[Music] good evening to the people here and online we are going to call to order the Planning Commission meeting uh for March 5th 2025 and we will start with the Pledge of [Music] Allegiance Al flag of the United States of America for which it stands one nation indivisible andice all the next item is to approve the meeting agenda I do have um one change we're going to flip five and six so we'll have the public hearing and then we'll do the Planning Commission discussion do I hear a motion to approve this is Bethany so moved second oh second Susan second I will call for the vote we'll start with Kim I can't vote on this one okay is that correct is just the agenda it's just the agenda for tonight Susan I Bethany I Robin I and Lyn I I would like to welcome Kim our new Planning Commission member her first meeting the next approval I will look for is the approval of the December 18th 2024 Planning Commission meeting minutes is there a motion a motion that we approve the minutes of December 18th this Bethany Al second motion made in second I will call for the vote you want I can okay Susan I Bethany I Robin I Lyn I the next um approval I am looking for is the December 18th 2024 Camping World iup public hearing minutes is there a motion I'll make a motion to approve Susan I'll make a motion to approve the December 18th 2024 Camping World iup public hearing minutes this Robin I'll second I'll call for the vote Kim I Kim Susan I Bethany I Robin I Lyn I next is the approval of the December 18th 2024 ordinance 24-4 public hearing minutes this is Bethany I approve I mean make make a motion to approve I approve this Robin I'll second I'll call for the vote Kim I Susan I Bethany I Robin I Lyn I the next approval we're looking for is the January 15th 2025 Planning Commission meeting minutes Susan I'll make a approve I'll make a motion to approve the January 15 2025 Planning Commission meeting minutes is Robin I'll second motion and second I'll call for the vote I Susan I Bethany abin Robin I Lyn I the next is the January 15th 2025 CTI garage condos cup Amendment public hearing minutes is Rob and I move that we approve those January minutes of CTI garage condo cup Amendment public hearing minutes Susan second okay I will call for the vote Susan I Bethany abstein Robin I Lyn I okay now we have um the public open form is there anybody in the audience that would like to address a Planning Commission anybody online this isn't for open for um can you use your microphone because I can't hear you at all okay hi have thank you okay we will go on to our public hearing um Elenor would you I will open the public hearing will you read the um Force Lake times publication of course notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held by the city of Columbus Planning Commission on Wednesday March 5th 2025 at 6 p.m. or as soon thereafter as parties may be heard the hearing will be conducted in person and by interactive technology at the Columbus City Hall located at 16319 Kettle River Boulevard Columbus Minnesota to consider a request to allow an office and accessory storage space for a tree care company at 13733 Lake Drive in the commercial industrial district members of the public interested in attending in person monitoring the meeting or wanting more information should contact the city offices at 651464 3120 or visit the city website at Columbus mn. us the hearing shall continue until all evidence and testimony has been received thank you elanar at this time I would invite Travis McDonald to come and sit at the table um give your name and address hi everybody hello hi so my name is Travis McDonald um my current address is uh 10335 Wildwood Circle in Bloomington Minnesota could you use your mic please can you not hear me how's that is that better thank you thank you would you like me to repeat I'm okay yes oh yes yes all all um Travis McDonald uh my address is 10335 Wildwood Circle in Bloomington Minnesota 55437 um and uh I'm here to represent the Davy Tre expert company okay and uh I don't know if anybody knows who Davy tree is but we'll come back to that in just a minute I'm going to have Elanor uh review the cup for us for the Davy tree expert cup for 13733 Lake Drive Northeast yes so I'll go over some of the Planning and Zoning aspects of this and then we'll cut back to Travis to talk about the business itself um this parcel is um owned by Don waldock who uh owns and operates the business directly to the north and has been leasing out this parcel for different businesses over the years um over the last 20 years or so it's been primarily used for Auto um businesses either dealerships or um um you know Auto Care Facilities um and has been operating under that cup for that um this would change over to a different use with the DAV Tree Care um business the some of the interesting things about this particular application is historically um this area here this fenon area has always been reserved for the um business directly to the north the owner of this parcel to use for extra storage for their vehicles um associated with that business to the north and that's going to continue um in this cup as well so um most of the property will be used by dve um tree care for their um vehicles and everything however that area is still reserved for um the waldocks business as well um I'm going to open for any questions as we go along if there's anything interesting yeah thank you well I I have one question for you uh I was noticing in the uh packet here that you're talk that you talked about repairing a fence mhm and I was out there today and was just looking and I'm just wondering are you going to repair both fences or just the main one in front they both look pretty ratty they do I mean with the barb wire and stuff like that taking place you know that's something that I would have to talk with the landlord about as far as Don are you okay with us taking down the barb wire or is that protection for people with the trucks I don't know yeah um yeah I agree I I looked at it as well and was like h i mean this is uh it it needs a little love yes it does yes it does and that's why I was wondering if you had a plan for that I get a fence company out there and just have them analyze it and see like is this repairable like what do we do with this um you know because at the end of the day we want to have something presentable for when our employees pull in but people driving