Agenda - Council - 01/13/1981 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

102 STATE GOVERN:\lE:'IOT. SPRING, 1972 .' those communities which arc carved out of the northern sand plains in our region, flat and relatively uninteresting, may be in trouble. This land tends to more of the lower-valued housing. In such comm~mities there are ex- pensive educational demands, sewer lines to build, and so forth, but the shopping centers for the residents and the industrial plants where they work are more likely to be lot,ated in the neighboring high-valuation communi- ties where-as the developer accurately per- ceives-the taxes won't be so high. . .' Under the present system,' some -com~TlUni- ties that have beautiful areas that should be . ' ' preserved for park and .r~creation purposes have incentives to let the land be,~~\:,e,loped . because they need t~e tax.J)ase'::'/.':~!5:.";:{~ In the mid-1960s a large'pO\ver, pl,an't',was . built on the shore of the St.. Ci-oi:x..R.-~v~i on the eastern edge of our. metropolitarlars~.The county and rimnicipal.offii:ials plus 'the legisla- tors from the St. Croix area were ,cril:i!=l.ze~ for their acceptance of the pow'er plant b~i:a:rise ,of' its impact on the natural beauty of ,'the St. Croix River Valley. 'But these officials; among them Representative Howard ,Albertson, who ,was to become chairman of the House commit- tee on Metropolitan 'an~ Ui-ban.Affairs:"said that they would have no objection to providing ,open space area for the benefit of the "entire . Twin Cities regif?Ii'if they could. getso~eben- efit from a tax standpoint froJIldeyeI9pment 'which occurs eIsewh.C7re :iri,the,"~egi~~~'.!f the power plant 'hadbeen<built:else~vhere, of course, they would have received no benefit. This power plant issue, more :than ,any other single event, probably focused the attendon of the region on fiscal disparities. ' ., My personal interest in the issue came about primarily fonowing the action by the 1967 Legislature to create the Metropolitan Council for the Twin Cities area, which is re- garded nationally ..as one of the out- ; standing attempts to accomplish some . sort of regional structure for solv- . - '\.' , . ""....." ,.. ing regional governmental problems. I had not been a strong supporter of the Metropolitan Council concept. Following its creation, I be- came extremely concerned about the role that the council would be playing in connection with transportation, sewage disposal, and open space in our region. I could see that the de- cisions the Metropolitan Council wa-uld be making in these areas could h,ave a major im-, pact on where tax base \vould be distributed in future years. This led me to con~lude that somcthing had to be. done in the area of as- Sluing that local governments in. t~e Twin Cities area would have adccluate resources to carry out their functions even if they weren't , fortunate enouo-h to have major commercial or o ' industrial complexes within their. borders. This was a particularly personal issue with me. because I repi"csent a portion of the metropoli- tan ~rea located north of Minneapolis tbat for a variety of reasons has not been the center of growth of commercial and industrial dcvelop- ment. The area primarily has been~ade up of - moderate-income dwelling units. . .':--' In 1968 as I was beginning to think about what m'ight happen in the 1969 Legis13ture as a result of the creation of the' Metropolitan Council,-I offered a possible solution in a letter I sent to the Citizen~ League. The Citizens League is an independent, nonpartisan public affairs association that conducts.' in-depth .studies of public policy questions in the seven-. county metropolitan area. At the 'time I sent my letter to the Citizens League~ the organiza- tion had a project under way looking'-at"thi~ whole matter of the'distribution of tax base throughout the region. In my letter I said in part, UIt is my thought that a system could be devised to sha~e part of the return from in- . dustrial and commercial development to the areas that are in I1eed: ' . . The purpose of such a proposal would be to reduce the competition for industry, at least to the point where it could be conducted ,with more objectivity, but would still .retain some incentive for local units of government to encourage a healthy balance of commercial and industrial growth. It would eliminate the bonanza to a particular area by . reason of location to a major industrial com- .~~ \