Welcome to the May 5th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting. If I could have all the commissioners please mute your microphone until it's your turn to speak, that would be greatly appreciated. Members of the public may join the meeting tonight using a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, or Android device. You can access the meeting online by going to the city's website. The public can ask questions and comment during the meeting by using the link to the virtual meeting to join and submitting a question via the online question and answer fe feature within tonight's meeting. Questions regarding the meeting can also be taken uh during regular business hours at the city at city hall. With that, we will begin the meeting tonight. We'll call the meeting to order. If you are a member of the public and wish to speak on a topic, please fill out one of the yellow forms in the back of the chamber uh and bring that forward to one of the staff. You will be called on after the project and references presented. Residents viewing online, please add your questions to the question and answer field along with your name and address. And with that, Dan, could you do the roll call, please? Thank you, Vice Chair. John Jared, here. Sauren Shaw here. Marsha Kennedy here. Shannon Olsen. Thomas Harrington. John Colum here. Stephanie Swanson here. Adrina Nagalling here. Daniel Cho here. Chair, we have a quorum. Thank you, Dan. Uh, tonight on the agenda, the first item up is the uh Woodbury Spine and Wellness City Place 4, site and building plan, project number 0420500578. Uh, and I believe that this one is uh yours, Dan. All right. Thank you, Vice Chair. Davis Real Estate Group LLC has submitted an application for a site and building plan approval to construct a medical office building within the City Place development. The property is located to the south of Interstate 94 and East Radio Drive and is zoned GW Gateway District. The property is guided as places to work on the land use plan. At the August 6th, 2014 meeting, the city council approved the city place project. The development approval included preservation of the existing office land uses, a grocery anchored retail development, hotel sites, restaurants, banks, and additional office buildings on 96 acres of land. An amendment to the original PUD for the city of place was granted on June 28th, 2017 with the amendment being necessitated by the need to establish land uses and general layout following the removal of the formal formal corporate campus building. The approved land uses for this area are places to work uses with a focus on providing office and medical use. Uh the proposed use within the application meets the intent of the original and revised PUDS. September 2024 marked the 10-year anniversary of the start of construction of City Place. At the beginning of the project, the taxable value of the almost 100 acre property was approximately 12.5 million. In the following year, City Place saw approximately 600,000 square ft of new commercial space developed, including medical offices, retail, financial financial institutions and hotels. In addition to the commercial activity, two multifamily residential rental projects were developed totaling 344 units within the mixeduse development. While the full tax value of the recently built health partners specialty clinic, Meridian rental town homes, and Woodbury Spine and Wellness have not been realized yet, the cumul cumulative tax value of the City Place project now exceeds $250 million. The graphic identifies the pedestrian routes that have been created around the perimeter of the building for this parcel. The pedestrian sidewalks linked the parcel with Midwest ENT to the west and the trail corridor to the north. The sidewalks are all shown in blue and the trails in red. The proposed site plan identifies an 8,000 square foot singlestory medical office building. The property is located to the north of City Place Lane and west of Spring Hill Drive to with access to the site provided from City Place Lane uh indicated in the orange arrow at the bottom and connecting uh to the adjacent commercial property to the west. The city place planning development calls out one space per 244 24 224 ft. The proposed building measures 8,000 ft. So 36 parking spots would be required and the site plan identifies as 39. The proposed singlestory medical office building is proposed to be constructed of 86% class one materials including the brick and stone that are matching and complimentary to the buildings uh to the materials found within the city place buildings. The proposed building elevations are shown below. With that staff recommends approval of the site and building plan project number 04-2025-0000578 for Woodbury Spine and Wellness subject to con subject to the conditions found within your staff report. Staff and the applicant are on hand for any questions. Thank you, Dan. Uh would the applicant like to step forward and uh make any comments if you could uh state your name and your affiliation with the project, please? Uh Mark Davis, uh developer of the project. Uh commission chair and commission members, we're excited to be back today. Uh the three projects that we did before this have been very successful in in our world and have brought great medical services to the community and we're excited to finish up what we started a number of years ago and and uh complete City Place 4 as the end of the land that we originally purchased. Uh we've got a great uh Woodberry uh tenant that's going in Woodberry Spine already in your community. Uh wanting to have more space and and a new building. And as we've done before, we've brought the same kind of quality building that we plan to build for this as well. And so I have Matt O'Keefe, the architect with Synergy Architects here, answer any questions that you may have. But we certainly appreciate uh being back today and getting your approval. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh do we have any yellow sheets that have come in or any comments online? Not at this time. Chair, thank you. Then I guess we will move on to opening it up for discussion. I think we will start on the right hand side of me today with John. Uh Commissioner Colum. Thank you, Chair. Um just really a couple of questions. Um this project uh plan and what you've put together is very straightforward and uh we're pleased that uh thank you to the applicant for continuing to invest in Woodbury. Um I'm not sure if this question is staff or the applicant. Might be a combination of the both, but um I had a question about the parking plan. Um in the report it mentions that based on the code there's 36 spaces required and the plan has 39. I guess I'm not I'm not highly familiar with this use, but do we think that 39 or even 36 spaces are required? And specifically, as I look at the parking plan, I don't know if there's a slide for everybody here, but it's in the staff report. If you look at the north side of the building, um there's eight spots there. Um four kind of immediately. Yes. and then four kind of facing opposite that. And I guess my question would be there is a there's not very much green space in this development. Um is this an opport and this is going to have this is pretty close to where there's you know trail access here. Um, we think it might be in our best interest to preserve that corner with some landscaping and some green space and utilize a a proof of parking concept plan. If we needed to have um more than let's say 31 spaces instead of the or yeah, I guess if you take those eight spaces out, that'd be 31 instead of 36 which is in the code and 39 which is in the plan. I don't know how the applicant would feel about that. I it looks like according to the building plans submitted, I believe that sidewalk and that door on the north side where the gym is, is that an exit only door? Would that door be accessible to customers as well to access the facility? I guess that's probably part of the question too. Yeah, Matt O'Keefe with Synergy Architecture Studio. The door to the north is um employee or um yeah employee entrance and um also there is a patio there's a concrete patio out there where they will do some use that for some of their crossfit training and extended um PT um items with patients. Mhm. So, but I think as you guys are discussing when we did the site plan with medical at times you just need more parking stalls, but I think to bring it back down to that 36 parking cells that's really not an issue or you know we can definitely meet that. And I think as you're discussing, there is a retaining wall there with the grade, how it lines up with the existing road where I think if we took out the right parking stalls, we could probably even get rid of some of, you know, lessen maybe some of that uh retaining wall need just that we can grade everything out, have it a little bit more seamless as it kind of ties into that north corner there that you're speaking of. And so I guess maybe it's a question for staff as as as the team has considered the plan. Is that something that we've thought about perhaps looking at an opportunity to not overpark? You know, we've talked about in a lot of these commission meetings about being overparked. And if you just take a step back and look at this entire complex, there's quite a bit of parking, you know, these connected uh parking lots as we go through this part of the development. Um question for staff. Is that something we would consider? Yeah, I think um staff would would recommend the reviewing the total parking requirement which is already below the parking standards. Parking standards by coders is one space per 200 square ft. Medical office generally speaking is at uh six pa six spaces per thousand square ft. So the code is five spaces per thousand looking at it that way. medical office generally is developed at six spaces. Uh certainly the applicant is identified for this use. Um that that is likely not an issue. Certainly you know removal of two or three parking spaces usually is not an fail type situation. And there's usually some level of parking. But I I would advise not to go much much less than removing two or three parking spaces or proofing two or three parking spaces, especially with the need for appropriate turnaround within that location. So even if there were a few parking spaces there, you'd still need that kind of hammerhead turnaround opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just thinking about as we're looking at the renderings and this is going to be a pretty hard traffic corner as you come off of City Place Lane and there's going to as traffic continues to