by and that's what that's what my concern is is that that fence the way it is right now kind of an eyesore and the last thing I want to do is have another business go in there and leave the isore sure yeah I mean the the front gate that when you enter initially right off of the road yep um I really don't see much of a need to have a gate there um neither you know because the the remaining of the area is fenced as well and there's another gate to go through um so for me I just think of like a hazard standpoint of like an employee getting out you know early in the morning to unlock the gate you know yeah I would rather not have a gate right there um so I'd get a fencing company out there to have them take a look tell me hey how can we make this look a little bit more presentable you know even that secondary fence oh yeah uh if we could turn it into some sort of screening I don't know like those slats that they put in there just to do some screening MH of of what's in behind I think would be a nice thing to look at okay I I think it would do wonders for the property we have done that um just recently at one of our facilities uh in Plymouth um we've been there for like 45 years and uh we just had all new slats put in and just new chain link fence but it actually looks really nice um that's what I was hoping for that's kind of the goal that kind of you know match the same coloring of the building a little bit so that just Blends in a little bit like yeah I know that uh I have to look beyond what the building looks like right now um and uh even when I bring employees there I have to tell them like don't worry we're going to fix it up we're going to clean it up so make sure you talk into your microphone just before we go to any more discussion um for the record did you receive a copy of the staff report developed by Elanor hun um dated February 28th 2025 regarding this application this report notes certain findings numbering 1 through 20 on page 1 and two and it also contains um some conditions numbering 1 through 18 do you Rec uh understand the recommendations and the conditions and do you have any questions about them I don't have any questions I mean Elanor has been pretty helpful with everything as far as communicating so okay any other questions my only concern I it did you know I went by and I pulled over and I'm like oh the fence is kind of you know um but I like seeing revitalization instead of empty buildings and with you backing up to Bergens it's there's nothing no really isore or nuisance for anybody yeah nobody so um thank you for coming and I will close the public hearing so I would look for a motion unless somebody has something to discuss Tak any comments from the audience oh sorry anybody in the a I did open it for public forum but if anybody has anything they would like to say about the Davy tree expert well when he never told us what it was that he was going to started talking that's fine I just didn't know if anybody knew well I would love to hear about thean back yeah come on back up I thought we were going to circle back to that that's fine sorry you're good well uh just to give you guys like a little bit of background um about why we would love to uh you know open up another um section of our business and you know the Columbus marketing but um so Davey we're a nationwide company um employee owned we've been around since 1880 we're the oldest tree care company in the United States um our corporate headquarters is in Kent Ohio and all of our employees at work for us um we invest into the company and it provides good career paths but um we are stewards when it comes to aricultural practices trying to care for the environment to trying to maintain trees and landscape and you know we've been growing up in this market um we've been kind of servicing this area out of the cell St Paul location and we take into account like environmental impacts as far as you know how much time do we drive up here how much fuel are we wasting and a lot of our employees actually come from this neck of the woods and so we've got a lot of employees that are excited about this opportunity um and you know I've been um with Davey Tree for 17 years and um it's it's a the company cares about their employees and what we do um but most importantly um providing career paths for people all around the United States and in Canada so when it comes to you know supporting uh you know basic high school events to Arbor cultural practice we go in and train and we work with elementary schools to teach them how to plant trees and care for them so we have a community engagement specialist um her name is Andrea Pete she lives just right down the street um in Forest Lake and uh she uh she's really excited cuz she grew up around here so she wants to really get involved in the community and start really doing stuff um you know we we uh we own McMan Brothers uh at of Blain and they have like farmer markets there and stuff so we're just really this is a really cool area and uh we hope to try to continue to provide career paths and people with good jobs you know um there's a lot of people that just don't like working inside and we like working outside so there's a lot of people that um like to climb trees and do certain things but we don't just cut down trees that's not what we SP specializ in we can do that but we help people come up with like management plans and caring for their properties and so the property that you know we would like to move into and uh gain a cup from we're going to give it a little bit of love we're going to clean up the trees we're going to make the turf look nice cuz that's what we specialize in provide a nice new landscape out front um and uh I think it's going to be a good little setting right there it's a it's a good spot for us to be able to access a lot of different communities and you know that's uh that's the plan so far so any questions no no cool well I have one are you like as blend not even close not as or better or well asplin is a utility line clearance company so they only do nothing but utility line clearance um I work in just residential and Commercial okay um we do have a utility line clearance um division of Davey um they manage some of the Excel contract in St Paul but uh no I don't get involved in that we're just going to be working on Residential Properties and Commercial properties providing you know Tree Care great