Support new housing at 1708 Selby Avenue
Action alert: Support new housing at 1708 Selby Avenue
A developer has proposed to build 40 new homes at 1708 Selby Avenue, and this proposal has caused a lot of neighbors to express their concerns and frustration over the development. Sustain Saint Paul champions abundant housing, low-carbon transportation, and sustainable land use, and naturally, we support this development. We ask you to send a quick note to Ward 4 Council Member Mitra Jalali (who represents the area) and City Planner Kady Dadlez (who is assigned to review the project’s site plan):
Council Member Mitra Jalali, ward4@ci.stpaul.mn.us, 651-266-8540
City Planner Kady Dadlez, kady.dadlez@ci.stpaul.mn.us, 651-266-6619
Read about this project in this article from The Villager, published earlier this month.
Not sure how to say why you support more housing at 1708 Selby? Here are a few reasons why we support this project:
The project complies with the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, and with the Zoning Code and other requirements for the site. The developer requested that this site be rezoned to accommodate this project, and the rezoning was approved by the Union Park District Council and the City Council.
To fix our city’s housing crisis, we need to build more housing of all kinds– including market-rate housing– and especially in wealthy neighborhoods like Merriam Park. For several decades, St. Paul’s zoning policies have prevented us from building enough homes to accommodate its steady population growth. (The primary culprit is “Single-Family zoning,” which has forbidden all types of homes except for single-family houses in 72% of the city since the early 1970s.) Our inadequate supply of housing is a key reason why rents and home prices have risen rapidly for the past few years. We recognize that our housing crisis is not merely an Econ 101 “supply-and-demand” equation, and that solving it will require more funding for affordable housing, tenant protections, and other strategies. But we’ll never solve our housing crisis if we don’t build more residential properties of all types, and lots of them.
No neighborhood should be insulated from the growth and change of our city, simply because wealthy and privileged residents object. Single-family homeowners often oppose new housing on the grounds that it will “harm their property values.” In the case of this proposed project, they have complained that the buildings will cast shadows on their yards, and bring more noise, car traffic, and parking problems to the area. Thoughtful developments often address many of these concerns, though minor inconveniences to nearby homeowners may still exist. A homeowner is only entitled to what happens on their property; they are not entitled to assurances that the building next door will not cast a shadow on their backyard, that there will always be plentiful on-street parking on their block, or that their neighborhood will remain “the way it always has.” On the contrary, growth and change is an essential feature of city living, and should be anticipated.
There is broad agreement in Saint Paul that our city needs to expand the supply of housing. This conviction has been formally established in the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, and reasserted by the Planning Commission, the Mayor’s team, and the City Council. Residents should not be able to block housing construction in their neighborhoods to the detriment of the needs of current community members and potential future residents. We cannot allow the concerns of a few people to outweigh our collective, city-wide needs.
Apartment buildings will help St. Paul mitigate its impact on climate change. In its Climate Action Resilience Plan, St. Paul has committed to reducing its collective carbon emissions by increasing the energy efficiency of buildings throughout the city, and encouraging transportation options that emit fewer carbon emissions in the city (since transportation emissions are the greatest source of carbon emissions in the state). Apartment buildings will help us achieve both of these goals. They are more energy-efficient than single-family homes, because they require much less energy per capita to heat and cool. Apartment buildings are also the essential feature of “walkable” neighborhoods: areas where population densities are high enough to support a variety of daily destinations (e.g. grocery stores, doctor’s offices, cafes and restaurants, high-frequency transit stops, etc) within a short walking distance of their residents. In this way, apartment buildings can help St. Paul be a city where people can live car-free or car-light lifestyles.
Thank you for contacting city staff to express your support for new housing at 1708 Selby Avenue!
