05-18-2015 Planning Commission Packet

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15-3739 May 18,2015 Page 3 of 9 Background The applicant, BPS Properties represented by George Stickney, proposes to develop a portion of the property with 11 single family lots, leaving major portions of the site undeveloped. The property contains a large area of established prairie that is highly visible from County Road 6 and for many decades has visually `announced' to passersby that this is the boundary between rural Orono and more urbanized Plymouth. As well, the property contains an area considered to be a Big Woods remnant, which provides a backdrop to the prairie views and which is apparently treasured by some area residents in equal measure with the prairie element. The northeast quadrant of the property abuts Mooney Lake, and 7 of the 11 proposed lots will be lakeshore lots. Mooney Lake is a Recreational Development lake classification and its shores abut property in Medina and Plymouth as well. The developer in creating this plat called Mooney Lake Preserve has indicated to staff that "the developer has no plans to develop the two large outlots and no interest in developing the two large outlots. They are included in the proposed plat only for ease of description and are not functionally a part of the proposed residential development". In that respect it may be important to establish, for the portion of the property that is being developed, what elements are being preserved; how they are being preserved; why they are being preserved; and what is the basis for these decisions to fully preserve certain elements and not others. Conformity with the Orono 2030 Community Management Plan The proposed 11-lot subdivision appears to be in conformity with the guiding of this area for single family rural residential development at a density of 1 unit per 2 acres. The proposed development will be required to conform to the 2.0 acre, 200' width standards of the RR-1B Zoning District. Conformity with Zoning District Lot Requirements The property is in the RR-1B, Rural Residential District, which allows for single family residential uses with a minimum lot size of 2 dry buildable acres. Under a standard subdivision process, each proposed lot must contain a minimum of 2.0 acres of contiguous dry buildable land. The current survey depicts 11 lots each meeting the minimum area requirement. Roughly over half of the property is within the Shoreland Overlay District. The OHWL of Mooney Lake is 988.0' and based on that contour, all lakeshore lots as proposed meet the minimum 200' width requirement at the shore and at the lake setback line. Each lot appears to have a suitable building site meeting the minimum lake, front, side and rear setbacks of the RR-1 B District. The two `back lots' proposed (Lot 2, Block 1 and lot 2, Block 2) each meet the 3-acre minimum area requirement for such lots. The developer is advised that unless site grading to create individual house building pads as part of the subdivision improvements is proposed, the existing grades for measuring building heights and number of stories will be the grades that exist today. Raised pads that are created must be acknowledged in the development approval stage as creating `new existing grades'. Relationship to Surrounding Development The proposed single-family development with 2-plus acre lot sizes is consistent with existing development in the surrounding neighborhood. Large single family lots surround this site on the north and east. The properties to the north are within the City of Medina; the properties to the east are located in the City of Plymouth. To the west and south, homes in Orono are generally on 2-plus acre lots.