State of the City: Mayor Says Lakeville Changing While Growing

To nobody’s surprise, ’ first State of the City address on Wednesday offered a mixed bag of news.

The good news: Lakeville has the lowest poverty rates in Dakota County, he said. The bad news: those rates are still higher than ever.

Other good news: Lakeville’s median home prices are the highest in Dakota County, he said. The bad news: those prices have dipped another 7.9 percent since 2009.

And while Bellows said Lakeville’s still growing—Lakeville is third in the metro area total new building permits since 2001 and is fifth in permits since 2009—it might be the way the that garnered the most surprise among attendees of his address at Crystal Lake Golf Club on Wednesday.

While Lakeville is now the state’s 16th most populous city, the population is getting much older and more diverse.

Today, 12 percent of Lakeville’s students are students of color, the most ever. Also, there were just 1,226 folks older than 65 in Lakeville in 2000. That number is slated to grow to 9,471 by 2020, Bellows said.

Put it all together, and “we must address that new reality in our planning,” he said.

Bellows said he and the City Council have been improving and working together to meet the new challenges. Since development is down, so are revenues and he pointed to the council’s driving the city’s budget down while maintaining services as proof they’re working hard.

Beyond budgets, Bellows said the council and staff are working to review development processes in place, as are planning other ways to attract development.

The city will host a developers summit in June, he said, and are working to create a new residential zoning district to allow smaller homes to be built. Bellows also said a “toolbox of incentives” to attract new business is in the works.

“But our greatest resource is our residents and business owners in this community,” he said, and that leaning on them and their ideas will be key to moving Lakeville forward.

Lakeville Patch will have more on the some of the items the mayor talked about.