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INFORMATION #3 08-18-1997City of River MEMORANDUM TO: FROM: DATE: SUBJECT: Mayor & City Council Joni Pearson, Secretary-Administration August 18, 1997 Suburban Development For your information, Councilmember Holmgren has requested that the attached articles be included in the August 18, 1997, Council packet distribution. These articles are from the August 12, 1997, edition of the Star Tribune regarding suburban development and its effect on family farm life. 13065 Orono Parkway · P.O. Box 490 · Elk River, MN 55330 · TDD & Phone: (612) 441-7420 · Fax: (612) 441-7425 Aerial photos provided by MA,c~HUF~ .. ;~. The 101-acre Krueger Tree Farm, about'three miles west of the St. Croix River, was mostly surrounded by other farm 1991 fields in 1991, although grading had been done in the area that would become a Target-Cub Foods shopping complex, across Hwy. 36. The home of Al and Elaine Krueger and their fields of trees were in the 64 acres along Hwy. 36. They and all of the pre- vious owners had preserved the 37-acre woods in the southern portion of the property. Decreasing farm acres Here, county by county, are the number of farm acres that were lost to suburban development between 1990 and 1996 in 14 counties that generally are recognized as being part of the metro area. Scott ~. Hennepin ~ Anoka ~ Polk (Wis.) ~ St. Croix (Wis.) ~ Dakota ~ Washington ~ Carver ~ Sherburne ~ Isanti ~ Wright ~ Chisago · 3,838 Pierce (Wis.) I :L709 Ramsey I ::L558 Total: ......... ;. &S~,T&5 acres Source: Minnesota and Wisconsin Revenue Depadments. partment expanded Hwy. 36 to a four-lane divided highway. The old road became the frontage road, which was torn up this summer to make room for anoth- er expansion of Hwy. 36 and for an expanded Hwy. 5. The Kruegers knew their trees were more expensive, but they gave their customers service. They wrapped the trees for people and tied them to the tops of their cars. They gave Tootsie Rolls to the children and tree or- naments to the parents -- small wooden birds one year, glass rein- deer another. Nell remembers the hard work of taking care of the trees during the summer, "shearing" them with machete-like knives as they grew so they'd be the right shape at Christmas. "It was so tedious, dealing with the heat and the deer flies," he said. "Christmas was the high point." Tree traditions Christnms was \vhen everybody came home and the friends who had grown up with the Krue- gets came back for the By '1996, the farm had been sold and sewer and water 1996 lines had been run through the property to the new Stillwater Area High School (1), permitting the construction of streets and 77 homesites in the 37-acre woods (2) and to the Wal-Mart Store (3). The lines were also extended to the area where a Menards store (4) is currently under construction and to where a Rainbow Foods store and a strip mall complex (5) are being built. The Target-Cub Foods complex (6) north of Hwy. 36 in Stillwater had been operating for two years. Westward expansion by S. tillwater, Oak Park Heights As the population has increased, Stillwater and Oak Park Heights have steadily . moved their city limits westward through annexation. · Stillwater will absorb 1,800 acres of Stiliwater Township by the year 2010. It can go no farther west than Manning Road, the boundary for the city of Grant. T~e last parcel to be annexed will be the lO0~acre Bergmann Garden Center, the family-run farm whose annexation may be an echo of the urbanization of the Krueger Tree Farm a mile away. But a city official said the Bergmann farm will not be annexed until the family is ready to stop farming: · Oak Park Heights can expand no farther westthan Manning Road, the boundary for the city of Lake Bmo. Neighbors are fighting over a proposal that Oak Park Heights annex 235 acres of Baytown Township between Hwy. 5 and the Lake Elmo city limits. Eight landowners who control three quarters of the land want sewer and water service, but 24 other owners want to preserve what is left of their rural ' neighborhood. Baytown Township also opposes the annexation and wants instead to merge with Lake Elmo. Stillwater expansion land MINNESOTA ~' ~!,U Sfillwater Twp.. ~., Grant Lake Elmo Twp. 235 acres in dispute Oak Park Hts. Star Tribune graphic was starting to kill the trees closest to the road. Development was coming closer from Stillwater and from St. Paul. ' Elaine said she cringed the da~ she saw the farmhouse on 'the other side of Hwy. 36 being burned down for a new devel- opment. "That was a really bad day for me. I knew ours would be next." That farm eventually became the site of a new Target and Cub Foods complex. The Kruegers said the bell started tolling on their farm when the Stilhvater area school board decided in the late 1980s that a pie a day," Elaine said. And they didn't get just ham sandwiches -- they got ham dinners. In the 1980s the Kruegers began selling trees for hmdscaping in housing developments, com- mercial areas and new golf courses. The Kruegers' trees are everywhere. They line some of the streets in