08/14/2006 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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• • • Millers Crossroads Shopping Center page 5 commercial site to Hodgson Road. This is to provide the ability to install trunks down the west side of Hodgson to provide service there. These pipes must be constructed across the site as part of this project. An easement must be granted to the City for these utilities. Landscaping: The new plan includes significantly more landscaping than the 2003 plan, including berming and lilacs to screen the building and parking lot from residences west of Hodgson Road. A variety of trees, shrubs, and other plantings provide screening and create an aesthetically pleasing site. The outdoor seating area would be surrounded by perennial flowers. The drive through route would be flanked by a berm, ash, pine, spruce, arborvitae, and dogwood. A variety of trees would be distributed across the site. Section 3, Subd. 4.Q. of the zoning ordinance includes screening requirements. Where a commercial site abuts property zoned for residential use, there must be screening. Screening shall also be provided where a business is across the street from a residential zone, but not on that side of the business considered to be the front. This screening shall consist of a fence or planting strip designed to provide 80% opacity to a minimum height of six feet at time of planting Berms may be used up to three feet with plants on the berm to provide the requisite total of six feet of screening. The front is the north side, along Birch. Land to the west is zoned R -1. A berm of three feet is shown on the southwest side of the building. Additional plantings on this berm should be added to meet the six feet height minimum. A break in the landscaping allows a sidewalk access into the site from the trail along Hodgson Rd. It also allows the building wall sign to be visible, an important consideration for a commercial building. Another berm screens the parking lot, this one with plantings on top. The site does not technically "abut" residential land on the east and south, as there are outlots with ponds in them. The dogwood shown along the drive through window area is off the site in the outlot. As this outlot will be turned over to the City (it is only a stormwater pond), and there are stormwater facilities in the area, the dogwood should not be planted. The arborvitae would not be six feet high at time of planting, so should be replaced with something that is. Several plantings are shown in the pond outlots, which are not part of the project property. Three trees in the right of way of each outlot are acceptable, but the other plantings should not be installed. Typically, the City collects escrow for boulevard trees and uses the money to purchase and plant the trees. These recommendations are included in the conditions of approval in Resolution 06 -53.