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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/14/2003AGENDA MAPLEWOOD COMMUNITY DESIGN REVIEW BOARD January 14, 2003 6:00 P.M. I~laplewood City Hall Council Chambers t 830 County Road B East 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 10. Call to Order Roll Call Approval of Agenda Approval of the December 10, 2002 Minutes Unfinished Business: None Scheduled Design Review: a. Markham Pond Medical Office Building (1570 Beam Avenue) - Robert Tillges' Request for a Sign Setback Vadance Visitor Presentations Board Presentations Staff Presentations a. Community Design Review Board Annual Report. b. Representation at the January 28, 2003 City Council Meeting. c. Community Design Review Board Cablecast. Adjourn I1. III. IV. VI. MINUTES OF THE MAPLEWOOD COMMUNITY DESIGN REVIEW BOARD 1830 COUNTY ROAD B EAST, MAPLEWOOD, MINNESOTA TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2003 CALL TO ORDER Chairperson Ledvina called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. ROLL CALL Matt Ledvina Craig Jorgenson Diana Longrie-Kline Linda Olson Ananth Shankar Staff Present: Present Present Present Present Present Shann Finwall, Associate Planner Lisa Kroll, Recording Secretary APPROVAL OF AGENDA Board member Olson moved to approve the agenda. Board member Longrie-Kline seconded. The motion passed. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Approval of the CDRB minutes for December 10, 2002. Board member Longrie-Kline moved to approve the minutes for December 10, 2002. Ayes - Jorgenson, Ledvina, Longrie-Kline, Olson, Shankar Ayes---Jorgenson, Ledvina, Longrie-Kline, Shankar Board member Shankar seconded. The motion passed. UNFINISHED BUSINESS None. DESIGN REVIEW a. Abstention - Olson Markham Pond Medical Office Building (1570 Beam Avenue) - Robert Tillges' Request for a Sign Setback Variance. Ms. Finwall said Robert Tillges is developing a 23,094-square-foot office building called Markham Pond Medical Office Building at 1570 Beam Avenue. Community Design Review Board Minutes 01-14-2003 Ms. Finwall said the office building would house Mr. Tillges' existing prosthetics and orthotics practice (currently located at 1983 Sloan Place, Maplewood) as well as other medical-type tenants. Two freestanding signs are proposed for the office building, one along Hazelwood Street and the other along Beam Avenue. Both signs are proposed at 14-feet, 8-inches wide by 20-feet, 2-inches tall. The Hazelwood Street sign will maintain a setback of 10 feet to the right-of-way line and the Beam Avenue sign will be constructed right up to the right-of-way, with no setback. Ms. Finwall said during the subdivision of Mr. Tillges' property from the Maplewood Cancer Center's property in 1997, the city required a 15-foot-wide by 15-foot-deep sign easement along Beam Avenue on the Maplewood Cancer Center's property. This easement was required in order to allow Mr. Tillges' property to have a freestanding sign on Beam Avenue. The sign easement was created prior to the city's requirement that freestanding signs maintain a 10-foot setback from the right-of-way. Mr. Tillges is requesting a 10-foot sign setback variance in order to construct the Beam Avenue sign right up to the right-of-way, with no setback. Ms. Finwall said staff would be supportive of Mr. Tillges' sign setback variance if a smaller sign were proposed. As it stands, however, a large sign constructed in this location will block traffic visibility and will not be compatible with the surrounding existing office signs. Board member Shankar asked if the main access would be gained on Beam Avenue or on Hazelwood Street? Ms. Finwall said there are two accesses to the property, one on Beam Avenue and one on Hazelwood Street. Phase I of Mr. Tillges' development would probably mainly gain access on Beam Avenue and the Phase II would probably mainly gain access on Hazelwood Street. Board member Olson asked if the size of the sign is still 20 feet in height? Ms. Finwall said Mr. Tillges did reduce the width of the sign from 17 feet to 14 feet but the height still remains 20-feet tall. Chairperson Ledvina clarified the height of the sign was not up for discussion because it had already been approved by the city council, is that correct? Ms. Finwall said the height of the sign was approved by the city council in the comprehensive sign plan, with the condition that a 10-foot sign setback from the r-o-w is obtained. Since Mr. Tillges is requesting a variance to that setback, the height of the sign can be addressed. The applicant, Mr. Robert Tillges at 1200 Junction Avenue, addressed the board. Mr. Tillges is the applicant for the Markham Pond Medical Office Building at 1570 Beam Avenue. Mr. Tillges said his medical office building has the potential of eight to ten tenants. He has just learned from staff this evening that he has a 5 ft. by 5 ft. potential for a sign easement. There is space for a 15-foot-wide by 15-foot-deep sign, however, there are setbacks required. Mr. Tillges said he literally has 5 ft. by 5 ft. for a sign for a 23,000 square-foot professional building and he thinks that is enough justification for a sign variance. He said the signs would be the same size for both entrances at Beam Avenue and Hazelwood Street. He does not feel his sign will cause any visibility problems. Community Design Review Board Minutes 01-14-2003 3 Mr. Tillges brought a photo of the area for board members to show where his sign would be located on Beam Avenue. He feels there is clear visibility down to the street side. He thinks it would be a detriment to set back the sign from Beam Avenue when drivers are going 45 mph and a person suddenly sees the medical office building and quickly tries to stop causing an accident. The majority of his customers are senior