Steve Wilke-Shapiro on KDHX Tonight, Farewell Party Tuesday

Tonight is Steve night on KDHX‘s Collateral Damage program — Steve Wilke-Shapiro from 15thwardstl.org and myself will join hosts DJ Wilson and Fred Hessel in studio at 7pm on 88.1FM. As many of you know, Wilke-Shapiro and his family are moving to Des Moines for a new job and to be closer to family. Among tonight’s topics will be Steve’s 50 Things I Won’t Miss About St. Louis list which includes, in no particular order:

• The Board of Aldermen – I’m not going to name all the individual representatives. That would take up 24 of my 50 items in this list. For the most part, they seem to be just about as incompetent at dealing with critical issues in a proactive and comprehensive manner as Congress is. Two big thumbs down.
• Parochialism – Y’all have to figure out a way to work across borders. The region is killing itself from all the fighting over scraps in a zero-sum game.
• Eureka, Chesterfield, and friends – That sucking sound you hear? That’s all my taxes going to maintain your unsustainable infrastructure.
• Paul McKee – Pretty much represents all that is wrong with politics and development in St. Louis. Clear cutting is not the right way to go about rebuilding community.
• Interstate 64 – Or is it Highway 40? Redoing this road is the biggest boondoggle we’ve seen since, well, the Page Avenue Extension. Should have planned for transit.
• Page Avenue Extension – I could put together another “Top 50” list of things I would rather have spent a billion dollars on. All you self-centered suburbanites quit complaining about Metrolink “subsidy” until you add up all the money spent on extending and widening your own roads.
• Loughborough Commons – With a little urban planning, it could have been done so much better. Instead we have another “place not worth caring about.”
• Riverfront – Quite possibly the biggest missed opportunity in the region. What a huge disappointment it is to cross under the Arch and gaze down the grand stairway only to see the might Mississippi lapping at a sometimes parking lot and a bunch of concrete bollards.
• Racism – Race seems to inform everything in St. Louis (and not in a good way). I’ve been in St. Louis for 14 years and haven’t seen much forward movement. I don’t know what the right steps are, but I do believe that until people make a conscious effort to equalize some of the spatial disparities in income, education, health, and employment, it will be difficult to deal with the underlying prejudices.
• The Gateway Mall – If you build it they will come. We don’t need “greenspace” downtown.
• “Reserved” street parking – They are public streets. I’ll park where I want. Just because you own the adjacent property doesn’t make a street space yours.
• River Des Peres – Affectionately called River Dispair by those in the know.
• Schnuck’s – I shop there because it’s so damn convenient to my house (I don’t even have to get in the car), but I don’t like it. Shame on you for demolishing the Century Building. Is it intentional that the logo looks so much like “Schmucks”?

This should make for a good conversation! Tuesday evening friends are giving Steve a farewell party at The Royale. 5:30pm-? And finally, if you are looking for a great home in a great neighborhood consider Steve’s home at 3618McDonald.com (listed by my broker, Christopher Thiemet).

Citizen Journalism, New York Style

“Oh, you’re that guy that did the video at Copia!” is something I hear often as I introduce myself to people. Last year I video taped a valet company at Copia violating the terms of their valet permit — placing cones in the street and such. The owner came out of his restaurant to confront me after I removed their cones from the public street. In case you missed it, here it is (note: video contains explicit language):

Valet Parking at Copia from UrbanReviewSTL and Vimeo.

People were aghast at both my behavior and the restaurant owners. Dave Drebes wrote on the Arch City Chronicle blog, “Yes, there’s too much space reserved for valet parking, but I’m not sure his approach is… um… constructive.” One commenter on that post said, “wow, talk about needing to get a life! This guy is a class A-1 Loser. who the hell cares if the valets use freaking parking spaces?” Yet another person wrote, “I would suggest that Mr. Patterson try to change his methods and behavior before he becomes the person who complains all of the time and never compliments anyone for any reason.” This video, from nearly a year ago now, came after months and months of trying to get some change. At the time, I could not believe the things this guy was saying to me on camera, clearly he did not know who I was or what I’d do with the video. My post, with a variety of comments, can be found here.

