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121 planning statute whenever conflict exists: "therefore in the event of a conflict between the 122 Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinance, the Comprehensive Plan controls." 123 Regarding Question 3, the City Attorney states, "Since Minnesota Statute 473.865 requires that 124 the Zoning Ordinance and the Comprehensive Plan not conflict, I would recommend that to the 125 extent the Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinance may conflict as described in Answer to 126 Question No. I above, the City Council amend either its Zoning Ordinance or Comprehensive 127 Plan to eliminate the conflict." 128 STAFF ANALYSIS /DISCUSSION 129 While there was a lot of discussion during the Wal -Mart approval process on the City Attorney's 130 opinion on how it impacted that development, it is clear that there is some ambiguity in the 131 current Comprehensive Plan and Zoning that needs to be rectified. Based on staff's analysis and 132 research, we offer the following points to consider: 133 Comprehensive Plan Dehinitions 134 The Planning Division believes that the City Attorney's answer to Question I puts the Planning 135 Division in a precarious position because the criteria suggested by the City Attorney has not been 136 codified into the Comprehensive Plan or more importantly the Zoning Ordinance. The absence 137 of such criteria does not give the City much ability to utilize that methodology in determining 138 permitted uses. Alternatively, if criteria was included in the code, some of it would be subjective 139 and subject to claims of arbitrary treatment by aggrieved parties. Staff would suggest that the 140 City Council not include specific types of uses from the Comprehensive Plan and instead use 141 general descriptions on what is allowed and rely on the Zoning Code to specifically deal with the 142 distinctions that need to be made between land use types. 143 To further make the point, staff will note that keeping Comprehensive Plan land use designations 144 in the definition of Community Mixed Use will make any development /redevelopment within 145 Twin Lakes difficult at best, since most uses that this area has been designed to accommodate are 146 of a regional nature. Office uses stand out as a prime example of a regional use, especially a 147 corporate campus, which has always been a use desired for Twin Lakes. Other uses including 148 hotels, restaurants, a fitness center, and /or an office /showroom, are far more regional when 149 applying the sorts of analysis the City Attorney has suggested. The best recommendation that 150 staff can give is to eliminate reference of the Comprehensive Plan land use definition from 151 CMU land use definition. Comprehensive Plans are broad -based documents that include goals, 152 policies, and objects that are interwoven into the City Code and, in this case, the Zoning 153 Ordinance, as a means to regulate. A Comprehensive Plan is not the regulatory document for 154 which specific development sites rely. 155 The Planning Division also concludes that using roadway classifications as a means to 156 differentiate between types of commercial areas is, when applied to current areas and their uses, 157 may be problematic for existing and future development. Twin Lakes is a good example of this 158 where although the CMU does not include roadway functional classification as a guiding 159 measure, the site has direct visibility and access to the adjacent regional highway system. 160 Follwing the language of the Regional Business definition, it would appear that regional 161 businesses should be allowed in the Twin Lakes area. It is the staff's position that either 162 modifications or elimination of such language should occur in order to make the definitions clear 163 and concise. 164 Size Limitations Page 4 of 8