[Music] [Music] [Music] Good evening. Welcome to the September 18th, 2025 meeting of the Minnotonka Planning Commission. The commission generally meets twice a month, always on a Thursday. The schedule and tentative meeting agendas can be obtained by calling the planning division or by checking the city website at minnotonkamn.gov. The commission holds public hearings on land use applications. For all land use applications, the city notifies property owners within at least 400 feet of the site and posts plans and information on the website. For some applications, the city also places signs on the properties and notices in the Sun Sailor newspaper. From a specific process standpoint, the commission makes recommendations to the city council on resonings, subdivisions, conditional use permits, and amendments to the city's comprehensive guide plan, zoning ordinance, and subdivision regulations. We also make final decisions on site plans, signage requests, variance requests, and expansion permits, unless these requests are part of an application that must be heard by the city council, in which case the commission makes a recommendation and the council makes the final decision. Anyone dissatisfied with a final planning commission decision may appeal to the city council by submitting a written request to city staff within 10 days of this meeting. From a broader standpoint, the city's comprehensive guide plan, zoning ordinance, and subdivision regulations are the city's best efforts to codify the balance between individual rights and community responsibilities. Individual rights are easy to understand. Community responsibilities are more subtle, but the idea is that we as members of a community agree to limit our individual rights for the common good of the group. The planning division, the planning commission, and the city council are charged with managing this sometimes difficult balancing act. We ask that you keep this broader perspective in mind as we review tonight's applications. Again, welcome. Staff, please call roll. >> Hansen >> here. >> Henry >> here. >> Minion >> here. >> Waterman >> here. >> Banks >> here. >> Brink >> here. >> Chair Maxwell >> here. There are seven of us seated tonight. Uh, next item is item three, approval of the agenda. I believe there's a change memo. >> Miss Thomas, could we review the change memo? >> Chair Maxwell, there is a change memo this evening. All of the changes or three points to note are all associated with item 8A. Um first, the applicant did send an email to the planning commission. It's attached here um in case anyone was not able to read that prior to the meeting. Um we also have included uh four options for the planning commission to consider in terms of your motion this evening and Miss Reigns will go over that uh in her presentation. And then finally, um, uh, Commissioner Waterman noted an error in the resolution. Thank you for pointing that out. It's just been, uh, corrected here for your, um, consideration. Those are the changes. >> Uh, thanks, Miss Thomas. May I have a motion to approve the agenda considering the change memo? >> Make the motion. Uh, >> motion, Henry. I'll >> second. >> Second, Banks. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Motion carries. All right. Next on our agenda, item four, approval of the minutes of the August 21st, 2025 meeting. Are there any changes from commissioners? No. Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the minutes? >> I'll make that motion. Motion Waterman, second Brink. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. All right. Motion carries. Next is item five, report from staff. >> Uh, Commissioner and, uh, Chair Maxwell, um, some items to report on from the most recent council meetings. There have been two council meetings uh, since you last met. On August 25th, uh the council uh approved the final plat of a two lot subdivision on Glendale Road and Eden Prairie Road. You'll recall that was a subdivision where each of the lots needed a very small um lot area variance. So that's gone through the second stage uh and final stage of approval. And then on September 8th, uh the council approved the conditional use permit for the columbarium installation at the um Groveland Cemetery. That was on the consent agenda. Um last week on Wednesday, the zoning update uh community workg group met, the staff workg group met during the day and the community workg group uh met la in the evening. Um the work group did do uh a bit of work uh for us considering the um potential zoning districts um some of which are similar and some of which are different to the zoning districts we currently have as well as potential uses permitted conditional and accessory within those zoning districts and some lot standards. The packet uh for that meeting is available on minnotonka matters um.com under the zoning ordinance. You'll see all of the documents there. So if you'd like to just look at what the um workg groupoup looked at um that is all available online. And then our next meeting is actually October 16th. We will have two meetings in October but um we have a break at the beginning of the month. Uh, so with that, I would turn it back to the chair. >> Thank you, Miss Thomas. Next item on our agenda is item six, report from commissioners. Does anyone here have anything to report? No. All right. Uh, moving right along. Next is the consent agenda. So, staff puts items on the agenda that are more routine. So, no staff or applicant presentations will be made for these items. We'll just hold one public hearing, approve all items on the consent agenda with one motion. So, I'll open the public hearing, ask if anyone wants to take anything off of the consent agenda for wider discussion. If not, then we'll just vote on that uh that item. So, with that, I will open the public hearing on the consent agenda. And we have one item here which is item 7A. Uh an amended interim use permit for portable classroom at Glen Lake Elementary School at 4801 Woodbridge Road. Woodridge Road, pardon me. Would anyone on the council or in the public like to remove this item from the consent agenda and have a broader discussion on it? No. In that case, I will close the public hearing. And may I have a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda? >> I'll make the motion. >> A motion. Minion. >> I'll second. >> Uh, second. Hansen. Staff, please pull the commission. >> Hansen, >> yes. >> Henry, >> yes. >> Minion, >> yes. >> Waterman, >> yes. >> Banks, >> yes. >> Brink, >> yes. >> Chair Maxwell, >> yes. Uh the motion passes and this is a recommendation to the city council to be heard on the September 29th meeting. All right. Uh moving right along. Next item is uh item eight, the uh non-consent agenda items. So we have one of these tonight. Uh before we begin, I'd like to review the steps in this process and the public hearing uh for this. first will announce the item and staff will give a report on that item and then the commission will ask questions. Next, the applicant will be invited to offer a presentation or make any comments on the item and commissioners may then ask questions at that time. After the applicant is finished, the public hearing will be opened and anyone present may give an opportunity to comment on that particular proposal. If you wish to speak, please come to the podium, state your name and your address for the record, and please keep your comments brief and try not to repeat points that have already been made. Once everyone has spoken, we may allow you to return for additional comments if there's a large meeting. Uh the first agenda, the only uh agenda item in the non-consent today is item 8A, a variance to allow two wall signs on the north and east wall elevations at 17809 Hutchkins Drive. Uh uh Miss Reigns, I believe this is your item. >> Yes. Thank you, chair. The subject property is 17809 Hutchkins Drive related to Anchored Orthodontics. It's in the southwest quadrant of the intersection of Highway 7 and County Road 101. Property is just over 1.2 acres is an and is improved with a 9,300 square foot office building. The building was originally constructed in 1979 for office and a bank facility. The building is currently occupied by three medical tenants. Dvita dialysis, dentistry by design and anchored orthodontics. Dentist dentistry by design and Dvita Dialysis are non-conforming uses. Their uses that were present prior to our change in the ordinance zoning ordinance which required conditional use permits for medical uses. Ankor Orthodontics came in 2023. At that time, the site had been vacant for some time. The prior uh tenant was a medical use. However, per state and local laws, any non-conforming use that is discontinued for more than 12 months loses its non-conforming status. Therefore, they needed to apply for a conditional use permit, which the city granted in March 2023. Currently, the property has two wall signs, one on the north elevation and one on the east elevation, both for dentistry by design. The northern elevation sign is painted. It's not permitted. Um, this eastern sign is permitted. It was given a permit in 2014. The proposal today is for Anchored Orthodontics to have an sign, a wall sign on the eastern elevation. Staff is recommending approval of the variance with the condition that there is one sign, excuse me, two signs in total, but one on the north elevation and one on the east elevation. The applicant is proposing two signs as well, both on the eastern elevation, so there would be none on the north. [Applause] The image on the screen is a current depiction of the property. staff went to the site yesterday and confirmed that these signs are still in place. The property has one monument sign with all three businesses shown. Has two wall signs. Again, this northern elevation sign is not permitted, but this eastern sign, which is kind of hidden behind these trees, is permitted. And there are two banners which are temporary signage, which do not have permits, meaning they weren't issued by the city or approved by the city. Typically, temporary signage is allowed for 10 days. Um, unless it's concurrent with a grand opening. Um, this is a street view from April, so it's well past 10 days. This property is zoned B1 office district. This property is allowed one wall sign, and that's based off of it having one frontage on a public street. There are other properties in the neighborhood that are also be one have two frontages and they would be allowed two signs but that is one per elevation facing the frontage. So not on the same side. That's just a cleanup view for you to see. [Applause] So, taking an image taken um a photo taken from the street. I blurred out the current sign so you can kind of see what staff is recommending. Again, staff is recommending approval of the variance to allow two signs, one on the north elevation and one on the east elevation. staff finds that this is consistent with the comprehensive plan in supporting businesses and the intent of the signage code which is for visibility and wayfinding. So that sign along the north frontage along that public street for visibility. Staff finds that this proposal is reasonable as well as has uniqueness. The eastern elevation does have some excuse me eastern access does have some limited visibility. And lastly, this proposal does fit with the possibilities for the neighborhood. So, the character, as I mentioned, other sites would be allowed one sign um if they have one frontage, but in the case of two, they could have two frontages on separate elevations along those frontages. This is the proposal um from the applicant and this would be for two signs on the eastern elevation. staff does not support this recommendation or this proposal because they do not believe it is consistent with the intent of the signage code. Specifically, visibility along a frontage. Eastern side does not have any um frontage along a public street whereas north is along Hutchkins Drive. Staff believes that there is not a uniqueness to the circumstance. Um, the location of the sign on the eastern elevation was a choice by the property owner with one of the current tenants and we believe that it does not align with the character of the neighborhood or what you would could see at other possible possible other sites. Again, having frontage along those public streets. Staff is recommending that the planning commission approve a variance for two wall signs, one on the northern elevation and one on the southern, excuse me, northern elevation and the eastern elevation um with a condition of approval for no additional temporary signage on the property. Uh you will see in the change memo there's first there's an email attached that came from the applicant directly to the commissioners. per open meeting law that does need to be shared as part of a public meeting. Um, so that's been attached. There's also been an edit for there are four options. First option is to agree with staff and their recommendation. Second is that you can agree with the applicant and their recommendation for the two signs on the one elevation. Third option is to uh just deny the request for a variance. Fourth option is to table the item and with the staff excuse me and with staff st and with that I'm available for questions. So sorry. >> Thank you Miss Reigns. What com questions do commissioners have for staff? >> Commissioner Brink. >> Yeah I just have a question on the whole application uh process on this. I my understanding is um Anchored Orthodontics is a tenant in the building and there's two other tenants plus there's a landlord and I don't know if necessarily if the landlord and the property owner are the same but is it is it proper or even legal maybe for one tenant to be requesting