[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Music] I'm I'm sorry. Did they stop? >> Um Oh, yeah. She did. She terrible in that car. My husband was running after Good evening and welcome. Tonight is Monday, August 11th, 2025. This is a regular meeting of the Minnetonka City Council. I will call this meeting to order and to ask you to stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Applause] >> Miss Larson, would you please call role? >> Foster Bolton >> here. >> Shaq here. >> Wilburn >> here. >> Calbertt here. Rome >> here. Kley >> here. Where's some >> here? Next item is approval of the agenda. It appears that we have an addendum. Um, Mr. Funk. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, where's some? Good evening, council. There is a agenda for your consideration related to item 14B, which is items concerning Marsh Run 3 at 180 Weisetta Boulevard. There were numerous written comments received after the publication of the staff report and agenda packet that was delivered last Thursday. Uh they are now attached under item 14B in your I legislate uh for your review. So again, number of correspondence after uh receal of the packet and then the recommended action is to move to approve the agenda as amended. Thank you, mayor. >> Um Mr. Fun, I'm going to ask a question. Um I did receive um some correspond the correspondence you've referenced and some of the folks said I would like this to be included in the council packet and in responding I said well the council packet goes out on Thursday so your comments will be included in an addendum but they will not be included in the council packet and then I instructed and said if you want your c your your comments included in a council packet you should have it in by close of business Wednesday each week prior to the council meeting. Is that is that sufficient time? Because I want to make sure that I winged it on that one. I want to make sure that um I'm providing enough lead time. So, if somebody wants their comments to be in our packet and distributed to us, when should they have their comments to staff? >> Thank you, Mayor Council. That is an accurate uh timeline that you referenced. Um our packets, as you know, council, do go out on Thursday. So, we try to have those done usually early afternoon on Thursdays. and deadline for submittals Wednesday at noon to be sufficient. That which gives our staff time to process that and make sure it's in the packet and sometimes uh when the packet goes out may prompt someone to uh send a uh an email message perhaps after Thursday. When that happens, that's what we're referencing here this evening is the agenda. And just so everyone's aware, agendas do become part of the official record. So with your approval of the agenda and agenda on these evenings, they do get posted and so they they may not make it in the original packet, but they do certainly make it part of the official record. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Funk. So with that, if someone would like to make an emotion, Council Member Calvert. >> Thank you, Mayor. I uh move approval of the agenda as amended. >> And Council Member Romey, >> I'll second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Council Member Calvert and a second by Council Member Romey. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Foster Bolton. Yes. >> Shack. >> Yes. >> Wilburn. >> Yes. >> Calbertt. >> Yes. >> Romey. >> Yes. >> Kley. >> Yes. >> Wearsome. >> Yes. Motion carries. Um we next item is approval of minutes and we have none of those tonight. Um so then we have special matters and um item 6A is the strategic plan quarter 2 report. And Mr. Funk, that's you. >> Yeah. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, council. I believe I do have a PowerPoint here for you this evening. If someone could pull that up for me, I would appreciate it. Thank you. And so again, thank you, mayor and council. I take honor and privilege into presenting to you a brief summary of our quarter 2 strategic plan. It is our midyear update. And with quarters one and three, as you know, those are submitted for your approval generally in a consent agenda. And then our midyear point, we do like to do a more formal um overview of the first six months. So that's what tonight is. uh just to do a high level summary of our six strategic priorities and our 18 desired outcomes. On the slide in front of you is that overall summary. So in terms of we're halfway through the year on the right hand side of that we're showing about 49% progress on our strategic plan. Uh we do have 5% completion, but 92% of our plan is in motion and we're working towards that and there's some es and flows and so you're not going to see generally 50% completion halfway through the year just given timing of certain projects and certain tasks but certainly staff uh is making their way towards completion of that this year. Next slide please. So I'll basically go through those six strategic uh priorities in again high level overview. The first one is financial strength. That is led by Darren Nelson, our finance director. And some and some of the items that are noted in financial strength. First, you'll see with all of our six priorities, three bullet points, three or four bullet points. Those do indicate our uh desired outcomes. So, one of our desired outcomes in financial strength is high level creditworthiness. And again, we continue to maintain our AAA bond rating through Moody's. That is the highest rating possible. Uh we're very proud of that. And again that is continuing for 2025. Uh some outcomes noted in the second bullet point that the finance director and myself and our staff are actively participating in a national coho group that's really focused on re-engineering city budgeting and government budgeting. And I know we've talked about this previously about how we're really kind of shifting to looking at priority based budgeting. And with our priorities budgeting, we're that is that work has started and we're looking to really initiate some of that initial framework the second half of 2025 really then gearing up for a broader or deeper conversation, excuse me, in 2026 for the 2027 budget. Again, I know we've talked about that previously and we are making headway on that. And then last through quarter 2 of 2025, staff have applied for 14 grants. Six of those have been awarded, one application was denied, and we have seven of those in the review process. And the next slide really kind of highlights, maybe it's two slides from now, highlights those grants. And we'll get to that here in a second. Uh because I know grants has been important to the council. That's one of the things that we've talked about is looking at other revenue sources and grants, as you know, has been a priority of of the city and for staff. And we're happy to report we're making progress on those new revenue streams. Uh some of the metrics that we use is the first one noted there is net governmental fund balance percentage of revenues. Uh we do have targets for those. So anything over 30% is considered very strong and you can certainly see our history. Uh going back to 2019 we're in a really good position with our our fund balances. And then second graph in terms of metrics shows a net direct debt as a percentage of taxable market value. And really the target line there is below a 75. the line that you want to the colored line that you want to look at is the green one and we're at uh that.203. So again, we're on target there and that's really reflective of our AAA bond rating and the metrics that are important that we measure in terms of maintaining that AAA bond rating. Next slide, please. And as I just noted, those are the 2025 rewarded grants to date, year-to- date. Uh you can see the dollar amounts there. I for sake of purposes tonight and timing, I'll I won't read through each of those. You can look at those yourself. We do post this uh packet uh this presentation so folks can come back and look at that as well. Moving on to safe and healthy community uh that is led by Chief Scott Boraboom and then we also have representatives from fire as well in this pillar. A couple of the four desired outcomes one is the public safety master plan implementation. As you know we're working on drones as a first responder initiative. Uh thank you again to the council for supporting that initiative. you're well aware of that and we have an event coming up where we'll be launching that and uh very very soon actually at the end of this month. We've also then in the fire department have been onboarding nine new full-time firefighters. Again, that was part of our uh strategy around providing uh quicker response services in our fire department as we continue to transition for a full-time fire department. Uh those uh nine individuals and our are currently in our fire academy and I think they're about 3 weeks in. Uh moving on to the enhancing patrol division efficiencies. Uh we did expand our bike patrol program uh with additional officers and certainly ebikes. We do have three ebikes uh that we've recently purchased and we know ebikes has been a concern in the community and our we have a strategy around that and we have dedicated resources to trying to enforce current ebike regulations. Uh the other item noted here is alternative mental health response. We do have our police and fire collaborating on that and as they currently gear up to really put that into motion. U and then last just want to mention that we are also engaged as a our public safety staff with uh Minnesota State University and Mano for an intern integration program. So we're looking to tap into MSU uh to fully integrate some of their students into our programming. And then as you also know, Axon has been instrumental and our new Axon suite uh has been instrumental with changes in how we provide public safety services particularly in the police department. Uh body cameras has been a big one. I could this list could be very long in terms of the product uh suite and all of its product offerings. Um so I won't go into all that but then one of our next slides does show all of the timeline for implementation. I believe it's the slide after this one. Uh some of the metrics that we've been uh following this year is calls for mental health service. So we've had 242 calls year to date. And then we do track response times for fire and EMS. That was one of the items that was discussed in a study session earlier this year and became part of our service delivery standards that you've approved for our fire department. And so we do are we do we are and are looking at how we track our calls for service. There will be more intuitive dashboards on our website. So that's going to be uh something coming up and I think I mentioned that to one of our council members earlier today that as we look to expand our dashboards and transparency around our response times particularly with fire and EMS we'll see some enhance enhancement in that on that front as well. Uh this again uh I think illustrates on the lefth hand side the new uh implementation schedule. Again, I won't read through all of the uh dates on there and for those that are probably watching in the audience or on TV, that's uh you have to squint a little bit to see that. But certainly, as you as you know that there's a lot of activity, a lot of moving parts and coordination that's involved with our new implementation. Uh some things are some items are complete and many others are currently in progress. And then we also highlight calls for service in the Opus area. That's something that we are monitoring this year just with the uh changing u landscape in Opus with the added housing units and more activity. Uh just really taking a look at what that looks like and and certainly the response needed from public safety in that area. Moving on then to sustainability, resilience, and natural environment. This is led by Leslie Yetka, our natural resources manager. So, some things worth noting that staff in the sustainability commission hosted an everything electric exhibit at the Summerfest on June 28th this year. As reported earlier, we had over 6,000 people attend Summerfest and over 400 people stopped at that exhibit. Uh to date, 750 trees of 19 different species were sold during the city's annual tree sale. Another 82 trees and 11 different species were distributed to private properties to replace removal of 63 ash trees as part of our relief grant-f funed ash replacement project. And those grant dollars have um been utilized. So that's good in our community and certainly we've been planting trees and helping homeowners with those costs. I also want to note that the city received 25,000 from the Met Council for the water efficiency grant program of which about 10,000 or I should just round up to about 11,000 has been awarded through March of 2025. And then also uh staff held a workshop for rain gardens in June. Uh this workshop was raining basics for design, construction and maintenance of vegetation. Certainly as we promote our sustainability efforts, this was an important uh task uh in our last six months. some of the metrics that we've used. Uh one is the resilient uh 2025 resilient Mitaka participants. We had 102 participants down from last year. Um not sure why that is but certainly down from last year. And then we do in terms of a sustainability effort track our water usage and really happy to report that we don't have 2025 data yet, but in terms of looking back to 2024, uh our target is to be below 25 million gallons per person. And so we are below that in 2024. We had some up years in 21 and 23. And that's been part of our strategies is to really look at how we can become more efficient with our water usage. It's educational and a lot of the programming that is uh performed by our utility staff and our natural resources staff. With solar installations in 2025, 15 solar installations and dating back to 2006, 202 total installations since that time. uh and 24 of those were commercial industrial. We do have a target that we're looking to add 100 installations by 2028. And so this is a three-year plan. So it's a 25 26 excuse me 257 and 8 uh 678. So three and a half year plan. And so we're looking to target 100 more installations in the next couple years. And then as we transition to the bottom part of that uh slide, there's the acres of maintained habitat in Minnitankka Parks. And so again, this leads to a lot of our sustainability efforts and our efforts with natural resources in our parks. Uh what we're targeting is to really reach 500 acres of total maintained habitat. And you can see we keep climbing each year. Just in 2021 it was 300 acres and 2024 almost 400. So our staff continues to add acreage in terms of our restoration efforts. Moving on then to livable and well planned development. This is led by our community development director Julie Wishnack. So some of the items worth noting there, we do continue to increase affordable housing units in the city. Uh that includes uh ownership, rental and adding to the existing affordability units. This has been done as you know council through our innovative agreements, use of our affordable housing trust fund, uh tiff dollars, and really the communicating the city's interest in in performing these projects. We we've also had some um uh progress in enhancing vitality across our business sectors. As you know, our our staff and Miss Wishnack and um other staff been working with our chambers of commerce. We're getting really um a stronger partnership with our chamber and really looking to enhance those outreach activities across all of our existing businesses and any new businesses that may be coming into the city and certainly a lot of effort into our opus area and we call a transformation in that area. some of our metrics. You want to move on to the next slide? Thank you. So, affordable affordable units. And so, again, our strategic plan really encompasses 25, 26, and 27 and into 28. So, our target is to add 100 new affordable housing units in the city. Uh really in those years, this does date back to 2023 where we had 168 constructed. I know it says zero and 24. And again, keep in mind this is construction, not approval. So there were um units approved in 24 that were likely uh constructed in 25. So we're at 40 and we're um almost halfway to meeting our target uh which is again 100 by the year uh 2027 into 2028. In terms of business uh tracking in Minnetonka we have 5,930 businesses. Now that's often different. You might hear staff say well we have 2200 businesses in the city. Those are actually businesses that have a location. Uh but for homebased businesses or anyone that's registered with the state of Minnesota that is close to 6,000 businesses total businesses in the city. Uh one of our strategies this year was not to was to really highlight our larger businesses just given some of the changes in the in with some of our larger businesses and the pressures on larger businesses. And so we've lost zero corporate businesses in 25 year to date. And then with our business survey 98% of our businesses responded positively uh to our business climate here in Minnetonka. Um just about done. Uh we're moving on to infrastructure and asset management that is led by Will Manchester, a public works director. Some of the um identical items in this category really regard rely around or revolve around reliable highquality infrastructure. And so really working on Minnitonka Boulevard Trail project. So that's underway right now. As you know, uh we also look at our utilities and our facilities. So, we've identified a utility program priority replacement needs. And so, that's in the works and coming to the council at a study session. And then we're currently installed 3,500 new meters. And so, as you know, we've on a citywide meter installation project and we're making headway on that as well. And then last, I would just note that under safe quality well-maintained road system, a number of mill and overlay projects this year and we're nearly 50% complete with those projects. In the next slide, we'll show those metrics in terms of the pavement index condition. This is something that we track and target. Uh we certainly want to be above an 80. It's on a scale of 1 to 100. So, we want to be above a 80. We've been maintaining that over the since 2020 and even before that. This chart dates back to 2020. In 2024 at that 80.5, this speaks to the investments that we continue to make as a city into our roadway um systems. We do track our pavement indexing and ensure that our investments are maintained high quality roads. Also just want to mention then on the right upper right hand side one of our metrics is trails and so connectivity is important to the city. We do have 60 689 households within a quarter mile of newly constructed trails since in 2024. We need to get this number updated here at the end of 2025. But our target is through our trail system plan is to target 2,000 households to be within that quarter mile of new construction uh by 2028. So certainly uh an aggressive schedule on that and our goal for the next few years is continue to make those investments. And then we take a look at this last metric is the money spent on utility improvements. Uh this tracks a percentage overall system in which we're investing in. Our target is to be at that 1% and historically we have been a little over that 1% almost sometimes closer that 2% in 2020 well 2021 at that 1.7%. Took a little bit of a dip in 2024 uh but again we're targeting to be over that 1% on utilities. We know the importance of investing in our utilities. We know it's not glamorous work because residents don't see it those water and sewer pipes under the ground but as we all know we need to continue to invest in that infrastructure. And then last community inclusiveness that is led by Jacece Alexander a senior DEI supervisor. Uh some of the activities uh really evolve around youth um which is noted on this slide. So youth leadership academy exceeded our expectations. We had 35 participants. Uh we hosted a number of events already in 2025. The spring extravaganza, the farmers market where we've had a presence, the music in the park and some of the other programming partnerships that we've had with other entities and agencies. Then we offered some new summer programming for all all age groups as noted there between our youth, our teen, adults, and our seniors. And then last, just noting that again, some of the events uh that we're proud of is the Tonka Pride and the Junth U with a number of the partners that I mentioned uh with some of the uh metrics regarding this. We had the ACE participation or ACE program that you're aware of um that just ended. We had 13 interns across uh 13 interns across our partnership with the city of Hopkins, Minnetonka, and the 9M watershed district. That is an increase from 11 interns in 2024. So that program continues to expand. It was very successful. Uh very proud of our partnerships and the work that's happening there. And then last, just noting that opportunities and spaces for belonging events because that's been part of our inclusiveness approach is to make sure that our anything that we're hosting has spaces uh for people with any type of disability to be uh in attendance and be able to participate. And that's noted uh on that graph. And then last um this is doesn't see it feels a little random that you see the marsh listed here, but is one of our metrics in terms of our community inclusiveness. And certainly with the marsh, we had a goal of or target of increasing our membership by 5% uh which we have done. And and going back to the quarter 1 of 2024, just how that's grown the last uh couple of years since we took over um ownership of the marsh. And that is my quick um synopsis of our quarter 2 strategic plan update. Again, there's more detail, a lot more detail in the report that's in your uh packet. There's this is also online. So, anyone that's watching this evening in the audience if they want to see more about the community strategic plan more detail than I quickly shared here more metrics uh they certainly go to our website and see that um see those um live and if anyone has questions on our strategic plan I encourage them to give us a call here at city hall be happy to talk about our strategic plan and the goals that we have for the city. So, that mayor and councel turned over to you for any questions or comments. Thank you. >> All right. Well, thank you for that quick review, but certainly a lot of work um being done and certainly heartening to see that uh we're on track um toward the objectives that we established, but council, any comments or questions that you have for Mr. Funk. >> All right, then we will move on. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you, mayor and council. Appreciate your support and your direction on this. I would uh ask for a recommend uh excuse me, a motion to accept the quarter 2 strategic plan report. >> Thank you. I was just wondering if we had an action. There is. So, um, Council Member Calbert. >> Thank you, Mayor. I move uh acceptance of the uh quarter 2 uh strategic plan. >> Very good. Is there a second, Council Member Klay? >> I'll second. >> All right. We've got a motion by Council Member Calbertt and a second by Council Member Klay. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Romeley, >> yes. Kley, >> yes. >> Wearsome, >> yes. Motion carries. Next item up is the uh reports from the city manager and council members. So, Mr. Funk, you get to go first. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Will, you give me two uh agenda items in a row. Just a couple items for you this evening. First, uh looking back at last week, just want to thank our police staff for all their efforts to organize night to unite. And also a thank you to our mayor and our council who are participated. uh there were 158 parties this year, 18 more than last year. And so I I think all of us felt that as I I think connected with you all of you on how your experience went those evening that evening. I made it to three parties myself. Um it was fantastic. uh just to see the neighborhoods the the I think our it speaks volumes to our community in terms of just the positivity and the the appreciation that residents have for their neighborhood, their neighbors, for the city and and really for what we do as a community. So really great evening and also want to thank uh in terms of recognizing those that had a part in it. Also our fire department was active so they had crews out and about uh as well as public works and then we had some other staff members participate as well. Uh then moving on, tomorrow um is the final day for filing. So we do have it's currently open filing for our three seats that are up for election this November. Filing closes at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. And then the last thing I just want to mention is that uh that fall registration is on is open right now. So our recck department led by Kelly OD and his team uh the recck brochure is out and we get thousands of participants. So whether you're youth, senior, or anywhere in between, we encourage um people to register for all of our services. Uh lots of lots of activities. And so our our staff does a great job in making sure there's something for everyone in our community. There are three ways to register either online, by phone. So certainly call city hall or to our recck department or in person uh at the community center. So with that, mayor and council, turn it back over to you. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Funk. Um, so council, anything that you would like to report? >> Council member Shaq. >> Thank you, mayor. I'll just reiterate, I mean, night to unite is such a fun thing to do every year, and I was out in Ward 2, and I I mean, appreciative of police and staff for being there, but mostly appreciative of the residents who invite us there and have such nice conversations. They're very welcoming. They really want us to eat the food, but it's so and it's hard because you want to talk and you don't want, you know, sloppy joe dripping down your face. So, um, I was just, it was so nice. So, I really appreciate everybody who chatted with me uh on Tuesday. >> Thank you, Council Sha, Council Calbertt. >> Thank you, mayor. Uh yeah, I also I was I was writing with a police officer that I think that may have been my third time with our wonderful officer Marks or Sergeant Marks now. And um he took a few wrong turns and he said, "Oh, you know, I'm sorry. Uh I don't know my way around as well as I I thought I did, I guess." And I said, "Well, look at the neighborhood we're driving through. you can take all the wrong turns you want cuz Minnotonka is just so beautiful. Um, every house was just lovely that we visited. So many wonderful people and it just gives you a warm feeling all over that there's just such kind of civic engagement and people really care about their neighbors and um it's very heartening especially knowing that um it's not that way everywhere. So, I'm very appreciative of our city. And I also want to say happy birthday to Council Member Shack because today it was it was yesterday. So, happy happy birthday. And actually, uh we went to a wonderful we went to a wonderful party. I have we I have a friend that has a Jamaican Independence Day party that is also sort of a very unusual cross-section of uh people in our vicinity. And the food is great. And again, just a wonderful hundreds of people come and it is just a wonderful example of people coming together from all backgrounds to eat wonderful Jamaican food and um be outside on a beautiful Minnotonka night. Um the other things I just wanted to mention is that um uh today I attended uh League of Minnesota Cities election task force meeting with our wonderful uh Kelsey Larson. Um and the league of you know cities are responsible for administering elections and there was a lot of talk about um reinforcing the idea of election integrity and I just want to say that our staff here first of all we have probably one of the highest rates of voter participation anywhere in the country. we're often over 90% or around 90% and another great thing to be proud of, but also that they are administered so well and with great integrity and I and you know just there's a lot of reason to have faith in our elections because they're run by people like the people that run them here in Minnetonka and but we are trying to make sure that we instill confidence from everyone in the state in our elections and we're also trying to make them easier to administer for cities who work so hard um to make them work. So um and so with that, I just want to encourage you, go vote. People uh died for our uh right to vote if you're a citizen. And so um please vote. And um I also have been um involved in the energy, environment and natural resources committee for the National League of Cities and we are um working hard to we are writing a resolution to um ask Congress to restore funding to um various scientific and government um agencies that govern climate change. and um natural events and natural disasters to make sure that we can protect uh our residents and plan appropriately and be resilient when um natural disasters occur. And um the other thing that I just wanted to mention is recently we went on an economic development tour with many of our boards and commissions and um I'm going on a walk with some staff in one of our parks tomorrow and um we have board and commission meetings and I just want to say we have the most amazing hardworking staff. They have gone to so many extra meetings and wonderful things like night to unite, but all of the recreation events, the board and commission meetings, this meeting tonight, and they pour their heart and soul into it, and it just gives me such tremendous pride because I see you. I'm a staff member in another city, and I just see what you do. You you're doing it a lot of nights this week. So, thank you for what you do. Thank you, Council Member Calbertt. Um, anyone else? All right, I'm not seeing anyone. I'll I'll make a couple of quick comments. Um, we've covered night to unite um quite well. Um, but it was a record night and uh, significantly for me, it was my last one as mayor and so everything every time I do those sorts of things are a little bit more poignant and I think about it and I try and enjoy it a little bit more. Um, I try to eat less. Um but um you know it was just nice to to get out with everyone and you know I think um Council Sha and Council Calbertt covered it well but our residents are proud of our city. Um um 90 plus% are really happy with where we are in our city. Um we're not going to say we do it perfectly. Um and uh I'm not even going to say that the decisions that the council maker makes are always 100% right. uh we do our best and I think that's uh what you can see here. Our council members really work hard to do what they believe in their hearts is best for our city and I think our residents know that and and appreciate it. So, um it was a it was a fun night. It was my last one as mayor, but um I'll be showing up as a resident um in the in the future. So, uh anyway, that that was good. I wanted to comment um on one other thing too. Um tomorrow, um I will be um attending a a League of Minnesota City's um housing task force meeting and um you know, our city works really hard to um provide um um and enable um housing for people because people need places to live. We have a tremendous shortage of housing in our state. um we have a tremendous shortage of affordable housing and our programs in the city um are not going to solve all those problems, but we do want to be encouraging uh toward um um getting the types of housing that we need in our city and being supportive affordable housing because I firmly believe that if a person doesn't have a place to live, they don't have a chance. And you know, I'm I'm old-fashioned. People give me a hard time. Miss Wishnack gives me a hard time u because I always talk about the American dream and she kind of she gives me a little grief about that. But the reality of it is I believe in the American dream and the American dream does not start if a person does not have a place to live. And so the work that the city does, we spend a lot of time on housing and and I work on it pretty hard and I think after I'm done being mayor I'm going to still be working on housing because it's such an important issue. So I just wanted to make that comment. So, council's done with um our things, but um next item on the agenda is citizens wishing to discuss matters not on the agenda. So, if you have an item that is not on the agenda and that you'd like to make the council aware of your concern, please come forward, state your name and address, and tell us what you want us to know. Um if the item is on the agenda, then don't address it. That opportunity will be um present later in the meeting. But is there anyone who would like to come forward and share something with us? Anyone? All right, seeing no one, we will move, excuse me, we'll move on. So, um, next item on the agenda is bids and purchases, and we have none of those tonight. So, that brings us to item 10, which is the consent agenda. And these are items requiring a majority vote. And there are three items on the agenda. Um, first and and we handle these all in one motion. and one vote. So, I will read them into the uh into the record and then if anyone would like to pull an item, please raise your hand whether in the audience or on the council and we will pull that item. Then we will consider the items that are not pulled and then return back to the item that was pulled for your comments and then we'll vote on that. So, that's the way that works. So, um item 10A is um the Metropolitan Council Community Tree Planting Grant Agreement. Item 10B is a joint powers agreement with the city of Minneapolis and um the city of Minneapolis city attorney's office. And item 10 C is a resolution for Hopkins Crossroad and uh Trunk Highway 394 North Ramp signal agreement with Henipin County and the Minnesota Department of Ed uh transportation. I'll get this right. So um would anyone like to pull any of those? Um, counselor Shaq. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just have a a brief comment about consent agenda item 10B and what a meaningful but um lowcost change this is going to be for our city attorney's office. I give Mr. Nilson a lot of credit because the I didn't know this and Mr. Funk didn't know this, but our two attorneys were trading being on call on the weekends to handle these things. And as an attorney, that means you have to have access to telephone, to Wi-Fi, potentially to getting to the courthouse. And while even if you're not called, that's a that's a big deal. If something like that happens to me in my private practice, at least I can bill my client for it. And these folks were just doing it as a part of their job. and we get to shift that for $300 a month. Incredible. So, um I'm I'm That's a huge huge. So, thank you, Mr. Nelson, for that. >> Thank you, Council Member Shaq, Council Member Foster Bolton. Um, I'd like to make a comment about consent agenda item 10A and just that on night to unite I had several people tell me thank me for this and just are so appreciative of um this grant agreement. I just wanted to make that comment. Great. >> It was great to it was just made me feel really proud. >> So, thank you. >> Thank you. Um, so are there any other other comments? I I didn't see anyone wanting to pull one. I I was also going to make a comment on on 10 um on 10B. Um just because um I know people who've been on call and you like to think, well, being on call, that's no big deal. You don't get a call every time you're on call and this and that, but your your time off is not your time off. I mean, um you have to be you have you know, you don't go to the Boundary Waters that weekend. And so we had two attorneys who every other weekend were committing themselves to be on call for no extra pay. Nobody even really knew that they did it. So again, Mr. Nilson, I I I think I I appre I'm obviously Councilor Shaq and I and maybe several others, you know, asked Mr. Funk about this today because it was significant and and I think it's indicative of the dedication that our staff has um to do their jobs. They don't they don't complain. They they do it because it comes with the territory and I'm very appreciative of that. So, we've commented more than we normally do on our consent agenda, but um I will take a motion. >> Councilor Shack. >> Thank you, Mayor. I will move approval of consent consent agenda items 10 A, B, and C. >> And a second. Council member Calbertt. >> I'll second. >> All right. We've got a motion by Council Member Shack and a second by Council Member Calvert. Miss Larson, please call a roll. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, yes. Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Wearsome, >> yes. Motion carries. Item 11 is consent agenda items requiring five votes, and there are none of those. Um, item 12 is introduction of ordinances, and we have none of those. So, that brings us to item 13, which is public hearings. Um 13A is a temporary amendment to the on sale liquor license for D and D of Minnesota incorporated doing business as Famous Daves at 14601 Highway 7. And Miss Wishnack, that's you. >> Thank you, mayor and council. Uh members, this event is this Saturday, uh August 16th. It would run in from 11:00 am to 4 pm. It really is a a barbecue block party is what they're calling it. That's the event name. Uh they have various activities uh sampling and um they will have alcohol at the event. Um if you recall, when you have nonprofits, that's a different procedural requirements. this this um business has a liquor license and what you do is amend their territory basically for where they serve alcohol. So that's really why you need to amend their uh license temporarily and that would accommodate this event. And you can see in the code there are some criteria by which we measure whether or not we'll consider this and we do find that they meet the criteria in the city code. So staff would recommend that the council go ahead and issue that temporary amendment for this event. Thank you, mayor and councel. >> Thank you, Miss Wishnack. Um council, any questions on this item? >> All right, then. This is a public hearing item, so I'm going to open the public hearing and see if anyone in the audience would like to comment on this item for a temporary amendment to the liquor license for Famous Daves. Any comments? Anyone? All right. Then I'm going to close a public hearing and bring it back to the council for a comment or a vote or and a vote. Councilor Calbert. >> Thank you, mayor. I I I can move approval um to grant the temporary amendment to to the on sale for the on sale liquor license to pay Miss Daves. >> Thank you, Council Romey. I'll second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Council Member Calvert and a second by Council Member Romey. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Pastor Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, yes. Wilurn, >> yes. Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Wears, >> yes. Motion carries. Um, item 14 is other business and 14A is a flood plane alteration permit with a tree variant for construction of a new home at 3440 Larchwood Drive. And Miss Thomas, that's your report. >> Uh, thank you, mayor and council members. This property is located uh southeast of the Minnitanka Boulevard County Road 101 intersection. A house was built on the property in the early 1980s. It has a footprint of roughly 2200 square ft and a total floor area of about 2400 square ft. Though the lot is a half acre in size, much of the property is encumbered by wetland areas, flood plane areas, uh easements, and then setbacks from property lines as well as those natural features. So as you can see on the right hand diagram the house uh only the house portions of the house that are in the red area are actually conforming. That red area shows the existing uh buildable area of the site. Any functional additions to the home uh within that buildable area um may require variances and the monetary value of those additions is actually capped by our zoning ordinance. Um, the zoning ordinance sets a a level of investment that can be put into structures, structural change to structures that don't meet our our flood plane ordinance. And so, given that monetary cap and uh issues with the existing home, which the owners indicate are mold and rotting of the roof, the owners have decided to demolish the home and construct a new home on the site. Uh the new house which is shown uh maybe a little bit difficult uh on the right hand diagram which shows the buildable area of the home following a flood plane alteration of approximately 65 cubic yards of floodplane uh fill and uh excavation or recreation to achieve that uh new red buildable area. The outline of the existing house is in the dark uh blue or gray line with the existing home shown shadowed underneath. Um the new house would have a footprint of about 4,000 square ft and a total floor area roughly uh 4700 square ft. The flood plane alteration uh necessary here would meet basic engineering principles. It would result in no net fill of flood plane, meaning that flood plane storage volume on the site is maintained. It's just located in a different area. The earthwork, however, to do that flood plane alteration and construct the new home would result in removal or impact to five high priority trees on the site, which is just over the city's 35 35% um requirement or threshold, I should say, which is four trees. So, they're removing one tree more than uh would be allowed. This evening, the applicant uh is requesting uh that the council approve the floodplane alteration permit and uh the tree removal variances. While staff does support the flood plane alteration permit, we we don't support the variances uh for two reasons. First, we find that it doesn't meet the um statute and city code requirement pertaining to practical difficulties. Specifically, the variance is not based on a circumstance unique to the property. Instead, it's based on the design preference of the property owner. Uh the property uh a home could be designed if the property owner and their designers were to redesign the footprint of the home or redesign the um area and location and configuration of the floodplane alteration. Second, we think as staff that approval of a tree removal variance based on home design may alter the character of the neighborhood as it may um set at minimum a fairness precedent uh or for similar requests. The planning commission did consider uh this proposal at its July 24th meeting. The planning commission disagreed with planning staff's recommendation and on a 3-2 vote, as you saw in your packet, the commission recommended the council approve both the flood plane alteration permit and the tree removal varants. Their recommendation really is based on the constraints on the buildable area of the property and the fact that there's already a house on this site. This isn't complete new construction, it's redevelopment. So staff has provided um the council with two resolutions this evening. Uh first is to approve the floodplane alteration permit but deny the tree removal variance. That is and continues to be staff's recommendation. Uh the second recommendation from the planning commission again is to approve both of those requests. Before I turn it back to the mayor, I do want to address some of the um discussion that occurred at the planning commission meeting. The applicant and the commission spent quite a bit of time um suggesting that or the applicant suggested that they were unaware of the tree protection ordinance or that their proposal didn't meet the ordinance. And I would direct the council, you probably already read the memo that was part of the staff attachment um to both the commission packet and the council packet that outlines timeline. But I I want to highlight a couple of those dates. So in July of 2024, staff indicated to the then designer that the proposal at that time did not meet tree protection ordinance or our setback requirements. and we indicated that we would not support variances as with reconstruction of a new home. You have the opportunity to design to meet our requirements. The following month then uh a revised proposal was submitted. It did not meet the tree protection ordinance or excuse me, it did meet the tree protection ordinance but not the front yard setback requirement. So again, we suggested that we would not support variances for the project. In April of 2025, uh the current proposal was submitted by a new designer contractor and staff provided that designer and contractor all of our previous correspondents uh with the previous folks working on the project. Again, noting that corrections would need to be made to meet the tree protection ordinance, specifically to save one tree. Um, a proposal was then submitted in May in an attempt by the applicant to demonstrate that a redesign could not result in saving of one tree. Um, that redesign was um shifting a retaining wall. From staff's perspective, that's wasn't really a redesign of the project. So, I I bring that history up simply to note that staff has been very consistent in our our messaging uh to whoever the designer was for this project. There have been two we certainly recognize that the site has constraints and that's why we support a flood plane alteration permit uh to do something on this property, but again, we do not recommend approval of the tree removal variance. So, with that, I would turn it back to the mayor. Thank you, Miss Thomas. >> Mayor, if I could uh Yes. >> Just wish note and I can't remember if you said the vote was 3 to2. It was actually 4 to one uh at the planning commission. So, I want to make sure that was clear in the record. Yep. >> Thank you. Thank you. So, council, um questions for staff on this item. Don't all speak at once. Council member Romey. >> So I I think I I understood the timeline and it seems like communication was pretty clear to the applicant. Did they were there any other uh potential designs brought forward like a second story or anything? Did staff advise um you know if they advise the applicant about the these issues? I'm just kind of curious how this fell through the cracks and why this is continuing to I mean it doesn't seem like it seems like it's really close. Um and and I'm just wondering um I guess this maybe is a more of a question for the applicant then. Um but the city never got anything or had discussions about potential other options for designs that would get us there. Uh, Mayor Wham and council members, um, the designs that we saw were again in 2024, then the current proposal, then an attempt to show that the tree ordinance could not be met through a redesign of the wall. staff has always suggested that a redesign of the footprint of the building or the flood plane alteration area could help in that, but as to specifics of how the redesign should happen, no, we did not um suggest any. Can >> I just follow up with one more? You may. >> Was there um was there a change in the footprint between April 2024 and and this current plan submission? >> Uh council member, I will need to look at the plans. I don't know off the top of my head. >> Well, I just kind of assumed because if there was a front uh yard setback variance required for the previous one and there is not now, I was assuming then that there must have been some footprint change, but um yeah, just was wondering cuz obviously if there had to be some change made in that design um and there was knowledge of this issue. So, I'm just trying to kind of figure out things, but I'll I'll kind of ask the applicant on that. Thanks, >> council. Other other questions for staff? Anyone? >> Council member Calbertt. >> Thank you. I think it was covered in the planning commission meeting, but I I went out to the property and um there's a lot of buckthornne. There's a lot many dead trees or dying trees. And if you could just refresh our memory in terms of how the tree count for the purposes of meeting ordinance is um calculated because of the health of some of the trees um and probably species tree species. I just uh want to make sure that I'm I'm also being mindful of it. Miss Thomas, >> uh, mayor and and council members, uh, the the intent of the tree protection ordinance is to preserve, uh, healthy, uh, trees, not healthy, structurally sound trees. And so, a tree that is dead or uh, dying to the extent that we don't think it's going to survive much longer, those do not count for or against a property owner when we uh, do our tree calculations. Neither do uh green ash uh elm trees and ammer maple trees. And there may be one more that I am missing. Again, they may be present on a site, but we don't count them for or against a property owner when considering. We never uh consider buckthornne, [Laughter] >> but we consider it. We just don't count it. All right. Uh council, any more questions for staff? Otherwise, um I will invite the um applicant forward and um tell us what you want us to hear and please provide your name and address. >> My name is David Steinus with Steiner and Coppelman. I reside at 21500 Fair View Street, Greenwood, Minnesota. >> My name is Chase Pulk. Um I reside at 3440 Larchwood Drive, Minnitanka, Minnesota. >> Um >> very good. Well, we we um we came to the city um I came a year ago and a different friend of mine and different architect came two years ago to create a conforming site plan to figure out the size of the footprint and go into design. And we have an email from Bri who's who we were working with Bria on 820 2024. She sent an email that said a tree variance is not required. Any changes proposals removals will require another review of the inventory. So, we did an extensive tree survey of the home, complied with the tree count, so we're not losing any trees of sub substance. And to this day, in May, when we came forward for the floodplane alteration, they told us no tree revi revision was required. A week 11 days before our planning commission for the flood variance, they came to us and said there's a root situation with a box elder tree and you have the potential of losing that tree. We still have no intention in cutting the tree down because we believe a box elder tree is closer to a weed tree and they do survive. In my history of for 40 years of building homes with Steiner Coppelman, that's what we find. I don't want to argue with the tree person, but we are leaving that tree. We are using it as our tree count. However, they're telling us someday it's going to die. So that's why we're looking for the variance of that one tree, 73% or 73%. But we're very aware of the tree variance. and and we went a year of design to comply. >> Okay. Very good. I don't know. Um is that's your presentation? >> That's my presentation. Yeah. >> Okay. Um I'll ask if council members have any uh questions for you. >> Um Calbert. >> Thank Thank you, Mayor. So um so as I understand in the packet and watching the planning commission meeting um basically the reason for the current design is that because of the the soils and the hydraology and so forth, you're just doing slab on grade. >> Correct. >> And so you're kind of building out instead of up or or down. So instead of vertical, you're going horizontal. So my question is, I mean, I'm looking at a rendering of something in our packet, and it looks like a twostory house. Um, in in what's this? Yes, >> it is. Yes. >> Okay. So, but but it's twotory, but you lost you lost the basement. >> We lost the basement. Correct. >> Okay. And yet the footprint is what is it 40 44. >> What we're trying to do is we