HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997-05-06 AgendaSubject to change as finalized by the City Clerk. For a final official copy, contact the City Clerk's Office, 356-5040.
AGENDA'
CITY 01:I0 Wzl CITY
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
May 6, 1997 7:00 p.mo
Civic Center
CALL TO ORDER.
ROLL CALL.
ITEM NO. 1.
ITEM NO. 2.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS.
a. Outstanding Student Citizen Awards - Mark Twain Elementary.
Jason Hemann
Christine Mastalio
Shauna McDonald
(4) Alaina Neu
ITEM NO, 3.
ITEM NO. 4.
MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
a. Corr~unity A~,tion Week,- May 3-10.
b. Tourism Week - M, ay 4-10.
c. Women s Heart Health Day - May 10.
d. School Board Recognition Week - May 11-1 7.
e. Historic Preser~,~...,May 11~17.
'1:. Cancer Survivors D~-- M~y 17. ~ ?bo~~ ~-o~-~J '~
OR AMENDED.
Approval of Official Council Actions of the special and regular
meetings of April 22, 1997, as published, subject to corrections, as
recommended by the City Clerk.
b. Minutes of Boards and Commissions.
(1) Broadband Telecommunications Commission - March 24.
#3a page 1
ITEM NO. 3 MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
a. Community Action Week - May 3-10.
Nov/(Reads Community Action Week Proclamation).
Karr/Mary Larew from HACAP is here with two colleagues.
Mary Larew/These are two of our young people from Headstart.
Nov/Mary, would you like to go to the microphone at the podium and say these things so
that everybody will hear?
Larew/Jenelle and Cody have come to present the members of the council with a small
token from the HACAP organization.
Nov/Oh, thank you, a tree. How beautiful.
Larew/A tree for you to take hom~ and they are each in plastic little baggies so they
won't drip on you. We wanted to give you a small token of our appreciation for
all the hard work that city council has done in helping HACAP achieve its goal of
building a new three room building to house three new Headstart classrooms and
we certainly appreciate in all this time when you have had so many other heavy
things on your mind that you were thinking about the youngsters in Iowa City and
Jolmson County. Thank you very much.
Nov/Wouldn't be nice if we could put these trees at the soccer park or something like
that and call them the HACAP Headstart trees.
Kubby/A community action grove.
Nov/Or the Headstart grove, whatever. Thank you, children.
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ITEM NO. 3 MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
e. Historic Preservation Week - May 11-IT
Nov/(Reads Historic Preservation Week Proclamation).
Karr/Betty Kelly from the Historic Preservation Commission is here.
Betty Kelly/I would like to say a few words to the council. This is our 15th year and we
have enjoyed fairly good success. We have grown in the 1980s with our first
district with 74 houses and today we have added two more districts. We now have
274 houses and we have 36 landmarks which would be incorporated this year. I
also like to invite you next Wednesday at 4:45 to the Johnson County Court
House to take part in our celebration which is the awarding of rehabilitation and
commercial awards this year for houses and buildings that have been rehabilitated
during this past year. We hope you will be able to attend. We will also join with
Jolmson County with their historic awards and we plm~ to have a very good
celebration. We hope to see you all there, next Wednesday at 4:45 at the Johnson
County Court House.
Kubby/Many of us may be late. We have a JCCOG meeting.
Kelly/That is just for the reception. We will not officially start the meeting until 5:15.
You will be late but you will be an honored guest. Thank you very much.
Nov/And I will come on time. I don't have to go to JCCOG meeting.
Kelly/I think it is an important event because we have grown so much in the last few
years. We are one of the oldest commissions in the State of Iowa. The Jolmson
County Historic Commission is four years old and we are 15 and much of our
plan is now used as a model throughout the state. You ought to be very proud of
your Historic Commission.
Nov/Thank you for all the Commission's hard work.
Kelly/Sometimes it is hard.
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ITEM NO. 3 MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
f. Cancer Survivor's Day - May 17.
Nov/We are going to have a Cancer Survivor's Day Proclamation and Dean Thornberry
is going to read that one.
Thornberry/I requested to read this proclamation because it hits home. (Reads Cancer
Survivor's Day Proclamation).
Karr/Representing Mercy Hospital is Sister Theresa and the American Cancer Society,
Suzanne Roverud.
Sr. Theresa/On behalf of the groups who represent and all the cancer survivors, I want to
thank you for the proclamation. I was looking at statistics just before I came and
the 1997 statistics for the estimated new cancer cases will be 1,382,400 cases for
the United States this coming year and of these 16,700 are predicted to be from
the State of Iowa. But the good news is whereas in 1930, one of out four people
survived beyond five years. Currently we think four out often are predicted to
survive beyond the five years which gives us a 40 to 56% chance of recovery and
I think that is the good news that we are really celebrating today. Thank you.
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ITEM NO. 3 MAYOR'S PROCLAMATIONS.
b. Tourism Week - May 4-10.
Nov/We have someone here to accept the proclamation for Tourism Week. (Reads
Tourism Week Proclamation).
Karr/Wendy Ford from the CVB is here to accept.
Wendy Ford/I, too, say thank you on behalf of the over 2,000 employees of Jotmson
County tourism industry and thank you for recognizing the nearly $120 million
yearly business that tourism bring. This is tourism season, folks. Get ready, here
they come. Thaak you, again.
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May 6, 1 997
City of Iowa City Page 2
(2) Design Review Committee - March 17.
Consider the following recommendations made
Review Committee:
(a) Approve the design of the temporary Butterfly Garden.
(b) Approve the proposed awning at 116. E. College Street.
(3) Housing and Community Development Commission - March 5.
(4) Housing and Community Development Commission - March 6o
(5) Housing and Community Development Commission - April 17.
Consider the following recommendations made by the Housing and
Community Development Commission:
a) Approve an amendment to the 1994 Supplemental CDBG
(Floor #2) Budget. This amendment would fund the Wylde
Green Sanitary Sewer Project.
b) Approve the FY98 Annual Action Plan, including
potential funding changes made by the City Council,
Iowa City Airport Commission - March 13.
Board of Appeals o December 2, 1996.
Board of Appeals - December 9, 1996.
Board of Appeals - January 13;
Board of Appeals - March 3.
Planning and Zoning Commission - April 17.
Recreation Commission - April 9.
and Natural Areas Commission - March 19.
(6)
(7) Iowa City
(8) Iowa City
(9) Iowa City
(10) Iowa City
(11) Iowa City
(12) Parks and
(13) Riverfront
by the Design
any
Consider the following recommendation made by the Riverfront
and Natural Areas Commission:
(a)
Adopt the Riverfront and Natural Areas Commission by-laws
amendments regarding membership, officers, and
amendments.
c. Permit Motions and Resolutions as Recommended by the City Clerk
(1) Consider a motion approving a Class C Liquor License for GMRI,
Inc., dba Red Lobster #759, 1609 Highway I West. (Renewal)
(2)
Consider a motion approving a Class c Liquor License for Kennedy
Investments, Inc., dba The Vine Tavern & Eatery, 330 E. Prentiss St.
(Renewal)
(3)' Consider a motion approving a Class E Beer Permit for Nordstrom Oil
Co., dba Dubuque Street HandiMart, 204 N. Dubuque St. (Renewal)
(4) Consider a motion approving a Class C Beer Permit for Wareco
Service, Inc., dba Wareco ~446, 828 S. Dubuque St. (Renewal)
May 6, 1997 City of Iowa City Page 3
(5) Consider a motion approving a Class B Permit for Sam's Pizza I.C.,
Inc., dba Sam's Pizza I.C., 321 S. Gilbert St. (Renewal)
d. Setting Public Hearings.
(1) CONSIDER A MOTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR
MAY 20 ON AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 8, ENTITLED
"POLICE REGULATIONS, "CHAPTER 4, ENTITLED "PET
ANIMAL CONTROL," OF THE CITY CODE OF IOWA CITY.
Comment: At Council's Work Session of April 8, staff was directed to
schedule discussion of the proposed ordinance for May 5. After
discussion, Council could proceed to set public.a~heafir~ for May 20
or defer to a later time.
(2) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR
MAY 20 ON AMENDING THE FY97 OPERATING BUDGET.
Comment: State legislation mandates municipalities amend their
annual budget by May 31. This resolution sets the public
hearing for amendments on May 20. Detailed information on
amendments will be available for public inspection on May 9.
(3)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING
FOR MAY 20 ON PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF
CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF COST FOR CONSTRUCTION
OF THE WILLOW STREET IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT,
DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH NOTICE OF SAID
HEARING, AND DIRECTING THE CITY ENGINEER TO PLACE
SAID PLANS ON FILE FOR PUBLIC INSPECTION.
Comment: This project consists of the reconstruction of Willow
Street between Muscatine Avenue and Brookside Drive,
installation of new water main, storm sewer, and sidewalks and
also sanitary sewer repair work. The preliminary estimated cost
of this project is $500,000. Funding will be provided by road
use tax.
e. Resolutions.
(1)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR
TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE RELEASE
OF A LIEN REGARDING A PROMISSORY NOTE FOR A LOW
INTEREST LOAN AND A MORTGAGE FOR THE PROPERTY
LOCATED AT 511 THIRD AVENUE, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: The owners of the property located at 511 Third
Avenue, received a loan through the City's Housing
Rehabilitation Program on June 7, 1985, for $9,500. This
amount was amended to $11,567.78 on February 14, 1986.
The financing was in the form of a Low Interest Promissory Note
and a Mortgage. The note was paid off April 30, 1997; thus,
the liens can now be released.
May 6, 1997 City of Iowa City Page 4
97 -/3/0
~7-/37
(2)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR
TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE
RELEASE OF A REHABILITATION AGREEMENT AND A
MORTGAGE FOR THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT 3023
STANFORD AVENUE, IOWA CITY, IOWA.
Comment: The owners of the property located at 3023 Stanford
Avenue, received a $3,500 loan through the City's Housing
Rehabilitation Program on November 14, 1991. The financing
was in the form of a Rehabilitation Agreement and a Mortgage.
The terms of this loan were satisfied January 3, 1997; thus, the
lien can now be released.
(3)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ACCEPTING THE WORK
FOR THE STORM SEWER PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS
FOR LOTS 2, 3, & 4 OF WEST SIDE PARK.
Comment: See Engineer's Report.
(4)
CONSIDER RESOLUTION ACCEPTING THE
WORK FOR THE IOWA CITY LANDFILL FY96 CELL
CONSTRUCTION AND FY91 COVER PROJECT.
Comment: See Engineer's Report.
(5)
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO
SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK '!'O ATTEST THE EASEMENT
AGREEMENT FOR TEMPORARY USE OF PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY
BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY, AND IOWA CITY COFFEE
CO. D/B/A THE JAVA HOUSE FOR A SIDEWALK CAFE.
(RENEWAL)
Comment: Iowa City Coffee Company, (The Java House), has
filed an application (including fees) for permission to operate a
sidewalk care on the public right-of-way in front of 211 1/2 E.
Washington Street. City staff inspected the area and
recommends approval. A memorandum to the Design Review
Committee from Economic Development Coordinator Schoon is
included in Council packet.
f. Correspondence.
(1) William Fischer - police investigation.
(2) Margaret Silber - SAFE KIDS.
(3) Joel Kline - pigeon coops.
(4) Susan Goodner- pigeon coops.
(5) Tim Vangsness - parking.
(6) Tim Vangsness - water,
(7) Michael Lensing - cemeteries.
.May 6, '1997
City of Iowa City
(8) Julie Phye - Stepping Up Project.
(9) Kim Enams - "Share the Road" signs
(10) JCCOG Traffic Engineering Planner:
(a)
Page 5
Designation of lane use control signs and pavement
markings at the intersection of Iowa Avenue & Madison
Street
(b) Reserved parking for persons with disabilities in the
300 block of College Street
(11)Civil Service Commission submitting certified lists of applicants
for the following position(s):
(a) Emergency Communications Dispatcher
(b) Housing Rehabilitation Assistant
(c) Interactive Specialist
(d) Senior Clerk/Typist - Senior Center
v i ~OL,q'~(
g. Applications for Use of Streets and Public Grounds. (a I appro ed) Cc,~'d~
(1) Jody Dvorak (Chamber of Commerce Business PM - Preferred
Stock) - April 24.
(2) Donna Palmer (New Pioneer Cinco de Mayo Fiesta) - May 4.
(3) Pat Lind (Carousel Motors Anniversary Sale) - May 15 - 24.
(4) Jim Larew (Iowa City Area Science Center Butterfly Garden)
May 23 - September 30, [Located in 64-1a and City Plaza]
Applications for Use of City Plaza. (all approved)
(1) Thomas Cook (art creation and sales) 1997 Ambulatory
Vending Permit,
(2) Eugene Bilyk (ISKCON distribution of literature) - April 28 - May 3.
(3) Robert Yeats (tuba performance) - May 2.
END OF CONSENT CALENDAR.
#4 page 1
ITEM NO. 4 CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS
PRESENTED OR AMENDED.
Nov/Consider adoption of the Consent Calendar as presented or amended. Moved by
Lehman, seconded by Norton. Discussion.
Karr/Madam Mayor, I would just like to note one slight correction and that is setting a
p.h. for a motion setting public discussion for the Animal Control. It is not a p.h.
but it is a public discussion.
Nov/Okay, discussion rather than hearing.
Norton/I just want to add one comment. I noticed that on the work for the landfill we
were $730,000 less than what had been estimated. That was an encouraging bit of
news.
Nov/Yes, we could use some encouraging news like that. Any other discussion? Roll
Call- (yes). As part of this Consent Calendar we have set a p.h. discussion for
May 20 on an ordinance amending Title 8, entitled Police Regulations, Chapter 4,
entitled Pet/M~imal Control of the Iowa City Code. And this will be a May 20
discussion of any changes in the Animal Control Ordinance. We have set a p.h.
for May 20 on anlending the FY97 operating budget. There will be a p.h. on May
20 on the plans, specifications, form of contract and estimate of cost for
construction of the Willow Creek Improvements Project.
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ITEM NO. 5.
City of Iowa City
PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA).
Page 6
ITEM NO. 6. PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS.
Public Hearing on the proposed Scott-Six Urban Renewal Plan for a
proposed Urban Renewal Area in the City of Iowa City, Iowa.
Comment: The designation of the Scott-Six Industrial Park as an Urban
Renewal Area will allow the City to use tax increment financing for
public infrastructure improvements and for financial incentives to
qualifying businesses. At its meeting of April 17, 1997, by a vote of 6-
0, the Planning and Zoning Commission found that the Scott-Six Urban
Renewal Plan conforms with the Iowa City Comprehensive Plan - 1989
Update subject to the Urban Renewal Area being annexed and rezoned
to an Intensive Commercial Zone and a General Industrial Zone. Staff
memorandum and correspondence included in Council packet.
Action:
Public hearing on a resolution amending the Comprehensive Plan to
increase the density from 2-8 dwelling units per acre to 8-16 dwelling
units per acre for an approximate 2.38 acre area located at the
northeast corner of the intersection of Scott Boulevard and Lower
West Branch Road.
Comment: At its April 3 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed
amendment. Staff recommended the proposed amendment in a report
dated March 20.
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ITEM NO. 5 PUBLIC DISCUSSION (ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA).
Nov/Public Discussion. This is for items that are not on today's agenda.
Rene Paine/I am the Director of PATV here in Iowa City. From what I read in the
Gazette today I understand that at least one of the council members is in favor of
consolidating the Access Channels. It distresses me to hear this in part because I
believe that the citizens of this community do not seem to recognize the potential
that exists in Access. They are not insistent on a proactive approach to making the
Access Channel even better than it can be. Instead of collapsing five into three,
why not insist that TCI contribute more in terms of funding for local access. A
resource that could quite possibly be cable's only trump card in the
communications game. The strength of our local voice, the caring concern given it
is a barometer for the well being of the community. We should give it our highest
consideration before we eliminate our options. Our local communications network
could be a showcase, a model for other communities. Whatever form Access talces
in this community, however many channels we end up with, my hope is that they
serve the cormrmnity well. That they are pivotal in this community's
development. But it is a two way street. Access can serve and it will serve. But
how it serves must come from community dialogue. My personal feeling is that
five access channels should not be enough in a town with a citizenry as vital and
active as ours is. Thank you.
Nov/Thank you. Is there anyone who would like to talk about something not on the
agenda?
Mary Kathryn Wallace/I am Chair of the Iowa City Johnson County Senior Center. And
we have been busy planning, you are busy planning. We, as a Center, want a very
strong successful community and we want to be a vital part of that. Today you
received hopefully a copy of our new goals. I have extra copies if any of you
would like an extra copy and I know when you have time to look through them,
you will traderstand how we want to work with you within the community.
Briefly, I want you to know we listen to all kinds of input from a wide variety
within the community. The committee valued and listened to all the input and
strive to incorporate all the useful information. The goals that we have, we
reached five of them, we hope are reflective of a welcoming, participate, vigorous
and positive Senior Center and we have one more item that is coming up and my
Co-Chair on the Commission would like to tell you about that.
Wilma Connor/I am a member of the Senior Center Commission. Due to the generous
support of the City and the Council, we started on a survey in March the purpose
of which was to find out the reaction from senior citizens, 55 and older,
throughout the whole county as well as the City of Iowa City, to find out the best
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way that we can improve our services or add to our services, to serve the diversity
of our county. This took us three weeks and about 240 hours of volunteer time.
We ended up with nearly 400 results and good interviews which we were able to
do. This was done in conjunction with the Graduate School of Urban m~d
Regional Platoting and they, because of the City's help, we were able to get two
graduate students who came to help us. They are doing the tabulations. They have
done them now and they are complete and on next Thursday night, a week from
this week, on the 15th there will be a meeting at the Senior Center at 5:30 in the
evening which we certainly would like to have all of you attend to hear the results
of the survey and find out the kinds of things they tell us we can be doing in a
better fashion perhaps than we are doing now or we can add to our programming
to make our center more attractive. Thank you.
Nov/Okay, if there is no one else, we will close the public discussion for tonight.
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#6b and 6c page 1
ITEM NO. 6b Public hearing on a resolution amending the Comprehensive Plan to
increase the density from 2-8 dwelling units per acre to 8-16 dwelling units per acre for
an approximate 2.38 acre area located at the northeast comer of the intersection of Scott
Boulevard and Lower West Branch Road.
ITEM NO. 6c Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by changing
the use regulations from RS-5, Low Density Single-Family Residential, to OPDH-12,
Planned Development Housing Overlay, for a 2.38 acre property located at the northeast
comer of the intersection of Scott Boulevard and Lower West Branch Road to permit a 37
unit multi-family building for elderly housing. (REZ97-0002)
Nov/The p.h. is now open.
Chad CooIcY I represent Eby Development and Management Company. This goes along
with item c. I don't know if we should cover those at the same time. The
presentation is the same.
Nov/You could do that. Okay, I will read it and then we will have a motion to combine.
(Reads agenda #6c). Now if we could have a motion from council, we can
combine item b. and c. Moved by Lehman, seconded by Norton. Okay. You may
speak on either item b. or c. Item b. is a change to the Comprehensive Plan. Item
c. is a change to the Zoning Chapter and they both apply to the same property
locations.
Chad Coolcy IfI could, I would like to submit pictures and brochures of the project to the
council.
Nov/I think we didn't vote on the motion. Did we say aye? Okay. I thi~zlc we didn't.
Woito/You did not vote yet.
Nov/Okay, all in favor, please say aye- (ayes). Now officially we combined them. Okay.
Please go ahead.
CooleY What we are proposing is a 37 unit assisted living facility on the corner of Scoot
Blvd. and Lower West Branch Road. As you can see from the pictures, it is very
residential in appearance. It is one story built in a square with a court yard in the
middle. One of the pictures there describe the front of the building that is of a
building that is similar to one we are plamxing to build here. Also there is a picture
of the landscaped area of the courtyard. What we plan to do is to provide services
for the frail seniors who can't live alone and can't take care of themselves but do
not need the 24 hour supervision of a nursing home. We would provide this is a
bare residential style to try to promote as much independence as possible. We
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provide what we call help with the activities of daily living, assistance with
bathing, dressing, those seniors that may have mobility problems. We provide
tltree meals a day and we provide this in a supportive environment. As far as the
traffic concerns that you may have, most of our residents will not have cars, will
not drive. We will have a nurse on call 24 hours a day, will not be in the building
24 hours a day but will be there to help set up medical assessments to make sure
the medications are taken on time. The staff will be licensed CNA's, certified
nursing assistants and med-aides that help both with the room cleaning,
maintenance and that sort of thing and also the medication assistance and the
assistance with those tasks of daily living. That basically in a nut shell is what the
project consists of. I wonder if there are any questions at this time.
Kubby/One of the things we talked about last night is if for the rent portion of the cost of
living here, do you accept Section 8 Vouchers?
Cool~
We don't have any facilities in Iowa that are open yet. We do have facilities in
Kansas and Oklahoma, Texas and we have not accepted Section 8 Vouchers
mainly for the reason that it has never been asked of us to do. Most of our
residents are private pay. We do have some- In Kansas they do have a Medicaid
wavier program that we do participate in. The Section 8 item is something that we
haven't studied closely but we would be willing to do that with you if you feel the
need is there.
Nov/We don't lmow. We lmow we have a waiting list for Section 8 and other types of
Housing Assistance. We have not checked to see whether there are people who
are qualified under your restrictions for age or needing assistance. It may be there
and if it is there, would you like to see something.
Norton/It would be a very nice option to have.
Cook/
And in discussions, that was mentioned to me today that you talked about that in
your meeting last night and we discussed- We weren't sure if there was financing
available if we promised to do that. If there was financing available or if we
could- You lmow, we just don't lmow enough about the program but in
discussions we feel that, you lmow, 10% of our rooms or something like that
could be designated for that Section 8.
Nov/It basically means that you have a voucher or a certificate which says that the
person who pays the rent will pay 30% of their income and the goverm2ent will
give you the rest of it. So you have to agree to fair market rent and that is about it.
Cool/ Okay.
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Baker/Before we vote on this the next meeting, I appreciate if you would say you haven't
thought it through yet but talk to our Housing Department, our Housing Director
and get a grasp of the program and let's see what your feelings are at the next
meeting.
Cook/Okay.
Nov/Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to talk about this topic? Any other
questions from city council discussion?
Thornberry/I think there is some correspondence.
Nov/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Thornberry that we accept correspondence. All in
favor, please say aye- (ayes). Motion carries. Are there any other items for
discussion among city council? Okay. P.h. is closed. And we have taken care of
both items b. & c.
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May 6, 1997 City of Iowa City Page 7
Public hearing on an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by
changing the use regulations from RS-5, Low Density Single-Family
Residential, to OPDH-12, Planned Development Housing Overlay, for a
2.38 acre property located at the northeast corner of the intersection
of Scott Boulevard and Lower West Branch Road to permit a 37 unit
multi-family building for elderly housing. (REZ97-0002)
Comment: At its April 3 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the rezoning and
preliminary OPDH plan. Staff recommended approval in a report dated
Action:
"Zoning," to provide elderly housing alternatives. (First consideration)
Comment: At its April 3 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed
amendment as revised by the Commission on April 3. Staff
recommended approval of the elder housing amendments in a
memorandum dated March 20.
Action: / ¢~'~/"
e..Consider an ordinance amending the Zoning Chapter by changing the
use regulations on a 3.74 acre tract located on Mall Drive from
Community Commercial (CC-2) to General Industrial (I-1).
(REZ97-0001) (Second consideration) ~ /~
Comment: At its March 6 meeting, by a vote of 7-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed rezoning.
· Staff recommended approval in a report dated February 20.
Correspondence requesting expedited c~nsideration included in
Act i o n: ~/~~.4.4.~/~'~-~__~. ~-"~. ,~,~, ~y'" /x~/Y-z~
May 6, t997 City of Iowa City Page 8
'77- ~7~
gD
Consider an ordinance amending Title 14, Chapter 6, entitled
"Zoning," Article N, entitled "Off-Street Parking and Loading,"
Section 1, entitled "Off-Street Parking Requirements," to allow
existing fraternity/sorority houses to be converted to rooming houses
without having to provide additional parking. (Second consideration)
Comment: At its March 20 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning
and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed
amendment. Staff recommended approval in a report dated
March 20. At its May 1 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission
reviewed an alternative ordinance which would allow the waiver of
parking requirements only by special exception. By a vote of 7-0, the
Commission recommended that a special excemption not be required.
Correspondence regarding this item included in Council packet.
Action:
Consider an ordinance vacating the portion ~f the alley located south
of Lot 2 of the A.E. Strohm Addition, generally located south of
Bowery Street between Governor and Lucas Streets. (VAC97-0001)
(Pass and adopt)
Comment: At its February 6 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning
and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the vacation of this
alley. Staff recommended approval in a report dated February 6.
Consider an ordinance amending Title 14, Chapter 6, entitled
"Zoning," City Code, by revising Article N, entitled Off-Street Parking
and Loading," to change the required number of off-street parking
spaces for commercial uses in the CB~5 zone. (Pass and adopt)
Comment: At its February
Jakobsen voting no and
recommended approval of the proposed amendment.
recommended approval in a memorandum dated January 30.
6 meeting, by a vote of 4-1-1 with
Chait abstaining, the Commission
Staff
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ITEM NO. 6f Consider an ordinance amending Title 14, Chapter 6, entitled "Zoning,"
Article N, entitled "Off-Street Parking and Loading," Section 1, entitled "Off-Street
Paricing Requirements," to allow existing fraternity/sorority houses to be converted to
rooming houses without having to provide additional parIcing. (Second consideration)
Nov/Moved by Norton, seconded by Lelm~an. Discussion.
Thornberry/Do we have to move to accept correspondence?
Nov/We can do it after.
Franldin/We had our Interpretation Panel meeting today and resolved to interpret the
Code differently than we had previously and I will not try to go through all the
explanation but basically for the circumstances at 716 N. Dubuque Street, our
interpretation at this time would not require this ordinance because the parking
calculation will come out such that the rooming house requires fewer paricing
spaces than the fraternity and sorority did. Now if you want me to get into detail
of it, I can.
