[Music] Good evening. It's 6 o'clock. We'll call the meeting to order. Abby, are you doing a roll? >> Um, can we just note for the record all members present? >> I'm good with that. >> We're asked if you're able, please stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Chair is looking for a motion to approve the agenda as presented or with changes. >> Motion to approve. >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. I had a motion and a second. It's a non-debatable motion. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All those opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries unanimously. We've come to the part of the meeting. It's an open forum. If anyone would like to speak to any issue in particular, I will note that there are two public hearings tonight. So, if you're here for one of those, you'll also have an opportunity at that point. But if there's some other issue you would like to discuss, we ask you to please come forward, state your name and address for the record. Spend a couple of minutes giving your thoughts. Once we've heard from everyone, we will close the open forum and we'll move on to our consent agenda. So with that, does anyone wish to speak at the open forum right here? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Up here. Okay. Um, excuse me. Good evening. My name is Colleen Barkstdale and I'm here on behalf of the neighbors over on Fondant Avenue North and we have some concerns regarding the proposed uh development of 14 houses on 21145 Fondan Avenue. Um, and I want to preface what I'm going to say, the statement I'm going to say from the basically from the neighborhood. Uh, I want to preface that with we are none of us opposed to the Gustin selling their property and the children getting their inheritance. We're we're all been good neighbors, you know, and and uh it's a generational kind of neighborhood. So, um but as a current homeowner on Fondan Avenue North in Forest Lake, I want to express my objections to the size and scope of the proposed McKinley Creek Estates project. I see that this project presents a significant negative impact to the current water, sewer, road, environment, financial safety, and peacefulness of this neighborhood. I would urge the the this uh commission as well as the city council to pursue and accept input from all the property owners in this fondant neighborhood before this development plan continues. This proposal is focused on a neighborhood with limited ingress and and egress. Because of this, all property owners will be impacted regardless of their immediate proximity to the actual project. Access and safety is a major concern and long-term the impact on our neighborhood situated on a dead-end road is unknown. we will continue to be in flux over the next several years with the various road construction projects on uh Highway 97 there uh surrounding our neighborhood. And um I'd like to leave you with a copy of this just mostly to kind of let let you know that that we have some concerns about this project, just its size, just how it's going to impact um our neighborhood. I'll leave with Thank you. >> Make sure Abby, how many do you have left? >> Let's make sure Abby has one. And then >> she needs one, >> right? >> I do not, but I can make a copy after the meeting for anyone who did not get one. If I could have one. >> We'll do it that way. >> Yeah. Great. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. So, just to let you know, we had they were here for concept review. Correct, Abby? That's what they >> That is correct. And I Colleen and I did talk before the meeting, so she knows where we're at in that process and that it could be possible that no future applications are made. If and when an application is made, then the neighborhood gets noticed and there would be neighborhood meetings here at city hall. >> And there will also be a public hearing when they come for the for the >> Yep. And I'll also um let the developer know that you've come and I'll share this with him and hope that he'd reach out to the neighborhood before anything contact him. Found out also he their business started in 2008 and in 2017 they applied for a better business bureau accreditation um 2017 and they and they still do not have that. And you know that's a concern too with a lot of the different building projects come in and you know are not uh really up to stand. So anyway that thank you. >> Thank you for your time. >> Does anyone else wish to speak at the open forum this evening? See no one come forward. We will close the open forum. Chair is looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda agenda considerations. There's only item A, approve the minutes from the regular meeting of June 25th, 2025. >> Motion to approve. >> I have a motion to approve. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion in a second. Any discussion? >> Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. I. >> Opposed? Abstensions? Motion carries unanimously. Item 7 A is uh of our regular agenda is a public hearing for an interim use permit at 8393 200 Street North. Nicholas Kuski, >> thank you. Uh and then case file number. The way this will work tonight, the city will present the application as they understand it. Uh planning commissioners will ask any clarification questions that they need. After that, we'll ask the applicant if they wish to add anything. make sure we understand it. We may have a couple questions for you. We will then host the public hearing. I'll give further instructions at that point. Once we close the public hearing, it'll come back here for a decision. So, with that, Abby, are you presenting? >> I am. Thank you, chair. Uh, members of the commission, Nicholas Kushki and Christina Hub Kushki, I probably butchered that. Uh, but if I sang in a little bit of a sing song, maybe it would have sounded a lot better. I don't know. But they live at 8393 210th Street North. It's kind of um souththeast >> 210th or 200th, >> excuse me, 200th Street North. Um kind of the southeast corner of more corner of Forest Lake, south of the Forest Lake. Um forgive me for not knowing which basic uh zoning district during construction. they would like the opportunity to live in their existing home as a as a temporary dwelling during construction while they build the new home. And our code does allow for this by interim use permit. So some of the commissioners might be newer to not remember or not know what an interim use permit is, but essentially it's like a conditional use permit. It's a use that's allowed. We have the right to put conditions on it and we will also put a timeline expiration. I think we went through a couple of these at our last meeting. Uh very very two weeks ago is a long time ago to remember that. Um so the city is being asked to review and consider um the dwelling temporary during construction at 8393 200 Street North and make recommendation to the city council. Oh, it's not showing up on there. Sorry about that, guys. You might have it on your own screens in front of you, but just pulling it up for the public. >> This is the location of the property off of uh 2002nd Street North. And that's in that agricultural zoning district. It is kind of a unique property in that it's got rural residential nearby. It's got conservancy nearby. And this is the uh site plan that is proposed and existing. So if you look at the light gray crosshatch of the existing home and there was an existing garage that I believe has since been removed that is making way for that proposed home. They'd like to live in this existing residence while the home is built and then uh they will remove the the house and add the garage on if I remember right. There's kind of a timing of the construction there. So staff's analyzed this for zoning review, site plan review, and it conforms to all of the city standards for the construction of a new home and for allowing for um that uh second dwelling while construction is occurring. Um staff has gone through the finding of facts of just whether or not it there's any sort of impact to the health, safety, general welfare of the occupants, the neighborhood, traffic concerns, utilities. Generally, we find that it conforms to all the city standards. Staff is recommending that this body does recommend the city council approve resolution uh approving the IUP with nine recommended conditions. and the Kushkis are here to discuss this with you. Do you have any questions for me? >> Questions of staff, >> Susan? >> Yes. Usually if if we say you don't need to tear something down until you build a new something, we ask for a bond in case the city has to do tear down or removal or if there are issues. And I I missed that in here. >> We do require that as part of the building permit process. So, as part of the entitlements, we haven't necessarily included it in these conditions, but that is a part of the building permit release. >> Okay. >> Other questions or staff? >> I was reading they're putting in a new well. >> Yes. >> And do they have to cap the old well when they're done or >> by state law they'll have some different options. Um capping the well is always the preferred option. state would also allow them to have a well-maintenance permit. Uh but I think um those are state regulations, not city regulations. They would have to conform to those as part of this process. Other questions? Every now and applicant like to add anything to >> any question of the applicant. >> That's a pretty steep site on the back end of that. Correct. >> It is. Yes. >> Sure. >> If you could come up to the microphone. You know, those people at home want to make sure they grab every word from you and state your name and address for the record, please. >> My name is Nicholas Kushki. I live at 8393200 Street North in Forslake. And if you could reanswer Commissioner Young's question on the steep slope. >> We plan on using that for our walk out basement. >> How many outuildings do you have on the property now? >> There is I believe just one in a shed. >> One and a shed. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions of the applicant? >> Thank you. >> We may have questions later. is a public hearing. If anyone wishes to speak to this application, we ask you to come up to the lectum, state your name and address for the record. Spend a couple of minutes giving us your thoughts on the application. Once we have heard from all parties, we will close the public hearing and we'll come back for further discussion and a decision by the planning commission. And so at we'll open the public hearing at 6:12 p.m. Does anyone wish to speak to this application? Abby, I assume there's nothing to be read in. >> No, that is correct. >> I'll ask one more time. Does anyone wish to speak to this application? Seeing no one come forward, we'll close the public hearing at 6:13 p.m. Commissioners, what's your pleasure? Recommend approval. Make a motion to recommend approval. Do we have the language in here that you want? I I I'm scrolling through to see if it's in here for recommendation to approve the >> just a recommendation to approve the Kushki IUP with the nine proposed conditions. >> Okay. Recommend to or my motion to recommend to approve the Kushki um imp >> IUP. Um yeah. that um case file number PZ25-1331 at uh 8393 200th Street North. >> I have a motion. Do we have a second? >> I'll second it. >> I got a motion in a second. Any discussion? Any discussion? Hearing none. >> You surprised me. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries unanimously. So, what we have done is we make a recommendation to the city council. City council will have the final say on your IUP. And I'm sure do we know when it'll go before the council? >> Um, I was just going to check because I knew that question was going to come up. If you can give me a second. I don't think it's Monday. Um, that's quick turn around. We have it. Um, I have to double check with staff. It could potentially get turned around on Monday, but otherwise it would be on the city council's July 28th meeting >> and the applicant will be informed what date that is. >> Yes, we will inform the applicant of that date. >> So, it sounds like sometime in July. >> July 28th. It is correct. >> July 28th. Good luck with your project. Have a good day. you're not forced to stay for the rest of the meeting. >> Thank you. >> We'll move on to uh 7B, a public hearing for zoning ordinance tech amendment for the landscaping regulations, ordinance number 757. And there's a case file number. Abby, are you presenting? >> I am chair. Thank you. Just making a note. our council member Lee is on pointed out that there's just a um there isn't a meeting set on the calendar for the 28th, but there will be a city council meeting on the 28th. All right. So, um in a series of meetings beginning at the beginning of the year, former city planner Ken Roberts and our consulting planner car Claire Stickler had been working with the planning commission to discuss changes to the landscaping regulations. Encloses is an ordinance which reflects some of the discussed changes as well as consolidates all the landscaping regulations into a single cohesive set set of um standards. What that does is it integrates design standards, maintenance requirements and guarantees into a single streamlined format. Again, some of you weren't here when we started this process last year where we reformatted the zoning code really trying to pull items together. The intent is to then start going through ordinance amendments and kind of cherry getting the the lowhanging fruit by trying to um consolidate, refine, and create efficiency in our zoning code. Um I recognize that this might not have been a lowhanging fruit, but it is one that needed to be done because our landscaping standards um appear to be excessive. So throughout those conversations that you've had, um the uh the goal of this ordinance that was before you was to have revised language that's less technical, reduces complexity, and makes the regulations just generally more accessible to the general public, to our development community, to you guys, and to us. So for the most part, the landscaping regulations are staying the same. Um it was more important for staff at least at this point given our staffing transitions that we've had and not being the primary staff that had been working with you was to take what we've had what you've discussed and kind of throw it back together, reformat it and organize it. Um before you tonight is that reorganized um ordinance with uh the one primary substantial change which is reducing the number of uh landscaping units. I don't think that's what we call them but trees and plants to minimize some of those requirements for the development community. As you've seen in the past, um the development applications that are becoming before you, simply put, there is not enough land area for the amount of trees and shrubs that were requiring of our developers. Um not to say that we don't want things well landscaped and um and that there'd be good strong vegetation, just overall there's not enough land area for the maturity of the requirement. That makes sense um to all of you. So um the new code language what it essentially does is it still has that perimeter of the lot divided by 60 um for overstory trees and then understory of trees and shrubs would be not less than the perimeter of lot divided by 15. staff has done is they've gone through one recent um case study that you've looked at uh the Windco dental clinic that was on Centennial Drive and with that what we did is looked at the planting requirements for the total linear feet that of what was would have been required what's existing the proposed language we also did that for Chase Bank and Interstate companies three applications that have come before you and as you'll see in each of these um and I can pull them up for us to go through. Um, if you so want me to, is that the proposed language aligns a little bit better with some of the requirements to where the developers the development itself is not short as much landscaping as they previously have been required. Um, I'm going to leave it at that. Um, I will say that um, a big goal of tonight is to try to see if we can get something moving along to the city council. I recognize that I haven't been the staff that's been here having these conversations with you, but it also um is an attempt to try to move something forward um and then start being able to move on to new and other code sections. So, tonight before you is um recommendations on two different ordinances. um one that is amending the landscape regulations and then another one that's um which is its own section and then another one amending landscape regulations uh relating to specific code sections where we kind of keep saying hey your landscape regulations are those regulations and it kind of just keeps pointing back. Um I'm going to leave it at that. Uh this is a public hearing. Do you have any questions for me before you open it up for the public? Commissioners, questions. >> I have a bunch of questions. Mr. Chair, when we when we talked about this previously, we didn't really look at the language. We just talked about concepts. Um, at least that's kind of how I remember it. Um, and and so it's it's some of the the language that's in here that I have questions on on on how what's intended. So, I don't know if you want to do that before the public hearing or after. >> I'm pretty easy. I I don't think we got a crowd coming in for the public hearing, but um we can wait if you want. >> Any other I I have a couple of simple questions. >> Sure. >> If if in your analysis um in 153.135 on page 28, I I'm confused by this. You you talk about two I went >> page 28. >> Maybe I'll make a liar out of me. But you talk about um the minimum number of trees divided by 10. Oh, there it is. Go. I'm sorry. 29 2 I and you divide it by 60 and then you say the minimum number of trees shall be not less than the perimeter of the lot. Um and then by divided by 10 and then the next sentence says the exact same thing except divided by 15. Is it like pick which one you like? I think that I think that's a a duplicate um statement um when we were trying to assess whether or not the the 15 or the 10 would be more sufficient. Um >> what is your analysis based on on the three above? >> Uh the 15 I believe and I can see I reiterated that exact same line in my staff report. So, I apologize for the um >> it's in there a few times in the report, but >> yeah. Um I would just have to do the math calculation. I believe it's the 15. >> All right. I think that's my my big question. And well, and I'm going to hold my other comment till this is a public hearing. If anyone would like to speak to this uh zoning ordinance change, we ask your for text. We ask you to come up to the lectern and state your name and address for the record. Spend a couple minutes giving us your thoughts on this application. Once we have heard from all parties, we will close the public hearing and bring it back for further discussion with the commissioners. So, we'll open the public hearing at 6:23 p.m. Does anyone wish to speak to this application? >> Why can you tell? Ordinance, not application. >> Ordinance. Why can you tell that it's a nice day outside? That is so weird. I'll ask one more time. Does anyone wish to speak to this application ordinance change text amendment? Seeing no one come forward, we'll close the public hearing at 6:24 p.m. Susan, you had some additional comments. >> Yeah, I did. >> I have an issue with using the perimeter. um instead of an area. Um and and I'm thinking, okay, you take a a four square foot box and realizing that we're looking at bigger, but if you you design your box so it's one foot by four foot, the perimeter is 10. If you design your box, so it's 2 by two, the perimeter is is eight. So depending on the configuration, your coverage, which really is an area sort of thing, could be very different. Whereas if you use um something that is based on area, um you're you're going to have more uniform coverage on the different configurations of lots. The other thing is that if you use an area, it scales differently um from a smaller lot to a larger lot. Um I went back and looked at we used to be a green step city and I went back and looked at some of of those ordinances and and I see why they base those on um trees per x number of square feet. Um, and so my my concern is that we if if we do it on perimeter, our coverages are going to be different depending on the side of lot, especially since we've got a lot of lots in the city that are the the skinny ones and and then we've got some that are on the square side. Um, so that's whatever on page 289B it's um one it says four trees per residential lot. Are those understory trees, overstory trees? What size? What species? Um, there really isn't anything in there to say what trees. um and whether or not we we are preferring natives versus um non-natives. Um so I I just >> can I maybe comment on some of these? >> Yes, ma'am. >> As we kind of go along. >> Absolutely. >> Um so I understand the concern with perimeter and area and staff and the consultant did take a look at some area calculations versus perimeter. Um the reason that staff is proposing at the moment perimeter is because we've been using perimeter and now that doesn't mean necessarily because we've always done it. We should keep doing it that way. Frankly, I needed to get an ordinance in front of you that we kept moving along. We've been working on this for seven or eight months and and so it was more than anything staff the staff that had been here had been working with you. Here's an ordinance. Is this what you meant? So, we can definitely look at that perimeter versus area, but when we looked at that before, the numbers weren't calculating out the same. We were actually finding it was less landscaped properties with the area. Now, that could have just been the formula that was using um with regard to the four trees per lot. um it indicated in on page 29 in section B1 those four residential lots that's just under the construction requirements but then when you go down on page 30 section um 1537 the landscape design requirements that's where then we kind of get into no more than 50% of them shall be comprised of one species we will not allow any of these and then kind kind of minimum planting sizes. Um, we did not get into necessarily tried really hard not to get into specific plant um, species other than where they were prohibited to allow for developer and homeowner flexibilities. Like that's just one of those areas where we wanted to have some um less regulation. Right. So on a brand new detached single family residential lot, you need four trees and they could be ornamental trees with an inch and a half caliber. >> Um that based on what we have here, um they could have it says essentially one one no more than 50% of the trees. So no more than two shall be of the same species. So I can understand how you'd want to necessarily define if those would be overstory or understory. Our current regulations don't. >> I understand that and I I understand the desire to get something done, but I also believe that once you pass this, you don't want to change it again within the next year or so. Um, and so I want to make sure that that if we do something that it's it's what we want rather than something to get her done. >> Do you have a recommendation? Quite frankly, I I would tend to mimic what you've got in section B2 um where you talk about the required number of overur trees and um ornamental trees and and shrubs. >> Just cite the code section >> um B uh on page. Okay. Uh let me get back to code. It is um on page 29. It's B. Paragraph 2, you've got I and double I. >> Oh, in the new construction requirements for the other than single family and two family. