Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, I'll now call to order the May 29th, 2026 meeting of the St. Paul Planning Commission. First order of business is a roll call. Caroline?

Commissioner Groh?

Present.

Commissioner Hackney? Is excused. Commissioner Holtz? Here. Commissioner Johnson-Becker? Commissioner Martinson? Here. Commissioner Presley? Not here. Commissioner Riley? Here. Commissioner Starling? Here. Commissioner Taguia? Yes. Commissioner Thomas.

Thank you. Next up is approval of the May 15th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting minutes. Do you have a motion on the minutes?

So moved.

Motion by Commissioner Holtz. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Riley. Is there any discussion on the meeting minutes? Seeing no discussion, we'll move forward with the vote. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? I'll abstain. I wasn't present at the meeting. All right. Item passes. Next up are public hearings. And we're going to have 1759 Selby, the nonconforming use, come up first. And we've got Nellie Jerome here to speak on this item.

Morning. All right. Good morning, chair and commissioners. So this is a change in non-conforming use permit for 1759 Selby Avenue. Here is the location. It is in the Union Park District Council. It's on the corner of North Wheeler and Selby Avenue. It's a long sort of north-south property in the building. covers the entire property and fronts on Selby Avenue. This would be the surrounding zoning. So there's some other businesses. The interesting thing about this lot is that it's a split zone. So the north portion of the lot is actually H2 and the southern two-thirds or so is B2. So that's why it would require a change in non-conforming use. It is proposed to be, oh, sorry, the change is from a finishing shop, which would be wood finishing furniture construction. There's some solvents used, and there was a furniture shop there for about the last 20 years. And then the proposed use would be a limited production and processing. So the plan is to have a tea brewing and bottling space in the center portion of the building and then sort of an artist or a maker space in the northern portion. This would be the layout of the building the right side is the south side so that fronts on Selby and that would be Retail it's just a continuing use of what's already there and then the center part of the building and the north part so the blue and the pink Would be the tea brewing and then the pink is the makerspace proposed So the change in non-confirming use permit standards all four requirements are met and I can read them off, but I think you all have them. And staff does recommend approval of a change of non-conforming use permit from finishing shop to limited production and processing at 1759 Selby Avenue.

Thank you. Do we have questions for our staff? Commissioner Riley.

Thank you, Chair. Two questions. One, Ms. Jones, can you go back a slide?

This one?

Yes. So can you just state for the record a little bit more about the traffic generated by the proposed use being similar to that generated by the existing use? So I'm specifically thinking about the furniture finishing as compared with tea brewing and

Makerspace? No, I guess. Oh, retail? Bottling. Bottling.

Right, bottling. Because I think if I understand correctly, that's the actual part of this remodel, et cetera, that is the non-conforming use. The retail use is conformed to the district.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, the traffic generated is similar. The furniture shop had, I think there were three owners. The tea brewing is proposed to have one employee involved. the retail is TBD but you know it's not a change so there's nothing required there and then the makerspace would you know have two or three artists perhaps but that's also TBD so it's just the one employee at the the tea brewing and bottling.

Can I ask one follow-up question, Chair? Thank you. That's very helpful. And then, so what I hear you saying is that the three owners of the finishing shop are really the only people with vehicles going in and out to use that pre-existing non-conforming use, besides maybe a couple of customers talking to those folks, because it's not an intensive employee-driven use, nor is it a retail use that has constant traffic in and out of the door. Is that correct?

That's correct.

And then the one person brewing tea and bottling it, same sort of situation.

Yes.

Thank you very much. Yes.

So maybe that is helpful for other folks, just because, you know, reviewing the letters, one of them had comments about business use and shipping doors and some of those things. Can you just clarify, I know you sort of did already for Commissioner Riley, but sort of how staff would respond to the content of that letter related to the zoning, the proposed change?

Sorry, what was the question?

Just based on the letter of dissent, I just want to clarify staff's position on that related to the change. They're commenting on things like the shipping door, which from my understanding would be something that would already be part of the, have I?

I have not seen this letter.

It came in at the end of the day yesterday.

We're talking about this letter?

Yeah. Sorry. Commissioner Hulse will bring that up and we'll just take a second real quick.

Thank you. Oh, wow. Oh. Chair, maybe while she's reading. So if we understand this correctly, the This sounds like, and just kind of an internal discussion, just to chew up a little bit of time, this sounds like a lot less intense use in some aspects than the, well, I don't know if it's less, but maybe similar, right, to what existed in the past. I don't know who I'm asking that question to, so I guess my thought on this is right now is that it's pretty, seems like a pretty benign use overall, and it seems like it goes well with what's in the neighborhood, so.

perhaps Chair, Mr. Durby could tell us what some of the uses that are allowed by right in the B2 district are while we're waiting for Mr. Rome.

Thank you, Commissioner Riley.

One moment, please.

Sorry, you're waiting on me.

Let's hear from Bill.

Some uses that are allowed in B2 include general retail, service business with showroom or workshop, dry cleaning or commercial laundry, potentially a garden center with a conditional use permit approval, tattoo shop, vet clinic. Bar, restaurant are B2 types of uses.

Thanks, Bill. Nellie, are you comfortable responding?

