e uh good evening welcome uh to the January 28th 2025 city council meeting I hereby call the meeting to order members of the public May attend this council meeting in person or may watch and or listen remotely by viewing the meeting on Channel 8 WCTV and at the city's website www.a.org WCTV public comment during the public forum Andor public hearing portions of the meetings may be provided in person at the meeting in advance or by logging into the zoom call and raising your hand during the public hearing when your name is called in the meeting you will be seen and heard in our council chambers and on the cable channel and we site you will be asked to unmute and then you may begin your comment all public comments must include your full name and address uh the second uh item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance if I could ask everyone to stand if you are able and follow along pledge aliance to the flag unedited States States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all okay thank you um next is roll call um let's see everyone is just present with the exception of council member Sorenson who has an excused absence I will note that earlier this evening the council participated in a workshop and discussed and reviewed the following an update and discussion of a planned Parks Improvement project for CLA Park specifically guidance to staff on scope budget and timing to help guide a formal review of that item at a future council meeting for Action um the next item is to approve the agenda could I have a motion to approve the agenda or does anyone want to make any adjustments I would like I would like to make an adjustment okay um I would like to remove item 8 C for a further to be discussed and or approved in a further meet a later meeting um this was something that I had brought up I think the best thing that I can do to that we can make the best policy is my intent is to go take this class and to assess whether this is something that I think is necessary for everybody in town who wants to rent their house um and who's it appropriate for whether it's worthwhile TimeWise and to make a informed judgment on this as opposed to just saying I don't like it I think it's a waste of time okay so I'll just check with city manager and City attorney so I think we have a proposal from council member uh Park Hill to to sort of eliminate item 8C from the agenda is that something that we can do uh Mr Mayor uh City attorney uh schelzel there are two suggestions or two options one is just to eliminate it uh this would be on our minutes and we could put it on a future agenda if that's what the council approves or we could at when the item comes up if the council is willing uh they could also table the item to a defined period of time so there's a little bit more direction for the public as to when it could come back I I would prefer that is that acceptable to you counc we could table it so we'd have it and then then you would make a motion to table it if there's a second and support of that then then we would do that at that time okay okay any others can I ask a question about this one um when you say you have to put a definite time frame on the on the table because I was going to bring some comments to this body about that item in terms of public engagement through our plans of looking at short-term rental ordinances can you table it until that or does it have to be tabled for the next meeting or something so maybe a suggestion would be to wait till we get to the item and then we can hear a motion and then you can for your comments and then we can decide if we're going to table it or hear it does that does that make sense so you'll get a chance to to weigh in and and guide whether we table or continue does that is that acceptable to everybody and mayor council member in in terms of tabling as a matter of a procedure you could just table it to a future meeting or direct to a specific future meeting and I you know when we get there we can elaborate on your options cool all right so um I still need a mo motion to approve the agenda and I think it will be approved as is can I uh get a motion to approve the agenda so moved second second and are there any further discussion okay all those in favor say I I I opposed the motion passes next on our agenda is the public forum just as a reminder for the vast viewing audience that are here uh uh that that if you're interested in speaking uh please uh fill out a card and state your name address and if you're representing a group and limit your comments to 3 minutes if it's on the agenda fill out a form at the table and hand it for staff for those again who might be watching online or uh via Zoom please note via chat to staff and let them know which agenda item you would like to speak about we will also require that your camera be turned on so we have two items for the public forum do we have any um online public forum requests or any c s uh not at this time Mr okay so we have two um items of recognition this evening so we actually have three uh community members that are stepping down um uh in their course of their uh commission and we're honoring two tonight and one at a future meeting unfortunately uh tonight we'll be honoring Lisa Stockton and Paulie Anderson and in our next meeting I believe we'll be honoring merily Babcock um so I would turn it over to city manager to start with honoring Lissa St thank you Mr Mayor um I know it's been uh commissioner Stockton has been called out uh a couple times the recent meetings uh because of her um resignation from the Planning Commission uh just because you know she it's bittersweet we're we're happy for her that she's moving on but we're going to miss her too so um typically though we do more of a formal recognition and uh of all of our community members out there who volunteer um you know she she deserves a formal recognition I think more than more than most just because of the work she's done the thoughtfulness of her Approach at Planning Commission meetings the leading of very complex controversial development Pro projects that we have in this community so uh we do have a recognition award for her I'll go around to the podium uh for her four plus years of service on the Planning Commission uh so I would uh May let's let's see if any other coun members would like to say words and then and then we can go over the podium and maybe put Lissa on the spot Make Her Say a few things perfect would anyone else like to to L in and any comments for commissioner Stockton I will go ahead go start this um I have nothing prepared however um as I mentioned last time it was an absolute pleasure to work with you I always L just listening to what you had to say because it always was number one articulate number one thoughtful but there was like when you would talk about I remember being on the design Review Committee with you also and uh the things that you would talk about were things that I didn't think about and so I really appreciated the way you viewed the world in a very aesthetic way and the way you talked was in a very aesthetic way and you would describe things in three Dimensions as opposed to my one dimension and so I just really appreciated that and I want to call compliment you on that and it was uh fun to work with you and the one thing that I learned kind of on Planning Commission before I even got to council was that when we would sit all I'll sit up here at the dis and I'd be like I'm not sure which direction I'm going to go on this decision and we'd all have a different thought and we'd come to a conclusion together and you know was it was um it it was great to see us solve these problems because you had good Minds up there and you have different opinions and Views and things that are important to different people and it would all