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ST. LOUIS — Joe Lengyel was stuck.

The homebuilder was ready to start construction on three houses on Norfolk Avenue. Like many building projects, they needed variances from the St. Louis Board of Adjustment.

He’d already built eight houses scattered across the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood, all of which needed variances to comply with the neighborhood’s special zoning code. A neighborhood group had given his plan support back when he started the infill project in 2017. He’d built housing in other city neighborhoods and always had a good experience.

But this time, Lengyel lacked what is an essential key to doing business in St. Louis: an aldermanic support letter.

City Hall’s bureaucracy has long deferred to aldermen on routine functions, including zoning and variances. But the tradition, known as aldermanic courtesy, has drawn scrutiny in recent weeks following the federal indictment of two aldermen and the former board president. The three, who have pleaded not guilty, are accused of accepting bribes from a businessman in exchange for shepherding legislation through the board granting his projects tax breaks.

According to the indictment, they also offered him crucial aldermanic support letters needed to get city staff processing the businessman’s abatement applications and his offer to purchase city-owned real estate.

Aldermanic support letters are often viewed as a proxy for neighborhood support. But in Alderman Tina Pihl’s busy 17th ward covering two of the city’s hottest neighborhoods — the Central West End and Forest Park Southeast — those letters have been difficult for some to get.

“I understand an alderperson wanting to ensure that development plans in their ward are appropriate and benefit the greater good,� Lengyel said. “But there’s other ways to do that. ... It is extremely inefficient. And as we have seen, it leads to corruption.�

Lengyel’s application was tabled at a February Board of Adjustment meeting after zoning staff told him that, in addition to needing some design tweaks, Pihl wanted to speak with him about the project.

He immediately sent her an email offering to meet. He followed up. Finally in April she emailed back, asking where his other projects were and indicating a neighborhood association committee would be reviewing development projects.

“Then there was radio silence for weeks on end,� Lengyel said. “I left phone messages. I sent more follow-up emails.�

Getting desperate, he called the city’s zoning division back.

“I said, ‘Look, what am I gonna do here? I need to move forward,’� Lengyel said. “My builder has other projects. I’m getting nothing to react to.�

Lengyel would finally get that support letter in June so he could apply for variances.

In an interview with the Post-Dispatch on Tuesday, Pihl apologized for the delay and said she needed “more staff.� Other aldermen say the same thing about the lack of staff, she said, and her ward is particularly busy with construction.

“I’m one person and there’s only so much I can delegate, and because I have to make the decision, there’s only so much I can do,� Pihl said.

Lengyel wasn’t the only developer who faced delays. Scott Siekert, also had trouble reaching Pihl to get a support letter for his project, an infill multifamily commercial building on Manchester Avenue.

“I was told Alderperson Pihl wanted me to call her to talk about the project,� Siekert said at a June 22 Board of Adjustment hearing. “I tried calling twice and left phone messages and didn’t hear anything back.�

The board tabled Siekert’s request for 60 days, with board member Mona Parsley citing a request from Pihl.

Chairman Joe Klitzing, who has been on the board for about a decade, voted to approve Siekert’s variances. He said in an interview that he saw no reason to hold up someone’s project if they’d tried their best to reach neighborhood stakeholders. The Board of Adjustment has granted variances in instances where aldermen haven’t weighed in, and it has even gone against their wishes on occasion. But he said aldermen do have considerable sway.

“It just has been something in this town, the alderpeople have their opinions, or whatever, on any development done in their ward,� Klitzing said. “Typically you want to get their approval before you even come to us.�

‘He’s not a city employee’

When Lengyel finally did get his support letter from Pihl, she didn’t send it. It was attached to a June 22 email from Daniel Pate, a local real estate agent and a frequent critic on Twitter of development incentives.

“Thanks for your patience with me on this,� Pate wrote Lengyel. “Please find the attached letter of support.�

Lengyel said Pate was helpful enough, apologizing for the delay and explaining he had been out of town. But the episode left him perplexed.

“It was like she was waiting for him to get back to do anything,� Lengyel said. “I don’t understand why he’s involved if he’s not a city employee. It doesn’t make any sense to me how that’s appropriate.�

Pihl is new on the Board of Aldermen. She was elected last year after the retirement of longtime alderman Joe Roddy. In a ward that has among the most development in the city, her hallmark has been pushing developers to contribute to affordable housing in exchange for her support of zoning and tax incentives.

But for Lengyel — he isn’t seeking tax abatement for the three houses — it was never clear what she wanted. He still has never spoken to Pihl.

“Months of waiting and then magically a letter of approval from Dan Pate popped out the other side,� Lengyel said.

Pate lives in the 8th Ward, not in Pihl’s 17th, according to a biography on the STL Vacancy Collaborative, where he served on a working group with Pihl. He has long been a critic of the city’s use of tax incentives, and he has expressed his support for Pihl.

