Housing, Urban Development and Zoning - Regular Meeting

excellent thank you dylan uh with that uh we'll um call to order and uh david could you please call the roll present i cannot hear you david

Can you hear me now?

Yes, I can. Thank you.

Okay. Commissioner Fowler.

I don't think his is on.

Okay. He is present. Commissioner Garmendia.

Present.

Commissioner Hubman. Present. Commissioner Davis. Present. Commissioner Miller. Present. Not present. Commissioner Williams? Not present. Chair Boas?

Present.

And Acting Chair Banton?

Present. You have a quorum. Thank you very much. Before we get started here, I did want to make an introduction. We have a new face at the Planning Commission. Sabrina Miller is the new secretary for the Planning Commission. So we want to extend a warm welcome to her. Just a couple of personal notes. She has 10 plus years of experience in administration and accounting with the government, education, healthcare industries. She has a bachelor's degree in aviation business administration, is a veteran with the Navy. Thank you for your service. I grew up in the Carr Square neighborhood, a mother and grandmother, and I'm here getting married this October. So congratulations. It's very exciting. We're excited to have you join us. All righty. We will move into approval of the minutes. Do I have a motion? Or July 8th?

So moved. Second. Second.

It's been moved by Commissioner Hubman, seconded by Commissioner Fowler. All for vote, please.

Aye.

Are you present? Commissioner Bradley? Aye. Commissioner Fowler? Aye. Commissioner Garmendia?

Aye.

Commissioner Hubman? Aye. Commissioner Davis? Aye. Commissioner Miller, are you present? All right. Chair Boas.

Aye.

And Acting Chair Benton. Aye. Motion passes. Great.

Thank you very much. All right. We have three items, action items tonight, some discussion and some informational items. And so we will get rolling right into that. The first of these items is the data center regulations. There have been opportunities so far for public comment. Several more here and several more at the Board of Aldermen. We do want to provide some additional time tonight since there have been some pretty major changes to the proposed legislation, which was one of the reasons it's kicked back to the Planning Commission tonight. So we want to give the public an opportunity to comment on those proposed changes. We'll get into a little bit more of the logistics of that as we get to that time, but please make sure you're either signed up online by putting your name in the chat or on the sign-up sheet over by the door if you'd like to speak tonight. And with that, I will give it over to Miriam to get us started here.

Yes, good evening. Miriam Keller, City Planning Executive for General Planning and Design with the Planning and Urban Design Agency. I'll be taking the lead with the presentation tonight because Sustainability Director Russell is very ill, but will potentially be listening in online and then maybe if up for it, able to help answer questions. I did want to provide a note that there were two zoning items requiring public hearings that were listed on a preliminary agenda, but they were removed from the agenda due to an issue with publication of the required notice. So we want to properly meet those notice requirements. Those will be heard at a future meeting. So just for anybody here to speak on those. So this is a review, as Vice Chair Banton described, of the amendments made to the zoning regulations for data centers under consideration now at the Board of Aldermen. There were three substantive amendments made on the floor during perfection, and the purpose of this review tonight is for the Planning Commission to review those and sort of affirm, recommend against, and or provide recommended modifications. The staff evaluation is that the commission recommend against the three amendments, but we have composed some potential modified amendments for the commission's consideration. And in reviewing each of the three amendments, there are basically a range of options to affirm the amendment, to recommend against the amendment. And as part of that recommendation against, there can be a modified amendment proposed as part of the planning commission's recommendation. Just a little bit of review of where we are in the process. This has been an extensive process, a lot of work by so many people in this room and outside of it. But there were three hearings and a recommendation at the Planning Commission and then deliberation at HUD's, during which there were several substantive amendments made, which the Planning Commission then reviewed. During second reading and perfection on the full floor, there were three additional substantive amendments made. And that is what brings us back here to review those three substantive amendments. Following this proceeding, the regulations move forward. I believe they're on the informal calendar, but can move forward to further perfection, third reading and passage before signature by the mayor. So this is just a quick overview of the four amendments. Sorry, three. The fourth, numbered four, five, and six, because that is how they were presented during perfection. Amendment number four provides more flexibility for adjacent data center uses downtown and in mixed-use districts. Amendment five establishes a waiver process for renewable energy requirements. And Amendment 6 addresses data centers on institutional campuses to provide a provision for that case. So I'll walk through one at a time, sort of describing the amendment, reviewing the Planning Commission's rationale for related parts of the recommended regulations, provide our kind of staff best understanding of the intent of each amendment, and then share our evaluation and some potential modifications. So Amendment 4 relating to data center development adjacent to existing data centers downtown. I want to describe the context here. So in the Planning Commission's June 10th recommendation, there was a consideration that within 300 feet of an existing data center, just in the H, I, and L districts, which are the downtown districts and the highest intensity mixed-use district in our zoning code, New data center buildings, data center uses would be capped at 30% of that gross square footage within that building. New data center buildings outside of that 300-foot radius could be almost entirely composed of data center uses, but at least 50% of the gross square footage of the ground floor reserved for inactive use. And the rationale for this recommendation based on a lot of comments and, you know, I'll say this is sort of a challenging item to find a balance. And I think what the commission put forward was an attempt to find a balance between some competing benefits of new data centers within downtown and also goals to populate downtown with vibrancy and maintain space for uses that can do that. Because status centers don't involve many, many people or many, many visitors the way a residential use or an office use or an entertainment use might. And they also have the potential to have very high land values and therefore very high purchase prices potentially out-competing those other uses. So the 30% cap was intended to ensure that meaningful space within buildings are dedicated to uses that can active downtown and kind of all parts of downtown. And then limit data center uses to a percentage past which it might not be desirable to solely operate that percentage of data center use in that space. So the amendment number four pertains to that data center building within three, the new data center building within 300 feet of an existing data center building. And the amendment is that an applicant can exceed that 30% cap if they make available for lease 100% of the net leasable square footage of the ground floor for active uses. and enters into an agreement with the city detailing the community benefits provided by the project. And the intent, as we understand it, was to address the concern that the 30% cap could lead to underutilization of buildings adjacent to data centers and, worse, just perpetuate further vacancy downtown if some sort of flexibility is not provided. And so the solution from the sponsor, Alderman Cox-Antwi, who has joined the meeting this evening, is to provide incentive-based flexibility for... greater utilization of the building in exchange for some sort of community benefit. So that was the intent of the amendment. And I'll add maybe a fourth point that fiber infrastructure does tend to concentrate in certain parts of a city where they're already, that infrastructure exists to serve data centers. So there's some efficiency for data center development in this clustering. So I'll acknowledge that too. Um, the staff evaluation, of course, up for commission discussion. Um, so the use of the net leasable area of the ground floor that may not consistently be more than 50% of the gross ground floor area. It really depends on the amount of that ground floor dedicated to mechanical space, lobby space, and so on. Um, and then at the second, um, observation is more of a technical concern that zoning approval really ought not be conditioned on a required community or public benefit that is not proportional or directly related to the impact of the development. And so the positioning of that agreement with the city providing benefits to the community kind of raised some technical concerns from a zoning point of view. And then the third point is just acknowledging that there are sort of tradeoffs or tensions with the other planning goals of maintaining and cultivating an active, vibrant downtown through population density. That said, staff agrees that there are some important points here, and further flexibility may help avoid the persistence of otherwise underutilized buildings and put appropriate buildings to use for data center uses. So a potential modification is simply to raise that 30% threshold to 50% should the Planning Commission want to kind of provide that additional flexibility kind of called for by the intent of this amendment. Amendment 5 is the establishing a waiver process for renewable energy requirements. So I just want to quickly remind commissioners and the audience of the renewable energy requirements in the regulations. So there are requirements before an occupancy permit is granted, sort of upon beginning operations at year 5 and at year 10, sort of in overall percentages of energy from renewable sources. However, because there is a very significant difference between bundled and unbundled renewable energy credits and the accounting of that energy from renewables, Each year also had a sort of maximum percentage of unbundled renewable energy credits, which support existing renewable energy, but don't as directly lead to emissions reductions. In addition to those benchmarks, there were some other provisions allowing a one-year waiver at that five-year mark. And then thereafter, there was a penalty established with 125% of the market rate for a bundled retired renewable energy credit after the five-year mark, and then after the 10-year mark, 300%. So really intended to, number one, Encourage compliance with these renewable energy sources. And then number two, provide the city with an alternative mechanism to otherwise seek emissions reductions through other investments funded by penalties. So there was a lot of work and discussion that went into those initial steps. requirements that, you know, I'll say staff didn't have the benefit of all of the input that was then received after the Planning Commission's June 10th recommendation from Ameren and other stakeholders. So a lot of this work around renewable energy requirements happened actually during the HUD's committee process. But that work sought to balance and incorporate a few different things. So number one, feasibility, especially for the upfront renewable energy targets, because those are much nearer term and they're simply constraints in the supply of bundled renewable energy credits. kind of online or soon to be online. So under the requirements, the first requirement for bundled renewable energy credits doesn't hit until year five of a facility's operation, which is actually maybe roughly seven years into a project's planning and development because these facilities and their operators do start their work with utilities very early. because energy supply is just such an important part of the success of a data center. So feasibility, especially upfront. Clarity of compliance, a lot of adjustment of the terms to match the standards used by Ameren and other utilities. And then number three, really trying to respect and support the city's emissions reduction targets, because there is a unique energy intensity associated with data centers as a land use. And it is the case that fossil fuel-based energy demand would significantly push back or delay the city's climate goals related to emissions reduction. And some of the information about this that was provided to the Board of Aldermen has also been provided as part of the packet for this item. And large new fossil fuel energy users would inhibit progress in those climate goals as we did the math really years at a time as the city has the goal to reduce energy from commercial and industrial sectors specifically by 20% by 2030. And that's from the adopted sustainability and climate plan. So really tried to keep that in mind. Amendment five says, I'll summarize and then explain my understanding of the intent and kind of recognition of this amendment. So, number one, it incorporates Ameren's existing renewable energy mix as defined by existing potential future as defined by state statute into the eligible renewable energy types. What that means is that that... Less so now, but potentially in the future could include a somewhat broader mix of energy types than the city might conventionally consider as renewable. So things like, oh, I'm going to fail on the more technical language for this, but converting landfill waste into energy, things like that are potential parts of a broader consideration. The second part of it is it removes the requirement for ongoing progress reports and the lead up to that first year five requirement where the bundle renewable energy credits hit. And creates a waiver process through the Board of Public Service by which applicants can request a waiver from the requirement if there simply is not renewable energy or specifically bundled renewable energy credits available in the market sufficient for them to meet the requirement. And it holds applicants harmless for life. those penalties if there is receipt of a waiver. And then the final piece of the amendment is to reapply every five years for any exemption that is granted through this waiver process. And an allowance that the Board of Public Service could modify the compliance schedule if more bundled renewable energy credits come online in that five-year period during which the waiver or exemption is active. The rationale for the amendment, I think, is maybe first and foremost recognizing the possibility that there may simply not be sufficient supply, especially of bundled renewable energy credits through Ameren, even in the future to meet the requirements of the regulations, maybe especially for very large facilities that would need more renewable energy credits to comply. And following from that, that if applicants could face penalties for renewable energy shortfalls that are beyond their control, the city would miss out on the potential for revenue and job producing investment associated with data centers. And so this amendment seeks to provide assurance, a flexible pathway, should these scenarios occur. And I'll note, it's my understanding that this waiver process is a compromise, quote-unquote compromise approach, relative to... Changing the required renewable energy to allowing just only unbundled renewable energy credits, which would have led to minimal emissions reductions as it pertains to the city's climate goals. So the evaluation is that it does provide some greater clarity on eligible recs by tying to that state definition. And I think there is a, you know, some of a shortfall in renewable energy could simply be outside of an applicant's control. While they do have some ways of partnering with amaran to request or even kind of co-develop renewable energy resources not every element of a project is something that the data center operator themselves could control in the near or long term And I'll note it's kind of technical, but a waiver would be preferred, I believe, to a variance. A variance could similarly provide an exception to a requirement, especially if there's a practical difficulty in meeting a requirement. But a variance would be more permanent. It would also run with the land, and it wouldn't kind of renew for consideration on any specific time frame. However, I think it's staff's opinion that that five-year timeline after which reapplication for a waiver is required is unnecessarily long. And there could be significant new renewable energy resources that come online in that timeframe. that could bring a facility into compliance, or be available to bring a facility into full compliance with the regulations. And I think, too, there were some concerns about, or ideas for opportunities to improve transparency in the decision-making process and the consideration of a waiver. It's a highly, I think, technical thing, and greater transparency could aid in those considerations. A potential modification for the commission's consideration is, number one, to shorten that reapplication window to being required every two years instead of five. Number two, provide clarity in the regulations that the exemption provided through a waiver process should not exceed what is absolutely necessary based on the shortfall in rec supply. What I mean by that is... Say a facility needs 40 bundled renewable energy credits to comply. Only 30 are available in the market. And 20 more are coming online in another year. I think we should, as a city, ensure that the exemption is only for that 10% rec difference and only for as long as it's needed, rather than for the entire 40 rec requirement or for a full period of time, especially if we have clear knowledge that more bundled recs could come online, say, in year six, right, of operation. And then another modification would be to simply require posting of the waiver request documents prior to BPS consideration so that they're transparent for any member of the public, including experts, to review. Then finally, Amendment 6 relates to... data centers on and in relation to institutional and medical campuses. So this amendment was responding to what I'll, you know, I think an ambiguity in part of the location requirements. So commissioners may recall that data centers of different sizes are to be buffered from or spaced from certain types of sensitive uses, including parcels containing a school or public park. I think one ambiguity, as I understand it, is, you know, is all of Washington University Medical School campus a school, or are we only referring to school buildings? And... So the amendment provided a specific provision for this case, recognizing, I thought I had a little bit more information here, I apologize, recognizing that data centers do play an important role for educational institutions and especially research and medical institutions. I think we have a great example of that in the St. Louis area, WashU's Human Genome Project Data Center, powers that really, you know, the university's participation in this really important global project. And that is a great type of data center to include and incorporate into our city. So data centers and educational medical research institutions do have an important relationship. So the amendment text would allow that a data center that exclusively serves an institutional campus may be located on that same campus if the data center is not a co-location or commercial facility serving outside users, the data center is simply a micro or standard data center, And the setbacks stated in Section A1 continue to apply to parcels containing a light rail station and to any parcel outside of that institutional campus. So transit stations within that campus district, there would still need to be adequate spacing from those and parcels outside of that institutional campus as defined. All of those buffers and setbacks would still apply. So, the intent was to provide for clarity on how data centers on school or campus grounds would be appropriately regulated, address that ambiguity regarding how on-campus data centers could be treated, and then specifically address requirements for on-campus facilities. I think some observations is that I think the amendment does appropriately address some ambiguity in how those buffer requirements were otherwise explained, recognizes the importance of that infrastructure. I do think that that institutional campus definition could be fairly broad in a way that we may not fully foresee. And it also does not describe certain areas with joint ownership, like the Washington University Medical Campus, where some of this is – that's really a composition of several distinct landowners. I'll note an existing tool in the city's zoning toolbox for offering kind of tailored – regulations for campus environments. The community unit plan tool is available to kind of offer future flexibility as needed. And even without a special provision, assuming that this ambiguity is addressed, There are otherwise kind of several eligible sites in medical campus areas, both SLU and Washington University Medical Center campus, even without a special provision. And like I said, that's assuming the ambiguity in, you know, is like is all campus school or are we talking to school building if that's addressed? Yeah. So a potential modification for the commission's consideration is simply to add the word school building, close that kind of ambiguous kind of word choice in the initial regulations, but otherwise kind of lean on. Kind of specific consideration within the context of a community unit plan tool or similar or allow universities to use otherwise eligible sites within their campuses. I failed to add a public hearing slide in here, but that is the close of staff presentation unless Alicia is on and has anything to add. I know you're not feeling well.

Oh, I am here. Thank you so much. I think you did a great job explaining everything, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

Great. Well, thank you, Miriam, for that very informative and breakdown of the proposed amendments. I think we all appreciate that. So we will now move into the public hearing portion of the meeting. Just a reminder that if you would like to sign up, there is a sign-up sheet up there, which will go down the list. And also, if you are online, please put your name in the chat. We are going to start with the folks in the room. Then we will move to the folks that are online. Just a reminder, everyone has a two-minute hard limit on time to speak. We're going to try to get to everyone fairly efficiently tonight. I think for a lot of folks, I see a lot of familiar faces that have come and spoken at these things before, and I think everyone's been fairly respectful of that. So just a reminder, we will put a timer up, and I'd like to keep you to that two minutes. And with that, I will ask for a motion to open the public hearing.

