Housing, Urban Development and Zoning - Regular Meeting

The environment.

All the money is on you. I'm there. I'm like the president or Miller I mean it's been but it's going to go in and out of it. Thank you next we're going to move into approval of the minutes I just want to know one change has been thought already that Mary part Burton was not in attendance. But the August 12th meeting a portion of the meeting. I don't know.

Who's to approve?

Second. Oh, Schweitzer. I'll see you later. Aye. Ms. Brangham.

Aye.

Christina Gardner. Aye.

Alderman Spicer. Aye.

Alderman Spicer. Aye. Thank you. Before we move into the body of the meeting, I just want to make a couple of notes. One is that we have to be out of this space by 9 o'clock. So we're going to be trying to move pretty quickly through the agenda items. The other is that because the Board of Aldermen will be voting on the change to the the Davis Center regulations on Friday, we want to move that on the agenda to after the discussion of the PUD planning and development. So we'll just want you to be aware of that change. All right. And we have three public hearings tonight. So it'll be a busy evening. First, we have the Project Connect neighborhood plan.

This one. And there's no echo.

That's all right.

Can you hear me online?

Yes.

Okay, we're great to go. I think a few more people in. Good evening, commissioners. Jonathan Roper with the City of St. Louis Planning and Urban Design Agency. I run the City of St. Louis Plan STL Neighborhood Planning Program. And here with actually a lot of my colleagues in the room from the city as well. And tonight we have the first item on the agenda, or the second after minutes, is the public hearing and consideration for plan adoption for the Project Connect Neighborhood Plan for six neighborhoods, which includes the Jeff Vanderloo Neighborhood, St. Louis Place, Hyde Park, Old North, Carr Square, and Columbus Square neighborhoods. And this area, this reminder of this, these are our plan areas currently with adopted plans, but also in current production. So our Project Connect, it began in December, 2021, and we're here tonight with a public hearing for plan adoption. And I'll just note that this project is managed by the St. Louis Development Corporation through their entity Project Connect with here with Melissa Garcia and Curtis Griggs, along with Stephen Westbrooks is here and Stephanie Grace as well. And this has been a nice partnership with the Planning and Urban Design Agency. And part of this is with the overall Project Connect when the NGA moved. And so one of the items here was to update neighborhood plans in the area where a lot of transformation would occur. So this has been an effort between St. Louis Development Corporation, led by them, and the Planning and Urban Design Agency, along with residents and community members. Just know for this area, there are two existing plans in the area that have been adopted by the Planning Commission. A plan for the neighborhoods of the Fifth Ward, which has been amended by the Planning Commission three times, including on the screen is the Second Amendment for when the NGA, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, actually relocated and selected that site. And we also have the Jeff Vanderloo Neighborhood Plan. so in this planning process we seek to learn from those plans and see what has happened maybe what did we struggle with and updating them into a new plan for these six neighborhoods and when we look at neighborhood plans we have the minimum submittal requirements for plan adoption that looks at a number of different requirements that we feel as though this planning process and this plan has satisfied General requirements are that the neighborhood plans generally adhere to the boundaries of our adopted neighborhoods. So in this case, the six neighborhoods, we looked at pool coverage in all these neighborhoods. Engagement requirements go from having a steering committee, or like we call a neighborhood planning committee. We do public events. large events with communities. So we open house, we had planning forums, community cafes, which are more conversational youth forums and number of pop-up where we would go to different areas. Or when I say we, Project Connect teams, the consultants and everyone involved, neighborhood association meetings, community organizations. And we also had online engagement, newsletters. We had social media. a few more pictures, and also the topical coverage requirement. So there are primary, secondary, and focus topics. So we did an existing conditions analysis, and we have a number of topics that we do speak to. Housing, transportation, arts, culture, education, and gentrification, anti-displacement, focus areas, catalog projects, and more. And we also have the implementation matrix, which I'll highlight here where it talks about prioritization, different goals, strategies that we've heard, partners that could be involved, or maybe ones that we might want to seek to say, hey, we might want to partner to get stuff done, different areas for funding and different phases and timelines as well. Also, there are local and regional coordination requirements for this. So we're looking at the strategic land use plan, the newly adopted transportation mobility plan, sustainability and climate action plan, the ZOOP, the zoning upgrade, and more. And so this planning process did have some recommendations for the SLOOP to more comply or complement what more the vision was for the area. So some of the industrial areas, looking at those and we're thinking, well, not industrial really type uses right now. So let's maybe look at a more softer use that's more mixed use commercial and those type of items. And so The other would be the zoning updates which different, this is the current zoning map and over working with the zoo, but this is the current zoning map that we have that these will help also guide the zoo elements as well, and a lot of these are. Some of those industrial areas, again, we're looking to have less of that. We have some areas where you have a school or a park and a nice old industrial use. That's a big brownfield nearby, and it's a scary thing to have for families. So we really want to clean some of those up where we can, but also up zone some places where we might want to see more activity versus just houses, especially along our corridors. We also had a big surprise in the middle of this. The brick line, not brick line, I love the brick line, the Green Line BRT, the Bus Rapid Transit Line. That was formerly a metro light rail that went down Jefferson. Now the local preferred route is now on Florissant. So a lot of this plan had to do with looking at Jefferson versus Florissant. So right now, what we have in the plan, what we're suggesting to do is to have a bus rapid transit readers reference note to note, Hey, throughout this plan, you, you, you are going to see for right now, some references to Jefferson being the alignment. However, please note that you should reference a four cent. And I will say in the future, as Mr. Scott Ogilvie had a couple of, Scott will be presented a couple of months ago about different changes that we would see in the future because of the bus rapid transit and what we can expect in the future. This along with a number of other plans might need to be updated while the plans in process, we can actually have more of this involved because we're selectively planning. And with that, this is one of the reference notes that we have that's in your packet and one of the exhibits. We'll note that by state law and city law that this was legally posted at least 20 days in advance in two different publications, the City Journal and the Daily Record. And we did have physical copies available in multiple locations throughout the area, as well as the Planning and Urban Design Agency. And we also today were emailed the letters of support. And I will note for the record that there are ones that... Thank you, Curtis. Just because we did not email you that piece because we did receive on later today as well. So just reading a few from the record from Mr. Perry, Ms. Rosten, and Ms. Marshall as well. So I want to add those three to go for. And from So those are the ones we wanted to add to the, I believe, 13 or 14 that we sent over earlier today. And different proposed amendments that we have into the plan. So the number one, we usually have this kind of standard to modify or correct some word choice, narrative flow, page numbers, spelling, diagrams, clarity. The second one, just because part of your resolution that you received, the Project Connect team has been working with community, especially the Neighborhood Planning Committee, on a number of just understanding as to where, because it is a long document, but where some of the updates has happened or either some of the preferred language that they were liking to see in that. So we're still working through some of those. So if it's fine with the planning commission that we would recommend to adopt the plan, but also before we have what's called the certified copy of the plan. So we have the draft plan tonight, the certified plan copy that we would still work to give these further updates to the plan that would not be substantial changes. And then the third would be the update to update the strategic land use plan and zoning recommendations around natural bridge at Parnell for a little bit of density requirements just along the south side of natural bridge, and those would be the recommended changes that we have, and that's a recommended recommendation, but we're going to hold to that. We're going to hear from Project Connect, and we have the inter-burrow team here tonight, and so I'm going to switch off and We went over to Project Connect for the moment.

All right, good evening, everyone. My name is Curtis Griggs.

And I'm Melissa Garcia, and we co-lead Project Connect Our Plan on behalf of SLDC, St. Louis Development Corporation. So Project Connect in SODC, SODC spearheads the Project Connect Our Plan initiative and this is the coordination and collaboration between neighborhood revitalization, transportation and infrastructure improvements and other redevelopment efforts between the city and NGA West to make sure that alignment is there as well as coordination. So we do work with our neighborhood planning committee which are composed of residents within the six neighborhoods We use existing plans to put the one plan together, and we guide these from our current and future infrastructure and redevelopment plans from the public and private sector.

So a bit of timeline, as Jonathan mentioned, Project Connect was introduced to the city in 2016, and it was originally introduced to direct the NGA's West Campus moving to St. Louis or to North St. Louis and how it would have an impact on those six neighborhoods. From 2016 to 2017, there was a heavy focus on really understanding the neighborhood dynamics and the impact that the NGA West would have moving to North City. The Project Connect Action Plan was originated in 2017, which was a major milestone because it really talked about the opportunities around infrastructure, development, transportation and mobility and what the focal point of Project Connect really was. Then we skipped to October of 2021, which is when we announced the Neighborhood Plan, which is very, Important to make the distinction that project connect is the six neighborhoods and the neighborhood plan our plan is the planning process where we engage residents. We engaged community and we really wanted to make sure that we put the residents and community voice into this plan. In December of 2021 we actually launched the recruiting process finding the neighborhood planning committee members which many are in the audience this evening. And we actually had our kickoff in 2022. There was a pause in the planning process in 2023 because we had a transition with our consultant team, the previous consultant team. And we resumed that planning process in the summer, fall of 2024 with our current consultants, Interboro, who have been, who are going to be here and present this evening with us. And although it has taken, again, there has been a pause and it's taken a while for this plan to get adopted. Through that, SLDC has been working with community and residents and stakeholders while we work to adoption to start doing implementation opportunities for economic development and pouring into the neighborhoods. So a couple of those are through SLDC's Home STL program, which helps with down payment assistance for home buyers. So far, we have at least nine homes in the Project Connect neighborhood who have partaken in that program. We have awarded or worked with organizations to give them awarded funding, such as the Brickline North CDC to place their pilot incubator, or their incubator, business incubator project that's in partnership with Mission St. Louis and Tabernacle. And we've also seen projects like the Hebert Homes on Hebert that are being produced through Tabernacle CDC. There are also other tools. SLDC is the city's economic investment arm and economic development arm. We look at different opportunities like tech soup. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Like the opportunity that we got in March 2024, which was the tax abatement application for owner-occupied Jeff Vanderloo and St. Louis Place residents, which allowed them to take and partake in tax freezes for up to 10 years for abatement for their properties, things of that nature. We also saw some neighborhood transformation investments with the Prop and Nest program, which is stabilizing an effort over 15 projects. There's a LRA CDA stabilization project that is happening in Hyde Park, St. Louis Place. And then we also have SLDC's Connect STL initiative, which is a series of Wi-Fi parks to encourage, again, more movement and development in neighborhoods. And we have a number of parks, St. Louis Place Park, Hyde Park, Norman C. Park, Jackson Park, and Loretta Hall Park. Our next steps with Project Connect, because again, SLDC's main reason for housing this project is to ensure that this is not just another neighborhood plan that gets adopted perfectly by the Planning Commission, but that we actually put action to what this plan says. So our priorities are, one, Advancing projects and opportunities for housing, commercial development, vacant underutilized infrastructure improvements, and catalytic investments. We want to align the projects that community organizations, neighborhood groups are currently working on or want to work on. with potential partnerships, fundings, incentives, economic development tools, and priorities to help establish and move these projects forward, implementing the investment strategies identified in the plan that Jonathan referenced and the funding and implementation metrics. So we're taking these strategies and really bringing them to life, trying to partner community with the necessary partnerships and resources they need. And we will continue to coordinate with the public, private, and community partners to advance priority projects that we've seen from the plan. And then we'll also be revisiting and refining priority areas periodically as market conditions, community priorities, and development opportunities change. And with that, we would just like to highlight, Jonathan mentioned, we work together with PDA and the city SLDC and our wonderful consultant team that has got us to this point that has taken years in the making in our borough partners. And we'll go ahead and hand it over to you guys.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Curtis. Thank you, Melissa. So good evening, Chair, members of the Planning Commission. I'm Daniel Diocca with Inter-Borough Partners. Thanks for the opportunity to present Project Connect, our plan, a coordinated neighborhood plan for all the neighborhoods that you see on the screen. This plan represents several years of work by residents, neighborhood planning committee members, city staff, community organizations, institutional partners, and the consultant team. Today, we're asking the Planning Commission to adopt the plan as a neighborhood plan under Plan STL. And, oh boy, what's going on here? Is there a way to not scroll? Because that's going to get a little messy. Sorry, well, Jonathan's working on that. What I'm going to do tonight is basically introduce the planning area, introduce the structure of the document, and summarize some existing conditions, not all of them, but just some of the ones that really inform the recommendations. I want to turn it over to Jessica to describe the community engagement process. And then from there, I'll present the shared project connect framework, followed by highlights from each of the six neighborhood plans. And then I'll conclude with the plan's land use and zoning recommendations and some highlights from our implement hate framework. So again, while Jonathan's getting this set up, I think you all know Project Connect is a broader city initiative intended to coordinate neighborhood revitalization, infrastructure, transportation, economic development, and other public and private investments in the area surrounding the NGA campus. The initiative seeks to support existing residents and encourage compatible new development by optimizing the impact of public development. It's the community driven neighborhood planning component of Project Connect. And it follows, as Jonathan said, the city's planned SDL neighborhood planning model, and it's intended to result in an adopted plan that can guide zoning redevelopment and public investment. The plan really, I think starts or begins with two realities. One is that the neighborhoods have really experienced decades of disinvestment, population loss, vacancy, segregation, disruptive infrastructure decisions, development promises that haven't always been delivered. At the same time, they contain really resilient communities, incredible people, historic buildings, tons of cultural assets, parks, schools, institutions, generations of resident leadership. And so this plan is really intended to build from the existing strength or strengths that I just described Well, I'm trying that the next period of investment repairs damage rather than repeating it. Okay.

I'll do my best. Or I can try it for another 30 seconds.

