Last month Mayor Jacob Frey, Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, State legislators, labor leaders, developers, housing and environmental advocates applauded legislation passed during the 2024 legislative session allowing the City of Minneapolis to resume housing development under the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan. After being stuck in a years-long court battle, state lawmakers passed a bill that resolved the legal challenge under the 2040 Plan that gave rise to the lawsuit. The legislation allows the City of Minneapolis to move forward with permitting long-stalled multi-unit housing projects.
The Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan was passed in 2019 and was the guiding vision for shaping how the city will grow and change for the next 20 years. This includes historic zoning reforms to allow for a diversity of use in all neighborhoods across the city.
“In the four plus years since the Minneapolis 2040 plan has been in place, we are seeing that bold land use policies intended to address our city’s housing shortage are working to produce more housing choices in more neighborhoods. The City is increasing housing supply while growing in a sustainable way that protects the environment through implementation of Minneapolis 2040, along with other comprehensive policy documents like the Climate Equity Action Plan and the Transportation Action Plan,” said City Planning Director Meg McMahan.
In part due to the 2040 Plan, Minneapolis has seen record-breaking levels of affordable rental housing units produced in the past several years, while also keeping rents at some of the lowest rates in the country.
Since 2018, the City of Minneapolis has invested more than $360 million into affordable rental housing and homeownership programs.