Despite broad coalition of support, housing bills falling off legislative agenda

In front of a crowd of Habitat for Humanity staff and supporters gathered in the Capitol rotunda Thursday, Rep. Michael Howard, DFL-Richfield, urged the audience members to speak with as many lawmakers as possible.

“Tell them: don’t leave this building until you make more homes available for more Minnesotans,” said Howard, who chairs the House Housing Finance and Policy committee. 

His plea to the crowd was genuine: Howard and other members of a coalition advocating for sweeping policy changes to encourage more housing development are watching their priorities fall off the DFL agenda.

The centerpiece of that coalition, and the priority for Howard, was a piece of legislation dubbed the ‘missing middle’ bill, which would have taken many zoning controls out of local governments’ hands, legalizing the construction of more multifamily buildings in all parts of the state. It also would have limited parking requirements, which developers say drive up the cost of housing; legalized duplexes on all single-family lots in the state; and included bonuses for developments that were all-electric or met certain affordability guidelines. 

That package of policy proposals — which had supporters on both sides of the aisle plus a coalition of developers, social justice and labor organizations — fell apart a couple weeks ago after opposition from local governments and DFL leadership.

“The (bill) to change zoning from being a locally determined issue to a state level policy decision is a very significant policy change,” House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said on April 4, adding that she and other members wanted to see how similar policies play out in other states before adopting the changes in Minnesota.

Bill to allow more apartment construction in commercial areas will not pass

Hortman in early April left the door open to one zoning policy change: a bill that would make it much easier for developers to build apartments in areas currently zoned for commercial use statewide.

That proposal faced pushback from local government leaders in the Senate State and Local Government and Veterans committee Tuesday, who criticized the proposal for preempting local control and safety concerns. The bill was ultimately tabled in the committee; it will not pass this session, Howard told the Reformer Thursday.

“Are you concerned at all if you did this, if this passed into law, that you’d have little kids getting run over with a forklift or a cement truck?” asked Sen. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, in Tuesday’s hearing.

Bill author, Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville, said she was not. 

Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, expressed concern with another part of the bill that would require cities to issue a decision on whether to approve or deny a residential development within 60 days.

“It’s just kind of a logistical nightmare,” Gustafson said, citing short-staffing in many cities. 

And lobbyists representing cities say the problem isn’t local zoning rules.

“We’re not seeing the zoning stop (housing development),” said Elizabeth Wefel, a lobbyist with the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities in the hearing. “Inadequate finance is usually the challenge.”

Developers who support the legislation say it would reduce the costs associated with the long, often arduous process of seeking a variance or other zoning change from a city. 

“The status quo isn’t working,” Port said in the committee hearing Tuesday. “I wish it was. We invested a billion dollars last year. A billion dollars, which is more than what we’ve invested for the last 10 years combined into housing. And I’m worried that that money is going to sit there. I’m worried it’s going to take too long to get out to communities, because they’re going to keep running into exactly these problems.”

Constitutional amendment for housing dies; renters’ protections moving forward

Another bill carried by Port and Howard and supported by some affordable housing groups would have allowed Minnesotans to vote on whether to enact a three-eighths of one percent statewide sales tax — around 38 cents per $100 — to fund housing and homelessness response initiatives.

That bill did not receive a hearing in either housing committee and is dead for the session, but Howard reiterated support for the proposal in his message to Habitat for Humanity supporters Thursday. He described the proposal in an interview as a multi-year project that will require more coalition-building before it has a chance to pass.

Some housing bills — particularly those protecting tenants — are still alive. 

A measure that would ban landlords from discriminating against potential tenants who receive government assistance like Section 8 vouchers is making its way through both chambers. That policy is a priority for Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. 

Lawmakers currently have around $9 million budgeted to boost emergency rental assistance programs in hopes of avoiding more evictions.

And several other tenant protections, including a right to organize, have already passed the Senate.