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