Climate and Infrastructure Committee Meeting - October 30, 2025
Climate and Infrastructure Committee Meeting - October 30, 2025
On October 30, 2025, the Minneapolis Climate and Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Councilmember Katie Cashman, convened a regular meeting. The committee approved consent items and discussed a legislative directive on the city's recycling rates and zero waste program. The meeting was broadcast live with real-time captioning.
Consent Calendar
- Items 1–3 were approved unanimously: (1) a resolution levying various public works special assessments and adopting related assessment roles; (2) an appointment to the bicycle advisory committee (Jackson Hampton, seat 14); (3) authorizing a grant application for the 2026 Private Property Inflow and Infiltration Grant Program.
- Item 4 (approving a concept layout for 35th and 36th Street from Chicago Ave to Blaisdell Ave, with a resolution seeking a variance from municipal state aid rules) was pulled for questions. Fontaine Burrus (Transportation Planner, Public Works) explained that the variance is needed to reduce lane width to allow a separated two-way bikeway instead of a shared-use path. The variance committee meets quarterly; the next meeting is December 2025, and if missed, the next would be spring 2026, potentially impacting federal authorization (June 2026). Construction is planned for 2027–2028. Item 4 was approved for recommendation to full council (voice vote, all ayes).
Discussion Items
- Legislative Directive on Recycling Rates and Zero Waste Program – Director Nick Gerald presented a detailed status update covering eight items from the legislative directive passed the previous month. Key points included:
- The city's 80% waste diversion goal by 2030; current projections show only 50% without significant changes.
- Residential capture rate targets based on a 2022 study (e.g., 50% of aluminum cans still go to garbage).
- Compliance rates: 91% of buildings verified as having recycling; 347 buildings remain unverified. Enforcement is complaint-based for commercial buildings; multi-units are enforced by Solid Waste & Recycling using county funds.
- Steps toward organized collection for commercial, industrial, and multi-unit sectors require formal assignment of responsibility and a funding mechanism study (expected December 2025).
- Mandatory recycling for city service properties will begin with a warning system in 2027, moving to fines; multi-unit ordinances will define “adequate” recycling capacity, with compliance expected by 2028.
- Mandatory organics is not recommended yet due to contamination risks; a phased approach (e.g., requiring organics upon tenant request) is considered.
- Updates to the Green to Go ordinance (requiring all to-go containers to be recyclable, compostable, or reusable) are underway; amendments planned for 2026, compliance in 2027.
- Chair Cashman emphasized the goal of reducing waste to shut down the incinerator and highlighted priorities: recycling in multifamily buildings and organics at food establishments. She asked about requiring building owners to provide organics pickup for restaurant tenants. Director Gerald noted that restaurants must provide front-of-house organics containers but would check on building-level requirements.
- No committee questions beyond Chair Cashman’s; the report was filed.
Key Outcomes
- Approved: Consent items 1–3.
- Approved for full council: Item 4 (concept layout and MSA variance request).
- Filed: Discussion item on the legislative directive; no formal vote taken.
Meeting Transcript
All right. Good afternoon. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Climate and Infrastructure Committee for October 30th, 2025. I'm Katie Cashman, the chair of this committee. Before we call the meeting to order, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all the members and staff that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. These broadcasts include real time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community. We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. Thank you. At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify quorum. Councilmember Rainbow. Present. Present. Is absent. Chavez? Present. Vice Chair Koske. Present. Chair Cashman. Present. We have five presents. Alright, let the record reflect that we have a quorum. And please sign in to speaker management. With that, we'll start our consent agenda items one through four. Item one is a resolution levying various public works special assessments and adopting the related assessment roles. Item two is approving an appointment to the bicycle advisory committee for Jackson Hampton for seat 14. Item three is authorizing a grant application for the 2026 Private Property Inflow and Infiltration Grant Program. And item four is approving a concept layout for 35th and 36th Street from Chicago Av to Blazedale with a resolution seeking a variance from municipal state aid rules. So I'm going to move items one through three and pull out item four for a brief question. So on the motion to approve items one through three, is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. All right, that motion carries. And then item four is approving a concept layout for 35th and 36th Street from Chicago to Blazedle. And I just had a couple of questions for either Director Sexton or someone from the public works department about the process for the MSA variants that we're seeking. Yeah. Thank you, Chair Cashman. Uh, I'd like to invite Fontaine Burrus, the project manager for the corridor to address your questions. All right. Good afternoon, Fontaine Barris, Transportation Planner with Public Works. Okay, thank you so much. We just had a couple questions from community members about the bike facilities and plans for MSA variances. So can you explain a little bit more about what MSA variants are seeking and what the process will be like for getting that approved? Sure. Chair Cashman, the 35th and 36th Street are both MSA streets. So we are using MSA funding for this project, and because they are MSA streets and using MSA funding, we are required to follow the design guidelines of MSA. There is a segment that we are seeking a variance. And meet our MSA guidelines. Because of that, we are seeking a variance to reduce lane width there in order to provide us enough space to separate the bikeway rather than having a shared use path. Okay.
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