Well, you just kind of download it, right?

And then open it as a PDF. Yeah. So it's like that right now.

This is a PDF? Okay, then it should be okay. Okay.

There's that April score.

I've never saw that before. Oh, boy. Okay.

We can't see on the screen.

Yeah, we're going to have it back up in a second.

That's fine. Yeah, I'll make do.

Sorry, we'll be back in a second. Okay.

So another thing just to mention, I guess by way of introduction, is Project Connect is not six plans stapled together.

Let's see. It's not. Sorry.

No problem. So it's not six plans. It's not six plans stapled together. It's a coordinated plan. operating at two complimentary scales. So the shared project connect framework addresses issues that cross neighborhood boundaries. So housing stability, home repair vacancy, workforce development, business support, mobility, resilience, these things that don't stop at neighborhood lines. Each neighborhood chapter then sort of supplements that shared framework with recommendations that are tailored to each of those specific neighborhoods. the specific corridors, the specific properties, parks, institutions, et cetera. So before developing any recommendations, we examined conditions at three different scales. So we looked, we analyzed things at the city region, the Project Connect area as a whole, and then each of the six neighborhoods. So we looked at all those. So the regional and the, oh, here we go, okay.

All right.

Yeah, so where are we here? OK, so at the regional scale, oops. Well, I think it's important to note that the area occupies a very strategic location. I think that's probably obvious. Immediately north of downtown, close to major employment centers, cultural institutions, universities, medical districts, interstate access, bridges across the Mississippi River. And so that's a location that creates a lot of potential, we think, for housing, employment, education, cultural tourism, business development. Proximity alone, though, doesn't doesn't guarantee local benefit. The plan focuses on turning proximity into access and into opportunity. At a city scale, The analysis looks at Project Connect within broader patterns of demographic change, so changes in housing, transportation, et cetera. The central takeaway is really that many present-day conditions in North St. Louis are not isolated neighborhood problems. They reflect citywide patterns of segregation, disinvestment, population loss, and uneven access to capital and to infrastructure. Just a couple of highlights from the existing conditions. These maps really show population change and density in relation to the planning area. Much of North St. Louis, as we know, continued to lose residents between 2010 and 2020. Lower density areas often correspond with high vacancy. And rebuilding population is gonna be important, not just as a numerical goal, but because stronger residential base supports schools, businesses, transit, and the stewardship of buildings and public spaces. Zooming into the Project Connect scale, the analysis brings the six neighborhoods together and the area covers about three and a half square miles, home to roughly 14,500 people. 14 parks, 10 historic districts, many major cultural assets, the NGA campus. Also, as we see, more than 3,200 vacant properties. So that combination of assets, challenges, and transformative investments is why coordination across neighborhood boundaries is something that's so important for this plan. So just a quick demographic snapshot here. The area has really experienced substantial population loss. It contains a lot of one person households, has an aging population. One thing we did a deep dive into looking at this report is vacancy. It's one of the areas most visible and most consequential challenges. The analysis identified approximately 3,200, well, I would say exactly 3,231 vacant properties, most of them privately owned. Vacancy, as we know, affects safety, walkability, property values, market confidence, and continuity of the neighborhood fabric. And the plan responds with different strategies for different property conditions, which we're going to see in a minute. But I think it's equally important to not define the area by vacancy alone. So these maps identify museums, churches, schools, parks, community gardens, arts organizations, neighborhood groups, historic sites. And so again, the project really begins with these anchors and asks how reinvestment can strengthen them. One other just highlight from our project analysis has to do with housing. The housing market is heavily weighted towards rental occupancy. 16% of units were owner occupied, 61% renter occupied, and 23% were vacant. Home ownership also has actually declined quite a bit since 2010. So the neighborhood scale chapters, I'm not going to go through all of them. I'll just give you a sense of sort of what we did, and then you could dig into the plan. But what we do is repeat a kind of consistent analytical structure for all six neighborhoods. So we've got a kind of overview here, which is a snapshot. It offers some photographs and building footprints and maps and all kinds of things. So, for example, if we look at Carr Square, you can see that Carr Square had 2,236 residents in 2020, saw 19.4% population decline from 2010 onwards. compact neighborhood with large connection of multifamily and subsidized housing, along with significant recent redevelopment activity. So these data snapshots really help establish the scale of the neighborhood and the need to support both existing residents and population growth. And with that, I want to now talk to our community engagement, the community engagement we did for the project, and I'm going to turn it over to Jessica, say a few words about that. You've got to scroll.

Thank you, Dan. Hi, everyone. My name is Jessica Payne. I'm with Key Strategic Group. We were the community engagement lead for this project. I'm also a very proud resident of the Project Connect neighborhoods and have been for over a decade. So this is a very special project for me. This was, as stated, a multi-year project. It started... From a community-driven process designed to center neighborhood leadership, create repeated opportunities for residents to engage in the plan. It covered two main phases. In the first phase, it was led by Civitas. That established the neighborhood planning committees, developed initial vision, goals, and objectives. And then the second phase was led by Interboro and KSG. And we revisited that work, re-engaged residents around it, tested those recommendations with implementation partners, identified catalyst projects, and then prepared the plan for adoption. Throughout both of those phases, we had more than 80 engagement activities, far more than a thousand residents were reached. Activities included public meetings, neighborhood forums, canvassing, open houses, youth engagement, pop-ups in all six neighborhoods, surveys, newsletters, stakeholder conversations, and many neighborhood association meetings. Across those phases, engagement was built by over more than three years. They established the foundation. The second phase, again, re-engaged the community. The third phase refined those goals, the catalyst projects, and started bringing those implementation realities to the forefront. We also added a funding and implementation framework near the end to actually show how all of the ideas that we heard could actually be implemented after this plan was adopted. And a lot of things that we heard in this process was transparency is really the key. We don't want to feel like we're wasting our time. We don't want this plan to sit on the shelf. And what are the creative ways where we can get funding to actually make this happen? I think we're still asking those questions too. So the Neighborhood Planning Committee were really the backbone of this process. There were 67 residents who were selected across the six neighborhoods. committee members reviewed goals, prioritized catalyst projects, helped develop equity statements, heard from implementation partners, reviewed zoning maps, and assessed feasibility and alignment with the city's adoption requirements. In these photographs you can see the committees at work. The joint meeting format that we had allowed all six neighborhood committees to come together and learn together, while also having neighborhood breakouts to preserve the ability for them to process and discuss place specific decisions and concerns and make those decisions that were specific to their neighborhoods. Open houses and pop ups were designed to meet residents where they were and create multiple opportunities to react to the draft materials throughout the project. The residents were able to map opportunities, discuss vacant lands and buildings, voted on desired building types, and reviewed goals and the catalyst projects as those were finalized. And we held them at sites throughout the planning area. Youth engagement, of course, was also important. We asked young residents what they wanted for their future neighborhoods to offer, things like recreation, safety, cleanliness, food, fun, belonging, and places to gather. There was almost always ice cream, basketball courts, and pools mentioned in these responses. The stakeholder conversations helped ground these aspirations and data, policy, feasibility, and potential partnerships. Agencies and organizations shared tools related to flooding, vacant property reuse, greenways, workforce development, arts, and implementation. So the team also met with lots of community organizations, cultural institutions, youth serving organizations and local businesses. These conversations identified existing initiatives and potential implementation partners, clarified what support local organizations actually need, and then surface policy and funding gaps that would prevent us from maybe reaching those goals. We use a lot of different ways to try and meet people and get the information out, ongoing communication, was essential to this transparency request. We had a website, social media, email, direct phone access, public-facing engagement summaries, newsletters, flyers, and neighborhood media that shared information and closed that feedback loop throughout the process. And now I'll turn it back over to Dan.

Thank you, Jessica. Okay. So I just want to pause here for a quick second to explain why this adoption is occurring a little bit later than it was originally intended to be adopted. The delay certainly didn't result from a lack of a complete draft. So we had a 100% draft milestone in August of 2025, then issued a revised drafts in October, November, December, and had a complete draft in January of this year. So at that point, I think we could have moved quickly towards adoption, but we decided not to in an effort to really get things right and respond very, very carefully and critically to feedback. We kept the review window open. We issued two more drafts in May and in August of this year. And so we just raise this to just underline just how important engagement it was to us and how important it was to get this right and to give this the time that it needed. To keep the review process transparent, we maintain an accessible comment tracker that everyone had access to rather than just informal notes or memory. So the tracker basically ties each comment to a planned page and a section, says who it's coming from, and then says, did we incorporate it or didn't we? And if we didn't incorporate it, why didn't we incorporate it? Mostly, always, we said, that's a great idea. We'll make the change and did. In some cases, we didn't, mostly because it was something that was maybe mentioned in the shared objectives. But we always had a record of all the comments. Nothing was ever ignored. And you can see just on this tracker alone, there's, I think, over close to 400 comments. And that's a testament to how great the NPCs were and how thoughtful and deliberate they were about this process. And we felt we had to respond by being equally deliberate and thoughtful and giving these comments the attention they deserved. But we, so after January, as mentioned, we issued two more drafts in May and in August so that the NPC could continue its review. Even after that August draft, we held a couple of dedicated one-on-one sessions with folks. And we did that on August 13th and September 3rd, very recently. And so, again, just to make the point that this is a very, very slow, very deliberate process. We've really taken our time to really, really get this right and respond as best we can to the many, many, to the great feedback that the community had. Okay. So let's see. Let's turn now to the shared project framework. And I just wanna say that at the center of the framework is a kind of straightforward commitment that reinvestment should strengthen the ability of residents to remain, participate, build wealth and benefit. So the shared themes include homegrown revitalization, cultural identity and belonging, so on and so forth. This equity statement was really instrumental to us. It was a kind of North Star for us as we developed the recommendations with the community. We had a market analysis that identified both strengths and barriers. You know, the area does benefit from proximity to downtown, the NGA, and all kinds of things. But at the same time, Suppressed values, high rehab costs, service gaps, substantial project funding gaps mean that public subsidy and strategic deployment will remain necessary. So we had a couple of other guiding principles, just kind of go through them very quickly. Be urban, repair the grid, support walkable mixed-use corridors, align with investments, coordinate the plan with the sloop, with the NGA campus, the planned transit expansion, the brick line, all that good stuff. Be strategic. We want to recognize you can't do everything. Let's be strategic about what we prioritize here. Restore and repair addresses both physical conditions and also the loss of trust created by decades of disinvestment and so forth. Ensure that development will have local benefits. This is a big one. Here we ask how large investments, the NGA, for example, can create direct benefits for nearby residents. And finally, be responsive means the plan remains rooted in resident priorities. And we're always open to continued learning. So, one of the main things that guided this plan was this kind of shared framework map. It's a kind of spatial thesis, if you will, of the entire plan, and it brings together housing priority areas, vacant and underused properties, mixed-use hubs, opportunity sites, connected corridors, and so on and so forth. I'm not gonna go through all of the shared objectives in the executive summary. We try to just basically emphasize how important housing stability and anti-displacement is, how important strategic reinvestment will be in vacant properties. So I'll just go over that. And there's a lot of, this is the format that we use in the presentation, in the report for shared vision and goals. where we have always a topic, a vision, and then goals and actions to support that vision. I'm not going to go through them all. There are quite a lot of them. We did spend a lot of time thinking about vacancy. As I said, that was... A topic we heard again and again in engagement that people were worried about vacancy. So what we tried to do is give a kind of strategy overview and offer the city a tool for how to think about when to do side lot transfers, when to do infill housing, when to consolidate and market for redevelopment. So we didn't look at every single property, but we tried to create a kind of a rubric, a decision-making tool so that the city can sort of think about what to do where. In this case, where might you do side lot transfers? What are the ownership types you might look for? What size properties might you think about when you think about this? Another thing that was really critical for us was to close the gap and to think about better connections to downtown. It's pretty remarkable how close Project Connect area is to downtown. And as we know, vacancy, industrial land, large blocks, and poor pedestrian conditions really create a physical and psychological gap. So one of the things we tried to do in the plan was create these of character itineraries that explain how someone might navigate the community now and how someone might in the future. Just to make the point that a lot of the things that you see downtown are very, very close to Project Connect and you could really imagine people taking a walk from point A to point B and having lots of things to do in between. This whole section is full of drawings and renderings that show some of what you saw in that framework plan. This is what we call a hub. It's where a lot of commercial connectors and transit investments come together. It's meant to be very illustrative, obviously. We also include a lot of illustrative site plans. In this case, Jefferson Ave between Cass and St. Louis Place. So that's a lot of what we describe in the shared objectives. I know I've got just about four minutes here, so I'll go quickly. As I said, the document is a whole bunch of shared objectives, and then we go into each of the neighborhood. And so I'm not gonna go through our recommendations for each neighborhood. I just wanna give you an example of the kind of things that you'll find in each neighborhood chapter. So if we look at Old North, for example, Their vision describes a place where creativity meets history and North 14th Street remains the beating heart of neighborhood life. The equity statement you see on the right emphasizes local businesses, home ownership, inclusion, support for immigrants and long-term residents, and growth that preserves the community identity. So for each of the neighborhoods, you'll find a summary like this. You'll find a kind of framework plan like this. In this case, this really builds from Crown Square, 14th Street, Jackson Place Park, historic buildings, Brickline Greenway, and all kinds of things. Really seeks to extend the momentum of the active northern blocks into more vacant areas to the south. This is just an illustrative illustration, illustrating a recommendation for Sass and Tucker, here treated as a kind of intersection and a gateway between Old North Columbus Square and downtown. This is a kind of long-term plan showing the revitalization of the trestle, how you might think about that. That was a priority identified by a lot of folks we spoke to in the community. We always try to, in the document, include a lot of precedents from around the world to show that we wouldn't be the first people in this case to be repurposing a trestle. And we always try to give some illustrative drawings just to show what those look like. And again, just showing you this, so you just get a flavor, the kind of thing that you find for each neighborhood. Now we're looking at some recommendations for St. Louis Place, including a revitalization of St. Louis Place itself. Yeah. Okay. So I know that I'm running out of time here, so I don't want to take up too much of your time. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of questions that you'll have. But I do want to just end by saying we do have a lot of focused sloop amendments and zoning recommendations to help implement the plan. As Jonathan mentioned earlier, when we dug in, we found that there were a lot of At times where the vision for the neighborhood didn't match the sloop and didn't match the zoning, so if you look through the plan, you will find many sloop recommendations, which we did our best to illustrate here, and zoning code recommendations, which we're passing on to the team, which we're part of for the ZOOP. And again, I'm not going to go through this in detail. My goal here is just to kind of give you a sense of what you find in the document. The last thing I'll just mention is there's a very, very robust funding implementation and adoption chapter for every single recommendation we have. As mentioned earlier, we look at who would the partners be, what's the timeline for adoption, who needs to be at the table, what are programs that might be available, funding programs. available to implement these various projects. So for example, this is just one example. If you're looking at the shared objective to strengthen and promote policies and programs that protect and keep existing and long-time residents in the neighborhood and minimize displacement, who are the implementation partners? What's the rationale for bringing these folks on board? What are the different sources of funding? And what are some specific programs within those sources? And we also provided for each thing a funding rationale Why do we think CDBG block grants are right for this? Why do we think home investment is, partnerships are good for that? So on and so forth. So in some cases, in some of the more built projects, you see phasing. So what do you do first? What do you do second? Actually, we did these for the catalyst projects. Each neighborhood has a handful of catalyst projects, which are priority ones. And for those, we did these phasing tables And okay, so given that I'm at 26 minutes, I think I will stop blabbing now and look forward to your questions.

