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My wife and I acquired this property in July 2022. There had been obvious deferred <br />maintenance on the house itself, the street side yard, and the lakeside yard, hill and <br />shoreline. Throughout the summer of 2022 and this past summer we began doing some <br />minimal maintenance and a little cleanup of the lakeside shoreline and hillside. It quickly <br />became apparent that the shoreline and hillside would require more than just a small <br />facelift, and rather a complete restoration would be in order. <br />My initial concerns were encountered while mowing the grass and doing a little cleanup <br />of the overgrown vegetation and vines covering the hillside. I found that the walls were <br />extremely unstable and rocks were routinely falling down the hillside when lightly <br />disturbed. We quickly had to stress to our children that they were not allowed to play on <br />or around the hillside for fear that a stone from the walls would fall on top of them. <br />Further inspection of the retaining walls revealed that they were collapsing and thus <br />directing water runoff right towards the foundation of the lakeside deck and this needed <br />to be corrected. <br />In addition to the faulty retaining walls, the shoreline walls were in terrible condition. <br />They were collapsing right into Lake Minnetonka. We also uncovered a patchwork of <br />what appeared to be portions of granite countertops that had been pieced together to <br />form somewhat of a boardwalk along the lowest lakeside tier of the hill. I’m not versed in <br />the legal nature of such a structure, but regardless we found it undesirable and sought <br />to correct it. <br />Ultimately for my family, it boils down to the safety of the yard and the hillside. My <br />children are 8, 6, and 4 years old. They will be climbing up and down that hillside and <br />playing on those walls. I will be walking in front of those walls and need to store docks <br />and boat lifts that will be supported by those walls. In order to do so safely, we propose <br />to replace the existing dilapidated and collapsing rock retaining walls with new, stable <br />granite rock retaining walls. <br />17