On Wed, 2004-05-05 at 23:00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > The following email was received from the Minneapolis Consortium of Community > Developers: > > Dear Housing Committee Members, > > On Friday, April 30th a motion was made by Council Members Johnson, > Johnson-Lee and Samuels to impose a moratorium on new construction in North > Minneapolis. The motion was made in response to concerns about > prefabricated housing on the North Side, but applies to all new > construction. The moratorium is being taken up by the Zoning & Planning > Committee tomorrow morning (May 6th) at 9:30am. A public hearing will > probably be called in the next few weeks.
What is this? The "kill affordable housing" act? The "reduce livability by increasing the number of vacant lots" act? The "we know better than you what kind of house you should buy" act? What, exactly, is wrong with prefabricated housing? Everything I've been seeing and reading about home construction (including a fabulous art exhibit at the Walker last year) indicates to me that prefabrication is a growing trend and that houses built in this fashion are more likely to use modern, more efficient materials in a cost-effective manner. Is there something actually wrong with the housing stock being built in North Minneapolis? Every single new house I've seen built in the six years I've lived in North Minneapolis has looked perfectly acceptable to me (not that I'm even remotely expert on the topic). I would love to hear of even one concrete example of what kind of house this moratorium is intended to prevent. How, exactly, does blanket denial of new construction help anyone? How many perfectly acceptable homes will NOT be built as a result of a desire to keep some allegedly unacceptable homes out? Even proposing this moratorium strikes me as an irresponsible use of government resources as there will now be extensive use of time and money just to discuss and finalize anything of this nature (not to mention the added expense of the "waiver" process mentioned in the Council's meeting minutes from 4/30). Those resources should be used to work on the serious, ongoing problems the North Side has, not to inhibit development. - Michael C. Libby, Cleveland Neighborhood. REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