get thrown out on the table and I always felt like we made really good decisions and you were 100% % a part of that thank you others I too don't have any prepared remarks but and I too could reiterate what I said the last time but I won't reiterate that but I what I will say is that I think I was maybe one of the first people to approach you about you know doing things for the city uh and you have been absolutely wonderful uh fulfilled all the things that I thought um but one thing I said uh at one point along the way uh in public form here and it wasn't about you particularly but you are a prime example of what I said which is that uh I value the perspectives of diversity of thought particularly that of of uh females versus male and uh what I've discovered over time and you're an example of that where I've be just listening intently on what you had to say and I would think to myself wow I never would have thought of that and it sometimes would change my mind on things so uh I appreciate all the things you've done for the city uh I will officially miss you uh but I think we'll still be touch outside of that so that's it well I did write a whole speech I didn't but um it's hard to add on to all the kind words that were so true um but one thing I would like to note Lorissa is you brought a fresh perspective to the city and I think that was just such an asset you have literally a work world of knowledge and craft and skill and the the city was so lucky to be able to tap into that and you were so generous to um serve and offer that so um keep in touch I don't know if you're going anywhere but um so thank you for all that and um Lorissa and I have another history together that I also am so grateful for so um anyways that's all I had to say thank you um I just have a couple brief brief words I I first met you and your family I think when you first moved to town which was like 14 or 15 right around there um so I've known you for a while and when I think about your service even though I wasn't serving in this room I was watching from afar and um three three things stood out and kind of reflected in the conversation we had this week Lissa is that you you have this world experience you literally have lived all over the world and um I know it was important to you and your family to establish some Roots somewhere and you chose why Zetta even though I think you you you you came from the East Coast originally originally but you've lived everywhere else and it's just great that you establish your roots here and then you chose Public Service as an additional way to to to you know deepen those routs um and and second I think Jeff mentioned this you you were a marvelous contributor in the Planning Commission but you also played a very significant role in the design standards task force um to help address some of the bigger issues in design that the the town was facing about the conflict between large building Footprints and small scale charm you know viewscapes and just brought a tremendous amount of um insight to that process and then I think uh certainly your contributions on the Wells Fargo project stood out you know I mean that was a a very large project under your purview as the as the vice chair and chair of the Planning Commission and so for those three things I I note your service and we we'll miss you but something tells me you're not done I think there might be other ways that you'll be serving your community I'm I'm just guessing with that maybe Jeff we could just uh do the formal uh hand over the the plaque and then lursa if you want to make any comments and then we'll move on thank [Applause] you than you I I can tell you how it goes later figure it out don't drop it uh um Miss Stockton uh thank you for your plus years of service to our community uh giving back so much we appreciate your commitment and you you will be missed uh very much so thank you thank you pleasure thank you so much look at that and I think the mayor wanted to and yeah you're welcome to say something you don't have to but if you want love to roast you a little bit that's not a bad idea um no I just want to say thank you um to all of you first and foremost for accepting my application all those years ago uh whoever was here then uh to serve the community um it's really been a pleasure to do it um and thank you for those beautiful comments it's overwhelming really is uh and you hit the nail on the head um Andy well first of all I'd like to say you all have an excellent memory for non-prepared speeches um but you hit the nail on the head um it was really important to me to find ways to connect deeper with my community um traveling and living in different places is wonderful broadening experience but um equally important if not more so is connecting to your community and figuring out ways to contribute what you have to offer um and watching those contributions take seed and seeing you know what they do um so that's been a very rewarding process much more a rewarding than I had anticipated um and uh you know I'm just grateful to have had the opportunity to do it and um to serve as Vice chair um uh with you Jeff and uh as chair for a couple of years um I admire the spot right in the middle very much who ever doing it because it is one where you have to think and plan a meeting very challenging to do um because you know you got to stay on task and even when you're not you have to look as though you are so there's also a little bit of acting potentially involved in this role um but uh it's really been a joy um and I have gotten to know each and every one of you in different ways um and you know I've learned something from each one of you um and you know Molly I'm so excited to see the seed of the design that we started together blossom in your recent remodel um Andy yep since 2015 when I moved here uh I think zezy top was featured here and quite noisy although we've gotten noisier uh I'm not gonna even go there just did too soon um uh and Alex you know uh we've had lots of conversations about the city I've learned a tremendous amount um we have a mutual interest in uh outside organization which is um which has been interesting as well um and obviously our interest in uh planning and development in Arizona and Scottdale good conversations um and I just have uh received so much benefit uh it's it's almost uh imbalanced really in terms of the service work um it really is and I encourage new community members to put in their applications because uh you learned so much about your community that you thought you knew and it becomes even rounder I'd also like to thank um the fellow Commissioners um it's been a pleasure working with you we've got Adam El here tonight and duly observing this evening um I'm going to miss you very much Miss the team uh it's very rewarding to have worked with you and I agree with Jeff um we had a lot of great dialogue not always agreement but great dialogue and I think we've even managed to come up with a lot of consensus and unanimous decisions in our in our findings which tells me that we took the time time to to have the conversation uh and to weigh all the aspects of the different projects and things that we were we were working on so uh changing my mind um I'm happy I changed someone's mind here at least once but um yeah changing my mind as well and that's important to be able to have that flexibility of thinking uh finally I'd like to thank staff because you guys have an enormous amount of patience to uh teach uh and learn along with your uh resident colleagues uh and I appreciate the uh Timeless conversations uh about you know not just learning the aspects of what planning commission's role is its limitations and where it can be expanded um but also the protocol and trying to run efficient meetings uh you know it's I'm not the first