We are online. Are you still there?

I'm here. I couldn't hear you. Can you hear anyone?

Your vote on opening the public hearing. Oh, hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Hi.

They're going on. We're going to have to move on. We're going to all right. Thank you. I'm going to be here. Do we have requests for speakers? We have some speakers who want to be here. I was saying that some people who want to sign on, they don't agree to sign on. You can come to the microphone here, but if you do need some assistance, we can always bring the microphone to you. Excellent. The first request to speak is Carolyn, is it Roston? From Columbus Square. There are. One of the second one definitely read it. I'm a member and I'm very passionate about this plan. We were really, really hard to establish when you know what that you would have been the way about. We're going in there and we're going to really take it into consideration. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is it Todd L.? And please correct me if I get your name wrong.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Chair.

Oh, I said please correct me if I've gotten your name wrong.

Oh, no, you said it right. Okay. Good evening, commissioners. First of all, I would like to thank the hard work that all the communities did in working on this plan because it's been a long, long process. Countless of hours, countless of days, staying away from our families, not able to be able to go to certain school programs for our children and grandchildren because we want to make sure that this process have an impact on our neighborhoods. Those of us that stay in our neighborhoods, rooted in our neighborhoods, committed to our communities. I'd also like to say that my name is Todd Hill. I'm a lifelong resident of the Cosworth community. I come out of the Cosworth Village that's ran by the Cosworth and Management Corporation. It's very important that the community know that the Cosworth Tenant Corporation does not belong to Mr. Rodney Hubbard. His organization was founded in 1969 as instrumental in the risk-right that brought about decent housing decent housing that gave poor people a voice at the community table to engage the housing and urban development to ensure that people, poor people, have a decent place to live. At that time, I did grow up as a teenager and struggled to make sure that people have a decent place to live. I just want to give you that context. Secondly, I would like to say that initially, we engaged in the Project Connect process. We first was in the So it's neighborhood is leading organization, community based organization in choice. And we thought that program would impact our communities. We gave time and committed all long hours, day and night working with every slide. We wanted to develop a leading program of that program. And the public rest of those who had the housing piece worked many long years to ensure that the car school be developed. Car school is one of the longest schools in our neighborhood. Most of us grew up in Car Square Village. Once that school is a legacy, it's a tradition, we love it. And we want to make sure that schools stay in our neighborhoods, stay controlled by us, so we can be able to make sure that we have our legacy intact. So we were part of that process. Lo and behold, the city let us down in that process. We were one of the developers to get Car School done. They was taken out of that process and a Chicago firm was brought in IFL in our place. These are some of the things we're concerned about. Now, in 2017, Mr. Oswill brings the Project Connect to the community, asking us to engage in this process. And again, we hope that this process will bring some truths of our language. Because we as community-based organizations love our neighborhood. We want to make sure our neighborhoods stay sustained, stay intact. During the Charles Statehood application process, you had Mr. Mark Lane, who was at that time the chairman of Urban Strategy, Mr. McCormick and Byrne, Mr. Richard Byrne, Mr. Kevin McCormick, and Mike Salazar, getting over $50 million of our money and have yet to be to come to the city of St. Louis and explain how did Urban Strategy do in that grant process. While 500 businesses in North St. Louis received $37 million, and they were not only critiqued in the paper, but critiqued on the Board of Aldermen floor of what they did and didn't do. These are the kind of inconsistencies that hurt our neighborhood. We asking that this plan be approved and that those of us that gave us our time, our effort, we have an opportunity to develop and sustain our neighborhood. That's all we asking. We asking for nothing special. As taxpayers, we just asking that the city of St. Louis give us an opportunity to sustain and develop our community. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, Mrs. Carla Alexander. Hi. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hello, everyone. Yeah, so the deaf and the hearing. Okay, thank you.

The general team encourages our plans to be adopted today. Because we along with our other names of many members from the other five neighborhoods. We have given great care, attention and effort toward this work. We really have. That's why we're the top thing. And so kudos to Mr. Jonathan Roper, And the team SLDC and everyone who, you know, has walked us through this process, which has been very eye opening and enlightening. And today, Jeff Vanderloo wants to submit this appendix. This came from Office Depot. These are all of our edits and changes that were submitted earlier this year. And I have to be honest, they were not in our main draft, because we're just so many to go over, but they're minor edits and changes. And so after this adoption, we just want to make sure that our Edison changes will be able to be allowed as amended, like the BRT will be. And with that, I say thank you again for your time. Thank you for coming to the William J. Harrison Center. St. Louis Community College, which is part of a trifecta. We have Dunbar Elementary School about to open in 2028, Gershon High School, and our college, three educational institutions across the street from each other. Thank you and welcome to Jeff Edelman. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Next, Mr. Richard Perry. You're carrying. We have the other additional.

We don't want to be sick. Did you want to speak? Okay. I don't want to be better. Okay, great. All right. All right.

And I'm sorry, it's a handwriting problem. I think the miles Washington.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

When can we get you a copy?

Great.

When will I get it? Why don't we just say when we get it?

I would get this going then. Tomorrow. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm on the Old North NPC. I myself live on the boundary between Old North and Hyde Park, which is a highly contested boundary. And so although I'm on the corner part of Hyde Park, I liaised with the Hyde Park NPC because I'm not officially a resident. This neighborhood plan has been really wonderful for breaking down some of the barriers between neighborhoods. Some of you may know who I am. I'm the person who sued Paul McGee up to the Missouri Supreme Court years ago. And we have never stopped fighting Northside Regeneration's blighting, wholesale blighting of our neighborhoods. Some of you may have known the late Freeman Bosley Sr., our alderman at the time. He did a deal with Paul McKee that as long as McKee did not cross over Branch Street, and then he would support his work. Therefore, Old North became very highly, the north part of Old North, impacted by the Northern Regeneration purchases, whereas North on the street did not. which created a bitter, horrible divide between neighbors, as happened on North Florissant when the slave administration agreed to cut the litigious people out of the regeneration tip in an attempt to silence the support, while the people living on the other side were subjected to ethnic cleansing, eminent domain, and bulldozing of their homes. Because the neighborhoods were then divided in what strategies to take with these different Um, governmental approaches to the destruction of our neighborhood. It created horrible divides between neighbors where, um, for instance, at the time I was the chair of the real estate committee and old North restoration group. And I was asked to step down from the board because I was going to play the key and they were afraid to do so. On the other hand, St. Louis place community association went all in. And of course, as you know, it was full dose. People died from the stress. A very good friend miscarried from distress. A number of men decided to do a hunger strike. A couple of them nearly died. None of this was covered in the paper because, of course, the Mayor Slay was on the board of the San Luis Post Dispatch, and we couldn't even get a letter to the editor. The Project Clear project initially, many of you were there. The first few meetings were highly contentious. We sat at different tables. People would not speak to each other. Um, some people were very angry. Um, some particular neighborhoods were angrier than others, and it was extremely contentious the first three or four meetings. Um, the, uh, consultants did push through that and, uh, Curtis and others from the SLDC got their game face on Jessica Kane and pushed through the, uh, truly horrible social situation. As things progressed and maps began to go up, we began to look at each other's maps.

I began to emote about those people that start talking to each other. We began to talk to each other so clearly that there were some of those crosses that brought people back together. I started attending meetings in other neighborhoods that I haven't attended for 20 years, and we've seen people come across that we haven't seen for 20 years. When I say it was a little bit like the Civil War, I'm not kidding because it exacerbated racial divides.

In 2005, the Fifth Ward was the most mixed ward in St. Louis. Old North Hyde Park in St. Louis Place was the most diverse neighborhood where Black folks and white folks were living on the same street and not moving away. And we had some folks move from Mexico. We had some folks move in from Asia. And it was actually like a stable diversity where people were happy to be in a diverse neighborhood and moving there for that reason. And the problem is, is that what happened with McKee, because the government, these different approaches to each of our neighborhoods, cause these horrible divisions. And truly, for my hard-jaded heart, Mr. McKee said to me that he was going to eminent domain my home was the last thing he did. I had not spent a dollar on my home. since I was at the Supreme Court in Jefferson City.

And because of Project Connect, I decided to spend money on masonry. Like, you know, we have to do in North City a lot of money on birth work. So I just want to say that this plan has been something that everyone has worked on together. And whether or not it's the best plan, it doesn't even matter. What matters is that we're working together. And we're talking to each other.

And then we have a plan now for Branch Street. We're seeing this place, Pine Park and Old North, all the green and what we can do with Branch Street and what we really want to do because we want to find the old rocky Branch Creek that was turned into a sewer 100 years ago and bring it back to life and create a green oasis and get rid of the crime and the gangs that have been there since Palm Key moved in.

because of his squatters living in his houses.

You could rename it all over.

One of the most horrible problems when you have somebody who owns a whole ton of property and not only abandons it, but refuses to do anything about it, you can't trespass anybody. You can literally have a serial killer, as we did, living in one of his buildings, and he will not trespass that person. So when we call the police, They said, there's nothing we can do because the owner won't trespass this quarter. So it creates these very, very, very horrible and tragic problems. Because of Project Connect and this plan being done, there's finally movement happening. JBL and St. Louis Place never gave up, never gave up, and have pushed all the way through with the NGA redevelopment ordinance. Those eminent domain cases are going through. Bobby Bonner goes to every single hearing, lets us know what's going on. And our plan now is, We're going to fix everything. 20 years ago, 20 years ago, things were really going in a good place. And yeah, there was a housing bubble and yeah, first and blah, blah, blah. But we're a bunch of rehabbers who are expecting to live on cans of beans anyway, so it wasn't going to be a big deal. Except for the fact that the city, the city planning commission, SLDC, brought this terrorist into our homes and let him burn us down. And we hated you all for it. Project Clear has actually I actually went into the SLDC offices and sat and talked to somebody at SLDC in a friendly manner. And I felt that I was being helped. I mean, I was kind of surreal. So the change has been a change of culture. It's a change of culture that we needed. And I actually have to thank SLDC for actually pushing through and making this plan happen. And as I said, Maybe it's not the world's best plan. Maybe it needs tweaking here and there. We've got this new rapid bus line coming through. We're going to have to make some amendments to that. But we have a plan, and we are talking to each other. And you should pass it. Thank you so much.

I think our last speaker is .. Hopefully, we have more. Never mind. Keep coming out. You're not our last.