I have a question yeah about just like various diseases and stuff do you have things that you do like if someone's like I'm afraid my trees have diseases 100% that's what we specialize in um you know we're all certified Arborist um on top of that we have a Plant Pathology Lab that we send all of our samples into and you know we'll analyze what type of treatments are needed for this particular tree or why it's declining so when you find like a Monumental tree like in a park setting that you're like why is this dying we figure it out and provide treatment care options to it cool yeah so you like to be involved in the community cuz you just said it in front of the wrong person so we'll be talking abs absolutely okay no we go in and read books about trees to kids at daycare center we're having a fall fast you and I will talk I look forward to it but that's what we do um you know and our company really supports like volunteer work and Community engagement um we want to give back to the people that are helping provide you know a daily you know meal for us right so um that's that's Dave and a nutshell kind of um I could talk about Davey all day long I'm pretty passionate about the company um I am an operations manager so I oversee all operations in the state of Minnesota um but I also just worked locally um in an Eden Prairie location for the last 10 years um you know I'm originally from New Hampshire and kind of traveled all the way around the United States for daav didn't think I was going to end up in Minnesota but here I am so um and I love it here so what does your work look like in the winter um we stay pretty active in the winter um you know we uh there's a lot of trees that can only be worked on during the dormant season um like Oaks and Elms or any fruit or nut bearing trees due to diseases and plant pathogens um so what we do is like we analyze people's properties when they call us out like hey I've got Deadwood hanging over my deck can you address that and we're like this is now is not a good time to do that you need to wait till the winter so we actually climb trees all winter long and do a lot of like technical removals and stuff where requires us to drive on people's Landscapes with big equipment so we wait till the ground's hardened off cool thank you yeah thank you all right thanks any other discussion or I would look for a motion well are we on to the number five no we're we we're going to do that after oh okay so I can't remember what the okay so I will make the motion to recommend approval to the city council for the Davy tree expert company cup located at 13733 Lake Drive Northeast is there a second I will second this is Bethany okay uh I will call for the vote MIM I Susan I Bethany I Robin I and Lynn I so that will go in front of the city council on March 26th at 6: p.m. right here good good idea to be here in case they're going to have different questions maybe than what we have but the recommendation is to [Music] approve now we will go to number five because we just kind of went out of order so every year the Planning Commission um selects a chairperson and a vice chairperson to provide preside over the meetings so the first uh motion I would look for is um chairperson there Robin I recommend that L you keep your position as chairperson yeah anybody else Susan second okay so I'll call for the vote Kim I Susan I Bethany I Robin I okay ly and I so now we will look for a Planning Commission Vice chair for 2025 and I would like to nominate Robin Wood is it second the nomination is that how that works you know just recommend yes also recommend Robin Wood yes so vote Kim I Susan I Bethany I Robin I when I there we go approving myself yep got to keep bringing the cookies so um now it's commissioner's report and I will go first uh we had our first fallfest meeting um it's going to be exciting again this year it always is but you add things every year and you make it you know just it's going to be 85° that day I just want everybody to know that right now and the Sun is going to be shining a little Breezy so putting it out there um we will be in need of volunteers um coming you know in the next few months so if you want to volunteer let me know um oh you're already on the list was it cold last year it rained stormed and what is the date of Fall Fest uh September 20th okay so uh we don't I mean we're hoping we can do the races again on Friday and then our big plan here on Saturday and then it sounds like Sunday is going to be Worship in the park again we got to confirm that with Pastor Brad but the pancake breakfast for the Lions so it's a good family event um sponsored by our businesses in the city where they come together and sponsor it for our residents so does anybody else have anything they'd like to add no again Kim welcome thank you and we will'll have a meeting on March 19th yes okay so the next meeting is uh March 19th at 6: p.m. elanar did you have anything to say um I just wanted everyone to take note of the application review checklist at the end of your packet we've got a couple new um Planning Commission members we've also hasn't we just haven't been having a lot of applications and we might feel a little rusty on what we're supposed to be looking for in motion for this I don't remember yep exactly um so um going through that Planning Commission application review checklist is really helpful and also I want this to be a little collaborative so if there's anything that you see missing on that checklist that you would like to share with other planning Commissioners whether that be now or you think of something later like here's a thing I always look for and I would like my fellow Commissioners to look for that as well we'll throw that on there and we'll keep including this in those applications just as a reference point for you guys going forward that's pretty much all that I have going on and Jack do you have any report no you covered the issue or the item about volunteers for Fall Fest so uh we're going to be reaching out to all the commissions committees and organizations that still do volunteer work for the City and try to solicit as many people we can to volunteer for Fall Fest on September 20th okay hearing nothing else I would look for a motion to adjourn Susan I'll make a motion to adjourn this Robin I'll second we'll call for the vote Kim I Susan I Bethany I Robin I ly I meeting the Jed at 626 [Music]