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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-08-06 Transcription Page 1 Council Present: Alter, Bergus, Dunn, Harmsen, Moe, Salih, Teague Staff Present: Fruin, Lehmann, Goers, Grace, Russett, Varley, Carter, Others Present: Carol, USG(fill in) 1. Clarification of Agenda Items Teague: It is now 4:00 P.M. On August 6, 2024, and I'm going to call the City of Iowa City work session to order. Our first welcome to everyone that is present here in the building, and welcome back Mayor Pro Tem. Salih: Give thanks. Teague: Yes. We're going to go on to Item number 1,which is clarification of agenda items. Hearing none. 2. Information Packet Discussions [July 18, July25,August 11 Teague: We're going to move on to Items 2. which is the information packet. Discussions,we'll go to July 18th. Alter: I need to pull it up,hang on. Teague: Okay. Alter: I'm not sure if this is on. I need to pull this up. Teague: Okay. Alter: Folks can. Tague: I'll go ahead and we'll be able to do multiple at one. July 25th. Moe: Yeah, I'd like to just point out IP number 5, our joint entities meeting. I think a lot of us over there focused heavily on the pop up Metro discussion. I know Council Bergus has been done a lot of work on that,but I'm going to go see it firsthand and so if anyone has questions or wants to understand how it works or doesn't work,please send those questions my way. I'm happy to report back at our following meeting here again. Teague: Great. Thank you. Thank you for attending. We'll move on to August 1st,which we do have some proposed council meeting schedules. Moe: Yeah. That's IP 7? I think the proposed meeting schedule. I'd like to propose that we meet on January 25th, as opposed to the previous weekend,justbecause January 20 is MLK day. I think a lot of people Teague: Sure. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 2 Moe: Get together with families to travel that weekend, so it might not be the best weekend for us to do a budget meeting. Dunn: Do you say that one more time, apologies? Teague: Yeah. Moe: IP number 7 from the August 1 proposes our January meeting schedule. The top proposed full day Saturday budget the first one on the list is the Saturday immediately before the Monday of Martin Luther King Day, I believe and so I just think that moving it to the second choice on that list is probably might get better attendance for people who might be traveling. Salih: Could I mean they I Ith? Moe: 25th of January would be the day I'd propose? Harmsen: From the 18th to the 25th? Moe: Yes. Teague: I guess that'd be a question. The staff don't have-have to answer now,um,if that seems possible. Fruin: Yeah. All these have been reviewed with staff. Alter: Um, I think this is IP 2 for August 1st. It's the work session. Is that? Well, I guess it's my question because I think that's the work session agenda for current. That's for today. I was just looking to see where there would be a possibility to request a pending work session topic,where that might fit in. Teague: Oh,yeah so you can do that now. Alter: Okay. Harmsen: But can we finish talking about that schedule change? Alter: Sure sorry. Teague: Oh, sure. Harmsen: I do have a conflict that looks like on January 25th, which I might not be able to shift around. But I mean, I- I don't trying to fill up the right thing here. My computer is a little slow,but the other possible date was February 1 st, one of those possible dates. Salih: That's okay. Harmsen: Saturday the first? Alter: Isn't that pushing it a bit? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 3 Hammsen: Well, I mean, that's I question that as well. I mean, I hear you,but I think it was on the list. Grace: Okay. The other dates were January,it's Monday, January 13th and Monday January 27th. Fruin: If you recall this past year, we actually switched it to a Monday to-to accommodate schedules so we could Monday works for staff,but I understand it may not be the best option for a full day for many of you. Hammsen: Monday the 13th was one of those? Fruin: Yes. Grace: Yes. Hammsen: That's a possibility. I think by the 27 depending when my semester starts, and I don't know what my class schedule is for next semester. I mean,possibly a Monday will be okay,but I don't know for sure yet. Salih: I don't know during the weekdays because we're working in the morning, so. Does in need, like, really. We don't know what's going to happen like to May 20th like January of 2025, and I- I cannot predict my schedule now now for weekdays. But weekend I'm open to it. Teague: Is it fair to say that we can revisit at least that,uh, maybe November, December, and see if people are closer? Moe: Yeah. Hamrsen: Sure. Hammsen: Fair enough. Salih: That's areal. Teague: We'll revisit,but the plan is to have it in January at some point. Hammsen: I have another calendar issue separate from January when it's appropriate? Okay. Teague: Go right ahead. Hammsen: Spring break week. Um, I think right now we're scheduled to meet right in the middle of that on March 18th.Um, I think that's we should probably move it either the week before or the week after or do something different that month,um,just because not only for those of us that have kids in school, who might have stuff going on,but also for a lot of staff and other people who might-we would keep them from- from taking advantage of family time if we kept our meeting date there. Dunn: Agreed. Hammsen: Now, I don't have a preference which way to go on that. I just not that day. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 4 Teague: This past year, we actually had one meeting in March. Dunn: Let's do that again. Teague: Then that would- so the question becomes, do we kind of shift, uh, to be the second week and not the first week,um, so that we won't-we won't have such a big wide span? Dunn: I think it already is you're talking about the- oh,you're talking about the 1 lth versus the fourth? Teague: Correct. Dunn: Okay. I'd be fine with that. I- I don't mind. Harmsen: Yeah sure. Salih: Yeah. Teague: Okay and then any other concern dates.Now in July, typically, we have. Salih: One meeting. Teague: One meeting, so if we go there, um,because I know we shifted things a little bit the last time. Salih: It will be the 15th. The 15th of July. Teague: So people are okay with going with the 15th? Dunn: I could go either way,with either date. Teague: With the eighth or the 15th? Um, I think the eighth? Salih: Because we're going to have meeting before that on the. Dunn: I'm looking at July 1 and July 15. I don't care with either. What if it works for people. Salih: We'll be having June 17. I think the eight could be possible. The eighth. Teague: People want to go with the eighth? Alter: Sure. Dunn: Sure. Teague: All right so we're going to go with one meeting in July, July 8. Then next year is,um, an election year. Salih: Yes it is. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 5 Teague: So we need to look at that Monday,November 3. Grace: Just shift the. Teague: Yeah, the date. Grace: No, I have. Teague: The day is right,but the date is incorrect. Grace: Yes. Apologies. Teague: Yeah so to be Monday,November 3rd. Salih: To have it on instead of the 4th. Teague: Yeah. Correct. Then I don't know how people feel about December,but in the-if I'm correct, we only have one meeting this year that we agreed to so wonder what people's thoughts are for. Dunn: Second- second week? Teague: December just keep on December 16th? Do people want to go with the ninth? Dunn: Ninth ninth? Salih: The ninth. If somebody going on vacation for the- for the holidays. That would be good. Harmse: The ninth is fine. Alter: Sure. Teague: All right we're going to go with December 9. Council the other two dates. Any other questions or concerns? Dunn: Just one more question. We decided we would revisit January. Teague: The budget date in a future date. Dunn: Okay cool. Teague: Which just to put in the back of our minds,if there is an opportunity for a weekday, um, maybe a Monday or a Saturday. Salih: By that time, we'll know our, like, schedule so. Teague: All right and I don't know if there's a preference,but, um, the Monday did kind of worked out last year, so especially for our staff. When we consider. Dunn: That's a great consideration. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 6 Teague: All the things that they have to try to juggle. Alter: Prep, and then they Yes. Dunn: Well, I might just be taking PTO. That's fine. Teague: All right any other agenda items from July 18th, July 25th, or August 1st? Alter: Well. Like I said, I do want to propose, um. Teague: Sure. Alter: Pending work topic,uh, I would like to revisit,um, the conversation that we had regarding, uh, the on street parking downtown, the fee. Teague: Sure. Alter: Is there support? Salih: I will second that. Dunn: I support that. Teague: We'll have it for a future pending session. Alter: Yeah. Teague: Thanks. Fruin: You want date specific or just put it on the panel? Alter: I mean, I know that there has been some back and forth, so about whether to wait or to do it sooner. I- I think it would help to level set sooner rather than wait. Um, simply to- to be able to. Teague: Have a discussion. Alter: Have discussion so we-we can do later. Moe: It seems to me that coordinating that with the leadership of the Downtown District would be helpful. The availability to participate in that work session might be helpful. Whatever that might be. Fruin: I just want to prove into that a minute. If you want them to participate, that's a different ask than just letting them know that. Alter: I mean, they're going to. They are participating in a way. I don't know that. Moe: I think we're all talking to. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 7 Alter: Yeah. I mean, we're talking to them, so I don't know the- the actual like inviting them is a special consultant or guest or I can also is necessary. Dunn: You can also just send us an e mail. Teague: Okay all right. Anything else from the information packets? 3. University of iowa Student Government(USG) Updates Teague: Here and now, we're going to move on to item number 3.University of Iowa Student Government Updates. They are not here today, and oh.Well, hello. I didn't get that memo. Come on- come on up. Welcome. Alter: Wow. Solo outed. Carol: Yes. Hello. I'm filling in for Matthew, who is taking some personal time. I'm Jack Carol. I'm one of our chiefs of staff with student government, so I'm here to,uh,provide some updates and take notes in his stead.Um, so just the general one, we're excited for the return of students. It's about that time of year. Already, some have started trickling in,but obviously in the next week here we'll get even more of them. Um, for the start of the school year, we're looking to start an expanded program that slightly has to do with downtown activity, which is, um, an increased subsidy to ride share, specifically,partnering with Uber, uh, for late night transit for students. That's mostly to offset,uh, long wait times that we're currently having with night ride and student government is doing that in conjunction with campus safety, alcohol harm reduction and just the division of student life in general. Um, so hopefully there are less students who are walking around or walking home,uh, from the Downtown District, uh, late at night, and hopefully that is more focused on safer accommodations. Uh, we're also finalizing our legislative agenda. Mostly we have three points currently that we're working on.Uh, the first being supporting local representatives, uh, for the state delegation in their zoning measures. Mostly, I know that they are going to propose potentially zoning measures related to getting more affordable housing. Um, obviously, we support that because, uh, the more that we have more affordable housing, hopefully, that offsets some student costs to off- off campus housing. Um, as always,we focus on student mental health. That would also be appropriations we coordinate with other regent universities to do that. Um,it's becoming something that we just have to persist at,not that it's a controversial issue,but as everybody knows with state appropriations, sometimes they just don't take the time to, uh, outline that money.Um, so that's a lot of coordination with our counseling services and the other regent universities to see where that can best be spent and how to best propose those.Uh,we don't really have a third item. At the moment we're debating between, uh, the legality of Fentanyl strips. Test strips are currently illegal in the State of Iowa, and that was a surprise to us as well.Um, so we're looking into potentially working with our state delegation on that. Though there may also be some other issues that show up down the line, obviously it's an election year. We're trying to see how that happens, and that plays out first before we start finalizing more of our federal legislative agenda. Um, as I think was just mentioned by Councilor Alter, we asked about,um, student parking specifically during our high volume weeks, which is mostly, um, our finals weeks for the respective semesters, especially the fall semester. A lot of students like to park downtown with the campus being open later, especially with our library system. I know Matthew,um, and Anna, our director of GR, started the initial conversations with Geoff about what that potentially might look like to get done either reduced rates or just a flat rate This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 8 for student parking for that week and so happy to hear that that got brought up. I believe that is all the updates I currently have, so thank you. Teague: Great. Thank you. Thank you for sitting in for them. 4. Staff presentaion on the $3.75 million PRO Housing Federal Grant Award Teague: All right we're going to move on to Item 4.,which is staff presentation on the $3.75 million PRO Housing Federal Grant Award, and I see Anne Russett, our senior planner. Russett: Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council.Anne Russett, with Neighborhood and Development Services. I just have a brief presentation to provide you with an update on where we're at and a little bit of background. Um, this was, as you're all aware, a funding opportunity issued by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. They had $85 million in competitive grant funding. The grant was created to support communities taking steps to remove barriers to affordable housing,including regulatory barriers, such as outdated zoning regulations and land use policies. On October 17th, um,we presented to your council our application for a PRO Housing grant.Uh,you all approved us moving forward with that application where we requested $5.6 million from HUD. This slide summarizes the activities outlined in our application, as well as the associated grant budget. There were several planning related activities that we included in the application. These included a parking study and an associated text amendment to our Zoning Code.Um, specifically, the parking standards in our Zoning Code, funds to help support our comprehensive plan update, and a city initiated rezoning to accommodate higher densities,just to name a few of those. We also included a pilot Affordable Housing Develpment Project, and that,you can see here is the biggest ticket item on this list at 5.8 million.Um, as part of our grant application,we were also required to include a summary of what we would spend the money on if we only received 50- 50%of our request. Um, this column here is the 100%request that we submitted, and this is what we said we would do if we only received 50% of our grant request. Our application anticipated that certain activities would not move forward if we didn't receive full funding. Those included the accessory dwelling unit incentive program, as well as the immediate housing assistant program. Other activities like the Development project would also be reduced. We received notice in late June that we were one of 21 communities in the country to receive a grant award,uh, and we were awarded $3.75,000,000. And the notification from HUD that we received did recognize that we didn't receive our full grant request, and it stated that we could revise our scope of work as contemplated in our grant application. So we don't know exactly what our revised scope of work and our budget will look like. However,based on correspondence from HUD, the revised budget should align with what we submitted with our grant application. Um, HUD has also said that they will assist us with aligning our activities with the award amount to ensure that there's consistency with our application. We do anticipate that it will look similar to the 50%, um, funding proposal that we submitted with our grant application. In terms of timeline and next steps,we did hear from HUD last week. They are going to be hosting two webinars this month, one on August 20th and one on August 27th with the award recipients. In terms of execution of our grant agreement, we will be receiving notification from HUD prior to those webinars, um, and we will receive our grant agreement, and we'll have 10 days to execute that. We- at this point,we don't know what when our start date is,but the money must be spent by the end of fiscal year 2029. So there's still a lot of unknowns at this point. I think once we have the webinars with HUD, we'll be able to,um, get a lot more information. Um,with the grant agreement,we'll have, um, more clarity on the scope This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 9 in the budget as well.Um,but that's all I have for you at this time. I'm happy to take any questions. Alter: So does it mean when they said that they would actually- essentially make it right so that there was an alignment with the money and our reduced proposal, they're basically upping the award amount,is that correct? Or they're going to work to try to make sure that we can do all of the pieces,but at the budget that they awarded us? Russett: They're- they're just going to help us assist us with revising our scope in our budget. Alter: Okay. Russett: But what their correspondence has said,it should align with our grant proposal. And since we didn't get the full funding, there's going to be components of our proposal that will not be funded. Alter: Okay. Russett: Yeah. Salih: But you have to use which one you want to reduce, right? Russett: Yeah. And we've actually already, through our application,have identified which activities we would not fund. Teague: And, I saw those activities,you know, um, that we wouldn't fund like the ADUs, that makes sense to me that we-we would just kind of vacate that.Um, and I didn't have any concerns by what, um,would not be included even the pilot project is would be reduced and what we said we would do. So I feel comfortable with that, knowing that we do have,um, affordable housing funds that,you know, it'll remain within that pot of money. Um, so I'm- I'm comfortable with moving forward, and looking forward to actually hearing back about what HUD finally says that we can kind of do. So we'll just be I guess,just finalized in the approach and what we're going to do because we are going to have to line, um-um,up some outsiders to kind of help us with some of those studies. Russett: Yeah. Yeah,we will. Teague: Need to do, as well. Salih: I was doing the maths and looking at the numbers. And I find out that, like,it's-the assistant is 750,000, which is you're going to remove and another item which is 500,000,you're going to remove, if I'm correct. Yeah, that's really going-because I don't want, like, a lot of money to remove from the Pilot affordable housing, the project itself. So it seemed like we can just take from there around 500. Is that what you guys looking for or? Russett: So you're saying for the Pilot Affordable Housing Develpment Project to reduce that as little as possible? Salih: Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 10 Russett: Okay. Salih: You know, like, don't take a lot of money from here. Russett: Okay. Salih: Because that's the actual project. Russett: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Salih: We already removed the 500 and the 700 removed. But you have the reduced and reduced. Russett: Yeah. And the second reduced is just project Admin. Salih: Yes. Russett: But yeah, this is the- okay. Alter: And certainly, are there ways to leverage I know that,you know, looking at affordable housing and its needs. Er,uh, without trying to get in the weeds or micromanage. I mean, like a regional housing needs study are. Is there ways that maybe that also could be reduced by leveraging sort of studies that have been done already? Russett: That's possible. That's possible. We could probably leverage some of the planning-related activities. Those are the lowest kind of ticket items. Alter: I know. I know. Russett: Um,but we can-we can definitely look at it. Alter: It's just and it's-honestly I don't have a-ultimately,yes, the entire council has a stake in this. But in terms of being able to figure out how to make those further reductions,you know, I do have faith that,you know, these are suggestions to you, and I agree with Mayor Pro Tem that we'd like to keep as much for the actual,um,incentive or I'm sorry, I'm looking at at the Housing Develpment Project. Russett: Yeah. Alter: Um,you know, so it's kind of carving off a little here, a little there to be able to make up for it. But, um,you know, certainly,you're the ones who know what studies need to be done and whatnot, so I'm just tossing that out as a suggestion. Russett: Okay. Thank you. Salih: And for the City Affordable Housing Fund match, we see the 2,000,850.you know, I think the staff will know better if this is you full fund this or it's better to use this money for something else. Because the money is we're going to allocate it to affordable housing anyway. But sometime, yeah, if they full fund the program,you said you're going to give matches with 2,000,850. But right now I think the staff should make the best decision. Is it good to be here or somewhere else? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 11 Russett: Yeah. And I guess I would say to that with-with our grant application, we submitted that both under the 100%proposal and the 50%, that the city's match would be that 2.85 million. Salih: Yeah,but with full fund. Russett: And 50% of funds. Salih: Oh,really, even 50%. Russett: Yeah. Salih: Okay. I wasn't aware of that. Russett: Yeah. Yeah. Moe: And can you- can you speak to how this, I'm sorry. Goers: Well, my only question about that was, if I understood the Mayor Pro Terns comments was maybe we would reduce some of the items that we indicated would be fully funded even if we receive 50% of grant funding? My question- let me pause,is that your question? Salih: Yeah. My question is, do we still have to provide the 2 million. The 50%that we said initially, we're going to do it. Goers: Right. So as a related matter, my question to Anne, and I haven't reviewed this application is whether or not we are committed when said that this is what we would do. If we only received 50%, do you feel like we're committed to stick with what we said we would do? Russett: I think especially if we don't want to reduce the- the amount for the Affordable Housing Develpment Project. We're going that-we're going to need that fund to help support that project specifically. And we can ask HUD if we are not obligated to that 2.85 million. Yeah. But we did put it in the application. Goers: Right. That's why I asked. But yeah, I mean, the conversation with HUD would give us an answer. Salih: Yes. I guess to know if we are obligated or not. Russett: Right. Salih: Of course,you know if he's obligated, that's it. Yeah. Moe: Can you speak to how many of these studies up here are aligned with the ongoing comprehensive plan revisions, and if there are some overlaps or some sort of synchronicities that help us, or are they really separate efforts? Russett:No, I think they were-we were going to be doing a comprehensive plan update,regardless of whether we received this funding or not. And we were going to be doing the regional housing needs study as well as part of the consolidated plan and the comprehensive plan. The parking This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 12 study is a big one. That's the $250,000 one that we would not have funds for without this grant. Um, and the City initiated rezoning to accommodate higher density housing is something that we had hoped to do after the comprehensive plan update was completed. But we don't really have it in our budget at this point. Moe: And we'll have the data from these- these studies that come from this HUD grant before or while we're doing the plan. Russett: It'll be part of it. So we're going to use the funds from this grant to help support the comprehensive plan update. Moe: Got it. Thanks. Bergus: Just asking about the,um, Housing Develpment Project, the pilot. We don't know where that would be or if it would be more than one site, right at this point? Russett: We don't. Bergus: So is this the kind of thing that if it happened to be, for example,in a district like Riverfront Crossings, where we had more allocated money, we could scale that up,just not specifically relating to how this grant is administered. Is that a possibility? Fruin: Yes,we-we-wi-with regards to our match, we can always put in more. So if the project happens to be located in Riverfront Crossings, and we need extra local dollars to make that viable,yes,we could utilize the F and Lu dollars for that. Dunn: Can you remind us how much is in that fund, if you know? Fruin: Um, 5.5. About 5.5 million. Salih: But this project is not supposed to be like-we're not saying this project will be in one area. We proposed 25- 24 unit-24, and now they are not full funded. So it could be reduced. But does it have to be in one area, to be built in one area, even if it's like 20 or 18? Is that, like, have to be in certain area, all of them, or it could be, like built around the city. Fruin: I think our intention was to do one site.Um, I'm not sure that's going to be a HUD requirement. We'll have to consider what HUDs requirements are. But-but our intention was to-to try to focus on one site. Multifamily development. Salih: But you thinking, like, mixed income. Fruin: Potentially. Salih: Yeah, it's not like only low income housing. Fruin: Right. Salih: It would be like mixed income. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 13 Fruin: I could take any number of shapes. We didn't have to strictly defined it in the application. Salih: Oh, sure. Teague: And do you know if we're-we didn't, um,identify the application as I heard Mayor Pro Tem. Um, we didn't say that we will only do one site. We could do scatter sites, should you know,we want to do that. Russett: I think that's possible. Yeah. Teague: Okay. Salih: Yeah, that's what my question is. Thank you. Harmsen: Just a quick acknowledgment,um, of gratitude for putting together a grant that was successful, because this highly competitive.Um, and also,uh, continuing gratitude for negotiating this with the Federal Government. uh,in order just to make sure that we are doing what they say,we're- you know, we-we are doing the things that we had said we would do in a way that would make them happy so that they don't take their funding back. I think-I think I got it all straight there. But uh,but that's obviously going to be very important because when we apply for a grant and correct me if I'm wrong, we have to stick with what we said we were going to use the money for,right? So it's not like a blank check, even with ARPA, which was gave us a lot of flexibility, tons and tons of rules. You get to navigate those rules and navigate all these different things, and that is work that is recognized and appreciated. Russett: Thanks. Teague: I don't hear anything else. Thank you so much. Salih: Again, congratulations for putting great application. Teague: Yeah. Yes. 5. Presentation on repositioning Public Housing Project from Bloomberg Harvard Leadership initiative Fellow Naomi Mehta Teague: Alright, we're going to move on to Number 5,which is presentation on repositioning Public Housing Project from Bloomberg, Harvard Leadership, Initiative, fellow Naomi Mehta,but we're going to introduce Tracy His,who is our-who is our director of neighborhood and Development Services. Welcome. Hightshoe: Hello. As you were this past year, the Mayor and City were selected to participate in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. This initiative was exciting. It's a resource for city leaders to expand our problem solving capability, increase our effectiveness as leaders, and to improve our outcomes for our residents. One of the mayor's focus was affordable housing, an area that I love to focus on, obviously. Being a member of this program allowed the city to apply for a Harvard Summer Fellow, we drafted a proposal what we wanted the Summer Fellow to do, and then we interviewed Harvard graduate students. We selected Naomi Mehta,here with us today. Um, due to her knowledge and passion about housing issues, she has a background in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 14 architecture. She has had aproject with a Housing Authority out on the East Coast, and just her general enthusiasm to work with us. She has been wonderful to work with. She is intelligent, thorough, and she has done a great job and worked diligently to come up with the best recommendation that meets our strategic plan. She'll present on why we need to reposition- reposition our Public Housing program,provide the HUD options available to a community our size, make a reccommendation-recommendation on which options staff plans to pursue, and then continue with recommendations on how we build that housing portfolio that will also factor in our pro housing grant and the project that we ultimately decide. And then after the presentation, staff will be here available for questions, and Naomi wanted to know that after the work session, could we take a photo? Teague: Yes. Hightshoe: For the program. Okay, so Naomi. Teague: We're dressed up for it. Yeah. Maybe. Hightshoe: Da da da. Teague: Well, welcome,Naomi. Mehta: Thank you so much for having me here. Yes. I'm Naomi Mehta, as Tracy mentioned. I'm an architect and an urban design student. In the last few weeks, I have worked with the Iowa City Housing Authority and the NDS Department as a Bloomberg Harvard Summer Fellow under the City leadership initiative. The focus of my work here has been on expanding access to affordable housing by specifically looking at our Public Housing program. The intent was to find a pathway which would allow us to reposition and become an authority that not just administors federally assisted housing programs,but also actively develops affordable housing. So why do we need more housing? We have apopulation of about 75,000 people with aprojected growth of about 10,000 people more by the end of this decade. 20% of our population earns less than $30,000 annually. 61%of our renters are cost burden, leading to overcrowding across households, moving to less desirable neighborhoods, and so on. Only 6% of our households are currently receiving subsidies from the federal programs that we administer. Around 973 low income households are waiting for their Public Housing units. 1,300 low income households are waiting for their Housing Choice Vouchers. This establishes the urgent need for affordable housing in our jurisdiction. The ICHA occupies a unique position in the city government. Within the Department of neighborhood and Development Services, we cater to three counties. Johnson County, Washington County, and Iowa County. To expand upon the affordable housing programs that we provide, it is largely in two categories; one under the realm of federally assisted programs and the other under the realm of city-owned affordable housing. Under the City-owned affordable housing,we have about 21 units through which we serve 21 households.Under the federally assisted programs,we provide affordable housing assistance through housing vouchers as well as Public Housing. Under Public Housing, we own 86 units which are subsidized and provided to applicants. Under the Housing Choice Vouchers, we have about 1,595 vouchers which are operated. So altogether, we serve about 1,702 households currently. To put this into perspective, 86 Public Housing units are facing a lot of problems today. We are subjected to a decreasing federal revenue. Our expenditure in the last four years has exceeded our revenue, therefore we are incurring an average loss of about$190,000 a year.Ninety four percent of our staff time is gone in managing-managing the Public Housing units complying with federal regulations and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 15 procedures, whereas only 6% of our staff time is being dedicated to the 21 city-owned affordable housing units. These operational challenges make it difficult for us to achieve our goal of increasing our affordable housing production. Therefore, to face these challenges, we have recognized that HUD provided repositioning of Public Housing is the way forward. This will allow us to increase revenue for affordable housing, achieve operational sustainability, actively develop and diversify our housing stock, and serve much more than 1,700 households. Before I move on to the repositioning process, I would like to go through some basic terminologies that are used under affordable housing. So what is City-owned affordable housing? These units are owned by the City. They do not receive any federal subsidy. They're managed and operated by the Housing Authority who allocates these units to eligible tenants in need of housing. The tenant pays rent to the City in this regard and the rent revenue generated is utilized for the maintenance of these units. What is the Public Housing program? Under this, the City owns 86 units. This program is operated using federal- federal revenue which is given by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development also known as HUD. So the Housing Authority operates and manages these units under the Public Housing program. It annually receives capital funds and operating subsidies which are utilized to maintain and operate these units. These units are allocated to applicants using a preference criteria which prioritizes elderly, disabled,households with children within our jurisdiction. Some of these housing are provi- some of these tenants are provided with Public Housing whereas some people are put on the Public Housing wait list. In this particular program, the rent is determined by adjusted tenant income. So a tenant pays about 30% of their adjusted tenant income. This is the requirement for a household to not be cost burden. So the Public Housing rental revenue is quite low and always fluctuating. The key difference between these units is that although both of these-both of these set of units are owned by the City, the Public Housing program is dependent on federal funding and cannot utilize private equity. The rent is determined by tenant income. Whereas the City-owned affordable units are generally- generally utilize affordable housing grants or rental revenue to operate and maintain these units. The second form of federal subsidy that we are given is a voucher under the Housing Choice Voucher program. These are also provided under the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. There are two kinds of vouchers primarily. One is a tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher, which means that a voucher subsidy is attached to a household. Since the voucher follows the tenant, they can get subsidized housing in any location of their choice. The second kind of voucher is a project-based voucher. This voucher rental subsidy is attached to a unit,which means that a Tenant A, for example can enter this unit even though they- they do not possess a voucher and when they leave another tenant can come in to the subsidy remains attached to the unit. The Iowa City Housing Authorityadministers a total of 1,595 vouchers, out of which 20 of them are project based vouchers. This program is also- also run under the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The preference criteria is similar in allocating the units giving priority to elderly, disabled, and households with children under our jurisdiction. Some of these vouchers are given to tenants,whereas other tenants are put on the voucher wait list. The federal aid here is utilized as a rental subsidy. So how does this program work? When a voucher holding tenant goes to the landlord, they will continue to pay the same amount that they would have paid under the Public Housing program,which is 30% of their adjusted income. But in this case, the remainder of the rent which is the total rent subtracting the tenant rent is provided by the Housing Authority to the landlord. So the landlord receives two rents: one from the Housing Authority which is coming through the federal subsidy and one from the tenant which is 30% of their adjusted income. Even though both of these programs are run und- are federally assisted and run under HUD, they are very different in the kind of revenue that they receive. Under Public Housing, we receive a total pool of money which is utilized to operate and maintain our units, whereas under the Housing Choice Voucher program, the revenue is attached to each This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 16 voucher. The rent is very different in both these cases. The rent is determined by the tenant income in Public Housing,whereas in the Housing Choice Voucher, even though the tenant pays the same amount of income, the landlord is provided an additional housing subsidy which covers the rent difference. So this is the key difference between both of these programs. But one of the biggest disparities is the funding that is allocated by Congress to this program. The Public Housing program has historically seen a decline in funding,whereas the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program has only seen an increase. To look at the pool of revenue for both of these programs, under the Public Housing program, a large pool of our subsidy comes from HUD and the rent collection is a much lesser amount. Compared to the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher where a small amount is received in housing subsidy, and a total of rental revenue is what is a larger pool of money. So if I put numbers to this,we can see that for 86 units, currently the Public Housing program gets a revenue of about$776,000. Whereas, if the same 86 units were operated on a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher platform, we could potentially earn up to $1.5 million in revenue. HUD recognizes these challenges which are faced not only by us,but by many Public Housing Authorities around the country; lower revenue, declining federal funding, higher expenditure, our revenue unable to meet the unit maintenance demands, and the historical narratives against Public Housing. As a resolution to this,it recommends Public Housing Authorities to undertake repositioning, promising higher federal revenue, giving them the opportunity to access private capital to fulfill any upgradation or rehabilitation requirements, and increase their capacity to assist more households. So what is repositioning? Repositioning is a shift of platforms. We shift from a Public Housing program to a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. We shift from a larger pool of money given to us to the pool of money being dedicated to each voucher. So initially, every tenant would go to the ICHA and get allocated a Public Housing units,but in the other case, the ICHA can decide whether they want to go ahead with a public-with a project-based voucher or a tenant-based voucher. So what changes when you reposition? We change the revenue we make. We would be potentially making twice the amount of revenue that we currently have. We would shift to a platform with higher and more stable federal fund, which will help us to plan our budgets better. We will have higher rent revenue and sustainable finances and we can stop operating in loss. We gain access to private capital and can leverage both private and public equity to develop housing. We have the increased capacity to serve more households. More than the 86 that we currently have in our Public Housing program. But what's important to understand is that this is only a shift of platforms,but our mission remains the same. We will still continue to serve low income households. The tenant continues to pay the same amount of rent that they used to pay under the Public Housing program. And the tenants can continue to occupy the units they currently occupy,but also have the additional flexibility to move to a location of their choice using their voucher subsidy. So to summarize, why should we consider repositioning our Public Housing program? We can see that over the last few years, the federal subsidy that we have received has been fluctuating,both under operating subsidy and capital funds. If we break down our overall revenue, we can see that the amount we collect in rents is much lower, so our large dependence remains on HUD money. And when you look at the revenue projections, which tell us how much we should be making, we make much lesser than that due to non-payment of rents. So the rent shortfall is covered using city reserves, which is dwindling our own capital and is not sustainable moving forward. To differentiate,you can see that the graph on the top right shows the rents we receive in a Public Housing program, where it is unstable and unpredictable. Whereas when you move to the Section 8 platform, the landlord or the Housing Authority in this case continues to get the same amount of rent irrespective of a change in the tenant income. And to put this against our current expenditure shown in red, seeing our revenue, we see that we have been operating in loss and we are in need of surplus today. And the most important thing of all is that if