St. Louis County commissioners want to leave room for development at Lake Vermilion

A St. Louis County commissioner unveiled a plan Tuesday that would scale back the state park at Lake Vermilion by a third to create room for up to 70 high-end homes on about 1,000 acres on and near the lakeshore.

Keith Nelson of Eveleth said his plan would allow a state park and natural resource protection but also would add millions of dollars of property tax base to the county’s rolls.

Though the county has no formal role in the state park effort, Nelson and other commissioners said they hope the Department of Natural Resources will consult with the county before finalizing any deal with U.S. Steel.

“This is intended to be a starting point to initiate dialogue,” Nelson said Tuesday at the board’s Committee of the Whole meeting in Duluth.

The board took no action on the issue and seems to have little action to take. It’s not clear what, if any, impact Nelson’s plan might have as the state moves forward with the purchase and park development. Nelson said he planned to present his plan to Iron Range lawmakers later this week.

The County Board already is on record supporting U.S. Steel’s previous plan to develop 170 homes on the Lake Vermilion property, and several commissioners say they would rather see property taxes paid on million-dollar homes than a new park. U.S. Steel officials have said they will move forward with the Three Bays on Vermilion development if the deal with the DNR falls through.

“I don’t think this park belongs there at all,” said Commissioner Dennis Fink of Duluth.

Nelson, Fink and others say expanding tax base is critical to help pay for county services, and they noted 63 percent of the county already is in public management — county, state or federal — and not contributing to the tax base.

But others said there already are hundreds of high-end homes on Lake Vermilion and that the public deserves access to the beautiful lake and shoreline. They said the park will allow most of the land to remain undisturbed and that thousands of tourists each year will pump more money into the county than hundreds of seasonal home owners.

“A lot of us agree that we don’t need more millionaires on Vermilion; we need more people in Tower and Soudan,” said Bob Tammen of Tower.

Pawlenty, the DNR, conservation groups and many DFL lawmakers support the park, saying it would preserve the last, best undeveloped property on the big lake that’s easily accessible.

Walt Moe, past president of the Vermilion Sportsman’s Club and a Lake Vermilion resident, agreed.

A large housing development “would cause untold damage to that part of the lake,” Moe told commissioners Tuesday. “Injecting the county into the process now is just going to muddy the waters.”

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