PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release Friday, January 9, 2009

Contact: Noel LaBine 763-477-3086

The Building Development Process seminar held at Reichel's in Annandale.

The Wright County Economic Development Partnership held a Building Development Process event at Reichel's Banquet Center in Annandale on January 7th . This noon luncheon event featured a panel presentation with Laureen Bodin from the City of Buffalo , Steve Grittman from Northwest Associates and Mike Bauer of Bauer Design Build.

Steve Grittman started the presentation with a discussion about zoning ordinances with a review of the historical interpretation of public law as defined by the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This was originally interpreted as nuisance law and is now regulated by zoning ordinances. “Zoning has created a frame- work of reasonable expectations within which private property owners can act, and which the government assumes responsibility to enforce.”

The city has responsibility to protect the character of its community. There are some issues, which are involved with this process. They include compensable issues, which involve the economic impact on a property owner; essential nexus, and rough proportionality. All of these issues are resolved using a rational basis as the standard for court review.

Next, Laureen Bodin gave the city perspective in the building development process by explaining the role of the city in providing infrastructure and public service to support businesses and the community. This community support includes funding programs for business relocation and expansion projects. The city uses zoning to guide growth and plan for infrastructure investments. For instance, the City of Buffalo has a 20-year capital improvement plan so they can systematically make improvements to their infrastructure.

The City of Buffalo also uses an application permit review process to make the building development process as easy and understandable as possible. This application comes with a disc that has a document outlining all of the ordinances and explanations about them. This entire document, if printed, would be about 300 pages long. All this is done to prevent any surprises during the review process.

Next, Mike Bauer gave the perspective of a contractor in the building process. His company uses a systematic, disciplined approach using a three phase process. In the first phase, things to consider include review of any possible constraints with the proposed site and building plan. A review of the history of the site and the environment of the site and available infrastructure is also analyzed.

The second phase involves further development of the design process and collecting hard data such as soil borings, etc. Finally, if the review process makes it through the first two phases, then plans can be made to prepare for construction, sign contracts, and all other due diligence before the construction finally begins.

Questions were asked of the panel by the 34 people in attendance at this event, and people stayed around to network afterward.

The Partnership exists to enhance the business climate of Wright County and help create more jobs in Wright County . The strategies the Partnership uses to achieve its mission include being an information resource and finding technical assistance; aiding business development through Business Retention & Expansion visits, providing financing resources, and providing business information and training through seminars and workshops. Also, the Partnership markets Wright County to business site locators, and maintains an excellent website, which includes a listing of commercial and industrial property available in Wright County (see www.wrightpartnership.org ). The Partnership also assists with Workforce Development and has gathered economic statistical information, which is available on its website.