Built Form Districts

The built form regulations will resolve some of the major conflicts between Minneapolis 2040 and the City’s current zoning regulations. They are also intended to provide more predictability for the scale of new buildings and additions, which will help achieve the Minneapolis 2040 goals.

Minneapolis 2040 includes 14 Built Form Districts that guide the development of these regulations, which govern issues such as building height, floor area ratio (FAR), lot sizes and setbacks from property lines, among other things. (See Glossary below.) The zoning changes described here enact new overlay districts that contain built form regulations in accordance with the built form maps and policy guidance that was already adopted by the City Council in Minneapolis 2040.

Through a future rezoning study, the City will implement land use regulations to complement built form regulations. While built form regulations govern the scale of new buildings, land use regulations will govern allowed uses, such as mixed use, residential, commercial, production, parks and open spaces.

Important note: Not every property in the city will be redeveloped between now and 2040. These regulations will provide guidance if a property owner proposes changes to an existing building or proposes to construct a new building

Background

Timeline

Minneapolis 2040 Goals

The built form regulations are essential to achieving several goals of Minneapolis 2040, including accommodating more residents and jobs in the city, allowing a range of housing types and stabilizing housing costs, creating high quality physical environments, fostering complete neighborhoods and promoting climate change resilience.

While all the goals are important, Minneapolis 2040 is centered on eliminating racial disparities. To achieve this goal, the City of Minneapolis will work to undo the legacy that remains from racially discriminatory housing policies by increasing access to opportunity through a greater diversity of housing types, especially in areas that lack housing options as a result of discriminatory housing policy. Implementing the Built Form Map through zoning districts makes it legal to build the greater diversity of housing types called for in Minneapolis 2040, and will work in concert with the City’s larger housing strategy to increase housing choice and affordability.

Minneapolis 2040 Policies

The Land Use and Built Form section of Minneapolis 2040 describes where new housing, workplaces, and retail establishments may locate in the city in order to achieve the plan goals. This guidance is communicated through a combination of policies and maps. The first two policies of the plan, Access to Housing and Access to Employment, are the most relevant to the adopted Built Form Map that guides the location and characteristics of new buildings.

The Access to Housing policy outlines the role of the Built Form map in increasing housing choice throughout the city, acknowledging the contribution of zoning to racially-restrictive housing practices of the first half of the 20^th century, and the lasting effect those actions had on people of color and indigenous people. The policy also reinforces the practice of developing multifamily housing on transit routes, providing people the opportunity to live without a car, or with fewer cars in each household, helping to work toward the City's greenhouse gas reduction goal. This policy ensures that we have places throughout the city to increase housing supply and choice.

The Access to Employment policy outlines the role of the Built Form map in supporting employment growth and ensuring that land is available for living-wage jobs in areas close to where people live, including access to living-wage jobs.