Uptown - LynLake - The Wedge - News & General

Calhoun-Isles, Cedar-Riverside, Longfellow, Nokomis, Phillips, Powderhorn, and Southwest
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mister.shoes
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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby mister.shoes » January 4th, 2017, 1:30 pm

Can't believe that poster didn't mention New York, but then again, pictures of Central Park surrounded by skyscrapers are kinda awesome: https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm ... FO3gVfqGjs
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grant1simons2
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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby grant1simons2 » January 4th, 2017, 3:17 pm

Here is the 7-story rentals at Lake St and Holmes:

http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups ... 191906.pdf
Wait where did you find this?

mattaudio
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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby mattaudio » January 4th, 2017, 3:46 pm


Wait where did you find this?
Looks like there's a bug on the meetings page. No meetings show up at first, but if you drop down to "Planning Commission" you get the agenda for January 9: http://minneapolismn.gov/meetings/planning/WCMSP-191891

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby RailBaronYarr » January 5th, 2017, 1:07 pm

Beyond visual pollution (...) can they articulate how a taller building is any worse for the local environment than a 40' high one? Thinking things like runoff, tree coverage, air quality, etc. Obviously the discussion of unintended consequences of rich people just mowing down acres of land for a mansion in the 4th ring and driving into Minneapolis without skyscrapers is lost on these folks. But I'd at least like an honest assessment of their motive: 1) they don't like developers who make money and 2) they don't like the look of skyscrapers.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby nBode » January 5th, 2017, 1:39 pm

3) they don't like other people getting in the way of their life.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby FISHMANPET » January 5th, 2017, 2:03 pm

I feel like there's an idea that there's an infinite supply of affordable lake adjacent single family homes and putting a tower replaces some of that infinite supply with a limited number of above average cost homes.

I don't think anyone would state it quite like that but a lot of complaints against towers seem to come from a place of wanting to not let the lake be a place for only the wealthy. Meanwhile nearly all 10 of the most expensive homes in Minneapolis are around Lake Calhoun or very close to the lake (http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... nepin.html) so I'm not sure how you can come to the conclusion that lake homes are for the common man.

Furthermore people just seem to think there's an infinite supply of single family homes in any particular area. There's almost never any acknowledgement that building towers would increase the number of homes in an area. Again I don't think anybody would state that they think there are infinite homes but they're certainly never reached the conclusion that there's a finite number of single family homes in a given area.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby LakeCharles » January 5th, 2017, 3:05 pm

Meanwhile nearly all 10 of the most expensive homes in Minneapolis are around Lake Calhoun or very close to the lake (http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... nepin.html) so I'm not sure how you can come to the conclusion that lake homes are for the common man.
Your point is made, but only one of those 10 houses is on Lake Calhoun. 7 are on lake of the isles though.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby David Greene » January 5th, 2017, 3:12 pm

Furthermore people just seem to think there's an infinite supply of single family homes in any particular area. There's almost never any acknowledgement that building towers would increase the number of homes in an area. Again I don't think anybody would state that they think there are infinite homes but they're certainly never reached the conclusion that there's a finite number of single family homes in a given area.
No one thinks there's an infinite supply of SFHs. That's exactly the opposite of the point people are making.

Others never seem to acknowledge that replacing SFHs lessens the supply of SFHs, driving up prices. People actually do like living in SFHs. Shocking, I know.

Both sides need to acknowledge the viewpoints of the other. There is not one form of housing that will work for everyone. We need a mix. Striking that balance is what this whole debate is about but extremists tend to want to pull the discussion in an all-or-nothing direction.

I have said many times that I would welcome 13-or-more story infill buildings. That lessens the pressure on taking more SFHs. Other people don't want that for various reasons. Such people aren't being disingenuous, they just have a different opinion and/or taste.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby LakeCharles » January 5th, 2017, 3:18 pm

But along the lake, prices are in the millions. If a couple get developed, does the price of each home get driven up by some thousands? Do I care? Why does anyone care? If you can shell out 4 million dollars for a home, you can shell out 4.2 million dollars for a home.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby RailBaronYarr » January 5th, 2017, 4:03 pm

I'm going to make a bold statement that, no, we actually don't NEED a mix. Our society would actually function just fine if literally every parcel in Minneapolis were attached housing of some kind. Families with kids would actually make do just fine. There are actually thousands of family households in Minneapolis right now living in a structure with 2+ units.