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. And that could be an easy fix of just requiring those for any What I'm hearing you say is you want those requirements for any development in section two, little I to two little eyes. >> Um you've got um an equivalent of 50% of the required number of overstory trees could be substituted with ornamental trees. Um and then in B it's if up to you can have up to 50% of the ornamental trees be substituted with shrubs. So if they pick a and say, "Okay, I'm going to substitute ornamental trees, but then I'm also going to say I want half of my ornamental trees to be shrubs." >> So it would be two oversource trees, one ornamental tree, and 20 shrubs. >> Okay? So you you can't like cascade. You can't say, "Okay, I'm I'm I'm gonna do um 50% of my overstory and instead I'm going to substitute ornamentals and then say, and you know what, since I've done this number of ornamentals um and and so I've got half the number of trees, then I also want to substitute some of those ornament half of those ornamentals to be shrubs." So, sort of a cascade. >> Using the um single family for the example just because it's easier. We've got four trees required. two of them may be over uh ornamental right under section A right then of those two ornamental one of them no more than 50% of the ornamental could be substituted for shrubs so there you end up with two overstory trees one ornamental tree and 20 shrubs what that comes out to is a really significant difference in future canopy and in future shading and in in the future look of the city. Um, and so it it I just needed to know if that was what you intended. Um, >> I think their original intent was just to have four trees. >> Well, you're not going to get four trees, >> which is the point for a residential lot, >> right? But if we're going to mimic what's in two up there in single family and two family, I just wanted to make sure that I knew what it was going to be. Um, so I guess that's the question. I think before you move on, it'd be good if we're discussing these things just to so that we kind of see if that's consensus of the planning commission. At the very least, it's helping me provide direction if I need to amend an ordinance and bring it back for you or bring an amended ordinance to the council. >> So, I think the question is whether or not the commission as a whole agrees that we should be amending that four trees per lot to require some of that diversity that's in the B22 A and B or we want to just say four trees per residential lot. Maybe say two of them could be substituted as ornamental, not including the two two B. Is everybody following me? How about I pull it up? >> Whoa. >> Well, in my simple mind, I don't really want to mess too much with residential lots. I mean, people can do what they want as long as they put four trees up. As far as I'm concerned, it's a different I think when we get to commercial and we get to some of this other stuff where they ideally would pave right up to their front door and that would be it. So I can see but that on a residential house I think that four trees is adequate if we want to say two have to be over story and two have to be what's the other word? story. >> I don't really understand the exact difference, but I'm sure that's significant to treat people. >> 20 foot maximum height versus 50 or 60 foot maximum height. >> Now, the understory are the the the the crabs and the the um the the apple trees. >> Yeah. Pear trees. >> Or anything planting on their power lines. >> Yeah. What the things I learn here. I tell you, continuing Abby, I sorry about the sid track there. >> No, that's okay. I think it's for the commission discuss. I think all of uh Commissioner Young's uh things that she's bringing up are great, but I need to hear from more than one person. No, you know, I I think as a commission, you have to discuss is that idea a good idea? And if so, how should we be changing this? Are we just going to keep with four trees per lot and we don't care if there's diversity greater than the 50%. >> I like the idea of two and two, two understory, two overstory and I do we have a provision in here as well for like the emerald ashbor came out pretty much wiped out our neighborhood. Do we require them to be replanted? Um, I would have to look at that maintenance section to get to the exact, Forgive me, it's been a while. >> Permanent. It says that if it was part of the um original plan, it's permanent, but that was like 30 years ago. So, it would be it would be tough to have somebody come in and say it has to be replanted. And the developer is long long long long gone. I mean, do we require the citizens to replace trees if they're removed or that would be in this section? >> I don't believe we do. Do we? >> No. I mean, it does say plants and ground cover which are required by an approved site or landscape plan which are diseased or have died shall be replaced within three months by notification of the city. So, if you take that stand alone, any building permit that has been issued, if those trees were shown on there, yes, we can require them. I think um the neighborhoods that we're seeing the ash come down is where there was a lot of ash planted. And those are really hard ones, I would say, to go to a homeowner and require them to replant all their trees right away. We're trying to work with property owners the best they can right now with dealing with their ashes. >> And that's kind of what I'm hoping is that as we we look at the ordinance that we try and learn from our mistakes. I mean years ago it was elms and everybody planted elms. Bam bam bam bam bam. And then Dutch elm wiped things out and then they said, "Okay, we're going to plant all green ash." and bam, bam, bam, green ash. What I'm hoping is that if we have a requirement to plant trees that we say you got to have a little diversity in your trees. Um that that they can't all be the same thing. Um I realize that that that would be challenging, but at least if you go understory, overstory, you've got a a chance at that. I really really do like the the plant selection and and um so that we don't have the am aim your maples and the the green ash and things like that. >> Let's come back to the single family and get that census. How do I we'll be here till >> okay >> 11 when I have to legally quit the meeting. I don't want to be here till then because I have a hot water tank to finish installing tonight. >> I'm sorry. I guess I'm a little sensitive to this because um my daughter does live in a brand new development and it's really awful. Um they again they planted the same trees. They're they're they were too small and they just they're not thriving. Um, so I would I would like if we're going to have an ordinance that it it it be something so that they um they have to be planted a correct species for for our climate and and soils and that we have some diversity in that. >> I got a question. So are they when they talk about the trees are they planting in such a way that they're not going to interfere with the sewer pipes? >> Yeah, generally speaking, if it's a new development, we are taking a look at those landscaping plans to make to try to ensure that those future um the future maturity isn't going to impact certainly public infrastructure. Um, I can't necessarily always guarantee private infrastructure because we don't always know where private utility lines are. And a lot of times if it's a water or sewer line coming in, we don't necessarily have that same exact information together. New generally if it's a new build in a residential subdivision or reputable contractor, they're keeping those that mature vegetation away from this that infrastructure. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. back to where do we sit with the single family >> consensus? I'm hearing at least from a few people four trees is great and you want to see two over story, two understory. No more than 50% of any of them can be one species. So you could have two red maples but then your ornamentals have to be different. Is that what I'm hearing? Seeing some head nods. Yes, >> that sounds good. >> Look at that. I got four. >> All right, we're good. So, are your dividing number and and all of that that you had earlier, are we good with that or >> I think um Susan may want to come back to that perimeter, but I think we um that is one that is going to be a little trickier to vet through um tonight. And so I think we should go through the rest of the list that any commissioners or a commissioner in particular have to at least just see if we can knock through a few of those policy changes. Um because if perimeter and area seem to be the only other one, it could be that we could just um direct staff to bring it back or um say use the green steps model ordinance for using area. I'd be a little reluctant on that just because I haven't vetted it in some of these other projects. But >> um are there other >> Let me go back to Windco for a minute. So they put how many in? 136. >> Um just pull them up. >> Winko was required to put in 33 overstory trees. They proposed seven. Yeah, >> they were short 26. Um, understory trees and shrubs, they was required to have a 100. They put in 136. If we use the new divided by 15 to answer your original question, perimeter, they would have been required to only have 17 trees. They would still would have been short by 10, but as a reminder, you look at that building and the parking lot. I don't know how we could have gotten 17 trees on there. Um, understory would have been 67. they would have been in access. >> All right. The reason I ask is that's my dental clinic and it looks packed. I mean, just the stuff seems like it's on top of each other and I just want to make sure that >> we're not trying to jam too much in. I mean, they have shrubs between the the foundation and some decorative wall and I think it was to get the count up >> probably. It'll probably die pretty soon. Y staff is really encouraging us evaluating the landscaping ordinance since I've come on. I have I mean we've all seen it. We require a lot of plants and trees and these sites cannot achieve the requirements. Now that being said, the code does also say the city can wave some requirements. So no longer would they need a variance if it looks like it's well landscaped under the new regulations. We can say, "Hey, Whitney Co, you are now now under our new regulations required to have 44 trees. You're going to propose um 27. We think that's sufficient. You don't have to have a variance for that. Um but I would agree that I think our existing regulations have been too cumbersome, which is why this is one of those lowhanging fruits. even though it's not as low hanging as some other things, it's just has some very big impact in our development community. >> And I think that part of our issue is our residential lots and our commercial lots here used to be a lot bigger. And so that sort of made sense. Again, when you use perimeter, it's it's not as proportional and and so the numbers would have been lower. Yeah, I did play with the numbers. Um but but now that we have smaller lots um I agree that we need to to make some changes um so that we're not overpacking but on the other hand there are also some serious benefits to having trees and shrubs on site not just aesthetics. >> I'm sure there are. >> What else you got? um in on page 32 and it is 153.137 a little I it says foundation planting shall respond to the materials and form of a building. I think you mean should reflect >> page 32 >> foundation plantings. >> Oh, there we go. under eye. >> Yeah, that's that's just really minor. Um, >> so yeah, something to the compliment. There's something different there. We can definitely >> and and the commission may may say just just to go ahead and pass this as you presented it tonight. Um, however, um, sorry, now I'm out of now my order. Um, on page, sorry, I missed page 31. Um, under B one, little little IV, >> the spacing of trees along all local and collector streets shall be no more than 30 ft apart. Does that mean in all of our new subdivisions, we're going to be having trees on the boulevard? >> We will not. There's another ordinance out in our rightway management that we don't allow them in boulevard areas. then we we probably don't want to set another set of ordinances in conflict with each other. >> Um I guess we continue to stay in front row front yards along local and collector streets, but I guess I wouldn't have um I think that can be clarified that it's yard areas adjacent to not in the rightway. I just I I wanted to better understand what you meant by local streets. >> I think that's great. Um for the future us going down next is um paragraph 4 parking lots. Do we