02-16-2021 Planning Commission Minutes

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION Tuesday, February 16, 2021 6:00 o'clock p.m. open space internally. From the marketing aspect, he is not sure which one will sell and how the market will receive it, but it is something to think about. Barnhart commented that the Planning Commission and City Council made it very clear they want to see setbacks of a certain dimension during the sketch plan review. His proposal "ignores" that recommendation because it does require waivers against what they had discussed earlier; he thinks the tradeoff is beneficial to the City in the long-term, but it is completely up the Planning Commission if they want to support those types of waivers. Kirchner said one of the feedback questions was specific to the orientation and he would agree with Libby, not so much for the service vehicles, but for the exact reason the Applicant has just mentioned. He has the floor plans up and a walk-up unit that feeds directly into an outlot with a family room that would be next to those walk-up unit doors. They spoke earlier about a family in a backyard and he sees that as a way for this community to do that; one could be in the family room and have kids out in the greenspace. He has concerns if they were to put Road A across and flip the orientation, he feels they lose greenspace in the center which he believes is important to Orono residents and is something they value. He also then sees children walking across the street to get to the park where right now they can walk out a door and are on a sidewalk. He actually prefers this design and thinks Wayzata Boulevard is a major thoroughfare with a speed limit of 50 mph, there are gas stations, a McDonald's, and he does not know that people will care too much that they are looking at garage doors when driving by. He does not know about Willow, but again said he appreciates this design and thinks it creates a bit of a community within this development. If Erickson imagines himself as a potential buyer for one of these, he would prefer the one on the screen over this one. The reasoning is by having the garages facing Willow Drive and Wayzata Boulevard, it creates a better community feeling in the interior. The "backyard" is a relatively private recreational area which gives a backyard feeling in sharing with the neighbors. With the high traffic on Wayzata and Willow, that is where the garage is; to him it would be much more inviting and that would be a much easier sell. He also wants to commend the Applicant for making a tremendous improvement over what they were looking at last year, which was not terribly bad, but was not as good as this. He recalls in the Planning Commission meeting garages backing up to each other and if someone backs up and there is a car there it could be a conflict; that has all been eliminated by this loop road which is a wonderful improvement. Another comment made, originally the recreational area was over on Kelley and again, in creating a community with an element of privacy but still shared with neighbors, these are all improvements and he really likes it. Bollis agrees with Staff about the orientation, as aesthetically he thinks it would look more pleasing driving along Highway 12 or on Willow in looking at fronts of units similar to Stone Bay. Most of those units along Kelley are looking at the front of the unit or the "pretty" face of the house. As a resident of the community, he thinks it would look better, but he tends to agree with the Applicant that the flow and engineering -wise isn't quite there if they flip them. Mr. Saddiqui did complement that by having the fronts on Kelley to Stone Bay. Bollis said in looking at the two plans, he would prefer the one on screen if he were going to be living there. If he was not living there, he would prefer the aesthetics of the secondary plan. He said it is just a comment and he does not know how he feels one way or the other for a vote on that. He asked if the Page 27 of 38