Posted on by John Edwards

Minneapolis 2040 Deadline Roundup

There’s just one week left in the comment period for the draft Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan! Concerned residents assured me it would be shoved down our throats, but I’m not sure my throat could handle a lengthier process.

Leave your comments at minneapolis2040.com until July 22. The city will spend a few months synthesizing that feedback into a new draft to be released in late September.

Below I have compiled the latest news on the comprehensive plan, including two presentations to City Council committees earlier this week.

Innovative Housing Types. Minneapolis city planner Brian Schaffer (RIP) says that “innovative housing types” aren’t new. Single room occupancy, accessory dwelling units, co-housing–those are all concepts that are “ages and ages old.” What happened? We banned them.

In a presentation to the Housing Policy and Development Committee, Schaffer showed council members this chart:

Schaffer highlighted these points in his presentation:

  • Largest segment on the chart are the 47,000 homeowner households making greater than 100% area median income ($94,300/yr).
  • Second biggest: 31,000 renter households making less than 30% AMI ($28,300/yr). 
    • 19,000 of those households are severely cost burdened (spending more than 50% of income on housing)
    • 6,000 are cost burdened (spending more than 30% of income on housing)
    • People under 30% AMI are majority POC and majority renter – and “disproportionately both.”
Which of those groups have their housing subsidized? To a much greater degree it’s the high-income homeowner households, says the city’s housing director, Andrea Brennan.

In response to what I thought was an illuminating chart, City Council Member Lisa Goodman told Brian Schaffer: “I don’t need a planning degree to know that people at 30% or lower of the MMI are cost-burdened.” (The acronym for area median income is AMI, and the over-educated Brian Schaffer refused to correct her, even though it was his last week at work and he could have just said “I’m too old for this shit” and given the entire council double-fisted middle fingers.)

FLASHBACK: Lisa Goodman told an economist the same thing about his economics degree in 2016 when she was agitating against an academic study, commissioned by the city, that showed benefits to raising the minimum wage.

There’s a climate change opportunity in adding more commercial zoning in Minneapolis, says city planner Paul Mogush. Nationally, 45% of trips are for shopping, while 15-20% are trips to work. Mogush says, “Based on some research that we’ve done, we know that people in Minneapolis are spending a lot of their retail dollars outside city limits, so there’s an opportunity to capture more of that inside the city of Minneapolis.”

Council President Lisa Bender asked a question about small storefronts in neighborhood interiors that “have been made illegal over time in the zoning code.” Mogush said they’re trying to legitimize existing commercial uses, but gave no indication there would be allowances for more. (Idea: you could send feedback to minneapolis2040.com to ask for more small storefronts in neighborhood interiors).

Say goodbye to everyone’s favorite fit young planner:
Brian Schaffer calls it quits after more than a decade swatting microphones as a Minneapolis city planner. He will be missed. But he’ll always be my brother. pic.twitter.com/WTewlE0toO

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) July 12, 2018


Looking for a Minneapolis 2040 policy overview? Read this series from Neighbors for More Neighbors. And some thoughts from Our Streets Minneapolis.

I livetweeted Wednesday’s Minneapolis 2040 info session. One attendee said the meeting left them feeling “ashamed to be alive.” Lisa Bender told the crowd of longtime residents, “You can boo me but I will continue to pause and wait.” Heather Worthington, the city’s director of Long Range Planning, at one point surrendered the microphone to a resident who continually interrupted her answer. Read the whole thread here.

This has maybe been asked about doomsday cults before, but what are these people gonna do for fun after this is over and the world doesn’t explode?

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) July 12, 2018


Council Member Jeremy Schroeder, chair of the Zoning & Planning Committee, released this FAQ to tamp down an explosion of panic and misinformation.


ICYMI: I published a post in response to an explosion of panic and misinformation–and apocalyptic yard signs.

Start practicing your impassioned speeches. In a committee hearing earlier this week, Lisa Goodman, who is the council’s most vocal critic of the draft, said she was eager for a public hearing in front of the full City Council, instead of just at the City Planning Commission.

BLOOPERS: If you made it this far, you deserve a blooper reel from this week’s City Council meetings. Here’s a bonus blooper reel.

Other cities can’t learn from Minneapolis if we never do the thing that’s supposed to teach these cities a lesson. So I think we’re pretty much legally bound to go forward with the plan.https://t.co/Ml7dZYvZsY pic.twitter.com/o8o73Ulbz7

— Wedge LIVE! (@WedgeLIVE) July 12, 2018

Timeline. Here’s a rough schedule of the comprehensive plan process going forward:
  • July 22 – end of comment period (there’s still time!)
  • Late September – new draft released
  • Late October – public hearing at City Planning Commission
  • December – City Council adoption
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