“Spot Zoning” For St. Aloysius?
Faced with a stumbling block at the Preservation Review Board last week word on the street is that Alderman Joe Vollmer is considering introducing a bill to the Board of Alderman to exclude the single parcel in question from the Preservation Review District. If so, this would sound like “spot zoning” to me.
From Law.com:
n. a provision in a general plan which benefits a single parcel of land by creating a zone for use just for that parcel and different from the surrounding properties in the area. Example: in a residential neighborhood zoned for single-family dwellings with a minimum of 10,000 square feet, the corner service station property is zoned commercial. Spot zoning is not favored, since it smacks of favoritism and usually annoys neighbors. [emphasis added] An existing commercial business can be accommodated by a “zoning variance” (allowing a non-conforming use for the time being) or a “grandfathered” right to continue a use existing when the zoning plan was adopted and which will terminate if the building is torn down.
Spot Zoning typically applies to say residential verses commercial — the use zone for a particular parcel. At this point I’m not certain how Missouri law applies to Historic & Preservation Review Districts but these do form a type of zoning. Any attorney out there know more about spot zoning?
What we do not want are Aldermen excluding individual parcels or entire neighborhoods from the review process. If so these neighborhoods risk losing the buildings that give them the character that people seek. The Preservation Review ordinance has excellent criteria and should not be skirted simply because they don’t like the outcome.
– Steve
The age of Euclid and its mass application has transformed America into a place of off-street parking requirements, minimum yard setbacks, buffers and segregated land uses.
It’s about time for our City to consider switching from a use-based zoning code to form-based planning. Instead of looking up a table in the codes per some arbitrary district, developers would instead look to their surroundings, with City guidelines in a manual of pictures, not codified tables, as their guide.
The zoning envelope often constrains or even prohibits traditional neighborhood development, actually encouraging forms that look more suburban. And since many of the land uses within our City’s fabric (or older TND) are mixed, current codes focused on separating uses actually limit the creative reuse of older structures.
The original purpose of zoning was to separate incompatible land uses, like heavy industrial apart from residential. However, by our current zoning, Praxair can be within Lafayette Square, clearly evidence that zoning is not even working in ways it was most intended.
Thus, it is time that we create a form-based design manual. Then, instead of depending upon the shortsighted decisions of our predecessors to arbitrarily assign districts linked to bureaucratic tables, we could look to our built surroundings for a more natural, intuitive form-based guide.
This latest rumor smacks of aldermanic courtesy entering into the process.
If Steve’s information is correct, which of the other 28 aldermen will stand up and protest Alderman Volmer’s attempt to circumvent the system?
For our city to progess, the tradition of aldermanic courtesy must be banned.
“The original purpose of zoning was to separate incompatible land uses”
Hmmm… I often tell my students that the original purpose of zoning was to promote segregation, based on race and income. And it still does that, pretty damn effectively it seems.
The City of St. Louis zoning map hasn’t really changed that much since it was first adopted in 1916. The 1947 Comprehensive Plan, of course, designated some formerly residential areas for industrial redevelopment. While the “Land Use Plan” has resulted in some significant zoning adjustments brought before the Planning Commission in the past two to three years, it’s still rather piecemeal.
As for Praxair – that corridor along Chouteau is zoned J – Industrial. North across Chouteau in downtown west, it’s K – Unrestricted.
Recall that Lafayette Square used to be mostly rooming houses. Low-income areas are somehow considered ok to have in close proximity to heavy industry. But now that it’s relatively wealthy professionals living there (both in “de-densified” former rooming houses and in industrial buildings converted to lofts), there’s serious pressure to make them move along.
But nobody’s telling Shreve’s Engine Rebuilders they need to move out of residential Hyde Park. Quite the contrary – the alderman and mayor supported a proposal to wall off and protect their complex from its surroundings.
Zoning has held up in court as a police power for the protection of general welfare. But as Joe points out, the practice has had many social impacts, namely exclusionary zoning.
Like “lipstick on a pig,” Chesterfield made big boxes in its flood plain have stone and brick facades. If such silly architectural review can hold up in court, then our City can certainly do more with its planning review than limit density and segregate land uses.