and I won't be the last person that you take time to explain the same thing and hopefully we hear it uh and then do it but um you know we all appreciate it and I certainly uh really did appreciate it because it it gave me the confidence to get up there and do a bit of uh leading and acting hopefully more of one and not the other but anyway um this has been a great experience and uh I'm very grateful so thank you very much thank you excellent we are going to recognize another Community member Paulie Anderson even though she couldn't be here tonight but she's going away on an Extended Stay that I'll that I'll reference later so we're going to go ahead and recognize her and she'll pick up her plaque when she returns from her extended uh leave um so again over to you city manager doll thank you Mr Mayor I was just just to add on I think you uh said it well um Paulie Anderson has served the energy environment committee uh since its Inception uh for the last six years I believe she started out as the first chair alongside with the council leaon Buchanan at that point in time and she was really instrumental in in having that Comm get its legs underneath it or um and really uh help move the needle to allow the energy environment committee which is all about sustainability to be sustaining in of itself and they've developed annual work plans and really have done some significant work uh with solar energy um bringing out Excel Energy to help our residents um conserve power uh so she's been leading that on the front end and she's uh elected to uh do some other things in our life so we're going to miss her deal uh we appreciate her six years of service to the community and hopefully we're going to be seeing around as well but we'll make sure we hand uh we'll get that award to her as well other comments from from Council about uh paully Anderson talk about Paulie go ahead uh I'll just take a moment I just want to recognize paully as well for um so much hard work and dedication into the environment it was such a a deep dear cause from her and I mean the first time I ever met her we were walking we bumped into each other walking and she told me her favorite tree and I also had a favorite tree she was just so sweet and so generous with her time and really just a lovely person and um she will be very missed as well so I just thought I would share that thank you other comments so I don't know Polly very well but I just wanted to applaud her and the committee um for what they're doing here in y Zetta and making our community more sustainable is absolutely essential and I just had the the um wonderful experience of hearing a lot about the climate and about um the state of our um water situation globally the state of Plastics in the ocean and boy the more we can do here right here at home is the only conclusion I came to that could absolutely help because it all starts here where we are here and so I really appreciate that committee and I came back wanting to learn more about what we're doing here in wetta so just thought this would be a good time to mention that so thank you uh Polly for being a part of that committee goe and all way in I'm I'm sorry that she's not here to hear these comments I expect she's either watching live online uh well no she has a life so she's probably doing something else but uh she'll watch a recording at some point but I just wanted to say that you know somebody who's got a passion a deep passion for uh a topic like that can some times be a little abrasive or a little bit too forward not Polly she's one of the nice people nicest people you'll ever meet and she may Advance an idea but she'll do it with such Grace and kindness that you kind of say yeah that makes a lot of sense even if you don't agree although I tend to agree with her so I am going to miss her I hope she sticks around in the community as well because she really is such a nice person yeah thank you uh so I had a chance to visit with with Paulie on the phone today and I'm glad I caught her and I'll tell you about that in a second um I I met paully when I lived on uh Chicago Avenue she lived a few houses down from me um on on uh Chicago Avenue with her husband Mark so that's when I first got to know her and again I wasn't serving when she did all this great work on the um energy committee but some of the things I think she's most proud of at least that she conveyed to me was working very hard on the revised tree ordinance a few years ago um she very much uh wanted to see some changes there and was successful and getting getting that changed um she worked extremely hard on on getting the city to align and Implement uh solar strategy for City buildings which you know I just was reading you know the little pamphlet about you know the city hall fire station Public Library the mun and public works all uh powered by S Solo in large part to to the contributions of pulie and other on that committee um and then uh she spearheaded the energy action plan with Excel Energy where um through that they're uh given some resources to help uh lift up and honor uh folks in the community that are that are implementing sustainable practices and sustainable initiatives and so I think there's been a few Award winners um along those lines um she's actually stepping down into something kind of cool her son Ian actually is attempting to be the first person to bike across all seven continents including Antarctica and he's got four down with three to go and Mom is accompanying um Ian on the Asia and European aspects of of that trip as support uh I don't think she's going to go to Antartica that sounds a little bit kind of crazy going on a bike with a sled and all that but he uh he's going to try to literally bike around the world so if you want to follow him um he actually has a really great Instagram site at at ride with Ian and maybe we'll see we'll see paully popping up uh in Asia and Europe as he as he takes that leg of his trip so uh good excuse for not being here tonight I can't say that I match that she's literally embarking on that trip uh today or tomorrow so kudos to you paully and and you can pick up your plaque when you return and expect some pictures so um all right do we have uh anything else on public uh commentary anything from Zoom Mr Mayor we do not okay next on the uh agenda is new uh agenda items um is uh anyone have any new agenda items to discuss or bring up at this time no okay hearing none we'll move on to the consent agenda the next item is the approval of the consent agenda on the consent agenda tonight is approval of city council workshop and regular meeting minutes of January 7th 2025 the approval of the check register approval of Municipal licenses the receipt of the police activity report the receipt of the building activity report the approval of the 2024 state of Minnesota pay Equity implementation report adoption of resolution 02 2025 accepting a donation from the wetta Lions and wetta American Legion Post 118 to our fire department uh adoption of resolution 03225 appointing uh Sue inany to the Planning Commission uh as noted earlier uh you know Lissa Stockton uh chose to resign with one year left in her term and so on the consent agenda would be appointing Sue Ankeny who had applied for that position to serve out the remainder of that term and then um lastly uh do we have any questions or wishes to pull anything off the consent agenda go ahead uh I don't intend to pull anything but I've got one question and one comment two different items uh the question I've got relates to item 7f uh approval of the 2024 state pay Equity implementation report typically when we get a report we just receive it rather than approve it so I'm curious uh are we actually approving a report or are we just receiving the report uh great question council member uh plish