this we will make a recommendation probably after all of our business tonight and that is a non-binding recommendation to the council they'll take that advisement to make the actual decision themselves so with that let's um call the meeting to order it's a 706 i'm calling meeting to order tonight um we'll just do a roll call right now so we have on record who all is in attendance uh commissioner gorham here commissioner egenberger here commissioner galt he is absent the commissioner riedel here and of course uh sarah maddie's here tonight move right into the approval of the agenda does anyone have any additions to the agenda tonight i move we approve the agenda well second the motion was made by commissioner riedel and seconded by commissioner gorham to approve the agenda we'll just move right into a vote all those in favor hold on run video roll call vote um commissioner gorham did he say i i did okay i missed it all right commissioner eggenberger aye commissioner riedel aye maddie also votes i the motion passes uh unanimously on to the second item of business tonight the approval of our december one meeting minutes does anyone have any additions or corrections to those minutes i have none move we approve the minutes from the december first meeting i will also second all right uh the motion to approve our december 1 meeting minutes was made by commissioner riedel and seconded by commissioner gorham well we'll move on to the roll call vote commissioner forum aye commissioner eigenberger aye commissioner riedel aye uh chairman eddie also votes i the motion passes unanimously and we'll move right into uh matters from the floor this is a time in each of our meetings where we just let anyone in attendance uh tell us whatever they want us to hear we will not do any business on it we won't uh make any decisions on it but we'll take them into advisement and maybe refer to staff or counsel is there any anyone here who would like to speak to us not on our kind of predetermined business on our agenda um we'll go over the digital instructions for anyone who's new to this there's a list down on the bottom of your screen there's participants and there's a raised hand function um just when the menu that pops up so go and raise your hand and then staff will keep an eye on whoever's raised their hand and then we'll unmute you can say what you want so we'll just give it a little bit if anybody wants to talk i can figure that out all right any hands i i don't see anything else okay well if you're still fighting with your computer just go ahead and throw your hand up and we can come back to this want to make sure everyone who speaks has a chance to speak or who wants to speak has a chance to speak so with that we'll move into our public hearings how this is going to work is um i'll announce which hearing we're doing um staff will give their analysis of the business and um then staff will yield to questions from the commission and um then we'll usually let the applicant talk if they want to and then we'll um open it up to public testimony anyone can say add to the record what they think about any proposal and then it'll come back to the commission uh we'll discuss it and then hopefully make a recommendation to the council um moving on i guess let's go to write public hearing number four a conditional use permit for verizon wireless antenna on the west water tower [Music] thank you thank you mr chair members this item is a request by verizon wireless for a conditional use permit to collate to co-locate telecommunication antennas on top of the west water tower which is on the minowashta elementary school site the applicant proposes to add six antennas on the city's water tower between two existing sets of antennas and replace existing equipment uh are not replaced but add uh related equipment into the existing att shelter the um water tower is 205 feet and it's owned by the city of shorewood um the majority of all the adjacent properties are developed by are developed with single family homes and the subject property is used as an elementary school the application request is to install six antennas specifically in the mid-range on the antenna between two other existing sets of antennas the cables uh supporting cables that would connect to the antennas would be run inside the um inside the tower until just above grade and then they would um come out from the side of the um the tower and proceed to the accessory building where the um accessory equipment would be located by a they'd all be underground at that point so um because most of the equipment is going to be either hidden within the the antenna tower or within an existing accessory building staff found the application was um fairly routine but we found that it was consistent with the comprehensive plan it does look co-locate the antennas on an existing water tower rather than um construct a new one so that's of benefit to the community we find that it is um compatible with present and future land uses although we do notice that that covering right that would be proposed to cover up the cable as it exits from the tower and proceeds to the accessory building should be factory coated to match or painted to match the tower so it's not noticeable and the same thing with the antennas on the tower itself they should be painted to and all the accessory of pertinences should also be painted to match the tower and in that case the eyes will look right over the top of them no additional public services are needed to the area the equipment would all be with inside a building they have submitted a statement from their radio frequency engineer that they are consistent with the fcc's allowed radiation emission requirements and um because this is on a city facility we do require that they enter into a lease with the city for use of that property um we recommend approval of the conditional use permit we have added some additional conditions um the applicant must apply for and acquire all necessary building permits prior to beginning any construction and before we issue any permits the city council has to approve a lease for use of the city's tower property and the applicant has to execute and resubmit the those documents the applicant has to revise uh their plans to show that the antenna and all equipment including the shroud have to be painted to match the existing water tower or it could be factory coated if they can find one that would match the color uh the light that they currently are proposing outside the accessory building does have to meet the recently adopted lighting standards and if they do have to add any new fencing rather than just relocating the existing they do have to be consistent in coloring materials with the existing fence on the site and then some standard equipment or some i'm sorry not standard equipment some standard conditions they do have to restore the site to pre-construction condition by the next growing season and the exterior lights on the accessory building have to be turned off unless a technician is working on the site or if there's an emergency so that would conclude my presentation on this item but if you have any questions i would be happy to answer them staff did receive one email in support of this application i was emailed to the applicant and all commissioners prior to the beginning of the meeting um the applicant or the um author indicates support for the application so with that i would stand aside all right thank you director darling are there any questions from the commission does the lease generate and is this kind of a competitive negotiation or is there a fixed leasing rate so there is a fixed lease rate and i don't know what it is um today but and it's a standard amount for all of the few leases with a standard increasing um it increases for inflation in my experience they're pretty substantial so i've got a couple of questions for you one do they need a building permit to attach a piece of equipment to the side of a water tower what's what requirement what applicants do is submit um all the structural re review for the equipment that would be installed on the water tower through our structural um consultants so in that case that part of it would not require a building permit but um sometimes there are changes in usually when there's equipment on the site they may have a concrete pad they may have other equipment that has to be installed per per building code requirements or they may put a building on the site and that would require permits so i am holding at this point the requirement for a building permit in there just in case there would be one that would apply you know i believe they're cutting a new door so i think that would require it anyway that i just remembered that so okay that's my only question uh last chance for the commissioners another question just out of curiosity here so for the other utility providers is there consent required here or do the companies simply all get along and uh essentially agreeing not to interfere with each other's equipment what is the process here does the city ever get caught in the middle of potential disputes over real estate here and so forth no we don't get caught in the middle um simply because they have um they work with each other on the tens of thousands of antenna sites across the country so they have working relationships with each other plus there are tight regulations so if one antenna for example would interfere with another one fcc would intervene in those cases that makes sense thanks right so we'll move on is the applicant here uh and would like to speak the applicant is here okay good evening it's it's rob vieira with uh buell consulting verizon wireless good evening all right welcome rob yeah well thank you marie thank you uh just a couple of things uh you know i just we're simply looking to add a coverage and more so capacity it's really a bandwidth issue now i mean with people using their phones for everything from you know tvs and downloading music and users computers and cameras on the whole thing it's more of a capacity bandwidth issue now so we're looking to uh to improve that the good thing here is we typically build shelters as well when either building new towers or putting antennas on an existing tower and we've worked on an agreement with att so we don't have to do that so we're simply as you guys know simply just install our equipment inside an existing att building so there will not be an additional structure on the property which i think everybody benefits from uh and of course we're not gonna put antennas on the existing water tower we're not gonna build another tower too which is already mentioned but that's also a good thing because it's a necessary evil sometimes but we don't have to build towers that's all the better too so we're uh we're fine with staffs conditions and uh we plan to start construction in spring or summer this has been about two years now in the making to put all the pieces together but they're looking forward to starting here pretty quick and will apply for a building permit if necessary that uh at the very latest in the summer of this year so i'm happy to answer questions if you guys have any thank you are there any questions from the commission i have none none for me well you did a good job explaining yourself so uh thank you we'll uh we'll have some discussion and then we'll um [Music] probably make a motion thank you all right commissioners any discussion on the issue or anyone put a motion it all sounds straightforward to me the staff has recommendations we should definitely put together a motion that if we do recommend approval includes all the staff recommendations uh director darling outlined them let's see it's not only the uh antenna and equipment and the lighting but the new fencing should be consistent in color and materials this was in the packet and finally uh all disturbance to the site should be uh fixed uh when the weather permits so next growing season for those conditions all right who wants to make a motion um this is a public hearing oh thank you for catching me director let's see now we're going to open this up for public comment so anyone in attendance is able to come up and talk the only rules we have is that uh once you get unmuted and start speaking tell us who you are and where you're from so we have it for the record it is 7 21 and we're opening it up for public hearing would anyone like to speak just go ahead and