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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-09-23 TranscriptionSeptember 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 1 September 23, 2002 Council Work Session 6:52 PM Council: Champion, Karmer, Lehman, O'Donnell, Pfab, Vanderhoef, Wilbum Staff: Atkins, Davidson, Dilkes, Franklin, Helling, Howard, Karr, Logsden, Miklo TAPES: 02-71, SIDE 2; 02-74, BOTH SIDES; 02-75, SIDE 1 REVIEW AGENDA ITEMS Lehman/First item actually are review of agenda items. And these will be items other than zoning matters which will come up in a little bit. 2e.(3) CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR OCTOBER 8 REGARDING AMENDMENTS TO THE FY03 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN BUDGET, THAT IS A SUB-PART OF IOWA CITY'S 2001-2006 CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS) AS AMENDED, AND AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO SUBMIT SAID AMENDMENTS AND ALL NECESSARY DOCUMENTS TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND DESIGNATING THE CITY MANAGER AS THE AUTHORIZED CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR THE CONSOLIDATED PLAN. Wilburn/Tomorrow night I may need to have, I may need to request that item 2 e.(3) under "Setting Hearings," consider a motion setting public hearing for the City Steps consolidation, setting that hearing, I may need to, due to a conflict of interest or appearance of' a conflict of interest, be removed from the consent calendar. I'll mention that tomorrow. Lehman/OK. Anybody else have any agenda items? ITEM 13. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE BUDGETED POSITIONS IN THE LIBRARY BY DELETING ONE SENIOR LIBRARIAN POSITION AND ADDING ONE LIBRARY SYSTEMS MANAGER POSITION AND AMENDING THE ADMINISTRATIVE PAY PLAN BY ADDING THE POSITION OF LIBRARY SYSTEMS MANAGER. ITEM 14. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE BUDGETED POSITIONS IN THE RECREATION AND CEMETERY DIVISIONS OF THE PARKS AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT AND THE AFSCME AND ADMINISTRATIVE PAY PLANS BY DELETING THE POSITIONS OF SENIOR MAINTENANCE WORKER--RECREATION AND SENIOR MAINTENANCE WORKER-- CEMETERY AND ADDING THE POSITIONS OF RECREATION MAINTENANCE SUPERVISOR AND CEMETERY SUPERVISOR. ITEM 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE AFSCME AND ADMINISTRATIVE PAY PLANS BY DELETING THE POSITIONS OF This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 2 SECTION 8 COORDINATOR AND PUBLIC HOUSING COORDINATOR FROM THE AFSCME PAY PLAN AND ADDING THE POSITIONS OF SECTION 8 COORDINATOR AND PUBLIC HOUSING COORDINATOR TO THE ADMINISTRATIVE PAY PLAN. Vanderhoef/Yes, I just want to check. We've got three items where there is reclassification of employees, and I was curious how--or--does this change the salary of that person with that reclassification? Atkins/In most cases there's a, because they're going into an administrative pay plan there's a little more room for movement. But the overall dollar amount is negligible in terms of what they will be making versus what they're making now. What we tried to do is set the salary so that compensation for any overtime that those people would be getting now is as union employees. So each one of them, if not now, eventually, will get a little bit more than perhaps now, but it doesn't, it doesn't increase dramatically the top of their range. Vanderhoef/OK. Thank you. Lehman/OK. COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS: AIRPORT ZONING BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT {1)~ AIRPORT ZONING COMMISSION {2~ Lehman/If there are no other items, Council appointments, we have no applications for boards or commissions. Zoning items, Karin. PLANNING & ZONING Franklin/Out of your first item. Lehman/You'll make it. Franklin/Just let me get situated here. Vanderhoef/I'm sorry, get my computer up and running. a. CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR OCTOBER 8 ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM LOW- DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY (RM-12) TO SENSITIVE AREAS OVERLAY LOW- DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY (OSA-12) ON 1.06 ACRES TO ALLOW A 14-UNIT MULTI-FAMILY BUILDING LOCATED ON THE WEST SIDE OF FIRST AVENUE SOUTH OF STUART COURT. Franklin/OK. The first item is setting a public heating for October 8th on an ordinance changing the zoning designation from RM-12 to OSA-12 of a lot on the west side of First Avenue south of Stuart Court. That's just setting a public hearing at this point. Item b is, This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 3 item b and c, we're going to defer until after we go through the other zoning items. And then Bob and Karen are going to address those. d. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE VACATING PORTIONS OF TItE HARRISON STREET AND PRENTISS STREET RIGHTS-OF-WAY AND AN ADJOINING ALLEYWAY, WEST OF MADISON STREET. (VAC02-00004) Franklin/Item d is a public hearing on an ordinance vacating portions of Harrison Street and Prentiss Street fights-of-way and an adjoining alleyway west of Madison Street. This is a request by the University of Iowa to enable them (did something come unhooked? Oh, drat). Lehman/I hate it when that happens. Franklin/I hate it when that happens. To enable the University of Iowa to build a parking lot on Block 5, now let me see what I have next, nope, that doesn't help any. Probably it's going to be just as easy for you to refer to your packets, but this--- Lehman/The light blue is the one we're talking on? Franklin/Yes. This is the vacation of Prentiss Street, the alley, and then a portion of Harrison Street down to the center line of Front Street. And this is Block 5, and the idea here is that they, as I understand it, will be constructing a surface parking lot. When you look at vacations, what you're looking at is traffic circulation, access to property owners, and those issues, in this particular case, the University of Iowa is the only entity which accesses these fights-of-way. The recommendation of the Planning and Zoning Commission was on a 4-to-3 vote for vacation, and the staffhas recommended this for vacation. I will note that in the Planning and Zoning Commission there was discussion about the vacation of this in relationship to access to the fiver. This vacation is being recommended to you with a subject to utilities easements and a blanket easement across the Prentiss Street and Harrison Street's fights-of-way for pedestrian access. And this is to ensure pedestrian access in the future. What we are trying to do is to ensure that these passageways could not be obstructed forever and all time so that we couldn't get to the fiver when we wanted to. I don't know and I know there are members of the Commission who disagree with this, but I don't know that it's prudent to try to encourage people to access the fiver right now, given the uses in this location of the railroad tracks and basically the industrial use that the University makes of the property along the fiver. At some time, however, in the future, that will likely change in that those railroad tracks, in the future, sometime and I can't say exactly when, would be abandoned and it would provide a safer area for people to access the river. And in our Near Southside Redevelopment Plan, there is a suggestion that there be a way to get from the courthouse and then the civic square that is envisioned at Harrison, Clinton, Capitol and Prentiss, that block that is now the federal parking lot, was to be a civic square and that there be a way to get from there to the river either on Harrison Street or on Prentiss Street. And so, in making that recommendation to vacate it but to preserve a blanket pedestrian access easement over it, it gives us the ability to get that access easement in the future. The This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Cotmcil Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 4 Commissioners who voted against this were concerned about the fact that there is not access to the river now. So--- Pfab/I would have two questions. Franklin/Mm..hmm. Pfab/Now, one is how long, is it really likely that that railway fight-of-way will ever be abandoned? Franklin/Someday, yeah. Pfab/And why--- Franklin/I mean, it's not a major railway--CRANDIC is not. Pfab/Is it being used now? Franklin/It is being used now. Pfab/Why wouldn't it continue to be used? Is this behind the power plant? Lehman/North of there. This is all south of the power plant. Franklin/Yeah. Yeah, this is all south of the power plant. You know, Irvin, I'd, I can't say when it will be abandoned. I just think that it will be just in terms of the economics of the railroad at some point in time. I think it's going to be a long time from now. But I guess what we're concerned about was making sure that we had pedestrian access opportunities, we didn't lose anything by the vacation of this, that we could not get pedestrian access to the river. We wanted to ensure that we would have that. If the railroad never abandons that trackage, then we'll be fight where we are today. Pfab/What about the (can't hear) traffic, too. My understanding was that if it's safe for fishing and access to the river, people with disabilities might need a lift to get down to that. Lehman/You can't get there now. Pfab/So, to say this, just pedestrian--- Franklin/ We still, OK, we still have Front Street here. Now the railroad track goes right through Front Street now, but you're talking about sometime in the future when we have access to the river and the tracks aren't there. Pfab/Right. Franklin/I think there's a possibility there. We still have Front Street. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 5 Pfab/OK. Franklin/But then there also may be other places that are much better for that kind of access. Pfab/I'm not, I'm not---the other thing, is what about emergency vehicles? Is that going to exclude getting there, in case somebody's drowning or something like that? Franklin/Somebody's drowning. Pfab/So you can get to the river? Lehman/You could get in from the other side. Franklin/Yeah--- Pfab/I just don't like--- Franklin/ Again I'm not sure that's the best place to come in because of the steepness of the bank right there. Pfab/Well, my point is, does it have to, are we restricting something that maybe we may want without much loss to the University, not interfere much with their plans, not limited just to pedestrians? Franklin/You know, in terms of vehicular access right now, the only users of it are the University. Now in terms of access to the river for a rescue, I don't know; you know, I can't really answer that well because I'd have to ask Andy where you would come in. I'm not sure you would come in at any point right here because of the steepness of the bank on either side. Pfab/But, you see, in other words--- Franklin/Or whether you wouldn't drop off the bridge, which happened before when a boat got away--- Pfab/But my point is, if we have access--- Franklin/on the north side. Pfab/...why limit it to just pedestrian? That was my only question. Lehman/OK. Pfab/That's what the hearing is for, I guess. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 6 Franklin/That's exactly right, yeah. Vanderhoef/I have a lot of questions and it covers both of these vacations in this area. Franklin/Mm..hmm. Vanderhoef/What land does the City own other than the street right-of-way? Do they own any of that riverbank south of Burlington or south of Front. Franklin/No. Vanderhoef/Who owns it? Franklin/The University. Or the railroad when you get down in here. Vanderhoef/CRANDIC owns all of that. Kanner/That blue line is just to represent the river as opposed to vacated area at that point? Franklin/The blue line--- Vanderhoef/...is the railroad. Franklin/This is the railroad tracks. Karmer/Well, there's a blue line that goes all the way--- Lehman/Comes up along the railway bank--- Kanner/...along the bank. Is that just to represent the river as opposed to the other blue that's the vacated area? Lehman/It's also a blue line. Franklin/I think it's just a shadow from the black line, because see, it's around all of the black lines. I think that's just in the production of the illustration because I don't even see it on mine--that's why I was lost. I mean, when we look at these vacations, we look at who owns property around the area being requested for vacation, and in this case, it is the University totally. Shall I get to the pink ones and then we can talk about both of them together? Lehman/Sure. Vanderhoef/That's what I would like to do. f. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE VACATING PORTIONS OF FRONT This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 7 STREET AND PRENTISS STREET GENERALLY LOCATED SOUTH OF BURLINGTON STREET AND WEST OF MADISON STREET. (VAC02-00002) Franklin/OK. That's item f, and this was a request that was brought in by the CRANDIC railroad, and the request was initially to vacate all of Front Street--- Lehman/Well, you did it, vacated the whole thing. Franklin/I'm having technology difficulties tonight, forgive me. OK, all of Front Street was the request for a vacation. We have utilities in Front Street and we did not want to vacate this street because of the utilities in Front Street, and it is possible to clear the title adequately to allow the negotiations or the work that is being done between CRANDIC and the University to proceed without vacating all of Front Street. So, what has been recommended to you by the staff and recommended for denial by the Planning and Zoning Commission is the vacation of a sliver here, a little piece here, here, and then the end of Prentiss Street. So these are portions of Front Street right-of-way and a portion of Prentiss Street. Vanderhoef/But what you're saying when you put the two of them together, all of Prentiss Street is--- Franklin/ Yes. Again, this is with a blanket pedestrian access easement over this entire space at Harrison and at Prentiss that will enable us to work with the University at such time as we want to get access to the river safely. And there's no, I mean, we've got the blanket easement across the entire right-of-way so it's not prescribed as the 10 feet, 15 feet, 20 feet at this point in time. Vanderhoef/But even though the University owns it, what can we do with zoning along the riverbank that makes sure that we have a greenway along that area? Franklin/I don't know that--we don't have zoning for green spaces. We have--- Vanderhoeff But we have floodplains. Franklin/We have floodplain, yes, but in the floodplain under rules for private development in a floodplain, one can develop that property as long as the habitable space is of one foot above the 100-year floodway, so that doesn't really get you green space. The way we get green space is by gifts and by acquisition of property. Given what the University has done on the rest of the Iowa River, and this is just my opinion, I believe that to achieve a green space along here would require that we work in coordination and cooperation with the University to try to acquire that over time. And that it is going to need to be a voluntary, cooperative effort on the part of both entities. I don't believe that we can purchase it unless the University is willing to sell it. The University typically does not sell property. We can talk about it with them. Pfab/Will they trade property? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 8 Karmer/Yeah, isn't this a time to talk? Franklin/They traded before. Pfab/Is this just--- Franklin/I don't think it is, Steven, because I think now the use of this property, we don't, I don't think I could recommend to you and I don't know whether Terry Trueblood would agree, but I think he would, that we would not recommend that this as an area that we want to encourage people to be in right now, given the use of the property. We've got a railroad track going through here; we've got a power plant here; it is not an area that is conducive to open space. We have many other stretches along the river that are much more attractive and conducive to the kinds of activities that you're talking about. So, I'm not sure why the focus on getting the green space here and now, but that, obviously, is your decision. That's my opinion. Vanderhoef/Well, I've got a couple of things. I agree with you completely that we need to be working cooperatively with the University in designing this whole area down here. And whether we have to buy property or not, I don't know, but I'm very uncomfortable with doing vacations in this area without seeing a concept plan that shows us that there will be some green space along the river and setback and some access to it. You mentioned that in your opinion you're not sure that this is a place that we would choose to have it. I look at it--- Franklin/ Now. Vanderhoef/Now, fight. And with the railroad track, I fully agree. However, this is an area of the town that doesn't have green space. Franklin/Mm..hmm. Vanderhoef/We've even had to put trails out on old sidewalks that we'd rather not have them on, but it's everything completed through that south section of town. So, I truly am not very interested in vacating anything other than maybe these little slivers. The rest of it, until I see a concept plan and work a bit with the University to see what's coming in there, I think this is too soon, and I think it's premature for them to be asking us for vacation without giving us information about what's going to happen down there. Franklin/There are people here from the University tonight. I don't know if they're prepared to speak to this issue. I know they're prepared to speak to Grand Avenue Court, but maybe tomorrow night. Lehman/I'm not so sure that tomorrow night would be the time that we should perhaps, I think there are issues here. I mean, they're asking to vacate the property. I think why, for what purpose? is a legitimate question. But I think that probably is more appropriate at the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 9 hearing. Pfab/I don't want an answer to this, but the question that I have is what does the City get for what it gives up? And--but I don't want an answer to that--that's for tomorrow. Kanner/Also, for f, if we decide we're going to vote against f, we have, we should indicate that we're leaning that way and talk about a possible meeting with Planning and Zoning. Lehman/Right. Franklin/If you're going to vote against f? Lehman/If you're going to vote in favor of the vacation, we have--- Kanner/I mean, if we're going to vote in favor of it, yes. Franklin/We anticipated that and spoke with the Commission last week. There was not a majority of the Commission who felt that a meeting was, I don't know if"necessary" is the right word, but--- Kanner/Effective. Pfab/Worth it. Lehman/There you go. (Laughter) Franklin/I'm not going to put any of that stuff on it, but there are some members of the Commission who will likely be at your meeting tomorrow night and Jerry's here tonight. Kanner/Was there a formal vote taken on that position to not meet? Bob Miklo/No, it was by consensus that those that were opposed to, at least three of them that were there, would like to come to your informal meeting when you, at your next meeting, October--- Franklin/Oh, October 7th, or whatever it is. Vanderhoef/What I had been thinking about, just in looking at this and after reading the P and Z minutes, there was a lot of conversation there, a lot of questions there, and I think it has to do with the fact that we don't have enough information from the University of what's going to happen down there. And I thought perhaps P and Z and City Council and get some concept maps and let's hear about it and it may well answer a lot of questions. Franklin/Remember there's two parts to this: one is the vacation, which is just taking off the This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 10 right for public access to this property, and that's the issue that Planning and Zoning deals with; then there's the disposition of the property, what happens to it as City-owned property without the right for public access over it. And that is what the Council deals with. I mean, you deal with both of them, the vacation and the disposition. And it is usually in the disposition that there are provisos for various things to happen. Pfab/I have a question. Franklin/But that doesn't negate what you're saying, Dee, in terms of it being in the context of something. Pfab/And I don't even know ifI want an answer to this right now. Is this something that might be better offor set back until, like what Dee is saying, what are you going to do here and what's in it for the citizens and what's in it for the University? Franklin/I think that's a conversation you'll have during your public hearing. Pfab/Like I said, I didn't want an answer right now. Lehman/We can discuss that tomorrow night. e. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE VACATING GRAND AVENUE COURT FROM MELROSE AVENUE TO A LINE 295 FEET TO THE NORTH OF MELROSE AVENUE. (VAC02-00003) Franklin/That's fine. OK. Item e is--do I have a thing for that--OK. Item e is the vacation of Grand Avenue Court or a portion of Grand Avenue Court. And it is from Melrose Avenue north 295 feet, which is short of getting it all the way to Grand Avenue. So it's this area in here. What are these two little square things? Pfab/It's pretty hard to tell with the way it moves around. Franklin/OK. That's a much better one. OK. Here's Grand Avenue, here's an alley that I don't think is an alley even anymore. And this is the portion that would be vacated here. And as it was pointed out in the staff report, there is an individual who still lives on Grand Avenue Court and will live there for the rest of her life, and the University has agreed to keep this open to provide access to her property for that period of time. The reason for this vacation, the reasons being sought is for construction of the Athletic Learning Center. We did ask Rod Lehnertz to come and present that to you tonight as to what the University's plans are in this area so that you can have a context for this request. Rod? Lehnertz/I've got a handout that replicates this. As was mentioned, my name is Rod Lehnertz. I am an architect with the University of Iowa and project manager for this project and several others ongoing on campus and we were asked to, in preparation for tomorrow night's meeting, come and present this project to give you a better understanding of the request for the vacation as it was described. Larry Wilson, our campus planner, is also This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 11 here, so if there are, for instance, specific questions related to the master planning issues, Larry would be glad to answer those. What I thought I would do is give you a quick summary of where we are on this project and where we have come on this project. We hired OPN Architects of Cedar Rapids to do an updating and comprehensive study, a master planning study, of the west--and this would be the color graphic you've got of the plan--the west campus residence hall area. As a part of that, the objectives were to locate a new residence hall and also to begin to think about the area comprehensively and look at growth over the next several years to, frankly, decades. Another part of that was a goal to create an Athletic Learning Center project for the athletic department. In the study, they identified, and I'll move away from the microphone every once in a while, but they identified a first location for a residence hall in this area. And the, I'll just stretch my arm real far, and also identified a different location for the Athletic Learning Center. Vanderhoef/Which one is the Athletic Learning Center? Lehnertz/Sure, let me show you, if this works. The Athletic Learning Center location is right here. This was identified during the master plan as the project that would result in the first residence hall to be built. There are other areas, this identified as new facility, you can see, just for reference, Rienow and Slater Hall, and then future construction in this area at some undetermined time at this point. And, Larry, please jump up and run up here if I'm misspeaking on this; I was not directly or specifically related to this effort. I was, however, assigned responsibility for this project here, the Athletic Learning Center. Upon identifying that as a location within this master plan, we, and then you can refer to your more black and white graphic here for a blowup of that area, South Quad here, Slater to the north, and this is Grand Avenue Court right here. We identified the location, and the University Athletic Department pursued and had leads on a gift for this project and so we moved into design again with OPN Architects. This is a graphic rendering indicating the general appearance of the building. In general, OPN pursued a conceptual design that tied the building both from a scaling standpoint and from finishes to the residential response on Melrose and also to the residence halls in the area with the use of brick as well as stone. Some of the roofs--and you don't see it in this rendering--but there is a sloped roof as opposed to many of the larger buildings we have which tend to have a flat or slightly sloped roofs, systems of gables, and then also--and it's not in this elevation--but both the east and west sides are adorned with dormers, which are both a visual cue but also intended for future development of the building and growth within the building. There is an unoccupied attic area and so those dormers will serve a functional reason at some point in the development of the building. Again, the building located on the west side of Grand Avenue Court--you can see dashed within the box of the parameters of this immediate site--are four houses here on the west side of Grand Avenue Court. We made every effort available and, frankly, Larry Wilson was to credit for much of that effort in trying to get those houses relocated as opposed to razed. It turned out, even though we pursued this with the area cities and others, that the proximity of this site and the number of power lines and large trees and difficult streets to work on the way out ended up both too costly and really logistically impossible for us to get those houses out. As was mentioned, the University owns all of the houses on Grand Avenue, all the structures on Grand Avenue with the exception of this residence here. That private residence had This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 12 actually requested to us that we maintain the fifth house. You can see it's dashed in this study because it was our initial intent to take that house out as well with vistas to the north, which is where most of the students are coming from who access this building. Instead, she preferred that there be a house that would be in that area. The houses north of her are occupied by the Health Protection offices, and it's more of a daily office-hour occupation, and so she wanted somebody in the neighborhood who would occupy the house, stay there at night, that sort of thing. And so we have dedicated this house to remain and to be used for faculty housing, and so that keeps a neighbor of hers here. This house here is being used by interim president Sandy Boyd's foundation for nonprofit organizations, and so that is also an office setting. The vacation request actually came out of a meeting we had at the offices of Shive-Hattery with Rick Fosse, looking at access to the site and how we would begin to work through the logistics of construction on the site. One of the things that was brought up is the very narrow, and as Rich said, really seldom- cared-for street. He wasn't sure at the time if it was even cleaned. It's an asphalt street and it's in disrepair. It's also very narrow, and we have historically had problems with it during move-in of the residence halls because a lot of strangers come into town, don't know their way around and assume this is a full-fledged street-through rather than the ways that are more prescribed, and we end up with gridlock in there, and to the one private residence and others, it has been a problem historically. So, as a part of this project and the placement of the building and to set the elevations as you look at the elevation changes across the site, we found that it was necessary to slightly change the grades of the street. Rick had suggested at the time during that meeting that that would also take, as it is a city street, would take approval by the Council. And as the long-term plans, both in the master plan and as you look at University ownership on this street, the long-term plans would be occupation of this street at some point by the University or vacation as a city street. Rick had suggested, instead of going through Council approval for change in elevations, we should start a stepped process toward a vacation of the street. By vacating the street at our buildings' point here and then allowing for those elevation changes within the building, maintaining this portion of the street for city access and make sure that the private residence has her way in and out of the building as well as for mail and deliveries and those types of things. Lehman/Rod, I don't have any real problems with what you're doing on that street. My concern and, I think, this is part, I am sure, of a larger plan. Part of your--my understanding--part of the plan is to close Grand Avenue or vacate part of it in front of the old Fieldhouse. Lehnertz/Correct. Some of the master plans--please, go ahead. Lehman/No. My concern is Melrose comes in from the west. Lehnertz/Right. Lehman/It's a very heavily traveled street. The area around the Law Building, with the turn right at the Law Building and then intersects, right, Grand. are two very difficult intersections now, being one-way. Now, I assume that that eventually would have to be two-way. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 13 Lehnertz/That's correct. And again, Larry may be able to jump in, but as I understand the master plan as it's been described, this is indicating Byington, but not Byington as it is today. One, it would be two-way; two, as you can tell by this, there is a redesign of Byington which creates more agreeable tums both at Grand and Melrose and a widening of Byington. That is the notion that would make this a viable two-way as opposed to as it is now a one-way access to Grand. Lehman/Is Grand Avenue owned by the University from Byington to the Fieldhouse or is that a city street? Lehnertz/I believe that's still city. Lehman/That is a city street, so--- Lehnertz/Correct. Correct. Lehman/Prior to the vacation of that street it would certainly be in the City's best interest to require that Byington be redone in such a fashion that it would carry the traffic. Lehnertz/That's right. Vanderhoeff In a four-lane. A number of years ago there was a plan that basically took out those two right-angle tums. And now I see you have planned buildings all the way through there. Lehnertz/Correct, and this, here's where Larry may be able to lend some--- Lehman/Yeah, come on Larry. Lehnertz/...some, at least, past expertise on--- Vanderhoef/This is the concern and why I wanted you folks to come--- Lehnertz/Sure. Vanderhoef/...is that I'm very uncomfortable with buildings being built before we have the transportation system put in place that carries the heavy amount of traffic on an east-west arterial that goes through both the City and the University. Wilson/OK. Fair question. I have a copy of our campus planning framework, our campus master plan, if you don't have one. But to summarize what it says about this. Before 1998, there was what's called "Melrose diagonal." In 1998, we eliminated that for a number of reasons. One is, it created a parcel of land here that's essentially unusable between the Law School and the diagonal. Plus, we knew at that time that we'd be adding to the Melrose parking ramp and access to that would have been complicated as well. So, This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Cotmcil Work Session Page 14 as part of the master planning process at that time, we had Barton Ashman look at whether or not the Byington Avenue could be widened and could we provide sufficient curves on that road to handle the traffic? And their answer was yes, we could do it without drastically getting into the hillsides on either side. We're doing some current modeling on the west campus to look at access to our new parking structure expansion, and preliminary findings indicate there probably wouldn't have to be four-lane. It could probably be three-lane, and that could be accommodated in that alignment. So, we've been planning in that direction since 1998 and we've talked to City engineering staff, Johnson County Council of Governments, transportation planning staff. So this is not a new thing that we've been planning. Champion/And, Dee, if they had a big, a good curve there, it would actually be safer than what's there now, with people coming on and off. Vanderhoef/Well, I'm not sure that this is safe enough. This is still too very distinct curves versus the gentle diagonal that we had looked at previously. Wilson/Well, we're told that the problem is not with the road as much as it is with the intersection of Riverside Drive. That's where the bog, where traffic gets bogged up, because of the lack of capacity at that intersection. So, anyway, we're told by our traffic engineers that we can create a road in Byington Avenue that will work appropriately. However, I think, it is all understood that we couldn't close a City street and Grand Avenue without addressing an alternative. And so we're suggesting at that time that we would have to work out something to the City's satisfaction. Lehman/That works for me. Champion/Works for me. Pfab/OK. I think the only--you're talking about partial vacation of Grand Avenue--that's because somebody has a life estate there, is that it? Wilson/Yeah, And I'd like to make one addition. It was actually our initiative to leave that house across from the existing residence in this area here, to provide support for the one resident who lives there. So, we took that initiative ourselves. Lehnertz/It was only the architect that wanted to get rid of it. (Laughter) Lehman/That's the way architects are. Letmertz/Because the architects liked this view better than the house in front of it. (Laughter) This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 15 Pfab/One other question. What is the square footage--- Lehnertz/Of the building itselt? Pfab/Yeah, of the bottom, just the--- Lehnertz/The footprint of the building is 10,000 square feet. It's two stories, if you don't count the attic. I mean, the attic is additional space not programmed currently, but it's a 20,000- square-foot building, 10,000 each floor. Vanderhoef/Excuse me, but I attend JCCOG, and I don't recall ever seeing this plan. You say 1998, Larry? I don't recall at all, and it concerns me that this still has happened, at least at the Council level, we haven't heard anything about it. And I was inquiring as far back as last November and you sent an e-mail back to the City that you weren't real sure how all of these buildings and the road and everything were going to fit in there. But we showed an interest that we wanted information on this before there was land totally locked up with the building. Wilson/Well, and 1998's quite a while ago, but my recollection is that it was, the plan was presented to City Council as it was changed in 1998. I do know for a fact that City staff was involved in the planning process. I can document that, if you'd like. But as far as what was actually presented to JCCOG, I just don't remember. Vanderhoef/Or to City Council. Wilson/Yeah, or City Council, I'm pretty sure. Vanderhoef/You know, and it also concerns me that I have to ask for it to be explained to me after you've broken ground and yet we still haven't seen the request for the closure of Grand Avenue. I mean, it's all a plan, and this is part of the City transportation plan, and it seems like City Council is the last one to hear about it. Wilson/Well, we're not settled on our plan yet. And for that whole area, we do know that, for instance, we're going to be building another residence hall next few years. We're beginning the planning on it already. We know it's going to be in this area, but we just don't know what additional buildings we might have. We know at some point we'll develop it. Vanderhoef/What do you have planned to the east of the Athletic Learning Center? Wilson/What you see there is our best guess at this time, which accommodates a large building, such as a residence hall, but we don't know for sure whether it'll be that. But, surely, we will eventually develop it. And it would be much more conducive to our students--see all of the students in Slater Residence Hall have food service at Hillcrest. All the students in this area have their meals served at Hillcrest, so they've got to cross this busy street, and so we serve our students well to try to close it. But we'd have to accommodate some This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Cotmcil Work Session Page 16 other access problems, in addition to those with the City, and that is working traffic back to the Emergency Center and other places as well. Vanderhoef/I understand that. And my per view is to take care of the citizens of Iowa City and be sure that they have a workable transportation plan in place before we build buildings on top of streets and close them. Wilson/Well, --- Vanderhoef/This is--- Wilson/ We're not building a building on top of the street at this time, and we're not closing--- Vanderhoef/At this time. Wilson/Right. And we're not closing the street at this time. Vanderhoeff But it, this is the point, Larry, not at this time. But once you put the buildings in there, there are no options for the transportation plan. So I want to see and know that if this is what you're going to do, I'd like to know it up and front. You say, probably you're going to do that, but it isn't set in stone. You say you're probably going to put buildings in this area, but I, my per view, is to be sure that we've got a good transportation plan and our arterials work as arterials. Wilson/Well, that's what we're suggesting, that Melrose remain an arterial, that it be upgraded to have two-way traffic. And continue in the future as an arterial. Vanderhoef/In four lanes. Wilson/Or if it requires four lanes, we're hearing and--- Lehman/Well, it's going to be kind of hard to put four lanes at the east end when the rest of it's all three. Vanderhoef/But it's four lanes on the bottom. Lehman/I realize that. But if Melrose goes to three lanes--- Wilson/ Our traffic consultants indicated that there is room for four-lane but indicate there might not be a need for it. That would be something we'd have to work out. But there's room, if it's required or if it's necessary. Champion/I think it's (can't hear) Pfab/One other question that I have, if you're concerned about getting students back and forth from the dining area to potential new student residential halls, what about an overpass? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 17 Wilson/We've talked about that, which gets in a lot of other different issues, like getting students to go up and over rather than go directly across, and so, yeah, we did discuss it. Lehman/Larry, I would suggest, I can see where this building obviously is far enough back from the curb that it probably would not have a significant impact on what alignment you eventually will have for Melrose, but prior to the time that you build that building immediately east of that, I really think it would be good to have Melrose alignment in place because once that building's built, you know, the options are really not them. Wilson/Mm..hmm. Lehman/But obviously as a Council, as a City, if we have, we own Grand Avenue, obviously unless we get a traffic flow that is acceptable, we wouldn't be interested in closing Grand--but then neither would you. Wilson/That's true. We wouldn't want to shoot ourselves in the foot--- Lehman/No. Wilson/...by building a building here, not allowing us to get proper alignment on Byington. That would be silly on our part, and that would preclude, we presume, closing of Grand Avenue. Lehman/I think that's probably right. Wilson/And so we wouldn't want to do that. Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/So, tell me, does Grand Avenue Court, does the new building, the Athletic Learning building, come up to the edge of Grand Avenue Court? Wilson/Yes. Vanderhoef/It does? Wilson/Nearly close to it. Lehnertz/Well, not, it comes about 12 feet. Lehman/Show us it on the map. Vanderhoef/OK, so what we're really saying is that there isn't any need to vacate Grand Avenue Court at this moment, until after the road has been aligned. Then, we'll decide what we need to vacate on Grand Avenue Court. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 18 Champion/But Grand Avenue Court is not really a thru-street. Nobody uses it--- Vanderhoef/But that's where the second building is going to go and if we choose to realign how Melrose goes through there, then there isn't any point in vacating Grand Avenue Court until we have the road alignment taken care of. Wilson/Yes, there, what it is for us and that is, we don't want the traffic going by so close to the building. We want it for pedestrian access only. Lehman/Well, and I think during construction, you really, you actually are not building anything on Grand Avenue Court anyway, but you--- Wilson/Not on the street surface. Lehnertz/You're changing some elevations just to meet elevation requirements--- Lehman/ Right. Wilson/Right. Lehnertz/...but nothing on the street itself. Lehman/No, but you will have equipment and trucks and construction equipment. Lehnertz/Just a temporary right-of-way established for that building that extends onto Grand Avenue Court, minus 5 feet for pedestrian. Vanderhoef/So, what we could give you is a construction easement for the time you're building the building and still not vacate the street until such time is--- Champion/ They have to change the elevation of the street in order to put the building in where they--- Lehman/Yeah. Wilson/Well, and I can't see, quite frankly, since this road starts at one end of (can't hear) block and goes nowhere, connects with nothing, should be tied to a problem of separate--- 02-74 SIDE 1 Vanderhoef/... if we change the alignment of Melrose. Wilson/I didn't follow that. Vanderhoef/As you were speaking, Ernie, talking about not building the building to the east of This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 19 the Athletic Learning Center, if an angle were used through that property to line up Melrose, we'd be going through part of the land that we already own. Lehman/Not according to the map that I got here in my hand. Vanderhoef/Well, if it's realigned, though. Lehman/Realignment is going to miss everything they're trying to build right now. It won't even come close to it. Wilson/Right. Lenhartz/Correct. Lehman/It'll be 150 feet to the east--- Vanderhoef/Their idea of the realignment. But if our engineers look at it and decide that a better alignment for Melrose goes in there, it could well go across Grand Avenue Court, as I look at it. Wilson/Well, that hasn't been brought up at this time and we're well into development. Pfab/I think I'm leaning and really questioning the same way as Dee is. I think until we have a little larger picture of how you're going to work your roads there, I'm not in a big rush. I get to feeling kind of uneasily, like we, the City, may be in a sense getting a bum's rush because you know what you want, and I'm not, that's not derogatory, but I'm just telling you what my feelings are here. And I think that we have an obligation to see, because that is a real traffic problem, and we just don't want it to get any worse. Wilson/It's my understanding that when Melrose was widened a few years ago that it was thought to be kept in the same alignment. Can you verify that, Jeff?. Davidson/I'm sorry, what was the question? Wilson/When Melrose was widened, I think it was widened with the intent that someday this might be widened in this area and that it would stay in the same alignment. Davidson/Yeah, just, excuse me, to clarify, we have been aware, as Larry's indicated, that since '98, the diagonal, the Melrose diagonal predates me here--and I've been here 22 years-- but we were aware that in '98 and we did have some discussions with the University that that was no longer part of their master plan, and when the City Council, I'm not sure any of you were on it at the time, but the City Council that made the decision about the reconstruction of Melrose Avenue, which you were there, man, you're getting to be a dinosaur--- Lehman/Actually, I was there when it was in court. I think, part of it had already, the alignment This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 20 had been--- Davidson/The decision was made there to go with what we, planners, termed a "capacity- constrained alternative." You know, we didn't get all the capacity that we initially recommended to you, but a decision was made that three-lane cross-section with the shoulders, was the term we used, and I think that's what Larry is suggesting would be eventually the cross-section that would follow this alignment here. And the other thing that Larry said is that, I mean, if you want to talk about traffic issues, with that corridor, they are here. They're at that intersection, I mean, that's where the biggest traffic, you know, delays and congestion are. Can I use your (can't hear)--- Lehman/Thank you. Kanner/So, Jeff, this was brought to City Council in '98 and JCCOG in--- Davidson/You know, Steve and I were trying to recall, I certainly am not trying to refute what Larry says. I don't remember a presentation in front of Council. If Larry says it happened, perhaps it did happen. I remember having staff level discussions with the University when the master plan was modified. And Larry was nice enough to send us, you know, the copies of these as well. So--- Champion/ Well, --- Kanner/The reason I ask is that it seems there were questions about south of Burlington, the vacation there. Perhaps what we needed at a Council level is some sort of memorandum of understanding about what the development is going to be. So, it's not just in the staff realm, but it's something that's before Council that we have the discussion, Council and the appropriate people in the University, on what the development is going to be down south, what it's going to be here. We need to know that in writing. Davidson/You have a couple of existing agreements; in fact, we're going to go over them Wednesday at the joint governments' meeting at the County's request. The Oakdale Boulevard extension agreement between Iowa City, Coralville, and the County and the 965 extension agreement--and those are 28-E agreements--that lay out the kind of things that I think you're talking about. It would be possible, if the University was a willing partner and the City was a willing partner, to enter into some kind of agreement as to what eventually is going to happen here. I guess what I've heard Larry saying is perhaps the University is not far enough along in firming up some of these ideas, that perhaps they wouldn't be prepared to do that. But that is an option that you would have, to pin down some of these things if both sides agreed to enter into such an agreement. Karmer/Yeah, and that's something that I would like us to explore because I hear some of that concern coming from us, the City Council. I don't know if there's that concern from the University. I hope there's a willingness from the University, Larry, to want to enter into some sort of agreement, see what we could lay down on paper so we both have a clear idea of where we're going together. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 21 Wilson/Well, I guess what I'm suggesting that, there's no reason for us to change Melrose or Grand Avenue at all, unless we wanted to close Grand Avenue. And that would be the appropriate time to talk about alternative transportation routes--- Champion/Exactly. Wilson/...if we close it. And at this point in time we're not settled on whether we really want to even ask for that because we've got some internal circulation things to work on. But if we would ask for a closure of Grand Avenue, then that would be the appropriate time to talk about Byington-Melrose is what I suggest. O'Donnell/Very good. Kanner/I have some other questions about this curve. If someone does come off Grand Avenue to Grand Avenue Court and we vacate that, how are they going to turn around? If they come in a vehicle, they turn off Grand Avenue onto Grand Avenue Court that ends at number 14. Lehnertz/There'd be a back-around in driveways. Plus there's a short distance you can see, that it wouldn't go through. Lehman/And, I'd imagine, that'd be heavily signed. Lehnertz/Yeah, and you can see it, as soon as you turn into it, that it doesn't go through. And there would be additional several driveways and a parking lot. Boy, that button's hard to find. Parking lot, currently right here, that could be used. Excuse me, it's right there now, that could be used to turn arotmd in, if that were necessary. Kauner/Are you going to close offaccess from Melrose? Lehnertz/It already has. Lehman/They have. Lehnertz/Just. Yes. Kanner/OK. And where are buses for the future plans when you're talking about closing off Grand Avenue over at the west side, where will the buses go to let people offto get to the dorms there? Wilson/Right now we're still working on that one. We've got 30 buses an hour going through this area that are--and so, that's some traffic we'd like to shift to other places and that's one of the things we're still working on internally, that's Cambus. Pfab/You aren't thinking of running them up Byington, are you? This represents only a reasonable accurate lxanscription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 22 Wilson/Never. Only if the street would handle it. Kanner/Then I have one more question for you, Larry; then I had a question, Karen, for you. Where are the cultural centers in relationship to all of this construction. There are three cultural centers now, and there's been concern among some of the participants in the cultural center who are City residents about what is happening there, so I have some concern also. How does this all fit into the plan? Wilson/Well, we're not sure because there's still ongoing discussion as about how that should be worked out and that's Vice President Phil Jones is working on that, so we don't know the outcome of that yet. Lehnertz/You're talking about currently, though, correct? Kanner/Well, currently and future and how it fits in with the street plan. Wilson/For now, it wouldn't affect the street plan. One idea is to leave them where they're at. Another idea is to incorporate them into the new residence hall and there's some ideas about some other combinations and that's still being worked on. So I can't answer that. I don't know how it's going to end up at this point. But that's under the auces of Vice President Phil Jones who is working on it. Kanner/Could you point them out, the ones that are close by on the map here? Wilson/OK. The African American Cultural Center is there. The Native American-Latino Cultural Center is right there. Lehnertz/Or, more accurately, why don't you point, Larry, to the other map that shows it as it exists. Wilson/Oh, OK. Lehnertz/It's right on the comer of Byington-Melrose. Wilson/That's the Latino-Native American. You can just, you can't really see the building here, but it would be right there at that spot for the African American Center. Kanner/And where's the new Asian? Lehnertz/It's further down Melrose, isn't it? Wilson/I'm not sure where that it. Lehnertz/Well, I'm sure with the specific--it's further west on Melrose--- Kanner/It's where the radio station was going to go into. It's still on Melrose. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 23 Wilson/Yeah, it's up in here, but I can't recall which building. Kanner/So, at least one of them is planned to be tom down to put up new buildings with this whole concept. The Latino-Native American one is--- Wilson/ We wouldn't tear it down before we had a relocation plan. Karmer/Right. But the plan is to tear the actual building down. Wilson/If they are relocated. Kanner/Would any of these qualify if they were in the City, for historic landmarks? Any of these buildings? Wilson/Not the Native American, no. Kanner/OK. Because I heard there was some concern from that point of view, that some of these buildings might have some historic value. Wilson/Not the comer one, the Cannon House next door is. Karmer/Thank you. Lehman/Thank you, folks, very much. Pfab/Are you people coming to the public meeting tomorrow night then? Lehnertz/I'll be here tomorrow night. Did you want these here tomorrow night? Pfab/I think it'd be a good idea (can't hear). Lehnertz/They're not easy to read, but, I mean, from a distance, but we'll bring them. Franklin/Before we leave that item, I just need to point out to you that this is a vacation subject to utility easements where necessary and to an agreement with the University of Iowa that it will comply with the Iowa City Historic Preservation Ordinance regarding the Cannon Gay House. We have had conversations with people in the business office regarding a covenant to be put on this property, on the Cartoon Gay House. We've drafted a covenant which has gone to them--I'm not sure if it's the legal staff or in the business office. Anyway, we're having an exchange on that. To date, the expressions have been ones of willingness to preserve the building; however, I would point out on the master plan that it's gone. So, we'll have to work through that. Kanner/Karin? Franklin/Yes. This represents only a reasonable accurate t~anscription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 24 Kanner/Perhaps this is a discussion for the Southwest District, but in the Southwest District it talks about this area up here and concern from neighbors about the University buying up buildings and continuing perhaps to erode the residential features of the neighborhood, and I wondered if you had any comments on that and how this whole plan fits in with that. Franklin/Well,--- Kanner/Even though it's a street that's hard to travel on, it does give it a nice residential atmosphere to it, and people walk there, and it's been interesting place. Franklin/That is, I think what I'd like to do is have Bob and Karen present the plan. It is in the Melrose Subarea and it's specifically addressed in how we deal with that area south of Melrose Avenue and the position that the City Council is willing to take relative to the University. So, we can talk about that a little bit later. Kanner/OK. Franklin/OK. So are we past the vacation items? Lehman/Yes. g. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE PRELIMINARY PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY (OPDH-12) PLAN FOR LOT 259 OF WINDSOR RIDGE, PART 15, GLEN BROOK CONDOMINIUMS, A 46-UNIT RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT AT THE INTERSECTION OF COURT STREET AND CAMDEN ROAD. (REZO2-00011) (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Franklin/Oh, thank you. All fight, item g is an ordinance amending the OPDH-12 on Windsor Ridge Part 15. That is to allow the four townhouse-style units, that's first consideration. h. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ZONING CODE, SECTION 14-6H- 1, GENERAL INDUSTRIAL ZONE, TO ALLOW REPAIR OF COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL TRUCKS AS A PROVISIONAL USE. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Franklin/ Item h is first consideration on the allowance of truck and auto repair in the I-1 zone. i. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM GENERAL INSTRIAL~ I-1~ TO INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL, CI-1, FOR 1.14 ACRES LOCATED WEST OF RIVERSIDE DRIVE SOUTH OF COMMERCIAL DRIVE. (REZ02-00007) (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/ Item i is pass and adopt on the rezoning from I-1 to CI-1 for the Gfinger Feeds property. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 25 j. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGINT HE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM LOW DENSITY SINGLE FAMILY, RS-5, TO PLANNED DEVELOPMENT HOUSING OVERLAY, OPDH-5, TO ALLOW 23 SINGLE-FAMILY LOTS AND 13 TOWNHOUSE-STYLE UNITS IN VILLAGE GREEN, PART XXII, A 9.31- ACRE 24-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED WEST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD AND NORTH OF WELLINGTON DRIVE. (REZ02-00008) (PASS AND ADOPT) k. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE PRELIMINARY PLAT OF VILLAGE GREEN, PART XXII, A 9.31-ACRE, 24-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED NORTH OF WELLINGTON ROAD AND WEST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD. 1. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF VILLAGE GREEN, PART XXII, A 9.31-ACRE, 24-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED NORTH OF WELLINGTON ROAD AND WEST OF SCOTT BOULEVARD. Franklin/ Item j is pass and adopt on the Village Green Part 22, a 24-1ot subdivision, and then you have the preliminary plat for that and the final plat for that. The final plat, I don't know if the legal papers, are they? OK, we may have to defer that, not having received the legal papers, the revised legal papers. And that's the end of the zoning items. Do you want to go right into this or---I sense you want to take a break--- Lehman/ No, I think that we're going to a timeout until 8:00, and then we will dive into that. Franklin/OK. (Break) SOUTHWEST DISTRICT PLAN Franklin/OK. We're going to present to you tonight the South District Plan. This is the next plan in our series of district plans. Miklo/Southwest. Franklin/Southwest, sorry. I'm not going to present it. Some more competent people are going to present it. Karen Howard, who is the project manager on this, is going to do the presentational along with Bob Miklo, the senior planner. Pfab/OK, great. Howard/The Southwest Planning District is the fifth of 10 planning districts plans that we have completed since the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan in 1997. We all think it looks like a giant chicken. (Laughter) This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 26 Howard/You can see the boundaries of the district here. Pfab/It always like one of the three wise men and the kings. Howard/We'll all take an inkblot test after this. The Iowa River is the eastern boundary; Highway 1, to get you oriented, is here. This, of course, is Melrose Avenue, and the district goes as far west as the future extension of 965, Highway 965. The planning process began last summer. Staff did some background research. We interviewed property owners. We went on some tours of the neighborhoods with neighborhood representatives, so we talked with the school principals with the schools in the area. And from this background research, we put together a background document and put together a mailing list of property owners, anybody, environmental groups, citizen groups, schools, all sorts of folks that would be interested in this, and sent out about 4,000 notices and solicited participants for a citizen planning workshops. We held two workshops, one in November and then again in February to refine the plan. And from the citizen workshops, we developed a set of planning principles and also some more detailed plans for certain parts of the district. We kept contact with the participants in the plan through e-mail, network, through the City's web page, and from mailings that we sent out during the process. It became clear during the workshops that there were definite issues for each area of the district, specific issues, so we divided the district into four subareas so that we could address those issues separately in the plan. These areas, the easternmost part of the chicken head, here, is the Roosevelt Subarea, and it's the oldest part of the district. Then Willow Creek Subarea is bounded by Highway 218 and Sunset Street on the east. The Weber Subarea is west of 218 and north of Rohret Road, and then the Rohret South Subarea is south of Rohret Road, the majority of that being outside the City. And, now, I'll hand this over to Bob Miklo, who will talk about the South Rohret Subarea. Miklo/You can see from the existing land-use map that most of the South Rohret Area is undeveloped. There are a few scattered housing units along Rohret Road, itself, and then a county subdivision in this vicinity. When looking at this area, one of the things that's necessary for its development is extension of the Abbey Lane sewer, under Highway 218. Once that happens, it will open a sizeable area for development; however, there are areas that will be difficult to sewer, even with that extension, and we show those as low-density development for the foreseeable future. We also have an area where we didn't provide very specific plans for because we see their development as very long-term. So we've identified them for long-term urban growth. And we focused on, what we're calling the Carson Lake area, which would be the first area developed after the sewer is extended under the highway. We worked with the citizens to come up with some ideas on how this area might develop as a neighborhood. One of the key points of it would be a lake, which would be a regional storm water basin to serve the neighborhoods to the west. It would also have great benefits to the properties east of 218, which have had some storm water problems. It's possible that this lake may not actually be built and therefore the plan does contain language about an alternative. Much of this area would remain as open space even if the lake isn't built, because it's in the floodplain of Willow Creek. The plan proposes to use the lake as a focal point with a park surrounding it and then a public This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 27 street that would be single-loaded, meaning it would have development only on one side, around much of the lake and park, so that housing units would face onto the lake, and the lake and park would be very public and it wouldn't be in backyards. There are some, of course, areas here where we show it being more private in the backyards of residences. Some of the features of the larger neighborhood, the plan proposes a small commercial area at the entrance of the neighborhood. This commercial area would serve the larger neighborhood west of 218 but also visitors to the park and lake. This is likely to be smaller than Walden Square, just given that it's a smaller market area that it would draw from. The plan also proposes the possibility of using civic uses, such as churches, a west- side recreation center of fire station, or all three of those types 6f uses, along 218 to provide a buffer from the neighborhood and the highway itself. It also proposes the planting of trees along the highway as another means of providing a buffer from the residential--or from the highway to the residential area. The plan shows a variety of housing types, not only large lots, single-family, but the possibility of some smaller, compact, single-family lots, some townhouses, as well as apartments in various locations scattered throughout the neighborhood. This is an illustration that shows what the lake might look like, and I think it makes a good--the point of the lake being very public and not having backyards or being consumed in backyards. It could be part ora regional trail system as well, with neighborhood streets leading off of the park into the neighborhood. Now, as I said, the plan talks about a variety of housing types in this future neighborhood, small lots for small single-family homes, apartment buildings that are designed to fit into a residential or a single-family residential area as well as townhouses. And these are some illustrations of what a small commercial area might look like off of Rohret Road leading to the lake. And the idea of, again, civic uses as buffers against the interstate or Highway 218. Moving north of Rohret Road to the Weber Subarea, I'd like to point out some features proposed for that area. It currently contains Weber School and the County Poor Farm. Again, only a portion of the property is developed. There is considerable area for future development. Some of the things that we see happening there, of course, are 965 on the western boundary, which is currently in the plan, the comprehensive plan. A series of internal streets to provide a collector system, roughly following Slothower Road but realizing that we need to put some tums in it so that it's not a cut-through between Rohret Road and Melrose Avenue. The possibility of a trail that would extend the Willow Creek Trail under Highway 218 and through Hunters Run Park, continuing onto the County Farm property and then off to, excuse me, future 965, north to Melrose Avenue, and south to the Lake neighborhood. Some of the neighborhoods that we anticipate will see future development in the fairly near-term would be Wild Prairie Estates, the continuation of Country Club Estates, and the possibility of some small multi-family or townhouses in Country Club Estates. The possibility of some private or residential development on the County Farm property. The plan also goes along with the plan the County's worked on for that area, recommending that large areas of it being preserved. We also recognize that in the longer term, urban development will expand out or west of Slothower Road. Pfab/Where is the, is it reserves are (can't hear) plan? Miklo/Would you mind if we took questions at the end? I'll loose my track here. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 28 Pfab/All right. Miklo/In terms of open space, the City recently acquired about four acres near Slothower Road for a wider reserve area. We've identified that as a possible park as well, that it could serve double duty. Also, the possibility of extending Hunters Run Park along Willow Creek to the County Farm property. Again, the plan talks about a buffer between any development and 218 and a buffer along 965, that would buffer that future highway as well as the landfill from any future development. The plan talks about the possibility of 965 being a boulevard with a median that would also provide landscape buffer. Moving eastward to the Willow Creek Neighborhood, most of this area is currently developed. There are a few areas where in fill development will occur. Most of that will be Galway Hills, which we would anticipate would continue in a fashion similar to the existing development there. The key component of Galway Hills will be a collector street that, again, won't be a cut-through from Melrose to railroad, but will provide a way to get from these neighborhoods back to those twr~ arterial streets but not be too convenient of a cut-through. The plan also talks about expanding the trail network through Galway Hills and particularly a connection to West High from the neighborhood. There is the possibility of some in-field development at Rohret and 218 and also at Melrose and MacBride and the possibility of some higher-density or medium-density housing in those neighborhoods. One of the things that we heard from the citizens who participated is they liked the idea of Walden Square and having commercial in their neighborhood. They did request some improvements in terms of access to the neighborhood, particularly pedestrian access and the City, in fact, has put in some curb ramps and made some improvements this summer. There was some interest, in fact, a lot of interest in having a signal put in at the entrance to the shopping center and Mormon Trek Blvd. The most recent traffic study that was done is less than a year old and that shows that a signal is not yet warranted, so the plan indicates that we would continue to monitor the situation. You may hear from some citizens who want a traffic signal sooner than what's warranted at this point. Karen will now cover the last neighborhood. Howard/The Roosevelt Subarea is the most eastern part of the district and we divided this further into three different neighborhoods because there were also distinct issues for different parts of this subarea. We divided it into three, the Melrose neighborhood, which is north of the railroad tracks and south of Grand and Melrose Avenue; the Miller Orchard neighborhood, which is bound by Highway 1, Riverside Drive, the railroad tracks, and generally where Greenwood Drive, if it were to extend, would be the boundary there; the Benton Hill neighborhood would extend to Sunset Street. The overarching, one of the overarching goals for this entire subarea, is to preserve and stabilize all of these neighborhoods close to downtown and the University, and there were a lot of good reasons to do that, and there were many citizens from these neighborhoods at the planning workshops. Some of the reasons that came out were: to reduce commute times and traffic congestion in general in the City; to keep neighborhoods vital in the inner city; to preserve historic resources; and also to provide for a diverse mix of residents; to support the City's close-in commercial areas, such as Riverside Drive and the downtown. Specifically, the Melrose neighborhood, which is the neighborhood that's This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 29 most influenced by the University is directly south and in the area we were just discussing a while ago, and the biggest issue there, of course, is to balance the neighborhood needs with the University's long-term expansion plans. And this was mentioned by many of the citizens that were at the workshops, a concern about wanting to know what the University's future expansion plans were in the neighborhood. And, as you can see, the blue area here is University-owned property and this is the remaining single-family neighborhood that exists today, and it's easy to see how these folks would want to know what the plans are for the future. So, the plan does address this; it doesn't say specifically how that might be accomplished, but lists it as a goal. We will be bringing forward some issues in the zoning code update that might address some of the zoning issues with regard to the University currently where historically the City has not, has sort ora hands-off approach with the University with regard to zoning issues. But you may want to make some changes with regard to that or at least explore those issues in the future. Moving south to the Miller-Orchard neighborhood, which is south of the railroad tracks along Benton Street, there's an interest in this neighborhood to revitalize and stabilize this residential neighborhood. It's a neighborhood of mixed, of about 50-50 homeowner-occupied and rental properties, smaller homes, affordable homes; there's an interest to stabilize this neighborhood and make it viable in the future, so that's one of the main goals of the plan there. Some of the actions that the plan lists that might help achieve this goal would be to target Community Development Block Grants for the rehab of homes, down-payment assistance, neighborhood P1N grants, that sort of thing. Another issue here--of course in this neighborhood is (can't hear) vehicular and pedestrian circulation. There's a real problem in this neighborhood with streets--I'm going to move ahead here to show you the map; whoops I went too far--you can see here that this is the residential area that we're talking about here, and it's directly adjacent to the Riverside Drive Commercial area and also has some transportation issues because Hudson and Miller Avenue are used; there is some evidence they are used as cut-through traffic between Highway 1 and Benton Street. So there's some issue here in this neighborhood with regard to gaps in the sidewalk network and also traffic issues. Moving west to the Benton Hill, up the hill to this neighborhood, this has been, the zoning in this neighborhood has been a bone of contention for many years. There's a group of higher- density zoning, immediately adjacent to single-family zoning, which has created some tension in the neighborhood, and you all set a moratorium, which just expired September 1 st, to study this area, which we did during this planning process. There is one large, remaining undeveloped property which is owned by the Knabes and we'll be discussing that in more detail with the rezoning proposal coming up. We worked with a small group of citizens that were interested in this area, along with the property owners. We had a working group that met several times to discuss what was possible, what was appropriate for this undeveloped piece of property that would integrate it in with the existing neighborhood and also take care of some of the issues with the to park free {can't hear) and the access issues and integrating it with the neighborhood to the east as well. Finally, commercial development in the area. This subarea includes both the commercial area along Highway 1 and the Riverside Drive commercial area. Along Highway 