Circle Pines Planning Commission Meeting 8/17/2026

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[0:00] All right, give me a heads up, man. Sorry about that. All right. You can call an order. All right. The August 17th, 2026 meeting of the Civil Parish Planning Commission is hereby called Order. Patrick. Roll call. Sure. Chocolate. Here. Oh, Livingston are there. That’s gonna. Present. And Anthony represents the.
[0:20] All right. First off is approval of the minutes from almost a year ago. September 15th of 2025. Uh, they had a chance to get. Any questions or concerns? Get a motion to approve the. And a second. Is that correct? All right. All in favor? All right. All those. All right. Minutes are approved.
[0:54] Uh, I’ll bring this in to the public. Comments. Did you hear the variance? No no no no, no public comment. It doesn’t mean you can’t comment. I mean, you’re still welcome to comment. Everybody likes professional group. I’m impressed. Yes. All right, so with that. Uh, council report. All right.
[1:18] So, uh, typically we give the council report as regards to any planning commission update. So last, uh, council report I had to give was the Nexus project. So that was the last time the the Planning Commission met, which you if you read the minutes, you can see we met last September regarding the replanting of an area over on
[1:35] East Road. Um, the project is completed. Um, and we’re still waiting on some finalization for the landscaping of the plan because they’re using the site right now as as a boneyard for their 2026 project.
[1:53] So it’s kind of a it’s a little bit of a construction zone over there, but it will be fully completed here shortly in the landscaping up in the next hopefully by the end of this year. So we had the project went well. They added on to the substation, which will basically increase the reliability of our electric here in town. They had to basically build a whole new substation there.
[2:08] So a whole new, you know, building went in. And so really a really big transition for uh, for the Nexus. So because that the that old substation was 60 years old. So it was nice to get something new in there. And they’re able to, you know, you know, kind of do two birds with one stone.
[2:23] They purchased the property next door. And they also they were able to keep it. And they’re going to actually start renting that out. So instead of demolishing it, and we’re losing one of our very valuable homes because of our, our population, we need every home we can get.
[2:38] Um, they’re able to keep it and they’re going to be renting it out soon. So and then also coming up the in the on the docket for the planning Commission is uh, down under. We’re going to be working on replanting that, uh, we have finally gone through all the uses of that property over the last two years.
[2:54] The first year we used it for the street project, for the 2025 street project, we use that as the Boneyard or the construction, uh, staging yard for the street project. And then this year we use it for the water tower. So now we have no need to use it for any of the city priorities.
[3:09] So now we’re going to start looking at getting that redeveloped. So look forward to for planning commission uh, meetings. Uh, look at the replanning of that and the next steps. So that’s all I have for the council report. All right. Uh, brings us to. Commission business.
[3:31] All right, so the before the commission tonight is the variance request for 64 East Golden Lake Road. So in the packet you have, uh, the analysis and the, uh, the breakdown of the, of the variance requested. So the purpose of this, uh, of the report is to recommend action on the variance requested by Jeremy Miller and Karen Holtzman.
[3:50] Uh, Jeremy Green could not make it tonight, so Corinne’s aunt is filling in for them, so she’s gracious enough to live in the live in the area. And she’s at the house frequently, so she knows. every morning. There you go. So.
[4:05] So basically what’s happening here is the, uh, the applicant would like a detached garage and that, per our city code, a detached garage needs to go into the rear yard, rear. Or side yard. Well, in their case, it’s not possible to put a detached garage in the rear yard because of the proximity to the lake. So they are about 75ft from the lake. Their back porch. And, uh, Purdue.
[4:25] In our code, you can’t build anything within 75ft of the lake, so it’d be impossible to put a garage in the backyard. Um, other than that, the report talks about what a variance, what is needed for a variance in the analysis.
[4:42] The applicants have demonstrated that constructing additional garage space permitted in city code is not feasible in the rear or side yard, due to the unique topography of the the property and the setback requirements. So, uh, the proposed location in the front yard is a reasonable and functional placement for the detached garage. Uh, the proposed garage exceeds the, uh, 30 foot front yard setback requirements.
[5:02] The front yard setback is very large. In this case, their front yard setback is over 100ft from the from the road to their house. So there’s plenty of room for them to put a garage in there.
[5:17] Also, the garage is is not gonna you know, we have also a maximum of a thousand total square feet between the current garage and the new garage. And they’re going to maximize that. It’s going to be a 400 foot garage. The current space in the 600 foot is going on. So it’ll be a total of 1000ft. So not they’re not going over that thousand square foot maximum.
