Reader Opinion: Why the Former Metropolitan Council Should Not Have Approved the Minneapolis 2040 Plan

By Dennis Paulaha, PhD- Great River Coalition

The Metropolitan Council is responsible for managing the impact on the natural environment of all Metropolitan Districts under its jurisdiction.

And because the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA) prohibits acts or plans that are likely to impair the environment, the Metropolitan Council cannot legally approve a Plan from any District that is likely to impair the environment, because doing so is prohibited under Minnesota State law.

It also means the Metropolitan Council does not have the legal right to approve a plan from one District that is likely to impose spillover or external environmental damages to one or more other municipalities or Districts.

For the record, the Minneapolis City Council has admitted in court that the up-zoning policy in the Minneapolis 2040 Plan (eliminating single-family zoning throughout the city) will definitely impose environmental damage.

Which, according to the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA), means a Plan that includes the elimination of single-family zoning cannot legally be approved by the Metropolitan Council.

Furthermore, because the increase in the city’s pollution caused by intentionally increasing the city’s population by eliminating single-family zoning cannot be contained within a cylinder placed over the city of Minneapolis, there is no question the up-zoning policy of the Minneapolis 2040 plan will impose environmental damages to other municipalities and Metropolitan Districts

As such, the former Metropolitan Council should have demanded the up-zoning policy be removed from the Minneapolis 2040 Plan before it was approved.

Additionally, it should be noted that the Minneapolis 2040 Plan is based on inaccurate population projection. Instead of using the official population forecast, City Planners made up and used a number large enough to justify an up-zoning policy that lets developers replace single family homes with apartment buildings in order to accommodate their false population forecast.

If the inaccurate population number (which the Planners admitted is a goal, not a forecast) is replaced with an honest forecast, there is no need to replace single family homes with multi-unit apartment buildings in order to accommodate a larger population, because the actual population forecast does not justify doing so.

Another problem is, the writers and promoters of the Minneapolis 2040 Plan claimed all the studies and research conclude that increasing population density reduces a city’s carbon footprint.

That is not true. What the studies say is that a given number of people in a densely populated city will have a smaller carbon footprint than the same number of people spread out in a suburb where people have to drive farther to get where they are going and have less access to public transportation. But the research warns that the city versus suburb comparison does not apply to increasing the population and population density in either a city or a suburb. In other words, what every valid study says is that if population density is increased in either a city or a suburb, carbon dioxide omissions will increase. That is, of course, simple logic that is not even debatable.

Therefore, the Minneapolis 2040 Plan is based not only on inaccuracies regarding its the population forecast, it is also based on inaccuracies about the environmental studies and research regarding the relationship between population density and carbon dioxide emissions.

In other words, Minneapolis Planners misrepresented the relationship between population density and a city’s carbon footprint to claim intentionally increasing the population density of the city will reduce the city’s carbon footprint.

All of which means the former Metropolitan Council did not have a legal right to approve a Minneapolis 2040 Plan that includes eliminating single-family zoning to intentionally increase the population and the population density of the city, given that doing so will not only cause environmental damage to the City of Minneapolis, but will spill over to other Districts and municipalities governed by the Metropolitan Council.