09/25/2006 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Search

September 25, 2006 Honorable Mayor John Bergeson City of Lino Lakes 600 Town Center Parkway Lino Lakes, Minnesota 55014 -1182 Re: Millers Crossroads Shopping Center Dear Mayor Bergeson, Bruggeman Properties hereby respectfully requests the city denies the proposed rezoning of our property on the southeast corner of Hodgson Road and Birch Street in Lino lakes from Limited Business (LB) to Neighborhood Business (NB). Our reasons for requesting the denial are as follows: 1) The application for rezoning is being requested without the consent of the property owner. The full extent of the zoning code amendments to LB and NB currently being proposed by staff, and the resulting impact to our property can not be determined until the city council acts on the item. Procedurally and fundamentally it is not in our best interest to voluntarily, or more importantly unknowingly, give up zoning, and therefore we can not support this application. 2) This rezoning action is being taken by the City Council to prevent our application for certain conditional uses in the future. As part of our original application a site plan was submitted and approved that did not include a service station or drive - through. The discussions with City Council at the time of prior approval were focused on service stations and major -chain fast food restaurants (i.e. Burger King, etc.). Our recent application for a drive though was simply a request for a coffee house. We believed it to be a reasonable request and not in conflict with the spirit of the prior plan approval. Any traffic impacts from the plan change were demonstrated to be minimal at best. Evidently Staff and Planning Commission saw it that way as well, as we received a positive Staff report and approval from the Planning Commission. As you may recall, the only significant public objection was from the neighboring coffee shop owner. The Council has discretion under the conditional use permit process. We withdrew our application as it was apparent the Council would use its discretion to override the Planning Commission recommendation and would have denied the conditional use permit request. This was a decision we disliked, but a process that worked. There is no need for further limitations on the property or to bar future bodies from using their discretion as circumstances change and warrant. 3) The current LB zoning for the site is supported by the City Zoning Code. The LB District zoning code for the City in fact states "There may be some areas which are suitable only for commercial uses of a limited (less intense) nature. This may be due to the close proximity of residential uses. ...The LB District can be used as a transitional district or buffer between non - compatible uses such as intense commercial (GB) and residential uses." This is a proven planning technique and was the basis for the Comprehensive Plan and the rezoning for our property. It is exactly the situation which our commercial site faces with medium density residential to the east and south and GB zoning to the north. Then compared to the property