Let's Make a Deal, Round 3: South Shore Application on JPB Agenda

The Edgewater Group representative, Rich Siegert will make his case for an amendment to the South Shore Planned Unit Development to the Greater Bemidji Area Joint Planning Board when they meet on Wednesday, March 10.  The meeting is at 6:00pm at City Hall.  This is Siegert's third appearance before the JPB, after having presented twice in February.

His application would allow him to build a new hotel attached to the Green Mill. (Read my original post on the project.)  The muddle has been caused by local MN DNR opposition to shoreland setbacks requested in his proposal.  After Siegert's last appearance before the JPB, and under threat of legal action against the JPB by the DNR, he was instructed to meet with the DNR to find a workable solution that both sides could support. He met with DNR officials, the planning administrator and the JPB legal council for more than two hours last week. 

The state has given the DNR responsibility to develop shoreland guidelines through model ordinances, but has assigned responsibility to local governments for ordinance adoption, administration and enforcement.  The variance process is an administrative/enforcement issue and should be left to the local governing body (LGU), the Joint Planning Board. while finding a compromise makes sense, the DNR should let the LGU decide the issue. A recent Supreme Court ruling on a similar issue on the St. Croix River affirmed the enforcement role of the LGU and the attorneys in the case explained it in an editorial in today's Star Tribune.

It will be interesting to see if an agreement has been struck and how the JPB handles the issue. You can tune in to see the outcome; the meeting is televised on Channel 2.

Also on the agenda, a public hearing for the semi-annual Ordinance update, which can be found here; and changes to the fee schedule.  Here is the old (2009) fee schedule. (I can't find the proposed fee schedule changes online; one can only assume that some fees are going up!)