minneapolis | 2040
Minneapolis 2040 — The City’s Comprehensive Plan
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Adopted by the Minneapolis City Council on October 25, 2019 Effective January 1, 2020
Eliminate Disparities ............................ 8 More Residents and Jobs ......................... 14 Affordable and Accessible Housing .................. 19 Living-Wage Jobs ............................... 23 Healthy, Safe, and Connected People ................ 26 High-Quality Physical Environment .................. 30 History and Culture ............................. 32 Creative, Cultural, and Natural Amenities ............ 34 Complete Neighborhoods ......................... 37 Climate Change Resilience ........................ 40 Clean Environment: ............................. 44 Healthy, Sustainable, and Diverse Economy ........... 47 Proactive, Accessible, and Sustainable Government ... 50 Equitable Civic Participation System ................ 52
Land Use & Built Form ........................... 55 Transportation ................................. 80 Housing ....................................... 82 Economic Competitiveness ........................ 86 Environmental Systems ........................... 90 Public Health .................................. 92 Heritage Preservation ........................... 94 Arts and Culture ............................... 96 Parks and Open Space ........................... 98 Public Services and Facilities ..................... 100 Technology and Innovation ....................... 102
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The Minneapolis 2040 Plan was developed by the City of Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development. Should you require a reasonable accommodation in order to fully participate, or information in an alternative format, please contact 612-673-3000. Para asistencia 612-673-2700 - Rau kev pab 612-673-2800 - Hadii aad Caawimaad u baahantahay 612-673-3500.
For more information, contact: Department of Community Planning and Economic Development
105 Fifth Avenue South, Ste 200 Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 673-3000 2040@minneapolismn.gov
Innovations in Transportation and Infrastructure . . 152
Vision Zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Transportation Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
MSP Airport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Arts and Creative Spaces, Venues and Districts . . .156
Emphasize the Value of Minneapolis’ Arts and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Artists and Creative Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Arts and Culture in Community Development . . . . . 160
Affordable Housing Production and Preservation . . 162
Cultural Districts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Innovative Housing Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Innovative Housing Strategies and Data-Driven Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Mixed Income Housing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Affordable Housing near Transit and Job Centers . . 169
Fair Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Homelessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Tenant Protections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Expand Homeownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Housing Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Comprehensive Investments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Leverage Housing Programs to Benefit Community 179
Healthy Housing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Housing Quality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Freeway Remediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Educational and Economic Access. . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Access to Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Healthy Pre-K Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Human Capital and a Trained Workforce . . . . . . . . 188
Quality of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Supporting Economic Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Business Innovation and Expansion. . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Supporting Small Businesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Cluster Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Business Districts and Corridors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Downtown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Intrinsic Value of Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Environmental Justice and Green Zones . . . . . . . . . 199
Contaminated Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Food Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Food Businesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Urban Agriculture and Food Production . . . . . . . . . 206
Air Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Climate Resilient Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Energy Efficient and Sustainable Buildings . . . . . . 210
Renewable and Carbon-Free Energy . . . . . . . . . . 212
Ecology and Habitat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Soil Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Sustainable Water System Management. . . . . . . . . 217
Stormwater Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Integration of Water Management into Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Waste Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
New Parks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Park Access. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Park Design and Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Healthy Youth Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Development Near METRO Stations. . . . . . . . . . . 228
Social Connectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Aging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
People with Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Public Safety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Access to Health, Social and Emergency Service . . 235
Healthy Food in Institutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Northside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Public Services Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Technology in the City Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Technology in the Economy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Heritage Preservation Outreach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Identify and Evaluate Historic Resources. . . . . . . . 243
Stewarding Historic Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Heritage Preservation Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Heritage Preservation Financial Incentives . . . . . . . 248
Cultural Heritage and Preservation Recognition . . 249
Preserving and Enhancing Public Lakes and Waterways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Innovation Districts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
University District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Place-based Neighborhood Engagement . . . . . . 255
Appendix A - Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area Plan . . I
Appendix B - Land Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II
Appendix C - Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III
Appendix D - Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV
Appendix E - Resources & Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V
Appendix F - Water Resources Management Plan . . . . . . . VI
Appendix G - Review & Approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII
Appendix H - Parks & Trails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIII
Appendix I - Water Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX
Appendix J - Comprehensive Plan Amendments . . . . . . . . X
Minneapolis is growing, and will continue to grow. Done right, this new growth can help our city become a healthy, sustainable, and thriving place for everyone.
Minneapolis 2040 is a Comprehensive Plan that shapes how the city will grow and change. The plan covers topics such as housing, job access, the design of new buildings, and how we use our streets.
The Metropolitan Land Planning Act requires municipalities in the Twin Cities area to provide the Metropolitan Council with an updated Comprehensive Plan every ten years. The Comprehensive Plan must be consistent with the Metropolitan Council’s regional development guide, Thrive MSP 2040, that sets the direction for the region’s growth and development. Local communities are served by regional systems planned by the Metropolitan Council, including transportation, wastewater collection and treatment, and regional parks.
During more than two years of engagement, the people of Minneapolis shared their vision and hopes for the future of our city. A main theme voiced was that as the city grows, everyone must benefit from that growth. Historically, not everyone has. This plan is one opportunity to undo barriers and overcome inequities created by a history of policies in our city that have prevented equitable access to housing, jobs, and investments.
The plan reflects the result of more than two years of engagement with the people of Minneapolis, including over 100 meetings and conversations with thousands of residents, business owners, and others. Public feedback directly helped to establish priorities and inform the content of the plan. From March 22 through July 22, 2018, the City engaged with the public to discuss a first draft of the plan and to encourage review and feedback. Following the close of the public comment period on July 22, City staff made revisions to the plan based on public feedback, and presented a final draft to the City Planning Commission and City Council in Fall 2018. For more details about the process see the Planning Process section.
On December 7, 2018, the City Council adopted a resolution authorizing staff to transmit the plan to the Metropolitan Council for their review by December 31, 2018. While Minneapolis 2040 is intended to meet the requirements of state statute and the Metropolitan Council, the plan also has particular significance for Minneapolis in a time of population and employment growth. The City will use this plan to guide decision-making that affects the long-term future of our city as it relates to the built, natural, and economic environment.
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The Minneapolis 2040 goals are intended to state the plan’s intent as clearly as possible, so that we as a city know what we are working to accomplish through the policies of the Comprehensive Plan.
Using feedback from the public at the beginning of the planning process, the City Council adopted these goals to provide direction to staff in the development of draft Comprehensive Plan policies that guide the future of the city. Every policy in Minneapolis 2040 is intended to contribute to achieving one or more of the goals.
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Photo: Kids learning at the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis (Photo by Bakken Museum, via flickr. com)
Goal 1: In 2040, Minneapolis will see all communities fully thrive regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, country of origin, religion, or zip code having eliminated deep-rooted disparities in wealth, opportunity, housing, safety, and health.
According to a report issued by the Economic Policy Institute in 2010, Minneapolis led the nation in having the widest unemployment disparity between African-American and white residents. This remains true in 2018. And disparities also exist in nearly every other measurable social aspect, including of economic, housing, safety and health outcomes, between people of color and indigenous people compared with white people.
Take, for example, the income disparity: White non-Hispanic residents in Minneapolis make approximately three times the income of black and American Indian residents; the median income in 2016 for white non-Hispanics was approximately $65,000, while the median incomes for blacks and American Indians were $20,871 and $22,476, respectively. And since 2000, white non-Hispanic and Asian households have seen increases in median income while black and American Indian households have experienced an approximately 40 percent reduction in median income (Figure G1.1).
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This disparity in incomes can be seen in the poverty rate (Figure G1.2), which is nearly four times as high for blacks (nearly 45 percent) as for white non-Hispanics (approximately 12 percent). The poverty rate for American Indians is 33 percent and for Hispanics nearly 27 percent. And the unemployment rate in Minneapolis for blacks (17 percent) and American Indians (14 percent) is approximately three times higher than it is for white non-Hispanics (less than 5 percent).
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The employment and income disparities are predictable outcomes of educational disparities. Analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows higher rates of unemployment for people with lower levels of education. People with an associate’s or bachelor’s degree have unemployment rates of up to a percentage point less that the labor force in general. In Minneapolis, 83 percent of white non-Hispanics have more than a high school education, compared with 47 percent of black people and 45 percent of American Indians (Figure G1.3). Only 32 percent of Hispanics have more than a high school education. Educational disparities begin at birth and grow wider over time, suggesting that the best opportunity to close or even prevent these achievement gaps is by focusing investment toward the earliest stages of life.
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Income significantly impacts housing access, and for a growing number of residents, especially people of color, incomes are not keeping up with rising housing costs. This results in fewer housing units in fewer neighborhoods that are affordable. For households of color that are renting this means there are few, if any, housing units that are affordable. The loss of affordable housing units and the changes in household income have resulted in a greater number of cost-burdened households – households in which more than 30 percent of household income goes toward housing. Thirty-seven percent of all households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, but, similar to the change in household incomes, this is not equal across racial groups. Over 50 percent of black households and over 45 percent of American Indian and Hispanic households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, whereas one in three white households are cost-burdened.
Homeownership has given generations of Minneapolitans the opportunity for housing stability and wealth development, but inequities are apparent in this realm as well (Figure G1.4). There is a 36 percentage point gap between households of color that own their home versus white households. Over 59 percent of white non-Hispanic households own their home, while less than 21 percent of African-American and American Indian households own their home. Just under 25 percent of Hispanic households own their home.
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These disparities are rooted in overt and institutionalized racism that has shaped the opportunities available to multiple generations of Minneapolis residents. For example, an examination of federal housing policy starting in the 1930s reveals racially discriminatory housing practices. Following the Great Depression, in an effort to increase housing stability, improve the economy and help residents retain their homes, the federal government began to underwrite and back home mortgages, which
lengthened the life of the loans and lowered the amount of down payment amount needed to purchase a home.
To reduce risk, the government adopted loan underwriting standards that steered the direction of private investment in housing. This practice prevented access to mortgages in areas with Jews, African-Americans and other minorities, as well as in the more densely populated and mixed-use parts of the city. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) underwriting manual made the case for racially restrictive covenants, using language that described people of color as undesirable neighbors in the same vein as nuisances such as odor and high traffic: “The more important among the adverse influential factors are the ingress of undesirable racial or nationality groups; infiltration of business or commercial uses of properties; the presence of smoke, odors, fog, heavy trafficked streets and railroads.”
These policies and regulations left a lasting effect on the physical characteristics of the city and the financial well-being of its residents. Areas of Minneapolis with higher densities and a mix of land uses experienced disinvestment, in part because banks did not lend in those areas. On the outskirts of the city, a post-Depression development pattern emerged with little variation in housing types and density and with few areas for commercial development. Today, the zoning map in these areas remains largely unchanged from the era of intentional racial segregation.
The physical patterns in the way Minneapolis has developed, and will develop, shapes the health and safety outcomes of its residents. The World Health Organization describes social determinants of health as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels. The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities.” Inequities related to opportunities, conditions, policies and practices don’t impact just individuals in isolation. Instead, entire generations are impacted by these inequities – especially those rooted in race, place and income – in healthy development and lifestyle. The impact can be seen, for example, in infant mortality (Figure G1.5) and premature death rates (Figure
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G1.6). In Minneapolis, American Indians have premature death rates that are more than four times higher than those of whites, and the premature death rate for blacks is twice the rate for whites. The disparity for infant mortality is similar: American Indians have infant mortality rates four times higher than those of whites, while blacks experience infant mortality at nearly three times the rate of whites. The City must work to close these and other disparities in health outcomes, as well as those that exist in education, employment, income and housing outcomes.
To achieve the goal of eliminate disparities, the City of Minneapolis will work to undo the legacy that remains from racially discriminatory housing policies by increasing access to opportunity through a greater diversity of housing types, especially in areas that lack housing options as a result of discriminatory housing policy. The City will invest in education, skills training, small business support and other support systems to help residents access opportunities to gain and retain well-paying employment that allows them to grow as individuals. Additionally, the City will lead by example, hiring and training a diverse workforce, as well as promoting these practices through its contracts, vendors and other procurement and partnership opportunities.
Achieving this goal will mean directing City and other resources – dollars for transit, for affordable housing and business development, for education, and for health and safety programs – to the geographic areas most in need, while providing economic and housing opportunities for all Minneapolis residents. Accomplishing this will require tracking progress and outcomes; and it will require engaging with the community, especially with communities of color, around City actions.
39 policies relate to Goal 1: Eliminate Disparities. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 49: “Educational and Economic Access” on page 184
Policy 50: “Access to Technology” on page 186
Policy 51: “Healthy Pre-K Development” on page 187
Policy 52: “Human Capital and a Trained Workforce” on page 188
Policy 55: “Business Innovation and Expansion” on page 192
Policy 56: “Supporting Small Businesses” on page 193
Policy 2: “Access to Employment” on page 108
Policy 3: “Production and Processing” on page 110
Policy 58: “Business Districts and Corridors” on page 196
Policy 30: “Emphasize the Value of Minneapolis’ Arts and Culture” on page 158
Policy 31: “Artists and Creative Workers” on page 159
Policy 1: “Access to Housing” on page 105
Policy 33: “Affordable Housing Production and Preservation” on page 162
Policy 37: “Mixed Income Housing” on page 168
Policy 38: “Affordable Housing near Transit and Job Centers” on page 169
Policy 39: “Fair Housing” on page 170
Policy 40: “Homelessness” on page 171
Policy 41: “Tenant Protections” on page 173
Policy 42: “Expand Homeownership” on page 174
Policy 43: “Housing Displacement” on page 176
Policy 44: “Comprehensive Investments” on page 178
Policy 23: “Coordinated Development Strategy” on page 149
Policy 45: “Leverage Housing Programs to Benefit Community” on page 179
Policy 46: “Healthy Housing” on page 180
Policy 15: “Transportation and Equity” on page 137
Policy 16: “Environmental Impacts of Transportation” on page 138
Policy 61: “Environmental Justice and Green Zones” on page 199
Policy 66: “Air Quality” on page 207
Policy 62: “Contaminated Sites” on page 201
Policy 81: “Social Connectedness” on page 230
Policy 85: “Access to Health, Social and Emergency Service” on page 235
Policy 63: “Food Access” on page 202
Policy 86: “Healthy Food in Institutions” on page 236
Policy 78: “Park Design and Programming” on page 226
Policy 34: “Cultural Districts” on page 164
Policy 48: “Freeway Remediation” on page 182
Policy 87: “Northside” on page 237
Policy 98: “Innovation Districts” on page 252
Policy 100: “Place-based Neighborhood Engagement” on page 255
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Photo: Buses and transit users on Marquette Avenue in downtown Minneapolis (Photo by Metro Transit)
The population of Minneapolis peaked at almost 522,000 in 1950 (Figure G2.1). At its height, this population supported a bustling streetcar network, convenient neighborhood retail nodes and other services whose traces are still felt in the city. But by 1990, many of these advantages of urban living had faded away, and Minneapolis’ population dipped to a low of 368,000. The downturn in manufacturing, discriminatory housing and lending practices, suburban growth and flight, less centralized employment centers and more encouraged this loss of population, as well as exacerbated patterns of inequity that are still apparent today.
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However, since 2000 Minneapolis has experienced growth that has increased demand for housing. This has prompted the creation of new housing units to help meet the needs of the dynamically changing population, new grocery stores to fulfill basic needs, renewed vitality in commercial areas, new and expanded industries, new and recapitalized parks and open spaces, and increased frequency, speed and reach of transit.
Yet this growth has not been without its challenges. The recent demand for urban living has outstripped the supply of housing available in many areas of the city, which has escalated housing prices at rates faster than wages for many people in the city. As a result, the city has seen an increase in cost-burdened households (households where more than 30 percent of household income goes toward housing) and residents who have been priced out of their neighborhoods.
Overall, 37 percent of all households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, but this is not equal across racial groups (Figure G2.2). Over 50 percent of black and American Indian households, and over 45 percent Hispanic households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, whereas one in three white households are cost-burdened. For a growing number of people, especially people of color, incomes are not keeping up with rising housing costs, resulting in fewer housing units in fewer neighborhoods that are affordable, especially for renters.
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Since 2000, overall household incomes in Minneapolis have slightly decreased – but not equally across racial groups. White non-Hispanic and Asian households have seen increases in household income since 2000, while black households have experienced an approximately 40 percent decrease in income (Figure G2.3).
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Businesses also face the stresses of rising rents and displacement. As rents rise, small retail and service businesses are often the most impacted. These small businesses tend to embody neighborhood and cultural identity, and their loss has repercussions beyond just the loss of jobs and retail or service establishments.
One of the primary factors influencing a resident's ability to afford housing is employment, and in the past 15 years Minneapolis has seen growth in many industries, resulting in refreshed economic vitality and new jobs. Educational disparities hinder the ability of residents of color to prepare for and participate in the continually evolving economy. In Minneapolis less than half of black, American Indian and Hispanic residents have more than a high school education, compared with 83 percent of white non-Hispanic residents (Figure G2.4). These educational disparities create barriers to finding employment that pays a living wage.
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One promising avenue is production and processing businesses, which provide economic opportunities for those who may lack higher levels of education by offering living wages compared with the retail, accommodation and food service industries. Production and processing businesses in the region have average monthly starting wages for workers of color that are twice as high as retail businesses and nearly two-and-a-half times as high as accommodation and food service businesses.
A crucial element of residents’ ability to access employment and of a vibrant economy generally is public transit. While transit has improved in Minneapolis, it is still
far behind the level of transit accessibility and mobility the city’s residents once enjoyed as they accessed jobs, services and housing.
Private investment also has helped stimulate the city’s economy, but like so much else it has not been equal across the city. While some areas have benefited from new market-led investments, other areas have seen very little. Encouraging a more equitable distribution of private investment, continuing to expand and improve the transit system, and working to increase options for affordable housing and living-wage jobs are necessary to ensure that the benefits of growth are experienced by all residents.
To achieve the goal equitably benefiting from that growth, the City of Minneapolis will create new opportunities for people to live throughout the city by allowing and encouraging the development of new multifamily housing of various sizes and affordability levels, including in areas that today contain primarily single family homes. Along with creating these new opportunities, the City will take proactive steps to minimize residential displacement, including by preserving naturally occurring affordable housing and offering homeownership support.
The City will also support the growth of existing businesses and the creation of new businesses, while helping prepare Minneapolis residents for the jobs that result. This includes maintaining and expanding areas of the city for production, processing and distribution of products, services and ideas.
Achieving the above will require the City to support, build and maintain a multimodal transportation system that promotes growth in a sustainable manner. And it will require the City to coordinate the development of housing, businesses and infrastructure in geographic areas where a district-wide approach has the greatest opportunity to achieve growth that can benefit everyone.
⬚ figure More Residents and Jobs Policies:26 policies relate to Goal 2: More Residents and Jobs. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 58: "Business Districts and Corridors" on page 196
Policy 59: "Downtown" on page 197
Policy 62: "Contaminated Sites" on page 201
Policy 76: "New Parks" on page 224
Policy 20: "Transit" on page 145
Policy 48: "Freeway Remediation" on page 182
Policy 98: "Innovation Districts" on page 252
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Photo: Backyard gathering (Photo by Tela Chhe, via flickr.com)
Minneapolis is a magnet city attracting more residents and businesses each year. As a city Minneapolis is facing challenges as it grows, including a shortage of housing units that residents can afford, a rise in the number and percentage of cost-burdened households – especially among renters, and the presence of zoning regulations that have favored single-family housing at the expense of housing access since the era of segregation.
The Metropolitan Council estimates that between 2010 and 2016 the city added over 12,000 housing units and more than 37,000 residents. With this growth comes increased demand for housing and an associated increase in housing costs and rents. As a result, housing units that were once
affordable no longer are, and less housing is available for low-income residents of Minneapolis.
Since 2000, Minneapolis has lost roughly 15,000 housing units that are considered affordable for those earning 50% percent of the area median income ($31,650 for one person/ $45,000 for a family of four ).. These units generally still exist, but they cost more to own or rent, making them unaffordable to this demographic.
In 2017, for the 13-county metropolitan region, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) calculated a median family income of $90,400. Based on this figure, 50% percent of the area median income for a single-person household is $31,650 annually (or an hourly wage of $15.22 for a standard workweek and year), and for a family of four it's $45,200 annually (or a household hourly wage of $21.73 for a standard workweek and year). (Figure G3.1).
The majority of Minneapolis residents are renters and renter households are growing at a faster rate than owner households. When broken down by number of households, the two largest groups of residents in the city are renters earning less than 30% of AMI, ($28,300 per year) and homeowners earning more than 100% of AMI ($94,300 per year). Most people of color in the city are renters while the majority of the city's white residents are homeowners.
Since 2000 a growing number of residents, especially residents of color and indigenous people, have seen a decrease in household income preventing them from keeping up with rising housing costs. A decrease in the number of affordable housing units coupled with decreasing incomes greatly limits the ability of residents to find the housing they need throughout the city.
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Throughout this document there are many references to Affordable Housing. Affordable Housing is rental housing with rent and income restrictions (typically 60% of Area Median Income or below) or housing for homeownership with income restrictions (typically less than 80 percent of Area Median Income) as governed by local, state, and federal housing assistance programs. In comparison to Housing Affordability, which is access to homeownership or rental options based on housing price relative to household income. The loss of affordable housing units and changes in household income have resulted in a greater number of cost-burdened households – households in which more than 30 percent of household income goes toward mortgage or rental payments. Forty-nine percent of all households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, but, this is not equal across racial groups. Over 50 percent of black households and over 45 percent of American Indian and Hispanic households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, whereas 1 in 3 white households are cost-burdened. (Figure G3.2).
Racial disparities persist in all aspects of housing. Until the 1960s, zoning regulations, racially discriminatory housing practices, and federal housing policies worked together to determine who could live in single-family houses in “desirable” neighborhoods. These determinations were based on race and have shaped the opportunities granted to multiple generations of Minneapolis residents. (Figure G3.3).
Following the Great Depression in 1934, guidance from the federal government steered where private investment in housing could occur, this direction was called redlining. This practice denied mortgages in areas where Jews, African-Americans, and other minorities lived, as well as in the more densely populated and mixed-use parts of the city. Related guidance in Federal Housing Administration (FHA) underwriting manuals encouraged the segregation of land uses, also known as zoning, in order to reduce the financial risk of backing single family home loans near land uses deemed undesirable, such as factories and even
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multifamily housing. This guidance, from 1934, reinforced the approach that Minneapolis and other cities in the United States began years earlier through the introduction of zoning ordinances.
While the FHA promoted zoning as an effective tool for assuring a “homogenous and harmonious neighborhood,” the FHA did not think zoning was enough to accomplish the segregation of the races as a means of protecting property values. The FHA underwriting manual also made the case for racially restrictive covenants, using language that described people of color as undesirable neighbors in the same vein as nuisances such as odors and high traffic. These practices allowed banks to deny mortgages and property owners to prevent the sale of a home based on race. As a result, areas of Minneapolis with higher densities and a mix of land uses experienced disinvestment, in part because banks did not lend in those areas.
These policies and regulations shaped the physical characteristics of Minneapolis and the financial status of its residents. Although racially segregated housing is no longer enforced in these “desirable” neighborhoods the zoning map remains largely unchanged from an era in which discrimination was legal, and still contributes to disparities communities of color and indigenous people experience today such as, access to commercial goods and services, quality housing, and public transportation.
To address these issues, the City of Minneapolis will expand opportunities to increase the housing supply in a way that meets changing needs and desires. This means allowing more housing options, especially in areas that currently lack housing choice and in areas with access to frequent and fast transit, employment, and goods and services. It also means creating and expanding new resources and tools to produce and preserve affordable housing, to minimize the displacement of existing residents, and to ensure housing is maintained to promote health and safety. The City will also need to invest in its residents, especially residents of color and indigenous residents, to ensure that it identifies and removes barriers to accessing and retaining housing.
⬚ figure Affordable and Accessible Housing Policies:22 policies relate to Goal 3: Affordable and Accessible Housing. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: Construction workers on site
The Twin Cities region is predicted to have a shortfall of more than 114,000 workers by 2020. A knowledge-based economy, heightened competition in globalized markets, and the quickening pace of change make continual innovation, commercialization, and business creation imperative for economic success. To ensure the growth of the region's and the city's economy, all businesses must have access to employees who can easily fill growing job demand, and small business owners and entrepreneurs need access to resources that help them start and grow their businesses.
It is also necessary to promote a city in which residents from all backgrounds have opportunities to gain and retain
well-paying employment and a city where ethnic diversity in all fields of entrepreneurship is supported and promoted. This will help amend past inequities, as people of color and indigenous people historically have not had equal access to education, employment and entrepreneurial resources. These barriers to access start in youth and continue throughout a lifetime. They range from not having a parent or adult present during childhood to not having access to preschool education, and from educational inequities in schools to employment inequities in job training and access.
Educational inequities in Minneapolis are apparent in the significant disparities that exist in high school graduation. Approximately 22 percent of American Indian students graduate, slightly over 34 percent of Hispanic students graduate, and 36 percent of black students graduate. Thirty-eight percent of all low-income students, regardless of race, graduate. It is foolish to ignore the fact that these trends show up long before graduation; disparities begin at birth and grow wider over time. Income-based achievement gaps open up between the ages of 0 and 5 and stay stable or shrink during K-12, while race-based gaps are very apparent at age 5 and grow modestly at later ages. This suggests that the best opportunity to close or even prevent these achievement gaps is by focusing investment toward the earliest stages of life.
Doing this can help close not only the educational gap, but also the employment gap, as educational disparities routinely become barriers to finding employment in the changing economy and are evident in unemployment and poverty rates. In Minneapolis, the unemployment rate for blacks and American Indians is approximately three times higher than it is for white non-Hispanics. The unemployment rate is 17 percent for blacks and 14 percent for American Indians, compared with less than 5 percent for white non-Hispanics (Figure G4.1).
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This relationship between education and employment levels is borne out by national level analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows higher rates of unemployment for people with lower levels of education. People with an associate’s or bachelor’s degree have unemployment rates of up to a percentage point less that the median unemployment rate, while those with a high school degree have unemployment rates over a percentage point higher than the median unemployment rate. In Minneapolis, 83 percent of white non-Hispanics have more than a high school education, compared with 47 percent of black people and 45 percent of American Indians. Only 32 percent of Hispanics have more than a high school education (Figure G4.2).
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To achieve the goal of ensuring residents access to a living-wage job, the City of Minneapolis will invest in education and skills training so residents, especially low-income residents, residents of color and indigenous residents, have opportunities to prepare for and participate in Minneapolis’ growing economy. This also means increasing job readiness by investing in employment training, placement and education for both youth and adults; as well as serving as a model employer by increasing the diversity of the City’s workforce. The City will support business innovation and invest in capacity building for entrepreneurs and small businesses. The City will support businesses in providing fair wages and worker protections.
18 policies relate to Goal 4: Living-Wage Jobs. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 49: "Educational and Economic Access" on page 184
Policy 50: "Access to Technology" on page 186
Policy 51: "Healthy Pre-K Development" on page 187
Policy 52: "Human Capital and a Trained Workforce" on page 188
Policy 55: "Business Innovation and Expansion" on page 192
Policy 56: "Supporting Small Businesses" on page 193
Policy 57: "Cluster Strategy" on page 195
Policy 90: "Technology in the Economy" on page 241
Policy 2: "Access to Employment" on page 108
Policy 3: "Production and Processing" on page 110
Policy 58: "Business Districts and Corridors" on page 196
Policy 20: "Transit" on page 145
Policy 22: "Downtown Transportation" on page 148
Policy 31: "Artists and Creative Workers" on page 159
Policy 64: "Food Businesses" on page 204
Policy 34: "Cultural Districts" on page 164
Policy 87: "Northside" on page 237
Policy 98: "Innovation Districts" on page 252
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Photo: Open Streets on Nicollet Avenue (Photo by Fibonacci Blue, via flickr. com).
The physical patterns in the way Minneapolis has developed, and will develop, shapes the health and safety outcomes of its residents. The World Health Organization describes social determinants of health as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels. The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities.” Inequities related to opportunities, conditions, policies and practices don’t impact just individuals in isolation. Instead, entire generations are impacted by these inequities – especially those rooted in race, place and income – in healthy development and lifestyle.
Minneapolis is among the areas of the nation with the largest disparities between people of color and indigenous peoples and white people in level of education, employment and poverty rates. White non-Hispanic residents in Minneapolis make approximately three times the income of black and American Indian residents; the median income in 2016 for white non-Hispanics was approximately $65,000, while the median incomes for blacks and American Indians were $20,871 and $22,476, respectively. And since 2000, white non-Hispanic and Asian households have seen increases in median income, while black and American Indian households have experienced an approximately 40 percent reduction in median income (Figure G5.1).
Inequities in social and economic factors are key contributors to health disparities; ultimately, these gaps need to close if equity in health outcomes is to advance. Social and economic disparities underpin health disparities from premature death rates to access to healthy food and from healthy youth development to housing stability. In Minneapolis, American Indians have premature death rates that are more than four times higher than those of whites, and the premature death rate for blacks is twice the rate for whites (Figure G5.2).
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The disparity for infant mortality is similar: American Indians have infant mortality rates four times higher than those of whites, while blacks experience infant mortality at nearly three times the rate of whites (Figure G5.3).
The link between economic and social inequities and health disparities is also clearly evident in the issue of access to healthy food. Insufficient income is one of two primary barriers to healthy food access. (The other is lack of proximity to stores that sell healthy food, which is also affected by income.) Residents living at 185 percent of the federal poverty level (in 2016, the equivalent of household income for a family of four was $44,955, or $21.61 an hour) are more likely to experience food insecurity, which is associated with obesity and inadequate nutrition.
Psychological resiliency can also be impacted by social and economic disparities. For example, a lack of stable and affordable housing can negatively impact community cohesiveness by forcing people to move often in search of housing they can afford. This kind of neighborhood mobility breaks up social networks, impacts school success, and places stresses on families forced to adjust to new environments. The lack of diversity in housing type and size impacts not only affordability (and thus stability), but also options for Minneapolitans who are aging or disabled and need housing alternatives that allow them to stay in their community and remain connected to their social networks.
Social connectivity is incredibly important in creating and retaining the relationships that make our communities stronger and more resilient. Through programs and the design of community spaces, including parks, community and youth centers, new buildings and city streets, Minneapolis can foster environments to increase social connectedness. The design of these spaces can also improve safety and the perception of safety, making people more likely to use the spaces.
