Housing, Urban Development and Zoning - Regular Meeting

Good morning. We'll call today's Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee meeting to order. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Alderman Cohn. Alderwoman Switzer.

Present.

Vice Chair Sonnier.

Present.

Alderman Browning.

Present.

Alderman Aldridge. Chair Clark Hubbard. Here. We have four present. We have a quorum.

All right. With that, we will call for a motion to approve the minutes from Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. So moved.

Second.

It was moved by Vice Chair Sonnier and seconded by Alderman Browning that we approve the minutes from Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Alderman Browning. Alderman Cohn. Alderman Switzer.

Aye.

Vice Chair Sonnier. Aye. Alderman Browning.

Aye.

Alderman Aldridge. Chair Clark Hubbard. Aye. We have four aye votes.

All right. That was successfully approved. The minutes, we're going to go ahead and remove Board Bill 47 from the agenda per the sponsor's request. And I'm going to recognize Vice Chair Sonnier on Board Bill 41.

OK, good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for having me be in front of you all today. Board Bill 41 is about community development corporations to both define them and certify them. I had the privilege of bringing many of the community development corporations in front of this committee. I don't know if that was four to six months ago. Everything is a blur in our new timeline, but they were able to present on some of the essential work that they do in our community. And this bill is to really it's I think it's a very necessary component in terms of beginning to create a sustainable pipeline of support for our community development corporation. We could go to the next slide. So board bill 41 does a few essential things. Number one, it creates a formal city by definition development corporations for the city of St. Louis. This is pretty essential because, for example, the board bill 22 that we have that may be third and final pass this Friday has some priority language for community development corporations, but we don't have a definition. And so that means that when departments are having to make decisions on who to fund and how to fund, there is no formal kind of framework for figuring out who qualifies as a community development corporation. And I think an important part of this conversation is to recognize that there are a lot of organizations that do community development corporation adjacent work, but are not necessarily CDCs themselves. The second thing that this legislation does is establish a certification framework and process so that the city can consistently recognize qualifying organizations. I actually first filed this legislation last session, but there was some additional work that was needed in terms of working with the city council's office, working with SLDC, working with CDA, working with the many CDCs that we have to talk about the certification framework. It was something that specifically our legal department felt like was really important, again, because as we begin to define them and hopefully create this sustainable pathway, it should be really clear to folks who are making those decisions with RFPs and things like that of what counts. And also really important that the house that certifies the framework understands them, has a relationship with them, and those conversations could be had. And then the third thing that this legislation aims to do is to authorize the city to give priority consideration to certified CDCs when awarding grants, loans, contracts, and other financial assistance. And it allows for certain funding streams to be reserved exclusively for community development corporations. I think it's needed for a number of reasons. We have community development corporations in 12 of the 14 wards in our city of St. Louis, and they do essential work that is really rooted in neighborhoods that is aimed at addressing major issues from disinvestment to displacement to structural inequity. They are nonprofits, which I think is really important. They are some of the few entities in our city that develop communities without As big of a worry about financial needs, of course, it is important, though, that we talk about how to sustainably fund that work, because while there is not a for-profit interest, capitalism is capitalism, and they have payrolls and operational expenses and things just as any other entity or organization does. The second thing, I think a big reason why it's needed is, you know, just uniform criteria to promote consistency across city departments, to protect the integrity of public expenditures, and to ensure funds reach organizations with genuine community connection. I think this is no different than what we hear all the time on this committee from many developers across the city saying, we're not sure about your process, it works this way here, it works that way here. and so this legislation will hopefully help us to have a uniform criteria obviously i've hinted quite a bit at the investment component and i think investment works best in our city when we have recipients that have sustained local presence that's really important that have community reflective governance which we'll get a little bit into and it's really key what makes a community development a community development corporation and also resident engagement And then public dollars for community development, you know, I think they should be spent transparently and they should have accountability. And so some of these things are really necessary in order for a place-based development work that is successful. So some of the requirements under Board Bill 41 in order to be defined under the city's order as a community development corporation, I think the first thing to really put ourselves to think about is from a governance perspective, making sure that 25% of the residents be a part of the core service area. That is a really key definition. It came up over and over again since I filed the legislation. The many organizations I've gotten a chance to sit with really raised this point of concern that we want to make sure that if you're saying you're a place-based organization, that you have residents who live in that place that are part of the decision-making process and that that is represented in your governance aka your board structure. And I would just note that 25% is actually pretty below what a lot of other definitions are. And so that means that if you have a board of four, at least one person has to be in that community and henceforth. It also requires that you have at least one full-time paid employee. I think this part is also really important because as a city, we don't want to give funding to organizations that do not have the capacity to put that funding on the ground in a way that makes sense. And for many of the projects that CDCs do, if you do not have at least one full-time staff person, many of them have beyond that or in some type of way can represent that you have someone who is paid to solely focus on executing the work of your organization. You probably are not equipped at the capacity level just yet to be getting funding and to deliver what we hope happens on the ground. And then there are four different components under this legislation that really you're evaluating to be considered a CDC. Those four buckets are housing and real estate development. That's one possible bucket. Economic community organizing is obviously a key component as well. planning engagement and advocacy. Again, that is the community work and then neighborhood stabilization and quality of life. We will get just a little bit more into the notes and bolts of this. It's spelled out pretty clear in the legislation. But the idea is that there are four of these categories that you would have to exhibit in order to qualify as a community development corporation. And then the fifth one is pretty standard. You know, you got to be in good standing with the city. And so you want to have any unresolved audit findings. You don't want to have any contract defaults. You don't want to have any compliance violations. I think that's a key part of making sure that organizations have capacity and trust to do the work that hopefully we're funding them to do. The certification piece of this legislation, these are all of the parts where when you're applying to the same certified CDC, you would want to have articles of incorporation and current bylaws, a pretty basic standard. You will want to have evidence of your 501 status in Missouri non-profit standing, again, another pretty basic standard. Evidence of compliance with this specific statute. This is a broader definition of community development corporations that exist. Most entities reach this definition quite easily. A description of designated core service area. Again, a CDC is a place-based organization, and so we do want to know where is it you intend you operate and you do your services. Documentation of active work in at least three of these four community revitalization categories is pretty significant. I mentioned already that you have to demonstrate who's on your board. At least 25 percent of that board has to be made up of residents from the service area, having at least one full-time paid employee. And then also two most recent fiscal year financial statements, plus more recent audited statements or audit review. Again, this is something that came up pretty significantly in discussions that most folks felt like were bare minimum sorts of things. And then an officer certification of accuracy and compliance. So once you put all these things together and get them on there, that would be a part of your packet. Organizations who are currently receiving city funding that will qualify as the CDCs have 180 days from the effective date to submit a certification application. That's a pretty lengthy time period. It's very intentional. Even though we know we've had many communications, I think it's really important that we have realistic standards for transitions and that we give folks time enough to have communication And to get familiar, certification is valid for three years from the date of issuance. I think there were a number of ways we could have approached it, but there was definitely a desire to make sure that it aligns just a bit with not wanting organizations to have to over and over do work that is redundant. And so you'll notice the next one is annual good standing certifications that are required for non-renewal. So it's not as in-depth as you would when you're going for your initial approval, but a way to kind of check in and make sure that you're still upholding those basic criterias. And then a renewal application is due 90 days before expiration. So once you're approved, you get three years. We want to make sure that you are trying to apply within 90 days before you expire so that there can be time for the certification to happen with the competency and proper vetting that it should. And then an organization with a timely pending renewal is provisionally certified and remains eligible for prioritized city funding during the review. Obviously, we know as alders that sometimes our departmental process is a little bit slow than our applicants. And so that's to make sure that no one is kind of denied a certain standing qualification because the department is still working on their process. I think the other key component of this bill that I'm really excited about is the public registry. This is something that would be maintained by the St. Louis Development Corporation that will oversee the certification process and that will be available on the city's website. We are hoping that this can be updated within 15 days of any certification action. So whether that's like grant renewal, suspension, revocation, or restoration, we would like there to be a website database that lets you kind of know once any major action is taken and that it should take about 15 days for SODC to update that and make sure that's available publicly. And then that every certified organization's name, core service area, certification date, and expiration date is publicly visible. Again, transparency is really important, especially for place-based work. And that organizations whose certification has been suspended or revoked are also identified with the effective date of that action. I think that is really important for just transparency. And that would hopefully mean that residents partners, philanthropic organizations, and other folks, whether it is even other levels of government from the local, state, or national level, are able to see in real time whether any given organization currently holds city certification. Again, they are organizations that stay in communities they serve, and I think that is really one of the most powerful things about community development corporations. They are not organizations that are designed to be necessarily grant chasers, but they really focus on works within communities. um in this ordinance in a lot of ways is the city catching up with that reality it's giving community development corporations a very clear framework giving them accountable accountability that's needed for funding awarding but also more importantly pathways to the community and i really think the goal of this legislation especially from talking to a lot of key stakeholders is to make sure i think cdc's for a long time have kind of been left to their own accord they've really had to create their own ecosystem their own infrastructure and they've done a great job but i think in this today especially given post tornado i think it's time that we start to have more serious conversation about the city being a real partner and at work and being a partner in a way that's sustainable and reliable And so I thank you for the opportunity to come before you all today. Madam Chair, I do have some guest speakers from some of our CDCs here as well. And so whenever, however you'd like me to proceed, I'm happy to get that.

I would definitely love to hear from them.

Excellent. Mr. Westbrooks will be joining us shortly. I didn't have a I think he's here. Oh, sorry. Nice to see you. So we can have CDC Westbrooks come up to speak. And then we can begin questions because I imagine all this will definitely have some questions for Mr. Westbrooks. If you want to start us off Miss Reinhart with speaking from a CDC perspective.

Thank you. By you being a vice chair sign a speaker, if you can, you won't have the time limit. Right. But if you can still start off with your name and your affiliation for the record and then proceed with your comments. Thank you for being here this morning.

Sure. Thank you. I am Becky Reinhart. I'm the executive director at DeSales Community Development, located in the Fox Park neighborhood in Seventh Ward. um we are a place-based non-profit community development corporation that has has been in existence for 50 years this year serving our core service area of the neighborhoods of tower grove east fox park and park west we've been around so long that the neighborhood boundaries have changed since we were initially founded, but founded in the spirit of many community development corporations by residents of the area who had identified needs and concerns in their community and sought to organize around addressing those needs. One thing that is special about community development corporations, aside from, as the Alderwoman mentioned, the fact that neighborhood leadership and representation is baked into our model through governance, is that the work we do is not so easy to define because it is informed and directed by the specific needs in the neighborhoods where we exist. But for many of us, including DeSales, that has looked like an emphasis on affordable housing development because that's a need that is prevalent in many of our communities. In Fox Park specifically, what that looked like was a lot in the 1990s of a vacant or otherwise under cared for multifamily rental housing. And so we really leaned into our ability to address that issue directly as a developer and owner of affordable housing and keeping that community governance through the CDC structure. so just here to support my colleagues and support this legislation so that we can really formalize for once for the first time what it means to be to be a community development organization city of st louis put the the status of these organizations in writing that we can better do what we do best especially as we recognize ongoing unmet needs throughout our community. And I also want to mention that I currently serve as the board president of the Community Builders Network. We are an organization of many different community building organizations throughout St. Louis. We've provided a letter of support as well for the legislation and we're happy to answer any questions about the legislation or how it would impact our work.

Ms. Gross, if you want to come up next.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Ella Gross, and I am here on behalf of the Tower Grove Community Development Corporation in support of Board Bill 41. Thank you for having me. At its core, this legislation recognizes the important role of community development corporations that play in neighborhoods across St. Louis and creates a framework for strengthening that work citywide. For decades, CDC has served as trusted partners in housing development, neighborhood revitalization, economic development, community engagement, and resident services. We often serve as the bridge between residents, businesses, funders, and local government, helping turn plans and investments into tangible results on the ground. Yet despite the critical roles CDC's play, St. Louis has never had a clear and consistent process for recognizing organizations that are committed to this work and equipped to carrying it out effectively. Board Bill 41 helps fill that gap. What makes this legislation particularly important is that it supports both established and emerging organizations. For organizations that have been doing this work for decades, it provides formal recognition and accountability standards that help strengthen partnerships within the city and other stakeholders. For newer organizations, it creates a clear pathway to the community development ecosystem, providing transparency around expectations and helping build capacity for the next generation of neighborhood leaders. Strong neighborhoods require strong organizations. By establishing consistent standards and a certification process, Board Bill 41 helps ensure that community development work is carried out by organizations that are rooted in their communities, accountable to residents, and prepared to deliver results. It also creates opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and long-term sustainability across the CDC network. This legislation is ultimately about building capacity for the future in order to create stronger, more resilient community development ecosystem in the city of St. Louis. Tower Grove CDC enthusiastically supports board bill 41 and respectfully urges the committee. Thank you for your time.

Mr. Burns.

Good morning, members of the board. My name is Michael Burns. I'm president of Northside Community Housing. Northside Community Housing is a nonprofit that is located in the Greater Ville communities. We've been involved in community development work for just about 50 years, initially under our founding agency, Northside Community Center, which is now known as Northside Youth and Senior Services. In that particular community, we have provided many resources because CDCs are not only organizations with deep long-term intentional relationships, but we also provide housing and community engagement. which is something very important for these communities because these communities absolutely need to have a voice. We are the eyes and ears of these communities. We're on the ground and you could particularly tell that during these most recent disasters such as the tornado and the pandemic that took place. We were the first organizations that were on the ground, helping to remove the rubble, helping to provide food services, helping to provide housing resources, making sure people had shelters, places to go. And we were also connecting neighbors to the resources that were out there in the community. In the 1990s, I was fortunate to be the treasurer of a nonprofit called McKinley Heights Housing Corporation. And at that time, CDCs received funding through community block grant dollars. If we had continued those type of dollars up until this time, we probably wouldn't have as many housing issues as we do in the city of St. Louis. because at that time we were doing a lot of rehab, a lot of new home construction. And although it did not cease, it was considerably slowed down. So I believe that this bill, number 41, will put these CDCs in a position where not only will we be able to function better, but the fact that we will have some long-term stable funding will be a benefit to those communities that we serve. So again, I am definitely in a position to say that the community needs these particular funds so that these CDCs can do the work that they are known for doing. And that I hope that the passage of this actually takes place so that we can go about the business to help the city in ways that the city and the state and the federal government cannot do. We have a better ability to get on the ground and do that. So I thank you very much for this opportunity to testify.

and mr westbrooks all right thank you and good morning madam chair um good morning madam chair and the board my name is stephen westbrooks i am the ceo of sldc i'm here today to talk in support of board bill 41 I support this legislation because I believe strategic development requires strategic investment, and strategic investment requires a clear and accountable framework for identifying the organizations that are capable of delivering neighborhood-level outcomes on behalf of the public. At SLDC, we spend a great deal of time and have spent a great deal of time thinking about how public resources can be deployed to create the greatest impact for the residents of St. Louis. Whether we're talking about housing or commercial corridor, revitalization, business development, neighborhood stabilization, or community engagement, one of the fundamental questions is always the same. Who are the partners that have the capacity, the credibility and the community connection, which is vital to help deliver those outcomes? And this bill significantly helps to answer that question. In my 17 years in community development finance, I've seen the term community development corporation used very broadly and very inconsistently. There are organizations across our city that are doing very important work, but there has not always been a clear citywide framework that defines what qualifies an organization as a CDC. As public resources become available, that lack of clarity makes it difficult to ensure consistency, accountability, and transparency in how those resources are deployed. Board Bill 41 establishes a very clear common definition and a certification process that creates clarity for everyone. That includes the city, nonprofit organizations, potential philanthropic partners, residents, and future funders that we're looking to bring into the community development ecosystem. It establishes expectations around governance, community connection, organizational capacity, and a demonstrated commitment to neighborhood revitalization. In my 17 years, I've seen many different cities succeed when they're able to align resources around clearly defined strategy and trusted implementation partners. We often talk here in St. Louis about the importance and have doubled down on creating plans. But plans alone, as we know, do not revitalize neighborhoods. implementation is what revitalizes neighborhoods. And that implementation requires institutions with staying power, organizations that are rooted in neighborhoods, accountable to residents, and capable of sustaining long-term work. And this legislation helps create a pathway for building and strengthening that kind of neighborhood infrastructure. I also believe the bill advances an important principle of public stewardship, establishing objective criteria, certification standards, and public transparency, which helps ensure that when the city does choose to invest in CDCs, it does so through a process that is clear, consistent, and defensible. Finally, I view this legislation as an institution building effort. Strong cities are supported by strong institutions. neighborhoods benefit when there are capable organizations that can partner with residents philanthropy private investors and government to advance community goals over the long term board bill 41 provides a strong framework for identifying and supporting those organizations it creates clarity where ambiguity currently exists and it gives the city a stronger foundation for making strategic investments in neighborhood revitalizations and for those reasons i support the bill and appreciate the work that has gone into bringing it forward thank you

They probably have questions. I just wanted to add, too, that there was sent over letters of support from Dutch Town Main Streets that's located in the third ward, from the Shaw Neighborhood Sixth Ward Improvement Association, from Park Central Development in the ninth ward, and from the Community Builders Network, which is located in the 11th ward, but as mentioned before, represents over 70 organizations who do community building work. And with that, Madam Chair, I'm happy to open up for any questions from my colleagues.

I think what we'll do is see, is there any public comments signed up for Orville 41 online or in the room?

We have one person in the room, Byron Clemons.

I'm here to testify in favor of the bill with one proviso.

Mr. Clemmons, good morning. We all know who you are, but we want to make sure for the record.

Byron Clemmons, B-Y-R-O-N-C-L-E-N-S, a resident of the city of St. Louis, and I'm the spokesperson for AFT St. Louis.

And can you raise your right hand and swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

I sure do.

Thank you. Please proceed.

We're in favor of the bill with the proviso that all stakeholders at the table pay their fair share of taxes to the city of St. Louis or a pilot. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone online?

We have no one online.

Okay. All right. We'll go ahead. Alderman Cohn, I got a message that you had your hand up. Did you want to reference anything first or you want to go right into your question?

I just have questions.

Okay, great. Please proceed.

Alderwoman, I'm curious. There are already certified community-based development organizations and a certification process. I'm curious your thoughts on why do we need to have a local definition when there's already federal definitions and a federal certification process for both community development, community-based development organizations, or CUBDOs, and community housing development organizations, otherwise known as SHODOs. So can you expound upon why we need this local certification process?

Absolutely. I think if you look at that federal definition, our definition is that federal definition, but gets more specific. The need for a definition comes because if as a city we were to put out an RFP or RFQ tomorrow and said, you know, this is for community development corporations, it would be so broad that there would no doubt be folks who would be interested in applying that don't exactly count as community development corporations. There are a lot of organizations that do adjacent work that play in the field and in the realm in the wide spectrum of overall community building, but are not necessarily CDCs. And then, as I mentioned before, the first time that I filed this legislation last session, it was uplifted for me from the city councilor and some folks that there was a preference to make sure that we were being really clear for departments especially as we had broader conversations about how to fund cdc's about how they should go about identifying them and then i don't know if mr westbrooks would like to add anything specific to you know why this is a necessary component for the city but really those were a large tandem of like my conversations and why the definition here

I mean, the only thing I may add is, you know, in 17 years in community development finance, I've actually never heard of a CUBDO. I don't know how many are actually in operation in the city of St. Louis. And the CHOTO definition, I would say, I've seen it used, you know, very technically for affordable housing, tax credit applications. I do know for a fact that there are, you know, several really strong CDCs that are operating currently in the city of St. Louis. And as we think about funding opportunities for that neighborhood infrastructure, I think that that, you know, creating that doubling down on the infrastructure that we have and formalizing that infrastructure and thinking about ways that we can you know, further invest in our neighborhoods, that it is, that it would be supportive of a local environment that we've built over, you know, in some cases, 50 years of work in the city of St. Louis.

Alderman Coe, Mr. Burns wanted to respond as well.

Thank you. Alderman Cohen, one of the main concerns when it comes to being a Club Doe or a ChoDo is whether or not the organization is resident-led. Northside Community Housing, as well as many of these other nonprofits, are resident-led. We are required to make sure that at least one third of our board of directors live and or work in the community in which we serve. And the majority of our board members actually do live in those communities. So that was actually the real focus and the premise behind being a CHODO or a SHODO. And these organizations do qualify under those terms, as well as the criteria that's set forth. Thank you.