Stillwater. They are in Woodbury at the Wedgewood Golf Club. "And there are six right there," A1 said, pointing to a line of Colorado spruce in front of the house across the street from their new home in Stillwater. Their tree farm became more and more popular as more and new high school was ............................................................................. ' needed because of all of The Kruegers "didn't know what to the people moving to central Washington do .... They didn't want to fight county. By 1990, school district the school.' officials were analyzing annual tree sale. Some who started working four properties. The Still- there when they were in -- Lee Ronning, Land Stewardsh~Project water Township Board grade school .returned .............................................................................. told them they couldn't every year right through have the favored site. So more people moved to the area, built houses, played golf and cel- ebrated Christmas. In 1988, they made a profit for the first time. Their business had nearly dou- bled since 1980. The traffic on Hxw. 36 also had increased dramatically. Commut- ers were moving to Wisconsin and using HWY. 36 and the Stillwater bridge to get there. The exhaust from the passing cars and trucks by lune of that year, they were talking to lawyers for Violet Kern, the widow of Oscar (Bud) Kern and owner of 130 acres of land that was part of his great-grand- father George Kern's homestead. "It was a matter of the school wanting that area," Violet Kern said. "I had the land and had to decide what to do with it. My hus- band always said it wasn't going to stay a farm forever, so I decided to college. People were promoted through the ranks. They started by direct- ing cars to parking spots in the lot. Then they became "branch man- agers'' -- Al laughed -- in charge of cleaning up the branches. Some operated the machine that baled the trees into compact netting. Others were sales people. Others handed out the Tootsie Rolls. "We fed them all, 30, 35 pco- subdivide. I figured my husband would be proud to know that part of the farm went for education purposes." David Wettergren, the receptly retired school superintendent,' said the Kern property was choice because the price of $1.3 million was right, the highway system around it was good and the loca- tion was almost exactly in the middle of the district. By July 1990, the district had an option to buy the Kern property, and it had a problem. The only way it could get essential sewer and water lines to the site was to have Oak Park Heights annex the 400 acres between the existing city limits and the proposed school site. But the city would not annex the land unless the property own- ers filed a petition with the Min- nesota Municipal Board to seek the annexation. Violet Kern, of course, agreed. So did Elmer Haase, who owned the land east of the Kruegers. Couldn't fight the school That left the Kruegers. The un- derground lines would run right throUgh the middle of their farm. Elaine remembers feeling "boxed in" because she thought .if they didn't agree to sign, the right-of- way for the underground pipes would be taken by eminent do- main. So they signed. Lee Ronning of the Land Stew- ardship Project (LSP), a farm preservation group, who talked to the Kruegers about that time, said: "They were bewildered. They didn't know what to do." The Kruegers, she said, "are the kind of people you think of when you think of good, hard- working people. These wonderful, kind people wanted to be good members of the community. They didn't want to fight the school." With the land across HWY. 36 already cleared for development, the Kruegers and everyone else knew that development would follow the sewer and water lines out to the school. They were right. ^ Wal-Mart store was built in 1992, when the first sewer lines were put in, on what had been the Haase farm. Across Hwy. 36, construction started on the Target and Cub Foods complex in 1993. The city's new water tower to serve the de- veloping area was built on one acre in a corner of the Kruegers' land. Seeing all that coming, A1 and Elaine Krueger had to' decide what to do. As long as they operated the tree farm, they would be protected from increased property taxes and assessments caused by de- velopment. But if they sold, stay, I0 years later, they would have had to Turn to TREES on A7 IN DEVELOPer'S ATH Star Tri3une Photo by M~e Zerby The Krueger Tree Farm has been divided Into a housing development On the left and a Menards store on the right. A few pine trees grace the remain- lng land, which is still classified as agricultural for property tax purposes.' .DeveloPment along highwaY leads to a farm's farewell pay higher commercial p~operty taxes rather than agricultural rates for the preceding three years. And they would have had. to pay sewer and water hookup charges for any subdivided lots. The family ~ituation was an- other factor. Their five kids.were grown and long gone. Al, who is now 71, had retired from Ander- sen in 1983 and had a pension. He was worried about those