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City adopts 2025 update to Northwest Expansion AUAR after agency comments; four mitigation items added
Summary
The city adopted the 2025 update to the Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) for the Northwest expansion area after a 10‑business‑day comment period and responses to agency letters; the AUAR update added four mitigation commitments in response to Met Council, MPCA, MnDOT and Dakota County comments.
The Inver Grove Heights City Council adopted the 2025 update to the Northwest Expansion Area Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) after staff and consultant presentations and a public discussion. The AUAR, which implements Minnesota environmental review rules for area planning, provides an updated baseline of existing conditions and analyzes potential impacts and mitigation strategies for future development in the 3,089‑acre Northwest study area.
Why it matters: The AUAR is the environmental review document used by the responsible government unit (RGU) — here, the city — to study potential environmental impacts across a range of development scenarios. The five‑year update is required under state rules until development in the study area is complete; this update informs future permitting, mitigation and infrastructure planning.
Key points from the update Kimley Horn prepared the update and Madeline Race, an environmental planner with Kimley Horn, presented the document. Staff said the update incorporates changes since the 2020 AUAR, including recent roadway, sanitary sewer, water and stormwater infrastructure projects; updated aerial imagery and wetland data; and new sections on climate adaptation and greenhouse gas emissions that were added to the AUAR form in 2022.
Agency comments and mitigation changes The 10‑business‑day public comment period (published in the EQB Monitor) produced comment letters from the Metropolitan Council, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and Dakota County. City staff said most comments were addressed in the document but not all required new mitigation commitments. The AUAR mitigation plan was modified with four specific additions in response to agency comments:
- Developers should seek wetland‑banking replacement within the same watershed or sub‑watershed (MPCA comment). - Developers should coordinate with Dakota County’s delegated well program on well compliance concerns (Dakota County comment). - Proposed stormwater infiltration within a current or potential future drinking‑water supply management area (DWSMA) should be coordinated with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) (Dakota County comment). - Developments must meet applicable MPCA noise standards; a noise study will be required on a case‑by‑case basis where necessary (MnDOT comment).
Other comments — for example on chloride impacts — resulted in statements added to the AUAR encouraging developers to consider chloride planning but did not become mitigation commitments.
Council action and record A council member asked which comments did not trigger changes to the mitigation plan; staff pointed to chloride statements and updated figures (including showing the Lebanon Hills Greenway alignment) as examples where the document was updated without adding mitigation commitments. The council then moved to adopt the AUAR update. A motion to adopt passed, with 1 abstention recorded by a council member who said they had not had time to read the entire document before the meeting.
Ending: The AUAR update will guide future permitting and permitting conditions for development in the Northwest expansion area. The city’s responses to agency comments and the four added mitigation commitments are included in the updated document published by the RGU.
