Two weeks after the Minnetonka Planning Commission recommended rejecting the Mills twin homes development, the City Council approved the development, moving forward the affordable units that would be developed by Twin Cites Habitat For Humanity.
The development now has an additional 0.31 acres attached to it, ceded by Mills Church, which will soon be selling the property to Habitat. The additional acreage allowed the city staff to change course and recommend approval of the development, Minnetonka Community Development Director Julie Wischnack said.
“Habitat for Humanity expanded the lot size on which the project is located, and what happened in that [change] is there was no longer that need for the comprehensive plan amendment, so that issue of density and maximum amount of density on the site was resolved by making the properties slightly larger,” Wischnack said in an interview Thursday.
The project site is located at 3521 Baker Road in Minnetonka. The city council met Monday and approved the project unanimously, following staff recommendation.
Because of the increased acreage, additional funds from Minnetonka’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund were requested, bringing the total amount of assistance by the city to $794,000. This was approved by the Economic Development Authority unanimously.
David Landt, the pastor of Mills Church said at the meeting on Monday that the third of an acre being sold to receive approval is a church playground for preschool-aged children. Landt said the hope is to now create a new playground that will serve as a common area for the future homeowners.
“This inclusion now meets the low-density guidelines, but more importantly it opens the possibility to pursue grants dedicated to playground improvements,” Landt said to the council. “If received, it would provide funding to renovate this park area into a playground for all ages. This possibility tangibly adds value to this project by providing our current and future neighbors an area for their children to play together.”
The city planning commission had denied the project at its April 18 meeting, citing concerns over having to make a comprehensive plan change from low-density residential to a medium density residential. If a change were made to a medium density, that allows more than four units and less than 12 units per acre on the site.
Commissioners expressed concerns that if the project fell through, a developer could come into the plot and develop buildings that were 12 units per acre, a density the staff felt was incompatible with the surrounding neighborhoods of single-family homes.
The development now takes up 2.5 acres and has five buildings with two units in each building, making it a density of exactly four units per acre.
In an interview last week with Finance & Commerce, Twin Cities Habitat President Chris Coleman said Habitat staff, the city staff and the church had been having conversations to find a path forward for the twin homes since the planning commission meeting.
“We looked at a couple of different ways we could do that,” he said. “Whether we could do that with a restrictive covenant that said you can’t go more than X number of units on this land. They talked about, from the planning commission perspective, the church donating more land to the project.”
The development is designated as affordable housing and Habitat representatives said the development will accept potential homeowners between the 30% and 80% area median income, but that the project is required to achieve an average of 60% AMI or lower for the 10 units. The outreach to potential homeowners will target current working-class residents of Minnetonka, Habitat’s Land Development Director Chad Dipman said.
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