potential assessments. "I didn't want a ,big lien on the property,' he said. Even if it was time to get out of the tree-farming business, they didn't want to see the land that had been part of their lives for so many years just carved up and paved over. The Kruegers thought about donating 'the 37 acres ,of oak woods to a preservation group or to the school. But Al said none of the nonprofit groups could afford to build a fence around it. The new school eventually turned the adjoining part of the woods that the Kern family had saved into. an · environmental learning center. While four of the Kruegers' chil- dren supported their parents' decision to sell, Nell wanted them to donate the woods to the school because it would lose part of its tax base to Oak Park Heights, whose City Council wants to annex the land. And Baytown Township would rather merge with Lake Elmo. The Minnesota Municipal Board will decide the issue. Rick Packer, a project manager with Arcon Development Inc., one of the developers of the Krueger property and a member of the Metropolitan Council, said he has little sympathy.for those who con- tend the area should not be devel- oped. With a growing population in the metropolitan area, housing has to be built somewhere, and it has to be accompanied by expan- sion of commercial enterprise such as shopping centers and gov- ernment services such as schools for the people who live there, he said. "Those Washington County cities and townships could have said, 'We don't want to grow.' If that happened~ the schoo! would have gone elsewhere. The prob- lem- if you want to call it a prob- lem- wouldn't go away, it would go elsewhere," Packer said. Barbara O'Neal, mayor of Oak Park Heights when the land was and use it as a tax ......... .. ..................... ;. annexed for the write-off. His wife, , Debbie, wanted them ~l~you ha~l to donate the whole ~ 100 acres to be used as your druthers~ ' a pa~rk,. :. ............ ,, '" you'd still be · - :oeooie said It ...... wasn't our decision'to lgPgng there, make, but we still own but yOU our feelings about it," She has since criti- up your mind cized the developers t~nd time goes and the city for the way the 64-acre pot- on." tion was cleared and school, said that devel- opment of the Hwy. 36 corridor . "was inevitable." Steve Russell, Still- water's, community development director, agreed: "We're the ser- vice area for people who are moving to the rural areas of Wash- ington County and Wisconsin." But Ronning of the the house and trees -- Elaine. Krueger Land Stewardship Pro- burned. She appeared ject said if there were at a City Council meet- ing recently to revisit complaints that City Administra- tor Mike Robertson said already had been answered. Debbie is passionate, even an- gry, about what happened. "Peo- ple say I'm vindictive," she said in an interview. "I'm not. It's the healing process." Westward mardh The development, westward along the Hwy..36 corridor has not stopped. There's the Menards under construction on part of the former Krueger land and a Rain- bow Foods store and a strip mall are being built just west of there. Eight landowners who own most of the 235 acres from HWY. ~ west to the border with Lake Elmo are seeking annexation by Oak Park Heights. so they can hook up to the water and sewer service and develop their land. But 24 landowners who own the rest of the land oppose the annexation -- either because they run companies that don't need expensive municipal services or because they want to protect what they regard as a rural lifestyle. Bay- tighter controls :on development in the metropolitan area, then that sub- urban growth would not have occurred and the commercial strip along HWY. 36 and the new high school would not have been needed. The question remains: If a farm is surrounded by commer- cial development, is there any point in preventing it from being developed? "If you're talking about Plan- ning 101 and concentric growth and efficient use of the land, 'no.' But if you're talking about quality of life and aesthetics, 'yes,' "Ron- ning said. Al 'and Elaine Krueger have lived through the pressures. But they are tired of remembering it. "If you had your druthers, you'd still be living there, but you .make up your mind and time goes on," Elaine said. --A home video of the Kruegers' tree farm is available' online at http://www, startribune, com. In it, the family talks about the joys and daily routine of running the business. The farm has "given us a whole lot more than just trees and land. It's given us a lifestyle; it's given us a way to structure and run our own lives. It's given us appreciation for the land and appreciation for liv- ing things .... And even though the farm isn't there in the future, a part of us will always be there." -- Nell Krueger, in family video Star Tribune Photo by Mike Zerby Al and Elaine Krueger, with their son Nell and his wife, Debble, stand on the site of the family's former Christmas tree farm on Hwy, 36 near StillWater, "1 never planned on moving," Al Krueger said. "1 always said they'd have to carry me out in a pine box