Laurie Karnes, a Maple Grove land broker, said the city should be wary of stepping in. She said it’s not unusual for a property owner to accept a lower sale price if it carries some type of burden. To think otherwise, she said, “would be like buying property next to the railroad tracks and complaining because there are trains there.”
But what about regulatory taking? It has not been such since caveman times; it evolves, and suggests some balancing is appropriate. Strib reporting carries that flavor and is non-conclusory, the item concluding:
Bohn, a former city parks commissioner, said he favors protecting the fen. In 2010 he donated land worth $490,000 as part of a $3 million deal that conveyed a 69-acre addition to the Savage Fen Scientific and Natural Area, a DNR property.
Bohn said he’s never used chemicals on his land near the fen where he grows hay. “I was organic when it wasn’t even fashionable,” he said. He also has spent his own money to build earthen dams to prevent runoff into the fen.
But Bohn believes there’s a limit to how much he shoulder.
“If the fen is such an amenity, everybody should have to take it on, not just me.”
Somehow, the notion everyone should carry my burdens while I should reap my benefits brings Dave Flaherty's adventurous Ramsey gamble to mind, for me, if not for you. A gamble involving city millions put to up-front risks, Flaherty to benefit if there is upside returns while the city may/may not be paid back.