Kubby/Is there a succinct way to say what it is that is different than before?
Fra~ldin/Okay, I think so. We will be using the same floor area fignre to determine both
the occupancy and parking. The way the Code is written the occupancy is
calculated using a floor area based on the lot size and that gives you a figure
which in the case of a conversion, may result in rooming house use which is not
the same as the actual floor area of the building. Did you follow that?
Kubby/No.
Franldin/No.
Norton/Not quite.
Franldin/Okay. Let me just use the example then. In this particular example we have a
6500 square foot lot. To detenrtine how many people can be in a rooming house
on that lot, you take the lot size and you take 330 square feet per 1,000 square feet
of lot. So that is 330 X 6.5, that gets to 2,125 square feet that would be the size of
a rooming house if it were going to be built new on that site. The building is 7200
square feet. What we have done in the past and did with this particular
circumstance is determine the occupancy based on that 2,125 square feet, what
would be allowable and you need 100 square feet per person which results in 21
occupants of a rooming house at this particular address, even though the building
is larger. The parking, however, when you go through a different section of the
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Code, is calculated based on the square foot of the total floor area. The total floor
area is 7200 square feet. Thus you are requiring parking for an area which would
not be equated to occupancy by people. So our interpretation based on how the
occupancy has been handled in the past is to extrapolate that and use the same
square footage for the parIcing requirement. Thus you would use 2,125 square feet
for the parking requirement also as for the occupancy and your parIcing
requirement would be less but would correlate to the number of people living in a
rooming house.
Norton/Which means the parking requirement there would be what?
Franldin/10. There are 24 spaces grandfathered under the fraternity house and the
allowance of having a fraternity house there. Understand that these do not exist.
And just to explain to you the concept of why we do this. There is a conversion
allowance for preserving older buildings. That is if we go older viable buildings,
we want to be able to continue to use them and a lot of buildings or a nurnber of
buildings in Iowa City were built before we had cars and certainly before we had
parking requirements. So that you may convert the use of the building to a new
use and you need not provide any more parking so long as the new use does not
require any more than the old use would have required if it did provide parIcing.
Got that?
Kubby/We are calculating the number of people based on in one way and calculating the
number of cars spaces another way. Do we do this consistently?
Franldin/Rooming houses are an oddity within the Zoning Ordinance.
Kubby/Do we do it for all rooming houses in that mam~er?
Franldin/We have- Well, we have not had an instance in the past where we came up
against this. This is why the interpretation issue never came up before this one.
We have never had one in the past where figuring the paricing based on the total
floor area of the building resulted in an inability to make the conversion from
whatever it was before, not necessarily a fraternity, from whatever it was before.
So at this point, when we are looking at it- To answer that question, we
interpreted it differently before. That is we took it very strictly by the words of the
Code in terms of determining the parking. We believe the decision of the Panel
today was that we believe that it is more reasonable and is consistent with how we
determine occupancy to figure the parIcing based upon the occupancy.
Kubby/Will you explain who is on the panel?
Franldin/Myself, the City Attorney and the Director of HIS.
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Woito/And this is limited to existing buildings, not new buildings.
Kubby/So if we would- What are our options with that interpretation? Do we have an
option to accept or reject that interpretation?
Franklin/That interpretation may be appealed to the Board of Adjustment by the com~cil
or anyone who chooses.
Norton/Can you explain how the 10 derives from the 21,2507
Franklin/The parking requirement is one space per 200 square feet. So when you divide
2,125 by 200.
Thomberry/This is for new rooming houses, is that correct?
Franldin/It is for any rooming house.
Thomberry/Any rooming house?
Franklin/Yes.
Thomberry/So this particular property then would require 24 spaces? Is that what you
said?
Franklin/No. This particular property, because of the lot size, is restricted to 21 people.
Therefore, under this interpretation, it would only require 10 parIcing spaces. If it
were brand new, if there was nothing there now, you could build a building that
had 2,125 square feet and the parking requirement would be 10 parking spaces
and you could have 21 people living there.
Thomberry/What were the 24 spaces?
Franklin/24 spaces is the calculation for fraternities. Fraternities have a different parking
requirement. Now we do have direction from the council to look at the parking for
fraternities and sororities and rooming houses and make those more close to
reality. And we will also be making changes such that we don't have to interpret
this but that it is clear from the language that that is the way it should be done.
Thomberry/And for the record, what is the number of parking places for this particular
house?
Kubby/You mean the actual?
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Norton/Theoretical?
Thomberry/Actual.
Franldin/In terms of the conversion that is anticipated?
Thomberry/How many parIcing spaces are there for this property?
Franldin/Two that would meet our design standards now.
Thornberry/I will reiterate my problem is that there are not the required parking places
for the number of people living in these units whether they be fraternity now or
rooming houses later or whatever. But when I see a use change from a fraternity
or sorority that does not meet the current parking requirements, I think,
personally, that anytime the use changes, it should go to the current parking
requirement for the new use. So that is why I will be voting against this ordinance
because some time or another we are going to have to say hey. listen, there are
how many people going to be living in this rooming house? 21 people.
Franldin/Potentially.
Thomberry/Potentially and there are two parking places. I don't think that is enough
realistically.
Franldin/I understand your position. I would just like to-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 97-76 SIDE 2
Franldin/So legislatively such that there is not the ability to convert which would mean
that a number of the buildings where conversion could take place, in order to be
re-used would have to be torn down and replaced.
Thornberry/Or obtain parking somewhere else for that particular house.
Frm~ldin/If it is possible but you have to have your parking within a certain distance of
the use.
Thomberry/If we are going to change that we could also change the number of feet away
from the house. I mean I am just saying that.
Franldin/You could.
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Thornberry/It was explained to me that the reason that there weren't parking places for
all of the people in the fraternities and sororities is that when they were built, they
didn't have cars. Now they have cars. Now it would behoove us to get into the
20th Century since are almost into the 21st century. So I am just saying when a
use changes, I think it is time that we brought ourselves up to Code, up to date.
Lel'ur~an/Karin, if I understand correctly and I am not disagreeing with you, Dean. If I
understand correctly, what your saying is because the proposed use is less parking
intensive than the present use.
Franldin/Right.
Lehman/That you will be interpreting that as compliance, so we do not need this
ordinance.
Frmxldin/That's correct.
Lel'nnan/I mean, you're interpreting this under present ordinances that are in effect.
Frmxklin/That's right.
Le12nan/Okay.
Fraaklin/And I would point out that they're other conversions that could occur in (can't
hear). For instance it could convert to apartments and still not have to provide
parking either.
Kubby/Do you thi~xk that that may be true for this particular project but what does that
say about other potential conversions?
Franklin/Of fraternities or just generally speaking?
Kubby/No, from fraternities or sororities to rooming houses. Would this ordinance still
be needed in order to allow those conversions without adding more parking?
Franklin/I don't believe so because I think this situation is fairly typical in that you have
a large fraternity or sorority house. You have a large Greek house on a relatively
small lot. There are some that are built on larger lots where you could put in some
parking, but the rooming houses generally speaking are not, you're not going to
be able to use the whole house, because the lot will, the lot will limit how much
can be devoted to rooming house use. Now if you have a large fraternity house on
a large lot, and I'm thinking of some of the ones across the river by Hancher, I
don't know.
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Nov/You could take out and put in houses.
Franldin/I guess I shouldn't answer that question, Karen, because I haven't done my
research to know how big all the lots are and how it would work.
Kubby/Right, so.
Franldin/We could take a look at that before your, it would be a final reading on the 20th
or-
Norton/Do need this ordinance? Isn't the ordinance moot at this point?
Franklin/That's the question. And I can't say absolutely that in all cases it would be
moot.
Norton/I mean in tlfis, as things now stand. Well no, you might need the ordinance, I
mean for other particular circumstances.
Franldin/That's right, I mean, one of the, the reason that we brought it before you was
not just for 716 N. Dubuque Street. It was because as we saw this situation we
then felt that there was a validity in looking at the conversion of fraternities and
sororities to rooming houses because of the similarity of the type of living that
one does there. That is that you have a room and then there's a lot of common
space. And so that it would be making more opportunities for rooming houses.
Norton/Well at least some of us were convinced despite the difficulties of the situation
that Dean mentioned where there's only two actual spaces, give or take some
tandem possibilities, but only two formal spaces. I understand that there's a
number of institutions around of this same sort where there's a nominal
requirement of 24 or somefixing and there's zero or one or two spaces maybe, so
would it be wise to pass this in the event that you come across a case where you
do not have the large structure on a small site and come up with the ten number
less than 24. Would it be desirable to pass this and anyhow for the other cases that
may come up?
Thornberry/Well I think that when the other cases come up, Dee, with fraternities like
there's a fraternity house with zero parking, okay, and one with I think one.
Norton/Urn-huh.
Thornberry/I think that's when you need to convert. And I think that these houses, it's
not unconvertible. You could take out the first floor.
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Norton/And put in underground parking.
Thornberry/Put in parking on the first floor and if it has a basement, make access for
parIcing in the basement. That's a possibility.
Norton/I understand that. I just don't know whether it's realistic.
Kubby/We just talked last night about how really there's one developer in town who's
putting underground parking underneath apartment buildings. It's a very
expensive endeavor and when you talk about the cost of housing.
Thornberry/I mean if the basement's already there, it would be a lot less than having to
excavate.
Council/(All talking)
Franklin/In terms of answering the question of whether tiffs is moot or not, what I would
like to do is have the opportunity to look at the other ficaternity and sorority houses
mad see. We may not be able to do all of' them, but at least do some calculations as
to whether the situation would be the same.
Norton/Can you do that before our third meeting?
Franklin/Yes. So you could go ahead and vote tonight on this. You still have one more
reading. You can then drop it or whatever you decide to do.
Kubby/But that's the purpose of having three readings, is being able to do that.
Vanderhoef/Karin, before you leave, I have something I'd like to offer at least at this
point. We all recognize that there's tremendous pressure for paricing no matter
what neighborhood we have that has a preponderance of fraternities and sorority
houses. In the near west side, I called and asked city staff today to see whether
there was a possibility of changing from parallel parking to angle paricing on some
of the side streets up there that are not busy which would increase the number of
parking spaces that would be available to the neighborhood. Certainly heavily
traveled like Church Street would not be an appropriate one, but some of them is
just neighborhood traffic. )dad that might increase the parking as a possibility to
help out the crunch that's out there.
Nov/I
have a parking consideration also. I've been talking to some of the people who
live in the neighborhood and part of the parking problem is not just place for the
people who live there, it's a place for the co~mrmters. And they're plmming to talk
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to the university about this because their streets have become commuter parking
and the commuter parking has extended to about Dodge Street at this point. It's
not just immediately around the fraternities. So if we're going to really worry
about this and try to help in terms of who's parking because they're living there,
we may want to meet with the neighborhood and see if we can't do something
with permits or whatever to really work on the commuter parking problem.
Vanderhoef/Well, I'd like it put all together. I agree with you, Naomi, and we could look
at all of these things at the same time and see what would be acceptable to the
neighborhood and what is a possibility to relieve some of this in that
neighborhood.
Nov/And I'm saying that just creating more spaces would mean the commuter parker
who now goes all the way to Dodge Street would find a closer place and not really
doing much for the folks who live there.
Franldin/The parking problem on the north side has been there for years and if you wish,
I mean when we talked about the parking study, the decision was not to pursue the
residential parking permit. Maybe we need to leave this at that. Is there a majority
of the cmmcil who would like us to devote some time to looking at the parking
situation on the north side, to look at a variety of solutions?
Kubby/I think it should come frO1Tl the neighb, orhood, that that initiative should come
from the neighborhood. That we, because what we would end up doing anyway is
going to the neighborhood and trying what ideas.
Frm~klin/That can be one of our steps is to work with the Northside Neighborhood
Association, people within the Northside to see what ideas they have.
Kubby/The reason I say that is because in the recent five years, we have gone to the
neighborhood, I think twice with that idea, and at that point it was rejected.
Franklin/That particular idea, yes.
Kubby/And so I think we need to-
Nov/There may be other ideas.
Kubby/Maybe it doesn't matter who initiates it but it's just, we have just very recently
talked about it and made the decision and I guess I would like it to come from the
neighborhood to ask us to rethink that decision.
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Thornberry/Well, part of the potential alleviance of this problem would be to require
these places to have their own parking. That would help.
Norton/Sure.
Thornberry/There's something. I don't think there's one answer that's going to solve all
the north side parking problems, but if you did a little bit here and a little bit there,
one of them being requiring these places to have adequate parking, that's just one
step. And then there will need to be more and more and more. But if you don't
take this step, and when this says, to allow existing fraternity and sorority houses
to be converted to rooming houses without having to provide additional parking, I
thi~tk is wrong.
Norton/Don't you accept the fact that there's considerable risk that if nothing can be
done, if that's so expensive, that the place is torn down, Dean? Because I thiltk
that's one of the serious concerns that if you can't shoe horn it in there, people
will tear it down.
Nov/Well, according to what we've heard now, they could also convert to apartments, as
well as rooming houses.
Norton/Yes, but that would also add parking.
Nov/Without changing the required parking. So we really have to think hard about this.
Kubby/We talked about conversions, in my mind, because the kind of density that's
allowed, the kind of housing is so similar, but it's a, it is a change in use, but it's
not a magnification of use. And that's when I tltink there should be a real look that
people should have to provide some of that when there's a magnification of use.
Thornberry/You're right. But it may not be a magnification, but it is a change of use.
And when you change the use, the grandfather dies. And it's a change of use and
now it's a new use, so that's the time when you can make these changes.
Kubby/But that corrects, Karin, in this kind of conversion that when you change this
particular, from one particular use to another that we're tallring about, that the
grandfather goes.
Fraaklin/What you do is you re-establish what the parking requirement is. For instance,
in this case, the new parking requirement would be ten so the next conversion
would have to fall under the ten.
Kubby/Oh, I see.
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Franklin/And with that conversion too, if the new use requires more spaces, you have to
provide the difference. I think you all understood that.
Nov/Okay. We'll let one neighborhood resident speak. No more than five minutes.
Kubby/Excuse me, Naomi. We had requested that people from all different
neighborhoods speak, or to give input, and so if there are people from different
neighborhoods, I would like to be able to hear from all the different parts of the
corrununity.
Nov/Well, if there are people from different neighborhoods, but the Northside
Neighborhood has been very vocal on this and I don't want to create multiple
speakers.
Nancy
Hauserman/729 N. Linn. I'm a member of the Northside Neighborhood. I was
one of the people who helped to put together the petition of 97 people that we
turned ion that you all got this morning. I had some prepared remarks, more or
less prepared as is my style, about the specific amendment, but my understanding
is that that's more or less moot at this point. That is to say though that you'll have
another reading of that, that really this is already, some time between the last vote
and indeed between last night and today, a new interpretation has occurred and
this is a done deal. This was my first foray into city politics. Now I regret to say
that it was a disappointing one. I am not disappointed because some well
respected and community minded will develop low income property. Like most
residents of Iowa City, I recognize and applaud the need for low income property.
I don't applaud the need. I think we need to do something about the provision of
low income housing, not availability. I'm disappointed because the process
appears in the end to have shut out our voices. We spent hours calling and writing.
First we called the P/Z Commission when we were told this was going to be
handled as a zoning variance. We wrote letters. People called them. We talked to
them. Then we called and wrote, as you all well lmow, the city council over this
amendment. We were variously told during the process that either there was no
requirement for public input on neighborhood development issues, or by other
people, assured that we would have input. We spent days talking to you. Talking
to our neighbors, and now I come here tonight and learn that we really it was or
has always been a done deal or could've been done. It really didn't matter what
we said. I'm raising a child who I hope will be an active member of his
community. I tell him that he has a voice in the world around him. I appear to
have lied. Thank you.
Thornberry/Well, you've got a voice.
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Nov/Is there another neighborhood that would like to have a voice?
Thornberry/You've got a voice.
Maggie Rochelle/Well, I'm also a member of the same neighborhood.
Nov/Do you have something that we have not heard?
Rochelle/It's very brief. It's about parking. The neighborhood has had a problem for
years. This was pointed out.
Nov/State your name and address.
Rochelle/Maggie Rochelle. I live at 730 N. Linn. I've lived there for seven years. We
took a chance and we bought this house, but it looked like a neighborhood we
could raise children in if we would invest in this neighborhood. And through the
hard work of our neighbors, it's now an historic neighborhood. Awards were
given earlier this evening in recognition of the importance of historic
neighborhoods and so my five year old and my eight year old since we've lived
there have not been allowed to play outside of our fenced back yard. The first
major expense on our house which has required many expenses because it's old,
was to put in a fence all the way around the yard because you could see it was a
very, it was a dangerous (can't hear). They couldn't go up and down the sidewalk.
And even at the ages that they are now, they can have one trip around the block,
the eight year old, by himself. And my daughter, I have to ride with her. They
can't be in the neighborhood like most residential neighborhoods where young
children are growing np. It's because of these families that this neighborhood has
stabilized to the point that it has and the idea of more cars parIced like this, I mean
when my child crosses the street to pet the neighbor's cat, we have to be there
with them, because they have to learn to go in between the cars, creep slowly.
Make sure nobody's in either of these cars, then look to the left. Look to the right,
far enough out so that there are no other cars coming.
Kubby/So you would object to the parallel parking at an angle?
Rochelle/I reject, I mean it's like it seems like it's awfully handy to improve the parking
situation in this residential neighborhood. I absolutely agree with Mr. Thornberry
that why not have people take responsibility for the parIcing that's required in
places that are being converted or built. I mean that seems like the logical
solution.
Norton/The conversion that we're talking about is going to improve that situation
somewhat, we're assured.
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Rochelle/If there are 21 residences, is there a requirement that only ten people own cars?
I mean how are we assured of that?
Nov/This does not require how mm~y people own cars, but even if they were apartments,
we allocate parIcing on the basis of bedrooms and it is possible to have a four
bedroom apartment and require only two paricing spaces. It is possible that even if
something new were built, the parking problem does not go away. The paricing
problem should be addressed by the neighbors. The neighborhood association
should consult with the city staff and the university staff and try to do something
other than this because this particular conversion is not going to change the
parking. The parking is a problem even though only four people live in that
building right now.
Kubby/It's not your responsibility to deal with the parking problem. What I was
suggesting was that some ideas and conversation get initiated by the
neighborhood with some real concrete ideas that then are brought to us and we
work together to implement those. But it's not your responsibility to deal with the
parking problems.
Rochelle/I see that it's also a complex problem that comes from many sources, the
commuters, the apartments, the frat houses, and they're all landing on our streets
and my little kids, you know, risk their lives to cross the street and pet the cat. I
mean, what sort of you know, are kids allowed to live safely in this
neighborhood? That's my question.
Lehman/It seems to me that what I'm hearing is part of a larger issue as well. I mean this
is, this brought the issue to the front, but we've got a problem there. Right? We've
got a problem with computers, or commuters. We've got a problem with parldng.
We've got a problem with cars. And this really brought the parking to the surface.
Rochelle/It's an opportunity to chip away at the problem bit by bit. And this is one area
where you can make an improvement.
Thomberry/I thi~xk she hit the nail on the head on that last sentence. Thus is the start of
something better. If we reject this ordinance, it's the start of something that's
going to help the problem. They've been having problems for years and years and
years. Why continue? Why not chip away?
Knbby/Well according to this interpretation, this ordinance probably would not chip
away.
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Nov/This would just preserve buildings which are 50 years old or more. It would not
apply in any other instance. If we want it to apply to other conversions, then it's
another ordinance.
Baker/And the essence of this ordinance is the disagreement about the consequences. It
is either going to make no difference or a slight improvement or it's going to
exacerbate an existing problem. And that's where basically members of council,
staff, neighbors disagree about the consequences. And it, as I said at the last
meeting, you go with what you perceive as facts and what you perceive as
intuition and how you use your intuition. I still insist, this particular ordinance
would not make the parking problem worse. It has a higher potentially to make it
a little bit better. We disagree about it then, but we're looking at the same
problem, but from this particular ordinance.
Nov/I
don't believe the ordinance would effect the problem. If there were fewer residents
who own automobiles and who park on the street, then there are more spaces
available for other commuters on that street. I don't see emptiness in their parIcing
spaces whether or not we have this ordinance.
Norton/But then you may have to go to something like registration, not of the neighbors
but possibly registration of student cars that are being parked there as commuter
cars. I mean there may be some ways to do that.
Nov/Or faculty cars.
Norton/Or faculty cars.
Baker/You've got three solutions. You increase on street parking, increase off street
parking, or restrict parking.
Thornberry/But what the ordinance says is allow this problem to continue without having
to provide additional parking.
Norton/Dean, I would like to know what we would do? Would you say that you didn't
have this ordinance, how would you manage the conversion of these properties?
Thornberry/I would either convert, like I said, the first floor basement ifI was going to
buy that place and convert it and be a money maker and all this. They're not doing
it to lose money. They're doing it to make money. Or buy a lot somewhere else
and say may I use this lot for this rooming house or apartment building or
whatever it may be. But I think by passing this ordinance, you're not doing
anything to help the problem.
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Nov/And we know that this fraternity had rented parIcing space from a nearby fraternity
and the lease was up froin the other fraternity said no you can't rent our space any
more. And this could happen even if they had rented it from anyone else.
Baker/And Dean, there's two solutions that you proposed which we have a longer debate
about this issue that they're just as much as a down side to those two solutions as
there is to, there's potential a for greater down side to those two solutions and the
negative impact on that neighborhood. What you're considering as there is
anything else we could do. And we could talk about them in more detail later, but
those could potentially have more negative effects than what's in front of us.
Thornberry/I understand and I don't understand your argument when you say that if you
provide more parIcing, then twice as many people will take that paricing and
you're going to exacerbate the problem. And I just don't agree with that scenario.
Baker/The location of the neighborhood makes it a prime location for people to park near
downtown.
Nov/And the Cambus stop is right there. Okay. Is there anyone else froin another
neighborhood who wants to talk?
Norton/That is another neighborhood.
Jim Throgmorton/I'm froin the same neighborhood but I intend to malce a different point,
if that's all right right now. I'm going to disagree with some of what my friends
have said. So my name's Jim Throgmorton. I live at 715 N. Lilm Street Apt 1.
First thing I want to say is I hope you heard what Nancy Housennan said about
her perception of the process. That from her point of view, there's something kind
of screwy about what has happened in terms of her and other neighbors
interaction with the staff. So there's something to attend to there. But the other
thing I want to say is that the houses, the rooming house is literally, almost
literally in my back yard. When I look out the back window, it's right there, so I
have a particular perspective on this. And it's true that paricing is a significant
problem on Northside. No question about it, I've paid probably $300 worth of
tickets in the last year and a half. Not all because of parking there, but it's a
complicated thing about moving that car back and forth and I'm always forgetting
and then going duh what'd forget that for, Jim. But it's not clear at all to me that
the proposed zoning change would contribute significantly to the parking problem
or that the rooming house, the use of that house as a rooming facility would
contribute significantly to the parldng problem. And with all due respect to my
neighbors, I must also say that from my perspective of having been on the
council, it's not unusual to see people opposing particular kinds of development
because there might be lower income people moving in them. And what we
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routinely hear and have heard and I'm sure you've heard this over and over again
is that neighbors in a particular area always oppose the lower development project
and always say that it ought to be located somewhere else. And that it should not
be located in my backyard. So I guess part of what I want to say is that the
proposed development is almost literally my backyard, and I don't mind. Still the
city's approach to parking is woefully inadequate. And I think it is misguided and
misplaced to kind of place the burden on the neighbors on the Northside to deal
with that. So I would strongly urge you to revisit the possibility of creating a
residential parking district in that area and having a permit program for residents
and maybe most importantly, having revenues from parking violations be used
internally within the district in a way that is under the control of the Northside
Neighborhood so they can use those revenues and direct those revenues toward
addressing improvements in the neighborhoods that they think are worthwhile.
That way the cost associated with having those paricing problems tums into a
benefit for the neighborhood.
Nov/That is an interesting thought. Until now we have said we would have to have a fee
for that pem~it and we have not had an acceptance for that. As you say, it is so
expensive to pay a paricing ticket. It might be a lot easier to pay the permit fee
once a year.
Throgmorton/I have paid so many tickets, I think I could probably fund half of the city's
operation.
Baker/
Jim, can I comment on one thing you have said. Earlier part of your statement
about the objections to this ordinance. I don't- I don't think you mean to say this.
But I don't remember hearing any of the neighbors based their objection on this
ordinance to the type of occupants coming into the neighborhood. The neighbors
have never said that.
Throgmorton/No, and I am not trying to put words literally in Nancy's mouth or
anything else. I am saying that is- I mean, I teach this stuff. In every city, every
neighborhood people oppose these kinds of projects, always oppose them, for lots
of reasons and the reasons, they are always good reasons. There is always
opposition for these kinds of projects.
Baker/I just think the only objections we have heard have been clearly based on the
parIcing impact, not the tenant impact.
Throgmorton/Thank you.
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Nov/Is there someone for another neighborhood with Greek houses that would like to
talk about this problem? Okay, we are going to close public discussion. We are
going to ask for a council vote.
Lelunan/I have a question first.
Nov/We have to accept correspondence.
Karr/Well, you have a motion on the floor for council consideration.
Nov/Go ahead.
Lehman/One question. Karin, this is for you. I guess I don't disagree with the findings
that the staff has had regarding how many people park in rooming houses as
opposed to apartment houses as opposed to fraternity houses and whatever. Is it
possible to re-word this ordinance? I have a real problem with the use of the word
fraternity and sorority houses. To me that is extremely narrow. It is almost like
slap zoning. We have restricted this to buildings that are prior to 1940, if I recall
correctly and we have used the word fratenfity and sorority. Would it be possible
to limit this or to make apply to structures built before 1940 containing more than
10, 12, 15 rooms or whatever so that in reality, it would apply to the buildings that
we are most concerned about. But it would seem to me to be a little more
defensible. As a council person, I don't think that we pass rules and regulations
that apply to a specific group of houses only, scattered all over the community. I
think if we had a rationale that includes the age of those buildings, the number of
rooms that it has, that is a very defensible position. Then it covers any building
any where in town. Now the fact that those buildings all happen to be fraternity
and sorority houses, not withstanding, is that a reasonable possibility?
