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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07/20/19981. Call to Order 2. Roll Call 3. Approval of Minutes June 15, 1998 4. Approval of Agenda MAPLEWOOD PLANNING COMMISSION Monday, July 20, 1998 7:00 PM City Hall Council Chambers 1830 County Road B East New Business A. Easement Vacation - Birch Run Station (Joe's Crab Shack - Beam Avenue) B. Street right-of-way Vacations- 11th Avenue, German Street and Demont Avenue C. Residential Building Height Code Amendment Visitor Presentations Commission Presentations ^. June 22 Council Meeting: Ms. Fischer B. July 13 Council Meeting: Ms. Coleman C. July 27 Council Meeting: (No representative needed - was to be Mr. Ledvina) D. August 10 Council Meeting: Mr. Thompson Staff Presentations Adjournment MINUTES OF THE MAPLEWOOD PLANNING COMMISSION 1830 COUNTY ROAD B EAST, MAPLEWOOD, MINNESOTA JULY 20, '1998 I. CALLTO ORDER Chairperson Fischer called the meeting to order at 7 p.m. I1. ROLL CALL Commissioner Lorraine Fischer Commissioner Jack Frost Commissioner Matt Ledvina Commissioner Gary Pearson Commissioner William Rossbach Commissioner Michael Seeber Commissioner Milo Thompson Commissioner Dale Trippler Present Present Present Absent Present Present Present Present III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES June 15,1998 Commissioner Frost moved approval of the minutes of June 15, 1998, amended to add the following sentence at the end of Item A. 3. as follows: It was felt that there was a need for another collector street to replace the one that will not be built. Commissioner Rossbach seconded. Ayes--Fischer, Frost, Rossbach, Seeber, Thompson, Trippler Abstain--Ledvina The motion passed. IV. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Commissioner Frost moved approval of the agenda as submitted. Commissioner Thompson seconded. Ayes--all The motion passed. V. NEW BUSINESS A. Easement Vacation - Birch Run Station (Joe's Crab Shack - Beam Avenue) Ken Roberts, associate planner, presented the staff report. Commissioner Fischer asked why they were not acting upon the approval of a parking space reduction. Staff said that the planning commission may make a recommendation on this even though the community design review board already has. Staff said there was no set policy. Planning Commission Minutes of 07-20-98 -2- Mr. John Weiers, property manager of the Birch Run Station owned by the Welsh Companies, was present for Mr. Gerry Mullins of Landry's Seafood Restaurants, the applicant, who was unable to attend the meeting. Commissioner Rossbach asked how many empty tenant spaces there were in the main building of the Birch Run Station. Mr. Weiers said there were two empty tenant spaces. This means about 73% of square footage is occupied. Commissioner Thompson said that, in regard to cross easements in place for shared parking and driveway access, he was not impressed by the access to either parking lot at the southern end of the property. He said that if we were going to insist on it, then we should provide some form of conflict resolution as part of it. He felt that it would be too convenient for some of the customers to go over to the other guy's parking lot. Commissioner Rossbach said that the reason the cross easements were being set up was so customers could park in anybody's lot. Commissioner Thompson said he had a problem with the southern opening to Beam Avenue. He said he has seen cases where it has caused hardship for the less popular tenant, in that, his real parking area was encroached upon. Mr. Weiers said that on the lefthand side there was ample parking also in the main lot. Mr. Weiers said there was also another cross easement between Olive Garden and McDonald's and the southern end of the McDonald's lot is fairly big so there is ample parking there. Mr. Weiers felt there was ample parking around the two restaurants on a busy night to accommodate all parking. Commissioner Frost moved the planning commission recommend: Bo Adoption of the resolution vacating the five-foot-wide water utility easement running north/south on the east edge of the site north of Beam Avenue. The city council should vacate this easement because: 1. It is in the public interest. 2. The utility systems are already in place for this area and do not follow the alignment of this easement. C. Approval of a lot division to create the Joe's Crab Shack site, subject to the following conditions: 1. The property owner shall dedicate and record cross easements for access and parking between the Joe's Crab Shack site and the abutting properties. 2. This property owner shall provide the city with proof this easement agreement has been recorded before the city approves the deed for the lot split. 3. The new deed shall be recorded within one year. Commission Ledvina seconded. Ayes--all The motion passed. The commissioners had a discussion about the pros and cons of requiring a drive connection to the Olive Garden. Commissioner Rossbach moved the planning commission recommend approval of a parking space reduction to allow a total of 101 parking spaces instead of 104, because: Planning Commission Minutes of 07-20-98 -3- 1. Birch Run Station has a large number of unused parking spaces that the applicant could use as overflow parking. 2. Birch Run Station and the Olive Garden have cross easements in place allowing shared parking and driveway access. 