02-22-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, February 8, 2021 6:03 p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 14 of 26 19. LA20-000048 - TIMOTHY WHITTEN O/B/O I. JACOBS/A. JACOBS REVOCABLE TRUST, 1700 SHORELINE DRIVE, PRELIMINARY PLAT - RESOLUTION – Continued said before. In order for Mrs. Burwell to know what is going on directly next door to her, she has had no other options than to get legal counsel in order to protect where she lives and understand that the course of actions the Council will take on the area she lives and has lived and how it will affect her. Thus, she is standing before the Council again saying “let’s talk about this a little further.” There are words that keep coming up through this process that are rather simple, words like transparency, ALS, density, compliance, cul-de-sac, might, maybe, could be acceptable, future, the possibility. She said these are all “what-ifs” and she gets concerned as the person living next door about the concretes of what is going to happen. She asked to show a picture of County Road 15 which she lives on; she stated in all the years she has lived there, there has never been a dock on Smith Bay coming off of the Jacobs property. She thinks it is pretty self-explanatory to say why that might be, because it is so blasted dangerous going across that parcel. Going from their driveway to directly across, which on some plans is referred to as Outlot D, and there are other plans that do not even show Outlot D. She said whatever they want to call that area, there is no room for a car or a golf cart, let alone a turn lane to go in there. If they put a turn lane in there she does not know where people are going to go. Tonight, when the word “easement” came up she asked, where are they going to ease to, as there is not room. Mrs. Burwell stated if one is going to walk down that roadway from the cul-de-sac – maybe in a golf cart – she does not know where they will put the golf cart because there is no room on either side. She noted on the west side is the swamp or marshland or the wetland – therefore the parking will be on the east because that is where the dense property is. The other part is wetlands, she said if one has a child, a basket, a dog, a grandma…have any of the City Council members ever tried to walk down across by the marsh, let alone try to cross the road and walk from Lot 3 to Outlot 3? That is almost a football field or more and when she was chatting with Meredith and Mike Kuhlmann, Mrs. Burwell said if they were to do this in reverse - and they don’t have a dock on Smith Bay – and went from their mailbox and were going to take their three children down to Smith Bay. Mrs. Burwell does not know if they are even able to have a dock on smith bay. However, they are not going to walk their children across County Road 15 there. To Councilmember Seals’ point, it is just plain dangerous. God made it a difficult parcel of land. She asked to show a photo of her driveway and wants to address something that came up at the Planning Commission meeting. She appreciates that Commissioner Erickson brought up the acceleration lane and that is clearly a need and again, it does not work as there is not room because it is wetlands. Mrs. Burwell again said there is very little room there and when one comes to turn into the Jacob’s driveway, which she has done, in making a left hand turn into their driveway one is always stopping traffic. Traffic has to go around to the left in the center as there is no way for them to go across because they would hit a tree. She showed another photo on-screen that shows directly across from Mrs. Burwell’s driveway. She said there is more room in this little parcel and those two posts are where they have a dock and it is actually an air-base station – she does not have the correct verbiage for them tonight but she will get it. There is a float plane that was referred to at the Planning Commission and the plane is not the Jacob’s, it is the Burwell’s and is there in the summertime and has regulations for air-bases on Lake Minnetonka. That part is the widest part in a stretch from her driveway all the way down to what would be the Kuhlmann driveway. Mrs. Burwell said that is the largest part and it is very scary to get across that. In that part they could maybe put a car to offload but one would never leave a car there because there is not enough room. She wants to show from a standpoint that she lives there and walks across there; it is very scary, they do not have a boat there and only use it as an airplane dock. In the 40+ years that Mrs. Burwell has lived there, the Jacobs family has not had a dock on Smith Bay. She thinks it is pretty relevant to be able to say why: it is just plain old dangerous.