Latest news with #PaulCityCouncil
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
St. Paul weighs consolidating some downtown offices at Osborn 370 building
The city of St. Paul plans to lease more than 10,000 square feet within the Osborn 370 building on Wabasha Street, covering the building's entire ninth floor, for eight years. What will that square footage be used for? Therein lies the question. The lease at 9 Fifth St. E., approved Wednesday by the St. Paul City Council, allows for flexible move-in dates and below-market rates, with the first 12 months rent-free. That gives the city some time to complete a 'space use' study with the help of real estate consultants, who will attempt to determine which city offices will make best use of the new floor and in what manner. It might become collaborative work space for the city to engage with private sector partners, or it may support departments with space shortages, such as the city attorney's office. It also may be used as upgraded space for staff committed to working downtown more than three days per week, said Bruce Engelbrekt, the city's real estate manager, addressing the city council on Wednesday. With many office staff on a hybrid work schedule, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter floated the idea last year of clearing out the downtown City Hall Annex building on Fourth Street and converting the property into residences, which remains a possibility. 'We're trying to think strategically about how to use our purchasing power and people power to help be part of the solution,' said Council President Rebecca Noecker. City offices are largely but not exclusively spread throughout the City Hall/Ramsey County Courthouse building at 15 West Kellogg Blvd. and the annex building directly across the street. The city's Department of Safety and Inspections works out of a building on Jackson Street, which is owned by Madison Equities, an embattled downtown property owner that has recently lost control of some of its buildings to foreclosure and receivership. The study likely will at least touch on library staff based at the downtown George Latimer Central Library. 'We have a question into (the consultants) whether the mayor's office and the city council offices should be part of the study, because of your need to be located in this building,' Engelbrekt said. 'We need to specifically look at those (offices) that have some space needs.' Council Member Cheniqua Johnson noted Osborn 370 has developed a positive reputation downtown, drawing notable tenants such as the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation. The Osborn 370 floor is partially furnished, allowing 'minimal up-front investment to move and establish operations,' according to the council resolution approved Wednesday. St. Paul's Maxfield Elementary breaks ground on 'community schoolyard' Ex-teacher of Hmong College Prep Academy in St. Paul sentenced for criminal sexual conduct with student Four candidates file for Ward 4 seat on the St. Paul City Council Canadian wildfire smoke causes 'very unhealthy' conditions in American Midwest and reaches Europe 40 St. Paul street lights stripped of copper wiring, though reports are down overall
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary likely to be renamed Wakan Tipi
St. Paul's Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary could soon sport a name both ancient and new — Wakan Tipi, which means 'dwelling place of the sacred' in the Dakota language. Indian Mounds Regional Park, the only known burial mounds within the urban Twin Cities, may soon be rechristened Wic̣aḣapi, or 'cemetery.' Both name changes have been recommended by the state's tribal historic preservation officers and have won the support of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and the city's Parks and Recreation Commission. They'll be taken up by resolution of the St. Paul City Council on Wednesday, the penultimate step before landing on the mayor's desk to become official, though the mayor planned a 3 p.m. press conference Wednesday, shortly in advance of the council vote, to announce the dual re-namings. Located east of downtown, the 27-acre sanctuary is home to spring-fed wetlands, 450 million-year-old limestone and sandstone bluffs and other natural attractions. It's also home to the Wakan Tipi cave — known to generations of Dayton's Bluff residents as Carver's Cave — which holds a special place in Dakota lore as an ancient gathering place for native nations to negotiate peaceful alliances. The sanctuary is also soon to welcome the Wakan Tipi Center, a $14.3 million cultural and environmental center under construction in the area beneath the Kellogg Boulevard/Third Street bridge. The six burial mounds are located at 10 Mounds Boulevard, overlooking the Mississippi River from the blufftop, and hold historical significance to a number of native tribes, from the Upper Sioux Community to the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. On Wednesday afternoon, the city council is scheduled to discuss the possible renaming of both the mounds and the sanctuary, which takes its name from U.S. Rep. Bruce Vento, a teacher and East Sider who served in Congress from 1977 until his death in 2000. The nature sanctuary was named for him in 2005, when it opened. A reporter's call to Vento's family was not immediately returned Tuesday. The Parks and Rec Commission voted 8-0 in support of the dual re-namings on May 8. The council resolution is sponsored by Council Member Cheniqua Johnson, who represents Dayton's Bluff