Minneapolis aims to build 84 housing units across the city

The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority plans to demolish more than a dozen houses it owns and replace them with 84 units in four- and six-plexes across the city.

The roughly $34 million project is expected to begin in the summer of 2022 and calls for replacing aging "scattered site" public housing. Authority officials said only one of the 16 parcels designated for new housing is vacant.

"Our goal here with this project is to build as much affordable housing as we can in areas where it typically doesn't exist, but also to continue investing in areas where it is present and it does exist," said Juan Torres, project lead and the housing authority's development manager. "This is kind of a direct response to that, to create additional family housing within our scattered sites."

Because of the high cost of maintaining those properties, the agency last year transferred ownership of its 700 properties to a nonprofit it controls. The agency, which has long been saddled with a maintenance backlog, said the move will give it access to other funds to renovate and replace these properties.

Minneapolis has earmarked $4.6 million of its federal pandemic relief aid to help the Public Housing Authority (MPHA) with repairs, renovation and the addition of the new units at the scattered sites. The city is also supporting the project by selling land for two of the sites to the authority at a low interest rate. Other potential funders include the Metropolitan Council and the state.

The city's 2040 plan loosened restrictions on dense housing citywide, but the zoning changes have not yet been implemented pending an ongoing study. So the housing authority had to seek permission to build multi-unit housing. In mid-November, city staff recommended approval of eight of the proposed sites, and the council moved them forward this week. The authority has declined to give the Star Tribune the addresses of the scattered sites , but addresses shared by city staff during a council meeting showed that the approved sites are in the Seward, East Phillips, Standish, Willard-Hay, Morris Park, Lynnhurst and Windom Park neighborhoods.

The next six sites will go to the city's planning commission next week for rezoning review, senior city planner Andrew Frenz said. The remaining two will be sent to the commission in January.

"There's a strong desire for more public housing in the city because that provides housing for people at the lowest income level," said Anton Schieffer, the group's leader.

But Defend Glendale and Public Housing Coalition, a group that has long been critical of the agency's renovation plans, has called on MPHA leaders to halt the project until there is "legal guarantee" that no residents — a majority of whom are people of color and low income — would be displaced and that the agency provides proof that the properties will still be classified as public housing.

Agency leaders said the units cap rents at 30% of residents' annual income and will be owned and operated by the MPHA. They said the 13 households displaced by the project have the option to return when construction ends in 2023, with the exception of one family, which found a permanent home with the authority's help. The others will continue to receive housing assistance and the housing authority will cover relocation costs, MPHA officials said.

With 8,000 families on the public housing authority's waitlist, agency leaders say there is a sense of urgency to add more housing. The 84 units could serve about 420 families over three decades, focusing construction of the new homes in neighborhoods where there's the greatest need, they said. Meanwhile, 17 units will be set aside for families who are in Hennepin County shelters.