you look at the existing units This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 17 shown in blue,we are far behind from providing and meeting with the demands of our community today which is highlighted in red as you can see here. The average waiting time for selected applicants, about 973 households on our wait list is about 5.5 years in our top preference criteria. So for all of the reasons that I've mentioned about, I think we can agree that repositioning is extremely important for us to serve our large community and fulfill our aspiration to independently and profitably own, develop, and build affordable housing. HUD provides several repositioning pathways for each Public Housing Authority to reposition, and I will take you through our decision making process and the various pathways which are provided. HUD primarily provides four pathways; the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, the RAD and Section 18 blend, the Streamlined Voluntary Conversion, and the Section 18 Demolition, Disposition, and Preservation Program. All of these come under the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Platform. To summarize, the first two options are generally taken up by housing authorities which have large scale modernization requirements, repairs, and reconstruction needed for their Public Housing units. The units are converted to project-based vouchers and they utilize private equity to make these improvements. Whereas in the next two options,which is under Section 22 and Section 18, the Public Housing units are converted either to project-based vouchers or to tenant-based vouchers. And in this case the units can either be preserved affordably or leveraged to invest in more affordable properties. In order to guide our decision making process,we went through a framework which primarily looked at these four categories of criteria; the applicability to our city portfolio and requirements, assessment of organization structure requirements and operations, financial obligations, and a key alignment with our city's goals. We started marking it through a system in which the darkest green represents the closest alignment to our goal, and the darkest red represents the fact that it is farther away from what we wish to achieve. And we noticed that under the criteria of applicability to city portfolio, the RAD program does not fulfill our requirements. To demonstrate that,if you look at our current Public Housing units which are mainly on scattered sites, a mix of single family homes, townhouses and apartments, all of them are currently in good condition, therefore, we do not have major modernization requirements. And if you compare the rental revenue,you can see that between Public Housing and RAD we would not be able to increase our revenue by a lot. But when you compare it to the Section 18 or the Section 22 platforms, we see that we are able to increment our revenue substantially in these platforms. So for two of these key reasons, we realize that RAD might not be the best program for us,because when you put this against our current average expenditure,you can see that the only way we will have more revenue to invest in new housing is if we choose to go either to-through Section 18 or Section 22. So we had two options remaining to make our final choice.Under this, the Section 18 program provided us with a hurdle with respect to ownership models. So what happens is that under the Section 18 model,we are required to transfer, uh transfer the ownership of our 86 units to either an affiliate legal entity or another private entity. Whereas the Section 22, the streamlined voluntary conversion for a Public Housing Authority of our size does not have any such requirements. To continue to own the units that we currently have, Section 22 seemed like a better choice for us. Both the options fared well in terms of the financial obligations that they would serve. And the next hurdle that Section 18 provided was a procedural one. To elaborate upon it, each of these sections have physical requirements. But for a Public Housing Authority of our size, which has less than 250 units, the Section 22 does not have any such qualifications. Whereas under Section 18,you would have some of these qualifications to be required. This is an overview of our current Public Housing unit locations. As you can see, all of them are scattered sites, so we would qualify under the category highlighted in red. However, 20 of our units do not qualify under this parameter, and they would qualify under the parameter of less than 50 units,which means that our portfolio would qualify in two separate categories. What this means is that we would have to go through This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 18 two processes of repositioning, which would require more process, more money, and more staff. For this reason, again,we felt that Section 22 was a better choice for our Housing Authority. Therefore, the staff recommended that the best decision was to go ahead with HUD repositioning using a streamlined voluntary conversion of our units. So what does this mean for us? Under the streamlined voluntary conversion, 86 of our Public Housing units move out of federal assistance and they become a part of our city owned affordable housing units. All 86 of our Public Housing tenants receive new 86 Housing Choice Vouchers. So what this means for our portfolio is that now we have in addition to the 21 units, 86 new units.And in addition to the 1595 vouchers,we have 86 new vouchers. And at the end of the repositioning process,we would not have any units left under our Public Housing program. What does this mean for our Public Housing tenants? So during the repositioning process, after the tenant receives the Housing Choice Voucher, they have two options. Either they can continue to remain in the units and use their voucher in that, or they can choose to go into the private market or any other subsidized unit to use their voucher. This provides them with additional flexibility to decide where they want to live. In terms of rent payment, as I explained earlier how the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program works, the tenant will pay 30%of their adjusted income,whereas this rental subsidy is covered using the Federal Housing Choice Voucher. So the tenant rent does not change. The tenant continues to pay the same amount of money even after repositioning. But does our rental revenue change? It does. If the tenant decides to utilize their voucher in our units, we will-we will be utilizing the federal subsidy to get the rental difference and also get the 30% of adjusted income as tenant rent. So in total,we move from getting only tenant rent to getting a complete rent amount in this program. So as a way forward, we see higher revenue for operations and development. We see 86 new Housing Choice Vouchers added to our portfolio, and 86 of our units can now be operated as City owned affordable housing. How does this program help us expand our access to affordable housing? When we look at the valuation of the assets we then own,we see that on top of the 21 existing units, we now have 86 units under the City portfolio. So if you give an average valuation of$200,000 for each unit that we own, the 107 units would be worth about$21.4 million. And the rental profit that we would make on the Section 8 program for the 86 units would be about$0.5 million a year after covering all of our expenditure. This money can be leveraged by us, for example, to borrow a loan of about seven or$10 million or invest in revenue bonds. We can utilize this in investing new properties,in acquiring more land or undertaking active development. And the revenue generated from these properties, which could be developed as mixed income can be used to repay the debt that we incur. Another way to go about it would to be- to be exploring, setting up an ICHA affiliate, which could be a partner entity in the form of a non-profit, an LLC, or a limited partner. What this allows us to do is to tap into the private market for capital. We can apply for low income housing tax credits,private investment, and also utilize federal and state tax exemptions, as well as apply for additional grants. And all of this capital will again help us in leveraging our assets to lead City owned affordable housing production. And while we think about how repositioning helps us in all of these ways and looking at other avenues like the pilot for affordable housing, under the pro-housing grant, one of the important things is to think about the development frameworks that we use to expand,improve, and develop affordable housing in our community. I will be showing you a series of maps after this,which have utilized data from various sources such as HUD, the Census Bureau, and other organizations. Most of the terminology that has been used is the one which is currently used in the original datasets, and in most of the maps, the colors as well. For a holistic growth of affordable housing today, we not only need to build new housing and expand strategically,but also continue to strengthen the existing environment in which our housing units exist. This requires an identification of strengths, challenges, and deficiencies in every neighborhood that we have housing. It requires us to invest and implement through an equity lens. Housing development is generally driven through the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 19 market, identifying potential zones for development through density analysis,vacancy analysis, availability,rent, etc. But it is also a good thing to overlay it with lenses like what does the citizen want? How can we use climate action driven lenses? How can we use socioeconomic driven indexes and overlay these concerns along with market availability? For example, when we analyze our Public Housing wait list, we see that we have a huge demand for one bedroom and two bedroom units. So if you look at market availability. Currently, our Public Housing units are mostly located in the southern part of our jurisdiction.But the northern and western parts of our jurisdiction provide an opportunity to invest in more vacant one bedroom units. Similarly, for two bedroom units, also, there is a market available in the western region. So the idea is to undertake development in new zones and diversify the kind of neighborhoods that we are investing in. In this particular map, the darker pinks represent areas which have higher affordability of one and two bedroom units for households earning less than a 30% of the area median income. So the goal to utilize these maps would be to ask the question that how we can diversify markets in regions. How can we expand landlords who accept vouchers to expand our rental markets, and not just acquire new properties? When we analyze-when we analyze our wait list demographics,we see that about 80% of our waitlists in both of our federal programs currently serves a majority of non- white populations. The maps on the right depict a higher ratio of black or African American renters to non-Hispanic white renters in certain areas of our community compared to the others. Expanding affordable housing opportunities in diverse markets will help us address this varying ratio of renters. When we look at our voucher concentrations,we observe similar patterns that there is a disparity in where our vouchers are being utilized. And the next step for is to be to increase landlord participation in our Housing Choice Voucher program. The Housing Authority will be taking a three-pronged approach in this direction. The first would be to launch a landlord education initiative to help landlords understand what is the Housing Choice Voucher program? How can they participate in it? What are the procedures, and so on? This will be followed by a survey to understand the barriers faced by landlords, common challenges and misconceptions. And in response to that, the team will work towards developing incentive programs and also exploring census track specific interventions in that direction. A key factor to also incorporate when we are looking at housing today is how social and climate vulnerability can drive our housing choices. On the left hand side,you see a map which depicts social vulnerability levels. This refers to population who are vulnerable to health problems resulting from extreme weather or climate change. It considers factors like household income, household age, disability, minority status,housing and transportation access. On the right hand side,highlighted in pink is our current coverage of emergency relief services, temporary shelters, community and food housing services. The goal here would be to not only expand new affordable housing in areas of lower vulnerability,but also strengthen housing support in areas which are currently facing high vulnerability. Similarly, we could also use frameworks which look at accessibility to proficient schools, to larger supermarkets, and expander housing portfolio in strategic ways. A pattern which is observed nationally is that most of the Public Housing units in several parts of the state are concentrated in high poverty neighborhoods. When we look at this for our portfolio, we observe-we observe several disparities across our census tracts. To encourage the development of mixed income neighborhoods will help us relieve the overburdened capacity of certain census tracts, which are currently serving a large number of people in need. It will diversify the opportunities for people to live affordably- affordably in other census tracts and also help us in increasing our coverage to many more people. The next thing I'm going to talk about is an economic mobility index. This was developed in a collaboration between the US Census Bureau, an economists at the opportunity inside groups. It is called the Opportunity Atlas. The argument is that neighborhoods play an important role in determining a child's economic outcomes. So what it means, as you can see in the diagram on the left, a child who is born to a household with This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 20 lower income, which is if they are present in the 25th percentile of our income distribution, how likely is the child to move to the 50th, 75th or the 100th percentile? To put it simply, how likely is a child to do economically better and move out of a cycle of inter-generational poverty? So that is what this index tells us. In this map of our country, we see that the redder areas highlight- are highlighted to show that in these particular area, children belonging to low income parents are not doing as well. They have lower economic outcomes compared to the areas which are marked in blue. What is good for us to see here is that we are doing better as a state. We have a better average compared to the nationwide average of 42.8, and at a county level too, we have-we are observing higher economic outcomes for our children. But when we zoom into this map, we see that even though we are performing better than the national average, there are variations across different census tracts. These variations are often driven by various parameters, like school quality, employment traits,health infrastructure, etc. The variation across neighborhoods results in a difference in economic outcomes. This index has been used by many governments to identify the needs specific to each census tract and direct their policy and investment strategies in a way that they can ensure equitable growth for all. A way for us to utilize this index would be to overlay it with our market studies. For example,what if we were to look at the idea of opportunity bargain tracts,which essentially means census tracts with lower median rents, observing higher economic outcomes? They could be strategic areas for new development. And while we do so,we will continue to invest in the neighborhoods which are underserved. Similarly, this could also be looked at with respect to market availability. Can we see where our markets are available and open to invest in? Acquire units in areas which are observing higher outcomes, and again, continue to strengthen our underserved neighborhoods. And we could overlay many of these lenses that we've discussed. We could overlay the idea that we need maj- a majority of one bed units with the kind of market availa- availability our jurisdiction shows and the economic mobility index. The number of ways we can match these criterias and- and move towards innovating housing development is immense.And to acknowledge that we have already started moving ahead in that direction, the ongoing efforts of the ICHA include investment in five affordable units at Hotel Chauncey in the Downtown District,which is a key area of our jurisdiction. The City also supports other affordable housing providers such as the Housing Fellowship, Shelter House, et cetera, and other housing navigators to help meet the overwhelming demands of our community. The City has initiated an energy upgradation opportunity for landlords participating in the Housing Choice Voucher program. These are just a few things that we have already started working on. But to ensure that we move equitably, repositioning our Public Housing program through the streamlined voluntary conversion is an essential next step. It will allow us to operate with financial stability, allow us to grow operationally, allow us to undertake innovation in equitable development, and explore many other ideas to follow. Therefore, to move from becoming a manager and operator of federally assisted affordable housing programs towards being not only a provider but also developer of housing,we need to undertake repositioning. Thank you. Teague: Thank you. Well, I have to tell you how,um,you know,when we started this journey to affordable housing and to bringing in a fellow, we had to identify a specific thing that we wanted to target. So we decided,you know,it was affordable housing,but that Public Housing avenue. But what you presented is this large, holistic approach to what this council and the- our community desperately, uh,needed to research.Now,we know that we still, um, and what we'll be communicating today is really about the repositioning,but there are some key things that you brought up. And- and- and,uh,not only did we look at,um, individuals that live in our current Public Housing,but we also heard how we can expand that and help more families. We heard the equity,uh, lens as well, where, um,not only do we want to make sure that,um, we have mixed This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 21 income and some of the-you saw-you showed us the Census track,but mixed incomes in some of those areas that,you know, don't really have a lot of affordable units, we have a lack of one bedroom and two bedroom units. And so I really appreciate your presentation, and I know that my colleagues probably have a lot of things to say,but I wanted to at least say thank you for your presentation, and thank you for spending your summer here with us. Mehta: Thank you for giving me this wonderful opportunity. Teague: Great. Salih: Yeah. Just to upgrade the same thing that the mayor said. But my question,how long you been doing this until you come up with this amazing information? How long you been take you to do this? Mehta: Ten weeks. Salih: Ten weeks. Oh, my God. That's a lot for only 10 weeks. This is great. Yeah. You-you just, like, really, uh, as the Mayor said, I- I- I like the numbers of you showing us, like,how many bedroom is needed? How many people in the waiting list needed? About one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, and all this. This is really great. I just have a question for you. Regarding the,um-you said, how does it look for the current,uh,Public Housing tenant? So you mentioned this is if we reposition to the Section 22. Those people who are now living a Public Housing, they don't have Section 8. They will be automatically receiving project based Section 8. That what you told me? Mehta: Yes. They will be receiving a Housing Choice voucher. Salih: It's not like called different. It's the same Housing Choice voucher that currently we have. Mehta: Yes. Salih: So later,if they decide to move from this house because they don't like it,it is not tied to the house, they can go somewhere else. Mehta: Yes. Salih: And as soon as they move out from that, now, we don't have to put another Section 8 there,if we don't want to. Mehta: So the City will be-uh, the Housing Authority will be putting an affordable deed restriction on the housing units. So if one voucher holder decides to occupy another unit, either another hou- voucher holder can occupy the unit or any other subsidized-uh, any other household in need could be occupying the unit since the rent would be subsidized. Salih: We are not obligated toward- after the first,uh,house voucher move out. We are not- as a City,we are not obligated to give that to another Section 8 house. We can just give it to low-income people with affordable housing. Mehta: Yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 22 Salih: So