and a large section of the East Side. The renaming was recommended by the Minnesota Tribal Historic Preservation Officers 'and reflects nearly a decade of community engagement led by St. Paul Parks and Recreation's division of Design and Construction,' said the mayor's office, in a written statement. Carter planned to meet with media Wednesday to announce the renaming alongside Johnson, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Metropolitan Council member Toni Carter, Parks and Rec Director Andy Rodriguez and Maggie Lorenz, executive director of the nonprofit Waḳaƞ Ṭípi Awanyankapi, which has led the way around planning for the Wakan Tipi Center. Letters: Preventing landlords from screening tenants is a one-sided view of our housing problem Ben Shardlow: The soon-to-close recycling plant and environs are places we should love, or learn to St. Paul: At Highland Bridge, Weidner Homes, Ryan Cos. win concessions St. Paul: Breakaway Music Festival approved for gradual volume increase What's changing with St. Paul's new rent control policy and tenant protections
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
St. Paul City Council ends rent control for housing built after 2004
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Nearly four years after city voters approved one of the strictest rent control laws in the nation, the St. Paul City Council voted 4-3 to eliminate rent caps for new construction, including residential buildings that received their certificate of occupancy after 2004. In doing so, the council followed the lead of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who announced his intent to eliminate rent control for new buildings in his State of the City address last August, describing it at the time as an important step — though not a cure-all — toward reviving stalled real estate development. 'If there's one thing that unites everyone here it's that we need more housing,' said Council President Rebecca Noecker, addressing the council toward the end of Wednesday's four-hour meeting. 'We need to send a strong, clear and unequivocal signal that we are open to investment and like it or not — and I don't really like it — we need investment from beyond our local community.' During a public hearing before the vote, Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim and other critics said the council was undermining the will of the voters, who approved the city's 3% cap on annual rent increases at public ballot in November 2021, and more study is needed on whether rent control has impacted some low-income tenants for the better. 'Basically, what we're going to be seeing more of is frontline workers, working class folks in older buildings,' said Council Member Nelsie Yang, who joined Kim and Cheniqua Johnson in casting the three dissenting votes against the permanent exemption for new construction. 'It's going to create a two-tier system that is extremely inequitable.' 'We are going in the wrong direction when it comes to rent stabilization,' Yang added. Tenant protections approved In the same session on Wednesday, the council voted 7-0 to pass a sweeping package of residential tenant protections aimed at limiting the scope of security deposits, criminal history checks and credit checks, without barring them outright, and requiring landlords to provide 30-day written notice before filing evictions. Other protections spell out responsibilities for landlords when affordable properties are sold, including a requirement that a new owner either cover relocation benefits or give existing renters a three-month grace period before raising rents and rescreening tenants. The ordinance indicates that the protections will take effect a year from approval. Johnson, who spent 18 months crafting the details of the tenant protections package, said her section of the city's East Side is plagued by evictions with limited notice, high security deposit requirements and other housing inequalities that often fall heaviest on the most financially vulnerable. Related Articles 'We've heard stories where individuals have had to pay two or three times the rent just to get the keys to move in,' said Johnson, who chairs the city's Housing and Redevelopment Authority. The previous council approved a raft of tenant protections but rescinded it in 2021 under legal pressure. Johnson said she listened closely to both community and legal feedback to make sure the new package will fulfill the council's commitment to renters while surviving legal scrutiny. 'One of the things I think that is important about this ordinance is it is reasonable,' she said. 'It is important that we don't make promises years prior and then rescind them and we don't bring them back to the community.' RELATED: What's changing with St. Paul's new rent control policy and tenant protections New construction exempted from rent control The rewriting of rent control follows months, if not years, of public debate over whether the rent stabilization ordinance has lived up to its purpose and protected the most vulnerable renters, or dissuaded lenders and developers from investing in the capital city, undermining efforts to build more housing. Rent control's supporters have noted that while St. Paul's housing slowdown has been stark — 2024 was St. Paul's worst year for new housing starts in more than a decade — Minneapolis and other cities without rent control have also experienced slow housing growth, likely as a result of rising construction costs, high interest rates or demographic projections predicting limited population growth. 