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HomeMy WebLinkAboutConservation Commission - 04/13/2010 APPROVED MINUTES CONSERVATION COMMISSION TUESDAY,APRIL 13, 2010 7:00 PM, CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Laura Jester(Chair), Greg Olson (Vice Chair), Sue Brown, Ray Daniels, Ravi Jaiswal, Geneva MacMillan, Prashant Shrikhande STAFF: Regina Herron, Staff Liaison Jan Curielli, Recording Secretary Gene Dietz, Director of Public Works Rodney Rue, City Engineer STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Gretchen Askew, Julia Wang, Stephanie Korman GUEST: Derek Asche, City of Plymouth I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Jester called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Brown and Jaiswal were absent. The new members of the Commission introduced themselves and told about their interests in serving on the Conservation Commission. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Heron added Item V.B. Presentation at Commission Banquet. Jester declared the agenda approved as amended. III. SPEAKER Derek Asche said he is in Water Resource Management at the City of Plymouth. He said rain gardens have worked well in Plymouth, and the residents have adopted it as their own program. He gave a brief explanation of rain gardens which are used to capture surface water runoff. Olson asked where the captured water goes. Asche said it depends on the type of soil. He noted Plymouth has a lot of clay and some of the water goes into the ground, but they also use drain tile. Olson asked where the water goes from the drain tile. Asche said it either goes in the street or into a catch basin. Asche explained the benefits of rain gardens and reviewed some of the rain gardens in Plymouth. Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 2 Olson asked if they have been able to determine how much of a contribution they make towards reducing the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). Asche said they are waiting for the results from a study on rain gardens being done by the University of Minnesota. Olson asked when that would be available. Asche said it will be out very soon. Asche reviewed the rules Plymouth has regarding the placement of rain gardens and the process used to construct them. He said they clean out the drain the yearly and replace the tile every ten years. Olson asked how they fund the rain gardens. Asche said they have a $5.00 per month surface water utility charge, and they use that for retaining walls and the cost of the rain gardens. Olson asked who does the design of the rain gardens. Asche said it is done in-house, and they have developed a process for them. They identify the sites, and then the CAD designers come up with cross-sections and sizes. Olson asked who picks the type of plants. Asche said the water resource technician has studied it, and they are trying to find plants that will work in the clay and wet conditions. Jester asked if Eden Prairie considered installing rain gardens as part of street reconstruction. Dietz said we have installed some,but so far we have reconstructed only two streets because our street system is relatively new. He said there are permit requirements for redoing a street for a rain garden. We have a ponding process in large developments. Jester asked if there will be more neighborhood reconstruction projects as the city ages. Dietz said we have some reconstruction projects in the Hidden Ponds neighborhood and other areas. We will have to deal with it in the near future. Olson asked about the age of Plymouth's streets. Asche said there are some being reconstructed that are 40-60 years old. Dietz noted the oldest neighborhoods in Eden Prairie were built in 1971. Olson asked about rain gardens in commercial developments. Rue said development projects have to meet storm water standards so there is a combination of techniques to capture storm water runoff. They need ponds for underground filtration that sends water into a series of vaults. Herron noted most new developments have integrated rain gardens. Rue said Menards has some under the parking lot. Dietz said we try to catch the first 3/4 of an inch of rain water throughout town; however, the Watershed District's goal is to capture the first inch. Rue said we still have to deal with larger storms. Olson asked if the commission can get information on where the rain gardens are located. Rue said Ms Stovring has that information. Jester said the rain garden in Edenvale Park works well and looks great. Dietz said they rebuilt one on the south side of the driveway at Dunn Bros. Rue said we haven't had a lot of luck with them and have had to redo some of them. Dietz said we rely on consultants and contractors to do our rain gardens, while Plymouth has been doing a lot of this in-house. Asche said they do a lot of legwork with residents and work with people who want to work with them. He said they try to do one for every half mile of street. Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 3 Jester noted they also had a successful grant program to put in the rain gardens. There are a lot of opportunities for grant funds with the Clean Water Act, and she would encourage the City to look at those. Dietz thought Ms Stovring is doing $500 grants to do buffer strips and rain gardens and will be holding another workshop this spring. MacMillan asked when Plymouth first started doing rain gardens. Asche said it goes back to 2000 or 2001 with the grant program. Projects that would reduce turf grass were offered grant funds, and people started doing the rain gardens. They carried that into street reconstruction. He noted he was impressed with what Burnsville has done. MacMillan asked if Burnsville was the first city in the area to put in rain gardens. Asche said they did a pilot program with rain gardens on one side and none on the other and got a 90% reduction in runoff with the rain gardens. Shrikhande asked what is considered a reconstruction. Dietz said it is when we have to move dirt and tear out the street. IV. MINUTES A. Minutes for the March 9, 2010 meeting MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Daniels, to approve the minutes of the March 9, 2010 meeting as published. Motion carried 5-0. V. REPORTS FROM STAFF A. Commercial Recyclins! Initiative Code Amendment—Update Herron said this is scheduled to go to the Planning Commission on April 26 and, if they recommend approval, it will go on to the City Council at the next available opportunity. There will be two readings at the City Council. B. Presentation at Commission Banquet Herron said the Commission banquet is scheduled for May 12, and City Manager Scott Neal has asked the Conservation Commission to give a presentation. They highlight one commission each year at the event. The presentation is an opportunity to explain the mission, how long the commission has been around, significant work and past accomplishments, and what the commission is working towards this year as well as into the future. They also want a group photo to include with the Power Point presentation and would like photos from our events. The Commission Chair has given the presentation in the past. She said she will work together with Ms Jester on this and suggested other commission members email anything they want to highlight. Jester asked how long the presentation should be. Herron said 5-10 minutes, similar to what the commission has presented to the City Council. Jester asked if there were any ideas now. Herron said we could use photos from events such as the Home & Garden Show. Daniels said he took pictures at that and will email them to Ms Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 4 Herron. MacMillan suggested showing the original group and this group. Herron said we will get a group photo tonight and will list those who are not pictured. VI. REPORTS FROM CHAIR A. Eden Prairie Home, Landscape and Garden Expo Jester noted several commission members were there. She thought the event went very well. We had a nice big space and a pretty steady flow of people. She said we distributed a lot of information. We were hoping to upgrade the display boards, and Leslie Stovring said she would be able to get that out of her budget. VII. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION MEMBERS A. Eden Prairie Reads Event—MacMillan MacMillan said they discussed the book,Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She noted she belongs to the Lakewinds Coop, and they plan not to carry products that have artificial colors, artificial flavorings and preservatives. They have a list of eight ingredients they deem to be toxic and will not carry those either. B. Tour of the Water Treatment Plant—Olson Olson said he has not had a tour of the water treatment plant and was wondering if there would be merit in getting an educational tour of the facility. Herron said she could get that coordinated. Jester suggested we do that sometime before a commission meeting. VIII. REPORTS FROM STUDENTS Wu said the Tree Huggers are having an event on Saturday and will be going to a park. They are planning to have another screening of the documentary, Taps, around Earth Day. They plan to have a buckthorn pull at the end of the year and also hope to plant a couple of trees. Jester said she hoped the events go well and they are widely publicized. Daniels noted the DFL met at the High School and there was no way to recycle all of the paper they had, so it was just tossed. IX. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. Ideas for Life in the Prairie newsletter Jester asked when the ideas are due. Herron said she passed the previous suggestions from the Commission along to the Communications Department,but she was not sure if they are going to use any or all of them. The ideas will be used in the Environmental Corner section. She thought this could be an ongoing item for the agenda each month. Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 5 Jester said it would be good to know from the Communications Department if they want broad ideas like we gave last month or if they want more specifics. She was not sure what level of involvement they want from us. She said we gave them four broad ideas last month, and she wondered if they will pick one and go with it. Shrikhande thought we should showcase an example in the community. Wu thought it would be a valuable way to advertise in the community. Herron noted there is a section on the bottom for upcoming events. Shrikhande said the Fresh Water Society had a lot of ideas when he viewed their talk. Jester asked if it was a presentation on their website. Shrikhande said it was, and he suggested we could view it as a commission and then discuss at a meeting. They are partnering with the University of Minnesota for talks. He said he is writing some white papers regarding the Clean Water Act and would be willing to share those sometime. He suggested we have representatives from the Watershed Districts share what they are doing in their areas. MacMillan said she registered for a documentary on poisons hosted by the Freshwater Society and the University of Minnesota on April 27 in the St. Paul campus Student Center. Daniels said Best Buy's wind turbine would be a good article as well as the green roof on the dental office. B. Website content Jester said the Conservation Commission has a page on the Eden Prairie website that we can add information. Daniels asked if there has been anything done to redesign it to get more room. Daniels said we need to think about what we want