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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Housing study overplays mining

Posted

The Aug. 7 Timberjay reports on a consultant’s housing study presented to the Ely City Council, Economic Development Authority, and Housing Redevelopment Authority.  The focus of the study, or at least the part reported on, is an asserted need for new housing if Ely regresses to mining town status.  I hope that the Council and the other bodies do not perceive a need to spend a great deal of time thinking about this issue.  If Ely does become a mining town again, plenty of housing will be available.  The retirees and other new people moving to Ely will stop coming, so there won’t be a need for housing for them.  Even better news is that lots of nice houses will be available in the townships around Ely.  According to a University of Minnesota-Morris survey, twenty-three percent of the residents in Morse, Fall Lake, Eagles Nest, and Stony River townships said that mining would cause them to move away.  Many mining cheerleaders would say “good riddance,”  but undoubtedly most Ely business owners would express a decidedly different view in a private conversation.

Reid Carron

Ely, Minn.