Hugo Planning Commission Makes Final Comp Plan Recommendation
Plan Leaves Rural Development Decisions To Future City Governments
HUGO - Following a process that has spanned more than fourteen months, the Hugo City Council is set to discuss the city's 2030 Comprehensive Plan for what might be the final time at its first meeting in May, after the city's Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of a draft version of the plan at its April 10 meeting.
"Ultimately, like a Supreme Court, council is going to make the tough decision, the decision they feel is in the best interest of the city," said City Administrator Mike Ericson.
In recent weeks, the question of whether eastern Hugo should be guided toward future development or designated to remain rural permanently emerged as the most contentious issue le to be resolved.
The draft version of the plan approved by the Planning Commission essentially leaves that question to be answered by future city governments. The plan makes no mention of a "permanent rural" designation for eastern Hugo but encourages that future development in that part of the city be guided towards agricultural or rural residential uses.
The plan "wouldn't lock the door on anything that might happen 40 years from now from a planning perspective, because we can only plan so far ahead," Planning Commission Chair Dave Schumann said.
A decision to designate eastern Hugo as permanently rural could have some practical implications for landowners in the future, city staff explained at the public hearing last month. In taking that step, the city's trunk sewer system plan would subsequently be designed solely for flows from development in western Hugo, excluding any flows from the eastern part of the city.
Should development pressure build in eastern Hugo decades from now, retrofitting the city's sewer system to add capacity for potential developments could be very expensive. Unless Hugo built its own sewage treatment plant, those new trunk lines would have to extend to the Forest Lake Sanitary Sewer Interceptor located west of Highway 61.
Despite the fact that the current Comprehensive Plan update is only intended to guide development in the city from now through 2030, limitations placed on the capacity of sanitary sewer piping would have been one way in which this version of the Comprehensive Plan could affect the way the city develops in the long term.
But the commission decided against the permanent rural designation in the plan they recommended for approval, leaving long-range decisions about the future of eastern Hugo to future decision makers.
Specifically, the commission's version of the plan would allow residential development at a density of 1 unit per 10 acres in areas of the city east of the city's Metropolitan Urban Service Area (MUSA) line, with the added flexibility of 1 unit per 5 acre development permitted if a developer is granted a Planned Unit Development by the City Council.
In addition, all references to any type of cluster housing ordinance were removed from the document. This means that if council approves the plan as drafted, it would conflict with current city ordinance, which permits cluster residential developments east of the MUSA line. The city would have a few months after approval of the plan to reconcile its ordinances and the Comp Plan, as adopted.
If the City Council approves the Comprehensive Plan on May 5, the plan will then be distributed to area municipalities and organizations for a six-month review.
After that process is complete, the plan will then be sent to the Metropolitan Council for final approval. If the Met Council decides that the city's plan doesn't mesh with their long-term vision for the area, the plan will be sent back to the City Council for revision.