[Music] Welcome to the planning commission meeting for Columbus on March 19th at 6:00 p.m. I'll call the meeting to order. We will start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The next item is to approve the meeting agenda. Is there a motion to approve? This is Robin. And I motion to approve the March 19th, 2025 meeting agenda. Susan second. I will call for the vote. We'll start with Robin. Robin I. Susan I. Kim I. And Lynn I. Next I'll look for a motion for the approval of the March 5th, 2025 planning commission me meeting minutes. I'll make a motion to approve the March 5th, 2025 planning commission meeting minutes. Is Robin. I'll second. I will call for the vote. Robin I. Susan I. Kim I. Lynn I. Next I will look for a motion to approve the March 5th 2025 Davy Tree Carare Company CUP public hearing minutes. I motion to approve the March 5th 2025 Davy Tree Company CUP public hearing minutes. Susan second. I'll call for the vote. Robin I. Susan I. Kim I and Lynn I. Next is the public open forum if there's anybody in the audience that would like to address the planning commission. Is there anybody online that would like to address the planning commission? If not, we will move on to planning commission discussions. Uh first up is the planning commission policy 24-01. And I'm gonna ask Eleanor to read that for us. Of course, Madame Chair. So, I wanted to take this time to review our current planning commission policy, which outlines our procedure process specifically around planning applications. Um, this policy was approved last year in February of 2024. Um, and outlines um the meeting schedule for applications that have public hearings. Uh the purpose is um well essentially the first meeting of any of these applications would be a public hearing um which is notified to all of the neighboring um parcels whether that be businesses or local residents. Uh they would come forward, you would ask questions, have that discussion and then it would be forwarded to a second planning commission meeting for further discussion. Um, so there would be for any application that has a public hearing, that would be two meetings at the planning commission before it is forwarded on to the city council for final review. The purposes of that is to really hear the public hearing, take in all of those comments, and have the two weeks in between to be able to do site visits, to talk to people, to fully review anything, and then have enough time to come ask me questions or any other staff member. um if there are any further things that come up to be able to ask staff members for follow-up questions and then I can go do some more research on things that I hadn't considered when I wrote my initial report. Um so those applications would of course be cups, IUPs and plats. Um smaller applications sometimes don't require public hearings and that wouldn't be a part of this um process. But if you see public hearing on the agenda, that's one of these applications. Um the full the policy is attached in full and I'll go over a couple of the the points of this. The there are a couple exceptions to that waiting period. However, um the main one is if there's a case of emergency or really time-sensitive decisions are required, the city council can wave the second meeting and can be passed directly on. Um and of course, the planning commission can always extend it to more than two meetings to three or four as long as it doesn't go um further than 120 days since the application was received. Um, and I wanted to review this since we do have some new planning commission members and also just to make sure that we're all consistent and on the same page of what that policy is. Are there any questions? Okay. So, now I don't you guys really haven't been around long enough to really feel the effects of it. Um, I'm going to say something then ask Robin for his input. Um, there are exceptions to it and the city council can wave the waiting period, but to me, if they don't know about it before it comes to us for a public hearing, how can you wave it? Cuz if it goes from us to them, the applicant might not be there. It also says the planning commission may extend the waiting period. So, if we are as a commission able to extend a waiting period cuz we don't feel like we got all the information and there have been meetings where we've closed the public hearing with the right to reopen it and asked staff for more information cuz we were missing some. But I feel like when there's an somebody comes for a cup and there's no variances, it all fits, there's no site plan, the building is already there and we make a motion to recommend. I feel like it's the council has to trust us enough to um we're recommending something without putting somebody out to wait 2, 3 weeks. Um, I just think it's a little um more friendlier if we do that instead of making them wait because we do want businesses to feel welcome and we don't want them to feel like they have to wait when there's really no reason to. So, that's that's my thought process. If there's exceptions that can be made, can we add the exception that if the planning commission feels like there's no need to wait, can we make a motion? Um, Robin, what's your thought process? Well, I you're saying not even do the second meeting. Is that what you're saying? If we think it's if it's a a no-brainer, I I I believe they should have to go to a second meeting unless Yes. Absolutely. Come here twice. Yep. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. I mean, that's that's what the policy has been is two meetings if the city council does hear something, you know, and because obviously, you know, Joe's barberh shop or whatever, you know, he needs to get it up and running. He's not going to he's going to go to the city council and say, "I need this expedited." And that's how the city council will find out is somebody going to them e either at a meeting or just in person and just saying I need some help with this because I need to get this done. That's how they find out to send it to do just one meeting with the example I'm going to use is Davy's Tree Service. Yep. Um they came with policy. We should have told them they had to come back tonight for us to have our discussion. Yep. and then they go back to the council. So, it's a three meeting process. Um, but why did we not have them come back tonight? You made the motion to approve. Okay. Recommend to approve to the city council. So, then that's why they don't come back. Okay. So, are you we should you think we should have them come? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. because uh in the meantime we have may have thought of more questions or wanted better answers than we got and I don't I did not realize I was pushing them through in one meeting when I did that. So, okay. Um my thought process is and I haven't experienced having a waiting period. My experience has been you have your public hearing. That is a time for the public to come. That is a time for the planning commission to have done their research, have their questions ready to go. Um, so the the twoe waiting period for me was interesting, but I can see both sides of it. So I I don't know how I truly feel about it because I've never experienced that second meeting and saying, "Oh, I should have asked that or I should have looked further into that." So I feel I'm very impartial on this because I haven't experienced it to really right understand it or at least see how it kind of plays out. I mean, I just used the last meeting as an example. You asked questions. We had our answers. Now, do we close the public hearing with the right to reopen it, make them come back today? So, the way the pol I understand the policy is we don't even discuss it. We do the public hearing. Tonight, we would do the discussion. To me, you're waiting two weeks to do a discussion. You might forget things. On the same hand, you might come up with more answers. I would just like to see it reviewed because if there's some exceptions in it there would that cup had no ex needed nothing extra. It was a cut and dry. Do we want to revitalize and have businesses? We're a town of 4,000. We're not a a big city. So I I can say this for a reason to have a second meeting and again I it was my mistake to have approved at the first meeting because I did have more concerns okay with them and I was hoping to get to meet them again because I don't think that just a yeah we'll take care of it as far as the fencing was concerned. I wanted something more. But here's the thing with the fencing that's on the owner of the property. They're not owning the property. They're just leasing it. But it was it was condition and the conditions is that the fencing had to be improved. And I would have liked to have asked them exactly how. Not well, we might do this or we might do that. I would have liked to have gotten a more exact answer. Then I'm going to go to Elellanar and say, "How do you relate to the land owner? It do you put it on the Davies Tree Service to go to the land owner to repair it or is that something you do? Reach out to the land owner?" So that kind of depends on how the situation has been going so far. If I've had very little contact with that land owner, then that's a conversation I have with the applicant and say, "Hey, this is something that we need to see on this planning commission. The planning commission wants to see this. Get in contact with your land with your landlord or have them contact me. This is a situation that needs to be sorted out and there needs to be some sort sort of solution with it." And the landlord wants the business there as well. They want their tenant to be able to move in. And if that's a condition that is being put on them, they will show up and do that. And that's the same thing um at least relating back to ARPA, which was another uh tenant uh situation where we got in contact with the land owner and they worked out a situation between themselves and presented, hey, this is something that the tenants's going to do. They're going to redo the signs and going to do some sprucing up of that things. And then the land owner came forward and said, "Okay, we're going to um do the redo the parking lot like we were asked and we're going to um redo some of the siding work." Um and they proposed it together. So that's it's a conversation that needs to be had between staff and the applicant and the land owner. And you can't really do that without um direction for that. Okay. Now I'm going to put him in the hot seat. Dean, you want me to comment on this? Yeah. Um, first and foremost, it it's a city policy and so it needs to be followed until it's changed. Do you want my comments about the policy? Uh, I'll be honest with you, I I I think it's over over the top. I work have worked in 60 70 communities in my career and I've never seen a policy that required without question only by exception of the city council which is not sitting here at the time when that exception might be needed uh to shorten it to one week. I've never seen that. I do not like and I'm okay speak as freely as I can. I think I may have said this at one of the joint meetings, but I wasn't at the final one where this was uh crafted. My preference when you make public notice in the newspaper and you have neighbors that come to a meeting, it is our responsibility as staff and planning commission to exhaust the questions at that time in front of the people who have taken time out of their schedule to show up. This says that you hold the hearing and then you wait for two weeks and then discuss it. No, no, no. I would like to see that honestly changed to where you do all the dirty work the night of the public hearing if it is felt by the council that you should delay it after that point as a courtesy. To me, that ought to be based upon unresolved issues. And I think if I understood what Robin said is correct, he just thought that this was going to come back. It's the only reason he didn't push the question. But I heard you raise a question about, well, what are you going to do with the fence and the landscaping? Yeah. And of course, I'm on the television or on the Zoom and I otherwise I would have said, well, ask them what they're going to do. Don't drop it. But you thought that you were going to come back and get it resolved the following meeting. I think that's a travesty. I I'm going to be totally brutally honest. It's for the people who take time out of their schedule, the business obviously, but certainly the neighbors. In many of the instances, you don't have those controversies and you are needlessly saying to the