See all posts in the Mayor & Cities Corner series
(Mayor’s Corner is a regular feature where Carver County mayors share updates, insights, and messages with their communities. Carver Mayor Courtney Johnson is providing this week’s edition.)
Happy fall! This month I’m going to take a deep dive into the topic of development and give you a better idea of how the commercial and industrial development process works in the City of Carver.
Let’s start with the City’s Comprehensive (Comp) Plan. Created with input from Carver residents, the Comp Plan identifies important local goals and objectives and guides future growth and development over the next 20 years. The plan also directs investments in city services such as transportation, water and sewer and parks. The Comp Plan is updated every 10 years and the process for our 2050 plan will begin in 2026. We would love to hear from you during this process. Keep an eye on the city’s website, social media channels and this newsletter for ways to get involved.
You’ll find the Future Land Use Map within the Comp Plan (cityofcarver.com/landusemap). The Future Land Use Map is used to develop policies, strategies and recommendations for land use, infrastructure and development review and approvals. The Land Use plan guides both day-to-day development decisions as well as large-scale policy decisions.
Development of Carver’s designated growth area, primarily located in Dahlgren Township, happens when willing private property owners initiate annexation into the city. The city and Dahlgren Township entered into an Orderly Annexation Agreement in 2009 which lays out reviews and processes that are required when a private landowner decides to be annexed into city limits. The area within our Orderly Annexation Area is shown in our Future Land Use Map.
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of commercial and industrial development. When a business wants to come to Carver, one of the first steps is ensuring it is allowable based on the land guidance in the Comprehensive Plan and a permitted use in the city’s zoning code. The city cannot legally exclude any use. Every use, even those seen as less desirable by some, must be allowed to develop somewhere within the city. We also cannot deny a commercial or industrial development because there is a similar type of user nearby. For example, we couldn’t deny Kwik Trip when we already had Casey’s and the Fleet Farm gas station.
In terms of the approval process, both the Planning Commission, a group of volunteers who meet monthly and are appointed by City Council and the City Council and I all get to review these projects in three phases: Concept Plan, Preliminary Plat and Final Plat. The reviews take place during public meetings where community members are welcome to attend and share their feedback.
During this review cycle, we analyze projects to ensure they fit our zoning code and meet requirements for appropriate access, utilities, park and trail needs
and more. There are several other review processes that a project can require—annexation, rezoning, environmental review, etc., but the standard development review is a three-step process.
The city does not determine the type or which businesses come to our community. We are largely dependent on what the market will support and the businesses that want to come to Carver. Things like number of rooftops, daytime population and even the development within 360 degrees of the area all come into play when a business chooses a new location. That said, we know our residents would love to see a grocery store in Carver and have shared this with
United Properties, the owners of the land by Kwik Trip, HomeTown Bank, Mocha Monkey and Next Steps Learning Center, and they’re working to make it happen.
It is challenging to explain the development process that can take months, or sometimes years, to come to fruition in a newsletter article. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about development or anything that’s going on in our community, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Stay connected, be informed and get involved!
Mayor Courtney Johnson
CJohnson@CityOfCarver.com
Cell: 612.702.7703
Facebook: CarverMayorCourtney
Instagram: Carver_Mayor_Courtney
