Documents coming to light through FOIA plus comments by staff show that the “Envision Evanston 2045” planning process has been steered since the bidding phase towards a “Minneapolis model” of rezoning. Proponents claim that Minneapolis has shown that upzoning and increased population density will lower housing costs. Is that true? Research suggests “not really.”
What Did Minneapolis Do?
Minneapolis lowered parking requirements and then, in 2019, eliminated single-family zoning districts, along with other upzoning, ostensibly to increase affordability through more supply. Tens of thousands of units were built, mostly through larger developments. Minneapolis’s upzoning has been called “far and away the largest densification project ever attempted in all of North America.”1 So its recurrence in City of Evanston communications, going back to before any public meeting, is no accident, but amounts to an explicit call for upzoning and density. This is significant, evidencing that a predetermined desired zoning change has shaped the Plan, rather than the normal. logical, and fair sequence of letting community-driven planning first occur.
The purpose of this writing, however, is not to dwell, for the moment, on the procedural implications of that, concerning as they are. The purpose here is to take a deeper dive into the assertion that Minneapolis's experiment "worked" and provides a template that Evanston can readily adopt with similar results. Is that so?