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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-07-14 TranscriptionJuly 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 1 July 14, 2003 Council Work Session 6:15 PM Council: Champion, Kanner, Lehman, O'Donnell, Pfab, Vanderhoef, Wilbum Staff: Atkins, Boelk, Davidson, Dilkes, Fosse, Franklin, Helling, Karr, McCafferty, McCafferty TAPES: 03-55, SIDE TWO; 03-60 SIDE ONE TAPE 03-55, SIDE TWO Lehman/(Can't hear) Kart/We have some additions to the agenda for tomorrow evening that we'd like to post. Lehman/OK. Karr/One of them is an addition to the Consent Calendar. It's a resolution supporting the Waterworks Park Prairie project and authorizing the mayor to sign a grant application for the DNR. This will be added to the Consent Calendar. It will be item 3e (15), if there's Council concurrence. Lehman/OK. Karr/In your packet this evening you have a revised item 10, which is awarding contracts to the HVAC. That is not seen as an addition, but just noting that. There will be two new items. A resolution authorizing indemnification for punitive damages caused by lawsuits. That will be item 13 b; 13 c is a resolution of intent to convey property known as the Peninsula Development Second Addition to Terry Stamper and setting a public hearing on the conveyance for August 19th. Lehman/OK. Kan'/If there's concurrence, we'll go ahead and post those and then give you the supportive documentation following. Atkins/Yes. Lehman/OK. You've got it. Now I believe we are scheduled to go to the (can't hear). Atkins/(Can't hear) Field trip. (tour of Fire Safety House) PLANNING AND ZONING This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 2 a. PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE CONDITIONALLY CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF 5.69 ACRES FROM LOW-DENSITY SINGLE- FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RS-5) TO LOW-DENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL (RM-12) LOCATED AT 1715 MORMON TREK BOULEVARD. 01EZ03-00018) Franklin/... from RS-5 to RM-12. This is for All Nations Baptist Church. The impetus for this has to do with the sign for the church, but the analysis of it was about the appropriate land use in this area and this is the sign that is in question, and this is the property, but I don't know that we need to go through all of that. Karr/Excuse me, technical difficulties. Atkins/Operator malfunction? Franklin/Yes. Probably. (laughter) OK. Location, Mormon Trek Boulevard, 218 on the other side of the property, Mormon Trek Village to the north of it and PDH-8 to the east of it. What we looked at it for was what the likely development of it would be in the long run, and that given the size of the piece the fact that it is bound by Mormon Trek and 218 and then the garages of the Mormon Trek Village are along this boundary, that a multifamily type of development is probably what would succeed here, that it is unlikely, and also undesirable location for single family since single family would require individual access points or could out onto Mormon Trek. So the staff recommended rezoning to RM-12. The Planning and Zoning Commission was concerned about the development of the property in the future at any time if it should change to residential, and so a conditional zoning agreement was drafted and it has been signed, which agrees that if the property should ever redevelop for residential there would be a planned development that would be reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Commission. Also the establishment of 70-foot- wide evergreen buffer along 218 and again this is just if it redevelops for residential development. Just want to point out that the representative from P and Z tonight is Beth Koppes. She's here if you have any questions. Irvin? Pfab/Were there any questions presented or asked by people in the area? Franklin/I don't believe so. I don't think there was any. No, Beth is shaking her head no. There was not. OK? Lehman/OK. b. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF APPROXIMATELY 6.1 ACRES FROM COUNTY RS, SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL, TO CI-1, INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL, FOR PROPERTY LOCATED WEST OF DANE ROAD, EAST OF MORMON TREK BOULEVARD EXTENDED. (REZ01-00017) (PASS AND ADOPT) c. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE CHANGING THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 3 APPROXIMATELY 144 ACRES FROM COUNTY CH, C2, R1A, RS & A1 TO P, PUBLIC, CH-l, HIGHWAY COMMERCIAL, CI-1, INTENSIVE COMMERCIAL, AND ID-RS, SUBURBAN RESIDENTIAL, FOR PROPERTY GENERALLY LOCATED EAST OF HIGHWAY 218, WEST OF THE IOWA CITY AIRPORT, AND BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 1. (REZ03- 00013) (PASS AND ADOPT) Franklin/The next two items, b and c, are rezonings from the annexation of the area down by the airport, and again, we're going to request that you defer those to August 19th, until the annexation is finalized through the Secretary of State, and we expect that to be done by that date. d. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A FINAL PLAT OF HIGHLAND WOODS, A 6.92-ACRE, 10-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION LOCATED WEST OF CUMBERLAND LANE. (SUB03-00022) Franklin/Item d is to consider a resolution for the final plat of Highland Woods, a 6.92-acre, 10- lot residential subdivision. This is off of Cumberland, which is in the Windsor Ridge Development. It is a continuation of this road here to a point which comes to the north boundary of Fairview Golf Course. We had the road extended out to Fairview in anticipation of sometime the golf course possibly redeveloping, although that's not anticipated in the short-run. So, you've seen the preliminary on this. This is in compliance with the final so the recommendation is for approval. Pfab/What about fire safety there? (can't hear---I mean are they--- Franklin/This has all been reviewed by the fire department and this is, there's a turnaround that is on this piece right here that serves--- Pfab/So that--- Franklin/Yes, yes. And the legal papers and construction plans are done. e. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A PRELIMINARY PLAT OF PINE RIDGE ADDITION, A RESUBDIVISION OF LOTS 17, 18, 19 AND 20 OF MEADOW RIDGE PART TWO, A 2.21-ACRE, 2-LOT SUBDIVISION LOCATED AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF MEADOW RIDGE LANE AND NORTH DUBUQUE STREET. (SUB03-00023) f. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING A FINAL PLAT OF PINE RIDGE ADDITION, A RESUBDIVISION OF LOTS 17, 18, 19 AND 20 OF MEADOW RIDGE PART TWO, A 2.21-ACRE, 2-LOT SUBDIVISION LOCATED AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF MEADOW RIDGE LANE AND NORTH DUBUQUE STREET. (SUB03-00025) Franklin/Item e is the preliminary plat of Pine Ridge, which is a resubdivision of Lots 17, 18, 19 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 4 and 20 of Meadow Ridge Part Two. This is that one on Dubuque Street that you went through the planned development. The original subdivision plat had Lot 17, 18, 19, and then the existing house was Lot 20. This is a preliminary plat that makes it into two lots, Lot 1, the existing house, and then Lot 2 is the remainder of the property. You have a preliminary plat and the final plat on your agenda, two different votes. Everything is in order here. The legal papers and construction plans have been completed for these two projects or for these two plats, for this plat. g. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE HNAL PLAT OF THE PENINSULA NEIGHBORHOOD, SECOND ADDITION, IOWA CITY, IOWA. Franklin/OK, the last item, which I don't have a picture for, is the Peninsula Neighborhood Second Addition. You had all of this in your packets for the planned development, the OPDH. Them are 61 additional units with Part 2 of the Peninsula and this is the final plat for that second addition. We are asking that you defer this to August 19th. We're having the legal papers reviewed by the prospective buyer's attorney, that's Stamper LLC. We will, I think, have an item with the resolution of intent to convey setting the public hearing for August 19th. So we'll have that public heating on the intent to convey on the 19th as well as this final plat and we may or may not have the resolution to convey depending on if others felt, of some other prerequisites for conveyance have been completed. Karmer/Can you refresh my memory, please? How many parts are proposed for this? Franklin/I think there's five phases in all. Kanner/And it's pretty much going according to schedule now? Franklin/Yes, it is now. It's moving along. Kanner/Good. Thanks. Franklin/Mm-hmm. Lehman/Thank you, Karin. Franklin/OK. REVIEW AGENDA ITEMS Lehman/OK, guys, agenda items. 9. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 6, CHAPTER 1 (NUISANCES) OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF IOWA CITY BY ADDING STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES TO CONTROL THE NUMBER OF VEHICLES PARKED, STORED, PLACED, OR KEPT OUTSIDE ON PRIVATE This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 5 PROPERTY. (FIRST CONSIDERATION) Kanner/Eleanor, can you explain number 9 a bit, of what the changes, in terms of this ordinance regarding parked or stored cars? Lehman/Before Eleanor does that, I would appreciate if we deferred this at least until August 19th. There has been no discussion that I'm aware of at the Council. We've had no--I'd like to see us talk about it unless--- Champion/I would like to talk about it, too. Vanderhoef/So would I. O'Donnell/I would like to get out there. I haven't had an opportunity so I'd like to defer it also. Lehman/I mean is that--- Kanner/Well, I guess I would go along with it but I'm just not sure where you're coming from on--- Lehman/ We haven't discussed this at all, but I mean, I know that the original ordinance we passed, we tried to enforce it, we were unsuccessful. I have not, I think this deserves a little attention, what we're doing and how we're doing it. I don't know. I really, I mean, all I know is what we got in the packet this time and I also know that the last time the ordinance wasn't successful so I--- O'Donnell/So, it's deferred till the 19th? Lehman/Well, we have to make a motion to defer it tomorrow night if that's, because that would--- (can't hear, two talk at once) Pfab/What I'd like to see us is put on work session the 18th and then not put it on the, well, from there, see what's going to happen. Lehman/Well, whatever we want to, but I would prefer it be deferred personally. Champion/Pardon? Lehman/I would defer it. I don't care what date. Pfab/Right. But I mean just right now put it on a work session. Defer it and put it on a work session. Lehman/Well, that's what--- Dilkes/You can either defer to a date certain or you can defer it indefinitely. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 6 Lehman/Yeah. Yeah. Pfab/Is that--- Lehman/Do we, is that all fight with--- Wilburn/It's fine. Lehman/All fight. O'Donnell/So, this is, we are not deferring this to a specific date? Lehman/We can do it to a specific day or we can do it indefinitely. O'Donnell/At the work session, yeah. Lehman/Tomorrow night. O'Donnell/Tomorrow night. Lehman/Yeah. O'Donnell/OK. Lehman/Other agenda items? COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS Lehman/All fight. Council appointments. We have three applications for the Housing and Community Development Commission. And we have three vacancies. What's your pleasure? Vanderhoef/I have a question about attendance on Mr. Spooner and how he has been attending. I know we've got, he's had some tough issues at different times and kept from participating. Lehman/Is that, that's in our packet? Kanner/But he's on another--- Vanderhoef/He's on a different Commission. Now--- Kanner/I don't think that's said here. Lehman/Oh, you mean his attendance at the other Commission is not--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 7 Vanderhoef/Right. That's the only question I had about that. Champion/He's going to, if he gets this Commission, he'd resign the other one. Do you think--- Vanderhoef/That's what he put on the application. I'm sorry, I guess I should have called down and asked about that attendance today and I forgot, so--- Champion/ Well, maybe we can have it by tomorrow. Kanner/Can we get his attendance record on other Commissions. He's been on two other Commissions or just one other? Vanderhoef/Just one, but he was on--- Champion/ Another one. Vanderhoef/...and missed some with health and resigned--- Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/...and then came back on and I don't know what the attendance has been since that. Wilburn/Excuse me. I forgot, I almost forgot I can't--due to a conflict of interest with the issues on HCDC, I can't (can't hear). Dilkes/You know, on the (can't hear----Amy Blessing) applicant, we did or a member of my staff did talk to her about the fact that she works for an agency that currently has got funds from CDBG. Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. Dilkes/That is not a problem because they don't anticipate applying for additional funds as I understand it. I do want--I want to double-check the HUD rules, which I don't think were checked when we had this discussion, which are more stringent than that previous opinion that we did for HCDC so, I mean, if you do decide tonight to appoint her, I'd like you to just make it, you know, kind of contingent on my review of those. Champion/She's certainly qualified. Lehman/Would it be inappropriate for us to delay those appointments until the August 19th meeting so that we can, you can check Blessing and we can check Rick? Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. Lehman/I don't have a--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 8 Pfab/Can we leave it open until tomorrow? Karr/Just to clarify, there will be no new applications accepted. Or do you wish to readvertise? Those are two different issues. Lehman/That's Council's pleasure. Champion/I don't think we should readvertise until we know that one of these people is not going to be suitable. Lehman/All right. Dilkes/Yeah, I think the application deadline passed. We should act on these. Lehman/All right, and we will get more information and act on it on the 19th. Is that, is everybody OK with that? Kanner/Sure. What was the question in regards to Amy Blessing? Champion/She works for an agency that receives funding. Kanner/You have to check with HUD. Dilkes/No, we had issued an opinion about HCD appointments, which basically says if you're affiliated with a funded agency, then because that's basically what this committee does, you shouldn't be appointed to this committee. And it was determined that that wouldn't be a problem here because they're not--they don't anticipate applying in the foreseeable future. But I did not--and I don't think Sue did when she was looking at this--review the HUD rules that are the strict ones that give us the problem with Ross. So I want to double-check those before. Kanner/OK. Lehman/Is that OK then that we--- Champion/ Defer. COUNCIL TIME Lehman/OK. Council time. Vanderhoef/I have one thing. Before we did our final budget review and there was discussion about whether we were or weren't going to do PiN grants, I also made some comments at that time about sustainability of projects within a PiN grant and we sort of nodded our heads that we wanted to talk about guidelines for PiN grants so that they were equal for This represents only a reasonably accurate txanscription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 9 everyone or possibly equal. And I'd like to put PIN grants on the work schedule just to talk about that. Lehman/OK with Council? O'Donnell/Mm-hmm. Wilbung That's fine. Lehman/OK, you got it. O'Donnell/Just one quickie. How many people on the Council have been under the impression it takes six people to call a question? Lehman/It takes five. O'Donnell/It takes five. I just wanted everybody to know that. Pfab/Yeah. O'Donnell/I think we're confusing it with six or simple majority. Lehman/A majority for (can't hear) O'Donnell/It does take five to call the question, I just wanted--- Lehman/ It takes six to expedite. Five. OK. Anything else for Council time? LONG-TERM DEER MANAGEMENT PLAN Lehman/OK. Long-term deer management plan. McCafferty/It's that time of year again when we just need to know that four of you want to move forward with the long-term deer plan that we have in place before the Committee makes their recommendation for next winter. O'Donnell/Yes. Champion/Yes. Lehman/Yes. O'Donnell/Four. McCafferty/OK. Great. Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 10 Lehman/Thanks for coming over. Vanderhoeff Thanks for staying around for all this. Lehman/Thank you. O'Donnell/Thank you for stopping by. Kanner/Well, Irvin might have a question, and I'm not necessarily in favor of this but I'll ask it for Irvin or for myself. There's a question of bow hunting. Where is that at? There have been people talking about how Coralville does--- McCafferty/Sure. Karmer/...and it saves money and why aren't we doing that hem? McCafferty/OK. Every year we take a look at bow hunting as one of the legal options. It's actually not legal within the City of Iowa City, but you all could make it legal here. You have to remember that there are so many factors involved in the recommendation that's given to you: effectiveness, community acceptance, level of how humane it is, property access. There are many factors involved and I think it would be a big leap to say, you know, if the money dried up for sharp-shooting, the group would recommend bow hunting. Lehman/It wouldn't fly. Wilbum/Is that because you think that their one big issue for Iowa City might be permission for property--- McCafferty/Right. Wilbum/...getting on the property? McCafferty/Exactly. And we wouldn't know that obviously until we tried but we are--- Lehman/There is also the humane issue. Vanderhoeff Absolutely. McCafferty/The big one. O'Donnell/The community spoke pretty clearly that they didn't want--- Lehman/Yeah. McCafferty/That's a big issue. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 11 Champion/Iowa City's pretty densely populated. I hate to see somebody shoot bows around town. O'Dounell/As compared to a bullet. (Laughter) McCafferty/However. You'll have to remember that sharp-shooting was designed for use in an urban setting unlike bow hunting which typically in history has been in more ora natural setting. It takes a very small space to conduct sharp-shooting. Typically, a bow hunt isn't in a small confined area that deer can many times be tracked for as much as far as a mile. So, when you're talking about an urban setting with small lots, conduciveness of one over the other--but again, there are many factors involved. Kanner/And are contraceptives any closer to being practical? McCafferty/No. Right now the studies are very small numbers of deer, 20 or so, in an enclosed area. It's still very much in its infancy with testing. Pfab/A question I have is how, what is the distance that a sharp-shooter, how far have deer lef~ the area that they were shot? McCafferty/Typically, they drop immediately. If there is any activity by the deer, a lot of times, it's just an involuntary motor, you know, movement. Pfab/As far as we know (can't hear) McCafferty/I can ask Tony what his wounding rate is but he doesn't tolerate wounding. I mean, he's very serious about making sure that the shots that are selected are going to create as much of instantaneous kill as possible. Where again, we're not paying him by deer. It is not to his advantage at all to take a shot that's ill-advised. Lehman/OK. McCafferty/OK. Lehman/Have at it. HISTORIC PRESERVATION Lehman/OK. Historic preservation. Karin? Franklin/It's a team. Lehman/It's a team. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 12 Franklin/Well, I just wanted to kind of introduce this and try to set you on a course. This came up after the two appeals before the Council and the Council expressed some desire to look at Historic Preservation, but it was unclear to us exactly what that meant. And so, the goal of tonight as I see it is for you all to identify what the issues are for you. If we could have that issue identification tonight, then give the Cornmission and staff the opportunity to look at that, get whatever background is necessary, come back to you, and then we can have discussions between the Council and the Commission of whatever these different topics are. As a prelude to that, there's a memorandum that Shelley put together for the packet, and I'd like her to just hit the high points of that because I think there's some things that are happening at the Commission level right now that may address some of the issues that I saw coming out of that discussion during the appeals. So, if she could do that and then you can kind of launch into what your issues are. Lehman/OK. Wilburn/Related to historic preservation. Franklin/Right. Yes. McCafferty/Just those issues, please. As Karin stated there's a memorandum. Just sort of a very brief history in terms of it, I just want to remind you that the Commission has been in operation for about 20 years now, and they really started doing certificates of appropriateness and reached viewing changes to properties in 1984 when the Woodlawn- Summit Districts were adopted. Since that time, we've done 155 reviews for certificates of applications and three of those, only three of those have been appealed. So right now, less than 2 percent of all the applications they've looked at have been appealed. There's also a number of changes, a number of things that they're looking at. They don't deal so much with substance, but just certainly improving the process, improving the guidelines so that they can better serve the public and more efficiently serve the public. Right