Affordable Housing, Gentrification, and Bendrification

Minneapolis is undergoing an affordable housing crisis, a crisis that affected residents feel all too painfully, but is virtually ignored or plastered over with lies by the City government. The City has been busy implementing its scheme for the construction of 25,000 new housing units, attracting investors and developments by pointing to the low vacancy rates. New condos and apartments keep going up. Older units are rehabbed, with "sizzle" added. Old apartment buildings are converted to condos. And as these new units go into the housing market, the rents go up and up. The new luxury housing units fill up, while those who can no long afford "market rate" or higher rents, are forced into other neighborhoods or third-ring suburbs.

A study by The Economist last year found that Minneapolis has the third highest cost of living of all North American cities. Much of the cost is related to high utility bills from heating and cooling. Housing costs are far lower than in cities like New York and San Francisco. However, since the cost of living here is already so high due to other factors, even a modest increase in rent can send it over the top.

You tell 'em. John. True in 1690, true today.

Over the past decade in the Wedge, thousands of "market rate" and luxury housing units have been built. Many other previously affordable units have been redone--often with more jazz than substance--and rented out at top dollar. Seven old houses have been torn down and replaced with upscale multi-unit rental buildings.

It's obvious that the City has facilitated wholesale gentrification in the neighborhood and in adjacent Uptown. Yet the faux-urbanist proponents of these thousands of new luxury condos and apartments don't like the word. Don't say the "g" word! We wouldn't want the new tenants to feel guilty about shoving out those of lesser means. We wouldn't want to tar these shiny new luxury pads with the brush of social irresponsibility. We wouldn't want to spotlight the fact that the City itself is the prime mover in the affordable housing crisis.

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.

But that's what it is: gentrification, in basic terms, the process of an influx of wealthier people displacing people of more limited means. What is happening in the Wedge is different in significant ways from the gentrification that displaced thousands of residents in Los Angeles, Brooklyn and Harlem. First, the Wedge never had a significant cultural or racial minority population. Second, the Wedge is not a blighted area (as are indeed a number of Minneapolis neighborhoods that the City doesn't give a hoot about.) But it is gentrification nonetheless.


The first wave of gentrification took place in the 1970s, when the Wedge was on the skids, the Haight-Ashbury of the Twin Cities. Young people (myself included) bought old, often ramshackle houses and started to fix them up. LHENA was formed, and Wedge activists re-routed commuter traffic, put in a neighborhood park, started Minnesota's first food co-op, called in housing violations by slumlords--and in so doing, made the neighborhood a safer, more attractive place to live. Of course, housing values and rents went up. You can call this "revitalization", but it fills the definition of gentrification in that by closing down hippie pads, party houses, and drug-infested rooming houses, property became more valuable, and some residents were inevitably forced out.

Wedge housing prices and rents remained stable for three decades, going up in step with the Twin Cities real estate market. And then came the Great Upscale Development Boom described above. In the three and a half years since Lisa Bender became City Council representative for the Tenth Ward, the process of displacement and skyrocketing rents has accelerated to a fever pitch. 

Editorial commentary added to a sign at a new development in Brooklyn.

While the rest of us have been busy going to work, maintaining our homes, feeding our families, paying our taxes, a coalition of City Council members led by CM Bender and supported by City Planning has been busy delivering big parcels of neighborhood real estate to developers. The usual justification for this is "Density!". Using their perverted version of Urbanist theory, the apologists for gentrification keep repeating the rubric that to be great, urban Minneapolis must increase density, access to public transportation, walkability, green living, and above all, density. (Did I already say that?) To them, the New Minneapolis belongs to people like themselves: young, white, privileged, ex-suburbanites who are doing the City a favor by driving out the old NIMBYs and embarrassingly unhip segments of the population like the poor, people of color, and pensioners.

