It just got a pinch easier to open a coffee shop in St. Paul, and to add housing above it — but it could get easier still.
The city’s “traditional neighborhood” zoning districts invite, at various intensities, real estate development that combines housing, retail and office uses side-by-side or in a single building, often with apartments built over a restaurant or ground-level storefront. The T1, T2, T3 and T4 districts also include design standards governing everything from windows and trees to block lengths.
The St. Paul City Council on Wednesday approved a longstanding effort to encourage more pedestrian-oriented design in “T districts” while allowing, in some cases, greater height and density under a simplified zoning code. The changes run from mild to meaningful, merging some sections of the zoning code while canceling others outright.
The council’s 7-0 vote was immediately followed by a decision to perform a follow-up zoning study that aims to potentially refashion more of the city’s commercial corridors as mixed-use “T districts,” especially along transit lines.
“We are immediately doing the next step,” said City Council President Rebecca Noecker, addressing fellow council members.
Effort to simplify regulations
Over the years, advocates for affordable housing and mixed-use development have called on the city to simplify regulations and loosen some permitting and design standards within the T districts, while in some cases adding more standards to encourage pedestrian access. The city set out to address those demands through study and outreach that began in 2022, resulting this week in zoning changes that development advocates like Sustain St. Paul have praised for their flexibility.
On Sept. 5, by a vote of 12-0, the St. Paul Planning Commission recommended approval of the staff-driven zoning changes included in the “T district zoning study.” The city council held a public hearing on Nov. 5.
“These common-sense changes will make the ‘T districts’ easier for city staff to administer, and easier for prospective real estate developers (especially regular folks working on small, locally-financed, neighborhood-scale projects) to understand and follow,” wrote Benjamin Werner, a community development manager with Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services, in a letter to the city council.
Werner and others encouraged the city to rezone existing business and transit corridors and expand “T districts” throughout the city, “so that people can open neighborhood-serving businesses like coffeeshops and corner stores in more places without first having to get their property rezoned.”
The council, which voted 7-0 to adopt the new T district zoning study, immediately pivoted to do exactly that, again voting 7-0 to initiate a “T district follow-up and transit corridor zoning study.”
The changes
Among the newly-approved changes:
• Parking: Surface parking in T districts must not be located within 30 feet of a corner.
• Building facade: A section of the code called “building facade articulation” has been renamed “frontage elements,” and now requires a building’s base 30 feet — not just the base 25 feet — facing abutting public streets to “include elements that relate to the human scale at grade … doors, windows, projections, awnings, canopies, porches, stoops, etc.”
• Floor area ratios for affordable housing: The maximum allowed floor area ratios can be increased if at least 10% of the residential units are designated affordable housing for at least 10 years, and leased at or below 60% of area median income, as defined by Minnesota Housing.
• Height: In T districts, a maximum height of 90 feet is already permitted with a conditional use permit, though structures must be stepped back by one foot from all setback lines for every 2½ feet of height over 75 feet. The new code amendments state that “additional building height is permitted when stated in an adopted T District master plan,” and they remove restrictions on height allowances in the river corridor overlay district and within light rail station areas between Lexington Parkway and Marion Street.
• Definitions: The zoning code now tweaks definitions of T1, T2, T3, and T4 districts to emphasize commerce, transit and intensity.
• Until now, for instance, T4 districts allowed “greater transit use” alongside “high-density, mixed-use development.” Under the new definition, T4 districts will be defined as those in which both “more frequent transit service” and reliance on transit make “high-intensity, mixed-use development possible and desirable.”
• Design standards: The new code amendment eliminates existing language that says “in general, it is desirable for each block to include some diversity in housing type, building type and mix of land uses.” It also relaxes standards around block lengths, transitioning from higher to lower density neighborhoods, and using established building facade lines, as well as requiring new buildings on corner lots to be oriented to the corner and two public streets.
• Retail and restaurants: In T1 neighborhoods, any individual retailer within a building may take up no more than 5,000 square feet. In T2-T4 districts, a conditional use permit is required for new construction covering more than 20,000 square feet “to ensure size and design compatibility with the particular location.” Conditional use permits are required in all T districts for restaurants, printing and other factory-style production larger than 15,000 square feet.
• Coffee shops: A conditional use permit is required for a coffee shop or tea house spanning more than 1,500 square feet in floor area in T1 and B1 business districts. The previous threshold was 800 square feet.
• Rental storage: Within a mixed-use building, rental storage may not exceed 15% of the building’s total floor area and may not have storage units on the first floor or at skyway level. In all T districts, the storage facility’s primary entrance, loading areas and freight elevators must not be located within the front third of the building, and may not be shared with other uses.
• Setback restrictions: Up to 40% of the building facade on any lot would be allowed to exceed the maximum setback requirement in order to create outdoor seating, gathering areas or courtyards. Civic and institutional buildings in T1 and T2 districts would be exempt from the maximum front yard setback requirement.
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• Certain setback restrictions would still apply to corner lots near transitway platforms, as well as local heritage preservation sites.
• Height at property lines: Under the new rules, structures adjoining residential districts (RL-H2) at a common property line or alley must be no more than 30 feet high along rear and side lines. They may exceed that requirement if they’re stepped back at a distance equal to the additional height, or if additional building height is permitted in an adopted T district master plan.
• Rooflines: Buildings of two or more stories must include a cornice, parapet or roof overhang in the area between the top floor and highest point of the building.
