Planning commission recommends interim permit, tightens signage and parking conditions for Red Rock farmers market

Planning commissioners recommended approval Monday of an interim conditional use permit for a Sunday farmers market at Red Rock Elementary School, subject to added conditions on signage, parking enforcement and an explicit mechanism allowing the city to require relocation back to Central Park.

The permit request, submitted by the St. Paul Growers Association for a market to operate Sundays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., seeks to place roughly 35 local vendors at 3311 Commonwealth Avenue under an interim conditional use permit because the school property is zoned R4 and is guided as public/semi-public in the city land use plan. Staff told the commission the market previously operated at Central Park but used Red Rock under a temporary outdoor-event allowance when Central Park construction prevented use in 2024; the association now seeks a formal interim permit for the Red Rock location for 2025.

Staff recommended approval and described the proposal as using an area of the Red Rock lot configured with roughly 59 parking spaces for vendors and pedestrian circulation; staff said adequate parking remains in other portions of the school lot and that the school reported no Sunday programming that would conflict with the market. During discussion commissioners focused on circulation and safety in tight parts of the lot and on Commonwealth Avenue, directional signage, and the length of the interim permit.

“It's a really good farmer's market and the community has shown us a lot of support,” Lindsey Stoner, assistant director of the St. Paul Growers Association, told the commission, asking for approval to remain at Red Rock. Stoner said the association plans to apply for a Washington County SHIP grant to buy additional signage and described staff efforts last year to use cones and larger vehicles to block hazardous curb cutting points.

Commissioners pressed staff and the applicant about observed traffic movements last season, including vehicles entering or driving the wrong way through portions of the lot. Commissioner John Collum described seeing cars travel the unintended direction and said that without staff or signage to prevent it “there is some potential safety hazards there.” Commissioners proposed, and the applicant and staff accepted, conditions requiring an on-site pre-season meeting between city staff and the market operator to finalize cone locations and directional signage and to identify where no-parking signage along Commonwealth will be posted.

Commissioner Stephanie Swanson, citing a recent child-pedestrian crash on Commonwealth, asked the commission to specifically bar on-street parking during market hours; the recommended motion instead added a condition that the market “shall actively enforce no parking along Commonwealth Avenue” and clarified that four temporary off-site signs would be allowed while directional on-site signs for traffic control would not count against that off-site limit. Other conditions clarified that temporary signs must meet size limits and be located at least 15 feet from the sidewalk when on-site.

The commission also discussed the interim permit's duration. Staff explained that the permit is an interim approval that remains in effect unless zoning changes, the city elects to move the market back to Central Park, or the permit holder violates conditions. Several commissioners said they favored a one-year limit to force reconsideration after Central Park reopens; others warned one year might be too short to gather useful data. The commission added a termination clause to the recommendation tying relocation to a city decision to place the market at Central Park once that facility and related traffic patterns are evaluated.

Commissioners also discussed vendor operations and neighborhood outreach. Stoner said the association runs SNAP/EBT and token transactions from an information tent and reported a roughly 20% decline in that measured transaction activity after last year’s move from Central Park to Red Rock; she noted that this measure reflects only transactions handled at the association tent and may not reflect total vendor sales. Stoner described community-table programming and free/low-cost options for nonprofits to increase community engagement and said food trucks and a children’s “education tent” were part of the plan.

After debate the Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of project 20-2025-00570 with the amended conditions on signage, a requirement that staff and the applicant meet on-site before opening to identify final traffic flow and cone locations, active enforcement against parking on Commonwealth Avenue during market operations, and a termination clause allowing the city to relocate the market to Central Park. The recommendation will be considered by the City Council at its March 12 public hearing.

The recommendation does not itself approve a permanent zoning change; the interim conditional use permit remains subject to council action and to the written conditions attached to the commission’s recommendation.

For now, the Red Rock market is scheduled to operate Sundays from May through October, with the school district retaining the contractual right to terminate the site agreement if the district chooses to do so.