1, the primary discussion point was to improve pedestrian facilities; currently there are none along this stretch of the corridor anyway and a desire to have connections to the neighborhood. Along Riverside Drive there was a lot of discussion about this commercial This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 30 area and how to make it more attractive over time. There were concerns about aesthetics, what it looks like, how it functions, how people can get from the neighborhoods to this commercial area, how to make it perhaps a little more neighborhood-friendly. Right now, it serves drive-by traffic quite well. However, there are some pedestrian access issues, gaps in the sidewalk network, and also some issues with multiple driveways that create some traffic congestion along the corridor. So, the plan identifies a real need to come up with perhaps a corridor plan, some further study to work with the businesses in the area, to come up with a more detailed plan to address a lot of these issues. And so the plan designates this area all as "mixed use," which we don't have a zone for mixed use, but it identifies that perhaps we could come up with some sort of overlay, something that would address a lot of these issues along Riverside Drive. And so that's in a nutshell what the Southwest District Plan and we can take questions. Vanderhoef/Could we take them area by area? It would be helpful to me in going through the book and hearing all about one area before we go to the next. I don't care which one we start one. Kanner/Well, maybe--yeah, that's a good idea, go in the order that it was presented, and then we could have a map up there. That would be helpful. We can all get on the same page in the book. What was the first subarea? Howard/South Rohret. Kanner/Page 55 it starts? Howard/Mmm..hmm. Wilburn/How far out is the heavy, is it heavy land sewer, in the front of here? (can't hear) Miklo/It's currently not in the front of here. Vanderhoef/And is there any possibility of people developing at this point and putting septics in? Miklo/Very limited. Our fringe area agreement with the County discourages that, and it's something I suppose that could be proposed in the current zoning, but the--my thinking is the given that there will be sewer there someday, it would be really not economic, it wouldn't make a lot of economic sense to develop this as large lots, given the potential that is there in the near-term future. Vanderhoef/I agree with that, but is it there in place to prevent it? Miklo/Part of it is zoned R-l, the part that's in the City and then the area in the County, the Fringe Area Agreement, as I said, discourages development. It requires City infrastructure if it does develop. So, they would have to put in concrete streets, curbs, sidewalks, and they would have to put in sewer and water lines even though they couldn't This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 31 use them. And what that does is it discourages any development. Vanderhoef/The cost of it would just be prohibitive. Miklo/Right. Vanderhoef/OK. Then there was comments written by the Carson family about the area and the size of the lake and I know there's some preliminary work that Rick has told us about for storm water. How soon do you expect a more detailed report on that kind of thing? Franklin/We're in the midst at a staff level now at looking at the capital improvements program, and we will look at the Abbey Lane sewer in terms of a timing on that. That would probably have to be coordinated with the Carson Lake. If we're going to do storm water, regional storm water management in this area, if we put the sewer in to make this area developable and provide a catalyst to that development, we have to be ready then with the regional storm water management. So those two things would be linked and both of them are big projects that cost a lot of money, so that's what we will be looking at in terms of the timing and how it fits in with the CIP. Vanderhoef/So, it's way too early to project really, how large--- Franklin/It's way early to project the size, yeah, yeah. Kanner/Are there sewer lift stations that are necessary in the growth area? Miklo/I believe--- Vanderhoef/There's one for this one. Miklo/...it may be in this area that are necessary. Franklin/That far west boundary on the growth area, this line here, you see all the other lines are kind of bumpy. Well, here, this is a good example of most of the growth areas, a bumpy line, because it follows the topography. This line, this decision to have the growth area go along 965 was a political decision that the City Council made when the alignment of 965 was agreed to, and that's why that's a straight line. It goes right up against the landfill. But that's an area that we would likely have to--well, we would have to have a lift station to serve and it probably would be down in here somewhere, and then there would be a force main to take it into the sewer system. Kanner/So, the original goals of the Comprehensive Plan were to not have growth in areas that needed a lift station, isn't that correct? Franklin/That's correct, mm...hm. Things change. Kanner/They do. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 32 Vanderhoef/They do. Kanner/And, what's the density in the peninsula, the highest density for zoning there? Miklo/It's in OPDH-5, so overall, when you include the open space, it tums out to be five units per acre. But where it's concentrated, it's 10 to 20 units per acre on small portions of it. Kanner/And did you envision, it looks similar in some ways, which I think is a positive thing about trying to get that feel, that new urbanist feel. Do you have some of that same density in this area? Miklo/I think it would be hard to compare, but there is some density in the northern portion of it, where we have townhouses and apartments above commercial possibly and then some small apartments. Kanner/I'm wondering why, perhaps, we couldn't go a little higher actually. I think it would be a good thing. And also north of (can't hear), why don't we have similar density levels? Why don't we talk about similar density levels at south in that mix of housing? Miklo/Let me see ifI can find that. Kanner/It seems it would be a good thing to have, especially if we're going to have a commercial area there and all these trails, it seems we could encourage people to be close, maybe to make their one trip to get to their work place and back and then cut back on some of the other trips if we have a higher density and we do decide to develop out there. Miklo/What we are showing is the potential for some higher density here along Rohret Road, but where we had existing neighborhoods and the streets that are leading into those would go back through lower density neighborhoods. We showed those as basically being an RS-5, possibly some RS 8 pockets in there. Kanner/RS-8, you're saying, is the highest known RM? Miklo/As the plan says conceptually there would be the possibility of some multi-family along Rohret Road. Kanner/That's about the only place--- Miklo/Right. Kanner/...for RM- 12. Miklo/And there might be some up here. We didn't get into a specific zoning plan for any of this. It's conceptual at this stage. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 33 Franklin/I think, Steven, one reason is that the--what is this called--the Weber Subarea has so much development in it already. It has people already living there and then there's a certain housing type that dominates and it's very difficult to break that pattern. When you look at the South Rohret, it's a new area that we have the opportunity to build a different way there and have shown that to some extent. But also in that south, the Rohret South Subarea, because of the regional storm water area and because of the topography, it doesn't lend itself as easily to some of the density that you would find, for instance, in the peninsula. So I don't think you'll see the density that there is in the peninsula in the Rohret South Subarea. And remember that this all is a consequence of bringing together people who live in these areas to try to make some decisions about the future. And when we do show multi-family, we show it at a very low scale. Think back to our whole discussion about the student housing complex and your revisit of the comp plan. One of the principles in our current comprehensive plan is that we try to mix the housing types, and we do that by keeping them in a scale that is relative to each other that's compatible. And that was one of the basic principles and we're still following through on that basic principle. So, if that's something that is an issue for the Council, you need to say so. Vanderhoef/I think, Connie, you were the one who said something about it, and I agreed that there may be some need in developing areas to put in the large apartment complex that allows for the amenities. It wouldn't necessarily be University or student housing. But many cities have larger complexes that then make it affordable to put amenities in with the housing. Franklin/And where we have those now in our plan is in the downtown and surrounding downtown area. Then we also have some higher density in this district plan in the Roosevelt Subarea. Some that already exist and then the rezoning that we're going to be talking about tonight. Champion/So, Karin, are you saying that it's not possible for Iowa City to have a larger upscale apartment complex within the (can't hear--seeing them as?) Iowa City that's not downtown? Franklin/No. There's other opportunities in the area around, in the north district, I believe there are some opportunities between Dubuque and Prairie du Chien. But it gets back to that whole question, you know, of what "large" is and how do you get it to be upscale and the guarantees there. Champion/I know. Is there even a need for it? That's the other question that I--- Franklin/ Yes. Yeah, but I just wanted to point that out to you because we've had that discussion before and this plan is showing some multi-family and it's showing it mixed in and scattered around--- Champion/Oh, you have parts of this area that have already have a lot of multi-family housing. It's not that it's not there. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 34 Franklin. Yes. Yes. Right. Pfab/Sure. Vanderhoef/But it would seem that this might be an area because of the Wild Prairie Estates and Country Club Estates and so forth, this is an upscale area in general that in the subarea of South Rohret or perhaps through the west of what is now developed, if there were to be an upscale larger complex large enough to support those amenities, it would seem to me that this would be an appropriate thing to do. Franklin/And what I think the plan is saying is that it's possible, for instance, in this area. It really depends on what that development is. Champion/That's exactly right. Franklin/You know, and I don't think we're going to know it exactly until it comes. But I think what the plan says is that you want to keep that near the arterial streets. What Bob is saying is you don't encourage it up in here and then have all that traffic flow through your existing neighborhoods. Champion/Right. Franklin/So, here's an opportunity, and then, yeah, maybe over in here. The other thing to think about--- TAPE 74 SIDE 2 Franklin/...you have generated is a population that is going to drive right down Rohret Road and then they're going to get on Mormon Trek and then they're going to get on Benton Street and then the people on Benton Street are going to be upset. Pfab/Still. Vanderhoef/Well, that's going to happen anyway as we grow. Franklin/Yes. But if you put your higher density centralized or at least get it closer to your destination point, whether it's the University, whether it's Northgate Corporate Park and ACT. When you do that, then you get those trips closer between the origin and the destination. Vanderhoef/And with the development of Mormon Trek extended and the possibility for industrial, not industrial but commercial, which could be smaller buildings but high- density in number of employees, we may well need something in this area that would go across Rohret Road and then Mormon Trek extended. So I still think there's some possibilities that--not everybody works in downtown, but they're not all going to take that This represents only a reasonable accurate ~'anscription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 35 trip and they could be on South Riverside Drive also. But we planned the transportation possibility and are zoning some areas for job sites on the west side of the City so those apartments like that might be appropriate. Champion/Well, I'm sure if somebody's really wanting to build, but I'm thinking should we build? We would try to find some way for them to do it. Lehman/We would find a spot. Champion/We would find a spot. (Laughter) Nobody's ever approached us with that, but really I think we ought to have that because the need might not be there, but I think it's a type of housing that we really lack. We really do lack it. Vanderhoef/I think that I'd like to at least--- Champion/Or at least that there are people don't want to buy a house or something, they're here for four or five years, or people who are tired of homeownership or don't want to live in a--they're used to living in an apartment building that has the amenities that we talked about, clean clothes laundry facilities, maybe a doorman, indoor plumbing. (laughter) A big city apartment building. Pfab/I think in, you're really in a sense thinking like a gated community, right? Champion/No, I'm not thinking about a gated community. Pfab/I mean, I know, in a sense with that many amenities that you would see in a gated community--and that's not wrong, I'm just--- Champion/ No, what I'm thinking about, I mean, when I talk about this apartment complex or building or whether it's a building or whether it's townhouses or whether it's two-story units, I'm talking about what you, what I kind of grew up with in the city, is that it had, it wasn't built for students. It wasn't built for temporary housing. It was built to lure people to live there, and you see them in every city. I mean, we're just not big enough to support it, that's what you're implying. I do think there are people, especially young professionals, who don't want to buy a house, who have a hard time finding some place to live. Or young professors or whatever. Howard/I think one of the things that we tried to do with this area, we discussed this at the workshops, was that even to support any kind of higher-density, any kind of commercial at all, that there's going to have to be some density out here. And we tried to incorporate that into the plan. This is a concept plan. So, for example, these are not all the lot lines that might occur. This was something laid out. The idea here was that we, all the orange that you see, would be townhouse-type development, similar to what you see around Walden Square, and that's one of the things that all the density around Walden Square is what helps support that commercial area. The brown is apartments. You see apartments along on Maier Avenue and townhouses along Rohret and then across the street, of This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 36 course, there's the opportunity for more apartments as well. So, the plan is intended to show that this area could support a variety and diversity of housing types. And where the topography gets more extreme, we're showing a little, maybe the larger lots. But most of this area would be smaller. Pfab/Can I ask, Connie, is that an area, that when you look at that, step back, is that a location where you would (can't hear)? Champion/Yeah, it could be ideal. I mean, I think you have to be, I mean, I don't know. It's just a voice in the back of my mind when I've had people who have moved to town temporarily that finding a place to live with what they're used to living in, it doesn't exist. We don't have it. It's not here. It doesn't exist. But the town is not Chicago. Vanderhoef/Would we have to change the comprehensive plan to allow this? Franklin/Well, I'm not sure that what Connie's talking about isn't what Plaza Tower is going to be. Champion/That, kind of, kind of. But it's not going to have, kind of, kind of, I have to think about that. Lehman/It's not going to have a lake. Champion/It's not going to have a lake. But--- Franklin/It's not going to even have a swimming pool. Champion/It's not going to have a swimming pool. And I'm not--- Franklin/There'll only be a bathtub and a Jacuzzi. Champion/I'll have to kind of nail it down. Pfab/We do have a fountain. Champion/There's the green space--- Franklin/Yes, that's right--- Champion/There's the total city living of the Plaza Towers, but there's another one that has grass and flowers and sidewalks and a workout room and a swimming pool and some of those kinds of things. Franklin/I have had conversations with at least two developers about such a place. And where we've looked at has been in the Foster Road area. Just, I don't want to pin it down, but--- This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 37 Champion/No. Great. That'd be good. Franklin/You know, where it's close in, it has good access to the interstate system, it's a pretty area--- Champion/It is. Lehman/Kafin, could a concept like that, I would think that might fit in a number of zones, if it were clustered. Franklin/Well, yeah, I mean, you can do this now. Lehman/Right. Franklin/You can do it under planned development fight now. Lehman/I mean, you can do it--fight. Like in that little peninsula sticking up in there, you could do that and you would have a beautiful park all arotmd it, a lake on one side, you wouldn't exceed the density if you clustered it all together. Franklin/Right. Champion/Right. Lehman/So that could occur. Champion/You're fight. It could. You're right. It could. Pfab/And I think your (can't hear) system community has some community commercial that supports the day-to-day needs. Karmer/You mean it could happen the way that it was proposed on Napoleon, the one that was rejected, that density? Franklin/No. Lehman/Probably not. Franklin/No. Champion/I just don't think so. Kanner/Is that what you're talking about? Champion/I don't know if we have to be that density. The reason I rejected Napoleon is that I