neighbors, you got to come back to get the answer in two weeks and the business. And then only if they're suspicious that you're going to pull a fast one and let them get away with something at that next meeting, you're you're really requiring the neighbors as well as the business to come back a second time. I think there are plenty of uh issues or situations where you have not made a decision on a big new business on that first meeting and you reserve that right. As long as we stay within the 60 and 120day law, that's fine. The backup for this is that the city council always has the opportunity to do followup if they feel that you've not properly done something. If you were in error, if that's the case, they got a couple of options. They come in here and cut a couple of heads off and say, "This is how it's supposed to be done." Or quite frankly, uh they can do your job. They don't have to have a planning commission. The city council can act as a planning commission, but I don't know why they'd want to do it. And none of the communities I work for was that the case. They gave that responsibility to the city or to the planning commission. And I I think this is overkill for the majority of situations that you have to deal with. I I I think it's needless. And I said that at one of our previous meetings a year or two ago when this was I would tend to I would tend to agree with that because every time I've seen people come in a second time. It's like anybody have any questions? Nope. Okay, you're good. You know, they're coming in for less than five minutes of meeting with us. And that I would tend to agree with you that well and and what's what's happened in most of those instances where you felt you had to postpone it. You come in here and what do you have? 5 minutes and you make the motion and then everybody's got to go home that decided to come back and show up. I I I just I don't see us in a businessfriendly environment uh needing to do it. And to to me it's overkill. It's excessive. And I come from the point where perception is everything cuz when you're in the public that's what it is. And if people perceive you having why are you having us come back again? We got to go because what are they going to pull a fast one? I will tell you 15 years on a planning commission of a town of four over 40,000. We did not have such a policy. Um, and that's why I I struggle with it because the city council let us do our job and they took our recommendation. They did not always do what we recommended. Sometimes they got different information or had different questions and then they acted on that. But when the planning commission held a public hearing and we had some that were really tough and we asked for more information whatever but I just I struggle with this just from the fact that we had a business here cup nothing else it no site plan no design review trust your planning commission that's why they were appointed And that's why we're sitting here to do what we have to do. And if there's some exceptions, then maybe the council needs to look at the exceptions and maybe add one. But again, a city of over 40,000 and we did not have this. So, I had somebody recently ask me if a city is required to have a planning commission and why we have one because they feel like we're being told what we can do and what we can't. And I I that bothers me that people think that way that they don't see us as a viable board to make decisions. So, and my viewpoint actually agreeing with that in a different way is that even in a a township, not even a city, we don't have a waiting period. We've had public hearings and we have had some brutal ones, but at that's the time to make your decision and you stick by it. We've also gone the other way and the city council or sorry, board of supervisors has come back and said, you know, we need some more information, so we're going to delay this. So, again, I haven't experienced the twoe waiting period yet here. Um, but from my experience, that's just what I'm used to. I was actually surprised to read that because I I hadn't I didn't know that existed. So that was interesting. And when you have staff changes, when Ellaner was brand new, I told her this earlier. There was a meeting where it was like, "Okay, we're missing this, this, this, and we closed a public hearing, had them come back. She got us." she has learned and has advanced in her job that I no longer feel like I have I mean I look at my packet but I don't have to critique every little thing because she's learning her job and giving us what we need. Um but there you know there are times we've closed a public hearing with the right to reopen it and we've asked for more information. We did it with the truck car wash. We asked for more information. We got that information at the next meeting. Um, I would just like to see the council review this and uh take maybe our comments and put them into perspective with and you know, do we need a motion for that? I don't think we need a motion. And I think we just ask Elellaner to pass it on to the council to relook at this and take into consideration all the comments that were here. I specifically picked on Dean because he's always telling me how he feels about it. And I think as somebody the city hires that the council really needs to you're paying this man for his opinion. So you really need to look at what the experts in their realm think. So I don't think it's a big change. I I I just think the mandatory nature of it, it ought to be voluntary. Everything else is fine. uh as as a as a habit, as a rule, whenever there's a change in um either the findings or the recommendations in a staff report from when we have a public hearing and pass it on to the council, they're always amended. So, that's in here. It says, you know, you you change this if if you need to update your summary of things that go to the council. I mean, it's all being done. what's what's new. And I want to emphasize until the council decides to change it, you you should honor it. I'm I'm not going against the council. I'm just questioning the policy. So, I think you need to implement and enforce this until they may consider a change. But I think honestly uh if I were to rewrite one it would be that you not only take the comments, you have the staff report, you exercise