someplace else say how many parking islands need to be provided for um either an area or perimeter of >> the parking lot and how big they are and what the soils should be in those islands so that we're not making tree coffins. Um, we do uh require it. Um, the design standards for our parking lots and associated landscaping islands are in our parking regulations. I don't know if we delineate the soil type in those, but when we look at parking regulations, we certainly could probably address that >> because we don't always require islands, right? They have to have a lot of a certain size, a some a certain number of spaces or rows before we would require islands. The idea is to help provide that shade for those larger masked areas because you can see those larger parking lots where we weren't requiring that. >> Try and avoid the heat island concept. >> Being an X facility guy, I despise those islands. >> I understand that. >> Try snowplow and mowing those. understand. >> But >> if you don't want them, then then we need to say we're not going to talk about them. >> Well, when we get the parking, we'll have that discussion. >> Okay. >> Um, in little V triple I B. >> Are we going on the next page or? >> Yes, please. >> 33 >> 8B. >> Um, and it would be in B. reconstructed. Is that repaved or a complete reconstruction? >> Um, we would have had that as a complete reconstruction. >> Okay. Thank you. And then C farther down the page. We're trying to make these so that developers and folks will understand what it is that we're going to be requiring. and the phrase by the landscape industry. Um, I think we need a different citation. >> By the landscape industry, >> are we still in >> all landscaping materials shall be installed in accordance with the current planning procedures established by the landscape industry? >> On installation C >> 33 C. >> Yeah. >> Do you have a recommendation on a change to that? My guess is that there are standards in the association of landscape architects or in the um nursery industry I don't have a specific citation but in D as determined by a landscape architect and I would say a certified >> association of landscape architect architect So that we know that that it is somebody with >> you want a credentialed landscape architect. >> Pardon me. >> You want a credential? >> Yes. >> Licensed. >> Licensed. So you would like to see or going back to see an installation um that the planting procedures established by the association of landscape architects and that also changed for the certification for the irrigation. Yes, please. >> Everybody agree with that? You guys uh does this make sense? I really really love on page 34, keeping the you got to keep your landscape together. I mean, you you you've got to keep it neat, orderly, free from debris, and replacing landscape materials. That's I I think that's great. And I'll just be quiet for the rest. >> Commissioners, other comments? I I would say that if you guys could clean this up, it ought to be about a slam dunk at our next meeting at a or N. Would you concur, Miss Giant? >> Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. I I think the only thing that I would need is direction on this perimeter versus area and whether or not we want to move forward continuing with perimeter even if it is not necessarily the industry standard but uh a higher divisible um knowing that the ordinance does indicate we can wave some requirements if required or if so desired. >> So Susan is your concern that we're adding too much In some cases, my concern is that that when we base our ordinance on per perimeter that perimeter doesn't scale well so that that your your your tree canopy and is is going to be sort of consistent. Um whereas area scales better. >> So I'm gonna have more or less the plan which way. >> Um >> typically >> let me find my stupid Okay. So when I when I when I looked at area and perimeter and contrasted them um to Aby's point a a lot a 55 by 35 lot if you use perimeter you >> but those are residential. We're not using perimeter for residential. I just needed some numbers sort of like the the four square foot. >> Okay. Sure. I just wanted to verify because we we don't have that small. Well, I can't say we don't because we do in our downtown areas. >> I'm not going to worry about the higher math here. >> Yeah. No, easy math. Easy math. >> And I that's that's what I needed. I just needed numbers that I could I could use. Sort of like that four square foot. >> Yep. >> Um if it was a 55 by 35 lot, you'd end up with three trees using perimeter. you you you'd end up with four trees using area. If it was 75 by 50, you'd end up with four trees using perimeter and area, you'd end up with seven trees, seven or eight trees, seven and a half trees. So, I just figuring out whether we use area or whether we use perimeter. Um, my preference is going to be area, but finding a a divisor that makes sense for us because I think that that the the bigger the lots then it makes a a much bigger difference. Could we look at doing an either or? You can do the calculation by area or perimeter and the greater or the lesser whichever one we decide is the one you need to comply by. It's a fairly simple calculation, right? >> Yeah. Uh it is it's it's having to do two calculations which is okay. I guess >> Excel does them all. >> The concern that I have in just pointing out the the last example you had so 75 by 100 was that it >> 50. >> I thought it was 75 by 50. So, a 3700 square foot lot. >> One of those requirements was four trees, one was seven. >> Yeah. >> You know, can once you put the improvement on that area, can you actually get seven trees on there on a on a lot a non-residential lot where we have 65% impervious surface? And and when I was looking at area, I will admit that I was going by the greenstep ordinance, which is excludes the area of a building. >> So develop or on a residential property, the square footage excludes the area of the building. >> Um since we're not asking folks to put a tree in the middle of their house or a tree in the middle of their manufacturing plant, So um and I have that model ordinance in front of me. So the question that I have is because that has indicated like of the site area. So it would be like 50% of the total site area which you're saying is site area is areas not encumbered by imperous surfaces. Okay. Um, I certainly can take a look. I will. I It's going to be a while before I get it back in front of you guys. I'm not saying that that's not worthy. I needed to kind of continue this conversation so this didn't fall off after Ken had left. It's been a couple months. No, that's okay. You don't have to apologize, Commissioner Young. Um, I think more than anything, we we want to get something done. We do want to do it right. I I'd never like to have to look at an ordinance with a year. It is customary to review your ordinances though every now and then and update them. And so that's one of the reasons it's just challenging. We haven't done this for a long time and we've got probably maybe an old industry standard of the perimeter versus the area and that conversion. Now's the time. Now's the time. The one thing I will say is we did build in that flexibility for this body to not have to do variances for landscaping. So um at your potentially at your next meeting. I'll come back and I'll take a look with using these three scenarios here. We'll look at the undeveloped land area and use some sort of area fraction to just kind of show you what would be those requirements um in the future. >> So, Abby, you figured out our secret. We instead of occasionally reviewing them, we just multiple times review them every 30 or 40 years. >> That's why it's taken so long. I get it. No, it's fine. It's good. >> It's good. When was the last time that we looked at some of of these ordinances? >> Well, I can tell you when we last edited this or >> after the uh merge or annexation where you live >> when the city adopted the in 2010, the city kind of wiped out the ordinance and adopted a new one. >> Yep. And then we've done some peacemeal amendments, but we've never looked at wholesale changes um in at least 15 years. >> Commissioners, any last comments for >> Does any Do you know where the 60 came from? Dividing by 60. >> Um it was just to increase the number because I think right now it's divisible by 30. And so it was just >> just grabbed out of the air. Okay. >> Yeah. And it was just as a means to Okay. because we did look at well what what does it look like if we did if it's 20 right now what is it at 30 what is it at 40 what is it at 80 um but it's just because we are already use that perimeter divisible we were just increasing that number to help decrease some of the planting requirements knowing the current is in excess of what these lots really need >> any further comments >> not just need that we want for the forested developable land in Forest Lake in the future. >> So, we're not Meadow Lake, we're Forest Lake. >> So, Abby, do we need a motion to table this since we had a public hearing? >> You do need a motion to table it. >> Motion to table. >> I have a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Have a motion and a second. It's a non-debatable motion. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Opposed abstensions carries unanimously discussion on the ordinance on the text ordinance text amendment is over. So with that we'll move to Tim's Marina sketch plan. I assume Abby you're covering this one also. >> I Hey guys, you guys got me for a while. That's all I'm saying. I thought we had uh Monica, Marsha, >> Madison, >> Madison. >> Madison does serve uh several other communities. And so um she's always welcome to come here, but I still have to like be the person that would be here to unlock doors. And so to help save our consulting staff's sanity for not having five night magnets a week, I'm here to do these for you. >> All right, Donald. Unlock the door. I got one of those cars. Never used it. >> Um, all right. So, uh, Tim's Marina. Oh, let me pull this up. Tims Marina is a seasonal RV park and marina located at 9080 Jewel Lane North. Um, our records show that the property's use has been governed by a conditional use permit since at least prior to 1974. So, the conditional the use has been in existence since prior to the property being annexed into the city. Um, so the permissions originally granted were from the township. That isn't necessarily a here or a there, but that's what then classifies this as a legal non-conforming use in the single family residential district. Today, we would not allow for a new RV park and marina in our single family district, but because they had these permissions, they are able to be maintained. Um there were several amendments over the years including um parking, RV site expansion and uh trailer parking. Again, all of those were done during the township. However, um the earliest record we really have on file at the city is I believe it was 2002 um when the DNR issued the current permit which allows for 66 watercraft slips on the property. So um as I mentioned it is a legal non-conforming use. Our code does state that um applicants in the single family residential or land owners in the single family residential district can request expansion of non-conforming uses by conditional use permit. This is a little different than state statute which is very clear. We should not we do the state says do not expand nonconformities but we can be less restrictive than the state. So, the applicant has this opportunity to um would like to expand the property's use uh to include more watercraft spaces and boat slips in the water. So, that would be an expansion of a non-conforming use. That would require a conditional use permit. There are associated onland improvements that would be required, predominantly parking. um that would re that would necessitate a variance. But the DNR and state law have indicated marinas may not be expanded without first kind of going through the EAW process, the environmental assessment or cheat process. We started a process with the land owner to review a draft EAW. Um as funds were being incurred, the land owner had said, you know, maybe we need to