02-27-1979 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Page 25 III . Gomprehensive Guide Plan and Zoning Ordinance for the City of Orono A. Past Land Use Trends The past development patterns and trends in the City of Orono have been greatly influenced by the fact that the city is located along the northern shore of Lake Minnetonka. This lake has been, and continues to serve as, a major regional recreation facility. The result of this is that urban development has historically been attracted to the entire shoreland of Lake Minnetonka inlcuding several of its bays. In addition, development in the city has been influenced by its high proportion of marsh and wetlands which has presented and continues to present severe limitations to urban development in different parts of the city. For example, it has been estimated that approximately 50 percent of the total area within the city boundaries is currently made up of water bodies, wetlands and marshes. The city has, for a long time, been concerned over protecting these natural - resources to minimize pollution problems of Cake Minnetonka. Thus, the practical results of the extent and location, of these natural � resources in the city as reinforced by official city policy, is that most of the urban development to date in the city has taken place along the shorelands of Lake Minnetonka with most of the remainder . of the city consisting of low density development. Thus, in a very real sense, the city consists of two distinct and separate areas - the urbanized portion along the shorelands of Lake Minnetonka and several bays such as West Arm, North Arm, Crystal Bay and the western and southern portions of Maxwell Bay, with the remainder of the community consisting of a rural area of low density residential development or no dev�lopment in the wetlands and marsh areas. This separation of the city into an urbanized and rural portion has been reinforced by a policy of the city against extending sanitary sewer services into the rural areas and thereby "opening up" the rural area to urban development pressures. - B. General Policies of the Comprehensive Plan In 1974, a Comprehensive Guide Plan was developed and adopted by the - city along with an amended Zoning Ordinance which had first been officially adopted in 1967. The Comprehensive Guide Plan contains several guiding principjes or policies which deal with the overall future development of the city. Perhaps the basic overriding policy of principle of the plan is to preserve and protect the many natural resources in the city, including � Lake Minnetonka, by carefully regulating the location and density of development. More specifically, the basic philosphy of the plan and ordinances is to "retain tfie basic single-f amily character of the city, to preserve and maintain open space and existing natural resources including such features as lakes and wetlands and to provide for a - � limited diversity of housing types and densities consistent with the _ maintenance of open space°. � : - -6-