City to consider guidelines for West End apartments

After approving a conditional use permit to add two ground-floor apartments to the building at 120 Ave. C in the West End commercial district, the Cloquet Planning Commission is now taking another look at the West End.

During the Cloquet City Council work session March 18, city planning/zoning administrator Al Cottingham explained that the city attorney thought the conditional use permit granted for the apartments — allowing owners Ryan & Zach, LLC greater density than the 20 units per acre currently allowed — may have violated City Code. Cottingham noted the code is ambiguous and needed to be clarified: depending on interpretation, apartments may or may not be allowed on the ground floor in the six-block area of the West End Business District.

After discussions with the council, Cottingham said he will have the members of the planning commission consider a change to the city code, and suggested they consider the following four options:

•Don’t change the code and allow only second-floor apartments above a retail space on the ground floor;

•Allow apartments on the ground floor, but only if the property owner keeps an area up front for retail business;

•Allow the entire ground floor to be apartments, without retaining any kind of storefront;

•Allow ground-floor apartments, but require the property owner to retain the appearance of a commercial storefront, including any display windows.

Economic development director Holly Hansen explained that the city’s economic development authority is currently trying to encourage more commercial development in the historic West End through a combination of loan and grant programs to property owners who operate their own businesses.

There are a number of vacant storefronts in the West End, but Hansen has previously explained that most of the properties’ cash flow are from the upstairs apartments.

“How much of that kind of development do we want to allow in a commercial area?” at-large councilor Lara Wilkinson asked the group. “Then again, there are a lot of vacant buildings there. And a housing shortage.”

Cottingham said there will be a public hearing on the subject before any decision is made by the planning commission or the council.