 As a Board Member, your basic responsibilities are: 1. Attend the monthly Board meeting on 4th Tuesday at 6 pm. You are allowed a few excused absences for a year, but we ask that you let us know ahead of time. 2. Attend one committee meeting a month, and be an active participant. Our committees vary in meeting times, but generally, they are mid-week at 6. You will need to select what committee(s) you would like to be signed up for by the October Board meeting. This helps us measure the minimum number of people we need at a meeting in order to vote (quorum). 3. Be a great communicator! Read emails and respond to the ones that need a response. We like our Board to be well-informed and engaged. 4. Connect your neighbors to SUPC. Chat with people about what's going on and listen to their concerns. Be observant. 5. Ask questions if you don't understand something. 6. Never vote just to go along with others. Your opinion is important. 7. Read the Board Handbook and SUPC Bylaws. Each month you will receive an important email the week before the board meeting. It will have information about the meeting, as well as other important announcements:
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 Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB) is a planning area just to the East of Summit-University. They aren't necessarily a District Council, but they do act on similar issues. They are currently creating a comprehensive plan. The CAAPB Comp Plan is being written and released in chapters. They are currently working on Chapter 6, which focuses on Land Use. They have requested that interested parties submit written comment by September 30. Why this matters:
  Ramsey County Public Works is planning to hold a community meeting at the Rondo Library to discuss the construction of the Dale Street Bridge and to prepare the community for the disruption. Construction is still planned to begin in 2020.
They have not officially released meeting details, but a staff person reached out to say that it should be on November 20. We will be encouraging people to go, and gathering questions for Ramsey County to prepare to answer. Do you have any construction-related questions or thoughts? Let us know! Watch an animation of the new bridge concept here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE6HQULFemk&index=1&list=PLMVpBjXUcBQZIIrlGPF6GePGfg5828RKs  The applicant is proposing that they will demolish an existing duplex that was damaged by fire two years ago, and construct a new side-by-side duplex on the lot.
The lot is currently zoned to require that the back yard is 25 feet (from back of the lot to where the building begins). The building they would like to build would take up slightly more of the back yard, and leave 20 feet 11 inches of green space. They have to apply for a variance (case by case permission to do something outside of the city's rules) to have a back yard that is 4 feet 1 inch smaller than normal. This item will be on an upcoming Summit-University Planning Council Agenda September 24, 2019 6 PM SUPC Community Room Jerome Benner from the Saint Paul Department of Safety and Inspections is the contact on this issue  Updated: August 27, 2019 935 Iglehart is currently a single family home undergoing renovation. The company doing the renovation, D&J Steele Construction, has applied for several variances in order to convert the home into a duplex. Don Steele attended the 8/20/2019 Neighborhood Development Committee meeting to explain the project and ask for SUPC's support for the variances:
The committee voted unanimously to support these variances after discussion the plans with the developer, and and the full SUPC board voted to approve at their August 27 meeting.
This item was on a Summit-University Planning Council Agenda:
August 27, 2019 6 PM SUPC Community Room  Note: Originally published 8/16/2019, updated 8/24/2019 Shuang Hur Grocery, located at 654 University, has recently applied to expand their parking area to include two lots across the alley from their business. Their Site Plan Review is scheduled for August 20, 2019. SUPC received notice about this on August 14, 2019. We reached out to the area block club to make sure they were informed and listen to their thoughts about the project. The SUPC Neighborhood Development Committee discussed this issue at their 8/20/2019 meeting. A block club representative attended to bring their neighborhood's concerns to the committee, and one person also wrote in opposition. The SUPC Neighborhood Development Committee voted unanimously to opposed converting the lot into a parking lot, (this action was approved by the SUPC Exec Committee 8/22/2019). Staff from Saint Paul DSI responded to the letter: Thank you. I received the attachment. We will include it with the Site Plan’s conditional approval from staff. I hear the District Council’s concern regarding the previous house demolition and the transit-oriented nature of the University Ave corridor. Based on the Site Plan application, the additional parking and location is permitted per Zoning Ordinance based on the size and location of the businesses it would serve. As you and I discussed earlier this week, I recommend the District Council engage the property owner directly on their development plans. Saint Paul DSI approves of this site plan, and their recommendation to prevent turning it into a parking lot is to ask the business who applied to stop construction. Sec. 66.313. - Intent, T2 traditional neighborhood district. The T2 traditional neighborhood district is designed for use in existing or potential pedestrian and transit nodes. Its intent is to foster and support compact, pedestrian-oriented commercial and residential development that, in turn, can support and increase transit usage. It encourages, but does not require, a variety of uses and housing types, with careful attention to the amount and placement of parking and transitions to adjacent residential neighborhoods. We have not heard back from Councilmember Thao regarding this issue. Proposed site plan:
