The Crookston Planning Commission met on Tuesday night and reviewed responses from new City Attorney Corky Reynolds to questions raised during the February public discussion regarding the Gateway Overlay District. The public still has until April to comment with City Hall on the proposed Gateway Overlay District.
One of the questions was whether the City of Crookston defined an “Industrial Park” which is not defined according to City Administrator Shannon Stassen who relayed the City Attorney’s responses to the commission. “It doesn’t reference it,” said Stassen. “We informally reference it with a heavy industrial and light industrial areas. I think anyone can kind of picture in their mind what we consider the industrial area. We just don’t have that currently.”
Two questions that went hand-in-hand regarded whether the Gateway Overlay District would automatically become effective when a parcel of real property is sold and if there was an exemption for when real property is sold within the family. “What this ordinance is saying is when nonconforming use changes,” said Stassen. “It has nothing to do with ownership. Whether its ownership changing within a family or ownership changing outright say a convenience store that stays a convenience store they are still going to be fine. If that convenience store is sold and changes to a different use then it would fall under the ordinance as the nonconforming use has changed.”
The commission referenced several businesses along the proposed gateways that are rented as part of a larger facility. One example would be if Cofe` moved to a new location and a subsequent business replaced them as a tenant would the building they currently occupy need to change. “Because it’s part of a larger structure that’s one we have to get figured out because some buildings have multiple uses,” said Stassen. “If one of them moves does that trigger everybody? I’d say probably not, but we’ll check into it and make sure.”
Councilman Tom Vedbraaten was also present at the meeting and expressed that he didn’t believe the city could have every entrance “pretty, pretty,” that the city needs to have businesses in the industrial area and the proposed Gateway Overlay District is telling businesses not to come here. Members of the commission did not share Vedbraaten’s view and Mayor Guy Martin said cleaning up the gateways was first discussed years ago when he was first on the city council and nothing was done at that time. He said, “if we don’t get a start on it now, they’ll still be having this discussion about needing to come up with something thirty years from now.”
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