[0:09] greetings this is the regular PL meeting of the Planning Commission I call the meeting to

[0:14] order uh call the RO Luke Pearson here Willen

[0:20] bring here Campbell noted that he will be absent AATA also noted that he will

[0:27] be absent moli here aen noted that she will be absent

[0:32] tonight and Wilson here thank you Luke Pledge of Allegiance

[0:41] please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to

[0:46] the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for

[0:58] all approval of the agenda uh for those who may have the old agenda there was a modification to include

[1:05] elections of the chairperson and vice chairperson as item four

[1:12] uh Mo to approve okay second second Tak

[1:18] all in favor I those opposed uh then I guess we movees

[1:26] directly to the nominations and elections of chairperson and and vice

[1:33] chair anyone have

[1:38] nominations um I make a motion to nominate to keep a nom the board chair and uh Vice chair as

[1:47] they are right now with with both Dallas and Tom okay we ex second

[1:53] second uh all those in favor well wait a minute

[2:00] no new nominations uh to be made then uh nominations will be closed uh this motion requires a second

[2:07] also first and a second so moved second second uh all those in favor I I I any

[2:16] opposed thank you um election to be used by Ballot or we

[2:22] can just do it by acclamation if you wish acclamation yeah okay

[2:30] all those in favor of the motion i i i any opposed motion passes thank

[2:39] you uh approval of the minutes any mo changes to the mo minutes

[2:46] by anybody

[2:55] no I was see that one I personally saw none but anyone's

[3:02] got any no see none I ask for a motion to approve the agenda uh the minutes

[3:07] motion to approve second second all those in favor I I those opposed

[3:15] abstain thank you okay uh open Forum uh

[3:21] now is a moment for people to come forward to speak their if they wish to say something that's not on the agenda

[3:27] already see as there's no one in s in the audience I'll close the open

[3:33] Forum open it first and close it and move on to uh old business Planning

[3:39] Commission 2025 work plan discussion thank you chair so just for

[3:45] the benefit of individuals who might be tuning in on um on the YouTube channel

[3:51] um there was a discussion with the city council at the appreciation dinner which uh was right before the cameras turned

[3:58] on here uh just about the 2025 draft Planning Commission work plan so the

[4:03] purpose of the work plan is to help provide some guidance to the Planning Commission as um we progress throughout

[4:09] the year it just gives some some guidance in terms of what the responsibilities are for the Planning

[4:15] Commission and um I mentioned earlier that state statute really well defines

[4:21] the responsibilities of the Planning Commission so uh that that helps with this work plan um a couple things I I

[4:28] just want to note is is that we have an upcoming small area plan for the 12th in Geneva area and then we anticipate that

[4:35] the uh that there will be some early preparation work for the city's next comprehensive Plan update then uh staff

[4:42] will be engaging the Planning Commission for their feedback um happy to answer any questions about the draft work plan

[4:48] anyone have any questions and uh in terms of next steps

[4:55] there's nothing formal that the the Planning Commission has to do for the work plan it there will be a city council action on the work plan at a

[5:02] upcoming meeting dat there okay uh that moves us on to new business

[5:09] zoning and subdivision code update project discussion yes thank you

[5:17] uh while I uh make my adjustments here on on the screen I have a

[5:23] presentation that I'll show in just a moment um so the

[5:30] city has been working with a consultant H KGI they're a planning consultant um

[5:35] based here in the Twin Cities we've been working with them since March of last year to update the city's zoning and

[5:40] subdivision code uh just for a little bit of History the last time the the code has

[5:46] been had a a comprehensive update that it's been over 15 years at this point so

[5:51] it's well overdue for an overhaul um recall that we've met with the Planning

[5:57] Commission a couple times over the past year regarding this project the last meeting was back in November 7th and we

[6:03] discussed uh several topics for the zoning code including zoning districts use and dimensional standards

[6:09] development standards parking regulations landscaping and exterior building materials and design and then

[6:15] after the Planning Commission we had a couple meetings with the city council at workshops so later in November November

[6:23] 12th we met with the council and then uh last week we met with the council again just to get their feedback on this

