07-10-2017 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

• For seven months of the year, the trees are bare, providing no screening. 17 The residents will have their westward views con- sumed by the building, and will have dozens of balconies and windows peering down on their properties and into their homes. • During the five months with leaves, significant portions of the building will still be visible given the building's height and breadth. • Many of the existing tall trees would have to be removed to make way for the building. • Trees that remain show signs of age and ill -health and would likely not survive long enough for new tall trees to take their place. Some of these are ash that are expected soon to be taken out by emerald ash borers. Therefore, tree screening is not a realistic or reliable response to the Old Beach Road residents' objections to the building's extraordinary size. To the north of the proposed building is a magnificent wetland, then County Road 15, and then the homes of the "Ridge" in Minnetonka Beach. The five -story view of the proposed building will have even less tree screening, if any, when viewed from the North given the building's proposed location so close to the wetland. It would impose on all passers- by and Ridge residents a stark and unpleasant contrast to the green vege- tation and blue water that otherwise grace the area. Impact on Wetland and Lake Minnetonka — The proposed site is part of a land parcel IDS donated to the Freshwater Biological Research Founda- tion in the early 1970's. After a series of five tornados wreaked havoc with Lake Minnetonka in 1965, Dick Gray began researching and recording the health of Lake Minnetonka. In February 1968, drilling through 20 inches of ice to take his weekly water samples, he was shocked to see red water pouring out of the hole, "a sure sign of bad pollution." A few months later Gray teamed with the University of Minnesota to es- tablish the Foundation, and in 1974 they moved into the new Freshwater 17 Nearly all evergreen trees illustrated in the developer's material are not actu- ally in the sight lines between the proposed building and the homes.