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Transitional housing request for Grant House back to planning commission |
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By Patrick Tepoorten
A decision by the Rush City planning commission to deny Grant House buyer Todd Johnston a text amendment to the city’s zoning ordinance, allowing state licensed boarding and lodging facilities in a B-2 general business zone as a conditional use, brought Johnston and others to the city council.
Council members in general expressed support for Johnston’s proposal to lease the upper two floors of the historic Grant House to Selah House, a Christian-based addiction recovery “transitional” facility. Councilor Nancy Schroeder expressed support for the idea, because, with Selah House upstairs and commercial business on the main floor, it would bring two businesses to town in what has been a vacant building for some time.
Schroeder also said it was a shame that not all planning commission members had been in attendance at the March 18 meeting, and voiced a concern that “personal feelings” may have played a role in the decision to deny the request.
For the council’s part, the overarching concern was not so much Selah House itself, but how an amendment to the zoning ordinance would affect usage citywide. Mayor Jim Ertz said the city was receiving conflicting opinions on the matter and needed to iron out what affect an amendment would have on the city.
The city also viewed letters from a handful of business owners, most of which were in favor of the amendment.
While the city awaits clarification on the larger issue, a zoning amendment, it also sent the issue back to the planning commission for further public input. In the meantime, a request by Johnston for a conditional use permit, based on the amendment’s approval, remains tabled by the planning commission.
In other business:
• The decision was made to change attorneys and financial advisors, but continue with SEH for engineering services. The decision to do so though, was not without the expression of some consternation from Mayor Ertz.
With SEH’s Joel Dresel and Barry Peters in attendance, Ertz commented that engineering fees have been “extremely high” over the last few years and that the city has had “a lot of failures.” Although he laid a portion of the blame for failures at the feet of city legal counsel and previous city administration, he also pointed out that SEH has been responsible for inspecting projects like Rush Landing, which Ertz said ended up with a layer of blacktop that was too thin.
Problems with projects, he said, has resulted in the city having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for corrections. “We want to know the right way to do things,” he added, and expressed his hope that such would be the case in the future.
The proposals for services from attorneys, financial advisors and engineering firms were studied by councilors Jamie Amundson and Nic Malchow, who recommended making changes in attorney and financial advisor.
Johnson, Grundhoefer & Alliegro (JGA) was chosen to replace Jennings, Dewan, Miller, and Anderson (JDMA), because of a broader range of services was offered. Amundson stated that JGA handles labor relations and personnel policy, issues that have forced the city to hire outside legal advice in the past.
Amundson also noted that JGA had received positive reviews by other local municipalities, including Harris, Stacy, and Shafer. JGA is slightly more expensive than JDMA; $110 an hour for council meetings and general legal advice, as opposed to $100 charged by JDMA.
The city also approved a change to Ehlers and Associates for financial advice.
• A public hearing was held on the draft environmental assessment (EA) for the Rush City Regional Airport. The EA is required as part of a process by which the airport proposes to use federal resources to build a crosswind runway and a new building area to the south of the property.
According to SEH’s Brad Kovich, the addition of the runway and structures have not created too many environmental impacts, relative to other projects he has been involved with. Some that were looked at included the projects’ impacts on habitat, farmland soils, and wetlands. Kovich noted that any changes to wetland areas would be dealt with through a wetland mitigation process.
Engineer Joel Dresel added that most of the impact falls “generally” on airport property.
The proposed crosswind runway’s dimensions are 3,200 feet long by 75 feet wide.
Comments on the draft AE are encouraged and will be included in the final document. Those who want to review the draft can view it at both Rush City Hall and the public library, and copies are also available at the North Branch library and Pine City Hall. The comment period expires April 10.
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