Barbara Lickness wrote:
I am in full agreement that the city needs to change the zoning code to allow for more density. ... That is very dense compared to Mpls. average standards. Probably not as dense if compared to New York standards. [TB] The website http://www.demographia.com/db-90densbypc.htm (this is not a pro-density website) has some population density information. It's for entire SMSAs, but gives some idea of our population density compared with some other areas. 0.3% of our land area is populated at 15,000 per square mile or above, this ranks us 17th (of 33 areas listed) in terms of %age of land area at that density. The top 5 are: New York (6.4%) Los Angeles (6.1%) San Francisco-Oakland (4.6%) Philadelphia (3.7%) Chicago (3.6%) all of which have at least 10 times the portion of their land area that densely populated as we do. When we drop to the percentage of the area populated at 5,000 or more per square mile we are ranked 26th at 10.4% (6.9% between 5,000 and 7,500) where the average SMSA has 17.8% of its area populated at that density. The top 5 change and are: Los Angeles (47.1%) San Jose (39.9%) Miami (38.5%) Sacramento (29.9%) New Orleans (29.0%) or nearly 3 to 4 times what we have. The Eller billboard people say the MSA averages 465/sq mile http://www.sign3.com/sign3/MN-eller.html The top 3 are: Jersey City, NJ 11,880, New York, NY 7,471 and ORANGE COUNTY, CA 3,352. The Sierra Club ranks us among the 10 most sprawl threatened large cities, saying "Taxpayers in the Twin Cities region could save $600 million in public infrastructure costs by concentrating development, these planners say." Barb again: At any rate, this issue falls in the same category as the concentration of poverty and social service issue I have been talking about for a long time. There are a few (and I mean a FEW) "Heroic" neighborhoods that have done their share to accommodate high density, large percentages of affordable housing, big volumes of social service programs, shelters, supportive housing, transitional housing, etc. [TB] I think we need to be careful in linking these issues. Density does not necessarily equal affordability. The high rises near Lake Calhoun are have density and now that they've kicked all the Section 8 out of the Calhoun Beach Club you can certainly find less expensive areas to live. [Barb] There is a very large volume of Fortress neighborhoods that continue to keep the geography in those neighborhoods well out of reach of anyone who is low income or who have any special needs of any kind. <snip> The real question here should be "Is there a willingness on the part of the city, county, or the residents or business owners in the fortress neighborhoods to do their share to accommodate affordable, supportive, transitional, shelter care and other types of housing in their neighborhoods? The type of housing that serves low income people or people with "special needs". >From my eyes, it's not looking too good. [TB] The Minneapolis City Council does not have the guts to stand up against the challenge from any of the neighborhood groups who disagree with anything proposed for their particular neighborhood. The Strib hit on the problem a while back in an editorial. It impedes good planning and unfortunately with the lack of cooperation from the 'burbs we don't have effective regional planning either which is much of the reason we are so sparsely populated. There is no reason to build a single story commercial structure. Low rise commercial structures should have housing on top of it (not that high rise commercial structures shouldn't too). [Barb again]: Mayor Rybaks and the city councils answer to this problem is the repeal the quarter mile spacing requirement or dilute its power through what is defined in these categories. ... The city and county can continue to concentrate every facility that no other neighborhood will take here and our neighborhoods will have no legal avenue to question anything. [TB] Is there a better spacing requirement? I ask that because I'm not sure that I look at locating near a facility that has 3 or 4 residents the same as one that has 15 or 20. Maybe some consideration for natural dividing lines such as the Mississippi River. Whittier and Phillips clearly aren't the places to put many of these facilities although I'm not sure a senior assisted living facility should be an issue anywhere. [Barb again with an excellent idea]: I haven't heard anything about a proposal to increase density. Like raising all R1 or R2 zoned properties to R5's. I would love to be at the public hearing if that gets presented. [TB] Why not a single residential zoning? (I'm not sure how big an R5 allows). I can understand not wanting to plop a manufacturing facility in the middle of a residential area, but we're talking residences here. More density will attract more services to the area which makes things better for everyone. Terrell Brown Loring Park terrell at terrellbrown dot org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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