all of the planning commission questions, issues, you drill each other on what it is about this and you make sure the public is engaged. And if you're thorough that nobody questioned anything in the staff report, there was nothing missing in the staff report and all of the requirements address the issues of the neighbors. Why would you hold it for two weeks and force everybody to come back? That's what I object to. I don't think that's businessfriendly. And I don't think it's kind to your neighbors that take time out of their schedule to come to a meeting. And if I were a neighbor, darn it, I'd have to come back because I'd think, well, they're trying to pull a fast one. They're not thinking we're coming next week and now they're going to do something behind our back. I I I just think that's Yeah. Mysterious. Can I Okay, Jenny. Yes. I just want to take one minute and thank you all for being on the planning commission. Know that you are important. I hear you. We all hear you. Uh so I just want to note that you're you're valued here. Okay. Um, Jack, would you mind noting this for the next council meeting potentially or to be reviewed at a f future council meeting is what I'm hearing from all of you. Does that sound appropriate? Sorry for interrupting. Yeah, we can we can either bring it up as part of the uh planning commission items or you can bring it up as your liaison report as to what happened here and express what a desire or direction is maybe to modify this or what city council feels about the policy. Okay, I will do that. Thank you. Would it be helpful if I explain what the intent was behind this? Um I you know we can do that at a joint meeting but I'm going we had a public open form and I was just telling them earlier this is not I want to run the planning commission meeting like it's supposed to be and it's not supposed to be for the council to come and question what we do or anything else. Elellanar read the policy. We're asking the council to do to just review it and you guys can review it at your meeting. I um I struggle when there's a public open form and nobody comes forth and then I get council members wanting to and I'm just going to say this. my 15 years on a planning commission in a town of 40,000, not once did a city council person come and sit at the meeting other than the leazison. So you're giving the perception that we need to be babysat and I just want to say that that people out there think that we can't do our job. So the council can review it at the council meeting and we can move on with our planning commission meeting. So if we're done with the policy, we're going to go to the site plan review for the MTW truck wash. Of course, Elanor. So I thought this was a welltimed site plan review to have right after that policy discussion. um as this does not require a public hearing. Um site plan reviews don't require public hearings and are therefore not a part of this policy. Um this particular one is regarding the MTW truck wash which was approved in the fall by planning commission and city council and are now just um after reviewing all of their their construction work are finally ready to submit building permits. Um, in your packet, you can find that there were some small changes between what the original um, site plan and the original building plans were that were submitted before the planning commission and submitted before the city council to what ended up in the actual building permits when they finalized everything. Um, you there were um some small minor adjustments specifically to the back of the building which removed some of the design elements and the windows. Uh, this is along one of the the wash corridors, wash corridors. Yeah. Um I think it's the automatic one. Um where they removed some of that design elements along that but are not changing anything on the street facing facade. Um the other change would be that they are um squaring off one side of the building. I do remember that somebody noted that they liked that it was a parallelogram um for some um is that a parallelogram? Yeah. Um they squared it off on the side that trucks enter for ease of how that whole situation works. And also they added a small smaller garage door on the maintenance column. That is not on the new site plan. It might look like they're adding a whole another um entry, a whole another um wash corridor. That's not what it is. It is a a larger entrance to their maintenance corridor for their own staff. So, they're not adding a whole another um wash section, but they are expanding that driveway area, adding a door so they can reach that access. Um any approval of this these minor designs would be contingent on building plan review. Um our building officials still have to look through this. Um if that driveway changes any drainage issues that will also have to be addressed through the building um code and of course the fire department if this adds any sort of concerns um with that. And that would of course be just the the extra pavement. It's a small amount of extra pavement. Um, but the the design elements are solely up to planning commission and city council review. Dean, did you have any thoughts on this? Um, well, I think this is a perfect example when when you don't want to have to have a public hearing to amend something of such a minor magnitude. Um, I've I've talked to Elellaner and and Jack and Aaron about this and my only concern is that the staff in an administrative capacity to make this decision, they're still going to bring you the site plan to review, but it wouldn't be through the public hearing procedure. I my only concern with any of these uh is that the adjustment that's made which wouldn't be considered a formal amendment to the cup is tracked appropriately so that somebody picks up the file from now you've got to make reference in this process that illustrates it it's got a square end on the building not not stair steps anymore. so that it's all there. That's my only concern. The the issue will come with other projects. What what constitutes an actual amendment requiring a public hearing? And and that's something again uh I I've suggested to Jack and Ellaner and Erin, they they've got to figure out procedurally how they would accomplish that. Um and and then it's just a matter of having the recordkeeping so that 