An exciting new green workforce housing project will be planned in Northfield this year, with construction expected to begin in the spring of 2009. Northfield Housing Manager Michele “Mitch” Merxbauer spoke at length about the project with host Ross Currier on yesterday’s Locally Grown podcast.
I’ve had some connection with this project since the late Don Tarr and I began talking
with the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund and Minnesota Green Communities in the spring of 2006 about a possible model green affordable housing project for Northfield. The project of roughly 60 units (primarily single family, with some twin homes/duplexes) will be built on a 14.4 acre parcel of land known as the “Southbridge site,” located roughly midway between Maple Street and Highway 246 at the southeast corner of the Spring Creek Soccer Complex.
The public will have an opportunity to learn more about the project and provide input about what a green development means in the Northfield context at at meeting next Tuesday, March 4th from 6 to 8 pm, the first in a series of opportunities for public input planned for the project.
This project may provide a model for how future residential development of all types is done in the future. This is a golden opportunity for the community to put the new principles of the revised Comprehensive Plan into action.