< Back To Index 03.05.2009 - HPP

In 2014, the Central Corridor light rail line running between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul will open, bringing big change to Twin Cities commuters, to development along University Avenue, and to the St. Paul neighborhoods adjoining the line.  The competition to live on or near the line is expected to be intense, as interest in living in compact, walkable, transit-oriented urban areas has rapidly multiplied.  If development is left to market forces, however, the same lower income households most dependent upon transit are likely be to be left out.  

Absent aggressive and effective public policies, combined with community-based strategies, there is reason to believe lower income residents could be shut out of the new housing opportunities arising along Central Corridor.  Two factors suggest demand for new housing units along the LRT line will be intense:  population groups who use transit most are on the rise, and the new focus on energy conservation is dramatically increasing interest in living near transit.  In the competition between market rate housing units and affordable units, market rate development could easily win out; market rate housing is easier to build and can better accommodate the uncertainties of transit-oriented development due to higher margins.  On top of that, those wanting to develop affordable units face the challenges of escalating land values, and intense competition for public housing subsidy dollars.  We need look no further than recent experience in Minneapolis with the Hiawatha LRT Line to see the results when a strong affordable housing policy is lacking.  According to the Center for Transit Oriented Development, of the 72 new residential projects built near that line between 2003 and 2006, only 25% of those projects contained any affordable units.  We can and must do better with Central Corridor.

The LRT Line will not affect just the Corridor, of course, but will inevitably bring major economic change to adjoining neighborhoods.  Particularly vulnerable are the mostly lower income Frogtown and East Rondo neighborhoods along the east end of University Avenue.  While neighborhood gentrification has its positive aspects, the likely negative effects are all too familiar:  escalating property values pricing modest income buyers out of the market, surging rents driving out tenants, modest housing units demolished to make way for high end homes, and increasing property taxes pushing lower income homeowners out of their homes.   Now is the time to begin identifying strategies which hold promise to mitigate these effects.  Although the first development to occur along the Corridor may not commence for at least five years, the lesson from anti-gentrification campaigns around the country is that you can’t start too soon, and certainly well before the forces of economic change take hold in the community.

HPP, together with its partners Community Stabilization Project (CSP) and Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation (Twin Cities LISC), has begun convening a group of stakeholders to begin working through these issues, with the goal of developing viable strategies to ensure sufficient affordable housing along the Corridor, and to protect fragile neighborhoods.  A wide variety of groups are participating, including community representatives, advocates, public officials, nonprofit developers and philanthropic funders.  For more information, or to learn how to participate in this working group, click here.