How Minneapolis is Planning for a More Equitable Future (Episode 64)

In the energy sector, the challenges for cities overlap as in more than 30 states including Minnesota, the utility companies that provide electricity or gas service have monopolies that are given to them by the state. Cities don’t control the utilities or where their energy comes from and yet, Minneapolis is one of a hundred cities that have, for example, committed to get 100% of its electricity from renewable resources in a decade. Jeremy, I want to start off by just asking you what I hope is a relatively simple question which is why has Minneapolis made this commitment to 100% renewable electricity?

You see cities step up with what they have and we’ve had to be pretty creative. We’ve had to really be scrappy about how we do that but it doesn’t supplement for what we would hope to see from the federal government and from our state government.

An example of one would be inclusive financing. It’s a policy that if we can word that everyone including the utilities is committed to working towards but again, that’s also in its infancy. If we’re able to have inclusive financing commonly called kind of a “pay as you save” model … I’m in the room with two experts, so if I pause a little, I’ve been waiting for you two to jump in but something like that is going to be able to let folks that don’t have access to energy efficiency, we call them “upgrades” but I mean, as time goes on, these are needed things for their household. They’re going to have access and if the utilities can help us leverage that as well as look out for their consumers, I think the Clean Energy Partnership would be a benefit.

Of these two thousand cities that have municipally utilities, most of them were formed 100 years ago and were the first utility to occupy that space but a few of them are the result of cities actually taking over using their power of eminent domain to basically buy out the utility company and you already kind of alluded to this, there’s some promise out there for this thing to develop. It’s already been going on for five years and I’m curious if you or maybe if other city council members that have been around a little longer following this are feeling like you’re getting near the break up point or if you feel like you still want to keep following through and seeing what can come of it.

I think the promise of the Clean Energy Partnership is still there, but as you pointed out, it didn’t start with me. It started many years ago and so the clock is ticking. We are watching the utilities pretty closely and pushing them because I think when the Clean Energy Partnership was started, it had the backing of all Minneapolis residents and I think that’s the power that the city brings forward to talk in that partnership. Another part of it is the residents are holding us accountable. We need to make this city a sustainable city. We need to see outcomes and that’s not just on the city and its enterprise but on the utilities as well.

In fact, I think they’re very close to issuing the final order for the takeover of the utility but all this time has been essentially just building up to, “Are we actually going to take over?” Meanwhile, the utility and the city haven’t really been able to work together very effectively. I think I share your optimism to some degree about this partnership being able to be a quicker way as you say but there is a lot of urgency, obviously, in terms of what we’re doing.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t address another major policy change that the city has recently adopted, so it’s not just an energy of course that cities are doing interesting things but across a whole range of stuff, so this is around the Minneapolis 2040 plan, or the new city comprehensive plan. I’m hoping you can start by just explaining for people like me who are not experts in things outside of the energy sector, what is a comprehensive plan? Then I have a few other things that we’d like to know about. What makes Minneapolis … Why is Minneapolis all of the sudden getting in the news for this comprehensive plan?

We’ve been doing it for quite some time now. This isn’t the first comprehensive plan and that kind of leads into some of the other questions but to go a little bit further of what it does is it really talks about kind of the high level of what kind of growth … Looking at our population projections, how much growth are we having? Where are you going to put new housing? Where are you going to allow for transportation? Where are you going to allow … Make sure if affordable, the housing is an issue for you, where would you put that, where would you put workforce housing?

All those questions are there and some of it, when you think about Met Council, they want to make sure you’re not putting your sewage treatment plant on the city line next to another municipality and vice versa. I think it’s how do you play all well together is kind of one part of it and why Minneapolis was getting in the news is we took that a step further and we took that pretty seriously on a couple different fronts.

One, zoning has been used historically as a way of redlining, as a way of dividing communities and a way of dividing the equitable growth of a city. We have a 2040 plan, it’s important to think about how we grow, how that wealth is distributed, how all the people that are contributing to this great city get their share of that and get some benefit. How can we do that?

One part was really making sure that there are more housing options throughout all the city. I mean, that’s something that we got, I think, a lot of local news. There’s a pushback as well as cheers for right now. You can go up to three units on a single lot that’s staying within the same setbacks to get a little bit more in the weeds.

