Building Around Nature

Alternative Routes
Not all developments that follow conservation practices have easements on the property. Tamarack Point in Cable, Wis., is a case in point. The developer, Property Focus LLC of Edina, plans to restore 1,800 feet of shoreline that will be shared among eighteen to twenty year-round, high-end cottages on this fifty-five-acre site, which is protected by association covenants. “We are really obsessed with water quality and protecting the lake,” says developer Mike Burg. “I believe in shared lakeshore. The traditional Wisconsin style of development, carving up lakeshore, can’t go on.” Tamarack Point was purchased from a single owner who had a cabin on the property’s peninsula. “We are removing the cabin and restoring the land to native grasses and trees,” Burg says.

Credit River Territory in Credit River Township is another such development. This 700-acre site has thirty-three acres of wetland, 142 acres of prairie and meadows, and some wooded areas protected by association covenants. The number of homes that will be built on the site is still not determined, according to Paul Heuer, vice president of development for Laurent Development in Shakopee. “We’ve contemplated conservation easements but we haven’t taken that step,” Heuer says.

Another very large development, Spirit of Brandtjen Farm in Lakeville, took another route to protect natural areas. This 550-acre site will eventually have 2,109 housing units and 150,000 square feet of mixed-use space. The developer, Tradition Development of Edina, sold a twelve-acre old-growth woodland that lines the lakeshore slope for a steep discount to the City of Lakeville so that it could be preserved through an easement and added to the adjacent forty acres of parkland now being restored. “This lakeshore has an extremely high public value,” says Rob Wachholz of Tradition Development.

Protecting Water & Treading Lightly
A second major principle of conservation development is the use of  living ecological systems for storm water infiltration and purification. Portico on the Green uses a series of rain gardens, also called vegetative swales, to clean storm water runoff before it enters the soil. “The system helps control phosphorus and other pollutants so they don’t get into the wetlands,” says Waters, adding that all runoff will be kept from entering the property’s rare sedge meadow.

Each development has conservation concerns that are specific to its site. The Cannon Bluffs development, for example, uses such vegetative swales to not only cleanse runoff but also prevent erosion of the riverbanks. Credit River Territory has protected the Credit River and one of its tributaries through the use of treatment ponds and swales. Inspiration uses a series of linked landscape elements, including swales, prairies, and wetlands, that treat runoff naturally as it runs through the property.

To protect the 143-acre Cable Lake, Tamarack Point is going against the grain by setting its closest cottage to the lake 200 feet back from the lakeshore edge rather than right near the shoreline, and it is using a holding septic system, which differs from a traditional or mound septic system in that the waste is actually picked up and periodically taken to a treatment plant. “We like the holding tank concept because there will be nothing in the soil,” Burg says.

When placing Tamarack Point cottages, Burg’s group used selective cutting and kept the foundation size of each home small, at 1,600 to 2,500 square feet. “Less is more,” says Burg, since smaller means that more land is left as wilderness. As a way to preserve natural areas, Lino Lakes’ Foxborough development reduced its average lot size and the street right-of-ways to 50 feet, rather than the typical 60 feet. “The homes, which all back up to protected natural areas, are closer to the street, which uses less land,” says Black.