build on Spring Hill Drive. Um the the renderings show, you know, some quality landscaping as we go around the kind of the south to southeast corner of the building. Um, but as you sort of progress north on Spring Hill Drive, um, as you look in the the the full landscape plans or in the plans that the applicant submitted, um, again, to me, it seems to fall off a little bit. And then I'm not sure the retaining wall is a great aesthetic if there's a way we could make that more naturally landscaped. So, um, I I'll just sort of leave that out there. Other commissioners can, uh, probe that if if they like, and then we can revisit it as we come back through. Um, my second question I think is probably for the architect as well. Um, I didn't see mechanicals in the plans. Looks like you guys are putting two new RTUs in for this building. Yep. There will be one one rooftop unit for this building. We did nestle it up behind the kind of high parapit walls sort of at the front entry. And then what we have on our plans is there will be um a screen unit that will be attached to the rooftop unit just to provide that um enclosure and like screening. So the screen around the rooftop unit will match that kind of corrugated metal that's on the front of the building. It kind of will look like you know just like what we did with um the Midwest ENT building something very very similar to that. Um are you using any sort of like are you using high efficiency uh rooftop units in that in that spec? Yep. On the high efficiency part of his spec and then within the space it'll be VAV boxes. So we have a lot of control as you know with PT clinics there's some massage um therapy that goes along with this tenant. So their ability to kind of control different rooms on that which really allows kind of in the medical use um full function for them. Okay, great. Thank you chair. That's all the questions I had at this time. Thank you John. Uh so then we will go to uh Marsha Commissioner Kennedy. Thank you chair. Um just actually one one question. Um uh you're the the renderings are really focused on this as I was especially interested on the storm sewer plan. It looks very complete and I mean it's very erosion focused and um preventing that. And I know across the road across Spring Hill Drive there, there's that that um lower area that's um I don't know what you call it, but it's got the water collection and and and wondered just would you speak to um how you um how you focused on that and is that something that needs to be um um paid attention to at that at that point in the neighborhood? I know other buildings must have focused on that also. So, it's it's more of wondering how much of a situation that will become or is. Yeah. I think as always um as we've experienced with the Davis buildings, which is the three that we've done, this is our fourth one. We're really conscious of doing those native grasses, native plants that are can survive our harsh winters along with the water and storm water retention. And even Woodbury has taken an extra step with that large retention pond and it's the reuse system for the landscaping, the sprinkling. Um, I'd like to say we kind of learned along the way, Eric. We've done this a couple times. So, I think it's getting much easier for us as a building owner and as an architect and our civil engineers are top-notch. So, they've really kind of you guys kind of set the stage and then we just really um latched on to it and really took it, you know, to the next step really within that development. So, okay. I just wondered because it that I at first I thought your building was going in the hole. No. So, I no I revisited that area a couple times and said, you know, that can't be can't be right. Yeah. So, there is some gradient where I think when you get out there, you'll notice we used along the east side of that property where the the road Spring Hill Drive is pretty low when you're out there. So, the site will come up quite a bit which should help the screening of the rooftop unit as you're on the street. but also our building along the east side actually almost is elongated to act as the retaining wall. So, we really chose that to make the building just kind of seem a little bit taller and act as a retaining wall to build grade up instead of adding a cobblestone or a boulder wall that just creates long-term maintenance things. So, it was really just a conscious effort with our um developer to kind of take that route of it. Well, and I noticed you've got inspections listed in year number 23 and really seem to have a handle on this. Yeah. So, okay, that's all I have. Thank you. Yep. Thank you, Marcia. Uh, we will go to Stephanie. Uh, Commissioner Swanson. Thank you. So, just a quick question for staff. When calculating parking, is are handicapped spaces included in that calc or excluded? They are included in the calc. Okay. And then on C C2 do C C21-1 uh slight typo. Proposed accessible surface parking two stalls, but there are indeed four. Yeah. And a question for the applicant. So you mentioned CrossFit and you've got this large open gym. I only see one shower in there. in the the floor plan. Yeah. Is that what's happening at the other location? Is that working? That is working and per code, we do meet the requirement for only one shower with the size which is really based on size of the gym