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Committee codifies development scorecard amid debate over predictability, prevailing wage and investor confidence
Summary
The committee advanced a substitute to board bill 66, codifying the city's incentive scorecard (including the Economic Justice Index) while committee members and developers debated whether additional legislative oversight will increase predictability or politicize decisions. SLDC and development leaders also briefed the committee on pipeline constraints and investor perceptions.
The HUDs committee voted to advance a committee substitute to board bill 66, a measure to codify elements of the city's development incentive scorecard and to add the Economic Justice Index (EJI) as a defined baseline factor. The committee adopted the substitute and later passed the measure out of committee with a due-pass recommendation (five "I" votes, one abstention, one "No").
Sponsor Alderman Conn described the bill as codifying the EJI and setting minimum requirements for how SLDC evaluates tax-incentive applications. Zach Wilson of the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) said the agency already uses a scorecard in practice and supports clarifying baseline contents while retaining SLDC's ability to refine details.
The measure prompted a long debate. Some members warned that requiring board review for scorecard changes could politicize or slow updates and reduce predictability for developers and lenders. "When a project scores on the scorecard but then extra demands are made behind closed doors, it undermines predictability," one member said, describing instances where projects stalled or were renegotiated. Sponsors and SLDC replied that the committee language was intended to preserve core scorecard elements and to ensure the board had oversight if SLDC substantially changed criteria.
SLDC interim director Otis Williams and a developer panel (Steve Smith and Doug Rasmusen) also briefed the committee on broader market constraints. Developers described a gap between construction costs and attainable rents, higher perceived risk for St. Louis in some investor markets, and the need for public partnership to "de-risk" projects—for example, predictable compliance and timely approval can influence whether national equity and debt providers will invest. Steve Smith cited City Foundry and other projects as long-term examples of how public-private efforts produced net tax and school-district revenue gains, but he and others said deals can fail when implementation expectations or costs change midstream.
Committee members asked SLDC about prevailing wage administration and restitution for unpaid wages; SLDC said the compliance and data-input work is complex, involving state wage orders and multiple stakeholders.
What happens next: board bill 66 goes to the full board with a due-pass recommendation. SLDC and the committee said they will continue work on implementation and compliance steps, and the development community urged clearer, consistent procedures to bolster investor confidence.
