Leap Frog Sprawl: Metropolitan Council vs. City of Lake Elmo
By: DAVID C. SELLERGREN
May 2003
On April 9th, the Metropolitan Council made its “final” decision in its landmark controversy with the City of Lake Elmo. The dispute involves the City’s desire to exercise its local planning authority to retain its largely rural nature. The Council believes that Lake Elmo must modify its comprehensive plan to allow denser suburban development that would be hooked into the region’s sewage treatment system, thus avoiding “leap frog” sprawl as suburban development advances eastward toward Wisconsin. To our knowledge, this controversy is the first major battle pitting local governments’ autonomy against the authority of the Metropolitan Council.
The Metropolitan Council’s final decision means that the City of Lake Elmo is now free to have the dispute heard in court, assuming that a settlement with the Metropolitan Council cannot be reached. In January 2003, both sides argued their case before an administrative law judge. That judge handed down his findings in March, recommending a decision siding with the Metropolitan Council.
Minnesota law gives the Metropolitan Council authority to require local governmental units to modify comprehensive plans that may have a substantial impact on or that contain substantial departures from “metropolitan system plans.” These include plans dealing with airports, waste water service (sewer), transportation, or recreation.
At the hearing before the administrative law judge, the Metropolitan Council introduced evidence that Lake Elmo’s proposed comprehensive plan would be a substantial departure from or have a substantial impact on plans relating to sewer facilities for the Lake Elmo area as well as the use of Interstate 94 as a regional transportation corridor. That evidence suggested that Lake Elmo’s unwillingness to develop more densely would cause “leap frog sprawl,” resulting in underutilization of a proposed Lake Elmo interceptor sanitary sewer line and of Interstate Highway 94.
Lake Elmo countered that since the proposed sewer interceptor is not yet built, the Metropolitan Council could simply cancel construction and thus avoid the projected impact. The Metropolitan Council countered that failing to construct the interceptor and allowing Lake Elmo to maintain a lower density would result in displaced growth elsewhere in the Twin Cities. This would trigger the need to construct another interceptor elsewhere, which would cost more than the proposed Lake Elmo interceptor. In addition, the evidence indicated that I-94 carries less traffic than other comparable sections of the regional highway system, even though it has capacity for more.
As this edition of Real Estate Focus went to press, Lake Elmo and the Metropolitan Council were reportedly to meet to explore settlement of their differences.