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OpinionShe urges No. Branch residents to attend comprehensive plan hearingTo the editor: I urge every citizen of North Branch to attend the Comprehensive Plan meeting on Wednesday, July 17 at 7 p.m. at City Hall. Recommendation by the majority of the L.U.C. committee is to take away the water/sewer border line. This came about after the mayor and a councilperson said that this is what they would like. This means a developer may extend the water/sewer line a quarter mile at a time and then could build homes on every 12,000 sq. ft. This could be extended multi times over the course of 20 years. This would be in any and all directions. If you thought the schools were crowded now, just wait and see how many more children fill up the classrooms. If you thought itís hard to cross the I-35 bridge, or to go down 95 to get home from work, you havenít seen anything yet. This Comprehensive Plan, if adopted, will guide and control the cityís growth for the next 20 years. It has been said that about 16,000 people should be living here in North Branch in 20 years. The last comprehensive plan was for 10,000 people by the year 2015. We have almost achieved that within seven years. Will we achieve the 16,000 people in another 20 years or sooner? The Comprehensive Plan states it will have some guidelines for growth, however so did the old one. In my opinion, the city did not follow that. A little over a month ago the city council approved to let Woodduck Ponds build 51 homes on water and sewer. The next day they put a ban (sprinkling) so people already on water could only water their lawns every other day. Shouldnít people already on water and sewerís needs come first? Now I have personally been told that the amount of people who want growth to slow is a minority, yet one of the cityís goals is to ìslow growth.î There is no way you can slow the growth yet increase the amount of land available for ìstack and pack.î Development does not pay for itself. If it did then why are the people already on water/sewer paying 13 percent extra on their bill to pay for a new sewer plant that will accommodate the new growth? Yes, thatís $8 million for phase one of the new sewer plant. That is just one example. I urge every citizen to come to the meeting and tell the planning commission that we want the water/sewer line to remain exactly where it is. We donít want to live in Woodbury, St. Paul or any other large city. We want to remain a small rural community. If you do not come and tell the city what you want then you will get more crowded schools, more traffic, as well as many more people coming to North Branch to live. Theresa Furman ©ECM Post Review |