Second.

It's been moved by Alderman Sonnier, seconded by Commissioner Garmendia. Call for vote, please.

Aye. Alderman Sonnier.

Aye. Commissioner Bradley. Aye. Commissioner Fowler. Aye. Commissioner Garmendia. Aye. Commissioner Hubman. Aye. Commissioner Davis. Aye. Commissioner, sorry, Chair Boas. Aye.

Aye.

And Acting Chair Benton?

Aye. And motion passes. All right. Great. Thank you very much. With that, our public hearing is open. And who's going to be emceeing the names for us here tonight? It's going to be Bill and Miriam. All right, so Miriam is going to be calling names here in the room. Once you hear your name called, please step up to the podium, introduce yourself, and we will give you two minutes to speak.

Yeah.

I did. All right.

Good evening. My name is Michael Berg. I live in the city of St. Louis. I have children in the St. Louis public schools. I live in Ward 6, and I recommend rejection of all the amendments. We need as many environmental protections as possible, and we should put up as many barriers as possible to building large-scale data centers that are used to power artificially. intelligence. Making it easier for these things to be built is so short-sighted that it almost defies comprehension. It's a massive energy suck at a time when we're literally heating up the planet to the point where we might not survive. And we know that The AI empowered by these large-scale data centers will take tens of millions of jobs if their predictions come to fruition. There's no real process to deal with the crisis. A few short-term construction jobs cannot make up for massive disruption of the function of our economy, and it could be even worse. This is The creation of this artificial intelligence we're already seeing, it creates a monumental shift in human beings' relationship with reality, which is already suffering. You can see these AI ads in the election have already creating problems. A powerful intelligence that over and over has shown it could evade human control. It's not something we should just be empowering willy nilly. And we know that this is used to empower an emerging surveillance state that dwarfs anything George Orwell could have ever dreamed about. There's been no Democratic approval of this revolution or any planning, really. So the city of St. Louis should be fighting the transition of a science fiction dystopia. going from theory to reality. It should do everything possible to fight this through zoning, through any means necessary. So what we had on the books from the committee was a good start. And to go backwards from that, I think, is disgraceful. So please reject all the amendments. Thank you very much.

Sylvia Cuney and Paul and Sylvia Arushin.

My name is Sylvia Cuney. I've been a resident of the Fifth Ward for 20 years. I'm a mechanical engineer, and I've spent many years working on a variety of industrial systems and equipment. There are many aspects of what I do that my friends and family don't understand. One concept that many people have never even heard of is infrasound. Data centers produce a large amount of infrasound and are being allowed closer to our homes and schools than most industrial sites. I won't bore you with a science lesson, but I will give you some key points I think you need to know. Infrasound is below the range of human hearing. You cannot hear it when you are exposed to it. Also, any measurement given in DBA does not include infrasound. Prolonged exposure to infrasound, such as in home, office space, or school causes serious effects to human health. Long-term exposure to infrasound is linked to insomnia, headaches, nausea, increased cancer rates, and lower test scores. Infrasound cannot be absorbed with traditional sound dampening measures. The acoustic foam would have to be a minimum of 14 feet thick to block infrasound. There is a direct correlation between how large a data center is and how much infrasound it will generate. In my professional opinion, the original language did not go far enough to protect people working in office settings, living in our community, and going to school. However, I was willing to accept that it was at least an improvement to our complete lack of guidelines. Amendments 4 and 6 weaken this language further, and the proposed compromises, in my opinion, are still too weak. I am urging you to protect the members of the community and strike down Amendments 4 and 6 entirely and maintain the original language. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Following Elise Schaefer is Joe Deacon.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Elise Schaefer. I'm with Missouri Coalition for the Environment, and I'm a resident of the Sixth Ward. I submitted written testimony against Amendments 4, 5, and 6, but I'm going to focus on the Renewable Energy Amendment because if this amendment passes, it will essentially completely render useless the renewable energy requirements that this very body passed some months ago. i'd like to urge you to consider if you are going to work with the language of the amendment do not adopt the state's definition of renewable energy if the goal is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions the state's definition of renewable energy includes quote methane gas from methane generated from the anaerobic digestion of farm animal waste. Methane gas is a greenhouse gas. It is more potent than carbon dioxide. If the goal is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we cannot be using the state's definition of renewable energy. Additionally, I'd like you to consider requiring these developments to provide rooftop solar weatherization and home energy efficiency improvements to energy-burdened homes in the area of a data center development instead of this outright waiver. This will allow the city to build grid resistance and provide residents to a real tangible benefit for these developments instead of just letting the developers come in with Ameren, get a rubber stamp from the Board of Public Service, which rushed through projects like the Armory Data Center, without regulations in place, and really put something concrete in time for these data centers to meet the requirements in the original bill. Rooftop solar is something that takes on average six to 12 weeks. So you've got the power online very quickly. And then once it's done, these developments can buy what they need from Ameren when that timeline is built out. So I'd urge you to reject these amendments. And I am happy to stick around and answer questions if the commissioners desire. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Joe D'Elia. I have owned businesses in both wards four and six, and I'm a proponent of reasonable data center oversight. I come to you today in support of Bill 49, Amendment 5, which was approved by the Board of Aldermen 12 to 3. The current bill reasonably accounts for Ameren's ability to produce bundled energy credits now and in the future, and five-year renewal is a reasonable amount of time. It's extremely bad policy for our city government to impose future expansion projections on a regulated utility outside their authority. When it comes to solar power, I'm going to give you some data here, as I heard with a future speaker. So let's talk about the Armory Project, because that's kind of infamous. Half of that, 70 megawatts of power, if it came from solar, would need between 100 and 140,000 solar panels. And that would take up 350 to 500 acres of land. Now think about in five years or 10 years when the Armory gets to 10 years, that will need to double. Where in the city do they have 500 acres to put solar panels? I sat through all the meetings. I've listened to all the bills. And the unbundled energy credits are being used now to try to limit data centers. At the end of the day, whether bundled or unbundled, renewable energy credits are energy credits and they help sustain the environment. I leave you with this one thought. 140-watt mega data center estimated year one tax revenue is $99.8 million across real estate, personal property tax, and utility gross receipts tax. Long-term fiscal impact for the city of St. Louis, approximately $620 million in projected revenue over 10 years, and it occurs a reoccurring operating revenue from utility gross receipts tax. This is a significant revenue stream that the city doesn't have. Thank you very much.

And here's something that is long-term.

Hello, my name is Dan Pearson. I'm a longtime resident of the city of St. Louis. I'm a resident of Ward 6. For reasons previously stated, I'm just going to strongly urge you to reject these amendments. That's all. Thank you.

Next is Lauren Filla and following specifications.

Can I move this down? Yep. Okay. Thank you. Hi, my name is Lauren Fila. I live in Maplewood. I'm the co-chair of the Ecosocialist Green Party of Eastern Missouri, which represents the city of St. Louis. First, I urge this commission to reject these dangerous amendments entirely, as they would harm residents by weakening the density requirements, and they would dramatically weaken the renewable energy requirements. We're in a global climate crisis with uncontrolled heat in the city of St. Louis. This commission is tasked with planning for a safe future for the city. Failing to reject these amendments would be an unforgivable failure in planning. Second, I'm disappointed in this whole process. These regulations seem to be watered down at every step. Residents overwhelmingly want St. Louis to be stronger when it comes to protecting them from hyperscale AI data centers. In May, we brought dozens of people to testify at one of your meetings. They all were demanding that residents be given a say in this process, given some kind of a vote. After listening to that, you had time for comments. and i watched as not one of you commented on the overwhelming resident demand when it came to consent instead one of you commented that you were just happy you didn't have to call the police on us because we were well behaved i believe your job is to do better than that for the city the only reasonable and responsible action that this commission can take is to reject these amendments and that would be in line with the recommendations of the experts in your own planning department prove me wrong, reject these amendments. In the meanwhile, we are prepared to go around the city and we will get a ban on hyperscale data centers ourselves.

Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm here as a resident of the Seventh Ward to oppose Amendments 4, 5, and 6. The City of St. Louis is not listening to what the people of St. Louis want. And what we don't want is hyperscale data centers that will drive up energy use, contribute to pollution, and offer no real benefit to residents. It's incredibly disappointing, but not surprising, to see the city once again use revitalizing downtown to screw over its people. We saw this with the RAM settlement money being allocated away from people in North St. Louis that were still struggling to recover from the tornado last year. And now we're seeing the same playbook with this data center cash grab. These amendments are an embarrassment, especially Amendment 5, the irony and hypocrisy of St. Louis having emission reduction targets while simultaneously trying to bring in major data centers. It's like laughable. Why even bother with these reduction targets at this point? We need real regulations and not the city rubber stamping hyperscale data centers. Our planet is on fire. The climate crisis is here. Data centers are not the answer. Why is the city of St. Louis so determined to leave residents and future generations holding the bag?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Alderwoman Jamie Cox-Entry. I represent the 8th Ward, and I did propose Amendments 4 and 6. I'm here today mostly to speak to Amendment 4. I represent a ward with a disproportionate portion of the HINL districts that this amendment pertains to. and the components of those industrial areas are primarily industrial and urban core but they're not just the zoning district specifically they are real areas and they represent a portion of the city that has vastly been under invested in for the vast majority of years There are portions of our industrial riverfront where I've walked on the first and second streets near areas where these people have not had any investment in the portions and areas that they're working. And they are portions of our downtown community, not just the vibrant areas, but the near north areas that have not seen any investment. And I share that with you all because I think it's important not only to acknowledge the impact that regulating data centers will have, but also to acknowledge where the portions of this bill that are allowing data centers will be put. And they're going to be put in the areas that are so underinvested in our city that they haven't seen any growth or investment. I believe it is my job as an alderman to uplift these concerns and speak on behalf of these people, many of whom do not have the ability to come into this room tonight. And I know some of them have written and shared public comment. I believe, as I shared on the floor, that this policy is really important and has the ability to be a landmark piece of legislation for data center regulation. And I agree with 95% of everything in this bill, including what has been shared by some residents that have testified tonight. My concern with the Planning Commission's recommendation change to Amendment 4 is that it removes the conditional component to require some community of benefit if we allow an increase and the data center density investment. That I believe is the most important component of why I proposed this amendment in the first place. I believe that it is important to make sure that we are asking these data centers to give back to the communities if we're going to allow them to be placed in an area where there hasn't been any investment at all. I think removing that component of protection is a danger to the areas where we are going to be allowing the investment. And I would much rather this planning commission leave the bill alone than create a change in the bill that will make conditions worse by not having that public impact investment there to protect the places where these data centers are going. That was the original intent of the amendment that I put forward. And I think it is very important that everyone in this room hear that component for where these data centers may be allowed to go. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Ryan. I live in Woodson Terrace, I live in the county, but I work in Ward 10. I'm also an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The proposed amendments to the data center regulations make it much easier for a data center to be built that is clearly in the interest of developers and not the people. They waive extremely necessary regulations and gut public protections in the original bill. And it has been said before that if data centers cannot meet the requirements of regulations, then they should not exist. Otherwise, what is the point of passing a bill? If developers can just apply for a waiver and sidestep responsibility, how can we hold them accountable? According to Amendment 6, a data center is allowed to be built as close as a developer wants to residential areas, as there is no language specifying residential parcels in the amendment. The perpetual low frequency noise emitted from data centers are infamous for causing migraines and notoriously difficult to contain. There must be strong regulations to curb the inevitable harm a data center will cause. And to be clear, we do not want a large data center in St. Louis at all. But if they must be built, they must be strictly regulated. If you care about St. Louis and the people that live here, then you have no other choice than to reject the amendments. Thank you very much.

Good evening. I'm Kat Logan Smith. I live in the 7th Ward. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on these amendments. In the July 20th, Board of Aldermen meeting Amendment 5 was described as an off-ramp. I just want you to save that to your hard drive because it is. It's an off-ramp for renewable energy standards, which is the opposite of what we need. It's the opposite of what my child, who was born in this city, wants to grow up in and with. And if we want to keep people in the city, we need to stop thinking about the past or maybe people who don't live here and to start talking about taking care of our children and our grandchildren because they're paying attention and they're watching us and they're looking for leadership and this is not a time to not understand the dangers of data centers and the biggest danger to data centers of data centers right now is to democracy itself as the infrastructure's being built for a surveillance state to control who gets to vote, to find people who to throw in concentration camps that are not my imagination. They have been built. And there's for-profit companies out there looking for people to put in them. And there's government contractors volunteering to take your data and find those people. We live in real times. This isn't pretend. This isn't the old days. This isn't the 80s and this isn't the 90s. This is where we are right now. And I'm not making it up. It's findable, lookable. And people of color are in danger. And people who are LGBTQ are in danger. And our democracy is in danger. So if you do anything at all, stand for truth and integrity and democracy. Most importantly. And stand up for sustainability. Because we just got a $50,000 sustainability grant that we were so happy to get. And it came through, I think, Megan Green's office. And it makes me wonder what's going on with that. But thank you.

Good evening. Good evening. My name is Claire Mueller. I work in Ward 12, unfortunately right across the street from the proposed Midtown Data Center. I'd like you to consider the optics of how we're representing ourselves to our community, our state, our country, but seemingly most importantly to developers. Via a conditional use permit, we've already allowed a massive data center project to bulldoze forward against community consent and without any regulations in place. Now we're here already discussing what to remove from said proposed regulations. Simply, how can we make things easier for data centers? We do not have to desperately clutch at any and every development opportunity that comes our way, regardless of potentially catastrophic consequences. It shows our city is very desperate. Just this morning, I attended an expert panel on extreme heat here in St. Louis. And if the commission truly considered the heat we are already facing, in case anybody missed it, we're under another extreme heat warning until Saturday night. In addition to the extreme heat the data centers will add, I don't think that we would be further stripping protections. These amendments are a detriment to our community's protections and a thinly veiled protection of developer and owner interests. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Eric Schultz. I did not intend to speak tonight. I did not understand that wearing red meant something at this meeting. And my position, I'm an old IT guy. who now does super energy efficient housing and renewable energy. And I'm very familiar with RECs and how they work. There are both good and bad data center providers out there. I hope we get the good ones. I don't envy you for the position you're in, that you have to make these judgments. It's tough. My comment focuses on Amendment 5 and the REC contracts. We have some great examples of where this works. Specifically, the state of Illinois has the Illinois Shines Program and the Illinois Solar for All Program. My suggestion would be, as part of Amendment 5, would be to create a rec company that can actually then deal in the recs in the local St. Louis market. When I look at the different things that are done... I find it horrible that MasterCard is buying RECs and carbon credits internationally when their data center and electric use affects us locally. I think they should be spending the majority of their money here in St. Louis and not doing other things. Everything needs to be done, but I'd like it to be spent here. We could use the money in the city, incentivize commercial rooftop solar, residential solar, affordable housing. The use of funding can increase the use of renewable energy credits, increase the efficiency of the area so there's less demand on the grid, which would allow for more data centers. There was a discussion about an exemption. There is no need for an exemption if we do have this because they can pre-buy the data credits, the REC credits. And then the other thing is we can use those REC credits to incentivize the development of renewable energy technology companies. So someone is more likely to relocate here because they can receive funding. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Hello, good evening. My name is Abigail Gunther. I live in Ward 7. And I'm going to be really quick. The last time the public was able to comment on this bill was in the HUD's committee. That was before any of these amendments. And the public overwhelmingly expressed that the regulations weren't strong enough then. So... These amendments that further weaken the bill are not in the public's interest. Yeah, that's about it. Please reject these amendments. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Danny Kahn, Ward 2. My phone's dead, so I don't have a planned speech, but I wanted to share my experience having worked against the Armory Goodwill Midtown Data Center for the last almost a year now. And I think that a really important thing that could come out of what I have to say is that we can't rely on bps at all to protect the people of st louis they have shown throughout that process that they do not do their job they do not follow the city code of ordinances they also just exist so that each department can rubber stamp projects that they think will bring in revenue or listen to whatever the mayor tells them and the last thing is that the Board of Adjustment is existing for the same exact function. They did not at all reference the city code and cite the five criteria that they're supposed to cite to make sure that it can get a conditional use permit. So my point, we cannot trust the BPS to solve our problems for us. Reject Amendment 5, reject the other ones. By the way, I do not think that Like Megan Green said, you cannot just regulate four specific projects. That's not how it works. You're supposed to regulate and make laws for all of the code for the city. So please reject all three amendments. Thank you very much.

