A Tale of Two Saint Pauls

 It was the best of times in Saint Paul, it was the worst of times, it was the age of affluence, it was the

age of poverty, it was the epoch of opportunity it was the epoch of squandered chances, it was the season of progress, it was the season of the status quo, it was the spring of competence, it was the winter of partisan incompetence, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.

Saint Paul is a challenged city that has made a lot of mistakes.  It has overused Tax Increment Financing (TIF), rendering it fiscally poor and unable to perform basic city services such as snow plowing, filling potholes, or reconstructing and repaving streets.  The TIF also impacts the City’s schools, impacting their taxing capacity to fund programs.

In addition, stretching over several administrations and city councils, there just does not seem to be a priority or interest in addressing core city services.  For years I used to argue that one could get elected to local office anywhere in the US by running on core services such as streets, sidewalks, parks, fire, and policing.  But that no longer seems to be the case, at least in Paul.

In part due to the polarization and nationalization of American politics that extends down to the local level, voters seem less interested in these issues than before and candidates for local office run on national or global issues such as world peace or climate change.  Public officials in St. Paul seem uninterested in local issues, unwilling or uninterested in the nitty gritty of what local government is supposed to be about.  Single party rule, where there is no chance that come November this year when city council faces re-election, renders the threat of losing less than a viable check to force officials to focus on what is important as opposed to what is needed or essential.  Partisan and interest group capture have corrupted the decision making process.

But St. Paul officials also seem bent on simply making choices in the absence of evidence. This is the case now where the City and Planning Commission are preparing to eliminate single-family zoning.  

There is a fashionable belief among planners now that elimination of single family zoning will decrease residential segregation and housing costs. There is no evidence that densification will do that.  We already know in Minneapolis and from larger macro studies across the US that densification has not improved housing affordability and it has done little to increase overall supply.  Moreover, we see signs in Minneapolis that the elimination of single family zoning has led to venture capital buying up undervalued property in undervalued neighborhoods (mostly populated by people of color).  Eventually the new unit produced will be for more affluent users  because developers will build those units which are most profitable, and not necessarily those that are the most needed or affordable.

Think of the elimination of single family zoning as government-sponsored property flipping.  It is a new version of redlining that will foster gentrification in St. Paul.  The neighborhoods that will be most affected by the elimination of single family zoning will be Midway, Frogtown, Rondo, and perhaps the Payne and Arcade areas of the city.  Some of these neighborhoods have already experienced the largest property tax increases in the city; again an early city of gentrification.

But there are other reasons to question the elimination of single-family zoning. Jane Jacobs, whose Death and Life of Great American Cities is perhaps the best book ever written on planning and cities, points out, cities are generators of diversity.  They thrive on diversity in all forms, including architecture, design, and lifestyles.  Cities need many different types of neighborhoods and housing to be successful.

Years ago I consulted with one local city.  We realized they had a problem.    They were a bedroom suburb that had only one type of housing.  What they lacked is housing for everyone and for the cycles of our lives.  Cities need housing for singles, young couples, families, empty nesters, and then older people.   If one does not provide this diversity of housing people leave.

Cities need to retain all types of residents, including middle class individuals who wish to own their own home. There are all kinds of reasons to encourage home ownership, ranging from wealth building, producing neighborhood stability, to maximizing lifestyle choices.

In moving to eliminate single family zoning, St. Paul will do little to rectify the intense economic and racial residential segregation that exists.  Instead, it will only exacerbate existing gentrification and development patterns characteristic of the city for the last generation or so. What is needed is a change in policy and in how the City is run, but this decision is not an example of what positive change should be.  It is another sign of uniquely the problems St. Paul confronts.

Alas, all well-run cities are alike; each badly run city is badly run in its own way. 

The Gentrification of Midway-Rondo in Saint Paul (and why Mayor Carter’s recent veto is illegal and enabling it).

 

Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s veto of the City Council vote to deny the go ahead on the Alatus

housing plan at University and Lexington Avenue was wrong both legally and from a public policy perspective.  In its vote City Council was acting in its quasi-judicial capacity over which the mayor has no veto authority, and in allowing this housing project to go forward the mayor enabled the already rapid gentrification of the Midway corridor to continue.

The Wilder Foundation owns vacant land at the corner of Lexington and University Avenues in Saint Paul.  This is property in the Midway/Rondo neighborhood, and traditionally occupied by people of color.  It is also an area of concentrated poverty based on the 2040 Saint Paul Comprehensive plan.  Yet is located along the central corridor of the light rail line which has rapidly gentrified in the last few years.  

            When the $1 billion light rail investment was made the intent was to encourage significant private investment, which it has, yet that investment has hardly benefited the neighbors.  Once undervalued land has become the target of acquisition and development as traditional neighborhood business have been forced out, selling their property to developers who are turning it into business and housing for more affluent individuals, making the area from Lexington west a de facto suburb for Minneapolis.  The building of the soccer stadium at University and Snelling and the housing plans for the closed shopping center there all point to a development strategy of pushing out the poor and people of color and replacing them with middle class.  This is a textbook case of what gentrification means, with other studies reaching this conclusion.

