The Saint Paul Planning Commission met on August 29, 2023. Note: The agenda was dated September 1, 2023, but the provided timestamp indicates the meeting took place on August 29; this summary uses that date. The meeting covered approval of prior minutes, staff announcements, a conditional use permit for District Energy, and release of a draft ordinance for micro-unit dwellings accessory to religious institutions.
Planning commission meeting. We'll start with the first item of the agenda, which is approval for the next August 4th and August. Second. Second by Commissioner Poles. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Any of both slides. Hi. So those minutes are approved. Announcement. I have great views this morning. After numerous years of trying, I finally won a plush mellow at the state area. I like had to have been hundreds of dollars. So was it your wish? Oh, you know, it's like a little marshmallow looking face. Oh, you mean like at a game? Yeah. Oh it wasn't just a skill game. It was a competition game. But I did it. I do my wife. Nice work. Move on to the record. It just happened last night. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everybody. I have an announcement. So we um some of you know I've been hiring a lot. Um, so we have two new city planners. Nelly is here as one of them. Uh, we have a research analyst to Stefan Hackerson, who I don't think you've met yet. Uh, but also um had been a uh wanting to hire two um uh sort of managers uh for our team. We haven't had kind of a division between current planning and long range planning, like a lot of cities do. And um so um some of you may know that Alan Torsenson is approaching retirement. Um he is our zoning manager and um he does a whole lot more than zoning, but he um just has a ton of experience and obviously a huge asset uh to the city. Um and so um uh what I did, what we did was we um reformulated uh his position to be a little bit broader uh and focused on zoning and environmental review. And so the new title of that is current planning manager. So I wanted to introduce to you um our new current planning manager, Yasmin Robinson. Um she uh comes with a lot of great experience um and a thoughtful approach uh previously at the city of Stillwater, has some experience working for the state of Minnesota in environmental review at the environmental quality board, and as well as in New York State and New York City doing planning and environmental review. So um very excited to have to have Yasmin with us today. Um and I don't know if y'all have any questions or she has a save, but um uh in addition to to Yasmin. Um, you know, some of you or I think most of all of you know Anton Jervey, who's uh principal planner uh on the team, has been uh we promoted him to um the long-range planning manager. So thinking about a comprehensive plan and um uh large redevelopment sites, sort of bigger zoning studies policy issues. Uh he would be the the uh lead manager for that that function. So we're in the process of sort of transitioning to uh two subteams for the team and um so uh you know individual planners on each team. Um and so each team are gonna it's still gonna be one sort of broader team um that gets the work done, but um, you know, more of an emphasis or focus for each of each of those sets of of planners. And so Yasmin and Anton are gonna be helping me think through that. We're gonna be even today just to talk about how do we move more in that direction. So um excited. Wanted to make that announcement to you all. Welcome to you.