By Shawn Hogendorf

Staff Writer

 Gene Berens, 69, of Spring Lake Township, is running unopposed for the township board supervisor position in the Nov. 7 election.

Berens has lived in the township for 43 years. He moved to Spring Lake Township from Swift County in western Minnesota in 1963. He has served on the board for the past 10 years as chairman and spent 15 years on the board as a supervisor.

Berens and his wife Rhoda are both retired. They have two sons, Doug, 44, and Kevin, 41, and four grandchildren who live in Spring Lake Township and attend Prior Lake High School. Berens has a high-school education and served in the military for two years. He is a retired contractor, home builder and small commercial builder.

“The main reason I am running for township supervisor is to improve the relationship between the board and the citizens,” Berens said. “The people of Spring Lake Township are all nice people, and I look forward to working for them.”

Berens said that the two biggest issues facing the township are annexation and the 2030 Comprehensive Plan, which deals with the density of the township’s development.

“I would like to see the township’s comp plan go to one plot per 2½ acres, as opposed to one plot per 10 acres,” Berens said.

Berens’ biggest concern, regarding the comp plan and annexation, is to the area of the township south of 180th Street.

 “I hope that we can change the comp plan, so the people who have 10-acre plots can split [their plots] up and put two or three more lots on it, so they could do that and retire,” Berens said.

By changing the comp plan to 2½ acres, people could stay part of the township, which would help the tax base because there would be more houses to tax, Berens said.

“With a tax base on one [lot] per 10 acres it’s hard to maintain the roads, because the houses are so far apart. If we go to a 2½-acre lot, we get more taxes to maintain the roads and less assessment when they fix the roads,” he said.

Berens said he would like to see the township keep the area south of 180th Street, rather than lose it to annexation. “If the township gets much smaller, it becomes difficult to operate because there would not be enough taxed space,” he said.

“We have a road structure that can handle development; all they need is improvement. With a 2½-acre comp plan, developers can buy the lots, and build roads within their developments. It’s a win-win situation,” Berens said.

Berens said that it is important to change the township from 10-acre plots to 2½-acre lots, because it is difficult to develop 10-acre lots.

“People have to ask so much for 10-acre lots, that they don’t sell,” he said. 

In addition to the difficulty selling larger plots, Berens said that by changing the plot size, it is more difficult for contractors and developers to buy property, bulldoze it and build new developments.

“It would keep [Spring Lake Township] more rural,” Berens said. “Contractors did that in one area of the township on 180th Street. They came in and gave [the residents] a great price, then they bulldozed a new house, put in sewers and water and built a development,” Berens said. “With 2½-acre lots, they can’t do that so easily, because they have to buy out three or four people instead of just one.”

The board has tried to satisfy the people of Spring Lake Township with the timing of annexing the land in specific areas, Berens said.

“If you look at the annexation maps, some of those areas are 10-acre lots,” Berens said. “Those areas were people who were a few years from retirement, so we worked them into that year’s annex. That way, when they were ready to sell they could get the big bucks,” Berens said.

In addition to the comprehensive plan and annexation, another issue that faces the township, Berens said, is the battle to remain a rural area vs., becoming more urban.

“There is a big squabble over rural areas becoming more urban. People don’t like a bunch of houses moving in next to them, so we would like to keep that line at 180th Street as a divide. The city of Prior Lake has been good about keeping a buffer between the two by putting up lines of trees, so the people with 10-acre lots don’t see a bunch of new houses,” Berens said.

Berens said the Metropolitan Council decided that the township needed to have four residents per acre in order to run sewer and water to the township.

“If you take a map of the wetlands of Spring Lake Township, you’d see that you would have to, on every hill, have a high-rise to get that many people out there in order to make up for 160 houses, which would be on top of swamps to make those numbers. There are a lot of big swamps in the township that we want to preserve and have houses around them, but that back up to them and keep them,” he said.

Berens said that his favorite thing about Spring Lake Township is the rural feeling.

“I’m lucky; I have 40 acres and people can’t get any closer to me. I have Cleary Park on one side and 190th Street on the other. It’s good living.”

 Shawn Hogendorf can be reached at (952) 345-6374 or shogendorf@swpub.com.