I'm going to move to

Hi, my name is Jordan Duker. I live here in the city. No relation to Jane Duker, luckily. I just wanted to say we're kind of witnessing the build out of society's first foundationally new infrastructure in more than a century. Think of it as kind of digital cathedrals. I'd encourage everyone on the committee to read the Stanford Emerging Technology Review for 2026 and look at the fantastic technologies that will come out of these data centers, isolated cancer treatments, help for people that are neurodivergent, like me, for example. I want to say there are a lot of things I could say, but I'll keep it brief. I find it very ironic that many people who are watching this right now, the little laugh emoji, they're doing it over a data center. Doing it over a data center. And while many people have come up here and talked with handwritten notes, most of them, I guarantee you, use ChatGBT or some other artificial intelligence. or seem to be very proud that they're using their notes. We cannot be a city that no longer thinks and dreams and gets ahead. We're, at this point, a city of has-beens. A few blocks north, people are being stabbed to death in homeless encampments because this city refuses to do nothing. We could have a big, bright future, but we're choosing not to. And I wouldn't let all the noise from paid agitators distract you either.

Excuse me, ma'am. Ma'am, please. No.

No, that is not okay.

That is not... Ma'am, that's...

It's not okay. We will address it. It's not okay.

That is not okay.

Ma'am, please. Please stop.

I'll see you later.

Okay. Thank you very much. Any more in-the-room comments? All right, thank you. Dylan, please introduce the folks online. Emma Burrows.

Hi, my name is Emma Burrows. I am a resident of Ward 8 currently. I have lived all over the city. I've lived downtown. I've lived in Dutchtown. I've lived in Central West End. I've lived on the west side in Clifton Heights. I've lived all over, right? I am extremely offended by the last commenter's remarks. That is absolutely insane. I work a full-time job. I work overtime in social work. I am not paid to be here. I love that I'm here. And shame on you for thinking that any of us have used chat GPT or are being paid to be here. I wish I was. So I'm sorry if I'm a little bit worked up right now. I had other things to comment on, but I'm a little bit distracted because of that man. I disagree with all of the amendments as written. I want to say that I appreciate the intent of amendments four and six, but I disagree and fear that they will not function as intended. Sorry. My largest concern is that the owners and operators of those data centers will find loopholes regarding the leasable space or not follow them at all. That's specific to amendment four. We've seen that before in St. Louis. And it also creates more work for the city to try and undo what they've already done without allowance. Amendment 5, I extremely strongly disagree with. I think it's absolutely absurd that there would be exemptions and waivers for folks to not use renewable energy. I would wonder if there could be a cap, if there must be some sort of waiver, because I know I only have 20 seconds left, if there must be some sort of waiver, because this has already gone through. Again, I would just vote to reject it. But if there must be, could there be an allotment of the number of waivers or the number of credits or whatever it is used in order to, I'm sorry, yes, an allotment of waivers, like a limit to them. If we're going to do it, let's do it right. I don't want to do it at all. But if we're going to do it, let's do it the right way and make it strict and strong from the beginning. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Ben West. Ben West. Hello. I'm Ben West, and I'm a computer engineer in the eighth board. I'm not paid to be here, and my comments are fully organic. While I'm happy to recommend against all amendments, I want to highlight concerns which I don't believe were covered in the commission's presentation. Regarding amendments four and six, please bear in mind these are substantial carve-outs precisely to those entities most likely to build data centers in the city. Existing operators downtown would enjoy the profound advantage of exemption from the 300-foot setback and could expand into adjacent buildings. Likewise, WashU and SLU could aggressively attract data center customers by building out rapidly on their campuses. If the majority of these new data centers built in the city are exempt from setback requirements, then the intent of this legislation has been badly subverted. Regarding Amendment 5, please bear in mind that granting waivers to operators to use unbundled wrecks will have the consequence of relieving Ameren of pressure to build more renewable sources. Data center operators will simply treat penalties imposed by the city as the cost of doing business and then possibly run off natural gas generation indefinitely. Ameren will respond to pressure from operators to build more renewable sources if the city requires it in an effective manner. Also regarding Amendment 6, the requirement that new on-campus data centers not serve outside users is both vague and possibly even beyond the city's authority to enforce effectively. How would this regulation be interpreted if the institution hosting data centers established a subsidiary organization where all users are members? Even if the users were remote, they might still not be considered outside users. Given the hyperbolic profits promised by data center schemes, this ambiguity could create incentive for institutions like WashU and SLU to expand their campuses through aggressive acquisition of adjacent properties. As both WashU and SLU have practiced land banking for decades, such rapid expansion solely to build new data centers that bypass environmental protections is not implausible. And I thank you for your time.

Thank you. Any more online folks? That's it. All right. Well, thank you very much for your testimony. Everyone who is here today with us in person and online, we definitely appreciate you being part of this process. And with that, we will move into commission discussion, but we will close the public hearing first. Do I have a motion?

Move to close the public hearing.

Thank you.

Then moved by Commissioner Fowler, seconded by Alderwoman Sonnier. for previous role any objections with that the public hearing is now closed all right um i am anticipating a good amount of uh questions and discussion from commissioners here um we will just go down the line here starting with alderwoman schweitzer and uh and with the folks online Want to go the opposite way? Okay. No? Does anyone want to volunteer to go first?

Well, no specific comment on the amendments at this moment, but I do want to thank all the stakeholders for their input, both internal and external. I know an extraordinary amount of work has gone into this consequential legislation. You know, I appreciate everyone standing up for what they believe in and what they believe is right. You know, I do think coming out of this, you know, not everybody may get what they want, but I think that's because we're doing something right. So, again, appreciate everyone's input and look forward to the discussion. Thank you.

Paul, any? Uh, just point of clarification on, um, amendment for the request for community benefit agreement. And there was a comment from staff that, uh, there was an issue with that technically regarding the bill or the, you know, that would have to balance with the impact. Can you walk through that, expand on that a little bit?

Yeah. So if commissioners may recall that in earlier versions, early draft of the regulations, we suggested staff conditioning approval of large facilities on execution of a community benefits agreement. We moved in a direction to resolve concerns about potentially illegal contract zoning within the regulations themselves, moved in a direction to call it a public impact agreement, which would have to meet kind of two standards of a direct nexus to the developments, land use impacts, and also a test of proportionality. And the direction has been to kind of avoid in the regulations having benefits implied that aren't kind of specific to that test. It's helpful. So more of a legal concern there than a concern about the value of a community benefits agreement, which could be separately negotiated and established between a data center developer and any relevant entity.

Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Adman? No, that's it.

Mr. Powell? No real questions. Thanks for everybody being here and giving your opinions and comments on everything. I think I'm getting tripped up on one thing, though, and it's with Amendment 6. I don't know if... So am I understanding it right that we would add a definition or use a definition for institutional campuses as... I guess I'm going to call it a loophole as an area that could be, I guess, carved out. Is that what the intention is with six, I guess, essentially, like, for example, like... Of the original amendment. Yeah, of the original amendment. So, like, Harris-Stowe is, I'm assuming, an institutional campus.

Yeah, that there would be more location flexibility within that campus.

I see.

Yeah.

I don't have any questions, really, I think. I'll just discuss later.

I don't know. I'm starting with questions.

Thank you, Commissioner Garmendia.

Yes. I had a question about the amendment five, the Lee Schaefer brought up the, the retaining the required under the state statute. Can you talk us through that again? Like what's the benefit of having that in there and when their definition includes things that we wouldn't really consider renewable generation.

Yeah. Alicia, are you available to?

Yeah. I'm here. Good evening. So the state statute includes, you know, a broad definition of renewable energy, but also includes things like hydropower and um, energy from methane capture from closed landfills. Uh, but it also includes some things that we don't have currently as renewable forms of energy, like, um, paralysis. So like capturing energy from melted plastics or even waste to energy. So those types of renewable energy, like some are not actually renewable and they are actually more carbon intensive. and increased greenhouse gas emissions. So while that statute was added, we still have the definition of what we consider renewable energy. So I think it just kind of clarifies that they can use their existing energy portfolio of renewable energy as long as it aligns with what we define it as.

For sure.

Okay, because we're defining what we mean by a bundled wreck elsewhere?

Yes.

Okay. And renewable energy.

Yeah, I may have misdescribed that earlier. I apologize.

And I think, are we just doing questions? We're doing commentary.

You can do commentary. Okay.

Okay. But yeah, I think I really appreciate planning staff's engagement with the amendment sponsors to understand the intentions behind the amendments. I think some of the topics that have come up throughout the process, including on the floor of the board, indicate just like how

Thank you.

Rich, this topic is how many issues it brings up and just know like there is, I think, a lot of follow on legislation outside of zoning that needs to happen to address the concerns that both legislators and the public have brought up and that it cannot and should not all be addressed by zoning. But zoning is our most powerful tool. So one of our most powerful tools that we have locally. So. I just wanted to acknowledge that our president's office is also thinking really deeply about community benefits. And some of the, you know, we've talked about community benefit agreements over the years. And one of the biggest challenges is who... is the community, who is negotiating on behalf of the community, the benefits, and where can it be, how can we make it so that community negotiating benefits with the developer is on an equal footing, you know? So I think it's a really challenging issue and something we'll definitely have to return to, to do well. And the zone, I do want to note like the zoning, I do believe like we should keep to zoning regulations for this because it's complicated enough, isn't it? So that's my only statement that I wanted to make. So I'll let my colleagues continue.

Great. Thank you. Walter, do you want to say anything?

I was about to say thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Chairman. You know, I firstly just want to thank everyone who came out this evening to be here. And I just want to start by giving a reminder that when you give public comment at the Board of Aldermen, a lot of times we ask for comments to be directed at the Board of Aldermen. It does not really help either person, whether you're showing up in support or opposed, when we launch personal unfounded attacks at individuals who are in attendance. And I can say that for many folks in this room and especially those who are seven quarters, I actually know where they work. I know that they have children, they have grants, they have other things they could be doing. They're not pay agitators. They are really good at advocating for themselves, but they are not pay agitators. They are passionate residents who are entitled to have their opinion. And I just get disappointed when we have public discourse and we have to start going low and throwing jabs at each other. There are ways to disagree without being disrespectful. And I think it's really important that we do that. And that's something that I try to hold myself to, but I just want to make sure that I share that with the room. So I'm really grateful for everyone, whether we agree or not on this issue for being here today. Ironically, the only folks who are paid to be here would be like the elected officials, maybe staff and other folks who are represented political, like to represent the political interests of their organizations here. But none of those groups include like most of the folks who are here in attendance. And I just really get bothered by that language of paid agitator. They are very, residents who are passionate and who are participating in our democratic process, and I'm really grateful for that. In regards to the amendments, I feel like I've gotten to be one of the people who have had a huge amount of commentary from the time that we started this conversation to the time that We've been on the floor in committee, two floor, two now. I obviously voted no against all of the amendments, and so I think that represents my position well. What I will say is since the hearing, I have been able to have conversations with the sponsoring alders, with other colleagues. We received an email today from Alderman Velazquez saying that she respects the opinion of the planning commission. and looks forward to, you know, just supporting that as it moves forward. So just, you know, amendment by amendment, I think amendment four, I am curious, and I guess this is a question for Miriam, is it not an option to do a public impact agreement if we go beyond the 30% cap? I think that that was the desire of the sponsoring Alder, Alderwoman Cox Antwi was to say, If you go above 30%, is there possible to make sure that there is a public impact agreement that is tied to those? And it was in recognition that in the legislation, we only reference public impact agreements with major data centers. And so there should be a data center that would go into one of those other areas. Right now, there's nothing that says it has to have a public impact agreement. So I think the desire was to see If you go beyond the cap, and again, me and the sponsoring auditor don't necessarily agree on increasing density, but what I do support is if we are going to increase the density, and I saw the staffing recommendation potentially for 50%, then I do support and align with the sponsoring auditor in saying, you know, is there an opportunity here to sort of provide an incentive to community who would have that improved density in their community?

Yeah, I would say the public impact agreement concept being kind of proportional and have a direct nexus to the impact isn't problematic in the same way. The public impact agreement concept was, I think. added as a standard part of the process for major data centers, because those are such large, complex developments that really, where I think the city needs tools prepared to mitigate impacts beyond what conditions and a standard process could entail, including financial impacts to infrastructure and so on, caused by the development. I don't know that that principle maps perfectly onto the difference between a 30 and 50 percent or 50 and 100 percent utilization of a building for a data center use. And some of those concerns could conceivably be resolved through the conditional use process with additional conditions and kind of a technical zoning sense, but nothing. Yeah, I guess that's my...

So are you kind of concerned that if we tie the public impact agreement to the density of the data center in the building that we're stepping outside of the scope of land use and zoning? Is that the concern?

Not outside of the scope, but that public impact agreement tool, I'm not sure what it could proportionally address beyond what a zoning condition could.

But we don't have... Where now we don't have a condition for like anything tied to the density of data centers. So is it is it thought to be feasible and legal to say that if a certain percentage of a building goes beyond a certain data center density, that there would also have to be a public impact agreement?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's not a possibility. And, you know, Nick, if you're on and want to add in, feel free, but also no pressure. I'm just trying to think of an example of what.

a public impact agreement might entail, like what it- Like if you had a standard data center that would utilize more than 30% of the building, right now you're not required to have a public impact agreement, because we only have the public impact agreement specifically tied to major data centers. So is there an opportunity to say, to also tie it to the density of a building as opposed to just it being classified as a major data center? Whereas if you had a standard data center that wanted to go, we can say that on time if that's what everybody is using, then you could say, okay, well, a public impact agreement is required if you go beyond the density of a building of 30%.

It could be added. I'm personally struggling to kind of identify what a public impact agreement could meaningfully address beyond what could be addressed in a zoning condition in that same scenario. Okay.

Well, it's not a public impact agreement. Oh, you're saying you're not sure.

If it were required, what could it do that also meets the kind of nexus and proportionality tests that a zoning condition couldn't do? But maybe this is just a lack of my own imagination, and I'm not...

Yeah, understood. Well, I would support if the commission were to decide to go beyond the 30% cap, I would support, you know, I would say that I share the concern of like, if you weren't a major data center, you wouldn't have a shared public impact agreement. If it's possible that the public impact agreement is not, like doesn't serve a specific purpose, then I don't think it would hurt us. And I would rather to make sure that all the bases are covered. And I'm really just following up on just my own conversations that I've had with folks around what the intent was, what the desire was. And I think there was just a desire to make sure that if a data center should go into the specific community of an alder, if it's not major, there's still an opportunity that is required in the legislation that requires a public impact. agreement and to tie that to density. And obviously that's a concern where you have larger vacant buildings in downtown, in North City, et cetera. So I'll just drop that there for discussion. And then my other question is around the renewable energy amendment that I also voted no on. I do just want to say on record that I do agree with and share the fears that having a a waiver could lead to a situation where, you know, I just kind of think government is supposed to set the expectations. And if you do legislation that has a waiver, then you might be setting the expectation that it's okay to not do this. So I do share the concerns that, you know, if that is in there, it will happen. However, again, as an alder who has to try to get something passed, I do think like it should be noted that that passed with 12 votes on the floor. And so I think even if the commission were to uh, vote no, that it would still come back up and it would still get the votes on the floor. Um, and being that that is the case, you know, I appreciate the clarity that is added to the amendments by planning staff. I think that's very helpful. I would hate to somebody needs 50 megawatts. They're told there's only 40 available and then they get a waiver on the whole 50, uh, because it's written that way. So I think that's very good, but I do, um, speaking for myself and speaking, yeah, I'll just speak for myself. And in terms of conversations, I think what makes me uncomfortable about a waiver beyond just the concern, and it's going to lead to people throwing it to the side and not trying is that the conversation would only involve the data center developer and Ameren, which both stand to gain from the project. Is there an opportunity or possibility to have a third party reviewer or a For the waiver for, you know, for as a part of that amendment that there will be a third party, like a third party reviewer required to go along before the waiver could be given. That would not be like could be selected by the city, but would not be, you know, would not be either the developer or from Emory themselves.

I don't see why not. I'll defer to Alicia.

Yeah, I don't I don't think that would be a problem. I'm not sure. Ooh, that would be, but yeah, I think the more eyes on it, the better. It's a complex market, so it makes sense to have the best resources available.

