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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12/05/1989CITY OF APPLE VALLEY URBAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE MINUTES December 5, 1989 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chairman John McKay at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber of the City of Apple Valley. Members Present: Chairman John Mckay, Members Sharon Schwartz, Jeff Weldon. Members Absent: Jeannine Churchill, Shirley Doering, JoAnne Ellison, Pam Solberg Staff Present: Tom Lawell, Scott Hickok, Councilmembers Barb Savanick, Bill Holton Others Present: See sign-in sheet 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA - The agenda was approved as presented with the addition of a recycling discussion.. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF NOVEMBER 14, 1989 Jeffrey Weldon called the meeting to order instead of John McKay. The minutes were approved with this correction. The motion carried unanimously. 4. DISCUSS ORDINANCE REGARDING OPERATION OF LARGE COMMERCIAL VEHICLES IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS Chairman McKay asked Dab NcGinley, 12520 Dorchester Trail, how long have you lived in Apple Valley? He responded - about 1 year. The main issue is to take a look at some of the restrictions that could be put on some unsafe practices of large vehicles. Basically, some of the practices, if 1 may use a map of the community where I live (shows map and continues to refer to it showing method of truck operation). Mr. McGinley continues by stating that he has asked the driver not to back up in his driveway. He quit doing so for a short time and now is backing as before. They are really endangering kid's lives. John McKay questioned why the vehicle was backing up the driveway? Why doesn't he just drive down the street? McGinley responded, most likely, he has to make access to 125th again. It is faster because there is only one house to make the right backup to me and catch my trash and go out and go either left or right. Urban Affairs Advisory Committee Minutes December 5, 1989 Page 2 Jeff Weldon asked are there any customers further down? McGinley replied, not for that particular day. A general discussion ensued. McGinley asked about a temporary turnaround? I guess the point being made is that we are leaving it up to the discretion of the driver or their hauler. A resident responded that their real concern is speed. Would it be possible to come right around with no backing up? John McKay replied that a couple of things come to mind. There is one thing that I would like staff to do is to check other communities in the area and see if they have addressed this particular issue. We have already covered the fact that they are not to back up the driveways. Sue Bloom, 13772 Fordham Court, stated she lives at the end of Fordham Court which is a playground for kids. With all the carriers every day, there is at least one truck or more that comes down there. If they are in violation of the ordinance, the simplest way is to report that replied John McKay. Dan McKinley asked, who should they call? John McKay responded that they should start by calling their hauler. Dan continued stating, apparently they are not getting the message. Dan McGinley asked whether this could be publicized by our Police Department? Jeff Weldon stated that we have tried to preserve the free market system of choosing ones own hauler. John McKay stated that we will put the staff to work. Dan McGinley stated lot - identified as 19 - is a vacant lot - owned by United Mortgage. A truckload of stone and one layer of base blacktop and a U-shape right here would take care of the problem. Dan McGinley also asked if there was a law regarding backing up in the middle of the street? John McKay stated this is one of the things that I have asked staff to review. Recycling - We do have some pretty definite figures for recycling of the three materials that we designated - aluminum, glass and newspaper. The program has been an overwhelming success with the quantities that we have been picking up. The County set forth for us a number of goals. I Urban Affairs Advisory Committee Minutes December 5, 1989 Page 3 will pass this around so you can summarize where we are in the County basis and where we are individually city by city. Tom Lawell referred to the handout and explained. The map showed all of the cities in Dakota County, Urban Apple Valley being the first there. The lighter line is the annual goal prescribed by the County. That was 1434 tons of recyclable materials we needed to pick up during 1989. The dark area showed what had been collected as of January to June of that year, which is basically 1234 tons. Now you probably see something a little bit unusual about that. Eagan starts the recycling in January. We started at the end of April, but by two months of operation (May and June), we were already 85% to 90% towards our yearly goal. There will be no problem with meeting our goal at this point. The County as a whole, Burnsville, Eagan, are certainly right up there. Farmington has already exceeded theirs. Two of the other communities are not quite half way. Lakeville is half way with theirs, as well. We have put together a program that is not an instant program, but is rather mature already. Are we tracking non-pickup situations? A general discussion ensued. Jeff Weldon - Are you trying to do anything new this year? Tom Lawell responded - Yes, a multi-family project. We do have an intern coming on in January. I am hoping to assign this project. They do again request a hazardous waste collection date in the City. Hopefully, that will be successful. Commercial and industrial - we are going to try and get more and more of our businesses involved in recycling. We would like to do a demonstration process. We are moving our liquor store #1 to the shopping center, expanding the size by approximately two times. As part of that, we hope to increase our volume. As part of this, we would like to do cardboard recycling - we