January 22, 2019 HJC

Housing Justice Center

Nora Slawik, Chair Public Interest Legal Advocates
Lisa Barajas, Flaming Assistance Manager Jack Carin, Senior Attorney
Metropolitan Council

360 Robert St. N.
St. Paul, MN 55101

Re: Objections to Minneapolis draft Comprehensive Plan
By email and US. Mail

Dear Ms Slawik and Ms Barajas:

Minneapolis? 2040 Comprehensive Plan draft fails to meet important requirements of the
Metropolitan Council statute and the Council?s 2040 Housing Policy and Planning
Handbook. The draft Plan fails to meaningfully address the largest and most serious
housing need in the city and in the metro area the desperate need for affordable housing
for extremely low income households, with incomes at or below 30% of Area Median
Income (AMT). Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes 473.175 Subd. 1, the Council has a duty
to review and comment on the consistency of the Minneapolis draft Comprehensive Plan
with Council policy set out in Choice, Place, and Opportunity; Thrive MSP 204; and the
2040 Housing Policy Plan and Planning Handbook. We expect the Council to ful?ll this
statutory requirement. The failure of the Plan to address this issue also has obvious fair
housing implications, described below, and we expect the Council, in reviewing and
commenting on the City?s draft plan, to ?llfill its duty to affirmatively further fair housing
and to live up to its recent commitments to regional equity.

The need for housing for Extremely Low Income households is huge and
unaddressed.

The need for housing for extremely low income households is the city?s largest and most
serious housing need. Recent HUD data estimates 22,895 extremely low income
households in the city paying more than half of their income for housing.1 These
extremely low income households make up 77% of all city households with this level of
cost burden.2 In addition to these existing cost burdens, the Metropolitan Council
estimates that in order to address the housing needs of new city households over the
coming decade, Minneapolis will have to produce 1,551 new units affordable at 30% of
AMI or less 15% of all new units to be produced in the coming decade.

The desperate situation of extremely low income households represents a serious fair
housing issue. Minority households in Minneapolis are 3.46 times as likely as white, non?
Hispanic households to be extremely low income renters with serious housing problems.3

 

1 HUD CHAS data 2011-2015, available at: 
2015_data.

3 Id.

3 Id, Data Download page; Table 2, households with serious housing problems by income and race.
Analysis of this data shows 8,350 of 116,140 of white non-Hispanic househoids as extremeiy low
income renters with serious housing problems compared to 12,530 of 50,3 95 of minority
households in this situation. Serious housing problems include payment of more than 50% of income for
housing, serious over-crowding, or lacking facilities; virtually all are seriously cost burdened.

1774 Portland Ave. 0 St. Paul, MN 55104 I tel: 651.645.7378

Dedicated to expanding andpresewing the Ofa?ordabie housing in Minnesota and nationwide

 

Policies which limit affordable housing opportunities for these households have a
disparate adverse impact on minority households and thus constitute a prima facie
violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.

It is critical to understand that providing affordable housing for extremely low income
households requires provision of operating or rental subsidies. The vast majority of new
affordable housing produced in the metro area is for households with incomes greater than
30% of AMI typically produced with public assistance
aimed at reducing the capital costs of producing the housing and therefore at reducing the
amount of amortizing mortgage debt required. It is unaffordable to extremely low income
households because they cannot afford to pay the operating costs of rental
housing. Occasionally project based vouchers are provided with this housing, but these
projects do not increase the supply of deeply affordable housing, they simply convert
existing tenant?based vouchers to project based vouchers.

The need for affordable housing for extremely low income households, for whom very
little new housing is produced, vastly exceeds the need for households at 50% or 60% of
AMI, who are the targets of most new affordable housing production. In contrast to the
22,895 extremely low income households paying more than half their income for housing,
only 4,930 households with incomes higher than 30that
situation.4 In contrast to 1,551 new units affordable at or below 30% of AMI needed in
Minneapolis in the next decade, only 494 new units are needed for households with
incomes higher than 30AMI.5

Comprehensive Plan Requirements

Under the Metropolitan Land Planning Act (the Act), Min. Stat. and
the Metropolitan Council?s 2040 Housing Policy Plan, the housing elements of
comprehensive plans must include the following elements, which are missing from the
Minneapolis Plan with respect to the city?s most serious housing issues:

1. Standards, plans, programs, ?scal devices, and other speci?c actions, to be
undertaken in stated sequence, which ?will? meet existing local and regional
housing needs. Minn. Stat. 473.859 Subd. 4; 2040 Housing Policy at 109, 113.

2. Acknowledgement of the community?s share of the region?s need for low and
moderate income housing. 2040 Housing Policy at 109.

3. A description of the tools the City will employ to address housing needs and the
sequence for their implementation. 2040 Housing Policy at 113.

The Council?s Planning Handbook adds the following requirements:
1. A narrative analysis of existing housing needs clearly identifying existing needs
and priorities. This analysis is to address potential barriers to meeting those needs.
2. A clear and direct linkage between needs identified and tools to be employed,
focusing on different levels of affordability. Plans consistent with Council policy
will consider all widely accepted tools to address their housing needs.

