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03-23-98 PC Minutes 1 Regular Meeting of the Golden Valley Planning Commission March 23, 1998 A regular meeting of the Planning Commission was held at the Golden Valley City Hall, Council Chambers, 7800 Golden Valley Road, Golden Valley, Minnesota, on Monday, March 23, 1998. The meeting was called to order by Chair Pentel at 7pm. Those present were Chair Pentel and Commissioners Groger, Johnson, Kapsner, Martens, McAleese and Prazak. Also present were Mark Grimes, Director of Planning and Development; Beth Knoblauch, City Planner, and Mary Dold, Administrative Secretary. I. Minutes of February 23 and March 9 1998 February 23, 1998 Minutes: The Commission pointed out typographical errors for correction. Commissioner Martens pointed out that he was absent from the March 9, 1998 meeting, not Commissioner Groger. Pentel requested that the minutes, concerning the CIP, be made more precise noting specific items discussed. The following are the changes to the minutes of the February 23 meeting: Don Taylor, Finance Director and Fred Salsbury, Director of Public Works were present to answer questions from the commission regarding the CIP. F0 ~`nvie~a c..~. rv~o .,f +hc r+rnionf~. Iie.Ferl ~4. l~I~ The Commission reviewed information handed out at the meeting. Prazak noted on the handout that the Medley Park soccer field project was dropped from the CIP. Taylor said under the "Parks" section the city is planning for a soccer field at the Arts School which will negate the need for the field at Medley Park. Taylor noted that the fencing planned along the south. side of Hwy. 55, abutting Brookview Golf Course, was also dropped from the CIP. Pentel said that she believes this was a good move because the fence would have detracted from the beautiful views of Brookview. Taylor also noted that the Pavement Management Program was put on hold in 1997 and beginning in 1998 there would be an accelerated program. Pentel asked about other big budgeted items in 1997, such as the Schaper property. Taylor said that the City came in on target for most of its programs. He said Schaper was completed in 1997 with minor work remaining for 1998. The Commission reviewed several projects noted in the CIP as follows: Pentel asked Taylor why the open space, from the Hidden Lakes Development, on Sweeney Lake does not appear on the map (page 4). Taylor said this open space would be included on next years map. Pentel referred to the "Finance" section and the extension of sewer lines and would Hidden Lakes absorb these costs. Taylor said that Hidden Lakes would install the sewer lines, but City crews would inspect the lines and bill. Hidden Lakes the cost of inspection. Pentel noted the sidewalk construction funds (page 127) and asked Salsbury if there had been any new sidewalk construction. Salsbury commented some sidewalks are tied in Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission March 23, 1998 Page 2 with street projects and that when the street program was on hold, the sidewalk projects were held up. He said the Sidewalk Committee should be getting together soon to discuss sidewalks for Area B. Pentel asked if funds are not spent each year would money remain in the fund. Taylor commented that remaining funds would go into the next year's budget, but these funds are not accumulative. Martens asked about the pros and cons of sidewalks. Salsbury said there are pros and cons to the sidewalks. He said when most street programs come up for construction, residents don't want to see sidewalks, but on the other hand .residents throughout the City would like to see sidewalks, and philosophically, the City will need to deal with this issue. Salsbury said there are financial complications by adding more sidewalks because the City is responsible for sidewalk snow removal. Pentel said that she could not decipher from the CIP whether Brookview Golf Course was making or spending money, and is the City looking at renting out its club house. She said that the community is looking for places for its youth and wondered who is benefiting and is it a broad segment of the community or just the golf course. Taylor referred to page 12 of the Finance section and reviewed this operation.. Taylor explained how the golf course funds are used. He noted that the building is rented by the Golf Course. Taylor commented on the Building Fund noting that the expenditures are not for new buildings but to pay off major remodeling projects of the Administrative building and the Public Safety building. Pentel noted under the Parks Fund that nothing was budgeted for the Hidden Lakes Park on Sweeney Lake. Salsbury commented that this is being paid by Hidden Lakes. Pentel asked about the lighting for the proposed soccer field at the Arts High School and who would be paying for them. Taylor commented that the City would be putting in the lights and the cost and maintenance would be shared jointly. Kapsner asked how long the lease is that the Arts High School signed. Taylor said 20 years, that it needs to be long term to justify the expenditure. He said the majority of capital funds is going into the land. Taylor also said the City would be paying for most of the maintenance items but electricity, etc. would be shared. Taylor commented on the Golf Course fund (page 111) noting the driving range improvements. He briefly talked about the need for higher netting along I-394 because of golf balls going out of Brookview and hitting cars on I-394. This netting