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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018/03/21 - ADMIN - Minutes - Planning Commission - Study SessionOFFICIAL MINUTES PLANNING COMMISSION STUDY SESSION ST. LOUIS PARK, MINNESOTA MARCH 21, 2018 – 6:00 p.m. COUNCIL CHAMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: Lynne Carper, Claudia Johnston-Madison, Torrey Kanne, Lisa Peilen, Richard Person, Carl Robertson MEMBERS ABSENT: Joe Tatalovich, Ethan Rickert, youth member STAFF PRESENT: Jacquelyn Kramer, Jennifer Monson, Sean Walther, Meg McMonigal, Jack Sullivan, Karen Barton, Deb Heiser OTHERS PRESENT: Thom Miller, Councilmember Margaret Rog, Councilmember Craig Vaughn, SRF Consulting Ciara Schlichting, Toole Design Group Jeff Miller, HKGi 1. Comprehensive Plan – Mobility and Land Use Discussion Craig Vaughn, SRF Consulting, gave a presentation on the Mobility Plan. Thom Miller said some of the Delta increases seem very significant. Mr. Vaughn responded that the growth seen on regional systems, like Hwy. 7, is affected not only by St. Louis Park but also by adjacent communities. Factors can include things like job growth in downtown Minneapolis or housing growth in suburbs further west. He said he has identified percent growth. One-half percent to 1% would be seen as typical. He stated that 1% is more typical on a regional system. Chair Robertson spoke about the Westmoreland residential area which has no planned future growth. He asked why the traffic volumes would increase there. Mr. Vaughn said that area may need a bit more review. He mentioned some possibilities regarding the increase. He said he needs to look at the model. Sean Walther, Planning and Zoning Supervisor, said the increase may be related to a MN DOT land remnant r-o-w that is zoned for office. Or, perhaps it is a model issue. Official Minutes Planning Commission Study Session March 21, 2018 Page 2 Meg McMonigal, Principal Planner, said SRF could look at all areas over 1%. Commissioner Johnston-Madison asked how the numbers were determined. Mr. Vaughn explained that the regional travel demand model comes from the Met Council. Each community in the 7-county area use it to analyze their community. Geographic distribution by transportation analysis zones and socioeconomic data comes from Met Council and then city staff goes through the process identifying land use considerations. SRF receives all the information and puts it into regional travel demand model at the community level and works through the forecasting process. Deb Heiser, Engineering Director, noted that the existing numbers are traffic counts the city has on record. Commissioner Johnston-Madison asked if the numbers reflect the growing aging population. Mr. Vaughn explained how the regional travel demand model is an activity based model which uses trip attractors, origins and destinations. Commissioner Carper said he was uncomfortable with the way the numbers are being presented. He said it should have been stated that we’re looking at a 25 year period. He said he ran a percentage and he sees around a 40% increase of traffic, not the 1.34% SRF provided. He said he’s concerned, for example, with Hwy. 100 experiencing a 10% increase in traffic. France Ave. as a secondary artery coming through the community sees traffic increases of 30-40%. He asked if there will be some infrastructure changes to handle capacity. He commented that the total numbers are small to the community but we are still looking at a great deal of traffic coming through the community. He said he wants to see a third sheet that shows the 25-year mass effect of increase rather than having to run the numbers on 1.34% himself. Commissioner Johnston-Madison said it would be good to see a chart. Commissioner Kanne spoke about the Westwood Nature Center area and other areas in general. She commented that the consultant stated numbers are data driven, but said she wonders if something is missed when we are so focused on data. She commented that there has to be some sort of qualitative review included with these numbers. Mr. Vaughan said it is highly driven on data, but it is an art. He added that this is a preliminary product. Official Minutes Planning Commission Study Session March 21, 2018 Page 3 Commissioner Kanne discussed school growth and city activities that will increase traffic. She asked if that sort of information is looked at in forecasting. Ms. McMonigal explained how staff worked together going through every part of the city, zone by zone, and projected. She said the process is primarily land use based and it is an art. Commissioner Peilen stated projections are like this in any field. You try to make sure you have the best available data. Commissioner Person spoke about impacts on infrastructure. Ms. Heiser discussed the city’s Pavement Management plan which started in 2004. Ciara Schlichting, Toole Design Group, provided the presentation on Pedestrian Demand Analysis. Commissioner Kanne asked if the city’s commitment to reduce vehicle miles travel is part of the equation. Mr. Walther responded that it is not directly included at this time. If the city realizes mode shift or similar changes it may be reflected in lower traffic than projected and the city would monitor traffic growth over the course of the plan. Ms. Schlichting gave presentations on the Bike Network Analysis and the Planned Bicycling System. There was a discussion about existing and proposed pedestrian bridges. There was a discussion about the city’s Connect the Park program. Commissioner Kanne indicated she had a difficult time understanding the network analysis maps. Commissioner Carper said he agrees with Commissioner Kanne and he wants to be able to explain the mapping to people. He said he doesn’t understand it at all. He said the color coding shown for his own neighborhood doesn’t make sense. Ms. Schlichting explained the color coding. Commissioner