Our View: Cul-de-sac development is a dead end for small towns

Last summer, the Oronoco City Council denied a developer’s request to rezone a parcel of land on the city’s south side. The high-density project, including townhomes and quadplexes, would have created 136 housing units on 43 acres.

The plan had the strong support of Mayor Ryland Eichhorst, but very late in the process, neighbors from an existing subdivision voiced concerns about increased traffic in the area, and council member Jim Phillips said the plan was “a little bit premature.”

Really?

Minnesota currently is short about 50,000 housing units, and Olmsted County is basically ground zero for the state’s lack of affordable housing. Any proposal that will help address that need deserves serious consideration.

In the Oronoco example, it appears that the developer’s team did its due diligence. It worked with city officials to create the plan. Details were well-known. The city’s experts had studied possible traffic impacts and raised no red flags — but then neighbors got vocal and the council caved to their wishes. It’s that simple.

While the developer didn’t close the door on a possible second attempt down the road, Mayor Eichhorst sounded pessimistic that any plan with high-density housing would find receptive ears. “After what they proposed, which I thought was a perfect plan, I’m not sure what it would take,” he said.

We share Eichhorst’s pessimism. In a Jan. 18 Post Bulletin story about the housing shortage in Olmsted County, Phillips indicated that Oronoco residents don’t want apartments or other high-density housing. They want space. They want separation. And he indicated that if people want senior housing or high-density rental units, they should live in Rochester.

That’s a bad take.

Oronoco can’t simply opt out of its share of the affordable housing crisis. Nor can Stewartville, Pine Island, Byron, Kasson, Chatfield or any other small town in our region — not if they hope to maintain their property tax base, grow (or at least maintain) their population, keep their schools and retain their local workforce.

PB News Editor Brian Todd, in his Jan. 18 story, described how Byron has gone all-in to offer a variety of housing stock, including townhomes, a 52-unit apartment complex near the Fareway grocery store and new, single-family housing lots at a variety of price points.

Kasson, meanwhile, is home to a nearly-completed 97-unit apartment complex — but in 2024 it also rejected two high-density proposals. The most recent would have added 108 townhomes to the city’s housing stock, but potential neighbors packed Kasson City Hall in December to voice their opposition, and the proposal failed. Again, traffic was a big concern.

Meanwhile, other communities surrounding Rochester have added no higher-density housing in the past year and have few, if any, plans in the pipeline.

Rochester, on the other hand, has stepped up to meet the area’s housing needs. Starting in 2022, the city has issued building permits for nearly 900 housing units per year, and last year that total included permits for 25 multi-family projects that will add 689 housing units.

But here’s the problem: The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development estimates that Mayo Clinic’s already-underway expansion will add 45,000 new jobs to the region’s economy over the next 20 years.

Rochester will not be able to meet that workforce’s housing needs by itself. Some of these new employees will want or need to live in the surrounding communities, and if the “solution” is for all of them to live in new single-family homes on quarter-acre lots, then Olmsted County will soon be an endless sea of cul-de-sacs, three-car garages and stormwater retention ponds.

We’d prefer that our region’s small towns keep their separate identities, with an agricultural buffer area between them and Rochester. In order for that to happen, we’d like to see these communities take a proactive approach to meeting the region’s housing needs.

That means planning now for future higher-density housing projects. Identify land where such projects could be acceptable, and rezone them now. Give developers a green light to bring in proposals, and work with those developers to solve potential problems before projects come up for crucial votes. No developer should be blindsided by last-minute objections. The goalposts shouldn’t be moved late in the game.

And finally, town leaders must be prepared for pushback from current residents. To put the matter bluntly, there will always be a “not in my backyard” contingent. Change is seldom easy, and in small-town America, a few people can make a lot of noise to preserve the status quo.

It is the responsibility of city leaders to listen to those people, but they also need to look ahead. They must recognize that what works for a town right now won’t necessarily work 10 or 20 years down the road.

And make no mistake — America is changing. Few entry-level jobs offer the income necessary to buy a three-bedroom, two-bath home. Furthermore, for many young people, the dream of getting married, buying a home and raising children has been replaced by a far different vision. They want zero-maintenance, convenient housing near restaurants and shopping. They want the flexibility of a one-year lease, not a 30-year mortgage. Maybe they’ll marry and raise kids at some point, but they feel no urgency to do so.

Small towns won’t survive, let alone thrive, if they don’t offer housing that appeals to that growing demographic. A first-year teacher in Chatfield shouldn’t have to commute from Rochester. Nor should a veterinary technician in Plainview, a mechanic in Stewartville, a welder in Kasson or a child-care worker in Eyota.

Rochester and Mayo Clinic are and will continue to be the rising tide that lifts all boats, but that won’t happen if the surrounding communities choose to anchor themselves to outdated attitudes about housing, growth and change.

This article was originally published by a www.postbulletin.com . Read the Original article here. .