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ARDEN HILLS REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES JULY 18, 2005 7 . was comfortable with respect to parking spaces. With respect to the EA W, he believed they had enough information now and did not believe anything would be gained by an EA W. He stated he would not support an EA W. He thanked the citizens for their comments, calls, and emails. . Councilmember Grant thanked the residents for the phone calls, letters, emails, pictures, and comments. He stated he had also done a lot of research on this, including visiting other office parks and his comments were very similar to Councilmember Larson. He believed this was a nice high quality office building, but they werc proposing too much signage. He noted he did not want this to look like a strip mall development. He stated he liked the townhouse development look, but that feeling would be removed with too much signage. He stated he would not support this with the signage as proposed. He indicated he would be in support of a larger monument sign along Highway 96. He stated he would like to see more green space and trees and he would not support a development of more than 70,000 square feet and this was the number that everyone went in with. He noted this would be a reduction of 4,000 square feet and a reduction of 16 parking stalls and those parking stalls could add to the green space and trees. With respect to the EAW, he believed they had enough information and was not necessary and would not change the final outcome of the development. With respect to the access onto Hamlinc Avenue, he was concerned that if they had only one access off of Highway 96, it would create additional "u" turns by 50 percent. He stated he was not sure if he liked the access on Hamline Avenue, and he believed they needed to solve the problem on Hamline A venue. He noted Hamline Avenue traffic would only get worse, with or without this development and he was in support of the access on Hamline Avenue. He stated the City and County had to work together to solve the traffic problems on Hamline A venue. He stated he needed to see changes on the signage and the overall square footage of the project in order to support it. Councilmember Rem stated she was not in favor of an access on Hamline Avenue, but she also did not like one access onto Highway 96 either. She stated whatever happened on Hamline Avenue, she hoped the developer worked with the City. She believed the EA W was not necessary in this case and the environmental issues had been covered previously. She stated she was in agreement with the signage being reduced also. Council member Holden asked if 306 parking spaces were necessary. Mr. Hellegcrs replied staff had a standard set that they workcd from for office space. He indicated the developer felt this was the amount of parking they needed on this development. He noted they wanted to make sure the parking lot was built large enough to accOlmnodate all of the cars parking on site. He indicated there was no other place for people to park, except in the parking lot. Couucilmemher Holden stated when this proposal first came to them in October it was quoted as 40,000 square feet and as things moved along, it was now 74,000 square feet plus with less green space. She stated she was not sure if this was in the spirit of the neighborhood business zoning, even though it met all of the requirements. She stated this was way too dense for this area and she could live with it if there was more grccn space. She stated she was not sure she could support this as proposed. . Mayor Aplikowski stated they first needed to deal with the EA W. 7