Fargo’s insatiable appetite for growth, at any expense, is once again on display

Fargo’s insatiable appetite for growth, along with a familiar willingness to trample the rights and preferences of businesses, individuals, and neighbors, is again on display. It recently came to light over a proposed data center’s plan to build in the area.

News reports surfaced, days ago, amid concerns expressed by residents of Harwood, ND (a small community just north of West Fargo and just northwest of Fargo) about the proposed project. In conjunction with the news, the land upon which Applied Digital Corporation intends to construct its data center was also reported.  

That land lies in a rural area just outside Harwood and within its extraterritorial zoning area. It’s property upon which the city of Fargo has no apparent claim, yet more recent reports reveal that a plan has been hatched by Fargo to quietly annex the land. 

With the cat clearly out of the bag, Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney reportedly revealed that the city had been in talks with Applied Digital previously about locating in Fargo but that the company wasn’t fond of its high fees and regulatory red tape and, thus, changed its mind and decided to deal with the smaller city of Horace, which had fewer fees and a more relaxed regulatory framework (read smaller, less intrusive government/lower taxes).

Rather than reexamine its own tax, fee, and regulatory structure and reform it to make the city more attractive for businesses and, presumably, individuals or families, Fargo apparently reverted, instead, to playing the bully and trying to force the firm to locate within its boundaries, against its will, by quietly annexing the land in question. Forced annexation is not a pretty picture and this is a familiar — though ugly — playbook for North Dakota’s largest, but clearly not friendliest, city.

A few decades ago, no cities in North Dakota had boundaries that touched a neighboring city. Such was the settlement of this region, but with the growth of larger cities and some resulting metropolitan sprawl, neighboring cities’ borders began to touch one another. This begged the question of who had the right to grow where.

The history of extraterritorial zoning

Extraterritorial zoning authority was already the law in North Dakota. The theory behind it was that cities should have the authority to zone the land just outside their limits so that the rural zoning would harmonize with adjacent zoning within the city. No one wanted a residential neighborhood abutting a garbage dump or a noisy, heavy commercial enterprise, with no customary buffers, they thought.

Some in the affected rural areas objected to being controlled by municipalities in which they did not live and, therefore, had little influence (although city planning and zoning boards typically include a rural member to soften the blow). Still, most accepted the concept. There was also the regular assurance that “extraterritorial zoning is not a precursor to annexation”, yet practices which were followed often made it appear as if it were.

Extraterritorial zoning law, which gave cities the authority to zone land just outside their borders, granted larger cities larger ET areas and limited smaller cities to smaller swaths of neighboring land. That was logical, based upon the likelihood of growth and its patterns, but the Legislature understood that all bets were off when the day arrived when cities’ borders touched, so the ET zoning law it crafted in the early ’80s held that the distances authorized applied to “noncontiguous” cities. This indicated a clear understanding that, when cities’ boundaries grew to touch one another, all bets were off and different laws should be passed to address that change. When city borders abutted one another, attempts were made in the Legislature to address the obvious, inherent unfairness the unequal ET distances presented, but it failed to change the law to make it fair.

Sadly, these antics are nothing new

Mild concern turned serious with the advent of cities abutting one another and the lack of Legislative action to address it. No such confrontation was uglier than Fargo’s naked ambition to grow at any cost, often attempting to trample its neighbors in the process. The city began pulling out every maneuver in its bag of tricks in order to gobble up land and the people who lived on it.

Many rural residents southwest of the city complained that they wanted to remain rural—not part of any city—but that if they had to be annexed, they didn’t want to be part of Fargo. They preferred West Fargo. Battles in the Legislature and in the courts ensued. One joke held that Fargo wanted to become a donut and make West Fargo the hole, completely encircling the state’s fifth-largest city and cutting off its own ability to grow.

That didn’t happen, as court battles prevented it, to some extent, and West Fargo and Horace (a small community south of West Fargo and southwest of Fargo) had to scramble to annex enough land so that their respective borders touched, thus cutting off such an aggressive land grab by Fargo’s forced annexation plans. 

All of that has settled down, as the smoke cleared. All three cities have grown substantially since, largely at peace with one another, but the current situation brings back unpleasant memories for many of Fargo’s neighbors.

The city should learn from experience to put greed and lust for land, power, and more tax dollars aside and play nicely with neighbors — something most North Dakotans know very well how to do. Hopefully, there’s still hope for the state’s largest city to learn from them.