The Crookston Planning met on Tuesday night to determine the land use on the property at 110 Lincoln Ave. The property owner had informed the city that they would like to transfer ownership to the city as they were unable to pay for demolition.
Planning Commission Chair Joe Kresl asked whether demolition and resale of the property would pay for itself. City Administrator Shannon Stassen said he didn’t know the specific numbers, but that the Crookston Fire Department budget includes a line item like this for similar situations and that the city would enter into partnerships to keep the demolition affordable. “The Fire Department does have a line item of community improvement for buildings that are potentially hazardous or homes in this case that have been destroyed and the owner doesn’t have the financial capability to rectify the situation,” said Stassen. “It’s a partnership. Public Works will most likely end up hauling everything away. We’ve partnered with the county and others so basically what we pay for is the contractor to do the demolition and keep it affordable. Then creates a better situation on that lot to be used for a number of things to be determined later. But it gets rid of the hazard and an eyesore for the neighborhood.”
Stassen explained to the Planning Commission that they were being asked to determine the land use for the parcel since the comprehensive plan includes land-use guidelines. “Something that we became aware of about a year and a half ago from the City Attorney is that now that we have a new comprehensive plan that addresses land use,” said Stassen. “That every land acquisition, sale, option agreement for any city property or potential city property the Planning Commission has to weigh in is that existing zoning and the use after fit with the land use plan. This is squarely in the middle of residential so leaving it residential makes sense. The example we used was a residence may be on the edge of the industrial park and over the last forty years, it has kind of grown-up that removing the house would make more sense moving it to industrial this would be an opportunity to do that. That’s one for instance but there could be many of them. The Planning Commission is charged with the land use piece of it.”
The Planning Commission determined the property was an R2 residential property, which is what it was also previously zoned as. The Ways & Means Committee had previously discussed the property and Stassen said that based on the past discussion he believes the property acquisition could now move to the City Council’s regular agenda for further discussion. “I think we kind of buttoned it up in the last Ways & Means,” said Stassen. “Probably the next step is to bring it back to full council on the regular agenda for the council. We got pretty good direction at the last Ways & Means so we can probably move forward to the regular council agenda for some discussion.
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