UMN’s Public Forum on UMore Development

June 23rd, 2008 in Rosemount, South Metro

Per my UMore Utopia post, Kim and I attended the public forum regarding long-range plans (25 to 40+ years) to convert the polluted and partially barren landscape that currently takes up a good chunk of Rosemount’s midsection into a sustainable living model that they hope will be copied nationwide.

Going into this discussion I tried not to hold any bias. I am interested in sustainable living and the theoretical idea of some new planned community that might not end up quite like Apple Valley, Woodbury, or any of the other surrounding suburbs. I will apologize now for not taking more photos of the displays. I was told, possibly incorrectly, that all materials on display would be available for download on the UMore Park website but as of this writing I am unable to find them at least in something other than PDF format.

The event was held at the Rosemount Community Center and we arrived at around 5:45. We signed in and picked up some information that they had printed out and headed over to the food table. There was an abundance of fruit, sandwiches, desserts, water and a variety of soft drinks. Kim was especially impressed with the lemon bars — strange, I thought she’d be more into the chocolate covered strawberries. Anyway, after grabbing some food I headed back to my seat to eat and then made my way over to the various poster-sized photos of the plans for Vermillion Highlands and UMore Park. I am fairly uninterested in the Vermillion Highlands plan aside from the property purchased by Dakota County to create a regional park on the NW corner of the Highlands’ boundary. My reasoning has to do with the joint governance with the MN DNR, UMN and Dakota County in this area and the creation of a larger WMA and AMA both of which are still off-limits to geocaching but open to far more invasive activities such as hunting.

After Kim and I looked over the scenario photos we made a few comments while standing in front of the posters mostly about the number of police stations and size of schools and parks between the four plans. After that we went back to our seats and soon after the PowerPoint presentation started. I didn’t catch the presenters name but he seemed well informed and spoken throughout and even more so during the Q&A later. It was obvious throughout the presentation (and poster viewing) that the University of Minnesota representatives present were obsessed with Scenario 4 which has been mentioned as the most sustainable and open for research. It also happens to be the one that most closely resembles many of the other surrounding communities, exactly the opposite of what they were so proudly promoting.

The University of Minnesota seriously believes that it can put itself in line with other modern planned communities, like Celebration, FL (which is one of the planned communities that they mentioned at the beginning) but instead of admitting a commercial motivation, they claim some sort of warped academic vision that they believe will be the first public university to shape the face of an entire community from the ground to the brain and back again. Aside from their academic vision they are also looking to make lots of money from the venture to help pay for the stadium which they are doing by selling 2,800+ acres of land for the Vermillion Highlands to the State of Minnesota for $10.25 million/year for the next 25 years (Vision (PDF), p5). But all of that isn’t the most important part of their plan. While they didn’t spend all that much time going into details, it seems that the single reason that they are planning on developing this land over the next 25 to 40 years is because they plan on having the land strip mined of aggregate that resides within the boundaries of their property. In order to fool people into permitting the visual disruption of strip mining, much like the aggregate mining already occurring in Apple Valley nearby, they are showing all the pretty pictures of their “scenarios”. “Just look what waiting half of your life will get you: a nice sustainable community on reclaimed aggregate stripped and polluted land!” While the presenters did make it clear that financial motivations were always important they never really went over the fact that the 95% of those present and the majority of residents in the area will never see this come to fruition in their lifetimes. Thus, we’ll be stuck with a bigger fucking eyesore than we have now (actually, I like the way it looks in some areas) so that they can make a buck and we’ll never see the pretty end results.

The presentation covered the polluted land several times and they mentioned that the US Army Corps of Engineers have been reassessing the land since last summer and they expect to hear their results in August 2008. During the Q&A session someone asked the question, among many others, what will happen if the cleanup costs for any pollutants causes them to rethink their grandiose community plans and it was answered with a nervous look to two other authorities before replying that there were several people that felt that the US Army would foot the cleanup bill entirely and that the University wouldn’t have to pay anything. There has been no contract created and nothing is set in stone so this was another passed-over question.

