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ST. LOUIS • Alderman Tammika Hubbard wants to combine two large redevelopment areas in and around her ward, north of downtown.

Last week, to merge the two: the long-dormant Bottle District near the Edward Jones Dome, and developer Paul McKee’s much-larger Northside Regeneration project. 

If the plan , it would remake the near-north. 

But it may have hit another hitch today. At this morning’s Board of Aldermen meeting, Alderman Scott Ogilvie – Hubbard's office-mate – is introducing a bill that could force Hubbard’s merger back to the drawing board.

Ogilvie is a vocal critic of the McKee plan. His bill, however, doesn’t even mention it. Instead, it takes aim at the city’s 20-year-old conflict-of-interest law.

If the bill, cosponsored by Aldermen Shane Cohn and Antonio French, passes, it would redefine conflict of interest – as has been done in cities across the country, Ogilvie said – as also pertaining to the financial interest of aldermen’s children, brothers, sisters, parents, or spouse’s parents.

And, here, we get back to Hubbard’s bill.

Hubbard is the daughter of Rodney Hubbard Sr., a longtime north St. Louis politico and executive director of the Carr Square Tenant Corp., the nonprofit that runs the Carr Square housing development.

And the tenant group , the McKee-led holding company that is proposing the project — much of which is in Hubbard’s 5th Ward — and has sought nearly $400 million in city incentives to help do it. 

So if Ogilvie’s bill passes before Hubbard’s, Hubbard might be in a tough spot.

“You’d need a legal opinion,� Ogilvie said this morning. “It could potentially affect it. The law’s not based on when something is introduced, but when it’s enacted.�

There is an out for Hubbard either way. The new bill would allow aldermen to either refrain from introducing or discussing bills containing conflicts of interest – or declare their conflicts and continue sponsoring such bills.

However, said Ogilvie, they are supposed to declare the year prior to sponsoring the bills.

Hubbard, in this morning's board meeting, was not immediately available to comment.

Ogilvie said her Bottle District bill motivated him to investigate city conflict laws.

“You’ve got to draw the circle somewhere,� Ogilvie said. “It does seem reasonable that if someone is your brother, sister, adult child, you share a lot of the same interests.�

A few people, he said, have “expressed concerns� regarding Hubbard’s involvement with McKee.

But he noted that his bill, if passed, would apply to everyone equally.

His brother, for instance, manages a well-regarded restaurant in Chicago, Ogilvie said. He hopes that, someday, his brother moves to St. Louis, and opens his own place here.

“And when he does,� Ogilvie said, “I’m not going to be the person who introduces a bill to subsidize that restaurant.