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.
In my opinion Stephen Conway is a complete twit, with very little tact, ethics, moral standards and very little vision for the future. So this suprises me very little to hear what he has tried to remedy the situation. What it comes down to is someone F-ed up. Whether it is the developer for buying this property without seriously thinking of the parking, the architect who designed the renovation without addressing the parking issue, the building division for not seeing these issues when reviewing the plans prior to issuing the permit, or the relationship between the developer and the so-called elected official of that ward. Who knows? But all I can say is that this eye sore should not be put onto the residents because 5 years ago the home was a crack house or a place for prostitution. That is an obscene excuse from someone who cannot rationally put together a thought. The developer should pay to remove the pad, reimburse the buyers for the lack of parking, and learn from this mistake. It is frustrating to see people act first and then weasel their way out of problem when if they would have took the correct steps in the first place.
Steve, call first. Conway and the developer have stated to the prez of the neighborhood association that they are withdrawing the appeal. We are calling in the morning to see if this is true. If not, we will be there with our written assurances from Conway and developer that they agreed to tear up the concrete (written last week). The worst part of this is that it is wearing the block down. They are getting tired of fighting–every single one I spoke to today about this said, “but I thought this was OVER.”
Don’t blame the architect – as a profession, we come up with and refine the concepts, and design the details, but it’s up to the owner/developer and the city to approve (or not) anything that gets built. That said, I agree with Steve’s observations/rant on this issue.
Something has to be done, these guys are running amok on the parking issue. It is like they hired some guy from Wentzville and are encouraging him to use his personal taste to make design and code decisions.
For instance, there is a rehabber on my street, who is rather heroically tackling a decades-abandoned LRA property with major structural issues and a really groovy alley house that she plans to make into her home. LRA wouldn’t sell her the alley house unless she also developed the front property. She is an artist, so it is not a matter of throwing cash around to solve this problem. After months of fighting for financing, she now has a just-barely sufficient HUD loan for the front house and a 3-month timeline to get the first renter in place, as she is making it into 2 one-bedroom apts for about $400 each to cover the loan on the front house so she can then be left in peace to put her back into rebuilding her own home over the winter. Sounds like a nail-biter, but if you know Janet, you know it will get done, and the whole community is solidly behind her effort… wait! except for the Building Division, which denied her application for a building permit until she gets a waiver of the “requirement for off-street parking”, which requires a $180 application fee, a hearing and the alderwoman to get involved. WTF? Almost no one has off-street parking in Old North/Hyde Park, certainly not on 19th St where there is no alley. Something has to be done, these guys are running amok on the parking issue. It is like they hired some guy from Wentzville and are encouraging him to use his personal taste to make design and code decisions.
Actually the developer in this case is from Chesterfield.
I called the Board of Adjustment at 10:00 AM this morning and the hearing is still scheduled for 1:30 PM. Unfortunately the hearing is scheduled second to last. Good things come to those who wait.
I have been involved in this process for several months. It is my opinion that the Alderman is telling the block what they want to hear while still pursuing the variance. Once the variance is obtained the Alderman’s response will be “tough luck kids.â€
At this point I have to seriously wonder what financial stake Alderman Steve Conway has in this project. What would make an Alderman work in direct opposition to the city building codes and the will of the citizens? Virtually all of the residents of the block want this illegal paved lawn to be removed.
The developer claims to have sold units at the highest per square foot on the block. He is right, his tiny 800-900 square foot units (three of which have sold already) have fetched a high price of 198K. While this does reach the highest per square foot sale price due to the tiny unit size, it does not even get into the range of 250K to 395K that approximately 15-20 rehabbed 3000 square foot homes have been selling for during the last five years on the 3500 Halliday block.
This developer got into the game in the Tower Grove area after it was well established and in the case of 3500 Halliday block, pretty much entirely rehabbed.
Basically the developer was given a shoe-in on three beautiful buildings across from Tower Grove Park by Alderman Conway, and developed them at basically no risk (as opposed to the residents of the block who purchased property 10 to 20 years ago when the neighborhood was a little more “Wild Wild West-like†and really took a risk). Now the developer expects to be showered with praise for his efforts.
This is really depressing and if this gets forced down our throats I think that beginning a grass-roots recall of Alderman Steve Conway is the only right thing to do. We do not need leaders in this city who are bought by developers from Chesterfield with very suburban ideas of development.
The next step if the variance is issued will be a lawsuit against the developer, and an effort to block the state tax credits he is planning on rolling into the project.
Wow, I’ve been up in arms about this since I first laid eyes on the parking pad, but obviously this fight is in great hands judging from the posts here. Thanks to Steve for making this a timely and priority issue
on this site. The post above mine sums up my thoughts exactly, so I’ll just say, “What he/she said”.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. As a resident of TGE, but not the actual block, I have been watching and hopeful that this is resolved in a good, urban manner. And I do believe it is important for ALL of us, not just those on that block, to get involved in these kinds of matters. What is bad for one block is generally bad for the entire city in the long run.
I am still appalled that someone from my neighborhood actually wanted the middle building demolished for parking (per Steve’s original post on this subject) but I am over that since it obviously will never happen.
Conway is a weasel and I am sick of alderman/city officials bending over backward as if every development is so badly needed for the city that we must do ANYTHING to encourage it, no matter how anti-urban the issues are. GOOD development is needed, but this block didn’t necessarily need this particular developer to renovate these buildings. The renovations are great for the neighborhood, but would have happened eventually due to the high demand this neighborhood and area has.
Alright folks, still time to come on down to the hearing.
The hearing is in room 208 of City Hall at 1:30 PM, a very ornate room with murals and marble columns that is worth the visit alone.
Come on down and check out the process first hand and help support the neighbors of 3500 Hallilday !
Or if you wish you can support the developer if you feel that he is justified.
Lest we forget, the honorable Alderman Conway is not above threats. A classic example has to be his suggestion that the building at the corner of Halliday and Grand could go to Section 8 housing if the developer were not to get what he wanted. What does this have to say about the gentleman from Shaw and his attitude toward an underclass that actually makes up some of his gerrymandered constituency?