Carper gave specific examples of color coding in Lake Forest neighborhood that don’t make sense to him in terms of biking and road connections. He said he has similar questions about pedestrian connectivity in Official Minutes Planning Commission Study Session March 21, 2018 Page 4 that area. He commented that if he doesn’t trust this part of the map he’s not sure he trusts other parts of the map. Commissioner Johnston-Madison discussed Monterey, 36th St., Belt Line, and west on 36th over to Wooddale. Commissioner Carper stated he’d be glad to spend time clarifying his area with staff and consultants. He said he thinks neighborhood leaders in other areas would be willing to do the same. Mr. Vaughn wrapped up the Mobility portion of the study session. Mr. Walther introduced the Land Use discussion. He spoke about the section titled Why We Are a Livable Community. He said this is the first pass at updating, consolidating and condensing existing goals. Thom Miller asked how Vision 3.0 goals had been reflected in the goals list. Mr. Walther said the land use goals were still supportive of Vision 3.0 goals. There was not a departure from current goals and policies indicated in the Vision 3.0. Commissioner Johnston-Madison noted the goal related to preserving and growing existing businesses and stated that she doesn’t think the city has done enough in its implementation to realize this goal. Ms. McMonigal said we can make it clearer on the implementation and we’re working on the language. She said implementation can also be seen on the ground in the developments we’ve had, and in neighborhood and parks development. Jeff Miller, HKGi consultant, spoke about the land use plan categories. He spoke about the proposal to add a new Transit-oriented Development (TOD) category. He explained this would allow, not require, mixed use around the station areas. It would also allow higher density residential. Ms. Rog asked if the city could be more prescriptive about how the city determines what qualifies as pedestrian scale. Mr. Walther responded that is described in more detail in the current plan and will be included in the new plan in Livable Communities principles. He said it’s really about how buildings approach and meet the public/pedestrian and street network. A variety of factors play into that including how tall are buildings, how close are buildings, are buildings solid walls or do they have transparency with windows? Official Minutes Planning Commission Study Session March 21, 2018 Page 5 Ms. Rog said she thought this was important enough that she wondered if we could come up with specific definitions of what it means. Chair Robertson said the MX designation has general guidelines of scale and the Planning Commission has discussed this a lot. He said he thinks it is very important the city doesn’t define design too much. He said he believes some flexibility is necessary for design professionals, developers and owners to interpret on their own. Chair Robertson stated that the Commission has held conversations about how do we create and use guidelines without the city being the architect. Thom Miller said one of the keys to the description is that the focus of the designation be on building form. He commented that gradation of form is different than our other land use zoning designations. Mr. Walther said following completion of the Comp Plan we will be looking at form-based regulations in more detail. Considering form-based codes can be included in the Comp Plan as an implementation strategy. Ms. McMonigal explained how it has been accomplished already through the Comp Plan and developments through livable community principles. Commissioner Carper stated that he raised the idea of allowing mobile home parks as a means to affordable home ownership. We shouldn’t expect that private property owners would develop mobile home parks. Perhaps city-owned land, or land acquired from county or state could be considered. We would have to find an area where there is not currently residential. Perhaps the light rail station areas would be an appropriate place. Ms. McMonigal said density would come up under residential. TOD is to be around the light rail stations. Mr. Walther commented that Commissioner Carper’s suggestion for mobile home park development near the LRT station areas is inconsistent with of all the public process and the plans that have been completed for the city’s three station areas. Ms. McMonigal added a lot of the work the community has done to study the areas around the stations. These are areas where we want to take full advantage of the transit and the LRT system also needs ridership right next to the station. We are including affordable housing. And with the number of units at the stations it would probably add up to the same number of units. Mr. Walther added that he is hearing an underlying assumption in this that TOD is all rental. There’s nothing in TOD that prohibits multiple family residential ownership options, such as condominium development. Official Minutes Planning Commission Study Session March 21, 2018 Page 6 Jeff Miller said at the last Planning Commission land use study session TexaTonka was identified as an area requiring more discussion. Mr. Walther said the Commission remarks were that they wanted to see unique businesses that serve the needs of the neighborhood in TexaTonka area. Mr. Walther added at that time the Commission said if the way to get there is a mixed use development then commissioners seemed supportive of that and we should do all of those parcels as MX. Mr. Walther said he also heard that if MX is the antithesis of that goal then maybe we don’t change it. Commissioner Kanne asked about resident input on this. Jeff Miller said at the neighborhood meeting one of the things we heard was why can’t there be other nodes in the city that get things like Excelsior Blvd. did. He said the question is would that