Engaging Eureka Governance

  The Eureka Town Board’s proposed Comprehensive Plan Amendment includes ill-considered, sweeping rezoning for Commercial and Industrial uses. Is any of it next to you or may potentially increase traffic on a road you use daily? This is the other half of the Comp Plan Amendment along with the devastating proposal to eliminate 369 of 374 existing Housing Rights (explained in my previous blog post). Again, serious consideration needs to be given to finding more conscientious and common sense candidates to run for Town Board to better reflect the values and property rights of you, your friends, and your neighbors. The filing deadline to run for election is rapidly approaching – January 13, 5 pm. 12/17/2024 – Open House (at 5:30pm) regarding possible Commercial /Industrial zoning. This was the only opportunity for public Q&A dialog on the subject. Commercial/Industrial Open House also had an interesting chart showing a 10-year “drought” of flat tax levy not increasing 2011...

  One of my written correction comments at the recent hearing on fees (Ordinance Amendment 2025-1) brings out another example of the problem with unfinished Ordinance language cleanup. Specifically, a “Housing Right Eligibility Permit” is named. The carefully vetted definition in Ordinance 240 does not use the term “permit”. A Housing Right is a “prerequisite eligibility” to be able to apply for a Building Permit related to house construction. A Housing Right is a feature created by Zoning rules , not by a permit out of thin air. The definition specifically avoids the term “permit” to also avoid confusion with “Building Permit” that is not Zoning authority. A Building Permit specifies a process controlled by State certified Building Inspectors to assure proper structural design to meet Minnesota Building Code safety standards. The proper term for the referenced fee is “Housing Right Verification”. This is an important process to confirm whether a Housing Right does exist...

  This topic involves how few new houses would be allowed in Eureka under the proposed Comprehensive Plan amendment and why Housing Rights matter. Neither the Board, the Planning Commission, or planning consultant Nate Sparks presented any data detail to understand the massive impact of their over-simplistic “clarification” statement in the Comp Plan amendment. Without knowing how many houses already existed in Eureka or how many housing rights may still be legally available, the Board changed the terminology to a simple planning term of houses per acreage, with “1 per 40” as a baseline.     One of the problems is that this does not directly correlate with the Public Land Survey system on which all property surveys are based.   The Amendment language further asserted: “In no case will the average density of the Township exceed one dwelling unit per 40 acres.”    This is the wording that destroys 369 of the 374 currently unused housing rights. Mr. Sparks a...

  The Eureka Town Board applied for a Comprehensive Plan Amendment “clarification” that could take over $11 million of property value from a total of 200 property owners in Eureka. Are you one of them? It also proposes ill-considered, sweeping rezoning for Commercial and Industrial uses. Is any of it next to you or may potentially increase traffic on a road you use daily? Perhaps you might want to learn more about what the current Board and Planning Commission have been up to this year, with obviously poor research and understanding behind their imaginations?   Please read on. Serious consideration needs to be given to finding more conscientious and common sense candidates to run for Town Board to better reflect the values and property rights of you, your friends, and your neighbors. The filing deadline to run for election is rapidly approaching – January 13, 5 pm. This post will highlight a timeline of Town Board and Planning Commission comments and actions of major con...