Our zoning code needs an upgrade. Its last overhaul was in 1947 by noted St. Louis villain Harland Bartholomew. It has density maximums and parking minimums. That is bass ackwards. Year after year we lament St. Louis’ population decline. I don’t recall anyone ever throwing a party to celebrate an increase in the number of parking spaces. The code has height maximums where would one more story really be the end of the world? It makes some lots undevelopable due to an arbitrary minimum lot sizes. Sometimes it’s easier to build low productivity auto-oriented places than the traditional productive places that make St. Louis a city. The antiqued regulations haven’t keep up with modern building techniques, financing, uses, sustainability goals, and preferences as well as drive up rents and slow projects getting out of the ground.
In fact, a lot of the existing human-scaled buildings are illegal under the current zoning code if proposed to be built today. Our zoning code should make it easy to build places like those that are loved and endure and make it harder for the types of places that make our city more financially fragile, dangerous, polluted, and ugly.
NextSTL – Harland Bartholomew: Destroyer of the Urban Fabric of St. Louis
NextSTL – Sowing Insolvency at the LRA
NextSTL – The High Cost of Parking on Pershing
The city is kicking off a zoning upgrade effort now that it has updated the Strategic Land Use Plan. We should hear about community engagement soon. The effort’s timeline is below. Keep an eye on the website-
City of St. Louis ZOning UPgrade (ZOUP)
Here are a few buildings that violate current zoning–
This six-family apartment building is illegal under the current zoning code. It has less than 1,500 sf of land per dwelling unit and doesn’t meet the parking mandate of one parking space per dwelling unit. I once lived in this building and survived to tell the tale.
These two houses are illegal under the current zoning code. The one on the left is on a lot of less than 4,000 sf. The one on the right doesn’t meet the off-street parking mandate of one per dwelling unit. They are occupied despite these shortcomings.
This mixed-use residential and retail building is illegal under the current zoning code. It is taller than 3 stories or 50 ft, has a floor to area ratio (FAR) greater than 1.5, and has less than 1,500 sf of land per dwelling unit. It also has no off-street parking which is made up for by the mostly empty and unproductive parking lot across the street.
This commercial building is illegal under the current zoning code. It has a floor to area ratio greater than 1.5, and less than the mandated number of off-street parking spaces. It hosts one of the most beloved bookstores in the region and has an assessed value per acre of over $2M.
This vacant school had a redevelopment proposal for 62 apartments with 30% set aside for individuals earning under 50% of the Area Median Income. The Board of Adjustment granted zoning variances, but two neighbors successfully sued to block it because the plan was less than 2,500 sf of land per dwelling unit and the 55 off-street parking spaces was less than the mandated one per dwelling unit, despite having a quarter mile of street parking along its perimeter and located one block from the region’s most frequent bus line. Those 62 households have to live elsewhere. It is still vacant.
NextSTL – Op-ed: Development processes stymie new housing in Tower Grove South
The zoning code isn’t the primary reason for St. Louis’ population loss of course, and reform won’t be a silver bullet, but it is a factor the city has total control over. Let’s reduce, streamline, and upgrade the onerous regulations for the 21st century. Let’s zone for people!
