09-06-94 CCM - Laserfiche WebLink

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LAKE ELMO CITY COUNCIL MINUTES SEPTEMBER 6, 1994 Attorney Niles voiced his concern that the application be processed "as is" on the merits without Mr. Colon being forced to waive any of his rights. Niles stated, "What I heard was a motion to deny processing the application or consideration under the 197C comp plan. Our request is for the application to be processed "as is" on the merits and we are leaving it up to you to make your decision as the board of adjustments how that would take place and we will take appropriate next action depending on what the council actions are." At the last meeting Attorney Filla thought it was clear that there was a request of the city to process the application under the 1979 plan and under the 1990 plan. That is what he responded to in his letter and what Mr. Niles had agreed to. Filla stated, "All the city has done is indicate to the property owner that for reasons stated they chose not to process this application under the 1979 comp plan, but if the property owner wishes we will process it under the 1990 plan. We need to be very clear on what we are doing here rather than proceeding to process this 'application' which contains different language in it according to its merits. We are trying to identify the issues here and deal with them and not leave this to some vague form so that some body that reviews this in the future understands what we are doing and the reasons for doing this." Attorney Niles believed Mr. Filla raised issues that are not there. Niles stated, "He thought Mr. Filla's description earlier about what the city's options were adequate: you could decide to review the application under the 1979 plan and decide not to do that, you could decide to review it under the 1990 version." Filla said, "if the application is processed under the 1990 comp plan amendment plan and it is approved we will never know the answer to what Judge Doyscher meant by his order because it will be moot." Niles believed that was accurate if the application is ultimately denied. Then maybe we will have the opportunity to do that. It is our hope that we will only have to go back to Judge Doyscher once or not at all. In our view the appropriate action would be to the council to cast a second resolution directing the PZ to consider the application under the 1990 comp plan. Councilman Johnson commented the City ordinance states if we accept the submission of the application and the council has denied acceptance of the application based on the 1979 comp plan the only other options to accept it is on the basis of the 1990 comp plan. According to the motion, Johnson explained, "the application will go to the PZ unless they withdraw their application. They have withdrawn their application before when it was based on the 1990 comp plan. We are exactly in the same position we were a half a year ago. If they are consistent with their previous actions, they will withdraw it again. So there is some indecision as to whether we should direct the PZ to hold a Public Hearing. We are required by ordinance now to hold a public hearing based on this motion and your application and the hearing would be held on the application based on the 1990 comp plan."