Senior city planning staff gave a detailed staff report Wednesday as the Saint Paul City Council took the first reading of a package of text amendments to the city's Traditional Neighborhood (T) zoning districts.

Senior city planner Spencer Miller Johnson said the T districts "are essentially St. Paul's mixed use zoning districts," first adopted in 2004 and last updated in 2011, and described the amendments as an effort to implement the 2040 comprehensive plan and modernize two-decade-old standards.

The recommendations the Planning Commission forwarded to council include clarifying the purpose and intent of each T district, increasing development flexibility at nodes and corridors (including a 10-foot height increase in T2 and T3 in some locations), adding neighborhood‑scaled land‑use flexibility for small commercial uses, creating an affordable‑housing density bonus, and converting several design standards to objective, measurable rules. Johnson told the council the code changes are intended to encourage pedestrian‑oriented mixed uses near transit and to streamline reviews that often accompany rezoning requests.

Johnson said the city opened an eight‑week public review period on May 16 and the Planning Commission held a hearing on July 11. Staff reported that the outreach produced 51 testimonies — 46 written and five verbal — with recurring themes of broad support for the study, interest in rezoning Moreland to a T district, and suggestions to combine the T1 and T2 districts. The staff recommendation preserved separate T1 and T2 districts while loosening restrictions in T1 to make it more usable for small‑scale mixed uses.

Council members asked staff clarifying questions; no public testimony occurred during the council session. Chair Johnson laid the ordinance over for a second reading and a public hearing on Nov. 5 so the council and the public have time to review materials and prepare comments.

If approved through the three‑meeting ordinance process (staff report, public hearing, final vote), staff said the amendments would be applied via text change; proactive city‑initiated rezonings along transit corridors would be considered separately in a later scope of work.

The council did not take a final vote on the ordinance package at Wednesday's meeting; the matter returns for a public hearing and second reading on Nov. 5.