Project plans shared with 'Trista Council

By Amanda Schwarze, Staff Writer, Sun Patriot Newspaper

May 21, 2010 - Park ownership is a concern and density is still irking some residents for the Woodland Cove development in Minnetrista.

Woodland Cove is a proposed development of 1,071 housing units on 490 acres near Kings Point Road. Concept plans for the development were presented to the city council May 17 for review.

Concept plan review is a step in the planning process for the developer to gain feedback on a proposal. The Woodland Cove developers have been involved in a collaborative approach to the project and before the May 17 council meeting they had several meetings with city officials.

At the council meeting, Peter Pflaum of the development team went over some changes in the current plan from plans presented at previous meetings. Pflaum said that the team widened a greenway that runs through the development, but he added that by increasing the size of the greenway some single-family homes were eliminated and some additional multi-family units were added. He said that about 55 percent of the homes in the proposed development are single-family units. The multi-family units include twinhomes, townhomes, and multi-story multi-family buildings, such as a condominium building.

Pflaum said that the development team will not be constructing and designing the homes, but will be hiring builders to do that. He said that a variety of builders will be selected and that will create diversity in the appearance of the houses and multi-family units. The current proposal also includes 68 lots that will be custom-built single-family homes.

Pflaum said that the current design includes 147 acres of open space. Included in that open space acreage are three parks were set to be public parks in the plans. He also said that out of the 73 acres of the Maple-Basswood forest about 33 acres, which equals about 45 percent, would be preserved according to the current plans.

Minnetrista Senior Planner Breanne Rothstein said that city staff would like the developers to look at lowering the number of entrances to the development from Kings Point Road, while keeping in mind that traffic on Lotus Drive should be kept to a minimum. The current plans showed eight entrances off of Kings Point Road. She also said that staff would like all of the docks for the development to be under a multiple dock license and clustered in two or three areas. The developers plan to meet with the Lake Minnetonka Conservation District to discuss docks in July.

The councilors discussed whether the public parks in the plan should instead be homeowners' association (HOA) parks. Councilor George Zenanko said he preferred HOA parks to public parks because that allows the residents to control the parks in their own neighborhoods.

Rothstein also suggested that the council could take a more in-depth look at some individual aspects of the plan, such as parks and docks, during work sessions.

The meeting was not a public hearing on the matter, but Mayor Cheryl Fischer allowed resident Bahram Akradi to speak on behalf of some residents at the meeting. He said that he believed that the density was too high for the area and that he understood that the council was under pressure from the Metropolitan Council to make up density from past developments that were approved at lower densities than the Met Council requires. He offered to gather other residents to put pressure on the Met Council.

Rothstein said that the council went through a "long vetting process" which included public input to decide where in the city to make up for the density deficiency when the city did a comprehensive plan amendment several years ago. She said that in order to reduce the required 1,071-unit density in the Woodland Cove development, the city would have to redo the comprehensive plan.

The next step in the development is the preliminary plat phase. Rothstein said she did not know when the developer would go through that phase but she guessed it could begin at the end of the summer or early fall.

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