Yeah, I think so. So let's see, the letter states that there's construction and there's a shipping door. My understanding is that there's there is existing shipping doors installed in the building already I Think yeah, I mean, I think that that I understand the the struggles of this neighbor But again, I the the use is the proposed use is Less intensive than the previous use so I you know, yeah, I empathize with but I don't think that the change in non-confirming use permit hinges on this letter.

Wonderful, thank you. Are there any other questions? Commissioner Tagg, yes.

Sorry i'm chair, I have a question for staff when we're assessing a use and the intensity. Are we assessing the use based on literally the activity that was there versus the activities planned, or are we thinking about it kind of in more abstract way like in theory does this use generally is more intense than the previous years. In other words, if we had a furniture finisher here who was sending out one shipment a week, and we had a tea brewer who was sending out 50 shipments a week, or has that planned, should that be something we consider on our decision, or is it more about, generally speaking, a furniture finisher, and generally speaking, a tea brewer would have this level of intensity?

Chair, Commissioner Taguioff, I think I would look at it as the general use because the previous use, we wouldn't have kicked them out if they had more deliveries. They were furniture finishing. They could have continued to do that. Same with this if it's approved, unless you put a condition otherwise. If it's approved for this class of use, we would continue to allow this class of use.

That's really helpful. Thank you.

Chair just follow up on that question and I guess sort of part of is do we need to think about the most intense use possible with this type of zoning or just because we're using a non-conforming use we don't have to be as concerned about that I know sometimes in these meetings we talk about when we rezone this we shouldn't just be thinking about the business that's going in there today because we've sort of changed it for all time but this is a little bit different than that is that correct?

Chair, Grill, Commissioner Holst, I think if it matters to you, the intensity, and you would approve it if it was a certain level of intensity and not another, then you should consider findings and conditions along those lines to limit it to what you think would be appropriate. So if you don't think it can meet the findings without conditions, then add a condition so it could meet the findings.

Commissioner Riley, then Commissioner Thomas.

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Durbody, or Ms. Jerome, in the analysis, you discuss when limited production and processing are first permitted, which states here T2, and I think generally the city and the way the T2 zoning district is written, that is more restrictive as stated here than B3, where finishing shop uses are first permitted. Can either of you tell us, answer either of these questions? And if one of the answers is we don't know yet, that's fine. When we are reviewing, I think you're undertaking a zoning study of various districts and streets and looking at them for T2 and looking at the T districts. Will you be looking at when and where permitted uses, whether that will change? And that might be the question you can't answer right now. And then the other one is, can you tell us where other B3 districts are in relationship to this one?

I'll handle the first question while Nellie looks up the second question. So, Chair, Commissioner Riley, the question of what the permitted uses are in the T-districts is not a core part of the upcoming study. It's more of a matter of where the T-districts should be in certain corridors in the city. I don't know that that precludes a tweak if we found it necessary, but that's not a core purpose for that study. Thank you.

And the second question was where are similar uses, where are Bs?

Yeah, if I wanted to find a B3 zoning district, where would I go to find one? Ideally somewhere in driving, you know, 15, 10 minutes of this site, but I have lost track of where the B3 districts are.

You know what? I could dig around in the map, but I don't think you want to see me do that. I am not sure the closest B3 district. I did not zoom out. Yes, this is all B2.

Yes, I understand.

But the use itself is first permitted in the B3. The finishing shop was previously here, is first allowed, not in B2, because that's why it's non-conforming, in B3, which is for more intense uses. And so I'm curious about what the neighborhood character is around B3 uses in comparison to this one, since the imagined intensity seems to be the concern.

Mr. Germany.

The closest P3 to here is about a half mile west-northwest at the intersection of Marshall and Cleveland.

Thank you. So a similarly mixed-use area, but perhaps fewer residential properties close by.

That corner has more intensity than this area. Thank you very much. That's very helpful.

okay all right um so it sounds like they're we're wrapping up questions here for staff um so we're gonna switch to the public hearing and i'm gonna read that script now um very smoothly all right uh this is the public hearing portion of the agenda planning commission decisions on most types of zoning applications including conditional use permits non-conforming use permits site plans and variances are final decisions unless appealed to the city council PLANNING COMMISSION DECISIONS ON REZONINGS AND MASTER PLAN APPLICATIONS ARE ONLY RECOMMENDATIONS TO CITY COUNCIL WHO WILL MAKE THE FINAL DECISION. PLANNING COMMISSION FINDINGS MUST HAVE A RATIONAL BASIS BASED UPON THE ST. PAUL ZONING CODE AND APPLICABLE STATE AND FEDERAL LAWS. TODAY WE ARE HOLDING A PUBLIC HEARING WITH THE FOLLOWING RULES AND PROCEDURES. AFTER I READ THE ITEM, We heard a staff report, and then I opened up the floor for commissioners to ask questions of staff. The applicant will now be given an opportunity to speak about their request and answer any questions from commissioners. After that, I will open the public hearing on the item. All testimony and questions should be addressed to me, the chair, and related to the proposal before the commission. If you're a member of the public that would like to comment on a specific item, you may do so by standing between the two center microphones stating your name and home location for the record. After you complete your testimony, please sign in on the sheet to your right. Testimony limited to no more than two minutes. You're allowed to speak only once with the exception of the applicant who will be able to respond to testimony and answer commissioner questions. First, and then today's application that we're holding this public hearing for is 1759 Selby, the nonconforming use permit. We've done the staff presentation, so now I will call up the applicant to see if they'd like to add anything to the record or answer any questions from the commissioners. If you're the applicant, you're welcome to come up. You're not required to.