uh in this case we are uh approving it uh so it does need to be approved by the council then sent to the state ultimately this is part of their approval process uh and I think it's just for transparency purposes okay and then the comment I had regarding Sue anony being on the Planning Commission I didn't want to just sweep that into a consent agenda without saying something about it I'm actually delighted that she's going to be part of the Planning Commission she's a neighbor I've gotten to know a little bit not a whole lot but enough to know that I think she's going to be a great addition to the Planning Commission so welcome yeah thank you for those comments uh so then I would need um a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented Mr Mayor I'll make that motion okay do I have a second I'll second any further discussion all in favor say I I I the motion passes now we're on to new business and first up is consider approval of the first reading of ordinance 846 amending chapters 920 and 92 or 955 of the wisett zoning ordinance to address home design setbacks um I guess I'll be turning over to Jeff or to to Valerie or who does this go to uh Mr Mayor I'll I'll just do the quick intro and really my intro is our uh Miss quarls is going to take this but I wanted to just real quickly say I'm not going to refer to her as the the assistant planner anymore I'm going to refer to as the city planner because she has been promoted to our city planner so city planner corals is going to take this one all right thank you all right I won't reread this title again it's too long uh we've been uh shorthand we've been referring to it as just the r3a Redevelopment study for a little bit of background in the summer of 2024 so a little while back now we started to hear some concerns from the community and from Council about the fast pace and overall character of a lot of single family Redevelopment in our core neighborhoods uh when I say core neighborhoods in this case I'm thinking north of weisa Boulevard so between Barry Highway 12 and gleon Creek in response to these concerns we held a workshop with Council in September as a result of that Workshop staff was directed to prepare a moratorium on Redevelopment for considerations specifically within this area that moratorium was brought to the council in October and failed so there was not a moratorium and development continued in the meantime uh the scope of Examination for this area expanded to the entire r3a District instead of just that neighborhood so that's everything on this map that's an orange in October we held a workshop with the Planning Commission on 10 uh potential zoning changes uh some of them were pretty far out there some of them were more reasonable the idea was we wanted to make sure we got feedback from the Planning Commission on everything and then narrowed down from there in November we opened up a Community Vision ual preference survey uh showing a couple of different homes in town and basically asking the community to react what are the things you like about these houses what are the things you don't like about these houses what other concerns or uh or positive things do you have to say about you know the character of Redevelopment in your neighborhood I'll talk There's a summary of the community engagement results in the packet but overall it was not as uh not as heavy a consensus as I would have thought uh going into the survey there are certainly many people who are you know concerned about a lot of the uh homogeneity of houses uh that are going up in their neighborhood but there are also plenty of people who are happy that their property values are going up and they love the new character of homes too so pretty split in November we also sent a memo to uh a lot of our local single family builders for comment we wanted to take the same 10 zoning solutions that we had uh given to the Planning Commission and also send it their way uh because those are the folks that apply for building permits and I can comment a little bit on the practicality of some of those Solutions and then finally at the end of all that we had open houses for residents and builders on November 25th and got a lot of good feedback and conversation uh out of that uh discussion in December we took our 10 Solutions and reduced them down to two and fine-tuned them at that time uh the public hearing uh notice which had gone out to r3a Residents was also noted in the Yetta weekly I just note that because one of our changes affects a little bit more than r3a the conclusions that we got out of of our resident engagement is that generally uh residents like homes that are smaller appear Charming U have that front yard and are more oriented towards the street and that they deemphasize the garage and the driveway so those are not the main features of the home it's not dominated by a garage residents also believe elements like Landscaping setbacks front doors porches and overall hard cover or imperious surface are the most important factors for neighborhood character but they are split on most other issues including you know is Redevelopment over all positive uh you know is the impact of their property personally good or bad and overall what's the role of the city in further regulating or not regulating these issues uh I think that the most important consideration that came out of that survey was that we asked uh whether Variety in new homes was more important or uniformity in new homes was more important basically if we could have every home look exactly how you wanted it to look would you prefer that or would you prefer a little bit more variety and variety was the overwhelming answer so that shaped a lot of how we talked about um how intense our zoning Solutions were so we have two uh to to approve tonight the first is reducing the sidey setback for driveways and curb Cuts today our sidey setback for a driveway is 10t so you can't have any pavement if you're going to build new within 10 ft of a side Lot line same with the curb cut what this means is that the sidey yard is grass and pushes that driveway inward however on a lot of the narrower r3a Lots what is what this means is that the driveway gets pushed to the middle of the property therefore forcing the garage to be in front what we were seeing was that if we allowed a little bit more leniency and allowed the driveway to sort of snake around the house to the back that a lot more Builders were interested in doing uh garages in the rear of the house those sort of side loading ones you see on some properties uh that's a little bit more of an incentive for Builders as opposed to a restriction and based on some of the building permits we've had to reject in the past we think it's something that more Builders will take advantage of so that's one way to take that garage out of the front and put it in the back without forcing that to happen on Lots where it might not make sense for that to happen uh we expanded that particular measure to all of our residential districts besides R5 because it comes up a lot and between planning and Public Works the staff discussion was that you know it really brings nothing but benefits it brings some current non-conformities into compliance so some current driveways that are really far over are now more compliant and then um didn't have has probably the most marked impact in our smaller districts so we'll have even less of an impact in our larger districts that require bigger frontages the other measure that we're introducing is a front yard setback that is increased but only for garages uh So within the r3a district we have a setback of 20 ft that's feeling really close to the street for a lot of residents uh however in our research looking at all of the sort of historic setbacks around the neighborhood 20 ft has shown