Okay. We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order and welcome our guests today, to the planning commission meeting, and we'll do roll call starting with Crystal. Crystal Jamerson here. My grader. Lisa Gildy. Brian Weinzaro. Mark Sloan. Chad Olsen. From the staff side, Peyton Mastera. Don Lorrison. Becky Tye. Thank you. And we'll go ahead onto the agenda approval. So moved. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. And a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Alright. Motion passes. Go ahead on to the next item on the agenda is the approval of the
minutes from 06/04/2025 planning commission meeting. So moved. And we have a motion. And is there a second? I second. And a second. We'll get you in there, Ryan. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Alright. Motion passes. We have the approval of the minutes. And next, we go to five a, which is the Clay County Heartland Trail Routing Analysis. Who's gonna start us off on that one today? Dan. Dan? Dan. All right. Well, thank you. I wasn't sure if there needed any introduction, but I'll go right into it here. So,
I do have a presentation for you all. It's a, looking about ten, fifteen minutes, if that's okay. Presentation about the, Heartland Trail Study in Clay County that we've been working on for the last year and a half. So, we'll get started there. So just a little background for some of you who may not be aware of the Heartland Trail. Currently it is a, paved shared use path. It is, 49 miles long and goes from, Park Rapids, Minnesota to Walker, Minnesota. And it was one of the first rails to trails, projects in the country, actually, back in nineteen seventies, 1976 or so. And, so the portion from Park Rapids to Walker was the first section,
and then from Park Rapids, from Walker to Cass Lake was the section that was done, a decade or two later. So, just a little a little more background on the Heartland Trail is that in 02/2006, the state of Minnesota authorized the extension of the Heartland Trail, from Park Rapids to Morehead. And, now that didn't allocate any funding, but just authorized that it could be extended. And, you can see in the map there, the DNR shortly after that study in 02/2011, they did a study, or I should say a master plan, very high level master plan of the Heartland Trail,
which then kinda authorized them to continue, into the planning stages. So that's what you see there is from Park Rapids to Morehead. Those two corridors were the corridors that, were looked at as part of that extension. And then in 2014, Metro COG worked with local jurisdictions in the county, and created the Heartland Trail County Task Force. So there has been some work done, in the Becker County side, specifically of the Heartland Trail and so there's been a five mile section. In fact, I believe they're extending that now from outside of Frazee to into Frazee so it'll
probably be about seven miles now of the trail and you can see it there in the two pictures and, that was completed over a process of, about five years of construction not including the tunnel that was constructed under the Highway 10. And, so you can see a portion of that done. There's been a few other bits and pieces that might be considered the Heartland Trail at this point, such as a trail, on Park Avenue in Glendon and then also one, there's a traffic signal in Holly, and that has been,
designed to have a trail crossing there. So then there's been, this study that we kicked off, and I'll talk more about that. MetroCog was is the lead agency on this study. It got kicked off, beginning of last year, and had, we have funding for this study by Clay County, ourselves, City of Dilworth, Partnership for Health, Morehead, and the City of Glendon. So, we appreciate all those who helped fund this study, and that's what I'll be talking about here. So as I mentioned, that study did begin in, 2024, beginning of twenty four. And you can see the timeline there on the screen. And, and so we started out look looking at the existing conditions,
what's what's out there today, what are some of the planned conditions that might be ahead of us, looked at what the different alignment options could be. So we did a lot of alignment analysis, had, different options, and then kinda narrowed those down. Cost estimating was a part of this as well. Also an implementation plan. So where will the trail start and end and, or what segments start first and which ones are later. The draft plan, which we have here in front of you, and then we'll get the final plan probably around August time. So, we hope to be done with this study in,
just a couple months here. And, then another big part of it is public engagement too, and that'll be the next portion here. So the public engagement part of this study was big and, we wanted to hear from the public, from landowners, from all stakeholders along the way. And so we had two, public open houses, one in July and then one in October, both in 2024. We also had a landowner meeting in, just the day before the public open house. So we wanted to specifically reach out to all landowners along the corridor and hear from them and see what their questions might have been,
what their concerns might be. And then we had two stakeholder meetings also, one in May and one in October. So stakeholders would have been, say, like, the townships or, snowmobile clubs or, just, the natural resources in the area. So a lot of different stakeholders along the way. And then we did a few pop up events at different, events going around the area. So you can see MSUM Earth Day, Farmers Market Moorhead, Glendon Night to Unite, and Holly. So I realized there wasn't one in Dilworth as I look at this, so, the timing does just not have worked out the best there. So then some of the results,
well actually I'll talk about the, outreach tools that we use. So we had an online mapping tool. You can see that in the picture. And we had a lot of people, use that. And then we did, a survey online toward the beginning of of the, study. And then we had a second survey asking people what segments of the trail they wanted to see. And so and I will talk a little bit more about this specific, map here on the next slide. So, it'll be not quite as grainy as what you're seeing there. We had a lot of people who visited the website. We're really happy to see the engagement that we had.