that and the the uh aerobic exercise that you're doing. So, one shower does work for them. They have a lot of um it's a lot of clients that that come in and they're very kind of specific. So they really go to class and don't do a lot of showering. The showering is actually probably far more for employees that participate in it also. Okay. And then a question about the landscape plan on L one dot L1-1. I can't talk today. Sorry. I did not see any kind of coniferous trees listed, but I do see a detail on L2-1. So, is this in flux or is it just a template? I believe the details are probably a template of when we do have Curtis first trees on different sites, but I do believe there are non-comfort trees on this one. So, okay. And so, in the renderings, and I'm not a I'm not a tree person, so forgive me here. Well, can we see? Yes. So this top left um it kind of this looks like a Christmas tree to me. So the one right next to the building are these actually the trees that are proposed or not. They are not that. So what I would say is the rendering the building is very accurate to the brick color um and everything like that and then the landscaping really um becomes ar architecturally preferenced on what it looks like. So, it's very hard to get realistic photorealistic um landscaping within the programs that we use. So, it's kind of we really try to bunch it in where we're showing landscape on the plans, but sometimes it's not exactly a flowering lilock tree, which I think we specify on a couple of those. So, um so it is a it is not 100% accurate. Okay. It would be great to see renderings in the winter, especially if we're only seeing deciduous trees. Do we have any kind of requirement for that or for requiring a certain amount of coniferous trees so that we still have that foliage year round? We have not we do not have requirements that require coniferous trees. We do have diversification requirements for hardwood trees as well as in some cases that can include coniferous trees, but we do not have a requirement. Usually coniferous trees are used for screening purposes more than for um color, but your comment does make sense from a standpoint of what they can do in our in our October through Yeah. Mayish. Well, and we also we just see a lot of beige, black, brown. Having some color year round would be nice, but I'm also sitting here in green pants and a blue shirt, so take that with a grain of salt and I like it otherwise. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Swanson. Uh we will go over to uh Commissioner uh Sharon. Thank you. Can you hear? Thank you. Um, I like the plan. It's simple, straightforward. Like some of the comments already made. Um, uh, I think I'm going to follow up on John's question. You know, I did have similar questions on parking, but my question is more centered around is there enough landscaping, you know, provision on that side, uh, which is the north side of the building. Um because based on the plan you know clearly that space seems to be there's the patio so obviously you can't you know put trees and stuff there. Um so so if we are going to look at you know like lowering the number of parking spots in in the north side uh I think you know landscaping would be something to consider. Um, but that'd be up to how you plan to intend that side of the the user plans to in use that side of the parking lot if it's meant for employee only parking for example because you said that's an employee entrance, right? That is correct. Yes. Okay. I think we can definitely take a look at the landscaping and probably take some from around the building and move it kind of back there as we kind of continue to work with those parking stalls. And I think Dan, our landscape plan, correct me if I'm wrong, is fairly extensive compared to what is actually required within the city. So, but I think we can definitely take a look at that um and kind of maybe shift some of the groupings and the planting beds around kind of to that back area as we gain some green space back there. Thank you. And I think Commissioner Swanson already picked up on the four versus two uh handicap parking spots, right? Because uh that was clearly the the drawings didn't match the language. So yeah, I think a lot of times with the two like per the international building code, we are only required to but we actually provide four with a medical use. A lot of times we see that there are a lot of needs for handicap accessibility parking. So we really try to take that into account and it just add a couple extra. We we always need extra handicap accessibility. So I agree. Thank you. Yep. Thanks. Good plan. That's all questions that I had. Thank you, Shiron. Uh we have Adrina. Uh you're up next. Uh thank you. I have two questions for the applicant. Um adding on to the parking. I'm not sure if this would be under um storm water management, but in the winter, where would the um snow storage be when you know the snow falls in the parking? Would this also affect the parking in the area? Yeah. So I think a lot of times where we've taken it as building owners and as property owners, there will be stalls that will be probably lost for a period of time up on the north lot because the snow will be pushed up there away from patient parking employee park employees take a little bit of the brunt at first and then the snow