A multisector public health approach to public safety that is informed by and responsive to the community will ultimately lead to a city that is safer, stronger, more
connected and more resilient. Enforcement is essential to public safety, but it’s only one of other equally essential components that together comprise a holistic approach. In the pursuit of safer communities it is essential to consider not just individual actors, but also the relationships between individuals, the communities in which those relationships exist, and societal factors that influence the climate and conditions of the city. Influential societal factors include conditions, policies and practices that create and sustain disparities.
To achieve the goal of a connected, healthy, and safe people, the City of Minneapolis will ensure healthy outcomes for all Minneapolis residents, including youth and seniors, regardless of where in the city they live and regardless of their income, the City of Minneapolis will continue healthy-living and disease-prevention activities, including the promotion of equitable access to and distribution of healthy food sources.
In addition, the City will support social connectedness through the creation, retention and programming of gathering spaces for people of all ages. This includes ensuring independent living opportunities, meaningful engagement and resources for older Minneapolis residents so they can be a vital part of the fabric of the community, and it includes ensuring people with disabilities and their families are visible, active and valued members of the community. The City will also work to ensure public safety through collaborative multisector, community-inclusive approaches.
⬚ figure Healthy, Safe, and Connected People Policies:28 policies relate to Goal 5: Healthy, Safe, and Connected People. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: New Nicollet Mall (Photo by Metro Transit)
A well-designed physical environment in Minneapolis can facilitate positive human interactions and promote commerce, pedestrian activity, safety, and health. The city achieves this through urban design, which is the process of shaping and locating buildings, parks and open spaces, landscapes, streets, and public art to make up the physical form, function, and feel of a city.
The urban design of Minneapolis influences the city’s quality of life and environment. A well-integrated private and public realm can encourage street-level activity that supports public safety, facilitates foot traffic to support local retail businesses, and forms comfortable and appealing places that naturally become destinations for both Minneapolis residents and visitors from the region and beyond.
To achieve the goal of a high-quality physical environment, the City of Minneapolis will promote design for the built environment that is dynamic and durable, reflects the diversity of Minneapolis residents, and contributes to a sense of place and community identity. The City will also proactively improve the public realm, including streets, sidewalks, parks and open spaces between buildings, to ensure that public spaces and private development are thoughtfully connected.
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25 policies relate to Goal 6: High-Quality Physical Environment. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 5: "Visual Quality of New Development" on page 116
Policy 6: "Pedestrian-Oriented Building and Site Design" on page 118
Policy 7: "Public Realm" on page 122
Policy 80: "Development Near METRO Stations" on page 228
Policy 8: "Public Safety Through Environmental Design" on page 124
Policy 9: "Open Spaces in New Development" on page 127
Policy 78: "Park Design and Programming" on page 226
Policy 10: "Street Grid" on page 128
Policy 12: "Lighting" on page 132
Policy 13: "Landscaping" on page 134
Policy 14: "Tree Canopy and Urban Forest" on page 136
Policy 74: "Integration of Water Management into Development" on page 220
Policy 15: "Transportation and Equity" on page 137
Policy 58: "Business Districts and Corridors" on page 196
Policy 11: "Skyways" on page 130
Policy 47: "Housing Quality" on page 181
Policy 60: "Intrinsic Value of Properties" on page 198
Policy 93: "Stewarding Historic Properties" on page 245
Policy 91: "Heritage Preservation Outreach" on page 242
Policy 92: "Identify and Evaluate Historic Resources" on page 243
Policy 34: "Cultural Districts" on page 164
Policy 48: "Freeway Remediation" on page 182
Policy 97: "Preserving and Enhancing Public Lakes and Waterways" on page 250
Policy 98: "Innovation Districts" on page 252
Policy 100: "Place-based Neighborhood Engagement" on page 255
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Photo: Midtown Global Market (Photo by Fibonacci Blue)
Minneapolis is filled with buildings and landscapes that are important to its heritage and integral to defining and framing the character of the city’s place and culture. These properties may be a collection of commercial buildings or industrial buildings, old railroad infrastructure or a set of rowhomes. Some may be local or national historically designated properties, while many are not. The value of some may be more universally recognized – for example, the Foshay Tower; while the value of others may not be as universally recognized – for example, early 20th century commercial buildings along West Broadway. In either case, the properties have intrinsic value in helping define and frame the character of an area and present opportunities to support economic and business development and, more broadly, community development and investment.
Minneapolis has been experiencing change since its early settlement and will continue to experience change well into the future. It’s essential to manage this change and evolution so the physical attributes of the city reflect Minneapolis’ history and cultures and all residents have a sense of belonging and access to a cultural anchor. Preservation can not only celebrate who has lived in the city in the past, but also reflect who lives here today. The City can accomplish this only through proactive engagement with residents, business owners, and property owners, especially those from communities of color and indigenous and low-income communities who have not typically participated in heritage preservation activities or other city activities.
To achieve the goal of having physical attributes that reflect its history and culture, the City of Minneapolis will broaden its understanding of important places through engagement with cultural communities, communities of color and indigenous communities. The City will use the feedback from this engagement to help identify and preserve buildings, landscapes and other places important to the city’s heritage. Additionally, the City will recognize and actively promote the intrinsic value of historic places as integral to the city’s evolving environment and will support thriving business districts and corridors that build on cultural assets.
⬚ figure History and Culture Policies:11 policies relate to Goal 7: History and Culture. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: Native dance at the Commons
Minneapolis’ creative, cultural and natural amenities shape the city and its economy and attract residents, businesses and visitors. In 2017, Minneapolis had the repeat honor of being recognized as the Nation’s Best Park System by the Trust for Public Land; Minneapolis’ parks encompass the city’s defining lakes and river banks and include features of astonishing beauty, historical significance and ecological wonder, all within a thriving urban setting.
Not only that, but Minneapolis has a national park running right through it – the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, which follows the Mississippi River through the city. Its pinnacle, St. Anthony Falls, the only
major waterfall on the Mississippi River, generated the power that created Minneapolis. St. Anthony Falls has been the anchor in the rebirth of Minneapolis’ central riverfront, an area that provides an incredible opportunity to increase access to natural and cultural amenities for Minneapolis residents and expand the city as a regional and national destination.
In addition to its parks and natural attractions, Minneapolis’ creative sector is often cited as an important factor in promoting the city on a global scale. In 2015, creative sector sales contributed $4.5 billion to Minneapolis’ economy – nearly eight times the revenues of Minneapolis’ sports sector. That said, the value of the creative and cultural amenities tied to the creative sector goes far beyond money. It’s much deeper, rooted in individual and group expression and learning, as well as in growing, exploring and forging deeper connections between Minneapolis residents. A 2014 survey conducted through the City’s Creative City Road Map planning process demonstrated that Minneapolis residents and artists think it’s important to offer arts and cultural programs to bridge differences between people and to make tangible the values and identities of local communities. The City will continue to encourage this creative – and natural – vibrancy that makes Minneapolis a welcoming attractive community.
To achieve the goal of creative, cultural, and natural amenities, the City of Minneapolis will steward, support, and strengthen its creative, cultural, and natural amenities. This means strengthening the ecosystem to support the creative sector and reducing disparities among creative sector workers to give people of color and indigenous people opportunities to participate and succeed. It means connecting cultural institutions and creative workers with the resources and dynamic spaces they need to thrive.
Minneapolis will continue to maintain, promote and expand upon the unparalleled beauty and recreational opportunities of the city’s parks and open spaces. The City will strive to fill gaps where residents do not have equal access to parks and open spaces and to connect residents to natural amenities. And the City will work to ensure that improvements to parks and park programs better serve Minneapolis’ changing population.
⬚ figure Creative, Cultural, and Natural Amenities Policies:17 policies relate to Goal 8: Creative, Cultural, and Natural Amenities. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
| Policy 29: “Arts and Creative Spaces, Venues and Districts” on page 156 |
| Policy 30: “Emphasize the Value of Minneapolis’ Arts and Culture” on page 158 |
| Policy 31: “Artists and Creative Workers” on page 159 |
| Policy 53: “Quality of Life” on page 190 |
| Policy 58: ““Business Districts and Corridors” on page 196 |
| Policy 93: “Stewarding Historic Properties” on page 245 |
| Policy 59: “Downtown” on page 197 |
| Policy 76: “New Parks” on page 224 |
| Policy 78: “Park Design and Programming” on page 226 |
Policy 9: "Open Spaces in New Development" on page 127
Policy 7: "Public Realm" on page 122
Policy 14: "Tree Canopy and Urban Forest" on page 136
Policy 72: "Sustainable Water System Management" on page 217
Policy 34: "Cultural Districts" on page 164
Policy 97: "Preserving and Enhancing Public Lakes and Waterways" on page 250
Policy 99: "University District" on page 253
Policy 100: "Place-based Neighborhood Engagement" on page 255
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Photo: Washington Avenue in downtown Minneapolis
Goal 9. In 2040, all Minneapolis residents will have access to employment, retail services, healthy food, parks, and other daily needs via walking, biking, and public transit.
The Minneapolis Climate Action Plan adopted in 2013 provides a road map toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with targets of 15 percent by 2015 and 30 percent by 2025 compared with 2006 levels. In 2014, Minneapolis adopted a vital long-term goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
In 2015, on-road transportation accounted for 26 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Today, over 90 percent of passenger miles traveled in Minneapolis are taken in personal automobiles. Even with the adoption of electric cars, a 38 percent reduction in passenger miles
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traveled by automobile is needed to achieve the 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (Figure G9.1).
Nationally, 45 percent of daily trips are taken for shopping and errands. Residents in many parts of the city have no choice but to drive long distances to access regular daily goods and services such as grocery stores. In most of the city, demand for retail is much higher than supply, indicating an opportunity to make retail more convenient for everyone and thereby reduce car trips and greenhouse gas emissions. The city also has 11 low-income census tracts in which residents live more than a mile from a full-service grocery store.
Currently 97 percent of Minneapolis residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park, but small pockets of the city still lack easy access to such a critical component of a livable urban environment. Some of these gaps are in places where new residential neighborhoods are emerging. As the city’s population grows, it will be important to continue evaluating park access and to build new parks in underserved areas.
To achieve the goal of access to daily needs via walking, biking and public transit, the City of Minneapolis will allow more housing to be built in places close to transit, retail services and employment areas. The City will designate additional areas for commercial uses in parts of the city that are well-served by public transportation and where demand for retail goods and services exceeds supply. The City will support thriving business districts and corridors that build on cultural assets and serve the daily needs of Minneapolis residents. And the City will work to build parks in underserved areas to ensure that all residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park.
Achieving this goal also requires changes to the transportation system that make it easier to walk, bike or use transit to access daily needs. The City will proactively improve the pedestrian environment and continue to build and maintain a network of bikeways, while working
with Metro Transit to increase the frequency, speed and reliability of the public transit system.
21 policies relate to Goal 9: Complete Neighborhoods. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 1: “Access to Housing” on page 105
Policy 80: “Development Near METRO Stations” on page 228
Policy 38: “Affordable Housing near Transit and Job Centers” on page 169
Policy 2: “Access to Employment” on page 108
Policy 4: “Access to Commercial Goods and Services” on page 113
Policy 58: “Business Districts and Corridors” on page 196
Policy 64: “Food Businesses” on page 204
Policy 63: “Food Access” on page 202
Policy 76: “New Parks” on page 224
Policy 77: “Park Access” on page 225
Policy 17: “Complete Streets” on page 140
Policy 18: “Pedestrians” on page 142
Policy 19: “Bicycling” on page 144
Policy 20: “Transit” on page 145
Policy 24: “Shared Mobility” on page 151
Policy 25: “Innovations in Transportation and Infrastructure” on page 152
Policy 11: “Skyways” on page 130
Policy 34: “Cultural Districts” on page 164
Policy 48: “Freeway Remediation” on page 182
Policy 87: “Northside” on page 237
Policy 98: “Innovation Districts” on page 252
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Photo: Community members planting the street median (Photo by Ted Eytan, via flickr.com)
Goal 10. In 2040, Minneapolis will be resilient to the effects of climate change and diminishing natural resources, and will be on track to achieve an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Climate change is a defining challenge of this decade and even this century. Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are destabilizing the earth’s climate and human activity is the primary driver of these emissions. Without rapid action to reduce these emissions, we will face threats to our economic livelihood, public health, and supplies of food, fresh water and power.
These impacts will not be felt equally across the globe, nor in Minneapolis; low-income and vulnerable residents face disproportionate impacts from climate change.
Simply paying for energy takes a disproportionate share of income for low-income residents. Energy bills constitute 19 percent of income for households with income between 75 and 100 percent of the federal poverty level, but even households with incomes between 150 and 185 percent of the federal poverty level have energy bills higher than is considered affordable. Older adults, children and people with disabilities or certain medical conditions are at great risk of the effects of climate change, including hotter summer days and nights, higher levels of humidity, extreme storm events and rising rates of insect-borne illnesses.
To be resilient to the effects of climate change and diminishing natural resources, the city’s residents, communities, businesses and systems must be able to survive, adapt and thrive despite the stresses and shocks caused by climate change. Accomplishing this requires supporting and fostering an environment where residents of Minneapolis are well-connected to their neighbors and have social support systems in times of stress and shock. It requires a physical environment, such as trees and landscaping, that helps provide shade and passive cooling opportunities in the summer and reduces the impact of extreme cold in the winter. It requires stormwater infrastructure that can handle larger storm events, and it requires water resources sufficient to last through periods of drought. It requires energy systems that can efficiently handle periods of high demand and buildings that rely less on electricity and natural gas. It requires a transportation system that functions throughout extreme weather events, and it requires areas housing and employment capable of accommodating population shifts due to climate migration.
The worst impacts of climate change are not inevitable. Moving to a more energy-efficient economy, renewable and reliable energy sources for buildings and transportation, and a less wasteful system has the potential not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but to improve public health, clean the air and water, and keep more dollars in the local economy.
The Minneapolis Climate Action Plan adopted in 2013 provides a road map toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with targets of 15 percent by 2015 and 30 percent by 2025 compared with 2006 levels. In 2014, Minneapolis adopted a vital long-term goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
In 2015, buildings accounted for 71 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions (Figure G10.1); commercial and industrial buildings accounted for nearly two-thirds of that and residential buildings accounted for the rest. Despite an increase in the number of buildings in the city of nearly 8 percent since 2006, electricity consumption has declined 6 percent during the same period and continues on a downward trajectory. Furthermore, emissions from electricity consumption are down 31 percent from 2006, accounting for 81 percent of the city’s total greenhouse gas reductions in that time. Improved energy efficiency and cleaner electricity (more renewables and fewer coal power plants) are driving this change. Emissions from electricity consumption still comprise the largest share of the city’s total greenhouse gas emissions, but this is expected to be eclipsed by emissions from natural gas in the coming years as more clean, renewable electricity is added to Xcel Energy’s portfolio. To achieve the 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 the city will need to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, and this will require a transition from relying solely on fossil fuel-derived natural gas for heating.
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In 2015, on-road transportation accounted for 26 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Today, over 90 percent of passenger miles traveled in Minneapolis are in personal automobiles. Even with the adoption of electric cars, a 38 percent reduction in passenger miles traveled by automobile is needed to achieve the 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Achieving this goal requires changes to both transportation infrastructure and land use to make it easier to walk, bike or take transit to access jobs, goods and services. This means more people living close to transit, jobs, goods and services, as well as improved pedestrian, bicycle and transit systems.
In 2015, solid waste and wastewater accounted for 3 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. While this is low compared with emissions from buildings and transportation, opportunity exists to reduce it further, including by increasing recycling and organics collections as well as through water conservation.
To achieve the goal of climate change resilience, the City of Minneapolis will strive to substantially increase the energy efficiency of buildings by retrofitting existing buildings and improving the design of new buildings. It will also work to accelerate the transition to renewable energy in buildings and transportation. Minneapolis will establish a pattern of development and a transportation network that prioritizes pedestrians, bicyclers and transit users. At the same time, the City will prepare for the consequences of climate change by investing in improved stormwater management, urban heat island reduction and energy system resilience.
21 policies relate to Goal 10: Climate Change Resilience. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: Woman canoeing on the Mississippi River
Minneapolis is annually ranked as one of the healthiest cities in the nation. In these rankings, the city’s park system, clean air and water, and quality of life are often cited as contributing to its high standing. Yet despite being acknowledged for these beneficial assets and its efforts to make the city cleaner and healthier, the City must persist in improving the quality of the air and surface waters and continue to improve the ecosystem. Minneapolis’ environmental system is an intricate network of living, engineered and climatic features working together. The health of the city is directly correlated to the strength of this ecosystem and how well these systems can thrive despite the pressures of climate change.
Minneapolis’ lakes received excellent and good scores using Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board measures that assess conditions affecting the public use of lakes. The measures look at public health, water quality, habitat quality, aesthetics and recreational access. However, measurements established by the federal Clean Water Act list many of Minneapolis’ lakes and rivers as having multiple impairments ranging from chemicals and metals in fish to other water quality issues that impact aquatic life and recreation. Past City and state regulations and programs have made progress in improving the water quality of Minneapolis’ lakes and rivers, but more can be done locally.
Minneapolis’ air is getting cleaner. In 2007 where there were 225 days when pollutants were above the levels recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee to be protective of public health. In 2015, there were 114 days. The sources of air pollutants range from mobile sources like cars and trucks to point sources such as factories and power plants and to area sources such as dry cleaners and gas stations. Minneapolis can impact these pollutant sources through transportation and land use planning, by encouraging reductions in energy consumption, and through programs and regulations to reduce point and area sources. In early 2018, Minneapolis became the first major city in the nation to go entirely “perc-free” as the last dry cleaner switches over to a safer process. “Perc” is classified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA, and in 2015 there were 99 occasions in the city when perc was detected at levels above the level the state defines as a “chronic health risk.” Minneapolis has established programs to help the last nine dry cleaners in the city using perc replace their equipment to make the switch.
The City will succeed in meeting this goal only if everyone is able to benefit from the outcomes, meaning all residents have access to clean air, quality water and plenty of recreational spaces in flourishing natural environments. Unfortunately, many of the city’s most vulnerable communities – low-income and indigenous communities and communities of color – experience more exposure to poor-quality air and other environmental pollutants. According to the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, people of color are much more likely to live near pollution sources and breathe polluted air. These air pollutants – construction dust, auto fumes, smog, soot,
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oil smoke, ash – are linked to serious health problems such as heart attacks, asthma, high blood pressure, lung conditions and low birth weights.
The City of Minneapolis strives to achieve environmental justice for its residents, which is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin or income, in the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. Fair treatment means no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental or commercial operations or
policies. This requires meaningful involvement from all communities, especially those disproportionately affected and previously disenfranchised, and intentional action by the City to protect the health of residents and guests of the city into 2040. In 2017, the City established Green Zones as a place-based policy initiative aimed at improving health and supporting economic development using environmentally conscious efforts in communities that face the cumulative effects of environmental pollution, as well as social, political and economic vulnerability. These efforts toward environmental justice, as well as for cleaner air and water overall, will continue to be a priority for the City.
To achieve the goal of a clean environment, the City of Minneapolis will meet and exceed the air quality standards recommended by the EPA by eliminating the use of some of the most common industrial volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and by reducing industrial sources of other harmful pollutants. The City will also pair investments with regulatory changes to achieve equity in areas of environmental injustice.
The City will protect and manage its water resources sustainably while preventing contaminants from polluting its water systems. Achieving this means maximizing waste reduction to meet the City’s zero-waste goals, supporting healthy ecosystems in and around surface waters, and increasing biodiversity to restore ecological habitats. It also means promoting large and small developments that enhance air, soil and water quality.
⬚ figure Clean Environment Policies:19 policies relate to Goal 11: Clean Environment. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: Local brewery (Photo by smcgee, via flickr.com)
Minneapolis is operating from a rich base of local assets that generate business and expand industries. Minneapolis and the surrounding region are home to 17 Fortune 500 companies and seven of the top 225 private companies. Minneapolis’ regional creative economy continues to be ranked in the top six in the Creative Vitality Index, with a score nearly four times higher than the national average. The University of Minnesota, ranked fourth in the nation for patent creation and the ninth-best U.S. public research institution, continues to lead in the development and creation of new technology, ideas and business. The state of Minnesota ranks first in the nation in the number of jobs
per capita related to medical technology. And Forbes has called Minnesota the fastest-growing state for tech jobs
Minneapolis’ economy needs to continue to grow and innovate, and people of color and indigenous people must have physical, personal and institutional access to this growth. This means developing and supporting an economic climate that helps sustain and nourish businesses through targeted outreach to business sectors that demonstrate growth and support other Industries. It means addressing the growing racial disparities in Minneapolis’ economy by identifying barriers that have reduced access to economic opportunities and by developing strategies and programs that ensure people of color can participate, compete in and succeed in the economy – ultimately ensuring that the growth of Minneapolis benefits everyone.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development estimates that Minneapolis was home to 318,500 jobs in 2015, and the Metropolitan Council projects that the city will add 41,500 jobs by 2040. Much of this job growth will happen in downtown Minneapolis, the central business district that is the economic and transportation hub of the region. Downtown continues to attract and retain companies, employees, residents, commercial options and regional destinations. This growth can be attributed to a variety of investments, but ultimately downtown offers an experience and a bundle of goods and services that give it a competitive advantage over other areas in the region. Downtown is not the only driver of Minneapolis’ economic growth; numerous large employers such as hospitals, universities and cultural institutions are located outside of downtown and will continue to generate economic growth and opportunity.
Minneapolis’ neighborhood business districts and corridors also serve a vital economic role. Residents visit them for daily goods and services, they provide opportunities for small business and employment, they offer community gathering places, and together the buildings and businesses provide an identity for the surrounding community. These places bring vital energy and diversity to the city and region, and they should be supported.
Production and processing businesses are also an important element of a healthy local and regional economy. These types of businesses include but are not limited to medical device and electronic instrument manufacturing, breweries and distilleries, food production, metal fabrication, and distribution and fulfillment. Production and processing businesses provide economic opportunities for people without a college degree, especially those of color, by offering higher wages than comparable jobs in the retail, accommodation and food service industries. In Minneapolis less than half of black, American Indian and Hispanic residents have more than a high school education, compared with 83 percent of white non-Hispanic residents. These educational disparities create barriers to finding employment that pays a living wage – but production and processing businesses in the region have average monthly starting wages for workers of color that are twice as high as retail businesses and nearly two-and-a-half times that of accommodation and food service businesses. The City will work to ensure these and other economic opportunities are available to all residents.
To achieve this goal, the City of Minneapolis will support existing businesses and help them grow. Additionally, the City will foster innovation and entrepreneurship in business sectors that show promise for growth and give Minneapolis a competitive advantage. This means supporting new business creation with a focus on creating opportunity for people of color and indigenous people.
Minneapolis will maintain and expand opportunities to start and grow businesses. This means strengthening downtown’s position as the region’s business, commercial, cultural and entertainment center. It also means supporting neighborhood business districts and corridors. And it means ensuring the physical space necessary for the production, processing, and distribution of products, which also helps provide quality living-wage jobs to residents.
27 policies relate to Goal 12: Healthy, Sustainable, and Diverse Economy.
Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: Resident speaking at Minneapolis City Council hearing (Photo by Tony Webster)
When the City develops policies, enacts ordinances, creates programs or deploys resources, its activities have a direct effect on residents, businesses and visitors. To be effective, the City needs to continually explore refinements and new tools to ensure it provides services in a streamlined, accessible, and equitable manner.
This includes committing to meaningful engagement with residents and businesses when making decisions. It means improving the accessibility of engagement activities and intentionally seeking out engagement with populations that have been underrepresented – specifically communities of color and indigenous peoples. Pairing public feedback with empirical research and data will lead to better-informed decisions and increased transparency. The City should also
improve engagement by expanding the racial and ethnic diversity of its workforce, supply chain and vendors.
Like all cities, Minneapolis often faces fiscal uncertainty as a result of actions at the federal and state levels. This makes City government more reliant on the local tax base for support and requires the City to make diligent, prudent fiscal decisions and seek opportunities to leverage City resources with external funding sources.
To achieve the goal of being a proactive, accessible, and fiscally sustainable government, the City of Minneapolis will provide services that benefit residents, workers, visitors and businesses in a streamlined, accessible and equitable manner. This means improving services and using data and research to guide decision-making and plan for the future. It also means planning effectively for municipally owned facilities to serve a growing city.
Minneapolis will manage existing physical assets and work to implement the right improvements at the optimal time; and will use those improvements to cumulatively progress multiple City goals. This means creating and seizing opportunities to leverage funding with internal and regional partners or other entities that invest in the city. The City will also serve as a model employer by increasing the diversity of its workforce and providing employment opportunities for youth.
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7 policies relate to Goal 13: Proactive, Accessible, and Sustainable Government. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: Residents engaging at an open house event
Goal 14. In 2040, Minneapolis will have an equitable civic participation system that enfranchises everyone, recognizes the core and vital service neighborhood organizations provide to the City of Minneapolis, and builds people’s long term capacity to organize to improve their lives and neighborhoods.
In 2016 Minneapolis conducted a survey of its residents. Nearly half of the respondents indicated they do not feel they can influence decisions made in the City of Minneapolis. Approximately 30 percent of respondents felt they did not have a voice about issues important to them when interacting with the City. For Minneapolis to successfully implement the policies in this plan and work toward achieving its goals, it’s important to give
stakeholders a voice and the capacity to influence decisions.
This plan strives to eliminate disparities among people of color and indigenous peoples compared with white people. This includes differences in rates of civic participation such as representation on neighborhood organization boards and City boards and commissions, and levels of engagement on issues, policies, regulations, programs and other City efforts. Implementing many of the policies of this plan requires a greater understanding of Minneapolis’ diverse communities to identify and remove barriers to participation. It also requires deeper and ongoing engagement, specifically with a focus on people of color, indigenous people and vulnerable populations such as low-income households, the elderly and people with disabilities. This means continuing to explore new methods and techniques to not only engage with underrepresented populations but to build trust and strengthen connections. And it means partnering with organizations such as cultural groups and neighborhood organizations that already have connections in the community and can help proactively engage residents on City activities.
To achieve the goal of an equitable civic participation system, the City of Minneapolis will actively build the community’s capacity to strengthen authentic engagement through neighborhood associations and City advisory committees and to facilitate meaningful resident input into City policies, programs and procedures; and it will work to maximize the involvement of renters, people with disabilities, people of color, indigenous people and others who have been historically underrepresented in civic life. This requires deepening an understanding among City staff of Minneapolis’ diverse communities, their histories, and how the government has impacted them over time The City will track the progress of engagement improvements as well as ensure that City staff reflects the diversity of Minneapolis’ residents.
The City will also help foster the kinds of social connections that encourage and promote civic participation by ensuring safe and welcoming community spaces for all to connect with each other, including parks, community and youth centers, and city streets and rights of way.
⬚ figure Equitable Civic Participation System Policies:8 policies relate to Goal 14: Equitable Civic Participation System.
Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
The Comprehensive Plan policies are sorted by eleven topics. Each topic contains policies that relate to the built, natural, and economic environment of the city with background information about the importance of each topic to the future of our city.
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Photo: Stone Arch Bridge and downtown Minneapolis (Photo by Dan Anderson, Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis)
The Minneapolis 2040 goals describe a future for Minneapolis that is equitable, healthy, and sustainable. The policies of this plan are intended to provide an overarching structure for achieving those goals as they relate to the built, natural, and economic environment of our city.
Among the goals of this plan is to ensure that all Minneapolis residents will be able to afford and access quality housing throughout the city, that all Minneapolis residents will have access to a living wage job, and that all Minneapolis residents will have access to daily needs via walking, biking, and public transit. Policies associated with the topics of Housing, Economic Competitiveness, and Transportation describe proactive steps the City will take to achieve these goals.
This section, Land Use and Built Form, describes where new housing, workplaces, and retail establishments may locate in the city in order to achieve the plan goals. This guidance is communicated through a combination of policies and maps. The first four policies that appear below – Access to Housing, Access to Employment, Production and Processing, and Access to Commercial Goods and Services – form the basis for the Future Land Use Map and the Built Form Map that guide the location and characteristics of new buildings.
The Access to Housing policy outlines the role of the Future Land Use and Built Form maps in increasing housing choice throughout the city, acknowledging the contribution of zoning to racially-restrictive housing practices of the first half of the 20th century, and the lasting effect those actions had on people of color and indigenous people. The policy also reinforces the practice of developing multifamily housing on transit routes, providing people the opportunity to live without a car, or with fewer cars in each household, helping to work toward the City’s greenhouse gas reduction goal. This policy, and the resultant housing guidance on the future land use and built form maps, ensures that we have places throughout the city to increase housing supply and choice. The remaining Housing policies of the plan communicate a commitment to proactively meet the housing needs of Minneapolis residents, including through the production and preservation of affordable housing and expansion of the City’s inclusionary housing policies and tools.
Together, the Access to Employment and Production and Processing policies outline the role of the Future Land Use and Built Form maps in supporting employment growth and ensuring that land is available for living-wage jobs in areas close to where people live. These policies work in conjunction with the Economic Competitiveness policies of this plan, which communicate a commitment to ensuring that Minneapolis residents have job training and skills necessary to participate in the economy, and will have access to living-wage jobs.
The Access to Commercial Goods and Services policy outlines the role of the Future Land Use and Built Form maps in providing the opportunity for Minneapolis residents to access daily needs without using a car. This is especially important because achieving the City’s goals of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions requires reducing the number of car trips in Minneapolis by 37%. People take more trips running errands than going to work, so it is critical to give people the opportunity to meet their daily needs closer to home.
The remaining policies inform the design of buildings and the spaces in between, and support the goals of a high-quality and distinctive environment, a clean environment, and a city that is resilient to climate change.
