Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

One of the most enjoyable tasks of serving on the NDDC board is getting to select the monthly Downtown Forum topics. A group of us brainstormed recently at the Ole Store (close to downtown, and a great neighborhood resource) on possible topics for the coming year. But we would like to hear from regular readers of this blog about what interests *you.* So, here goes.

In January, the NDDC will host Mayor Lee Lansing in a question-and-answer format, allowing audience members to grill hizzoner on anything they choose. After that, we have numerous options:

1. a forum on how business owners can create an effective website;
2. how can Northfield become more pedestrian- and bicyclist-friendly?;
3. sidewalk dining downtown once the weather turns warm;
4. a downtown (or near-downtown) off-leash dog park;
5. tax-increment financing;
6. living downtown; what do we need to pay attention to as downtown becomes more filled with residents, rather than only shoppers, visitors and store owners;
7. how to make Northfield a well-known center for alternative healing and health;
8. once the St. Olaf wind turbine comes online, a forum on Northfield as a site for alternative energy.

The NDDC board sponsors the monthly Downtown Forum the first Tuesday of every month at 8 a.m., in the lower level of the Archer House. Coffee and cookies (!) provided. We typically draw at least three dozen people for interesting topics, heated debates — what you’d normally expect in Northfield. So please Contact Us and let us know which of the topics above seem worthy of your time.

The weblog comment feature is not currently working. My apologies.

There are two public hearings taking place at the Northfield Planning Commission on Tuesday evening, December 13. The Planning Commission meets in the City Council Chambers and the hearings will begin at 7 pm. Both hearings have significance for the future of redevelopment in downtown Northfield.

Conflicting ordinance provisions exist today in the C-1 zoning district (downtown) on the topics of density and parking. The Public Hearing is to resolve these conflicts.

On the topic of density, one provision puts no limit on density and the other says that it should be the same as R-5 (a residential zoning district). The result of limiting the density as in R-5 would be that most buildings in downtown would only be allowed to have two residential units.

On the topic of parking, one provision says that there are no parking requirements for housing units in downtown; the other says that each housing unit should have two parking spaces. If the more restrictive requirement had been enforced, the Kjerland Building and the Larson’s Printing Expansion on the west side would not have been allowed.

In fact, in addition to having no parking spaces, those two building projects have “too many” units by more restrictive density limit.

City staff has researched 8 other communities in Minnesota. None of them have density limits in their downtowns and only 3 of the 8 have parking requirements.

The downtown is our urban area: at 1 pm parking can be tight, but at 1 am there are usually plenty of available spaces. Downtown offers tremendous potential for economic development, attracting the creative class and assuring a vital future for our community. Expansion and redevelopment should not be undermined by density limits or parking requirements.

Furthermore, density limitations and parking requirements dramatically increase the cost of housing, easily adding more than $25,000 ($15,000 per parking stall and $10,000 to $20,000 for land acquisition cost) or more to the cost of a housing unit. This increase puts housing out of reach out of much of our workforce.

Interested persons may speak to these topics by attending the hearings. City Hall is located at 801 Washington Street.

This past Sunday afternoon I drove up to the Bell Auditorium on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The Bell Auditorium bills itself as “The Nation’s First Dedicated Non-Fiction Screen”. That’s knowing your niche.

I planned to see “Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt”. Townes was a somewhat obscure but highly influential Texas troubadour. His songs have been covered by numerous musicians, including Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, and the Be Good Tanyas.

Although the Bell Auditorium website and Minnesota Film Arts calendar promised Townes, when the film was introduced, it was “Touch the Sound”, a documentary about Evelyn Glennie, one of the world’s foremost classical percussionists, who happens to be profoundly deaf.

I raised my hand and asked, “What about Townes Van Zandt?” The host answered, “That’s next weekend…I’ll give you your money back if you want”.

Well, I’d driven the hour to The Cities and already paid for my parking. I figured I’d sit for a while and check it out.

I was glad I stayed.

In case you don’t know the story, Evelyn was an aspiring musician when she started to go deaf at age 8. At age 11, she had almost completely lost her hearing and was given hearing aids. At age 12, she found that could hear better without using her ears, so she threw away the hearing aids. She believes that most people are limited by only hearing through their ears. She hears through her entire body.

I’m getting to Bardwell’s Crazy Idea soon…
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Neil Young and Willie Nelson at Farm Aid

In a recent interview* about his new album Prairie Wind, Neil Young talked about his long-term relationship with the environment.

My grandfather was from South Carolina, and he moved up to Canada. He used to go duck hunting with my mom and dad, and then he’d come back and my mom would cook the ducks and make them with the wild grains, with the wild rice. And we’d have roast duck with wild rice.

And there were a lot of pictues of my dad in Sports Illustrated magazine with my grandpa. They did articles on duck hunting in Northern Manitoba. And it really was like, you know, they go out there hunting for the birds and if you went at the right time, you actually couldn’t see the sun, there were so many birds in the sky.

That’s how many birds there used to be. Now, where are they? What’s going on? You know, there’s too many signs. Our leaders need to realize that there are big signs. They need to take a look around the planet and see what we’re doing to the planet and what’s going on.

I know there’s a lot of people just shaking their heads, because I might sound like a tree-hugger or something. You can put a label on a person like me, and dismiss it. It’s an easy thing to do. A lot of people are taking the easy route. But there’s a price to pay for that.

All you have to do is remember what your grandparents said and what they talked about and look around and see what we’ve got now and wonder, you know, what are you going to tell your kids? And what are their kids going to remember from what you said when you’re their grand-daddy? What have you got left? What are they going to have left? I mean, we really have to be careful here.

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