
A panel of developers told city leaders this week that extensive haggling with neighborhood organizations is making it difficult to build new projects in Minneapolis.
Several council members and staffers with the city's development agency attended Tuesday's City Hall discussion, organized by the Urban Land Institute of Minnesota. Panelists represented commercial and residential real estate firms, as well as outside other development areas.
Panelists said they often incur substantial costs to a project trying to win approval from one of the city's 81 neighborhoods — each of which operates in a slightly different manner — sometimes only to have it all collapse.
They asked for more support from City Hall in wading through the process.
"The one thing that we can no longer afford to do…is waste time and money," said John Breitinger, vice president of United Properties. "Our pursuit cost budgets have gotten completely out of control."
Patrick Mascia, a real estate attorney who asked some local developers of their opinions, observed that different people may show up at five meetings with a neighborhood group.
"[I]f the city is going to use neighborhood groups as part of the process...put some structure to that," Mascia said. "So there can be some consistency on the development side and we understand going into the project what that process is going to be."
Council Member Lisa Bender, chair of the city's zoning and planning committee, agreed there needs to be more consistency in the development process across the city.