Hi. Hello. My name is Anne Van Ryswyk. I live at 2205 Harriet Avenue South, Minneapolis, 55405. And I am not the applicant. I am her friend. We are her... They're good friends. And they weren't able to be here today, so they wanted us to come in case there were any questions that we could answer about the project. Nadine gave me some paperwork about it that I could talk about, but I'm just here to attest to their good... They're good character. They're humble and hardworking personages. And we've been hearing about the project for quite a long time now. So I don't know what else I should say.

You're not required to say anything. Do any commissioners have any questions? Okay, seeing none. If there's nothing you are required, there's nothing you're required to add. So if there's nothing you'd like to speak on, you're welcome.

I mean, she just wrote down, we talked yesterday and she said, Just to mention that there's no on-street parking, that the diagonal use is for internal parking, and there's a minimum of five, and that what they're doing is all natural. There's no noise. It's not toxic. It doesn't smell, and it's a non-industrial usage. That's what she told me to tell you all.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you.

If you could sign in, please. Thank you.

Glad the tea's non-toxic.

If there are no other questions, I will open the public hearing. If you'd like to speak on the zoning application, please come up. If you'd like to speak on this item, please come up. If you'd like to speak on this item, please come up. All right, seeing no one, I'll look for a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Motion by Commissioner Holt, seconded by Commissioner Starling. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we'll move forward with the vote. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? All right, the public hearing is closed. Thank you, Bill. Yeah, Commissioner Martinson.

We might want to make note on the public record that we've had two more commissioners join the meeting during the conversation.

Yes, Commissioners Presley and Johnson Becker did join during the staff presentation, at the beginning of the staff presentation, correct? Thank you, Commissioner Riley.

I'd like to move the staff recommendation to approve the change in non-conforming use from finishing shop to limited production and processing at 1759 Selby Avenue.

We have a motion from Commissioner Riley. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Thomas. Is there any discussion on this item? All right, seeing none, we'll move forward with a vote. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? All right, the item passes. And then we move on to old business, of which there is none, and then new business, an informational presentation on the signed code amendments by Tony Johnson.

While the staff is preparing, I would just like to note, if I may, that this particular staff member is always raising the bar on the sartorial splendor to which we must aspire.

Thank you, Commissioner Martinson. I would say yes, the best dressed of the bunch.

And Chair, can I ask Mr. Dermody a question while Mr. Johnson is getting ready?

Sure, Commissioner Riley. What kind of question?

It's a question about the previous agenda item, but related to the comment from the Union Park District Council. It's unrelated to the decision. It's an informational question in order to...

If it's an informational question unrelated to the decision, then I'm... Here's a question for Bill about the Union Park letter.

I'd be glad to at least listen to the question and research for an answer.

I thought it was interesting and thoughtful that the district council president mentioned adding small-scale beverage production and maker spaces and artist studios to approved uses in the B2 zoning district. So I just thought I'd state for the record that I agree and it would be interesting to see that come forward at some point as you redo the zoning code from time to time as we do. Thank you. I guess it wasn't really a question.

Thank you, Commissioner Riley. More of a comment.

I apologize that my face always looks suspicious when anyone wants to ask questions that are even slightly outside of the agenda.

No, it's uploaded here, but it's asking me to sign out.

It's PowerPoint instead of Adobe.

Yeah, still shouldn't have to sign out. Perhaps.

Sorry, guys.

Well, you couldn't do it from here.

I might suggest taking this item before that.

Yeah, I can do that. If folks are, if commissioners are comfortable, we might take the site plan review update out of order. If there's interest in that from the group. Great, I'm doing it informally. So we're gonna do site plan review and then we'll come back up to the site assigned presentations. So the upcoming site plan review applications that have been received are two. The first one is 389 Robert Street South, site improvements for renovation, common bond communities. And the next one is 821 Woodlawn Avenue, new construction Highland Bridge, block five, senior residential. And those are the two items on site plan review. We could do announcements next as well. Planning Commission Chair announcements. I want to say thank you to Commissioner Starling for chairing the last meeting. I hear it went wonderfully and that you're coming any day. And I'm excited. So thank you for that. Another thing is there are a lot of programming this weekend in the city from different government partners. There's Waterfest at Lake Fallon, which is always exciting with the regional water groups. And then there's the Riverwalk inauguration tomorrow from 1 to 4. And this is the two-mile loop that connects the Mississippi River to St. Paul. And there will be live music, guided walks, games, food. So Science Museum to Union Depot, they've signed that route during the loop. And there is a registration and information available on the city website as well as the Conservancy website. So just a fun update there. Are there any updates from the?

No staff announcements.

No staff announcements. All right, so we have completed announcements and we are gonna bounce back to the presentation at this point. I believe Mr. Johnson is available.