An arnarchist meme. I wonder why a bicycle is included. Hahaha. By Anarchomemes

Last November, I wrote about the City's plan to implement the so-called "Pedestrian Overlay" on Wedge commercial streets ("Pedestrian Overlay Blues"), making the point that this deceptively named plan in reality will primarily benefit the Big Cheeses--the developers who are building the  Density Paradise engineered by CM Bender and pals. Since then, it's become obvious that the City's elimination of street parking in favor of bike lanes and up-against-the-pavement multi-story commercial buildings will be wiping out scores of small businesses. Up and down Lyndale and Hennepin, down Nicollet and across 38th Street, the City is preparing to erase hundreds of parking spaces, spaces that are the commercial life blood of established neighborhood small businesses. Add to that the City's press to implement a $15 minimum wage, and you can kiss dozens of neighborhood restaurants and service businesses goodbye. It's maddening that the City claims to want to help the poor, struggling workers, yet in reality forces them out of the area into inferior housing and puts their employers out of business. Lose, lose. Except, of course, for the developers, the corporate landlords, the investors , the bankers, and the City, which seals its image as the Hip Capital of the Midwest.

Here today, GROM tomorrow/ Gentrification at work in Greenwich Village, NYC: A neighborhood greengrocer and pizza shop replaced by a hip GROM, which will be replaced by something hipper in a year or so.

Yet CM Bender has the gall to get up in public and claim repeatedly that she's the champion of renters and affordable housing. This kind of bald-faced hypocrisy (doing just the opposite of what you're bragging about doing) led one former resident driven out of town by the City's bullshit to coin the term Bendrification. The Bendrificators don't like that term any more than they like the term "gentrification." Both are nevertheless real, and apt.

You don't have to just take my word for it. When you eat at local neighborhood cafes, ask the proprietors what they think of the Bendificators' plans for the commercial streets of South Minneapolis. Ask the small business owners on Lyndale Avenue in the Wedge what they think about the City's plans for biggering (or should the "i" be a "u"?) the streetscape. Ask business owners and residents of Hennepin south of Lake Street what they think of the City's plans to redo the street at their expense. Talk to former Wedge residents displaced by tenants who can--at least for a year or two--pay the "market rate" rent. And you'll find out the cost of Bendrification to renters, businesses, and property owners in the 10th Ward.

Anti-gentrification sign in San Francisco.

Pedestrian Overlay Blues: I'm on the pavement, Thinking 'bout the government

Dependable Tire at 2604 Lyndale Ave. S. in 1961--Hennepin County Library Collection

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself"― Andy Warhol

The 2016 election is over. Those who followed it are exhausted, dismayed, bummed, whatever. During the bruising campaign, many people, including myself, were only half-heartedly following what has been going on down at Minneapolis City Hall. But while we were distracted, much has been happening down there that needs our attention.

Council Chambers at Minneapolis City Hall

First and foremost, citizen input is being shut down at an alarming rate. Gone are the days of developers taking proposals to neighborhood groups for lengthy discussion (for example, the months of ongoing debate about the demolition of the Orth House for Motiv Apartments). Instead, developers go directly to City Planning, the Planning Commission, and City Zoning and Planning Committee, and have their proposals rubber-stamped virtually without public comment. Then the proposal is put on the consent agenda, the Council votes on it without a public hearing, and voila, done and done! Slick.


Take, for instance, the so-called "Hennepin Lyndale Nicollet PO (Pedestrian Overlay) Study," introduced by the City at a quiet "kickoff" on June 1, 2016. (Read the details of this proposal on the City web site here.). This proposed zoning change is very complex and has many parts. Although it's called a "study", it's not; no official studies of related issues were done. In addition, the word "pedestrian" is misleading because the zoning changes relate to future development on these streets, not pedestrian issues. The Planning Commission did hold a public hearing, but during the day when most people are working. At the hearing the PC spent so much time on another  agenda item proposed by the PC  itself that they had little time for discussion about the PO "Study". The commission refused to hold an additional public hearing and placed it on the consent agenda at City Zoning and Planning. Done and done.

Most people would rather have their eye poked with a stick than have to read and digest all of the details posted on the website. So here it is in a nutshell: The PO zoning proposal represents the City's ongoing campaign to facilitate new developments on these commercial streets, on Lyndale Avenue in particular. Cars are out. Goodbye parking spaces, car-related businesses, and drive-through facilities. Hello, even more parking nightmares inside the neighborhood. Green spaces are out; pavement is in. Small businesses in small buildings are out; commercial rentals in large buildings hastily and cheaply built, of similar uninspired design, all with the same setback are in. Goodbye, houses and small commercial buildings. Hello, new four-story and some six-story commercial buildings.

