By the narrowest of margins, the Lake Elmo City Council voted late Tuesday to slap a yearlong moratorium on growth.

The heatedly contested 3-2 vote was the culmination of a 2014 election that tossed out incumbents who had approved a sudden surge of new housing units in a Washington County community famed for its decadeslong resistance to conventional suburban development.

"The election spoke that the general populace doesn't want 30,000 people or 24,000 people in Lake Elmo," said veteran Council Member Anne Smith. "The 8,000 people who live here didn't want any of it."

Although the ban is full of exceptions, Mayor Mike Pearson warned that it could still scare away the types of lucrative freeway's-edge commercial development that no one on the council dislikes.

"It's almost as if we're trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here," he said. "If we had a corporate headquarters proposed [in areas affected by the ban], would we not like to get that? They will not even bother knockin' at our door. They will go elsewhere."

But newly elected Council Member Julie Fliflet described it as "just an interim ordinance, a chance to take a breath."

"Within a short period of time [last year] an awful lot of housing units were approved, more than I think I could ever have fathomed," she said. "We need to take a step back and reassess."

A key question, she said, is this: Now that the Metropolitan Council has agreed to ratchet back its expectations for the city's growth, "have we already hit their population target for 2040, and is there a chance we don't have to put in all this development?"

Exceptions to the ban include the large number of units the council approved last year, a senior housing project that has recently been proposed and commercial development the council deems beneficial.

Even so, Council Member Justin Bloyer warned of potential litigation from people who expected to be able to develop, and City Attorney Dave Snyder spoke of the "potential for complications."

City Planner Kyle Klatt described the move as a bridge between the city's higher growth expectations in the past, and the lower, still informal target of 18,200 residents by 2040.

David Peterson • 651-925-5039