PDA, our City’s planning agency, was created at the end of the 20th century, in part to change 20th century practices. And it doesn’t take a planner to see how the 20th century was dominated by Euclidean zoning and the automobile. If PDA doesn’t wish to pursue more progressive practices than a strategic land use map, then Zoning functions within BPS were more than adequate to maintain our City’s status quo.
This would set a very dangerous precedent if passed. What’s the point of even having the ordinance if the alderperson can just exclude any building that he or she wants?
“That building was very old! It was remarkably well crafted, and was an absolute institution in neighborhood history! Why wasn’t it saved?”
“Sorry, it was excluded from preservation review. They got an exception. That’s why there’s a parking lot/cheap ugly vinyl house/conveinience store/etc there now.”
I don’t think that a single alderman will come out against spot zoning for St. Al’s — they have too much to lose. Jim Shrewsbury probably will come out against it, but he has a position that safely allows him to do such things — and he’s angling for higher office.
What about the supposed progressives like Florida, Krewson and Troupe?
That’s right! Looking the other way.
Looking back, when the Century development plan went through the Board of Aldermen, was there a single member who spoke out publicly against the project? I don’t think so. That would have been a violation of aldermanic courtesy.
The St. Aloysius case is the next opportunity to see whether aldermanic courtesy trumps progressive development policies. It probably will. The standard response usually goes something like, “Sorry, that isn’t my ward.”
[quote] What about the supposed progressives like Florida, Krewson and Troupe? [quote]
It takes more to be progressive than to be pro-choice and pro-gay. I wonder how long it will take city Democrats to figure that out.
(and I’m not even a progressive myself)
The Zoning Section is part of the Building Division, not BPS. They still handle routine zoning compliance and permitting requests, such as home occupancy waivers.
That’s part of the problem – planning and zoning are divorced from each other, unlike in most municipalities. Zoning is located at City Hall; planning is over at 1015 Locust.
And Cultural Resources is an anomaly within PDA. They mainly deal in routine permitting stuff, which is actually a lot more akin to the Building Division at City Hall.
In fact, until 1999 (the great Harmon/Hoge reorganzation) when PDA was created, the Heritage Commission (predecessor to CRO) was technically part of the Building Division, albeit housed at and funded by CDA.
The Zoning Section is part of the Building Division, which is part of the Public Safety Department, which is part of Board of Public Service. Thus, Zoning is within BPS, just an indirect line of authority.
But Joe is completely right about the “development” agencies (PDA, CDA, SLDC) being separate from the BPS or “public works” agencies (Public Safety, Streets, Parks, Utilties, Health). Such unusually grouped yet divided functions are confusing to the public, businesses and developers.
Sorry, I meant “‘public works’ departments” not “agencies.” PDA, CDA and SLDC are City agencies (though SLDC actually an independent non-profit), but BPS is comprised of City departments.
Intuitively, Building, Zoning and Neighborhood Stabilization should not be under Public Safety, but ideally with Planning (Bldg & Zoning) and Community Development (NS0s). But PDA and CDA rely on block grant funding instead of general revenue, likely limiting such reorganization. Otherwise, the directors of PDA and CDA should at least sit on the BPS with other City department directors.
Yet perhaps the complexity and confusion are intentional. As such, developers are at the mercy of the alderman as their personal ombudsman. Becoming friend or foe to a project, the alderman can then employ aldermanic courtesy to pressure citizen boards and other aldermen to vote accordingly at various steps in the complex process.
The Suburban Journal ran a story about the plan to demolish St. Aloysius for a new housing project.
The alderman and parish priest emphasized that no one in the area they knew of opposed the plan.
They said they hadn’t heard any opposition to it until the Preservation Board meeting.
They restated that old St. Al’s parishioners would be emotionally damaged to see the church go toward another use.
Alderman Vollmer was quoted about his plan to remove the property from the Preservation Review Ordinance.
How does a disconnect like this happen? Only west of Kingshighway perhaps?