Franldin/I am trying to think of what other kind of building you would have. I mean it
would basically be a hotel or a rooming house already.
Lehman/Well, I just- That is my own personal feeling that is a logical approach.
Kubby/Doesn't the Zoning Code recognize and HIS recognize fraternities and sororities
as a special category and so that, to me, is a legitimate reason to have them be
separated because the rest of our Code and ways of dealing with them as rental
structures also dealt with separately in a separate category.
Franklin/I don't know what the number of bedrooms would be, how one would express
it. I don't know, Ernie. I would have to think about that one.
Lelunan/All right, just a thought.
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Nov/I find it difficult to thirdc about it also. After all of this (can't hear) discussion, do
we have four cmmcil members that would like to direct staff to have a meeting
with the Northside Neighborhood and consider options with them on parking?
Council/(Yes).
Nov/I think we have four now, Karin. Okay, thardc you.
Norton/Before we move to a vote, Madam Mayor, I still just had- We still need this
ordinance? Or is it indeed moot? What is the status?
Nov/It may be but it couldn't hurt to do second consideration and then let it die next
time.
Kubby/The answer was Karin thirdcs it is but is not sure and wants some time to look at a
sampling of law. So for that purpose I will support it for a second vote and again,
sometime people laugh at Naomi and I when we don't want to collapse readings
on things to move things along. This is one of the reasons that there are tlxree
considerations. So that we can explore things and have opportunity to have more
community discussions because things get in the paper and word gets out further
than it already had that you can persuade us to act differently.
Thomberry/2M~d then there are times when things need to be collapsed to get us moving
faster.
Norton/We don't laugh at you.
Kubby/There are times when we do that.
Lehman/That is a different discussion.
Nov/That is a different discussion. (Can't hear).
Vanderhoef/We also had the motion on the floor two weeks ago to defer this to get more
information and it moved forward.
Thornberry/That is right, okay. We are ready.
Nov/Okay, we are ready for a vote. Which motion do we have, the second consideration,
right? Moved by Norton, seconded by Lelm~an. Any other council discussion?
Roll call- (no: Thornberry, Vanderhoef, Lelxman; Yes: Baker, Kubby, Norton,
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Nov.) We have approved this on a 4-3 vote. And we will perhaps drop it at third
consideration.
Karr/Excuse me. Could I have a motion to accept correspondence?
Nov/Moved by Thomberry, seconded by Lehman, that we accept correspondence. All in
favor, please say aye- (ayes). Motion carried.
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May 6, '1997 City of Iowa City Page 9
Consider an ordinance amending Title 14, "Unified Development
Code" of the City Code by amending Chapter 9, Article A, entitled
"Parking Facility Impact Fee" to exclude commercial development.
(Pass and adopt)
Comment: At the City Council's direction, this ordinance eliminates
the parking impact fee for all commercial development in the Near
Southside parking facility impact fee district.
Act i ° n: ~'~:~¢'z~'~~ .~'--~'/~f~.~~/2 ¢ ~-~'~' /~Z/~. ~
Consider a resolution approving the final plat of Walden Hills, a 40.7
acre, 53-1ot residential subdivision located on the n~h side of Rohret
Comment: At its April 3 meeting, by a vote of 7-0, ~he Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the final plat, subject to
the approval of legal papers and construction drawings prior to
Council consideration. Legal papers and construction plans are being
reviewed. Staff recommended approval in its April 3 staff report.
Consider a resolution approving the preliminary plat of~e Scott-Six
Industrial Park, a 140.5 acre, 42-1ot commercial/industrial subdivision
located on the east side of Scott Boulevard, noah ~Highway 6.
Comment: At its April 3 meeting, by a vote of 6-0, the Planning and
Zoning Commission recommended approval of the preliminary plat,
subject to a number of conditions, including the redesign of Freedom
Court at the northwest corner of the site, and subject to the approval
of a Grading Plan and Sensitive Areas Site Plan prior to Council
consideration, consistent with the staff recommendation contained in
the April 3 staff report. The Sensitive Areas Site Plan has been
approved, and it is anticipated that the Grading Plan will be approved
prior to the May 6 Council meeting.
Action: ~~~ ~~~~ /2~ ~4~,~~
#6i page 1
ITEM NO. 6i Consider an ordinance amending Title 14, "Unified Development Code" of
the City Code by amending Chapter 9, Article A, entitled "Parking Facility Impact Fee"
to exclude commercial development.
(Pass and adopt)
Nov/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Thornberry. Discussion.
Baker/Madam Mayor, as I said previous meetings, I oppose this ordinance until we have
had a discussion on the change in the residential impact fee in the same area. I
was glad to see that we had stretched out the vote to have that discussion last
night and we directed staff to go back to P/Z with the change in the parking
requirements which will have an impact on the residential impact fee in this area
and I think that is appropriate. So I will comfortably vote for this ordinance
tonight.
Nov/Any other discussion? Roll call- (yes). Okay, we have adopted this ordinance.
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ITEM NO. 6k Consider a resolution approving the preliminary plat of the Scott-Six
Industrial Park, a 140.5 acre, 42-1ot commercial/industrial subdivision located on the east
side of Scott Boulevard, north of Highway 6.
(SUB96-0020)
Nov/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Thornberry. Is there any staff discussion on
this before we go any further? Are the plans in order?
Franldin/The only outstanding issue is the issue of the design on Freedom Court.
Nov/Okay. Would the developer like to address the design of Freedom Court?
Robert Downer/The attorney for A1 and Mary Jo Streb, the developers. The Strebs, after
thorough consideration of the comments that were made last evening and talking
with their engineers today with whom I have also discussed this matter, are still of
the opinion that the design that is a part of the preliminary plan at this time is at
least superior to the alternatives that have been submitted. And in saying that, I
certainly recognize, as do the Strebs, it is not the responsibility of either council or
staff to re-design subdivisions for private developers and so anytlfing that I say
here in this regard should not be construed as a criticism of anyone who I think
has worked hard to come to some resolution of this problem. I think there was
general consensus that the cul de sac proposal was less than acceptable. The one,
for lack of a better description, I would refer to as the T. I guess we are concerned
would exacerbate congestion problems rather than resolve them. The Strebs have
checked with the IDOT, they have been advised that this is a intersection that
apparently would meet design standards of the DOT. In thinking about this with
the one entrance going into Freedom Court, if there is a perceived problem with
congestion with one entrance onto Freedom Court from the T, it appears that there
would be congestion with the two entrances, one close to Heinz Road. It seems to
me that this congestion is going to be worsened considerably through having only
one intersection in all of this lots feeding off of this relatively small street. I would
be hopeful that at least as far as the balance of the preliminary plan is concerned,
that this could be approved. Some of you may have read articles in the media
today that where there were prospects for industrial sites that were discussed
there. There is active interest in this property as far as industrial development is
concerned that would bring a significant number of jobs to the comlnunity and
these, while they are certainly nothing in this that is assured at this point in
substantial part because there is nothing firm that can be offered to anyone. There
are site visits to this property that are scheduled for later this month and it is
important I think as far as this development and as far as the community is
concerned that at least the industrial part of this preliminary plat be approved so
that development can proceed at least with that part of it. With regard to the
commercial area and Freedom Court in particular, as I mentioned, it is still the
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Strebs position that that is superior to the other two designs that have been
submitted. If it is the council's position that we should return to the drawing board
as far as that particular part of it is concerned, this is something that we will
endeavor to do but at least as far as the balance of the preliminary plat is
concerned, we would be hopeful for approval because, as I mentioned, there are
things there that are taking place that we think would be beneficial to all and
certainly are not a part of any disagreement that may exist with respect to
Freedom Court.
Kubby/You lmow, Bob, my concern last night was not about congestion in terms of
numbers of cars. That it was just about this uncertainly about when it is
appropriate to get into the intersection that the cars on Freedom Court on the
northern most leg of it and on Heinz Road. That kind of jockeying that might go
on and the kind of additional communication that has to happen between drivers
and pedestrians and when you are trying to turu onto the road. It wasn't a matter
of number of cars per se. And so- Is it, maybe this is a question really for Planning
staff. Is it possible to carve out a part of this plat to approve it tonight so that we
can further discussion about Freedom Court under direction of council?
Franldin/What I would suggest you do is to approve the preliminary plat subject to
resolution of the design issues on Freedom Court prior to the final plat approval.
That will give us some time to continue to work on this. We may then be able to
carve it out prior to final plat approval if we can't come to resolution.
Kubby/Okay because I don't want to say how- It is not my job to tell you how that road
is to be but I still, after hearing your comments, wanting to say if you want
Freedom Court to have two accesses to Scott, I am fine with that if it can be
across from Heinz. You have kind have said that is not a choice you want to
make. To say the other choice is- I don't care what from is at the cul de sac, a T, a
C or whatever the letter it shall be.
Downer/We have a C now.
Kubby/But it can't have two accesses if it is not going to be across from Heinz Road. So
maybe a G would give you even more lots.
Norton/I was thinxking of a A.
Kubby/Whatever letter you choose, as long as there is more distance between Heinz
Road and that single access and I would like to see if other council members
concur with that direction to P/Z before final plat.
Nov/Dee Norton is waving at me.
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Norton/What do we have to do to put that condition on it? Do we have to amend the
ordinance or the resolution? Do we have to make an amendment to the resolution?
Franklin/You would make a motion to amend the resolution that it would have that
condition.
Norton/I would certainly so move.
Thomberry/May I ask if there is another way of doing it. Talcing out the commercial
from the industrial so that he could begin negotiations on the industrial lmowing
that is a done deal while we are still working on the coaunercial aspect.
Franklin/That is kind of what I am suggesting, Dean, in that the preliminary plat
approval with the subject to. That moves it along. The next step is the final plat
and if we can't reach some resolution before final plat so the industrial can go
ahead, we will break it out at that point.
Thomberry/Okay.
Nov/And we will not approve a final plat unless we break it out or have a decent design
of Freedom Court or an acceptable design I should say.
Downer/I don't think it was contemplated there would be a final plat submitted on the
entire subdivision simultaneously anyway and that was what this letter of credit
issue was about. That some time was spent on to insm'e that the improvements
could go in but that would allow at least some flexibility, particularly with regard
to the industrial areas To design those to meet the desires of particular ptrrchasers.
So I don't think that this proposed action will delay the industrial part of this but
certainly the approval of preliminary plats doesn't give anybody the ability to go
out and sell lots other than to talk about them in conceptual sense. So hopefully
we will be able to get this one issue resolved during the time that that is going
forward.
Norton/If it is in order, I move that we amend the resolution to-
Thornberry/Don't need to do that.
Franklin/You will need to ranend the resolution. You will need to make a motion to
ranend the resolution.
Woito/It has to be in the resolution.
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Norton/Amend the resolution to include the condition that we are approving the
preliminary plat except for the piece with respect to Freedom Court which shall be
resolved.
Franldin/Approve it subject to resolution of the design of Freedom Court prior-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 97-77 SIDE 1
Norton/I took the words right out of your mouth.
Nov/(Moved by Norton), seconded by Lehman with the subject to provision that we
amend this ordinance. Is there any discussion of the amendment. Okay, we need a
roll call or a motion. Okay, all in favor of the amendment, please say aye- (ayes).
Okay. We have approved the amendment. Is there any other discussion? Roll call-
(yes). Okay, we have approved the resolution as amended.
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May 6, t997
ITEM NO. 7.
City of Iowa City
Page 10
REGULATING NON-MOTORIZED VEHICLES.
Comment: This public hearing is to receive comments on a proposed
ordinance which will amend the City Code by repealing the regulations
regarding "toy vehicles" and setting forth new regulations regarding "non-
motorized vehicles."
This proposed ordinance will amend the City Code by repealing the
regulations regarding "toy vehicles" and set forth new regulations
regarding "non-motorized vehicles." In addition to defining "non-
motorized vehicles," regulations include prohibiting non-motorized
vehicles in the following locations: on streets and alleys (except in RS-5
and RS-8 zones), on sidewalks in the Central Downtown Business
District, within Chauncey Swan Park, within the City Plaza, and in parking
lots and ramps.
PUBLIC HEARING (continued from April 8 and April 22)
Action:
CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE (FIRST CONSIDERATION)
(deferred from April 22)
Action: ~.,-~Z//~-Z.~~--~.~ ~ /)
·
#7 page 1
ITEM NO. 7 REGULATING NON-MOTORIZED VEHICLES.
Nov/I
am going to open the p.h. and then I am going to read the amendment to the
ordinance. The p.h. is now open and if you are here to cormnent on this ordinance,
we have added an amendment that says no person shall travel or operate a non-
motorized vehicle within any pubhc parking ramp or parking lot except where
posted as a permitted activity and this was something that was proposed by city
staff and skateboarders and the proposed allocation of this activity is in the
parking lot behind the Civic Center.in the corner bordered by Van Buren Street
and Iowa Avenue. It is approximately 1/4 of the paricing area that is allocated for
this purpose.
Vanderhoef/We also changed the hours.
Nov/Okay, we should have the hours also. The permitted activities in this comer of the
parIcing lot will be after 6:00 PM on weekdays and after 1:00 PM on weekends,
Saturday and Sunday. We could probably include a holiday like 4th of July when
the Civic center is closed. Okay.
Woito/
But we don't want those provisions in the ordinance. We were going to do this
administratively. That is why we used the tenr~ posted. You can make that
decision much faster than changing an ordinance.
Nov/But I am just saying that is what the sign posting will say and we are talking about
very temporary barricades such as construction horse kinds of barricades. Nothing
too permanent and there will some kind of apparatus that can be stored and put up
and put down by the actual skateboarders. All of this is not part of the ordinance
but it is part of the discussion that city staff has had with the skateboard groups.
Dennis, would you like to add anything to this?
Dem~is/ Mitchell/ No, I think you have pretty much covered it. I should also point out too
that we will be putting signage on the top level of the Channcey Swan Parking
Ramp to allow RollerBladers to play RollerBlade hockey up there as well.
Nov/Okay and that will have hours and restrictions?
Mitchell/Right, that will also be after 6:00 PM on weekday evenings.
Nov/Okay, thank you. Now is there anyone who would like to discuss this ordinance?
Heath Klahs/Hello, again. I live at 229 S. Johnson. Thanks for letting me speak again
tonight. let me stick this over there. First off, I'd just like to thmtk the city council,
Dennis Mitchell, and everyone we inet with the other day, the skateboarding
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committee for actually talcing some time and sitting down and coming up with
some sort of temporary solution, mad when I received this memorandum, I think
everything on here was discussed objectively and I think for the most part as a
collective, we're definitely willing to you lrmow utilize it as the best we can as a
temporary situation. By no means do we want this to end here. In the last couple
days, I've been contacted by a few parents. I've been contacted by more than a
dozen of my peers. Right now we're kind of in a transition phase that we are
seriously concerned whether or not that this is going to be put on the shelf now.
And as skateboarders, we're in full swing of trying to determine how we can raise
funds through maybe assemblies and the Iowa City tourism festival type thing is
going to be going on. We want to be part of that as well. Our main goal right now
is publicity and trying to come up with the funds that would make a permanent
park possible. We don't want to segregated back in your guys' parking lot.
Eventually you're going to need that parIcing space back and we're going to have
to leave. And then where do we go from there. I mean these are all future issues
that I thirdc we'll have to deal with. As far as the current allocations to the
ordinance, I think this definitely a positive step. I think that this is probably the
first step in what going to be a very long process to be coming you lmow more of
a pennanent institution in here and I think evewone of you on the council should
seriously consider what skateboarding is to us and look at it not just as Iowa
City's thing but in the national level and just look at examples that we would
bring to you and such that we can come up with a more permanent idea. The only
thing that I would like to mention, the ordinance and I understand this is the best
we can do. But there is the question of the younger kids in high school and this is
really going to affect thein because this is the only time that they can really skate
before they an go home and do their homework is from 3:30 until, most parents
would like them home by 7:00. And I traderstand that. I mean that's respectable. I
don't think that the high school students should be out at 3:00 in the morning.
And as college students, that's our choice. The weekend thing, I think would work
out great. I'111 not asking to go back in and try to dissolve this and reassemble it. I
think that we should be very very prompt on coming tip with ideas. We should be
talking about matching funds. We should be talking about plans. We should, I
mean, we're organized. We're ready to do this. I'm asking you. This is more of a
plea. We need to get this ball rolling. Because we're only going to be allowed in
that park for so long and it's just a matter of we can't aboard as skateboarders to
be shelved. And it's a fear. We're scared because we don't want to just have this
little morsel given to us and then as item 2 on this memorandum states, a ch'amatic
increase of fines. That will be another point I'll bring tip in a second. So as far as
everything's going right now, I think this is great and it needs to contimle in this
direction. But we can't be talcing one step forward and two steps back. We're
doing this. We're getting a park. We're definitely talcing a positive step in giving
the skateboarding com_mtmity somewhere to go and providing a positive
environment for us, but in the process, we've lost our number one place. And an
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increase in fines is proposed. I understand the reasoning behind that but I think the
increases are quite dramatic. The situation you know to think about, a fifteen year
old skateboarder. He breaks the rules. He's downtown. We'll just say it's $100
fine. That's $100 out of his parent's pocket. That's obviously going to prove, and
it's going to become, it's going to be more of a problem than a solution. I think
that this part of the ordinance would create more problems than solutions. I think
we're going, some of these issues are being curbed in the wrong direction. And I
just want to.
Nov/What we're talking about, at least last night is escalating fines. So you would have a
small fine the first time. And your parents would tell you, don't do this again. But
if you did it again, the fine would go up. And if you did it again, the fine would go
up again. By the time you have been fined a third time, I figure your parents are
going to take away your skateboard because they can't afford to pay your fine.
Klahs/
But my parents don't live in Iowa City. I have to pay those fines myself. And I
would rather not be regarded as a criminal for a sport I take part in. I don't want to
be in the same collective as traffic violations. I don't want to be associated into
the legal system. I don't want to have anything to do with it. None of us do. All
we want to do is ride our skateboards. And it is understandable by making these
fines higher and higher and making everything more of a cascade affect, all this is
going to do is produce problems. This is not a solution. This is not a viable
situation. This is not logical. Again, this brings out a lot of concerns. I understand
by giving us a park, you know, it is $28 now, $50 isn't that bad. But $100, you
know, possibly you know, a consecutive fine would be a dramatic increase. That
is not going to solve anything. I mean that is just going to-
Nov/Hopefully it is going to keep the pedestrians safer. I don't know about the rest of
city council but I am getting continuous calls about skateboarders, RollerBladers
and bicycles on sidewalks and pedestrians who have been almost knocked over
and we don't want any almost knocked over people to be literally knocked over.
Klahs/But increasing the fines isn't going to keep the kids off the street. The only thing
that is going to keep that situation from arising is by giving us somewhere to go.
Nov/Well, tlfis is it.
Thornberry/We have heard your argument. We have tried to help. We have taken that
first step. Other people have other activities that they like to do, too. I particularly
like to drag race. Mine is a very expensive sport when I get caught. So I would
like a drag strip put in. We can't afford a- There are a lot of activities out there
that people would like their own little niche. We are trying to do something for
you and giving you this space and you mentioned the fact that the high school
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students- I think it would be a neat idea to go in mass to the School Board. I will
get a lot of calls on that one. But the schools when they let out, they have big
parking lots that are empty, you know. Those could be utilized. I would suggest
that the high school students go to the School Board and see what can be done
there. But as you said, this is a first step, let us be happy with this first step and let
us proceed from here.
Klahs/I think that is an excellent idea but I would strongly urge you to not run around the
issue and just- I mean this is-
Thornberry/We have heard that.
Lehman/Let me ask council. I thought I heard last night that we were not increasing the
fine for the next offense. It is the one after that one. In other words-
Baker/Four people said that last night.
Kubby/It was more than four last night. Who agreed to that? Who agreed to escalate it?
Thornberry/One, two, three, four, five.
Woito/It was my understanding that you set it aside to talk about later.
Norton/I think so.
Kubby/There was a clear majority who wanted to have escalating fines last night. It was
a clear majority. I don't really lmow what the numbers-
Nov/We didn't set the numbers but we did say escalating.
Norton/I don't think we finished the discussion of that.
Council/(All talking).
Nov/To pay police officers to enforce this.
Baker/That fine question is not part of this ordinance.
Nov/No.
Woito/No, it is not.
Klahs/No but it was an issue that needs to be brought up now. I mean-
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Council/(All talking).
Thornberry/There will probably be escalating-
Norton/It is hard for me to see where your position would stop. I mean suppose we
turned over all of Chauncey Swan. What is next. I mean it really is hard to figure
out where the end would be.
Klahs/And again, consistently I bring this up most every meeting I am here. There is a
dramatic miscommunication on what we are saying. I don't think- You lmow,
Iowa City is going to always be skated no matter what whether I leave, whether
everyone of us leaves tonight and in five years- It is a college town. There is
always going to be new skaters. It is not going to change. The only thing is
ordinances change and the fines are increased, yet we don't have anywhere to go,
the only thing you are doing is your are maliciously hurting.
Nov/We heard you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak. We heard you, we
understand you. Okay.
Klahs/I hope you are hearing me. To me and to my peers, it surely at this point it sounds
like you are only hearing us halfway. So I just wanted to-
Nov/We are all hearing you. We are not always in agreement bnt we are hearing you and
we do understand and I think it is time to let someone else talk.
Klahs/Thanks for your time.
Ryan Mayer/I was down in the parking ramp a second ago. I wasn't even aware of this
meeting and Officer McMartin drove by and he told me I should come up here
and address you guys that he feels a lot safer when skateboarders are down in the
parking ramp. His car, there is no crime down there because there is always
somebody around. So, this would probably be the case in any even anywhere over
the city. As long as there is somebody present, that would cut down on crime. I
mean the only crime that there is is the skateboarders and that is because the
council makes it a crime. So I just wanted to tell that point. Thank you.
Nov/Thank you.
Norton/Did you get a ticket?
Mayer/No, I was in the parking ramp.
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Brian Getting/Hello. I guess I just wanted to add to what you were saying about where
does it end and what else can you do? Like with fines, drag racing is
approximately the same amount of a second offense skateboarding right now. I
mean we are getting the same fines. What you are proposing is going to give us
the same fines as somebody who is beating people up, same fines as people- It is
actually cheaper to get a public intox. I mean you are putting us in a classification
that is worse than people who are doing things, in my opinion, that is worse than
going out and you know, exercising. Where does it end? It ends when we get a
place to go.
Thornberry/Public intox is going up also.
Getting/Great, so now they are the same. I mean my point is just that you know, where
does it end. It is when we get a place to go and it is not this hard. It is something
nobody has ever even thought of as the list of hazardous recreational activities. It
is never been even proposed to put skateboarding on there. I mean basketball,
football, like with the schools. They can't- We tried in high school. They won't let
us skate there. Their insurance won't cover it. The list of hazardous recreational
activities makes it so the people have to be provided with areas to go do those
things. I don't want to hurt anybody. I have probably hazed all of you a couple
times. I didn't mean it. You know, I am not trying to mean or anything but I
probably done it and I don't like it either. I don't- To tell you the truth,
pedestrians get in my way the same as much as I get in their way. And, you lmow,
a place to go is all we want. If you can find a place for basketball, if you can find
a place for football, we are willing to do whatever we can to help out and like, you
know. I know everybody is saying be happy with the first step but this isn't a first
step. It is a change in everything but it is not getting better for us. It is not, you
know. Just every year there is more skaters and it is not getting better. You are
asking more and more of us to go in a smaller and smaller place. Thanks.
Vanderhoef/I would like to just say something. It has been real interesting and very
educational to me to listen to you young people talk about skateboarding as yore'
sport. And I think there seems to be an evolution happening here that you people
are athletes, you are doing your sport. However, in the greater community, so far
it doesn't have the recognition that like you say basketball and football does. I
don't know how you address that. But there is a change happening in the
community and perhaps the conversation does need to get started at the schools
and get recognized as a sport because we do in our schools and our swimming
pools, we do provide some liability and I don't know a whole lot about insm:ance
but it is certainly something that could be pursued as a conversation to move
forward with your sport.
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Kubby/I was at a human service fund raiser and not a whole lot of people were there and
I said wow, next year why don't you have a skateboard exhibition and let people
know now so they can work on it just so people can lmow what it is about and
experience it in a safe place.
Getting/That is one of the problems. By the time it takes good to not really be a danger to
pedestrians, you lmow, if it goes up every time, it takes two or three tickets to
even get good at skateboarding. Now you are saying by the time to get good you
got to give your board away or sell it to pay-
Nov/Find a place other than the downtown pedestrian areas.
Kubby/I agree with the speakers who are speaking the escalating fines. I think that we
are starting to communicate and I don't think that we are hearing them completely
myself.
Getting/I don't think any of us is even happy with the parking lot idea. You lmow, we
are giving a little.
Kubby/Actually, you lmow, what was stated you are giving up your primo space in order
to cooperate and then what to we- We start building this relationship with you and
try to build some trusts and communication and what do we do? We escalate the
fines. That does not make sense to me. And I prefer that we do not do that.
Thornberry/I don't necessarily agree, Karen, that the downtown area, the downtown
sidewalks are their space. I think they are everybody's. I think the DTA-
Kubby/I am not talking about downtown. I am talking about Chauncey Swan Parking
Ramp. I don't think skateboarders should be in the pedestrian mall or downtown,
just like bicycles shouldn't be on the sidewalk. It is too-
Getting/At certain times it is too dense. I agree with that but raising fines is also one
thing that is going to make us run. I am sorry but it happens now. IfI lmow the
fine is going to be twice as much as it was last time, I am going to do whatever I
can to get away, you know. When that happens, you go to jail. You spend the
night in jail with 600 drunk guys that beat up their wives. You are sitting there,
going what are you in here for, skateboarding.
Thornberry/Then don't do it.
Getting/It is like asking Michael Jordan not to play anymore basketball. It is like asking
me to put eight hours a day into something that I love for ten years and then tell
me to quit.
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Thornberry/No, we gave you-
Nov/No, just don't do it in the pedestrian area.
