02-08-2021 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday,February 8,2021 6:03 p.m. 19. LA20-000048-TIMOTHY WHITTEN O/B/O I.JACOBS/A.JACOBS REVOCABLE TRUST, 1700 SHORELINE DRIVE,PRELIMINARY PLAT-RESOLUTION—Continued Johnson said the red line that is on-screen is going to that property. Barnhart replied yes. Walsh said that is the Smith Bay setback line. Johnson noted because that line does not go to Tanager,the City code says they do not use it;rather they use the vacant lot which then becomes the distance calculation. Barnhart replied in the affirmative. Walsh welcomed the Applicant to the podium. Patrick B. Steinhoff,Attorney for the Applicant said the bottom line here is that this is a conforming plat, it is consistent with the City's Comprehensive Plan, it meets all the standards in the City's ordinance,and the City Council should vote to approve it. As the City Council is aware,the Applicant has received quite a bit of objections from one of the neighbors,Mrs.Barbara Burwell,through her attorney who has submitted numerous letters totaling about 40 pages of objections. Mr. Steinhoff has made a list of the most pertinent of those and using as few words as possible,he will quickly go through to explain the Applicant's response to them. He started with the ALS issue and noted they spent a huge amount of time trying to address objections to the ALS.He won't talk at length but will say if they were to simultaneously build houses on all of these lots right now,they would be buildable behind the ALS where it is today. Obviously the ALS is a moving target and it changes,however right now they have six buildable lots if they all went up at the same time right now based on where the ALS is today. He said there was an objection to the cul-de-sac road; in the original plan there was an objection to its length and the Applicant redesigned it so it is shorter now and comes in at 997 feet which is in conformance with the City's subdivision code and is no longer an issue. Mr. Steinhoff noted they have had comments regarding the right-hand turn lane and Barnhart summarized them pretty well;they were addressed in the letter the City Council received a couple hours ago from Mrs.Burwell's attorney Mr.Dean and Mr. Steinhoff will address some of those comments briefly as the premise of the objection is totally wrong. If the City Council read the attorney's letter, he said there is an eight foot shoulder requirement for this turn-lane. Mr. Steinhoff stated that is not true as the attorney was citing MnDOT regulations and those apply to travel lanes and do not apply to turn lanes. If one is on a traveling lane,the shoulder is to get cars off the travel lane; if one is in a turn lane,they are already out of the travel lane so those concerns do not apply. Mr.Dean's objection is also premised on characterization of Shoreline Drive as a principal arterial and it is not;rather it is a minor extender according to the City's Comprehensive Plan. This is a Hennepin County road and the County does not have it classified as a principal arterial. The Applicant's engineer and surveyor Mark Gronberg have had discussions with the County and can explain more about those consultations. The bottom line is that the Applicant is willing to build a turn lane,they are in consultation with the County and the turn lane shown on-screen is consistent with what the County tells them they will require. Mr. Steinhoff noted there have been objections to density and the number of lots and he noted this City Council has already decided what the property density is for this property in its Comp Plan, ordinances, and has already made the policy determination of what the density should be. The Applicant has complied with the ordinances and they are consistent with the Comp Plan. He also noted they have already reduced the original density as it used to be 7 lots and they have reduced it to 6 lots. Mr. Page 6 of 26