[Note: The agenda and transcript indicate the meeting occurred on March 1, 2024, but this summary uses the date provided in the instructions.]
The Saint Paul Planning Commission met on February 23, 2024, to approve minutes, hear announcements, discuss a proposed addendum to the River Balcony Master Plan, and receive committee reports. The meeting was chaired by Commissioner Kristine Grill.
March 1st, 2024 meeting of the planning St. Paul Planning Commission will now. First order of business is approval of the minutes from February 16th, 2024. Do I have a motion? Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Overkegan. And now we'll vote. All those in favor. All those posed. All right. So the mission are the motion to approve the minute from February 16th, 2024 passes. And then we're going to move on to announcements. I have limited announcements today, though I'll try to support Luis. If he has any voice issues today. Yeah, good morning. Thanks for bearing with me this morning with my voice. It's only here, I think every like 15 plus years or something like that. And so several of the staff members are going to go into it both as participants and as speakers. So if you happen to be a member, you can get a discount. But if you're not a member, still interested in going, it is a little pricey. I just wanted to mention it. So there's a both an in-person rate for the conference and then there's an online rate. A bill at the legislature that has been getting a lot of attention called House File 4009. And it's it actually started as two bills, one was missing middle and one was multifamily, and it's sort of been put into one a lot of attention on it because it would do essentially uh sort of um sort of preempt is what they're calling uh calling it uh local zoning um in terms of uh missing middle development. So it's sort of a lot of themes that sort of come out of the ordinance 2343 uh in common. Um so so I personally think there's some good things in it. That's it's well intended. Um things like you know, uh duplexes on most lots, uh limiting uh parking minimums, things like that. Um and there are a lot of supporters, so like Habitat, Housing First Minnesota, Minnesota Housing Partnerships. Um however the League of Minnesota Cities has um weighed in um against it, uh and that includes many cities, Minneapolis, St. Paul. We've looked at it and we do, although there are good things in it, I think there are some concerns with how the language is constructed. Um and uh I would I would offer as well, and this is more my opinion that uh it narrative is about uh right now is about local control and you know that going away. Um that could be an issue, but I I also think that there's some issues with sort of understanding how zoning is constructed the right and the wrong ways, and there's some issues with how it's bit written. So um if I might offer my opinion, then I think you know they could help it could it could be fixed. A lot of those things could probably be could be fixed. So um I just wanted to put that out there just so folks uh know our position and I um had talked a little bit with both Twin Cities Habitat and uh statewide habitat about some of my concerns there. So um I'm hoping and I understand that the bill authors are open to amendments, so um it looks like it might be going somewhere in terms of support. So I rather said rather than saying like it's crap and like let's not I think we should engage and actually try to um uh influence it for the better. And then lastly, um uh in Commissioner Holse will talk about this. We're gonna have a pretty busy uh spring for uh the component planning committee uh coming up here in uh March. So that's all so but uh mark your calendars. Okay, uh thank you, Louise. Um so next up is zoning committee, uh Commissioner Tagan. Cool. So we do not have any license for today. Um our next meeting is um next Thursday. We're gonna have two items on meet. I'm trying to desperate overline.