[5:34] So based on these factors, and I did send out a new, uh, property site plan, uh, this morning or this afternoon, I should say, um, the garage is going to be roughly 94ft from the front property line. It’ll be 40ft, 40 foot from the side property line. That’ll be about 30 foot from the house.
[5:53] So it meets all the requirements of it needs to be five, five feet off the side yard, five feet away from another structure, and then it needs to be 30ft from the, the front, uh, right of way to the, to the house. So it meets all those requirements.
[6:11] Uh, so staff is recommending to the Planning Commission to recommend to the City Council to approve the variance request for 64 East Golden Lake Road staff finds request meets the statutory and city code criteria for variance, and that the practical difficulties are the result of unique characteristics of the property rather than, rather than a circumstance created by the property owners.
[6:31] Now that was a lot, but I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. The only question I had was when I was reading through it. There was language about variances are acceptable. If the, um, outcome can somehow meet the goal of the original, uh, statutes. And I’m curious what that goal is like, is it a beautification goal? It’s more about, uh, harmony within the neighborhoods.
[6:57] So that’s that’s more what the goal is, is to not have something that sticks out. And that’s that’s why variances are required for something like a detached garage in the front yard. You don’t want to have everyone have a, a garage that, you know, have five different garages in their front yard.
[7:11] So this uh, you know, you saw a picture of the actual structure itself, which typically isn’t required for a variance, but it does match up with what the current house looks like. So it will fit within kind of the, the, the the property. It will be very harmonious with the neighborhood as well.
[7:27] So I think aesthetically it looks like it does fit. And the nice thing is that like some of the houses over there did set back far enough where it’s not like the garage is right on the street, right. And being a double lot too.
[7:44] I think aesthetically, I think at least from the picture of the proposed drawing. And thank you for the color one that did help. Yeah, yeah. Um, it does seem like it would blend in, wouldn’t stand out, look abnormal. Yeah, yeah.
[8:00] So the maps are kind of hard to read, to be honest, but I don’t have any problem with the project. I think that, you know, it’s a large land setback for the fact that it is going to match and look nice. As an added bonus, but I don’t have any concerns. Anything from the property owners designee? Yeah. I have to pull them up. You have to come up. Yeah.
[8:21] Oh, probably. Here my knees all the way up there. Um, I think it’s going to be a welcome addition as far as keeping his boat safe and, uh, his classic cars. But also, you can barely see it or will barely be able to see it from the road.
[8:44] So it’s not going to be a sore thumb. It’s not going to stand out. Uh, as, you know, something that’s hideous. It’s going to blend right in. And that’s one thing that we do encourage is, you know, with garages, you know, people like to store stuff outside.
[9:00] The more things you can get inside out of, you kind of keep the neighborhood looking nice and clean. And I think that’s because there’s a lot of folks that have a lot of stuff. Yeah. So yeah, having garages are great. That’s why we really encourage.
[9:15] Yeah, I think, uh, Mayor Dave’s a classic example of this. You know, he had his pontoon, he had an RV, and now he can put all that stuff in his garage, and you don’t have to see it sitting outside of his house. So. And it’s a deterrent from vandalism. Theft? Exactly. Absolutely.
[9:32] But it’s going to be a lovely structure as far as garages go. Yeah. Yeah. You know. No good. Are there any questions that I might be able to answer? Uh. Okay. No. Good job. Thank you. All right. Now we need a motion to recommend to the city council to approve the variance. Okay. Can I get a okay. All right. All in favor? Aye.
[10:09] All opposed? All right. The ayes have it. We recommend to City Council that they approve the variance at 64 East Golden Lake Road. Perfect. That’ll get, uh, I’ll be put on the agenda for next week, actually. So time was kind of of the essence with, you know, fall right around the corner.
[10:28] You know, construction season is winding up. And so we’re we’re going to delay this till September. But I was able to kind of push it over the over the hump and we’ll we’ll get this done. So Jeremy can Corinne can get moving on. Uh, getting this constructed before winter hits. So that’s exciting.
[10:42] Yeah. Be good addition to the the neighborhood. Jack’s gonna have to look at it. So. It’s not blocking the. That’s true, that’s. True. Yeah. It’s not going to obstruct your view of the lake either. I think we can all pass. Yeah, yeah. All right. Any other business for this evening? Just adjournment.
[11:03] All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Motion second. All right, all in favor? All opposed? All right. The ayes have it. Meeting adjourned.