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I hope everyone had a fantastic Greentree Fest! A quick reminder that Kirkwood for Everyone's Community Land Trust presentation is this coming Tuesday, September 23rd, at 7pm at Kirkwood United Methodist, and Dr. Molly W. Metzger, Chair for the Domestic Social and Economic Development at Washington University Brown School, will be presenting! Make sure to RSVP on Facebook to help spread the word, and bring a friend!
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- The October 2nd City Council meeting is shaping up to be an incredibly consequential one for those of us that care about Kirkwood. If you can show up to speak at that meeting, please plan to do so. If you can write an email to your City Council Members, please do that. I don't want to be too alarmist but we're going to need all the help we can get.
- I'm increasingly concerned about the unintended consequences of two provisions of a new stormwater policy that is set to have its public hearing for that night:
- b. Require all impervious areas over 25 percent of the site to be mitigated. No credit for lowering impervious area unless proposed condition is below 25 percent impervious.
- c. Set the maximum allowed impervious coverage for a lot to 55%. Currently there is no limit. Maximum imperious limit must work with flat work permits. Impervious percentage could mimic ARB lot coverage by allowing less lot coverage for larger lots and have some accommodations for smaller lots.
The first provision is very costly and needs to at least include an option for developers to pay a fee in lieu of getting below the 25% threshold if the City Council doesn't want to absolutely explode home costs in Kirkwood. We require people to build off-street parking spaces at an arbitrary rate, we can't then, with the other hand, punish them for including those spaces by saying you have to pay for a drywell to account for the run-off they cause.
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The second provision is even worse. There is not a single lot in Downtown Kirkwood that has less than 55% coverage by impervious surfaces. Not the Kirkwood Train Station, not the old Bug Store, not the Station Plaza, not OK Hatchery, not St. Peter or the Farmer's Market or City Hall. I hope I'm misinterpreting something about this, because otherwise I feel confident saying that this measure will kill Downtown Kirkwood.
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- The Council is also set to vote on the Commerce Bank site proposal to bring sixty new homes and retail to a vacant site in Downtown Kirkwood. The Council is seemingly legally bound by the zoning code to approve this project, but the backlash has been intense and I'm getting a little worried they may be inclined to try and skirt the law. If you can show up to say that you support the approval of this project, because it will help moderate the cost of living in Kirkwood, it would be very helpful.
- Pg. 4-A of last week's issue of the Webster-Kirkwood Times had a write-up of Kirkwood's property tax rate setting process. The article notes that:
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State law requires municipalities to lower rates of taxation when property values rise, only permitting a revenue adjustment of less than 3%. [As a result] Kirkwood levies taxes at a rate below the [Kirkwood] voter approved maximum.
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The overall assessed value of properties in Kirkwood is up significantly since 2023. Residential property value rose 19%, and commercial property value rose 12%.
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Sprung said that under the proposed tax rate, a home with a market value of $300,000 would be taxed about $229 by Kirkwood - slightly lower than last year.
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- Council Member Gina Jaksetic also noted that seniors can ask that their home's assessed valuation be locked at the lower figure of their 2023 assessed valuation.
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To put that into English for you, property tax rates are going down this year because the overall assessed value of property went up, in accordance with state law. But if overall property assessments stop going up because you accidentally kill off all new investment in Downtown Kirkwood with poorly thought-through stormwater policies, then you have to compensate by increasing the tax rates instead. And because you can't raise taxes on seniors, already cost-crunched families will end up shouldering the full burden of the increase. Please show up to the Oct. 2nd Council meeting.
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That's it for this today! Hoping to have a lot more soon and don't forget to RSVP for Tuesday's discussion on Community Land Trusts! Have a great weekend, everyone!
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