But this post is not about valet parking, Copia or me. Well, sort of about me. I’ve been called a bully and my methods questioned which is fair game as public as I am. Ald. Florida called me a zeolot and has said that I am mean. To everyone out there that doesn’t like me or my methods all I can say is be thankful I’m from Oklahoma and not New York.

Meet Jimmy Justice:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=052S1yg-zR0[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0rSqX-elZY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf-tcjc87hw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XqJVAwCrbw[/youtube]

Recently Jimmy Justice was featured on the Today show, here is a report from the ABC station in New York.

Now let’s see, a good place to shop for video cameras in the city…

Collinsville Planning Commission Rules Against Commercial Zoning on Disputed Property

Last April I brought I did a post on an interesting dispute in Collinsville IL. In short, a developer bough a corner parcel that was a house at the entrance to a subdivision with one side of the land on an increasingly commercial street. At the time a city zoning map had apparently incorrectly noted the parcel as zoned commercial when it in fact remained residentially zoned. The developer wanted the zoning changed to commercial so they could build their planned retail store while the residents argued they did not want the edge & entrance of their residential area invaded in such a manner.

The house purchased by the developer actually occupies two original residential building lots. The developer wanted to raze the existing structure. As you can see from the image above, the area is quite commercial but not in the immediate vicinity of that parcel. The Planning Commission ruled in favor of the residents at their long meeting last night. I was unable to attend but Diane Meyer has the low down at Respublica.   The next step is the City Council.

Planned and Unplanned Destruction of Neighborhoods and Churches

Yesterday the historic St. Alphonsus church on North Grand, better known as “The Rock”, suffered a devastating fire as a result of lightening. The church building, dedicated in 1872 per a KSDK report, is known for its rock exterior and stone wall.  To me the church was a rock for another reason, actually surviving the surrounding neighborhood being leveled — twice!

Last year the church, above, stood in relative isolation to the north as land once occupied by a thriving neighborhood sits vacant and paved.  Taller buildings in the Grand & Washington area can be seen in the background.  This is the corner of Page & Grand, looking south.

Stepping back to Dr. King and Grand the church steeple still reminds us of how great this neighborhood once was, before the generic public housing projects and the proliferation of gas stations.

These images, taken on October 12, 2006, show the old Blumeyer housing project just before demolition.  Of course, this area once contained a real neighborhood prior to Blumeyer took that all away in a costly planning experiment.  Through all this destruction, The Rock church survived.

Above, in October 2006, is a 15-story Blumeyer building being prepped for demolition.   This building was located along Page with The Rock church just out of view to the right, back a block or so along Grand.

By early January 2007 all that remained of the Bluymeyer complex was a pile of rubble that had yet to be hauled away.  The Rock remained one of the few stabilizing forces in the neighborhood.

A firehouse that also survived the planned destruction of the old neighborhood for the Blumeyer project once again survives the second wave. 

Sometimes we think we know best so we continuously destroy and rebuild, burning through resources and lives.  Other times nature (or God depending upon your views) does the work for us such as yesterday’s fire at The Rock, the recent earthquake in Peru and two years ago, the hurricane in New Orleans.  I have no choice but to accept the results of nature, but I refuse to accept the way we handle public space and buildings in St. Louis.

Yesterday morning I scootered by The Rock church on the way to a press conference about Paul McKee’s vast land holdings in North St. Louis.  I wish now I had stopped and snapped a few shots of the building — it is one of those that you just always think will be around serving the community as it has done for generations.  My sympathies to the members of the parish. 

Halliday St. Illegal Parking Pad Fiasco Continues

Third time is a charm, so goes the old saying. Well, for the third time now the unapproved parking 4-car parking lot at a condo project in Tower Grove East is back on the agenda for the Board of Adjustment. Eventually the neighbors will capitulate on the issue and the developer and alderman will have their way. But as I’ve said before, this really is a bigger issue than simply this single block of Halliday.

