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:

• Reduce total lot square footage requirement from 6000sf. to 4,834sf.
• Reduce lot width minimum from 50 feet to 40 feet.
• Reduce West side yard setback from 9 feet to 3.73 feet.
• Reduce East side yard setback from 9 feet to 6 feet.

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. 

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:

• This is technically in Union Park, so they are the District Council the City of Saint Paul will reach out to once things move forward. 
• Union Park is working with Frogtown, Summit-University, and Hamline-Midway on this project because it is so close to all four districts.
• Even though Union Park is the district that this project is in, that does not mean that we cannot weigh in on this issue independently of them. We can discuss this issue like any other issue in our district. 
• Alatus has not submitted any applications or official site plans. There is not a formal call for comment at this time. 
• We plan on holding a community meeting to discuss this, but we do not know when yet. We would like to make sure that we are bringing people together to discuss something concrete. 

Alatus proposed three options for the development:

• Option A would have 226 "market rate" units. Prices would be as follows: eff $1,000, 1 br $1,400, 2 br $1,900, 3 br $2,799, and 4 br $3,400. (Note: the 3 br and 4 br units are priced "per bed")
• Option B would have a total of 226 units: 214 at "market rate", and 12 at 60% AMI
• Option C would have a total of 226 units: 220 at "market rate", and 6 at 40% AMI
• Option A would have an equal number of bedrooms to bathrooms in the 3 and 4 br units. 
• Option A would include a reduced-rent retail space, and a grocery store (Note: Aldi is across the parking lot from this site)
  

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:

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:

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​

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:

• Should this rapid transit bus come to Saint Paul, or should it just operate in Minneapolis?
• What route should it take? It could stick to 21 bus Route, or it could be rerouted.
• Should it replace the 21 bus entirely?
• How do businesses feel about the potential trade offs? The bus stops are larger, and may obscure business fronts.
• How will this impact people with disabilities? Rapid transit bus stops are further apart, and this could create an access barrier in the winter.

Planned community engagement/ outreach activities:

• Talking to people on the bus and tabling at bus stops
• Tabling at established community events (SUPC provided a list) and Metro Transit hosting an event.
• Drop-in office hours at SUPC: we will provide a space for staff to have 1 on 1's with neighbors and businesses

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