##VIDEO ID:OdItNtsIZlM## e e [Music] good evening and welcome to the November 21st 2024 meeting of the Bloomington Planning Commission I am officially calling our meeting to order the Planning Commission is made up of seven members uh we have seven this evening each member volunteers their time and is a Bloomington resident members are appointed by the city council the Planning Commission is advisory to the city council for most items the commission makes recommendations and the city council has the final decision-making Authority there are certain applications that the Planning Commission can approve or deny on its own we have one item with a public hearing this evening uh which will also be heard at city council for each item this evening there will be a staff report then a chance for the applicant to present then a chance for any member of the public to provide testimony and then the commission will close the public hearing and discuss the item before the action is taken our first order of business tonight is the Pledge of Allegiance please stand if you're able I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right uh first item this evening is a public hearing it is a city cone Amendment um for Park dedication and plating standards and planning supervisor Nick Johnson you have the staff report thank you chair alre uh can all of you see my slides okay okay um forgiveness to the or uh apologies to the crew that was here last uh last meeting this is a little bit of uh duplicated materials but for the purpose of the public hearing and the public record I do need to go through some of these um uh finer points uh again so uh we'll try and uh provide a good snapshot of what this ordinance does and um but maybe not jump into as much of the legal uh depth as we did uh last time with the the City attorney they are uh available for questions if need be so just a little background about this project so um the park dedication uh study was an adopted project as part of the 2024 Planning Commission work plan uh the reason that it was uh added to the work plan is that there was some case law at the Minnesota state supreme court uh pertaining to parked education standards uh the case uh that went to the court was uh po versus city of Burnsville uh po was a private party Who challenged the city of burnsville's Park dedication requirements related to a development um in Burnsville uh it went it followed through the court proceeding process and uh ultimately uh the state supreme court uh affirmed the city of burnsville's right to require uh the park dedication fees uh it did make uh a few findings I'll just kind of do the uh broad Strokes of it and again Kevin Tas is available if there's questions but first Minnesota's Park dedication statutes incorporates the requirements of Nolan and Dolan so those are fundamental legal land use cases that deal with the essential Nexus and the proportionality of basically government impact fee um and that's what provides the framework for Park dedication uh it also stated that municipalities must evaluate Park dedication conditions for uh those two tests and then third that cities uh may use formulas to determine the appropriate amount of Park dedication land or fees but they must justify their form uh formula with studies or other evidence showing the need for the reasonable Park land so those are the broad Strokes of it following this case the legal department uh felt it was prudent to evaluate the city's Park dedication standards to make sure that they are in alignment with the findings of this case uh and the the broad picture of it is that yes uh we do feel that Bloomington system is durable um and uh effective uh but did want to polish it up uh with a couple of the uh elements that were in the findings of the case uh one point I want to make about the nature of this project is that many of the projects that we bring before you particularly these range planning projects you're serving more in a legislative function or these are really discretionary decisions that the city is making I would put this project more in the uh mandatory uh bucket as opposed to discretionary and the reason being is that what is included in the ordinance um uh in addition to the changes to park dedication but some other changes that have to do with just making sure that our uh subdivision ordinance chapter 22 is in is uh consistent with State Statute there's a couple things in our ordinance that needed to be updated to be truly consistent so most of the elements are mandatory there are a few discretionary items and I'll point that out as I go along here um and then just uh related to the discretionary elements just once we open a chapter of the city code it's a good opportunity for us as a city staff to take a look at all the elements um so that uh you know something doesn't come up just uh one year from now or something like that that we failed to uh take this opportunity so just getting to our uh General process of what we're uh putting before you here oopsie that's not what I meant to do sorry one second um just in terms of a general process so the July through September of this year we went through internal staff research and drafting this project involved a little bit more of a cross disciplinary team than most of our projects we had representatives from planning legal Parks and Recreation Finance uh engineering and the city surveyor um uh and