10 years from now a whole new planning commission council doesn't overlook that oh we did approve that there's got to be appropriate tracking but procedurally this this is this is complimentary uh to to the applicant it they're in the building permit the final stage it is not uh an expansion of this use in any way shape or form form. Uh they may because they're adding a little bit of pavement here um encounter some problems with the watershed, but that's our conditions encounter that that they've got to be consistent with the watershed. Somebody else comes in, you make the determination. Are are they changing a use that we didn't originally approve? Then I think it's difficult to make a an administrative site plan amendment if it wasn't part of the original. If it's an expansion, is it a minor expansion that again doesn't constitute um an intensification that otherwise creates issues or problems? And those are case bycase examples and there's no book, there's no Bible, there's no good checklist for that. And so the staff have to make up a procedure that they're going to follow so that if the administrator's gone, Elell Ellaner knows that nope, this one requires a hearing and a formal amendment or nope, we can do another site plan review like this. Those are my only concerns on this specific one. It's it's just a no-brainer. It's so minor that I'm I'm I'm glad there's consideration to just say you're fine. So, are you looking for a public hearing or are you just looking for our recommendation? So, as a site plan review and a minor one at that, um, this is one that could just go through as a recommendation from you. So, I am actually I'm looking for some sort of recommendation of approval or denial of these changes. Well, I'll motion that we recommend approval of the MTW truck wash site plan review. Perfect. This is Susan. I'll second. I will call for the vote. Robin I. Susan I. Kim I. And Lynn I. Okay. Um, city planners report. All right. Um, this was also um a great time to invite Dean Johnson here who is our um, city consultant planner. Um, you've heard him talk a little bit today, but mostly because I don't believe Kim has had the opportunity to meet Dean Johnson, and we haven't had a lot of opportunities to sit as just the planning commission and talk with our planner. Um, I was hoping to do a little bit of an informal conversation about process, procedure, and any questions that you might have for our dean. You can take it away. Well, thank you. I was going to get up and walk around with this, but it it feels odd. So, if if you can all see me and hear me, okay, then I'll just stay here. I want this to be as informal as possible by way of some um introduction, background. Um I started my consulting business in 1991. I had been a city planner in local government for 15 years. And uh I actually um was recommended for work up in East Bethl before coming here. Jack's old haunt. Uh worked with them for a number of years, updated a comprehensive plan, did some ordinance work and was also connected um through a recommendation from somebody with Forest Lake Township, which as you know doesn't exist anymore, but did in the mid '90s. and their building official was the same building official for Columbus. As Columbus became aware that they were going to have to update um their comprehensive plan, they decided to um go out and interview uh candidates to be a consultant to the city. And I was hired in 1996. And so, um, maybe maybe the mayor, I know Ron Hanigraph was actually on the planning commission at some point in time early in my tenure, so he might have preceded me, but otherwise, I've I've kind of outlived an awful lot of people on the on the planning commission and the and the council or town board. Um, I alluded earlier to a lot of clients. I I do no work in the public se or private sector. It's only um cities, townships, counties. Uh I've worked for the metropolitan council. I've worked for three different state agencies. Uh I've worked for big cities like St. Paul, Plymouth, Minnetonka. worked with a number of tiny communities and a lot of townships and was heavily involved in attempting to defend uh Force Lake Township in their annexation by the city of Forest Lake and was involved in the incorporation of Columbus in 2004. Can't remember. It's been a while now. Around there. Yeah, around that. Six. 2006. Okay. Uh time flies. Um what I wanted to do with two very new planning commissioners and a council member um is just introduce the topic of what we do and the policy discussion leading into this is a excellent segue. We have a responsibility and I think if there's any question by the council at times and and perhaps even thinking that a policy like this is needed is making certain that we all do our job. There's been a tremendous amount of turnover. Um, I actually retired in 2019 and the city hired their first planner the following year and I I did stay on into the year 2020 and then I left and uh then they brought me back to do mentoring and the first planner left after two years and so they brought me back and then the second planner didn't work out and so they brought me back and now we have a third planner. Well, in the middle of that, the city administrator relocated and uh the mayor and a couple of council members said, "Well, you can't possibly leave." And so, I'm I'm This is like u what was that movie? Uh Groundhog's Day. Uh you you wake up every day and it's the same thing. Uh but we have a profound responsibility at the planning commission and I do over the years in the smaller communities some did and some didn't have planning commissions. That's why I said before it's not a requirement that a that a community has one, but normally cities, city councils find that they have enough to keep themselves be busy without having to do the development reviews and things of that magnitude or taking on a project like developing a cannabis ordinance of all things. And so, uh, planning commissions are are very important in the community. They're a way for uh residents to get involved in in the planning of the community. Um in addition to these development reviews that we're kind of focusing on tonight, more actionoriented activities that the planning commission does. Uh we have to update your compre you have to update your comprehensive plan. I'm not doing it. Uh um I was here and we have and I'm going to use round numbers instead of 19 or '09 and 99. It's basically in the year 2000 you adopted uh the first plan under my guidance. 