So I guess I should be, I'm a little kind of perplexed about the response here. So just to be clear, a CUBDO, which is a certified organization by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, it must be organized underneath state law for community development activities. Its primary purpose is to focus on improving the physical, economic, or social environment of its geographic area. with a specific attention to low-mod income persons, and it must have a geographic focus. It must operate primarily within an identified neighborhood area or jurisdiction with a population under 25,000. Its board governance has to be at least 51% of the board has to be composed of Low mod income residents, local business owners, or community representatives. So already the definition of a cubdo is actually more onerous than what we're proposing here for a local certification. Um, the Shoto, you know, which limits the organization to do primarily housing development. Um, the cubs are, you know, a little bit more broad based, and we do have You know, or at least historically have had several of them operating within the St Louis city area. You know show does are you know predominantly limited to housing development, so they don't focus as much on the social environment or economic development. um but the you know show does also have a requirement of at least a third of their governing board has to be low mod income representation no more than a third can be um you know a public official and that the organized or they have to organize um you know for community input and any of the housing development projects that they put together I'm concerned around the legislation as it's written. I represent a ward that, you know, before being elected, I was on the board of the community-based development organization. It was a CUBDO at the time. Not sure if it still is, but they do call themselves the CDC. That organization over its, 50 year history or so has had ups and downs and has really struggled at points where you know at some points in time, it looks like it wasn't even going to exist, the next year. At the beginning of my term I reached out to other Community based development organizations that were operating in the city. and was able to get them to start doing some work in my ward uh now fast forward 17 years a lot of them are doing a lot more work in my ward but and you know not to call anyone out i try not to do that but one of them just testified and they're by the definitions of this ordinance they wouldn't be qualified to be doing work in my ward

So I would push back against that point, Alderman Cohn. This legislation doesn't disqualify anyone from the work that they're currently doing. And that was very intentional. There were several, like I said, they wouldn't be abroad. They wouldn't be eligible to be certified. Right as a work, and I think there's a big distinction between people who are eligible to be certified under city ordinance, preventing people from doing work. So I just want to make sure that's very clear on the record that the legislation does not keep anyone from doing any work. I'm very aware of what you mentioned of those organizations. I think that in conversation amongst people. who do that work and also amongst many people across city leadership. Again, there was a knowing that under, if we, again, referencing Board Bill 22, for example, if that was to move forward, there are so many entities who would qualify that again, maybe do CDC adjacent work, do work that is valued, but that don't quite meet the requirements of a community development corporation. That federal definition you named, I think you can see a lot of similarities, the things you outline and the things that's in this bill. It's just that the bill are a bit more tailored to the city of St. Louis' specific framework. You know, we may have to agree to disagree on this point if it is a concern that it would keep people from doing work. This doesn't prevent anybody from doing work, but it does start to create a sustainable pathway to moving forward. Because as a city, if we're going to get to where I hope we could get to with this conversation, which is again talking about sustainable funding that will go to CDCs, that pipeline does not exist. And from conversations with the mayor of the city departments and the city council's office, a part of the difficulty in creating that pipeline was the lack of infrastructure that this bill is proposing.

I guess, lastly, my question would be around the certification process so Mr Westbrooks if you're able to you know come to the dais. I you know I get a little hesitant adding more responsibility to study departments that are already unable to perform their basic functions. How do you anticipate this process, this application process being managed? And I'm going to just add before you respond the abysmal approach that we've had with application processes for ARPA funding. And for actually a program that's been around for decades, the WBMB certification process for years and years has had various stakeholders, managers, and other, it's even moved entities because the certification process has been either too slow, not rigorous enough, or too onerous that people aren't even able to get certified. So how in your mind do you believe that SLDC is going to be able to adequately certify these organizations and manage, not just get them certified, but manage those certifications going forward if they are to expand their service area?

Fair enough. I appreciate the question and I do recognize the challenges that SLDC has had historically supporting the NBWB certification and compliance program as well as the ARPA allocation and those are incredibly important bodies of work that we are working through, I think, with the line of sight on successful implementation and spend down of all the ARPA money currently, as well as analyzing the compliance and certification process wbe and working to uh bolster our ability to support uh that function um you know one of the things that we're working on right now at sldc under my leadership is building out the capacity of the organization to meet both the challenges and the opportunities that the city faces um and and i think obviously you know building out the neighborhood infrastructure is both one of those challenges and opportunities that the city faces. I think in particular with the CDC certification, the breadth of that certification process in my estimation is narrow enough, especially at the outset, we're not talking about thousands of potential CDCs, we're not talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that require significant levels of you know federal compliance um you know at the outset we're looking at you know a handful or maybe less of potential cdc's that would qualify that would need to meet the certification and and the maintenance around that certification um in my estimation require a a a not insignificant but not as significant level of support and work that some of the other programs that you named actually do. And so I think that, you know, given SLDC's role in the city, Given our focus on supporting and providing significant support, aligning capital and driving capital into neighborhoods and being very intentional about doing so, having that capability and that function reside at SLDC feels like a natural place for that.

Great. So what happens when an organization gets certified and then is there an annual certification process?

There is an annual renewal process where the very basic components of an organization being in good standing are required. But the actual renewal process is within three years. And it's also specifically written that if you have been certified but you are waiting on response from SODC to approve you, you are provisionally approved. The only difference is like you've been approved already and you're waiting on SODC because your three year time period came. We're not going to come say you're no longer CDC certified. You would be provisionally certified while you were waiting for that response.

Well, that's wonderful, but what happens when someone loses their 501C3 designation during that certification process or after the certification process, but before the three year renewal process?

That's the purpose of the annual renewal process is there will be someone checking in once a year to make sure that is a basic component of being a good standard is maintaining your 501c3.

So Mr. Westbrooks, who at SLDC is going to be managing this process and not just following up with people on an annual basis, but checking their certifications with the IRS on a monthly basis because those 501c3 designations don't necessarily fall in line with maybe an annual review at SLDC?

Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. And so I would envision that role being led by our chief operating officer with support from our compliance lead, who has been managing, I think, to successful completion the ARPA deployment. You know, understandably, there have been challenges with that dimension of our work, but I think that team and those leads have the capacity to support the needs and the breadth of work that it would take to certify and maintain compliance with the proposed legislation.

From your lips to God's ears, let's hope. No further questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would also just want to add, because I do think the federal component that mentioned was pretty important, so I just want to bring some highlights from my conversations with many stakeholders. One, I think it's really important to know that the federal definition exists as kind of a guardrail for federal money, but its purpose of that is not to define what a community development corporation is. I think the third thing to keep in mind is that the federal definitions are a little bit more narrower, and actually omit what the city is deliberately trying to require with this. I mentioned over and over again community organizing, and so CHDOs are housing-focused, CBDOs project-focused on kind of revitalization and economic development or even energy conservation, but neither one of those definitions requires community organizing, which is a really key component that we're trying to put here into this ordinance. I also think it came up over and over again in conversation that people felt like for local funding, there needs to be a measure of local accountability and a local mechanism for that. And then also just I think we have to be honest, too, as folks who are part of the current governmental and political climate, that federal definitions are indeed a moving target. CDBG funds and home funds were both under serious elimination of threat in the FY26 federal budget. And if the city were to tie ourselves completely to that definition and those programs, but then they're cut or restructured, so then too is the city's framework and we also, our structure would break up. And so I just wanted to make sure that that was a part of the conversation. Many of the things that Alderman Cohn mentioned came up, we discussed it in depth and it actually increased our desire to have a local definition because unfortunately federal definitions are not stable right now and many of the traditional sources of funding are under threat of being cut and under threat and those definitions are constantly changing and not necessarily in a way that is aligned with the values and the priorities of people who do the work on the ground.

Alderman Slicer.

City Council Chambers, Thank you, and thank you for everyone aiming to talk about this bill it's interesting to hear from directly from the folks that it would impact. City Council Chambers, One of the things that stood out to me in the requirements was a 25% threshold for the staff of the organization to be from a local the local area, can you talk a little bit more about how you arrived at that. City Council Chambers, Just for the board. City Council Chambers, board it's not staff.

Yes, correct. Not the staff, not the executive director. Some of them, you know, some CDCs have one, two, three, four, five. So we didn't want to put that requirement on them. But it's for the board to say that we want to make sure that the people who are living in those communities are getting a say so in that organization's work, especially if they're claiming to be place-based. I think if you're being place-based, you shouldn't be making decisions, you know, for people. You should be making it kind of on their behalf and in consultation with them.

So you're envisioning a situation in which the city issues some sort of notice of funding availability only to registered community development corporations?

I think that is a possibility. I think even if there are percentages, like if there's a NOFA that comes out and it says, you know, maybe a certain percentage of this, we want to go to CDCs. I think there's like my dream world of having funding that is just for CDCs, but I think What might be kind of as far as transitioning to starting to fund the work a little bit more would be having portions of funding like the RAMS bill, for example, that would be for CDC.

Okay. Can you give a little bit more of a timeline of when you're imagining going from today to seeing this fully executed?

Yeah, you know, I think we're going to hopefully, should this pass today, you'll see some beginning work with this as far as I think the first big chunk of funding that you'll see be eligible for this would be Board Bill 22, would be some of the housing recovery efforts listed in there. You will kind of get to see how this works. I certainly plan to stay in communication with the organizations on the ground, with the Office of Recovery who has been involved in this conversation, and with the entities that will be over it. I think you'll see it there. If I had a dream framework, I think the legislation really helps that really within the next year as a city, we will be clear on our definition. We would have some time where SODC will hopefully would have been implementing that certification process to see how it's working in real time. We would have had some funds put out that CDCs would have been eligible for and we'll be able to see in real time how the processes works. I would not frame that this is going to be a perfect process or a flawless process. But I think it'll be one that does move the pendulum forward as far as becoming real partners as a city and catching us up with what the other successful municipalities have. But also I think it's possible that we might find that we might need to do some changes or make some things based off how it's working in the next time. But I would imagine within the next year, you will see some of that serious work happening. And there are larger conversations happening around the philanthropic part of the city and other organizations besides the city that are interested in being a part of funding this work, but are interested in the city being clear on how we view this work, how we vet processes and kind of creating a framework that can then be a part of those overall larger investment conversations.

And you mentioned other municipalities and what you just spoke on. Is that something that is pretty common across other

Yes, it's pretty common within cities across the country. And I will be honest, particularly with cities that have really successful efforts in terms of really growing their housing production. That again, some people might argue that gentrification is like maybe unavoidable, but displacement is. And so a lot of folks that have grown a lot of their their base works have followed this. And so when we looked at our certification process, there are several other cities that have. certification processes and something when we talk about as a dream of mine as an author many other cities their community development corporations are actually line items within their city of st louis budget and they really work hand in hand the housing work that happens in their city happens hand in hand with the cdc's and their established uh well-sustained connections and partnerships that exist. We're not quite there as a city, but my hope is that this legislation can begin us to beginning those important conversations and it may not necessarily look like a line item, it may look like RFPs, but I think this is definitely formed around following trajectory that we've seen other cities have in establishing a formal partnership.

Thank you.

Alderman Browning.

Thank you, Alderwoman. I appreciate the intent of this bill and you bringing it forward. I certainly have had good experiences with CDCs in my ward and seen the good work that they do and think it's important that we have some definitions in place to do something about that. Reading through the bill, I mostly agree with the intent and what this is looking to do. I do have a question about page five, item G, it's line 19. I'll read it out loud. It says, for funding programs specifically designated and appropriated for community development, neighborhood revitalization, or place-based community investment purposes, the city shall give priority consideration to organizations certified as community development corporations under this ordinance. the city may designate specific funding streams as exclusively available to certified CDCs. It strikes me that if we have both those sentences, that we both have prioritization and then we also have that the city can designate specific funding streams. My concern is that there are other organizations that build affordable housing in the city that aren't necessarily CDCs. And if we're both prioritizing and then also saying that the city can do specific funding streams exclusively available, this seems like a little bit of favoritism that might result in the only things developing uh affordable housing being cdc's and to be clear i i have no problem with things being built by them but we also have an issue in the city of too many properties that are not paying taxes at all And so I don't want to see everything built being done by a nonprofit. I want to see other organizations getting a chance to go in and do something as well. There's good organizations, including places that have housing in my ward that I know are can build really quality housing and run it well and so i i'm wondering if you'd be open to an amendment to cut out the first sentence of that item uh that takes out the prioritization and simply just says that the city may designate big funding streams if we available to certified cdc's that way if this if the city was putting out a notice of available funding. They could take the specific step if they wanted to, to say this is only available to CDCs, but it wouldn't always be the case that they prioritize because there might be some that might be available to a broader group.

Yeah, so I think to your point, the language is very optional. So I think Board Bill 22 is another good example. There's no way that CDCs have the capacity to do all of the housing development, preservation, vacant turnover work that is going to be needed to rebuild the community impacted by the tornado. So we have priority language in there, but that priority language in no way denies or is meant to imply that CDCs alone are equipped to do the long-term housing work. So I would just kind of push back against the point that priority language means that only CDCs could do it. And I've been very clear in my conversations with a stakeholder that that is not even a feasible expectation because CDCs don't have the capacity. And that was why the language in there is both very may possibly if you choose, because I think a lot of that will actually be up to departmental heads as they are putting out RFPs, as they are putting out RFQs. I think as legislators, I'm trying to tell them who is best suited to do the work that they're putting funding out. We're just making sure that they know they have the option. If you see a project that you think, wow, this would be really great for solely CDC to do, you have the option of doing that. But if you think that actually this is something that CDCs may be able to play a role in, but not an exclusive role, you have the option of doing that. It's going to be, you know, how you word it. And so my intention with the language you just read is to do the opposite of what I think your fear is, which I think is a valuable fear, is to make sure that it's clear that it's optionary, that you can do either one or, quite frankly, neither one. based off of what the project is and what you are building. We don't want to falsely misrepresent capacity. We also don't want to pigeonhole ourselves. I think especially post-tornado, there's so much development work to do that my desire is not to create a competition between for-profit and non-profit. nor is my desire to paint with a broad brush that any one entity has the capacity to do all the work. The desire is just to make it clear that should a department want to opt in, they can. But I can tell you that specific language, my goal was to make sure that it's clear that it's optionary. This legislation does not direct a certain department to designate funding. It doesn't direct a certain pot of funds to go to just CDCs. It is just beginning to opening up that door and saying, now that we have a definition, should it be deemed feasible that specifically CDCs can do work, they have the option to do so.

Understood. I get the intention, but I'm just drawing back attention to the wording here. Cities shall give priority consideration. So that doesn't sound optional.

My concern is that if you have... Can you read the full two or three sentences around that?

Funding programs specifically designated or appropriate for community development, neighborhood revitalization, waste-based community investment purposes...

the city shall give priority consideration to organizations certified as community development corporations under this ordinance i think that part that says for funding that is play space specific um is really the caveat there because um developers like for-profit development is not play space specific they can develop anywhere so as to say that if you're making an intentional investment in place-based organizations who do development that really is cdc's and that they should get priority funding in that

So the wording here is it's an or, so it's community development, neighborhood revitalization, or place-based community investment. So it's a broad umbrella that covers lots of different categories. And that's why my concern here is that if you have a situation where you put out a notice of funding and you get replies, and there are you know three people three organizations that apply and the third ranked one that's best for it ends up being a cdc they would beat out the other two just because of the wording in this ordinance even if the other even if the first or second ranked one was more capable of delivering the project or able to better support the project uh and so that's where i'm i'm concerned about the shall it's just the legal wording that it it says they they have to receive priority consideration and doesn't leave that wiggle room for us to be able to decide and again later in that paragraph it says that the city may designate specific funding streams so if the city really do intentionally say only cdc's can apply for this they could i'm asking if it would be an acceptable amendment to you to it could either be fixed by deleting the Paris or it could be fixed by changing the word shall for May.

Yeah, I think the shall versus may. I'm much more open to.

Okay. All right. I'll have my legislative assistant draft up an amendment and we'll let other people get the questions. But thank you.

Out of my outreach.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Thank you, Alderman, for bringing this bill forward and the work that you've done with CDCs and continuing to work with them from north-south to try to make sure that they're at the table. Ultimately, i support the bill i think is a really good bill um only two questions i got with the the certification language is this something um and just to educate me is this something that everything that's in the certification that cdc already have to uh have as a cdc in um the in the application for certification on page six all the points

Yeah, I would say probably about 90 plus percent of them will already have those things. If you're a CDC, as far as already been established as a 501B, majority of them already have boards that are usually most of them have boards that are comprised of much larger than a 25% standing. So I don't want to make a generic statement, say everybody, because I don't know that that's ever the case that everybody does. But certainly a majority and probably a super majority have majority of the things that are required under that.

And if that is the case, your bill, it seems like once passed, has an emergency clause. Would you, I guess, be open to having like effective date that's a little further out? Because if this were to pass and you said all the CDCs don't have all those qualifications yet, we want to make sure that they have time to be able to get those qualifications. So I don't know if...

No, I think the purpose of the legislation is to be clear that if you don't have those things, you might be doing community development, corporation-aligned work, but you're not a CDB. Those are very basic things that are required in that framework, and there is a six-month grace period of 180 days, so there are just a few things that are missing that an organization would need to get. They would, but the sole purpose of the organization is to be able to define these things and to make those required components in order to be officially certified.

Okay, and I'm assuming all the CDCs that spoke have all these requirements?

Correct, as well as many more.

Okay.

Including the ones that have sent us emails from across the city in support of it.

Okay. And the other thing that I would just say, I want to have a conversation with you on, like I said, I support the language. I think it's good. I do have a little bit of hesitancy, and I see that SODC is gone. To echo a little bit of what the alderman of the third has said, they haven't been necessarily, and we got new leadership, you know, great with just certification of like MWB and other programs. And to put something additional on them, and they haven't been successful, I wouldn't want CDCs to get, caught up in the not the intention of your legislation because I think your legislation is good but due to a city government that also is a quasi government that's not necessarily controlled on the city that hasn't shown the ability to do good with certification and maybe it's some language that we put in there that say that after the passage of this bill that we have like SLDC come back in a year to give like a progress of the work that has been done to make sure to figure out and I think you already mentioned it you know the way the legislation go has been several times where I've passed something and then we have to come back and amend it and tweak it several times it's never perfect, but have that in there so that we can have some type of metrics to see the work that SLDC is doing when it comes to these CDCs and making sure that they're not bottlenecking up the process and the intention of what you're trying to do.

Yeah, I'm really open to that. I would be happy I think for the child language, I would just love a chance. I've been trying to be very intentional about talking to as many people in the space, talking to the city council's office, talking to the mayor's office, talking to the Office of Recovery. So I would rather hold on any amendments now, but I'm happy to just, I want to go circle back and make sure that the changes that I think might not be insignificant to the legislation that I'm able to verify with the people who I've been working with for months. that they don't think it, but I think that requirement sounds good. I think Alderman Browning brings up a good point. So I think my preference to the chair would be if like no amendments potentially, but totally on the floor, I would be open to that or even substitute corporate changes we've discussed now. I just don't, I haven't had a chance to run these changes by the folks I've been working with and I don't want to just make an independent call knowing that

you know i'm not someone on the ground who does the work day to day and i haven't had a chance to consult some of these changes with you so are you planning on voting this out today yes okay well i think as you know we are the arbitrary hours at the board i think the i mean and it could be something that's done on the floor i don't think the

the reporting mechanism and I know you think yours is fine more for Alderman Browness I think to say SODC to come back and talk to us how it's working I would hope they would do that anyway I think just maybe for any other amendments that would probably be my ass is that I could just have a chance to make sure I check in with the city council or check in with the mayor's office and some of the CDC's who I've been working with on any other changes no more questions

Just so I'm clear on what you're saying, you're saying on Alderman Browning's amendment, you're not comfortable with us moving this one? Because I support this amendment, but if you're saying that you respectfully want to talk back to all the people that you've been talking to, then would you want us to hold it or not?

Yeah, I want to hold it, and I'm making a commitment on a record that we could totally do on the floor, even do a committee substitute. I just don't. I haven't had a chance to talk to people, and I've been very cautious every step of the way, every change that I make, making sure I'm running it back through them, especially with the city counselor, because they had strong feelings about the certification process. I just want to be sure that it will work fine. I do think, in my opinion right now, I think it probably is majority fine, but I just would like a chance to verify that and be told that it doesn't impact anything.

