Why was the easement created?

My first assumption was that it had to do with the drainage to the wetland, but as I have reviewed this further and also from an offhand comment by the city administrator (Mielke) in the meeting, he mentioned that the owner of the property to the north was concerned about the commercial development directly south which would impact his sale of these residential lots (my house).

My current thinking is that the conservation easement was put in place as a buffer between the Lakeview Estates (residential property) and the commercial property in order to placate potential homeowners concerns about building so close to commercial property.  The plat for Lakeview Estates was first created in May 1995 which is exactly the same time that the commercial properties were being approved.

The problem is finding more information about this.  When I went to the city previously to do some research and get minutes from 1995 planning and council meetings, the only way I can get access to view those is to pay 25 cents per page for printed copies even though I only really want 1 or 2 pages.  They have these stored digitally but when I asked whether there was any way I could just browse through them and print specific pages, I was told that no it was not possible (city deputy clerk).  That does not lend itself very well to doing this research.

The main question I am now looking to answer is:
Is there any documentation to indicate why the conservation easement was put in place and specifically that it was put in place to create a buffer between the homeowners and the commercial property?

The other question that I now have is are there other conservation easements in place in Lakeville and has the city taken any action on those historically also?

I have no doubt in my mind that this will move fast - as soon as the city council votes to terminate the conservation easement, there will be bulldozers on that land making room for the parking lots and future building.  I wonder if the city already has a request to approve a parking lot project within the easement - they said no, but I don't know that I can trust anything the city says at this point and it would not surprise me that they have it in their hands already and can't actually submit it until the council votes to terminate.

It's like the prior statement "the city has no record of the easement" - yes, because it's a county recorded document, not a city recorded document...