Scott County officials urge smart growth

The political leadership of Scott County is launching a quiet campaign aimed at convincing the people who control the county's future that they need to rethink the way growth is being planned.

The "willy-nilly" ways in which development often happens, they say, create huge costs.

"If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to continue to get what we got," the county's director of public works, Lezlie Vermillion, told county commissioners and planning commission members during a workshop last week. "We do have some issues. Our systems don't operate the best."

But questions from the floor made clear that those who love the old-school, quirky, semi-rural character of the county worry about losing that quality amid a more professionally scripted future.

"Each township is unique," said planning commission member Chuck Wood. "The physical character of each is quite different. How does a planning process take that into account? You talk about a 'bold vision,' but that doesn't answer what Scott County winds up looking like."

There will be a series of meetings in the months to come.

Vermillion, together with the county's planning chief, Michael Sobota, and others will be making a pitch. that the county cannot remain attractive and competitive in the long run if everyone is tugging in different directions, thinking locally rather than seeing the big picture.

The change being sought covers a number of subjects, but perhaps the most often mentioned is clashes over highways.

A classic case of what not to do, Vermillion said, is County Road 42, the only major east-west passageway across the populated heart of Dakota and Scott counties.

Rationally, she said, for the public good, that should be a fast-moving artery allowing people to move longer distances easily. But in the real world, cities along the route want the tax base that comes from businesses. And businesses want their customers to be able to quickly exit and enter that roadway -- creating stoplights and slowdowns for everyone.

Because of that, she said, "now we're looking at a $25 million project to go to six lanes," even though a six-lane roadway is almost twice as dangerous to motorists as a four-laner. "Good planning upfront can avoid that."

As County Road 8 develops as a similarly important artery farther south, out of Belle Plaine, "we need to avoid allowing access points every 200 feet," she said.

Synchronizing the process

Another key point is the need to move early to secure the land that will be needed much later for major highways. The county's future mapping shows a much more rigid grid system of roads than the spidery system that evolved toward the north. That's all the more important, Vermillion said, in that "no one is going to come in and build us a freeway." Scott County today is both interwoven, with an organization of city and township officials who regularly meet, and also disconnected, the county's senior managers say.

"We have all these different plans going on," Sobota said. "Prior Lake's new long-range plan was approved two years ago, yet we haven't even received Shakopee's yet. Part of the 'bold new vision' is to synchronize the planning process." Although the new initiative is driven in part by the desire of political leaders around the county to promote job growth and attract corporate headquarters, officials argue, it isn't so development-driven as to neglect the environment.

"We want natural corridors protected from the front end," Sobota said, not just as an afterthought as projects come along.

County board chair Bob Vogel said the idea isn't for any centralized takeover. "It's not to take power from anyone; it's to coordinate."

The discussions take place against a backdrop of concern among farmers that the county wants to suburbanize its entire western half and questions about the long-range prospects for development remote from major job centers if gas prices rise again.

"Do we have flexibility if our 'bold new vision' turns out to be off the mark?" asked planning commission member Arvid Sornberger. Senior managers assured him that would be the case.

Things haven't developed the way they have for no reason, Vermillion conceded, and changing them will take time.

"That's why we're allowing four years to do this" -- meaning to come up with an integrated plan for the future -- "and some wonder if we can do it that quickly."

David Peterson • 952-882-9023