Segura: The fight for the herons is far from over

Rochester Township is changing. The township board needs to change too. Residents want thoughtful development that preserves natural areas. The township board needs to listen to their voices and act before it is too late.

Opinion by Leal Segura

Published in the Post Bulletin, May 28, 2022

Six hundred and eighty ... and counting!

That’s how many Rochester area residents have asked the Rochester Township Planning & Zoning Committee and Township Board to deny International Properties, LLC preliminary plat approval for Pavilion Estates when they meet Tuesday, June 14, 7PM (Planning & Zoning) and Thursday, July 14, 7PM (Township Board). More continue to do so every day via a circulating petition .

This is the highest level of citizen engagement in a Rochester Township issue in living memory.

Will it make a difference? Will our elected officials advocate for what most township residents want? Or will they once again advocate for the developer and their proxies?

Some background: Pavilion Estates is a proposed 10-home development that will destroy Rochester’s great blue heron rookery and irreversibly disrupt a large mature hardwood forest. Over the last year, township residents have been desperately trying to buy this land to create a natural area for current and future generations.

This acreage – with its steep hills, mature forest, wetlands, great blue heron nesting site, and Cascade Creek – is scientifically unusual and ideally suited to become a natural area.  For the very same reasons, it is terribly suited for a 10-home development.

The Olmsted County Planning Department wrote as much in a letter to Rochester Township last year: “the subject property contains multiple unique and extraordinary conditions or circumstances, such as extreme variation in topography and the narrowness of the property … These circumstances can be viewed as being a practical difficulty to development on this specific property.”

Because of the ill-suited nature of this land for development, Pavilion Estates will need seven variances from the township to develop the land.  A variance is a request to get around current zoning laws created to protect Rochester citizens’ property and resources.  

No developer is “owed” even one variance — never mind seven — to lower development standards. Variances are supposed to be granted only if the township gains something of significant value in return. All Pavilion Estates offers residents is the destruction of a biologically unique wildlife habitat and high environmental risks, especially flooding and erosion.

From the beginning of this approval process, we believe the township board and staff have brazenly advocated for the developer at the direct expense of their constituents' wishes.

For example, in the beginning of this process, we submitted a letter to the township board in advance of a scheduled meeting. We described the dozens of nests at risk. We learned later that the township administrator shared this letter with the developer (without our knowledge or permission) in advance of the meeting. The developer then ordered immediate destruction of the nests. We found out about the plan in just enough time to scramble for an emergency restraining order. This behind-the-scenes “heads-up” is an example of the township board working in direct collusion with developers to stack the deck in their favor.

Another example: At a meeting discussing the development plan, in front of local news media, members of the township board offered a meeting to look for a “win-win” solution. We immediately sent an email expressing our desire to participate. Who was invited when the cameras were off? The developer and their contractors. Not a single resident working to preserve the land was included. The “win-win” solution once again became a “developer-wins” solution, hashed out in secrecy. How is that fair or transparent governing?

Another example: Recently, without permits from the township, the developer began ripping down trees for the construction of a road. In response to residents’ urgent inquiries as to how this was possible, the township board responded that this road, now wide enough for several lanes of traffic, was a “driveway,” permitted by the township in absence of any public hearing. No reasonable person would call this road a driveway. Why is the township straining credulity to allow this developer to proceed with their plans outside the legal permitting process?

Rochester Township is changing. The township board needs to change too. Residents see our natural spaces and wildlife habitats being destroyed lot by lot. We want thoughtful development that preserves some of what remains. The township board needs to listen to our voices and act before it is too late.

The board may yearn for a past when only developers paid attention. Those days are over. Their voting constituents are now engaged, highly motivated, and paying close attention. We are not going away.

To the board: Please see this enormous citizen engagement as a blessing. It is a sign that the work you do matters. Start now. Listen to the hundreds of residents who have signed this petition and deny these special variances to Pavilion Estates.

Leal Segura, of Rochester, was one of the founding members of "The Rookies," a citizens group formed to protect the heron nesting site. It has grown to about 1,500 members.

Editor’s note: Rochester Township meeting dates have been corrected here from what was originally published in the Post Bulletin.