So we had 200 or 2,000, 200, 35 people, visit the website, and then we had over 350 contributions to the website. So whether that was dropping a comment there in the map or taking a survey, we were really happy to see that kind of feedback. And it was folks from Fargo, Morehead, Dilworth, and then the rural areas. So all over the place. And then going on to the, the next, slide here. This is just, we had four different segments that we broke this trail into as far as planning and for public input.
And so this is the westernmost segment, which includes Morehead and Dilworth. And so we had people drop pins on the locations. We had a few other trail alignments. That's why you might see some dots further out to the north. But one thing that we did hear from the public, and you can kind of see that in the red dots along the Highway 10 corridor, is that people didn't really want to see a trail along Highway 10. They felt like it would have been be noisy, just not as enjoyable to ride, potentially dangerous. So, you can see that trend there. What we did hear from people was, you can see in the green,
dots there, those are areas that where people thought would be a good location for a trail. So Twelfth Avenue South, in the South part of Moorhead, and, I'm not sure if Dilworth City Limits touches that or not, but, that was, the option that people like to see the most. Other options there you can see in the yellow line, we're taking the original alignment that's kind of been tossed around before, which is along Fifteenth Avenue. So you'll see in the future slides what we're looking at as far as an alignment goes. So the next few slides here are those four segments I was telling you about. And so what you see here is you'll see that blue line.
That's the preferred trail alignment as we're calling it. And you can see right now it's starting at Centennial Park in North Moorhead where the ball diamonds are. And so then if you travel, east there on Fifteenth Avenue, that would skirt to the North Side of Dilworth. And then we have been working with the city of Dilworth, and we also have an ongoing study at MetroCog called the Braille Needs Study. And we realized that, there is the potential option of having a railroad overpass at Fourteenth Street, which would put it over the rail yard on that east end of Dilworth.
And so we are looking into that as a long term option for the trail. And so we have been having that discussion about having that bridge accommodate a trail on it, so a 10 foot wide path there separated by a barrier. And then so crossing on Fourteenth, which we know isn't built yet, at least to those extents, down to Twelfth Avenue. And Twelfth Avenue South right now is just a township road and, minimum maintenance. So not a whole lot to this, to date, but we know that there's that possibility to have a trail along that. Now the right of way right now is not much,
but we hope it can be, more in the future. And, we do also know that there is potential talks of a casino on that, right adjacent to that. And so that might also open up the door to some, trail expansion along that corridor. So then crossing, Highway 330 6, that is a challenge and, the study did indicate that we will need to see a tunnel there. It just wouldn't be safe any other way. A bridge could be possible too, but a tunnel makes the most sense. Sounds like there is right of way available for actually an interchange, and so there would be enough right of way for a tunnel. Wouldn't be cheap. It'd be a couple million dollars for something just like that.
But then we can see it continuing on to the east toward Glendon, and then that one green line you see in Glendon is, what we consider a spur of the Heartland Trail today. And so, that's constructed as park, along Park Avenue so it's a one mile segment which can get folks into the heart of Glendon. Now, on the west end you'll see a dotted green line and that is what we're considering an interim trail alignment until, construction of that bridge over the railroad tracks on Fourteenth is, is in place and then also improvements along Twelfth to make the trail possible.
