Minneapolis city regulations have impeded rebuilding after 2020 riots

Five years ago, the Twin Cities were in the midst of rioting following the death of George Floyd. The victims of the destruction were, in large part, ethnic minority and immigrant small business owners, their assailants, very often, “#woke,” middle-class white kids. “There are all too many horrific episodes in American history of white mobs attacking African-Americans or other ethnic minorities,” I wrote shortly after, “But this summer, in the Twin Cities, might have been the first time they did it with the professed aim of helping them.”

It has been a long road to recovery for these folks, if they have recovered at all. In 2020, I warned that the economic damage of rioting lingers for a long time. In 2022, I wrote that two years after Gov. Walz let the cities burn, small business owners were still suffering. On the fifth anniversary, that suffering continues.

Five years on

“Vacant lots and broken buildings line parts of Lake Street and other business districts in the Twin Cities that were damaged in the spasms of looting and fire-setting following Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020,” MPR News reports:

After the destruction, Minneapolis made a list of more than 1,000 businesses damaged in the chaos. In many cases, the damage was superficial — graffiti, broken windows — but the city marked dozens of those places “destroyed.”

Nearly half of the 48 “destroyed” properties are now empty lots. A couple are still boarded up. Most are along Lake Street, plus a few on West Broadway in north Minneapolis.

Lack of money is one obstacle to rebuilding. Many of these business owners “had stopped paying their premiums during the pandemic when cash got tight,” MPR News reports. “For others, the payout covered only the value of the building, not the cost of rebuilding it, which can be a lot higher.”

“I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help”

It isn’t the only obstacle, however.

The Minneapolis zoning code created its own set of challenges. The city’s 2040 plan to create more housing and high-density, walkable neighborhoods requires that new buildings along most of Lake Street and West Broadway be at least two stories high.

But some owners who lost one-story buildings didn’t have the money or the expertise to take on bigger projects, said Russ Adams with the Lake Street Council. Many hadn’t planned to be developers in the first place, let alone head up multistory projects.

“They weren’t going to be able to follow that path,” Adams said. “That wasn’t their dream as an entrepreneur.”

City rules allow owners to rebuild at one story — but only if they start within the first six months after a building is destroyed.

Several one-story businesses did. They were mostly bigger companies, with deeper pockets — gas stations, pharmacy chains and fast-food franchises. Many smaller owners needed more time to figure out how and whether to rebuild.

Getting approvals takes time, especially for first-timers.

Flora Westbrooks owned a hair salon on West Broadway that burned down in the unrest. She bought the land and started planning to rebuild on the lot.

First, she signed up for a beginner developer class through the city of Minneapolis and learned about several steps that would take more time and money than she thought, including completing an environmental assessment and getting permits.

“It’s a lot of things that you have to go through,” Westbrooks said.

Donna Sanders works with local businesses at the West Broadway Business & Area Coalition. She said more money is what’s needed most but even then, the process is slow.

“I’ve always found that the city planners are helpful; it just takes a lot of time,” Sanders said. “It’s so technical. And when you’re dealing with a contractor or a business owner that probably doesn’t know the ins and outs of that kind of thing, it can be very cumbersome.”

These obstacles, put in place by the city government, have their defenders.

Jason Chavez, the Minneapolis City Council member who represents the 9th Ward where many of the Lake Street lots are located, said the city has staff on hand to help developers navigate the process.

Chavez said businesspeople are welcome to seek exceptions to the zoning code if it poses a challenge. The council has granted that permission to a few rebuilding projects, but Chavez said multi-story developments will make the neighborhood livelier.

“The point of the 2040 plan is to create more development, more housing in our city, which is something that we need more of on the Lake Street corridor. That can help not only bring residents to the Lake Street corridor but help the businesses,” he said.

This is the triumph of fantasy over practicality.

The city should be working to remove the regulatory obstacles it imposed and which are delaying the rebuilding of these areas. Instead, it is “is trying to discourage property owners from letting buildings sit empty. It raised fines for vacant and condemned buildings last year.” The wait for recovery looks set to continue.