Thank you. Well, that really completes all of my major questions. I'll say the university amendment, I'm completely opposed to. I have residents, I know Area H was mentioned. Area H is all throughout the seventh ward that I represent. SLU Medical Campus is actually in the seventh ward. as well as several affiliate campuses that are not quite the medical school, but like right next to Crave Coffee House or in other places throughout my community. And my residents were not like a data center at all, the majority of them. So certainly they don't want one right in the middle of their neighborhoods. And I can say that none of them have come to me and said, well, we want the university because they're a university to have the right to do it. I think universities have the power to act in a good interest or in a bad interest. They're institutions like anyone else. And I think they should have to adhere to the standards that are in the bill as anybody else who would want to have a data center. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman. And thank you to everyone who's here today. It's great to see people stay engaged in this issue. You know, it's been a really interesting process with the different regulations that are in front of us and the data center project that's in front of us. And I feel like it must be really frustrating to a lot of folks to come and voice your opinions and feel like it's not heard. So I just want to say that I am certainly listening to you. I'm listening to the people who I represent, the people of the city of St. Louis, who I think have been very clear about how they feel about this land use. And it's been incredibly frustrating on our you know, my side. I think I could speak for Alderman Sonnier on this one. And Alderman Browning, who's here as well. You know, we've really tried to fight back against a lot of these things. And we, the three of us, voted against all three of these amendments. And it's been really frustrating. I don't know. It's hard for me to understand some of the votes that have been made. And I can imagine it's, you know, and I'm there talking to people about what they're doing and So I can imagine it's even harder for the people of the city of St. Louis. So I apologize for all of that.

And I thank you for being here.

So I have a few questions about what staff has recommended, and I do appreciate staff recommending the rejection of the amendments. One of the things in terms of the suggestion, if we do choose as a commission to go a different route and go to 50% and 30%, I don't know if the staff recommendation included any change to the ground floor activation requirement. It didn't. Okay. Um, do you think that that would be something that you might recommend is going, if it does go to a 50%, um, a 50%, um, you know, density maximum or yeah. Cap. Yeah. Alicia's helping me. Thank you. Uh, yeah. Mad lives over here. Um, if it does go to, you know, if we decide that that's the direction we want to go, um, Is that something that you could see as well? And is there any change in the wording that we'd have to make to increase that?

Yeah, I think I can see how that would slot in. You know, conditional on some higher amount. I guess not knowing the downtown building stock super well. I don't know. I think leasable square footage could be very different building to building, depending, you know, some... Buildings downtown, it's like the ground floor might be mostly parking or things like this. Or there might be significant loading dock to serve the data center. So that's kind of why we went with the gross square footage to make sure there's a certain amount of space. It's possible other commissioners have a better sense of a way to kind of have a higher requirement for that ground floor. activation, then what's baseline in here for the downtown and mixed-use districts, but I'm not certain right now.

Yeah, I would like to see us stick with the 30%. I know that as you put in the staff wrote in the report, it's not a magic number by any means, but I do think it takes into account the goal of having the building need to become another use as well. I do worry about a situation in which You know, there is the daisy chaining, which we've been trying to avoid throughout the regulation process, something that we've talked about extensively on the commission, extensively about, you know, trying to avoid that sort of consistent, you know, data center after data center. I know it's possible that even with 30%, we could end up having that. But I worry if the ground floor activation is going to be hard to do if the rest of the building is allowed to be data center and who is going to use those amenities. I certainly know when I walk past the data centers downtown, you just feel like you're walking along like a giant wall of nothing. for a long time. And, you know, how is that? I think the ground floor activation is a really key piece of this, but I just worry about who's going to be coming to those areas if it's just data centers. So that's why I voted against it at the time and, you know, remain opposed to changing it. I would like to say that if we do increase the number at the planning commission level, that a public impact agreement would be something that i would like to to see us consider i understand that you know it might it might feel like you know it it's covered in the board of public service process in the in the conditional use process um i have been disappointed by the decisions around data centers um by some of the boards the boards that have decided this in our in our city um so i would like more layers um of of um just how this will impact you know more more layers of what's the word i want you review is review um consideration yeah um yeah my nine month old is not sleeping right now so neither am i uh but here i am um So I would like to see I would like to see more there if it does change. And I appreciate that all the women from the eighth ward for building that into the amendment in the first place. You know, I don't think that that had to be done, but I think that it was a thoughtful piece of the amendment. I do appreciate that and would like to keep that intent if it does change. I appreciate the recommendation by staff about the Amendment 6 regarding the institutional campus going just to changing, adding the word school building. I was able to attend the meeting with the sponsor and with staff. And I think that that does address some of the concerns that the sponsor was trying to bring up with that amendment. that amendment. You know, I think one of the things that was a concern to me with it was, you know, the definition of institutional campus being put into the zoning code for data centers where it doesn't exist. If correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't exist anywhere else in our zoning code. So it'd be sort of a new definition that would be up to interpretation by staff and not something that's been fleshed out enough and I think could to some of the public comment we've received about that be sort of intentional, you know, end up being vague enough to create, you know, areas that maybe weren't intended to benefit from the amendment that would end up benefiting from it. So, you know, the way the staff has outlined that specific change for that amendment, I agree with the staff recommendation, and I think that is something that I would support. For the waiver amendment, this is the amendment that has the most concern for me. And I was the most disappointed to see pass at the Board of Aldermen. because I really think it goes against the sustainability and climate plan that was adopted and I believe supported by all of my colleagues. And I think there are moments in our tenure where we have to make policy decisions based on the plans that we put into place. And those policies aren't always as easy as just accepting a plan. And so this was a really important moment, I think, for the board to actually have some skin in the game there. And so I'm still disappointed about how that vote went. I do share the concerns of Alderman Saunier about what happens if we just flat out reject this amendment and whether or not the votes exist on the floor of the Board of Aldermen to just go back to what was passed because they could decide, you know, if 10 members of the board vote to override a decision of the planning commission, they could override the decision of the planning commission. So it's the weighing that would we be able to get the votes on a slightly less harmful version of that amendment? And is that better than going with what is in the bill now, which My view as a sponsor of this bill, who if it were just up to me, if I were the only one writing it, if I didn't have to get input from anyone else in the entire world, I would have made this bill much, much more stringent. But that is not how the world works. That's certainly not how drafting legislation works. So my current philosophy on this is do less harm. How do we make this a better bill? How do we make these amendments do less harm? And with the bill, the waiver amendment as it is, I have a few questions about that and things that we could do or not do. One of the things that I really didn't like about the waiver process is that it seemed to claim that there wasn't a way for them to continue operating if they didn't have this waiver, which is not true. They could have paid the fee or the fine rather. And that would have been something that would have allowed some protection of the city of St. Louis if there were the negative consequences, you know, the consequences of this sort of, you know, incredible amount of kind of unchecked pollution, you know, From from this use, not having renewable energy requirements that there would have been, you know, fines that would have been collected and could have been used for putting solar panels on the rooftops of utility burned residents or planting more trees or maintaining those trees that we desperately need to maintain. And, you know, all the different things the city provides. So I liked that. I thought they could still they could get away with it. But we would benefit. And so I really hated that part of the amendment because it took away that benefit from the people of St. Louis. And I thought that was very frustrating. So my question in all of this is, can we have a fee for the application of a waiver? Is there any way to have any financial benefit from having the waiver offered? Or does that fall into the contract zoning piece? Not a guarantee of granting the waiver, mind you, but if you apply for this waiver, it costs... X percentage of the amount of energy that you use. Because I do think there needs to be some, I'm very worried about the harm, the real harm that will happen. And if there's no financial benefit to the city in that, I think that's a real miss.

I totally hear you. I'm not an expert in fees. I think it is a possibility to establish one for the application. I'll defer to any number of others who may be more familiar. My understanding of fee schedules is that there is a standard of they should cost what it takes in city resources to process an application. Right. And so I think that presents a similar type of challenge as a, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I mean, I think that the way the bill was written with the fines for noncompliance captured the harm, or at least some of it, that was done to the city. And now the amendment took that option away. So that makes sense. And I do know when you apply for a building permit, it's X number of dollars, and it's about number of staff. So I don't know the answer to that. But if there is anyone who can find out, so we can... have some something in this. Alderman Sanye, we asked about the definition, or I believe it was Ms. Garmendia, Commissioner Garmendia, about the renewable energy state statute reference. I had concerns about that as well. So I just want to clarify, are we sure that if we reference a state statute, which we decidedly did not do previously. We kept our renewable energy definition, St. Louis's renewable energy definition in the bill. So I just want to make sure that our definition protects us from the renewable energy mix that could be available. Or does the state statute being referenced at all negate that definition somehow?

I'll defer to Alicia again on this.

Yeah, I had that same concern and I checked with others and because we have our definition in there, it does not. It just means that Ameren can use that existing minimum 15% renewable energy that they're required to have through the state as part of meeting this compliance pathway.

OK, we specifically had in other parts of the in the in the bundled recs and definition, I thought that it had to be retired on behalf of the facility.

Is that up for debate now? No, I think that's still in there.

OK, just making sure that, again, referencing the state statute doesn't take away some of the protections that are elsewhere in the bill.

Yeah, I think the original conversation was instead of our definition, use the state's definition, which we are not doing.

We're not doing. Okay. So thank you. Yeah. So does the amendment that staff proposed for this put in the requirement for the progress reports? Is that back in? It's not.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Alderman Sonnier spoke to some of the things that, you know, if we do as a commission adopt the staff recommendations for the waiver, that we think about adding a few different things to, again, reduce the harm. I think the, I think the third-party review of the availability of the bundled RECs is one of those things, putting back in the reporting requirements. I would hope that if they're reporting below where they should be at, that that is, you know, if they're trying to meet a threshold by a certain time, their reports should show progress towards those thresholds. So I think those reports help protect us And they allow the public to see what the data center is doing so that we don't get to these milestones and not have any information about what they've been doing. So we would have hopefully been able to catch it earlier, had some intervention earlier. So I think those reports are really important. you know, having some, and I, it's almost, I feel like ironic saying this, but I do think that making sure there is public comment at the Board of Public Service hearing for a waiver is important. We have seen over and over again, both members of the public show up to speak as well as experts in the industry, regardless of what side they're on, what side they're on. know people who are who know a lot more about renewable energy credits than i do then certainly members of um you know with all due respect to members of the board of public service i don't think anyone on that board is an expert in renewable energy credits um so having the ability to hear you know testimony um would be i think very very important um and i would hope it would be listened to um what else did we want to see

Can I ask a related question? Yeah. Maybe to Commissioner Bradley here online? Yes, I'm here. Oh, what's your sense of the board's capacity to hear and evaluate these waivers technically or otherwise?

my personal opinion is is that it is probably way beyond what the capacity of the board would be generally um a lot of the conditional the conditional use hearings go through the zoning department and the zoning department makes a recommendation to the board um and so you know would depend on the actual type of hearing but i do Here, Alderwoman Schweitzer, and she is correct that none of us are experts on renewable energy credits. I think we worked very hard on these regulations originally to put something out there that worked for everyone. I personally am not enthralled with this whole idea that the Board of Public Service would have an opportunity to grant these type of waivers regardless of what the situation is, simply because it becomes somewhat arbitrary and it becomes somewhat political. And so I think, you know, we had regulations in place that in my opinion were very firm and they were fair and they were good and i'm i'm opposed to the the idea of the board of public service granting these waivers can i ask a question

Um, so you would rather leave the bill as it was before, uh, cause you said you're opposed to the board of public service granting the waivers, but we have legislation in front of us that's proposing. Yeah. That waivers be granted. So you're, you're saying you would actually just rather no waiver and we go with as the bill originally was.

I liked it originally the way that it was prior to it being amended by the board of Alderman.

Yeah. I voted. No, I agree. Are you going to go next?

Oh, my God. I'm still going to give... There'll be some more discussion. Mr. Chairman? Yes.

I have an observation.

Maybe something I'm supplementing with some thoughts.

But as I've seen the conversation come this way, one of the things that's gotten tricky about this particular task for us is the root of amendment. And so the Planning Commission, we voted, had... many, many doings with the public and suggested some regulations to the Board of Aldermen. They've had this discussion, and they at the Board of Aldermen made numerous amendments. Three of them have come back to us for our consideration and tire-kicking and modification particularly. saying no or saying yes. And so what I've just, I was smiling when I was commissioner Fowler was talking about it and it got even more understanding with precision when the, all the woman was just talking about it is the documentation that Miriam walked through included what the amendments were that were sent to us. Those could be yay or nay. She did also, with a discussion, make some suggestions to changes. And what I just get concerned about is sometimes maybe people are thinking those changes are amendments to the amendments as opposed to changes. The one that got the clearest when it got here was that in what came from the Board of Aldermen as one of the amendments had the 30% in it. Miriam's and the recommendation, therefore, to staff was that would be increased to 50%. And so one of the things is your... fineness of approving the amendments as modified by the Planning Commission, as in accordance with what the staff made as a recommendation, or additional modifications that you would like to make such that we ultimately have acted on three things that have been sent from the Board of Aldermen to us.

add just i think two things on the procedure here for commissioners to consider um yeah staff did offer a framework for modifying amendments should that be the direction the commission wants to go it is possible to offer a couple of options as part of a recommendation on each topic um if I can see your commissioners don't like that added complexity. But I'm just, you know, informing you. And then I think for the public's benefit... I just want to explain why this review is happening and what it could mean procedurally in the next step, because it was referenced a little bit, but I don't know that there's broad awareness about it because it is kind of a new thing. The reason the commission is reviewing these is because state law requires that any zoning regulation in the city needs to have a review by the planning commission. However, under local law, any zoning regulation passed against the amendment or, excuse me, against the recommendation of the Planning Commission requires a two-thirds vote of the majority of the Board of Aldermen rather than a simple majority. So that's 10 votes instead of eight. So that is, I think, potentially some of the impact of what the older women on the commission were referencing in why modifications could be of benefit given some of the previous deliberation on the floor of the board.

thank you yep uh i want to get to some of the folks that haven't had a chance to speak yet so um commissioner bradley do you have any additional comments the only thing that well first of all i would say thank you to um staff again for the outstanding work here thank you to the public for your commentary It's always interesting to me to hear the different perspectives from where everyone comes from. Thanks for your time there. I have listened very intently to everyone, particularly both the alders who have been included in this deliberation at the Board of Aldermen, which is something that I have not been involved with. And I think I heard Alderwoman Saunier recommend that if if this whole waiver process were to come forward that there would be or could be a third party that would review this that would be something outside of just the typical city process if it were to go to that level i would support something along those lines where expert testimony expert review could look at what is being proposed and recommend to the board what a proper answer may be and that's all thank you um commissioner boaz are you have you rejoined us

Sean, Dylan.

I have rejoined you. And boy, I guess first I want to echo everyone's comments, thanking the public for their comments on all sides of the issue. It is a very, very difficult decision. I don't know that I have any other questions at this point.

Okay. Thank you. A few comments and questions from me. I'm going to start at Amendment 4. This was a topic dealing with an issue that I personally felt strongly about in the original set of regulations of data centers in mixed-use and downtown areas, specifically ground floor use as well as the density of data centers. So, you know, we're talking about in the current zoning code districts, H I and L, which, you know, is the narrow central corridor band stretching from the central West end to the arch essentially, which is, you know, some of our most, I think potential vibrant is our most, some of our most vibrant as well as, you know, potential highest density neighborhoods that we have in the city. And, you know, personally, I think that a, a, the 30% cap as well as the current regulations limiting requiring certain active ground floor uses is incredibly important to further develop these areas of the city. Um, you know, we need to be promoting people in this area, um, especially, and I think there are definitely areas in the city where this is less of a, an issue, especially in some of our industrial areas, but for this central band, um, I think the regulations as proposed are, um, are certainly sufficient. Moving into Amendment 4, I wanted to get Director Russell's take on just the idea of – because I would agree it does seem to provide a pathway to – ignore the, this, uh, renewable energy requirements, maybe not ignore, but, um, is the right word, but certainly, um, find a way around. And, you know, I'm hearing a lot of stories from around the country of, you know, granted it's mostly larger data center developments, but, um, you know, that are constructing their own power plants essentially, um, to power, to power these things. And I think, um, you know, if they're doing that building gas plants, what's, you know, from your perspective, is there really a difference in a developer constructing a, you know, their own uh power generation um whether it's renewable or non-renewable um and how you you feel that fits within our sustainability um goals for the city would you are you personally in favor of of this amendment um the so the amendment i mean i think the analysis that we did um

Shows that like five years is really a long time. Like Ameren has their integrated resource plan. So they're planning and coming up with like what they plan to bring online every, I think, three or four years. And then they are able to update it annually as well. So five years for a waiver, you know, they could have gone through a whole integrated resource plan and could be working on, you know, getting the next one filed within that five years. So the waiver time is five years is really long. And then. Also, I think that I mean, the clarity that would be needed for a waiver to show that this is only for that shortfall and not for like the whole goal of the renewable energy requirement is really critical because then that means they're still working towards or, you know, being as much in compliance as possible. And I think that's really like the point is we want a path towards compliance. But we we don't want it to be like, OK, well, you can have this waiver and we don't know what that means after that. So having those checks and balances is is really important. And then I think to your question around, you know, data centers bringing their own power generation, I mean, I think that's great. But again, the size and scale of data centers in different states is really different from what we would experience in the city. And that's why it's so important that, you know, we work with our utility to bring more renewable energy into the grid, because that is what is going to drive our emissions down and help stabilize energy for everyone.