Is anyone from the city council's office here? Okay. And I wish Mr. Westbrooks was still here because I had a question too, kind of following back up on what Audra just said, because if we'd started off with a timeline that's not achievable, then it sets back everything else. And I didn't hear in his response affirm, yes, that this person or this position is going to do this and that they definitely would be in the year. that you stated and the year was separate from the dream which I understand the dream but the year that you stated and for I think being truthful and honest even with the CDCs that are here that are represented today to know what this is going to look like since we've had struggles with other legislation similar to these kind of things that we want to do and get done I would have rather had a good firm more I had a follow-up question for him on this so It's your call as the sponsor. Again, I would have supported this amendment today. I would definitely support it on the floor. Alderman Browning and yours as well, Alderman Aldridge. But I do also 100% understand wanting to go back to the people that you've been working with all this time.

Yeah, I think to address that, we can press pause and I can come back and just go make some phone calls and just talk, have some conversations about the amendment and maybe come back before we take a vote on the bill. I just really just want to make a few phone calls, have a few conversations with some people before I say yes. I think that it's really insignificant. I think that would give me time to write up language for Alderman Aldridge's reporting requirement, too, if I had a few moments before we took a vote to kind of verify in conversations. And I know we have some other things on our agenda. So I would be happy to kind of go have some quick conversations and then we might be able to get it done today. If not, I've been able to present it. We've heard from speakers and we can take it up next week. But these are in my mind seemed a little bit smaller in framing. So I think if I just had a few moments to go have some conversations, I could be ready to really accept these amendments and move forward on it today.

Great, thank you. If you can get that follow-up too from Mr. Westbrooks as well, that would be helpful, I think.

Who in SODC would specifically be responsible for this?

Just realistically, if he believes in your year timeline that you said, what that would look like, just so that we can be honest in sharing first and foremost, like I said, with the CDCs who have been doing the work and we deserve, I mean, they deserve for us to be honest with the conversation as well.

Absolutely. Thank you. One quick question. And one quick question. And like I say, there's more education on my end. So is this going to be something that is done from a year from now?

It has a 180-day time period before organizations would be expected to be certified and they would necessarily apply to any funding.

Did it work?

For now, most of the, you know, like I said, I mean, clearly there are projects that CDCs apply for. A lot of CDCs rely on LIHTC funding for their projects. So it's not like they're inhibited from going through now. It's just for some of the new specific provisions of the bill, they're supposed to be 180 days. um within it that would hopefully just help with implementation and i'm also just reaching out to mr rest books right now to see about the timeline um for any uh future questions and to dig into into that okay thank you

All right. Thank you, Vice Chair Sangay. We'll hold for you to make your phone calls and just move forward. We recognize other women's twice term has two bills on the agenda and she has asked for board bill 49 to go first. Madam Clerk, is there anyone from the city council's office online? Okay. I don't see anyone online. Okay. I'll reach back out because I really wanted them to be here for this full conversation to be able to follow up with some questions. So I'll reach back out as you get started. I don't want Ms. Weiser.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I will go ahead and get started. So board bill 49 in front of us today is a bill that strives to regulate the use of data centers in the city of St. Louis. In this bill, there's a definition of a data center, which means a facility used primarily for the storage, management, processing, and transmission of digital data, and that houses computer or network equipment systems, servers, appliances, and other associated components related to digital data storage, processing, and related operations. This includes data storage facilities, server farms, artificial intelligence training or processing, image processing, cloud computing, email servicing, and similar use. This could be a primary or secondary use for a space. Data centers, just like that definition, vary widely in size and impact. The regulations in front of us today strive to acknowledge those differences by creating categories of micro, standard, and major data centers. And that's really important because a major data center, which begins at 30 megawatts, which we are defining again as a major data center, uses the equivalent of energy to power over 20,000 homes in Missouri for one year each year. If we think about that is in terms of the wards that we are representing with just over or under 10,000 households, we're talking a single 30 megawatt data center using the equivalent energy of two wards of household energy. So when we talk about the differences in this use, we are really talking about things that are relatively small and things that go into enormous power uses. So I just want to make sure that that is front and center in the conversation today. The first time the HUD's committee heard presentations and legislations around data centers was September 19th of 2025. I remember I was eight months pregnant and we were going over, we had a full room of people asking us for either a moratorium on the use or for us to move forward with the resolution. The resolution, which everyone supported here in committee, called for the development of regulations. Some of those regulations that it called for would be the acceptable zoning districts, the minimum separation requirements from sensitive areas, including schools, parks, greenways, housing, transit stations, information about the building scale, the size, the height, orientation of the building and compatibility with surrounding uses. The regulations that we the resolution called her regulations on noise limitations noise mitigation screening and location of external cooling equipment generation substations and loading docks Disclosure of anticipated energy use water use infrastructure capacity job creation energy sources disclosure of the petitioner owner and parties associated with data centers levels of renewable energy use the effects of these data centers on that energy use the building energy performance standards that are are monitoring uses across the city outside of data centers public engagement and outreach requirements during and after development and other conditions as part of what we were validating with our Resolution 111 of Executive Order 92, things like waste management practices, air quality, and the public impact of data centers. As I said, the committee unanimously supported that resolution and this effort toward regulations. So over the last nine months, this topic has been the source of an incredible amount of work from planning and urban design staff and many stakeholders, many of whom are in this room and have given a lot of input. Today we will hear a presentation from planning and urban design staff that were tasked with drafting these recommendations and working with the stakeholders, including the planning commissioners, to come to the recommendations that are in front of us today. What's in front of us today is the regulations as recommended by the Planning Commission a few weeks ago, and again, the product of months and months and months of work and input. We will also hear today from members of the public who have been deeply engaged in this issue. This has been one of the most complicated issues that I've worked on here at the Board of Aldermen and one of the most contentious issues that I've seen in my time as an alderperson. That's because there's a lot that we care about that is touched on by this use, whether that is things like emissions and effects of this use for climate change, whether that is job creation, job replacement, surveillance technology, the tax benefits, neighborhood vibrancy, adaptive reuse, development, renewable energy standards, public say and what happens in their community. All of those things are touched on in this one use, which is why I think there has been so much public interest in this bill. Alderman Sonnier worked on this really closely with me and the Planning Commission. And during that meeting, we made a few recommendations for amendments. Some of those amendments were adopted and some were not. As I said, this is the bill as recommended by the Planning Commission. Those things that were adopted include things like renewable energy thresholds at market entry. I think that's very important. Again, we're talking about those 30 megawatt and larger data centers, even the ones that are smaller than that. We're talking about tens of thousands of homes that would be powered by that same amount of electricity. So I think that's just a really important thing to remember when we're talking about this. One amendment that I made I think was the most substantive amendment that I tried to make did not pass at the Planning Commission and that was prohibiting major data centers in every zoning district. The reason that I tried to make that amendment during the Planning Commission process is because we really don't have the monitoring in place of this use yet. There's a lot that would be part, based on these regulations, of needing to follow through on both on the application side of data centers as well as the back end and once the use is in place. Board Bill 48, which is on the agenda today, is one that talks about and gets to some of those monitoring and environmental impact monitoring needs. that he has to have in order to regulate those especially incredibly large users, data centers of energy use. So that was not adopted at the Planning Commission. It's an amendment I would like to further discuss with the board. I know for me and the majority of my constituents, it's a deep concern, that size of energy user coming into the City of St. Louis and being allowed into the City of St. Louis. So it's something that I think we should still consider. But today I'm not asking for any votes. I'm not going to make any amendments. And we will just hear the regulations as recommended by the Planning Commission. and hopefully hear from members of the public. Next week I would like to hear this bill again in committee and discuss some of the amendments that may need to be made and that you may agree with after hearing from members of the public on all sides of this issue. Some of those things include the public impact agreement, some definitions that I think still need more work, Clarification on those renewable energy thresholds at entry into the market. I think that's one that keeps coming up for many stakeholders as one that may need additional work. And it was even discussed in planning commission as one that needed additional work. The Planning Commission probably could have continued to discuss this in perpetuity. There are no perfect solutions here. There is only the result of, again, hours of meetings and thousands of hours of input and work based on the number of written comments alone that we received. in in the planning commission process and i know we will continue to to receive and the people who took time to do that um so this is how this process works the in in zoning changes in the city of st louis the planning commission will recommend a uh the zoning framework um the board of aldermen gets to have it in front of us debate it pass it, not pass it. If we do decide to pass regulations at the Board of Aldermen, if we make any amendments, it goes back to the Planning Commission for an up-down vote on those things, and then it would come back to us and we have a higher threshold in which to pass any changes that we make. You know, my overall goal here is meeting that what we had hoped to achieve in the resolution 111 and get regulations in place around all of those categories. Right now we have a largely unregulated use in the city of St. Louis that has an enormous impact on the city of St. Louis and the people who live here. So I think it's very important for us to move something forward before we get out onto recess or maybe stay a little bit longer, you know, summer school. So I appreciate everyone's time. And I know this is an enormous topic and a lot to. So I'm open for any questions, any thoughts and considerations that everyone on this committee has and just really look forward to that conversation. So then any further ado, I would like to pass it over to Miriam Keller and Alicia Russell, as well as Mary Hart Burton, who are all here to handle the conversation from more of the recommendations that are in front of us today and going through it piece by piece. I believe you have a presentation, Madam Clerk. Okay, great.

Share screen, right? Can I skip the share screen? All right. You think it's my first time using Zoom? OK. Good afternoon, Chair Clark Hubbard and members of the committee, and thank you Alderman Schweitzer for the introduction. Again, for the record, my name is Miriam Keller, City Planning Executive for General Planning and Design at the City's Planning and Urban Design Agency, and here today to share the Planning Commission's recommendation to the Board. And I am going to try to keep my presentation fairly concise and high level. But myself, Sustainability Director Alicia Russell, and Zoning Administrator Mary Hart Burton are all here and available to answer questions as the committee would like. So just a little bit more about the Planning Commission's process of developing these recommendations. Just as Alderman Schweitzer described, it was a pretty extensive and intensive process. So three meetings of the Planning Commission and then staff also held a webinar to try to offer the public some Q&A and involved representatives from other city departments that touched on some issues. In earnest, after several months of staff work across departments, but led by planning and zoning staff and sustainability staff, an initial framework was presented in February. And that was a starting point to get more input, some direction from the Planning Commission. We had extensive public testimony, accepted written comment, And then in May 18th, came back with a substantially updated framework that moved in a much more cautious direction from where things started on February 11th. So again, at that meeting, accepted additional public testimony, further written comment, and then the Planning Commission, as Alderman Schweitzer described, discussed those final changes and amendments, accepted just a little bit of final brief testimony before then advancing a recommendation To the board on on June 10th, and I do just want to express my personal appreciation to the commissioners who many of whom are volunteers and dedicate real time and service to the city and. Are just fantastically committed and thoughtful in their approach and also to members of the public who participated in these meetings and also in conversation with staff to share. expertise, concerns, and ideas. And we did do a lot of research as staff, so interviews with subject matter experts, spanning a variety of perspectives and areas of expertise, so including architects that design data centers, and they offered some generous technical assistance, but also environmental advocates and experts, renewable energy experts. We tried to attend every webinar that seemed relevant, and everybody's out there trying to help provide some education around this exceedingly complex topic, reviewed best practices where possible, visited a couple of existing smaller data centers in the region. We do not have any very large data centers. And we talked with a lot of other cities who are in a similar spot as we are or have some regulations in place. Most of these cities are in the process of reviewing their regulations. A few just overarching themes, I won't dwell on them, but kind of cross-cutting in our observation of this topic, that data centers are, in their many shapes and sizes, a growing part of our landscape. As we continue to rely on data in its many forms, this type of infrastructure is playing an increasing role, and they also have potential to support innovation and growth and provide revenue for municipalities. But there are many, many, many environmental concerns, consumer protection and affordability concerns, and other concerns embedded with this land use. And these are very real. These, I think, vary substantially based on a facility size. And I think that is part of why we tried to take this tiered classification approach with the regulations. But I just do want to recognize the concerns related to the land use as well as the public's broader concern about the role of AI in our economy, wealth inequality, and its impact on education. This topic is also very complex and changing very quickly. I'll say this is, I think, the most technically complex subject I've encountered in my planning career to date. And again, I'm just grateful for the stakeholders who lent their time in helping us tackle this. And the final theme is I think there are many unknowns and many uncertainties, in part because things are changing very quickly. And so they're just things we cannot know and things we'll need to continue to learn. Specifically in our research about zoning in other cities, again, so many cities are grappling with this. I will note that so far most urban cities regulations are not as comprehensive as those in rural or exurban places because it's those more rural environments that are getting the incredibly scaled, hyperscale data center campuses that are not possible, much less appropriate in the city of St. Louis. The most common concerns that cities try to address in their regulations are related to noise, including low frequency noise or vibrations, light, intensive utility usage, and also maintaining vibrant, walkable urban spaces. Most cities do allow data centers by right in at least one zoning district. The regulations in front of this committee do not. They would be conditional on every zoning district. And again, things are very rapidly evolving. There is precedent to do many of these things that regulations do, including requiring disclosure of expected utility usage, regulating noise, requiring some modest ground floor activation in mixed use environments. To require renewable energy to ban certain cooling systems that use an exorbitant amount of water to require sort of visual or acoustic buffering and location and to require other agreements that can further mitigate the impacts of a very large data center. I'm not going to read this, but this is shared for reference to make the point that the zoning regulations are operating within the legal constraints of what the state authorizes the city to use zoning for. And so here is the state authorizing statute of the purpose of regulations. Um, and it's it's really focused on land use. So all of the regulations have to have some tie to, um, regulating a land use impact or something directly within our adopted comprehensive plan. There are, um. many other opportunities or challenges with data centers that extend beyond land use or what our comprehensive plan could address. And those are still very important topics, but zoning has to kind of legally stay in its lane. So zoning policy, the regulations before you all have these chapters. And I'll just walk through them all fairly high level. So first of all, the thing to know is the Planning Commission is recommending the creation of a new chapter in the zoning code where all of these regulations can be consolidated and kind of read and understood together. This is different from what a lot of cities are doing, but our very old code makes it very, very difficult to integrate these regulations throughout the other chapters of our zoning code. So you'll see it's all one big new chapter. This new chapter has a clearly stated purpose statement of what it's trying to achieve. And the chapter establishes a number of definitions, which are also then added to the consolidated definitions list of the zoning code. Here are those 14 definitions, and I'm going to talk about these three that I think are some of the most important in understanding that tiered classification. So, after a couple of rounds of refinement, the approach the Planning Commission landed on kind of these classifications that there would there will be in our zone and code micro standard and major data centers, micro being below 10,000 square feet in area and with a maximum power demand less than five megawatts. standard being larger than 10 000 square feet or using more than five megawatts but lower than 250 000 square feet and with a maximum power demand less than 30 megawatts and then major is anything larger than a standard data center but capped at 500 000 square feet Again, this landed in a different place from where we started. The first draft had this standard to major threshold at 75 megawatts, aligning with Ameren's definition of a large load utility user, but after further review and research, the determination by staff anyway was that 75 megawatt threshold is really, from a land use point of view, not an appropriate threshold for determining where data centers could appropriately integrate into mixed use districts. So you'll see when we get to the use table how these classifications shape the approach to where these could be cited and conditionally approved. So in the use table, and I have zoning maps and hidden slides that we can return to for reference, but this shows where micro standard and major data centers could be conditionally allowed. And you'll see in no district are any of these types of data centers, would they be permitted by right? The approach is for site-specific review each time, even for a small facility. the rationale for that is that in many of even our industrial districts they can be pretty close to residential neighborhoods and it's possible that several large or excuse me small facilities could start to cluster into a district That changes the character of that industrial district and in aggregate becomes a more intense data center area than is the intense of this micro data center allowance. So that is the rationale for why conditional on every zoning district in future review. It's possible the city could decide a different approach, but this is the planning commission recommendation. Microdata centers would be allowed downtown in large commercial nodes and in industrial areas. The medium or standard facilities would be allowed downtown and in industrial areas. And the largest facilities would be limited only to the city's most intensive industrial districts. You'll see in a moment, in addition to this use table, there are buffering requirements or setback requirements that are also tiered to these different data center classifications. want to share a little bit about what this would all reflect as a policy change from where we are now under executive order 92 and resolution 111 and where we were before that interim approach was established. So in our current code. Without a definition for a data center, data centers had been reviewed and regulated as warehousing or office, and therefore then conditionally permitted in the F, G, and H districts, which are kind of a combination of our neighborhood commercial districts and the larger, more intensive commercial districts, and then permitted by right downtown and in industrial districts. This meant that most facilities, I believe all existing facilities in the city, were permitted by right and went in without any specific review. Under the interim approach established by executive order and by the board's resolution. they're being treated as conditional uses and all of these districts and the proposed approach is to treat them differently, based on their size and to be more cautious about where they can be appropriately cited. The next component of the policy is application requirements. And there are many, many, many in the board bill, and there's very detailed language, but this is a summary. That for all data centers, there would be comprehensive project information required, including information about the status of and including their agreements with Ameren, as well as plans for meeting relevant renewable energy requirements. So that would be for micro, standard, and major data centers. For standard and major data centers, there's more information required. So more about the project's timeline, more about its environmental sustainability and its potential impact on the surrounding community. For major data centers, quite a bit more information would be required as part of the application. So extensive information about the project's end users, financing, environmental and economic impact, any plans for decommissioning should the facility cease operation, and more. And there are community engagement requirements that would be required even before an applicant is eligible to submit an application. The next section lays out site requirements design requirements and standard conditions, and these are the sections of all of those site requirements line requirements and standard. And i'll walk through each with again just a very high level summary, so the first I apologize to the public, I realized this kind of small on the screen. Location requirements include primarily tailored setbacks from residential areas and transit stations at 150 feet 300 feet at 600 feet or micro standard and major data centers respectively. Area standards address kind of basic height and parking allowances or requirements. avoid proliferation and downtown areas. With a sort of spacing requirement and require some modest ground floor activation in downtown and mixed use areas. noise and vibration controls clearly address noise by link and with the city's noise ordinance and separately address low frequency noise through a DBC standard, which is kind of the best available to our knowledge standard for measuring low frequency noise. building systems and equipment design and screening, some basic green building requirements to mitigate urban heat. These address on-site fuel storage because that has been a specific concern with sort of experience even in St. Louis with some of the existing data centers and address just some general visual clutter of the equipment that is required for a data center's operation. site and urban design standards include some general performance based landscaping requirements parking placement and also some basic urban design standards to prevent sort of large windowless new buildings. There is a section about water responsibility, which bans the sole use of evaporative cooling as the cooling system. That is the system that is becoming now notorious for really, really extensive use of water resources and for the. data centers of the scale that would be appropriate in the city is, to our understanding, not the state of the art anyhow. So this bans that system and allows some flexibility with other more high tech systems that are evolving. And the section requires some Agreements with the Water Division that would ensure they pay their full share of the impact on water infrastructure. Backup power systems. Some regulations here to avoid visual clutter of the backup generators that are kind of necessary for a data center's operation. Also, some regulations to ensure the use of backup generators is limited exclusively to emergency use, such as sort of a grid failure, and to protect air quality by restricting types of days on which they could be tested and requiring the highest federal standard for a diesel generator, if that is the generator type that is being used. Environment energy and infrastructure standards involve some district energy requirements energy efficiency standards some standards to avoid light pollution avoid heat impact, and this is where this renewable energy requirements live. Reporting requirements for standard and major data centers would establish some kind of interim requirements until that environmental monitoring framework is in place. And the final section is the requirement of a public impact agreement for that largest category of data. So this is an additional agreement that would further mitigate the land use impacts and impacts on city infrastructure and would require Board of Aldermen approval. So a lot there, and it's all much more specifically written in the regulations. We're happy to answer questions about that. The next section addresses applicability. So explicitly addressing which regulations are applicable for new facilities, expansions of facilities kind of permitted after these regulations passed. Applicability to existing non-conforming uses and or structures. And I'll note that the approach recommended by the Planning Commission is under review after some concerns have been raised. And then fourth, existing facilities and previously approved facilities. The overall approach here is to try to be as consistent as possible with how our code treats other uses. What's unique about data centers is that their physical size is not the only or even best proxy for their impact as a land use. Their maximum power demand, since that has a pretty direct correlation to, of course, the energy use, but also the number and requirements of backup generators and so on. Their maximum power demand is a more meaningful proxy than physical size. So that is what creates some complexity in the regulations overall, but also some of these questions about what is an expansion. The final sections here are an application review process where it would be routed actually to a broader number of departments because this does have implications and relationships to health, the health department, the sustainability office within the planning or urban design agency, as well as the planning office, the office of building performance, and others. So an interdepartmental review of applications. And then a self-imposed deadline is proposed within these regulations for review of these regulations, the logic being this is moving really fast. We know we're going to need to take another look as we learn more. So that is the close of my presentation. I'm happy to turn it back to the other woman.

