03/21/2011 Planning Commission Minutes

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Monday,March 21,2011 6:30 o'clock p.m. single-day or short-term use,whereas a boat club suggests a longer-term relationship between the owner and user, for multiple uses on multiple occasions. Shared ownership and use of a single boat among multiple entities eliminates the transaction between the boat owner and the boat user and therefore clearly does not fit the concept of a rental situation. The zoning code does not specifically address or attempt to regulate fractional ownership situations,yet they may have some of the same potential impacts as the first method of ownership. The definition of boat club in Webster's dictionary is as follows: "A boat club is a sports club based around boats,especially rowing and yachting,but also canoeing,motor boats and other small boats." A boat club is an avenue for boaters who enjoy the boating lifestyle but might not have the time, skills,or dollars to get out on the water. Traditional boat clubs have been around for a century;however,the shared asset model concept has only been around a short time. The shared asset model is based upon the recent surge in fractional ownership. Consumers are looking to have all the benefits of owning luxury items from jets to handbags,without absorbing the brunt of the costs. The By joining a boat�club,members do not have to worry about the costs associated with owning a boat and simply make a reservation, get their boat, and go. The only other costs that the consumer pays, after a membership fee and monthly dues,is the gas they use. Boaters are not limited to what type or size of the boat they use. They get unlimited use of a fleet of boats. Membership plans vary by fleet,location, and types of boating. As it relates to the City's regulatory objective, during the 1970s and'80s,the City expended a great amount of effort attempting to limit to curtail the impacts that marinas have on the use of Lake Minnetonka as well as on the land. Those efforts resulted in a number of marinas reconfiguring their in- water slips to meet City and LMCD standards. During the 1980s and'90s,the number of marinas in Orono declined by two. During this time,three of the remaining five marinas underwent complete renovation or replacement of their land-based facilities. During the past 15 years, Orono's focus has shifted to ensuring that the commercial activity at its marinas does not spill over into the surrounding residential neighborhoods or roadways, and that the activity within the marina properties does not have negative impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods. Annual marina licenses issued in 1993 and later have been conditioned on the marina meeting certain operational standards. The standards were established in the City's marina licensing ordinance in 1993,two years prior to the B-3 District code revisions that made boat clubs a conditional use. Boat clubs were not addressed in the B-2 District prior to 1995. When boat clubs became a conditional use,rather than establishing a separate numerical standard for boat club parking requirements,the City chose to rely on the operational standard for parking but gave the Council wide discretion by including as the only performance standard. Staff feels that the City's regulatory objective with boat clubs today is most clearly stated by operational standard number one,which reads as follows: "Parking facilities on the site shall be managed so as to eliminate traffic or parking congestion, eliminate illegal on-street parking, and avoid pedestrian traffic through neighboring property. The basis for raising this issue in 2011 is simply that boat clubs appear to be on the rise. There is no documentation that the one boat club operated in Orono since 1995 or earlier has caused any issues related to parking. Page 15