Slow down on Northward expansion plans

Tomorrow night, the Plan Commission will consider two items regarding northward expansion of the City of Verona.

The first item is the North Neighborhood Plan, and I'm in favor of moving forward on it. I think it's a good idea to provide plan details to the affected property owners and the general public as early as possible.

The second item is expansion of the Urban Service Area (USA) to allow sewer and water service for the 120-acre Midthun property. This chunk of land is about half-way between the existing Kettle Creek/Gateway subdivisions and CTH PD. At the moment, I'm in favor of waiting to see how the rest of 2010 goes before moving forward on it.

The big thing on my mind is that I've very clearly heard concern from fellow residents that the City of Verona is growing too quickly. There is a lot of love for the remainder of Verona's "small town" feel. This sentiment has repeatedly been communicated during both my work on the Comprehensive Plan and my campaign for Alder. By contrast, there has been very little concern that Verona is not growing quickly enough.

If the Midthun property's estimated 80 developable acres are added to the USA, there will be approximately 132 acres left in Verona's allotment until the next update. For comparison, existing development at Epic occupies almost 100 acres. I'd like to keep about 120 acres of expansion "in the bank" in case another Epic-like opportunity comes along. Thus, if this North expansion goes through, I'd consider it a road block for any other "typical" expansion unless Verona's allotment gets increased.

The next step after USA expansion is annexation. Annexation of the Midthun property would make the Backus property (along CTH M) a "town island," which is prohibited under State law. If Backus wants to join the City, that problem is solved. Otherwise, the two options are a forced annexation or avoiding annexing a narrow strip of CTH M right-of-way. I don't currently see any need to go to those extremes, so Midthun would be stuck with a bunch of USA expansion that can't be used.

My opinion is that Verona also has plenty of residential development already in progress for almost the next five years. In the near future, I'll elaborate on that point. This article is already getting a bit long as it is.

I look forward to tomorrow night's meeting and discussion. It'll be interesting to hear how the other members of the Plan Commission see these issues.