CommentsHOUSING - The great Minneapolis Myth is Minneapolis solved the affordable housing crisis through the elimination of single-family zoning.
Minneapolis hasn’t “solved” the housing affordability crisis. And glorifying a zoning “tool” as being a “goal” won’t change that, no matter how much spin and polish we put on the story.
The universal up-zoning of all single-family lots in Minneapolis to allow for increased density of 3-units officially took effect on January 1, 2020. We’ve now had a year and a half of this policy in place in Minneapolis, and it has not changed the trajectory of housing affordability one iota.
It is here where I feel compelled to highlight a few points in this open letter. . .
In all the promises about how any/all of our municipal policies would address affordable housing, can anyone name a single metric for how that is being measured?
As a member of the executive committee of the Minneapolis Planning Commission, I was at the table for years of discussion on this and will attest to the absolute lack of any metric on how we would measure the success of any gains in this area. Was it increases in quantities of affordable units? Was it a decrease in the cost of affordable units? Was it a decrease in the number of unhoused families? I was never given an answer to exactly what measurable impact a policy like this might have. One might wonder how anyone could gauge the successes or failures of any housing policy when the specific goals and intended outcomes aren’t ever clearly defined, articulated, or projected.
Is density good or bad when it comes to housing?
If you find yourself advocating for density as either of these things, then please remove yourself from any policy-making position as it relates to planning and development. Very few things in this world are that cut and dried. Housing is an extremely nuanced topic. To argue a simpleton’s position over the morals of “density” as it relates to being either a savior or demon in the planning world is to elevate “density” to being in and of itself a goal to either emulate or decry. In reality, density is a mere tool. It is neither completely good nor bad. Those who are afraid of density are as naively informed as those who hail it as somehow being worthy of adulation. Ask yourself if a hammer is good or bad. It can build a house or smash a window. In and of itself, it is not a goal…it is a means of (perhaps) reaching a goal if used properly. Bottom line: please cease focusing discussions around the mere presence or absence of density. It is being deified beyond its mere mortal realities. (The ax-handle, perhaps, of our Bunyanesque mythology? …ever-present, but entirely useless in terms of actually impacting any part of the story it is associated with.)
But hasn’t universal up-zoning helped Minneapolis’ affordable housing crisis?
As a 20+ year resident of the quadrant of Minneapolis most often cited as the poster-child for all things related to housing inequities and disparities, please let me share that my community is not extolling the virtues of this policy. We are seeing a continuation and acceleration of speculative absentee investors to our area, driving up housing prices (the average cost of a home in North Minneapolis neighborhoods has doubled in the past 5 years), which is leading to the displacement of my neighbors and friends. When coupled with the absentee nature of the ownership entities exploiting our neighborhood real estate, the “severely cost-burdened” nature of households in our communities results in a capital flight of a substantial portion of our community’s wealth. This leads to the lack of funds to sustain our commercial corridors and decreases in investments in our local economy. It creates a perpetual state of reliance on benevolent subsidy (municipal or via non-profit) to maintain even the most basic elements of a livable community. (healthcare, grocery stores, pharmacies, places to purchase basic necessities.) It is eroding our ability to have the “walkable cities” that we hear lauded so often.
More “dwelling units per acre” as a means of achieving affordability in housing is impossible.
This isn’t even about debating the merits of supply-side economic theory. This gets to the heart of what our affordable housing crisis is really all about, and why we can’t seem to make headway against this problem. The people in charge of coming up with solutions don’t seem interested in actually understanding the problem. This particular facet mystifies me…. If I were attempting to solve a very complex problem, which housing affordability certainly is, I would begin by really digging into everything I could about the problem.
A basic element of this would include: WHO is in need of affordable housing? While we need housing for single individuals, a larger chunk that has an even harder time finding affordable housing would be housing for FAMILIES. The problem with lauding a solution that focuses on mere unit quantities is that it treats all units as equal. Those 325 square foot efficiency units might be a workable solution for an individual, but I challenge anyone to imagine having spent the better part of the past year in a studio efficiency apartment with 3 children who are attempting to do distance learning. It’s a common enough problem to understand, yet “the” solution being proposed will not lead to increased affordability for families because it dismisses this entirely predictable scenario as being a factor for consideration. It actually results in the further removal of family-sized units – such as a single-family home – from the market as those get gobbled up and spit out as 3 efficiency apartments in the wake up universal up-zoning with no safeguards.
Minneapolis is no closer to being a utopian beacon of affordability than it was before discussions of up-zoning even started. In fact, we’re farther from achieving it as people in low-income communities like mine are experiencing 15-20% property tax increases annually due to the increased absentee investor speculation of houses nearby. Ss a city we have created tens of thousands of new units in recent years, yet no one can define what the magic tipping point is when this is suddenly supposed to result in a lower cost of housing.
It should come as no surprise that providing affordable housing to everyone is very much embraced in our state. We have a very real need for affordable housing. That, much like our many lakes, is very clear.
But that is where the reality ends. If you’re looking to address this very real need in your own communities, I would encourage you to stop looking to vague mythology for your solution. They might make for a nice story to bandy about among your political and policy-making peers, but you won’t solve your affordable housing crisis by making real estate into an even more lucrative commodity for speculative investors to exploit.
(This story was written by Alissa D.Luepke Pier, AIA, Minneapolis Planning Commission* and an earlier version of this article appeared in My Burbank.) (Photo by © Ross A Benson)
