The City of Crookston Planning Commission met for a Special Meeting on Wednesday, January 22, at 7:00 p.m.
The meeting started with the election of Officers. The Commission unanimously voted to elect Jennifer Tate as Chair, Bob Blazek as Vice-Chair and Mike Lefranz as Secretary for 2025.
The Planning Commission then turned to the Conditional Use Request from Emily Ricard for 410 Ingersoll Ave to be used as a Daycare facility. Emily Ricard is a licensed childcare provider, and Jake Leas, one of the owners of Best Used Trucks in Crookston, has indicated that the use of the facility as a leased daycare facility is actively being sought and encouraged for property usage. “The request does meet, per the Planning Commission need and requirement from the city, that we do have more daycare,” says Building Official Greg Hefta. “The industrial usage was not probably the best fit, but at the same time, there are conditional usages that allow outside of the typical usage for an industrial zone,” Hefta says daycares have been seen in industrial areas previously and that this being an isolated site the Planning Commission felt it was appropriate for daycare and unanimously approved to move forward. Hefta will now take this request to the City Council. “City Council needs to approve any conditional use, any variance within the city,” says Hefta. “The Planning Commission only provides recommendations to the City Council.”
The other item on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting was a rezoning request by the City of Crookston from C-1 to R-3 for the area south of Loring Street west to Red Lake River. “Basically, we have seen over the 15-20 years, all the spaces and usages within that area have basically declined from Commercial to either multi-family residential or individual unit housing or existing, pre-existing housing that’s there,” says Hefta. “ It just fits for what’s there. We have some additional residential units that could be filled with more residential taxpayers and usages within that Commercial space, whereas commercial space has not been as used.” Hefta says they are trying to accommodate multi-residential usage for that area.” Currently, there is only one commercial building in this zone, and Hefta says it just makes sense to rezone. The Planning Commission approved unanimously.