up uh in every decade basically it's not like 20 ft is sort of creeping closer over time there are houses that are built in the 1910s that are just 20 feet from the street so it was really more of a question of scale and what features were in front so the proposed garage setback uh brings back that garage to 25 ft instead of 20 so there are a couple options that can come out of that design- wise that either means that you know part of the house is further forward and the garage is further back or the whole house is pushed a little bit further back which is also something that residents stated they would want to see so it doesn't bring uh a lot of homes out of compliance by saying oh there's a structure that's too far forward now but it does bring those new garages further back again that's something that's in that's more restrictive than it is today but it's not as intense as some of our previously proposed Solutions it's it's pretty scaled back um if we have any questions about these I'm happy to run through them but those are some of the solutions that we tabled that were either you know too intense or not effective or just wouldn't give us the uh the outcome that we were looking for the Planning Commission discussed uh other communities with narrow lots and how they handle uh Home Design talked about the community engagement process architectural Trends and again after a long Community engagement process the relatively restrained nature of the proposed regulations we had one public commenter who verbally commented on what it would mean to rebuild their particular home and so we ended up having a separate conversation and overall the commission ended up recommending approval by a vote of 40 so the proposed motion would be to approve the first reading of the ordinance thank you questions of staff from Council go ahead Alex yeah um I actually asked this question earlier in the last afternoon but I'm not sure I got quite a clear answer at least not clear enough for me is uh so let me ask the setback for hard surface or impervious surface has been reduced for the purpose of designed to put garage entry in the back as one outcomes that correct yes so if you're um if you have a little bit more room in the sidey to put that driveway instead of having to set it so far away from the sidey it gives room for the driveway to snake around to the back so we're reducing it from 10 ft to 3et what do we to 3 feet so that that actually points my question because in the proposed ordinance I'll read it here uh this is on page 63 of our packet uh that's on their setbacks it says front side and rear setbacks of at least 10 ft from property lines shall be maintained from parking areas in all zoning districts except and then it's got a list of of uh zoning districts so the 10-ft Restriction is accepted uh for those zoning districts but it doesn't say what it's going down to so I'm curious where the 3 ft comes in because if you read it and there's no other description it sounds like the setback goes from 10 ft to zero I'm happy to pull that up real quick yeah right there that's a D1 so if you read the first sentence there it says it's 10 ft except for all these districts and then the next sentence only addresses the commercial districts but not the residential so if the um rear setback of at least 10 ft is now vacated for those areas it seems to me it would go to zero so where is the three feet in here uh item three under D so if you go down two items it says a side setback of at least three feet from property lines and then it names those same districts okay very good thank you yep okay other questions of Staff okay so what we have before us then is uh adjustments to to ordinance 846 and the changes are in section one one section one 2 section no not section one two section 13 uh and then 18 I don't know why it jumps from 1 to eight that's kind of odd um under design um and then in section two there's a change uh under two or under three sorry and all this relates to front yard uh 25 ft from 20 10 to three on the side um so I guess uh is there any further comments on this um before we move to to a motion are there comments as to the ordinance as written um I don't have I guess yeah I do just wanted to comment and express my support of these uh tweaks and changes and then also um kind of give it up to staff for this one um in particular always but for this one I just really appreciated how quickly everyone came to the table and and also thank you guys too for being willing to take this up so quickly and and and put it as a priority which I know means that something gets pushed down the list so it was a sacrifice but I think a really great one and um I'm I'm very impressed with how many public comments we got especially from specific uh residence in that neighborhood so that was really rewarding for me to see like okay good this is on people's mind and we're addressing it and taking action and um and and one last thing too in the in the packet I found it really helpful to have you um you guys go through those alternative 10ish things that were considered and then explain really um really well why those weren't the best options cuz I had a few moments I thought what about oh so um just wanted to say thank you and great work and that um I'm excited to get this Rong so thanks any other comments on the draft ordinance okay uh I don't have any comments either um so I guess we are now looking for a motion to approve the first reading of uh the ordinance 846 amending chapters 920 and 955 of the wetta zoning ordinance to add address home design so I would ask for a motion to approve that first reading I'll make that motion mayor okay do I have a second a second second do we have any further discussion okay all those in favor say I I I I all opposed say no motion passes um the next item is 8B to consider approval of first reading of ordinance 847 uh uh amending which is the next one on the ordinance roster ordinance 847 amending design standards of chapter 909 city manager Mr Mayor city planner quarrel is going to take this one as well okay thank you thank you city manager doll all right so this one is a little more a little more wordy than that one uh but for some background um we've had design standards in town for a long time but we did a really major re right in 2021 overhauled them completely came up with this amazing new handbook and they've been guiding um our most of our new devel our new developments since then um it's been very very cool to be able to uh Implement Urban Design principles into new development and have them codified instead of having to you know sort of encourage developers to try to do something that's a little more aesthetic it's nice to have a a set of standards that guide that um but over time you know implementing over the last couple years we've definitely noticed some things where a little tweak here or there can make that implementation a lot easier the proposed list of updates is mostly meant to address common questions either questions that staff has to ask and answer over and over or uh that developers are asking and improve administrative efficiency the Planning Commission reviewed a draft at their November 18th workshop and provided feedback it's a Citywide change so there's no additional neighborhood notification requirement besides the new newspaper uh the Planning Commission looked at it again at December 16th but didn't talk about it much more because they had considered it pretty extensively at that Workshop so I'm not going to read every single one of these I'm just going to summarize them and if you have any questions I'm happy to go back to an individual slide uh this change is meant to address massing breaks we have a specific requirement for massing brakes and buildings that are between Lake Street and