So, that's what we're considering as the interim, excuse me, on Fourteenth. And, so right now, the only parts of that green dotted green line that need to be, constructed would just be a one mile segment there on the east end of, the dotted green line. So, I'll just buzz through the other three segments here. Yes. I think now would be a good time to talk with the planning commission back in twenty five years ago now, around this time. You came in May just gave an overview of what the Heartland Trail was going to be about. The planning commission ended up forwarding a recommendation to the city council to that it
would prefer the preferred alignment, which was north, way north of town originally to come along Highway 10. Can you just speak to why we had to readjust it to what we see today? Right. Yeah. So that's a great point, Peyton. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. You the planning commission did agree that they would like to see the trail on, Highway 10 because we wanted to get into the heart of downtown, right into the heart of Dilworth, and I think there's even a resolution made. So we took that seriously as we looked at this. Some of the reasons we did hear as we we mentioned from the public that
they really don't wanna see a trail along Highway 10. Some of the other challenges would be, just the inner the interchange there on 336. That'd be a challenge. And, and then working with Morehead as well, it just didn't seem like it was in a good place to have that trail, along Highway 10. But, let's see here. But one thing that we did wanna do here was maybe work on work with Mill Moorhead on this fourteenth straight street possibility, which goes close to downtown, but also through the new rail District. So we thought that'd be a good opportunity,
and I think our technical folks thought the same too. So is there anything, Peyton, that I might have missed? Yeah. And the only thing I'll add to that is with the pending reconstruction of Highway 10, the assumption is that it will be designed in a way to have a shared use path from Fourteenth Street to the downtown, creating that spur off of between Fourteenth And 30 Fourth Street there. So we feel pretty confident that this will that this was a good, middle ground with it all,
not coming along Highway 10 and, you know, really meets the best of both worlds. Mhmm. Yep. I just wrote that down, so thank you for addressing that. I was saying if we could do the same thing Glenda did, just in Delaware. Right. And I think this might be a step beyond what Glenda did too, because this will be the actual trail, not not just a spur. Mhmm. So, Alright. And then I'll just go through a little quicker on these ones since it's a little further from, your jurisdiction here. But, you can see there that's Glendon on the left side of the map and that green trail again is that Park Avenue. And continuing along that Twelfth Avenue,
south corridor, it would, then the goal is that's Buffalo River State Park in the green that you see. And one thing that we heard probably the most from the public is a desire to get to or within Buffalo River State Park. And so people really wanted to see that and so, we have a little challenge as far as how we get into the park. That's why you see three different options there. We don't like to have too many options on the table but, some of it really comes down to the DNR's choices, on how that will be routed in and out of the park. We or the county or anybody can't design that what's in the park.
That's up to the DNR to design that. So that's why it's a little up in the air exactly what that routing is gonna look like. Those two options that are to the on the those two southern alignments would punch through the park through private land. So while that is the most desirable, we know that there's private land involved there too. And there's also some sensitive, areas of, ecological areas there on the West side of the park. So DNRs give us some heads up on that. Now the other way would be going up to Highway 10 for about a mile and then cutting back down through the main entrance that the one and only entrance
into the park. And so the only downside of that is you do cut north and then, have to cross the railroad tracks twice. So, there are crossings there but just not the the most enjoyable for a trail crossing. But then within the park, that's to be determined exactly what that alignment go is. But there's also the old golf course on the east end of the park, now MSUM Science Center land, and so there's an opportunity there as well. So we're excited to see what the possibilities are going through the park. And then as we scoot to the east some more,
then we leave the park on the Seventeenth Avenue and then there would be a crossing of the Buffalo River and of the railroad tracks, and then going through a pretty wooded area where there's some rural housing in that area and then south of that lake that you see. Very scenic, but also quite challenging in that area. And then cutting straight east toward Holly, there's a road which then becomes a section line, and we hope that that could be an opportunity even though it's, straddling, two parcels of land privately owned because there was a snowmobile, trail along that corridor.
So we thought that would be a a good option, to consider. And then going to Holly from the south, right into Holly, and then that crossing of Highway 10 would be where the traffic signal is today. So we feel like that would work out pretty well, and just a few adjustments to how it goes through Holly. But where the Buffalo River has been re meandered about ten years ago, there's a great opportunity to have the trail along that corridor, which is city owned, I believe, and then heading out of town to the east on the Junction Avenue, which used to be the old highway. And then,
just going along that Junction Avenue toward the east and continuing along that corridor, onto Becker County. So not without some challenges. There's a really narrow tunnel that would have to be, traversed and then there's also a narrow bridge and a few and, of course, there's wetlands in that area too. So, but we do feel like if if a trail isn't possible near the wetlands for a higher cost, there could be a boardwalk that could be extended in some of those areas too. So there's possibilities, but some of them might be more expensive than others. So that is the alignment.
And the next slide here is just, a few different cross sections of what the trail could look like, especially in this area. So that fifteenth Avenue on the North Side of Dilworth, I will mention that we did coordinate a lot with that Fifteenth Avenue corridor study that was going on, and so that was also done by Metro COG. So we worked at the best place to put that trail, north side, south side, what side of the drainage ditch. And so what we're looking at here would be to have, the trail, It'd probably be more than two feet from the, from the roadway, but we have to be conscious of the right of way in that area too.