would like to set that up as a demonstration project and allow others to come and see how it is done. We hope it will be opening by the end of February. A general discussion. again ensued including topics such as: rates, schedules for pick up and hazardous waste. John McKay asked if we were in a position to pass anything on to the Council in that we only have three members in attendance? It was a problem at the last meeting because of only three members. I don't know if we formally have to. I guess what we are looking for is a recommendation and my notes from Pamela Sohlberg that had talked to you a little about their concerns and interests in it. I think if we can agree as a group here, we have brought forward in the minutes with the others that were here last time what their feelings were and based on that, if you are comfortable tonight, we could pass this along to the Council. Urban Affairs Advisory Committee Minutes December 5, 1989 Page 4 Sharon Schwartz asked if a notation could be made that three members passed it? Scott Hickok responded - yes. Councilman Holton stated that he had the ordinance and took Scott around and showed him a number of examples where I just didn't think it would work. If it was daylight, I could go around and show you all kinds of examples where I honestly think that the gravel and crushed rock wouldn't have worked and the fact that there isn't any. Not only that, it is this temporary situation in a lot of cases. In my own situation, I went and paved the whole area next to my house so I can argue this point of view. I have no ax to grind - I am not forced to do anything - No matter what way it went. Then I got to thinking, do we really want to pave over all of Apple Palley? I had a camper in the path that was temporary, have a boat now which is probably very temporary, but the minute I get rid of that, I am going to be stuck with concrete. Now I have teenage daughters that are driving and I have a need for it and probably always will. When I sell the house, I will probably sell the house to someone that has the need for that. I don't know if that necessarily enhances a neighborhood to have a lot of concrete. The issue is not motorized vehicles on crushed rock or pervious surfaces. You are recommending that portion be removed. Otherwise, you are okay with what we have. In fact, I can tell you one thing since I have poured that concrete, my boat is sitting there this winter now where normally I would pay to have it stored away some place. Now as long as I have it, I am going to leave it. I do not know if you are accomplishing what you want to or not. Let's take care of the major problems right now and if that continues to be a problem and you can see something, you can always add to it. People should be able to park non-motorized vehicles wherever they want. It does not have to be so many feet from the house. I think that you can screen properly. Then some of the screening- like when we used to screen the air conditioners on the building - the screening actually looked worse. The issue is do we cover non-motorized in this or not? John McKay stated that this is the same thing that we went round and round on for several sessions. Councilman Holton - Can we do numbers on this? Part of the problem in some instances is the number of non-motorized and motorized. Jeff Weldon - Here is the thing - the definition of a vehicle in here includes non-motorized, includes recreational vehicles. That is correct. Urban Affairs Advisory Committee Minutes December 5, 1989 Page 5 That is the difference between the blue one that I recommended and the pink one. Scott Hickok added that the blue copy of the ordinance does have a three step provision in where it does talk about screening. If you are going to park 25 feet or more than 25 feet away from that principle structure, you would have to meet two of the three items and the criteria listed. In those areas where it works well, it would provide for people who have screening on the back of their lot -natural screening. Bill Holton asked what about the people who have situations where they work? They are parking back there and no one knows. The blue version does allow for that through just two of the three step process. We do have in our landscape section of the code something completely separate, but that is a very good point. We can hit those issues with another section of the code that talks about how much of your front yard can you actually use as parking area. That might be a good point to include that in this so that people can understand that there is only a certain amount of your front yard that you can use and parking in the front yard on anything other than your driveway has to meet certain conditions. I think what this does is protect the front lawn where the entire lawn is parking. Councilperson Barb Savanick stated it was too complicated. I think we are making a mistake taking too much all at once. What I think we are missing is a whole avenue that we could work on that we haven't tried at all and that is to set up standards -not an ordinance, but standards that are suggested. I think we have to go a round robin on it and I think we have. I had a bad experience. We didn't know what we were doing. We didn't have any instructions, no advice. Every new residence should get information every year when the water bills or something goes out, John McKay stated that these are the same issued that we went round and round on before. What I would like is input now on whether you want the pink or the blue and will also state Pam's position which was made very clear to me. A general discussion pertaining to the two ordinance options ensued. MOTION: A recommendation was made to close the meeting with recommendation to the Council that we had a split vote from the Committee members that were present on the two issues (blue version and pink version), but we recommend that some sort of ordinance be passed. We plan to meet again on January 9, 1990. The motion carried unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 8:40.