21 policies relate to Land Use and Built Form. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 1: "Access to Housing” on page 105
Policy 2: “Access to Employment” on page 108
Policy 3: “Production and Processing” on page 110
Policy 4: “Access to Commercial Goods and Services” on page 113
Policy 80: “Development Near METRO Stations” on page 228
Policy 6: “Pedestrian-Oriented Building and Site Design” on page 118
Policy 5: “Visual Quality of New Development” on page 116
Policy 7: “Public Realm” on page 122
Policy 8: “Public Safety Through Environmental Design” on page 124
Policy 68: “Energy Efficient and Sustainable Buildings” on page 210
Policy 9: “Open Spaces in New Development” on page 127
Policy 10: “Street Grid” on page 128
Policy 11: “Skyways” on page 130
Policy 12: “Lighting” on page 132
Policy 13: “Landscaping” on page 134
Policy 14: “Tree Canopy and Urban Forest” on page 136
Policy 74: “Integration of Water Management into Development” on page 220
Policy 48: “Freeway Remediation” on page 182
Policy 97: “Preserving and Enhancing Public Lakes and Waterways” on page 250
Policy 98: “Innovation Districts” on page 252
Policy 100: “Place-based Neighborhood Engagement” on page 255
The Future Land Use and Built Form Maps are the primary tools for implementing the Land Use and Built Form policies of the Comprehensive Plan. They also embody and implement policies found throughout this plan, as well as the fourteen Comprehensive Plan Goals. The Future Land Use Map guides land use for every parcel in the city. Any changes to the use of land must be consistent with the guidance of the Future Land Use Map. The Built Form Map guides the scale of development for every parcel in the city through Built Form Districts. The built form of all new and remodeled buildings must be consistent with the guidance of the Built Form Map.
The maps, along with other policies in the plan, will be used to make decisions on development proposals and to shape regulations over the life of the document. Height, bulk, and setback standards, among other regulations, will continue to work in concert with and be informed by these maps and policies to guide and govern development that occurs throughout the city.
It is important to note that not every property in the city will be redeveloped between now and 2040. Rather, these maps provide guidance in the event that a change is proposed by a property owner. Following adoption of Minneapolis 2040, the City of Minneapolis will update its Zoning Code and Zoning Map to reflect the guidance of the Future Land Use and Built Form Maps.
Additional supporting materials for Land Use and Built Form content can be found in Appendix B, Land Use.
The Future Land Use Map identifies the types of uses allowed on a given parcel according to the categories described below. The map guides use only. The Future Land Use Map works in tandem with the Built Form Map to provide a complete set of guidance for each parcel.
There are 12 Future Land Use Categories.
Urban Neighborhood is a predominantly residential area with a range of allowed building types. May include small-scale institutional and semi-public uses (for example, schools, community centers, religious institutions, public safety facilities, etc.) scattered throughout. Like the Neighborhood Mixed Use category, commercial uses can continue serving their existing commercial function. Commercial zoning is appropriate for these properties, while expansion of commercial uses and zoning into surrounding areas is not encouraged.
Neighborhood Mixed Use includes individual commercial uses and small collections of commercial uses, located primarily away from major streets, that should continue to serve their existing commercial function. Commercial zoning is appropriate, while expansion of commercial uses and zoning into surrounding areas is not encouraged. Semi-permanent or temporary commercial retail establishments such as farmer's markets are also appropriate in this category (Figure T1.1).
Corridor Mixed Use serves a larger market area than Neighborhood Mixed Use, and may have multiple competing uses of the same type. Commercial zoning is appropriate, mixed use multi story development is encouraged (Figure T1.1), and contiguous expansion of commercial zoning is allowed.
Large-scale mixed use development is encouraged throughout these areas, with commercial uses fronting on major streets. Commercial retail spaces are typically smaller in order to generate pedestrian activity, and are often a destination for customers coming from outside of the market area. Active uses that are accessible to the general public such as office, food service, retail, or medical establishments are required at the street level; therefore single-use residential development is
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not permitted (Figure T1.1). Contiguous expansion of commercial zoning is allowed.
Commercial retail uses are required at the street level of all development in this category to encourage pedestrian activity beyond the typical daytime business hours (Figure T1.1). Multi-story development is required. Contiguous expansion of commercial zoning is allowed.
Goods and Services Corridors serve two purposes:
To indicate where commercial uses should front in relation to properties guided for commercial future land uses.
In addition to the guidance for the mixed use land use categories found in this section, Goods and Services Corridors identify where the establishment or expansion of commercial uses can be considered. Properties immediately adjacent to a Goods and Services Corridor may be considered for commercial activity, allowing for uses similar in scale and scope to the Neighborhood and Corridor Mixed Use categories.
In addition to the uses allowed in Urban Neighborhood, allows for greater flexibility in locating low impact commercial activity. Dental and medical services and offices, small scale lodging, and small scale retail are appropriate.
Accommodates major office centers, public and semi-public uses, including museums, hospitals, civic uses, and college and university campuses. Entertainment uses of greater intensity such as stadiums should be focused in downtown and university campuses. Multi-story residential uses are permitted in this category, with mixed-use encouraged – particularly fronting major corridors.
Applies to land or water areas generally free from development. Primarily used for park and recreation,
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natural resource conservation, transportation, historic, or scenic purposes. Park related uses such as amphitheaters, food service, parkways, and equipment rental are also permitted. This generally does not capture privately-owned and operated open spaces and plazas.
Production and Processing areas are suitable for a wide range of employment-focused development. These areas are designated with the intent of protecting them from encroaching non-industrial uses that could erode the diverse job base that these uses provide. Residential uses are strictly prohibited.
Production Mixed Use is a land use designation that allows both production and non-production uses, recognizing that while many buildings in these areas are no longer viable for modern production industries, they are increasingly occupied by a wide variety of uses that contribute to the economic health and diversity of the city. Residential uses are allowed as part of mixed use buildings that provide production space and must incorporate mitigation strategies to address potential conflicts between existing production uses and new residences. Adaptive re-use of older industrial property is encouraged.
The Transportation land use designation allows for Production and Processing uses, but is typically utilized for transportation intensive uses that support commercial and production activity throughout the city.
FIGURE T1.3: FUTURE LAND USE MAP Citywide (Updated Oct 2025*)
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| LEGEND | |
|---|---|
| Urban Neighborhood | |
| Neighborhood Mixed Use | |
| Corridor Mixed Use | |
| Community Mixed Use | |
| Destination Mixed Use | |
| ▪▪▪▪ | Goods and Services Corridor |
| Neighborhood Office and Services | |
| Public, Office, and Institutional | |
| Parks and Open Space | |
| Production and Processing | |
| Production Mixed Use | |
| Transportation |
These maps provide an overview of the land use guidance; for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
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These maps provide an overview of the land use guidance; for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
FIGURE T1.3b: FUTURE LAND USE MAP North Sector (Updated Oct 2025*)
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These maps provide an overview of the land use guidance; for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com.
*Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
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| LEGEND | |
|---|---|
| Urban Neighborhood | |
| Neighborhood Mixed Use | |
| Corridor Mixed Use | |
| Community Mixed Use | |
| Destination Mixed Use | |
| ▀ ▀ ▀ | Goods and Services Corridor |
| Neighborhood Office and Services | |
| Public, Office, and Institutional | |
| Parks and Open Space | |
| Production and Processing | |
| Production Mixed Use | |
| Transportation |
These maps provide an overview of the land use guidance; for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
FIGURE T1.3d: FUTURE LAND USE MAP South Sector (Updated Oct 2025*)
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| LEGEND | |
|---|---|
| Urban Neighborhood | |
| Neighborhood Mixed Use | |
| Corridor Mixed Use | |
| Community Mixed Use | |
| Destination Mixed Use | |
| ⬛⬛⬛⬛ | Goods and Services Corridor |
| Neighborhood Office and Services | |
| Public, Office, and Institutional | |
| Parks and Open Space | |
| Production and Processing | |
| Production Mixed Use | |
| Transportation |
These maps provide an overview of the land use guidance; for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
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| LEGEND |
|---|
| Urban Neighborhood |
| Neighborhood Mixed Use |
| Corridor Mixed Use |
| Community Mixed Use |
| Destination Mixed Use |
| - - - - Goods and Services Corridor |
| Neighborhood Office and Services |
| Public, Office, and Institutional |
| Parks and Open Space |
| Production and Processing |
| Production Mixed Use |
| Transportation |
These maps provide an overview of the land use guidance; for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
The Built Form Map guides the scale of development for every parcel in the city, independent of the uses allowed on the site. The built form of all new and remodeled buildings must be consistent with the guidance of the Built Form Map.
There are 14 Built Form districts.
The Interior 1 district is typically applied in parts of the city farthest from downtown, in the areas between transit routes.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Interior 1 district should be small-scale residential. Individual lots are permitted to have up to three dwelling units. Combining of lots is generally not permitted. Building heights should be 1 to 2.5 stories.
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The Interior 2 district is typically applied in parts of the city that developed during the era when streetcars were a primary mode of transportation, in the areas in between transit routes, and on select streets with intermittent local transit service. It is also applied adjacent to the Corridor 4 and Corridor 6 districts, serving as a transition to lower intensity residential areas.
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Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Interior 2 district should be small-scale residential. Individual lots are permitted to have up to three dwelling units. Multifamily buildings with more than three units are permitted on larger lots. Limited combining of lots is permitted. Building heights should be 1 to 2.5 stories.
The Interior 3 district is typically applied in parts of the city closest to downtown, in the areas in between transit routes. It is also applied adjacent to select corridors and near METRO stations, serving as a transition to lower intensity residential areas.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Interior 3 district should reflect a variety of building types on both small and moderate-sized lots, including on combined lots. Building heights should be 1 to 3 stories.
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The Corridor 3 district is typically applied along transit routes farther from downtown that are on narrower rights of way, and serves as a transition between lower intensity residential areas and areas immediately surrounding METRO stations.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Corridor 3 district should reflect a variety of building types on both small and moderate-sized lots, including on combined lots. Building heights should be 1 to 3 stories. Requests to exceed 3 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
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Corridor 4
The Corridor 4 district is typically applied along high frequency transit routes farther from downtown, that are on narrower rights of way, and on select streets with local transit service. It is also applied near downtown in areas between transit routes, and serves as a transition between lower intensity residential areas and areas immediately surrounding METRO stations.
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Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Corridor 4 district should reflect a variety of building types on both small and moderate-sized lots, including on combined lots. Building heights should be 1 to 4 stories. Requests to exceed 4 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
Corridor 6
The Corridor 6 district is typically applied along high frequency transit routes as well as in areas near METRO stations.
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Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Corridor 6 district should reflect a variety of building types on both moderate and large sized lots. Building heights should be 2 to 6 stories. Building heights should be at least 2 stories in order to best take advantage of the access to transit, jobs, and goods and services provided by the Corridor 6 district. Requests to exceed 6 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
The Transit 10 district is typically applied along high frequency transit routes, adjacent to METRO stations, in neighborhoods near downtown, and in downtown.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Transit 10 district should reflect a variety of building types on both moderate and large sized lots. Building heights should be 2 to 10 stories. Building heights should be at least 2 stories in order to best take advantage of the access to transit, jobs, and goods and services provided by the Transit 10 district. Requests to exceed 10 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
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The Transit 15 district is typically applied along high frequency transit routes, adjacent to METRO stations, in neighborhoods near downtown, and in downtown.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Transit 15 district should reflect a variety of building types on both moderate and large sized lots. Building heights should be 3 to 15 stories. Building heights should be at least 3 stories in order to best take advantage of the access to transit, jobs, and goods and services provided by the Transit 15 district. Requests to exceed 15 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
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The Transit 20 district is typically applied along high frequency transit routes, adjacent to METRO stations, in neighborhoods near downtown, and in downtown.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Transit 20 district should reflect a variety of building types on both moderate and large sized lots. Upper floors of taller buildings should be set back to increase access to light and air. Building heights should be 4 to 20 stories. Building heights should be at least 4 stories in order to best take advantage of the access to transit, jobs, and goods and services provided by the Transit 20 district. Requests to exceed 20 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
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The Transit 30 district is typically applied along high frequency transit routes, adjacent to METRO stations, in neighborhoods near downtown, and adjacent to the downtown office core.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Transit 30 district should reflect a variety of building types on both moderate and large sized lots. Upper floors of taller buildings should be set back to increase access to light and air. Building heights should be at least 10 stories in order to best take advantage of the access to transit, jobs, and goods and services provided by the Transit 30 district adjacent to the downtown core and nearby neighborhoods. Building heights should be 6 to 30 stories everywhere else. Requests to exceed 30 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
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The Core 50 district is applied in the downtown central business district. The district supports the office core as the center of the region’s economy by allowing the largest building types in the city.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Core 50 district should reflect a variety of building types on both moderate and large sized lots, with multiple buildings per block. The Core 50 district supports the office core as the center of the region’s economy, with the largest building types in the city. Building heights should be at least 10 stories, with no maximum.
The Production district is typically applied in areas of the city that are intended for the long term preservation of production, transportation, and job generating uses.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Production built form district should reflect a variety of building types, usually on large sized lots. Building heights should be 1 to 10 stories. Requests to exceed 10 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan Goals.
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The Parks district is typically applied in areas with the Parks and Open Space future land use designation.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Parks built form district should be designed to support typical parks activities such as shelters, amphitheaters, food service, and equipment rental. Building heights should be 1 to 2.5 stories. Requests to exceed 2.5 stories will be evaluated on the basis of whether or not a taller building is a reasonable means for further achieving Comprehensive Plan goals.
The Transportation district is typically applied in areas with the Transportation future land use designation.
Built Form Guidance: New and remodeled buildings in the Transportation built form district should generally conform to the districts adjacent to it on the map.
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These maps provide an overview of the built form guidance, for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
**FIGURE T1.4a: BUILT FORM MAP Downtown Sector (Updated Oct 2025*) **
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These maps provide an overview of the built form guidance, for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
FIGURE T1.4b: BUILT FORM MAP North Sector (Updated Oct 2025*)
| LEGEND | |
|---|---|
| Interior 1 | |
| Interior 2 | |
| Interior 3 | |
| Corridor 3 | |
| Corridor 4 | |
| Corridor 6 | |
| Transit 10 | |
| Transit 15 | |
| Transit 20 | |
| Transit 30 | |
| Core 50 | |
| Production | |
| Parks | |
| Transportation |
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These maps provide an overview of the built form guidance, for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
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| LEGEND | |
|---|---|
| Interior 1 | |
| Interior 2 | |
| Interior 3 | |
| Corridor 3 | |
| Corridor 4 | |
| Corridor 6 | |
| Transit 10 | |
| Transit 15 | |
| Transit 20 | |
| Transit 30 | |
| Core 50 | |
| Production | |
| Parks | |
| Transportation |
These maps provide an overview of the built form guidance, for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
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| LEGEND | |
|---|---|
| Interior 1 | |
| Interior 2 | |
| Interior 3 | |
| Corridor 3 | |
| Corridor 4 | |
| Corridor 6 | |
| Transit 10 | |
| Transit 15 | |
| Transit 20 | |
| Transit 30 | |
| Core 50 | |
| Production | |
| Parks | |
| Transportation |
These maps provide an overview of the built form guidance, for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
| LEGEND |
|---|
| Interior 1 |
| Interior 2 |
| Interior 3 |
| Corridor 3 |
| Corridor 4 |
| Corridor 6 |
| Transit 10 |
| Transit 15 |
| Transit 20 |
| Transit 30 |
| Core 50 |
| Production |
| Parks |
| Transportation |
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These maps provide an overview of the built form guidance, for parcel specific information refer to the online version at Minneapolis2040.com. *Updates include comprehensive plan map amendments from 2020-2025. See Appendix J for more information.
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The Transportation policies of this plan support a multimodal network that prioritizes walking, biking and transit.
The polices are intended to achieve outcomes that increase equity in our transportation system, address climate change and reduce carbon emissions, improve human health through improved air quality and increases in active travel, and enable the movement of people, goods, and services across the city.
Additional supporting materials for Transportation content can be found in Appendix D, Transportation.
Photo: Transit riders boarding a light rail train (Photo by Metro Transit)
24 policies relate to Transportation. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 15: “Transportation and Equity” on page 137
Policy 16: “Environmental Impacts of Transportation” on page 138
Policy 17: “Complete Streets” on page 140
Policy 18: “Pedestrians” on page 142
Policy 19: “Bicycling” on page 144
Policy 20: “Transit” on page 145
Policy 7: “Public Realm” on page 122
Policy 6: “Pedestrian-Oriented Building and Site Design” on page 118
Policy 11: “Skyways” on page 130
Policy 10: “Street Grid” on page 128
Policy 21: “Freight” on page 147
Policy 22: “Downtown Transportation” on page 148
Policy 80: “Development Near METRO Stations” on page 228
Policy 23: “Coordinated Development Strategy” on page 149
Policy 24: “Shared Mobility” on page 151
Policy 25: “Innovations in Transportation and Infrastructure” on page 152
Policy 27: “Transportation Partnerships” on page 154
Policy 28: “MSP Airport” on page 155
Policy 26: “Vision Zero” on page 153
Policy 38: “Affordable Housing near Transit and Job Centers” on page 169
Policy 34: “Cultural Districts” on page 164
Policy 48: “Freeway Remediation” on page 182
Policy 98: “Innovation Districts” on page 252
Policy 100: “Place-based Neighborhood Engagement” on page 255
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Photo: Bungalow court in northeast Minneapolis
Minneapolis is growing faster than it has since 1950. The Metropolitan Council estimates that between 2010 and 2016 the city added over 12,000 housing units and more than 37,000 residents. With this growth comes increased demand for housing and an associated increase in housing costs and rents. As a result, housing units that were once affordable no longer are, and less housing is available for low-income residents of Minneapolis.
The mismatch between housing supply and demand in Minneapolis not only contributes to displacing low-income Minneapolis residents, but also leads to that demand being met in communities outside of Minneapolis. With its existing built form and infrastructure, Minneapolis is uniquely
positioned to provide new housing options with the lowest possible environmental impact in the metropolitan area.
Since 2000, Minneapolis has lost roughly 15,000 housing units that are considered affordable for those earning 50 percent of the area median income. These units generally still exist, but they cost more to own or rent, making them unaffordable to this demographic. In 2017, for the 13-county metropolitan region, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) calculated a median family income of $90,400. Based on this, 50 percent of the area median income for a single-person household is $31,650 annually (or an hourly wage of $15.22 for a standard workweek and year), and for a family of four it’s $45,200 annually (or a
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household hourly wage of $21.73 for a standard workweek and year).
Also since 2000, overall household incomes in Minneapolis have slightly decreased – but not equally across racial groups (Figure T3.1). White non-Hispanic and Asian households have seen increases in household income since 2000, while black households have experienced an approximately 40 percent decrease in income
For a growing number of residents, especially residents of color, incomes are not keeping up with rising housing costs. This results in fewer housing units in fewer neighborhoods that are affordable to renters. For households of color that are renters that means there are few, if any, housing units that are affordable.
The loss of affordable housing units and the changes in household income have resulted in a greater number of cost-burdened households – households in which more than 30 percent of household income goes toward housing.
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Thirty-seven percent of all households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, but, similar to the change in household incomes, this is not equal across racial groups. Over 50 percent of black households and over 45 percent of American Indian and Hispanic households in Minneapolis are cost-burdened, whereas one in three white households are cost-burdened (Figure T3.2).
Racial disparities persist in all aspects of housing. The disparities that Minneapolis residents experience are intertwined with the city’s development due to racially discriminatory housing practices and federal housing policy. In the first half of the 20th century, zoning regulations and racist federal housing policies worked together to determine who could live where and in what type of housing. This shaped the opportunities available to multiple generations of Minneapolis residents (Figure T3.3).
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Following the Great Depression, redlining and other loan underwriting guidance from the federal government steered where private investment in housing were made. This practice prevented access to mortgages in areas with Jews, African-Americans and other minorities, as well as in the more densely populated and mixed-use parts of the city. Related guidance in Federal Housing Administration (FHA) underwriting manuals encouraged the segregation of land uses in order to reduce the financial risk of backing single-family home loans near land uses deemed undesirable, such as factories and even multifamily housing. This guidance, from 1934, reinforced the approach that Minneapolis and other cities in the United States began years earlier through the introduction of zoning ordinances.
The FHA promoted zoning as an effective tool for assuring a “homogenous and harmonious neighborhood.” In the view of the FHA, however, zoning was not enough to accomplish the segregation of the races as a means of protecting property values. The FHA underwriting manual made the case for racially restrictive covenants, using language that described people of color as undesirable neighbors in the same vein as nuisances such as odor and high traffic: “The more important among the adverse influential factors are the ingress of undesirable racial or nationality groups; infiltration of business or commercial uses of properties; the presence of smoke, odors, fog, heavy trafficked streets and railroads.”
These policies and regulations left a lasting effect on the physical characteristics of the city and the financial well-being of its residents. Areas of Minneapolis with higher densities and a mix of land uses experienced disinvestment, in part because banks did not lend in those areas. On the outskirts of the city, a post-Depression development pattern emerged with little variation in housing types and density and with few areas for commercial development. Today, the zoning map in these areas remains largely unchanged from the era of intentional racial segregation. This has shaped
the opportunities available to multiple generations of Minneapolis residents and significantly contributed to many of the disparities people of color and indigenous people experienced and continue to experience.
To address these issues, the City of Minneapolis will expand opportunities to increase the housing supply in a way that meets changing needs and desires. This means allowing more housing options, especially in areas that currently lack housing choice and in areas with access to frequent and fast transit employment, and goods and services. It also means creating and expanding new resources and tools to produce and preserve affordable housing, to minimize the displacement of existing residents, and to ensure housing is maintained to promote health and safety. The City will also need to invest in its residents, especially residents of color and indigenous residents, to ensure that it identifies and removes barriers to accessing and retaining housing.
⬚ figure Housing Policies:22 policies relate to Housing. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Local artisan painting tiles in northeast Minneapolis studio (Photo Courtesy of Clay Squared to Infinity)
The global and national economy is experiencing fundamental changes, including technological advances, manufacturing sector shifts, changes in the distribution and sale of goods, the movement toward a knowledge-based economy, and evolving resource limitations. This ever-changing economy creates opportunities and challenges that impact the residents and businesses of Minneapolis and the surrounding region.
Minneapolis is operating from a rich base of local assets that generate business and expand
industries. Minneapolis and the surrounding region are home to 17 Fortune 500 companies and seven of the top 225 private companies. Minneapolis’ regional creative economy continues to be ranked in the top six in the Creative Vitality Index, with a score nearly four times higher than the national average. The University of Minnesota, ranked fourth in the nation for patent creation and the ninth-best U.S. public research institution, continues to lead in the development and creation of new technology, ideas and business. The state of Minnesota ranks first in the nation in the number of jobs per capita related to medical technology; and Forbes has called Minnesota the fastest-growing state for tech jobs.
Despite this vibrancy throughout the city and region, not everyone is benefiting, accessing or participating in this growth. Minneapolis is among the areas of the nation with the largest disparities between people of color and indigenous peoples compared with white people in level of education, employment and poverty rates. In Minneapolis, 83 percent of white non-Hispanics have more than a high school education, compared with 47 percent of black people and 45 percent of American Indians. Only 32 percent of Hispanics have more than a high school education (Figure T4.1).
Educational disparities become barriers to finding employment opportunities in the changing economy and are evident in unemployment and poverty rates. In Minneapolis, the unemployment rate for blacks and American Indians is approximately three times higher than it is for white non-Hispanics. The unemployment rate is 17 percent for blacks and 14 percent for American Indians, compared with fewer than 5 percent for white non-Hispanics (Figure T4.2). The poverty rate in Minneapolis for blacks is nearly 45 percent, 33 percent for American Indians, nearly 27 percent for Hispanics and approximately 12 percent for white non-Hispanics. The changing economy, particularly the loss of production and processing jobs, has meant a decrease in jobs available to those with a high school education or below that pay a living wage (Figure T4.3).
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Sources: Decennial Census, American Community Survey
The economy in Minneapolis needs to continue to grow and innovate, and people of color and indigenous people must have physical, personal and institutional access to this growth. This means developing and supporting an economic climate that helps sustain and nourish businesses. It means addressing the growing racial disparities in Minneapolis’ economy by identifying barriers that have reduced access to economic opportunities and by developing strategies and programs that ensure people of color and indigenous people can participate, compete in and succeed in the economy – ultimately ensuring that the growth of Minneapolis benefits everyone.
35 policies relate to Economic Competitiveness. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 49: "Educational and Economic Access" on page 184
Policy 50: "Access to Technology" on page 186
Policy 51: "Healthy Pre-K Development" on page 187
Policy 52: "Human Capital and a Trained Workforce" on page 188
Policy 53: "Quality of Life" on page 190
Policy 54: "Supporting Economic Growth" on page 191
Policy 55: "Business Innovation and Expansion" on page 192
Policy 56: "Supporting Small Businesses" on page 193
Policy 57: "Cluster Strategy" on page 195
Policy 80: "Development Near METRO Stations" on page 228
Policy 23: "Coordinated Development Strategy" on page 149
Policy 2: "Access to Employment" on page 108
Policy 3: "Production and Processing" on page 110
Policy 58: "Business Districts and Corridors" on page 196
Policy 59: "Downtown" on page 197
Policy 60: "Intrinsic Value of Properties" on page 198
Policy 61: "Environmental Justice and Green Zones" on page 199
Policy 62: "Contaminated Sites" on page 201
Policy 20: "Transit" on page 145
Policy 21: "Freight" on page 147
Policy 28: "MSP Airport" on page 155
Policy 22: “Downtown Transportation” on page 148
Policy 29: “Arts and Creative Spaces, Venues and Districts” on page 156
Policy 30: “Arts and Creative Spaces, Venues and Districts” on page 156
Policy 31: “Artists and Creative Workers” on page 159
Policy 63: “Food Access” on page 202
Policy 64: “Food Businesses” on page 204
Policy 65: “Urban Agriculture and Food Production” on page 206
Policy 90: “Technology in the Economy” on page 241
Policy 34: “Cultural Districts” on page 164
Policy 48: “Freeway Remediation” on page 182
Policy 87: “Northside” on page 237
Policy 98: “Innovation Districts” on page 252
Policy 99: “University District” on page 253
Policy 100: “Place-based Neighborhood Engagement” on page 255
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Photo: Stormwater conveyance system at Heritage Park (Photo Courtesy of Mississippi Watershed Management Organization)
Minneapolis’ environmental system is an intricate network of living, engineered and climatic features working together. The health of the city is directly correlated to the strength of this ecosystem and how well these systems can thrive despite the pressures of climate change. As Minneapolis changes, the City has an excellent opportunity to improve the management, efficiency and equity of environmental systems to ensure that all people have a healthy and vibrant city to call home.
Minneapolis is among the top cities in the nation for cleanliness, health and fitness, and quality of life. To
continue this legacy, the City must sustainably manage and protect water resources while preventing contaminants from polluting the water systems. Achieving this means maximizing waste reduction to meet the City’s zero-waste goals, supporting healthy ecosystems in and around surface waters, and increasing biodiversity to restore ecological habitats. It also means promoting large and small developments that enhance air, soil and water quality.
To sustain a high-quality and climate-resilient Minneapolis, the City must also aim for greater energy performance from the city’s physical structures and environmental systems. This means ensuring all buildings, infrastructure and modes of transportation significantly reduce energy consumption and carbon production. In addition, the City must ensure that all residents and businesses can access cost savings from energy efficiency and can enjoy the health and ecological benefits of a rich tree canopy and renewable energy sources.
As the environmental system evolves, the City must work urgently to support communities that experience hazardous and disparate environmental conditions. Of priority is the creation and implementation of environmental justice policies that eliminate stationary pollution sources, remediate contaminated brownfield sites, improve access to healthy foods, and address health hazards in housing. It’s important to have significant involvement from disenfranchised communities in this endeavor.
Additional supporting materials for Environmental Systems content can be found in Appendix F, Wastewater.
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20 policies relate to Environmental Systems. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: Farmers Market on Nicollet Avenue
To remain a world-class city of healthy people and thriving communities, the City of Minneapolis must provide all residents with equitable opportunities for healthy development and lifestyles. Healthy development is impacted by a myriad of social determinants and has considerable long-term ramifications.
Inequities related to opportunities, conditions, policies and practices don't impact just individuals in isolation. Instead, entire generations are impacted by these inequities – especially those rooted in race, place and income – in healthy development and lifestyle. Inequities in social and economic factors are key contributors to health disparities; ultimately, these gaps need to close if equity in health outcomes is to advance. Social and economic disparities
underpin health disparities from premature death rates to access to healthy food and from healthy youth development to housing stability.
25 policies relate to Public Health. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 61: "Environmental Justice and Green Zones" on page 199
Policy 3: "Production and Processing" on page 110
Policy 66: "Air Quality" on page 207
Policy 62: "Contaminated Sites" on page 201
Policy 67: "Climate Resilient Communities" on page 209
Policy 46: "Healthy Housing" on page 180
Policy 44: "Comprehensive Investments" on page 178
Policy 51: "Healthy Pre-K Development" on page 187
Policy 79: "Healthy Youth Development" on page 227
Policy 49: "Educational and Economic Access" on page 184
Policy 81: "Social Connectedness" on page 230
Policy 82: "Aging" on page 231
Policy 83: "People with Disabilities" on page 233
Policy 84: "Public Safety" on page 234
Policy 85: "Access to Health, Social and Emergency Service" on page 235
Policy 63: "Food Access" on page 202
Policy 86: "Healthy Food in Institutions" on page 236
Policy 64: "Food Businesses" on page 204
Policy 65: "Urban Agriculture and Food Production" on page 206
Policy 18: "Pedestrians" on page 142
Policy 19: "Bicycling" on page 144
Policy 26: "Vision Zero" on page 153
Policy 48: "Freeway Remediation" on page 182
Policy 87: "Northside" on page 237
Policy 98: "Innovation Districts" on page 252
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Photo: Stone Arch Bridge and Mill City District (Photo by Krivit Photography, Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis)
Heritage preservation seeks to protect noteworthy buildings, structures, objects, and landscapes (“historic resources”) that together form the built environment. Protecting buildings in a city that is always changing can be challenging – and the City of Minneapolis has been experiencing change since its early settlement and will continue to transform well into the future.
These changes occur as part of the natural evolution of a city and as responses to property owners’ needs, economic booms or busts, and community desires, among other reasons. An essential task of heritage preservation in Minneapolis is to manage this transformation so the physical attributes of the city reflect its history and cultures, and so all residents have a sense of belonging and access
to a cultural anchor. Preservation can not only celebrate who has lived in Minneapolis in the past, but also reflect who lives here today.
The field of heritage preservation is relatively young. While preservation work has deep roots, the National Historic Preservation Act did not become law until 1966, and Minneapolis’ Heritage Preservation Commission was not formed until 1972. Preservation work continues to evolve and mature. Historic buildings are no longer treated only as museum pieces, isolated from the people whose histories they embody. Today, new development projects are capitalizing on the sustainable value of reuse and successfully incorporating historic resources into their plans, ensuring the ongoing vitality of some historic structures. The identification and documentation of historic resources is more responsive to community concerns and acknowledges the need to better reflect a broader spectrum of cultural communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, and other communities that have traditionally been underrepresented. However, more changes lie ahead for the work of preservation.