Good evening, Madam Chairperson and Commissioners and all the people present today, including the team that worked on this project. My name is Belma Bailey, and I want to just share a little bit about myself. I am a 61-year resident of Jeff Vanderloo neighborhood. We were dislocated from the Hamilton Heights neighborhood to JBL, and it was very traumatic for us. but to see our neighborhood go from what it was to a viable living community, to people who care, who stayed, but a lot of criminal activity has been very devastating to us. And we're looking forward to some positive things coming from this. But I have some concerns and I'm glad that you accepted the changes that were submitted from our representatives from the Jeff Vanderloo neighborhood. who were selected to represent us and speak for us in our entirety. I was happy to meet the team, and I was glad that we agreed at the beginning of our conversation that we had different perspectives and writing styles, which included perspective, not only that, but vocabulary and ways of describing things that are lived experience and things that needed to be changed. Recently, our nonprofit, which is the St. Louis Torchbearers II, which has sponsored a summer day camp in Fairground Park for the last 15 years, a no-cost camp that runs for 10 weeks from 8 o'clock in the morning to 6 in the evening, and it's for children in the neighborhood. They're able to go on 30 field trips in 50 days. They're able to experience our swimming pool every day. And we have a host of more than 40 speakers that come in and train the kids concepts. But that tour allowed us to bring people into our community who don't have that same perspective. So they can hear our narrative. They can hear our explanation and they can hear how we describe how we live. Not how somebody went internationally and created something that looked like something that we have. What does it mean to us? How do we use it? when it's not being used by tourists and for gaining money and tax revenue dollars for this city. How does it fit our lived experience? Our representatives are neighborhood people. They're volunteers. So the opportunities that we have don't come when we can pay a consultant or someone to come in and write for us and submit papers to the city, to Jefferson City, to Washington, D.C., and other areas. We have to use the technology we have, and mostly it's mobile phones. We have to sit there and listen to people and actually write what they say and transcribe it. Then we have to somehow analyze that information and submit it to the proper authorities, and then we have to wait for their timeline to be able to tell us when we can submit it, how long we can call, and when the information can come back to us. And I want to say for my personal self, the things that I submitted didn't always come back the way that I presented them because we agreed earlier that the people who were actually creating the plan that were hired to do this had a different perspective. They had a different writing style. They had a different way of thinking about things than I did. And I don't want to say that the plan is bad, but I do want to say that it doesn't necessarily incorporate until you get to those volumes that were submitted, the thoughts and the plans and the aspirations, the audacity that we have to hope in our community for some positive changes. The timeline was interesting and it was described as though it were a way for us to present ourselves, but it really wasn't. It was a timeline for staff. Because I shared with you what we have to do to get information, call people, write it down, call back and call people. So we don't have a staff where we can say, secretary, create this, send this out technology-wise, do whatever means or medium that you do. And I really feel like the process may have been long and length, but it wasn't conducive to the way that we are able to work and to be able to receive our information. Connecting with residents takes time. It is very personal and it is transparent. And to be able to sit through, this was one conversation that came before me, but to sit through conversation after conversation after conversation like that and be able to be the representative and go to these meetings and then to be able to take all that information and try to understand it yourself and then get it back, it takes a lot of time. And the staff seems to think that there was a lot of time, but I really don't think it was. I don't want to say at this point, I do want to share this. I'm not trying to belabor the adoption of it, but I do want to see something in writing back to our neighborhood association and to the other people who were present about the process of how you're going to receive our perspectives that we wanted in this plan and how they are going to be considered in the overall planning development. Some of you guys know me, but some of you don't. I formerly had an opportunity to serve as a member of the Singles Board of Aldermen in 1991 to 1997. And I stand here today representing 500 children and their families over 15 years, more than 200 partners that we've had. Like I said, a 61 year lived experience. Our organization has received an award, a national award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for providing health equity in our community. We also received an award from the National Recreation and Park Association for being the best of the best of serving children in communities in a park with zero dollars and a lot of faith and a lot of people who believe in us. We've also, I won't relate to the list, but we also have 20 more awards that we've gotten from around the state and the city for the work that we're doing with children. And why am I saying all that? Not to pat ourselves on the back, but to say that we have a stake in this community and we want to be respected. We want our voice to be heard and we want to make sure that you understand that we're partners and partners walk together. You don't walk in front of us. And if there's a process, I'm sorry that we weren't able to talk about this beforehand, but there needs to be some actual staff that's assigned to the neighborhood people so they can be efficient and proficient in the work that they're doing, not using their own time. Our neighborhood chair went to whatever the place is she went to make copies, office people I apologize, and made all those copies. She's running around, doing all this, trying to talk to people. Unfortunately or fortunately, they still have a life. They still have to eat and do all the other things that they have to do. If you can write that down as a recommendation for the committee, not necessarily for our neighborhood, that all of these planning processes, the neighborhood people need staff and they need to be paid for through the same tax dollars that we're paying that these other people are getting paid with. If they have a career, they have savings, they have vacation time, They have hours when they work, they can turn off their lights and say, after five o'clock, I don't work if they want to, or I'm going to this hearing, so I'll flex in the next day. Our neighborhood people don't have those opportunities. And I do want to share that I did have a disappointment, but this one I want to share out loud. As we were presenting at this last hearing, I'm sorry, review, I got a chance to be part of it to make sure that the presentation pieces that I put in were understood from my educational background. But one of the staff members told the people that were representing us that they can put in information, but they had to include their names because it didn't necessarily represent the entirety. As they have been through all this process representing us, I think everybody was happy with the people who knew that was going on. But to be told at the end of the process, if you want to add something, then it's not going to be considered as a, may not be considered as representative of the entire group. It was a bit disrespectful. But I'll tell you the comment that we added, you know, like members of the Board of Aldermen go to the Board of Aldermen and they say they represent everybody and they're respected for that. But it doesn't mean that they necessarily representing and speaking the voice of every person. I would really like an apology issue to the people that that was directed to. And I am asking for you guys to allow us to continue to meet in some kind of formalized manner. And we would like to have the people on the commission consider and still can hear our voices and what we need and what we want. We think we have a very valuable piece, especially in the Lindle Park area, the area that's farthest north of the Jeff Vanderbilt neighborhood right down the bridge. And we have some really great connections with partners. And these are real partners with boots on the ground who've been at our park. Not a bunch of names that were put in a book that we don't even know who those people are, And unfortunately, during the meeting, when we were discussing why all those names were enlisted and why they were partners, we were told that we just picked some names of people who they thought could do things. We have real names. We have real people. We have real experience. And we have real connection. And we were told we couldn't get those people's names in the booklet. So I like to find out if there's a way to do that. But I do want to say that I know that your lives are busy, too, and you've taken a lot out of it. But I don't want this to be the end. It may be the end of a formal process for this adoption. But please continue to stay with us, stick with us, and give us a chance to give our voices respected. I really love the lady who came. I mean, she blossomed doing that whole presentation. And I think you're going to see our neighborhood blossom. I think you're going to see our city blossom. You know, we're one of the areas with the highest incidences of the most violent crimes. We have some of the lowest educational attainment reports that don't necessarily reflect the ability of the people. And I think some of these things you'll see that are coming out will do just like the lady that just left. So I'm going to say thank you again. I want to thank the Alexanders and all the other people. I don't know all their names. participating in this, but that was grueling. You know, so I don't think I have anything else to say, but I would like a letter personally, a copy of the apology. They were told what they were told. And I also like to have something in writing saying that you guys are going to consider our suggestion, I mean, our submission and how and

They all need to pay attention. Bill Chambers. I owe you time. You heard everything.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. We also had Eric Schultz. Thank you.

Well, I'd like what she said about the city blossoming and becoming vibrant again. My name is Eric Schultz. I am with 314 Development and Max Build. I would like to talk about this from a developer's perspective. Speaking as a developer, at least we are reading the plan. My partner helped develop the plan and the fact that we have the plan and have some guidance to follow in our development is absolutely fantastic. So as I look back here, I know that the Alexanders, I know that Ms. Bonner, and I'm sure others have been involved in this for the last nine years. And so thank you very much to everyone. Thank you.

Next is Bobby. Is it Bonner? Bonner, thank you.

Good evening, committee. And some of you I know and I work with. I'm a resident. I grew up in Jeff Vanderloo way back when the Cardinals was on grand here. So I'm dating myself. But there was a time when Jeff Vanderloo was economically silent. Every house was filled with kids. All the schools, Columbia, Dunbar, Blewett, and the other schools, we all were filled with kids. Labor was every house. And I learned construction down the street if you walk out this door about five minutes, that's why I named that, down Colby. And so it was a great time. And so in 64, when the Cardinals won the World Series, I not only saw Jeff Vanderloo, but St. Louis come together as one city. I saw the Cardinals come together. We rallied around the Cardinals as one team. And we were in Jeff Vanderloo because the World Series was played right in Jeff Vanderloo, right? And we were kids outside the stadium at that time. So I saw St. Louis and Jeff Vanderloo being a great place. And when I moved out, we were moving out of Jeff Vanderloo, I said one day I was going to come back and develop housing in Jeff Vanderloo. And so when the NGA committed to, building their facility, the campus here on Jefferson and Cass. I said, Chicago, bye. And I moved back to St. Louis in 2017. I've been working on this plan. I proposed to develop some housing then. I've worked with Sue, Marion, and Don, and Jonathan, and the Zoom, and . I'm on their planning committee. just been doing a lot of things to ensure that this day was going to happen. And we're here right now, and I'm just kind of just overwhelmed because the day is here that I spoke about, and I'm seeing it come to pass because I've seen some of the changes in SLDC, the leadership. And so I think right now we have a great team in place. I feel great about the people that are in leadership. I feel great about people that's on this committee. that you're gonna see this happen, to see North St. Louis revive and thrive again, and come to be a great city that makes St. Louis the great city that it is. And we are the gateway to the West. And that's for a purpose, is because we are the model that going forward, we should be the model to show the nation and the world what St. Louis was, what happened, and we resilient enough to come back and make it work. So I want to thank you, and I hope you consider this plan moving forward in adoption. And thank you for coming to Jalabandalu. We're proud that this happened in Jalabandalu. So thank you.

All right.

Next, we have Audrey Ellerman.

I'll be brief. My name is Audrey Ellerman. I am wearing kind of two hats. I'm coming on behalf of the Brickline North CDC president and being involved with Brickline Greenway. So we're really excited, but Jeff Vanderloo was my home. So it was St. Louis place. I claim the whole city, actually. I raised my daughter in JPL. I got my driver's license. I went to the movies there. We have a YMCA. We had a clinic. I mean, it was a thriving, as he said, beautiful neighborhood. So I'm excited. I was part of the North Central plan for my neighborhood because I'm a company with the Grand Center. So please, please, please let this happen so we can all join together. Because what's good for one neighborhood is good for all. And the city really needs an uplift. So thank you.

Thank you. I think our last speaker is Samantha Harris.

Good evening and thank you for coming. This is a wonderful opportunity to see this process take place. My name is Samantha Harris. I am a JBL resident. My family actually is a foundation for me because a lot of them grew up in JBL neighborhood, but I've also been a part of a few protests in JBL when they were talking about closing schools in our neighborhood. That was a really, a very challenging time. I am a public school student and I'm thankful that I had the best quality education at that time. So I'm pro public school education. And as a lot of people who are sitting here, they are also public school educated and are doing very well. I'm also asking concern for our plan We did put in a lot of labor and time. And as Ms. Bailey said, that we were not on someone's working schedule. This was dividing time between our own work schedules, our family, and our love, our care and compassion, concern for our own community. So I'm going to ask each and every one of you that when you're looking at those plans, remember, we are working to bridge the gap. And we're also working to bring in quality development. I was blessed as a young lady to see kids run and play down the center of the street Farragut, grade school, middle school, Beaumont High School, Central High School, Boys Club. I mean, there were a lot of things that were going on. Trees along the sidewalk looked like canopies. We had beautiful landscaping, green grass, no vacant homes. Every home was occupied. We've seen buildings that were very strong, structural buildings come to decay and rot because no one had any concern or interest in our neighborhood. And so when you're looking at those plans, remember, you're not looking at just the black and white on the paper. You're looking at lives. You're looking at communities. And then consider what you would want in your own community where you live. Consider what you want passing in front of your home, your front door. Would you want a green line Metro Lane train? coming down the center of your neighborhood? Would you want a 40-foot passenger or extended bus coming down in front of your home? Would you want the loud noises or whatever's going on? Things that would disrupt the quality and integrity of your neighborhood and your community. Think about wherever you live, would you want, you know, if you're able to walk down the street with the stroller, going to a theater or some event that's going on in your neighborhood, restaurant, what do you want in your neighborhood? So when you're looking at those plans, he said that it's not just six individual plans, it's the whole overall framework, but you are looking at people from six different neighborhoods who came together to share their vision and their plan. So just don't forget about us. Development is good and that's what we want, but don't let money and developers' visions become the vision for our plan. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much for all of the heartfelt comments. Really, really, really appreciate it.

Let's see.

Next week. Oh, sorry. Alderman Aldridge. Jake even reminded me.

Thank you, Jake, for that. I'll keep it brief. First and foremost, I want to thank the Planning Commission for meeting today. And I do want to go on record of supporting the adoption of these six neighborhood plans. I think majority of the residents that spoke today have said it very clearly. Residents have been meeting for over, you know, five, six, seven plus years when it comes to these plans and making sure that their community is part of the process and how they want to see that their community is developed. So while you all I look forward to hopefully adopting these plans, I do want to thank the residents that have been committed. to continue and to show up. I think Ms. Velma Bailey said it very clearly. Just like you guys are volunteers, the residents have been showing up for almost a decade to talk about where they want to see their neighborhood move. When you look at these six neighborhoods, honestly, I think These are one of the best top six neighborhoods in the city of St. Louis. They're very close to downtown. You can walk outside. Many residents can walk outside their house and see the arch. At the same time, a lot of these neighborhoods are primed for development. I think Ms. Barber talked about it as we've been fighting Paul McKee. While we want development, we want to make sure that we have responsible developers who's doing for the community. So I'll be remiss if I didn't just thank each resident that has been dedicated to ensuring that each of these neighborhoods have been left behind. Each of these neighborhoods of North of Delmar, and we know what North of Delmar means, gives lack of investment that don't have the same attention as other neighborhoods, but they've continued to make sure that they have a seat at the table because they want to see their neighborhood look just as beautiful, as great as many other neighborhoods. So I do want to thank the residents and I do look forward and just want to go on record, like I say, Supporting the adoption of these neighborhood plans. There's been so many people that's been part of this process from SLDC and so many others. Huge shout out to Curtis, who shows up to all the neighborhood meetings to make sure that residents are engaged around their neighborhood. plan like thank you so much Curtis but this is just a start and we do appreciate it and hopefully these plans aren't some that just sit on the shelf but actually become a reality so thank you to all the residents and just want to go in support of adopting these neighborhood plans did you want to speak as well yeah yeah we do need just a single quick yes

Thank you. We have a record of everyone who spoke.