raise your hand through the participants button and we'll give it just a minute or so maybe 30 seconds if we don't hear anything and better phone coverage is usually not too controversial so all right any last call on director darling any i see enough i see no hands out okay it is 7 22 and i'm closing the public input part of this hearing back to the commission i think we were just concluding um sure maddie i can make the motion to recommend approval of the cup for the co-location of telecommunication antennas and including the recommendations below from staff all the recommendations we'd like to include there a second all right the motion to recommend approval with conditions was made by commissioner gorham and seconded by commissioner eggenberger i will move into discussion of the motion is in the discussion of the motion seeing none will move right into a roll call vote commissioner gorham aye commissioner edenberger aye commissioner riedel aye chair maddie also states aye the motion passes unanimously thanks again director darling for catching me on that um all right so we'll move into a new business a variance for setback to property line for a fire pit slash patio at uh 5730 club lane whenever you're ready director darling um i'm a notre man so i guess that was a technician notreman whenever you're ready perfect thank you um so tonight we have a request for a variance um to allow a fire pit and a patio in the rear yard of 57 can you hear me okay yes okay the 5730 club lane the variant is specifically for the placement of a fire pit and a patio to be 20 feet from the north property line on that abut smithtown road where 30 35 feet would be required um the request is actually after the fact request of the patio and fire pit were already installed earlier this fall um marie if you flip to the maybe two slides we sent you this as built survey um earlier today that we just received which indicates the placement there of the paver patio and the fire pit in the north west corner of the property there the applicant states in their narrative that the placement of the fire pit in the patio is due to the location and the size of the rain garden and infiltration area to the south of the patio there the size of the rain garden an infiltration area is based on the amount of impervious surface coverage from the newly constructed constructed home and the additional patio area on the back of the house there staff reviewed the requests request against all the variants criteria and would recommend denying the request based on the practical difficulties of the lot specifically it being kind of a self-created situation the original property was recently subdivided and developed into two residential lots so the rain garden and infiltration area are direct results of the impervious surface coverage of a house that was built and staff would find that to be a self-created situation not a unique situation on the lot additionally that you could interpret that the essential character of the neighborhood could be impacted by having um a gathering space that is essentially 15 feet closer to the road than any other allowed use when the average setback on smithtown would be 35 to 50 feet um additionally staff would find that the variance is not the minimum to alleviate the practical difficulty because the applicant does have alternative options to a fire pit on a patio in the backyard they could um the size could be decreased or um you know a reasonable use could be a portable fire pit and lawn chairs back there as well um yeah so should you approve the variant um we would recommend that they get all necessary permits um prior to construction which already there but an additional zoning permit for the patio back there otherwise if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer them all right thank you technician nutterman uh commission any questions for staff i do have a question about the alternatives here so um the setbacks here they do apply to uh any improvements right so a patio in itself it's not only the fire pit or it's not in particular the fire pit that's the problem the patio in itself is a problem is that correct yes that's correct so basically if you have a lawn then of course you're allowed to have lawn chairs and a fire portable fire pit on your lawn but the built up it's not just a question of removing the fire pit the patio itself which is already built is uh a violation of the code okay can you say a little bit more about any alternatives that you've discussed with them other than tearing up that patio talked a little bit on the phone to the applicant today um just about um she had asked if they could just remove um you know an additional amount of bricks from the patio additional amount of pavers from the patio to make it 35 feet back but other than that you may want to ask them about their ideas for different alternatives they are on the call tonight yeah that sounds good but just a follow-up question is to just pavers that are down in a fire rink or is there a masonry are there benches is there you know barbecue area so i'm just trying to get a sense of what level of investment was made here i think that the applicants are on the line they'll probably be able to answer that sounds good i believe it's just a pat i believe it's just papers and the fire pit but technician uh norton do we know uh why the variance is after the fact um it's my understanding that the contractor didn't know that a patio needed to adhere to the setbacks that considered it just landscaping that didn't need to adhere to any of the setbacks and then they found out after the fact one question um what constant for a paper patio is more of a hypothetical how many pavers do you need to make it a patio because it's not illegal to put a paver at the side of your yard but it is to have a patio so where do we draw the line as a municipality maybe i'll defer to marie on that a joined group of pavers and you're putting lawn furniture on it and other improvements i think that constitutes a if you can use it as a hard surface to set stuff on essentially that that makes it a patio is that right when it's combined like it's like a i know one when i see one kind of a thing okay um all right any more questions for staff um tech notreman um the other the alternatives you mentioned are those also required to be 25 feet from the house or do they have different distances i believe if it was a portable fire pit portable lawn chairs um we wouldn't require those to meet a setback okay they are also not subject to the 25-foot setback from the shelter i understand that is in the fire code so it's not something that we enforce okay all right see no more staff questions we'll move to the applicants i know they're here would you like to tell us anything or take questions from us we got rob dirt and roberta can you hear me oh do we lose him it looks like he lost everything can you hear us oh i can i can hear you is this uh roberta okay this is roberta yeah okay thank you for taking our uh taking our information down here um so a few things probably to clarify um in the construction of our house um we our contractor um was not the one who did the um patio and the fire pit it was another company holland construction or holland bobcat and they were a reputable company that had good reviews and not a weekend group but anyway when we talked to them uh we said you know he said he can fit us in for the patio and the fire pit and we said you need to get a permit and he said no it's landscaping we don't need permits and anyway we asked several times but he seemed legitimate so we didn't pursue it we certainly weren't trying to sneak anything by anyone because we were in the middle of our house being built so you know we had inspectors out here all the time so we weren't trying to pull anything funny but anyway so we found out that you did need to pay a permit and so then at that point um that's when we found out the the regulations of where the setbacks are um and that we didn't meet those um so that is one problem that was on us on that um one thing um so there were a few things i just kind of wanted to clarify so i'm just kind of clearing up why it happened and why the permits didn't get pulled first so um if you have any questions about that i guess um you can ask otherwise should i just go on with a few other points i wanted to bring up uh well yep go ahead and finish what you want to say and then we'll ask you some questions i'm sure oh okay something um so one thing marie i just wanted to clarify what is the setback on the backyard because i think i must have misunderstood what is the setback on the backyard lot line for a fire pit or a pack feedback for a patio is uh 40 feet except that you're allowed to project an extra four and a half feet into the setback so it would be 35 and a half feet oh okay okay so that can be 35 and a half in the back okay so we're okay on the back i guess then um we meet that requirement i just want to make sure on that um so um there's a few other factors that i would just like to put in um the under consideration um so trying to be mindful of our neighbors um around us our backyard neighbor his house is over a hundred feet from where our fire pit is currently placed so um that shouldn't be a problem plus we're okay on the setbacks of where the fire pit is for the back property line which is the west probably the property line you can see there um being considerate of the people that are building a house on the south property line with the where the rain garden is um it would have been just closer to their property as far as um you know impinging on their yard space or whatever so that was another reason we felt the placement in the northwest corner would be the best place in the yard also we have a rain garden that we had put in the function of the rain garden was to mitigate water to be proper with the minnetonka watershed regulations there are no storm sewers on club lanes so i know that you know emma had said that we by building the house we kind of imposed our own need for the rain garden um i just kind of want to point out that if there were storm sewers we wouldn't probably need to have that much of a rain garden if any at all um but that is fine and by building the house we had to have something in there for a rain garden our square our foundation is 1300 square feet so it's not a large it's not like we have a excessively large footprint there we have uh by having the fire pit placed where it is it doesn't interfere with the 1 330 square foot uh rain garden that's accepting um off shed water flow um so that was one consideration of the fire prior to be knowing about the snowing about the setback rules we also did a we do have a landscape plan trying to consider safety as well as a minimal effect on the community and so we have a four foot fence that is being placed that is 20 feet from smithtown road and is an additional 20 feet from the fire pit so the fire pit is 20 feet in from that so it's a total of 40 feet in from the curb town road um we figured that that fence would also um be a safety factor so that no one would you know accidentally you know stumble into the fire pit or whatever because it's 20 feet in from our property line um we're also we currently have five are provided that we put in this fall um to shield the view for the public we're planning on putting in between 15 and 20 additional arborvitae on that north side of the property line to add additional shielding um from the fire pits trying to impose the most minimal effect on a community um and i think that's about it um you know i think it's you know one thing that i think is that it would look better um than having um there are no permanent chairs there are no other structures i know you'd mentioned um a grill or a kind of a built-in barbecue or anything like that it's just an in-ground fire pit and a 13-foot diameter pavers that are flushed to the ground any questions or thoughts thank you roberta uh any questions for the applicant from the commission i think you were just uh explaining this but the fire pit itself um i'm just trying to get a sense of the level of investment here so it's the uh the hexagonal paver area and in the center of fire ring and is that poured concrete or how much investment was there in the fire pit itself it's a um like a metal fire ring that's dug into the ground and then the pavers do have um a coating or i think it's every what