should help eliminate claims that the City pays on these drifting balls. Martens asked about park usage and has staff looked at the City's population and how ' the City parks would be used in the future concerning how money is spent. Taylor commented that this is something that is reviewed and studied because of the demand ~ ~~ ~~ Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission March 23, 1998 Page. 3 on the City's parks. He said that Park and Rec does try to look ahead. McAleese commented that the commission would be reviewing, as part of the comp plan, the section on parks. Pentel moved onto the next section of the CIP -streets, noting that the biggest project is Xenia. Taylor noted page 132 of the CIP. He referred to an enclosed map locating where the proposed extension of Xenia Avenue would be located referencing the right-of-way land and crossing over Glenwood Avenue to the north. Taylor said this road improve- ment was a recommendation from a consulting firm as part of a traffic management study of the Golden Hills area. He said the school seems to be very much in favor of this improvement because of the problems with the intersection at Turners Crossroad and Glenwood. He briefly talked about the houses that needed to be purchased along with the railroad right-of-way. McAleese questioned if he had missed a Planning Commission meeting when this was #ormally discussed. City Planner Knoblauch said he had not. McAleese said that he was not sure the Planning Commission had to review this, but one of the reasons the commission reviews the CIP is to determine the consistency with the Comprehensive Plan. He said one of the things happening here is the elimination of affordable housing stock in Golden Valley. Knoblauch commented that this is also a very large transportation amendment and we do have a transportation section of the Comprehensive Plan. McAleese believes that something-has gone wrong with the process in that it sounds like the decisions have been made and the Planning Commission is not doing its job. Taylor said that the City has not gone into formal decisions yet other than buying some homes. Pentel said that she has children at Meadowbrook and that the School District is happy to have this extra land, but some people are concerned about losing affordable housing and that the City needs to maintain its commitment to affordable housing. McAleese commented on the maps regarding the pavement reconstruction and said it was difficult to distinguish between the names of the road and the projects. Taylor said that he could get something to the commission that was more detailed. McAleese said that it was important only because sometimes the commissioners receive phones calls concerning a project. Pentel asked whether the City was still investigating using wells located at the General Mills "Bell Research" site. Salsbury commented#hat the City is negotiating with the City of Minneapolis and nothing has happened yet. He said that if the dollar increase is significant, the City of Golden Valley would need to look at alternative water supplies. Pentel opened the informal public hearing; seeing and hearing no one, Pentel closed the informal public hearing. MOVED by Prazak, seconded by Groger and motion carried unanimously to recommend to the City Council approval of the Capital Improvement Program. ~~= Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission March 23, 1998 Page 4 Minutes of March 9. 1998: The Commission pointed out typographical errors for correction. Pentel talked about additional language to the following: Page 10, paragraph 4: Pentel asked staff about shielding the neighborhood along Hwy. 100 with a sound wall G,-i.„o~ ^^~^,~^+e,~ +h ++~ ,e • a• ~ ~ +~• ~, __ . Grimes commented that there would be a sound wall along the east side of Hwy. 100 abutting residential properties. He questioned whether the church would want a sound wall in front of it. He also commented that KQRS, on the west side, would probably want to have a sound wall, but other businesses on that side of Hwy. 100 may not. Pentel asked what ...Schaper property project. Page 10, paragraph 5: Pentel said she was concerned . with the property owners dedicating the supposedly trail, which may not go in, to the City which takes the responsibility for landscaping this area out of their hands. She said that most of the landscaping on the north side is deciduous and very small. She is concerned if the City acquires this land the applicant is only responsible for 10 feet, and there is something to be said about having dense screening along the north property line. She said she was ... used for landscaping. MOVED by Prazak, seconded by Johnson and motion carried to approve the minutes of February 23 and March 9, 1998 minutes as submitted with the corrections noted above. II. Elections of Officers The Commission agreed to hold over the election of officers (April meeting) until the new commissioner, Robert Shaffer, was present. III. Reports on Meetings of the Housing and Redevelopment Authority City Council and Board of Zoning Appeals Commissioner Johnson gave a report on a City Council meeting she attended. IV. Other Business A. Land Use Plan -Presentation by the Subcommittee The commission discussed the Land Use Plan. Pentel suggested that the "Land Use Goals and Objectives" be moved closer to the front of the report. Staff and the commission reviewed the subcommittee items as follows: ~_ r Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission March 23, 1998 Page 5 Page 2: The subcommittee believes there should be an orientation map attached showing the city. Page. 2: The subcommittee questioned whether figures on household size should be added in. City Planner Knoblauch noted that this information can be found in the background material. Both Grimes and Knoblauch commented that the population of Golden Valley has not change significantly in the past few years. Page 9: The subcommittee believes that there should be some reorganization of the "Land Use Objectives/Directives" and requested that this be done according to how the subcommittee numbered the various Objectives/Directives. In reviewing the Objectives/ Directives the following was discussed: Page 9, Objective 12 (as renumbered): "Reexamine the existing HRA "Redevelopment Philosophy", to address questions raised in the Technical Background for the Land Use Plan. The subcommittee believes a list of questions should be included. Grimes commented that the inclusion of a list of questions may make this section longer and staff has the Technical Background material to refer to. Groger asked if there was one principal issue in this section. Grimes said that he would review this. Page 10, Objective 1(as renumbered): Establish a process for citizen involvement in planning for change at the neighborhood level. The subcommittee questioned whether the next statement, regarding research techniques, should be combined with Objective 1 or eliminated. McAleese said that he would be in favor of combining these two objectives. He said he did not want it to look as though the City was using mediation to reduce or eliminate public discussion or debate on issues. Johnson said that she would like to see the statement on research techniques eliminated. After some discussion the commission agreed to have this section eliminated from the Objectives/Directives section. Page 12, Plan Map. McAleese noted that the exhibit numbers would need to be changed if an orientation map is included. Pentel commented on the Land Use Map being different from the zoning map. Grimes suggested staff and the commission take a field trip through the city to investigate if any portions of the Plan Map needs to be revised. Page 14, Definitions. Staff and the commission discussed at some length the need for the inclusion of a definition for PUD. Pentel asked if a PUD was found on the Land Use Map; Knoblauch said no. Knoblauch said that the list of definitions are actually categories (districts) and that a PUD in itself is not a category. Martens questioned whether Right-of-Way was a category; Knoblauch said it was. Staff and the commission discussed PUD's having an underlying zoning which would be the category for that property. Groger said that that a better job could be done with explaining what particular words mean, such as PUD, setback. etc. Martins questioned what was distinctive about the PUD. Grimes commented that maybe the last paragraph could address the PUD implication in the plan. Prazak suggested there could be wording rationalizing why a PUD exists. -~ ~ .:. ~~ ` p Minutes of the Golden Valley Planning Commission March 23, 1998 Page 6 Page 17, Continuous Planning Program (New Section). Groger asked Pentel what this section was about. Pentel explained that this update is being done per instructions by the Metropolitan Council but the commission may want something in place that assures an ongoing process to keep the plan up-to-date. McAleese commented that the commission, in some respect, does this through its annual city tours. Pentel commented about getting people involved in this process, that the remediation phase was too late, and that maybe neighborhood meetings would be effective. Grimes commented that the City Council, at its last visioning meeting, discussed neighborhood meetings, but could not remember the Council outcome of this discussion. Knoblauch said she remembers that there was a small turn out at this visioning meeting, and concerns raised at the meeting tended to be localized issues. Martens next addressed the subcommittees suggestions for future studies, including citizen input. He first talked about the I-394 corridor and whether I-394 is a sub-issue or visioning topic to address. Pentel commented that if the meetings become too nebulous,. the public will not come. She said the more general the issues are, the less likely the public will attend, therefore, the topics should be more specific. Pentel said it should first be documented in the Comp Plan to have a more public process. Grimes said that this may cause the public to look specifically at one issue and ignore the rest. Martens asked if there should be goals and recommendations established to add to the Comp Plan. Grimes said that could be a priority of the commission. He said there could be some kind of continuous visioning and the commission could define what this is. Grimes suggested that maybe the commission and City Council hold a joint meeting to discuss this issue. McAleese suggested the commission come up with a time table for necessary actions. Knoblauch asked if this meant to create certain objectives. McAleese said that setting up the time table does not belong in the Plan. Staff and the commission discussed the possibility of having a student drive through the city documenting certain areas to look at. Grimes said that aerials could be used. He suggested that if anyone had anything else to add to let staff know. V. Adjournment The Chair adjourned the meeting at 10pm 1