this what I'm thinking is if the city approved something and one of the other tenants or the landlord came back and said hey we don't like that you know you didn't have a right to do that I mean has that been looked into or what's the whole logistical process with this >> chair commissioner. Um, as part of the application process, we do require signature writing off essentially authority from the property owner. In this case, that's the representative, the property manager. Um, and they were also sent an email asking them and encouraging them to attend the meeting with those other tenants because they would be in affected by this decision. uh chair and and commissioner Brink, I'll add on to that also in that um again all office buildings in our community are subject to these these same regulations whether it's you know the the office buildings on 394 these smaller ones and we do get frequently requests for multiple office tenants to be on the buildings and staff's response generally is that's between the property owner and the management company and the tenants to determine really who who gets that signage. [Music] >> Commissioner Henry, >> thanks chair. I'm not sure if this is a question for city staff or for the applicant, but I can ask it to the city first. Has the has the other tenant Devita diialysis been aware of the situation? Have you been in contact with them or again is it is it completely the onus is on the management of the building to communicate with them? I'm just concerned similar to Commissioner Brink where if there's two signs and then why wouldn't Devita Dialysis say we'd like a sign too and then we'd have to revisit this. So I'd like that not to happen. >> Chair Commissioner. So precisely um initially when we send out the public notices, we do send out notices and one of those um goes to the property. It's the property owner. So that's why I sent an additional email just asking them if they're coming and then again encouraging for them to bring the other tenants. I did not get a response to that email. >> Okay. It's probably as much as city can answer. So I'll pass that to the applicant as well. Thank you, >> Commissioner Banks. >> Thanks, Chair. Um, do we know when the the existing two signs that are there when they were placed there? >> Commissioner Chair, uh, so the permitted sign was issued in 2014 and it appears that from um, street view, it appears that it was roughly around that same time that it was painted on the other second sign. Commissioner Henry, >> thanks. Just one more follow-up question, too, regarding the monument sign. Is that as large of a sign as what's permitted there? I'm just curious in the email that the applicant sent, they mentioned that a lot of their customers, they lamented because they couldn't see a sign, but there is a there's a monument sign there. It's small. They're on the bottom, but are they allowed to have any larger service area or is that the maximum for that monument sign? >> Chair, Commissioner, I'll have to search for that answer. >> Okay. >> I also have one uh followup question. Is there wording in this um resolution that specifies this sign has to go to a particular tenant or is it just there will be allowed two signs one on each face or does it say the sign is for this particular design for anchored orthodontics? Chair Maxwell. So there is not language specifically giving one tenant each sign. However, generally there is standards where typically signage needs to be abuing the tenants space on the building. Um, so for example, if dentistry by design wanted a sign, they could have it anywhere along their tenant space. So based off that it would um be basically chosen that dentistry by design would have to have that northern elevation. >> Thank you. >> Commissioner Minion, >> we could talk a little bit about actually what we're approving in regards to long time. Um I see the tenants as being transient uh whether that be a year or 20 years. And are we approving this? Now, the if the applicant is applying for this, are we approving this to make a permanent change to the building as the tenants continue to move? Obviously, the signage would change unless somebody bought the building, bought the business. But um once if we were to ex to approve this tenants move out, where do we where was it legisl? Do we go back to just having one sign for three tenants? If they put a fourth tenant in, can they put in four signs? What I'm saying is what are we what are we approving not just today, but down the year to year and 20 years? Chair, Commissioner, um you would be approving two signs for the site for as long as they continue that. So kind of what I mentioned before about the nonconformity. Once they discontinue that for a certain amount of period, then they lose this variance. Um so essentially you'd be approving one on this northern elevation. So for example, say dentistry by design relocated and they wanted to give the sign to Dvidita. Devita is on that north elevation, they could take up that sign or the new tenant in that location. Um, but they would be still held to the standard of one on the north, one on the east as long as they continue that and do not like remove the sign for a certain amount of period. >> Effectively, it's going with the building, not the tenant. >> Correct. >> Perfect. Thank you, >> Commissioner Henry. I think there's one more just to be clear on the issue because I think what's hap what's going to happen is that we have two main proposals in front of us and it's either two on the east or one on the east and one on the north and from what I've heard and from what I read in the packet the two reasons that the city doesn't recommend having two on the east one is lack of visibility. The second one is it's it doesn't propose a unique circumstance and is is that correct or is there any more that we should know about? Uh, chair, commissioner. Yep. I'd say the third one is just the character of the neighborhood. So, this is something that could not be replicated at any other property without but for a variance. They those other properties if they had two signs, they would need to be on separate elevations because they have the two frontage which allows them to have those two signs. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, looks like we're done with commission questions of staff. So, at this time, it looks like um, Miss Thomas. >> Sorry. Uh, chair and commissioner Henry have sort of an answer to your question. And I can tell you that based on the size of the building and the right of way, um the property in terms of their monument sign would be allowed 36 square ft um for the total sign area. I can't tell you unfortunately if the current sign um meets that. Um not suggesting that it didn't necessarily have uh permitting, but our permit records don't show anything that would give us the the size of that existing sign. Thanks for doing the research so quickly. >> All right. Thank you staff for the presentation and answering our questions. Next, I will invite uh the applicant up to make a presentation if you wish and then take questions from the commission. Great. I want to first thank um the city of Minnitonka and the planning commission for the opportunity to be here tonight. My name is Dr. Dr. Molly McMahon and this is my husband Kevin McMahon and we are the owners and operators of Ankored Orthodontics, a Minnotonka based orthodontic clinic we built from scratch and as you see located near the intersections of 7 and 101. As you may have seen in our email to the planning commission board members a couple weeks ago, fighting for reasonable permanent signage for our small business has been part of our daily lives for over three years now. We are excited to have the opportunity to potentially put this issue behind us today. I will attempt to overview the situation as concisely as possible. Anchored or Orthodontics opened our doors in June of 2023. When we signed our lease in the fall of 2022, our biggest hesitation was the lack of signage for our space. We ultimately chose to move forward with the lease due to lack of available space in Minnetonka for our type of business and the amount of time and money we'd already spent pursuing this specific location. We were able to get the owner and the landlord to covenant in our lease that they would use their best efforts to get anchored ortho a sign with the pro with approval from the city. After nearly three years of no progress being made by the landlord on our sign despite us pushing the city, they allowed us to go forward ourselves and pursue this on our own accord. Um, we are residents of Minnitonka. In fact, we live right off of Williston Road. Um, I plan to live here for a long time. We plan to send our son to school here and have the business in Minnotonka for many decades to come. Anchored Orthodontics sponsors many school activities, sports, the farmers market, chamber events in Minnotonka and hope to be an anchor in the community for the foreseeable future. It is a passion of mine to provide highest quality orthodontics to my community in a caring and intimate environment. Signage is also something we are passionate about because it creates visibility for our business in a classy way and also represents legitimacy. We are exhausted from hearing from our patients and prospective patients. They are not sure which door to enter, what suite are we in, or asking when we are going to get a real sign. We are grateful to the planning department for the recommendation um for approval of our proposed sign, but we are here to plead with the commission members to show reasonleness with respect to one of the conditions in particular. As you are aware from the material circulated by the planning city department, the approval recommendation comes with two primary conditions. First off, we have no problem with the removal of our temporary signage, and we will do so once our permanent sign is installed. The second condition, however, requires that the neighboring dentists in our building, Dentistry by Design, um remove their permanent sign presents some legitimate concerns and hardships. We had already we have already spoken to our landlord and Dentistry by Design about removing the painted sign on the northern elevation, and that's agreed upon by all parties. The landlord has provided a letter stating that the painted sign on the north elevation will be removed and that letter has been provided to the city. The installed dentistry by design sign on the east elevation is a good-looking quality sign and to ask our neighbors who we have a good working relationship with to destroy their sign so that we can have a sign would create unnecessary tension between neighbors. We feel this is obstructionist requirement in the city manufacturing an issue that is easily un easily avoidable and unnecessary. Trashing dentistry by design's current sign is extremely wasteful and would would result in throwing away perfectly good sign that cost several thousand dollars to make, would be costly to remove, and would cost several thousand to replace. And I think we can all agree that our landfills don't need more junk in them. This will also create additional work and expense for Dentistry by Design, who would then have to look into installing a new sign and additional work for the city and approving said sign. Both our suite and dentistry by design enter through the same door on the east elevation which is which is the front of the building. Therefore, if dentistry by design is required to move their permanent sign to the north elevation, it would create more confusion in patients locating their entrance. We also want to clarify that the documents the city planning department circulated indicated that the current permanent dentistry by design sign on the eastern elevation is an illuminated sign, but it is in fact it does not have any electronics at all. Therefore, there would not be two illuminated signs on one side of the building. Furthermore, the city states that the east elevation is not a street facing side of the building, which is arguably incorrect since the street does curve near our building. And both the north and the east sides of the building face Hutchkins Drive depending on where you are looking. The east elevation is fully visible on Hutchkins Drive heading west from 101 where most traffic originates, while the north side of the building is not as visible. One could argue that the east elevation is far more visible from Hutchkins Drive. Having two signs on the east elevation would not alter the character of the area. This is a commercial and businessheavy area with a lot of variation in sign design, size, location, and number of signs per building. The public will simply not know the difference. What would drastically improve the aesthetics of the building is a nice well- constructed sign that we would install at our cost. This building has been out of code with regards to signage for over 10 years. We have gone out of our way to go about this process the right way in obtaining a sign through the committee. We have spent a lot of time and money to get to this point and we appreciate the planning commission hearing our position. In conclusion, as Minnitankka residents and a local womenowned business committing committed to bettering the community, we feel our sign for a request for a sign is extremely reasonable. It would be unfortunate for us to alienate a neighboring business that we work well with in order to obtain obtain a sign approval. We plead with the commission members to view our request not from a black and white code compliance perspective, but with a human element. We look forward to working with the city of Minnitonka for years to come and welcome any questions