Ald. Conway, the son of a former one-term Mayor (wiki), is trying to convince the public this is a rare situation and should be allowed to remain. After all, he had to help shut down the drugs and prostitution that once existed in the building. Yes folks, whatever you do, make sure that drugs and prostitution do not come into your neighborhood for the obvious reasons but also because they will forever be used to justify bad design decisions in the future. The choices otherwise, so I am told, are either a big ass parking pad for condo dwellers’ cars or section 8 housing. In St. Louis politics, a middle ground does not seem to exist.

But could this situation occur again? Well yes, and very nearby also in the 8th ward.

This wonderful 1925 apartment building located at Magnolia & Thurman contains, per city records, 38 apartments. To the back is the Bi-State bus loop property. This building has only the land it sits on.

The front interior court is a wonderful space.

Above: Stepping back a bit we see the interior court and the small front lawn between the building and sidewalk.

Looking west we see how the line of buildings is maintained down the Magnolia with Tower Grove Park on the left.

All I know about this project is that it is to be condos. I don’t have a clue who the developer is, how many units they plan or how parking will be accommodated. I do know it is also in the 8th ward where Ald. Conway might rationalize that paving this front yard might be a good solution. Again, I don’t know the specific plans for this project — I am simply using it to illustrate that we have numerous buildings that do not have extra land for off-street car storage.

We must decide, as a city and not block by block, if we are going to renovate dense urban buildings such as these despite lack of parking. To me this location is an ideal place to live — the park is stunning, bus routes are convenient, Shaw is a great neighborhood, the Botanical Gardens are close, shopping on Grand and Morganford is an easy bike ride away. On-street parking is adequate.

Getting back to Halliday. The immediate neighbors have made it clear — the front yard parking lot needs to go. The Tower Grove East neighborhood has made it clear — the front yard parking lot needs to go. Other city residents, such as myself and many of you have made it clear — the front yard parking lot needs to go. The solution, worked out over a month ago, would provide angled on-street parking — a good solution for a quiet tree-lined residential street.

Of course, the Alderman is trying to make that complicated. Rather than set up a permit-only parking area for the new condo residents he has actually proposed deeding a portion of the public street to the condo owners for their parking! Uh, hello, the public street is just that — public! I don’t give a sh*t if the condo owners will sue the developer for promising parking — he should not have made promises he could not keep. We simply can’t have developers running around promising parking they don’t have or tax abatement that was never approved and then change the rules after the fact to keep them from having made false statements (the tax abatement is just an example from other projects, that is not an issue in this case).

While I feel for the owners of the newly developed condos, I hope you have good documentation on the parking promise as well as a good lawyer. To potential buyers out there — this is a good example of why you need a REALTOR® when purchasing property — we help look out for issues such as this and ask for proof of future promises (such as evidence that tax abatement has been applied for and is in process). OK, the real estate sales pitch is over.

One of the big obstacles in development projects is getting financing without dedicated off-street parking. I’ve had numerous developers tell me it is an absolute must. The developers often are open to having less than one space per unit, knowing they’ll have sales/leases to people that take transit, walk, bike or simply don’t mind leaving their car on the street but it is the banking industry in St. Louis that requires a high level of parking. And here we enter the vicious circle: we are not going to have a public that uses the car less and other modes more until we live in more dense areas where it is forced by circumstances (lack of parking) or cost. On the other hand, we are not going to get this more dense development until we have a public that increasingly uses other modes besides the car. Bankers need to see more people with fewer cars to give them the confidence to lend on a project with few to zero parking spaces and people need to have good housing choices near convenient and frequent transit to comfortably live without a car. The solution is we’ve got to meet in the middle — people need to accept they may have to park their car on the street and bankers will need to be open to looking at walk-ability and access to transit when evaluating proposed projects. We simply cannot let a lack of off-street parking halt all the good renovation work happening throughout the city.

The Halliday St. parking lot is back on the Board of Adjustment agenda for Wednesday August 29, 2007 at 1pm. Room 208 of City Hall. For those keeping count at home, this is the third time on their agenda.

Prior posts:

• June 4, 2007
• June 27, 2007
• July 10, 2007