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| [A Highland Villager adopting a transient lifestyle.] |
Headline: Midway redesign faulted for being overly optimistic; Shopping center owner criticizes redevelopment plan for lacking flexibility
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: [Pity the poor dingy strip mall owner from New York for he is oft misunderstood, what with all these fanciful notions of “multi-story” buildings, “sidewalks,” and “green trees.”] The owner of the strip mall is pushing back on the city’s / Billionaire soccer team owner’s plans to redevelop the strip mall and adjacent vacant lot into a soccer stadium and mixed-use urban development. Among his complaints are “standards for redevelopment” and requirements that the “minimum floor area ratio” are too high. [He does not like that the FAR might be required to be 2, which is greater than 1. For those of you scoring at home, that would be an average of two stories per square foot, which is not that much really, and much less than the original vision plans.] City staff would like more density. Article includes some historical context of the site and its current situation. Article includes a quote from a Planning Commissioner: “it seems like RK Midway helped develop the master plan, but now its backpedaling.” [I had the same thought. During the Planning Commission hearing, the strip mall owner and team owner sat side-by-side and presented a united front in support of this plan and the density goals. And now the strip mall owner is saying that a 2.0 FAR is unrealistic? Seems like very shoddy behavior.] There was an extended discussion of the parking lot next to the liquor store. Most of the new parking lots will be temporary but one will be “permanent.” [Scroll down for further of this concept.]
Headline: Stadium city criticized for rosy forecast on transit use [I’ve had it with all this optimism. I didn’t move to this city to be optimistic! And since when has transit ridership exceeded forecasts? Name one time that happened.]
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The planning study for the soccer stadium and surrounding site has high goals for transit ridership. A grassroots anti-stadium group is stating that the projections are “not credible” and that traffic congestion will occur. [It’s funny to me how ostensibly environmentalist activists are now against idealistic transit projections and defending a car-dominated planning scenario.] Article includes details about parking and projections. [I assume the plan here, since actually stopping the stadium is highly unlikely, is to force the city or someone to spend millions subsidizing more parking lots. Nice job everyone.] Interesting quote: “there are about 2,500 more off-street parking spaces within a mile of the stadium.” [Actually I’m pretty sure this is a low estimate. University Avenue is well over half pavement.] Most ridiculous quote: MnDOT has called for careful planning of pedestrian crossings near I-94 and Snelling so that there are no traffic backups on game days. [Um, maybe should have thought about this before abandoning a pedestrian and bike friendly plan when reconstructing the entire area a year ago? I am predicting traffic backups on game days.] Neighbors are concerned about traffic and parking, and would like some bike lanes. [If you don’t build high-quality bike lanes to and from the stadium in all directions, especially when crossing the auto-heavy streets and areas, you’ll only make all these other problems even worse.]
Headline: Another summer of road work is wearing on Randolph shops; Businesses are hanging in there, but the project can’t end soon enough
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: [When roads and other things underneath roads get old they need to be fixed and you can’t drive on them for a while.] Some businesses have fewer customers when the road is closed because people only drive to them. Article details all the infrastructure being repaired like sewers, water mains, gutters, and something called “bituminous pavement.” [Sounds sexy!] Some parts of the road will open sooner than others. Randolph Avenue will not be widened, but “it will reconfigure the traffic lanes, revise signal timing and relocated a bus stop to improve traffic flow.” [Moving that pesky bus stop, thank goodness. The last thing we need is for those greedy transit-riding people to be dropped off close to the corner where the grocery store is located.] Detours “aren’t helping.”
Headline: Eye of the beholder; Neighbors fail to take a shine to city’s new LED streetlights
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The old street lights had older “sodium” bulbs from the 80s but new street lights have LED bulbs that use less energy but are brighter and also a different shade of light, more blue and less yellow. In the 80s, the less bright bulbs were criticized for being less bright. Today these brighter bulbs are criticized for being brighter. There are 38,000 streetlights in the city, and 5,500 of them have been replaced. Engineers are trying to figure out what to do. Quote from neighbor: “I could do surgery in my living room now.” [Hm.]
Headline: Federation seeks extension for Riverside School proposals
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: It will probably take longer to redevelop an abandoned school building than people thought at first.
Headline: Commission favors 128 Café’s request for full liquor license
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: You will be able to order a cocktail at the restaurant.
Headline: St. Paul grants expanded use of City House along the river
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: An historic grain elevator that was supposed to become an event space but didn’t because it sometimes floods will now have temporary “food truck”-style food and beverage service in it. [Hooray. Otherwise it’s such a waste. The “beer by the river” test front-runner is here! And finally there will be something to actually do in the otherwise really lovely Upper Landing area. Not much parking, though. You’ll have to bike or walk to get there.]
Headline: Environmental study done on Hill District porch renovation
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: Someone wants to tear down part of a house to build a larger porch. It’s in an historic district so a study is required. [There goes the neighborhood.]
Headline: Public comments sought on updated plan for Union Park
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The Union Park neighborhood is going to make a plan.
Headline: City Council seeks grants for local developments projects
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The city is applying for Met Council funding for investing in affordable housing and walkable neighborhoods.
Headline: State receives grant to update Fort Snelling Historic District
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: The historical society is getting money to re-think its historic designation for Fort Snelling [which is historically important but not always in good ways, you know].