citizens and could have a hard time finding his complex if the sign is set back. He said he tried to work with the Maplewood Cancer Center but was unsuccessful in getting a revised sign easement to accommodate them. This is the reason he is applying for the variance. He said his building has a Beam Avenue address, the building faces Beam Avenue and that was his main intent of purchasing this property. Beam Avenue is a well-known street in this area to people inside and outside the city. Board member Olson asked if the sign on Hazelwood Street would be identical to the sign on Beam Avenue? Mr. Tillges said it is an identical sign structure that they had approval for from the city council. In the process of building this medical office building it was easier setting a jig for the metal structures for the signs to be built only one time. He said this is the reason the metal structures are pre-manufactured and stored on the property already. He had hoped to have the signs in place already. Board member Olson asked how the Maplewood Cancer Center building compared in size to his proposed medical office building? Mr. Tillges said he has no idea what the building size comparison was. However, his building will have multiple-tenants and the Maplewood Cancer Center has only one tenant. Mr. Tillges said his building sits back on Beam Avenue quite a distance and without the visibility of the building the sign becomes a marker for people to find his building. Board member Shankar said even though a setback is being requested you should still have no problem seeing the Markham Pond Medical Office Building sign if the sign were made smaller to fit in with the scale of the Maplewood Cancer Center sign. Mr. Tillges said if you set the sign back a person could be driving down Beam Avenue and almost drive past the sign before they actually realize that's where they needed to go. Mr. Tillges said he had another letter of support from St. John's Hospital to share with the board. Chairperson Ledvina asked him to give the letter to staff. Board member Longrie-Kline asked Mr. Tillges what response was given when he tried to get a different sign easement? Mr. Tillges said a corporation in Texas owns the Maplewood Cancer Center. He said he has been communicating with Mr. Al Hirschler from US Oncology via telephone, Basically Mr. Hirschler said at this time the Maplewood Cancer Center will not pursue any allowance for a sign easement and for this reason Mr. Tillges is requesting a sign setback variance. Community Design Review Board 4 Minutes 01-14-2003 Chairperson Ledvina asked Mr. Tillges if he could get the changes to the sign easement would he go ahead with the signs? Mr. Tillges said he has a lot of time and money invested in this development and he needs to get a sign in place. Anything he can do to expedite this he said he would do. He wants to be a good neighbor in the neighborhood, he has a lot of physician and medical community support and he wants to move forward in a positive way. He feels with this sign variance he should be able to move forward quickly. Mr. Tillges said he wants to get his building up and running. Chairperson Ledvina asked Mr. Tillges if his first approach would be to increase the size of the sign easement? Mr. Tillges said he started this project back in July and every step of the way there have been setbacks and struggles. He said he just wants to be given some consideration in this development. Board member Olson said in the staff report there is a copy of an e-mail from Al Hirschler at US Oncology and in her opinion his words are stronger than "they will not pursue an allowance for a sign easement". Mr. Tillges said there is nothing he can do about that. He said it has not been a very positive experience working with the Maplewood Cancer Center representatives and there are a lot of other issues with the planning and development of this project. He said he would like to move forward in a positive way in the city granting him a sign setback variance for this project. Mr. Tillges said the city had an opportunity to make this right and could have had the planning department help him out, but they didn't. He understands the city is unable to do that, but working with Mr. Hirschler via the telephone does not make it easy when we are trying to help him visually understand this situation. Board member Olson said she does not mean to challenge Mr. Tillges but it seems that he has had a lot of help from the city. She asked him if he knew how many other variances he had received? Mr. Tillges said he is only talking about the issues regarding this sign setback variance. He was hoping he would be able to expedite this situation through the city and he was told it would not be a problem. When he communicated with the city he discovered it was a problem. He said it was not the city's fault only poor judgment on his part with whom he had hired. Mr. Jerry Anderson of LAMB Architects addressed the board. He said one of the items he would like to point out is the property subdivision and the permanent access that was used during the division of this property that was done in October 1997. He said subsequent to that the city's sign ordinance setbacks were changed. Mr. Anderson said one of the things that happened when this property was subdivided was the access to a piece of property that other wise may not have had access if it were again subdivided. A portion of that property was accessible from Hazelwood Street and the remainder of the property would no longer be accessible. He said there was a permanent easement created across the property that was 30 feet wide for an access onto Beam Avenue. He said an area 15-feet-wide by 15-feet-deep was established as a sign easement. Community Design Review Board Minutes 01-14-2003 5 Mr. Anderson said