HomeMy WebLinkAbout1978-03-28 CorrespondenceM1l:RUFILMLD BY JORM MICROLAB
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/ 'CEIVED N !R 19 1 IM � MAR2 11978
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ABBIE STOLFUS
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MILRUHLMED BY JORM MILROLAB
April 5, 1978
Ms. Judith J. Felder
1731.Gleason Drive
Iowa City, Iowa 52240
Dear Ms. Felder:
• LEDAk RAPIUS AND UES IIuiI+L:,, 'Ue
At its regular meeting of March 28, 1978, the City Council received and
placed on file your letter concerning the no -smoking ordinance. Others
have expressed favorable comments about the ordinance and, no doubt, would
agree with your comments. The ordinance has been amended to add a new
section 7 which provides that violation of the ordinance is not a mis-
demeanor. With the addition of this new section, the ordinance was again
considered for the first reading at the April 4 meeting of the City Council.
Thank you for expressing your support of this ordinance. If you should have
further comments or questions about this or any other matter, please do not
hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely yours,
Weal G. Berlin
City Manager
Is
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111CRUfILMCm By
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FtiLi(W li-ALU BY JOIhM MICROLAB
CEDAR RAi'IUS ANU UL
Reader, corn meat— 4ECEIVED MAR 1 3 1978
I.C. Press -Citizen 2-23-78 --aboutcity landuse
To the Editor: that appear on the preliminary land use- Longfellow School and the Creekside
map. A good example of this is in my playground are nearby.
Last week we had our first look at area where a green circle on the map - -
Iowa City's preliminary land use map. I indicates that the planners recommend with regard to the other proposed
was very disappointed when I saw that that at some future date the city use, as neighborhood •parks in established
the different zones (or uses) were a neighborhood park, the land between areas in other parts of the city, I have
identified by color instead of by letter Grant Street and Rundell Street, south no information as to how many
and number (Rl, C2, etc.) as has of Court Street to the Rock Island properties the city might need to
always been done here in the past. At tracks, with Ralston Creek running the acquire and take from the tax rolls, nor
one of the neighborhood meetings we long way through the center. how many families would need to.
j were told that the zoning map might be relocate.
in color too. I Before the city could use that land as ,
a park, they would first need to acquire In his State of the City message, the
I wondered how the abstract com- and 'takefrom the tax rolls ap- honorable mayor, Bob Vevera, told us
panics would handle that when bringing proximately 68 one -family homes, four that the city 'is running short of funds
abstracts down to date. I talked with a duplexes; and about six vacant lots. At and that we will need to "tighten our
friend who had many years experience present prices I estimate the cost would belts." There would be no better place
in an abstract office and was told that if be more than $2 million. About 76 to -begin than by having the planners
our zoning may is in color that probably families would need to be relocated. By remove from the land use map all of the
the only thing the abstract companies the time the buildings were demolished, costly, non-essential projects that the
would be able to do would be to do as the land cleared and the families city couldn't afford at any time during
they are now doing when bringing' relocated; the total could easily be near the next 200 years, -
abstracts on rural properties down to- $3 million. For this large sum we would
• '• date. The county zoning map is said to have a' neighborhood park that ap-
be so badly messed up that the ab- parently nobody, wants, and that isn't Della A. Gr@el'
• stractors merely indicate on the ab' needed because the mint -park at ., .1530 Sheridan Ave.
stract that the county passed a zoning ... ..,_ ..:...
ordinance on a certain date and that it
is on file at a certain place. The buyer ,
and the loan company are then on their (larch 13, 1978
own, to figure It out for themselves.
1 with the thousands upon thousands of
i dollars that the city Is spending on the The Honorable (Mayor:
land use map and the zoning plan and
map, we taxpayers have a right to I want it to go on record that I
i expect that we will have maps that we '
can understand, as we have always had definitely concur with the above comment,
v
In the past.'I doubt very much whether y ntin
this can be done if the planners try to
,designate the different zones by using and that I am adamantly opposed to the
18 different colors (In addition to black) -
instead of by letter and number. Nlanv - use of land between Grant and Rundell
i of us sure can't figure out that first i
map. Streets for a neighborhood park or
I am also concerned about the large
number of costly, non-essential projects i multi -family dwellings.
