how we addressed that so we ended up doing is moving the um access way into the property I don't know if you mentioned that um Carrie but um yeah so this moved about 20 30 ft to the north so there's a little additional expense with that but um you know we're staying true to true to our word we think um know safety is really critical for us here all right appreciate the changes any questions m sorry maybe I missed it uh there's not parking underneath this AIS is for trash on the one photo I missed that there's a garage door um sure so this building is designed to um sorry see if we can go here here yeah yeah so um um the first probably 75% is going to be used day one for onxs the back probably 1/4 um is expansion space so honestly there's probably going to be a golf simulator back there um starting out but um someday in the future will either be an Odon or some other complimentary um use like a general dentist got it but that's not a garage door to underground parking or no no commissioner alar thanks for coming tonight the Transportation study recommended a uh recommended bike parking and the city's invested a lot of money in bike connections to this area and you've got lots of residential areas to the north and to the east across the highway so is that part of your plan yes um we plan to meet that there's one um stall required one for bikes so is that parking for one bike yeah usually we end up with three stalls but yeah one is required so was your plan one or three or you don't know that yet um can we go back um we did we did add those whether or not they got onto this presentation I guess I'm not 100% sure but we were going to I did ask civil to add that I'm not sure if they got that on this right now but no we we do plan on having at least two or three things where you could park up four or six bikes on that's great yeah thank you we'll allow for more than one okay thanks any other questions no all right thank you guys uh this is a public hearing so we'll open it up to that uh I'll give the instructions for those who are tuning in remotely so then members of the audience here can come forward while you're waiting in the queue so please call 312 535 8110 and enter access code 2633 139 0260 the password is 5454 and then you'll press star three when you're ready to speak I can't do that without smiling that's a lot of instructions all right so again please State your full name address you have 3 minutes to speak um we'll open it up to people who are here in person I'd like to testify please come up to one of the podium all right seeing none uh we'll give it a minute or so for those who are tuning in remotely if they'd like to speak uh again press star three on your telephone keypad when if you're ready give you a minute nobody is in the queue at this time so we'll wait one minute for it has been 1 minute and nobody has joined the queue so I believe we are safe to proceed welcome a motion to close a public motion to close second all those in favor say I I public hearing is closed all right bring it back to the commission to deliberate and uh open to any motions in full transparency my wife works for the development team so I am abstaining from this vote all right thank you so I know um thank you for the presentation uh it was pretty straightforward to me um I know the last time you guys were here you had some ideas of what you wanted to do you shared a lot of your input we talked through it some of the biggest concerns of course was just the parking on the front side and I think you guys addressed that um by shifting it uh more internally and then of course that kind of pushed the building South a little bit more and so there's the need for that variance um I was so I like that part um I was concerned with the height being 10 ft um uh but then you know when we when you explain that the transparency section the waiting area you know was a lot bigger you bring a lot of light in that's very consistent with that General region with the 75% transparency requirement so I thought that was good um overall uh I don't have any major concerns at all uh that are jumping out at me um given the verance requests here and and what you guys are trying to build so I'm I'm leaning very positive on this one um because you did take the feedback and make some adjustments and came out with a plan that was improved from the last one so so thank you for doing that thanks commissioner Pia I think when you first came to us with a um sketch plan it was a good plan I think you listened and I think it's a better plan now and I'm fully supportive just go down the line yeah so um I guess I'll Echo what the uh my two previous Commissioners said here um and especially uh the things that uh commissioner Smith brought up um I think it has uh improved I mean you've gotten rid of the parking in the front and I think it's sort of meets the ideal of having the tall front with the big windows and everything so for example in the future a build a building gets built next to it um it would it would look like it matched and it would look like what we want for the future so you know I think we you know as a commission as a city we need to make sure not worry so much about whether it looks like it fits in today because that's not our goal our goal is the future we're a Planning Commission so I want to make sure looks good um and not just looks good it fits in for the reasons we want it now I think the reason that we wanted 20 ft um for the entire you know first floor of the building um was because of the Southdale guidelines and I think the idea there and you know it could apply here so I'm sort of torn on this one point but um you know I think the idea would have been a much larger building here um and you know for all the reasons I said for the for the last meeting um or the last uh presentation before us in terms of climate change and whatnot um it makes more sense to have a taller building here doesn't seem like that's going to happen um but I think the stuff that you guys have proposed in terms of removing the parking and and having a tall glass uh front entrance um helps will help it make it fit in with buildings