Wouldn’t it be convenient for Minneapolis to stick it right on the border with Saint Paul and let them share in the unpleasantness, of course ignoring the fact the rivers are a border for a moment? We’re doing these plans every 10 years? Are they always forecasting out 20 years? Is that kind of the way it goes? It’s a 20 year plan every 10 years?

One of the things I would have liked to see more in the 2040 plan is really seeing it as a visioning document of what do we want to be as a community. Seeing that the type of growth we’re projecting is disruptive no matter where it’s going to be in the city, so how do we address kind of the ratio inequities that we still live with as we look at homeowner and income disparities throughout the city, how when we look at which parts of the city have access to transportation and what type of housing is available on every area.

If we really are about equity and access for all, what does that look like? I think some of that came out in the plan but for myself, the city did hundreds of meetings to form this document. I, myself, have been at over a dozen of them and I think there’s a lot of discussion of what people didn’t want and I would have liked a little more discussion about what we did want.

I remember in my first South Minneapolis neighborhood, which I think was also in your ward if I’m not mistaken, but I remember a woman who lived across the street who raised three kids essentially in the basement where they curtained off different bedrooms and I have that in quotes. Obviously, the style and the expectations of families were different.

Let’s just dive right into that kind of big meaty thing in the comprehensive plan. Obviously, there’s a lot of pieces to it but the thing that got all the attention was this notion of what can you build on a particular piece of property, so could you explain a little bit about how that changed? It probably will start to explain for people when you mention lots of folks came out to say what they didn’t want that this was in the cross hairs.

How do you encourage more people live in that same area? We have my own single family home where we live, we had a much bigger family living there and you see that throughout the city. In our area around, we have some bigger homes that could be easily broken up into duplexes. We actually have some rather small duplexes, World War One time that are already in the neighborhoods. It was really more about allowing more options than prohibiting anything. I think that got lost in the discussion too. It doesn’t prohibit single family homes.

If someone wants to build a single family home, that’s there, but what it also does, is expand what’s possible for seniors, for people on a fixed income, for new families, like being able to have those options that we don’t have.

One other thing I would add is between 2010 and 2016, Minneapolis had tremendous growth, so we are known for our affordability and for our housing options throughout the city that you had that choice. When we saw that growth, the affordable housing worked. People found it and people are there.

In our neck of the woods in South Minneapolis, I would say the affordable housing is working, but the issue is, we’re just out of it.

We see people coming in. They decide that the 1,500 square foot home that was built in the ’40s or ’50s is too small for them, for their single family, and they build a 2,500 square foot home.

I think one of the things, as you said, that got lost in the mix in terms of the changes, the size of the structure isn’t really what was at issue because people can already build a giant home on the property as long as they respect the setback and the height limitations and whatnot, so we’re really just talking about subdividing what could go on the property. Right?

They’ll be fewer people in the city and all we’re really saying is why don’t we subdivide our lots a little bit more so that we can allow them to live in different configurations than they did before. Does that pretty much capture what we’re talking about?

People were really concerned about what could happen. I think that a lot of folks really felt that we were going to see lots being combined that we would see bigger homes. One of the issues, I would say, was that early on, people started talking about … The earlier proposal was for four units. They talked about it as a four-plex.

What that really brings to mind, even to myself, like you think about those apartment buildings that are out to the property lines that are not as thoughtful about permeable surfaces and neighbors and all of those things. That’s what the image really was of. I think that people were worried about losing their community and that’s serious.

I mean, I think that the plans very different then their fear, but I think that the city needs to address what they’re afraid and be able to talk to how we are able to do our best to make all these goals possible.

It seems like this is going to address some of these different issues. I’ve now broadened my question way beyond what I wanted to, which is, maybe let’s just start with the issue about redlining and racial discrimination because for a lot of people, they look at this and say, “Oh, I don’t want my neighborhood to change.”

But there’s also a lot of people who live in Minneapolis for whom they have always been prohibited by policy in a lot of ways from being able to have the flexibility to live in different places, to be part of communities in different places. How does this help address some of those issues about for people of color, for example, being able to find affordable places across the city?