actually,we- like,we winning housing, more housing to the City- Mehta: Yes. Salih: -which is free of federal recreations after that, right? Like- Mehta: Yes. Salih: -we don't have to bond by the federal recreation,which is great. My question will be again for this is,um, this is could- the house that now free. We can just also- I think I asked a question. We can do whatever we want to do with that house. Mehta: Yes. So since this afford- all of our 86 units become a part of our City portfolio. Salih: Okay. Mehta: We will be-we will continue to operate them affordably. But in the future, we can also choose that to leverage it and maybe invest in bonds, get a rent- or sorry, get a loan against it, or we could use it to reinvest in other forms of housing as well. Salih: Which is great. I also love the-getting loan at the bond against them. So we can get another like five million to do another affordable housing. It is-when the-when the people moved out, and we ha- I mean, like when we offer them the Section 8,we will educate them with this and like,what they're going to do. I think they will love it to take Section 8 and go somewhere else, also, because I remember I used to have a Public Housing. So I graduated from Public Housing, and I get Section 8, so I can get maybe a bigger house with single house with, like,backyard or another area for a school reason or anything. So I- I think this is really great opportunity. And thank you for putting this together. I love it. Mehta: Thank you. Dunn: Just to clarify. Harmsen: You grabbed like several of my questions and comments. That's awesome.Piggybacking off of that, too, I think it's important to point out that these then would be-uh,wouldn't-uh, these would be units in which Section 8 would be welcome in perpetuity, which unfortunately has become a challenge in some parts of our community. So I think that's also a really- Salih: Yeah. Harmsen: -to have-have housings- affordable housing stock, which we know will always accept Section 8 vouchers has become something of- of value. Salih: And also, I just forget to mention that we are increasing Section 8 voucher by 86. Mehta: Yes. Harmsen: Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 23 Salih: A more voucher, which is we cannot just done it like that without this program. Thank you. Great. Dunn: Just one. Yeah. Just to clarify. Just to make sure that I'm understanding the-the broad proposal. You put-you put forth a lot of information, so apologies if this is misunderstood or if it's perfectly understood. Um, so the general idea is that we take our publicly owned units, and,uh, the ones that are currently have,you know, um, a federal money is directed towards them, where we're only getting, as a City, the 30% of the occupant's income. Is that a correct understanding for how that works? Mehta: Yes. So the rent revenue that we make is,uh, dependent upon the tenant income. Dunn: Okay. Mehta: So it will be 30% of their income. Dunn: So- so the idea is to transition that away from the- the site bound program to basically either a partner owner or,you know, something that we have jurisdiction over that's somewhat different, right?Um, and then we can rent those out at market rate,but since we're transitioning those units directly to Section 8, and we're trying to get Section 8 recipients in there, we're receiving-instead of the 30%,we're receiving the full price. Is that the correct understanding? Mehta: Yes. So we will be receiving the total rental revenue,but the tenant will still pay the same amount. Dunn: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Mehta: So the subsidy will be used to cover the rental difference. Dunn: And what you're proposing is that,you know, outside of,you know, the-the maintenance and necessary things, we can use those additional funds to,you know, create more housing across the community and stuff. Mehta: Yes. Dunn: Okay. Mehta: Precisely. Because currently, all of our revenue that we get under the Public Housing program is utilized in operating and maintain our-maintaining our units,but the additional revenue that we would get in rent would allow us to not only cover our expenditure,but have a surplus left, which we can invest somewhere else. Salih: And currently, our Public Housing is less than the HUD fair market rent,right? This will allow us to increase it to match the current like HUD market rate, so we can have more money. In the same time, the tenant only pay 30%is still Public Housing. Mehta: So in Public Housing,we don't set the rent. The rent is determined by a tenant's adjusted income. So a large part of the procedural hurdle we also faces- Carter: Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 24 Mehta: -a large part of the hurdle we also face is that we regularly have to check the tenant's income, and determine what the rent is based on 30% of it. Carter: Go ahead. Salih: Would- Carter: I think the-the Mayor Pro Tem-if I'm understanding,you're asking, uh, what we get for rent where we can set is rent in Public Housing. Salih: Yes. Exactly. Carter: Yeah. We don't have, um, I think,you're familiar, uh,Public Housing when somebody has enough income that they're not receiving,um,it's not subsidized. We use what's called flat rent that HUD uses, which is 80% of fair market rent. Salih: Eighty percent. Okay. Carter: Yeah. Um, and we rarely, I think of our 86 units, we have I I right now that we use fair market rent for,but all of the rest,we use that 30%of their income is what they pay for rent. And then we-we rely on our capital funds, and our operating funds we receive through the Public Housing contract we're in to make up the difference, which as Naomi showed is not anywhere close to what we need to spend to maintain them. Salih: Exactly. Carter: She's doing really well. I just know some of these intricacies can be. Salih: Yes. Carter: Okay. Teague: Nicole,please identify yourself,please. Carter: I'm so sorry. I'm-I'm Rachel Carter. I'm the Housing Administrator of the Housing Authority. Salih: Yeah. Thank you, Rachel. I appreciate that. Dunn: Follow- follow-up question.Um, so,you know,in a,uh, future,um, repositioned Iowa City Housing Authority, would there be geographic limitations to what's acquired to the properties that are acquired or do they have to be within Iowa City or just between-it was within the jurisdiction of the Housing Authority as it is now or what would it be? Salih: Good question. Mehta: We currently have three counties under our jurisdiction, so it's, uh, likely that we would be developing within that jurisdiction. Dunn: Okay. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 25 Mehta: Yes. Dunn: Would there be anything that limits it outside of that? Mehta: I'm not sure. Carter: Outside of the three counties of the ICHA service? Dunn: Yeah. Just like theoretically speaking,just,you know. Carter: Uh,you know, that's probably going to be more of a Geoff question than a me question if we want to develop outside of that area. Fruin: Right now, all of our units are within Iowa City. Salih: Iowa City. Fruin: We-we could certainly go outside of Iowa City within the Housing Authority's,um,uh, jurisdiction to those three counties.Um, I certainly would not be opposed to that. I think that's a conversation we'd want to have with some of our peer communities. Dunn: Okay. Harmsen: But that would be- and,you know, this is a question for either Geoff, Eric, or one of you. Could I-because we-we would own these properties, the 86 in Iowa City. Is there any sort of legal issues with Iowa City owning a property in say Coralville or Washington County, or how does that work? Goers: Oh, the City already owns property in other jurisdictions. So that itself wouldn't be a limitation. Now, that's a different, er,you know, there are all manner of rules, federal rules involved here, and I- I haven't researched those. But if-if your question is just, can we own property outside of City limits? The answer is absolutely,yes. Harmsen: Okay. Salih: But for this,we are talking only to the Public Housing owned by Iowa City within the Iowa City. Harmsen: Right. Right now. Salih: The 86. Carter: Currently up all 86 here within City limits. Bergus: Um,Naomi, thank you so much for this presentation and all your information you've provided. I'm curious if you are aware of any communities that have undertaken the, um, Section 22 voluntary conversion that also are in places like the State of Iowa that, um, allow for discrimination against voucher holders? Like, I'm just wondering, like,uh, Councilor Harmsen mentioned that having the City owned properties is helpful because we know we will take, um, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 26 voucher holding tenants. But do you have any information as far as what the landlord receptivity might be like, given that anecdotally we're hearing, there is pretty,you know,potentially very significant discrimination. Mehta: So we've also interviewed two Housing Authorities. Um, one of them which we visited was the Rock Island Housing Authority. And they're also considering a repositioning of their,uh,Public Housing units. And we also spoke to the Vancouver Housing Authority, which is a much bigger authority. And they're also undergoing the same process at this point. And I think, uh,in some of the discussions,what came up is that,by owning City owned properties and op-opening them up to voucher holders is definitely one way forward,but how do we also look at expanding our landlord accepting vouchers in strategic locations? So for example, when I showed the map for voucher concentrations, we recognize that certain census tracts participate more than the others. So are there education initiatives that we can take up? Are there ways we can reach out to individual landlords? And these are the- some of the different ways we've started thinking about. And one of the steps we wanted to undertake to ensure that the voucher market is only expanding for our new tenants is we thought that we would undertake a survey to understand what are the primary reasons why landlords refused to participate. And we've done-we've gone through a lot of the housing studies, which HUD has also done across the country. And based on that, we wanted to understand that some of the things they highlight is that, often, more than ever, landlords are not well informed about the education initiative, about the procedure that is required to enroll, and sometimes that deters them from participating in the program. So can we make this process easier? Which is essentially three pages of forms, and only five steps for them to participate. So I think addressing smaller ideas like this would help us in expanding the market. Bergus: Great. Thank you. Moe: I really appreciated this presentation, and probably we'll have to watch it again because there was so much information in there. Um, I've always been sort of unsure about two values, I think a lot of people hold, and that is we want mixed income neighborhoods, and also we want the maximum quantity of affordable units. And sometimes those two things are at odds. And perhaps we can provide one unit, er,in a-in a high land value neighborhood or two and a lower one. I think if I understood the presentation correctly, the- there's another metric that- that we should be looking at, and that is sort of, ah, higher outcome,uh, neighborhoods. And I'm curious to learn more about this- this repositioning seems to put us in a driver seat to sort of focus specifically on high outcomes as opposed to just that simple,you know, A or B that I was thinking of. Am I- am I understanding that right, that there's-we shouldn't be looking at,you know, necessarily high property value, low property value,but high outcome, low outcome neighborhoods for investments. Is-is that what I heard? Mehta: Yes,um,precisely so. So what I was trying to suggest is that along with looking at what land is available for acquiring or where properties are currently available,if we overlay it with other kinds of metrics, that, for example, in this particular study, they're talking about the idea of economic outcomes for children who are born to households,which are lower income. And they're measuring that at the age of 35,how much do these children earn? What they're trying to say is that local characteristics play a very important role in molding your economic outcomes. And there are two directions after you learn about this. One is that you strategically place affordable housing in neighborhoods which are doing well. And the other is to make interventions into underserved census tracks. The census tracks which are not doing as well, and understand that what is the reason that children here are observing lower outcomes? Is it because they don't This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 27 have the same amount of educational access? Is it because they're not able to graduate college? Are some of them facing high incarceration rates? There are a lot of factors that this Atlas points out can be the key reason, and it depend-it differs from census tract to census tract. So it pushes us to look at these metrics and verify that what is the key reason for our census tract to not perform as well as the others. Teague: I- I think, Council, we do need to just maybe,uh, give a response to the presentation intent, and that is reposition in our Public Housing. So um, I wanted to just kind of, ah, get,uh, a sense of where we are at supporting this. Alter: Absolutely. I mean,it creates an- an ecosystem, essentially a self sustaining or not self sustaining, exactly,but it-there's so much more potential for income revenue that can get fed back into affordable housing to increase it. So, um, absolutely. Teague: All right. We are thumbs up. Thank you so much for the presentation. And if you hang around, we'll take a picture right at about a quarter till. Mehta: Thank you. Teague: You. So make sure communication is aware or whoever's taking the picture. 6. Review draft Request for Proposal (RFP) document for 21 S.Linn St. Teague: All right. We're going to move on to item number six,which was review the draft request for proposal. Document for the 21st-21 South Linn Street. And welcome, Rachel. Varley: Hi, everyone.Um, so the- as the mayor stated, the draft 21 South Linn, um,request for proposal document was in your agenda packet. So hopefully you had a chance to read that cause I'm just going to do a fairly quick high level review, so you have plenty of time to discuss your. Varley: Please identify yourself. Varley: I'm Rachel Kilburg Varley Economic Development coordinator.Um, so I'll just jump in and,um, start with Section 1,which is, er,where we just provide general background information, uh, on the site itself, and then what the kind of overall City's intent is with this project site and kind of our overarching goals for it.Um, we've included the- the site maps there, and then moving into Section 2, um,here's where we share a little bit of background and statistics on important economic influences locally. So we call University of Iowa, large employers,businesses, our arts and culture, environment, those kinds of things. Um, and then we specifically dive into more details on the downtown, ah,in particular. So just again, here providing more background, statistics, specific to the downtown, highlighting different events they have, the diversity of property uses in the downtown,kind of the unique urban design aspects. Ali, the geographic assets that are near this property site,um, like, for example, the University and some of those City facilities we've talked about in the past. It takes us to Section 3,which is the project description. And here's where you really, um,probably see a lot of your priorities that you established and then the public input that we heard incorporated. So we kind of set just our general expectations here again, um, with some of those overall overarching expectations, I should say,just maintaining close- maintaining,you know,uh, a recognition of other key assets are nearby, that inclusive urban experience that we're looking for, safetiess, cleanliness, those kinds of things. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 28 And then, of course, encouraging as much alignment with our values and priorities outlined in the strategic plan as well.Um, and then we kind of get into those specific goals, again,based on that public input and those priorities you established. So this first bullet point,um,is where we identify that mixed use type of building we're looking for, with engaging commercial type uses on that first floor. We identify various uses that,um, may be considered for upper floors, ah, and then there's only kind of one new thing in this RFP, I think that, uh,you maybe-is maybe new. So I'll let Geoff talk about that a little bit,which is the City office space. Fruin: So, um, on, ah,page 17 of the IP or page eight of the RFP and that first bullet point.Um, one thing that we did want to introduce into this,um,builds on the space needs study that- that you received an update on at your last work session. Um,we don't know if-if City office space is-is really the right solution here or not,but we'd like the- the project teams that submit on this to comment on the viability of that- of that concept so that we can-we can evaluate that, uh, at a later stage in this process. So basically, how does it, uh, work in the proposal, um,in relation to the other uses that are proposed,um, it's not a requirement that we're putting out there. Uh,it's not a preference that we're putting out there,but we'd like to-to engage any respondents in that conversation. Ali, eventually, we would need to decide if it's the right fit for the City, the right opportunity, or if there's a, uh,better options for us in-in a different location. But this isn't- this isn't something that we wanted to introduce post, um,receipt of the proposals. We wanted to at least signal that it's a conversation we'd like to have during this process. So you-you see it show up for the first time here. And again,um, ah, it's just coming off the heels of that July presentation, which is why we didn't address it at earlier stages in the public input process. Varley: Ali, so I'll just continue and then, uh, moving on.Next bullet point there is again,pointing to, um, kind of our affordable housing goals.Um, we identify a mix of units with a particular emphasis on affordable housing per your guidance, we also specifically called out that luxury housing focusing solely on the student demographic would not be the type of project that we're considering for this.Um, and then as we out on those affordable housing requirements,we're kind of pointing back to our TIF policy where those requirements,um, are included. Um, next bullet point talks about those high quality construction standards. Um, we also discussed, so, ah,we've identified that Type 1 building construction would be favored and that wood frame or Type 5 would not be considered. And then here's where you also see, um, our priority for climate action leadership in this development,which, of course,would be required for any project that's seeking TIE Um, and then the final bullet point,uh, is, again, speaking to that kind of high quality,very contextual architecture that just recognizes those properties around it, the downtown Historic District in general, um, and that type of welcoming and engaging,uh, design,particularly at the pedestrian level that we hope to see.Um, moving on to the next section, we've included, ah, those- any- the applicable parking and zoning standards for this property site. So the parking would need to be negotiated as we select a developer and moved through, um, that process. We don't anticipate that any rezoning would be needed, so we've, um,included those standards there. Um, I'm moving on. I'm on page 10 now. Ali,when CA Ventures owned the property, they did complete several due diligence steps. So we have,um, some of those documents available,which we've identified in the RFP, and we'll make available to anyone, uh,who would like to see those in full. And then, um,we just acknowledge that there are some Mid American, ah, energy infrastructure on the site, so that would need to be worked through,um, later in the process. But just wanted to point that out for developer teams. And then, um, the alley and street access adjacent to the private project site. Here, we're just really describing how that,you know, alley and the surrounding street are used,um, and encouraging that the designs really ensure safety and the efficient functioning of,um, those uses, uh, surrounding the site. And then,um, the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 29 construction leads trades Labor section, again,just highlights that as a priority tied back to our TIF policy. Um, this, of course, recognizes that contractors subs won't be known until later, ah,in the process. That takes us to Section 4 where we identify potential sources of public financial assistance, uh, and talk a little bit about the development agreement. So here is where we again, clarify that City financial incentives