Last week, the Maryland Heights City Council voted unanimously to approve a contract with Ultimate Soccer Arenas of Missouri to lease Sportport, the facility located at Sportport Drive and Maryland Heights Expressway in the Howard Bend floodplain.  We applaud this vote because:
  • Using land in Howard Bend for recreational purposes makes perfect sense.  Land used for recreation is less expensive -- and easier -- to restore than other commercial properties after the inevitable flooding that occurs in a floodplain.  We believe more opportunities should be sought to use the land in this area for recreation.
  • This kind of sports facility requires a lot of land, which is not available elsewhere in Maryland Heights.  In fact, it's not readily available anywhere else in St. Louis County.  Thus, this is a wise use of land resources for our city and region.
  • This type of development has a low impact on the character of the area.  Soccer fields do not loom many stories high, sprout smoke stacks, or generate the traffic of large-scale commercial developments.
Read more about the city's agreement here.  If you like this move by the city, you can let your City Council representatives know with just two clicks!
 
 
We are pleased to host our 3rd annual trivia night to benefit Maryland Heights Residents for Responsible Growth and The Open Space Council of St. Louis.

Saturday, February 27, 2010                              Maryland Heights Centre
   Doors open:  6:15 p.m.                                       2344 McKelvey Road
   Trivia begins:  7:00 p.m.                                      Maryland Heights, MO  63043

Tables of 8:  $160  or   Individuals:  $25

Registration deadline:
   By mail, with payment: Feb. 13
   In person, with payment:  Feb. 20
Download registration form below.

Soda & snacks provided -- or bring your own (alcohol allowed)
Raffles, games, prizes!

Funds from this event are held in trust for Maryland Heights Residents for Responsible Growth for the future protection of open space in Howard Bend.  Your donation helps protect green space for future generations.  Hope to see you there!

Want to volunteer?  Contact us.
mhr_trivia_night.pdf
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In yesterday’s Post-Dispatch, Peter Fischer, chairman of the St. Louis Gateway Foundation, talked about the reasons why Citygarden has been so successful.  One remark in particular caught my eye and applies all too well to our development challenges in Maryland Heights.  Fischer says:

“We want great and brilliant design for our public places.  We do not want design of public spaces offered by developers, for the result will likely be a function of the developer’s bottom line and their own narrow interest, not “world-class” excellence.”

The City of Maryland Heights’ plan for development in Howard Bend consists of hearing developer’s self-interested ideas, when it should promote a vision based on good land stewardship and the best interests of the community.

Last fall, when developers presented their idea for Maryland Park, a mixed-use development of big-box retail, office space and residential units, the Planning Commission was successful in getting them to “pretty up” the plan with more walkways and plantings.  But the plan itself was based solely on the developer’s profit interest and had nothing to do with the health of Maryland Heights as a whole or appropriate use of land in a flood plain.

As Fischer points out, the key to Citygarden’s success is that the planners’ only interest was excellence of design.  They figured out what they wanted.  Then they figured out how to accomplish it.  Importantly, they did not have a financial or political interest in the outcome.

By contrast, the Maryland Heights Planning Department and Planning Commission are very focused on the financial and political aspects of development. Any development that generates business or utility taxes is alright with them.  More square miles of development gives them more political clout in the region (they think).

As long as they hang on to this outdated way of thinking, they will be ineffective in leading the effort to make our community a better place to live and work.  As it is, the developers are the dog, the city is the tail, and it’s pretty clear who is wagging whom. 

It is time for Maryland Height’s leaders to step up and commit themselves to excellence, to good planning and design that sets the community’s broader needs over short-term gain and developer’s interests.  Stay tuned to this blog for ideas on how they can do just that.
 
 
Maryland Heights Residents for Responsible Growth co-sponsored a booth in the Homegrown Village at Farm Aid on Oct. 4; if you’re reading this, maybe that’s why you’re here.  But if you missed the concert, you don’t have to miss the good cause that it supports – family farms.

Less than two miles south of the Farm Aid concert at Verizon Amphitheater lies Thies Farm, a local jewel that provides many an area household with delicious produce, healthy flowers and wholesome fun.  The Thies family has been farming in St. Louis since 1885.  Their mission reads in part, “Having been given a love of the land, it is our mission to share with our customers a harvest of the healthiest flowers and most nutritious crops and most of all, to create an atmosphere where customers become friends.” 

So, they also grow community.  And create jobs.  And pay taxes that stay here.  But their mission is dependent on the rich soil of the Missouri River floodplain called Howard Bend – and on our ability to protect that floodplain from unwanted and unneeded commercial development, keeping the land in trust for future generations.

Unfortunately, 3000 acres of the Howard Bend floodplain are threatened by the Maryland Heights Comprehensive Plan, which aims to put warehouses and big-box retail stores squarely in the pumpkin patch at Thies Farm.  Right next to Creve Coeur Park.  Yes, in the floodplain. 

See this page for other reasons why building in the floodplain is such a bad and short-sighted idea.  Then join over 2,500 others and sign the petition to stop the commercial development in Howard Bend. 

Farm Aid can only do so much for family farmers.  You have to do something, too.

 
 
 
Some of you may have seen the new trailer by River Valley Drive and Maryland Heights Expressway.  This is a reincarnation of the Maryland Park development that many of you remember from lasts year.  This land has ot been approved for rezoning and as of yesterday (8/4/09), per the City and the developer, no application for development had been filed with the city as of yet.

But it's just a matter of time.  When fully developed as proposed, the Howard Bend area will more than double the amount of commercial development in Maryland Heights and be twice as large as Creve Coeur Park.  Concentrating efforts on the Howard Bend area will divert city resources from addressing the decline of the already developed and declining Dorsett and Westport areas.

The developers are not the problem here, it is the City's willingness to allow development here.  Call the Maryland Heights Department of Community Development (314-291-6550) and your City Council members.  Tell them that in Maryland Heights we value our farmland -- and farmers! -- and our open green space.  Tell them that we don't want a Boone's Crossing/Chesterfield Valley-type development in our floodplain.  Tell them to change the Comprehensive Plan so that no more large-scale development is allowed in the Howard Bend floodplain.

Decisions made now will affect the future of our city and the region forever.  If you won't speak up now, when will you?