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. " AGER' WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1998 .. ""~' .f . '>,'. '~-'"~'"'.t.- ,"? I."' '. '....? " c,. ,..: .-'..... ~ ~ J... .~.... Builder Frank Greayna (left) and developers John and'Erin Mathern are halfway to com- pleting their eight-un it Pineview Homes in Ramsey Hill. Photo by Kristine Hl!ykant5. Population gain with no pain City seeks an easier way to fit new housing into its old neighborhoods by Dave Page Meet Dia~e. Her children are two years away from moving out of her single-family home in the suburbs. She winces every time she sees a lawn mower or a snow blower. Her dream is to live in a townhouse on Summit Avenue. Diane is JUS! the kind of person who Met- ropolitan Council planners want to attract to the core cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. They are hoping that two-thirds of the metro- politan area's projecte({650,OOO popu!aiion growth in the next two decades will be in the central cities. For St. Paul, that would mean adding aboul 500 new households each year. Which won', be easy, considering thaI the number of households demolished in St. Paul over the past eight years almost equals the number that were built. "If we don't do it, we can't expect to limit growth on the fringes of the metro area or re- juvenate our centra! cities;' said Susan Kim- berly, southwest team leader for the St. Paul Department of Planning and Economic De- velopment. The problem is, SI. Paul does not have 20 lafge tracts to drop 500 housing units on, Kimberly said, and building single-family homes alone will not meet the demand. "We need to find ways to expedite the building of 10- to IS-unit projects;'she said. The building of multi-unit housing has been somewhat less than expeditious in re- cent years. New projects are going up, but not Wilhoullong, drawn-out bat des over design. Part of the problerl) is what developer Michael Lander ca!!s the "not-in-my-back- yard syndrome." Though some of the appeal o( city living is the mix of single-family homes, condominiums, and rental and com- mercial properties, "zoning ordinances often prohibit anything but single-family homes;' Lander said, "and neighborhood groups fre- quently oppose any kind of rezoning. To ease the process for prospective devel. opers, the city has begun drafting a compre- hensive plan for neighborhood development that will include d,esign guidelines. [n the meantime, John Hardwick, a staff member for the citY's Board of Zoning Appea[s, ad- vises developers to involve the community early in the process, "meaning before they that he wanted them irtVolved in the design, and the neighbors, though initially skeptical, eventually helped him get the zoning changed. "At the last neighborhood meeting, I actually got a standing ovation,"he said. To realize a profit, a developer must have "an appropriate density, one that offsets building and land costs;' said Erin Mathern, who with her father, John Mathern, operates Mendota Homes. [n April the St. Paul Planning Commission approved Mendota Homes' permit to.build 10 townhouses on a 3.3 acre site off Ayd Mill Road and SI. Clair Avenue-eight months anti umpteen public meetings after MendOla Homes initially proposed a IS-unit develop- ment for-the site. (See story on page I I.) Though it was time-consuming, Erin Mathern said the many meetings between Mendota Homes and Summit Hill neighbors actually improved the project. Along with scaling back the density, the Matherns agreed to alter the pitch on the roofs and change the siding. "We even allowed for a stucco option to be consistent with the various exteriors in the neighborhood," she said. However; some of the changes were not made before a graup cifSummit Hill neigh- bors successfully lobbied the City Council to overturn the Planning Commission's initial approval of the Lexington Commons permit. John Mathern praised city staff for being "very helpful:' However, he maintains that the appeal process in SI. Paul is too easy. ''Anyone with $250 can hold up a multi-million dollar project by appealing;' he said, ''There are enough steps along the way for everyone in. volved to make his or her conCerns known:' The Matherns also are involved in the Pineview Homes development at Laurel Av- enue and Mackubin Street, where neighbors were also instrumental in the final design. "It's not exactly what we had in mind when we first proposed the project," John Mathern said, "but it's going to be a beautiful corner when it's finished." The low interest rates of recent years have encouraged the development of otherwise marginal land in the Summit Hill and Ram- sey ~;u-eas. Lander is currently building six townhomes on Irvine Avenue directly below his Summit Avenue condominiums, and Cy Breril of Maui Pacific ~ntly completed 11 townhomB nn R~maav .C::t,--t h61.n'l'" ,........ r 1....;