in financial participation,um, is not intended to replace, uh, any private or public sources that the developer can, uh, obtain on their own,but there are just to be those flexible resources that can be used to bridge any gaps,um, created by current market conditions or help us meet those, uh, goals that go above and beyond.Um, again,just pointing out that we will likely, ah, contract with a third party to help us conduct that financial review. We've identified some potential state and federal financial assistance programs that, ah, developer teams could consider. There may be others. Um, and then for the potential sources of City assistance, uh, tax increment financing is kind of in the-tripped in projects like this, we typically would provide that assistance in the form of rebates, again, used as GAP financing, and that would be determined through that financial analysis.Um, however, sale of the project site,negotiation of that could be part of the financial package negotiations.Um, and then for any permanent affordable housing that is proposed, there may be additional local or federal, um, affordable housing funds that we could leverage. Um, all of these details, that financial package, kind of the project requirements, um,would all be, um, outlined and detailed in that development agreement. So that would come before you for approval. Moving on to Section 5,which is submittal requirements. Um, our hope is, er, if we can get this buttoned up and ready to issue,we would publish this RFP at the start of September and then have those due at the start of November. That gives, um, about 45 business days or two months,um, for teams to respond.Um, submittal requirements are, um,just kind of what you should expect to see when-when you have a chance to review the proposals we get in. So we just asked for general developer- develop I'm sorry, developer and project team information,um,information about their past experience, their financial standing financial capacity, a description of the project. Um, this is, again, where we would ask for them to identify potential for City office space so that you can continue having those conversations,whether it's in relation to this project or not. And then, uh, we would ask for some rendering site plans that kind of show those design concepts, ah, in relation to both the surrounding building, uses that would be on the site,um,proposed square footage at that point. Um, we'd asked them to share more about their construction approach to their project. Of course, that financing package proposal,um, and then just the other standard disclosures and disclosures and references. Uh, I'll kind of skip over Section 6 kind of standard,just reserving City rights and establishing, ah, legal compliance expectations. And then Section 7 is the evaluation. So the process outlined here, as we've talked about, many times,is kind of all tentative. It depends on the quantity and quality of proposals we receive, and you may choose to make tweaks to this, um, at- at that time. But in general, we anticipate that when we get the proposals in, a staff review committee will evaluate those, ah,bring some recommended semi finalists to the City Council, you, of course, would have the- the choice to bring in others or remove one that staff had recommended,you don't agree with, etc.Um, and then at that point,you would,uh,have the opportunity to perhaps invite finalists in to present to answer questions at a public meeting. And then at any time during that,um,you know,you may be able to ask for clarification, ask for modifications, additional information, so,um, gives you a little bit of wiggle room, ah, as you kind of whittle down to your finalist. And then the evaluation criteria identified, um,is kind of, of course, have they submitted everything accurately? Is it in line with those goals and objectives included in Section 3? Are they experience capable? Is it align with our strategic plan? Um, what's the market and economic viability of the project, that long term fiscal benefit to the City? Again, we may have third party help,um, to-to evaluate some of that. And I think that takes us just to our exhibit. So we include a land survey that had previously been done, copy of our TIF This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 30 policy and some required,uh, forms. Other than that, I know I went through it quickly,but happy to answer any questions, and,uh, we would love to hear any feedback that you have, um, on the- the document itself. Dunn: I've got a really quick question.Um, one of the things that I have personally expressed as really important to me, uh, throughout the, um, creation of this project is,um, small business incubator space. Where do we start talking about that if that's something that we choose? Is that something that should be included in this document, or is that something that we would negotiate or start discussing later in the process? I know that it has the section that's like, Oh,you know, small business focused culture. But. Varley: Yeah, I'm trying to refresh my memory on what we specifically say about that. Geoff if you have comments while I'm looking, feel free to. Fruin: Yeah. So if-if there is a very specific use that the council wants to see in this building,you should put it in this. I would caution you against that unless you are very sure. So for example,you know you want affordable housing if there's residential. It's very specific in here. Otherwise,we're expressing our goals and encouraging teams to put their creative thinking caps on and give us their best proposal that align with those goals. So it's really kind of up to the seven of you to say, is small business incubator space a must have, or is the expression of creating or continuing to build on the culture of a supportive small business community down- in the downtown enough? Dunn: I don't know what that means is really the thing, like, fundamentally. Like. Alter: Well,just play devil's advocate- Dunn: Yeah. Alter: Of Merge and we just broke-, sorry,we have Merge and we just broke ground on Dream City. So I'm wondering about the appetite and- Dunn: I think- I think- so if-if we're making the case right now for it, right. I think that other projects in the community have demonstrated that location is a really prime consideration for people, particularly for business owners. Like,if you're a place where a market exists, that's a good place to be doing business,you know, and I can't really think of a better place to do business in our county than downtown Iowa City. So you know, that's kind of where this comes from is like if we even talk about like food service, right? I think they say something along the lines of within five years, only 10% of people in the food service business who start a small business are still in business after five years. And that's largely because of so many different factors. Location is a huge considering factor. Alter: Well, I guess, given that-given that I think we've got people in the audience right now listening that people who will be they'll be listening to this meeting. I mean, I- I feel comfortable with the language that we have that really is, like, give us what you've got,um, as opposed to saying it we- this must be in here. I mean, I'm not trying to downplay that. That need and- and the points that you brought up are very good about location very much matters about the success, not just how and what one does,but where they do it is incredibly important and can breed success in its own right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 31 Dunn: And doing it affordably. Alter: Doing it affordably. I don't know necessarily that that has to be laid out in this. Otherwise, we'd also be and it could be a restaurant that does. I think that there is space for these RFPs for that to come forward. In the language that it is right now rather than dictating it and being that specific. Dunn: Would-would people be open to saying that we're interested in ideas about something like that? Really, I think I should be clear about what I mean by an incubator space because like I think of it different from Merge, right. What I'm envisioning is different from Merge, right? Alter: Program. I mean, they have programming. Merge say space,but the offer different. Dunn: Absolutely.No-no-no,it's all good. All good. I totally get you. You know, we're on the same wavelength. But no, I mean,what I'm thinking of is like, storefront property. That's affordable for small business owners in Iowa City or people who want to give it a go. That's what I think of. And whether that's one spot, two spots, three spots,whatever, I think that that has tremendous value to,you know, entrepreneurs, to the community at whole.Um,when we- every time we talk with the Downtown District, they're just like, there's no stores front space because of X, Y or Z issue. You know, we have an opportunity to say, we really want that for the people in our community to have an opportunity to do that. So that's really where this all comes from for me personally. Harmsen: I think. Go ahead,please. Salih: Go ahead. Harmsen: Sure. Salih: Yeah. Harmsen: Certainly would not be opposed to an incubator space. But I think I can if I understand, Councilor Alter's position about dictating at this point.And then I wonder, too,when you say incubator, when we start getting into those discussions,is this in order to make it a true startup space? Do we kick people out after five years if they're successful in not leaving? Dunn: That's the question. Harmsen: Is that the kind of turnover that we would want to now. Dunn: Yeah. And that's why I was asking, like,when is this an appropriate conversation to have? Because there are many details. Harmsen: I mean, So that's like. To me, I would be like, if we get a proposal that has an incubator space, and they can make the case for that,you know, that would be in the realm of things I can support among other things. I don't know that I am so certain that that's the right use that I would put that in the RFP at this stage. For me,personally, I don't not sure that I'd do that. Salih: But Geoff asking us now if we have something that definitely have to go. He want to know that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 32 Harmsen: Absolutely, and I'm just-I guess what I'm saying is that that is not something that I feel I would support putting in there now on that particular issue, although in general, I'm not opposed to it. Alter: Right. Salih: I think this is really a great opportunity to put that now because,you know, all the, like,people who are talented and would like to have their business, like the rent is huge. Like obstical or barriers, especially downtown. That's most likely, like we know, like many low income or immigrants or maybe like another people who open elsewhere,but because they are far away from the market, they tend to close down. After that, there's many restaurants that we know they closed. But giving the opportunity to have this kind of incubator downtown, and I understand your issue,if you are successful, we ask you to move, no. If you are successful and everybody know your business,you will be able to rent downtown. You will be able to find something close to downtown or rent downtown or by the way,if the people know that you moved and they like your business and like your food and everything, they will follow you, even if you went to Coralville. But this is just going to give the chance to the people to start.People know about them while, like, students know about them in the downtown area. Really if there is a way we can have at least one like incubator for the people to try their businesses there for five years for reduced rent or for three years. I don't know- I don't know the details,but something. Dunn: And even if it's just like a suggestion and not a requirement for the proposal to just see what people come out with. I think that'd be good. Moe: I kind of want to address this issue from a slightly different angle, and I would be very happy to see proposals that had exactly what you're describing,but I also don't want to dictate it. But I do think one way of sort of communicating those values, which we haven't done yet, and I want to hear people's thoughts on is actually having a scoring matrix for this, so that would be developers understand on a points basis what we actually want. And small business incubation could be one of those things, cultural or arts institutions on that could also be a thing. I don't-I would like to know your guys' attitude for sort of developing a scoring matrix that has affordable housing, sustainability, small business support as that. I see that a lot. Like on the other like in my regular job,when you work for the State of Iowa, they give you a scoring matrix. When you work for a lot of other cities,you get a scoring matrix. You know, as the person assembling a project,what you're shooting for. Teague: This is a great conversation that we're gonna have to come back to after our formal meeting. So at this time, I'm going to call us to recess. [Resume Work Session after Formal] Teague: All right. It is still August 6, 2024. And we're going to return back to our work session. We were on Item 6.,which is our Review Draft Request for Proposal, document for 2021, South Lynn Street. And we'll pick up that conversation. Bergus: Okay. I'll jump in. Harmsen: You're talking about a matrix? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 33 Moe: Yeah, I was just wanted to get council, I mean, thoughts on whether or not that's the direction we want to go, or we sort of say, here's a point scheme one through 10 so that when there becomes a moment for us to all select this,we can sort of validate. And again, I think the sustainability conversation is very much related to that, and I think would be helpful to communicate with the community, too, like to sort of have that out there to sort of say,hey,we didn't pick the project with the most sustainability or the most affordable housing,because it was the opposite. I don't know if that's a it's somebody who has responded to these before. It's incredibly helpful. And yes, it becomes a sort of points system,but you don't want to, like,you don't want your point system to be too prescriptive. Like you still want to allow people to sort of use their sort of sensibilities on their scoring. But- Harmsen: So- so one advantage to having had this break, that give me a chance to sort of be reflecting in the back of my mind, and a couple of things that come up with that. First of all, I think in some applications,it's a really useful mechanism. But I think a couple - couple of things about doing that now. First of all, I think there is already an implied sort of matrix or when I teach I called a rubric, right? You'd have different whatever. So if I flip into that terminology, I mean the same thing. So it's kind of already there. Like we already are listing out the things we want. We don't really wait anything,which is what a rubric does. Is it waits certain things. And so but it's there, right? We're telling we're laying out the things we like.And by the way, I have a couple of notes on one little piece,but otherwise, thank you Rachel and everybody else,it's great job. The problem with going to that kind of level of detail is just in terms of how it would work in terms of the public perception,in a fair one is that if we do have something where we want to do that, like, we want this more than this, and whatever,but it doesn't reflect it in the points because we don't know yet at this point,we're trying to be-we're trying to walk the line between having some- some definition,but also being flexible and open. I think if we do that and we do something- and if we don't set it up really carefully and well the point system, that we could end up shooting ourselves in the foot. And I don't think I mean,if we were to do that, I mean, I think we would just have to say, okay, we need to spend six months doing that or whatever,because we have seven people, we would have to agree on how many points we're going to give to each thing, right? I mean, at least we have somewhat in agreement. And well, I don't think that's a horrible thing to do. I just don't know that- that- that's going to give us the payoff that we already could get from what we've got. And so I think- I think your idea,you know,it's got some real merit in many cases. I'm not sure it applies here. In my mind, I'm just speaking is, again,just one of seven. But I think what you're trying to do, though, and I think if I'm correct,is make it so that we are being as transparent in our evaluation as possible,just until we see what we get. I don't know that I'm can sit here and say, I'm I want to give this particular thing six points in this particular thing five, and four and three,just because I kind of don't know yet,you know,until I see what people bring us. And so its cart horse, I don't know. That's my thought. Bergus: Usually, I would be 100%in favor of a rubric.And I think at least these two guys know that when you were up for appointment, I made my own little rubric and was scoring people on the fly. So I'm very much in favor of that type of thing, and I'm really internalizing the conversation about flexibility that comes from the TIF policy. And I think for this particular RFP, I want to give both the staff who are having the initial analysis of the responses as well as us. You know, I really think flexibility is the key,because,you know, I think we maybe we could have for ourselves some kind of understanding that's better articulated than what we have right now,but I'm just like, looking at our strategic values,you know, and I'm saying, well,you know, of the ones that we the lenses, right? Those three main things, like,how are those reflected in whatever this proposal is. And I think it would be difficult to quantify some of those things. And I think This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 34 when we look at the Chauncey, not so much the Rise,but in my experience,just, like, thinking about the different proposals that came forward for the Chauncey. I- there are some sort of intangible or difficult to quantify but easier to qualify kinds of elements. Then I think when you're thinking of, like, this particular location and this particular,you know, all the things that have to go into it, I just I agree with Councilor Harmsen and, I think we might be sort of like boxing ourselves in. And I would hate to create a rubric in which we end up with a really high scoring proposal,but there's other red flags. You know, like, I just think that there's this will be a long term you know,relationship with a developer,where the things like partnerships and engagements, like, I just have a hard time seeing exactly how we're going to quantify that effectively that will let us qualitatively evaluate- evaluate it enough,if that makes sense. Alter: And to a certain extent, as well,just not certainly not piling on,but the way in which you were talking about,you know, that it's there are,you know, there's a point system,but it's not entirely, like, then that's all there is. There is an element. I can say as a former HCDC member that that is a hellish place to be. It is. We did that. We sat there, and it was very much like I envisioned. Developers will be sitting there and we'll be talking, and it's like, Yep,here's we've got 80 points for this, and it's like, Yeah,but that just doesn't seem right. And so,yeah-yeah-yeah,you're right. Let's change that. And people are like,you have just gutted my baby. And and so to that extent, it love the idea of having that kind of clarity for people,but I think that the process will-it will be messier. It will need to have that back and forth and that,you know, Andrew has indicated a strong preference for types of uses,right? And then we have discussions about,you know, how sustainable the building is. And then,you know, there's so many different levers that we want that I feel like if we are very transparent and authentic and pull out all the stuff that's in our pockets and put it on the table and talk about it. So they go, Okay, here's how the Council,however, messily,but openly talked about what they think they need what they're hearing from their constituents, about what should be downtown. I think that's going to serve the project better, ultimately, then a rubric that we are inevitably,it's not a checklist. It won't like, I was envisioning it. There's no way that we could go through and say,here's the point system. Meghan's project scored highest. But you know what? There's these other things. Okay,no, let's take away Megan's project, even though it scored highest. How do we explain that? It doesn't go over well to say, well, we just talked about it. We decided it wasn't the highest. It just doesn't. So sorry. I like that experience is together,but it just that's kind of Moe: As a past proposer, it is so helpful. And I think- I think you get- I do think if it's a really carefully crafted thing, which you I think accurately described takes an incredible amount of time for something. You can really drive to certain things,but I'm not going to push for it hard. I just want to hear. Harmsen: Sure. Moe: Good temperatures. Yeah. I think the other question that Jeff asked was office space for the City, and I absolutely think that's a really smart way of addressing our serious space need issue. Alter: The feasibility. Moe: Yeah. Yeah,not saying it not demanding. We're just saying, Hey, we're signaling, like,we have a space need, serious space needs issue, and this is an opportunity. And if I were a developer, I'd say, City is probably a pretty good tenant who pays, I assume we pay our bills. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 35 Alter: I think. Fruin: Most of the time. Moe: Okay. We hope. Alter: Can I add to that point? This is just a general thing,but I think one of the things that our RFP is both it's reflective of our values and what we want and of understanding location and about wanting to attract people to the City into doing different things and things that engage more people. And we also need to make sure that this RFP is something that developers is a benefit for them in doing. If we-if we-. Again,it's that flexibility piece. We have to allow them to come and recognize that they need to get something out of it, too. It has to be worth their while to do. So I just- I- I know we know that. But in- Moe: It's important to say we could get no one to propose on this if we- Bergus: That's true. Alter: If we over stipulate, and if we actually make it so that,you know, so that they don't see that there's a benefit for them to invest in this. Moe: Yeah. Fruin: I want to speak just real quickly about the- the City space. Um, I think it's,uh, stated about as well as it could be in here. But,um, even if a development team says,yes, we'd love to accommodate you City. We've got a floor two that you could work in. I'm- I'm not ready at this time to say that's the right thing. There could be other proposals that have fantastic uses that could really benefit the community, and there is no room for us or maybe the- the cost in which we would have to pay for that space, um, compared to where we could get 25,000 square feet elsewhere in the community just doesn't make sense.Um, so I really-we tried not to give the impression that this a- this is a strong desire for the City to be in this exact location. We just want to open the door to that conversation. So,um, don't be surprised, I guess,if-if someone says,yes,we can accommodate, and we still say, that's great,but these other proposals look stronger, even though they can't accommodate us. Okay. Dunn: I think- I think you hit the nail on the head with communicating that. And I just also want to say, thank you for,you know, forward thinking in that way and including that. Teague: I will add that that is where City Hall used to be. And so,you know,um, I'd be cool,you know, right, full circle.Um, the other thing I would say is,um,just on that one aspect, and I know we're not putting a lot of eggs in this basket,but,um, ownership long term, uh,is most beneficial than writing a rent check. So I don't know if,you know, at least from my perspective, the City owns the land right now. So if there was a way for the proposal to include,um, space for the City, I would hope that there will be an option of the City to buy, um, or,you know, maintain two levels or whatever that is, um,because in the long term, that will be cheaper for us. Bergus: I just had two comments. One was going back five hours to the business incubator. Just to provide some- some very clear response to that.Um, I'm not opposed to that being an idea that would come forward,but I really do appreciate how it's written in the draft, which is,if This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 36 commercial uses are proposed, the City encourages consideration of uses which support the small business culture of downtown Iowa City, which I think has- carries a lot of meaning,um, as well as office, dining, entertainment, or other uses that provide clear benefit to the larger downtown economy and which are not alcohol centric. So I think that includes some specificity that really does align with our- our values. Um, and I think alcohol centric is saying don't make it bars, right? But you- Dunn: Yes. Bergus: -could still have, like an entertainment venue that serves alcohol or something like that. Alter: All right, no shots or us. But I mean- Dunn: Another vape shop. Salih: I still will say that we need to be clear because, for example,if we want to do it incubator and which could be one of the uses, like, for example, restaurant, ah,you need like while they're doing it, they have to consider that this is a restaurant. I need like maybe a kitchen, maybe a hood, maybe, like, how if we did not give an early directions for that,how are we going to add that later especially if we need a kitchen with a hood? Dunn: Yeah. I think-I guess I would like a little bit more clarity. I wasn't trying to be smart or anything earlier, ah, when I was asking like what the small business culture thing meant. Would someone be able to, like, maybe communicate the intent of what that's supposed to communicate with me just helping out? Varley: Sure. So um,you know, I think, as Councilor Bergus mentioned,we do feel like,you know, there's a defined, ah, commitment to our downtown businesses, and so we're kind of leaning on that. We also want to recognize that, um,you know, this may bring in new businesses. This may be an opportunity to support existing businesses in different ways. So just recognizing that there are both new and existing businesses in our downtown,um, that need support. And then I think one thing I've been thinking,you know, as we talk about this incubator ideas, there are a lot of ways we talk about supporting businesses downtown, in my work with the Downtown District. Sometimes,you know, a lot of the time, what we talk about is right sized and affordable space. And so that's different from an incubator,which is managed and,you know,resource. So just thinking about,you know, those different ways that you can encourage, more- make the business environment more inclusive,um, without being too prescriptive. Dunn: Yeah. Alter: And I think- Varley: The- the night bird. Alter: I- I like some of that language very much,because I think incubator when you're like, let me explain. That's not what I mean, right? An Incubator to me is different than talking about- Bergus: Right sized, affordable. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 37 Alter: -right sized and affordable,yeah,which is going to resonate very much within the downtown area because it's not something that most have. Varley: The other thing I wanted to say is, I do think you will have that opportunity,you know, when you see those, er,when we get proposals in and you see proposed uses and proposed square footages, you know, we wrote in that option for you to ask for modifications, ask for clarification so that is an option opportunity,perhaps to say,hey,we think this needs to be a little smaller or we think, you know, this is the type of need, so also something. Dunn: That was kind of my next question was kind of like would that be a more appropriate because- appropriate time to have this discussion because I kind of feel like there's- there's no way that there's not, like front first floor retail. Like there's going to be some- some type of commercial endeavor on the first floor. I mean, I- I just don't see something not proposing that. And so if we propose like modifications or some type of partnership,whether that be for an incubator or,you know, changing the size, I think it might be more appropriate to just have that conversation when that happens. I think we still think about it. I think we till-if there's council that supports it, I think that we,you know, try to do that. But I- I can see it maybe not necessarily being the best time to bring that up here,if that's making sense. Salih: I don't mind like really not talk about it right now, if that's not the right time for it. The problem that I'm facing is this like, for example down the road,if we open this conversation again and there was a support for like, right sized business as you guys talk about it, whatever it is,but it is needed special way of constructing the space,is that still going to be an option? You understand where I'm coming from, like, for example,if we want to do a restaurant, do we still have a space that could become a restaurant or become a small,you know, affordable space for a business to operate? Which is needed some kind of equipment. Is there a way we can still install those equipment later on without like,because like, from my previous experience so far like, civil engineering things,if you need like a restaurant, it have to be constructed from the beginning as a restaurant or is based for some type of that restaurant. If we want to put a hood here, we have the space to put the hood like that what I really concerning. Teague: Can I add to that? I guess the proposals that we're getting, um, and the proposals that- that you'll bring before the Council. How much,um, money would-would those proposals have in a design? Are they concepts or are they all out? I think that's- Moe: Hundreds of thousands of dollars,potentially. That's why I was asking the question about the scoring matrix is it does shortcut a little bit of that. Teague: Because, I mean, that makes a difference in what Mayor Pro Tem is talking about at this moment. If it's just,you know,not$100,000,you know, concept that they're presenting and it's, you know, something sketched with Crayola. And then,you know, that may not be such a- Moe: Instead we won't pick it. Alter: Yeah. Varley: You can also think back like to one of my very early presentations, I had kind of showed an inverted triangle,where,you know, as we're narrowing down through the process,you can expect developers to be more willing to invest- continue to invest. So the example I gave of the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 38 Chauncey proposal was,uh, very detailed. And so it would be great if we get proposals like that. However, I also think,you know, as you move through the process, and as developers,you know, are feeling more invested and- and getting closer to that finalist stage,if you want to ask for even more detailed renderings or whatever it is you're asking for. I think again,we've tried to, like, build in that option. Bergus: Before I lose it, there was one typo to fix on Page 12,because I've been staring at it. Harmsen: Bravo. Bergus: The fourth full graph,it refers to the TIF policy as Exhibit C, and I think consistently as Exhibit B. Sorry, guys. Varley: Okay. Thanks. Moe: I don't want to interrupt you. I- I wanted to about the cost of the pre- the pre-selection proposal effort, does that actually become a cost of the project that can potentially become part of the increment for the TIF? I'm specifically asking, like,is it-it's a development cost so does it actually become part of the thing that we all pay for? Fruin: Um, I'd want to double check on this. I think historically we have not, um, done the- the including the. Moe: Okay. Fruin: Yes. Moe: Okay. Fruin: After selection,when the, ah, the full design begins, that could be incorporated. Salih: Are we now just narrowing down and you're going to come back again on this? Are we just like each time we talk about it,we're narrowing down without? And there is no, like,you are not on the actual phase where you can put the plan now for that project like what we want exactly. We want affordable housing,we want child care there, we don't- do we have all this now, or are we doing this now? Fruin: That's what this is. This is- this is from staff standpoint,uh, once the TIF policy is completed,we would attach that and issue it. So,um,you have-you have as long as you want. There is no rush to get this out but September's always been our target.From staff standpoint, this is ready to go after you complete your review. Alter: Actually,within that,um, and Shawn and I had talked about this a little bit. And it is, again, a question of appropriate time and,um, level of granularity. But it doesn't have to do with what do we want in it. In the TIF policy, there is really clear language, and it's under economic justice, and it talks about hiring contractors who are all essential above board and are following and are not going to hire,you know, skiby ones, right?Um, sorry, it's late.Um,but I noticed that that's not actually in the RFP itself. It's only if somebody, I mean, I'm every- the assumption is everyone is going to-they're not going to be self funding this. This is-this is- someone is going- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 39 sorry. A developer will definitely be trying to, um, avail themselves of TIF, correct? I mean, that's the assumption here. Fruin: I don't know-we don't know that. Alter: Okay. Fruin: Ali, so for the Chauncey, there was proposals that did not request of. Alter: Okay. Well, I guess, so my- sorry, I cut you off.Um, my question then is,is there-is it appropriate at the level of an RFP to put in similar language about saying, we want to make sure that if you-if you're just a developer, and you have the money to do this, that you will abide by,you know, the tenets of economic justice, such as we have in our TIF,but for the RFP itself? Is that appropriate or is that something that we talk about right? Goers: I- I would be cautious about that. Alter: Okay. Goers: And the reason I say that is that there are some state laws that preempt- Moe: Pre-qualification. Goers: Yeah,pre-qualification. Alter: Well, can we do, like,post bid,you know, those types of, I mean, to-to keep it within what our state is doing,but still- Harmsen: Capture what the TIF policy is trying to get at- Alter; Correct. Harmsen: -even if they don't do TIE Is that- I'm I reading you, right? Although- Alter: Yes, that's exactly. Harmsen: -I think- I think it's probably reasonable to assume there's a good chance any project might want something like that to help with its bottom line,but-but if-if they don't,we would not to accidentally- Alter: I just- I also know that neighboring cities have had problems too. Harmsen: Yeah, and they- Alter: And so,you know- Harmsen: Not too far away up the corridor in Cedar Rapids and yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 40 Alter: So I just- I think that whatever we can do, again,we're trying to signal our expectations and our values, right? And I think that that would be something that I have to say, and not only to have to build something of a sustainable building,we want it to be done in an ethical manner. Moe: One thing that's embedded in this, I think would be the, uh, Type 1 construction is, ah,valued and Type 5 construction is not allowed. Alter: Does that talk about- Moe: That goes- that is- that is about the quality of construction and goes a long way towards what kind of crew you get on building a building. So, ah, I know it's not-it's not exactly explicitly saying what I know you're going for. Alter: Yeah. I mean, I'm really concerned- Moe: -but it is actually a pretty meaningful piece of that RFP that it sets a pretty high standard for the quality of construction. And who can build it? Fruin: Yeah, I- I would concur with that. And then on Page 11 at the bottom, there is reference to that TIF policy. And even in addition to the TIF policy, we put in a, uh, encouragement to use, ah, qualified apprentices that participate in the- Alter: Yes, and that was awesome. Fruin: -registered apprenticeship program and- That really speaks I think- Alter: And that was awesome. Fruin: -it's not a requirement,but it speaks to some of the workforce efforts that we've invested in through ARPA, through the student build, and, um,uh, hopefully that sends a similar signal. Alter: So- so I feel like actually fairly comfortable that,you know, I was asking,is it appropriate? And you're saying there are other things within this that actually really do capture that and then it also allows for us to be able to make those discernments down the road. Fruin: And I also think,uh, while some proposals,if we are fortunate to get multiple proposals,you might expect that some have a general contractor identified,but,uh- Alter: Most won't. Fruin: -it-it could be that general contractor identification is gonna be a step several months down the- the path for whoever is selected. They might bid it out between several general contracts. Alter: Yeah. Harmsen: Sure. Moe: Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 41 Teague: So- Varley: The only thing I'll add, sorry,just to that point is when we did that TIF policy review as you saw in the red line version, we actually ended up taking out provisions that previously had been stated would be included in the development agreement because we had this discussion about kind of where do you stop and really that's where the teeth of those provisions falls. So I think that that is the appropriate timing to answer your question is the development agreement. Alter: Thanks. Teague: Are there any other-is there any specific directions that council wants to give to staff? Salih: Is it fair to say that we need some type of restaurant right size,business, wherever you guys were saying to be added to this somehow? Bergus: I mean, I was saying, I think that is captured by the part that I read aloud. That's what-that's my opinion. Salih: Yeah, if it is,you know, if we said a restaurant, as I said earlier, do we have-is that language is enough? Bergus: Yeah. Salih: To have the likes of a restaurant or. Bergus: I don't want to require a restaurant. At this stage. Yeah. Varley: I would say the first bullet point of that sentences. Salih: The incubate that I mean, I don't- I don't mean like a restaurant Dunn: or whatever it is. Salih: Yeah. Whatever it is,but some kind of like flexibility to help the people who open a small business and test their businesses downtown. Alter: Yeah, and I mean, I'm- I'm with Laura that I think the existing language does allow for that. Salih: If the existing language allow for that. Alter: And it signals. Salih: And they go and they start the learning it and draw- do the drawing and everything. And that could be possible later to use the same space to do something like this. Dunn: Yeah. Salih: We don't identify. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 42 Dunn: I think where we've gotten is that,you know, the- the language, I do agree kind of signals it. It might not be as explicit as you and I may want. But my understanding is that further down the line when we get to these types of negotiations, and we have the opportunity to say, okay,you propose this type of space. How about little change a little here and there? If that's appropriate, and if that's what the council wants? I do understand that that seems to be what we have the activities. Salih: There is a flexibility Dunn: Yes- Yes, I believe so. Bergus: I think staff knows that I mean, I think Geoff said it explicitly, the idea of, like, subsidized commercial spaces. Salih: Yes. Bergus: There is something that staff knows we're favorable to. We did that in the South District market. That was,you know, we provided additional,you know, flexibility in the Zoning Code Amendment to do that. So I think that they understand that that is an option that we would be very favorable to,but I don't think we need to require it. And I think that yeah, I guess I'm comfortable,but thank you for bringing that up. Dunn: Yeah, I think we're on the same page. Salih:No, I think,yeah. I guess, like, as long as that's doable if we agree to later in the future. Because maybe right now we don't have. Dunn: I think we got to see stuff. Salih: What we're going to do. Yeah. Dunn: Yeah. We got to see stuff first. Salih: Yes. Dunn: Yeah. Salih: Okay. Dunn: Cool. Sorry, go ahead. Teague: Yep. So it doesn't sound like there'll be any further direction from staff from counsel to staff. Otherwise, we- I guess the next thing will be for this RFP to go out in September. Alter: After- After. Teague: After the Harmsen: does this come back to Council for another, actual approval because it wasn't on the. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 43 Fruin: No we typically you don't have approve RFPs. Alter: It's just direction. Teague: So, the TIF will come before I think before this was released. Fruin: If something comes up between now and our planned September release date, and you want to see it again. Again,you can pump the brakes and say that you want to take another look at it,but it doesn't require a vote. Harmsen: Okay. Thank you. I wasn't sure. Alter: Can I just say before we move on, I promise,it'll be short. I just want to say thank you because you took all of these seven voices. What about this? And what about this? And you distilled it and put it. I know that RFPs have their own kind of template, and there's a rhythm but just thank you because there's a lot of disparate thoughts. And it really has been distilled into a very clear, followable. Moe: Yeah. Alter: Documents. Thank you. Moe: Good job. Dunn: Just say one thing I'm disappointed of. I just wish there were more vape shops in Iowa City. But just joking-just joking. Teague: Well. Dunn: No, I echo those comments as well. I echo those comments. 