[6:28] project um so as we get closer to kind of wrapping up this project and actually

[6:35] getting into kind of the meat of it and having the Planning Commission and Council review the draft ordinances uh

[6:41] we wanted just to touch base with you kind of check in and give you a status update of how this code project is going

[6:47] and we also have just a few questions for you on some key

[6:53] topics uh so recall that there was an online questionnaire a few months back

[7:00] that was uh intended to gather input from the public about this code update

[7:05] uh it's always difficult when you have a questionnaire like that we used a lot of visuals to help people kind of

[7:11] understand what we're what we're trying to get at in terms of like uh new housing opportunities or new housing

[7:16] types that we might introduce in in the city for example uh so just a recap the

[7:22] survey was open to the public in late October through mid November we had 202

[7:27] responses which is decent it's not statistically significant but um still

[7:33] useful in terms of uh seeing what the the public feels or how they feel about

[7:38] the the zoning regulations and subdivision standards uh the general findings was that um Beyond single

[7:46] family homes there was some preference for uh different types of housing such as two unit dwellings so think of like

[7:52] dup duplexes or detached uh uh uh was it detached town homes and auxil auxiliary

[8:01] dwelling units or adus and Courtyard Cottages we don't have uh really a

[8:06] courtyard Cottage development in Oakdale but the idea there is smaller homes with a shared Courtyard area there was some

[8:13] broad preference for increasing accessory building size so we're talking about sheds and garages uh folks thought

[8:21] that there should be a little bit more Willow Room in terms of how big your sheds and garages should be and there

[8:27] was also some mild preference moderate preference for just allowing more flexibility in the development

[8:33] standards so here with this graphic um it shows again that the there's some modest preferences for the different

[8:40] types of housing Beyond single family so the least preferred housing type here in this questionnaire T appears to be the

[8:47] the small apartment buildings but there there was some preference for like two unit dwellings in the courtyard cottages

[8:54] and and like I said the auxiliary dwelling units any questions about the

[9:00] questionnaire um before I move on I do have a comment on this particular slide

[9:06] actually in a past life I used to do a lot with Statistics and so the question I've got is I might be or statement I

[9:12] have is I might be more interested in the actual distribution of the opinions than in an average because you look at

[9:18] that list it's statistically identical all the way down it looks like it's statistically

[9:25] identical so I I'm not sure that that tells me much okay no that's a fair point

[9:33] so other questions or comments before

[9:39] okay one more slide here on the questionnaire results I think that the key takeaway

[9:46] here from this set of results is that there's some preference for flexibility for again larger accessory

[9:53] structures um and preference for temporary signage to be kept on property a little bit longer than what current

[9:59] regulations allow which is essentially 20 days um there's a preference for

[10:05] reducing the number of required parking spaces and also uh slight preference to

[10:11] change the exterior design standards here's a look at the existing

[10:17] zoning map for the city which I'm sure you're all familiar with um but just to give you some context of how um well

[10:25] this is really to set up the next couple slides but the general pattern patterns in terms of Zoning for the city more

[10:31] intense uses tend to be concentrated along the the major roads and streets in

[10:36] oakill like the interstates um County highways but also some of the busier

[10:42] city streets as well you'll see the commercial industrial uses um near those streets and that

[10:49] makes you know perfect sense for Access purposes and then residential which is a

[10:54] little bit difficult to see there the the light red the yellow and the orange there which is essentially scattered

[11:00] throughout the city and then PUD which can be either residential or commercial

[11:06] or even industrial that's the dark green

[11:11] there so here we have just a a quick uh summary of the zoning districts and some

[11:16] changes that we're proposing as part of this project so the existing R2 and R3 zoning

[11:24] districts would be Consolidated into the proposed R2 District because through our analysis we realized that there's really

[11:30] not that much difference between those districts and it's a bit redundant we're also converting the

[11:38] existing R4 to the R3 as a result and then the r existing R5 would be

[11:43] converted to the proposed R4 and then the green text there on the right highlights the the major changes