the committee may have. Thank you. >> Uh thanks Dr. McMahon. If you'd stay there please. We may have some questions for you. Who wants to go first? Commissioner Henry. >> Thank you. Thanks for the presentation and thank you for the email that you sent over last week. Gave us a lot of time to figure out what you were trying to get across and that was helpful too. So, uh, one of the questions is, have you had communication with the the dentist office and and what did they say? >> Your your point about creating unnecessary tension. You could always blame it on the city because that's what they want. And I'm assuming they're probably not going to have any hard feelings with you no matter how this goes through. But I just like to get anecdotally what you talked about and what their reaction was. >> Yep. So, we we have spoken with the dentist. Again, we do have a good working relationship with them. Um they they have they are aware that their painted sign on the northern elevation is out of compliance and they um again and the landlord have both said that they would remove that sign no problem. They are more hesitant as you can imagine to have to construct an entire new permanent permanent sign for good reason. um you know we've told them that we were going to be here today and again we welcome them to to come and I don't think they they made it but um they so they are aware of the situation but they they would like to keep their permanent sign is is the feeling that we have with them. >> Yeah. It's too bad that they aren't here because I like to get firstperson accounts of what their preference is and that could help us make a more informed decision too. But so you're saying that they would prefer to have a sign on the eastern face versus the northern phase? >> Yeah. So, I mean, on the northern elevation, it's just a a simple painted sign. And on the eastern elevation, I mean, it's a raised lettered sign. Probably cost them several thousand to install. And so, the main concern that we have is, you know, we're we're taking away their permanent sign, allowing them to keep a simple painted sign, which is obviously hurts their signage significantly. And uh from our initial conversations with them, that's not something that they're super excited about. And if the role, you know, if those situations were reversed, I can see why they would feel that way. >> I'm not sure that's the question in front of us today. I don't think there's any reason why they couldn't transplant the sign from the east to the north and keep the raised letters on there. I'm not sure if you you mentioned that, but I see nodding of heads from the city staff. So, that could be an option. Have you have you breached that subject with them? And what did they say about that? >> We have internally discussed that option, but we um well, first of all, that's an expensive endeavor to remove the sign and reinstall the sign. Um it creates an expense for the dentist that quite frankly has nothing to do with our request. Um it is something that Dr. Molly and I have talked about if if we have to go that route. Um >> I'm also I'm not 100% sure like the dimensions would fit. I mean, I haven't gotten up there is is like a roof with like a small awning. And so the actual like it's hard to know for sure how that would look and if it's even possible to affix that sign to an awning. >> Could you please sir state your name and address for the record? >> Yeah, my name is Kevin McMahon. I'm uh Dr. Molly's husband and co-owner of the business. >> Thank you. As co-owners of the business, what is more important for you? Is it wayfinding of people that are driving on the roads to see the building and see the name of your your um your company or would it be that once they parked to see where to enter the building to go into your >> I would say way finding from the street >> from the street when the cars are moving? >> Yes. >> Okay. But still in your opinion >> both. Yeah. I mean both both are important. Both are important, but if we had to choose one, >> yeah, the visibility from the street would probably be my main >> priority. And to that end, it's very and we we mentioned Molly kind of mentioned it in her speech, but um the north elevation is not at all visible until you uh like get up to the building. So, the area where mo most of the traffic flows is from 101 and coming west. And so, and coming west down that road, the east elevation is completely visible. um where we're proposing to see our sign. It, you know, it would provide a lot of visibility out to 101 and down Hutchkins Drive when you're driving east. Uh you wouldn't be able to see that sign or excuse me, driving west. You wouldn't be able to see that sign if it were on the north elevation. Um driving west at all until you got up to the building. Um so I think that's important to note and it's kind of not exactly what the city report said because there there is a lot of visibility on the east side. the way the way the building is positioned, it the east side completely faces down Hutchkins Drive and down towards 101. So, we wanted to clarify that cuz the dentist moving their sign to the north elevation only and losing the sign on the east elevation would lose a lot of visibility for them. And I think one of the reasons they mentioned in the report that they'd have more visibility on the north, but this tree is really the only reason it's a little I mean it's a little overgrown and we could, you know, they could trim that back and you would see it much much better. >> Well, as the occupants of the building, I wanted to get your opinion on that one. So, if you think that it's more visible from the eastern side, then your opinion probably carries a lot of weight. So, at least it does with me. Thank you. >> Yeah. Other questions? C >> can I clarify uh one of the questions you asked to the city previously about if the uh the owner and the landlord uh was a part of this. Um they they signed our variance application. Both the property manager and the owner, we got signatures from both of them. They reviewed our application. They signed our application. So they are definitely uh on board with this and understand. Uh to be honest with you, we've been talking to the landlord about this going back to June of 2022. Um we unfortunately didn't get a lot of cooperation from them on starting this process for us, which is why unfortunately we got to the points where we had to do it, but they are definitely aware of that. >> And I will clarify too, one of the reasons we didn't get a lot of cooperation initially is only because they were trying to get Dentistry by Design to renew their lease. >> Yes. And they did not want us to approach dentistry by design until the lease was renewed for another 12 years. And now it's renewed for another 12 years. And so now they're like, "Go ahead, >> do what you got to do." And in our lease too, when you mentioned, "Will Dvita be mad?" It is in our lease that if this building were to ever get a second sign, we would have the first right of refusal over DVIA. >> Well, then since you broached that subject, too, have you talked with the the people at Dvita? And are they You said you didn't want to make the the dentist office sore. Is the VA going to be sore because they have no sign? >> They have the largest portion of the monument sign that is right in front of their space and it's illuminated. Our portion of the monument sign, you can't see it in this depiction cuz it's not night time. It's actually not. The two the dentists are not illuminated at all, but Dvita is like bright illumination at night. Um I >> mean the Dvita sign is three or four times the size of ours. Uh, and the monument sign in in the winter, you can't even see it after >> it gets and it gets like covered by snow. >> There's no um we were obviously happy to get a spot on the the monument sign, but from our perspective, it adds almost very little value. Um, first of all, it's past our tenant space. Um, so if that were the only signage on that area, it's very difficult to know what there's another entrance up past the uh sign where the bank was before. And I mean it has no back lit. You can't see it at night. You can't see it early in the morning. Uh it's a pretty small sign. >> City staff just let us know that the monument sign it has a maximum of 36 square ft. Are you planning on trying to improve your monument sign to add back lit or are you are you okay with it as it is? >> They just redid the sign in 2023. So, I I don't think our landlord would redo that sign anytime soon, >> nor were we given the option. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Other questions from commissioners? Commissioner Waterman. >> Thanks, Chair. Um, has there been any discussion with the landlord about bearing or sharing the cost of some of this sign movement, especially for dentistry by design? Just given >> they will they said that they would cover the cost of painting over the painted sign. We have not had a c discussion about the cost of moving it or a >> new all the tenants in the building are in a triple net lease. All expenses associated with the property get passed on to the tenant. Um if the landlord did pay for it, we would end up paying for it and CAM reimbursements the next year. So, uh, whether they pay for it and we reimburse them next year or we pay for it, ultimately we're paying for it. >> Commissioner Minion, >> you mentioned that there's a 12 month or 12-ear lease by one tenant. Um, can you tell us what your commitment timewise is and and any sharing knowledge you know about the Dvita's commitment as far as a timeline to the community and and their leases? I don't know anything about >> um we signed a to be clear, we signed a 12-year lease and we have additional 5-year extensions on that lease. Um the the dentist just renewed their lease. I can't tell you for how long. Uh we have really no communication with Dvita. Their entrance is on the complete opposite side of the building. Um so really the only thing that we share is a hallway that they have like a back door out of. Uh, I can't say that I've ever spoken to any employee there other than one time when we got a package delivered there. Um, we have no relationship with them whatsoever. Um, I also think it's important to note that the dentist and the orthodontist, our business, are privatelyowned businesses that are run by small businesses that are run by us and run by another family. Whereas Dvita may even be a publicly traded company. the employees that work there aren't as gonna be as incentivized to get the necessary signage that someone like us or the dentist might be. Um, but we really have no idea what their their stance on the signage is. But, um, like Dr. Molly said, we were able to get in addition to the landlord covenanting to attempt to start this process 3 years ago, which they did not do, they also said that if there ever was a sign approved that we would get it. So, um I mean I think we've covered our bases there. >> Other questions from commissioners for the applicant? >> Commissioner Banks. >> Thanks, Chair. Yeah, thank you for the presentation. Um Dr. McMahon, I just want to understand um when you before you signed the lease, um you mentioned that there was an understanding that if there was a second sign, you would um your company would be the one that would be able to to have that sign. Correct. Is that is that the correct understanding? >> I I would rephrase that. Um okay, we there were there's two parts of that. They covenanted within the lease that they would make their commercially be the actual quote that it says is commercially best efforts to get the city of Minnetonka to approve a permanent sign for anchored orthodontics on the east elevation. That never happened. Secondly, there's a second clause in the lease that says if a second sign were to ever get approved, we have the right of first refusal. We get it. >> Okay. And with that, you sign the lease with the risk that there might not be a second sign. Um, are you if there isn't a second sign, um, would that compel you to move your business or what, what would that not having that second sign? >> Um, it would definitely compel us to relocate after our lease is up. Uh, we need a sign. It's it's it's a very important part of any any business in my opinion, but certainly in our type of business, especially where we're located. Um, we can't I mean, we're not going to break our lease. I mean it would be very expensive to do so but um yeah I think it would definitely influence our ability to our interest in uh extending the lease or renewing the lease. >> Okay. And second question um how long have you had the temporary sign um that is in the like the front yard there? >> Um we put that up like shortly after we opened. >> Okay. So roughly two three years. Is that what I'm thinking? >> A little over two uh two years probably. probably put up in September of 23. >> All right. All right. Thank you. >> Which again, we're happy to take that down. >> Any other questions from commissioners? >> Commissioner Minion, >> will you share with us a little bit? You talked about moving what the cost to build out to do a move would cost. >> Um, >> just a rough estimate what you think to do it again. >> Our buildout with equipment cost a million dollars. >> Okay. Um, >> and that was in 2022. It's probably a million3 now. And are you aware that one of the things in this packet that we're presented with is not one, not two, but three different bright red letters that say non-compliance signs in the property. Two of them are for you and and one is the other in question. >> The only reason that we have non-compliant signs on the building is because we have not gotten a permanent sign approved. >> Okay. Happy to take those down. Any other questions for the applicant? All right. Thank you. I may call you back up after the public hearing if there are further questions. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I will um now open the public hearing for this item. If you'd like to speak regarding this 17809 Hutchkins Drive sign uh item, please come to the podium and state your name and your address for the record. address your questions or comments to me and then I will gather uh answers to those questions after the public hearing. All right, I see that it looks like there's not going to be any uh public comments on this item. So, I will now close the public hearing and I will bring it back to the commission for any further questions. You may also make comments at this time. It's a question of the city. It's >> Commissioner Minion. >> If I remember correctly, I read 2014 is when the additional sign went into uh non-compliance. Will you talk a little bit about that process? I'm assuming that that was done by the landlord. I don't know that, but in the end, I think the landlord would be the person that would be responsible. Kind of walk me through that process. is has have they been given notice to say their signage is non-compliant and and how does that process work? >> Chair, I'll let Julie answer this one. >> Thank you. Uh Chair and Commissioner Minion, um when there's non-compliance, uh it's a violation of city code that is punishable by um a citation issued by the city. Um obviously they're trying to correct the violation during this process. They are unnoticed because they get the packet, they get the information, they get the notice. So um when somebody's trying to rectify an issue, uh we don't cite them. So if there's non-compliance and we don't get cooperation, that's when you site them. >> Okay. >> I'm looking for a little bit of good faith here. Um and be honest, I'm just bothered to hear 2014. I'm bothered to see three postings on this that say non-compliant. Um, how long ago was the landlord notified? I mean, to me, I look at this, I drove by the property, it's a nice property. Um, but if if covering up the one sign, the painted sign, would be a matter of paint. Um, whether they move them or not, but how long have they had to come into compliance? I guess is why I'm saying from the time you actually told them I see >> to today. Is this something that's just happened recently? >> Is this something that's actually been done since 2014 and they've just thumbmed their nose at the city and said we don't care? >> No. >> Um, can you kind of give me a little bit of a background of kind of how that process worked out? And >> um, >> chair and commissioner, I think, uh, Bria, if you can help me out with the dates. Um, but we have not had a a back and forth since 2014. No, it was something you discovered during this process. I believe that >> chair commissioner. Yes. Looks like the oldest correspondence related to this uh non-conforming sign is September 2022. So, they put on notice and like you said, good faith. We said that when you get a new sign, we're expecting you take down the non-compliant one at that time. Who wants to go next? Commissioner uh Hansen, >> this is this is for the staff. And then it's probably a really dumb question. If we if we approved the staff recommendation tonight and I think about like the the business owner said, "Oh, we'll take down the temporary signs." What what would be left over for signage for anchored after if we approved this tonight? I'm just trying to There's this sign and that sign. I'm trying to keeping track of my signs. Not very smart to begin with. So, so what I see, let me say it this way. I see there's a temporary sign, probably a canvas sign up above. I'm assume that's your doorway to get in the building. And then there's a temporary sign kind of along the road. And then there's the monument sign. So the monument sign will stay. So help me understand if we if we approved this as is tonight. Just straight up staff recommendation. What would be there? >> Chair commissioner. Um as you can see on the screen, so in total it' be the monument sign which is not shown in this image. Yeah. >> And then it'd be the two wall signs as shown on the screen in those on the north elevation and east elevation and then that directional sign underneath anchored orthodontics. >> Okay, got it. That's helpful just to visualize. I probably have more, but I'm I got to think for a little bit. All right. Who wants to make another comment or question while uh Commissioner Hansen thinks? Commissioner Banks. Thanks, Chair. Um want to go back to 2014 and for the dentistry by design. One of the signs that they have, one of the two was properly permitted. Correct. in 2014, would that permanent sign, could that be the one that is on the east wall or would that have also had to been on the north wall? >> Commissioner, chair, commissioner, uh, no, it was approved on the eastern side for the property. They were allowed one sign, which isn't regulated to that frontage, but when you get to the two abuing sides, then it needs to be per frontage. Thank you. Thanks for clearing that up. >> Commissioner Minion, >> good question for the city. And I guess maybe I'm putting too much into these three non-compliant um issues. But if we were to if we were to prove this one way or the other, do we have the ability to put this into some sort of a condition to say that we need to see not just good faith, but we need to see action before we move forward and and and allow for the next sign to go on the building. Is there a way for us to actually make that happen? >> Chair Commissioner, you could have that condition. Um, it sounds like you're saying prior to installing a second sign, they need to remove one of the existing. You could make that a condition. >> However, this falls. >> It just bothers me to see since 2014 that the landlord who's not here and and now the applicant is going to be held for what the the landlord has been doing. And the applicant does have two non-conforming signs on this photo that I'm seeing as well. Um, what I'm saying is is is the trust level for me is is wavering and I would like to see some sort of language and how we decide tonight. I'm not saying one direction or another, but if we approve to do something, I would like to see some sort of a language that puts in and says we need to make sure that we're back into compliance before the new signs go up. If that's possible, it' be great to see. >> Commissioner Hansen, >> I think we're closed or we closed for public testimony, but the applicant I saw raise their hand. So, I don't know if you want to go that way yet or not. I was just >> uh let's keep getting comments from the >> Yeah. Okay. >> at this point. Thank you. That being said, if any of the commissioners do have a question specifically for the applicant, I can call the applicant back up. Commissioner Waterman. >> Thanks, Chair. I think I'll I'll just move into comments. Of course, if there continue to be questions, have at it. I am really really 50/50 on this in terms of options one or two. Um, you know, I really get why the city can't couldn't just approve this on paper because there's just a lot non-compliant here and we have the ordinances for a reason. Um, and it is very frustrating that it seems like the landlord is or maybe not the current landlord, but people that are not here were doing things that they shouldn't do or saying things that they shouldn't have said or promising things that they shouldn't have. And now it's the tenants who are have invested a lot in this and relied on this and have spent a ton of time and costs to fix it and a lot of frustration. And I just I really don't want to incentivize that. I I I'm very sensitive to precedent setting uh in the city with just any anytime we chip away at the ordinances. Um, you know, they're allowed one wall sign on this building, not the tenants, so the landlord, uh, asking for two, both not on the frontage. Um, you know, I I'm I'm fully in support certainly of the city's recommendation on one on each side, the north and the east side. I'm I'm really just chewing on whether I disagree with the staff recommendation and could see kind of a means to have two signs on the east facade. Like I said, I'm 50/50. I think I'm actually leaning in more in favor of that. I mean, this is this process has gone on for a while. I think that there is I could pull the thread of the unique circumstances that the city listed in there with where the entrance is in the building. Um that that provides something here and and the fact that the sign that's the dentistry by design sign that's already on the east side of the building was approved. Um that is compliant. Um, and just, you know, we are talking about signs here. Um, I I don't think it's going to have too adverse of an impact on the neighborhood. I think it will help with wayfinding, just really, really sensitive, like I said, to precedent setting and just almost incentivizing or not punishing landlords that don't comply with signorances. So, I I'm going to throw it out that I might propose to to option number two on our list tonight to to disagree with staff and uh maybe recommend that uh variance approval with two signs on the east. Um with the same conditions listed in the uh or I guess edited conditions listed uh including taking down the temporary signs, but feel free to discuss and I could you know see where it goes. Commissioner Henry Hansen, Commissioner Hansen, >> that would have been an upgrade for me. Okay. I think um Commissioner Waterman, super thoughtful. I I think um maybe more plain spoken for myself here. What are we doing here? We have the business owner fighting for themselves and the ten and the landlord. Now, we probably have all rented at one point in our life. Um, and here we have a small business kind of fighting to hang its own shingle. And so I personally want to do whatever is possible to support that. And so I think I'm with you that um this isn't going to ruin anybody's life by supporting that. We probably get net net investment back in the community by supporting a business owner. So it's kind of where my head's going directionally. Commissioner Hansen, I mean Henry, it could be interchangeable. The purpose of a variance is you have to look at the situation holistically and what's going to be best for the city, for the the applicant, for city staff, for the neighbors, and everybody else. And I'm a big believer in doing what's best, the highest good for all parties. And I I I value the feedback of people that have been there for years. So applicants, thank you very much for making your proposal. And and that carries a lot of weight with me. When I first saw the proposal, I thought it's reasonable to have a sign on the on the one and on the other, the east and the and the north. But if I looked at analytically uh for the three criteria that the city outlined about a lack of visibility, I I live pretty close to this too and I can agree that the the visibility on the east is is pretty good. So I don't think that would be impediment to me approving on both on the east and then with the it's not a unique circumstance that's that's really hard to to overrule or it's hard to hard to say ironclad it is or it isn't. I think it's really ambiguous, but the unique circumstance is to me is that the entrance is on the east side. And if I put my shoes in the position of the the the tendons or even of a patient going into the clinic, would it make sense to have the sign on the east or on the north? And I'm leaning toward the east just to you pull up and you see the sign right by the door. And then for the neighborhood character, I think both look attractive. They they wouldn't detract from from one or the other. Personally, I I rather like both on the east because then on the north side as you're driving along, the building would blend in a little bit with the trees and since it's brown and the green, that would I like things a little bit more cozy that way. But so I I could I could say according to these criteria, but I also do like what Commissioner Hansen said too about we're we're trying to do best for all parties and one of the party that's most effective it most affected is the the people that are renting out the property and they are trying to set roots in the community and I I fully applaud that and their opinion again carries a lot of weight. So, if they would insist, if they really wanted to have two on the one side, and I I would have loved to have representation from the dentist company here. And I'm I'm sad that there's not here, but I do understand the reason why. To me, cost it wouldn't be an issue. It sounds like three of the tenants would share the cost of the sign. So, I don't think that needed to be belabored. But in short, I'm also leaning toward having two on the eastern side. Thank you, Commissioner Henry. Commissioner Banks. Thanks, Chair. Um, I think all of the points that, uh, fellow commissioners have ma have made already were exactly what I was thinking uh, in terms of, you know, which option obviously uh, staff's recommendation. um albeit a a good one. Um looking at this holistically, you know, to me, you know, we we have one sign on the east wall, it was put in place when when it was put in place, uh it was permitted correctly. And um and apparently between the two um the the the the other sign on the north, which is just a um painted on sign, obviously would to to have to remove the one that was properly permitted. Uh because we now have two uh would seem like u probably not beneficial for a small business owner in my opinion uh to have to bear that that kind of a cost because the sign is already there. if if