Do you think if this amendment passed, it would hinder our sustainability goals for the city?

It would definitely create a wider gap in terms of how much emissions we have to remove annually to meet our targets. Data centers and other energy-intensive users, it's just an astronomical amount of power. So it will set us back either way, but the most important thing is that we push for renewable energy in the meantime.

Yeah. You know, from from my perspective, obviously there's been a huge amount of testimony on this issue and it's been debated back and forth quite a bit here at the planning Commission, I think that where we ended up in the original legislation. You know, it was proposed to be stricter. It was proposed to be less strict here. It felt like to me where we ended up was a aggressive but doable sort of compromise on the whole renewable energy and the fact that we had even the renewable energy requirements at all felt like that was sort of the keystone piece to making the rest of these regulations even tolerable for a lot of folks in the city. So, yeah. I personally find myself leaning hard against the proposed amendment, but I'm now a little confused just in terms of where this stands at the board. And if we were to recommend against this amendment in its entirety, are we now at a place where it doesn't revert back to the original language and so we'd be better off with making some change?

Yeah. So I think I've been thinking about this, how it would work. So I do think for clarity, we should have separate votes on whether we reject the amendments and then also have votes on whether we are offering a modification. But I think the board bill is As it is. So if the changes aren't made at the full board to have it match what planning commission recommends, then it needs 10 votes. Because it's just not in conformity with your the planning commission recommendation, even if it's just. one part is a little different. So I think it's, that's the clearest way. Like if the board of aldermen votes to adopt amendments that makes it in compliance with our overall recommendation, then it's an eight vote job. But if it, if they don't, they might, they might accept two of the recommendations and reject an amendment might fail to accept one of them. In which case I think it needs to be like a, well, it's still a 10 vote at the board of aldermen. That's how I would explain it.

Is that you agree?

Yeah. So amendments four or five and six have already been made. So the board bill as it stands has that stuff in it. So if they were all rejected and the bill proceeded as is, it would require 10 votes. And yeah, I think we did provide the vote counts and the staff report.

Right. So essentially, we're saying if we provide a revised amendment that that could act as incentive at the board to.

having a lower threshold to maybe make some improvements a counterpoint is if we say we don't agree with them completely that could sway votes the other way that is true because as the planning commission we could you know press further and say actually no thank you for the comment but no we're okay yeah

I would just ask whatever we decide to do just to, I think that even regardless of the votes that the commission takes, I think that the staff should send over their recommendations in amendment form so that hopefully I will be in position to have conversations that if we don't go with what the planning commission voted on, And there's a desire to revert back to what was passed on the floor by my colleagues, that they have language prepared for them as opposed to them creating the language out of the air and out of the sky and then random things landing in it. So that's just my personal ask. It's like whatever the commission does, I think it will be better for steps moving forward if... That there is also language to go either way so that folks don't, you know, just to be honest, legislators who are not experts or don't have as much experience, you know, on this type of topic. We don't end up putting something in the bill language wise that doesn't make sense is illegal, legal or isn't feasible. But there's at least something that can be drawn from knowing that I'm. You know, obviously I'm a no, but I just think like it would matter. And then also I would just add that obviously the bill would have to come back to more minutes are made on the floor and then the bill will come back to the planning commission again. And so I think that should be something we consider as well, because I want to do this right. But we could definitely end up in a ping pong situation.

One final quick question on Amendment 6. So this one to me seems more of a technical fix potentially. I know your recommendation is to add the word building to help add some clarity to that. I guess my question, though, is how are we – How are we defining even a school building? Is that a K-12 facility? Is that every university building with a classroom? What is that defined anywhere?

Is school defined anywhere? We do have schools referenced elsewhere in the zoning code. Do you all feel aren't schools like permitted as a use or is it more? Not defined.

Building. You know, what constitutes a school building? We don't have a strict definition for that.

Maybe further clarity could be added here.

I mean, in general, is school defined? Not specifically school building, but is school defined in the code?

I would think you would have a bigger question about university buildings. Right. You know, it's not just class groups.

I mean, is the intent, was the intent of this specifically more for K-12 facilities rather than university buildings when initially drafted?

I think it was like protecting children.

Yeah, that's what I thought the intent was.

My 17-year-old is a medical college student.

I mean, I will say in my own staff head, if you will, that the primary target was K-12. Not target. Priority for protection was K-12 buildings. And, yeah, I'll just leave it there.

I've just thought of this right now. The clarification could be for building rather than the lot because campuses can be pretty big. I haven't thought about that.

Chair, can I ask that we go back again? Because we just asked questions.

Yeah, you want to stand on the soapbox for a little bit?

I'll be really quick. I think I'm going to echo a lot of what my alder said, but hopefully I capture it. Generally, all three of these amendments I'm generally against, with six being one that's maybe wavering with the modification provided about the building. The other thing I want to hit on is with the votes, if you looked at in the packet, there's 10, 12, and 9 votes. So... I mean, the numbers are there if they do want to go forward with what is already in this board bill. But hitting these each individually. Number four, we had the map up there earlier with the 300 feet. I think the idea behind this, and if we even think of picking Ward 8, a lot of that area is in a flood prone area. So a lot of that would not be developed into a data center just off the top area. And then also the spacing between this is what we were trying to get that happy medium. And I think this is really restrictive and it kept it at a good place where we don't want to see data centers popping up right next to each other. 300 feet, we got a lot of pushback about that. And I was thinking we were really firm in that. And I don't think moving that threshold down or 250 is really going to be beneficial for anybody. I think what we had was great data. when we came together and met over it multiple times. The Rex, I'm not a big fan of waivers and more processes. And then it's the big guy that can figure out the system and work his way through the system and find his loophole to get away from these thresholds and plans that we've set in place and we've also met about. So I'm not really in favor of even really talking about that one. There's a path that's there, and I think it's reasonable. As Miriam said in her presentation, the five years is really seven. Development of these data centers is a long process. You get the wheels going or you pay the fine, which I'd rather them not do. I'd rather them comply, but I don't think creating another avenue to avoid doing what's right is the right way to do this. Sorry, I'll be quick. That's all I had. I just wanted to give my input on these one by one.

Yeah. My major concern is with number five, the hold harmless. If that's in there, I don't see what's the point of having any of the rest of it. It's pretty easy to... kind of walk through the process just to not have to be accountable for disregarding the intent. However, I see the math, and I'm struggling to come up with a kind of an alternative that might be palatable. And I don't know that we'll do that tonight. so i guess i'm at a loss in terms of exactly what to do i have a feeling that if i just vote against it completely if we do they'll just override us and and then we're worse off than if we had made some kind of um valid or or meaningful adjustment to the to the amendment um All that to ask, is there a, and this is an open question, it's not fair, I guess, to land this on everybody, but is there any kind of an alternative to hold harmless? The other thing I would want, if Board of Public Service isn't comfortable hearing these waivers, I don't think that's a practical way forward unless... as commissioner Bradley suggested, you know, there were a third party, uh, that would require expertise that would require resources that would require money. Um, I would suggest that to keep it impartial, uh, the developer would have to pay a fee for that waiver that would cover the cost of that third party that would be retained then independently by the city. Um, but that this whole harmless thing is something I'm really struggling with personally.

um i don't think this is like necessarily particularly helpful but uh i just gotta say it anyway um you know i know like uh i just wanted to say that i share the feelings of just like kind of being in a a very weird position because there are your feelings and your thoughts and then there are the collective bodies that you have to get this through. I feel that a lot. I would probably echo what Alderman Schweitzer said, to be honest. If this was my bill, it would just be a moratorium. So I totally understand the struggle. And I think particularly with the waiver struggle, the thing that bothers me a lot is when the state board that approves rates for Ameren, when they vote to raise rates on my constituents, and a lot of them say that their Ameren bills have doubled, Nobody says you can get a waiver. When their airmen bills go up and they double in price, they get penalties, they get fees, and then your service gets disconnected if you can't do it. Nobody comes to you and says, hey, here's a waiver for you. Here's a way out. And I'm dealing with it so much more because electric bills are up higher. And I get asked about it all the time. Can you make me a referral here? Can you do this? And so it does like bother me in my spirit that, you know, it feels like this is just a situation where, again, the little guys and in this in this case, the little guys are citizens and residents, not data center developers don't have that option when they have struggles that are also the argument on the floor was, well, this is we can't penalize data center developers for things that aren't their fault. But residents get penalized for things that are not their decision all the time based on race and company sex. So I think that that's like a fair tension to hold. But I also, again, as a person who serves on the board, I know I feel like this amendment in some form with the waiver was basically a negotiated kind of agreement or compromise. And I gave it everything I could to push back and to say no. And honestly, the original agreement. proposed conversations around the amendment were going to just eliminate renewable threshold goals altogether. So there was a group of us, including all of them in Schweitzer and I, that were just trying really hard to push back and say like, hey, can we please hold some kind of standard? So I don't love the amendment as it is, which is represented as my no vote. But I do think, especially with that 12 that it passed with, that it is likely that whatever ends up going to the floor, if it does not at least include some type of modification, then my fear is definitely that the votes would be there to just put back in the amendment, perhaps this time it will be with planning commission's language. And that is probably the best possible option because it could be language that doesn't even do what at least the modified amendment does. And then it comes back and we're in a ping pong again. So I just kind of want to share my thoughts on the situation.

Thank you. The decisions that we make here are supposed to be based on adopted plans and the expertise of the people In on this commission, um, I definitely understand, uh, you know, my. Position on this is as an, as an older person. So Alderman's on air and I are, are definitely thinking about what we can get past at the board of Alderman. Um, but if the planning commissions. votes today are just to reject the amendment outright i will go back to the board and i will do everything that i can to get the votes that we need to uphold the recommendations that you all make and if it happens to be that that doesn't happen that doesn't work i will put it back on the informal calendar and i will bring it back to you and say we need to figure it out because again people are making a bad decision and that's up to them to do that not up to us to you it's not up to us to give them the way out. It is generous to consider that because it does, you know, but it is, it is something that, um, it is something that could be, you know, I put it back on informal and it'd be back in front of us. And I ha I struggle with the regulations taking as long as they have. Um, but at the same time, like it is our responsibility to, to vote, to, um,

uphold those plans and to that's what we do what we're doing here so um question on on procedure you know i'm i'm planning on having us vote on each of these amendments individually but Are we sending this as a package back to the Board of Aldermen? For example, if we were to flat out reject two of them and make a slight change to one, are you all voting on these separately? Or is it a single recommendation we're sending back, this is the package deal?

I think it makes sense for us to have drafted a series, an amendment that encompasses the entire recommendation, whatever the result is, so that it's clear what form of the bill could pass with eight votes and then everything else. If it does, if that package of amendments doesn't pass, then it's 10 votes.

So theoretically.

Yeah. I mean, there's. Hmm.

Yeah, I'm just doing a lot of math in my head of all the different votes that we would need to get to eight to perfect because we would have, we would do a floor substitute to adopt the recommendations and then it would get adopted or it would need eight votes to get adopted. And then those same eight people would have to vote for it to pass. um but if we don't get to eight votes because then you 10 of the people yeah then i would take up the amendment separately to get as many as possible i'm just saying for perfection if it could fail and then we're starting over yeah which or someone on the prevailing side has to come back and vote I mean, none of this is this is all the calculus and the chemistry of how all this happens. I understand that. But it's none of it is our responsibility on the planning commission to figure out, which I appreciate as a point.

I would suggest for the purposes of see, I think. The commission's recommendations and votes will be transmitted as one notification to the Board of Aldermen, and then elected officials will move forward with that information, how they see it's best, yeah.

Fair enough. Okay. We'll note what's relevant for number four.

Can I have a practice question for here? So for here, if there are...

are you so you're going to take up the amendments one by one as suggested by staff like as they are or where's the space for us to bring up some of the things like the third party review that i mentioned being interested in i plan on bringing up each amendment individually anyone is free to make a whatever motion they desire on the amendment and we can have further discussion on proposed motions thank you Any other general discussion before we dig into these individual amendments? All right, hearing none, let's start with amendment four. Is there any discussion or proposed motion that anyone would like to make?

This would have to be the commission's time to shine.

I can make a motion that the Planning Commission recommends against Amendment 4. Second.

Revious roll.

Any objections to previous roll? That we reject or recommend against amendment four.

I'd like to be on the arc. Object to approval.

Okay. Call for vote, please.

And can we get clearance? Cause we couldn't hear who seconded down there. I did.

Commissioner Fowler. Sorry.

It's a male voice from the other end of the room. All right. Alderwoman Schweitzer. Aye. Alderwoman Sonia.

Aye.

Commissioner Bradley. Aye. Aye. Commissioner Fowler. Aye. Commissioner Garmendia.

Aye.

Commissioner Hubman. Aye. Commissioner Davis. Aye. Chair Voyes.

Aye.

And Chair Banton. Aye. And motion passes.

All right. Chairman, that was a vote with what was presented from the Board of Aldermen to us, not what staff present.

Correct.

Correct. So that... Recommends against the amendment as coming directly from the Board of Aldermen. Is there any, would anyone like to make any additional motions regarding Amendment 4? All right. We will move on to Amendment 5. Any discussion or motions on the table?

Okay, Amendment 5.

I move to reject proposed Amendment 5.

Second. It's been moved and seconded to recommend against Amendment 5. Call for vote, please.

All right. Alderwoman Schweitzer. Aye. Alderwoman Sonnier. Aye. Commissioner Bradley. Aye. Commissioner Fowler. Aye. Commissioner Garmendia.

Aye.

Commissioner Hubman. Aye. Commissioner Davis. Aye. Chair Boas. Aye.

Aye.

Acting Chair Benton? Aye. And motion passes.

All righty. Any other motions pertaining to Amendment 5?

I'd like to move to add the requirement for third-party verification to assist the Board of Public Service.

You just rejected it, though.

We rejected the amendment, but we haven't voted to offer a modification. Okay. Which could still fail, right?

So this technically, what you're proposing would add in, would keep all of the proposed language, but add your additional language to add third party.

Verification of the. that they meet the requirements.

Can I request a clarification? It's my understanding that the previous votes were on amendments four and five as made by the board of aldermen. And now we're discussing, okay.

We're going to offer a modification.

What you're voting on now is what you're offering to send back to the board of aldermen.

Yes.

Correct. Um,

So can I ask a question about that? Does that mean that the motion that we're talking about on Amendment 5 now would be in conformance with the recommendation from the planning staff with the addition of a third party monitoring? Is that correct? Correct. Okay, thank you.

And so the idea here is potentially offering a less, what we would consider less bad version option in the current language.

Yes. Okay. Offer any type of change. Sure. Go with what you want.

So all staff recommendations plus the third party. Yeah.

Give me a second.

I barely made the motion. Yeah, there is a motion on the floor. If I could have a second.

Wait, wait, wait.

Unless it's unclear what the motion is.

Discussion. There are a few other things I would like to see added to the staff recommendation before we vote to accept it with that modification, which I agree with. as a modification to that amendment. The other things I'd like to see added are the requirement of a public hearing, the requirement that the data center cover all costs to the city to hold this review of the waiver application, and the requirement for the yearly progress reports on meeting the renewable energy requirement. So I'll remove my motion.

I would like to see...

The, you know, I know we had some conversation of whether the sustainability director would be or, you know, the Office of Sustainability would be making a recommendation to the Board of Public Service on whether to accept the waiver. And I know since that's not codified, it makes it hard to put that into practice. into the into the bill. But I would I appreciate Commissioner Bradley pointing out that in other situations, the zoning staff would be making a recommendation. And since currently sustainability is housed within that. And I would like to hear opinion of staff if that makes sense and having a zoning staff opinion, a written opinion. And how that could work, like in other, you know, in conditional use hearings when there's an opinion offered, that is something that I would like to entertain as well.

