Chouteau Crossing Will Have Minimum Required Pedestrian Access Route

Chouteau Crossing is a green renovation of an old industrial structure at 2301 Chouteau Ave:

“Chouteau Crossing features wind turbines, geothermal heating and cooling, and a graywater system that handles the irrigation. The parking lots are illuminated by power stored from the rooftop PV array. It will be completed at the end of 2009, and 33,000 square feet have been taken already for lab space. The project is being developed by Green Street Properties.” (Jetson Green)

As I saw the work progress at the site I was concerned if provisions had been made for pedestrian access from Chouteau as all too often they are not (example).  My concern is twofold, 1) accessibility for disabled pedestrians and 2) increasing the walkability of the city for all.

St. Louis zoning and building codes don’t require any connection to the adjacent public sidewalk which is a horrible oversight on the part of the Board of Aldermen.  Walkable communities are appealing to most everyone, including those who always drive.  The city is naturally the most walkable part of the region based on the 19th century street grid, transit service and population density.  Shouldn’t we require new & renovated buildings to connect to the public sidewalk?

So I looked up Chouteau Crossing’s website to try to determine if a pedestrian route was planned.  I thought I saw a possibility but the site plan was so tiny I couldn’t be sure. I made an email inquiry to developer Green Street Properties.  I got a quick response from VP Brian Pratt saying they weren’t sure but they would check with their architect, Trenor Architects. A few days later I had my answer  – yes — and a detailed drawing of the route.

I’m glad one pedestrian access route has been planned, but this development is on a large site bounded by three public streets, has four auto entrances (three on Chouteau) and multiple tenant entrances. I’d like to see the zoning or building code require a pedestrian route from each public street and equal to the number of auto drives provided.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Have you read ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs?

Fifty years ago Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a harsh criticism of the state of urban planning at the time.  Jacobs was 45 when Death and Life was first published. Tomorrow marks five years since her death at age 89.

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs’s monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities. (description via Left Bank Books)

I can think of no other book on urban planning and cities that continues to be debated decades later or have their own Facebook page.

The mistake made by Jacobs’s detractors and acolytes alike is to regard her as a champion of stasis—to believe she was advocating the world’s cities be built as simulacra of the West Village circa 1960. Admirers and opponents have routinely taken her arguments for complexity and turned them into formulas. But the book I just read was an inspiration to move forward without losing sight that cities are powerful, dynamic, ever-changing entities made up of myriad gestures big and small. The real notion is to build in a way that honors and nurtures complexity. And that’s an idea impossible to outgrow. (Metropolis)

The poll this week asks if you have read this book and your thoughts on it.  The poll is in the upper right corner of the site.

– Steve Patterson

A Quick Look At Baden’s Commercial Area

Baden is a neighborhood in far North St. Louis, it was a separate municipality prior to 1876.

Last December I was in Baden and snapped a few pics as I drove through the area.  I seldom go to Baden but I can’t help but smile each time I do, the scale of the buildings is so nice.

I have no clue how well the area is doing these days. Will need to spend more time in the area to better understand it.

– Steve Patterson

Gettin’ Downtown With Ozzie Monday April 25th

Monday (4/25/2011) from 5pm-9pm is your chance to meet former St. Louis Cardinal Ozzie Smith and raise money to assist an organization providing needed meals & services for the homeless and at-risk persons, proceeds benefit The Bridge.

Both Ozzie’s and The Bridge are neighbors of mine, I can even see the latter from my balcony.

– Steve Patterson

Guest Opinion: Weaker Anti-Discrimination Policy is Bad for Missouri

by Rachel Boeglin

HB205 and SB188 are harmful to the state of Missouri, its employees, and even to those looking for housing.

These bills change the language of the Missouri Human Rights Act to make it harder to prove discrimination.  If these bills succeed, instead of showing that discrimination was a “contributing factor” in an adverse action, victims of discrimination will have to show that discrimination was the “motivating factor”.  As the burden is already on the victim to prove discrimination, this change in language makes it much harder to prove that discrimination is the majority of the reason for the resulting firing or unequal treatment in employment or in housing. The bills make it easier for employers and housing providers to hide behind a pretext, or even simply ignorance of the law.

Despite the fact that this legislation has been brought to the table with the guise of bringing state law closer to that of federal law, it ironically may do the opposite, making state law no longer substantially equivalent to federal law. According to the Committee on Legislative Research’s Oversight Division, this would mean the loss of over $1.1 million, via the withdrawal of funding from H.U.D. and the E.E.O.C. to the Missouri Commission on Human Rights.

This loss of funds could even lead to the closing of the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, thus requiring that victims of discrimination file cases with H.U.D. and the E.E.O.C., federal entities that can already be overwhelmed. This, in turn, could also lead to Missouri discrimination cases being evaluated by out of state assessors.

The bills have other very negative impacts on employment, such as the capping of punitive damages that can be charged to discriminating employers and erasing individual liability against discriminators.

As of April 18th, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has fifteen days in which to either approve or veto the bill.  Concerned Missouri citizens can contact the governor’s office to encourage a bill veto.

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Rachel Boeglin is a senior social work major at St. Louis University, currently completing her practicum at the St. Louis Metropolitan Equal Housing Opportunity Council (their mission is to “ensure equal access to housing for all people through education, counseling, investigation and enforcement”).