“I can promise (Pihl) thinks about development differently than prior administrations,� Pate said on Twitter in May 2021. “She was voted in to fix it. She’s ready for this.�

Pate deferred comment to Pihl, who said he volunteers to help her with administrative tasks. She’s “lucky,� she said, to have someone like Pate familiar with community development and willing to help.

“I don’t have many unfortunately — I need more volunteers,� Pihl said. “Nobody sends emails or anything on my behalf. I direct them.�

Lengyel said he has heard other complaints about Pihl’s responsiveness. Maybe Pate was just helping her keep up.

“This might just be because she’s overwhelmed with the demands of the role,� he said. “I feel for her if that’s the case. But it’s what you signed up for.�

A ‘disconnect’

Meanwhile, there’s confusion about how to develop in one of the city’s most in-demand areas.

Siekert said in a brief interview that he is in contact with Pihl now about getting her support for his project on Manchester Avenue, which isn’t seeking tax incentives.

But his hearing at the board demonstrated what one member termed a “disconnect� between the Forest Park Southeast Neighborhood Association and the Park Central Community Development Corporation that, under Roddy, long served as the neighborhood review entry point for developers and businesses.

Stephen Begany, a neighborhood resident, asked the board to delay approving Siekert’s project, saying the hadn’t reviewed it.

“I think it sounds great, we just haven’t seen it,� Begany said.

Siekert explained that he had gone through Park Central to present past projects to the community, and its current director, Abdul-Kaba Abdullah, told him he should present this project to the board of the Grove Community Improvement District, made up of businesses on Manchester.

City staff at the meeting also sounded confused.

“I have a couple questions for you,� St. Louis Zoning Administrator Mary Hart Burton told Begany. “So you’re, are you a different organization from the Park Central organization?�

Begany explained they were separate.

“The recent precedent has been Alderwoman Pihl has been asking developers to present their projects to the neighborhood association,� he said. “I don’t know why she didn’t respond to (Siekert’s) request. That’s unfortunate.�

Parsley, the Board of Adjustment member, made a motion to table the request so Siekert could present to the neighborhood association and get in touch with Pihl.

“Park Central as we used to know it isn’t the same as we used to know it since Roddy is no longer there,� Parsley said “And there is some type of disconnect now.�

Park Central stopped doing development reviews after Pihl was elected to give her a chance to get acclimated and decide how she wanted to solicit community feedback, Abdullah, the director, said in an interview. They never got clarity on their role.

“What we have is a disconnection where we have a new alderperson who has not defined the process for how you would like to see development work in this space,� Abdullah said. “We don’t know what to tell developers.�

In a statement, the neighborhood association said Pihl told them in late 2021 that she was putting together a new development review committee.

“It was our understanding that she did not want to work through the pre-established committees administered by Park Central Development,� the group wrote.

The neighborhood association was tapped in the interim to vet a large project — the proposal from Lux Living to build apartments on the prominent site long occupied by vacant houses at Kingshighway and Oakland Avenue.

“Our community engagement facilitation was a temporary process and was not intended as a permanent replacement for an official neighborhood development review process,� the neighborhood said.

Pihl said she stopped using Park Central because some residents “felt that their voices were not being heard and there were not enough community meetings.�

“I ran on making some changes and this is one of the changes,� Pihl said.

She acknowledged there has been some confusion “because of the changes I made.� But she said she was about to solicit applications for a new development review committee.

“I want it to go quicker,� she said of development reviews. “And there is going to be a development review committee that reviews these a lot quicker.�

Park Central always included neighborhood residents on its development review board, Abdullah said, along with business and building owners. But he recognizes that some see the group as a holdover from Roddy, who clashed with the city’s progressive political faction where Pihl draws her support.

“Contrary to popular belief, we’re not a partisan group that was started by Joe Roddy,� Abdullah said.

Whoever ends up reviewing development in the neighborhood, St. Louis city government needs to lay out what’s required for a variance rather than relying on tradition, said Abdullah, a former city manager in Berkeley.

“If you need an aldermanic letter of support, that should be codified,� he said. “That should be in the rules.�

Burton, the zoning administrator, didn’t respond to a question about whether aldermanic support was required for staff to process variance requests. Instead, Nick Dunne, a spokesman for Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, sent a statement on behalf of Burton’s boss, Building Commissioner Frank Oswald.

“Community support is essential for the Building Division to consider supporting a variance,� Oswald’s statement said. “Letters of support or opposition from neighbors of adjacent properties, community organizations, or the Aldermen are key to determining whether the Building Division will bring the variance requests before the Board of Adjustment for consideration.�

Posted at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday, July 13.

Editor's note: A Tweet quoted in this article referenced a house the author said received tax abatement. The property is not abated.