Imagine
Duluth's
Neighborhoods
Join Your Neighbors - Sign the Petition
Request an Environmental Assessment Worksheet
The Duluth Heights neighborhood is just like your neighborhood. We strive for a healthy environment that includes smart economic progress to support our families.
Imagine your neighborhood in 2035:
What do you want for your neighborhood's future?
We are concerned that continued commercial development will negatively impact our neighborhood’s environment. Despite consistent requests for the city to uphold their Imagine Duluth 2035 guidelines, a 4-story hotel has been approved for construction between wetlands and Miller Creek (which is classified as an impaired trout stream by the Environmental Protection Agency).
Water is easy to contaminate but very expensive to clean up.
Clean water is essential for good health, clean water is more affordable for citizens, and clean water supports economic development, especially for the businesses that rely on it.
What is this petition for?
We are petitioning city officials to conduct an environmental review of the proposed hotel development by Kinseth Hospitality on Sundby Road. An Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) is necessary due to this building's adjacency to Miller Creek and wetlands within the St. Louis River Watershed.
In the end it's going to take action by city residents to affect any real change.
-Brian Fredrickson, PCA Project Manager
"Duluth streams hard-hit by development", Duluth News Tribune, March 19, 2018
There are still numerous outstanding environmental questions that remain unanswered. Environmental impact in one neighborhood affects the entire city.
Imagine if this was your neighborhood, wouldn't you want the city leadership to do their due diligence to prevent possible environmental impact?
Why is a single hotel an issue?
The proposed hotel will be built on 6 of the 33 acres of land that the developer owns along Sundby Road and Miller Creek. Proper checks and balances must be established in order to prevent harmful precedents from being set. If the remaining 27 acres get developed, it is important that future projects are executed sustainably.
We want and value economic progress, but without hidden costs. When wetlands are impacted by hardscape (buildings, parking lots), additional pollution enters our waterways. Taxpayers have already invested $965,000 in the ongoing Miller Creek restoration project across the street from the proposed hotel and will continue to do so unless environmental protections are followed.
Economic progress is difficult to achieve if every dollar earned is spent correcting the problems it creates.
How can Miller Creek be improved?
It starts with mitigating existing issues and limiting new ones. Miller Creek has been impaired since 2002, but giving up on Miller Creek just makes it easier for the next creek to be abused. Which waterway is next: Amity Creek, Chester Creek, Lester River? All of which are also impaired.
Neighborhoods, especially near bodies of water, should be concerned about the precedent that this construction will set. If EAWs are not properly and consistently conducted, environmental concerns can not be identified and therefore, can not be addressed; resulting in continued pollution of the watersheds that provide us with safe drinking water.
