05/02/2011 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Search

• • • Project Goals In its Economic Development Mission Statement and 5 -Year Plan, EDAC states that its primary goal is to encourage commercial /industrial development to stabilize the city's tax base to relieve the residential property tax burden. If EDAC continues to uphold that goal, then the question they wanted to consider was: Do City ordinances regarding nonconforming properties impede achieving the goal of stabilizing the City's tax base? Or do current City ordinances properly guide market forces to ensure that commercial and industrial best uses are located within appropriate commercial and industrial corridors? Analysis Formulating and advancing development and redevelopment first requires identifying the problem, understanding existing barriers such as realities of the marketplace, constraints of local public /private resources, creating a shared political agenda, and finally designing a program of action. In the formulating a solution to underused and vacant properties in Lino Lakes, it was necessary to: 1. Identify the properties 2. Determine the impediments that prevented the properties from being used or redeveloped 3. Determine the impact these properties have on the City's tax base 4. Determine what actions - whether through regulatory change, financial incentives, public investment, or marketing assistance —could be proposed that would benefit the City. Parcel Inventory In order to determine if nonconforming issues are preventing the redevelopment of underutilized properties in Lino Lakes, staff inventoried the Lake Drive and Hodgson Road commercial corridors as these major roadway corridors include the majority of properties that are either guided, zoned, or have historically been used for commercial /industrial purposes within the city. An initial inventory resulted in 163 such properties within these corridors. To focus the study further, staff compiled and reviewed the following information for each site: Zoning Designation, Land Use Designation (existing and draft 2030), Existing Use, and City Utility Service or Water Main location. Then using this information, staff determined if the existing use was conforming to the zoning ordinance and if the existing use was consistent with the comprehensive plan(s). Since the interest of the City Council is to prevent the erosion of commercial /industrial tax base within the City, staff eliminated all the vacant or single family home parcels (80), since they do not contribute to the C/I tax base.