The Metropolitan Council’s newly ratified Imagine 2050 plan officially launches the next round of local comprehensive planning across the Twin Cities region. This regional plan may seem like just another plan that will live on in a bureaucratic gray area, but it will have an impact on our regional transportation, housing, land use, water resources and parks system over the next few decades.
As a whole, the 2050 regional plan includes improved language around equity and acknowledges historical planning harms, but compromises on minimum density requirements for sewage hookups (accepting 3.5 units per acre instead of 4), weakening a crucial sprawl-management tool that promotes density, smart land use and efficient regional infrastructure in newly built areas by acting as a quasi urban growth boundary.
Beyond the guide itself — which is an exciting read for policy wonks — the real impact will come from the next phase of the regional planning process, when cities translate these guidelines into their local comprehensive plans.
As we saw with Minneapolis 2040, these plans can transform communities through policies on housing density, mixed-use development and transportation infrastructure. With environmental legal challenges now off the table, more cities may follow Minneapolis and St. Paul in pursuing ambitious zoning reforms that shape our region for decades to come, while elevating other transportation, climate and equity priorities, too.
What’s the Regional Planning Process?
The Metropolitan Land Planning Act (MLPA) (Minn. Statutes 473) defines and governs regional planning processes in the seven counties under the Met Council’s jurisdiction. The MLPA establishes the responsibilities of the council to “plan for the orderly and economic development of the region and maintain regional transportation, wastewater, and parks systems.”
For the purposes of land use planning, the Met Council uses community designations to categorize local communities and ensure that policies are context-appropriate. These designations are based on factors like the amount of developable land, age of housing stock and road intersection density (as a proxy for connectivity and urban form).
In addition, MLPA directs the cities, counties and townships within the seven-county metro to prepare and update a local comprehensive plan every 10 years based on the regional development guide, policy plans and local conditions.
A comprehensive plan is a long-range document that describes the broad vision for the future of a community. To conform to requirements, plans must address transportation, water resources, parks, land use and housing. Beyond these required sections, communities are encouraged to address additional policy concerns such as equity, economic competitiveness, resilience, natural resources, planning for aging and health — the ways these are (or aren’t) addressed can significantly differentiate communities.
Cities are aided in creating these plans by the Met Council’s Local Planning Assistance office, a part of the Community Development division that I consider a bright spot among the Met Council’s many struggles over the past decade.
You may have never heard of this process if it weren’t for the Minneapolis 2040 plan. With its ambitious zoning policy changes that ended single-family zoning and promised housing abundance and density, the plan drew a high level of scrutiny and a legal challenge from several groups of advocates citing environmental concerns.
The lawsuit — one that also revealed cracks in the foundation of Minnesota environmentalist factions — was ended when lawmakers passed a bill clarifying that comprehensive plans are not subject to environmental review under the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act (closely modeled after the national equivalent, NEPA, which is currently under attack by the Trump administration).
How Can 2040 Trends Inform 2050 Local Planning?
Beyond Minneapolis, other cities’ 2040 plans got little attention across the metro, but looking back at these trends will help guide what to expect as new plans are drafted.
To do this, we can draw on the 2040 Comprehensive Plan Composite — a planning study that synthesized trends across the 168 total plans received at the Met Council — to understand higher level trends beyond Minneapolis.
What happened to planned land use and housing in cities beyond Minneapolis is important to understand where the whole region moved in 2040, not just its flashiest comprehensive plan.
As a whole, local plans in 2040 designated less acreage for residential growth than in 2030 plans, though this still exceeds what’s needed to adequately house the region’s projected population growth. To compensate for this reduced land allocation, many cities — not just Minneapolis — increased density guidelines to support the market’s shift toward multi-family housing developments.
In simpler terms, the graph above shows the acreage allotted for development in each type of community, which decreased in the 2040 plans across all community types and in the region as a whole. The largest decreases were actually in suburban edge communities like Woodbury, Plymouth and Cottage Grove and rural centers such as Belle Plaine, a significant shift in currently developing areas.
Planned density also increased across all community types. For example, midpoint density is 20 for an area planning for development at a range of 10 to 30 units per acre. Based on past analysis and experience at the Met Council, development tends to average around this midpoint rather than fall to one end of the range.
The graph below shows this density increase, with the most stark growth in urban center communities due to Minneapolis’ planned density increases.
Even without including Minneapolis, however, urban center density ticked upwards significantly. If St. Paul is removed, excluding both central cities, urban center density would be 50 units per acre, still a modest increase from 2030 local comprehensive plans.
Midpoint density across local comprehensive plans — excluding Minneapolis — with 2030 comprehensive plans in blue and 2040 comprehensive plans in green. Source: Met Council.
In suburban communities, mixed-use districts — areas that are zoned to support a variety of uses, including dense housing and commercial space — grew significantly, with the highest gains in suburban communities like Chaska, Cottage Grove and Shakopee. Other suburban cities such as Plymouth, Lakeville and Maple Grove identified growth in mixed-use districts for the first time in their 2040 plans.
Several examples include the proposed Hub in Richfield and the future Gold Line Helmo Avenue BRT station area in Oakdale. Policy in local comprehensive plans varies from place to place and from market to market. These developments could include a collection of stand-alone uses such as housing and retail next to one another, non-residential uses such as an office or shop on the ground floor of a residential building, or larger scale mixed-use districts.
These seem to be the suburban answer to creating denser land uses in certain areas while preserving single-family zoning in other areas. This accomplishes dual goals of creating areas with urban services and housing for residents while also increasing density in hot spots within communities and meeting regional minimum density requirements (a modest three to five units per acre in suburban communities). Because of these minimums, which are based on a weighted average, areas zoned and built as single family homes can remain low-density if they are balanced by higher-density development in mixed-use districts elsewhere.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Now that comprehensive plans are shielded from certain legal challenges, it’s possible to see more cities pursue Minneapolis-style upzoning policies without fear of costly legal setbacks. In recent years, St. Paul adopted Minneapolis-style upzoning policies without a high-profile lawsuit or public backlash. Other suburban cities, including St. Louis Park, Minnetonka and Edina, say they are looking to expand housing development options, too, but it’s unclear whether they will end single-family zoning altogether — traditionally a hallmark of suburban living.
The trends from previous planning cycles suggest we’ll see continued emphasis on higher density goals, mixed-use districts (especially as more transitways extend into suburban communities whose land uses currently are incompatible with transit), and potentially more cities following Minneapolis and St. Paul in rethinking traditional zoning. It will be interesting to see how slower population growth forecasts for 2050 and stalling development — even if a symptom of success of past zoning policies — will shift cities’ plans for housing and the zoning policies that underpin them.
I hope cities also consider anti-displacement protections for vulnerable communities in upzoning conversations, largely absent from the broader discourse in Minnesota but more present on the west coast and elsewhere. Anecdotally, I know of at least a few researchers already studying the potential implications of Minneapolis 2040 on displacement in vulnerable areas.
Ultimately the real impact of the 2040 and 2050 regional plans and their local counterparts will be measured not by the documents themselves, but by how effectively local governments translate these regional trends — and aspirations — into concrete actions that create more livable, sustainable, and inclusive communities throughout the Twin Cities.
Editor’s note: “Street Views” appears in Streets.mn twice monthly. Respond to columnist and board member Joe Harrington directly at [email protected]. You may also add comments at our Streets.mn pages on Bluesky and Facebook.