Our history has shameful examples of when we had families of color move down in neighborhoods around us and just the horror of what they had endure just to be able to have the right that every person should to be able to live where they want and where their means allow. That just wasn’t possible.

Where the 2040, I wouldn’t say that we’ve corrected that, but I would say we’ve stopped the needle. We have been able to, with the plan, look at our frankly shameful history and say, “You’re no longer going to be able to tell where people of a certain wealth are.” It’s zoned by something that goes throughout the whole city and tries as best as it can, to be equitable about it.

So by providing more options throughout the city, we’re hoping that we’ll be able to see more development that will allow more affordable homes, more homes that would fit the character.

I mean, we haven’t really talked really about the energy efficiency and resiliency and what the plan would do for that, but it’s the mixed communities are going to be the most healthy, those that have diversity of folks on income and background that are going to be able to be resilient and be able to thrive as their own small community.

It was obviously an interaction on the market where banks would say, “We’re not going to loan to people of color if they move into these areas.” It was also an economic pressure about, for example, the size of the lot and the size of the property, making it economically infeasible for folks who weren’t wealthy or to live in certain neighborhoods.

How might a neighborhood … How does this plan address that? So, if I’m in a neighborhood like I live in, where it is a lot of single family homes right now, and fairly large lots for an urban area, anyway, how might that change over time?

It’s going to change slowly because of course, most people aren’t going to change their property while they live there. It’s going to change when they sell. Previously, people would buy a small house and tear it down and build a bigger house.

So, that was the kind of change we saw in neighborhoods. What’s going to happen now that’s going to be different that helps to address that economic barrier that was there for folks of being able to, for example, and go to Hale Elementary School, where right now, it feels like you need to have $400,000 ready to buy a house to go to that school. We want to make sure that people have access of all means.

Something that I’ve been working on with the council president to make sure that when developers are developing, they are held accountable to having some affordable housing.

My goal is something that would be throughout the city and make sure that every neighborhood is approached equitably so that when people are looking at a home, regardless of their background, they will have some options available.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Building Local Power with guest Jeremy Schroeder, City Council member, from Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is the part of the podcast where you usually hear something about a mattress company or a meal delivery service, but the Institute for Local Self Reliance is a national organization that supports local economies, so we don’t accept national advertising.

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We also value your reviews on Stitcher, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you so much. Now, back to our discussion of cities and climate with council member, Jeremy Schroeder.

So, we’re back and I wanted to talk a little bit, I mean, the comprehensive plan is such an interesting thing, but I want to talk a little bit about some of the news that I was reading about it. Because as a resident of Minneapolis, like you said, it was in the local news all over the place. The discussions were going on.

They were lawn signs going up saying either people are saying my house is going to be bulldozed. There are other signs saying, we’re all happy to have more neighbors, but then I started, after the policy passed, reading stories in national publications.

Seeing them linked to on Twitter or other social media, people were like, Minneapolis is really done something about affordable housing in a way that other communities haven’t. You’ve addressed this notion.

The issue is essentially that not everybody needs a single family home and in a lot of our neighborhoods, there hasn’t been accessibility to the kind of housing that people need, or that we’ve essentially used it up in the growth that we’ve already seen.

So, I guess what I’m curious about is how much have we actually accomplished. We’ve got this comprehensive plan. How much does that reflect if I’m a developer?

Let’s just say, I’m a homeowner and I decide, you know what? I’m going to buy a house somewhere else. Like many people, I might want to rent out my current property but instead of just renting out this single family home I’ve got, I’d like to follow this new policy, build a three unit building there that could be some affordable housing, contribute to this goal of both addressing climate change by a little more density.

I’m addressing affordable housing. Can I just go do that now? Is it that easy? Can I build some more properties and go find a different house?

It’ll look at the city planners. Depending on the height and what change would be at that site. It may need to go through the planning commission and maybe city council itself.

All that stays the same. As things are … I talked a little bit about we have the comprehensive plan, but the next part is the zoning change. That’s going to be the part that you’ll be able to see what else is possible on the property.

The comprehensive plan is really the beginning. As I talk to my constituents and others concerned about it, just saying, you’re right to push if you have concerns, because this really sets everything else up. The comprehensive plan has these high level goals and the zoning really flows from that.

So while we still have to get into the specifics, the specifics are written from the comprehensive plan.

