In Edina they rejected density. Ramsey already played with it in the failed Town Center. Played like a child with matches.
We had one overly aggressive family wanting to cash out its cornfield then, and we currently have one aggressive family pushing to cash out more northerly land along County Highway 5, and each time we have had individual officials complicit in allowing the aggressiveness to be satisfied.
The Edina comp. plan, from what Strib has said looks good. Ours looks bounded only by the extent developer greed and the market will constrain it to not happen as badly and densely and disruptively as "planned."
The market will constrain Ramsey, not its decision makers, unless the new council acts differently.
Edina kept land from high density, for job growth instead, Strib reporting in part:
The council approved a comprehensive plan update that spurns urban-style solutions to Edina's affordable housing shortage.
By MARY JANE SMETANKA, Update: December 11, 2008 - 11:17 PM
After almost two years of community debate, Edina has approved a comprehensive plan update that rejects denser, more urban-style development as a way to rejuvenate the aging suburb filled with expensive single-family homes.
Dozens of public meetings, hard work by citizen volunteers and the guidance of a professional consultant steered Edina through one of the most deliberate and open comprehensive plan updates in the Twin Cities.
Yet, at the recent meeting where the City Council unanimously sent it on to the Metropolitan Council for review, the mood was decidedly sour, both among the council members and the audience.
Before the council vote, Mayor Jim Hovland complained that the final plan "eviscerated" recommendations calling for more multi-story, affordable residential development, which he said was key to luring younger people into the city.
"To me, this plan does not reflect the majority opinion of this council. It is a document fashioned to satisfy the requirements of the Met Council," Hovland said. "It doesn't reflect my vision, frankly, and I don't think it reflects the vision of many other people in this town. It just reflects the vision of those who chose to show up."
[City Council Member Joni] Bennett and fellow Council Member Linda Masica, who is leaving the council next year, were determined that the plan should reflect what they saw as the overwhelming sentiment among residents against dense development. The plan couldn't pass with their opposition.
Drafts of the plan had included a proposed new high-rise residential neighborhood of buildings up to 16 stories high in the now-industrial area between Cahill Road, the Bloomington border and Hwy. 100. Taller buildings were proposed in other areas of the city, too, and affordable housing goals included about 500 new rental or owner-occupied units.
The proposal for "Cahill Gardens" vanished when the council decided that existing light industry there was thriving and providing a good mix of jobs. Proposed building heights were dropped in other neighborhoods, and the goal for affordable housing dropped to 212 units -- the number the Met Council had suggested for Edina.
After facing a barrage of criticism last spring from residents who didn't like proposals for density and high-rises, the council, in its final meeting about the plan, faced people like Sharon Ming, a member of the housing task force that met 40 times over two years.
"I don't know why you created that public process and then ignored it," Ming said. She said the plan "has a lot of history, a lot of words, and very little vision, very little strategy, very few ideas about what this city needs to do."
John Bohan, a retired Pillsbury Co. vice president, disagreed.
"The original draft was a reflection of the vision of the consultant, whose focus was largely urban development," he said. "I went to many of the public meetings, and to say this doesn't reflect public sentiment is incorrect. I applaud the council for its work."
Unlike Edina, Ramsey did not have a professional consultant, we had Phil Carlson who posed as one but to me the essence of professionalism is to not produce a flawed final product exceeding Met Council imposed growth quotas, which Ramsey has done, working with Phil and with Phil working with the Hunt family. In Ramsey where most existing older housing on large lots is affordable but not densely packed, affordability is not an issue, crowding is, and having an as-usual over-optimistic expansionist "forecast" of growth from Met. Council, the people on staff and at the council table in Ramsey were unsatisfied and planned for more than Met. Council imposed on the community, to absorb and deal with. More! Not less. More!Phil Carlson, I would not have the man plan a dog house, after seeing him at work.
Ramsey, the home of the Kurak-Gamec-Nedegaard-Elvig Town Center fiasco, should salute Edina, and learn from it how to be wise instead of being Ramsey.
______UPDATE_________
To give some idea of how these Bonestroo people operate, learning who they really are by how they operate, they did some kind of a "water study" of Ramsey that must have been clearly deficient, since Met. Council has wrestled extensively with the situation in intervening time (see especially the UPDATE info). I don't know if they're ashamed of the quality of their past Bonestroo work product, but they scrubbed their website of mention of it, where they'd previously touted the Bonestro Ramsey water study, this link:
http://www.bonestroo.com/water_study_ramsey.asp
Now, a page not found error. What's at play? How can I prove the page ever existed? That is something those Bonestroo folks might challenge. They might be that way, playing hardball at every turn.
As often is the case, the WayBack machine to the rescue, showing that they scrubbed the site some time between Jan. 18, 2008 and the present, for reasons they should tell us of since now we can only surmise.
For everyone's benefit, here is the preserved WayBack Machine screenshot [click to enlarge and read]
Scrubbing a website like that is a quite shabby thing, in my view. What do YOU think?
I now publicly challenge the Bonestroo people to defend their scrubbing of their website of their Ramsey water study page. I shall send them an email linking to this post, issuing exactly that challenge.
What do YOU expect to see from that?
A defamation lawsuit?
Truth would always be a defense to that. Let them sue.
I will go a step further. I hope the new council will investigate who contracted for that Bonestroo water study, when, at what price, who were the individuals involved on each side, and how did that play into that sorry firm being selected to consult on the Ramsey 2008 Comprehensive Plan and to perform as they did. It's overdue.
How was Phil Carlson chosen? What traits or talents did he offer to get the contract?