Lakeville's City Hall Plans Review of Development Process

In an effort to improve the city’s allure as a location for business, industrial and residential development, the Lakeville City Council and Planning Commission sat down Monday in a rare joint meeting to discuss a proposed Development Process Forum.

The purpose of the proposed forum is to gain insight into the city’s current development process as it compares with surrounding cities and identify areas in which that process can become more attractive to developers considering where to build.

Mayor Mark Bellows is pushing the process to address what he says are “perceptions” in the development community that Lakeville isn’t “business friendly.”

Bellows said he has had conversations with some developers that feel like Lakeville’s development process sends mixed signals. He summarized some of his conversations as saying some developers feel like they are being warmly welcomed by one side of the process, then encountering road blocks and impediments to proposed developments as they move through the process.

“It’s not a reflection on the council or planning commission,” said Bellows, “but when developers are frustrated, we get associated with that. This isn’t meant to be finger pointing incrimination, but we need to aggressively confront the perception that we are not development friendly. If that is their perception, then that is their truth.”

Bart Davis, Lakeville’s planning commission chair, said he was a little surprised that that perception was out there, but is receptive to conducting a survey and follow-up development forum to help ensure the city’s process was continually improving.

“That kind of took us back,” said Davis upon learning of the concerns. “As a planning commission we pride ourselves on serving the citizens of Lakeville. Perhaps this survey can pull specific incidents or situations out that will allow us to evaluate what we’re trying to accomplish. I think it’s a heck of an opportunity for us to learn and can open up to a great conversation.”

The proposed plan is to send out surveys to developers, business owners, builders, realtors and others involved in the development process to solicit feedback and the current development process as well as elicit suggestions for improvement and comparisons of respondents’ experiences with other cities.

Following the receipt of those responses, the city would invite members of the development community to engage in a forum facilitated by an independent moderator help review the survey results and discuss the results to help formulate ways to respond to the results.

“This would be an attempt to learn from the development community what we can do better,” said City Administrator Steve Mielke. “The survey becomes the basis for a discussion forum with the goal of continual improvement. No matter how good we are, we can always do better. The forum might offer some additional examples beyond the survey. It should be viewed as active listening.”

City Council member Colleen Ratzlaff Labeau, who is heavily involved in the real estate industry, said developer comments she has heard echo what the mayor has heard. “They come here thinking one thing and end up with another thing,” she said. “They feel they are getting road blocks and are hearing ‘this won’t work’ instead of ‘here’s some things we can do to make it work’.”

The last such major review of the city’s development process was conducted approximately twenty years ago when the majority of the current policies and procedures were put in place and Mielke acknowledged the climate has changed since then.

“The staff hasn’t really changed since then,” he said. “The policies haven’t changed. What has changed is the economy.”

One financial aspect the process will likely look at is Lakeville’s current policy that requires developers to pay for associated road construction costs and other infrastructure related development expenses, whereas some surrounding communities fund those costs through other ways to provide incentives for development.

“If the development community can’t afford to pay for what they have paid for in the past, then the council will have to address how does the community wish to pay for those roads,” said Mielke. “If it’s assessments or raising property taxes, that’s a policy change. Thus far, the policy has been that those costs have been for the developer to pay, not the taxpayer.”

“The economy is down and there’s going to be a certain level of frustration,” said Bellows. “It’s a very competitive market out there so we will have to compare ourselves with what others are doing to combat that.”

No official timetable has been set for moving forward with the surveys and setting a date for the forum to occur, but Mielke indicated that the intent was to have the survey ready within the next month once further input is received on specific questions to include.