[11:50] for these districts feel free again to stop me ask

[11:56] questions as we go along here another slide here for uh the summary of

[12:03] the residential districts notably the proposed R3 zoning District would allow

[12:08] for smaller Lots So currently the R3 or um the equivalent District allows lots

[12:15] to be 80 foot wide and we're proposing to make them a little bit smaller to 50 foot wide and also the setbacks would be

[12:23] reduced as well

[12:29] so a key topic from this code project is exterior building materials and designs and I have several examples to to follow

[12:36] this slide so for commercial industrial

[12:42] public institutional and also some multif family structures that are located within puds they're subject to

[12:48] certain exterior design standards or and they have to consist of a certain percentage of exterior building

[12:54] materials and uh the way that the city breaks it down right now is that that there is three classes of

[13:01] materials so as you can see in the table there uh there's the the class one class

[13:06] two and class three so uh I'll give you some examples of class one and two and

[13:13] three so class one includes materials such as brick Natural Stone and glass

[13:20] class two is architectural pre-cast eephus which

[13:26] is exterior insulation finishing system similar to justco and then specialty concrete blocks and then finally you

[13:33] have class three which is which includes materials such as opaque

[13:38] panels um concrete blocks glass blocks and wood so as you can see office and

[13:46] commercial buildings have to consist of at least 70% class one material and they

[13:51] have to be con uh they have to be com com uh composed of at least three of those different materials and then they

[13:58] can have um up to 30% Class 2 and class 3 materials and then industrial

[14:04] Warehouse those types of uses require a minimum of 60% class one or two

[14:09] materials and there has to be two different materials there and then they can consist of a maximum of 40% class

[14:16] three materials a few examples like I I

[14:21] mentioned um so here we have architectural metal wall panel systems

[14:26] and this is cons considered a class one material material under the

[14:32] code fiber cement wall panels This is considered a Class 2 material under this

[14:37] the city's current code veneer masonry Wall Systems now in

[14:44] these cases they they appear to be veneer brick um so in in that case they would

[14:51] be considered class one materials and here we have examples of

[14:57] ephus and that is class two under our current

[15:02] code and just a couple more examples and these examples are actually from Oakdale so you have the norhart building just

[15:08] off uh helmo and 94 there and to the and so the norh har

[15:16] building is on the left on the right hand side of the image or the slide is the proposed Enclave building if you

[15:22] recall that went through the Planning Commission a while back um and that has a a mixture of different materials

[15:30] so uh I do want to note that there was one recommendation from the city council at at the previous workshops that I

[15:35] mentioned um and that recommendation is that the city should maintain separate

[15:41] list of acceptable and prohibited exterior building materials and so these

[15:47] lists would not be uh codified in the ordinance but they would actually be kept separate and they there would be

[15:54] supplemental list that uh the Planning Commission and city council would review Maybe you know every two or three years

[16:01] and just to to make sure that we're capturing um materials and new materials

[16:08] as technology improves in the building materials worlds uh and uh also New

[16:13] Trends preferences if you will um more on that in just a moment uh I do have

[16:21] some questions so as you can see there on the screen there's there's two questions here we'll take them one at a

[16:27] time so for non-public facing facades uh are there are the required

[16:32] percentages in the table below there are they acceptable or should they be

[16:38] adjusted or in other words we've we've seen a a handful of developments come through and they've sought deviations to

[16:46] reduce the amount of like class one materials on the the rear of the buildings and also on the sides of the

[16:52] buildings so is there an an opinion from the Planning Commission about adjusting those required

[17:02] percentages my opinion is just keep them the same because you're basing it on what is only on the public side of the

[17:09] street um a good example is this one that was just passed probably last spring if I

[17:16] remember right it's a off of helmo it's a dog pound dog yes I can't remember the

[17:24] name the name well that particular one they wanted to lower the the building itself was a whole

[17:32] different subject but lower the sides um requirements for the size but if you

[17:38] drive up and down Elmo helmo if you go doing South based upon where that

[17:46] building is and the separation between the two buildings of the animal hospital and that building was going to be a

[17:52] large space is there you're going to be able to see those fences the dogs everything and same thing on the other

