A Strib local content item: "Minneapolis, developers to lose millions without 2040 Plan as judge's order takes effect --The groups that sued the city for an environmental study of its up-zoning comprehensive plan say the damage is self-inflicted." By Susan Du Star Tribune - November 5, 2023 — 3:35pm
The item is bare-bones excerpted. Readers wanting more should subscribe online, try library access, or track down a paper with the report.
Strib has its paywall. With the blog's title, "Crabgrass" in the headline has that meaning. Developers.
Briefly, in part the item begins and states:
Minneapolis has put aside its 2040 Comprehensive Plan after a judge declined to delay an earlier order blocking its implementation.
The city has now updated its website with an announcement that until further notice, it would return to 2030 land use ordinances. Those guidelines, which reinstate single-family zoning and roll back requirements that a certain proportion of new units be affordable, inject uncertainty into dozens of ongoing projects.
[...] A group of Minneapolis residents successfully sued to block the plan, saying it required an environmental impact study under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act. City leaders did not conduct such a review before approving 2040 five years ago because comprehensive plans — which local governments submit to the Metropolitan Council every 10 years — have never been subject to them before.
Klein ordered Minneapolis to revert to its older and less controversial 2030 Plan within 60 days of his Sept. 5 decision. The city quickly appealed, asking to stop the clock pending a decision because "regional planning will be fundamentally compromised" and hundreds of housing units will "die" even if the Court of Appeals ultimately salvages the 2040 Plan, said Assistant City Attorney Kristen Sarff.
The plaintiffs, Smart Growth Minneapolis and Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds, argued against delay. Their lawyer, Jack Perry, said continuing to implement 2040 would make any environmental study that the city might conduct a foregone "sham."
[...] Minneapolis could still comply with state law by conducting an environmental study. The city has hired engineering consultant Stantec to perform an analysis, but has declined to disclose any information about it.
[...] Perry, the environmental groups' lawyer, is adamant that only an environmental study can determine the density threshold at which point air and water quality begin to degrade. He called the city's predicament "self-inflicted."
[...] The Sierra Club, which filed an amicus brief in support of 2040, argued the plan's goals of increasing housing density along transit corridors would reduce carbon emissions by eliminating the need to own a car.
Rep. Michael Howard, DFL-Richfield, [...] urged the Legislature to act swiftly next year to save 2040 by amending the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act.
But degrading Minnesota's landmark environmental rights law has drawn opposition from still other environmentalists, such as the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. The group is urging Minneapolis to prove that 2040 will not harm natural resources "rather than seek an exemption from a bedrock state environmental law."
Rebecca Arons of Smart Growth Minneapolis said [...] she wants a robust environmental study of 2040 done the same way that the city of Seattle assesses its comprehensive plan.
"All of the things that you'd want to know about the current state of the city, the number of trees, how often the city floods, where it floods … how would [2040] either exacerbate these problems or solve them, and all of the information goes up transparently for the public to see," Arons said. "This is what we're asking for."
Highlighting is used for what are deemed key aspects of the situation.
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Planners are as planners do. Never before having to honestly and fully consider environmental impact was not a license promoting negligent half-done work. It was an unfortunate omission. One now seeing correction.
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In Anoka County where I live, public wells are drilled into an aquifer with limited capacity in order to provide municipal water supply. The belief here is that Met Council PLANNERS are insufficiently considering, long term, that particular environmental fact, while propagandizing "walkable communities," i.e., dense housing, which in fact would put more load on the aquifer while arguably lessening auto climate impacts (and lessening pubic transportation costs, another Met Council area of SNAFU worry).
If work and housing are close, within walking or biking distance, weather permitting, that is great, but people change jobs - getting fired or laid off, or finding something better. In seeking a better life, proximity is but one factor.