03.08 - Highway 371 Letter - Laserfiche WebLink

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\... OR April 9, 2010 James Hallgren Pequot Lakes City Council Project Engineer — District 3 Care of. Sandy Peine Minnesota Department of Transportation 4638 County Rd 11 7694 Industrial Park Road Pequot Lakes, MN 56472 Baxter, MN 56425 -8096 Dear Mr. Hallgren and the Pequot Lakes City Council: We, the undersigned members of the Pequot Lakes community, do formally request the City of Pequot Lakes to reject MnDOT's request for Municipal consent to the Alternate 3MOD (i.e. Bypass of the City of Pequot Lakes). We feel strongly that the highway needs to stay on its current path through our City. The undersigned members represent: 1) Residents that will have their homesteads severely impacted; 2) Business Owners whose livelihoods will be jeopardized; 3) Commercial Property Owners that will have their property value significantly compromised. We love Pequot Lakes — we value our friends, customers, neighbors — and want to continue to live and do business here. We value our environment and quality of life and are concerned about putting a road through forests and taking people's homes. We're concerned about school busses crossing uncontrolled, at grade intersections. We're concerned about the city making a decision today to bypass the city and the highway never being built — but people's lives will be changed forever. Some of the reasons that we are opposed to Municipal Consent being granted by the City to MnDOT for the Bypass of Pequot Lakes are: Downtown Viability — We are all concerned about the City's long -term economic viability. • Taking traffic away from downtown equals taking customers away from our storefronts. Some have argued that it will only take 10 — 20% of our customers away. For many, this represents the difference between making money and not being able to stay in business. • Highway traffic is necessary to keep many businesses open year round, when the summer tourists have left for the season. Travelers going from Brainerd to Bemidji, and all points in between, will not go out of their way to stop at gas stations, grocery stores, fast food restaurants, liquor stores, etc., if they are not along the highway. Travelers want the convenience that the communities to the North and South of us will be able to provide because they will still have the Highway going through their town. o With an uncertain timeline for when the Bypass may happen or what the ultimate impact of what the bypass may be, it will limit the number of people who are willing to invest in this community, without receiving significant financial inducements (i.e. tax abatement, TIF, or significantly reduced rents). It will increase the likelihood that prospective investors will invest in other communities that are not being bypassed where their investment is not dependent on when/if MnDOT finally receives funding to build a bypass.