Zoning in Minneapolis

[FISHMANPET]

There's a McDonald's (or is it MacDonald's) which is near a friend of mine's house. But he's South of 50th so I like to joke that he lives in North Richfield.

Sent from my phone

[BoredAgain]

Some of the comments in other topics got me thinking about zoning. It is often stated in these fora that density should increase gradually for a given area over time. That land use in popular or somewhat dense areas will increase in density over time as properties are re-developed. It is also often stated that zoning codes (as implemented) are sometimes (more often in some areas) used to stifle that progression in development.

Is there such a thing as adaptive or automatically progressing zoning? Should there be?

Let me try to explain what I mean.

Right now, there are large parts of Minneapolis that are predominantly single family homes, with some scattered apartment buildings in specific spots with higher zoning. Could the Zoning code be written such that properties immediately adjacent to areas of higher zoning would automatically be lifted to that next level? In this way, a new apartment building could be constructed next to an existing one if the current property owner agrees to sell. After that one is finished, then the properties next to it that may have the lower order zoning could be automatically up-zoned as well. You could put a time delay on that to prevent rapid neighborhood buildout if needed.

The idea is to allow incremental intensification next to properties that already exist in that denser form. This would stop developers from putting a giant apartment building in the middle of a neighborhood, but they could put one next to an older apartment building in a popular neighborhood.

If you want to take it to the next level, then you could put in a rule where a large enough area of a specific zone could allow some property in the middle to be up-zoned with minimal paperwork. for instance, if you had X acres of continuous R4, then Y acres could be built as R6 as long as none of that property is adjacent (or within a certain distance) of a lower density zone (R2 or something).

The city council would have the right to stop automatic up-zoning, but they would have to take action to prevent that redevelopment from moving forward instead of the other way around.

Any thoughts?

[Silophant]

That sounds totally reasonable to me. I'm sure SFH owners throughout south Minneapolis would hate it.

[trigonalmayhem]

Yeah I'd be all for something like this which means most people will probably hate it.

[dingo]

Hey, Minneapolis has a handy new Off-Sale Liquor spacing map-

http://cityoflakes.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 49c03ae0b8

liquor stores were banned south of Lake st for a long time
also ON-sale was also.....

Sorry, sort of a ignorant question. So the area in the blue does NOT need the 2000 buffer? But everywhere else does. Correct?

[jw138]

Hey, Minneapolis has a handy new Off-Sale Liquor spacing map-
http://cityoflakes.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 49c03ae0b8

Sorry, sort of a ignorant question. So the area in the blue does NOT need the 2000 buffer? But everywhere else does. Correct?

New liquor stores can only be placed within the blue areas. They still require a 2000 ft buffer from the nearest liquor store.

[dingo]

Hey, Minneapolis has a handy new Off-Sale Liquor spacing map-
http://cityoflakes.maps.arcgis.com/apps ... 49c03ae0b8

Sorry, sort of a ignorant question. So the area in the blue does NOT need the 2000 buffer? But everywhere else does. Correct?

New liquor stores can only be placed within the blue areas. They still require a 2000 ft buffer from the nearest liquor store.

Thanks for the clarification!

[grant1simons2]

Is there some sort of zoning rules in place right now to require retail on busy streets? Because if not there should be. I was mainly thinking about this when I was looking at the apartment conversion on 26th Ave and 1st.

I feel like if the a new building, or even a building being renovated for that matter, is on a street that gets high traffic counts either in terms of foot traffic and/or street traffic. That they should be required to accommodate a minimum number of retail. Say 1,500 sq ft on more major roads, and maybe 500 sq ft(?) on sub majors. And if the building is on a corner, then retail is required in the corner space. Would this maybe discourage development? Or could it really help fuel our retail game.

[FISHMANPET]

R1: Single family home on 6000 sqft lot
R1A: Single family home on 5000 sqft lot
R2: Single family home on 6000 sqft lot or duplex on 12000 sqft lot
R2b: Single family home on 5000 sqft lot or duplex on 10000 sqft lot
R3: Single family home on 5000 sqft lot or 1500 sqft of lot per unit, but still lot must be 5000 square feet
R4: Single family home on 5000 sqft lot or 1200 sqft of lot per unit, but still lot must be 5000 square feet
R5: Single family home on 5000 sqft lot or multi-family on 5000 sqft lot
R6: Single family home on 5000 sqft lot or multi-family on 5000 sqft lot (with different FAR and height limits from R5)

So how do we gently intensify our land use? How do you build a duplex to contain twice as many housing units on the same lot, when a duplex lot has to be twice as big as a single family home lot? To build a quadplex, which is so "safe" that the FHA will give you a mortgage for one if you live in it, requires a 6000 sqft R3 lot, or a 5000 sqft R4 lot. There aren't a whole lot of R3 and R4! To do basically anything creative you've got to find R5! R5! This is madness!

