3(b) Housing and Economic Development Sections

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larger, used more land and were set back in an independent style. As streets were widened in response to this new form of housing, pedestrian connectivity of neighborhoods was reduced. Most homes within the urban areas of Pequot Lakes are now independent of their neighboring dwellings,a pattern that creates patches of both value and blight. Multi-family apartment buildings out-of-scale with the surrounding housing were also built during this period. Redevelopment, except in rare cases, is non-existent or the purview of government, despite the fact that the largest amount of public capital investment in infrastructure serves these properties. (i; the la5t stater�ient accurate?) What has happened in the urban parts of Pequot Lakes is similar to what has happened in small-town neighborhoods across the country. What our original homes lacked in size and scale, the original builders made up for in design. Building neighborhoods on a human scale enhanced the public realm and ensured that the houses provided value, and retained value, more than the sum of their parts. As the City changed orientation from neighborhood design to a more auto-centric, independent style of living, the City attracted some short-term investment but ultimately lost out to properties outside the City that provided even more independence and greater auto accessibility.The more the City"invested"to increase auto-accessibility in its neighborhoods, the more it encouraged development outside of those neighborhoods. Today investments in housing improvements are random and almost always out of scale or incompatible with adjacent development. f+� ;fii i .;!,+�r�p11 :a�r'ui�iF %i Pequot Lakes cannot be successful over the long-term when its lowest value properties border the most expensive infrastructure investments in the city. Right now,these areas do not attract significant private-sector investment. A city with Pequot Lakes' parks, ball fields, public access to a lake, downtown full of vitality, well-located school property, low crime rates, local churches and opportunities for an engaging civic life should not be experiencing stagnation and decline of its urban housing stock.The City is built on a framework of neighborhood design.Trying to adopt a suburban development pattern on a traditional framework has made Pequot Lakes' housing stock less competitive. For the City of Pequot Lakes to improve its housing—which is essential if there is to be any sustained, long-term growth for the area—it needs to restore its neighborhoods.This means returning to a pattern of development that emphasizes sound site design, proper building placement, structure compatibility and the interconnectivity of neighborhoods.