[Winona Online Democracy]
The Twin
Cities' Metropolitan Council is a model of regional planning in the
U.S. I strongly support the concept, but like any good idea, it has
limitations as we get down to the details. It may be of some use
in considering Winona's situation, but it's main impetus was coordinating
the numerous CITIES in the metro area, each with their own local zoning control,
in contrast to the situation in Winona and elsewhere where a city is
surrounded by largely rural townships and county jurisdiction. In
these situations it's mostly one-on-one (Winona plus Wilson Twp, Winona plus
Winona Twp), whereas in the seven-county metro are there are about 200 different
jurisdictions struggling to make a semblance of a whole.
As Bob Sebo points
out, one of the Council's main strategies has been the creation of the MUSA
(Metropolitan Urban Services Area) line, within which communities can provide
urban services - municipal sewer and water. Outside the MUSA line they
cannot. In theory this prevents sprawl. In practice it only works
for a while, because if there is not enough developable land within the
MUSA, then land land prices go through the roof, and folks start leap-frogging
outside it and you have a worse situation. This is what has
happened in the Twin Cities in the last ten years. The Met Council did not
have a solid handle on how much developable land there was inside the MUSA and
therefore the builders started heading for Northfield, Hastings, Buffalo, St.
Michael, Princeton, Cambridge, etc., in order to build modest cost houses to
meet demand.
The builders were
harassing Met Council for years saying there was not enough land inside the
MUSA, but the prevailing sentiment was that the builders were greedy bad guys
and the Met Council were the white-hatted good guys helping prevent
sprawl. An independent study (conducted by my consulting firm)
confirmed that the land supply was all but depleted (the Met Council simply
didn't keep accurate maps) and so the policies were changed. But too
late -- the "collar counties" outside the seven-county area were already in a
construction boom.
It is just as
important what happens OUTSIDE the line as inside it. The land at the
fringe must remain reasonably open and developable (20-acre lots or larger, not
2-5 acre lots) or else it cannot be easily used for urban development - it
becomes an impediment to orderly, efficient, cost-effective
growth.
So . . . long story,
short answer for Winona: keep a reasonable supply (5 years growth)
of land connected to city sewer and water within the city limits, so that
unwanted sprawl does not happen out in the townships. This will utilize
the land at 1/10 the rate as unsewered lots on septic
systems.
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