it's called but it's like a it's not concrete but you know it's where they put a special product to secure them so they don't slip around and that kind of thing okay makes sense and approximately how many pavers you know i don't know it's 13 it's 13 feet across minus the three feet of the patio ring so i'm not sure marie as we were looking through this um you know our north property line is just unique in that it doesn't abut another resident in about you know we have 20 feet of land between like that property line and um smithtown road does that come into bear at all when you're looking at what the setback is supposed to be if we're 20 feet from the property line but the property line is an additional 20 feet from mike smithtown does that change any no the setbacks are all measured from the property lines but you can see how that's different on our north property line than it would be on the south property line because there's there's not another home on that buses yes i think the idea is that everyone along smithtown has to abide by the same rules um which makes me wonder if i can interject uh i guess this would be uh technician notreman do you know how many non-conforming um i guess setback non-conforming structures we have along that stretch of smithtown i do not know marie do on the south side i know that we have two homes that are non-conforming at least they were built long before um there were i'm looking at that house right across club lane on smithtown just on that aerial photo you have yep and that looks pretty close also yes i didn't know if it would make sense to kind of average it out like we do for you know front setbacks on houses or something like that just an idea that came to mind all right um any more questions i just kind of got off track there any more questions for the applicant i just like this is it uh aaronson or ardenson harrinson there is i would just like to come in there and send for coming forward at least after the fact instead of not doing anything at all so i'd like to commend them for that um and then what what is the difficulty of moving the fire put another 11 feet to make it conforming yeah i think um well we brought this up to our contractor um and um really didn't get very far with that um so we would have you know we would have to have it redone i mean you know another contractor probably come in and do it right they would have come in with a bobcat and you know dig out the ring and then they have to lay the aggregate and compact it and then you know put the frame around and lay the pavers and then put the polymeric sand in and hold it all together i don't have any other questions all right thank you can i follow up on that one so um but within the confines of the lot and the setbacks including the 25-foot setback of the fire pit from the structure i think there is a place to locate the patio that would conform with all the setbacks is that correct in spite of the infiltration ponds and rain gardens it looks like it could just be shifted to the south east if you kind of look at the the grating um the grating starts up um um closer to probably 10 feet off of where the patio is on the back of the house and the grating starts kind of that flow down into the um into the rain garden and that's right in the center kind of where that lot one is yes um that is pretty much where the whole flow with the um the the guy that with the big bobcat that came in and made the i can't i'm trying to the watershed the water shed slow yeah i mean that's where pretty much that all kind of drains in that direction from that spot the highest part of the of the land is the northwest corner um as that that wouldn't interfere with any kind of water flow at all because it is the highest part okay thank you all right um thank you um roger and roberta and uh we'll call you back for every more questions okay sound good all right uh and as a courtesy we'll just open it up to if there's anyone else in attendance that would like to speak to this issue i don't this isn't officially a public hearing but we'll open it up to the public just in case somebody wants to add something at 7 46 would anybody like to um speak to the issue go ahead and raise your hand no raise your hand all right well if if you're fighting with your computer just go and raise your hand afterwards but we'll close it down from the public input part of this uh item of business uh still 746 but a little later in the minute all right we'll move on to a discussion between commissioners this is tough um [Music] in the sense that everybody seems very reasonable but that said uh it's not close to being conforming it was newly constructed and uh there's nothing about the lot or the construction or the topography that suggests that a variance is appropriate here um this is a different discussion and it's for the owners to have but uh they should hold the contractor liable of course legally the the homeowner is responsible for authorizing all construction and anything that's built that's non-conforming legally it all falls upon the owner but it doesn't mean you can't turn around and uh pursue at least for financial compensation the contractor who told you otherwise i don't know actually maybe i'm wrong about that um it's just it's all unfortunate uh given that it's built i i'm torn on this one too having um having built my own patio and uh fireplace in 2017 the thought of moving it uh you know it's uh brings back a lot of bad memories about running a bobcat and auger and compactor and all those things um you know the issue for me is kind of it's kind of central to sherwood's identity and that we're having all these um water infiltration problems you know with glenn road and you know i just i just happen to be talking to someone involved in all of our water problems from hickora and um he was he was just talking about the difficulty we're having with water infiltration now that we're developing shorewood more and over the years and subdividing lots and you know this really reminded me of that this um the reason this infiltration area exists is because of the subdivision and the problems we're having all over the city with water infiltration so for me it's about practical difficulty you know this is uh dealing with water isn't uh we can't start making it a practical difficulty this is um part of what new subdivided properties are gonna have to deal with so for me i can't i'm having a hard time with the uh technical uh points you know that we're finding hardships here and even though my you know yeah i do feel really terrible about what happened and it also i mean i don't know what kind of contracts you have you had with the with the landscape but you know oftentimes contractor contracts will say that they're responsible for all permits you can't always expect homeowners to know the the code the zoning code i mean i had my i did go through the through the planning department from for my patio and fireplace and it did take some unpacking to kind of understand all that stuff so i had the same experience i had the contractor flat-out tell me that no permit was required for things where permits are clearly required and so now i know but at the time i didn't so i'm fully sympathetic that these are contractors do this day in day out um you would think they'd be very well versed in this but often it's easy it's an easy sell no no we just do this it's landscaping so forth so okay get in and get out they don't want to waste the time getting the permit and many of these things probably do fly under the radar especially this is uh just pavers there's no uh there's no structure involved i think uh anybody who suggests putting up a shed or a structure should know that that is permanent territory but pavers and like uh uh if you're just build a paver walkway i think there is the imperfect uh surface cover on the lot but otherwise it wouldn't be subject to these setback rules but as we discussed earlier a patio is and you know it's not that different from a walkway but code treats it differently so this is tough i'm just looking at the elevation marks on the survey and it it's got a little more angle on that we might expect it looks like they'd have a foot elevation difference from one side of the patio to the other if they did move it to the southeast like was considered um if they came in on that as a practical difficulty that might have been more acceptable or they'd have to dig that one side in deeper yeah put a little retaining wall or something cleaning wall or something so just a thought you wanted to use that as a practical difficulty you could certainly add that into your findings i think if you um can you hear me or am i still muted we can hear you would you like to add and this is just this is um roberta right um you know it it's something where if you look at the if you stand in the lot you can it is really clear sometimes it's hard to see on you know i know this latest um survey we had was so that we could get the certificate of occupancy and i think it was like december 12th or something so we didn't have that this information this clear when we made the application but you can see that um it does make a difference when you do the gradient down it doesn't look like a lot on that survey when you look at these numbers and you think oh it's not that far but when you stand in the yard and look at it and see you know it would be it would be sloped um so i mean it does pose a a bit of a problem for that um so all right thank you you have a discussion from the commissioners well what you just said sure maddie well let me just say that if an infiltration area is not a practical difficulty then i don't think the grading associated with with it is either it seems clear that uh i've i don't think the commission would have recommended a variance before the fact um if this had been put forth as a plan um it's just it's painful to uh not recommend it after the fact it's built because there's real dollars involved here this is uh first of all the cost of removing it if that's just what they're gonna do but then to relocate it and re-landscape when landscaping is largely done is real real dollar amounts here for the owners thank you i think commissioner what commissioner riedel said is nailed it on the head if it was before the fact we wouldn't recommend it and it's it's painful to not recommend it now but i don't think i'm gonna vote to recommend it neither am i unfortunately right do we hear uh any motions i can formulate ones [Music] i propose that we recommend denying the variance to build a fire pit within the uh required uh this is a side yard setback correct yeah second oh yeah okay all right the uh the recommendation to excuse me the motion to recommend denial for the variance was made by commissioner riedel and seconded by commissioner edenberger any discussion on the motion perhaps just uh chairman if you could point out emphasize to the uh to the applicants that this does go to council and it's kind of our job to explain the letter of the law but they do have a chance to make the case to counsel it might be a little bit more subjective at that point so if council chairman of council chooses to approve they just make a different motion yep and that that's happened many times it's it's pretty regular actually that we'll we'll um we'll interpret the law as we see it and then they'll uh see it differently and i wasn't sure though if they vote if they vote on our motion it'll be the same one to them and then they'll just take us under advisements all right any more discussion on the motion all right and we'll move into a roll call vote for the motion to recommend a denial of the variance uh commissioner aye commissioner edenberger aye commissioner riedel aye and chairman eddie also votes uh i and a reminder to the applicants uh the motion passes unanimously recommended denial but yeah reminder to the applicants uh this isn't over um the council actually makes the decision so thanks for your time yep thank you all right moving on to new business b variants for the uh ordinary high water line setback of lake minnetonka at 454 lafayette avenue uh whenever you're ready director darling thank you chair members of the commission the application before you this evening is a request for a variance to the ordinary high water level setback of lake minnetonka the property is located at 454 lafayette avenue which is on the westernmost property of the peninsula for