the shoreline of the lake uh talking about how exactly those should provide a massing break and why it's there we added a couple of words just to um understand that not all Parcels south of Lake Street have a direct view of lake minetonka so what this does is essentially give the give an applicant an opportunity to show or prove that you know some part of their site maybe doesn't have that view um we have that as a de facto you know option now but we wanted to formalize it um we also ask for something called upper story step backs in a lot of areas and that basically says that the you know the uppermost part of the building has to uh come back a certain percentage of the facade length and what that does is allow more light more air to come down to uh to ground level and improve The Pedestrian experience we uh previously just said that it was at the highest occupiable story in certain areas and we wanted to clarify that that story is the third story uh generally and that twostory buildings are not required to have a step back um this was that highest occupiable story note used to be in case we ever had a four-story building uh that that would go up to the fourth and not the third but the planning commission's feedback was that they wanted it to start at the third so we clarified that rooftop equipment on Lake Street and in the bluff District we do not allow new mechanical we don't allow mechanical equipment on the roof deck on new buildings that's because you can look down the hill and out towards the lake and not see mechanical equipment on roofs that's not you know blocking or unsightly what we wanted to provide for is that there are some buildings that have basically made a little Notch like above their second floor so that their rooftop equipment is technically above the building but not sticking out from the second floor and so we just wanted to to codify that as an acceptable solution basically doing a little Notch uh the building that Grocer's table in is a is a good example of this it's kind of the screening ends up blending right in with the wall of the second floor and you can't tell so we just wanted to ensure that visibility from the street and that sort of visibility was the biggest thing to consider rather than exactly saying well technically now that's a roof and confusing people uh we also made some changes to Rooftop equipment in the WIA of our district this was primarily in response to the design deviations that the Wells Fargo project got there was a lot of discussion after the fact about you know if you've got larger rooftop equipment um for a commercial building which is generally necessary but you can't see it from the street how much does the city actually care uh in that case and so what we ended up doing was relaxing that standard a little bit and matching it more with our um our other standards for rooftop items you know whether that's you know chimneys or elevator pen houses or all that sort of thing so that's a little bit more in line with that um there's still a limit on how much mechanical equipment you can have up there but it's not as restrictive as it was before and is a little bit in line with uh the market and both what our actual priorities are in terms of design uh similarly that Notch approach that I mentioned can be used in other other districts besides Lake and Bluff um there's a note about rooftop equipment deviations there was some confusion about how best to administer these a deviation is when you want to do something different than what the design standards say it's not uh quite the same as a variance there's a different set of criteria uh but we have what's called significant deviations which are the ones that always come in front of Planning Commission and city council for approval and then minor deviations so ones that don't quite meet the threshold for everybody needing to talk about it that's stuff like bicycle parking or you know a certain type of brick is not something that the council needs to talk about um but rooftop mechanical equipment was also on that list and so because we relaxed on the size and the location of mechanical equipment we also wanted to move it into that significant deviation category and that's because listen we relaxed on the size but if you want to go even bigger than that then yes we do need to talk about it in a public forum and we do have that ability now um but even we have typically preferred to review rooftop mechanical equipment uh deviations with the Planning Commission city council but now um we have to instead of preferring to finally uh you know a lot of this process is Administrative when it comes to design review typically council is only seeing deviations uh but City staff is often determining what is a deviation and what is not a deviation so previously uh we didn't have an appeal process for staff's determination and now we do so if an applicant wants to appeal staff's uh ruling on whether something is a deviation or not we'll treat it as a variance and we'll bring it forward to the Planning Commission and to the council these are super minor uh this is about just one yeah that so you just said that it wasn't a variance but it is a variance so you confused me by your comments versus what's written on the slide here so could you clarify that for me further yes so a um I'm sorry I totally misspoke on that great catch so whether so I totally rrate through that my apologies oh that's okay I just want to make sure we clarified it no problem let's just we'll just clarify it yeah so when staff um minor deviations are administratively approved and that means and staff can either administ administratively approve them or deny them and so appealing that denial is what now goes in front of council and is subject to the major deviation process before the process would have defaulted to variances because it was you know going against a staff exactly the clarification I was looking for thank you planner um these two are quite minor we had a typo in one of our lighting standards and we are updating our masonry thickness and treatment rules to just um be more in line with what the market um actually I had a related question of that on page 86 of the packet you outlined the you know the the things we're asking to change is this a typo where it says parling lot lighting should it say parking lot parking okay good call all right cool thank you um sorry just wanted to clarify those two things and then not a brand new type of lot that we've come up with or anything hey you know could be you never know uh go ahead no that's okay after masonry and lighting uh it's just the proposed motion to approve the ordinance okay do we have questions of Staff go ahead uh thank you mayor and uh planner quarrels can you I recall uh having a really good grasp of the notch thing for the mechanical equipment when you guys reviewed this at Planning Commission I think you had a visual which must have been really helpful for me cuz now I can't quite picture it and I can be specific on what my my concern is that if it's a notch to me sounds like a u so it's open on one end and I guess my concern is if or being really aware of the views from above towards the lake are we being that thoughtful about the views coming from the lake okay so mechanical equipment is still required to be screened it is so in this case I think probably an l-shape is the best way to think about it so think about like substituting a portion of the second or third floor for mechanical equipment screening it so it looks like a wall in the same way that you know there's building on either side of it if you were to look up from the lake you would think it was part of the building instead of something sticking out from the building okay and then um one smaller part of the way that that uh code is written is