Planning Commission recommends rezoning for planned apartments

The city of Glencoe Planning Commission is recommending approval of zoning about five acres of property directly east of Grand Meadows Senior Living as R-2 multi-family residential.
City Administrator Mark Larson said that Glencoe Multi-Family, a development company, plans to construct 85 units of housing on the parcel in two phases. The first phase will be a 50-unit development, with 35 added in the second phase. Larson said this is the same company that had looked at the former Helen Baker Elementary School site for potential development.
Larson said the city is purchasing the property, and will resell it to the development company for $1. The city also is in the process of annexing the property into the city limits. The property will have to be surveyed and platted. A tax increment financing (TIF) district will be established. Tax revenue captured on the development will be used to pay off the city’s costs of extending streets and utilities to the property. Once those costs are paid off, the taxing authorities will be collecting their shares of the taxes generated by the development.
Larson also said that it is believed that an existing storm drainage pond in the area will be capable of handling any run-off from the property.
Along with extending 14th Street out to the property, Commissioner Kevin Dietz suggested that the city also look at developing 16th Street on the north side of the property. That way, Dietz said, there would be access to the property from both the south and north sides of the development.
For more from the Planning Commission, see the March 14 print edition of The Chronicle.