Minneapolis Draft Comprehensive Plan Revealed

The city of Minneapolis is updating its comprehensive plan—Planetizen readers will recall that the plan already made news for proposing zoning to allow "fourplexes" in single-family neighborhoods around the city.

The city hadn't even rolled out the initial draft of the comprehensive plan update yet, but the news about the fourplexes amounted to an "unscripted, hair-on-fire introduction to the public," according to Peter Callaghan.

Late last week city staff actually did introduce the draft comprehensive plan to the city's Planning Commission, and as reported by Callaghan, there is a lot more detail to attend to other than the headlining news about fourplexes.

The ten-year update of the plan will guide development in the city through 2040, "[reflecting] directions by the council for the city to absorb a growing population as well as build denser neighborhoods with better access to transit, employment and services."  The plan is available for review on an interactive website.

As for the nitty-gritty of the new plan, especially all nitty-gritty not called fourplexes, Callaghan takes a dive into the draft plan, introducing new terminology, the plan's approach to affordable housing (the plan does not propose inclusionary zoning, although the idea has been bandied about in Minneapolis in recent months), changes to parking requirements, and the possibility of more development intensity in parts of the city already attracting development investment. Callaghan list a lot more of the details included in the plan.

Callaghan also addresses the fallout from the "fourplex fracas," which "put the city on the defensive." Some opponents have taken to calling the idea "freyplexes," named after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.