Bulk of City Legislation is Development Related
The new session of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen is just beginning and already they have introduced bills numbered 2-65. Of these, I counted roughly 45 that were development related — either redevelopment plans, TIF financing, PUDs (Planning Unit Developments) or related. Thus, so far, roughly 70% of the legislation is development related (45 bills).
Of couse, if one alderman introduces a bill for a development (or redevelopment) in their ward the other 27 go along under their unwritten rule of “aldermanic courtesy.” Basically, the 28 aldermen get to do what they want within their ward with no legislative oversight. It is doubtful the city’s planning & urban design office has reviewed any of the projects. Mayor Slay keeps planning director Rollin Stanley and his staff hidden over at 1015 Locust, pulling them out only when used to talk about census numbers and such.
Here is an example of the “summary” of one such bill:
Board Bill#:Â Â Â Â 18
Title:Â Â Â Â Redevelopment Plan for 2652 Ann
Summary:Â Â Â Â An ordinance approving a Redevelopment Plan for the 2652 Ann Ave. Area (“Area”) after finding that the Area is blighted as defined in Section 99.320 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, 2000, as amended, (the “Statute” being Sections 99.300 to 99.715 inclusive), containing a description of the boundaries of said Area in the City of St. Louis (“City”), attached hereto and incorporated herein as Exhibit “A”, finding that redevelopment and rehabilitation of the Area is in the interest of the public health, safety, morals and general welfare of the people of the City; approving the Plan dated March 27, 2007 for the Area (“Plan”), incorporated herein by attached Exhibit “B”, pursuant to Section 99.430; finding that there is a feasible financial plan for the development of the Area which affords maximum opportunity for development of the Area by private enterprise; finding that no property in the Area may be acquired by the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority of the City of St. Louis (“LCRA”) through the exercise of eminent domain; finding that the property within the Area is unoccupied, but if it should become occupied the Redeveloper shall be responsible for relocating any eligible occupants displaced as a result of implementation of the Plan; finding that financial aid may be necessary to enable the Area to be redeveloped in accordance with the Plan; finding that there shall be available five (5) year real estate tax abatement; and pledging cooperation of the Board of Aldermen and requesting various officials, departments, boards and agencies of the City to cooperate and to exercise their respective powers in a manner consistent with the Plan
Sponsor:Â Â Â Â Â Phyllis Young
You can click here to view this summary and reach the full PDF bill.  Don’t look for Exhibit “B” online because, just as in the days of Jim Shrewsbury as President, this information still does not exist online. Hopefully, with a bit more time, Lewis Reed’s office can begin to put all the related materials online.
Reed, during the campaign, made an issue out of not being able to get access to informtion on the board of Estimate & Apportionment, including minutes.  We’ll see what action he takes, if any, to make this hard to find information more accessible to the rest of us now that he is one of the three on E&A (along with Mayor Slay & Comptroller Green). It will also be interesting to see if Reeds idea of more open government will extend to basics such as including bill attachments online — something certainly within the control of the President of the city’s legislative body.
These redevelopment bills read almost identical to each other. It makes me wonder how much thought is actually put into each project and by whom? A staff person at the St. Louis Development Corporation? Under what guidelines, our 1947 anti-city zoning code?  My guess is the developer says what they want to do, the alderman directs staff to make it happen and it just does. No scrutiny, no checking against a master plan. Certainly no critical review for pedestrian access and other signs of greater public good when tax money is being involved. Just routine business.
We are talking about legislators whose backgrounds are as business persons, accountants and such. When reviewing the city budget they may be very helpful but with the bulk of their legislation in the development arena I get a bit uneasy.
You can view all the current Board Bills here.
Steve,
If I’m reading this post from Room 200, I’m saying to myself, “thanks Steve,
you just made my day!”
Of course developers get what they want. They finance campaigns. This is client politics and no other lobby opposes them. Why wouldn’t aldermen listen and keep the Planning and Urban Design Agency at bay? We don’t want professionals interfering with the will of market forces!
