02/04/1991 Park Board Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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North St. Paul 60.5 3.6 5.1 15.8 15.0 100.0 Lino Lakes 9.3 0.4 0.2 57.9 32.2 100.0 Conclusion: If the city reserves more than 3.0 percent of its area for commercial purposes or 5.0 percent for . industrial purposes it should be prepared to promote and aid in the development of that land. From the examples we've seen here commercial and industrial development doesn't happen spontaneously -as evidenced by the fact that some places have very little of either. On the positive side some of the cities with hivher amounts of commercial and industrial land have strong financial situations, are able to finance high land city services, and have relatively low tax rates. Industrial promotion activities would seem justified for Lino Lakes. The unbuildable Land Situation: Lino Lakes is a unique city in at least one measure. Of the city's 21,337 acres only about 43 per cent of 12,230 acres is buildable. As the acreage summary table indicates wetlands, parks, lakes and freeways take more than two -fifths of the city's total area. The table, which shows the land areas of the various sewer service districts as well as other areas where sewer extension is not practical, shows a second significant fact. Of the 12,340 buildable acres one-third is already gone -used up. As noted earlier more than 1,000 acres of the developed land area have been used for large lot single-family subdivisions. At this point in time slightly more than half of all dwellings in the city are on large lots with no public utilities. While this may provide some residents with "elbow room" it certainly is a burden on the city in providing services. When 8,000 acres of unbuildable land is added to the equation Lino Lakes ability to provide reasonable city services (at a reasonable cost) is severely strained. Lino Lakes needs to get as much tax return as possible from its remaining developable land. To not do so is to test its viability as a city. Page 13