[17:57] side where the that school was is proposed there's G to be a big space

[18:02] there so you're going north on helmo you're going to see it you know um so

[18:09] reducing that requirement just based upon what is on

[18:14] Street side to me is not what it should be looked at it should be looked maybe more looked at

[18:20] every project separately based upon what can be seen from the streets and going

[18:25] up and down the streets based on what you said the the key the critical thing in what you said is the one the sides

[18:32] that are going to be visible the most yes but the question was on rear side

[18:38] which is going to be facing on that particular case was facing the uh rental area it is but I will point out to you

[18:46] if you drive east on 15th because there's a large space here where that um

[18:52] stone wall is from the rental you will see the back of that building very clearly one other thing so you got to

[18:59] build in a little bit of wiggle room with those cuz if you're talking just as a dog Companion Animal for reference

[19:06] part of the thing was that they wanted to use kennel doors on that and using the 70% materials wouldn't they have

[19:13] allowed them to use that in a proper way so sometimes I think we're looking at form over

[19:19] function that's what I'm say every situation maybe did uh take a look at separately and not have a blanket uh

[19:27] rule but there are exceptions to each room it is I think if you codify it do like

[19:36] 7030 with the backs you could do less or up to discussion so you don't lock the

[19:41] whole building in right

[19:51] away other thoughts on that question

[20:01] well if not we can uh keep moving on here so the the second question there on the screen so regarding the proposed

[20:07] supplemental list of acceptable and prohibited exterior building materials does the commission have any suggestions

[20:14] for materials that should be on these list did we talk

[20:20] about in the November 7th one like Superior materials is

[20:26] that going to be added to this or uh

[20:32] so yeah maybe just a little bit of an explanation in the current

[20:37] code Metals Superior Metals are allowed um that's very difficult for us as staff

[20:45] to you know pick and choose which which metal is superior and that's what that's where this uh idea for acceptable

[20:52] materials list would come in handy for and I know like at the the the council

[20:59] Workshop one of the items that was suggested as being a prohibited material

[21:04] is corrugated metal so I don't know if that answer quite answered your question

[21:11] but yeah that's that's good with me

[21:29] again I can review the the class one and class two materials if needed or and class three as well

[21:37] but maybe we could take the acceptable materials first

[21:45] um so the items like brick Natural Stone architectural

[21:50] pre-cast or cast stone I think is the better term for it uh glass copper panel

[21:56] stainless steel are do those still appear acceptable or

[22:03] there class one yes for class two we have specialty

[22:09] concrete block burnish block or rock face

[22:14] block um architecturally textured pre-cast concrete

[22:20] panels Mason masonry stco that eist

[22:26] material any issues with those if you're talking are you talking this is all just

[22:33] for visual in your materials as opposed to structural yes

[22:40] okay because some of that pre-cast concrete it can look as good as some of the class one

[22:46] material so I think it depends on what

[22:52] they're using I think there should maybe be considered as a cross between both of

[22:58] them I would I would imagine that that kind

[23:03] of material is going to become much more popular too as time goes on here I know if several years ago you

[23:11] wouldn't see it but now it's almost indistinguishable from Rock bases on the on the

[23:27] houses and class three opaque panels smooth scored

[23:33] concrete block ceramic finish concrete block glass block and

[23:43] wood

[23:49] all I would think that you were talking about reviewing every two to three years I think you should have a way to

[23:58] review it more often because Material Science is a growing science too and I

[24:06] think changes come a lot quicker than maybe every three three years

[24:26] so what about the prohibited materials are there strong opinions on

[24:33] types of materials that uh are substandard for you again

[24:39] the commercial multifam um industrial

[24:44] buildings as was presented a corrugated yeah corrugated metal is while

[24:52] unattractive if you're doing something like a car wash pretty much mandatory so I'm not sure how you draw the those

[25:02] distinctions now granted they probably do corrugated in interior or or waterproof interiors and brick outside

[25:09] but I've seen corrugated ones around the cities

[25:16] too not that I want one next door to me

[25:27] but any other types of materials that

[25:34] substandard it's can't think of anything off top besides going plastic or whatever I mean you there's numerous

