Some context as the Minneapolis 2040 Plan legal saga ends

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Last week, the Minnesota Supreme Court declined to hear the latest attempt to block the application of the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, signaling that this long, sorry legal saga is finally coming to a conclusion following legislation passed earlier this year to moot the subject of the lawsuit. This legislation would not have been necessary but for an earlier Supreme Court ruling expressing the opinion that the Metropolitan Land Planning Act (MLPA) was nothing more than a land planning statute.

In fact, the MLPA was the third in a series of landmark environmental protection laws passed in the 1970s during the Minnesota Miracle era and its express purpose was to address the environmental damage caused by unplanned “urban sprawl.” When it commissioned the Metropolitan Council to supervise the comprehensive planning process in the Twin Cities region in 1976, the Legislature recognized that “local governmental units within the metropolitan area are interdependent, that the growth and patterns of urbanization within the area create the need for additional state, metropolitan and local public services and facilities and increase the danger of air and water pollution and water shortages.”

Thus, the MLPA requires cities to base their comprehensive plans on population growth projections provided by the Met Council in “system statements” issued to each city at the beginning of the decennial planning cycle. For the record, Minneapolis did so, and the Met Council found that the Minneapolis 2040 plan was consistent with its projected growth.

In the preparation of its comprehensive plan, each city is required to evaluate the impact of its projected development on its stormwater management system and submit a revised stormwater management plan to the Met Council for review and approval. For the record, Minneapolis submitted a revised stormwater management plan for its Minneapolis 2040 comprehensive plan and that plan was reviewed and approved by Metropolitan Council Environmental services.

Under the “system statements” prepared in conjunction with the Met Council’s Thrive 2040 regional development blueprint, cities were required to coordinate their transportation and land use plans because creating denser transit-oriented neighborhoods where walking, biking and shared transportation options are attractive is the single most effective strategy for reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan was approved because it met these explicit legislative requirements (which have been strengthened by other recent legislative actions).

The Minneapolis 2040 Plan is an exemplar in the way it addresses the environmental protection requirements spelled out in the MLPA. It does so while fostering the development of critically needed multifamily housing that has held rent increases in Minneapolis to 1% during a period when rents in the rest of Minnesota were increasing by 14%.

The action taken by the Legislature to moot the 2040 lawsuit merely reinstates the original legislative intent that legal actions challenging comprehensive plans in the Twin Cities region should be brought under the Metropolitan Land Planning Act.

Steve Elkins represents the western half of Bloomington in the Minnesota House. He has previously served as a City Council member in Bloomington and as a member of the Metropolitan Council representing Bloomington, Edina, Richfield and Hopkins. The views expressed are strictly his own.