The south metro area would be excluded from millions of dollars in grants for innovative new sprawl-busting development under a proposal working its way through the Metropolitan Council.

So-called Livable Communities dollars were a key element in Burnsville's Heart of the City project. But another Burnsville plan, to turn an aging strip mall into senior housing, will be out of luck if the proposed list survives, even though it came within a single point of qualifying.

Three other south metro proposals, including two in Rosemount and one in Apple Valley, fell far shorter of the mark and would seem to have little shot.

But the Burnsville cutoff seems likely to draw debate. Met Council member Wendy Wulff, of Lakeville, who represents much of Dakota County though not Burnsville, expressed concern over the decision -- especially considering that it means the two central cities will get far more money than they are supposed to under the council's guidelines.

"Some of the 'not-Minneapolis, not-St. Paul' cities," she said last week as a council committee was told of the recommendations, "don't have huge staffs to do these applications. I'm concerned that we're going over the 40 percent [benchmark for the two central cities] without making sure other applicants had the opportunity to score higher" by making last-minute changes in their plans.

But Dan Marckel, of St. Paul, an urban designer and architect who is vice chairman of the advisory panel that drew up the list, said Burnsville is hardly a sleepy village out in the cornfields.

"Burnsville has huge capacity to do projects compared to other communities," he said. "The feeling on this project was, it could be done, the partners are very credible, but it didn't match up with the criteria for this funding source. They're proposing to build senior housing on this site. They have built a lot in other places," and there's nothing that innovative about what they're proposing.

"It's a painful one to say this on, but while it's great people and a great configuration, it needs to cook a little longer."

New model for living, transit

The Livable Communities program is designed to help create new models of development that are tied to transit corridors. The idea is to show that it's possible to create attractive new environments that pack people more tightly together in taller buildings, allow them to walk to stores and take trains or buses on longer trips, and curb auto-dependent sprawl.

At issue this year is what's being called the Valley Ridge Redevelopment, a 14-acre site near the intersection of Burnsville Parkway and County Road 5. Dakota County wants to work with Presbyterian Homes to create 80 units of senior apartments and 60 assisted-living units.

Another suburban project that is being recommended for full funding, about $850,000 worth, is also from Presbyterian Homes: a senior housing tower of up to 13 stories in the Eden Prairie Center area. Eden Prairie's development chief serves on the committee that drew up the list of projects recommended for approval, although the group always insists that insiders play no part in those decisions.

The Metropolitan Council is appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. After he took office in 2003, a new Republican-dominated council took note of the complaints of suburbs that the two big cities were claiming the lion's share of the pool of money, which this year amounts to about $4 million. They imposed a 40 percent cap on those cities' portion of the kitty and have kept roughly to that figure ever since.

But if this year's list goes through as currently drawn up, council officials say, the big cities' take would be closer to 65 percent. That furrowed some brows among suburban members. Met Council Chairman Peter Bell, of Minneapolis, did tell advisory committee members that they can think of the cap as a rolling average over time, and not something that needs to be slavishly kept to each year.

The highest-scoring projects this year were ones that seek to help revive an important corridor in north Minneapolis, Broadway Avenue; that place apartments close to the Central Corridor light rail in St. Paul; that turn a riverfront industrial site in Watertown, west of Lake Minnetonka, into senior housing near the Luce Line trail; and that revive an obsolete apartment complex in Roseville near that city's big shopping mall and buses.

The other south metro project to at least make the list of finalists was the Genz-Ryan project in downtown Rosemount: $270,000 to demolish three buildings and prepare the site for a new use. The committee gave a stiff thumbs-down to that one, describing it as replacing "a one-story development with another one-story development set back from the street with surface parking and pervious surface, missing an opportunity to maximize the potential of the site."

"We're just trying to garner more interest and, I think, level the playing field," Kim Lindquist, Rosemount's community development director, said when the application was submitted. " 'Greenfield' development" -- new buildings at the edge, on land never built on before -- "is easier and cheaper than redevelopment."

Two south metro applications failed to make the list of finalists because of concern over the pace of completion, in an era when many past recipients are asking for extensions in time. Those were for Rosemount's Central Park and for help in developing a site near a transit station in Apple Valley.

The next step is for the council's community development committee to vote on the list on Jan. 4, then forward it on to the full council for a final reckoning.

David Peterson • 952-882-9023