unfortunately, the fact that the city's sign ordinance was about to be changed was never taken into consideration with regards to the 15 ft. by 15 ft. area set aside for the sign easement. He said if you look at the attachments and photos of signs provided by staff there are only two signs that would fit the 5 ft. by 5 ft. area to build a sign. Mr. Anderson said that tells him there is something substandard about this particular piece of property. They applied for the signage plan at the time the building plan was submitted for review and approved. They have since redesigned the signs twice. They do meet the request of the CDRB, the planning commission and the city council relating to the size of the sign. Mr. Anderson said they have worked with Mr. Hirschler for four months to try and attempt to obtain additional footage or to have the sign easement revisited which would allow them to meet the 10-foot setback requirement but were unable to do that. They are down to an area 5 ft. by 5 ft. and are back to the CDRB for a variance to utilize the signs. The signage was already approved and nothing was stated to them at that time regarding the setback. It was not until they came in for a sign permit that they realized that there was a problem. The problem was associated with both the size of the easement and when it was established. The subsequent change of the signage ordinance required that setback. They feel there is a hardship that exists with the ability to only use the 5 ft. by 5 ft. area in which to place their signs. Mr. Anderson said the signage in the staff report is proof of hardship because there are only two signs in the area that fit in the 5 ft. by 5 ft. area. Board member Longrie-Kline said she read Mr. Hirschler's letter and the main reason the Maplewood Cancer Center was not going to grant the sign easement was because the sign was going to be too large. She asked if anyone asked Mr. Hirschler if the sign were made smaller would they change the sign easement? Mr. Anderson said that was not stated to them. He said they were just refused an extension of the easement. Relative to the size of the sign it meets the sign ordinance. In his opinion it is uncommon for a city to say this sign meets the requirements of the sign ordinance but then they listen to a property owner that says the medical office building sign is too big. That does not make sense to him. He feels this property owner is trying to force them into a situation that is already acceptable to the city with the exception of the sign setback. It is in Mr. Hirschler's benefit to give Mr. Tillges the setback and that was explained to him. He said the farther the sign is setback the less obstruction there is to the Maplewood Cancer Center building. He said by not giving Mr. Tillges the setback and requiring him to come in and apply for a setback, he is creating the same problem that he is arguing about. Chairperson Ledvina said the sign is sitting on the Maplewood Cancer Center's property and Mr. Hirschler has a right to comment and object. Mr. Anderson said Mr. Hirschler said he did set aside an area for a sign set back in 1997. Chairperson Ledvina said back in 1997 a 15-foot-wide by 15-foot-deep sign easement may have occurred but that was before the modification of the sign ordinance. Mr. Anderson said that was his understanding. Chairperson Ledvina asked if there was proof of documentation of that? Community Design Review Board Minutes 01-14-2003 Mr. Tillges said when he purchased the property back in 2001 there was an Estopple Agreement signed by the Maplewood Cancer Center that an easement was in place and was part of the transaction. Board member Longrie-Kline said the Estopple Agreement was a notice that gave you information that the easement existed so you would know where it existed at the time you purchased the property. She said Mr. Tillges bought the property knowing what the sign ordinances were at that time in 2001. Mr. Tillges said he did not know the sign ordinance had changed when he bought the property. He was under the assumption that the sign ordinance still existed as it did in 1997. Board member Longrie-Kline said unfortunately that is part of the due diligence of buying property. Dr. Roger Johnson a medical oncologist at the Maplewood Cancer Center addressed the board. He thinks there are two concerns. One is the safety to exit onto Beam Avenue. Visibility is not a factor with the other signs in the area because they are not in the sight line of trying to exit onto Beam Avenue. The second concern is the size of the sign. Dr. Johnson said it does not fit in with the other signs in the area. The Maplewood Cancer Center doesn't understand why the sign needs to list all of the tenants. It could just state the name of the medical office building. He said to move the sign right up to the sidewalk is a danger to the people on the sidewalk as you would not be able to see them at all then. Dr. Johnson asked staff if the problem was that there was only 5 ft. by 5 ft. for Mr. Tillges to put a sign up unless the Maplewood Cancer Center gives him a sign easement to put a sign onto the cancer center's property? Ms. Finwall said correct. Dr. Johnson said if the sign would be reasonably sized like the others in the area he does not think that there would be any problem for the Maplewood Cancer Center to allow the Markham Pond sign to be put on the property. Board member Shankar said he knows the size of the sign was already approved but he feels it is the responsibility of the board to pay due diligence to the size of the existing signs in the area. Board member Longrie-Kline asked staff if there was a sign distinction within the sign ordinance for an office building sign verses a retail sign? Ms. Finwall said no. Chairperson Ledvina said the applicant brought