A function of heritage preservation that’s becoming more relevant is its ability to help residents see themselves and their cultural identity within the city and empower them to more fully participate in civic life; thus, it’s critical for public engagement to include all interested groups in the preservation process, especially those whose history has been marginalized and whose places suffered deliberate disinvestment and removal. Minneapolis will work to ensure that residents of all cultures and backgrounds will have access to preservation resources while experiencing the economic, sociocultural, and emotional benefits of preservation.
⬚ figure Heritage Preservation Policies:10 policies relate to Heritage Preservation. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Policy 91: "Heritage Preservation Outreach" on page 242
Policy 92: "Identify and Evaluate Historic Resources" on page 243
Policy 60: "Intrinsic Value of Properties" on page 198
Policy 93: "Stewarding Historic Properties" on page 245
Policy 94: "Heritage Preservation Regulation" on page 247
Policy 47: "Healthy Housing" on page 180
Policy 95: "Heritage Preservation Financial Incentives" on page 248
Policy 96: "Cultural Heritage and Preservation Recognition" on page 249
Policy 34: "Cultural Districts" on page 164
Policy 100: "Place-based Neighborhood Engagement" on page 255
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Photo: Artists: Keri Pickett, Jason Takahashi, and Charlie Thayer. Against the Grain, Light display on Gold Medal Flour silos at Northern Spark (Photo Courtesy of Make It MSP)
Arts and cultural offerings are abundant in the city and the vast number of diverse artists and creative workers contribute greatly to the city’s vibrancy, quality of life, and to the local and regional economy.
The 2018 Minneapolis Creative Vitality Index noted that for-profit creative sales contributed $5.1 billion into Minneapolis’ economy—nearly 9.2 times the size of Minneapolis’ sports sector revenues. Nonprofit arts and cultural revenues provided an additional $346 million. Creative jobs in Minneapolis have grown by 5.1% since 2014 and account for almost 5% of the city’s jobs. Those 22,039 creative jobs include 40 job types in 72 different industries. Home to 27% of the region’s creative workforce, Minneapolis is a standout in the creative sector. These facts demonstrate the importance of supporting the growth and sustainability of the creative sector to maintaining
Minneapolis’ economic competitiveness.
The creative sector includes workers and organizations engaged in the arts and cultural fields such as performance, dance, music, history, and the literary and visual arts; but creative work is also represented and embedded in a broad range of industries and disciplines, such as marketing, media and communications, and design.
Racial disparities that persist in Minneapolis’ workforce and economy also persist in the creative sector. Despite job growth of 4.9% in the metropolitan area since 2014, people of color and indigenous people make up only 13% of these creative workers, compared to 17% of all workers. Nationally, people of color make up 30% of the creative workforce, and 31% of all workers. Considerable work is needed to ensure Minneapolis’ successes in the creative sector and economy extend to people of color and indigenous peoples.
Key to the success of a thriving creative sector and economy is a community that recognizes both the economic values, as well as the sector’s contributions to city livability, empathy, and civility. Activities that engage residents in placemaking and other grassroots, life long, opportunities to create art can build this awareness.
The city’s spaces where artists and creative workers come together to work, produce, collaborate, practice, and perform—such as arts districts, historic and cultural corridors and other offices, studios, and venues—contribute a great deal to the development of communities. For these places and groups, the concentration of creative energy is critical to their ability to thrive. Displacement of artists and creative workers due to development pressure not only results in the loss of art and creative jobs, but the vibrancy found in the proximity.
The city benefits greatly from the contributions of artists and creative workers to public spaces, community development, public health, affordable housing, and transportation programing. This is why arts and culture policies can be found not just in this chapter, but throughout the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
⬚ figure Arts and Culture Policies:9 policies relate to Arts and Culture. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: The Commons Park adjacent to US Bank Stadium (Photo Courtesy of Meet Minneapolis)
Minneapolis is known throughout the country as a city with a high quality of life. One of the reasons for this is the abundance of open spaces and parks. Envisioned 125 years ago, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) managed park system delights Minneapolis’ residents and visitors.
In 2017, Minneapolis had the repeat honor of being recognized as the Nation’s Best Park System by the Trust for Public Land; Minneapolis’ parks encompass the city’s defining lakes and river banks and include features of astonishing beauty, historical significance and ecological wonder, all within a thriving urban setting. The Minneapolis Park System is anchored by the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway and includes a multitude of neighborhood
parks that provide important gathering and recreation space. Several parks and trails in Minneapolis are also part of the premier Regional Parks System.
Minneapolis residents also benefit from the presence of other open spaces such as school facilities, greenways, gardens, and plazas. Open spaces and parks make up a collection of formal and informal landscapes used in numerous ways by the people of Minneapolis.
The policies below address existing open spaces and parks in Minneapolis, and ones that could be created in the future to enhance quality of life and to improve accessibility to parks. As the city continues to grow, it must support the parks system while enhancing other open spaces and public gathering spots in order to ensure recreational opportunities, preserve and enhance ecological function, improve human mental and physical health, and support economic development and tourism.
Additional supporting materials for Parks and Open Space content can be found in Appendix H, Regional Parks and Trails.
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13 policies relate to Parks and Open Space. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: City of Minneapolis Hiawatha Maintenance Facility
When the City develops policies, enacts ordinances, creates programs or deploys resources, its activities have a direct effect on residents, businesses and visitors. To be effective, the City needs to continually explore refinements and new tools to ensure it provides services in a streamlined, accessible, and equitable manner.
As the City’s population and employment increase, the needs for public services and buildings will evolve. Some agencies and departments will expand services, while others will be looking for new ways of using facilities that are no longer needed for their original purpose. The City of Minneapolis will plan carefully for its own facilities needs, and will play a role in encouraging public agencies to explore opportunities for sharing facilities where the community
and financial benefits are apparent. In the case that a public building closes altogether or a new facility is built, the City will ensure that the re-use or establishment of that building is consistent with the land use policies of this plan and is informed by public input. The City will also use its own properties as a model for private development, demonstrating the value of environmental sustainability, historic preservation, an engaging public realm, and the use of high quality materials.
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4 policies relate to Public Services and Facilities. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
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Photo: New Flyer Electric Demo Bus (Photo by Metro Transit)
Forbes magazine has called Minnesota the fastest-growing state for technology sector jobs. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (MN DEED) has projected 16,000 technology sector jobs by 2022 in the state, a 15 percent increase from 2017 levels.
Minneapolis, specifically downtown, is experiencing high demand for office space for technology companies and is home to a growing number of established and new technology companies. This presents a strength to build on, and an opportunity to grow employment in a high-demand sector.
At the same time, advances in and adoption of technology are providing tools to better connect people with their
government and to better inform decision-making. While these tools do not and should not replace in-person interaction, Minneapolis will embrace technology that can supplement traditional forms of interaction and make City government more proactive, accessible, and sustainable. The City will also work to ensure that residents have the technology tools and skills to participate in the economy and civic life.
⬚ figure Technology and Innovation Policies:7 policies relate to Technology and Innovation. Please refer to the pages listed below to read the content of each policy.
Each policy supports one or more of the goals and topics of the plan.
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The population of Minneapolis is growing. Housing demand exceeds supply in many areas of the city, which has resulted in rising rents and sale prices. Increased demand for housing is accompanied by demographic changes that affect the types of housing Minneapolis residents will need between now and 2040. The people of Minneapolis and the region as a whole are becoming older and more culturally diverse. In many parts of the city, aging single-family home dwellers do not have the option to move into multifamily housing close to their established social support networks. This further restricts access to single-family homes for households with growing families who desire that housing type and would prefer to stay in the city.
Areas of our city that lack housing choice today were built that way intentionally through zoning regulations and racially-restrictive federal housing policies during the first half of the twentieth century. Today, our city reflects those past policies which determined, based on their race, where generations of Minneapolis residents had access to housing. These policies and regulations left a lasting effect on the physical characteristics of the city and the financial well-being of its people. Areas of Minneapolis with higher densities and a mix of land uses experienced disinvestment, in part because banks were not lending in these areas. On the outskirts of the city, a post-depression development pattern emerged with little variation in housing types and density, and few areas for commercial development. Today, the zoning map in these areas remains largely unchanged from the era of intentional racial segregation. This comprehensive plan is an opportunity to foster inclusive communities free from barriers to housing choice.
Housing cost and housing choice, including diversity of housing location, and diversity of housing type, all influence the guidance found in the Future Land Use and Built Form maps. Strategies outlined below each address the issue of housing choice in a different way. The Built Form map on its own cannot affect housing cost, but allowing for growth is a prerequisite to addressing market rate housing production as well as affordable housing production and preservation. Allowing for an increase in the overall housing supply is intended to result in overall lower housing costs than would occur if no more supply was built. The intent of each of these built form strategies is outlined below.
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The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to increase the supply of housing and its diversity of location and types.
a. Allow housing to be built in all areas of the city, except in Production and Distribution areas.
b. Allow the highest-density housing in and near Downtown.
c. Allow multifamily housing on public transit routes, with higher densities along high-frequency routes and near METRO stations.
d. In neighborhood interiors that contain a mix of housing types from single family homes to apartments, allow new housing within that existing range.
e. In neighborhood interiors farthest from downtown that today contain primarily single-family homes, achieve greater housing supply and diversity by allowing small-scale residential structures with up to three dwelling units on an individual lot.
f. Encourage inclusion of units that can accommodate families in new and rehabilitated multifamily housing developments.
POLICY 2
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The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development estimates that Minneapolis had 318,500 jobs in 2015, and the Metropolitan Council projects that the City’s employment will grow by 41,500 by 2040. Much of this job growth will happen in downtown Minneapolis, which is appropriate given the role of the central business district as the economic and transportation hub of the region. Growing employment downtown will require continued investment in the multimodal transportation system that makes downtown accessible to workers. It also means ensuring that land downtown is used as efficiently as possible.
Outside of downtown, non-production employment growth should be focused on areas well-served by public transportation. The City should continue to support large employers such as hospitals, universities, and cultural institutions, while ensuring that expansions of those facilities do not inhibit progress on other plan goals, including increasing the supply of housing.
The Future Land Use and Built Form maps allow greater development intensities in these areas that have or will have frequent and fast transit connections through the following actions:
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The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support employment growth downtown and in places well-served by public transportation.
a. Establish minimum development densities for downtown and areas served by regional transit lines to ensure that enough land is available to accommodate projected employment growth.
b. Continue to allow office and institutional uses where they currently exist throughout the city.
c. Guide new office and institutional uses to locations well-served by public transportation.
d. Encourage large medical, educational, and cultural institutions to grow within their existing footprint, especially where territorial expansion would result in a reduction of housing stock.
POLICY 3
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A healthy local and regional economy requires space for production and processing businesses. Examples of these types of businesses include, but are not limited to, medical device and electronic instrument manufacturing, breweries and distilleries, food production, metal fabrication, and distribution and fulfillment. Production and processing businesses provide economic opportunities for people without a college degree by offering higher wages than comparable jobs in the retail, accommodation, and food service industries. In Minneapolis, less than half of the Black, American Indian, and Hispanic population has more than a high school education, compared to 83 percent of White, non-Hispanic residents. These educational disparities create barriers for finding employment opportunities that pay a living wage. Production and processing businesses in the region have average monthly starting wages for workers of color that are twice as high as retail businesses and nearly 2.5 times that of accommodation and food service businesses.
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While this plan calls for improving educational access for the City’s residents as a strategy for improving economic standing, the City should also continue to set aside space for production and processing businesses to ensure that living-wage jobs in industries with minimal environmental impacts will be available to Minneapolis residents, especially people of color, indigenous people, and those without a college degree. If the City is to achieve the goals of eliminate disparities and living-wage jobs through the location and establishment of production and processing businesses, it is a prerequisite that lands for these uses be protected from the encroachment of other land uses, particularly housing, that outbid jobs-producing uses for land. To achieve this outcome the Future Land Use map designates Production and Processing Areas that are well-suited to support production and processing businesses, specifically excluding housing and other non-production uses.
Some areas that have been historically industrial are not well-suited to support new production and processing businesses because the existing building stock does not meet the needs of modern production businesses, and they lack the contiguous land to make substantial redevelopment feasible. This plan designates such areas as Mixed Use Production Areas, allowing both production and non-production uses to co-exist
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to expand and maintain areas for production, processing, and distribution of products, services, and ideas.
a. Designate Production and Processing Areas that comprise large contiguous tracts of land historically used for industrial purposes, that are well-served by transportation infrastructure for both people and freight, and that contain building stock suitable for production and processing businesses to expand access to higher wage job opportunities.
b. Prioritize use of land in Production and Processing Areas for production, processing and last mile distribution of products and services uses that have minimal or no air, water, or noise pollution impacts, and that provide quality living-wage jobs.
c. Identify and limit uses in Production and Processing Areas that do not provide a high concentration of high quality, low-impact production and processing jobs.
d. Encourage infill development on underdeveloped properties in Production and Processing areas.
e. Designate Production Mixed Use Areas in parts of the city that have been historically industrial, but that are not substantial opportunities for locating and growing low-impact production, processing, and distribution businesses.
f. Allow both production and non-production land uses in Production Mixed Use Areas.
g. Establish land use regulations to encourage the adaptive reuse of older industrial and commercial property in Production Mixed Use areas, including
reuse that results in a change to non-production uses.
h. Improve transit, bicycle and pedestrian access to areas of employment, including Production and Processing Areas and Production Mixed Use Areas.
i. Develop guidance for future development in Production and Processing Areas and Production Mixed Use Areas served by regional transit lines in order to ensure a minimum level of development and job intensities.
j. To ensure employment opportunities are provided in areas well-served by transit and mixed-use development, allow production and processing uses in Commercial Mixed Use areas while controlling for potential negative externalities through building and site design. This includes potentially designating certain identified areas to emphasize employment goals.
k. Accommodate facilities needed for municipal operations in both Production and Distribution Areas and Production Mixed Use Areas.
l. Identify and limit new heavy industrial uses that harm human health or the environment throughout the city.
m. Continue and expand incentives and technical assistance to existing production and processing businesses to leverage investments in cleaner, safer, more energy efficient and sustainable technology in order to reduce pollution.
n. Enforce regulations related to pollution and nuisance ordinances.
o. Focus business assistance for targeted low-impact industries that offer new opportunities for historically unemployed and underemployed residents.
p. p. Promote business investment and expansion through site assembly, clearance and redevelopment in strategic areas.
q. Develop detailed planning guidance for Production Mixed Use areas, particularly those experiencing rapid growth and change, to better define the future of commercial and production space in those locations.
r. Prohibit schools except training centers that require facilities zoned for production and processing from being built in Production and Processing areas.
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Today, 90 percent of passenger miles traveled in Minneapolis are in personal automobiles. While a portion of these trips are to school and work, residents in many parts of the city have no choice but to drive long distances to access regular goods and services such as grocery stores. Nationally, 45 percent of daily trips are taken for shopping and errands. In most of Minneapolis, demand for retail is much higher than supply, indicating an opportunity to make retail more convenient for everyone and thereby reduce car trips and greenhouse gas emissions. The city also has 11 low-income census tracts in which residents live more than a mile from a full-service grocery store.
Achieving the City’s goal of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 requires reducing the number of daily car trips by 37%. This ambitious goal is possible only if more people have access to daily needs via frequent, fast, and reliable transit. Building more housing near transit provides the opportunity for people to live without a car, or with fewer cars in each household, helping to work toward a carbon-free future. This will help achieve the City’s greenhouse gas reduction goal, improve health through increased physical activity, and enrich the quality of life in our communities. The Future Land Use map allows or requires commercial activity, while the Built Form map allows greater development intensities in areas that have or will have frequent and fast transit connections and high-quality bicycling and walking facilities as outlined below:
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• Increase access to Commercial Goods and Services by allowing the highest-density housing in and near Downtown, while requiring commercial activity in key locations.
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The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve access to goods and services via walking, biking and transit.
a. Allow commercial uses where they currently exist throughout the city.
b. Designate additional areas for commercial uses in parts of the city where demand for retail goods and services exceeds the supply, and that are well-served by public transportation.
c. Allow property owners to request expansion of commercial areas where such expansion would improve access to goods and services via walking, biking, and transit.
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d. Require commercial retail to be incorporated into new buildings in select areas of the city with the highest residential densities, highest pedestrian traffic, and most frequent transit service.
e. Allow for increased housing supply within and adjacent to Commercial areas.
f. Allow a full range of uses in Commercial areas intended to provide goods and services to surrounding communities.
g. Utilize regulatory tools to minimize the impacts that commercial uses have on nearby residential uses.
h. Develop new analytical frameworks and tools to accurately track and study the dynamics of urban retail in order to guide the development, revision, and deployment of City programs, tools, and regulations.
i. To ensure employment opportunities are provided in areas well-served by transit and mixed-use development, allow production and processing uses in Commercial Mixed Use areas while controlling for potential negative externalities through building and site design. This includes potentially designating certain identified areas to emphasize employment goals.
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The design of new buildings is influenced by several factors, including the purpose and use of the building, its context, the architect's approach, project budget, construction type, building code requirements, land use policy and regulations, and stakeholder input. The City does not dictate architectural styles for new buildings, however through thoughtful and creative distribution of building massing and transitions, coupled with the application of durable, sustainable, and high quality building materials, and building openings such as doors and windows, the City can help ensure a high-quality and distinctive physical environment that advances the Minneapolis 2040 goals.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure a high-quality and distinctive physical environment in all parts of the city through building and site design requirements for both large and small projects.
a. Allow and encourage a variety of architectural styles.
b. Require multiple buildings on development sites outside of the downtown core that encompass most of an entire block or block frontage to increase visual interest. On sites in the downtown core buildings that encompass an entire city block are encouraged to use massing that is responsive to the human-scale and provides pedestrian through-block connections through existing super blocks or to re-establish the street grid.
c. Ensure that exterior building materials are durable, sustainable, create a lasting addition to the built environment, and contribute positively to the public realm and reflect existing context.
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d. Require that the appearance and materials of the rear and side walls of new buildings are similar to and compatible with the front of the building.
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e. Require adequate distribution of windows and architectural features in order to create visual interest.
f. Consider design approaches that encourage creative solutions for transitions between varying intensities of building types and land uses.
g. Apply design standards, guidance, and regulation consistently across the city regardless of market conditions or rent structure of development.
h. Promote an attractive environment by minimizing visual clutter and confusion caused by a proliferation of signage; ensuring that signage is appropriately scaled to the pedestrian experience.
i. Regulate the height and bulk of buildings as represented on the built form map.
j. Require the screening of utilities, communication, transformers, and other service connections to buildings. Burying connections and lines is encouraged.
k. Encourage roof lines and upper levels of tall buildings to be articulated with a distinguishable design.
l. Require the podiums of tall buildings to reflect the human scale, with design elements and active uses on the ground level.
m. Develop design guidance specific to encouraging high quality tall building construction.
n. Encourage institutional uses and public buildings and facilities to incorporate architectural and site design that is reflective of their civic importance and that identifies their role as focal points for the community.
o. Regulate setbacks, orientation, pattern, materials, height, and scale of small-scale residential buildings to ensure consistency with built-form guidance and existing context.
p. Encourage detached garages and discourage attached garages for small scale residential buildings, ensure that detached garages are accessory in size and use to the primary small scale residential building.
q. Prohibit driveways for new small scale residential buildings on blocks that have alley access.
r. Discourage buildings outside of the Downtown core from spanning over alleys or other public rights of way.
s. Balance visual quality of new development, including articulation of buildings, with energy efficiency of new buildings.
POLICY 6
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The City of Minneapolis Complete Streets policy prioritizes walking first, followed by bicycling and transit use, and lastly motor vehicle use. Building and site design of new development should follow this same hierarchy in order to encourage sustainable modes of transportation and improve health outcomes. The number and location of entrances, the size and distribution of windows, building setbacks from the street, landscaping, along with building design elements such as lighting and awnings, all contribute to the pedestrian experience. Site layout is also important to facilitating pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users. Factors such as the building location, parking lots, driveways, driveways, open space, plazas, and pocket parks merit careful attention.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to regulate land uses, building design, and site design of new development consistent with a transportation system that prioritizes walking first, followed by bicycling and transit use, and lastly motor vehicle use.
a. Orient buildings and building entrances to the street. Encourage multiple entrances to multi-family residential buildings. The number of entrances in non-residential uses should increase in proportion to the length of the building and be located along main corridors or at the street corner.
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b. Encourage multiple storefront bays with direct connections to the sidewalk where active or commercial ground floor uses are required.
c. Require windows and window treatments on buildings that allow clear views into and out of the building.
d. Ensure that buildings incorporate design elements that eliminate long stretches of blank, inactive exterior walls through provision of windows, multiple entrance doors, green walls, and architectural details.
e. Integrate components in building designs that offer seasonal protection to pedestrians, such as awnings and canopies, to encourage pedestrian activity along the street.
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f. Consider the arrangement of buildings within a site to minimize the generation of wind currents at ground level.
g. Encourage building placement that where possible enables solar access and allows light and air into the site and surrounding properties and supports energy efficient lighting.
h. Encourage building placement and massing design that considers the impact of shadowing, particularly on public spaces, recognizing that extreme seasons make shaded areas alternately desirable at different times of year.
i. Coordinate site designs and public right-of-way improvements to provide adequate sidewalk space for pedestrian movement, curb extensions, street trees, street lighting, landscaping, street furniture, sidewalk cafes, and other elements of active pedestrian areas.
j. Coordinate with Metro Transit to ensure that the design of new buildings supports transit operations.
k. Implement and expand regulations and incentives that promote bicycling, such as the provision of secured storage for bikes near building entrances, storage lockers, and changing and shower facilities.
l. Eliminate the requirement for off-street parking minimums throughout the city, acknowledging that demand for parking will still result in new supply being built, and re-evaluate established parking maximums to better align with City goals.
m. Discourage access to and egress from parking ramps off major corridors, instead encouraging access at mid-block locations and at right angles to minimize disruptions to pedestrian flow at the street level.
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n. Below grade parking is encouraged.
o. Require above-grade parking structures to be designed with active uses along the street walls and with sufficient clearance and floor grades on all levels to allow adaptive reuse in the future.
p. Discourage the establishment of and minimize the size of surface parking lots. Mitigate the negative effect of parking lots through screening, landscaping, minimizing curb cuts, sufficient number of down-cast, glare-free light fixture, and other measures.
q. Encourage the design of parking areas in ways that minimize their contribution to the urban heat island.
r. Prohibit the establishment of new drive-throughs and gas stations.
s. Prohibit the establishment of new auto repair facilities and other auto-oriented uses in areas designated Neighborhood, Community, and Destination Mixed Use on the Future Land Use Map
t. Mitigate the impacts of auto repair and other auto-oriented uses on the pedestrian environment through building and site design requirements.
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u. Encourage safe and convenient pedestrian connections through development sites and mid-block connections in the downtown core.
v. Limit, consolidate, and narrow driveways along pedestrian routes. In addition, discourage driveway access on Goods and Services Corridors.
w. Consider topography, site grading, rainwater management, and rainwater conveyance system so that snowmelt is directed away from roads and pedestrian areas to avoid icy conditions
x. Discourage multiple curb cuts within a development for automobile passenger drop off and pick-up or any other use.
y. Encourage building designs that reflect the unique site and context where they lie within the city.
z. Encourage building elements that provide educational opportunities for school-age children.
aa. Encourage openable doors, walls and windows on active first floors that create a connection between indoor and outdoor spaces, especially the public realm, during appropriate weather.
ab. Limit self-storage businesses to integration within active use buildings.
ac. In Land Use areas other than Production & Processing, require buildings with inactive uses, such as storage facilities or adult entertainment establishments, to be screened with publicly appropriate active uses along street faces or to be located above or below street level.
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The quality of the public realm – streets, sidewalks, plazas, green spaces, landscaping, public art, heritage streets and other publicly-accessible spaces – influences our city’s livability, sustainability, safety, transit, bikeability, walkability and health. A vibrant and high-performing public realm also contributes to the region’s competitiveness and the image of the city, attracting people to live in, work in, and visit Minneapolis.
The City of Minneapolis has multiple planning processes and guidelines for designing within the public realm such as the Downtown Public Realm Framework and Access Minneapolis. These documents inform and coordinate the work of public and private entities that shape the public realm. Other programs target specific needs of users in the public realm, from providing safe and healthy environments to determining the aesthetic quality and sense of place in the City of Minneapolis.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to proactively improve the public realm in order to proactively improve the public realm to support a pedestrian friendly, high-quality and distinctive built environment.
a. Develop a framework for public realm improvements citywide that guides landscaping, street furnishing, street lighting, trees, heritage streets, and other improvement to the public realm and pedestrian environment.
b. Implement public realm improvements called for in the citywide framework in conjunction with transportation investments, such as street reconstructions and new transit lines according to objective and equitable criteria.
c. Require developers to implement public realm improvements called for in the citywide framework in conjunction with approvals for building construction and site modification.
d. Establish processes according to objective and equitable criteria for implementing public realm improvements called for in the citywide framework in areas not targeted for any transportation investments or new buildings.
e. Enhance the pedestrian environment through physical interpretation of history, public art, and placemaking.
f. Explore and implement new ways to improve the public realm via pilot or creative projects, utilizing public and private partnerships when appropriate, while ensuring public access.
g. Encourage private investment in and maintenance of public space through City programs.
h. Encourage the location and design of pedestrian spaces to be climate-sensitive, allowing for shelter, window breaks, and sun access or shading depending on seasonal protection needs.
i. Consider alternative funding options for public realm improvements to ensure that all areas of the city have opportunities to benefit.
j. Investigate new approaches and strategies to implement pedestrian scale street lighting to neighborhood interiors.
k. Pilot active street furnishings that encourage spontaneous exercise.
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Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a commonly-used term for designing the built environment to contribute to a sense of safety. The four elements of CPTED are: natural surveillance and visibility; lighting; territorial reinforcement and space delineation, and natural access control. The City of Minneapolis requires all new development to be designed using CPTED principles and encourages the renovation of existing development to conform to CPTED principles. This includes development projects that are both publicly and privately owned as well as those that impact the public realm such as open spaces and parks.
A common best practice of CPTED orients buildings, entrances, and circulation or movement patterns to the street to function as “eyes” that watch over street activity. The success in this approach often lies in the kind of activity that looks out over the street. For example, small scale neighborhood commercial uses located up to the sidewalk provide the most vigilant and alert security force available; owners and tenants have a vested interest in watching over their immediate surroundings. The daily presence of a manager, owner, or tenant brings the stability and security of commercial activity to a neighborhood. Stores or services can turn isolated areas into hubs for local neighborhood residents.
Features of CPTED building design include incorporating lighting strategically into site and structure design, providing unobstructed views across the property and to and from the public realm, and unobstructed windows for visual surveillance. Expanses of blank walls are avoided and parking is placed behind the building, so as not separate the building from the street.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to use design principles that ensure a safe and welcoming environment when designing all projects that impact the public realm, including open spaces and parks, on publicly-owned and private land.
a. Integrate “eyes on the street” concepts into building design through the use of windows to foster safer and more successful areas throughout the city.
b. Orient new development to the street, or other public ways, to foster safe neighborhoods.
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c. Design the site, lighting, landscaping, and buildings to promote natural observation and maximize the opportunities for people to observe adjacent spaces and public sidewalks.
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d. Provide on-site, non-glare producing lighting at all building entrances and along walkways that maintains a minimum acceptable level of security while not creating excessive lighting of the site.
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e. Locate landscaping, sidewalks, lighting, fencing, and building features to clearly guide pedestrian movement on or through the site and to provide clear delineation between public and private spaces.
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f. Use innovative building designs, window locations, lighting, and landscaping to limit or eliminate the opportunity for vandalism.
g. Locate entrances, exits, signs, fencing, landscaping, and lighting to distinguish between public and private areas, control access, and to guide people coming to and going from the site.
h. Involve Fire, Police, and Emergency Preparedness staff in the development review process.
i. Encourage the renovation of existing developments to conform to CPTED principles.
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Well designed, accessible open spaces provide health benefits by offering amenities for exercise and peaceful areas to enjoy. They can provide environmental benefits by supporting plant and animal life and by improving natural systems. Open spaces can educate by revealing history or providing a window into understanding the natural environment.
The city contains numerous open spaces which are not official parks or recreation areas, yet are important elements in the built environment. These include plazas and open spaces that were constructed in conjunction with buildings, providing publicly-accessible outdoor amenities. The City of Minneapolis will continue to encourage open spaces to be integrated into new development.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to create new open spaces and plazas in conjunction with new development.
a. Encourage the creation of equitable publicly-accessible open spaces and plazas that connect to other public or semi-public spaces through incentives and requirements.
b. Improve standards for public plazas and other non-park open spaces that give specific guidance on scale, design, and maintenance of seating, lighting, landscaping, and other amenities.
c. Ensure that the design of public plazas and open spaces utilize climate-sensitive design principles, do not harm archeological/historic resources, and support other features that further the goals of this plan.
d. Encourage design of open spaces and plazas that are interconnected across developments, facilitate public access to, movement along, and views of public amenities such as parks, trails, and historic and natural features.
Our city’s transportation system is largely based upon a traditional street grid, which provides a high degree of connectivity. There are natural breaks to this grid, such as rivers, lakes and creeks, as well as human-made features such as parks and those created by land development patterns. Over time, modifications to the street grid to accommodate new development and freeway construction have resulted in reduced connectivity for all modes of travel. Minneapolis will work to rectify this by restoring the street grid as opportunities arise.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to restore and maintain the traditional street and sidewalk grid.
a. Explore options to restore the street grid or add new streets and sidewalks to larger blocks or tracts of land as part of new development or redevelopment.
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b. Consider elimination of gaps in the street grid when conducting development and area-wide planning.
c. Improve local transportation across freeways, including improving pedestrian, bicycle, and transit accommodations across existing bridges and promoting adequate spacing and connectivity of local streets crossing the freeways.
d. Maintain the City’s ownership of streets in order to preserve the network of city streets and arterials.
e. Restore the street grid when appropriate, taking advantage of opportunities as they arise in conjunction with new development and through capital projects. Explore options to proactively dedicate capital improvement funds to reconnect the street grid, so resources are already available when opportunities arise. Where restoring auto access is no longer feasible or aligned with other City plans, the City will pursue restoring streets for use by pedestrians, bicyclists, or transit users.
f. Explore ways to reconnect neighborhoods divided by freeways and highways.
g. Collaborate with Metro Transit to implement technologies to improve the flow of traffic along light-rail transit routes and bus rapid transit routes while maintaining safety for all users consistent with the Complete Streets policy.
