Halliday St. Illegal Parking Pad Fiasco Continues at City Hall Wednesday Afternoon

You know, I think the issue of the little parking pad that couldn’t typifies the City of St. Louis perfectly. Let’s examine the city hall logic/process so far:

• Because the building once had drugs and prostitution, Alderman believes anything the developer does should be accepted by neighbors without question. Those outside block have no say no matter what, even when tax incentives are used.
• The renovation must have parking because everyone has a car.
• The parking must be off-street and deeded forever to unit.
• Alderman dangles $30K of tax money in front of residents for street exit markers in exchange for accepting the idea of a concrete front yard used for vehicle storage.
• Developer paves yard without proper permits, Alderman blames residents for not approving final design of the bribe in time.
• Alderman calls meeting of residents of that block to make a decision about a public right-of-way owned and used by the general public.
• Alderman gives appearance of supporting wishes of residents while pushing for the paved parking pad.
• Alderman indicates on-street parking is OK (not really, wink wink) as long as the city vacates that land and gives it to condo owners, by deed, forever.

Sometimes I wonder how it is that we managed to stop losing population at 350,000. Why do we continue to elect the same people (or types of people) over and over again and think that somehow things will improve? Oh yes, the precious charter reform measures of 2004 didn’t pass so we continue to have 28 of these types of aldermen rather than half as many. BFD, so you’d have half as many people ‘effin up the city in wards twice as big. Stop using crutches that only continue to enable this dysfunctional line of thinking.

I believe:

• We should not pave front yards for parking.
• We should not design parking pads so that cars back out over public sidewalks.
• We should not use tax money to manipulate the public into going along with a bad idea.
• We should not deed a section of a public right-of-way to a few condo owners.

Like other areas of the city where a private building does not have any off-street parking, we should designate a portion of the public street as permit parking only and issue those permits to the residents of the condos. Then we should all take turns behind a jack hammer to remove the illegally poured concrete front yard.

The St. Louis circus continues at the next Board of Adjustment hearing on 7/11/2007 at 1:30pm in the Kennedy Hearing Room (Rm 208), City Hall. I’ll be there tomorrow, I haven’t been to a good comedy show in a while.

Related Links:

• My posts on this subject from June 4th and June 27th.
• Alderman Stephen Conway.
• St. Louis’ Board of Adjustment (worthless site, go ahead and see for yourself).

UPDATE 7/12/2007 @ 8:30am

This item, a continuance from last month, was heard first, although some who had called had been told it would be later.  The printed agenda, not available online but distributed at the meeting lists the item last (6th).

The developer was present and asked for another continuance for another month, indicating he is willing to remove the parking pad while they work out details of on-street parking.  Again, the developer and aldermen seem to want to vacate part of the street so that the condos take ownership of that section.  I’m not sure how they’d do that legally — would they also vacate the portion of the public right-of-way that contains the public sidewalk?

As I have previously stated, I think these condo owners shoud be able to have a single permitted space on the street — that seems like a reasonable compromise.  The problem here is that the developer promised parking spaces to the buyers and may face litigation if suddenly the owned space went away (either from a condo owner or their lender).  If the city does vacate part of the public street for private use I think it needs to come at a price — what is the value of that land?  The developer would need to buy it.

The other issue is that if the developer really intends to break out the concrete parking pad and go with the on-street parking they really don’t need to waste anymore time at the Board of Adjustment, this group of appointees by the Mayor hears appeals on denials of building permits — such as a parking pad/lot.  However, the Board of Adjustment has no authority to grant a variance to deed a portion of the publicly owned right-of-way to private citizens.  That would require legislation to accomplish that.  So I ask, why hasn’t the developer withdrawn his appeal?  The simple answer is that he and the aldermen will take another 30 days to wear down the residents of the block to keep the parking pad, illegally poured, in place.

Non-Married Couples Must Register as Domestic Partners to Get Gym Discount

Non-married co-habitating couples (straight or gay) joining the St. Louis Fitness Factory, a new gym in St. Louis’ trendy loft district on Washington Ave., must pay $120/year more than legally married couples for the same services — unless they register with the city as domestic partners.

From the St. Louis Business Journal on March 30, 2007:

McGowan Brothers Development has hired Craig Ramage and Jason Barbour to run its new $7.5 million St. Louis Fitness Factory at 1314 Washington Ave., scheduled to open April 15. Ramage, general manager, has 10 years of experience at St. Louis health and fitness clubs. Barbour, director of personal training, has trained NFL players, NCAA All-Americans, and state high school champs. The membership fee is $169, with monthly dues of $39.95.