it wasn't there, uh this would probably be a different decision for me. Um I guess what I hope to see in the future is that things kind of get resolved without so much of the non-compliance. Um there's you have one sign that's non-compliant um that is in the place where you're going to put, you know, if anything is approved where you would put your new sign. So, I'm I'm kind of baffled why we have two non-compliance signs and if you know, but nonetheless, uh hopefully, as you agreed to, that'll get cleaned up u with whatever decision is made um to make sure that this building is in compliance as much as possible. Um, with that, you know, I agree with fellow uh commissioners that Tucson signs on the east, um, you know, albeit, you know, there's no unique circumstance to warrant it. However, um, it just it just feels like it would be, you know, the the best thing to do in given all of the information that we've received tonight. So, >> thanks, Commissioner Banks. Commissioner Minion, >> I've said it before, I'll say it again. I'm a big uh supporter of our sign uh codes and and I think that they're important. Um but typically a sign is just a generic word and there's so many different things that are are can be presented and aesthetics mean a lot. How things fit in the neighborhood mean a lot. And the fact that the sign that was presented to us that you've put some time into it made it actually more aesthetically pleasing. It's not just a uh piece of plastic that's back lit or not back lit. Um to me it makes it much more easy to accept and to um allow to make these changes. Um I think the city I support the city's decision in that technically I think the city is absolutely correct. the long side of this face is is is the north side. And and in a technical sway, I think that's absolutely right what they're saying. But I had the opportunity to drive this today and I and I did it from 101, which is kind of the main thorough fear. And the first thing you see is the east side of the building. Um and I drove around the property. It's a nice property, but um I would be in favor of having this on the east side and and and having them both on the east side, but I definitely want to see some uh goodwill by the applicant by removing some of the the the uh at least the banner sign that's out there now. Um I absolutely agree that you need something on that east side over that door to let people know that where you're at. Um, and I'd like to see some some goodwill on the part of the landowner and get the um, you know, get it back in compliance. It's just I'd like to see us have this written up in such a way or maybe if we kick it up to the city council, they add that to their language. But, um, instead of just blanket saying, "Yeah, go ahead, put a bunch of signs up." I'd like to see some movement in a positive direction and build good faith if that's possible. I'll need the city's advice on that. But thank you. >> Thanks, Commissioner Minion. Commissioner Brink. >> Yeah. Uh, first of all, I'd like to thank the applicant and staff for all your uh, hard work and due diligence on this. Um, you know, overall, I'm just I'm just kind of disturbed by the lack of um, uh, attentive to this by the landlord um, and just leaving it to the applicants to try and or the tenants to try and figure this out. um you know the fact that uh the dentistry design isn't here really to provide input or DVIA doesn't sound like they've been contacted at all and um and I kind of go back to one of the commissioner comments earlier about um you know what we decide tonight you know runs with the building into the future. I mean, we're obviously looking at a very legitimate request right now, but you know, what we decide, you know, this runs into the future and uh you know, tenants, they they come and go. Um, I guess I guess what I'm uncomfortable with this is, um, you know, if we if I'm really leaning toward staff's recommendation here because I think about the future and I think of a year from now, two years from now, we got some new tenants coming in saying, "Hey, we want to change this now." And there's a side of me that says, "Let's just do this right, you know, into the future here just for everybody involved and be consistent with how we do things." And uh um it does seem weird to me that the frontage of the building has would have no signage at all on it. And I I do realize that most of the traffic comes from the east, but it is a through street high school over there. There is traffic that comes from the west. So it does seem kind of odd that if you were approaching this building from the west, you just see this building and then you see nothing on the building. It just seems a little odd to me. Um, and what seems to be what I'm hearing, I get the impression what's driving this is just the cost of removing the the one wall sign by dentistry of design. Is that is that really a hardship? You know, we can talk about cost. What is really a hardship and what isn't? And I'm not convinced that it is really a true hardship. So, um, I'm leaning toward supporting staff's recommendation. >> Question. >> Thanks, Commissioner Brink. Uh, Commissioner Menion, you have a question for staff. >> Yes. Uh, it was mentioned in our packet that, uh, three tenants have so many signs allowed for a physical size building, but four tenants, the rules change. Will you talk a little bit about how many signs are possible if one of these divides again? If one of these all of a sudden there's four tenants. Um, just kind of that backing into that long-term what we're improving tonight. Chair, Commissioner. Um, so yeah, there's a difference in definition. Once you hit four or more tenants um or reach four or more tenants in a site, it's considered a multi-tenant uh building and they have different sign regulations. So in the event that they added a tenant, um they would fall under that definition. So for that uh it looks like they are allowed a sign per tenant, no more than two signs to total per elevation and then they have their standards for their size and graphic for the text and graphic. >> So effectively if they subdivided one of these they would have a ton of signs in this building. If you >> if they increase to four tenants, they could have if you did approve this variance, they could have two more wall signs. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. >> Any other final comments before I go? >> No. All right. Um, this one I tended to agree with what you said, Commissioner Hansen, that this is I I really want to support the local business owners who are here investing in our community. Um, and so I took it from a more analytical approach like you were mentioning, Commissioner Hansen, looking at we have what's the intent of the code? Is it reasonable? Is there a unique circumstance? And then the local character is sort of where I got a little bit stuck that there aren't other um B1 businesses with two signs on the same face. And would that really constitute a significant change to the the character of the neighborhood? Um, and I feel like if if this was facing a residential area, um, or a park or something, maybe that would constitute a change. Um, but the this isn't a industrial area, and in in my mind, that didn't really constitute a significant change to local character. Um, so in in my mind, um, approving a variance to allow two wall signs is is reasonable and I feel like putting two wall signs on the east elevation um would not be a significant change to local character. It meets the unique circumstances, reasonleness and intent of the code in my in my thought. So I frankly I would support a approval of a variance either way whichever side of the the building uh everybody agrees to. I from the comments I've heard so far, I sense that um there are at least five of us who would um support putting two signs on the east side. Um so is there anybody who would like to make a motion to that or is there anything else you need, Susan, to define what that motion would look like? >> Yeah, I've been taking notes while you've been talking. As you know, we need to record for the record how you feel the um variance standards are met. And what I have are similar to what it was um written in the staff report. The purpose and intent of the ordinance um is to um you know promote appropriate wayfinding. I think that is applicable. um consistent with the comprehensive plan again allowing um two signs to um foster livable communities and support local businesses. Um practical difficulties reasonleness again noting that the uh signage would be located on the wall closest to the entrance of the buildings um which is also kind of the the unique circumstance. The the change would come under a character of locality. What I think I've synthesized is kind of based on the size and scale of the building and the proposed um signs, they would not dramatically impact um neighborhood character in this area. Did I synthesize that? Okay. I also um noted that um Commissioner Minion had indicated some um removal of temporary signs uh as a a condition of this. um from a staff perspective, understanding that there's time needed to manufacture a sign, um get a sign up, we would um suggest that those temporary signs have to be removed by like December 31st of this year, giving time for um the permanent anchored orthodontic sign to be installed um before that temporary sign comes off the building. if that if that's something that's amanable to um the planning commission >> and yes all of the I should say all of the temporary signs coming down by December 31st of this year. >> Thanks Miss Thomas. I appreciate your summary. I'm going to have Commissioner Minion go first and then I'll come to you Commissioner Hansel. So Commissioner Minion does her proposal address your concerns or would you like to see a different >> Always wonderful. Um, may I ask the city to bring up a road map of this area? Um, and to kind of bring up the um, the point that I made and some of us have kind of touched on, I think the applicant touched on it is the curvature of the road. Um, kind of back that statement I made about technically I think the city is absolutely correct. Um, but aesthetically when you come in off of 101, um, you see the east side of that the east side of that building. Um, it makes it much more easy for me to accept or tell to go for a variance on both on the east side. Um, I'm still concerned about long-term stuff, but I I think having this visual helps us understand more is it just it does it does the east side is a a pretty high trafficked high visibility area. And I like the comment uh said about when you if you clean up the other side of it actually helps the building blended a little more with the trees and stuff too. So anyway, thank you for doing that. Uh, Chair Maxwell, we can add um Commissioner Minion's um notations about the visibility of the east side um to the section on character of locality. >> Commissioner Hansen, >> I hate micromanaging, but here I am. Uh I am not a sign expert, but I have a feeling that signage in what would be 90 days, 9 105 days from now, how feasible, like we're asking this business owner to take down their temporary signs in 105 days. I want those signs to be up because I want this business to succeed. So is there logic to saying >> next spring? I don't know. like 105 days. Can they have it? Can they have two signs up? >> Uh, Chair Maxwell, >> we've lived with this for however many years. >> Yeah, Chair Maxwell and Commissioner Hansen, we can attach it to the prior to the final electrical inspection for the signs that they all need to be down. I would say in general um when we have nine compliance on a property whether it's a residential business residential property a business property we are typically looking for compliance within 90 days I mean that that's pretty um typical for us but I hear what you're saying and so um >> um you know obviously an electrical permit and a sign permit are going to be necessary >> um if this is going to be an illuminated sign um and an electrical inspection will be necessary. So, we have a a hook there. >> Yeah. I just I think we've lived with this for so long and we shouldn't punish this business owner by saying, "Hey, take down your signage." It's not It's not their issue. It's the landlord's issue. And to be frank, like the city needs to interact with a landlord a little more in my opinion. Find some teeth here. That's what I would say. Um, I'm not as educated as the city staff is, but that's just what it feels like on the outside. So, I'm glad we can be flexible there. >> Commissioner Henry, >> thank you. I agree with Commissioner Hansen. This situation is going to solve itself and we can just put the stipulation in that before the final sign gets put up, all the non-compliant signs have to be taken down. the applicants are motivated to put a permanent sign up. So, they're going to speed the process along. I don't think we have to put an artificial time deadline on there. It may be taking a long time to make the sign and deliver it. So, I think we should just say whenever the new sign is up, the other stuff has to be down. And that's simple as I can think about it. >> Effectively, you're saying take the time off of it. That makes sense. That's just where I'm going is I'd like to see some good faith in it and have not only the the applicant signs removed but have the landlord's responsibility taken care of as well. And I'm if there's not a timeline, I'm looking for you advice from the city. But that that makes perfect sense. I wouldn't want to have them not have some sort of signage out there until they get the new one up. So I agree. >> Thanks, Mr. Minion. Any other commentary before we call for a motion? No. All