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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes – Wednesday, July 07, 2010 Page 8 Chair Doherty encouraged Ms. Rhees to revamp the illustrations as she 348 indicated. 349 General Comments/Discussion 350 Chair Doherty questioned the identify of the City’s Zoning Administrator as 351 referenced; with Mr. Paschke advised that this would be identified in the 352 definition section as the City’s Planning Division, not a specific person. 353 Discussion included Dimensional Standards (page 7); whether lot size 354 requirements were needed for Regional Business Districts, or if guidance of the 355 Comprehensive Plan for RB was sufficient in a community that was fully 356 developed such as Roseville. 357 Additional Public Comment 358 Tam McGehee 359 Ms. McGehee opined that, as the only member of the public to speak on this, the 360 previous discussion was disconcerting, with the Planning Commission asked to 361 approve a zoning code that is clearly incomplete and not understood; without 362 benefit of a public hearing. Ms. McGehee further opined that these are 363 complicated matters and needed more consideration to protect property owners 364 and to provide appropriately for storm water management. Ms. McGehee cited 365 several examples, including the new Ramsey County Library and water drainage 366 along Hamline Avenue; huge asphalt parking lots without rain gardens and/or 367 catch basins; and noted the requests of single-family homeowners adjacent to 368 Har Mar seeking a commitment on the south side of Har Mar Mall for a buffer 369 other than trees. Ms. McGee stated that people in this community care about 370 where they lived and what residential communities and commercial real estate 371 looked like. Ms. McGehee cited other examples (AMC Theater and new Target 372 #1 Store) in Roseville where residents were allegedly told by City staff that they 373 were not allowed to view site designs; and that even though the public was told 374 that the Roseville Target store would look different than other stores, it ended up 375 not really different than their other stores, with no public input considered. Ms. 376 McGehee opined that “we’re getting tired of it,” and that this had nothing to do 377 with the Comprehensive Plan and there was nothing indicating the need to 378 change commercial zoning districts. 379 Chair Doherty noted that a number of open houses had been held to-date on the 380 proposed zoning code rewrite. 381 Ms. McGehee responded by noting that the people attending this open houses 382 were asked to vote, and had indicated they preferred curved streets and keeping 383 lot sizes as they were; but the subsequent report summarizing the public input 384 indicated “nice little lots in nice rows.” 385 Chair Doherty noted that rationale for reducing lot sizes due to problems arising 386 from the numerous nonconforming lots. 387 Ms. McGehee opined that that was for the residential part, and the same 388 nonconformities existed with buildings in commercial areas; and that the City 389 didn’t need to adopt design standards for the entire City to look like “Disneyland,” 390 but should be developed as people come up with good ideas and as things 391 change. 392 Vivian Ramalingam, 2182 Acorn Road 393 Ms. Ramalingam opined that there needed to be options for handling 394 groundwater when lots are covered, such as through rain gardens and other 395 water management options depending on existing structures; however, she 396 further opined that those systems didn’t do anything about air quality, but trees 397 do and asked that those be held in consideration when discussing pervious and 398 impervious materials on a property. 399