FJLE�
R2 0 1918
:IBBIE STOLFUS
CITY CLERK
Sincerely,
P. S. I was at the meeting referred toy
in the first paragraph of Ms. Grizel's
comment.
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JORM MICR(�LA6
IIHISS NQ A. FaANL
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IOWA CITY, Inns
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To: .:ember= of the City Council
John Balmer
Caro' deProsse
Clemens nrdahl
Mery Seuheuser
David Ferret
Glenn Roberts
Mayor Robert Vevera
CEDAR RAPIDS AND ULS AUL',L,, iUdl1
RECEIVE"' 1 71978
619 Brown Street
March 16, 1978
u
MAR2 01978 ILI IJI
ABBIE STOLrU J
CITY CLERK
During my years on the Council, I used to wince at people who
wrote me lone letters and then came to Council meetings to read them
aloud -- for the benefit of the press. Here's a long letter you can
read on your own time. It's on effort to be helpful, not a bid for
publicity. It's about the north side of Iowa City, where •..•e've lived
for a long time, and it represents one citizen's views about various
neichborhood problems, all of which are on your agenda in one form
or another.
On -street narking. The glut of cars, parked along both curbs of
narrow streets, now is neighborhood -wide. The problem has grown
steadily with the increase of residential living units throughout
the area. The problems thus created focus attention on a two-part
question of city policy: (1) To what extent should the city permit
public ric:hts-of-way to subsidise the parking needs of neighborhood
i residents? (2) Is a higher subsidy justified in some neighborhoods
than in others? As an old compromiser, I suspect that a reasonable
policy could say that the city will never exceed a 50% subsidy, on
streets of less than a specified width, in any residential neighbor-
hood of the city. Such a policy might be more understandable and
acceptable to most people than various other policies. 'tlhich would
open the way to extending calendar parking (already in use on many
streets) throughout the north side -- and it would need to be an area -
wide action, to forestall the simple transfer of parking overloads to
the nearest .:n -gale -.d --rod .s.. -eats in the =oae n_ighborhocd. if lez;all
possible, such a policy could be enacted to become effective 90 or 120
days hence, thus giving area residents sone time to consider various
alternatives in meeting their overnight and long-term parking needs.
Those who fear that removing half the preoent loud of cars might
lead to excessive speeds an residential Ftreets might ponder the off-
settinc benefits of smoother traffic flow, greater maneuverability,
innroved winter snow clearance and much greater year-round fire -truck
availability. Under present conditions, 1 doubt that the city could
easily win a damage suit brought by a north -side resident whose fire
damage was heightened by the fire deportment's inability to get ouickly
and safely to his front door Lecruse of narrow single-lnne traffic
arteries in the vicinity.
force weeks ego, you heard e presentation by University urban
planners, one of whom purported to reflect the concerns of Brown street
573
-P 141CROMMEO BY
I
JORM MICRI LAS
Ir9M' Prim. . 'VC .101.1!
Ml i1 kOfIL&U BY JORM MICROLAB
CEDAR RAPIDS AIIU Jt� :4OihL,, :0411
-2-
residents about the "speed nroblen" on that street. What Brown :street
residents= Apart from the _`'act thet •delve lived nearly 27 years here
end had never heard of the plarnor, let clone heard from the planner,
I can assure you tha '..wry Neuhauser was right when s're observed that
anyone going 40 mph on Brown street under existing conditions would
"bortom out." Such a driver would also run the risk of head-on
collision, since it is now imperative that if you meet an oncoming
car in the single traffic Lena or. any block of Brown street between
Gilbert end Codge, you must be prepared either to (1) bock up or
(2) brazen it out until the other driver backs up. '.-/hen all the car
owners who park on brown street are home in bed, traffic on the street
crawls, simp'-y because it can neither run nor walk.
