At the risk of being called just another "new urbanist", here are my responses for Craig:
On 3/31/02 9:41 PM, "Craig Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > For the Met Council to be serious about wanting to increase the supply of > all housing and affordable housing, they would have to do a 180 degree turn. I disagree that the onus is on Met Council to change. Instead, I would argue that the onus is on developers, city councils and neighborhood organizations to pull their heads out of the sand (or wherever else they're currently hidden) and recognize that not everybody wants the "American Dream" of a five-acre plot in East Bethel or somewhere else out in the boonies or a smaller version of such here in Minneapolis. Developers want these, of course, because they're far more profitable than building urban housing due to the misguided way we value land. I think it's long overdue that we institute some kind of "sprawl tax" on either developers or house buyers who insist on tearing up farmland or prairies for housing developments and add those revenues to a brownfield/urban redevelopment fund. > 1. Expand the MUSA Line. Not hold it in place. The current policy is > driving the cost of housing inside the Musa line to stratospheric heights. > This is good for those who already own, but bad for all others. For those unfamiliar, MUSA is the sewer lines. My understanding of Met Council's process is that they extend sewer lines upon approval of a local government's planned development. If a local government follows Met Council's development guidelines, then Met Council will extend the lines. If not, then the development gets to dig wells or it doesn't happen. So when developers cry about being "penned-in" by MUSA, what they're really saying is that they don't want to play by the guidelines Met Council lays out. Some will ask why Met Council gets to set rules for things like that and the reason is because they oversee waste water treatment - making sure that what we put into the sewers is sufficiently cleaned up before being discharged back into surface waters or rivers. If Met Council simply extended MUSA to anyone who asked, our currently overtaxed water treatment plants would have long since been overwhelmed. How many of us want to pony up more of our tax dollars for another water treatment plant so Woodbury can expand out to Wisconsin? Not me. > 2. Met should quit dictating to suburban officials as to what to build. > Suburban developers and the suburban govt's will always want to spit the > bit. It slows down all development when the Met puts obstacles in the way. I'm not sure what "spit the bit" refers to, but when suburban officials wake up and start focusing a little less on NIMBY and a little more on offering variety and choices for housing development, including *gasp* affordable housing and access to transit for "those kinds of people" - then Met Council would no longer need to dictate anything to the 'burbs. And it's shortsighted developments like those going on in Woodbury or East Bethel that *should* be slowed down and rethought. > 3. Those involved with housing please weigh in here. I am sure to get the > standard Met Council/New urbanist responses. They do not build own or > manage. Let's hear from people who actually are involved in risking their > own resources in the housing business. Not those who spend other people's > (re: taxpayers) money. Must one be a housing provider to have a meaningful opinion? I should think my status as a taxpayer whose money Met Council is operating with would lend some value to my opinion. One thing that our oftentimes shortsighted developers and local governments fail to realize is that our housing choices have much broader impacts than things like sewer lines and plot sizes. We already know about the congestion problems caused by folks who insist on living in Maple Grove and working in Eagan. Smarter development practices are a way to alleviate that without having to knock down more Minneapolis homes to expand 35W or Hwy 62 even more. Also coming in the next 10-20 years will be the realization among many of the suburbanites as they get older that they no longer want the five acre "American Dream". They no longer want to have to drive five miles just to go pick up a gallon of milk. Some may no longer be able to drive. There was an excellent editorial on this published last November on the effects of sprawl on the aging. You can find it reprinted on the University of Minnesota Institute on Race and Poverty web site: http://www1.umn.edu/irp/publications/agingandsprawl.html The latest issue of Minnesota magazine (for U of MN alumni) also has an interesting article entitled "On Race and Space", that discusses the impacts of sprawl on people of color. One example from the article is Detroit - it's a doughnut of affluence out in the suburbs and a gaping hole of neglect in the inner-ring area. It is estimated that there are something like 40,000 abandoned homes in inner-city Detroit. While Minneapolis is not likely to get this bad anytime soon, it's something we need to be aware of and we need to be proactive to avoid. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find yet an online version of this article. I'm hoping that the U of MN IRP will post one soon and if/when they do, I'll make sure to let everyone know. Mark Snyder Ward 1/Windom Park [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