And then there'd be a buffer there between the roadway, and then the trail will be 10 feet wide, and then there'd be a, a shoulder before you, go into the drainage ditch. So there might be some kind of a fence or something just to keep people from going into that drainage ditch too. So that's all being discussed still and everything is preliminary but this is just an idea of what that cross section could look like. And then also you can see that, bridge, my guess it is more than 10 feet wide is what we're proposing, have a 12 foot wide shoulder with a little trail with a little bit of shoulder on both sides. And so it'd be a comfortable,
route for people to take separated by a barrier from the traffic. And so that's what's being proposed as far as that cross section goes as well. And, also we do recognize that there will want to be some trail heads to the trail and rest stops also. And so here is an idea that we came up with and worked with, City of Dilworth on as as far as putting one, say, on Fourteenth Street. And so the rail district would be just over there. I think just in that same area. And so this is one location where a trailhead could be and it would include
bike racks, ideally a drinking fountain, some signage of the trail routing people can look at, and some picnic benches. So and some shade and places like for people to sit to. So just some concepts here. Okay, just two more slides here. This one here is the, the segment, phasing that we're looking at. Now I did mention that that number two you see on there, that's dependent on when a rail bridge might be going in. But, otherwise, it's looking like hearing from the public and what makes the most sense would be to start from the Moorhead Dilworth area and then just march our way to the
east. And, and the more progress we can make, hopefully, the more demand there might be for future construction of the trail. So it would be quite a wide ways out, as far as time frame goes, really. There is no funding, like I said. So, but I'll talk about that in the next slide. So we have a number of steps to do here once we get this, project approved, this study approved. So one thing that we are just start starting to talk about with our bicycle pedestrian committee is to recreate that Heartland Trail Task Force and who that might be comprised of. Can we make it,
any more effective than before? And who would the lead entity be? Would it be Metro COG? Would it be Clay County? We still have to work on that too. Another big decision to make is whether to go with a state trail or regional trail. The way it is right now, it's being discussed as a state trail. That's what the state authorized was for it to be a state trail. And that's what the Heartland Trail is today, but we don't have to have it as a state trail. It could be a regional trail, and so that's something that we'll really wanna discuss seriously, is because if it's a state trail, their the DNR has made it clear that their priorities right now are to maintain
their trails. So adding new state trails onto their system is not a high priority for them. So take a lot of money, legislative work, and there's no guarantees whether it could even get built. So, that's but as a regional trail, the the advantage of a state trail is that the local the locals wouldn't have to really pay you so much for the maintenance. The state would. But getting a trail constructed would be a long endeavor. A regional trail, now the local government would have to be paying for that maintenance of the trail. So I'll give you an example.
In Otter Tail County, there's the Heart Of Lakes Trail. It's about 35 miles. They construct that in ten years. Whereas the Heartland Trail here in, between Detroit Lakes and Frazee, that's been about five to seven miles constructed, and that's also taken ten years to get that far. So, it'd be slow progress, with the state trail, we believe. Subregional trail would go a lot quicker, but then it would come down to the locals to maintain that trail. So, that's the downside of that. So we'll be having those discussions. Also pursuing funding for the construction of the trail would be a big step. There was lots of lobbying,
just north to the Minnesota legislature for the pass trail in in Becker County. So that's their success is that they're able to get, funding from the state. There'd also then be the environmental review, the, right of way acquisition, the design. So that would take a little bit of time, discussions with landowners, and then funding for construction. So, anyway, that's it in a nutshell. We're just going step by step. No guarantees when anything might be constructed, but we just wanna present it to you all, and there'll be a lot more work in the future here. One other thing. Will on this slide right here,
will you explain to the planning commission the shaded area versus the non shaded area? It's not just to make it pop on the screen. That's not what that's about there. Right. Thanks for bringing that up, Peyton. Yeah. So that what you see in that shaded area, the, the dark shaded, that is the, search corridor or the buffer zone as I call it for, the DNR master plan. So anything, so the trail the state trail can go anywhere within that buffered area that you see. Now anything outside of that would need to take an amendment to the DNR's master plan to,
make that the Heartland State Trail. So we're staying within that. As you can see, the only exception would be that three b, which could be a a spur or a regional trail or an amendment to their plan. So I'd be happy to take any questions if you have any. So as as this has been ongoing for quite a few years now, has and you're moving further east in this project, Has the landowner feedback still been positive throughout the project? Well, I would say landowner feedback has really not been super positive for the whole project.
Okay. To be honest with you, folks would prefer just having their farmsteads look the same, same gravel road, no no additions onto it. So, yeah, there's been, I'd say, 90% of folks out there would prefer not to see it. And so that's what we're up against. And the one thing I will say, and that doesn't change whether it's five years ago, ten years ago, or today. The one thing is that, there is we take the stance that there is gonna not gonna be any right of way acquisition. And so that's why we're being so careful about how we can get this trail within the 66 foot right of way of a lot of these township roads.
That'll be a very tricky part, but it's that or Highway 10. Yeah. Thank you. Mhmm. Any other questions for Dan? So with with on the land or conversation, I mean, I I appreciate what you put in here. It looks like you sent out some flyers, and it but you spoke about intentional reach out, and so I anticipate that to be happening again. So but as you look at I mean, I guess, as I look at the cost estimate, I know that you wanna keep within that six six foot right away. But what are you what are you doing in relation to potentially,
like, landlocked locking some of those other areas that may be affected by the trail, for ag purposes? How are we addressing that? I I think, if I understand your correct your, question correctly, I think, that the existing accesses into the land would always remain. So and we learned a little bit from the Heart Of Lakes Trail too. So if a farmer wants to access their land, then those farm accesses that are there today would remain. And, so does that answer your question? So there Yeah. I mean, that that's yes. Yes. That's just not entirely accurate.
