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DOHERTY RUMBLE & BUTLER PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION City of Lake Elmo April 20, 1999 Page 5 residential districts. Even the business park zone, which has a 20 acre minimum plat size requirement, requires only a 150 foot buffer. There is no rational basis for imposing twice the buffer requirement on religious uses as on general business uses. The buffer requirements should be modified to a 150 foot building setback requirement and a 50 foot parking and driveway area requirement. The amendment proposed by the Planning Commission, allowing the buffer to be outside of the 15 acre maximum parcel size, but only if on a separate tax parcel, contiguous to the principal parcel, and encumbered by a perpetual easement prohibiting development and legal combination with any other parcel, is an unconstitutional taking of property, and a blatant attempt to require churches to pay taxes on church owned property required to meet the buffer requirement. This provision, perhaps even more than the maximum lot size, illustrates the intent of the proposed ordinance to impose unconstitutional restrictions and requirements on the development of new churches in the City of Lake Elmo. 4. The 35% limitation on impervious surface is also an unreasonable restriction designed to make it impossible to develop a church use. The 35% impervious surface limitation is also not supported by any rational basis. Nothing even close to 65% pervious surface is necessary for surface water management and virtually all existing, developed PF sites in the City substantially exceed the 35% requirement. Once again, comparison to existing standards for other uses is illustrative. The maximum impervious surface allowed in the business park zone is 75%. There is no basis for a requirement that is more than twice as severe on churches. The churches have previously proposed that the impervious surface restriction be increased to a minimum of 50%. 5. The proposed ordinance unconstitutionally prohibits the expansion of existing churches in Lake Elmo. As noted above, 25 of 26 sites currently zoned PF or P in the City are occupied by existing uses. It is believed that every one of these sites (with the possible exception of the cemetery and the parks) does not comply with the requirements of the proposed PF-Ordinance. Eleven of the 26 sites exceed the maximum lot size; and the remaining developed parcels, including all of the existing churches in the City of Lake Elmo, violate one or more of the setback, buffer and/or impervious surface requirements. The Planning Commission's response to an ordinance which renders every existing PF site in the City nonconforming was to amend the ordinance to state that existing uses "may continue such use as a conforming use without a conditional use permit." However, the impact of this amendment MumoG 588883.1