Doug,
It sounds like you are suggesting that it is the job of professionals to interfere with
market forces.
I am saying that what we call “market forces” is a farce, while the professionals are silenced.
St. Louis City, putting it’s credit on the line, is not market forces. It is graft.
While I generaly support eminant domain and redevelopment, I have long thought that if people want to clamp down on the use of ED and redevelopment, that a stonger requirment for the contents and purpose of redevelopment plans should be added. To get away with such a form redevelopment bill as shown above is horrible.
Redevelopment plans should be required to be more thought out, design intensive, and explicit in what development is ok and not ok.
I’m no fan of unilateral planning by amatuers, but at least the outside influences of market realities temper any idea that’s too whacky or unsustainable. Better to have our aldermen dabbling in development than finding more corners to put 4-way stop signs on or coming up with new and creative ways to tax us. Yes the reality is the golden rule – he who has the gold, rules. That applies to developers and to the various city employee groups. Good government would strive for efficiency and quality, not maintaining the status quo. The results we have (and see every day) speak for themselves . . .
If you ask your alderman what an Ordinance such as this does they will share, basically, the same as I”m telling you.
The State of Missouri requires certain language in bills to cover the requirement for someone to be able to acquire tax credits for developing a building…whether that is a large, moderate, small developer who does development as their job…OR if it is an individual who is re-habbing/re-developing a building for their personal residence.
If you read the bill…it strickly forbids the property from being acquaired by LRA or taken by enminent domain.
The term “blight” or “blighting” comes from leftover STATE legislation from the 60’s. This language did very BAD things to our urban communities in the 60’s. At the state level it can and does still have detrimental issues for our urban areas.
The way to CHANGE this is to communicate with our State Representatives. THEY have the power to modify the “blighting” legislation to be more restrictive.
While I can’t say this always happens to the good of our perspective, but our Aldermen (and women) use the tools they have to help re-build and re-vitalize our community.
I don’t always agree with the perspective of many of the Alderpersons, but for the most part I do support the work they do in development.
This bill targets ONE property so that whomever is rehabbing the property has incentive to invest $ 125,000-150,000 in a property…whether for re-sale or for their own place to live.
Bill ^^ makes a good point – much of the “boilerplate” language in these bills is necessary and required by the State law. I think what some of us are looking for is something beyond tax abatement. There are two big problems in my mind:
1. All these redevelopment projects happen in a vacuum, with no relationship to each other or any overarching plan. As part of receiving tax abatement, projects should have to conform to the City’s current comprehensive development plan. Oops. We don’t have one – perhaps the Board of Aldermen should start by authorizing money and legislating a framework for preparation and implementation of a comprehensive plan.
2. Enabling legislation (redevelopment plans) should be unique and customized to each project based on the specific opportunities and conditions as well as including the necessary language. A single-family home probably needs less attention than a Loughborough Commons. Each project should be considered on its merits and reviewed individually by the Planning and Urban Design Agency in order to ensure the public’s money (yes, tax abatement is a public subsidy) is being utilized to its fullest extent. There should be minimum design standards and performance standards.
The boilerplate language, lack of professional review, and prevalence of tax abatement projects promote an atmosphere of entitlement on the part of developers.
“You can click here to view this summary and reach the full PDF bill. Don’t look for Exhibit “B†online because, just as in the days of Jim Shrewsbury as President, this information still does not exist online. Hopefully, with a bit more time, Lewis Reed’s office can begin to put all the related materials online.”
Steve, that’s simply not accurate. Pat Connaghan’s staff does post the exhibits as attachments to the ordinance PDFs. You just have to have the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader (i.e., 7.0), to view them.
These attachments have been available for just over two years now! Check any blighting bill, as far back as BB #25 from 2005:
http://stlcin.missouri.org/Document/aldermen/PDF/BB025.pdf
Again, as long as you have Reader 7.0 — free software that a good idea to have anyway — you should have no trouble viewing the attachment.