Mapping and Reforming Land-Use Zoning in Minnesota

Reforming Zoning for Sustainable Cities

Existing urban land use rules – or zoning – in most of the Twin Cities do not support a widespread shift to less-carbon intensive transportation choices. Many Minnesota cities – like cities throughout the country – require most of their land to have just four to five homes per acre. Recent reforms allowing two to four homes on each property parcel in several metropolitan-area cities – Minneapolis, Richfield, Bloomington and Saint Paul – have not yet facilitated widespread infill housing development.

This project aims to address the current urban land-use rules in Minnesota that contribute to social and environmental challenges.

Project Goals

• Standardize zoning in Minnesota to National Zoning Atlas standards for 400 municipalities covering approximately 90 percent of the state’s population – including the Twin Cities metropolitan area, all cities of over 1,500 people in Minnesota and any other remaining municipalities within census-defined metropolitan regions and micropolitan regions
• Produce a public-use dataset about zoning in Minnesota
• Broaden the public debate and shift awareness of how Minnesota can accommodate future population growth in an environmentally sustainable way
• Provide a manual that will support cities in adopting standardized, similar zoning codes for adaptive urban infill