Lake Elmo City Council — Transcript

Thursday, October 23, 2025

Story

Lake Elmo launches new mapping tools for developers and residents

Community Development and Economic Initiatives

GIS Mapping and Data Integration

Urban Land Institute (ULI) Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) Update

Votes (2)

2026 Work Plan Discussion

No formal action taken; discussion and feedback for future work plan refinement.

The Community Development Director presented the first draft of the 2026 work plan, outlining goals and action items for city-owned property disposition (180 acres, former fire station, old city hall), reviewing all publicly owned property via GIS, and exploring strategic property acquisition. Communication efforts with a new coordinator, business spotlight stories, and collaboration with the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce were also discussed. The EDA handbook needs updates. Concerns were raised about business outreach effectiveness, with past surveys yielding low response rates, leading to suggestions for re-upping surveys or hosting open forums. The potential development of the closed landfill was proposed for inclusion.

Communication Updates (Former Fire Station RFP, ULI TAP, GIS Update)

No formal action taken; updates provided for informational purposes.

Updates were given on the Former Fire Station Parks Building RFP, which is going to the council, and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) for the 180 acres site, including its timeline, stakeholder engagement, and expected report date. A major presentation covered the new public GIS tools (parks & trails map, public parcel viewer) developed with Bolton and Mink. These tools integrate county and local data, refresh automatically, and are now available on the city website, offering detailed planning and utility information to residents and developers.

Notable Quotes (6)

I think we would, you know, start to do the work internally through GIS and come back to the EDA first and then also involve the planning commission. Ultimately, the decision will be made by the council. But I think everybody would definitely be involved because some of the land like you said may not have a high economic purpose. So, you know, it maybe is better under even like parks too, like ship parks. We would want them to take a look at it also.

Estapa [0:04:47]
2026 Work Plan Discussion

We did a we did a survey a business retention and expansion survey about three years ago and uh I have to say we asked businesses to give a half hour of someone's time to talk to us and a number of us went out and interviewed people but I have to say there were very few respondents were willing to talk to us. Everybody's too busy.

Unknown [0:17:09]
2026 Work Plan Discussion

I'd like to add one thing. Uh I'm I'm still interested in doing something with the closed landfill and we are going to have a discussion at council about that possibility and I cannot predict what the outcome will be but I'd like to have an at least a spot open on this and it it could be part of the discussion of review city owned property or it could be part of brownfield grants or something like that. But it's it's just to keep that in mind that uh it would really be wonderful to get some value out of that.

Unknown [0:21:50]
2026 Work Plan Discussion

it depends on so the easiest way for me to answer is depends on the stakeholder right so our engineering team is part of the stakeholder group they want to know the history of what's been there before what are some of the challenges for for the EDA it's just your personal background what's been discussed at the board comm you know the EDA anything that you want to bring up anything that you have knowledge of in the past that you think would be good they just want input from all the board members and you know any history there.

Estapa [0:25:34]
Communication Updates (Former Fire Station RFP, ULI TAP, GIS Update)

But it puts all that information all in one application, which is great because the county just doesn't have our our local planning and zoning shoreline buffer information. So, this is a really good tool. This is a tool that's now public and we use it when we talk to developers or anybody residents can use it. It's on our website.

Estapa [0:33:57]
Communication Updates (Former Fire Station RFP, ULI TAP, GIS Update)

That is fantastic. So, when obviously there's property sales all the time and it updates on the county level whenever they get the ECV for it. Does that mean this is then doing like a is it literally live or is it doing like a nightly jobs batch or is it

Unknown [0:35:36]
Communication Updates (Former Fire Station RFP, ULI TAP, GIS Update)

Ordinances & Resolutions (14)

minutes of the special meetingOther

Previous meeting minutes approved at the start of the current meeting.

2026 work planPlan

The primary document under discussion for future city development and operations.

2025 work planPlan

Reference for comparison and for updating on completed action items.

EDA handbookOther

An existing document for the Economic Development Authority that requires updates.

Home Improvement Loan ProgramProgram

A program managed by the Washington County CDA, funded by the city, for residents.

community development mapMap

Currently a PDF, slated to be updated to a GIS story map.

GIS story mapMap

Future interactive map for community development projects.

briefing bookOther

A collection of old documents from previous RFP processes, provided to ULI TAP panelists.

public parks and trails mapMap

A newly released public GIS map detailing local parks and trails.

public parcel viewerMap

A new public GIS tool showing parcel information, utilities, zoning, and planning data, integrated with county GIS.

Shorland bufferPlan

A planning layer available on the new public parcel viewer.

MUSA boundary with phasingPlan

A planning layer on the public parcel viewer indicating municipal urban service areas.

zoning layerPlan

A planning layer on the public parcel viewer displaying zoning information.

future land use mapPlan

A planning layer on the public parcel viewer showing projected land use.

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