2025 Session Last amended: 1975 session

§ 473.165 — Council Review; Independent Commission, Board, Agency

Plain-Language Summary

This section directs the Metropolitan Council to review the long-term comprehensive plans of each independent commission, board, or agency, but only when the council determines the plan has an areawide effect, a multicommunity effect, or a substantial effect on metropolitan development. Such a plan must be submitted to the council before any part of it takes effect, and no action may be taken to put it into effect until 60 days have passed after submission or until the council notifies the agency that the plan is consistent with its comprehensive guide. If the council finds within those 60 days that the plan is inconsistent with the comprehensive guide or detrimental to orderly and economic metropolitan development, it may indefinitely suspend the plan, except that it cannot suspend a sanitary sewer district plan about the location or construction of a regional sewer plant or the expansion or improvement of the Minneapolis-St. Paul sanitary district treatment plant. An affected agency may appeal a suspension to the full Metropolitan Council for a public hearing, and if they cannot agree, the dispute is recorded and referred with a council recommendation to the next regular session of the legislature.

Practical Notes
The Metropolitan Council reviews the long-term plans of independent metro commissions, boards, and agencies when a plan would have an areawide, multicommunity, or substantial effect on metropolitan development. A plan cannot take effect until 60 days after it is submitted or until the council approves it as consistent with its comprehensive guide, and the council can indefinitely suspend a plan it finds inconsistent (with a carve-out for certain regional sewer plant matters), subject to an appeal and ultimately legislative resolution if no agreement is reached.