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Planning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes May 17, 2011 Page 2 1 2 Assistant City Manager Moore-Sykes reported that on May 5, 2011, Governor Dayton signed 3 into law the new legislation amending Minnesota Statutes Section 462.357, subd. 6,to restore 4 municipal variance authority in response to the Supreme Court's ruling in Krummenacher v. City 5 of Minnetonka, decided on June 24,2010. She stated the amendment became effective on May 6 6, 2011 and renames the variance standard test of undue hardship to practical difficulties but 7 otherwise retains the three factor test that the former variance language included. She indicated 8 that an additional sentence was added that more closely mirrors a city's authority that variances 9 shall only be permitted when they are in harmony with the purpose and general intent of the 10 ordinance and when the terms of the variance are consistent with the comprehensive land use 11 plan. She added that the City Attorney and staff are in the process of amending the City Code to 12 include this new language. 13 14 Chair Jensen stated that he attended a seminar last week regarding the new legislation and the 15 premise of the amendment is that it provides more flexibility back to cities in terms of how to 16 process variance requests,as well as how applicants apply for variances, so long as the 17 applicants provide sufficient written material in support of their case to move forward through 18 the Planning Commission and City Council. He noted that it is not up to staff or the Planning 19 Commission to provide the reasons for a variance and applicants will need to frame their 20 variance requests better than they have in the past in order to comply with the new statute. 21 22 Assistant City Manager Moore-Sykes presented information prepared by the League of 23 Minnesota Cities entitled"Variances: Very Variable? Verifying Variance Variety in the 24 Vernacular." 25 26 Chair Jensen requested that staff work with applicants when applying for a variance to make sure 27 that the five questions outlined in the League's summary have been addressed in order to make it 28 easier to through the public hearing process and to adopt findings that address those questions. 29 30 Assistant City Manager Moore-Sykes agreed and noted that some of the conditions are not new, 31 including"is the variance in harmony with the purpose and intent of the ordinance,""is the 32 variance consistent with the comprehensive plan," and"are there unique circumstances to the 33 property not created by the landowner." She explained that the question"does the proposal put 34 the property to use in a reasonable manner"is framed differently and makes it easier when 35 making a decision because it gets the applicant to understand what is meant by"reasonable"and 36 some of the issues their neighbors might have with the variance. She stated that the question 37 "will the variance, if granted, alter the essential character of the locality"is also not new and the 38 City has always tried to keep variances to the point where it does not alter the character of the 39 neighborhood and retains the autonomy in the neighborhood. 40 41 IX.2. CONDITIONAL PERMITTED USES IN INDUSTRIAL ZONING DISTRICT 42 43 Assistant City Manager Moore-Sykes explained that staff recently discovered that a portion of 44 the Zoning Ordinance §152.142 was inadvertently missed by the printer and had changed the 45 sequencing such that subd. (h)and subd. (i)were both left out during the rewriting of the Zoning 46 Code. She stated that staff researched whether there is a need for dwelling units to be part of