Hearing on St. Aloysius Wednesday Morning
The Housing, Urban Design and Zoning committee of the St. Louis Board of Alderman is having a public meeting/hearing on Wednesday at 10am. St. Aloysius is among many items on the agenda. The bill before the committee is a bill for the redevelopment, not about tearing down the buildings (the bill already assumes that much).
Here is the info on the meeting:
01/25/2006
Meeting Type: Committee Meeting
Sponsor: Housing, Urban Development and Zoning
Time: 10:00am – 11:00am
Location:Kennedy Room (Room 208)
Message: B.B. #312 – Young, An ordinance to change the zoning of City Block
387.05.
B.B. #326 – Villa, An ordinance establishing a Planned Unit Development
District as the “Mississippi Bluffs Planned Unit Development District”.
B.B. #328 – Roddy, An ordinance establishing a Planned Development District
In City Block 3884 to be known as the “Park East Lofts”.
B.B. #354 – Hanrahan, An ordinance to change the zoning in City Block 4982.
B.B. #358 – Krewson, An ordinance establishing a Planned Unit for City Block
3894 to be known as “Lindell Condominiums”.
B.B. #361 – Vollmer, An ordinance establishing a Planned Unit for City Block
4054.11 to be known as “Magnolia Square Subdivision”.
B.B. #369 – Roddy, An ordinance approving a Redevelopment Plan for the
Cortex West Redevelopment Area.
There sure is a lot of development happening in St. Louis city.
A lot of development across the City:
BB #312: Rezones a South 9th Street block west of Soulard Market from Multi-Family to Neighborhood Commercial;
BB #326: Creates PUD for 56 townhomes in Mississippi Bluffs, formerly Good Samaritan Home;
BB #328: Creates PUD for expanding development in the CWE with City Treasurer’s Office as a partner for a garage to the north of the Park East Tower at Laclede/Euclid;
BB #354: Rezones closed and sold Lindenwood School to allow for future condos within former school and townhome infill on rear yard;
BB #358: Creates PUD for new high-rise mixed-use building at Lindell/Euclid, formerly American Heart Association;
BB #361: Creates PUD for 25 new detached single-family homes with alley-access garages, formerly St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church, Rectory, Convent, Parish Hall/Gym and School;
BB #369: Approves Redevelopment Plan (MO Ch.353) for a 180-acre bio-tech-centered redevelopment area seeking to create 17,500 new jobs in Midtown St. Louis bounded by Taylor and Newstead on the west, Forest Park and Laclede on the north, Vandeventer on the east, and I-64 on the south.
What would the dollar value of all those projects be?
Has there ever been a time in St. Louis history where so much building has been going on at one time?
It’s a great time to be a development critic St. Louis-there’s lots to write about!
In the not-so-distant-past, you’d spend a lot of time snapping off the tips of pencils.
Here’s the rub: all of those board bills, while mostly good, are only necessary because our draconian zoning ordinances promote segregated uses, low density, and automobile convenience. Luckily, many are recognizing that to redevelop the city we have to ignore the laws on the books and make legal exceptions when it really should be the other way around. You should need an EXCEPTION to build in a suburban manner. Form-based zoning seems to be the most useful in building places for people. I think the city, under Rollin Stanley, has been working on such reforms. Let’s hope that happens before all the big boxes realize what a goldmine the city really is.
Is there still an LCRA hearing on St. Al’s today at 3pm?
In most cases, a PUD does allow greater density than current zoning. But in the case of St. Al’s changing into Magnolia Square, for some reason, the Planning Commission actually asked for larger front yard setbacks than the developer was seeking to build similar to surrounding older homes.
Much of our City’s zoning districts require significant front yard setbacks, meaning much of our older housing stock is non-conforming to its current zoning. As such, it’s often illegal just to replicate surrounding older housing stock on an infill project, thereby making zoning often the cause, not the remedy, of incompatible designs.
Given the failures of our current codes, our City should ideally switch from its antiquated Euclidean zoning practices to a form-based code and architectural review. Form-based zoning takes into account a site’s surroundings and context, rather than some arbitrarily assigned district with codified restrictions.
If we don’t adopt form-based zoning soon, St. Louis may miss the chance to turn its building boom into a great architectural event. We could end up with dense new construction filling our vacant lots and underutilized sites. But current laws require a variance to get that done, and getting a variance informally requires getting the patronage of an alderman (not usually someone with great understanding of appropriate urban form). The system has limped along so far, but it is inherently anti-urban and parochial and can only provide the occasional good new project. As the rate of development increases, the flaws will be extremely evident as we end up with more and more suburban-style buildings and big boxes.
Big-box Lowesvilles and low-density, mono-use Botanical Heights(es) are the rule, not the exception, under current zoning laws.
How can we expect the Board of Aldermen to work on legislation that would establish a more urban-friendly zoning code when they are so busy working on charter reform amendments making it more difficult to recall aldermen, or proposing new laws to protect public urinators?
“BB #354: Rezones closed and sold Lindenwood School to allow for future condos within former school and townhome infill on rear yard”
One of the local block captains in that neighborhood was circulating a letter asking people to call Hanrahan to urge this zoning change be made a conditional use rather than permanent.
Given the neighbors’ frustration with the lack of activity by the first buyer – the Murphys who own a carpet store in High Ridge – it’s understandable. Misguided, perhaps, given that it looks like Rothschild / Saaman will actually go through with the project. Although given their reputations I’m not sure I’d trust them 100% either.
I wonder why a PUD isn’t considered for that site, rather than a straight zoning change? This actually IS “spot zoning” given that we’re dealing with a site of only a few acres in the midst of what’s now a totally residential neighborhood.
There used to be a few small shops along McCausland, but the last one closed probably 10 years ago. Although there is a tiny little Russian Orthodox church a couple blocks north of the former Lindenwood School (closed: 1980 or ’81 I believe).
All of the bills were approved today by unanimous votes. Only the CORTEX bill received substantial discussion — over two hours’ worth.