would be removed from the site as it you know as it needs to and stuff like that. Okay. And my second question is just like service provided like would it be more like health partners tria or like a gym PT type of services or Yeah. So as of right now they are a um physical therapy group um a massage therapy. So they're an independent contract or they're an independent um group. So they're not necessarily tied to a health partners uh Alina or Fair View. Um and then they have a se a second um part of their business where they kind of do this extended um classes and um therapy that you can sign up for and get you know and attend those types of classes. So it is open to the public general public that type of stuff. So okay that's all my questions. Thank you chair. Uh thank you. So Daniel you're up next. Daniel Cho Commissioner Cho. Okay. Um, so currently I do not have any questions, but for the parking I, so from experience, I volunteer at a hospital and I've dealt with a bunch of patients that have a bunch have a lot of back pain, which is definitely a big deal if you're walking a little bit more. And so I think having although there is a bunch of parking space there, I think it is kind of necessary for of course you have the employees who park there to work and the applicants to be there. So you have to keep in mind that people at this place might have some back pain just to walk just just even walking to the place. So I think the parking here is essential technically you can say so. Yes. That'll be all chair. Thank you. Thank you Daniel. All right. I think that leaves me. Um first of all thank you. The project is great. I like it. I think it fits in very well with the rest of the architecture. Um, I think that uh I I love the outdoor space. I like the patio. Um, always a fan of that and especially if this could ultimately end up being another uh, you know, use of this space. I think that uh that patio and just the outdoor space is very nice. So, uh, great job on the building. I like it. I like it a lot. um the retaining wall that we've kind of touched on. I think uh Commissioner Colum uh mentioned that do we don't have very good grade ele uh grade uh gradients on here. So I don't really know how tall that is. It is that it's kind of right up against the sidewalk. Do we need to be concerned that that's tall enough to have some sort of a fence there? I believe it's not. So we were um we were very diligent to try to get that retaining wall down. So we did not we also know I mean the relationship between the sidewalk but also the cost of a fence on top of a retaining wall really just kind of skyrockets. I I mean I think on our other properties we had to put a fence kind of all along down that drainage pond and stuff like that. So we're very um conscious of that but we did try to keep it under that requirement. So we do are not required by code to have a fence. So, if we did explore, if you guys considered um ghost plotting, you know, future uh parking and took away some of those, maybe that could be smoothed out a little bit. Yeah, I think really when we're kind of looking at it, there's the two stalls and any, you know, we gain 9 ft when you take a stall, you know, the width of a stall. So, when you gain 9 ft, you can gain that much more kind of grade. You keep it under that 4 and a.5% which is comfortable for people mowing the lawn. service is someone and then also if someone is walking up and down they're not you know in danger of falling or less you know so excellent gives you more flexibility for snow storage too it could in a lovely conifer great um the uh this building really it it when there's a street and then the parking lot it's kind of like two faces but this thing really has four faces it's kind of seeing all the way around. Um, so I'm assuming and from the renderings it looks like we actually have some signage on that uh south elevation or the face the face that is actually facing the elevation that's facing the residential um homes. And I'm I I don't I'm just wondering if this is the right venue to recommend uh you know some sort of a dimmer or some sort of so we don't have a lot of light bleed uh facing the residents. I know that that's usually handled in the signage permitting, but in this particular case, because we're in a mixed residential slash uh commercial all combined together, um I and I, if I recall right, I think on the back of that Whole Foods building, we we had some discussion at that meeting about the lighting, and it wasn't about the Whole Foods building, it was about the residence and uh wash lighting and so forth. So, just I'm just wondering if uh staff could maybe take that into consideration because the last thing we want is to have some bright lights on that thing in the middle of the night facing the residents. Chair, I do believe that would be consistent with other decisions as you referenced with in city place. So certainly the commission could contemplate a condition something along the lines of any proposed signage in the south elevation shall be wash lit. Do you think we need to do it as a commi as a condition or do you think we can let that flow through and noted for for uh the signage permitting? I think we would from a staff standpoint would prefer it as a condition of approval just to ensure as part of our compliance for building permits and