Take a step off Dawn Keller’s curb and you’ll soon be standing in the parking lot drop-off of the Etna Station, the Clarence Street entranceway to the Gold Line corridor.
Keller’s front-door view once consisted of a woodsy tree lot frequented by a family of deer — “three of them,” she said. “Mom, baby and daddy.”
The trees are all gone, as is the adjoining sloping grass hill, all demolished to make room for Metro Transit’s $505.3 million bus rapid transit project, a 10-mile route that will connect downtown St. Paul to Woodbury following bus-only lanes parallel to the highway for much of the trip. Keller now has an unobstructed view of construction debris, and beyond that, U.S. 61.
By March 2025, Gold Line buses could roll into the Etna Station up to every 10 minutes at rush hour, passing just to the side of her house from early morning until late at night using a new bridge and elevated guideway under construction over Johnson Parkway. A massive highway noise wall went up about two months ago along the entrance ramp to Interstate 94, directly next to her property.
“I’ve got to do something,” said Keller, 60, a former teacher’s aide who has lived at the end of the Clarence Street cul-de-sac, or a house that was once across the street from it, since 1997. “I never had a problem with (the Gold Line) until they threw me in the middle of it. It’s not where I want to be — the middle of a bus station.”
Sought a buyout
Dawn Keller on the front porch her home in St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Keller’s view of wooded hills has been transformed into a construction site as Metro Transit’s Gold Line bus rapid transit project is built just feet from her front door. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Since 2019, Keller has asked the Metropolitan Council — the regional planning agency that oversees Metro Transit — to buy out her home, which she lives in through a contract-for-deed. The Met Council has been unresponsive, according to David Drach, an attorney from Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services who joined her effort last summer.
“Their response is they’ve done everything legally required,” Drach said. “This will totally transform her quality of life.”
Laura Baenen, a spokesperson for the Met Council, said the agency has not acquired any other homes to build the Gold Line and does not have a public purpose or need for Keller’s property. Acquiring private property for a public project might otherwise trigger a price negotiation and relocation benefit under state law, but Met Council officials have said that’s not relevant in her case.
Baenen forwarded an unsigned statement from the Met Council: “We understand the frustration transportation projects create. The Met Council has worked closely with this resident and has made some minor changes based on her feedback. Unfortunately, by law, the Met Council cannot pay off any debt on this property or compensate the owner.”
St. Paul, not the Met Council, offered $209,000 for relocation
Construction trucks rumble past Dawn Keller’s home in St. Paul’s Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood overlooking the what will be Metro Transit’s Gold Line on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Officials with the city of St. Paul came to a different conclusion.
When she was still in office, former St. Paul City Council member Jane Prince visited Keller and was moved to tears.
“She came out here and literally cried when she found out what they were doing,” Keller said. “She said, this isn’t right.”
Clarence Street is a city street, so Prince felt the city had some obligation to help. Nearly a decade ago, the city’s Gold Line station area plans contemplated the possibility of a sizable multi-family apartment building directly across from Keller’s property, with a commercial storefront on ground level.
“In the Etna Station Area, the property at the northwest corner of Etna Street and Wilson Avenue may have long-term potential for large-scale mixed-use development due to its size and proximity to the station, provided that the pedestrian environment is improved,” reads the city’s station area report from 2015. “Land use change should occur immediately around the Etna Station through the creation of new developable land.”
With the possibility of future development in mind, Prince found $209,000 in city coffers that could be used to attempt to buy out Keller’s property. It’s still not enough, Drach said, to both cover the remaining $60,000 Keller owes on her contract-for-deed and purchase a comparable home.
The city’s offer was based on both the appraised value of her home in August 2023 — $125,000 — and an additional $84,900 to help defray relocation expenses, as required by the state’s relocation law, said Crystal King, a spokesperson for St. Paul Planning and Economic Development, on Tuesday.
And as months pass, those numbers may be in flux.
“The spirit of the offer provided by the city remains available to Ms. Keller,” King said. “However, staff may need to recalculate the previous offer amount based on a dynamic housing market.”
Unsuccessful effort
Drach called the city’s offer generous and appreciated. Still, he noted that Keller, who stopped working years ago after suffering seizures, lives on disability and, based on her age, income and financial history, would not qualify for a traditional mortgage. The two believe that if the Met Council partially matched the city’s $209,000 offer by chipping in an additional $60,000, that would be enough to pay off the debt on her Clarence Street home and relocate her to a similar property elsewhere.
After an unsuccessful effort to meet with Chai Lee, her Met Council district representative, Keller reached out to him again this month by email. He declined an in-person meeting and referred further questions to the Met Council’s attorney and bus rapid transit project manager.
“At this time, the information that staff have communicated is the Council’s position on this matter, and an additional meeting would not result in a change in the Council’s stated position,” wrote Lee, in an April 11 response.
Drach noted that removing Keller’s home would create more room for parking or other amenities attached to the transit station and any future development there. “It would be good for everyone to have that dedicated space,” he said.
For her part, Keller just wants to be away.
“I want out of here,” she said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near this.”
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