stop a second. I'd really like to just sit down and have a conversation with the planning commission and the council to see what is the appetite for moving forward with expansion of this non-conforming use. Um, if the applicant chooses to go forward, there will be significant costs on both their part and the city's part. And so having this conversation now can help them either prepare their applications and or determine if they would rather not move forward. So, um, city code allows us to have this sketch plan very much like your concept plans. This is high level non-binding comment. Um, you'll have the opportunity and then on Monday, this will be before the city council to also have the opportunity. So, I'm going to run through I it's noted in the staff report as analysis. um I a high level what the proposal would include and then what are some of those kind of opportunities and constraints with the city code in this staff has not done ex you know exceptionally thorough analysis like we do with some of our other staff reports I also do not necessarily have recommendations for you because if the applicant chooses to come back forward all of that will need to be done in the future and we don't want to get too much cart in front the horse if we're not there yet. That make sense? So, um Tim's Marino would like to alter the property in the following ways. So, the first would be to include um I'm going to show you the current site conditions. Currently, we have a number of RV spaces like that that bullet for you folks. A number of RV spaces that are in pink. Um, and currently a uh single uh dock system. The land owner would like to remove some of the RV spaces and put two new docking uh two new docks on the property. Each of those docks would contain 36 to 38 boat slips and there'd be a total of 67 to 68 additional slips on this on the property. Um they would like to also formalize um formalization I used the word I'm not sure if that's a real word but formalize um allowing for the use of off streetet gras area for off- streetet parking that's located to the east of I think uh this is maybe called the the east bay or where their um launch is located um that has been used as a temporary overflow parking area and then in time replacement of two residences on the property. They're down in kind of the southwest corner a little bit closer to Highway 97. The one is um a single family building with an attached garage and the other is I believe just a single family uh dwelling. So, um, kind of walking through those improvements, the slip addition, um, the landowner submitted items indicate there are a total of 96 slips, 66 seasonal and 30 for RV owners. So, those RV owner slips are um, throughout the site on the property. Is this do you um, for the record on your laptops, you can zoom in on these as well. This is uh page my packet numbers in here 44. >> Thank you very much. So you are able to kind of zoom in on your own individual laptop there if you can't quite see what I've blown up here. >> Thanks. >> Sorry. >> Um if the proposal is permitted, there would be a total of 172 permitted watercraft slips on the site. The docks themselves would be floated. um on the water set in place with poles supported by the lake bed. Docks and post would be removed and stored on site each winter. State law, as I noted, does require an EAW. Um the landowner has started that process. As I mentioned, as part of that process, staff and our consulting um firm had identified some of these onland ancillary land uses that are of concern, those parking areas and their surface material, traffic, emergency shelter, adequate sanitation, and then just some of those preliminary concerns for EAW requirements around greenhouse gas emissions because we they do have to do an analysis us on the future future greenhouse gas emissions of the expansion. Regardless of that, EAW's the contents and the future findings. I'll I'll note doubling the slips on the site can add to an economic benefit to the community. Um, and that it does bring more people to Forest Lake, which is, I think, a goal of our city council is to increase tourism based opportunities. Even our comp plan does talk about trying to support um seasonal businesses, businesses that were historic land uses, bringing more people to the community. From a purely economic perspective, um there are some benefits. Now, that being said, um the increase in slip spaces is going to increase in water and on land traffic. um this could have impacts on the lake which um I'm not going to necessarily comment on. I hear from folks that it's a busy lake at times and so I think that's a factor. Um but also then just that nearby residential neighborhood and Highway 97 in the area where there's no turn lanes, no bypass lane, um any sort of increase in traffic to there could be of a concern. And then the increase in space brings out those ancillary concerns that I've already brought up. The parking on the surfaced areas, um, you know, vehicles dripping into the grass, emergency shelter, sanitary capacity, all of those factors are other factors that would be vetted out through that just um high level that would have to be considered when it comes down to the total number of slips. Um the development as proposed would not conform to the city's parking standards. So the project would be uh would necessitate the consideration of a parking variance. So I include a little bit of uh statistics just here for you. The code requires 1.5 parking spaces per boat slip um plus one per employee and 20 trailer spots. So, it should be noted um the 66 permitted slips today require 99 parking spots. The actual slips today are 96 would require 144 parking spots. Today, there's only 91 marked and unimproved um spaces, which means there's 91 spaces out there. They're not asphalted. They're not delineated, but there's space out there for 91 vehicles. the parking ratio um is 1.37. So for those 66 slips, we're almost meeting the 1.5 parking spaces per slip. The actual parking slip ratio. So for the um 96 space slips, which is hard to want to slip between slips and spaces because these are very delineating things, but the actual parking slip ratio is 1.05. parking spaces per slip. If the landowner was permitted to expand the use of the property, there'd be approximately 73 parking spaces per boat slip. So, we would be reducing that parking requirement. Um, prior to the land owner moving forward with even an EW and having the early conversations, we did do some research. Um, looked into seven metro area communities, lake communities. Surprisingly, not all of them actually have a space to slip ratio. Um, but we did find in White Bear Lake, they do require one space per slip. Excelsier, one space per two slips, and Tonka Bay, seven spaces per 10 slips. So, the regional industry standard ranges from 0.5 parking spaces per boat slip um where we're at 1.5. It's kind of doubling the average, right? Yeah. >> 7. >> Do do the the folks that don't have a parking slip parachute in >> that might be an a discussion you want to have with the land owner who is here tonight to chat with you about this. And then as noted in addition to the number of spaces the um improved the improvement of the spaces right now the site is um gravel and grass and so they would like to continue to maintain those development standards helping keep that kind of rural flavor that they have flavors and aesthetic that they have on the site. Um there are also just some concerns um on staff's part on on their part that when we're putting in additional impervious surface we are going to trigger things like watershed district requirements that's going to take up more land area or less of that parking. So um I guess I did make it a recommendation but that recommendation is to provide nonf binding feedback to the landowner and applicant. Um the landowners representative Joe Maslo from Tims Marina is here tonight to discuss this with you. Uh Joe has provided me with a clip video. It's about three minutes of drone aerial footage if you'd like to see on-site conditions if you haven't been through there. But I'll wait to play that until you're ready or if you want me to right now. It's up to you guys. >> Questions of staff? I don't see if there's any questions. Abby, this is actually two separate properties. >> It is two separate tax parcels. That's a great point. Um there is the It's actually I think um it might be three if not four too, Susan. >> Yeah. >> Um the main parcel that the RV and the um slips are kind of on. And then there's a predominantly vacant parcel right here. You see all those little white things? Those are wintertime boat storage. Um this is the area where they are using currently for that temporary overflow parking that they would like to legitimize when they would do the expansion area >> permitted to do the expansion area. >> So what we see is this little triangle up next to the lake. there would not be any additional trailers and maybe those would be removed and or or how I mean it's >> you would >> it's a separate parcel and so >> we as a if the city did approve any land use action with this or you know reopening up that conditional use permit we can impose any sort of um uh reasonable conditions reasonable and proportionate to the request to the use. So, one of the things that staff would would re recommend is that we consolidate these land parcels into a single land development so that we're not in that risk of potentially selling off a piece here or there. >> We've also got the same thing as we've got on Northshore that their property includes the road Juul. >> Yep. We do have some uh where the the we have prescriptive roadway easement Juul Avenue that access point onto Juel um is does cross over the subject property as well as portions of Highway 97. We haven't platted through that right away through there. So it's by prescriptive easement. This would not be a land subdivision process and so um we could not require the dedication of that land for public purposes. So we might want to should we go down a route in the future of formal consideration of a land use application, we may want to consider conditions for um dedicating easements for public use over these um to more legitimize um those historic use uh historic rights the public already has. >> Other questions to staff? when they do the EAW, will that include a traffic study? >> Uh, EAWs do not require a traffic study. Um, they would do are required to look at greenhouse gas emissions. So, to walk you through again just that step in the process. They could not move forward without with the marina expansion without an EAW. That's a state law. State law actually says, "Hey, city, you're the bearer of that EAW. It's your EAW process. So, what the city does is we say, "Hey, Tim's Marina, you want to do something, go draft an EAW, bring it back to us. We're going to look to see if it's complete. We're going to look to see that it makes addresses all the the concerns and needs of an EAW. And once the EAW is complete, we accept it in and then we start that EAW process. The EAW process takes that EAW, publishes that online through um a state register system and it pushes it out to state agencies, organizations, the general public, anybody in their brother who wants to take a look at it can take a look at it and comment. And during that process, essentially what um the city must do is the city must take those comments and look to see that what they're looking to do does not have a a negative environmental impact. Um and determine whether or not an environmental impact statement would be required of the development. Once the EAW process is done, if the city finds that EAW sufficient and this isn't going to have negative environmental impacts, then they can move forward with our local conditional use permit amendment and variance process. Once that process goes through and pending the city's approval and um then and again as a reminder conditional use permits are uses permitted by right, we can put conditions on them. Variances are not automatic. You have to show that there's practical difficulty. So in all that if the city says yes this is all good EW is good condition use permit is good