Thornberry/We provided a space. We are trying to bend here.
Norton/We should understand, we haven't finished out discussion of fees, fines. That is
for sure.
Kubby/But everybody is bending. Having 1/4 of the Civic Center fiat lot is a step, is one
step.
Norton/One small step for mankind.
Kubby/There are a lot of women here who are skating.
Thornberry/I tried skateboarding and I can't do it. I don't have the balance.
Nov/Well, that is okay.
Mitchell/I think one thing I should point out, too, is city staff is going to continue to
work with heath and some of the other skateboarders to see if we can come up
with some type of permanent solution. And they have already indicated they are
going to help and try and raise funds. So, you lmow, I think this is a first step and
hopefully it will continue.
Courmey Daniels/I live at 53 Amhurst Street. And I am here to pump up the incline
skating angle on this ordinance. I am not use to doing this so pardon my startuner.
But I am just a middle aged person that likes to RollerBlade and I have the
ordinance and I have read through it and I don't have- I am only talking on behalf
of incline skaters. When I say skaters, that is what I am referring to. I rally don't
have an opinion about skateboarders because I am not a skateboarder and
everybody seems to already have an opinion about that. So I have- Most of the
ordinance I think is pretty good. The one aspect to me that is really confusing is
the issue of the low density, medium density housing rule. You lmow, it is a real
difficult plan I thi~l~ for recreational skaters. A majority of incline skaters seem to
skate on the sidewalks. the people I have seen in the residential areas because they
are not real good skaters, they are just learning and if you are a serious skater and
you are doing it for aerobic exercise, these sidewalks are too narrow to skate on
and it is kind of a complicated issue because if you are in an RS-8 or an RS-5 it is
fine to skate on the streets and that is most of the places where you find people
doing incline skating. But it is hard to know when you are crossing the line to go
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from one to the other because- For instance, where I live. I live on Amhurst and
right across the street on Friendship it is a multiple family housing area and that
means I have to go up on the sidewalk and ifI want to get to Scott Bold. and go
on Overland, I can't do it. I have to go around the block to get to where I want to
go. So that is just one aspect of it but it is also real restrictive if I wanted to say
come down on Saturday and go to Framers Market because I have to get up on the
sidewalk like at Clark Street and use these little sidewalks and if you have ever
seen a penguin moving around, that is kind of what it is like because you can't go
through the whole range of motion and stride on those narrow sidewalks. A three
foot sidewalk is just too narrow. There are some eight foot sidewalks. They are
not a lot. They are adequate for me most of the time but there is difficulty. I can't
go through town like ifI wanted to go to the University to an event, I can't do it
unless I hop up on the sidewalk and kind of move around like this to get where I
am going to go. But on the other hand, I think that restricting skaters in the central
business area is a good idea as long as there is adequate passage to get downtown
on the streets and you lmow, I do hop off my skates when I am downtown. I really
do. I take them off and I pad through my socks and do my shopping or get my cup
of coffee and walk to wherever I have to go and then I go. But I just think it is
really hard when you can't go through any of the eastside pretty much from like
Muscatine and Burlington on into the downtown. It is just a real difficult situation
and it seems to me that it would be more sensible to create an ordinance that
would restrict skaters based on the density of road traffic, not housing density.
You lmow, so that the restriction could- You lmow, you could restrict them
certainly not to any highways, not on any main streets like Dubuque or Muscatine
or Court or Rochester or any of those arterial streets. But, you lcnow, like
Washington and Jefferson and streets that are a little or less used would seem to
maize better sense. It just, to me, it just kind of just didn't maize sense to base
where people can go and not go based on their - you know, whether it is a multi-
family or a single family area and- I also seem to think that it kind of punishes
people who live in multi-family housing, that they have to- to skate on the street,
they have to walk to a different neighborhood to do that and it is, you lmow, we
shouldn't have to carry a map arom~d with us or else we will get a ticket. You
know, it just doesn't seem to be real logical. It seems like an engineer put that
together and it just didn't make any logical sense to me. And the other thing that I
think the ordinance should focus more on is safety. I didn't see, you lmow. I
didn't see too much in there about how to be safe when you are on the street and I
tlfink that it should be necessary for skaters, whatever kind of skater you are, to
wear helmets and pads when you are on the streets and that focusing on safety is a
way to prevent accidents and a way to get people to be more educated about what
they are doing and not just, you lmow, hop on a board or hop on skates and go. It
would teach people to be a little more focused about their training and how
educated they are about what they are doing. And not hotdoggin' all around,
really not being safe because they are not very good at what they are doing and
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they are not really safe. So that is what I think the citizens should be taken to task
for, you lmow, in the ordinance. So it is not so punitive and it is more educational
oriented.
Nov/Thank you.
Daniels/I think that is really what I had to say.
Thomberry/I would like to ask, Naomi, can incline skaters skate on the bicycles areas?
Nov/Trails, yeah.
Thornberry/Trails and the streets that are the bike lanes?
Nov/I don't lmow about bike lanes. I certainly know they are on trails.
Kubby/It matters what the zone is the way the ordinance is currently written.
Woito/Dennis.
Nov/Dennis, did you ever look up bike trails on this issue?
Mitchell/Right, it would still be allowed to- People would be allowed to incline skate or
whatever on bike trails. They are not affected by the ordinance.
Nov/Fine. Now what about the street ramps?
Thomberry/What about the streets that are delineated for bicycles? Can they incline skate
in the delineated bicycle lanes on streets?
Mitchell/No. That wasn't addressed.
Thomberry/Yeah.
Daniels/There wasn't the dissenting vote on that.
Nov/What was that?
Mitchell/Of course I'm not from the Planning Department, but we had Jeff Davidson and
some other people there and part of the reason for limiting it to RS-5 and RS-8
zones is that those are the less busy streets. You don't have arterials and things
like that and those zones. That was the reasoning behind just limiting
RollerBlading on streets to those areas. I should also, I think we're actually
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expanding it right now, although certainly it's not enforced. I don't think that
you're actually allowed to RollerBlade on city streets at this time so at least it
isn't expensive.
Thornberry/Well bicycles are non-motorized.
Mitchell/Bicycles are still allowed. I'm sorry.
Thornberry/Just separate.
Mitchell/Yeah. Just RollerBlades and incline skates.
Thornberry/That might be something to look into also.
Norton/What, making bicycles and incline skates similar?
Thornberry/Yeah.
Norton/Yeah, I would think we might want to think about that too. I see some people-
Thornberry/They can go just as- Well not just as fast but boy, they can really scoot on
those things. fast
Nov/I have a problem with it..
Vanderhoef/That would be a whole other discussion because good bicyclists are
choosing not to have bicycle lanes because they want to ride out in the street away
from the curb where all the extra sand and so forth and it would be similar
situation I would think with incline skates if you were in that outer section where
everything flows.
Mitchell/I'm not sure it would be a good place to RollerBlade actually.
Nov/Is your microphone on?
Vanderhoef/Probably not. I was going to go get coffee.
Kubby/I mean, the whole other strategy that could be used is to base the violation of the
ordinance upon behavior and not place.
Norton/Yeah.
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Kubby/Or to do both, to say like the downtown in terms of the pedestrian mall or
wherever we delineate as d.t. on the sidewalks is off limits but other places
everywhere in town is based on behavior.
Thornberry/I noticed that you gave me (can't hear) a couple of people.
Norton/Now say that you, is there a chance, are we in a position to make modification to
the ordinance at this point? Now we're only on the first reading again.
Kubby/You bet.
Mitchell/Sure.
Norton/I should think that we would have an opportunity to reconsider possibly some of
those matters.
Baker/Dennis, you talked about a disagreement at the staff level about the status of
incline skates. Was one of the options to make incline skating and bicycles
equivalent whatever governs bicycles?
Mitchell/It wasn't necessarily to make them equivalent, but to allow incline skating in
more areas of the city and not just RS-5 and RS-8 zones.
Norton/Good.
Woito/Yes. That was my suggestion.
Kubby/Why would you make a differentiation between a skateboard, someone on a
skateboard as a mode of transportation and someone with incline skates as
transportation? What's the difference?
Norton/Because skateboards get loose.
Baker/Sense of control from everything I've seen, heard, and experienced.
Mitchell/I think part of it too is being able to keep up with traffic. So.
Nov/Courtney's comments about the incline skaters wearing helmets and pads does
apply also. You see more of them wearing those kinds of things than you do
skateboarders wearing those ldnds of things.
Baker/I think, Karen, was your question that skateboards and incline blades are the same,
should be treated the same?
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Kubby/I'm just saying there are a lot of people who use their skateboards as
transportation and why separate bicycles, incline skates and skaters. I mean, you
have an answer.
Baker/The operation of those two modes of operation, there are greater hazards with one
than the other. It's just a first impression.
Kubby/Perceived hazard.
Norton/Some pretty big cities have a lot of incline skaters as far as I can see roiling fight
downtown. I mean, there's I don't lmow what their rules are but they seem to be
reasonably liberal about incline skates.
Thornberry/That might be a discussion for a later time.
Norton/We need to get at it, fix this.
Baker/Except you could amend it to loosen up the restrictions on incline skating.
Norton/Yeah. That's my theory, if we can.
Mitchell/Would four council members like city staff to look at expanding the areas
where people can RollerBlade or incline skate?
Baker/Yeah.
Mitchell/Okay.
Nov/Okay, is there anyone else who would like to talk about this issue?
David Johnson / I'm sorry I showed up late. I really wish I could've been here to hear
everything that's been said.
Nov/Would you say your name, please?
Johnson/My name is David Johnson, I'm sorry.
Nov/Thank you.
Johnson/I'm a skateboarder. If you're going to differentiate between skateboards and
RollerBlades, have you done any research? Do you guys have any information
about that?
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Baker/That's what the staff is going to look into.
Jolmson/I've ridden both, and I can say that when I'm skateboarding I can step off you
know if I'm going to hurt somebody but if you're going to RollerBlade, if you're
going to allow RollerBladers, you should definitely allow skateboarders.
Baker/When you step off, what happens to the skateboard?
Johnson/You can either put a foot down and stop it, you lmow you can kick up a tail,
like, I've seen far more RollerBladers out of control. Like the fact that you guys
are differentiating on these two forms of transportation leads me to believe that
you just don't want people to skateboard.
Baker/We just raised the question, is there a difference. And I don't thi~fic we've said.
My first impression is, there's a difference, but I'm certainly not going to claim
any expertise in that. We'll have the staff.
Thornberry/We're having staff look into the possibilities.
Baker/Chance to talk to them about it.
Kubby/Are we? Because what Dennis just asked to clarify is are there four people who
want to allow more places for incline skaters? Skateboarders were not mentioned
in that.
Baker/Right.
Kubby/So we have not done so far anyway.
Norton/We need some differentiation.
Baker/That research would implicitly have to differentiate between the two moves.
Norton/Yeah.
Jotmson/And anyways, the thing that concerns me about this is that whether it's
intentional or not, it seems to me that skateboarding is singled out as a sport. I
mean I lmow that most adults associate it with thrashing, skaters destroy and all of
that and I've really honestly don't understand why you want to make this sport
illegal. I mean, can you explain to me why you don't want us to ride skateboards?
Nov/Just in pedestrian areas.
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Johnson/That's like the whole town. I mean people walk everywhere. You lmow, are you
going to allow skating in residential areas?
Nov/Downtown pedestrian areas, not residential. We don't mind if you're riding in
residential areas.
Johnson/Okay.
Nov/It's just the downtown that we're restricting in this ordinance.
Kubby/It's one of the positive changes of this ordinance from the what is currently.
Currently you're not supposed to ride in alleys, streets, or sidewalks, right, in
residential areas. And now we're saying in the lower density residential areas, you
can legally ride in he street, on the sidewalks, and in the alleys.
Johnson/Yeah?
Kubby/Yeah.
Johnson/I'm not-
Vanderhoef/And in that there is a responsibility of being aware of the rules of the road
and the sidewalk like a bicyclist should be to give some right of way and obey the
stop signs, stop lights, and so forth.
Kubby/That's the one area, one of the areas, that's opening up opportunity.
Johnson/So to clarify, are you guys going to vote on this tonight then, or did you decide
to postpone it?
Nov/It would take three votes, so if we vote tonight, we may amend it two weeks from
now. But it will be four weeks before it actually passes.
Johnson/Okay.
Woito/Are you going to hold the p.h. open?
Kubby/If we've asked for different information, maybe we should.
Thomberry/Sure.
Baker/I think we should.
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Kubby/But that means we can't vote on first consideration, all right, if we continue the
p.h.
Nov/I thought we were going to plan on voting first consideration.
Kubby/But we can always take public comment.
Thornberry/Oh, yeah.
Kubby/Even if it's not a p.h.
Johnson/So what constitutes the downtown area, just out of curiosity?
Thornberry/We're going to ask for information.
Norton/Well, have people had a chance to look at the draft ordinance?
Lehman/I think-
Woito/It's in the ordinance.
Lehman/I think to Clinton.
Woito/It's Van Buren, Jefferson, Clinton, and-
Mitchell/It's actually Capitol Street to the north and then Burlington, or not Capitol
Street to the north but to the west.
Nov/West.
Mitchell/And Burlington to the South. Right.
Johnson/All riglat. I guess I don't really have anything to say right now.
Kubby/If you want to see a copy of the ordinance, it will be at the city clerk's office
during regular business hours, skate on by.
Nov/We could also put a copy or two over at the public library.
Kubby/And maybe if each high school's school library, so it's easy access for people.
Would that be convenient? And there's a chart as part of the ordinance too that
says what is current and what's in the proposed ordinance as in terms of whether
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incline skaters and skateboarders, what they call do now and what they, you could
do trader the proposed ordinalace. It maizes it real clear, easy to understand at a
glance.
Eric Neubauer/My name is Eric Neubauer.
Thornberry/This is seven.
Nov/Except for the change allowing skateboarding in this parking lot, the ordinm~ce did
go to all the high schools.
Norton/Okay, that's right.
Nov/We did that.
Kubby/We probably should add the amendment so it's all clear.
Eric Neubauer/My name is Eric Neubauer and I live at 209 E. Fairchild. And I just want
to thank you for all the patience you had with this and the patience we've exerted
as a group as well in the organization we've tried to get together in trying to get
this many people involved in the one thing. It seems to me though in this whole
thing, skateboarding's been portrayed in such a negative light. And it's the most
positive thing I think I Imow in the whole world. Like, this is one thing I've done
for I think for eight years now. This is the one thing that's kept me grounded and I
think all my friends and kept us straight. Obviously we're doing something right.
We're here fighting for what we believe in. We're here, like standing up where
most people will sit at home apathetic and do nothing. I mean and we're trying to
orgalffze so obviously and we're going to get what we ask for. We're going to find
a way to do it one way or another working with you and working through your
system. We're not, I mean, that's not going to end. There's going to be a way, one
way or another, it's going to happen. We're not going to lose our rights, because
this isn't just a sport. This is a lifestyle. This affects everything we do. I mean tiffs
is what we have chosen to do with our lives so far up to now. I mean, when I'm
done studying at night and I'm tired, I can't think any more, I'll go skateboarding
and everything's fine. IfI don't have that, and everybody else too, I don't lmow
what would happen. It's just, I don't, you need to really sit back and see how
positive this really is. I mean this is people's lives you're affecting more and
more. It's growing every day and like you said and it's becoming more and more
accepted. Maybe that's why it's growing more and more, because people're
actually starting to see the positive in it. This is something that needs to be
worked with and I lmow we'll come to solution becanse I don't doubt that. I've
worked with all of you before, well I guess the majority of you. And we had
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positive results then and I'm looking forward to positive results in the future as
well. Thanks.
Nov/Thank you.
Ben Hartley/1126 Sheridan Ave. I just pretty much point out that like there are, I lmow
we've been talking about like skateboarding and RollerBlading and we've been
talking about skateboarding as doing the tricks and everything, but as
RollerBlading as come along and to me it sounds it's more of a recreational thing,
and our, I lmow you understand that. RollerBlading also is sort of an aggressive
sport too. It is, I think one of the many things we have going for us, but I thi~k we
need to realize it is a sport and there are concerns of people getting hurt or it's
unsafe. We don't wear protective gear which some do, most incline skaters do just
for the purpose of not getting hurt because it is part of, it is somewhat hard of a
sport in some ways, but I find in school I've participated in football.. I wrestle.
I've done all those things. I get hurt more in those sports during school than I do
when I skate. And it is just that it is a sport. It is taking away of what we do like to
do or love to do and that's just something I think needs to be considered strongly
on. That's all I have to say. Thanks.
Nov/Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address this topic? Okay. We're
going to close the p.h. and vote first consideration. The p.h. is closed. First
consideration is moved by Lelunan, seconded by Thomberry. Is there any other
council discussion?
Kubby/Yes. I'm going to vote for this, but with some hesitation. I'm going to vote for it
because it's going to looses up some of the restrictions in some areas although it
creates restrictions in others. And the place where it's creating restrictions is the
parking lots and parking ramps except for the exception created by the committee.
So that is my hesitation but because there are two more readings and because it is
a cooperative venture, and we're going to be looking at some other avenues as
well for now I will support it. And in the future I will not be supporting escalation
of fees for violations.
Nov/Any other discussion? Roll call- (yes). Okay, we've approved first consideration
and we're going to take a break.
Kubby/So in two weeks we'll be doing second consideration and we usually allow
people to speak even though there's not a p.h. so it would still be going to see
what kind of further changes there may be.
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ITEM NO. 8.
qq~b
ITEM NO. 9.
City of Iowa Ci~~,~ Page 11
IOWA CITY'S FY98 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN, THAT IS PART OF THE
CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS), {EXCLUDING HABITAT FOR
HUMANITY), AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO SUBMIT SAID
PLAN AND ALL NECESSARY CERTIFICATIONS TO THE U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND
DESIGNATING THE CITY MANAGER AS THE AUTHORIZED CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR THE CONSOLIDATED PLAN.
Comment: As required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the City Council is holding a public hearing to solicit
comments on the FY98 Annual Action Plan.
The Iowa City Housing and Community Development Commission, at their
April 17, 1997, meeting, recommended approval of the FY98 Annual
Action Plan including any changes made by the City Council. To receive
FY98 funding, this document must be submitted to the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by May 15, 1997. Staff
memorandum and FY98 Action Plan included in Council packet.
a. PUBLIC HEARING
Action:
b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ADOPTING
Action= .'
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE HOME INVESTMENT
PARTNERSHIPS PROGRAM ALLOCATION FOR HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
WITHIN THE FY98 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN, THAT IS PART OF THE
CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS).
Comment: See comment for Item #8.
Action:
#8 page 1
ITEM NO. 8 IOWA CITY'S FY98 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN, THAT IS PART OF
THE CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS), (EXCLUDING HABITAT FOR
HUMANITY), AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO SUBMIT SAID PLAN
AND ALL NECESSARY CERTIFICATIONS TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND DESIGNATING THE CITY
MANAGER AS THE AUTHORIZED CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR THE
CONSOLIDATED PLAN.
Nov/This is a p.h. followed by a resolution to adopt this plan. (Reads agenda item). The
p.h. is now open.
Charles Eastham/1152 E. Court Street. I have a brief handout I'd like to give the council.
Nov/You could just give me the stack.
Baker/Brief?.
Nov/Please go ahead.
Eastham/At the informal session last night, some questions were raised by council
members regarding the proposal from the IC Housing Fellowship for rental
acquisition project as far as this year's CDBG and Home Program. I prepared, the
question was, there were two questions actually. One, should lower income
housing projects in all cases pay full property taxes over the life of the units.
Another one raised by another council member had to do with the can the rent on
the projects be low or lower than the fair market value. I prepared a financial
analysis showing the effect of taking those two actions and use it as an example.
The basic project that the Housing Project proposes this year, which is acquisition
of 18 two and three bedroom rental units for rental at fair market rent. The first
two paper clipped together are two financial studies. The first one entitled Project
Planned To Pay All Property Taxes simply shows that if this kind of a project
paid the full property tax assessed on the project which in the first year are about
$25,200, then as you can see in the highlighted portion to the right on the first
page on the bottom under the heading GAP Finance Analysis, that paying those
property taxes if all other things are left constant requires about $219,000 for this
18 unit project in additional up front capital and there's really no money in-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 97-77 SIDE 2
Eastham/-for repaying additional funds in the form of, it it were in the form of a loan and
the second example or illustration I've prepared, the one that's labeled Project
Plan For Rents of 80% ofFMR. If you keep the project planned so as to pay the
property taxes that Housing Fellowship has proposed which basically are
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payments of the taxes but the rents were reduced from a proposed fair market rent
level to 80% of the fair market rent. Then the project will require an additional
$172,000 in up front capital in a form that could not be repaid if the project is to
cash flow. The basic point is that taking either of those actions, either paying all
of the property taxes or reducing the fair market rent levels significantly below the
fair market rent requires additional up front capital. that's basically the whole
point.
Kubby/Thank you, Charley.
Thomberry/One question. Is this a for profit or not profit venture?
Eastham/The Housing Fellowship is a non-profit organization.
Thomberry/Who's making a profit on it?
Eastham/Well, any net income, net revenue would come to the Housing Fellowship. I'm
not an economist so I don't understand all the m~ances between profits and net
incomes.
Thomberry/My corporation I real close to being a non-profit corporation.
Eastham/Well, I guess not for profit is a better word.
Kubby/Any net income gets reinvested into more housing projects to provide affordable
housing.
Eastham/Sure. For sure. Does that help, Dean?
Thomberry/Yes and no. There are people making a lot of money off these projects. There
are some people making a lot of money by doing these projects or they wouldn't
be being done. Is that correct?
Eastham/The Housing, as far as a non-profit doing, as an example, the Housing
Fellowship doing this particular kind of project, no one associated with the
Housing Fellowship is making any money off the project at all period. The staff
gets paid for their time. That's it. No individuals are making any money on it.
Thomberry/Hm. Management. But there is a 5% management fee. 5% of, what's the
total? A million five? Eight one.
Eastham/The management fee is 5% of the net revenue.
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Thornberry/In operating expenses, management fee is 5%.
Eastham/5% of net revenue.
Thornberry/5% of net revenue or gross revenue?
Eastham/Net revenue.
Thornberry/If it's non-profit and there's a net revenue of zero, because it's non-profit.
Eastham/I'm sorry, Dean. You're correct. It's actually gross revenue.
Thornberry/Gross revenue, 5% is management fee and that 5% is $1,581,0007
Eastham/No. The gross revenue for the first year is $123,120. Well, wait, that would be
correct.
Thornberry I am sorry, that was project costs.
Eastham/You lmow, any non-profit all fees go to pay the expenses of the non-profit.
Thornberry/That is why my corporation is non-profit. That is why my corporation is
basically non-profit. It does a little bit of profit but not much because the
management fees are exorbitant. I understand.
Jodi-beth McCain/I am here on behalf of the River City Housing Collective. Here with
me tonight, again, are several members of the collective and I would like to ask
them to raise their hands. The River City Housing Collective (RCHC), a non-
profit organization was incorporated in 1977. This year we are celebrating our
20th anniversary. For the past 20 years we have had a vision for housing in Iowa
City. We envision the city where all people, young an old, of all income levels,
the disabled, families and single people, students and non-students. People from
all occupations, races and backgrounds would have a clean, safe and affordable
place to live. We hope that you share this vision with us. The RCHC realizes that
we are not able to respond to all the existing needs in the community which would
have to be addressed in order to make this vision a reality. However, for 20 years
we have tried to do our part and to do what we do best. The provision of resident
control, single room occupancy housing units that address the needs of single
people, couple, and single parents. Single people face the same risks of becoming
homeless or having to pay excessive amounts for their income on housing as other
Iowa City residents. However they are excluded from public housing programs.
We try to fill this gap in the continuum of housing. A gap which is recognized as
important by the high priority which City Steps places on the provision of single
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room occupancy units. We are here tonight to ask you to approve the
recommendation of the HCDC that we receive a loan for $80,000 to be used for
the down payment for the acquisition of a new property. After consulting with
city staff, we maintain that our proposed project will not be feasible at an interest
rate of higher than 1%. Our original proposal has already been reduced by $5,000.
If we were asked to pay high interest rate, we would not be able to meet operating
expenses and debt payments. We therefore urge you to approve the Commission's
recommendations for the following six reasons: 1. Of the 27 proposals, the
Commission ranked the Collective's proposal #7. With a loan of approximately
$4,000 per unit, Collective makes efficient use of public dollars. 2. RCHC rents
are affordable. Out average rents is 10% below fair market rent and 30% below
market rents. Collective rents include utilities and laundry services. 3. Although
65% of our memberslfip are students, this simply reflects the fact that according to
city staff, 2/3s of all low income rental households are students. Programs in the
past have included funding for students. Furthen~ore, many RCHC who are
students are the first generation in their family to attend college while others are
non-traditional, continuing students, struggling to support themselves who would
not other wise be able to afford Iowa City housing. I wish to assure you again,
that all residents of a property acquired with HOME funds would meet HUD's
income requirements and to highlight that it is projected that over 65% of the
residents would have incomes below 30% of the area median. And that this may
mean that the percentage of students in that future property would decrease. I also
assure you that we will perform income verifications just like all the other
organizations that receive these funds. 4. The property which we hope be able to
purchase includes four efficiency units which would appeal to a broader
population and to which we hope to attract single parents. 5. We are connnitted
neighbors dedicated to neighborhood integrity and to historic preservation. We
work with the existing housing stock, emphasizing upkeep and reinvestment for
current and future residents. We pay property taxes. Last year we were awarded
the City's Community Development Award. Finally, we provide innovative living
arrangements that lower housing costs and empower resident members to act as
home owners attempting to bridge the gap between renting and s.f. home
ownership. We have done our best to present a proposal which conforms to the
regulations set fourth by the HCDC and one which will help us to further
implement our vision of decent housing for all in Iowa City. Thank you.
Alfonso Orbegoso/I live at RCHC and I work at Greenwood Manor Nursing Home and I
will be making about $8,000 a year. I think that RCHC offers Iowa City a m~ique
kind of community. It is the only place that I can think of that where people can
rent a room and work together to make decision together and live together as a
community. It is a non-profit community so that the only thing we have to gain is
to keep a house for next year when 22 residents of RCHC will have to move out.