Thank you very much. Thank you for that. And all of the work that you and your team have put into this. At this time, I would be interested in passing it over to to the members of the public to hear from them if acceptable to Madam Chairwoman. And I am not sure how to get this off the screen if I just exit out. Madam Clerk.

okay uh all right i will come and sit back there to hear from the public as you're ready perfect has everyone that wishes to speak on board of your 49 that's in the room signed in if not you can sign in over at this sign-in desk in front of the clerk and i'm going to swear you all in at the same time to save save that time in between of having to swear you in individually. So once you all are finished signing in, we'll swear you all in and that'll go for people online as well. You just turn your cameras on and raise your right hand and we'll swear you all in. Madam Clerk, can you make sure everybody that's online and wants to speak is over on the correct side and can have their cameras turned on?

I'm promoting them now.

Okay. And just let me know when you're ready for me to start this morning.

So far, everyone who's had their hand up, I have promoted over.

All right. If everybody can raise your right hand and swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Okay. And Madam Clerk, you can wait to hear your name from Madam Clerk before you speak. State your name again for the record and either your award or affiliation with this topic on Board Bill 49. You have three minutes to speak. And we're looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Madam Clerk, if we have them separated out and support our opposition, we can alternate those.

Are you just doing the ones online first?

No, we can do it either way, whichever way. I think the people in the room, since they've been here the longest.

Okay, and there's two people who just transferred over that's not sworn in yet.

Okay, when we get to them, let me know.

Our first person online is Susan Clinton.

Hi, I'm Susan Clinton and I've lived in St. Louis my whole life and I go to school at St. Louis University and I'm here to testify in favor of board bill 49. I like the legislation and I think it includes important stipulations that'll protect our community and help us be sustainable.

Thank you. We have David Sweeney in opposition.

Good afternoon. My name is Dave Sweeney. I work in the eighth or excuse me, in the eighth ward and live in the fifth ward. I speak here on behalf of current developers or potential developers as also I represent neutrality. I appreciate the Planning Commission's time and zoning. It's clear that a lot of effort has gone into this. I appreciate their recommendations. I'm disappointed that Alderwoman Schweitzer continues to push a ban for larger ones, which has been shut down at the Planning Commission, yet what's talked about today is coming back. That's disappointing. Um, also the district restrictions as someone who works downtown and is downtown every day. We're up to 10 buildings that are empty right now. Um, and I think this is a huge missed opportunity for potential uses of some of these massive buildings that we have. There will be, nor should there be any incentives for these. And as I watch budget meetings, as I'm down here every Friday and we're concerned as we should be, I am as a resident of funding and funding sources, and we are looking at billions of potential dollars that can help this city in a city that is going lower in population, that is losing businesses, I JUST THINK THIS IS A REALLY, REALLY GOOD OPPORTUNITY THAT NEEDS TO BE CONSIDERED. I HAVE SOME ISSUES WITH THE CONDITIONAL USE PROCEDURES. I THINK SOME WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT K THAT'S ALREADY INDUSTRIAL USES THAT PERMITTED USES INCLUDE SLAUGHTERING OF ANIMALS. VERY TOXIC USES AS THEY SHOULD BE FOR ONLY K AND TO DO A CONDITIONAL USE FOR A DATA CENTER GIVES ME CONCERN. Really, I do appreciate the amount of time that continues to go into this, and I appreciate the hearings of this committee. I know this committee has done a lot of work on Board Bill 22, and I know it's a lot of time. So thank you for that, and as always, I'm available for any questions.

Thank you.

We have Clinton McBride, undecided.

good afternoon clinton mcbride i'm the government affairs director for labor's local 110 also a proud member of the first ward here just to be brief a couple of things and i know that i had a conversation with a few members of the board of alderman yesterday about this when i originally went through this legislation i was looking through the public impact agreement and i noticed that there was nothing in there about about local workforce, about workforce development, about aid to our schools. Potentially, what I think would be a good idea is even some sort of a disaster recovery contingency fund that we could have developers pay into for, you know, in the future when we have other significant disasters. And again, that wasn't in here. But what I understand is that there would potentially be an avenue to do this in a separate bill that would not be tied to the zoning. I'm not an expert on the zoning. There are plenty of experts here, so I will let you guys debate that part. But I do think that there are significant workforce opportunities that we need to look at, you know, making sure that specifically some of the workers are coming from St. Louis. So anyway, the second reason I come here is because I'm also an SPS father. And I'm looking at the post-dispatch and I see that several school districts are now about to propose more tax hikes. And that's fine. I am willing to pay those taxes, but at the end of the day, we have got to do something for our schools and we have no real plan right now other than raising taxes we've got a city that's dwindling we've got to increase our population and by increasing taxes on people we're not going to do that we've got to find some additional revenue source and i have not heard anybody that's come out with any new ideas on this So I think that we do need to be smart. I think we need to have robust regulations. And I think that this needs to be done in a way that will benefit the residents and the future residents of the city of St. Louis. Thank you.

We have Lyda B online.

Hi, my name is Lydia. I am a resident of St. Louis. I am in favor of this so that we can prevent the building of the data center in the city. I don't think it will bring revenue to, as other people have mentioned, important things like schools, infrastructure, or benefit people of St. Louis. I think the data center is a very big stain on our city. and will be a very big stain on our older people's reputations if it is allowed to be built. Thank you.

Thank you. Justin Eiberg.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Thank you, Alderman Schweitzer. I come to you all as Justin Eidelberg. I'm a civic infrastructure executive for the Cavendish District Community Development Corporation, which is housed in the West End and the 10th Ward. I want to talk to you all about some adjustments or amendments, I think is the appropriate language that needs to be shared. Some of you all, I sent the email yesterday evening about this. And when I look at the zoning framework reality, you all are trying to protect communities and give clarity on where data centers belong, especially very large facilities that fit best in heavy industrial and port areas The risk as drafted is that we narrow our options so much that we effectively shut out older industrial and commercial corridors in North City and South St. Louis City. Data centers could be designed in legacy industrial corridors with strong designs and impact controls. Taking together the changes to move St. Louis towards a higher performance infrastructure policy We get a consistent data on large users. We maintain guard rails around very large facilities, and we keep long underused buildings and corridors in North and South City in play for the right size projects that could rebuild our streets, grow the tax base, and support local hiring. Our recommendation framing that we would love to have a more in-depth conversation about with you all is not for the city to choose between environmental protections and economic development, but a stronger position to regulate high impact facilities according to measurable thresholds, require performance transparencies, and preservation location options for district, city scale, and neighborhood scale projects that can reactivate underused corridors and buildings. And when I read your policy, Alderman, that was the first thing that came to my mind. When I look at how we have between on Goodfellow between Natural Bridge and Highway 70, we have the former USDA rural site that's about to come back on the market, contamination's gone, and the ammunition site, right? With the current zoning laws, we wouldn't be able to have them in our neighborhood. And when I think about South City, when I think about the Carondelet area, I think, or the patch as you get closer to Lee May City borderline, there's a lot of spaces, underutilized buildings. And I want everyone to be a part of this fourth industrial age. infrastructure opportunity, because as the gentleman before me shared, there are a lot of advanced STEM educational opportunities, not just for our youth, but also for our workforce. When I think about our unions, our union workers, how they use AI in construction now, and how can we, if we could, now I'm going to wrap this up, if we could possibly have a co-creating of this policy, as well as the one policy bill 48, to dive more deeper into this, to where this policy could be a win for not just the city, but for our residents and our industries as well. I thank you all, I appreciate you all, and I'm here for any questions before I go sit back down. Thank you.

Josh Mays online. We can't hear you.

Sorry about that. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Josh Mase. I'm co-founder and president of Neutrality Data Centers. As you can see, I'm coming to you via virtual feed. While the interface is virtual, I can assure you the infrastructure that enables it is very real in the physical world and is routed through data centers like the ones owned and operated by Neutrality in downtown St. Louis. The same goes for delivery of Internet cable and telephone services to this community and region. as well as every streaming service, social media feed, and most importantly, your essential services like 911. Our data centers enable each and every one of those. And the physical layer networks that operate them are not practically movable. We're a fundamental, important component of the local digital economy, and we need the ability to expand to support these uses for the betterment of the community. While I'm sympathetic to some of the concerns around major data center facilities, I think the legislation is currently drafted will have significant negative consequences for lower classifications of data center facilities like ours. One concern I think we can manage better in the legislation is to manage backup generators and expansion of these generator plants. These pieces of equipment are run very infrequently. And in fact, over the past 10 years, our backup generator plant has never been required to run in its entirety due to the utility failure. And there has only been one occasion over the past 10 years for approximately just three hours that roughly 15% of our plant was running. You should also be aware that as a responsible corporate citizen, Neutrality has committed to achieve a net zero carbon emissions profile by 2040, which is a plan we established and committed to over five years ago. I'll close with this. Investment in data center infrastructure isn't a new phenomenon. It started over 200 years ago with the invention of the telegram in the 1830s and accelerated with the invention of the telephone 150 years later or 150 years ago. This investment created efficiencies that launched generations of economic prosperity in this country and accelerated businesses and drove economic progress. Cities flourished. Cities like St. Louis, Missouri, which was an early and major hub of network activity and innovation, It housed the global headquarters of AT&T up until 1992. And to this day, Naturality continues to be a major facilitator of network activity locally, regionally, and beyond. Please allow us to continue to invest, grow, and innovate in St. Louis so that St. Louis can maintain its place as a leader in telecommunications innovation. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to working with you on these important regulations.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Gwen Cockshell.

Good afternoon. My name is Gwendolyn Cox. I'm from the 10th Ward and I support 49 and I'm here with Missouri for Environmental Commission in her support. I'm going to let Elise do the biggest presentation, but I just wanted to talk about the consent provision. I have a problem that any data center could come to this city and not have consent of the public. We have for liquor store, you have to get consent from the people in the surrounding area. You want to open up a bar, you have to get consent from people in the surrounding areas. So I want to make sure that none of these centers, especially the larger ones, there's 200 milliwatts of power. That's equivalent to 16,400 homes, usage of electricity to be around any of our hospitals, any around young lady that was from SLU. my nephews although and they say if you don't live around it you shouldn't be concerned but my neph if it's a if it's something on the north side where my both my nephew got academic scholarships to slew and they live on campus or whatever they when i'm live on campus when i'm live at home they still or might be around it. So I don't think it should be a mileage thing when people travel and work in certain areas. So I'm just here to say that I just think it's just this environment all over the country where people are taking advantage of this. Got this Trump 2025, all these corporate Americans say, let's get everything we can. Let's get it while Trump is in office to meet. And it looks like it's coming down to the local level. But I just want to make sure that the outreach is out there for the people. A lot of people don't even know about the data center. And why should they? I saw the people, the developers on TV, and I was trying to figure out why they so relaxed. They don't even have an urgency. And it's because they don't have a responsibility to the community. It's nothing written that say right now that they have to even reach out to us. And the other thing is the zoning part. I'm not sure, and I'm just gonna let Elise talk about the rest, but I just wanna say that we need to work on that consent. I think something as major as a data center is important that the community is reached out to and that they have the power to say yes or no. Thank you.

Kathleen Logan online.

Thank you. Thank you for holding us today. Thank you for welcoming public comment. I'm in favor of these regulations, and I'm also in favor of adding a consent provision. I think it's really important that we, in these times, work to strengthen democracy and to the extent that a community can say what it wants in its space. Data centers, the large ones that we're talking about doing a consent provision for, are are the kind that trespass on your lungs, they trespass on your body, they trespass on your property, they trespass on your energy. and they trespass on your money. And with that level of impact to a community, I don't think it's a tune of the neighbors. I think if we have to require it for liquor licenses, I think it's the least we can do for a data center. I think it allows us to flex our democratic muscles and gives us an antidote to some of the erosion of democracy that the placement of these data centers is causing around our country. It's corrupting public officials, it's eroding and corrupting public trust, and we need to build that back. And so board bill 49 is the first step with a consent provision that will make it stronger. And we'll submit more comments in writing, but I just wanted to put that on the record. I worry a lot about health and I pay a lot of attention to air quality. I know that people may not understand that St. Louisans die and we are sicker than people in the county because of bad choices that have been made about air quality already, and we need to make sure we don't do that anymore. These regulations are a great step in the right direction and we need a consent provision in them to make them strong enough to really be effective. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Matt O'Leary. in opposition.

Good afternoon. My name is Matt O'Leary. I'm executive director of the Washtenaw CID. We have numerous existing data centers in our district, which have been great neighbors, not to mention key elements of the region's internet backbone. All of the data centers downtown are legal uses that conform to the zoning code as it exists today. If a generic ordinance is passed that regulates data centers, these existing data centers will become non-conforming or grandfathered uses, still legal uses that can continue to operate. The only difference is these data centers can trigger loss of grandfathering status if they physically expand or do operations for a year. This is long-standing doctrine. Board Bill 49 changes that by adding a third trigger that forfeits grandfathering status and increase in backup generator capacity. There are major problems with this. First, there is no way existing data centers can fully comply with Board Bill 49, which was written for new construction data centers, not existing ones. For instance, two of the big downtown data centers simply would not be allowed to exist. under the square footage constraints none of the downtown data centers conform to the strategic land use plan which is a requirement of board bill 49 and most of the specific requirements of board bill 49 such as use of renewable energy and backup generator upgrades would have to be done by tenants who are under long-term leases and can't be forced to comply Thus, existing data centers can't afford to trigger full compliance, which they can't achieve. But they're not in control of this, as their tenants often have provisions allowing them to upgrade equipment, like backup generators, so these data centers can be forced into forfeiting grandfathered status by tenants acting under existing leases. Finally, there's no legal basis for adding the third trigger. as the City Councilor has already opined. I encourage this Board to talk to the City Councilor on this matter. The end result is these existing data centers under Board Bill 49 are in a trick bag. They can't expand backup generator capacity and fully comply. They can't lease the new data centers or let existing data centers expand as that would require more backup power. They can't even keep existing data centers as that would require more backup power in a industry constantly increasing energy density. Their only choices are to either wind down operations, which will take the region's internet backbone with them, or fight this illegal taking in the courts. Either option is bad for the City of St. Louis. I encourage you guys to think this through before moving forward. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Audrey Kidwell.

Hello. My name is Audrey. My name is Audrey Kidwell, and I am a resident of Ward 6. And I want to thank the Board of Aldermen for this opportunity to speak and for everybody who's testified so far. As has been acknowledged, this is a very complicated topic. And so I think the Planning Commission has done a great job trying to come up with recommendations that work for everybody, which I know is a big challenge. I want to acknowledge the speaker before me. I thought he made a lot of good points about existing data centers, which you know it's important to acknowledge that we do have those already in Saint Louis and so. You know, making it so that existing tenants can continue to operate. I do think makes sense. However, there are other amendments that I would like to see to the bill as written overall. strongly in favor of regulating data centers. I think the mere fact that we already have data centers in the city is not a good reason to not regulate new data centers. The energy use, as other speakers have already said, just continues to go up and up. We're only going to see more bids for data centers as time goes on, and so I think having really firm zoning requirements in place makes sense and is good for the city. So in addition to what was already presented and what I believe is already in the bill, I want to just echo what other speakers have said about a consent requirement, especially for the largest scale data centers that would be allowed within city limits. It's critical for residents to have a say in what they want in their neighborhoods. I think data centers are a little bit unique because they're large and they're They're windowless boxes, right? It's not a space that the public can use. It's not a space that neighbors can really interact with and enjoy. So they should get a say if they want that down the street from them. And that's to say nothing of the environmental impacts that are also legitimate concerns. So consent requirement, I think makes a lot of sense. We already have that structure in place for liquor stores and bars with liquor licenses for similar types of reasons. You know, concern about community, neighborhood character and concern about safety in the neighborhood. I think data centers, you know, fit under that umbrella as well. A few other things I want to just throw out there. I liked what the other speaker said about setback rules for hospitals. Not sure if that's included in the bill, and if it's not, it should be. Overall, the setback rules seem kind of skimpy. 600 feet really is not that much. So I'd be curious to see if there's any wiggle room to have those larger data centers offset further, especially from residences and schools. You know, again, it's just, it's something that Even if we acknowledge the need for data centers, you know, people don't necessarily want their house right next to one. And again, 600 feet just is not that far. We need a plan for areas in the city that are zoned. Oh, okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

You can finish your thought.

Oh, okay. The last thing I'll say then is that I think we need a plan for areas in the city zoned industrial, but where people still live. So I think there are areas of North City and other places along the river that fit into that category. So just because it's zoned industrial doesn't mean people don't live there. And so I think things like offsets become even more important in those kind of more gray area cases. So that's it. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Lou Hamilton in opposition.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Lew Hamilton. I'm a resident of the 8th Ward of the City of St. Louis, live downtown. I'm here not necessarily to speak against this bill, but to speak in favor of doing some better amendments to it to make it a better bill. I have been involved in this process as a bystander since earlier this year and have attended all the meetings of the Planning and Zoning Committee. The primary interest that I had at the beginning was to safeguard my clients and other existing data centers that are mostly in the downtown area. And I thought that we had a mutual understanding between planning and zoning and the clients that I represent on the tenets of the existing nonconforming use status, which basically means it's settled law. Neither the city nor the state can go back and reverse zone, which is what a couple of these provisions are in this thing, is basically a reverse zoning act that would take away the rights that are incumbent and already enjoyed by the current operators. So that's, we would encourage you to go back and look at those. I think the city councilor's office agrees with us. One of the pieces that Mr. O'Leary talked about a moment ago was the backup power generator issue. That's a new twist, which we are feel very strongly about for me i'm not a lawyer so i won't speak to the legal part of it except what the lawyers have said is that the city is probably going to lose on that if it gets to court and that could endanger the entire ordinance that you're trying to put through so we really think go back and be smart about this and take a look at this we understand and don't have any objection to this the city's desire to have some more clear regulations on data centers going forward, but the ones that exist now have had zero problems. They're located in areas of downtown that have had no complaints, no issues. Why are we going out of our way to penalize people that are And now when we get to the other data centers, I've heard speakers discuss they shouldn't be near hospitals.

What do you think drives hospitals these days?

Do you think BJC and the Washington Medical Center don't have massive data centers?

Do you think it's gonna get any less? So what are we gonna do? What about Cortex? The biosciences, what do you think is driving their research and their success? They have massive data centers. These things are here to stay. And if you can say, well, where are they going to go? Well, one of my favorite lines that epitomizes some of the things that have happened in the city over the last couple of hundred years is a fellow known by the name of Lucius Boomer. There was a bar named after him back in the 70s downtown, but he was the guy when the railroads were prominent here, when St. Louis had 800,000 people, he was the guy and the railroad said, we need a bridge across the Mississippi. Lucius Boomer said, they'll never leave, don't build the bridge. Guess what? Chicago is the real capital of the United States and St. Louis is struggling to keep at 200,000 people. They will leave. They won't leave right away. But places like the hospitals, Cortex, the pharma industry, all of the education stuff that's going to be driven in the future by the ability to compute and have these massive data centers have access to them will leave. They won't invest. So what do we have? We should be talking about jobs. And final point. A lot of people have said that these data centers don't generate jobs except for installation. My client is the Globe Democrat building. That's a building that is full of high-tech businesses. It's been a data center. Originally, it was called a data hotel 25 years ago because all the connectivity comes through that building and several other buildings downtown. They have 500... significant full-time jobs as a result of the tenants they have in that building. And these are six-figure jobs that would not exist but for those buildings, those businesses being located in that building with access to the data center. So I think the idea of having clear regulations is good moving forward, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, which is what certain provisions of this proposal do. I really encourage you to slow down and take a better look at this so we don't end up having the whole thing go down the tube when it's ultimately contested in court. It's a very easy fix. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker online is Jerry Conley.

Can you hear me OK?

Yes, we hear you.

OK, I didn't come and I'd be sworn in because I wasn't able to get on it earlier.

Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Conley. Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Yes, I do.

Please proceed.

Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. My first request to Alderman Clark Hubbard would be could you schedule an evening meeting and possibly a weekend one as well, given that the two hearings for this, you know, they're both in the middle of the day, which precludes a lot of people because of their work or other family commitments from attending second point I'd like to make is to express my support for the stated intent from older women's rights are responsive to put forward an amendment that would prohibit the major data centers in all of the zoning classifications I applaud the older woman and also older woman Sonia and Christina Garmendia, who's a representative for President Green on the Planning Commission. Three all voted in favor of that amendment. And contrary to Mr. Sweeney's opinion about being happy that it was shot down, I was disappointed it was shot down by the Planning Commission. And we'd like to note that all but one person possibly on the Planning Commission who voted against that are all appointees of the mayor. So I think that's important to note. And for people watching this, I think it's really important that you contact not just your older person, but also the mayor's office. who appear to be pulling the strings not just on the planning commission but at the board of public service and possibly the board of adjustment as well when it comes to the upcoming appeal hearing for the armory data center i want to echo the comments of three people before me regarding requiring um community consent for the standard, and if they do go forward with the major data centers as well, yes, if we need the community approval on liquor licenses and these projects are so good for us, then the developers should have to do the work and collect community support in order for those to get approved. I think those are the main points I wanted to raise. Final one is, you know, we've got a series of neighborhood plans going on. There's an open house this afternoon between 4 and 6 for the Mark Twain I-70 industrial neighborhood. This was on Fox 2 this morning. The mayor's office put out a release about a week ago. But overall, this meeting hasn't been well publicized. It's on the public events calendar online instead of on the public meeting calendar. And I'm fairly sure that data centers are on the agenda for SLDC and some of the property owners within that particular district. So if you live in that neighborhood, I encourage you to try and get there at green four and six this afternoon. Thanks very much for your time. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Lou Hamilton in opposition. Joe D'Elia.

Good afternoon, Board. Thank you for your time. My name is Joe D'Elia. I run two businesses in St. Louis City in Wards 4 and 6. I, like everyone in this room, want the city to succeed. That's why I run businesses in the city. The way to do this is to promote business expansion, increase tax revenue, and improve the city for residents. With these data centers, there must be a balance, and reasonableness needs to be the key word for everyone. No one wants these data centers in residential neighborhoods. I understand that some are philosophically opposed to data centers, but the demand for data storage will not go away in our lifetime. Everyone in this room has a phone and a computer. And how many of us are going to stop searching Google or asking ChatGPT for answers? The cloud is just not some imaginary place. It's a warehouse full of servers. Trying to kill data centers through overly burdensome regulations is not a sound policy move. And I'll give you an example. The renewable energy credit requirement requiring 50% of a data center's annual electricity through renewable energy credits on day one. So let's examine that. A 140 watt mega data center, which is in terms a fairly reasonable data center, would need to generate 70 megawatts through renewable energy credits. Do you know really what that means? That means that's 100 to 140,000 solar panels over 350 to 500 acres of land. That's just not reasonable. And at 10 years, it would have to double. The excessive buffer zones in the current framework. You know, if you look at the city's document, the planning zoning put together the typical building setbacks are 200 feet to 500 feet from a residential property or zoning district ours is 600. trying to prohibit major dinner center data data centers and k industrial districts why industrial districts that's what they're for as the gentleman said earlier you have all these buildings in north st louis that are empty The city financial needs, nobody really has talked about that. The city of St. Louis has $461 million in capital improvement needs. The St. Louis City Water Division has $719 million in capital. That's nearly $1.2 billion in capital infrastructure needs now, with $225 million being of critical need. When you include the $8.5 million ARPA funds, in 10 years the city will have a $723 million shortfall. And this doesn't include the 23% of the general revenue fund that the new police board is going to pull from the city every year. I mean, that is a striking loss of funds. The solution, and I'll give you some examples, just one 150 megawatt data center will eliminate $160 million in a 10-year capital need.

Mr. DeLay, that's your time.

Okay. Can I finish? Okay. I would encourage the members to put aside their personal feelings, be reasonable in their approach, and remember the fiduciary responsibilities of the City of St. Louis. The demand's not going away. It's only going to increase exponentially. History is a valuable lesson. In 2024, Clayco wanted to use the St. Louis Armory Ammunition Plant, North St. Louis, and it was turned down. What did they do? They built it in Hazelwood.

Our next speaker is Elise Schaefer. Just for context, too, even if you don't finish your thoughts, you can email them to us. Like Mr. Eidelberg had emailed all of us his entire thoughts. He spoke here as well. So in case you don't get them all out, please don't feel like that was your only opportunity to share those, not just with us, but to the full Board of Aldermen, too, as they will be into the drive for this committee hearing. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Clark Hubbard. Thank you, members of the committee. My name is Elise Schaefer. I'm a resident of Ward 6. And I'm here today on behalf of Missouri Coalition for the Environment. We're a legislative advocacy organization that has worked to protect the health of Missouri communities and our environment for more than 50 years. I'd like to start by echoing Mr. Connolly's note that it's very difficult for people who are not paid to be here to be here for 2 and 1 half hours in the middle of a workday on a Tuesday. And so that might affect some of the voices that you're hearing today. We strongly support and encourage you to pass Board Bill 49. This bill establishes common sense, bare minimum safeguards to ensure that if data centers come to St. Louis, they do so by causing the least possible harm to our community by requiring reporting, ensuring efficiencies, and most importantly, addressing their massive energy impacts. In Board Bill 49, developers are required to fund studies that will establish measurable baselines for water quality and utility rates and pay any associated fees. The bill recognizes that not all data centers are the same through its categorization. There is a significant difference between a two megawatt facility being for research at a hospital and a 120 megawatt data center built speculatively in order to entice tech billionaires to store surveillance data here in St. Louis. Board Bill 49 also includes a host of regulations that are highly feasible for developers while limiting environmental impacts of data centers. For example, renewable energy is the fastest and most affordable form of new energy to build on the market today. It goes up in under two years and it costs less than gas. noise pollution limits heat island mitigation through sustainable building practices and mandating adequate tree lawns to support healthier forestry are all included in this bill e-waste recycling and building decommissioning requirements ensure st louis is not stuck with the detritus of the tech bubbles bursting The bill protects water with reasonable but ambitious water and energy effectiveness ratings, prohibiting evaporation only cooling systems, reducing unnecessary water consumption, and requiring compliance with MSD discharge standards to protect water quality. Air quality is addressed through mandating electric service be fully online before operations begin, helping to avoid the air quality problems experienced in Memphis, where a data center used diesel backup generators to run before being connected to the municipal utility. Additionally, diesel generators won't be able to be tested when the air quality index is above 50, the point at which sensitive groups, including people with asthma, can be affected by these health impacts. The bill also establishes meaningful renewable energy requirements. Data centers would be required to obtain at least half of their electricity from renewables before opening and eventually achieve 95 percent renewables, backed by financial penalties for noncompliance. Ameren's electricity supply remains primarily dependent on coal and methane gas, so renewable requirements like this are the most effective tool the city has in order to prevent massive new electricity demand from increasing fossil fuel consumption. This is essential if St. Louis is to meet its sustainability plan commitment to, quote, identify opportunities and infrastructure needs necessary to carbon by 2040. We encourage the committee to pass this bill, but also support amendments that would strengthen them by creating consent mechanism, revoking parking minimums that worsen heat islands, and clarifying high electricity prices do not qualify as an emergency justification for running generators. Most importantly, from an environmental perspective, we would like to see an amendment ensuring new renewable generation is built in order to meet data center demand and compliance with renewable standards is secured within five years. The tighter compliance deadline for renewables is particularly important because greenhouse gas emissions are burning fossil fuels. Thank you. Greenhouse gas emissions can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Thank you for your time and consideration, for protecting St. Louisans today, tomorrow, for a thousand tomorrows.

Our next speaker is Nick Hartzler in opposition.

Good afternoon. My name is Nick Hartzler. I'm a proud first ward resident currently raising my family there. Also happen to be a senior project manager with Steadfast City. We're an economic development consulting firm based on Cherokee Street. We have experience working with a number of nonprofit and for-profit businesses. organizations, including data center developers. So I'm just here today to really just talk about how I support reasonable regulations on data centers, but what I don't support is when we are effectively removing a tool from our toolbox of economic development, which part of how this is laid out is, I think, is doing such as that. I'm a tax accountant by trade. I think most often the strongest economies are the diverse tax base. I think that falls equally true with economies, that economies are strongest when they've got a diverse, mixed use of tools, data centers playing a role within that. And I was glad to hear at the beginning of this whole process within the discussion before Bill 49 that I think you're going to have some more conversations about how to implement or change the language around renewable energy usage for these, because I think that's a really key part that, as it's currently drafted, I see it as a ban by another name. So I'm hoping that a digital conversation works bringing in Ameren's expertise in this. The regulation of Ameren does not fall in the City of St. Louis. It falls with the Public Service Commission. So I hope, you know, further conversation is had along that lines. Second thing I'd like to talk about is just hoping that More consideration can be brought forth with the setback buffer as it's currently drafted. It's gone through a long range of development. It's evolved very far to where it is now from when it started in February. As it's defined for the major data centers, I hope some consideration will be given to make it flexible when you think of the built environment around certain sites. When we have 200 feet of highway space falling within that buffer, it may not make sense to have a 600 foot buffer or a 200 foot rail yard in that same space. So I hope some work given to that. Lastly, I spoke on having a diverse economy. I think that really applies downtown. As a previous speaker said earlier, we've got 10 empty buildings downtown. On this note, I would ask that you reconsider the definition of major data center. I think there are many people that would say, oh, it should be 100 megawatts. I think there's some middle ground there somewhere that I hope a major data center could be changed to a 50 megawatt data center. The thought process being there that elsewhere within the regulations, there are protections for downtown, such as the 30% square footage of gross square floor, as well as the limitations on ground floor, what can be built up. I think those regulations in here help protect downtown to make sure that we don't just have dozens and dozens of buildings that could be conceived as dead space, but instead, because of these other regulations in there, we're both allowing for this economic development to produce a high taxpaying entity and taxpayer. Another speaker said about how we don't really necessarily support tax abatement for these types of projects. I fully agree with that. And so when we have these types of developments coming in, making, you know, they can help subsidize what would be an otherwise difficult project downtown, where if you're based on these rags of 30%, you know, that 30% data center is based in a downtown building, we would effectively subsidize the rest of the 70% to be built out for another purpose. So, again, I hope some changes can be made to this. I support reasonable regulation. Thank you for your time.

Our next speaker is Harry, I can't pronounce the last name. Okay, Harry Eubank.

Good afternoon. My name is Henry Eubank. I work with Greater St. Louis, Inc. First, I want to start with thanking Miriam and the rest of the planning staff for their long, long hours, many late night meetings on this topic. They did a great job. They're under a lot of pressure. Also, thank you to Chairwoman Clark Hubbard for this meeting and for the members of the committee. Excuse me. And thank you for your commitment to getting this issue right for the city. As you know, there's been almost a year now of just pretty intensive public public comment and public interest on this issue. So regarding the regulations today, we've got a handful of issues. We'll get those over to you guys in writing. But I'll just cover two aspects of the regulations that appear to be problematic as written and would act as a hindrance to new investment on data center facilities in the city. First, I want to talk about the iDistrict restrictions and kind of parlay that in with the expansion triggers. As you know, there's a number of existing data centers already existing in downtown As Nick just talked about, sometimes those the data center operation in a building can help subsidize, you know, other activity and other employment in those buildings. You know, there's been a lot said today about the city services and how in the budget strains on the city, turning our back on, you know, proven partners that want to invest in our city is just not just not a cogent way to think about economic development in the long-term fiscal health of the City of St. Louis. Many of you were able to sit through a presentation, many of the members of the Board of Aldermen were able to sit through a presentation overviewing, there was an overview of the long-term fiscal health of the city. There are challenges. Many of those are presented by the lack or the depletion of population in the City of St. Louis. You know, causes for that are, you know, failing schools, you know, degrading infrastructure, whether that be water or roadways. And then, you know, public safety, increasing the bottom or, you know, having a healthy bottom line for city revenue is a way to reverse that population loss. And data center development, modest data center development in the city of St. Louis is a way to alleviate those, those strains. You know, and just to kind of cap that off with the downtown piece, downtown is a hotbed for for these existing, for existing data centers. There's potential for new investment in downtown and data centers. I think, I think that's a good thing. And, you know, the way these regulations are written kind of restrict that in ways that are that I think are unjust to that industry. And next thing I wanted to talk about, and I won't go too far into it. Nick did a great job covering the major data center definition. And then the subsequent amendment that's gonna be coming, I guess next week, that's gonna ban these projects. Again, I don't think that's a very just way to handle this industry. Again, these are proven partners to the city of St. Louis that want to invest here. You guys oftentimes are voting on tax abatement for other industries or people adding 50 people to a, or a industry, or excuse me, a company that might add 50 employees to a floor of a building. and you abate some of that earnings or that earnings tax, these folks aren't asking for that abatement. They want to invest here. I don't think we should turn our back on them. Thank you. I'll have written comments to you guys as well. Thanks.

Yeah, Patrick. Echo camp.

Patrick Eckelkamp with Hush Blackwell in Clayton, but also a city resident in the Southwest Gardens neighborhood. We've already been here for two and a half hours, so I'm going to be very brief for you guys. Most of my topics have already been covered. I am here today on behalf of Neutrality, which you guys heard earlier and a couple times today, has two existing data centers at 210 North Tucker, just across the street, and then at 900 Walnut. They've operated for a decade in the city of St. Louis, actually coming up on their a decade in July of 2016. They've operated for a decade without any serious violations, issues, citations, or troubles of any kind. They pay significant property taxes. Those buildings are not abated. And they employ dozens of workers without a drain on the city services or the schools. So I'm here specifically for Neutrality. They are not a hyperscaler or the AI-focused data centers that you guys are often hearing about in the news. Neutrality is more of a carrier hotel. They are an owner and operator of their data centers, so they do not build these on spec. They are the owner and the operator of these facilities. You can kind of think of them like the major rail terminals, the airports, and the highway interchange, if you're thinking about other traditional infrastructure. It's a physical network-to-network interconnection that has localized data process. So everything that comes into the city and then goes out of the city runs through Neutrality's two buildings at Tucker and Walnut. They have, I won't go into it, but they have... 112 different clients in those buildings, including some of the largest ones in the city, Slew Law, right across the street, WashU, local schools, Verizon, AT&T, they're all customers in use and neutrality's existing buildings here in St. Louis. They provide the critical infrastructure needed that everyday citizens of St. Louis have come to rely upon. The dense concentration of their two buildings and being located downtown keeps traffic local, decreases latency and delivers faster, more reliable digital experience across the St. Louis region. So, neutrality is not against data center regulations. They support working with the city and the local officials to adopt reasonable data center regulations that will allow it to continue to grow and operate and expand here in St. Louis. So I'm here just specifically on the existing nonconforming use portion of the regulations, which I think Miriam noted earlier are still under review. So I appreciate that and look forward to working with the city. We had two specific requests when looking at those, which is making sure that structural alterations that do not increase the size or the envelope of the building would be permissible. I think it is unclear under the current regulations. And then secondly, which Mr. O'Leary talked about earlier and has been mentioned several times, the generator capacity issue. I won't belabor that point. I think Josh mentioned earlier that the generators have run for three hours in 10 years. So hopefully that gives you guys some comfort on their use.

I hear my timer.

So I look forward to working with you and would appreciate your favorable consideration on making some amendments. Thank you for your time. And happy to answer any questions. But you guys probably want to go.

Our next speaker is Chris Norell.

Charis. Charis. Almost. My name is Charis Norell. I marked myself as in opposition. I think I'm largely in favor. I just have an amendment I would like to request. I am a decades-long member of Ward 6 and soon to be a member of Ward 7. We're about to buy our first house, and we're very committed to moving to St. Louis and staying in St. Louis. To the gentleman who indicated that St. Louis City is dying, as someone who's about to buy a home in the city, I am firmly committed to the future of St. Louis and the plants and the trees and the people and our neighbors that are here. And I think as someone who has lived here for a decade and plans to live here for an indefinite amount of my future, I'm really concerned with the hyperscale data center development that I've seen across the country. I think this bill is putting some well-needed restrictions in place on future developments. And I think what I feel is missing is a very clear and measurable way to measure community consent I think it should be paramount to any new development of anything major that you have the people who live nearby able to give their yes or their no, and there's a clear way for them to say no. As someone who personally thinks there shouldn't be major scale data centers, as my personal opinion, I would love to also see an amendment that bans major scale data centers within St. Louis City. But I do think that these regulations that are being proposed feel like they're a good step forward compared to what we were seeing in February. So I do appreciate all the work that's been done on this committee and would really argue that we should slow down, we should make sure that we are taking our time to put rules in place to protect who is here and who wants to stay here, not just people who want to come make a quick buck. So thank you.

Benjamin Loreal.

Hello, that was my partner. I can also just say ditto on a lot of the stuff they just said. But I just want to share just like overall looking at how quickly these are developing across the United States and how there's trends that seems to be focusing on impoverished communities and doing data centers in places where the people that are there that are effective don't actually get a say in it. I would like to Just say we need more of an amendment where people can have a say. Like people have said before, like the liquor store also having a say in where the data center is built and if it's close to them. And also on a side note, if we could have more meetings, like it was already said, that are maybe on the afternoons or in the weekends, because the people that are going to be affected are probably people that can't take off work. And so coming to this time might be really difficult for them. Luckily, I'm in education, so I get summer off, which is great. But I just really appreciate the time and effort being given to consider this and be responsible with it. I definitely think that data centers that already exist shouldn't be penalized for their commitment to the community. But I do think there are some misnomer and some misinformation on like data centers have always been here. yes but not that primarily need water sources to cool down and not that have this level of energy usage so to kind of lump them together can be damaging and i've seen that we're trying to dissect what that language is what is a large data center what is a mid-sized data center what is a small data center and i just want to keep the people that are gonna be surrounded by it and potentially have a long-term effects at the forefront. So again, a clause that allows the community to have a say in it and to say no where it's located. And also I did say I'm against it, but I'm against it because I'm against all data centers. I'm not against the bill putting restrictions. I think it's doing some really great jobs with those restrictions. So thank you for your time and energy and I appreciate you.

Our next speaker is Lauren Online. She needs to be sworn in.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we hear you.

OK, yeah, my name is Lauren Phila. I live in Maplewood. I'm representing the Eco Socialist at Green Party of Eastern Missouri. I'm testifying first of all to say that these hearings should be at night when people can attend. I'm at work right now. I'm trying to do this in between patients because I care about this and this is important. The people that are here testifying on that developer rope row that I saw in the back, they are being paid to be here, so this is not. to the working class. I wanted to say there's no regulations that would be enough to make data centers Harmless large scale data centers are intrinsically risky. Residents should not have to bear all the risks of that. Even if you have the conditional use hearing right now, that might as well be permitted by right because that doesn't actually take into account resident feedback. That's not a meaningful way for residents to consent to this. I do think these hyperscale data centers should be banned. If you refuse to do that, the minimal acceptable thing would be to pass the consent amendment. that requires developers to get the majority of resident consent within a mile and a half of proposed data centers that is beyond reasonable in terms of demands these facilities these developers they have all the benefits of this they're making all the profits the community the residents bear all the risks they should have a chance to be able to say No, and if these are so great, like some of the developers are saying, they should have no problem proving that they've won over the consent of residents. Let the residents decide. You have a model for this. We've submitted one to you that models itself off the liquor license process. If this is not added, that means that this body does not believe in consent. It means that you don't believe in democracy, and it means that you believe in forced harm. So listen to the residents of the city. Anything else is correct. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sean Foss.

