St. Louis planners eye zoning updates to draw new residents

The St. Louis region’s continued struggles to retain and attract new residents are nothing new. It’s become an annual ritual of holding our collective breath to see just how bad the damage is when the U.S. Census Bureau releases its population estimates each spring.

St. Louis city and county officials believe they may have a solution: Better zoning. 

The current policies haven’t been updated since the 1950s and 60s and don’t account for 21st century needs, namely housing that’s affordable for younger people with, or on the verge of having families, and neighborhoods that are attractive to that demographic. 

An event last week sponsored by the local chapter of the Urban Land Institute discussed both the challenges ahead and the policy solutions that could help. 

On the panel was Saint Louis University demographer Ness Sandoval, who has been sounding the alarm for years, becoming increasingly vocal since the region slipped into a “demographic winter,” where fertility rates wilt and residents are increasingly older, causing deaths to outpace births. 

“The only way we’re going to be able to grow is through people moving in from other parts of the United States [or] other countries,” he says. “We can only grow through migration.”

St. Louis—and its sister Rust Belt city, Pittsburgh—are proverbial canaries in the coal mine for the whole country when it comes to these trends in the coming decades, Sandoval says. Since 2020, new immigrants to the St. Louis region have offset the number of residents leaving, but the region’s population still shrank because of deaths, he explained.

“100 percent of the growth in the United States is going to come from immigrants,” Sandoval says. “I know this is not a popular topic to talk about right now, but St. Louis and Pittsburgh show you this is what’s going to happen.”

Leaders from the planning departments in both St. Louis city and county say they’re heeding Sandoval’s call and are moving to  make the region more hospitable to newcomers.

“St. Louis County zoning ordinance is a creature of 1965 and it was great for a 1965 document, but we’re not going to reach these goals in our built environment until and unless we tackle that,” says Jacob Trimble, St. Louis County’s director of planning. 

Responded Trimble’s counterpart in the city, Miriam Keller, “Our zoning code has not been comprehensively updated since 1957, so we have you beat by a decade.”

Both documents are set to change very soon. 

Keller says the city will execute a full update of its zoning code over the next 18–24 months to better align with the recently adopted updated Strategic Land Use Policy. 

The county has a draft comprehensive plan for the next 25 years, dubbed “St. Louis County 2050” and will begin soliciting public feedback on it June 1. The plan goes before the county’s planning commission in mid-June before heading to the full council in July, Trimble explains. 

He says two of the five key priorities the plan seeks to address are population stagnation and housing affordability. Those goals are complicated by more than 80 percent of land in the county occupied by detached single-family homes, many of which in Trimble’s estimation are on large lots that could support more housing.

“St. Louis County has very few open, developable parcels,” he says. “Our zoning regulations and other codes are precluding property owners from being able to expand and imagine new housing technologies on their properties.”

Trimble explains that could be things like allowing accessory dwelling units or subdividing lots where new housing could be constructed.

“Our zoning ordinance is going to need to completely change to actually turn that goal of creating places where people want to live and root with children and grandchildren,” he says. 

The city, for its part, can and should emphasize elements that distinguish city living, mainly the urban experience, Keller says. She argues the neighborhoods that are currently growing in St. Louis have walkable access to services and amenities.

“Not a shocker, but the data really affirms that the places that support people and offer walkability are succeeding in the city of St. Louis,” Keller says. “If we try to compete against the suburbs, [we] will fail.”

There’s also an imperative to compete against other cities to better support those who’ve already chosen to live here and attract those who have options about where they can live, she says. 

Keller and Trimble expressed that the private sector has a role to play too in pursuing projects that help to elevate the attractiveness of the St. Louis region and collaborating with public agencies on where their procedures can be streamlined, especially given the current attention on updates to zoning practices. 

Sandoval adds the region’s many local governments must also adopt a perspective that’s welcoming of new developments, especially ones that bring more entry-level housing. Right now, too many of those projects are voted down, he says.

“We need more attainable housing. We need communities to respond and say, ‘We’re ready to have new residents in our neighborhoods,” Sandoval says. 

Opposing new housing developments will preclude affordable options for people looking to move from parts of the country that will become increasingly inhospitable in the changing climate or just unaffordable, he adds. Sandoval points to Sun Belt cities like Dallas, which are becoming pricey. 

“At some point, just like California, there will be this exodus. They’re going to come north,” Sandoval says. “The question is, are we going to be ready? Which region is really going to be prepared and welcome that next generation of people coming out of Texas, Arizona, Florida.”