I just wanted to ask any question. When is the price right? And when is the price going to be right enough for McKee to let all of us live?

That's the million dollar question.

That doesn't have to be answered right.

It's up there.

It's up there. All right.

I think that concludes all the remarks.

I have a motion to close public hearing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. The motion was Commissioner Fowler. The second was Alderman Sonnier. Alderman Sonnier. All right. Call for vote.

Previous role.

The previous will say any objections to the people. Thank you so. The meeting is closed now we can move into your discussion. Any comments or questions.

I just like my comment I think it's been outstanding to hear from all the neighbor. The process looks very close to you spend a lot of time you love your neighborhood is very obvious us. I think the plan is outstanding and I will totally support it. I do have one question, but we really agree.

The comments are being captured and the long list of comments in the back or will we review those. Yes, everything has been captured and

We, with the exception of taking the tracker, the comments that came out of the last meeting, which was just a couple of days ago. So we have committed to resolving them, but I think they're not in the tracker right now.

I know you had a comment part of this in the packet. It said like, there's some clarification that you made that that would be included in this motion. If we choose to adopt this, there's clarification that we made. So that's fine. I just want to make sure the comments, it seemed like they were missed. So I just want to make sure those are there. Um, I don't have anything to add. I was happy that developers talked about how this plan is used and how they look at it. I said one day, I always think about that, that stress to the public. Everybody does look at these plans. It helps them when they see a piece of land, they have something to put to and say, um, this is what we need to do. This is what the neighborhood wants. Um, do I need funding? Can I go look for this? Who can help me? Um, so I'm not going to be that horse.

Um, that's all.

Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else on this end?

I don't want to make the comment. Some of the commissioner Bradley say thank you all for coming together and sticking through this. I agree with the plan or you're not your ability to work together around the chair is the most important thing. I community transformation. Next week you might have to read to live. But if you have a relationship that was the same as I was.

One question, and I'm curious if there's been any data on this yet. So I heard from Mr. Bonner that when he heard about NGA moving into the neighborhood that he was enticed to come and develop in the neighborhood. I'm curious on any of the research you've done so far, is there any data to suggest yet? I know NDA is fairly new in terms of just opening that development patterns in the neighborhood surrounding it have changed at all.

As of the last draft, we didn't have any data to find one way or the other. But we're looking forward to seeing that data for sure.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, yeah other than that, I agree in it's a you know it's a big area, and I want to applaud the sldc planning team for stitching with this long long process, most of all the neighbors and the neighborhoods for doing that. TAB, Mark McIntyre, You know I think this is the first step of what is a long process and you've heard from many folks and. Um, Mr. Williams that, you know, it's going to continue to be a long hours from you all to entice the type of development. And, you know, we have the planning commission hope to do our part as much as we can, even though that's a very small part, um, to, to help you all with that, that they've been, um, but it seems like a good plan for my grandparents. First house was actually on the 2,900 block of St. Louis Avenue. Um, so. And as far as I know, the house is still there. So a little bit of personal ties to the neighborhood. But I'm excited to see what the next chapter is. Thank you. And I'll just echo everyone's statements. I'll keep my comments brief. I think the community is ready to hear the fate of this plan and move it forward. So kudos to sticking through the process. I know it was long. Congratulations to the SLDC team and the EA for getting it done without further ado.

Unless we have further comments online.

Yeah, maybe some comments online. Any questions or comments?

I would just echo what's been said already.

It's really inspiring to see the voice from here and also, you know, Mr. Amin, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander, so many residents that I'm familiar with. It's just so nice to see just such a good level of community engagement and that this plan has come from the bottom up.

Commissioner Armendi, any comments or questions?

Yes, thank you, everyone. Some of the questions I had were answered by the testimony that was given. I had wondered whether the long extension of how long this plan has taken had any impact, or, you know, how it impacted the process. And I'm so glad to hear that one of the primary benefits of planning is building community, you know, organization and building you know, building that up. So I was really happy to hear that that piece of it happened, because that doesn't always happen with planning as much neighborhood planning as much as we would like it to. And the other question I had was whether, you know, well, did everyone really agree with the end product? And so I was like, you know, I think it's actually an indication of of how seriously you took this planning process, that there is disagreement, because that means everyone deeply engaged and deeply care about the outcome. So thank you, everyone, for your efforts and working together. And I'm happy to be supportive of this and to pass this out today.

Thank you so much. I can't add a lot to the comments that have been sent. I think I'll be basically with Jake. Jake is always the elephant. We basically co-charting meetings, and he is always much more eloquent than I am. But I have to say, the comments tonight were so moving. My first job when I got out of grad school was with Home Neighborhood Services. So I care a lot about these neighborhoods. It's so great to see such a strong, strong voice coming from the community. And I look really forward to seeing this plan approved and implemented.

All right. Do I have a motion?

Oh, sorry. They're going to bring one up for us.

She's not better friend tonight. You could also just read it to us. So we have the proposed amendments. Well, actually before we get into that, I just want to know one last thing. One of our neighborhood planning committee members, Steve Patterson, he actually passed away during this process. And he was also from Columbus Square. And he was also in the planning process and actually had the tenacity first to actually say, what?

You're not going to do this? He went out and started measuring right-of-way lifts and stuff like that because he was so dedicated to the process.

So he looked at Steve and just walked person in the city of St. Louis, but we have other people, as you heard tonight, that are going to be working. So I just want to mention Steve Patterson and his planning process of the neighborhood planning. We've got the proposed amendments. So again, those were several that looked at the word-choicing, but also Number 2 which gets to what you're seeing from Jeff and we have been stopped and earlier in the 3 the up. You're going up in the suit of the zoning. The recommendation of the planning mission with this because there are two of the plans by the commission that repeal a plan for neighborhoods or and the job and the plan. And now the president are by a neighborhood person was but it's part of what we're looking for on the square are we're in that way and we're at the neighborhood plan on subject to those. I don't know if I can afford to supplement the way to be about it.

I move to approve.

Second all right the motion is by Mister Banton second by Mister Williams. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Mr. Williams. Congratulations. We're going to take a brief break right now. If people are meaning to move on for the rest of their lives, then we'll pick up the business in about five minutes.

all right good evening commissioners um i i will i have promised a lot of people i will try to move swiftly um so if there's anything that you think i haven't covered i've got a lot of slides we can reference them if questions come up Oh, I apologize. My name is James Pfister, planner with Planning and Urban Design Agency. It's a treat to see you all. It's a treat to be here. This item is for a plan unit development district in the Clayton Tam neighborhood. The purpose is to review and hopefully recommend the sketch plan for the proposed PUD. The eventual recommendation is that the sketch plan application for this PUD meets the conditions necessary for approval of the PUD and to recommend the approval of the sketch plan to the Board of Aldermen. As you all may remember that the PUD is a three-step process. It starts here at the Planning Commission with the review of a sketch plan. It is then submitted in board bill form to the Board of Aldermen. And then once that ordinance passes, then the developer can return to the Planning Commission for that final step, which is the development plan review. After that is approved by the Planning Commission, the developer can seek permits. This PUD is located in the Clayton Tam neighborhood. It occupies what is currently two parcels along Tam Avenue, just north of St. James the Greater Church. It is roughly a third of an acre, so not very large, but still there are some conditions on the site that make this process appropriate for redevelopment. Currently, on one of the parcels, there's a two-unit building. The other parcel is vacant. And to the best of my knowledge and research, the green space vacant parcel, which is 1324 Tam, has not had any housing on it, at least so far back as the 1920s. That's as far back as I went in the Sanborn maps. So the current zoning on these sites, both of the parcels are zoned A in the single family dwelling district. These generally are areas where single family homes, some institutional uses and two family homes in certain cases are encouraged and permitted. There's also, as you can see, a collection of nearby F neighborhood commercial district zones. This is sort of the southern end of that wonderful Tam Avenue commercial corridor in the heart of Dogtown, which I learned is not a neighborhood. It's Clayton Tam. Dogtown doesn't exist. That's a joke. This is a glance at the site plan for the proposed PUD. The developer is proposing to put five townhomes on these two parcels. Two of them will back up to Tam Avenue and three of them will be at the back of the lot. They will all face an interior shared driveway. All of the units would have sort of tucked under garage on the lower level. This is what the units would look like. This is technically the rear elevation, but this is what would face the two units that would face Tam Avenue. Although it's the back of the house, there's still an entrance on the house facing Tam Avenue is what the front of the houses would look like. I attempted with my meager Adobe skills to overlay what the site plan might look like in the existing neighborhood. So there's the five townhouses overlaid with satellite imagery. And then once again, without the satellite, but you can still see the building footprints. It's fair to say this block. and much of the Clayton Tam neighborhood is eclectic in its design and its layout, the materials that buildings are made out of, the siding of buildings on lots. It's quirky, to say the least. Lovely, to say the most. I wanted to glance at a couple of recent PUDs because this neighborhood, also Franz Park and High Point, I've seen a lot of PUDs in the past 20 years. You know, that's the sign of a pretty robust housing market there. This first one is called Dogtown Walk. It is 12 units. Similarly, these are attached townhomes, three units across or three units per building, four buildings. More recently on Fairmont Avenue, just Southwest of the proposed PUD, this is five much larger townhouses that sort of cascade down the hill on Fairmont Avenue. Now the sketch plan application, which you have in your packets must meet three conditions, three criteria for approval. We're gonna go through each one of those and then get to some comments about adopted plans. The first criteria that a sketch plan has to meet is that the value of the buildings and the character of the property adjacent to the area would not be adversely affected. This is a pretty relatively straightforward, small project, five new units in a relatively strong, well-performing market. The surrounding uses to the development site are all low density residential mix of single family, some two family, and also some low impact commercial along that Tam Avenue commercial corridor. As I stated, the design of the adjacent structures are, they vary wildly. Widely, not wildly, it's all homes. The site would have a private driveway with parking, required parking on every parcel itself. So we don't anticipate a lot of spillover effect on the adjoining neighbors. The apparent density of the development, it is a little higher than what we see in the immediately surrounding parcels. But it's worth noting that the two parcels together are about 13,000 square feet total. So on the five eventually to be subdivided parcels, each parcel would be greater than 2,000 square feet, which is currently the minimum square feet in the A district in our zoning code. So staff considers that this first condition is bad. Second condition is that the proposed development is consistent with the intent and purposes of the zoning code. It's low density residential with plenty of appropriate space for parking, access, minimal interruption of the public realm. And of course, we're all quite familiar with the city and nationwide shortage of modern housing options. The eventually to be subdivided parcels are all appropriately sized for single unit homes. And this is a modern housing type that is consistent with a lot of the recent new build construction across this neighborhood and Frans Park and High Point. So staff consider this condition to be met as well. The third condition is that the proposed development is consistent with adopted plans. There are no previous redevelopment plans on this site. And staff reviewed the application against the 2025 strategic land use plan. The sloop designation for the site is lower intensity neighborhood. Most of the places in the city where lower intensity neighborhood was mapped out was in areas where there is no driveway. That's because if you don't have a driveway, there's really only one way to access the lot. So we say lower density on those parcels. Driveways and curb cuts are appropriate because there's no rear access to these parcels. And that's sort of why on the sloop map I've got up here, there's a lot of very light yellow, which is low intensity, yet across the street is medium intensity. It's because a lot of the blocks surrounding the PUD have alley access. This is the only neighborhood district where new curb cuts and driveways are actually allowed and encouraged to help facilitate new development in blocks without any alleys. There's an increase in overall density on the site. Right now, there are two units on two parcels, but eventually it will be five units on five separate parcels. So while it does look like, wow, density is really going up from a parcel by parcel basis, it's still one to one. And the additional housing units are almost always supported by the sloop pretty much anywhere, especially on vacant lots. So that's a benefit. So staff considers this condition to be met as well. Now, it is not lost on me that we are in a transition period between the strategic land use plan being adopted last year and work right now to update the zoning code. That code likely won't be adopted until late 2027. So we have this interregnum that we're dealing with. We can't just halt development. It's worth noting that the lead consultants on the Zoop, Code Studios, in their memo about how to address this interim period, encouraged the staff to use this PUD tool wherever appropriate or wherever it makes sense. Because in a different time period, we might have told the developer, just apply for your permits and try to get a variance. But at the same time, we are trying to encourage less variances. And we also want to make sure that we are achieving good development that is more in line with this loop and hopefully with the new zoning code. So this process, the PUD tool, affords a little bit more certainty than leaving it up to the Board of Adjustment and the variance process. I also wanted to note that the PUD tool will persist, most likely, all of this is in draft form, but the PUD tool will most likely still exist in the new zoning code. In fact, a draft of the administration section of the new code includes a planned development district tool that is highly similar to the current PUD process, but we believe tightened up a little bit ensures a little bit more flexibility back and forth between departments and the developer themselves to make sure that the product that we're getting is most in line with adopted plans. I threw the site photos in here. They're also in your packet, but we can refer to these if anybody has any questions. And before we move to commission questions and answers, I wanted to ask the petitioner, the developer herself to come in case she wanted to share anything about the project. So I'd like to introduce Anastasia Brown.

I'm Anastasia. I am the developer, local St. Louis city resident. I live on the Hill, moved there about 15 pounds ago. Yeah. I've been going to Dogtown entire life. As of right now, with that vacant lot, big fan of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Went there last year after acquiring the property, and I was like, I wonder, I hope people aren't messing up the land or the house that sit there. Realized it was being used as a public restroom for everybody on the parade, pretty much. But I think this project is to supply people The demand. Everyone's looking to have newer updated housing. I've seen it personally on the Hill. Smaller homes get bought out, torn down, and larger homes get built in place of that. This is a great tool or a great way in order to supply five new units using only two parcels, which will eventually be subdivided into five separate parcels. Yeah. Thank you.