now we're looking at reviewing and revising the handbook, which has all the historic preservation guidelines in it. That was adopted in 2000. Prior to that time, they used the Secretary of Interior Standards, which is really 10 very broad statements meant to apply to any building. The guidelines really tailored the Secretary of Interior Standards to the specific needs of Iowa City. Two primary changes that came with that was the prohibition of demolition in historic districts as well as disallowing vinyl siding on contributing, on many structures, primarily contributing structures in conservation, in historic districts, excuse me. Actually, throughout historic districts. In terms of the changes that we're looking at right now, with the handbook--one is to make it a more user-friendly document. There's a lot of information that we have in the ordinance that's not in the handbook. There's a number of things that, issues with guidelines that we are wanting to clarify and just to make it easier for homeowners, contractors to use this as really a handbook for their project, not just as a criteria that the Commission uses, to make that more easy to understand. It clarifies and explains better the preservation and design review process. We've added and revised some specific guidelines as we've seen improvement necessary in the past three years. And another thing that we're looking at This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Cotmcil Work Session Page 13 doing is to identify noncontributing properties that are non-historic, and that would allow us to perhaps get some more flexibility for these non-historic properties. Right now, I think one of the confusions in historic districts is that when you classified a noncontributing property, it means that either it's less than 50 years old or that it does not support the context of the district, or actually, a third thing, is that it has been so severely changed that the original style of the building is no longer evident. And so when we disallow something as noncontributing buildings, it is applicable across the board, whether you're historic or non-historic. So, we want to clarify that, identify non-historic buildings so that we can provide perhaps some more flexibility for these non-historic buildings, buildings that are less than 50 years old and obviously don't fit the context of the district. The design review process is another item that we're looking at more carefully. For the past 20 years the Commission has operated relatively informally. We've not really had the number of applications on a regular basis to need a formal process. The application I have right now is fairly broad. It does not require very specific information. Most frequently what happens is that an applicant or contractor goes to HIS, they inquire about a building permit, HIS tells them if it's in a district or not; on some occasions, HIS will simply send an application for permit up to my office and we'll accept that on some occasions. But, you know, I'm not, I don't always get a face-to-face conversation with the applicant. And that's something that we're finding is more and more necessary as we have more projects. So we've done a number of things to help clarify the process, make it more efficient, more streamlined, communicate better to the public what exactly is necessary in order to go through this review process for a certificate of appropriateness. So things that we're doing right now is to revise the application, to request some more specific information as well as more informative to the contractor, the applicant. Require that the complete application for certificate of appropriateness be submitted for all projects. That means no longer accepting a building permit application as an application for design review by the Preservation Commission. Particularly since the last two appeals that we had, I've given HIS specific instructions that, you know, you have to send an applicant up to my office, and we have to sit down and talk about it. I'll give them the guidelines, to make sure that they do really understand what has to be done prior to coming before the review. We've sent out letters notifying the contractors of where all the districts are so that there's better awareness. We plan on doing the same to real estate agents, also look at notifying the applicants when it's a homeowner--well, on the application we have information for homeowner, contractor as a consultant, mail all these people a letter, a form letter that says this is when we're going to review your project, to make sure that all parties are informed, not just the person who has applied for the application. Permit plan has been altered. There was a little glitch in it where the tag didn't always come up indicating that as a historic property, or did come up until the applicant came in and wanted to receive the permit and have his project planned and things ordered. That's been taken care of. For the most part, I've been trying to as best possible, to the best abilities, to get pre-application meetings with all the applicants. We've really going to try to further encourage that. That really seems to streamline the process. So when the applicant comes in front of the Commission of 10 people that we can get them through efficiently at the meeting and not have to deal with a lot of redesign issues during the meeting. And finally you should be seeing an ordinance in front of you pretty soon as well as the revised handbook which will establish a design review This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 14 subcommittee. Right now, staff certainly doesn't have the time to deal with all the applications to the extent that is necessary in order. It could very well be with additional applications in the future as we add districts. So doing a design review subcommittee would basically move that responsibility to a committee of three people on the Commission and they would look at it relative to the guidelines, make a recommendation and then when it goes to the full Commission, that would again help streamline the process as a lot of the thought process and thinking behind it would he resolved at that time and worked out. And finally, another goal that we're looking at doing is additional preservation information. Early in the history of the Commission, that was the primary goal really was to do preservation education. We had few districts. They produced a number of publications which are no longer being printed or are severely out of date. And as we have a lot more districts now, the need is really to maintain the support for that, to provide more technical information to owners, alternatives to sort of common building practices that would be cost-effective. So, in doing that we're doing a number of things: developing a Historic Preservation website, sending letters to--I think I mentioned this previously--sending letters to new owners within districts as well as to contractors, real estate agents, doing articles in the local newsletters that go out to the neighborhoods talking about historic preservation, that we have historic districts. And developing some lists of recommended products--a lot of times, you know, a big one is windows--what windows can I use? Well, if we have a list that gives relative pricing, we can direct the owner and make that process of selection much simpler for them. So, I guess after reviewing the memo, and I'm assuming you've read it, what issues would you like to have us look at or address further? Champion/Well, I can start. We have some large Conservation Districts now and my problem with it is--and I absolutely I'm a total preservationist--but I'm wondering if we've just gone out of control here. Houses have always evolved, and if we're going to freeze everything in time, is nothing ever going to evolve or change? I mean, houses over years are added to, things are done to them, even in every town in the world. And I think we've gotten so stringent and I'm going to use that porch that we talked about last week. They wanted, they really want to add a room to their house, and they don't want long windows because they don't want curtains. And I can relate to that because I hate curtains--I don't have any in my house except my front windows. I mean, I just hope we're not going to make it so cumbersome for people and unattractive that they can't make changes to their house that are going to make their house more livable, to give them the space that they want and they need. I frankly have never had any problems when I've done something to my house, but of course I'm going to do it right to begin with. It doesn't make any difference. But that doesn't seem so unreasonable to me. And I don't know how you address that. I mean, guidelines are guidelines, but I hate to see us become, that the houses can't evolve anymore, that they have to stay the same. I don't think that's necessary. McCafferty/I would like to remind you that that particular property was in a historic district, and in terms of the stringency that we have with the historic district is that we want to, they're also National Registry Districts, and within National Registry Districts, there are some tax incentives that are available, and in order to provide everybody with a fair playing This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 15 field for these incentives, if anybody wants to take advantage of them, we really need to maintain the standards from the Secretary of Interior. So that was one of the primary, the contributing factors to that decision. And I would also, I'll address this further, but properties are not necessarily frozen in time. Additions--we've reviewed a number of additions--and I can certainly provide you more information of that. As long as they're set in, there's quite a bit of flexibility on those. So I'll give you more information on that, Connie. Champion/OK. Franklin/In terms of the issue then, because I'm trying to clarify between conservation districts and historic districts--- Champion/Right. Franklin/...I mean, this point that Shelley makes about the historic districts is a critical one. And that is where things are going to be strictest. What you were getting at was the stringency of the regulations rather than the size of the disthcts? Or was the size of the districts an issue for you? Champion/I think, well, the--you know what, Karin, I don't know. Franklin/OK. Champion/I just have some problems with it. Franklin/OK. Champion/I'm glad to see the size but I really thought those are more conservation districts rather than historic preservation districts. Franklin/Yeah. OK. McCafferty/So, it sounds like what we really need to do is sort of clarify for you what the distinctions are, what the distinctions are in terms of stringency and then perhaps you can look at that and see if--- Champion/ That would be great (can't hear) McCafferty/...how we need to address that, if we need to address that change. Champion/That would be very helpful. Vanderhoef/And a comparison of--for the nonconforming structures, but if they be either in a historic district or a non- or just a conservation district. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcripti6n of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 16 Franklin/OK. McCafferty/OK, so noncontributing is, what, structures that don't contribute to the context of the neighborhood is what you're talking about. Vanderhoef/I want to compare what the rules are, if they are or are not different, the two districts. What crosses my mind when I'm thinking about making some changes, possibly for the nonconforming, if they're nonconforming because they're not 50 years old, that one sets offa red flag for me because some of them are nearing 50 years old. And so, if somebody wants to make changes, so in those guidelines, how do we address that piece of it? McCafferty/Sure. Sure. There may be some things that we're currently actually working on so this is very--- Lehman/Right. Your memo indicates that you're looking at differentiating between contributing and noncontributing structures. I think that's really kind of critical. McCafferty/You mean historic or nonhistoric. Lehman/Yeah. And if it's noncontributing or it's not historic, it just seems to me common sense says we use a little different standard than we do on--I think it's really neat to keep historically accurate buildings accurate, but if there's nothing historical or contributing, not that--my concept of these zones is that we passed these zones to protect the character of the neighborhoods. We care about these neighborhoods. We really don't want to see them destroyed. We don't want to see buildings torn down and multifamily buildings built. We want these to be quiet single-family neighborhoods in as much as we can. So I think from my perspective the overriding reason for this in the first place is to protect the character of the neighborhoods. Now, I think in some structures that means keeping them historically accurate; others it may not mean that if they're not. But I think this, and it looks to me like this is precisely what you guys are looking at. McCafferty/Well, I think maybe what we could also do is really, is give you some examples because we're throwing out this terminology and, you know. we do have some noncontributing structures which are historic; they've been kind of mucked up. But that doesn't mean that, you know, maybe somebody might want to bring those back. But I think maybe if you have some s of really what it means to be fit in one of these categories, that may be helpful. Some comparisons. Lehman/It looks to me like you're looking at obviously the process. McCafferty/Yeah. Definitely. Lehman/No, you're addressing (can't hear) and that became apparent that there's, that this is new; I mean, there's so much of this coming up that I think we're all learning as we go. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Cotmcil Work Session Page 17 O'Donnell/Didn't I hear, though, 155 applications and three appeals? McCafferty/Mm-hmm. O'Donnell/I'm wondering how serious the problem is? Vanderhoeff But two of them have come in recent times since we just expanded and have two new conservation districts, so (can't hear) this area. McCafferty/I guess I would like--excuse me, I'm sorry. I'd like to say in regards to that is first of all, we have a lot of new Commission members. We've had a lot of turnover on the Commission. I am also relatively new to this and so part of this learning process is getting everybody up to speed. And in talking to Mike (can't hear) previously, we haven't really had good footprints left in terms of the process because it has been very informal. And so that's been one of our goals is to make it easier to bring new Commissioners up. If there's ever a transition again in staff, that ail this information is recorded so that we don't have the issues that we had recently because I think had that process been better explained, we wouldn't have had those last two appeals. At least one of them. Champion/The other thing and I don't know if you have it already, but I think it might be nice just to have a little map that shows us what we've done now. McCafferty/Sure. Champion/It's hard to keep it straight in my head and I can't look at it on this thing. I can't. Lehman/It's not like a picture. Champion/It doesn't (can't hear) from my eyes to my brain all the time. Vanderhoef/Well, I think that's a piece that you need out there in your education materials. McCafferty/Oh, yes. Vanderhoef/So that the Realtors have it because that's another concern for me is a potential purchaser--where does that person learn upfront before they make a purchase of a new house? McCafferty/Well, certainly, I've run across that. It should happen in the title search and lawyers are missing it. Quite frankly. Vanderhoef/Is it in the titles now on those that haven't--- Franklin/It's on the zoning map because we record the zoning but what happens usually is that it's not seen as a zoning change on a particular property so it may not show up on the abstract as a single action, but as a new zoning for Iowa City in 1983. Or a new zoning is This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 18 adopted in some month of some year. Whether it shows up on that particular property or not in the abstract is I think where it falls through. Often, Realtors use it as an advertising piece though--that here, this property is in a historic district or is in a--I haven't seen it yet for a conservation district but I've certainly seen it for a historic district as a sales point for that property so I think people often may know that they're in the district but they may not know what that means. And so contacting the new owners as Shelly and the Commission are talking about, you know, as we can learn that and that'll be a trick as to how we do that--that information getting out to people right away will be--- Vanderhoef/I think the conservation districts may be more of a problem--- Franklin/Yes. I think they will be too. Vanderhoef/...than historic districts. McCafferty/Yes. Franklin/It's least understood as to what that is. Vanderhoef/And in this (can't hear) I'd like the guidelines of this prohibition on demolition because of someone coming in and not understanding that they can't take that down and put something new in. Champion/Well, they can--it's just not--- Franklin/Well, they can but it has just happened. Vanderhoef/It can, yes. I shouldn't have said can't happen but--- Franklin/But they have to pay a thousand dollars. Vanderhoef/But the guidelines they have to follow then to rebuild. Franklin/Yes. Pfab/Are you making contact with the real estate profession besides the Realtors and whatnot? And also the legal profession to educate them as they work with the new buyers and the sellers? I mean, they have responsibilities, too. I mean, there are opportunities but there are also responsibilities that go with it. McCafferty/Sure. I'll address that issue. Just one note, we do have a real estate agent now on the Commission so that will be very helpful in addressing this issue. Pfab/That is nice. McCafferty/Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 19 Lehman/Karin, I also visited this morning briefly--there is apparently somewhere in this regulations--is there any--- Franklin/There isn't. I was wrong. Lehman/Well, I think there should be some provision relative to affordability. Franklin/Mike's going to write that down, I was wrong. Lehman/If the economic feasibility has to, I think, should be a part of this somehow. Franklin/We will address that in our response back to you. I talked to Shelley about it and there's quite aaa interesting and intricate explanation of it and some of the difficulties with it but we'll get that to you, too. Lehman/OK. I can under--maybe it isn't even feasible but it makes sense. Franklin/It's hard. Lehman/Yeah, but it makes sense. Franklin/We'll give you some info on that, too. Lehman/(can't hear) outrageous. Even the ADA Ordinance has a, allows it, makes a project economically not feasible, that those rules don't apply. Champion/Right. Franklin/Mm-hmm. Lehman/And obviously we don't want to exclude or allow things to happen in districts that shouldn't happen. But there should be, I think, some consideration for economic feasibility. Franklin/OK. Vanderhoef/And I'm not clear on whether there's any appeals other thaaa to City Council when we get into economic guidelines. Would it be more appropriate to go to Board of Appeals or something--- Franklin/That's set by state law actually. Vanderhoef/That it has to come to Council? Franklin/Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 20 Dilkes/For the historic districts. Franklin/Right. VanderhoefJ But for a conservation district? McCafferty/Conservation districts are currently appealed to the Board of Adjustment, historic districts to Council because that's required by state law. Champion/But we really can't change their decision. McCafferty/Right. Capricious or arbitrary. Lehman/No, unless it's arbitrary or capricious. Are there other--Steve? McCafferty/Steve? Kanner/Yeah, I like what you said about the economic hardship case and I would concur with that, and I think that in part gets to what Connie was perhaps trying to convey. That's what I got out of it. I have some unease, too, about maybe the size and just a sense of, for some people, it seems difficult to deal with all these things that you might have to go through to implement being in a historic or conservation district. But I had a few other thoughts I wanted to run by folks. One is, I think one of the strengths of the Commission is they are sensitive to applicants that come there. I was an applicant with a--representing an organization--and I appreciated the way they worked with me and the Commission chairs that I talked to, on Council they seem to be sensitive, and they want to work with people to make it work. So I like that, that that's happening. On the other hand, my concern is there's three major concerns. One is safety is number one, two affordable housing, and three building community or neighborhood, which includes in my mind, characteristics that you're talking about of a neighborhood, preserving that. And I wondered how we--we're doing pretty good at the historic aspect, but I think we have to work on the affordable housing aspect and perhaps one thing we can do is, and I forget the name of the overlay that preserves density is called what? Franklin/Well, you have--- Kanner/That's a conservation? Champion/That's a conservation overlay. Kanner/What's that--that's a conservation--it's different from a conservation--- Dilkes/It's like an RNC. Franklin/Oh, that's an actual zoning category, the Neighborhood Conservation Zones--- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 21 Kanner/Right. Franklin/...which actually in the new development Code we are changing to Neighborhood