Met Council deals with Nowthen as it's dealt with Lake Elmo, Ramsey everyone else.Although not online, today's print version of Anoka County Union reports on Nowthen's fate, as excerpted, next:
The directive comes from the Metropolitan Council as it works with the community to develop and approve the city's 2030 comprehensive plan.
Details of what will be required were outlined in a joint workshop between Met Council representatives and Nowthen residents Nov. 13 at Nowthen alliance church.
"We're interested in how you're going to use the land in Nowthen," said Natalie Steffen, Met Council representative for Nowthen.
Prior to this Nowthen was not on the list to receive wastewater service from the Met Council.
In updating the service area it was discovered that wastewater service could be available to a portion of Nowthen through the extension of existing pipes in Ramsey.
The exact amount being required with the city's 2030 comprehensive plan is 1,000 buildable acres.
Future plans call for the Met Council to bring the waste water pipe through Ramsey to Nowthen's southern border.
City officials will determine how to assess properties benefiting from the service for connection to the sewer system. Homeowners remaining on their own septic systems will not pay for the costs related to the municipal sewer service.
"We're not interested in servicing all of Nowthen," Steffen said.
Within those 1.000 buildable acres, the Met Council will require an overall density of three units per acre.
"The city gets to decide how that gets put together," said Phyllis Hanson, Met Council land use/urban services expansion manager.
In the future sewered area Hanson said the Met Council would like to see no more than one house per 10 acres and it would prefer to see ordinances establishing one house per 20 acres in that area.
If the article is honest and Met Council brings the pipe through Ramsey, bless them, because I don't see any cause for Ramsey taxpayers to finance the big sumo, which has its own taxing powers to pay for its heavy-handed ways and means. Bless them if THEY do bring that pipe as the article says, to the humble townsfolk of Nowthen.
With current Ramsey official thought being as it is, courtesy of staff and consultants and the Hunt family, it appears that the sewer will be run north from John Peterson's cash cow development of dense housing bordering Trott Brook. That would be north basically along Nowthen Blvd [County Highway 5] to the boundary, in order to service the Hunt will to build. If Met Council does not front the cost, the developers should, just as John Peterson set the precedent in routing things to the Bauer Gun Club and the Peterson corn field dense growth development.
Met Council has its way. The big sumo had its session, if you recall, giving a hearty toss to Lake Elmo. Ham Lake says, so far, it wants no part of sewer systems, but my bet, poor people of Ham Lake, it's merely a matter of time.
Sherburne County and Wright County have much to fear.
They need to remain steadfast in keeping the mean sumo at bay, and beyond their borders, so that they don't end up tossed around as Anoka County municipalities are presently feeling the Met Council's hand.
_______UPDATE_______
How exactly decision making happens is not transparent. The sun shines elsewhere then on how Met Council, developers, and local land barons cut deals. However, don't bet against routing north along County Highway 5. At the Ramsey-Nowthen border, curiously, long time County Commissioner Dennis Berg has his Nowthen home and his Highway 5 bordering acreage. If Berg's holdings fall short of a thousand acres, don't bet that any of what's his will be excluded from the thousand to be set aside in planning for urban sewered-density. There's more profit to disposing of land where greater density is possible. With a Weaver heading Met Council staff such a Highway 5 routing bet looks sound. Old boys do network. So, bet on that Highway 5 route as a done deal, as one you can take to the bank. But if you do that you'll have to stand in line, since many of the old boys may be in line in front of you. It is as it is, an ongoing equivalent of daytime soap opera in my locale - if not yours.
As a further update, one thing looks positive for Nowthen taxpayers if things said are believable, and indirectly for Ramsey residents if the big sumo will only be consistent. The Union article does report:
The exact location of the pipe placement will depend on what land Nowthen leaders set aside for future sewer service.
Nowthen will pay for the construction of the trunk sewer pipe through the city to connect to the individual homes
City officials will determine how to assess properties benefiting from the service for connecting to the sewer system.
Homeowners remaining on their own septic systems will not pay for the costs related to the municipal sewer service.
[italics added] Inherent in that, a single family home, regardless of its acreage, gains no benefit if forced to shift from septic and well to municipal services and, indeed, suffers construction costs including possible plumbing needs inside a home to shift from a backyard septic system to a frontal connection to town services run along a road.
That means forced hookups, if encountered, are without benefit but instead have a burden for single family owners not wishing to subdivide. Hence, they should be unassessed or their properties subject to delayed assessment to be imposed only at such time as an owner decision is made to seek subdivision and the assessing city government is petitioned to permit such a move.
A corollary would be that having the stuff put into the road in front of a home on well and septic with an owner not wishing to connect should be allowed its status quo, and with that there is no actual "benefit" from the placement of pipes unless and until such a homeowner affirmatively petitions to do a switchover; at which time an assessment would be proper while improper before then because that is the moment actual benefit attaches.
Things mentioned in the last two paragraphs, if done in Ramsey and in Nowthen, would be fair. Fairness does not always come from the big sumo or the little local bosses wanting to be in the ring with the big sumo. Let us hope big sumo and the wannabes have a heart, or at least show good manners in dealing with powerless single family homeowners. It might happen. Even before any pigs fly.
______ONE FURTHER THOUGHT_______
Old news disappears, and Strib charges for access to its archives, however Highbeam in presenting its pay-to-play service sometimes does give sufficient blurbs to suggest an understanding, e.g., here and here, about the politics of the pressures big sumo put on Lake Elmo [mention at the outset of the one item of United Properties and Carl Pohlad suggesting we are a nation of men first and not a nation of laws as legend has it]. To the extent parallel pressures exist affecting Ramsey and its comp planning, such things, as offensive to norms many would prefer government to reflect, should be minimized.
Not shifting enterprise costs and risks of land baron profit seeking onto community taxpayers and not forcing unnecessary and arbitrary services hookups will be two sensible and very easy steps in that direction.
Use of the Peterson paradigm of development interests fronting the costs of extending trunk services, with recoupment, easily meets the first objective of keeping up front risk and cost where it belongs, and not socializing it.
Being realistic in that single family homes where the owner has no wish to subdivide gain no benefit from routing down the street such a home might border, and that delaying assessment until there is a petition to hook up or subdivide, an affirmative homeowner act as a triggering event for assessment, easily meets the second goal.