2010 we adopted one and in 2020 as I was leaving you adopted the current comprehensive plan. So uh in in 1995 the state legislature mandated that comprehensive plans be done on this uh des whatever the term is des deentennial I can't remember anyway every 10 years um and you're going to get I believe by the end of next year 2026 uh what's called a system statement and that is a document prepared by the metropolitan council for every township, every city, every county and every school district. And it contains information about growth projections, their forecasts, uh includes transportation information, park information. It becomes the basis of what you need to be doing then over the next three years to create a new comprehensive plan. over my uh extensive career, gosh, 50 years for heaven's sakes, um planning has become less and less fun for me uh because of the Metropolitan Council. It's overly uh managementoriented. It's terribly topheavy. In the very beginning when this was done, communities had a lot of leeway to do things and plan a real community for themselves. And now it's like pulling teeth to do something that doesn't fit in the puzzle. We're all pieces of a puzzle in this 7count metropolitan area. And so you're going to have the fun of doing that. Um, in some of the communities that I represented, like city of Plymouth, one of the faster growing communities in in the region, you spend a year and a half arguing that your growth forecasts are too low for us. Well, the Metropolitan Council provides the sewer system and so they base their forecasts for a good reason. They have to build the infrastructure to serve it. So when somebody comes back, you got to put your money where your mouth is and you got to prove to them that they're a little shortsighted. Well, that's not only the major sewer investment in the region. It becomes transportation. It's not just local roads. It becomes county roads or it becomes state or even interstate uh which is under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan council. They provide quote the funding for Mandoten counties within our sevenount area. Mandot and the counties do all of the planning if you will, but the purse strings are held by the metropolitan council. So, it's it is it's an extraordinary uh relationship and requirement. In our late 90s, uh this community said, "What if we went to the Metropol Council and and tried to get sewer and water?" Well, this was a complete rural community at the time. And my comment was uh we need to meet with your uh appointed representative who was a woman I think from Andover uh I can't remember her name as we speak. Uh but she was very supportive and we had nine months of meetings with the staff which kept throwing things back on us. If you want to start that system, uh our interceptor is in Forest Lake. you're going to have to come and get a service agreement, a resolution to have a joint trunk sort of system through Forest Lake to get into our interceptor. And that got accomplished. And one by one, all of these things happened. And I think for everyone that was involved in that planning process in the late 90s, it was overwhelming because not only did you have to get the permission to get in this metropolitan system, there was a big cost involved, but you also had no water system. And I would say every other community that I worked with in my career had a system that was essentially put together in the 50s and 60s when there was tremendous federal funding available for both sewer and water systems. So this was an enormous task for this community to pledge the requirements to do this and it ultimately got approved. But when you're on the system, you can't just have a commercial district. You got to show some housing. And this was a new idea for this community. You had nothing but 5 acre homes predominantly. And where are we going to put housing? and and we came up with a scheme that in the northwest corner of the city where you actually have a little housing development and then down in the southeast corner which is still uh undeveloped of within the freeway corridor that we we called that a residential commercial area. It was kind of a mix and they bought it. Uh in our last comprehensive plan they said no you you you you got to do better than that. You got to have a dedicated residential area and in part you have to have your share of affordable housing and that's what came in the 2020 plan uh for mixeduse districts. And one of the mixeduse projects are the smaller lot homes on the north side of Lake Drive. um and an apartment project in the northeast quadrant of the interchange. Uh that almost happened and I think someday will happen. Um but that's the change that took place over a 20-year period of time. And you it's it's only going to get more I don't want to say difficult. Um it's just more thoughtprovoking for you to come up with things. And I I've heard that there may be an interest to expand some of the mixeduse districts. I I like that because you're showing on paper in your plan that you're you're allocating uh an opportunity for housing. If the market won't support it, well, your backup is some commercial use. If you don't get either, then you're just kind of sitting there doing nothing. And a lot of people will say, well, gee, nothing much has happened in the last 30 years in this community. I've seen a lot of progress. You you got to you got to be in the trenches and look for it to happen. A lot of things have happened, but you still have a lot of vacant land. The one thing you don't have are a lot of rooftops. You have 5,000 people in this community, but in most urban areas, those same 5,000 people would all be contained within your freeway corridor. And that's not the kind of community you have. And that counts against you because the things you want like a nice sit-down restaurant or a grocery store don't happen when you don't have rooftops. All the rooftops are in Forest Lake or Line of Lakes. And who's got all the grocery stores and restaurants? And so there are some things you can have and some things you can't have. And and one of