St. Croix Valley: Smarter growth can save the countryside

Published Monday, November 22, 1999

St. Croix Valley: Smarter growth can save the countryside

Sometimes it's hard to fully appreciate natural beauty until you're in danger of losing it. Such is the case with the St. Croix Valley, surely one of America's most stunning landscapes. A new bridge at Stillwater will only magnify development pressures already threatening to transform the rolling countryside on both sides of the river into seas of rooftops and commercial strips. Washington and St. Croix counties project 34,000 new jobs over the next 20 years and a 50 percent increase in households.

Happily, the Metropolitan Council has stepped in, not to dictate but to suggest ways to lessen the impact of this inevitable growth. Its hiring of Calthorpe Associates of Berkeley, Calif., to draw ideas from citizens and then to design six demonstration communities -- four in Minnesota, two in Wisconsin -- was a brilliant stroke. Peter Calthorpe is a visionary at helping Americans imagine better, less intrusive community designs. When his $85,000 study is finished early next year, town councils, planning boards and developers, not only in the St. Croix Valley but across the metro area, will be left with a storehouse of ideas. And, in the coming years, people can judge for themselves as they visit and examine the built examples.

Calthorpe started by asking groups of citizens to imagine how they want their towns to develop. Most preferred a village-style approach that clusters housing and shops near existing town centers and preserves as much open space as possible.

North St. Paul is a classic example. Bypassed by Hwy. 36, its old downtown has suffered neglect. Calthorpe suggests a revival. Changing Margaret Street from a bleak, drive-by strip to an intimate street with trees, sidewalks and a row of second-floor apartments over shops will invite people into the town's center -- 7th Avenue. There, gaps between the post office, fire hall and other civic buildings can be filled in with human-scale mixtures of office, retail and housing. The idea is to create a traditional, walkable downtown where neighbors can meet and greet one another, where cyclists and others using the Gateway Trail can gather.

The larger point is that every new dwelling built in North St. Paul's old downtown means one less rooftop in the pristine countryside. This is a win-win situation: The town is revitalized, the countryside preserved. A walkable downtown with a transit station also reduces trips on local roadways, another important benefit of this smarter kind of growth.

Calthorpe's study includes five other sites: Lake Elmo, Oak Park Heights and Stillwater, plus New Richmond and St. Joseph Township, the Met Council's first collaborative effort with Wisconsin communities.

The sooner metro residents can actually see and walk through these examples the better. Met Council Chairman Ted Mondale was right this week when he said: "Our post World War II development mode has run its course, and our communities are looking for something different. The best thing the Met Council can do is help them."