lafayette avenue the applicant is proposing to put an addition on to the home they would like to add a second story on the east side of the home they take off the slope roof put a flat roof with a rooftop deck on the top on the western side of the home and put a patio on the north side so what they are specifically requesting is to allow an encroachment on the southwest corner of the home over in this area that would be 28.6 feet from the ordinary high water level of the lake and they're also requesting a patio which would be take your pardon 30.5 feet from the ordinary high water level all the other properties on the peninsula are developed with single-family homes so with all applications um we did look at uh for variance we did look at um the impervious surface covering on the property right now the property is very close to meeting the 25 maximum of 25 percent they are proposing to remove some additional driveway area down here and replace that with a paper system that is more pervious this particular type of paper that they're looking at would be it would it would be 40 percent pervious so it would allow that much more water flowing through the paver stones um and the applicant is let me get right into the request so you can see the house here the first photo on the top is as you look at the house from the south side of the property or closer to lafayette avenue you can see that the second story edition would be placed on the east side of the home with the rooftop deck on the top part of it and you can see that this is the area then that that rooftop deck would overhang a little further than the existing footprint so that's would require the the variance on the south side and then you can see the patio graphically illustrated on the second photograph on the lower side of the home and that would be on the north side um as with any variance application we do compare it against the criteria um that are shown or that are in our ordinance and this time for this particular application we're looking at the home was constructed long before the modern zoning and certainly the shoreline overlay district which does provide a practical difficulty and um what they're proposing is we found a reasonable use of the property they're still using it as a single-family home um we find that the situation is quite unique as the home was constructed under different regulations and the addition is allowing them to [Music] change the the home to better suit the needs of their family uh the proposed improvements would not be out of character with the home or the other improvements in the neighborhood um but staff note that the patio that is proposed on the north side is closer than the adjacent structure to the ordinary high water level and recommends a reduction in that patio so it's no closer than 44.7 feet the ordinary high water level with that change we would find that it the request to be the minimum necessary to alleviate the practical difficulties on the property after the packet was finished the applicant did submit a revised site plan i think you'll remember that we had asked them to make just a couple of changes and they have begun to make those changes as well as adding some more information on the survey so um planning commission or the staff is recommending approval of this variance we had a number of conditions including some changes on the site plan which have already a couple of them have already been met so i think what we're looking at now would be submitted copies of any permits that are required from the mcwd for the addition that's the minnehaha creek watershed district of course they would have to get their permits and they would have to submit more information on the permeable driveway materials that are proposed most notably the subsurface corrections i would note that we did receive one um letter in response to this application and i did forward that to you for your review um they seemed to have more concerns with the impact of some changes from the shorewood yacht club on this particular property then they had concerns on the variants itself but um that may be um something you want to take a look at as well so with that i would um stand aside for any discussion you may have all right thank you director darling just off the bat you mentioned that they modified it did they actually get that patio all the way closer than 44.7 feet on the revised drawing here uh no okay so that would still be a condition you're recommending adding yes the other conditions that i had the conditions that i had informed them out before the staff meeting went out would be to um change the reference to the ordinary high water level that they had on their site plan and to add more information on the 31.5 elevation line as that's a jurisdictional boundary between the city of shorewood and the um minnehaha creek watershed district okay so even though it came revised you those four conditions recommending still stand um the two i think have been met so um if you carry these conditions forward i won't include them in the resolution just because they've already met that oh okay because we i guess yeah we're seeing it now but rather makes us any other any questions from the commissioners of our staff all right director darling uh no go ahead todd please don't go in so here in what ways um are the applicants actually increasing the non-conformity uh assuming that they bring that patio in um is it simply that building an addition a whole second story to a non-conforming home requires a variance even though you're not increasingly non-conforming in the sense of being any closer to the uh ordinary high water mark in this case the second story for the for the portion of living area up in this location would be conforming to the ordinance requirements so they don't need a variance for that they do need the variance for is this connection from uh the main house over to the rooftop deck okay that will encroach further than the existing footprint of the house that kind of cantilevers out over um over further into the setback okay i got it and then the patio on the north side yeah and the patio um if they meet your recommendation um that will be to bring that patio uh southwards to meet the 44.7 that is existing right that what that would do is line it up with the home um on the property to the east got it got it so it's based upon the adjacent property that that uh setback is judged in this case okay i think i think it's clear in my head okay any more questions for staff yeah director darling that last bullet point under the recommendations to submit information on the driveway the permeable driveway we want to include to get approval on the materials used or is that a given or what not just to submit the information we'd also want it approved right yes yep that's a good clarification all right any more questions for staff from the commission uh just i just want to clarify what we're talking about here so on the main floor plan a201 there's this is it um is it a walkway or are you talking about the overhang on the second floor that is increasing the non-conformity it's a delivered walkway overhang on ad201 is that what we're looking at i'm sorry i don't have the floor plan ready to see her but it is uh right in here on the second floor on the second floor okay all right cause i think i think what your where your mouse is is first floor pavers okay can you just unpack a little bit what you mean by in the practical difficulty section about different regulations and what those mean for us sure well the existing house was built in 1955 i'm sorry uh yeah 1955 is what i had put in there the shoreline regulations were approved in about 87. i think i have that identified in the um in the next staff report so the the home currently does not conform to the current 50-foot setback so you can expand a home that is otherwise non-conforming as long as the addition completely meets the requirements of code so the addition on the east side of the home over here um that would meet the requirements it's certainly 50 feet away from all parts of it are 50 feet um or more away from the ordinary high water level of lake minnetonka then what they're doing is they're taking off a sloped roof over on this other portion putting up a flat roof and they would have a rough top deck um because it's not enclosed i don't see anything that would increase the non-conformity if they were going to put a second story on that side i would say yes that increases the non-conformity but the only issue with that second floor living area that they're proposing is this connection from one side of the building to the other which would be new encroachment beyond that of the existing that would require the variance as well as the patio on the north side all right last chance for questions and we'll move it to the applicant all right saying none is the applicant uh here and would like to speak the applicant is here and i've unloaded him yes if you can hear me this is christian dean the architect for the property owners who i believe are in attendance as well i could just speak to a high level of where we ended up with this design approach is that we we developed a project where we didn't expand an existing home's footprint we're just you know building a second story to gain much needed you know floor area within the conforming portions of the existing home we're not modifying the building's footprint at all other than you know a small unconditioned shed on the side of the garage because as you know this house does not have a basement there's a very high water line high water table here so there's a real need for some storage as well the house hadn't had any improvements i don't believe since 1955 so i think it's a really creative use of an existing structure the um the area that everybody's been talking about the um extension of the roof deck over the south west corner of the house is just a means of connecting the second floor living space to the westernmost roof deck is a way of kind of completing the sort of courtyard type house so it is just all happening up in the air on the roof level and i would point out that the existing hip roof did have an overhang of a few feet and our roof extension is a similar thing it's a roof overhang it just happens to be a flat roof overhang which is five and a half feet from the house wall so in essence we're we're just extending that roof overhang by about three feet in a very small portion of that corner of the house so again this is all up in the air and it's you know a three foot extension of a roof line i will also note that the um the rough deck uh guard rail is it's a solid wall and it's about five inches lower than the existing hip roof ridge so in essence we are not making you know where we're transforming the single story hip roof structure we're transforming that to a flat roof which is still very low profile because we are under the ridgeline of the old house structure regarding the north terrace yeah we are three and a half feet further toward the ordinary high water than the adjacent house um you know we're at about 14 feet for the patio you know if we were to pull it back three and a half feet which is what we are further than that house you know it would result in like an 11 foot patio we were just opting that the 14 feet is a little bit more usable for laying out you know patio furniture and the like it is proposed to be a stone patio it's about two and a half feet above existing grade um i can certainly consult with the um property owners about meeting marie's request to align with the adjacent house bringing it back three and a half feet all right um thank you christian and the by the way the paver um product is the product that marie had already told us was an approved uh product for uh counting it toward us toward his permeability and so our calculations are based on using that exact product which is a 48 perm rating and we're also reducing the large paved um asphalt parking area that's there we're reducing that by quite a bit all right would you be willing to take some questions from us yes of course all right um commissioners any questions for the applicant uh just a comment about the overhang that we keep discussing actually this comment might not be productive so our code allows eaves to project two feet into the setback now this is already non-conforming this isn't really an eve and besides it's a five foot projection not a two