right. So, it sounds like we'd be ready for a motion to approve the variance to allow two wall signs on the east wall elevation at 17809 Hutchkins Drive with a condition that uh all non-conforming temporary signs must be removed prior to final installation of the permanent sign. Is that >> chair? May I add there there were there were additional conditions in the original resolution that I would I just want to >> the conditions noted in the in the packet by the staff. >> Yeah. So I'll make that motion. Is that clear enough? >> Good. Okay. Motion. Waterman. >> Second. >> Uh second. Hansen. Uh staff please pull the commission. >> Hansen. >> Yes. >> Henry. >> Yes. >> Minion. Yes. >> Waterman. >> Yes. >> Banks. >> Yes. >> Brink. >> No. >> And chair Maxwell. >> Yes. I heard six affirmatives. Um this requires five to be approved. So the motion passes. Uh if anyone um would like to um appeal the decision, they must provide written request to city staff within 10 days of this meeting. Good luck with your project. All right. Uh, moving on to item nine, other business. We have one item, 9A, Shady Oak Station development strategy update. I believe Miss Wishnack, this is your item. >> Yes. Thank you, commissioners. Uh, I'm just, uh, trying to provide you an update to an update. How's that? Um we're doing uh an overview of some updates we're doing with the city of Hopkins on the Shady Oak Station strategy. A lot of people um ask me, well, where exactly is the Shady Oak station? Because it's a little off the beaten path. I know on our tour two years ago, we went there. So, you guys are familiar with it, but maybe the people at home watching uh the the planning commission, which I'm sure we have a lot of viewers, um might want to know where we're talking about. So, uh the Can you point for me, Susan? >> Okay. So, that yellow area is all the city of Hopkins and then to the west of the line, that kind of dotted line is Minnetonka, the most confusing area of the city. Okay. So, if you go to Excel Boulevard and you go to Shady Oak Road, that corner, that all um the southeast corner is Minnetonka. And so, that's part of the study area. Um if you ask me how much acreage is in that total area that we studied, I would say about 217 acres in total. If that gives you some sense of the geography, there's about 36 acres on that corner. So, when we talk about some of those corner properties, um that's just a little bit of the chunk of the study area. And then Hopkins has the 17th Avenue area. So, you can kind of see that coming through on the aerial photo. And it's a lot more vivid in this drone photography that was recently taken. If you want to watch any of the drone uh footage of the light rail so that you can have a more up-to-date um kind of viewshed of what's happening with light rail, you can just go to the light rail website and you can pinpoint whatever area you want to look at. And so again, we walked this whole site and we walked the station area when we were down in this area on the tour. Uh for those of you who weren't on the tour, the there's kind of a cycle path that goes on the west side of this road. There's a pedestrian way. There's a two-way kind of street system and then parking areas. And all that leftover land that you see kind of is, and again, this is in the city of Hopkins. The line just is off to the left there uh to Minnetonka. And this leftover land is actually owned by Met Transit. And so there's a there was a need to kind of think about and rethink about the original strategy that we had developed. Um this is just another overview. You can kind of see that station in the forefront of the the photo and then you can kind of see the plaza taking shape. Yeah, it's looking east. Thank you, Susan. It's kind of like the drone just took a right turn and then you can see the trail too. So the um regional trail is right there as well. Oh, thank that's all right. Don't worry. I got it. >> Um, so on the left side of the screen is the original Shady Oak Station area development strategy and the two cities had met and engaged with folks about that strategy in 2015. And um, in that strategy there was a lot of thinking and you can see kind of the whole area was envisioned just like it is in the new document. Um, but what I think has changed in a big way is now we kind of know some of the things we didn't know back then. We now know um how much open property there is. Uh there was three times as much parking planned at this station than when we did the original document. Um there also wasn't this office issue, this office phenomena that we have today where we have so much vacancy and so there was office envisioned in that original plan but there was also housing in the original plan. So that um that hasn't changed much in Minnetonka. So that's why when we talk about the new plan, we're talking about just really updating a lot of the essential elements of what was originally thought out. a lot of the street system, the road layouts, the sewer, water layouts, all of those things are in the same places because that couldn't move much. So, the basic infrastructure plans uh did not change in this update, but some of the thinking about what's promoted um and what ideas uh and visions the cities want to um have people think about. So on the left that was the old plan. Um and it talked about innovation district talk about talked about authentic character. You can see uh the pump and meter building right there that sits along Excel Boulevard. But on the right the new plan you know you can see more activation type ideas um kind of talking about the active lifestyle the biking uh all of those things are highlighted in the new plan. There's also a public art strategy that was much more uh robust in this latest plan. You can see some of the temporary art installation. Um Hopkins has a lot of great public art. Um and just continuing that theme to this area is uh in the plan. There is also this thought process of because we do think it's going to take some time to redevelop this area. This is not something where and again think about the size of this acreage 217 acres. It's going to take a lot of time. I mean the year it it looks out over 20 years this plan does. So, um there were some interim strategies and activation strategies that the plan talks about. Um talked about um having cultural events, having concerts and pop-up movie nights and that sort of thing just to get people kind of excited and familiar with the area. Um very lowcost infrastructure type um ideas that could be done in the area. and also kind of taking a page out of what was happening at Shady Oak where we have the sauna in the parks, right? Are we doing popup saunas and the cold plunge and some of those newer kind of outdoor seasonal activities? Also thinking about edible gardens, maybe there's gardens planted for a period of time, that sort of thing to kind of weigh for that development to occur, but it doesn't look as maybe vacant as it does today. There also is a pretty good um depth of streetscape um inspirational photos in the document talked about what kind of lighting uh the string lighting kind of on 8th Avenue in Hopkins. You kind of see the same kind of aesthetic and you really using light as a part of what may happen in and around the plaza area. And then there was a lot of thinking again not totally in Minnetonka proper but Excelsure and 17th and how to get across appropriately at that intersection because it's just not very inviting as we all know to the pedestrians. So these were some of the ideas that were floated um with the group uh the staff work group that worked on the plan. So um just against conceptual ideas the county was a part of our meetings. they kind of heard the desires of the two cities to make this more pedestrian friendly. There's no current plans for that, but the minute something happens, the minute we're going to move some pavement, some of these ideas um hopefully will get implemented. And then this is uh more of an inspirational photo. I think this one's from Yes, Indiana. Um, it talked about kind of this trail head and trail head plaza and how to make that really work with the bike phenomena that is the regional trail there. Um, and it kind of has this um matrix of streets and activity and how you get to this place and how to design it properly so that it's really inviting and um has a lot of um warmth to it. I think sometimes when cities put in streetscapes, and I'm sure I'm guilty of this in my career, where you put in these very sterile looking kind of streetscapes, instead of it being warm and maybe you're grouping trees instead of these series of sticks, as I call it, um I am really not a fan of the stick approach to streetscapes, but so something like this would be um idea. But the plan also identified we still have really fractured ownership in this area. So to do the redevelopment that needs to happen. Um we this is a little blurry. Sorry I popped it out of the graphics from the report. The point is you want to look at the colors. That's probably what you want to pay attention to. So like all the pink and I'm going to focus on the Minnetonka side. So all that pink area is owned by the same owner. The dark blue is owned by the same owner. And you can see how hard it is to redevelop this area in any substantive way because we have to make sure that people can kind of get their properties together then follow the plan for where the roads and infrastructure go. It's kind of the same thing that we were thinking about uh 10 years ago and nothing has changed. So that has not actually none of the properties let me think about this. none of them have changed ownership in 10 years. So that's interesting. So um again probably uh that will be a stumbling block for a lot of redevelopment. Then the document talks about near-term, midterm and long-term redevelopment. So there are ideas and again this is 17th runs through the Hopkins area but then they're anticipating some of those earlier projects coming through as kind of an offshoot of what's happening on 17. So do apartments get built um kind of on the back side of 17? That's one of the possibilities that they looked at. And then midterm, you know, does that coroner redevelop? And I know this is a public announcement. And I'm going to talk about the corner does not always look the greatest, right? There's older buildings that are vacant. Um, and people ask why do they stay there? So, um, until redevelopment happens and if there's um, tax increment financing used, the buildings have to stay on the property, otherwise they don't qualify for tax increment. And so it's not like the owner can just tear them down and then 5 years from now redevelop it and then have tax increment because there's pollution, there's environmental issues, there's lots of issues with redeveloping the properties in this area. So it's not as easy as it looks. So it's not just like tearing it down and we'll be fine. um there are some kind of complication bureaucratic complications I guess I would say to doing redevelopment and then what they did is they kind of tested some of the layout with uh development plans. So they took actual dimensions of developments that are maybe in the area or common in the area. We had a lot of projects in Maniton to look at. We have lots of multi- uh unit housing going in. And so this was kind of the the rendition they had for that corner space, that pink area that was all owned by the same owner. Again, they were able to get a building in there, have some commercial space on the ground floor, and then have kind of this multi-level uh garage with um apartments above. So I think um definitely seeing redevelopment of some sort. Um and we've seen concepts before. It's not the first time someone's proposed residents uh residential on the corner. So, this is not a surprise to some of you who have been on the planning commission for a while. A unit or a building like this would have about not quite 400 units. And if you want to think of uh Elcott, that's probably the biggest building uh in terms of how many units that'd be the closest to the size of building we would be um showing on this picture. So really the next steps uh I've oversimplified the document. There's more to the document, but uh for sake of just giving you some exposure to it, I shortened the uh presentation. The next step is we'll go talk to the city council. We'll probably do that in October. And then um probably what Susan and I are thinking about as we work with our zoning work group. We actually don't have comp plan changes here because it's already mixeduse guided. So we don't really have a change there from what we see in the document. But definitely some of the zoning considerations will be part of the workg groupoup uh exercise. And then of course we'll share this information as developers approach the two cities. Um making sure that we're kind of in concert with each other as we look at proposals. There are some boundary line issues that may have to be solved. You know, we did that with the Shady Oak apartments uh where we traded property to make it make sense for the developer to do the project. So that could happen. And um so I think it's helpful for developers to see our work and our inspirational ideas on paper. With that, chair, I'll turn it back to you. Uh I am open for questions about anything light rail or stationary planning or what have you. So thank you. >> Thanks, Miss Wishnack. Anybody have questions about it? >> Commissioner Minion, >> uh 20-year plan. I like it. Flexibility. How did they handle um parking? I you kind of touched on that as a subject uh in the very first part of this. Um when we look at parking and and light rail and and hopefully things coming back to way where