variance is good then the applicant would go to the DNR to see if the DNR would amend their permit so there's a number of steps through here before this could potentially happen the applicant the landowner is well aware of those steps and the lots of jurisdictions that are going to weigh in through this process but this is just the start to see high level comment. >> Heavy, does the city have any concerns on rebuilding the two houses on one lot? >> There are right now two houses on the lot. So that's another legal nonconformity. Today we would not allow for that. But because they exist today, they can maintain them. They can uh repair, replace them in their current configuration. they cannot expand them without coming back to us again for that question of the expansion of illegal non-conforming use. So today the question just really is, hey, with all of this, are you okay with us replacing these in generally about the same place? I didn't even touch on those two homes, did I? I did in my staff report, didn't I? >> Yep. >> Okay, good. >> Um, they want to replace them in generally the same amount of square footage. the the shape of them moves just slightly and uh one of those buildings does get slightly closer to what I call kind of that west bay. So on the west side here, this littleer home moves back a little bit to get a little bit further back from that state highway. >> Any other questions of staff? >> I know the applicants here. Would you like to add more? >> Come on up to the >> Please come up. State your name and address for the record, please. Uh Joe Maslo, 9080 Jewel Lane, Forest Lake. U if I could, I'd play the drone video and then uh we did our parking survey on the 4th of July so we can go through the numbers from that uh just to show that we have enough parking and kind of get a lay of the land for those that are unfamiliar. And there's no music on the drone video, so it will be. >> You gonna play it from there, Joe? >> Yeah, >> I can. >> Yeah. >> Okay, >> go right ahead. Should work. >> I'm glad you've got a current because there's a couple of vid of aerials online that show a lot more um trailer or RVs on the property. Yeah. Yeah. In the winter time it looks uh much less organized. >> Well, if you click not now, will it play >> here? I can play it from mine. >> Okay. >> I think we started to Let's try one more time. 14y old stuff on it. >> Oh, shoot. >> I'm just enjoying the show here. I don't know about you guys. >> Well, sorry about that. Could you tell I was sitting there watching it, too? Oh, goodness. >> Feel free to comment on the video as it goes through, Jod, for those who may not know it. >> So, this is a north to south aerial. Uh we did get a line striper or field striper to mark spots. Uh Ken did suggest that our parking was disorganized. And it also helped uh show that we could get the 103 spots uh that we assumed we could based on area uh of previously used parking areas. That's south to north. And this is the drive through the way the vehicles would come through to get to the slip docks. [Music] We have parking on the left side there uh along the pool and playground and some oversized uh parking spots to the north of the playground on the left. And the sheds that are there, those are permanent. And some of your some of these Oh, wow. Some of these uh RVs, they're also permanent, >> correct? >> Yeah. I mean, they're permanent in the sense they don't take them home at uh in the wintertime. Uh they're temporary in the sense that the wheels stay on them. Uh nothing's dug into the ground. There's no foundations. >> They're pretty cooly landscaped. >> Yep. There were many uh many ash trees and hybrid poppplers planted 40 years ago. Uh I don't know if we can to the left there. Uh there was two units that were gone and the other uh two uh from the east will be uh removed for next year and I can show that on the overhead view as well. And we have parallel parking along the left. And typically people are going to park as close to their boat uh as possible. So of course the uh the ones that are on the current slip dock are going to park out by the current slip dock until that's full. Then they'll park along the uh playground and pool area. Uh those to the left there are going to typically park there. We have parking to the right there. And then this is our east parking area. Uh in the past, it was used more for launch parking uh and parking for people that were coming for uh fishing tournaments that we don't host anymore. And this is the south to uh north. And you'll see the houses to the left that will eventually be replaced. >> Can the public use your marina to launch their boats? >> So, we charge $20 uh for the public. Neighbors, we don't charge. Uh, and we have seven spots that we keep for the public, I guess, that pay $20. And then we keep two spots for the uh sheriffs and DNR in that launch area to the uh the cell. >> And we did do a GIS view. >> Uh oh, am I on here now? No, >> I'm gonna play Uh we are in a unique area where we can put out slip docks without horribly affecting the neighbors sight lines. So right here is our current dock and these are the two proposed docks. Uh they're a little bit longer because he just copy and pasted. They will be about 10 ft shorter than they show here. So, we shouldn't affect uh the neighbors to the west and the uh neighbors to our east won't be any more affected uh than the current one uh affects them. Uh so this is the current view. This is a Google satellite view kind of showing the same thing. We're kind of in a a bay here. Uh so we don't have neighbors very close to on the left. Uh these are the two site plans. Uh these are just numbered uh slips. They kind of show the same layout. And then this is our parking uh survey that we did on the 4th of July, which is typically going to be our busiest day uh for parking. Uh we uh surveyed at 1 3:30 and 6:30. Uh total cars uh some of those are going to be RV guest cars. Uh and then we have boat slip cars separated out. Uh if we take away uh the 20 slips that are designated to RVs, it's a little higher than that. If we do 76 slips, the number of cars that were there, we get at 1 pm a parking factor cars per boat slip of 27. At 33042 and at six it lessens a little bit to 394. Uh right now we have 103 spots. When we retire the four uh lake sites, we'll have 115. Not necessarily adding parking, but parking. Two cars that would park at the RV sites and then the RV. So, three cars per site. So, we get 115. At 168 slips, we get a parking factor of 68. Uh if we factor out 20 RV slips, we get a parking factor of 78. uh our variance request, I don't know if that's the appropriate term, would be uh 0.5 parking spots per slip. Uh showing that on the busiest day, 04 uh because not everybody uses their boat at the same time, we figure 20% at any given time and two cars per used boat. Uh so 04 on a busy weekend or busy Fourth of July may if it was a little less windy maybe it would have been 0.5 or 6 uh but we can cover that uh with our current used uh parking areas and I did take some pictures on the 4th of July of the parking areas. You said you were factoring out the RVs, so you're getting rid of a bunch of RVs spots. >> Um, so some of those uh slips are belong to RV sites and they're going to park at their uh site >> typically. You know, there's two to three uh parking spots per site. And so this just shows our parking area. I believe this is the Monday before the drone video, so there's not uh many cars parked. Uh but it just kind of shows we do 60° parking with a turnaround at the uh north end of that east area. Uh back in parking along the rope there. And this is our launch area here. Uh we have these spots are reserved for Washington County and then we have seven spots that are available to the general public or a slip guest uh that brings a jet ski or something of the sort and the uh yep. So this is still going to be Monday and this will be this uh section will start fourth of July parking. Uh this is on the east area. Uh launch parking there. Uh we did fill up the seven spots there. Uh we had a few cars parked over in the east area. Typically the cars that park over here are going to have a boat slip uh on that east side of the bay. And this just shows kind of the unused uh parking area. And then you know of course by the dock typically it is full and there are nine spots out there. And and this is just to show that you know on the 4th of July we did have an excess of parking uh enough to make us feel comfortable that we can cover the uh the additional parking demand of the the boat slips. Uh and this just shows screening. I know uh Ken uh suggested uh in the winter time, of course, there's no leaves on there, but there also uh no uh cars parking out there. Uh this just shows that it is pretty well screened to the uh Jameus and Diane to our east there. And I I believe that kind of goes through everything that uh that we wanted to present and then uh if anybody's got any questions or concern concerns here. Yeah. >> Questions of the applicant. >> Your website says that you provide water and sewer for all of >> for the RV sites. Yeah. >> Yep. So, did they get sack charges or how how do you handle the the sewer charges? >> Uh, we pay for a lake. >> Okay. I have not verified. Um, but I I think what the uh question that you're asking is for each of the RV units whether or not they paid for the sack charge according to. I don't know that it ever did. I'd have to take a look at that. And then we we we charge um residential customers by the winter quarter. And if there aren't a whole lot of RVs there at the winter quarter as opposed to in the summer, I don't know how the city is handling that. >> I don't know that we have any special exemptions. We'd have to take a look then. >> I think we pay about6 to $9,000 a year for sewer. So I think there was some agreement. I think they figured three RVs pay what a house would, but that was in 89 or 90. So, >> we feel like it's a lot, but uh >> they have you have city sewer, but you have a well. >> Yep. city sewer and well >> so they just pay the max on whatever the sewer is just like I >> I don't have city water or >> Yeah. So if you don't have city water um they just max your bill. >> So actually you can do better if you have water and sewer. But that's not the discussion for this evening. >> I'm just I'm just trying to figure out how >> how the whole thing works. >> Okay. Y >> go ahead then. >> You're right to focus a lot on parking. That's my biggest concern. And I know we had in here comparison of White Bear Lake and Excelsier and Tonka Bay. I'm not familiar with Tonka Bay and Excelsier. I'm familiar with White Bear Tallies is probably where you're talking about that area. >> And for parking in there, I'm I'm not sure how there's a heck of a lot of boat slips there. Um, are they considering the Kowalsski's lot as part of their parking? >> Yeah, they do. >> So, okay. >> Because there's there's just a couple of those those lines that say Kowalsskis only. >> Yeah. >> Most of the parking lot. >> So, there's some overflow, too, if it gets into the evening. And that's I'm just worried about this area doesn't really have any overflow. >> So, I that I really think needs to be um looked at closely is the is the parking and make sure is adequate parking down there because there's no overflow from what I can see. >> Yeah, I was going to kind of say the same thing. I pulled up uh your marina on my phone and how do you how do you get along with your neighbors? I mean, it looks like there's no uh paved shoulder on Jewel Lane. So, do you get uh where people that are coming there to use the boats parking in front of the neighbors on their grass kind of? >> No, they all park on >> you can accommodate right now. You can accommodate all the cars that are coming there for the boats. >> Yeah. Yep. So, uh, the the designated spots that we have right now, the areas, uh, back in the day when we had fishing tournaments, uh, you would get that influx of 30 boats launching, 30 visitors coming to watch the weigh-in, uh, and then boat rentals. So, we were much busier in the past than we are now. So now we kind of keep our neighbors who don't live on the lake, we keep