By Sara QuamThe Luverne Planning Commission is recommending the city allow Dingmann Funeral Home on Fledgling Field.That recommendation was passed Monday night after a public hearing that aired opinions on both sides of the issue. Commission member Mike Reker voted against the permit recommendation, saying it goes against the city’s new Comprehensive Plan. Other members of the Planning Commission are Jerry McGuire, Mike Jarchow, Dan Serie and Chairman Pat Baustian. The Luverne City Council has the final vote on the permit, and the Planning Commission will approve specific conditions for the construction at another meeting. The Council could vote on the funeral home construction as early as Feb. 14. Fledgling Field is the common name for the green space between Luverne and Brown Streets on Highway 75 (Kniss Avenue). Resident Warren Herreid spoke in favor of allowing the construction. He said he believed he represented a quiet majority of the town that believes the funeral home should be allowed there. As a member of the "famous Glen’s afternoon coffee group," he said, "I’m in favor of it, recognizing that I don’t live right next to it." Jim Harner, however, does. He said, "It is a residential neighborhood and has been as long as Luverne has been in existence and it’s not the proper place for commercial development of any kind."He read excerpts from the Comprehensive Plan, passed in 2004, which he felt backed up his opinion.The plan says the city should seek "to sustain and enhance the residential quality of the Kniss Avenue corridor north of Main Street." The plan says that redevelopment should focus on residential uses.Harner said, "I just think these items were included in the Comprehensive Plan. It focuses on the continuity of the neighborhood without the influence of commercial uses."Harner said, "If we’re going to pay $50,000 for a new Comprehensive Plan, we’d better follow it. It is a road map for the future."A place for everythingIn 2005 the city of Luverne passed zoning changes that reflected what was in the Comprehensive Plan.As a part of that rezoning, Fledgling Field became a Downtown Zone, which could allow a funeral home as a conditional use. Funeral homes, like many specific businesses, aren’t expressly mentioned in any particular zone.Owner Dan Dingmann was able to apply for this permit because of the zoning change. He previously was denied permission to build there because the zone of Fledgling Field was strictly residential.Dingmann, since 2003, has been working with the city to move his funeral home business to the vacated clinic, but those negotiations have stalled recently.Before that, he tried to locate to Fledgling Field in 2000.Resident Jeff Wollman said he didn’t understand why Fledgling Field is seen as a potential funeral home site."I can’t really put my finger on why it has to be in this location, why it’s so important," he saidWollman said people go to funeral homes whether they are in high traffic, high visibility areas or not, so South Highway 75 or further north of town would be just as appropriate.Wollman said he went to some of the first Comprehensive Plan meetings and remembers consultants specifically saying a funeral home wouldn’t be a good fit on Fledgling Field.City Attorney Ben Vander Kooi said to the Commission, "The Comprehensive Plan was designed to allow flexibility in the Downtown Area and that’s what we have today."Most ‘aye’ one ‘nay’ Commission member Mike Reker explained his vote against the recommendation.He said he didn’t want to go against what the Comprehensive Plan showed as a guide for Luverne’s planning and zoning.Reker said, "When we first talked about the Comprehensive Plan, I asked if it was going to be an expensive way to get a funeral home on Fledgling Field and I was told ‘no.’"He said placing conditions on businesses isn’t always effective in the long term because those conditions are difficult to enforce. Reker said many zoning problems and nuisance issues in the city in the past few years have yet to be solved, so he has little faith in the effectiveness of conditional use permits."I’m of the opinion that once you let a business build, you step back and let them do their thing."Reker said other areas of town have room for business growth."To me," Reker said, "it’s not about how nice it’s going to look — it’s about whether we want businesses in residential areas."Chairman Pat Baustian said at first he leaned toward voting against the permit recommendation.But, he said, "The residential quality, I don’t think, will be brought down by a funeral home."Commission member Mike Jarchow lives next to a church, with a large parking lot, bright lighting and high traffic with Sunday services, weeknight meetings and funeral services. He said he and his family don’t have a problem with those issues.Jarchow said that with being on Highway 75 and near traffic already, residents in the area of Fledgling Field shouldn’t be negatively impacted by a relatively quiet business.Commission member Dan Serie said he’s thought about the Fledgling Field and funeral home issue for about five years."Driving up and down the neighborhood," Serie said, "it’s hard not to notice the beautiful homes, but it’s also hard not to notice the gas station, the churches and the water tower."This isn’t the first time the funeral home issue has been in the public eye.
Cornerstone Construction purchased Fledgling Field in March 2000 for $41,000 from the Luverne School District in an auction. Cornerstone was going to build the funeral home and sell it to Dingmann.
Fledgling Field was zoned R-1, or low-density residential, which is held in the highest esteem in the city codes, and is the most difficult to develop, outside of single-family dwellings. A funeral home wasn’t allowed as a conditional use within R-1 zones. During the process some neighbors were adamant that the area not become anything other than the grassy park it had been for years.
After many meetings and debates about the legitimacy of a funeral home in the residential area, Cornerstone Construction planted alfalfa on the plot of land in 2001.
The next attempt at developing Fledgling Field was at the end of 2001, when the Planning Commission voted to recommend rezoning the area R-2, which allows more flexibility to properties because it is a higher density residential zone.Cornerstone withdrew the request to rezone it R-2 when it became clear that the Luverne City Council wouldn’t follow the recommendation of the Planning Commission.
In 2002 talk turned to zoning Fledgling Field R-I, or residential institutional, where funeral homes are allowed as a conditional use.That application was put on hold, so the city’s new Comprehensive Plan could be drafted without too much emphasis put on the future of Fledgling Field.
Sioux Valley’s 2003 plans to move the hospital and clinic to the north edge of Luverne changed all the previous plans for Fledgling Field and Dingmann. The city and Dingmann had a tentative agreement for him to purchase the clinic portion in order to remodel it into a funeral home.
In February 2005, the Luverne City Council rezoned portions of the city, including Fledgling Field.Negotiations over specific prices and work on the former clinic to be done by Dingmann or the city stalled in late 2005 … so the Fledgling Field construction issue was re-opened in January 2006.Fledgling Field has a long, rich history in local politics. In September 1894 the Luverne School Board got voter approval to purchase a site at the southeast corner of Kniss and Brown streets for $1,750. In November 1895, the new high school building was ready for occupancy.The new structure was made of quartzite mined from local quarries. The building was enlarged and remodeled a few times through the years. Eventually it became too small to meet the expanding needs of the Luverne school system.In 1956 the present high school was built. The old building was soon razed, but the quartzite rock from which it was built was recycled and used in a house that the late writer Frederick Manfred built north of Luverne. That house is the interpretive center for Blue Mounds State Park today. Since then, the lots have been open, green space.Luverne’s Dingmann Funeral Home has about 60 visitations a year, lasting about four hours each, falling somewhere between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. The plans call for the funeral home on Fledgling Field to be 7,130 square feet, surrounded by 45 percent green space. There will be 41 parking spaces, two of which will be marked for handicapped. Dingmann will be required to provide buffers of trees or shrubbery to protect neighbors from direct shine of car lights at night. They will likely ask him to have deflective parking lot lights positioned not to shine on residents’ homes either.He will have more specific conditions that will be passed at an upcoming Planning Commission meeting.
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