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Downtown skyways have been the source of debate for decades. They are beloved in extreme and inclement weather for their seamless indoor connections and are the focus of ire for their lack of navigability, their inaccessibility from the street, and their impact to street level vibrancy. Access to the skyways can be improved through additional high-quality connection points to the street, specifically at primary transit and pedestrian routes. Navigability can be improved through designs that provide transparency to the street. Tying skyway business activity to street level business activity while limiting skyway expansion can help create opportunity to improve street level vibrancy.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ilmprove the Skyway system that connects buildings Downtown.
a. Require newly-established retail uses in buildings connected by skyways to be located primarily on the ground floor with an entrance facing the street.
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b. Require transparency of skyway walls that meet bird-safe glazing definition in order to provide views into and to the outside that help users orient themselves.
c. Require uniform skyway hours of operation.
d. Encourage consistent and uniform directional signage and accessible skyway system maps in multiple languages near skyway entrances, particularly along primary transit and pedestrian routes. Include navigation to publicly accessible restrooms.
e. Require convenient and easily accessible vertical connections between the skyway system and the public sidewalks, particularly along primary transit and pedestrian routes.
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f. Require functional links in the skyway system while adjoining properties undergo redevelopment or renovation.
g. Limit skyway expansion to the downtown core and major institutional sites in order to minimize low-usage skyways and maximize street-level pedestrian activity in growing downtown neighborhoods and historic areas.
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h. Encourage skyways as a transportation, rather than commercial system.
POLICY 12
Provide sufficient lighting on development sites and in the public realm, in a manner than ensures a comfortable environment, contributes to pedestrian safety, and conserves energy.
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Lighting is an important element in the urban environment. The quality and quantity of lighting affects public health, safety, comfort, productivity, and economy. The City, along with other public partners, owns and maintains lighting in the public realm. Additionally, the City regulates lighting produced on private property, particularly in relation to impacts on surrounding uses. The overall goal is to create a safe, comfortable, and attractive environment for residents, businesses, and visitors.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to provide sufficient lighting on development sites and in the public realm, in a manner than ensures a comfortable environment, contributes to pedestrian safety, and conserves energy.
a. Provide high-quality energy efficient lighting fixture designs that are appropriate for adjacent land uses, and that provides safe pedestrian friendly illumination, maximizes dark sky conditions, but minimizes glare and other unnecessary light pollution.
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b. Encourage pedestrian scale lighting throughout neighborhoods as well as in areas such as waterfronts, pathways, parks and plazas, and designated historic districts.
c. Ensure that all site lighting requirements and directional signs have appropriate illumination levels, are effectively placed, comply with zoning and industry illumination standards and avoid over-lighting.
d. Integrate exterior building lighting design to attune with building designs and landscaping.
e. Provide sufficient lighting for better way-finding and safe circulation within and around all sides of the development.
f. Encourage additional pedestrian-scale exterior lighting in areas with high pedestrian traffic such as transit station areas and Goods and Services corridors.
g. Update City regulations to reflect best available practices related to dark skies and the environmental benefits of strategic lighting management.
h. Educate homeowners, property managers, landlords, and business owners on how to provide energy efficient, downcast, non-glare exterior lighting when retrofitting their buildings and properties.
i. Encourage homeowners, property managers, landlords, and business owners to maintain a minimal level of lighting along public ways consistent with best practices.
POLICY 13
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A well-designed landscape will create and define spaces while softening the built environment. Landscaping provides beauty and visual interest, shade and environmental benefits, as well as screening and buffering of uses. It is important to consider the impact different types of plants and trees have on their surrounding environment, including their resilience to climate fluctuations, and their ability to be properly maintained.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to require landscaping in conjunction with new development that complements its surroundings and enhances the built environment.
a. Encourage larger, well-placed, contiguous planting areas that create and define public and private spaces, and acknowledge the roles that smaller, disconnected areas can play in supporting diverse ecologies.
b. Encourage plant and tree types that complement the surrounding area, including a variety of species throughout the site, and seasonal interest. Species should be climate resilient, indigenous, or proven adaptable to the local climate and should not be invasive on native species.
c. Promote landscaped areas that include plant and tree types that address ecological function, including the interception and filtration of stormwater, reduction of the urban heat island effect, and preservation and restoration of natural amenities.
d. Require the maintenance of landscaped areas in accordance with Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles, to allow views into and out of the site, to preserve view corridors, and to maintain sight lines at vehicular and pedestrian intersections.
e. Encourage landscaping plans that facilitate future maintenance including those that minimize the need for irrigation systems, utilize drought and salt-resistant species, and consider ongoing performance of storm water treatment practices, snow storage, access to sun, proximity to buildings, paved surfaces, and overhead utilities.
f. Encourage and identify opportunities to integrate green roofs, living walls, and porous pavement into development, acknowledging that these practices are not meant to be a substitute for ground-level landscaping of sites as landscaping provides both a natural amenity and aesthetic beauty to the urban landscape.
g. Encourage boulevard landscaping and improvements, in accordance with applicable City polices and regulations.
h. Increase use of green infrastructure to enhance the attractiveness of the public realm and positively impact storm water management.
i. Enforce maintenance of required landscaping.
j. Encourage native and pollinator-friendly species in landscaping.
k. Encourage the regulation of, and education around, the use of pesticides and chemical compounds on privately owned land.
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The tree canopy in Minneapolis is an asset for its aesthetic value as well as ecological and environmental benefits, as well as a particular source of pride and joy for Minneapolis residents. According to research done by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, trees on public property save each Minneapolis taxpayer approximately $100 a year. Trees soak up rain water, meaning less runoff to rivers and creeks, which in turn results in cleaner drinking water, better wildlife habitat, and a healthier ecosystem. Trees on public property process 200 million gallons of water annually, resulting in a $5.9M savings in storm water management costs. They provide $5.8 million in energy savings through providing shade in summer to keep buildings cool, and blocking wind in winter to keep buildings warm. This savings is equivalent to the energy needs of 4,350 homes annually. Additionally, they absorb and hold 92 million pounds of carbon from the atmosphere each year. This is the equivalent of taking 8,936 cars off the road. They also remove the equivalent of 333,000 pounds of harmful particulates in the air, improving air quality. Street trees in particular also provide experiential, aesthetic, public health, and safety benefits to residents utilizing public walkways, while mitigating the urban heat island effect.
The ornamental and shade trees in the city's streets, alleys, public grounds and parklands are the responsibility of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board while trees on private property are the responsibility of the property owner. The City supports maintaining the health of all the city's trees and increasing the city's tree canopy to make Minneapolis a healthier place for all its residents.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve the tree canopy and urban forest.
a. Develop and implement strategies and quantifiable goals to increase the tree canopy including exploring an expansion of funding and incentives to plant and promote species diversity while retaining and protecting existing trees.
b. Provide education and training on tree care for all residents.
c. Ensure a healthy tree planting environment in the right of way by increasing growing space, and maintain its quality by relocating utilities to avoid conflicts.
d. Explore incentives, programs, and requirements for new developments and additions to existing buildings, to retain mature trees, replace lost trees, and plant more trees if none were there originally.
e. Require new developments to preserve existing mature trees in the public right of way where feasible and reasonable.
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Achieving equity in transportation means that the quality of the transportation networks in the city creates fair and just opportunities and outcomes for all people. The City of Minneapolis ensures that the quality of the transportation system is held to the same high standard throughout the city. This is done by using quantitative analysis to prioritize street projects based on the physical condition of the streets as well as equity criteria, defined as both the demographics of the areas served by the streets as well as modal needs along each street. This process is detailed in the 20-Year Street Funding Plan, which was created in 2016 and outlines the methodology of selecting capital street projects for improvement -- with a focus on racial and economic equity.
Ensuring that the transportation system functions in a manner that contributes to equitable outcomes requires measuring the success of this goal. The purpose of transportation is to access employment, goods and services, nature and recreation, and to participate in social and civic life. Increased availability of transportation and land use data can facilitate a better understanding of how access to the necessities of life varies by mode and geography, and can help inform decisions about transportation and land use.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure that the quality and function of the transportation system contributes to equitable outcomes for all people.
a. Prioritize equity considerations in transportation programming as outlined in the 20 Year Street Funding Plan and continue to refine plans as necessary.
b. Provide equitable and ample access to walking, bicycling, transit options, and a shared mobility economy.
c. Develop ongoing measurements to track the effectiveness of the transportation system in contributing to equitable outcomes.
d. Increase connections to isolated areas of the city that were created by historic inequities.
e. Support strategies to improve mobility for seniors and those with mobility challenges.
POLICY 16
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Minneapolis is uniquely positioned, along with Saint Paul, to lead the region in confronting the challenges of climate change and energy. The high concentration of people, buildings, and transportation networks create a centralized demand for fossil-fuel based energy. This intersection of people and infrastructure also creates a high level of vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, as warming temperatures, extreme weather events, and flooding can all threaten the reliability and security of the energy systems we depend on. Addressing the growing risks while reducing our impact on the climate will require unprecedented efforts to change our demands on the energy network and the way our energy system is structured.
The Minneapolis Climate Action Plan was adopted in 2013 and provides a road map toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions with targets of 15% by 2015 and 30% by
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2025 from 2006 levels. In 2014, Minneapolis passed an 80% reduction goal by 2050 and formed the Clean Energy Partnership with Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy. In 2015, on-road transportation accounted for 26 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Today, over 90 percent of passenger miles traveled in Minneapolis are in personal automobiles. Even with the adoption of electric cars, a 38 percent reduction in passenger miles traveled by automobile is needed to achieve the 80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
In addition to impacting climate change, vehicle emissions significantly degrade air quality, especially for people living on or near busy streets and highways. These emissions lead to increases in asthma hospitalizations, cancer, and heart attacks.
A multi-pronged approach is necessary to substantially reduce vehicle emissions, including supporting environments that encourage walking as an attractive option, increased options for safe and comfortable bicycling, more reliable and attractive public transit, shared mobility options that support a car-free or car-lite lifestyle, and adoption of electric vehicles.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to reduce the energy, carbon, and health impacts of transportation through reduced single-occupancy vehicle trips and phasing out of fossil fuel vehicles.
a. Require creation and implemental of travel demand management strategies in new development such as facilities for bicycle commuters, transit passes, and market-priced parking.
b. Increase availability and attractiveness of public transportation and non-motorized modes, and continue to disincentivize driving and driving alone.
c. Support the education and outreach efforts of transportation management organizations focused on reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips.
d. Continue to evaluate and implement traffic control measures to minimize vehicle emissions.
e. Implement fees and incentives that encourage the use of public transportation and zero-emissions vehicles in an equitable manner.
f. Transition both public and private vehicle fleets to zero-emissions technology where technology allows.
g. Explore incentives and requirements for electric vehicle charging infrastructure in new development and in the public right-of-way.
h. Incorporate carbon-reduction design elements into City infrastructure projects.
i. Enforce full compliance with the City’s idling ordinance. Utilize technology to track and improve compliance with the public fleet.
j. Incentivize shared mobility options and maximize vehicle occupancy, ensuring the City is able to develop partnerships with public and private companies through policy and fee structures to support climate goals and equitable access to services.
k. Document and publish the anticipated greenhouse gas impact of every major city infrastructure project.
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The City’s Complete Street Policy creates a modal hierarchy in the public right of way. The Policy prioritizes walking and pedestrians first, followed by bicycling and taking transit, and lastly driving motor vehicles. This policy framework guides all transportation-related decisions and encompasses all elements in the public right of way. The Complete Streets Policy vision is to improve the environment, the health and safety of residents, and support and strengthen the local economy.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to plan, design, build, maintain, and operate the city’s transportation system in a way that prioritizes pedestrians first, followed by bicycling and transit use, and lastly motor vehicle use. (Complete Streets Policy, adopted May 2016.)
a. Implement the Complete Streets Policy throughout all phases of transportation projects and initiatives, including programming, planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance.
b. Incorporate the Complete Streets Policy into all elements of the public right-of-way, including landscaping, transit shelters, lighting, signs, traffic lights, parking meters, bicycle parking, and furniture.
c. Document the implementation of the Complete Streets Policy for each individual project.
d. Prioritize projects that will improve the pedestrian, bicycle, and transit networks when developing the City’s long-range Capital Improvement Program, focusing on an equitable distribution of resources and recognizing historical practices that led to inequitable pedestrian networks.
Plan Policies
e. Incorporate a context-based approach informed by the Complete Streets Policy when planning and designing transportation projects.
f. Continue to explore flexible and innovative designs that aim to achieve desired outcomes, and continue to evaluate the latest design standards and innovative concepts, seeking guidance from established best practices.
g. Where standards established by other units of government conflict with the City's Complete Streets Policy, seek design exceptions and variances to their established standards.
h. Develop strong curbside management policies to take full advantage of a dynamic urban environment.
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Walking and the use of mobility aids is an essential mode of transportation in Minneapolis. Everyone walks, whether young or old, whether on foot or using a mobility device, whether as a walking pedestrian trip alone or in conjunction with taking transit, bicycling, or driving. Pedestrians and pedestrian environments support the economy. The most successful commercial districts in Minneapolis rely on high levels of pedestrian traffic. Pedestrians also contribute to an active lifestyle, improving health outcomes. Increasing the number of pedestrians and improving the pedestrian environment are critical components of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, both directly and indirectly. Specific sidewalk design guidance, which is carefully planned according to accessibility standards, adjacent land uses, and street typology, is provided in the Street and Sidewalk Design Guidelines that are part of the City’s Transportation Action Plan.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve the pedestrian environment in order to encourage walking as a mode of transportation.
a. Improve safety for pedestrians, and prioritize pedestrians over other road users, especially at street intersections; focus on signals, crosswalks, lighting, signage, visibility, and lowering vehicular speeds through street design and other measures.
b. Foster vibrant public spaces for street life.
c. Provide clearly-designated pedestrian areas in accordance with the City’s Street and Sidewalk Design Guidelines.
d. Minimize the number of vehicle curb cuts that hinder pedestrian safety; be deliberate in the placement of drop-off zones and other curb side uses and evaluate the pedestrian benefits as a part of the decision-making process.
e. Deploy traffic calming measures.
f. Improve pedestrian connections across barriers such as freeways, highways, and busy streets.
g. Encourage sidewalk widths that reflect existing or expected volumes of pedestrian traffic, as guided in Street and Sidewalk Design Guidelines.
h. As opportunities exist, encourage and design for streetscape amenities, including street furniture,
street lighting, trees, and landscaping, that buffer pedestrians from street traffic and parking areas.
i. Continue to make improvements to the existing sidewalk network, and fill existing sidewalk gaps.
j. Implement and expand zoning regulations and incentives that promote pedestrian activity, such as the provision of secured storage for transportation carts near building entrances, storage lockers, and changing and shower facilities.
k. Ensure timely city-wide enforcement of regulations for snow and ice removal from sidewalks. Include annual public education and support for those with physical limitations. Explore additional strategies, technologies, and improved City clearance operations.
l. Ensure timely city-wide enforcement of regulations for snow and ice removal from sidewalks. Include annual public education and support for those with physical limitations. Explore additional strategies, technologies, and improved City clearance operations.
POLICY 19
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Our City’s network of on-street and off-street bikeways, totaling more than 250 miles, provide the opportunity for people from Minneapolis and elsewhere to enjoy the benefits of accessing daily needs, commuting, and recreating by bicycle. The US Census estimates that 5% of Minneapolis residents commute by bicycle. This is among the highest bicycle commute shares in the nation, and it has risen as the City has continued to invest in expanding and improving the bicycle network. If the city is to reach its goal of 15% bicycle mode share by 2025 (Climate Action Plan), this trend will need to continue. Making bicycling attractive to more people will improve health, support our local economy, and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions via reduced vehicle trips.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve and expand bicycle facilities in order to encourage bicycling as a mode of transportation.
a. Continue to build and maintain a network of bikeways including greenways and accessible protected bikelanes.
b. Develop guidance for selecting bikeway types when planning and designing streets.
c. Embrace and implement emerging best practices in bikeway design.
d. Implement and expand zoning regulations and incentives that promote bicycling, such as the provision of secured storage for bicycles near building entrances, storage lockers, and changing and shower facilities.
e. Minimize the number of vehicle curb cuts that hinder bicyclist safety; be deliberate in the placement of drop-off zones and other curb side uses, and evaluate the bicycling benefits as a part of the decision-making process.
f. Expand use of bicycles as part of the public fleet.
g. Explore ways to increase accessibility to new bicycle technologies.
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2016 marked the 6th consecutive year in a row that Metro Transit ridership surpassed 80 million annual rides. Metro Transit’s system includes light rail, high frequency, rapid, commuter, and local bus lines as well as Metro Mobility and community partnerships that extend the reach of transit use to the outer edges of the metro area. In 2015, 13.1% of the working population over 16 in Minneapolis used public transportation to commute to work. In the core of downtown, transit carries 45-54% of peak period passenger trips. Approximately 18% of Minneapolis households are without access to a personal vehicle, making transit, car-sharing or carpooling, or non-motorized transportation a necessity for many in the city.
Public transit is essential to providing transportation and accessibility that aid in combating climate change and reducing economic disparities. As our city’s population grows, it will be necessary to increase the frequency, speed, and reliability of the public transit system in order to increase ridership and support new housing and jobs.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to increase the frequency, speed, and reliability of the public transit system in order to increase ridership and support new housing and jobs.
a. Actively shape and define the City’s transit vision and framework, with a focus on outcomes rather than modes.
b. Partner with Metro Transit and other agencies to pursue new transit projects of high impact.
c. Work with regional partners to make transit more effective at the local level on both major regional projects as well as the local network.
d. Support Metro Transit’s efforts to install higher quality infrastructure (bus shelters, heating, lights) and coordinate these improvements with street improvement projects and new development.
e. Support Metro Transit’s efforts to monitor and maintain transit facilities, including landscaping, trash removal, and cleaning of bus shelters.
f. Partner with Metro Transit and other transit providers to provide reliable service in Minneapolis through shorter transit headways and transit advantages, including priority transit lanes and signal priority and preemption.
g. Coordinate major transit projects with housing, economic development, and other transportation-related capital improvement investments, including connections to transit via walking pedestrian routes and bicycling facilities.
h. Ensure that high frequency bus routes serve areas with the highest residential, employment and commercial densities.
i. Support the creation of MnPASS for transit advantages to encourage more regional transit use into the downtown core; the conversion of general purpose freeway lanes to MnPASS lanes is preferred over capacity expansion.
j. Increase and improve transit and mobility options within, to, from and around Downtown to support commerce and density.
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The safe, efficient, and reliable movement of freight is vital to a healthy local and regional economy. All industries, especially manufacturing, construction, wholesale, and retail trade, rely on a multimodal freight system to transport goods. Truck traffic comprises most of the local and regional freight system in Minneapolis, with additional regional and international connections via rail and air.
The City of Minneapolis will support the maintenance and expansion of freight infrastructure where benefits to the local and regional economy are apparent and where impacts to surrounding land uses are minimal. The City will encourage adaptation of urban-centered freight innovation and technology, both for shipment into Minneapolis and last mile distribution.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to accommodate freight movement and facilities in order to support the local and regional economy.
a. Adapt to the changing needs of freight, e-commerce and urban logistics.
b. Support the continuation of existing freight rail infrastructure where consistent with land use policy, but do not support expansion of freight rail through Minneapolis.
c. Prioritize investment in safety and crossing improvements along active railroad corridors.
d. Maintain a network of truck routes that ensures the safe and efficient delivery of goods, while encouraging smaller vehicles that are more compatible with an urban environment, centralized drop off and pick up zones, and other innovations that make freight delivery more convenient for the customer with less of an impact on the transportation network.
e. Encourage electrification of freight vehicles, as well as the automation of platooning.
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Downtown Minneapolis serves as the economic, cultural, and transportation hub of the region and requires ongoing coordinated improvements to its streets, sidewalks, transit facilities, and bikeways. As the city grows, thoughtful multimodal transportation planning will support the continued success of Downtown in meeting these needs of the city and region.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure travel to and throughout Downtown is efficient, understandable, reliable, and safe.
a. Encourage pedestrian activity, bicycling, and transit use Downtown, including promoting incentives to make transit more convenient for users traveling to, through, and within Downtown, as well as improved pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure and amenities.
b. Manage the supply and design of parking downtown in a manner consistent with objectives for climate protection, pedestrian activity, bicycling, and transit users.
c. Improve the pedestrian environment Downtown by investing in the public realm and designing buildings to create a pedestrian friendly environment.
d. Partner with property owners to seek out and seize opportunities to connect vertically into and out of the skyway system from and to the public realm through wayfinding and vertical circulation.
e. Ensure that streets serving freeway connections reflect the complete streets policy.
f. Support the education and implementation activities of the Downtown Transportation Management Organization (TMO).
g. Develop strong curbside management policies to take full advantage of the dynamic Downtown urban environment, by supporting street level retail business and addressing the unique freight and delivery needs of the area Downtown.
By several measures, Minneapolis is experiencing a resurgence. The city’s number of residents and jobs is increasing, new businesses are opening, and over $1 billion each year is invested in new buildings and remodeling. Despite this overall success, some areas of the city are not sharing in the positive effects of reinvestment, perpetuating institutional racism in housing and the economy. In addition, some areas of the city may grow dramatically and may not experience commensurate infrastructure or service investments. Overcoming those disparities requires community centered, long-term, sustained, and coordinated investments in public and private land development, development-related public infrastructure, and transportation systems.
In some areas of the city strategic investments by the public sector can spur the private market to deliver new development that provides housing, jobs, and retail goods and services while increasing the tax base. In these cases, the City recognizes that redevelopment areas can benefit from a system-wide district approach through coordinated infrastructure improvements, building on proximity to critical resources, and implementing synergistic land use and transportation strategies. This approach can also be utilized when planning for stormwater management, energy, parking, place making, green space, and marketing as opportunities for achieving the goals of this plan. This district-wide approach to coordinated development can be, but is not limited to,referred to as an Innovation District or a Cultural District.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to coordinate the development of housing, businesses, and infrastructure in geographic areas where a district-wide approach has the greatest opportunity for achieving Minneapolis 2040 goals.
a. Use data on racial disparities and community asset mapping criteria to identify geographic areas most in need of reinvestment and where a coordinated approach would result in achieving Minneapolis 2040 goals, including but not limited to areas that have historically experienced disinvestment.
b. In geographic areas most in need of reinvestment, conduct community centered planning processes that clearly articulate a coordinated district-wide development plan including the location, phasing, and conceptual design of buildings and infrastructure as well as strategies to minimize the displacement of nearby residents and businesses.
c. Devote City staff time to interdepartmental and interagency coordination teams tasked with implementing coordinated district-wide development plans in these areas.
d. Prioritize use of City dollars, as well as resources from other jurisdictions, on implementing coordinated district-wide development plans in these areas.
e. Use and leverage City funds, including the City’s Development Infrastructure Fund, to make strategic infrastructure investments that implement coordinated district-wide development plans in these areas.
f. Prioritize acquiring and disposing of property in order to implement coordinated district-wide development in areas where the positive benefits of reinvestment can have the greatest gain by and most immediate impact for people of color, Indigenous people, immigrants, and low-income residents.
g. Ensure a participatory decision-making process with a focus on the equitable engagement of historically underrepresented populations throughout City-coordinated and funded projects.
h. Invest in transportation infrastructure in locations experiencing growth, particularly in locations that have existing transportation infrastructure that needs to adapt to the demands and opportunities brought by growth.
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Shared mobility opens up new ways of getting around the city through short-term vehicle rentals and on-demand rides via mobile apps. Shared mobility is akin to smaller and more flexible transit options, and needs a strong transit base for large-scale success. These services have the potential to reduce transportation costs for individuals and households by making it easier to reduce the number of vehicles owned by a household. Bikeshare, shared vehicles, and ride-hailing services support walking, bicycling, and transit use by serving as a backup when circumstances are not conducive to choosing those modes. Minneapolis will take proactive steps to benefit from these services as they evolve.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to position Minneapolis to benefit from upcoming changes to vehicle ownership models while supporting a shared use mobility network.
a. Prioritize innovation through pilots and experimentation, as well as design, regulatory, and policy initiatives.
b. Plan for a shared vehicle fleet and its impact on the built form, including automobiles and bikeshare.
c. Establish parking guidelines and requirements that reflect changing car ownership models, both on-street and off-street.
d. Lead by example in City-owned parking facilities by supporting carpools, vanpools, and shared mobility vehicles which encourages private parking facility owners to do the same.
e. Evaluate demographics of early adopters of new ownership models and ensure shared mobility benefits are accessible in an equitable way.
f. Require private transportation network company operators to share data that supports the City’s ongoing transportation planning work with a focus on equity and access for all.
g. Require private transportation network company operators to share data that supports the City’s ongoing transportation planning work with a focus on minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.
New technologies could potentially minimize vehicle use within the city through innovations in transit, shared mobility options, and drone delivery. Minneapolis will still need to maintain the balance between all modes traveling on its streets. As technology progresses into the realm of autonomous cars and freight, the City will need to anticipate and adapt to future needs and shifts in modal use.
ACTION STEPS
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support the development and deployment of new transportation technologies that positions Minneapolis to benefit from these advancements.
a. Proactively regulate automated vehicles in Minneapolis while ensuring equitable access.
b. Advocate for state legislation that allows new transportation and infrastructure technology to be tested and deployed on public streets.
c. Proactively plan for impacts of automated and connected vehicles.
d. Encourage and support electric vehicles by prioritizing associated public and private infrastructure including in the right of way, and ensure that electric vehicle charging infrastructure incentivizes the use of renewably generated electricity.
e. Develop and evolve parking policy for first a partially automated future and then a fully automated future.
f. Proactively prepare for drones as a freight component, as an inspection vehicle, or for other means of advancing mobility in the city.
g. Work with purveyors of new transportation and infrastructure technology to ensure timely, equitable, and climate sensitive deployment.
h. Promote Minneapolis as a place to develop and test new transportation and infrastructure technology by partnering with entrepreneurs in the industry to incorporate new technologies in manners supportive of City goals for transportation.
i. Study, encourage, and implement new and creative parking strategies to accommodate increased residential density.
The City aims to provide safe transportation networks and options for all users. In 2016, the state of Minnesota experienced 397 deaths related from motor vehicle crashes, with 60 of those being pedestrians. Hennepin County had 187 traffic fatalities between 2011 and 2015, with 9 pedestrian deaths and 2 bicyclist deaths in 2015. Minneapolis has experienced 22 traffic fatalities between 2013 and 2015. A holistic approach that explores the needs of all users and prioritizes safe interactions on city streets-- including safer speeds, design strategies, investment, and policy decisions -- will provide the building blocks towards creating safe streets for all.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to eliminate fatalities and severe injuries that are a result of crashes on city streets by 2027.
a. Working together with the community, develop a Vision Zero Action Plan, and implement prioritized measures that are identified through a robust planning process.
b. Include a broad range of approaches involving numerous disciplines including communications, law, engineering, and health when developing the Vision Zero Action Plan.
c. Pursue changes to state statute to allow reduction of speed limits on Minneapolis streets, and use existing statutory authority to reduce speed limits on streets with bicycle facilities.
d. Prioritize safety investments in line with the Complete Streets Policy.
Historically, the City of Minneapolis has collaborated with the State of Minnesota, Hennepin County, Metro Transit, and other agencies to achieve success in transportation planning and implementation. These partnerships have helped the City create a wide reaching transportation network and access a larger pool of funding opportunities. The City can continue to leverage other larger or capital programs that can help fund improvements and coordinate timelines and efforts in order to efficiently implement projects and achieve shared outcomes consistent with City transportation policies.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to create and seize opportunities to leverage funding to identify and achieve shared goals, responsibilities, and participation, while leveraging funding opportunities with regional partners or others making investments in the city.
a. Coordinate with other jurisdictional partners to improve networks that run through the City of Minneapolis but are not owned by the City.
b. Utilize existing City transportation policies to tie decisions to place and context.
c. Advocate for greater flexibility in city-specific transportation funding mechanisms.
POLICY 28
The Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport (MSP) connects the twin cities to other cities in the United States and also abroad. Located just over 12 miles from the downtown core, MSP is easily accessible by light rail transit, bus, or car. The airport connects the Twin Cities nonstop from 128 domestic and 27 international markets. Over 37 million travelers were served by MSP in 2016, placing it 16th in North America in annual passengers served. Though located outside of Minneapolis city boundary, MSP is an important asset to the City, and it also depends on the success of the City. The growth in ease of travel to and from Minneapolis will result in a more prosperous city overall.
Proximity to the airport also brings impacts on adjacent communities. The City will continue to engage with MSP to reduce and manage noise and pollution impacts.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is efficient, connected, and environmentally sound.
a. Continue to advocate for programs and procedures that prevent, reduce, and mitigate aircraft noise and continue to collaborate with partners, including the Metropolitan Airports Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration.
b. Diversify and supplement options for regional and national travel, including non-aviation modes such as intercity rail.
c. Improve multimodal access to the airport, including pedestrian and bicycling access for employees, travelers, and other visitors.
d. Support efforts at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport that improve the energy efficiency and environmental sustainability of air and ground transportation, and landside operations
Arts Districts and concentrated areas of artists’ studios, creative work spaces, and arts venues contribute to the vitality of many places in the city; including the Northeast Arts District, the Hennepin Theater District, the Cedar Riverside area, the Mill District, South Chicago Avenue, West Broadway and others.
Former industrial areas with low rents have traditionally been attractive to artists and other creative entrepreneurs due of their affordability, historic character, flexible large-scale open floor plans, sound isolation, and natural ventilation. This proximity has provided artists with informal opportunities to connect and learn from each other, collectively exhibit, and sell and market their creative work. Events such as Art-A-Whirl provide the public with the opportunity to see 800 artists in every medium at more than 60 locations throughout Northeast Minneapolis.
Clusters of galleries and studios in previously underused retail spaces, along with creative businesses in underutilized office and commercial spaces, also benefit both the creative entrepreneur and the local community. The same characteristics that make an area attractive to artists and creative workers—along with the character they subsequently bring to the area—ultimately makes these places ripe for more development, coffee houses, breweries, and people seeking unique housing options. There is the potential that with this competition for space, property values will increase. Artists and creative workers, who typically rent their spaces, may be priced out.