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And I think Iowa City needs more low income housing and I think this would be a
perfect opportunity to support that.
Nov/Thank you.
Jeff Strottman/I live at RCHC, one of the coops. I work in this town. I work at the
Hospital for the University. I was born and raised in this town, it puts me in a
minority, native born have lost their city. I have seen a lot of changes in this city
which make me sad and I realize current city council isn't responsible for most of
them. But city councils along the line probably had a lot to do with it. I remember
getting out of high school and seeing rooming houses all over the place, rooms
typically typically rented for under $100 and it is way different now a days.
Rooming houses then had usually pretty good mix of working people and
students, all the ones I lived in did. Such places pretty much are on the way out to
the extent they still exist now. Your choices are pretty in huge apartment houses
or, I think, the lfint that worldng class is getting in this town is more you are not
really welcome into the town and should move to trailer parks outside of town. It
is a trend I don't like to see and I don't think it is conscientiously looked at that
way most of you would support. I think not supporting the collective in this loan
for a house is a step backwards from the Iowa City that I grew up in. I think it is
becoming something different that what most people moved here for.
Nov/Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to talk about the Consolidated Plan?
Be~mett Brown/I am a resident of 802 E. Washington Street and that is one of the two
properties owned by RCHC. I am here representing the ten members of that
household, the ten residents. I am one of two of the entire collective's 46 members
who is not low income and I pay a rent that is 7% higher than market rent, I am
sorry, higher than fair market rent. I do not deserve a subsidy and I will not be
living in a house, should it be purchased with HOME funds. However, I am here
tonight to advocate for RCHC's proposal for HOME funds because I believe that
it would provide quality housing for people in need of a subsidy. As a
representative of my house's ten residents, I would like to share a conversation
that six of us had in the kitchen earlier this evening. I asked, playing devil's
advocate and trying to understand council's position on this issue based on what I
heard last night. Well, what really would happen to us if we didn't have RCHC as
a housing option in Iowa City? Where would we live? What would we do? I asked
what if you had to pay market rent for a room in a rooming house which would be
a 38% rent increase over River City's average rents? Two people said I pay 38%
more rent and be kind of bummed out about it but that would be what would
happen and I would live in a room in a rooming house at market rent. I was one of
those two. Two people said I would be forced to not have a place that I rented m~d
I would ask friends ifI could sleep on their couch and offer to pitch in for their
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rent. Two people said I would be forced to drop my course load, these two are in
their late 20's and are trying to get an undergraduate education. I would be forced
to abandon, they said, my plans for an education and get a second or in the other
case a third job. I believe that a tremendous portion of RCHC's current residents
are in need or and deserving of a HOME fund subsidy and I believe that the
residents of a future house purchased with HOME funds would be even more so.
Thank you.
Jason Maier/I work at Burger King, downtown Iowa City for clarification. I work 33 to
37 hours a week. I bring home somewhere in the range of $600 a month. Imn
open with these numbers because I am sure you can realize that that is probably
less than about $10,000 a year, low income housing. I am not a student. I urge you
to go ahead with this proposal because I don't think I could find another place to
live at such a low income rent. Thank you.
Bob Hearst/I am also a member ofRCHC. I Live at 703 N. Dubuque. I have lived in
Iowa City for about 12 years, seven at which have been in the RCHC. I am a little
bit concerned that in some of the past discussion of our quest for a HOME loan, I
think that RCHC has been somewhat unfairly characterized as a predominantly
student organization and while yes, we do have many students like I think most
other organizations and institutions in Iowa City where students are everywhere. I
think we have become over time much more than that and much more of an
integral part of the community. I like, like many of the other residents of Iowa
City, came here originally to go to the University but have stayed on since and
likewise, RCHC began 20 years ago sponsored by the University. But I want to
emphasize that that is no longer the case. We no longer have any formal legal
financial ties to the University. And I think that more importantly since we have
become independent from the University, we have really established ourselves as
active members of the Iowa City community. As others have said, providing low
income housing for people who wouldn't have nearly as many favorable options
with out us. We pay local taxes, we vote, we spend a great deal of money at local
merchants. We take good care of our property and I think provide a very positive
example of things like recycling and energy conservation. Most of our members
are volunteers in other organizations in the community like the Crisis Center, the
Agape Care, ICARE, UAY. So we are not just students who are just kind of
breezing tl~ough to get our degree and then leave with no concern about the
community that we live in. I think that while, like Be~mett who just spoke, I can
afford to live elsewhere. I work as a payroll clerk at Mercy Hospital. I could live
in a more expensive place but I choose not to because I think one of the really
positive contributions of the RCHC is that we do help people learn and sort of
gain experience to become members of a community. to learn how to live in a
cormnunity, literally in my house with 21 other people. And I think that we do
provide an excellent source of low income housing because of our organization
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and our structure, we are able to keep down rent by our members providing some
of the labor, some of the work that ordinarily a landlord would provide and have
to be compensated for in the rent. So by organizing ourselves to do that work
ourselves, we not only provide lower income housing but we are also teaching
people how to be good tenants, good community members, good residents, good
carers of property. The loan being discussed will, of course, enable us to expand
that service of providing more low income housing and I think that while I myself
won't benefit from it, I won't be in a subsidized house. But I think it is important
because what the RCHC does is benefit the whole community and the whole of
Iowa City and I urge you to support our loan request. Thank you.
Zach Williams/Good evening. I reside at 703 N. Dubuque. I would just like to briefly
add my point of view. I have been a member of this conmmnity since I was three
years old. In 1977 my family moved here. Although the rest of my family has left,
after I finished college, I decided to retm'n to Iowa city because of the affection I
have for this community and I have seen the work that the RCHC has done and I
am very impressed with it and I hope that we can support it in anyway that is
possible because it is a benefit that we have offered to the community and to the
people that take advantage directly of our services. Thank you.
Susannah Middaugh/I live at Summit House, 200 S. Summit. One of my~ I think one
reason I really like living there is we have lost the extended family, a lot of us. My
parents are now Canadian citizens. My brothers and sisters are in Oregon,
Michigan and also in Ontario. And for my son and myself, it is wonderful to lmow
that you can have people who will, for me, to be there when my home is home for
school. He is now, he will be 13 this year and there just- You don't get childcare
at that age and extended families are real important and we need to make them
where we live and that is real important to me. Isolation and loneliness are real
with people and that's something that's important in a cooperative house. And for
people to be able to have that choice. I work at United Action for Youth and I'm
now working with the teen moms and I was approached about that. Well how
about a teen mom living in that situation. And so there are so many possibilities
we haven't even looked at and we're talking about a home for someone in the
future that we haven't really even met yet. And I was one of those people at one
time coming to the door and I think that's what we're talking about, how to keep
our communities going and people who are interested in our neighborhoods. And
I feel good in my neighborhood when I walk the dog at night and I want people to
be able to lmow they can live in a neighborhood like that too. My son goes to
Longfellow School, you lmow. To me that means a lot. I really like that school
district and if I wasn't living in the coop in that neighborhood, he wouldn't be
going to Longfellow. And that means a lot and I would like that opportrmity for
other people as well. I've lived in projects in other communities and when
everyone is on ADC, you lmow you're kind of pulling each other down. You
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don't have as much to pull each other up about. And we have variety in the house
where I live. I just hope you will pass this so we can have opportunities for other
people. Thank you.
Baker/Suzanne.
Middaugh/Yeah.
Baker/Can I ask you a question? It's an awkward question, but you do have a son, right?
Middaugh/Sure. Right.
Baker/And you are classified as low income.
Middaugh/Mm-huh.
Baker/Would you be eligible for a Section 8 housing voucher?
Middaugh/Yeah. But not at this moment because I'm a VISTA volunteer and because of
that, I'm not eligible.
Kubby/Because you are a federal employee or something?
Middaugh/Yeah. And so that's the reason. Yeah. Thank you.
Steve Karmer/I reside at 200 S. Summit also known as Summit House, a member of the
RCHC, one of three houses that make rip the collective at the current time. And I
just want to let you know that I came to Iowa City last year and I stayed here
because it seemed to be a progressive and healthy place and one thing that seemed
to be a little bit out of whack was the housing situation. One of the places that I
first lived at was I happened to get a break. The original cost, the cost that was
usually charged for a three bedroom half a house was over $1,000 and because
some people had backed out the previous year, I was able to get one of the rooms
and get it for approximately $250 plus utilities. I think most of us would agree
there could always be some more moderate and low income priced housing and I
think what the HOME loan will do is help create more of that. I think it is in the
power of the city council to help create that. I think what we have here is the real
good merging of public and private responsibility in this project and I think that is
what you find in a lot of the projects that are up for the grant money and the
CDBG. And I currently work full-time for APEX downtown. I make about
$13,000 a year and I would consider myself a low to moderately income person
and the RCHC is a place that offers me clean housing, it offers affordable housing
and it also offers me the chance to make a difference in my housing. It is not easy.
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It is hard talking about some of the issues that we talked about at the house and
how we try to resolve things. But it is really self empowering and you are able to
maize those decisions and that is what we offer for all of the members that are part
of the RCHC. I think we offer the possibility of some empowerment and a very
positive housing experience and I think what we want is a variety of options for
low income people and not just Section 8 housing or not just terrible condition
rooming housing. But we also want places like the RCHC that offers some ~fice
housing at affordable prices for people to live in decent conditions. So I urge you
to vote for the HOME loan for the RCHC along with the other recommendations
that were put forth before you. Thank you.
Russell Lovetinsky/1011 6th Avenue. I would like to speak out as a citizen in favor to
the city's low interest loan to the Collective. As a life long resident with a long
family history here in Iowa City, I recognize that rental housing is an integral part
of our community. I think the Collective is open to all who need housing and I
think it represents some of the best qualities of Iowa City. I recommend that the
councilors support the low interest loan to the Collective and thank you.
Kubby/I have a question for the committee. Is that all right now at this time? And maybe,
I don't lmow, I have seen Gretchen. Anyone can answer from the committee if
you so choose but one of the things that some council members have talked about
in terms of River City has been that many members of the Collective individually
would not receive any kind of benefits from our society which actually I disagree
with because there are many benefits that single people can get from our society
like SSI and foodstamps, etc. But let's just assume that that is true, that individual
members cmmot-are not receiving benefits. Therefore why should the collective
receive benefits. Was that issue discussed at all at the committee in making your
determination? The answer was no, it was not.
Norton/I have a question. Can somebody, I don't h~ow who should answer. How do you
actually select new members for the Collective? What is that process like and
how- what is the waiting list like because we are talking here about an expansion
here, are we not? We are not talking about doing away with existing places. This
is to add.
McCain/We are asking for this loan because the lease on 703 N. Dubuque Street property
is going to be up in June of '98. So we are talking about expansion in terms of the
properties that we own but we are talking about maintaining the number of
properties that we actually current lease. And in terms of selection, it is an open
selection process. Anyone who is interested in renting a room at the Collective
calls us. We answer the call. We invite them to dimmer. They come to dimher. They
get a tour of the property and afterwards, a committee interviews them and asks
them questions about how they learned about the Collective, what interests they
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have in working together. If they would be willing to put in the 16 hours of
mandatory work that replaces our management fee. And how they deal with
conflict because with so many people living in a small space, how you deal with
conflict is important.
Norton/Just one follow up. Bennett implied there might be some change in the overall
character or distribution of the backgrounds of people in the future and I just
wondered, does that mean could you in fact focus that on people who are, let's
say, retnrning to school after having a job and not returning and having to take a
low paying jib in order to go to school. Could you focus it that way or is that
possible? So that you are collecting people who are trying to improve their lot but
are in a position where they don't have a decent income at the moment.
Kubby/You have to be careful about the Human Rights ordinance with some of those
issues.
Norton/That is why I wondered. I am wondering how they go about collecting. How do
you get the change that Bennett alluded to?
McCain/The change that Bennett alluded to is so that we meet the HOME funds
requirements that say that 90% of the residents in a property acquired with HOME
funds would be at 60% or below of area median income. So we would have to add
to our selection process the question of how much do you earn.
Norton/But you lmow, as we talked and I talked to you on the phone, that is really
difficult for people and many times in student status. Almost every student, as far
as I lmow, has no visible means of support other than, by and large. So they are
kind of imherently poor but it is temporary and it is a choice.
McCain/Well, one of the other things that we have made clear is that if a student is
counted as a dependent on their parent's tax return which would be a majority of
those that if their parents are low income, then they would be considered as low
income. If their parents are high income, then they would be considered high
income and they wouldn't be eligible for housing. Am I not understanding your
question?
Belmett Brown/I would like to add sometiring to try to respond.
Nov/Don't go away Jodi because I have a question for you later.
Bennett Brown/The reason I speak of targeting a different population than what we
already have for a HOME funded house is we have turnover. So we replace
people that are in the organization. A year from now, if we were to purchase a
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house with this funding then we would try to do that this cycle of leases. So the
people that we would be filling that house with would not be current residents. If
we were to fill it in a year rather than sooner with this lease cycle. Then even so
most of the residents would not be current residents or turnover is such that we
could accommodate current residents within our owned properties rather than
leased properties. One more thing is that as the secretary of the board, I take the
minutes and can recall specific things that people said. It was actually a debate
rather we should apply for the HOME funds and something that we heavily
considered before applying. We didn't want to apply in earnestly and wanted to
decide as a group of people whether in good conscience we felt that we provided
the community with quality low income housing. We felt that A- we did and B-
that the 90% requirements given by the federal HOME loan would be more
stringent based on a survey that we took of ourselves. Slightly more stringent than
where we currently were and that was a debate within the Collective. We decided,
every single member agreed to a change in the target population of our Collective.
So that it was a conscience decision that we agreed with the reasons for requiring
90% of the residents to meet certain requirements and that was something that we
were interested in providing in the community.
Kubby/You also mentioned that in a property that you are looking at acquiring, if you get
the HOME loan and combine it with a private loan, that there would be four
efficiencies. So there would be room for more families within the collective
because of that different ldnd of structure, physical structure.
Nov/I think I am losing track of numbers. How many did you say are currently students
in the cooperative?
McCain/It is 33% that are not students, that would be 15 people out of the 46.
Thornberry/60 some are.
Nov/So 67% are students.
McCain/Well, 2% is the child.
Nov/Okay, so 65% are University students. We are counting a child who I won't count
for this particular number.
McCain/Okay.
Nov/Somewhere and I don't remember where, I saw a number that I read 30% are
students and this may have been in the application. Has this number increased
between the time in February when you turned in the application and today?
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McCain/I don't believe in the application we- It wasn't a question in the process how
many of us were students. So I don't believe that in the application itself it was
stated.
Nov/Do you remember that there was a 30% nutnber? Do you remember what it applied
to?
Audience/(Can't hear).
McCain/Right. We are 35% undergraduates and 30% graduate students. So maybe-
Nov/Okay, maybe that is why I missed that. Okay. One more comment. I have received
negative comments about the appearance of the property on Sttmmit Street.
People who have talked to me about it say it looks like a mess.
McCain/Okay.
Nov/It was 16 hours a week of volunteer labor, it should not look like a mess. I have to
confess I did not have the time to go by and look at it myself. But because people
lmow that we were considering the option of a loan to this group, they felt that
need to tell me it didn't look nice. So I am passing it on.
McCain/Okay, thank you for passing that on. It is 16 hours a month and not a week. No,
just to clarify and-
Nov/16 hours a month would keep up the outside appearance.
McCain/Correct and we-
Nov/That is one person. If you have two it would look gorgeous.
McCain/And we welcome you to come by and you know, let us know and we do not
intend to have properties that any neighbor thinks are not looking good and we do
try ottr best to keep them as integrated into the rest of the neighborhood as we can.
The property on Wasltington Street has been nominated for the National Registry
and we are very proud of that.
Nov/But still you occasionally have to pick up, make it look neater. That happens no
matter where you live. It has nothing to do with the location of the property.
Kubby/Or the loan application process.
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McCain/Any other questions?
Baker/Jodi, can I ask you a question?
McCain/Certainly.
Baker/Were you given a copy of the memo I gave the council about my concerns about
River City?
McCain/No, sir. I was not given a copy.
Baker/Was anybody in your group given a copy that that memo that you know of?. I
think one of the reasons we are having this discussion tonight is because I have
raised questions about the status of the recipients of the financial assistance and I
put that into a memo and gave it to the council for Friday's packet.
McCain/I did not receive it.
Baker/And it was going to go to- Did the HCDC get a copy of it? Okay.
Thornberry/You didn't put confidential on it so it didn't go anywhere.
Baker/No, I didn't put confidential on it because I turned it in because I assumed that we
were going to allow people to respond to those concerns. Very briefly, let me
summarize what I said.
Thornberry/If you would have said confidential, everybody would have had it.
Baker/My initial reaction to the application was reluctance because I was bothered,
because I think some members of the HCDC were by the high percentage of
students. That once we open up financial assistance to students in a town like
Iowa City with limited resources, we potentially create very severe problems.
When I put my thoughts down on paper, I set aside the question of whether or not
students should be getting aid. The test became would the individuals, the
overwhelming number of individuals in the group get financial assistance from
the city as individuals. And if they would not get assistance as individuals, as
single able bodied adults, why should the group, recognizing that there are
individuals within the group who certainly, I think, might qualify for existing
programs. That given limited resources and competing applications and interest
from other clearly defined and long established housing projects or programs, why
would River City qualify for assistance as a group when the overwhelming
number of individuals would not qualify by themselves? Could you address that
question?
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McCain/I can attempt to and I will also ask for staff to help explain that because I have
tried very hard to be well versed in the HOME fund requirements but I cannot
speak with any authority on Section 8 or Public Housing. I can only state that it is
a City Steps priority to provide single room occupancy units and single room
occupancy units means that that would be for single people. And that was the
document that we were given to reply to in elaborating our proposal and that is
what we did.
Baker/
I think one of the things that is going to come out of this discussion, and I think I
said this in the memo, it has certainly caused me individually to go back and start
looking at some of the programs and criteria that we have set up. We have had
one other application for single room occupancy. But one of the key questions
becomes does the financial assistance go to a type of living arrangement or does it
go to the individuals in the living arrangement. A single room occupancy rooming
house that targets very specific populations makes a lot of sense to me. But in a
community like Iowa City, when I look- I teach college level. I would say 75% of
my students are comparable to most of the people that got up and talked tonight
and those students of mine- I try not to maize student the issue but just the young
single able bodied people I deal with. They would not be getting assistance
because with the limited resources we have, we would be spending money on
families, on the elderly, the disabled, populations like that. That is my hesitation
about River City. That as individuals, I wouldn't be giving you assistance. As a
group, I am having a hard time justifying it.
McCain/And staff can correct me if I am wrong, I believe that Public Housing and
Section 8 is specifically geared for the lowest income of that low income bracket.
And the idea, I believe, that Congress had when they passed CDBG and HOME
funding was to provide a continuum of housing opportunities that would insure
that people at different stages of renting and away from home ownership or
towards home ownership and away from either homelesshess or from renting,
would have a wide variety of options to choose from and so I think that part of
this may be that the Public Housing and Section 8 are geared for one subset of the
population that CDBG and HOME funds are trying to assist and that some of the
other programs that we are looking at are more, maybe even in the 50 to 60% of
area median income. But they are still requiring of assistance because they can't
make it at the market rate. So it is in general that I believe this program is meant
to reach a wider population.
Baker/Would we both agree that given limited resources, that it maizes sense to prioritize
the people that get the assistance?
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McCain/I believe that given limited resources, it is important to look at the housing
needs in the community as the City Steps Plan did and respond to those needs
which were given a high priority and our proposal is responding to a need that
was given a high priority.
Baker/But you yourself, I think you would say if someone had to choose between you
and someone who was elderly or disabled but also low income, you yourself
would say that person or a parent with a child should be-
McCain/We are - We have disabled members sitting right here and we have members
who are mothers and as we have said, in the new property, we hope to have more
single parents. So I think that we do agree with you and we are hoping with a new
property to be able to reach out to a wider population that is in need in this
community.
Baker/Was that part of your discussion with HCDC?
McCain/That was not brought up with HCDC because we fell within the requirements
that they had set before us.
Norton/I just wanted- Could someone from the Commission maybe comment at this
point because I have read their minutes pretty carefully but I must say I had some
problems to try to deal with it. And I am very much up in the air. I see the virtues
and I see the difficulties of this particular proposal. But I kind of like to hear
somebody from the Commission explain a little bit more how they looked at this
matter of priority and how- Are the funds vitally needed elsewhere or can we
afford them here? I guess that is what they have said. Maybe they can reiterate
that.
Gretchen Schmuch/I was trying to remember back in our discussion mxd unfortunately I
moved this weekend and couldn't find our notes. But basically what we looked at
is determining the hierarchy of funding was the criteria sheets that you got in your
information packet about a month or so ago and we-
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 97-78 SIDE 1
Schmuch/How we try to balance projects against each other and maybe part of that is
that we didn't get everything that we maybe should have into our discnssion. But
because the numbers fell out for whatever reason we had, compared to every other
project, River City Housing came up as a very high priority in our list.
Baker/We haven't had that many comparable projects go through this process, have we?
The single room occupancy of the rooming house option.
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Schmuch/No. And we have never used this kind of criteria, this objective criteria before
on the Commission either. So this is a new thing for us trying to level the playing
field as much as we could.
Baker/And you did have other projects that are not fully funded from what they
requested?
Schmuch/Correct.
Baker/Okay, thank you.
Kubby/One of the things I look at, too, is when we appoint people to HCDC we made a
real conscious effort lately to have a real broad range of people on there from
representative from financial institutions and University. For a while it was very
concentrated in the Human Services area and that has gotten very much broader
and that in combination with the kind of extensive objective criteria really makes
those recommendations very powerful.
Nov/Is there anyone else who wants to talk about this consolidated plan?
Thornberry/I guess I have a question or two, too. You said that the University use to fund
River City Housing or at least a housing coop and they don't now. They stopped
funding it. How long ago was that and why did they stop funding it.
McCain/The agreement in the beginning was that they rented us houses that they had
extra, small houses, and the rents were very low. They were $75 to $85. And the
agreement was that we would work towards independence and so we would
charge our regular rent and everything above the cost would put into a
development fund. And that is how we have been able to acquire the two
properties that we currently own. That relationship with the University ended I
believe in 1992 because they felt that we had reached independence. The situation
is that it was those subsidized rents, essentially subsidized by the University, that
enabled us to have a growing development fund and the rent that we are paying
currently on N. Dubuque Street is also enabling us to put some money into the
development fund but we will barely be able to cover ore' start-up costs witk the
money since the property we bought on Summit Street. So that is the way we
grew in the past but we have- There is no relationship now with the University at
all. Their objective in the beginning was to create an independent housing
collective and we did so and we no longer have any relationship with them.
Thornberry/You said this is sort of a transitional housing between no housing or very
low housing into a transitional housing. When do they make the jump to retail
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housing? Do you have a cut off point when they are making so much or when they
decide that they would like to leave, they leave? Or when is the transitional part
take place? You said that if they could live elsewhere. When do they make the
jump to out of River City Housing, for example, to retail apartment living. When
does the transition end and-
McCain/That is different for every single person and I could tell you some stories. But it
pretty much is determined when their income rises.
Thomben'y/There are some that could pay retail rents now and they have decided to stay
for one reason or another and they like the living arrangement.
McCain/And the property purchased with HOME funds they would not be able to stay
there once their income raises because of the increment requirement of the HOME
fund and when I speak or transitional bridging the gap, the idea is that because of
the responsibility the resident members take in the housing, in budgeting, in
cleaning and repairs, it is one step away from renting closer towards eventual
home ownership. We feel that we teach a lot of the sicills that are necessary to be a
home owner eventually.
Thornberry/12 hours a month?
McCain/16 hours.
Thornberry/16 hours a month.
Audience/(Can't hear).
McCain/That it is the whole broad spectrum of responsibilities for everything from
budgeting to cleaning the kitchen to paying the bills. So-
Thornberry/You said that, if I got this right, sometime ago perhaps the average or the
percentage of people living in the housing was higher but you found that to
receive HOME funds you needed to be at another level. So you made an effort to
get lower income people to love there so that you could be eligible for these
funds. Is that correct?
McCain/Currently 96% of our membership fell below 60% area median income. So-
Thornberry/And the area median income is what?
McCain/The 60% area median income is $21,300 for on person. The majority of our
memberslfip, 74%, fall below $10,600. And all we are saying is that for a new
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house, that just happened. We had never taken an income survey before. Our
concern before was to provide low cost housing. It happens that when you provide
low cost housing, you mostly have low income people living there. But we are
interested in expanding our mission from providing low cost housing to providing
low cost housing affordable to low income people. So we will, for that property,
we will take income into account in selecting residents.
Kubby/You did not do so in order to qualify for HOME moneys?
McCain/No, we have not done that yet and I think what Bennett was referring to was
since we will be losing, we will not have that lease on that property come June,
1998, we would take that into consideration as we are selecting new people to
make sure that we are not, by some fluke, suddenly getting all high income people
wanting to live in a single room occupancy building.
Nov/I assume with $80,000 you are going to have a bank mortgage or do you have
enough money in reserve?
McCain/No, no. We have very little money in reserve after buying Summit house and the
$80,000 is meant to be the down payment and we are required by the bank to have
75% loan to value. So with an $80,000 loan we would be able to afford a $320
house and we have some money there. Within our rents we include bed, desk,
dresser, and chair and the utility hook ups as you see in the proposal. That most of
our equity we plan on putting into the start up and putting into an audit that will
be required of us.
Baker/Jodi, when did you move into that property that you are trying to buy?
McCain/The property that we are trying to buy is vacant. It is the property- The property
that we are leasing we have been in since '92.
Baker/And you just leased that just flat monthly rate?
McCain/Correct. The Sigma Chi Fraternity had been asked to leave. I don't lmow about
history but they are plmming to come back and so we re renting it in the interim.
Baker/Okay, so you explained. You are trying to maintain that expansion?
McCain/Correct.