Stabilization, because there is so much confusion about the zoning Neighborhood Conservation and the conservation districts. When we use those same terms it gets muddled in our heads. Champion/It's muddled in mine. Lehman/Right. Kanner/That is kind of confusing. I'm glad you're thinking of changing the name, but we might consider using that more because I think it helps us accomplish some of the same things. If we're using that with good building inspection, which means we're keeping the housing stock at, in shape, we're going to be preserving that because there's not the incentive to tear it down and build something else, if you're going to just be able to build at the same density. I think that's one of the driving forces, so I think from--it behooves Council and staff to look at that as an option and talk about that, especially in Historic Preservation Commission, to have that discussion. Franklin/And what that does, just as you said and Emie alluded to this, too, with the zoning, you have control over what land uses occur there, whether it's multifamily or single family. By that zoning you create incentives or disincentives to redevelopment of areas. And so you need to use these two tools together to stabilize neighborhoods. One is the zoning (tape ends) ..... TAPE 03-60, SIDE ONE Franklin/...the visual character of that place. Because you could have everything be single family in a district that has character, have new buildings that are placed in that area that are single-family uses, but don't go with the character of the neighborhood at all. So it's all in how we're talking about character of neighborhood, how the land is used, as well as what it looks like. And so these two things are coming together. And one place that we've done this together is on Lucas and Governor, where you've rezoned it to RN-C and you also established a conservation district for design. Kanner/What I'm saying I'd like the discussion, certainly among us, but specifically in the Historic Preservation Commission to talk about perhaps not always having to put a historic or conservation zone there, that you can use the stabilization zone, that that could be part of the arsenal. McCafferty/I guess what I'd like to just point out, Steve, is that you know, for instance, on Govemor-Lucas, we could leave, none of the buildings there could be tom down, everything could stay as existed, but you could go in and you could rip off all of the porches. That would have a significant impact on the character and the social quality of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 22 that street. And the RNC zone does nothing to address that; it only deals with the density. You tear off the porches, density might not change. What does prevent that is the conservation district, because those things have to be reviewed by the Commission. So that might be an example you might both visualize a little more distinctly. Kanner/Well, personally, I don't feel that's the worst thing in the world. I can't see it happening where everybody's going to be tearing off the porches, but if it does, it's not the worst thing in the world. The main concern in my mind is safety, affordability, and community, and I'd like--- Franklin/ Pardon, I need clarity on the safety point. Could you tell me what you're thinking about there? Kanner/Well, I'm saying, my concern in terms of housing and neighborhoods is that we continue a strong inspection and--- Franklin/Oh, OK. Kanner/...(can't hear) program and that the physical structures are in good shape, that's the main thing I'm concerned about more so than the character per se, although that's important. But number one is safety; that's what we're there to regulate. Franklin/OK. Kanner/Then the main thing I would say, the number one thing as a Councilor is that the City, that's our concern. Other things I'm interested in are what other programs are out there besides these tools we have of kistoric and conservation districts. Are there--what can we do to preserve rentals and affordable housing. You know, I'm sure there's programs all over the country and can we hear more of those or can the Commission? Franklin/I think this is not--that may be a very valid issue that the Council wants to address but rental housing or the availability of rental housing, the cost of it, that is not within the purview of the Historic Preservation Commission. If you want to talk about affordable housing and rental versus owner-occupied and whatever you want that balance to be, those are certainly issues we can discuss but I think Planning and Zoning and HCDC and the Council itself is the venue within which to talk about those. Kanner/Well, I'm talking in terms of historic preservation and how rentals fit in there, and I've heard that there are programs that focus on lower income neighborhoods in preservation and I don't know if that affects us specifically as much, but I don't hear that kind of talk in terms of our historic preservation. It tends to be the houses that are slightly better off. Champion/Oh, have you ever looked through the Longfellow Neighborhood? Steven, I think that's a real misstatement. I mean, that's really a misstatement but--- McCafferty/There are some things with this I can address. I think a lot of these issues of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 23 affordability do not apply to Iowa City Historic and Conservation districts, and I can explain that to you further, right, when we get into that--I can address some of the specific issues they're thinking about, Steve, but generally a lot of these issues don't apply to our districts. Lehman/Irvin? Pfab/One of the things that I think, Steven, you were saying that while safety is our big concern, losing porches in a neighborhood does affect the preserving the neighborhood. If you take those away, that changes the neighborhood a lot. It's, you know, building a cohesive neighborhood. So I--there was one other point you made and that was about historic districts and in some ways it looks like a heavy burden for an owner in a historic district. But there are also like, I think you started to say there are some financial advantages also. McCafferty/There are advantages in terms of property values. There are also a lot of alternatives. I think right now what you have to keep in mind is we've got, you know, a billion dollar industry out there that wants to sell windows in vinyl. What we don't hear about and what contractors and owners perhaps don't hear about are the alternatives. So, I can talk to you a little bit about the financial comparison between the mainstream approach and some of the preservation alternatives. Lehman/I mean, do you have enough--have we given you enough? I mean, I think you got a lot to go through, but I think you hear some of our concerns. McCafferty/Yeah. Lehman/But I do think the preservation of neighborhoods is why we talk about these districts in the first place, so that is a very high priority. It's how do we do that in as considerate a way as we can. And the same time, I do like the idea of getting into contributing and noncontributing and having different, it doesn't make any sense, in fact, we got those hearings. I'm not sure if I had mentioned this to Eleanor, but the very fact that we treated them both the same, I felt, was somewhat arbitrary. You know we--no. If we treat conforming and nonconforming structures the same, that is absolutely arbitrary. It m?y not be capricious. But if we have a conforming structure and a nonconforming subject to the same rules, that's arbitrary. No. McCafferty/We won't--we'll specify (can't hear) Lehman/You've got enough to work on. McCafferty/OK. I mean I would say we do have two representatives from the Commission if you have any comments for them, they're available. Otherwise we'll address all these issues to (can't hear) O'Donnell/I think that's fine. This represents only a reasonably accurate txanscription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 24 McCafferty/OK. Kanner/Two other quick things. One, a concern about solar and apparatus and energy-efficiency conservation. I think that's going to be--as photo voltaic comes down and energy efficiency, it's going to play a bigger factor and I'd like to see that addressed. McCafferty/I believe Jeff Davidson already addressed that to you in a memo, but I can reiterate that for you. Kanner/But--OK, in terms of the Commission, how can we encourage it, how could it fit in with the character of the neighborhood? Because that's going to be a bigger and bigger issue, especially as energy issues become bigger and bigger over the years. And the other thing is--it's sort of addressed here. We got a taste of this of the person who said, "I wish I was never in the district." The appeal came to us, and someone doesn't want to be in the district, is adamantly opposed, and I know you were saying it has to be somewhat of a blanket thing, but perhaps there is a way that people who are adamantly opposed to it can opt out, or some other lesser level perhaps. McCafferty/Again, to a certain extent we're within the confines of state law on these issues, but we can look at that. Franklin/I don't think that---That's not--- Lehman/You can't do that. McCafferty/Yeah. Lehman/No, that won't work. Franklin/That's just not going too- McCafferty/Yeah, OK. Lehman/All right. Thank you. Pfab/Thank you much. Lehman/We have been asked to take a short break. O'Donnell/Nice try, Rick. (Break) STORM WATER UTILITY Fosse/OK. I want to give you an update on storm water utilities tonight and where we're at in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 25 the process. We've got three objectives for tonight. One is recap where we've come from, and second, to share where we are and confirm that we're on the right track, and then map out where we can go with this. And with me tonight is Brian Boelk. He's our engineer on staff who's in charge of doing all the calcs and helping write the ordinance and all, working with legal, and he replaced Klm Sharon. You probably remember Kim; she was in front of you the last time that we all visited about this. So the team is changing from Kim and Chuck to Brian and Rick. Karr/Tell me Brian's last name again. Fosse/Boelk. And Brian has put some handouts out and about that will just outline what we're going to talk about tonight. The history. We started visiting about this in 2000; I think that was the year you got some of the first memos on this. And in 2001, at the tail end of 2001, you directed staff to begin to work on details of implementing a storm water utility. And that direction was based on the fact that we needed to establish new source of revenues to pay for things that we were already doing in the field of storm water and also for the things that are on the horizon, specifically Phase 2 of the storm water (can't hear). And that's the other handout that you have in front of you tonight. I have no intention of going into the details of Phase 2, but if