Well, fourteenth to fifteenth with landlocked land between Summerwood Trail at Fourteenth, intersecting. Yeah. It would it would landlock that parcel or those three parcels right there. Oh, I think I might see what you're saying. There would be we do assume that there'd be roadways along this trail at pretty much all locations. So there would be access via roadway, along the trail, if that answers your question. I think it's worthwhile to consider as you're talking to these landowners. I mean, you're providing assurances that they're not gonna devalue their property because you can't access it.
Mhmm. Right. Yeah. That's a good point. We did have a question or two come up with the landowners in that regard. Any other questions for Dan? Thank you, Dan. I appreciate your time today and, the work you guys put into this study. All right. Thank you. We hope to keep things moving in the right direction. Okay. Next item on the agenda is the 2025 comprehensive plan future land use map discussion. All right. Good evening. Thank you for your time here tonight. We just wanted to provide a quick update to the conversations that we had last month regarding the future land use for the Dilworth comprehensive plan.
If you go to the next, just a quick recap. So earlier in June, we did provide the first iterations of future land use for your consideration. Included in that was three concepts for the area in Southeast Dilworth, North Of Twelfth Avenue and West of 336. And what we had done there is we provided, different concepts that would maybe complement some development potential, Twelfth Avenue there along 336. I know the cities have been in discussions about, with the light earth about, potential casino and convention center. So we talked whether it would be beneficial to put either residential development,
commercial, or mixed use. So those were all presented. After that meeting, though, we, it's my understanding that the commission decided to put together a small group, and we did meet on June 13 to discuss and refine some future land use ideas. Again, thank you for your, help and participation with that. That was really helpful for us to hear your comments and ideas. Along with those discussions, we did look at, one of the things that we did talk about earlier too was the, the Eighth Avenue, extension study and what alignment would be preferable. In some of the earlier, iterations of land use, we went with,
I believe it was the Concept two, this, center the central concept. But it was thought that after discussions with the planning commission that we would go with that northernmost concept that was presented in the plan. And this is on the next study, or next slide here, too. So we'll talk about that. So that's something that we will consider here for the future land use map for Dilworth. After that, though, we did share the map with a small group on June 19. We did get some comments back. And we'll talk a little bit about those and then what some of the next steps you would like to see.
If you would like to meet again as a small group or if you are content with land use, we can kind of go with that for now. But yeah, with that, go to the next slide. So again, here's that Eighth Avenue extension study. In the land use plan that we did present in June, we had gone with that to central alignment. It was thought that that kind of aligned with some of the utilities better. But, going back and thinking about what would be good for Dilworth and actually looking at the feedback from the study itself, that northernmost alignment, it does allow for more flexibility for development along Eighth Avenue.
There's greater opportunities for the citywide park, and I know that's something that's, would be a really great asset for the city. And also, just the the curvy literature, the different curves along the roadway, does provide for greater traffic calming so that you do not you wouldn't have people that would just kind of be speeding down that corridor. And it was also, generally preferred by stakeholders as well as the school district. So those are some of the ideas that we, that played into our deciding to go with that roadway alignment. And We're just talking about the road alignment here.
Don't get caught up with the colors yet. Yes. So this is what's and again, thank you to Carissa. She's the one that put together all this work for us tonight. But this is what we have for draft future land use for Dilworth. And maybe I will start East Of 336. So we're leaving that. This is within Dilworth's exterior, area. It's also within, tier it's a tier two growth area within Clay County's, land use development code as well. We are leaving this mostly agriculture. One of the reasons is it's it's not that we're not going to see a
lot of development that's going to leapfrog across 336, other than maybe some potential, small commercial nodes along Twelfth Avenue South. But another reason, another big reason, is it's also within the wellhead protection, zone district, for the, Buffalo Aquifer. So that is our thought that we were just kind of gonna leave that a call for now. Jumping down to the, South and west of 336. So again, thinking back of those three different land use concepts that we have for the area, in our discussions, we kind of combined all three into one.
So what you see here is we do have commercial that's fronting 336 and, along Twelfth Avenue South. So these would be different services, different businesses, that could complement, casino convention center that's being proposed for that area South Of Twelfth Avenue. Within the middle of there, thinking about what types of residences we might want to see, it's not that this would be a perfect area to actually have some high density residential. So these would be different apartments. Again, this could provide workforce, and just also just some, additional density for the city.