Kubby/They got too wild and got kicked out. They have to live through a probationary
period and now that is over.
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Norton/Is this a one time thing, in other words? Or do you intend to expand beyond this?
This request I take it would not be repeated each year unless you are going to
generate a whole bundle of these places.
McCain/Certainly we have to see what the market is. How many people would be
interested but also only having people that put in 16 hours a month to do all of the
things we do, it requires an awful lot of our work to start up a new house and that
is not something we do every year.
Kubby/Many people work more than 16 hours.
McCain/Yes, that is the minimum requirement but even then, starting a new house is an
awful lot of. investment for us. Our management fees are budgeted at 1.4%. That
is like the minimum administrative cost that we have to pay. We do all of the rest.
So to start a new house we have to have a lot of energy to do it.
Thornberry/How many people live in this house currently?
McCain/Which one? The one we are going to lose our lease on? 22.
Thornberry/22. )dxd out of the 22, do you know, just for my own edification, how many
of the 22 own automobiles?
McCain/Automobiles? I would say 5-6.7, one out of three. A little less than one out of
three.
Nov/Can I assume that a single home with 22 residents is not going to pay the mortgage
by itself and some of the other rents from other properties are going to help?
McCain/Out other two properties are just meeting costs. So our plan, the way we operate,
is that each property meets its own costs. We are subsidized through the rent of
the leased property but our other two properties meet our expenses and that is all.
Nov/So this property would have to charge enough rent to meet expenses of the
mortgage and the utilities and everything else?
McCain/And the HOME loal~, right.
Nov/Any other questions? Thank you.
McCain/Okay. Thank you.
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Kathleen Renquist/1000 Tower. I am a member of the HCDC. I have been sitting here
and I am probably going to get in trouble here. But I have been sitting here after
several nights and listening to the people from the Collective defending
themselves. They had an excellent proposal, they met the requirements, and I have
heard questions asked over and over again, some of the same questions. I would
urge you to please vote for this package as presented and stop discussing these.
Thank you.
Bill Stewart/Can we discuss for one more minute? 3433 S. Jamie Lane. I just want to
address a couple of things. From our discussion and you have discussed a lot more
than we did because of the time constraints of hearing all of the people. But the
three things, Larry, students weren't a problem in the discussion. We looked at the
greater good of the community in this unique community we have here. The big
factor was the 1% repayable loan. That was the guiding factor. We get the money
back to use again. That was the key. Dean asked some of the other people tonight
about were they for profit. Well, somebody asked this the last time we were here,
a number of week ago. When they are a collective, I am not sure, nobody benefits,
I remember the discussion. But they are kind of like a not for profit in my mind.
Now one that was fimded recently from last year, SRO, Larry was talking about
was a for profit group. They received a $100,000 HOME grant, an $85,000 0%
loan. So that is the perspective of what you have done before. Those are the three
things I wanted to bring up.
Nov/We discussed last night a compromise, an increase in the loan percentage. Is the
council still interested in discussing something like that?
Thornberry/Well, she indicated that they couldn't really live with more than 1%.
Nov/They said at the current rental rates, they could not do that. I am really wondering if
it would be feasible to do that with a higher rental rate.
Kubby/But then you are not below fair market rent and you are not accommodating
lower income people and so we are kind of defeating our purpose, I believe, in
doing so. So I would argue to not do that.
Norton/Of course they would still be getting the virtues of the other aspects of collective
arrangement. They would still be getting savings and shared groceries and shared
maintenance and so fourth, right? The rents would bump a little bit but I can't
imagine they would go up more than fair market, would they?
Nov/They probably wouldn't go up that far. It would depend on what the rate was. They
would have to pay normal mortgage rate on the rest of it. So I am not sure.
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Kubby/But we are hearing from the Collective that with their financial forecast and
planning that more than 1% loan will not work for this project.
Nov/As it currently is described, yes.
McCain/I am going to be honest with you. The proposal that we presented to the HCDC
was based on information given to us by the Realtor who did not yet have the
keys for the property in question. He told us that there were 23 rooms in that
building. I based our performa on that. In actuality there are only 20 rooms in that
building. With a 1% loan, we are either going to have to return to- We are going
to have to go to HIS and ask to increase the rooms, these three rooms, and I am
not sure how we will do that or we are going to have to go out and find additional
funding just to make the proposal work as it was presented. So currently the 1%
loan doesn't even work. We will make it work if you give it to us. But increasing
it even further will make it next to impossible to make that property work for what
we have in mind for it.
Kubby/And it is $5,000 less than what you originally requested.
Lelnnan/What are your projected rents for this property?
McCain/The projected rents, we haven't gone in and measured. We based on rents on
square footage. And so we based it on the average rent currently in the collective
which is $224 per unit for the single room occupancies and $275 for the
efficiencies. That is what the projections are based on. And as I am stating it, to
make it cash flow, we would need three more rooms there than that are.
Nov/Or you could do it probably with $5.00 per room.
McCain/$5.00 more per room wouldn't do it. We would need- Essentially the income on
those three, off the top- $450, $650, $725 a month. It was two rooms an done
efficiency. So we lost an income of $725 a month from our performa by not
having those three rooms there and we will work to make it happen if we are
given the loan at 1%. But I believe that it is at an even high interest rate, we will
have to go and look for grant money to be able to make that property work.
Norton/Or go back and talk to your Realtor.
McCain/Yeah, maybe another property will come on the market that has more rooms and
is cheaper but-
Thornberry/What he means is maybe reduce the price of the house since it was mis-
advertised or something.
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Nov/Sometimes vacant houses have prices lower.
McCain/And we are even- The current figures that I was working with staff today are
assuming that the selling price would be lower. But we can afford less property.
With a 25% down payment, we can only afford $320- now where before we could
afford $340-.
Lelyman/Is this property going to have to have some remodeling work down to it?
McCain/It will.
Leturban/I am just playing around with my pencil but it appears to me that $375,000, the
cost per apartment per month is going to be- interest is going to be over $100.
McCain/I didn't follow you.
Lel~ar~an/On a loan of $375,000 the interest cost alone per apartment is going to be in
excess of $100 a month.
McCain/We were looking at $320- Today's proposal was based on a selling price of
$320- minus the $80,000 for the HOME loan at 1%. So we were looking at a
mortgage of $240- and the bank that we have our other mortgage with led us to
believe that we could get a 25 year amortization at 8.875%. And so those are the
figures that we have used in the performa.
Lel'urtan/So it is about $80 per month interest.
Kubby/Our decision is the policy making and they need to do the auditing and the staff
will make sure the performa is adequate and correct.
Baker/Karen, you are right. Our decisions- we are getting into too many details here and
we ought to decide the policy question. My concerns remain the same and I would
like to recommend the council not fund this proposal, put the $80,000 back into
the HCDC and ask they expeditiously reallocate it.
Kubby/I like to hear if there are any other people who-
Nov/Before I close the p.h., are there anyone else here who wants to talk about this?
Karr/I would like a motion to accept correspondence prior to the closing.
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Nov/Moved by Norton, seconded by Lehman that we accept correspondence. Is there any
discussion? Okay, all in favor, please say aye- (ayes). Motion carried.
Maurice Head/Did you say to put the money back in contingency?
Baker/I don't have any great desire either way whether you put it in contingency or
reallocate it expeditiously. My inclination is to say we should direct HCDC to
reallocate the funds as expeditiously as possible.
Head/In order to make HUD deadline of May 15, it would probably be advisable to put
the money in contingency so we can get th,e plan approved.
Baiter/So I would move 'to put it back in contingency for reallocation later.
Karr/Do you wish to make that motion during the p.h.?
Baiter/I am setting it up for discussion. We can discuss it now or we can discuss it later.
Nov/I think we should close the p.h. Is there anyone else who would like to talk to city
council about this plan? Okay. One more thing, okay.
Susannah Middaugh / This is the United States of America. You lmow, I guess I feel like
that should be all I need to say. I mean, we are looking at what you did last year
and I was kind of disappointed there wasn't a response to- You gave funds to
someone who it wasn't a non-profit last year and we are tallting about a loan as
other people have said and so it is a loan and we need to search for truth here.
Okay. The truth. Everyone forget how they- you imow, how they feel about
anyone in the room. Look at all the facts and what is going on here and the people
who need homes, they need community and that is what we are looking for and if
we just search for truth, I know you can make the right decision. Thm~k you.
Nov/Okay, thanit you. The p.h. is now closed. I think we should move the adoption of
the resolution and then move amendment.
Moved by Kubby, seconded by Baiter. Okay. Now.
Baker/Now, I would move that we amend the resolution to remove River City Housing
from the allocation and put it in contingency fund to reallocate it later.
Vanderhoef/I will second.
Nov/Moved and seconded that River City Housing Collective allocation be moved to
contingency. Moved by Baker, seconded by Vanderhoef. Any discussion?
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Kubby/You know, I wish I could be more articulate than Jodi Beth has been tonight
about all of these issues as well as other members of RCHC. But I can't be. I think
they have made their case eloquently and specifically they have answered, they
have been under more scrutiny than any project I have seen since I was Chair of
CCN in 1984 and I appreciate their patience with our process. They meet the
guidelines, they provide affordable housing for low income residents. The
Committee put them as a high priority, I think the decision is clear. This would
not be a good idea, Larry.
Norton/I thought long and hard about this. And have indeed wavered somewhat because
some of the issues that Larry raises I think are genuine but I also think that the
committee has taken a hard look at this and I hate to override them even though
we do sometimes. And it is a loan and it is presumably a one time thing. And it
does offer ai~ option that I would like to see available and given what we have
heard about if you wish the selection of participants, I am assured that it goes to
the right kind of usage even though these people presumably might not qualify
separately under some of the other programs. This is an aspect of that range of
programs according to the guidelines. So I am going to not support the
amendment.
Baker I do want to make sure the public understands we are not cutting the overall
housing assistance to this community, we are reallocating it. That we are going to
put that money towards projects that the HCDC and the council can agree on.
Norton/But the Commission had an option to do that already.
Kubby/That money goes into contingency and HCDC can reallocate it to economic
development programs or other prograins. It doesn't necessarily mean that it is
going to go into housing programs. That would be our decision.
Baker/It still need to be approved by council.
Nov/I think HOME funds would have to go into-
Kubby/Oh yeah, I am sorry.
Norton/It would stay in this category. But they have already faced those decisions of the
other people who weren't fully funded in that category and I guess in their
wisdom, they have reached that. I haven't seen enough to quite override even
though I share some of your concerns, Larry, but not enough of them.
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Kubby/And people are different when they come together. It is just things are different
when they come together to provide housing and services to the community.
Nov/Well, any other discussion?
Baker/So far I am the only person that have agreed with my amendment.
Nov/Well, sounds like maybe there were two, somebody seconded. I am trying to go
with Dee Norton on this one. I have given it a lot of thought but it is not an easy
decision and I can't agree with your amendment. Okay, all in favor of the
amendment to transfer this $80,000 fi'om the Housing Collective to contingency,
please say aye- ( Aye: Baker, Leltman, Thornberry, Vanderhoef). All opposed,
same sign- (ayes- Kubby, Norton, Nov). It is close.
Karr/I have 4 to 3.
Nov/4-3 against?
Karr/4-3 passing. I have Lehman, Thornberry, Vanderhoef and Baker voting in the
affirmative. Is that correct?
Nov/Voice vote and that is why I wasn't sm:e I was hearing it right. Okay, we approved
the amendment and we are back to the original resolution which is to adopt the
Consolidated Plan. Any discussion?
Karr/As mrsended.
Nov/As amended, yes.
Karr/We already have a motion on the floor.
Nov/Yeah, we have a motion and I am asking if there is any discussion of other
allocations? We have had public comments on just one allocation. I am just
asking if council has any other discussion of any other allocations.
Thornberry/I do but I voiced them the other night. Made mention of them tonight, it is
almost 11:00 PM. I am not going to go into them again.
Nov/That is it. Roll call- (yeses; no: Thornberry). Okay, we passed the amended
resolution on a 6-1 vote. Was that counting right?
Thomberry/That is correct.
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ITEM NO. 9 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION ADOPTiNG THE HOME INVESTMENT
PARTNERSHIPS PROGRAM ALLOCATION FOR HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
WITHiN THE FY98 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN, THAT IS PART OF THE
CONSOLIDATED PLAN (CITY STEPS).
Nov/The same comment from the pervious resolution applies to this one. Moved by
Thomberry, seconded by Leluuan that we adopt this resolution. Any discussion?
Kubby/I had a question for staff. At one point we ask Habitat, you are willing to meet all
the guidelines of separation of church and state as HUD has delineated them and
they had said yes, they would abide by that and so I guess I want to clarify the
issue of prayer of site. That HUD had determined that they were eligible for
money but has determined that prayer on site is fair game?
Maurice Head/I have no information to support if a detenuination has been made on that
particular item. But they did, of course, a legal opinion which says that they have
no conflict with separation of church and state.
Woito/I have an opinion.
Kubby/And what is your opinion.
Woito/This is a first amendment question and I talked to Bill Buss about it today and he
asked me if anyone had asked me about whether there was a conflict in tenus of
First Amendment, too much entanglement. You lmow, the three part test set out in
that legal opinion. And as far as I am concerned, there is no problem and our
trying to interpose a binTier to what they want to do now might create bigger
problem than what you are trying to prevent.
Norton/Well, there are two parts to that. I mean I traderstand the three part test where
they said it is a, you know, it may be a religious motivation but it is a secular
purpose, no doubt. And there is no test of faith for a participant in it, to work on
the housing or to receive housing. I take nobody is disagreeing with the ruling of
the Associate General Counsel to HUD that we have all read. And I talked with
Buss about it, too. The question is some of us are expressing opinion with a
moment of silence to start a project would be just as good as explicit prayer. That
would be my preference but I am going to support this because I tlfink the purpose
is virtuous.
Woito/I think you can ask that. I don't think under the First Pduendment you can impose
it.
Norton/No, you can express your opinion. That is all I am doing.
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Nov/You can express an opinion and it has been my opinion that if this were truly
voluntary, the prayer would be silent or if it were truly voluntary, they would say
we are going to pray at 8:00 and we are going to work at ten minutes after and
anyone who chooses to pray can come at 8:00 and anyone who chooses to come
later, hasn't been participating in a prayer. I still have strong reservations about
endorsing Christian prayer on city property and I intend to vote no.
Kubby/I guess my position at this point is I am going to support funding for the Habitat
Project with the realization that they need to follow all the HUD guidelines and if
the HUD guidelines end up being that that is not acceptable to Habitat, they will
return the funds.
Norton/I am going to support it because prayer happens on public property all of the
time, like everywhere, you know. I just expressed a preference. I am certainly not
going to stop a vote.
Nov/Okay, roll call- (yeses; Nov: no). We have approved this on a 6-1 vote.
Kubby/Thank you, committee, for your hard work even though we didn't follow all of
your high recommendations.
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ITEM NO. 10.
City of Iowa City Page 12
PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF
COST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FIRST AVENUE
IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT, BRADFORD DRIVE TO MUSCATINE
AVENUE, ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY
EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH NOTICE TO BIDDERS,
AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Comment: The First Avenue Improvements Project consists of widening
First Avenue to three-lanes from Bradford Drive to Muscatine Avenue.
Right turn lanes will be added to the Muscatine Avenue, First Avenue
intersection. An 8-foot-wide sidewalk will be constructed along the east
side and the overhead electrical will be moved to the west side. Storm
sewer and drainage improvements will be made from First Avenue west
approximately one half mile to Ralston Creek, generally along the railroad
tracks. The total estimated construction cost is $1,139,000, and will be
funded by General Obligation Bonds and Road Use Taxes. Memorandum
from Senior Engineer to First Avenue Residents included in Council
packet.
PUBLIC HEARING
)~ction:
ITEM NO. 11.
b. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING
PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE OF
COST FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE 1997 CURB RAMPS PROJECT,
ESTABLISHING AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY EACH
BID, DIRECTING CITY CLERK TO PUBLISH ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS,
AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Comment: This project consists of the construction and reconstruction of
sidewalk curb ramps to Americans with Disabilities Act (A.D.A.)
standards along routes prioritized by JCCOG and citizen requests. The
estimated construction cost is approximately $100,000. This project will
be funded by road use taxes and general bond proceeds.
PUBLIC HEARING
Action: "?~_.~
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING
#10 page 1
ITEM NO. 10 PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, FORM OF CONTRACT, AND ESTIMATE
OF COST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FIRST AVENUE IMPROVEMENTS
PROJECT, BRADFORD DRIVE TO MUSCATINE AVENUE, ESTABLISHING
AMOUNT OF BID SECURITY TO ACCOMPANY EACH BID, DIRECTING CITY
CLERI( TO PUBLISH NOTICE TO BIDDERS, AND FIXING TIME AND PLACE
FOR RECEIPT OF BIDS.
Nov/P.h. is open. Is there anyone who would like to talk about this topic?
Am~a Buss/Well, guess what folks, I moved to First Avenue.
Norton/Just in time.
Buss/Lucky me, huh? Well I am at 1213 First Avenue in Iowa City now for a short time
it looks like.
Kubby/And your name is?
Buss/Anna Buss. A2~yway, when do you tear up Benton Street because when I move
back over there, I would like to lmow ahead of time. If you have any other streets
that you are going to tear tip, I would like to k_now. It seems to be where I go. One
of the things and I have been talking to your Engineer and he was most helpful
this evening in putting a light on some of the things that have happened. I lmow
they are going to be tearing up not only in front of our house but they are going to
go right down the alley. So they are going to get us from both sides. One of the
things that I would like to request- Okay, for us it is not really a problem because
we have enough places that obviously we can move vehicles and get them moved
around. But I do have some neighbors that do not have any access in the back and
so we are hoping that, and your engineer, we have talked about it. I would like to
just put another bug in your ear toward this. Is that when they get the sewer
project done, if they could please leave us enough that they could hard surface or
put rock down so that the whole driveway in the back of the alleyway is usable by
all of us and they can lower it enough that right now if we go back it is out over
the one side to the south. We have to down over a slight curb and there is a pretty
good hump in the dirt there because it is grass now. So if they could just smooth
that out which I am sure that they probably will. But when this comes to your
attention, if you would please consider that and making it wide enough that we
will be actually able to park our cars on one side of the driveway, the alleyway
and to be able to get through on the other side. That would be really appreciated
from all of the neighbors because there are four houses there, two of which really
once First Avenue is tom up, a couple of the houses really don't have a place to
park. We have enough room in the backyard that we will be able to pull tip off of
our alley. But some of the ones, they really don't have the space. So if you can do
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that. Also is the other thing is if you can just make that First Avenue project zing
right along, that would be appreciated from all of us because we certainly don't
want to see you running behind on it.
Norton/It is on an incentive plan.
Buss/That is good. I am really glad about that.
Kubby/There is an incentive plan and a punitive plan at the same time. So there is double
incentive to stay on schedule.
Buss/I had missed the first meeting because I don't think I had bought my house over
there just yet. So I kind of missed all of that fun stuff, you know. Otherwise you
had seen me there. I am sure you know that. But the thing is, like I said, on that
alley, if you can just- If that is something you can do for us, I am sure everybody,
all four houses, would really appreciate it and he did say that you were going to
consider it. So, thank you and like I said, make sure that incentive plan stays in
place. Thank you, you guys.
Kubby/I encourage the neighbors to get together. When the other part of First Avenue
done, the neighbors got together every Friday night in the middle of the street and
it was really good support and a lot of fun.
Nov/Okay, is there anyone else who wants to talk about the First Avenue project? P.h. is
closed.
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ITEM NO. 12.
City of Iowa City Page t3
CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 2 OF THE CITY CODE,
THE HUMAN RIGHTS ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF IOWA CITY, IOWA,
TO MAKE IT SUBSTANTIALLY EQUIVALENT TO THE FEDERAL FAIR
HOUSING AMENDMENTS ACT OF 1989, {SECOND CONSIDERATION)
ITEM NO. 13.
Comment: The Iowa City Human Rights Commission has recommended
enactment of amendments to the Iowa City Human Rights Ordinance that
will make the ordinance substantially equivalent to the federal Fair
Housing Amendments Act of 1989. A certificate of substantial
equivalency from the Department of Housing and Urban Development will
allow the Iowa City Human Rights Commission to investigate complaints
of housing discrimination in Iowa City and will provide federal funds to
the Commission to facilitate such investigation.
Action:
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE
SOLICITATION OF OFFERS TO PURCHASE OR LEASE DEVELOPMENT
RIGHTS AS PART OF A PUBLIC/PRIVATE/DEVELOPMENT PROJECT FOR
Comment: This resolution authorizes and directs the City Manager to
solicit offers to purchase or lease development rights for Parcel 64-1 a for
either deluxe apartments and/or condominium units or a hotel
development~ Staff memorandum included in Council packet,
Action:
ITEM NO. 14.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION OF
PERMANENT SANITARY SEWER EASEMENTS AND TEMPORARY
CONSTRUCTION EASEMENTS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE SHERIDAN
AVENUE SANITARY SEWER PROJECT.
Comment: The City of Iowa City must acquire permanent easements and
temporary construction easements to construct the Sheridan Avenue
Sanitary Sewer Project. This resolution authorizes City staff to negotiate
and the Mayor to sign these documents, including authorization of
condemnation if necessary. Every effort will be made to negotiate
acceptable agreements without resorting to condemnation, Prior to
proceeding with condemnation, staff will notify Council.
Action: /./~'~--~~ / 7,~~~../)
#13 page 1
ITEM NO. 13 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE
SOLICITATION OF OFFERS TO PURCHASE OR LEASE DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS
AS PART OF A PUBLIC/PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT FOR URBAN
RENEWAL PARCEL 64-1A.
Nov/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Vanderhoef. Discussion.
Vanderhoef/Did we make the changes in the- Excuse me, wrong one. It is getting late.
Nov/It is getting late, okay.
Kubby/Well, I think we should talk about this a little bit because-
Norton/To say a little bit what the deadlines are and so fourth, yeah.
Kubby/Really important proposal that we are putting out for people to respond to. And
maybe Karin could just really briefly outline what it is that this request for
proposal is.
Franldin/This proposal is to try to entice a private developer into participating in a
project on a parcel next to the Holiday Inn to construct the private component of
that project which would start froin the third floor and go up to the 6th or 8th floor
depending upon the choice of the developer. The two kinds of projects that we are
looking for is indicated in the cormuent is either hotel or higher end
condominiums in an effort to get a different mix of population in the downtown.
We will be providing some incentives for that development in the forin of either a
write down on the air rights or lease and/or a write down on the construction costs
for the foundation.
Kubby/Thank you. That was very concise.
Vanderhoef/Thank you. That was what I was going to ask.
Nov/Would you give us the date of the submission.
Franldin/We will be asking the proposers to send their proposals back to us by August 15
so that we can move through the process of selecting a preferred developer in the
month of September, by early October for sure. And this project, of course, would
be contingent upon passing the bond referendum for the library community
cultural center.
Thomberry/Karin, let me ask this. If the library expansion and public facilities does not
pass but you get a developer that is willing to build on that property, would that-
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Lehman/It is contingent on passing.
Franklin/Well, we would have to- If that were to occur, we would need to go back out
with a different kind of proposal because we would be talking about a different
project in order to fairly give people opportunity to build on it which would not
preclude that particular developer from revising the project and making another
submittal.
Kubby/Right because it is a significantly different project.
Franklin/Very different.
Thornberry/It would be different but at least we would identify a prospect for that
property.
Franklin/Yes.
Woito/But you would have to start over.
Thornberry/We would have to start over, I understand.
Vanderhoef/New RFP.
Nov/Okay, any other discussion? Roll call- (yes). We have approved this resolution.
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ITEM NO. 14 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE ACQUISITION
OF PERMANENT SANITARY SEWER EASEMENTS AND TEMPORARY
CONSTRUCTION EASEMENTS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE SHERIDAN
AVENUE SANITARY SEWER PROJECT.
Nov/Moved by Vanderhoef, seconded by Thomberry. Discussion.
Norton/Are we always working in the Oakland/Rundell area? Seems like we have been
forever, right. Are we ever going to get it right?
Atkins/Sooner or later it will all be new.
Kubby/100 plus year old pipes down there.
Nov/Until it is all replaced, I guess we are still working there.
Norton/We have them put in the trolley while we are down there.
Nov/Roll call- (yes). Okay, we have approved this resolution.
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May 6, 1997 City of Iowa City Page 14
ITEM NO. 15.
ITEM NO. 16.
~?
ITEM NO. 17.
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING
MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CONTRACT FOR
CONSTRUCTION OF THE CORALVILLE-IOWA CITY ANIMAL SHELTER
RENOVATION OF WEST WING PROJECT.
Comment: The bid opening for this project was held April 29, 1997. The
following bids were received:
Garling Construction, Inc., Cedar Rapids, IA
29,450
42,000
Public Work¢ and Engineering recommend award of the contract to Garling
Congtruction, Inc. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Funding for this project will be
General Obligation bonds.
Action= ,~~~~-~
CONSIDER A RESOLUTION CERTIFYING UNPAID WATER,
WASTEWATER, SOLID WASTE AND RECYCLING CHARGES TO THE
COUNTY FOR COLLECTION IN THE SAME MANNER AS A PROPERTY
TAX.
Comment: This resolution authorizes the filing of a lien against properties
for delinquent water, wastewater, solid waste and/or recycling services.
A memorandum dated April 24, 1997, was sent to Council explaining the
utility collection system procedures. On April 7, 1997, letters were
mailed to each property owner and tenant, if applicable, listed in Exhibit
A, notifying them of the date of Council's consideration of the resolution.
After the resolution is moved for adoption, property owners should be
permitted to be heard concerning the unpaid charges. Staff memorandum
included in Council packet.
Action:
ANNOUNCEMENT OF VACANCIES.
Current Vacancies..J~.,, ~
(1) Design Review Committee - One vacancy to fill an unexpired term
for a licensed architect ending July 1, 1998. (Martin Haynes
resigned.) (3 males and 2 females currently serve on this
Committee.) Correspondence included in Council packet.
This appointment will be made at the June 17 meeting of the City
Council.
