Ralph Remington: I'm all for development on right scale

Ralph Remington
Published in the Star Tribune on September 9, 2005

The Star Tribune's editorial staff has done the voters of the 10th Ward great disservice by inaccurately portraying me as "playing the NIMBY card" (not in my back yard), and saying I fall short on discussing the city's budget constraints (editorial, Sept. 6).

Though it was unspecified, I'm guessing the implication is that I'm anti-development, since I opposed the 13-story height of the Lagoon Project in Uptown -- a height the Star Tribune editorial staff supported.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I am a proponent of "smart development" and "new urbanism." I believe in human-scale, transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly, sustainable development that encourages a sense of place and community. I think that cities are living, fluid organisms. To ensure their continued health, we have to follow a plan, not simply construct our neighborhoods in a piecemeal way. There's a term for a car-dependent city that has piecemeal zoning: Los Angeles.

An area master plan formed by all stakeholders -- residents, businesses, developers and city officials -- will let developers know the expectations coming in the door. That's where smart development starts.

Smart development also stresses the need for transit-oriented development. I moved to Minneapolis and the 10th Ward in 1991. Born and raised in Philadelphia, I've lived in some of the biggest, densest cities in the world (New York, D.C., Los Angeles and Frankfurt, Germany). I did not have to own a car until moving here. We need to promote "walkable communities," but we also need to remember that Minneapolis is not walkable for much of the year due to a harsh winter climate. That's why a multimodal transit system is so important.

In addition to expanding the light-rail transit system, we need a streetcar running along the Greenway between Uptown and the Hiawatha LRT line. We also need to reopen Nicollet at the Lake Street Kmart and run a streetcar on Nicollet.

Smart urban development means that we support and promote mixed-use, mixed-income communities and that we build human-scale buildings that encourage pedestrian activity. This creates more "eyes on the street," which means that we'll have safer neighborhoods. Tie the whole region together with a multimodal transportation system, and we will have a bustling, vital, dense, livable urban community.

As to the city's budget constraints, we have an ongoing delicate balancing act to maintain. We have to provide high-quality basic services for our residents, meet our pension-fund obligations, protect our bond rating and more, all while we're facing revenue shortfalls.

Expanding our tax base through growth is fine, if done through smart, thoughtfully planned development. But we must also address our city's budget constraints in other ways. We have to work with our suburban neighbors and look at progressive solutions that will benefit Minneapolis and therefore the region. We need to level revenues across the metro area by redoing the fiscal disparities formula. Additionally, Tax Increment Finance (TIF) districts are coming back online in 2010 ($40 million per year in revenues). We need to plan now and commit a sizable amount of that to basic city services: police, firefighters, parks, libraries and infrastructure.

We have to provide high-quality services to the residents of Minneapolis, and build a better future for all of us. Through smart, thoughtful, long-term planning and sustainable development, we can do better.

Ralph Remington is running for the 10th Ward City Council seat in Minneapolis.