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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes – Wednesday, January 06, 2010 Page 3 the short-term until other users make such landscaping insufficient for screening 97 the ground equipment; potential removal of existing trees and/or vegetation during 98 the construction and installation process to provide access; and whether locating 99 a tower in the trees would reduce the equipment’s effectiveness. 100 Chair Doherty noted, for the record, that e-mail correspondence had been 101 received earlier today from the Parks and Recreation Commission Chair Bob 102 Willmus, related to action taken the recent Parks and Recreation Commission 103 meeting related to this proposal; attached hereto and made a part thereof. 104 Commissioner Gisselquist, while recognizing the potential revenue to the City 105 from tower users, expressed his lack of support for locating towers in any park, 106 including Acorn Park. 107 Additional discussion included potential viability and feasible locations on 108 commercial property (i.e., Rice Street corridor at County Road C – Walgreen’s 109 new development) rather than on park property and more significant impacts to 110 residential properties; staff’s reminder that revenue considerations should not be 111 part of a land use decision-making, consistency of the proposal with the 112 comprehensive plan guidance to promote communications infrastructure as a 113 service for residents and to keep Roseville competitive in multiple marketplaces 114 with new telecommunications on existing towers when feasible; and impacts to 115 equipment functionality by restricting the amount of space for ground equipment. 116 Commissioner Wozniak questioned whether the City was trying to maintain the 117 park as park as opposed to trying to keep the tower away from residential 118 properties; and questioned why the applicant had chosen that location in the park 119 rather than areas along the fringe of the park. Commissioner Wozniak expressed 120 his preference for a tower location on the edge of the park as a transitional aspect 121 rather than within the park’s interior. 122 Mr. Lloyd opined that a balance between interfering with park space may be 123 preferable to encroaching on residential properties; with the broader public 124 bearing the burden of the chosen location rather than it being borne privately by 125 only a few adjacent residential property owners. 126 Commissioner Wozniak observed that property owners adjacent to a park also 127 benefited from that proximity. 128 Additional discussion included displaying images and a scale mock-up of the 129 height at 150’ in comparison to the tree height at approximately 80’. 130 Bob Willmus, Chair of Parks and Recreation Commission 131 At the request of Chair Doherty, Mr. Willmus provided a summary of the 132 discussion held at the recent Parks and Recreation Commission 133 Mr. Willmus advised that the Commission’s action, based on the proposal as 134 presented, was a motion to deny support for the request, based in part on the 135 Master Plan efforts currently underway and how Acorn Park may be re-tasked in 136 the future. 137 Mr. Willmus advised that, other questions and discussion included how pending 138 zoning code revisions under the new Comprehensive Plan may impact Acorn 139 Park; whether this type of use is desired in a City park; discussion of the 140 precedent in Reservoir Woods Park, but clarification that the tower was already in 141 place before the property became a park; and the difficulty in planning “what if” 142 scenarios when impacts were unknown at this time. 143 Mr. Willmus noted the presence of a large, popular disc golf course on the park’s 144 fringes; and also noted that the proposed location of the tower would serve as the 145 primary focus when accessing the park from County Road C, which the Parks and 146 Recreation Commission found unacceptable. 147