Critical Area rulemaking update: Newly drafted river districts get cool response

A riverfront view of downtown Minneapolis from Nicollet Island Park.

Photo: Mississippi National River and Recreation Area

Last month, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources hosted four lively stakeholder meetings to review draft proposed districts for the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area. The new overlay districts will be a key element when it comes to developing new state rules for the river: district boundaries will determine the contextual basis for standards and guidelines for corridor development.

FMR's initial response to the districts was largely negative. Although the draft district scheme broke the corridor up into more distinct areas than the pre-existing districts created in 1979, it was still largely based on current land uses — failing to reflect the river's changing geography, character and potential as intended by the 2009 Critical Area Reform legislation.

Fortunately, many other stakeholders shared FMRs key concerns. Such as the need to:

• Create districts that allow for flexibility and change over time, instead of districts that codify and freeze the current land use, parcel by parcel.
• Write statements of intent for each district tying back to the resources identified for protection in the 2009 Mississippi River Corridor Area state statute 116G.15.
• Expand a district for parks to include urban developed parks as well as natural parks.
• Eliminate a district for townships and rely instead on the underlying land uses and features when drawing district boundaries.
• Eliminate two industrial districts and including them in a mixed-use or rural land-use category.
• Limit a district that is separated from the river and/or does not contribute to the river's scenery or habitat corridor.
• Restrict the downtown/no-height-limit district to the west side of the river in Minneapolis and the north (or left-descending) side of the river in St. Paul.

FMR had a number of additional concerns and suggestions and submitted extensive written comments regarding the districts to the DNR. (If youd like a copy of the district comments, please contact Bob Spaulding.) The DNR will be revising the districts, but there may not be a chance to comment again on the final districting scheme until official hearings take place in 2011.

At the next stakeholder meeting in mid-August, stakeholders (including FMR ) will be reviewing the initial draft standards and guidelines. The discussion about standards is where the rubber really hits the road. FMR is preparing more comments and reaching out to other stakeholders and interested parties to plan for collaborative review of — and response to — the draft rules.

The DNR expects to submit a draft set of rules to the DNR Commissioner by the end of September. That allows six weeks to revise the standards and guidelines based on stakeholder input, write definitions and write the state-required Statement of Need and Reasonableness or SONAR, which provides background on the proposed rule for decision makers and citizens.

This process is on a tight and fast-moving timeline. Stay tuned to the Mississippi Messages and fmr.org for updates!

For more information

• Background information on the Mississippi River Critical Area Reform, a significant FMR-led victory, is available via our fact sheet.
• Learn more about the DNRs Critical Area rulemaking process.
• Check out this recent article in the online magazine, The Line, written by Chris Stellar and quoting River Corridor Program Director Irene Jones.

— Irene Jones, River Corridor Program Director