Yeah, got our tech issues figured out. Good morning, everyone. So I just wanted to come here today to give you an update on a study that I'm working on that is nearing completion. This is something you guys maybe haven't heard about yet, because it wasn't actually initiated by you. It was initiated by city council. So we wanted to let you know it's happening, because I'll probably be done in about a month or so. Back to you guys. So today, this is just the general outline of what I'll talk about. I'll give a little background about why the study came to be, some of the communications that we've had with outside groups, and then just talk a little bit about kind of what's on the table, and then a little bit on the timeline. So as I said before, we kind of did this one a little bit different and this one wasn't initiated by you like the normal process is initiated by city council. And that happened last month on April 15th. And the city council interest in this came because of kind of communications they've had with interest groups, specifically the Downtown Alliance and the Chamber of Commerce. who first advocated for changes to the sign code and then sent letters advocating for specific changes to the code. After receiving those letters, the city council and mayor's office directed me to review the things that they were recommending and then also identify additional issues and processes in order to create a broader package of amendments. And doing this in a broad kind of package is pretty important because over the years we've made periodic updates to the sign code, but there hasn't been a comprehensive chapter update in a really long time. And because we haven't done a comprehensive update, many of the provisions are now out of date and more restrictive than peer cities. So these are some of the changes that were requested in the letters. They wanted changes to projecting sign regulations, as shown in this picture, changes to sign allotments, more permit exceptions added to the code, changes to off-premise advertising restrictions, and then less subjective language. In addition to the zoning issues that they pointed out, there was also a number of non-zoning code related issues identified with signs. which we won't address with this study, but hopefully something that we can revisit with other departments that are responsible for these kind of various things. So that includes historic preservation standards and review, signage restrictions and skyways, particularly around sandwich boards, and then process improvements. And with the process improvements, we can address those somewhat through code changes, but we don't manage the implementation of the code. And so that's something that DSI needs to kind of look at and look at their processes. So in addition to that scope of study that was recommended by the Downtown Alliance and Chamber of Commerce, We drafted an additional scope and presented it to the mayor and city council and they were in support of the additional changes that we're recommending. And so what we've recommended to add to the initial scope was to simplify district and overlay a simplification of district and overlay district standards. So right now we currently have 17 special sign districts. So every neighborhood has their own sign regulations on top of the regulations that we have citywide. And so what we'll recommend is deleting all of those. We'll also recommend consolidation of specific regulations by district standards and then creating more uniform temporary signage regulations. We're also looking at removing standards from definitions. So right now, this is kind of a code writing no-no. There's a lot of standards and saying how you do stuff in definitions, which creates a lot of issues because staff will miss it. And it also makes it so that you can never vary those standards because it's in a definition. So we're moving those and moving them to the standards like it should be. we're going through and fixing contradictory language. So because we've kind of done stuff piecemeal, our code right now contradicts itself a lot. And so I'm going through and fixing all that and making everything kind of make sense. The amendments will provide more flexibility in residential districts. So this is probably the thing we get the most variances for. So for non-residential uses in residential districts, the standards are pretty tight, and so we're gonna provide more flexibility for those uses. Sorry. We're also looking at reducing the amount of prohibited sign types. So, for example, roof signs and off-premise advertising. And I purposely put this picture in my presentation, which is probably our most iconic sign in St. Paul, the first national bank building. And I put that there because this sign is now illegal with the way our code is. And so we're looking at changing the code to allow things like that. We're also looking at... allowing new types of signs. So allowing like wayfinding signs in the public right away. Sorry. So this is the kind of general process and schedule going forward. So the city council has already initiated the study. I have a first draft of amendments already completed and it's been reviewed by staff and I'm currently revising things. In June I'm hoping to bring the study to you guys to review for, to release for public review and then set a public hearing. And then hopefully we'll have a public hearing in July which would give us recommendation time in August. So from there I'd be happy to answer Any questions that you guys may have?

All right. Tony, I think there are going to be some questions. As we know, signage has always been an interesting topic in St. Paul. And I imagine we all have our own angle that we're coming from. I have two questions. I'm just going to go first before we go through every one, because I think they'll be quick. The first one is around the district councils and the Capitol River Council in particular. knowing that this is a pretty short timeline for like study release and hopefully for approval, what's the process for engaging or sharing information with the councils?

Sure. So I'm hoping to do a lot of the engagement after we release the study. Um, again, I'm trying to move this quick cause it's something that the council kind of wanted it done on a quick timeframe. And so what my hope is is that I'll come to you guys, we'll release it and then I'll reach out to all the district councils and offer, um, presentations and then get them queued up for the public hearing.

Awesome. And then I feel like the second question that I'm going to get from people is around digital display and our large-scale billboard signs. What's sort of in scope for this versus out of scope?

Yeah, so we're not doing many changes to digital display. We will be in the draft allowing advertising, but not billboards. So there's a little nuance there. So the way our code defines a billboard would be over 50 square feet of advertising. And so basically, with the draft amendments as they are now, you could do up to 50 square feet of advertising. uh, but no more than that. Um, and there's, uh, you know, I mentioned like we'll have roof signs. So one of the things we said is you can do roof signs, but you can't do advertising, which is how like a lot of like the billboards like to do. Uh, we also in the draft amendments say they can't have a defined background. So they'd have to look like kind of if it's a roof sign, like the first national bank thing and it couldn't have like a big, uh,

thing that you would put like advertising on and so that was another way i tried to kind of thread the needle of like allowing stuff but not uh allowing billboards and things like that but to follow up on that chair um the entire sign code is within the scope of changes you could make so if that's not a change that's being proposed to billboards but if you heard something through public engagement that caused you to want to make a change, you could.

