Roof Depot secures win from legislature

Supporters of the East Phillips Urban Farm and the city of Minneapolis will get some serious funding from the Minnesota Legislature that will allow the urban farm to roll out their vision and the city to expand their water yard plan at another location.

The legislature will allocate $6.5 million to the City of Minneapolis to abandon plans to expand their water yard at the Roof Depot site, and instead develop it elsewhere. The legislature also allocated an additional $5.7 million to the city if East Phillips organizers can raise an additional $3.7 million needed to buy the land from the city by Labor Day weekend. 

The funding will allow the city to replenish $16.7 million in funds that it expended to plan an expansion of its existing water yard site in East Phillips, which is roughly bounded by Longfellow and Hiawatha Avenues and 26th and 28th Streets.

The city began planning for a new, consolidated facility for its water operations in the early 1990s, identifying and securing the Roof Depot site for expansion in 2016. However, in 2014, East Phillips neighbors convened and developed a vision for the site, which would include affordable housing and community-based business incubators. 

In addition, they opposed the city’s expansion plans because they worried that demolishing a building sitting atop toxic arsenic waste, which could be dispersed, and replacing it with a facility to accommodate increased truck traffic would increase pollution and exacerbate the already poor health outcomes that residents face. 

Dean Dovolis, president of East Phillips Neighborhood Initiative (EPNI), thanked the Minneapolis delegation to the state legislature for securing the funding needed to secure the Roof Depot site. “This is a win for both the community and for Minneapolis,” said Dovolis in a statement. “We deeply appreciate the Minneapolis delegation’s assistance in reaching this historical deal to invest in a visionary model for public health and economic development.”

In a statement, Mayor Jacob Frey lauded the development. “The City’s goal since the start of this process has been to build a facility that allows us to continue to provide clean water to the people of Minneapolis,” said Mayor Frey in a press release. “This agreement would move us closer to that goal, address community wishes, and avoid double charging Minneapolis property taxpayers.

East Phillips currently has a legal case pending at the Minnesota Supreme Court alleging the city did not conduct a proper environmental review when evaluating expansion of its water yard. East Phillips plans to ask the court to put the case on hold until the purchase process is completed.

Meanwhile, earlier in May the planning commission voted to continue an item to rezone and approve two conditional-use permits for the Roof Depot site, with representative and Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley, citing the need to wait for the conclusion of legal proceedings. The rezoning would allow development that produces objectionable noise, odor, vibration and glare associated with producing raw materials, while the conditional-use permits would allow the city to expand its existing water yard and build a new parking garage. 

The city planning commission also deadlocked on a resolution to deny rezoning of the Roof Depot site to allow for a parking facility. Transportation advocate and Park Board representative Becky Alper moved to deny rezoning for a parking facility for the Roof Depot because she found the project, which would increase transportation pollution and contradict the city’s environmental justice goals, would also degrade the safety of those who use the streets surrounding the site. 

Alper added that every street surrounding the site is part of the city’s high-injury corridor, where the majority of car crashes occur. The neighborhood, she adds, is also home to the nation’s only public housing project that prioritizes Native Americans, who are disproportionately affected by vehicular-related accidents.