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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, March 22, 2010 Page 11 Councilmembers encouraged other candidates to keep their interest in involve- ment with their local government; and Councilmember Pust charged Council- member Roe, as part of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan group to get those candidates involved at that level. c. Consider the Request by Twin City Chinese Christian Church fora ZON- ING TEXT AMENDMENT to allow contemporary church uses at 2755 Long Lake Road and in General Business (B-3) Districts generally (PF10-006) Associate Planner Bryan Lloyd briefly reviewed staff's analysis of this request, as detailed in the RCA dated March 22, 2010; and their recommendation for denial based on specifics outlined in Section 6 of that report. Discussion among staff, including Mr. Lloyd and City Planner Thomas Paschke, and Councilmembers included definitions of land use designations and those insti- tutional uses included; staffls interpretation of the absence of specific reference to Institutional land uses as not recommending those uses; current zoning code al- lowance of church use only in District B-1 through a Conditional Use and sur- rounded by neighborhoods in residential areas; possible locations of churches re- trofitted in strip malls of which the City is unaware of that use; and additional Comprehensive Plan guidance. Further discussion included regional contemporary churches versus traditional neighborhood churches; absence of discussion at the Comprehensive Plan Steer- ing Committee level on which districts were suited for church use and whether excluded intentionally or not; and staff's determination that potentially high em- ployment areas didn't support institutional uses, whether tax generating or not. Applicant Representatives Ron Wong, 2340 East 121St Street, Burnsville, MN, Chair of Trustee Com- mittee at Twin City Chinese Christian Church (T4C) Mr. Wong provided background and historical information of the T4C church, specific to the regional and ethnic nature of the church; and thanked staff for their assistance in pursuing this application, along with the Planning Commission for their unanimous recommendation for approval. The detail of this information is included in the February 5, 2010 Zoning Text Amendment Application narrative (Attachment C) and excerpt of the March 3, 2010 Planning Commission meeting minutes (Attachment D), both included as part of the RCA dated March 22, 2010. Thomas Peterson, Station 19 Architects, 2001 University Avenue SE, Minne- apolis, MN Mr. Peterson provided additional comments to the RCA, in addition to those ad- dressed in the above-referenced attachments, including the trend of current church models away from traditional neighborhoods to regional contemporary "mini malls of ministry," and related parking and traffic generation considerations. Mr. Peterson opined that this project would be of benefit to T4C and the City for pur-