Existing car-related business will stay, but they will not be allowed to change anything on their sites. Same for fast-food outlets of all stripe, even hipster favorites like Chipotle. (Is the City frustrated and angry that the 1980's McDonald's at Hennepin and Lagoon is hogging a prime development site with its big parking lot and drive-through? If only they could get around the grandfathering protections!)

Looking out on Lagoon from inside the Uptown McDonald's

Some people might find this vision of big, new developments on Lyndale Avenue appealing, but that's beside the point. The big problem is that the City is promoting and rushing through this major change with no regard for critically important related issues. No research has been done on the impact of this zoning change on the environment, traffic flow, affordable rents, water drainage, area small businesses, and property taxes. At stake are so many quality of life issues for the adjoining neighborhoods, the Wedge in particular. To make matters worse, if passed, this PO cannot be challenged by an appeal because it will then be part of the zoning code, a City sacred cow.

 Forgive me if this sounds cynical, but my perception is that if you write comments--comments critical of City planning and development proposals, they more than likely go directly into the virtual wastebasket at City Hall. If some criticisms are too hot to ignore, a city planner is given the task of plannersplaining the justification to an unenlightened public. If there is a public hearing, some CMs, notably CM Lisa Bender, chair of Z&P, make their contempt for citizens known by looking at the cell phones in their laps throughout public testimony. It's no wonder people give up on citizen participation.

Northeast corner, Lake and Lyndale, 1974--Minnesota Historical Society

Want change? There will always be change. The important thing is who manages, controls, and benefits from the changes. The future is very uncertain for the nation, state, and our city. Power-drunk, development-happy City officials are making Minneapolis less liveable by the month, especially for people of modest and limited means--which means most of us. Banks, developers, and real estate brokers and speculators are the ones benefiting from these changes, not homeowners and small business owners and landlords.

Prepare yourself for the upcoming city and state election campaigns. Decide what you want your community to look like five years from now. And, please, don't say you're moving to Canada. Trust me, they don't want you.

Minneapolis, love it and stay here.

Reurbanism. Saving places. National Trust for Historic Preservation

Act Now. Appeal Hearing 2008 Bryant April 21st

UPDATE: APPEAL DENIED

In a unanimous vote, the Z&P Committee voted to deny the appeal. The Wedge neighbors who filed the appeal thank all who supported us. But this is only the initial skirmish in the war against the demolitions and ugly, unaffordable infill monstrosities by Drew Levin and Danny Perkins (a.k.a. LLCs KLP Realty, D&D Reality Holdings, DDMZ Real Estate, Lotterman-Madan, 2817 Girard Avenue, Farkas Wagner). Levin and Perkins and the City of Minneapolis have been put on notice. As CM Lisa Goodman said at the hearing, the opposition to these projects will continue and get stronger. And you can take that to the bank. Literally.

                         ____________________________

In the past 14 months, developers have bulldozed 7 buildings in the Wedge for high-rent apartment buildings. The City of Minneapolis is facilitating the destruction of affordable housing, replacing it with upscale rentals. Wedge development proposals breeze through City Hall without regard to zoning and other regulations.

An agency of the City has rubberstamped DDMZ's (a.k.a. Drew Levin and Danny Perkins) development project, 2008 Bryant Avenue Apartments, without proper review or consideration. At a rigged public hearing on March 8th, the City Planning Commission approved the Land Use Application, the Site Plan Review, and the process by which the CPC reached its decision.

      Bulldozed. Again.  Act Now!
    Appeal Hearing for a Development that's WRONG for the Wedge. 
Minneapolis Neighbors United has filed an appeal to be heard at the Zoning and Planning Committee Meeting.
   Thursday, April 21st. Room 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.

STOP Ugly, Unaffordable, Unsustainable Development

Contact the members of the members of the Z&P Committee and tell the City what you think of it rubberstamping the 2008 Bryant development proposal.
Please reference Permit #Bzz-7594 2008 Bryant Avenue Apts.

