The Celia, an 87-unit luxury apartment building planned at Highland Parkway and Mississippi River Boulevard in St. Paul, is a step closer to breaking ground.

The St. Paul City Council voted 7-0 on Wednesday to deny an appeal of a previous Planning Commission decision organized by Highland Park neighbors calling for “gentle density” and objecting to the building height.

“There’s been quite a bit of public comment on this,” said council member Saura Jost, who represents the area. “Our decision has to be made based on the process and the legalities. … I did not find any error in fact-finding or procedure from the decision made by the Planning Commission.”The C-shaped building would replace a 16-to-18 unit apartment structure and a now-demolished one-story red brick church, both of them constructed in the 1950s.

City staff noted that the Celia’s site plan, which depicts a structure spanning four stories and 50 feet in height, is in compliance with the zoning that was in effect a year ago, when developer Paster Properties submitted the proposal to city planners. The city approved the site plan last fall, a few months before the city council voted to adopt new zoning rules along the city’s Mississippi River corridor.

Under the new river corridor rules that took effect last January, the new height limit is 35 feet.

Homeowners objecting to the building height argued that the city’s Comprehensive Plan had long included a model ordinance, submitted by the state Department of Natural Resources, outlining how the river rules should be organized, including the 35 foot height limit.

The Planning Commission voted in September to reject their site plan appeal and greenlight the Celia. On Wednesday, the city council did the same.

Council President Rebecca Noecker said she read through the wording in the Comprehensive Plan and did not find that the plan, on its own, explicitly called for the 35-foot height limit. Instead, an appendix in the plan included a more general summary of DNR river corridor guidelines, which included the new height limit.

“This is a complicated appeal, and it warrants that (level of) investigation,” Noecker said. “We have a very high bar to meet in overturning a Planning Commission decision.”