A wealthy Minnesota lake town has been branded with an unfortunate nickname after an uptick in metal buildings.
The tourist town of Crosslake, which is home to 2,500 residents, is being swamped with an influx of 'barndominiums', causing it be named 'Tin City'.
The giant metal paneled buildings are taking over the town, with the barns being built to store expensive toys in the off-season of rich homeowners and vacationers.
Some could also be mistaken for second homes, with bars, bathrooms, fireplaces, and even bedrooms in some.
According to the Star Tribune, ones in the area stretch to as large as 12,000 square feet and sell for over $500,000.
The city is attempting to step in and restrict or possibly even ban the units from further multiplying after it saw a massive growth in demand following the pandemic.
'That whole industry has just grown and grown and grown for the 50 years I've been here,' Dean Eggena, a business owner and developer told the outlet.
'And they come up with terms like "Tin City", you know, and that we're just going to be nothing but storage buildings. And that is so far from the truth.'
'Just get in a boat and travel the 13 lakes of the Whitefish Chain. You're going to see multimillion-dollar lake homes, you're going to see clean water, and you're going to see nice boats and Jet Skis and pontoons,' he added.
'It's a place where people come to relax; they come to enjoy themselves.'
'The area is always going to have more storage than most other communities. I mean, 40 percent of our land is water and the majority of our homes here are on the lake,' Paul Satterlund, the city's planning and zoning administrator, told the Star Tribune.
'And so there is naturally just going to be a higher demand for storage.'
The town of Crosslake had the hottest housing market in Minnesota this year and landed among the top ten in the nation, according to a study conducted by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal.
Despite the area's history of being a logging community, tourism became the new 'in' once the industry faded.
Now, the average sale price for a home was more than $1 million in the third quarter of this year.
'All of a sudden, we had all these people in the past five years paying beaucoup bucks for property on the lake,' Patty Norgaard, the former mayor, told the outlet.
'We're a city that has to meet the needs both infrastructurally and economically for these wealthy people,' she added. 'Developers saw storage units as a way to do that.'
Sixty oversized barnominiums have already been built in recent years - and dozens more are in the queue for future development.
City officials have enacted several temporary bans on the buildings over the last decade with the most recent one being lifted this past October.
Other people around the town have objected to the buildings - claiming that the buildings are simply ugly.
'I don't know where that goes if we're going to legislate beauty,' Eggena added.
Eggena and other developers don't see the harm in it - the private-property buildings grow the tax base by millions without using the city's services like water, sewer or road maintenance.
Cynthia Holden, Eggena's partner of 35 years, owns a 20-acre property on the south end of town which was developed by the pair into nearly 30 lots of personal storage units that give off the feel of a neighborhood.
The property shockingly went from a $30,000 tax value to a value of $3.5 million in just four short years.
But further developments such as Holden's may not have a future in the tin-filled town.
As of this year, the city doesn't allow the personal metal buildings in commercial districts.
The city also now enforces ordinances and proper land use and is considering enacting further regulations - some of which include prohibiting water and septic to keep them from becoming overflowed guest quarters or rentable vacation homes.
Additionally, officials created a new zoning district prohibiting the use of commercial storage on main corridors - making it the third time they have stepped in to change the rules which typically happens when a new council comes into play.
They say it's meant to 'protect and enhance aesthetics... by encouraging sustainable development that respects the environment and upholds the community's Northwoods character', according to the ordinance.
The order also states that 'certain land uses are prohibited in this district along with greater regulations on architectural standards to ensure protecting the beauty of Crosslake long term'.
But a new mayor and brand new council are both taking over in 2025 - making the future of the luxurious 'barndominiums' unclear.