So we put that pocket of high density residential in the center there. And then going to the east or going to the west, excuse me, going along Fourteenth Avenue, we did think that this might actually be a good, spot for, mixed use. So again, kind of similar to the rail district just to the north there. So this would be a combination of, both residential and commercial developments. Then this would also, thinking back to the previous presentation about the Heartland Trail, you would have a potential trail that would go right by this area. So, yeah, that's some of the thoughts that we came up with with that.
And then that blue, that, industrial spot there, we thought that there's there may be a future, fire station that would go in in that area. And then as a buffer between, the rail tracks and that future land use, we did put green space for parks or, other recreational opportunities to kind of serve as a buffer there. So those are our thoughts there for that area. And then just going to the west there, we just have some more. We have some low low density residential and then some medium density, higher density, along some of the the corridors there and then a couple additional commercial notes.
And with that, maybe I'll just stop for a second if you have any thoughts or questions on that. Yes. I just have one comment. As a small group, we met and talked about this. What he just explained took us about two hours. So Maybe one. The other half took another hour. There was really a lot of discussion about how we saw that growing. And what there's this proposed casino there. And what just so happened to be happening is we're the first folks out of the chute with any kind of plans around it. So it kind of lets us set the tone for what we want to see
that area look like, and that's why we put so much commercial right there and some of those things that we see might be happening. But we'll put quite a bit of thought in how we want that to happen. From there, maybe we'll go up to, go north up to, Eighth Avenue and 30 Fourth. We'll start over by the Walmart and then kind of go, eastward from there. So again, we're showing, some additional commercial developments, along 30 Fourth Street North. And then from there, we're transitioning down to some maybe some medium density, similar to the townhomes that are already up in that area. And then some additional high
density residential then to the north as well. And then just, again, kind of complementing the neighborhoods there to the south would be mostly low density residential, some pockets of medium density, especially as we get closer to the regional park. We also have a note for mixed use there. That was something that we thought would be good to show. And then, again, going eastward, some more, we have some medium density to the south of Eighth Avenue, low density to the north. It's going westward a little bit more. Mostly low density,
median density along Fourteenth Street North. Again, it's thought that this corridor could connect to I-ninety 4 in the future. So this may be a busier corridor in the years to come. So we have some higher density residential in the along that corridor. And then going eastward more, in the previous land use plan that we had for Dilworth, that area that is just north of Highway 10, we actually had it more commercial and high density residential.
We actually stepped that back, partly because there are some single family residences in the area. We left them as is. And what and what we did is just we did put some, just some medium density residential kind of along the outskirts of there as well as on either side of the potential, Eighth Avenue extension. And again, that's that blue box, for the public institutional, again, would be potential fire station that we've kind of talked about. One note I did wanna make right here in this general area, we've had
some inquiries about wanting to do a solar farm Okay. Out there. And just from a staff perspective, knowing that we were heading this direction, we let the interested parties know that this is what our future land use map is reflective of knowing that we're gonna grow out there at some point. And, hopefully, the not so distant future, we did not feel that was an appropriate use right here. We're really cutting off some prime real estate by putting in something that would be
there perpetually. Good to good to know. Crystal, did you have a question? I just have one question. Yeah. So on Eighth Avenue North, the streets that are and this might be just a a weird question. But the streets that are already there, will there be, will they be taking out some of the streets and, like, widening anything or changing anything? Like We we wouldn't necessarily show this on the future land use plan. That's a good question, though. I think next month, we might talk a little bit more about transportation needs. So, we may talk a little bit more about that in in the coming months.
Because I see that you know, I I understand that going from, like, you know, where the Walmart area is and then connecting through that field. And then it's gonna connect right onto that the street that's already paved. So I was just checking to see if that's gonna just be a ton of construction with already paved road. Yeah. Oh, I guess I can note to a, You could just say next month. And I was just I didn't know if that's, you know, from previous, connections, you know, making other connections if you see, oh, yeah. That road you know, roads are normally gonna be,
under construction for a long period of time. Well and I would assume this construction would be phased. It wouldn't all happen that one time, to be my understanding. And there are there are already alignments that have been developed as part of that, extension study too. So I do we do have a sense of what the roadway widths are gonna be or what what they're gonna look like. So Okay. Thank you. Does that answer? Yeah. Okay. Okay. K. I remember correctly from the Eighth Avenue study, the we did not have any discussions about changing current roadways. Okay.
So I'll speak up from our small group meeting with this corridor to the north. It's, you know, as we all know, this is where Dilworth grows. It's a big discussion point for us, and it's we need to be very intentional, and I think that's why we created that small group. Right? It's like, we need to tackle with this more, and we need to consider This more, we need to be very purposeful in how we're thinking about this. And so with that in in our recent discussions of our housing needs in Dilworth
and the surrounding areas, but in Dilworth, is how can we fit in the different housing needs, but also keep Dilworth a small town like we appreciate, and I know that a lot of our community appreciates Dilworth to be. So that's where we were trying to find pockets where we could connect either mixed use and medium density or commercial and high density and and leave these pockets, bigger pockets of this low density residential to keep Dilworth Dilworth.