Headline: Study aims to alleviate parking crunch in Ramsey Hill
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: Neighbors are concerned about traffic and parking. And so there was a meeting to talk about traffic and parking in an area of the city that is popular and has many restaurants. [In the 1970s, Selby and Western were a destitute wasteland. In the 1870s, there was a brothel there, but cars weren’t invented yet so parking wasn’t an issue.] There is a study by a consultant to recommend solutions to parking. [I have one idea. It turns out when you ask smart expert people who have studied problems just like this in other cities on the planet about how to solve parking problems they say things like “parking meters.”] Article quotes CM Thao: “with vibrancy comes challenges.” [Like too much vibrancy, when things start vibrating so quickly you can’t see straight any more. Or when you know people have to walk two blocks to their car.] Best quote: “past efforts to resolve parking problems have been criticized for lacking factual information.” [Yep. Factual information sure is helpful sometimes. I prefer it to the visions from my nightmares almost all of the time. Much prefer factual information. Except you know factual information about climate change. That just terrifies me and I completely ignore it, much preferring to think about how to make it easier to drive around.] Ideas on the table include permit parking. [But not parking meters, which you know, would make it easy to park if you paid a tiny bit of money but harder if you didn't?] Another quote: people really want to see more facts.” [I rather doubt it.] [Sort of funny] description of the meeting goes like this [and which is so good and well-written that I have to quote it at length]: “residents greatly outnumbered business owners… those who attended pored over neighborhood maps, stuck sticky dots and notes onto boards, and buttonholed city staff and consultants to make their opinions known. As dots accumulated on posters, several issues became clear. Most people at the meeting drive cars to get around. Fewer walk and even fewer bike.” ["As dots accumulated...." that's just really well written, even poetic.] Quote from neighbor: "how many more businesses are coming in?” [Because you know, having lots of shops, restaurants, cafés is bad news for a walkable city like Saint Paul. And it wouldn't be historically accurate to the area's period of historic significance, which is apparently the early 1980s and not any of the other dozens of decades when there were tons of shops in this area.] One guy who owns an apartment building with no parking tried to get the city to ban other people from parking on his street but was rejected by the city. [Classic Yogi Berra “nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded” moment here, which will henceforth be known by its acronym NGTAMITC. How elegant!]
Headline: Residents hold court over plans to redesign McQuillan Park
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: A park is being remodeled. Neighbors want to keep the tennis court but that will come at the expense of remodeling playground equipment. [Won’t somebody think of the children?] It’s in a historic district and will require the preservationists input. [How about a bigger porch?] City plans call for the removal of single tennis courts, but lots of people still play on it.There was a debate about whether the playground should be “traditional” or “more sculptural.” Neighbors are concerned about overgrown basswood trees, a lack of a grill, and flying tennis balls.
Headline: [And buried deep within the Villager bowels] Pedestrian safety upgrades outlined for West 7th intersections
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: West 7th Street will get some changes to corner curbs and sidewalks that will make it less dangerous for people walking around, including a bumpout, narrower turning areas, crosswalks, restricted turns, and small one-way street designations. [This is long past long overdue as the street has been a dangerous often uncrossable speeding car barrier for generations.] There might be some temporary bollards but neighbors are concerned about traffic. Two people have been killed in seven years. [But for each of those people there were likely hundreds of other crashes or near-misses.] Article includes a brief history of the street, which runs at an angle.
Headline: St. Paul considers imposing new regulations on short-term rentals
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: People use the internet to rent out rooms in their houses sometimes. The city is planning to at making some rules about it. Best quote: “[CM] Tolbert who has used such services in other cities, said that while short-term rentals provide a convenience for travelers, they also raise concerns about public safety, tax-free commerce and the promotion of transient lifestyles in residential neighborhoods.” [What the heck is a “transient lifestyle”? No seriously, did anyone really utter those words?] Only CM Noecker voted against the plan to study these. The intent of the study is to draft zoning and licensing rules. Short-term rentals are trendy. B&B’s want to protect their brand. There are taxes on the line. [Gosh I can’t stop thinking about transient lifestyles. The problem is that I don’t know what a transient lifestyle is or what it has to do with AirBnB. The dictionary defines “transient” as meaning “lasting for a short time, impermanent.” This has potential to reach into some seriously ontological and/or theological terrain. If only God is permanent, then surely all our lives are transient, i.e. fleeting, no? Yet what does permanence mean for human being? Perhaps Bergson’s notion of durée is useful here, the overlapping presence of the past and its contraction into a point of immediacy does not preclude the existence of that past. The overlapping co-existence of life in all its forms suggest that transience and permanence have different durations for each of us. Is a river permanent or transient? And yet it moves, as Galileo once said. … Then again, “lifestyle” is something else altogether. Perhaps this is a critique of taste, and Tolbert’s notion is aimed at forming an essentialist concept of aesthetics based on Kant’s definition of art. If that were so, when confronted with the nature of the sublime, Tolbert is arguing that one must adopt a posture of reverence and even terror in the face of nature's infinitude, and that’s what’s wrong with these kids today, of which Tolbert is one apparently because he uses AirBnB too and is my age more or less I’m pretty sure. BTW I've never used Air BnB but I read about it on the internet.]
Headline: City trims CVS’s signs down to size
Author: Jane McClure
Short short version: A chain drug store wants two big signs but the Board of zoning Appeals will only let them have one. According to the corporate drug store signage consultant from Indiana, “larger signs were sought for reasons of visibility.” [Ah, that explains it.] Article quotes a neighborhood guy: “In an era of GPS and MapQuest, a sign like this seems very 1990s.” [Saint Paul sometimes seems very 1990s, especially with all this Trump, Clinton, Ninja Turtles, and Ghostbusters stuff lately. And, you know, the whole traffic and parking thing.] Sign guy also said, “we understand that people don’t want a CVS pharmacy on the site, but we’re here.” [At least we stopped their drive-thru.]
PS: This Highland Villager re-cap composed while listening to Wagner's Siegfried, which probably explains the Kant.
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| [Siegfried does a parking study.] |
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