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TOWNSHIP: "LISTEN TO THE LAND"
AS STUDIES BEING FOR THE SOUTH GALAXY
The City of Victoria held a second workshop on June 14th to talk about the "South Side" and how Laketown Town-ship might be guided as development questions occur. The South Side consists of 2,000 acres in Laketown Township which are slated to be annexed to Victoria as the property needs municipal services.
Ken Essig, chair of the Laketown Township board, also attended the work-shop and spoke on behalf of the township regarding general proposals being made at this time for the area.
Said Mr. Essig, "Laketown residents have concerns about an industrial area and if it's going to be a bunch of contractor yards. We have an orderly annexation agreement with you people, and we'd like to work with you and not end up with a junkyard."
He also referred to residential density that might come to the South Side. "High density bothers me personally," he said.
A current battle being waged in the township centers on the construction of accessory buildings. "There's a lot of pressure for accessory buildings in the township," he said. "Our battle is with outside storage. Any information you have on desires for building sizes, or any thoughts you have, we'd be glad to consider it. We'd be happy to work with you. There's support for something more planned, more defined."
Mr. Essig commented on the personal interviews that the City of Victoria recently conducted with most of the current Laketown residents. "We asked our residents if any of them had com-plaints about the interview process with Victoria," he said. "We haven't had one call."
As for future development, he said, "We do need to plan what type of utilities are going to be needed." In conclusion he advised the City of Victoria to "listen to the land," as development areas are earmarked for parks, playgrounds, homes, or commercial areas.
Victoria councilmembers spoke on behalf of their own constituency. Jim Paulsen said Victoria needed a very large and clean business such as Motorola to make its home on the South Side, in part to provide jobs and in other part to help pay property taxes.
Jim envisioned a "high tech" park and some development near it. He said the various sites must be identified. "We identified a school site on the East Side and they came!" he declared in proof of point, referring to Holy Family Catholic High School.
Said Councilmember Richard Tieden, "What I see and hear is that Victoria is not paying any more taxes for a bedroom community than those cities with the in-dustrial parks. And where is the benefit of high density? We don't want a wall of high density."
Richard also said he'd rather spend time on current problems. "We can sit and talk until the cows come home," he said. "We still don't have a developed downtown Victoria. Since I've been here, which is four years, we've been saying downtown development, and nothing's happened. We should focus on it! Why are we looking at the South Side? We can't even get one business in our downtown, and here we're planning an entire 2,000 acres south of us. It's getting confusing. We've got Rose Street that's a mess downtown. We've got streets that need to be resurfaced and we sit here developing a galaxy far, far away."
City Planner Mark Kaltsas said it was important to be prepared for development on the South Side because developers are knocking on the door there and not down-town Victoria. "We've got to plan ahead," said Mark. "One of those acreages on the South Side is coming to us next year. How can we get utilities there? We need to be ahead."
Councilmember Paulsen commented on downtown Victoria. "It's stuck here between Old Highway 5 and New High-way 5, and it takes a special client to come in here and make it happen."
It was agreed upon by city council-members, city staff, and Ken Essig of Laketown Township that "nobody wants high density" on the South Side.
City Planner Mark Kaltsas will be studying topography to determine percen-tage of wetland, forest land, flat land, undevelopable land, and shoreland.
TRAIL DESIGNATED AT COUNTY ROAD #18
WILL MAKE IT "AS NICE AS POSSIBLE"
Council approved the location and construction of a trail along the south side of newly constructed County Road #18 from Victoria Drive to Bavaria Road. It was mentioned that the final lift on #18 hasn't been placed partly because the city hadn't identified trail location and partly because of the rain.
The motion to approve the trail, which has been a source of much contro-versy to the Wintergreen neighborhood, was made with the understanding that the city will work with individual residents and homeowners for landscaping ideas along the trail.
Said Councilmember Richard Tieden, a resident at Wintergreen, "I think we've done everything possible, and safety is the ultimate issue. We have to move on. We want to save as many trees as possible, and make it as nice as possible."
Stated Councilmember Jim Paulsen, "This is truly an in-the-field project."
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