70s-Era Planner Confesses Role in Decades-Old Downzoning Plot

In commenting on the city's current plan to downzone the Wedge neighborhood, former Minneapolis city planner Perry Thorvig has given us some historical perspective. He starts off by celebrating the results of the 1975 downzoning:

The zoning scheme adopted in 1975 must have worked. It was gratifying to me and I'm sure many neighborhood residents, including former council member Meg Tuthill, that the recent study by city planner Brian Schaffer found that very little new development has occurred in the neighborhood since that rezoning was done forty years ago.

Who gets to live on our nicest streets?

Alex Cecchini has written a nicely comprehensive post outlining all the reasons it's a bad idea to force dense housing out of neighborhood interiors and onto the most noisy, polluted, dangerous streets in the city.

It's a timely post because the Wedge neighborhood is about to be downzoned. As Alex writes, the last time the neighborhood was downzoned, in 1975, it was happening in parallel with an equally successful movement to force dangerous high-speed car traffic out of the neighborhood's interior (a good thing). In other words, the city and neighborhood activists were making the neighborhood interior nicer/safer at the same time they were telling a certain kind of person in a certain kind of housing they have no business living there.

Read Alex's post for all the reasons why that's a problem.

Downzoning Deadline: Submit Your Feedback to the City

This Friday, September 30 is the deadline to submit public comment on the downzoning proposed for Lowry Hill East--which I have written about a quite a bit. Here's a chart showing how the proposal would push us further along towards a zoning code that doesn't reflect our current built reality:

Downzoning Can't Save Us From the Future

I've previously written about the rezoning that's under consideration for Minneapolis' Lowry Hill East neighborhood. After a few more weeks of thought, these are my big-picture concerns.

Downzoning is forever

The city's proposal has been described as interim protection that gets us through until the next update to the city's Comprehensive Plan (the process for which is currently underway). But "interim" gives the impression that downzoning is temporary. This is technically true; all laws are potentially temporary. But in reality, we're still stuck with a 1975 decision that left most of the Wedge (under)zoned for nothing greater than a duplex. Downzoning is easy. Upzoning is hard.

It might be right to say this particular rezoning plan is a relatively insignificant drop in the bucket--but it's still the wrong bucket. Across the city, and over the years, these decisions add up. While we don't know what the Comp Plan update holds, it would be short-sighted to think we won't be living with today's downzoning in 2055.

For parcels north of 28th Street (data compiled by Alex Cecchini).

Wedge Downzoning Explained in Six Maps

Rezoning is back on the table for Lowry Hill East. Here are some maps to help you understand the history of neighborhood zoning and the potential impact of the city's current proposal.

Time to Hold the Line on Downzoning

Forty-one years after a rezoning left most of Lowry Hill East zoned low-density, the city of Minneapolis has put neighborhood rezoning back on the table. The current plan is nearly all downzoning, meant to clean up the few high-density scraps left over from 1975. It’s hard not to take this issue personally, because I live in one of the last apartment buildings constructed before that long-ago downzoning; in other words, the roof over my head inspired a group of very passionate homeowners to say “that is enough of that!”

City Council “Outraged” Over DNR Downzoning to Benefit Elected Officials

Two members of the Minneapolis City Council have expressed serious concern over what they see as the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources pushing special land-use restrictions that would protect the proverbial backyards of certain unnamed elected officials. The comments were made during a June 9 Zoning and Planning Committee discussion about new rules for the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area. The MRCCA is an area along the Mississippi River subject to "special land development regulations that protect and preserve unique natural, recreational, transportation, and cultural features."

Draft of LHE Historic District Study

We have obtained a draft of the Lowry Hill East Residential Historic District designation study. Is your house "contributing" or "non-contributing"? It's time to start judging your neighbors.

The Desire for a More Expansive Historic District

Preserve our historic priorities.

Last September, Council Member Lisa Bender's office held an informational meeting regarding a proposed Lowry Hill East historic district. It was a homeowners-only affair, intended for those whose properties would be included, though there were plenty of party crashers: eager homeowners from outside the proposed boundaries, a guy from Kingfield, and at least two renters.

Lowry Hill East 1970s Downzoning Timeline

From the Wedge newspaper. November, 1975.