their staff so they actually are the ones who deal with the plating process as it goes through so uh a wide a widescale team and uh um uh fun and uh helpful to work with kind of get that expertise from many different areas uh as I mentioned on last meeting on November 7th we held a study session we didn't want to kind of have a preview of this before we got into a public hearing setting so we presented that to you tonight is the scheduled public hearing and uh should you take action on the item tonight uh we anticipate it will be before the city council uh at a public hearing on December 16th um so hopefully wrapped up by the end of the year just more of a reminder and maybe more for the members who weren't here so our the Bloomington Park dedication process um uh as I said is authorized under state law uh we do uh similar to most cities we do offer a land or a fee option Bloomington being a mostly built out city except for in a uh few precise locations Bloomington is not seeking a lot more uh Park land um we typically are collecting the fee to contribute towards Capital Improvements to the the park system so whether it be an equipment or other improvements to our um uh oh did I lose the uh oh maybe not sorry um so we're typically collecting the fee to uh contribute to those Capital Improvements um uh Bloomington system is a little bit different than some cities in that we offer two different Pathways and we give the development the option of the lesser of and so we do a percentage of pre-development land value which is probably the more common approach that cities take they might not have the exact same percentage that we uh require um but basically including Burnsville uh most cities are using a pre- percentage um or pre-development land value calculation to determine what the fee is uh Bloomington also offers this proportional value calculation and the way that we do that and uh this is probably more often the case in uh commercial and Industrial Development is we're trying to determine uh what the potential impacts of the new development are with respect to the number of employees or amount of activity that gets generated um the Bloomington this uh proportional share calculation is based on an assumption of 9010 ratio between residential use of our Parks versus all the people who come for commercial or industrial uses uh use of the park so that's another part of a key feature of our uh system and methodology um so that's the general basics of it in terms of the mechanics uh you know the developer the applicant has to pay the fee prior to the uh plat being recorded at the county um which is a requirement for the building permit so that's when that fee is collected uh the main thing I'll say just about uh the updates to the ordinance that had to do with um sharpening or strengthening uh bloomington's uh Park dedication Provisions is really has to do with our findings and purpose statement um one of the findings of the uh of the PO vers Burnsville case was that burnsville's fee was defensible because it was tied directly back to a need identified in their comprehensive plan so in the case of Bloomington we have both the comprehensive plan which is mostly the community facilities element but we also have uh the park system master plan which is recently adopted in 2021 so the city has done this work uh better to just directly reference it in our ordinance um that those are the documents that collectively serve as the Ci's parks and open space plan so getting to the summary of the ordinance itself so I mentioned the finding and purpose statement uh the ordinance also includes uh clarifications around how we Define development employees uh and we just wanted to clarify that we do that proportionally if you have uh an office and a warehouse or manufacturing building you know you're not just paying the fee associated with one of those uses but we actually break it out just like we would with parking for example um so we're just trying to be as precise and fair as possible um Park dedication for multiphase developments this is really in our view this is one of those discretionary items um uh wherein uh previously some of you longer tenured members and actually I think there was one recently so maybe everyone has seen a platting variance come through to defer Park dedication payment for future phases uh in our view that's not the best process to do that because variances have very specific findings so we wanted to add some language to allow for multiphase developments to do so by condition and through a development agreement that they record with the city um we also are proposing a new lot line adjustment lot consolidation process and so this is in that bucket of just being in better alignment with State Statute State Statute does not require platting for lot line adjustments or consolidations and so just clarifying that in our code and offering that new application process uh we did tweak a few uh definitions in our uh subdivision ordinance and then this is in the discretionary bucket we did uh suggest two exceptions to the platting requirements so platting is a requirement if you're on an unplatted lot to get a building permit effectively for any significant development um if you're not a ploted lot you have to go through that process uh we do have some exceptions however uh one of those is for government and park facilities um one thing that we would suggest