The transition from artist districts to gentrified areas is a common issue that cities across the US have reckoned with for generations. These same challenges also undermine the ability of a multitude of small arts and culture for-profit/nonprofit and arts incubators to sustain themselves. There is a need to identify the tools available to artists, creative workers, arts organizations or venues, and cities, seeking to prevent displacement. These tools should also assist artists in avoiding unintentionally displacing long-term residents and businesses.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure growth and sustainability in the creative sector economy by providing artists, creative workers and arts and cultural organizations with the resources and support they need to create and thrive.
a. Explore strategies to retain buildings that offer artists and creative workers access to flexible and affordable spaces, spaces that serve unique production needs, and proximity that allows for interaction and learning from one another.
b. Support creative institutions that contribute to the vitality of arts, cultural and creative spaces, and districts within the city.
c. Support community efforts to brand and market arts districts.
d. Partner with private, philanthropic, and other government institutions to target investments in arts and creative spaces, venues, and districts, particularly in communities where there are existing racial, ethnic, and economic disparities.
e. Explore strategies to prevent displacement and preserve the affordability of artist and creative studios, work spaces, live spaces, venues and districts, such as coop models, subsidies, long-term leases, and an Advanced Notice of sale policy.
f. Acknowledge and address the role the creative sector plays in displacing long-term residents and businesses.
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Creative sales make up almost 6% of all industry sales in the city. The fact that for profit creative sales contributed $5.1 billion into Minneapolis’ economy—nearly 9.2 times the size of Minneapolis’ sports sector revenues—is a well-kept secret, as is the nonprofit arts and culture sectors contribution of $346 Million to the city’s economy.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support the creative economy, cultural organizations, and the city’s quality of life by raising awareness of and promoting the value of local arts and culture.
a. Build awareness among residents and youth about the value of the arts to the city’s economy and livability.
b. Create access to opportunities for young people, particularly youth of color and indigenous youth, to pursue arts careers through arts education efforts, apprenticeships, and mentorships.
c. Research and promote the strength and diversity of local artists, creative entrepreneurs, and arts and cultural organizations in the vibrant downtown area and the city’s diverse neighborhood and corridors.
d. Partner with the public and private sectors to promote, support, and engage creative organizations and artists.
e. Partner with the private sector to promote the city’s vibrant arts and culture scene as a means of attracting and retaining skilled workers.
The city experienced 5.1% job growth in the creative sector between 2014 and 2016. Regionally, creative jobs have grown by 14.4% since 2006. This growing sector of the overall knowledge economy is unique. Artists and creative workers frequently generate their income by combining contracted opportunities in the for-profit sector with grant opportunities in the public and nonprofit sectors. Small creative businesses and arts and cultural nonprofits also straddle these two worlds, combining for profit and nonprofit revenue streams in order to operate.
While the creative sector is cited as an important factor in promoting the city as a destination on a national and global scale, sustainability and growth in this sector faces particular challenges. Artists, creative entrepreneurs, and organizations do not see themselves as small businesses or fit in traditional small business models. They are often configured differently in terms of labor force and capital and space needs. To sustain the creative sector, the resources that support small businesses need to be tailored and targeted to their unique needs.
Racial and gender disparities that persist in Minneapolis’ economy also persist among creative workers. The 2018 Minneapolis Creative Vitality Index shows that in the region only 7-9% of jobs in the top-earning creative job types are held by people of color, and women are making very limited progress in gaining parity in many creative job types. Community input for this plan emphasized the need to engage artists of color and indigenous artists in providing training and mentoring as a means of addressing these disparities.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to engage artists and creative workers in the City enterprise and support their capacity to earn revenue.
a. Make City programs for new and small businesses available to artists, art organizations, and creative entrepreneurs, particularly emerging artists, artists of color and indigenous artists, and women.
b. Engage artists of color, indigenous artists, and arts and cultural organizations in providing training and mentorship.
c. Provide artists and creative workers with competitive compensation.
d. Encourage government partners to engage artists and creative workers and provide them with appropriate support and compensation.
e. Provide opportunities for artists and other creative entrepreneurs to earn revenue.
f. Focus on highlighting local talent.
g. Engage artists and creative workers in City projects, training, planning, research, development, and community engagement.
POLICY 32
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A growing body of research using the term “creative placemaking” demonstrates that creativity impacts livability, safety, health, and community development. The results of creative placemaking activities can be dramatic and transformative for communities. Minneapolis neighborhoods use these strategies regularly working with an array of local artists and groups to creatively enhance public spaces and change the dynamics of their communities. A 2014 survey conducted through the City’s Creative City Roadmap Planning process demonstrated that Minneapolis residents and artists think it’s important to offer arts and cultural programs to connect people across differences and to make tangible the values and identities of their own local communities. Through the community engagement for this plan, many people acknowledged the need to for public art and placemaking to focus on the arts and culture of each neighborhood and build on each community’s unique diversity.
The Creative City Roadmap process also identified the need to build the sustained capacity of nonprofit and for-profit stakeholders to be successful in creative placemaking, as well as engage City departments and other government agencies in leveraging local creative sector talent and knowledge.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to build healthy and resilient communities through the arts and culture.
a. Focus arts and culture programs on supporting and engaging communities of color, low income communities, and indigenous communities and celebrate the rich, diverse character and identities of the city’s neighborhoods and corridors.
b. Create welcoming environments for connecting and building trust between City government and communities of color through arts and cultural strategies.
c. Encourage community groups and organizations to develop public artworks that enhance the city’s public realm by building their capacity and simplifying approval processes.
d. Establish a sense of belonging by reflecting the identities of local ethnic, racial and cultural communities in the design of public art.
e. Engage artists and community members in guiding the long-term vision and direction of the City’s public art program.
f. Encourage government partners to develop and maintain public art projects that support artists and engage the community.
g. Encourage creative expression and placemaking on commercial and cultural corridors and in neighborhoods, parks and public plazas.
h. Build on the leadership of cultural organizations within the city that celebrate and promote the traditions and values of various racial and ethnic groups.
i. Encourage non-traditional, hands-on, grassroots, and life long arts opportunities to participate in creating art.
j. Engage artists of color, indigenous artists, and arts and cultural organizations in leading these opportunities.
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Affordable housing is rental housing with rent and income restrictions (typically 60% of Area Median Income or below) or housing for homeownership with income restrictions (typically less than 80 percent of Area Median Income) as governed by local, state, and federal housing assistance programs. This is in comparison to Housing Affordability, which is access to homeownership or rental options based on housing price relative to household income. In Minneapolis, renters who qualify for affordable housing earning less than 30% of the Area Median Income ($28,300 per year), are one of the two largest groups of residents in the city after 100% AMI or greater homeowners ($94,300 per year). (Figure P33.1).
Minneapolis has less affordable housing than it did 10 years ago, and production of affordable housing is not keeping pace with the loss. There is a great need for the creation of new legally binding affordable housing as well as for the preservation of existing legally binding and naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH). This need outstrips the resources and tools that are currently available to produce and preserve affordable housing;
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meeting the need will require new and expanded tools and resources. Since 2000, Minneapolis has lost roughly 15,000 housing units that are considered affordable for those earning 50 percent of the area median income. This is despite the City producing or preserving 8,900 such housing units.
The loss of affordable units is compounded by decreasing wages and rising rents. The median income of renters is down 14 percent from 2000 while median rent has increased by 11 percent. This is further evidenced by the fact that 50 percent of all renters are cost-burdened and 74 percent of low-income renters are cost-burdened.
Another factor impacting housing in Minneapolis is that its residents continue to change, and along with that their housing needs and desires change.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to produce housing units that meet the changing needs of Minneapolis residents in terms of unit sizes, housing types, levels of affordability, and locations while preserving existing housing using targeted, priority-based strategies.
a. Produce more affordable housing by expanding tools and resources, prioritizing funding to households earning at or below 30% and 50% of area median income.
b. Pursue policies, tools, and programs to ensure long-term housing affordability, such as requiring the maximum affordability term of at least 30 years for new affordable housing construction.
c. Strengthen strategies to retain naturally occurring affordable housing, such as reducing property taxes and increasing funding for acquisition.
d. Create strategies to retain naturally occurring affordable housing and existing housing types that are typically not constructed in the marketplace, such as, single room occupancy, shared housing, co-housing, cooperative housing, and 3+ bedroom units for families.
e. Encourage affordable living features in residential development that result in lower transportation costs and reduce monthly utility bills for its residents.
f. Ensure an equitable spacing across the city of affordable housing, supportive housing, shelters, and government placed residents.
g. Create strategies that reduce the cost of affordable housing, such as design competitions for low cost housing using innovative techniques like prefab and manufactured housing, 3-D printed housing and tiny houses.
h. Provide density bonuses and other incentives for the construction of affordable housing.
i. Preserve, improve, and expand public housing that serves the lowest-income people in our city.
j. Support and promote housing options that allow for aging in place, both within a community and at home.
k. The City of Minneapolis is committed to preserving and increasing our public housing stock.
POLICY 34
Given the history of redlining and economic exclusion, the City will designate Cultural Districts to prevent the displacement of low-income residents while nurturing thriving commercial corridors. A Cultural District is a contiguous area with a rich sense of cultural and/or linguistic identity rooted in communities significantly populated by people of color, Indigenous people, and/or immigrants. The City of Minneapolis’ Cultural Districts designation will allow for the creation and prioritized implementation of new investment tools, policies, and practices that directly respond to the needs of POCII communities to stop the displacement of these communities and advance racial equity in Minneapolis.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to strengthen neighborhoods by prioritizing and accelerating economic development, public transit, and affordable housing policies, practices, and resources to protect the racial diversity and uplift the cultural identity of the city’s areas where a significant portion of the population is comprised of people of color, Indigenous people, and/or immigrant (POCII) communities.
a. Partner with the Cultural District residents, cultural workers, artists, entrepreneurs, businesses, institutions, and other levels of government to develop multi-faceted strategies that elevate the district’s cultural and linguistic identity.
b. Partner with POCII entrepreneurs and business owners to create new tools that help them retain and expand commercial activities.
c. Provide more flexible response to and support for efforts that help Cultural Districts thrive. This includes, but is not limited to, facilitating increased street activation by addressing regulatory barriers and amplifying the impact of Special Service Districts and the City’s Great Streets Program.
d. Current City policies, resources, and departmental work will be prioritized to accelerate racially equitable outcomes in commercial vitality, stable housing, and infrastructure within the District area.
e. Help create and prioritize the implementation of cooperative-based economic and housing development strategies such as cooperatively-owned housing and commercial land trusts to secure long-term affordability and greater equitable outcomes for POCII.
f. Promote Cultural Districts as prime areas for ethical tourism by aligning and leveraging funding and programs with key regional partners such as Meet Minneapolis and Greater MSP.
POLICY 35
The demand for affordable housing choices combined with a growing population and changing desires often results in innovative concepts for housing. Sometimes these housing types, such as cooperative housing, condominiums, bungalow courts, and single room occupancy units, are not new; they were prominent at other times in history, in other parts of the United States or in other countries. Having a broad understanding of both renewed and new housing options and the opportunities they present will help the City meet the demand for housing choices.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to pursue innovative housing types and creative housing programs to help meet existing and future housing needs.
a. Support community driven innovative housing solutions, such as prefabricated and manufactured housing, 3-D printed housing, and tiny houses.
b. Review and revise existing policies, programs, and regulations to remove barriers and support innovative, energy efficient, and creative housing options, such as multi-generational housing that supports large family structures, single room occupancy, shared housing, co-housing, and cooperative-housing.
c. Invest in the training and expansion of housing code enforcement to monitor and ensure owner-occupant and investment properties are meeting the standard of building maintenance and health conditions.
d. Allow Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) on both owner occupied and non-owner occupied property, develop a set of ADU templates that meet City codes to ease ADU construction and allow the use of tiny homes and other alternative housing as ADUs.
e. Allow new forms of intentional community cluster housing to house people transitioning out of homelessness, especially forms of housing that are supported by funding from the healthcare system.
In recent years, the City of Minneapolis has annually provided $10 million to aid in the production and preservation of affordable housing units. These City resources, coupled with state and federal resources, have not been enough to meet the minimum projected housing needs suggested by the Metropolitan Council, the regional policy-making body, planning agency, and provider of essential services for seven counties in the Twin Cities metro, nor are they enough to meet the true demand for affordable housing in Minneapolis. More must be done. The City needs new and innovative strategies to successfully meet the Allocation of Affordable Housing Need goals set by the Metropolitan Council, as well as the affordable housing development and preservation goals of this comprehensive plan.
Access to data and the tools, staff, and resources needed to analyze that data to inform priorities, policies, and programs is paramount to achieving success in Minneapolis’ housing work. The City has access to companies and organizations, such as the University of Minnesota and others, that are conducting research in housing policy and programs, as well as harnessing new and existing data sets in innovative ways to better inform, evaluate, and understand existing conditions.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to pursue innovative housing strategies to maximize the creation and preservation of affordable housing. In addition, use data and research to guide and evaluate housing priorities, policies and programs.
a. Explore new strategies and tools to create and preserve affordable housing throughout the city, such as inclusionary zoning and naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) preservation.
b. Continue to explore opportunities to expand and maximize local, regional, state, and federal affordable housing resources, partnerships, and tools.
c. Engage in regional dialogue and collaboration to expand affordable housing resources and tools.
d. Conduct and refresh housing market and needs analyses by real estate analysts on a regular basis. Use this information to establish programs and set priorities and targets geographically.
e. Examine and review data to understand how areas of the city change and how that will affect public policy, including data such as the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) healthy neighborhood indicators, rates of tax delinquency
Plan Policies
f. and foreclosure, building permit activity, vacant property lists, sales prices, and ownership tenure.
g. Maintain a local affordable housing database as a tool for studying trends over time in the development of affordable and mixed-income housing projects.
h. Incorporate community engagement in housing research and data analysis.
i. Develop competitive selection criteria to prioritize the greatest needs in the allocation of affordable housing resources, expanding housing choice and preventing housing displacement throughout the city.
j. Coordinate with the Results Minneapolis team to create a methodology for measuring the success of the 2040 Plan. Establish measurable goals for equity and affordable housing and report annually.
k. Establish specific affordable housing goals for all neighborhoods.
l. Prioritize data driven narratives in policy making.
The development of new housing in Minneapolis is mostly occurring in amenity-rich areas with access to transportation choices, jobs, goods, services, and recreation. The cost of this new housing is typically out of reach for those making the city’s median household income. In Minneapolis, the median household income is $52,611 and the median family income is $72,970. The market alone will not deliver new affordable housing units to many of the city’s existing residents. Affordable housing is rental housing with rent and income restrictions (typically 60% of Area Median Income or below) or housing for homeownership with income restrictions (typically less than 80 percent of Area Median Income) as governed by local, state and federal housing assistance programs. This is in comparison to Housing Affordability, which is access to homeownership or rental options based on housing price relative to household income.
City intervention may be needed throughout the City to support mixed-income housing, including both market rate and affordable housing, at all levels of affordability.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to promote mixed-income development throughout the city.
a. Create and refine policies, programs, regulations, and other tools to develop mixed-income housing throughout the city for ownership and rental housing.
b. Expand the City’s inclusionary housing policies to apply to newly constructed housing developments throughout the city and explore applying inclusionary housing policies to substantial housing rehabilitations.
c. Cultivate a culture of mixed-income housing production.
Housing near transit and job centers not only aids in reducing Minneapolis’ greenhouse gas emissions, it can also help reduce overall living expenses by lowering transportation costs, primarily those of automobile ownership. The Center for Neighborhood Technology estimates the annual cost of owning an automobile to be approximately $8,000. Households that can reduce their number of automobiles can save that money or use it for other living costs.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to create more affordable housing near transit and job centers.
a. Maximize opportunities to create affordable housing, including senior housing and multigenerational housing, near transit stations and along high-frequency transit corridors.
b. Identify and pursue opportunities to acquire and assemble vacant and for-sale properties for affordable housing near transit stations and along transit corridors.
c. Improve coordination within the City enterprise and with outside jurisdictions to identify opportunities to increase housing density and affordability along transit corridors and near job centers.
d. Promote a diversity of housing options throughout the city, especially in places near job employment opportunities, commercial goods and services, and educational institutions.
e. Support education and housing stability by encouraging the development of larger, family-supportive housing units (with at least two bedrooms) in close proximity to Minneapolis Public Schools and along Minneapolis Walking Routes for Youth.
Minneapolis, like all cities in the region and nation that utilize HUD grants, has the responsibility to take meaningful action to eliminate discrimination, overcome patterns of segregation, and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics. This means examining policies, regulations, programs and actions that the City and its partners take to assess their impact on affordable housing and the ability of people of color, indigenous people, LGBTQ+, senior residents, families with children, etc. - to make housing choices in an environment free from discriminatory practices – referred to as “fair housing choice”. City decisions regarding housing policy, investment, land use, and zoning have a direct and profound impact on affordable housing and fair housing choice, shaping the city’s and region’s potential diversity, growth, and opportunity for all.
The City’s work to eliminate barriers to fair housing requires ongoing policy development, strategy implementation, and evaluation. This work is informed by data and robust community and stakeholder engagement. Racial disparities developed in large part as a result of discriminatory policy; proactive policy and strategies will be required to eliminate these disparities. Fair housing barriers are regional in nature. The City will participate in regional efforts to eliminate racial disparities and fair housing barriers.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to expand fair housing choice and access throughout the city.
a. Participate in regional collaboration to eliminate fair housing barriers, including the completion of a fair housing assessment at least every five years, to be informed by robust community and stakeholder engagement.
b. Annually establish, review, assess and implement strategies for removing barriers to fair housing choice, using feedback from community and stakeholder engagement of the people most impacted by these barriers.
c. Disseminate fair housing information and resources, with a particular focus on empowering people of color, indigenous people, low-income residents, and cultural communities.
d. Conduct fair housing testing to ensure compliance in the rental housing community with fair housing law.
e. Produce more affordable housing.
f. Expand affordable homeownership opportunities and rental options for residents across the entire city.
g. Support housing options that allow for aging in place, both within a community and at home.
POLICY 40
Homelessness affects the lives of many people who do not have a stable and permanent housing situation. This diverse population includes families with children, unaccompanied youth & young adults, LGBTQ+, those chronically ill, single adults, fixed-income seniors, non-traditional families, victims of human trafficking, veterans, individuals released from prison, and those displaced due to domestic violence; each requiring different kinds of resources and care. People experiencing homelessness may continue in that state without help from a regional support network and housing assistance.
As a city we are experiencing a shortage of housing for households at or below 30 percent of area median income. The matter intensifies for those who may face a lack of employment, chronic physical and mental health conditions, violence, trauma and/or the lack of transportation to access a job, appointments, or support services such as child care and counselling. This results in higher rates of homelessness, dislocation, and crowded and unsafe living conditions for thousands of residents annually – and it disproportionately impacts communities of color and indigenous people. (Figure P40.1).
Access to stable and safe housing that people can afford and essential support services are at the core of city efforts to prevent and eliminate homelessness. Minneapolis will strengthen coordination with local and regional partners within the seven county Metropolitan
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Council to develop unified goals, strategies, and programs to prevent homelessness and to help those experiencing homelessness, acknowledging that this issue is not confined by municipal boundaries. Important strategies include efforts to prevent tenant evictions, provide timely response to emergency rental assistance and other housing crisis, while providing community and home-based supports.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to eliminate homelessness through safe, stable, and affordable housing opportunities and strategies for homeless youth, singles, and families.
a. Strengthen the City’s coordination with local and regional partners and local service providers to have a strong regional network, aligned with state goals, to financially support and develop strategies to address and prevent homelessness.
b. Ensure that City housing programs are aligned with county and state goals to end homelessness.
c. Prioritize the enhancement of local shelter safety methods and systems.
d. Support greater access to emergency shelters, drop-in centers, soup kitchens, and other urgent or day-use services.
e. Strengthen City efforts to engage directly with people experiencing homelessness to understand their stories and situations and focus on improving their health and safety by supporting the Minneapolis Police Department homeless and vulnerable population initiative, street outreach services, and other engagement efforts.
f. Support and expand low barrier housing opportunities to better serve households with criminal and credit reports through rental housing that serves tenants with the greatest barriers to securing housing, such as having no or very low income, poor rental history and past evictions, or criminal histories.
g. Collaborate with local and regional partners to expand housing programs beyond those that serve families to address other populations such as transitional supportive services for young adults aging out of the foster care system.
h. Create a regulatory framework to allow new rooming houses, single room occupancy units, and other forms of transitional housing.
POLICY 41
In Minneapolis nearly 51 percent of residents rent their housing. Renters in Minneapolis are also more likely to be people of color and indigenous people. Increased rents, decreased or stagnant incomes, and the loss of affordable housing units have challenged many residents in their search for affordable housing, and have put many renters at risk of living in housing that may not be decent, affordable, healthy, or safe. These factors also put renters at greater risk of eviction, which exacerbates housing instability.
Ensuring long-term housing stability is essential to the success of the city and its residents. This requires investments in rental housing quality, affordability, and access. In addition, investments in resident’s ability to protect their civil rights aids in their ability to overcome housing barriers by improving access to safe, decent, and affordable housing; supporting their ability to participate fully in community life.
The City is actively working to strengthen protections for tenants. There are barriers under state statute to certain types of tenant protection initiatives. However, the City will continue to engage with stakeholders to determine how tenant protections can be enhanced at the local level.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to protect tenants’ rights, improve living conditions in rental housing, and ensure renters can fully participate in community life.
a. Emphasize the value and contributions of renters to the City and communities.
b. Focus City policies and resources on equitably promoting the ability of tenants to secure and maintain stable housing, including increased City participation in Tenant Remedies Actions.
c. Ensure tenants and landlords are aware of their rights in their native language by providing materials in commonly spoken languages of Minneapolis residents.
d. Provide funding to community-based organizations that proactively help tenants understand and enforce their rights, and assist financially with emergency housing relocation.
e. Identify and implement policy, financial, regulatory, and other incentives and disincentives that reduce evictions, support source of income protection, and expand tenant protections.
f. Create incentives to increase landlord participation in rental assistance programs and other initiatives to serve tenants with the greatest barriers to securing housing.
g. Ensure rental housing is well-maintained, healthy, and safe through proactive policies and programs for property owners and managers, including trainings and maintenance resources.
h. Continue to investigate and address tenants’ livability, health, and safety concerns.
POLICY 42
Homeownership has given generations of Minneapolis residents the opportunity for housing stability and wealth development. However, these opportunities have not historically been available to all city residents. The combination of past racially restrictive housing policies and current lending practices have significantly reduced homeownership opportunities for people of color in particular African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, and indigenous people.
Although income is the largest factor in purchasing a home, even high-income households of color still face denied access to credit or are issued higher loan origination rates. In 2005, according to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act loan data, very high-income African-Americans, Hispanic, and Asian applicants with incomes of more than $157,000 per year had denial rates higher than white applicants with incomes of less than $39,250 per year, with the greatest disparities among African-American applicants. In 2018, the Department of Justice settled its second-largest residential fair-lending case for $175 million, finding that the nation’s largest home mortgage lender participated in discriminatory lending practices. Borrowers of color were directed to sub-prime loans, charged higher fees, and received higher interest rates while white borrowers with the same credit risk profile were directed to less risky and more traditional mortgage products. When the housing market crashed in 2008, mostly subprime loan borrowers – largely households of color – faced foreclosure, lost the equity in their homes, and had to re-enter the rental housing market with damaged credit and limited assets.
Today in Minneapolis, there is a 36 percentage point gap between households of color that own their home versus white households. Over 59 percent of white non-Hispanic households own their home, while less than 21 percent of African-American and American Indian households own their home. Just under 25 percent of Hispanic households own their home (Figure P42.1).
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The City can work to overcome the legacy of past barriers as well as current barriers in accessing homeownership for all people, specifically reducing racial disparities within homeownership. These actions are not just investments in filling the financial gap between the cost of a home and what buyer can afford; they are investments in people to help develop the skills and capacity to support homeownership.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve access to homeownership, especially among low-income residents and people of color and indigenous people.
a. Support nonprofit organizations that provide financial counseling and homebuyer education to build homeownership capacity among low- and moderate-income households, especially households of color.
b. Support wealth-building housing models and local credit unions or financial institutions with a particular focus on empowering communities of color, low-income renters, and cultural communities.
c. Prioritize outreach to local developers and businesses owned by people of color, indigenous people, and women, in the administration and development of City-funded housing projects.
d. Evaluate programs on how well they serve communities of color, low-income renters, and cultural communities using clear, measurable indicators.
e. Support services that promote post-purchase counseling and foreclosure prevention and other services.
f. Develop tools to support long-term affordability when the City makes investments in housing, including community specific equity sharing models such as housing cooperatives or land trusts.
g. Develop a marketing campaign of existing homeownership resources that includes low-income residents, communities of color, and indigenous people.
h. Increase homeownership in existing multifamily buildings by exploring ordinances including right of first refusal and/or opportunity to purchase when buildings are sold.
i. Explore the creation of a public bank to further this goal.
j. Explore providing downpayment assistance and loan forgiveness programs to further this goal.
k. Explore and encourage new and innovative homeownership opportunities.
POLICY 43
As Minneapolis grows, communities within it will change. To achieve Minneapolis 2040 goals, everyone must benefit from this growth; historically, people of color and indigenous people have not experienced the same benefits of growth. Without an equitable and inclusive growth and development strategy, involuntary displacement and cultural displacement may occur.
Especially at risk are the many Minneapolis residents who are cost-burdened, meaning more than 30 percent of their income goes toward housing costs – mortgage or rental payments. New investment and increased housing demand results in rising housing costs, which has a greater impact on these cost-burdened households. These households are disproportionately households of color, and disproportionately renting versus owning households: Fifty-six percent of black or African-American renting households are cost-burdened, and 51 percent of American Indian, Hispanic, and Asian renting households are cost-burdened. (Figure P43.1)
It is especially challenging for cost-burdened residents to meet the challenge of rising housing costs – and costs are
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rising. A report from the Minnesota Housing Partnership found that the number of rental property sales increased rapidly between 2010 and 2015, with a disproportionate number of sales in moderate-income, racially diverse neighborhoods. These sales are almost always followed by rent increases. The homeownership market is also experiencing significant price increases that affect low- and moderate-income homebuyers and homeowners.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to minimize the involuntary displacement of people of color, indigenous people, and vulnerable populations, such as low-income households, the elderly, and people with disabilities, from their communities as the city grows and changes.
a. Look at early indicators of neighborhood change and rents to determine where programs should be targeted.
b. Evaluate City investments to determine whether they will cause involuntary displacement and create strategies to prevent displacement when possible and mitigate it when prevention is not possible.
c. Develop and implement policies and programs that support the preservation and rehabilitation of naturally occurring affordable housing to prevent the displacement of existing residents, for example an Advanced Notice of Sale Policy.
d. Prioritize the rehabilitation and preservation of existing legally binding affordable housing.
e. Expand programs that support existing homeowners in affording and maintaining their home, with a focus on people of color, indigenous people, and vulnerable populations, such as low-income households, the elderly, and people with disabilities.
f. Prioritize the inclusion of affordable housing in development activity.
g. Analyze impact of property tax trends on displacing homeowners, and evaluate strategies to reduce displacement.
Many Minneapolitans do not have stable housing, which is foundational for success in school, work and civic life. City investments in buildings, neighborhoods and systems are important to the creation and retention of housing stability in Minneapolis, but it’s not enough: Because the barriers to stable housing are individual as well as systemic, investment in people is also needed to build capacity for and remove barriers to long-term housing stability.
Investments in people and housing occur within neighborhoods, and these investments are most successful if they operate as part of a comprehensive community development strategy including housing, transportation, schools, parks, and business development. These investments in people and their communities, paired with investments in safety and public health, can help ensure a comprehensive approach to supporting communities throughout Minneapolis.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support coordinated, comprehensive investment strategies in people and in communities to enhance livability and economic mobility throughout the city.
a. Prioritize programs to support long-term housing stability, including but not limited to wealth-building housing models and the reduction of eviction, criminal, and credit report barriers, with a particular focus on communities of color, indigenous communities, low-income renters, and seniors.
b. Expand coordination with internal and external partners to identify opportunities and strategies for comprehensive investments.
c. Expand coordination within the City enterprise including the Police, Regulatory Services, Health, Public Works, and community organizations to address crime and safety issues.
d. Prioritize the use of housing program dollars where coordinated, comprehensive investment is occurring.
e. Ensure that housing investments are part of a comprehensive community investment strategy to benefit existing residents and improve opportunity.
f. Support local credit unions or financial institutions with a particular focus on empowering communities of color, indigenous communities, low-income renters, and cultural communities.
g. Ensure that every part of the city shares in both the opportunities and burdens of urban economic, environmental, and social life.
In 2017 Minneapolis’ housing investments helped leverage nearly $50 million of development in Minneapolis. These investments helped create and retain affordable housing for Minneapolis residents, but they can do more for Minneapolis communities: The investments in housing can help leverage community wealth building, improve access to employment and skills development, and grow entrepreneurship.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to design housing programs in a manner that also benefits the larger community.
a. Prioritize local hiring, contracting, and development in housing.
b. Prioritize participation by local businesses owned by people of color, indigenous people, and women, as well as community-based businesses and institutions in the administration and development of City-funded housing programs and projects.
c. Encourage residents, especially people of color, indigenous people, and women, to participate in real estate development through the city’s Small Developers Technical Assistance Program (D-TAP).
d. Explore and implement options for amplifying community voices in housing policy and program development, including those of non-English speakers and those from communities with strong oral traditions.
As people spend more of their time indoors (according to the Environmental Protection Agency people spend on average 93 percent of their time indoors), it becomes more important than ever for those indoor spaces to foster a healthy environment. Poor indoor air quality and indoor environmental pollutants such as lead, mold, pests and radon can have lifelong impacts on health. These conditions and pollutants disproportionately impact low-income households, children of color, and renters.