Email your comments by April 20th to : Councilcomment@minneapolismn.gov  --or--
Call the Z&P Members at 612.673-22XX: Lisa Bender (2210), Andrew Johnson (2212), Kevin Reich (2201), Barbara Johnson (2204), Abdi Warsame (2206), Lisa Goodman (2207)

                 Our Homes.  Our City.  Our Voices.

The historic Orth House, bulldozed February 2015. Affordable housing for 22 people, many of them Vietnam veterans.

What replaced it--Motiv Apartments, done in minimalist correctional facility style, with high $$$ rents. Only four out of 42 units rented to date. Ugly, unaffordable, unsustainable development.

--T.B.   
 
 


 

Daredevil, Gentrification, NIMBYs and the Neighborhood

NIMBY: "not in my backyard: used to express opposition by local citizens to the locating in their neighborhood of a civic project, as a jail, garbage dump, or drug rehabilitation center, that, though needed by the larger community, is considered unsightly, dangerous, or likely to lead to decreased property values."--Dictionary.com. 

Please note that the dictionary definition of NIMBY does not include people who resist the displacement of neighbors by luxury real estate development.


                                            *                          *                         *

Last year, Marvel's "Daredevil" leaped out of the small screen via Netflix to millions of viewers worldwide. The story of a blind New York native fighting to save his neighborhood, "Daredevil" was heralded as "TV's first gentrification-fighting superhero."

By day, the title figure is Matt Murdock, a young attorney. Murdock and his partner Foggy Nelson use their newly-formed practice to defend Hell's Kitchen residents of limited means who are being forced out of their homes by a big-time developer and his associates. Unlike billionaire superhero Bruce Wayne (Batman), Murdock operates frequently in the red (pun intended). He lives in a dingy warehouse walk-up flat. He and Foggy struggle to pay their bills and their assistant Karen's wages. Their clients are the poor, the down-on-their-luck, the marginalized.

Murdock is blind, but he can hear and smell exceptionally well.

Murdock's adversary is heavyweight real estate developer Wilson Fisk. A native of Hell's Kitchen, too, Fisk had a disadvantaged and dysfunctional childhood. His collaborators are heads of crime syndicates, bankers, and corrupt police and city officials. What he can't acquire through money, Fisk acquires through violence.

Unlike many superheroes, Daredevil frequently gets the crap beat out of him. One wonders how he can even walk the day after a fight--and sometimes, he can't. He's laid up for days recuperating from being battered, sliced and diced by criminals and those hired by uber-criminals  like Fisk. The human persona, Murdock, fights these same elements as a lawyer, and finds the violence spilling over into the daylight neighborhood as well.

Both Murdock and Fisk like to talk about "my city,"as if each feels he somehow owns it. Murdock doesn't like the old neighbors being replaced by affluent newcomers. He hates to see affordable, rent-controlled old apartment buildings replaced by luxury condos and lofts. He wants to save his city from the corrupting influence of big money and power. On the other hand, Fisk thinks he's doing "his city" a service by removing those who can't afford the fine dining, upscale living, and cultivated tastes of the upwardly mobile.

Fisk: Are you there? Can you hear me?
Daredevil: Who is this?
Fisk: I think you know. You've been asking about me. I thought it was time we spoke.
Daredevil: Say your name.
Fisk: You first. That's what I thought. You and I have a lot in common.
Daredevil: We're nothing alike.
Fisk: That's what you'll tell yourself.
Daredevil: You're feeding off this city like a cancer.
Fisk: I want to save this city, like you... only on a scale that matters.

Boom! There goes the neighborhood. Fisk blows up parts of Hell's Kitchen to seize it for development.

If Daredevil/Murdock lived in the Wedge, his attempts to stop the wrecking of old buildings and the building of thousands of high-rent units would be met with a cry of "NIMBY!" from local development supporters. NIMBY is a term accurately applied to hypocrites like the pro-fracking Exxon oil CEO who sued to stop fracking near his multi-million dollar home. NIMBYs want to stop half-way houses, Section 8 housing construction, thrift shops, but they aren't against luxury condos and trendy new apartments. The relentless cry of development boosters is a kind of NIMBY-Tourette's, the accusation hurled again and again at those who don't like the escalating wrecking and building of high-density high-rent units in the neighborhood. It's an egregious misuse of the term, designed to shut up complainants. And so far, that's what it's done.