thought that density, that particular type of density, did not belong there. I didn't think This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 38 student housing belonged out there. Franklin/You know, we're wandering. Lehman/Yes. Franklin/Can we get back? Vanderhoef/What kind of a statement do we need to put in the comprehensive plan to say what we've just been talking about? Franklin/Well. I mean, this kind of gets back to that comp plan thing that we're talking about because I think when you say, Connie, that you say you want apartments with amenities and when Steven says he wants apartments with amenities, and Dee does, that you've got three different visions of what that is. Champion/I do. I"m sure it's different. Kanner/I just wanted to--- Champion/ Yeah, maybe we have to have this discussion another time, but when I talk about amenities, I'm also talking about building materials and what makes it especially attractive. Franklin/Yes, I know you are. Champion/I'm not just talking about big garages and it doesn't have to be big. I mean we got to this thing that big is better. It isn't always better. Sometimes small is better if it's well done. So, that, you know what I'm talking about. I don't know how to get it--- Franklin/ As Ernie has pointed out, you can do that kind of thing now if you have a very good plan. We have not seen a very good plan, I don't believe, for the type of development that you would want to interject into one of the neighborhoods. Champion/Right. Exactly. Lehman/But it could happen. Franklin/It could happen. Lehman/Without any statements of any kind. Franklin/It could. Lehman/It could happen under present zoning ordinances, you get a plan--- This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 39 Franklin/Yes, and, I mean, it would go through a process of review by P and Z and the Council, and you could approve it. Champion/I think you're right. It could be done. Pfab/I think you'd need a market study to justify--- Lehman/Well, that's the project, that's up to the builder. Karmer/Karen H. and Bob, question for you. Franklin/Karen H, did you say? Kanner/What? Franklin/Karen with an E, and Karin with an I. Kanner/Karen E? With an E. (Laughter) Kanner/One of the things that I have been trying to promote is using the Bob Braverman farm, Friendly Farms, you're familiar with it, I'm sure, as a model. A small acreage either on the edge of urban areas or incorporated to a certain extent on urban areas, and I was wondering if there was any discussion of that or any literature. I'm interested in some literature of bringing in the rural, perhaps small organic or non-organic, but produce- producing farms, so you get the benefit of open space, preserving agricultural land, having local produce. I think there's a lot of positive benefits and especially in that area, it, I hear people say it's inevitable and we're going to have housing and that's the only thing that could happen and they seem resigned to that. And I was wondering if there is any other talk among people there and among you on the staff about doing some of these other creative, innovative things perhaps. Howard/The only thing that I can think of that came up during the citizen planning workshops was when people discussed the future uses of the County Poor Farm property, and some folks did mention, you know, the desire to have some of that agricultural land remain agricultural and that was listed as one of the possibilities. So there was some interest out there in that type of a thing. But for--it wasn't discussed as a specific issue for other parts of the district. Miklo/In terms of the folks that said they liked the rural character of the far western part of the district--and there is some text in the plan about that--and what the plan recognizes is that in the short-term, that probably won't develop and that's why in an area like this we show the lake neighborhood developing, but that this will probably remain agricultural for a number of years, and recognizing--what the plan speaks to--is not leap-frogging and skipping an area over here and then putting infrastructure and developing out here, but This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 40 developing a compact, contiguous fashion so that it does remain agricultural as long as necessary. Champion/We have a bit here that's difficult to sewer. I mean, that would be a good place to put those kind of projects, if somebody wanted to do it. Kanner/So, you're talking about like in the right--- Champion/Yellow, mm..hmm. Kanner/Would that be possible, is that too hilly and--- Miklo/That's possible with the current--- Kanner/No, but I mean, is it too hilly to do any kind of farming? Although Braverman, I think it's pretty remarkable, that Braverman--are you familiar with that? Have you folks been there? Just south ofHy Vee, behind Highway 6 off Waterfront, a little two-acre pocket with hills on either side. So maybe it's possible. And there I think we have to be a little more proactive if we wanted to encourage that. There's programs nationally like paying for development, your development rights. So you would say what it's worth now, what it's potentially worth with housing, and you pay the difference, so you write a contract. And I was just wondering, on the staff level, is there any discussion about those things, is there anything in the literature nationally about that rural and urban incorporating a little more? I think that's one of our strongest points in Iowa is that agricultural history, and I think this could be something that would be pretty innovative and work. Franklin/We haven't talked about it. I think there's nothing right now that precludes someone from doing what Bob does. I don't think he has livestock. So, he's basically got a small truck farm, and there's nothing that precludes someone from doing that right now. The question is is whether we encourage it or not through some governmental action. And I mean, that's your choices, ify°u wish to do that. I think we usually think in the vein of, we are trying to provide for the growth in this region within the municipal boundaries and keeping that growth within the municipal boundaries as opposed to having it leak out into the unincorporated parts of the county, which is where you can have very proximate to a city, something such as you're talking about, where the distance traveled is not that far, but that we have focused very much on that infield development, having that happen within a municipality, as opposed to having it go out into the agricultural area and have not focused on keeping agricultural within the corporate limits. So, that's where we've been so far. Lelunan/OK. Let's move along. Where are we, guys? Champion/We haven't gotten very far. Lehman/I don't think we've gotten anywhere yet. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 41 Vanderhoef/Well, we've done pretty much through Rohret. Kanner/What was the--- Champion/The area around Weber School, that's--- Kanner/So north of Weber Subarea, that is? Champion/Mm..hmm. Lehman/I don't know what he can do with that. Champion/They'll be a fine. Lehman/Essentially single-family. Vanderhoef/The Weber thing we've pretty well--- Lehman/ And the next one is the Willow Creek Subarea--- Kanner/Well, before, though, Emie, we go on, I think one of the big issues is the County Poor Farm, what's going to happen and I think we have a big say in that with future zoning. Champion/Well, we'll discuss zoning afterwards. Kanner/I know, but I'm saying that--- Champion/We've already allowed for that, so that could be protected. We haven't eaten it alive. Miklo/If you look at the plan that talks about the County Poor Farm or the portion of the plan, you'll recognize the historic buildings and the potentials of keeping those as a historic site. You'll also recognize that there are some undisturbed prairies and some fairly rugged, sensitive areas on the property and the possibility of keeping those as open space, what it does, what the plan that both the City prepared and the County's been working on, recognizes that the southwest portion of the area is fairly flat and level and will have access to infrastructure and therefore may be appropriate for some sort of residential development. Kanner/Besides the potential uses listed here for the County Poor Farm, were there other ideas that were thrown out? Something more far out, perhaps, and tourist attraction? Champion/The rain forest. Lehman/Rain forest. This represents only a reasonable accurate Ixanscription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 42 Kanner/Rain forest, ski jump training, I don't know, anything else that came up that didn't make this list? Any other ideas? Any other brainstorming ideas? Howard/Well, there were a lot of brainstorming ideas, I think, would be covered under the general ideas of what is proposed here. But, we do have a list of everything that the citizens said at the workshops and I am sure that the County also has a list of all the input that they received for uses for the County Farm, but, you know, everything from golf courses to, you know, small vegetable plots to preserving it for use of high school students and just preserving the open space and historic properties. Living History Farms, all those kind of things came up. Kanner/Could I get a list of that? Howard/Sure. Pfab/Is there anything that excludes any of these that's in this plan at this point? Franklin/I'd have to look down through the list to see if there's anything that's specifically excluded, but I think generally many of those things could be included. Miklo/Irvin, you had an earlier question during the presentation about the County Farm area? Pfab/Well, I, no, was trying to locate where Weber School was and there was, it has gone, I lost it, but that's all right. Kanner/You're talking 20-25 years for Highway 965 before that's extended? Miklo/That's the current plan. Kanner/Thank you. Lehman/Willow Creek area? Kanner/What page is that? Lehman/47. Kanner/43 to 47, OK. Lehman/That is essentially the (can't hear). Kanner/I like the idea you're thinking of narrowing Sunset Street in certain points. Why was it built so wide and how long ago was that built? Franklin/Dale, do you {emember? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 43 (Laughter) Franklin/I think it was built to have a boulevard, buses, a train, what? Davidson/It was built in the late 60s, early 70s, built (can't hear) am I right? Approximately. Yeah, and it was my understanding is that it was originally intended to have a boulevard and then for some financial reason, the decision was made not to have a boulevard. We have, that's the only street in Iowa City that I'm aware that we painted the parking lanes on because people were treating it as a four-lane street and the traffic was a little bit tmmanaged, so we painted the parking lanes on so now it functions as a two-lane street. Lehman/I thought that was a wide bicycle lane. (Laughter) Davidson/No, it's actually a parking lane. Kanner/And so there's no thought of putting that boulevard in there.'? Miklo/There's nothing in the capital improvements, Steven, I mean, we're going to be discussing that with you in the next few months. You can always bring it up, see if anyone else is interested. Kanner/But no one brought this up at the meetings or anything? Miklo/On page 46 of the plan, the language basically indicates at some point in the future the street's going to need to be built and that's the time to consider doing a boulevard or narrowing it or some other improvements to make it more attractive. Kanner/But I--- Vanderhoef/But it functioned and still functions as an arterial no matter what we call it. Davidson/Yeah, it's part of the arterial street system because of the decisions that have been made, land-use-wise, between Sunset Street and basically Miller Avenue, which is the next thru-street, and there aren't any thru-streets in-between. Sunset is a little higher up the functional class ladder than we originally intended it to be and of course when it was connected to the highway--how long ago was that, Ernie? Maybe 10-15 years ago? Lehman/Probably 15. Vanderhoef/About 1980. Davidson/When that decision was made, that kind of'cinched it as part of the arterial system. Lehman/Right. That's when the buses (can't hear) went running on my street. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 44 Vanderhoef/When Wylde Green went over and connected with it. As much as my colleague likes the idea of narrowing it down and so forth, I find this as certainly an arterial that should stay as an arterial and relieve some of the traffic off of Benton. I think the mom we try to narrow down and everything else, the more we're going to push it someplace else, and Benton is probably the place where it's going to get pushed. And at this point in time, that street was built there for a long time before the houses were ever built facing Sunset on the east side. So, it's not as though it wasn't planned that way, and I would object to narrowing that down and push it into a different area. So I would like to have that removed. Champion/I think you could slow it down or narrow it by putting a boulevard in. Vanderhoef/A boulevard would work. Champion/I don't think you need to take it out of the plan. I don't see where there's going to be money in the capital improvement plan to do that for a heck of a long time. Lehman/If I read this right, that wouldn't occur until the street needed reconstruction, which is probably not going to be within our lifetime. Kauner/Good point, Ernie. Vanderhoef/You see, the book, the plan says, calls Sunset a "major collector street" and provides some arterial function as a connection between Melrose Avenue and Highway 1. Well, it also passes through the Benton Street thing and without that relief north-south and all of the jobs that we find up on Melrose and the hotal area and going to University- related activities in that area, I think this would be a mistake to ever consider calling it anything but an arterial, even though it's a short one. Kanner/I had a question about the next paragraph on 46, or the last one, about the pedestrian paths that are planned. Can you tell me where, it's on the bottom of 46, students crossing private lawns to reach the school campus, I was a little confused about where that's at. Actually, I took a bus and tried to get to West High and found it a little difficult and would like some paths. Miklo/This area here, there are several townhouses, condominium-type units up and down Westwinds and them have been complaints in the past about students crossing these yards to get into this area. There was also a concern expressed by the principal of West High. There are a few vacant lots in here, not very many, and as we discussed with the principal, it would be appropriate for the school district to acquire an easement or some method to put a sidewalk to Westwinds. Kanner/Would there be something going out to Mormon Trek? Miklo/There are sidewalks in this area, but--- This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 45 Kanner/It would be nice to be able to get over from Mormon Trek with some sort of path over to West High. Lehman/I think that's what's happening. They take the sidewalks until they get to Westwinds Drive and then they go through the backyards and walk into the school ground. Kauner/So that will take care of it, that the school maybe purchases something there? Miklo/Well, that would be one possibility. There's also pedestrian access from the Willow Creek Trail on the southem portion of West High. Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/But, it's more the foot traffic that's coming from the east that is cutting through there. Miklo/Right. Vanderhoef/Can you show me where the little piece of Johnson County land is that you say we should annex? Miklo/That's this area here, the car dealership's. Lehman/That's Hargrave-McEleney, I think. Vanderhoef/And then the vacant commercial land along Willow Creek Drive? Miklo/That's here. There's a, I think, it's a bus garage--- Lehman/ Right. Miklo/...there are some auto body repair shops, Dane's Dairy--- Lehman/Right. Champion/Exactly. Right. Kanner/OK. Vanderhoef/Thank you. Lehman/OK. Roosevelt Subarea? Page 41. That includes the area down to Riverside Drive, doesn't it? Vanderhoef/Down to the river. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 46 Lehman/Yeah, and I think that certainly the concerns about sidewalks along Riverside Drive are really valid. That's a really tough place for a pedestrian. Champion/Yeah. Vanderhoef/What is the zoning on the east side of Orchard Street where you're talking about perhaps doing some upgrade and do some commercial on the lower and apartments above. Is that CC-27 Miklo/CC-2. Vanderhoef/OK. And it's already zoned that way? Miklo/Right. Vanderhoef/OK. Franklin/Right. Kanner/Where was that again? Vanderhoef/On Omhard Street on the east side, which is sort of--- O'Donnell/I know where it is--what was the zoning though? Miklo/CC-2, community-commercial. Lehman/And you're showing mixed use? Miklo/What we envision for the entire Riverside Drive area is perhaps doing something similar to what was done on Highway 6 in Coralville, where there was a very concentrated effort on consolidating driveways, landscaping, enhancing the area, and we see that as needing a separate study other than this. There was too much detail. Lehman/I think that's right. Kanner/Karen, can you point out which is Orchard? Howard/This is Orchard Street right here. Pfab/Where's Paul's Discount? Lehman/Spenler Tire, you turn there around on up to Benton Street. Kanner/So, thinking of putting commercial with residential above on that street there. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 47 Vanderhoef/On the east side. Kanner/East side. Miklo/When you were speaking earlier of wanting more dense housing, this might be an opportunity to encourage that. Vanderhoef/And this is the area you're also talking about the CDBG money possibly for some upgrades or redevelopment or--- Howard/ Right. There was discussion both ways that, whether this area should be allowed to redevelop at a higher density, or should we, you know, encourage revitalization and stabilization of this neighborhood which provides quite a bit of affordable housing. And there was a consensus that we should try to stabilize this area and maintain it as a place where people can afford to buy smaller homes in Iowa City. Vanderhoef/Does the City own a number of houses in this area? (People talking, can't hear) Vanderhoef/The Housing Fellowship does. Howard/I think along Douglas Court and Douglas Street. Vanderhoef/I think we own some on either Miller or Orchard or both. Howard/I'm not sure. Vanderhoeff I am presuming when they talked about the pedestrian bridge over Benton Street from Roosevelt area to the new park area, in my mind, having gone through discussions a number of years ago, of crossing Highway 6 and the amount of ramping that it takes to take it and make it ADA-accessible, that the cost on that kind ora project is pretty astronomical. Howard/I'm sure Jeff can speak to this more specifically, but there was discussion about how the topography maybe lends itself a little more here to that kind of an overpass. Davidson/Yeah, we had, you may recall that the last time that Benton Street issue came up, we did discuss an overpass, and as Karen's mentioned, on the school side you're already up at the overpass level. You know, probably the best example I can give you is the ramp on the new pedestrian bridge there just beyond the west line curve, that's an ADA-accessible ramp. The ramp has a longer span than the span over the highway--- (Laughter) This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Cotmcil Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 48 Davidson/...so that's the type of structure you're talking about with an ADA-accessible ramp when you've got to get up to an elevation and down on the other side. That was a million and three for that structure. Vanderhoef/Well, the only thing that I thought perhaps ought to be added to the comp plan was to recognize the fact that this has to be ADA-compliant and becomes a very costly project, because I think there's a lot of people out there who think about this bridge and think, oh, well, we can just build a bridge. And we've seen all the old ones that have steps--and that doesn't hack it anymore and--- Davidson/It's your message. Vanderhoef/...give them a little message before they start talking about it. Davidson/Well, and it's something that when those discussions occur, we can certainly discuss it. Vanderhoef/But if they read it in the plan that this is an expensive proposition--- Champion/You have to make it so it's also used by those who don't need the accessibility. So, because they're not going to walk that usually aren't to use it, are going to use the street instead. Franklin/Mm...hmm. Pfab/But I think that Benton Street has some interesting concepts because you can come down the hill to your bridge, the accessibility is not near the problem, anything like the problem in those other places. Your ramp could get to that height if you're coming on a steep hill. Basically you don't have to go out so far because you're already, the topography, the elevation is pretty fast there. Again, if you can put steps or ramps or both. And it isn't that far either; it's the relatively new--- Miklo/Is there a consensus to amend the plan to add language about ADA and--- Champion/ No. Lehman/It has to be ADA. You can't build it without being ADA. Vanderhoeff But how many people know that? Lehman/Once they start talking about it, they'll know it. Karmer/What page is that on, Dee? Vanderhoef/Just where they were listing them on 39. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 49 Champion/I like the idea of the Douglas Street and Douglas Court area being stabilized and some assistance to keep--because like Benton Street--it has a lot of affordable housing on it and I think we really need to work at keeping those things there. Kanner/Well, yeah, I thought there would be better solutions than the pedestrian bridge. I'd like to hear tomorrow some discussion, but maybe we'll see if we have a majority to remove that, or at least put stronger language in. I'm still not seeing it. I remember reading it before but--- Howard/I think where the plan says "investigate the feasibility"--- Lehman/That's pretty vague. Miklo/Page 39. Howard/So, and it was mentioned as being something that people wanted to investigate at least, ways to get across the street. There are other ways to get across the street there, of course, and the idea of having better crossing at Miller was also discussed. I don't know how soon a traffic signal may be warranted there at Miller. Lehman/Miller? I'd guess that'd be a long time away. Davidson/Yeah. We've never even looked into that--- Lehman/No. It's a terrible place for a traffic signal at the bottom of a hill. Davidson/We have a pretty severe vertical curve coming in--- Lehman/ Yeah, that would be a disaster. Kanner/What about other types of lights? Flashing? Or cross? Champion/We've got those. Davidson/I can't remember how much we've reviewed with you. We're right now doing a research project on what we're calling high-visibility crosswalk treatments, where you don't want to have a signal, you don't want to necessarily want to stop traffic, but when there is a gap in the traffic stream for a pedestrian, there's some treatments that we've applied for--that's when we talked about it because we applied for a grant, remember, and it was on your Council agenda. And so, we're going to, well, we're investigating those. We hope to do a pilot project next year if we can get the money from the state and that would then subsequently be something that you could adopt as more common usage, if we found that it was successful. Kanner/On that same page, we have "pursue funds to bury the overhead utility lines," why is that so important? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 50 Champion/We all would like to do that. Vanderhoef/Airport, for one thing. Lehman/Well, they're basically ugly, but the cost of that has got to be just astronomical. Kanner/Yeah, I don't know if that's such a high priority or why. Lehman/If you lived under them, it probably would be, but my suspicion is the cost of that is going to be such that it's not going to happen any time soon. Howard/We're talking about Riverside Drive here? I think that's all part of that discussion of having, of improving that whole corridor there, and that was one of the, you know, issues, and that's one of the things like in Coralville, too, that was discussed. And a lot of communities are discussing that as a long-range plan. So, you know, it is expensive, but it's something that may improve that corridor quite a bit. Champion/It's a good long-tem~ plan. Lehman/Yeah. Kanner/Speaking of utility lines, Steve, there's a line that appears to be down there on Riverside north of Myrtle. Lehman/That's University property. Kanner/Did a telephone wire, I don't know? Lehman/Some sort of a--- Karmer/Some cable is down. Miklo/There's a tree down there--- Lehman/It's on University property across from the Hydraulics Lab. It's been down for a month and wires. But I think it's all University. Pfab/I see a number of, I can't remember, of vehicles that were working on the end just about where you go off to Myrtle. Lehman/Up about a half a block. Pfab/But they weren't concerned about what was up there, so I thought if they weren't concerned, I wasn't going to be. This represents only a reasonable accurate t~anscription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 51 Lehman/All right. Anything else on Roosevelt? Vanderhoef/Just one other question. I would like you to expand on page 38. It's next to the bottom where it starts out "Encourage the University to inform and coordinate," and at the very end of that paragraph, you have a statement about "To this end, the City should take steps to develop and enforce appropriate zoning regulation of University property." Now, how do we do that? Pfab/Very carefully. Howard/Well, that's something that's been discussed quite a bit, but there's no easy solutions to that and there's questions of, you know, legal questions there, that need to be addressed, but we'd hope to bring some--- Kanner/How come we're not pleasing when we're talking about--- (Laughter) Kanner/He said there's a guy that enforces it. Lehman/That's the way he looks. Vanderhoef/He's smart. Howard/There aren't any easy answers to that, and we're exploring some ideas on how to redo the zoning with regard to the public zone with the Code rewrite project and probably will bring forward some ideas for you to examine with regard to zoning issues. There's other issues with regard to University property. If they purchase property and are using it for, you know, residential purposes, should they be zoned and required to comply with the underlying zoning rather than having it be rezoned to P, since they are really using it for other uses than University uses? So there's that whole question of whether we can enforce our existing zoning before it's rezoned to P. So there's a lot of questions there that are unanswered. Vanderhoef/Those are some that I had in previous times and fully agree that they should stay on the tax rolls until they're used for educational purposes. But how we get that kind of cooperation, I would say, from the state, I presume that goes to the State Legislature, not to the Board of Regents. Lehman/Well, unless the University would choose to comply with our zoning and then it wouldn't have to go anywhere. Vanderhoef/It would take a 28-E agreement of some description. Lehman/They told us to comply with that. I think that's a possibility. But that--this is obviously exploring that possibility. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 52 Vanderhoef/This is a conversation that I look forward to. (Laughter) Champion/These neighborhoods are more affected than any other neighborhoods in the town in the University, and they do have some valid concerns. But they do have to understand the University is our biggest industry. Vanderhoef/I think we'll get into it when we do the North Side comp plan, too. Lehman/Is there anything else on Roosevelt Subarea? Kanner/For things that are not long timeframe, but 20 to 25 years, do you tend not to put any timeframe on those things. For instance, I'm talking on page 35, Highway 1 commercial corridor, constructing sidewalks and adding pedestrian signals. I would think we'd want sort of a shorter timeframe on that one, but to see if there's a majority on Council that wants that. Miklo/With those what we will do, when we prepare the capital improvements plans, is use the district plans to identify projects that aren't funded that are identified in the Capital Improvements Plan and work their way through that whole system. Lehman/Part of that could occur also as development occurs along the highway. Miklo/Right. Lehman/Commercial, well, what we're going to talk about next, the Ruppert property that includes sidewalks. Howard/You know, a lot of aspects the plan doesn't identify a specific timeline for any of these; some of these may be short-term, some may be long-term, and that's really up to the Council to decide what priority to give these various projects in all the district plans. There's many items listed that could be accomplished, and they're desired. So that may be a short-term thing. Karmer/Thank you. RUPPERT REZONING 4b. PUBLIC HEARING ON A RESOLUTION AMENDING THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO ADOPT THE SOUTHWEST DISTRICT PLAN FOR THE AREA LOCATED GENERALLY SOUTH OF MELROSE AVENUE, WEST OF THE IOWA RIVER, NORTH OF HIGHWAY 1 WEST AND EAST OF THE IOWA CITY LANDFILL. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 53 4c. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION FROM 1) HIGH-DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, RM-44, TO MEDIUM DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, RM-20, WITH A CONDITIONAL ZONING AGREEMENT, FOR AN 8.69-ACRE PROPERTY LOCATED NORTH OF HIGHWAY 1 AND WEST OF MILLER AVENUE; 2) COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL, CC-2, TO MEDIUM DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, RM-20, WITH A CONDITIONAL ZONING AGREEMENT, FOR A 1.45-ACRE PROPERTY LOCATED NORTH OF HIGHWAY 1 AND WEST OF MILLER AVENUE; AND 3) MEDIUM DENSITY SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL, RS-8, TO COMMUNITY COMMERCIAL, CC-2, FOR A 1.45 ACRE PROPERTY LOCATED NORTH OF HIGHWAY 1 AND WEST OF MILLER AVENUE. (REZ02-00013) Lehman/OK. Ruppert. Franklin/Well, this is one item that we want to try to implement right away so it's on the short- term list. This is the Ruppert property, Highway 1, Miller Avenue, Benton Street here. And this is Harlocke Street that comes in here past the new Southgate Development. This property, I guess I haven't even started the presentation yet. The existing zoning right now, this portion of the property is zoned high-density, multi-family residential, which is the most controversial zoning definition of the property. It's directly adjacent to a single- family neighborhood here. There's some traffic issues along Harlocke Street of allowing any additional high-density, multi-family to, that development to impact the traffic along a City street, a local street that travels through a single-family neighborhood. There's also access issues. There's topographical issues with this property that don't lend itself to higher density, multi-family. The history of the property is that this was zoned, rezoned to high-density multi-family during a comprehensive rezoning in 1983. Prior to that time, the property was zoned R1-A, which was a single-family zone, which allowed practically four dwelling units per acre, similar to our RS-5, and like I say, there's many issues with this property that we studied during the Southwest District Plan and came up with a recommendation for a low-density RM-12 zoning. We worked with the working group and with the consultant to come up with what was possible as far as density on the property, given the topography, and also the other issues of access and traffic. And that was the recommendation through the plan was RM-12, with the possibility of RM-20, medium density residential, multi-family residential, if there were certain issues taken into account through a conditional zoning agreement. That wouldn't necessarily be different if it was RM-12 or RM-20. And providing the (can't hear) of RM-20, I guess, provides opportunity to take care of some of these issues which are related to zoning, but aren't necessarily covered under our zoning ordinance right now. The other portion of the property with this rezoning is a commercial property directly to the east of this property. This area in red is all currently zoned community-commercial. You can see there's a ravine that cuts this property in half. It really makes a lot more sense to include this portion of the property with multi-family property to the west and use this as a natural dividing line between those two properties. Also, there's been desire on the property owner's behalf to square off the commercial zoning right now, the property to the east. This is all community-commercial here, up to this line, and a desire to make these lots as This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 54 deep as the lots to the east and make them more developable as commercial in the future. This is currently RS-8 and what, the proposal is to make that to community-commemial. So you can see here what the zoning proposal is, both track 1 and 2 to RM-20 with the conditional zoning agreement, and this piece here, track 3, from RS-8 to CC-2. Lehman/So we're decreasing the depths of the commercial lots--- Franklin/That's right. Lehman/...and rezoning the 44 to 12 with the possibility of a 20 that we have a CZA. Franklin/That's right. And from what we understand, that CZ is being signed as we speak, hopefully. Lehman/This is really nice. Champion/Sounds good. Vanderhoef/And how much of the land area that is actually clear up at the comer, next to the park land that we own, how much is required for dedication for this area? Franklin/Well, the Southwest District Plan talks, if this were developed as RM-20, there will be some requirements to dedicate open space and since it's all owned by the same property owner, there may be a means through an OPDH process to acquire the open space in this location. Probably about an acre and a half. Vanderhoef/There would be dedication from the housing area though. Franklin/Right, and the idea was to--the RS-8--there's no proposal for any rezoning of that property. This property here is already zoned RS-8 and we--- TAPE 02-75 SIDE 1 Vanderhoef/And we're going to have an obligation for--- Miklo/If this area is developed as RM-12 and this area as RS-8, I believe it's one acre of open space is required. If this develops as RM-20 and this develops as RS-8 as it's currently zoned--it's an acre and a half--so depending on what decision is made on this piece, it's an acre to an acre and a half of land that would be required to be dedicated under our current ordinance. Vanderhoef/The RM-12, it is required that when you get the RM-20, then there's no requirement. Miklo/No--- This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 55 Howard/No, there is. There's more, based on the density. Kanner/Dee, were you done with it? Karen, can you show the planned trail and how does that fit in with up near Harlocke? Isn't--there's one property owner, is that that's talking about giving some open space or leaving some open space up near Harlocke, up above on the bluff. How does that all look? Howard/Are you talking about Mr. Knabe? Kanner/Yeah. Howard/This is his property. He's sitting behind you right now. I think he wasn't thinking about dedicating it to the City. What we heard him talking about was having it be private open space or dedicated to, preserved over time as open space in some manner or fashion are his ideas for his property. This piece right here has been dedicated to the City with Southgate and there's a desire on the neighborhood's part to connect this open space piece to the park with a pedestrian trail up to Benton Street. Kanner/Right. That's what I'm trying to get at. How is that going to happen? Franklin/Well, with the conditional zoning agreement, that's one of the things we can do with conditional zoning agreement and I believe you have all those conditions. We've asked for a lot of easements as far as pedestrian trails that connect. Right now the rezoning is