An Urban ‘Agrihood’ Is Worth Considering In St. Louis

The recent Sunday Poll was actually two polls, both n0n-scientific. First, the questions and votes:

#1: Which of the following, if any, should residents be allowed to raise in the city? Animals would be subject to minimum space requirements. (Check all that apply)

1. Chickens 29 [24.17%]
2. Rabbits 26 [21.67%]
3. Goats 15 [12.5%]
4. Sheep 10 [8.33%]
5. Alpacas 9 [7.5%]
6. None should be allowed 8 [6.67%]
7. TIE 6 [5%]
   1. Emus
   2. Ostriches
   3. Dairy Cows
8. Pigs 4 [3.33%]
9. Unsure/no opinion 1 [0.83%]

#2: Agree or disagree: With so much vacant land in the city, much more land should be used for urban food production

• Strongly agree 16 [44.44%]
• Agree 7 [19.44%]
• Somewhat agree 8 [22.22%]
• Neither agree or disagree 1 [2.78%]
• Somewhat disagree 1 [2.78%]
• Disagree 0 [0%]
• Strongly disagree 3 ]8.33%]
• Unsure/No Answer 0 [0%]

I think it’s fair to say among readers there is general support for some farm animal and increased agriculture. For a few years now I’ve been seeing stories about new suburban subdivisions with a farm in the center instead of a golf course:

From 2013:

There’s a new model springing up across the country that taps into the local food movement: Farms — complete with livestock, vegetables and fruit trees — are serving as the latest suburban amenity.

It’s called development-supported agriculture, a more intimate version of community-supported agriculture — a farm-share program commonly known as CSA. In planning a new neighborhood, a developer includes some form of food production — a farm, community garden, orchard, livestock operation, edible park — that is meant to draw in new buyers, increase values and stitch neighbors together. (NPR: Forget Golf Courses: Subdivisions Draw Residents With Farms)

From 2015:

The phrase “planned community” conjures up a lot of images — maybe a swimming pool, obsessively manicured lawns, white picket fences — but a farm is probably not one of them. 

Pushing back against that stereotypical image of suburban living is a growing number of so-called “agrihoods” springing up nationwide. These developments center around a real, functional farm as their crown jewel. According to CivilEats, there are currently about 200 of them nationwide. 

The latest, called The Cannery, officially opened this past Saturday on a site that was previously home to a tomato cannery facility located about a mile outside downtown Davis, California. The 100-acre project of the New Home Company development company is considered to be the first agrihood to take root on formerly industrial land. All of its 547 energy-efficient homes will be solar-powered and electric car-ready, KCRA, NBC’s Sacramento affiliate, reports. (Huffington Post: ‘Agrihoods’ Offer Suburban Living Built Around Community Farms, Not Golf Courses)

Also from 2015, a CBS News story, video below:

This CBS News story was recently repeated on CBS’ Sunday Morning. So this story and taking a survey on urban food production in the city got me thinking: must the “agrihood” movement be limited to very expensive suburban developments? I could see an agrihood being part of the development of the near north side. In an agrihood, the farm is professionally run. It’s not a community garden run my neighbors. It could be a way to create jobs for area youth. I’d want housing to be a different price points and not displace current residents.

We have more land than we’ll likely ever have residents to fill. For years, in cities coast to coast, people have been farming on vacant urban land.  St. Louis is no exception — see RFT’s 10 Local Urban Farms We Love.

— Steve Patterson

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Generic Form Letters Mailed To Owners Of Poorly Maintained Surface Parking Lot Notifying Them Of Code Violations

In May I posted about the parking lot to the East of my condo building, see Deplorable Surface Parking Lot At 1601 Locust Cited, Fined. The next month I submitted a request to the city for copies of the notice(s) sent to the owner. I’ve finally received  them.

Here’s the timeline:

• Friday June 3 @ 9:09am: Emailed request to St. Louis’ centralized custodian of records.
• Wednesday June 8 @ 4:43pm:  Reply from the city acknowledging the request, describing the process. “We anticipate completing this process during the week of June 13, 2016.”
• Tuesday June 21 @ 10:03am: I replied to followup on the status.
• Friday August 12 @ 11:02am: I replied again, but copied Maggie Crane in the mayor’s office, I wrote: “It’s been nearly three (3) months since my request was made. Guess I’ll have to file a complaint with the state…”
• Friday August 12 @ 11:46am: I received a reply from the custodian of records: “I apologize for the delay in getting back to you regarding your above-referenced Sunshine Law request. I appreciate your patience in this matter. Attached are the responsive documents.”

I was initially encouraged when I found out the city had centralized the request process, as opposed to having a person in each department be familiar with Missouri’s Sunshine Law and ensure compliance. I was disappointed I didn’t receive a response by the date they said I would. I was upset when I didn’t get a reply to my followup email. By the time I remembered in mid-August I was furious.  I should’ve copied someone else on my initial followup of June 21st.  Lesson learned.

Here are the documents I received:

• May 2015
• June 2015
• January 2016
• April 2016

I now know the name of the building inspector, we’ve talked by phone and are communicating. I’ve asked if the owner is being fined and if it can be sent to court for prosecution of the violations. I’m not an expert in these matters, but I don’t think mailing letters to an LLC in Illinois regarding a surface parking lot with the first sentence that reads “Thank you for choosing to live in the City of St. Louis” is an effective strategy.

