03-11-91 PC Minutes
MINUTES OF THE GOLDEN VALLEY
PLANNING COMMISSION
March 11, 1991
A regular meeting of the Planning Commission was held at the Golden Valley City
Hall, Council Chamber, 7800 Golden Valley Road, Golden Valley, Minnesota. The
meeting was called to order by Chair Prazak at 7:OOp.m.
Those present were: Johnson, Kapsner, Lewis, McAleese, McCracken-Hunt and
Prazak. Also present were Mark Grimes, Director of Planning and Development;
Beth Knoblauch, City Planner and Mary Dold, Secretary.
I. Approval of Minutes - February 25, 1991
MOVED by Lewis, seconded McAleese and motion carried unanimously to approve the
February 25, 1991 minutes as submitted.
*II. Reschedule Annual Meeting to April 8, 1991
Commissioner McAleese suggested that the annual meeting take place at this time.
Chair Prazak called for nominations. Nominations were as follows: Chair -
McAleese, Vice Chair - McCracken-Hunt and Secretary - Lewis.
MOVED by Kapsner, seconded by Johnson and motion carried unanimously. to approve
the nominated Commissioners.
III. Informal Public Hearin -Amend Cit Com rehensive Land Use P1 an Ma /
Amen. Zoning Code
Applicant: ACC/McCaw Cellular of Minneapolis and Golden Valley
_ Housing .and Redevelopment Authority..
Address: Part of Outlot F, North Wirth Parkway 3rd Addition
Request: To amend the City Comprehensive. Land Use Plan Map from
Business and Professional to Industrial and the Zoning
Code from Light Industrial to _Radio to permit the
construction of a cellular telephone monopole.
Chair Prazak introduced the agenda item and asked Mark Grimes for a brief
summary of the request. Mark stated that the applicant wi1J be leasing approxi-
mately 2,500 sq.ft. of HRA owned property in the North Wirth Redevelopment
District to construct a cellular monopole and a 12' x 28' shelter building that
houses the radio equipment, power converters, computers and batteries. This is
needed in order to better serve the growing mobile phone industry. The above
actions are needed because radio towers are permitted only on property zoned
"Radio".
The HRA believes that the lease of this property to Cellular One is consistent
with the Redevel opmen~t Plan fo'r th s area. Staff recommends approval of both
the Amendment to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan Map and the Zoning Code.
Commissioner Lewis asked about the start-up cost to the City on this site. Mark
Grimes stated that there were no costs to the City other than administrative.
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Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission
March 11, 1991
Page Two
Chair Prazak asked the applicant for a brief summary. Warren Dunlap, the Site
Acquisition Coordinator, talked about the how transmissions are done between
monopoles, talked about a grid area, which shows where monopoles need to be
constructed and discussed future growth of the cellular phone industry.
Commissioner McCracken-Hunt asked about vandalism problems and how often there
are calls for police assistance. Mr. Dunlap stated that calls for police
assistance are very few because of the remoteness of the locations and the
equipment is fenced in. There are no pegs in the monopole so it cannot be
climbed. Maintenance checks are done twice a month or more if needed.
Commissioner McAleese asked about the output power wattage and the power coming
into the station -- is it coming from standard NSP lines off-site. He also
asked if the City had a bad storm and the power grid goes down would the cellu-
1 ar system go down? Mr. Dunlap stated the output power i s a 100 watts and if
there is a bad storm the power grid would not go down." A"power converter inside
the building would take the AC power which converts it to DC and runs this into
a cell of batteries and the cell is run off batteries. If there is an outage,
the power source from NSP would be eliminated but cellular one could stay on the
air for eight to ten hours. The building has a plug-in for a generator for
further use.
MOVED by Kapsner, seconded by McCracken-Hunt and motion carried unanimously to
recommend approval to the City Council to amend the City Comprehensive Land Use
Plan Map from Business and Professional to Industrial ahd the Zoning Code from
Light Industrial to Radio to permit the construction of a cellular monopole.
IV. Re orts on Meetings of the Housin and Redevelopment Authority, City
Counci 1 an I-Board of ~i ng l~ppea~'
Mark Grimes briefed the Commission on City Council items from the March 5th
meeting, such as the pool referendum. No other reports were given.
V. Other Business
No other business was presented.
VI. Adjournment
Chair Prazak adjourned the meeting at 8:15p.m.
*Agenda item No. II was moved to the rear of the agenda.
-C' - - ----------
inda McCracken-Hunt, Secretary
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