to put on it. Olson thought we might have a separate workshop meeting where we could brainstorm about it because it is tough to come up with stuff at a regular monthly meeting. Herron suggested anyone with a particular interest in that could work with her and the Communications Department. Olson and MacMillan said they would be interested. Jester thought Ms Brown would be interested as well. She didn't know if we could ask for special time with Ms Herron. Olson thought we could get together without City staff and bring ideas together. Jester said there can be three Commission members at a meeting without declaring a quorum and asked if someone would take the lead on that. MacMillan said she will try to get three members together. Jester thought we could keep this on the agenda as continuing business. C. Rainwater garden research Jester noted we had a good presentation on this tonight. Olson thought it is a good start, and he could see a programming effort in terms of finding out where we have rain garden sites,particularly with commercial development. He will follow up with Derek Asche to find out about the study by the University of Minnesota and will get a copy of that when it comes out. He thought we might get more background on the Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 6 TMDL from the standpoint of the City. Jester thought he might mean the MS4 (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System) permit that every city has with the PCA and is supposed to have a public meeting about. Herron said the meeting is scheduled for May 11. Jester said we will get a complete update from Ms Stovring at that meeting. D. Porous pavers research Olson said he did some research on porous pavers. He had a conversation with an individual in the Engineering Department in Excelsior. They have a municipal parking lot with porous pavers. They think they work great,but they are somewhat high maintenance because of grit and debris that accumulates in the joints. He also thought we should talk to the City of Maplewood where Countryside Volkswagen uses porous pavers in their lot. He said there is also porous concrete which does not have the same joints as the pavers but the base of which has to be right. He said he is going to talk to Hedberg or Cemstone to get information on how it works. Jester noted these surfaces are currently not allowed in the City,but the Planning Commission is asking about it. She thought we also need to look at how cities are permitting them in code and use that as a base to work from. She said Ms Herron sent out information a few months ago on how this got to the Planning Commission and where it stopped. She thought we could come up with a recommendation and language for the code. X. NEW BUSINESS A. Planning Commission Joint Meeting--June 14 Jester said this is scheduled on their meeting date. She thought we might want to discuss the research on porous pavers with them. Olson said he will get something from Excelsior and the other cities about how they permit them in their code. Herron said she will work with Mr. Olson on that and maybe draft something up for the joint meeting. Daniels asked if she would send out the current code. Herron said it basically says that bituminous and Portland cement surfaces are permitted for driveways, but doesn't go into detail about pavers or porous pavers. The Planning Commission discussed whether porous pavers would be allowed. Olson noted the hesitancy on the part of the Planning Commission is about the maintenance issue. Herron thought it is a concern with staff and also from an enforcement standpoint. She thought it is something we want to thoroughly research. Olson asked if there are other issues besides that. Herron said our main concern is the potential for maintenance issues. She thought the Planning Commission can make an informed decision with the research. Daniels asked about the enforcement issues. Herron said it would be based on the drainage and how it affected the neighboring properties. Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 7 Jester asked if there is an aesthetic element. Herron said the aesthetics and property maintenance issues are the main areas. Olson said he will get additional background information from other municipalities so we know what the hang-ups are. Jester asked if we want to discuss other areas or just discuss porous pavers. She said she liked Derek Asche's presentation and would like to start planting the seeds of the rain garden idea with the Planning Commission. Olson asked how we would push it because Mr. Dietz said the streets in Eden Prairie are too new for reconstruction. Jester said we have commercial development. Daniels said we have some new residential areas, and he thought we need to think about that area. Jester said the City has infiltration requirements and, as Mr. Rue mentioned, rain gardens are one of the things that are looked at when a development comes through. She thought it might be nice for the Planning Commission to see how it is working. Herron said we could map what is out there today with residential and commercial and highlight Plymouth and Burnsville. Olson thought we could pull together a map of the rain gardens in Eden Prairie and broach the idea of having some trial sites around the City. Herron thought that would be where if the City applied for and received grant money that might be a possibility. MacMillan asked how they handle how we speak to them if they are up on the dais. Olson thought that would not really be a joint meeting. Jester thought we might have more of a workshop meeting with them ahead of their regular meeting. Jester suggested Ms Herron discuss the meeting setup with the Planning Commission staff liaison. Herron thought a workshop style would be