Responsible Development: How to Make St. Louis, A City for All

By Irene J. Smith

Use of City Development Resources to Create Jobs.

Responsible development retains and grows jobs. On any given day in St. Louis City, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than 10,000 residents look for work and are unable to find it. Despite city government's expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies for private developments, St. Louis City retains one of the highest rates of unemployment for any county in Missouri. Compounding our problems with chronic unemployment, in the past year corporate consolidation saw the elimination of 585 jobs with the closure of Macy's Midwest and the loss of more than 600 jobs with the merger of Anheuser Busch and InBev. With continuing uncertainty for employees of the former Wachovia Securities during its transition to ownership by Wells Fargo, it is imperative that St. Louis City recommits its development agencies to responsible collaboration with major employers to ensure job retention. Development plans under a Smith administration will encompass green and solar technology that will create jobs for City residents. Concurrent with this work, the City must also foster an environment for entrepreneurial small businesses to grow on a level playing field with the region's larger corporations. Responsible development is mixed-income development. Prior to our Nation's economic downturn between 2005 and 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that nearly 50% of the approximately 70,000 renters in St. Louis City paid more than 30% of their incomes for housing; in addition, more than 22,000 of the city's 71,000 homeowners spent in excess of 30% of their incomes on housing. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, individuals paying in excess of 30% of their income for housing have difficulty meeting necessary expenditures for food, clothing, transportation, and medical care. To ensure that we develop our City responsibly, we must resist the temptation to subsidize housing developments that fail to provide an adequate supply of affordable units. Our crisis of affordability will not end through housing construction alone. Our region must also address chronic underfunding of the Metro transit agency and a lack of healthcare access to finally achieve affordability for our residents. Responsible development meets practical concrete measures of accountability. Under the Smith administration, any development accepting City subsidies including but not limited to tax abatement, Tax Increment Financing, and infrastructure improvements will adhere to the highest standards of sustainable design and construction. Binding timetables for construction will be a mandatory component of any development incentives package, because the City must act diligently to protect the public's interest. A Smith administration will ensure that we have construction timetables that foster the City's best interest as well as the developer's. If a developer who has received a City subsidy package fails to begin construction within a specified period after due consideration of economic factors, the subsidies will be revoked and we will seek other development partners to move projects forward. We cannot afford to allow the embarrassing false starts of Ballpark Village, the Ford, the Bottle District, the Mississippi Bluff, and Kiel Opera House to distract from the reality that St. Louis City is a prime location for residential, commercial, and institutional development. As Mayor, I will strengthen and enhance our City's strong foundation of dynamic diverse neighborhoods through targeted, intelligent, collaborative, and responsible development. I invite you to join me in making St. Louis, A City for All.