Good afternoon. Sean Faust, First Ward. I am here today representing the Building and Construction Trades. We represent thousands of members from 18 different unions. I'm also here as an SLPS parent and city resident. The St. Louis Building and Construction Trades believes that the current form of legislation is too restrictive, and we'd like to ask that it be amended to something less prohibitive of development, let's say that. We'd like you to continue to work with those that have done these developments before and try to make sure we can get something that we can all agree on. Nobody wants a colossus like Memphis. But we do need revenue. And I watched and listened somewhat yesterday. We all know how dire revenue generation is. So to prohibit development or cap it at megawatt hours is something that we're going to oppose and that I would oppose as a resident here. We had talked about the K zoning, which is industrial recently. I live 1,000 feet. I looked on Google from K, and I would much rather have a data center down in the industrial area than I would the scrap yard that's currently there. The megawatt hour cap, I'd really like to see that removed, or not introduced, rather. I know that'll be coming up. Every 100 megawatt hour data center provides work for up to like 350 electricians. And that's just the electricians on the job. so you know our guys come in at six figures that's a one percent earnings tax and everyone working that's thousand dollars every guy out there guy in everyone work all workers um so that cap is going to restrict our revenue and uh not just to limit building construction trades workers i also want to mention public sector employees because you guys know they're tied to the revenue we have firefighters teachers at slps you know all that revenue is going to be important so i ask that we continue working towards something we can all live with maybe not love but live with and uh really hope uh that we can do that next week here um i believe that this is uh something that can uh these developments can go forward not only benefiting the building construction trades um you know but all of st louis so thank you very much

Next speaker is Byron Clemon.

I want to thank the Chair and all the authors who are here, worked with several of you. This is what democracy looks like. You know, this process, how we got here. We were pleased to take part in the revised data center plan that has already been approved. And part of the reason for that was $484 million. for the city of St. Louis, the St. Louis public schools, for firefighters, for infrastructure, for the water, for everything. and there were some environmental concerns that were addressed at the same time we're happy that this process has gone on but could you please put in there about tiffs and tax abatements everyone should pay their fair share and we talked somebody mentioned failing schools earlier we could talk about the failing tips and tax abatements to the empty buildings that were Peabody Energy, for example. What have they brought to the St. Louis City? Anyway, thank you for your time. Please consider always the infrastructure of the city, everybody paying their fair share, whether it's Cortex or a new data center or the data centers to come. Thank you.

Our next speaker is River And undetermined.

Hello, my name is River Reinsch. I'm a resident of the Seventh Ward, and I'm here in opposition because I don't think that these regulations are enough on these data centers. I think that something that hasn't been spoken about is the direct dangers to residents that these hyperscale data centers present. These are being built all around our country, and we are already having residents who are experiencing severe health consequences from being around these data centers. Specifically, I know of in Nashville, people have already died from air pollution from data centers that they've built there. And I think that this board really needs to look into those as we're talking about building hyperscale data centers here. Another thing that I'd like to point out for your consideration is the rhetoric of those who are in support of these data centers. They're trying to create a sense of urgency. They're trying to say, we have to build them now, that this is the time for this economic development, that this situation is rapidly evolving. But we have time. They're trying to create this narrative that you have to push through this bill now with these lower regulations before we actually know the full consequences of what these data centers would do to our city and our residents. We have the time to do more research. We have the time to hear more from the community before we make a decision. Another thing that they've brought up is providing economic opportunities for our city and for the vacant buildings downtown. Those vacant buildings are still going to be there a year from now. They're still going to be there two years from now. They're talking about investing in St. Louis specifically, but they're building these data centers around the entire country. The federal administration is currently really pushing these data centers to be built and incentivizing them. And yes, they are stimulating our economy really heavily right now, but it's a bubble. All of this money is going from data centers to other data companies, and I think that it's not going to actually provide for the residents how they're staying. And people are already experiencing deaths and severe health consequences within those 600 feet buffer zones that they're proposing. We need to ban all massive data centers. I'm opposed to most data centers, but there's not this scarcity crisis that they're presenting to you here today. And I would specifically, especially advocate for Alderwoman Schweitzer's ban on all massive data centers. Thank you for your time.

Our next speaker is Maria McDonald.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee. I'm Maureen McDonnell. I'm here on behalf of the Associate General Directors of Missouri. We're a statewide organization headquartered here in Ward 4. Much of what I plan to say has already been said, so I'll be brief. We support responsible and reasonably regulated development that brings economic opportunities to our community. We very much appreciate the significant work that has clearly gone into this bill in response to meaningful community concern. and while we are opposed as drafted we do think there's a path forward and we would encourage a conversation to continue to figure out how we can weigh the community concerns make sure there is significant community benefit while also not deterring development that can help investment in st louis revenue to fund city services and infrastructure thank you very much our next speaker is

Maximus Glamour.

Hello, how's it going?

It's kind of cold in here, but if any of you go outside, you can realize that it's not cold out there. Urban heat has increased exponentially due to oil and gas, which are generators of large-scale data centers. We can see that our climate commitments to reduce our reliance on these fossil fuels has decreased, and we're not able to upkeep these commitments due to the fact of how much energy these data centers are using. Our whole entire grids have to be repurposed and fitted for the influx of energy. That cost is being trickled down to some of the most impacted individuals. People in my ward, the third ward, are the most culturally diverse and the most population dense part of the city. We've worked within that ward and looked and see how many people were impacted by the rising costs and it seems a majority of the people in here in the ward are not able to pay their bills as they were previously. um and we hear the argument that it creates jobs which has been the biggest excuse for environmental degradation in the city and in the world and so when we're looking at the jobs that we're creating we have to ensure that these jobs are not deteriorating the environment just because you unionize to deforest the amazon rainforest doesn't mean that it is beneficial. We need to look at a cost-benefit analysis and weigh out the economic and the environmental outputs. And a lot of the people in suits don't care about the environmental outputs because they themselves are to gain from the economic one. And when people in my ward are struggling to pay their bills because of the rising cost of bills, we have to foremost see how the economic trickle-down components aren't actually trickling down. They're getting stuck within these men with suits who don't care about the constituents, who don't care about the earth, who don't care about regulations unless they can build whatever they want. So I'm here in support of this legislation. I don't think it goes far enough, but I understand the city of St. Louis. They don't want any regulations. They want free market capitalism to rape and pillage the world for their own personal gain, meanwhile leaving black and brown individuals to pick up their trash. And on that note, thank you for introducing this bill.

We have Ms. Melinda Long.

If I knew I had all this time, I could have washed and cleaned up before I came in. But I rushed down here learning about the hearing today. And I came with an idea of still about the data center.

If you could speak into the mic, please. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Melinda Long, 11th Ward resident. I came in here originally with the idea about the data center that's proposed to go in Midtown. But I understand today, what you're introducing today is to put some conditions on future data centers to come into the St. Louis area. Just like many individuals who spoke through the computer and individuals here, relating to the data center, anything related to this data center, just because other cities are doing it,

We need not have to follow every other city.

We need not have to follow every other city. In summation, when you want to put in on conditions for operating a data center, conditions for placing, rules for placing a data center, that information, those options should go on the ballots. It should not be put in an ordinance or an amendment or executive order that the mayor is trying to impose on the committee members because more than likely she and our previous managers may as he was supported with with the haves with their money. I encourage you all the people to even this ordinance, this board bill that you are 49 that you are introducing today, just don't even pass this, just drop it. Just decide on your own because you represent the people and the people want to have a say. There are thousands of registered voters that live in the city and these registered voters cannot necessarily fit in the Kennedy Room, and may not be able to attend a community meeting after hours. But when you put it on the ballot, when you have, because I remember you, Alderman Sanye, had made a comment, you had a lot of residents in your community that were concerned about the data centers. When you know personally you cannot reach them on your own, even with big announcements. But when you put it on the ballot, and then we can vote and decide on it then, then that would be the better way. Because preparing an ordinance amendment another board bill to put regulations on a data center. You can't control it. I just read the other day how Japan had just introduced a new type of chip that can do as much in that little bitty chip as a mega data center could do. Technology is changing every day. Ms. Clark, who was here earlier today, she had made statements which I noted. She said, there are so many unknowns, so many changes. There's always a new chapter. We can't control what these data centers will be trying to do in our area. Now, this proposed data center that may come up in the Midtown area, it's not over yet. It's not over yet. In fact, there is a group of people who have filed an appeal, and that appeal will be heard on July 1st with the zoning commission regarding that data center that is proposed in Midtown area. So again, I... I encourage the committee to not let this go through. Just let it just drop it because too many ward residents, too many registered voters have concerns. And those concerns can only be addressed with extended meetings, extended hearings. But most importantly, if you put it on the ballot, then we as a registered voters, your registered voters can come out and make the decision

as a whole the majority thank you thank you madam chair is it okay to go to the next speaker okay it looks like online we have danny khan

Hi, can you hear me? See me?

We can't see you. You can turn your camera on.

I'm trying. I don't see a button to show my camera, but I have my hand up. Say the whole truth. None of the truth.

I'm sorry. We have to see you speaking to be able to accept your testimony. Can you ask someone around you? Hang on.

I got it. Join us, panelists.

Okay.

All right. Can you see me?

Perfect. You swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Yep, yep.

Please proceed.

Hi, I'm Danny Khan from Ward 2. I'm an artist, activist, and I work full-time at a hardware store for minimum wage. I have been deeply engaged and have had to become an expert on data center issues. I have taken off so many hours of work to show up to engage in these processes and have felt largely ignored as have thousands of other St. Louisans. I'm sad I cannot be there in person today, but we residents do not get paid to lobby for our own public safety. I have testified ad nauseum at these regulations as these regulations have been formulated in the zoning and planning commission. I have explained through the process of the Goodwill Armory project that regulations are not enough. I've begun to understand that it will take a regulation that treats data centers with the same scrutiny as homeless shelters and liquor licenses such that the applicant must petition the surrounding community to get consent for the permit to be granted. The reasons I reiterate for slowing data center growth is that the environment, public health, utilities, labor, transparency, and digital safety concerns are so great and are still being researched. And because there is such a narrative around how they quote, catalyze Economic growth city officials will desperately jam city. They will desperately jam data centers into our neighborhoods as quickly and quietly as possible with little as little transparency or consent as possible. This is absolutely unacceptable. And with this dire situation, Saint Louisans already faced with existing public health crises from decades of sacrifice zones and poor air quality. We need to say no to data centers. I would like to sincerely thank Alicia Saunier, Anne Schweitzer, Megan Green, Christina Gardenia, and especially Miriam Keller for your work on regulating data centers as effectively and timely as possible. It is unfortunate that the Armory Goodwill Data Center developers bypassed the process so they wouldn't have to be subject to the regulations, but this is being appealed. I would like to reiterate the sentiment that these are not enough, but I know this will continue to be worked on to make our urban environment safer. So I tentatively support the board bills.

That was your final speaker.

I don't want Ms. Weiser. Sounds like we have one speaker, Madam Clerk, that might have signed up on the wrong list. You can come on up. And I saw you already sworn in, so you can go ahead and proceed. Thank you.

Hey, y'all. My name is Alexandria Paul. I am a former resident of Ward 10. I had to move back with my folks because it was not affordable. But I like that part of town because it's green and easy to walk around and stuff like that. I work in a grand arts center. They take the Metrolink to work and right where the armory is, is a heat island. And so that's one thing I wanted to bring up is like, I would kind of like a little bit more acknowledgement of like, if a data center is producing like an actual heat signature, then they have to offset that heat signature by providing shade for residents or communities that need it. And then let's see what else. Yeah, I mean, TBH, I'm very frustrated that I even had to show up here today. This is my only off day. I appreciate that you are having this conversation with us because this conversation is important. I used to live in Kansas City, and there was a port authority that approved a giant mega data center. It was like six combined data centers. It was insane. And they didn't allow any public testimony. And y'all are actually listening to us and engaging with us, and I appreciate that. I'd also like to say that, I'm losing my train of thought, pardon me. Oh, that I am in support of this regulation. I understand that technology is something that is going to continue to evolve and demand for data will continue to exist. But when it comes to economic development in St. Louis, I am confused on why more policy choices aren't made, better policy choices aren't made for better economic development. It seems like people, like people-centered economic development is really hard to get started. For instance, like the brick line just got finished and I'm very happy that it exists, but like it's completely illogical for it to exist and should have existed a while ago. um and that's just like one example of how like like another instance is like pedestrianization is a great way to improve like economic activity in an area and we're continuing as a city to make decisions that make it harder for people to walk and stay in an area. And data centers will do that. So yeah, I don't really want them. But if they need to exist, let's make sure that they're not so horrible to communities. And let's continue to make sure that St. Louis is one where we can walk and give up our cars because cars pollute our planet. Okay, thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Madam Chairman, and to the members of the committee for being here for the public comment. And I appreciate everyone who came today to share. As has been said a few times, there have been many opportunities at the Planning Commission for public comment. And I know that this is a daytime meeting, and our next committee hearing will be a daytime meeting as well. I believe that the public comment that has been shared today and previously is pretty consistent. We've heard a lot of the same things over and over again from all sides of this issue, which is why another evening meeting was not put on the calendar. And that was something that I thought we had already covered so that I'll take the, you know, blame for that, if that is a thought that people are having about having more of these meetings. I think we've really gotten a lot of public comment and a lot of public feedback on this. And what is before us today and the amendments that I discussed are really a result of so much of that input. both allowing pathways for data center development as well as some safeguards that i think are really important and i think most of the community agrees with so you know today you've heard from a lot of different people and heard a lot of different pieces of information we still have wonderful planning staff here so i can answer any questions they can answer any questions and we'll continue these conversations as the days go on and into committee next week

Thank you, Alderman Schweitzer. I know. Did we ever get anybody from the city council's office online, Madam Clerk?

OK.

So I know that was referenced a couple of times here as well in the hearing. And I did reach out and asked if they were not present today just for your awareness as the sponsor. I asked that they be here next Tuesday, a week from today. and also ask for a follow-up call. I know there is going to be some continued conversation already, but I think also this work that's done in here and having them be able to answer the questions so that the public can hear as well, I think will be helpful. So just wanted to... flag that and again as stated we do have representatives here for questions so I'll just go through and see if our colleagues have them. Alderman Cohn.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I do appreciate the Planning Department staff and the Commission for their very thoughtful process and trying to address the concerns that were brought forward by many neighbors and organizations. And, you know, glad to have the opportunity to discuss the matter further today and look forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you.

Thank you. First, I want to say thank you to the planning and zoning staff, Miriam, Mary, also Alicia. I know the sustainability office also was a big part of this, and I really appreciate all the work that went into it. Thank you to Alderman Schweitzer, Alderman Saunier, and the planning commission. I know they've also put a lot of hours into this. i think these are thoughtful well-informed regulations as i said they took a lot of work a lot of the important questions were asked and answered i think the staff really sought to understand the issue before writing regulations for it and that matters Just so that everyone's clear, I heard this said a couple times, data centers are currently unregulated in the city. They're treated as something that they're not under our zoning code. So we need to pass regulations and I hope we can pass them before this board goes on summer break in a few weeks. Otherwise, we'll have nothing and they will continue to be treated like warehouses, which they're not. So having no regulations is not preferable, and I understand that these regulations don't go far enough for some people and they go too far for others, but we're gonna have to find a compromise. That is our job as legislators. I think my next question is for planning staff. I was wondering, and this is a big question, but, we're in the middle of a zoning update and i'm wondering how these regulations would apply under the proposed zoning code understanding that changes are still being made

Yeah, I think there are a few parts of the response. The first is that the general approach we intend to absorb into the new code and that process allows us that opportunity for refinement in the next couple of years. But I don't think we anticipate a big rethinking. I think we hope to preserve a lot of the standards that are part of these regulations. couple of things that could adjust well i'll make another sub point some of the basic requirements about site design and things like that that we specifically address for data centers we're doing because those aren't addressed in most of our underlying code that problem will be addressed as part of the broader zoning update so those small types of things like the urban design standards and things like that will not be any longer data center specific. They'll be more generalized to all uses in a district. I think what is tricky about doing this right now is our zoning map does not fully reflect the strategic land use plan or the neighborhood planning work that's underway. You'll see the regulations do reference the strategic land use plan to ensure that that's part of the consideration going forward. we are still in the midst of a lot of work on drafting that new zoning map and so we're going to have to find a way to cross-reference the use table that's shown here into the new use table that's part of the new zoning code which will include new districts with new names you know mx so and so and so on And then that will have to be reasonably reflected in the zoning map as well. So a moving target, but the approach is not to fundamentally rethink, but rather kind of translate and refine.

Thank you for that. I asked the question to give some context of how difficult it is to write these regulations and that you're writing them for not only two different zoning codes, one current and one future, but it's an entirely different setup in each code. And this is the downside of having a code that's over 70 years old is that one, it doesn't apply to new technologies and When we update it, it has to be a significant update that fundamentally changes the entire structure, which will look different. But part of the difficulty of developing these has included making sure that this carries over and that we're not starting over when we move to the new code. So I appreciate that answer. I noticed that this bill has parking minimums in it, and I tend to think of parking lots as fairly undesirable uses. They're just poor land use, really, add to the heat island effect, which has been mentioned several times. But also just in terms of walkability of our city and encouraging car culture and automobile use, we have too much of our city, I think, right now devoted towards parking. Why have parking minimums in this bill? Is that a concern that was brought up during the engagement?

a little bit i mean the the concern was raised by a couple that maybe this is you know silly to to preserve i think our logic was we know parking is going to be a really big conversation as part of the zoning upgrade and so maybe that's the place for it and to make it a little bit more of a universal conversation um but i will say i i don't recall any planning conversation about how parking is really important for the successful operation of a data center. So I don't know that those are a necessary part of appropriately regulating a data center.

okay thank you my next question is about square footage thresholds can you give an example just so people can visualize the size of a 250 000 square foot building or like a 500 square foot building is there an example in the city you can point to that might be easy for people to understand yeah the

There are a few, but maybe the most pertinent is the neutrality building on Tucker, sort of a multi-story building. That is 500,000 square feet. There are many office buildings downtown that are that size. We did a lot of... looking at building size, but in more of a sort of high-level analysis to see specific buildings. I'm blanking on beyond that one, unfortunately.

That's helpful. I mean, it's an existing one. It's prominent. I think everyone's seen it across the street here. And if you haven't seen it, you can see it when you leave the building today. In relations to setbacks, an example of 600 feet for people that I hope all St. Louisans will be able to understand is that the St. Louis arch is 630 feet leg to leg. So it's about the width of the arch that this setback would be. And I understand that setback is related to, is it there because of noise concerns primarily? Or what are the reasons for having setbacks in these regulations?

The three primary things are noise, though that is also separately addressed. Light pollution a little bit, but I don't know that that's a unique concern to data centers. It's more of a concern to any sort of 24-7 use. Also heat. Heat emissions can be a significant output of some data centers depending on their design, and that can have or contribute to health impacts.

That's helpful. And in regards to noise, I've heard some people say, well, if we put them in areas that are already noisy, it's fine because you're not really going to be noisier than the thing that's already there. But that's not how noise works, to my understanding. It's complicated, but I think it has to do with frequency when it comes to the human ear. And so... I just again mentioning this because I as I'm asking these questions, you can tell there's so many considerations that had to be made for how data centers interact with their environment and especially in a city which is full of people. There's a lot that had to be included in this to really get the dial just right. And again, I understand it's not going to work for everybody, but that is that is the nature of thing. several people today asked for community input or neighborhood consent similar to what we do for wicker similar to what we do for unhoused shelters that's not in this bill but i understand it was discussed is there a reason why that's not required for data centers locating especially if they're if they're located near residential

Yeah, it was something we discussed. It was something we evaluated legally. And while I'm not the attorney here, I think that type of approach can only be very narrowly upheld, or that's kind of what the case law suggests, is those types of provisions are only very narrowly upheld by courts. And I think from the planning commission's view that not to speak for them, that felt like a concern that maybe extended beyond the sort of land use planning role of that commission. I will say I am entirely sympathetic to an understanding of the desire. Some of the things that we did change though in the recommendation based on that input was strengthening some of the community engagement requirements, which I know are not equivalent to public consent. There is required notification of all residents surrounding a proposed major data center site. And also the public impact agreement does require, in the regulations as recommended, Board of Aldermen approval, which we thought added a layer of kind of democratic accountability and consideration to those major land use decisions.

So can you talk a little bit more about that? So there would be a public impact that would have, like, it would be passed as like a resolution at the Board of Aldermen?

Correct. And the public impact agreement would, you know, I will say also be limited to or focused on, I should say, not limited to, focused on mitigating the impacts of the use. It couldn't, for example, include funding for a soccer field nearby. That's kind of not something that has a direct or proportional nexus to the use that the public impact agreement is meant to mitigate. But this is a mechanism to ensure that these major data center development decisions are accompanied with a very site-specific evaluation of what else do we need to do as a city to ensure that this is appropriately integrated into a location, if appropriate, and to make that, again, a sort of broader discussion.

