Environmentalists’ Lawsuit Brings Minneapolis’ YIMBY Success Story to a Screeching Halt

Minneapolis’ first-in-the-nation abolition of single-family-only zoning has been reversed by a local judge, who ruled that the city’s recent zoning reforms will have to be put on ice until it performs a study of their environmental effects.

On Wednesday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune first reported, Hennepin County Judge Joseph Klein ruled in favor of three environmental groups who’d filed a lawsuit against Minneapolis arguing that the city had failed in its duty under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA) to study the environmental effects of its wide-reaching Minneapolis 2040 comprehensive plan update.

The Minneapolis 2040 plan was approved by the City Council in December 2018. It increased allowable densities across the city, including allowing triplexes to be built everywhere single-family homes were once exclusively permitted.

The city started issuing permits for these newly legal units in January 2020. Klein’s decision means that it will have to abruptly stop until the city performs the MERA-required environmental review.

“While this may no doubt create no small amount of short-term chaos—which the court does not take lightly— this court is inclined to agree that, under MERA, no other action by the court would properly address or remedy the likely adverse environmental impacts of the 2040 Plan,” wrote Klein.

The plaintiffs Smart Growth Minneapolis, Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis, and Minnesota Citizens for Protection of Migratory Birds first sued the city in December 2018, just before the City Council approved the Minneapolis 2040 plan.

The plan allowed for a total of 150,000 additional units to be built in Minneapolis. The three groups argued that this substantial increase in population density would have serious traffic, noise, air quality, and sewage impacts that the city needed to study and address.

“The law requires the city to show that its actions are causing the least environmental harm feasible while trying to achieve its goals, including greater density,” Rebecca Arons of Smart Growth Minneapolis told Minnesota Public Radio yesterday. “This court victory will prevent mistakes from being made by environmentally blind implementation of the plan.”

The city argued it was unlikely that all of the 150,000 new units authorized under Minneapolis 2040 would be built and that individual projects would still have to go throug