[mattaudio]

Agreed. It's ridiculous. Though at least we're moving in the right direction. The ADU policy allows for creation of a second dwelling unit not just as a separate structure against the alley, but carved out of existing footprint or attached to existing structure.

I'd like to see us attempt to build more small-scale infill, such as bungalow courts on a 60-80 foot lot, or new-build up/down duplexes or triplexes.

[FISHMANPET]

Maybe the solution is form based codes? I'm skimming Cinncinatti's FBC document. Looking at our (residential) zoning, we essentially have half (R1, R1A, R2, R2B) of our districts basically preserving the look and density of SFH neighborhoods (maybe 3.5, R2B has provisions for older structures to be duplexes on smaller lots, though not sure if that allows an as-of-right conversion), leaving the other half to regulate everything else. Cinccinati has 9 Transect based zones, and basically only two, T3E (T3 Estate) and T3N (T3 Neighborhood), is dedicated to the SFH (and here, T3N has provisions for Duplexes as long as they're about the same size as other things, so 1.5). So here you've got 7 (or 7.5) out of 9 (77-83%) of the code for things other than SFH, whereas we've only got 4 (or 4.5) out of 8 (50-56%) of our code for things that aren't SFH.

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/a ... -10-14.pdf

[FISHMANPET]

Look guys I just wanna build a quadplex in a single vacant lot, is that so much to ask? Though if we dumped Cincinatti's code on our city we'd probably end up with R1 and R1A being T3E and R2 being T3N, which wouldn't really move the needle all that much.

[EOst]

I think it would be a lot easier to change the zoning system in this city if any of our denser corridors were anywhere near built out. I know "the market dictates" etc., but the artificial scarcity of land the zoning system creates is half the reason (plus the generally underused/vacant land) we have that row of big buildings on the Greenway from Hennepin to Lyndale, and not scattered in five places.

[FISHMANPET]

Just noticed that commercial districts are waaaay more permissive of housing. If you're doing mixed use, you can pretty much tack on housing to anything, or for a pure housing development you just need 5000 square feet. C1 to C4, doesn't matter. So upzone everything, and replace every R zone with a C zone. Down with R zone!

[David Greene]

So how do we gently intensify our land use? How do you build a duplex to contain twice as many housing units on the same lot, when a duplex lot has to be twice as big as a single family home lot? To build a quadplex, which is so "safe" that the FHA will give you a mortgage for one if you live in it, requires a 6000 sqft R3 lot, or a 5000 sqft R4 lot. There aren't a whole lot of R3 and R4! To do basically anything creative you've got to find R5! R5! This is madness!

Even *I* can agree with that!

We should definitely allow smaller lots for duplexes. We've got plenty of duplexes in the Wedge on standard 40' lots.

[Daboink]

Looks like the city is finally poised to make changes allowing a variety of hotel development outside the CBD:
http://www.startribune.com/zoning-chang ... 309967161/

[mattaudio]

This passed, though they removed C2 and OR3 areas from any change.

[twincitizen]

This entire block is zoned R1A: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9255119 ... 56!6m1!1e1

What.The.Hell.

Yes, all of those existing multi-fam buildings are zoned R1A. So if you bought that lone single-family house, which is a total misfit on this block, you literally could not build anything greater than a single-family home without rezoning. And rezoning a single property would be considered "spot zoning", which is frowned upon and/or illegal. So in fact, the city would likely have to initiate rezoning the half-block of multi-fam properties to allow anything greater than a single-family home here. Super lame.

[mattaudio]

Can they do "spot rezoning" of a block like this? How do we initiate that?

[twincitizen]

Given the multiple property owners, it would have to be initiated by the city. AND it would have to be consistent with the comp plan designation...which I'll look up

So it seems much of non-commercial land-use in Minneapolis is guided "urban neighborhood" in the comp plan. This is a very non-specific designation which doesn't give much guidance on what the expected density would be. Perhaps it is intentionally vague and therefore relatively easy to rezone anywhere on the R1-R6 spectrum. Everything from the densest parts of The Wedge to lowest density single fam areas are "urban neighborhood". The comp plan is further augmented by small area plans and station area plans that provide more specific density guidance, but that's about it as far as I can tell.

So the city could very easily rezone that half block to a conforming designation...why they don't do that is another question entirely