#15 page 1
ITEM NO. 15 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND
AUTHORIZING MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERI( TO ATTEST A CONTRACT
FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE CORALVILLE-IOWA CITY ANIMAL SHELTER
RENOVATION OF WEST WING PROJECT.
Nov/(Reads agenda item).
CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 97-78 SIDE 2
Nov/Moved by Kubby, seconded by Lehman. Discussion.
Thornberry/Since this is the Iowa City Coralville gafimal Shelter. Is Coralville
participating in this at all?
Atkins/We have a 28E agreement with them where we share cost. I am not sure exactly
how it is distributed but they do pay their share.
Thornberry/They will be participating?
Atkins/Yes.
Thornberry/And we can approve this without telling Coralville that they are going to be
having money expended.
Atkins/It is our shelter. They have an agreement and they are fully aware of this.
Thornberry/Okay.
Nov/I am sure they have been told. They also have a representative on the Board.
Baker/I just third< it would be fulmy if they weren't. Funny-
Council/(All talking).
Kubby/I am always hesitant to approve sometiring with one bid but because it was
siglfificantly lower than the engineer's estimate, I feel very comfortable with it
and I am ready to move forward.
Nov/I am sure the alfimal shelter really needs it. Okay, roll call- (yes). We have approved
this resolution.
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ITEM NO. 16 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION CERTIFYING UNPAID WATER,
WASTEWATER, SOLID WASTE AND RECYCLING CHARGES TO THE COUNTY
FOR COLLECTION IN THE SAME MANNER AS A PROPERTY TAX.
Nov/Moved by Norton, seconded by Vanderhoef. Now, is there anyone here who would
like to speak on this issue? Please come forward, sign your name.
Karr/Madam Mayor, I would just like to note for the record you did receive corrected
Exhibit A before you this evening, noting some changes. A revised Exhibit A
before you listing some changes to what was distributed earlier as far as
payments.
Nov/What was in our packet was not quite up to date.
Karr/It was distributed. That one. Yes, and that is what we are discussing this evening
and voting on.
Norton/I just had a question. So many of these seem to be about a monthly amount. I was
kind of surprised. I would have thought that when you went out for delinquent,
they would have been like more than one month. Many of thein are just a month.
Is that the usual?
Atkins/Dianna is in the audience. She could probably answer that for you.
Diam~a Furman/I am the Customer Service Manager in the Treasm-y Division.
Norton/I was just noticing that they were mostly it seemed like arotmd a month, many of
them and I just wondered. I would have expected the delinquent ones to be more
than just a month.
Furman/A lot of them are likely just the final bill on an account that was closed and out
collection system, we actually turn off water when it is an active account for the
customer. But once they close the account our collection is limited to letters being
sent and then this lien process on an annual basis.
Norton/Is this about the usual number?
Furlnan/Actually I think we had a little more this year as far as the number of accounts.
Atldns/We have about 18,000 water-
Furman/We have 18,500 accounts with the utility system. So this, comparatively, this is
really a small amount with the turnover that we have on an am~ual basis.
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Thornberry/I have heard from some property owners and apartment owners and myself
being one of them and being in this position, it seems like it takes an awful long
time for the people- I mean, you give them so many notices that they are
delinquent in their water bills and by the time you get around to turning off the
water, they are long gone and it is up to the property owner to pay the water bills.
Furman/Currently we do a billing on a monthly basis and before we turn off water, you
are looking at approximately 45 to 50 days before we turn off water of a
previously billed consumption. If an individual has left the property, that account
should be closed and when that occurs, there is not turnoff for services because
the account is no longer in the individual's name who accrued the usage. We
cannot turn off water tinder the new name that is on the account.
Thornberry/I understand. What I am saying is some of the people who rent know they
are going to be leaving. So their last month check bounces and so we use the
money that is held in escrow to pay the rent but they don't pay their water bill and
they are gone and then it is up to the landlord to foot the bill for the water.
Woito/Dean, we are going to deal with some of that problem with our new arrangement
that we tallted about with the back billing. We are going to give better notice to
the landlord in terms of an overdue bill and let the landlord lmow there is a big
overdue bill so they can jump in and try and get that money froin the tenant or
increase their deposit fee.
Furman/Actually we started this in the month of April of this year that when we process
a final bill and it is a residential rental property, a copy or a letter I should say is
sent to the owner explaining what the balance is after a deposit has been applied
and that letter is sent out at the same time the bill is sent to the tenant. So you
have just as much notice as the tenant does of any outstanding account. Okay,
does that help you?
Thornberry/It helps with notification.
Woito/And it was in response to several comments we got fi'om the landlords that they
wanted earlier notice.
Thornberry/Thank you.
Nov/So if they have earlier notice, they still have a deposit in hand and they can use that
to pay the water bill?
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Furman/The owners? If they have a security deposit, that is, in my mind, it is up to the
owner whether they are going to use that security deposit to pay the utility bill for
the tenant.
Thornberry/Don't the people who have water and they are here short-term, they are
renting and going to school or whatever, don't they have a deposit for their water?
Furman/The city requires an $80 deposit for an tenant unless they have had current
service in their name and that service is for at least a 15 month period and they
had no delinquencies on that account.
Thornberry/Couldn't the property owner say that everybody living in this building needs
to have a deposit with the Water Department?
Furman/The owner would not be able to direct the city to automatically charge a deposit.
It is set up in our Code that we will charge one unless they have met the deposit
requirement.
Woito/That is really a private property matter to be negotiated between the landlord and
the tenant.
Furman/As a general rule, the tenants pay a deposit.
Thornberry/Thank you.
Furman/You are welcome.
Nov/There is someone else who wants to talk about this.
Irde Steve/I had a tenant over a year ago that was a nightmare and when I was made
aware of the fact that their water bill was delinquent, I called and I requested that
the water be turned off because I knew I was responsible for it and they told me
that a homeowner's water can be turned off in, I think, it is like a 3 to 5 day
notice. A tenant is given 30 days notice and I don't understand that. IfI am
responsible for paying the bill, I think that when I become aware of the fact that it
is past due, that they should be turned off just like I would be.
Thornberry/Good point. Could that be done?
Nov/Do we have anything like that, Linda?
Steve/And also this tenant that I had was on Section 8, When someone is on Section 8,
the tenant gives the landlord a portion of the deposit. You know, like a portion of
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the month's rent. But when they are on Section 8, those people retain that other
portion of the deposit and so for me to get the money to pay the water bill, I have
to go before the court to receive a judgment in order to get that portion of the
deposit and I don't want to give up a vacation day which is going to cost me
money to go down there which is going to cost me more frustration when these
people already cost me, in only about a six month period of time, about $2,000
and that includes destruction.
Woito/
There are numerous laws that protect you as a landlord in Iowa in terms of
eviction notice and it is not the city's role to step in and act as a landlord if there is
poor tenant behavior and we have been asked on several occasions to step in and
act as the landlord by forcing the person to leave because we cut off the water.
That is absolutely illegal. If the landlord needs to evict, then they have to follow
the procedure for eviction. They are very well spelled out and they are handled all
of the time in Small Claims Court. But it is not the city's role to step in and evict
a tenant.
Kubby/How did it work that if I am a landlord, I have got a tenant in that I lmow has left.
But the water bill is still in her name and I want to turn that water off as a property
owner. How do I go about doing that? What is the time frame? Is that your
situation?
Furman/I think we are ¢pexlcing with two different ¢ituationg here. Exen~e me, did you
say your tenant had left? To start with, in answer to yore' question, the collection
procedure whether you are an owner or a tenant are the same and so I am not quite
sum what th~ communication problem was in ~xplaining what our processes w~rc
for collection. The tenant is not given m~y more time to pay a billing than an
owner is given to pay their bill. In answer to your question, if a tenant has actually
left a property, you as owner contacting us, advising us that they left, we can close
the account automatically. We generally don't turn off the water but as an owner,
if you specifically ask us to do so, we will do so. The problem that you can have
is financial, that if the water is turned on for a new tenant within 30 days or less,
you have a fee because we are back and forth to the property.
Kubby/Okay. So I am a landlord, the bill is in my tenants name, my tenant is still there
but not paying, as that property owner, because the bill is not in my name, I
cannot turn the water off?
Funr~m~/We will provide that tenant with the same due process you would have as owner
of your own property and turn hi off in a timely basis by our collection.
Kubby/Right. Because of lack of payment, not because I called.
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Furman/That is correct.
Nov/So you are saying lack of payment would require 30 days before you would turn it
off?. It would have to be 30 days back billing?
Furman/The period of time to turn off because the bill is not paid, you are getting into
45-50 days.
Woito/It would be faster to evict the person.
Nov/Owner or tenant, either or?
Furman/Regardless of the type, commercial or industrial, owner or tenant, the accounts
are basically treated the same.
Thomberry/But getting someone evicted for non-payment of a water bill is near
impossible. If they have paid their rent and they haven't paid their water bill, they
are not- the court will not substantiate the eviction.
Kubby/And that is state tenant landlord law.
Thomberry/And the landlord gets into a little bit of problem when the landlord tums the
water off for non-payment of a water bill.
Woito/Especially in the winter.
Thomberry/Especially anytime.
Woito/It would be a health hazard in the winter.
Thornberry/But this is definitely a problem.
Woito/And this is not a problem the city is set up to solve. I think the landlords need to
require higher deposits to deal with it.
Nov/Higher deposits or higher rent.
Comacil/(All talking).
Woito/It is a private property matter, not a city.
Steve/I can't make that decision to rent to somebody on Section 8 ifI am not going to get
that full deposit because I am not covered. So there are a lot of landlords out there
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that will not rent to people on Section 8 and so this is just creating another
problem.
Woito/Section 8 is a whole different matter.
Norton/That shouldn't be. Something like that shouldn't be. We need to clear that up
with our Housing people.
Woito/We need to talk to somebody in Public Housing Authority about that.
Kubby/Get a hold of this person and clarify how the private system is set tip.
Council/(All talking).
Atkins/Excuse me, I will follow rip on that.
Kubby/So we will get back to you on how it is suppose to work to make sure it is real
clear with you about what the obligation of every party is.
Woito/~d you eau come down ~d talk to my assistm~t about it. There has been some
misco~mnmaication somewhere.
Thomben~/There are even a few more problems th~ just water with some of this
Section 8.
Kubby/With some of many kinds of tenets, not just Section 8.
Thomberu/That is correct but some of the Section 8 renters who the city or whomever
helps pay out the rest of the rent, is not responsible for ~y damage ~d it is not
just Section 8 rentals.
Lel~an/A large majority (can't hear).
Thornbe~/Goodness yes and a lot more of them.
Kubby/There is ~other person waiting to speak about overdue bills.
Gary Werle/I am here to talk about a bill, not a big bill. It is $44.00 bill. I m not privy to
yore' Exhibit A, so I don't lmow how many others are in the $44.00 range. My
question is this bill has to do with a letter that was sent to me back on Febm~y 8,
1996 in response to an overdue bill of November of '95. ~d it appears the usage
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was from November 1 to December 6. The bill was sent out, subsequent bill was
sent because it had not been paid which took it into December and the December
bill was issued, it took it into January of '96 and at that time I was doing some
eviction processing on this individual and before I lmew it, on February 9 when I
was issued the letter I had already evicting the tenant on January 12. However,
their bill from November, December and January had been subsequently dropped-
reduced from the $75.00 deposit that had been issued by the tenant. My question
was as a landlord I was not able to turn off the water and during the 30 days of
processing to get the Small Claims hearing and the eviction handled, I was denied
access to my own property. However, this tenant evidently understood the city's
rules and regulations more than I did according to Dianna here. He was able to
close the account on January 7 but still live there under my name, having water
turned over into my name and I was unable to turn it off. So it is kind of- in
listening that the city doesn't want to get involved yet we don't have a chance to
protect ourselves but because the way the system is set up, these people if they are
smart enough, they can wait until the last 30 days, 60 days, whatever it is, ride the
galrmt of the ways and regulations and we can't control it. I don't have a lot of
properties. I am starting to look at selling what I have because, you lmow, $44.00
is not a lot, it is just the principle of the matter. We have to know sooner than 45
days or 60 days after the fact. And we have to be able to do something and you
lmow, like I say, we are talking about, you lmow, the city ran housing, those
people seem to be the worse tenants in numbers and percentages. They lmow the
system, they have been through it. So I think what we have to do is take a look at
how the landlords can be protected. You lmow, presently, as of April, we are
being sent these delinquency deposit charge notices which is ideal for us. We
understand it when somebody is delinquent and it is within a couple of weeks, not
a couple of months or three months or whatever the situation is. Like you said, it
is a monetary, yeah, it is. $44.00 is a small percentage of the $3,800 in costs that I
incurred from this tenant. So, again, $44.00 is not really the principle of the
matter, it is not the monetary fact.
Kubby/Is it feasible for you in your situation with the property that you own to have the
bills in your name, so you have control over them being paid and to make sure
your rent accommodates the cost of the bill and that way you do have control.
Werle/I do have control to an extent. I can't shut the utilities off to a tenant and you
lmow that.
Kubby/In tenths of the bills being paid, I guess I meant.
Werle/Yes and no. What few I have I think it would be more of a problem to me to have
to monitor, you lmow, the actions of so called adults and in my case, where I have
ten properties, it would take reasonable amount of time, my time, to monitor that.
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Kubby/You mean to pay the ten bills.
Werle/To pay the ten bills and monitor that.
Kubby/We have sure pay, you get $1.00 off every month.
Werle/Really?
Kubby/You can do an automatic deduct from your checking account.
Werle/How about if I sell the properties and then I don't have to worry about it.
Thornberry/When the tenant has been served with notice and you are waiting for a date, a
court date, which could be 30 days and they lcnow they are going to be evicted for
lack of payment, you are lucky that you didn't have the situation that I had which
they turn on the tub water and sink water and let it run 24 hours a day for the
whole time that you are waiting for the court date and you can't go in. They kmow
they are going to be evicted.
Werle/You can't shut it off.
Thomberry/You can't shut it off. And it happened.
Norton/Can't this be referred to staff to look at this? It sounds like there are some issues
here that ought to be clarified. We are not going to be here until 11:30. Somebody
can surely figure out something to deal with that sort of thing.
Woito/We need to talk.
Council/(All talking).
Woito/You had options to go in.
Furman/I just wanted to clarify that our procedures on a residential rental account,
whenever we sent a collection letter out, a copy goes to the owner for every bill
that is delinquent. I am unsure of what actually took place in Mr. Werle's
situation. But the February 9 letter that he was referring to referenced only a
January bill. It did not go back to the November period. But there are other letter~
that should have been sent out and our records will probably indicate there were.
Whether not he received those is another matter. But we do routinely send out a
copy of all collection letters of residential rental property to the owner or
manager. So they are aware that the bill is delinquent, that that bill is delinquent.
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Thornberry/Yep, that is appreciated.
Anna Buss/And I thank you for all of those letters. I am also a property manager in Iowa
City and unlike Gary, I have quite a few of these properties that I manage and I
am going to tell you what a pain it is for us to have to collect from tenants. On the
Section 8 and the low income housing subsidized program people, here is what
happens. We can't collect the full deposit up until this last year. Something that
we argued for for very long time. If we have a tenant who is on subsidized
housing, we have to take them and the city or the program to Small Claims Court
which takes a lot of time and if you don't believe that they are going to turn the
water on and it is not just the subsidized housing people, it is when we are in a
Small Claims action, they will turn the water on and it will run when they know
that it has been shut off and it has to be turned back on by us because we have an
automatic- It goes back into our name and when that happens, we are paying for
it. I also question the city. This other person has created a water bill. It is their bill
to pay, the city has collected a deposit for that bill, just like they do- I mean, I
have even had to pay a deposit myself because I didn't pay enough of my bills on
time because I forgot. So I have no objections. I paid my deposit. I wasn't happy
about it. So ifI skip out, they are going to come after me for the balance of mine.
But I did not create the bill, the water bill, for some of these tenants. They did it
themselves and I don't think that the property managers or the owners should
have to come after those people for their unpaid bills. We have enough other stuff
to do. We cannot shut off their utilities. We did not create the bill, we should not
have to pay the bill. You guys can go against them just like we can. It is just as
much a pain for us as it is for you. Whenever we take over a property, we notify
the Water Department, the Police Department and numerous other agencies that
we deal with, who the contact person is now for that property and we send a
whole list and we update it regularly. They are very good about sending us when a
tenant is behind in their bill. On that I compliment them for. Someone from our
office at that point calls the tenant and says your water bill is late, you are going
to be discom~ected, you need to get down there and do something about it. A
tenant can't live in a place without services. But I can assure you for us to go to
Small Claims Court and evict them when they have paid their rent and they
haven't paid their water bill, ain't going to happen. It is just not going to happen
and the thing is is this is something that really needs to be addressed. I know for a
fact because I am the vice-president of the Iowa City Landlords Association, that
there are lots of things that we have come to the city for in terms of rental
inspection and this just adds to it. So if this bill gets billed back now to the
landlord because sometimes it happens that we don't get the bill until after we
return the deposit, I am sure that the city does not want- There are a lot of
landlords in this town and if it means that we all have to call the city to come
down, call them up on the water bills and say is this water bill paid before they
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move out or when they move out. Imagine having someone- Just go down the
yellow pages tonight when you get home and look at all the property management
companies. Imagine one person from that office, the middle of May and end of
May, first of June, middle of June, end of June, first of July, middle of July, end
of July, first of August and August 15 because that is when all of these leases end.
One person alone from each office calling the city Water Department saying did
so and so pay their water bill. They are not going to get anything done. And if we
have to call down to make sure the bill is paid before we return the deposit, that is
what we are all going to have to do. You guys don't have enough phone lines.
And I don't, like I said again, I don't think that we should be responsible for
someone else's bill. The other thing is, when we do get stuck for a water bill and
of course we all know that the water and sewer prices have all gone up again,
where do you think that bill gets eventually landed. The owner is not going to
suck that in. If you want affordable housing, I have talked about this before. You
want affordable housing? Well, then I think you all better start looking at what the
costs are. When we had to do our rent increase the last two times, all our rent went
up. We figured out where our water bill went, how much it was. We figured out
how much per tenant that was and that was our increases was, for water and
sewer.
Lelzman/9urea, so did everybody else that rents apartments. You are in the same boat
with everybody else.
Buss/Right, but I am saying, Ernie, that if we should not have to cover someone else's
water bill.
Le12'nan/Listen, I rent units too. There are costs of doing business. I have got tenants who
always pay on time. If they don't pay on time and they leave, I want to check that
water bill. I would say that probably the vast majority of your tenants pay their
bills on time, the water bills. Is that correct?
Buss/Yeah.
Lel'n~aan/So the number who don't pay and you probably know who they are going to be.
I am just saying that you are talking about these months of June, July, August
where you have got to call the city. You are right, you may have to do that. That is
going to be a very small number and it gets to be a big enough problem, we are
going to have to raise our deposits to cover it. But that is the cost of doing
business. I don't think you can hold the city responsible. Your tenant is your- I
mean, you are responsible for that property and for that tenant. When you lease it
to them, you are telling the city if he doesn't pay his bill, I am going to pay it.
Literally you are saying that. If he doesn't pay the bill-
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Buss/No, Ernie, I am not saying that. What I am saying is that person created his own
bill, or hers, and they should pay it themselves.
Lehman/That is fine but I think it is up to you to collect it and not sit.
Buss/I think you are wrong on this issue.
Lehman/We respectively disagree.
Buss/I respect your right to disagree with me as I always do and we usually get along.
but the thing is, what I am saying is, you go home tonight and you look in the
yellow pages. This is something that I think that maybe your staff and maybe the
Landlord's Association, we already have a task force with the rental inspection.
Norton/It is in the hopper.
Buss/This is something that maybe should come up at that rental inspection task force.
Thornberry/I agree with you and with Ernie and you disagree-
Buss/Maybe that task force could look into this because that is something that we have
all been- And I am sure you are all aware of what the task force has been doing.
And there are a number of other things in the hopper that has come out of that task
force.
Thornberry/Part of this, like Ernie says, is doing business and I have got just a very few
units and only one or two that historically are very late in paying their water bill.
Buss/And you gleefully will pay their bill, right?
Thornberry/ga~td they eventually will pay their water bill but at the end of the terms of
their lease, they may forget. But it is part of the price of doing business but I agree
to this degree. If somebody incurs a bunch of parking tickets in Iowa City, the city
goes after them to try to get those parking tickets paid. Why can't they do that for
the water. They incur the paricing ticket. They incur the water expense but I am on
the city council and looking out for the city's best interest and again, I am also a
landlord and part of doing business is painting, do this, doing that and once in a
while having to pay a back water bill. I don't like it and I do everything I can do
to get that collected before they leave. But once they have not paid it, and you
don't get the bill that the city sends you until after the fact, they could have used
up a whole lot of water without you laxowing about it.
Buss/Correct. And that is the thing. They are-
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Thornberry/And it is their bill.
Buss/Why can't this be tenant sidestepped and just let the task force talk about this? It
will save everybody some time and it will save- I mean, good things can come for
this task force.
Norton/They have had some good suggestions.
Buss/From both sides. This is the one task force I actually agree with.
Norton/Thank you.
Thomberry/Can I write that down, Anna agrees.
Nov/Is there anyone else who wants to talk about this issue? Okay. We re going to vote.
Is there any other city council discussion on this unpaid charges? Roll call- (yes).
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.May 6, t997 City of Iowa City Page '15
b. Previously-Announced Vacancies.
(1)
Board of Library Trustees - Three vacancies to fill six-year terms
ending July 1, 2003. (Terms expire for Stephen Greenleaf, Philip
Hubbard, and Margaret Cox,) {3 males and 3 females currently
serve on this Board.)
(2)
Design Review Committee - One vacancy to fill a three-year term
ending July 1,2000. (Term expires for Randy Rohovit.) (3 males
and 2 females currently serve on this Committee.)
Note: Philip Reisetter's term also ends July 1, 1997, but will not
be filled. The number of members of the Design Review
Committee were to be decreased according to Resolution 96-264.
(3)
Historic Preservation Commission - Two vacancies to fill three-
year terms ending March 29, 2000; one representing the East
College Street District and one representing the College Green
District. (These are new positions on the Commission.) (3 males
and 3 females currently serve on this Commission.)
These appointments will be made at the May 20 meeting of the City
Council.
ITEM NO. 18. CITY COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS.
a. Consider"one appointment to the Animal Control Advisory Board: To
fill a three-year term ending May 4., 2000. (Term expires for Dennis
/~Cowles.) (1 male and 3 females currently serve on this Board.)
! .
~,~,(~F_~. Consider one appointment to the Civil Service Commission: To fill an
unexpired term ending April 1, 2000. (Susan Dulek resigned.)
(1 male and 1 female currently serve on this Commission.)
c. Consider one appointment to the Historic Preservation Commission:
To fill a three-year term ending March 29, 2000 (Term expired for
Douglas Russell). (3 males and 3 females currently serve on this
Commission.)
#17 page 1
ITEM NO. 17 ANNOUNCEMENT OF VACANCIES.
a. Design Review Committee - One vacancy to fill an unexpired term for a licensed
architect ending July 1, 1998. (Martin Haynes resigned.) (3 males and 2 females currently
serve on this Committee.) Correspondence included in Council packet.
This appointment will be made at the June 17 meeting of the City Com~cil.
Nov/Announcement of vacancies. First one is a vacancy on Design Review. We have a
proposed change of the announcement from David Schoon. It says one vacancy to
fill an unexpired term ending July 1, 1998 for either a licensed architect or a
business or property owner from the area subject to the Design Review Overlay
Zone Ordinance. How does council feel about amending this?
Lehman/Do it.
Norton/Do it.
Vanderhoef/Let's do it.
Schoon/I just want to be clear that this is the direction you want to handle all vacancies
just on the Design Review Colmnittee in the future.
Nov/Well, in the future I am not sure we want to do this because in the future there may
not be other architects and if this were the only architect, then you would
definitely want to advertise for another architect.
Vanderhoef/What I was thinking, Naomi, when David and I talked about this the say
before was the fact that when someone applies for Design Review, they may be
able to fill three different places perhaps, architect, designer, building trade
businessman and so forth. So when they apply, they would check what things -
what category they could fill and then as there are changes in the announcements,
we could advertise for the broadest pool possible lmowing that we would still
meet the ordinance's requirements of two architects, two people in building trades
and/or designer, two people in business and one person at large.
Schoon/So what Dee is proposing is over time, someone may have been appointed as an
architect but may at another time be business owner designee.
Vanderhoef/Which is the case we have right now.
Schoon/And it is just when there is a m~mber of vacancies on the committee, you will
have a number of permutations in terms of how you can appoint people and what
categories they fit in and the committee said flexibility is great. They are not
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going to have to deal with then dealing with these permutations in terms of who to
appoint for what positions. Just so you are aware that in the future-
Vanderhoef/I appreciate all you have done on such short notice, to call everyone and get
their approval of this amendment because I think it is a great offer to the
community to allow the broader pool of people to apply for commission work and
to se~we the city and it also allows greater flexibility with what the committee
make up looks like so that they don't accidentally get overloaded in any one
particular thing just because we have people wearing more than one hat.
Schoon/This is different than how you handle other boards and commissions.
Vanderhoef/Other board and commission do not have-
Schoon/In Historic Preservation, this would be a similar-
Vanderhoef/They would have it by their districts. So that someone would have to live in
a certain district.
Schoon/But they do have at large positions of people who may live in a district. So there
could be some of that.
Woito/I thought this was going to be a one time deal because of the current (can't hear)
of the committee.
Vanderhoef/It could be either.
Karr/It was proposed that way but then Dee noted yesterday in conversations with David,
Steve and I, the fact that this was an opportunity to get a bigger pool of candidates
for each vacancy and that brought up the question that what we had before was
what one classification for the one opening that we had and not the large pool and
this raised the issue. That was the intention.
Schoon/So I just wanted to know if it is just one instance or if that is how you want to
handled?
Vanderhoef/It probably won't once the committee has dealt- Part of the conf~usion right
now is the fact that the committee had been a nine person committee and by
attrition we are going down to seven. So that is where some of this is happening.
