The planning commission's reasoning is pretty shocking in its sloppiness. To go over this point by point:
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A. Rezoning.
1. The project site is a two minute walk away from the furthest stop of the high frequency #10 bus at Central and Spring Street and a six minute walk from the furthest possible location for a future F Line station at Central and Broadway. Policies
38 and
80 commit the City to promoting housing
near transit. I am confident that any reasonable person would find a 2-6 minute walk to meet the definition of "near." CPED explicitly found that the proposed development would meet Policy 80, not violate it.
2. The property being demolished is a single family home that is not deed-restricted affordable.
According to Zillow, it last sold in April of 2020 for $340,000. It's not clear to me that the site contains an existing affordable housing unit. But even if it did,
Policy 33 says nothing about protecting either deed-restricted or naturally-occurring affordable housing from demolition, let alone replacement by multi-family units. The closest the policy comes is through action steps 33(c) and 33(d), which commit the City to creating strategies to preserve NOAH. But these action steps do not oblige the City to block redevelopment of all NOAH unless the City subsequently passed a policy that contained that action. In fact, if anything, Policy 33 weighs in favor of the
approval of this project through action step 33(e), which instructs the City to "Encourage affordable living features... that result in lower transportation costs and reduce monthly utility bills..." This project strongly supports car-free living and will contain numerous sustainability features that should reduce utility costs for all residents.
3. The property in question is part of the Corridor 6 built form district, along with all other properties on the eastern side of the block. The underlying zoning across the city has yet to be changed in compliance with Minneapolis 2040, but the built form guidance has been approved. In Minnesota when the zoning and the comprehensive plan disagree, the comprehensive plan takes precedence. The neighborhood opposition has produced an email from the former CM for this district saying that the built form guidance for these parcels should be changed, but as a matter of fact and law, they were approved as Corridor 6 and that's the only thing that matters.
B. Site plan review.
1. The proposed development would be 39 feet tall, not much higher than the property to the north and well below the line of the trees nearby. Shadows have never been a convincing reason to deny a project, because they might as well apply to every new proposal, and the same is true here. There's no reason to believe that this project would in any way depart from the precedent set by hundreds of approvals in past years. I have no idea what "blocking their garage" means, but this proposed development would be constructed entirely on the parcel in question and I have a hard time imagining how this could stand as a justification for denial when the project meets the city's rules for setbacks etc.
2. There is nothing in
Policy 47 that supports this finding. The proposed development is obviously going to meet building codes. Opinions about the quality of the build or the architecture are just that; opinions. They are not grounds for a denial and it is embarrassing that they were included here. As a matter of fact, the proposed development will include a number of details that suggest a
higher than normal standard of build and design. The project has ambitious energy efficiency goals and CPED concluded that these meet
Policy 68 for energy efficient and sustainable buildings.
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Basically, the CPC got way out over their skis on this one. The CPC put the City in legal jeopardy here. This decision is really egregious and ought to be swiftly overturned if appealed to the full City Council.