            The Alatus housing is part of this plan.  Wilder Foundation, which is supposed to care about individuals of modest means, sees a huge profit to be made in selling the land for development.  The Alatus project would site housing not for individuals with median incomes living in the area, but clearly to attract a more middle class or affluent base.  Such housing would be consistent with other development now occurring in the area, but it would not address the needs of the Rondo residents.  It would ignore their needs and place pressures on nearby by property to sell and eventually push gentrification further.  As a result, the Frogtown Neighborhood Association and others opposed the project, urging the Saint Paul Planning Commission to veto it.

            The Planning Commission vote was close, but it did oppose it.  The vote itself was fascinating because leading up to it there were long vacant slots on the Commission that the Mayor had not filled for nearly a year.  When he did do so it was close to the timing of his announcement for reelection and he staffed it with choice DFLers,  which the Frogtown Neighborhood Association opposed, in part, because they wanted their own appointees.  This was a classic DFL intraparty fight over political patronage.

            After the Planning Commission vote Saint Paul City Council held a hearing, affirming the Planning Commission vote, of which Carter then vetoed it claiming the city needs housing of lots of different kinds.  Similar statements were voiced by the three council members who voted in favor of the Alatus housing.  Coincidentally the three members came from golden triangle of the city bordered south by I-94 and east by I-35.  This is the most affluent and white area of Saint Paul.  There is no debate Saint Paul needs more housing, and it would be good to develop more neighborhoods with mixed-income units to break up concentrated poverty.  But there is also an acute need to address a housing shortage and crisis for low to moderate income individuals.  The Alatus proposal mostly fails on these points.

            Mayor Carter has no legal authority to veto the Council action.  Years ago, I wrote an article contrasting what is called quasi-legislative and quasi-legislative hearings in Minnesota law.  In many cases where city councils act, they are operating in their legislative or quasi-legislative rolls.  This is the case when passing bills, raising taxes, doing a budget.  All this, under state law and in Saint Paul is subject to mayoral veto.  But in some cases, city councils are acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, serving as an appellate body to review decisions from commissions or other bodies below.  If acting in that capacity, mayors have no veto authority and disagreements with the council decisions go to the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

            The City Council review of the Saint Paul Planning Commission Alatus project was a quasi-judicial review.  In cases such as Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy v. Metropolitan Council, Handicraft Block Limited Partnership v. City of Minneapolis, and Interstate Power Company v. Nobles County Board of Commissioners, the Minnesota Supreme Court said that an entity was acting in a quasi-judicial capacity when  it engaged  an “(1) investigation into a disputed claim and weighing of evidentiary facts; (2) application of those facts to a prescribed standard; and (3) a binding decision regarding the disputed claim.”    Even more specifically, Handicraft Block has declared city council reviews of decisions by planning commissions to quasi-judicial decisions, which are not subject to mayoral vetoes. 

In fact, council reviews and decisions on conditional use permits, variances, special use permits, and historic preservation have all been ruled quasi-judicial by the Minnesota courts.  While there is no specific Minnesota decision saying a mayor cannot veto a quasi-judicial decision, the logic  is clear. Other states, such as Florida in D.R. Horton, Inc.--Jacksonville v. Peyton, 959 So.2d 390 (2007), have reached a similar conclusion that mayoral vetoes do not extend to city council’s acting in a quasi-judicial capacity. No matter how one views it the logic of current case law is clear—in denying Alatus’ request to build on the Wilder site—the decision was quasi-judicial and not subject to mayoral veto.

            Mayor Carter’s veto of the council action should have no legal effect if precedent is accurate.  Whether anyone sues on this is a good question. But the political effect is different.  As noted, it does nothing to put breaks on Midway-Rondo gentrification.  Two, in an election year, it sends signals by the mayor to developers about where his priorities lie (and perhaps where he wishes to solicit campaign contributions for this and future election runs).

            Finally, as disclosure, let me make three points.  One, write this blog as someone who previously served as a city director of planning, zoning, and code enforcement and who also worked as a housing and economic planner for a community action agency. 

Two, in November 2017 after Melvin Carter was elected, I wrote him a letter from my perspective as a former planner, advising him among things that: “Neighborhoods need to be diversified.  Concentrated poverty neighborhoods are no good for anyone.  There needs to be a mix of people, incomes, and structures in every neighborhood… Make neighborhoods attractive for all to live and invest it.  Deconcentrating poverty is one step in making neighborhoods more opportunity based.  Thus, both place-based and mobility strategies are needed.”

Three, in January 2020, I applied for a vacant position on the Saint Paul Planning Commission with the endorsement of both Councilmembers Jane Prince and Rebecca Noecker.  Despite emails from my council member and me, the mayor’s office largely ignored my application.  Given the mayor’s veto, I largely see why.