I think the slight adjustment, so the zoning office, or excuse me, getting all the offices confused, the sustainability office is within the planning urban design agency. Okay. And it's not uncommon. Well, I'll say it's very common that on variance items, for example, where it's directed by a recent policy change that we provide, determinations on variances, whether they're in keeping with adopted plans. So I guess my opinion, and then I'll see if Alicia's available, I think she's starting to feel even worse. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

I think my opinion is there's a precedent for that, for the Planner Urban Design Agency providing a recommendation on a zoning-related item, and the Sustainability Office is contained within PDA. Are you still with us?

I'm still alive, yes. I agree with that.

I think it's a little different.

Commissioner Bradley did outline the typical process where things go from zoning to the Board of Public Service. It's a little, how I'm reading this, it's a little different that the developer would be directly petitioning to the Board of Public Service rather than going through like a conditional use hearing. So as Commissioner Bradley explained it,

the handoff from zoning where we make a recommendation to the board of public service is a little little different than what i think is proposed here i think that is a good point and in a way our variance recommendations if that's the parallel we're using are actually directly to the board of adjustment rather than to the zoning section so i think that's true and it's

would like to see a recommendation from people who are experts in within the city as well as that third party review that the you know the applicant is paying for um i would like to see that and then did i already say public hearing did i miss anything um yeah you got public hearing annual project report you should probably say it all again yes uh third party review um All the progress reports, yearly progress reports are back in the bill. Public hearing and the costs are all, yeah, all the costs are paid for by the applicant and the planning staff are making a opinion, sharing their opinion.

So Commissioner Garmendia withdrew her motion. Would you like to make an official motion with those questions?

Are you okay with the state definition? Does this include the state definition of what renewables are?

The state definition of staff recommendation? It's part of it.

Did you want that or did you not want that? Sorry, I just want to make sure you're...

Thank you for asking. Let's see. Yeah. I know that that was something that was suggested, I believe, in the conversations by Renew Missouri to reference, but I never understood it. So, you know... Oh, God, my computer's spinning weird. It... It wouldn't offend me if it wasn't part of it because we have the renewable energy definition. And then one of the things that I think the city of St. Louis doesn't do well is update laws when the state statutes change to reflect. So we have laws on the books that refer to state statutes that don't exist anymore. So I would rather just rely on the city's definition of renewable energy and call it a day. So, yes. Yes, I would. Yes, I would like to strike it. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. If anyone else agrees, I appreciate that.

Do you want the motion made again so it's clear for you?

Yes, please. Or just quickly list off those four or five items.

There's a motion to recommend the staffing recommendation for Amendment No. 5, but with the inclusion of a requirement for third-party renewal. for a public hearing, for the planning staff to make a recommendation, I guess, to make a recommendation to the Board of Decision Makers that this will go to, and for all the costs to occur by these additional public needs to be covered by the applicant.

The public hearing is before what?

A public hearing before the waiver is taking up for. Who's listening to the public hearing?

I guess the board of public service. Sorry, commissioner Bradley.

And if I, and to bring back yearly reporting and to strike reference to the Missouri statute.

Yes.

Okay. All right. There is a new motion on the table. Is there a second?

So who made the motion? I made the motion.

Alderwoman Sonnier made the motion. Anyone like to second? Second. It's been seconded by, I'm forgetting your last name, right? Davis. I apologize. Seconded by Commissioner Davis. Call for vote, please.

Alderwoman Schweitzer. Pass. Alderwoman Sonnier. Commissioner Bradley.

Aye.

Commissioner Fowler.

Nay.

Commissioner Garmendia.

Aye.

Commissioner Hubbin.

No.

Commissioner Davis. No. Commissioner, sorry, Chair Boas. No. Acting Chair Banton. Aye. And Alderman Schweitzer.

Does not matter how I vote. No. No.

Okay, and the motion?

Yes. Four to five. Three to four. Yeah.

Five no's out of nine. I believe the motion fails. Yes. Five no's and four ayes, and there's nine of you.

So my question, if we can continue discussion, Chairman. Is for the no votes, was it just, and everybody would have to speak for themselves, is it just with the preference for rejecting the amendment and sticking with that? Or is there something that we did to change the staff recommendation? Or is it that was a problem?

You want me first?

I'm just here to listen at this point, I guess.

This is like way too many steps and hoops, and it's just way too much stuff.

I liked our original, and that's... No modification offered.

Yeah, no, nothing. And you would rather not suggest an alternative with the thought that that might ass sucks.

Yeah, with the hold harmless still in there, it's just too big a loophole. Yeah.

Do you guys want to strike the hard old harmless language out? Does that make you feel more comfortable?

So they still get the fees, but get a waiver. So then what's the waiver for?

So my this is just me speaking, but. I have some appreciation for the fact that there's a scramble to get more renewables online. This is a gold rush period for this industry that's literally trying to figure out how to spend trillions of dollars on facilities with no profit model yet. There's a lot of money floating around. And if they aren't going to comply with the local requirements, then pay the penalty. There is harm because we have a sustainability code here. This is something we adopted, this board, and this whole harmless really flies in the face of that in my mind.

I agree.

That's so interesting.

And you're saying, Commissioner Hudman, that the whole idea of a waiver I mean, even if the whole harmless language was stricken, it would still get to...

If it's impossible to get enough credits or whatever, okay, pay the fee. There's a lot of money floating around in this industry. Things will catch up. If there's a market to drive more renewables, why aren't they investing in more renewables to help solve their own problem? This is kind of where I'm at.

Yeah, I get it. Okay. Is there any more discussion or any more proposed motions on amendment five?

I just don't like so process wise, what's going to go back to the Board of Alderman for amendment five is just that it was rejected. So they will be taking up their rejected amendment, and it will need 10 votes instead of five, but the staffing record, the staffing modification recommendation won't make it to the board.

And an alderman could offer this amendment, but then it still had to come back here.

Or if we strike the no hold harmless.

Well, my understanding was it's going back to you all as a package. So for if we made. a small change, say to Amendment 6, that would give the board an eight-vote threshold to pass the package and legislation that would change that but strike Amendments 4 and 5.

Yeah, we were going to do it as a floor substitute. So because it's all the women Schweitzer's bill, she put on an informal calendar. So when we return the session, she would have the option to do a motion for floor substitute that could have what was voted on by the planning commission. And then that bill, assuming what was in that deal aligns with what we voted on, would only need eight votes as a total to pass. I guess now, I mean, to perfect, sorry, not to pass, to perfect. And I guess now, because it's denied, I guess we will have to take the amendments up one by one.

We could take the, you know, as we discussed, the planning staff will send the commission's recommendation. We could do it as a package and a floor substitute, or we could go through each amendment. Um, it's up to, it would be up to, up to us. Um, if the, yeah, I mean, if the, yeah, yeah, we would, um, we would have to figure out the strategy to deal with it if, if.

I'm so glad I referred off this.

Yeah.

And I, and I don't know if I'm even suggesting this, something else that we kind of bounced around internally because the, I'll call it the June, the HUD's amendments that were affirmed included a like one year kind of no questions asked, like, okay, if there's not enough renewable energy, you get one more year to do it. That was actually, that was in there. Um, We discussed, like, if we just extend that, like, one year, there's no, like, specific evaluation. One idea is to, like, add one to the 10-year benchmark, which is, like, that's the 100% benchmark. I'm just thinking out loud to provide the commission some more food for thought as you're all weighing all of this and the numbers. Okay.

All right.

I mean, ultimately, you know, as Alderman Schweitzer and Sonia have said, the strategy is up to you all. So any further discussion on Amendment 5? All right. Again, what's striking? Would you like to offer a motion?

I mean... How practical is it to strike the hold harmless language from this? It seems to be the core of the issue.

They've already rejected their amendment. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's already been rejected, I guess. But I think that if we went back and made a different motion and a different recommendation to the the board of aldermen um you know the hold harmless piece i think is definitely seems tied to the the waiver you know so i don't know what the waiver would be for if it wasn't to prevent them from getting the fees and fines you know what i mean um so you know i i certainly agree with having to pay the fees and fines if they can't meet the requirement um so

I don't know what the waiver before, I would like the, um, this, uh, all the documentation to be provided, even if they have to pay the penalty or, you know, there's, it's, it's, I think it should be, I think it'd be very helpful to have this documentation, but, um, Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think it's going to be very hard to make it. If the main issue is we want to penalize people for not complying, then there's not really a way to fix that.

Yeah, I mean, we already, the vote to reject the amendment keeps it as the Planning Commission last recommended it, which does have a penalty for noncompliance. Or at least it keeps it as what goes back to the board and then we've got to figure it out from there.

All right. Moving on to Amendment 6. Any discussion on Amendment 6?

I like the clarification of building.

I also like the clarification of building. I'm wondering if there should be further clarification of K-12 building?

Well, I don't like that.

Yeah.

I know what a commissioner said earlier, but there are still 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds and 21-year-olds in homes that are in residential areas that are next to universities. They're still educational institutions. They're still schools. I'm okay with us defining schools, but when we were having these conversations all along, even when I had conversations with St. Louis University, who I did talk to again when it planned out a commission, I was under the impression that they were kind of folded in there with the understanding that they have community unit plans that... K-12 institutions don't have that could allow them some flexibility if they need it there. But I want the folks that are at the universities to have the same protections as the folks that are at the K-12 schools. And I also want the same, you know, considerations and setbacks since they are, you know, it would be a different situation if we had universities that were a cut further away. But since they're right in the middle of things, I would prefer...

I guess my concern is, are we, by not having a clear definition, if there was an area within an institutional campus boundary right now, these regulations would allow for a data center to be developed with the term school building, even if it was an ancillary building, just that a university owns. That's not really... applicable to you know what we're trying to do here is that going to hinder the ability of of of someone to potentially develop in an area that otherwise would be per our original regulations be allowable is there a definition that encapsulate all encapsulates all of those like i was thinking like education facilities like it's hard i'm trying to think of like something that grabs because i

Alderman, I get your point. Universities should be probably included in that. But you have admin buildings, you have gyms, you have soccer facilities, all of those.

Storage buildings.

Don't they need the same protections? Yeah. But it also says parcels containing a school building. So if you say like...

I don't know. Well, so if we were to reject the amendment, what a university could do is then they could ask for their parcels to be split, right? Yeah.

Yeah, but that's not that easy, though.

I also think it's important to note that the schools are not the people who asked for this, that both SLU and WashU have said we didn't ask for this. We've already had our conversations with planning commission. We know what is, you know, what flexibility we have in here and we have no desire for anything additional. So I just want to add for the record that this came from an alder independently, not from any of the schools themselves, including SLU and WashU. Okay.

Okay.

That being said, I still think that having defined terms in regulations is never a bad thing.

Oh, well, what does that mean?

Well, apparently it's not defined in the zoning code what school is. We're not really defining it here other than adding building.

We can solve that in our next one. There is a federal definition of schools, but I just don't want to overstep any staffing recommendations, but I did in my original haste against the amendment do quite a amount of definition, and there is a definition that Essentially classifies educational institutions to include technical trade, vocation schools, junior colleges, universities. But the way that it carves out universities, it says that they're government operated or accredited by a nationally recognized body. And then it has universities. elementary and secondary schools um i also totally understand the pressure of like legislating on the spot so whatever we decide to do i'm fine with but i i do agree like clarity is good but i just um i think it's important and maybe miriam can speak to again that what the author who brought it up on the floor mentioned was university specifically it was not a focus on Take through 12. It was not a focus on that at all. It was specifically around universities and specifically made mention of medical institutions in the interest of like public health information. Those are the direct quotes that were made on the floor. So I just wanted to get it like we're. the point of the sponsor and author for the amendment were not the K through 12 institutions. It was for universities and it was specifically for medical institution, universities, medical schools. And, you know, the quote on the floor was like public health information and things of that nature.

I mean, we could offer a little bit more tailored a school building containing classrooms, workspaces, or residential facilities. all places where you'd spend a majority of time which would exclude you know the places where someone is temporarily at you know i like that one okay you want to make that motion first the no and then the sure so um well i guess we need a motion um for the original amendment as it was from the Board of Aldermen.

I make a motion to reject Amendment 6. Oh, no, Amendment...

Yes. I make a motion to reject Amendment 6. Second.

Then moved by Alderwoman Sonnier, seconded by Commissioner Garmendia, to recommend against Amendment 6. Call for vote, please. Alderwoman Schweitzer.

Aye.

Alderwoman Sonia.

Aye.

Commissioner Bradley. Aye. Commissioner Fowler. Aye. Commissioner Garmendia.

Aye.

Commissioner Hubman. Aye. Commissioner Davis. Aye. Chair Boas.

Aye.

And Acting Chair Banton. Aye. Motion passes.

All right. I would like to make a motion to... add language to, I guess, adopt staff's recommendation to add language to the original bill text of school building, what did I, a school building comprising of classrooms, workspaces, or residential facilities.

Second. Okay, we're done.

I was done. Boy, yeah, I just pointed clarification. Did you mean it? Yeah, should it be and or or? And I think when you first said it, you had and other buildings that, and I can't remember your exact definition, but in case we've missed anything, I'd like to have some wiggle room in there. Wiggle room, rather.

No, it was those three primarily. Okay.

So you said workspaces, right?

I did.

Is there any place else where people library? What about a library?

I'd consider that a workspace.

Okay. All these things we have to add to this definition.

Did the commission consider adding or similar uses or similar uses? That's perfect. Thank you.

I like that. I will amend my motion to say school buildings containing classrooms, workspaces, residential facilities, or similar uses. I accept those modifications. Seconded by Commissioner Fowler. Call for vote, please. Previous roll.

No. Sorry. I have one more question. Sorry. Is it also possible, just the legislator and me, sorry, to say including but not limited to?

No. We say similar uses. Yeah.

Similar supportive uses?

I think I'm comfortable with the language as is.

Call for roll call vote. Roll call vote, please.

Roll call vote.

Alderwoman Schweitzer. Aye. Alderwoman Sonnier. Aye. Commissioner Bradley.

Aye.

Commissioner Fowler. Aye. Commissioner Garmendia. No. Commissioner Hubbin.

Aye.

Commissioner Davis. Aye. Commissioner, sorry, Chair Boas.

Aye.

And Acting Chair Banton. Aye. And the motion passes.

I have a question.

Yes.

Ms. Keller, earlier you were saying that the commission can recommend more than one thing. What is that? Can you explain what that means in this case?

If the commission would find acceptable two modifications, both of those could be offered.

Okay. But not ranked?

I don't know what the impact of that.

Yeah, I just. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, like a recommendation that says planning commission recommends this, but something that lists other options.

Is that what you're.

Yeah, I just.

Well, I would say, I think, in our notification, if there were a preference that the commission clearly expresses, we could provide that in the notification.

Like if the board overrides any of the rejections made tonight. Oh, like a... Their vote, you know, I mean, unless further amendments are made... I don't know if it comes back to planning commission. I don't think it does. So we can't then write a new recommendation here.

The question, and as I understand it, I see some wheel spinning is if one modification is rejected, could there be a, second modification offered only available if that first recommendation were rejected right and i don't know and i'm just asking because i don't know that it comes back here and that it comes back here in any of the forms we've discussed

I'd be open to a second attempt at offering.

It's, you know, I do not support the waiver process. I agree with Commissioner Hubbard about the whole harmless problem and issue. What is in the bill is worse than the recommendation that failed in planning commission. We don't get another chance to have an opinion if they can keep 10 votes. And I know I didn't ask you to play politics. We don't get another chance to play, have another opinion. And there's some real harm that could happen to the community. And they will say it is our fault that we did not make a recommendation that they could live with. So therefore it's our fault. And they were completely, you know, off the hook for their bad vote. And, you know, that's what people will say. And that is so not. And so I, you know, I don't,

So I understand you're like, it's a tough position. I see. I definitely get where you're getting at. I think my perspective is as a constituent, I also see my alders as people that represent us. And if they don't listen to the planning commission that make a recommendation, that's up to the people that elect them to make their voices be heard.

So no, I'm with you. I'm with you.

I'm just totally unfortunate. And I totally I can see you and I get it. But yeah. we have to make the recommendation that the planning commission's here for. We can take up another amendment or modification, but at the end of the day, I think we're going to make a call.

And if we can't, yeah, I mean, I can make, I can do things on the floor that send it back here, but that has to get the votes to send it back here. You know, I'd have to get eight votes on another amendment to come back to us and they would have to be around this topic. And I'm just talking in politics with you because we, if we close this

The way it is.