sign permits. We we regularly review the conditions of approval and it just increases well excuse me it decreases the potential for something to get missed and sign it to be installed and having to have that be replaced. It's probably good too that it's memorialized in case at some point in the future it's another use also correct you guys will be seriously successful. be here for a very long time, but I'm just saying. Um, all right. So, uh, the the only other thing I have about this building, and I think it, you know, we've we've gone over, uh, this is probably one of the last or down to one or two sites left to build out in this development. So, we've looked at a lot of stuff. Um, so drainage, all that I think is good. uh the trash enclosure. And I' I've I've thought about this quite a lot because there really isn't any good spot uh for that trash enclosure. Um and I don't know if a trash hauler can actually uh get into that enclosure. Um, and I' I'd hate to see it on this other street side, you know, kind of a direct in because then, you know, then you you can see it from the street, but uh I guess I would I would just reconsider, and I know they'll probably collect the trash after hours and all that kind of stuff, but it seems like it's just super tight and in a odd spot there on the corner of that drive. So, uh that is all I have. Thank you. All right. Do we have any comments from uh any yellows come in or anything online? Not at this time, chair. Do we have any other comments that anybody would like to make? Yes, chair. Based on the commission conversation, staff has crafted a draft condition for commission evaluation. Prior to the issuance of a building permit, the applicant shall work with staff on a proof of parking and revised landscaping plan for the northeast corner of the site. And then the previously mentioned signage related condition. Thank you. Uh with that, I would be looking for a motion to approve uh with the conditions that Eric just covered for the uh project number 04202500578. I move to approve. I second. Got a second right away. So, thank you. And can we take a vote? Everybody who is in favor, please say I. I. I. I everybody who is opposed, please say nay. And that passes uh without any nay at all. So congratulations. Uh this will be on the agenda, I believe, at the May 14th council meeting. Uh so in about two weeks, so congratulations and welcome back to Woodbury. Hope it hope it passes as easy there as it did here. Uh with that uh second item on our agenda tonight is our 2050 comprehensive plan update. Uh this is Eric's. So take it away. Thank you. Uh we are in the early process of the required update to for to the comprehensive plan. This would be the 2050 comprehensive plan. and we wanted to give a brief update to the planning commission on what to expect over the next several years. This is a multi-year process and the planning commission will be involved in the review state statutes require the planning agency to review all comprehensive plans. So we'll touch a little bit on the structure as well as the required plan elements. Um we really look at this from the lens of the process which is again the metropolitan council is the public agency that requires comprehensive plans uh to be completed. That's a statutory obligation. The 2050 plan from their standpoint has been named Imagine 2050. This replaces a document that they titled Thrive MSP 2040. The imagine 2050 plan was approved in February of 2025 by the Met Council and it is a a policy document. So it includes things like regional goals and and other uh aspirational uh policy statements to guide how development occurs within the area, climate related activities as well as infrastructure planning for metropolitan areas throughout the Minneapolis St. Paul area. looking quickly at the timelines for what we will expect. Really, the first step is going to be what's called system statements. And I have a slide in a in a few slides that identify what a system statement is. We will receive those from a city standpoint in September and have an opportunity to review those system statements. Um, if there is no disagreement about what those system statements identify for the community, a clock begins and we have uh just about a three-year clock to review um comprehensive plans. Uh we can as a municipality expect request an extension of that, but from a planning standpoint, that's not what we're planning for. We're planning on meeting the timelines established by the Metropolitan Council. So this is a an a cycle. This happens on a generally every 10-year uh basis. And where we are right now is in between regional system plans and the system statements. So it all starts with the census. The census is the beginning data point for the policy evaluation by the metropolitan council and they go through the development guide and the in the overall regional system plans process that will then deliver the system statements which are more community focused. They'll look at population and households as well as employment guides. Also looks at densities to ensure that there is appropriate growth throughout the region and also that they have enough infrastructure to support the metropolitan council. One of its core functions is the sanitary sewer function. So they do have to plan for both existing infrastructure needs but also