Lilydale Council clears way for bluffside development
On Monday, April 14, the Lilydale City Council voted 4 to 1 to rezone one of the areas sole remaining undeveloped bluff side parcels to allow for housing. The vote clears the way for one of the last bluffside lots remaining in the area to be developed as housing.
The land in question is a wooded parcel on the Mississippi Rivers upper bluff along Sibley Memorial Highway, just west of Lexington Avenue.
John Thompson, a past Lilydale civic leader, donated the land three decades ago. The Citys own March 16, 1978 ordinance is clear: it shows the land registered as a gift to the City, and dedicated as permanent open space. But there were no binding legal terms to keep the current City Council from overriding the wishes of Mr. Thompson.
Some wished it would not be this way. I think the bluffs are very environmentally fragile, and theyre beautiful, Councilmember Marilyn Lundberg told the Pioneer Press last summer. To me, a wooded bluff is an amenity. It doesnt have to have a use. The Committee on the Upper Bluff organized residents to write and testify against the rezoning and sale.
In advance of the March 24 Planning Commission meeting, 150 letters and other communications had been sent to the city on the issue, most urging Lilydale not to rezone and not to sell the land. In a city of fewer than 800 residents, this was nothing short of a groundswell of opinion.
At the March 24 meeting, several residents testified to their concerns about water issues at the site. On the adjacent property, an underground stream comes to the surface on the bluff side, creating a consistent flow of water down the hillside. The proximity caused many to fear that the parcel being rezoned would be unbuildable.
Other nearby neighbors were concerned that construction on the land would increase runoff there. Already the adjacent condominiums along the bluffs edge have suffered substantial erosion and at least one small landside that threatens homeowners.
But this isnt the first time the City Council voted to rezone the property for housing. Council rezoned the property last summer to multi-family residential, and amended the citys comprehensive plan to change the lands designation from park/open space to multi-family residential. But that new designation conflicted with the Mississippi River Critical Area designation, the regulatory mechanism that protects the Mississippi River corridor.
A February 2 letter of determination from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources found that, residential development is consistent with the Urban Open Space [Critical Area zone], but concluded multi-family residential development could not be accomplished without degradation of the steep (greater than 18%) bluff on the site.
More information
Lilydale Bluff Protected for another 60 days Mississippi Messages, March 2008
DNR Letter on Lilydale Parcel (72 KB PDF)
FMR Letter to City of Lilydale (88 KB PDF)