have an existing threecar garage in our structure now. So we have we're trying to maintain that threecar garage. >> Okay. >> And then on the main floor we have just a kitchen and a family room, foyer, mudroom. And then we have a wreck space that is to the right side of the garage that's going to be concrete for tornadoes and basically fulfilling the basement requirement on a house. I'm doing that next to the garage. >> It's like a safe space. >> A safe safe space. And then we're putting the bedrooms over the top of the house. Yes. >> Interesting. >> Okay. Um, I have a question. >> Yes. Um, Council Member Foster Bolton. >> So, um, I don't know what a slab on thing, >> what is that term? >> It just means it's like a a a cement footing, like a cement >> foundation, but there's no basement. It's just Yeah, it's >> Is there Is it possible to build a basement there? No. Is it >> Because of the flood plane, we're having to raise it up. We're having to bring Phil in. We're having to raise it up to get out of the flood plane. Correct. >> Okay. So, so this concrete is to replace the I'm sorry, but >> it's an abrupt to the right side of the garage to replace the basement. >> Um, and then so but even if you just built a twocar garage, you could have saved that tree, right? like a or no, that wouldn't have been >> We have an existing threecar garage. >> I know, >> but you're gonna have to tear it all down and build new. >> That is correct. Yes, >> if you built a twocar garage. >> Still can't say it's >> still going to >> That's what we tried doing. We tried making the house smaller, presenting that and that didn't work because of this root structure for the tree and the retaining wall to do the flood plane alteration. >> Okay. >> Was the issue. >> Okay. Thanks, >> Councilor Calbertt. >> Thank you, mayor. >> So, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the the kind of safe safe room area. So, um cuz it's big, you know, I mean, if you it's big. Um and so I'm just wondering, does it need to be that big? I know that you're trying to replace sort of the the space that would have been a basement. Um, but the footprint of the previous home was 2200 square ft and the square footage was 2400 square ft. So, it wasn't even a full basement or a full second story or whatever. It it the footprint of the the house and I was just out there. So, I'm just What exactly? How is that room going to be used? Is that going to be like a wreck room in the meantime? Is it just like a an above ground um storm cellar and it's that's all it's going to be used for? I'm just I'm trying to understand >> it's it's it is storage. Excuse me. It's storage space because the footprint with with the threecar garage and the living space, we do need we we're looking for storage space. We're looking for wreck room space. So, yes, that's what that's that's what that structure is to the right side of the garage is storage and wreck room. >> Yeah. Yes. Wait, who's Oh, excuse me. >> Yeah. Council, I >> I'm looking the wrong places. Pardon me, Miss Thomas. >> I just want to direct your attention to uh in your packet, there's actually a floor plan uh for the property, and that gets to your questions on uh what that space will be used for. to get you to the right um page because as staff reads this um that area is going to be used as a um live um for music and a control room uh for that music space. So, I just want to be clear that the plans that are in your packet that were provided to city staff um suggest something other than what the applicant is suggesting here this evening. >> Thank you, Miss Thomas. And it's one of the reasons I brought it up because I I I clearly didn't get down to that level of detail of reading of of reading that um this time because I was at work all day yesterday. Um >> uh Mr. Mayor, if I may, it is on page 23 of the project information packet is the floor plan. >> Thank you, Miss Thomas. So I can verify that the existing house we have a in our lower level currently we have a sound um like a it's a band area >> Mhm. >> and practice area for for music. That's what Chase does. He's musician. And so we're just taking what we have in our basement and moving it to that side of the garage. Basically it's recck space. >> Okay. Thank you for that. So, more than storage, but I mean it's a basement, but >> Yeah. >> But we have storage in the space as well. >> Yep. All right. Very good. Are there uh any other questions? Council member Rome. >> Thank you, mayor. Um I guess I'll ask the question that I asked of staff and and um it just I I guess you do have a second story on is that a full second story? I couldn't really fully tell from the plans. >> Yes, it's it's bedroom level above the living space. Correct. >> So everything above except for the garage, you don't have anything above the garage. Correct. >> There is there is space above the garage as well, >> right? >> Oh, that's the garage. Okay. So that structure what's to the right? >> That's the safe. Ah, got it. >> Yeah, that's the studio. >> That's our wreck room or lower what we had in the lower level is now going to the right side of the garage. Correct. that you did have. Um, so your your 2400 ft² previously, was that inclusive of the threec car garage or exclusive? >> That's that's inclusive of the three car garage. >> And so now you're going to have basically 4750 inclusive of the garage. So about doubling the square footage of the home. Is that correct? >> That's the total square footage of the structure. Yes. including inclusive of the garage just like the 2400 was inclusive of the garage for the previous structure. Correct. Just trying to understand that. >> Okay. Um >> thank you. It sounds like we have a little bit of obviously different perceptions of what was communicated uh when and um so I'm not quite sure what to do with that. Um but I'll leave that for now. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. Uh, Council Member Wilburn. >> So, quickly kind of following up, I've been having the same train of thought. Um, would it is it possible to have a second level on the basement space? What the the extra space? >> Then the house structure would get larger. What I'm trying to do because we're slab on grade is I'm trying to have a garage and a living room, kitchen, foyer. That's what's on the main level of the living space. And then to the right of side of the garage, I'm trying to have my recck room space where I have my band practice area and studio and some storage, which was the basement, >> right? >> And then I have my bedrooms up on the top floor. So if I take space away, then I end up losing my kitchen and living room on the main floor and having to put it upstairs. But and that doesn't work well with the slab on grade home. [Applause] >> So following up, so just so you know, I'm very sympathetic to musicians. I was a music teacher and my daughter's a professional musician. So I understand the allure of having a practice space and a studio. So in terms of having a studio, is this a recording studio? Is this someplace that people are going to be coming to do that? This is uh mostly just for myself to have a space to be loud and my band. Um yeah, that's mostly what it's for. >> That's why we're making it all concrete so that it >> it's going to be isolated >> isolated >> from the neighbors as well. >> Right. And if you if you've seen, I did go around all the neighbors and they all are on board with what I want to do. >> All right. Um, council, any any question? Anything further for the applicant? Thank you. >> Yep. >> All right. Um, yes. Um, Miss Thomas, excuse me. >> Thank you, uh, Mayor Wor. Just to uh chime in a little bit on the the timing of things. I think that there have been multiple iterations of a plan for this this site. I would agree that in uh the summer of 2024, there was a plan that was submitted that met the tree protection ordinance as I indicated, but that did not meet the front yard setback ordinance. So, there's a a push and a pull um on this. and when there are many iterations and and different parties submitting those um sometimes that that timeline does get a little bit uh fuzzy. >> Thank you for that. Um Council Member Wilbur >> um I have a question for staff. So the the the tree ordinance is the the 30% root uh percentage of root that is going to be affected. Is that in the tree ordinance that if it's 30% or more then it's considered that like it has to be consider considered a lost tree? >> Yes. Uh council member Wilbur and that is uh in the current ordinance. It has been in the ordinance since 2008 when we adopted our first tree protection ordinance. And do we I I know like there's been a suggestion that a smaller footprint would could could be submitted that would not impact the tree 45 I think was the one that's that's in question. Um, do we have an idea like how much would be needed to be removed so that that tree wouldn't be impacted? [Applause] >> Uh, Mayor Worerome and Council Member Wilburn, I I'm not sure that I I have that that number. Um, certainly it would be the the southerntherly portion of the home. That would be one opportunity. Another opportunity, and I'm I'm not an engineer, but would be to redesign the um flood plane alteration um area or the configuration. Um making certain areas deeper or reshaping that. So, it's kind of an an eitheror situation from staff's perspective. >> Any other any other questions? um you know the um I'm going to ask Miss Thomas a question just so um to comply and you know as we as we look at this I mean this is it's a it's a it's tight because of the um flood plane issues it's um I was out there as well um I I do agree that the current house probably does need to be replaced um but um you know I I struggle The thing that I struggle with on this and um is um is the uh you know we have a tree ordinance. It's very close but the term precedent does concern me. Um and so um from staff's perspective how substantial would the modification and I know you're not designing you're you're not the architect. you're not designing. But um but how big an ask is um modifying the design? Would it be would it require a lot of change or would it require um um an relatively insignificant change? Because I think that's I mean this is um you know this is not a cut and dried situation. That's why it's taking as much time as it has both at the planning commission and here. So, um, but from a staff perspective, and again, you're and if it's unfair of me to ask that type of question and and maybe it is, it's just, you know, that's I think that's what we're we're struggling with is that it it, you know, to quote Maxwell Smart, you missed it by that much. you know, I mean, it's uh um it's uh it's it it's small, but on the other hand, how significant of change would the design have to be changed if if it's modest that are a view could an individual's view could be different than if it's substantial? Uh, Mayor Woram and council members, again, looking at the the plans, the floor plans that were provided by the applicant, page 23, I would suggest, as I think the applicant did, based on the floor plans that they've provided, it would be a significant change. It would be essentially relocating the the the kitchen in its entirety to a different location. Um, so based on these existing plans, it would be a significant change. Okay, thank thank you for that. And then >> sorry, Council Member Foster Bolton. >> Um, sorry, mayor. This was covered in the planning commission um meeting, but can you can you say it again? How many ordinance how many tree protection ordinances were um sort of overturned or whatever? How many variances had we had? You know what? I'm asking >> the history >> the how many How many proposed out of how many >> right >> were asked? >> Yeah. Uh uh mayor and council members if I recall the the number correctly. So uh we keep track in in community development of new house permits um every year in our community and we've had about a hundred new homes uh constructed in in the city over the last 5 years. And we can think of um one uh where we've had a a tree well maybe two where we've had a a tree protection ordinance um request for a variance. Um so about two out of uh 100 new homes. >> Thank you for that good perspective. Um so I'm going to ask another question if I may. Um I'm this isn't this isn't an effort to be difficult but um the um the term precedent was used and I think that's influencing um a lot of us and um this is this is a slab on grade home um which is somewhat unusual um if a precedent or if if if this were granted are the are you know when I when I first got on the council Um um the then city attorney suggested to me that we don't use the term precedent because every project in is different. So there is no precedent setting in Minnetonka because of the uniqueness of every project and and and I and I believe that. And so when you know the the notion of of setting a precedent is not something I like doing. Um I want to be I want to be mindful of that. But but the design of this house and the circumstances of this house are truly unique. Um you know so is there is there something that's unique about this that would um allay the concern about the president setting Ness of um one decision or the other? kind of a tough question again, but I think it's, you know, I think it's really relevant because I think I think it's those types of things from a council perspective that are going to decide which way we vote. And I I can tell you that I don't know which way I'm going to vote yet. >> U Mayor, I'll start and then Miss Wishnack and and Mr. Nilson may want to um jump in. I think I would agree with you from a planner's understanding of legal precedent. It's very narrow for something to set a legal precedent. has to be the very a very very similar situation within a very specific amount of time. Um planners sometimes talk about not legal precedent but fairness precedent. Um so the city approves a tree removal variance because of the design of a home here in fairness. Shouldn't the city um approve a similar variance? And by similar I mean a tree removal variance for one tree in a different location. That is not a legal precedent but um planners sometime refer to that as a fairness precedent. >> Thank you for that. Mr. Nelson, I don't know if you want to add anything or not. You don't have to. >> Sure. I'll just say real quick that I agree with what Miss Thomas said. Um I do think in land use scenarios precedent is often overstated on both sides. um you made the point that I would make regarding legal precedent which is that in order to have precedent you have to have a similar setting a similar context and similar requests at issue. So it is very narrow and precedent in that setting in my mind means sort of mandating your decision on a subsequent project. Um that's not to say that the approval of a project can't prove influential to a staff recommendation going forward or to a future decision. So distinguishing between precedent in terms of a mandated decision one way or another and being sort of influential to tip a staff recommendation one way or another or or an a decision by an elected body. Um there is that distinction there. >> Very good. Thank you. Um council any anything else? How many I see the applicant raising his hand. Uh we typically don't turn this into a debate, but if you have a quick comment, I will allow it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, council, very much. Um we've worked with staff to build to the setback lines, to the volume lines, to the height lines, to everything. And we were the only variance we were asked for was the flood plane alteration. And in March, April, May of this year, we were instructed to apply for our flood plane variation. I believe the tree person, if we could ask the staff what date he came to to them and myself to tell me about a root situation, was I believe in May this year. So, until May this year, we did not know we were going to potentially lose this boxelder tree. But we have spent a significant amount of time on the house plans to fill fulfill the city's need for setbacks and volume and height and everything for to accomplish the flood plane and the setbacks from the wetlands. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, council need any more information before we uh have a conversation about this? Council member Calbertt, how big is the studio area in square feet? Um, yeah, if you believe it is about 700 square ft. >> Okay. All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, >> yes. Councilor Albert, >> can we can we get an answer to the question when was the the applicant informed about the the the tree problem? Uh, mayor and council people, I can try to go back through um all of the the staff um emails. I I would suggest that from staff's perspective um the the variance remains the same um kind of regardless of what what time uh it was notified to the applicant, we would have the same um conclusion and recommendation uh for you. But I I can uh do some research here. >> I mean, if it's possible, I don't want you to It's been okay. >> So, um let's see. I think um I'm seeing a room full of people. I don't think um I don't think many of you are here to comment on this issue, but um is there anyone in the audience who would like to comment on um the issue before us on on this item? Is there anyone at all? All right. I'm going to assume that I'm going to assume that u my assumption is correct and uh that there's no no one in the audience is interested in commenting on this item. So, it comes back to the council and we have to decide. Um um you know, a challenging a challenging question clearly. Um um so, Council Member Kley, >> I had a question about the root of this tree that we talking about like this one variance that we're asking about like how significant is this tree in this root that's causing this issue? That's what I want to know. Like I know it's an ordinance in place to protect these trees, but how significant is this root? Is it like the tree already grow? Is it a root in the ground? Like I'm kind of curious about that part. >> Um Miss Thomas, >> uh mayor and council member uh Kley and council member Wilbur, I have an answer to your question. Um the tree protection ordinance uh council member Kley says that if you grade into more than 30% of the root zone of a tree uh it is considered lost um to the city regardless of whether it's cut down or not. So on a a smaller tree that root zone grading area of 30% may be much smaller than on a a much larger tree. So I don't know um the ex the extent of the grading but it would be at least 30% of the total area of that root zone. Typically the root zone of a a tree or natural resources has explained to me is if you look at the widest uh part of the tree the foliage and go straight down that can is the critical root zone of that tree. It is a boxelder tree uh this large tree here. Um does that answer your the question? It kind of do. But my question is, has this root of the tree, is it like a full tree or are you talking about like a root? >> Uh, mayor and council member, it would be the full the full tree. >> Okay. And the root is what you don't want to dig into the 30% piece of it because if you dig in 30% of the root of the tree, then the tree would possibly die. So that's what you're trying to protect from the tree to keeping the tree from dying. >> Exactly. >> Okay. >> And um council member uh Wilburn on June 10th uh our natural resources staff noted that 30% of the critical root zone of this tree over 30% would be um impacted by the grading that was proposed. So, it is true that the applicant did not intend to remove uh five trees. Their intent was to meet the tree protection ordinance based on the grading and the critical root zone of this tree. That's where we get to that um tree number five. >> All right. Well, we've already had quite a bit of conversation here, but um you know, this is um this one is less clear than a lot of things, but but I think there are a lot I think there are a good number of things that are clear here in terms of we know what our rules are. We know what we've done in the past and we have to uh we have to ascertain as a council whether the unique circumstances of of um of this which are not uh I used my terminology carefully but does is a v is a variance warranted to our tree protection ordinance is really the question we have to decide. So whoever wants to comment on that first council shack. >> Thank you mayor. You know, I think the analysis on the decision is pretty basic, right? I mean, it's not about I mean, staff didn't do anything wrong. I think there's expectations are kind of different than the letter of the law in many cases. there. You know, there's tens of hands that touch every application and you don't realize there's a problem until you realize there's a problem and then the applicant's going to be informed and it's expensive and it is frustrating and I I know all of that. Um, and that that is happens on every project when there are issues. But the question for me is you know we have a tree ordinance and what is the level of flexibility as a body we want to give when something like this comes up you know one tree is one tree but that is the metric we have a percentage and so I don't I mean I'll be honest I don't have a super strong feeling on this but I do you know feel concerned in every project of what kind of you know we we spend a lot of time on archery ordinance or whatever the the request for the variance is. You know, what kind of um slippery slope do we want to go on? And it's it's one tree this time, it's two trees next time. Um and that goes to all projects and that will be, you know, things that we talk about in in a later application, too. So, I think that um you know, I'm I'm happy to kind of hear what my colleagues have to say, but I would encourage us to kind of keep it to a policy question on this parcel and this this project. Is there enough there to say we're willing to compromise our tree or not maybe about all of the other stuff that happened that led us here? It's just really this house on this property losing a one more tree. >> Council member Kley, >> I guess I'll be the first one to say that I'm willing to compromise it. Um because um I've seen us compromise on other things and so I I would approve I would move to approve the you know vote on yes for me. >> Thank you. Other comments? Uh Council Member Wilburn. So, I'm reluctant to uh to grant variances to the tree or ordinance. Um, and I had almost the ex the exact conversation uh with uh with Mr. Funk earlier about it one tree this time and then the next time is it two trees and then is it three trees and again the the slippery slope argument. Um, I certainly understand that the applicant's frustration, you know, up until recently they they thought they had everything everything in place and that they had this had submitted, you know, the the plans that had been approved and then to find out, well, no, there's this there's one tree. Um, I it's like reading through the staff's recommendation for denial and why it's a recommendation for denial makes sense to me. Um, so again, but like council member Shaq, I don't I don't feel that strongly about it. So, it's just I I'm concerned about not sticking to the tree ordinance. I mean, is this a is this a compelling enough reason, I guess, to uh and I haven't I haven't decided that yet either. So, >> Cosmore Calvert. >> So, I'm conflicted for a lot of reasons and some of them have already been articulated. Um, we have to vote on the ordinance we have today and but we have already talked on the deis about how zone co has let us know that we have a a restrictive tree ordinance that may hamper development and that you know in their opinion it might be a little bit too strict. Now, I was the one that fought for a stronger tree protection ordinance, and so I'm a little bit protective of it. Um, and this is an enormous house. It's really an enormous footprint. It's a lot of impervious surface in a area that has water issues. And um I you know we we're it's not our job to get into design or to tell people you know what kind of house they want to live in. But I mean and it's pretty cool to have a a studio um that is insulated so your neighbors don't want to kill you when you're banging on drums and everything. So I I I get it. But it's also a huge studio and um so you know some of this I think is that the applicant wants what they want and they that's how they want it and so there's not a whole lot of give and that's one of the that's that's where for me I'm like well you know it is just one tree so you know see what you can do to move the house over. So, you're not because I believe that the house is on I mean I believe the the tree that in question is on sort of the lower uh right hand corner of the of the house in the blue as we're seeing it on the screen right now. So, you know, I don't know how easy it is to, you know, make a slightly smaller studio and just move everything over to protect the root zone. Um, and I know that designs are designs and you know it it it's not nothing to change them. Um, so I'm very conflicted because I really fought for our tree protection ordinance. I also know that we are about to hear an application where people already have said really you just spent you know an hour and a half arguing for one tree and you know we're going to be talking about um you know a much bigger project and then here shortly after we vote on this. So, um I also in this one particular instance because um because of sort of the way and the t the the timing the fact that um that tree probably will be lost. I am just really conflicted. I I could I could go either way. Um, and uh, I really understand what the planning commission decided to do. I really, you know, I don't want to I don't want to say no to someone um, that's put so much work and it sounds like it's been over a year