[25:42] materials out there that we don't know about that could be used positively or

[25:47] negatively without knowing of

[25:53] it so maybe that's where that the idea of having a list yeah is a good thing

[25:59] and updating it frequently

[26:07] yeah okay I just have one more well actually I I guess there's two

[26:12] questions here but so moving on to parking we we have the uh proposed

[26:18] parking table in the the agenda packet that you have um and as we've gone through this code

[26:26] update project it's that's one one thing that we've heard and I know the staff has identified that there's opportunity

[26:33] to adjust the parking requirements um but the question is are

[26:40] there any specific uses throughout Oakdale that appear to have excessive amounts of parking spaces that are

[26:45] underutilized and if so what are they we just like to get your opinion on that

[26:50] let see the parking L over by Taco Bell that half going to Fort to

[26:59] helmo in front of Cub yeah Cub not in front of Cub but the other side down by

[27:05] the ax throwing place that's only well the old rainbow

[27:10] the barel yeah yeah so that whole section there you know You' got Taco Bell their parking lot's Never full the

[27:17] ACT throwing place I've never seen a full it's like only there might be 20% of that parking

[27:24] lot that's just wasted area there and if you look through the rest of the parking

[27:30] lot too it gets a little Fuller but I'm sure there's underutilized parking in

[27:35] that spot to and that just comes right up to the top of my head I think that's a more of a multiuse you have Caribou

[27:43] right there that's parking in the area and the burrow more entertainment I I've

[27:49] seen it full at nights every single night and they they even have like pickle ball clubs there Dollar Tree I

[27:56] think that's I don't know i' respectfully disagree with you on that that I don't think that parking lot is

[28:02] underused just from what I've noticed when there so we're there at different times of the day yeah

[28:08] um I I would say that there's uh on the intersection of Stater Boulevard and

[28:15] Hadley so going north um it's directly to the west of Canvas Health there's

[28:22] just an empty parking lot that's that's part of canis Health's parking lot actually it is yeah over over yeah

[28:30] overflow I I don't see that that gets much use and I don't think I've ever seen Home Furniture parking lot full

[28:38] yeah and then um I just had one more point to when I was looking at the map of Oakdale is at I think north of carile

[28:46] fluid Tech um I think I saw their parking lot maybe it's overflow as well

[28:52] um but I think I saw Donuts um tracks in their parking lot their North lot

[28:58] um but those are the the major two that I saw Fleet firms probably got a lot of

[29:05] access parking too yeah I was thinking about that too

[29:12] yeah the question is why is it based off a square footage of the building of most of some of these

[29:18] parking um spots needed why not based it upon what will actually be there you

[29:24] could have a 10,000 foot building and not need that many parking spaces the actual

[29:32] use of that building won't require that so why not do it based upon required use

[29:38] or is that because that building use could change and then you would have to put new park in it yes that's a big part of

[29:45] it the change in uses um if you just have a a shell of a commercial structure

[29:51] I mean that could be converted into a number of different uses I mean the other part is that it can be

[29:58] uh it could be tricky if you use other other things to determine your

[30:05] parking like um number of employees because that can change um even over

[30:11] time with the same if the the same business is occupying a structure their operations could dramatically change

[30:18] over the years um we do in some

[30:23] cases um look to the occupancy load of the site and that is a a solid number

[30:31] it's you know based on building code and we try to use that when it makes sense in the code but yeah for those uses like

[30:40] retail the kind of the generic uses that captures a lot of different businesses um it it just seem seems to work pretty

[30:48] well just having a number of spaces based on square

[30:53] foot we did modify it on a number of occasions and Home Furniture is one of the big ones because it used to be a

[30:59] movie theater and we basically allowed three other uses in that parking lot now

[31:04] two two other buildings so it's it's been reduced

[31:09] quite a bit because of the type of business

[31:15] there you talked about um you know just business operations even like the I

[31:21] don't know I go to work three days a week in the office but I'm I'm thinking of like is it fourpoint energy or side