The design and maintenance of housing also has a dramatic impact on both physical and mental health. Housing design that embraces active and healthy living can include deliberate placement of stairwells, bicycle storage areas, play spaces for children, and social spaces in buildings that foster connections within the building and with the broader community.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to proactively address health hazards in housing and advance design that improves physical and mental health.
a. Focus resources for housing improvement programs and actions in historically underinvested communities where unhealthy housing has caused poor health outcomes.
b. Support and expand programs and actions that identify and proactively remediate health hazards in existing housing, such as lead and radon abatement programs.
c. Support and expand programs and redevelopment activity to remediate environmental and public health hazards related to housing and neighborhoods.
d. Promote inclusion of active living design components in housing.
e. Promote building and community design that includes public spaces that foster connectivity within and outside of a building.
f. Establish healthy homes priorities, weighing both the housing needs and the amount of vulnerable populations that reside nearby.
g. Encourage, and require when possible, use of environmentally responsible building materials and construction practices.
h. Link healthy housing to energy efficiency improvements in existing housing.
i. Encourage the use of interior landscaping and greening for air quality and psychological health benefits.
j. Adjust design standards to maximize access to natural sunlight.
Minneapolis’ housing stock is a city asset, not just a personal asset to the current owners. In most cases throughout the city, the current owners and inhabitants of housing are not the original owners, nor will they be the last. The housing stock is an asset that spans generations and provides shelter, stability and a place to generate wealth – a home to past, present, and future generations of Minneapolitans.
Like any asset, Minneapolis’ housing stock needs to be stewarded and maintained to ensure its longevity and to allow for its ability to evolve so it can be a home to future generations. The safety and maintenance of Minneapolis’ housing is important to the success, health, and happiness of the residents of Minneapolis and to future Minneapolitans. However, it is important that alongside the City’s efforts to ensure the safety and maintenance of Minneapolis’ housing stock, it also makes every attempt to not displace current residents.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure the preservation and maintenance of existing housing.
a. Promote the long-term retention of housing through maintenance.
b. Provide targeted outreach to homeowners about the home maintenance needs of older homes.
c. Support rental property owners and tenants in maintaining safe, code-compliant rental properties through continued enforcement of codes, the use of grants, and other incentives.
d. Invest in housing code enforcement training and expand enforcement efforts to monitor and ensure both owner-occupant and investment properties are meeting regulatory standards of building maintenance and health conditions.
e. Expand financial and technical resources for the maintenance and improvement of owner-occupied and rental properties with conditions that ensure the continued affordability of the housing units.
f. Explore and implement options for requiring a minimum set of labor standards in development projects.
During the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, freeways were built in Minneapolis and across the United States to more efficiently move traffic through the city, region, state and country. These highways accelerated car travel through and around the city, but also decimated neighborhoods. Many areas in Minneapolis were cleared for highway corridors and so-called “urban renewal” housing projects. These projects removed hundreds of housing units and businesses, creating barriers and cutting deep and enduring trenches in neighborhoods throughout the City. The impacts on land value and future property tax revenue is difficult to quantify, but it is estimated that the Minneapolis property taken for freeway constructions would be worth at least $655 million today.
In 1960, the areas where Interstate Highways 35W, 94, and Minnesota State Highway 55 were built were home to approximately 27% of the city’s white population, but 82% of its black population. Many African American communities were pushed into these locations as a result of restrictive racial covenants that were introduced in 1910. These areas were often seen as “blighted” because a majority of the residents were African American and had been subject to redlining and systematic disinvestment since the 1930s. As a result of freeway construction, there were direct and disproportionate losses of residential and commercial property occupied and owned by black residents. Minneapolis’ black residents and other people of color are still more likely to live near a freeway than other residents, which has been and continues to be associated with a variety of negative consequences including increased health problems due to air quality impairment.
In recent years, the disparate impact of the interstate highway system on poor people of color is getting more attention, and more cities across the United States have been developing policies and strategies to repair the damage done by the freeways built in their communities.
There is significant potential in Minneapolis to recover land and space lost to the freeways. This could be accomplished by repurposing or reclaiming space the system isn’t using or doesn’t need and finding ways to build near and over the current system even while it keeps functioning.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to recover and repurpose space taken by construction of the interstate highway system in Minneapolis and use it to reconnect neighborhoods and provide needed housing, employment, greenspace, clean energy and other amenities consistent with the City goals.
a. Work with the state of Minnesota and other partners to analyze and mitigate the negative effects of the highway system in Minneapolis.
b. Identify possible locations where land bridges and freeway lids can be used over portions of the interstate highway system for housing, commercial, or transit purposes.
c. Consider the removal of portions of freeways, including some exit and entrance ramps, to
better connect communities and open land for development.
d. Identify alternatives for using the land on freeway embankments for energy collection with solar panels or wind harvesting; water management and purposeful plantings; and as dedicated public transit corridors.
e. Explore options for how private development could support the construction of freeway lids or covers and other mitigations.
f. Consider how some portion of the proceeds from any private development could be paid to the people whose homes were taken by eminent domain (or their descendants).
g. Support initiatives to reconnect neighborhoods separated by freeways, in partnership with MnDOT and other stakeholders, including improvements and replacements to pedestrian and multi-use bridges.
Just because a city and region is experiencing economic growth doesn’t mean everyone in the city has the opportunity to benefit, access and participate in that growth. Many Minneapolitans, particularly people of color and indigenous people, face barriers to participating in the economy. These barriers can start at birth and extend throughout a lifetime, impacting these residents’ access to paid work as their primary means of economic compensation. The presence or absence of this kind of economic stability is an important social determinant of health, and can impact emotional and mental well-being. Without access to financial resources, it is also very difficult to address health challenges related to lack of healthy foods, suitable housing, health care and other necessities of life.
Assessing the needs of workers and students who are looking for job and training opportunities cannot be limited to their educational levels or qualifications. People come from many communities and backgrounds, especially among people of color and indigenous people, and may experience historical trauma that presents barriers to accessing opportunities for economic mobility. This requires collaborative partnerships to create solutions that are culturally accessible and that meet the needs of the community. These types of investments will support the healthy development of workers and build resilience for long-term employment and economic sustainability.
However, simply being employed is not enough to ensure economic stability and prosperity. Having access to a living-wage job is necessary for personal and family stability and health – but many entry-level jobs do not provide wages and related benefits at this level. In addition, the lack of paid time off and support for child care creates additional barriers to finding and retaining employment that allows people to address family needs.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to increase equitable access to educational and economic opportunities.
a. Support businesses in providing fair wages and worker protections.
b. Increase job training, youth apprenticeships, and transitional and temporary employment opportunities.
c. Continue to collaborate with Minneapolis Public Schools and other educational providers to eliminate racial disparities in access to educational opportunities, educational attainment and discipline in schools.
d. Collaborate with cultural institutions and employment and training providers to create strategies to eliminate racial disparities in access to educational and work opportunities.
e. Invest in resources that provide professional networking opportunities and exposure to career and job opportunities, with a focus on target communities based on a criteria of need.
f. Recruit, retain, and set clear pathways for advancement to support a diverse City workforce that reflects the demographics of the city.
g. Increase the number of affordable high-quality child care services.
h. Consider access to educational institutions, places of employment, and child care services, when planning public transportation investments.
i. Explore and implement strategies to eliminate barriers to workforce training and employment for individuals who have been convicted as a felon or previously incarcerated.
j. Support access to out of school time youth programming in academic enrichment, the arts, entrepreneurship, leadership, and civic engagement.
k. Increase the quality of out of school time programming.
l. Increase the quality of informal childcare networks (friends, family, and neighbors).
It is important that individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy and economy. Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure residents have the technology tools and skills needed to fully participate in the economy and civic life.
a. Facilitate digital literacy and access to technological tools for residents to use in finding jobs, interacting with government and connecting with one another.
b. Remove barriers to private development of citywide information infrastructure.
c. Proactively ensure that all residents have equal access to information infrastructure.
d. Continue to track the use and availability of technology tools.
e. Establish strategy for ensuring every home has access to fiber optic internet.
POLICY 51
Support for babies and toddlers is critical to healthy development and lays a foundation for future successes in school and adulthood. Research demonstrates that developmental disparities among babies can be measured by as early as 18 months of age, and they widen over time. By the time children are two years old, there is already a six-month gap in language comprehension between infants from higher-income families and lower-income families. This early learning gap is the strongest predictor of the persistent achievement gap in educational attainment.
Years later, this achievement gap becomes apparent. In Minneapolis significant disparities exist in high school graduation. Approximately 22 percent of American Indian students graduate, slightly over 34 percent of Hispanic students graduate, and 36 percent of black students graduate. Thirty-eight percent of all low-income students, regardless of race, graduate. It is foolish to ignore the fact that these trends show up long before graduation; disparities begin at birth and grow wider over time. Income-based achievement gaps open up between the ages of 0 and 5 and stay stable or shrink during K-12, while race-based gaps are very apparent at age 5 and grow modestly at later ages. This suggests that the best opportunity to close or even prevent these achievement gaps is by focusing investment toward the earliest stages of life. The entire community will benefit when babies, toddlers and young children are on a path to healthy development, early learning and school success.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to prioritize pathways to healthy development, early learning and school success for all children ages birth to 5.
a. Increase early childhood screening before or at age 3.
b. Improve mental health services for children ages birth to 5.
c. Decrease development disparities among children ages birth to 5 by promoting the importance of multilingual reading, talking, and singing to babies and young children.
d. Increase access to prenatal care and targeted home-visit services for new parents, including fathers.
e. Increase resources and support for low-income families to foster economic stability and access to healthy and safe housing.
f. Increase resources for low-income families to access high-quality early learning programs to promote kindergarten readiness.
g. Increase the number of high-quality child care slots in Minneapolis.
h. Continue to collaborate with providers of healthcare and social services, and partnering organizations to support healthy development of babies and toddlers.
i. Explore implementation of a citywide, free, high quality, full day pre-K for 3 and 4 year olds.
j. Expand the use of park facilities, public buildings, and cultural institutions for providing childcare. Consider ways to leverage seniors in assisting.
A knowledge-based economy, heightened competition in globalized markets, and the quickening pace of change make continual innovation, commercialization and business creation imperative for economic success. It is necessary to promote a city in which residents from all backgrounds have access and opportunity to gain and retain well-paying employment that allows them to grow as individuals; a city where employers find the skilled workforce they need to thrive and grow; and a city where ethnic diversity in all fields of entrepreneurship is supported. Employment and training practices as well as opportunities for entrepreneurship will need to adapt to demographic and technological changes to promote growth for all segments of the city’s population and to create a sustainable entrepreneurial environment.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to develop human capital and a skilled, diverse, and trained workforce to implement economic development strategy and increase productivity, growth and innovation.
a. Design workforce development programs and create partnerships that work to eliminate race-based employment disparities.
b. Explore and implement strategies to increase access and participation in employment training programs.
c. Invest in high-quality community-based, culturally appropriate, and accessible employment programs and strategies that serve to remove barriers to holding a living-wage job and achieving economic self-sufficiency.
d. Focus resources and efforts on building and maintaining a skilled and employable workforce through education, placement, and training.
e. Focus resources and efforts on connecting residents to new job creation and income-generation activities in ways that promote self-reliance and create an agile workforce.
f. Invest in Minneapolis youth through high-quality paid employment programs that expose teens and youth to work, education, entrepreneurship, and career pathways.
g. Invest in Minneapolis adults through high-quality apprenticeships and career pathways.
h. Explore partnerships and opportunities to create apprenticeship and training programs for trade professions with employers throughout the city.
i. Invest in human capital development in advanced manufacturing and in roles unlikely to be replaced by robotics, automation, or other disruptive technologies and systems that can lead to professional licensure and occupational certification.
j. Promote healthy, safe, just, and equitable workplaces with adequate protections for all workers.
k. Promote ongoing training around cultural competency to help combat implicit bias in hiring and to support retention of diversity in the workforce.
l. Support historic preservation and creative sector workers through training and skill building.
m. Collect and use disaggregated workforce and demographic data to inform investments in employment and training programs.
n. Remain vigilant about automation’s impact on the local economy with a prioritization of training workers of color and Indigenous workers for higher wage jobs in the new economy due to jobs lost to automated processes.
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A high quality of life is essential to a city’s economic competitiveness. A city and region that can offer its residents desirable lifestyle attractions can more easily recruit, develop and retain businesses and workforces. Minneapolis often appears in the top tier of lists of desirable places to live, work, play, and visit. These desirable places are communities that have tradition and history, but are also open, innovative, and welcoming. They have cultural and social capital that cannot be found everywhere: arts and cultural institutions, history, entertainment, unique sites, food culture, parks, interesting neighborhoods, and social offerings.
These cities also have strong public, civic, religious, and nonprofit institutions, access to information and services, robust commercial areas, mixed-income communities, diverse populations, and access to transportation, clean water, living-wage jobs, affordable housing, and healthy food. Residents experience a sense of belonging, stability, and safety. In addition, these are cities where all residents have equal access to these elements, regardless of where they live or their race and ethnicity.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to perpetuate a high quality of life for Minneapolitans that includes safe, open and welcoming cultural and social institutions, as well as natural and built infrastructure.
a. Promote the identity and vitality of Minneapolis through its numerous cultural and civic institutions and organizations.
b. Promote at the local, national and international levels the creativity that arises from Minneapolis’ cultural diversity.
c. Maintain and enhance the many built, historic, arts, and natural environmental assets throughout the city to promote and strengthen communities.
d. Explore the creation of a program honoring businesses, companies, institutions and organizations that make important quality-of-life and job contributions to Minneapolis.
e. Ensure infrastructure and facilities are inclusive and welcoming to a diverse local, regional, and global population.
The City of Minneapolis recognizes that to be successful in this changing economy it needs to improve governmental coordination and streamline processes and regulations, while still protecting public interests. With changing technologies and businesses types, government must be proactive in recognizing growing industries, and trending uses, that are entering the economy. This means improving regulations and processes that allow for entrepreneurs to innovate and contribute to economic growth, while protecting the health and safety of the public.
Further, the City needs to focus on fostering a climate of innovation and entrepreneurship, developing a skilled workforce, promoting a diversity of economic activity, building virtual, social and physical infrastructure, and eliminating racial and economic disparities.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support economic growth through City policy, regulations, tools, and programs.
a. Develop a framework for City policy, regulation, culture and staff to be proactive, adaptive, and collaborative in response to changing economic trends.
b. Identify ways for the City to assist businesses and the workforce, in multiple sectors and at multiple levels, to address productivity and technology advances.
c. Identify and remove barriers, such as lack of technical support and challenges in accessing capital and physical space, to business creation and growth by residents of color, indigenous residents and low-income residents.
d. Identify ways for the City to address the changing nature of retail and the production of goods in its policies and regulations.
e. Support the expansion of the green economy, including but not limited to renewable energy, green building standards, energy benchmarking and investment in energy-efficient buildings.
f. Continue to clarify and streamline City processes to make it easier to improve properties as well as to start and operate businesses in Minneapolis, while continuing to protect the public interest.
g. Provide active assistance and outreach to the public, small businesses, and developers to navigate policies, regulations, and processes required to conduct business in the city.
h. Promote neighborhoods across our city for large events and visitor marketing.
Sustainable economic growth comes from fostering the creation of ideas and the growth generated from local assets. Minneapolis has a wealth of local assets that generate and expand industries. Minneapolis and the surrounding region are home to 17 Fortune 500 companies and seven of the top 225 private companies. Minnesota ranks first in the nation in the number of jobs per capita related to medical technology. The University of Minnesota, ranked 4th in the nation for patent creation and 9th best U.S. public research institution, continues to lead in the development and creation of new technology, ideas, and business. Forbes called Minnesota the fastest-growing state for tech jobs. Minneapolis’ regional creative economy continues to be ranked in the top six in the Creative Vitality Index, with a score nearly four times higher than the national average.
Supporting the creativity and innovation that comes from all these local assets will help Minneapolis’ regional economy grow. However, significant disparities exist in business ownership in Minneapolis. Less than 22 percent of Minneapolis businesses are owned by people of color. When compared to the population of Minneapolis, there is a disproportionate underrepresentation of Black and Latino owned businesses. Small business and entrepreneurship create an opportunity to build wealth in communities of color. Having an entrepreneur in a family increases family wealth by 600 percent for a Black family and 400 percent for a Latino family. This presents a significant opportunity to align efforts to support innovation and entrepreneurship and expand opportunities for people of color start and grow businesses.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to promote and support business creation, innovation, entrepreneurship, and expansion.
a. Promote the conditions for innovation and entrepreneurship.
b. Connect entrepreneurs, with a focus on women, indigenous people and people of color, to resources, including market information, talent, other support organizations, technical assistance, real estate options and capital.
c. Promote business startups and expansions.
d. Attract new capital for entrepreneurs and startups.
e. Explore regulatory changes that reduce or eliminate barriers to innovative and alternative uses of space, especially for smaller-scale entrepreneurs.
f. Support connections between academic research and private industry.
g. Coordinate with the strategies and actions of the state, county, Greater MSP and other regional partners.
h. Align City policies and resources toward attracting and retaining businesses with low negative community impacts and high positive community impacts that provide a high density of quality jobs or otherwise significantly enhance the vibrancy of the regional economy.
i. Work to create public and non-profit incubator and co-op spaces, including shared commercial kitchens, workshops, and access to technologies and equipment.
Small businesses play an essential part in growing Minneapolis’ economy. Since 2014, small businesses have created two out of every three new jobs in the United States. Over 50 percent of the 44,106 businesses in Minneapolis have four or less employees. Small business and entrepreneurship create an opportunity to build wealth in communities of color. Having an entrepreneur in a family increases family wealth by 600 percent for a Black family and 400 percent for a Latino family. This presents a significant opportunity to align efforts to support small business growth and development and expand opportunities for people of color start and grow businesses.
As Minneapolis grows through entrepreneurship and small business development, including cultural and artistic businesses, existing businesses can be impacted by changing costs of rents in commercial real estate. Displacement of businesses not only results in the loss of jobs and retail, but assets that add vibrancy and social spaces for the community. Long-tenured businesses in the community are economic assets that contribute to the identity of a place, and this is especially true in districts and corridors that have a strong historical and cultural identity. Therefore, we should identify and endeavor to support the continued existence and success of these assets.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support the development, growth and retention of small businesses.
a. Continue to evaluate and enhance business technical assistance tools and programs to adapt to the changing needs of the business environment.
b. Create opportunities for Minneapolis small businesses, prioritizing those owned by people of color, indigenous people, women and those with low incomes, to close the equity gap.
c. Increase the participation of small businesses in City procurement contracting opportunities.
d. Explore strategies to report data on the results of City procurement contracting opportunities.
e. Diversify business technical assistance tools and programs by creating niche-based programs.
f. Coordinate with stakeholders to identify and improve opportunities to support small businesses.
g. Continue to conduct targeted outreach to raise awareness and increase participation in City programs.
h. Continue to expand on innovative business loans that have low or no interest.
i. Conduct research and analysis of community business and demographic data to enhance the City’s business technical assistance tools and resources.
j. Develop strategies to minimize the displacement of businesses in buildings that will be redeveloped,
including ways to reduce barriers to relocate the business in the new development.
k. Develop strategies to include affordable commercial tenant spaces for small businesses in new developments.
l. Develop strategies to support the tenure of commercial tenants in the community such as longer-term leases and advance notice of sale of properties.
m. Regularly review and update City ordinances, policies and processes to make them friendlier for small businesses.
n. Continue targeted outreach to fill existing commercial properties that have long-term vacancy.
The larger Twin Cities has a competitive advantage with its concentration of industry sectors that have demonstrated significant growth in recent years compared with the nation as a whole. Understanding the needs of these industries and ensuring they have the resources to continue growing is important to supporting a vibrant local and regional economy.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to promote business clusters by focusing resources and regulatory policies toward developing and retaining businesses in a number of discrete sectors that demonstrate opportunity to advance City goals and enhance the region’s economic strength.
a. Support and collaborate on a regional cluster strategy and continue to identify and promote Minneapolis-specific opportunities.
b. Regularly analyze strategies, tools and other interventions to support clusters.
c. Identify and support the built environment needs of clusters, including site assembly, clearance and redevelopment.
d. Identify, build, and maintain human skills and networks that support business clusters.
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Minneapolis’ business districts and corridors serve many vital roles. Residents visit them for daily goods and services, and they provide opportunities for small business and employment. These locations form community gathering places, and together the buildings and businesses provide an identity for the surrounding community. Often that identity is a cultural identity that supports the social networks of the community. The districts and corridors serve as a cultural hub not only for residents of surrounding areas, but also for the broader region.
The cultural identity of these districts and corridors are often cultivated by the people, businesses, and institutions that make up these destinations. Economic growth in these areas should not only mean an opportunity to attract new businesses and investment, but to be inclusive in a way that supports the identity of these places for years to come. These places bring vital energy and diversity to the city and region, and they should be supported.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support thriving business districts and corridors that build on cultural assets and serve the needs of Minneapolis residents.
a. Reinvest in existing commercial building stock to retain its viability and contribute to a high-quality and distinctive physical environment.
b. Support institutions that contribute to the vitality of commercial districts and corridors, such as local business associations, arts venues, and cultural organizations.
c. Support community efforts to brand and market retail districts and corridors as cultural districts and cultural corridors.
d. Improve the public realm in business districts and corridors in a manner that reflects an area’s history and cultures and that invites private investment.
e. Target investment toward business districts and corridors most in need according to objective criteria, while ensuring that improvements benefit existing businesses and increase the diversity of available goods and services.
f. Develop programs and strategies specifically aimed at maintaining affordable commercial rents and minimizing business displacement.
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Downtown Minneapolis continues to attract and retain companies, employees, residents, commercial options, and regional destinations. This growth can be attributed to a variety of investments, but ultimately Downtown offers an experience and a bundle of goods and services that give it a competitive advantage over other areas in the region. This doesn’t mean the City can be complacent with Downtown’s current successes and not continue to make improvements. The City needs to help strengthen Downtown’s competitive advantage and provide additional attention and support to areas where it’s challenged.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to strengthen Downtown’s position as a regional commercial, cultural, and entertainment center that serves residents, employees, and visitors.
a. Promote the growth and retention of businesses and office space Downtown.
b. Encourage the recruitment and retention of retailers in Downtown that help office workers and residents fulfill daily needs.
c. Continue to support a growing residential population Downtown.
d. Encourage and pursue opportunities to expand publicly accessible green space Downtown.
e. Continue to support a variety of institutional uses in Downtown that serve students, visitors, employees and residents.
f. Promote public safety strategies for Downtown.
g. Support Downtown as a unique regional destination for tourism with activities during the day, evening, and weekends.
h. Connect Downtown tourism assets with physical pathways and markers, including appropriately scaled markers for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users.
i. Continue to support organizations in their promotion of Downtown and the entire city.
j. Increase and improve multi-modal transportation within, to, from, and around Downtown, with a focus on pedestrian safety.
k. Increase trees, landscaping, and green space in the downtown public realm.
l. Increase public amenities, spaces, and free activities.
m. Create an inviting and safe space 24/7.
The city is filled with buildings and landscapes that are important to its heritage and integral to defining and framing the character of a place or culture. These properties may be a collection of commercial buildings, industrial buildings and old railroad infrastructure, or a set of rowhomes. Some may be local or national historically designated properties, while many are not. The value of some may be more universally recognized – for example, the Foshay Tower; while the value of others may not be as universally recognized – for example, early 20th century commercial buildings along West Broadway Avenue. In either case, the properties have intrinsic value in helping define and frame the character of an area and present opportunities to support economic and business development and, more broadly, community development and investment.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to increase the awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the intrinsic value of properties important to the city’s heritage.
a. Recognize and promote the value of the built environment and landscape as an asset that enhances community identity and a sense of place.
b. Encourage the rehabilitation of buildings and landscapes that are important to the city’s heritage to stimulate economic activity, house our cultural corridors, act as business and arts incubators, and provide sustainable development.
c. Promote the retention of properties important to the city’s heritage through land use planning, economic development and other investment strategies, and infrastructure planning.
d. Incorporate heritage preservation at the earliest stages of comprehensive planning and revitalization strategies.
e. Develop and explore tools and strategies to recognize and promote properties important to the city’s heritage as valuable assets to the community and the city.
Low-income residents, Indigenous people and residents of color in Minneapolis are disproportionately impacted by the cumulative effects of traffic, stationary sources of air pollution, brownfield sites, blight, substandard housing, lack of access to jobs, and the adverse effects of climate change. The City of Minneapolis defines environmental justice as the right to a clean, safe, and healthy quality of life for people of all races, incomes, and cultures. Environmental justice emphasizes accountability, democratic practices, remedying the historical impact of environmental racism, just and equitable treatment, and self-determination.
The City strives to achieve environmental justice for its residents through the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, culture, immigration status, income, and educational level in the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of protective environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies. The concept of fair treatment includes the equitable distribution of environmental resources and burden. Realizing this environmental justice goal requires the City’s intentional action to significantly engage historically disenfranchised communities to protect the health of all Minneapolis residents and guests.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to establish environmental justice frameworks for policy, resources, and regulation.
a. Align federal, state, county, and park policies and resources to further support the Southside and Northern Green Zones, which are city-wide geographic designations based on data on demographics, environmental inequities, institutional racism, and underinvestment.
b. Ensure that the people and communities in areas of environmental injustice experience the benefits of local and regional infrastructure investments.
c. Advocate for regional investments that further reduce environmental and social inequalities in the Southside and Northern Green Zones.
d. Ensure that sustainability investments in the Green Zones are carefully implemented to avoid gentrification and the displacement of small, diverse, and locally owned businesses and low income residents.
e. Partner with residents and organizations in environmental injustice areas to determine City investments and regulatory changes.
f. Explore opportunities and implement strategies in all City enterprise business lines to address inequities related to environmental injustice.
g. Prioritize cleanup of contaminated sites in areas of environmental injustice.
h. Create and implement proactive predevelopment brownfield cleanup strategies and tools in areas of environmental injustice.
i. Conduct inclusive and accessible environmental justice engagement opportunities in all environmental health-related programs, regulations, and policies.
j. Establish educational, technical and/or financial assistance for all environmental health-related programs, regulations and policies with an emphasis on environmental justice areas that have historically experienced underinvestment.
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For over 150 years Minneapolis has grown and evolved. Much of the city’s growth has been fueled by transportation and industrial uses that have left pollutants in the ground and buildings. These polluted sites make it difficult to support Minneapolis’ continued growth and evolution, as the extraordinary cost of removing pollution from these sites makes reusing them challenging at best. Funds and services are often needed to help remediate these sites.
In limited cases the sites and the pollutants present a health risk for nearby residents – residents who are often lower in income and more likely to be people of color and indigenous people. Remediating these sites serves both an environmental justice and economic development opportunity.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to remediate contaminated sites to improve the environmental and economic health of the city and its residents.
a. Facilitate the removal of site contamination as a barrier to investment and redevelopment.
b. Assist local brownfield grantors in promoting the availability of their respective brownfield grant funds and programs.
c. Support and utilize public funds and proactive planning for site remediation.
d. Continue to proactively advise developers and property owners on options for seeking and obtaining brownfield grant funding as a means to investigate and remediate contaminated development sites.
e. Continue to identify and support program modifications that enable local brownfield grantors to deliver funding and related services in a more consistent, efficient, or productive manner.
f. Encourage and support area-wide environmental assessments to help identify areas of special concern and prioritize funding for future investigation and remediation actions.
Healthy food access is a complex issue and is difficult to measure precisely. However, racial, economic and geographic disparities resulting from structural inequities mean that some Minneapolis residents often have a harder time accessing affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food than others. Low household incomes, unreliable access to a vehicle, and lengthy distances from grocery stores are some of the major reasons Minneapolis residents may have difficulty getting healthy food when they want or need it.
There are two main components to healthy food access: proximity to stores that sell healthy food and income sufficient for food purchase. In 2015, Minneapolis had 11 census tracts that were considered healthy food access priority areas. Residents in these areas are low-income and live more than a mile from a full-service grocery store. A much greater number of census tracts have no full-service grocery store within a half-mile. Many of these food access priority areas are also areas of concentrated poverty where over half the residents are people of color. An area is considered an area of concentrated poverty if 40 percent or more of its residents make 185 percent of the federal poverty level. In 2016, 185 percent of the federal poverty level for a family of four was a household income of $44,955, or an equivalent hourly wage of approximately $21.61. This same threshold is used to determine free and reduced-price meals at Minneapolis Public Schools. In 2016, more than 60 percent of the students in the Minneapolis Public Schools received free or reduced-price lunch.
Residents living at 185 percent of the federal poverty level are more likely to experience food insecurity, which is associated with obesity and inadequate nutrition. Lowering barriers to healthy food access can therefore reduce the risk and cost of obesity and diet-related diseases.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to establish equitable distribution of food sources and food markets to provide all Minneapolis residents with reliable access to healthy, affordable, safe and culturally appropriate food.
a. Assess and review the spatial distribution of healthy food sources and markets that serve Minneapolis communities and identify gaps.
b. Expand areas where grocery stores are allowed, especially where there are gaps.
c. Take proactive steps to attract new grocery stores to locations in low-income communities, including providing financial and technical support for grocery store expansion, remodeling or equipment upgrades.
d. Build constructive relationships with store owners to foster improvements in healthy food offerings, as well as as to extend general assistance in business planning and technical support.
e. Explore and implement regulatory changes to allow and promote more innovative practices such as mobile food markets and mobile food pantries or food shelves that can bring food closer to under-resourced customers.
f. Require licensed grocery stores to stock nutritious foods.
g. Explore regulations that discourage unhealthy food outlets.
h. Support the location and growth of culturally diverse food markets throughout the city.
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Support for food-related businesses and entrepreneurial activity can grow the local economy by connecting people to productive livelihoods and building their skills, while also increasing the availability of healthy food for communities. The farmers markets of Minneapolis are an excellent example: In 2016 they provided a commercial marketplace for an estimated $10 million to $20 million in sales for more than 800 local food vendors, as well as numerous venues throughout the city for residents to purchase fresh produce and local food products.
Economic growth is most powerful when it builds economic capacity in communities with the greatest need. Supporting food-related businesses can help build this economic capacity in a number of ways. For example, culturally specific food-related businesses can serve as an important economic entry point, and continued means of income for new immigrant entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color. Improving healthy food access in under-resourced communities can help children and youth have the energy and focus to learn and grow, ultimately contributing to a productive, vibrant local economy.
