Postby twincitizen » September 12th, 2019, 2:00 pm
The R5 zoning was probably legacy going back decades. Mpls 2040 seems to be the first time the plan got really granular down to the parcel and will actually result in a number of properties being rezoned/downzoned. While this commercial node is not on any transit lines (transit on Grand cuts off at 46th), the 2040 plan really should have looked at legacy commercial nodes like this to make sure they didn't get rezoned/downzoned into nonconforming status. I agree 100% that density should be allowed/encouraged here, despite the lack of transit, for the specific purpose of keeping the commercial node viable.
FWIW, I don't think the Built Form maps were truly looked over by CPED staff at a parcel-by-parcel level. At least for the initial pass, they took a GIS file of transit routes and extrapolated out from there. I caught an error in my neighborhood where a portion of the Route 46 was initially guided for Interior 1 rather than Corridor 4 like basically all bus routes. Elsewhere near my neighborhood, 50th Street east of Nokomis was designated Corridor 4 when it has no transit service whatsoever. I'm not faulting anyone at CPED, I'm just saying that the plan certainly isn't perfect on a parcel-by-parcel basis and it is actually pretty dangerous to treat it as such. There are already Councilmembers and Planning Commissioners who believe that because the plan was so specific and granular, that no exceptions should be made ever. One Planning Commissioner said as much at a recent meeting, though I don't recall the specific site or project.