 

4 HUD CHAS data 2011-2015, available at: 
2015_data.

5 Metropolitan Council System Statement for Minneapolis,
pg. 4.

The Minneapolis Comprehensive Plan draft fails to meet these standards.

The Minneapolis Comprehensive Plan draft is wholly lacking in any acknowledgement of
the critical barrier involved in producing housing affordable to extremely low income
households: the necessity of providing ongoing operating subsidies, which is unique to
this income group. Lacking any acknowledgement of this barrier, the set of affordable
housing tools included in the draft Plan wholly fails to provide any standards, plans,
programs, ?scal devices, or speci?c actions which could actually produce housing
affordable to extremely low income households, let alone any clear and direct linkage
between the Metropolitan Council?s estimate of need for 1,551 new units affordable in the
next decade for extremely low income households and the tools identi?ed. The plan
identi?ed no tools to address the need for operating subsidies for these new extremely
affordable units.6

Beyond these obvious failures, there is ample evidence of how little care, thought, or
attention was paid to this important issue by the City. First, the initial draft Policy 33
included as an ?action step?: ?Prioritize the needs of those who have the greatest need for
housing stability households with incomes at or below 30 percent of area median
income.? This was a far cry from the speci?c action steps required by the statute but it at
least recognized as a priority the city?s most pressing affordable housing problem. But the
current Policy 33 draft has eliminated that language in favor of ?prioritizing ?nding to
households earning at or below 30% and 50% of area median income.? As noted above,
nearly ?ve times more extremely low income households in the city are severely cost
burdened than those in the 50% of group. Given that virtually all current production
efforts are directed toward the 50% of AMI group, the policy change represents a
signi?cant retreat ?om the initial draft of the Plan.

Second, the initial draft of the Plan contained no reference to the Metropolitan Council?s
allocation of affordable housing need to the City. Then, in spite of the problem being
repeatedly called to its attention, City staff responsible for the current draft of the Plan
again failed to comply with the requirement that the plan acknowledge the City?s share of
the region?s affordable housing need. Only in Appendix to the draft Plan are the need
?gures provided by income band and there is a very substantial mistake in those ?gures.
The Council?s need assignment is 1,551 units at or below 30% AM and 494 at above 30%
to 50% AMI. The draft Plan has the ?gures as 1,551 and 1,494 respectively implying
that the need at 50% of AM is essentially equal to that at and below 30% of AMI, even
though it is actually far less. This continued error by itself renders the Plan substantially
inconsistent with Metropolitan Council policies and requirements.

Fair Housing and Equity implications

As set out above, minority households are far more likely than white non?Hispanic
households to be extremely low income renters with serious housing problems. The
failure by the city to plan for the housing desperately needed by this group therefore has

 

5 At least one Minneapolis Councilmember has cited the Mayor?s new Stable Homes, Stable Schools policy
as responsive to this need. The policy would use some local funds to assist in the provision of tenant-based
rental subsidies for three years. This policy, however, has nothing to do with the development of new
housing units affordable to extremely low income households and thus will play no role in addressing the
1,551 unit need over the next decade.

an obvious disparate adverse impact on minority households. It also violates the City?s
duty, as a recipient of federal community development ?inds, to af?rmatively ?irther fair
housing. For the Metropolitan Council to fail to aggressively pursue what steps are
available to it to correct this situation would make the Council complicit in these
violations and in the Council?s own af?rmative fair housing obligations.7 As a major
recipient of federal housing funds, the Council?s duty to affirmatively further fair housing
extends to all of it?s activities and programs relating to housing and urban development.8
This duty includes ?taking meaningful actions that. . .address significant disparities in
housing needs.? 9

Further, The Metropolitan Council ?has identified equity as one of the ?ve key regional
outcomes from Thrive MSP 2040.?10 Thrive MSP 2040 de?nes equity:

Equity connects all residents to opportunity and creates viable housing and
transportation options for people of all races, ethnicities, incomes, and
abilities so that all communities share the opportunities and challenges of
growth and change. For our region to reach its full economic potential, all
of our residents must be able to access opportunity. Our region is stronger
when all people live in communities that provide them access to
opportunitiesfor success, prosperity and quality of Ii 6.1 1

Unless the Council is prepared to effectively address the housing problems of extremely
low income, disproportionately minority households, it?s commitment to regional equity
will prove to be extremely hollow.

Yours truly,
?dig/w

Jack Cann,
attorney

 

7 The Metropolitan Council is still the Respondent in a major Fair Housing Act Complaint ?led in 2014
regarding its failure to use its authority over comprehensive plans to af?nnatively further fair housing.
8 24 C.F.R. 5.152.

9 Id.

?0 See, Metropolitan Council?s Choice, Place, and Opportunity, at 8-1.

1? Thrive MSP 2040, pg. 38.