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A reminder that I will be in town this weekend and would love to see you all for happy hour tomorrow (Friday, May 16th) at 4Hands at 4:30. I can't wait to talk shop and hang. and if I'm not enough of a draw, my girlfriend, Jocelyn (a militant urbanist), will be there as well! Bring a friend
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In other news, obviously the big story last week was the water main break that triggered a boil order throughout town. I thought that CM Rheinnecker offered a really nice outline of what exactly happened in his newsletter (the text of which you can read here). A bit on the broader situation surrounding Kirkwood Water though. Kirkwood Water faces two crises:
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- The system is very old so the water mains break a lot and we waste a bunch of money on water that leaks into the ground through those cracks. Kirkwood has a goal of replacing 1% of its mains a year, but has not hit that goal in four of the last five years.
- The federal government has mandated that cities across America replace lead service pipes (which can cause severe development issues in young kids) by summer of 2034. 530 of Kirkwood's service lines are made of lead and another 1,500 are made of unknown materials. Kirkwood not yet started the process of replacing those lead pipes. Kirkwood does not plan to start replacing lead service lines this fiscal year.
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To replace both the lead service lines and the old water mains, we need a lot of money, so Kirkwood Water is increasing rates 27% this fiscal year and faces further increases in future years. That's a really bad situation. It seems to me that our options are to continue to drastically increase the cost of water (the cost of living!) in Kirkwood, or we find a solution. Kirkwood has applied multiple times for a $2 million federal grant to help replace our lead service lines but has so far been rejected. I'll note that Ridgehouse offered the city $2m for the right to develop the two surface parking lots on Jefferson, a project that would've added parking spaces to Downtown and would've contributed more that $100k annually to city coffers, but the city rejected the offer. Instead, the Council decided you should foot the bill.
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- Water break
- A couple of items of note from tonight's City Council meeting agenda:
- While we're on the subject of Kirkwood Water, the Council will vote tonight to approve spending $24k on new water gate valves which are intended to increase the resiliency of the Rose Hill Water Tower, which will allow it to remain in service during emergency repairs. The timing on this is sorta funny, but it seems like a good thing to spend our money on. Never let a good crisis go to waste, as Churchill once said.
- Second are the revisions to the Architectural Review and Landmarks portions of the zoning code that were continued from the Council's April 17th meeting. After having reviewed the changes again, I'm left even more confused as to what CM Jaksetic was concerned about when she made the motion to push back the vote. Here's what the changes would do:
- Eliminates architectural review requirements for roof-mounted solar panels, swimming pools, fences, decks, and small sheds, so long as each meet certain standards
- Eliminates architectural review for new windows and doors, mechanical elements like HVAC systems, and structural alterations that do not effect the exterior of the building
- Eliminates redundant architectural review for buildings that are already subject to review by the city's Historic Preservation Commission
- Require the Architectural Review Board to review signage applications in 21 days rather than 30 days (21 days is the standard for all other reviews)
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These are changes that would make living in Kirkwood more affordable, make preserving old buildings more economical, help generate clean energy, and improve the energy efficiency of our existing building stock, all by simply cutting some unnecessary red tape. There's no reason to stoke fear by suggesting it's somehow an opening of pandora's box. Let's hope the Council approves this tonight and cheers to CM Luetzow for opposing the unnecessary delay of progress that prevented us from passing the damn thing last month.
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- Last week's Webster-Kirkwood Times was pretty light but:
- Ironically enough part-2, the WKT also had a story on a major Kirkwood Water initiative on pg. 4-A. The department is spending over $2 million (another familiar figure!_ on a new pump station in Kirkwood Park to replace the existing one which dates to the 50s. Pump stations like these help maintain the correct water pressure throughout the system (the failure of which is what lead to all the breaks). It will be interesting to see if the Council's interest in selling the city-owned system (the only municipally owned system in the County) grows as a result of this crisis.
- As noted on pg. 1-A, Webster also in in need of additional revenue. Much like Kirkwood, the high demand to live in Webster means they could gain that revenue without increasing taxes by simply lifting zoning restrictions and allowing folks to invest in the community. I encourage you to tell the Mayor Gibbons to pursue this solution at Grounds for Discussion, a chance to casually chat with the Mayor at KPAC next Tuesday, May 20th, at 9am.
- Don't forget to offer your feedback on the preliminary SE Kirkwood Connectivity Study plans if you haven't done so already!
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That's it for this week! I can't wait to see you all tomorrow!
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