I appreciate that. Yeah, I think you'll probably be hearing from us with more questions on digital display in particular, along with what is not a billboard, is my guess. Okay, now I saw Tagia first and then Martinson, but I assume they'll be, and then Riley. Okay.

Thank you, Chair. I have three questions, unfortunately. So my first question is just on process. This is probably, I think, the first study that's come to us post the reformation of the Planning Commission. I'm curious about... how we want to structure kind of Planning Commission inputs. One of my complaints of the old system was that essentially a study would come to us very first at the same moment we were being under pressure to release it for public comment and at that point it sort of feels like it was somewhat baked and in the past I believe CNPC would have had some form of input prize at that point in time. So my question or potentially request is is there a way for the Planning Commission to have some degree of input before we're looking at a final document to go out for public review?

Yeah, absolutely. So you can, so like at CNPC, you know, it would kind of depend on the thing, but sometimes you would take like three or four meetings to get through the content. And so when I have the draft ready, I'll do like a way more detailed presentation where we actually kind of go through things and it might be a little tedious, but... That's typically how I do it is kind of just go through like line by line and explain like we're doing this and why.

So the intent is sort of to try and recreate at least some of the CNPC process with this body?

Yeah, I think so. I haven't heard different.

Cool.

Yeah, to be the chair, Commissioner Tagehoff, Tony's going to come with more details and you can take as many meetings as you need before you're ready to release it.

I think that's great to hear um second question, which is sort of a we've had a lot about the what of this study i'd love to get just like a high level why obviously when we do regulatory studies, we typically have goals in mind and what i've heard is a sort of. Businesses wanted things, therefore, the City Council directed us what what are we as a city hoping to achieve by this regulatory change.

Yeah, I mean, I think make it easier to start a business in St. Paul. I mean, like I said, we've periodically made changes to the sign code, but there hasn't been a comprehensive update. And if you look at our sign code compared to other cities, we're a lot more restrictive. There's a lot of things that are just out of date. Again, there's things that don't make sense. And it was like someone wrote something somewhere and then someone wrote something elsewhere. And so staff has a hard time dealing with it when we have contradictory regulations and so i'm trying to like clean up all of that stuff so this seems like removing unnecessary regulatory burden for businesses trying to it's removing stuff it's simplifying things um so like for example like right now we have like sign regulations based off district in addition to those overlays and so like i'm like consolidating things so instead of having like individual district standards, there'll just be one set of standards for all commercial districts except for downtown will have their own standards. One set of standards for all residential districts. And so I'm trying to just make it simple and easier to use and more business friendly and frankly, more friendly for staff because the way the code is written right now is really confusing.

And then my last question, so given, I remember personally sitting in several meetings, district council level, where we talked about the Grand Avenue special sign district, one of the 17 in much detail. And when I read the words deletion of special sign overlays, I can almost feel the pearls being clutched. So my question is, when you say deletion, are we... Are we discussing sort of looking at all 17, seeing if anything is relevant in there and consolidating, or is it just merely like anything in there is not valuable at all?

My recommendation as of now is to get rid of them all in their entirety.

Tony, maybe if I rephrase this, we'll answer it slightly differently. If there are good items in any of the 17, we would take those good items and move them into the overall.

So we could do that, but we've already kind of done that for the most part. So I think Grand might be the exception, but most of the districts, they don't actually do anything. So they came about because... Over time different districts were like banning billboards and things like that, and then we took what people were doing and individual districts and we put it in the main chapter. And so a lot of it's already been moved over to the main chapter like that that's been done and it's just most of its unnecessary tech so like right now, the sign chapter. I think it's like 47 pages because of all the district regulations. And so I'm trying to get it down to like half of that by consolidating things.

That seems like a great idea.

Wonderful. Commissioner Martinson.

Thank you, Chair. So that conversation has answered one of my two questions. Thank you for that. The other question I had, so in conversations around variances often, the discussion includes considerations of the scale of the building and the scale of the sign. And I don't know if that's actually codified in the code or not, but it seems to me that it's an important part of the, it has been an important part of the decision making. I mean, when I look at it, I say, you know, it would be kind of crazy to have like a little itty bitty sign on, you know, Excel. I mean, Grand Casino, right? So having the scale of the sign appropriate to the scale of the structure seems like it would be a reasonable inclusion in the code if it's not already there. And the fact that it comes up in the conversation makes me think it might not be.

Yeah, I mean, so there's two chapters where we have additional findings for variances. One would be MRCA, where we kind of had a little bit additional stuff. And then the other one is the sign chapter. So doing sign variances are kind of nuts right now. There's like 10 required findings because there's the five or six regular findings that any variants have to meet plus five more for signs. In the draft, I am trying to simplify the amount of findings that have to be met for signs because it's I think it's kind of crazy to like regulate those more than kind of any other variance. But that's something that I'd welcome your input on since you've had a lot of signed variances before to look at kind of what we're proposing for the new findings and then seeing if that kind of gets at what you'd want to get at with reviewing signed variances. All right, thanks.