their boats. Uh they don't all come at the same time. So we figure 20% boats any given weekend. Uh and two cars per boat is pretty standard. One might have three, one might have one, but uh two is kind of what we've observed over the 40 years we've been there. Uh and we can cover uh parking at 78. Uh so almost double what we observe. >> So you don't really get your customers parking in front of the houses down the road. >> No. No. There are no parking signs up to a lane. >> Okay. >> So >> that answer is it >> 20 years ago when we might have a bass tournament, you know, that launches at 6:00 a.m. before we're open. Maybe some of them would park, but since they put no no parking signs and we don't host bass tournaments anymore, uh it's not a >> that answers it. Thank you. >> Yep. >> One of the challenges with Forest Lake is that it is it's a it's a really shallow lake and there are a lot of problems with turbidity and and sediment. And I'm going to have a real challenge not having your parking areas paved or all weather. Um because this year especially, I mean, it's it has been just soggy as all get out. Yeah, it looks like things are draining really well, but the increase in the number of slips and the increase in parking are going to beat up that that grass area and we don't need a lot more sediment and stuff running off in the in the forest lake. Um, and so from my perspective, that grass parking area is is a really huge issue for me. Um looking at looking at at as you as you're looking at some of the um conforming non-conforming stuff um sheds I don't know how eventually we we may look at that because some of your more permanentish um RVs have have got the the sheds and that we normally wouldn't say yes to >> um that having that many more folks ining and outing off of 97 in that area. Um that's an ugly I I I live down toward July. >> Okay. >> Um that's just a really ugly area. um in terms of traffic and challenges especially with with trailers and and and boat trailers coming in and out. Um, I'm I'm wondering if we can if this does move forward, if a traffic study would would be a good idea so that we can determine whether or not there needs to be additional bypass room um for the inning and outing off of off of Juel. And a lot of folks, they don't exactly know where to go in um for years. I know you've you've blocked off part of that that driveway that used to go directly to 97 >> that a lot of people used and and blocking that off means that they're not trying to to merge. Some of them thought that was a merge lane. Um so that that's appreciated, but um I am concerned about the amount of traffic and whether or not we we need some sort of a of a traffic study or talking with MDOT. um dealing with with that issue. That's that's I just know that area real well. You know, that whole stretch is a little rough because you have Jewel and actually that intersection right by the marina is pretty nice. The other end of Jewel, that's pretty much a blind corner. You just close one eye and go. Um >> you pray. That's what I pray a lot. So, yeah. But you know, you have because you have the marina and then you have hosana and then you have log cabin, right? >> And I think we're 0 for three for bypass lanes for and so it's it's not a Tim's Marina problem. It's that whole stretch problem. >> There's a new bypass sort of for log cabin and there's sort of a shortened not very together for for your area. Um, but it's not what I would call a really well well planned or um or maintained bypass lane. Other comments, commissioners, any issues? Are you looking? Is this good? This bad? When this is what we're here for, right? Yes, this is what you're here for. I mean, I you know, staff was honest with with Tim's Marina. I think Ken said gallon of milk in a quart jar was or a pint of milk in a quart. I don't remember. >> 10 pounds of stuff in a five pound bag. >> I think he was looking at the winter photo uh with all the storage all over the place. And I'm not up on the screen anymore, but I was going to point out the u the concern on the grass being beat up. Typically, you know, they don't uh people don't come and use their boats. Um when it's rainy, we get more pleasure uh boat users. U so this is the the most used uh parking area. The only spot that gets a little torn up is where we uh put the docks in and out with the tractor in the spring and all these other areas. U they are the most heavily used uh parking areas and they do kind of keep crafts on them. >> Can I ask you why you just don't asphalt it? Put asphalt down. >> We don't want to live in a frying pan, >> you know. We figure it's uh really the parking's used three months a year, Memorial Day to Labor Day, and then uh it's kind of empty, and then we store uh boats in the wintertime. And you know, we uh that combined with the fact that the ground moves quite a bit because of the high water table. So, I don't believe asphalt would hold up for more than a year and it would be like living in a frying pan. that he island thing that we were just talking about with the landscape ordinance. >> Yep. That's what I thought about when you were talking about that because we were out there uh when it was 92 degrees on Fourth of July handing out parking passes to uh to count cars and it was hot, but it was reasonable. If it was asphalt, it would have been worse. You've talked about some some public slips, but the signs are like no public access. >> Uh, so it is private. >> They're pretty serious. >> Yep. It is private. Um, so the those that use the uh public access are pretty much our neighbors and those that have been in force like a long time and know uh most other are going to use the access is on Northshore and downtown. >> If you had more boats, you sell gas, right? >> Yeah, we sell more gas to lake neighbors than boat slips just because they a lot of them come full and they have 30 gallon tanks and they don't use that much through the season. But if you doubled your slips, >> would you then also increase the size and etc of your of your fuel system? >> No. No. Uh we have a thousandgalon tank. We get it filled once a week. Uh and most of the gas goes to the lake neighbors as compared to slip users. So, we would notice a noticeable increase in fuel usage. >> I would I would doubt that. I mean, if you're going to add 60 slips, you're going to have a lot more gas use. >> I mean, if I'm in a marina, I'm going to pull up and get gas there, too. >> Yeah. Uh, and we do get a few u the campers are going to use their boats more. they're there more than a neighbor uh who just has a slip there. On fourth of July, I think we pumped gas to two uh RV slip users and the rest were lake neighbors. So, in the photo you have up right now, if you look to the four campsites you're going to be taking out. >> Yep. So >> then in front of that is a huge algae bed or growth. >> Yep. There >> uh building pads there. So the the two new docks uh one would leave from uh this area here and the other would uh leave from this area there. And I don't suspect we'd have to treat anymore. It's just the the occasional uh movement of a boat would uh keep the weeds at bay just like the uh the area here from the boats going in and out uh through the summer. And then there are plenty of lily pads uh to the west there. Other comments, concern for the applicant? >> Over the years, you've you've done a bunch of filling to the west. Um, you know, filling some of that swamp area to to to do parking. Um, >> uh, >> I'm going to assume you got those those that permit. It looks >> I'm trying to find this here. Uh so there let's see on the pond or the west bay uh there was a an air when they dug the pond originally probably in the 50s they stacked it to the west there. Uh so we've and then there there was a road there in the 80s or 70s you know so we kind of just maintain what was you know uh back in the from the 80s uh with either wood chips or uh closer to the south crushed rock. I'm trying to find the area that you're mentioning there. I think if you open one, you might be able to just uh an over arrow. >> Okay. >> Your far right. >> Yep, I see it here. Uh this area here uh we kind of somewhat uh maintain with uh that road with wood chips and that's where we store the bolt trailers uh in the summertime. I never knew that was there. >> So Abby, this this wouldn't this wouldn't be treated like a development where you look at parkland dedication and all the other stuff. >> Correct. >> That's correct because it is not a land subdivision. So the opportunity that we could have if the applicant, you know, the land owner moves forward with an EAW, then the next process step after an EAW with the city council would be the conditional use permit amendment and parking variance consideration. And again, at that time, we can look to see that we can put uh reasonable proportionate conditions on the use. Um because it is a conditional use permit amendment, we are holding hearing. It does open up the original condition use permit so we can re-evaluate historic conditions or any conditions on the site that may not have previously been addressed. Um there are certain things that um I think staff would address probably in more depth or more more recommendations we'd make later um but we don't have any at this time. We good? We good? >> Um, I just would like just a point of clarification. You're saying, "Are you good?" And I see heads nodding. Um, I just want to I think is it good that we've shared all the comments? I don't necessarily want to see heads nodding if you might not be good with the action that would be proposed. I wouldn't want to give a >> I have a lot of questions about the action proposed especially the parking and I I realize that that with what you've got now you you feel that you can maintain the vegetation but there is a reason that we have a a solid if you're going to park a vehicle it has to have an all- weather surface and and that is throughout the city and especially since so many folks have. I mean, it's a shallow lake and it's getting shallower by the year and the additional stress on on any land there of parking. I have some some real strong concerns about that. >> I get that you don't want to live in a frying pan. I I >> totally >> Yep. Can you talk briefly on the consideration for two dock sections and not necessarily just starting with one to see how that would affect the actual site by just adding one of these peers initially instead of going so large right out of the gate? I mean, it's one thing to add 30 compared to 60. I think 30 would be somewhere where I'd be closer to see how that actually affected the area. um when you're putting that much additional stress on this lot compared to going two full dock sections. >> Y >> you're doubling what you've got now. >> Yeah. I mean the hope was to just go through one EAW because they are very expensive to get through. Uh so so that was kind of our our hope is you know two docks makes it work for the next 40 years. Uh there is demand and based on you know, our parking survey that we did on the 4th, we do feel that, you know, we have, you know, parking sufficient to uh to accommodate that. And I mean, a typical weekend, you're going to have 2 to three parking factor. And most of the boats are going to be on the west side of the property. So, they will use uh the grass area uh by the docks and then the uh you know they're going to be in the crushed rock more than the the grass area on the east. Uh the east grass area is typically used by the uh boat slip owners over on the east side there. And then we expect fourth of July after we add two docks uh this will be more utilized. >> It'll be full. >> If you had 64 spots and you're going to add about 12 spots out front of those, you're only covering like a quarter of the number of slips in front of those four spots and you're going to fill in along the pool there. But >> Yep. >> There's going to be people parking in that grass all the time. Uh has the neighbors made any comments on the expansion? We did give them the site plan and made sure they didn't oppose before we uh moved on. Yeah. >> One to the west, most of most of her property is that >> swamp cattail. >> Thank you. >> Um I do want to just