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When Good Intentions Lead To Bad Outcomes: Housing Development In St. Paul.

An important aspect of being a family medicine doctor is considering the whole person. Our patients, people that often live in our community, are not just a constellation of diagnosis—they are people with a story.

We know that housing availability and affordability are essential for our patient’s overall health. Many studies and statistics support this basic fact. Even for people who have housing, housing expenses are often stressful and can have a negative impact on health. People may have to make compromises on food, medicine or other expenses to make sure that they have a place to live. In that regard, considering housing affordability is important for a family physician. It plays a huge role in our patient’s physical and mental health.

Recently, in 2021, a rent control ordinance was passed and put into effect by the voters of St. Paul. This was championed by many of our current elected officials. The policy generally prevented year-to-year increases in rent above 3%.

The reasons behind this policy were admirable. Housing affordability is an essential aspect of the health of our community and something with major ripple effects. The city of St. Paul does not have enough money to build affordable housing itself, so it is understandable that we may try to find another way to force housing affordability.

Unfortunately, however, these good intentions have not born fruit. While there are many factors that contribute to housing development, the rent control ordinance has been one factor slowing new development. This is because housing developers worry that they may lose money if they are not able to change their rents as they want year-to-year. So instead of land being used for housing, it is used for other purposes. This makes housing costs higher and forces residents to live in older, more run-down buildings.

One major side effect of the rent control ordinance has been the placement of a garbage truck depot in the West 7th neighborhood, which has previously been covered by this newspaper. In 2021 the site at 560 Randolph Ave was purchased by Optimistic Partners, a St. Paul developer. They had planned to develop the property with housing, a use that would fit well within the neighborhood, and provide a space for potentially dozens of new West 7th residents. After the rent control ordinance passed, however, the site was felt to be too risky to develop into housing—an unfortunately ironic consequence of such a policy. This caused the site to be sold to FCC Environmental, St. Paul’s new trash collector. Instead of new houses and neighbors, the site will now house garbage trucks. Garbage collection is, of course, an essential service, but one that is ideally not housed in the middle of a residential and commercial corridor.

The West 7th federation has understandably attempted to prevent this use of the space, but the real culprit is the rent control policy which stalled out development of housing in the first place. While a laudable goal, less housing is now being built and there is more pollution in residential areas with the new garbage truck depot. There are ongoing discussions about the future of the rent control policy, and change is needed for the health of our community. We need to continue to explore options to improve the housing situation in our neighborhood. Continued investment is essential for a healthy, vibrant community.

Source: https://communityreporter.org/when-good-intentions-lead-to-bad-outcomes-housing-development-in-st-paul/