not for the RS-8 piece, but we can have a connection provided to at least the property boundary at that point, with the idea that when the other piece is developed that you could get additional easements for a trail that connect to the park along Benton Street. Kanner/So it would go along the park, and how would it get to that Southgate piece? Howard/This is a Southgate piece here. Kanner/So it goes on up on top of the bluff. This is on top of the bluff here. Lehman/The trail at the top of the bluff?. Howard/Right. What they did was to have the trail right through the Benton Manor. Here's the Southgate property. The idea was to connect this dedicated open space along the northern part of the property. I can read you the CZA language, if you'd like. Kanner/Well, I don't know if that's necessary. I'm just trying to get a sense of how the path is going to go and do we have an agreement with Knabe or do we need one? Howard/Well, Knabe's over here so--- Kanner/I know, but eventually we're going to have one along the top from the park on the top, I thought, coming down and that was one of the big things that the neighborhood wanted This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 56 was this trail. Howard/You mean this here? Kanner/What--on top, through the Southgate. Howard/Well, this is the--- Miklo/The property that Southgate dedicated. Kaimer/Yeah, but aren't we supposed to have a path~ through there? Pfab/There is. Howard/Yeah. Champion/That is it. Howard/So the idea is to have a trail leading from this area over to the Benton Street park along the Miller-Orchard park, was the desire of the neighborhood, to have a pedestrian connection between those two dedicated open spaces. Kanner/So then it comes around west through the Southgate. Howard/Here's Harlocke Street right here. So we connect up to Harlocke Street so you'd be able to walk from the end of Harlocke Street through the park down through here and over to the other space along Benton Street, eventually. Kanner/But you can't get around from the top to the Knabe property? Howard/You mean here? Champion/No, it's on the other side of the street anyway. Howard/Well, there is in the CZA, we talk about having some sort of opportunity for pedestrian connection going south in the future when pedestrian facilities are built along Highway 1, to be able to have, there is a request for a pedestrian easement along this portion of the property as well, to build a potential trail there in the future when there are pedestrian facilities to connect to it. You don't want to encourage people to cross the highway. You don't want to build the trail down there where there's no sidewalks right now. But it will provide the opportunity in the future, the CZA will. Lehman/And we're supposed to have that signed tomorrow, hopefully. Howard/Right. That's what I understand. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 57 Lehman/So, we'll have the public hearing on this tomorrow night. If the CZA is signed, we will close the hearing. OK. Any other questions? O'Donnell/No, it was very good. Lehman/All right. Thank you. Miklo/Thank you. (Several people talking) Franklin/I would just like to say that this thing has been rolling on with the Ruppert property for 20 years--- Lehman/More. Franklin/...and Karen and Bob, through this process appear to have put it together. Champion/My goodness. Franklin/...and I thank them. Lehman/Yes, we all do. (Several people talking) Champion/Wow, that is a lot of work, thanks. You know, Karin, we were the ones that insisted that you do this district plan now, see? Franklin/Yes, it's all to your credit. Lehman/We have a request for a short break. (Break) KANNER VOTE AT JCCOG Lehman/OK, next item, Mr. Kanner, I think this is your item. Kanner/Well, actually, Ross's. Comrade, old countryman, I'm ready for you. Wilbum/IfI could--- Kanner/Steve, you might be appointed if I'm removed so be ready. Atkins/I'll be quiet. Thank you. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 58 Wilbum/I submitted my written comments for the distribution in the packet, and Steven, I caught on tape part of your press conference that you had and so, I guess, just for tonight I would ask before you elaborate on comments that you made at the press conference--- Kanner/Well, I'll elaborate on the questions you ask of me, Ross. Wilburn/Could you address, I don't interrupt you when you're speaking, so please don't interrupt me. OK? Kanner/What's that? Wilburn/I do not interrupt you when you're speaking, so I would ask that you would not interrupt me. Kanner/OK. Wilburn/Could you address my questions in relationship, to begin with, to the Iowa City south arterial which was the award of those amendments listed at that JCCOG meeting? Kanner/Well, actually, no, because I'll answer why I voted against and then I'll ask you the same question, why you voted for it. Did you vote against the JCCOG arterial street plan amendment knowing that your vote was contrary to the adopted City Council policy. I would say no, and let me ask you, did you vote for it knowing that it was against the City Council adopted policy? And I have some other questions for you. Wilburn/You asked for the work session, you asked for this submitted in writing. I'm asking you to directly address my question in relation to the Iowa City south arterial. Kanner/No, you asked about the JCCOG arterial street plan, and Ross, we're going to have more elaborate discussion, and I think that I should ask you and the people that voted for it if you voted for it knowing that it was contrary to City Council policy. So would you answer my question? Wilbum/Well, you asked for the work session. Karmer/And I answered your question. Wilbutn/You did not answer my question in relation to the Iowa City south arterial. Kanner/Ross, I'll answer that, but will you answer my questions because that's not the question that you listed here? Wilburn/I'm asking you to respond to my question. Kanner/Ross, will you? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 59 Wilburn/I'm asking you to respond to my question in relation to the Iowa City south arterial. Kanner/OK, just let me clarify. What you wrote down here on your memo, this is the memo that you wrote that was requested, you said, Did you vote against the JCCOG arterial street plan amendment knowing that your vote was contrary to adopted City Council policy. Is that correct? Wilburn/I prefaced that in relation to the Iowa City south arterial, which is clearly listed in the memo that I submitted. Kanner/Ross--- Wilbum/It's right there. Kanner/Ross, let's communicate. I'll answer questions if you answer questions. It's a two-way street, if you want to communicate. We'll have a dialogue here. I'm answering questions that you submitted; I'll go beyond that; but you have to give a little, too. Will you answer questions that I put to you? Wilburn/Why don't you answer my question and if I'm allowed to have a work session in relation to what I wanted. I asked you--- Kanner/Sure, I'm willing to have a work session on that, but I'm putting in the context that it's not.just me that voted wrong. I think I voted correctly. I think that you voted incorrectly, and so that's the perspective, Ross, I think that, first of all, why didn't you call me, if you wanted to answer that question beforehand. I would have answered it, talked to you. So I'll tell you again, I voted against it because I felt it was against City Council policy, and I felt that it had a timeframe of five years for Camp Cardinal Road, and that's why I voted against it. Now, did you realize that we had an amendment that deleted that timeframe that was passed 5 to 2. OK, some people felt it was so important they voted for it. They voted against it, because they did not want to delete it. But did you realize it was deleted, but it was included in the JCCOG arterial street plan? Wilburn/You're not answering my question in relation to the south, the Iowa City south arterial--- Kanner/Ross, that's not relevant. I did not vote, my reason for voting no had nothing to do with that. It had to do with the five-year plan that was included, the five-year timeframe. Wilburn/It's pretty clear that Steven doesn't intend on answering the question that I was directing to him, so I guess I'll leave it up to Council to--- Lehman/ Well, let me just ask is the Camp Cardinal plan in the Capital Improvements Program within the next five years? I believe that was in the plan that was passed by Council. Is that correct? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 60 Wilburn/It's a budget item. Lehman/Is that correct? Wilburn/Well, if it's a budget item. O'Dolmell/It is a budget. Lehman/It is. It was passed by Council in the five-year plan in the budget. Champion/And I think those things that make important we're talking about what Steven is his reason for voting against is that we all know that when we put things in a Capital Improvement Plan, five years, ten years, two years, that that's a very fluid number, and it's actually kind of meaningless. It's kind of a goal, but every year we move things forward, we move things backward; it's not written in stone, it's not obligations. So, Steven, I have a hard time accepting that reason for voting against it, because it's very fluid. Kanner/Fluid? I'd--- Lehman/ Well, it is in the five-year plan. Kanner/It may be in the five-year plan. Lehman/It was passed by the Council in the five-year plan. Kanner/Well, Ernie, then why did you vote to remove it from the timeframe? Lehman/Was it in the five-year plan? Kanner/Ernie, let me ask you a question. Why did you vote to remove the timeframe of five years? Lehman/Because the timeframe in the proposal wasn't five years, but that's not relevant. The relevancy... Kanner/ I thought relevant... Lehman/ ...here is whether or not you voted in accordance and here's the resolution that the Council passed. If you voted in accordance with Council policy, Council has the Camp Cardinal Road along with the rest of that in an accepted plan. You voted against it. Is that correct? Kanner/You--- This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 61 Lehman/Timeframe, no timeframe, it wasn't--- Kanner/No, there's no timeframe. That's the only point that--- Lehman/It's in the five-year timeframe. Kanner/Emie, do you pick and choose which things are Council policy? The latest thing that we had as Council policy is that there's no timeframe which in my mind says I voted for this because there wasn't a timeframe, which meant that when we vote for this arterial plan, them was a five-year timeframe. Was there or was there not a timeframe listed in the arterial plan with JCCOG? Lehman/Yeah, but that--- Wilburn/That's getting away from the fact that this is an (can't hear) Karmer/Did you vote against it? Lehman/The question here, folks, because this discussion may or may not go anywhere. O'Donnell/Going nowhere. Lehman/If there are four people here who feel that Mr. Kanner's vote was against Council policy, indicate that, and we'll put it on the agenda for resolution at the next Council meeting. Are there four? There are five. We will put that on the agenda for the next Council. Wilburn/And if I could finish and direct response, Steven, to asking why I didn't come to you, there were several of us that after that meeting felt that it had the appearance of voting against Council policy and so this is an appropriate place to ask that question. If your question is why I didn't give you a heads-up, to be frank, Steven, that's a courtesy that I seldom see you give to staff when you're demanding different reports on Council meeting nights and it's something that I've seen you not extend to Council, so--- Kanner/Actually, I try to call, I've never received phone calls from a lot of people on Council, and I put more effort into reaching, Ross, I don't think that's a fair statement. Of course, you're going to say that's the way I see it. Wilburn/That's the way a lot of people see it when they watch you make demands for different reports and staff are standing there without specific information that you could have very easily requested for them to have at a Council. It's a matter of courtesy that you're, like I said, my take is that I seldom see you do that. But the more important thing was it's something that several of us felt had the appearance of being contrary to, in effect, both of those items, I believe, were contrary to City Council policy. Kanner/So did you talk with others on how you planned to bring that up at the last meeting? This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 62 Wilbum/I sure did. Karmer/What? Wilburn/Yes, I should. Kanner/With who did you talk about it? Wilburn/I talked with other Council Members. Lehman/Well, I don't think that any of this, this conversation isn't relevant. Kanner/Did you plan that out? Wilburn/I talked with Council Members that I felt that I should talk to. Kauner/And which ones did you do that? Wilburn/Whichever ones ! felt. You've talked to Council Members yourself. I don't ask you--- Kanner/Did you plan this as a group? How'many people planned this? Lehman/This will be on the agenda--- Wilbum/I informed Council and I informed the Mayor that I was going to bring this up at the work session, that I was going to ask a question of Council. Kanner/Did you plan it with like three or four other people? Wilburn/Do you plan with your other people whether, for what you bring up during Council? Kanner/I plan, ifI plan with three other people, I do that at Council time at the formal meeting. Lehman/People, look, look, look---. Excuse me, this is going nowhere. We will discuss this. It will be on the agenda at the next Council meeting. COUNCIL TIME Lehman/The next item on the agenda is Council time. Is there any discussion on Council time? Vanderhoef/If I might. Lehman/Yes. Vanderhoef/I forgot to bring it up at the time that we were talking about the appointments for This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 63 the Airport Zoning Commission and the Airport, the other commission. Anyway, I talked with Sue Dulek this afternoon and she represents the airport. It appears something that she didn't put in the memo to all of us was that the five-member commission is made up of two people from Coralville, two people from Iowa City, and an appointed chairman, and that this is set by state law. Because otherwise--- Dilkes/No, two people from the, Dee, two people from the County and two people from Iowa City, who then pick the chair. Vanderhoef/She told me the other way. Dilkes/No. Well, whoever, whatever. We don't need to talk about who said what, she said whatever--- Vanderhoef/Whatever, we have to keep it at a five-person commission because of the state law, because otherwise I was thinking well, we've got three, maybe we could move it down to a three-member commission. The one commission has not met for a long time; the other one is in the middle of a project. She suspects that once this project is done, that it might be a long time before that one. So, I don't know where we go with this in trying to establish these commissions. When I talk to people about it, they'll say, well, how often does it meet? And I have to say it doesn't happen very often. And if there's someone that's interested in serving on a commission for the City, then they're interested in having some activity and some things to do. So, I don't know how we can change it. Right now, we can't change it. Kanner/One thing we can do since it doesn't meet too often is appoint two Council Members to the committee if we wanted to. That's one way to deal with it. Dilkes/I think the resolution might, I'd have to look at it, but I think we have a resolution that may not allow that. Vanderhoef/I wondered. Dilkes/Like that one that came up for the Senior Center appointment, the County appointment. Lehman/Right. Kanner/I had something. Lehman/Yes, go ahead. Kanner/Steve, when is the water plant opening? When are we going to get water from there? Atkins/We would hope--(laughter from several)--and I apologize for doing a little tap-dancing on it--we would hope first of the year. The system is going to change dramatically, in the sense that flows will become reversed because of the location of the plant. And there are This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002. September 23, 2002 Council Work Session Page 64 a number of unknowns in the fieldwork. Operationally, it's going through. It's in shakedown process right now. I've asked Chuck to try to put together something to give us a better schedule for you, but if all goes well, we would hope it would be producing water after the first of the year. Champion/Does anybody know what the latest is on Scott Boulevard? Atkins/The boulevard is still on schedule for November 1st. O'Donnell/I have a question, too. We had a League of Cities meeting up in Cedar Rapids, and I understand that, did you spend the night up there, Steven? Kanner/Mm...hmm. O'Donnell/I don't think we need a policy for this Council, but I think that any time that we travel and we're 25 minutes away from home, then we shouldn't expect the taxpayers to pick up a room. Now, like I said, I don't think we need a resolution on this, but I think we need to use good judgment. At a time when we're cutting funding to almost everybody, I just think that's an abuse and misuse of taxpayer dollars. Kanner/Yeah, I thought about it and probably I won't do it next time. I haven't taken too many trips, but there were some late events and then some early-morning events, and I felt it was worthwhile. I probably won't do it again next time. O'Donnell/My point is there are thousands of people who commute from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City and Iowa City to Cedar Rapids on a daily basis for work, and I just think that sets the wrong example, especially in days when we're cutting funding. Kanner/And that's one of the reasons I did decide not to go the second night, so I cut it back to one night. O'Donnell/Well, I just hope that, I know League of Cities meetings are important and I know that people get a lot of good out of them, but I just think we need to use better judgment in the future, and that goes for the whole Council. Lehman/Anything else for Council time? See you tomorrow night. This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting of September 23, 2002.