The City's Apartment Complex

Minneapolis has a serious obsessive-compulsive Apartment Complex.

As discussed in the previous post, the City of Minneapolis has been on a toot in remaking the Wedge a neighborhood of high-density, absentee-owned investment properties. Outside the Greenway, the City's favored developers are Drew Levin and Danny Perkins (a.k.a. KLP, Farkas Wagner,
D&D Reality Holdings, DDMZ Real Estate, Lotterman-Madan, 2817 Girard Avenue, Turkey Guys, Renovate to Rent). They have wrecked four older buildings and are about to wreck a fifth for new apartment buildings.
In early March, KLP reduced this house at 2424 Lyndale Avenue South:

to this (remaining leaded windows and all):

 to make way for a building looking something like this:

Even though the old house had been owned by a succession of notable people, including Ralph M Wheelock (Minneapolis Tribune political editorial writer, Secretary to Minnesota Governor Adolph Eberhart, and chairman of the state prison board), the wrecking permit sailed through City government. No historical review, no comment about scale, no notice to surrounding property owners. 

On the 2000 block of Bryant, another proposal by Levin and Perkins to wreck and redevelop also breezed through City Hall.  KLP's proposed 10-unit apartment building at 2008 Bryant was approved by Planning without comment, despite a number of departures from zoning regulations:trash containers allowed on the property line, only two on-site parking spaces, severe reduction of the green space and landscaping next to a driveway, a tight 6' turning radius in a driveway. Variances such as these have been rejected by City planners in other neighborhoods, but in the Wedge anything goes for developers. (See UPDATE at end of post..)

 Many sections of the Zoning Code say, "as determined by Zoning Administrator." If there is a question about compliance for a Wedge project, it is referred to the zoning administration manager for the neighborhood, Jason Wittenberg--and surprise! Jason Wittenberg determines that the project doesn't have to comply. Wittenberg gives projects an easy pass, no matter how far they depart from the zoning code, while in other neighborhoods, they would have been subjected to serious scrutiny and required to comply. How has it come about that in the Wedge development projects sail through City Council and Planning without comment? Let me count the ways: 1. CM Lisa Bender and 2. Jason Wittenberg.

At 2008 Bryant a single family house on a single lot is going to be replaced with a four-story ticky-tacky stucco-panel box covering the entire lot, with only two parking spaces, accessed by a driveway shared with the single-family house next door. To CM Bender and CPED (Planning), as represented by Jason Wittenberg, this box on steroids is appropriate infill development in the North Wedge--whereas in other neighborhoods such as Marcy-Holmes or Linden Hills, it wouldn't have stood a chance of being passed "as is."

Let's look at an even more flagrant departure from zoning compliance: the Graves hotel proposal for the Lake and Emerson intersection just south of the Greenway. Despite being far from complying with existing zoning, the hotel proposal was approved, per usual, with nary a second glance, by Jason Wittenberg. On March 3rd, came the second of the 1-2 developer punch. The City Zoning and Planning Committee, chaired by CM Bender, denied an appeal by a neighbor who challenged the City Planning Commission’s decision to grant the hotel developers a conditional use permit for height, as well as several variances. 

The Graves hotel proposal, as envisioned by the developer.

Ignoring the Small Area Plan for Uptown, zoning, and environmental concerns, the Z&P committee gave the go-ahead for a 6-story, 123-room hotel with no on-site parking on a block surrounded by two-story residences.  Even former Hennepin County Attorney Tom Johnson, who represented the neighbors at the hearing, could not persuade the Z&P committee from approving this Incredible Hulk development in Uptown. If it's in Uptown, if it's in the Wedge, the City wants to keep on biggering and biggering.

