The Minneapolis City Council wants to build on already excessive housing regulations

On August 20, Minnpost reported,

The Minneapolis Planning Commission this week supported a proposed ordinance that would further regulate the types of materials developers of residential and commercial buildings put on the exterior of their buildings.

The ordinance is being sponsored by Council President Lisa Bender and the vice chair of the Housing and Zoning Committee, Jeremy Schroeder. It would codify in city law the types of materials that will be permitted and for what percentage of exterior walls they can be used, creating — as the plan calls it — a “hierarchy of exterior building materials.”

Favored under the proposal: traditional materials such as brick, stone, precast concrete, metal panels and glass walls. Considered class II materials, which can be used on a more-limited basis: fiber cement panels, lap siding and stucco. Class III materials — which could cover no more than 30 percent of a building under the proposal — include unfinished concrete, wood and wood composite lap siding. 

According to the article,

While the proposed regulations seem to be based on aesthetics — “to ensure a quality, lasting, affordable and beautiful urban built environment” — one of the sponsors said he is most concerned with durability: “For the folks on the Planning Commission, this is their passion. They want a beautiful city,” Schroeder said. “We as a city have never figured out how to regulate that. As much as aesthetics came up, it was more about the durability and about having housing that was going to stand the test of time.”

There is also an equity component, according to the staff report prepared by the city planning department, in that the current, informal process ends up benefiting wealthier residents who know how to work the system. “Without clear design expectations that are codified,” the staff report states, “development is often shaped by less formal and more subjective processes at the local neighborhood level. Wealthier, more organized, and white communities … have been more successful at pushing for higher-quality development and design products.”

Whether the ordinance will actually improve quality and durability is doubtful. For one, some of the materials, like fiber cement, which the ordinance restricts, are actually durable and high-quality. And as one architect explained, durability and quality have less to do with the type of materials used and more to do with the installation and the design of the application.

But given what we know about the impact of excessive regulations, the ordinance will delay housing development and raise costs.