The gym opened late but just in time as the Gold’s Gym downtown and the Chase in the Central West End, both closed or relocated. With monthly dues of $39.95, the $10/month discount given to legally married spouses means non-married couples pay a whopping 25% more per month than others for the second person to join.

While Missouri and the U.S. Government does not recognize gay marriages, individual businesses such as the St. Louis Fitness Factory are free to extend such spousal discounts to non-married couples as a matter of business policy. Unfortunately, this gym, has decided non-married couples don’t rank.

Shawn McGowan returned a call to me last week after I inquired about their policy, letting me know they expected couples to be registered with the city if they expected a discount. I mentioned other proof such as driver’s licenses or mail with the same address. I’ve since heard from a good source that they are considering other proof of co-habitation besides the city’s domestic partnership registry.
Related Links;

• St. Louis Fitness Factory
• McGowan Brothers Development
• St. Louis’ Domestic Partnership Registration

It appears the registration is primarily aimed at city employees, allowing their partner to have access to health plans (a good idea). It does not appear the city pays for health insurance for employee’s spouses anyway so this simply gives the right for a partner to buy a health plan (also good). The legislation creating the registry, Ordinance 64401, was passed by the Board of Aldermen in June 1998. At the time this was pretty progressive, as I recall. However, in the last nine years quite a bit has changed.

Getting back to the gym membership for a moment, what about couples that happen to live outside the City of St. Louis but that work or visit downtown and want to join this gym? By living outside the city, perhaps across the river, they are not able to register as domestic partners. Of coruse, we are probably only talking about a handful of people anyway so I am not sure why the gym is making such a big deal — many gyms extend their family discounts with some simple proof of co-habitation.
I found one sentence in the ordinance interesting and somewhat telling of the time when the legislation was passed:

“Domestic partnerships registered in any city or county other than the Citiy of St. Louis shall be valid within the City of St. Louis upon the filing of a certified copy of the registration with the city register.”

In the years since a number of countries and now even states recognize marriage between two persons of the same gender, starting with The Netherlands in 2001. But reading the above language I am not sure that if a gay St. Louis couple got married in the state of Massachusetts that the city would recognize this fact simply based on the semantics of “registration.” Other than the obvious gym discount, the other reason to be registered with the city is the right not to be refused access to your partner in jail or in a hospital located within the City of St. Louis:

1. All health care facilities operating within the City of St. Louis shall allow the registered domestic partner of a patient to visit such patient unless no visitors are allowed or the patient expresses a desire that visitation by the domestic partner be restricted.

2. All jail facilities owned or operated by the City of St. Louis shall allow the registered domestic partner of an inmate to visit such inmate unless the authority in charge of said facility reasonable believes that such a visit is a threat to the security of the inmate or the inmate expresses a desire that visitation by the domestic partner be restricted.

So again, would a couple that has had a legal marriage in another state or country be able to simply file a copy of their marriage certificate with the city or would the city only accept a “domestic partnership” registration from a city or county?  I think it is time to update Ordinance 64401.

Schnuck Family to Sell Majority Stake in Shopping Centers to Austrailian Trust

From the Sydney Morning Herald via Urban St. Louis forum:

MACQUARIE CountryWide Trust has expanded further into North America, buying a controlling interest in 33 retail centres from the Schnuck family worth $US260 million in a joint venture with the Regency Centers Corporation.

Under the deal the Schnuck family will retain 20 per cent of the portfolio, with Macquarie CountryWide owning 65 per cent and Regency the remaining 15 per cent.

Above: Grand opening of Schnuck’s store at Loughborough Commons in South St. Louis, August 2006.

Austrailia’s Hearald-Sun writes:

Of the 33 shopping centres in the deal, 26 are in the greater St Louis area.

The centres will be managed by Regency and the Schnuck family’s DESCO Group.

I’m not exactly sure what this will mean for us locally. Maybe this will be a good thing to have some outside perspective? Given the “value” of these shopping centers, and the $14 million in tax subsidy for Loughborough Commons alone, I fail to see why better pedestrian access could not have been included in the project’s designs.

Related Links:

• Schnuck’s Grocery Stores
• DESCO Group
• Macquairie CountryWide Trust
• Regency Centers Corporation

UPDATE 7/9/07 @ 12:45pm:

The St. Louis Business Journal has a slightly different percentages and some more detail (full story):

Macquarie CountryWide Trust (MCW) is buying a 60 percent stake in the portfolio. MCW is managed by a division of Macquarie Bank Group, based in Sydney, Australia. Macquarie Bank Group’s real estate division manages a portfolio of assets totaling more than $23 billion globally. In a joint venture with MCW, Jacksonville, Fla.-based Regency Centers Corp. is buying a 13 percent stake in the portfolio.

