12 PCSR 12-28-1993 - Laserfiche WebLink

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4111 __ Zoning barriers • Building suburban walls against the poor If recent events in Maple Grove demon- place on the outer metropolitan fringe strated how suburban mean-spirited- where young families and others of ness can frustrate efforts to create af- modest means could build or buy a fordable housing, then Lakeville is home at an affordable price. Such hous- showing how the same result can flow ing still dominates the city's supply. from, more innocent intentions. The purpose of Lakeville's new zoning ordi- The problem is that Lakeville seems to nance may not be to increase housing be following the pattern of other sub- costs and force low- and moderate-in- urbs by adopting policies that would come people to look elsewhere, but make it too expensive a place to live for that's the likely effect. the children of those who initially set- , tled. Some may do what their parents In changing its zoning ordinance to did—move further out. Others may be slow down growth, Lakeville can argue left with no choice but to add them- that it is only doing what hundreds of selves to the growing concentration of other developing suburbs here and else- lower-income people in the central cit- where have done for decades in the ies and older,inner-ring suburbs. name of sound fiscal and environmen- • tal policy. Whether Lakeville now has an adequate supply of low-income housing is in dis- Actually, by moving to preserve 700 to pute. City officials say yes; Rep. Myron 800 acres of wetland, Lakeville is taking Orfield says no. Orfield is the Minne- extraordinary steps to protect a valuable apolis DFLer whose bill in the 1993 natural resource, something that previ- Legislature would have required sub- ously developed suburbs all too often urbs to reduce their zoning and other failed to do. And for that the city should barriers to low-income housing. be commended, not blamed. Whatever the case today, Lakeville's But increasing the lot size for single- zoning changes and the housing-cost family homes from 11,000 to 15,000 increases that will result illustrate the square feet, plus requiring that all new problem that Orfield's bill was trying to homes have room to accommodate a address — the tendency of prosperous three-car garage, deck and porch, will and fast-growing suburbs to wall out the inevitably increase the cost of buying a poor and near poor. house in Lakeville to a level beyond the reach of many Twin Citians. In the end it makes no difference whether the wall was built intentionally Like most suburbs, the once semi-rural or inadvertently. The damage to the Lakeville began its urbanization as a region's social and economic health is moderate-income community — a the same either way. •