Fargo considers controversial Edgewood proposal tonight

FARGO – City leaders tonight could finalize a controversial housing development on the site of the former Cardinal Muench Seminary in north Fargo.
The City Commission will conduct a public hearing on the 59-home Edgewood Estates proposal at 100 35th Ave. N. before voting to approve or deny the plan being proposed by Comstock Holding Co.
The 89-acre development has drawn enough opposition from neighboring property owners that it will require a supermajority vote – four out of the five commissioners – in order to pass.
The City Commission meets at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 200 3rd St. N. Public hearings are scheduled to start at 5:15 p.m.
Neighbors have crowded prior city meetings, signed petitions and sent letters to City Hall arguing that the development will bring more traffic and noise to their quiet slice of north Fargo. Concerns have also been aired about building too close to the Red River and how the new homes will affect drainage in the existing neighborhood.
A study done earlier this year by a Bloomington, Minn., traffic consulting firm found the new development would have a “negligible” effect on traffic in the neighborhood.
About 36 percent of neighbors have protested the proposal, according to city documents. The city’s land development code states that if 20 percent or more of owners within 300 feet of the property protest, a supermajority City Commission vote is required to alter zoning.
The land is zoned agricultural. Comstock is asking it to be changed to a combination of single-dwelling residential, and public and institutional.
Despite the protest, the Planning Commission, a subcommittee to the City Commission, signed off on the proposal in early June.
Some Planning Commission members cited the importance of infill and the positive effect this development could have on nearby Longfellow Elementary enrollment, which is projected to lose students over the next few years.
Neighbors packed that planning meeting to complain that the developer hadn’t yet held a neighborhood meeting. Such a meeting was held at Longfellow last week and about 72 people attended, according to city documents.