of, you know, working on these plans, but um, we hold other people to our tree ordinance. So, I'm still really conflicted. I'm really not sure how I'm going to vote. >> Other comments, Council Member Foster Bolton. >> Yeah, this was hard. I I like the whole idea. I mean, I I wasn't around for the tree ordinance, but I like the whole idea of the root system mattering. um it wouldn't be something that I would think offhand either like whatever roots but it it seems super important and I and I like that part of it. Um, so you know it isn't about one tree. It is about five trees to me because the ordinance is saving you know there's one tree over but it we should also include the other trees that are going to be destroyed. Um, but at the same time it doesn't feel I mean I've been out to the site too and I I was like you know something has to be done. I mean it it you know it clearly needs to be taken down and um I you know I frankly can't tell what trees would come down and I mean I was trying to figure out but there's no way I can figure that out. So, and then to me it does seem like the fact that you couldn't have that you can't have a basement does seem unique and not the fault of the of the owner, but I'm not a stat, you know, I don't do this for a living, so that's just my gut feeling. Um, and also that it doesn't seem int, you know, it doesn't feel like it feels like the owner has tried to to figure it out and so it it doesn't feel like there's any sort of backhanded, you know, they they really have put forth an effort to to save it the tree. Um, and Miss Thomas, I heard her say that it would be a significant structural change to make the adjustment to save this tree. And that to me seems um significant. I mean, in a good reason to to to grant the variance. So, I pro I probably would um lean toward um granting the tree removal variance request and I know that the staff has to operate under a certain um you know constraints and so that's why they recommend this. Um but I can you know that's where I would lean. >> Council member Romey. No, >> thank you, mayor. Um, so I I'm not going to repeat the the comments uh that others have already said. Um I mean I think I also have concerns about this you know kind I the reason that we're talking about this for so long and I know that may be frustrating for some people is because there is a couple issues here and that it is this fairness precedent that we may be setting despite all the difficulties and the issues and everything the murkiness that has gone on in communications is this something that is going to carry forward and as uh council member Shaq so I think you know for those watching at home tuned in at home all five of And uh you know the folks sitting in the audience, there is a reason that we're kind of agonizing a bit over this and um and we'll agonize over future projects, including one other tonight, I'm sure as well. Um it is a large structure. It's doubling the floor space of of the current house. So, you know, for me that just kind of feels a little off and and um you know, if if this was a a totally conforming project and you know, you can build as much as you want or you know, there's nothing that we can do about this, but this isn't a a conforming project at this point. On the other hand, I also understand my husband's in a a project manager and designer in commercial real estate. Um and so I know, you know, how much redesign costs, especially at this stage. Um, so I appreciate those things. I also appreciate though as somebody who used to live in Washington DC and was married to a developer, um, you know, how good the Minnetonka staff is in terms of providing guidance and providing communication. You're in DC or a lot of other cities across Minnesota or the country. It's like you come in, it doesn't matter what staff says when. What matters is the plans and they they won't stand by it. they won't, you know, it it's just it's a lot tougher for developers and builders elsewhere. So, I think we should recognize first of all the great service that staff does in providing communication. I don't think residents and I sometimes think developers don't fully appreciate that either. Um, and I do want to take a moment as the as the spouse of of a developer or a project manager who works with developers and construction uh people and architects is that it is on the architects and the developers um to look at ordinances and tree plans and create your own site map and know what you're it's not up to staff to tell you and hold your hand. especially, you know, the the more uh reputable. We're not talking about, you know, Joe and Jane doing their own renovation here. We are talking about, you know, reputable developers and builders who are doing this work. And you know, you know what a root zone is. Um, and you know, if staff didn't get to you, I'm sorry. You know, you should have done that. And and I hope going forward that you will take that into account what our root zone is, what a 30% is. be reading all of your plans and developing your plans against all of the ordinances. That's what you should be doing. Um what regardless of what staff is saying if you have questions and you can ask staff directly on those things. So that's my opinion on those things. Um and that sounds like it wasn't done here. Um and um regardless again of what staff says now, is this a hill I'm willing to die on? No, probably not. I think it's murky enough. I am concerned about the fairness precedent. But what I would like to do is um if we do go forward and there are the votes to do this, I would like to ask staff it's if it's possible to put conditions on this to um I would say double the caliber of the trees and require those to be replaced at staff's discretion in terms of tree species. I think that's my way out of this um that I could see doing this. I I am not thrilled about approving this, especially for such a large footprint, which quite honestly is three times the size of my own home. Um, you know, I think this could have been done better by the firm by doing their due diligence on their tree inventorying and seeing where that root zone was and realizing reading the ordinance ordinance and not just saying staff, is this okay? That's your job. Um that said, I'm I'm willing to, you know, go forward on that basis with the condition of uh replacement at double the caliper at least if if that's if staff feels that that is possible and appropriate in this in this instance. [Applause] >> Other comments? Anyone? >> All right, I'll I'll comment. Um you know, this is this is challenging. It's a unique set of circumstances. Um but I go back to um I mean this is a unique lot and the the structure that's proposed is unique and um and you know um the percentages are close but as I've tackled this job over the years I've always worked to be objective That's been my I don't know if I've always been successful, but that's been my goal. I want to be objective. I want to be factbased. And I look at our tree ordinance, and it says 35%. Um, it doesn't say 35.7, it doesn't say 36, it says 35. Um, I look at our definition of significant trees and I'll be honest, I I do think that box elders are weeds. That's my opinion. But we have not that's my opinion. Um the fact of the matter is they are one of the species that could be that is considered um a significant tree. And we provide these rules to be um to provide direction and objectivity to what we're going to do. And so while this is really close in a lot of ways, again quoting Maxwell Smart, you missed it by that much. The fact of the matter is you didn't make it by that much. You missed it by that much. And um you know, I think that I if if we start compromising on our on our rules, then we are going to be compromising on a lot of rules. and our we've made our job a lot tougher and I believe in the rule of law and if we have bad laws then let's change the laws let's not say hey we're not going to enforce that that is that has become too popular in in our society and in our in our county not to get too political but you know we say well it's a bad law so we're not going to enforce it no we have we if we are going to um if we believe in the rule of law and I for one do I won't tell the rest of the council that they need to but I believe in the rule of law and the rule of law is the law we've got in the books and if it needs to be changed then it's our responsibility to change it but right now this project does not meet those objective criteria so I've really been torn I've been all over the map on this personally But at the end of the day, if I'm going to go back to my values and stand up for what I believe in, I have to vote no. And that's what I'm going to do. So, that's where we've all stated an opinion now. Um, we're going to need a motion one way or the other. And, uh, we've got two options before us. So, council, who who would like to make a motion? And if there's any other comments, you're welcome to make them. But um Council Kley, >> I'll make the motion to approve the um alteration um variance for the tree. I don't know. >> So this is what staff's recommending. Is that the motion you're making or you're making? >> So you approve the slope and the tree. >> Okay. Is this >> This is what the planning commission recommended. I want to make a motion to approve it. the tree variant. Yeah, that's >> okay. >> All right. Council member Kling, >> I'll make the um recommendation to approve the flood plane alteration and tree removal variance as the buildable area of the property is constraint. The removal of non-conforming house and replacement with a more confirming structure is reasonable. >> All right, we've got a motion. Is there a second? >> Council member Foster Bolton. >> I'll second. >> All right, got a mot um um Miss Wishnack or Ms. Thomas. >> I I just want to remind the council the vote count on this is required to have five because it's a variance. So just a reminder when that >> vote count comes through um depending on how it's done. We'll come back to this if it doesn't pass. Okay. >> Very good. Um >> may I just ask a quick question here? um my idea of conditions being put on that. Does this have to be voted down before we come back to something with potential conditions? Is that where we're >> um >> um Mr. Nelson? >> Thank you. Uh mayor, uh Council Member Rome, the um if you're approving the variance, you can impose a condition on the variance. It could be a friendly amendment, I think, if that if the maker of motion is amendable to that. Um and and again you had asked the question whether that's possible conditions in general on a variance um they have to have a nexus to the nature of the variance requested issue which this which this does and they have to be reasonable and I think arguably your proposed condition uh sounds seems like it meets both of those requirements. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. >> That's what we're doing right now. >> So we've got we've got a motion and a second. >> We don't have a motion. the condition that >> that that's true but we've also had no friendly we have had no friendly amendment offered >> I can do it okay so I can do it >> and I have a question also >> so my question I just want to make sure that everyone here is clear that we if we vote yes on this we are voting yes on the tree varants so I just wanted to make sure okay >> that is correct so we've got a motion by council member Calbert and a second by councilor Foster Bolton. Um, Miss Larson, would you please call roll? >> Foster Bolton. >> Yes. With the conditions. >> Well, we don't have a friendly amendment. So, we don't have conditions yet. >> I have to make the >> Sorry. Yes. Sorry. >> Well, do you do you do you want to make a friendly and you have to get the the agreement from the motioner? >> So, >> okay. Um, can I do that? >> Council member. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, I will make the friendly amendment then. I would ask staff to make the friendly amendment on this to uh to require applicant to replace uh lost tree with uh two times the caliber of new trees at staff's discretion. >> And is that acceptable to council member Kley, the motioner? >> Okay. So, are we uh are we meeting legal precedent here? So now we have a motion with an amendment regarding uh tree replacement. Mr. Nelson, >> I think approval. >> Mr. Mayor. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> Yeah, Mr. Mayor, you're I you're you are good to go. >> Okay. And and and um the seconder does the second concur? >> Yes. >> All right. So I think we've covered all of our bases. So all right, Miss Larson. Now, as amended, we've got a motion and a second with Council Member Calvert. Um, Council I mean, excuse me, Council Member uh Kley. It's it I've got I've got C's on both ends here. Okay. Council member Kley with a second by Council Member Foster Bolton and a friendly amendment by Council Member Rome. >> All right. We're going to we're going to start over and that's what we're um voting on. And Miss Larson, go ahead. >> From the top. from the top. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> no. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Wearsome, >> no. >> So, we have five votes. So, motion carries. All right. Very good. Um, let's see. Should we take a 5m minute break before we get into the next item? Well, we we'll take Yeah. 5 to 7 minute break. Thank you. All right, I I will call the meeting back to order. And um um we are through most of the agenda, but not most of the night, I think. Um, so item 14B is items concerning Marsh Run 3, a rental apartment development at 11800 Weisetta Boulevard. And Miss Thomas, I believe you have that report. >> Uh, thank you again, uh, mayor and councel. Before I jump into the proposal that's before you tonight, I I want to review a little bit of the history, uh, of the site and the area. Some council members will remember that uh back in 2019, the city reviewed and ultimately approved the Marsh Run redevelopment project, which we now call the Burke on the east side of Fairfield Road. Uh that includes a 175 unit apartment building. Then four years later, we jumped to the west um and in 2023 reviewed and approved the council did the marsh run 2 proposal which is the 197 unit apartment building that we now refer to uh as the veil in 2024. Then uh the council and planning commission provided feedback on a concept plan for redevelopment of Marsh Run 3, the the only remaining office condo building there on Weisetta Boulevard. At that time, uh, Inland Development Prop Indian, excuse me, Inland Development Partners, uh, suggested a concept plan that included removal of that existing office building and construction of 26 three-story rental town homes situated in uh, one of four buildings. So, 26 total units. Following that concept plan uh review process, Inland then submitted formal applications, formal development review applications in March of this year. Uh in many ways reflected that original concept plan. the unit count was reduced to 25 but still three-story um rental town homes uh situated again in four uh buildings though the unit count in each of those buildings was slightly changed. That project was introduced at the council. you referred it to the planning commission meeting or the planning commission, but that body never met on this project because the applicant decided to reconsider their plans based on all of the feedback that they had heard through the concept plan review and then again at the introduction uh of this rental town home proposal. And so now we come to the actual current proposal before you submitted uh in uh June of this year. This is a showing a slide from the planning commission review in in July. Again, these formal plans show removal of that existing office building about 1,300 square ft constructed back in the the mid80s and construction of a fourstory uh 44 unit apartment building. So, going from town homes uh to apartments. The first story of the building would be enclosed parking space as well as a uh small lobby and some leasing uh office space. And then floors 2 through 4 would be the residential units. uh those units would be one and two store or excuse one and two bedroom units and 20% of them would be affordable to households earning 50% of area median income and this is where I turn it over to Miss Wishnack to talk about affordability. >> Thank you, Miss Thomas. um and I'll turn it back to her in a second, but I'll just jump in here with some of the affordability um provisions in the proposal. So, uh as you know, every proposal that has um uh new construction of housing, there is a requirement for affordable units to be included and the percentage changes depending on what's being requested. And so in this particular case, there are there is a request for financing part of the affordability. And so that jumps the percentage up to 20% at 50% area median income. And below you can kind of see the breakdown of units. Five one-bedroom units. The market rents for those would be normally $853 per month and that moves down to 1241 in a 50% unit. Also, the square footages are noted here, too. So, you can see the size. And then on the next um box in that chart, you can see there are four units at um 50%. That's a two-bedroom situation. Normally, that would be at 2610. And when you have a 50% unit, that moves to $1,490 a month. The financing request is uh for $850,000. We did look at that at the Economic Development Commission. they did provide feedback. Um they were supportive of the project uh in terms of the affordability. These are some of the conditions or some of the contractual conditions that are in the packet later on when you get to the EDA side of things. Um there's no action at your council meeting per se that requires uh you to sign off as a council. But later on when you meet as the EDA uh depending on how the land use item is proceeding or not proceeding uh this would be considered at that point. The actual pay as you go note and if you don't know what that means it's you're paying taxes as you go and the increment is distributed to the developer commensurate with those increase in taxes. Let's just say the increase in taxes don't occur, then the developer does not receive increment for uh the affordability. So, uh that's at 5% interest and it's for a 15-year term. It's not for the for the full term. If you don't remember, this was in the tip district originally. So, when the veil was being developed, there's a tiff district that included this parcel. Uh we knew that redevelopment was going to happen on this parcel at some point. And actually originally I think it was a hotel that was uh on the master development plan and then turned to housing obviously later on. There are also some conditions in the contract that talk about the term of affordability has to be 30 years. They have to accept section 8 vouchers if the person applying for those units has that section 8 approval. They must provide a 90-day notice of sale to the city if they go through that. And then there's a property management covenant as well within that contract. Uh this is just some of the specific feedback the EDAC uh provided. I'm not going to go into too much detail. If you have questions about that, we can talk more about that later on in the evening and then we're going to turn it back to Susan and she'll continue with the proposal. >> Uh thanks Miss Wishnack. So jumping back then into design. This again shows the uh the layout of uh the main floor which is again existing excuse me enclosed parking and then three stories of residences above to accommodate the uh building uh and the parking areas both the enclosed area and then the northerly surface lot and the southerntherly surface lot that you see shown here on the right hand side of your screen. Um, earthwork would certainly occur. In general, 2 to four feet of fill would be added to areas of the property to raise grade above the flood plane areas which are uh to the west side of the site. There's a small area flood plane. It's a little bit difficult to see here. Um, that would be filled about 3.1 cubic acres and re uh created uh 3.6 6 cubic acres. This is a a flood plane alteration level that staff can administratively approve. Um does not require uh council approval. It's a very low amount of of flood plane alteration. New storm water practices would be added to a site that currently has none. Uh those would include an underground facility uh to the north underneath the uh proposed parking area. And this earthwork and construction of the building would result in removal of 14 high priority trees and one significant tree. The proposal requires a master development plan approval and then site and building plan review and approval with two expansion permits to flood plane uh setback and wetland setback. Uh expansion permits are required because although the proposal would not meet our current ordinance um the existing structure does not and and this is an improvement in both situations over the uh existing structure. The proposal also includes a front yard setback variance from 35 ft to 30 ft and then a floor area ratio uh variance. The proposal has been reviewed by uh all members of the city's uh development review team. You'll recall at your uh tour you received a packet of information that talks about uh those team members. And so our our recommendation is based on the collective discussion and consensus of that group. The first thing our group discussed and considered was whether or not the proposed highdensity residential development or residential use of this site is appropriate. And we find that it is essentially it just continues what has been a 30 plus year uh redevelopment of this northwest quadrant of Hopkins Crossroad and uh 394. Uh you'll notice on uh the left hand side of your screen an aerial photograph from 1988 before uh the redevelopment started. Um over 60 uh single family homes uh were removed and resulted in what we call the Boulevard Gardens West Market uh redevelopment. Your staff report includes the whole history of this area. I I'm not going to go into that here. In staff's opinion, the abuse also uh reflects uh the comprehensive guide plan over the last two comprehensive guide plan cycles, which envisioned uh more intense uh or dense use of these sites. In 2023, all of the properties along uh Weisetta Boulevard uh but for some existing highdensity residential uh west of Ridgedale Drive were actually guided commercial, which is a higher intensity use than the office use of the site. And then in 2024, the council approved the comprehensive guide plan, changing this site and others to u mixed use, recognizing that a variety of uses may be appropriate. uh for the site staff next considered traffic and parking. Um I will go into these charts if you would like me to at at a later point but again this just shows the proposal comparison uh between uh existing structure proposed structure and then also the town home development and uh what is actually proposed here. So I apologize for skipping over that. Uh we will go then to traffic and parking. The city did commission a traffic study uh for this proposal. And like all traffic studies, uh there were three objectives. to review the existing uh roadway and intersection operations and their capacities, to evaluate the impacts this proposal would have on those intersections and their capacities, and then to recommend any necessary improvements uh were this project uh to go forward. The traffic study looked at eight intersections uh including Weisetta Boulevard and Fairfield Road, Fairfield Road and the Burke Driveway access on the west side of the Burke site and then Weisetta Boulevard and the Burke garage access on Weisetta Boulevard. So those counts were taken and then they were put into a traffic model along with some other assumptions. for example, um and I should say all traffic models include assumptions about um development that may occur uh in the area. So the assumptions here were that the actual counts from the Burke that were taken uh this year traffic into and out of the Burke those numbers were extrapolated and uh modeled for the veil assuming full occupancy of the veil. The study also assumed full occupancy of the commercial areas in Westridge market to the east. uh staff wants a traffic study to assume a worst case scenario uh for traffic and that's what this uh study did. The study found that the surrounding intersections operate at acceptable levels of service A and B. There is one intersection that operates at a C level uh in the PM peak hour that is the Hopkins Crossroad um Weisetta Boulevard intersection. So not in specific proximity to this. This proposal would generate a total of 200 daily vehicle trips. That's actually slightly less than the daily vehicle trips for the office building that's existing there if it were fully occupied. And then the study found that uh the surrounding intersections were this proposal built would continue to operate at acceptable levels of levels of service. excuse me, A and B uh levels of service, which is a a high level of service, and they would continue that operation without any changes to the existing roadway or intersection configuration. [Applause] So, on to parking. Uh the parking proposed here uh including the uh enclosed spaces and the surface spaces would exceed the parking uh demand anticipated by the institute of transportation engineers. It would also meet the city codes uh requirement as do the Burke and the Veil. We know that there's been a lot of conversation about parking uh in this area and and staff and certainly the council are aware of the fact that when the Burke opened um residents, guests of the Burke uh chose to park uh in many cases on Fairfield Road uh or in this particular parking lot. Much of the Fairfield Road parking issue has been resolved through the installation of no parking signs. Um, as I indicated, the planning commission