Dwelling -unit density. It is one thing to be able legally to
remodel an older home to convert its original interior into two or
three opertments. This tends to increase papuloticn density, but
it doesn't alter the basic nor visual character of the neighborhood.
It is quite another thing to be able legally to obliterate an original
home with contiguous additions for several families, or to be able
legally to acquire one or two neighboring homes, demolish them and
construct an apartment house, of whatever size. These actions do
alter the character of the neighborhood, both visually and in terms
of Greater increases in populotion density. These things were happen-
inc, at almost a falling -domino tempo, prior to the moratorium. The
trend will recommence and accelerate unless the Council redefines the
rules. A firm redefinition is necessary if residents of the north
I side are to be encouraged to improve their own homes and neighborhood.
Increasingly in recent years, single family 'tomes in north Iowa
-� City have been acquired by owners (including younger people) who care
very much about older homes, and about the neighborhood around them.
There has been an amazing improvement going on in our area, at certain
addresses which had been sadly neglected for yenr.r,,. It is self-defeating
to this kind of neighborhood renovation if the properties adjoining such
an improving residence can easily be replaced by a new apartment struc-
ture. The threat is not only to the dedicated home -improver; the new
structure likewise represents a permanent change in the character of
the whole street and neighborhood.
To the extent that apartment construction is permitted anywhere in
on older residential neighborhood, the effect is softened in ratio,to
the amount of open greenspnce required by the rropropri.ste ordinance to
separate an apartment from neichborino land uses. Presently, all over
the north side, apartment structures are being sandwiched in among
single-family hones with virtually no greenspnce at all. Nor should
off-street parking aprons qualify for greenspnce.
A cl?ssic exnmple of mixed metaphors in neighborhood housing is
surnlied by the 29 -unit apartment structure nn Dodge street north of
Brown, which introduced n complete incongruity into the residential
neighborhood landscape. The most unbelicvnble feature of that out-
size development is thnt it could actually be approved to stand scarcely
T Y" IdICROf ILMED 6Y
JORM MICR+LAB
rMAD P.nr lm . 'IIS 'dDl�ifS.
MII.i2OFILMEO BY JORM 1.11CROLAB
CEDAR ROM AND uL, blul:iL"
Ha. Hap ,Hollow nloygrourd. As an important unit in our overall
Parks and Dlsyground system,
the whole cit Happy Hollow is an enormous asset to
y, not just the north side neighborhood. To assure its
continuing values as a park/playground, it needs to be protected from
ineopropriate adjacent land uses. By next summer, it's my prediction
that dwellers in the large apartment unit mentioned above
to complain about the plawill begin
noise, particularly the cheering of
happy fens at the evening softball games,
livery ballDame evening, the
crescendos of Happy Hollow cheering are bound to rise directly to their
very windows. What has happened here has been the introduction into
an established area of a development which is undesirable from the
standpoint of both park/playground users and new apartment dwellers.
The single improvement to Happy
opinion, do more than any other Hollow itself which would, in my
to strengthen its permanent values to
the city would be the city's acquisition over time (if not at -one time)
Of the properties at the corner of Dodge and brown streets, thus ex-
tending Happy Hollow's frontage the full lencth of Brown from Dodge
to Governor and opening the park to full view from Dodge street. This
modest lend addition to the Dark would permanently improve an impor-
tant recreational and visual asset in the northern sector of the city,
and it would serve to eliminate the paten tinl for future conflict be-
tween residential and park uses in that location.
Dodge -Governor one -ways, I flipped my lid when I read of the sug-
gestion which had been node t° you that the return of these streets to
two-way traffic might imorove the north -side situation.
volumes a decade ego were the Wow! Traffic
Council's justification for both the
Dodge -Governor and Jefferson -!Market pairs. The ell -season dangers of
the Dodge street hill, vastly multiplied every winter, were a further
justification for the Dodge -Governor couple. Are traffic volumes less,
and that long and curvy Dodge street hill somehow safer today?
