The Commission generally generally meets twice a month, always on a Thursday. The schedule and tentative meeting agendas can be obtained by calling the Planning Division or by checking the city website at minnetonkamn.gov.

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If you wish to speak at tonight's public hearing, please fill out a public comment card available right near the staff podium. Pointing right there. Uh be sure to include your name and the topic you wish with that you wish to address.

Uh, yes Chair Waterman we do have a change memo both associated with item 8A which is the Excel Energy line.

Thank you again Chair and Commission. A couple of items to report from the June 8th City Council meeting.

Commissioner Waterman's last meeting with the commission this evening. And so like we like to do um and it feels like we've been doing it too much lately.

Um we're going to just look back if you will at Commissioner Waterman's time with us. Six years, six and a half kind of.

So, we thank you for your service uh there. Really uh, variety of applications that you looked at. I tried to mix it up from our last um, time around, but I chose some big projects or interesting projects at least for staff uh, that you reviewed over your time.

So, we will see where that one goes. Your next meeting is July the 9th and then the last thing I will comment on is that it is Commissioner Waterman's last meeting with the commission this evening.

Great. Thank you. Thank you so much for uh for all of that. I cannot believe those statistics. That is That is incredible. I mean, it it really feels like a blink of an eye.

Um really an honor to serve and thank you so so much. I mean, I don't say it enough just how impressed I am and have become with city staff and how the city works uh both the planning department and the uh Miss Wishnak's department and economic. It's It's really fascinating. Just and we're so lucky as a city to have you uh here working with us, working for us.

And then the other shout-outs I have to make are really to the citizens of Minnetonka. There've been a lot I mean, with all these meetings, there are There've been many topics that could have gone The meetings could have gone really sideways and people have been generally pretty professional and cool and calm-headed um which has been amazing.

And then the third thing I was thinking about is I mean, my understanding is Minnetonka like a lot of what we benefit from now is because of all the foresight that people had so many years ago, especially around tree planting um and and zoning and just really that long-term thinking.

Real briefly, um I would urge you all to look at the rezoning update the that's going on in part of the work group the community work group. It is uh out on the web and it is amazing. It greatly simplifies and makes much more understandable to somebody who isn't a professional planner what's going on here.

It is I would say a refinement, better organization, better use of language. Uh, but it also is going to create opportunities for property owners in the city that don't exist currently. There's some flexibility that it's building into the plan districts and into these flexible district, too.

So, the goal is to better achieve the 2040 comp plan. Uh, I read I was a very rainy boring day. I read the whole thing and I and I compared it to the current uh zoning ordinances. I think it will um it will create uh real opportunities in terms of setbacks. Um, one of the bigger changes is that in low-density residential, you can have two units on a lot in its draft form.

But, um also it recognizes the uniqueness of each of our commercial nodes. And that I think is going to be um really fun to work with in the future because every little commercial node has its own personality.

Um yes, I had got as I was going through the report, a few questions came to my to my mind that might be better addressed by the applicant, but I don't know if the applicant is here tonight.

Uh sure, Commissioner Brink and Chairwoman. So, I can talk we talked first about how they've done initially before this even came here tonight. Yeah, there's been a lot of communication with the public. There's been lots of agencies that have reached out to the city. So, there's been a lot of communication between us and the public and other agencies and the public. So, I will let the applicant to talk about any of those sort of communications that they've had.

And then moving forward, it's it's an XL project, so they'll be the main point of contact for that for this project. We would want them to be the one who takes initial phone calls. So, as part of this, we always create a construction management plan that they have to construction management agreement that they fill out and then we post it on our website so that if there are issues coming up, they can someone can call directly to Xcel to get that fixed faster than if they call me as I would not be able to go up on a pole and fix that very quickly.

So, um they'll be the main point of contact for that. They'll still be working with the city on several different things as far as with um roads to make sure they're safe and um I know there's some talk about there'll be some places where they need to be um limited to one lane instead of two to make sure they can do the work there. So, the city will be a part of it again, still a part of that, but they will be the main point of contact.

Um in the construction schedule, I know it was in the report, but I can't remember. Was that uh they're going to get started yet this year? And uh do you know are they going to start like on one end, the south end, and work their way north? Or how will that go?

There's been a little bit of um uh Commissioner um Brinker and then Sherman Waterman. Uh there's been a bit of change from that since when they originally submitted. Uh this project got pushed back a few times. So, that's going to be uh what we'll be requiring is a new project schedule as part of that. That one that was in the packet probably a bit old.

So, our first item here, staff is recommending that the City Council adopts the resolution approving the request for the pole replacements along the existing 0782 Xcel Energy electrical line.

Uh, oh, this is just for just for um replacements, no additions. Sorry about that typo. Uh for replacements along the existing uh Xcel Energy line.

So, it's a long stretch. I said 135 136 poles, and that's because it goes all the way from the border of Wayzata and Plymouth all the way down into Eden Prairie. So, it's a long stretch. The whole stretch is about 10 miles, 6 miles of which is in Minnetonka.

Uh, and those are really for four different reasons. One is to improve um improve current and future pedestrian paths, improve driver visibility, limit underground utilities that are the limit issues with underground utilities, then also to accommodate utility line past standards that meet ones that Excel needs to meet for these specific lines.

So there's two that need one needs a variance, one needs an expansion permit. Of those ones, that's because they're over 80 ft in height. They'd be uh 86.3 and 83.5. So exceeding that requirement by a little bit over 4% around 8%.

Uh, those pole heights have been increased to meet those national electrical safety code standard clearance requirements. Uh and if you look in our community, we do have quite a few um that are over 80 ft. So it doesn't stand out quite a bit and when you're looking at those heights, I personally probably can't tell the difference between the 6 extra feet on an 80-ft pole.

It's 8.55 cubic yards of total fill for all of them. So all 25 that are in the flood plain. That's 0.3 cubic yards per pole. So we're we're talking about a very small amount of uh fill, and what the applicant will need to do then is to excavate within that same area to keep it at a net zero.

So, there are some tree removals with this project. We worked with the applicant to find out what those were, and what we looked at for tree impacts were ones that would be regulated by city code.

So, there's going to be a lot of brush that's removed, little saplings. We didn't really include those when we were looking at this. So, for regulated trees, there would be 44 trees that would be removed um along this entire line that goes through the whole city.

So, this one here isn't by the pole, but it's by a line here that uh is growing into the wires. So, looking to sort of solve those two issues.

So, we had 551 area property owners noticed on this project. So, they got them postcard from the city and then also one from Xcel earlier. And then we also put this project on the Minnetonka Matters webpage.

So, staff is recommending the City Council adopts the resolution approving the request for the pole.

Uh, really for four reasons. First, it meets the conditional use permit and site plan review standards. They're outlined in city code. Um, the variance and expansion permit, we're recommending approval for those as they are reasonable requests and will not alter the neighborhood character.

Uh, and then also recommending approval of the flood plain and wetland alteration permits as those would have a minimal impact and would maintain that um net zero fill. Tonight for a recommendation, this will have to go to City Council. So, tonight we're just looking at a recommendation and that requires four votes from the Planning Commission.