with a few balsam boughs. Times change. Never say never." ~hoto courtesy of the Krueger family Al Krueger's grandfather Fredrick bought the farm in 1883. He posed for a photo at the homestead, 3 miles west of the St. Croix River. In"develoPmenfs path,, a farm folds The transformation of the Krueger family's land - from Christmas tree farm to suburban landscape - is a story that's being played across the metro area. By Dennis Cassano Star Tribune Staff Writer The home video shows the Krueger family work- ing in the fields, nurturing and pruning the spruce and balsam for sale at Christmas: But in the background of that pastoral calm is the never-ending din from traffic speeding by on Hvw. 36 just west of Stillwater. The clash of images is profound, and the 'family knew that all those cars meant the 101-acre Krueger Tree Farm would be sold for development. Now all that's left is the video. The 64 acres of conifers and 37 acres of woods-- once a rural part of Basqown Township -- are the site of a Menards store and 69 upscale houses in the city of Oak Park Heights. The anguished decision by A1 and Elaine Krueger in 1992 to sell the farm that had been in the Krueger family for'more than 100 years is one that has been made by thousands of families in the Twin Cities and other growing metropolitan areas -- and will be 'made by many more. From 1990 to 1996, more than 150,000 acres of farm fields have become suburban lots, strip malls and industrial sites in 14 counties that are part of the extended Twin Cities metro area. Turn to TREES on A6 .,... Also on A6: -- The farm's developer has fared well. -- Changes along the Hwy. 36 corridor. TREES j~'om A.I. Family faces tough choices as d velopment encroaches The Kruegers know firsthand how decisions by other people and institutions create the urban- ization -- some say sprawl -- that ripples out to affect adjoining landowners. And they know how those decisions disrupt lives, strain family bonds and reverber- ate for years from one neighbor to the next. "I never planned on moving," Al Krueger said. "I always said they'd have to carry me out in a pine box with 'a few balsam boughs. Times change. Never say never." Al's grandfather, Fredrick Kru- ger, bought the farm three miles west of the St. Croix River from the family of homesteader John Many in 1883. Sometime later, someone changed the spelling to "Krueger." , Marry.and his neighbor to the west, George Kern; had bought their farms from the U.S~ govern- ment in 1854, 17 years after the Oiibwe and Dakota nationsceded the land east of the Mississippi Rib, er in treaties. What is now Hwy. 36 may have started as a trail or wagon road serving Marry, Kern and other farmers, who cleared most of the oak and brush from their land to raise crops and provide pasture for their livestock. Marty and later Fredrick Kru- ger decided not to cut down the 37 acres'of oak woods onthe hill at the southern edge of the farm. Kern also kept the small woods on his adioining land. For 140 years, the But that doesn't mean the de- cision to sell is ever easy. Shave'and a haircut It took Al's grandparents three months to haul their belongings and nine children from Indiana to their new farm by horse-draxxm wagon back in 1883. Family members looked for any opportunity to make money to support themselves. Al's father gave shaves and haircuts to the lumberiacks who came over to the farm on Sunday afternoons from the lumbering camp next door-- just east of where the Wal-Mart is now. He left the farm when he mar- ried and bought another place a mile and a half away in Lake Elmo, where Al and his two brothers and two sisters were raised. One of Al's bachelor uncles, John Krueger, took over the origi- nal farm when Al's grandfather died in 1903. Al helped out on his dad's farm arid started working at the Andersen Corp. window factory in nearby Bayport in 1947. He and Elaine, who was working at the county extension agent's of- fice and at a restaurant, were married in the fall of 1947. Al's Uncle John, who had had a stroke and had to move into a nursing home, offered the farm to 'the newlyweds. They bought it on a contract for deed that included a provision allowing Iohn to have "two acres in'the northeast corner of the farm or the southwest bed- Kerns, the Martys and ................................. room of the house," Al then the' Kruegers hunted, hiked and 'tl/[Ze hod the watched the deer and best of both other wildlife in those IOoF/ds. We woods. "We had th'e best of IOere three both worlds," Elaine }TtilesRolll Krueger said. "We were Krueger said. "He thought he niight get well and wanted to have a place to come back to," but John died 'in 1951 without returning. A! and Elaine three miles from town, town~ but we moved to the farm in the spring of 1948 and but we had 37 acres of hod S7 acres of spent the next 46 years woods the kids could carflp in. It was great. It IOood$... It there, raising their was a wonderful place IOO.