staff continues to be aware of the fact that some guests and residents choose to park on the subject property uh when going to the Burke. Um, that said, staff is not hearing that there is not enough parking at the Burke or the Veil. fact visits to the Burke um and information from their management company suggests that there is enough parking rather staff is hearing about nuisance parking on uh this particular property. So in staff's opinion and the opinion of uh the professional consultants that we hired to look at this proposal, this apartment and others in the area are not underparked. um they would meet parking demand. Uh before the planning commission meeting, I was um interested in understanding from the police department to get some data from them what they are seeing. Uh staff can only speak to the complaints that we as planning staff received. You may have uh heard in the planning commission me report that in 2023 the police department received 20 parking complaints uh related specifically to on street parking on Fairfield Road and they issued 12 tickets at that time. In 2024, police received one complaint and issued one ticket. And then uh as of the planning commission meeting, uh the police had received no complaints about on street parking on Fairfield Road. [Applause] Jumping back then to site design, uh this proposal would meet the provisions of the tree protection ordinance. It would under in other words be below that threshold that we allow for removal of high priority and significant trees. It would exceed the green space requirement uh for projects uh in this zoning district. And looking more broadly from staff's perspective again there's a significant amount of green space uh in the area that is publicly controlled. So, there's the large uh wetland complex to the northwest of this site as well as the 14 acre Oberlin Park. Um the park itself is within uh a 5-minute walk uh from the site. So, it provides outdoor amenities to this property as well as quite frankly all of the other um highdensity residential properties uh in the area. There are some amenities uh on site uh both outdoor and indoor that are proposed. I want to uh take just a quick minute to highlight hopefully you can see my cursor. Um trails have been a big uh topic of conversation. The sidewalk that is along um Fairfield Road as well as the trails in Oberlin Park are obviously uh public. those are uh maintained uh by the city. There's also um some trails, this may be a little bit difficult to see, that come off of uh the Fairfield Road sidewalk uh behind the town homes here, the Gables Town Homes. Those trails were constructed by CSM uh corporation uh the main developer of this entire project back in 19 uh 95 or so. Those trails are on property that is owned by CSM. the document that's recorded at the county um grants an easement over those trails to the town home associations to the city of Minnitonka and to the public to utilize those trails. Uh that document also notes that CSM is responsible for the costs associated with maintenance of those trails. That again is based on the document that is recorded uh at Henipin County staff. The next uh getting off of site design, we considered um the building design. We find that uh for a 44 unit apartment building, it is uh both reasonable and attractive. It incorporates materials and a color palette of the newer um buildings on either side to the east and the west. And then finally, staff considered those expansion permits and variances and and we find that they're reasonable. They're meeting the city code uh standard uh the statutory standard. Both the flood plane and wetland setbacks would improve upon the existing structure. the front yard setback and the F would be comparable to those approved uh in the neighboring properties, not only the new construction um apartment buildings, but the town homes and condominiums to the north. Uh the site itself is constrained. It's north south dimension is three times longer than its east west dimension. and the floodplane areas and wetland areas to the west essentially squeeze that buildable area of this over one acre site down to about a half acre. And then finally, uh staff uh believes that the expansion permits and variances would not themselves alter the character of the neighborhood. Rather, they would result in a development that is in fact more characteristic of the neighborhood uh than the existing um office building. [Applause] To conclude then uh in the opinion of staff the applicant's proposal is uh reasonable, it's appropriate, it would continue the redevelopment activities in this area and reflect the land use pattern that has already been established here. This chart has a lot of information. Uh we can certainly go over it if you have questions, but it outlines the um the various densities, the floor area ratios, the setbacks that were approved, impervious surfaces that were approved uh both for the new construction apartment buildings and the older uh town homes and condominiums. We do understand uh and empathize with area residents who are uh frustrated by fatigued by uh uh construction that has occurred in this area over the last 5 years. We also understand that redevelopment of this property uh is inevitable whether it is in the short term or the more distant uh term be it again this project or something else. So with that, we do uh recommend approval of this project with the various conditions that are uh included in your staff drafted resolution. With that, I would turn it back to uh the mayor. >> Thank you, Miss Thomas. Um appreciate the presentation and I'll turn it um I'll look to council to see if you have any questions regarding the staff report. I'm not seeing any. So, um then I will turn it over to the applicant and say um and invite you um to come forward and u make any presentation that you would like uh to make. Good evening. >> Well, good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. I'm Anne Barren and I'm with the development team inland and Doran on this project. Um, we appreciate your time and as you've heard, we're here to ask for your support for our 44 unit uh apartment project with nine affordable units. And I think there's been so much conversation about Burke and Veil in this neighborhood that it's I think helpful to maybe take a step back and talk a little bit about that history. Um, when we developed Burke, that was the first project that we had done in the city of Minnetonka. 175 apartments and that project has 35 affordable units and um it was highly controversial at that time and I will tell you that there were a lot of naysayers uh among the development community because it was a project that um was a class A high-end market rate apartment building with 35 affordable units within the building and we um were questioned as to why we were doing it and we did it and it has been an incredibly wonderful successful project. It um it really set for us um a strategy and a precedent for how we wanted to do development and how we wanted um to move projects forward. And so um Burke was the beginning. Uh what exists at Burke is a um building that is always occupied at over 95% since it opened. We have a number of residents that have lived there uh from the beginning and it is a vibrant community and it is people who are um living in kind of all different circumstances together um and it's working. And so then the next project we did in the city of Minnetonka was Elcott. That was a much larger project, 350 apartments that's off of Shady Oak Road. And with that project, um, we delivered 53 affordable units, again, same concept in a class A high-end market rate, uh, building as part of that project. And then the next project was Veil. And Veil just opened in July, uh, July 1st, 197 units. And with that project, we delivered 40 affordable units. Um, uh, listening to the strategic plan update from this year, 40 affordable units have been delivered so far. So I can say we are responsible for 100% of the affordable units that have been delivered in the city this year. Um but actually looking at those statistics um so far we have delivered 128 affordable units. This would this project would add nine more. Um, so when I I look at those numbers, I it's I feel pretty proud to be able to say that we as a team are responsible for a good percentage of those affordable units that have um come online in the city of Minnetonka in the last 5 years. um with every single one of our projects and it's our intention to do the same with this project. We have partnered with um one of two different organizations uh the Frasier Group or Main Sale and we have uh different ones at different projects but one of them at every single building and um both of those organizations are focused on providing affordable highquality housing to adults with disabilities. And I bring that up because um when we think about who lives in these communities um that is a very specific need um that when we we first launched a focus on it um at Burke uh we did it, we tested it, it worked, we expanded it, and we've done that with every single building. We now have groups of people with disabilities that are living independently with support in every single one of our buildings um that we've developed and delivered to Minnetonka. And um I I just I want to make the point I I think for those of you that have been on the council a while and have heard from me before um I my kids all go to the Minnotonka schools. We are people who live here. We're part of this community. This development team is invested in this community. We are long-term owners. We're long-term managers. We're at these buildings every week. We know what's going on in these communities. So, we care. We're local. We're here. And we're really focused on our goal. And every single one of the projects that we have brought before this council has been um controversial and has received significant opposition. Not one of these has been easy. Um, and what I'll say is that the demands of staff and this council is is for highquality projects and we think that we meet that. Um, it is very difficult um to uh figure out how to combat just a a perception that there's there's um housing isn't needed. Dense housing, highquality housing isn't needed. affordable housing isn't something that's needed or or should be provided. And so for us um we are very focused on what we are trying to do. And with this project, we think we are completing uh this neighborhood is it is the last parcel within this three um parcel group right along uh Weisetta Boulevard there that needs to be redeveloped. Um, as you heard from staff, there's a outdated office building um with a pretty dilapidated surface parking lot, no storm water management, which is a real problem here because we are right up against uh the wetlands. So, um this project was um really really challenging. It's much smaller, you know, than other projects that we've done, but it took over a year and a half of work to get here. Uh much of that was working very closely with staff. So, there's been comments tonight about just the quality of detail and work that that staff uh does. And I just want to reiterate that um staff has been really really um incredible. They they were not always supportive of everything that we were proposing. They challenged us. They worked with us, but they helped us get to a design um that works on this very unique and very challenging site. Um I just I want to go through let's see a couple slides here. Um what you're seeing in front of you is the concept plan. Um I should have introduced my team. I'm here with Tom Shaver who's another one of the development partners uh on this project and then Matt Zelmer who's our lead architect. He'll talk briefly about uh the design and staff touched on some of the timeline. So I don't need know that I need to go through all of these slides again. Um but I want to just highlight a couple steps. Um about a year and a half ago, we started talking to staff about the design and you see the iteration here of the the different versions, but we we were really focused on doing a town home project to try to kind of mirror what was already happening in the neighborhood. There's a um a a condo building and then multiple three-story town home buildings. The condo's four stories and they're in the in close proximity. So, we thought we'll try to do something, you know, similar. Um, with the constraints of the site, what ended up happening, and you can kind of see it in the images here, is we just the setbacks. We were too close to Fairfield. We couldn't get the drive lanes to be workable. Um, and so we we reduced the project slightly. Um, with the town home project, uh, we were proposing all threebedroom town homes, which is similar to what exists in the neighborhood. And I bring that up because the first version was 78 bedrooms. The second version with 25 town homes was 75 bedrooms. And although now we're proposing a 44 unit apartment project, we're actually proposing 65 bedrooms. So from an overall density standpoint as far as how many people will live here, we're actually probably slightly smaller than we would have been with the town home projects. Um, so we're in many ways I think um doing a project that's similar as far as what it's adding to this community for people. Um, but the building has changed shape and we really listen to what staff was telling us and said, "Okay, rather than trying to mirror the design of the town homes, let's actually go back. Let's look at Burke. Let's look at Veil. Let's look at the lowercale portions of those buildings and start there with design." And that's what you're seeing uh before you. Through that process, we have had two different neighborhood meetings. Um one last summer, almost a year ago, and then one last December. Um multiple different iterations of the plans and finally got to a point where we had something that um staff supported and we felt good about. And that's what you see before you tonight. Um, I I want to stop there and turn it over to Matt to talk a bit about design, but one last thing that I I do want to note, there are things about this proposal that that are not in front of you that you don't see on the plans, like development of a community garden, like um piloting a composting plan at an apartment building. these the the idea with this building because it's much smaller, but it still has all of the building systems that exist in the other communities that we manage in town. It is going to be a pilot project for things like that. A place for us to test to see how things work before we implement it on a scale of 200 plus apartments. So, I do just want to note that because as you think about some of the things that you'll hear from Matt as far as building design, our intention is that this becomes a place, you know, where some of those things are are able to be tested and then hopefully uh implemented at at large uh through the rest of our apartments. So, I will turn it over to Matt Zelmer and I will stand for questions. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. Welcome, Mayor, Council. Uh I will add on to what Ann had to say here uh and go over some of the design strategies that we looked at over the course of this year and a half. Um without trying to be too redundant here. Um as you can see on the image on the screen uh the existing parking lot size uh for the building that is there now and then the two iterations of town homes. One of the things that we were doing um trying to blend in with the existing town homes to the north uh that we were finding was actually that we were limiting ourselves on the amount of green space. In the meetings that we had with the neighborhood and with city staff, um we really found that just in our pullback in the December 2024 town home configuration to 25 units, we really increased that northern setback, that adjacency to the town homes to provide a little more buffer, also to protect some of those trees that are on that existing hill now that provides some screening. Um but we were hearing and we would agree that we were still very close to Fairfield. um this is not a super wide road and we were impeding on a lot of the green space that is there now. And so in the new plan, one of the things that we looked to do was take what is essentially four separate building footprints and condense them down into the middle of the site. Um it is a tricky site. It's not much more than an acre. It is very narrow in that east to west dimension and its setbacks are placed such uh that are comate commiserate with a lot of the other I394 um properties which typically have an acreage of 3 acres or more. So, this being the kind of last site, the infill site pinned in between Fairfield and the wetlands, um we wanted to give obviously all of the um priority to the setbacks against the wetland and then seek to create more green space, reinstitute trees along the boulevard on Fair View, and then provide some surface parking in addition to interior parking. So design-wise, um, as Anne had mentioned, we looked from a stylistic standpoint, um, to kind of be between what we did at Vale and what we did at Burke, uh, to really make it, uh, come together as three buildings in a community and not stand out. And then from a size and scale standpoint, if we do we have slide, you can keep going. These are all the individual iterations to see how the changes were happening. And then that's the current. And then if you go one more, um, what we did was put together kind of a a section analysis just to kind of show heightwise um, what this building is moving from, uh, from three-story town homes to a four-story uh, multifamily building. On the top, what you can see is Burke. Burke's size as a building. Um, and in a lot of the feedback that we had during the design process with the city, uh, and the neighborhood was actually to step it down, uh, from what on the south side is a five-story wood building sitting on a one-story above grade podium, um, and step down to three as we move to the north um, against the town homes. And so what we've done with the uh proposed building here on the Marshon 3 site is rather than go to that fivetory and step down to three on the north, we've cut it down to three stories of wood on one story of podium kind of the whole way to help bring down that scale. And so what you can see here is we've moved from what was in that first design being very close to the northern property line. We've stepped back very far in the second iteration um and now here we're around 70 ft to the south of that property line. uh doing what we can to maintain that tree buffer um and get some separation both visually and just physically in space from those neighbors. So heightwise um we have a very similar height to what the Burke is and a very similar distance away from those existing town homes. And with that I will uh yield back. Ian, did you have anything to add? Nope. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, council, um, let's see. Any any questions for the, um, for the applicant? Um, council, >> we're letting you off the hook. That sounds pretty good, >> actually. I think Go ahead. >> Can you explain, >> Council Foster Bolton? Go ahead. Sorry. Yep, you're good. >> Can you explain stepdowns again? I mean, I I don't get it. >> Sure. Um on the Burke building, uh I don't know if we have an image in the slide, but the the south edge of of Burke along Minnotonka Boulevard is actually a five-story wood building sitting on one story above grade of parking garage. Um and then as that building transitions to that wing that's along the north um you can kind of see there it actually steps down two levels or reduces two levels in height of what the wood building and units are. So what we're doing is acknowledging that you know potential shadow lines and looming over the neighboring town homes that we should do a reduction there in the total height of the building. >> Okay. So it's not the same building. The same building. This is two. Can you put it back to that? >> Oh, sorry. >> And we can zoom in. >> This is the same building. >> Thank you. >> Yep. And and just to add a little color to that because some of us were here when that occurred. Um that was part of the conversation. I I believe that the original design was not there and after the give and take um the decision was made to change the change the design so that it would step down closer to the neighboring town hall homes and the taller portion of the building would be along 394. So that's that's step down I believe. All right. Any council um any other questions? >> Council member Shaq, >> I have a question related to something that might come up later and so maybe you can research it. But do you happen to know how long the trail is, the dog walking trail around? Is that like a quarter mile or Are you speaking of the trail around the pond behind veil? >> Behind the veil. Yeah. >> Um I can we can research it and try to get an answer to you. I think probably a a quarter to a third of a mile is is a pretty good guesstimate. Um visually it might be a actually a little bit longer than that. I mean you can see you can see it in yellow here on the map. So, you know, for those of you that are familiar with this area, um yeah, if maybe I don't know if we have a zoom out where we could see it relative to the park, that might be a helpful help helpful reference point, but um definitely less than a mile. >> Thank Thank you, Council Member Mey. Excuse me. >> Thank you. Um, can I ask I just something came up to me uh for staff rather than the applicant or do we have to wait on that? >> Um, well, go ahead. We're we'll try and get this done then. Go ahead. >> Yeah, thank you. Sorry, I'm I'm uh remembering this late. Can you just remind me or tell me because I'm kind of curious about this and I think I Mike and I talked about this. How long has this been um kind of in in like going back how far has this been either a commercially zoned or you know kind of commercially zoned or high density? I think in the presentation in the um you you talked about this going from a higher potentially higher use more intense use commercial zone in the last comprehensive plan and the 2020 comprehensive plan where it went down to mix. How long before that was it, you know, kind of conceivably that heavy industrial or indust can you just kind of go through that for me, please? >> Uh, yes, certainly, mayor and council members, the property, what you're seeing here is the comprehensive the 2030 comprehensive guide plan, which would have been completed in 2009. Okay? >> So, it's been two cycles. At that time, the property was guided for commercial development. So the office building on that project was not commercial development that would be office. So at that time the city uh council approved the guiding of this whole stretch for commercial. So a more intense use um than the existing office building like retail uh for instance uh would be considered more intense than a residential use. Um then in the 2040 comp plan which the PLA planning commission reviewed and the council approved back in 2019 um things that had previously been guided for commercial or guided mixed use um because the council recognized that we might not anticipate the various uses that may be um suggested for a site. Uh and so mixed use in Minnotonka means just a variety of uses may be considered acceptable and so uh that would be commercial, that would be highdensity residential. All of those uses would be covered by this mixeduse designation. >> Thank you. So I'm just yeah kind of confirming that for a long time this has been kind of slated as either something that is could either be like much more intense retail and now you know now kind of foreseen since in the last 5 years re-imagined as something that could see more of a mix of uses not just kind of high intensity commercial or correct okay thank you >> all right are there any other questions from councel All right. Well, we do have a few folks in the audience. Um, and so, um, I know that there are some folks who want to make comments. I'm, um, you know, I'd like to have a sense. We're not going to do this all night. Um, so, um, I I'm just wondering with a show of hands, um, who would like to speak tonight? because I'm what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna all lot an amount of time and I'm gonna do the arithmetic. Um so, you know, I'm I'm seeing um probably um I'm going to say about 15 hands. Is that a fair count? Um um and so if um if we say we're going to spend um I'm going to say 15. if if we're going to spend uh 45 minutes to an hour, um people will get three to we're going to say 3 to four minutes and I'm going to hold you to that. So, um please come forward. We like brief comments better than we like lengthy comments, but um restrict your comments and and uh when you get to three minutes, I'll tell you to wrap it up and I'll give you a minute to do that. So, no more than four minutes. And um I'm going to also ask people to line up. And the reason I'm having you to do that is because if I don't, then we're going to get somebody to come up and they're going to make their comment and they're going to sit down and then people are going to look around and is anybody else going to come up? Well, maybe. Oh, I guess I will. And so then we managed to take a threeminut comment and turn it into a six-minute comment because it takes three minutes to get somebody up there saying it. So, but if you're lined up, then I know you intend to speak. As soon as someone's done, you can start and when nobody is lined up, we're done and and the public hearing will finish. So, I want to be respectful to everyone, but I also want to be mindful of time. Um, a lot of what um you know, we we we watch the planning commission. Um, we've read the comments that have come in. Uh, we care about what you have to say, but we're not going to be here till midnight. So, um, so that's what we're going to do. We're going to target no more than than an hour for comments, and if we can wrap it up more quickly than that, um, we will. So, and I've got my I've got my handydandy iPhone here, and, um, I'm going to just, uh, set the timer and I will, uh, I will let you know when, uh, when you've used your three minutes and ask you to wrap it up within 60 seconds after that. So, um, >> mayor, you spent an hour and a half on a tree. Ma'am, you are out of order. And I'll tell you what, um we if you have a comment, come forward, state your name and address. And um and um I make the rules in this room and I just made them. So if you want to come, if you want to speak, come forward and uh state your name and address and follow the rules. And if you don't want to follow the rules, you can leave. So um please um anyone who'd like to speak, come forward and state your name and address. [Applause] I'm Amanda Valla and I live at 11700 Wisetta Boulevard. >> This is my mother, Lisa. >> I'm Amanda. Thank you. Um, thank you, mayor and council members. My name is Lisa Bala, and I am the parent and legal guardian of Amanda, and she's a young adult with a disability who needs support services to live semi-independently. And as an aging parent, I have been worried about where she would live when I was gone. She has lived her dream for the past four and a half years at the Burke Apartments, which are located across from the Marsh Run 3. Because of the affordable units at the Burke, she can afford to pay her own rent from her earnings from her jobs and her social security benefits. After hearing our story, a friend of mine was interested in moving her son into the Burke and she made a call to put her son's name on the affordable apartment list. She is number 40 for zero on the list. We still need more affordable housing in Minnitonka. There is an amazing community at the Burke as a dozen of Amanda's friends live there. They do activities together also with the broader Burke community. Burke prop property management plans fun activities for the entire community. All the residents and our young adults participate in cookouts, food trucks, bingo. Manda is not a public speaker, but I would like to ask her one question. Amanda, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your life at the Burke? I would rate my life at the Burke a 10. I really like hanging with my friends and having more affordable housing in Minnetonka. It's the best decision you could ever make on Dorne's behalf. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> And we don't we don't applaud. I'm sorry, but I that was very brave of you, but I'm I have to be consistent. So, welcome. And your name? >> Abby Hers 11700. Was that a boulevard at the Burke? >> Good evening. My name is Abby and like many of you, as I became a young adult, my goal was to live in my own place. My parents and my older brother helped me work on life skills and independent and encouraged me to follow my dream. I have lived at the Burke for almost 5 years and I love it. The apartments are beautiful and I love being responsible for my own space. The location is very important. It is close to shopping near my work and most importantly close to my family. I have met many nice people and have many friends. I love the inclusive and welcoming community of the Burke and the kindness of the management team. I am all I am so proud that with some supports in place I'm able to live independently and so grateful that we found the Burke. Thank you. >> Thank you Abby. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. My name is Mike Israel. I live at 11700 Weisetta Boulevard aka the Burke. I'm in one of the units that overlooks the u monstrosity of a office building which hopefully will be torn down soon. The reason I'm here though is that my roommate is my uh 28-year-old daughter who is also developmentally disabled. Uh we're in one of the uh market rate units, but her um all of her friends that um she's uh come to gain since we moved there 3 years ago are part of this community of uh developmentally disabled adults. And I will say that having lived there three years and seeing how this community functions, uh I think it's an absolute uh gem of a of a community. I'm waiting for one of the TV stations to do a news story about it because the way that the uh that these residents and the other residents uh live together and play together and respect each other is uh something that I think is just uh is wonderful. and anything that will uh provide more of this type of housing I think is something that um uh should be uh resolutely supported. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Ezrael. >> Good evening. Hi, my name is Janice Scott and I live in the Bay Hill condominiums which are um past the town home community and I've lived there since the building was built. I owned a cabinet shop for 25 years and was a member of the builder association. The condominium building was um built by a builder who actually was awarded the Trillium Award for architecture. It's beautiful. We put a lot of money into our property. We have a full-time maintenance person that we pay to be on site and our homeowners pay for that person. We maintain two ponds that are actually part of Minnetonka's property, but we maintain and pay for that. We are finding that we are being intruded by apartment occupants. Our property is used for dog walking. all kinds of things that actually impede our standard of living that we've established there. I've listened to the comments about the quality of the apartments and if I hadn't if I didn't live in the community, I would think, "Oh, that sounds wonderful." I view, having been a part of the builder association, I view them as looking lowquality. their boxes, their metal patios hanging from cables. I totally disagree with calling that high quality. I feel it has stepped down the quality of our condominiums quite frankly. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Hi, Mayor and Council. I'm Sandra Larson. I'm the former president of the Bay Hill Association. Janice is the president today. So, I'm not here in any official uh capacity, but just we all got pretty excited when we saw what was coming and I sort of got involved with getting a petition. So, we have 68 units in Bay Hill and we have something like 65 people signed saying they were really upset about this proposal. So, they're not all here tonight, but I think you see the petitions that that we had sent, but I would like to start by just saying that I've been in this neighborhood in for 25 years. I was so excited to move into this area. And one reason I moved here was because it was a designed community with affordable housing. We have an apartment up the street from us that is totally affordable housing. And I didn't want to move a place that was just one income. I wanted to move a place. So this idea that Minnitankka needs more affordable housing, I go with that and I'm for that. But I'm just saying if you look at Bay Hill has 68 units. I don't know how many people, but 68 units. We have 129 town houses in many acres and now we're a that's 200 approximately. We now have 400 units added to us. I mean, that's kind of a shock to the community to get that many units in a very small pace at the end of the street. And if you look at Fairfield Road, you see it's narrow. There's no shoulders. There's only sidewalk on one side. There's no crosswalks except up by Oberlin Park. So, it's been and the Burke has been a real problem in terms of per parking. I do think it has improved, but it's been a lot of calls and a lot of complaints to the police. There's a lot of UPS trucks. There's lawn care people. So, it's there's always activity there and it is busy. And I find in that uh um you know where they have the offices there. I think there's someone working there. Maybe Duran is working there. I don't know. Some one office that seems to be busy, but on Sunday night there were nine cars parked there. Where are they going to park? You know that I think they're all Burke people. We don't yet know what the impact of all this is going to be if we have a double the problem we had before. So, I'm really concerned that now we're going to put 44 more more units that that's not very good. I'm also somewhat concerned and what I maybe you you know better than I. What about the entry to going west on 394? When you come up that ramp off of Weisetta Boulevard, there's a there's a archway there that you go on to 394 and there's blind part there's blind traffic either way. There's no yield signs. It's a very dangerous corner. And someone said that yes, there has been many accidents there and then now we're going to add 400 pe 400 or more people. It seems to me that we're being a little optimistic that we aren't going to have some traffic problems. Um we would really like to see town houses might be there, but why do you have to have 25? I mean, why does it have to be to the max? Or why not? We thought maybe the offices could be rebuilt in some way so that it would be appropriate for people. >> You're at three minutes. >> Okay. So anyway, I'm just saying that we really would like to see this go back. We never had a chance to talk about these this plan. We just we went to the planning commission to hear it, but there was no neighborhood meetings about it. We really think that that's a wrong way to develop something. Thanks for your time, though. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Good evening. >> Hi, I'm Art Glassman. I live at the Burke. Uh I happen to live on the second floor and I can kind of see the uh apartment build the uh office building across the street is where I face. Uh it's wonderful cuz I can look at the marsh and uh you know I see all of Fairfield. I find the Burke to be really wellmaintained and I think they enforce reasonable rules that uh keep the community safe. Um, I think the people with dogs, I've got a tiny little dog, but they're respectful of the rules and they're respectful of each other. Um, I've never had any trouble providing free parking for guests uh off street, not across the street at the uh office building, but in the building. Uh it's uh uh I would like to see a simpler system, but it works just fine once you learn the system and uh I can let people in. And like I say, there's never any any charges or anything to get indoor parking, which is really kind of nice in the winter. Um I think a new building across the street from me would be quite an improvement from what there is now, which is just not very pretty. And um uh you know I'm again very thankful that I can look at the marsh part and kind of block that out. uh as far as traffic is concerned, you know, when they were talking about the veil and more traffic and more traffic and I can see the intersection of uh Fairfield and the Weisetta Boulevard uh uh service road and I've never seen cars backed up there ever. So, you know, I have heard rumors about, well, there's so much traffic, and I understand there's more traffic than if there were no buildings there, but um there just really isn't much of a problem. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Glassman. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. My name is Michael Garve and I live at 11700 uh the Burke. Um, I just want to say that I was looking for when I moved uh freshly off of divorce for something in the area so I could be near my family and I was fortunate. I looked and at 61 I wanted something nice and so I chose the Burke. Uh, you know, the demographics are wonderful. Um, everyone there uh they have a community like they said. Um, also I think it's young professionals. So it's uh helping I think the areas, the businesses in the area I see that with the shopping bags um coming in and also uh Trader Joe's. I mean we're very fortunate and I think that adding because I mean it was mentioned tonight how important and how short housing is and we're going to add more housing. I just think it's just kind of a well done uh that uh the management company and Tiffany Brown who is the manager of the property is always involved and willing to hear. I think it's a great community and expanding. um they've already done it once and now the second time and now hopefully the third and I understand that it is more but if we're short housing which was spoken about tonight and how important it is for change and adding it's kind of kind of a nobrainer to me. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Goldfarb. >> Next. Good evening. >> Good evening Mr. Mayor Council, wonderful staff. First, I want to say thank you all for your service to the community. Uh, I know how much work and pain and hours you spend for us. So, thank you. And I had planned to say that before you tried to shut me down. So, um, I've live I live at Bayill and it's wonderful. >> And, and your name? >> I'm sorry, Margaret Meyer. M Eggeter. Uh I'm known as Peg. Um so Bay Hill is great and the area is great and I have been here when you were planning the Burke and when you were planning the what's the name of the new um >> Veil. Thank you very much. And I just wonder I I have an understanding of urban planning. It's been a while since I was in college, but I get the basic concept. You want to have a lot of people in one area with service to match. But I wonder if you aren't going too far. This is so many people at that corner. I often park at the post box. Do you know where that is on Fairfield? And I make sure I close the driver door. I put on my warning light because people are scooting back there quickly and I don't want to get caught by another car. It's just so so busy and I hope the staff has made that clear to you. It's a really really busy area. We have enough. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. My name is Deb and um I'm here to I'm representing my son Ian who's lives at the Burke. He's not here with me because he's at home in his apartment at the Burke safe and sound enjoying his apartment and um he has Down syndrome and um he's lived there for 3 years and it's the most incredible place for Ian to be. He he would never be able to afford his own house. Um he'd be living with me or in a group home, which at age 31, he does not want to live with me. Um affordable housing. If we did not have these units, he would not be there. He would not be able to afford it because he doesn't make a living like many people do. Um uh it's a beautiful building. It's wellmaintained. The staff are wonderful and uh it's safe and you walk around outside and the lighting and the gardening and the way it's the way it is. It's high quality um living and it's like a dream come true for my son. Um, I couldn't imagine him having to move into apartment that he like inner city living, you know, if he were not able to have affordable housing in this apartment, where else would he be living? So, um I I just uh think it's a wonderful uh plan that they're creating another experience with more affordable housing in that space across the street. >> Thank you, Deb. And what's your son's name? >> Oh, his name's Ian. >> Ian Dinger. Yeah. >> All right. Yeah, friends. His friends are here. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. Good evening, Mayor Woram and council members. My name is Anne Carpenter K. I live at 5120 Leeway off Williston Road near Glen Lake, Ward 4, represented by Council Member Kley. I've lived at Leeway on that street for 44 years and um in addition, our family has owned Marsh Run for 35 years. I first want to say I love Minnetonka. I've been here over four decades and I've benefited from excellent leadership and management of this city. I'm proud of that we've kept our AAA bond rating all these years and I have and there we have high citizen approval. I love biking the trails. I work out at Club Williston and now the marsh. Um it's kind of funny the marsh. Yeah. I am thrilled that the city has so brilliantly crafted an environment to keep Ridgedale Mall and surrounding businesses alive and viable while other malls have failed. It's a brilliant plan. A friend of mine just moved into the Avador and she loves having a park right outside her door. So, I come before you tonight to express my support for the 44 unit apartment building and also to recognize that the hard work that's gone into creating this vision by both the developer and the city staff. City staff recommends the approval of this project and I support the staff recommendation. Eight years ago, prior to selling our first building, we met with city staff and we discussed the needs of Minnotonka. That process led to the Burke 175 apartments and very importantly 35 affordable units. Currently, it's about 95%. Someone else already talked about that least. That's pretty amazing to me. Prior to the sale of our marsh um run one property, we met with city staff again confirming the shared vision of more housing. That process led to the veil. 197 apartments and 40 more affordable units. Not only is the building lovely, it was completed months ahead of schedule. At the open house a couple weeks ago, I found out that just one month after opening, it was already 52% leased. Apartments on 394 near Ridgedale are in demand. The last piece, Marsh Run 3, will add after 35 years a will add 44 new Minnitanka residences and nine more affordable units. This building will complete the Marsh Run project that we've worked hard to develop with Minnitanka staff right by our side with a beautiful well- constructed building. It will fit well between the Burke and the Veil. It will contribute revenue to the city. It'll keep the Reddale area and businesses thriving. It'll address the demand for more rental housing and lastly contribute to the grand total of 84 affordable units combined between all these three new buildings. Thank you to city staff for your work and your expertise. I ask the mayor and council members to approve this project. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Carpenter. And and you did really well. It was three minutes right on the button. All right. Good evening. >> Hi. Um, >> Karen Ritzma. We live in the Veil. We just moved. Um, we moved from another affordable housing to this one. And speaking of someone who's senior, we've encountered many seniors who are limited on income. And these are wonderful apartments compared to where we came from. So, well done and please support this. >> Thank you. Good evening. >> Good evening. My name is Sarah Maloney. I live at 705 Fairfield Circle. Um I'm in the Gables of West Ridge, which is directly north of the Burke. Um one thing that hasn't been stated by city staff is that the planning commission did recommend this project be denied. I spoke at the planning commission meeting, as did a couple of my neighbors, and our main issue is parking. There is not enough parking in this area. The veil was approved on the condition that this office lot would be used for overflow parking. It is still used. We drive by it all the time and see a lot of cars there. I think the minimum I see is maybe six, but there's often 10, as many as 20 there at different times. Um, people still park on Fairfield Road even with this office lot. There's it's unrealistic to think that anything's going to change. Fairfield Road is very narrow. Um, there's one sidewalk on one side. People bike on the sidewalk because Sparefield Road has become so busy. Cars drive at very high speeds. Weisetta Boulevard has very high traffic, too. Something needs to change on Weisetta Boulevard. We need to calm the traffic down there somehow. Um, there are a lot of seniors that live in the neighborhood and they've had particular issues with crossing Fairfield Road to get over to the sidewalk. It's really it's really been a burden to us to ask us to call the police every time somebody parks on Fairfield Road. I think that's wrong to um say that just because there aren't a lot of police reports on it, we just don't do it. I don't have time. I don't want to. A lot of people don't want to. Um, it's up to the management company apparently to enforce and that's just unrealistic as well. A management company is not going to be able to enforce parking on Fairfield Road. Um, I don't really know what else I can say. It's just that all these studies that we rely on, they haven't worked out for us. The traffic studies saying that parking is going to go back and they're going to park in the underground parking stalls at the Burke. I I have no confidence that's going to happen. We need to have the veil open a little bit longer before we develop this property and we need to reduce the density. Our neighborhood should not have to have this much density in one area. The only public parking is well it's nowhere. It's it's in the shopping center or people park in our private stalls. So, I just ask that you take the planning commission's recommendation and not approve this project. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Maloney. >> My turn. >> Good evening. I'm not sure if it's your turn. Go ahead. >> My name is Joel Anderson. I am fairly new to the Burke. We um my wife and I have lived all over the city from Woodbury to I'm an architect so I've never I've had way too many houses, too many condos, too many um we decided to downsize. Um we're in our 70s now. I love the work. I think it's it is a very nice project. I mean, I've worked with this kind of stuff my whole career and it's well wellmaintained in nice materials and um I think the diversity part we did not want to be with just seniors because that is not life. I love having the diversity of all these great people and down the hall and little little children and grown-ups that have their own apartment and I can't say enough about it. It's it's a great project and it sounds like it's on a good track. So, I don't think it's a mistake. I think it's been well planned. I mean, I I planned this stuff myself. It's been well done and so I'm all for it. >> Thank you, Mr. Anderson. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. My name is Pam Lewis. I live at Fairfield Court. I had fully intended not to say anything tonight because I said so much at planning. Um, a couple things though that I will just try to say in summary. This land is approved for a variety of uses and there are a variety of uses that would be so much easier for us as a neighborhood to absorb at this point. Anything commercial, anything office, a medical building, a coffee shop would still leave overflow parking available in this lot. A couple big things were not said at all tonight. Sarah just briefly mentioned after really listening to us a lot, planning voted not to approve this and that wasn't mentioned in the summary. The other thing that's not been brought up at all is the expectations set by Burke and Vale about this lot as overflow parking. Um, I'm not here to to talk against the veil, but I also think this meeting isn't a commercial for the veil. I'm so glad that these folks have a place that they love to live, but I'm a Minnotonka taxpayer and have been here a long time and want to protect a good place for all of us to live. This isn't about the Burke. It's about the space that's left and what we do with that and how that affects the entire neighborhood. At planning, there was nobody here to speak up for these other buildings. And what you're not hearing tonight is we have petitions from the people at Bayill. Every one of my board members at my um complex on Fairfield has written a letter. There's I think about 10 layer letters from the Gables. And again, we're not here speaking against what you love about where you live. We're trying to protect what we all love about this community. I know that the city needs more housing, but not where there isn't room for it. And I know what the studies say, but I know when I live here. And when you say nuisance parking, if you're talking about the Burks own big vendor landscaping trucks, those aren't a nuisance when you're trying to get around on a very narrow Fairfield road. That's not a nuisance. Um, where are these cars going to go? They've told us for years that they don't want to park at the Burke. The other options are back on Fairfield Road in our townhouse association guest parking on the frontage road grass. This is the last good parking option that this de developer has proposed. Um the last just couple questions I'll leave you with is what if we're right? We were right about the Burke not having enough surface parking and they admitted that. >> Miss Lewis, you're at you're at three minutes just so you know. >> Fair. What's the remedy if we are right? I guess I guess that's it. I said a lot before and I hope you'll look at what really is the question here and it's what needs to be done with this piece. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Hi, my name is Tiffany Brown and I am the property manager for both Burke and Veil. Um I am a talkie-talkie person, but right now I'm shaking. I'm so nervous. Um, but I just I I had to be here tonight because I I invited some of the people that were are impacted um by this building. And as you can see, they showed up because they support more more housing, more affordable housing. And what we've done at Burke is and Veil is something that we're very proud of. And um I've been at Burke for four years. I'm going to stay in my notes so I don't say the wrong thing. Um I um have been at Burke for four years almost since the very beginning of its opening. Um and Burke is not just a building to me. It's a community. Um there's 175 units there at Burke and has been talked about over and over again. We do have this affordable housing piece um that's 35 units. Being a previous special education teacher, you can see that this is a very close thing to me as a person and I support um it is a wonderful, wonderful experience going to work every single day and seeing these young adults um uh thriving and living on their own. And to offer this more more of this is something that's wonderful. Something that's been talked about over and over again is parking and dog poop and parking and dog poop and dog parking and dog poop and parking and dog poop. And so the parking issues are issues that have been settled and solved. Yes, in the beginning I think some there were some issues and those were taken care of. So when the council and the city provided no parking on Fairfield, that was a dream come true for us because it created something that taught people that this is something you can't do. We have provided for people 32 indoor parking stalls that are very easily used and I know people have talked about that over and over again. This is something that has not been an issue for the residents as you've heard over and over again from them. it's not an issue for us as staff. Um, and I just want to again comment on how wonderful it has been being a part of this growth in this community. All of us want to be good neighbors when it comes to different things. We have had experiences with the town home residents. They use our space. We welcome it. We've added two extra uh stalls for trash and dog poop on our site because we want to be good neighbors. We want to encourage the use of the space that we have. We have beautiful green space in front of Burke that's used by the town home residents on a daily basis. I sit on the corner of my office and I watch them go there and it doesn't bother us at all because we want to be good neighbors. Um and I think that's all. My time is up. So, I encourage this project and I look forward to adding the next 44 units. >> Thank you, Miss Ran. >> Is the hour? >> No, I go ahead. >> My name's Katie Palmston and I live at 11460 um Fairfield Road. I'm a new resident. I lived in Bloomington for 48 years and last August we moved to Bayill Condominiums. And first of all, I want to say that I totally support um affordable housing. So, I'm going to challenge this developer to keep the number of units. I think it was nine if memory serves me correctly, but decrease the number of units in the building. Isn't that an interesting thought? You could serve just as many people with disabilities, um, but we would not have as much density. And I know that that does not translate necessarily into a higher bottom line, but I think it could easily serve both purposes. Another question I have, um, why is it above ground parking? Why can there not be underground parking and just lower the unit units instead of being four stories down to three? Is that because it's next to marshland? I'm I'm just not quite understanding the design plan in that regard. And that's true of the other two apartment buildings that they just built. Um, I think that's all I have to say. I want to challenge the builders to and the developers to look at it a little bit differently. Might be a little less profit, but we'd still be providing wonderful affordable housing. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Palmsson. All right. Well, I said when there's no one in line, we are going to end the public hearing. So, we are going to end it and um I will uh bring it back to the council. Uh we've heard a lot tonight and um um council, your comments, please. >> Council member Kley. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'm going to say that, um, you know, I appreciate everyone coming up telling their stories. Um, talking about what the Burke and um, the different apartments is doing for them, especially around affordable housing. Um, I have lived in an apartment building. I haven't lived in this area before, but I do understand um, parking. parking can be very difficult for any neighborhood or any community where um there's not enough space. Um however, I don't know what it looks like in that area far as the parking, but I know prior to um these building being developed. There was there was conversation around parking this space. There was conversation about parking being at one of the other buildings. Um I I don't know exactly which building, but it was conversation. I do remember that that we did talk about it needing to be more parking space there. Um however, I don't know um because I'm not there, but I can imagine being in a space I know Fairfield Street is a narrow street. I know that it it does get busy in that area because I've been in I used to work over at the um at Ridgel area at the courthouse and so and did a lot of driving Uber and so I I do understand that it does get busy in that area. So I would like to know if the city is getting any calls about parking in that in that area. Is there has there been any complaints? Um, I know that we've had folks that say that there hasn't been any complaints, things are resolved, but then we have residents who live in the area who's saying there's parking issues. And I know when there's apartment buildings, there is always going to be a challenge with parking if it's not um factor in with enough space, parking spaces. So, I I I'm always for affordable housing. That's ideal, but I also know that it's important that you do have parking space for everyone and that um you're addressing that. So, I don't know if we city staff, have you heard any complaints? Is there any phone calls? I know police start getting called when there's not enough space or people have concerns. So, I don't know if there has been any complaints around that. Um, so I'm just curious about that. Mayor. >> Yes. Council or Miss Woonack, pardon me. I Yeah, I I didn't promote you. I apologize. >> That's all right. Community development director. Um I think uh I think Susan covered this a little bit, but I think maybe I'll just drill in just a little bit more. So, when we originally had the Burke open, there definitely was a lot of complaints on Fairfield. And maybe some of you remember this where we actually had to go through a process and have a resolution for no parking on Fairfield. So that came post project. Um that happened and people were ignoring the signs. So there had to be some enforcement. So the police went out there and that was I would say most of 23 um that situation uh was happening. When we got into 24, people got the message because people were being ticketed for parking on the street. And so that definitely quelled uh the issue. And moving into 25, we actually haven't logged any complaints with the police. Now, the neighbors indicated obviously at the hearing, they're tired of calling or they're tired of um calling in those complaints, which I understand. They don't want to call 911 and busy them up for parking enforcement. So, I get that. Um, however, that's the only way we can track issues. Um, I think Susan went over this in her PowerPoint where she talked about there is enough parking. This proposal meets the parking requirements, the Burke, uh, the bale, they met the parking requirements. Now, whether or not somebody chooses to park over on this property because they want to get easy access to the Berg, they don't want to go around to the garage. And maybe if you could show how you get into the garage. I want people to understand this if you haven't been to the underground part of the garage. This won't make sense. Um cuz you only see the surface lot. You can turn off the sound because there's here you can you got it. Um so we're just entering the garage guest portion here. Susan Susan's videoing this. Um there's 32 spaces in this underground garage and you can get access through the online system to get into this um area. So if somebody's having a guest at the Burke, they can send the code to the person who's visiting and get into the garage. So that's the inside space. And there's actually the day we were there, it was is not occupied at all. Um maybe four or five cars in there out of 32. Now, over at the veil, just to help. And now we're going to switch locations. Uh, this is the parking lot at the bale. This is the surface lot. And so, um, they have underground parking as well, but not for the guests. All their guest parking is on the surface. And then for this project, if we can go to a site plan, should I show the surface parking for this the current project that we're talking about? You have a lot of slides, Susan. There we go. Uh this one you can see on the right hand side the surface lot and then there's also on the north side um area. So generally uh again it meets the parking requirements and I think as planners we know that all our best laid plans sometimes people just don't cooperate and that's why we have enforcement and that's frankly what we've done over the years. Um I I am out in that area a lot. Um I actually don't see as much um violation as I used to. Um so even I do see the UPS trucks. Yes, I see that pretty regularly. I also see them to the north of here parking not just in the Burks area but to the north in the town home and condominium areas. So it it happens throughout. It's not unusual that a UPS truck just slides over on the side of a road and picks up or drops off the packages. So that's a pretty common also landscape vehicles. All those properties have landscape companies um monitoring and and doing the maintenance other and that happens up and down Fairfield, not just here. Did I answer a question? Council member Klay. >> You did. Thank you. >> Okay. Thanks, >> Council. Other other questions or comments? >> Or comments. Are we moving to comments? Well, we um let's see. I think uh where were we? Did we we we did questions earlier. We are we are in comments, but somebody threw in a question. That's that's what's confusing me. We are on comments. >> Okay. >> Or or a motion. If somebody wants to make a motion, we'll do that too without comments. >> Okay. >> H goodness. Well, I guess I'll I'll go since my my mic is on. So, uh, I just want to thank staff. I know this is a lot of work and I have friends in the audience tonight. I have a lot of friends that live in the area. Um, in Bay Hill, I almost moved my parents to Bay Hill. I'm really familiar with the area. It's lovely. It's well-kept. It has a very suburban feel. Um, and um, I know that it's been a lot of change. I also want to say that I watched the planning commission meeting. I read the packet. I've walked the neighborhood yet one more time today and I walked all the way from Weisetta Boulevard to Oberlin and I walked on the trails and I saw, you know, the where roots have pushed up the trail that u Miss Lewis was uh concerned about. I looked at the signage for the parking. Um, I just looked at the the site where it's going, where the this building would be going and um, and I think my basic feeling is that that [Applause] I think that everyone has the feeling that we knew that this that this whole intersection was going to be developed. And there might have been a way to do it in a more holistic manner instead of peace meal. That it might have had a more cohesive design where parking was, you know, well um planned for and left no room for doubt about uh overflow parking. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed and as a city council member, I have to um do what's best for the entire city while taking into consideration the concerns and needs and desires of a neighborhood. That neighborhood now has new neighbors who have um slightly different perception of the neighborhood than the neighbors that have lived there for longer and demonstrated why we need more affordable housing. And the thing about affordable housing, just I say it over and over, there is no such thing as new construction affordable housing. And it is the market rate. It is the market rate apartments and the assistance from the city that enables the affordable housing. So, we need a certain number of units to support the affordable units. And um I have people in my life that I love that are disabled that are living with me that need a place to live. And there really aren't enough places to live. And um I think the thing that that I think of every day is that any one of us if we lived in that neighborhood as someone who lived in the town homes and has lived through the construction for years on end, all of us would be enraged. So it allowed people that needed a beautiful place to live to move into a beautiful place. I just I just really wish and it it's I'm just putting it out there because I think it needs to be said so that if a similar situation comes up, the developer does better. we do better and we kind of insist on, you know, let's rip off the band-aid and just deal with this and um develop it in a way that it is not six years of constant construction because it is very disruptive to people's lives and it's very hard to live through. So, I have a tremendous amount of compassion and and empathy um for the neighbors that have lived there, especially the ones that have lived there for decades. And um I think Doran does make a beautiful product. I would say that out of the three buildings that that um have been proposed, this is the least inspired. I don't want to offend the uh architect. Um, the only thing that gives that building interest is the color difference to break up the mass. And, um, I remember being a little cranky when the Burke was built because there's an overhang on the edge of the Burke and it was kind of sweeping and very elegant. And for various reasons they they made it smaller and they also had they they did change the windows and it has a very it had a very um rhythmic look in the original proposal that is no longer there. It served a purpose. They're better windows for the people that live there, but architecturally it wasn't as beautiful. And so, um, I just want to challenge I I just want to challenge the architect because the very first comment had to do with sort of the quality of the building. I'm sure this is very quality um construction, but it's it's somewhat uninspired. And um the other things that I do notice about this building is what the developer commented on, which is um it's a vast improvement actually in many ways over the town home proposal because they're building up not out. And it does preserve more green space. And when you look at the renderings on the on the screen, it's very it's a dramatic change. Now, do I wish it was more? I do. Is it possible to make it more um on this very constricted space that's just over an acre? I don't think so. It does improve the wetland setback and it does conform to the setbacks along Fairfield Road um with the other. And so, it's those kinds of things that it's an improvement in some ways over what exists. So existing it's a 15 ft um improvement over the wetland setback and I'm just doing that from memory. So um there are things about that I really uh like I like the affordable housing. I did have a question of you know there because they've have shared with us the wonderful community for um folks with disabilities at the Burke and I don't know if the veil is including uh that kind of community and if um Marshon 3 will also um include it but um it's such a wonderful idea and it's so incredibly needed. It's not just the question of affordable housing, but affordable housing to give people with disabilities a chance to live with dignity and independence. It's really pretty inspirational. Um, and um I struggle with this a lot. I know how people feel, but I also feel that as a city um we have had a responsibility um to build more housing and that this the the presentation tonight clearly laid out in the comprehensive plan that this was intended for pretty intense use. So, um I am leaning in favor of this um proposal and I'm um I'm sorry if I disappoint my friends. It's not easy, but um I just wanted you to understand my reasoning. >> Customer, >> thank you, Mayor. Um I appreciate the comments of Council Member Calvert. Um she said a lot of of things that resonate with me. I I watched the planning. I I tell you know I I received a lot of comments on this and so I watched the planning commission meeting front to back read the packet read everything that came across my desk. Um so I want to assure everybody of that. You know I've got some wishes in life and some of those things are like I wish I was thinner. You know things that I wish I had more money. You know, I also wish we would have never ever ever talked about parking in on this property because I think it set some perceptions, expectations. I certainly recognize it wasn't in um the the resolution, but I think we perceived it to be a temporary solution based on, you know, I looked at the old packet and understand what was said at the meeting and it's created some expectations, some behaviors with the idea that maybe it was a band-aid that would be available for something to change. And unfortunately, I haven't really heard that anything's changed. I've heard there's not a problem and I don't think there's a problem, but I do, you know, I I do live not far from here. Um, it's on my commute to work and I do see there is parking in that lot. And why, you know, is I I don't go in and check out the interior spaces to see if those are available. So, we kind of can't prove that negative. And it's really a bummer that that's something that makes it hard to understand how these proper properties are operating together. So I would say that's really my number one struggle with this. I think you know I I will also tell the neighbors in W 2 there is a lot of density. There is a lot of multifamily housing. Um, and so as the W 2 council member, I hear about a lot of parking issues. And usually the issues don't really relate to being the buildings being underparked. It relates to how parking in apartments work. I think that there's, you know, people who don't want to pay for a spot and so their person, their boyfriend or girlfriend is kind of winging it and trying to find places where they can park so that they don't have to register and they don't have to pay. I I frankly think that's probably my number one parking conundrum in in my part the part of Minnetonka that I represent. I don't know how we solve that necessarily through development. I think it would it would require market change and how um leasing companies manage parking. Um I also am bummed out. I I mean I think there was a missed opportunity for a neighborhood meeting and not because maybe it wouldn't have changed anything, but I think it would have given the neighbors this the reassurance that they were being considered with this significant change. And so while I really appreciate Doran, I think um they get it mostly right most of the time in how they partner with the city and they do a lot of great things for the city. I think those were two in hindsight missed opportunities along with what council member Calbertt said about um I don't remember >> I said a lot and I didn't even talk about improved signage for parking. >> So the short of the short of it is you know I wish I think that parcel is going to be housing. And the last thing I will say, I've heard funny. I've heard proposals um about all the things that are the most controversial projects that ever come across our our desks. Uh health facility, pickle ball, and dogs. Those are some of the most hated amenities we have in the city when they're being developed. So, it is I'm I'm not sure you'd love that either to be to be frank. If your if your other uh co-residents Minatona have anything to say about it, um it would be nice if we could spruce up some things in the area. You know, the bus stop is terrible. I think if if riding the bus was more attractive, I think maybe that would alleviate some of the um parking issues. >> The the paths are not great connecting Fairfield to Ridgedale. I mean, I I don't know that I'd ride my bike to get to to Ridgedale. Um, and there is some ambiguity about maintenance on those trails that go back in the gables. And so, you know, I don't know if there's an opportunity for Doran to help us solve one or some of those problems considering the influx of residents. And that would certainly help me swallow this a little bit better. Um, but you know, I think it's going to be housing. I, you know, maybe we could get it a couple units down. I don't know that that would make a meaningful difference. And so, you know, I I'm curious to hear how other people um think about those things. >> Council member Wilberg. >> Um so, I I echo a lot of what my fellow council people have already said. Um, you know, I share concerns that the neighbors have expressed, we've expressed previous when when when the veil was proposed. Um, problems originating with the Burke around parking and around dogs. Um, as the as the the property manager said, uh, poop and parking are are are are two problems that I'm not sure have been completely solved. Um, I'm glad to hear that parking is better. Um, and the other is is better. I again, I don't know that it's completely solved. Um, but I also don't, you know, when talk when thinking about what it is when I'm what what we're allowed to consider when we're making a decision, I can't say no, you can't build this building here because this other building has parking problems. And this proposal is meeting the parking. it it meets the city's parking requirements. Um, and you know, as as council member Shaq said, you know, that the the talk talk about using this building as parking and maybe it wasn't a promise, but it it sort of was interpreted as this this would be available for parking. But again, there wasn't anything there. There was no stipulation that said that this this property can't be developed, that it has to stay parking. So that's again not a reason why we can say no where I could say no, you can't build this building because you have to use it as parking. Um, and then finally, when it comes to the to the use, the city doesn't own this property. So there, you know, there have been plenty of times where I where I've thought it would be really nice if this land was you was being used for purpose A instead of purpose B which is which is before us. But we don't get to dictate that you know if it falls within the use the approved use then we don't get to say no for that reason because we prefer it to be something else. Um, so like, so like all I I am not I'm not finding reasons to say no. Um, I am in favor of increased affordable housing. We definitely need more. We need more housing at all levels of income. Uh, but certainly we need more affordable housing. Um, you know, I I as others I I empathize with the neighbors. I I live not far from there. I drive by, not every day, but not infrequently, drive past that neighborhood. I' I've, you know, walked to to Trader Joe's and back and and um so I I certainly can only I can only I feel for the neighbors and and the amount that the amount of change that they've had to go through in a short time and not just living with the construction, but that it's a lot to adjust to going from, you know, the these quiet neighbor the quiet neighborhood to suddenly having the Burke and now the veil and whatever else is going to be there cuz I agree with Council Member Shaq that it's even if this project doesn't go through, it probably is going to end up being housing of some sort. Um, so that's that's kind of where I am. I am not I'm not seeing a lot of reasons to say no even if I I understand that it's it's a disappointing uh and a disappoint a disappointing outcome for the neighbors. >> Other comments? Uh Council Member Foster Bolton. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to be very brief because I can't top what my colleagues have been saying um nor disagree. So, but I can say that I remember I live just a couple blocks off of Minnetonka Boulevard and there was an area that went through a lot of changes. Apple Point apartments are there right now. >> And um when they they went in, I don't know how many units there are, but it's a lot. It's huge. And um my husband, I'm telling you, every day for months, we we would drive by and he would complain. And it, you know, we weren't we weren't as close as I think some of these neighbors are, but um it it's it's exhausting. It's exhausting to be to hear my husband. But it was but complain but also you know construction and it's tiring and I and I really feel for the neighbors but it's built now and there hasn't been the disruption that he was convinced there was going to be. Um but it took a a while to get used to it. And you know, it's it's it's a hard adjustment, but again, it was housing that was going to go in that area. Um, and I I agree though. I think it'd be great if I'm directionally challenged. And when I was in walking around in that area, I was like, now where is the trail to get to Trader Joe's? And it would be nice to, you know, make that a little wayfair wayfinding and the parking would be easier. But other than that, I can't find any reason to vote no either. >> Is there anyone else? Councilor Romey. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I don't know if I'm the last to go, but um, I just wanted to say first of all, thank you to the developer um, for what you're doing and the work. I do like the mix of affordable housing, market rate housing, um, the diversity of demographics and also the neuroability um, services and, you know, kind of living environment that is being provided at these uh, at the Berken and and hopefully now at the Vale I think is going to be as well. Um, I think that's wonderful. Um, and and kind of a real notable achievement. And um, uh, I was just at the, uh, funeral service, a memorial service for somebody, a young, well, a a person with Downs who passed away at age 48. And he lived in, uh, you know, kind of a an an independent living situation. And it was a really blessing for him um, to be able to do that for, you know, a number of years. So, I also want to thank all the residents who came out and spoke on, you know, all sides of the issue. Um, you know, I I I think that speaks to the engagement that we have. That's really important. Um, I do want to say to, you know, the folks who are have, you know, real concerns about the development of this parcel that I do understand and empathize. Um, I live in my childhood home and we used to have a couple of cars going by every few minutes on County Road 101. Um, and then, uh, I live off 101 and then, uh, the public the city bought the marina. It went from being a private little sleepy place to being a public boat launch. And, um, that happened. And then a few years later, the bridge was uh over Grace Bay Boulevard was reconstructed and it was closed for 2 years. Then there was construction in front of my house for another year. And then I had a house on either side of my tiny little house that huge McMansions got built on either side. And so those were and I have one of those going on right now. So I'm totally empathetic to your concerns. and I also can't park in my my neighborhood now because of the marina. Um, no, there's no parking on street parking in our neighborhood. That's been really hard for somebody who has been in this community whose um family's been in this community for five generations. So, this community has changed a lot in the last hundred years and much less, you know, in the last 40 years or 30 years. I get it. Um, but you know, I'm I'm sitting here both as a resident and as a city counselor and and this is our job is to balance the resident's needs and the needs of the community as a whole. And you know, I I don't think we've talked about it enough, but this is a quasi judicial decision is that we have to have reason if we're going to deny. I think that was hinted at. I just want to make that really explicit. Um, this project, you know, really does meet the city parking code. Um, and the variances that are being asked for quite reasonable. In fact, they're about the same as some of the townhouse variances, the developments that were done in the '9s. Um, and also, you know, I hear some calls for maybe commercial parking and things like that. Well, actually, as we've heard, those uses will be would end up being more intense for retail than it would be for these residences. Um, you know, given all of, you know, given what experts know and what we've seen in the city about retail versus housing. And moreover, and I hate to say that just like me who lives somewhere where all a sudden the city bought a private marina and things change. Unlike that situation, this area has always been for the last 30 plus years been set as being high intensity in development. In fact, now it's stepped down. Instead of being high intensity retail, it's going to be housing. And I know that's hard and I know it's really uncomfortable and change stinks sometimes. And for you personally as an individual, it may not be better, but it it may be okay. and livable and better for the city and the community as a whole. And I think that's something that we're looking at here. It's not going to be as good. It's not going to be what we're used to. Um but we are, as mayor often says, managers of change and we're trying to do it the best way we can um for the common good as well as for individual neighborhoods and residents. And I know that's really hard. It's been hard for me. Um, and I know it's going to not been easy for all of you as well, dealing with, you know, five years of construction. Um, so I would encourage people to, um, in terms of the parking, getting back to some of the nitty-gritty, please do call. We can't, we as a city can't know that there's issues. I know it's not convenient. I had to call about construction vehicles today um, and call the police and and city development. I've had to do that numerous times in the last week. It's not fun, but just get that on speed dial and start doing it if it's an issue. I would encourage um you know, Miss Brown and the and the management company to really be open to hearing about, you know, to making sure their vendors aren't parking on Fairfield when at all possible and and doing that. I think if they were approached, you know, let's find a collaborative way to work together on these issues and solve them to make it the best situation possible. You know, talking to the developer also, you know, what what can we do, you know, to be good neighbors and try to, you know, what more can you do? I think you've done, you know, some good things, but, you know, is there better signage to, you know, kind of induce parking? I do think that human nature being what it is, people are going to that service lot and when they can't, they won't. I mean, because that's what I would do if I was going to visit somebody at the Burke or at the Veil. I'd go there because it's easier. I don't want to have to call my friend and get a code. But when it's not there and I know I'm going to get a ticket for, you know, parking on Fairfield, you bet I'll get that code because I don't want to pay that ticket. And when there are, then I'm, you know, trusting you in the neighborhood to give them a call. Call the police. make sure that we're, you know, enforcing, but we need your your engagement and your participation to do that. Um, so my last thing is on a totally different issue and it has something to do with the um planning commission. I I I got a a I think it was Commissioner Minion who asked about a solar ready roof and I heard um something about uh that being something that we'll look into and my husband who's a developer um developer speak or actually he's a project manager and built the optimum campus and when that happens usually when developers speak for yeah I'm not going to do it. So, I would love to hear more than, "Yeah, we'll look into that for the solar ready roof." Um, and anything that else you can do to make this sustainable. I love what you're doing in terms of, you know, helping our community, helping vulnerable populations, seniors and disabled and people who need affordable housing. Um, and I'd like you to to see you, you know, kind of reach out and and, you know, give a hug to the neighborhood, but also to the environment on this project. And I've spoken enough, so I will stop now. So, thank you. So, I will be uh depending on what I hear, I think I would be supporting. I would like to see a a few uh things from the developer yet, and I'm not sure if we do that by um going forward and yes or tableabling and looking at some of those conditions. Thank you. I'll wait to hear what other uh comments come from the council. >> All right. I don't think there's anyone else, right? It's it's just me. Um so um this um as I've looked at this and again tried to be objective about it um this property has been zoned for um residential and high density residential for a long time. So it's not a surprise that we are seeing um a proposal for um highdensity um residential and I expect regardless of what we do tonight that what will be get built there is highdensity residential. Um, taking that a step further, um, the previous proposal for the town homes, I, um, the rental town homes, I I struggled with that, um, because for the very reasons we've already enumerated, um, lack of green space and it's just too tight. I mean, it was just too tight. And so when I heard that a proposal for a 44 unit um apartment building was coming forward in its place, I frankly was relieved because um while that's not the you know the the site is small and it's going to be highdensity residential. I mean that that's just reality. It's not going to be anything else. Um I know we had an applicant a while back for a tire store. I don't think we want a tire store there. Um I I think that the highest and best use of that property is for highdensity residential unless some residents now want to team together and pay the carpenters to buy that land and turn it into pickle ball courts. I just don't think that we're going to have anything but highdensity residential. Now we could kick the can down the road and I have a surprise for you. next year building an apartment building there is not going to cost less, it's going to cost more. So when costs go up and the land size is the same, well there there are a couple of solutions there. One is you can I mean you can raise the price and raise the rents. Um that doesn't work for affordable housing and you can also um say well we need to make it more dense. you know, we need more units because, you know, I mean, it's only 1.2 acres and and so, you know, the reality is it's going to be it's going to be um high density um residential. And frankly, I think this is about as good as we're going to do in terms of getting something built with interest rates where they are and the challenges. Now, we don't have to solve dissol developer problems. That's not our job. But we do have to be realistic. And when I say I want to be objective, um we have to come up with solutions that can work and that are in the best interests of the entire city. And we've all agreed, I don't think anybody in the room um uh agrees that or disagrees with the notion that we need more housing in Minnetonka and in Minnesota. And frankly, if we can get more affordable, we need more affordable housing as well. Now, um, uh, you know, I'm kind of trying to talk as a mayor here, and we we've talked about a lot of problems. Um, you know, the, um, we we've heard a lot about parking. I don't want to talk about parking, but, you know, the the the issue, I think, with parking is not about the sufficiency of parking. It's about the behavior of parkers. And you know, I know when I go to the Willis Center to go work out and I'm driving in and I see somebody who's going to work out and they put a their a turn signal on to get the parking spot closest to the door. I'm sitting there thinking, what does this make any sense? You're going to work out, but you can't walk, you know, an extra 50 feet to go in the door because you're too lazy. I mean, why, you know, I'll tell you what, just go for a walk and don't belong to the Wilson Center. I mean, you know, I mean, people are irrational. And when when it comes to parking, people are really irrational. So, they do irrational things. They park where they're not supposed to park because they don't want to walk too far. But you know what we I mean you know when you're mayor you have a little bit of authority not much but I know I do not have the capability to change human behavior. So you know let's not confuse human behavior for sufficiency of parking. I think there is sufficient parking there but we don't have a sufficient number of rational people who are doing the parking. And I think I think that's that's that issue. But I am not concerned about parking. I think that yeah, we're going to lose this little parking spot parking uh parking lot across the street. But you know what? There is a shared parking agreement between the two buildings and now three. There will be places for people to park, but I can't tell you that they're going to park where they're supposed to park. I can't guarantee that. Now, one suggestion for the Burke is I would like the guest indoor guest parking to be a little bit more intuitively obvious because I've gone to use it and I'm supposed to register and I haven't registered. I've gotten in there and I haven't registered. Shame on me. I would like it to I would like the signage to be clearer so that I know how to use that indoor parking because if I know how to use it, I'm inclined to use it. So, that's a that's a that's an ask and a suggestion. um you know then the um you know I'm not going to argue for the need for this type of housing. We need it and I'm not going to argue that I mean and I believe this is a good place for it. I frankly I wish the the the the space for it were a little larger, but it is what it is and um and I think this is a reasonable solution. So I'm going to support it. But I do have to comment um I have to do I do have to wear my dad hat tonight and I don't do this very often. But um you know I really appreciate what Dorne has done with these affordable units. Now Dorne is not giving these affordable units away. The city through tax increment financing and our affordable housing uh housing trust fund. we pay the difference between the market rate and the affordable rate. Um and um and and I really appreciate the partnership with Dorne, but you know, it's not like that's a gift that they're making. It's it's it's a policy that's really important, but you as taxpayers are literally um that is taxpayer money that is paying the difference for those affordable units. And I support that. But I have to tell you that I'm um I'm a parent. I have four kids and two of my kids, my two daughters are 39 years old and they were born um 10 weeks early. They spent uh 10 weeks and 12 weeks in the neonatal intensive unit uh intensive care unit at Children's Hospital. Um they have severe disabilities. They're 39 years old. They function at a three-year level. And I will tell you that when you are a parent of children with disabilities, you you love those children just as much as you love your fully capable children who are going to go to Harvard. You love them just as much, but you worry about them a lot more. You care about what is their future going to be and where are they going to live and is the place they live going to be safe? Is it going to be sufficient? Is it going to be a place that when I die, I want them to be there? And and and I my wife and I worked this through. My my my daughters do not live at the Burke. Um they need more intensive attention than that, but we were able to work something out. I'm a landlord. I'm my daughter's landlord, and they pay their rent um with their so their SSI just like uh the the young people here who are describing. But but the thing that is the biggest thing in my life is where are my and for people with adult children with disabilities is where are they going to live? That is the biggest issue in their life. And so to have Doran step up and use these affordable units in this way intelligently, I think I really appreciate it. But I also think it's brilliant because I'll tell you what, my daughters don't have a car. They don't need a parking place. >> You know, they it they not only is Doran doing something that benefits people with a real need and our society. They're also being intelligent users of their their property because you know what? there's more parking available for people who do drive a car and so it's a very very elegant solution. So I'm excited about this. I am going to support it and I'm very thankful that that these programs because it is so hard for people with adult children with disabilities to figure out where they're going to live and what they're going to do. And I know many people whose whose adult children with disabilities never leave their home. Their parents have them and their the the young adults don't want to live with their parents and their parents are ready for them to be gone, but they have no option. And this program with the affordable units that the city partners with Dorne to provide is is a tremendous asset and a tremendous innovation and and I'm proud to be part of it. So I'm sorry that was personal and and I nor I usually don't do that but but I think my story is relevant to um to the decision we're making tonight. So, pardon. Thank you for indulging me. So, with that, would somebody like to make a motion or a comment? Anything further? >> So, what about >> Yeah, I already did that for the >> All right. So, any um this um we we we probably do need a bo a motion. So, we've got we've got uh the our recommendation here is to adopt the ordinance approving the master development plan. Adopt the resolution approving the finance site and building plans with expansion permits and variances. Um that takes five votes. Other options are to table the matter the matter um or deny the proposal. Um would anyone like to speak out in favor of any of those? >> Mayor, >> sorry, that was me. >> That's right. Uh, Miss Wishnack, >> before you make a um a formal vote, do you want to talk about any of the There were two things I heard. One was the Metro Transit that was from Commissioner Shack, the the drop off area. That isn't quite how she s sees it. Um, and then we heard about solar. So, do we want to get those two answered and then move on to the motion? Is that >> acceptable to you? Um, I will leave that up to the people who brought them up. I'm fine. I'm fine either way. >> I mean, I would make I make a pitch for it, but I didn't hear a lot of interest in that >> vigorously. >> Yeah. >> And and clarify clarify the issue because I mean, a bus stop is a metrorransit issue. Um, I'm not sure it's a developer issue. Is there something a developer can do to um to facilitate an improvement to because clearly we support transit and um if there's something to be done um you know let's talk about that but I I need to understand it better. I think uh mayor the only thing I would recommend to address council member Shock is perhaps a condition that says the final site and building plans should include enhancement to the bus stop in that area not a shelter however because um that becomes more difficult to um figure out long-term maintenance that sort of thing but maybe enhancement of the uh metro transit we we would work with metroransit to determine to to determine excuse me it's getting Okay. Um the appropriateness of whatever improvement is there. So that's one condition you could add if you >> I mean I I think it given the addition of units and the condition of that bus stop. I I would really push for it. It's something we've been talking about for a few years now. And I I've brought it up numerous times because standing in muddy weeds is no fun at all. And that's really all there is. So, but help me understand this cuz I mean as a condition I'm not sure we can condition something require met transit to do something as a condition. >> It actually would be the developer would do it mayor and the metro transit has sign off on it but it would be something that the developer would install with their project. It's very similar to what we did with the ridge if you remember that improvement and that where they had the sidewalk coming out of the garage. Um they do have a covered area there. Um, but I wouldn't recommend that at this particular location. >> Okay. Well, I >> So, perhaps an enhancement with sidewalk and a pad area for um getting on and off the bus. Is that >> all right? >> Okay. So, that was one check. So, I don't know if the if the developer has a comment you'd like to make, or you don't have to if you don't want to, but um um on this uh request, we are open to it. I actually don't know. Are we talking about on our property? >> Right. >> Okay. Um happy to work with staff on on what that looks like. Um it's not anything that was really on our radar before this moment. So, I mean, we're open to it. We're willing to do it. I don't know what that means. Um, but we're happy to work with staff. I understand the goal, which is let's not have people stand in weeds waiting for the bus. We fully support that. It probably would be as we evolve the overall landscape plan, it seems to make a lot of sense. So, not a not a problem from our standpoint, but I don't have anything to to say about the specifics of a design. >> Well, it's it's a very fresh concept. >> All right. So that and then um and then council me do you want to add anything on the the >> well we had brought this the planning commission had actually brought this um option or this item up. So I I am wanting to follow up on that and to I mean for Commissioner Minion I believe it was you know a strong suggestion and I would just like to see you know I if if that's possible to do anything more than make it a suggestion or if the developer is willing to come up here and talk about that um or if staff has any advice. Council member Wishnack. I mean, keep doing that. Mice, Miss Wishnack, two three strikes and I'm out. If I do it again, you're meeting the meeting's over. >> That's right. >> All right. Miss Wishnack, pardon me. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council Member Mle. I think the conversation was about being solar ready on the roof and and so I just want to make sure um I agree the developer was a little uh unclear on that point at the hearing. So perhaps we can get clarity. Is it solar ready on the roof or not? If it's not, are you willing to do it? That would be the question. >> Miss Merrick, if one more time and then and then you get to sit down and we'll try and get out of here. >> Sure. Um I have a a similar response and I appreciate the comment. Solar ready means making sure that the roof structure can take solar panels. It it's not proposing at this point solar panels. We're frankly we're just not that far along in design. um we don't have any problem if you'd like to make it a condition that the roof be solar ready or that we explore you know solar power further with staff. >> Very good. All right. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Does um so those are what um would be amendments to the um any motion we would make that of the three that we have there. >> Right. I would just add the language about the bus stop which we already kind of have in the record from the minutes and then um solar ready is the expectation for the roof. >> All right. So the recommendation then becomes adopt the ordinance approving the master development plan. No change to that. adopt the resolution approving approving the final site and building plans with expansion permits and variances including um um the uh bus bus stop improvements and um solar ready roof. Is that a reasonable Okay. So if I throw that out there as a suggestion if someone would like to make that motion uh council member Foster Bolton >> I'll make that motion. >> Thank you. Is there a second? Council member Romey, >> I'll second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Council Member Foster Bolton and a second by Council Member Romey. >> Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shaq, >> yes. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> We motion carries. >> All right. So, I think that was um well, that's not quite done because we do have an EDA meeting tonight. Um but um item 16 is appointments or reappointments. We have none. Item 16 is adjournment. Um Council Member Wilburn. >> I move adjournment. >> Is there a second? Council member Calbert. >> Second. >> All right. We've got a motion by Council Wurn, a second by Council Member Calbertt to adjurnn. All in favor say I. >> I. We are adjourned. >> All right. Now, we do have an EDA meeting, but what you want to take a couple of Let's take five minutes before Yeah. Yes. I had to help get out the back door cuz she couldn't get out. So, Yes, I'll I'll survive. >> Okay, I gota Come on. Come on. Okay, I just have to pull up the EDA meeting. All right, we will continue. Oh, I guess we should have Mike back. >> It's okay. Okay. All right. All right. Very good. >> So, um I will call this meeting to order. It is still August 11th, 2025. I will uh call the Economic Development Authority meeting um to order. >> And I will ask Miss Larson to please call roll. >> Wilburn >> here. >> Calbert here. Raley >> here. >> Kley here. >> Foster Bolton >> here. Shack here. We >> here. All right, commissioners. Now we will um I need an approval of the agenda. Is there a motion? >> Commissioner Calbertt. >> Thank you, Mr. President. I move approval of the agenda. >> And a second. Commissioner Wilburn. >> Second. >> All right, we've got a motion by Commissioner Calbert and a second by Commissioner Wilurn. U Miss Larson, please call a roll. >> Wilburn, >> yes. >> Calbertt, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, yes. Foster Bolton. >> Yes. >> Shaq. >> Yes. We >> Yes. Motion carries. Uh, next item is approval of minutes. And we have one set of minutes and they are the uh uh July 14, 2025 EDA minutes. Is there a motion to approve? Commissioner Fost Foster Bolton. >> I make a motion to approve the minutes. >> And Commissioner Shack. >> I'll second. >> All right. A mo a miss a com a motion by commissioner Foster Bolton and a second by Commissioner Shack. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilurn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Raley, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. Wearsome, >> yes. Motion carries. Next item is a business item 5A, items concerning Marshun 3, a rental apartment development at 11800 Weisetta Boulevard. Ms. Wishnack. >> Um, mayor, I'm sorry, commissioners, uh, president and commissioners, I don't really have anything else to say in terms of the contract. I think we went through this at the council meeting. Um, if you have any specific questions that I can help answer, I think one of the questions I heard was about the the programmatic parts of the affordability, whether or not it would be a part of the same thing that the Burke has, and I think it is. So, um, just looking for verification. So it looks like that is the same plan with this project. >> Very good. Thank you, Miss Wishnack. Commissioners, any questions for staff or the applicant? All right, then perhaps a motion. Commissioner Wilburn. >> I move uh that we adopt the resolution approving the >> It was. Yeah, but it was >> okay. Let's not argue about Let's just >> Okay. Adopt the resolution approving the contract for private redevelopment for March 3 and the issuance of a tax increment revenue note. I move that. >> Um, Commissioner Calbertt. >> Thank you, President Rome. I second. >> All right. A motion by Commissioner Wilburn and a second by Commissioner Calbertt. Miss Larson, please call roll. >> Wilurn, >> yes. >> Calbert, >> yes. >> Rome, >> yes. >> Kley, >> yes. >> Foster Bolton, >> yes. >> Shack, >> yes. We >> yes. Motion carries. Next item is adjournment of Commissioner Wilurn. >> I move adjournment >> and a second. Commissioner Calbertt. >> Second. >> Okay, we've got a motion by Commissioner Wilburn, a second by Commissioner Calbertt. All in favor say I. >> I. >> We are ajourned. [Music] [Music] [Music]