ICEC Position Paper

The Isanti County Eviromental Coalition has been distributing a copy of there position paper regarding the County Comp Plan. It contains many important points that should be considered as the County Comp Plan process comes to completetion.


The Isanti County Environmental Coalition has identified the following concerns and issues regarding county officials’ intention to increase dramatically the rate of residential development in the agricultural district of Isanti County. Most county residents and perhaps even other officials from the townships and cities may not be aware of this change in the county’s Comprehensive Plan.

It represents a radical change in land use planning and will eventually affect every county resident and governmental entity, in one way or another.A county’s comp lan and, in particular, the agricultural land density formula are the predominate factors in preserving open space, maintaining a rural environment/landscape and in allowing current residents and government bodies to support growth in a sustainable manner. The proposed doubling of densities in the agricultural district and the allowance of more development in parcels less than 40 acres is a very major change in land use planning for this county and will potentially impact property and school taxes in major ways. (Cambridge-Isanti School District is currently reducing its budget by $2.1 million.) The compulsion to change development densities is driven by a few individuals in the county.

The 2005 township survey and the results of the regional meetings last year express clearly that such a radical change is not desired by most county residents or deemed necessary.Contrary to the occasionally raised promotion of “property rights” in regard to one’s selling of land, the county and its broad community can define the appropriate level of development and the pace that it occurs. Any landowner can realize a very nice profit from land sales or development under the current regulations. It is not the responsibility of the county and a few landowners to ensure that maximum profits from land speculation and subdivision are realized.

Most of the county’s townships do not have their own comprehensive plan and they, even more than the three cities in the county, rely on the county to conduct planning and growth with which they can deal. The maintenance pressure on township roads will increase under the new plan. The county’s planning direction for housing density may pressure individual townships to adopt their own comprehensive plan to retain the current agricultural land density of two building rights per 40 acres.

The serious collapse of the housing industry and the overall economic challenges in the state and country should make it very clear that this is a very poor time to be creating an environment which increases development and land speculation.The proposed plan is complicated and includes three scenarios for agricultural land development. Platting of parcels involving 13 to 18 houses requires a level of county staffing and oversight that currently does not exist.

The county continues to struggle in functional land use planning due to the lack of commitment to the employment of an on-staff professional planner.Though the proposed plan speaks of smart growth and the use of incentives for such, these tools remain “optional.” It will require a very large and upfront financial commitment by a landowner/developer to plat and construct the infrastructure for this option. What appears to work in Marine on St.Croix will be more difficult to achieve in Isanti County. If a developer is going the smart growth/incentive route, that person needs to be fairly certain that the designed plat of 18 houses will fill up quite quickly. This is not likely and therefore this option will be seldom used.

The creation of 13 to 18 housing units on a 40-acre parcel and the increase of those on parcels less than 40 acres increase the opportunity for farming activities to be in conflict with this type of residential development. Many residents in the county, whether farmers or not, will not be pleased with the creation of a residential neighborhood adjacent to their homes.

If the county pursues the questionable goal of increasing residential housing in the agricultural district at a faster rate, the county then should also support individual landowners, if they wish to do so, in obtaining conservation easements (a open space conservation tool) on large or unique areas on their properties. Both county staff expertise and a financial incentive to cover legal fees should be made available to interested landowners who make this important decision to protect open and wild space forever. Such a program would be an effective tool in preserving the rural nature of the county.

Isanti County needs to explore quickly the opportunity for its remaining farmland spaces to be preserved for generations to come, rather than converted to an extension of the urban environment. With food and transportation costs climbing steadily and with our adjacency to a major urban center, there is no better time than now for our fields to remain available for local food production and for the production of biofuel resources to assist in resolving energy production challenges. There are very major concerns nationwide about the sustainability of much of our daily food coming from far coast locations and beyond our borders.

The use of the transfer of development tool should protect our county’s waters especially the natural environment lakes, encouraging clustering of new residences on nearby higher land and away from these natural resources.

The Anoka Sand Plain covers a major portion of Isanti County and is vulnerable to the results of denser residential development. Its subsurface resources provide water for communities in the metro area and need to be protected forever.

It is very regrettable that the county’s local newspapers have not published the activities and decisions of the Citizens Advisory Committee over numerous months. This lack of coverage of a major community process is puzzling and does not serve Isanti County residents well.

Formal studies in this state and nationwide have made it very clear that the cost of provision of services and infrastructure to accommodate new development and growth exceeds the revenue from such growth. If there are county officials who still do not accept this finding, the county should seek a qualified agency or research institution to study this county’s growth pattern and cost of government services over the past 10 to 30 years.

Coalition encourages citizen participation

The Isanti County Environmental Coalition is a volunteer citizen’s group, founded in 1989, whose purpose is to promote individual and community stewardship of our local natural resources. It has 41 active members and has been tracking and participating in public meetings regarding zoning since 1990.

The coalition encourages all citizens to attend the next county planning commission meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 12 at the Isanti County Government Center. It further encourages citizens to call their county commissioners to express their own opinions about the proposed changes in the comprehensive plan.