you want them, this is a good start on them. And there's more, tons more information where that came from. At that meeting you also directed us to look at a utility that is not a flat fee, that many of Iowa communities have chosen to do. We want something that is proportional to the size of the facility and the runoff that they produce, and we've built something that we believe that does that. In '02, we developed the mapping necessary to do the measurements. That's one of the projects that you all approved and we established that framework for the fee basis. And then just this spring we used that mapping to perform the measurements to establish the fees. We had a couple of interns working about four months to measure just about 1,400 commercial and industrial properties. And tonight we share the findings, confirm we're on track or not on track, and look at what legislative process is involved in making this reality. So, our findings. That's on the next page there. Our proposed system is patterned after Des Moines. It's not identical, but they provided a good outline of how other large cities have approached it, and they're one of the few other cities that doesn't operate with a flat fee. So, again, they were a good model in that case. The basis of fees is what's called equivalent residential unit. And what we did is we took 76 homes in Iowa City that are just a good cross section of the housing that's out there. And we looked at the total impervious area for those homes. And don't confuse that with the living space. It's-- they're two different numbers--the impervious area includes driveways, patios, basketball courts in the backyard, whatever they have, and where that number is important is when you're looking at commercial and industrial users, how they compare in size to one house. And it's this equivalent residential unit, the area of 3,129 square feet, which is, represents the character of our community. Other communities come up with different numbers. The fee for residential customers--all residential customers we propose to be charged for one ER unit, ERU, which would be $2 a month, and that would be true for all the homes in the community. And then the fee for commercial and industrial customers would be based on their impervious area divided by the number of ERUs. So an example would be if you had a business that measured, had a measured impervious area of 31,290 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 26 square feet, it's equivalent to 10 homes. So they would be charged 10 times the residential fee. And that's where that volume-based rate comes in. And as I mentioned earlier, we have 1,399 that we measured so far. And that was out of date the day we finished doing those measurements. It's a continuous process, but it's a good point to jump to the third page and the third page compares the rate for different communities with what is proposed for Iowa City. The top half of that page represents the fee for residential properties. And it's the monthly fee as well the year initiated. You can see how we stack up with the other communities. And those that have a little "17' after them represent the communities that have a flat rate. In the bottom half of the page, compares for nonresidential rates. And again, it's got the community, and then there's what Brian has put together here, is five examples: a typical gas station, a small shop, a grocery store, and large retail. And there's some projected monthly rates for those, and you can see how they compare against the communities. And again those with the flat rates have the 'T' by them. Lehman/OK. Fosse/So, a gas station might be $9.59, a grocery store $121 a month. Some of the big customers in Iowa City, like Procter and Gamble would be just over $1,000 a month for their storm water fee. Steven, you had a question? Kanner/Yeah, obviously Des Moines is bigger than us and proportionately they're going to need more money, but here their rates are so much higher. What are they doing with the extra money? Are big cities' requirements that much greater that or are they just going to have or are they feeling that they have to be more conservative in collecting additional money? Fosse/Well, I think one of the issues that Des Moines faces is, you remember, this is not including the Des Moines suburbs, this is Des Moines proper. And that's relatively old community. And we know for the old parts of Iowa City that the storm sewer systems were not well-thought-out and well-built. And they cost more to maintain and they require more upgrades. So I suspect that they're spending more on the capital aspects, the upgrades, if you will, the repairs than we will. Kanner/So we don't need it to that extent because a lot of ours is newer stuff that's in pretty good shape. Fosse/That's right. What we're targeting is an annual income, or an annual revenue of about $880,000. And we think that's enough to cover our costs related to storm water management. And now there may be years where you'll want to do capital projects, like, take Sandusky storm sewer, for instance, it's roughly a half million dollars. This won't provide enough to fund that project from the income from one year of this. I think this has about $150,000 per year built into that rate to cover capital projects. Does that make sense? Do we understand that? Vanderhoeff Mm-hmm. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 27 Lehman/Yes. Fosse/OK, so, again, here for the average customers, some of the big ones like the school district, roughly $1,700 a month. You know, that's a big chunk of money but they have a lot of impervious area and they have a lot of facilities out there. So with that, let's jump back to page 2 and keep on going through there. I alluded to this earlier but we need to understand that when we have a volume-based rate, if you will, that it requires a continuous commitment to keeping the data current with that. Every time a permit is issued for a commemial or industrial customer, be it a new one or alterations in an existing facility or they just go out and they pave a little more parking that may or may not require a permit, we need to track those things and upgrade their fees to reflect that. That's going to take some effort. Kanner/But we're going to have to do a lot of this stuff for GASB 34 anyhow? Fosse/No, GASB 34 looks just at public infrastructure, not at private. So they are two different things, but that's a good question. All properties will be billed just as they are for sewer and water. We're not proposing any exclusions for churches or for schools or for that sort of thing. Now what we are proposing here is to exclude the University of Iowa, and the reason for that as outlined is they own and operate their own storm sewer system, and for the most part, that goes directly in the Iowa River; it doesn't dump into our system and we don't have to take it from there. Dee? Vanderhoef/How do they fall in with the government regulations though for meeting standards? Fosse/They need to get their own permit. And that's another reason. They need to work directly with the state and their facilities are permitted by the state just as we are. So, we're not the watchdog for the University in their storm water quality. Vanderhoef/But the Feds are requiring them to do that? Fosse/Right. Through the state DNR. Vanderhoeff They are in the Phase 2 because of their size? Fosse/Yes. And even University Heights is in Phase 2, even though they are a small community, they are contiguous with a metropolitan area that crosses the threshold. Vanderhoef/So then Coralville would--- Fosse/ Yep, they're in it as well. The other thing about the University of Iowa where we do have storm sewer systems that are commingled, they've always been forthcoming with cooperation and money to do joint projects. It hasn't been like pulling teeth. It's been a good cooperative effort, and as I said, they're directly permitted by the state. University Heights is not factored into this. Again, they're a standalone municipality. They get their own permit. But we will keep them informed because they may have some interest in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 28 somehow piggybacking on this. Or having us take over their storm sewer system as we've done for the water and sewer system. We've not had those discussions with them yet, but you know, anything can happen out there. Kanner/Rick? Fosse/Yes. Kanner/So University, Grand Avenue, that flows down, stuff from their campus flows on to Riverside. Isn't that our storm water system? Fosse/On Riverside? Kanner/(Can't hear) a significant portion of it? Fosse/Yep. That's where the systems commingle. They also have storm sewer systems up within their campus that drain directly to the river. Kanner/It might make sense that if we deal with a certain percentage of their stuff, and maybe we can't charge them because they're a state entity, but maybe we need to consider if we get 20 percent of their runoff, that we have to handle. That's a significant amount, it seems. Fosse/Yeah. And that's really your-all call. We just gave you our recommendation based on the way we see it. Kanner/Can you give us later on down the road what, an estimate of what percentage of their runoff comes into our system? Fosse/That'll be a hard number to come up with but--Brian's grimacing back there. (Laughter) Atkins/Write that on your "to-do" list. Champion/I don't think we need that. I think it'd be way too complicated and if we start charging them when we commingle, then when we need to upgrade those things they might not be so willing to put some money into it. I think we'll come out even in--- Male/ Yeah. Fosse/A good example is the Riverside Arts Campus storm sewer project. That was a three-base project that we worked about six years on that, and we each chunked in about one and a half million on that one. It was nicely split between the two entities. Lehman/But that's one, if I'm not mistaken, where doesn't that handle a lot of storm water out at This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 29 Manville Heights as well? Fosse/Mm-hmm. Lehman/So we actually, we shared the cost of the project, the water is commingled--- Fosse/ Yes. Lehman/...at the bottom of River. Part of that is their responsibility and part of it is ours. Fosse/Yes. Lehman/It would be interesting. Atkins/Mm-hmm. Lehman/Yeah, we figure this one out. Vanderhoef/OK. Looking at both the University and U. Heights. You say they each have to get their own permit? Fosse/Mm-hmm. Vanderhoeff What would happen if there were discussion to include them or do a cooperative effort? Would we just update our permit or how would that work? Fosse/Well, the permits are already off to the state. They've been submitted but that doesn't mean that we can't--- Vanderhoef/Amend? Fosse/...amend and combine and that sort of thing. For University Heights, presumably their needs are very similar to ours, so that a $2 per month fee would probably, you