people are going to go back and travel to to jobs again, will they do parking in such a way where they would just be ground parking for short term and then maybe go up with parking as as light rail continues to uh to grow and things like that come on? I mean, how do you how do you see that flexibility? Parking is just the first thing that comes to mind, but I I can see things are going to change over the next 20 years plus. Uh will you talk a little bit about how some of that uh space will be used? I I I saw the interim stuff, but uh parking is one of those things where I can see structures and buildings being needly made. Will you talk a little bit about that? >> Sure. Uh, chair and commissioners, the when I was trying to think, I think we had a 750 car parking lot. No, it wasn't a ramp. It was not a ramp. We thought it should be a ramp, but no one else thought it was should be a ramp. Um, but it was a sea of parking. From here, from this location on this, um, aerial photography toward Excelure, it was all parking. And what we were able to do, the two cities convinced um the light rail office to not do that. Like don't overpark it yet. Let's see what the usage is. And there's room to expand the parking if needed on the surface. And then as development comes in, combo the parking with uh what the residential or commercial redevelopment is. Uh what's taking place with that. try to do some kind of sharing instead of trying to build a parking ramp for transit and a parking ramp for the apartment separately. Try to do and that's complicated. It's not easy to do. Um it sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. Um there is a case that where it didn't work out in this area, but um definitely that would be the thought instead of trying to do it separately. But again, you got to figure out the usage. How popular is it? you got to figure out, you know, we do know that Southwest will be very popular. That seems to be a really because it's already been a transit center. People are comfortable going there. Um, we don't know how people will react to this station. We know in Opus, no one is really going to go through the one-way street system to go find a parking spot at Opus. We know that. So, we only have like 90 spaces at that. So, this one, I think when it's all said and done, it's about 300 in the area. So anyway, >> Commissioner Hansen, >> thank you, Chair. I love the concept of being art forward. I feel like in my tourday Midwest, all these like medium-sized cities seems to have these centers where um like honestly families are gathering because it's a a a part of the town that's being reinvested in a quality way. And so I kind of view um maybe downtown Hopkins more so than Minnetonka as kind of this upand cominging cool spot. there's there's good food, there's good places to go and hang out and they're not chains. And so I kind of feel like this really echoes and plays off of that. Um, so I think that's a, you know, a benefit of sitting on your hand, not sitting on your hands, but waiting for 10 years for the light rail to come along. Maybe 12, who knows? Um, so I think I probably have um maybe two questions. One's light rail related and then one is maybe kind of a two-part question. The the two-parter would be like, hey, if a if a community member has an idea for what they'd like to see here, how do they give you feedback? Um, and then to like how do you I guess curious for how you engage with developers and get them to to kind of straddle property lines and boundaries. That feels incredibly complex. So, I'm appreciative of your work and I'm glad that's not my job. The light rail question. Um, maybe just out of like edification for myself. I I've heard rumors that there's going to be trains running um and more of in a testing phase. So, it might be good just to, I don't know, get it out there. Here's what's happening. The light rail is not quite ready yet, but we're testing stuff. So, I asked you three questions, but I really want to say thanks for all the hard work here. Okay, >> it looks great. >> Thank you. Let's see. I I heard feedback. How does people give you feedback? Um, both the city and Minnitankka are taking feedback right now. It's posted. people can share with us their thoughts or ideas about what either they would like to see or not um take out of the document, whatever. Um so we're happy to receive those comments and receive feedback. Second question is about um developers and how you deal with property lines and that sort of thing. Um, I'm going to show you. I'm going to go to This one's probably the best one where you can see and I'm going to need the mouse again. Sorry. Thank you. So, we oop. There we go. So, here, this area here is all in Hopkins. Let's say that the developer wanted to do this whole thing, right? So we'd have to figure out what the right solution is there. So in the situation where we had the Shady Oak where part of the building was going to cross the boundary of at the intersection of Excelsure and I'm sorry, Main Street and Shady Oak. We were able to give Hopkins the same valued property and gave them the subway. So we had the subway in Mitaka, which made no sense. And then uh we were able to swap land or jurisdiction I should say. We don't own anything in these transactions. It's just >> just who's receiving the tax >> who's receiving taxes on it. So now after that development the line changed. The developer was able to build the building all in one city and then um Subway went to Hopkins to compensate them for the land they were giving up. So we did some math. we and it's all about fairness, you know, it's about looking at a project like this and what's the tax value longterm and then what makes sense in terms of a swap. Um it's rare that cities just give land up. Um it's usually some kind of trade and that doesn't have to be in the area that it's traded for. It can be anywhere in the city. This happens in St. Louis Park in Hopkins, too, on the east side of their town. You probably know this uh from your prior uh experience. Commissioner Brink, uh, where that happens, where you have, we had a detachment with Eden Prairie, uh, and an annexation. So, it happens. Um, the third question you asked about was light rail will be running. Yes. Um, you will see trains shortly, I'd say, in the next two weeks. Um, and let me go to the there. So, you'll see trains running up and down the track. It'll look like it's open. The biggest thing we're worried about right now is getting the word out so people understand, don't go on the tracks, period. They're electrified. They're, you know, um they're running trains on them. It's not safe to be near the tracks. And so that's the safety thing is really what um the Metro Transit folks are trying to lift up right now. Um they will run for a year and a half before they're operational. So they will run all of this fall and into next year and then the following year it'll be operational. So you will get a lot of people probably thinking, "Oh, I can jump on the train cuz it's running." Patience. Yes. >> 2028. I mean 2027. >> 27. >> Yeah. >> Commissioner 27. >> Does that help? Did I answer all your questions? >> You crushed it. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Commissioner Brink. >> Yeah, thank you, Chair. >> Yes, thank you for providing us this update. This is this is great. And I what I really like about it is that there appears to be some flexibility in into it as far as what could happen, you know, 10 20 years from now because uh like you said, you know, 1015 years ago, there seemed to be a real heavy emphasis on office development. Now, we're kind of looking more at higher density residential. And you know, as we go 10, 20 years into the future, who knows, you know, right? >> Um, so I I I really like the plan from that perspective. And then I was just going to ask a little bit about Excelsier Boulevard. I know that's a county road, but does has the county expressed any kind of long-term longer term um I don't know, improvements or anything with that or they just kind of on hold waiting to see what Minnotonka and Hopkins want to do with the properties? I'm assuming there's been discussions with the county. >> Yes. Uh Chair and Commissioner Brink with we have had conversations and meetings with the county. Um they don't have any current plans for updating this area of Excel Share Boulevard. Um, I think as we know as city people, if you don't have something on paper to help with the vision, you usually get a pretty regular street intersection type situation. And not that that doesn't work. I mean, a regular crosswalk and all the regular kinds of things work, but if we're trying to make this area kind of intriguing and pop and that people feel really safe coming across that pretty big road with pretty high traffic and sometimes higher speeds depending on the time of day, uh, we'd have to do something like this to calm people's speed down and try to get people across that that road. So, I think having these inspirations and some drawings, there's actually some better drawings of um uh the details of how this would work in the plan. So, there's a couple other pages on Excelure. I showed you the pretty pictures, but there's some more um more engineering like documents in the back. So, anybody else? Commissioner Henry First off, thanks for the presentation. And this is fun. It's it brings me back to when we did the 2040 comp plan and we we had all the the clustering things and how we could we could better beautify and make the city more walkable and more vibrant. And I like what Commissioner Hansen said about some other cities, they have these areas. If you've been to Lincoln, Nebraska, there's one right by the university. I'm thinking even closer Still Water, Anoka, they have these old historic districts, but this could be something different. It's not just one-dimensional. Those have a main street and that's it. Here you have it's this triangular shape and you can further expand on the other side of the rail. So, I'm really excited about the prospect of this. I think it really offers a lot for people to come to and it's not just this aneseptic office building and it was fine in the way the proposal was, but this is it's more it's more alive and it would represent Hopkins and Minnetonka. It could be a destination for people. You look at Excelsier and Grand just down the way that's also onedimensional, but it still brings a lot of people in. And the way it was before to the way it is now, it's it's transformed. So, I'm I'm excited to have that as an amenity. I will be excited to have this one, too. That being said, the city wanted to do some things and we had in the the comp plan, an example would be west of Ridgale in the Bonaventure Mall area. There's a few banks over there and the city had an idea to put more housing in make it more vibrant. And yeah, Julia's giving me the Mhm. So, I I love this and and and I do like the dreaming that we're doing here because you have to have a vision, but being on the planning commission for a while, I know they have to be practical as well, too. So, from 2015 to now, you said nobody sold any of their properties. And what got developed in 10 years? Nothing. So, I'm curious. So, generally, I like it and I'm I'm really going to look forward to having this. But from a practical point of view, from the city's point of view, how can you guide private owners to do something that the city wants to do if if they don't want to sell or if they're okay with having a vacant building? How do we how do we steer them to that? Is it that we push through reszoning or is it just >> we really want them to do it? But >> you guys know this better, so you can answer that question first. You ask a hard question, Commissioner Henry. I think patience, right? You know, as we saw in Ridgedale, if you remember kind of the storyline of Ridgedale is we started thinking about revisioning that in 2006 and many of those years went by and then we kept improving the vision and we kept being a little bit more definitive about what we were thinking. Um, and that iteration has happened over maybe 15 years. um and only I mean we've done some public improvements and I think that does help the infrastructure public improvements kind of encourages this reinvestment in private space and so I think that's important in this area we have to think about our capital improvement planning we have to think about what inputs just like opus what we're thinking about in opus that there's this kind of synergy that happens when you have public improvements kind of along excelsure too if we have an opportunity to brighten that that will get development excited. I think the difference here um maybe from our ridged experience is there was no there there I mean these were kind of gritty um industrial semi-industrial properties and no one I mean all of a sudden now light rails popped in the middle of it. So it really does take a lot more effort and a lot more visioning um and leadership to make this happen. Um the other issue I see here is because developers can't see the trains running, there's been a delay, right? Opus was a little bit different. It it seemed to attract more people. There were transfers of land happening that was encouragement to invest in housing. This area is not the same. So, we're going to have to be more patient. Um, there are a lot more complications from a land development standpoint. I'm talking about the environmental issues that uh we know about just because we have geotechnical and some of this area, not only from the light rail, but also from private property owners that they've shared with us. Um, the other thing is relocating these businesses. So, think about the excavating company. Where