One of the things that folks have suggested would help make Northfield more “business-friendly” is increased coordination and collaboration among the economic development entities in Northfield.

Tomorrow at the Monthly Forum, the Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Authority, and the Northfield Enterprise Center will be the NDDC’s guests. Coordination and collaboration will certainly be one of the topics.

For more details, see: http://nddc.org/weblog/post/995/

Maybe we’ll see you there…

- Ross

From recent past experience, I think the City could learn from the Woodley Street project that one or two “open houses” do not equal public consultation. Active listening to voices and concerns with adequate feedback is required.

With regards to the Woodley St project, a good question for the City is was there any written responses made by the City to the residents that did speak up regarding their concerns? I would imagine that the Minnesota nice excuse is worn out and that its time actively listens and respond.

To many times issues reach glazed eyes and become vague comments imbedded within meeting minutes.

If I were in your shoes in this situation and had something I wanted to be sure was heard, I’d write and send a copy of the letter/fax/email to each planning commissioner, a couple levels of city staff, and the consultant(s); I’d hope that at least one of them would give me the courtesy of a response.

I know I have made comments either in this forum or through the Comp Plan website that have been addressed by individuals, but not by the City Council, staff or the Planning Commission. Most of my comments have not been addressed officially.

I hope this will change to allow voices not just to be heard, but actively listened to as well by the City. Perhaps you can see what official response mechanism is in place.

I’m sure any member of the Planning Commission would be open to your comments, however, submitting them through the NorthfieldPlan.org website is the most “official” and probably the most reliable method.

We are soliciting comments at the public meeting on September 18th and that would be another opportunity for you.

Ross

Given your interest in the Comprehensive Plan Revision Process and Economic Development in Northfield…I urge you to attend the Planning Commission Meeting tonight when we discuss CHAPTER 10 of the Comp Plan:

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT!

See you there,

Ross

The only recent example that comes to mind with economic hunting is the Crossings project where we went A) out-of-town to find a developer to build a partly B) residential property partly supported with C) tax dollars. I know that there were in-town developers interested in building without tax dollars. Tracy, isn’t this an instance where “sense of place” trumped economic gardening?

I consider customers to be the most important. I chose to open a coffehouse, then a bookstore in Northfield after doing some market research and realized this is a good place for both. The items you mentioned are important and are part of the business plan, but the customers are the key.

personally, I would like to see the EDA and NEC work with existing businesses to help them improve and grow. I could use the cultivation.

Tracy, you noted that the single most important factor in your business is the value of the Indian rupee. For local businesses, property taxes, health insurance, cheap housing, and other economic issues tend to be the most important determinates of success. How can we “garden” locally so that these determinates of success become important factors in the planning process?

While I like the concept of putting more focus on growing the businesses that we already have, my personal opinion, combined with my Chamber experience, tells me that Northfield has two major attitudinal obstacles:
First, business success ranks very low on the priority list. For example, non-motorized transportation received multiple mentions on the Development principles; yet, the first draft of the Comp Plan did NOT have one identifiable reference to business success.
Second, when business success is mentioned, it is usually restricted to a particular business without regard to the ecomonics. In the original Comp Plan, mixed use development was identified as the preferred development. The fact that very few mixed developments are being built, and that we had to pay the Crossings millions of dollars to be build what they did build, points to the fallacy that you can legislate economic success.

As for planning principles, search other cities’ plans and you see clear, demonstrable ideas specific to their communities. The Northfield principles seem rather vague and open to interpretation. Your sense of place may be far different than mine. Is it a sense of the manufacturing history of Malt-O-Meal, the sense of place of a farm town or that of a college town or that of a wild river corridor?

That fact Northfield has an Historic District, suggest some form of oversight. Should we perhaps set up a scare crow to watch over the crops?

In my opinion, and I told you during the Comp Plan process, the Northfield attitude focuses TOO much attention on subjective concepts, like “sense of place”, “quality of living”, and “historical preservation”. Agencies like the Historical Preservation Committee and the Design Advisory Board are more like garden parasites than cultivators when it comes to thinking about the impact of their decisions on businesses. Look at Barbara’s experience.

True, we need to take care of our businesses here before going after other businesses. But, as Ray pointed out, we are not doing a very good job of taking care of our existing businesses. Remember Norman Butler’s earlier post about his windows? Is the HPC really helping businesses or does it exist to satisfy players who don’t have a dime invested in the result? The HPC should at least consider how much historic preservation costs the individual owners.

When businesses like Pumper Plumbing, College City Beverage, Lonsdale Painting and so many others have to leave town we lose our tax base opportunities. When they move to Dundas we most likely keep a good share of the jobs, but the new tax base loss hurts.

Northfield has had an Economic Development office for some time. Have we ever given them solid goals to meet? Have we ever had a true economic development report showing how our tax dollar investment in the office have been used?

I remember some years ago (1995) I saw a report by the Economic Development office. My new construction facility (built in 1994) was listed as ‘jobs created’ etc. That is false thinking. When an existing business expands it is because the business is operating successfully and in a manner that necessitates an expansion. I managed to expand in spite of sigificant restrictions placed the design—such as ‘must be constructed of masonry or brick veneer’.

There is a huge difference between an Economic Development office bringing a new, vibrant business to Northfield and having the office simply watch existing businesses expand.