Despite sizable resident opposition, the city council in Lilliputian Lilydale, Minn. (pop. 736) voted last week to allow single-family residential development on its last vestige of undeveloped bluff, a 0.85-acre parcel donated for parkland more than 30 years ago. Lilydale’s intention: to erase debt of $230,000 built up during the city’s recent reign as Minnesota’s highest per capita user of tax increment financing.

Legislation that might have preserved the park by providing state aid to the tax base-impaired city fell short at the Capitol this week, as did a similar sales tax proposal last session. If expected sign-offs from the Metropolitan Council and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are forthcoming, Lilydale could find out just how bad the market is for new construction of what would only be Lilydale’s sixth single-family house. (Almost everyone there lives in apartments or condos.)

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, another parcel of river bluff parkland remains in limbo between past industrial use and neighborhood residents’ visions of a planned public green space. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has moved to sell the land twice this decade; Rosemary Knutson, a local leader in the campaign to build a new Bluff Street Park in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, fears that a housing market rebound could negate recent assurances that no sale is imminent. The fact that the Bluff Street Park site now serves as the Flatiron Corporation’s I-35W bridge-building headquarters further clouds the picture. Knutson said the site won’t benefit from the landscape improvements planned around the new bridge, so the park’s immediate future depends on the condition in which Flatiron leaves the land when the company leaves town.

Both parcels — and, in fact, the entire city of Lilydale — lie within a zone of the metro Mississippi River that a state law called the Critical Areas Act is supposed to protect from “negative impacts” environmentally. But it’s an aging and obscure area of law that suffers as cities lose institutional memory through staff attrition, according to Steve Johnson of the National Park Service’s Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. A new DNR study mandated by the state Legislature will help lawmakers determine whether the act is doing what it’s supposed to. State Rep. Rick Hansen, who represents Lilydale, expects to jump-start that effort later this year.

After a bid for rezoning of the project was expected to fail, Ward 2 Council Member Dave Thune negotiated a deal in which Trooien withdrew the rezoning proposal and agreed to work with the community. Shortly after that a contentious annual election was held at (WSCO), the local district council, which was swayed by a significant number of people who voted as volunteers, who lived outside the area, toward a board which is now supportive of the project.

Thursday evening’s meeting didn’t have anyone yelling or storming out in anger but was certainly not the Bridges love-in that it was intended to be. Several members of the TriCouncil task force voiced concerns about the change in the task force composition. The original design called for three members each of the Capitol River Council (CRC), West Seventh/Fort Road Federation, and West Side Citizens’ Organization. WSCO, however, brought to the task force six members that president Don Luna intended to present to their board for official approval.  Erroll Edward, one of the expected appointees from WSCO, said, “If you want to add, then you can add. This is not about us. This about our community.” Members of both the federation and CRC said they would have to return to their boards with the altered layout of the task force to see if the boards would agree to proceed.

The task force as originally envisioned would have included three members appointed from each group, with those nine people being able to add additional people by a majority vote. The original agreement also said that it would be a review panel that would operate by simple majority, if WSCO had 6 pro-JLT members it would likely make CRC and the Federation reconsider their participation in it.

Thune, who still has no opponents for his re-election, started the meeting by saying, “The time is not to look back but to look forward.” Thune said, “JLT needs to not try to force a schedule,” and added that city planner Lucy Thompson would be leading the project once she returns in February. When a West Side resident asked Thune if he supported the initial vision of the Bridges project, Thune said he had not supported that project.

Erroll Edwards-WSCO board Vice President, Erik Hare-West 7th/Fort Road Federation Representative, Diane Gerth-West 7th/Fort Road Federation Representative

Erroll Edwards said at the end of the discussion about the process, “The buck stops on the West Side. We are the ones that have to respond to the community.”

The audience was also given a chance to respond at the meeting. The mostly West Side residents who raised concerns focused on taxes, TIF, public health, and safety.

The letter did offer an out: “One possible solution to these issues is to seek a special legislation from the Minnesota Legislature.” This is extremely unlikely to happen with the project because the legislature would not consider a change without support of the City Council, which is not very supportive of the project as currently envisioned. This could potentially change with elections coming up this fall. The letter said, “In order for us to collaborate with you on any proposed special legislation, the revised Bridges plan must be consistent with TN3 zoning.”

The project will not meet TIF requirements of 90 percent of money generated going to correct the conditions and substandard buildings reasonably distributed throughout the proposed area. The city worked with a consultant to determine the condition of buildings they said were structurally substandard. But legal counsel said that the other requirements for blight distribution and where the money would go would not be met.

Bedor also pointed out at the start of the letter, “I read your notice in the newspaper scheduling the community meeting for tonight to begin the discussion on the new planning process for The Bridges.” The lack of notification of this meeting has caused much distrust among members who are coming to the table.