I’m willing to bet that the Schnuck’s grocery store chain will announce within the next 12 months they are being sold.

Sometimes You Just Have to Ask the Right Person

A couple of years ago I emailed St. Louis’ Citizens’ Service Bureau asking them to add directional arrows on Hartford at Grand. For years I’ve seen drivers be confused as they leave the Commerce Bank drive-thru/parking area or the parking area behind the commercial strip that contains the St. Louis Bread Co. and Kinkos. Many drivers, it appeared, either forgot or did not realize this was a one-way street heading toward Grand. You would routinely see a driver in the right lane but make a left turn — potentially cutting off someone correctly in the left lane to turn left. I went throught the proper channel but it never got done.

But as you can see above it was recently done. Sometimes it takes the right person asking the right person and good things can happen. Last month I ran into Director of Streets Todd Waeltermann down at City Hall during a meeting of the Board of Aldermen. We had a pleasant conversation but I am certainly not his favorite person after I’ve made such a big deal over valet parking and other issues impacting his department. Still, I think, we both realize a good working relationship is best in the long run. So, during our impromptu chat I mentioned this area and followed up with an email that read, in part:

Hartford in the block east of Grand (next to Commerce Bank) is one-way westbound. People coming out of the bank and Breadco don’t always realize this and stay to the right as they head to Grand and then make a left turn — conflicting with those in the left turning left. I’ll try to get a picture to send you. What is needed is a simple dividing line with the left lane marked as left-turn only and the right lane marked as straight or right. Better signs might help but people often don’t see signs as they exit from these two areas onto westbound Hartford. Better pavement marking would greatly help.

A few days ago, after dinner on the patio at City Diner, I noticed the striping and arrows I had suggested had been done. Needless to say, I was very glad to see this finally in place — I sent Waeltermann a thank you via email that night. I’m not sure when this got done, perhaps at the same time as the intersection up the street at Grand & Magnolia (see post). I went back on Saturday to get photos and observe traffic and it did appear the pavement markings helped people as they were busy driving, putting away cash from the ATM and talking on their cell phone. Only one vehicle out of 25 or so turned left from the right lane, an improvement to be sure.

Other items on my wish list to Waeltermann were a bit more involved so I understand why they are not done. One involves striping along South Broadway between I-55 and I-55 (Cherokee to Osceolla roughly) so that the outside lane is not the current 20ft+ width which encourages people to pass on the right in the parking lane. This type of striping has been done in the 11th Ward section of Broadway further South and it made a big difference. This area is being looked at for bike route planning so I doubt anything will happen until the planning has been done. I’d heard talk of removing on-street parking on one side so that 4-traffic lanes plus bike lanes could be accommodated. I personally would keep the on-street parking and drop the traffic from four lanes down to two but that is a good subject for an entirely different post.

Again, I appreciate the responsiveness of Todd Waeltermann in implementing logical markings to help motorists and hopefully reduce accidents (or at least angry drivers) at this intersection.

Cycling Organization Giving Away Kids Bike Helmets at Farmers Market

The St. Louis Regional Bike Federation will be holding an interesting event on the east side of the river Saturday morning:

Bike Smart – Edwardsville on Saturday, July 7
Join us on July 7 from 8:00 a.m. – noon at the Land of Goshen Farmers’ Market in downtown Edwardsville, IL for helmet fitting, bike education, and mechanical safety checks for your bike! Helmets First will be there offering 50 free helmets for kids. When the free helmets run out you can buy one for just $7! In addition St. Louis Recumbent Bicycles will provide a bicycle mechanic to check your bike and make minor repairs or adjustments and help you learn how to check your bike before you ride. We’ll have experienced riders on hand to answer your questions about bike commuting, riding safely in traffic, and your rights and responsibilities on the roads.

Bike helmets are very important for safety — having them properly fitted it critical.  I see way too many kids wearing helmets that are angled way back exposing their foreheads (some adults wear helmets this way too).  Please folks, check your helmet for proper fit — go to an event like this or go into nearly any bike shop and talk to them about how to properly adjust your helmet.

It looks like the Bike Fed already made an appearance at the Tower Grove market but I have suggested they do a fitting at the Old North St. Louis Farmers’ Market.

Happy eating and riding!