A last-ditch effort to scale back the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan went down to defeat on the City Council Monday, but many other details of the development blueprint are still at play.
City Council Member Linea Palmisano, a vocal critic of how the plan seeks to increase density, proposed allowing duplexes, instead of triplexes, in areas now restricted to single-family homes.
It would be a further departure from the 2040 density guidelines, which were scaled back by planners earlier this year from fourplexes to triplexes citywide.
Council President Lisa Bender on Monday defended the triplex proposal as "the most gentle, incremental, moderate approach that we could take to increasing housing options in our city."
The amendment failed on a voice vote, with a large majority of council members opposed. It was further evidence that the most controversial piece of the plan is likely to succeed in the final vote.
The exchange took place at a special meeting Monday that focused mostly on last-minute details introduced by council members. The meeting lasted more than three hours, and council members addressed only a fraction of about 150 amendments to the plan on the agenda, which some on the council had not been able to review until the meeting started.
The high volume of amendments forced them to schedule another meeting Wednesday in order to meet the Dec. 7 deadline to vote.
Some of the amendments focused on minor textual changes or single-word edits to the comprehensive plan, which is the road map for how the city will address issues such as affordability, racial disparity and climate change over the next two decades.