With that being said, the idea that this region's detached single family home supply is in dire straits is ludicrous. There is no amount of conceivable development, on any time horizon, that would leave the city of Minneapolis (let alone Mpls, St Paul, and all first-ring burbs) without any single family homes to choose from. That link assumed all non-downtown development was in 3-4 story, 1-3 lot redevelopment of mostly single family homes (this scenario takes up more land per net new unit than including vacant/brownfield redevelopment opportunities or considering any 6+ story residential construction, or subdivision of existing SFHs including detached ADUs). Literally the last thing we should be worrying about is how rich white people looking for cabin living a mile from downtown will afford a slightly more expensive home.

And this is getting off-topic, but the people who don't share your 13-story tower on the edges of the neighborhood vision (lol, how would you go engage with them without a front porch and door to knock on or garden for them to invite you to!?) ALSO don't want a 3 story apartment on 2-3 lots. So yeah, they're being disingenuous if they say they want development.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby David Greene » January 5th, 2017, 7:53 pm

That's a perfect example of the all-or-nothing thinking I'm talking about. Look at what you wrote. It's all very extreme, full of straw men.

One can support development and still not want 13-story buildings or even six-story buildings.

We need a mix because it's quite obvious people prefer different things.

And LOL at the million dollar house canard. If you think everyone living in Flux is poorer than people living in SFHs in the Wedge you need to talk to more people.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby FISHMANPET » January 5th, 2017, 8:15 pm

Merely wanting something is not reason enough to grant it. Many people want to send all the East African refugees back to Africa, and Hispanics and Latinos back to where they came from. Just because people want it isn't a reason to do it. Likewise, just because people want single family homes isn't a reason for the government to enforce that desire through zoning.

Also we're not actually talking about the Wedge here! But thanks for building up that strawman.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby David Greene » January 5th, 2017, 8:25 pm

We're not? "All over the city" includes Uptown, I think.

And yes, when were talking public policy, politics matters and like it or not, multiple voices have sway. We're going to have both because that's what the majority of residents want.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby FISHMANPET » January 5th, 2017, 8:31 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

For someone who claims to be very involved in social justice, you seem very happy to say "majority rules" when it comes to something you personally agree with.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby EOst » January 5th, 2017, 9:00 pm

Tyranny of the majority involves a scenario in which a majority of an electorate places its own interests above, and at the expense and to the detriment of, those in the minority, where by that detriment constitutes active oppression comparable to that of a tyrant or despot.
A majority democratically choosing something (here "the preservation of some SFHs") is not "the tyranny of the majority" because it's not "tyranny."

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby FISHMANPET » January 5th, 2017, 9:24 pm

Using government regulation to force your neighborhood to be single family because that's what you (and a majority of the residents that are already there) sounds like tyranny to me, particularly against those that have been blocked from living in the neighborhood because of those government regulations.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby anders » January 6th, 2017, 12:00 am

Others never seem to acknowledge that replacing SFHs lessens the supply of SFHs, driving up prices. People actually do like living in SFHs. Shocking, I know.

I have said many times that I would welcome 13-or-more story infill buildings. That lessens the pressure on taking more SFHs. Other people don't want that for various reasons. Such people aren't being disingenuous, they just have a different opinion and/or taste.
While the sun continues to rise in the east and people continue to have differing opinions on art, cinema, breakfast cereals, and the 'ideal' home, there are certain larger facts and pressures that undoubtedly affect the value of land. The amount of readily developable land in areas where demand exists, for example, is decreasing as it is used up. The demand for housing in general is going up. Family sizes are not increasing, so that won't soak up the demand. For a range of reasons, many people prefer living in the city rather than in the suburb where more developable land exists. This is a good thing because we know that climate change is exacerbated by energy-intensive lifestyles (and transport remains energy-intensive).