Okay, thank you. That's all the questions I have for you. I really appreciate, again, the work that's been put into this. I'll just make comment because I think people want to know where their alders stand on this. And I'll just say my biggest concern is from a city planning perspective. I think that data centers are more or less a dead space. They're not full of activity. They're not full of people that are going to be flooding the streets at lunchtime, going to nearby restaurants and, you know, contributing to the city in a city with a limited footprint how we use our land is important and in a city that's struggling with vacancy i don't see this as the answer filling a big building with a data center does fill the building with something but it's not activity for the surrounding area and alleviating the strain of population loss is not the same as gaining population which is what we really need in the city for more than just tax purposes without people we don't have commerce we don't have city workers we don't have neighbors so because these don't bring a lot of permanent jobs that is always my understanding of it they may bring tax money but i think the use negates the benefit of that tax money in a lot of ways. To me, that's the 30 pieces of silver for sacrificing our values and betraying our people. I want to make sure that we are actually caring for people in this city. Cities are made of people that live here, work here, play here. That's the important part. I want a city that's built for people and not machines. So I do appreciate the nuance with this is rocks. I understand why these are important to some business, but I want to make a distinction to like I represent the Wash U Medical School. I represent BJC. I represent Cortex. The data centers that they use for medical research are not the same as some of the things that are being proposed. Just to compare it, a data center that a medical center might use would be like equivalent of a neighborhood basketball court, whereas some of these hyperscale data centers would be like an NBA stadium. There's just a huge difference in the use. uh and i can understand why people might not want to live or work near one so for those people who are saying this is the next industry that's going to save st louis i i have to disagree because it's it's not similar to the railroads it's more similar to the highways which gutted our city and destroyed our our neighborhoods We're looking at removing them now. And I wonder what the future of this industry looks like. I don't think it's guaranteed. I think it's unproven. And we have to regulate this in a way that we strike this balance. So I want to thank again planning and zoning departments and the planning commission and Alderwoman Schweitzer. I think this is looking to regulate data centers like we regulate many other businesses and industries striking a balance between the need for them but also with the needs of the people because without people our city is not a city at all. So thank you.

Admiral Aldrich.

you madam chair members of the committee um what a long educational day and we're still not finished i think we got to go back to alderman tanya's bill after this um i do want to thank planning for all the hard work that you all have put into this all the staff of planning i know it's been You know, this is a very nuanced conversation. I don't think anybody is an expert in this. And I think there's a lot of questions out there. There's still a lot of concerns. And the reality is, you know, the city, well, before I go there, again, I do want to give the flowers to the people that have been putting in the work. It's easy for me to just speak on it, but you all have put in hours. I've watched some of those meetings. I think the very last meeting you guys had at planning, oh my God, it went to like 12 o'clock, if not longer. And then the amount of testimony and public testimony that you, the planning commission have, allow community to weigh in over these long weeks. truly thankful. I think this is a step forward for the City of St. Louis, and it would not have been done if it wasn't for the Planning Commission, the members who are volunteers on the Planning Commission, our two elected representatives, Alderman Schweitzer and Alderman Sanye, as well as Grimindia, Christine Grimindia from the President's Office of the countless amount of time that you all have put into this. And I do want to thank all of the advocates who have also, advocates to be clear, on both sides. We don't get anywhere in a city if we, you know, we can point fingers, we can fight. I think we all love this city for various reasons, right? And at the end of the day, even before I've been in this role, we continue to lose population and we haven't found the solution. And only way we find that solution is if we try to figure out how to work together. And I think there was some things said today on both sides that I'm sure individuals on one or the other probably disagree, but the amount of the respect that was displayed today and was shown I think is, because a lot of these conversations around data centers we've seen throughout the region has brought out the best in people, and rightfully so. And I just want to thank the advocates on both sides, people who are advocating for data centers, people who want regulations or bans or the understanding of how much electricity we're using, how much water we're using. I think all those things are extremely important. So thank you all for being here and sticking it out. I will say just being kind of honest that I've mentioned to the Alderwoman that I want to just go out on record but however this process moves I will move with it you know it is so much information for myself as a new person I'm learning a lot when it comes to the data center clearly planning has taken a long you know various months to also learn and well uh smarter than me in this and i wish i could take miriam brain and like put it in my head so i can have all the answers uh when it comes to this i would wish that and i you know i mentioned it to the alderwoman i wish that you know we go down in a few weeks i know we're taking a vote on it next week which means then we have to suspend the rules the goal is to get it done the board goes down uh june the 10th that there was a little bit more time on the legislation side um to get this no legislation as i told all the women from the seventh and no legislation is perfect i've made plenty of mistakes um to the point where i've had to redo the bill food truck bill that's coming back for like third time and that actually never got done My fear of moving this very quickly is just to make sure that we get it right, especially also the conversation of pending litigation. I've always said our job is not to pass laws to worry about if somebody's going to sue them. We have the right to do that. I would love, I think, for this board to, while planning has done their job, on the legislative side, us have more time and not try to get this done before we go down on recess. And I know I stated that to Alderwoman, but however this process moves, I will move along with the train. When it comes to, I guess, the bill, it's more of a question, Alderwoman, if you or Miriam can explain, What's the language in the bill that ensures that current data centers, what will be the new rules that current data centers have to abide by? I think we have 10 to maybe 13 somewhere around there in the city already that currently exist. Will they have to abide by new rules, or are they going to be left alone? Do they have to get new licensees since they are not, I guess, considered a warehouse? They'll be considered something else. What will be the new regulations that current data centers would have to abide by?

so maybe before explaining i do want to address again that some of the changes to and this is on page 25 line 13 of the bill some of the changes uh recommended by the planning commission i think it so it was the planning commission's goal to issue a recommendation to the board at its june 10th meeting and so there's a lot of discussion this is one of the changes made um that is causing some concern and i think everybody is committed to addressing that so this is under review several of us are ideas setting up some conversations I'm just providing a little bit of context. This is a long answer. What the Planning Commission was trying to manage, because the impact of data centers is not directly correlated to its size, it's really more directly correlated to that power demand, which has a pretty direct translation to the number or at least capacity of backup generators, which are part of the noise challenge, part of the air quality challenges, part of, you know, so on and so on. The heat challenges, too, though that's not directly from the backup generators. And so it is possible that we don't know in great detail that an existing data center could just by swapping out equipment with more intensive chips significantly double, triple its maximum power demand without requiring a physical expansion that would otherwise sort of trigger new requirements for compliance for an existing non-conforming use. So the Planning Commission I think was trying to weigh that potential and that challenge and provide for some protections for the community and at least give the city an opportunity to review and weigh in as that type of intensity expansion occurs. I think This is an example where this is kind of new territory with data centers. They're a pretty unique land use. And I think where we landed during the planning commission meeting is not the best spot. But generally speaking, more directly to answer the question, an existing data center.

And if you could pause, why would you say where you guys landed was not the best spot? Could you just like...

I think it is a little bit, and I don't want to, so specifically the enlargement shall include an increase in backup generator capacity. It's a little bit of a novel concept for considering expansion of existing non-conforming use or an existing non-conforming structure. And I think it does have a direct kind of land use impact. but is a departure from how other non-conforming uses are treated in the context of our zoning code, and probably goes a little bit further than what there's strong precedent for. I think I... the commission was doing this for a very logical and rational reason but this is the issue we need to work through to try to bring it more back in line with what there is sort of precedented standing for treating expansions or changes of existing non-conforming uses or structures

okay and was that was that a recommendation that the commission made or was that an amendment that changed the recommendation that like the backup generation backup generator that you talk about was that something you all recommended or was that an amendment that came to the commission

That was an amendment during the commission meeting. So we had started, as staff, in February thinking, oh, maybe if there's a crossing of the classification thresholds, that should trigger some compliance. But then through discussion, we thought, no, maybe that doesn't really work. So we had, as staff, going into the June 10th meeting, landed on roughly this 26.77.060 section c but just without that final sentence and then the commission and trying to get its arms around and like think through the best way to um manage that potential um we we worked through and added that sentence i think if you know staff and everybody had had the benefit of evaluating that further probably would have landed in a different place but again i think the commission's goal was to try to get something out

And so and I think that kind of goes back to my first point. Do I guess as the as the people, you know, individuals that are doing the work, if you had, I guess, more time, do you think some of the recommendations that were provided either to us or more recommendations that may be provided like that more time would allow you all to Again, I don't want to say come up with something perfect, but come up with something that try to meet, I think, the moment of getting it right, like kind of the first time.

I think this specific issue was more a challenge of a collective thinking on our feet, more that than of we didn't have enough time on this. I think, I'm certain through more time we could refine and improve, but also I think to Alderman Browning's point, the city is currently without any sort of regulatory, detailed regulatory framework in our zoning code for this use. So we as staff didn't want to prolong it too, too long. We wanted to pass the ball down the field to you all. in order to get at least some protections in place.

I think that is it that the mayor's executive order says we have a moratorium currently. So no, is it not more? Oh, that's what the board tried to do.

Loaded.

It's my turn. All the women to speak, not yours. And I voted for that. I think the last person who did it was Alderman Browning. But what could you explain again, the executive order?

Sure. So the landscape that the executive order and resolution, resolution 111 tried to approach here is that data centers have been treated as warehouses and office space before then. So they were conditional in some zoning districts, but permitted by right and others, no matter the size, no matter really anything about them, they just had to do the traditional permit process. The executive order changed that to make it conditional in the zoning districts where they're possible. And then also put in place many application requirements for the conditional use process. So we've had one application go through that process so far. And so that's why we're kind of seeing play out. as you can see by these regulations that project would have been subject to many different things as well had it gone through a process under regulations like this or exactly these regulations so those are sort of the differences that we're seeing between you know the first you know pre-september 19th time frame from then september 19th to now with the executive order and then um going forward trying to have more uh concrete regulations in place

Gotcha. And I think one thing that I do agree with that a lot of people brought up today is the word consent. I would say more of community buy-in and engagement to make sure that residents are aware of a potential data center coming up. And I know there's been the floating around of, you know, it sounds like all these amendments everyone know about so the floating around of doing like platen petition for data centers if Miriam could you explain I guess and maybe this is more of a platen petition question for Mary Hart or I forget the other gentlemen who do platen petition are we the only like city that does like this platen petition and how is it kind of an outdated process

yeah I think in other settings and maybe before this committee i've shared my point of view that it adds a bit of a aberration for city we were not aware of any other city that has that type of process for that type of use. it's. I understand the role it plays in providing some communities a way to influence outcomes in ways that they have not historically had. I think it's an outlier, certainly. I'll stop there.

That answered my question. I definitely believe there should be some type of engagement. I know there's been conversation around the platen petition. I've seen how that platen petition process has It's difficult, especially in certain areas when you're in vacant spaces. So I guess data centers would be considered to go in K or whatnot. When you have vacant land, you're not really reaching out to a resident. You're reaching out to, let's just say, a Paul McKee and, bless your heart, trying to get him, right? So while that engagement is important, It'll be interesting to see what that, and I'm willing to work with the sponsor and anyone who wants to oppose the amendment of what that buy-in looks like. I'm not a fan of platen petition. I think we even tried to get rid of it with the unhoused, so I would not want to see us expand it even further because it is kind of old and outdated. And if this bill were to change in committee, this would have to go back to planning. When is planning next meeting?

It is the Wednesday before our last meeting of this, before recess.

clearly there's amendments that's going to be offered how do you look at um i guess the the timeline alderman uh if we make amendments tuesday either to i think go further from what one side is asking or to do some cleanup from another side is asking then it can't leave this committee and have to go back to planning and that's a wednesday before our last meeting on friday it would just need to go back to the planning commission before we pass it So it only has to go back to planning before the final pass. So we could move it through committee. We can suspend the ruse and perfect it on the floor. But you're saying legally we can move through that process without planning?

Back to planning commission before we pass it.

Okay. Okay.

And we had discussions around some of these very topics at the planning commission during our last meeting. The commission really wanted to move the recommendations out to the full board with knowledge of the recess schedule. I'm happy to meet over recess and keep this moving. I think there are probably a lot of people who think we take too long of breaks. And so that is something that is not a problem for me. But I do want to keep it moving. the uh discussions that we had during the planning commission during those amendments you know some of them that got adopted some that didn't were about having this um discussion now in the political arena about some of these amendments um when we talked about you know not allowing major data centers uh there was discussion among the commissioners that they wanted to keep the recommendations on that you know as as is as we were moving forward But they understood that when we're listening to our constituents, that we may be hearing something that's outside of just a regular planning process. We're hearing from other stakeholders who we are responsive to and we need to represent so that our decisions may vary from the way that they're looking at things as really from that just planning only perspective. So I think that that was sort of understood that there may be some things that as aldermen, as representatives of the people, that we may look at differently and have motivation to change. And that, you know, there is a possibility that we bring something back to them and they say, you know, specific things that need to change in here. And then that changes some of the thresholds of the votes that we'd have to get at the Board of Aldermen. So there's different, you know, calculations of how that would all play out that we'd have to work through.

What would the threshold, if it goes to planning and they take it, do that mean we 10 or?

That's my understanding is that we'd have to go to 10 votes to override.

to override planning. So if we add, let's say, the ban, ban major data centers, and planning don't take that up the Wednesday right before our last meeting, and if we move the bill, then we would essentially have to take the bill from, we won't final pass it.

move it back to perfection or or finally pass it um you know without with the 10 votes it really just depends where everyone falls and i try to give you know when i have a carrier bill i try to have plenty of opportunities for people to a board of aldermen to have these conversations to you know have time to sit with material before votes are taken because i understand that all of these things are very complicated and

I wish I knew that threshold when I did that marijuana bill. I wanted 12, planning did 10. If I knew I could go over plan and said, I appreciate the work they do, but I would have got that 10. More revenue as we talk about new ways of bringing revenue, right?

It's always a work in progress, Alderman. It's never done, done, is it?

Got it. Okay. I think that is, oh, we brought up neutrality, and I think the back and forth with the Alderman from the 9th, that neutrality is, did you say it's 500 square, 500,000 square feet?

I believe so.

So that would be considered a major data center? in the graphic that I was looking at.

That would be the top end of any data center. So this was also one of the amendments made during the June 10th meeting. At first, there was no square footage threshold between the standard and major data center categories. But as we got into this discussion of expansion and what sizes are appropriate and things like that, the Commission, and there was a suggestion of lowering the overall cap for any data center from 500,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet. Instead, the motion of the Commission was to constrain those new standard data centers to both 30 megawatts and 250,000 square feet. However, any existing data center that exceeds these sizes would still be legally grandfathered and whatnot.

Okay. So like naturalities, say if we move forward banning any major data centers in the city and naturalities already grandfathered and and it's all for educational purposes, because I think I want to make sure that we don't get to a spot where the existing ones, right, and NetTrally makes some changes to their data center where they have to go through, like, I think earlier that you all explained, a new process. Would they not even be able to go through the process because they would be considered a major data center, and then we block them from... Because then they wouldn't be grandfathered in, because they're making a change. But they were already considered a major data center, but we may ban all major data centers. They couldn't even want to make a change. Is that making sense a little bit?

Yeah, they could want to make a change and they could apply. I do anticipate and maybe if we go further on this thread, maybe Mary Hart Burton has more thoughts, but I do anticipate there will have to be a specific consideration of just practical difficulties that existing data centers making changes or alterations and kind of their options for compliance. because there would just be practical difficulties. They were built to operate one way, and a lot of these do contemplate completely new adaptive reuse projects or new construction. I do think this all relates to that section that needs some more dialing in, but they wouldn't be prevented from altering their structure.

Even if an amendment came to say ban all major downer centers and they would fall into that?

i think the way it would go if that amendment proceeded was that they could apply the review would be oh this is a major data center located in the i district that's not allowed and they could and their application would be denied and then they would have to appeal that to the board of adjustment So they wouldn't be barred from applying.

But we would be, for existing ones, we would be putting in red tape for them because they would be denied at the first step, potentially even denied at the Board of Adjustment, and then they would have to go through the legal process of going to court to sue the city because they just want to make a change. and they've been existing for 10 years, but the board is now banning all major data centers even though they already was one. You get where I'm going?

Yeah, it does add some complexity. I think this specific issue.

I'm all for like, I always say this, Armory is a big data center, right? I get that, but I'm thinking about again the existing ones that if what we're all saying is we want the existing ones like they're fine we do need to put regulations out there i'm totally for but if we have existing ones that are major data centers that do make changes and the amendment that may come may fail it may pass but i'm just thinking if it does pass to ban our major data centers like what that impact will have if a major data center makes a change, or could they ever make a change so that they wouldn't have to go through the notification of the city? Yeah.

Yeah, they could certainly explore the change. I think, actually, maybe the more particular amendment, or another amendment made by the Planning Commission on the 10th that influences this situation is that square footage threshold between standard and majors. Because before that, any data center using less than 30 megawatts, and as long as they're under 500,000 square feet, they're a standard data center. But now with that square footage threshold between the two, they would be considered a major data center because they're larger than 250,000 square feet. So I think it's in this specific instance that you're raising, it's less the idea of prohibiting majors that creates complexity. It's actually that 250,000 square foot threshold that applies in the downtown district.

Yeah. And I guess with these data centers, and I'm going to wrap it up. I guess at these data centers, shouldn't we be more, I guess, concerned not, I guess, how big they are or the space, but more energy they're consuming and water? I mean, you can have a... you know, let's say a big building like NetTravel and you just have a data center on two floors and maybe residents on the others, right? But whatever, I don't know, barbershop. But I guess the concern should not be so much of like how large the building is, but the amount of energy that they're consuming that I would assume that's what makes them a minor, medium, major data center. Like if they go get a warehouse in Northside and, you know, and only use a little bit, but it's a big warehouse. Now they're a major data center, but they're only using a small amount of electricity. I guess, are we doing it backwards based off square footage and not trying to figure out the consumption of energy

I completely agree with your point. I think we learned early on that, like, oh, so actually most cities only use square footage to handle this situation. There are some cities using these maximum power demand thresholds to classify data centers. And I think that is the much better proxy for understanding the intensity of the use rather than physical size. Yeah. you know, a 500,000 square foot data center could be using 20 megawatts or 120 megawatts. That's what's super unique about this land use. That's really challenging. What we haven't seen a city do is cap megawattage. So there have been many, many cities, not many, many, some other cities using megawattage to establish these classifications and kind of the breaks between categories. But I do think a cap on maximum power demand would be the most helpful tool here, but that raised some legal concerns and is unprecedented in what we could find and research. So I think that then puts us back on using some sort of square footage cap as maybe the most precedented and confident tool for that, but It's a long way of agreeing.

And that answers my question. Like I said, I would just, and again, you guys are the experts that's been doing it. I just would think that we're going to be barring people and saying they're a major data center just based off of the size of the building, but not based off the electricity or certain regulations that they will have. Again, you take new trailer who's been here for a very long time. They're considered a major one because they're big instead of like getting into the how much energy. I mean, and when I think about regulation, the data center, the concerns, it's because people want to make sure that, you know, regardless how big or how small it is people want to know how much energy they're using and how much water they're consuming that seems to be like the majority of the the concerns with other regulations and I think the way that we're going about it we're looking at square footage and and classifying these data centers may not be I think the goal to accomplish and may also be the way to

hinder uh maybe smaller data centers that just say you may want to go to north side but it's a bigger space um but they're not going to use that much electricity you know yeah we talked about that a lot at the planning commission and there is some relationship between the size of a data center and how much electricity that it can use so that is why we discussed that as an agreed upon 500 000 square foot cap for the sizes allowed. And to some of the points that have been made earlier, this is not a use that is going to create a lot of vibrancy where they're placed. So when we think about how big some of these can be and what we want for the city of St. Louis and some of our most walkable areas and even the entire city of St. Louis, we need to be thinking about how much space, how much land. that these are taking, which is why we did end up going with a size constraint of 500,000 square feet.

Yeah. And like I said, I know that there's future things coming down the pipeline, and maybe I'm giving my hand. I probably was leaning more to like, I don't believe we need these major data centers in inner cities. Totally believe it. I live at Park Pacific. I live across the street from Naturality. downtown is a neighborhood however neutrality would be considered like a major one based off of the structure instead of the electricity which I wouldn't like probably be in support of that amendment because we're we're not getting to the electricity and I get we don't want to give away large structure buildings

Yeah, and to the point that Ms. Keller was making about the energy, that one is set, you know, the energy, the megawattage is built into the different categories of data center and the square footage is as well. I think that the piece that we're thinking about with megawattage, to your point, is the more important piece to it. But it is not something that has been largely, you know, done before. Whereas the square footage size constraints is something that is a kind of respected general land use regulation that gets put in place, you know, regularly for use.