the future needs. The system statements also identify the affordable housing needs and this is an important role that the Met Council plays. It looks at the affordable housing needs from different area median incomes or AMI levels. It looks at it from a 60%, a 50% and a 30% AMI level. Um, cities across the metro area have done an admirable job at 50 and 60%. It continues to be a very large lift for 30% AMI housing. And the simple reality of that is the deep subsidies that are necessary to deliver those types of project. There is not a roadmap generally speaking from a tax credit or other uh existing programs uh to um predictably deliver 30% AMI products. So that's something that the industry will have to continue to work for because there is a need. Much like the 2040 comprehensive plan, there will be focus categories within the comp plan and those are identified on the screen. Likely um these will be the highlevel categories that we anticipate that uh each category will ultimately become a chapter within our 2050 comprehensive plan. This will be a little bit of a different comprehensive plan process because of the significant amount of proactive policy work that our city council has requested to be completed and ultimately has adopted. And so a number of those policy plans are listed on the screen, but I'll I'll highlight a couple of them that are going to be really impactful. the bike and ped plan which identifies regional gaps in bike and pedestrian uh infrastructure. Our very robust environmental stewardship plan that was recently adopted that is going to address climate related topics and also provide a number of implementation steps. Um planning commission was very much involved in the south of Dalem plan. Those are going to be important as we look at land uses for um the southern portion of Woodbury. And then also uh drinking water strategic initiatives. Woodbury has been a leader in water conservation strategies. Obviously, as we're all now aware, the water treatment project, if we're trying to get around Woodbury, is well underway, which is a very um very large positive. um that it will have some some delays due to impacts to trails and right ofway and roadways within Woodbury, but in 2028 we will be rewarded with clean drinking water and we will be well ahead of other municipalities across the world. So this is an exciting time for Woodbury to be under construction with that project. From a structured standpoint, historically the council has appointed a task force usually during the commission advisory um process in the fall. Um staff has recommended and uh based on our meeting at the end of April, it appears that council will take the staff recommendation of appointing a plus or minus 15 member citizen advisory task force. I mentioned earlier that the planning commission will also be very involved. So the task force will um be very much involved in the detail aspects of the of the creation of the comprehensive plan and the planning commission will be an advisory group to the city council. So kind of the first set of review um prior to council evaluation. So still very much involved at the planning commission level, but the day the reviewing of all of the of the paragraphs within and the editing and the some of that information and the direction will be generally provided by the task force. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions, but we we wanted to look ahead a little bit with a lighter agenda today. So, Eric, do we, uh, have available on the website or anywhere, uh, you know, kind of the progress of how this has been going, you know, what's been happening, especially south of Dale? I know there's always a lot of questions on development and what's happening. Uh, can people just go to the website and see it or uh, do they need to call in? I think the best tool that we have available is our development map, which really does identify the status of the projects that are underway. Um, our annual report is another great tool that identifies where development is occurring within the community, what has been recently completed. Um, we have not put together anything that tracks the status of the South of Dale master plan, but that could be something that pretty easily we could create at least some uh outlines of the properties that are under construction to show in a very quick overview fashion so staff can evaluate that. Okay. Thank you. this question about last legislative session um in St. Paul. There was a lot of conversation around shifting some of the planning functions on a regional or even statewide level that seems to have quieted down quite a bit at least it for now. Um other things to try to work out there. Um but this is obviously a multi-year process. So, from a staff point of view, um, how does that potential change that may or may not impact the how how may it or may not impact this process at the community level as we go forward? I think it's a great question. Um I can tell you this legislative cycle which is still underway there has been still significant dialogue about local preeemption of zoning matters as well as to some degree comprehensive plan matters. Um different version than in the years past. Um, in fact, last week there was a local government committee meeting that um that one of the new bills was heard at. It did not pass through