by Dennis Dalman
A moratorium of up to one year on certain developments in Sartell is now in effect.
At its Sept. 23 meeting, the Sartell City Council, on recommendation from city staff, voted unanimously to impose an interim ordinance (temporary moratorium) on developments within the city’s current R-5 Planned-Unit Development zones.
Currently, the R-5 PUD zones allow for a wide variety of developments that include single-family homes, multi-family projects, commercial and institutional properties. Those definitions, city staff decided, are too broad and can lead to inconsistencies or incompatible developments.
Projects already approved will be allowed to continue in R-5 PUD areas during the interim ordinance.
The moratorium will allow the city staff and council time to fine-tune definitions for land uses, with help from Sourcewell, a planning consultant agency Sartell has hired part-time.
The council agreed the pause for R-5 PUD uses is a very good idea.
Author: Dennis Dalman
Dalman was born and raised in South St. Cloud, graduated from St. Cloud Tech High School, then graduated from St. Cloud State University with a degree in English (emphasis on American and British literature) and mass communications (emphasis on print journalism). He studied in London, England for a year (1980-81) where he concentrated on British literature, political science, the history of Great Britain and wrote a book-length study of the British writer V.S. Naipaul. Dalman has been a reporter and weekly columnist for more than 30 years and worked for 16 of those years for the Alexandria Echo Press.