The goal of the zoning then that’s going to follow this is going to have to guide. The idea is going to be to establish some guidelines that you don’t have a lot of developments coming before the city council. Right?

You’re going to be trying to simplify this process so people understand, “Okay, if I meet X, Y, and Z, is there going to be like a cookie cutter standard for it?” I know it’s not the right term.

I’m trying to think about is this going to become easier for folks to follow than feeling like, I’m going to end up in front of my local neighborhood board with people talking about it. It doesn’t fit the character of the neighborhood because there’s always going to be two people like that on the neighborhood council, maybe five people. There’s a lot of them.

I keep thinking about, I used to serve on a neighborhood council in one of the wealthier areas of Minneapolis that shall remain nameless, and there were proposals, even for just the mother-in-law unit on the garage. Gosh, there were an awful lot of retired people that came out to say that nothing that changed the neighborhood at all was in the character of the neighborhood.

That’s what I’m curious about is will that get addressed as you go through the zoning process and whatnot so that stuff can actually happen or are we going to see … Are you, as a city councilman, going to spend the rest of your term reviewing development applications for triplexes?

I think the rest would also be a balancing act. Like, there are things that are important to the city. Like one, combating climate change. Making more affordable, making it accessible, the city accessible to everybody. These are goals of the city.

So if there is a way, how do we make sure that we have enough process to assure that the city goals are being reflected in the development that’s happening? At the same time, hold developers and others accountable to meeting those goals.

So, while the 2040 plan ideally, it is the zoning that comes after it. It’s easy for people to do developments. It’s easy to add on and do things that are going to fit with what the city is going toward in its goals as well as what fits in the neighborhood, but it’s something. I think it’s too early to say, like where’s that balance, because that’s rather tough.

I can give you an example through inclusionary zoning. It’s something that the city has tried to make it easier for a lot of developments as in the recent years, like a lot of things have been streamlined and in a pretty good way to help the development in some of the areas we wanted more economic development to happen, but it is something that when we’ve given those things away, these are things other cities have done. I’ve been able to offer as incentives and one example is parking. We really reduced, before I came on the council, reduced a lot of the parking, and that’s helped a lot of developments become frankly, a little more affordable, in scope, but also be something that a developer would push for.

If they were a little bit more pushing back on the ability to do more affordable units, that’s something the city, other cities, have leveraged to say, “Well, how about you do less parking and you can do this many more units?” That’s something we don’t have.

So, it really is a balance of how do we be a good place for people to invest in and really have people that are building buildings for 100 years. How do we have that and at the same time, make sure that we have our core goals of being a city for everybody and a city that’s going to be thinking about the next generation and our impact on the Earth?

Like developers, when you see a development go up, they plan for a certain amount of parking that they’re going to need just to get people to buy, either buy the units or rent the units. If that’s not possible, then they add that in. But that said, there have historically been an over, other cities have asked for a lot more parking because the fear is always the people will move in and this will disrupt the community.

It’s really that balance and in recent years, Minneapolis has moved away from that standard where other cities have kept a much higher standard for it and then they’ve been able to bargain down for other goals.

We seem to be moving toward a way that a lot of people are living now. Like, they’re graduating from colleges. They’re moving to an urban area. They’re maybe not owning a car.

How does this fit in with this whole notion of mobility, which is something that a lot of cities are focusing on and how is Minneapolis able to make sure that if people don’t have access to a parking spot, they’re still going to be able to get their way to a job, for example.

But, as you talk about the comprehensive plan and as we think about future in the city, it’s taking on a much different thing. Like transportation’s changing so rapidly right now. What we are seeing is that the things that millennials and like new college graduates are asking for are the same things that many seniors are asking for, and it’s something that makes a lot of people want in their community.

Some of that is not reflected in many Minneapolis communities. So, how do we have that growth be there? How do we really have that relationship with the community to know what they need? I know around us, people would love a coffee shop, south of the creek, and it’s just a where would it go in our current form? If there was development, how would we have a space for that?

It’s really on one hand, thinking about the development in that nuts-and-bolts, on paper, way, and also just doing the groundwork of talking to people, talking to neighbors, and really knowing what they would want if things were to change.

