Last week, the City of Pine City passed a resolution of support for State legislation meant to protect residents and business owners by collecting infrastructure fees from developers.
The bill HF2296/SF2442 is in response to the Minnesota Supreme Court case Harstad v. The City of Woodbury. In that case, a developer built a 183-unit residential community that required a major roadway and intersection improvements. The City of Woodbury charged the developer $1,389,444 for infrastructure costs; however, the developer refused to pay due to the city lacking the authority to charge them. Ultimately, the Minn. Supreme court sided with the developer as this fell outside of the authority of Woodbury's infrastructure fee program.
The Pine City City Council discussed the model resolution during their Wednesday, March 4 meeting.
"It hasn't been a big issue for us yet, but it has been for a number of other cities," said Councilmember Brian Scholin. "We would like to get the law amended so that it won't be a problem for us in the future."
The councilmember went onto say that this legislation would allow for some flexibility for the City. If they wanted to encourage development in a certain area, they could include that the city would build a road to them in the developer's agreement.
"The developer shouldn't be able to force that on a city without the city's cooperation," said Scholin.
The City Council unanimously approved the model resolution.
Currently, HF2296 was passed by the House Local Government Subcommittee last week and was referred to the House Government Operations Committee.
Comments