The way it is could be the way it is, and that is not good. But I get it. I'm just playing. Like I said at the beginning of my comments, I'm trying to do what do I think any actions that I take will do the least amount of harm. And Yeah.

Is it possible that, I guess my question is more of a technicality process question. The Planning Commission is making recommendations, but the planning staff has also made recommendations. Is it possible that both of those are able to go to the Board of Aldermen? No, it has to be one or the other.

Yeah, our staff recommendations are only for you all, yeah, to consider.

I don't, you know, with the proposed changes, it's kind of, Um, trying to minimize the damage and maybe speculation on our part on what is tolerable at the board of Alderman level. You know, even if we approve that, would it pass? I don't even know. I know we don't know. I know we don't know.

I mean, I think that the 12 votes is indicative of a factual record that exists of Aldrich being interested in creating a waiver process for renewable energy. And that's not speculation. That's a fact. And there's 12 votes to support it. So I think that if you send something back to them, and I totally understand that this is not you all's job to consider. And I'm not saying that any of you all put this in your math. But I'm saying that that is a strong sign. That's 12. There's only three of us who voted no against it. The entire Board of Aldermen, everybody but the three alders in this room voted for it. There's clearly an interest, a strong interest. It wasn't because it wasn't discussed. It wasn't because people didn't get up and make sure they explained what they thought it was. It was clear that there was just disagreement. So it's on record factual that there's a majority, a super majority of the Board of Aldermen who support some kind of waiver process for renewable energy. And this body can make its own decisions, of course, to deny that. But I'm confident that that 12 votes is indicative of what you will what you will see when we go back to the board. The question is if they'll be open to could be if they're open to modifications. But we didn't just vote on a modification. We voted on a rejection. So I don't think that they will be amenable to rejection. I don't think they're going to go from a supermajority.

So if we send a second option. Then we send a second option, right? Like, is that what the motion made by Commissioner Grimendia could be our second option? If that is considered better than what is there by the commissioners, which it may or may not be. I think there are some significant things in that that are considered better. I consider better than what is in there.

It makes sense. me a little uncomfortable, the idea of this commission sending multiple options to the board. I feel that we need to send a recommendation and then it's the board's responsibility to do with that as it will. I've never heard of a commission sending plan A, plan B. That just seems outside of

scope of what we're we shouldn't be doing here i get it i just couldn't i had to say it out loud because it's going to be i want you all to know like it's a i i get that you know as the elected official of the first ward i want to represent the people i represent and just reject out reject that but as a member of the board of aldermen I am trying to find the best possible. And that's what I feel like I've been doing this entire time with every amendment, with every concession, because I know how many votes I need. And, you know, that's on us to figure out, and I get that. But, you know, as the sponsor of the legislation, I don't know if I can get the votes to undo undo it undo it and i will do my best like i said and i i already said that i don't it's not up to you to make a political you know um decision um it is up to them and they have to live with their votes and every every alderman will be held accountable for how they vote by their people they represent that's how it goes um but in the meantime like real harm could be done to the people we represent as well so

Yeah, and I think that there is a political consideration of the board, but I think there's also just a... I don't think people should think about votes. I think people should think about outcomes, and I don't think outcomes is political. I just think it is a real possible outcome that the Board of Aldermen says, fine, then we'll get more than 10 to vote this through, and then, you know, it is my opinion that the amendment that is in the legislation, which would be the one that the Board of Aldermen voted on, is harmful and could pass. Like, that is just a real possible outcome here. Yeah.

I mean, from my perspective, I sort of agree with Stan's initial comment of, you know, we as a planning commission here, you know, a team of experts charged with making, you know, qualified decisions on advancing good planning practices for the city unanimously rejected all three amendments as potentially calling harm or being just poor planning practice for the city of St. Louis.

That's all I wanted to say. I don't, I'm not making a motion to bring it back up. I'm not, you know, we'll, we'll figure it out at the floor of the board of Alderman. I just needed to say it out loud. Cause I would have, I, I, I need to say it a lot.

I appreciate that. Okay. With that, we have come to a conclusion on the data center amendments. So, Oh, thank you. Um, I think we are be wise to take maybe a quick five minute recess before moving on. Grab a drink, take a bathroom break. We will reconvene.

Thank you.

I can't hear you because it's muted.

Oh. The room's muted, but they're online still. They're on?

Yeah. They can hear me now? Rich, Tracy, are you still on?

Yes, we hear you now. Good to go.

All right. Excellent. All right. We have a couple of commissioners that are still, um, out and about, but we still, I believe have quorum. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yep. So let's go ahead and get started with our next item, which is a redevelopment plan. Um, PDA 1326 and, um, Yeah, I'll pass it over to Dylan. Correct.

So the next item is a redevelopment plan, Chapter 99. It is for what we're calling the 1070 to 1096 South Kings Highway Boulevard, 4575 Oakland Ave and 4580 Choteau Ave redevelopment area. I'm just going to call it the redevelopment area from this point on, so we don't have all that to say. Again, we've kind of gone over this. We're just going to review the blighting study and the redevelopment area plan. And then at the end, you guys will make a decision about whether it's in conformity or not. The site context to start with, it's in the Forest Park Southwest neighborhood. It's about nine parcels. It is nine parcels, not about, but about 2.63 acres kind of separated. So there's one larger parcel and eight kind of clustered parcels. We'll get into that a little more later. It's just south of I-64, so right on that corner. There's a pedestrian and cycling bridge just to the north that crosses I-64. Two significant bus routes, but particularly the 95, which is the second busiest bus route, if I remember correctly, and the 59 pass right by this area, so very transit adjacent, I would say. And then the CWE Transit Center, which is just to the north, so you can access it pretty easily using that ped bridge. More specifically, the redevelopment area itself, like I said, is kind of two parts. The first part is a little farther to the north. It is kind of leftover land from former highway interchange, and then they skinnied down the highway, and now it's just open land. And then there's a cluster of eight parcels to the south. which have been vacant since 2024. The zoning is kind of everywhere. Most of it's E. There's a multi-zone parcel. There's a B parcel. There's an F parcel. But more importantly, this all falls under the form-based district, which covers all of the parcels with the same designation of neighborhood core.

Let's see.

At the moment, there isn't an assigned developer. This is sort of a preemptive act to encourage development here. But some of the potential uses that the redevelopment plan was looking or kind of projecting or hoping for was multi-use housing, retail, resident restaurant, but excluding things with drive-thrus, office, institutional, and so on. The abatement is not a fixed thing. It would depend on them applying to... LCRA and getting that kind of worked out, but it could be up to 10 years for market rate and LIHTC would be up to 15 years. The sloop designates this a high-intensity neighborhood, so all parcels are included in that, which means primarily dense residential is the goal. Obviously, to support that, it needs to be walkable and close to amenities and transit. And there's some leeway for community-serving institutions and amenities like healthcare or first-floor coffee shops, something like that. The area is mostly residential. It was previously residential even before the highway came in, so... Residential makes a lot of sense here. As I noted, the parcels to the south, they had homes on them until 2024. We'll get into the conditions of those in a little bit, but those were all demolished into anticipation of a redevelopment that never fully came through. There is urban design standards included in this redevelopment plan. I'm just going to highlight a few. A landscaping plan that includes at least 50% natives, repair and replacement of sidewalks that are particularly damaged, but other considerations that the PDA, our department, considered as well, or would hope would be considered, is that currently that northern parcel is cut off from most of the rest of the area. And the parcel to access it is a former alignment of Kings Highway South. So that's actually a parcel, not a piece of right of way. And it's owned by the state. So ideally, somewhere along the way, that would get gifted back to the city and be turned back into right of way so we could properly maintain it. Finding of Blight, like I said, has been a prolonged period of vacancy for the whole entire redevelopment area. The structures that were to the south were determined to be severely structurally deteriorated in 2011, and then eventually, more than a decade later, demolished. As a result, there's sort of an indeterminate degree of environmental contamination on the site. And then these are going to be just additional site photos to give you a little more context. We're going to start in the south, which the redevelopment area calls subarea 1, and then move up to subarea 2, which is the larger parcel. So this is looking to the northwest from Oakland. Not too much to say, other than it's pretty vacant. and pretty primally placed. The houses that were here previously all faced Kings Highway, so that is an interesting consideration here. This is from the alleyway that would kind of connect to this block end. This is the larger subarea 2 to the north, and this is looking straight north towards the highway. Again, this is kind of in an intermediary space between two roads. You can see the access pad bridge right to the right of the image. We'll show you more images of that soon. The site is significantly sloped, which does add some difficulty to redevelopment. The sloped part is actually all part of the land. It goes basically almost to the fence. There's about five feet from the fence is where the parcel actually ends. There would be some work that would need to be done there for any development. This is not exactly on the parcel, but looking from the highway over across the parcel. And then this is the ped bridge, just to kind of give you an idea of where it connects. It connects from Forest Park Southeast to... the park across the street, Hudlin Park, and then just kind of down the way is the transit center. And then going back the other way, the red line is that weird bit of leftover Kings Highway that's technically a parcel. I'm highlighting that. And then the orange is accurately showing the shape, or relatively accurately showing the shape of the parcel, so you can see the topography and how that's affecting the developability. And then here's just a little bit more direct view of the headbridge. So I know Zach is here in case you have any questions about the tax abatement stuff. That's a little above my pay grade. But if you have any other questions or discussion items, we can proceed with those.

Great. Thank you, Dylan. Let's start with the folks online first this time around. Commissioner Bradley, any questions?

Nope. No questions at this time. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair Boas, any questions?

No questions at this time. Thank you.

All right.

Mr. Davis. Not for me. Thanks.

Mr. Hubman. No, thanks.

No, I'm good.

Mr. Fowler.

Awkward parcel. No questions.

So, I guess, did I miss it, but did you talk about the proposed use?

So, currently there is no developer, but the redevelopment plan is hinting towards the desire for mostly multi-use housing. This loop would also strongly incentivize that. Let me go back to that slide, sorry.

I'm just looking at the file in front of me. It says community wellness facilities. Just a typo.

Interesting. I'm not sure where that's coming from, other than it's a potential use that someone listed as part of the redevelopment plan. But there's no specific project. Okay. Yeah, that was just confusing. Yeah, that's it.

Sorry, woman. Sonia.

I don't have any questions. I would just add that I did have the opportunity to speak to the author whose ward this project, the ward they represent this project is in. And they just, you know, were excited at the chance to kind of move things forward in this sort of way and felt that this type of redevelopment agreement would help to attract the type of projects they are interested in and having a lot of offers that were primarily fast food or gas stations or other things that the community was not really interested in.

Great.

Other woman, Schweitzer.

Thank you for the presentation. You know, I remember when the buildings were standing on that site and how bad they looked. And whenever I would go by that section of Kings Highway, I always hoped something would happen. And then I was so excited when they got demolished and there was a big banner put on the site that said that a project was coming and it was just... really exciting and then also the banner was gone and you know they were sort of you know conjecture about what happened um you know but we didn't ever have a project happening so you know i think this sort of tool is is very helpful for this sort of site um that needs to have um some uh you know um carrots tied to it in order to be um something that developers want to want to touch so i appreciate it and uh yeah i appreciate it thank you

Mr. Chairman. Yes.

A couple of things.

One, mention the foreign base code. Yes, I did mention the foreign base code.

That has an influence on what's going to be there along Kings Highway. It is along Kings Highway. It's a pretty popular place. And I think with all of them helping us remember a prime site, Sid and Vic were owners of this for a while. And then we were glad that they found a way somewhere else. We helped them find some way. But why did the developer decide to not be successful? Yeah, I'm asking the audience. Yeah.

Hi, Michael Browning, Ninth Ward Alderman. So the previous developer, there had been a proposal for two buildings on each of these sites, about 300 plus units, over $100 million investment in the city, but they could not get the numbers to work for them. The market was not supporting a project of that size. But I'll note that the neighborhood did three large intensive engagement meetings on that proposal and came out in support of it, which is remarkable. So that's what we'd love to see done here is, um, do something that the neighborhood supports and bring more housing where there used to be housing before it was whittled away by the highway and then the highway expansion and then the highway expansion. Great.

Thank you. Just a, uh, A couple of questions from me. I'm curious, you know, as part of this is, these are some funky sort of placed lots and especially with, you know, Kings Highway is a large arterial, you know, we have the situation where Oakland is in a lining. Has there been any discussion on do we need to include any potential, you know, circulation or site or street related requirements as part of these redevelopment plans?

You can go ahead first.

That was extensively discussed when we had our previous proposal for this, and the developer worked with the neighborhood to come up with solutions that they could approve of. I won't always be alderman for this award, but I think I would say that I would insist on community engagement to make sure that we are addressing those concerns. And what the developer did, if you're curious, because you're right, these are very constricted. They had a garage that they would open the Oakland intersection to be a four-way intersection again and have one half of the garage in that section of buildings right there exit onto Kings Highway. And the other half would exit onto the neighborhood street behind. And it would actually be a split garage. So it would split that traffic. The other site would just only... be accessed via the neighborhood street because MoDOT will not let any kind of ingress or egress be that close to a highway ramp.

My only other thing, overall, I like the urban design regulations. That's the main thing I look for in these. This is a... More so of the one next to the highway ramp than the one adjacent to Kings Highway. But essentially, this is sort of what I'll call a gateway site to the neighborhood right here. You have the visibility from Kings Highway, from the highway itself, the road in the neighborhood. There's not really a good place for what I'll call a backside of the building. So, you know, in these urban design regulations, you know, we're, I think, treating this as, it seems like to me, preference to the actual street in the neighborhood. And I guess from your perspective, Alderman, you know, based on what you've heard from the neighborhood preference, is there... is there a desire for, you know, there to be a sort of gateway development where you have a nice street presence from the highway side, I guess, so to speak.

That's exactly right. I think there's a desire for these buildings to be finished on every side, understanding that they're representing the neighborhood. The abandoned buildings that were there on that southern site were such a poor representation of the neighborhood for such a long time. The neighborhood came up and had a renaissance in the last couple of decades. And yet you wouldn't know if you were looking at those abandoned buildings. So it was a good day when they were torn down. But it'll be a better day when there's a building to replace them and bring people back to the neighborhood. And so the interest is in having a building that has four faces and really does represent the neighborhood well, as well as I think the developer understands that most people are going to see this from Kings Highway and no one's going to want to live in an ugly building. So they're going to try to... They're going to try to make it look as nice as possible too. And my understanding is that the land is for sale right now and the developer that didn't do the site is selling the plan that they had along with that land. So it would be my hope that any future developer would pick that plan up and run with it because it's already been approved by the neighborhood. So less legwork, less work to do, and really a... Just an ability to get right to work and get it built. Certainly, we would love to see housing restored in this area. Okay.

I guess just one clarification on that. Would you like to see any additional – do you think there's a need to have any additional language in terms of sort of building orientation for that particular parcel to get what we want?

Mm-hmm.

Because right now it reads, buildings shall be oriented to face the public realm of the street, including existing streets or any public or private way that is created during the process of development.

Okay.

I'm not an expert on this, but I would say that sounds the public realm is in every direction in this case. So I think that would probably already cover it. I'm not sure how I would word it. It's not even a site with four sides. I mean, it's an awkward one. But what the previous proposal, just so everyone's aware, was not proposing to build on that skinny little end on the south part. Uh, it was proposing to build on kind of the wider part, um, orienting more towards the, um, the corner of forest park. And, you know, that, that would be the advantage of this site. It would offer vistas of the hospital complex, forest park itself, the science center, uh, school, high school. I mean, it's, uh, it, if, if we can get housing here, people will live in it. All right.

Thank you. No further questions from me. I did want to follow up with a few items because you asked a question about the road network. We did review this against the TMP. That's where some of the emphasis on, you know, the right of way for the access street and the emphasis on the ped bridge was brought up because the GMP is particularly looking at emphasizing accessibility and walkability. But there is no specific street recommendations, like this street should be a different designation or anything. And then I would want to add as well, given the conversation about the sides of the building, that would be heavily informed also by the form-based code that exists there, which I do believe has a requirement for all four sides having some degree of finish and determining which is the primary street for that sited building.

And encourages bicycle parking.

Yeah, and encourages bicycle parking.

Great. Could you have a recommended action?

Before that, I think I want to give Zach from SLDC a chance to speak. If he has anything extra to add, I might have missed some of the incentives items.

Thank you, Zach Wilson, SLDC. I appreciate the Alderman being here to handle most of the questions. Oh, that's awesome. No, LRA staff supports this project or possible projects. We see this as a carrot to bring development to a high density demand here. And we want top notch developers to be brought to this location. So happy to answer any questions.

