Loading...
01-08-01 CC + PC MinutesJoint Meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission January 8, 2001 A joint meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission was held at the Golden Valley City Hall, Council Conference Room, 7800 Golden Valley Road, Golden Valley, Minnesota, on Monday, January 8, 2001. The meeting was called to order by Mayor Mary Anderson at 5:40 PM. Those present were Mayor Anderson, Council Members LeSuer, Micks, Bakken, Johnson and Commissioners Eck, Pentel, McAleese, Groger, Rasmussen, Hoffman and Shaffer. Also present were Mark Grimes, Director of Planning and Development, Dan Olson, City Planner and Lisa Wittman, Recording Secretary. Review of Last Meeting Mayor Anderson reviewed the memo from Mark Grimes dated December 29, 2000, regarding issues related to in fill housing developments and the housing plan. General Comments Mayor Anderson stated she wants to develop some guidelines to help staff as they respond to developers. She sees the way general policies are being interpreted as potentially becoming a difficult situation. Mayor Anderson added that as she reviewed the "brainstorming" notes from the last joint session, she sees two themes coming though: change and impact on neighborhood. Mayor Anderson continued by stating change is inevitable and that times change and housing demands change and that it is the responsibility of the City Council and the Planning Commission to try to recognize what the forces of change are, and with that in mind, try to establish some goals that would help guide the change in a way that would have a positive impact on the total community. She stated she thinks we need to listen carefully to what the citizens are saying, and to understand what their perspective is, and what their source of information is. It doesn't mean that any input from citizens is not valid, but as leaders of the community, we have to be aware of this perspective and take it into account and be sure to look at the broader picture. She continued by stating she thinks we all recognize that each of us are going to have different conclusions as we listen and read the materials and as we think about what we think is best for the community, so the real challenge facing us is to have an open, candid discussion and come to some consensus as to giving staff direction on some of these criteria. She then stated she thinks the specific issues regarding the impact on the neighborhood were traffic, property values, density increases and noise. The Mayor talked about several neighborhoods in the City where there is higher density housing near single family homes. She mentioned she looked specifically at the Circle Down Mayfair Manor where there are 24 units that are established and the access is on a single-family residential street. She also mentioned Yosemite Circle where there are 79 units that have access through a single-family neighborhood to a collector street. Mayor Anderson stated she used these examples to illustrate that in our community there is dense development fairly close to single family development. Joint Meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission January 8, 2001 Page 2 Mayor Anderson mentioned another concern was the impact on property value. She feels that this is something we should be able to get documentation on from the Assessor roles. She went on to state her main thought at tonight's meeting is to develop some kind of criteria on where infill development would be acceptable. LeSuer stated he would like to hear staff talk about what criteria they use now to either accept or reject proposals when they are approached by developers. Grimes stated when someone makes an application for a Planned Unit Development they first meet with someone from the Planning, Engineering and Inspection departments. Staff then has 10 days to review the application for completeness. If there are problems, Staff meets with developers and asks them to withdraw the application and make changes or provide additional information. But if the application meets the ordinance regulations Staff can't reject it. Then the application is sent to the Planning Commission. Grimes stated that the problem in working with P.U.D.'s is the flexibility, but the zoning district regulations are the basis for each P.U.D. Mayor Anderson stated she just wants to come to a consensus on some general criteria that would be helpful to Staff. Eck stated that many of these proposals are subjective and the Planning Commission is not opposed to infill development in general, and are not going to reject outright any kind of density in an area where there are single family homes. There are usually other issues present. Mayor Anderson agreed creating these criteria is not a crisis, but thought it was a good opportunity to get together and talk about these issues. Shaffer stated that a list of criteria is already being done in regards to the Pentel suggested a point or graph system when reviewing applications for P.U.D.'s and stated the following criteria could be on this list: Front setbacks, side setbacks, rear setbacks, lot sizes, street width, ponding, buffering, pedestrian access, public space, passive recreation space, life- cycle housing, affordability, parking requirements. Pentel also mentioned that developers need to be clear about what greater good is being met, when variances are given from the zoning district criteria. Rasmussen stated she was unclear on how to do things differently and be flexible, but not to set a precedent by doing so. The Planning Commission sees proposals in the raw state and doesn't get to see any pictures of what the building will look like. Rasmussen added it would be helpful to see an overview of the general area and how the new development would look. Joint Meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission January 8, 2001 Page 3 Bakken stated that he liked the idea of a list of criteria for P.U.D. applications, but doesn't agree with the point system because then developers might feel if they reach a certain number of points that they would be entitled to the P.U.D. Micks stated she doesn't see that creating this list of criteria is a crisis. The Planning Commission has been careful about looking at things but we need to get the neighborhoods involved and