Blah blah blah. You know all this stuff. We all do here. So can we move past platitudes about "taste" and "opinions" and recognize that there is a fundamental unresolved challenge of where we're going to fit more people? No one's going to go around razing full blocks of SFHs, but using regulatory power in order to artificially suppress the price of one housing type (incidentally, the most expensive, energy-intensive, and group-segregating type, if we're going down that road) seems like a pretty low priority in 21st century Minneapolis.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby RailBaronYarr » January 6th, 2017, 1:20 am

Maybe I'm crazy, but I guess I don't see thinking we don't *need* something like SFHs (at some minimum % of all parcels) but also that even an urbanist's greatest wet dream wouldn't see the majority of them go away as being absolutist or extreme. I don't think it's a straw man to say life would move on if they did all disappear over the next 200 years. It was an unnecessary swipe at you, but you actually did claim that you don't like large apartment buildings because you can't knock on their doors to have neighborly interaction - something I find hard to reconcile with your advocacy for 13-story apartment buildings (*real neighbors are for the neighborhood interior in small structures, right?), and disingenuous given the many places people in apartments are out and about in the public realm.

And whatever you might believe the opinions of the silent majority in given neighborhoods are re: development, the actual history in this city (and, particularly in many Uptown neighborhoods) has been repeated downzoning over time, including getting the vast majority of land zoned R1 or R2/B to prevent even the gentlest kind of density (triplexes, 4-plexes, 6-8-unit single lot apartment buildings). People appeal 4-story, single-lot, 10-unit structures based on made up claims of renters having more garbage than homeowners. Even simple things like re-allowing duplexes on standard lot sizes in R2/R2B and ADUs didn't go through without a little pushback. I'm waiting for anyone but the urbanist community to propose any sort of up-zoning, including missing middle. I actually testified at the recent Wedge re-zoning planning commission hearing and said I felt the downzones of R5 and R6 should have been counterbalanced by allowing many R2B to become R3 or R4 in much more of the Wedge, and that the whole thing shouldn't have been done without a broader look across Hennepin, Lyndale, and Lake. I attended the neighborhood walk and staff meeting regarding that downzoning proposal and heard several people become giddy upon hearing neighboring parcels were being brought down to R2B. And I read the history of that proposal, where neighbors were so extreme in their demands (proposing leaving literally 5 R5 or R6 parcels in the entire Wedge) that they couldn't even find a compromise with CPED. So, I dunno, you'll excuse me for being a little surprised at that accusation toward me.

In any case, I only brought this whole damn thing up because the specific e-democracy thread was about our precious shoreland overlay district. My point was that of all the things people get riled up about, the height of a building against a park+river/lake has very little to do with its environmental impact, and the very post defending its creation spoke directly to that (caring about profit and aesthetic preferences).

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby Anondson » January 6th, 2017, 7:47 am

I am find nothing compelling in the argument that the northwest and northeast corners of the lake are harmed or ruined by tall structures. That lawn filled single family yards are preferable to towers for the lake quality.

The traffic arguments seem ahistorical to my recollection, traffic was thousands of cars worse in the 1990s.

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Re: Uptown General Topics & Development Map

Postby EOst » January 6th, 2017, 8:49 am

Using government regulation to force your neighborhood to be single family because that's what you (and a majority of the residents that are already there) sounds like tyranny to me, particularly against those that have been blocked from living in the neighborhood because of those government regulations.
But, again, that's not what "tyranny" is. You are abusing a term with an intentionally precise meaning.

Put another way: If zoning regulations which prohibit structures over a certain height are "tyrannical," how can you exclude regulations prohibiting drive-thrus or limiting parking spaces or requiring fire detectors? After all, you're "using government regulation to force your neighborhood [to do something] because that's what you (and a majority of the residents) want." Democratic decisions--even ones you disagree with--are not presumptively illegitimate just because they place requirements on others or limit the supply of things you want.

Again, a democratic majority imposing a law you disagree with isn't "tyranny," even "tyranny of the majority," unless it is tyrannical in nature, i.e. unless it is creating cruel and arbitrary laws written with specific animus toward specific groups. Don't cheapen a term we may soon need for bigger things.


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