3. Revise the site plan as shown on the map labeled Staff Proposal in the memorandum which shows: (a) A 24-foot-wide drive aisle adjacent to the Olive Garden's westerly north/south parking row. The applicant shall wrap the adjacent landscape island with curb and gutter. (b) The addition of six parking spaces across the southerly parking row. (c) The deletion of four parking spaces from the Joe's Crab Shack site to allow for unobstructed traffic flow between the Olive Garden and Joe's. This parking reduction is conditioned upon the applicant revising the site plan as staff shows in the memorandum for the Joe's Crab Shack review. Commissioner Frost seconded. Commissioner Thompson did not agree with the inclusion of Item 3 (c) showing the deletion of four parking spaces from the Joe's Crab Shack site to allow for unobstructed traffic flow between the Olive Garden and Joe's. Commissioner Ledvina said he would defer to the applicant in terms of their feeling regarding the traffic situation. Commissioner Fischer said that, with the cross flows, we already have an existing situation with what's coming across from the McDonald's area so what we may see is a transfer from some of the traffic coming through McDonald's coming this way. Commissioner Fischer said it sounds as though the Olive Garden has a very dedicated clientele which has not been put off by not the easiest paths to get there. Commissioner Fischer said it looks like we are not putting in a new cross through that isn't already there, it's just that we may be displacing part of it. Ayes--Fischer, Frost, Rossbach, Seeber Nays--Ledvina, Thompson, Trippler The motion passed. B. Street right-of-way Vacations - 11th Avenue, German Street and Demont Avenue Ken Roberts, associate planner, presented the staff report. Commissioner Frost asked if the Eleventh Avenue vacation lined up with the dental and town house development. Staff said it gets closer. Commissioner Frost asked if the property to the west has access to the 11th Avenue right- of-way. Staff said there maybe some right under where the building is located. Commissioner Frost asked if we wanted to vacate that at the same time. Staff said the difficulty with that was that we didn't have a good survey showing exactly where the edge of their parking lot was and how many feet we could and could not vacate. The applicant did provide all that information on this site. Hank Breems, of Mulcahy, Inc., was present. Mr. Breems said that he was in agreement with the staff report. Planning Commission Minutes of 07-20-98 -4- Commissioner Rossbach asked if the ponding area, where the water off the back of the parking lot was being dumped into, was a wetland or some kind of other small run-off ponding settlement area that these things are dumping into which would also include the dental lot. Ken Haider, director of public works, said that designed into the plan was a grass swale along the back of the lot where there is an overflow weir before it goes into the wetlands, so there is some storage for the direct run-off from the parking lot. It is then discharged very slowly across a long crested weir so there is a lot of contact with vegetation before discharging to the wetland. Commissioner Rossbach asked if it was draining across the back of the residential lot to get to the wetland. Staff said it would go across that property. Mr. Breems said that, where the dental office water is going across, there is a pipe. The applicant is proposing having a holding pond there with a restricted flow on it so there would be a weir and it would go into the current drainage and back into the wetlands. Commissioner Thompson said there was 9/10 of an acre of land to the north of the dental clinic that the water and pipe runs through. Commissioner Thompson said the owner of this property was less than complimentary about the caliber of workmanship that went into it. The owner does feel that Maplewood has not been too kind toward his piece of property. Commissioner Thompson questioned whether the rear portion would ever be buildable. Commissioner Thompson said that if we vacate German Street it would be virtually impossible to develop the back half of that 9/10 of an acre. Commissioner Frost moved the planning commission recommend approval of the resolution vacating the German Street, East Demont Avenue and portion of 11th Avenue rights-of-way. in the public interest to vacate these rights-of-way for the following reasons: It is 1. The city council previously approved the vacation of German Street and E. Demont Avenues. 2. These right-of-ways are not needed for the public purpose of street construction. 3. German Street is too narrow for street construction. 