Norton/But you could just as well ask a person to designate what category they want to
be in whether than let them designate all possible categories they could be in. Let
them say how they want to come out. Do they come out as a business person or
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they come out- Because it seems to make a bit of dif£erent the angle from which
they apply.
Lehman/Dee, if you are a business person, architect, housewife-
Norton/Choose one.
Lehman/You are going to represent all th'ee of those no matter what you do.
Norton/No, choose one. You say I want to be the architect rep on there.
Lehman/But you functionally-
Norton/I don't care about that. I mean they designate it other wise we could begin to play
games here.
Kubby/I don't mind doing it for the scaling down of the committee to seven but I am not
comfortable-
Schoon/Well the co~mTtittee had already done that and they have selected what positions
they would fill and so we meet all of those categories right now.
Karr/And it is scaled down.
Schoon/And it would be scaled down.
Vanderhoef/This one drops- This is the final one.
Nov/This one makes number seven, right?
Schoon/No, this one does not drop is down to seven. You have an appointment on May
20 that drops it down.
Thornberry/I was in favor of scaling down this Design Review Committee to zero. So I
don't see the real- You know, since it is such a big problem, maybe we ought to
just sunset clause this Design Review Committee like it was originally intended.
Norton/There is such a tiring as majority ruling and then you get behind the majority,
Dean. You don't have to keep battling from the trenches all of the time.
Thornberry/I know. I lmow. I just have to keep my trench.
Norton/I noticed.
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Nov/Okay. For now, for today, can we just go with this one advertisement and if this
comes up again, we will talk about it again.
Thornberry/That is fine.
Norton/Okay.
Vanderhoef/Sounds good to me.
Karr/I am sorry, we are going to go with it as is? Or as proposed?
Nov/As proposed this time. We may not do it next time. So, as proposed, it is for either a
licensed architect or business or property owner from the area subject to the
Design Review Overlay Ordinance. The architect may be from anywhere, the
business owner, property owner must be from the area. Got it. Okay, this will be
an appointment made at the June 17 meeting of the city council.
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May 6, 1997 City of Iowa City Page 16
Consider a recommendation of the Johnson County Board of
Supervisors to appoint Tom Riley to the Riverfront and Natural Areas
Commission: To fill an unexpired term ending December 31, 1998.
(Nancy English resigned). (6 males and 4 females currently serve on
this Commission.) Correspondence included in Council packet.
ITEM NO. 19.
CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION.
ITEM NO. 20.
REPORT ON ITEMS FROM THE CITY MANAGER AND CITY ATTORNEY,
a. City Manager.
b. City Attorney.
ITEM NO. 21.
ADJOURNMENT.
#19 page 1
ITEM NO. 19 CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION
Nov/City Council Information. Larry Baker, would you like to start.
Baker/And I am cutting down on my list, trust me because it is midnight and the only
viewers we got are out at Oakdale, I think.
Nov/You never lmow who can't sleep.
Baker/Quickly, I asked Marian to make copies of this letter from Barbara Curtin,
addressed to me but it is really for the council requesting council consideration of
getting some summer transit passes for youth programs and I didn't think it would
be a problem.
Kubby/Let's just say yes?
Norton/Why don't we just say yes.
Lehman/Yes.
Baker/Steve will take care of that. Is it true that Doug Russell is really going off the
Historic Preservation?
Nov/Yes.
Norton/I talked to him at some length.
Baker/
It is late, Doug will not see this. He might see this on a re-run. But I want
everybody in Iowa City who lmows Doug Russell to thank him for a long
meritorious tireless work making Iowa City a better place to be. This is exactly
the kind of citizen volunteer that makes Iowa City as good a place to live as it is
and I congratulate Doug and the people like him. But I think he represents the
very best and I just want to thank him publicly for that service on the Historic
Preservation Commission.
Nov/We all agree.
Norton/You really ought to add Marty. Marty has done noble duty in a similar fashion
and Jane Jakobson from P/Z. We got to be careful because there are so many of
them in the same category. Doug is special I understand but others are also good.
Baker/That is in no way ever intended to be a slight on anybody else.
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Kubby/Doug has been a very long long standing.
Baker/Long long standing and many times in front of us and essential to the success of
that commission and I say he represents many people but I just like to call him
out. That is it.
Vanderhoeff Okay, I will be real quick. I would like to, as a council, to re-visit the CN-1
ordinance just to look at this issue of basements. CN-1. My intent-
Karr/That matter has already been referred back to Planning.
Vanderhoef/Has it, okay, great, that was one. Then one other thing. As we keep moving
down the line to talk about First Avenue and the realignment out there at Dubuque
Road and so fourth, we presently are calling our new road out there east-west
arterial and I would like to get that named whether we call it Hickory Hill Blvd. or
Parkway or something. But somehow or another, let's be creative and let's get this
moving. What is he going to do?
Baker/He wants Norton Lane.
Vanderhoef/How about Double D?
Thornberry/How about Triple D Speedway?
Vanderhoef/Okay, I am going to quit with that one. Thank you.
Thornberry/In our packet this last week, we received a memo that is especially
important. During the week of April 21 the City's Safe Workers and Safe Drivers
were recognized at the award presentation at their work sites. And these
individual awards are an outgrowth of our participation in the National Safety
Council's motivational program which limits the Safe Worker Distinction to
Public Works, Parks and Forestry and Equipment Maintenance. Safe Drivers are
those from Transit and Emergency Services, being the Fire Department. I mr~
going to read this because it is very very important. According to the National
Safety Council, a Safe Worker is one who has not incurred an OSHA recordable
lost time injury for a specified period of time and that is one that hasn't required
medical treatment or miss days of work due to an on job injury for at least a year.
88 workers, out of a possible 128 fall into titis description in Iowa City. Of those,
42 have a minimum of-
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Thornberry/Parks, 27 years. Steve Elliot, Refuse, 23 years and that is a department that
you can get hurt in real easy. Jim Wells, Waste Water, 23 years. Steve Reichardt
Equipment, 21 years. A safe driver is one that has not had a preventable accident
within a specific length of time through driving circumstances. They are in the
extremes. Both Transit and the Fire Department, both exemplary safe driving
records. Transit has 35 full-time and part-time drivers with 21 having at least five
years without a preventable accident. Tow mass transit operators qualified for the
national Safety Councils Million Mile Club by accumulating well over the
required 25,000 safe hours behind the wheel. Malcom Powers, 27 years and Paul
Close, 23 years. Fire Fighter have not yet had their safe driver awards presentation
but when they do, 26 individuals will be recognized for at least 5 years without an
incident. Five of those have 20 or more accident free years. Les Schaapfeld, 29
years. Don Fabian, 25 years. Frank Dolezal, 23 years. Harry Brooks, 20 years and
J.B. Smothers, 20 years. All of the city's safe workers and safe drivers deserve our
gratitude for developing a secure work environment for themselves, their co-
workers and for the public and the city's management is dedicated to an emphasis
on worker safety. And I think that these people ought to be given a round of
applause by the council. Thank you. That is all. Thank you people.
Lehman/I lmow it is late but there are a couple of things I would like to bring up. Last
Friday's Press Citizen has a letter to the editor regarding the police survey which
we received a copy of last night, night before last because today is tomorrow. In
any event, the city was chastised by Osha Davidson indicating the survey was
probably not real accurate and whether or not it was accurate, I really don't lmow
and I don't really care except the last part of the article said the city council which
approved the survey has once again bungled the job. The city council didn't vote
on this. We had nothing to do with this. I think this is just another example of how
some folks who write letters to the editor bungle their jobs.
Now, there is another matter that came up two weeks ago and this is very late and
I just throw it out but Steve's message to us two weeks ago last night or night
before last, I am sorry, indicated that we have some budget problems and, Karen,
you have obviously thought about them. I think we all have. Larry, I think I seen
something from you. And I would like to see us do something sooner rather than
later and at least have Steve start looking through our last budget, which I think
was a very solid sound fiscal budget perhaps for the next three years. But in view
of the out years, obviously we have some problems and you and I visited about
this, Steve. I think there are things that we have to do and there are some things
that we like to do and perhaps we should be looking at some of the like toos and
see if there are areas that we can start tighten the belt a little bit so that we don't
experience the difficulties that you have projected in the out years. And one of the
things that I have been approached on several different times and again, Steve, I
mentioned it to you, we authorized the staff to draw up a plan for this trail from
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Burlington Street down to Napoleon Park. It is $1.8 million project. I think
$750,000 in federal funds and I think Jeff said we had to match that with $150,00
or $200,000 local funds and I guess I would suggest that we look into the
possibility of perhaps not stopping that project but stretching it over a longer
period of time so that we don't incur- We could pick up almost $1 million in one
year if we phased that and I think some of these things we are going to have to
face some tough decisions. I lmow we are not going to make them at 12:10. But I
think there are things that we really should be thinking about. And I think the
public expects us to do that.
Thornberry/I think it is not only a priority but it is riscally responsible to look at the
budget that we just passed to see if there is any fat in there that we could-
Lehman/Well, I guess my biggest concern is that we asked Steve and your department
heads and whatever to look. I think it is very very difficult to say we should do a
10% or 5% or whatever because that is assuming that all of our departments are
funded to an appropriate level at this time or all over-funded by an appropriate
level and I am sure that we have departments that are under-funded, some that are
over-funded, and I really would like to see what Steve and you and your foilcs can
come up with before we start coming up with-
Atkins/Well, I have already started the preparation of a summary memo. You should
have it in a couple of days and we- And in the memo I will say to you I encourage
you to be thoughtful which I am sure you will be and also cautious an also patient.
I mean, it took a awhile to get to this and it will take a little while to get out and
we are just going to take our time to think the thing through. We will prepare
some various recommendations, some scenarios on increase revenue, increased
tax base, reduced expenses. I do think we ought to set aside some time, a couple
of hours, where we just kind of work on just that issue and I am going to be
saying that in the memo. And you will be getting that very shortly. I think it will
help kick off what you are suggesting. As far as stretching out a particular project,
we can go back and re-work those numbers.
Kubby/The thing about stretching out a bunch of projects that we know we want to
complete over time is that it really doesn't change the financial picture over the
long haul and it actually costs us more.
Atkins/It costs more.
Kubby/If we know we are going to complete it. We need to talk about those kinds of
things and actually I don't want it to be just management. I want the people doing
the work in each department to have an opportunity to say, this is where I see
where we can keep our quality of services and quantity of services and reduce
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costs. I think that is where we are going to find some innovative ways of thinking
about it and when I suggest a 10%, I was not in anyway talking about a 10%
across the board. I thinIt that is not a sane policy. I thought it was pretty clear in
my memo that it was a goal. So there should be some ground rules and that if we
end of with some kind of department by department committee meetings, that that
is going to take some time, too. It is not going to be a three month deal. It is a
whole new way of managing, too, in a certain way that can take some time to
develop an appropriate way to do it. What is that institute ?
Nov/It is the Woods Quality Institute.
Kubby/That might be helpful in structuring how we might approach this.
Nov/I
have to interject at this point. There will be a consideration of a government
network. We are doing this kind of thing through the Woods Quality Institute and
they are going to start considering this this Friday, they are going to be meeting
and I have encouraged department heads to go and listen to see if this isn't worth
considering through a government network. Cedar Rapids has done a little bit of it
already and we have done a little bit too though the TEAM Committee. It is
something that we have to consider.
Kubby/I thinit it should be a powerful thing that council is asking employees to really
come up with some concrete ideas. They learn more about how their department is
funded, not just the work that they do everyday. I thinit we could come up with
some exciting things. I do think it is our obligation to do that before we start
raising revenues in other ways or do to it in parallel.
Thornberry/Karen, you made a real good point and I also mentioned that 10% reduction
off of the top and I didn't mean to take the entire budget and take the first 10%. If
you can cut one project, a $10 project by $1. If you can do this, if the employees
that are doing the job that are in there doing in can see a better way of doing
something that might take less time or time is money. So if they can save time by
doing certain projects so they can do more projects, we are going to save money
in the long run and that is exactly right and I think you hit it right on the head.
Kubby/And the goal may not end up being a percentage in terms of the goal that we give
ourselves or the committees of employees. But maybe it ends up being a $450- a
dollar amount. For example, the amount to do the operation at Mercer, for
CenterSpace, for the library as a starting point. That might be another way to
approach it and add some onto the at for other projects.
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Thornberry/But I think Ernie is right, too. You got to look at projects that are nice to
haves but not have to haves. And start looking at those a little more critical. I
think that is- You pinpointed one of them, the trail.
Kubby/Is that all you had, Ernie? We got a memo from Steve about the Linn Street
paricing lot and the possibility of having that be all metered paricing or paid
paricing with an attendant and I guess I would like to have a discussion about that
before that is implemented. That I am not interested in having it tonight. But
before that 24, I would prefer to discuss it as a council instead of silence means
agreement strategy. How do people feel about that?
Nov/Sounds okay, we could put it on for discussion whenever you see a hole the agenda
where we won't meet until midnight.
Atkins/Well, we don't want to wait too long.
Kubby/I would like to suggest in sometime in May if possible with people's schedule, to
have an extra work session where a lot of these issues can be talked about. I think
we have at least three hours of things we could easily talk about to kind of relieve
the pressure from these other meetings.
Nov/I don't know when we are going to be able to get everybody together. If we are
willing to do this without a full council.
Baker/Let's not start trying to do that tonight.
Nov/I
am not going to set a date. I am just going to say we have to be willing to make
these decision without a full council because I think we have filled all of the
available weeks that everybody is here.
Kubby/Well, then people have to be- It has to be okay with midnight meetings with the
way we are each living our lives and how we interface collectively. That is the
tradeoff.
Norton/Or go with less than everybody. That is another possibility.
Kubby/Because I think we are not productive and we are not good decision makers when
we start doing things too late. Putting things like SEATS at the end of when it is
scheduled for 10:00 PM like last night. We can't really- It is really difficult to
have a thorough thoughtful discussion.
Nov/In some cases we had less than thorough thoughtful discussions even earlier than
10:00 PM.
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Kubby/It is just harder. The later we go, the harder it gets.
Thornberry/Some of these meetings that we could have a brainstorming about how we
can cut some of the budget or something like that, maybe five people could still
brainstorm and let the others lmow.
Norton/Somebody could leave a note.
Thornberry/Don't need a full council to do some of these things.
Norton/Somebody could leave their list.
Thornberry/We need to get started.
Nov/We do need to get started. One of the options we came up with last time is to meet
from 4:00 to 6:00 and then again from 7:00 until midnight and this was the kind
of thing that we did because we felt the issue was important. That was the only
way we could get everybody together. We can consider doing that kind of meeting
again, a long, long day but it is one way to know that everybody is in town.
Kubby/But it doesn't really relieve the issue that I talk about of talking about so many
issues in one night. We are fairly productive bright people but there comes a
point. It is just not wise.
Baker/(Can't hear).
Kubby/We got a letter from Margaret Silber with the Safe Kids Coalition. It was packed
full of concrete suggestions on how to make the community safer for kids and
how kids can individually be more safe and some of the things I think we are
already doing. Some things we have potential to do and other things we don't
have the ability to do because of state law or whatever and it would be interesting
to briefly go through here and kind of outline, not tonight. I am not saying we
doing it but somehow respond to some of the things that we are already working
on and ask them to pick two or three things as Safe Kids Coalition that you would
like us to work on in the next year or so and see what they come up with. So that
committee could give us some direction as to where they would like to see the
community focus their energy on safe kids issues. So I would like a letter like that
to go back out to the Coalition.
Nov/Okay, we will think about it. Anyone who has a preference will let us know and we
can send a-
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#19 page 8
Kubby/That is all I have.
Nov/Dee Norton.
Norton/I have just two. The first is related to the issue about budget. I also think we need
to do some of the things you have already-many of you have suggested about
looking-asking a department to see what they can do. But one other thing. There
was an unfortunate aspect of that budget hearing at least to some of the public to
whom I have spoken. To attribute financial difficulties to some of the things we
were planning, almost more specifically to the library project and things like that
rather than to the fact of the falling away of M & E. In other words it looked as
though the problem were being created or the risk to our bonds rating and other
things were a function of that particular project and I thought that was a terribly
unfortunate inference from that situation. I don't lmow just how to counter that
but not to say we don't project some difficulties. But I don't think they are related
to that specific- Or even to the increased operating costs that we foresee in
connection with those projects and other things. I don't think either of those are
large factors in that. I think the M & E thing is the biggest piece of it. Am I
correct?
Atkins/Substantially correct, yes.
Norton/So, I think that is-
Nov/Federal grants for police officers is going to expire.
Norton/But those are things beyond ottr control. They are not related to that project. I
don't know. That is just a comment on how we need to counter that. Steve and I
have talked a little bit about some way.
Kubby/Repetition would be very helpful.
Thornberry/Along with that, Dee, I would like to say that I have had several people say
that it is pretty late in the game for our City Manager to be giving this information
to us and now we are in the dire straits and we are going broke and all of this stuff
and that is absolutely not true. It is years down the road before we get to the point
where it is a little iffy and I would like to publicly comment our City Manager,
Steve Atkins, for giving us this information as timely as he had, as he did. It could
have been 3-4 years down the road and then looked at it and said hey guys, in a
couple of years we are going to be in trouble. He didn't. He gave it to us in plenty
of time for us to maintain our AAA rating and to get back on track and I would
like to publicly-
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F050697
#19 page 9
Norton/The presentation of that in connection with discussion of this project led to some
unfortunate connections in people's minds and I think we need to try and worry
about it individually and collectively about how to head that off.
I want to add to the other one now to go from, if you wish, the sublime to the
ridiculous. Just reverse direction, isn't it. I am worried about Kirkwood Gilbert. I
have to make that turn. How are we doing with the light down there? I am
hanging in the left turn lane unable to get anywhere. Is that coming along?
Atkins/Oh, yeah. We had to order a new controller.
Norton/We had the data and everything. I just-
Atkins/It is a go project.
Norton/Okay, just waiting. All right.
Kubby/For some reason that equipment is a real long wait time to get in.
Atkins/I don't think they inventory it very often.
Norton/I think I will still be in that line when it comes. And the other place I am going to
be is going up Benton Street with my car breaking down on Benton Street. I am
having to drive in the other lane. I hope it is on our schedule in a hurry. It is
terrible. How do you get home, Ernie?
Kubby/Larry is ready to go.
Nov/I
get a chance to say something and namely I have been getting very similar
comments to Dee Norton. How is this bond issue going to pass if we are
predicting that we are going to run out of money? Why is the city going broke and
I don't think it gets the message through. Yes, if we don't do anything, ten years
from now we could have spent all of our reserves. But honestly we are not going
to let that happen.
Atkins/It is not going to happen.
Nov/It is just not going to happen but it is difficult sometimes to convince people that if
Steve said it, it is not going to happen.
Kubby/Maybe that says that we need to do some political education about our budget
and about our process and where we are at. We need to take the initiative if we are
hearing that message from the community and it is a message based on an
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F050697
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interpretation versus fact. We need to do something about it. It is ore'
responsibility to do that as elected folks.
Vanderhoef/There is definitely something missing there because we didn't have a single
person come to the p.h. this year on our budget.
Norton/That is right. I don't think we did last year either.
Kubby/We had 13 the year before.
Nov/It is not an easy subject, right.
Vanderhoef/And it is a difficult one and I traderstand the problem oftwing to walk into a
p.h. and say something about what we have spent weeks going through.
Atkins/I think it is important, you lmow, ask anybody running a business. What will be
your financial position in the year 2010. Ask that question of someone. Now we
are trying to do our best to say here is what we think where we are going to be and
it is not an easy question to answer and unfortunately I think when the press used
the term broke, busted, whatever the terminology was in that particular editorial,
you cannot operate at a deficit in Iowa. It is not going to happen and I think the
biggest thing to remember is the purpose of making those projections was a
follow up on a request that you made. What is the impact of the library operating
expenses on our overall budget. They are insignificant. The debt is big. We all
know that. I mean those are big numbers. But this is a manageable issue.
Nov/All right, the other issue that I have been getting complaints about and I am not sure
is manageable is the downtown business people who say we really need more
police officers. People don't feel safe. Bicycles on the sidewalks, skateboards on
the sidewalks and they are not talking about just the occasional person who has a
weapon and is therefore making the public feel unsafe because they are waving a
lmife or something like that. They are talking like just the safety if somebody
walking on the sidewalk. And so I am saying we really don't have enough money
to hire an extra police officer to spend the entire time on the pedestrian area or
Clinton Street or wherever these bicycles are. But they are very strongly saying if
we don't do something about downtown, not only in terms of improving
appearance but also in terms of improving safety or the appearance of safety, we
are going to have a problem. It is not an invalid complaint. We should really be
worried about it somewhat.
Atkins/I don't think there is any doubt we are worried about it. One of the same people
that you all lmow that I lmow is a downtown business person was chewing me a
tad bit about a financial projection and we are going to have to do this and it
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F050697
#19 page 11
wasn't a heartbeat later, by the way, we need extra police officers downtown. You
got to hire this, you got to hire-
Kubby/Although I have challenged some of the Monday Forum folks who have been the
strongest on that issue on terms of 20 officers to look at the budget and get me
some suggestions, some specific places in the budget and they are going to do
that. I think that will be helpful to our overall discussion.
Nov/Well, I had somebody today hand me a specific place in the budget swing we
understand the budget it tight. I suggest we do not print and send 45,000 residents
this book and he said please recycle this fancy item and this is something that we
have heard before.
Atkins/We went through this two years ago. Dee was the spokes person for it. The P/R
Commission feels very strongly about the issuance of that document. And if you
don't want it done as a city council, I suggest you tell the P/R Commission, don't
do it. Because I think it is a docmuent that not only they are proud of but I think it
is something that truly recognizes all of the recreational and parks activities that
we have. If you don't want it done, all you have to do is count to four, folks and it
is not done anymore.
Kubby/I just take mine back when I am done using it. I take it back so another person
Can.
Atkins/But it is an easy to resolve.
Nov/I am going to put this out in the little thing that we have here for brochures and
somebody may or may not pick it up. But I am hearing again and again from
people who feel that this is just one more piece ofjunk mail and if the city budget
is tight, let's not spend on any junk mail. So I am relaying.
Norton/These are suggestions that presumably we will get in the hopper from
departments.
Nov/I hope so, yes.
Thornberry/So what we are getting is not only ideas from city employees but ideas from
the rest of the population.
Nov/Ideas are welcome.
Thomberry/You bet. We can brainstorm and pick out the ones that we-
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meeting of May 6, 1997
F050697
#19 page 12
Atkins/Always be cautious. One person's luxury is another person's necessity.
Thornberry/Oh no, when you brainstorm, you can do a lot of different things and pick
out the ones that make more difference than others.
Nov/I have always said when somebody wants us to cut, which service that you use
should I cut and the conversation gets very narrow.
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council
meeting of May 6, 1997
F050697
City Council Meeting Schedule
and Tentative Work Session Agendas
6:00 p.m. [~ SPECIAL COUNCIL WORK SESSION
Proposed Police Citizen Review Board Ordinance
Presentation by City Attorney
Council Discussion
Public Input
REGULAR COUNCIL WORK SESSION
7:00 p.m.
REGULAR FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING
7:00 p.m, [~
April 25, 1997
Council Chambers
Counc# Chambers
:'.
Council Chambers
7:00 p.m. SPECIAL FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
Executive Session - Evaluations
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7:00 p.m. SPECIAL FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
Executive Session - Evaluations
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7:00 p.m. REGULAR COUNCIL WORK SESSION Council Chambers
7:00 p.m. ~ REGULAR FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING
~i ~;!.~ : :,f ' ' ' ; 2 .i!.:.:!:!2 ::.~: : .::.:.~ :,.,~,, .........................
7:00 p.m. REGULAR COUNCIL WORK SESSION
Council Chambers
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Council Chambers
4:00 p.m, - 6:00 p,m. SPECIAL COUNCIL WORK SESSION Council Chambers
Cultural Center/Library Project: Ballot Issue and Operating Costs
7:00 p.m. ~ REGULAR FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
FUTURE WORK SESSION ITEMS
SEATS
CDBG Funding Allocation
Non-Motorized Vehicles
Stepping-Up Project
Animal Control Ordinance
Iowa River Power Dam Renovation/Iowa River Corridor Trail Project
RFP for Private Development on Parcel 64-1a
Graffiti Ordinance
Multi-Family Residential Parking Requirements and Impact Fees
Sand Point Wells
Peninsula Development- Field Trip
PIN Grants
Hickory Hill West
Water Project Costs
DARE Program Review
Waste Pickup - 4-Plexes
Cemetery
Elks
Landfill Master Plan
Transit Route Study
¢lrr OF IOW,4 CITY
City Council Meeting Schedule
and Tentative Work Session Agendas
May 2, 1997
Telecast Live on Cable Channel 4
7:00p
REGULAR COUNCIL WORK SESSION
7:00 p
7:45 p
8:05 p
8:10 p
8:15 p
8:40 p
8:50 p
9:05 p
9:15 p
9:45 p
10:00 p
Council Chambers
Review Zoning Matters
CDBG Funding Allocation
PIN Grant Video - Completed Projects
West High Signal
First Avenue Improvements Project
RFP for Private Development on Parcel 64-1a
Multi-Family Residential Parking Requirements and Impact Fees
Stepping-Up Project
Animal Control Ordinance
Non-Motorized Vehicles
SEATS
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6:00p SPECIAL FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
Executive Session - Land Acquisition, Imminent Litigation
7:00p ~ REGULAR FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
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7:00p SPECIAL FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
Executive Session - Evaluations
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7:00p SPECIAL FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
Executive Session - Evaluations
7:00p REGULAR COUNCIL WORK SESSION Council Chambers
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7:00p [~ REGULAR FORMAL COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
FUTURE WORK SESSION ITEMS
Iowa River Power Dam Renovation/Iowa River Corridor Trail Project
Graffiti Ordinance
Peninsula Development - Field Trip
Hickory Hill West
Water Project Costs
DARE Program Review
PIN Grants
Waste Pickup - 4-Plexes
Cemetery
Elks
Landfill Master Plan
Transit Route Study
Sand Point Wells