Commissioner Riley.

Thank you. Thank you. Scale of building as related to scale of sign, I am currently evaluating and writing my own sign code, and that has come up many, many, many times, and all of the communities around the one in which I work seem to have gone that route, so I just want to sort of encourage you to also think that way. And so that's a comment. And then my other comment is on what I'm gonna call the subset of off-premise advertising signs known as outdoor advertising signs, commonly referred to as billboards. I want to strongly encourage us not to change anything related to the way that is in the code today and relative to billboards for the sake of everyone's mental health. Thank you. And I'll just state for the record today as you're working through this, I think off-premise advertising signs can have the potential to kind of accrete in negative ways. And so I hope that we think very thoughtfully and critically about the actual value of those signs to the people who say they need and want them relative to the potential negative impacts to those signs on the surrounding community, whether that is through, say, public health matters or obstruction in the right of way, et cetera, which leads me to my, so that's two comments, and that leads me to a question. When you mention more uniform temporary signage regulations, that's citywide? Yep. And will you evaluate all the different kinds of temporary signs? Because, again, there seem to be ever-increasing different ways to put temporary signs. Good luck.

Yeah, I mean, we... So we could get, like, very specific about different types of temporary signs. In the draft amendments, I didn't really do that. I did a little bit, but not, like... a ton of that. Because again, I'm trying to keep the code simple. What I meant by that bullet point is, so like other signs, there's different district standards for temporary signs. And I don't understand the logic with some of it of how we regulated temporary signs in one district versus another. And so again, to try to simplify the code, what I'll be proposing is trying to create one set of standards that fits a whole bunch of stuff, so it's not, again, so staff doesn't get confused, and then also people trying to just put up a temporary sign don't get confused. We're also looking at increasing the amount of exemptions for temporary signs, so allowing some by right, and I think that'll decrease, I mean, permit review time, but also the amount of variances that we get in for those types of things.

Tony, for folks that haven't been around signage as long as some of us, for the temporary signs in particular, can you kind of give an example of a couple of them? Because I think some people might be thinking, you know, I'm running a bike race and it's a sign in a park. It's the predatory, we'll buy your house for cash, temporary. So maybe an example of what another kind might be.

Yeah, I mean, a temporary sign would be anything that's a cloth sign. And so those actually would kind of fit in, temporary sign regulations. But typically, it's like a business wants to put something up that's like, I have this sale going on. And so they want to put up a banner temporarily It could be for events or something they're having, they might want to put up a temporary sign and not have that sign there permanently. And so that's kind of what it regulates. It also regulates portable signs. So those ugly flag things would fall in temporary sign regulations. Thanks.

Commissioner Thomas.

Thanks. chair girl are we thinking about to the evolution of digital technology and you know and how how it can parlay into the future because now you see all these like tv signs as you're driving on the the freeways and they change. And I'm sure there's some studies out there that explore the impact, right? There sure is.

And we were pretty restrictive about those already. And I didn't make a lot of changes to those restrictions. So for the most part, stuff with dynamic display will stay the same. And for freeways, for example, in order to do one of the things we did to try to reduce billboards as we created this cap and trade type system. So if you want to do a digital display billboard now, you have to get rid of a number of other billboards in the rest of the city. And so that's one of the ways that we've been reducing billboards over time. And that's not something that I'm proposing to change at all. The change that I was talking about where, again, trying to find a middle ground would allow some advertising, but it wouldn't allow billboards. It wouldn't allow advertising in the right of way. And it's also about wayfinding and stuff too.

Can you define wayfinding?

So signs that will help you get to different places. I can give you a good example of a Minneapolis one because they allow some of this stuff too. So one of my buddies owns Bricksworth, a restaurant, and it's like, off of an alleyway behind the building. And if he wasn't allowed to put up a sign on his neighbor's property saying, like, go this way to find it, There's no way anyone would be able to find this restaurant. And so we're trying to allow stuff like that in St. Paul with the amendments.

I have another follow up. So I'm imagining a city like New York or, I don't know, a city in Japan. And there's like all of these neon and lighted signs everywhere. And so I'm wondering, I mean, are we? We're not. Okay. We're not going that far.

Commissioner Thomas, I think you're a great, this is a great example of the kind of questions we're going to get. So I think these are all good questions to ask Tony now. because yeah, I think Commissioner Riley's questions, Commissioner Taggiaff's questions, Commissioner Martinson's, mine are all coming, I think from a similar direction of, we've also seen and heard things throughout this whole process, have met the organized groups in St. Paul that are enthusiastic about sign regulation. And so I think are hoping to get some answers out in the front end so that maybe we can.

Yeah, so under the existing code structure, and again, this isn't something that I'm proposing to change. I don't want to get into that. Like you have to, in St. Paul, like signs like that have to be monochromatic. We regulate like the amount of time that they can change from one image to another. So kind of getting at what you're asking about before, we don't want to create like distractions for people driving. And so we make them static. We regulate like scrolling speed of signs. So there's a lot of regulations around digital displays that I'm not proposing to loosen as a part of this. It's more about just making it like for your mom and pop business, making it easier for them to just put up a sign and not have to jump through a million groups.