Unlike NIMBYs, Wedge residents want more affordable housing for both renters and homeowners. But thanks to the City, the banks, the corporate media, and local developers, the Wedge is being crammed with high-priced units, units that are proving slow to fill up, with the more expensive places having the highest vacancy rates.

In a breathtaking display of hypocrisy, 10th Ward CM Lisa Bender and her supporters spout oral formulaic about "affordable housing" and "green living" while methodically destroying affordable housing and replacing it with unaffordable housing, raising rents and taxes--and sending thousands of tons of reusable buildings to the landfill. The City Planning Commission, City Council, CPED (Planning), and CM Bender have their chosen developers, Drew Levine and Danny Perkins (a.k.a. KLP Realty Holdings, D&D Realty Holdings, DDMZ REal Estate, Lotterman-Madan, 2817 Girard), whose projects are rubber-stamped without comment, no matter how far they stray from City zoning and other regulations. Yet CM Bender and her acolytes have the gall to call their detractors NIMBYs--which is the exact opposite of what those opposing her pet development projects are.

If you're going to call names, at least use an appropriate epithet, DIMBYs.

Case in point: 2008 Bryant Ave. S. The existing house was sold to KLP (Levin and Perkins) immediately after being listed, before any other interested parties could react. KLP quickly came up with plans for demolishing the house and replacing it with a four-story, ten-unit apartment box. The proposal--despite its requiring significant variances from the City zoning code--breezed easily through the first steps for approval by the City, through CPED and through the Planning Commission. No notices were sent to surrounding property owners, the City's new stealth policy about neighborhood development. Last Friday, March 28th,Wedge neighbors went to the Planning Commission hearing to see what would be said about KLP's 2008 Bryant proposal, #3 on the agenda.  They got there at 4:38 to find a note on the door advising them that items #1 and #3 had already been approved. When they went in, the commission members were discussing item #2.  The commission gave the reason that no one was there to testify, so why not just skip over #2, and approve #3 out of order? Right.

Daredevil looks down on the mean streets of Marvel's Hell's Kitchen

Wedge residents who are trying to stem the tide of luxury condos and high-rent apartments think of Minneapolis as "our city." We hate seeing a battalion of real estate speculators and developers bulldozing their way through our neighborhood. We hate it when many Wedge residents can no longer afford the rents or taxes on their homes. We hate it when our streetscapes are being littered with ticky-tacky architectural monstrosities. We hate it when our streets are becoming packed with vehicles. We hate it when Levin and Perkins acquire the homes of  resistant sellers by making offers that they can't refuse, premiums of tens of thousands of dollars that no other buyers can match. We don't want these things in our back yards for good reason.

But most of all, we hate it when we feel that the City is not listening to us, that citizens' voices are being methodically silenced in public discourse, that local government has gotten out of the control of City voters and into the control of moneyed interests. Sound familiar? This sense that government representatives on all levels are becoming increasingly disconnected from the people they allegedly represent is a loud complaint coming from both left and right wings in the current presidential campaigns. The ones that understandably don't want this situation to change are the ones who brought us to this sad pass in the first place--the political establishment. Both parties have a lot to answer for, but in Minneapolis, the one-party town, the party that needs to start listening to the electorate is the DFL. From where I sit, the only representative who is making an effort to listen to his constituents is Keith Ellison. For City officials, especially CM Bender, there's only self-righteous, self-serving political theater.

But--returning to Hell's Kitchen--don't kid yourself. The kind of gentrification we're seeing in the Wedge has been going on in New York neighborhoods for decades. The real Hell's Kitchen--not the Marvel one--has already been given over to the gentrifiers--the luxury developments, the upscale restaurants, the fitness centers. And that's what makes "Daredevil" so poignant, yet terrifying.

