The Crookston Planning Commission met on Tuesday night to review a conditional use permit for an in-law suite on the backside of a garage at 811 Groveland Ave. Justin Jerde, who owns the property submitted a conditional use permit, said in the application he wanted to build a two-car garage with a small studio space designed for the in-laws to spend summers in Minnesota.
Crookston Building Official Greg Hefta told the commission that reviewing the application for conditional use he’d originally thought such a structure was possible. So, Jerde submitted the application and the $200 non-refundable fee. However, Hefta added that after he further reviewed the city code, he shouldn’t have accepted the application. “Upon review, that conditional use permit should not have been accepted,” said Hefta. “That was on my shoulders. As far as the money, we’ll look at refunding that money for Justin Jerde.”
Jerde said he was disappointed with the result as he’d been told they could look at allowing his building on a case by case basis as a conditional use. “I was a little disappointed,” said Jerde. “I was told leading into this that a conditional use permit could be looked at on a case by case basis where they said tonight it wasn’t. They said the only options were to basically sub-divide the lot and build a whole new house instead of having a small in-law suite that would be used by the relatives.”
The Commission then spent time speaking with Jerde about ways he could build. The lot Jerde owns is oversized at about 195’ wide and 275-300’ deep along the river. The commission primarily suggested he continue splitting the lots into two and building a new primary structure or connecting the garage to the current structure. Chair Wayne Schenck also asked if a garage with a 10-12’ breezeway to the house could be a solution. Hefta said he hadn’t considered it, but it may be a possibility upon review that a breezeway would be considered an attachment. “The alternatives were to split the lot and put each primary residence on one of the lots,” said Hefta. “Or attach to the building that is established as a residence and the problem solved. It basically came down to we can not have two residences on the same lot. That was my mistake again, and I’ll own up to it.
Jerde said he didn’t believe he’d be able to complete the options suggested by the commission. “The options that were presented to me are ones that will not work for my current position or what we were trying to accomplish,” said Jerde. “Have to probably scrap the idea and look at something else.”
Jerde also asked why the city didn’t allow an accessory building to have housing units and Mayor Dale Stainbrook said it was because the city wanted to have one lot, one house for tax purposes. Commission member Shirley Iverson referenced the house recently sold home by the Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority (CHEDA) in partnership with Tri-Valley Opportunity Council, the Northwest Minnesota Foundation and Northwest Multi-County HRA stating, “unless it’s CHEDA.” She then explained the homeowner had purchased a second lot from the developer Kevin Ross, a transaction completed after the entities in the partnership to build the home had sold it.
However, Interim City Administrator Angel Weasner had previously addressed that during the Planning Commission meeting on January 21, 2020 (here), when Bob Herkenhoff said he was asked why Nature View Estates was limited to one lot, one house when Carman View was not. She had stated at that time that the city couldn’t hold the developer of Carman View to one lot, one house because the infrastructure had been installed 10 years prior, there were issues selling the lots at that time, and the developer’s agreement had since become outdated.
The meeting adjourned with no action as the conditional use permit application was determined invalid. The code reference by Hefta as to why the permit shouldn’t have been accepted are highlighted below –
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab 