Through the years, I've become more experienced then I really went
to be in upper Dodge street accidents. Many of them happen about 100 ft.
from our back door. And they still happen. Most of them are caused
(usually late at night) by drivers "under the influence" who make the
slight miscalculation of thinking they've gone round the third curve
on Dodge when they've really only cone round the second. No particular
traffic pattern will correct that problem. In the old days, two-way
traffic made the situation worse because of the added risks to innocent
north -bound drivers..
y.... E`er.-,...--•---
I•IICROFILMED BY
JORM MICR+LAB
M)AP ItJP,n'. 9C°. }10!;11'5
-3-
a dozen feat from the
the single-family
upstairs/downstairs windows
and Lack door
of
residence
served to decrease the
n>:t door. 1 2 ver a
sine}e_- e
new housing unit
noarby, this unit did,
,, tamily values of residential
and does,
properties
dinances (including larga_scal_•
4ih ir.h sugcerta
that the zoning
or-
certain that realistic
residential) need
buffs• r
tightening, to
make
permit rerui
} rement�.
`^nes of °pen space
ere built into
the
Ha. Hap ,Hollow nloygrourd. As an important unit in our overall
Parks and Dlsyground system,
the whole cit Happy Hollow is an enormous asset to
y, not just the north side neighborhood. To assure its
continuing values as a park/playground, it needs to be protected from
ineopropriate adjacent land uses. By next summer, it's my prediction
that dwellers in the large apartment unit mentioned above
to complain about the plawill begin
noise, particularly the cheering of
happy fens at the evening softball games,
livery ballDame evening, the
crescendos of Happy Hollow cheering are bound to rise directly to their
very windows. What has happened here has been the introduction into
an established area of a development which is undesirable from the
standpoint of both park/playground users and new apartment dwellers.
The single improvement to Happy
opinion, do more than any other Hollow itself which would, in my
to strengthen its permanent values to
the city would be the city's acquisition over time (if not at -one time)
Of the properties at the corner of Dodge and brown streets, thus ex-
tending Happy Hollow's frontage the full lencth of Brown from Dodge
to Governor and opening the park to full view from Dodge street. This
modest lend addition to the Dark would permanently improve an impor-
tant recreational and visual asset in the northern sector of the city,
and it would serve to eliminate the paten tinl for future conflict be-
tween residential and park uses in that location.
Dodge -Governor one -ways, I flipped my lid when I read of the sug-
gestion which had been node t° you that the return of these streets to
two-way traffic might imorove the north -side situation.
volumes a decade ego were the Wow! Traffic
Council's justification for both the
Dodge -Governor and Jefferson -!Market pairs. The ell -season dangers of
the Dodge street hill, vastly multiplied every winter, were a further
justification for the Dodge -Governor couple. Are traffic volumes less,
and that long and curvy Dodge street hill somehow safer today?
Through the years, I've become more experienced then I really went
to be in upper Dodge street accidents. Many of them happen about 100 ft.
from our back door. And they still happen. Most of them are caused
(usually late at night) by drivers "under the influence" who make the
slight miscalculation of thinking they've gone round the third curve
on Dodge when they've really only cone round the second. No particular
traffic pattern will correct that problem. In the old days, two-way
traffic made the situation worse because of the added risks to innocent
north -bound drivers..
y.... E`er.-,...--•---
I•IICROFILMED BY
JORM MICR+LAB
M)AP ItJP,n'. 9C°. }10!;11'5
i
14ILROFILMED BY JORM 14ICROLAB
CEDAR RADIUS AHU ULS 14UlHL,, :vnn
MIR
Dodre and Governor are much more thou neighborhood streets. They
represent 50'/ of the entire city's access to a major interstate -high-
way. As such, the most certain ways to protect both their neighbor-
hood and city-wide values is to keep them well-mainrained, well -
policed against excessive speeding, and as visually attractive as
possible, meanwhile resisting any and every private pressure to
develop new traffic generators along the streets themselves. Which
is why I abandoned my post -council low orofile stance several months
ago, just long enough to appear before P&Z to plead with them not to
recommend expanding the CH zone at the head of Dodge street to permit
a new HyVee-drug store comolex at that location. Dodge and Governor
are destined to perpetual service as both neighborhood collector and
.. major arterial streets. As. such, they deserve the city's protection
from further commercialism and from zoning which permits high-density
apartment development along their courses. The whole city will bene-
fit from the Council's vigilance in these regards. And assuredly, so
will the north -side neighborhood.