do some visioning. technical aspects for a P.U.D. and it would be good to force a developer to address the issues that Pentel suggested earlier. Shaffer added he thought a mixture is good and every house shouldn't look the same but it should work within the community and if it doesn't the developer should be able to say why it doesn't. Mayor Anderson asked if Staff could react to the list of criteria and if Staff has criteria to suggest. Groger stated each P.U.D.'s equity/fairness issue has to be weighed equally. Pentel stated that what's currently considered to be the style of housing is very different than what we have as the majority of the housing stock now. Bakken asked how the City is going to transition from the styles from the 1950's and 60's to the future and get it to fit right. He also stated that part of the change is going to be how to sell and market these smaller houses. Olson stated it's not necessarily a bad thing for Staff and the Planning Commission to disagree. When Staff gets an application they have to look at whether it meets the bare minimum standards of the P.U.D. ordinance and Staff is limited as to what they can say. Olson also suggested the following list of subjective things that the Planning Commission can base their judgement on: Does it fit in with the neighborhood architecturally, what is the City gaining in return, buffering needed, density, traffic, ponding and draining, pedestrian connections, open space. Grimes stated a lot of developments, such as Vallee D'or and South Wirth, started off as very controversial and now they are accepted as a development and most of the change has been good. Grimes suggested requiring developers to have neighborhood meetings and computer-generated pictures. He also suggested looking at lot coverage percentage. Right now the City does not have any ordinances covering lot coverage. Also, accessory apartments are something that needs to be looked at as far as in -fill development and life- cycle housing. Joint Meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission January 8, 2001 Page 4 Bakken stated he liked the idea of having a list and having the developer think it through and to know they are going to have to answer questions at citizen meetings so they can explain what they are thinking, then the Planning Commission can listen to that and see how the citizens are reacting. Johnson stated examples of some houses she didn't think would fit in originally, now fit in and thinks the Planning Commission will soon see people wanting to split large lots. Develop Policies/Guidelines to Help Staff as they Meet with Developer Mayor Anderson asked if it would be agreeable to use Pentel's list stated previously as a starting point and to have her go through the issues she thought should be raised to developer's. Pentel listed the following issues that the developers would need to specifically state this is what they're asking for and why: front setback, side setback, rear setback, lot size, street width, parking, ponding, buffering, pedestrian access, public space, traffic access, meeting life cycle and affordable housing, snow storage, garbage and yard care. Grimes stated there is also a need to address the issue of buffering around ponding and lot coverage. Eck stated part of the problem in reviewing infill developments is dealing with an educational process on the part of our citizens and this is something the City can do something about. The majority of citizens automatically have a built in bias against any kind of higher density housing, so when there is interest in bringing in some type of in -fill housing, automatically the neighborhood is going to be against it. Eck also stated the City needs to educate citizens with newsletters, mailings or publications explaining to the citizens that some higher density housing needs to be part of our city if we are going to meet our goals and provide housing for everyone and some of it is going to be in or near single family neighborhoods. Pentel stated education is a good idea and we need to assure the public that we are going to review the criteria so the citizens would know what the City is going to be taking into consideration when they look at these redevelopment projects. Micks stated not all change is good and the City has to work around that. Micks add that traffic is a big issue all around the country and the City needs to realize it's a valid concern and figure out ways around it. Joint Meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission January 8, 2001 Page 5 Grimes mentioned one thing he would find educational would be to see how the economics of housing has changed over the last 10-15 years. Grimes mentioned talking to town home developers in the past about how they could never pay more than $5,000/unit for land costs. Now they are paying $70,000 to $100,000 for land costs. Johnson asked if on this list of criteria the City should ask the developer what's the trade- off, what does the city get. Micks stated it would help to have a sense of the benchmark when looking at the housing goals and that every in -fill project doesn't necessarily have to be high density. Mayor Anderson stated we need a clearer understanding of what we have now as far as density and where are we as far as benchmarking. Shaffer stated developers should approach the City and state why they want what they are asking for, that it's the developer's responsibility to tell us what the advantage is to the City. Grimes mentioned he liked the idea of putting the ownership back on the developer and they should be able to tell us why they want what they are asking for. Grimes added he liked the idea of neighborhood meetings and computer generated pictures and this list of criteria could be used as a handout or a policy. Micks asked for an updated housing policy. Grimes stated the housing policy comes from the Metropolitan Council. Olson questioned if this list should be in the P.U.D Ordinance or if it's something more informal just to be used as a checklist for Staff use. Mayor Anderson answered saying she'd reserve that judgement until they have a meeting with the Planning Commission, City Attorney and Council on the P.U.D Ordinance so we'll know better what it's purpose will be. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 7:10 PM.