Will the county board be sympathetic to property owners who are using their RVs as though they were cabins? The question came up at the county board meeting on March 22 when an Interim Use Permit was considered regarding an RV trailer on a 1.75-acre parcel on Greenwood Lake.
If approved by the county board, this would be the first interim use permit the Planning and Zoning Office would be issuing, Planning and Zoning Administrator Bill Lane said. Unlike conditional use permits, interim use permits will have expiration dates.
Allowing RVs to be used as dwellings has mainly been an allowance for people to have a place to stay while they build a cabin, Planning and Zoning Director Tim Nelson said. More and more people are postponing building cabins on their properties, however, and are using their RVs in place of cabins, he said. He suggested that the county might want to recognize this and perhaps allow a way to accommodate it.
In their application, owners Walter and Nancy Sellman indicated that the trailer is not hooked up to a water supply or septic system, although they use the plumbing system in it by transporting water to the trailer and transporting waste off the property to the RV dump station in Grand Marais.
In 2008, Planning and Zoning Administrator Bill Lane recommended that the Sellmans identify two septic sites on their property. At that time, they contracted with Thoreson Construction to excavate a pit for a planned outhouse. The outhouse, however, has yet to be installed. According to Mitch Everson, Cook County Environmental Health Inspector, the site may not meet the required soil conditions.
The application was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission with several conditions, including a requirement that the property conform to Minnesota rules for individual subsurface sewage treatment systems and Cook County septic requirements.
The permit conditions go on to state, “If onsite treatment is not feasible, the applicants shall establish a maintenance agreement with a state-certified septic maintenance provider. This agreement shall be reviewed and approved by the Cook County Environmental Health Inspector.”
Everson was at the meeting and said given the size of the trailer’s holding tank, the owners would need to transport waste once a week. He recommended that they obtain a 500-gallon holding tank and contract with a septic provider to empty and clean it every three to four weeks.
By a vote of four to one, with Jim Johnson casting the nay vote, the county board approved the application with the conditions recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission.
The board approved two conditional use permits, one for a maple syrup business on the Caribou Trail, Caribou Cream, owned by Ronald Wills, and the other for a zone change on 6.14 acres above Lutsen Town Center, owned by Jeff Latz. Latz requested his parcel be zoned as a Light Business Development Area.
Some Lutsen property owners opposed Latz’s request, citing concerns about traffic, appearance, water runoff, and proximity to residential areas. Others supported it, however, including some who had been involved in creating the Lutsen Town Plan, such as former Lutsen Supervisor and Lutsen Planning Committee chairman Paul Nelson. Letters in support of the request indicated that the committee had envisioned this property being designated a Light Business Development Area, a transitional zone between residential and commercial districts.
The property was zoned Forest/ Agriculture Residential (FAR-3) when the town plan was adopted in 2004. Paul Nelson wrote to the Planning Commission, “During the process of seeking approval [of the Lutsen Town Plan] by the Cook County Commissioners, we were directed by the commissioners to seek approval of all affected property owners to rezone their property as proposed by the Lutsen Town Plan. The property recently purchased by Jeffery Latz and involved in this zone change request was noted in our town plan proposal as that tightly restricted Light Business Development Area (LBDA). At that time, the former owner was not interested in the zoning change and it was not rezoned.”
That previous owner was Peter Ochsner, and in an email to Latz, which he also sent to Bill Lane, he said, “To be honest, I did not realize I had an option back whenever to rezone the property or I would have proceeded.”
In other news:
Because of significant staff turnover in the Soil & Water Conservation District office due to retirement, entrance into graduate school, and marriage/ moving away, the board approved a two-year extension of the county Water Management Plan to give the new staff time to prepare a new one.
Minnesota statute requires each county to have such a plan, and Cook County’s current plan expires October 26, 2012.
The board voted unanimously to become the fiscal agent for the Cook County-Grand Marais Economic Development Agency (EDA) for a trial period ending December 31 of this year.
Commissioner Fritz Sobanja commented, however, “Just be careful. This might be the first step in our taking over the [Superior National at Lutsen] golf course.”
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