11/03/2026
Urgent Prayer Request
We are asking all Pacem supporters to please pray for the following intention.
A nearby property owner is desiring to re-zone their property from agricultural to business or light industrial. This goes against Isanti County's own stated Comprehensive Plan, Imagine 2045. The Comprehensive Plan the Commission helped write in 2024 makes preservation of agricultural land a central land use goal. It also sets clear conditions for when commercial or industrial rezoning may be appropriate. This parcel is not adjacent to an existing Business, Industry, or Rural Service Center district. It does not meet the plan's location test.
It also fails the plan's compatibility test. Imagine 2045 asks the County to weigh a rezoning's effect on surrounding uses. What we offer is silence and solitude in a rural setting. Traffic, lighting, noise, and activity at all hours would undermine that.
The risk is open-ended. A commercial or industrial designation does not approve one business. It opens the land, forever, to any use the district allows, including a liquor store, a bar, a retail operation, an industrial operation, or more. Once the zoning changes, the County's leverage over what comes next largely ends.
In addition, the plan states that rezoning should not harm surrounding agricultural uses, and that an Industrial district should not be established within 1,000 feet of any property used primarily for residential purposes. There is currently a residence located quite close to the existing outbuilding, where the business would be located.
We are seeking fervent prayer that the request for re-zoning be denied by the Isanti County Planning Commission. The Commission is meeting Thursday, November 12 at 6 p.m. at the Isanti County Government Center in Cambridge. Anyone is welcome to attend for public comment. Pacem will have a representative on-hand to provide vocal opposition.
