Housing plan along Mississippi River runs into environmental legal challenge

A gaggle of environmentalists has sued over a deliberate housing growth alongside the Mississippi River in Cottage Grove, arguing the town ought to have completed a extra stringent environmental evaluate.

The event by nationwide homebuilder PulteGroup on the former Mississippi Dunes Golf Course is notable as a result of it might put tons of of properties on open area alongside the river. The course closed in 2017 and is subsequent to the Gray Cloud Dunes Scientific and Pure Space, a state-maintained property that is a haven for uncommon species.

Lisa Mueller is one in every of three folks difficult the town within the case earlier than the Minnesota Courtroom of Appeals. She mentioned that the event round Gray Cloud Dunes will put strain on vegetation and animals inside it. She mentioned extra fertilized lawns, roaming pets or human guests can all degrade pure areas.

“What that stage of encroachment will do is basically shrink the character protect or the protected space that is being surrounded,” mentioned Mueller, who lives in western Wisconsin and beforehand labored in land preservation in close by Dakota County.

One of many folks becoming a member of her within the lawsuit lives in Cottage Grove; the opposite lives in adjoining Gray Cloud Township.

However Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey mentioned the event will put aside protected area, together with 12 acres to buffer the scientific and pure space, and that the town has completed its due diligence on environmental safety.

“We have completed the entire environmental work, and matter of truth, we have gone above and past,” he mentioned.

A mission consultant for Pulte declined to remark. The corporate’s full proposal contains as much as 239 single-family properties, 130 townhomes for folks age 55 or older and a 130-unit senior dwelling facility. It will additionally embrace trails and a park alongside the river.

At difficulty within the case is the town’s Environmental Evaluation Worksheet accomplished for the mission. The swimsuit argues that the town ought to have completed a extra detailed Environmental Influence Assertion as a substitute. It additionally seeks to pause the housing mission till one is accomplished.

Town responded in courtroom filings that it was proper to find out that the mission would not have vital environmental results and thus doesn’t have to do the deeper examine.

The world has lengthy been on the middle of hopes for a riverfront park that would appeal to guests from across the area. Because the mid-Nineties, Washington County has deliberate a regional park on close by Gray Cloud Island, which is in the course of the part of the Mississippi River that the proposed growth borders. That actuality continues to be distant, partially due to a decades-old gravel mine on the island that is seeking to broaden.

The location can be inside the 72-mile Mississippi River Hall Important Space, a protected stretch by means of the Twin Cities the place growth is regulated to guard river habitat and water high quality.

On the Mississippi Dunes property, “what some folks wished was for us to take that complete property, to go away it pure [or] make the complete property a park,” Bailey mentioned. “Financially and feasibly, that does not work.”

However others have proven curiosity up to now, together with the Minnesota Division of Pure Assets (DNR), which maintains the Gray Dunes space. Liz Harper, an assistant regional supervisor on the DNR, mentioned in an e mail that the company had studied shopping for the land a number of instances and had put aside the cash to do it.

DNR nonetheless has cash budgeted to purchase some smaller parcels on the sides of the event, which Bailey additionally famous was a chance.

The Gray Cloud Dunes Scientific and Pure Space and surrounding land are house to many uncommon species, such because the federally endangered rusty patched bumblebee. Prescribed fires are used to keep up this prairie panorama, and the DNR has advised the town about its concern that new householders is likely to be uncovered to smoke from these burns, Harper mentioned.

“Defending remaining prairie remnants in Minnesota is critically necessary,” Harper wrote.

The courtroom case over Cottage Grove’s environmental evaluate will probably be argued earlier than a panel of appellate judges on Oct. 5.