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05-13-96 PC Minutes~1 ~, 4 Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission May 13, 1996 A regular meeting of the Planning Commission was held at the Golden Valley City Hall, Council Conference Room, 7800 Golden Valley Road, Golden Valley, Minnesota. The meeting was called to order by Chair Prazak at 7pm. Those present were Commissioners Groper, Johnson, Kapsner, McAleese, Pentel and Prazak; absent was Lewis. Also present were Mark Grimes, Director of Planning and Development and Elizabeth Knoblauch, City Planner. Approval of Minutes -April 29 1996 MOVED by Johnson, seconded by Pentel and motion carried unanimously to approve the April 29, 1996 minutes with the following changes: Page One, second paragraph under Workshop Sessions; changed sentence to read: She recommended using the six principles of the Livable Communities program rather than the four goal areas identified ~ in Golden Valley housing plan. Page Three, Item B under "Other Business"; change heading to read" Second Planning Commission Meeting in A~r+l II. Continued -Workshop Session• Discussion of Livable Communities Action Plan I~uirements and General Housing Plan Update City Planner Beth Knoblauch recommended that the discussion begin with her re-interpretation of existing housing goals, policies, and objectives. Several suggested changes had been included in the Technical Background report, but in doing the actual drafting additional changes were made for a variety of reasons. Three of the four goals remain basically as suggested in the Technical Background; the "quality" goal has been expanded to better express the scope of the City's quality-related policies and objectives. Several policy and objective statements have been combined, divided, or moved from one list to another for purposes of clarity, and some have been more substantially amended to better reflect current circumstances. The commissioners reviewed each rewritten policy and objective statement, noting those that also seem appropriate for tagging as Livable Communities action plan items. Use of the HUD Section 8 housing quality standards was questioned, as neither staff nor the Commission was familiar with the version currently in use by HUD. Since other policy and objective statements assume an ability to evaluate housing condition, it was eventually agreed that some set of standards should be specified. Mark Grimes will obtain a copy of the current HUD standards for review before this particular policy is re-adopted. Staff noted that the Human Rights Commission's involvement in guarding against housing discrimination has historically had three components: working with developers/property managers on specific proposals as well as existing developments, providing general public education, and providing a no-fault grievance process through which discrimination complaints can be resolved. Emphasis has shifted among those components over the years. Commissioners discussed the three components. Working with developers before a project was built did not appear to be a 155 Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission May 13, 1996 Page Two critical enough component to continue requiring. it as a matter of policy. Staff was instructed to reword the policy in question so that it addresses education and the grievance process but does not require automatic involvement in housing development proposals. Involvement in a "city beautification" program was questioned. That objective had been in the housing plan since 1982, and staff proposed no significant changes in wording. Since nothing had been done toward meeting the objective in almost fifteen years, the main question was whether it should be left in the plan at all. The recent Community Standards Task Force indicated an interest in creating some sort of program to promote civic pride, so the general idea appears to be still current. The decision was to leave it in the plan. Establishing a deferred assessment program for home improvements was dropped from the plan by the Commission . Staff noted that the State of Minnesota offers a program for improvements to homes over 35 years old and under $150,000 in value. After discussing the merits of trying to add a city program as a complement to the state program, it was determined that the state program is sufficient at this time. Requiring "point of sale" home inspections was another existing objective that the Commission felt to be unnecessary at the present time and potentially problematic. Staff indicated that a Housing Task Force had looked at the matter in 1990 and decided that other avenues exist for pursuing inspection and correction of home deficiencies, thus eliminating the need for a specific City requirement. Commissioners discussed some of those avenues. Staff was instructed to shift this item to a policy statement that promotes education, rather than an objective of creating a specific City requirement. The existing housing objective of reviewing the affordability impact of the City's housing regulations and standards was largely completed several years ago. Staff indicated that the two remaining exceptions were parking requirements for multiple dwelling and two-family zoning districts, and general PUD provisions. The Commission discussed those two code areas. Given today's car oriented society, there was concern about reducing multi-unit parking requirements; staff noted that this can be done on a case by case basis in multi-unit PUD's, so there is some flexibility in the code already. The Commission saw more potential benefit in reviewing the general PUD provisions to ensure that they accommodate a broad enough range of variety and affordability options. Commissioners were also concerned about the potential impact of new regulations that may be proposed in the future. Staff recommended that a policy statement be added to the housing plan to provide for consideration of affordability issues when new housing- related regulations are proposed. Discussion then moved on to the "short list" of suggested additions to the existing housing policies and objectives. Staff explained that the list included any suggestion from the summary section of the Technical Background report that had gotten an average rating of 3.7 or higher when the Commissioner's individual evaluations were collated. In the course of discussion, three of the five policy suggestions were recommended for addition to the housing plan with such final wording as staff considered appropriate. A fourth policy suggestion, relating to appropriate locations for construction of scattered two-family homes, was finally dropped .after considerable debate. The fifth policy suggestion, relating to protecting neighborhoods against the undesirable impacts of aging and isolated adjacent nonresidential uses was recommended for addition after Commissioners struggled with how broadly it should be worded, a particular concern of staff. ~i Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission May 13, 1996 Page Three Several of the twelve suggested objectives were determined by the Commission to duplicate or closely parallel other statements, and were combined accordingly. Suggestions calling for criteria to guide the higher density residential site selection process, aself-review of the housing role of affected City boards and Commissions, and comprehensive plan map amendments involving isolated and aging nonresidential uses were dropped. Remaining items were recommended for addition to the plan with whatever final wording staff considered to be appropriate. Mark Grimes will select items for tagging as parts of the Livable Communities action plan as appropriate. The final topic of discussion was the draft housing plan itself. Commissioners responded favorably to staffs attempts at areader-friendly tone but made changes to some passages where the language was found to be overly casual. There was debate about whether the explanatory Livable Communities material was too negative in its approach, and some additional changes were made in that section. A proposed section entitled "Focus on the Future" was deleted. Commissioners liked the parallel drawn by staff between "building" the plan and building a house. At the end of the workshop session, staff were instructed to revise and complete the draft housing plan per the night's discussion and schedule it for an informal public hearing by the Planning Commission on June 10. The Livable Communities action plan will be finalized as an overlay on the regular housing plan and will be considered by the Commission at the same. time. Staff explained that the Metro Council is requiring the City to consider the housing plan update as a new comprehensive plan submittal, which means a mandatory six month review period between Planning Commission recommendation and City Council approval rather than.the shorter interval allowed for plan amendments. Therefore, the City Council will be introduced to the draft plan in June so that the Livable Communities action plan can be seen in the larger context of the overall housing plan, but City Council approval at that time will be limited to just the Livable Communities action plan, which must be completed before the end of June if the City is to participate in the Livable Communities program. III. Reports on Meetings of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. City Council, and hoard of Zoning ARaeals No City reports given. Commissioner Pentel reported on a Design Center invitational meeting for Minneapolis and selected NW Hennepin suburbs to explore a variety of common planning issues. IV. Qther Business Director Mark Grimes informed the Commission of the upcoming informational meeting with Golden Valley residents and businesses who may be affected by the Hwy. 100 project. MnDOT sponsored the meeting. V. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 9:12pm by consent. ~e n Lewis, S cretary r`//''`'