that we want there in the future um I think one thing this shows though is is how overp parked our city is and how um you know we don't have to have minimum parking requirement because business owners will build whatever parking they think their customer needs you know that was necessary when we were trying to get rid of our street cars and put cars in here um doesn't seem like a big issue anymore um and that you know land owners can cut off whole sections of their parking lot and put a building in so anyway so I'm I'm generally in favor of this thank you uh yeah me too I'm I'm very much in favor as long as you have the The Bike Rack in there the one thing I wanted to point out and it's not so much for the applicant as for us is that um and it's kind of piggybacking on what commissioner Miranda was saying it's it's disappointing that we we don't need to go too deep into this but it's disappointing that we don't have a small area plan for kahill because if we don't have a small area plan for kahill nothing against this project but we it it doesn't fit in with a small area plan we're not going to have a say in how this area develops if we don't have a small area plan and I think one of the best opportunities for this particular part of the kahill district is um office residential that shares parking and this is not that it's great project but this is not that and the more we fill up the horrible surface parking lots in kill with things that are not intentional I'm concerned that we'll wake up 20 years from now and it won't be what we wanted it to be today so that's just a I guess a note of caution for us as we work together but I support the project thanks for coming tonight down this way any comments commissioner pH I appreciate that commissioner alar and I um completely understand and I also want to commend you for moving the parking lot around the easiest thing to do is kind of change an asphalt um parking lot and there is going to be a building a street Frontage without parking in front of it close to Metro Boulevard so it might not be what ultimately want kahill to be but at least it's a step towards having an a Street Front um with just Green Space in front of it so I see it as a as a step forward and I'm in support of it as well any other comments or welcome a motion on motion motion to recommend the city council to approve the requests I'm just reading the red second uh maybe we'll just do a roller call vote again let's start over there yeah you uh I I I I abstained I I I I all right it passes good luck on the project thank you so much for taking our feedback and incorporating it wisely looks great thank you all right that's it for public hearings so that's awesome we'll move to chair and member comments who's got him I've won all right commissioner Fel League of Women Voters was having their um what do they call it when they all get together and kind of talk about first um no henpen County Commissioner so we can all watch it tomorrow or later on because the vote is coming up when did you say the Forum was I didn't hear the first part the League of Women Voters is having their um debate tonight for okay yeah and so I would I would have been there if I I was planning on it because I thought this was going to be on Wednesday so it'll be a good thing to watch because it'll be good to watch them all debate each other Tria on a light-hearted note um I've spoken before about how I think Centennial Lakes is the gem of Edina and it just got better because they got Swan Boats so yesterday PD there were always paddle boats but now they have the white swan ones like in Boston uh I haven't seen the signs yet I've looked I I I want to know the answer to that and I would imagine it's a yes are they side by side ones like you have two people yeah from Miranda and council member Pierce could go for a nice ride if I could interject quick I think there's a contest for naming them so I believe you have until tomorrow to submit your name um suggestions that is a great thank you that's great news to share it's good use of land or water above land any other yeah commissioner two two quick things I mean I can't help um I mean I can't help but get a chuckle out of this image that's on our screen right now now I wasn't here with the sketch Plan before it's it just seems somehow funny and slightly ironic to have a new parcel and requiring off street parking in the middle of a sea of unused surface parking it just I know why we do these things but it just seems so comical and then the second thing is uh just kind of follow up to our work session before um so we have our zoning text and our zoning maps in the city of Adina and across the country there are 30,000 zoning jurisdictions who also have their codes and their maps and it's um it's it's a jungle there's no way you could try to characterize zoning in the United States because all 30,000 of those zoning jurisdictions do it differently say things differently organize things differently you the conversation we had about how our hierarchy and how it's organized everybody does it differently so state legislators for example have a very hard time figuring out where affordable housing is allowed in their own State because they can't see it unless they're going to go through every single uh zoning code for every single jurisdiction within their state so preamble to uh an organization called the national zoning Atlas which if you haven't heard of it I would encourage you to go to their website and just spend 10 minutes and take a look it's the the URL is zoning atlas.org and their goal is to democratize demystify and digitize local zoning codes across the country I worked on the project in Utah for about a year and there's a project here to do this in Minnesota uh but it's currently stalled out they probably ran out of money because that's the way these projects typically go and fits and start but anyway if you're interested in that sort of thing I think it's fascinating and just take a visit to their website there's a I don't know five or8 minute video that talks about what the project is about so that's it for today thank you all right yeah