In previous posts, I talked about the role of the Metropolitan Council in planning for regional infrastructure like wastewater treatment plans, surface and drinking water, highways, roads and transit, regional parks and other regional assets.  I also talked about how planning for these regional assets is passed from the Metropolitan Council to cities through system … Continue reading Not in Conformance with the Met Council Planning

Minneapolis 2040 is an experiment — no city in the nation has ever been completely up zoned. Thus, as this Star Tribune story points out, “No one can predict with certainty how the market will react to the plan.”

St. Paul Pioneer Press Story, quoting Alan Arthur, CEO of Aeon, an affordable housing developer:  “The private market place has never produced affordable housing just because the community needs it, and will never,” Arthur said. “The only time the private market has produced affordable housing is when government has offered significant incentives — sometimes totally … Continue reading If denser housing alone won’t stabilize rents, what will?(Government incentives)

I presume a lot of folks come to this website looking for basic information about the City.  Craig Buchanan posted some really interesting maps of the City.  These include maps on property values, vacant land, building heights, year that buildings were built, etc.  A fun thing to look at. https://public.tableau.com/profile/craig.buchanan#!/vizhome/MinneapolisProperties_0/MinneapolisProperties?publish=yes    

There have been a lot of claims made by the City about how environmentally responsible the draft 2040 Comprehensive Plan is.  But one of the fundamental things about the Plan is that it proposes demolishing existing housing and replacing it with more housing.  The argument is that the new housing will be more energy-efficient than … Continue reading Preserving Housing is the Most Environmentally Responsible Thing

MinnPost describes community tensions that have developed in reaction to Minneapolis 2040. Representing Minneapolis For Everyone, Lisa McDonald said about the plan, “It’s basically an opportunity to make sure that anything that happens in Minneapolis is top-down.”

How Minneapolis 2040 damages the whole community.

The City has posted Draft 2 of the plan. It was supposed to reflect citizen input from public meetings and online comments (an estimated 85 percent of which were critical). But it’s not substantively better. In important ways it is worse. Find out what has and hasn’t changed.

In an 8/1/18 email, Heather Worthington, the City’s chief of long-range planning denied that the City contracted with a PR firm to work on M2040. Then we found the contract. Dated 7/11/18, the contract with Goff Public, of Saint Paul, is for $80,000. Among other things, the firm recommends withholding information about the plan from … Continue reading City secretly hires Saint Paul PR firm to promote M2040

On September 18, Minneapolis For Everyone (M4E) held a press conference in the Loring Park neighborhood demanding that City Hall restart the planning process, this time partnering in good faith with citizens and neighborhood organizations. Lisa McDonald represented M4E; Jana Metge of Citizens for a Loring Park Community joined her. Join us on Facebook to … Continue reading Minneapolis For Everyone holds press conference