foot projection so it doesn't help but it does help your argument a little bit that is this an eve is this not an eve uh probably not um but eaves are allowed to project two feet yeah that that's correct um you know it's just essentially you know we're trying to align this roof deck and tap into the roof deck so we can tie the second floor bedroom spaces so there's access to get to that eastern you know portion or i'm sorry the western portion of the house where that flat roof is and yeah we do recognize that it's it's um you know non-conforming but we were thinking it was mitigated that it's not disturbing the land it's not a full structure it's just you know uh roof guard rail and roof deck yeah i i agree with all of that it's it's very reasonable and it seems as you pointed out this is uh this is very creative a very creative way to uh mostly meet code by you know building on the areas that are conforming it's just that little that little uh area that we keep discussing that is the whole reason for the variance i don't think otherwise the variance would have even been required all right any other questions for the applicant yeah can i just i can one of what i was kind of getting at is trying to understand this courtyard and things above it is is more about the question of minimum to alleviate the practical difficulty aspect of this so it looks like you've got papers here and it leads up and that's a ramp to um the passageway that connects the two sides correct so you got a stairs on one side and a ramp on the other side we have a ramp leading from the driveway to the front door which is in the courtyard and then there's a series of you know stepping stone pavers that lead along the south edge of the courtyard those aren't like really critical by no means in terms of what the design is proposing but i don't know that those are an issue from marie's standpoint either um so i think the papers i don't know to you if the papers are confusing this issue no no no no all i want to make sure is it seems pretty um what you're doing seems pretty minimally invasive that's all i'm getting okay all right any other question for the applicants all right uh thank you christian um and i are the owners here do they want to add anything to this or would you like to remain let the architect do all the talking all right well let we'll let christian speak for them then all right go and raise your hand if you do want to if you're here and you do want to um add something as we move into discussion all right so moving to discussion with the commission of chicken sandwiches i think that's television all right um moving on to the the commissioner discussion um uh what do you have to say i did unmute the app at the property i believe patrick foss are you the property owner actually i'm not the property owner but i am the little brother of that peninsula point there so that's uh we're 456 lafayette and we look at the peninsula there we're just if you go to the map the neighborhood map there um this design is brilliant we so we're just to the south there across the little lagoon if you visited the property any kind of reference to the property next door and the patio being extending across their line i mean that that thing is almost uninhabitable if you were to look at it i don't know if any of you have visited the site um i agree it hasn't been touched since it was built in 55 in that courtyard so um you know just in a neighborly way this was perfect they reached out they said this is what we're thinking about doing do you have any objections everything else i live in excelsior where the westernmost property and excel is here and everything we do on our property is a variance as well and so it's not just a regular you know kind of uh code situation it is unique being on these points and you know again i would i would support their their patio on the front i think the overhang on the back is a creative way to do that it doesn't interrupt anyone's sight lines and uh you know we just i think approving it as it was submitted would be great um or just we support it as neighbors and i've spoken to some of the other neighbors we're all for it and we hope that you as a commission will support this as much as you can to uh to make it happen but um thanks for reaching out i'm not actually the property owner like i said but the neighborhood's definitely for it all right well thank you patrick all right well then uh like patrick opened it up to the public input at uh 818 is there anyone else here who would like to speak to um this item of business uh additional person who would like to speak on this topic um he's labeled inky campbell i've unmuted you if you'd like to speak make sure you say your name and where you're from or where you live oh thank you yeah my name is uh is ralph r-a-l-p-h campbell c-a-m-p-b-e-l-l my nickname is inky i-n-k-y i live at 4-5-0 lafayette avenue uh lived there for 12 years um in sherwood and i am the home to east not the one right next door but uh the next one on the map um and i'm joining patrick i love the house it's a wonderful design it's a creative design that will do nothing but improve our neighborhood um and so i i applaud the uh the architect and uh and the family for for doing this the one concern i have is trivial but you know that we uh have a new road that was built there uh with sherwood and excelsior cooperating on our new little road and what i guess i'm hoping is that somehow we can i'm guessing there'll be some big trucks or something going down i'm hoping that perhaps we can um avoid putting the final top on the road or whatever the engineers say is proper so that if there is damage to the road from the trucks that'll all be covered up by uh you know the um the final uh whatever it's called the final layer of asphalt i guess that would be put down but i joined patrick we love this we love this design this is just a wonderful thing a wonderful addition to the neighborhood i hope that the commission can find its way clear to um to recommend this variance to the council thank you all right thank you enki um anyone else uh in attendance raising their hand yes another gentleman um his name is oh hang if you want to raise your hand just click the participants button and then there's a raise your hand logo there so who's next mr ben uh steadman you are hi can you guys hear me hope we can hear you now ben sorry about that i was nice i'm still figuring all this stuff out um hey i just wanted to say you know i understand that my letter was probably not this isn't necessarily the best forum to um bring up the lmcd issues but it it it does impact kind of the patio but i would never want that to be misinterpreted as not supporting this variance you know i live in excelsior and if somebody was trying to save an old home and remodel it they would you know basically say this is no problem do it do whatever you can because the design is beautiful it's just one six house is down the variance doesn't impact me at all in any way um obviously i'm for it and i think that the design and saving this house it makes it look makes it look beautiful thank you thanks son all right anyone else raising their hand director i i don't see any more he was raised all right well if you're still flying with your computer as usual just go and raise your hand moving forward we'll open the um public input part back up for you but it is 8 23 and we're closing the public input part of this hearing and then we'll move into discussion with commissioners uh one thing that's kind of open was this um the patio the size of the patio the um the architects it seemed like he wanted a large a little uh wider is that um is the 11 feet is that part of the your first existing remaining recommendation director darling um my recommendation would be that at no point of the patio should it be closer than 44.7 feet which is the setback for the home next door and that was was that does that mean did that make it 11 feet is that what well it would be 11 it would be 11 feet at um about 11 feet on the east side of the patio but they would have to cut back the west side of the patio further than that to meet it because um let me go to the plans here if you're looking at the plans over on this side you can see that the patio on this side is only 30.5 feet so that would be removing some additional part of the patio okay but that would be consistent with the neighbor it would be consistent with this yeah with the setback okay well yeah let me let me just add um it is a really um it's a really smart design and i'm really uh happy that they're uh reusing this uh this older home um i i just you know i don't i can't we can't be swayed by a you know a a really great design for the for this uh for reasons outside of the variance criteria um but i i mean that being said i think um there are some practical difficulties here and uh they seem to be doing the minimum to alleviate that i think they're they're being really um they're being really uh what's the word i'm looking for maybe concise with their design decisions something along those lines so i don't think anything they're doing is extravagant and i kind of agree with the recommendation to reduce the patio size i i fully agree um i would say that there are considerable practical difficulties this is a classic example of a lot that is non-conforming and challenging and i appreciate the fact that the architects for instance they chose to build the addition in the portion of the home where that edition would be uh permitted without a variance as opposed to just saying okay well let's apply for variance to um you know raise the entire home um i don't know all aspects of this seem reasonable and well thought and this is exactly what variances are designed for a lot that is non-conforming like this in my view nothing extravagant it it does seem that we're being harsh asking them to reduce the size of the patio but that does seem reasonable there's no reason why this patio should extend uh into the high water setback when other people aren't permitted to do that there's no uh there's no reason why that's a necessity as part of this design that is that is simply something that the owners and the architects want and i think they'll live with a smaller patio here just a thought uh to follow up on that would it make more sense to just recommend that the width is limited instead of um sticking to that what is it 30 forget how far the neighbor's house is away from 44.7 feet um because it seems like a tall ask to have them curve the deck to the exact curvature of the high water line uh i don't think anyone's suggesting that necessarily that sounds pricey too yeah but that's how it was the recommendation was written because if they reduce the entire deck to 44.7 feet then you know on the eastern side it would be wider than it would be on the western side oh i think this would be the the closest point would be no closer than 44.7 okay that's how i read it all right so that's that's like what a four foot deck what was that what would we free that to be our patio it would be about 11 feet over on the west side and then on the e i'm sorry on the east side and on the west side they would have to reduce the area of it back until to the point where it would meet that same 44.7 what setback okay so the way they would solve that is have it 11 feet from the west excuse me the east line and then just kind of stop it maybe two thirds uh as wide as it's drawn today is that how that problem gets solved i think they probably have to lose the western most third of the of the yeah okay let's go thank you i see your point now dustin yeah just want to clarify that any other uh comments from uh or questions from the commission is everybody do we want to parse just before we make a motion want to parse up any of the recommended conditions but uh also don't forget the public hearing portion have we heard thank you well we already had that we did okay okay yep whatever new hands do we director darling um did we not um [Music] uh it looks like patrick foss has asked to speak again so i will unmute him okay thank you and it's uh 8 30 we'll let the public speak again go ahead patrick if you're uh still with us thank you just to throw it out there i mean again if you're using the house to the right as the reference point and the high water mark these are unique properties you know to cut the deck in the three feet or to make it a third of the deck i mean i