And eventually, even those signs will become digital.

Possibly. They could, but there's a lot of regulations against them. So one of them, for example, that would maybe prevent that, is only 20% of your total signage can be digital display. And so for a lot of businesses, they're not even gonna have, like with their regular buildings, their regular sign, they're not gonna have enough extra signage left over to do digital display. Thank you.

You're not required to, but Commissioner Starling or Holtz, do you have any additional sign questions that we haven't asked already?

Just more of a comment. As technology changes, and I guess one of the things I think about is sign light intensity. You know, neon lights had sort of a certain level of brightness, and that was about that, right? But today with LEDs and other technology, I feel we need to start thinking about something comprehensive as to sort of make sure that signs have a recent relative brightness to it, especially at night. And just sort of the classic example I'm thinking of, it's not actually signage, but it's really common in like smoke or tobacco shops where they put the white lights around the windows, right? And you're just like... And I know that's not exactly what I'm talking about, but that gives us an example of how out of scale sometimes something can be.

So we do regulate that already. That's another thing I'm not planning to change. So that may be something you can help me out with, is if you guys are seeing signs and you're like, that's too bright. let's talk about it. I'm not planning on making the code less restrictive or more restrictive in that regard at this time.

I feel like we should think about that, because it's going to be a long time before it gets updated again. I mean, I get advertising and I get an interest there, but I just don't want people to start taking too much advantage. Like, we'll just make it more intense and more intense.

Yeah, they can't make it more intense in terms of light. And one thing I will say, and I think you guys know this, we're kind of complaint-based people. And so for us to go check out a sign if it's too bright, typically a complaint has to come in. But the way we do it now, it's measured off of foot candles. And basically, there's brightness standard. candle standards based off of the distance of the sign so the way what would happen now like say you saw a sign and you're like wow that sign's really bright we would send an inspector out at night they have a light gun thing that can like read lighting measurements they take a measurement and see if it meets the the code or not um i will say as public part of public testimony there's i think you'll hear from a gentleman that's that's going to suggest um changing the measurement that we do it. So there's a bunch of different measurements you can use to do sign measurements. One of the more common ones is changing it to nits. I didn't do knits because I'm not going to recommend it because we already have technology to measure in foot candles. And so if we do that, we have to get new stuff to look at knits. And you can convert foot candles to knits, but I don't know if we want people doing math or not.

I'm having so many flashbacks, so many conversations over the last few years.

Commissioner Starling. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Johnson, I have not had any of the trauma around signage that some of my fellow commissioners have had. And I'm looking forward to reading the proposed amendments. Can you just briefly lay out what some of the pieces of the sign code look like? I'm thinking there is a location, there is a zoning, zoning or land use dimension to it. Is there also a who is the entity posting the signs? Or is it locational only?

So location, size, obviously. There'll be height. There is sometimes there's stuff based off who's doing the sign. So for example, in residential districts, that we prohibit dynamic displays except for things like for schools and churches and things like that where they have the bulletin board. So there's sometimes uses come into play. But for the most part, the sign code would regulate size and placement of a sign.

Thank you. all right commissioner riley and then oh yes sorry you're right you've been so so polite commissioner uh johnson becker or commissioner presley do you have any questions

Thank you, Chair. No, I don't really have any questions, but maybe it's a question. Thinking about signage, again, when you talk about wayfinding signs, especially in neighborhoods maybe where you're thinking of creating a history or a tour, walking tour signage, wayfinding signage, and how is that going to be regulated, or is that going to be allowed?

Yep, so that is, so I had kind of our cultural destination areas in mind. That's something... that we talked about a lot when I was managing that program is we like don't allow wayfinding signs. So that's what I'm trying to get at is allow us to, allow folks to put up signs that can direct people to different destinations or could direct people to like say there's a district parking lot that's off the street. You could put up a wayfinding sign to say like parking that way or you know we could say the Rondo District this way. That type of stuff is what we're trying to allow with the wayfinding.

Just a follow-up, Chair. Again then, what about kiosks, signs that are more permanent, but maybe a person can walk up to it and push a button and it'll talk, or it may light up, whichever, might wanna show a map, whatever.

Yep, so that is another thing we're trying to allow with the sign updates. I will say I do, in between now and getting this back, I do need to have conversations with Public Works. I haven't got to them yet. Just to let them know we're going to get rid of the zoning restrictions that prohibit this. And so that, you know, I kind of talked about I can only do so much with the amendments, and so I need to work with other departments that kind of do comprehensively everything we're trying to do with signage reform. But the zoning code will no longer say no on those things.

And then I, one more, and I would assume that signs that are already in place, they're gonna be grandfathered into the new codes or whatever. And then what would, not implicate them, but influence, so if they did wanna take down their old sign to put up a new, then they would have to follow the new code?

Yep, that's correct. And the new code, I mean, it would be easier than the old code. So I don't think there's going to be a situation where, unless it was already non-conforming, where they take it down and they can't put something back. So the First National Bank example is a good example of today, under the existing regulations, if they got rid of that sign, it's never coming back. And again, I think this is our most iconic sign in St. Paul. And so we're trying to allow more. creativity and I put so this is another one like I put signs that are problematic with our code in kind of on purpose so like the Schmidt Brewery sign another really cool sign you can do under the current text but with the amendments you could do something like that now so hopefully we start to see cool signs again

Thank you. Commissioner Johnson-Becker, you don't have to comment.