What is satisfying about the Netflix "Daredevil" narrative is that we can clearly identify who's fighting whom. Fisk is a larger-than-life figure, a powerful man who talks directly with those fighting him. He reminds the officials he's bought who's boss and what will happen to them if they don't perform. He does not hide behind a corporate veil. He doesn't play a real estate shell game using a dozen LLCs and multiple surrogates. He doesn't have private meetings with city officials to hide what he's really up to. Fisk stands up for what he believes in, no matter how twisted it may seem to others.

Fisk in his office. Prominently visible behind him is a copy of Robert Caro's 1974 biography of NYC urban planner Robert Moses.

Fisk may be a ruthless real estate developer, but his motives are pure. He loves Hell's Kitchen, his home since birth, and wants to improve it.  But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions--in his case, megalomaniacal good intentions. Venal Minneapolis city officials, armed with their corrupted version of current urban planning theory (a la Fisk and Robert Moses), have turned over the Wedge to rapacious developers. Who's going to stop them? Does anyone know Daredevil's phone number?

At the end of the second season, Daredevil is farther than ever from his goal of saving his neighborhood. He's nearly been killed, he's lost friends, he is battered and unsure of what to do next. But the satisfying thing about him is that though he may lose his way, he never doubts his goal of protecting his neighbors and neighborhood he loves from the ravages of greed and corruption.
 

                                      Whose city is it? Ours? Or the developers'?
 --T.B.

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,  

Don't Mess Around with the Demolition Men

1963-1975: 100+ Wedge houses wrecked for apartment buildings.
1975-2015: 0 Wedge houses wrecked for apartment buildings.
February 2015-February 2016: Wedge houses wrecked for apartment buildings:

2320 Colfax
2316 Colfax
2808 Colfax
2743 Dupont
2809 Girard
2815 Girard
2821 Girard
2424 Lyndale
*2008 Bryant 
*slated for demo soon

Michael Lander and At Home Apartments brought the first two down for what is now Motiv Apartments. But all the rest are the work of Drew Levin and Danny Perkins of KLP Realty (a.k.a. D&D Reality Holdings, DDMZ Real Estate, Lotterman-Madan, 2817 Girard Avenue, Farkas Wagner).

Along with their financial partner, Steven Kalin, Levin and Perkins own dozens of properties in Minneapolis, including 26 in the Wedge:
         1008 W. 26th Street
         2344 Aldrich Ave. S.
         2008, 2113, 2612 Bryant
         2612, 2621, 2808, 2814 Colfax
         2521, 2557, 2612, 2644, 2701, 2725, 2743 Dupont
         2812 Fremont
         2700, 2709, 2715, 2809, 2815, 2821, 2828, 2832 Girard
         2424 Lyndale

Do their names sound familiar? That may be because Drew Levin and Danny Perkins are the stars of HGTV's "Renovate to Rent" series, described on the network website this way: "Real estate agent Drew Levin and his partner, contractor Danny Perkins, have been friends since college and now run a successful renovation business together.  They strategically buy old or foreclosed homes in desirable locations, but rather than flipping them for a quick profit, they Renovate to Rent.  Using specific design plans, they transform these homes to attract top rental dollar.  Even though they’re young, they already own and manage over 70 homes, and the number just keeps growing."

But instead of flipping seven of these "for a quick profit," they are demolishing them and building apartment buildings for even bigger profits.

Last year, KLP wrecked this 1880s duplex at 2743 Dupont:

And replaced it with this four-story thing that towers over its neighbors:

Then they wrecked this bungalow on 2800 block of Girard and the two houses to its north for an apartment building now under construction:

2821 Girard Ave. S. before demo by KLP

The living room of 2821

The new DUMP, er, KLP apartment building on 2800 block of Girard

                                                             Bette Davis comments.
The next wrecking is planned for 2424 Lyndale Ave. S. The replacement appears to be a clone of the 2743 monstrosity.