apply to TexaTonka or Cedar Lake Road/Louisiana? Mr. Walther commented that mixed use was consistently discussed by residents at the neighborhood meeting. He said they did hear from multiple people from multiple neighborhoods surrounding Texa Tonka. Ms. Rog said it can be difficult for small businesses to survive because of what the developer needs to make off that space so the number of smaller shops that can exist and be successful is limited. She said she’d want to see that definition evaluated in that context before it came part of the plan. Mr. Walther said staff and planning commission are working on a MX zoning district update which will follow the Comp Plan process. That process will include discussion on ways to explore height bonuses and incentives built into zoning code that might allow for affordable or smaller commercial spaces. Chair Robertson said we‘ve talked about how nice it is to have a nearby corner market but how do you that when businesses can’t make it, and also struggle with parking. It’s a nice goal but is it viable? We haven’t found the answer. Commissioner Johnston-Madison said the city has a lack of commercial services. With the Bridgewater proposal small businesses had to move. We’re not accomplishing the goal of having small commercial services and businesses. She added that she likes TOD but doesn’t like 8-10 story buildings though she understands why that is necessary for developers. Ms. Rog suggested that neighborhood residents be surveyed about whether they favored the change or not. There appeared to be consensus among planning commissioners to continue to show a change from commercial to mixed use for the Texa-Tonka mall property Official Minutes Planning Commission Study Session March 21, 2018 Page 7 on the future land use map. There did not appear to be consensus regarding expanding the mixed use designation to the east, west and south. Jeff Miller said the agenda packet provided overview of density recommendations, housing types, new descriptions, and additional language in the industrial land use category. Mr. Walther spoke about transitional industrial areas. Ms. McMonigal spoke about the BP District which was created in the past. Ms. Rog said when she thinks about defining what kind of housing will be allowed it makes her think that innovation will be difficult. She referenced Minneapolis allowing 4-plexes. She asked how innovation would fit in. Jeff Miller said the Comp Plan language about housing types says such as, in order to be illustrative, not to limit it to only the types listed. Jeff Miller highlighted the changes in the Residential Density from the last discussion with the Commission. Carl Robertson asked about the reference to 75-85% residential use in the mixed use district description. He asked if it could also state that there not be more than 15% of ground floor residential use of the ground floor. Mr. Walther stated that staff would not recommend including that level of detail in the comprehensive plan, rather we would include such rules in the zoning code. The discussion about residential is more of a general prediction of the general character of the development or overall gross floor area in the land use category. Thom Miller said he was concerned that TOD would be a PUD replacement. He said he’s concerned because the nature of PUD is that developers partner with city. With TOD, developers could create a very high density development without taking city on as a partner. He said the soft part of the TOD, like pedestrian scale, seems wishy washy and the city wouldn’t have the control it has under a PUD. Jeff Miller responded that the TOD would be a land use category. The PUD could still be used, just like today. The PUD is a zoning tool. TOD wouldn’t replace the PUD, it’s just meant to be more flexible. Thom Miller said that concerns him. Mr. Walther added that later efforts to potentially create a form based code ideally will define better our community goals, so we’d be spending less time negotiating that to happen. That may allow for fewer PUDs long term and people in the community having a little bit better idea of both what’s going to happen (more Official Minutes Planning Commission Study Session March 21, 2018 Page 8 predictable) and for developers a more predictable process. It’s would be preferable to layer those basic design expectations into code and get what we’re looking for. Projects would continue to go through Planning Commission review and City Council process. Ms. McMonigal spoke about incremental density which has occurred over the years in response to feedback from the community. Ms. Rog said at the same time it doesn’t hurt to put ideas out there. There was further discussion about the commercial property on the east side of Louisiana Avenue at 27th Street and south of the Burlington Northern railroad tracks. Planning Commission recommended changing from commercial to medium density residential. There was discussion about the Minikahda storage site located south of the railroad tracks on France Avenue. Staff noted the site is currently industrial, and asked if that was the appropriate long-term use of the property. Staff also noted that a previous suggestion for high density residential in this area in the last comprehensive plan was not well received. After further discussion, planning commissioners recommended a change to medium density residential. This recommendation could spur additional discussion about this site as an isolated remnant industrial site, medium density residential offers a transition between the adjacent existing high density residential to the northwest and the adjacent existing low density residential to the south, and the potential for the site’s access to be from Park Glen Road rather than France Ave could possibly be explored. Meeting was adjourned at 9 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Nancy Sells Recording Secretary