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The eastern stretch of St. Paul's Grand Avenue is a beloved commercial corridor. Residents have easy access to transit, scenic and walkable streets, and locally owned businesses that make the neighborhood a thriving place to live for renters and homeowners alike. A new project will soon transform the Victoria East Mall into a six-story multiuse building with street-level retail. Most exciting of all, this will bring 87 new units of market-rate housing to St. Paul. The unfortunate reality is that this project is an outlier.

Housing production in St. Paul has plummeted since 2022 when the city's rent control ordinance first took effect. Even after the City Council amended the policy to exempt new buildings for 20 years, new construction still has not rebounded. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, which doesn't impose an artificial cap on rent increases, thousands of new homes have been built in the past five years and average rents have fallen. Limited supply is tightening rental markets in both cities, underscoring the need for more housing options across the board.

Back in St. Paul, you'll see that the impacts of rent control are larger than housing. It's creating tough choices for property owners that lead to frustrating land-use decisions for community members. At 560 Randolph Av., residents have been vocally opposed to the city's new garbage hauler purchasing the land, where the company plans to park and service its fleet of trash collection vehicles. Thanks to neighborhood advocacy efforts, the City Council blocked those plans, and our city now faces a difficult path forward given that the company has taken over most trash collection as of April 1.

This was avoidable, because neighbors and the previous owner had shared goals for the land: riverfront housing. As that former owner, a small, local developer, told the Pioneer Press last year, "We bought the site, and the reason I sold it is because of rent control. We had planned to do housing there. The city of Saint Paul's policies made it no longer economically viable." Instead of having dozens of new homes built on that site, city operations are now in turmoil.

Thankfully, city leaders recognize the problem we face. Council Members Rebecca Noecker, Anika Bowie and Saura Jost are advancing a common-sense proposal to exempt new residential buildings from rent control, while concurrently implementing new enhanced tenant protections. Opponents will tell you that it's too early to make a change because we don't know precisely how much of the decline in housing production is attributable to rent control. However, if you talk to those trying to finance and produce housing here or look across the river, it is obvious that something unique to St. Paul is inhibiting housing growth. There are other factors that can affect the production, such as interest rates and the price of materials. That makes it all the more important for us to do something about the one factor we can change: current city policy.

Renters need affordable options, making housing growth essential. The status quo would lock in our current housing shortage for decades, leaving renters without the autonomy they need to leave poor living situations, even forcing them to stay in unsafe or unstable housing due to scarcity. It would also prevent us from growing the tax base and maintaining affordability, both of which are necessary considering the worsening state of the economy. In the face of federal funding cuts and a looming state deficit, it is imperative city leaders place St. Paul in a stronger fiscal position, and nothing will help to stabilize property taxes more than housing growth. Residents of St. Paul cannot afford inaction.

The original rent control ballot measure had noble intent. But it is time for all of us to acknowledge that it has had severe unintended consequences. And if we don't allow for more housing production here, we will continue to follow a diverging path from Minneapolis where renting has become relatively more affordable. St. Paul cannot be a great city for renters if it allows housing to become unaffordable. Let's take this opportunity to course-correct today so future generations don't pay the price.

Luke Hanson and Melissa Wenzel are co-chairs of Sustain Saint Paul, a grassroots organization of residents that describes itself as being committed to St. Paul's long-term prosperity and livability through abundant housing, low-carbon transportation and sustainable land use.