the messages I've given to the city over the years is that some of the things that you say, "Oh gosh, we don't want another one of these in the community." You know, there's basically in the in in the world today about a 20-year lifespan for anything. That's the that's the mortgage period for any kind of a business. It's got to self sustain itself, pay for itself, and then it can be torn down, and you've all seen it. It's all over the place. It happens more often in places like Minnetonka and Golden Valley. I mean, they just totally tear them down. And you could afford instead of doing nothing to say, "Okay, if we are the RV capital of the world, does it matter?" They're kind of dispensable and in 20 years, you got a lot of redevelopment potential. I'm not trying to sell you on this. I'm just trying to share some of the uh discussion and angst that the planning commission and council members have gone through in the last 30 years that I've been here. I didn't mean to spend that much time, but we generally don't talk about the comprehensive plan and that's going to be in your laps in another year and I am not going to be here. Come on. I will just say I did go through the comprehensive plan process and we did it in 199899 and we were planning for 2020 and we all sat there like yeah right you know that's never you but it sneaks up a lot faster than what you thought but it is very intense and it is very detailed and so yeah next year you'll be there. Yeah, I it it it's it's a good exercise. You get a lot of volunteers that want to participate. We had business meetings. We had 80 people showing up at town meetings uh particularly in the 2010 uh update of the comp plan. Um the 2019 I don't think was quite as um involved, but uh that's on the horizon. The other thing I I just wanted to go back and say that Ellaner and I would love to come back in a more uh pronounced or formal setting if you want to do like an inservice uh planning 101 and hit on things so that it's it's a refresher. Old-timers like Lynn and Robin, how long you guys been on the board? Two years. Years. Two and three. Two or two? Both two. I mean, that's your top tenure. A lot of the communities I work in, people have been on 10, 12 years, and that's happened over the years, but there's been a lot of turnover on this board in the last 10 years. And uh Ellaner sent me I forgot about it. Uh your very first staff planner and I uh put together a uh this this really wasn't planning 101. of focusing on zoning applications and the review process. Um, I have another one that the city attorney and I did. Uh, you know, we could easily change the dates and the names of things and and reuse them. I can also instead of doing like a PowerPoint and a presentation, we can we can print things up like a little primer and a maybe a 5 10 page thing that you keep with you. But sometimes you get new on a commission and you go, "What is the difference between interim use and conditional use and all we have to do is talk about it every 6 12 months and and and you remember." And when you've done it as long as me, I can't get it out of my head. I wake up in the middle of the night and I go, "Did I tell them the right permit this time?" No, I'm kidding. But um would you like to do a more Yes, absolutely. Okay. And that would have been really great instead of cancelling a planning commission meeting to have that option to do that because I think it would be very helpful for all of us as a whole. I mean absolutely my my preference would be yes we could have easily done that in January. Uh that's hindsight. But to move forward, we can structure this to where it's 20 minutes of crack. So that if you have something else on the agenda and you just don't feel like hanging around or like there was supposed to be a storm and you want to get home, uh you don't have to do this all at one sitting, but if you would find it beneficial, what I want to do, especially for Kim and Susan, is make them feel like they're not saying something stupid. And I know that's what goes through. And I get help also. Yes. For that any any new group that you get involved with, you're you're the last ones to speak because you just What's Robin going to say? Why doesn't Robin say anything? I I want to make you have a comfort level so that when a developer's in here, you ask the questions. Uh Elellanar's got um the site plan review checklist. You should be looking at every meeting through that checklist and the staff report and you say, "Well, the checklist talks about uh sightlighting. I don't see anything in the memo about that's how you catch staff with their pants down." And it's not an embarrassment. We need to know this. And it's never too late. And so it's great. And when the planning commission says, "Well, what about the dumpster enclosure?" We sometimes get overwhelmed by the detail and the scope of some projects. Um, well, your host of Columbus, that was a big project. and to let something like um the dumpster location, it it's important for all of us, but in the scope of things, you're trying to write a report and make sure you've covered all the other bases. You're calculating what the what the requirement for parking is. you're you're trying not to go overboard, but you think maybe you want to press the issue about some screening because here's a project that's got a city street on one side and a freeway on the other. And it's it's it's a landmark in our community. And so it's up to you when you're not overwhelmed with that to go down through those checklists and say you forgot about the sight lighting. But you don't have to whisper it. You can shout out. stand up. What are you going to do with that fence in the landscaping? Like Robin did at the last meeting. That's what we're here for. On other committees I've been on, we've had it where we one or two people would go check out the site together and bounce it off of each other. Is this something that we do? I mean, I'm new, so I I mean, when Robin first I I went I've went on a couple with people. I've been on a few just by myself. Mhm. Um, it just depends on you can only have two of you together, right? And so when Robin got on, Barb was on and Yep. Barb and I kind of split up and would go, you know, cuz you can only have two, so you have three. But yeah, it's totally something