up the issue of visibility with signs. Back in 1997 when the city was considering the setback requirement the board was concerned about this exact problem of signs causing visibility problems. He thinks that was the thrust of the sign ordinance revision and even though the old signs can't be removed or made smaller, the board can prevent future problems from occurring. He pointed out the concerns expressed by Lieutenant Rabbett regarding the traffic visibility and public safety issues. Community Design Review Board Minutes 01-14-2003 7 Chairperson Ledvina said in his opinion, it is a negotiation between a property owner and an individual who wishes to have an easement on that property. He said he supports the staff's recommendation. Unfortunately for the applicant, it does not appear that the conditions for hardship would exist in this situation. Board member Olson said in her opinion both the engineers and the architects should have picked up on the sign setback requirement during the initial phases of planning. They should have done the research and these things should have come up as the design was being done. In the due diligence process of the transfer the sign setback should have been noted as well. She also remembers the discussion was regarding the height of the sign in the previous CDRB meeting with Mr. Tillges. She said the only reason the height of the sign was approved was because the board had no reason to disapprove it. She remembered the CDRB told Mr. Tillges the city was looking at revising the sign ordinance again and the city probably would never grant approval of a 20-foot tall sign again. She thinks there needs to be a compromise here and the sign could be made smaller and pushed closer to the sidewalk. If the sign needs to remain the same height then it would need to be setback. Board member Longrie-Kline said we are talking about a variance for putting up a sign that meets the signage requirements on your "own" property verses granting a variance for a sign that meets the requirements but the land is "somebody else's" land. Ms. Longrie-Kline said it is between two property owners. It sounds like the Maplewood Cancer Center is willing to work with Mr. Tillges and the easement. Ms. Longrie-Kline said perhaps modifying the sign so the metal caps can still be used but decrease the height. She said the philosophy of giving each tenant their own name on the sign could be changed. In her opinion it looks more like a retail sign rather than an office sign. She said once a person has found the location for their appointment they will know where they are going next time. Board member Shankar moved to deny Robert Tillges' request for a 10-foot sign setback variance in order to construct a 14-foot, 8-inch-wide by 20-foot, 2-inch-tall freestanding sign up to the Beam Avenue right-of-way for his development at 1570 Beam Avenue. The city is denying this request because: The construction of such a large sign will block traffic visibility for drivers turning out of the driveway onto Beam Avenue. A large office sign constructed in this location will not be compatible with the surrounding office signs. There are no unique hardships or circumstances that warrant approving the proposed 10-foot sign setback variance. Board member Olson seconded. The motion carried. Ayes - Jorgenson, Ledvina, Longrie-Kline, Olson, Shankar This item goes to the city council Monday, January 27, 2003. Community Design Review Board Minutes 01-14-2003 VII. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS No visitors present. VIII. BOARD PRESENTATIONS Chairperson Ledvina said he has been in contact with a person at the Center for Sustainable Building Design and Research through the University of Minnesota School of Architecture in regards to giving a presentation to the CDRB. A date will be set for a presentation in February or March. Board member Shankar said the recent issue of the Architecture Minnesota magazine has examples of sustainable architecture that he will bring to the next meeting. Board member Olson asked staff how the sign ordinance was coming along? Ms. Finwall said it was her intention to work with the Environmental Officer, DuWayne Konewko on the sign ordinance, however, due to the workload that has been difficult. Ms. Finwall and Mr. Konewko have been working on doing a comparison of six other cities' sign ordinances to the City of Maplewood's sign ordinance. With this information a table of all sign ordinances will be compiled for the board, at which time it will show how lenient the City of Maplewood's sign ordinance is. Ms. Finwall said she would like to hire an intern from the University of Minnesota over the summer to help with the sign ordinance revisions. IX. STAFF PRESENTATIONS a. Community Design Review Board Annual Report Ms. Finwall asked board members to review the 2002 CDRB Annual Report and bring any changes to the next CDRB meeting on January 28, 2003. Ms. Finwall said Mr. Ledvina, Ms. Longrie-Kline and Ms. Olson's CDRB terms have expired and they should let her know if they are interested in having the city council reappoint them for another two-year term. Mr. Ledvina, Ms. Longrie-Kline and Ms. Olson said they would like to remain on the board for another two-year term. Board member Longrie-Kline will represent the community design review board at the January 27, 2003, city council meeting. The Markham Pond Medical Office Building sign setback variance will be the CDRB item .to discuss. Community Design Review Board Minutes 01-14-2003 C= Community Design Review Board Cablecast. Ms. Finwall said she would be interviewing two candidates for the video technician position to cablecast the CDRB meetings. The meetings should begin to be cablecast in March of 2003. X. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:55 p.m.