04-12-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, March 8, 2021 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 10 of 24 26. LA21-000014 – MARK RAUSCH AND AZIZ SADDIQUI O/B/O UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS AND DAVID WEEKLY HOMES, NW CORNER OF WILLOW AND WAYZATA BLVD., COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENT, ZONE CHANGE, PRELIMINARY PLAT, AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN APPROVAL – RESOLUTION NO. 7177 Barnhart noted there are a number of requests in front of the Council tonight. This project is proposed for an RPUD zoning (Residential Planned Unit Development) so this will be a zone change. There will be a Comprehensive Plan Amendment required because they are reducing the density allocated for this property, and are asking for a concept Master Plan approval and also the preliminary plat. This is a 37- unit townhome development in 9 separate buildings at the northwest corner of Willow Drive and Wayzata Boulevard, north of the project is Kelley Parkway, and there is a large regional pond to the west. All the access will be located off Kelley Parkway, there will be no accesses off Wayzata Boulevard or Willow Drive and it is consistent with the original development plan for the Stone Bay Development. All of the buildings will be shared by municipal water and sewer; storm water management plans have been developed and will be managed on site, and will ultimately feed to the regional pond to the west. There will be a number of rain gardens along Kelley Parkway and another rain garden at the southwest corner of the site and eventually all the storm water will go into the pond. The City Engineer has provided some comment on the storm water and the utility plans. The expectation with all developments is that the City Engineer must be satisfied with the utility plans at the time of final plat so these are working plans and documents and further refinement from a utility standpoint will be coming. The Applicant proposes each unit to have a front door sidewalk to provide a pedestrian route through the community. Ultimately those sidewalks will connect to the Kelley Parkway public sidewalk and also a proposed sidewalk along Willow Drive. Staff has provided a suggestion that the sidewalks also connect to the future trail along Wayzata Boulevard and the County has concurred with that. Barnhart said the Comp Plan amendment will be required; currently this property is guided for a high density residential of 20-25 units/acre. When a project to that level of density came forward, the Council suggested that it is a bit too dense for this area and they wanted to see something a little more consistent with the Stone Bay Development. Based on that feedback the project came back with a townhome development at 10-20 units/acre. From a Met Council standpoint, they look at densities based on the lowest number of the range, so they only care about the 10 units/acre. This project is 10 units/acre so it meets the minimum requirements for that density guidance. During the sketch plan review Barnhart commented that it seemed like they had enough capacity from a density calculation standpoint, which they do, this project will reduce the density of the City from about 4.16 units/acre to 3.79 units/acre. They may recall the minimum is 3 so they are well above that. He reported earlier that the 2021-2030 growth periods, the City must provide opportunity for growth in its sewered area to meet the expectation of demand. Earlier he had reported that they had capacity there and in his revision of the calculation he noticed they were short 4 units. In speaking with Met Council, the staff person he spoke with seemed to think that 4 units is within the acceptable limits, however he has not received confirmation from that person’s superiors at this point. If the Council is uncomfortable in moving forward, they can certainly table until they get the feedback. In terms of affordable housing units, they do meet the minimum requirements there and the Council may recall the Met Council looks at affordable housing as any unit or area guided for density of 8 units/acre or more. The City is required to have 15.4 acres guided at that density, and keeping this project at 10 units/acre it does not impact that at all. Barnhart said this project was developed as RPUD zoned. As most of the City’s high-density projects come through as an RPUD, Barnhart likes to identify all the areas where waivers may be requested, and the RPUD district allows the Council the opportunity to grant waivers in order to satisfy other City goals, density being one of those. They do not have a zoning district that allows this level of density by itself, all of the higher density projects come through as an RPUD zoning district. Generally, the project conforms to the standards established by the RPUD district and