Minneapolis is working to ban any new electroplating operations from setting up shop in the city.
The city’s Planning Commission voted on April 24 to approve a draft rezoning resolution that would prohibit numerous businesses from starting operations within city limits, including plating shops, foundries, chemical manufacturing, and commercial laundries.
Existing plating shops would be allowed to stay in operation but would be labeled ‘legal nonconforming uses.” They would be permitted to remain open as long as they continued to operate.
The measure now goes to the Minneapolis City Council’s Subcommittee on Business, Inspections, Housing, and Zoning Committee for a possible vote on May 16. The full City Council could vote on the new rules on May 25.
Minneapolis officials say the goal of the rezoning is to reduce what it says is pollution in low-income minority neighborhoods.
“Instead of continuing to allow some of our Minneapolis neighbors to breathe in poison every moment of every day, it’s up to this body to change the zoning code.”
The Minneapolis Planning Commission tried to pass an amendment to the proposed rezoning resolution that would also prohibit existing plating shops and other targeted industries in the city from expanding, but it failed when a city attorney told the commission that the city already had a process to regulate any expansion.
In addition to the rezoning efforts, the Minneapolis Planning Commission says it will also ask the city to develop an “environmental justice assessment checklist” that would be part of the permit review process for moderate- and high-impact facilities, which includes existing plating shops and other targeted businesses.
Last year, a “Joint Green Zone Task Force” of community members was set up to look at what it calls “high levels of environmental pollution and racial, political, and economic marginalization.” The group says it was targeting industries that were polluting low-income areas.
“Instead of continuing to allow some of our Minneapolis neighbors to breathe in poison every moment of every day, it’s up to this body to change the zoning code,” the Joint Green Zone Task Force wrote to Minneapolis City Council members.
