The St. Paul City Council will vote next Wednesday on new rules that would require new surface parking lots with more than 15 parking stalls to be developed with conduit capable of hosting future electrical vehicle charging stations.

The reasoning goes that while electric battery-powered vehicles are still a slim share of the auto vehicle market, they’re likely to boom with time, and retrofitting properties to make room for “EV chargers” can cost several times the price of installing the infrastructure upfront.

Following a public hearing last summer, the St. Paul Planning Commission recommended that the requirements roll out for all new surface lots of a certain size, regardless of whether they are commercial or residential lots. At the same time, they did not recommend requiring the installation of the chargers themselves.

“There is some concern that technology could change,” explained city planner Bill Dermody, during a recent presentation to the city council. “The folks who are developing or own properties do not want to have to put in technology today that will be out of date in a couple of years.”

Minneapolis, Bloomington and St. Louis Park all require the installation of actual chargers, though the number varies.

“What’s being proposed here is zero,” Dermody said. “In other places, 2% to 10% of spaces would have actual chargers.”

Projected to grow

Dermody presented proposed zoning code amendments to the city council on March 27. Across the United States, he said, 7.6% of auto sales were purely electric battery vehicles last year, up from less than 6% the year before. That’s projected to grow heavily, reaching over 50% by 2030 or shortly after.

“Change is in the works. … It’s market watchers who are saying this,” said Dermody, noting government policy and consumer preference are both supporting the growth of EV industry. “And with more electric vehicles, there’s more charging need. … Most of that charging today happens in single-family homes. Most St. Paul residents will be (in) multi-family (buildings).”

In fact, some 44% of the city’s housing units today are in multi-family buildings. The city’s 54,000 multi-family units are expected to grow to about 65,000 units by the year 2040.

“Almost all that we’re planning to add in the next couple of decades will be multi-family,” Dermody said.

Should commercial lots have lighter requirements?

The proposed rules EV charging rules would apply to lots with more than 15 parking stalls, provided the lot requires site plan review, such as a new, expanded or heavily redeveloped lot “taken all the way down to the dirt,” he said, where “putting some pipes in the ground is not that much more, or a prohibitive cost.” A restriped lot would not trigger the requirements.

Under the proposal, future parking lots would have to be “EV capable,” meaning 80% of the new stalls would have conduit in the ground and appropriate spacing between electric panels. One stall out of every 30 spaces would have to be “EV ready,” or installed with all the necessary wiring and infrastructure except the charger itself.

Some developers have questioned whether commercial lots — such as a coffee shop, which a patron might visit for no more than an hour or two — should be treated the same as residential lots. Still, charging stations at commercial lots would better accommodate potential owners who have been hesitant to purchase electric vehicles because they’re unsure where to charge their “EV”s while driving out and about.

In response, city staff have recommended reducing the requirement for commercial lots so that just 20% of the new stalls would be “EV capable,” a proposal that has won the backing of Minneapolis-based Sherman Associates, which sent a representative to testify at a public hearing Wednesday before the city council.

‘Zoning can only do so much’

Also testifying Wednesday was a Payne-Phalen resident, who noted that the city’s new network of EVIE Spot charging stations has been a ripe target for copper wire thieves.

The city’s Planning Commission held its own public hearing last July, and city staff have also presented details to the city’s Business Review Council and various property developers.

Dermody acknowledged that there is no market for EV cars in certain situations today, such as low-income senior housing, though that could evolve with time.

“We are not solving all the problems that have been identified,” he said. “Zoning can only do so much.”

Related Articles

Joe Soucheray: Reckless car thieves, streetlamp wreckers … we’re tired of this

St. Paul Council members call for changes to police practices after no charges in fatal shooting

Dave Thune: We need to support our public-safety people every day

Letters: Why would we think a zoning sledgehammer is the right tool for Minnesota?

Joe Soucheray: ‘If you would shoot at a cop, you would shoot at anybody’

A man stabbed during a tubing excursion on Wisconsin’s Apple River, who survived with the most serious injuries, showed jurors a long scar from below his belt line to above his ribs Wednesday.

Another person injured, who also was called to testify, cried as an attorney displayed a photo in court of her lying injured near the river.

During the third day of the trial of Nicolae Miu, who is accused of murder in the stabbing of 17-year-old Isaac Schuman, jurors heard from people who’d been injured and other witnesses from various tubing groups, including Miu’s own group and his now-ex wife.

Just over two hours after setting off on the western Wisconsin river on July 30, 2022, Schuman was fatally stabbed during a chaotic confrontation that he and others had with Miu, a then 52-year-old mechanical engineer who is also charged with stabbing and injuring four others some 100 to 200 yards upstream from the Highway 35/64 bridge in Somerset.

Miu, of Prior Lake, claimed he acted in self-defense after being attacked by a large group of floaters who accused him of being a “pedophile” while he was looking for his friend’s lost cellphone and carrying a snorkel and goggles. Miu’s attorney, Aaron Nelson, told jurors on Monday that he was “outnumbered” and “feared for his life.”

The trial will continue Thursday, with prosecutors continuing to call people to the stand to testify. When they are done, it will be defense attorneys’ turn to the do same.

Related Articles

St. Paul man sentenced for fatally stabbing acquaintance while watching TV

St. Paul police investigating overnight homicide in Frogtown

Willmar hospital employee stabbed by combative patient, police say

Manslaughter charge: After reporting friend’s suicide, man tells police he accidentally shot him

Stillwater teen’s mom, friend who recorded stabbing give emotional testimony in Nicolae Miu murder trial

A new, centralized records system for Dakota County law enforcement groups took another step forward Wednesday afternoon, as officials announced the deployment of nearly $1 million in federal funding for the program.

The new records management system being developed — Criminal Justice Network — would allow agencies to integrate information more easily, and modernize how law enforcement groups share, view and record information with each other.

The funding was jointly announced Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar at the Safety and Mental Health Alternative Response Training (SMART) Center in Inver Grove Heights, with several law enforcement officials from participating Dakota County agencies also on hand.

Of the 12 total law enforcement agencies in Dakota County, nine have signed on to the new records system: the Dakota County sheriff’s office plus the Burnsville, Farmington, Hastings, Inver Grove Heights, Mendota Heights, Rosemount, South St. Paul and West St. Paul police departments.

The system is expected to go live in early 2026.

Currently, police departments can have different and sometimes outdated record systems from one another, causing difficulty when researching a possible emergency call in the field. It can allow agencies to be unaware of a person’s background or history when responding to a call.

In the office, it can cause situations where data is entered twice or in hard to find fields.

Rosemount Police Chief Mikael Dahlstrom theorized that officers want to have as much information as possible when responding to an emergency call. For example, he said, as an officer responds to an emergency, having the background of the people involved is vital to the officer’s response.

The system can also allow the county attorney’s office to receive the information, Criminal Justice Network Executive Director Mary Cerkvenik said, giving all areas of law enforcement real-time data.

“This is a game changer,” Cerkvenik said.

Related Articles

Stray bullet strikes one St. Paul fire station, shots fired outside another

Coalition formed to help domestic abuse victims take pets with them

St. Paul girl, 13, told police she was playing with gun, didn’t know it was loaded when she shot boy, 11

St. Paul teen pleads guilty to fatally shooting peer in East Side alley

Millions of recalled Hyundai and Kia vehicles with a dangerous defect remain on the road