Bruce Anderson’s been blogging at Sustainable Community Solutions since Jan. 2007. We aggregate his blog’s feed on our left sidebar.
Here’s a Wordle of his blog that gives you a glimpse of what he’s currently writing about. Click to enlarge.
Northfield blogger of the week: Bruce Anderson, Sustainable Community Solutions
Happy to see Bruce Anderson is blogger of the week. His input was invaluable on Locally Grown when the 530 industrial park proposal on ag land by the hospital came up.
It seems Northfield has an insatiable appetite for industrial land. Brian O’Connell and friends were at Bridgewater Township monthly meeting Tuesday, Jan. 13, proposing annexation of 474.8 acres of our township between Heath and Spring Brook creeks for “West Armstrong Business and Industrial Area.”
Only about half of this is included in the map with our mutual annexation agreement, so it requires amendments to that agreement to add Sec. 3 over to Decker Ave. on the west. And changes to the time frame, limited to taking of 30 acres/yr or 150 over 5 years at this time. Northfield wants the whole acreage up front, as arranged by Larry Larson for the other business park in Greenvale. Time will tell if Supervisors Kathleen Doran Norton and Glen Castore will go along with Leif Knecht on these changes.
I forgot to say that the two landowners of this property are Bob Gill and Ken Prawer whose land is often referred to as the old St. Olaf farm. Their earlier proposal for 1000 houses and a golf course between the creeks was dropped about 10 years ago. A stream protection ordinance developed with help of CRWP and Mary Savina’s Carleton class was presented to Northfield Planning Commission at that time to protect the area for the future. Unfortunately, we discover it was never passed on to the Northfield Council for a vote. Let’s hope they go ahead and fold it into the Northfield ordinances this time.