Saint Peter and CoNorth partner on first-of-its-kind cooperative neighborhood

The City of Saint Peter and CoNorth are partnering to create a first-of-its-kind cooperative neighborhood designed to expand affordable homeownership — and demonstrate a new approach that could be replicated by communities across Minnesota.

On August 24, the Saint Peter City Council approved a development agreement with CoNorth to begin design, engineering, financing and development of a new neighborhood along Klein Street. Planned for up to 60 new facility-built homes, the project brings together the resources and expertise of the City and CoNorth to create high-quality, attainable homes with long-term affordability and resident ownership built into the neighborhood from the beginning.

The Saint Peter project responds to a shortage of attainable, entry-level homeownership opportunities, particularly in smaller communities where new construction can be difficult to attract. New facility-built homes can provide new-construction quality at a significantly lower cost than comparable site-built homes.

What makes the project unique is the way the neighborhood is being created. Residents will own their individual homes and cooperatively own the land, while the City will own the public streets and utilities. The neighborhood will also include green space and a park. This structure combines the benefits of cooperative ownership with publicly maintained infrastructure, avoiding costly infrastructure challenges that have affected many older manufactured home communities.

“This agreement represents a huge step forward — not just for this project, but for what we believe is possible for affordable homeownership across Minnesota,” said Victoria Clark-West, Executive Director of CoNorth. “We know there is enormous demand statewide for quality, attainable homeownership, particularly for first-time buyers and seniors who increasingly find themselves priced out of traditional new construction. This project gives us an opportunity to build something different from the beginning: a beautiful neighborhood where the homes are affordable, the community is resident-owned, and the people who live there have a meaningful stake in its future.”

The development agreement formalizes a partnership that has been taking shape between CoNorth and the City of Saint Peter over several years. The partners will work together on planning, platting, engineering, infrastructure financing and construction. Target home prices are between $150,000 and $300,000 — price points made possible in part through the public-nonprofit collaboration.

For CoNorth, the Saint Peter project represents an evolution of more than 25 years of work helping residents of manufactured home communities become owners of the land beneath their homes. It is also the first major demonstration of CoNorth’s New North initiative, which applies the lessons of resident ownership to the creation of entirely new neighborhoods.

By combining municipal infrastructure and planning expertise with CoNorth’s experience in cooperative ownership and manufactured housing, the partners hope Saint Peter can provide a model other Minnesota communities can adapt to address their own housing needs.

The development is expected to proceed in phases, with approximately 20 homes in each phase. Infrastructure work for the first phase is currently anticipated to begin in summer 2027, subject to completion of design, zoning, financing and other required approvals.

“This milestone is the result of a tremendous amount of partnership and problem-solving,” Clark-West said. “The City of Saint Peter has approached this project as a true partner, recognizing that creating more affordable homeownership requires communities to be willing to do things differently. We’re incredibly excited to move from planning what this neighborhood could be to making it real.”