'I've been hearing from community members on the need to have data on how effective (rent control has) been for our renters,' said Yang, noting most studies have focused on housing supply and production rather than tenant experiences. Construction of single-family homes gained some ground last year, but building permits for multi-family housing began tanking in St. Paul even before neighboring cities. A study by the Bureau of Economic Research blamed the ordinance for as much as $1.6 billion in lost property value in St. Paul, and noted that the policy's biggest beneficiaries stood to be wealthy white renters, who have been shielded from rent increases as much as lower-income renters, if not more so. That's because many owners of older properties have applied for and received exemptions to the rent caps after citing high maintenance costs, inflation and property tax increases. The rent control amendment approved by the council Wednesday was sponsored by Anika Bowie, Saura Jost and Noecker, and also drew the support of Matt Privratsky. Johnson, HwaJeong Kim and Yang cast the dissenting votes after attempting without success to back key amendments. Instead of entirely exempting new residences from rent control, Yang's amendment would have extended an existing 20-year exemption for new construction, approved by the previous council in 2022, and converted it into a 30-year exemption, mirroring the length of a construction mortgage. It was voted down 4-3, with Johnson, Kim and Yang voting to support it. 'We went from 20 years to permanent, with no discussion about anything in between,' Johnson said. Jost called the 30-year exemption 'an outdated request' that 'just does not provide reassurance to the market.' Nick Nowotarski, a development director with Weidner Apartment Homes, said his company has long planned up to 1,000 units of housing at the Highland Bridge development in Highland Park, and that housing has been on hold since rent control was approved. 'We will not move forward if there's a 30-year exemption,' he told the council. Prevailing wage amendment voted down Kim's amendment, which was also voted down 4-3 along the same lines, would have required contractors to pay construction laborers prevailing wages on new multi-family buildings spanning 12 units or more as a condition of receiving their exemption from rent control. Proponents said as many as one-in-four construction workers is victim to wage theft. 'It's something that has been in the works for at least 2½ years … (before) the previous council and this current council,' said Kim, listing a series of labor organizations who wrote letters in favor of the proposal. 'It's a pro-worker amendment.' Related Articles Jost noted that no other cities in Minnesota impose prevailing wage rules on private construction, and the city already imposes prevailing wage requirements on projects that receive city grant funding. 'We need to build 10,000 homes to meet the need in our city, and we know that we're not doing that,' she said. 'We have too many vacant spaces.' One of the most pointed criticisms of the prevailing wage proposal came from St. Paul City Attorney Lyndsey Olson, who submitted a rare letter of objection to the council, calling the amendment 'legally defective' and 'legally unenforceable' under both case law and city and state prevailing wage statute. 'Both the city's and the state's prevailing-wage laws only apply to … projects using public funds,' reads Olson's letter to the council. 'The amendment's language goes beyond this public-only constraint and reaches into purely private projects paid with private funds.'
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
St. Paul City Council advocates for a Green New Deal
Spurred on by students from Macalester College and other young people, the St. Paul City Council on Wednesday voted 6-0 to call on Congress to enact a 'Green New Deal.' The resolution, authored with the help of the Sunrise Movement Twin Cities — the Macalester-based chapter of a national youth-led environmental movement — was sponsored by council members Saura Jost, HwaJeong Kim and Nelsie Yang. Progressive politicians from U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein have called without success for a raft of federal environmental policies aimed at simultaneously combatting economic inequality and rising global temperatures. St. Paul in 2019 adopted a 'Climate Action and Resiliency Plan' with the stated goals of carbon neutrality in city operations by 2030, a 50% reduction in citywide carbon emissions by 2030 and citywide carbon neutrality by 2050. The resolution calls for the city to align its policies — including the 2050 Comprehensive Plan and a renewal of the existing Climate Action plan — with the values of a Green New Deal, in part by allocating future proceeds from utility-related franchise fees toward 'making St. Paul a more climate-resilient city.' The resolution also calls for the city clerk to send copies of the resolution to U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, and U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum. Politics | Downtown St. Paul's historic Commerce Building sold, but apartments will retain 'affordable' designation Politics | St. Paul City Council to hear appeal of FCC Environmental trash truck site on March 19 Politics | Contest for St. Paul City Council's Ward 4 seat draws Cole Hanson, Molly Coleman, Cristen Incitti Politics | St. Paul: Tree preservation ordinance on hold for 6 months Politics | Letters: 'It doesn't cost anything to be nice to someone'