7. Tobacco Moratorium Discussion Teague: Yeah. We're going on to number Item 7,which is Tobacco moratorium Discussion. And I'm going to turn this over to our City attorney, Eric Goers to get us started. Goers: Thank you Mayor. So Council asked me in our last work session on July 16th, essentially to draft three separate ordinances. One was a zoning ordinance that included a 500 foot separation distance between both tobacco retailers and K through 12 education properties as well as University owned properties. That was ordinance Number 1. The second ordinance was an ordinance relating to the CAP on permits. I'm more on that in a moment, and then the third was a ban on Kratom. And so those three ordinances have been drafted. And I emphasize drafted because these are,you know, hopefully something for you to react to and feel free to tweak. The comment I'll make about the- the active permit ordinance is we need to make a correction. I had earlier indicated there was 63 current active permits. In fact, we've concluded there are 62. And so I think that's an important part of the discussion that you'll want to consider. I should also point out that Susan Vileta, the Johnson County Public Health, um, a staff person who was kind enough to join us in our last session is under the weather tonight,but has agreed to,um, appear remotely. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 44 So if you have any questions about the public health ramifications,uh, of any of this, she should be available to be called upon by you. Teague: Hello, Susan, I see you. Goers: Oh, Good. All right. Well. Vileta: Hi there. Goers: Again, I'm sure you'll- I want to discuss those three draft ordinances,but,um, the City Clerk and I have had an opportunity to speak at length about kind of a number of the machinations and kind of the administrative hurdles that might come with this. And that leads us to a number of questions for council. And I'd be happy to go there if you'd like to start, or if you'd prefer to just react to the ordinances first, that would be fine, too,kind of whatever council's preference. Moe: I have a single thought that we can do it every order we want. Go with your. Teague: Yeah. So I would. Moe: I've read the ordinance, and you did exactly as I think we're instructed by our Mushy instructions. I have since had a somewhat change in thinking about the 500 foot separation between other tobacco outlets. I absolutely want to keep the 500 foot separation from vulnerable populations. I think that's smart. But the 500 foot between other tobacco retailers, to me,um, I think we have an opportunity to learn from the alcohol ordinance that we have, and we end up, I think, sometimes with spots that are sort of permanently. Going to be a bar because they got that permit, and they're always there and you won't ever give it up because you're that spot, and it creates all kinds of weird distortions,um,in that, that, I, I think that we can achieve our goals without that piece of it. And so I'm just saying that that would be the modification that I would like to see and would like to know if other counselors have a similar attitude about saying,it's absolutely to keep the 500 feet from vulnerable populations as it's written,which include schools in the university,but not, not tie it to the next door neighbor. Dunn: I would support that. I mean, Councilor Moe and I had a conversation at length about this, and, um,you know, I can just reiterate, I don't think we want people to just hold on to permits forever and just stick in the same place necessarily. Um, so yeah, I could support that. Goers: For council's benefit, I'll note that the City Clerk has assisted me with bringing up that interactive map to which I referred last time. But we've got it loaded in the, um, on the computer here, so I can throw it up on the screen if counsel would want, and in so doing, modify those buffers that is, you know, take out the retailers or,you know, change the distances from at least 500 -1,000 feet or whatever Council would like to consider. Moe: Does it include previously it showed tobacco permits? Does it also show now vulnerable populations? Goers: When you say vulnerable population. Yes. Harmsen: Schools and parks. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 45 Goers: Yes. Maybe I think that's I mean, the way I've got it set up, and thank you to Kellie for pulling it up. This is as written, that is as instructed,uh, 500 feet separation between retailers and away from educational institutions. I'll- I'll add that in looking at this briefly, I can see that there are at least a couple hiccups, um, that would need to be worked through. So please don't take this as gospel,um for all those locations and the requisite separation distances. But clearly this will give you a good idea about what the various variations that you might consider would lead to. Dunn: Could we zoom in on downtown. Harmsen: And are we looking at 500 foot circles right now? Goers: Those are 500 foot circles between retailers and off of educational facilities. And for convenience, when I talk about educational facilities, I'm talking about K through 12 and University property just for simplicity. Dunn: Question about that. I mean, does that include the UI Hospital since it's University property? Goers: I'm sorry. Dunn: Does it include the hospital since it's University property? Goers: It looks like it does. Um,you'll see the University property over there in kind of pale yellow. Dunn: Yeah. Goers: And you'll see the red dotted line seems to go in about 500 feet. You also see that it doesn't appear to be perfect to me. Like I said,we'll need to work that through. City IT department is in the process of doing their own version of this. They have not yet completed that work. Dunn: Could we zoom out again whenever we can. Goers: Oh, Could we. Okay. Thanks don't know how to use this. Dunn: Could we zoom out, Kellie. Teague: You have to speak louder? Dunn: Kellie, can we zoom out,please? Grace: Yes thank you. Dunn: Thank you. Okay. Goers: So again, for legends sake, the green dots are establishments that have both an alcohol and a tobacco license and permit. The orange dots,you see,just have tobacco permits. What's not depicted are those that just have alcohol. You'll see on the right upper hand right side of the screen, we could add that,but for sake of this discussion, since those would not have any tobacco permits. I didn't want to make it too confusing. Well, I can kind of go through our questions if council would like. Okay. So,um, with all permits expiring on June 30th of each year, that's just This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 46 the way tobacco permits work. Do you want to require a particular renewal date? I'm assuming that the council's preference would be that,you know, those who already have permits would,uh, be have preference for renewal. I think that's consistent with grandfathering and so forth. The reason we're asking is that there are occasions when some of these permitees are less than prompt in applying. And that,in theory could lead to a bit of a pickle if they don't apply in time,um, for the renewals, then have we dropped down, um,you know, from 62 to say 60 if there are a couple who don't apply in time. And that will lead to some other questions about how we dole allow,um, various,you know, vacancies,if you will. So what we were thinking is we would just impose a deadline for renewals, um,be it April Ist or May Ist or something like that, so it would be crystal clear. This is how many,if any, openings will be available. You know,if there's an establishment that's not going to renew, they're gone out of business or whatever, that would make it easier to manage. And so I guess my question is, does that seem okay to council? Harmsen: Yes. Goers: Seeing a lot of heads nodding. Teague: I guess the only question I have,um, oftentimes when I hear of,you know, entities missing a deadline, regardless of this type of thing,it could be more mom and pop, smaller entities, not big corporations. Goers: Right. Teague: And so I would not want to have one of those. And I don't know if there's anyone in this circle, but I wouldn't want to have someone that was overwhelmed with life and business that missed the deadline, for whatever reason, got reinstated through the state process. And we didn't allow them to come back on board. Goers: Yeah. Well, that leads to kind of or one of my next questions,which is,what do you want to do or how do you want to dole out any available slots? For example,you might say,well, there's a heavy preference for those who are already permitted.You know,yes, they missed the deadlines, or they're not, let's say, automatic,but,you know, applying this criteria, and we can talk more about that in a moment.Um,you know, there's a heavy weight toward those that have been in the business for a while, and thus we'll,you know, end up giving it to them anyway in theory. There could be any number of other ways that they're treated. You could just say,nope, they're treated like any other applicant, or you could say,you know, first come first serve, we're going to do it out by a lottery system. We're going to do it based on their percentage of tobacco sales. Teague: So I want to make sure I understand that is when someone sells. There. Goers: No,not necessarily. I wanted to address your concern about if there's you use your example, Mom and Pop establishment that missed the renewal deadline that we set. What do we do with that? Let's just say that,you know,we've got 62 now and shoot there's that one establishment and they forgot. So that takes us down to 61. We've got one opening, so to speak. Uh, do we just say, well, it's free to everyone, or do we give a preference to those who are current permittees, for example, which I think would save the establishment that you're describing hypothetically. Alter: The latter seems to make sense. It seems unduly I mean, that's my sense of it, and it answers. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 47 Harmsen: Playing a game of gotcha. Moe: The grandfather. Harmsen: We don't want to play a game of gotcha with this. Alter: Right. Okay. Goers: Yeah. I mean, one of the other City managers has mentioned to that one of the other things you saw in your ordinances is,you know, looking at the grandfathering rights as 60 days and so forth. Of course,you could consider that. Are they replying within the 60 days? And, of course, they'd be selling up until June 30,presumably,because that's what their, I'll say old permit allows. All right, so we can offer a preference. Do you have any- I mean,besides that, that would maybe be kind of tier one consideration. Do you have any preference beyond that? Insofar as available permits first come first serve, lottery. Dunn: I think lottery is the fairest. Goers: I'm sorry. Dunn: I think lottery is the fairest. Goers: Lottery? Dunn: At least that's my thought. Harmsen: But do we want to set a window for lottery application? Alter: You take people who got their stuff in that. You know,if we're doing it through-what was the-this other option that you mentioned? Goers: Well,it could be- I mean,it could be anything,but the other things I threw was,you know, first come first serve or percentage of tobacco sales, and by that, I mean,you know, maybe preferencing those that have a lower estimated tobacco sales out of their gross, that kind of thing. Harmsen: Can I throw a hypothetical out? So kind of combining a couple of the things I read in the proposal. Using, again, our- say we have a June 30 deadline for renewal process. Goers: Well, to be clear, that wouldn't be the deadline. We were talking about an application deadline. The all the permits expire on June 30. Harmsen: Right. Okay. Yeah. Same yeah. But I mean,people that wanted to renew would have to have applied before June. Goers: Before then,because you would need to approve those permits before June 30. Harmsen: Right. But if somebody misses that deadline, could we just treat that the same way with 60 days as we would if somebody was going through a sale or something where there had been a lapse or something, and then that gives them time to say,we've still got-we still want the preference for This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 48 this but after that 60 days, that preference goes away, and then it's first come first serve. I mean,is that- I'm just trying to keep it somewhat consistent in the way we're approaching this and keeping our numbers without, I mean, maybe that doesn't help make it more streamlined. Bergus: If the deadline for the renewal application was early enough, like April Ist? Goers: Sure. If it was April I st,you know, I mean, again, I'm cautious about imposing duties on the Clerk's office. That would have to be the ones who look at the list of 62 and then look at the applicants and say, well,you know, did anyone forget? Obviously, there's some administrative burden with that. But it would be easy enough to do, one would presume, and then reach out and contact,you know, the entity that did not renew, I guess,is what I'm hearing? Yeah, and then allow them 60 days to get on the stick and make it happen. Bergus: I don't really want to create an affirmative duty to contact them if they don't renew. I don't like that. I think just give them a grace period. Grace: We send out initial letters saying that the renewal process is coming up and then they do get a reminder. That being said, we do still sometimes have late ones. Harmsen: Just out of curiosity,were you, like, a week or two late or. Grace: Well, I mean,we've had them where,you know, they get two shots because there's two June meetings. I'm trying to think if we've had a special meeting to squeak somebody in that didn't make that second June meeting.Not recently. Fruin: Not that I can recall. Alter: I mean, I think in this regard, that, like, there's a consistency to the fact that we're talking about three separate things that are really trying to limit and say, we're not trying to be a tobacco- friendly town,right? It seems to me that there's already a process that up here. I agree with Laura completely. There shouldn't be yet another like,hey,you're late, right? I mean, that's in place, and this is their livelihood, and I do understand that life happens. But I think that's-we have enough of a mechanism in place that can allow like, if they're late, then they still have the grace period that's 60 days. But I don't think that we should be going after them, I mean, that's-think about it as a professor. Do you call up your students on the regular and say,hey, I'm still waiting for your paper, right? I mean, sometimes we do. Dunn: Shawn's a really good professor. Alter: No. Sometimes we do,but I'm also like, this is their livelihood, and they've been reminded twice that they need to renew the thing that they sell for their livelihood. The permit to do that. I guess I'm just- I think that we're good. Especially given the fact that we are actually saying,well, we have a cap on how many we're going to do, and we want to make sure that,you know,we're figuring out about spacing and ways to discourage that. I think that calling them to remind them that they are late on their application doesn't-isn't consistent in terms of thinking of it that way. Bergus: Sorry. Salih: Go ahead. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 49 Bergus: No, I was just going to say then I think what we're saying is if one comes in,but it's still within the time period to get on the agenda,you're giving preference to those that previously had one. Grace: Is the grace period, are we backing up the deadline to- so that the grace period is before their license expires, or are we doing- extending the grace period after? Bergus: I think before. Goers: Well, I think it would almost have to be before, and the reason I'd say that, let's use April 1 st as an example. Well, so,you know,you got to have it in by April 1 st. If we give them the kind of the 60 days grace period,hypothetically, that takes them to June 1st,which is still enough time for them to get approved and not have a lapse. But the other complication that comes with that is if we don't impose some kind of requirement like that,you know, there will be others if there really is a vacancy, and I should note, for example, that one of those 62 active permits is that Kum & Go at the corner of Mormon Trek and Benton,which,you know,because it's my commute home here to tell you,it's been closed for a long time. But they renewed. It's only $100 to renew and so their permit's good but I guess my point is that might change at some point and so we want to be able to you know, open it up to new businesses if we really truly have a vacancy, and at some point,we need to establish that we have a vacancy. Teague: Is there any way and I understand the administrative burden on the staff. Um, for someone that missed a deadline, whatever the case may be,just to get a response or attempt to get a response from,you know, the owner. I just know that- I understand this is alcohol,but when it comes down to business owners, there are things that happen. Sometimes things lapse, and I just don't feel comfortable,you know,just saying,you know,it's-they're out of luck. Then they're back in the you know, in the pool. I mean,if there's a way just to get a yes or no,we're not doing this. I mean, at that point, no, we're not holding their hands. Like, we let them know you got 60 days or whatever to do it,but I would just feel not right because there is a business owner somewhere out there. In your larger corporations, not a big deal,but your smaller,you know, entities and- and new entrepreneurs there are challenges that happen. Bergus: I think if you're in the business of selling a highly regulated product, the baseline is you have a license to do it. I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate it,but also we're trying to limit how these products are circulating in our community. I'm fine saying we don't need to give special consideration to ensure that all the permits are being used. Like, I would feel better if like the cap comes down every time there's attrition,if we can justify that. Goers: Well, since you've raised that, Councilor Bergus, I mean, that's another thing is the direction you gave me was to set it at the current level,but you could set it at 50. You could set it at 100. You could set it at whatever you want. Obviously,it,you know, kind of puts some of those issues to rest if you were to lower it, let's just say,because then we don't really need to think a lot about how to dole out those extra spots because there won't be any extra spots for some period of time. Dunn: I'd be fine with attrition. Salih: You were saying, like the card, like, sometime there is a vacancy, and we can advertise for it. If we really want to, like, eliminate it, and why we advertise for it,if somebody-we have a vacant and somebody missed to apply. Why we advertising for it? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 50 Goers: I'm sorry, I missed the last part of your question. Salih: You said like,if there is a vacancy. A vacancy we can advertise for it. Goers: Well, I wouldn't say advertise for it. We would just want to at some point, declare that we have a vacancy. Let's just say we stick it at 62, and we currently have 62. Let's just say that that Kum & Go at Mormon Trek that I mentioned actually doesn't renew next year because they have been closed by that point for more than a year. Well, okay,now we've got a vacancy, and we need to figure out how to dole that out because there might be 10 applicants for that one,you know, extra spot. Salih: But the thing is,if like, on the other hand, like Councilor Bergus saying,we don't want to remind them,you know if they lost the license, they lost the license, and that's we reduce the amount of the people that we have. In the same time, as soon as that person lost the license,we have a vacancy. We can advertise for it so I don't understand. If, anyway, we're going to have an addition, say, for example,we have 60, one person lost the license because of they being late. We have now 59. We have a vacancy. But in the same time, we did not give that person ability to renew or remind them to renew because we want to reduce it in the same time,we want to advertise. I don't know if that makes sense in what I'm saying. Moe: We could hold the permit for a year or more before we do that, so they can have an opportunity to get in the lottery a year later. Salih: I see. Dunn: Good point. Salih: Maybe. Harmsen: I mean, the 60 days was to try and not have it stretch out to a year,but I guess. Moe: Oh,no, they would loose their license in 60 days,but have an opportunity to enter a lottery the following year for that available license. Harmsen: I see we would just hold the license. Moe: You'll have to dol it out immediately,right? We can. Goers: No. I mean, at present, for example,we don't have a cap, as you know, and if there's some entity that opens up business in December,you know, they apply in December, and you folks,you know, grant their permit the,you know, next meeting. So yeah, I mean,we could hold on. If I understand what you're saying, Councilor Moe,when you say hold it for a year. You mean, so it expires June 30th. They didn't renew on time, then we just wait for the next June 30th a year from then or? Salih: To renew on time. Moe: So it's all done at the same time. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 51 Dunn: I like that. Salih: Yeah and if you have-. Moe: Is that problematic or do you foresee issues with that? Goers: Uh,no. Moe: Does Kellie forsee issues with that. It's that I like everybody gets. Grace: So you're saying they missed the deadline, they apply after the deadline,we hold that application marking it somehow that there's a preference for this business come the next license? Dunn: No preference. Grace: No preference? Salih: They already have their license,but they did not renew on time. Grace: Therefore, they don't have a license. Dunn: And that permit is sequestered. Grace: We just hold that? Dunn: We just hold the permit itself. Grace: But then if we have more than just that one business applying for the following year. Harmsen: Then we-that's the next thing we need to figure out. Salih: What about if, like, 10 of them did not apply on time? We're gonna hold all those? Alter: Is that attrition or is that just holding it in abeyance? Harmsen: In abeyance. And then but I mean. Alter: What are we trying to do? Moe: Reduce-reduce the quantity of sellers. Bergus: If we set the cap at something lower than current,but we grandfather the current ones, right? Harmsen: That problem solves itself Bergus: A little bit. Harmsen: We set it at like whatever 55. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 52 Dunn: That's what I was thinking. Harmsen: Or whatever number. We don't have to deal-potentially never have to deal with the problem, right? Because there would never be fewer people that want to. But if it gets below 55, then we would have to come back. I think we need say now that if we get in a situation,you know, first come first serve would be probably the simplest,but then that might get into a case of how did they hear about it? Like,you know what I mean so like getting back to Eric's point. If we have a thing where we say, okay, we're going to put it up on the City Clerk's website or whoever, that this is open. You have five business days of those anybody who gets in that time will do a lottery. You know what I mean? Because if you just do it like one first in, that could again, somebody. Alter: Then they have to, like, date it. Harmsen: So it's publicly transparent so every member of the public gets the same notice and ability to apply for that permit rather than just who happened to be walking through City Hall heard somebody talk about it and? Obviously, that's a silly hypothetical. But it's late. Apologize. Goers: Well, the-so the simplest would be if you, again,hypothetically, we were to set it at 60 or 55,um, you know, and we you know, then it would just be if they,you know, forget after these reminders and the grace period and so forth,you know, then too bad.Now we got 59,you know, or,you know, or 60 or 61, I should say, since we're at 62 now.It gets a little tricky if we hold onto them for a year,because the City Clerk's office would have to kind of keep that in mind, and people would say,well, hold on,your cap is 62. You've only issued 61. Why is that? Well,we're holding, you know, this one permit for a year, and then at the end of the year, do they get a preference? The one that forgot, or is it just lottery then? Dunn: I think if we lower the cap to 55, that's less of an issue, like the sequestering of the permit. Goers: It still could be an issue for,you know,if there's some place that forgets to. Dunn: I mean, I don't think we have to sequester the permit if we're lowering it to 55. That's what I mean. Bergus: Yeah. I agree. Goers: Okay. I understand. Moe: That's fine with lowering it. Dunn: We won't have to like hold the per permit for a year if we're lowering it to 55. Harmsen: Because the permit just goes away after whatever. Alter: In other words, we're basically grandfathering. Let's say we've got 62 right now. We're grandfathering seven establishments. Goers: Well, technically, all 62 would be grandfathered. Alter: That's what I mean. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 53 Goers: But there's a little. Yeah. Alter: I'm- I'm trying to think of the cleanest way here. Goers: Yeah. Alter: Because I know where it's late,but also this. We do this, and we hold this, and we do this, and I'm like, lots of people think that what Iowa City does is really complicated, and they don't like that. I realize we're trying to,you know,but I'm like,what's-what's the simplest path to this? And if it's that we just lower the cap to 55, and then you know, it just one by one, they peel off because they didn't renew, then that's how we do it. Salih: That means we're not going to open it for like vacancy. Say, Hey, we have a vacancy. That's it.No vacancy. Bergus: Till we get below the cap. Alter: Not until we get below the cap, and then, I mean,it may be draconian,but also,it's really simple. Salih: And even the blow the cap would have to be also because we are doing it by distance if someone- Dunn: Yeah, that's a good point. Salih: We are still going to consider that,yes. Dunn: Very good point. Yes. Salih: Yes. Fruin: So the only thing you may get into, and- and you may be fine with this is there could be,um, a new gas station or a new grocery store that wants to locate in a site that would otherwise be acceptable, and if a deal breaker for them is cigarette sales or tobacco sales, that could chase- that could chase them away. Alter: I was actually looking over around Eastdale and yeah, I do understand that. Fruin: Yeah. Like, for example, if you think of, ah, we know the Dubuque/I80 project has changed hands, and a new owner is thinking about a commercial area being established there. There's no school sites in that area. If they came and they said, Hey, we've got a user. It's a grocery store, and they want to sell tobacco, we would-we would tell them, I'm sorry, that's not allowed, and you're going to have to find a different user. That may be okay,but I just want to try to help you anticipate- Alter: Yeah, thank you. Fruin: Some of the challenges you might get into. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 54 Teague: I mean, we also have to be fine with the fact that there could be we know there's no buses really that go over there. We have to be fine that people with lesser means would have to go further for something that other people have quick access to. I understand tobacco is-has some health implications and all that other stuff,but I mean, this is setting up some inequities for people as well. But this isn't the hill I want to die on. I'll tell you. Alter: No, I hear you Bruce. Bergus: And I- I just recall Johnson County Public Health being here last meeting and saying the right number is zero,basically,right? Like, this- this is something that we have an opportunity to limit negative impacts in the community. I appreciate what you're saying. Teague: And that's taken away people's choices. I mean, I don't think right, right? Bergus: Absolutely. Yeah, which is what the government does,right? Dunn: Sounding very conservative. Goers: Well, the other thing I'll point out is that you know, the way I set up the ordinates, the cap is set by resolution,which would only require one reading. Dunn: That's great. Goers: So I suppose in theory,if you were sitting at 56, and there was a great new opportunity, and a great new business that came to town,but said I'm not coming unless you give me a tobacco permit, you know, it take one meeting for you to- Dunn: Couldn't we get sued- Goers: To be clear, well,no. Well, I never guarantee that we would not be sued. We get sued for some silly things. Dunn: This is a good point. Goers: But I don't think that would prevail,particularly if you had a policy in place that kind of talked about how you're going to dole out permits,you know, available permits that are,you know, have a rational basis and public,you know,kind of anchored in public health. Harmsen: If you're saying, so that if we have this,we dole out permits, if tobacco sales are less than one percent of your total sales. Goers: Sure. Moe: Or something like that, then we have a rationale for allowing additional permits and maybe not offending certain actors that would be most likely to be angry about this ordinance to begin with. Goers: Perhaps. Salih: I will be a good topic for Iowa. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 55 Teague: And they're going to talk about it. Anything else on this topic? Oh, well, do you need anything else? Yes. Goers: Okay. I do have a few more questions. Teague: Yes,please go. Moe: At least a spons big. Alter: That's the only change they need to do. Goers: Oh. One of the topics we were discussing is a little bit of a fear. And frankly, this won't be a problem if you set the cap at present or lower,but there would be institutions that just get the permit and just keep it,but they're either not selling tobacco right now or they like that Kum & Go at Mormon Trek and Benton Street, are closed for business,but are maintaining their tobacco permit,you know,whether there'd be kind of squatting,if you will, to preserve grandfather rights. If you're okay with that, then- Dunn: I don't want to say it. Salih: Weak. Goers: I don't think frankly,it would be an issue unless you decided that the right number of permits is 70. Salih: Yeah. Dunn: Yeah, I know. Alter: It's fine. Moe: Sell it within a year or you. Harmsen: So, we covered-we've covered setbacks and caps, or did we finish the discussion of a set? Goers: I'm sorry. We're not quite there. Harmsen: Okay. Thank you. I keep track of where we were. Goers: Also, I wanted to confirm-well, do you wish to essentially allow transfers of permits? Two different flavors of that. One is there is a current establishment that has a tobacco permit, and they would like to sell to a different owner, same business, same kind of thing, same location, and all that. Is that consistent I mean, it's a new permit because- Grace: State doesn't allow that, Eric. Goers: I'm sorry. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 56 Grace: State doesn't allow that. If it's- Goers: Well,yeah,but I'm saying that let's just say that there's one that is not otherwise compliant with the 500-foot separation, whichever separations we have. It would be a new application. We're thinking that it's grandfathered and that's okay, and that that sale would be allowed to go through. I mean, we can work out the details about how that effectuated. I just want to hear your intent as to whether or not you would want to allow let's say, a convenience store to sell from one owner to another owner. Alter: So which is the crux of your question? Is it about the transfer of the permit, or is it about you said something about 500 feet? Salih:No difference? Goers: Well, I guess what I'm saying is that maybe the 500 feet is-is a red herring in this conversation. Alter: Okay. Goers: I guess really what I need to focus on is you've got a grandfathered use, a current permittee, let's say, a convenience store, and they want to sell from one owner to another owner. Do you, folks- Alter: Maintaining the same business. Goers: Same business. Alter: Yeah. Harmsen: None of the new restrictions would kick in. Goers: Sorry. Harmsen: None of the new restrictions would kick in in that case. Goers: Well, none of the restrictions would serve to prevent that sale,is what I'm asking? Alter: Yeah, I do not want to be responsible for preventing a sale. Moe: Yeah, I- I agree with that. Alter: Yeah. Moe: I also go back to my initial contradictory statement to, are we creating forever spots? Are we creating spots that are going to forever be the tobacco places, and in the same kind of strange concentration we currently have? That's- I'm split on it, guys. I really-it's messy. Like, I don't want to harm someone's business who's a legitimate business owner selling their business, and it's part of it,but I also understand that if you own one, like,you-you've got a thing now,we've created a scarcity that's going to cause some weird distortions, I think. Salih: I- I don't. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 57 Moe: I mean,you guys don't care. Alter: No, I care,but I do not want to be responsible. Moe: For shutting down a business. Alter: For shutting down a business. Moe: I don't either. Like I don't either. Like, I'm just-these are both ugly. Salih: I think we should let them keep it. Goers: Yeah. Okay. All right. So I'm hearing the consensus is that would be allowed. The second kind of related question is if you've got a current permittee who is on Main Street and wants to let that one expire and open a different business that is compliant with all other zoning and so forth restrictions somewhere else. Business owner basically moves their business from A to B. Salih: So what about maybe they move too close, and they are not is that still we going to require the cap I think, right?Not, the cap. I mean, the distance. Dunn: Yeah. Salih: If the distance- I think if the distance is still okay, and they have their license but they transferring their location. Goers: Right. In theory,it might go from a location that's not okay because they're within 500 feet, to a place, it would have to be okay based on separation distance. Teague: And I think part of the challenge there will be business owners won't know that. They'll be entered into a contract with a landlord,paying,you know, the rent into a new lease, and then they go and come to the City to apply, and then the City says,No,you're in this red zone. They've left their current location. I don't know. This, for me,with businesses,it's a lot to it. It's not easy. Salih: It's not easy. Harmsen: Can I- can I maybe what I think I hear you asking us is do we want to attach the grandfather right to the physical location or to the business entity that owns the-is it the kind of the gist of what you're asking is or both? Goers: Largely, the grandfather rights definitely apply to the physical location. I mean,you can't kind of take it with you so to speak. Salih: Yes. Goers: But,you know, we can in terms of the permit cap and so forth,you would be losing one and gaining one. It would be a wash, obviously. But,you know, it would be a new permit because it's got a new address on it. And so you folks might choose to say,nope, that's- that's different. We're not going to allow that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 58 Harmsen: Okay. Moe: Is it lawful for us to not allow people to- Salih: Responsive. Moe: To sell those at a high premium. Like, I mean,it seems like the scheme that you're talking about, somebody who owns one becomes a very valuable thing. They could sell it for a lot of money. Salih: Exactly. Goers: In theory,yeah,you're right. I mean,we could be creating scarcity in the black market. That's a real worst. Moe: If the initial there's no way,is there a way for us to- Goers: To cause- to ensure that they don't sell for a premium? Moe: Yeah. Goers: I don't think we can,you are right? I don't think we can. Dunn: Yeah,if we grandfather like that and on. Moe: Yeah. Alter: I mean, I realize all of these questions. I mean, these are the answers that you need. But I think in terms of the way that we're thinking about this holistically,right, about how do we reduce all of this? That absolutely makes sense,but I think that we're getting into a realm where potentially we're really overregulating this. I'm just going to say it. It's so complex to try to winnow this down. Absolutely. I think we want attrition, we want the cap down,but it's introducing and it's good that we're surfacing this. I don't want us to add another quill- another feather in our quill, or whatever the language is,right? Thank you. Bergus: Arrow in the quiver. Alter: Thank you. Yes. I am Miss Malpop. But I just want to have this be yet another thing that Iowa City is known for overregulating. I really just don't. You know? Bergus: At the same time. I think we're talking about harmful products. Alter: I understand that, I also understand as maybe I'm the only one who's a former smoker and like a heavy smoker, to the mayor's point. This is,people make choices, and I- I think we're potentially setting ourselves up for a mini New York City with no more big gulps. I mean, I'm not saying, like that we just say,Nope,it's a free-for-all all. I agree with the ordinances and with the details for clarification to put into place. I even agree with- I agree with the cap. I just think that the more that we're saying, and let's do more right now. After we've been in session for close to 6 hours. Maybe it's not the best time to be doing this. Let's sit and think about this a little bit. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 59 Bergus: That's a good point. I like that point a lot. Because I don't think it's true. Alter: Yes. But I am saying let's keep in- Bergus: Continue the conversation. Great. Alter: But let's keep in mind, are we getting too smart for ourselves here? Teague: All right, so I've heard- I've heard a pause on this conversation. Salih: Yes. Teague: And we'll pick it back up at a future work session agenda. Harmsen: Please don't hate me,but we didn't talk about the Kratom ban at all. Salih: Don't say anything. Moe: That's right. Dunn: That's all one item. Salih: I just also want to encourage you to bring, like, a lot of challenging questions the same. Think about more questions about this. Goers: Bring a more challenging question. Salih: Yeah, challenge this coach, so that's guide. Goers: All right. So moving forward with the Kratom,we'll decide that later,what the permit cap is, we'll decide that later. I'll continue to think if there's any other questions that come up,but do you need anything from me between now and the next? Harmsen: I mean, any recommendations you might have to solve? Goers: Well, I mean, City Clerk and I can definitely make some suggestions,particularly as it relates to the what I'll call the rules that you would presumably set under this current structure by resolution to make it as efficient as possible because she's got some great experience for kind of running this stuff. But,you know,in so far as whether the number is 62 or 55 or 80,you know, or whether you want to ban Kratom, I mean, I really need that from you. Moe: So, what would be helpful for me is to have the list of question before the meeting. Like, that was the early right now. Bergus: That would be great. Moe: That would be. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 60 Goers: Okay. Yeah, sure. Moe: Because there's certain things I'm speaking to right now,but I might have other thoughts. Bergus: And we appreciate that that took having it all fleshed out and then talking with Kellie and that we're not faulting you for not having that. But now that we're in this place,it'd be great to have it. Goers: Yes, okay. So when would you like to you want to have this continuous discussion? Teague: We'll have it at our earliest opportunity. We need to look at work session items. Goers: Okay. Dunn: Yes. Salih: Anytime but not now. Harmsen: We do want to probably have some motions because our moratorium expires in December. Dunn: True. Goers: Well, I had kind of a timeline spelled out,but it'll be off by at least a meeting. But here's what needs to happen. So the zoning part, that's the 500 feet separation. That needs to go to the P&Z first, and then it comes back to you. Then it's an ordinance like the other two, so requires three readings unless you collapse to two. And then presumably at the last reading,whether that's the second reading because you collapse or the third reading because you don't, we would have those resolutions to kind of formulate or put in place the structure for how this is governed. And we would also presumably lift the moratorium at such a date as the ordinance takes effect so that,you know,you're kind of unleashing your system at that point. I'd be a little reason to have a moratorium if you've already gone ahead and passed the ordinances that,you know, the moratorium was intended to allow. Salih: And between this conversation and when we approve this moratorium, if anyone come and apply, they're okay, right? Goers: If anyone applies? Salih: Yeah, now. Bergus;No, the moratorium is in place right now. Salih: They cannot do it.Understand. Goers: And the council is not issuing any permits right now. Salih: All right. Harmsen: Good point. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024 Page 61 Alter: Finished. Teague: All right, we are adjourned. Bergus: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of August 6, 2024