adding is that uh Public Schools K to 12 schools also be eligible for that acception the reason being they're typically on very large properties and many of them are unplatted because uh they were were built before uh the city's subdivision ordinance was uh had its current requirements um and so it's very costly uh with limited public benefit to uh thinking about it as a public institution um to require that for them then the other piece of it too is that uh you can't get a building permit on uh for structures on outlots but there are some limited exceptions to that um we just wanted to clarify that on out lws of plats you can install storm water management facilities and sometimes those carry with them retaining walls and technically under the building code if they're over 4 feet in height those are structures so just it's kind of something of an interpretation that we were making previously that we just want it clear in the code um that uh that is a permitted uh situation so staff does recommend approval of this ordinance um I'm happy to take any questions you might have but um yeah hopefully provided a good summary thank you questions for staff right seeing none uh the city is the applicant for this item um so I will go ahead and open the public hearing if anyone in the chambers wish to testify on this item you can come up uh sign in and uh Mr Johnson do we have anyone online Cher Al Brook all the members online in the meeting are staff thank you very much Mr Brooks appreciate that I'll give it a second if anyone wants to testify on this item all right looking for a motion to close the public hearing so moved second we have a motion to close the public Hearing in a second all those in favor say I I those opposed motion passes 70 uh discussion commissioner McGovern I think this is uh City's due diligence to assure that it meets the state statute requirements and the city code um so I greatly appreciate the work that is put into it I'll go ahead and Echo that I think um it's important to keep on top of what's happening in the legal environment um and therefore making sure that um the the city of Bloomington is doesn't get sideways and that um that never is a good thing so um appreciative to the staff for their work on this all right uh looking for a motion commissioner cookton Madam chair I move to recomend Rec commend approval of the park dedication and platting standard standards ordinance thereby amending chapters 1522 and appendix a of the city code we have a motion do we have a second second we have a motion and a second all those in favor say I I those opposed motion passes 70 all right thank you uh item two is a study item it is our regular item that we have on our agenda the Planning Commission policy and issue update planning supervisor Johnson yeah thank you chair alre so just heads up about upcoming meetings we were initially uh planning to present our first draft of the um Planning Commission work plan at our next meeting uh but I think we will uh delay that until December 19th and so on the dec so the next meeting would be canell um uh just as it affects your uh calendars and then the the next meeting on December 19 and that's the last Planning Commission meeting of the year we have two items scheduled both study items uh we have a study item on uh the small business codes and processes project so that involves uh review of our uh refu and recycling standards Odor Control exterior building materials um uh grease interceptors there's a wide variety of different uh kind of topics uh involved in that project uh some off street parking considerations um uh so I'll have a study item with that presented by myself and uh Dakota croll uh and then uh the second item would be the presentation of the staff recommendation on the 2025 Planning Commission work plan so certainly uh good opportunity for discussion and suggestions on that one and um um I would say in advance of that packet if you have any questions uh or suggestions for staff that'd be helpful to think about in advance of the meeting don't hesitate to reach out to us and uh can help uh help answer any questions you might have uh but that's what's planned for uh December 19th and and um I believe Glenn distributed the uh meeting calendar for next year so hopefully you all receive that but that's the that's the bulk of my updates excellent thank you uh any items for discussion amongst the commissioner commissioner Isa uh just want to confirm when is the HRA joint meeting date ah thank you good question I believe it I I believe it's the 17th of December chair albre that's correct uh thank you for asking that question commissioner Isa I forgot to mention that forgive me um we do have a scheduled joint meeting with the on December the 17th it'll be held in the chambers and uh um on the main topic on that uh meeting will be co- living and SRO standards we're going to present a draft uh concept ordinance changes uh to you at that meeting and get your feedback I think they'll also just generally be um uh opportunity for dialogue with the HRA board uh just in terms of the two bodies to to share their uh questions or uh Vision around housing in Bloomington and where we're at right now so thank you for that question any other items for discussion all right uh seeing none that will be the close of our November 21st 2024 meeting of the Bloomington Planning Commission thank you all have a good night [Music]