Annandale is taking the first steps toward obtaining a grant that would help rejuvenate downtown commercial buildings and housing in the center of the city.
Consultant Chuck Pettipiece reported to the Annandale City Council at a special meeting Tuesday, Dec. 18, about plans to apply for a Small Cities Development Grant.
The initiative is in line with downtown revitalization proposed in a comprehensive plan update prepared by the planning and zoning commission and discussed with the council Tuesday night.
The City of South Haven received a Small Cities Development Grant of $769,500 in March from the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development.
The money will be used to hook up homes there to a planned new sewer system and to rehabilitate housing.
Pettipiece, hired by Annandale early this month, said the city has six to eight months to put together an application.
After surveys and meetings of property owners, there will be enough information about the level of interest for the council to make a decision in March or April whether to go ahead, he said.
Surveys will be sent out in a couple of weeks to the downtown commercial area.
A combination of commercial buildings and housing are needed for the grant, Pettipiece said.
“We really need (the surveys) back so we know what’s the level of interest in the project.”
Improvements that can be made to commercial buildings are generally exterior things like windows, doors, roofs and handicapped accessibility, he said in an interview.
But interior upgrading can be done to plumbing, heating and electrical systems that violate the building code.
Any type of residential improvement can be done under the program, Pettipiece said.
Of 95 grant applications now pending, 35 are likely to make it, he said.
About $20 million is available this year, and about the same amount will probably be set aside next year and in 2003.
Rehabilitation projects like the ones proposed have a multiplying effect, Pettipiece said.
He’s seen many cases where, after commercial rehabilitation through the grant, residential neighbors go out and get loans to make improvements.
The improvements don’t increase the tax base much, Pettipiece said, but in the long term “you save a lot of housing.”
Some rehabilitation money from the grant comes back to the city in the long term, so it can operate its own revolving loan fund, he said.
The council took no action on the comprehensive plan update.
It will be sent as a courtesy to neighboring townships before coming back to the council for a vote on adoption.
Under housing goals, the plan says: “A significant priority for the community is to revitalize the downtown area and other portions of the central part of the community.”
That includes rehabilitating commercial buildings downtown, some with rental units above them, and single-family housing.
“It is the city’s goal to combine all of these priorities into an application for funding assistance through the Small Cities Development Program.”
Planning and zoning commission chairman Chris Strand told the council that downtown revitalization was the commission’s “core concern” in the plan.
The commission is “putting a greater emphasis on rehabilitating the downtown area,” both commercial and housing in the central core, he said in an interview later.
The draft plan’s transportation goals call for developing a plan to connect trails and sidewalks to provide a comprehensive pedestrian system, including connections to major amenities like schools and parks.
Trails already exist at Southbrook, in the new Purcell’s Ponds housing development, at Hemlock Street between the Eastview manufactured home park, Annandale High School and Bendix Elementary School, and from Bendix to the city sidewalk system downtown.
The plan also calls for committing city money to make connections and amending the subdivision ordinance to require sidewalks or trails in each new residential development.
Commission member Peter Fiedler said the commission would like to see “a more user-friendly town” with walking and bicycle trails.
“There are other towns which have been very, very successful with that.”
The plan says maintaining and promoting Annandale’s tourism industry is a top priority.
As a result, land use goals include encouraging extension of the canopy district onto Highway 55 in the downtown area.
The plan also calls for developing a streetscape plan with decorative lighting and pedestrian amenities and extending it to the Highway 55 corridor.
Park goals include encouraging more use of the beach house at Pleasant Lake in Municipal Park through regular open hours and possible addition of lifeguards in partnership with Community Education.
It calls for developing a softball/baseball complex.
The recreational task force should investigate possible field construction on any available land and look for a large tract for a sports complex, the plan says.
“What we don’t want is for this to be set in stone,” Fiedler told the council.
Strand said later that the plan gives guidelines, but “our hands won’t be tied by it. There’s some flexibility we want to see built into it.”
2018 Annandale Advocate Privacy Policy