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Community profile: Waconia

Historic rural city faces challenges of growth

Note: This is one of a series of community profiles, intended to highlight issues faced by local governments as they begin the process of updating their comprehensive plans.

Waconia, according to Mayor Mark Schiffman, “has been a destination since its birth.”

Located on the south shores of Lake Waconia – the third largest lake (by shoreline) and the second largest (by volume) in the seven-county metro – the city this year celebrates its 150th birthday. Founded by German immigrant farmers, Waconia has long served as an economic center for western Carver County. From the late 1880s until the early 1960s, the lake and its island resort hotels were a major tourist destination.

Waconia still attracts visitors, but today people are coming to stay. Since 1980, the city has grown from a population of 3,500 to an estimated 10,000. Managing that growth is one of the city’s biggest challenges, Schiffman said.

Waconia carrying out “moderate growth plan”

The city has carried out what Schiffman calls “a moderate growth plan.” Since 1999, the city has added an average of 150 new housing units annually.

“Like everyone else, we’ve seen the housing market slow down in the last few years,” said Susan Arntz, city administrator. “At the same time, the commercial building activity has picked up. We met our estimated SAC (sewer service availability charge) targets last year even with the housing downturn.”

Waconia is home to “a great wealth of medium-sized corporations that fill a specialized niche in their individual markets,” Arntz said. The biggest employer is Ridgeview Medical Center, a nonprofit hospital that is adding a cardiology unit and specialized services for women and children.

Workforce housing is a concern

Providing housing affordable to workers at the manufacturing firms and health care facilities in the city continues to be a challenge, said Arntz. “Right now our biggest challenge is land price,” she said. However, the city has had no trouble meeting the overall housing density benchmarks set by the Metropolitan Council for new development of at least 3 units per acre, Arntz said.

The city is currently considering a plan to subsidize some new workforce housing, Schiffman said. “We hear it a lot from the business community that their workers need to be able to afford to live here in town.”

An opportunity to diversify the city’s housing stock will come with one of the newest proposed developments, called Interlaken, on 493 acres in the southeast corner of the city. Schiffman said the first phase will include a full range of housing styles: single-family homes, twin homes, walkout and urban row homes, townhomes, senior condos and workforce apartments.

Located on rolling hills with large clusters of mature trees and extensive wetlands, the development will include 68 acres of parkland and open space, with 2.2 miles of trails and boardwalks. The development will also provide an opportunity to realign some key connector routes that will help keep traffic off of busy Highway 5.

Cities fund highway engineering study

Transportation is another big challenge for the city. Highway 5, the major east-west connection through central Carver County, was not designed to handle the level of traffic it now receives. According to Schiffman, upgrading it “was not even on Mn/DOT’s radar” until last year, and it has yet to be programmed for improvements. To lay the groundwork, Waconia and several other cities in the county are funding an engineering study to identify access management issues, right-of-way acquisition needs and safety improvements.

“We need to keep the pressure on, to keep showing how great the need is for improvements,” Schiffman said. “This is going to be one of the fastest growing areas in the metro in coming decades. Without good transportation, it squeezes out opportunities for economic development.”

North-south routes are also a challenge. Carver County has identified a corridor connecting Highway 12 on the north with Belle Plaine on the south, largely along existing roads that will need to be improved. The county and Waconia recently jointly purchased the right-of-way for a small segment of that corridor through Interlaken.

The city recently adopted a 15-year reconstruction program for local streets. The road beds are being rebuilt “to last another 50 years,” said Schiffman. The only worry is the cost burden the program may place on older homeowners with fixed incomes.

Preserving downtown is a priority

As the city grows outward it is also working to preserve the vitality of the downtown, what Schiffman called “the heart” of the community. When city hall was rebuilt a few years ago, officials decided to keep it downtown. A parcel of polluted land was cleaned up and a new city hall was built with 68 units of market-rate housing for seniors built above it. The units “have a strong waiting list,” Arntz said.

“Developing sustainably is the right business decision for us,” Schiffman said. “It makes sense to do everything we can to preserve our quality of life here.”

Housing, transportation, parks – these issues and more will be the focus as the city updates its comprehensive plan in the coming months. The city recently hired a consultant to guide the plan update process, which will have an official public kickoff in June. The city will hold neighborhood meetings to get public input, and will also keep citizens informed through its newsletter and website.

The plan will address the city’s vision for growth through the year 2030. Through an orderly annexation agreement with Laketown Township, the city is likely to expand another six to seven square miles to the east between 2010 and 2030.

“We anticipate significant public involvement in updating our plan,” Schiffman said. “It’s a great opportunity to think about what our future will look like. Today that future is in the cornfields to the east. It’s fabulous when you get to design it."

-- published May 2007 --