And so we were very purposeful trying to place the middle market of the medium and high density, you know, into doors. So we can still get that need filled, but also being very aware of what we have existing already is very low density, and just making that mesh. So that was our thought behind this where you see, more pockets of color instead of very broad generalized areas. Peyton, I don't know if you wanna speak to because the one on Seventh Street North,
I think is a good it's it's a little confusing why that that pocket of, medium density is there. If you wanna speak to that a little bit more. Yeah. Might be a little presumptuous on the city's end at this time, but the that's one parcel of land currently. There's a possibility that that land could the taxes have not been paid on it the last several years. We're not really sure of the ownership situation or if there's any intent to maintain or upkeep the property.
We've been mowing it since about half the time I've lived here. You know, we've pretty much been maintaining it, and we've not had any luck in getting in contact with the landowner or anything. And sometimes when if these things go into forfeiture, then they would eventually that doesn't mean they can't continue to operate if they get into compliance, paying their taxes and all. But it looked like a prime opportunity for us to incorporate in one of these pockets of medium density, residential, maybe a cul de sac in there,
small development. It's a nice wooded lot around the perimeter of it. So it would act as a solid buffer. There'll be more information to come on that particular parcel, depending upon how the taxes go the remaining part of this year. But we believe that there's possibility that that could be coming, being relinquished by the current landowner. One of my takeaways from the small group, was trying to you know, we hear about the the middle needs to be needs to be addressed in the
entire community. One of my takeaways was trying to get the ratio right of how much should be yellow, how much should be orange, how much should be red. And to keep, along with, the the sentiment to keep Dilworth Dilworth, we didn't wanna cut into the yellow parts, the the low density at all. But we did try and skew a little bit more towards the medium density than the high density. So that's why we have more orange on there than than red, and it's intentional to try and keep this small town feeling while still trying maybe that's an an income you know?
If people leave medium, they might end up coming here because you'll have more of it. And solar panels would look good in that green spot right below the right below the purple. Yep. Yeah. Regarding the solar panels, they're allowed as a conditional use in the tier two urban expansion area, which basically it's a green. It's the other side of of, three thirty six. The interior side is tier one, and they're not allowed at all, via but the property owner. You will see what happens with that. Thank you. Any questions? Otherwise, I think we just need to talk about the northern portion.
Just very briefly. We didn't go into a lot of detail in this northern section, but we did have, going north along 30 Fourth Street, between Fifteenth And 20 Second, I wanna say. We have what's it's, commercial industrial slash energy park. Again, that's another idea that's been, talked about with the city, for potential uses in that area. So we showed it showed it in that in that color. And then just bordering Fifteenth Avenue and then that energy park, some medium density residential. Otherwise, mostly low density residential except for,
again, a couple of pockets of commercial, at the intersection of Fourteenth Street and Fifteenth Avenue. So a little less detail in that area, but, I think it's the thought that that area may see developments in future years, so we showed it showed it as such. Any questions, overall comments, thoughts? All right. With that, I might just touch briefly on our project schedule and next steps. So, we are pretty much on schedule. It's not that next month we might just provide another brief, informational update. One of the items that we are going to start to focus on and more
is the transportation component of this plan. So we might talk a little bit more about that, about future roadways, bike paths, sidewalks, those sorts of needs. And then, again, kind of looking back at some of the public, comments that we got during our public input meeting back in April. Another thing I know I'll note, though, is we do have local days on our on our schedule, July. So we may contact, city about maybe having some sort of potential pop up meeting during that, during that time to get some additional, input from the community. Aside from that, I think September, we might have, more of a longer discussion with the city.
Our hope is we may have kind of a preliminary draft plan ready at that time to talk about, and to talk about some of the goals and objectives and maybe some of the implementation measures that we're, hearing about from your input, the city's input, and again, from the community as well. We have public input meeting. Our second one is slated for October. And again, we'll hope to have a final draft at that point. And then looking further out, we're looking at adoption here by the end of the year. So that's where we're sitting right now.