that that mechanical equipment can't stick up out of that it has to be below the level of the roof deck because we didn't want applicants just dropping down their equipment a little and then just sticking up anyway and defeating the purpose of the of the prohibition Lake Street okay super helpful and exactly what I wanted to hear too so cool there we go other questions of Staff okay so what we're being asked to uh approve in the first reading is uh these these changes or minor adjustments to ordinance 847 R building width upper story building setbacks designed to help with viewscapes roof equipment screening building material building materials parking lot lighting and then the deviation process uh to not force variances uh but an appeal process for deviations and a chance to venue that with the Planning Commission and the council so um any further comments um on what we're being asked to per approve in our first reading here I I have one question for for David um so this is a first reading it has a second reading then it becomes an effect so my question is for any applications that are active with the city does it apply to that or does it only apply to applications that come in net new from the second reading yes Mr Mayor so in general we apply the law that's in effect at the time we make the decision okay so um you know it's looking at the timing of things but basically if you were making the decision tonight on the design deviation would really be your only decision you would apply you wouldn't apply this because it won't be effect until this is read twice and published yep so then then it's just basically anything that comes across the Planning Commission or the council desk from that date forward this should be applied yes because the the timing of a new application now by the time it goes to play about when it's venued basically yeah okay not when it applied okay that was only uh for the clarification I had all right so uh any further comments otherwise I would accept a motion for the approval of the first reading of ordinance 847 amending the design standards of chapter 909 so move Mr Mayor a second second any further discussion all in favor say I I I nay none it passes um now this one is the one that um council member Park Hill uh made reference to in in approving the agenda so I think what we'd like to do is venue the next item which is 8C to consider the first reading of ordinance 848 um amending the city code chapter 815.70 well I kind of want to get a feel for what this training is all about before we pass this CU um I I guess is it important is it not I think um who's it who's who should it be important for um does it really do we have drug issues in y Zetta do we have leasing issues in y Zetta is this an onerous overreaching um request of somebody to go spend their day doing this if they just want to rent their house it seems to me a violation of freedom but I I feel like um that I am willing to do the due diligence and assess that for myself because I'm the one that brought that up okay so if I could just play back what I heard to make sure I get it right you're suggesting it be tabled because you'd want further time to study this issue before it's venued for a change to the to the the ordinance as written okay so before that motion occurs I think council member McDonald wanted to offer some commentary or some questions before we uh look to see if we're going to act on tabling it okay go ahead uh thank you mayor and council member Park Hill I was planning to make some comments about this item in regards to our plans to study the Lo short-term rental ordinances and I figured this would be kind of swooped up in that I was just going to mention that I would have felt more comfortable um evaluating the necessity of this training once I'd heard from through that public engagement from either the property owners or the the the neighbors so I um I'm totally okay with tbling it since I don't think I felt like I had a a good enough grasp of what the community needed or wanted so I just would hope that that table would let us get through at least the public engagement portion of um that short-term rental okay thanks further comments on uh council member Park suggestion to table it I'll just say I'm I'm okay with tabling it but just to make sure that I understand what it was before us is uh we we now have a requirement that people go through this training uh in all regards for rentals and this was only about making that less restrictive by exempting um people who own their homes so if we don't if we table it we're basically keeping it more restrictive until we make some other decision is that correct more restrictive also is the status quo but yes right so I'm okay with tabling I would have been perfectly fine making things a little less restrictive on our homeowners but okay if we want to table it for future discussion well so let's let's try this let's uh see if uh why don't you make a motion commissioner Park Hill to I'm sorry council member Park Hill to decide uh why you want to table it and then if you could maybe make reference or we can have a friendly amendment to a time box or time frame I think council member uh McDonald's suggesting after we do the public engagement to the overall um uh short yeah like Airbnb short BNB so see see if that holds for a motion to table with that suggestion so I would like to table this resolution um for the purpose of doing more due diligence for the purpose of possibly making an argument for making it even less restrictive okay um and then are are you okay with uh sort of time boxing it around the public engagement process for short-term rental so it kind of comes back as one yeah it's assuming that's in the next 90 days or something yeah I think so I don't I mean maybe they could be separated but I don't know when we're planning to do that uh council member pish uh mayor Mullen we have it on our um strategic plan for this year I don't think we can we'll be able to come back with an ordinance within 90 days but it will be you know hopefully second quarter it depends how long the engagement process lasts honestly but 90 days is too quick probably I also see it as complet a separate issue from the short-term rental because this is all about somebody renting their home theoretically for a longer period of time 6 months or it's not a short-term renter in my in my mind is 30 days or less and I have no interest in putting less restrictions on 30-day or less rentals um I'm looking for that person that is leaving for a year on a sabatical or something um that doesn't have to take a day to go studies to yeah yeah I get it well I I'm not having that freedom to be able to rent their home without a lot of bureaucracy sure uh council member pleus I believe you had a comment well you were reading my mind I guess yeah well I saw you kind of is um I think there's no downside for voting on this ton tonight because if your ultimate goal um council member Park Hill is to evaluate this to make it even less restrictive well what we're doing tonight would be making it less restrictive and we could come back at some other time to make it even less restrictive than that I don't see any downside to doing this e the the downside would be that it's more restrictive now we could make it less restrictive for some period of time and then if down road we felt it's not even it's still too restrictive we can always come back and change it again so I I don't know why we need to table this right now because I see no downside for doing it so council member pish offered a friendly suggestion I guess I would leave it up to you if you'd like to make a motion to table or if we'd like to continue to review and act on it my thought was if we pass it now then it's off the radar and my want my idea was my my desire was