Trucks on neighborhood streets. When Scott boulevard is developed
to provide a direct connection to Interstate #80 at the existing county
road interchange; and when Highway #1 is connected to Freeway #518
extended to the south, we'll begin to see a reduction in heavy trucking
on our residential streets, particularly Dodge, Governor and Kirkwood.
New and direct arterial links with the major industrial -commercial
areas along Highway #6 in south Iowa City will be regarded as blessings
by every cross-country trucker who services those areas, as well as by
residents along the above-mentioned streets.. May all join together -to
speed the blessings.
Thanks for listeninc.
Very sincerely,
Loren Hickerson
11
VC c; City Manager Ne61 Berlin
IdICROr ILMED BY
JORM MICR+LAB
ffPAR ItA �': "`. • nfS =10!Yf.S
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i
14IU<OFILME0 BY JORM 141CROLAB
CLOAK RAPIDS AND DES Au1:4u, :wl,
3/17178
To Whom It May Concern:
NOTICE is hereby given that the City of Iowa City, Iowa, proposes
to enter into a lease agreement with the United States of America (USA)
concerning property leased by the USA at the Iowa City Airport for an
Army Reserve Center.
In the agreement the USA proposes to relinquish the easternmost
24.5 feet of the parcel leased on November 3, 1958, for the Army
Reserve Center.* A copy of the Agreement is now on file in the office
of the City Clerk. For further particulars contact Robert H. Bowlin,
Asst. City Attorney, 354-1800.
*The easternmost 24.5 feet is more particularly described as
follows:
Beginning at a point on the north line of the Army Reserve Training
Center Site and on the westerly Right -of -Way line of the relocated Highway
No. 218, which point is 35.5 feet westerly from the center line of the
relocated Highway No. 218; thence N. 88047' E to a point on the easterly
line of the Army Reserve Training Center Site, which point is 75 feet
westerly from the centerline of old Highway No. 218; thence southerly
along a line parallel to and 75 feet westerly from the centerline of
old Highway No. 218 to a point on the southerly line of the Army Reserve
Training Center Site; thence S. 88047' W to the westerly Right -of -Way
line of the relocated Highway N. 218; thence northerly along the said
westerly Right -of -Way line of the relocated Highway No. 218 to the point
of beginning.
A public hearing on this proposed lease agreement will be held at
7:30 P.M. in the Council Chambers at the Civic Center, 410 E. Washington
st., Iowa City, Iowa, on Tuesday, March 28, 1978. Persons interested in
this matter will be heard at that time.
Id ICROFILMEa BY
f JORM MICR#LAEI
Crpp . )r, 'dn19r,
MILROFILMED BY JORM MICROLAB CEDAR RAPIDS AND ULS NUINL." luvi"
GROW TO
REACH
ENVIRONMENTAL
EXCELLENCE
NOW
Civic Center, Iowa CitY, Iowa 52240
V
PFFDD% OWE""'TGREEN
March 15, 1978
Mayor Robert Vevera and
Members of the City Council
Civic Center
Iowa City, Iowa 52240
Dear Mayor Vevera and
Members of the City Council:
Ret Project GREEN Trustee appointment
The Steerino Committee of Project GREEN recommends
the reappointment of Nancy Seiberling as Trustee of the
GREEN Fund.
SC%BK
Rlespectfully,
Ber ie Knight, \ `
Steering Committee
Project GREEN
1,1ICROFIL14E0 OY
JORM MICR+LOB
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