NTM-1 Statement from the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership

Limited buildable residential land in St. Pete, combined with high construction costs and unprecedented demand are all contributing to rapidly rising housing costs. It will take decisive action from policy makers, developers, community organizations and business leaders to find solutions. In addition to many other solutions, the public sector can encourage the private sector to help develop more housing – at every income level – which will help to address the supply challenges. 

As a partial solution to increasing housing supply, the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership supports taking initial steps to expand the NTM-1 zone in areas identified by Forward Pinellas including “Residential Medium”, “Planned Redevelopment Mixed-Use” and “Planned Redevelopment Residential”. Currently, we do not support a full expansion of this zone across the entire city but believe a targeted and thoughtful approach best serves our community’s interests. 

Any expansion of this zone should include outreach to neighborhoods to identify and mitigate unintended consequences and to improve any final policies related to increased density. We also believe the city should look for ways to expand housing density downtown, which could also create significantly more housing units on existing land. 

We recognize that this is just one of many solutions required, to help bring new supply to the market. We can’t create more land for houses in St. Petersburg, but we can use our existing residential land more efficiently to accommodate the unprecedented growth we are experiencing.