would i don't want to speak for the owners but i'd say come out and look at it because to really use the property the way it is i mean i just i understand the variance process i understand how this all works but i just losing all of that deck space when you know that is the feature of the property i'm not sure bringing that into conformance and losing the deck is uh what that does so i mean i would just be in support of it the way it's designed and you know that high water mark we had the high water here um if it's up two and a half feet there's no issue with that high water i just i feel like you're trying to fit this into a really tight shoe and it doesn't need to but um thank you thank you patrick all right marie i'm not able to i don't know where my hand raised my hand this is the architect christian can i jump in yeah could i jump in and i don't know if this is out of um no you're welcome to we try to make it uh so everybody gets what they want said set here so but i'm wondering if we could make a proposal that we orthogonally align with the adjacent home and just strike that line straight across the entire terrace so we don't have to i guess you know impose a a much harsher um setback on that that western side of the terrace i mean i think we could live with an 11 foot deep terrace but the sort of contouring it seems very challenging but the fact that we're at least aligning with the adjacent property maybe that's a gesture you might consider um and it's just from a design perspective you know keeping things a bit more orthogonal and keeping the terrorists sort of rectilinear would would align better with the interior living spaces um it might be hard to gain access from the living room to the terrace because the terrace is facing pretty much the western third of that terrace is the living room so you're you would prohibit sort of exterior access from the living room greatly by doing that um so i don't know if you would consider a proposal of just striking a line straight across aligned with the existing west eastern home all right thank you christian now let's just uh any comments on the applicant's thoughts there uh inky campbell again at 450 lafayette i'm inclined to support patrick's statement but acknowledging the architect's offer uh obviously the architect and the families will decide uh but i'm with patrick uh i if you were to see the adjacent home and how we're all situated there on the point i i i think you'd agree that the you'd want the deck to be substantial thank you all right thank you back to the commissioners i'm inclined to agree with the architect even though that does mean we would be recommending approval of uh you know increasing the non-conformity here that deck would then be on the eastern uh sorry on the westernmost point would be uh closer than the setback allows and closer than the existing structure is to the lake we're just we'd be recommending approval of um a structure quite close to the lake but it does sound very reasonable and this is a very challenging site do we want to try talking about the houses built before modern zoning setbacks or high water level setbacks a reasonably sized patio might might be allowable i would agree with that it's just such a challenging site i would agree with that also with the non-conformity of this site so while we're kind of starting to put together a motion it sounds like there's there's great desire to have that rectangular patio right now it's 14 feet staff recommended that that was too much uh do you think we should just try to pick a number to recommend to the council or what what are your thoughts on that i was swayed by a linear suggested that basically set allow for the same setback as the adjacent property at the westernmost point but then draw that line parallel to the house so 11 feet with the same width east to west as is drawn how do other commissioners feel about that that seems like a compromise i mean i do you know i agree with a lot a lot that's been said but we've done worse things to patios so i'm just trying to be fair to those decisions we've made in the past where you know very nice people have come and we said sorry so that seems a big a big sway i i would agree with what mark said a big sway to me is that mr dean who's most affected by this of anybody is on board so he's not the homeowner he's not the homeowner but he's the architect he's not building i'm sorry i'm talking about the gentleman that lives at 540 the next door well it seems like it seems like the minimum to give access to the from the living room in the kitchen so i'll accept mark's proposal via the architect's proposal all right who wants to make this motion i can take a crack at it so i propose that we might recommend approval of the variants at uh 454 lafayette avenue uh this would be a variance to the let me get this right i should have got this right to the setback uh from the ordinary high water level um we recommend that the patio be no closer than uh let me get this right how i stated this before to align uh parallel with the house at the same depth on its western edge as the uh existing property to directly to the east did i get that all right um director darling are there any other aspects to the variance required here is that it well the other part of the variance is the um i would recommend that we uh we recommend approval of the variants for that it's a five foot increase in non-conformity uh so again the and this is the again it's the setback to the ordinary high water mark correct yes yes and then subject to the staff recommendations uh which let's see uh to make modifications to the survey and obtain all required permits including from the watershed district and uh receive approval for the permeable driveway material all second sounds a mouthful good job mark all right i'll try to paraphrase that um the motion to recommend approval uh of the proposal um with the conditions listed by staff except that the patio we recommend would be no protrude no farther than 11 feet from the house or whatever the neighboring 11 feet was our calculation but it's whatever the neighbor setback is on the east side there and um that was made by commissioner riedel and segmented by commissioner gorham kind of a mouthful discussion on the motion sounds good to me all right we'll move right into a roll call vote on the motion to recommend approval of this variance commissioner gorham aye commissioner eggenberger aye commissioner riedel aye chairman eddie also votes i the motion passes unanimously all right thank you everybody move on to our next item of business variants again with the ordinary high water line set back at 4320 del wood lane variance application whenever you're ready director darling thank you mr chair members of the commission the uh next item before you this evening is a request um for again from the setback from the ordinary high water level from lake minnetonka for another peninsula property this time at 4320 delwood lane which is out on enchanted island so um the request before is this evening is a very small one the request itself is to swap out several of the steps and stoops into the property what they'd like to do is take out the existing steps and um replace them with um newer oh nearly ad grade steps and um you can see the existing steps the previous steps here and they have removed those uh in hopes that they would be allowed to change the design of those steps now the problem is of course is that the entire home is non-conforming to the ordinary high water level it's another home that was constructed prior to the advent of um the our modern shoreline regulations the home was approved the permit was approved just before the shoreline regulations were adopted and so the home is is actually quite non-conforming and the issue with this particular home is even though the steps would be a little closer to the home they're actually wider so they're increasing they're partially increasing and partially reducing the non-conformity on the property so most of the steps would only be a few feet out from the home and the applicant sent me over a revised graphic today showing how they would be placed um and also showing the old steps i think a little bit easier to see than the survey that was attached to your your staff report uh with all homes we do look at impervious surface coverage and with this home we did note that there have been some improvements that were added after the home was was built and after some previous approvals were granted and those uh those improvements um increased the amount of impervious surface coverage over the um allowed amount in um 96 the property was shown on the survey to be at a about 25 and uh since then more improvements have been made specifically a patio on the north end of the property oh somehow i'm missing the the full survey i do apologize for that but it is in your staff report there's one off the north end of the property and another to the southwest from the existing gazebo my staff are recommending those be removed as well not only because they don't need the ordinary high water level setback but also because that would help bring the impervious surface down to the required or closer to the required amount um as far as the variance request itself uh staff do recommend approval of it um because we found that there is a practical difficulty um you do need safe uh and appropriate egress out of the home and we find that with the reduction of the non-conforming patios that that would be the minimum request to alleviate the practical difficulty so with that i would stand for any questions you may have thank you director darling commissioners any questions i have none may i just ask and preface this also question for the applicant these patios what type are they are they just uh paver patios or are they built up with uh benches and so forth or is it uh is there any structure to them or is it merely pavers in the ground thank you mark this is uh andy johnson with elysee brothers homes remodeling um i bought as my screen just went black i'm not sure why um the new patios so we can still see you so okay great uh the new patios will be built um with a footing and a full um just a concrete um stoop that is what was good we're proposing okay but i was asking rather about the existing ones that were built without a permit i'm sorry they are paper patios and and those patios were there when my clients were also on the call um purchased the property so the improvements that marie was mentioning were things that were done prior to the purchase of this property is there anything on them or is it just uh because i think part of the staff recommendation would be to remove those and i'm trying to assess you know how much value is lost by tearing those up is it simply looking at papers or is there a fire there's no fire pit or is there anything like that yeah no there is if you look at the aerial that marie has up now on the very north there right there um that is their main um you know patio that's the fire pit that's built up and that's their main exterior patio on the property thank you all right we'll move back uh we'll just back up a little bit any more questions for staff from the commission all right seeing none we'll bring it back to andy was there anything else you'd like to add to director darling's report yeah uh marie has done a great job with us working on this um and this kind of this tough situation that we have marie if you don't mind could you go back to that existing photo of those um stoops and kind of give you a little bit of a yeah that's a good picture so um the the main issue that we have with the existing soup that's there and and why they're removed is those existing stoops are all you can see if you zoom into the picture which i know you won't be able to do there were all syncing and they were also installed you can see it over the they could have been from time of settling and expanding contracting going up with the frost and that sort of thing where they've actually been um over almost over the door threshold um and so something has to be done with those stoops um either sinking left or right or whatever and when they're done they're they're done way too high um and like i said the footings were not um proper to to hold them up but i don't know if there was something that was on after the fact or what they was done to them um and so the other part of it that's looking at is if you go down i'm