Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/06/2014

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Community Designations The previous sections of Thrive MSP 2040 set forth Outcomes and Principles to guide regional policies, investment and activities. This section translates those overall ideas into specific land use policies and strategies to help local communities incorporate regional needs into local comprehensive plans. The seven -county region contains a wide range of communities, from Agricultural areas to the Urban Center. Development patterns, neighborhoods, and land uses vary across communities. To advance the Thrive Outcomes, the Council is articulating specific land use and development strategies and policies tailored for communities with shared development opportunities and challenges. This approach allows each local jurisdiction the flexibility to determine how to best work toward achieving both the regional outcomes and their local goals. The Council assigns a community designation to each city and township based on the overall state of development and regional issues faced by that community. Although the characteristics of the community designation may not apply to every neighborhood of a community, the designation represents the dominant character of the community. The Council uses these community designations to: • guide regional growth and development to areas that have urban infrastructure in place and the capacity to accommodate development and redevelopment; • establish land use expectations, including overall densities and development patterns, for different planning areas; • outline the respective roles of the Council and the individual communities and strategies for planning for projected levels of growth. Urban and Rural Service Areas The Council designates the Metropolitan Urban Service Area (MUSA) to distinguish between the Urban Service Area and the Rural Service Area. Communities within the Urban Service Area receive a higher level of regional services such as metropolitan wastewater services, regional highways, and the regular route transit. In return, the Council expects these jurisdictions to plan for and build the higher levels of development that economically support those regional services. Conversely, in the Rural Service Area, the Council discourages higher development densities to ensure the orderly development of the region, promote the efficient use of regional investments, and to protect agricultural land, water resources, and the rural landscape. While the Urban Service Area constitutes about half of the land in the region, about xx% of the population lives in this area. The Urban Service Area includes a diverse set of communities ranging from the urban cores of downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul to suburban edge communities planning for staged growth and expansion. Developing at different times in the region's history, these communities include a variety of residential neighborhoods, housing types, and densities, as well as a varying mix of commercial and industrial areas. The Council supports the Urban Service Area through investments in transit infrastructure, transit services, highways, regional sewer systems, the regional parks system, and programs that support redevelopment. In turn, the Council works with local communities to support growth that best capitalizes on regional infrastructure and systems. To respond to this variation in development DRAFT FOR PUBLIC COMMENT Last revised: February 21, 2014 50