are you going to put that if they want to relocate at some point in the future, sell their land? They're not an easy business to move. The pump and meter, they've been in business at that site for 60 years, 70 years, I'm sure, longer than that, maybe. I don't know. Um, but moving those types of businesses is not an easy um thing. It's not like an office in Opus where you're able to demo and get going and do the next thing. So, patience, foresight, the train will come. That will excite people. You know, I think it'll start to move a little bit quicker, but it's not ever going to be an easy redevelopment area. >> Thank you. Tactically, going forward, does the city have to make any structural changes to the way the land is zoned to prevent people from proposing an office building or something that the city would not recommend to put in their new? >> Chair and Commissioner Henry, we did that work a long time ago. So all of this area is considered light rail overlay and that was to help prevent anything that wasn't um redevelopment that wasn't light rail friendly if you will from actually happening. And in fact the businesses are prevented from overinvesting in their buildings. So even if um I think we had this issue with one of the businesses wanted to add on and they can only add on so much of their value, a percentage of their value and so they were kind of confined on what they could do. And so uh that's to help with so we don't get all this investment and then wait again for another 10 20 years before that investment isn't worthwhile anymore. So yes, we have done that work. Now, I think what's different today, and maybe Susan, you want to comment on it, um, the difference with the overlay versus what we're doing in our zoning work is I think the zoning work is more permanent, right? And so, the overlay was kind of a temporary fix while we kind of waited for things to happen. So, I think in the zoning update, we'll spend some time thinking about not only here, but in Opus, we have the same overlay in Opus um around the station areas. So, I don't know, Susan, any thoughts? >> Yeah, I I would just add to that that I think the overlay, as I have always thought of it, is a is like a pause. It's a timeout. It's a think before you redevelop. You could redevelop, but it's just a a pause. Whereas, moving forward with the new zoning ordinance, hopefully, we will build in some of these um some of these visions into actual regulation. Um so, the >> that's that's how I think of of of separation. Thank you. And then you opened up a larger door. This may be beyond the scope of what we're talking about now too, but when in conjunction with the the zoning re redo, are you having these visions of numerous other areas within Minnetonka? I'm thinking with the 2040 comp plan, we had over by Excelsier and where unmapped is and then we had 701, these zones where we'd like to have clustering of of community effect. >> Yeah. Uh, Chair Maxwell, a a little bit outside this, but I'm glad you you asked the question. Indeed, um, the zoning the draft districts that we have uh, for the zoning update, which again, I encourage everyone to go and and look at the zoning update uh, page. We indeed are showing uh, 11 what we are calling village center districts that specifically correspond to the different village centers in town. So, Minnitankka Boulevard and 101, Glen Lake, Minnetonka Mills, and having specific uses and regulations in those districts within their context. Really, the intent there being that um a Starbucks at Ridgedale and the design of that Starbucks and the setback and and things like that, it's probably um different or we want it to be different than a coffee shop in Glen Lake. And so, yes, the the work that you did on the 20, it's actually the 2030 comprehensive plan uh that looked at those village centers um is very um informative as we think about where we want to go with the zoning ordinance. >> Another tactical thing you mentioned about how the subway was in one city, then it was in another. We just had a we just had a discussion about having two signs on one face of a building and that generated some controversy. Heaven forbid redoing city lines. That's crazy. So is uh when I hear that can that leads me to the question of can a building be on in the footprint crossing two separate cities? Do does a city frown on that? Does Hopkins also frown on that? >> It's what was that? >> I said lenders frown on >> Oh yeah, lenders don't like it. That's for sure. Um, there is actually a project that styles, it doesn't straddle the line, but it's actually a tax increment district that crosses over into two cities. So, and it's St. Louis Park and Golden Valley. So, part of the projects in St. Louis Park and part of it in Golden Valley, and they did a tip district to get the redevelopment done, and that actually crosses boundaries, which is unusual. And then um I don't know exactly how all of the money works, but um the point being is I think the way that the plan has it laid out is it makes sense from a city boundary standpoint. Um if for some reason we get a plan that doesn't exactly follow this. I think we have a a a really positive relationship with Hopkins. We always have. Um we've always been able to work through these issues. When we did the subway swap with with them, I went to one council meeting. I explained what I needed. Um, we came back to the Mitaka council. They said yes. It was two meetings were done. So, it really it I mean, I think everybody, as long as it's fair, I don't really think people have a problem with it. Um, you do have to be cognizant that there are two different tax rates. So you have to talk to the property owner and the property owner we like them to agree whether or not they're they're going to be in a different city limit, right? Their their zip code's the same so it doesn't really matter but um their taxation and how that happens is a little bit different and we show them the differences. So they have to we like them to agree and in this case he did no problem but that could be a problem in the future. We just have to cross that when we get to it. >> Last question. And I think in the packet there was mention about encouraging privately owned public spaces and that sounds >> pops. >> Thank you. >> Yes. And could you elaborate on that one? It was a little bit confusing for me first. I'm assuming that's where you would encourage people you have this privately owned and then have connections of bike trails or something through these privately owned spaces. Is that specifically what you're thinking about? >> Yeah. I'm going to use this picture here because I think it's the best way to describe what we're talking about. So, you see this kind of lawn that sits here. It's attached to this redevelopment here and it looks public because it's right up against the public sidewalk. So, typically what we do uh when we have situations like this in Minnotonka, we say it's a privately built, privately maintained public open space. That's how we talk about it. There are examples of this already that we have in the city, but in this case, um, there would probably be a public easement so that you could come right off the sidewalk into that public space and experience it however you want. Same thing with the trails and sidewalks that get into the building. They're not necessarily public sidewalks, but the public can use them. So, um, it's not a new concept. It it's just it it needs to be done in this plan to make the vibrancy work. If you don't if you just had a building right up to the street and no kind of public space and again we don't want to build parks everywhere, right? We want some of this to be not our responsibility. And so part of the vibrancy and getting um it taken care of has to be privately done. Julie, I can think of a a great example of that that the planning commission approved, but we haven't seen fully constructed, and that is up at the um Wells Fargo redevelopment. We're on the far east side of that. There's going to be a a pergola and a dining area, not specifically associated with a restaurant. Publicly, anyone can use it. There's a connection then to the the city park, but it will be privately built and privately maintained, >> right? But publicly accessible. So, think of the people who live across the street um at Abidor can walk up through that area, feel very comfortable dining there after buying something maybe in one of the local businesses and then sitting down and enjoying their lunch or whatever. But again, public um space that's privately owned and maintained. Yes, good example. Thank you, Susan. >> Thanks for the clarification on all the questions. >> Commissioner Banks. >> Thanks, Chair. Um, great questions by the way, Commissioner Hermy. Um, this is a great plan. I I mean it to see where where you were in 2015 and then the events that um perhaps caused the pivot um from that original the original thought um might have been a blessing in disguise. They hate to see, you know, this area with so much potential um just become, you know, more of a employment kind of a hub and and now the thought in the pictures and very vibrant uh seem to be the focus seem to be more um family oriented um entertainment um living spaces which is great. I love the uniqueness. Um again there are are a lot of cities um that have these um you know very visually stunning concepts and to me what makes makes them pop would be um the uniqueness of the tenants that occupy those spaces. Um so it' be great to see you know what kind of businesses we can we can get in here when the time comes. Um but my question is about the um oh and I did want to just kind of give a shout out to the collaboration with Hopkins and I think you know that partnership and um the two cities working together is is fabulous to make this area a great vision for for both cities. Um, but I wanted to talk about kind of like the the lowhanging fruit, if you will, where you have I'm seeing in the in the plan the short-term actions. It says between the um zero and two years and you have the art installations and things like the markets and events. So, how far out are you from hitting that point of being able to do those short-term actions? Well, uh, chair and commissioner Banks, I think what's interesting about this area is so much of the main infrastructure. Can you go to the aerial photography, the drone photography? Yeah. So, you can see in this picture kind of an outline of a plaza. It's not very activated. Let me look at Here we go. It's not very activated yet. It's pretty plain. Um, but some of that activation could already happen if if uh we wanted to use the space. The other spaces, um, you know, even though they're owned by Metro Transit, you could get permission to set up markets or, uh, maybe this garden idea that they had in one of the pictures. So, there's lots of space that go out that goes out to Exceler that could be used in this area. Again, this is all on the Hopkins side of the line. The activation probably would be by Hopkins. It could be a joint event. It like for instance, I think it's this weekend, uh we're having an event with Hopkins uh for Hispanic Heritage Month, right? We're teaming up to do different things. So there is um opportunity for that, but those temporary things could be done on any of these properties. And is that reserved for um you know collaborations between the the two cities or would you open that up to leasing space for you know if someone wanted to have you know hold up an event there? Um how would that how would that the word get out that that's >> have a concert or something like that? Yeah. You know what's interesting about this area is it's not well defined in terms of the disposition of the property after Metransit. So they have to go through a federal process to dispose of the land that's extra. So this I'm going to call this extra land. Um there's only one piece in Minnotonka that would be considered extra land. Um, so I'm loosely paying attention to this, but um, the city at some point would have uh, some input on how that land process is happening, but they don't as a city have the right to say who can and cannot be there right now. Um, because it's technically owned by Metro Transit. Now, Metroransit, I've known them to always be open to ideas and things, you know, if people want to do things on their property with the proper paperwork. I'm sure you can get it get it done. So, >> that's great. It'll be um fascinating to see the area get used more and more um over time. And so, I was just wondering what the plan was to try to bring that, you know, again certain events and markets and things like that to the area to kind of get the word out that the space is there. Um >> and I would Yeah. >> Yeah. And I would assume once the train actually starts, the tram starts running, um, that will probably open it up a little bit more, too. So, okay. >> Yeah, it's more excitement about what's going on. I agree. >> Well, great work. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments or questions from commissioners? >> All right. Um, most of my big questions have already been taken and I'm just so tempted to go into details and I know this is not the right time. So, I will refrain and ask those as we get individual uh applications coming up uh in the future. Um, thank you for your uh presentation, Miss Wishnack, and your work on this >> uh update. All right, we are ready for our final uh agenda item of the evening, which is adjournment. Would anybody like to make a motion to adjurnn? >> I'll make that motion. >> Commissioner Waterman, do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Second, Henry. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> We are adjourned. [Music]