4. The 11th Avenue right-of-way is excessively wide. These vacations are conditioned upon the city retaining a utility easement for storm sewer over the German Street right-of-way. Commissioner Rossbach seconded. Commissioner Rossbach asked if German Street was the one that was only 30 feet wide. Staff answered yes. Commissioner Thompson asked if the owner of the property he had referred to earlier was contacted to attend this evening's meeting. Melinda Coleman, director of community development, said the public hearing on this item would happen at the council meeting and the owner would be advised of the council meeting. Ayes--all The motion passed. Planning Commission Minutes of 07-20-98 -5- C. Residential Building Height Code Amendment Ken Roberts, associate planner, presented the staff report. Commissioner Trippler asked why staff picked the average height of the highest gable of a pitch as opposed to the top of the building. Commissioner Rossbach it would be unfair if you were going to build a flat roof that you can be this tall but if you are going to put a pitched roof on your house, you are essentially penalizing those people and saying that the inner living space of their house has to be much shorter if they are going to put a pitched roof on their house. You would actually be encouraging people who wanted a bigger building to put flat roofs on their house which, of course, is not a good thing to do in Minnesota. Commissioner Trippler said the word "average" grade troubles him, in that, if you have somebody who is a statistician come in they may pick the mode which is not what you had in mind. You might want to use, instead of average, median or mean. Staff said that was fine and that it would be more technically correct. Commissioner Ledvina asked if a picture might be worthwhile with this ordinance which would tell how the height was measured. Staff said that there might be people this would help. Commissioner Ledvina asked if we were changing how we measure the height of accessory structures. Staff said that no this was not the intent. Commissioner Thompson said he thought this revision was the point that the applicant brought out about the rear of the house being the issue there and in other cases. We are still going to save the front of the house. Commissioner Thompson said that to him they had lost the whole thrust when they put the front of the house in there because the rear of the house was the issue in this home. Staff said the front was the issue because the front had three full stories. Staff said in most cases the rear is the walkout or the most exposed. Staff said they didn't think this code amendment would have helped the case that started the discussion. Commissioner Rossbach said that this height could have accommodated the house in question, too, even measured in the front. If you have three floors and even if you allowed nine feet of height and then your one foot above grade and your one foot for each of the floors in between, would only bring it up to 30 feet and this home did not have a real steep pitched roof. Commissioner Rossbach said that 35 feet was tall enough and that this house would have been accommodated. Commissioner Fischer asked staff if any of the communities they talked to have the equivalent of our estate size lots and did they make any differentiations in the allowable heights on those larger lots where the impact might not be as much on the neighbor as it would on a normal size lot. Staff said the only two cities that have larger lot zoning are VVoodbury and White Bear Township. Staff said when they were reviewing the VVoodbury code that it didn't differentiate height. Commissioner Rossbach asked if the code book can't have something that says residential structures in Maplewood will be this tall with the exception of the shore land district, instead of five or six different ones. Melinda Coleman, director of community development, said that at this point in time it was easier to do it this way but in the future staff will be redoing all of Section 36 and that would be a good time to do away with some of the overlapping. Commissioner Rossbach asked how come we regulate the height of residential structures and we don't regulate the height of commercial structures. Staff said there are some limitations on commercial structures in that they have to be set back farther from residential districts. Staff said that a couple of months ago the council had staff do a review to make sure that we didn't restrict commercial building heights. VI. Planning Commission -6- Minutes of 07-20-98 Commissioner Frost moved that the planning commission recommend the city council adopt the code amendments revising the residential building height requirements. Commissioner Rossbach seconded. Commissioner Trippler asked if a modification was going to be made to the word average, qualified as saying mean or median. Staff said they thought it should be median and had made a note of it. Ayes--all June 22 Council Meeting: Commissioner Fischer reported on this meeting. July 13 Council Meeting: Melinda Coleman reported on this meeting. Melinda Coleman informed the Commissioners that Commissioner Knoll has resigned from the planning commission because of personal issues that will not allow him to be a part of the commission. The city council, given the fact that we just recently had interviews and looked at candidates, agreed to appoint the third candidate, Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller will be with us the first meeting in September. Melinda Coleman asked that if anyone has not sent back their RSVP for the community development tour to let staff know tonight whether or not they would be coming. Commissioner Frost said he would be there. C. August 10 Council Meeting: Commissioner Thompson is scheduled to attend this meeting. VII. STAFF PRESENTATIONS There were no staff presentations. VIII, ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 8:23 p.m. The motion passed. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS There were no visitor presentations. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS A. B.