sorry if you zoom out marie the big part that is hard to visualize in the plan especially the survey um and this is why we gave this picture is that we are also when you look at the floor plan that marie's got we're actually reducing the size of the the the stoops in terms of both towards the lake and in elevation meaning at height you know there's just going to be one step so when you come down today you'll see the existing that was there there's two steps and they're right underneath the door the new stoops that we're proposing are going to be dropped about five inches so that there's a step down onto the patio or under the step and then onto the grate and so that's what we've done to try to to minimize any impact on the setback you know with that the other part of it that we've really tried to do also is that when i talked to marie early on in this you know we we discussed these stoops and we knew that hardcover was beginning to become an issue like i said the the buyers of the property tim and city elon this was they have not added anything to the property we're actually reducing and if you look at the survey in the proposal of what we um included and you look at the survey and what we've basically done and we did the math and we had the survey break it out um we are proposing to remove 609 square feet and we're adding um 375 and so their net reducing 234 square feet is what we've proposed um and and removing that when you look at that survey you'll see there's some some items along the lake i don't know murray if you can if that survey is helpful and all to to um to show them so i can explain what we've um yeah so if you look at um there's a a stone walkway that we write that's right on kind of the south side yeah a little bit further um towards the house that's the retaining wall that you're on now um there's a stone walkway a little bit closer to the home um from your cursor there that we write remove there's a raised garden area that says stone area that is um also been going to be removed or has been removed and there's also a stone um monument that's on the the lake there that also is going to be moved along with some other items that you see that's kind of tough to see the surveys that it's um the survey is so small it's hard to see that but that's what we proposed in return for adding those stoops was the idea that we would be removing any hard cover that we're adding plus some and so that's what we've done and that's what we've proposed i understand what staff's recommendation of removing the patios that are non-conforming um just that those are those are the primary you know patios of the the property when you look at the stoops and things it's primarily an access point um you know onto the property it's not a these aren't stoops that you're going to have um entertainment on or any kind of things like that is pretty much the function of getting down onto the grade and we've reduced a lot of the hard cover in areas that are in in the front of the home from the lake to the home um it's part of our reduction in in hardcover to take up for what we did or are adding um marie if you look at i'm sorry the floor plan that that i sent you today that compares yeah that one there that really kind of shows you a good illustration of what's there is a dotted line and what's being added um the thing that you can see there that's hard really hard to see on the survey is you see the number of steps that are there we've gone from two to one on on most of them so when you start on that bottom side that's all just one basically on grade you'd see a six inch concrete band that's going to go around on the one on the far right the same thing true with the one that's that's in you know right out towards the um you know towards the lake and then the other ones have been reduced by both one and two steps and that's merely the factor of just sinking those songs down to become less apparent from the lake um and also serve as a major good function for flashing and that sort of things in the home because that raise of that foundation has done some foundation and structural issues or damages to the existing home that need to get repaired when the all the windows were and doors were replaced the other thing i'd add is that where the old patios doors were before is where the new patio doors are really again in the future other than just the one by the the kitchen area so you know it's all these are all existing doors that have been replaced um from hail damage and just needing to be replaced from time so with that i i'm open to any questions at all all right thank you andy are there any questions for the applicants when were the two non-conforming patios put in you know we we really don't know it was something that um it was like this way when we purchased the clients purchased the home so we we i couldn't answer that if i may um i went back through older aerial photos and it looks like they were definitely not there in 96 based on uh the surveys that were submitted with the gazebo um the aerial photos are showing raised landscape bed and for the um the more northerly one let me go back here i saw that one not long after 96 i think it was there in 2000 as well as this patio here so they were added to the property at some point after the gazebo was added in 1996. uh the the modern uh setbacks and rules were already enforced yes any more questions for the applicants all right seeing none is this uh is the owner here or the new owner i should say yeah just want to give the owners a chance to speak if they'd like to raising my hand tim are you the only new owner this is tim yeah we're the owners um we we um stumbled into this property a few years ago and um fell in love with it i just want to say that um the the work andy's done and and the efforts we've made to reduce i guess the word non-conforming land cover or whatever are remarkable and that's been on our mind but with the removal of those patios we will have no outdoor space and one of the reasons that we fell in love with this property quite honestly was the spots that are in question now um anyhow up high which is by the way completely shielded from the lake by by brush and uh what's that invasive weed that grows all over the place you cannot see it from the lake even if you're standing on the shore it's it's elevated it's about 20 feet above the the water the one on the i guess you guys are calling in the north is our main gathering area in the evening and without those spots we have nowhere to sit on this property it is a unique property that was part of the attraction that we had to it losing losing the outdoor gathering areas would be would be dramatic all right um if you're willing tim would you take any questions if we have any for you sure absolutely all right commissioners uh do you have any questions for the i know do you live in this house now are you just about to move in um this is actually our i guess you'd use the word recreational house we primarily use it for four weekends and and i have four well-behaved kids ranging from eighth grade up to just graduated from college so it's our recreational property okay so we can call it the occupant so uh are there any uh any questions for the occupant owner well seeing none all right thank you for your time and uh while we're doing it i'll um this is a formality just out of respect i don't think we have to but is there anyone else in attendance that would like to uh speak to this issue we'll open it up to the public it's 8 56 seeing as how there's no one here except staff commissioners and the applicants we'll close that at 8 56 and we'll bring it back to conversation or discussion with the commission and once again this one is uh i can see the arguments that the homeowner makes that uh that fire pit it's it's a huge part of the value of the property and in a sense uh the commission or eventually the council would be punishing the homeowners for a code violation committed by the previous owners but in a sense the previous owners just went ahead and built that patio it looks like it's uh i don't know how far it is from the water um whereas they certainly wouldn't have received a permit to do so otherwise all aspects of the stoops i'm in full agreement of it i think that granting a variance for all aspects of rebuilding the stoops is perfectly reasonable but the question is uh when an applicant comes for a building permit and uh at that point the city learns that there were code violations built should they some uh code violations that occurred earlier should those be ignored and simply the sins of the past be forgiven or not uh it's you read my mind mark yeah like this is this is what this this is what this uh approval is about what does the bite of the apple for a direct for well the planning department i should what does that mean yeah you came you came looking for something now they want something i mean they didn't come in the door trying to reduce improve this area by what 200 square feet now was that was that in response to our comments or was that um just was that offered up in the get-go the reduction on the impervious surface was um something that staff had told them if they were increasing um they would have to reduce somewhere else on the property and they decided to go above and beyond kind of a one for one-for-one replacement well i think a little more than that yeah a little more than that you know just just a little yeah that's what i'm saying they went more than they had to do on their second time the fact that the that it is a different owner in a sense i feel shouldn't impact the discussion but our discussion invariably is a bit subjective and this does matter in my mind um because you know the new homeowners they bought the property fully expecting they could enjoy what was there and uh in a sense this can't be attributed to be their fault here uh as well as directly as if they had put in those patios and then they were asking for a permit to do something else then it would be clear i would say no you you've got a roommate mark accept that when you have non-conformities on your property you should be aware of them when you're going to ask for a different permit fair we're going to hopefully ask for a permit either way exactly so the argument here is don't ever apply for a permit to do anything if you've got non-conformities because you could be so that is the counter argument here that being especially harsh could send the message to homeowners don't ever apply for a permit because you have no idea what the city is going to force you to do at that point with your non-conforming property that is a bad message we would much rather have people apply for permits well yeah so what what i was debating in my head is if i were them would i have just made the stairs replace them the same the same size and or skipped this process see the thing for me that's different is this isn't about the patios this is about the stairs so i'm inclined to approve it i mean i feel this is a little awkward because i want to support the the ask here but this you know i think that patios are critical of the property and uh and for us this is more about the stairs what they're doing with the stairs and they've done enough uh other outside in other areas with the removal of the another two areas of walkway there and there were some other little things it seemed like they reduced it on its own they're making an effort let me try to direct the conversation here i think we're all in concurrence that the stairs and what they reduced in other parts of the yard is completely acceptable um and do we want to punish them for their previous owners uh actions is the next question exactly so we're talking about that condition that staff recommended if this was the owner who put those patios in i would say no that they would need to remove them but because it's the new owner i'm gonna approve or recommend that we approve for me i'm gonna recommend the same but it's not necessarily because it's the old owner it's more because the um or what mark said about the the use of the property and the understanding going in and like the minimal you know use of the property i guess the reasonable use of it i mean if they asked for that on a variance and you could consider that a practical difficulty because we're also going to put a patio on that parcel yeah i mean i'm sure there's some place to put one connected with it well yeah but the whole house