Ernestine Stewart has lived in her home for 42 years and used to only see racoons in more rural areas of the county.
Now her north city neighborhood boasts entire racoon families that make it difficult to walk to her front door thanks to the untamed lawns of developer Paul McKee’s vacant properties.
These vacant homes boast grass taller than Stewart, she told St. Louis aldermen at Tuesday’s Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee meeting.
“I can’t get to my house sometimes and I called the city, what did they tell me? ‘Oh, that’s their habitat,’” Stewart said. “We shouldn’t have to live like this.”
The committee, made up of chairperson Shameem Clark Hubbard, Anne Schweitzer, Michael Browning, Alisha Sonnier and Shane Cohn(who wasn’t present), heard public comments regarding Board Bill 174 sponsored by Alderman Rasheen Aldridge. The blight redevelopment bill would impact 821.4 acres in the St. Louis Place, JeffVanderLou and Carr Square neighborhoods.
The bill aims to approve a redevelopment plan and blight study for the area, a swath of north city that consists mostly of vacant land, unoccupied buildings and buildings in poor condition, according to the proposal.
Approximately 71 percent of the properties in this area declined in value over the last 12 years, according to Aldridge’s bill.
The majority of these decrepit buildings and vacant lots are owned by McKee as part of the developer’s long-stalled NorthSide Regeneration project.
The legislation would tee up the city’s use of eminent domain on McKee’s NorthSide properties around the new location for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
While residents of the area are wary of eminent domain and some have been traumatized by the process before, by working with Aldridge and holding community discussions, they have come to support Board Bill 174 and the protections it provides for them.
The bill would not allow eminent domain on any houses or businesses that are currently occupied unless they want to sell, and would provide 15 years of tax abatement for current residents.
Sheila Rendon was born in her family home on Mullanphy street in 1972 and lived there her whole life — until the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency moved into McKee’s development area in 2023.
Rendon was forced out of her home through eminent domain made permissible by a 2009 blighting study.
Rendon has moved into a different residence in the neighborhood but remains worried for her neighbors.
“We realized that we could be eminent domained again so we took action,” Rendon said.
She said the community is tired of waiting for action and promises of redevelopment that are not fulfilled.
Barbara Manzara’s home has shared a lot line with a vacant McKee property for the past 18 years. She said McKee is profiting from the destruction of her neighborhood.
Manzara, along with co-plaintiff Keith Marquard, sued the state in 2011 to prevent McKee from getting tax increment financing that would take away their neighborhoods’ self determination, she said.
Manzara and Marquard lost their lawsuit but she said she and her neighbors aren’t done fighting McKee.
“We have been through hell, however, we are still here,” Manzara said. “We are still maintaining his properties, I mow his property, I garden his properties, I board up his properties and so do my neighbors.”
Manzara said that while McKee owns vacant properties, the community is unable to grow economically.
There were 14 individuals who spoke at the meeting; most were residents of the area that would be impacted. The only two who spoke in opposition to the proposed bill were McKee’s lawyers.
(McKee’s own absence from the meeting drew comments from other attendees.)
The bill was passed out of committee with a recommendation of do pass during the hearing.
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