Because this is his only related item, there's a public hearing associated. So like to open that.

If you're online, please go ahead and just All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. So our plan right now, we're going to have trash bins and

currently have an easement for maintenance. There'll be an easement for each parcel, basically for the maintenance of the driveway to upkeep the greenery.

It'll be an easement between everything, but... Yeah, into that shared driveway.

That's our goal as of right now. Really?

Well, we live on a dead end alley across the street from you. And There are two giant balls that you can see down in the sewer. They keep throwing asphalt and they keep sinking because we've been in a damaged area. He's got to go home. Yeah.

And that's a great question. It's also something to...

I've seen it. I can't see it.

Nick said... Definitely don't want potholes in the shared driveway on my end. So definitely reconsider that.

But... Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's not, we're not walking. You don't have to walk a half mile, quarter of a mile. It's a few hundred feet.

Space?

It's like having a front lawn in the front.

What about the back? Back's up to that little house.

Same thing. The two property owners, it's all an easement. They'll be taking care of everything on that side of the sidewalk. So city owns the stuff on the opposite opposing end of the sidewalk.

John? It lives in walls. I don't remember. Maybe he got mixed up with me mentioning the three townhomes in the back and then the two in the front. Yeah. Oh, he's right behind there. Yeah, yeah.

yeah i think i did if i'm correct it's there's a 19-foot setback of the between tam and the front of the first buildings and between the rear buildings and the property line yes there's a decent chunk of green space on either side of the building three the questions in the room or comments

I have today, but next meeting, definitely.

I do have a quick question. Equipment permission.

I don't want to speak in a good way, but if this moves forward, I have a board of law, and I don't want to call it here. I'm going to sit here and talk.

They live up the alley from me.

I live directly across the street. I'm just curious about the trash pickup also. It's green. There.

Tax is going to go up on each by several units. How's this going to work? Parking is an issue anyway. I can't even park in front of the house. Monday, especially Wednesday through Sunday, can't park. Got businesses in downtown. You can call it Clayton's M-1. 50 plus years. It's downtown. Their concerns, my concerns. Trash pick up and backing out of the trucks. It's bad enough, don't back me out down the alleyway. Now we're going to have another trash truck kind of back out of that onto the street with cars parked across the street. How's that going to work out? Going to be in problems with that. And I'm sure the next meeting will probably have. Thank you.

Thank you. There are no more questions. So move. Mr. Miller. Second. The injectors you previously rolled. Right. Commissioner discussed. I want to know if there's this rendering of the street facing.

Yeah. Oh, there it is.

Yeah, so that is the back of the townhome, which faces TAM. Balcony's purposely there for the parade. Tam. And you still have access into the home if you look in the bottom right side. No, we've, it's not my goal. Yeah, grass will be right near, underneath the patio. So keeping greenery at the same time.

On 1320, which is where the two-unit house is, is that correct? Yes, the multi-family. That building is built pretty much right to the property line. The building right to the north of it is set back 20 feet. So these buildings will be much closer to being in line with that existence.

Wait, what is the construction?

I'll probably add more as we go through the line, maybe, probably not. I think in general, we all like density. I think the city, everybody wants more density. We have vacant lots, so we wanna use those lots or homes that are underutilized. So we want this redevelopment. I just have a couple of questions. I see this layout. I know this is just a sketch, but from my experience, there's a couple of things that are a little problematic. I know that after this piece, it goes to Board of Aldermen and you'll come back if everything goes to plan and you'll come back with a more detailed plan. But I do want to bring up a couple issues that I hope you take note of. We talked about the trash. I know that's probably going to be an issue. Do you know if there's going to be an HOA that maintains the area or what's the plan for that?

It's going to be separate easements for each property. So an easement for... think i had a draft of the easement included but um basically each unit is responsible for a portion of the driveway up to a certain point until they meet and then each unit needs to have the rest of them the rest of units as insured as well so it's going to be a an easement for each parcel each unit with the the

So how do you subdivide the lot?

Right.

Gotcha. Right. I know you're not aware of this, but parking here, it's in Dogtown. It's three stories. Do we know how many bedrooms there are going to be in each one?

Three bedroom.

So we have three bedroom houses. The parking is really skinny here on this plane. I know it's a sketch. It's 16 feet wide. If you have a garage going there, do you have two-car garages?

Two-car garages.

Two-car garages, guest spots out front. Okay. You have to look at that. It's going to be really tight, especially with steps there next to your own. Just be concerned with that. We have the trash, I don't know where you're going to store the trash again, so if you have a lot of dumpsters, that might be an issue. I'm not going to go down this long list, but I would definitely look into conceptual utilities, getting the city water. now you're going to need a meter for each unit or you're going to fit those. I think you might have a lot going on for these two parcels that might not fit. So I would really look hard at your conceptual drawings and make sure you're with your architect, your engineering or surveyor. Make sure you get all these people in the same room. There's a lot going on here. I want development, but I want to protect you and help you protect yourself because there's a lot of issues that might not get so out once you get everything kind of you know, detailed out. A couple things along the frontage. People assume that you're going to do some type of planting, landscaping on these. Right. I would make sure that you're improving that stuff. You have a curb cut, which I understand, but some tree trees or something to kind of bring this in line with what we want to see as a healthy environment for our environment. Docktown is strong. Plate Town is a strong neighborhood. But we don't want to, like, curtail our rules by saying, oh, you're good on trees. We want to see that stuff on its plans. Again, there's no alley. So getting to the back of these properties, there's a four-foot space between the property lines that works. Well, if there's a plan that gets it at the landscape, we'll put it back there to mow these lawns to our fit. We don't know if there's going to be a fence. There's going to be perchments. So again, mentioning this stuff, you see the detailed drawing and we have the same concerns. I don't know if some of us on this commission are going to be supporters.

Right.

We don't want something crappy.

Right, right. It's not the goal either.

I think that's it for now. Utilities, trash, parking. I think you need to sit down and look at some of these things with, you know, work professionals and get in the room and kind of settle anything. That's all I have for now.

Commissioner Fowler brought up a lot of the same things I had questions about. I'm an older person, so one of the first things I think about is how the neighborhood has been included or not included. So have you been attending neighborhood meetings? Have they given support?

I mean, I went around to about every neighbor around there. Their house is to the left of the project. Even... I don't have the plans pulled up there, but there's a neighboring house that his garage literally backs up right into the back of... Yeah. This house right here. So, discussed everything.

Yeah.

And honestly, that was the one that I was most worried about because these three lots right here, this is literally his backyard. And right. But he didn't have any opposition at the time. So I went around to even these neighbors houses here, just introducing myself, making sure people know that it's a local person working on it. Nobody wants to see a big old time developer come in. Maybe they do, but just like a local person wanting to help out with this development.

What are they going to sell for?

Well, that's not even... We've got to get it built first.

Give me a roundabout. We did close a club on the pier just a few days ago. But nobody ever said it's for a ticket. No, nobody ever said the dollar is for a ticket.

Do you have a plan to sell it? All right. And then we become, well, you know, I guess you can't tell, but it will be rentals or Airbnb.

I mean, it's the goal is to sell them. The question is on timeline. I have had long-term rentals on the Hill. I don't do short-term rentals. I think long-term tenants, especially with Barnes and WashU nearby be beneficial, but my goal is to have, a couple of them sold off within five years. So I'm a real estate agent as well. So once five properties go on the market all at once, it doesn't create a sense of demand for it. So the goal is to, year after year, list one for rent or for sale.

Wow. I don't think you're doing it. No, so you said you have other properties that you own and take care of? Yes, on the hill. And all of those are up to date on taxes, no code violations? Right. Yeah, I'd love to, as missionary followers, I would really like to see some of the landscape plans and how you'll beautify the site. That is important to me.

Another project, thank you. Another project, too. We did a redevelopment of an old motel out in Herman, Missouri. So this isn't the first development or anything like that. Definitely the first PUD, but goal is to be an asset to a neighborhood and not a pain in the ass to everybody. So, yeah.

Thank you.

I have a lot of the same concern about civil engineering as well.

And I think Commissioner Fowler explained a lot of things going on there with surveyors, engineers, by the city. Yeah. So I do have a lot of concerns with that, which way it's set up. I guess the other concern I'd have is with the one stacked in the back, how does that set up since you don't have alley access if you had to have a fire truck go in there? How does the fire truck get in there? How does the fire truck turn around? Fire trucks that have a 110-foot ladder and go back up very easily. Right. Yeah.

I mean, I have been in contact or trying to get in contact to get better guidance for the finalized version in order to meet all of that, especially with the fire department. I know that was one of the bigger question marks. So for the finalized development, hoping to answer those questions and have those questions solved.

Okay. That's all right. Yes.

So you mentioned these are for sale units. Are we re-plotting these two current plots in order to facilitate sale?

How is that working?

So basically the development process, right now there are two separate plots. We're going to combine them, build them, and then separately plot each townhome.

Okay. And so then is that going to be like, you're splitting the driveway down the middle and technically each person's going to have, I know you said there would be easements, but in terms of like the actual piece of property that these folks are going to eventually own, how is that? Are you, how are you managing?

Pretty much the driveway entrance is going to be a part of this lot's easement here. So the entrance into the private drive is going to be a part of this lot and then split right down the middle. And then it's passed on through sale and I think I mentioned that each unit needs to have the other units listed as insured underneath the easement.

Question for staff, is that generally included in these types of that you have the planning on here?

It's not specifically requested in the Sketchplane application.

That seems important for something like this, at least to me, and how that it's eventually going to work. My other question is in terms of the setbacks that are listed on here, how does that compare to what the current zoning requires? And especially the front setback, this block is a little bit unique in terms of having parking lot, but across the street and a block down there's road houses on 10. What's the current setback of those?

Actually, I might ask one of our colleagues from the zoning department because I don't know offhand a district setback.

Are you asking about to the north? Front and side are setbacks in the east side. So closer to the house.

I'm sorry.

So in a district generally, the front would be that average building line.

There's like a six foot brace Facts.

It's a total of 10 feet on both sides, on each side of the building. Five feet and five feet or four feet, six feet. Then you asked about rear as well.

Sure. The rear setback will be 25 feet in a district, but I know a big part of why we encourage Anastasia to do

the PUD is that with the ideal density here, it just would not be possible by any other means.

Yeah, I'm not as concerned with the rear setback. I'm a little concerned about the side setbacks. One of the reasons is access to the current property, as Stan mentioned. Also, the front setback I want to make sure is aligned with the main

predominant predominant zoning map that was shown there are some uh f district parcels to the north um so those actually wouldn't be typically included in a building line analysis um literally would not so it all has to be within the same zone history got it um and then another question um maybe for uh

the developer is you have included here some drawings of the front and rear elevations of the building, which differed a little bit from the renderings, which are nice. I think these could be really nice. They look like pretty nice developments. My one concern is with these facing Tam Avenue, you want those, even though they're the rear building, to look like they could potentially be the front of the building. And on your sketch that we have included here, there looks to be a root parapet that, um, is on your renderings that is not included. Oh, that's the backside. I see. Okay. That's what I'm getting confused up here. Um, so I think that is that plan to be like a slow fruit with gutter on the back there. what that is just a flat room but um to me if that parapet came across the back side that would really help that feel more like the front of the building as opposed to the rear of the building and um i guess a question for james are these elevations included as part of like a requirement for the sketch plan or is it just the plan itself so that elevations are requested Um, cause that would be what my one sort of, I think the elevations are nice. My one request would be to have that hairpin on back to help that feel a little bit more street facing. Um, I share the concerns. It's a real, I like the density. I share the concerns about the tightness of the site. Um, but at the same time, I've seen people get really creative with how they park their cars. So I think my big concern, though, is how the planning is working on this, though. And I'd also want to confirm the front setback elevation with the rest of the rest of the buildings. Pardon me, Commissioner. I wanted to correct myself. The elevations are not required in the sketch plans. They were requested by us to do. Can we require that? Can we make that a condition of approval? All the questions I have for now.

All right, moving to pressures online on Sunday. The question the comments.

And no questions.

And for sugar mania.

Uh, no questions. This is, I like, again, I like the density as well. Um, you know, having been, it's kind of like East coast density, um, with the townhome style. Um, and so I'm not as concerned with parking though. I had the same questions about like how trash would work and, and that kind of stuff. So, but I, I, I'm sure some of those, um, Questions will get answered by the time this comes back to us. And so, yeah, thank you so much for answering all the questions.

Thank you for all the questions. I just appreciate the attention you did pay to the street phase. I was almost surprised to see what they realized as far as facing the other units. It's just a nice addition for the neighbors.

I have a question to staff.

Do we put, is there, do we put, or do we just make recommendations as far as like things we want to see? And before you answer the question, I have three things I think that we kind of all kind of, I'll start with this thing. I think that we kind of, we don't need to see a full recorded plat, but I think a draft plat with cross-access easements, is what I'm calling them, for the trash and the parking and the droning lots. I think I'm going to add one for myself, and that's conceptual review from MSD. I want to see what they say about the sanitary laterals. Is there going to be a storm in the middle? Does that need to be an easement? Does it need to be a utility easement? And then I say utility, some type of confirmation that there's coordination there. Getting service from SPIRE, Ameren, where are those services going to go, especially city water? I think we need to make sure that we're setting it for success. And I think if any of those kind of balk at this, then We have bigger issues. So in three year, my three that I'm looking at, I don't know how to label that last one with like utility and conceptual review, but anybody else have anything else?

