Watershed District Would Need Fewer Cottageville Purchases

Minnehaha Creek Watershed District planners say they would likely only need half the properties the district originally considered buying around Cottageville Park to improve storm water management.

In March,  of buying nine properties south of the park, straddling Lake Street,and transforming them into green space. But the district could meet its water-management goals there by routing water from two separate drainage areas onto the five southern parcels, which alone offer sufficient space to purify the water, Watershed District Planner James Wisker said. 

Although the four properties north of Lake Street would increase parkland, they would not add much, if at all, to water management, he said.

“The district is looking at all the opportunities up and down the (Minnehaha Creek) corridor,” Wisker said. “We see this as trying to connect the dots over a really long period of time. For us this is a 20-, 30-, 50- potentially 60-year planning effort to make sure that the corridor remains protected and … that we build on storm water management and we continue to promote access and connectivity and the trails through the area.”

Buying just the southern properties would leave residential properties jutting into the surrounding parkland.

But limiting the purchases to the southern properties would also make it easier to complete the project because Hopkins would ask people to voluntarily sell their properties instead of having the city condemn and seize them.

The watershed district has already started talking with affected homeowners. Wisker characterized their response as mixed—noting that no one said they absolutely wouldn’t sell.

That may prove to be an overly optimistic assessment of neighborhood opinion: “We’re like 99 percent (sure) we wouldn’t sell unless you could get us another property on the creek in Hopkins,” said Rachel Seurer, who owns one of the middle parcels on the south side.

Seurer said she grew up in south Minneapolis, playing and swimming in the creek. She wants her children to have that same opportunity.

“The creek is the reason we bought the house. We wouldn’t have come close to that otherwise,” she said. “The price, to us, isn’t a monetary thing. It’s a quality thing.”

Mayor Gene Maxwell emphasized that the city will look at the big picture and won’t act rashly. Wisker still needs to discuss his preliminary drainage analysis with the full watershed district board. The district then plans to meet again with Lake Street residents.

to see a map that explains how the drainages affect planning in the Cottageville Park area.