Category: Land Use

Why are Building Height Limits in Minneapolis 2040 Delaying Affordable Housing in Whittier?

Speed Rogers Speed Rogers • December 4, 2020

The City of Minneapolis’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan promised to change our city’s approach to housing. The plan’s central argument is that the city needs more homes, especially since Minneapolis doesn’t have sufficient affordable and supportive housing for our most vulnerable community members. Decades of racist and exclusionary zoning policies have made Minneapolis one of the […]

Will Minneapolis’s Zoning Code Update Allow More Multi-Family Housing?

Amos Budde Amos Budde • November 30, 2020

A version of this article was posted to the Neighbors for More Neighbors blog. When many people imagine housing for a family, the stereotypical image is a single-family home and expansive turf yard. And in many cities and towns around the country, minimum lot sizes and zoning requirements ensure that the only options available to […]

Map of the Day: Substandard Lot Sizes in Minneapolis

Janne Flisrand • November 26, 2020

There are more than 14,000 residential lots in Minneapolis that are smaller than what is currently required to build on per the current zoning code. Now, this is a messy statement. There are multiple minimum lot sizes (5,000 square feet, 6,000 square feet, and a large lot zone where the number is based on the […]

Some Alternative Options in Detached Housing, Part 1

Monte Castleman • November 25, 2020

There’s many advantages to living in a detached house – they generally offer more space, more separation and privacy from neighbors, and a discrete place to drive up to, look at, and call your own. But there’s definitely drawbacks to the primary ways of acquiring a detached home (owning a house and land or renting […]

Stitching Together Duluth’s Downtown and Waterfront – Part Two

Jordan van der Hagen • October 16, 2020

The Duluth Waterfront Collective is a group of planners, designers, thinkers, and others united in our desire to create a more livable, equitable and sustainable Duluth. Our plan, entitled Highway 61 Revisited, takes an eraser to a one-mile stretch of Interstate 35 and will use a community engagement process to draw in the blank space […]

Will Minneapolis 2040 Live Up to its Promise?

Janne Flisrand • October 2, 2020

Undoing failed zoning by basing new rules on the development that occurred under that failed zoning is a cycle doomed to repeat past failures. If you want to get the diversity of buildings we used to have, you have to work back from what you want.

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Is It Time To Look Past the Missing Middle?

Conrad Zbikowski Conrad Zbikowski • September 21, 2020

In the “before-times”, housing advocates in Minneapolis worked with a progressive city council to pass the 2040 Plan. The New York Times proclaimed, “Minneapolis, Tackling Housing Crisis and Inequity, Votes to End Single-Family Zoning”. These were all great achievements, and it is clear that 2040, inclusionary zoning, and other reforms and investments have made real […]

Stitching Together Duluth’s Downtown and Waterfront – Part One

Jordan van der Hagen • September 7, 2020

The Duluth Waterfront Collective is a group of planners, designers, thinkers and more, united in our desire to create a more livable, equitable and sustainable Duluth. Our plan, entitled Highway 61 Revisited, takes an eraser to a one-mile stretch of Interstate 35 and will use a community engagement process to draw in the blank space […]

Why Minneapolis needs a Land Value Tax

Saumik Narayanan Saumik Narayanan • August 28, 2020

This image shows a mostly undeveloped parking lot, occupying a full block of prime real estate in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. Why does this lot remain underdeveloped? The owner of the land could increase their income drastically if they developed the land to its fullest potential. Additionally, the city as a whole would gain […]