The Minneapolis Business Housing and Zoning Committee met on September 2, 2025, to handle routine consent items, conduct public hearings on business licenses and policy ordinances, and discuss key issues including a street name change, commercial property sales transparency, building height flexibility, and skyway system governance.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being patient. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Business Housing and Zoning Committee for September 2nd, 2025. I am Councilmember Jamal Osman, and I'm the chair of this committee. Before we begin the meeting, I want to remind all council members staff and the public that this meeting are broadcast in live to enable greater public participation. They include real time captioning to increase the accessibility of our proceeding to the community. Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully transcribe all comments for the broadcast. We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comment. Today we'll be using the speaker management. So please sign up. At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll so we can verify a quorum. Councilmember Rainville. Present. Cashman. Present. Jenkins is absent. Chowdery. Present. Vice Chair Ellison is absent. And Chair Osman. Present. There are four members present. Let the record reflect we have a quorum. Before we proceed to the public hearing on our agenda, we will first take our consent agenda, which item 7 through 24. Item 7 is approving one liquor license. Item eight is approving one liquor license renewal. Item nine is approving three gambling licenses. Item 10 is approving a nine gambling license renewals. Item 11 is approving a street name change submitted by Councilmember Chowdry for Edmund Boulevard to become a Lena Smith Boulevard. Item 12 is accepting a grant from Minnesota Association Workforce Board for Service of New Americans. Item 13 is confirming a mayoral reappointment of direct authorsport to the family housing fund and board of directors. Item 14 is approving a local historic landmark of the Nelson House 2628th Avenue North. Item 15 is adopting an update to the administrative fine schedule increase penalty for sustained Title III violations. Item 16 is accepting a grant for staff and commissioners to attend the Preserved Minnesota Conference. Thank you, Chair Osman. I don't have any questions, but I did want to speak to item 11, which is the street name change that I am the applicant for, so I just wanted to recuse myself specifically for that this name change from Edmund Boulevard to Lena Smith Boulevard has been a long labor of love and community effort, and it's a really big deal that it has finally made its way over to the Minneapolis City Council and going to take its final vote, final action, and then will be effective if passed on September 11th. For me as a council member, I started this nearly two years ago when neighbors came to me with a critical concern that Edmund Boulevard's name honors a figure, Edmund Walton, who was a harmful actor in our city's history, a man who actively upheld racial segregation through architecting racial covenants in our city and contributed to the generational disenfranchisement and trauma, black, brown, Asian, Jewish, Arab, indigenous communities in Minneapolis, and racial covenants in our city were used to segregate our communities and legitimize racial terror, and lead to long-term disinvestment in different parts of our community through redlining and laid the foundation for racial racially discriminatory policies and practices that still affect our communities today, namely in housing and home ownership disparities among BIPOC community members. I also want to acknowledge that this work preceded me. Community members for five years in total have been working on this effort for this name change, and I'm extremely proud of the work of my neighbors. I want to shout out Reclaim Edmund, which has been the grassroots organization that's been a part of this. I'll shout out Jesse and Mark who are here today that have been a part of this effort since the beginning. And I also want to thank our city staff. They have been phenomenal to work with figuring out the application process, getting it to the planning commission, and will be instrumental in the actual implementation, which we hope will be a celebration. I would be remiss if I didn't speak to who Lena Alves Smith is, because this isn't about erasing history, it's about choosing to uplift history that's inclusive and uplift a history that has often been dismissed or forgotten. Lena Alv Smith was Minnesota's first African American woman lawyer and a fearless civil rights trails trailblazer. After graduating from law school in 1921, she became the first black female attorney licensed in the state. She co-founded the Minneapolis Urban League, led the NAACP local chapter as its first female president, and chaired its joint legal redress committee. Notable legal victories of hers include defending the Lee family in our city from a mob of intimidation in a home ownership dispute, suing the Nicolette Hotel for racial discrimination and protesting the University of Minnesota screening of the birth of a nation. Her legacy endures with her long term her longtime home recognized on the National Register of Historic Places, and we are hoping to uplift her history here in Minneapolis, where because of these racial covenants, many places she was not able to call home, but she still was a fearless leader, so come now into 2025. Neighbors of all ethnicities, races, religions can live on Edmund Boulevard.