is um within 50 feet of shoreline though the whole house is most of it okay yeah well tear down a wing i guess i don't know i'm okay with i just you know i want to support the recommendation but i think here i've seen some minimal minimal uh amount and they've done some things so i think all those together in favor of recommending that they have to remove the patios or not no i'm not no okay no i don't no i think i think we're all i think the uh the patios stay and they've done enough outside the other hard hard uh surface areas all right would somebody like to make a motion uh i can make a motion here to recommend approval of the variants to the setback from the ohwl of lake minnetonka accepting the bullet point to remove the two non-conforming patios but keep the removal of the other impervious surfaces okay so just to clarify your motion you also wanted you also wanted the uh yeah they require all permits the other condition correct okay so just one condition the permits no well the bullet point does talk about the removal of other impervious surfaces and we want to keep that we're just striking the striking the removal of two non-conforming patios those are the referenced proposed removal in the application further we discussed only the important patio which is the fire pit what is the second patio maybe we should discuss that it's not clear they should be allowed to keep that one as well okay there's there's one on the other corner of the site by the whole other neighbor it does seem that proper gym enjoyment of the property could entail just one such patio not necessarily two i don't know how do people feel about that uh maybe well your log your logic of of having those be something you want the reason you buy the home and fall in love with it you want to keep throw that out the window sort of but yeah i don't know in the end i agree with this it's highly non-conforming property the owners bought it with the expectation that they're on a peninsula they would enjoy that aspect of it and uh requiring that they simply have requiring them to tear up an existing patio and fire pit and other structures on the outside this does seem harsh of course we essentially recommended that in the other case but that was new construction so this is all tough this is no fun okay okay i'll i'll agree to both patios keeping both patios i'll second uh nets motion all right the motion to recommend approval of the proposed variants [Music] including conditions of acquiring all necessary permits and removing impervious surfaces proposed for removal uh and um yeah those those two conditions that was made and seconded commissioner riedel made the motion and commissioner eigenberger seconded it any discussion on the motion emotion what who did oh commissioner gorham made the motion my apologies all right and um commissioner eggenberger uh seconded all right discussion on the motion in hand seeing none we'll move into a roll call vote commissioner gorham hi commissioner eggenberger aye commissioner riedel aye chairman here maddie also votes i the motion passes unanimously thank you very much all right thank you and do not do we know this is going to council uh all the items this evening will go to the uh second council meeting of the month and that would be the 25th of january and i believe i'm reporting to council on that okay making a note you are correct it was on the uh you said the 25th of january yes okay thank you thank you for your time tonight thank you thank you all right moving on to other business you want to bring something up even though it says none um i i just wanted to um to note i haven't been getting any of these emails you keep referring to me neither so i actually didn't either oh really i thought maybe with my uh planning commissioner extension well they they updated the uh email system yet there's some stuff he had to do housekeeping i would have to log in and reform my mail yes okay but none of those were in my sherwood email though because you have to update the email what's that mean i'll take the email 2021 instructions oh gosh okay well that actually sounds familiar i think i got okay thank you darling i think we might all need those instructions director darling we might all need those directions again the email the email migration instructions email yes yeah that's the uh that's okay i'll do i'll do that then all right mark did you get them i got i got no emails at all including the packet this time i got the paper copy but i didn't get the usual i didn't get paper copies always one of us misses the paper copy i don't know i've never i've always gotten my paper copies yeah you'll get it next week todd you're right um they went out plenty early this time i think emma correct me if i'm wrong but i think they were out in the mail last i wednesday i get a particular piece of mail every friday and i just got it today otherwise i always get it on a friday and so evidently my meal is really backed up all right uh let's move on to our council meeting report uh anything of note to report to us director darling yes the last council meeting and i should go back to meetings i'm gonna pull up that agenda just because hard to remember all of the items that were on there but quite a few sorry for the delay here okay on the december 14th city council meeting we had a number of items um so we had a home occupation permit for the salon on woodack circle and that was approved we had a pud amendment for height for 59 20 club valley road and that was approved by the city council and we had a conditional use permit request for color fencing at 5730 club lane and the city council at that meeting uh continued the item to the next meeting and requested a resolution of denial for the extra tall fencing so the effect that's going uh up uh will be conforming to the the current regulations awesome i had second thoughts about that one so i'm glad we voted to uh recommend it didn't we i mean three of us did two of us didn't yeah that was correct i actually drove by today it's looking good when it's going to be a four foot fence it'll look nice i'm sure they put some arborvities behind it too yes it sounds like they are going to put the extra money that they saved by not putting the fence up uh into arborvitaes sounds good that's good i'm happy to hear that i was i kind of i didn't lose sleep but i was worried about that i felt differently afterwards oh uh and also the amendments that you reviewed at the last planning commission meeting were all uh adopted as you recommended them so they um were published and took effect on the second of january so just two days ago i suppose that's why i thought i sent something a little different in the air last time i drove around i didn't think about it you enforce it on the water tower application yes right yeah it's cool um and then we did have a request for um at the matters from the floor at the last several council meetings there was um concerns raised about uh the dredging company and um so we worked with the property owner and a fence that was removed for the street construction was reinstalled back as required by the conditional use permit there were some other requests for enforcement staff did not follow up on but um the defense that was the primary concern was reinstalled so that was the last item that i can recall mayor zurby and council member sunberg have they served through the end of december and at the next city council meeting will have mayor elect labadie and um patrick johnson and paula kelly's will be new city council people and they'll be sworn in at the next meeting so that will leave one open council position all right thank you director darling what do we have going on for our next meeting that you know of at our next um we will likely have a pud development stage plan for the villas at shorewood village that is a development of 14 detached villas at the corner of eureka and seven they weren't quite ready for this meeting um and then hopefully i will have the draft uh the comprehensive plan that needs to go back to the city council or i mean to the metropolitan council from the consultant so i can bring that forward for discussion on some of the changes to the land use plan all right and thank you for not having any more non-conforming patios for next meeting yes i'm very hoping that we have the uh non-conforming patio issues all all settled for the winter and is that nat in my last meeting no problem okay have we done applications and interviews for the yes we get voted on yes yes the interviews are i think they're looking at having those and i'm sorry i can't remember if it's the second um meeting in january or the first meeting in february i think it's the first meeting in february marie i'm on my calendar that we have a joint meeting with the park commission uh next tuesday that is true that is you continue discussing the fire lanes so uh there'll be a pack it out for that meeting um at the end of the week and uh commissioner wright riedel you will have the luck of um presenting the discussion from both meetings at the city council so the fire lane discussion will also go to council okay let's hope we can make progress with that we seem to be stalled with the fire lanes and that's a that's a a week from tonight at seven o'clock yes how come i just i wasn't did that come up in your uh email mark i don't you maybe you emailed that to us because this i disagree with the last meeting to make sure that you guys are saving space for it i just entered on my calendar i haven't received any emails to that effect like everybody else i'm not receiving emails we'll i'll have to figure out why not i had hoped that i had sent out all of the instructions on migrating emails um to your the personal emails that i had on file for you so hopefully you would have received uh more than one email on that we'll say that emails go past me all the time so that's it uh and marie i don't have a date scheduled on the um agenda but i thought i had march at some time some point or [Music] for presenting i don't remember i'd have to go back through but if that's acceptable to everybody i can just put you down for march he's next in line that makes sense to me yeah what what march day would that be sorry my calendar disappeared on me let me see if i can get my computer one up second or the fourth tuesday right so march 22nd all right well i'm looking at this list whatever happened to our council liaison uh the council liaison appointments were up in december so until they have their first organizational meeting we don't have anyone assigned to attend okay thank you for clarifying that all right any last words before we um vote on adjournment i i just wouldn't mind director dylan if you remember what some of the conversation was around the six-foot fence if it was was it if it was because of smithtown the visibility of it or was it just the general principle of the six-foot fence yeah they um decided essentially based on your discussion um with the smithtown road that they did not um they agreed with the discussion that said that it would not be in keeping with the view corridor down smithdown road kind of funny with uh our discussion we recommended approval and with our discussion they recommended denial you know i felt like we were really working with them and we got to some place that was like this compromise but it wasn't what it wasn't what they wanted really and it really wasn't wasn't it wasn't what i wanted in the end i don't it was the discussion was weird and without knowing i'm glad the city council did what they what they were going to do because then you at least know that with the direct their direction for the city and then we can kind of feed off that next time i'm glad we didn't set a bad precedent because i was just thinking about like on as soon as it was over i thought okay now smithtown's going to be a bunch of six foot fences all right anything else somebody like to make a motion i move that we adjourn i'm always quick what was that uh commissioner eggenberger that seconded uh commissioner oh gorman okay uh so the the motion to adjourn was made by commissioner riedel and seconded by commissioner gorham we'll move right into a vote commissioner gorham aye commissioner eigenberger aye commissioner riedel aye chair maddie also votes aye the motion passes you nano smoke unanimously we are adjourned at 9 20. thank you everybody great goodnight everybody all right see you later you