The Maplewood Design & Review Board / Historic Preservation Commission will meet on Thursday, Feb 12 at 6 p.m. The board and the commission are made of the same members.
In the meeting the Design & Review Board will consider a wall sign for Gamlin’s restaurant at 2704 Sutton Boulevard, and a window sign for About Time at 2175 S. Big Bend. About Time was originally in Richmond Heights in the former Waldbart Florist building, and is currently at 7515 Big Bend Boulevard.
See also: Waldbart Florist sign, building almost gone
See also: Gamlin’s set to open in former Burger Champ, Elmwood in Maplewood
The Historic Preservation Commission has one item on the agenda: considering the demolition of 3432 Commonwealth Avenue. The Board of Adjustment gave the owner of the house a variance from a ordinance passed last March intended to limit new home size, maintaining neighborhood characteristics and keeping housing affordable in Maplewood.
From the Jan. 5 Plan & Zoning meeting minutes, “Design & Review Board member D.J. Howard spoke in favor of affordable housing and against the replacement of smaller homes with larger homes. He cited a recent Design and Review Board packet that included a proposal to demolish the existing structure and build a new home at 3432 Commonwealth Avenue. He objected to the Board of Adjustment granting a variance from the zoning code to allow this new construction to exceed limits established by the code, and he suggested that replacement structures should not be larger than the homes they replace…”
The point of the ordinance was explained by then Mayor Nikylan Knapper in the March 2024 meeting when it was passed. “It will really help people that are already in their homes stay in their homes, and it will push back on property taxes,”
Maplewood MO is one of the St. Louis areas with many historic buildings and houses. Is Maplewood becoming a teardown city? As a growing number of cities and states seek to reform their longstanding residential zoning policies in response to the housing affordability crisis, “upzone everything a little” is rapidly becoming the approach with the most political momentum. When the Micro Brewery in Maplewood Special Business District won their request for the parking lot to expand into a residential lot, and the lot was rezoned, Pandora’s Box was opened. The homeowners on that street got ignored and bullied by a group with Political Action and influence. Watch your step in Maplewood! Small pond with BIG FISH.
It’s really interesting that some (not all) of the folx getting super impassioned over this are literally the same ones who gentrified this town. They want to have it both ways-i.e, have their lovely “Webster Groves” type houses and then when the time is right-sell them at a premium and move on. It’s contradictory and just more performance art. I heard an ideas was even floated to try and have landlords limit what they could charge for rent-great in theory but dead in the water in terms of an ordinance.
If tear down a $200k home, new home must be $1.3 million to pencil, 15% tear down cost to pencil. The cost of a new house has nothing to do with taxes of an older, smaller house, sales of comparables close by does. Pass a law that house prices can’t exceed $200k?! That’s what Maplewood wants, a bunch of old houses in terrible shape that don’t warrant putting $ into. It will look like north St. Louis.
We need to stop letting these developers come in and tear down our homes. Removing small/medium homes from Maplewood housing stock is making it harder for new families to move to Maplewood. This demolition is a direct example of why our real estate taxes are getting out of control. Tear down a 200k home and build a 700k home. Now your home value estimate goes up. Home values rising is what people want in the big picture. But not at such an unhealthy rate that our current residents can’t afford their taxes.
COME TO THE MEETING (this Thursday)AND SPEAK OUT. we cannot keep losing our homes for mini mansions.