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Senate Committee Hears Multifamily Residential Development in Commercial Areas Bill
The bill was amended by the committee to remove two concerning provisions for cities but was tabled and did not advance.
On April 16, the Senate State and Local Government and Veterans Committee heard SF 4254 (Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville), which would require cities to accept multifamily residential development by right in commercial and certain industrial areas.
The bill was amended by a delete-everything amendment (pdf), further amended during discussions, and laid over for possible omnibus bill inclusion.
While the delete-everything amendment includes the vast majority of language in House version, HF 4010 (Rep. Alicia ‘Liish’ Kozlowski, DFL-Duluth), which includes provisions seeking to address concerns raised by the League, SF 4254 as amended included two additional provisions that are problematic to cities.
Amendment provisions and changes
The delete-everything amendment included a provision that would have applied building permits to the 60-day rule in Minnesota Statute, section 15.99. This means if a city did not approve or deny the permit in 60-days, a building permit could have automatically been issued without adequate inspection and review.
The other provision would have exempted a city’s ability to preserve commercial property and would have required multifamily development constructed under the bill to be mixed use if the proposed development is being constructed in a “blighted area,” as defined in Minnesota Statutes, section 469.002.
The League cited concerns with both provisions in testimony before the committee. During the hearing, Sen. Heather Gustafson (DFL-Vadnais Heights) offered an amendment (pdf) to remove the two provisions. The amendment was adopted after a bipartisan 9-4 vote.
Other amendments that were added to the bill prior to the it being tabled include:
- Narrowly defining “public health, safety, and general welfare” for the purposes of city approval or denial of projects to fire safety, fire, and emergency services access, “insurmountable stress on existing local infrastructure,” and traffic concerns related to developments with more than 300 units.
- Exempting developments that are 100% affordable (households with incomes at or below 60% of average median income) from official controls that cities could impose on projects constructed to be mixed-use properties.