The three leading candidates for St. Louis County executive agree that affordability is a major challenge for locals. Where they differ, though, is how they’d fix it.
The Urban Institute, a policy think tank, concluded in an April post that “nearly half of people in American families cannot afford the true cost of living,” adding that cost increases are outpacing people’s earnings.
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Access to housing was a key issue for the three candidates interviewed by Nine PBS and SLM for Race for County Executive: The St. Louis Citizens’ Agenda. Democratic hopefuls state Senator Brian Williams (D-University City) and County Assessor Jake Zimmerman, as well as Republican candidate and County Councilman Dennis Hancock, all agreed that change is needed.
Zimmerman sees affordability as the “No. 1 overarching problem in this town,” leaning on his experience as the county assessor to illustrate how much more expensive it’s gotten for the lower and middle rungs of earners to find and afford homes. The problem, he said, is a matter of supply.
“If you live someplace like Lemay or someplace like the Hazelwood School District, what you’ve seen is that house skyrocketing in value,” he said. “The typical $100,000 to $200,000 house goes up in value on a year over year basis, double or more percent compared to the mansion in Clayton or Ladue. So, why is that? It’s obviously happening because we aren’t building and making enough houses for normal people with normal incomes in this region.”
He and Williams both cited “red tape” as a hindrance for builders who might address that problem. Zimmerman said he’d like to see the timeline for obtaining a building permit be reduced dramatically, while Williams said he wants to keep county government “accountable” for itself not increasing costs on taxpayers.
“County government has created so much red tape,” Williams said. “It has become a very concerning level of inept bureaucracy across the board. And I think it’s going to be imperative that the next St. Louis County executive place accountability measures across the board, not just on the county executive’s office and the council, but other county elected officials to ensure that they’re running efficient offices, they’re not raising costs on individuals.”
When asked about affordability, Hancock referenced his work spearheading the senior tax freeze at the County Council as a point of pride, saying, “I think we need to help people stay in their homes.” That policy allows any St. Louis County homeowner over the age of 62 to freeze their property tax bills at current rates. “It’s saving seniors some $400 to $500 a year on their tax bills,” Hancock said. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but that pays for prescriptions. That pays for food.”
Some school districts have sounded the alarm on the potential impact that the tax freeze has on them, but Hancock brushed off those concerns.
“Not getting $3 million that you were hoping to get isn’t the same thing [as losing money],” he said. “It’s not that they lost money. It’s that it didn’t grow as fast as they were hoping it would.”
Williams said he voted for the state law authorizing senior tax freezes, citing an elderly grandparent as firsthand experience with seniors on fixed incomes. The issue, he said, is the implementation by St. Louis County, which enacted its freeze without means testing. (By contrast, the City of St. Louis only allows people to take advantage of the freeze if their home’s market value is $528,392 or less.) He said he supports adding some kind of value limit to the county’s senior tax freeze “100 percent.”
“Representing a diverse part of the region–where I have communities that I serve every day that are living on a fixed income–a lot of communities where seniors … have very minimal means, that is going to stay at the front of my mind,” he said.
Williams said he’d keep affordability for younger people in mind, too. “They have student loan debt, they have so many different, unforeseen overhead costs that is keeping them from even being eligible to be approved for a home loan,” he said. “That’s something we need to think about.”
Williams also referenced reports indicating that people in higher income areas have better availed themselves of the freeze.
“There have been areas in our county that are affluent that have gotten the freeze and some, they’re less affluent that .. didn’t even know that the program existed,” Williams said. “It’s a very very big problem. So I think I’m going to focus on ensuring that we’re targeting areas of need and ensuring that the population of individuals who deserve the freezing could really benefit from it.”
Zimmerman also expressed some discontent with the county’s program as it stands. “If I were designing it from scratch, there’s things I would do differently,” he said.
The program should have been targeted to residents on a fixed income, Zimmerman added, singling out his parents who live in Clayton. The tax freeze gives them a few more opportunities to eat out a year, but doesn’t meaningfully change their lives.
“It’s not the difference between whether they can afford to stay in their house or not,” he said. “So, sorry Mom and Dad, but I just think that maybe this should have been more targeted at people who need the help the most.”
Asked whether he’d take the lead on changing the program, however, Zimmerman said that changes are the council’s responsibility, and he would execute the law as written.
“At the end of the day, regardless of what I think about the means testing, the law is the law,” he said. “The job you elect the county executive to do is to make the trains run on time, and that’s what I intend to do.”
As for moratoria on multifamily dwellings, like those popping up in St. Charles County and under consideration in Ladue, Williams wouldn’t say whether he’d support one, saying he doesn’t have enough data, but stressed the need for affordable homes for purchase, while Zimmerman said multifamily regulations should not be “one-size-fits-all” and handled “case-by-case.”
Hancock pointed—positively—towards new apartments popping up near the junction of Interstate 44 and Missouri Highway 141 (called 44 West Luxury Apartments). Density, he said, is about courting “the kind of people we want to have in St. Louis County,” like targeting young professionals. Still, development should be done “in a smart fashion,” he said, stressing careful attention to placement.
“One of the things that I drive by every day is a brand-new apartment development that’s going up at I-44 and 141 where we’ve had a dearth of apartments over the years; it’s nice to see that going up,” Hancock said, adding, “You don’t want to put 1,000-unit apartment complexes in the middle of every neighborhood. It just doesn’t work. That’s one of the ways that we can work with the communities in St. Louis County and the municipalities in St. Louis County to see what regulations do they have in place, what can we do to complement that and can help them with that housing shortage.
He added, “I think that we need to encourage people to come, not discourage them because we don’t have housing for them.”
Learn more:
Watch our one-hour special Race for County Executive: The Citizens’ Agenda
Read about what the candidates say about the issues that matter to voters:
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