HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-04-04 City Council Work Session MinutesMINUTES
OF THE EDINA CITY COUNCIL
WORK SESSION
COMMUNITY ROOM, CITY HALL
TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2023
5:30 P.M.
CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Hovland called the meeting to order at 5:34 p.m.
ROLL CALL
Answering roll call were Members: Agnew, Jackson, Pierce, Risser and Mayor Hovland
Staff in attendance: Lisa Schaefer, Assistant City Manager; MJ Lamon, Community Engagement Manager; Cary
Teague, Community Development Director; Emily Bodeker, Assistant Planning Director; Addison Lewis,
Community Development Coordinator; Bill Neuendorf, Economic Development Manager; Chad Millner,
Engineering Director; Jennifer Bennerotte, Communications Director; Jesse Meyer-Ruud, I.T. Support
Supervisor; and Sharon Allison, City Clerk.
Planning Commissioners: Chair Jimmy Bennett, Ryan Daye, Lou Miranda, Meriwether Felt, Bonnie Padilla,
Quincy Smith, and William Bornstein.
DEVELOPMENT REVIEW PROCESS
Assistant City Manager Schaefer introduced the topic, and said Edina was the only city that has a duplicate
public hearing process, once with the Planning Commission and once with the City Council. Schaefer said they
have not made changes in many years and Council asked the Commission to review the process and make a
recommendation. Community Engagement Manager Lamon presented the legal requirements for hearings and
said the Commission’s recommendations would be around land use and hearings held by Council. Lamon
reviewed the City’s community engagement process, how hearings have evolved overtime, including optional
methods for residents to provide feedback in person, virtual call-in or on the City’s website, Better Together
Edina (BTE). She spoke about the challenges as well as the pros and cons.
Planning Commission Chair Bennett spoke about the recent Star Tribune article and how it mischaracterized
their work on the hearings process. Bennett said they have been working on this process for over one year
with an understanding of the Commission’s purpose, residents’ misunderstanding of when or where to provide
feedback, City Council’s role and how impactful and long-lasting decisions were, and that they’ve received
feedback from residents, staff and commissioners. He reviewed the current process for sketch plans which
allowed for more informal review and feedback. He reviewed the hearing process that is unique to Edina and
the challenge to optimize it. He spoke about residents’ feedback on BTE and improving this tool. He spoke
about the struggle with communication, residents’ confusion because of the duplicate hearings, attending
multiple hearings which leads to mistrust, and difficulty attending multiple meetings. Bennet said developers
also shared concerns with duplicate process, mixed messages between Commission and Council, and how
different the process was from other cities. Other challenges included increased staff time and costs, missing
feedback between hearings, and longer, more meetings.
Bennett reviewed the Commission’s goals to simplify, optimize and implement a new development review
process. He said their recommendations were one hearing by the Commission, one Council meeting following
the hearing, enable live comments on BTE and leave open after hearing until Council meeting, and to reassess
after two years using public feedback.
Edina City Council Work Session Meeting, April 4, 2023
Council asked questions and provided feedback including what they thought would be a strong desire from
residents to be able address their elected body.
Schaefer said the next step is for Council to provide a formal recommendation or continue the discussion.
PLANNING COMMISSION JOINT MEETING – postponed to a future meeting.
ADJOURNMENT
Mayor Hovland adjourned the meeting at 6:49 pm.
Respectfully submitted, ____________________________________________
Sharon Allison, City Clerk
Minutes approved by the Edina City Council, April 18, 2023.
___________________________________________
James B. Hovland, Mayor