"Biggering" by Noot

A list of the donors from the real estate industry and real estate development sector to each Minneapolis City Council member in 2015 is informative. At the top of the list is none other than CM Lisa Bender (Ward 10) with 25 out of 36 contributors from those industries (69.4%)..Second highest percentage of contributors from real estate and development is Kevin Reich (Ward 1) with 10/21 (47.62%), followed by Andrew Johnson (Ward 12) 23/65 (35.38%) and Lisa Goodman (Ward 7) 12/34 (35.29%). Jacob Frey (Ward 3) is fifth, with 67/223 (30.03%).  Seven other council members (Gordon, B. Johnson, Yang, Warsame, Cano, Quincy, Palmisano) list under 20% of their donors from these sectors. (In her report Ward 8 CM Glidden said she took no itemizable donations.) 

A short list of developer-donors to CM Bender:
Dan Oberpriller: CPM Development ($220M development pipeline). Also a principal in Lake & Knox, LLC, which pumped groundwater into Lake Calhoun
Nick & Breana Walton: CPM Development; the other principal in Lake & Knox. (See Dan Oberpriller.)
Michael Lander: Demolished two houses for Motiv apartments on the 2300 block of Colfax.
Richard Pakonen: Per PAK Props website: "real estate investment and development focused on urban and in-fill properties"
Andrew Levin, Daniel Perkins: See above.
*For a compete list of numbers of real estate/developer donors to CMs by ward, click here. 
Perhaps even more interesting is this statistic: 17 of CM Bender's real estate/developer donors contributed to no other council member but Bender in 2015. These donors are putting all their dollars into one council member's basket, Ms. Bender's in the 10th Ward (Wedge, Uptown). Hmm.

CM Lisa Bender, promoter of high-density development in the Wedge, is fond of boasting about her support for affordable housing. The standard definition of "affordable" housing is that it take up no more than 30% of household income. According to MNCompass's most recent figures, the median income for Wedge households is $48k. That means that to be affordable for half of Wedge households, housing should cost no more than $1,200 a month. 35% of Wedge households have a household income of $35,000 or less. Affordable rent for them is $875 or less. How many units are available for family housing in the new Wedge apartment buildings at these rates? Zero.

Meanwhile, in Seattle,as in Minneapolis, the wrecking and gentrification continue.

The City government seems quite excited by the billions of dollars being invested in high-density real estate development in Minneapolis, the vast majority with "unaffordable" rents. The City aims to make way for 50,000 new residents, housing them in these new apartment complexes. In 2014-2015 around 9,000 new "market rate" housing units were added to Minneapolis. Over 20,000 more new units are in the works for the city.

Could there be too many "market rate" or above apartments being constructed in the city? Is this overbuilding going to wind up with some investors losing their shirts? The City Council and the City planning department (CPED), the banks, real estate investors and speculators don't seem to think so--or don't care.  If a development is planned for the Wedge or Uptown, the City is all for it. Anything goes. What, them worry about the billions of dollars in debt being accumulated by banks and investors in this current building boom?

Out of scale, unaffordable, noncompliant with zoning--the apartment building boom rolls through Uptown and the inner Wedge, enabled by CM Lisa Bender and Jason Wittenberg in particular and the City Council and CPED in general. Down with the old, up with the new. Round and round it goes. Where it stops, nobody knows. 
 

Les jeux sont faits.

UPDATE:

The Minneapolis City Planning Commission at its March 28^th meeting approved the Land Use Application, the Site Plan Review, and the process by which the CPC reached its decision.

Minneapolis Neighbors United has filed an appeal to be heard at the Zoning & Planning Committee Meeting,  Thursday, April 21^st. Rm 317 City Hall. 9:30 a.m.

Grounds for the appeal:

 Plans for garbage and recycling storage and removal and snow removal are inadequate.

No landscape buffer at the south lot line and the inclusion of a rooftop deck potentially violate the neighbors' right to quiet enjoyment.

 Incorrect information in the Site Plan Review re: the Uptown Small Area Plan, Historic Preservation, and the Minneapolis City and Metropolitan Council Comprehensive Plans.

 Incomplete Site Plan Review. Methods of Alternative Compliance not provided and relevant public comment not included.

--T.B,