Matt Doll, Minnesota Environmental Partnership
This week, my usually sleepy community on Saint Paul’s East Side welcomed CEOs, elected officials, and celebrities. They, along with hundreds of other volunteers, gathered to roll up their sleeves and raise thirty new single-family homes as part of Habitat for Humanity’s annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.
This Work Project is one of the largest builds in Habitat’s recent history. It’s part of Saint Paul’s historic redevelopment of the Heights, a former 112-acre golf course slated to become one of the nation’s first net-zero communities. Along with apartment complexes, parks, and light industrial facilities, the Habitat homes are part of an effort to bring 1000 residents and 1000 jobs to this corner of the city, all powered by clean energy.
I’ve written at length about my excitement regarding the sustainability measures at the Heights, for which I served on an advisory committee. The site was a fitting recipient of the first-ever loan from the Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority (MnCIFA) for a geothermal energy system.
Now that earth has been moved, streets are being prepared, and houses are going up at the Heights, the project has become a visual symbol for the kind of development that Minnesota should replicate. The Heights will support sustainability not only by generating clean energy with solar panels and geothermal pumps, but by saving energy by bringing more housing and jobs close together in the heart of the Twin Cities, helping to encourage shorter commutes.
Dense city centers are good for people and planet
I don’t believe that people are naturally built for long commutes on packed highways and dangerous streets. The science backs me up: long car commutes are bad for your health and bad for the planet. Transportation is Minnesota’s number-one source of climate emissions, and most of those emissions come from the vehicles we use to commute every day.
But it’s by no means easy for many of us to avoid a long commute. The housing market is remarkably tight in the Twin Cities, for example, meaning that many would-be buyers or renters can’t afford to live near their jobs or in neighborhoods with access to transit or bicycle infrastructure. Housing costs incentivize folks to live on the outskirts of urban areas, which in turn leads to builders constructing sprawling new developments, more highway lanes, and more parking lots at the expense of our natural spaces. Most of Minnesota’s problem with vehicle emissions – as well as traffic congestion – comes from sprawl in these suburbs and exurbs, not from rural communities or cities.
If we want people to thrive in Minnesota while also reducing our environmental impact, we can’t keep privileging cars over people. We need to invest in robust and reliable public transit and electric vehicles. We also need to build more housing density in existing city centers and near transit lines. The location of mixed-density housing and businesses in an already-dense area will help reduce the destruction of natural spaces and pollution from transportation, energy use, and wastewater.
Encouraging density doesn’t mean that people won’t have the choice to live far from a city center if they wish, but it will provide more options that can reduce the impacts of cost pressures, traffic, and pollution for everyone.
During the last Legislative session, MEP and allies supported bills that would make it easier to increase housing density near transit lines, enable sites zoned for businesses to be converted to homes, and reduce the number of parking spaces required for new buildings. Unfortunately, most of the session’s housing policy bills were unsuccessful, but we hope to make more progress in 2025.
At the federal level, Minnesota’s U.S. Senator Tina Smith has introduced the Homes Act, a bill that would massively boost public housing options, encourage climate resilient and zero-emissions building projects like the Heights, and help provide homes to those relocating due to climate impacts – a problem that will only increase over the next decades. The bill is not likely to advance in a divided Congress, but it should help propel a conversation on how we can bolster the sustainability and affordability of our housing market.
Watching footage of hurricanes and wildfires over the past few years, I’m struck by the need to fight ever harder to cut our climate emissions, as well as the need to house those displaced by natural disasters. Minnesota may be a cold state, but we should provide a warm welcome for those who wish to call this place home – by ensuring our housing is abundant, affordable, and powered by clean energy.