I had my question answered by the woman who asked the one above. She was on the CR-46 design committee and at the time they were told that they were not to disturb the “historical” ruins of the Gopher Ordnance Works (GOW). She wanted to know why there were plans to remove the concrete structures as part of this upgrade. The presenters replied that there was a possibility of surface contamination (which I agree with) and while nothing is set they were never told not to take them down because of their historical significance. He did mention, however, that he didn’t see why they couldn’t remain if they were safe because of the relatively small footprint they take up compared with the ~5,000 acres of total land to be developed.

Other questions asked (I think I covered them all above or below but perhaps not):

Q: Would this development fail like Jonathan (absorbed later by Chaska) did during the 1960s?
A: No, Jonathan was too far from existing suburbs and no one would want to live out there.

Q: When will this development impact equestrian trails? Will people be able to purchase land around the trails?
A: The equestrian trails might be moved to the North side of the land to help keep it open year round — especially because of hunting in the WMA. There are no current or future plans to allow purchase of land around the preexisting horse trails.

Q: Will this land be developed to encompass a variety of socioeconomic groups?
A: Yes as it fits their mission.

Q: Will hunting access be increased?
A: It is a joint administration by the University, the DNR and Dakota County so discussions will occur about opening the lands to more hunting as they have been over the last two or three years. This oration went on for quite some time and ended in a UMN presenter more or less ripping the mic from the hands of the DNR representative.

Q: How do the surrounding communities planning impact the UMore development?
A: UMN has been working with Empire and Rosemount as well as Dakota County to ensure that their plans are in line with the long-range planning of all three. Other communities, such as Rochester, were mentioned by the man asking the question but the developer chose to only answer about Empire, Rosemount and Dakota.

Q: Any plans on allowing residences in this new community to raise farm animals?
A: If you want to see something like that included, mail it in and they will discuss the economic viability of that option — in other words, no.

Q: Has the committee looked into other similar communities nationwide that have won awards such as most livable city and have any of them served as an inspiration for the four scenarios?
A: No, they have not but they have hired a design company that they feel can bring this “new” community idea to fruition.

There has been a lot of discussion all over the local media about this event but no one has really given any decent opinion on what was discussed at the event except for Eric James who commented on this article over at Thisweek Live:

These people will shop at Cub and Target with you and probably send their kids to Rosemount or Farmington. So this is not really a new twist on anything…It’s just that much, a beautiful and lush place, quite far off the beaten path. But innovative? Sustainable? Not so much.

Eric is dead on here. As I said above, these plans look exactly like any other planned suburb that surrounds it and there will more of the same with mixed-use areas, commercial and light industrial along with straight up residential plots around some green space, man made lakes (from the aggregate mining) and little city parks. The University is adamant that their plans are nothing like any community around it but to me it really looks like every other town. When you are looking at the scenarios (PDF) take a look at Scenario 1 and let me know if you think that is what every community around UMore Park is like and then look at Scenario 4 and tell me if that’s what every community around looks like. If they are talking solely about Empire Township and not a town like Burnsville, Apple Valley, or Rosemount then maybe they’re correct, otherwise, nope.

Both Kim and I were really disappointed that it was so obvious that the University is obsessing over their fourth scenario. Everything referred to it, they openly admitted that they spent the most time on it, and everything they did was an attempt to steer the public in supporting it. I have many problems with it including hinging their hopes on lobbying for mass transit which may end up making this idea work. They honestly believe that there may be a light rail system running from UMore up MN-3 to St Paul. If not, it would be Bus Rapid Transit. The University has apparently done research on both geothermal and wind energy which they claim will power the entire area. They didn’t go into any details there so I didn’t even bother to ask even though it would have been really interesting to know where this geothermal activity is coming from.

As we were walking out the door I said to Kim, “They are just like any other state organization. They tell you that they want public input but they have no intention of doing anything other than what they themselves have decided to do.” Bummer.

See all the pictures from tonight on Flickr here.