committee, but there is still active dialogue happening um to try to address housing cost and that's a very uh necessary conversation um whether that's at the local level or at the state level. The the conflict is under the how. How do you accomplish that? I think municipalities across the board have communicated that there are local solutions. There are unlikely a one-sizefits-all solutions and that makes state preeemption very challenging because at the end of the day state preeemption usually comes in the form of a one-sizefits-all solution. Um the power of a comprehensive plan process though is its local control. it is driven by the local municipalities but also has an opportunity to be targeted in the in the regional goals. So our our hope is through this comprehensive plan and it and I will admit it's been a at time a bit of a challenging thing to go from one meeting to reviewing some of the information from council regarding a broad comprehensive plan approach in the 2050 plan to the next conversation with our representatives at the legislature who are talking about not doing comprehensive planning and infrastructure planning that way. it seemed a little bit less than efficient. But um I think at the end of the day um the legislature does value the role of comprehensive planning. I think that will my prediction is that will continue to have a role in the future regardless of what legislation may or may not be approved over the next several years. Um because infrastructure needs to be carefully managed otherwise there are impacts both for new residents as well as existing residents. Anybody else? Well, thank you Eric. Thank you very much. Uh great job with that. And now we are at uh council. Our council leaison tonight is uh Donna Stafford. uh first time with the planning commission. So, thank you for being here to give us your report. Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here. You covered my 2050 comprehensive plan workshop notes. So, thank you. Um, with regard to the 2025 housing action plan, we've got policy discussions that are ongoing with regard to the firsttime home buyer money, switching some of the principle and interest and maximum amounts to pause the home improvement loan program and appropriation of LAA funds and how they affect our community along with the HR funding package. Um, we have contracted or will be moving forward with contracting with Washington County to provide the underwriting services which saves a lot of money which allows us to lend out more. Um, we have directed the staff at our workshop to begin developing a policy for land banking and development. just still a lot more work to do in that whole area. Um we we are experiencing with regard to housing some legislative pressures affecting affordable housing. Um the details are being worked on and we're following it very closely and are very involved with that and encouraging our local legislators. The stand that Woodbury is taking. The water treatment plan is on schedule and on track to be completed in 2028. Um there is pending legislation right now to approve our sales tax exemption which would be huge with regard to the funding of this project. Um let's see here. Road rehab on schedule and under budget and we're all aware of it and dealing with it as we go along. I have it happening right in my outside my front door and I I encourage people to be patient. It's all for the good of of the whole community. Um, one of our primary functions right now is uh going through the process of replacing city administrator Gidley. We had several um a lot of applicants from locally and around the country and we've narrowed it down to five and we'll be starting our interviews. We've developed the process that we will go through with the help of Baker Tilly Tilly Baker um in the next couple of weeks. So, we're on track with that. big shoes to fill with Clint uh finding a replacement for him. Yes. Yes. The um requirements were extensive. Nice. And he's been uh with the city 20 21 years. 21 years. Wow. Mhm. Long time. Good. Yeah. Well, good. Good luck with that. We hope we find a good applicant. And then did you say that the sales tax exemption did not has not yet passed? It's pending right now. It's going to be heard I think in the next week. So is that for the new water treatment plant and the potentially the water tower, all that kind of stuff, or is it just the water treatment plant? I believe it's just the water treatment plant. Okay. Huh. Well, that's potentially millions. And Woodberry is specifically named in the legislation. Oh, nice. Well, let's hope they pass that. Yes. Fingers crossed. Yes. Excellent. Anything else? That's it. Thank you very much. We hope uh that you join us at the next one. You are our liaison through June, I believe. Yes. Excellent. Thank you. Uh, next on the agenda tonight, we have uh approval of the minutes from the planning commission meeting on March 3rd, 2025. Uh, has everyone had the opportunity to review them? Yes. Uh, if there are no edits or comments, I would be looking for a motion for approval of the March 3rd, 2025 city council or city planning commission minutes. I move to approve. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. That is approved. And with that, I think that is uh that is it. We are adjourned. Thank you very much. Make it a great evening.