I don't think I'm traumatized by science.

And I'm so happy for you for that. All right. So it sounds like we, just even based on this conversation right now, I imagine it's going to take, and we want it to take probably more than one meeting, just... an assumption um and so i think maybe i'm just saying that out loud for all of us for general planning purposes that we might have maybe an informational and a discussion meeting and then perhaps one that's more of a vote um after that and maybe that's a conversation we're gonna have with yasmin um but i don't think we're getting through this in in a meeting um a vote and a discussion unless i see dissent from around the table

I don't think so. Yeah, we can go at whatever pace you guys feel comfortable with. I'm OK with whatever. I will say, though, so don't think of the first step as your only chance to make changes. So the way it works is we'll release it. And then after we hold the public hearing, we could make changes then, too. So if there's things that you're iffy on at the releasing stage, A strategy could be like, let's release it, hear what people have to say, and then come back and make changes before we send it to council.

Thanks, Tony. I think for this one in particular, and again, I don't want to speak for everyone, but there are probably some things in there that we all feel strongly enough that before a public hearing, perhaps we want to address before we have that conversation in public. And maybe it's perfect and we don't, but I know that I'm just generally nervous about signs. And then, oh, I had one more thought related to that, but it is gone. I saw Commissioner Riley and Tegia.

So to your, this is direct follow-up, but to Tony's last comment. Yeah, go for it.

Just really quickly, when we're thinking about the strategy of how much to agree beforehand or after, the question that occurs is how much change is reasonable post a public comment period? The way I've always looked at it is kind of you want something going out of public comment which is at least relatively baked because then if we want to bring in some subtle changes after the public comment period, that can feel like a bait and switch.

Well, so I would say keep in mind that we, in St. Paul, we have two public hearings and this is kind of why we do it. So you guys will hold your public hearing and then you can make changes, but the council will also make changes or will hold a public hearing. And so like, say you guys make changes that someone doesn't like, they have a second opportunity to go speak at council. And that's why we do two in St. Paul. Legally, we're only obligated to do one, but. We do increase process for this very, very reason.

Thank you, and thank you.

Thank you, Chair Grill. I just, I wanted to sort of, agree with your statements about the potential length of time this might take, and then following up from Commissioner Holt's comments about intensity of light and measuring in nits versus foot candles, which is directly related to technology and perhaps my personal fear associated with historic sign code experiences. However, I think it's based in fact, so I encourage you to look at how leds work and bring back information to inform us about how leds work, because my understanding. is that LEDs can produce a brightness that is significantly greater than other lights without spilling over on neighboring properties. And that is what your foot candle measurement looks at and your complaint looks at. It doesn't look at whether the bright light is annoying. It looks at whether it spills over onto the neighboring property. And so I encourage you to, for example, look at the new street lighting, I think Commissioner Thomas will know where I'm going with this, perhaps, on Arcade slash Highway 61 along Phalen Park and into Maplewood. The new lighting there is LED lighting, it is dark sky compliant per our regulations, and it is potentially the brightest stretch of roadway in all of St. Paul, but it doesn't spill over. So you can see that light coming down the hill from Maplewood even though it's not spilling over. As it gets darker, you can see the little pools of light. So I think it would be very helpful for folks to understand a little bit about how lighting technology works today and how intensity works and how we might actually tackle, through DSI's process, That concern because if you look at for example another example on the canopies of gas stations often have Very bright LEDs that do not go beyond the property line, but you can see them for miles So I encourage you to think about how you share that information with us in the public to reassure them That they will not be bothered from a public health and safety standpoint by new lighting technology?

Yeah, I can look into that. We could also do, I mean, we could do two standards. We could have a foot candle standard and a knit standard. So the benefit of knits is it's easier on the sign owner because they can program their sign to do what the code says. My concern with it is more of like a implementate, like... how does us, the city, get into the, but I can, well, do some figuring out stuff.

So one of the ways I've seen in regulating that is to have the provisions of the sign, just like we do with speaker boxes, as some of us may have experiences with drive-through speaker box issues, you can be shown how it's set, and then you can determine that they have met that, especially when an LED may not spill over onto the neighboring property. Yep, yep.

Yeah, no, I can.

I'm with you in solidarity.

I'll add it in there. For sure. So this is good I came here first so I can make some final revisions.

And I think to all of the points that we've made today, I think we're. we're going to ask a lot of tony we're already asking a lot of tony around signs and i know we all read our packets before we come to the meetings but i think for the two sign discussion meetings in particular please read the packets please be comfortable with the materials discussing the materials so that when we're having the meeting and we're discussing them Like we've all been through the content because I think, yes, we have the potential to get into the weeds on this one. And I think there are places where that makes sense. But I think if we're all starting from kind of a level point on the signage, that will make the conversation a little bit easier. So that is my request of everyone is to familiarize yourself with the document that Tony sends us. Any other questions before we wrap this up? Great. Thank you so much, Tony. All right, so that wrapped up our new business, which is the informational presentation. We took site plan review out of order and we did announcements already. So with that, we will adjourn the meeting.