This item will be on an upcoming Summit-University Planning Council Agenda
August 27, 2019 6 PM SUPC Community Room Amanda Smith from the Saint Paul Department of Safety and Inspections is the contact on this issue  On July 15, the Union Park District Council's land use committee, "CLUED", discussed the proposed development at 411 Lexington Parkway. Alatus, LLC presented site concepts that they believe responded to community input about the project. You can find their presentation below as a PDF. Important notes about the project:
Alatus proposed three options for the development:
SUPC wrote a letter to Wilder, the lot's seller, to request that they put restrictions on the sale of the site. We requested that at least 50% of the units be at 30% of AMI. They did not put any restrictions on the sale. More information:
This item will be on an upcoming Neighborhood Development Committee Agenda
August 20, 2019 6 PM SUPC Community Room Committee Members: Mary Morris (committee chair), Judith Tande, Leetta Douglass, Eric Ebbeson, Daniel Yudchitz, Melvin Giles, Jonathan Palmer, and Ibrahim Kamia  As you may recall, the Saint Paul City Council adopted an ordinance in 2017 to address Short Term Rentals. SUPC held two community meetings to discuss this issue with neighbors. At the time, the concern was raised that long term rentals could become short term rentals. The City planned to address this with a provision that an apartment building with multiple units could only have 4 units designated to short term rentals. If someone wanted to have more units in their building, they would have to request more from the Planning Commission. Recently, the owner of a building downtown found a way around this provision by going to the State of MN to get a hotel license. What this means is that although they are operating as a short term rental building (accessed by apps like AirBnB), the regulations for limiting the conversion of housing to short term rentals do not apply because they are defined as a hotel. This building was providing naturally occurring affordable housing. The Saint Paul City Council does not want this to happen again, and is addressing the loophole by first defining these things: hotel, motel, and inn. This will allow DSI to be able to enforce standards (which is now controlled exclusively by the State of MN). Hearing date is: September 20, 2019 (more details to come soon) For more information:
This item will be on an upcoming Community Improvement and Safety Committee Agenda
August 20, 2019 5 PM SUPC Office Committee Members: Judith Tande (committee chair), Mary Morris, Martha Tilton, Eric Ebbeson Faye Simer from Saint Paul Public Works is our contact on this issue  Saint Paul Public Works will be doing mill and overlay projects in 2021 on: St. Anthony Avenue from Snelling to Victoria Concordia Avenue from Lexington to Marion in 2021. (Work excludes off-ramps and the signalized intersections of Snelling, Lexington, and Dale, which are being addressed through separate projects) St. Anthony and Concordia often have traffic speeds that are very high, and they are often used as a way to bypass traffic by motorists who do not treat them like the neighborhood streets that they are. We have heard from neighbors for years that the crossings at the pedestrian bridges and at the schools can be very dangerous. Maxfield has spent significant time working to create safer crossings for their students, and reaching out to the City to address the issue. The City of Saint Paul is responding by using the scheduled mill and overlay project as an opportunity to do further community engagement along the corridor, and identify how they can improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists. They are currently encouraging people to take a survey, both online and while tabling at community events. They are also setting up special meetings with people along the corridor like, Maxfield, St. Paul College, and Jeremiah House. They will follow up this outreach period with a community meeting in the fall to review design concepts. You can participate in the survey by following the link below: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/94frontageroads This item will be on an upcoming Community Improvement and Safety Committee Agenda
August 20, 2019 5 PM SUPC Office Committee Members: Judith Tande (committee chair), Mary Morris, Martha Tilton, Eric Ebbeson Faye Simer from Saint Paul Public Works is our contact on this issue  Metro Transit is in the planning stages of creating a new rapid transit line to Minneapolis and Saint Paul, that would potentially run along RT 21. They are doing community engagement and outreach along the bus route starting in late August. These are their main questions for the community:
Planned community engagement/ outreach activities:
Note: The Greenline led to the loss of community businesses and displacement of neighbors. This issue has been observed around the country following the development of new light rail transit. I asked Metro Transit to provide us with analysis of how the new rapid bus lines have impacted the communities they were placed in. More information:
This item will be on an upcoming Community Improvement and Safety Committee Agenda
August 20, 2019 5 PM SUPC Office Committee Members: Judith Tande (committee chair), Mary Morris, Martha Tilton, Eric Ebbeson Cody Olson from Metro Transit is our contact person for this issue |
Note:This information is confidential and not to be shared with anyone outside of the organization. Archives
October 2019
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