You alluded in our casual conversation over break that you’ve got a lot of new people on city council and you’re starting to get familiar with the fact that we maybe have a little more power to direct where the city’s going to be for its future than we thought of before.

How has Minneapolis been able to stand up to or even co-op some of these big players and what advice do you have for other cities in terms of them building their own sense of power and agency over some of these really knotty questions, whether it’s mobility or affordable housing or energy?

An example we talked about over the break was we’ve seen with my new colleagues, just an increase of awareness of the need for affordable housing and a push from city council members when developments coming up for having that.

Even seeing some developers come and say, “Well, we’ll do this much, a certain percentage,” and a council member going, “Well, you could do better than that,” and the developers come back with it.

I celebrate that as a win, but also want to take a pause and make sure that other cities learn that’s more than that. Like, we still haven’t fixed the system. We still don’t require affordable housing. Like, I mean, that’s something that an inclusionary zoning policy, it’s not going to matter who’s in those seats. The city itself will be just, and think about, how everyone can live here.

That level of change we haven’t hit yet and so that’s where something I work on, and my colleagues work on, but just know that work isn’t done.

The other thing for cities is really to bring together all these problems. As we think desperately about how we are going to combat a problem as big as climate change, while looking at the affordability crisis that we have in Minneapolis as well as other cities, as well as transportation and its impact on all of these. How do we bring that altogether?

That’s something where there’s so much going on in the energy sector, not just how energy is generated, but also how buildings are built. How do we live? How is transportation structured? All these things have ways that can be more sustainable and more resilient to climate change.

In the end, when it comes down to it, cheaper. We need to think long term and not just the point where we are now, looking towards what the change will look like, but look toward what the outcome will look like and look at, after a capital investment, are we going to be operating at a much cheaper rate?

I mean, we’ve seen some of that just with the change to LEDs light bulbs, to put it on a really small scale, but when you think about all the things from owning two cars to how our food systems operate, all these things, while they seem very daunting, that amount of change that would happen.

When you look five to ten years down the road, is that the world we want to be living in? Is that the way we want to explain the world to our kids? It’s a struggle and it’s tough, but that’s really where we have to go.

You’re in some ways taking on their interest, right? They have a particular way that they’re used to doing developments. Maybe they never cared about affordable housing. Maybe they like to do a lot of parking.

Do you feel like there’s any backlash? Do you feel like there’s any threat to a city in trying to tackle some of these thorny issues in a systemic way given that some of these are pretty powerful entrenched interests.

So when you’re dealing with a developer or others, they hear the same stories we do. I’ll also say that it’s not just me. It is every single person I represent. They have had their thoughts about what it is to succeed in Minneapolis shaken. It used to be you get your kids to the U. They get a good job.

You’ve done your job as a parent, but now, they’ve got that good job and they still can’t find housing. They still have to think about a really long commute in a place that’s far away from family. It’s something that’s going against our values and when people have that level of faith shaken, they’re on your side too. That’s really transcending everything from housing developers to utility companies.

It’s something that every elected official right now is being held to a different level of accountability and I think we’re better for it.

It really talks about what other cities across the world are doing. I just found it fascinating to see what’s possible, to really look at the really scary truth that we’re three days from our grocery stores being empty in any major city you go to.

The thought of why I have a garden that barely gets me a couple of salads a summer, so it’s something that we have to think very carefully. We have really become accustomed to how we’re living and we have to think very seriously about what our options are.

It carries these theories through to our age of Donald Trump. It’s really an instructive tool in understanding the basis for a lot of the political arguments that I think we’re living through today and engaging in today. I think it’s really deepened my understanding of what folks who may not agree with me are thinking and why they’re thinking it.

I read it maybe a little but smugly as a way to craft my own arguments better in those situations, but I think what it’s really given me instead is this deeper understanding of where conflicts exist in our current systems and equipped me with some tools to think more creatively about ways to overcome them instead of just smashing through them with new and better arguments.

That’s my grand hope for it anyway, and I guess it takes two to tango, so hopefully, we can come together with those we disagree with in a constructive way.

You can also find out more about the Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership at ILSR.org/energy. While you’re at our website, you can also find more than 60 past episodes of the Building Lower Power podcast and show us some love with a contribution to help cover the cost of producing this podcast.

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