But there is, I guess, what Miriam said, there is, I did not try to cut you off. There is other cities that have done it by wattage?

Have done it by, have broken up the category by wattage. So we have, you know, micro data centers are a certain size and below with certain megawattage, and then standard and major have those, you know, both size and megawattage constraints as well.

You and the Planning Commission and all of them from the 6th and the President, all of them from the 7th and the President's staff, you guys are doing God's work because this is a lot, and I do appreciate it, and that's all that I have.

Thank you, Alderman.

Vice Chair Sanya.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. I have the honor of serving as a planning commissioner. Thanks to the chairwoman. We had a very, I think we've had three or four very lengthy committee hearings. The last one went to, I think, 1115 at night. And so I can definitely contend that there has been a lot of input. And I would specifically speak to the planning commission. You know, I think both myself and I think all the women Schweitzer have really talked about in this moment what it looks like to be an elected representative of the people and we were very interested as commissioners of one to make sure that this was not a conversation that happened in isolation or that happened with just one particular group and so if you watch any of those planning commissioning hearings you will hear not just you know residents of the community which are my core concern as well but you will hear developers, you will hear different folks from unions, you will hear folks from the teachers union. I think this has been something that has really caused a cross industry conversation and I think is really, really important as we consider these regulations. I think it is pretty clear on record that I am not the biggest fan of data centers and I hold a lot of hesitation and skepticism towards data centers. And at the same time, I understand what the interest is in a city to do data centers. As someone who serves as a commissioner, I've heard the economic arguments over and over again. I'm aware of what we hear often on this committee of a shrinking population and a need for a tax base. And so my interest up until getting to this point where I'm acting directly in automatic capacity as a commissioner was wanting to make sure that all of the parties were a part of the conversation and that all of the interests, whether it was critiques or preferences or praise or opposition, I think it's really important that that is on a public record. And I think the goal of regulations are to thread the needle as best as possible between these competing, I think sometimes interests. What I can say just as an individual is I'm extremely thankful to the diligent work of Alderman Schweitzer, Planning Commissioners of the Zoning Department, um even i'm thankful for the many members of the public who you guys have uh once again amazed me with your tenacity of staying online on the hearing until 11 o'clock of coming straight from off of work and spending hours uh camping out like i would get there to the planning commissioner you guys would already have beat us there and so I'm really energized by that and I even think that even though it's unpopular and probably hard for perhaps the greater St. Louis or different unions to be a part of this conversation, I think it is necessary that they participate in this conversation and they are heard and that their concerns are put on the record because these regulations are going to impact the entire city. Again, as I stated earlier, my concern with this legislation is the constituents that I serve. I do have a larger concern for the country, but specifically for our city about just such a new industry that none of us really know much about yet because it is so new. And so I do not support us rushing in head first into something that none of us can really quite predict the outcomes. I've been pretty vocal that my concerns really are public health and public safety oriented. I feel strongly that in the entire country of the United States, our children have the highest rate of asthma. We have some of the worst health disparities and environmental standards in the country, in our city. I also have a number of residents who are struggling financially. Anything that looks like it is going to impact their electric bills or anything else, they are not fans of. Ultimately, I have a responsibility to represent them and to serve on their behalf. To that being said, I would say I definitely am actively working to figure out what it could look like to have residents to have a say-so in this process. I don't anticipate that that amendment will be one that is favorable, and I'm aware that there will be entities that are opposed. But again, I would remind us that when we had the patent petition conversation, I was told that we don't want to remove it because it's democracy. that this is residents' direct way of having input and having say so. And you don't have to take my word for it. That's all recorded and on camera and happened over and over again. And I think what we see, whether it's planning commission or here, is residents are saying, we want to say to have a hand in this. i don't know yet what that looks like i do think it is important that as a legislative body what we do is legally defensible i do think we have to have foresight and again threat that needle as possible but i hope that there can be something that we can arrive at and i was on the fence about it before but to be frank the way that the data center approval happened, that it was rushed and that I have no input makes me feel even stronger about residents having an input because even as an alder person, I didn't get an input into the approved major data center that we just did. I got an email at 9.15 a.m. that told me a hearing was happening at 1.45 p.m. And I thank God that I have just a good enough standing with my residents that they know that I would never move in that type of non-transparent manner where we would pick up such a big manner and I would not give them proper notice to give them chance to participate in a conversation. But because of that, I am deeply uncomfortable with residents not having a say so because we just demonstrated as a city that we approve something that I think if residents did get a vote, they would have voted no overwhelmingly and I think that would have been the result across the board. I do not know what that looks like, but that is on my list. Also, I did want to announce that I did file a bill today that proposes that data centers are not eligible for local tax incentives. It does have to be a separate bill. I actually do not think that bill is going to be as controversial as members of the public think has come up over and over again. And most people have actually not been opposed. It's something that no matter what side of this conversation have folks have been on, I think we all agree like the interest in this is in having additional tax revenue for our city. And so it wouldn't make sense to take that stance and then to oppose, you know, to give them subsidies. So I would just want to put all of that on record. I'm a proud co-sponsor of this bill.

I feel like I've learned way more

than I ever thought I would about data center. All these things are running in my head, but I wanted to make sure that I put that on record and just thank everyone for participating in this conversation. And my hope is that after today, no one clocks out, because I do think we have more conversations to have, more needle threaded. And I think the outcome will be something that perhaps not exactly any side is fully happy with, but I hope that's something that really speaks to a sense of public health and public safety considerations that I think are really dire to this conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you for all the comments today. We do have some more work to do on these regulations before they come back to you all next week, hopefully for your support as we move forward. I want everyone in the room and anyone who's listening online to know that My inbox is open, so please reach out to me if you have thoughts, questions, concerns, anything that you want to talk about as we move this forward. I think that what keeps coming back over and over is that we do need to have regulations in place, and we do need to have them in place soon. So this is something that I do think is timely for that reason and has had just so much discussion over the last nearly year now. So I just want to make sure that that's the context in which we're having these discussions. And that is all I have for today.

All right, you want to go ahead and be recognized on Board Bill 48?

Thank you. Board Bill 48 is the environmental monitoring of data centers, the environmental impact monitoring of data centers. It's something that is discussed in Board Bill 49 in terms of different reporting requirements that would need to be put in place. But that specific board bill goes further into all of the different places where... reported, what needs to be reported to who, and who's kind of leading all of those charges. It's something that I wanted to introduce simultaneously to these regulations because regulations without the ability to monitor them make it very hard to actually enforce them. While I think the biggest thing that Railroad Rail 49 does is put in place an application where we have so much more information that we can decide, the city can decide whether or not to grant conditional use permits to these data centers. The next step is once those conditional use permits are granted, monitoring them. as well as monitoring the use of data centers that do currently exist. They are exempt from the building energy performance standards right now, which means that the city has very little information about the data centers that do exist and how much energy they're using. So it's something that we can begin collecting as a city as we go forward. That's something that needs some more refinement, some more staff time just to get it right. And I do anticipate holding that as we work through the regulations and get those out first.

Madam Clerk, do we have anyone signed up to speak on Board Bill 48?

We have one speaker, Alexandria Paul.

Online. Oh, is Alexandria Paul here? OK. No one else is here to speak on Board Bill 48? You stand up to speak for 48? OK. You've already been sworn in for 49, so you can just go ahead and restate your name and affiliation and proceed.

Thank you once again, Madam Chair and committee members. My name is Justin Idleberg. I'm the Civic Infrastructure Executive Director of Kamney District Community Development Corporation. And as of two hours ago, from the State Representative Kimberly Ann Collins' office. I am now the City of St. Louis' Energy Liaison. And if you want, I can send you that nice letter of public release from our State Representative. But back to the matter. I appreciate the environmental monitoring aspect. You all got that correct. I have some suggestions. And it is to make this program impact base across sectors. In other words, tie these requirements to clear thresholds for power, generator capacity, and water use that you all just shared here moments ago. And how do we, because right now, the only people that are excluded from these are the servers that's in closets here, right? Everybody else has to apply to this. And my suggestions from an amendment goal is to recommend that the amendments is to replace a sector-specific trigger with a cross-sector impact-based trigger to large infrastructure users while preserving additional data center-specific reporting metrics for facilities that are in fact data centers. This charge would maintain strong environmental oversight but avoid creating a one industry client structure that is not applied to other large electric generator or water intensive facilities. Nice example, Forest Park uses a lot more water than a data center does to water the golf course. Nobody wants to talk about that. I would ask for some replacements for section two definitions and to replace or revise the current definition section to add the following terms into revised data center related terms. So they nest under a broader covered facility network and also covered facility means any building campus or integrated facility located within the city of St. Louis that meets one or more of the applicable thresholds established in section three of this chapter. And large infrastructure uses means a covered facility with substantial electric demand, backup generator capacity, water demand, or operational characteristics that may materially affect public infrastructure, environmental quality, or compliance oversight. And that's all I really got to share with y'all. And I'm going to say this. Alderman Saia, you talked about you care about the health aspects, right? Nobody's proposals have talked about putting a water filter on a city water treatment plant, right? Nobody's proposed policy speaks to that. And if people are really worried about the water, Can we create a policy where the data centers and other large use people who use these water facilities help improve our water treatment plant? I think that will go a long way, not just protecting the children and the elders, but also the ecosystem that lives in the Mississippi River. I thank you all. I appreciate y'all. And that's all I got to say. Thank y'all.

That's it? That's it. Okay. Alderman Slicer.

Thank you. I look forward to further discussion on this.

All right. With that, we'll recognize the Vice Chair Saye on Board Bill 41.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Alderman Schwartz, you make my heels feel lighter because I'm not up here carrying down a Senate regulation legislation. These are just the amendments that were kind of mentioned. And so Alderman Browning did have another obligation at 3 o'clock, but he did tell me that it was OK to still present this amendment on his behalf and to let you all know that if he were here, he would be an aye vote so long as this amendment should take place. With that, Madam Chair, if you were comfortable to bring Amendment Number 3 in front of the committee.

We have Amendment Number 3, is the one you're speaking on? Yes. Okay.

Thank you. So amendment number three, there was some concerns about priority consideration and not wanting to kind of force the hand of department heads and making sure that we had language that was intentional that made it clear that it was optional and nothing necessarily to, you know, we want to make sure that people who are qualified to do the work get the qualifications to do the work and not necessarily tie hands. This amendment proposes that after the words the city shall give, we strike out the words priority consideration and insert in lieu thereof a preference. Happy to take any questions on this amendment before I ask for a motion to consider it or to adopt it.

Alderman Aldridge. I thought you were asking me.

Thank you. I guess I'm confused about the difference between priority consideration and preference. How do you see that being different?

Alderman Browning felt strongly that priority consideration might inhibit the way that like scorecards or the way the departments give rankings that because the language says shall give, if we say priority consideration that it would not be as clear to departments that it was their preference to decide how they might want to go out giving points. He felt that there was some difference between kind of saying you got to give priority consideration versus a preference which is more optional. And then I guess other than that I would just reference kind of his comments earlier that were made where he was just again I think his big concern is he wants to make sure it's clear that this is about the preference of of departments and that we're not necessarily forcing the hands of anyone.

Okay. I thought his original amendment, the city shall give priority to the city, may give priority, did that a little bit more neatly. Because to me, priority consideration and preference mean the same thing.

uh that wasn't the i i felt like his original proposal kind of changed the intent of the legislation as well as some of the stakeholders who i've been working with they were not supportive of changing it from may to shall and wanted to see if there was a tweaking of other language so this is kind of where we landed from that discussion okay

Only thing I would say is it sounds like maybe it would have been good just for Brown and Abib. Yeah, maybe it did land somewhere. But I do agree, priority and preference is like the same thing. In my opinion, like, priority consideration to preference consider, like, it seemed to be the same, I think, thing. So if you're not changing, like, shall, you know, that's the only thing that I guess, like I say, priority and preference to me just seem the same.

Was there, just for the record too, because I know many of us were saying that we were supportive of it with the May change. Can you tell us like why, what was the problem or the pushback on the May?

Yeah, so I would say in my that kind of defeats the whole purpose of the bill, particularly the language that's being referenced in the funding priority section of the bill, where the goal of the legislation is to make it so that these nonprofit, place-based development organizations are able to get some preference consideration when they are applying for projects. change that from a shall to may that makes the whole thing optionary and many of the folks who i've been working with for almost at least over the past six months or a year were really opposed to that and felt like it kind of deleted the purpose mr burns did stick around specifically to speak to this point if the committee were interested uh to this and so we did keep him around so that he could speak to that thank you while he comes up did we get any kind of legal uh answer on the yeah i don't i didn't i know you said you wanted to talk to the city council as well they're just kind of indifferent uh more of this is kind of our legislative conversation there's not necessarily anything any legal prohibitions for one pathway forward or another Like there's no reason for legally why you can't say shall or legally why you can't say may. There is no legal impact there as far as the bill no longer being legally feasible to implement. It was just more so the feelings of folks who've been working on the legislation, but no legal deterrent.

OK. I thought, OK.

So now it's good afternoon. MICHAEL BURNS, PRESIDENT OF NORTH SIDE COMMUNITY HOUSING. THE PUSHBACK THAT WE GET FROM THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SHELL AND MAY, THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE IS THAT WHEN IT COMES TO MAY, THAT DOES NOT BOTH OF THEM ARE VERBS. But that particular verb actually needs a lot of help because nothing necessarily happens when you're talking about may. And that's the problem with it. And that's the problem that the city of St. Louis has been having anyway. When it comes to the word shall, There is more intention. It's an intentional type of situation. And over the last year and a half, I have spent my own dime and went to cities like Detroit. And I'm watching the major progress that these organizations in cities like Detroit are making as a result of them working with their CDCs and moving forward. They look at CDCs as being an extension of the operations of the cities. And that's exactly how we have to look at it. And we have to be intentional about it. These nonprofit CDC place-based organizations are on the ground. And we have the ability to pivot when the city of St. Louis cannot do so, just like what happened at the May 16 tornado. That's exactly what we did. Everybody knows Northside Community Housing as a housing organization, but we ceased all housing operations and immediately pivoted and started working with residents directly to make sure that they have food and access to housing resources. Not only that, but since we did not get financial assistance from the city, we, along with Representative Kimberly Ann Collins, went to about five prisons throughout the state of Missouri and worked with those prisoners And they actually gave us funds to give back to the city that they grew up in, the city that they went to high school in, the city in which they committed crimes in. And they told me one-on-one that we want to give back. We utilized those funds, worked with an organization called AOA, Act of Older Adults, and we sent those funds directly to senior citizens in the impacted areas. where we actually provided checks that we hand delivered and we personally delivered because that's what CDCs do. So we are, adamant about the word shall we need shell to remain in that legislation and it needs to remain there because the city shall work to help the residents of the city and you'll do that specifically through the assistance of these cdc's and i say that and i'm not against for-profit entities But for-profit entities were not there during the pandemic. For-profit entities were not there during the tornado. They only came when the money was there, and when the money was gone, they're not there. If you want to hit the streets right now, you will see that the nonprofits are in place. If you knock on Northside's door right now, somebody will be there to answer. and that's what we're there for and we look forward to you passing this particular legislation with the word shell and moving forward for the benefit of the city of st louis while working with these cities and i thank you very much

Thank you, Mr. Barnes. And I can definitely testify to the work that you and other CDCs do. And my question just is to make sure that we don't get any push. We want to be realistic and we want to be honest, transparent in this process. And we don't want to stand up here and say all of us want to show. And it doesn't work like that because I've seen legislation that we've tried to put in place that way. And then the departments push back or city council's office push back or, you know, other ways that it never goes into fruition or we end up fighting for years to get something into fruition that shouldn't have taken that long. So this is the part of the process where we work through that, right, and talk through that and see how it's done. And you being here is important to that. So thank you. So with that, I share in wishing Alderman Browning was here to translate it as well. But we're going to move forward in this. I accept the motion that we adopt Amendment Number 3 to Board Bill 41.

I make a motion we adopt Amendment 3 to Board Bill 41. Second.

It was moved by Alderman Aldridge, seconded by Alderman, sorry, Vice Chair Sanye that we adopt Amendment Number 3 to Board Bill 41. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Right. We can move forward now to the additional amendments to Board Bill 41.

Thank you. I would ask to bring amendment number two in front of the committee.

I'll make a motion, or second. Make a motion to bring amendment two in front, I don't know what I'm saying, in front of the committee before Bill 41 is amended.

It's before us. Go ahead, Alderman.

This, of course, I'll let the Alderman of the 14th spoke to it, but I think he highlighted an excellent point in terms of implementation and wanted to make sure that we're able to get some updates to the legislation. Amendment number two says that the certified authority shall prepare an annual report on the progress of implementing this ordinance. and shall present such report to the Housing, Urban Development, and Zoning Committee of the Board of Aldermen at a regular meeting of the committee. The report shall be submitted in writing no later than 90 days after the close of each fiscal year and then gets into a number of the specific things that are required as far as a current list of organizations holding CDC certification status in their designated core area any recommendations for legislative or administrative changes to improve the effectiveness efficiency or equity of the certification process a description of any challenges or barriers or delays that have been encountered while attempting to implement the ordinance in a description of the status and progress of the certification process established under this legislation and i came at the ultimate of the 14th

I think you just read the whole amendment. But no, I just appreciate you working with the committee to just make sure with this new program, or won't be new, but a new process in the city that there'd be some reporting back so that we could just be a help to make sure everything is flowing properly. So thank you.

Thank you. And I would just like, for the record, to you reflect the answers to the questions to Mr. Westbrooks from SLDC as well as this, because I think it speaks to this amendment and the capacity to be able to carry it out as well.

Yes, Madam Chairwoman. Let me get that pulled right up. So specifically in regards to the questions asked earlier about the certification timeline, Mr. Westbrook shared that SLDC is able to commit resources immediately to the certification process and is confident that each certification process for each applying entity would take around 90 days to certify. He did want to make sure that the committee understood that this is with the caveat that he does not control whether or not CDCs apply for the certification process or their rate of responsiveness. Of course, they were due their due diligence to reach out, but that's outside of their control. But as far as anyone who do apply, he does believe they have the capacity to administer the process within 90 days. and also affirmed that the certification process could begin immediately following the passage of this bill, although the bill does give 180 days for CDCs to submit for certification following the passage of the legislation.

And that speaks to this, the capacity he had to be able to report this back as well? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. So with that, I'll accept any questions for amendment number two. It was two, right? Yes. Amendment number two.

I'll just make a motion we pass amendment number two to board bill 41 as amended in committee. Second. Previous row.

It's moved by Alderman Aldrich, seconded by Alderman Slicer with a call for previous row with no objection. We have adopted amendment number two.

Excellent. Well, with that and with us going on our beyond our fourth hour here, I would just ask for this committee's favorable consideration to pass board bill 41 as amended in committee.

I'll make a motion we pass board bill 41 as amended in committee with a do pass recommendation.

Second.

It was moved by Alderman Aldridge and seconded by Alderman Swicer and we move board bill 41 as amended in committee with a do pass recommendation. I'm not sure if Alderman Cohn was on a previous vote so I want to make sure respectfully if he wants to we can call for a roll.

Alderman Cohn.

Aye.

Alderwoman Switzer. Aye. Vice Chair Sonnier.

Aye.

Alderman Browning. Alderman Aldridge. Aye. Eric Clark Hubbard.

We have five aye votes.

All right.

With that, we successfully passed our Board Bill 41. Now, as amended and committed to the due pass recommendation, are there any resolutions for review? We have none. Any additional committee discussions? We have none. Here's our acknowledge of any written testimony.

As of right now, we have 75 written testimony.

Okay. On which Board Bill?

I'm sorry, Board Bill 48, and on Board Bill 41, we have four.

The 70 plus was on board bill 48? 49. Okay, I want to make sure we correct that because we want to make sure people know that we're tracking that for them. Any additional announcements? Members were present this morning. So with that, I'll accept the motion to adjourn.

So moved.

It was moved by Vice Chair Sanyi and seconded by Alderman Schweitzer. They were adjourned with a call for previous role with no objection. We are adjourned. Everyone have a blessed rest of the day.