Compromise Language from Environmental Organizations Draws Support as New Impacts on Suburban Communities Adds to Urgency
Contact: Peter Wagenius, Sierra Club Legislative Director, peter.wagenius@sierraclub.org | 612.799.5007
St. Paul, MN, March 5, 2024 — A bill to end the current litigation over the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan passed its first legislative hurdle late yesterday. SF4183, authored by Senator Omar Fateh (DFL-Minneapolis), passed the Senate Transportation Committee and was re-referred to the Senate Environment, Climate and Legacy Committee.
“This is a bill that will defend the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act - or MERA - from misuse. MERA is the cornerstone of our environmental law in Minnesota, but we need to add clarity to it to ensure that it is used to improve our environment, not to harm it.” Senator Fateh said.
Senator Fateh noted that the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan was a landmark accomplishment that has been recognized across the country for reducing housing costs and reducing carbon pollution by enabling more people to live in the central city.
“But due to this lawsuit, it has been halted in its tracks. Projects that were already far along in the building process, and that have spent tens of thousands of dollars, were abruptly canceled and left in limbo. Hundreds of homes that could be housing people have been canceled,” Senator Fateh said.
A previous bill offered in the 2023 session that would also have ended the Minneapolis 2040 litigation was not supported by environmental groups out of concerns related to the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA).
The new compromise language of SF4183 was developed by Sierra Club North Star Chapter and other environmental organizations at the urging of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Planning Association. Representatives of both the Sierra Club and the American Planning Association local chapters presented the bill alongside Senator Fateh.
Peter Wagenius, Legislative Director of the Sierra Club North Star Chapter, said the new language would “both provide needed clarity on City Comprehensive Plans and also ensure that the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA) will continue to protect our environment for future generations.”
Sierra Club submitted a letter to members of the Committee in support of SF418 signed by twelve organizations:
Sierra Club North Star Chapter
Minnesota Environmental Partnership
Land Stewardship Project
Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate
MN350
Clean Water Action
Pollinator Friendly Alliance
Resilient Cities and Communities
Alliance for Sustainability
Bicycle Alliance of MN
Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light
Move Minnesota
Peggy Sue Imhily Bean, President of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Planning Association, emphasized the litigation was impacting suburban communities across the metro area. She said planners needed to be able to plan a variety of housing types including “compact communities, where appropriate, which are good for the environment because they lessen emissions from transportation, reduce impervious surfaces and protect natural landscapes and farmland from sprawl. Efforts to plan for this kind of market-demanded, under-supplied neighborhood are now under threat due to this ambiguity in law. What started as a local policy dispute in the City of Minneapolis has become an explicit threat to all planning activities in the metro region and perhaps the state.”
Wagenius concurred that suburban communities were now being negatively affected, “Due to the litigation over the Minneapolis 2040 Plan, all cities, from Richfield to Roseville and Saint Louis Park to Stillwater, are at risk of bad faith lawsuits based on a faulty analysis of the relationship of land use to climate emissions. This litigation has gone on far too long without resolution. The legislature needs to provide clarity on comp plans in a way that is grounded in both the reality of climate emissions and how comp plans work.”
Full testimony can be viewed at the 10:00 minute mark here.
A companion bill in the House, HF4028, authored by Rep. Sydney Jordan (DFL- Minneapolis) has twenty co-authors. In addition, the Rep Jordan, they are Representatives Howard, Elkins, Vang, Coulter, Gomez, Hollins, Koegel, Reyer, Feist, Sencer-Mura, Pinto, Noor, Long, Hornstein, Kraft, Agbaje, Lee, F., Greenman and Finke.