I didn’t want to do this, but yesterday morning I emailed Carl Phillips at Parking Enforcement and asked them to warn/ticket people who end up over/on the sidewalk. After lunch I went out and the same two cars from 6 days earlier had something under their wiper.

Hopefully drivers will start paying attention, or will park elsewhere. If the owners lose enough business perhaps they’ll take action.

— Steve Patterson

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August 2nd Primary Precinct Turnout Ranged From 7.46% to 675%: St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners (UPDATED)

NOTE: A response from the Board of Elections is at the bottom.

While the battle over absentee ballots on the 78th House race continuers (see Absentee ballot applications and their envelopes are public record, St. Louis judge rules), I decided to focus on voter turnout at the precinct-level.

Two days after the August 2nd primary I posted about the outcome: A Look at Some of Tuesday’s Primary Results. On the 15th the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners generated at detailed final report based on ward and precinct.

The overall turnout for the city was 28.26%. Of course, some wards have higher turnout than others. The ward-level turnout ranged from a low of 20>2% (25th) to a high of 38.1% (16th) — source. Each of the 28 wards are divided into 6-11 precincts — 222 in total. I entered the turnout from each into a spreadsheet so I could find the precincts with the highest & lowest turnout.The results weren’t what I expected.  Remember, overall the citywide turnout was 28.26% and the ward-level range was 20.2-38.1%.

Three precincts had single digit turnout:

• Ward 19, Precinct 2: 9.8% (5 out of 51 registered voters)
• Ward 08, Precinct 6: 8.45% (6 out of 71)
• Ward 09, Precinct 7: 7.46% (5 out of 67)

On the high side there were 9 precincts that were in the 40s, and another 4 at 50% or higher. This is where it got strange:

• Ward 14, Precinct 8: 50% (28 out of 56 registered voters)
• Ward 02, Precinct 6: 78.7% (11 out of 14)
• Ward 01, Precinct 7: 106.42% (116 out of 109)
• Ward 15, Precinct 7: 675%! (27 out of 4)

I emailed St. Louis Board of Elections commissioner Gary Stoff Thursday morning to enquire about these impossibly high numbers. Stoff quickly replied saying they weren’t possible, he’d look into it and get back to me. At this point I’ve not heard back and the results with these numbers are still online, here. I assume at some point they’ll take it down, so I’ve uploaded a copy here (3,144 pages). It’s dated 8/15/16 at 14:36:35. I also uploaded the summary results here.

I don’t know why some precincts have so few registered voters, when many others have over 1,000. Is geography (distance to polling place) keeping some voters away? How can there be more voters than are registered? I hope we find out what happened before November 8th.

— Steve Patterson

The following was received on 8/31/2016 @ 1:52am:

Steve — The reason for the discrepancy in that those precincts were located in polling sites with more than one precinct. The election judges in those precincts checked in the voters who came to their table correctly, but used the wrong encoders (encoders from another precinct in that same polling place) to issue voters a ballot for the touch screen machines. As a result, the numbers are skewed in those precincts. There is no way to correct the mix-up in the database for this past election, but we will make every effort in our next round of poll worker training to impress upon the poll workers the importance of not mixing up encoders.

Thank you for calling this matter to my attention.

Gary

Sunday Poll: Two Questions on Urban Food Production

A number of things online recently got me thinking about urban food production:

City and suburban agriculture takes the form of backyard, roof-top and balcony gardening, community gardening in vacant lots and parks, roadside urban fringe agriculture and livestock grazing in open space. (USDA)

One of the things that got me thinking about this was a Facebook post by Ald Cara Spencer, which included a link to a local survey on policy:

St. Louis Food Policy Coalition wants to hear from you about your interest in growing food in the city!

We want to learn from St. Louis residents 1) what you and your neighbors are already growing, 2) what types of agriculture activities you would like to see in the city, and 3) how you would like those activities to be regulated. (SLU)

Because of the range of topics, I decided this deserves two questions today.

Question #1

Question #2

Please respond to both before they close at 8pm. If you haven’t already, please also respond to the survey mentioned above.

— Steve Patterson

Readers Don’t Prefer Rock Concerts In Outdoor Stadiums

The Sunday Poll here each week is non-scientific, but occasionally I think we can learn from it. The recent poll had no right or wrong answer, it is entirely personal.  This is rare — I don’t have an opinion on the subject matter. Why? I’ve never attended a major pop/rock concert. Ever. I did attend one day of the New Orleans Jazz Fest in 2004 — I got to hear some legends, such as Bonnie Raitt, while sitting on a big grass field. She was a speck on the stage, so I’d glance over at the video monitor when I wasn’t people watching or chatting with my friend.

Here are the poll results:

Q: What is your favorite type of venue for a major pop/rock concert?

• Indoor theater: Fox, etc 20 [57.14%]
• A field/lawn: Forest Park, etc 5 [14.29%]
• TIE 3 [8.57%]
  • Indoor sports stadium: Scottrade, etc.
  • Other:
    • small club (Off Broadway)
    • Off Broadway
    • a small venue like the Sheldon or the Pageant
• TIE 2 [5.71%]
  • Outdoor amphitheater: Hollywood Casino Amphitheater, etc
  • Unsure/no answer
• Outdoor sports stadium: Busch, etc. 0 [0%]

What I find interesting is that nobody picked outdoor sports stadium as their favorite type of venue, yet the recent Paul McCartney concert was sold out.

I would like to see James Taylor perform sometime, which is usually a venue like the Hollywood Casino Amphitheater. Though a smaller place like The Pageant would be awesome.

— Steve Patterson