we can do. I have learned. Okay, just cuz Dean brought it up earlier, he's going to laugh. You know, I usually call them and ask them if I can come and I did for one and they never got back to me. And I wasn't the only one it happened to, but I put it in my GPS and it took me to a different property that I maybe Good thing they didn't come out and I just realized it and left. Um, but it is good to go out because then you know what you're looking at and you can um, you know, hopefully Ivan will be coming back and we can go out there again. Um, but you can ask the questions on, you know, what are you going to do with this? Can you show me the back? Can you I mean sometimes you put your boots on and you walk back in the mud and the muck and and you see it all because that's what we're supposed to do. I would really appreciate it if anybody's going and they're by themselves to be the second person. Well, and now that we have the phone numbers that we got left in our packet, that helps. So, yeah. Absolutely. We can certainly buddy up and do that. Yep. Mhm. I think that'd be an amazing tool for a newcomer to Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We can do that. So, and I won't take him to the wrong place. I promise. I u I I think what we'll do is create a something that's not in one package. It's be a series of things uh that depending on how much time is at a particular meeting and and again we don't want to overextend our welcome but it is critical for you you're on the you're on television for heaven's sakes you got to feel like you know what you're doing and that's what I want to help you do well and we've had meetings where we've adjourned it what 6 minutes 15 minutes and I just look at it like I have this blocked off and that's a perfect example of if we have a 15minute and we can kind of tell that when we look at agenda was we could have time for those yeah in most instances I certainly would know in advance right um that you're going to have some time uh and if it doesn't work it's it's not the end of the world but um I I I think our perspective is we want to make you as comfortable in your role and responsibility as you can be. And the more you are informed about what that responsibility is, the easier it is for you to do it. And so, however, and don't limit it to what you get or hear us say in the future. Ask, I mean, please. Nice. And you can call me, you obviously call Ellaner anytime. uh we'd be happy to know if there are certain things you want to know more about we we can do that. I would say personally that our focus would be on the things that are in front of you now and that's all of the zoning issues and uh development issues. The comp plan's going to come soon enough, but we we can postpone that. So, you got a little you got a little tidbit about what's going to be facing you. And when you start that process, someone needs to really guide you through, okay, we're going to have a three-year process. And that's really what the comp plan update will be. It's about a three-year process. So, you adopted one in 99, 2009, 2019. And now this next one officially should be done by 29 and they're each the duration is 20 years. And I I can say now I' I've I've been here at the end of the first 20-year period and you look back and you know there's an over forecasting in almost every community. Not every but there's there's a lot of that. And that's part of the preparation you do with long range planning is to make certain that if it happens you're prepared. It's better than being underplanned. Mhm. But others other critics would say well when you started we were 4400 and population and now we're 4700. What's what gives? But I have worked in communities that increase 15,000 population in 10 years and you can hardly hold your hat on. I mean that's that's too that's too fast. So I'll quit and we'll come back. Of course, we can keep doing these inservice uh conversations and get a little bit more comfortable just having these longer discussions um instead of purely having new public hearings and just applications in front of you. We're going to have longer conversations going forward. Um that's that's all for me. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we might as well know that we're our meetings are going to be an hour. So if you know that we it looks like it's going to be a 10 or 15 minute meeting, we can put Dean on afterwards to Mhm. So we're Yeah. And it doesn't have to be, you know, getting everything we need. It's not going to be every week that we sit down and listen to Dean talk for and I just noticed Bethany joined us. So hi Bethany. Hello. Sorry. Okay. Um, next up is planning commissioners report. So, I'm going to start and I'm going to give you a piece a website. If you could go home and look at Ninja Anywhere. It's a new addition to Fallest. It's going to be awesome. And we voted on it at our last meeting and I'm so excited. I won't do the dance here, Jack. I reserved that. No, no. Um, I did a happy dance, so that's coming along. And if anybody wants to volunteer, we appreciate it. I officially have Bethany. I'm volunteering you. So, I can say that the entire planning commission has agreed to volunteer because we had Kim and Susan tonight and Robin. So, that's great. But if you um want to volunteer, watch uh the website. We'll have a volunteer meeting coming up and we'll put that on the website. Right, Jack? Mhm. Yeah. So, that's what I have. Anybody else have anything? I don't. Okay. I also do want to uh uh mention I got an invite, but I don't know if it was just cuz we're friends, but I want to acknowledge that Waldoc is celebrating 50 years in business and they're having a celebration. So, we are um blessed to have a business in town for 50 years. They used to be residents here. Now, they live in North Branch, but uh they're involved in the community, and I want to recognize them as being 50 years. Assistant planners report. Not much for me this week. I think we covered it all in these conversations and the stuff that we talked about will be going going forward. Yes. Perfect. Next is a motion to adjurnn. This is Susan. Then I'll make a motion to adjurnn. This is Kim. I'll second it. Okay. I will call for the vote. Bethany I. Robin I. Susan I. Kim I. And Lynn I. Meeting adjourned at 702. [Music]