The affluent city of Savage is striving to become more affordable and in some pockets is succeeding, the city's planner told the Scott County Board last week.

"We're now 80 percent single-family homes to 20 percent attached," such as townhouses and apartments, Bryan Tucker said. "The Metropolitan Council prefers cities to be closer to 40 percent attached, so we're behind in that aspect. But we have tried to encourage additional growth in town homes."

The latest U.S. Census survey of the bigger Twin Cities suburbs showed Savage with the highest household incomes. Such a measure can be a sign that a city is short on apartments and other affordable housing.

"Affordability is not easy to accomplish," he said, "but we have housing areas that developed in the '70s and '80s that are more affordable and we're happy about having those. We've also done downtown redevelopment for seniors that's more affordable."

Savage is about two-thirds developed. From a population of 21,115 in 2000 it has been projected to rise to 27,900 by 2010 and nearly 40,000 by 2030. But "building permits have really dropped off," Tucker said.

Gone are the days of 600 new units a year, which was "too much, too fast," he said. "We whittled it down to 200 to 300, which we felt was more sustainable. But last year we were at about 60 to 70, and this year we'll probably be lucky to hit that."

The county has invited each city, as it moves to complete its long-range plan, to inform the county board of the general direction of its planning.

Asked by commissioner Jerry Hennen what Savage is doing to help meet the county's goal of half of all residents working within the county by 2030, Tucker said:

"Our business park has recently filled up, but we have additional land in the City Hall area for business uses. We've reserved land for light industrial and offices, which would mean more jobs. We're trying to hold the line on that and not let that land go into residential."

DAVID PETERSON