Uptown - LynLake - The Wedge - News & General

[Tiller]

EOst's last sentence is spot-on, but you don't need to stretch zoning regulations very far to view many of them as "cruel and arbitrary laws written with specific animus toward specific groups." The "cruel" part is just more indirect and thus less recognizable/urgent.

[amiller92]

Others never seem to acknowledge that replacing SFHs lessens the supply of SFHs, driving up prices.

I honestly do not think that price pressure on single family homes near the lakes is a supply issue. Nor do I think keeping one or two or three will do anything to relieve that pressure.

[amiller92]

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

Sure, but that doesn't mean we need, as a matter of policy, to provide all things in all places.

[FISHMANPET]

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.

Not every law or regulation is tyrannical. But that doesn't mean that no law or regulation is tyrannical.

But going down your list anyway:
Prohibiting Drive Thrus: driving is not a right, also drive thrus are dangerous for people not in those cars, so it's a similar tyranny of the majority situation
Limiting parking: See above
Requiring fire detectors: I assume at this point you're being facetious but the smoke and C02 detectors save lives at minimal cost. And technically speaking they're only really required when a house transaction is happening. A builder can't sell you a home without them, but you're free to rip them out if you'd rather die. Landlords are required to provide them because tenants and landlords aren't on equal footing and tenants aren't in a position to demand smoke alarms where they aren't present. We, as a society, have decided on a few points of what a livable home should be, and enforced those standards through our laws. It should have water and electricity, and those utilities should be installed in a way in which they won't kill somebody. It should have heat when it's cold. And it should have smoke alarms. Basically, this is a regulation of inclusivity, not exclusivity. It says "everyone should have a smoke alarm." It doesn't say "we should limit the number of people with smoke alarms."I don't think you'll find a single reasonable person that says "well actually smoke alarms are bad." And yes a majority of people have decided that smoke alarms are good. Sometimes the majority is right!

And we get to restrictive zoning. It's inherently a policy of exclusion. It is designed to exclude people. It limits the people that can be in a space. I believe housing is a human right, and therefore by extension regulations that limit access to housing is cruel and oppressive. Or in another word, tyrannical.

[twincitizen]

New Horizon opening another location in the former NIP building at 2431 Hennepin Ave, will include an elevated deck outdoor play area on the south side

http://www.southwestjournal.com/news/bi ... n-academy/

As seen on streetview in October, they are quite literally gutting the interior: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9582853 ... 56!6m1!1e1

[grant1simons2]

Plans for 3453 Hennepin:
http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 187357.pdf

Strange little project.

Planning commission file: http://minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/pub ... 192554.pdf

Updated materials

[RailBaronYarr]

^^ So if anyone likes small-scale infill that fits in with the neighborhood, please email planning staff (Aaron Hanauer) in support. Especially if you live/d in CARAG or ECCO. I'm hearing rumors that despite the CARAG organization's support, there is some pushback against this thing.

[bapster2006]

Here is the packet for the Parkway Residences, an 18-unit condo building at Lake and E Calhoun Pkwy. Big windows.

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/gro ... 193331.pdf

[mamundsen]

I see no problem with that. Heck, I almost think another floor would be ok here.

[bapster2006]

I agree on both counts. The big windows are great, and at its current height of five floors it blends in pretty well I think.

[xandrex]

Sons of Norway building is up for sale.

http://tcbmag.com/News/Recent-News/2017 ... e-For-Sale

[seanrichardryan]

TEAR IT DOWN

[mattaudio]

It's definitely "out of character" for the neighborhood...

[RailBaronYarr]

Odd, Hennepin County shows the NoN and WF parcels on the northern part of the block only combine up to ~1.35 acres. Between the SoN building and their 1.1 acre parking lot is a small condo building, so I'm not sure if that's part of the deal or not. But the site acreage isn't adding up to the 2.2 the TCB Mag is reporting. Is that condo building a goner or would they have to build around it?

It's really a shame the Uptown Small Area Plan didn't even designate the area west of Hennepin as Urban Village but rather, Live/Work with the southern half of this block "Neighborhood". That said, the northern half of the block is zoned C3A despite being out of the USAP designated "Activity Center" with the long southern parking lot zoned R4. I'm really hoping that since this is one of the last surface lots in Uptown (yes, the graphic doesn't count the Lunds or SoN lots because they're outside the Activity Center), we can get:

- One last structured district parking for Uptown
- A focus on office space over residential. That image we saw floated for like a day for the Calhoun Square rubble pit along Lake wouldn't be awful, and there's plenty of capacity for residential infill in the neighborhoods if we'd just allow it.

Honestly, what's there is a monolithic 3-story thing. If we allowed that level of massing along Lake with better design and some sort of a tower behind it for [office, hotel, whatever] it really wouldn't be bad. Slap a parking ramp in the middle of the block access by a mid-block east/west alley, shield it with some townhomes along Holmes and Humboldt, and transition to apartments or whatever on the surface lot down to 31st St.

[xandrex]

Odd, Hennepin County shows the NoN and WF parcels on the northern part of the block only combine up to ~1.35 acres. Between the SoN building and their 1.1 acre parking lot is a small condo building, so I'm not sure if that's part of the deal or not. But the site acreage isn't adding up to the 2.2 the TCB Mag is reporting. Is that condo building a goner or would they have to build around it?

That number appears to come directly from CBRE.

The 2.17 acres that CBRE quotes is the exact size of all of the Sons of Norway property plus a piece owned by Wells Fargo that is adjacent. So maybe it's going to be a building that kind of wraps around the condo?

Here's an image of the properties CBRE is highlighting.

[RailBaronYarr]

Thanks for that! So the 2.17 acres is the parcels Sons of Norway owns, and the little surface parking between them (2 parcels, each 0.14 acres) is owned by WF. Given the new WF branch across Humboldt has parking, I can't imagine they'd need to hold on to it anymore. The condo building is a different story. It's certainly nice looking, but nothing unique or special. I don't know how difficult it is to buy out 10 units, but I'd imagine any redevelopment would be substantially easier without that building there.

[xandrex]

Yeah, it would seem to be a lot easier to buy them out than put the building around them. The units themselves are also pretty cheap - Hennepin County records show valuations from about $60K to $120K.

I also imagine that the eventual buyer of the SoN properties could make a case to the condo owners that their property isn't going to increase greatly in value when it's wrapped on three sides by an apartment/office/whatever building. Those people with sunny, south-facing units can kiss their views goodbye, so why not cash out?

[Silophant]

How do condo buyouts generally work? Is there something included in the deed or HOA regs or something to force out the last owner(s) if most have sold, or can one determined owner scuttle the whole thing?

[Nathan]

How do we convince Lunds to move into this new development and allow their current site to be redeveloped? This is possibly one of the only sites other than their current spot large enough for this to happen in uptown. Fantastic fantasy I know but their current lot drives me insane.

[RailBaronYarr]

I like that idea quite a bit. I know it sounds super lame, but would reaching out to their corporate real estate team and/or local management help? While this project is way too early to have any details, them getting in the conversation early is the only way it'll probably happen (and, tbh, having a tenant lined up that everybody in the area knows and many use helps sell the project).