 2424 Lyndale before demo

UPDATE: 2424 Lyndale being wrecked, March 7, 2016

KLP's most recent project, their second Wedge apartment building, is slated to replace the house at 2008 Bryant Ave. S.  Plans for the new building show a  four-story stucco box containing 10 units with small, cramped rooms, covering most of the lot. Despite the fact that the building will house at least 10 tenants and as many as 20, plans call for only two parking spaces. That's because the orthodoxy of Minneapolis City Planning insists that everyone should be walking, biking, or taking mass transportation, not driving. If you are a tenant with a car, you'll just have to join the melee for spaces out on the streets of the Wedge.
 

Bummer: Your car is wedged in so tight, you can't get your bike onto your car's bike carrier. At 4 p.m. today I walked the 2800 blocks of Fremont and Girard. There was not one open parking space on these blocks.

KLP's demolitions and replacements with new higher-density apartment buildings have been done with the approval of the City of Minneapolis, notably of 10th Ward Council Member Lisa Bender. Again, planning orthodoxy demands that the City provide medium- and high-density housing for the 50,000 new residents it hopes to attract. But for some reason, this high density housing winds up being built in the Wedge by demolishing and rebuilding, rather than on the North Side, where scores of lots remain vacant. And the new Wedge apartment units are far from affordable; instead, the new ones replace ones that did have modest rents.


When will the wrecking end in the Minneapolis? It's hard to say. Perhaps when this fantasy-driven high-density building craze ends in a crash, perhaps when the area zoned for higher density is filled.  What area is this?  Take a look at this zoning map. Any building outside the pale yellow area is potentially in danger. The areas most in danger are the Wedge apex north of 26th Street and the area just north of the Greenway.

Endangered: the remaining houses on the 2700 and 2800 blocks of Girard and other blocks around 28th Street.

For decades the neighborhood association repeatedly petitioned the City to downzone the area north of 26th. It hasn't happened yet, and given the current political climate, certainly won't in the near future. The City wants more young affluent suburbanites and well-to-do retirees and fewer of the motley assortment of renters of modest means.

This afternoon the City Council sent a clear signal to neighborhoods in approving the Graves hotel at Emerson and Lake in Uptown: Whatever developers want, they get. The City has scrapped the Small Area Plan, zoning, and environmental concerns in favor of a development which, at six-stories, is way out of scale with the surrounding houses. It will certainly lower the property values and attractiveness of the houses around it, but who cares? Density is all.

The rising sun illuminates the six-story hotel coming to Emerson and Lake. No traffic, no traffic lights, no nearby buildings, no trash. Just an empty horizon full of promise.

What's your vision for the Wedge and other Minneapolis neighborhoods? If the City and KLP get their way, we'll see more big, chintzy boxes out of scale with the neighborhood and fewer of the old houses that have been the trademark of the Wedge and other Uptown neighborhoods for decades.

        "Tied to the tracks and the train's fast coming
          Strapped to the wing with the engine running
          You say that this wasn't in your plan
          And don't mess around with the demolition man
          Tied to a chair, and the bomb is ticking
          This situation was not of your picking
          You say that this wasn't in your plan
          And don't mess around with the demolition man."
                  --from "Demolition Man" by Sting 1993

First to go down: 2320 Colfax, the Orth House

--T.B.

Zoned Out in Gopher City

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a conference on “Building the Urban Utopia: A Blueprint for the Competitive Global City.” The featured speakers were part of a contingent from Gopher City, MN:  Phillip Space, internationally renowned architect and author of “Den$ity for Dummies,” Gopher City Council Member Malcolm “Mal” Feasants, and city planner Uriah Heep IV.

MAL FEASANTS: I’m delighted to be invited to speak on the wonders of the high-density urban neighborhoods we’re rebuilding in Gopher City. The first step in this process is clearing old buildings, old people, bellyaching minorities, and the financially disadvantaged out of these neighborhoods to make way for new mixed-use commercial buildings and high density housing. It’s easy to do--We just ignore or crush any obstacle that gets in our way, like zoning ordinances or small-area plans. If a developer needs a variance or a zoning change for a new project, we just do it. That’s the beauty of being the government. As chair of the Gopher City Zoning and Planning Committee, I control what goes down and what goes up. The voters gave us a mandate, and we’re doing what’s good for them--even if some of them don’t appreciate it.

