The Cannon River Watershed Partnership has been selected by the MPCA to receive and Environmental Assessment Grant to work on Low Impact Development Ordinances in the Watershed. The grant will go into effect in July 2007 and run through June 2009.
The timing is fortuitous, since the City is updating its land use regulations. Though the [...]
Northfield Ward 1 City Councilor Jim Pokorney was our guest this week.
And of course, talk of the revisions to the Comprehensive Plan dominated. Click photo to enlarge.
We’ll have him back on the show next week so we can cover other topics.
Click play to listen. 30 minutes.
Our show, Locally Grown, airs on Tuesdays at 4:30 [...]
March 26, 2007 – 11:46 pm
In his introduction to the line-up of speakers for the opening session of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street Program, “Building a Sustainable Future”, National Director Doug Loescher repeated a question that my colleague Tracy Davis asked, semi-rhetorically, some time ago.
“What is Sustainability?”
Doug said that in spite of all the media attention, from [...]
November 17, 2006 – 5:01 pm
As you know from recent blogs by both Tracy and me, Northfield is looking at Low Impact Development. There are a number of emerging technologies that can help protect our streams, rivers and lakes but one that is getting a lot of attention right now is the Green Roof.
Fortunately, we don’t have to visit exotic [...]
November 3, 2006 – 6:02 pm
Kathleen Doran-Norton commented on my blog entry (”Now Where was that Transportation List?‘) by raising the Rice County Transportation Plan’s study of an east-west corridor study, mentioned by Tracy Davis in an earlier blog entry (”But Where does the Bridge Go?“). Kathleen’s comments actually raises an even bigger issue…the State’s transportation plans may have passed [...]
October 18, 2006 – 5:51 am
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council to encourage “green building†by establishing common standards of measurement, promoting best practices, recognizing leadership in the building industry, raising consumer awareness, and ultimately to transform the building market.
One of the things the Northfield Planning Commission [...]
October 17, 2006 – 7:46 am
The focus of this week’s episode was transportation, specifically, County Highway 1 and the Corridor Preservation Study for Rice County. See Tracy’s But Where Does the Bridge Go? post last week for background, links, and a map. “The idea behind the study is to identify potential routes for an east-west arterial road south of Hwy. [...]
October 13, 2006 – 4:45 pm
Rice County, along with its “study partners,” including the City of Dundas, City of Northfield, Bridgewater Township, Northfield Township, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation, have initiated something called the CSAH 1 Corridor Preservation Study. The idea behind the study is to identify potential routes for an east-west arterial road south of Hwy. 19, [...]
October 10, 2006 – 3:39 pm
This is for real. In a community in the southwestern U.S., city councilman Mark Easton lives in a neighborhood with a beautiful view of the east mountains. At least, he had a view, until someone built on the lot below his house.The new home was 18 inches higher than the ordinances would allow, [...]
October 6, 2006 – 6:20 pm
My favorite Oz radio show/podcast hosted UC-Berkeley’s Emeritus Professor of Architecture, Christopher Alexander, a couple of weeks ago. Read this quick bio of Alexander to see what he’s about, and give the radio show a listen if the bio interests you. Some may find the radio show more accessible than some of Alexander’s writings. (He’s [...]
September 22, 2006 – 8:03 am
There’s an excellent article in the Boston Globe which has philosophical and sociological relevance to Northfield. The article was written in response to a July 25 decision by the Chicago Board of Aldermen (Alderpersons?), which passed an ordinance requiring large-scale retailers to pay their employees a “living wageâ€. [...]
September 17, 2006 – 10:17 am
In today’s Strib: Houses are breaking free of beige.
After decades draped in monochrome, the suburbs are getting a big splash of color. Propelled by technological advances in home exteriors and public fatigue with the limited palette, builders and homeowners in the new suburbs are cladding homes in eye-catching tones. Drab vinyl siding is suddenly sinking [...]
Locally Grown has been chosen to test an innovative project called Representative Journalism (RepJ). Bonnie Obremski is the RepJ reporter/journalist currently assigned to Northfield.
RepJ stories by Bonnie Obremski