I would like to exclude the draft elevations, include that as a condition of approval, not necessarily that they're exactly like that, but in terms of overall fenestration, placement, and the one comment about the roof parapet. That would make me feel good about that.

I think I'd like to see some from fire things are trash. Yeah, it's acceptable. I'm really concerned about that.

And I can say it's like the utilities, maybe you say. Utilities like this fire fire service. All right.

A little bit of a complex notion.

How would you like to think about that?

Oh, you got it right. Well, James just might know about that, as you might be familiar with that.

There were three things that James handled that really well in terms of translating that. We all work together and James translated that very effectively into the ordinance and that was passed, and so I think some conditions, this is on by the way, because it would create them so. So I think some things could be conditions that are built into the ordinance itself things that are kind of physical and objective and then sometimes to be an expectation of coordination prior to. the development plan submittal.

In fact, I believe all of the conditions that we placed on the most recent VUD were expectations of what showed up in the development plan itself. So on top of the actual requirements of the development plan, we had access and accessibility and sidewalk and landscaping, things like that. And you mentioned landscaping earlier. There is a requirement of a landscaping plan in the development plan, but if there are specific things you want to see on the site, it's worth mentioning those now.

Street trees are the, it has the recommendation for street placement, so.

Right. I think we I can't.

I just want to know does the city have a requirement when you start to end the project and the duration time duration.

There's something in the ordinance specifically. I mean, this can't go on for five years. She can get back to again.

All right.

So I need a motion. Who wants to try to crop that? We're looking at you, Mr. Fowler. Mr. Fowler.

Mr. Fowler. Mr. Fowler. Mr. Fowler.

Mr. Fowler. Mr. Fowler.

get longer. I was trying to say the facade.

You got this. I got that one. Okay. All right.

I just want to say that.

All right. I move that the Planning Commission finance the proposed 1320 and 1324 TAM and UD sketch plan to be in conformity with the St. Louis District land use plan and recommends approval to the City and Board of Aldermen with the Following conditions.

My spending here is number one. The conditioner provides a draft plaque with cross access easements. Illustrated. Number two.

The conditioner provides utility correspondence with city water.

City Trash, Spire, Ameren, and MSD. Thank you. You mentioned street trees and setbacks. Landscaping and streets. All right.

And inclusion of the draft elevations. Yes. And inclusion of the draft elevations. With modification of the roof parapet as part of the sketch plan. That's my motion.

I'll second. OK. Moved by Commissioner Fowler, seconded by Commissioner Bradley. Commissioner Bradley. I'll promote. Commissioner Davis. You know, right. I mean, I mean, I mean, yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, In the room or. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you. We've been.

All right. You're welcome. Absolutely. I like that.

Well, that's about it.

It's just a lot of fun.

So the next step after the ordinance would be for review. That approved is only for 18 months, unless the start to that. So if the start doesn't start, then a future development plan. I think only that a future development plan would come back before the commission before being approved.

The broader or just sort of that are in charge when it yeah. And there is a good thing about it. Thank you. Thank you guys. All right. We look at it and that we have 3 more and I don't know what's going on. I don't know what I don't know what I don't know what Maybe that 60 that right now. Reaction. My report will say this. Over 200. The October one. Retiring about. The Commission meeting 14. A lot. So I hope we can work on another time. I'm done reminding.

Thank you, sir. John, thank you for your tireless commitment to our city. I think that we are a better city because of you.

No, no.

Well, so we are now going to move into the, we're changing the agenda a little bit, moving into the review of the amendments to zoning.

All right.

Okay, great. And I'll just note that the chair, vice chair, and I have already started a discussion about moving the meeting to October 21st, because certainly want that to be something Director Rowe can participate in, and hopefully a celebration of his service to the city as well. So quickly I'll present now the third review of amendments to the zoning regulations for data centers. There were three substantive amendments made by the Board of Aldermen, but one of those was accepting the commission's recommendation regarding language clarifying school building. And what that entails, so only two of those substantive amendments now require commission review. And I'll briefly present those. There were two. Both of these are on kind of the same topics that were discussed by the commission at the last meeting. meeting on August 12th. So flexibility for adjacent data center uses in mixed-use districts, and then that waiver process for renewable energy requirements. This flexibility for adjacent data centers in mixed-use districts is regarding kind of these buildings that fall within the 300-foot radius of an existing data center downtown or in the H district. So not just any data center downtown or in the age district but these that would be within this radius roughly a city block downtown the planning commission's initial recommendation was a flat 30 cap on data center uses in addition to provisions for the ground floor active use so the board of aldermen's previous amendment um was to have no cap on building use for a data center conditioned on an agreement with the city detailing community benefits and use of 100% of net leasable ground floor square footage for active use. This amendment allows for up to 50% of the building use for the data center conditioned on use of 75% of the net leasable ground floor square footage for active use. So a lot of words in there, but the big changes are a little bit less flexibility. This 30% could be 50%. If a little bit more, the ground floor was used for... active uses. So our evaluation of this, and by the way, I should acknowledge and express appreciation for really the tireless work of the sponsor and co-sponsors and commission and so many other people in addition to big staff team in this process and in the kind of final development of these amendments and kind of the many conversations that went into them. So I think our evaluation of this is that this does resolve the technical and administrative and legal concerns we raised about the previous version of this kind of conceptual amendment. It's a significant improvement in terms of alignment with goals for preserving space for active uses downtown. Because again, what was previously amended was, you know, this could be up to 100% condition on those other items, now just 50% condition on a simple, more measurable item. And it does provide some additional flexibility. I would say this kind of builds on the framework for a modified amendment that staff brought forward on August 12th, but strengthens it. And again, credit to many other participants in this process for that work. Amendment five regards that waiver process for renewable energy requirements. These are the requirements, as you recall, and if the focus is on really encouraging bundled renewable energy, or I should say requiring bundled renewable energy credits, limiting the number of unbundled renewable energy credits. The previous amendment established a waiver process through BPS with a five-year renewal timeline. A few other moving parts, but that was the big concept. This new Amendment 5, same number, still the waiver would be issued by the Board of Public Service, but It incorporates that two-year renewal period that staff recommended, because in that time, meaningful new renewable energy supply could come online, and we don't want to miss out on that. It also establishes a lot more process clarity for applicants and for the city in that process, and it builds in a lot of technical and expert guidance to the Board of Public Service, which I hope is helpful in addressing both the concerns raised by Commissioner Bradley and by the public in ensuring that outside third-party reviewers, as well as the city's Office of Sustainability, have a direct role in providing guidance to the Board of Public Service in evaluating these waiver requests, which are very technical, and we don't want them to be granted when there's not a real valid case for them. And also there was some language added similar to the staff recommendation that the waiver, any waiver granted should only cover the shortfall and available renewable energy supplies. So say someone says, I can't make the 50% requirements for bundled renewable energy credits, but in fact, they could do 40%. We wanna make sure they're doing 40% minimum instead of just kind of having that requirement waived altogether. So our recommendation, happy to answer any questions, is that the Planning Commission affirms both amendments. It's my understanding that the Board of Aldermen plans to vote on a final version of these regulations Friday. So appreciate the Chair's flexibility in reorienting the agenda, given our time constraints. Welcome back, August. Awesome.

No, we're, yeah, we're not.

Well, so any questions, comments?

Say a few things. So this is a process of the board bill moving through to the Board of Aldermen through the legislative process. You know, I voted with the Commission in the last meeting to reject the amendments that were made by the Board of Aldermen, and that did move some aldermen to want to find further compromise. So I think that your direction and the input that you've all had helps to shape the conversation and move this, I think, piece by piece. That's okay. Closer to, I think, what you all would have wanted to see. So I really appreciate you all really standing firm on what you believed was the right recommendation from the planning commission, because it did help move us along at the board to, I think, a better place than we had started with after the previous amendments were made. And I think, you know, every alderman that is voting for this, I would agree with that, I hope. You know, we had 13 yes votes on perfection, which was really fantastic for the data center regulations, only one abstention. So, you know, it looks like this is really set up to pass on Friday, which will be great and a long time coming to get these regulations in place in the city of St. Louis. So I appreciate everything that you all did to get us to this point. And I'm happy to also answer any questions about the Board of Aldermen process or coming up with these, you know, further amendments. And I hope that you all support them at this time. Thank you.

Questions, comments? Oh, go ahead. Or Sonia, sorry.

I just really want to echo all the women Schweitzer said and number one just say like i'm actually really appreciative of the Commission's rejection of the amendments, the first time. I think it's really representative of if the people were to vote on this, how they would have voted, and I think, for me, it was just refreshing to be reminded of why we have boards that are set up with majority citizen appointments because. You guys don't have to weigh all the things that we have to weigh on our other side. And I'm going to always remember the moment where my constituent who serves on the commission looked at me and said, Alderman, that sounds like a you problem. I appreciate that. It's very say with more like it is why I'm honored to represent them because we are in such strong alignments. But, you know, I would say to that end, I still appreciate you all stance. And I think that his take on that was actually exactly correct and what needed to happen. And, you know, it did give me and all the women Schweitzer a lot of support to go back and have these conversations and kind of push the needle. And for me during this whole process, I at least, you know, I realized early on we would not land where we are. ideally had in mind, but I wanted to go to bed at night knowing that we had done everything we could to get everything we could and to, you know, make as many, hold as much of a standard as possible. And I feel like you guys really put us in position to do that. But I would also echo kind of what I said last time that, you know, hey, the votes are there. And so it has kind of been said, even on the floor that, you know, regardless of what happens today, the votes are there to vote it through. And like my concern was really that I felt like some of those original amendments were just very harmful and really took us outside of the scope of what the original intentions were that was recommended by the professionals and by the staff who have been working overtime on this. And so I don't. I love every component of these amendments and they are not what I individually would put forward. I think as far as the legislative body, this is probably about as far as we can get. And I really hope that every commissioner knows that you guys helped us to have a line and actually gave, you know, again, I think me, Alderman Schweitzer, a lot of support to go and have other conversations with our colleagues. And even though this is not kind of the original framework, it still is some of the toughest regulations that we have in our country. And being that we are going to have other data centers that seem to be up for discussion, I think it's imperative that we get some clear standards and expectations on the books. And I'm really nervous every day that we go by and we have not officially have something that's third and final pass and on our books and that is a standard. And so that these things don't have to be negotiated on an individual basis. basis and i also just want to take this opportunity to to really thank all the women schweitzer for her leadership on this um i've gotten to see it in all the spaces both on the camera and off the camera i've gotten to be a part of the 50 gazillion meetings that you have with all the stakeholders um and i've gotten to see her um just really be to in my opinion like a champion for the well-being of people and for our environment and to really roll up her sleeves and dig in deep and not quit or, you know, stop when it gets frustrated, but really stick in there and do the best she could and be a true leader. So I'm really thankful for her leadership and I'm really thankful for all of like Miriam and Alicia and just, you know, all the staff who have worked so hard on this. I am like incredibly proud of you all and you all have been next to the residents who have just an unyielding spirit to stick in there. You all have been the best part of this process. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments. Commissioner Garmendi, anything from you in terms of questions or comments?

No questions. Yeah, it's definitely been an interesting process. I think it's the most back and forth we've had between the Board of Aldermen and the Planning Commission. And, you know, it's been interesting to try and translate like that. And I, for one, am someone that does not believe that the Planning Commission has to agree with the Board of Aldermen at all times.

um and i really appreciate uh everyone's independent thinking on on this topic yeah so um i just wanted to echo what older woman sunye said about especially about the staff time that you all took to this because i can only imagine when you have two very i mean more than two all the different passionate groups coming at you with their different needs and wants it can be mentally physically exhausting and you know it's it's been exhausting for me just going through this many planning commission meetings for this long talking about this so hats off to you I want to thank you know I think both Alderman Schweitzer and Sonia your interest in this effort and being able to you know push for some of these things that we think were and also, you know, very thoughtful, and I appreciate your thoughts on that. I do want to put on the record that I do think that our original recommendations for some of these limits I think are better, but I also recognize the fact that It is important to get regulations on the books and this isn't the end of the conversation. You know, these can always be brought back up at a future date once we get to see how they're working. And we have some proposals that hopefully will follow some of these initial recommendations. So I'm looking forward to that. All right.

On that, do we have a motion?

I make a motion that we affirm both the minutes to the zoning regulations for data centers.

I'm sure it is.

I'm going to say there is not a public hearing sorry is it the ball game.

We had we've had a return on it.

It's only on the meetings and reporting with people don't It's a really big situation. I understand that that means you're never going to make it up your mind, but this isn't right. It's not right.

Commissioner Brantley. Aye. Commissioner Barnes.

Aye.

Alderman Sonnier. Aye. Alderman Schweitzer. Aye. Commissioner Miller. Aye. We're going on. We're going on. We're going on. We're going on. We're going on. We're going on. We're going on.