to to still maintain some sense of urgency about it which I was very grateful that we have addressed this so quickly um and so I was planning to well I attend this class as soon as as humanly possible I don't know how often they're tomorrow you can do it any how often they're offered uh whether it's so um why don't we do this Jee why don't you make a motion and see if it holds to table and if it doesn't then we'll hear it and move on how does that sound um I would also like to say I'm sorry this is getting so confusing but I guess I thought I apologize I thought this training would be swooped up in short-term rentals um so if I'm the one putting a longer timeline on the table that's okay for me I just when I read through this I kept thinking to myself why are we doing this I I haven't heard from any Community member I haven't heard from any property owner so to me that felt like an opportunity to hear directly from someone who would be affected by this um however it doesn't sound like those are the people who will be engaging with for the short so just a little caveat like timeline wise this was created by me well let's as a landlord and as somebody who's done this for 30 years there's no other community that I know of in the country that has this yeah well let's other than the state of Minnesota I guess well let's let's see if your motion to table holds or not and if it doesn't then we'll review it okay my motion to table stands okay do I have a second to table this to a future date to send date uh well I guess we don't have consensus on on a timetable so it would be it's not it doesn't we don't have to have a timetable we're just tbling it be nice but it doesn't have to okay may so we have so we have a motion to may we need a second okay well I'll second that for council member Park Hill okay further discussion okay all in favor of tabling say I I I I uh those opposed nay nay that would pass we're going to table that motion to the future I guess my comment would be perhaps because we all were a little bit confused about the intent and purpose of this when you do bring it back could you be be more clear uh to to articulate to US shortterm versus longterm and and sort of tease out some of the comments that were made here so that we we we have a better uh understanding of what we're actually reviewing absolutely yep okay perfect okay so then the next thing I believe that we have is the city manager support report Mr do thank you Mr Mayor a couple things to t one I just wanted to um highlight a project that's going on that that's pending actually uh could uh could happen later this year uh 641 Central Avenue is unique project where part of the Kish building which is41 lake Lake Street I'm sorry um um is a unique project where part of the building of the 600 block the Kish building where the Marquee is um is going to be demolished and then rebuilt same footprint a little bit different facade and a little bit higher the height will increase from 25 ft to 30 ft um because it's a portion of the building not more than 50% because it's not currently under a PUD because it's not asking for any type of exception or design deviation uh it only to our knowledge requires administrative approval so we are triple checking that but Our intention is that after we get done with our thorough building permit review process that they would be issued a building permit and then could you know start construction this spring um despite it' be admin review um all the information is on our website we're going to put some more information on our wetta weekly just so people know about it and feel free to call our planning staff to if for folks if they have any questions about the actual site or the process because it is a little bit different than our typical development process so happy answer any questions I have a couple comments on this one and certainly open it up for for others so U you may have received inquiries from from the public I have about this project it appeared on the website in the last week to 10 days with communication going back to November and it also appeared on our website under a section called approved projects and that um caused some confusion and or maybe misunderstanding in the public about you know a prominent building not going through Planning Commission commission and Council appropriately so I think um I had asked staff to make that correction to the website and they've done so so it no longer sits under approved project it's it's not an approved project and it clearly states administrative approval so hopefully that clears that up I know that city manager D and I um are going to be meeting with some community members that Express concern um I encourage all council members as they wish to to meet with community members to express those concerns um we will also be talking to the kishes to just make them aware of uh the feedback that was received um and and just to kind of clear and uh make sure that we're all on the same page as to how the city is addressing this development why it's considered administrative because it's less than 50% of the overall block etc etc etc so I open it up to any other questions of my colleagues on this topic go ahead just a curiosity the the Marquee that's there now will that be demolished uh no council member plish it's just the far end where typically the it's known as the Caribou part of the building and it's really just being demolished and rebuilt to improve its marketability to have higher ceilings so they can you know tenant I can't remember who else was in there at this time yeah historic home studio historic Studio thank you okay other questions of staff on this topic okay go ahead cool thank you um just wanted to call out it was on the consent agenda thanks special thanks to the American Legion and the YZ Alliance for their continued um generosity and giving a significant amount of of their charitable gambling funds to the fire department for equipment uh purposes um I did ask them to uh if they would be so kind to put together kind of a an annual update or report and to come to a future city council meeting so they can promote themselves their work that they're doing how they've you know how things are going this year versus last year and uh all the other great uh impacts they're having with their donations throughout the uh the community and region so expect them to make a presentation with the next couple meetings lastly I also wanted to thank all the folks that came out uh mayor was there uh some staff was there for family skate day it had been rescheduled because of the bitter cold the week prior um the skating rank is open we had great amount of people at skating day uh and we've had great uh F amount of folks coming in skating uh right now it's like a Norman rock wall photo out there it's closed again thanks to the weather yeah it's closed hopefully it'll be open the Public Works can smooth it out and it's going to get cold again so hopefully we can get uh a few more weeks after this uh hot spell ends so thanks to everybody who came out though for that day that's all I have okay any other comments from Council uh I just have one um this meeting is off cycle by a week because we didn't have a quorum for last week so we will be meeting again next Tuesday for all of the vast viewing public that wants to join us here online we will be here again next Tuesday and with that I would accept a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting I'll make that motion with one comment go ahead Chile open is coming up yes very good if you don't have your tickets buy your tickets to Chile open all right fantastic make that motion to adjourn okay do I have a second second any further discussion all in favor say I I I okay that passes say in the meeting is adjourned thank you for