urbanSTL

ldai_phs wrote: ↑

1:03 AM - Jun 18

@dbInSouthCity Why is it that St. Louis City is soo stingy with tax incentives for new development? I recently read the even New York City offers an automatic 100% property tax abatement for 35 years if you build new multifamily.

A lack of education.  Pandering to their base.  Local politicians don't understand and or downplay the difficulty and risk that is associated with any real estate development let alone development in St. Louis.  If they did, they would roll out the red carpet for  infill developments that will eventually hit that tax roll.  The large infill urban developments that we all get excited about require institutional capital.  That capital has lot of options and for it to be invested here requires  as much risk as possible to be taken of the table.  

ldai_phs wrote:@dbInSouthCity Why is it that St. Louis City is soo stingy with tax incentives for new development? I recently read the even New York City offers an automatic 100% property tax abatement for 35 years if you build new multifamily.

The NYC program also has strict affordable housing requirements ranging from 20% to 50% of the units being affordable/rent controlled permenantly. They also have hefty prevailing wage requirements.

100% for 35 years is totally cool when 50% of the units are permenantly affordable units lol.

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^Great point and let's also remember we had 16 years of the Slay administration who's only play was to give developers large and small whatever they wanted with minimum strings attached. The present "stinginess" is a natural reaction to that profligacy. 

I wish SLDC/BOA/BEA took a more long-term, strategic approach to subsidizing private development (as StlAlex describes for NYC) rather than the now-standard Community Benefit Agreement, which looks more like a "what's in it for me" shakedown by the local NGO mafia. Its a better approach than that taken by the Slay administration, but still leaves much to be desired.

The real solution of course is to phase out the "improvements" component of the real estate tax and transition to a full Land Value Tax.

StlAlex wrote:

ldai_phs wrote:@dbInSouthCity Why is it that St. Louis City is soo stingy with tax incentives for new development? I recently read the even New York City offers an automatic 100% property tax abatement for 35 years if you build new multifamily.

The NYC program also has strict affordable housing requirements ranging from 20% to 50% of the units being affordable/rent controlled permenantly. They also have hefty prevailing wage requirements.

100% for 35 years is totally cool when 50% of the units are permenantly affordable units lol.

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NYC until recently only required 20% affordable at 80-135% AMI. 110%+ is what you’d call new construction market rate here.

We Could Actually Save The American Mall

A fun little watch, about what reimagining a mall site could work and look like.

The ZOUP released its Draft Development Standards: https://www.zoup-stl.com/copy-of-draft- ... zoning-map

There's stuff that's good or fine but I'm not a fan of the Transitions requirements between zones (see page 26). From what I understand they could require setbacks of 10-20 feet between mixed use/commercial buildings if they have different height requirements. Which does not a cohesive urban space make imo. 

Yes, agreed. ^

Zoup parking survey

https://www.zoup-stl.com/get-involved

Don Roe announces retirement. This is good news in my opinion. With respect, the office has needed fresh eyes for a few years.

St. Louis' longtime planning chief to retire
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/government-politics/article_a6c8428b-5b4e-49d0-8ffc-42f8d8e6c4b8.html

Updated draft map

ZOUP September Draft 2 Zoning Map | Atlas

Don't love it, they downzoned a lot from the 1st draft. Like a lot of the northern cwe is just 3 or 5 story height limit now and the amount of land they are zoning N-A (the lowest density zone with just a duplex + ADU) is up a lot, especially in south city. Didn't really seem like they took the online comments (which were dominated by urbanists/yimbys) into account that much, so I probably won't bother with engaging this time.

Agreed. They downsized all of midtown to mx-15 which will make any new towers non-conforming. 

So much of it is reactive.

PeterXCV wrote:Don't love it, they downzoned a lot from the 1st draft. Like a lot of the northern cwe is just 3 or 5 story height limit now and the amount of land they are zoning N-A (the lowest density zone with just a duplex + ADU) is up a lot, especially in south city. Didn't really seem like they took the online comments (which were dominated by urbanists/yimbys) into account that much, so I probably won't bother with engaging this time.

YIMBYs tend to do a good job of posting online but only a so-so job if direction out reach to decision makers and showing up to the in person meetings.

We elected a suburban NIMBY mayor so idk what anyone expected.

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Realistically it would take 100 years for us to fulfill this vision at a reduced intensity. Lets be real. The demand just isn't there. With that said, I'm more excited about the city becoming more walkable than a high rise city. Think DC. 

goat314 wrote: ↑

1:08 AM - Today

Realistically it would take 100 years for us to fulfill this vision at a reduced intensity. Lets be real. The demand just isn't there. With that said, I'm more excited about the city becoming more walkable than a high rise city. Think DC. 

I'm curious, do you think it is becoming more walkable because of the road diets, dedicated bike and walking paths? I agree that is become more walkable.   

I think the new street redesigns, greenways, possibly brt, and then this city wide form based code will make a tremendous difference over the next few decades. Having a 15 story high max in certain areas is not necessarily a bad thing, because even at its current restriction the city will likely not have the demand to even realize that level of density over wide swaths of the city anytime soon. The city could literally double its population and still wouldn't come close to filling the new zoning revision. 

Yeah I get that point; in terms of walkability/density, it feels like 3 15 stories buildings with retail on the ground floor would lead to more activity/dynamism that one 45 story tower. Think Citizen Park in the CWE. If we could copy/paste that 10x within just the central corridor I think it'd make a big difference.

Absolutely 

I agree, but the point of the updated code is flexibility and ease. Ex: If City Foundry phase 3 has one tower over 15 stories, do they have to go get a variance for development? Multiply that for any parcel of interest, and we're back to going to the Board of Adjustment for nearly every development in the central city. 

dylank wrote: ↑

2:14 PM - Today

I agree, but the point of the updated code is flexibility and ease. Ex: If City Foundry phase 3 has one tower over 15 stories, do they have to go get a variance for development? Multiply that for any parcel of interest, and we're back to going to the Board of Adjustment for nearly every development in the central city. 

I don't think we will see many proposals over 15 stories in that area. With that said, keep in mind this is a right to build code. That already eliminates a lot of red tape to get real density built. Also, the downtown area is unlimited.

I don't understand why there is a three story max along the majority of Jefferson in South City where we are building a BRT line