uh clarify one of the questions and the response. So um any marina expansion requires an EAW. So if he was going to ask for 10 spaces today or 100, he'd need an EAW amendment. If he asked for 10 today, did an EAW, got the condition permit amendment, got the the things that were needed, the DNR variant approval, and then a year from now came back and said, "No, JK, I want a 100 more." He'd have to start that whole process over. Does that help clarify some of the answer? Okay. be good at it the second time around. >> And and Abby asked, "My big concerns are are the parking and and all weather surface and the inning and outing. I'm I'm 97's a bear." And so our our our view is uh thankfully nobody uses Forest Lake before noon. It's not a rule, but it's what we observe. Uh and uh so it'll be after the church gets out, so we won't compete with uh people getting out of church. I, you know, living out there, it's it's the Fridays and the weekends when everybody and their dog is is avoiding Highway 8 and taking 97 to Wisconsin. Um and and and it's you know it's it it's a heavy traffic area. Um for some reason it's been backing up from this the stop sign at 15 sometimes this year and that's like stupid. >> It's for people doing this >> very strange >> at Manning and >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Manning >> is everybody wave at everybody else on at the four-way stop >> every Friday night in the summer. Ma'am, >> other comments, concerns, make sure that the applicant hears everything good, bad, and indifferent that we would like to tell them. >> Do you have storm shelters available for the voters? >> I So, we don't. I typically'll just go home. You know, a lot of them live in Forest Lake u or they'll go to town. Uh we really don't get the uh if it looks like a cloud, they'll come in. Uh they're very fair weather uh boat users. >> A couple of your RVs are year round. >> Uh so we're only five months. We're May 1st to October 1st. Uh weather permitting. Uh if the frost is in the ground, then we don't turn the water on. >> They decorate them for Christmas. Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, we Yeah, we we put uh we put boats everywhere in October and uh and we gate the entrances uh and exit uh after October 1st. Okay. Or well, when we're done with storage, so they might come out to check on it in the winter time, but we're completely shut down. Any final comments? >> Thank you, Joe. >> All right. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Abby, for putting it together. Have a great night, >> Mr. Chair. You can just yank that out. Abby, one of the things that that that you brought up um is the fact that the preponderance of our ordinances say you're not going to make a non-conforming use more non-conforming and there's one ordinance that that's an issue. How can this planning commission um suggest recommend to the city council that we we eliminate the conflicting ordinances? Like I said, the prepoundonderance of our ordinances and state law says can't make a a non-conforming more non-conforming. Um but as you said in the in there's one of our ordinances that says yes, you can. And for those of you that remember 2017, that was our city council that um tried to get rid of the police department. There were several things that happened during that two-year period that were challenging. >> Um this this body can recommend to the planning commission changes at any point. I certainly can put that on for a discussion at your next meeting to formulate a recommendation. Can also provide some history on that. Um just as a I think this is definitely a so Susan is correct. State law says don't don't change don't increase nonconformities. We say in our code you cannot change a nonconformity but later we say you can. It's that one little yes you can that our legal council has said black and white you can consider this if you'd like. I did do some research and I don't think the intent of the ordinance change was maybe as broadreaching as this um is and I think that it is worthy of reconsideration. We do have a lot of non-conforming uses that were permitted by conditional use permit. You have may have seen one recently or going through council and the EDA right now. um there these sorts of things happen and they have long-term unintended consequences. So I can definitely put that on for discussion for your next meeting if you'd like. >> It would be nice to to get that settled so that we don't have conflicting. >> That's why they have us here to help with the conflictions. >> I understand that. But if we have a strong recommendation that well you you have to you have to allow this because it's a non-conforming use and we say you can make a non-conforming use more non-conforming. The trickiest part >> I don't excuse me for intering. The trickiest part is again our conditional use permits are uses permitted by right and so if you have a legal non-conforming use yes that was a use permitted by right at one point but the question is do you want to continue to allow and expand those uses? That's going to that's really a very legitimate question the city should be asking. I'll put it on for discussion at a planning commission upcoming meeting. also just briefly touch on it when Tim's Marine is in front of the council on Monday so they know that discussions and recommendations could be coming forward. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Uh we'll move to our updates. I I see we have our distinguished liaison here today. Council person Larson. >> Mr. Chair, members of the commission, good evening. Um, we have not met as a council from our last meeting, so I don't have anything to share necessarily on that point. Um, I will make a note. The last meeting I had mentioned that we were looking at two people to possibly fill open position. Um Andy Applicski is a gentleman we interviewed on Thursday and the young lady that was supposed to be our interview on Friday called in sick and has not since rescheduled. So at that point uh myself and chairman Gerard had made the recommendation to move Mr. Aowski uh forward to the recommendation of the council to have him join you on the board. So, at this moment then I don't really have anything further, but I'll happy to try to answer anything that you folks might have >> questions. Mr. Larson, >> y'all had an EDA meeting Monday night. >> I don't believe I don't know. >> Okay. >> Not part of that function anymore either. >> One of our issues was on I don't know where that that ended up. >> I can provide you with an update. Pardon me. >> Um, are you talking about the >> Highway 90 or uh Northshore Trail? >> Yes. So, um, Pizza Pub had asked the council to allow for off streetet parking. Is that the one you're talking about? >> And we had discussed that one too. >> I couldn't remember. >> Thought we did, didn't we? >> Did we? It was Is it only two weeks ago? Like what? >> I think I've been through a few public meetings since then. a previous meeting. >> Uh well, regardless, um the council had previously discussed it and thought that it would be more acceptable to allow for parallel on street parking adjacent to 8241 Northshore if they installed it and maintained it. We've drafted an agreement for the council's consideration at their next meeting. On Monday night, um an application was forwarded to the EDA that the owner is requesting the EDA consider paying half of the cost um because the EDA has recently implemented a new commercial improvement incentive program. The planning planning EDA actually tabled consideration. They said that they won't consider um at this point uh partially funding the project until the council agrees formally agrees and enters into agreement with the land owner on the the land that the agreement is finalized. Um then it would go back to the EDA. I still can't say that whether or not the EDA would help support that. Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you, >> Abby. Anything else? Um just that some of the I guess no I was going to say some of the items that you commented on McKinley Creek Estates the Forest Lake Garage condos those did go to the council they provided feedback to the developers. Those developers are moving forward with doing some of the prep work necessary for preliminary planning planning. We've met with um one of them the other one will be coming forward in a couple weeks to meet with staff on pre-application submissions. also working through um a single family residential subdivision on the Serene property, Twin Cities Land Development. I think maybe came talked with you a little while ago on uh development off of Good View Avenue. Um and so they're moving forward with preparing for a preliminary plat application as well. We have released the plat for Hidden Creek third edition over in the Headarters neighborhood. You might have seen the headarters uh parkway has been developed out and to its fullest extent. So, you'll start to see more dirt work occurring up in that area through the summer where they're going to start putting in utilities and wrapping that road around um to start putting in homes in that third edition, probably by the fall. Um there's a number of other just isolated um projects that we're in early conversations with uh but nothing necessarily that's moving forward at the moment. >> Is it tomorrow night that Mindot has that open house regarding Highway 61 and 200 that intersection? >> That was tonight that the county had but that is an 18-monthlong planning process and they will have a virtual public input option. So I can also once that's available make sure that gets sent out to all of you. Um essentially the county is looking at Highway 61 and County Road 50 or 202 um at some sort of traffic control change in that location >> there was another bad accident there last week. Yeah, we I knew that there was one late June um that we did alert both the county and MDOT to as well. >> Other questions? Abby 97 project is there completion date or >> Well, it is a two-year long construction project. Um so the west side is closed. I believe they may open it in the fall. uh if I remember correctly and then they'll work on the east side next year. So that is going to still be a pretty long um standing process. Businesses on Everton, Quick Trip, the pizza place, liquor store, the salon, the meat market, they are all open. Um we have heard from those businesses that are definitely sales are down. So do what you can to support local business where you can encourage your neighbors to as well. sometimes just making that way around. It's easy to get in and out of the parking lot. I don't mean to joke, but they will be doing uh their parking lot improvement project though this summer as well on that east side of the property. Um and then uh we're continuing on with our new hire um process. We'll have interviews next week with our final candidates. um anticipating, hoping it would be great if it was sooner, but probably um the city council appointment, the second meeting in July, July 28th, assuming that candidate would probably have to give maybe 30 days notice. Looking at the after Labor Day, I will start seeing a new face in the crowd. >> We have a meeting in two weeks. >> You do not have a meeting in two weeks. That has been cancelled. noticed it go out earlier this week. >> I I saw it on the website. >> Um and then it is most likely you will only have one meeting in August. Um if only because there's one or two weeks a year I take vacation and that is happens to be that week. And so I'm trying really hard um to crunch everything into August and then that first meeting in September might also be a little busy, but we'll have help. Any other questions for Abby? I will go down the line. Tim >> n >> very good. I have nothing to add. So based on that, chair is looking for a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll move that we adjourn. >> I got a motion. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I had a motion and a second. It's a non-debatable motion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Opposed. >> Abstensions. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you all for your service this evening. See you in August. [Music]