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accidents and ongoing safety concerns. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) has finalized an Environmental Impact Statement(EIS)for a realignment of Highway 371 to the east of the current downtown. HIGHWAY 371 To one extent or another,the debate over the alignment of Highway 371 has dominated discussions on the future of Pequot Lakes for nearly a decade. In 2004, after a significant level of discussion within the community, the City Council narrowiy voted to proceed with an expansion of Highway 371 on its current alignment. This was not without controversy, but once the decision was made, the mechanisms of government—including the 2004 version of this plan—included a vision centered on an expanded Highway 371. In working with Mn/DOT on the details of construction that an expansion on the existing alignment would entail, two things became apparent.First,widening the existing two-lane highway to a high-capacity,high-speed four lane highway was going to significantly, and irreversibly, damage the character of Pequot Lakes. This character is i critical,not only to the business community which depends on visitors and locals alike,but to the very reason why so many people have chosen to move to Pequot Lakes over the past two decades. With an expansion of the existing alignment, there was no way for Pequot Lakes to avoid becoming the next drive-thru community in a stretch of similar development to the south. The second revelation in the process of evaluating the expansion of the current alignment was that the local cost would be tremendous and would outstrip any potential gain from new growth and development.The taxpayers of Pequot Lakes would be asked to pay an estimated$2.6 million to make improvements that would provide for the local economy post-construction.An expansion of the existing alignment would limit prime-development sites to the highway corridor,which was very expensive to serve with infrastructure.The numbers did not make sense for the City. In 2007,after a resolution of the Council to reengage Mn/DOT for consideration of an alternate alignment,the City Council and Planning Commission formed a joint Alternate Route Study Group to review questions and concerns with respect to an alternate alignment. The group called on experts to help answer 31 questions that had been developed within the community.The meetings were open to the public and were well attended. After meeting ten times over seven months,the group issued a report concluding that,"while there are costs the City must incur during the project,the direct cost to the City would be significontly less for an olternate route than a through-town �I alignment."Additionally,the report noted,"There were no indications that an alternote route would be destructive � to the economic health of the City of Pequot Lakes,and substantial evidence to the contrary." ' Today a fully-developed plan for construction of the alternate alignment has been completed and is awaiting municipal consent.Construction is scheduled for 2018. In August of 2009, Mn/DOT issued a report indicating that,over the next twenty years it had$65 billion in needed improvement projects and only$15 billion in projected revenue.That same month,the U.S. Congress approved a transfer of$10 billion into the Federal Highway Trust Fund to cover persistent deficits in the federal transportation fund. These shortfalls in revenue raise the very real possibility that the improvements to Highway 371 may be postponed beyond 2018,or perhaps may never happen. Success with the alternate alignment depends on the City continuing to mature the neighborhoods surrounding the core downtown,to the benefit of both the neighborhoods and the businesses.This development pattern—the Comprehensive Plan Update—February 2013 39 � P a g e