03-21-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING March 13, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 7 of 21 Curtis said that was correct but they did not, they just stabilized the slope. They did not do the final wall as they requested. They determined that they would just protect the slope and then evaluated it and decided that a higher sixth wall that was already installed would be more beneficial support for the slope rather than an additional seventh wall more towards the home back into the yard. The fire happened in July. We issued the permit for the in-kind replacement of the walls, which is administrative, in September. We issued that stop-work order in October because of the expanded wall footprint that our inspector confirmed for us. They did not utilize boulders because that would have expanded the footprint of the wall and they were trying to expedite the repair. So they did not want to go through the timeline for the variance publication and approval for boulders. Joe Valdes, owner of Valdes lawn care, 6476 St. Croix Trail South, Hastings, Minnesota, appeared before the Council along with Tyler Warnke, 2157 Valley View Place, St. Paul, the equipment operator on the job and Paul Schimnowski with Criterium-Schimnowski Engineers, 161 Dunbar Way, Mahtomedi, Minnesota, the engineer of record. Walsh noted Valdes had said before the Planning Commission that he didn't look at the plans. He also noted that Valdes just went and started digging. Warnke said he was first on-site, and had the plans with him. We were looking at the plans as we were starting the project. Walsh asked if they had the plans, why did they think they could bring a bulldozer down there and scrape out the entire hillside? Warnke said we had to remove all existing walls. In order to get down to the bottom, I had to dig a road. Walsh said, no you didn't. You didn't have to dig a road. That was your choice. You had other options, and that's my whole issue here is that you had other options. You didn't have to do it from the top and dig an entire road down a hillside, you chose to do that. I think at the Planning Commission you said it would take way too much work to do it all by hand from down in the bottom, so you chose to build a road down the middle of the hillside and scoop it all out. So instead of a hill on the hillside, now you have a cliff. I have a cliff too. The guys handed it all in my cliff when we had to re-do mine. You chose to go and dig it all when you had a specific plan for in-kind replacement. And so at some point, you dug it all out, your engineer came and designed an entirely different plan that you then pulled a permit for. So it's like going and getting a permit for a 3000 square foot house and then building an 8000 square foot house. In the discussion, Council Members asserted that the applicants had gone beyond the scope of an in-kind solution and removed a great deal of dirt from the bluff. The applicants stressed the complexity of the job and noted they had to deal with burned remains of the previous structures and then found underneath the burned wall several feet of old timbers and concrete which had to be removed. They said most of the material hauled away was that and not the hillside itself. The also said they had filled in behind the new walls with several feet of supports and material for proper drainage.