Town Council Meeting 4/8/24: Residents Express a Totality of Concerns Over Drainage
Well folks, I think we have a new winner for St. Paul’s “Most Exciting Meeting” award. We had angry commenters, outbursts, walkouts and more in this month’s town council meeting. It started out on a good note with an apology, then we delved into the audit results which appeared to turn out well, but there looked to be a discrepancy between the slides and the packet that the council received. Bored yet? Don’t worry, you won’t be for long as pretty much the rest of the meeting was devoted to the church SUP discussion on 1702 Parker.
Next, we get into nearly an hour of resident comments, mostly regarding the SUP, which may be a St. Paul record in and of itself. It is puzzling that even after all these negative comments from their neighbors that the requestors still plan to move forward with the SUP request, especially even when their own surveyor agreed with the commenters. Most of the comments were regarding drainage, traffic, light and noise. It turns out that putting what is effectively a commercial property in the middle of a residential neighborhood has quite a number of challenges.
As an aside, after knocking on many doors in St. Paul, going to meetings, and talking with town leaders I have only found a couple of families that don’t mind churches near residential properties. The vast majority of folks are against it, and many have agreed to join a lawsuit if the town proceeds with approval of the permit. So, why, you may ask, are we entertaining the idea of granting an SUP? Well, as discussed before, it is heavily advocated by federal law that churches be allowed to operate in residential zones. The only foolproof way around this law is when the church is posing a public health and safety hazard and to a lesser extent violating ordinances. The Cleveland case mentioned as an example in the meeting only went so far as suspending certain operations of a church due to ordinance violations and did not shut the entire operation down, according to the Cleveland news. However, due to the drainage concerns involved in this situation, St. Paul has a strong health and safety based legal case for denying/postponing the permit as it is currently submitted.
After some initial comments by the PnZ chair and church representatives, one resident stormed out and was eventually followed by the mayor and an alderman. St. Paul Post is going to need more reporters to cover activities outside of the town hall if this continues to happen.
Typically, the St. Paul permitting process has the SUP requestor submit notional design paperwork to the PnZ. The PnZ makes a recommendation to the council, then the council can choose to approve the permit or not. After that, the requestor can provide detailed drawings and draining plans to the town staff in order to get a building permit so construction can begin. The problem with this approach is that fewer eyes are on the building permit approval process so items like drainage issues can more easily slip by. Fortunately, Alderman Simmons recognized this and eventually this led to the motion to postpone SUP approval until more designs are submitted. This is an example of the “out of the box” thinking that the council needs to do to protect residents. If our processes or ordinances do not make sense, they should be changed.
Additionally, there were several inconsistencies stated by the SUP requestors:
1:36:08: Church representative Dexster Speller’s property tax comment
Several residents mentioned that the tax writeoff was the reason for pursuing an SUP to which Mr. Speller replied that they pay all of their taxes currently. This however does not answer the inquiry, as a tax writeoff could only be requested once the SUP has been approved. Given Mr. Speller’s response, a good followup question would be:
Do you plan on applying for tax exempt status once the SUP is approved?
It is well within his right to apply, but I think the answer to the above question would clear things up.
2:13:02: Church representative claimed that they did not know of the drainage issues affecting their neighbors
Last year, the PnZ had a public hearing regarding this very property where the residents voiced similar concerns. Drainage concerns were discussed.
At 2:21:40, when Alderman Dryden questioned Mr. Speller on this specific fact, he skirted the question.
1:42:25, 2:17:42: Mr. Speller claims they will not do the job at all if it is not going to be done right.
The scope of managing drainage on a project of this nature is immense. Building an enormous retention pond and rerouting large amounts of runoff water would be necessary. Mr. Speller complained about the additional engineering studies needed in order to get an SUP, but the cost is the same if the engineering studies are done prior to the building permit or after.
It is also apparent that the tone of the council towards the residents was markedly better in this meeting compared to the last meeting. The council displayed empathy, patience, and even laughed a bit. My hope is that this attitude will be the same moving forward when dealing with this and all of the future town issues that the residents bring forth. The council did a good job by not falling for the platitudes that were presented by the requestors at this meeting. Distrust and verify. The council needs to embody this principle in order to protect the residents of St. Paul.
Here are some other tidbits that were mentioned during the meeting:
The PnZ is too busy fulfilling SUP requests to work on citizen ordinance complaints.
There will be a special council meeting on April 18th at 7:00 to finish the 20+ agenda items that were not addressed during this meeting.
On another note, we need to hold all SUP requestors regarding the schematics, plans and data they submit to the PnZ to a higher standard. The submitted data from several requestors has been drastically inadequate and even indecipherable in some cases. How can the town leaders make informed decisions on these topics if the data that is submitted is in such a bad state?
As a final note, the picture below shows the current state of Lakeview drainage from the rain this week. Now imagine having more than three acres of parking lot added to the top of the hill in order to further exacerbate this problem.
As always, Kent Swaner and Justin Graham would appreciate your vote on May 4th at Town Hall. Early voting starts April 22nd and ends April 30th.
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