Kutak Rock attorney Tim Keane authored a guest opinion column published in the June 26 edition of The Minneapolis Star Tribune regarding the divisive Minneapolis 2040 plan and planning process. Minneapolis 2040 is a draft plan that shapes how the city will grow and change over the next 20+ years and covers issues that include housing, job access, and the design of new buildings.

Mr. Keane, a former city planner whose work at Kutak Rock includes land use, development and eminent domain, contends that Minneapolitans are being forced to participate in an experiment in new urbanism that will cost the city its most affordable homes. He states that the 2040 plan proposes a radical reconfiguration of the land-use patterns in Minneapolis to include districts with “very high” densities that will solve the affordable housing crisis. However, he says that evidence from every other North American city shows the opposite: that density is associated with less affordability.

Though the planning manager for Minneapolis 2040 declared that “millennials are not interested in homeownership,” Mr. Keane provides evidence that up to 80% of millennials want to own a home, a contradiction that is “troubling.” Mr. Keane offers that the draft policy will destroy starter homes in Minneapolis that could anchor millennials with kids to city neighborhoods.

Read the entire Minneapolis 2040 draft plan Op-Ed.

Mr. Keane is an attorney in the real estate group of Kutak Rock LLP's Minneapolis office. He focuses his practice on commercial real estate law, including land use and zoning, eminent domain, public law, and transactions. Mr. Keane frequently serves as development counsel on corporate and governmental legal matters including real estate transactions, complex land use approvals, and litigation oversight; project management, planning, design and development; and site and market analysis.