know, you're just adding them into the pool of utility customers. That would probably cover our expenses. The University is a unique animal and they've got a lot of unusual things in their system. (Laughter) Vanderhoef/I don't know how politically correct is that statement. (Laughter) Fosse/Well. A couple of examples is, you know, the last couple of years we've been working with them on what's coming out of their sanitary sewer system. We were having surges of mercury come out of there and they went through and cleaned out all their traps and all This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 30 their labs and took care of that issue. Another example is molybdenum (spelling???) which was building up in our sludge and making it difficult to find customers for land application of sludge. They went after that problem, too. Molybdenum is an anti-rust agent that's in the cooling water that's in the system out there, and that was getting into the sanitary sewer system. So we've had good cooperation with them but they're an unusual animal. Other questions? Irvin? Pfab/I'm having a difficulty with the idea that we're going to use a living, a house as one unit. Fosse/Mm-hmm. Pfab/I am aware that there are some houses on lots, say up in Goosetown, and there are some multimillion dollar units, and I think when we're talking here about having affordable housing, to expect a little home in Goosetown to subsidize the cost that the large home is going to cost the City. I think that is grossly unfair and I believe that what we should do is--we have the ability to measure these. I think that we should start out with a system that's fair and if we're going to be, if we're going to lean to favor one part of the continuum, I think we need to be very, very careful to protect the low-valued properties so people can live here. Champion/OK, Irvin, but think about it. A lot of new houses are graded so no water rtms off. Pfab/OK. Champion/And so they might not have any runoff going into our sewers. Pfab/That--if you measure each one, then you can start working on having individuals protected, their costs. Champion/Oh, that would be just ridiculous and cost--- Pfab/You know, I, it just doesn't, there's a sense of fairness here and I think I oppose this system. I totally oppose it. Kanner/And, well, it seems that there could be different categories and there could be, perhaps if they do have a system that they certify to turn that in and maybe they do get a reduced rate if they have what you're talking about with the drainage that doesn't go into the streets. So, I think we can be a little more sophisticated, especially with our computer software that we've been buying for the last 10 years and also our system that we're putting in place to track all the property. We're getting all this down anyhow and I think this fits in. I think we can. We're intelligent enough, we've got a good crew that can make a little more sophisticated--- Champion/Everybody's driving cars though. Everybody's driving cars and that's where the bad runoff is. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 31 Lehman/Let me suggest just one thing. Have you sat down and tried to compute what it would cost to measure all of those dwellings and then keep them updated? My guess is the smallest house in town would cost $5. Instead of $2 for the house in Goosetown, they'd be getting $5. Now, Hickory or Walnut Ridge might be $25, but the cost of doing that would be so prohibitive that the lowest paying unit right now would have to be more than $2. Kanner/Well, let's be fair--- Pfab/I have two questions. Just a second, I have two questions for you. OK, you said that you have already measured x-number of units. Now how many have you many? Champion/(can't hear) Fosse/1,399. Pfab/1,300 and what? Fosse/99. Pfab/OK, how many units are there in the City? Fosse/It's about--residential units, there's about 16,000. Pfab/OK, 16,000. OK, you are probably while you're learning the process, you probably have some idea of what it's costing you to survey those units. But the point is without waiting for an answer, I'm going to go to Connie. Then you can reward the person that does do this because what you're looking for is areas that will not absorb the rain. So the unit that says I contain all my--I have no cost. O'Donnell/How are you going to reward them, Irvin? Pfab/Well, you don't charge them. O'Donnell/You drop them from $2 to $1.757 Champion/Driving on streets, a lot of this runoff that's bad for environment is coming off the street. Pfab/But, we're looking at unit cost. Champion/Well, you've got to break it down somewhere. Lehman/Well, to get back. Have you done any--my guess is that you have done some of this? Fosse/Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 32 Lehman/And that the cost of measuring and updating 16,000 properties is so prohibitive that we just can't do it. Fosse/Well, it's probably in the $40,000 to $50,000 range to get that done. We'd have to sub that out. It took us four months in-house to do this many. Lehman/All right. You'd have to sub it out and then maintain it. So it would cost--just a minute. If you have 45,000 of them, it'd cost you $3 a year just to measure them once and then update them. Fosse/Yeah. Lehman/You can't measure them all for $45,000. A lot more than that. Pfab/OK, OK, but I have a question--- Kanner/Irvin, can I get in here? Pfab/Sure. Kanner/But, let's see if we could brainstorm here or at a later date and think of other systems to put in place. Maybe it's one where someone has to file an exemption. We say there's the standard cost and if you can come in and just get a certified letter like the bar owners have to have a certified letter. If they want to go to the expense and say our property has such and such, it meets this criteria or it's this size, then we can say it's exempt. The other thing is there's 16,000 units, property owners there's less than that, as a point of information. Lehman/What's that got to do with it? You have to measure them individually. Kanner/No, you have maybe 30 units in one apartment building. Lehman/No, he's talking about sections. BoelkJ No, I'm not including apartment buildings. There's about 1,000--- Kanner/How can we have 16,000 residential units total? Dilkes/Brian, you've got to come up to the mic if you're going to talk. Lehman/I think it's 16,000 single-family houses. This 16,000 doesn't include the apartment buildings? Boelk/No. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 33 Lehman/So, that's in addition, that's another category. Pfab/But this is where you can build, you can start to motivate people to protect the cost to the City, by stopping it before it leaves their property. Champion/That's already being done. Fosse/Now, let me explain for a moment where we're coming from with our proposal is that because of the size of the fee that we're talking about, $2 a month, we need to keep it simple or we're going to burn up our money on doing all this figuring and keeping track and that sort of thing and that's why that flat fee is so attractive to so many communities. They can charge less because they don't spend much on their program keeping track of it. O'Donnell/Well, and I mean, it's so much easier to control. I mean it's just, it's ridiculous trying to--- Pfab/Oh, it may be ridiculous but it's quite unfair. O'Donnell/Well, I think we get to a fork on the road, Irvin, we ought to take it. Pfab/I made my point. Fosse/If we get the--- Pfab/And thank you for the podium to do it. Atkins/OK. Lehman/Rick? Fosse/I was going to say if we get into that level of detail on a residential property, we're going to have to look at a lot more factors in impervious area, too. Because the analogy used, a small Goosetown home, may have a higher demand on our storm water than a large home out on the west side, because that's got a new storm sewer system, on-site storm water management, and that sort of thing; whereas this is an old neighborhood with an undersized system and--- Pfab/It motivates them to upgrade them, too. Fosse/No, we're the ones that need to upgrade. Pfab/No, no, I mean it makes the owner aware of what their cost is. If they're billed for the cost what it's costing the City, if it's individually billed, then it goes on--this isn't for just tomorrow or a year or two, and does it have to be upgraded every year? I don't know. Wilburn/I've got a question about the commercial and industrial areas. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 34 Fosse/Mm-hmm. Wilbum/Mainly the industrial areas. Of course, some of their larger things like their parking lots and refresh my memory about like some of the, I guess it would be a potential alternative for some of them that want to keep their costs down--but that (can't hear)--is that a permeable subsurface and is that a potential alternative, if so? Fosse/In our area, I think there's questionable benefits to the grass crete, and the reason for that is our underlying soils are very heavy clay. Wilburn/OK. Fosse/Yeah, we're one of the few landfills in the country that can use native clays to build a liner. We don't have to put plastic inside our liner, and that's how impervious our soils are. And so even if it does go through the top six inches, there's not much ability of the underlying soils to absorb that. Wilburn/Right. Fosse/The other thing that has not been worked out in general in that is how do you clean that system? We know from operating sand filters at our water plant and our wastewater plant that you have to backwash those to clean out the fine sediments--- Wilburn/Mm-hmm. Fosse/...so they'll continue to work, and there's no way to backwash a parking lot. So, over time they'll become less and less impervious. Wilbum/I see. OK. Fosse/Dee? Vanderhoef/I go back to the figure that I heard several years ago stated nationally at National League of Cities meeting and they were talking about startup costs for storm water utility was $7. Fosse/Oh, per unit? Vanderhoef/Per unit startup. And I don't know all the things that were put into it, but I guess what I'm thinking about is what is our goal? Is our goal to make it totally self-supporting, including the charge-backs that we would get from, say, public works for street sweeping? Fosse/Mm-hmm. That's in them. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 35 Vanderhoef/And all of that. So I guess I'd like a little more information on how you think that this could be self-supporting at this level. Fosse/OK. Yes, I've got--I can get a copy of it out to you--a memo from Chuck from '01 that outlines all the different things that he factored into that fee. Now, as I mentioned earlier, what it may not cover that you'll want it to is capital projects. If you want to do something on the scale of Sandusky once a year, there won't be enough here for that. Vanderhoef/To me, that's self-supporting, I guess, to put in specific storm water projects, like our south Sycamore area where we built the drainage area but we're getting dollars back from the developers in that case rather than the City funding all of that project. Fosse/Mm-hmm. Vanderhoef/But at some point in time that may need some cleaning out and additional work or expansion, whatever. Fosse/Right. Vanderhoef/And those are projects that I want to be sure we're covering. Fosse or Atkins/What I would recommend is that if you choose to move forward with the concept of utility, let's just move forward. We'll pick a rate, get this thing in place, and see how it works, and then--because it's a brand new utility, new to Iowa City and new to the industry and we can fine-tune and tinker with it and adjust our rates up or down to meet our needs once we're up and running. Lehman/These are your best guesses right now. Champion/Oh, of course. Fosse/Mm-hmm. Lehman/And we're--OK. I certainly have no problem with it. Fosse/OK. Lehman/Are there other questions for Rick? Kanner/How come Cedar Rapids or Solon initiated theirs so much earlier? Fosse/Well, Cedar Rapids got caught by Phase 1 of the storm water (can't hear) so Cedar Rapids and Des Moines were fomed into some big expenditures years before we were. Solon, I suspect, was looking for a revenue soume as many small communities are and they saw this as a viable one and it's been working well for them. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 36 Lehman/OK. Fosse/So where we go from here is it requires an ordinance to do that. Lehman/Right. Fosse/And if you like we can proceed as quickly as setting the public hearing at the August meeting provided we get the details worked out. O'Donnell/Fine with me. Lehman/I think we have to do it. Fosse/OK. O'Donnell/There's no choice. Vanderhoef/No. Lehman/Thank you, Rick. Pfab/Thank you, Rick. Fosse/That's all I need. Dilkes/Is there support for four of you for basically the outline--- Lehman/Do we have support for the program as outlined by Rick? O'Donnell/Yep. Pfab/Good. Lehman/Irvin, you had your hand up and down, I don't know which it was. O'Donnell/It's a half vote. Pfab/No. Champion/He supports it and he (can't hear) (Laughter) Pfab/I'm not comfortable with that. That's a start. POLICE CITIZEN REVIEW BOARD POLICE OFFICER REPRESENTATION This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 37 Lehman/OK. Eleanor, PCRB police officer representation. PCRB. Dilkes/As I think you know, the composition of the PCRB by ordinance is five members, one of which is to be a peace officer. Peace officer, as defined under State Code, which is a very broad term, I've got the definition here if you want to see it, but it includes parole officers, public safety officers, I mean it's much broader than police officer. The ordinance as it currently exists allows you to waive the requirement for a peace officer, and you have done that recently on a couple occasions. You have to have good cause. The reason being that there was an affiliation between the applicant and our police department. The issue that Marian and I raised was whether you want to revise the ordinance and there's a number of ways you could do that. You could take out the peace officer requirement. You could leave it in but say it won't be a member who's been affiliated with our police department. I think we have to give some kind of notice to applicants so that if they have been affiliated with our police department, they don't apply and just continually be rejected. So, I'm just trying to make the ordinance fit with what your desire with respect to that appointment. Champion/Well, I was one of the people who didn't like the idea but after I got home, I realized that that was pretty narrow-minded of myself and I'm happy with it the way it was. Dilkes/We have had a--Bill HoeR, who has been on the PCRB and was affiliated with our police department, so you've not been always consistent on that. O'Donnell/And I don't know why we wouldn't want a police officer on there, appeal to the knowledge. I just think it's really a no-brainer to have one on there. Dilkes/But the issue is we've rejected two peace officers now, so we need to--- O'Donnell/(Can't hear) something's wrong. Champion/But we didn't fill that one position, did we? Vanderhoef/We still have the new one. Lehman/Right. Vanderhoef/What, of the two that I can recall, applications that we have not accepted up to this point, one of them was a retired police officer for only about a year. And then we had another one who has had a career the last 14 years away from the Iowa City police department. And if there was anything I would consider putting someplace between a five- and a ten-year spacing from the time that they are no longer employed by our City before they could come back. O'Donnell/(Can't hear) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 38 Vanderhoef/I think there is a possibility that the community might look at that police officer as having too many close ties still within the department and would be conflicted. I think when you've been off of the force for a number ofyears--- O'Donnell/I think with that line of reasoning, Dee, if anybody has had a ticket issued by the Iowa City police department, then that would exempt them from being a member due to a conflict. Now, I think--- Vanderhoef/No, I don't go along with that. O'Donnell/I think that's that line of reasoning. Vanderhoef/I don't see the comparison. O'Donnell/You could, that's, well--- Vanderhoef/I'm talking about specific friendships within the force that are longstanding and--- Wilburn/When you're placed in a position of providing some type of evaluation as to whether or not there was some inappropriate behavior, then that might be a consideration that some people in the public might feel that there might be some conflictual relationships. Vanderhoef/So, I was thinking five to ten years wait. Wilburn/I would have no problem with that. O'Donnell/I think that's wrong. Pfab/I might go along with you but I'd certainly want to shorten the time on it, maybe one or two years. They're no longer on it, if they're not a part of it, and that's where the people would take (can't hear) Also, how many people are on the Commission? Kan'/Five. Vanderhoef/Five. Pfab/So they'd have a 20 percent vote on any outcome. If you only had one officer. Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. Pfab/But one peace, whatever you--- Vanderhoef/Right. Kan'/Peace officer. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 39 Dilkes/You could have more than one but there's the requirement--- Pfab/I would say one or two years and I'd--I would say one year but I would not have any trouble with two years that would be removed from the, from active service on this department. Lehman/I just think that we are asking for the public to be critical. We lose an officer because he's discharged, he gets back on the Commission, he finds the police department erred in what they did, and he has a vendetta. He has good friends on the police department and he never finds that they've done anything wrong. He can't--I mean, I think from the position of the person appointed, we put him in a terrible position. I just think that that's a terrible position to be (can't hear) Pfab/But we have the right to approve him or not approve him. Lehman/Obviously, but if we approve them, I'm just saying if you are a retired police officer, one that's been fired or whatever, and you're serving on that Commission, I believe that your decisions will be second-guessed by everybody because of the fact that you had a relationship with those folks. Pfab/But now if he was fired from the police department, I think that might send up a red flag and one of us on this Council might suggest that we (can't hear) Lehman/So, he wasn't fired but he's got a lot of good friends that are on there. Hey, (can't hear) O'Donnell/But you can be a policeman, Emie, and run for City Council, get elected, and then appoint members to the PCRB, too. Lehman/That's true. You just can't be a policeman anymore. O'Donnell/You can be an ex-policeman, nm for City Council, and appoint members to PCRB. Lehman/What's your pleasure, guys? Pfab/OK. I'm only going to make one comment. I have had experience in police work and I can tell you that you bring something to that organization that a lot of other people don't. Lehman/Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. Pfab/That's my comment. Lehman/I just question whether they should be allowed to be on the Commission if they have served the (can't hear) O'Donnell/Well, why don't we see? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 40 Lehman/Well, how many are comfortable with having someone who has served in the Iowa City police department serve on the board? Pfab/So, what? Vanderhoef/I am. Lehman/How many are comfortable with having a person who has served on the Iowa City police department serve on the PCRB? Wilburn/Are you talking with or without a certain grace period? Champion/We haven't gotten to the grace period yet. Lehman/Well, just philosophically. Pfab/No problem. Lehman/One, two. Kanner/You're saying as a requirement? Lehman/Well, if we allow, we have--- Dilkes/The way it's currently written. Karr/How many would, don't want to change it from what's currently written, which is just a peace officer? Pfab/How many don't want to change? Kart/I mean, that's what we're talking about, whether we want to change--- Pfab/OK. Look, OK, I just want to--- Vanderhoef/And then I would add--- Pfab/Then you'd say leave it as it is. Karr/Well, that's the question. Does it need changing? Kanner/Ernie, I think it's a little confusing. I think we should ask first if we want to change it and put in something like Dee is talking about. I would support a five- or ten-year, go down the middle, say eight years away from the force, from the Iowa City police force. Lehman/So what you're suggesting is that we leave the wording the way it is except indicate This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003. July 14, 2003 Council Work Session Page 41 that if you have served on the Iowa City police force or with the Iowa City police department, Iowa City Public Safety division, whatever, your employment must not have been within the last five years. Pfab/I think--- Vanderhoef/I think five years is fine. Pfab/I think we're just talking to the Iowa City police department, is that right? Vanderhoef/Mm-hmm. O'Donnell/Right. Pfab/So not if you were an officer in another area? Lehman/No, no. Pfab/Let's say we talk police officer with so much time in between. OK, I think five years is excessive but it's better than--- Lehman/ All right, can we agree on the five? Champion/Yep. Wilburn/Yes. Vanderhoef/OK. Lehman/All right. Could we change that so that it's by--- Karr/We'll have the ordinance before you. Lehman/...know that if they've been on the force in the last five years, they won't be considered. Pfab/On the Iowa City--- Lehman/Right. That's it, guys. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Work Session of July 14, 2003.