[31:28] of town or the it's over by Aldi oh um Forefront

[31:34] yes yeah or I I'm not sure what their parking look like but that's just a thought that I had

[31:40] where eventually maybe employees they all come back and they need that parking

[31:46] um I don't I'm not on that side of town very often but just a thought half I

[31:52] don't know if half the parking lots that used to be a 3M and when it was bought by Forefront

[31:58] they changed a lot of the parkings and they've sold off a lot of that land as well oh

[32:06] okay it's a lot of parking on the back of that place too yeah I guess we most

[32:12] of the employees orh whatever's there

[32:18] now for me whatever you can do to reduce the amount of parking space needed um I just don't see many

[32:26] places overfill overflowing their parking there's always seems to be more

[32:31] than enough parking and um so reducing would be nice for

[32:37] me I'm sure it would be a cost savings for the building as

[32:42] well one thing is it state law for the amount of handicap spaces that are in

[32:49] parking areas yes the Ada uh parking spaces that's a state law

[32:56] requirement but when it comes comes to determining how many spaces you know Fleet Farm or Taco Bell needs that's

[33:03] completely up to the

[33:09] city you have a lot of people come and say can we reduce it is there a request for

[33:17] that with some of the developments that we've seen there's been some deviation request to lower the parking

[33:24] requirements and I'm thinking that that's um mostly for the multif family proposals

[33:30] that we've seen over the the last couple

[33:39] years any other uses that come to mind and we're talking about having excessive parking

[33:49] spaces okay and I guess just before concluding does the Planning Commission

[33:54] have any other topics related to the code update that you would like the project team to explore and research a

[34:01] little bit more next time you give us a grid give us a legend that would be nice so I can

[34:07] figure out what the difference is between PS and P I mean I'm assuming p means permitted but PS I have no idea

[34:15] what a PS is permitted with standards so there's review standards um but since we

[34:22] only see these once every three months you forget what we told last time so Legend would be nice

[34:33] the only other comment I've got I'm sure you'll get it from the fire department is on your first page of your

[34:39] report uh it was a change in the mixed use District Heights that's going to impact their

[34:47] equipment and I can't remember what the fire Tru was that they just bought a few years ago if that was 75 ft or 110 ft I

[34:54] don't remember it's over 100 feet the the the new fire truck is it can

[34:59] extend over 100 ft okay that solves my cuz I I was remembering 75 ft so when we

[35:06] met with a fire chief that he was explaining that um probably the more

[35:12] important thing is having a a good setback from the building to to actually extend because uh you know sometimes you

[35:19] can't just make the the ladder go straight up into the air there has to be that that angle there

[35:33] on else have any questions for Luke no no then just the last thing here

[35:40] I'll show on the screen in a moment is um the process the kind of the last steps for this code

[35:48] update so just as a reminder we've been drafting the the code section since June

[35:54] and uh we're currently doing that right now hoping to finish up in the next few weeks weeks and then we will have the

[35:59] city attorney's office review it and then the Planning Commission and city council will then have the opportunity

[36:04] to review the the uh draft ordinances and that would uh occur in

[36:10] April is our antici anticipated time frame and then uh the then you we would

[36:15] look at the holding the required public hearing and the adoption of the the code

[36:21] is anticipated for May but of course that's tentative things can um can change in that time but

[36:29] that's all I have for the code update project thank you thank you Luke that brings us to the other category a staff

[36:35] leaon update yes um so I would expect a March Planning

[36:42] Commission meeting because currently we have one conditional use permit application um that might be the only

[36:49] item for March um besides that happy to answer any other questions that you have

[36:54] anyone have any questions for Luke on that no okay commissioner

[37:04] update anybody that okay County

[37:10] liaison Susan back again sorry I'm have to fill

[37:15] Jake's shoes big shoes to fill but we'll see how I do I'm happy to

[37:21] answer any questions if you guys have any right now welcome back thank you it's been a

[37:28] few years no questions no cool thanks thanks

[37:34] for everything you do guys thank you which brings us to adjournment we have a motion so move second second all those

[37:43] in favor I any opposed we are adjourned [Applause]