The most common issues for city councils to deal with involve land use. Most issues are pretty routine but it's not uncommon for a land owner to request permission from the city to do something which falls outside of the governing land use rules for their property. Cities across Minnesota consider, and grant, such "variances" all the time.
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on a case this past summer which fundamentally changed (and restricted) a city's ability to grant variances. I'm not going to bore you with the legal details of the decision, but I do think this decision will have huge impact on future developments, especially in the metro area.
A phenonemon which has been controversial for at least the last decade has been the increase in "tear downs" in certain of the first ring suburbs. Many 1950s era ramblers have been torn done to permit the building of huge houses. The city which has received the most press for this trend has been Edina.
The issue for Edina, as I understand it, is that virtually all of these tear downs require some sort of variance. Thus, the as-yet unanswered question is whether the Minnesota Supreme Court has killed this segment of the real estate market. Or, can enterprising developers find some way to keep this segment of the market alive without requesting variances from the city?
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