better. Jester thought we might meet an hour before the meeting time and then convene the Conservation Commission at 7:00 PM. Herron said she will bring that up tomorrow. Daniels asked if the Planning Commission gets involved with the interior of a house and if there are any regulations or guidance as far as conservation efforts there. Herron said the building code deals with room sizes and such things as habitation requirements,but the City does not get involved in layout of floor plans. MacMillan asked who originated the building code. Herron said the City uses the Uniform Building Code and the city can't be more restrictive. Shrikhande asked if there is any information on a new rate structure. Herron said she was not aware of it but she could check with the utility billing department. Jester said the City just restructured their water usage so it gets more expensive as you use more water. B. Upcoming City Projects and Development—Project Profile Olson asked how to get more background on the projects. Herron said the Planning Commission minutes are posted online, as is their agenda on the Friday before the meeting. She said she could send out the Project Profile every week if necessary. Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 8 Olson thought it was tough to get inside what they are currently working on. Herron said the Project Profile would be the best source for proposed new projects. Olson asked about the Grace Church request. Herron said they are selling off property to MAC. Daniels asked about the Ridge at Riley Creek project. Herron said that is for two lots and has been approved, with the last step to be the development agreement. It will go on the Council's Consent Calendar on May 18,but is currently in limbo. She noted it is too late for input once it has gone to the City Council. Olson thought it might be interesting for the Commission to get information about what goes into the development agreement in terms of any conservation measures. It would be useful for us to get up to speed on what our Planning Commission is doing in the way of requiring conservation measures on upcoming developments. We could then provide some useful input on what the possibilities are. Herron said she could go over what a sample development agreement would include. Olson said it would be interesting to review a couple of actual development agreements. Jester said we could put that on the agenda with the Planning Commission to discuss what goes into the development agreement in terms of conservation development. Herron said staff works directly with the City Attorney to draft development agreements after the City Council gives direction. She said the sequence is that a developer brings in a project and submits an application to planning staff with a set of plans. Planning staff distributes it to the departments, and the internal development review committee determines if there is anything incorrect or deficient. They communicate with the developer until the project is complete, at which time it is scheduled for the first public hearing at the Planning Commission. A staff report goes to the Planning Commission with a recommendation regarding approval. The Planning Commission reviews the plans, and the developer gives a presentation at the public hearing. The Planning Commission then makes a recommendation to the Council. The next step is a public hearing at the City Council. The Council either approves or denies the project and, if they approve it, directs staff to work with the developer to complete the development agreement. Staff works with the attorney to create the development agreement, and the developer reviews it. Jester noted an environmental person needs to be part of the staff process. Herron said Ms Stovring is part of the staff development review committee. She noted there is an opportunity to provide input or ask questions when you see "in but not scheduled" on the project profile. Jester asked if it would be fair to ask the Planning Commission how they consider conservation when they are reviewing a project. Olson liked the idea of raising the question of conservation issues with the Planning Commission. He would also like to request the opportunity to review a couple of development agreements that are part of the record with the intention of bringing it up as a discussion item at one of our future Conservation Commission meetings. Jester asked if we have a tree preservation ordinance. Herron said we do. Conservation Commission Minutes April 13, 2010 Page 9 XI. UPCOMING EVENTS A. April 18, 2010—Eden Prairie Reads, Eating Locally B. May 1 & 2, 2010—Living Green Expo—St. Paul Fair Grounds C. May 12, 2010—Commission Banquet D. June 14, 2010—Joint Meeting with Planning Commission E. July 4, 2010—City 4th of July Event Herron said she received a note from Bob Lanzi who is coordinating the 4th of July event. Daniels asked her to put in for a spot for the Conservation Commission at the event. Jester asked if we could arrange for recycling at the event because there will be a lot of water bottles and soda cans. She thought we could borrow recycling containers from Hennepin County and use them at the event. It would be good to have a recycling bin every place there is a garbage can. XII. NEXT MEETING A. Tuesday, May 11, 2010 Herron said there will be a public meeting so we may be moved down to one of the Heritage Rooms. Steve McComas will be giving a presentation and report on lake monitoring. Jester said that would be put on our website. At 9:25 PM the Commission moved to the lobby for a photo session. XIII. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Olson moved, seconded by Daniels to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 5-0. Chair Jester adjourned the meeting at 9:30 PM.