okay I wanted to take a moment and thank our police officers um after hearing about the minona shooting and what happened with all of that um yesterday I did a cop right along cuz I have a buddy that that's in the Golden Valley Police Department and he um was actually one of the officers that responded to that he was on one of the SWAT teams that was there and um he was telling me about it one of his Sheriff buddies was one of the officers that was shot he was shot in the hand and um a lot of these things you don't think about because I feel like lately everything has been so polarized with um a lot of issues and um we just end up unappreciative that I think should be appreciated and he was telling me in Golden Valley their Police Department is severely underst staffed and they used to have 31 people there and then now they have I believe 17 full-time officers and he says that they currently don't have um enough police to have a fulltime daytime um staff and so they're kind of having Sheriff's um help staff their department and then now they only have full-time night shift um off and it makes me um think about how important it is to appreciate a lot of um people that are helping keep our cities our areas safe and that I think more people should just have an open mind and think about stuff on a deeper level than we would usually do thank you so much for sharing uh kind of on that note uh at the city council meeting last week they did recognize public service officer of the year uh police officer and first responder of the year so it's it's nice to see Edina feels like they maybe relative to others really do appreciate kind of their Public Service officers and staff but thank you so much for bringing that up it's really important to keep in mind well it is important to note that golden Valley Police Department had a horrible racism problem so there's a lot of history there I suggest to look into that and I guess on that note too you know we're meeting on Thursday here just to be you know kind of inclusive and aware of Ramadan ending yesterday so um so it's you know it's good to be a part of that and adapt our schedules accordingly uh I know there was maybe something you wanted to share with adus there was a president presentation last week um well photographed presentation Jimmy called me out here I don't know why but okay so um last week oh yeah actually uh we had a really good meeting um with City staff uh we presented um our Adu ordinance and uh many of you actually showed up for that so I definitely appreciate you guys coming out and and cheering in the crowd and and and giving testimony um I thought it was a good presentation I think um the city council asked some really interesting questions right things that we didn't really consider before the questions around you know attic space being converted there was questions about you know screening for example because there were some concerns about how much does it impose on neighbors lots and everything um and so we had some really good dialogue on that uh we did had some further meetings um with with our city council just to kind of talk through some of the items and and and bring some more clarity but overall uh they decided to move forward and um I guess close the public hearing but keep the public comments going until the 16th so I'm really hoping that on the 16th uh when they come together again um we'll present uh you know get any additional question answer and respond to them and hopefully they make a decision you know this is something that uh we talk about missing middle quite a bit um adus is is is is something that is a you know gives us more options for housing in the city as you guys know really really well um folks are looking for it uh neighbors have been asking about it um so I I really uh hope that you know we do assuage any concerns there and and and we and we get it past so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for the 16th again come out and uh I'm sure there'll be some public comment sections and you guys can come and give some feedback uh I'm not going to give the mic away if if I do give a presentation but it was it was great and um I look forward to getting this decision made and hopefully it's going to be in a positive direction thanks thank you all right staff comments oh yeah commissioner Miranda um I just want to mention that we um had our the lincol and londondary um small area plan oh we had our uh first meeting with the Consultants so uh we had our kickoff with them yesterday so um that went very well they have some really good work ahead of them and uh it was I thought a very informative meeting so we're going to meet first uh they're planning the first meeting with um the residents who were who we selected to be on the on the small area plan so that'll be our next meeting we're hoping to make it a double meeting like a three- hour sort of thing that would be on site that was their idea I thought it's a good idea so so that that should be pretty exciting thanks Carrie just quickly there's the one project that's out there that you all made a recommendation on is the Southdale Office Center they requested a delay delay at the last meeting so the public hearing has not been held and it's my understanding they're requesting another delay um don't know the specifics of are they revising the plan I don't know but um Council hasn't taken action yet on that one and the public hearing has not yet been held we're getting close to the end of the 120 days rule where the city has to take action I believe that it expires council's second meeting in May so I'll keep you updated cool thank you we have a full house here tonight so just a reminder uh really thankful for everyone's service here you know we had our photo before to to to celebrate who we are but really appreciate the team we have here and you guys's sacrifice and commitment to the city I think it shows I think we have the best group in the last 50 years although I wasn't around to test to many of those but I believe it firmly so last thing adjournment anyone motion to adjourn second all those in favor say so move meeting is adjourned