The Hale-Page-Diamond Lake areas were originally more of a bog and inhabited by the Minnesota Sioux Indians. In 1805 Zebulun Pike, a Lieutenant for the American Army made a treaty with the Native Americans, which established it as the Fort Snelling Reservation and an Indian Reservation. Over time the land was taken from the Native Americans and given to settlers. In 1887 the land that is both the Hale and Page neighborhoods today became a part of the city of Minneapolis, while what is Diamond Lake remained a part of the city of Richfield. In the 1920’s there was a housing boom that quickened the development of Hale and Page along with many other neighborhoods. But developers made sure to hold on to the natural beauty of the area. In 1926 the HPDL area was ruled as a residential zone and it mostly remains so today. After World War II there was another housing boom, which led to complete development of HPDL in the 1950s. The trolley car era never reached HPDL, so in order to live there and get to the city homeowners needed an automobile. This put HPDL at the front of the automobile age and established it as upper class, because those that could not afford to own a car could not live there. As the streetcar system developed and cars became more available, HPDL shifted into middle class, white-collar neighborhoods. Next came the building of the I-35W freeway in the early 1960s that displaced many of the homes in HPDL. Throughout the entire development process, the park board and the developers were careful to keep the beautiful landscape in the area safe and still today, HPDL has more parkland than almost any other neighborhood in Minneapolis. The Hale-Page-Diamond Lake neighborhoods have had a front row seat to the development that took place in their own back yard. These neighborhoods endured many changes throughout the years but have stayed a tight-knit community that is passionate about its resources.
The Hale Community is named after the Hale Elementary School, which is itself named after the American revolutionist Nathan Hale who uttered the famous phrase, “I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country” (or something very similar) after being captured as a spy by the British. Hale talks pride in its elementary school, which is an English Language Learners school with its focus on art and music, as it deservedly should.
Page, too, was named for its elementary school, Page Elementary School, which, in turn, was named after Walter Hines Page, an American editor, journalist, and ambassador to Britain during World War I. Apparently, it is common for neighborhoods in Minneapolis to be named after their elementary schools
Diamond Lake is named after the lake by the same name.
For a more in-depth study of the history of these neighborhoods you can read this essay by a student of the University of Minnesota:
http://www.cura.umn.edu/sites/cura.advantagelabs.com/files/publications/NPCR1021.pdf
In 2013, Minneapolis adopted their Climate Action Plan, which put into place a comprehensive set of emission reduction strategies. These strategies cover 3 areas: Buildings and energy, Transportation and land use, Waste and recycling.
For buildings and energy, the goal is to reduce energy usage by 17%, and generate 10% of electricity from local, renewable sources. On the residential building side of things, Minneapolis is proposing a "home energy audit" as part of the Truth In Housing program (TIH or TISH, Truth In Sale of Housing). This would require sellers to have an energy score when listing their house for sale. They are proposing that the TISH inspectors be trained to perform this component of the inspection process. The end result of this energy score would be a single number, for example 37 on a scale of 1 to 100. 100 would mean that the house would have virtually no energy costs.
Another part of this program is to make incentives for sellers to improve their homes energy-wise so that they can get a higher sale price due to energy efficiencies. If they don't, the buyers will at least have some knowledge about the energy efficiency of the house, making it an incentive to them to improve the house energy-wise.
Also on the residential side of things, Minneapolis is proposing a "time of rent" energy disclosure for renters. Renters currently have no way of knowing how much their utility bills will be before renting a unit. The disclosure would be mandated so that renters could compare units on energy efficiency. This would give incentives to the landlord (owners) to improve their buildings to make them more attractive to the rental market.
On the commercial side of things, some of them already have to do an energy score of sorts and disclose to purchasers. Minneapolis would like to extend that to all commercial buildings. They also have an Energy Reduction Challenge called the "Kilowatt Crackdown" to encourage commercial buildings to reduce usage.
For renewable energy, Minneapolis is trying to create policies that promote renewable energy, develop a "solar-ready" certification, and encourage "net-zero" buildings.
Making a building "solar-ready" adds virtually no cost at the time of construction, and would potentially have some value to purchasers. This would involve adding some structural supports and electrical conduit so that solar could be installed without adding structural support to the roof trusses, and/or digging in walls to add conduit. Both of these items can be added at a very low cost when in the construction phase.
What is a net-zero building? Basically net-zero means the building (or house) would generate all the energy it needs to power the building itself. This generally means that the building is super insulated so that it requires less energy to heat and cool the building, as well as solar panels to generate the energy it needs. Oftentimes this type of building uses geo-thermal heat pumps to heat and cool the building, running off solar energy. You can read more about "Net-Zero" buildings at this link.
You can read the entire action plan at the link below. Minneapolis Climate Action Plan:
http://www.minneapolismn.gov/sustainability/climate-action-goals/climate-action-plan