$ a' to live." But the Kruegers wottdelfttl don't live ~here any-. place to live." more. Now the woods are _'Elaine Krueger family and creating a tree farm that became a community institu- tion. Their Christmas trees decorated the homes of three filled with 69 houses' generations of area with values tanging ......... '.' ....................... families and have from $200,000 to $325,000 on lots of about one- third acre, with room for eight more homes. On the other 64 acres where the farmhouse once stood and the Christmas trees once grew, a Menards is under construction. Some figure it was inevitable. The area around the Krueger farm has been growing rapidly in this decade. The population of the principal cities and townships on the Hwy. 36 corridor has in- creased by 3,800 people to an estimated 33,862 -- nearly 13 percent -- from 1990 to 1996, the Metropolitan Council estimates. While preventing urban sprawl has become a national concern and preserving open space in new developments is a common practice in many places, includ- ing the Twin Cities metro area, not all desirable sites can be pro- tected. Because of its location, the Krueger farm was not the sort of place that should be preserved, said Tom Daniels, a nationally recognized figure in the preserva- tion effort. Daniels-- director of the Agri- cultural Preserve Board of Lan- caster County, Pa., a county that is trying to prevent urban sprawl from using up farmland -- saw the Krueger place during a trip to Minnesota earlier this year. "When you have commercial development all around you, with a major highway going by, the signals are pretty strong that the land should be developed," he said in a recent inlcrview. graced the governor's residence. Their trees won blue ribbons at the State Fair. But that did not happen right away. When they moved to the farm, they had a tractor and a manure spreader, but little furni- ture, no electricity and no run- ning water. They warmed the first floor with an oil-burning heater in the middle of the living room, and the house reeked of fuel oil. They had to haul oil into the house in five- gallon cans a cou- ple of times a day. They got electricity on Dec. 15, 1948. It was such an important landmark that Al still remembers the date': That also was the )'ear Neil was born. David was born in 1951. That's the year they got indoor plumbing. It Was like that. The important- dates in the life of the family coincided with the important dates in the history of the farm. Al and Elaine planted their first 500 trees for soil conserva- tion purposes in 1949 and anoth- er 500 in 1950. In 1954 they cut their first tree for their own Christmas celebra- tion. The next year they cut one for themselves and one for a neigh- bot. Then, with traffic increasing on the two-lane road that was to become Hwy. 36, "we realized we had location, location, location," Elaine said, and in 1957 the)' de- cided to establish a Christmas tree farm. Sure enough, just three years laler, the Minnesota Highwai' De- MONDAY, AUGUST 11 · 1997 Developer does well on farm deal , would have a market value of Tlre~Krueger farm was on the market for more thaa~ a year before "There comes a time When the demographics developer Uob Brackey bo~,gl~rit are right for development'''' in 1994 for nearly $2 milbon. Brackey, owner of Brac's Auto Parts Inc., in St. Paul, sold the 37- acre woods ahnost iminediately for an upscale housing project to Arcon Development Inc. The price was $1.1 million; Arcon also paid another $357,137 for water and sewer hookups. I1~ that transaction Brackey recovered slight!y more titan half of what he is paying over several years for the entire 101 acres. Brackey also sold nearly 12 acres to Menards for nearly $1.8 million in Au§ust 1995. Rick Packer, Arcon Development Inc. "You can rest assured that he did very well. And we did, too," said Rick Packer, a project man- ager with Arcon and a member of the Metropolitan Council. Brackey, who refused to b'e in- terviewed for this article, contin- ues to do well on property taxes. He still owns 49 acres of the for- inet Krueger farm, and the Wash- about $2.6 million and would be taxed about $110,000. Packer said Arcon Develop- ment expected that it would take three years to sell most of the 77 lots in the 37-acre housing devel- opment, but the demand for lots is so high that it has taken just two. ington County Assessor's office "Ther'e comes a time when the still classifies it as agricultural demographics are right for devel- property. Including the house that opment," Packer'said.. was torn down last year, the 49 ' Although built in the former acres has a market value for prop- woods and advertised as "wood- e rty tax purposes of $ l 10,000, and he will pay $1,810 in 1997 property taxes, county records show. If the land were classified as vacant commercial property, it ed lots," Packer acknowledged that' by the time the streets and utilities are pUt in, "you don't have much of a woods left." ~ Dennis Cassano' Star Tribune Photo by Mike Zerby The 77 lots in this 37-acre development on the former Krueger property are advertised as "wooded," but once streets and utilities are put in, "you don't have much of a woods left," said Rick Packer, project manager.