URIAH HEEP IV [M.A.,Ph.D. Stalinist Planning and Architecture]: The Gopher City Planning Department is proud to be part of the private-public partnership. We are pleased to assist any and all new development by providing the rationale needed to argue for bypassing regulations. We’re the go-to agency for developers. Who knows the city and its buildings better than we do? Who knows better how to spin the rhetoric, using all the buzzwords: “green”, “transportation nodes”, “bike-friendly”, “affordable”, and so forth? 

 The Chinese know how to do high-density development. Complete government control, planner paradise.“Harmonious Society! Long Live the People!”

PHILLIP SPACE [A.I.A., S.O.B.] May I take a moment to brag about a new project I’m designing, a six-story hotel that developer Hy Density has proposed for Gopher City’s Ro-dense Zone? It’s cheap, it’s right on the bus line, it’s easily accessible to downtown. Who cares if the current zoning doesn’t allow a hotel next to two-story-family housing? Who cares if it doesn’t suit the Ro-dense Zone small-area plan? Who cares if building it requires a conditional use permit and a floor area ratio variance? it’s what the City needs, and Mal, here, knows how to get past these pesky ordinances and get the thing built. We’ll put a bike rack for guests by the lobby entrance. No need for parking spaces. Cars are so 20th-century.

 MAL FEASANTS: One important undertaking we GC CM’s are working on is eliminating every way that citizens can comment on projects. We’re cutting out citizen review boards that allow residents free rein to bitch about what the City is doing or not doing. We still have tiresome hearings which can’t be scrapped--yet. BOR-ING. I would go out of my mind if I didn’t have my smart phone in my lap so I can tweet and look at Facebook posts while these old NIMBYs are cranking away. When they won’t shut up, I just cut the mic. The new Gopher City, love it or leave it. 

Gopher City Council Members at public hearing.

It's essential that we rid our cities of these old knee-jerk jerks who don't appreciate the Brave New World we're fashioning in the old neighborhoods. The time of these superannuated losers has passed and so should they. The new neighborhood belongs to the developers and the young and hip. If someone isn't fit enough to ride a bike or walk to a bus stop, they should be harassed into going somewhere else to die. 

PHILLIP SPACE: Hear, hear, Mal. That reminds me. I must tell you about a brilliant scheme my firm has developed to deal with both senile senior undesirables and our supporters who can't afford the rents in the new buildings. Let me announce the latest in minimalist urban pads: Troll Holes. These young male internet trolls don't have jobs, don't have friends, and don't have lives, so they don't need all the amenities required of hipsterdom. They live online. So we've designed small, windowless one-room underground units with high-speed internet access, so they can spend all their time launching anonymous attacks on the recalcitrant NIMBYs who are such a thorn in the side of the City and developers. The City can subsidize  rents in these Holes, for these young wits are providing an important service to local government. 

We've already cleared the neighborhood of annoying minorities who are always protesting for some lame reason or the other. In the big scheme of building the great metropolis, their lives certainly don't matter. And the poor? They're already on the streets or out in suburban ghettoes. Everyone else can pay up or move out.

 A-hole online in a Troll Hole

URIAH HEEP IV: Great plan, Phil! Now, I’d like to congratulate Minneapolis on the fine job the government has done in converting antiquated cow-town Uptown into a wonder of urban planning. Uptown is very much like our awesomely hip Ro-dense Zone. Thirty years ago we threw out all the bozo small businesses there.  We used tax increment financing and got subsidies by selling the Feds on how the area was blighted. Man, what suckers! It’s taken 30 years, but now we have exactly what we wanted: a place for hipsters, yuppies, bros and suburbanites to party till they puke.

PHILLIP SPACE: Well, friends, it's been fun, but we gotta run. I need to check out several building sites to be bulldozed, and I trust that Mal and Uriah here will keep up the good work running interference for us architects and our developer employers. [Applause]  And remember, as a famous German once said, "The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."

                 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
                                             Praise be to Nero's Neptune.
                                             The Titanic sails at dawn.
                                              Everybody's shouting,
                                              'Which side are you on?'
                                                      --Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row"  1965

                                                   
                             With a tip of the hat to Harry Sinclair Lewis of Gopher Prairie, MN.                                                   

--T.B.