We're going on. We're going on.

important to do it all right now we'll move into the smoke shops test amendment so they have presentation again all right that's not no no i do wonderful

All right. Good evening again, commissioners. James Pfister again, PDA. This is a proposed zoning text amendment related to smoke shops. This is also one of the annual priorities approved by this body in April of this year. The purpose is to both define and regulate smoke shops as a discrete use in the zoning code. Staff is recommending that you find this text amendment to be consistent with city's comprehensive plan and recommend it to the Board of Aldermen. You have the draft board billing your packets. The goals of this text amendment are pretty succinct. One, it is to prevent the swift permitting of this newly defined use of smoke shops under 3,500 square feet by defining them as a use and then making them conditional in all of the districts where they currently are permitted by right. This will allow city staff and the public to provide additional review and input when this type of use is seeking a permit. It will also allow the city to revoke that permit should the operators not comply with any of the conditions or become a general license. Smoke shops are a use that I'm sure we all can identify. They're all over the city. They are generally Pardon me. They're generally relatively small. I'll get into why that's important a little bit later. I indicated the size of some of these recognizable smoke shoves. but I want to talk about how they're currently regulated. This is an issue that's sort of pervasive with our old code. Modern uses are not defined in the code and therefore we lack some regulatory tools around them. So right now the smoke shops, which we'll get into the definition of, proposed definition of in a moment, smoke shops are considered general retail and a general retail smaller than 3,500 square feet is permitted by right in the F district and above. F is that light pink neighborhood commercial. It's around and in all of our neighborhoods and all of the less restrictive districts above it. Well, old city that we have, most of our smaller retail spaces, especially in older existing buildings, are well under 3,500 square feet. So the proposed regulations will do two things. One, define what a smoke shop is. It's in your packet. It's on the screen as well. But what's important is these are not to be confused with a convenience store or a grocery store or a gas station that sell tobacco products, nor a licensed marijuana dispensary. These are businesses that are specifically designed to advertise and sell tobacco products and tobacco paraphernalia. And then secondly, the text amendment would simply add this newly defined list, smoke shops, to the list of conditional uses in the F, I, J, K, and L districts. Because of the sort of cascading nature of our zoning code, we don't need to put it in the chapters for the G and H districts. Conditional uses that are in the F district are automatically conditional in G and H as well. That's why my alphabet is missing some letters. There are a series of benefits to making this use conditional. There are many business types in many districts that require conditional use hearing. This means that there will be a public hearing hosted by zoning officials. The zoning officials make a recommendation to the Board of Public Service, who ultimately makes a decision about that conditional use permit. And often there are a list of standard conditions included on that conditional use permit. Board of Public Service can approve or deny it. If approved, the business has to comply with all of those conditions or face the revocation of their permit. That is a regulatory tool that doesn't really exist for permitted by right businesses. It's very difficult to encourage a business to seek operations if they are permitted by right without some sort of lengthy documented history of nuisance conditions, other city violations, and considering how understaffed many of our regulatory departments are, it would be nice to have this additional level of regulation for this type of use. But if a conditional use permit, just like any other use, is denied by the Board of Public Service, the operator can always appeal that decision to the Board of Adjustment. The Board of Adjustment, in weighing the variance, may place additional conditions on that permit. So because it's a text amendment, it applies citywide. We take a look at the strategic land use plan. Kind of tough to say whether or not this sort of very specific text amendment is consistent with the strategic land use plan, but there are some elements that help us out. All of the SLU districts are supportive of retail, especially those that, and I left my quotations off, but detract from the urban form and sense of safety for residents and visitors. What we're trying to do is get out in front of nuisance conditions, illicit activity, noise, loitering, flaunting of zoning laws by having this conditional use protection. So the strategic land use plan is generally supportive of ensuring that businesses contribute to the urban form and sense of safety for residents and visitors. We want everyone in our city, including our businesses, to thrive. There is a precedent for regulating this type of use in our zoning code. In 2020, the Bevo Special Use District made smoke and tobacco shops conditional. Also, the Dutchtown Special Use District in 2022 severely limited the types of businesses that could or couldn't sell tobacco products, although they didn't use the conditional permit process. It's clear that the community had a lot of strong feelings about this type of use and this type of business in their neighborhoods. Also, it's worth noting that the current draft use table for the zoning upgrade lists vape slash tobacco stores as conditional in all mixed use districts, but not permitted by right anywhere and not permitted in the neighborhood districts. I handed out to those in the room a draft list of standard conditions. This wasn't in your packet and it won't go in the ordinance because typically the set of conditions on a conditional use permit aren't included in the code itself. But this is an example of the draft standard conditions that staff in partnership with the problem properties unit and other departments have compiled that we think would be appropriate as sort of the baseline conditions on any new smoke shops. It pertains to hours of operation, signage, loitering, lots of required posting about who you're selling to, indicating that you are not a licensed dispensary, where your trash is, how you're managing that. internal monitoring, external monitoring, cameras, fire, life safety alarm systems, things that you wouldn't think you would need to write down, like don't become a public nuisance and follow our noise ordinance. But these are all things that assist with our regulatory staff in identifying these problem businesses and giving the extra tool saying we can revoke your permit because you are in violation of our noise ordinance, as an example. So I'm going to throw the condensed proposed text amendment on the screen so that we can see those. And I would ask that, you know, without any preliminary questions, open the public hearing.

Okay. In second. All right. Any objections? All right. The public hearing is open. If you're in the room and wish to make comments, please make sure you are. Your name is listed on the feet on the counter over here. If you're online, please make sure your name is listed in the chat.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All right. All right, let's start with Matt Cleary. O'Leary. O'Leary, sorry.

I'm a lawyer. Well, thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. I run the Washington Avenue Community Improvement District downtown and an organization called Downtown Ford. They've stopped to become the bane of our distance. We have bought McEasyMate, which you've probably read about, for about a year and a half, and it finally closed on May 31st. It's we never ultimately got to see where it is. We did have the police conductive by and it turned out they were selling illegal phca above 3%. That was open in condemnation that resulted in an appeal for building appeal that was not approved. And the city ended up not condemning it. The reason we were able to address it was because the landlord couldn't lease their spaces otherwise, and filed an unlawful detainer action, which we funded, and that ultimately resulted in the abatement of this horrible business after a year and a half. We've started the next action against the successor, and that's going to take a year, year and a half, and we likely don't have a supportive landlord in that case. I also note that the dragon smoked out north of downtown has resulted in three homicides, and free shootings than farm shootings. These are romanticists, and it's because of the drug activity. Basically, even if the vape shop is not selling illegal marijuana or THCA violation limits, they are providing drug trafficking. And it sets up these micro markets that are actually big markets. So we need tools. This is a great tool. I appreciate you guys providing this tool. But I would encourage you to think about these conditions. Evan, from the zoning staff, has applied to me a condition that is often applied to grocery stores, gas stations, and convenience stores, which prohibit drug paraphernalia. I don't see that on the list. I'd encourage you to consider the application of the same drug paraphernalia standard. That would be a huge tool to be able to take.

Thank you. Do we have anyone on line. They want you to close the public hearing. So the second there is no second but all of us right there is no need of this role. There are no objections of the meaning of those. All right.

The conditions that you look good for just an example. And you know, zoning will add those typically like they do recommend the BPS. So it was really stated the one about drug paraphernalia that can certainly be added no problem.

Yeah, we're not going to need any action at this body to clarify that. But you know, we've got some except there.

And I would definitely agree with that kind of definitely be there.

I would say in the I represent the Bebo Community Improvement District and there was a smoke shop that was allowed to open because they didn't know that it was conditional in that zoning overlay and then we had to go through this whole process closing it and then they applied for conditional use and it was a whole mess meanwhile they were you know selling and you know we've had we've had smoke shops in the ward have to get shut down because they were selling drugs this is a regular issue with smoke shops and having a standardized process throughout these zoning districts will make, I think, everyone's job a lot easier. So we don't rely on these zoning overlays, but instead it's baked in. I'm interested to see how that translates to the zoo. But I think that there shouldn't be smoke shops really allowed in the city anywhere that are allowed without these conditions. So that is something that you know, I'm really appreciative of this conversation.

I just like to say, I have, as a citizen, I just have little faith of, like, the enforcement of conditions. I mean, I've seen it happen time and time again. So, I mean, it's kind of like, sure, but, like, if we don't have enforcement in T, but, like, enforcing these rules or actually closing places down, then, I mean, this is another piece of paper. Sorry, that's all I had.

I'd say a lot of our ability to enforce is on the front end and having a good application process. You know, with so many of these conditional uses, the neighborhoods, the people who live right around it, the older person, the staff recommendations, all of those things preventing bad actors from going in do a lot. Of course, you're right. There's no silver bullet once they're open you do have to enforce it but a lot of these things there's more of a checklist here um to know that you know it would need to get shut down it would it would have reasons to have be shut down um which is different than you know having to i had a felony at one of my the smoke shops in my ward and that was you know finally what it took to shut down the building and you know they were had a billboard posted on on broadway saying that there were marijuana lounge it's like you don't have those You know, so just like things like they're just very obvious things that were wrong that, you know, are outlined in here that I think would be helpful before it becomes a, you need to have a felony on the premises, you know, so.

And I will say VPS does revocation hearings a lot. And generally, I would also say the Board of Adjustment generally follows our lead. But then keep in mind that they can go to circuit court at the Board of Adjustment. So there's always... another appeal above and beyond awesome Board of Adjustment.

Just one curious question. Does the city's smoking ban apply to these shops or is that they're a Yeah, so no carve out.

I mean, this is we're creating these as a new use and we're not considering any

Yeah, there's a pretty detailed like exemption process for like a scar line or something like that or a bar that makes a lot of revenue from smoking like pretty involves none of that.

Thank you.

Okay. Alderman Sonnier, anything from you?

Yes. Not surprisingly, they will also sound a lot like all the women's choices comments. I had a situation less than, I think, four months ago, right on Jefferson. We had a smoke shop and it had been an issue and we had to report it and It was a huge issue until there was a literal shooting that occurred there. And then I ended up being there up until 3 a.m. and working with the police department to get the building built. And the question I got from a lot of constituents is like, you know, we don't really remember the process of this being approved. And so, you know, I think that what is good about this Texas is not a flat out no, but I've had, you know, serious concern. I have to keep my eye very close as an alder on the agendas because they fall into general retail. And so you may not necessarily be notified that is a smoke shop that is, you know, operating. I'm lucky to have, uh, you know, to represent a ward that has a lot of active neighborhood organizations. Some of them have development chairs to have community improvement districts, just a variety of stakeholders, uh, that I can work with to keep our eye on these so that these things don't come into a neighborhood or into the community and we're unaware of what it is but I've also had experiences where because of the I mean it's not defined in our zoning code and it falls under general retail a lot of times you know I've noticed that they can slip through the cracks and I've even had instances where constituents and wards that are not the seventh reach out and ask me you know hey like I saw you oppose this one here is there a way you can help us here so I think it's you know, also good to have things in our codes and in our laws so that it doesn't fall on individual like aldermanic oversight or other groups oversight, but just a general standard. And I also think it's dangerous whenever you don't have a definition for something that can have such an impact because if there's not a clear definition, there may not be clarity on what the possible outcomes and considerations could be for considering those projects. So I'm very supportive of this initiative. I look forward to adding myself as a co-sponsor when it makes its way to the Board of Aldermen. And I think this is a improvement that will really help all over the city, if for nothing else, that there's true transparency into what is actually being proposed, as opposed to kind of slipping through the cracks and not having a clear definition for what it is. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Garnier? No comments. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Could I have a motion?

Second.

I missed who that second was. You just reviewed the staff, the recommendation and what not.

OK. Oh, we're moving.

Second.

Move by Commissioner Davis. Second. Second by Alderman Schweitzer. Any objections to approve the approval? Hearing no objections, motion passes. All right, next one. Let's see. Fairgrounds Park, plan for permission to advertise for a future . Are there any people who are online?

Any of them who may come here? Not that I see, but I'm not sure. Good evening, Commissioners. Please, to give a very, very short overview of the coming attraction to the Commission meeting, which is the completion and eventual adoption of a master plan for Paragon Park. This master planning process began over a year ago. It was jointly led by the Board of Public Service, the Parks Department, and Paragon Park for All, which is a nonprofit established a few years ago to help support the care, maintenance, and improvements within Paragon Park. This planning process began by taking a careful look at a 2006 master plan for the park that was potentially completed but not adopted by the city of St. Louis. It still had a lot of, I think, useful information as a starting point. There's been several rounds of public engagement that has been full Paragon Park Forever and city staff, Paragon Park for All, and city staff, as well as the consultant teams have been involved in. Paragon Park for All has really, I think, shepherded residents of the community to participate in the planning effort. And they have also been already doing some events in the park that have become annual events over the last couple of years. The folks involved in this planning effort are pretty eager to get this over the finish line. But they still, so the draft plan is essentially finished. But they still have one or two more public. In fact, they will be doing in October. It's kind of a final, you know, a final check with the community for bringing the plan to the Planning Commission. At that presentation, I expect that Eric Wilkie, who's a member of Mr. Bradley's staff, will introduce the project. We'll have the planning team has been involved with the project in the presentation of a full plan. And I'm sure representatives from Fairground Park for All will be involved in discussing the planning work they've been doing. When adopted, this would join quite a few park plan city heads from our largest park, Flores Park, some of our smaller parks, like Clifton Park. And this plan certainly takes some of its cues from elements of the forest park basket plan and it's not like a park master plan. So there's going to be recommendations for physical improvements to the park, but also the management structure for the park. And in the process of doing it, thanks to PPS, we've been trying to find a way to solve some of it. But I'm sure one of the things that we can have from this panel is major parks, farm parks, groundwater parks, and down the road. We'll have a management plan to adopt by the Planning Commission, and very importantly, Sally Cohn and Brian Lawrence, who are involved in some of the farming projects, which have been quite inspiring for them to come forward to help do this experiment. Exactly. Um, here's just one slide from the job plan. Um, so the recommended action is that the planning commission approves, uh, providing public notice, adopting presentation from the public hearing to consider the adoption of the urban parks plan, make this update, supplement the city's business comprehensive plan, and a future planning commission meeting.

So moved. Second.

Second. And it's all right.

Yeah, it's just pretty good for that. I'm hearing no objection.

Motion passes.

Thank you. And that concludes our business. Motion to adjourn.

All right. Thank you.