Comp Plan 1978-1980 FILE #2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Alternative 2 would require submission of plan amendments to the plan elements required by the Land Planning Act, thus eliminating amendment~ to optional plan elements such as a stormwater facilities plan, an energy plan, or the portion of the capital improvement program dealing with local facilities other than transportation, sewers and parks. This alternative would reduce the number of amendments submitted and would focus attention on only those plan elements required by the Act. However, the Council would not be assured it was keeping up to date on amendments to optional comprehensive plan elements. Alternative 3 would require submission of only those plan amendments likely to have system impact. This would include changes to the local transportation, sewer and park plans, and land use changes that may have an impact on regional airports. Under this approach, local units would submit and the Council would review the least number of amendments. Itowevcr, the Council would not get complete infor- mation on "nonsystem" plan amendments, such as those to the housing plan on which to base its A-95 and other reviews. Furthermore, the Land Planning Act gives the Council the authority and responsiblity to review and comment upon the compatibility of plans to those of adjacent jurisdictions and upon the consistency of plans with Council policies in addition to determining whether plans conform with systems plans. Upon review of the advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives, the Physical Development Committee directed the staff to develop new plan amendment guidelines for public hearing purposes that would incorporate features of both A]terntives I and 3 as follows: -- Plan amendments with the potential for system im- pact would be required to be reviewed by the Council prior to local adoption, consistent with Alternative 3. -- The guidelines should also contain a formal information-gathering process for obtaining all local plan amendments, consistent with Alternative 1. A speedy review process and a plan amendment worksheet would also be incorporated into the guidelines. Thc Council staff is now developing the new guide- lines, and the Council intends to hold a public hearing, tentatively scheduled for early January 1981. WILLIAM BARNHART, SENIOR PLANNER MINNEAPOLIS COORDINATOR'S OFFICE As the discussions on the best methods to handle comprehensive plan amendments have proceeded, it has become evident that, although most cities have the same set of concerns, the priority given to these concerns does differ. These concerns seem to be the extent of what must be submitted to the Metro Council for review, the length of time needed to review whatever is submitted, and the degree of cer- tainty in the process. Developing communities seem to be most concerned with the first two areas -- what is submitted and how long the review takes. The opinion has been expressed that, given the degree of detail which has been proposed in the comp plans for developing areas, amendments will be fairly numer- ous. A system which required lengthy review of all changes would needlessly hinder development and may become bogged down under its own weight. The City of Minneapolis, on the other hand, is hoping that the plan it submits to the Metro Council will not have to be amended that often. Given, first, the size and complexity of the City of Minneapolis and, second, the fact that Minneapolis contains little undeveloped land, it is reasonable to expect that its comp plan would be at a more general level than those of developing communities. Given the prospect of fewer amendments, a key item to Minneapolis is the "why" of amendments. Amendments, much more so than the original drafting of a comp plan, will be triggered by specific proposed development. Thus, if a City proposes an amendment, it must be certain that at the end of the process it has a legit- imate amendment -- one that will withstand a court test if needed. Within this context, the concern of the City of Minneapolis has been more directed toward the latter two items -- how long the process takes and the certainty of the process. One starting point for this concept of "certainty" is the original law. One of the concepts involved in the Metropolitan Land Planning Act was a concern for metropolitan systems. It is reasonable to belive that a major focus in the amendment process should be the effect on metropolitan systems, i.e., an amendment process which does not review at least those changes which are of metropolitan significance could prob- ably open the way for successful legal challenges. The original set of "thresholds" was an attempt to address this. These thresholds, however, had several problems. First, it was sometimes difficult to tell if a given amendment fell above or below the threshold. The question of whether the amendment should have been submitted could remain unanswered. Second, a given change in one part of the metropolitan area may have a major impact upon one of the systems while the same change elsewhere would have little or no effect on the same system. Thus, an amendment which clearly fell below the threshold could still have been questioned as having metropolitan significance. At this point, Minneapolis favored some process whereby an initial determination would be made as to metropolitan significance, with those amendments with little or no impact undergoing no further review. One method of accomplishing this would be to submit all amendments to the Metropolitan Council at the beginning and having this determination made within 10 to 15 days. This option also had the advantage that some entity other than the proposer would make the determination. The process currently being discussed no longer focuses on the amendment itself but, instead, upon the effect of the amendment. A key element in this is the worksheet which is used to determine significance.