By: Elizabeth Ryan

A public comment period on the proposed plans for UMore Park development ended Wednesday and Rosemount, Minn. residents are concerned with water use, population growth and hazardous waste issues.

The University of Minnesota purchased UMore Park in the 1940s. Plans for the now-5,000-acre plot south of the Twin Cities include sand and gravel mines, industrial areas and a sustainable community for about 25,000 people.

Earlier this month, Rosemount commissioned an Alternative Urban Areawide Review modeling plans for the area’s future and addressing environmental issues.

“The AUAR gives the opportunity to prepare for different scenarios,” said Carla Carlson, executive director of UMore Development LLC. “You can’t anticipate all that can happen over decades.”

The Metropolitan Council voiced its concern with the proposed community’s water use in a letter to Rosemount senior planner Eric Zweber on Tuesday.

Long-term research from the council on groundwater availability suggests water resources in the UMore Park area would “considerab[ly]” decline in the next 30 years.

The UMore community will depend on groundwater, leading to “significant concerns” from the council.

Dakota County staff members expressed similar concerns in another memo to Zweber.

“Groundwater may not be an adequate or feasible long-term water source,” the staff members said.

Rosemount resident Martha Hendrickson also had concerns about the proposal’s impact on the future of the city.

“Think of the long-term future hundreds of years from now,” she said in an email comment on the AUAR. “Think of our descendants, and ask whether they will have any natural spaces left.”

Hendrickson said people shouldn’t have to drive out of their way to appreciate natural spaces. With the proposed use of natural spaces in UMore Park, she said she worries Rosemount would lose its connection to its prairie roots.

“It’s urban sprawl, and it’s ugly,” she said. “… Don’t add to it … Keep Rosemount beautiful.”

For more on resident and agency responses to UMore development, pick up Wednesday’s Minnesota Daily.