With that, any other questions? Or Yeah. Is there any other further discussion questions? All I heard is that we're on track and it sounds well, thank you very much for your time and putting that all together. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Moving on to the next item on the agenda for today is the discussion consideration of the regulation of agritour tourism in the city of Dilworth. Who's taking this one on? Don? Me. Don. Thank you, madam chair and commission. And, we try to provide some more information on what ag tourism is that's in your packet, so you can take a look at that. At the May Planning Commission meeting,
staff presented the concept of ag tourism in our TZ transitional zone and as a micro ag tourism use as a home occupation in residential districts. Ag tourism is typically a value added business often in conjunction with commercial agriculture activities. The draft ordinance that was discussed at the May meeting was designed for those value added or freestanding ag tourism businesses in the TZ Zone and the draft ordinance also gave allowance for urban micro ag tourism use in
the residential districts as a home occupation. After discussion at the May meeting with the planning commission, staff has made the following changes to the draft ordinance. Commercial ag tourism has been extended to the I-one, light industrial and I-two, heavy industrial zones, the C-three, general Business District, and the MU-two, mixed use rail district zone. The requirement for a five year review of the interim use for compliance has been removed. Development permit, that's two. Number three, development permit language has been clarified to apply only in the TZ zone.
That would be for like new buildings, additions, expansion of septic systems, that kind of thing, that they follow all those requirements. The requirement for an ag tourism business to not be located in a platted subdivision has been removed. Language in that section has been clarified to be applicable to the TZ Zone itself. Minimum lot area. Language regarding microag tourism has been removed and ag tourism businesses in commercial and industrial zones shall meet the minimum lot sizes of their respective zoning districts.
Signage number six. Signage has been clarified to be 40 square feet for the ag tourism businesses in the TZ Zone. Other uses in commercial and industrial zones shall meet the sign requirements for those districts. Seven, the park requirement review by the planning commission has been clarified to apply only to the TZ Zone. Ag tourism uses in commercial and industrial zones shall meet their respective parking requirements as per the zoning ordinance. Microag tourism and home occupation requirements have been removed.
Planning Commission suggested actions, three options. If the Planning Commission desires, it can make a motion to call for a public hearing on the draft agritourism ordinance. Two, the Planning Commission can direct staff to conduct more research on the subject. Three, if the Planning Commission does not deal, an ag tourism ordinance is needed. No action is required. Thank you. Thank you, Don. So I'm seeing in our packet, we have this, the red line of the ordinance, 25 on page 109 of our packet.
But I've also seen this Michigan state. Is that just a reference material? It's just reference. It's just information for you to have as a commission. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And the ordinance reflects basically the comments that were taken by staff at the time in discussion with the planning commission. So in summary, the micro what is it called? Microagricultural tourism has been removed from this. Yes. We're just speaking as to the agritourism, not micro. K. More the the commercial use of it. Okay. Yep.
So yeah. The micro could happen as long as it fits within all the other ordinances within the city. Correct. I mean, it can organically happen or if there's a concern, they can come and apply as the administrator to be a home occupation. K. They'll be left as that. Thank you, Don. Any questions or comments, regarding this agritourism proposal before us? If not, on page 81 of our pack, there's the three suggested actions that Don had mentioned. Yeah. Mark? I
appreciate that you made the changes we kind of talked about before, and, I think it's much, much better now. Okay. So with that, I would, make a motion for number one that we set a call for a public hearing for the draft agritourism ordinance. Mark, we have a motion on the floor for to make a motion to call for a public hearing on the draft agritourism ordinance. Is there a second? Second. And a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Alright. Okay. Motion passes. And next on the agenda is to receive and file the building permits.
So moved. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Alright. Motion passes. Project updates. One thing that I wanted to thank you, madam chair, members of the planning commission. I wanted to make mention that Don and I earlier met with developer off of Seventh Street, Mr. Halvorsen, regarding potential MDR, medium density residential housing that would go in just off of Seventh Street. So when we were looking at that Eighth Avenue line earlier coming across,
it would be on the south side of it. And they that is something that they were looking to proceed forward with. They're in agreement with what our future land use map is saying today. And, hopefully, that could turn into a potential development. I'm not gonna say when, but, you know, all things could come together to be as early as next year. So we'll look at the possibilities of initiating a project with our city engineer, across the t's, dot the i's. So this might be something coming before the planning commission not too long for now.
You've seen other commercial activity going on across the community. Really proud of it, and we'll be getting some of these businesses up and going soon enough. Does that mean Eighth Avenue that part of Eighth Avenue is gonna need to be constructed? It would have to. Least over to the park area, we'll say. From from Seventh to the park? Yep. That's great feedback that a current developer is Mhmm. Intrigued and interested by the layout that it could spur some development in that area. Yes. So there will be just thinking about the process with it that's land zone transitional
currently. And so there will be a rezoning that has to go along with all of this. Again, it will be in alignment with the future land use map presumably. So it'll be something to keep in mind as we proceed forward with all this. Yes, Tom. One other update. The city council has approved staff moving forward to further investigate the possibility of extension of water and sanitary sewer facilities up to Resco and Red River Valley Co op. Wonderful. Okay. Is that it? Absolutely. Wonderful. Thank you so much.
With that, we will adjourn today's meeting. Thank you, everyone.