Entrepreneurs often lack the capital, resources, and experience with regulatory frameworks to start businesses in the city. Creating conditions conducive to new business start-ups, such as streamlining processes and raising awareness of resources, can remove barriers for new and existing businesses to thrive.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support food-related businesses to improve access to healthy food and advance economic development.
a. Develop or expand business financing programs to help with startup and capital costs for food processing businesses and food stores.
b. Continue to streamline and clarify business licensing processes for food businesses.
c. Ensure reliable educational opportunities for food processing entrepreneurs to learn about food safety.
d. Continue to review and refine regulations for new food, beverage, and food-producing enterprises.
e. Support farmers markets and other food system infrastructure to provide reliable, accessible venues for healthy food and food producers.
f. Purchase healthy foods from local food businesses when catering City-related events, meetings, and other gatherings.
g. Integrate food-related business needs into workforce skills and training.
h. Enhance outreach to raise awareness and participation in business financing programs for food processing businesses and food stores.
i. Work to develop grocery delivery options in underserved areas that increase access to healthy foods.
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Support for food-related businesses and entrepreneurial activity can grow the local economy by connecting people to productive livelihoods and building their skills, while also increasing the availability of healthy food for communities. The farmers markets of Minneapolis are an excellent example: In 2016 they provided a commercial marketplace for an estimated $10 million to $20 million in sales for more than 800 local food vendors, as well as numerous venues throughout the city for residents to purchase fresh produce and local food products.
Economic growth is most powerful when it builds economic capacity in communities with the greatest need. Supporting food-related businesses can help build this economic capacity in a number of ways. For example, culturally specific food-related businesses can serve as an important economic entry point, and continued means of income for new immigrant entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color. Improving healthy food access in under-resourced communities can help children and youth have the energy and focus to learn and grow, ultimately contributing to a productive, vibrant local economy.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support and promote urban agriculture and local food production.
a. Facilitate expansion of urban agriculture and distribution of fresh food in the city.
b. Support urban agriculture innovations that improve environmental systems and health.
c. Explore and support technical and design solutions for rooftop gardens.
d. Expand access to resources for urban agriculture producers and distributors.
e. Support communities’ food cultures as a community branding strategy.
f. Explore strategies for providing business finance and technical assistance to new urban agriculture endeavors.
g. Support tools, structures and processes used in urban agriculture and local food production, such as greenhouses, infrastructure for extending growing seasons, and on-site processing of products through regulatory changes.
h. Continue support for existing community gardens and urban agriculture, while prioritizing an appropriate balance between community gardens and land redevelopment as it meets City planning goals, especially in underserved areas.
i. Support soil testing and remediation to ensure healthy soil for gardens and farms.
j. Promote best management practices for the development and maintenance of pollinator-friendly landscapes.
k. Support leasing and explore selling City-owned land for uses as community and market gardens.
l. Explore agricultural easements to preserve agricultural space in the city.
m. Promote home gardening and edible plantings incorporated into landscapes.
Air pollution impacts human health and the environment and the City of Minneapolis is concerned at both the local and regional levels. Locally, the City is concerned about the effects pollutants such as particulate matter (PM), ground-level ozone (O₃), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), lead, and air toxins have on human health, the environment, and the climate. Health effects include asthma and respiratory conditions, as well as cancer and other serious diseases. The City of Minneapolis performs many functions to improve air quality, such as collecting air samples, analyzing them for pollutants, and using the results to inform policy decisions. The City’s Green Business Cost Share Program focuses on reducing air pollution from small businesses such as dry cleaners and auto body shops by providing funds to switch to nontoxic or low-toxicity chemical alternatives. In addition, the City provides funds to help businesses and multi-family residential units reduce their nonrenewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions through energy retrofits, including solar panels.
Minneapolis and the businesses operating in the city must also meet regional air quality standards or face financial implications. With the passage of the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set standards for limiting specific air pollutants, referred to as “criteria air pollutants.” The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) continuously monitors criteria air pollutants statewide; if it identifies a criteria air pollutant above its standard, that area of the state may be declared in “nonattainment” for meeting the standard. The state uses data to determine the specific sources or source categories that are primary contributors to the nonattainment, and it must submit a plan to the EPA for returning to attainment that includes enforceable limits and controls on these sources. If businesses in Minneapolis are identified, they may face financial implications.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve air quality by reducing emissions of pollutants that harm human health and the environment.
a. Reduce vehicle-related emissions through transportation and land use policies, and changes to the built environment, that result in fewer vehicle miles traveled.
b. Ensure compliance with regional air quality standards for criteria air pollutants (O₃, lead, PM, NO₂, SO₂ and CO) throughout the city through education, outreach, air sampling, and data-driven policies, as well as cost-share initiatives that encourage businesses and residents to use greener technologies.
c. Eliminate the use of some of the most common industrial volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as tetrachloroethylene (perc, PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), through cost-sharing programs and the promotion of alternative products in industrial sectors.
d. Reduce emissions from energy sources, including through cost-sharing programs aimed at increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in Minneapolis.
e. Reduce benzene emissions from gas stations through installation of advanced vapor recovery technology.
f. Ensure levels of ground-level ozone and particulate matter at or below the lowest levels recommended by the EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.
g. Minimize ground-level ozone by monitoring for VOCs and nitrogen oxides (NOx) and using the results to inform programs that locate and effectively reduce emissions from industrial and other sources.
h. Improve the effectiveness of air quality initiatives through use of data from 311 complaints.
i. Improve enforcement of noise, after-hours work, and dust ordinances.
To be resilient to the effects of climate change and diminishing natural resources, the city’s residents, communities, businesses, and systems must be able to survive, adapt and thrive despite the stresses and shocks caused by climate change. Accomplishing this requires supporting and fostering an environment where residents of Minneapolis are well-connected to their neighbors and have social support systems in times of stress and shock. It requires a physical environment, such as trees and landscaping, that helps provide shade and passive cooling opportunities in the summer and reduces the impact of extreme cold in the winter. It requires stormwater infrastructure that can handle larger storm events, and it requires water resources sufficient to last through periods of drought. It requires energy systems that can efficiently handle periods of high demand and buildings that rely less on electricity and natural gas. It requires a transportation system that functions throughout extreme weather events, and it requires land use capable of accommodating population shifts due to climate migration.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to ensure city infrastructure and residents are resilient to the shocks and stresses of climate change.
a. Strengthen connections among individuals and networks while promoting social inclusion and cohesion.
b. Anticipate and prepare for pressures and shocks that climate change will introduce or worsen by collaborating across City departments, government agencies, private businesses, and organizations, and resident networks.
c. Decrease demand for energy and increase the proportion derived from renewable energy sources.
d. Maximize carbon sequestration in soils, including the use of biochar, and through educating residents on the importance of healthy soils in landscaping.
e. Establish an urban tree canopy goal and adopt a plan to manage the urban heat island effect across all communities.
f. Consider climate forecasts in stormwater feasibility and modeling work to inform infrastructure investments.
g. Develop guidance that encourages climate-sensitive design for residential and commercial buildings, parking lots, and open spaces and parks.
h. Increase locally produced renewable energy.
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The Minneapolis Climate Action Plan was adopted in 2013 and provides a road map toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions with targets of 15% by 2015 and 30% by 2025. In 2014, Minneapolis passed an 80% reduction goal by 2050 and formed the Clean Energy Partnership with Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy. Minneapolis has met its 2015 goal of a 15 percent reduction in emissions.
In 2015, buildings accounted for 71 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions; with commercial and industrial buildings accounting for nearly two-thirds of that and residential buildings accounting for the remainder. Despite a growing number of buildings in the city, electricity consumption declined 6% between 2006 and 2015 and continues on a downward trajectory. Furthermore, emissions from electricity consumption are down 31% from 2006, accounting for 81% of the city’s total greenhouse gas reductions since 2006. Improved energy efficiency and cleaner electricity (more renewables and fewer coal power plants) drive this change. Emissions from electricity consumption are the largest share of the city’s inventory, but are expected to be eclipsed by natural gas in the coming years as more clean, renewable electricity is added to Xcel Energy’s portfolio. To achieve the 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 we will need to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. Successfully achieving that reduction will require a transition from relying solely on fossil fuel-derived natural gas for heating.
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The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to achieve steep increases in energy efficiency of buildings through retrofits, design of new buildings, and decarbonization options.
a. Pursue a deep-carbon building retrofit program, including a fuel-switching component that eliminates fossil fuel dependency from all existing buildings and retrofits that eliminate dependency on fossil fuel appliances.
b. Prioritize and incentivize energy efficiency improvements in existing residential and commercial buildings with program emphasis on high energy users, historic buildings, low-income neighborhoods, and Green Zones.
c. Investigate heating in buildings and industrial energy needs and decarbonization options
d. Require sustainable design practices and principles for projects supported with City financing, with a focus on robust energy efficiency and building envelope and environmentally friendly building treatments including bird-safe glass.
e. Identify and implement ways to encourage, incentivize, or require sustainable design practices and principles for privately-funded projects.
f. Continue to pursue building code and other regulatory changes such as a stretch energy code to advance energy efficient design and building operations.
g. Encourage use of environmentally responsible building materials and construction practices.
h. Update the Minneapolis Climate Action Plan to provide a roadmap, with clear benchmarks, for achieving community-wide carbon neutrality by 2050.
i. Create and implement site plan review requirements to show how development applications align with the Minneapolis Climate Action Plan.
j. Pursue benchmarking and/or disclosure of energy performance of all residential and commercial buildings.
k. Help secure and fund demonstration projects of emerging or underutilized technologies, concepts, designs and methods.
The Minneapolis Climate Action Plan calls for increasing the use of local or directly purchased renewable energy to 10 percent of the total electricity consumed in the city by 2025. It also encourages the purchase of green power and supports action to make renewables more accessible and widespread. The City’s 2040 Energy Vision foresees that by 2040 the Minneapolis energy system will provide reliable, affordable, local and clean energy services for homes, businesses and institutions, sustaining the city’s economy and environment and contributing to a more socially just community. Regulatory changes will be pursued to appropriately value renewable energy and provide incentives for its use.
Xcel Energy’s projected 2021 fuel mix for the Upper Midwest includes 30 percent wind and 10 percent other renewables, expected to result from an increase in the use of wind and solar power and by offering customers additional renewable and energy-saving options. Unfortunately, the percentage of Minneapolis communitywide electricity use from local and directly purchased renewable energy has declined in recent years, but the cost of wind and solar energy is rapidly falling, and a number of alternative approaches like community solar are making renewable electricity easier to access.
Ensuring that all residents and businesses can access and benefit from renewable energy and energy efficiency has many advantages. The renewable energy economy presents new job opportunities for workers currently in the manufacturing, construction and service sectors, as well as opportunities to build equity for communities that have historically been underrepresented in the energy field and marketplace.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to encourage the use and generation of renewable and carbon-free energy in the city.
a. Invest in grid modernization to accommodate increases in distributed renewable energy generation.
b. Purchase clean energy directly through community solar gardens, contracts with renewable electricity developers, utility offerings or by installing renewable energy systems on municipal buildings.
c. Continue to support and advocate for accelerated and deeper decarbonization of electricity supplied by Xcel Energy.
d. Explore the environmental attributes of renewable natural gas and biomethane programs potentially offered by CenterPoint Energy.
e. Expand opportunities for district cogenerating energy systems and decarbonize existing district energy systems.
f. Ease permitting requirements for locally distributed renewable energy.
g. Encourage solar-friendly designs and provisions that protect solar access on commercial and residential buildings.
h. Develop a City-owned renewable energy facility concept, which could serve both City and community energy needs.
i. Support and incentivize use of geothermal, hydrothermal, and waste energy and heat facilities, including sewer thermal energy recovery, and other clean renewable energy alternatives in building, district, or municipal systems.
j. Explore and implement carbon pricing, for example through utility franchise fees.
POLICY 70
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Although the Comprehensive Plan primarily focuses on the future of Minneapolis from a human perspective, the City must also plan for the community’s other inhabitants – plant, animal, and insect life. The city’s growth presents challenges and opportunities to protect, support, and increase biodiversity in our ecological habitats while restoring ecological functions. Conserving Minneapolis’ natural heritage makes the city more livable, resilient, and attractive – not only for people but for migrant bird and wildlife populations in our habitat corridors, for endangered pollinators in our parklands, and for native plant communities in our landscapes.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve the ecological functions of the natural environment in the urban context through planning, regulation, and cooperation.
a. Discourage use of pesticides and herbicides and encourage organic practices to improve and maintain soil health and healthy habitat and ecosystems.
b. Eliminate use of neonicotinoids, pesticides that are harmful to pollinator populations.
c. Manage soil health and grow plants for healthy pollinator communities on public lands and promote such planting on private lands.
d. Look at natural resource goals across disciplines and integrate them with planned recreation improvements, infrastructure improvements and development to reduce costs and maximize public benefit.
e. Collaborate with watershed management organizations and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board on land and water resource planning.
f. Design and manage public lands for their highest environmental and ecosystem performance, including the mitigation of stormwater and groundwater impact.
g. Strive for interconnected environmental corridors and riparian areas as habitat corridors and for flood protection and recreation, and create additional “steppingstone” areas for habitat.
h. Manage natural areas in and around surface waters, as well as stormwater ponds and other stormwater treatment facilities, as areas supportive of aquatic
and terrestrial ecosystems, habitat, and wildlife and as flood storage areas.
i. Encourage use of bird-safe glass and other building materials and features that protect and enhance natural ecologies where appropriate.
j. Leverage partnerships with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, watershed management organizations, and other partner agencies to implement the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area Plan (See appendix) and to integrate and coordinate efforts to improve public and ecological functions in the river corridor.
k. Leverage available land to develop small-scale certified wildlife habitats throughout the city.
l. Explore dam removal to restore natural flow and wildlife habitat on the Mississippi River. Identify support for displaced recreational activities and strategies to offset the potential reduction in hydroelectric power production.
m. Encourage bird houses, bat houses, and other structures that provide important and safe shelters for wildlife.
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Scientists now understand that the key to a healthy, vibrant ecosystem is the establishment of a healthy soil microbiome. Improved soil health increases soil fertility, plant nutrition, water quality, and drought and pest resistance, while reducing erosion and the need for environmentally harmful elements such as irrigation water, chemical fertilizers, and biocides. Healthy soils also infiltrate stormwater with greater efficiency and as a result improve the quality and reduce the quantity of stormwater runoff.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to protect and improve soil health to sustain and promote plant, animal, and human health.
a. Develop a citywide soil health management plan, including development of quantifiable goals, best practices and key performance indicators.
b. Ensure that site plan review requirements allow for landscaping materials that improve soil conditions, including amending soils in previously compacted areas, and discourage those that do harm.
c. Require a minimum level of organic matter content for construction fill.
d. Protect steep slopes, bluffs, and other sensitive areas from erosion and other threats during and after the completion of development projects.
e. Require development and redevelopment projects to work with, not against, site grades and site features. Incorporate principles of better site design, low-impact development and design(ing) with nature into regulations.
f. Reduce impervious cover (surfaces that don’t absorb rainfall).
g. Avoid soil compaction of open areas and restore soils in previously compacted areas.
Minneapolis has flourished because of its natural water systems. The city benefits from the power of the Mississippi River, the beauty of the lakes and the efficiency of its stormwater ponds, wetlands, and riparian areas. As the city grows, it is critical to continue to sustainably protect and manage water resources.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to manage the city’s surface waters, groundwater, stormwater, wastewater and drinking water equitably and sustainably, while minimizing the adverse impacts of climate change.
a. Improve and implement the City’s Local Surface Water Management Plan and continue to implement the City’s Water System Master Plan.
b. Carry out steps toward meeting the MPCA’s “Swimmable, fishable, fixable?” water quality standards and explore additional comprehensive stormwater management and water quality improvement strategies.
c. Work collaboratively between City departments to ensure utility budgets are adequately funded to maintain aging infrastructure systems.
d. Educate and motivate residents and businesses to reduce negative impacts on water resources.
e. Consider climate forecasts to ensure that infrastructure and water quality investments are informed by climate projections.
f. Revise site plan review standards to require soil amendments for all disturbed areas that will be vegetated post-construction.
g. Continue water monitoring activities with watershed management organizations and other agencies and pursue coordinated mitigation strategies where appropriate.
h. Continue providing safe high-quality drinking water while being a steward of public resources and infrastructure.
i. Minimize drinking water waste through infrastructure improvements.
j. Educate and motivate individuals and business owners to reduce negative impacts of road salt on water resources, soil, and drinking water.
k. Encourage district stormwater management systems and coordination with watershed management organizations.
POLICY 73
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To protect the city’s water systems, stormwater ponds and other stormwater treatment facilities, it’s essential to manage the landscape surrounding the city’s surface waters. Supporting healthy ecosystems within these natural areas serves as a defense barrier for local water bodies. These environments have stable and nutritious soils, a diversity of native plant communities, and insect and animal habitats; and they can infiltrate and naturally treat contaminated soils and filter surface runoff before it enters the city’s water systems. Strong ecosystems bordering surface waters also mitigate floodwaters and provide important shading to cool water temperatures during warm seasons, which helps improve water quality.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to manage natural areas in and around surface waters, as well as stormwater ponds and other stormwater treatment facilities, as areas supportive of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
a. Use infiltration best practices and bio-infiltration to reduce stormwater impacts on surface waters.
b. Continue work to reduce risk of overflows from the historically connected sewers and work to reduce infiltration and inflow into the city’s sanitary sewer system through infrastructure improvements.
c. Encourage and require reductions in amounts of impervious surfaces. Pilot and promote permeable surface solutions as alternatives to impervious surfaces.
d. Use hydraulic and water quality models and data about infrastructure condition and risks to prioritize and inform investments in sanitary and storm infrastructure.
e. Protect aquatic habitat from invasive species that may pose an economic, water quality or public health issue.
f. Increase habitat and natural areas around public stormwater infrastructure and natural water bodies while maintaining and prioritizing stormwater function and controlling invasive species through an integrated pest management program.
g. Manage stormwater management facilities to provide habitat for pollinators while maintaining and prioritizing stormwater function.
h. Strive for interconnected riparian areas as habitat corridors and for flood protection and recreation, and create additional “steppingstone” areas for habitat.
i. Explore the impacts of flooding on public safety, the protection of property, public infrastructure and the environment.
j. Manage and design transportation infrastructure with a priority on water quality through the reduction of stormwater runoff and pollutants including road salt.
k. Evaluate and adopt alternatives and best practices for use of road salt to reduce pollution of local waterways; adopt MPCA salt training and guidelines for City crews.
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Water pollution is the result of human activity, especially in an urban environment like Minneapolis. The City must continue to prevent contaminants from entering the groundwater to protect the water from intentional or accidental pollution. This requires incorporating water management systems into new development, into streetscape infrastructure, and into parks and open spaces. It also means examining construction and demolition practices to ensure the best methods are used to minimize negative impacts to groundwater and reduce the possibility of fluid leaks, spills and improper disposal of debris.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to integrate water resource management into public and private projects in order to benefit natural systems.
a. Prioritize and reserve the City’s sanitary and storm sewer capacity for its intended purpose and prohibit groundwater or other waste streams from entering the storm or sanitary sewer infrastructure unless the City gives approval.
b. Maximize the use of public property to meet flood mitigation and water quality goals via green infrastructure and other stormwater best management practices.
c. Encourage, facilitate, or require the use of best management practices that minimize or reduce the impact of impervious cover, including disconnecting impervious surfaces, implementing localized treatment of stormwater using boulevard swales directly adjacent to sidewalks and trails, or minimizing the extent of paved surfaces.
d. Evaluate site plan review requirements to ensure flexibility in landscaping materials to improve surface waters, water quality, and climate resilience.
e. Use stormwater regulations to require construction projects to carry out best management practices that effectively improve the character and health of water resources and reduce impairments.
f. Use water quality data, flooding data, and information about infrastructure condition and risks to public and private areas for functional stormwater greening practices.
g. Ensure that development near waterways meets local, state, and federal guidelines and requirements for flood protection and mitigation.
h. Regulate development of land adjacent to public waters in a manner that preserves and enhances the quality of surface waters while also preserving their economic and natural environmental value.
i. Encourage use of rain cisterns and storage tanks for diversion from public stormwater system and to satisfy on-site graywater uses.
In June 2015 the City established a zero-waste goal to recycle or compost 50 percent of its overall waste stream by 2020, 80 percent by 2030, and to achieve a zero-percent growth rate in the total waste stream from 2010 levels. The adoption of the zero-waste goal was driven by the City’s commitment to foster sustainability through an increase in waste diversion, decrease in vehicle miles traveled on the city’s roadways, reduced greenhouse gases, greater rate equity for customers and other similar objectives. The Zero Waste Plan addresses solid waste generated from all sectors within the city and serves as a road map for the City to achieve its overall sustainability goals, including but not limited to its zero-waste goal.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to maintain and expand opportunities to reduce waste and properly dispose of waste to meet the City’s zero-waste goals.
a. Encourage waste reduction including less wasted food and donation of edible food.
b. Educate residents, businesses, and institutions the benefits of reducing waste, recycling and composting.
c. Discourage and put a stop to illegal dumping.
d. Develop additional opportunities for residents to properly dispose of household hazardous waste.
e. Provide incentives for residents and businesses to divert materials from the trash.
f. Leverage partnerships with Hennepin County and other organizations to combine resources, expand existing programs and develop new programs.
g. Modify the existing multifamily recycling ordinance to provide the opportunity to participate in an organics recycling program when requested by multi-unit tenants.
h. Support priorities defined in the MPCA Solid Waste Management Policy Plan and Hennepin County Solid Waste Management Master Plan.
i. Increase recycling opportunities at commercial and industrial properties.
j. Develop an incentive program for businesses to divert organic materials from the trash.
k. Enforce existing ordinances and provide assistance to schools and commercial buildings by using
Plan Policies
partnerships with Hennepin County and other organizations.
l. Promote Minneapolis as a good business location to businesses that use recyclable materials as raw materials.
m. Improve opportunities for people to recycle in public spaces (parks, event spaces, special service districts, bus stops).
n. Encourage waste reduction habits by promoting the purchase of needed items only, the purchase of used items first, renting, and repairing or donating items before disposing of them.
o. Demonstrate sustainable consumption, sustainable building practices and zero-waste behaviors in the design and expansion of City operations.
p. Implement a mandatory recycling program that includes audits, outreach, and education, in multiple languages.
q. Encourage retailers and manufacturers to reduce and eliminate packaging.
r. Explore additional ways to disincentivize or prohibit disposable packaging, containers, and single-use carryout bags.
s. Encourage deconstruction and reuse of materials in order to reduce construction and demolition waste. Work with partners to increase parity of dumping fees.
t. Explore organizing collection of solid waste generated by commercial, multifamily, and industrial generators.
u. Help develop and grow re-use and recycled material markets.
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Parks are a key factor in a city’s measure of quality of life. They provide undeniable benefits to surrounding communities such as free recreation, enjoyment of nature, and social gathering. Neighborhood parks were a key component of the design of Minneapolis’ award-winning park system in the early 20th century. The visionary park superintendent Theodore Wirth promoted plans for a playground within one-quarter mile (5-minute walk) of every child and a recreation center within one-half mile (10-minute walk) of all residents. Currently 97% of Minneapolis residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park, but small pockets of the city still lack easy access to such a critical component of a livable urban life. Some of these gaps are in places where new residential neighborhoods are emerging. Through the Park and Recreation Board, the City provides for parks, parkways, and recreational opportunities for its current and future residents' use. As the city grows in population, it will be important to continue evaluating park access and to build new parks in underserved areas.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to build new parks in underserved areas in order to ensure that all Minneapolis residents live within a ten-minute walk of a park.
a. Identify parts of the city that have long lacked adequate accessibility to parks as well as areas in need of open spaces to support newly-emerging residential neighborhoods and identify new tools to support equitable park access.
b. Ensure in locations where park gaps overlap with City-identified priority areas for coordinated development activities, that implementation planning includes conceptual design and funding strategies for new parks.
c. Coordinate with the Park Board on parkland acquisition planning.
d. Continue to collaborate with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to eliminate historic park access disparities
e. Enhance coordination with the Park Board at various stages of the development process.
POLICY 77
A healthy park system consists of not only high-quality parks, but also a robust network of trails and walkway connections. Children especially need to be able to safely walk or bike to nearby parks. From bike lanes and multi-use paths to sidewalks and greenways, these routes should be comfortable, safe, and well-maintained, integrating signage, lighting, and safe road crossings. City parks and connecting networks can link to larger regional parks and trails to create a significant recreational and ecological amenity for the entire region.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to make new and existing parks more accessible by biking and walking.
a. Continue to coordinate capital improvement planning between the City and Park Board in order to improve pedestrian and bicycle connections to and within parks.
b. Consider and address physical barriers to park access, such as busy streets, lack of public transit options, and unsafe pedestrian crossings, when conducting citywide transportation planning.
c. Improve wayfinding between parks and surrounding neighborhoods.
d. Engage artists and communities in the development of place-specific identifiers for wayfinding.
e. Discourage reduction to existing access to park amenities and encourage proactive mitigation of negative impacts to said potential reductions.
f. Continue to utilize Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board planning documents and policies as a guide to determining park access and park location shortcomings.
Ongoing changes in the city’s population include broader racial and ethnic diversity, a higher percentage of individuals living alone, an aging population, and fewer households with children. This changes the nature of the demand for parks and recreation facilities. New populations have recreation needs and preferences that may not be adequately accommodated in existing park designs and programming.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to improve the design and programming of parks to better serve a changing population.
a. Collaborate with the Park Board to prioritize park facility and programming improvements that will have the most positive impact on equity outcomes.
b. Remove barriers to engagement that limit resident participation in the design and planning processes of parks and open spaces programming through active recruitment of people of color, indigenous people, and immigrant residents.
c. Collaborate with the Park Board to ensure that park design processes engage the community in a manner that reflects the community being served.
d. Identify an ongoing process to measure cultural responsiveness for parks and open spaces to ensure that opportunities, activities, and practices are meeting the community's needs.
e. Evaluate universal accessibility of all parks and open spaces, making improvements to ensure they are all accessible, enjoyable, and welcoming to all people regardless of age, ability, geography, or cultural background.
f. Ensure equitable financial access to park and open space amenities, particularly in low-income communities through strategies such as low- and no-cost options, sliding scale fees, tiered pricing, scholarships, and subsidized rentals.
g. Collaborate with the Park Board to ensure a variety of park experiences across the system.
h. Reduce barriers and encourage community-driven programming.
i. Improve communication about park programming opportunities.
j. Utilize parks and open spaces as places for engaging the community about the place-specific impacts of climate change.
k. Engage researchers, educators, and arts and cultural leaders in the development and implementation of educational tools and programs in parks related to ecology and climate change.
l. Encourage excellence in design of park buildings and landscapes.
The presence or absence of risk and resiliency factors not only influences a youth’s present health and behavior but also has a significant impact on long-term development, health, behaviors and outcomes. Many negative outcomes, including suicide, homicide, chronic health conditions, chemical dependency, sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancy, homelessness, criminal behavior, criminal justice system involvement and decreased earnings potential, are tied to risk factors that can begin or peak during youth.
At the same time, developing and fostering resiliency factors during a person’s youth supports ongoing healthy lifestyles and behaviors into adulthood, generates positive outcomes around education, employment, leadership, social connectedness and civic engagement, and contributes to a more productive generation of adults.
Supporting and positioning youth for healthy outcomes requires a multi-prong approach that meets the physical, mental, and social needs of youth. This includes access to safe and stable housing, educational and workforce opportunities, and social networks to build their resiliency. The presence of and connection to caring adults in their community supports the healthy growth and development of youth, which includes teachers, mentors, and coaches, and other caring adults in their social networks.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support the healthy development and education of all children, youth, and young adults through City goals, decision making, policies, and programs.
a. Ensure that all children, youth and young adults are physically, psychologically and socially healthy.
b. Provide safe environments across the City of Minneapolis for children, youth, young adults, and their families and support systems.
c. Ensure that all children, youth and young adults are safely and stably housed.
d. Support outside-of-school activities that promote social and emotional learning, soft skills development, educational achievement, career readiness, and community and civic engagement.
e. Invest in career readiness and career pathways for all children, youth and young adults to increase steady living-wage employment
f. Eliminate barriers that prevent children, youth and young adults from participating in civic opportunities in their communities.
g. Collaborate with local and state agencies, especially the school district, to support policies that promote positive and healthy development for children, youth, young adults, and their families and support systems.
h. Continue to invest in and expand resources for physical and mental health services for youth, which includes a focus on historical trauma.
POLICY 80
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The system of existing and planned METRO Light Rail Transit and Bus Rapid Transit lines in our region presents substantial opportunities to develop new housing, employment, and commercial goods and services in a manner that allows people to conduct daily activities without using a car. This concept is often called Transit-Oriented Development. In Minneapolis, the existing development pattern is supportive of transit, and residents and workers are served by an extensive system of buses and trains. Collectively, the policies of this plan support Transit-Oriented Development, and ongoing improvements to the transit system, in all parts of the city. METRO stations, however, provide a level of amenity and service a step above the rest of the system. And in many cases, areas near existing and proposed METRO stations require special attention to achieve their full potential.
The METRO Blue Line, Blue Line extension, and Green Line extension run in highway and freight rail rights-of-way for much of their extent. This results in a unique set of weaknesses, strengths, and constraints related to the physical environment of each station, every station area has a need for improvements in connectivity and place-making. With strategic investments, METRO station areas can become high-quality, walkable districts for living, working, shopping, and recreating for people of all ages and incomes.
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to support development and public realm improvements near existing and planned METRO stations that result in walkable districts for living, working, shopping, and recreating.
a. Allow and encourage a dense mix of housing, employment, and commercial goods and services near METRO stations.
b. Develop affordable housing near METRO stations.
c. Require a minimum level of development near METRO stations to ensure that land is used efficiently near major transit investments.
d. Ensure that METRO stations are accessible via sidewalks and bicycle facilities including to those with mobility challenges.
e. Identify and implement strategic investments to increase connectivity and support development.
f. Break up large blocks into small, walkable blocks.
g. Orient buildings to the sidewalk.
h. Focus active uses on the ground floor of buildings along main pedestrian routes leading to and facing METRO stations.
i. Incorporate well designed plazas and open spaces into development and station design.
j. Minimize the impact of automobiles near METRO stations by locating parking behind and under buildings, by sharing parking among area uses, by prohibiting the establishment of auto-oriented uses, and by prohibiting the establishment of stand-alone dedicated park-and-ride facilities.
k. Make strategic investments around individual stations that create safe high-quality, walkable districts for living, working, shopping, and recreating for people of all ages and incomes.
l. Allow space for connecting bus routes, bike-share and other first-last mile infrastructure near METRO station in the city rights-of-way, coordinating with development whenever possible.
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