Eagan ditches plan in haste to turn over land
Jim Taylor, Star tribune
Published December 19, 2005
The city of Eagan has decided to settle its lawsuit with a developer who wants to destroy the city's comprehensive plan in order to turn one of our last large pieces of undeveloped property, Carriage Hills Golf Club, into a very large housing development.
The city used flawed logic to arrive at its decision. According to the City Council, in order to save the comprehensive plan from change they had to change it. Put another way, in order to save the plan they had to destroy it.
The comprehensive plan is designed to develop a long-term strategic vision for the city. It is important that there are procedures in place to ensure that our city is developed responsibly and for the good of the entire community.
The plan has been developed over decades and involved an enormous amount of effort on the part of past city administrations and countless citizens. The current City Council has hastily decided it knows best and is prepared to throw away all this effort and careful planning.
Eagan's infrastructure was developed relying on the comprehensive plan and plan process. All who have invested in Eagan have also relied on the plan. The infrastructure was not designed for nor can it safely and reasonably accommodate more than 1,000 new residents and another 3,000-plus car trips per day. That's why the comprehensive plan has Carriage Hills remaining as it currently is -- open space.
The city is trying to endorse this whole issue "under the radar screen." They are doing this by rushing it through the planning commission process and scheduling the planning commission hearing the week between Christmas and New Year's. Such timing could only have been contrived so that those who would most likely oppose the city's actions, i.e. the citizens of Eagan, would be out of town or too busily involved in the holidays to be able to effectively interject and raise their concerns.
The city and presumably the developer know (and hope) that the current schedule does not give anyone nearly enough time to reasonably review the developer's request to amend Eagan's comprehensive plan.
When we asked the city to move the planning commission hearing from December to February they replied that they had agreed to process the developer's amendment request in a timely manner. We're OK with "timely" but not with "blinding speed."
There is no law or legal limit as to how long the city may take to deny or accept a comprehensive plan amendment application. The amendment request was submitted Nov. 28. Thus the city could reasonably have the planning commission hearing in February and still have time for the council to review it in March -- all while being timely.
The city's hastiness might lead one to believe that there is a double standard in Eagan: one for developers and one for the citizens. We would certainly hope not because this would be contrary to the due process provision of the Minnesota Constitution that gives us, the citizens, the same rights as Terry Wensmann, the developer.
If our public servants really want to act as the Grinch who steals Christmas by hurrying through this immensely important issue, it would come as a tremendous disappointment to many, many local citizens. We just hope they give us a good reason why. The mayor and City Council owe us this. After all, we helped elect them.
Jim Taylor, of Eagan, is a member of the Carriage Hills Coalition.