Any further questions? Great. Thank you very much. All right.

So on to those recommendations. Oh, gosh. There you go. All right. So our recommendation from the staff is that the Planning Commission finds that said blighting study and redevelopment plan for 1070 to 1096 South Kings Highway Boulevard, 4575 Oakland Avenue, and 4580 Choteau Avenue redevelopment area to be recommended declared as blighted, that the proposed redevelopment plan is in conformity with the city's comprehensive plan and therefore recommends approval to the Board of Alders.

Thank you. Is there a motion on the table?

I have a stupid little question. This document itself, does it die after tonight or is this part of some sort of public record? The one that was put together for us? Then we should probably strike the reference to this facility would place to assist in the development of property as a community well and centers to support struggling with addiction from this document. That's a typo. I apologize. No, it's fine. If it's going to live on, we should probably deliberately eliminate that.

Great. Well... I'll make a motion to approve the area as blighted with the change to the document of striking the irrelevant language.

Second.

Call for vote, please.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Hi.

Hi. Hi.

Sorry, I couldn't hear David, but Commissioner Boas says hi. Hi.

Thank you.

All right, that takes us to James for a presentation on Plan Area 6.

All right, thank you, Chair. Good evening, Commissioners. I'm James Sister, Senior Planner with the Planning and Urban Design Agency. It's a treat to see you all, although a little later than normal. I'll make this quick. You're used to hearing items like this because of the high-quality neighborhood planning work our department has been doing over the past couple of years. We are nearing the end of... Oh, what did I do? I sure did something. Are you controlling the presentation?

I thought it disappeared. Oh, yeah.

Beautiful. Thank you, Miriam. We are nearing the end of the planning process for Plan Area 6, which is a neighborhood plan that I have the pleasure of managing. So I am requesting permission to host a presentation and a formal public hearing at a future meeting to be determined. I'll give you a quick overview of plan area six because it's been a while since I've discussed the planning area with you all. This is a little bit different from our more recent plan SDL plan areas in that it represents exactly one neighborhood rather than a cluster of neighborhoods. It's for the Mark Twain I-70 industrial neighborhood. It is a unique planning area and a unique planning document that I'm going to bring to you in a couple of months because of the high concentration of industrial land uses and operators in the area, but also really, really rich residential history in the neighborhood as well. So it's a beautiful piece of the city that it's been a pleasure planning for. This has been a we say, oh, it's an eight month process. But really, the planning process began last fall. We're reaching the end of it now. We have a first draft of the plan. We're going through some internal reviews with city departments and the Neighborhood Planning Committee in advance of a formal public review process in a couple of months or a couple of weeks. Pardon me. The plan draft, as staff has reviewed it, hits all of the criteria for minimum standards for plan STL neighborhood plan adoption. It hits all the topic areas. One of the particular focuses of the plan is the three opportunity sites that I've mentioned to you all before. These are large vacant or soon to be vacant parcels that present a really unique generational opportunity for reinvestment in employment, particularly industrial and manufacturing jobs that the neighborhood has a rich history of. And we'd like to return to that legacy. The engagement process has been unique because of the type of neighborhood, but really comprehensive. We're quite proud of it. There are only about 750 residents who live in the footprint of the neighborhood, but dozens and dozens of successful residents. businesses, large landowners as well. So, you know, sometimes I feel a little sheepish when I say, oh, we've had around 100 participants. That doesn't sound like that many, but when there's 750 residents, that is statistically significant. And we have had near constant communication with the various working groups and committees and business owners and stakeholders in and around the neighborhood. It has been a really rewarding process to be able to bring people together, be a convener. One of my favorite comments I heard from a gentleman who, he has been one of our most vocal members of the NPC, of the Neighborhood Planning Committee, but at the end of a meeting two weeks ago, he said, you know, before this happened, I never really talked to anybody in my neighborhood before. Oh, wow. I was quite pleased that the process that we are facilitating is bringing community members together.

Let's talk, if you would, as you do that, about the fact that there are major landowners, you mentioned them, including the federal government, Union 70. Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. Yeah. Union 70 has been a good partner. They are one of the biggest business districts in the city, but it occupies a large chunk of the neighborhood right in the middle. One of the property manager for Union 70 sits on the neighborhood planning committee. They've been a good partner, along with a smaller property. A business park called Park 70, the owner and operators on the Neighborhood Planning Committee. It has been a lot of fun to bring these businesses to the residents and vice versa, because there's not a lot of interchange. There's not a lot of communication between these groups. I wasn't going to get into this now, but one of the. Two main implementation steps that we want to come out of this plan is to stand up and support a neighborhood association and a business association. Those two things don't exist in the neighborhood right now. There's history of that, but we're looking 15, 20 years ago. And that's the sort of social infrastructure that I think we think the neighborhood needs in order to achieve the greatness that stands before it. Just some notes about what the next steps, the next couple of months look like. Staff has received a draft plan. I believe a link to a PDF of the draft plan has been shared with all commissioners. We're in a sort of first stage of initial review with the Neighborhood Planning Committee and city departments. We're going to continue to have conversations with SLDC and with the mayor's office and other elected officials to make sure that we're all approaching being on the same page. Ideally, a completed draft will be ready for full public rollout review by September 11th. We're going to place physical copies of the draft plan in the neighborhood. We're going to be hosting a public virtual plan review session on September 17th. I'll make sure everybody's invited. We will also be attending a series, it's updated since then, a series of events related to adjoining plan areas, because all of these plan areas interact with each other. We're not operating in silos. And right now, Jonathan told me, don't say October, but I'm saying October. I would like it to be October. Potentially hosting the public hearing and presentation at the October Planning Commission to recommend adopting this neighborhood plan. But we'll see how the work goes the next couple of weeks and the next month or so.

If we were to see other patients. uh yes there is a fair number please the the the big recommendation from the plan is uh

Follow the regulations approved by the Board of Aldermen. But the plan will also recommend specific areas in which the neighborhood and the business owners have decided are more suitable. The biggest considerations are keeping as far away from the major corridors as possible. We really want to see an improvement along Goodfellow Boulevard and Natural Bridge and Union. So you'll see that in diagrams and descriptions in the plan. While we know, you know, the zoning laws reign paramount, we want it documented that the community is not opposed to data centers of the right size in the right place in the neighborhood.

Chris, a final state accident.

Yeah, it's not a simple one, but it's there. It is really the entrance to the city on Interstate 70, and we're trying to make it noteworthy. A lot of people driving down 70 would miss it. Okay. Any questions at this time from commissioners?

Just generally, you mentioned some interest in improving Goodfellow, the corridor. Can you just summarize what you mean by that?

Yeah, everybody on the planning team's least favorite fact is that Goodfellow Boulevard is wider than Interstate 70. It's about 100 feet wide. Already, there has been really good safety improvements funded by ARPA dollars along that stretch of Goodfellow. It's been repaved. There's been bump outs. There's been lane reductions. But that's not really a long term solution. The plan is proposing a significant, you know, multimodal. multi-use path on the east side of Goodfellow that would eat up more of those lanes, but also provide an amenity and also a buffer between the industrial and manufacturing uses that we still want to see on those parcels. We're not trying to turn the former GSA Federal Center into a apartment complex, like the neighborhood is adamant that there's a proud history of employment and good jobs and we want to maintain those, but we want to protect the existing residences as much as possible because there's also a checkered past of environmental harm because of the uses there.

So property that might cause a flooding problem?

Well, it's one of those funny things about data. When you look at the flooding in the neighborhood, you say, oh, wow, this neighborhood's doing great. There's not a lot of incidences of flooding. Yay. But when you look at all of the neighborhoods around Mark Twain I-70 Industrial, there's a lot of... water issues. And so we are proposing, particularly in the major developments that we hope are attracted to the opportunity sites, that there is significant water retention and management infrastructure put in so that we're not further exacerbating the flooding issues, water movement issues in the

I'll add one more comment about SEC James here tonight. James is part of Merriam's team. So he does lots of other work to help him with Merriam. And he's unknown to Jonathan's team to doing this particular area, which as he mentioned, is not a multiple clusters of neighborhoods. It's one complicated opportunity.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other questions from commissioners? Okay, great.

Do you have a recommended X?

Yes, you do.

Wonderful. Short but sweet. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve conducting a presentation and formal public hearing at a future Planning Commission meeting regarding the adoption of the Mark Twain I-70 Industrial Neighborhood Plan.

So moved.

Second.

It's been moved by Commissioner Garmendia, seconded by Commissioner Hubman. Vote, please. Previous rules.

Previous role.

Previous role. Any objection to previous role? Hearing none. Passes. Thank you.

Thank you all.

All righty. No, almost last. Is discussion and presentation on zoning reform to reduce barriers to school buildings. Adaptive reuse update.

Good evening, Commissioner. Still me. But I do want to say that this is an informational item. It's related to a Planning Commission annual priority that we passed in April. It's something that we're working on. I had a goal of having a spirited discussion and receiving some quality feedback from you all. We're not really under pressure to get this passed. If you would like a very brief overview and then we move on, great. I will stay here as long as you all want me to stay here. We also can just table this for another time.

I think very brief. And if anyone has any wants any substantive discussion, they'll see you after class.

Then just caveat, you won't get my best work, but it will be it will be quick. The commission approved the priorities in April. One of them was figuring out an interim fix for. to help facilitate the speedy redevelopment of school buildings, particularly former SLPS school buildings, beautiful historic buildings. We've been working on a zoning fix that would help sort of get us approaching the true reform through the Zoop and maybe help save a couple of structures or speed up some redevelopments. The proposed tool that we're using rather than an overlay, we've heard that term used before, instead it's going to be a zoning exception, kind of similar to an exception that this body approved within the past couple of years, the planned transit stationary exceptions, basically saying Under specific circumstances, certain projects are exempted from certain elements of the zoning code.

I'm just going to skip all this.

Basically, what we are proposing... Yes, you're missing really good stuff. What we're proposing is an exception that would say specifically for the conversion, rehabilitation, or reconstruction of former SLPS school building facilities, we want to allow... By right, multiple family dwellings, because that's not currently allowed in the A and B zoning district. We also want to allow an appropriate scale and mix of neighborhood serving non-residential uses. The way that we're describing these uses is we're borrowing from the proposed neighborhood mix. mixed three zoning district from the zoo. So we're trying to approach that sort of perfect little mixture of neighborhood commercial mix of uses. They're on the screen here. They include general indoor recreation, general food and beverage up to 3000 square feet, general medical, general office, general personal service, general retail, Just to stamp down any clamor, general retail in the new zoning code will not include convenience or smoke shops. We also are proposing a reduction in the density of population requirement. We're proposing that to be 900 square feet for each dwelling unit. That represents a 40% reduction from what is currently allowed in the C district. So incentivizing more units on... These parcels. We are also proposing a reduction in the required parking spaces required for each housing unit. Also sort of approaching what we're going to be proposing in the ZOOP. There's also a very finicky thing that we're making an exemption from, allowing off-street parking in between the building and the street on all sides except for what we're calling principal frontage. A lot of these buildings, these school buildings, are either in the middle of a city block or they have two or three or multiple frontages. And therefore, you can't put any parking in between the building and the street. You would need variances. We want to increase the flexibility to place the appropriate parking. Usually there are existing parking lots, but we want to preserve what we're calling the principal frontage, which are these beautiful historic front doors of these school buildings. What I hope you all, you know. sleep well and dream about school exemptions so that next time we can have a good conversation because I want to make sure that we're all on board with what we're proposing. Is a parking reduction appropriate? Most of these schools might have enough land to fit the required parking. Is this mix of uses appropriate? Is it appropriate to allow greater than 3,000 square feet if it's conditional? Should we require that any non-residential use is accessory to residential uses, meaning it has to be turned into apartments? And if you are turning it into apartments, then you can do these non-residential uses? Or are we fine with the school turning into a mix of non-residential uses and having no housing units in it? These are the types of things we'd like to hear your opinion on, because what we need to do in the next couple of months is coordinate with SLPS leadership. We want to present sort of refined recommendations to SLPS's or the Board of Education's real estate committee. So everybody's sort of working in tandem and also align our adoption timeline with with LCRA, who is planning a series of proactive redevelopment plans for vacant schools so that hopefully by the end of the school year, we've adopted a text amendment. We've got proactive redevelopment plans. Nobody's surprised in any of our government entities of the work that we're doing here. Okay. Yeah, please, questions.

Yeah, so I do have some concerns now with, so the original idea was that we would have done this already and it wouldn't be so much in conversation with the SLPS future ready, right? That's what it's called, where there's actual schools being proposed. That'd be close. I think this conversation would have been way easier when it was like, Hypothetical. And so now that there's real schools on the chopping block, then it's unavoidable to be thinking about these regulations with specific parcels in mind. So there's pros and cons to that. But I'm just wondering how closely we should be coordinating with a political body. Yeah. Because they should be making their decision regardless of what we do and vice versa. So anyway, so I believe in collaboration, but just because they are actively deciding now what schools to close, I have some questions about that.

I do think they're going to have, if the goal is to just begin the process of the legislation here at the Planning Commission, I would imagine by the time we get there, the school district will already have kind of a clear, concrete proposal that they'll be moving forward to the public.

So I think.

I mean, I think conversations have kind of already happened. I think the school district has known that like what they're working on, but I also think that as long as we stick to the timeline and it looks like the data centers have kept us quite busy that we are, it probably won't run into each other as much because I think they're going to end up having already decided. Yeah. And already made their decisions before we would be moving on this. Regardless of our.

Correct. They do like to consult us, but they have a mission. Yeah.

And I will note that this zoning text has gone through a series of iterations. When we first started writing, we were just talking about multiple family dwellings. There's been significant interest in expanding that to non-residential uses as well. That's technically still in play. Whatever makes the most sense and is clean and productive and actually achieves the goal of saving people structures and bringing amenities and housing units back to these neighborhoods. Also, when we first started out, we were working with a list of properties that this would apply to, but Future Ready SLPS kind of threw that all kind of asunder. So instead, we're working with more broad language that this text amendment could apply to conservation, rehabilitation, or reconstruction of any former SLPS structure so that we're not picking and choosing. And it also means we get to avoid the requirement for legal descriptions for each of these parcels.

Okay, so that's one of the pros from moving from the original... What were we going to originally... Oh, the overlay?

Yeah.

The overlay would have required us to identify specific parcels. Well, this version doesn't.

Yes, this exception is project-specific. It only applies when somebody is rehabbing a former SLPS building. Okay. And that said, not that I... I'm saying this is all going to be moot, but it's all kind of going to be moot in the zoning upgrade because it will apply to all, you know, former institutional buildings, interior neighborhoods. But this is just in order to... get the timelines right and the messaging right in order to hopefully kickstart some projects that otherwise would have stalled or been blocked at the Board of Adjustment and hopefully save some structures in the next year and a half before the ZOO can be adopted.

Is there a reason? I understand the focus on St. Louis City Public Schools, but is there a reason it's exclusively for St. Louis City Public Schools? Strikes me there are a lot of empty parochial schools around too that are just as significant in their neighborhoods.

Absolutely. I would say the reason why we're calling out specifically SLPS is it's one sort of government entity, one district that we're dealing with. It is cleaner and simpler from at least a sort of application standpoint. What's a school? What's not a school? How long has the school been vacant? If a rectory next to a former Catholic church, somebody wants to do it, it sort of blows up a little bit more for this sort of fine-tooth zoning exception that we want to put in. We're figuring out the appropriateness for all of those former school buildings through the zoning upgrade. This was like a good faith thing to save some buildings, help out SLPS and help out our neighbors who are clamoring for the reuse of these Long Bacon beautiful buildings. Thank you.

Yeah, I would say too, I don't know if the numbers have changed, but I served on the board of education and we had about 30 to 35 parochial schools and every single one of them has their own like superintendent or board or group of decision makers. So in order for the planning commission to have engaged them, they would have had to engage a whole bunch of people.

Yeah, I get that. I was just thinking, having gone through this exercise and thinking for the public schools, Why not just make the zoning also apply to the others as they become empty and open for development?

So one of the things to remember is our public school system went into receivership a long time. And at that time, we're very much worried about old school buildings education. And that's now 20 years ago. And now we have a new bit of crisis about vacant school buildings and so kids can educate. As I drove this week earlier to the meeting, the time that we had a meeting, Zoom call with the Board of Education today about schools and vacant schools. Drove in, going by Union Station. There's a charter school across the way. and they had a banner up saying they are now adding a middle school to the charter school. So it's a complex thing. Yeah.

Opening a new school in my ward, in an old Catholic school building. Yep.